City Council - Regular Meeting

you you 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 Chamber's 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 three 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 live streamed. Want more details about tonight's agenda items? Scan the QR code on your screen or visit www.maricopa-az.gov slash agenda. 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.

Thank you all for being here. I am going to call to order this meeting, regular city council for May 19th, 2026. At this time, it'll move us to the invocation where I'm going to ask Pastor Luke Panter from Grace Fellowship Church to provide our invocation and then following Council Member Wade, if you would do the Pledge of Allegiance, that would be great. Please rise if you're able.

Thank you. Would you join me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we want to thank you, Lord, for your grace and mercy over us, giving us just the opportunity for another day to breathe, Lord, to experience your grace in every way. Father, we pray that you would continue to show your mercy and your love upon this chamber, upon those sitting in the city council, Father, for those servants, guardians, those who protect our city, Father, we pray for their protection. Father, thank you for the sacrifices that each one of our city council members and those who work for our city, Lord, the things that they sacrifice daily and weekly, Lord, to serve us, Lord, to make this city a better place. Father, we thank you for the prosperity that you have given to us. Lord, we look forward to all the things you're going to do in the future. And, Father, we pray that everything that takes place here tonight would be honoring to you, and, Father, would be respectful to those in our community. Lord, we pray for the needy in our community, those who need just a special measure of your grace. Father, we lift them up to you for our seniors. Lord, for our students and the teachers who are finishing up another year, we pray your grace upon them. Father, would you season the speech that fills this chamber tonight with grace, with conviction, and also with charity. Father, we thank you for your presence. In Christ's name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much, Pastor Panter. That was great. And thank you, Council Member Wade. That will move us to roll call. Vanessa, please.

Council Member Gettle. Present. Council Member Noor. Present. Council Member Learman. Here. Council Member Marsh. Here. Council Member Wade. Here. Vice Mayor Manfredi. Here. Mayor Smith.

Here. thank you vanessa all right that takes us to proclamations acknowledgments awards and presentations of which this evening we do not have any so that'll take us to the report from the mayor council members do you have yes councilor marsh it's been two weeks since our last uh... council meeting on the seventh of may uh... i attended uh... u s department of transportation seminar the topic was rural road safety

A large percentage of the deaths on our highways in this country are on rural roads, two-lane roads like Maricopa-Cassegrain Highway. In South Carolina, their DOT reported 58% of the deaths on highways or on rural roads. The Ohio Department of Transportation reported that roundabouts reduce fatalities and injuries by 88%. They sort of have a calming influence on the cars coming down the two-lane road as you stop to look at or pause a little bit, slow down to... Navigate the roundabout Inflation is raising the cost of road maintenance and road building Someone quoted four million dollars a mile to do maintenance on a two-lane road The Oklahoma Department of Transportation reported that 57% of their fatalities occur on rural roads On the 12th of May, attended a Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority board meeting and PICWA now has the authority to raise bonds to purchase water. On the 19th, attended the Pinal Partnership Government Relations Committee and found that 9-11 phone service is supported by a tax included in your phone bill. And it's $4 million short this year. So the state has to come up with $4 million. And they need to fix it so that the tax is in alignment with the true cost of doing 9-11. The next meeting of the government relations meeting, the guest speaker will be Mitch Pishevsky from CAP. He's going to tell the representatives what the problem is with Colorado River water. I have good news on data centers. There are many going in. But MIT, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all working on low water and no water solutions. And they're reducing the power requirement by a factor of up to 100. So don't go. hastily building data centers now, wait a year or two, they're in pilot programs, they are online, and the numbers are coming true. On the 6th of June, the Pinal Partnership Breakfast will feature six town managers, including Ben. So if you can attend, register with the Pinal Partnership, and you can attend on Zoom or Teams or whatever. And... I think we all owe a vote of confidence to TJ Shope, Teresa Martinez, and Chris Lopez. They've done a really good job for us this past year, doing a lot of heavy lifting for Maricopa for the 347. And if you see them, congratulate them. They did a good job for us. And that's about it, Mayor.

Thank you very much. Council Member Gettle.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a couple of items. First of all, I had the privilege and pleasure to attend the most recent graduation class of the Community Emergency Response Team, short as CERT. This is where individuals here in our community can come for a two-week training on a Saturday, a couple of Saturdays, and learn how to be better prepared and better ready for anything that might happen in their neighborhood or in their home. You learn a lot of great skills and we're really pleased with this year's graduation class. That was on May 16th. The next class is coming here this fall. Excuse me. It'll be in August. And then there'll be a third opportunity to take that same community emergency response team class, and that'll be in November this year. So if interested individuals would like to go find that simply on the website, you can go to the search bar, just type in CERT, C-E-R-T, and it'll be right there. You can register online. The class is capped to a certain number, so register early. This week we are celebrating a number of high schools as they graduate their next graduating class. And so I want to just again congratulate our seniors for four years of amazing work. They are a wonderful, wonderful youth as they go out into the world and make a difference in all the different places they're heading from literally around the world. So please be careful out there this week as we celebrate together. Be safe on those roads and make sure we're obeying all those happy laws that keep us happy. On May 25th, Memorial Day, our local veterans groups will be hosting a veterans memorial event at our memorial. They're in the Copper Sky Plaza. It's just outside of the new Field House. And all is welcome to attend. We'd love to have you there. It'll be at 9 o'clock that Monday morning. Simple flag raising and some great thoughts and an opportunity to remember those that have given everything for the freedoms that we so much enjoy today. There's one other item, but I don't want to take any of mayor's thunder But just have June 18th on your calendar and she'll probably visit with you about that here in just a few moments If not, we'll come back to that. Thank you Mary mayor.

That's all yes councilmember kettle. Thank you very much councilmember nor

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of items that I wanted to talk about that have happened over the last two weeks. I was able to attend the Zonta Scholarship Breakfast at the library, and that's a phenomenal group of women who support young women trying to achieve, and they gave out three scholarships to women here in Maricopa, to young women, high school students here in Maricopa, and the judges, of the essays, which is how they received the award, came from Tucson, and one was the Teacher of the Year a few years ago, and they judged the essays. And they said that the quality of the essays that they judged from Maricopa were the best they have ever seen. And it was truly a testament to the education system here in Maricopa and what they are producing. They said they had never seen such quality writing in the 20 years they've been judging these scholarships. So I just really thought that that was something important to let everyone know and really be proud of here in Maricopa. And then, yes, I agree. Speaking of judging, I was able to judge the fifth grade parks project at Pima Butte. So the teachers at Pima Butte, it's Ms. Ansley, Ms. Gomez, and Ms. Buchner lead their students in a park project every year at the end of the year. the students are put in groups and they're given a budget and then they have to and they're giving costs for different park items and they have to physically build a mini park and within their budget and then they have to present on it and why they chose different items for the park and it was truly fascinating to see the wonderful ideas that these students came up with and I have pictures that I'll share with you council but it was amazing to see the different parks that these fifth grade students produced, and I thought it was great. They typically don't have council members judge, but they said in the future they will continue to, but they had seen the op-ed about the iconic park and soliciting ideas, and they thought that they would have me come in and judge these parks, and it truly was astonishing, really impressive what these kids came up with. And so I really enjoyed that, and I want to thank the fifth grade classes of Pima Butte for that opportunity. and then i was able to participate in santa rosa career day and this is my second year participating in that i got to speak to miss watkins fourth grade class and i talked to them about what it means to be a city council member and they were a fantastic group of kids And it was a great discussion about government. I told them about our new policy on bikes and scooters on sidewalks. So they found that to be very interesting. And we talked about lots of different things like the budget and the 347. But it was a great opportunity. I'm so glad Santa Rosa does that every year. I also got to help present awards to the Be Awesome Space Camp graduates. And that was at Santa Rosa as well. And Be Awesome does a fantastic job with their space camp that they put on at the different elementary schools, teaching kids about leadership, about being kind, about being good humans. And all their parents come and their family comes to this graduation and it truly was a remarkable celebration of our youth. And then It's EMS week this week. EMS is emergency medical services. And so I just want to thank our firefighters, our police, our first responders, our dispatchers, everyone who makes emergency medical services work in the city. I thank them for their dedication and all their hard work for keeping us safe. And then it's also mental health awareness month. And so I just think it's always good to talk about mental health and make that something that no one is ashamed of and make sure that people have the resources they need and that they reach out if they need help. And then finally, we will have a new gallery. The Cultural Affairs and Arts Committee just juried new art from our local artist. There was over, I think it was 25 artists submitted 73 pieces that were judged and then they chose Some of those, and those will be displayed in the library, and I believe the new display goes up Thursday, so it'll be available on Friday, and I highly recommend going out and checking it. We have some amazing artists in Maricopa. It's truly phenomenal, and so that new gallery will start, and it runs for three months, and that's all I have.

Thank you very much, Council Member Knorr. Council Member Learman.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank Chief Goodman and the Maricopa Police Department for doing some education on our new safe scooter and e-bike ordinance. The ordinance comes into effect on May 21st, and a lot of people have been saying, well, we need to do some education about that, and the police department is on it. So they had 150 posters entered into the contest, and Isabella Solis won the K-2nd Prize, Victoria Sauvy, I'm sorry if I say her name wrong, third through fifth grade. Napoleon White won the sixth through eighth grade award, and they won bike scooters, ice cream gift cards, and Lego sets. And so they are doing education with our young ones about our new ordinance. They also hosted a bike safety rodeo at the library, and there was food trucks and bender booths, a lot about bicycle safety. And so thank you MPD for working hard and educating our youth about that topic. Also Chief Goodman said that they are working on putting an educational video on their Web site so that youth and families can watch a video that's focused on scooter safety wearing a helmet checking equipment navigating traffic school environments stopping at driveways and protect protective gear. So I will be looking for that on their Web site in the next couple of weeks and get ready for summertime safety for our kiddos. I told you I would get back to you about the county youth internships. I talked to Chris Middleton at the county and I was excited to hear that there were 238 applications from youth ages 16 and up. 14 of those were from Maricopa. They did 121 interviews and they hired 52 youth to work in their summer internship program. It's a seven-week program. They're paid $15.15, and it's just a really amazing opportunity. And those internships are located in Florence, Santan, and Casa Grande. And when we were talking, he goes, hey, we should have a location in Maricopa. I said, I think we should. And so he and I are going to have some fun conversations moving forward and Rich is involved in the conversations as well. And so we're excited about bringing a county youth program here to Maricopa That was one of the that was the second highest score when we did our youth survey of things of activities. They want to get involved in I I want to congratulate our robotics program that just ended for ages 10 to 13 at the library. They built, created, and problem solved, and learned through teamwork, hands-on challenges, creativity, and curiosity. And the next session starts on July 27, and you can sign up now. So if you have a youth ages 10 through 13 interested in robotics, the sign-ups are now for the next session. And... I noticed that we're all excited. It's the season of wild horses. And then also there were some wild burros on the south side of town as well. And so I know we all love this season when you drive on 347 and you get to see the wild horses. And I always appreciate when people post pictures and videos as well. So we'll enjoy that for the next few weeks. Maricopa High School graduation is tomorrow night. And then those of you who are applying for the city arts grants, the applications are due on May 28th, so you still have plenty of time to get those in. D-SPA is having their 20th year celebration at the Performing Arts Center at 4.30 on May 30th. And there's a VIP dessert reception afterward. And then the logo contest for Maricopa First Fridays downtown ends on June 1st. So if you're interested in entering a logo for that, please enter it by June 1st at maricopafriendsofthearts at gmail.com. And lastly, really quick, for those of you who are saying to yourself, what am I going to do with my kids this summer, please sign them up for the library summer program. Their theme this year is Unearth a Story, and this program is for little babies all the way up to our seniors, so all ages of readers. They have amazing guests that are coming. They have prizes for the kids. If the kids read 140 minutes a week, they're eligible to win some really cool prizes. And I was told by the library they have more prizes this year to give out than ever any other year before. So there'll be lots of prizes that will be given out. So thank you very much and have a wonderful summer.

Thank you, Council Member Lehrman, Vice Mayor Manfredi.

When you go almost last, you've got to just check off everything that everybody else talked about. I have the honor, and I consider it an honor almost every year I get to do it. Sometimes I can't because of other reasons. But to speak before the pre-K class at Molly's House of Little Feet. And I don't know if you've done this before or been to one of these, but it's very fun. They get to sing and have fun. But they're going from pre-K to kindergarten. So that's always fun. I love doing it, I love hanging out with those kids because you see so much potential in what's going to be for the city of Maricopa through the kids and that's all the graduations that are coming up. We have someone that was a graduate from Maricopa High School right here in the city of Maricopa working as an intern in our development team over here. and working on some stuff for us, and just seeing the potential that comes out of our school systems, and whether they're charter, private, or our district schools, just seeing the potential here in the city of Maricopa is so great. One of the other cool things that the mayor and I actually went to, I don't know if anyone else went, but we went to the Hispanic Cultural Night, and it sounds like what it is. At Santa Rosa Elementary, they got everybody together at Maricopa High School Performing Arts Center, And it was a celebrate Hispanic culture and special performances by these kids that were in dual language classes throughout their time at Santa Rosa. So they're learning two languages when they're in fifth grade. I think there was pre-K there too. That performance I missed because I showed up a little bit late, but the mayor saw that performance and she was like sad that I missed it. But they had performances for all of the kids and they did dancing and singing and it was really cool. So if you can make it next year, they've done it every year. Santa Rosa Elementary School does that. But again, just seeing that this is the time of year, you know, May comes around and you're like, okay, summer's coming. It's going to start getting hot. But the reality is right now is a time of year when you get to see all the performances done at all the schools and you show up for them and it's just, you can't help but smile. I love doing it. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. Hispanic Cultural Night, dual language. I'm telling you, so impressive. So impressive. I had to say just a few words. As each class came forward, so they went from pre-K all the way up to fifth grade, fourth grade, because the fourth graders are the first class that were part of this dual language. So next year, they'll be fifth graders. As they continued to progress in their presentation, they became more and more fluid in the second language. So impressive. I was just taken back. And then I also went to Desert Sunrise Senior Awards. And I'm telling you, there were some amazing kids winning some amazing awards. And they put up a data point. And darn it, I forgot to write it down if anyone remembers. Something like twenty eight million dollars thirty four million dollars of grants or scholarships were earned by our m u s t students thirty four million dollars like totally impressive and anyway so that was a great experience then i also went to the zonta club award i think council member nor covered it really well there were three young ladies that deserved their scholarships that they received from the Zonta Club. I told them I'd put in a plug. If women want to get involved somewhere, the Zonta Club is a great place for women who want to get involved and serve our community in a variety of ways. It's a really great way to get involved. So this one I love. I love when I go to career day at an elementary school or any kind of a student day. But this one in particular was career day. So they had tons of questions about what a mayor does, but I have to always share with you my favorite question. My favorite question came from a young man who said, what is your average pay, hourly pay? And so I'm like, oh, let me calculate that. I went do-do-do-do-do-do. And it was somewhere around $8 if you consider all the hours that we put in. And he goes, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's below minimum wage. I'm like, yeah? 100%. Now, how does a fifth grader know that that's below minimum wage? But I loved it. So then I had the opportunity to share with him, it's all about public service and really not about the pay. So I thought that was really cool, but they had some great questions. Then I went to, and hopefully you saw it online, and hopefully you're starting to see a lot more about 347 online. I went to the Friday Arizona State Transportation Board meeting because There were two items on their agenda and I wanted to make sure they were going to get passed. The first was the phase one of the 347 project. And in case you don't know, just let me give you two sentences. Phase one is the repavement of the shoulder and the two lanes. And I've had a lot of people ask me, why do they need to do repaving before they put in the middle lanes? And the answer is really great. They need that shoulder to actually move traffic over to during construction of a variety of different phases. And so we don't want to be on that rumble. We want to be on a smooth service. They'll start on the shoulder and they'll move their way in, and then from there they'll move to the widening of lanes in the center. That was number one. Yay, it got passed, phase one. We hope that it'll start sometime in late June, early July. You already got a taste of it, right? If you traveled on Sunday on 347, a little taste. And did you like their communication? Like, I think ADOT did a great job getting the communication out. And so I encourage them to continue that level of communication with our residents. The second item, which is very important too because it comes in a following phase, is they purchased and approved the right of way for rigs road overpass so very important and that one successfully made its way through as well so just a fun time and then uh... i also was able to speak this morning i have people calling me pretty frequently wanting to know more about the maricopa story in regards to three forty seven pretty exciting hot folks from three forty seven fax dot com Pretty exciting because the Maricopa story talks about our mayor and city council and our staff and it also talks about all of the partners that you have to put together in order to pull this off which is really quite impressive and people want to know how did you do that. So this morning, I was able to talk on a radio show with Arizona State Transportation Board member Ted Maxwell. He does this show every morning, and he wanted to know about the Maricopa Way and transportation. I think they were most intrigued about the collaboration because this project, I could go on forever and ever about 347, this project took so much collaboration, took so many people to pull this together, including you all, because we're all paying the half-cent sales tax that we approved and it led to the final decision for state route three forty seven being on the five-year plan so so much fun and they wanted to know about that too and and how that happened and occurred uh... i am shocked nobody mentioned our C.O.N. like oh is that oh did you i know No, I'm not going to say anything more because I was going to ask you. Is it in your report? Okay. So CON is the Certificate of Necessity, and we received the letter. This is pretty cool. I had to call the city manager, and I'm like, when I get this letter, am I the only one getting this letter in the city of Maricopa? He goes, yes. and you need to get that to me as soon as possible. So this letter, but actually our chief of fire already knew about it because of our consultant that we work with and Ben already knew about it. But so fun to open up that envelope and say you've been approved for your certificate of necessity. That's for our ambulances. Now I will tell you there's a 30 day review period that we wait for to see if anyone challenges that decision. and we're hoping that nobody challenges it, but time will tell, 30 days, we'll know for sure. I can have my hopes, right? So anyway, totally exciting that we've really finally gotten to that day, right, Chief Patassi? Yes, pretty exciting. Hopefully I didn't miss any important points on that. And then one last thing, Council Member Lehrman, you mentioned robotics. It's not yet open at the library in terms of enrollment, but it's coming soon. I had someone from the library just text me that. Yeah, so they wanted me to make that correction. And that's it from your mayor's message. I'll turn it over to the message from the city manager. And if you have CON on there, you go for it.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. Maybe we'll be fire heavy tonight, but we talked a little bit back and forth. Our social media team, our communications team released a really good video today with Chief Patasi and would certainly recommend those that are wondering what the process looks like and what that means for our community, certainly recommend them to go to our social media channels and pull that up. That's a good opportunity. But the most important thing, I think, is that today is Chief Patasi's birthday. And just wanted to shout out. Yeah, we can buy a lot of things for Chief Potassi. One of those things that is likely coming up is a hazmat vehicle. And as we've had lots of discussions and as we've had discussions in the budget and in the capital improvement plan, one of those things is how we continue to provide resources for an ever-expanding city with ever-expanding needs. While we continue to find ways to get funding, one of those opportunities is through our congressional partners. And when we make visits to Washington, D.C., and you all as city council members have conversations with our senators and our representatives and have those discussions that talk about the importance of bringing some of those funds back to Maricopa, While we're early in this process, we've already received positive notes from our senators in terms of including the hazmat vehicle within the appropriations bills this fall. And so they have both recommended that to move forward. We have the remaining portion in our budget that will be... be discussed tonight and so really everything's looking great and I think those are great messages that not just our local residents here are focused on safety and focused on how do we improve delivering those resources but also our partners at the federal level state level as well really all committed to ensuring that our residents remain safe and we continue to improve despite the fact that we have additional challenges with growth that come up and so continue to try to stay ahead of those trends and plan for the future and really grateful for our congressional partners on this one and and for Chief Potassi for his birthday that's awesome another year but really just excited for all that we have for our community and that's just one sliver of We'll obviously talk about a lot more as part of our budget tonight. But we have great community, great team, great support and partners, and just excited. So that's all I have tonight.

Very good. Thank you, City Manager Bitter. All right, that'll move us to the call to the public. You see the briefing that we give regarding call to the public at the beginning of the meeting. I do have one additional note that we will be adding. Vanessa, I will be asking us to add to that greeting when we first introduce the call to the public at the front of the meeting. This is about our 2026 election period. So we all know we're in the middle of 2026 elections and we just want to relay the information that our city resources or facilities shall not be used for council candidates or incumbent candidates or city council candidates as a point of time to do electioneering. And that includes things like talking about your candidacy, who to vote for, and campaign events. And so I just want to give everyone the heads up regarding that, and we'll have a little bit more detail in our next meeting in the intro that we provide for call to the public so just a little bit of a heads up there all right so this evening in call to the public i do have one speaker card and that is for for greg williams and i do have three other speaker cards but therefore agenda items just to give you a heads up

Good evening, Mayor and Council. First, I would like to thank Mayor Smith and Councilmember Gettle for attending our service this past Sunday at Living Word, Arizona. We became the first four-square church in the city. For those who may not know, the four-square church has a long history of serving communities, strengthening families, and helping people grow in faith. As part of four-square, we're committed to doing just that in the city. I'm also here to let you guys know that on Saturday, May 23rd, from 9.30 to 11.30 a.m., Living Word Arizona will be at Copper Sky for a community prayer walk. We'll have water, prayer, and encouragement available for everyone. We'll be praying for our families, our community, the youth, our first responders, and public officials. We simply want this to be a positive opportunity to encourage people and support our city. And we invite both the council and the community to come on out. So thank you and God bless.

Thank you very much. All right, that is it for speaker cards. Would anyone else like to approach the podium? Yes, please do. Please state your name.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

My name is Ken O'John, and I'm making an announcement on behalf of John and May Donahue. Miss Donahue's father passed away recently, so Crystal and I were asked to make an announcement concerning the Maricopa Rotary Club. The Maricopa Rotary Club on May 28th from 5.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. will be sponsoring a meeting greet, an informal meeting greet at the Maricopa Community Center and food and drink sponsorship is available. Thank you.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to approach the podium at this time? Yes, please come forward. Please state your name.

LaShonda Brown. Good evening, Mayor and everyone. Again, I'm LaShonda Brown. I am the president of the Ada Epsilon chapter that is chartered right here in Maricopa, Arizona. We are part of Iodify Lambda sorority. We are the first African American business and professional sorority. We have been around for 97 years. Last year we chartered right here in Maricopa, but never, I've been to this meeting before, but thought at some point we should introduce ourselves so people can know what we've been doing. So in the year, May 31st is our first year anniversary. Since we have chartered here, matter of fact, we started working here before we actually chartered, in April 2025 and October 25, we offered free financial literacy classes At our place, our hangout is the library. September 25th, 2025, we did an event called Mammograms and Mocktails. The CCV church was very nice to allow us to come and give out those free mammograms. We worked with Simon Med and we gave out 16 free mammograms that day. October 2025, we donated candy to the Butterfield Elementary School for their Trunk or Treat. We also attended the book event. I saw Ms. Tanika Drake, and I know, Mayor, you were there because you spoke. And then January 2026, we had a community vision board party, again, at the library. February 2026, all of these things were here in the city of Maricopa. We did a Black History pop-up mobile museum at the library. And March 2026, we participated at the Music and Arts Festival. June 2026, Oh, let me back up. So we've also volunteered at the Hope Center two times. We've provided clothing. We've provided things, items on their list, such as toiletries and, oh gosh, we gave a lot of things, food and... Paper towels, all these types of things. And then we also have volunteered at the Maricopa Food Bank. On June 13th, we are having a free event where we will present a resume writing class, interview class. We will have free health booths such as blood pressure reading and a couple other things. We're still kind of getting together. And also we did a call for kidpreneurs. So we will also be shining our kidpreneurs. I went on a couple of the Maricopa groups and got a big response from that. And so those are some of the things that we've just done and we haven't even hit a year yet. So we are in Maricopa wanting to you know, let people know that we're here, that we are doing things here, and also I've heard you guys mention scholarships. We've also in the past year given out a scholarship to a college student. It was opened, uh-oh, am I out of time?

You can finish that sentence.

Okay, thank you. It was open to high school and college students, and so we have scholarships and we have all these different things. So just wanted to introduce us.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, would anyone else like to approach the podium? Seeing none, I will close the call to the public. That'll take us to our consent agenda. We have this evening a consent agenda item 7-1 and 7-2. I do not have any speaker cards for consent agenda. Council members, any questions? Yes, Council Member Knorr.

Yes, I was wondering if we could remove 7.1 so we could discuss it.

You would like, okay, we can do that. 7.1 for... discussion mm-hmm all right that just leaves the minutes anyone got questions on the minutes comments all right councilman or would you like to make the motion and include removing 7.1 sure I motion that we approve the consent agenda without 7.1 making 7.1 a regular agenda item very good do I have a second seconded by councilmember Marsh and one last chance for questions on those minutes I was gonna say all in favor, please vote.

I would vote yes.

all right so with that up there it showed up finally uh... so that makes that vote unanimous it passes seven zero and that will take us on to the regular agenda items and public hearings so that well we will start with item eight dot one and uh... we do have a out excuse me let me back up and go to seven dot one thank you very much and really i understand you're going to be available to answer any questions Okay, Council Member Nor, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mayor.

And Rudy, I'm glad you came forward. I don't necessarily know that I have any questions. I just felt that this was exciting. And the way I read it is that we are entering into this process so that we can create a dedicated right turn lane onto Porter from Smith Inc., which will significantly improve traffic flow. Is that correct?

That's correct, Mayor, Council Member. Yes.

And so I just felt that it was something that we should recognize and let the community know that this is something we're working towards. And also I think it's important that, you know, to note that some, it's not as easy as just going, Hey, we want to write turn lane and then we build it. It's not always that easy. And sometimes we have to go through these processes where we have to adopt these resolutions and these policies so that we can have the right of way to make that transportation improvement happen. But we are definitely working on transportation improvements all the time. And I think this one's super exciting and will really enhance the traffic flow on Smith-Inky and hopefully even make that whole area a little bit safer. So I'm excited about that. And thank you for this project. And I just wanted to make sure the community was aware of it.

Thank you. Council, any additional questions, comments? Yes, city manager.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just one quick addition that I wanted to point out. This also has in there the possibility that we'll move forward with a scallop lien on this project. I think the cool part about this is this is an opportunity for us to move forward with this project that doesn't cost the taxpayers any money. And I think that's a really important aspect that, yes, it's important, yes, we move it forward, but also we're doing it in the best bang for the buck for the taxpayers. And so I just wanted to add that also as well because it's something that, recently in action by the City Council has now allowed us to move forward with this new way that Will hopefully improve our infrastructure even more faster and better Thank you.

I think that's an excellent point. Thank you for bringing that up that that scallop ordinance I think will come in handy quite often Any additional comments questions? All right, Council Member Knorr, would you like to make the motion? Motion to approve. 7.1?

7.1, yes.

Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Lehrman. One last chance for comments, questions. Seeing none, all in up, please vote. We've not done this before where we pulled something off and have to vote on it.

It's not up.

It's not up yet, Vanessa. Up, there it is. Vice Mayor, I don't have yours recording either.

I ain't coming.

I think we'll go with a voice vote. Vice Mayor Manfredi, how do you vote?

It popped up.

Okay, very good. There we go.

Yes.

Okay. Council Member? Okay, very good. So that's a 7-0 vote, and that item passes. All right, now that takes us to our regular agenda. We'll start with item 8.1. I do have one speaker card on 8.1, but I want to go with the presentation first. Thank you very much.

Perfect. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is James Kamstra. I'm the assistant planner here with the City of Maricopa. I'm pleased to present to you the proposed street name change for West Caesar Chavez Lane. This is known as case number ADD 26-01 and resolution number 26-09. This is a city-initiated street name change for West Caesar Chavez Lane. It encompasses approximately 554 feet of right-of-way, and it's located within the Heritage Mixed Use District in between North Plainview Street and North Main Street, as you can see in the red box. The proposal is for West Cesar Chavez to be renamed according to the street naming and addressing procedure guidelines, which are adopted by the city. The SNAP guidelines specifically outline a variety of public notification items that the city has to complete in order for this process to take place. I'd like to come back to the April 20th neighborhood canvassing before I, or sorry, after I explained the specific SNAP requirements. So on April 7, the council initiated the street name change and then signs were posted on April 13th on the east and west sides of the street. And then on April 22nd, the notices were mailed to all the property owners within the neighborhood. On the 30th of April, a newspaper notice was also advertised within the Casa Grande Dispatch. And we are here today on April 19 at the City Council meeting going back to April 20th for the neighborhood canvassing Staff was split into three different teams to essentially go around the neighborhood to the 28 Properties and to receive any sort of feedback from the property owners that are within that neighborhood we also created a flyer that we were going to hand out to all of the property owners and knocked on all the doors and and ultimately to just receive more feedback in terms of what the community would like to see on Cesar Chavez Lane and how the street should be changed. This analysis slide essentially goes over the various requirements that I just described previously. The council direction happened on April 7. The SNAP requirements were met and then in addition to the SNAP requirements, the neighborhood canvassing was also conducted As a result, I'd like to present four different options before the council to change the street name change. The first is to take no option at all. The second is to consider one of the three names that were listed in the public outreach portion of this project. That includes Herencia Lane, Veterans Way, and Paradise Lane. The third option is to revert West Cesar Chavez Lane back to its previous name, which was West Arizona Avenue. And then finally, the fourth option is to choose a different name. So I'd like to turn this over back to Madam Mayor and City Council to proceed with one of the options that I have listed in the previous slide. Feel free to ask me any questions. I'd be happy to clarify anything. But other than that, I'd like to turn it back over to you, Madam Mayor.

thank you very much james james will go into the public hearing first this is a public hearing so i will open the public hearing as i indicated i do have one speaker card so i will invite that individual up to speak chad chatterton please come forward

Hi, my name is Chad Chatterton, and I own Ahwatukee Realty. I established my business in Maricopa in 2001, and I'm currently on the board for the Maricopa Historical Society.

Could you put that slide back up that shows the street for me?

I found out when I read the article in Maricopa about changing the street name, I had an idea and a thought. And I've got a petition that we've put together, and I would just like to present it to the council. And this is a recommendation for naming Rename Boulevard. Petition summary and background. The city of Maricopa is currently considering renaming of Cesar Chavez Boulevard. In light of this, residents would like to take this opportunity to respectfully submit a community-driven recommendation for the new name, one that reflects the values history, and contributions within our local community. Paul Shirk, past president of the Maricopa Historical Society, was instrumental in preserving Maricopa's heritage. His efforts contributed to the establishment of the Maricopa Museum, the Silver Horizon Train Car, and Heritage Center, resources that continue to educate and connect residents to the city's history. Naming the roadway in his honor would recognize a local individual whose contributions have had a direct and lasting impact on the city of maricopa requested action we the undersigned residents city of maricopa respectfully urge city leadership to consider naming the renamed roadway paul shirk boulevard in recognition of his contributions and if you look at the where the boulevard is on the lower right you see our museum If it wasn't for Paul, we wouldn't have that museum, we wouldn't have the park, we wouldn't have the Heritage Center, we wouldn't have the train car. And to put his name up right across the museum, I think would be an amazing honor, and I ask the city to consider it. I've been on the board and served with Paul for a number of years, and when he said he was going to do something, he got it done. Great contributions, and as we all know, Paul passed away last year. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Would anyone else like to approach the podium and speak during the public hearing?

Madam Mayor, I have a question, if I may. Yes. Do we have a number of signatures? How many signed on that petition?

How many? Yeah, come on back up. And then when you're done, Chad, you can give that to our city clerk.

When I came back, I left my pen up here. When I read the article last month, it said that you were going to decide in three months. So I called, and I talked to Brenda Campbells on the board, and I asked who to talk to. So I got a call back today to find out that this was on the agenda. So I have... Signatures here, but I also have sheets out that I did not have time. I found out at 3 30 about this meeting So I do have other sheets out. We're probably running about a hundred signatures right now is what I be conservative on Thank You Chad Thank You Chad.

Yeah, you can give that to our city clerk, please Would anyone else like to approach the podium speak during the public hearing? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Council, what questions, comments do you have? Council Member Knorr?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I was wondering, did the residents that live in that area have a preference?

Council Member Knorr, thanks so much for your question. In terms of the residents that had some sort of a preference, we really had a mix of input. Some of the residents expressed that they did not want a street name change. Other residents voiced that they really had no preference in the street name change. And then in the residents that did have a preference for a specific name, it was listed here. And then also there were a couple additional ones that were included in the staff report that were not included in this recommendation because they did not meet the criteria for meeting the recommendations.

Thank you. Thank you. Additional comments, questions? Yes. Council Member Wade.

Excuse me. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to have some kind of understanding of the history or background on the three names that were used. Hiroshima Lane, Veterans Way, and Paradise Lane. Why were they selected and what's significant about those three?

Thank you Councilmember Wade for your question. So Herentia Lane and Veterans Way were brought up during the previous council meeting on April 7 by a community member and those were included in this recommendation because they they met the criteria in the SNAP guidelines for determining if a street name can be proposed in this situation. And Paradise Lane was recommended by one of the residents that were in that, or that currently lives in that area. I received a phone call from him, and he recommended this, and that was also included in this process.

Was Paul a veteran?

Paul?

Sure.

Was he what?

A veteran. Was he a veteran?

I I'm unsure.

I I'm not sure about the I don't I don't know that answer. Do you know?

Okay, okay Thank you, thank you.

Yes additional comments questions comes our marsh I

I've been thinking about this one, and I'm a big fan of Paul Shirk's. He worked well with us in the past on council, but I think option three is an obvious win, reverting to its previous historical street name, West Arizona Avenue.

Very good, thank you. Additional comments, questions? Council Member Lehrman?

I'm wondering if there's a possibility of delaying the vote until we hear more from the community and give people an opportunity. I wasn't aware of the petition until this evening, and so I don't know if there's time to give people an opportunity to weigh in.

Very good.

I would agree with Councilwoman Learman's sentiments. If somehow it was published that it was going to be a three-month process, then I feel like we owe that to the residents to provide feedback over that time.

Okay. Let me ask a couple questions, and one of them is regarding that. So you indicated that there were 28 homes. Are all 28 homes on that road, or did you canvas the entire area around it?

Mayor Smith, thank you for that question. So the canvassing area was approximately in the Maricopa Station overlay. It really encompasses Honeycutt Road, North Plainview Street, and then down through West Maricopa Casa Grande Highway, and then up to John Wayne Parkway. Those are the properties that we walked around to all the various properties.

uh... properties to see what feedback we would receive from residents thank you i felt like that was probably the answer i just wanted the public to understand that as well uh... and then you also mention criteria and the reason i want to know just a little bit more about criteria is because chad had actually forward the name paul shirk early on just shortly after we talked about it at the last the city council meeting where we approved moving forward And I forwarded that on. And so talk about the criteria and how you came about these three names versus the other names that were submitted.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So the specific criteria is also listed in the public outreach portion of the packet, but essentially staff is looking for criteria based on what the SNAP guidelines has to say, which says that basically the name can't be more than X number of letters. We also ruled out other people's names cannot be listed for various reasons. including the exact reason why we're changing this street name. So that is why that this suggestion was not included in the staff recommendation. And then also it cannot be too similar to existing street names within the city so that there isn't any sort of confusion for staff members or residents.

Very good, thank you. Additional comments, questions? Yes, city manager.

Yeah, thanks Madam Mayor. Just for some clarification, when we initially presented this item at the April 7th city council meeting, we presented a timeline at that point as well. That timeline included coming back here today at the May 19th city council meeting with a written notification of approval going out tomorrow and then taking the new roadway taking effect with the new name on June 19th. So it may appear that it's a little bit longer than, for example, a six-week process, because the process requires us to go and print new signs and make the notifications to the post office and those kind of agencies. And so it is a longer process, but the timeline was established back at the first time we had the discussion in April.

Very good. Thank you. All right. Last chance for questions comments. Do I have a motion?

I have a motion to approve a naming change to Paul Shirk.

I have a motion to approve a naming change to Paul Shirk. Do I have a second?

A second.

A second from Council Member Knorr. Any additional comments, questions?

Can we clarify the full name of that street? Paul Shirk Lane? Paul Shirk Avenue? Paul Shirk Avenue.

Alshark Avenue. All right, so I have a motion. I have a second any additional comments questions, please vote I vote yes Is this the right item up here, okay, I didn't think so because I haven't voted yet I Would be suspicious We can do a voice vote. Okay, very good. All in favor of changing the name of this street to Paul Shirk Avenue, signal by aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you very much. All right. That will take us to item 8.2. I do not have any speaker cards for 8.2, but I understand there is a presentation, and I'm not sure. Oh, hi. Hi, Rick.

Hello there.

It's Rick. All right, thank you. Take it away, Rick.

Yes, ma'am. Mayor, council members, it's a pleasure to be here before you this evening to present this discussion item on the Advancing Maricopa 2026. General plan update it's hard to believe that this kicked off kicked off September of 2024 and Here we are today with the discussion item Leading up to coming back before you in a couple of weeks as an action item We wanted to seize this opportunity as one last chance to come before you and the public and give you a status of the plan moving forward. As you know, we conducted the two public hearings related to the state mandate, planning and zoning commission meetings. And I want to just kind of frame the conversation with you moving forward this evening. I know through different meetings and the future summit, you all have seen an outline of the entire process that got us to where we are today. But from a framing purpose, we're going to talk generally about the 60-day review comments, getting to those two P&Z meetings, and essentially the status of the plan coming out of that April 27th meeting and how we move forward getting to June 2nd. With that being said, any questions regarding process are all on the table and we'll be happy to answer any of those. But you will see a little bit abbreviated presentation this evening and get right to the nuts and bolts of the status of where we are coming out of that 27th meeting and how we move forward to the June 2nd meeting. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Matthew with the Michael Baker Consultant Group, and he'll take it from here, and then we'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Matthew?

Thank you, Mayor, Council, for another opportunity to be before you this evening. As Rick outlined, I do have a few slides to walk you through just some highlights of the general plan process. Our focus is to have this be a precursor to our ultimate meeting to adopt the plan in June. And if we have that.

She said give her a second.

Got you.

There you go.

Great. Thank you. So to be succinct, I know we have a long agenda tonight, so I'm going to move. Oh, this is a different presentation. I will just go ahead and highlight some of the talking points that I wanted to touch on. As far as the upcoming meeting in June, We had a great conversation with the Planning and Zoning Commission. They were very comfortable with the plan. We had some residents that got up at that Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. They spoke favorably about the plan, but they also started to discuss forward aspects of taking the plan to the next step uh... and identifying some things that they would like definitively to be placed in the general plan and so uh... in order to align with the timeline uh... the planning commission uh... adopted the plan as provided but asked us to come to council with some of the comments that were shared by the residents at that meeting to discuss how we might infuse some of that into the final plan that is presented in front of council for ultimate approval so that then come June, we can seek that approval and have that 120-day advance timeline to get the general plan on the November ballot for ultimate voter ratification. and so in your council packets we gave you a lot of information this evening we gave you the clean draft of the general plan that was approved by the planning and zoning commission then we gave you a track changes version of the document with some suggested recommended edits which were intended to carry forward those comments that residents shared at that meeting and then finally we also included a hundred and seventy six page uh... public outreach summary that detailed all of the outreach we did, but more importantly, also detailed all of the comments we received and identified how we responded to those comments. So if there was anybody in the audience listening tonight or at home that were interested about what ideas were put forward and how were those incorporated, that's all in that packet this evening with the ultimate goal, again, to provide council the opportunity to ask any points of clarification so that if we don't have an answer for you, we can come back before you in June and provide that answer and hopefully be a successful outcome. So with that kind of abbreviated discussion, Mayor, I can turn it back over to you. I apologize with some of the... Lack of slides, but a lot of those slides you have seen before because we have had the opportunity to speak before you in multiple events with the Future Summit being the most recent one. So with that, Mayor, I'll turn it back to you.

that's great so i just wanted to talk a little bit about my experience and hopefully others will as well so i submitted along with my husband uh... about twenty thirty different comments suggestions and then when i wish i would have had that red line at the point where the revised version came out but it's okay we just took our suggested changes comments and walked through the document to look for what was incorporated I am happy to say that the majority of the comments were incorporated. What I would like you to speak to this evening is the one major comment, and there's a variety of reasons, and I want you to speak to that. The one major comment that both my husband and I had was the fact that we should, in our general plan, set a vision for not being a bedroom community. that's one thing that i hear over and over and over and over and i one hundred percent agree with it the idea that i put forward was both sonoran desert parkway and i eleven and how can we depict that as major industrial major jobs major commercial areas because it's really not identified on the map so uh... and through a lot of conversations with staff uh... i now understand some of the logic for why uh... we're not moving in that direction but i understand there are ways in the general plan to cover that textually and i would like you to talk about that because i need to make the argument to our residents why they should approve this general plan when it's on the ballot and i need those points of record that i can point to to help them understand that being a bedroom community is not our vision that we want to have industrial commercial And so I'll stop there because I could just go on forever. But if you could help elaborate in terms of what we might see in the June version so that I can make that argument with our residents.

yet mayor you teed it up well so i appreciate that and your your focus on that particular item is very prudent uh... and so thank you uh... IT team for getting the slides up but this slide i did want to uh... use to speak to your question mayor about what this overall focus of this general plan is because the existing general plan that you have in place today is titled planning maricopa And really as we got into this general plan and we did all that robust outreach, we started to get these themes come forward. And what we realized with the feedback we got is this plan is really about advancing Maricopa. We're past that planning stage. The community has evolved and is now looking towards broader vision more than just rooftops as you shared mayor and so this slide I think starts to emphasize that this is a plan that has to do many things and is absolutely not focused on just being a bedroom community rooftops is part of Maricopa and but now residents are asking for more and it's not just the fact they're asking for more, they need more. And this slide emphasizes what that input was. It's about implementing transportation solutions, creating career advancement, employment options, expanding healthcare. We talked about wouldn't it be fabulous in Maricopa that we can get a point where specialists can be within the community and residents don't have to go on 347 at all to see that specialist or we might have our first birth here in the city. of our first resident born and raised in the city. So that was really compelling, right, when we heard residents talking about that. And then, of course, we still have that developed that wide-ranging housing. Maricopa's growing, so now we're seeing a larger distribution of lifestyles and residents that need different opportunities within that. And so housing is still a component. But the retail opportunities to go along with that, as we all know, is something that residents echoed constant or continuously, I should say. And then provide spaces for entertainment and recreation. So it's that quality of life aspect, right, of we enjoy this community, we're putting down roots here, and now we want to round that out with those other amenities that we see in communities that we visit. And so that is, I think, one of the things I would emphasize is this general plan per state law has to touch a lot of topics based on the population of the community. And those topics, have to be balanced in terms of how we incorporate those. And so just as it's titled, it's a general plan. It's the launch pad to then go achieve all of those other aspirations, a lot of which we heard in some of the council report outs this evening. And so I would emphasize as an example, one of the topics that's not required by state statute is economic development. But this general plan has a whole discussion on economic development. The community is going through creating an economic strategic plan. That's an example of how you take the policy information in a general plan, like the economic development section, but then you have a follow-up plan that is the meat and potatoes, right, of how are we going to do this and who are going to be our partners and when are we going to accomplish this. All of those things start to be laid out in more detail in complementary documents that can be amended and that can be supported much more efficiently than a general plan that has a whole process one would have to go through to amend it and then also the public outreach side of things. And so all of that I would emphasize is how this general plan seeks and does more than just being that bedroom community document. The other thing I would also emphasize for residents as I go through some of these, but We realize everyone isn't like a planner. They don't want to crack open a 200 and something page document and read another 176 pages of public comment. And we heard that loud and clear when we went through the 60 day review process. And out of that process, we developed this summary table. And essentially, this is your cheat sheet to navigate through the plan. So rather than use planner speech and say, this is land use and this is circulation, we have topical areas of interest. uh... interest from residents that were most common and then the sections or goal reference where residents can find more policies on that so this is right up front in the executive summary part of the document and it's our way to get residents to the information they're looking for so some come to the general plan with a very specific topic and they want to go find everything on that topic and this table hopefully can do that for many. But others also want to see what are we doing holistically, and then this does that as well. And it also shows how this general plan cross-pollinates. This general plan is not siloed from chapter to chapter. You can see how mitigating traffic congestion and keeping Maricopa safe isn't only addressed in the land use and growth section, but it's addressed in other chapters of the plan. And that's how we were able to make this plan more user friendly by peeling out some of the redundancies and then emphasizing some of those cross reference items. And so hopefully that gives you some of that detail, Mayor, about this is advancing Maricopa into its next phase of its life cycle. And it's exciting as we heard about all of the things that are going on, all of the social groups in the community that are coming out and contributing to achievement of these because these goals and policies in this plan are not all about what is the city going to do to accomplish this. It takes everybody in this audience and listening online to really prop that up. And so hopefully you can tell in my voice that we're excited to get this into the hands of the community and start using it.

Yeah. I think you did a great job answering that. I think this chart and your previous slide that you showed can be a great talking point for all of us because I think people focus on that map and they look at the coloration of various areas and they're like well i don't see uh... in this example let's see where is it uh... commercial red i don't see a lot of red i don't see a lot of gray and so i think the important aspect is knowing and understanding in those words that our goals are very specific to ensuring that we're addressing those needs within our community and those words give the vision that we're looking for At any point, the general plan, if it's necessary, can be changed as well as zoning if property owners come forward and they see the vision that we're trying to create. And I think that'll be on all of us to share as often as possible as we get closer and further through the process and closer to the ballots coming out. It'll be very important.

that thank you for talking about the land use plan because that would be another component for residents to recognize and we tried to beef that up in the the general plan revisions is you'll see a lot of tan on this map and that tan as you can see in the legend indicates master plan communities and A lot of Maricopa is planned, right, as larger developments that have smaller subdivisions within them. And so that's what I would emphasize to your point, Mayor, that you might not see a lot of commercial on this map, but commercial is a component of those master plan communities or employment uses. can be a component of those master plan communities. So where you see a lot of tan, that's a mixture of land uses in there that when developed will add up to all of those points that you addressed, Mayor.

Thank you. One additional question and then definitely I want to go to the council, but you can tell how passionate I am about this. So along I-11, and I don't want to scare anyone, I-11 is going through various phases. We're, you know, ten years off from i eleven coming through but the point being as you discussed those tan areas at any point a landowner kid ask for a change to the general plan a change to zoning and my question would be when that happens let's say ten fifteen years down the line it doesn't require a general plan change or is it all based on size how does that work in regards to a general plan change

Yeah, so for the benefit of everybody in the audience, the I-11 corridor is that dashed kind of hatch line that's running somewhat through the middle of the overall planning area. So I'd emphasize that what we're looking at in this map is actually a map of Maricopa's larger planning area. The city municipal limits of Maricopa are largely north of the Auction Indian community. So you can see that faint dashed line of the area northeast, if you will, of the Auction Indian community. That's all incorporated Maricopa. Everything to the south of that is actually in Pinell County. But state law identifies or asks communities to identify your planning area of what you might ultimately annex to. And so to answer your question, Mayor, about the I-11 corridor is kind of two-pronged. One, since it's still in the county technically, that's one of the things we need to be mindful of so that we set realistic expectations for uh... in terms of uh... right now because it's not annexed into the city if the property owner move forward with the development in that area they would move forward with that development through the county and so the county would be analyzing uh... the land uses and the amendment process to what is called the comprehensive plan in the county And so that would be item, you know, the first to consider is that if something were to move forward between now and when or if the I-11 does move forward, It currently would need to be discussed and considered at the county level and then that role is where Maricopa can engage With the county to share what is favored, you know consideration for the city So that would be in that scenario if we move forward and we start to annex additional lands to the south of the auction Indian community, then yes, at the time, if a development were to come forward that was not consistent with the land use plan, then we would need to go through a general plan amendment. And depending on what that request is, it could trigger a minor amendment, which can be done in a more expeditious, I guess, fashion, or it might be a major amendment, depending on the size or the type of change. Major amendments follow more in line with what we're doing here for this general plan update, short of the ratification to the public. So a major amendment would have to go through a public process, would have to have a 60-day review with it, and then ultimately receive two-thirds approval from the council. And so in that process, we would need to have annexation to occur for the land to actually be in the community, and then discuss in a public forum how those land uses might change.

Very good. And I appreciate you distinguishing what can happen now and what can happen in the future because they are two different things. Thank you very much. Council, what comments, questions do you have? Yes, Council Member Marsh.

Is there active coordination going on between this committee and the county on their overall plan?

I can't necessarily speak completely for staff, but I know through our process, we did receive feedback from the county through that 60 day review process. So there is constant dialogue. When applications come forward, the city and the county do coordinate both ways. And so that is one aspect that occurred within this process, but Rick can speak to more robustly what goes on beyond that.

Mayor, Council Member Marsh, just to further illustrate that, we have a very good working relationship with the county to the point where we meet with them quarterly. And we go over projects that are coming up before their commission. And anything that's within our planning boundary or near our planning boundary. We're discussing on a quarterly basis So we're staying up to up to par with what's going on not only in the planning boundary, but what's close to it as well Additional comments questions.

Yes comes from our oh That's my way. Sorry. I thought her head shake was yes. Oh

The I-11 project has been in existence and going on for quite a bit of time. I'd say within the last 12 to 15 years it has actually slowed down considerably. What is going to happen here in the next quadrant, if you will, as it moves forward? When would that be reasonable to expect that to move forward?

That's a great and very layered answer. While this preferred alignment has been identified, our understanding, we are not actively working on the I-11 project, but our understanding is that there are some legal challenges to some of the aspects of the corridor so that takes time to go through that process and then what you also see on this map is the planning corridor right so even within that corridor you need to start looking at the specific right of way of the facility itself so that would take time and then the biggest item that will take the most amount of time is to find the money to do it And so there is not a short time frame in terms of I-11 and when that may move forward. Thank you.

Additional comments, questions? Council Member Knorr, were you a yes? Do you have questions?

I just, I think this is for discussion only. Yes, for discussion only. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. And I do want to thank you for taking into consideration the comments that were made at the PNC hearing and presenting that in the separate document with the tracking because I think that's very helpful. And one thing I do love about this community is how many people showed up and you know, gave comments because people care and they want to be part of the solution. And so I really appreciate that being incorporated into this. Thank you.

Yeah, well said. And thank you for that. That emphasis of that. At the end of the day, this plan is going to be a plan for the residents. It sounds cheesy, right? But it ultimately is the only plan that that residents will vote on in the entire city. And so, as you noted, if residents come out and take the time, we owe them. to respect their feedback, and we do have to balance it, so we can't sometimes align maybe word for word with feedback, but we do really read it and try to incorporate it to the greatest extent possible.

Thank you. Additional comments, questions? All right, I think that takes care of it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

That'll move us on to agenda item 8.3. We will have a presentation from Matt Kozlowski. I do have two speaker cards on this item.

Mayor Smith members of council can I be heard clearly but not too loudly sorry I have a boisterous voice so and I'm tall makes the microphone a little hard I'm excited to stand before you and I know we have discussed this in a couple of work sessions at this point but one more time we're going to go over the final proposed city budget for fiscal year 26-27 we have a lot of information to get through so let's go ahead and get started this year's budget theme is we're listening so If we think about the process that we have followed over the past year to arrive at the podium tonight, the very first image you actually see on the cover is from a process where we listened for the Commuting Corridors Fund about a year ago when we came and approved that last year. Public workshops, futures planning, this whole process has been something that we have all engaged in, public feedback has been allowed, and endless, endless amounts of work have gone into putting together A VERY COMPREHENSIVE BUDGET THAT I BELIEVE THE CITY SHOULD BE PROUD OF AND EXECUTES THE GOALS AND THE PRIORITIES THAT WE HAVE SET AS A CITY. AND I'M GOING TO GO AHEAD AND EXHIBIT A FEW OF THOSE FOR YOU HERE TONIGHT. SO THE BUDGET PROCESS, WHERE ARE WE? WE HAVE ARRIVED. near the end of the budget process donut that we have in front of us. We are in the May-June timeframe. We are presenting tentative budget to you tonight. As a quick note, tentative budget is what you are reviewing and approving tonight. Once council approves a tentative budget in the state of Arizona, no other items in that budget may be changed. No additional funds may be budgeted. And then a month from now, we will come back to you for the final budget adoption but as of tonight basically everything is set in stone uh... once the tentative budget is approved uh... and believe it or not uh... it is near the end of may we're about a month and a half from this donut starting over again in july and the budget process starting over all over again so i apologize to our budget team and our directors behind us a lot more work is coming Here we are tonight for budget presentation and tentative budget approval. The next step after tonight, two days from now, the tentative budget forms will be posted to the city website. We will see you again for the June 16th final budget adoption meeting. And then two days after that meeting, the final budget forms will be posted to the city website. What are these budget forms? Well, they're these very boring, very technical documents that I am pulling up right here. It makes one wonder why somebody would stand at a podium with an accounting degree and talk about them in the first place because they are very technical and there's a lot of information that quite frankly is very hard to disseminate or understand. So let's move on past these forms and talk about what we want people to really be able to engage with which is the budget document that's available on our city website. So if you go to our city website and you find the budget section right here, any resident has the ability to pull up that budget page and right here at the top in the in development section is the proposed tentative budget book that has all the details for the budget that we are proposing to city council tonight and that we have been working on for months and months so we encourage everybody to go ahead and engage in that document there is tons of good information let's talk about what's in there right we have our budget cover We have our budget letter from our city manager. We're going to talk about that in a second. We have our organizational chart. People can see how our org chart is set up as a city. We have our entire FTE and headcount listing as a city so people can understand who works for the city. We have an executive section that lists all of the visuals that we are going to go over tonight. We have our strategic priority section. So much of what we do with this budget is driven by the strategic priorities that are discussed and set and amended every single year with the futures planning process. That is our guiding light in how a budget gets established. You can see every request and increase in costs that has been approved as a part of this budget. You can go down and dive into department details. You can see division details, what those expenditures are by division or by department. You have the ability to see exactly where our capital improvement plan is spending money, by what function. You can dive down into each individual capital improvement project, not just this fiscal year, but any of them that are in our 10-year capital improvement plan, And you can see everything from the detailed design cost estimate documents to the funding sources to the project details. There are written descriptions for certain projects. There are pictures or images or maps of where that is taking place. This is a fully comprehensive budget document that our public can easily access and hopefully easily understand because that is our guiding principle in the book itself is something that does not try to to confuse it is transparent it is is direct uh and it is easily digestible information that they can go ahead and read so we encourage everybody to please go ahead and do so um as a part of this book city manager ben bitter writes a budget transmittal letter every year and i know um in this letter this year, he actually shared a very cool poem. Now, a lot of our council members are interested in the arts, and one thing I can assure you is that me standing here and reciting a full poem to you is not art. So I won't do that. But one thing that really stood out to me is the line talking about how I can easily reckon a day or two what builders have taken a year to do. The job of building a city. The job of building a budget is a labor-intensive process of love. It is for council members. It is for staff. It is for directors. It is for their managers. It is also for the community. When a community member engages a local business and purchases something there, they are building a community. When they start a business, when they partake in a nonprofit opportunity or a volunteer opportunity, they are building instead of tearing down. And in today's society, The builders are the ones who are accomplishing something special, right? So that's really what I locked onto with the budget message this year is the fact that we are building something special here in Maricopa, and we want to invite as many people as possible to do that. So that does give us a quick opportunity to remind people that on May 7th, The chance to apply for the Ambassadors of Maricopa program did open. It is on our city website, and this is another opportunity for our residents and community to engage and be a part of this special process of coming and building a city with us, and we're doing it all together. So hopefully people will go ahead and do that. Okay, let's talk about our key strategic discussion points before we dive into a lot of the visuals and a lot of the numbers and talk about them. Along the right side, uh... is something that we talk about with transparency every year this is our community corridors fund how many dollars are being collected and what those sales tax funds are being expended on uh... that is a follow through from last year's budget requests uh... when it comes to our first discussion point tonight The city revenue plateau, as I've referred to it, continues. I will show you in visuals what that means, but we have new fiscal realities regarding revenue reductions. We have shared this during futures planning. It is very clearly seen and represented in the data, and it means a new level of focus on exactly what we are going to invest those dollars in and how we remain fiscally responsible with our funds. Council is continuing to reduce property taxes, committed to reducing the overall tax burden for Maricopa residents. We will talk about how much that reduction will be, and we will exhibit that soon. 55% of our 10-year capital plan is dedicated to streets infrastructure. 47% of our operating budget for FY26-27 is dedicated to public safety, reflecting an ongoing commitment to the execution of our strategic priorities as a city. And this budget is a balanced budget as proposed and vetted by department directors and city leaders. It considers all expected revenues and necessary fund balances that are required to manage the appropriate levels of service. So the first talking point, let's talk about our revenue plateau, as I call it. Here is a three-year trend of our general fund revenues from 25 into what we're budgeting for 27. uh... hundred two million in twenty five down to ninety seven million back up to about a hundred five million this upcoming fiscal year uh... this is very much a new reality for us we were very used to seeing this number increasing steadily every single year as we talked about during features planning we have seen and annual reduction of about ten million dollars a year in general fund revenues that we were used to receiving uh... via the state shared revenue reductions and the incorporation of santan valley Maricopa is not alone in this challenge. This is a statewide challenge in Arizona. Go watch budget presentations for any city right now and they are having the same exact conversation about the challenges that cities are facing and what to do about these revenue reductions. So we are not alone. This graph right here does a great job of breaking down exactly why that revenue plateau is occurring. We break down our revenues by specific types in this case we always talk about having a revenue chair four legs of a chair that keep our revenue standing strong uh... we put the local community corridors fund here's a fifth one just to exhibit that clearly and differently from sales taxes The intergovernmental revenue on the left side, these are our state shared revenues, our urban revenue shares based upon population. This was a number that was routinely growing for the city of Maricopa year over year. And now when you actually look at this on a three-year basis, you can see just how flat that is in those three years. So that has been a big challenge for us. Our local sales taxes have been growing. They're not growing as fast as they were. And still, overwhelmingly, the largest percentage of our growth in local sales tax actually comes from construction. Companies that are building and developers that are building in Maricopa paying construction tax. So it's not just residents buying more stuff. This is actually construction taking place and those people paying their fair share into the community. FEES, LICENSES, PERMITS, AGAIN, FLAT OR DOWN. PROPERTY TAX, SLIGHTLY UP, BUT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE WILL SHOW YOU GUYS HERE SOON IS THAT THE ONLY REASON THOSE PROPERTY TAXES ARE UP ARE ACTUALLY NEW CONSTRUCTION PROPERTY TAXES, AND WE HAVE BEEN GIVING BACK ASSESSED VALUE TO THE CITIZENS OF MARICOPA. HERE'S JUST ANOTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT THESE THAT LAYS OUT THESE SAME CHALLENGES, AND WE JUST WANT THAT AS AN EXTRA RESOURCE FOR YOU GUYS TO BE ABLE TO SEE THAT EVERYBODY LOOKS AT CHARTS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENTLY. So now let's talk about general fund revenues and expenditures, and we will share more expenditure detail here relatively soon. This is a trend since 2021 of the revenues and expenditures that are taking place in our general fund. And then the blue line going across this graph is our total capital outlay or our total capital asset spend in that same time, anything from buildings to roads to land acquisition, whatever that might be. One thing to make clear here is if we look back at 2021 and we have 65 million in revenues and 46 million in expenditures, it does not mean that the city is making $20 million in profit and putting it into the bank. That $20 million is used to pay for that blue circle right there, that 26.3 million in capital expenditures. We pay for those projects with these revenues over expenditures that the general fund is taking in. So from 21 to 27, we can see that we have gone from 65 million in revenues to about 105 million in revenues in the general fund. In that same timeframe, we have gone from 46 million in general fund expenditures to about 70 million in general fund expenditures projected for the end of 2026. People might be looking at this chart and saying, Why are we going from 70 million to 86 million in FY27? This has to do with budgets versus actuals. I have a visual for this. But really, the state of Arizona, because we cannot change the budget after tentative is approved tonight, we as a city have to take the conservative approach of budgeting for every possible expenditure that could take place. Most of those expenditures don't take place, but because we can't change or amend or add to the budget after tonight, We have to put those contingencies and capacities in place now just in case those expenditures could happen. So that is why you see that large growth per se from 70 to 86 million. We have a visual coming up soon that lays this out a little bit more. Another thing that somebody might look at this and say is, well, why are we investing less in capital projects or capital assets? You're at 60 million, you're at 89 million, and now you're down to 46 million. What is going on here? Well, during that timeframe, we understand that part of the strategic plan, part of our strategic decision making was to invest in the opportunities in the business triangle or the business park just south of here. and we do have some land holdings there that are under contract for the development of that business park if we look at this same visual removing those land investments for that opportunity we can see that our capital expenditures uh... more normal projects infrastructure buildings things of that nature remains relatively constant uh... and is still at a very healthy investment number we are still investing in roads we are still investing in the needs of our community uh... that is not ceasing stopping or slowing down but as we talk about a future planning in these workshops we're going to have to be a little more strategic about what those priorities might be because of the general fund is pulling in less revenues it leaves us less opportunities to execute certain projects Real quick, there is an agenda item after this, agenda item 8.4, since we're talking about taxes and we're gonna go talk about property taxes in a second. We also have the bed tax policy for agenda item 8.4. There's no real visuals or anything for that. We just have the policy document that you guys have the opportunity to review and approve tonight. So I just make you guys aware that that is the next agenda item. We have talked about that during the workshops. The policy can be amended and changed throughout the year, but we did promise that as a part of our annual budget process, we would bring you the bed tax policy kind of all in one shot with the budget, and we are going ahead and doing that tonight. So I just wanted to go ahead and call that out separately for you real quick. Okay, property taxes. So, for FY27... The city is recommending a 20 basis point reduction overall in property taxes for Maricopa residents. It is about a 15 basis point reduction in our primary property tax and then about a five basis point reduction in our secondary property tax. Secondary property tax are the GO bonds for Copper Sky from 2010 and 2013. Those will continue to go down every year as we continue to pay off those bonds and reduce that debt. Our primary property tax is down 15 basis points. I'm always a big fan of this visual because we're really laying out how we're going from where we are in property tax in terms of total dollars this year to next year. So if we look at the far left side right here, we can see that our current property tax rate is 3.47%. We're bringing in about $17.7 million in primary property tax levies with that percentage. We will end FY27 with a 3.32% rate, 15 basis points less, but we will have property tax levies of about $18.3 million. Well, how do we go up while our primary property tax rate goes down? That is actually laid out very well in that blue section on the left. There are two ways that primary property tax can go up for the City of Maricopa. One is assessed value growth. The city has at the end of the day no opportunity to change how a property is assessed that is actually handled through the Pinal County assessor's office They go ahead and provide those assessments every single year and what the city has routinely done is that assessed value growth? is what we choose to give back to the residents in that green bar right there, about $824,000 in additional property taxes that the county is saying the assessment should contain. But we go ahead and give that back to the residents. And the only growth from 17.7 to 18.3 is based upon new construction within the city of Maricopa. So when we say growth pays for growth, we're not just saying it to sound good or try to pat ourselves on the back. we are quite literally executing that with our property tax strategy. We have talked in the past and will continue to talk in the future about what rate we may want to consider slowing down or stopping these reductions if we are going to continue to see statewide changes and state-level changes in revenues that are coming in. Property taxes are something that we do have local control over, and we want to make sure that we have the opportunity to invest because our primary property tax is dedicated towards public safety, and it is not covering all of our public safety expenditures at the end of the day. Over a six-year window, this is what our primary property tax reductions look like. Back in 2022, it was a 4.37% primary property tax percentage, and we are now down to 3.32%. In that six-year window, we have taken our primary property tax rate down over 1%. Find me another community that's doing that. Yes, please, give yourself some applause. It's a really impressive story, especially since the vast majority of that has occurred in a very difficult inflationary economy. So we've talked about revenues. We've talked about some of those tax revenues. Now let's talk about general fund expenditures. We break this down by two basic categories at the end of the day, personnel and operating. Our recurring personnel expenditures were about $54 million coming into this new budget planning session. We are proposing about $6 million worth of growth in that related to these various categories in the green, red, and yellow segments. MOU or merit increases, those are agreements that we have with our fire and police unions. Those are already agreed upon. So those MOU and merit increases will be taking place. We also have merit increases for staff as a part of that number as well. We have insurance and other benefits costs, and then we have our net new requests. Any new personnel requests, 12 new firefighters, police officers, so on and so forth are a part of that yellow bar, taking us from 54 million to 60.97 million in total personnel expenditures for FY27. From an operating perspective, we go from 22.6 million at about 2.5 million in net new operating requests. Our budget book has a detailed listing of what all of these expenditures are. They have the opportunity to see exactly what that 2.5 million in new operating expenditures will be. taking us to $25.07 million, about a 12.4% annual growth rate in total general fund expenditures, taking us from $76.5 million in budgeted for FY26 to about $86 million of budgeted in FY27. So that is a budgeted conversation, and we will go into the department detail here real quick, and then I will come back to actuals versus budget as a discussion point. For FY26-27, here is exactly how THAT 86 MILLION PROPOSED GENERAL FUND OPERATING EXPENDITURES BREAKS DOWN BY DEPARTMENT. OVERWHELMINGLY THE LARGEST EXPENSE WE HAVE WHEN IT COMES TO GENERAL FUND EXPENDITURES ARE PUBLIC SAFETY. 23% FOR POLICE, 22% FOR FIRE, CITY MAGISTRATE ANOTHER 2%, AND THEN OUR PUBLIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENT ABOUT 1%. SO A TOTAL OF ABOUT 47% OF OUR OPERATING BUDGET GOES TO PUBLIC SAFETY. THE NEXT LARGEST ARE PUBLIC WORKS, PARKS AND RECREATION, SO ON AND SO FORTH. The numbers on the right actually break down how those expenditures are laid out by personnel versus operating. I know I've spoken with you guys about this before. I know I say it every year, but it's a percentage I always pay attention to. The numbers at the top, operating 29%, personnel 71%. maintaining that 70 ish percent for personnel is a very healthy number I have seen a number of city budgets where personnel is 80 85 90 percent of the general fund operating budget maintaining this sort of 70 30 type split allows us to have more funds available for the operating expenditures necessary to keep the city going okay general fund expenditures budget versus actuals I talked about 86 million being budgeted for 27, considering all contingencies, capacities, things of that nature. Well, we never expend all of those funds. In FY26, We budgeted $81.87 million in general fund expenditures for the city. We will expend about $69.76 million of that $81.87 million, or about 83% of that, leaving about 17% that was available for capacities, emergencies, whatever those things might be. Going backwards, we see that that trend is fairly consistent. Anywhere from 10% to 20% to 25% of what is budgeted will never actually be expended, but we have those funds available for anything that may happen. Okay, this lot of numbers on a sheet, the one thing that we always want to call out in this proposed operating budget, the operating fund summary sheet is a very key performance indicator that we think about. This number right here at the bottom, the general fund balance is a percentage of expenditures. CITY POLICY STATES THAT WE MUST HAVE CURRENTLY AT LEAST 30% OF OUR GENERAL FUND EXPENDITURES FOR THE YEAR AS A RESERVE BALANCE AVAILABLE. WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT PER POLICY CHANGING THAT TO 25%. THAT IS A FAIRLY COMMON PERCENTAGE AROUND OTHER CITIES. 25% IS STILL FAIRLY CONSERVATIVE AND SOMETHING THAT I THINK MAKES A LOT OF SENSE. We have traditionally seen this number in the 40s, the 50s, and now it is down to 39%. So that is a part of our new fiscal reality. It means we need to pay attention to what we're investing in, what we are expending on, which costs make sense long term, which projects make sense. We do have, again, those land holdings that are a part of that consideration as well. But this is, quite frankly, the lowest percentage you have seen in a budget. And it is a lot of work to make sure we maintain a healthy percentage here by policy to make sure that we have the funds available to fund those reserves if necessary. Okay, headcount by function for FY26-27. We break down our headcount by each individual function. 50% of our total FTEs are dedicated to public safety, including two dogs. I have to call that out every time. Cool addition by our budget team. I love that. Parks and Recreation is second with 17%. General Government Services, 16. Public Works, 11. Development Services, 6. If anybody was here last year and saw this presentation, Parks and Rec is a little higher. Public Works is a little lower. Last year, the Parks team was a part of our Public Works department. Now they are part of our Parks and Recreation department. So those percentages flipped a little bit as we shifted those employees into a new organization.

Okay.

Okay. uh... we're not going to go over all of these obviously we had opportunities to discuss these over the past couple of months here is the full listing of any new increases new requests personnel requests new operator quest broken down by detail by dollar amount and by fund type is the general fund expenditure is it hurt uh... is it a grant opportunity all of those things are split out separately The one that I will call attention to is the one on the top left there, the total amount of requested increases by department. If anybody is curious about making sure that we are living the priorities that are established by council, 76.4% of all new approved operating requests this year are for public safety. So that is our general fund requests. So that is a strategic priority of the city. I would say 76.4% of all new requests certainly live in that strategic priority. There's a list of the new operating requests. Again, all available in the budget book if anybody wishes to take a look at those. So now let's shift from an operating discussion to a capital improvement discussion. I'm not gonna go ahead and read this entire sheet. It's a lot of words. Yes, yes, I don't wanna have to. But let me call attention to two things real quick. The bottom section of this page first is something that I always like to call attention to. The placement of a project in years one through three of our 10-year capital improvement plan. We have a 10-year capital improvement plan for long-term capital planning. We used to have a five-year. We shifted to a 10-year. This breakdown shows exactly how we consider each of these projects by prioritization and how those funding sources are considered. The reality of what we're talking about tonight is we're not approving 10 years worth of spending. We are approving one year of spending. Planned expenditures in the first year of a 10-year CIP are formally adopted as a part of the annual budget process and what we are reviewing and discussing tonight. Projects identified in future years are only programmed. These are included for planning and forecasting purposes and are not authorized expenditures. So let's understand that really we are only approving one year. Everything after that is subject to change, updating, and future forecasting and discussions in next year's budget. Okay, what does our 10-year CIP look like? Well, 176 different projects for a total of $1 billion. We have a lot of stuff to do. I'm gonna let that hang in the air for a second. A billion dollars worth of projects around the city to get to. We have a lot to accomplish still. How do we do that? They say the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, so we have to go one bite at a time with the FY26-27 capital improvement plan. The 26-27 capital improvement plan is $181.2 million. Here's a breakdown of those $182 million by department and by funding source. One of the things I wanna point out real quick is, no, we are not going to spend $182 million on projects. Much like the operating discussions we just had, some of these are budgeted capacities, budgeted contingencies, or projects that will simply not take place or we don't have the capacity to get to in the next fiscal year. We will expend, like we saw in that chart with the blue line, somewhere between $30 million to $60 million in projects, maybe more, maybe less, but we will not expend all $182 million of this. We don't have the cash ability to do that, but we are prepared for any budgetability. Why do we do that? If a federal grant opportunity for $20 million came along, we have to have the capacity to bring those dollars in and start a project of that nature. We do have project opportunities like that. So we budget those opportunities because we don't want to have to wait a year or we don't have to look at the federal government and say, please, no, we don't want your money. We want to be able to take that in. If we break down that $182 million by department, we can see that in the upper left corner. Public Works overwhelmingly is the number one because they have all of the streets infrastructure projects underneath their department name. No, finance is not spending $24.7 million. That is where we budget our contingencies and capacities. So that's why that number is there. If we look at our budgeted funding source, here's exactly how we pay for all these projects by the different types of funds. DIF, County Road, HEERF, grants, the 350 fund, which is our capital improvement fund, carry forwards. If you see a carry forward, you say, what is a carry forward for fire DIF? Well, if we collected fire DIF last year, but we didn't spend it yet, that's a carry forward. We're carrying it forward for the opportunity to pay for that project next year. Okay, where is that $181 million spent? This donut breaks it down perfectly. 55% goes to streets infrastructure. Our number one listed priority on our strategic priorities is infrastructure, roads, transportation, This exhibits that commitment to that strategic priority. Economic development is another one. We have a number of funds committed to that. Parks, community improvements, fleet, new building construction, all broken down by categorization, and all of that categorization can be seen in the budget book that is on our city website in case anybody is curious how these numbers break down. So let's talk for a second about that capital improvement plan and the commuting corridors fund, which we referenced earlier. How are those commuting corridors dollars being committed to what was promised to our community? Well, the very first one is the 347, right? We went ahead and procured a $30 million revenue bond, and we will make that payment to ADOT next week. Next week, yeah, next week we'll make that payment. We have already collected and received the $20 million payment from Pinal County. It is sitting in the bank, ready to go along with that $30 million and send $50 million to ADOT to get that project moving. So, very exciting news, very exciting times, and you will see on this Commuting Corridors Fund page, right there at the top, the link at the top, You can track all the revenues that are coming in and how they are being expended. We will reflect that $50 million payment to ADOT on the website as soon as it takes place. Just for public awareness, these are a couple of months behind. That just has to do with how ADOT reports to us, not ADOT, the AZDOR, the Department of Revenue, reports these funds to us and our ability to review them and then post them. So we're always a couple of months behind based on when we get that information. But if you go ahead and look at our capital improvement plan, uh... you will see projects that fit the community corridors fund definition outside of the three forty seven uh... the green road bypass loops northern desert parkway phase two all of these things are are laid out there and you can actually track in the budget book that funding source specific to the commuting corridors fund, which is very exciting to see. This is again a link to the article about what happened when we went out to market for that $30 million in revenue bonds and something new that was exciting that we didn't get a chance to share with you during the workshop. But during that process, Standard & Poor's rated our city a AA+. This is one step below AAA. We are AAA rated with a different ratings agency. We worked with Standard & Poor's on this one. The feedback we received from them was, You're AA plus for now. Keep going, and AAA is probably in your future. met with them, we did a tour with them around the city. They were very impressed. They said, quite frankly, the thing that is the main factor in not being AAA yet are some of those state of Arizona factors with state shared revenues that they're keeping an eye on and they pay attention to what those things mean. So when we talk with some of our legislators about the impacts of these decisions, And we understand there's a lot of things going on in the states. I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't do something, but it's being paid attention to by the markets as well. I'll always love this visual. I love the ability to discuss this visual because if you take our 10-year draft capital improvement plan and you take an infrastructure vision and you lay it out on a map, this is what that 55% of streets infrastructure investment looks like if you put it on the map of Maricopa. And if you look at this image, there is not one area of town that is not being touched, that is not being worked on, that is not being addressed, that is not being planned for. We are looking at all of these possibilities, all of these opportunities, and have something planned for them in the next 10 years. If we step back now and we look at this as a whole, the ability to see all of these projects laid out, you can actually see the project numbers on this map. Those project numbers tie to the capital projects list in the budget book on our city website. So you have the ability to dive into each and every one of those projects and what the plans are, how those costs are being arrived at. Understanding, of course, that if it's anything outside of the first year, those costs very well, I would just say they will change because costs are changing every single year. But if we talk about our capital improvement projects, $181 million. We talk about our general fund operating budget, $86 million. We talk about our strategic priorities and how our budget ties to these things. The entire last year of processes has all been leading to this moment right now, how we comprise the budget, how we plan these things, how we listen, how we put things together, and how we execute. So before you tonight is the budget and the opportunity to say that we're listening. So at this point, I will go ahead and take any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Matt. If it's okay with you, I'd prefer to first listen to our two speaker cards and then take questions after from the council. Our first speaker card is Leon Potter.

Excuse me.

Good evening, Mayor Smith, Vice Mayor Manfredi, and members of the City Council. My name is Leon Potter, and I live here in the city of Maricopa. I am an enrolled agent to practice before the IRS. I am a former financial advisor, and I own a local tax and accounting firm. Tonight, you are setting a maximum budget ceiling, and as a financial expert, I want to ensure the city is using careful oversight before we lock in these limits. I want to enter three specific questions into the record tonight. Number one, on our debt. This past April, the city issued over $27 million in pledged revenue obligations, and we got a great AA plus rating, excuse me, but revenue bonds inherently carry higher interest rates than general obligation bonds. What was the exact interest rate difference, the delta, between the two? Taxpayers deserve a side-by-side comparison of the lifetime borrowing cost. We need to know the premium we paid to bypass a voter-approved bond. Number two, on our revenue. We rely heavily on the sales tax to fund our 10-year capital plan, but consumer spending drops fast in a down economy. What are the results of the city's internal stress testing? Can our transportation tax withstand a $15 percent revenue drop without delaying major projects. Number three, on our reserves. If that 15 percent drop happens, what happens to our safety nets? Will the city be forced to drain our general fund reserves just to protect the mandatory debt service coverage ratio for these bonds? True transparency means showing taxpayers the full cost of capital and the structural risk of our tax burden. If staff does not have these exact numbers tonight, I request a formal written response before the final budget vote next month. Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Ron and Jerami.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council Members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about State Route 347 and the Casablanca Interchange. As you know, the current ADOT plan does not include a grade separation for Casablanca. There is no mention of any plan in our budget, CIP, or general plan to address this. I recently had a meeting with Eric Buchwalter, who is the captain of the Arizona DPS and has operational responsibility for this area. He shared with me some interesting, most recent data regarding accidents at this intersection. Some surprising facts. 80% of the accidents are in the north direction of travel. Only 18% of the accidents are southbound. There are four times more accidents people leaving Maricopa versus returning. 25% of the accidents are injury accidents. And 81% of the accidents are rear-end collisions. I've distributed the Maricopa corridor concept maps. As we know, there are tens of thousands of homes planned for the area south of Maricopa. It is reasonable to assume that these commuters will take the new green road loop to bypass the city. Adding to this will be all the new home construction on State Route 238, including large-scale master communities such as Sunrise Ranch, Moonlight Ranch, as well as major multi-family projects like West Maricopa Village. These will all funnel onto Green Loop, connect with 347, and then bam, hit the light of Casablanca. This means that the traffic and safety challenges we experience today will only become worse. I shared with Captain Bulkwater this plan, and he agrees with me that while Green Loop and Seafarm are welcome additions, the light at Casablanca for northbound traffic will be a problem. I respectfully request that the City Council include a plan and budget for getting rid of the light at Casablanca. I understand there are some formidable challenges in getting this accomplished. However, the impact on Maricopa lives is too large not to include. I remember back four years ago at the beginning of the 347 Facts Team and heard things like, you'll never get this done. Why waste your time? Gila River doesn't want to expand the road. We can't do anything. It's out of our jurisdiction. Cement plant will never get an overpass as they don't have enough traffic to make it worthwhile. You have to be on the five-year plan and you're not because your P2P score is too low. Over time, we overcame all these objectives, all these obstacles, and we got to where we are today. Let's make the commute from Maricopa to I-10 a wonderful and safe experience. Please include a budget and plan for the Casablanca light removal. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Matt. I'll first address the questions asked from our two public speakers, and let us know if you would like to address any of them now or as suggested in the future as a follow-up to this.

Sure. I mean, I'm trying to go from memory here. I didn't have the opportunity to write them down, obviously. When it comes to the effective rate of borrowing for the revenue bond, I believe we did a presentation on this a couple months ago when we brought the revenue bond opportunity to council. The effective borrowing rate was, I want to say, 3.2% or 3.4% for the revenue bond. It was a pretty strong effective interest rate of borrowing. So obviously we did not do any kind of comparison to GO bond because GO bond in this situation was not an option. The ability to leverage the commuting corridors fund for the revenue bond to do a GO bond would require a vote in November. The ability to make a payment that is agreed upon with ADOT by IGA by June 1st would not have been possible with a general obligation bond. So that was not an option that could be considered in that instance. So we used the revenue bond tool because that was the one available to borrow against the community corridor's half cent sales tax in order to go ahead and make that payment. So that's why the GO bond percentage was never reviewed.

I think I would add to that not just why this and not that, but also the fact that if it were to go to a vote per state statute, we would have to go through several processes and it would be two to three years down the line before any additional decisions could be made. And our people who drive 347 can't wait two or three more years. So I'll add that to the argument as to why.

Yes.

But thank you very much. The next one was the revenue stream and the stress.

Yeah, so I'll try. There's a lot of visuals, and I do a whole lot of animations here, so I have to hold myself accountable for that. but if we don't look at our revenues i believe the percentage was if we had a fifteen percent reduction in our sales tax revenues what would that mean as a whole for the city so if we consider a fifteen percent reduction in forty million dollars in revenue uh... that would be about six million dollars in total reductions to our general fund uh... that six million dollars if we take it in uh... consideration to our current projected uh... twenty twenty six general fund uh... we have ninety seven million dollars rejected revenues and about seventy million dollars rejected expenditures a general fund revenue over expenditure number of twenty seven million dollars so if we saw a six million dollar reduction in sales tax from any kind of economic impact that twenty seven million would become twenty one we do have the ability and the capacity to go ahead and navigate an economic downturn. Now, of course, that means we have to understand which projects may have to get delayed or which operating expenditures we may not want to make in that following fiscal year based upon that new economic reality. But that is exactly what our 39% that we talked about earlier, that general fund percentage, this key performance indicator is the one that we keep a close eye on to understand exactly how our reserves are strategically placed to go ahead and take on an impact of that kind. So we do pay close attention to that, and we understand what that impact would be.

Thank you Matt. I'll add to that the fact that the City of Maricopa has a 23 year history of being extremely fiscally conservative and I'll remind us all that we went through the downturn in the 2008-2010 period and came through perfectly fine because we made those adjustments real time. So you're not going to wait a year to make adjustments if you're seeing a decline based on whatever the decline is caused by. You're going to be making changes immediately.

Correct.

The third question was reserves and the safety net.

I feel like we addressed that earlier with the 30% by policy. We are considering 25% as an update to that policy. I would not recommend anything lower than 25% on a go-forward basis. But we do have that in place to make sure that we have the cash reserves necessary to weather any kind of situation.

very good okay i'll turn it over to the council for questions and comments yes i see you hitting your button council member marsh what do you have i just want to say that uh... for several years i was involved in microsoft's annual budget process which also runs twelve months of the year

you're in the same league as microsoft thank you for being here and thank you for your team getting this thing done i appreciate the comment and and again the credit goes far beyond me uh... our directors their staff members our budget team our finance team city management council you have been heavily engaged in this process uh... it is a true citywide but thank you for the compliment much appreciated additional comments questions yes comes from a ghetto

Thank you, Mayor. Matthew, thank you again for your presentation. I feel that both the capital improvement and also our general budgets that have been proposed here tonight are laser focused on the priorities of this community, of this council, and I don't think that there is any detail that's been overlooked in what you've presented here over these last couple of months. So thank you again to you and to your staff. I know this is a monumental task to present this to us each year but it also shows the seriousness that you take this task and The responsibility you feel and we feel to our taxpayers here in our city Making sure that every every penny every dime is spent appropriately and for those projects that will have the greatest impact in our city, so I Thank you again for both of these proposals, and I look forward to voting on these tonight.

Thank you, Council Member Gatto. Additional comments? Council Member Nohr? Council Member Wade?

Thank you, Mayor.

Always being polite. I love it. Thank you, Matt. Can you go back to the slide where it showed the budget investments as a percentage based on the department?

Yes. This one right here?

No. I think it was the CIP.

Oh, this donut right here by function, basically? This one.

Yes.

OK.

This one.

Yes.

So this is the CIP. where the money is going to be spent for this fiscal year, just year one of the CIP, correct?

Correct. Although I will say not all of this is pure cash consideration because you have contingencies and capacities on top of pure cash considerations. We have to budget for those contingencies in some fashion, but not all of it is, I would say, a pure cash commitment.

Okay. My only question is and I do love all of your graphics and it's a lot of data and that is fantastic but as I've reviewed all of it and then it came to this I just I know we are heavily investing in public safety and I appreciate that as a priority but I'm what are what is the 12% to city parks the 22.49 what projects are those?

yet so in terms of pure cash for year one we break down this visual it does take into account the full ten-year plan as well in terms a percentage of total spend so that twelve percent considers uh... right now the big one is the lakes park expansion uh... there is future dollars committed to civic center park for uh... land acquisition for uh... design work things of that nature as well uh... there is uh... some remaining funds available for the mike ingram heritage A couple other things off the top of my head that I may not recall my apologies, but those are the main ones that I am remembering off the top of my head.

Okay, if just before June, before we vote on the final budget, if I could just understand that better, because I love parks too, but it's 5% to public safety and 12% to parks just doesn't, I'm having a hard time with those numbers, so I would like a further explanation on that, yeah.

And Madam Mayor, if I may as well.

Yes.

I think also the thing to keep in mind is public safety spending is very resource intensive and very cyclical because of that. So for example, when you're expanding operations of a fire station, you have one year where you see a fire station and then the next three or four years you may be okay. Or you see one year where there's an expense of a fire engine and then three or four years where it may be okay. And so sometimes we're in those off years if you look at the budget i think from either last year or the year before we had the police station on board well that made it look like a lot bigger percentage because we were building a brand new place police station and so sometimes those things are just cyclical and on how they hit here as well but but certainly we could break that out even further yep yeah yeah i would just appreciate that thank you very good any additional comments questions yes counselor wait

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to go back to the process of when we're bringing funds in and different resources, specifically the site surveys. How often or how far along are we with something that may be producing an economic opportunity for us to have other projects to be considered other than we currently have? I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow the question. Well, site surveys, speaking about them specifically, I know that it's a process of bringing economic development into our projects. So where would we be looking at having some more site surveys being conducted so that we can take that economic opportunity in consideration when we're doing our budgets?

I don't have economic development reporting in to me. My apologies. Maybe city manager has a more detailed answer than I could provide. I don't want to shoot from the hip on this one.

Yeah, so thank you, Councilmember Wade. We obviously are working forward on a variety of economic development efforts, some of those on our properties and others that are not on our properties. Our economic opportunity, our Office of Economic Opportunity is constantly working with site selectors to bring them to our community. We've had a few in the last few weeks even visit our community to potentially bring jobs to our community. And so as we look at those kind of things and kind of as we discussed as part of our general plan discussion, we're constantly seeking ways to bring new businesses into our community and also help our existing businesses expand as best we can. anytime that we can add more jobs to our community we want to do that we want to be a support as as those additional jobs come in not just because it increases the wealth of our community but also because it improves our transportation network as we have fewer people traveling on 347 because they have jobs here that's something that's important for us as well and so all of those things occur we continue to work with with folks that we're selling land to to conduct on how those things are completed, on how we get those projects to the finish line, working with them through the development process. And so a variety of steps and a variety of processes that we go through on a lot of different projects, some of those being our land and even some of those that are not our land.

And this is one that, if I may expound upon, the capacity versus cash conversation, it gets really convoluted. But part of that economic development number is... uh... a land enhancement fund the the capacity to purchase land if necessary if an opportunity comes along that the city deems getting involved makes sense uh... the the business triangle uh... just south of here is the one that obviously is the one that is most discussed but uh... it is actually leverage in the past for uh... the southbridge project where we were the conduit for some purchasing of land and then the selling of that land led for the opportunity for Lowe's to come to the city of Maricopa. So we do have that budgeted capacity in land enhancement for those opportunities as well if they present themselves. And I hate the confusing cash versus capacity uh... conversation uh... the state of arizona makes us engage in that uh... we're hoping that they're going to allow for in-year changes so we don't have to behave that way but since we have to this is the way that we make sure we have the opportunity if necessary and if it is deemed uh... a viable opportunity uh... by council and thank you for correcting my site surveys to site selections appreciate that

All right, very good. Anyone else? Okay, so I think it's always important for, I get the question a lot, so I think that it's important. People ask me all the time, what are my priorities in the budget and the CIP? So I just wanted to share my findings as I went through the budget and the CIP. And my first priority, it's hard to say between my first priority and my second priority, but both of them are very close. And my first priority would be roads, obviously 347. but all of the community corridors. I want to say that based on that priority as I dug through the CIP, as I dug through the budget, significant amount of funds are pointed toward roads and improving our safety and our moving around within the city. So that was a check off for me in regards to how we're advancing. Now I will say with caution, I wish all of those roads could be done immediately, especially the commuting corridor, but there's things like land acquisition that has to take place, working with Gila River Indian Community that takes place, the design factor, the infrastructure that needs to be someplace. So it all takes time, but I want you to know and be confident that there are projects in our CIP and several of them associated with change or movement in regards to our transportation. My second is jobs, and we all know we need jobs. We need industrial, we need high paying wage, family raising jobs within our city. And as I dug through the CIP and the budget, It's very apparent to me that we're focused on making sure that we're progressing on our industrial park. We also, not so much in the budget, but we're working on the economic development strategic plan, which will focus on a lot of the properties that will help bring jobs as well. So I think that's important to bring out because people ask these questions all of the time. Just going back to roads real quick. I asked city manager bitter if he would address Ron's points regarding Casablanca and 347.

i think you've had a mayor obviously is as we're working on commuting corridors everything is a is a moving moving target right now as we work through the ninety percent plans and getting towards the completion of the plans in three forty seven how we know there's going to be an overpass at rings road we know there's gonna be an overpass at mammoth way or the cement plant road we know that there's going to be a flyover ramp on titan Those things are all going to be included in the 100% plan. What we don't have yet is what is the next phase of that plan and what ADOT plans to do with that next phase or when that next phase will occur after the 347 is widened. A lot of that will come naturally as part of the development of the roadway and as we continue to have additional statistics and road safety information. Some of those things will occur, but they are a few years down the road, and you have to set priorities and put things in order. So I think Mr. Anderami's point is well received, and I think even the corridor concept map that he provided is well received and understood. A lot of times when we look at our OUR ENTIRE EVEN PLANNING BOUNDARY. WE'RE CURRENTLY GETTING CLOSE TO WRAPPING UP A TRANSPORTATION STUDY THAT SEEKS TO LOOK INTO THE FUTURE AND SAY, HEY, WHAT ARE THE TRANSPORTATION ROUTES THAT WILL MAKE SENSE FOR MARICOPA AND THE SURROUNDING AREA INTO THE FUTURE IN JOINT PARTNERSHIP WITH PENAL COUNTY AND MICHAEL BAKER WHO WAS HERE EARLIER ON THE GENERAL PLAN, BUT ON THE TRANSPORTATION SIDE THEY'RE ALSO HELPING US ON THAT PLAN. trying to understand where we're going to need these transportation routes and where they make the most sense based off of development patterns and land entitlements and those kind of things. And so it's a complex and lengthy product and process. Again, the CIP is a 10-year plan, and it gets adjusted every year, specifically because every year we have a better idea of what year two, year three, year four, year five, up to year 10 looks like. And so right now, this is the best plan that we have. What it will happen next year is that, guaranteed, it will change. And we'll have adjustments, and we'll see, hey, maybe this idea doesn't make sense anymore, and we need to adjust it to this way.

uh... as of today this is the best plan that we have okay very good uh... last two points in regards to because i don't like nor the fact that people are focused on teen program senior programming art programming and i it's not necessarily linked to the budget or the cip but i do want to reiterate the city currently has our fps out for partnerships for that type of program and i'm excited to see what will come in those three areas from those partnerships so i don't want to ignore that and then in association with art uh... during the futures meeting just as a reminder we did increase the amount that art grants uh... are going to provide and as councilor lehrman addressed earlier in her message from city council member uh... those uh... grants are currently open for application Councilman Learman has additional comments or a question.

When you shared your passions, I felt like I wanted to share mine as well. So I'm really excited about our funding for public safety and our community corridors. But a few additional things is Performing Arts Center did make it into the 10-year plan this year, which I know a lot of our arts community is excited about. I'm really grateful for the gun range for the police department. And then there are eight sidewalk and trail system projects in the budget that I know a lot of people, I think it would really improve their quality of life. And then a pop-up mobile kiosk for our entrepreneurs and small business owners. So those are some of the highlights that I just wanted to point out.

that's good and thanks for bringing up the trails because a lot of people ask that question as well so those projects are in the cip and that's exciting and some of them in this next fiscal year so that's really cool all right any additional comments questions all right do i have a motion motion to approve of vice mayor manfredi second second and from uh... councilmember wade last chance for additional comments questions All right, seeing none, please vote.

I was going to say.

I say yes.

Okay. I love that, Council Member Wade. We're going to take a voice vote. And all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Very good. Thank you, Matt. Now, Matt did address item 8.4. and so we can unless there are comments or questions and i will stop and pause to see if there are he did address uh... the bed tax policy and again this is just the policy as it associates with the budget and i do not have any speaker cards do i have any questions or comments yes comes from an argue uh... i had asked when the agenda came out if we were going to receive aid

report of what the last wild west music fest um results were because in the bed tax policy we are designating the funds specifically for wild west music fest so i felt like it was important for us to have the results of the last one before i personally vote for this Do we have those results?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council Member Knorr. The event producer has 90 days to get that to us from the close of the event, and so we do not have numbers yet that we have received. So what we have today, though, is the bed tax policy as it exists. It's as it was approved back in October, so there are no changes at current. This can be changed in the future. The reason we have it again today is that our goal is that this becomes a part of the budget process every year. And so as we move forward, our goal is to, again, continue to either reaffirm or make those adjustments as necessary as part of the budget process. But as of today, the bed tax policy is the same bed tax policy that is considered for approval today.

Yes, and I understand that, but if we are voting on this today and we are designating the future funds, it says specifically that we're designating them to Wild West Music Fest, but we don't have any accounting on what the results of the last Wild West Music Fest were. And correct me if I'm wrong, the... contract with the event producer was three years, which we've done three years of, and then there's an option to renew. And so I just feel like before I personally can vote to expend or dedicate taxpayer dollars to the Wild West Music Fest, I want to know what happened at the last Wild West Music Fest and where the, you know, the success of it, the numbers, the ticket sales, the revenues, what was involved in it. I'd be very comfortable passing a bed tax policy that removes Wild West Music Fest and says event tourism, but I feel like if we pass this tonight, we are basically dedicating to another Wild West Music Fest when we don't even know what happened with the last one. For me, I have a hard time doing that. I don't feel it's responsible.

If I may, I considered that in reviewing this, but nowhere in here does it mention Wild West Music Fest. I think that's the distinguishing factor that we have to make. This is basically saying and informing anyone who reads it that we choose to strategically place our funds for cultural vitality uh... to attract visitors from across the region and we see in regards to those three items down below direct expenditures by the city or town to promote tourism so that word tourism is in there including but not limited to sporting events and cultural events contracts between the city and town a non-profit organizations or associations for the promotion of tourism by the non-profit organization or association and expenditures by the city or town to develop improve and operate tourism related attractions and facilities so i think that this is really just the guiding principle of what we intend to spend our bed tax policy on. It's really the budget or the futures meeting where we're talking about the exact use of this, but this here is really just the policy.

Okay, but where I read it, bed tax policy, on the second page it says current authorized expenditures, Wild West Music Festival.

In the policy?

Yeah.

It's on page two.

Second page. Second page, okay. All right, we don't have the second page in front of us.

No, I wasn't able to fit all of it into one screen.

Oh, okay.

Sorry. It's attached, though. It's in the...

All right, very good.

And Mayor, if I can jump in here.

Yes, please.

And yeah, just to clarify the record, it is there on that second page that those two authorized expenditures are for the art grant program and for the Wild West Music Festival. But if I understand City Manager Bitter's point, this is policy which can be changed at any moment by this council. And so if three weeks from now, tomorrow even, if we decide that we would want to authorize a different expenditure for the event tourism we could as a body but moving forward I think it would be helpful to have this rolled into our budget process as was explained by by council member or sorry city manager bitter And I to councilmember Norris point would also very much appreciate Some accountability or just some statements from the Wild West music fest what what those expenditures were what the incomes were so that we have a better picture of what's happening there as we Hopefully are drawing more individuals into our city as the purpose is so those are my thoughts. I

Could we adopt this removing current authorized expenditure Wild West Music Festival?

Again, Madam Mayor, members of the council, this is your policy, so you all can choose to do whatever you want. Just as it relates to the policy, what I'd say to Councilmember Gettle's point as well, Well, we have 90 days to get that report back because there's obviously Funds that come in and go out and they have to do those those balancing of the books for a large-scale event What we do have are some preliminary data as it relates to tools that we have internally. So we, if you recall, I believe last year we purchased a software called Placer AI, which allows us to access database information. I know this sounds scary, so just, it is what it is. But basically, our cell phones are all tracked and they can conglomerate that data and understand how many people are in any given area at any given time. And so we are able to tap into that database and say, well, how many people were here on this date or at this time or in this location at this date or this time? Not necessarily who was there. We can't figure that out, but a... data set removed of personal identification information. And so we can access that database and understand in terms of the trends of how attendance has been presumably for Wild West Music Fest over the course of the last three years. we do have that data and and as it relates to anecdotally we have an understanding that that attendance has increased by about twelve percent from this year or sorry from last year to this year and so we do know that that number is a third-party neutral uh... data that we can feel comfortable with looking at and saying okay We had about 12% more people in this area this year than we did last year during the event festival. So we have that concept, but as it relates to the hard numbers themselves, we don't have those and may not have them until the 90th day.

Councilman Renor, I would not be opposed to removing those two lines. In fact, you can tell just by my understanding, I didn't go beyond the process. And so I wouldn't be opposed to that, mostly because I don't want to come back every year and have to adjust a policy if there's no downfall to removing those last two items.

Well then I'll make a motion to approve the bed tax policy removing the line that says current authorized expenditures Wild West Music Festival.

Do I have a second? Who was that? Council Member Marsh, second. Any additional comments, questions? Yes, Council Member Gatto.

I just want to clarify that by removing these two authorized expenditures, does that handicap or tie the hands of our staff in pursuing the art grants, for example?

I didn't remove that part.

I heard in the motion that we were going to remove both of those expenditures. No. Just the Wild West Music Festival?

No, I do not want to remove the art grants, just Wild West Music Festival.

I'm not even sure that the ARC grants should be specifically listed, but my question is, is there a downside to making this change that does handcuff our staff from moving forward on both of these? And the way I read it, I would say no, but I'm not a lawyer, so I thought I'd better address this over to Dennis. Because at any point, we could choose to use those art funds for something different than grants. So the same thing is true there as is with Wild West Music Festival.

Well, I will point this out from a statutory perspective. How these funds can be used do have statutory limitations when it comes to tourism initiatives.

Yes, but we can change it based on those statutory limits.

It would have to meet those definitions. Yes, 100%. And that's one thing I just want to make sure everybody understood.

Exactly, exactly. Dennis, so is there a downside to removing those specific mentions?

No, I don't think, I think you can remove them both for now, bring them back. It's your policy, however you want to go. I mean, the policy says what the process is, and the statute defines how the funds can be used, so.

Okay, very good. So I do have a motion and a second. Any additional comments? Yes, Vice Mayor.

Matt, by removing both of those, both the grant money, the 5.5%, whatever, and the Words Wild West Music Fest from this, does this defund both of those programs? Because they're already in the budget, aren't they?

Uh, Vice Mayor, it's a good question. I mean, the specificity of how a line item is budgeted, uh, right now it would be defined that way. So if they are not defined that way, uh, it would require an update in terms of direction, uh, and how those funds will be spent. Those funds are being collected and coming in no matter what. Uh, so we're accounting for those every single month. The definition of what they are to be expended upon is set by this policy.

So we can still spend that money on Wild West Music Fest or a sporting event coming in or the grants for arts, correct?

If it meets the statutory definition by our understanding, yes.

Ideally. Yes. But if we don't fund Wild West Music Fest using the bed tax dollars, Wild West Music Fest is essentially in our budget already.

the capacity for the funding is in our budget cracks so that means we would take it from general fund or something i mean at the end of the day it's it's already in general fund uh... these are sales tax collections that go to the general fund we are counting for them as a specific business code with in the general fund that can be expected for specific expenditures uh... transit to technical on it but so the capacity for spend

Yeah, so taking the words off this, it doesn't really matter, simply because that's already in the budget as a funding, not a funding source.

Yeah, the funding source is there.

Yeah, it's already in the budget for Wild West Music Fest as well as the grant program.

And what you're primarily doing is saying what the allocation is. If you take those two things out, you still have allocated at 91% to tourism. and the other 9% to the arts. Right.

So down the road, we might say it's for something else for tourism. Right. But it doesn't really matter because it would have to be budgeted anyway. Correct. Which we can only spend it on something that's already in the budget. Right. Based on a tentative budget we just approved.

Yes.

So we all voted already on a tentative budget. Right.

And the administrative step to review the legality of the proposed tourism or arts expenditure to make sure that it's meeting the statutory definition of the appropriate spending.

Right. So the reality is it's already budgeted.

Yes.

I have specific questions about that then. Well, first of all, I just want to make it clear that my motion is not to remove the arts grant program. I don't mind that language being in there. My motion was just to remove the world, the line that says current authorized expenditures, Wild West Music Festival. That's my motion that Mr. Marsh, that Council Member Marsh seconded. So I want to make sure Council Member Marsh understands that was my motion when that's voted. But secondly, Council Member or Vice Mayor Manfredi is said that we budgeted, so is the words Wild West Music Fest in our budget that we just approved? Because I didn't see that.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, That's very complex. When we look at our budget, we have over 11,000 line items. Obviously, as we bring that before the city council and as we put that on our website for anyone to read, We couldn't possibly place 11,000 line items on there. It's too big. It's too hard. That's one of the reasons why as we go throughout this process, we continue to have the public discussion. We continue to provide the opportunities for feedback and go through that and try to find a way to really boil it down to to its essence of what it is. So if the question is do we have a line item within our accounting codes for Wild West Music Fest, absolutely. What I would say is that as we go throughout our budget, And what was authorized tonight as part of our budget is effectively capping a maximum spend. How we manage those dollars throughout the year really comes under the authority of the city manager. And so those are often moved around and managed on a day-to-day basis through our department directors, through our deputy city managers, assistant city manager, and myself.

okay so that I think that's an important distinction because like I said we are in a contract negotiation year with the event producer and I don't want anything we do here tonight to make it so that we have to that we're handcuffed when we're negotiating the new contract because when we get the numbers back and hopefully there is a 12 increase in attendees i would like the opportunity for staff and the council to potentially renegotiate that contract and maybe our spend on wildest music fest can go down as their revenues go up because we don't receive any of the profits and that's just why i want to make sure tonight that we don't handcuff ourselves with that

yeah great point and and you know mayor council members i think when we look at the dollars we look at it more holistically and we say hey these are dollars that we are programming for an event regardless of whether that is event a or event b What we're trying to do is achieve economic activity and achieve an opportunity for our community to welcome others into Maricopa and experience all the great things that we have here. Ultimately, that is the whole purpose of the tourism dollar restrictions in state statute is, hey, use those on activities that bring other people into your community and get that dollar generating additional revenue within our community. in this case, our community. And so our hope is really just to provide some clarity with the bed tax that says, okay, this is where we're generally directing. Now, I think that's also been occurring throughout the year as part of the strategic priorities. I think that's part of the year, goes throughout part of the year as part of the discussion on the budget. And so there are multiple touch points where we have these things. We will, as you've mentioned, we are on year-to-year basis with contract with SLE on Wild West Music Fest. And if that is not a successful negotiation or it doesn't come, it doesn't make sense to us and it doesn't, to serve the best interests of the city of Maricopa, then certainly we wouldn't move forward with that. And so all of those things are certainly still on the table. I don't know that removing this line item harms anything it provides a little less clarity as it relates to what has already been approved in maybe the budget or maybe more specifically within the strategic priorities but it doesn't restrict us by doing anything and in fact if you removed both for example it really becomes an evergreen policy right where you don't have to come back on an annual basis because the the underlying distribution is already in that place and so NOT TO ADVOCATE FOR ONE POSITION OR ANOTHER, THAT'S CERTAINLY NOT MY POSITION. BUT WHAT I WOULD SAY IS, YOU KNOW, WE USED THIS POLICY AND THIS POLICY WAS CREATED TO PROVIDE CLARITY FOR STAFF AS IT RELATES TO THE EXPENSE OF THOSE TOURISM TAX OR THE BED TAX DOLLARS. AND SO THAT'S REALLY WHERE I THINK THE INTENT WAS WITH US.

And if I may provide a little more technical clarity as well. Approving a line item in a budget tonight that said, let's just say there was a line item that specifically said Wild West Music Fest. It does not have to be spent on that in the same way that approving $10,000 in fire hoses does not mean that the fire chief has to go buy all $10,000 in fire hoses. What the policy provides for us from an actionable perspective is when our auditors come in and review our city policies, And they say, your city policy states that you will expend on X, Y, or Z. They're looking that that expenditure that took place is authorized and matches what the policy has stated. The policy as it exists right now states that the currently authorized expenditures are Wild West Music Fest, arts programs, grants, whatever that specific language is. It doesn't mean that things can't be amended, removed, added, whatever that might be. But what city manager did just say is, talk to an auditor, the ability to provide the clarity of what the policy said and what the expenditure was is what they are going to review at the end of the day. So that is where the clarity of the policy is important technically for the city. But that's why I think the term in that policy that says currently authorized expenditures, it is a council policy. And as our city attorney said, That's where it's your decision at the end of the day. That's just how we have to be able to execute it, but it does not commit to the very specific spend.

Madam Mayor, if I may.

Real quick as well, if I may.

Excuse me, he asked. Okay, thank you. Council Member Wade.

I'm trying to be able to support whatever motion on the motion comes forward. But what I'm trying to understand is, are we trying to protect the public by doing something, or are we trying to protect the public by not doing something? So I'm not real smart, so I'm trying to figure out what we are with that.

I can tell you that my intent with the motion is to make sure that we're not handcuffed into spending the money on Wild West Music Fest if the contract negotiations do not come favorably. That's all. I believe that removing that line item allows us to spend the money on Wild West Music Fest if the contract negotiation is favorable to the city, or it allows us to use it for a different tourism event if the contract negotiation is not favorable. So I'm trying to protect the taxpayer money and not give the event producer, the upper hand, where we're already committing the money without a contract.

So we're trying to avoid any harm to them either way. Yeah.

All right. So, yes, city manager.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just real quick, we were able to pull the accounting string. It actually does not say Wild West Music Fest on the accounting string. It just says tourism bed tax project code to track budget and expenses for Maricopa tourism in relation to the bed tax collection and distribution. So the line item specifically within our budget does not mention Wild West Music Fest. So it gives us flexibility. Correct. Yeah.

All right, so I would like to propose a secondary motion, or a substitute motion, because I could see this either way. Oh, yes? Are you? An amendment. Okay. I interpreted it slightly different that a substitute motion could be done on top of. Okay. I'll do it your way. Okay. All right. All right.

Yes.

Very good. Then I would like to propose an amendment to the motion because I can see this going to one of two different ways. The first being the fact that the comments have been made and stated that this policy can be changed at any moment. And so by giving finance what they need in terms of and audit position to say here's what we approved it to be spent on and they can point to this policy listing both elements make sense to me i'm not a hundred percent uh... it has to be that way i like the fact that it makes it something useful for the finance department i could see it if we remove both of them i don't see keeping one in because our hands if you use the words our hands are tied they're tied or they're not tied and i don't want my hands tied by any of this i want to have the flexibility and the freedom to make changes as we need to and as information comes up so i'm going to make a amendment to the motion if accepted yeah i'm gonna go first with the fact that we leave it as proposed knowing that we can modify it when we learn more information and our hands are not tied That leaves both the Art Grants Inn and the Wild West Music Fest as something that finance can point to in regards to how we use these funds at this point. Do I have a second? No, no. Oh, no, I'm sorry. You have to accept it.

I don't accept it. I would like to vote my motion.

Can I make another amendment? I'm really challenging you tonight.

Yes.

Yes. Okay, so I'd like to make an amendment that we remove both elements from the policy because if we leave one on and not the other, I still have to come back and change the policy. To me, the policy is a pure document that says we intend to use whatever the, you took it off the screen, but 91% for tourism and 9%, whatever the numbers were, on art. And so that's the policy. And I would rather remove both and not be specific about anything and leave that door open. That's my motion for amendment, or my amendment request.

Your amendment.

I can't see the policy now because we have the voting up. So I want to look at it before I agree to that amendment. sorry the little box is up to vote so I can't look at the document so what I see here is that At the top it says, 91% of receipts funding for event tourism initiatives, including current and future events. So that's pretty broad. That gives us flexibility. Bullet point two says 9% of receipts funding for the arts grant program. So that's the arts grant program. So I will accept the mayor's amendment because it says current authorized expenditure arts grant program, but we're already saying 9% is going for the funding for the arts grant program. So it doesn't really change anything there. I will accept that. Accept.

All right. Amended motion.

Madam Mayor, I still have a comment if I could.

Yes, please. Council Member Gatto.

I think a lot of the conversation tonight, very healthy, and I enjoy this. The problem as I see it is that we just, it's a timing issue. We're not ready technically to vote on this issue without the data that was requested months ago. And so... i may choose to vote against this motion and and second so as to be able to put forward a motion to table this item until we have those information and then make a informed vote when we have the data that we're asking for i don't think and maybe city manager bitter can inform me better in this i don't think this is a timing Pressing issue. We don't have to decide this issue tonight We still have the 90 days from post wild west together that data that we're requesting So the current policy could stand until we have the data then we could actually make an informed decision here this evening So I plan to vote against both motion and second

All right, thank you for that additional information. Any other comments, questions? Yes, Council Member Lehrman.

So Council Member Gettle, you're voting against the 91.9 percentages?

No, I'm voting against changing current policy based on data that I don't have.

Thank you.

And my understanding is current policy will stand until we choose to change it so the arts grant is still protected.

So I was just going to ask any additional comments, questions. All right. Seeing none, please place your vote.

I vote yes.

All right, so all votes are in, and that motion carries. That item is approved, 5-2. All right, that brings us to the end of our agenda. I call this meeting closed. Thank you.