City Council - Regular Meeting

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. 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. In accordance to state law, city resources and facilities may not be used for election-related activities, including discussions of candidacies, vote solicitation, or campaign events. 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.

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It takes a lot of money. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

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welcome to this regular city council meeting june 2nd 2026 i call this meeting to order i would like to invite up pastor david anderson from b community church to give the invocation and council member ghetto would you do lead us in our pledge of allegiance please rise if you're able

honoring you mayor nancy and the rest of the city council minute members vice mayor i mean vice yeah vice mayor as well um you know when i have a chance to lead prayer i'll attempt to you know focus on something and and today one of the things that stands out to me in our nation is unity and so that's what i want to to pray about and uh praying for our city uh the bible states that behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity so let us pray father we thank you today for the opportunity to honor you this evening in prayer we are grateful for the gathering tonight for this meeting of the city council we honor you lord for this day that you have blessed us with we pray that our hearts and minds are yielded to you We ask that you bless the meeting in this great city of Maricopa. Please lead our leaders as they lead our city. And Father, we pray that in this city, Father, that you will help us to be a people of unity. Help us, Father, to stand on one accord. And even in our differences, we pray, Father God, that we'll learn to stand together. We bless you today in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Please 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.

That'll take us to roll call. Vanessa, please. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so used to that, I didn't even look up.

I didn't even warn you this time. Council Member Gittle.

Thank you very much All right, that'll take us to item 3.1, which is for proclamations acknowledgments awards and presentations today We have one and so council if you'd like to join me down in front I'd be happy to have you join me For this proclamation, I'd like to call out Brianna Reinhold from Northern Lights Therapy, Lawrence Wells from Wells Counseling, and Flo Quezada, did I get that right? Yeah, did I get that right? From Local Mental Health Professionals. Whereas Men's Health and Mental Health Month is part of an ongoing effort to educate men, boys, and their families about preventative care, early detection, and healthier lifestyles. And whereas men in the United States die on average six years earlier than women, often due to preventable health conditions, and whereas men's health outcomes are deeply influenced by access to education, caregiving, support, and engagement across their lifespan, with efforts being made to advance men's health, education, and advocacy, including Men's Health Month. And whereas, strengthening care partnerships improves health outcomes for men, families, and communities with a strong focus on mental health awareness throughout the month to combat high suicide rates and stigma. And whereas, over six million men experience depression annually, with men dying by suicide at nearly four times the rate of women. And whereas campaigns emphasize that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, encouraging men to challenge traditional stoic roles by focusing on promoting regular sleep, physical exercise, stress reduction, and maintaining social connections. Now, therefore, I, Nancy Smith, Mayor of the City of Maricopa, do hereby proclaim the month of June, 2026, as Men's Health and Mental Health Month to encourage individuals, families, employers, and communities to support men's health through education, connection, and shared care. Please give these entities a round of applause. They do a lot of work. I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Lehrman who brought this proclamation forward and she will introduce them.

I just want to thank each of these providers.

All right, that takes us to the next item on the agenda. It's a report from mayor and council members. Yes, Council Member Marsh.

It's been two weeks since our last council meeting. On May the 20th, I had participated in a Chamber of Commerce government affairs meeting at ED3. I distributed a summary of the legislative bills that are relevant to small businesses, and we each took a homework assignment home to study those and see which ones we wanted to support or not support. On the 21st, that was the last Stephen Colbert late night show, and that was important to everybody. On the 28th, the Board of Adjustment, County Board of Adjustment in Florence, it was business as usual. They're still stuck with the old zoning code and we're still processing silly stuff. On the 9th of June, there's a celebration of my wife's life at the community center, 3 to 6 p.m. Food, drinks, slideshows, open mic, et cetera. Please come. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Additional comments, questions? I mean, comments? It's a quiet night tonight. Okay. Council Member Wade.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to recognize an activity that took place last week on Thursday over at the community center. It was an opportunity for candidates and people who are running for office, elected officials in the community. It was done very well, and there was a lot of pretty good turnout there. I'm sure they would have liked to have had more. But what was significant about it, it was nonpartisan, friendly, cordial gathering of individuals in the city of Maricopa to support one another, either supporting one another or each other. And I thought it was very well done. I appreciated it. On Saturday, Ms. Monita Allen, who is a member and organizer of St. I don't think of the name of the organization. Salvation Army. Salvation Army, yes. Salvation Army took place over at Global Water. That was a recognition ceremony for people who had contributed to the Salvation Army, particularly Ms. Allen's efforts. Her efforts were recognized, and she recognized members of the community as well. Very, very well done. Very much appreciated. Quite a few people who were recognized by Ms. Allen and the Salvation Army. And that's all I wanted to share. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Wade. Yes. Council Member Laramie.

I want to give my condolences to Council Member Marsh. I'm very sorry for your loss. And I just wanted to share that the farmers market has moved back indoors at CAC. So please visit them there. And then I wanted to remind everyone. Pardon me Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any additional comments. Yes, Vice Mayor.

Coming up on June 6th, we have the Maricopa First Friday event. It's not Maricopa First Friday event, but it's a fundraiser for First Friday. It's coming up on June 6th from 6 to 10 at Duke's Roadhouse. They're going to have live band raffles and lower drink prices than normal. And then this fall they're gonna Councilmember Learman and a bunch of others will launch this fall First Fridays coming around for the city of Maricopa, which is going to be a great thing for us in downtown area, but that's the Fundraiser they're having on June 6th from 6 to 10. All right

Very good. All right. Just a couple things from my perspective. I attended some great graduations, some phenomenal information that I picked up from the two that I was able to attend, Heritage Academy graduation. 43 out of 240 of their graduates graduated with an associate's degree. that's pretty impressive i was like wow that's pretty magnificent went to the maricopa high school graduation 440 graduates there 15 of them are moving on to the military and they got a standing round of applause as well just some amazing students that we have graduating from our high schools The veteran memorial, I don't know how many of you were able to attend that. It was, in my mind, just phenomenal because when we had this last year, when we opened up this memorial, we probably had less than half of what we had this year. The whole memorial area was full. There are now, if you're curious, 142 memorial bricks there. and I enjoyed just taking them all in. And I walked around and I encouraged the audience to walk around, talk to the people who put these bricks there, meet people, hear their story, because we have some amazing stories from our veterans here in the city of Maricopa. City Manager and I and Intergov Katie had a meeting with the governor's office just to share with you. There are two new programs. You can find these programs on my mayor's Facebook page. There's links to them with all of the details. The first program is called Efficiency Arizona. It's a rebate program for qualified households to install high efficient appliances and HVAC. And so many of our homes are getting to that age where these are necessary to replace. So please go check that out and see if you qualify. Then they also have the Power Arizona, which is access for utility assistance. I found that to be a wonderful service as well. As I indicated, the links to both of those are on my Mayor Facebook page. We also talked to the governor's office about our 347. Of course, we have to bring that up. And they asked us what's important to us. And we're like, do not claw back any money for 347. And so they didn't indicate that they had any intention of doing that. But we made it pretty obvious that we felt strongly about that. I did go to the Salvation Army Awards luncheon. It was wonderful. Any of you who get to meet any of those volunteers, and specifically Juanita, these people serve As volunteers on Juanita, she probably puts in a full-time job every week, maybe even more, on a volunteer basis. It's quite amazing what she accomplishes and what all of her volunteers accomplish. I had just so much fun listening to all of their accomplishments. I also went, this is the year, I was telling city manager this today, this is the year of 20th anniversaries. So I'm going to mention the one that I went to, 20th anniversary for Desert Sun Performing Arts. That's an organization that trains our young women and men in dance, and I think they also do gymnastics. But 20 years of service in the city of Maricopa, that's awesome. Water and ice also is 20 years old. For Maricopa Food Bank becomes 20 years old next year. And I'm missing one that I didn't write down, but this is the year of 20 year anniversaries. And that is the end of my mayor's report. That takes us to the city manager report.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. Just a few items today. First of all, you may have seen on our social media pages that we posted about an upcoming intersection improvement at Desert Greens and Smith Inc. Lots of good stuff there, and that's something that we certainly wanted everyone to be aware of, so I thought I'd bring that up again. But please go check out the video. Yes, the lights will be synced with the light at Porter, so those are really close, and we're doing everything we can to improve traffic, not make it worse. That is certainly something that we'll commit to as we go forward. Another item that is important and is often caught up in regular business, when we talk about fees and how those things move forward, we have certain statutes that we have to follow. And so we've posted on our website We'll be addressing at a future City Council meeting fees for the new field house That's exciting because that means that the field houses is here on the on the brink of opening and so here within the next few months We'll see the field house opening before that we'll actually work on getting some fees approved for renting or reserving that facility so if there's going to be a tournament coming and and what the the usage fees may be also maybe some for Mike Ingram Heritage Park if we've as we've brought that on board and if there's a desire to reserve those kind of things. So certainly go to our website under the public notices section that is there. And then the last thing that I would mention is something that I think we've all waited for for a long time, but we should see widening work on State Route 347 starting this month. So excited.

Hallelujah. That's going to be really cool. All right, that takes us to the call to the public. At this point, I do have three speaker cards. I'll call them individually, and then if someone else would like to approach the podium, you'll just have to say your name. I do want to, you saw in the video leading up to the meeting, a reminder that this is election time. We do want to hear people's opinions, but we need to not provide for an opportunity for electioneering. So if you come to the podium, electioneering is not allowed, and that's per state statute. So we wanted to make that just as a reminder. So we'll start with the speaker cards. My first is Jason Royal. There you are. I was looking for you. I was like, where is he?

Pardon my tardiness. Right on time. Hello, how you guys are doing? First, I want to thank you all for allowing me to address the council tonight. But first I want to, Amber, we want to just thank you for taking on the task for the first Friday. And of course, we are gratefully want to get on board with you and help you out as far as getting this event going and everything, because it could be great for Maricopa. So we want to applaud you for that and applaud everyone for bringing this great event to Maricopa. The BMCC want to partner with you all and just invite everybody out. We have our own fundraiser that's this Saturday at the library. It's a gathering. We are Zone 4. I'm the team lead for Zone 4. We named our zone the Vibe Zone. So we named our zone the Vibe Zone. So we want you guys to come out. and just associate with us, mingle with us. We're gonna have food, we're gonna have live music, things like that, and just let the community know about First Friday, let them know about our zone, what are we gonna be offering at our zone. So we wanna let you guys know, for myself and the BMCC, we are standing with you all with this, and we are excited for First Friday and what it's gonna do for Maricopa in the years to come that we're gonna do this event. And the event, sorry, is this Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the library. And also, sorry, sorry, okay, I'm, okay, so. It's kids eat free. It's $25 for non-BMCC members and 24 members. And with one ticket, the kids eat free. So the menu, we have flyers. The menu is a great menu, but the kids are going to eat free with a ticket. So I think it's two to three kids per ticket. So that's another thing we got for our event. OK. Can we give you guys a flyer? Okay.

You can hand it over to, yeah, thank you very much. All right. The next speaker is Ron and Jeremy. And, Ron, I want you to realize I knew what you were going to be talking about, and I did not mention it. At least I think I know what you're going to talk about.

No, I'm not going to talk about that. What? Okay.

Well, you might have to fit it in at the end.

I'll try.

Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you City Council for the opportunity to talk about State Route 347. Given the accident data I presented at the last City Council meeting, I still believe a reprioritization of the removal of the traffic light at Casablanca is warranted. In talking with the people of Maricopa, I've yet to come across a person who believes that waiting a year before further consideration of the traffic light removal at Casablanca makes sense. In fact, most of the Maricopans I have spoken with believe that the removal of the traffic light is already included in the current ADOT plan. When I educate them to the fact that this is not the case, they are questioning why and strongly believe it should be. Given the fact, after my talk at the last City Council meeting, there was a unanimous vote from the City Council, no questions or comments, save the explanation from City Manager Bitter, that you all believe that the current ADOT plan for 347 is sufficient. No further action is required in this budget cycle. That your conversations with the public and your view of the traffic data tells you that creating a plan and budget for 347 traffic light removal at Casablanca is not necessary at this time. that the sales tax created to fund the renovation of 347 is better spent on other traffic alternatives rather than the light removal. To be clear, I fully support projects such as Green Loop and Seed Farm corridor improvements. I believe those projects are important and should remain part of the overall transportation plan. However, I also believe that Casablanca intersection represents an immediate public safety issue that deserves a higher priority. What would be most helpful moving forward is understanding what circumstances, information, or data would cause the council to reconsider its position. What information could be presented that would justify creating a plan and a budget for the removal of Casablanca Light during this budget cycle? Or has the council already determined that no additional information at this time would change the current prioritization? Once again, I am convinced from conversations I have had with the people of Maricopa, the traffic data shared with me from Arizona Department of Trade Public Safety, that the traffic light of Casablanca is a clear and pleasant danger to the citizens of Maricopa. I respectfully request that you reconsider your prioritization and move to include a plan and budget for the removal of the light of Casablanca into this budget cycle. Thank you. And thank you, Mayor, yes. The 347 Facts team, I know I'm not supposed to trust the audience, but for the people that are here, would you guys mind standing up? We won the Arizona Department of... Talk into the mic, Ron. Oh, sorry. We won the Arizona... They have a partnership award, and we won the award for the state. So there's an award ceremony gonna be in Tucson in a couple weeks, and we won this category demonstrating the best use of partnerships to achieve an objective. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, my next speaker card is Tori Anderson.

Mayor Smith Council I apologize I'm not wearing my jeans and boots I just came from the gym so I had to slip this in on the schedule. We have an opportunity on June 27th at 6 p.m. to make a huge impact in our community to the young men who have aged out of foster care. We have several in Maricopa that are homeless and that has happened over the several years since I was teaching in high school. So it's important to me to make sure that we move forward with a prosperous community and we're able to take care of these young men. The young women currently go into our Against Abuse shelter, so they're able to finish high school and graduate and move on. But there is nothing for our young men. So we've taken this on, a small group of us, and we've planned our first annual fundraiser, Dirty Boots and Dollars. This first small fundraiser is only 100 people. I still do have about 25 tickets available, so I hope that you will definitely text me. Go to our Facebook page, which is Open Arms Vocational Living Center. If you can't find anything there, please text me at 520-560-3665. I will send you the QR code. Sponsorships are $1,000 and $500. But tickets are only $100. That includes dinner, dancing, raffles, and just a good time to come out and understand what this new purpose is and what we're here for. So this is an opportunity to join a small group of people at this point that are going to make a huge impact in this community. So I am passionate about this mission, about taking care of our youth so that we can have amazing adults that will continue to thrive in this community. So I hope you'll join me. And several council members, Mayor Smith, thank you. You already bought your tickets. I appreciate that support. But we do have still tickets available, and I hope you'll join me at Duke's Roadhouse on June 27th at 6 p.m. Wear your dirtiest boots. I know Adam's got his on. And I love that. Wear your comfy jeans, your dirty boots, and come and join us for a night of grub, You know, Western dancing, the band starts at 7, doors open at 6, and I look forward to seeing you all there to celebrate this next journey that we have for our community to take care of the young men. So hope to see you there. June 27th at 6 p.m. And again, you have my number. You can text me if you need more information. But I'm excited to start this new adventure to accompany against abuse and taking care of our youth and those in need. So thank you. Yee-haw.

There you go.

All right, that's the end of my speaker cards. Would anyone like to approach the podium and speak during the call to the public? seeing none i will close the call to the public that'll take us to the consent agenda this evening we have consent agenda items seven one through seven three and council we've been requested to table seven one so uh... i will move to see if you have any questions or concerns regarding anything else but if i get to the motion please include the table lean of items seven dot one Any further conversation, discussion, questions? Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve tabling 7.1.

Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Marsh. Last chance for opportunity for questions and... Comments? Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion carries. Excellent, that'll take us to item 8.1, and this is a presentation from Global Water and an update.

Is this on?

OK. Well, good evening, Mayor Smith, Vice Mayor Manfredi, council members. Thank you for allowing us to present tonight. My name is John Corwin with Global Water. And I have Jake Linderking, who's our senior vice president of water resources and legislative affairs, who's also going to provide an update on water resources element of the business. We have quite a few slides here, so I'm gonna move pretty quick, but quick agenda. So wanna talk a little bit about growth as it relates to our utilities in the city of Maricopa, highlight a number of capital deployment projects that we did in 2025, some that we're planning for in 2026, give an update on our rate review that's been ongoing for the past couple of years, some updates on water quality, And then, like I said, Jake's going to give an update on things related to statewide water resources and also local water resources. And then we'll bring it home with an update on our customer assistance program. Really, the genesis of this presentation is from the MOU that was signed between Global Water and the city back in 2011. And so as part of that MOU, we provide a written annual report by May 1. And this presentation really kind of summarizes that report. So kind of high level just on the growth of our service connections, both on the water side and the wastewater side in the city of Maricopa over the past year, we did see an increase of about a thousand connections, both on the water side and the wastewater side. So down just a little bit from the last few years, but still, you know, a good growth rate, about 3.5% for the year in total. And that brings our total connection count to about 60,000. So about 30,000 water, 30,000 on the wastewater side. Also some highlights from a numbers perspective. The first one I'd like to highlight really shows kind of the success and conservation both through Global Water, the city and our customers and everything that we're doing here in the city of Maricopa. So with that 105 gallon number is showing is the average use per capita in the city of Maricopa per day. In the Phoenix and Pinell active management areas, so the largest kind of providers, In central Arizona, the average use is about 182 gallons. So of all the designated providers, Global Water, the city of Maricopa is number two of all those designated providers in that active management area. So again, kind of kudos to everybody, the city, customers, and Global Water for kind of the focus on conservation there. And Jake will talk a little bit more about that. Additionally, we recycled just under 1.5 billion gallons of recycled water over the past year as well. Again, water that we deferred from pulling out of the aquifer and were able to reuse in the community. And then lastly, we did deploy about $30 million over the past year in 2025 into the community through utility infrastructure. That'll highlight some of those projects here on the next few slides. The first few upgrades that I'd like to highlight are at our Campus One wastewater facility. So that's the campus there by our office, kind of on the north side of town. So a few pictures there. The first one is a new belt press. So exciting stuff, I know. Belt press is kind of the dewatering element at the very end of the wastewater treatment process, but very important part of the process. And the new belt press gives us reliability and redundancy in that kind of final step of the treatment process. And then we also deployed some new fine screens and medium screens. So that's the process that screens out baby wipes and Clorox wipes, things that people flush down the toilet that they shouldn't flush. We have to get that out of the process before it goes through the wastewater treatment system, otherwise it kind of hinders our ability to treat wastewater. So a couple of exciting projects there, at least if you're in the wastewater industry. So similarly, we commissioned our Campus 2 water reclamation facility. So that's the facility kind of south of the at Papa go in 347. So that serves the Amarillo Creek area and the new development south of town. So that facility is about a half million gallon can treat up to half million gallons per day of wastewater. And again, that project was about 20 years in the making originally constructed in late about 2027 or 2008. And has been kind of idle since then because of the Great Recession and growth not coming to that area. So is officially in service as of December of 2025. And then lastly, we built and commissioned a wastewater lift station in the Maricopa Station area, again, just south of the railroad tracks by Lowe's and the new apartments that went in. So that helps convey wastewater kind of south of the tracks to our wastewater facility on the north side of town. Some projects that we're working on for 2026, more kind of on the planning phase versus actual construction. So again, our wastewater campus on the north side of town, we're doing master planning and evaluation of adding capacity to that facility so that we're prepared as growth continues to happen and also maximizing the use of that footprint at that facility. Adjacent to that facility, we continue to work on the recharge project that we've partnered with the city on, and so that's in a design and permitting phase. Jake's helping lead the charge on that. That project will allow us to recharge up to three million gallons of A-plus recycled water per day, and the great part about that is we take that excess recycled water that we would otherwise put in the Santa Rosa wash, we get it out of the wash, And it becomes a resource for the future that we obtain water credits that we can use to, again, facilitate growth within the city. So we expect construction to commence in 2027 on that project. And then lastly, we continue to plan for additional infrastructure on the water side. So we've done a pilot hole for a new well on the east side of town out in Rancho Mirage. And we're also doing the design for the next water storage tank at our Rancho Mirage water distribution center to ensure we have proper or adequate water storage for both growth and also for fire flow. All right, so transitioning a little bit over to the rate review process. Again, this has been kind of in the works for the past couple of years. Just as a refresher, we filed a rate review in March of 2025, so a little bit over a year ago, and that was both for our water utility and our wastewater utility here in the city of Maricopa. It was based on a 2024 test year, meaning we kind of took a snapshot in time of using 2024 for our expenses and investments. And that was what the rate review was based off of. The current rates are based off of a test year of 2019. So over seven years ago from now, when the last rate, I guess the rates are based on 2019. So, and between that period of time, between 2019 and 2024, inflation has been about 26%. So that's really the major driver of that request. The original timeline for that request was that rates would be going into effect here mid-year. However, it's been delayed a little bit. This chart kind of shows the overall process of a rate review with the Corporation Commission. It's obviously in-depth and thorough. We're currently in a process where we're working through a settlement with both the ACC staff and RUCO, who's the consumer's office for the state, and also obviously ourselves. So that settlement agreement will still go before a judge to hear kind of the information there and then the five elected commissioners to vote on that. We expect that to transpire over the next six months or so. So again, a little bit on the settlement agreement that we're working through, again, with the agreement of the ACC and RUCO. So all parties have agreed to bifurcate the case, meaning we're going to separate out the water side and the wastewater side. So the water utility will continue to proceed in the rate hearing. And that's what those rates will likely go into effect at the end of this year. The wastewater utility, we're going to withdraw that application and then file it again next year. And so we'll have 2026 will be the test year and the process will start in 2027 with rates anticipated to go into effect in 2028 for the wastewater side. Just a real high level, the anticipated increase would be $2.68 per month for the median user on the water side. And then on the wastewater side, we are, even though we're withdrawing that request right now, there will be a slight, increase to the credit back to the customers for the premature collection of revenue related to our Southwest plant. So that'll go from $1.73 to $2.85. So overall, the net increase will be less than $2 for the median customer. And then we do anticipate for Santa Cruz, kind of in line with smaller but more frequent rate cases, we anticipate filing a subsequent rate review in 2028 with rates would likely go into effect in 2029 based on whatever the outcome of that rate review would be. A couple, transitioning to water quality, I know that's obviously an important topic. I wanted to highlight a few things and get some information out to the community related to water quality. So a great product that all public water systems provide this time of year is what's called a consumer confidence report. And that's really each public water system provides information related to kind of the quality of their water, the constituents within their water, what they've detected in their water over the past year. And so those will be actually published on July 1st to our website, and there will be an insert in customers' June bills that will highlight the URL you can go to to find that information. So just wanted to highlight that for customers. And then also another thing that's kind of been in the news a lot related to water quality is PFAS. So the PFAS are, I'm not even going to try to say the actual name there, but they're manmade chemicals. They've been around for many years, but they're in many consumer products. And over time, groundwater has been contaminated by PFAS substances. So the EPA has decided to regulate those substances. I guess the good news is in Maricopa we don't have any of the PFAS substances in our groundwater. It's been non-detect in the numerous samples that we've taken. So obviously that's good on two fronts. The first being the water doesn't have this substance in it. The second is we don't have to treat for it in the future because it's an expensive treatment process and ongoing cost to treat for that. So I did want to highlight that just because I know that question comes up periodically and wanted to get that information out. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jake, and he's going to, again, provide some updates on water resources. Thanks.

Thanks, John. Mayor and council, thank you for allowing us this chance to talk about what we're doing. I really appreciate it. I'm Jake Lenderking. I do water resources and legislative affairs for Global Water Resources. I'm going to touch on the Colorado River ever so briefly. It's a very big issue. Touch on groundwater regulation, another very big issue, but I'll touch on it briefly. I'll bring it home closer to Ag to Urban and ultimately our designation of Assured Water Supply and Conservation Programs. But first I wanna explain something I always forget to explain. I talk an acre feet and nobody knows what that means. It's enough water to inundate a foot, an acre, a foot deep, about 326,000 gallons or about four homes at Maricopa. And it's often abbreviated M for million acre feet, KAF for a thousand acre feet and so on. So right into the Colorado River. The Colorado River is in a very serious place. It's been in drought for many years. There's an agreement that has not been renewed by the seven basin states, and in fact, not even an agreement on how to renew it. It is also followed up with a very bad hydrologic year. So what does that mean? We're going to have significant releases and changes and releases from the reservoirs that are on the Colorado River. Ultimately, that led to action. Even though there's been inaction amongst the seven basin states, the lower basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada have come to an agreement to take shortage upon themselves to help prop up lake mead levels and to ensure a little bit more resiliency in the system. They're planning to save about 3.2 million acre feet over 2027 and 2028 with an additional 700,000 to a million acre feet over those two years as well. That means about a 27% cut to Arizona's Colorado River entitlement or about a 20% cut to the M&I priority level water to the greater municipal water providers that rely on that, the Greater Phoenix and Tucson area. Good news is we do not directly rely on this water at all, but it is something we watch very closely and it affects our greater state. One other point I'd like to make on that, those municipal providers that will in fact see cuts, it does not translate directly to cuts to consumers. These are large municipal providers and working towards resiliency and diversifying their water supplies for decades and they're well prepared to weather this. That said, they're all different, whether it's Cave Creek or Goodyear or Surprise, all of these cities and towns have their own utilities and their own water supply portfolio. So what happens to each one is unknown to me from an aggregate of every single one, but I do believe in general they're in a good position to deal with this first round of cuts. There's been a lot of regulation in Arizona in the last 46 years. 46 years ago, the Groundwater Management Act was created and then almost nothing until 2019. And I won't go over every single one of these in detail, but we have new INAs or Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas. We have new AMAs or Active Management Areas that allow for additional more stringent regulations like we have here in the Pinal AMA. And then we also have basins that have closed to new appropriations of groundwater under the Assured Water Supply Program. What does that mean? Well, it's not new to us here in Pinal. In 2019, the Department of Water Resources closed the Pinal Active Management Area for new groundwater appropriations specific to the Assured Water Supply Program, meaning mostly folks that were seeking new certificates for subdivisions could not get them. We're really fortunate. We're not one of those. We have a designation of Assured Water Supply. that we've had for many years that kind of transcends this issue, if you will. We've had it since many years before and worked on laws to ensure that it's able to stay in place. So it's a good and bad story, all the regulation. It's hard in my position to review it and stay up with it and make sure that we're all whole. It's also good because we're, as a state, making water more resilient. And I'll touch on... our designation of Assured Water Supply a little bit more here in just a moment. Lots of rules and law changes, lots of legislative changes, more bills this year than ever before, more mentioned water. Luckily, almost all of those have failed. There's been a lot of deliberative process on this. There are some really good ones out there, though. I just draw your attention to the one on the very bottom, House Bill 2098, Piqua Bonding. That's the Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority. Council member Marsh and I both serve on the Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority, or PICWA, and have been working on this bill for two years. Last year, it didn't make it through the process. This year, I'm very happy to say it received overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed by the governor. Next steps for us at PICWA is to figure out what we want to do with that bonding authority and how we can bring more resilient water supplies or what we want to spend the bonding on to make us more resilient in Pinal. Ag to Urban, while it's not a bill from this year, it passed last year. I think it's really important to mention because it comes home to us. Last year it was signed into law. It codifies a process that allows agricultural landowners to transition their farms to municipal areas. Agricultural areas use about three and a half acre feet per acre in the Pinal active management area. And in Pinal, we would then see a water right of only one acre foot. I think it's really good from a water conservation perspective, leaving that water in the aquifer. It's also additive to our designation of assured water supply. And with that, I'll turn to our designation and be very specific about what we have going here. In 2013, we received a designation of assured water supply order from the Department of Water Resources for 22,914 acre feet. It includes groundwater and recycled water. Today, actually just today, around 4 o'clock, we got the final application over the wire to apply to modify that designation to increase it. and add different kinds of water supplies. You'll see at the bottom we're asking for 27,466 acre feet, of which is a little bit less groundwater than the old designation. The Department of Water Resources calculates a volume of 100 years of water in this program, so if you use a little bit, that chips away when you reapply. We are adding in those GSC credits or some groundwater savings credits from the Ag to Urban program, diversifying our water supply portfolio a little bit. And then lastly, a lot more recycled water. And that's really due to how our consumers and residents here use the water. We are conserving more outside. Our return flow percentage that we're able to turn into recycled water has went up. There's also a range there because there's a little gray area in the law. And so we didn't want to tell everybody we're going to get 27,000 acre feet when we might get 22, but most likely 26,000 acre feet. We're doing this, not just renewing it, but adding the GSC credits. We worked hard towards the Ag to Urban Law and to make sure that could happen, and bringing in more recycled water, both in the north area and the southwest service area, because it adds that resiliency to our water supply. It adds that level that we can have a safety blanket, if you will. In times of drought, in times of regulatory change, we've got to be diligent and make sure we have our water supply and our ducks in a row. Lastly, I'll turn to water conservation. Last year, we made a great hire, Lily Surmay. She's been doing a really good job of bringing a lot more to the community in terms of water conservation. We had a good program and she doubled down. She's got these amazing presentations in classrooms, as well as out at Copper Sky and Project Wet Water Festival, bringing volunteers there, as well as bringing a lot of education materials to many different places across town. Lastly, I want to say that she brought forward and put in place our two new incentive programs. We have a turf rebate program for folks who want to remove turf. They can apply to receive $1 per square foot. We've had about 35,000 square feet removed under this program since last April, and a new smart irrigation controller rebate program. It allows folks who want to update to a smart irrigation controller like those across the bottom there that actually sync up with the cloud, so to speak, or the internet, and they'll tell you, they'll tell your controller how to run better in accordance with the weather or the seasons and allow you to save water. 43 rebates have been issued since June of 2025. Both of those are currently grant funded, one by the Bureau of Reclamation and one by WIFA, or the Water Infrastructure and Finance Authority. They're really great programs. If you know anybody that wants to, you can reach out to me, go to our website, or I can connect you with Lily, who's helped a lot of customers receive these rebates. Thank you. I'm gonna turn it back over to John.

And last slide here, I always like to finish with our customer assistance program. You know, again, trying to get the information out that we do have this great program available. You can see the eligibility criteria there. You know, oftentimes we can find ways to help people achieve eligibility through that program. We talked a few times about the Salvation Army tonight. Again, they're at Global Water nearly every week helping people. They help administer this program on our behalf. So It's great to see him at our office every week doing that and helping our customers. So I wanted to highlight that again. It's a $700 annual benefit for people that need it. So with that, happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, John. So I have no speaker cards. Council, any comments, questions? Yes, Council Member Wade.

Hi, John. How are you doing this evening? Doing well. I just want to congratulate Beth on the efforts that she puts forth over at Lower Water as well. Between her and Anita, they're doing some great things, but Beth, both of them jewels, but Beth worked for you, so I'm coming to you to acknowledge her. She's an outstanding person.

I appreciate that. Yeah, I got excited, and I forgot to introduce Beth. Our client services manager is here, and also Chris Krieger, our chief operating officer. So... Thanks, Council Member.

Council Member Knorr.

Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, John. I appreciate the presentation. I think just for public purposes, I know the answers to these questions, but I think it's always good to reiterate. I know people have fears around water security. And so I like to talk about the facts, especially for us here in Maricopa. And I know we talked about the Colorado River, and that's important to the state. But here in Maricopa, do we use any Colorado River water for our homes? do not all water here is is groundwater pumped from well is that that's correct so because i we hear a lot about the drought and the river and and that is a concern but it does not impact the people of maricopa and our homes here and i think it's important to reiterate that um for everybody i appreciate all of the programs you have to help conserve water um and i know this is random and i probably well if When you talked about your assured water supply. That that is something that you can only build enough homes up into it to your capacity correct.

That's correct. And Jake, correct me if I say anything wrong, but yeah, the designation allows us to, it's kind of our current limit of the water that we can use on an annual basis. Right.

I would add to that homes and businesses. Anybody who uses one. And apartments. And apartments.

And multi-families. And businesses too, right? That's correct. And businesses. Okay. So we can't authorize new homes or new businesses if there isn't already water that is designated and assured for them to utilize, correct?

Yes, it's gone through a process through the Department of Water Resources to confirm that water is available and it's available for many years into the future.

That's correct. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah, please. Can I just add to that? The Assured Water Supply Program at ADWR is a very serious program. It's a very long time to get an application through. We just applied today. We estimate 12 to 24 months to get that application done. It's done with a lot of rigor at the Department of Water Resources, and we have to prove up seven major criteria, not just that the water's there, but that we can get it, that the water quality's there, and so on and so forth. It's a very rigorous program.

I have one more question. So there is a lot of talk about data centers, and we don't have one currently pending for the city of Maricopa that I'm aware of. But it is a concern, and one of the concerns we hear about is their water usage and what that's going to do to our aquifer. So can you walk me through if a data center wanted to locate Maricopa, would they have to come to you, and would they have to be able to get From you that you could provide them the amount of water that they needed and it couldn't it wouldn't come from existing Users like it couldn't be taken from my home or the folks in the rooms home, correct?

Mayor, council, that's correct. We have a designation of assured water supply. We're using a portion of that portion for your homes and other folks' homes is still there and would be untouched. If a data center come, we'd evaluate their proposals and get an understanding for what they're doing. We'd push them into the strongest conservation measures that are reasonable. I think there's a lot of low water use cooling out there today and even dry cooling. We'd be exploring that with them. Understand more and be working hand-in-hand with the city to see if it's a good fit, right?

But they would have to come through you first and get that and that's correct. And we okay. That's great. That gives me assurance that Those protocols are in place.

Thank you Thank you Thank You councillor nor vice mayor

gentlemen thank you so much it's always great um sorry each year we get to hear a presentation from you guys and it's it's great to hear it because it just reiterates what we know to be true that we're working well together to bring water and and waste water systems to the people of maricopa um when we look at it the growth of maricopa is still here it's a little bit less than it was in the previous years we're like four percent now instead of seven percent so we're growing a little bit slower in the city of maricopa but we're going to see a ton of huge growth is outside the city of maricopa which you guys run water to is down in the um hidden valley thunderbird farms area a lot of houses being built down there and they'll continue to build down there My hope is we don't have one of those Santan Valley, you know, explosions down there, but we'll see what happens. But there's a lot being built on there, but I know you guys are doing a really good job to bring us information. When you see something where it's... It's getting out of hand. I know you guys will bring it to us and and talk about our short water supply So I trust you guys to do that. But again, thank you so much for coming in here and and speaking with us I can't remember a few years ago when you did one of these and the place was full there are standing room only I think people were standing all the way up this up this wall into back here at people with bags of water screaming and yelling and It's not how it happens anymore, because you guys are doing a great job talking to people. And Beth and everybody's doing a great job in making sure people understand what's happening and where we're going. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. OK, John and Jake, I ask this question every time. I'm going to ask it again. There is misinformation out there that multifamily housing is only counted as one spout. Would you please clarify that? Because after you're done clarifying it, I'm probably going to go back and look at this video and snip it out and send it to the people that I continue to see spout that information. Oh, did you catch that? Spout that information?

Mayor, council members, I'm going to steal that joke. That's a... It's really easy to think they have one pipe or one big meter to think it's counted as one, but in fact it's not. We calculate those kinds of properties and equivalent dwelling units and all of their water and a water report is brought to us and all of that gets counted against our designation of assured water supply, both in the planning pieces as projected water demand and then committed water demand when we have a commitment to them. And then when they use that water, every drop of that water is metered just like it is to everywhere else. And it counts against the designation of assured water supply.

Very good. Thank you. I knew the answer, but I have to ask it. And then last for me, the Power Arizona that I spoke about earlier, is that going to be helpful to Global Water? Or I'm hoping that I can send the information to Beth and to Salvation Army and that they might be able to utilize that. What do you know about it?

Yeah, honestly, I'm not up to speed on that, Mayor. So if you can send that information, we would like to look at it. And certainly if it's available, we want to get it to our customers as well.

Okay, very good. Any additional comments, questions? All right, gentlemen, thank you very much.

Thank you.

That'll take us to item 8.2. Rick, are you? Yep, Rick is giving the presentation. And you do have a presentation?

Yes, ma'am, we do have a presentation, and it'll be Matthew and I this evening.

Very good. I ask that because I do have one speaker card, and I'll wait till after the presentation. Thank you.

Very nice. Mayor, members of the council, it's a milestone evening that we have for you tonight, bringing before you the adoption of this plan It's been about 18 months in the making, and although we're at a major milestone tonight, the one thing I would preface it by saying is we're by no means done. And so after this evening, we're just going to be shifting gears from building this plan to promoting this plan moving forward. We started out with the ultimate goal back in September of 2024 was really to create a plan that was reflective not only of the vision of the city of Maricopa, but the values as well. And I think we've accomplished that in bringing it to you this evening. That being said, and with this pivot and change here, I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't offer a few thank yous. And if Mayor, Council, you all will indulge me for just a moment, I promise I'll be brief. We started this in September of 2024, and I would thank you folks first because you were the first group that we engaged back in September, October, November when we kicked this off immediately. Without your vision, your input, we couldn't get to where we are this evening. With respect to city leadership, Ben and your team, every department head, every director, every employee that took the time to answer our questions, It's a vital part of the fabric of this plan moving forward, and I can't thank you enough. To our general plan advisory committee, thank you so much for the efforts that you put in forth, hours upon hours, six to eight meetings over multiple times, and then all the additional peripheria conversation that came along. Several of you are in the audience this evening, and I just, again, thank you so very much. Jim, I'm going to butcher this last name, Devenesia. Thank you, sir, for allowing us to be a part of your quarterly meetings and your community managers that assisted us in getting the email blast so we could get the word out for all of our meetings. Thank you again, Monica Williams and her team. Couldn't have done it without I mean she was so patient with me because I was learning as I go Working with this special shout out to Rudy Lopez for allowing me To head this project. I've just had a ball through this whole thing And finally the residents of Maricopa I Thank you for attending our public meetings, the hundreds of you that filled out the surveys, all of those of you who engaged us at the stagecoach days, beyond reproach. I mean, you all really knocked it out of the park with that. To all of you that sent us the comments in during the 60-day review, I thank you very much, and there were hundreds of them. And I would just say, Judith, I don't see you in the audience tonight, but I admire your persistence. And then finally, to all of y'all that attended these meetings, the Planning Commission meetings, the public outreach meetings, we could not have crafted this plan without you, and it's just been an absolute privilege, and I enjoyed getting to meet all of you throughout this process. And then finally, Matthew and Steven with Michael Baker. Yes, they were our consultants and they did an excellent job with that, but they're a very busy organization that represents folks all over the state. And they really answered the task. But what I'd really like to thank them for was I know we were not their only client, but they sure made me feel like we were. And they were so responsive to anything outside the box, anything outside the scope, and were spot on in responding to that. And that's an ultimate part of the success as well. So huge team effort to get to this point tonight. We're not done yet. But a big thank you to everybody. And with that, I would like to...

Introduce Matthew with Michael Baker and he'll take you through the plan Thank You Rick and you can't do it for yourself, but I would like to thank you for the great guidance and How you shepherd this process through you did an exceptional job mayor council Thank you for the the time this evening. I I know we've had the opportunity to speak to you several times on this project. I'm going to go through some slides that be familiar to you, but because this is a statutory requirement for this public hearing, we want to be thorough. So we're going to give you some highlights, but I'll try to be succinct in my comments. First off, this general plan is that state-mandated plan that ensures that our long-term goals, our looking out 10 to 20 years in the future, are consistent with our short-term decisions. So that's really what this general plan is all about, is taking the time to look into the future, making sure we have our North Arrow, and then allowing this plan to guide us as we and council make near-term decisions. From a statute standpoint, all of the required or even elective elements that the city may want to consider in the general plan are listed on this slide. So for the benefit of the public, please understand that this general plan must cover many topical areas. It is not a one-sided or one-focused effort. You can see all of the various topics or what state statute calls elements that must be addressed in this plan. Also, keep in mind that while the city of Maricopa is Has a municipal limits which is identified in the blue area on this map The general plan has to take into account the overall planning area of the city or what the city could ultimately grow to if it were to annex additional land that is currently in the county so that dashed A black and white line indicates Maricopa's planning boundary, with the blue area identifying the actual municipal limits. So as Rick did a great job of outlining, this has been a multi-phased effort that started back in September of 2024. We go through multiple stages in this effort with several subtasks in each of those, but what I would just emphasize is the thing that the public should take away is this is the only plan that the city utilizes on a daily basis that will go to residents for final vote in ratification. So that's really what you can see with this graphic is to show that this process does not conclude tonight. It actually, if supported by council, would then be placed on the November 2026 ballot for voter ratification. So that's why you can see in this slide that engagement is very critical to the success of this project, because at the end, we take it to the voters for final conclusion. And so throughout this project, public engagement was very top of mind. And this slide really captures all of the different efforts that we undertook to get out in front of the public. And so Rick touched on some of those in terms of the stakeholders and community members that participated and assisted in this effort. And you can see some of the work that was put in here in terms of meetings or man hours or participation. And so the public came out and spoke, and so we made sure we listened. And so really how that played out is what we incorporated into this general plan. And so this slide I like to use because it really starts to display some of the primary pillars or takeaways that we can identify as themes from public desire. And so as we heard in our comments through this council meeting, transportation solutions were important. employment options, healthcare, housing of course, but housing associated now with retail opportunities to round out those rooftops. Looking at those amenities now that start to define the quality of life in the city, So those entertainment and recreation, we heard about some of the great efforts that your residents are taking forward in terms of First Fridays and other special events coming up. So this really was a stepping stone, if you will, these themes that we then carried out into the development of this plan. And so what you see on this slide is a capture of your current general plan, which was titled Planning Maricopa. And what that feedback we received really started to solidify for us is this plan is about advancing Maricopa. It is not about supporting a bedroom community. It's about supporting a more dynamic community, a community that is uh looking at all facets of what makes a well-rounded enjoyable place to live so that's not just putting or having a place to put your head down at night but making sure that there's employment opportunities that there's open space that there's recreation that there's community programs all of that water resources transportation All of those considerations were developed into this advancing Maricopa that can take the city over the next 10 years in a path that will achieve all of those pillars that residents emphasized were important to them. So this graphic kind of displays the various chapters of the general plan and where those individual topics or elements fall within those chapters. So you can see that some chapters have several different elements or topics within them and others are solely devoted to one specific important topic, for example, economic development. But what really is a takeaway, and I think a key distinction about this general plan from your prior general plans is not needing to necessarily read what's on this slide, but the takeaway is this table shows all of the goals that are outlined in this plan. They're organized by the color you see on the sidebar, if you will, of this table. So that's all the individual goals. But across the top, if this wasn't an eye chart, those are all the individual topics that must be addressed in this general plan. And so what I would emphasize for those in the public is just looking at the dots. Those dots reflect how we wanted to emphasize that this general plan is not siloed. We're not just looking at land use by itself. We're not looking at transportation by itself. We're looking at how do these goals carry forward or move the needle across the board. And so you can start to see with this table how a lot of goals or some cross-pollinate. And so some are goals that can be championed and accomplish many different objectives of the community. And some are very surgical, that we might carry out that goal for a very specific process, and that's not bad either. But what this does is really start to tie this general plan together and not just make it a bunch of individual chapters, but one comprehensive plan to move over the next 10 years. And you can see all of the number of goals and the various chapters that are associated with them. So hopefully just the sheer volume kind of shows how comprehensive this was. But one of the takeaways that we heard when we had to go through a state mandated 60-day review process, a two-month period where the public gets to review a draft of this plan, is the biggest comment that came back is, hey, we're not planners. Can you give us the cliff notes here? And so we did. We developed an executive summary for this final draft, and in that draft, we provided this table and this table really talks about the most specific topics that residents mentioned like mitigating traffic congestion and then using that goal reference to go directly to areas that address those interest points so this is a great resource for residents if you're cracking open this general plan and just want to understand how it might Address some of those areas that are most top of mind We recommend that you take a look at this table and see the numbers of the various goals and If time permits at the end of this we can kind of show you how a digital plan of this will be utilized to help resident residents navigate that and Of course, one of the things that is important to link the general plan with is the land use plan. So the land use plan in a general plan is just that, general. So you can see the table of content or the legend, I should say there, identifies the colors on the map, but they're very broad in nature, just showing where areas are appropriate for specific types of uses, where then other documents in the community like the zoning map We'll take this into a finer detail about specifically what can be developed on a property and what are the development standards that property must adhere to. But for this general plan update, we got into this plan, updated land uses based on feedback, but most importantly, we also... did a very hard look at the municipal limits of the city to make sure this plan aligns not only with past amendments that may have been approved over the last 10 years, but is in lockstep with some of the efforts that staff is taking forward in the near term. So at the end of the general plan and another takeaway for, I think, council and the public to recognize is this plan through state statute is intended to just outline what are the goals and policies that the community wants to adhere to. But as we went through conversations with residents, a lot of the comments we heard were, OK, but what's next? We understand the goal and the policy. How are we going to get there? And so this implementation work program is a starting point of identifying what actions or efforts the city can undertake and in what time frames those should be done to help move the needle in terms of accomplishing those goals and carrying forward those policies. So this is not an exhaustive list. This is not capturing what all of your departments are working towards, but this is an opportunity for residents to go see what types of efforts the city can undertake to move forward on specific action or specific goals. and thus get a better understanding of how this plan moves from just that, a plan into action. So the last slide that I'll pause on is as we took this to the Planning and Zoning Commission, your commission did a great job of considering the efforts, the plan and the public feedback that occurred at that meeting. At that meeting, residents got up and spoke and shared a few areas that they felt really could use just to touch up. And we thought it was very helpful that we heard from those residents. And so these themed areas are areas that we went back in and these track changes or specific red line changes are provided in your staff report. And we discussed this in our last work session, that following the Planning Commission's support for the General Plan, they asked that we really go back in, though, and take a hard look at these additional areas, so we did just that and went into the plan. And as we discussed in our last work session and as you saw in your staff report, included some specific changes to align with public comment. So with that, Mayor, I will turn it back over to you and Council for any questions. And if time permits, after any public comment or decision by Council, we do have that digital plan that I could pull up for you and show to Council if you would like.

Very good. Thank you. So this is a public hearing. I'm going to open the public hearing. I do have one speaker card, so I'd like to call forward Susan Busante.

Hello. I'm Susan Bonsante. I have a home in Glenwild. Councilmember Marsh, I'm very sorry for your loss. Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. I'm really surprised I'm the only one speaking today. I came back from a funeral in Denver early today just so I could speak. My comments are regarding the lack of transparency. in the general plan process. I served on the General Plan Advisory Committee, which included mostly developers, utility providers, past and current planning and zoning commissioners, former mayors, and a handful of citizens, to name a few. I had hoped that my voice would represent those that don't favor the plan for massive growth. The scope of our suggestions and input never really referenced the map boundaries. It's been reiterated that the residents of Maricopa adopted the current plan in 2016 when the population was approximately 45,000. That would mean that most of today's current residents never even voted on that current plan and are now faced with the process, the prospect of shaping Maricopa moving forward. Or are they? Based on my experience, the entire plan is written behind closed doors by staff with little actual measurable input by the citizens. So for transparency's sake, I'd like to address the following so everyone really understands what they're voting for. The current boundaries will involve further annexation of all of Hidden Valley, Thunderbird Farms, and current rural areas, a community which holds steadfast in opposition to this. Approximately 40 to 46 subdivisions, depending on which county map is referenced, were approved in unincorporated Pinell County between 1997 and 2005. Many of those developers are now coming back, asking for even higher density, adding thousands more homes. Current calculations put the number at over 76,000 dwelling units and 240,000 more in population, not including the existing homes. In an attempt to minimize the relevancy of this important point, at the planning and zoning meeting where the general plan was voted to advance, commissioners stated there are hurdles in future annexation and that a vote by these communities would be required. however the Amarillo Creek Community as well as the subdivisions yet to be built are required to sign a pre-annexation agreement at the time of purchase which would obviously dilute the votes of the current rural residents I've heard the many rebuttals in the media meetings I've spoken at the map is not telling the entire story and I think Maricopa residents deserve to know these important details prior to casting their vote thank you

Is there anyone else that would like to approach the podium? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Counsel, do you have comments, questions? Would you like to see the, what did you call it?

We have a copy of the digital plan that we could show you, but it does require a small little change with your IT, so we thought we would do that after any action that council undertook.

Okay. All right. Seeing no comments or questions. Yes? Do I have one? Oh, yes. Council Member Gatto.

Thank you very much for not only this presentation, but the years, the months of intense labor that you're firm has provided our residents and us here on the dais you know it's been said you get 10 individuals in a room and ask them their opinions you might get 23 different opinions from those 10 individuals and then you take all of those opinions and needs and desires and wishes and you meld them together into a final product what we've tasked you to do seems near impossible to be honest with 78 plus you know thousand residents here in our city and and future residents or not residents in our planning area and to capture all of that into a document now that's quite lengthy, but it's just phenomenal is what I'm trying to say. I think every attention to detail has been evident in the process that you've engaged our residents in and the feedback that you've sought. the numerous opportunities in various formats for individuals to put their recommendations and their desires forward. You've done a remarkable job in capturing all of that and distilling those most important things into this general plan. So I just would like to acknowledge the immense effort that your firm has taken into producing this product here before us tonight. I am very excited to see all of this come together and have had a chance to be able to look through this multiple times and engage in the process along the way. and then to be able to vote for it tonight. It is a phenomenal product and I think it accurately reflects a vast majority of what we're trying to accomplish and the direction that we want to move forward as a city. So again, thank you and I look forward to the vote tonight.

Thank you for those comments. Very good. All right. So I appreciate you bringing up the concept that I don't believe our city has a vision to be a bedroom community. That was one thing that I hounded these folks on. finding ways to get those words into the document is very important to me so i appreciate the matrixes and how you connect all of those dots so that when i'm talking about the general plan during this time of helping residents understand what it stands for i can point them in the direction that it is not intended to be a bedroom community we definitely have local job attraction addressed within the general plan I appreciate that and I would also like to say that the general plan area is not an edict that it has to happen that's very very important land owners are the ones who determine do they annex into the city do they want to change their zoning they are the ones who make the decision It's not an edict from the city, it's not an edict from the county, and so I think that's very important for people to understand. Because otherwise you think that everything on there is 100 percent as stated, and it's not. Things could change. I know one of my focus points was I-11. And I-11 right now, if you look at it, is mostly all residential. That was a concern for me. But through education, I find out that the landowners can change that designation of zoning and the general plan as well if they choose to. And so there's options. This is just a guiding document. It's not an edict. And I think that's important for our residents to understand. Any additional comments, questions? Do I have a motion? Motion to approve by Councilmember Wade. Second by Councilmember Marsh. Last chance for discussion. Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. And that brings us to, oh, you want to give, yeah.

If you would like, Mayor, I know you have a full meeting, but we can show it to you very quickly.

Oh, no, you're it. We're done after your, yeah.

We'll give you a sneak peek here.

Okay.

Just switch, oh, perfect, there we go. So Mayor, I would just like to share one of the last items relative to this is about making it user friendly. And so we're all used to opening a PDF and scrolling and scrolling through it. But what we are bringing forward as a final deliverable for this plan is a digital plan that is more than just a flip book. I know some of you have probably seen or been familiar with this but this particular platform not only has some neat qualities but we have some guiding buttons here that takes you right to the table of contents if you actually had an iPad You can scroll through and just swipe the screen and find pages that way. If you're similar to me and have contacts and need to see better, you can always zoom in and do all that. But in addition to that, you can pan through our pages. But one of the things that this is maybe not too different But what I would say is we have our maps that you can actually zoom in and pan around within the actual page. So before we used to have to have multiple maps, and now you can just zoom right in where you need. And then in other sections, uh... let's see uh... we always have these tables and you can also click on those the tables will pop up you can see that material a little better uh... and so that was just kind of the takeaway we wanted to share with you mayor and council is that uh... we're not only looking to advance maricopa physically But we're advancing Maricopa in how you get to residents, how you communicate with residents, and how residents can access information. And so we just greatly appreciate the opportunity to support the city on this effort. And thank you for all of your time.

Thank you very much. All right, that brings us to the conclusion. I will close this regular meeting.