City Council - Regular Meeting

One is.

Okay. Council Member Gettle, can you hear me?

Hello, and welcome to this evening's City Council special meeting on July 14th, 2026. At this time, I will call the meeting to order. I would like to first invite Pastor Roger Thompson from Calvary Church for our invocation, and then we will turn to Council Member Knorr for Pledge of Allegiance. Please rise if you're able.

Join with me in prayer. Council Members, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Father in heaven, I want to thank you for the opportunity that we have to gather together and to discuss our community, to discuss issues of government and growth. Lord, to the God of heaven and earth, it is with love and gratitude that we come to you this evening. We pray, Lord, for this meeting and all those that are a part of it and will take part along with the issues and the agendas on the schedule. Lord, we pray for the city council and the members of it. We pray for the staff that are here, and we ask God that you give them wisdom as well as ourselves. Lord, we know that government exists for the people, and we ask God it would work for your good and your glory. We pray for the city of Maricopa and its citizens, its families, its children, our schools, our churches. Lord, we pray that you would prosper the people of our city, and Lord, that we would be safe. We pray for our police and our first responders, Lord. Protect them as they serve our community. Lord, we pray for unity. We pray for peace. We pray for justice for our citizens, Lord. We ask for your blessing on our nation. And Lord, these requests, they are empty unless you are living, loving, and true. And so we ask, Lord, that you would reveal yourself as such. And it's in the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. Thank you.

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Pastor Roger Thompson, and thank you, Councilmember Knorr. That'll move us on to roll call. Vanessa, please. Councilmember Gettle. Councilmember nor present councilmember Learman councilmember Marsh here councilmember Wade Vice Mayor Manfredi Mayor Smith here Thank You Vanessa that'll take us to proclamations acknowledgments awards and presentations of Which we have none this evening moving on to the report from the mayor and council council. Yes councilmember Marsh I

It's been four weeks since our last meeting. On June 17th, we hosted an ADOT open house here in the council chambers. It was pretty well attended. On the 18th, we had a lunch and learn on emergency management starring Angela Eastman. She was awesome. She went on on the 4th of July to set up an emergency operations center over in the fire building, and it's awesome. She knows how to do this. On the 24th, we did a chamber candidate crawl at Central Arizona College, and that was well attended to, and it was a lot of fun. On the 25th, I sat in on the County Board of Adjustments and Appeals in Florence, and it was the same old, same old undersized lot problem that they need to fix. On the 29th, I had a meeting with the city manager, and I'm not going to talk about it. On the 30th, I attended the Arizona Department of Water Resources meeting, and there were no surprises there. It looks like the CAP Canal is going to probably go dry in the next couple of years. On the 4th of July, Quinn and his team put together an awesome 4th of July at Copper Sky. The drone show, the fireworks, it was the best ever. I attended the Arizona Water Banking Authority board meeting. They're in trouble. They're still waiting for federal direction and funding coming from Doug Burgum's Department of Interior. Looking forward, on Thursday, July 16th, we have a Lunch and Learn at the Community Center featuring the mayor and vice mayor, and the topic is roads and highways. On Saturday, September 26th, 9 to 1, a senior info expo will be held at the library. And the topic is avoiding falls. And I've had a couple of falls myself, so I know what Peg and Ron are talking about. And thanks for doing it. That's all, Mayor.

Thank you very much. I'm going to go to Councilmember Gettle. I want to give you an opportunity. Is there anything that you would like to share?

All right, thank you very much Thank You Mary, I just have one short one on Saturday I attended the retirement ceremony for a pastor Arnold Jackson the pastor of Mount Moriah AME Church Community Church He has served the community here in Maricopa for the last 14 years It has been a minister for close to 30 I've known him personally for most of that time as well, and I know that he's going to be truly missed in the community of Mama Raya. He will leave an indelible mark on the community and on the church, especially so. It was a proclamation presented by the mayor, by me, for the mayor. And it was really good turnout, really good support from his congregation and congregations throughout the state of Arizona and otherwise. So thank you for your support. I appreciate it, and I'm sure he does as well. And it was a very good, very entertaining opportunity for us to serve him, who has served us for so long.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Wade. Council Member Noor.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to echo Councilmember Marcia's comments about the Great American Fourth event. I was able to get out there, and it was absolutely incredible, and I've been to a lot of those in my over 20 years here in Maricopa, and I agree, it was the best. The drone show followed by the fireworks really was a sight to see, so thank you to the staff. I know that's a lot of work. Fortunately, it wasn't even too hot out there. It was actually a beautiful Fourth of July. So we did have that going for us, but it was a really great event. So thank you for that. Uh, that morning of the fourth though, I was also able to participate in the flag raising at the veterans Memorial. And every time I have a chance to go out to our veteran veterans Memorial, I'm just taken aback. I think the city did a great job putting that together. and it's a great place for us to be able to honor our veterans here in Maricopa. We have a lot of them, and I love that they do the flag raising at the different holidays, and I encourage all of you to attend those in the future because it really does give you such a sense of patriotism and appreciation for those who served our country. So I want to thank the veterans for doing that flag raising. I was also able to attend ASU congressional dialogue with Congresswoman Ansari last week, and the topic was a healthier Arizona, policies to improve affordability, increase access to health care, and strengthen our health care workforce. And it was an hour and a half at ASU downtown. And it was a fantastic dialogue with the Congresswoman and local healthcare leaders about the state of healthcare in Arizona. And it was also a great opportunity to meet different healthcare groups. Honor Health was there, their CEO, he did a presentation. And I invited them, all of the local, all of the healthcare leaders that were there to come out to Maricopa. I went up to them after and I said hi. I'm from Maricopa and we need more healthcare here. And so I was able to give them each a card and I've already had a follow up from the dean at ASU who is working to bring healthcare education to the communities instead of people having to go into Phoenix to get their education for health care now. They're bringing it to the local Communities outside of Phoenix and so if there's any providers here in Maricopa that want to be a part of that It's an opportunity to work with ASU to get our local health force workers Educated and right here at home. I think that's the best part they can avoid the 347 and become a nurse or an NP So that was exciting The governor signed two bills to strengthen protections for our firefighters that I wanted to acknowledge. It helps to improve the exposure that the firefighters receive in reducing the dangerous chemicals that they're exposed to, and I think that's a huge step in the right direction for our first responders, and so I just wanted to acknowledge that and appreciate that. And then speaking of firefighters, on this Saturday, July 18th, the Maricopa Fire Foundation is doing a car wash to benefit the fire foundation that will be at Ace Hardware from 9 to noon. And the firefighters will be out there washing your cars. And so it's a great opportunity to hang out with some firefighters and to get your car washed and support a great cause. And so that's this Saturday, 9 to noon at Ace Hardware. And then the following Saturday, July 25th, is the Water Safety Day at Copper Sky, which is our second annual Water Safety Day at Copper Sky, and it's a great opportunity to learn about water safety. At 10 a.m., It's going to start with a sensory aware time. So if folks have kiddos that are highly sensitive, they can come at 10 a.m. and there won't be the loud noises and the craziness and they'll be able to take part in the different booths and learn about water safety. And then at 11, open swim is free from 11 to noon, if you come at that time. And then at noon, the regular open swim starts, and there'll be a drowning prevention demonstration. And then there'll also be raffles throughout the whole entire event for free drowning prevention kits and free life jackets that have been donated by Arizona Game and Fish and the Drowning Prevention Coalition, and there's a lot of life jackets there. And so I highly recommend coming out and participating in this event. And there'll be lots of great opportunities. There'll be lots of local organizations handing out different information and goodies as well. So I'd love to see you there. That's Saturday, July 25 at Copper Sky. And then finally, I just want to say that I'm really excited. I know that in an upcoming agenda, hopefully next month, we're going to get to see the economic development strategic plan. And I'm really excited to see what that has in it, because that's an opportunity for us in the city of Maricopa to bring more economic development and jobs here. I know if you'll remember, several months ago, Jim Rounds, who is who we contracted with, came out to talk about it. the economic development strategic plan as he was taking that on. And now he's going to come back and give us a report on what we can do to bring jobs here. And so I look forward to that, and I'm sure all of you do too. So hopefully you'll be here for that. And that's all I have.

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

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to thank those that serve on our strike force. They recently lowered the speed limit on Porter Road down to 35, so it's 35 the whole entire way. And this has been a request from our parents and students and families for quite some time. And I just want to thank city staff and I believe the mayor who thought of creating the strike force, which is a group of individuals that can gather, well, they gather together regularly. to address those safety concerns. All the right people are in the room to make those changes and so I'm really grateful that that will be implemented before school starts and people will be notified and made aware of the change. I also am really grateful to staff for implementing the Maricopa Express Transit app and so now you can use an app instead of phoning in. for your routes and also for your door-to-door requests. So I'm really excited about that. On the 16th, coming up, there is a Lunch and Learn tomorrow from 11 to 1 at the Community Center, and the topic is regional transportation. So if you're interested in that, please attend. On the 23rd, from 10 to 11, there's a Hawaiian petroglyph event presentation at the library. And on the 31st through August 8, Broadway Maricopa is putting on The Wizard of Oz. And tickets are on sale now if you're interested in attending. And I really want to thank the community for coming out and supporting Open Arms Vocational Living Center. We had our fundraiser. I see smiles. Thank you, Patricia, for being there, and Christian, and all of you, and Lori, and Adam, all of you for being there and supporting such an amazing cause. It was so successful. It was a sold-out event. It was a packed-out event. We were in close quarters. So thank you everyone so much for supporting, like I said, a wonderful cause and for it to be so successful. I want to thank our library for putting on amazing summer programming. I keep seeing things on social media about encouraging other people to go to the library with your little ones, middle school, older teens, adults, offering great programming, continuing literacy and learning over the summer months so our kiddos, when they go back to school, are ready to continue to learn. So thank you to our staff at the library. I also want to thank the staff. I don't know if you noticed when you came in this evening, but there are new pictures in the lobby here of our leadership, our leaders here in our city. I think this is amazing. We're old enough now to have a history. And so there's history there of leaders who have served our community. And so if you didn't notice it when you came in, please take a look when you leave and honor people who have served our community so faithfully. Also, on the left side of the lobby, you'll see a Purple Heart designation. Again, I want to thank our city staff. We are a Purple Heart city, which will be, the mayor will be doing a proclamation next month, but as you leave the lobby on the left-hand side, you'll see the honoring that we are a Purple Heart city. I also want to thank the staff for an amazing Fourth of July. I think my favorite part was the flyover. That was amazing that Maricopa is included in that tradition. That is all I have, Mayor. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lehrman. All right. I will share a few items. I do want to bring up a slight correction.

Council Member Lehrman, Lunch and Learn is on Thursday.

Yes, no problem at all. Flag raising ceremony held by the veterans was just very special. It always is. I love going out to those and what a beautiful morning it was for that. In fact, the entire day was absolutely fantastic. I also attended the chamber infrastructure event which talked about transportation, power, water. They had a plethora of speakers there talking about all of these types of infrastructures. It was a really good event and very educational for many that were there. Just speaking briefly about the open arms event, that was a phenomenal way to bring a lot of the community together to raise money for those young men that have aged out of the foster system. And so this is going to be pretty spectacular and what a show of support. Did you mention how much you made? $18,900. Pretty cool. Last time, if you were paying attention at City Council, we had a brief presentation from a call to the public on animal control. Council Member Learman has been organizing meetings with Supervisor Vitiello, Council Member Ghetto, myself, Mary Ellen, and Hamanchu from the county. So we're just starting to have conversations. They're very, very important. We are including Chief Goodman as well because he is the supervisor over the animal control section. And so I just wanted to state that those conversations are continuing and I know that you'll be updating people as we have new announcements. The Great America, the Great Fourth of July, Enough can't be said, staff, phenomenal, phenomenal work. Do we have a number, city manager? Do we have like an approximate number?

The police chief told me between 10 and 15,000.

That's pretty cool, pretty cool. If you were there and you just looked over the soccer fields, it was full of families. And what I didn't know is on the opposite side of the soccer fields was a whole other part of our community hanging out over in the residential dirt area over there. So they had a view from the back side. They said the droid, the... Drone show was backwards to them, but they still loved it. And then we had a view from the front. But just a great community. So add those people on to the numbers. It's just phenomenal. I love seeing our AMP shirts. Wave to us. I love that. In case you don't know what AMP is, it's the Ambassadors of Maricopa Program. These are folks who have been through the Maricopa Citizen Leadership Academy and have promised to be a part of an advocate group for advocating and sharing information that's factual regarding things that are happening in the city of Maricopa. So pretty exciting stuff. And that's the end of the report from the mayor. That'll take us to the report from the city manager.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. A couple of slides I wanted to share with you today. One thing that we might not talk enough about is the partnerships that we have with some of our surrounding agencies as it relates to public safety. And in particular, one I wanted to talk about first is with ADOT, DPS, and our commercial enforcement of commercial vehicles, commercial vehicle enforcement. So this is something that we do on a semi-regular basis. We don't have all of the equipment to do commercial vehicle enforcement ourselves would require a portable scales, and we just don't have that capacity ourselves, but we can partner with agencies that do have those things. And so we did that this week, and I just thought that this was really neat because it goes to show the impact that these types of events can have. In just a few hours, we weighed 98 trucks, screened 67, found 19 were over their permissible weight, and three were over the weight that they had declared on their register. And so our traffic unit was able to issue 15 civil citations and two criminal citations. And so when this happens, it makes our roads safer. It also extends the life of our roads. As we have really heavy vehicles that travel on the roads, that creates greater damage to the roads. And so if we are making sure that the roads are traveled on by the appropriate sized vehicles, then that extends the life of our roads. So it's better for our infrastructure. It's better for traffic and it's safer for our community. So just real big kudos to Maricopa Police Department for their partnership there with ADOT DPS and just continuing that enforcement. The next thing I wanted to share is just how awesome it is that things are taking shape. And there's so much that's going on. Some of the work that is done by the city of Maricopa, others by private entities, and some even by the school district. The school district continues to move forward. Alma Farrell Innovation Academy will be opening in just a week and some change, the ribbon cutting on Monday. The field house is moving forward. We have restaurants and stores, Aldi, Starbucks. Buffalo Wild Wings has now got walls up as well. We're really starting to see a lot of growth. But on top of that, just the general excitement, 347 you can tell is being improved. You can feel a smooth road as you drive. Right now they've finished some of that north of Riggs. But that will extend down all the way to our city limits with the smoothness, and then they'll go and add the third lane following that. And especially... or underpass lighting. This is just such a neat project. It's an opportunity for us to really bring some excitement and sense of place to our community. How cool is it that on the 4th of July we got to go down there and see the red, white, and blue lights and this patriotic display for our community these are LED lights that can change colors and we've got some nice story on our website that goes into some details there and by all means invite people to go to that website but these can be changed, the colors can be changed to signify a non-profit or a special event that might be happening for the day and so really excited to see where that goes in the future in tandem with the the tree, the piece of art that we have in front of City Hall here, how all of these things really start to develop that sense of place, that sense of belonging, and really pride in our community. We're really excited to see that. So that's my report tonight, but wanted to share those exciting things.

Thank you very much, City Manager. That will take us to the call to the public this evening. I do have four speaker cards for the call to the public, and I will first invite up Ron and Jerami.

As always, thank you City Council and Mayor for the opportunity to talk about State Route 347 in Casablanca. I'd like to share some analysis and observations. I call this the cost of waiting. As I have discussed before, Captain Bunkwalter of the Arizona Department of Public Safety shared with me some of the latest accident data on Casa Blanca and State Route 347. In the past 27 months, there have been 44 accidents. That means 1.63 accidents every month, or basically two accidents a month. Another way to think about this is like this. Every time the city council meets, there is likely to have been another crash in Casablanca. There was a rollover accident last week. Looking deeper into the data, 25% of those crashes resulted in injuries requiring emergency response. Let's conservatively assume that 15% of these cars have a child in the car. Doing a probability analysis, there is a 90% probability that in nine months there will be an accident with a child in the car. If we extend that analysis further, there is also a 90% probability that within 37.7 months there will be an injury crash involving a child. I've included these calculations supporting this analysis for anyone that would like to review them. The cost of waiting is not theoretical. It's measured in crashes, injuries, and increasing likelihood that a child will be involved. Waiting another year or two to consider planning and funding or waiting three and a half years until the current project is complete before deciding what to do next carries a very real human cost. Recently, we've heard a great deal about the importance of listening to residents, transparency, communication, ensuring people feel heard. At the recent ADOT project update meeting, it became clear that many residents were surprised, disappointed, and concerned to learn that the current 347 improvement does not include a grade separation at Casablanca. My hope is that these concerns were heard loud and clear. Once again, I respectfully ask the City Council to begin planning and budgeting now for the eventual removal of the traffic signal at Casablanca through a grade-separated intersection. The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll get done. Beginning the planning process today will help ensure we don't lose valuable time while crashes continue to occur. Also, the longer we wait, the more expensive it'll get. Thank you for your time and your continued commitment to improving the safety for the residents of Maricopa.

All right, our next speaker is Tina Dugan.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Tina Dugan from the Glen Wild subdivision. I want to talk a little bit about the Wild West Music Fest because I've spent some time going over the numbers and I still have more questions than answers. I support community events. I attend them. The 4th of July was amazing. But when the city's spending $265,000 every year on a three-day event, we need to be clear on what we're getting for the money. I went through the financial reports for the last three years and I thank the city for providing those to me. We're told that 240,000 goes to the promoter and another 25,000 pays for public safety overtime, marketing, supplies, and other city costs. For this year, the financial report showed a profit of about $8,900, but that profit only exists because our city put in $240,000 in payment that counted as revenue. Without the city money, the event brought in about $180,000 and had more than $411,000 in expenses. So it was short by more than $231,000. I'm a numbers girl. It doesn't mean that we need to not have it. We have the parks, we have fireworks, we have concerts, we do things for our residents. But as a city subsidized event, it's not profitable in the way most residents would understand. It actually works out to about $25.74 for every reported attendee. And I think that deserves some comparison. In the numbers from the presentation this evening, you have Great American Fourth, which only showed 7202. I believe there was 10 to 15,000 people. It was amazing. Maricopa and Copaculture. You put all three of those together at a $25 per person, that comes to about $450,000 we spent on three different events. I'm not suggesting we should spend the same amount. I'm just asking why one event receives such a large investment per person and whether that same money could provide more value spread across several community events. I'm also questioning the claim that it created $2.84 million in economic impact. We don't see the full study, we don't know how much direct spending was used to reach that number, how many visitors actually stayed overnight, or how many attendees were unique, in other words, didn't attend two or three days of the event. And we don't know how much additional tax revenue actually came back to the city, because that was not included in the reporting that I received. This event may be worth the investment, but we should be able to prove it. And before spending another $265,000, I ask that you require clear numbers, clear goals, and a fair comparison with other events our residents attend and enjoy. Public money deserves more than an impressive estimate. It deserves measurable results. Thank you.

All right, our next speaker is Tanika Drake.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council. Thank you guys for allowing me to speak. I wanted to give you guys an update on the Ignite Wellness Spark Your Shine event. So I also had a meeting with two of our lovely staff people, and I thank them for their information. Unfortunately, I've had to move the event, which is still exciting. So the date has changed. The venue has changed. So it will no longer be at the library on October 24th, as it was stated to be. It will be October 3rd at CAC. So we'll still have the same time, 9 to 6 p.m. And it will still have the four mobile units where CAC can... and really be able to put those events there. And it's still gonna be talking about domestic violence. Everything is still the same. I did just have to change the venue. So I wanted anybody who was thinking about attending and they thought October 24th was the date, that did have to change. So I thank you guys for the time. I hope you guys can still attend. And I look forward to seeing you guys in October. Thank you.

All right, our next speaker is Tara Nelson.

Good evening Madam Mayor and council members. I'm Tara Nelson. I'm representing Heritage Academy Maricopa K-5 and I just wanted to come and introduce myself and let you guys know that we're so excited to be opening in just one week. We open on July 21st. It's been five years in the making. We've been really trying hard to get this K-5 elementary school that coincides with our high school and junior high and really bring that to the community here. We focus on a classical education and we were blessed to be able to hear from our CEO this morning who talked a lot about our 250th anniversary of the country and all of the things that have been going on and I know that the city of Maricopa has really been using that opportunity to have many community events as well. This is our ninth school for Heritage Academy Maricopa. And like I said, our first day will be on Tuesday, July 21st. We're also excited about the speed limit change on Porter, so we're very grateful for that as well. I did want to let you guys know that we will be having a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 30th from 5.30 to 7.30. That'll be held right out in front of our elementary school building there. and we'd welcome any of you to come and partake with us. I will be bringing invitations by tomorrow. I have those for you guys. We just haven't been able to make it out because we've been under remodel for quite a while now, as you can imagine, but we're just so grateful to be opening this school for the community and partnering with several of the community members as well. Thank you, guys.

That is the end of our speaker cards. Would anyone like to approach the podium and speak? Yes, please.

State your name. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Peg Chapados. I'm just here to remind everybody that Friends of the Library is going to be holding their next mini sale on Saturday, July 25th from 9 to 1 at the library. For those of you who haven't been to a sale in a while, we've actually lost a couple of the folks that have been very huge supporters. Jigsaw Puzzle Mike, who used to bring puzzles by the dozens, has passed away recently. And on July 6th, we also lost Oliver Anderson. who him and his wife Hermina actually started the Friends of the Library back in 1984. So again, it's going to be at the library. The other thing is, I don't know if this is public knowledge, so forgive me if I'm spilling the beans, but Craig Ford is going to be leaving the Maricopa Library. He's going to be in charge of the library over at Sequoia, actually Heritage Sequoia. So if you get a chance, stop and thank Craig. He's been a great person to work with, a great asset to the library and to the city of Maricopa, and he will be surely missed. So again, Saturday, July 25th, 9 to 1, book sale for the Friends of the Library. Thank you.

Would anyone else like to approach the podium? Yes, please.

Please state your name. Good evening. I am Dana Williams. How are you all doing today? I decided to come up here and say it, and I'm not going to be chicken, okay? So anyway, I want to talk to you about the intersection on Honeycutt and the 347th. So when you're going down the 347th, Honeycutt is coming this way. It's dangerous. Because when they're coming in, the guards coming in that way, they're not breaking. So I almost got into an accident more than once. And the other day I was going in the truck, instead of coming and just stopping, he just through. And my concern is that there's going to be an accident right there. So I'm saying something now, and I think that should be looked at. because it'll be different if it was an arrow there, something there for them to say yield or something, but they're just going right through. So if you're coming through on the 347 and you're going that way and you're coming this way, they're just zooming through and it's not safe. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. Thank you.

All right. City Manager Bitter, I saw you write something down. You got it? Okay, very good. Anyone else like to approach the podium? All right, seeing none, I will close the call to the public. That'll take us to consent agenda item. And council, I do have a request to pull items seven one, seven two, seven three, and seven four. So if I have a motion or if there are any questions on seven five, seven six, let's attack those first. Any questions on seven five, seven six? Seeing none, do I have a motion? So moved.

Second.

And seconded by Councilmember, first moved by Councilmember Lehrman, seconded by Councilmember Marsh. And last chance for conversation. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion carries. All right, so that'll take us to item 7.1. Councilmember Lehrman, I'm going to turn this over to you. You did ask for this to be pulled.

Thank you, Mayor. Our training from our public safety is very critical. And so when I saw this on the agenda, I was hoping that someone from FIRE could come and speak to what types of training are going to be offered and included in this IGA, please. Thank you.

So this IGA is very particular for the purpose of training new recruit firefighters through the Fire Academy. Okay. We train regularly every quarter with Chandler Fire for continuing education. This IGA just adds that we'll be able to send the seven new hires that we have through their upcoming Fire Recruit Academy.

Okay.

Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate it.

No problem. Happy to help.

Thank you.

Anything else? Okay. Any other council members on 7.1? All right. Council Member Lehrman, do I have a motion?

I motion to approve item 7.1. Do I have a second? Second.

Seconded by Council Member Wade. Last opportunity for comments, questions? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. All right, that'll take us to item 7.2, Vice Mayor. I'll turn it over to you. You asked for this item to be pulled.

Thank you. I actually sent a message over to Chief Goodman, and he wasn't able to be here today, but he said somebody would speak on it. On 7.2, the minute it came out, of course, I got a bunch of text messages and messages saying they're just tracing us and they're trying to gun registry and things like that. So just a couple questions. That was all. Thanks for joining, for standing for us. As I said, I spoke with Chief Goodman and I had a full conversation with him about it and we talked about it. And he said that, he gave me a bunch of information, but I guess the biggest question people are asking is, will this in some way impact their legal guns that they have at their house? Do they have to report their guns and tracing their guns and stuff like that? And obviously, no, right?

That's correct. It will not do that.

And this is for what?

For crime guns. Yeah. So it will tell us where the gun was manufactured. If we get a crime gun, it'll tell us who the first purchaser was, and then we'll try to track it from there.

And the tracing of the guns will be guns that were used in commission of a crime.

Correct.

So somebody robs a convenience store, we have the gun, we're able to trace where the gun came from. Right. Correct? This is not something to do with us going out and just picking people and saying, let me check your gun, correct?

That's correct.

Thank you, that was all.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor move to approve 7.2.

Very good. I have a motion to approve 7.2 from Vice Mayor and a second by Council Member Lehrman. Last opportunity for comments, questions. Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. All right. That will take us down to item 7.3. And, Rick, you're going to be speaking on this item. We did have some questions that were asked by a resident, and so I'd love for you to address those.

Yes, good evening, Madam Mayor, council members. Before you this evening is a proposed text amendment to chapter 10 of our city code. Now, that's kind of a unique code in that it's enforced primarily through our code compliance department and as well as Maricopa PD as well. So I do have Wesley Moss with us this evening also to be able to chime in on this. As we put this out subsequent to the agenda being published, we received additional feedback requesting some clarity within the proposed ordinance itself. And as we took a look at that and vetted it internally, the information that came back in, we thought possibly there was some ambiguity in the ordinance, the way it was written, and clearly we could have made it a little bit clearer and a little bit more precise. So what I have for you this evening, there's a memo to mayor and council that's sitting in front of you this evening. And it'd be easier if I just bring it right up. After looking at that, we decided to make some changes to it that we thought would bring just a little additional clarity to the ordinance itself and certainly make it a little easier to enforce. As I stated, y'all do have that in front of you. I'm trusting you had maybe a moment to take a look at it prior to. I can go through this word by word if y'all would like to, but that essentially concludes my presentation, madam, and I'll be happy, along with Wes, to answer any questions y'all might have.

Very good. Will this attachment be added to the item on Legistar for folks to get a copy and be able to see?

Madam Mayor, absolutely we can add that on to it, which is the other reason why I wanted to bring it and put it up on the screen tonight. Obviously, everything that is written in red is what we've added to it to produce that clarity, and I'll be happy to not only put it in the legislature, but I'll post it back on our city website so anyone would be able to see it there as well.

Very good. Additional comments, questions? Council, yes. Council Member Knorr.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Rick. Can you just explain to us what the impetus was for this revision overall? Not just that I understand the changes today to provide more clarity, but for why are we tackling this policy change or ordinance change?

Mayor, Council. So this is to address long-term parking issues for commercial vehicles that utilize other properties to park overnight or essentially store their vehicles for long periods of times, creating blights, creating issues with property maintenance. This is where that comes in, and a lot of times we do see that it hinders just the flow of parking lots and whatnot, creating some sort of nuisance coming into a parking lot, especially off a busy thoroughfare. So that's where we started this venture, and we did make some corrections to make sure that there is the ability for oversized vehicles to park if they're doing business at a property or anything like that. within a reasonable amount of time, the 12 hours.

Did we get any feedback from local businesses or property owners about this ordinance? Not this ordinance. Did we do any outreach to them?

No, we didn't.

Have they been complaining about vehicles parked in their parking lots?

I've been here in the city about eight years. And we've had quite a bit of complaints, specifically with tractor trailers or transient oversized vehicles being left in parking lots where they don't have control to to enforce that and so we've actually we've come in to help them you know through other avenues but this is the most direct way to assist them yes thank you appreciate that clarification additional comments questions yes council member wade i'm a little confused but

We didn't talk anything about residential properties and the impact on trucks and trailers taking up space that belongs to private residences. I know homeowners associations have a role to play, but there's not been any discussion in this dialogue about residential properties.

No, this is specifically for legal parking spaces outlined in the zoning code for commercial districts with semi-public parking, not for residential driveways or rural area or anything like that. This is very specific to actual parking lots where legal parking spaces are outlined.

Yeah, I see that and I understand that. I'll let this pass by and we can talk about a different aspect of parking in front of residential properties, but that is becoming more and more of a problem in the city.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that last part.

I said it's becoming more and more of a problem in the city as we grow. Having trucks and vehicles for people who are self-employed and what have you, they have their vehicles parked in front of their homes. It's becoming a larger problem.

And we do have specific codes that are already published that address oversized vehicles and time limits on the streets in Chapter 10 that would address certain things like that. We definitely have storage facilities that are coming in that can help that overflow parking for oversized vehicles. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional comments, questions? Do I have a motion? And I would like that motion to include the addendum that was provided by Rick, please. Do I have a motion?

I've actually provided that on the screen for you right now, ma'am, if it makes it any easier.

Very good. Do I have a motion?

So moved, ma'am.

So moved. Will that work, Vanessa?

I move to adopt the ordinance 26-12 as amended by Rick.

Okay, very good. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Lehrman. Last opportunity for comments, questions? Seeing none, all in favor? Oh, yes. My apologies. That's her.

Does this impact the guys with blue trucks at like a grocery store or something like that where

Madam Mayor, Council Member, no, sir, it wouldn't. We have located in Section 18 of the Zoning Code a whole separate set of regulations that govern that through our mobile food vendor permits and the requirements that go along with it. This is not intended to touch that at all, sir.

Very good. So I do have a motion and a second. Any additional comments, questions? Seeing none, all in favor say aye for 7.3. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Very good. That'll take us to item 7.4, Councilmember Lehrman. This is your item. I'll let you open up, and I do have one speaker card.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a zoning item. ordinance and it's related to Maricopa Station overlay, which is the Heritage District area and With the Mike Ingram Heritage Park there the pedestrian bridge going there first Fridays is coming this fall Can you give us a little bit more information about this ordinance, please?

Yes, ma'am. Madam Mayor, members of the council, if you all might remember back in December, January, January of this year, December last year, we came through with the original food truck ordinance for the mixed-use heritage district. One of our staff members, Donya, did extensive legwork on that. Took us several months to put it together and we thought it was a really solid ordinance and we still believe it's a really solid ordinance. In our enthusiasm to get that pushed out to the public, And it's totally my fault. We overlooked one little issue in that mixed-use heritage district, and that's the Maricopa station overlay. That's part of the mixed-use. So when we pushed this out, we didn't include that in it. And that's what we're back here before you this evening, is to make it... standard requirements throughout the entirety of the mixed-use development so that we can utilize this with some of those events that you just mentioned. Yeah, I wish I weren't back here before you tonight, but as soon as we realized what we had done, we rectified it as quickly as we could.

Thank you. Very good. Thank you very much. Rick, stand by please. I do have a speaker card from Tina Dugan.

Good evening again. I support a clear path for food truck courts, but I have some concerns with this ordinance, kind of the same as with the parking ordinance that I sent you all earlier, and I apologize that I didn't get that to you before tonight's council meeting. It doesn't clearly define what a food truck court is. Is it two trucks parked together? Is it several trucks that rotate through the same location on different days? Does it include a church or business that allows food trucks to use its parking lot? Or are we talking about a permanent location specifically developed to operate as a food truck court? It's ambiguous and doesn't really tell you. All of those are different situations and they shouldn't be regulated in the same way. It requires on-site management during every hour of operation but doesn't explain who fills that role. Is it one of the food truck owners or is it an employee of the property or does somebody have to be hired specifically to manage the food truck court? It requires that every truck is parked in a developed stall, but does not clearly say whether an existing paved parking space would qualify for that. It requires permanent electrical pedestals at every stall. That means trenching, electrical panels, utility upgrades, permits, inspections. And that makes sense for a permanent food truck park, but it doesn't make sense for a local business that rotates food trucks in its business parking lot. It prohibits the overnight parking, which means they're paying for separate storage and additional cost for a small vendor. There's some really great things in it. It allows existing parking to be used. It provides relief from landscaping and stormwater requirements. But it should also clearly state that existing restrooms, lighting, pay parking, and ADA access would meet the requirements. It doesn't indicate if it does. And there's a contradiction. It says it's approved through a temporary use permit, but it requires permanent electrical equipment and permanently attached shade structures. I'd just like to ask that it clearly separates individual mobile vendors, occasional gatherings, small rotating groups, and a permanent food truck court. distinguish between each of those and to allow reasonable alternatives for power and recognize that existing improvements are already there. We have the rules for health, fire safety, parking and access, but we shouldn't pass an ordinance that claims to welcome food trucks while quietly making it too expensive and too complicated for the small businesses we say we want to support. Thank you.

Rick, would you be able to respond? Very good, thank you.

Yes. A couple of things. Mayor, Council, Tina, thank you for the comments on that. If you'll recall when we came back to y'all in January, we built some flexibility into this code because we didn't want it to be too stringent. So for example, there are some hard requirements in there with specific to surface improvements and things of that nature. But if you remember the conversation we had talked about, there may be specific locations that permanent power pedestals may be appropriate. And then there may be other instances where generators using whisper technology would be appropriate. appropriate in that sense. We didn't want to get too specific on it because we didn't know how it was going to evolve. And if, again, you recall, we came to you and said, you know, this is our initial ordinance coming out. We think it's a good place to start. We fully believe that we will need to refine it as we move forward and we have our first food truck courts come evolve in the city in this location. So we tried to build it with some flexibility that we could handle any type of situation that came to us and have the flexibility in it to be to be not so stringent based on, because no two sites are the same. Now there are some requirements with respect to overnight parking. We don't want it to become food truck storage lots. So the owner of the property who signs off on the owner authorization is ultimately the one responsible for that site. And then depending upon how the site is constructed in As they come through the permitting process and the pre-application meetings, we will identify what is site-specific to each one of those and move forward internally vetting each one of those sites as they come through. Going back to the example of the permanent pedestals, if it's an individual site, there's nothing around it. There would be no reason whatsoever to even consider the permanent pedestal. However, if it were on a lot in the mixed-use heritage district with homes on both sides that are in close proximity to that, that's a different discussion to have. It doesn't mean that we'll still enforce the permanent pedestal. It just changes the discussion, and we wanted the flexibility in the code as an initial to be able to provide that to whoever might want to come in.

Very good. Thank you. Council, any comments, questions? Council Member Noor.

Thank you, Mayor. So are you saying that the permanent power pedestals is optional in the revision?

Mayor, Council Member, yes. More specifically, maybe a better way is we would look at it on a case-by-case, a site-by-site basis. So there are going to be, it's possible that there will be locations where that's not possible. You know, a hard-paved surface that's already in place, we're not going to require someone to trench that up and put the electrical in for that. We anticipate that in most instances that would not be applicable, but we wanted to put it in there in the unlikely event that it might be. So it gives us the flexibility, again, to look at it from a site-by-site, case-by-case basis and decide what's best for not only the property, the circulation, the folks that are going to visit it, but the impacts it has on the surrounding side as well, the neighbors adjacent to it.

Okay. And then how would this affect the current, what I would call a food court at CAC? Okay.

Mayor, council member, it wouldn't affect that whatsoever. That is under the CAC guidelines. We do not have any regulatory say in that at all. So there would be no impact at CAC, ma'am. Okay.

Very good. Any additional comments, questions? Oh, one more?

I just have a question based on what you just said. Does that mean there's no oversight on that space there?

The CAC?

The CAC. Yeah, I was going to ask for a clarification. No, sir. The CAC has been deemed as part of their curriculum. They have not come through us for any permits. It is not out of our jurisdiction, but out of our, what's the word I'm looking for, Ben?

Out of our scope. It's a public facility. Say that again, please. It's a public facility. Okay. And again, Mayor and Council, I'd remind you on this one for specifically the food truck, this is for properties within the Maricopa Station overlay zone as well. So more specifically, the redevelopment area, the historic downtown area, that would be affected. So CAC is actually outside of that as well.

As Rudy just pointed out, it's exempt from zoning by stay long is the best way to put it.

Very good. Council Member Nohr?

Thank you, mayor. Just one final clarification. Thank you, Rick. So this is specifically not specifically, but it it's partially for to facilitate food trucks for the first Fridays.

I don't, Madam Mayor, Council Member, I don't know if I'd characterize it that way. Certainly when we enacted this back in January, it was more specific to the mixed-use heritage district. Now, the first Friday is going to fall into that area, so it would certainly be a very good possibility that they could utilize this ordinance.

Okay.

So then I guess the follow-up to that is, so that's fantastic, and I... I'm excited about First Fridays. So was that the impetus for this revision or was there something else?

Mayor, Councilmember, no, ma'am, it wasn't. It was a benefit of it. I mean, we knew it was coming, but it was, if I'm being totally honest, it was an oversight on staff's part when we enacted this back in January, and we should have included the Maricopa Station area in that original ordinance that we passed back in January, and it would have been all-inclusive of the mixed-use heritage. We inadvertently left that little triangle corner out of it, And we wanted to make it right.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Very good. Vice Mayor?

I remember back last year, Rudy should remember this one. Jose came to us, a friend, and he wanted to start a food truck court. It was in the same area, the overlay. And to be quite honest, we didn't have anything in place where we knew what to do. He wanted to build this thing and it was like, wait, that doesn't, no, wait, we don't have anything for that. So this is a long time in the making and it was trying to figure out how to make it easier for someone to do this type of a business. This is not for the church that wants to hold it once in a while or a special event or anything like that. This is for an actual business. They have one in Casa Grande, it's really cool. They took a bunch of... stuff around the house and they made it really nice and there's a bunch of food trucks and it's a permanent facility where people can go and eat and have fun and play bag toss and they have everything there. It's fun. But that's what this is for, if I'm correct. It's to allow somebody to come in and actually build a food truck court with the ability to run a business out of it. and the person that would be responsible for it would be the person who creates the food truck court the person who would have to be there on the when it's open would be the owner of the food truck court um maybe it's a consortium of 10 food trucks that come together and buy a piece of land which i've been pushing for years now hopefully to get that done but um yeah so i i hope that makes more sense and the goal was to have this piece of land in this whole over um whole idea. We just left it out by mistake.

Yes. Madam Mayor, Councilmember, you're absolutely right. And I would even go on to just point out that, you know, if without this ordinance, an individual were to come in, they would be subject to all the development standards that are required within our ordinances that we would require of anyone coming in. And what we found was it just made that unattainable for this to even get off the ground due to the cost. Yes. And so we looked at that. We looked at the other cities. And that's what we brought to you in January. And we created some flexibility in that to be able to look at it by a case-by-case site. And unfortunately, I omitted the Maricopa station in January. Yes, sir.

Very good. Last opportunity for comments, questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

Move to approve 7.4. Second.

Vice-Mayor, move to approve?

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Marsh. Last opportunity for comments, questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. That'll take us to agenda item. Thank you, Rick. That'll take us to agenda item 8.1. This presentation will be by the Honorable Judge McCarville. And, Judge, after you give your presentation, we do have one speaker card.

So I'm in charge of this?

Yes.

We'll see how this goes, give me a moment. So again, to the mayor, vice mayor, and council members, thank you again for the opportunity to present the court report for our 2025 year. And so, as you already know, we already handle a number of cases over at that court, including the misdemeanors, the civil traffic citations, protective orders, DUI cases, and city ordinance violations. But we have had a focus on people first approach just to ensure that every visitor is treated as a valued member of this community. And I think our staff has done a great job at fulfilling that obligation. For the numbers, and I think you received this information before, but for the numbers for 2025, there was a decline in the number of cases that were filed in our court. We can't pinpoint any one particular thing that may have contributed to that, but I will suggest to you that that's an anomaly, and I'll get to that in a moment. But that can include such things as driver behavior. When people get ticketed, that word gets out, people start slowing down. I know you've had some comments about that earlier this evening. But also those influenced by prosecutorial decisions and internal court processes, they can affect it. We are also directly affected by the staffing of the police department. And I know that information was presented to you during the budget process that If they are adding line officers, those line officers more likely are going to file their citations at our court as opposed to if they're hiring detectives, those cases are going to go to superior court. But you last year had two officers out for a pretty significant period of time, and we know that that's one of the contributing factors to the decline that we saw in our caseload. Despite the decrease in other areas, as you know, we've had an increase in the protective order filings for the last three years. I think based on our most recent numbers, that may have finally plateaued. So we're hoping it's leveling out. But those cases do require a little more attention on both the court and the staff there to deal with because there's additional obligations that we have in reference to those hearings. So these are the numbers for the 2025 year. And so you can see, obviously, civil traffic, again, is our largest area where filings come in, followed by criminal misdemeanors. And again, you'll see both injunctions against harassment and orders of protection. Both of those are under the protective order rules, but we lump those together. So those had increased from last year, from 2024 to 2025. You'll see the increase in those cases, and you see a decline in the other cases. But again, I would suggest that those numbers are going to go up when I'm here next year. And I'll just give you, this is not in the slides, and I apologize because I got the numbers today that concluded for June 30th. So again, I'll just summarize. So we had 8,645 cases in all of 2024. And then in 2025, that was down to 6,632 cases. So for 2025, we averaged 552 filings per month. In the first half of this month, so January to June 30th, we have already had 4,782 filings. So that comes out to 797 filings per month. If this trend continues, our caseload at the end of this year will be 9,564, which obviously exceeds both 2024, 2025. And it would, in fact, be the highest volume since the court started its operations in 2023. And that does obviously just put additional pressure on the staffing, scheduling, our case processing, as well as our resource allocation. And so we do need to start planning now for the sustained higher workloads to avoid operational strain throughout the remainder of the year and then going into next year. And this also, this next slide, I'm sorry, demonstrates the number of patrons who are actually coming into our court. And this is also indicative of the increased volume that we've experienced. And so in December, we had 868 patrons who came through our front door. January, that increased to 1,156. And then down in February, and then back up. So one of the issues is we obviously have more people coming in the front door than we have cases, because that's about 12,000 a year coming in our front door, but we don't have 12,000 filings. Some of the reasons for that are we have cases, obviously, where a victim, a defendant may have one or two victims in their case or more. They're not counted as a new case, but they are certainly... court participants who have to be accounted for and we have to accommodate for that we have people coming in with families because they can't arrange for adequate daycare so we allow young children to come into court but that explains the stress on the court system itself because all of those people have to be screened through our security and all those people have to be accommodated as you recall when the court was built We had a separate room built for victims who could participate in the proceedings but be separated from the defendant for their safety. So those are the things that we're trying to maintain through our continuing process. The other issue is even when a case is officially closed, according to the court, so if a person pleads guilty, say, to a DUI, his or her case is officially closed, but that doesn't mean we're done with them, because I then have to set hearings after that to ensure that they're complying with the mandates of the court as required by law. So it may be a hearing to confirm that they attended their counseling that they were required to do. For domestic violence, it's the same thing. The defendant has to come in and prove that he or she completed those 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling. So we have additional hearings after an adjudication, and so those people are coming in. utilizing the court, but they're not counted as new numbers. The same thing is true for people who are coming in trying to set up payment plans on their cases. There are consequences if they miss a payment where they get notification that their license may be suspended. So they're coming in the front door to try to get that accommodated because they want it done quickly. And so we're aware of that and we're trying to make sure that they are met with very quickly and get their case or issues resolved as soon as we can. These are some of our achievements and so one is for the fact that we've been able to streamline the cases through both management and procedural changes. We continue to try to improve the time standards and I think I reported last year that the Supreme Court does have time standards that we're all trying to meet. The Chief Justice had a presentation at the Judicial Conference this year in June a couple weeks ago where that's a continuing emphasis on the court, and so we're obviously trying to comply with her request to make sure those cases are resolved in a timely basis. For the court enhancement fund, I think for last year, COLLECTED ALMOST $60,000. IT WAS 59,483. BUT THEY DO SUPPORT THE IMPROVEMENTS FOR COURT USERS TO ENHANCE THE SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY AND OUR OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES. WE'VE CONTINUED TO STRENGTHEN OUR STAKEHOLDER RELATIONSHIPS. I'M PRETTY SURE WE HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE, PUBLIC DEFENDER AND THE POLICE DEPARTMENT. I will say, I know Chief Goodman's not here, but I want to again publicly thank the police department. We had an incident just yesterday where a litigant was a little frustrated with the process and was acting inappropriately in the lobby and using inappropriate language. The case had not been yet called, but I was given that information while I was sitting on the bench, so I asked staff just to ask law enforcement to send a representative over. I was concerned that I may have to find him in direct contempt of court, and I wanted to make sure that the other people in the courtroom were not bothered by that. Thankfully, that worked out well, but the department responded quickly, so I want to thank, I know the commander's here, I just want to thank them publicly for their response time. The other achievement, I believe, is our community engagement. As you've heard in the past, we have continued to participate in the mock trial at the courthouse itself where the kids serve in the different roles, whether it's witness or the parties to the court. This is one of our clerks who was at the career day for the Maricopa High School. We've continued to be part of the court leadership. In fact, Mr. Say and I are going up late October. We've been invited back to the court leadership conference that's going to be held this fall. The members of our court are involved in the Arizona Courts Association Conference. The Supreme Court has several committees that we participate with, and those are listed on the slide. I was also appointed by Judge Giorgini, who's the presiding judge of Pinal County. to assist Santan with the creation of their new municipal court. The point is that we want to be good partners with the judicial system, so we continue to help out on a statewide basis, but I think that reflects well, I believe it reflects well on Maricopa. The other thing I'm very proud of is just the workforce excellence and the training that our staff has gone through. So the acronym for COJET is just the Committee on Judicial Education and Training. The Supreme Court mandates that every judicial officer and employee of the courts have 16 hours of training each year. We have exceeded that each and every year, and I know you've gotten that information from our Court administrator, I think our staff average 41 1⁄2 hours of training for the court, and that does assist us in being able to provide accurate services to the people who call. So every clerk is basically cross-trained, so if you call our court, You're not going to be put on hold. You're not going to be transferred to another clerk. They're going to be able to answer your questions, access your case, and get the information they need. They do have specialties, but they're knowledgeable in all the areas, and that's one of the reasons for that. So looking forward, again, I'm hoping that we're seeing a plateau on those protective order procedures or hearings. And again, those are a little... One of the reasons those are demanding on the court is because if a person is served with a protective order and the defendant asks for hearing, we are required to set that hearing in a very short period of time, typically between five and ten days. So as an example, if someone comes in tomorrow and asks for a hearing, that hearing most likely is gonna be scheduled next week. Well, I already have a full calendar next week. So we need to quickly make arrangements to accommodate that need. So we're gonna continue to work on that process to make sure that we are fulfilling our duty to get those hearings done quickly. I think we continue to, again, improve the services that we're providing to anyone who's coming into the court, whether it's an attorney, whether it's a litigant, or whether it's one of the victims. And then we've continued to expand our community engagements. And so I just want to open it up. If you have any questions, I want to thank you again just for the opportunity to visit with you today. I miss being in this chamber. I used to house here in the last two years. So it's nice to be back. But if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. And then you, I'm sorry, we have a public.

We do have a request to speak. I will call up Peg Chapitos.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. First, I want to thank Judge McCarville and the staff for being so proactive and striving for professionalism, for treating people that appear before the court or even just visit the court as members of the community. But one of the phrases in one of your slides just caught my attention, so I wanted to ask the question, are we seeing anything out of the ordinary that is creating the need for increased demand of orders of protection because there's a lot that happens from a police standpoint sometimes before it gets to the courts. And I just want to make sure that are we seeing anything that's causing concern or is it just a natural progression as we continue to grow? So that was my question. Thank you very much. Yes, please.

Well, I wish I could give you a simple answer, but that is a very complicated issue. And what I can tell you is if anyone is interested, you can go to the Supreme Court website. There's a committee. It's called CIDVIC. It's just Committee on Domestic Violence in the Courts. And what that does, it makes it very clear that there are several factors that impact this issue. It can include families undergoing financial strain, families who have a mental health issue or component, families who have a substance abuse component. There are some cultural norms that impact these cases. So there's really no one factor that drives cases. And so We do know that when a family is under financial stress, the risk of domestic violence goes up. There's a direct correlation to that. There's a direct correlation to domestic violence and unemployment. But to say that that's what has increased our cases, I don't think I can answer that with any authority. So I think it's just a number of factors, most of which are quite honestly out of our control. The only thing we can try to do is accommodate and be there for them if and when that happens. There is a domestic violence court, but that's in the Superior Court of Florence. That's not a misdemeanor court where they do have more resources to assist those families in getting through the counseling that will hopefully prevent them from finding themselves in that situation in the future.

Very good. Counsel, questions? Yes, Council Member Wade.

Good evening, Your Honor. It's nice to have you here. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have a question in relationship to the mock trial and the student mock trial. I understand that one time we did have a student court here in Maricopa. That doesn't seem to exist anymore. Is there a way that that can happen or get some consideration to that?

I'm sorry. Are you referring to the one that was held at the Superior Court, which is every year in March, or the one that we did for the...

the one we did here at City of Maricopa.

Yeah, we had one. We've had two, I think, since I've been on the bench. And I think we have a third one coming up, I believe. So we'll welcome it. We have to have the cooperation of any school that calls us, we will accommodate them. But the high school does have a different program. If they want to enroll in that, that's held every March in the Superior Court, and they compete against the other high schools. So that's a different program, and I can get information on that if you need it.

I would like that, if you don't mind. Because I've had a couple of students in the Youth Council that have expressed an interest in it.

Okay.

Sure. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Wade. Council Member Lehrman.

Thank you, Judge, and thank you for engaging our youth and protecting our victims. Thank you very much. Could we go back to the, I think it was your first slide where it showed the traffic tickets is our highest number. There we go, civil traffic, yeah. I just wanted to point this out because a lot of people are unhappy with our neighbors and the way that they drive, and this just really clearly shows how we are addressing the issue. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Sometimes it feels like people are not being held accountable for the way they drive, but this clearly shows that we're addressing this issue. And just to clarify, I think I know the answer, but just to clarify, these are not only tickets within our city limits, these include some that are outside of our city limits?

No, only in our city limits. I only deal with city limit citations. Judge Glover is going to get anything.

You get the fun ones. Okay, very good.

I don't mean disrespect, but she's getting rich off a third-quarter set. Right?

She wishes. I'm just kidding. She wishes.

No, I don't get those cases.

Well, that even makes the point even more clear, is that 5,530 were reaching drivers eventually when they are not driving sleepy on our roads. So thank you so much for that. That is so important to protect our kids and our families. So thank you.

My pleasure.

Vice Mayor.

The uptick that we're seeing this year over last year, so you had 24, 25, and then you said this year we're seeing an uptick in cases. Are those uptick in cases mostly the civil traffic cases, or are we seeing a huge uptick in criminal misdemeanors or something?

It's across the board, and one of the reasons for that is I believe you added staff to the police department. Right. Again, if it's line officers or field officers, they are going to more likely impact our court directly as opposed to a detective. So I think it was a four or six that you added. I apologize. I don't recall the number. Six, right? Six. So I mean, if you find out the average number of citations they're issuing on a weekly or monthly basis, the majority of those are going to be filed in our court.

Yeah, and so when we see the work being done by our traffic enforcement, say, and we've increased the size of our traffic enforcement team, we have new motorcycles and used new motorcycles, new to us, motorcycles and more traffic enforcement happening, of course, there's going to be more tickets. Yes. And that's a good thing, actually. People need to learn to drive correctly in the city of Maricopa. And we have a lot of that pressure going out there. I think last year a lot of the videos were going out at the end of last year and beginning of this year showing people what not to do and all that stuff. So it might have been some of the downtick there is that people were afraid maybe. I don't know.

Well, I've seen some of your public information videos, the one with the he's in the dump truck.

Yeah.

I obviously got a lot of those cases.

Walking across the crossing walk.

Walking across. I did not. I think that was Sergeant Couser, right? Yeah, yeah. He was in there. So they're trying to point that, and I didn't recognize him because he was. Dressed as an old man. Yeah. So I was like, who are you looking at? All right. That was interesting.

Very good. Additional comments, questions? Judge McCarvel, I first want to thank Commander if you would pass on our thank yous and for being very fast to respond when the judge needs you. That's critically important. It's a good partnership, so please pass that on. Very important. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for the updates. I like to know that you are up on your metrics, that you're following the metrics that have been given to you, maybe even superseding them in some cases. I get the question a lot in terms of, okay, city council is responsible for the judge, the magistrate, and how do you know that he's doing a good job, he or she is doing a good job? We know. Yeah. We know because people will come to us and say, this is not a fair situation, it's not an environment that I'm comfortable in. We'll hear all kinds of different things, and I'm here to tell you I haven't heard any since you've taken over the court. So congratulations. I think that says a lot about how you're conducting your court. I do have a question regarding your staffing mechanism. You indicated you were going to be looking for ways to increase your staffing because of the uptick.

Yes.

And so in your budget that we just approved, is that accounted for?

I don't think it was approved, but that was my understanding. OK.

So how will we deal with that?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. We analyze that as part of the budget process. So when we hire new police officers, they don't start writing tickets on day one. They have to go through an academy process and then a training process. And so really it almost takes a year for that increased officer to start writing tickets and then to have them reflected in the court. So there's a little bit of a lag, but we'll analyze that every year as part of the budget process.

Okay, very good. And in the case that something is needed in this coming budget year, do we have the contingency? Okay, very good. Excellent. That's all I have. Anyone else? Very good. Thank you, Judge. Okay, well, thank you again.

It was nice seeing you all again. So I'll see you next year? Yeah.

All right. That'll take us to item 8.2, which is a presentation from Quinn.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. We're thrilled to be able to give this presentation. We have a lot going on with the variety of events that we have in our city, and I just don't think that we give praise enough to the events team that pulls it off. It's a joke. You guys all were very praiseworthy. I know.

Did you not hear us about July 4th?

We absolutely appreciate that, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, because I always forget to do this. This is really absolutely a team effort. So yes, our team is planning that, but it takes... the entire city from our public works, our public safety, our streets, our parks, they're all involved in this, and of course our community members of making this successful, and our council for giving us that direction, so we appreciate that opportunity to do that. There's some pretty big things going on with our events, so we wanted to share them all with you here tonight, and I'll get through it as quickly as I can. Council, you're familiar with this. Hopefully most of our community is as well, but just by way of review, the way our department separates our events is into three different categories and budgets accordingly. Our signature events, our community events, and our event tourism. I'll touch on each of these. Our signature events are ones that we've done that are larger scale. We just had one, the Great American Fourth, our Maricopa. Our community events are smaller, more intimate events, often covered through sponsorships whenever we can. State of the city addresses, ribbon cuttings, ground breakings, movie in the park, concert in the park, these types of things. And then we do have one tourism event which we'll touch on both kind of reminding the intent of that event and taking a look at where that stands now after three years of doing that event. Oh, I'm going backwards here. Let's go forwards, how about that? So with our signature events, you'll see our list here, Great American Fourth, Stagecoach Days featuring, what's that? Salsa Fest? What? Okay, I like hearing that. And Maricopa. Yes, we've heard, we are always taking feedback from our community members on our events. Everything that we can do to adjust to the needs of vendors and what attractions they might wanna see, our events team does an amazing job. pushing themselves and trying to find new and exciting attractions and entertainment. And we'd heard a lot from our community about the interest in a Salsa Fest that our team could execute successfully, so we spent some time looking at how that would be feasible. And we found a path forward, included in our Stagecoach Days celebration, which celebrates the founding of our city, or the incorporation, I should say, of our city. So we're looking in the October timeframe. October 24th, I believe, is the date that Salsa Fest would take place. And yes, we plan on doing competitions and prizes and vendors and a lot of familiar aspects of that. So we're really excited. That opportunity stagecoach is a great opportunity to celebrate some of our traditions. uh and then maricopa now you'll notice what's not on this list this year is copacultural and i'll now talk about why in our community events this year we're going to approach something a little bit different council member lehrman mentioned and a couple others as well the community-led first friday event that's taking shape the city is working with these groups to align the events that we've been doing these concerts in the park and the movie in the park at Mike Ingram Heritage Park to align that with that event. So in order, instead of just doing one or two of those, which we typically have the budget for, we're going to look this year to use the budget from Copa Cultural and spread that cultural and art celebration that that event provides more thoroughly throughout the year. And we're really excited to see so many community groups involved in that. Anytime we have the opportunity to do that, to partner with them, it really excites us. So we're thrilled by that. And we'll have a chance to gauge. And again, we'll take feedback. If community said we're like a single event, we'll take that all into account. So we're excited about that. So movies in the park, concerts in the park, the Pecan Pumpkin Walk is an example of our community events, other cultural and arts initiatives. And as I mentioned, groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings, the State of the City and the Senior Info Expo are all community events that we have right now. And, of course, sometimes spontaneous opportunities arise. There's conversation about a party celebrating when the actual widening begins on 347. Right now they're preparing for the widening, and we're hoping that that might line up with our opening of the field house, which would give us a great venue for that. So we're exploring that. So again, sometimes these community events spring up during the year and we have those opportunities. All right, we absolutely want to give you the update on the tourism event. And I'm... Pleased to share with you guys that our event producer that's been doing this with us is here tonight to help answer any questions that you guys might have. So taking a look first at that strategic objective that council identified for our team, giving us that direction. This is in our strategic priorities regarding tourism. And I'll read it. It says, to attract visitors from across the region and the nation, we will employ a sports and events tourism strategy that encompasses broad appeal. We will utilize bed tax funds to minimize the impact on local taxpayers while inviting visitors who can boost local businesses and enhance Maricopa's regional profile. By attracting tourists who spend their dollars in our community, we aim to create an influx of revenue that supports both local commerce and the growth of our city. So that was the direction our team was given and that we've been pursuing. Of course, you're aware of the investments we make in sports tourism. Well, as we mentioned with a new field house coming online, additional sports fields, youth baseball fields coming into Lakeview Park, pickleball courts, shade structures. So it's really exciting opportunities opening up in that realm as well. So this is kind of an overview of where we've stood for three years now. Actually, this is more of a report of what our where our event producer stands in their efforts. So again, we're looking to attract those visitors. So we had an estimated attendance the first year of approximately 15,000 and an estimated attendance the second year of 9,500 and the third year of 10,000. Of course, we want to note that as we looked to scale the event, the investment was much smaller between years one and year two. So we anticipated seeing a drop in overall attendance, but were pleased that it didn't drop by the same percentage as the decrease in expenses. So the end result ended up being that the event producer was able to turn a modest profit in year two. And year three now, about $8,500. I will note in the packet that you guys received, the event producer at our request provided some projection ahead of time, so it says 8.5, and then what was attached later says $8,900, so just variants of about $300, because as they continue to get receipts and deposits, that may change slightly, but they don't anticipate a significant change there. But that's why those two numbers weren't aligned. Just wanted to point that out. So yes, we're pleased at where the attendance has been headed, but this year we also were excited about the introduction of a new software to help us get a better idea of where we stand and where we stand in comparison to our other events. Now, it's difficult to compare and contrast tourism events with other signature events because they may fall on holidays, free events versus paid events. There's a lot of variety, but just taking that all aside and just looking at the numbers of what they tell us So the software that the city invested in is called Placer AI. A lot of cities are using this as well. And so we just took the average of three years of Placer data. So this is the past three years. So we haven't run a Placer report yet for this GA-4th, but we'll be happy to run that. So Great American Forth, again, the average of three years, 5,700. GA Forth, 7,200. Copa Cultural, 4,900. And then we really wanted to make sure that we were taking a look at what the visitors, what kind of visitors we're getting from that, because that's what we're looking to measure. Are we attracting people to the city, and are they coming from outside of the city, or is it primarily our own residents going to this? When we take a look at that, comparing that against the placer numbers for Wild West Music Fest, the average is about 10,000 visitors per year and about 30% visitors coming from out of town. So we're pleased to see that number, and we want to continue to watch that number and see if it's trending in the right direction. If it's not trending in the right direction, then we need to ask if it's getting us the value that we intend. Is it helping us achieve those goals of... gaining that regional exposure, creating that economic impact, and getting our local vendors an opportunity to benefit from the sales that happen. So our next step in this category of event tourism would be to amend the contract that we have. a contract with the event producer for one more year, but we still need to amend it and signal that we're moving forward with that and begin planning for the next year, looking at a beginning of April timeline, I believe. Am I stating that correctly? Yeah, April timeline. and begin the process of looking for artists and promoting and all of that. And at this time, I just absolutely want to take some questions, but I just wanted to bring up our event producer really quick, introduce him and have him talk a little bit about where he sees the event standing after three years. So this is Steve Levine of Steve Levine Entertainment and Public Relations.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council. I just wanted to share I'm here because I believe in creating legacy events. And when I first met the events team, I was excited about, I believe it was for the 20 year anniversary, and I was excited about where we could go with this event. And the first thing I said is, we're starting really big. And in order to build something long term, you're going to have to start smaller and build that. So I was in. I was in for the first one. And we built a big event. And as you could see by the slide, I had lost about $250,000 of my wife and my money because she's my partner and our company. And I'm fully invested in this. And I don't know if people really realize and understand that I poured a lot of my own personal money to build an event like this. So I'm grateful for Quinn and the team and everyone, really, that were able to continue. And when you look at an event as you build long term, and you look from year one to year two, we did only make two or three thousand dollars. But if you look at the delta between losing $250,000 and making two, that was a $250,000 come up is what we call it in our events business. And I'm like, OK, well, now we just took this thing to the black. Let's go. Now, this event is not about making money today for me. Of course, I'm in business to make money. But I'm also about creating memorable experiences. And I am very passionate about events. And if it was only about creating money, I wouldn't be charging $15, $20, and $25 for tickets. For us, it was about keeping this very inexpensive. I believe I went to the movies last week with my three kids, and I was paid $130 for the movies and for popcorn and all that with three kids and myself. And I think you could do a festival with a headline act here for about that same price. Now, of course, there's some extra ads like the rides and the food and things like that. But our goal is really to keep this affordable, keep it community, build it the right way. We did the 20-year. Now we build this the right way, years two, years three. And of course, I didn't really just sign up for two years. I want to sign up for as long as I possibly can be doing this with you guys, as long as, of course, we're moving the needle the right direction. Another thing to show that this isn't about money, because we can easily turn this into a let's just make money everywhere we can, parking. Parking is free. There's no parking. That's $28,000 to $30,000 with the amount of people we had in attendance. But it was important for the team here to keep that as a free thing as well. Comp tickets. Why do we give out comp tickets? It's a proven fact that every event in the world gives away comp tickets. Y'all just don't know about it here. Every event, I don't care if it was Taylor Swift performing at the State Farm Arena years ago, and she did. She hit every nonprofit there was, and there were thousands and thousands and thousands of kids that nobody would ever know. Sports organizations, college games, people give out comp tickets, why? To build, because people wanna be where people are. So it was important for us to give out lots and lots of tickets, and that's not gonna change for years until this thing comes. But who are we giving the comp tickets to? Well, it's very simple. and we also support VetTix, which is a phenomenal organization around the US, and they really, really do a great job with event producers like myself, and I have a relationship with some other events that we do. So those are really the two places that will give comp tickets, and we do see that the second we turn that to a $5 ticket, well, we start selling a little bit more, but everyone's waiting for that community and those community days, and then really building a community night here, or a community day within the festival. um another reason i do this is and i wanted to continue especially after year one because it was not easy uh swallowing the the loss that i that i took was and by the way when it says 2 000 profit or 8 000 profit i want to be very clear that that 2 000 adds to about 2 cents an hour for my team and the 8 000 adds to about 20 25 cents an hour to a team so we're not nearly where we need to be making there's no uh line items where I'm getting a fee or other people are getting fees. None of that. Staffing that works the event that we hire, that of course goes in there and I'm happy to go through. I've had the team from Maricopa in my office and show them any and everything that they want to see. I'm very, very transparent and I take it very seriously. Again, for me, it's working with the city here, getting to know some of the city council, getting to have people hug me that I've never met that live in the city of Maricopa, going to the hotels here and seeing how excited they were, going to the supermarket when I showed up with a few tickets for a giveaway. It's almost like I just would get hugged by people because they were so excited that this event was happening. To me, that's why I do it. The police, the fire, Public safety, everybody has been amazing to work with. So that's why I come back. And of course, I do want to keep building it. I think, look, we have headline names. We're talking about bringing headline names to get people from other cities, other locations, and to travel here regionally. So it was important that we weren't just getting the same old band that you can see everywhere in town. It was about getting something that was special and something that wasn't happening down the street. And also the amount of vendors. So when we look at the dollars that come in, because I know there are some questions about that, again, remembering it's not about money, but the money that comes in that you don't see on those P&Ls and you don't see in there is the $200,000, $250,000 that all the vendors brought in. We had over 10 vendors that got discounts because they are Maricopa businesses. So our goal would be to even make that grander and have more Maricopa businesses and 13 local and regional sponsors. So it's 13 local and then there was regional sponsors as well. Nando's was an amazing sponsor. The second we were done, they said, we are in for as long as you guys will be here. To me, that's special when you have somewhere like that because we see so many festivals where there's not one local vendor, one local sponsor. Now, it is great to have some national sponsors and regional sponsors, and that's very important to us as well. But as we continue to build, we do want to increase that because that, again, puts us on the map. But I am proud to say that when I reach out to agencies all over the world, and it's the biggest agencies in the world, they know what Wild West Music Fest is. And that's exciting to me because last week in our office, there was a call saying, hey, we're planning March. Festival season is coming. So first what happens, the big festivals take the big names, as we know, the Coachellas, the stagecoaches, et cetera. That's not what we are. We are a community festival. And then we go and look at, okay, well, who else is available, who fits in our price range and is going to actually move the needle and be exciting to go see in the city of Maricopa. And that's how we build it. So I just wanted to share a little bit about why we're here. The numbers went up this year as far as the amount of people. Unfortunately, the total gross did go down, but the net was up. Why is that? Because over the years, we get really smart about what we have to spend money on. We organize staging sound. We rent out things for five, six, seven weeks and are able to get prices that are far less. So we saved about $70,000 from the year before. I do want to point out that weather is not great. And throughout the years. And last year, March, we had a rainy day. We were about 40 degrees delta difference from this year. Well, as much as we prayed for it to get hot, we definitely didn't pray for 107 degrees. The numbers change, and it doesn't just hurt our bottom line. It's everyone that's out there. It's all the vendors. It's the sponsors. It's the sales. Another thing that's not in there as well is the approximate $10,000 donation that we make back to the city of Maricopa Foundation. So that's also important to us, and that was the nonprofit that we chose. and worked out with the team. So again, just very high level, but I wanted to give some information. And I haven't had a chance to come and speak to you all, and I've seen a lot of faces around the events. And when I had this opportunity, I was very happy to be included. So thank you for your time.

Very good. Hang around, Steve. There may be some questions. Council, any questions, comments? Council Member Nor?

I'm just going to advance to my last slide, which is questions.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Steve, for being here. I appreciate that. My questions are going to be mostly for staff, except I do want to follow up on your comment about being open and transparent, which I love. Those are my favorite words. And so because the report we get as a council is just like an Excel spreadsheet, and it doesn't really give me a good concept of where the expenses are and where the revenue is. And so I would love to see those numbers more in depth that you offered, because I think that's really important just for taxpayer accountability. So thank you so much, because I do think we require a lot when we do grants for arts and whatnot in terms of reporting. And I think it should be similar for this event. And not because I think you're doing anything wrong, just because I think it's important to have the numbers.

where there's issues there, and I'll just explain it. So let's just say we want to book Taylor Swift, okay? You pay her a million dollars and I pay her five million dollars, okay? When we sign contracts with that agency, we're not allowed to disclose that except to our partners. So a lot of times when you see cities and municipalities, you'll never see those numbers because they're That's under lock and key because they don't want to give those numbers out. But I happily will show anybody everything, but we can't put that out to the world or else I'll be blackballed and never be able to book another actor or talent. When it comes to everything else, same thing goes. When I pay for a stage, someone else doesn't pay for a stage. But I can promise you that I had... them at my office and anything that they asked, I put them on the screen with receipts, with everything. There is nothing. And I said, you ask me any question, I'm happy to share it. So how that works, but because this is so public, some of those things aren't shared in that way, but it's not because of transparency whatsoever. It is just because some of that stuff is protected. So Unfortunately, that's how that is, but there's nothing secretive or anything like that. I'm happy to show any time you would like to come, I would happily show you everything.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Just a couple other things. I've attended all three Wild West Music Fests, and I would just like, as we go forward... So I was at the Sunday show, this past event, and I have four children, and three of them were with me, and Soulja Boy was supposed to come on, and then he got pushed back, and then the storm came in, but on a Sunday evening, when you have kids, and there was, I think, the entire, every high school in Maricopa was in full force at that event, which was fantastic for you. And obviously that was a great draw for our local kids. But like, can we just make sure that we stick to our timeframes in the future? Because as a parent, it was a little rough because those kids had to get to school the next day.

I understand, and sometimes it's out of our control. As you know, Paul Wall, who was there earlier, I don't know if you made it for that, but he had a death in his family, so we had to push him up. So we expected the whole day would get pushed up, but then... transportation, travel, things happen, and it's not... Unfortunately, usually we never start early, but there are unfortunate incidents where artists just don't want to go take the stage yet. They want to wait a few extra minutes, and we're literally taking them and putting a rope around them and bringing them to the stage rather than pulling them off the stage. But I understand, and I... If it was five or ten minutes earlier, we would have even missed that storm. So I wish that it did happen that way, and I understand and I hear you a lot better.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. And I would add to that. I mean, it's a great, absolute point. Glad to state it publicly so that everyone knows that that's important for all of our teams, for all of our events. We try to stay as close to the planned schedule as possible because that's what people are anticipating. And changes are only made if we feel it's absolutely necessary, either for safety or for some unforeseen reason like that. But a great point.

I do want to share at one point there was lightning and because there was lightning we had met and we weren't allowed to do anything for we had to wait a certain amount of time so I do now that I'm replaying that in my head there were some of those incidents that was happening surrounding that day so that was why there was that lull in between for a few extra minutes there so unfortunately that does does happen in Arizona with weather. Again, different than last year, but...

And then finally, when I was looking over your numbers from this past Wild West Music Fest, your lowest night, your lowest day was Saturday. And that just happens to coincide with the fact that our Boys and Girls Club was having their major fundraiser that night, which is Dancing for Our Stars, which they raised almost all of the funds that they used to put on the Boys and Girls Club activities here in Pinell County. And so I would just, I was sad that it conflicted because I couldn't go to both. So I went to the Boys and Girls Club to support that. However, when I saw those numbers yesterday, I thought, wow, it impacted Wild West Music Fest too, because that was your lowest night. And I feel like Diamond Rio was like a legitimate you know, perform, like I would have gone to see Diamond Rio. And so I would just like in the future, if it's possible, and I know you're trying to coordinate events, I know you're trying to coordinate events because you have other concerts you're putting on, but if we could avoid conflicting with the Boys and Girls Club major fundraiser that happens right here at the auction, I think it would help everybody. You'd help Wild West Music Fest, it would help the Boys and Girls Club, and it would help everybody.

Thank you, Councilmember Nor. I will, I guess I'll be direct and say no promises, but promises on we will communicate with them always. What I mean by no promises is, and Steve will explain this a little bit about the constraints he has of when he can get there, and if that happens to be the date that the Boys and Girls Club has to go. There may be a conflict there, but we've already reached out to them about next year. As you are aware, we reached out to them probably a little bit too late this last year, so we didn't realize those dates. I think we will always hopefully be able to avoid that if for some reason their date cannot happen another day and our date has to happen on that day, that'll be Unfortunately, we may find ourselves in that place. I just wanna be transparent, but I think that we'll be very successful in communicating early and avoiding, as I mentioned, we've already communicated about them with that for next year and they, and it helped because they were looking around that same timeframe. And to be honest, again, I'll let Steve talk about that. This timeframe that we're talking about these weeks between where the school break is and where Steve has people available for carnivals and stuff is actually a pretty small window. So there's a chance that we may conflict with something going on in the community, but we are aware that that is an important one for our community, important one for council as well. So again, thank you for bringing that to attention because that helped start a great dialogue with them. We're communicating early. We will do everything we can to avoid crossing paths with them. And I'll let Steve talk again a little bit about those constraints that he has.

Yeah, I think when planning an event, we want to find the best day possible. And I think we have a small little holiday called Easter that gets right in the middle there. And it is, So, of course, the ride operators would love us to do Easter because they're all available on Easter, but it's not always the best weekend to have a community event. Some people will argue that's a great weekend. Others will say no. In my experience, it's really a 50-50 at best, or I would skew not doing it. on a holiday weekend so knowing that that happens then we have the school events whether it's the proms it's the homecomings etc so i think one year we we went up against homecoming and that was was awful we didn't want that to ever happen obviously with this time period then we have spring breaks as well so we take that into consideration and then every other event happening in town But the most important thing, as Quinn was going to touch on, is I call it mini Metallica, because there's 18 big rigs driving down the street, and those are your rides. And normally, you have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent those rides, to put them up in a city, and you don't get anything in return except for paying those, and then they get to keep the revenue. So we were able to work out with the ride operator that this was the only time they were available. And as we build the event and we can show, we'll have more ride operators available for the time. Unfortunately, there's the other really big ride operator in town does the Maricopa County Fair, I think is at the same time. Is that right, Maricopa? So there's about 50 or 60 rides that are consumed there. So that's important when you're building because people want to see the coolest, biggest rides. So as we build, again, I hear you loud and clear. We do have a master calendar. And I think learning who those events are, we want to do stuff with those people and make sure that they know because that's potential sponsors as well. So they don't want to sponsor something they're not going to be at. So it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

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

Excuse me, thank you, Mayor. This is more towards the staff. You mentioned that the Coastal Night was not going to be done this year, or are you dropping it off of your program?

So what we're actually, the most direct answer to how we're planning right now is yes, we're planning to use the budget to spread over so that the cultural activities that we have, we're still going to have those. We're just going to do them in a different format as opposed to one event on one night. We're going to do it several different nights on first Fridays at Mike Ingram Heritage Park. And we're certainly hopeful that that is successful. So that's our plan.

How did you come to that conclusion? What numbers did you use versus another activity that was taking place that might have been not as good or maybe pretty close to the same? Because to my understanding, Copa Cultural Night has been a winner from the very beginning.

Absolutely, absolutely. Great question, Council Member Wade. And so the answer is the alignment of those two events, the intent of them, that Copa Cultural is a celebration of culture and arts, and that it's also not tied to a specific holiday, helped as well, whereas 4th of July and Maricopa are tied to those. So it gave us that flexibility to do the same intent in a different format. And again, we'll be looking closely. We would love to hear your feedback on how it feels and how you like it, if you prefer single day event, then we can bring it back.

I just like something that's good that people have responded to it, and they've responded, it seems, to a cultural night. And I would just like to understand why that particular one was taken out and maybe another one that could have been taken out.

Yeah, so those two reasons. One, because it aligns with the same intent as what the events will be doing with First Friday. And the second is the budget that lined up. The budget that we were looking to do for these events in line with First Friday's was similar to the budget that we had for Copa Cultural. So it didn't make us have to make any new requests of the council.

Got you. Steve, thank you very much for coming and speaking with us and kind of falling on your sword in some areas. I think it's very professional and very nice of you to take us into consideration when you're making your decisions. At least let us understand the decisions that you're making. So thank you very much for coming.

Thank you, Council Member Wade. Vice Mayor.

Steve, I enjoyed the event. When was the event this year? It was April? April. Yeah, I remember hanging onto a tent as it was trying to fly me across the city.

It was fun. It was exciting. It was a good ending to it.

I felt like Wizard of Oz of some sort. But it was great. I had a good time. Always have a good time. You know, the three years I've gone. Quinn, question for you. Salsa Festival. Please expand on this. And is that not a cultural exciting thing?

I'm happy. There'll be a few more questions about salsa. Yeah. Very much similar as close as we could recreate it to what was loved and beloved in the past is what we're looking to recreate. I think we've had great conversations about some of the challenges that our team had in executing it to the standards that are required of us to meet health requirements. So we've been studying that for some time and not getting into too much detail of getting some sinks that are gonna meet those standards and allow these chefs to participate in this. And we are excited to explore looking for some celebrity judges that has been local business owners in the past and some of those opportunities. But we're also open to suggestions that community or that council members have if there's particular elements, we'll always do our best to deliver.

Yeah, I remember the last one. It happened right as COVID was taking off. And everybody was starting to get worried about COVID. And we had our last salsa festival. And I didn't compete in that one. But I competed in three of them. And I never came close to winning. But I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in local grocery stores buying tomatoes and jalapenos and everything like that. So it was always a great thing. We had a great time competing as a motorcycle group that we used to have here in the city of Maricopa. So we had that. We lost every time, but we won because it was such a great community event. And then I remember handing out the checks and trying all the salsas. I've been a celebrity judge in there, and I've been pestering the hell out of you for the last four years to bring back Salsa Festival. I think it's been at every opportunity I can. I've been saying, we need this, we need this, we need this. And that's what people want to see. I actually said, bring it back with Wild West Music Fest, right, and have the Salsa Festival during the Wild West Music Festival. I mean, but I think it'll work during Stagecoach Days, and I think it'll be great. And it will be, just to clarify, we'll be able to have folks sign up, make the salsa there, serve it, all that stuff like we've done in the past.

Yes, we'll have, well, our plan right now is to have amateur chefs, and I forget the other word, what do we call them? Not professional, but commercial chefs?

Yeah, something like that.

Participating in that, and to provide a chip kit that they can purchase for a very low cost of a dollar, and that also gets them a ticket that they'll be able to use to vote. I'm sharing all this maybe slightly prematurely, but as plans, that's our vision right now.

Yeah, I love it. Thank you.

Council Member Knorr.

Just to follow up, Quinn, on Wildest Music Fest. So for this coming, for 2027, will council be approving the contract or how does that work? Because I know it's an option.

I guess I'd maybe look more towards the city manager for the answer to that question. I mean, the staff and the city manager have executed that contract in the past. Yeah.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. It is under the administration authority to sign the contract. The contract initially was approved by the city council with up to a certain amount of extensions, and so the authority is within the city manager's office.

Steve, thank you very much for being here. Quinn, thank you for the presentation. A couple of things that I just want to pause and note because sometimes we go so fast over things. I like to bring facts. I like to be accurate in the information we share. So I want to reiterate the purpose for this event tourism category because it's important for people to understand what our mission was, what our vision was with the city council, with the city staff. So just to go over the four bullets, to attract visitors. So this event is meant to attract visitors, to bring them to Maricopa. for a variety of reasons, but for bullet number two, this is one very important reason, to generate economic activity. And so we know in the second Wild West Music Fest, we estimated based on surveys, $2.8 million was brought into the city, or spent on this event. And so that's part of the mission, is to benefit our local businesses. uh... we want to bring awareness to the city and doing that we brought thirty percent of the attendees were from outside of our city so very important to mention and opt out that i really want to talk about this one steve opportunity for local businesses and vendors because we had the first year you had a special system that you wanted them to use the fee was considered by them to be significant. In the second year and then again in the third year you took away that tool which allowed them a lot more flexibility on how they collected cash or credit cards. You indicated here during your presentation that we have compared to other events more local booths, more local vendors than you typically see. So can you just elaborate a little bit on how you've benefited or helped these local vendors, because I think that's really important. And I will tell you that in year one, I heard a lot of complaints from local vendors. In year two, not so much, and in year three, none at all. And so I feel like you made some changes that really helped our local vendors. If you could just talk a little bit about that.

Well, now that you say it, thank you, Madam Mayor. Now that you say that, you might have a complaint waiting on your voicemail afterwards. I know, that's true.

I always have to take that risk, but...

I think when you're in other... I think that Maricopa being... exclusive and not necessarily surrounded. So if looking at an event like in Chandler, I have some Chandler businesses, but I have so many businesses that are made up of Phoenix, Tempe, and it's just a little bit different. So when you are in a city that's a little bit secluded, we find that, okay, how are we gonna, and you're one, you're right, we didn't know how to work that out, right? So then it was, okay, we don't wanna upset any vendors from the city of Maricopa, whether they're telling you or telling us, Even if nothing came to the city, we still don't like complaints. And we still want to, I'm a pleaser. I want to please everyone. But I understand it's got to be done within reason. So for us, it was, OK, we're not going to watch every dollar. So I don't know exactly how much. There's a lot that comes to it with the services that we provide. We're able to see exactly what everyone does. Tax and license, they really love that because we can share that. But a lot of vendors don't like that because they're like, we don't want everyone to know exactly how much we made. You're giving our information. So there are a lot of benefits by getting full transparency. Again, I'm a numbers person as well. I love numbers. Data is everything to me. But what I saw was it wasn't working here. So we had to go back, I call it the old school way, where people could take cash, people could take credit, people could do whatever. Today, there's a lot less cash being spent. So we are able to still get some reports from some of the vendors. But the idea was... being within reason, doing as best as we can. You guys also have a bunch of events here that are very inexpensive, dollar chips for salsa. Like that just doesn't exist in a lot of places. So because that is already happening, then when it comes to our event, we also have to do the same because if we all of a sudden charge $25 for that same thing, We're frowned upon and we're looked differently. So it was just really understanding. And we're not perfect. We're not. We're not. It still has to get better. But I do know that this year the day business was not there because of the heat. The vendors know that. So they're like, wow, this is only gonna get better. If this year was that good and we ran out of food, I guess it's good that we didn't have more people on Friday night because nobody had food left on Friday. Didn't sell as many drinks, but that's okay. It's not necessarily a get drunk event, but we have that as a, you know, that's there. But I do think having some locals, there was a spirits company where a lot of the team lives in Maricopa. So I'm forgetting the name right now, but that was super cool to me. So even though the actual spirits company isn't from Maricopa, like half their staff is. So it gave people like, I never get to work in my city. So those vendors that got to work and live and, and, in their own city for a major, I think it was Rox Vodka, I think is the name of the company. But that was really a cool experience for them. So I think it's all the way, even construction companies that maybe aren't necessarily based in Maricopa, but Wilmang, for example, who does things here, they were super excited to be part of this. And we've been doing things with Wilmang forever. They're like, you know, it's fun to do something different and be in Maricopa. So I think you see it all the way around. And then back to Nando's, they're like, We don't ever want to do the taco contest without you guys, because it'll never work like that. I loved it. It was great. It was something that really made them happy. The community stage, we know that could be better. We know we can increase and really get more community acts. Show me that Maricopa's got talent and what can we do and get kids more involved and theater groups and dance groups and all that kind of stuff. So I think there is some places for us to grow there. I think attractions too, local attractions. Are there any talented people that do other things, whether it's Maybe they ride a horse. Maybe they do. There are things that we can do. And as time goes, right when the event was over, we got inundated with emails, hey, how do we get involved for next year? That was always a good sign for us. So no long-winded, but I wanted to share that.

That's all right. I think it's important. Another thing that I think is important, I think twice tonight I heard that transparency and accountability to the taxpayers is critical. I 100% agree on that, but I do want to draw attention to the fact that these funds, $240,000, to this event is bed tax. So for the most part of our, is it not 240? I'm seeing shaking heads.

Sorry, so... a little bit of conflation of different things. A percentage of, the vast percentage does come from bed tax. This last year, 240,000 came from bed tax. That's what I thought. That's what I just said. It depends a little bit, and the event, the total event was for 265. It depends a little bit on what bed tax we receive. So I think this year is 220, somewhere around there. Slightly more comes from general fund for the difference, but we're always hoping that the...

Right.

And as more...

hotels open as war right overseas at the i think that captain for that to be fully funded through right so i think that's one other that says important distinction to make because unless our residents are staying at our hotels which periodically that could happen but the majority of it is from people who are working here visiting here whatever the case may be that's very important to understand uh... i would like you know if you don't mind to elaborate just a little bit on the ten k donation i wasn't aware of that i think that is another benefit to our city could you elaborate a little bit on that and what non-profit received that Was it the Police Foundation?

So, Madam Mayor, being fully open and direct on that, we don't advertise that much because we want to keep the focus so much on what our metrics are that are important. But the first year that we partnered with Steve, he's required to give a portion of the proceeds from the bar. to a nonprofit.

Okay.

And he chose a nonprofit that he's worked with for a while, and we had some conversations. Hey, that might be an opportunity for the Maricopa Community Foundation to receive that that could be a benefit to the city. So he agreed to that. I think last year it was around $8,000 and roughly around the same this year. So it's a small amount, but it's something in his revenue that returns to the city that way.

He always wants us to talk about it more. I was impressed to hear that.

He's like, hey, it's important. But I'm like, yes, it is. Again, I don't want to distract from, well, are we making more and more money? Yes, we know that's an important element. And it's important for our event producer. We want him to want to do this event with us. But our focus is, is it getting us those visitors? Is it getting us the visitors from out of town? Is it creating economic impact? I just want to clarify, so the number we projected, 2.84 million in economic activity. So that includes, I want to be clear that we're not ever saying that that's direct revenue that the city sees as a result of the event. That's regional, even national.

100%.

Direct spending, indirect spending, and induced. And if anyone, I know there's some people that have curiosities, we're an open book. If they want to come and have us show that to you, how in-plan works, we're happy to.

Perfect, perfect. And then lastly, just to talk a little bit, we've talked a little bit about how it has grown from year one to two to three in various different ways. Steve, from your experience on an event like this, how many years does it take typically? Is there a typical average of how many years it takes to build up?

There's no typical. I would say that this year, I definitely expected it to be grander. I think that the day... So I could always look. Saturday, the year before, was huge for us, right? With Leanne Rimes. Was that Saturday for Leanne? So with Diamond Rio, I think... there was an assumption that hey, we're gonna do great again on this Saturday. Not knowing about any events that were happening and we're gonna really focus on building the community night on Friday. I always try to build the community night first because if they have a great time, they're just gonna come back and who better to come back than the residents. I think that the day business got shot or else we would have seen double. I think with other events we do around the valley in that time period in March and April, we saw about 50% of the amount of people show up. So if that's true to what this would have been, we very well could have been at double the numbers of what we were. a totally different, I mean it's still the same conversation, but it's even a little different conversation because now you're talking double the people. So I think, but I do believe everything happens for a reason and we're building and there's no time per se as to when things would change, but our goal is keep scaling, keep spending less money, not to cut anything, but to be smart and then spend money on new things that draw even more people, new attractions, new entertainment, and then keep building it that way organically. We're not trying to triple the numbers and quadruple the numbers. I think we could definitely do another 10,000 people easy and the infrastructure we have. But as you saw from year one, we built this infrastructure that would have probably held 50,000 people. And we're not ready to be there yet. And I think over time we'll see that. And we see the numbers. When we do the giveaways, I'm looking exactly how many tickets. Okay, 9,000 giveaways. Well, I know that we're going to get about 20% of those people are going to show up. Nobody ever wants to believe me, but I gave away 9,000 tickets and only... 600 show up on the first night or 800. I don't have the exact numbers, but it's mind boggling. And I'll tell you that it happens at concerts and I don't love doing giveaways. That's why you see the $5 or even $3. When somebody puts some little investment in, they show up. So it's really hard for me to know if I give away so many tickets, who's going to show up? Are they all Maricopa residents, et cetera? So for me, it's just the whole adding it all together and really making sure we have the right entertainment, the right things going on. And two, three years from now, I think this is a 25,000 person event. I really do.

Very good. I think that helps explain some things. Any additional comments, questions? Yes, Quinn.

I just said my last comment. We're so grateful for this opportunity. We know that there's been some questions about this and we'd love just the opportunity to answer them and to answer them so the public can hear. So we appreciate everything that you've said.

Very good. Thank you. And thank you, Steve, for being here. Appreciate that. All right. That brings us to the end of the agenda. I will call this meeting done.

Thank you for coming.