City Council - Regular Meeting

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[Music] [Music] Welcome to the city of Maricopa's city council meeting. We're glad you're here because your voice matters. If you'd like to speak tonight, please start by filling out a speaker card at the council chambers entrance and turning it in to the city clerk before the meeting begins. On that card, you can let us know if you want to speak on a planned agenda item or during the general call to the public. Please keep in mind that all comments are limited to 3 minutes or less depending on the number of people requesting to speak. Personal attacks and political speeches or threats are inappropriate in this forum and will be grounds for ending a speaker's time at the podium at the discretion of the mayor. We also ask that audience members refrain from applauding or showing disapproval of comments shared by fellow community members as every person who addresses council has the right to speak and not be intimidated. It's important to note that due to Arizona's open meeting law, council members cannot respond or take action on topics not listed on the agenda, but your comments will be heard and entered into the public record. can't stick around for the full meeting? You can always catch the replay on Facebook or YouTube where this meeting is currently being livereamed. Want more details about tonight's agenda items? Scan the QR code on your screen or visit www.mmaricopa-az.gov/aggenda.

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Hello and welcome to this evening's regular city council meeting October 7th 20125. At this time I'd like to invite up Pastor Grady. Thank you Pastor Grady from Maricopa Springs Family Church for our invocation and it will follow by the pledge of allegiance given to us and started by Council Member Lurman. Please rise if you're able. Father, right? 13. Praise you. Jesus Christ. Ask your heart.

Father. Amen. United States with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Thank you, Pastor Grady, and also Council Member Lerman for leading us. That'll take us to roll call. Vaness, sorry. Oh, I did it. I called you Vanessa, please. Council member GTH present. Council member Mon present. Council member Dearman here. Council member Marsh here. Council member Manf Freddy here. Vice Mayor Wade here. Mayor Smith here. Madame Mayor, we have a quorum.

Thank you very much. All right. That'll take us to proclamations, acknowledgements, awards, and presentations. And I am going to switch the order of these two. I know we have some representatives here to speak to us and um they have an airplane to catch and so I want to make sure they do that. And so we're going to go to the legislative update and representative Terresa Martinez and Representative Chris Lopez are here to join us and please whatever order you feel you like you would like to address it. All right, make sure the green light is on. the one down on the table.

Oh, there it is. There you go. Very good. Thank you.

Uh, first of all, thank you so very much for having me. I believe that coming up and giving a report to you face to face is very important. As I said earlier, when we govern for people, it's not federal, state, county, and city. It's federal, state, county, and city. We're all equal in our representation of the constituents, the people who live here, not only in Maricopa, but in LD16. I'd like to take just a few moments to talk quickly about my seatmates. TJ Schop and Chris Lopez have been outstanding to work with. We are truly a team. Um, our temperaments are I'm going to go ahead and describe it this way. I hope nobody gets offended. Is out of us. Imagine American Idol. We have Simon Kell, which is me. Very blunt forward. Every once in a while, I will make people cry, but only to be honest and give them an accurate account of what I see. When you talk with me, you'll always get always get the truth. Um, you may leave crying or feelings might be hurt, but it was the truth. It's never a lie. Then we have Randy. Is his last name Robbins? I believe Randy was very funny, very mellow, very uh kind of a mixture between Simon and Paula Abdul. That's TJ. TJ's very measured, but knows when to push and knows when not to push. TJ has been an outstanding uh partner in the Senate because there was a time where I had to torture a senator and he came up and said, "Let me just help you." And he did and it was

fantastic. And there have been times where he has definitely helped us in the Senate with not only our bills but our projects that we bring home. And then we have Paula Abdul, which is uh which is Mr. Lopez because he is so sweet. He is sugar and spice right here. That's that's sugar and I am the spicy one. Everyone likes him. Everyone likes him. He is the nicest, funniest guy you could ever ever want. He is truly like a little brother. And working with him is like working with one of my little brothers. and I've told him as well as my sisters, we've already adopted him and he's a member of our family. This team has been a great team and I'm very proud of our wins that we were able to get. Uh, lack of a better word and I'll I'll sum it up quickly and he's going to have to pay attention to catch up what I leave off is. Yeah.

Yes, this is true. Is he we we had a difficult session. There were some personalities in the Republican caucus that did not mesh and there were some movements that I did not agree about and I made those known. And because I was so passionate in my thoughts and opinions, um there were some people who got a little their feelings were hurt. And then we had to work with the Senate and and I would be lying if I told you that Warren Peterson was an abs he was absolutely wonderful to work with. He he was and um there were times where I had to go and um yell at people. I hate to say that, but I had to get on them. And it was wonderful to be able to to to pivot and let Chris go in and say, "Okay, she was mad, but let me go ahead and let me explain why, you know, this is this is what we're what we're willing to accept." And then I was able to go and rely on TJ. And it was it was truly it was truly good cop, bad cop. And for the audience, I'll give you one clue as to who the bad cop was. But it was it was a thing that fit. And Maricopa LD16, we killed it. And dare I say, and and maybe Todd can check me, but I I will say that out of all 30 districts in the state of Arizona, LD16 came away with the most wins out of all of them. The most wins came to LD16. And it wasn't by luck, and it wasn't by fit throwing, and it wasn't by by super sweetness that we spoke to other folks. It it was a combination of

just an outstanding team and being relentless about as to why we are there. We are there for one reason and one reason only and that is to represent the people here. Now there I am not perfect. I I am not. Um last year I'll go in chronological order. Last year, a friend of mine um uh at the time it was Lieutenant Deputy Matt Thomas called me out and cussed me out up one way and down the other about how dare I steal RICO funds away from the police. And I said, "I didn't do that." He goes, "Oh, yes, you did. You didn't pay attention to the budget." And I did find out that we indeed had done that. And I was ashamed of myself for not catching it. Now, mind you, the budget is extremely thick. But I was I was sad and I told him that I would fix it, which we which we did with the help of the attorney general and the governor. And then I told him that I would never allow that to happen ever again. And so I ran a bill. It is HB2102, which I have a copy here. And the reason I have a copy here is because I want you all to know not only is it the exact language, but Chris Lopez also this was the first bill that he co-sponsored, the very first bill that he put his name to, which I really appreciate. And I called the all the police chiefs, including the one that's sitting here today, and I offered my apologies to that kind sir, and said that I would never do it again and that I would fix it. And so I ran a bill that would prohibit the state of Arizona from ever stealing RICO funds again. And it passed it passed out of the uh government committee and then the appropriations chair killed it. But I was mad.

So then when it came down to the budget, there were three budgets, two fake ones and one real one. And I knew that that was what that was. And so I told them that not only would I sign the budget based on here are my asks, here are Chris's asks, and here are TJ's asks, not only would we stick together and and sign it or not sign it, but I needed to have a footnote in the budget, which is SB1 1739 that says that we, the state of Arizona, will not steal RICO funds because there's more than one way to skin a cat. Well, having said that, the appropriations chairman who killed my bill and he killed my bill because he wanted to steal the funds just in case he needed to in the future and that my bill would prohibit that. And I'm like, we're not taking money away from cops. We're just not doing it. I refuse. So he said to me, "If I put a footnote in the budget that says we will not steal the funds until 2028, will you accept that?" And I said, "Yes, I will for now. I will take that for now." The budget gets crazy. They're long nights. Everybody's mad. Everybody's upset. Everybody's doing all this and that and there's a lot going on. And the staff came to me and said, "We need the language for your footnote." I said, "Check out my bill." So, they put the footnote in the bill that we would not steal funds from we would not steal RICO funds from the cops. They forgot to leave off the date. So, now it's indefinitely. And so what I'd like to do is invite the police chief uh to come up and accept these two pieces of evidence and my strong commitment for law and order

and I I appreciate you. Now, while I also have them up here, I'm going to tell you a funny story. I'm a little nervous. Remember, she's delicate like a bomb. So, I know, huh? That's funny. Okay. Anyways, we were I was late on my way to a meeting, right? Yes.

Yes. And I got pulled over by Officer Torres. I don't know if any of you all know Officer Torres. She's waving. No mercy. Yeah. So he pulled me over as nice as he could be and said, ' Do you know how fast you were going?' And I said, 'No, I do not. No, I do not. And he says, 'Well, you're going a little fast. No comment, because I know the police chief knows. And he said, I'm going to give you this card to go to um traffic school. And I said, "Thank you. I appreciate that. I hope you have a nice day, sir. Good luck to you. I'm I'm I'm right here at my meeting. And I took the ticket and I and I left. I get to Maricopa Kids Day and I go to him and I said, "Do you know what happened?" And he said,

"Yes." And I said, "Who told you?" And he said, "Officer Torres." When I saw Officer Torres, he said he did not tell him, but that he did tell the sergeant and everybody else. Fair.

And I said, "Well, what did you say?" Because I I didn't feel like I needed to be ratted out, you know, because that was business between me and Officer Torres, you know. It wasn't business between me and the chief. And what did you what what did you say, sir? I said, "Teresa, you did exactly as I would have expected. You took your ticket and said, "Thank you very much." and moved on with your meeting. I did. Was there body cam of that? There is. Yes. Well, thank you, sir.

Yeah. Thank you. We do appreciate you and the efforts of all of our legislators in LG16. greatly appreciated and we always love partnering with you on great legislation for for our great state. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Um when I when I did talk to uh and I and I appreciate Thank you for the police chief. Thank you to him

for the great work he does. So when I did see officer Torres and I kind of gave him a little bit of a hard time about that, he said to me, he goes, I said, ' Do you, it's funny because when I was telling my son, my son said, so I don't know if he knows, but I gave $200,000, well, for me and 100,000 from Chris, we were gave $200,000 to to the Maricopa City Police for whatever it was that they needed. My son made fun of me and says, 'Yeah, it's now it's 200,000 and the 300 that you're going to have to pay from your own personal finance. And we started talking about about the ticket and me being able to take driving school. Well, then my son said, who drives a motorcycle and he's fine because he had a car accident. He says, "You know, Mom, when I get stopped by a policeman on the motorcycle, I don't have that same option." And that was an idea for a bill. And so now I'm going to run a bill that if you are on a motorcycle and you get stopped by a policeman, then you also have the opportunity to get rid of those driving tickets just like on a car. And the reason I bring that up, not only is it to put the chief on the spot and tell him to tell officer Taurus, I said hello, but for the audience and for all of you to know that the ideas for bills, even though we have lobbyists, very high paid lobbyists to come and give us these brilliant ideas for bills, the best bills really come from the people. They really come from you all in your everyday life, in your everyday conversations about what's happening. And so my cell phone number is 520-792311. If you have an idea for a bill, I would love to work with you on it. And I look forward to working with uh Councilman

Member uh Manf Freddy on our future bills for transparency and and I give this to all of you to all of you. If you have an idea in a bill or I have a bill that I think is going to affect you, I would like to work with you on a stakeholder process. I would also like to invite Mayor Nancy Smith uh to join us at a future date that we have not come up with. I ran into Mayor Andy Sutton from Eloy and we talked about the mayor's lunchon that used to happen. And so in the future, I'd like for for us to do the mayor's lunchon and to invite your mayor Nancy Smith to come and attend with all the other mayors and and myself. That cell number again. So get your phones out. Okay. It's 520. Yeah, Patty says she already has my number. She does. 520-7092311. Text me your name and where we met and what I said so that I can put you in my contact because I'll have a conversation with you for like like six months and not know who it is. The best ideas come from the people because we are represented. We are we are elected to represent them and govern with them. And I I give you that commitment here again today. I report to you because all of you are my constituents and I've never been prouder. It's important for the people to know that Mayor Nancy Smith has been wonderful to work with. It's important for the people to know that. It's also important for the people to know that the city council has been amazing to work with. I can pick up the phone to any one of them and have a question and they will call me and I appreciate that. I'm going to let Chris talk about the other parts of the bills, but I did want to talk about this one

because in my mind, I thought about this moment over and over and over and over again in my head about this moment. Although, for whatever reason, the podium was over there. Chris and I got $2.5 million each to spend on whatever it is that we wanted. together it was a combined $5 million not counting the money that that 347 is getting that that doesn't have that doesn't count that and there were projects that we went through and the $200,000 for both police and fire to city of Maricopa combined 4 thou $400,000 and 300 um came from both me and Chris out of that $5 million Amber was it 300,000 Suicide is is very ugly and it's nobody's fault. Just happens. And that that particular incident hurt my soul in such a way that I was scarred and marked. So, I said um to Chris, I want to take some of this money, some of the other money that we have. It's mandated that is is in panel county. Um the $200,000 to the uh uh Boys and Girls Club. I specifically said it must be the Boys and Girls Club at the Sun Corridor. It can't go to Santan or Apache Junk. It cannot. And we made that clear. But this one was a little bit different. I I said generally all of Panel County because you never know and in the future maybe we do something statewide. But I called up Amber and I said, "Where

should I send this money?" And Amber called me and told me and I'm happy to say that we got $300,000 to La Frontara to help with uh to help prevent suicides. I love and adore you. You are the bravest, strongest person I have ever met in my life. And I'm honored to call you my friend. Now, I'm going to let my seatmate come up here and fill in all the blanks and all the gaps. I'm happy to stand for any questions after his presentation. And with that, thank you, Mr. Lopez.

Well, thank you very much. And uh, Mayor Nancy, City Council, thanks for having us here uh, this evening. I, you know, there's more than one reason I always let Teresa go first. Obviously, ladies first, but there's nothing that uh, isn't said. So, it makes my job very easy. Once again, you know, I can and will go on to echo some of these great wins that uh that we did have. And how proud are we to be um born and raised in the district and and go and be uh given this job and put at the capital by all of you guys and to bring back results like we have. Also a proud moment is the fact that uh towards the end of session and when we were uh during siny die to hear our colleagues say oh the the golden children the golden children let us move out of your way. How'd you guys get all that? I mean it was unheard of. And for a freshman I'm just enjoying it one being called a freshman to begin with. So do that as long as I I will enjoy that as long as I can. But um just getting other person's perspectives. We've got veterans there that have been terming out this year. We've got uh colleagues and seatmates uh that all have their own opinions. Oh, it was you know this is what it's like usually uh you know it's a normal session. Others were saying, "Oh my gosh, we've never been here before." But for me to see it uh through my own eyes and know that I wanted to be there for one reason is to learn and bring back results. Uh to hear those comments about calling us golden children and uh how did we do this and that uh you know and get what we wanted. We got what we fought for for the good of our district, plain and simple. And

it would not have happened if we weren't all pulling the wagon the same in the same way. You know, I I can say that uh the team you've got compiled here is very much uh that person, those type people that we're going to ride out on the same horse we came in on. So, whatever we go in there with basically uh ideology and reason, we're going to hold on to that and that's what we're going to take with us. And it was a proven fact. 200,000 for police, 200,000 for fire. The money uh alone for the 347, you know, and being on it this afternoon. I wanted to get a shovel out myself, you know, and and start it right away. Um the projects on I on I 10 are continuing. Uh, and I and I shared with council uh earlier today when I have to come to Maricopa and and use GPS to get around to uh family day and other uh areas, it's amazing. It is for me those tours, those invitations, things like this is exactly what makes the job. It's the best part of the job. It really is. So again, for us to be back here, uh, you know, and and bring those results, um, is is very fulfilling for for Teresa, myself, and for, uh, Senator Shopee. Um, you know, and I have said this many, many times. It's like a uh a daily job interview. And I would encourage all of you, please, please come up, come up announced, come up unannounced. What that does for us is show some accountability. Walk in, see what we're doing, sit in our offices, and ask us what we're doing because it doesn't

happen often. It doesn't happen over there. We are very much business sense and common sense. And hopefully uh our momentum continues. I believe it will. And uh you know, we hope to be infectious and and uh get a little more support down there uh as we go forward. But I can tell you as the vehicles, we depend on you guys as to be the fuel to allow us to do our jobs over there. And like Teresa said, we've got very smart people like Todd over here and Katie that care very much for our communities, especially Maricopa. And um together that whole team is going to do great things without a doubt. You know, we talked about the the suicide prevention and we did big things for um uh uh our veterans. Uh you know, and with that, are there any veterans in the room today? Well, thank you guys for your service along with first responders. You know, the [Applause] you know, when when invitations when 90 invitations can go out to uh to um tour the state penitentiary in Florence and only two lawmakers uh respond. Now, Teresa had already gone uh was myself and uh Rep. Finink and she did hers out in the West Valley. I spent the day there and left with a totally different attitude about what those folks and in all of you folks do on a daily basis, whether it's working at the hospital, the police station, bashes or fries, just, you know, these folks are in this atmosphere, that atmosphere for 10 hours a day and more, hearing the

buzzers and the screams and all the ambient noise and that. And for 90 of my colleagues, all it did was fuel a fire for me to when I go back and I've already started and bring up to these colleagues of mine that we had to fight the way we did for a small increase for those guys to do their jobs. It's very easy for all of us, myself included, we're going to watch NYPD or whatever these shows are, but we have an off button, right? you that usually ends with somebody hitting the gavvel and sentencing soand so it's another whole life and another part of the whole equation. I met guards that have been there for 30 years that had to go to school to learn how to uh teach uh ethical um u etiquette, you know, and reintroduction to society. Um so they're doing double double the the duty. sat with inmates that are taking part of these classes and programs. And we have to go down there and fight the way we do for for for uh an increase to to get these guys the the uh the equipment they need and and a small raise. more people, more legislators, more of our colleagues need to do what Teresa, TJ, and myself do. And it's about getting out in the community, taking advantage of these tours, kids day, um, groundbreaking, all of these things. Invite us. Please make sure that we have them. And, you know, there's times when we're double booked and triple booked and we will make every single one of them because it's things that this community has needed for a very very long time and uh together we'll we'll make that all happen. I mean it's

wonderful that again if I have to come to Maricopa and use my GPS I was coming here when I get when it was Bill's Tire Store headquarters Circle K in the Napa. Now I can't get a now I can't get around without GPS. That's great. That's what it's about. But you also need the infrastructure and you need the um you need that commerce. You know, it's a great puzzle when it's all working together. It really is. Thank you guys for your support. The committees that I'm on, I'm on appropriations, I'm on health and human services, and I'm also on ENRO, uh natural resources, energy, and water. Vice chair of that. Um, so you saw a little bit about the big sister there where she Yeah, you saw how that all works. This is what happens at the Capitol, too, you know, but usually we're on the floor and she's screaming at uh, hey, hey. Anyway, yeah, I I'm trying to learn. I'm sitting there learning, right? I do want to learn. Uh, but yeah, those committees are are are very um good committees and and kind of unheard of as a freshman uh, and a firsttime uh, lawmaker, first year. So, um I was uh very happy to to be a part of those and you know I I feel that it was to our advantage especially down to the wire with the 347 going through appropriations and that there's without a doubt uh the three of us down there uh watching and listening and uh again moving forward in parallel uh for everybody's future, our district and our state. So happy to stand for questions. big uh sister again. Uh right, you you all heard that. But if there is anything um that you guys ever need, like Teresa said, reach out to us. Please do. And and thank you guys for all of your

support. As long as you keep sending us there, we'll keep doing exactly what we've talked about today and tonight. Council Council Member Marsh.

Yes. Um Teresa, could you explain to us why the RICO bill was important? What does RICO do? Thank you so much for that. Council Men Marsh RICO is the anti-reketeering fund. So when the policeman pulls over somebody, a drug dealer, and they've got weapons and they've got cash and they've got drugs in the car, they seize it. When the people go to court and they're found guilty, what do they do with the drugs and the guns and the cash in the vehicle? Well, they're able to sell some of it. Not the drugs, obviously, but they're able to sell some of it. keep the cash and it's called RICO and they are able to use that um to build up in their in their bank for bullets and for uh training and paying overtime or whatever it is that they need. And so depending on you know your city you will have RICO funds and they call I'm they call it RICO they will have these RICO funds sitting in the account. Well, last year, the year before last last year, um we had a deficit and so I don't remember how much the chief had in his in his bank account from from the profits of those items that they were able the property that they seized and and selling it and what what have you. Um, but the state of Arizona decided to take all the money that they did not spend and use it for to to subsidize our shortfall on the budget. The funny thing is is that for the RICO funds, you cannot use that to subsidize your budget. So, if the police if if the police chief is short $1,000 and he's got $5,000 in the RICO funds, he cannot use that money to subsidize his budget. But we did in the state of Arizona. That's not right. And so when we took that, like I said, uh, police chief, now Florence Matt Thomas, who was, uh, Panal County Chief

Deputy then, uh, and he let me have it like, I can't believe you did that. You're defunding the police. And so that's what we had to correct. Thank you. I'm sorry. I should have And for the audience, if you guys have questions, that's that's what Rico funds are. Thank you, council members. Any additional comments, questions? Yes, Council Member Luren. Thank you so much. I am so grateful that you have remembered and kept my my son in your heart and honored him and many other families and and kids like him. So, thank you so much. And I also want to thank Representative Lopez for your work on Alzheimer's. Um it has been significant in our community and the progress that we've made in our community. So, thank you for championing that as well.

You Thank you very much. Very good. Yeah, I was teasing them earlier when we were meeting with them that out of all hundred elected officials who received well over 140,000 emails from residents in the city of Maricopa, these two never complained about the emails. They're like, "Bring it on. Bring it on for 347." So, just bring it on. So, and there was a day where you guys were all slipping because there was only a few thousand that day. So, you guys uh you know, you guys must have taken a day half a day off or something. Yep. We city of Maroba knows that. huge impact. Yeah. Thank you.

And if I might respond, mayor, um thank you for heading up with James and and Bill and and Priscilla and all of those folks who go to the 347 meetings. Those emails have worked and I cannot emphasize that enough. Those emails worked so much. We had other legislators going, "Oh my god, where is this road?" And then when she realized it was our road, she was like, "I should have known." And and that promised to vote for it if we would make you guys stop sending and we did stop the emails. Yeah. And so, but they can come up really fast as a prank

for for now. But those have been wonderful. And again, that's a partnership that we've had and we we're grateful for it. Thank you.

All right. We appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. Yep. Representative Lopez and Representative Martinez. [Applause] All right, that takes us to our next proclamation. And I would like to ask up Council Member Lerman, who is already here, and Jim from our police department. And Jim, I hear you have a crowd that follows you. I'll read the proclamation and then I'll turn it over to Council Member Lyman. Um she and this group of people did a phenomenal job bringing awareness um to our community for domestic violence. I'm so proud of everything that they've done. You may have seen some of the artwork out in the opening um when you came in. Um just if you haven't checked it out, check that out. Um, but I have a we have a special treat for you after the proclamation and after council member Lyman um shares a few words. Whereas the words domestic violence are often avoided and cause unease when heard of or uttered. Nevertheless, it is a crime to so prevalent that it affects so many in our city, our state, and our county. And whereas domestic violence reveals itself in many forms and claims many victims, in all its forms, domestic violence seeks to intimidate, dominate, and control. And whereas across the United States, domestic violence crimes are staggering. Arizona ranks fourth in

the nation for domestic violence. In our state, one in three women and one in four men will experience physical violence from what? Someone they trust. more heartbreaking. Every 44 minutes, a child in Arizona witnesses domestic violence in their home. Too often, domestic violence results in injury, death, and invisible wounds that last a lifetime. And whereas behind every number is a person, someone we know, work with, or care about, a neighbor who might be suffering in silence, a child who goes to school worried about what they'll find and when they get home. And whereas many victims don't speak up because of fear of safety or are afraid they won't be believed. This causes feelings of isolation, shame, and being trapped. Some may not recognize that what's happening is abuse because the marks are not always visible. It is time to break that silence, affirm survivors, and help them move from victims to thrivers. And whereas the city of Maricopa is committed to visible action during domestic violence awareness month, including lighting the pecan tree at city hall purple, distributing awareness ribbons, and supporting community events that spread education and hope. And whereas we have incredible people in our community in law enforcement, volunteers, professionals, and advocates who show up every day for survivors. They remind them that they are not alone and that there is a path forward. But this can't just be their fight. It has to be ours as well. Now therefore, I, Nancy Smith, mayor of the city of Maricopa, do hereby proclaim the month of October 2025 as domestic violence awareness month and encourage our residents to support community efforts in working toward its end. I'd invite up council member Lman, please.

Um, city of Maricopa is no exception to domestic violence and um, we had 10 shootings here in Maricopa from February to May and eight out of those 10 were related to domestic violence. And according to Judge McCarville in the city court, um, we had had an increase of 53% with restraining orders and that's six per week here in the city of Maricopa. So, we just want to thank our community resources, Hope Women's Center, Maricopa Police Department, Dove's Network um for their willingness and against abuse, of course, against abuse. Uh for their um efforts in serving men, women, and children who suffer with domestic violence. And Tori, am I correct that the shelter is full tonight? Yeah, the shelter is full tonight. So um there is a need uh for supporting our community members and loved ones who are struggling through this issue.

Jim, are you

one minute one minute for for people who for people who know me know I do have a tendency to speak a little too loud and too much. Uh you could see some of the activities that we're going to be having here in the city of Maricopa for October. Uh the reality and when you hear these numbers, excuse me, the thousands of women, children, men uh in the state of Arizona, the millions of survivors in throughout the United States, the tendency is to say, "Well, let's not talk about that." Back in the old days, right? Let's not talk about it. Let's keep that hidden. Let's even joke about it. Let's talk about the well, if you only had the dinner ready at 5:00, you know, and it wouldn't have happened. Those days are over. The days are over. And the time has come to bring things out into the light, to look at the reality that there's people that are dying, people that are scarred for life by domestic violence. And it's not just the physical, it's the sexual, the emotional, the financial, the cowering that some people have because they have no other choices. Tori knows this as well as the others. It doesn't take just one time, two times, three times for survivors to leave. It's going to take on average now maybe even eight or nine or 10 times. They're not weak. They're not helpless. They need support. Bottom line, they need support. Every single one of us knows somebody who is suffering from domestic violence, is a survivor of domestic violence. We have to open up our eyes. We have to have be kind to one another. We have to be able to ask questions with one another, not coward, not be fearful of that because the more that it comes to light, the more that people are going to feel

comfortable to be able to have the assistance that we have here. We have other agencies that are not here tonight because they're not feeling well, but there's a lot of agencies here in the city of Maricopa that will assist. And all it takes is one phone call to be able to say, "I need help." Against abuse has been a great asset for the police department. And I'll say that very openly, very willingly. But I do have a favor and I want to request is that October 31st, the month is over, domestic violence awareness month. October. All right. Let's make a resolve that it doesn't stop with the awareness on October 31st, that it goes throughout the year because our survivors deserve nothing less than to have that openness and to have that willingness for every single one of us to be able to to reach out a hand for them. So, let's make a difference in their lives, too. Thank you. All right, we are going to take a quick picture and as soon as we do that and if you'd like you can head on out to the patio out the front doors. That's where our surprise is. And I think this is the first time that we have lit up the tree and it's going to be purple. So, it's going to be quite beautiful. And on your way out, as we're taking this picture, stop and see the artwork that was done by survivors, domestic violence survivors. I think you'll appreciate that. So, five minute recess and we'll grab this picture and come out and join you.

report from the mayor. Council members, do you have items to share? Yes, Council Member Marsh. First, I want to share that uh while the federal government might be closed, the city government at Maricopa is wide open for business, and I'm proud to be a part of it. Um, and I'm a proud supporter of Maricopa's Hope Women's Center. And at at every company I've worked for over my career, I've fought for equal pay for women. And at every company, including Microsoft, I won. I've had a busy couple weeks since the last council meeting. On the 18th of September, we had a lunch and learn at the senior center. The topic was dementia and it was very well attended and I can vouch for the fact that the presenter Ron Smith does not does not exhibit any signs of dementia. Thank you for that presentation, Ron. It was great. On the 22nd of September, I had anformational meeting with the head of the local police union. And on that day, I also attended the planning and zoning meeting where the planned hospital at Copper Sky was discussed. And we have representatives here tonight from that company. On the 23rd, uh I participated in the groundbreaking at the New Heritage Park dedicated to my Mike Ingram, one of our true pioneers. On the 25th, I uh worked the Panel County Board of Adjustments and Appeals in Florence. We had one appeal which we denied and a few variances which we approved. The planning director there is finally committed to attempting to fix the county zoning code. We'll see how that

goes. On October 2nd, I met with uh leadership of the historical society along with council member Gtle uh Denny and Gary, the president, vice president to discuss discuss a proposed memorial wall at the new park. On the 3 of October, I attended the panel partner uh breakfast meeting. The subject was water 2.0 and Jake Linder King from Global represented us very well. On the 6th of October, I participated in the general plan update uh advisory committee. Um and we're still on schedule for a December January public review of the first draft. So, keep keep it on your calendar. And mayor, that's about it.

Thank you very much, Council Member No. Thank you, mayor. Just a couple things. I was able to also participate in the Heritage Park groundbreaking, and I'm really excited about that new park and what it will will offer for our residents. I attended the community leaders lunchon for the Maroba Unified School District as well and got a great update on what the school district is doing um within the community. And they always have a great presentation from um one of our local youth that's excelling. And um it was just fantastic. They always make me cry because our kids are just doing great things here in Maricopa. And I also got to participate in the new uh MUSD K8 naming committee. And I'm not allowed to release the suggested names yet, but uh be on the lookout because MUSD um school board will be voting on that soon. And it's really exciting. So um that's all I have to report. Mayor, thank Thank you very much, Council Lerman.

I want to wish the Navy a happy birthday on October 13th. They were founded in 1775. So, thank you for all of you that serve in the Navy. Um, I would like to invite you to participate in a community health needs survey for Panell County. This is really important. I took it myself and they're asking you what do you need for your health care needs here in Panell County, specifically Maricopa. So, they want to hear from you. Um, so take the survey. It's not long, it's short. If you just go to the Panol County website, you'll see the survey right there and you can take it. Um, there is a spooktacular wildlife event on Thursday, October 30th from 4:30 to 6:30 at the Coolage Library. So, feel free to dress up and participate in that event. And I want to thank our city staff for their work during the monsoon season. We got some pretty wild weather, didn't we? and our staff did a great job of keeping our roads open and safe for us and clearing them quickly. So, thank you very much. Um, and lastly, I just wanted to share Council Member Gat ghetto and I had an opportunity to participate in a really exciting um exercise. It was called Operation Back on Track Train Derailment. the city of Maricopa hosted this event. Um and our emergency manager George Burgerer um ran the event. Um we had agencies I just want to share. We had Maricopa police and fire and our C program, Auction Police, um the city of Maricopa staff, panel county coroner's office, we had the Amtrak staff fly in from Seattle, Chandler Fire Department, Panel County Sheriff's Department. Exceptional Health was there um and um AMR ambulance service was there. So, everyone was in the room who needed to be in there and we were given scenarios and exercises of what to do if there was

a train derailment. It was very informative. Um I was so um left feeling so confident in our city staff and our county level staff and our state level staff as well and the resources that we have access to within minutes. Um, and so it was really great and we plan on doing more of those, even like a more extensive or a more detailed training. Um, there's Chief Patassi. He was there as well. We had a great time. So, I just want to thank our staff for taking that leadership. I think everyone there, it was a packed room in the library. It was packed out. Um, and so I think everyone there walked away feeling really grateful for the opportunity to interact with each other and collaborate with each other. So, thank you to our city for being a leader in that way.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lurman. Counciloman McD.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I feel like this month I was able to ride around on Councilwoman Lurman's coattails. We had a lot of the similar events that we attended. Um, if I could just add my two cents to the tabletop exercise she mentioned. Um, we had over 12 additional or 12 agencies represented from the local level all the way up through the state level. We almost had some federal involvement as well, but they were called away on a different incident that day. unfortunately. Um but just a huge thank you out to George Burgerer for uh putting this together in connection with our auction neighbors. Um it was a phenomenal event. I've uh I've said once before on this DAS and I I I fir firmly believe this is that one of our most important jobs as members of council and as our staff in public service here is to be sure that our community is as safe as possible. and running through these exercises, while they're not necessarily pleasant, um they're a very good exercise to really put into practice. What are our policies? What do we do? How how does this actually roll out as as we go through the scenario? And you would imagine just sitting around a table, it really isn't all that realistic, but it really is. as you have those conversations and you start really working through the challenges placed before you to try to find out the best way to save as many people as we can loss of life, minimize the loss of life. Um, so they're very valuable and so again I want to thank George Burgerer for his efforts and putting that together for us. Um, we also had an opportunity on the first day of October to tour the Phoenix alarm Room. Um, those of you who aren't familiar with that facility, it is basically the hub of 911 for our Phoenix Valley. And it was a phenomenal tour as we got to see all three of those floors. Um, the the emergency operations center uh that is activated in certain events. Um, down to, you know, watching over the shoulder of these 911 amazing 911 operators as they feel the live calls coming in and

watching how all of the pieces work. And one of the takeaways that I took from that event was to see how critical it is to have the mutual aid aid agreements that we have in place with our city that it's not just um one tiny boundary that that we are not only responsible for but can draw resources from but it's the entire valley. So, if something were to happen here locally, not only do we have the amazing men and women here in our departments to help provide those relief services, but we areworked with tremendous resources into the Phoenix Valley that could be here within minutes to provide that backup as needed. And those agreements are extremely valuable and very important to maintain. So, I was appreciative of the opportunity to to witness that and see it firsthand as they had some pretty major events happen while we were there. Um, one other thing I'd like to share too, and this was on September 24th, and I believe we'll hear a little bit more later on with our city manager update. Um, but I had with connection sister Councilwoman Lurman to attend the Maricopa Police Department business watch. Um, it was the first inaugural meeting. Jim, you were there and thank you very much, Chief. You were there, of course, heading that up for us. And just like we might be familiar in our own neighborhoods of having a neighborhood watch, we've organized also our our police departments organized a business watch where groups of businesses can come together and help to alleviate some crime and some uh some things that need to change perhaps in some of our shopping centers to make it a more safe environment for our our residents and for our businesses to be able to thrive. So I just would like to applaud uh Chief Goodman for setting that in motion and allowing that to take place. This will be the first of many. I understand. U mayor, I believe that's all that I have here today. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Council Member Ghetto. Council member Manf Freddy.

Nothing. Vice Mayor. All right. So, that will leave it up to me in regards to just a few items that haven't already been mentioned. If you didn't have an opportunity, maybe you don't have children that would enjoy Kids Day. I want you to know how phenomenal it was. It was the 18th year for Kids Day. And that's what Representative Lopez was referring to as family day. 3,000 plus kids and their parents. It was packed. It was fun. The kids enjoyed it. It was educational. Um so much information there. And if you're a small business and you're have connections with small children and their families and you want to join it next year, Dr. John and May Donahghue would be the people to talk to. But a phenomenal event in 18 years of doing that gets bigger and bigger every year. I just don't know where we're ever going to move to. I I had to park way down the road, but um that's how crowded it was. It was very busy. I also had the opportunity to go to the Phoenix Dispatch Center. And I want to share in regards to the mutual aid. Um I always felt like it was an important part of our partnership in terms of having mutual aid because of the fact that you can call from other cities, very important in the in the situation of need. But when I witnessed it, they pulled up the city of Maricopa and what I saw in front of my eyes happening at that moment in real life were four needs. Four needs within the city at that specific moment. We have four ambulances appointed to us here in the city of Maricopa. And one or two of them were gone. And so now what happens? And immediately they were able to call up the ambulance services and cast a grand and get them on their way. and then um if they would have needed to for the fourth spot, but I believe one freed up and so the fourth spot was filled um with someone who was previously at a different location. So huge in regards

to how important mutual aid. I was very impressed and sold by the fact that even when we have our own ambulances, there's going to be that need. Um, I'm very convinced of it because if you had asked me if I was there and was I expecting to see four incidences at one time, I would have said, you know, probably not, but four incidences at one time. Then I had the joy this past weekend of going to the Maricopa Relay for Life Survivor dinner. As I've shared with many of you, I am a breast cancer survivor of nine years. And so I attend every year. I've attended since the inaugural event nine years ago. And um I was impressed. The room was full. It was decorated by one of our local businesses that did a fantastic job. And um October is also breast cancer awareness month. So I kind of combined my purple with my pink. Um so I covered it all for domestic violence and breast cancer awareness month. But I just want to really congratulate the Maricopa Relay for Life team that put together that dinner. It's important. I was amazed how many people I met there who had been newly diagnosed with cancer or they had been 45 years cancer-free. So that's encouraging to all of us who are cancer survivors. And that's it from the report from the council and mayor. That'll turn it over to you for the city manager report.

Thank you, madam mayor, members of the council. As you all are aware, when we went and did our our budget this year, we always have a theme and we kind of try to to think about what's going to make sense for the coming year. And this year as we got into it, our theme became finding our way. And it was really meant to to bring everyone together and say, how are we going to find our way to become something more, to provide some more services, to do something more above and beyond what we've done to this point. And one of those things that that uh really has happened this week that Council Member Ghetto mentioned as well or over the past month or so um was a request from our our business community that said, "What can we do to uh ensure that we're not creating a an environment that adds to crime but reduces crime?" And we all know that we've seen uh a reduction in our our crime rate over the course of the last year as we've had an annual report from from our police chief earlier this year. But we wanted to to assist our business community as well and find a way to help them help us lower that crime rate as we continue to fight anything that that may pop up. And so the idea popped up that similar to a neighborhood watch, we could do something called a business watch and really want to have Chief Goodman stand up and and talk about that for, you know, a minute or two and just kind of give some background and and what we experienced in our first meeting. So if that's all right, I'll turn some time over to Chief Goodman.

Thank you, Mr. Mr. City Manager, members of the council for a few minutes to report on our new business watch. So, as part of our ongoing community policing efforts, we were able to, with the support of the city's executive team and the entire city council to launch our new business watch program, which is modeled very closely after our successful neighborhood watch program. And the goal is to engage our businesses so they can be vibrant and successful and safe and encourage the people that both live here that work, live, and play here in Maricopa to frequent our businesses and so that everyone could be successful together. So we held that meeting in the library on September the 24th on the morning of the 24th. It was attended by about 8 to 10 individual businesses. But I want to say that council member Lerman was there with her uh live her Facebook live uh stream. Over 900 people nice for over a thousand participated in our in our Facebook live stream. Nice

of the meeting. And so it was really a great opportunity to get to know some of those businesses.

Part of our strategy is to continue to do outreach to our businesses. And as you know, we have some pretty large retailers now here in the city of Maricopa. And so we thought we'd break it up a little bit. We started with the Fry Shopping Center and we're going to jump over to the Bashes side of John Wayne Parkway. We'll make our way down to the Walmart area and eventually have the opportunity to engage almost every large and small business here in the city of Maricopa so they know that we're available to them as a resource and give them ways that they can connect with both the city, the police department, and one another to have a safe environment for all of us here in Maricopa. So, thank you for the opportunity to report on this new program. We think it's going to be successful. Any suggestions, I'm absolutely open to. So, please get in touch with me with any suggestions or any ways that you think that we can engage with our businesses. We both we've already engaged with both of our chambers and so we hope to continue to do that. We'll do some presentations for them as well upon request. So, thank you for the support and I look forward to the uh success of the program.

Thank you. And chief, show off the colors. Thank you for representing breast cancer awareness month. I appreciate that. You have it on both shoulders, both arms. Yes, ma'am. It's our pleasure to participate in Pink Patch Month to support breast cancer, but also all forms of cancer. Yeah. Many of our families have been impacted by cancer in some way, shape, or form, including my own. And so, this is a way for us to show support for our community at large by dawning our pink patches for the month of October. We do so with pride. And thank you for the support again of the executive team and of the council for the pink patch initiative. It's always appreciated. Thank you, city manager.

That's all. Thanks, Mayor. All right. Very good. That'll take us to the call the public tonight. I have nine speaker cards. So, I'll call each of them up individually. As you know, per the video, you'll have three minutes to speak. And our first speaker this evening will be Kim Morris. Bring the mic. Bring the mic down to you. There you go. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Madame Mayor and council members. My name is Kim Morris and I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to address the turning point action event held in our city last Thursday. As covered in Miss Monica Spencer's article for in Maricopa dated October 3rd, according to the reporting, a speaker stated that turning point is the forefront. Arizona is not a battle state. It is red and it needs to be deep red and that we have to scare the Democrats out of Arizona. as a registered Democrat since 1988 and an Arizona resident for nearly 30 years and a proud Maricopa resident for almost seven. I find this kind of rhetoric deeply troubling. I've lived and worked in communities across the state and I know how much stronger we are when we lead with respect and inclusion, not fear and division. It further stated that several elected officials expressed their hope that more people would get involved and vote. And I agree with those elected officials that more people should be involved in the political process and do their civic duty and vote. Events hosted in our city should reflect our shared values, civility, safety, and community. When public spaces are used to promote intimidation or hostility toward any group of residents, I'm sorry, toward any group of residents. It undermines the sense of belonging that every person deserves regardless of political affiliation. Leadership means more than managing growth and infrastructure. It means protecting the character of our

community. I urged the council to make it clear that Maricopa does not condone or support rhetoric that targets or threatens any residents. We can debate policies without demeaning people. Our city should be a place where all voices feel welcome and respected. Let's ensure Maricopa continues to stand as a model of what it means to be a strong, fair, and inclusive Arizona community. I would like to ask that the council consider creating a unity commission to bring people together from all sides of the political spectrum. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Miss Morris. Appreciate that. Our next speaker is Priscilla Benkey.

Oh, you want to speak on A4? Okay. Our next speaker is Kent Ojan. Good evening, Mayor Smith, uh, members of the city council. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Black Maricopa Chamber of Commerce, an organization dedicated to strengthening black and brown entrepreneurship, advancing economic equity, and fostering a thriving, inclusive Maricopa. I rise tonight to share the concerns voiced by many of our members and neighbors about last week's event um honoring uh Charlie Kirk uh founder of the Turning Point USA uh organized lo locally by uh Caitlyn Orcut of Turning Point Action. While we respect the right of every individual and group to free speech and assembly, we also have a duty, especially in a city where black and brown residents make up a significant and growing share of the community, to ensure that public platforms do not harm, exclude, or marginalize those we serve. While people may hold different political views, rhetoric that minimizes minim minimizes racial inequality or suggest certain groups do not belong has real consequences.

It can discourage black and brown entrepreneurs from investing here, making families feel unsafe and undermine efforts to build a welcoming business climate. As an organization focused on economic empowerment, the BMCC believes that safety and belonging are prerequisites for growth. When local events elevate figures whose words have been labeled racially insensitive or hostile, it sends a chilling message to minority business owners, consumers, and youth striving to build their futures here. We are not asking this city to censor speech. Uh we are asking for responsible leadership. Leadership that ensures Maricopa remains a place where opportunity is truly for everyone. Uh to that to that end, we encourage the council to create a community informed process for reviewing speakers and events held in city supported venues. Establish clear guidelines for responding when events raise credible concerns about racial or community harm. Engage by diverse voices, including business and faith leaders in shaping public programming that reflect who Maricopa truly is. The Black Maricopa Chamber of Commerce believes the approach protects both our economic future and our social fabric. Diversity is one of Maricopa's greatest strengths. When every resident feels seen and safe, businesses strive families stray and our city prospers.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ojan. Appreciate that. All right. Our next speaker is Terry Yoshi. Good evening.

Turoshi here and uh thank you for having me back again. Um I know you don't want to hear from me but I'm here for the same reason and the same topic and it has to do with the ecoike uh incident and I know I came back came first time requesting uh an investigation and uh I don't know what there was no there was no feedback. I don't know what's going on with that. the second time came back who is responsible for the general uh public uh health and uh safety of the community and I'm not clear that I haven't I don't have an answer to either of those and I'd like to today maybe give you a reason why I think it's important that we have an investigation an independent investigation and I I'd like to explain that just take Use your imagination. I have a cup. I put little bacteria in it. A little bit more bacteria from here. And I have this magic strip. It says boom. Oh, wow. It's infect. It's got some bacteria. Okay. Now, if I take that cup with bacteria in it, throw bleach in it, let it sit for a while, and then rinse it out, maybe do another bleach. Okay. And uh uh maybe uh maybe I call that proactive measures. Okay. And then anyways, we're done. Now we have some more water in there. I take a test strip. There's no bacteria in it. Wow. There was no problem there. That was a false positive. The This is what has been pulled on the city and the people of the city. Okay, when you do this first test, the

second test, the retest, the purpose of that is to validate that that first test was correct. Okay? And that's what that purpose is. when you use the proactive measures process which defies the intent of the CPA regulations and it's clearly does EPA uh zone 8 explicitly clearly states that you do not do chlorination and flushing. Okay, it's written we're in zone 9. it's not as clear and I don't know uh you'll never know what that condition was on the front end. That's why it's important to have an investigation and you just can't uh I don't know accept what the water company is saying as the facts and the truth. So, I'm still requesting the investigation because it's important to the people. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yoshi. Appreciate you. Next up is Brad Folt. Flet. Did I get that right? Uh, thank you, honorable Mayor Smith, council members. My name again is uh Brad Flet, and I'm here to speak tonight also about the E.coli incident back in August. There seems to be an ongoing uh entanglement with the city global water content. One second. I see that you have two cards. Yes. But you only get three minutes. So you need to fit both topics into your threeminut time frame. Oh. And I'll start the clock over. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

So we have an ongoing antagon over this event. And the primary focus on that is uh pursuant to federal law 40 CFR part 94143. It states that this is the primary drinking water regulation. Global water knowingly failed to give a formal and comprehensive notice of the public as a tier one significant event. Additionally, knowingly willfully failed to provide required notice of the public within 24 hours. Inform failed to provide transparent complete notice of the incident as to E.coli coli strains, which one it was, uh, when present, disclosing it to the public, its concentration level, its possible health effects, a boil water issue, directing to seek medical care, their action plan, and timeline as mentioned in the EPA notice handbook. Additionally, failed to have a proper means of informing the public with established process or manner required by law. And additionally, they did not issue an or order until the 30th of the month of violation of law. ADEQ knowingly rejected uh the handbook violating the National Primary Drinking Water Act which endangered the public. So what we have is a uh complicit uh occupation of of violation of the laws and I would ask that uh the incident be fully investigated and that we ask that uh everybody have good health. Second issue is public safety of school crosswalks. A little bit different. Um question is how do we get 9,950 uh public school students to uh school as well as 2,000 private and charter school students. These are our precious kiddos. How do we get them to school safely? Well, this is through uh school zones. The school zones have a five a 15 mph speed limit. U they have proper signage and everything else, but uh these have been violated over and over again. Traffic as an operator of a motor vehicle, one has responsibility for driving in a school zone at the posted

speed school limit and these are to protect uh the children. Students, these are known as pedestrians, but more importantly uh they have a significant right, a different right when entering within a school crosswalk. Uh they sometimes are distracted with friends or on their phones and this really requires more attention of drivers. Now we have school crosswalks are they are to be properly designed, engineered, installed, maintained pursuant to federal regulations but more significantly the state regulations are are more uh in line. Uh this is to operate them properly. The problem is that the current crosswalks that I have noticed I did a survey and there are 11 schools in Maricopa public schools that are in violation. Uh there are additional three private charter schools that are in violation. Uh this goes all the way from yellow crosswalks, which is what they're supposed to be. Some of them are mismarked. Uh some of them on the wrong side of the street from school. They're supposed to be within 600 feet of school closest to the school. A lot of these uh crosswalks are degraded to the point to where they're not ADA accessible. I would like this issue to be brought on the agenda.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Flet. You sent us an email. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am.

Yes. And have you had a chance to catch up with Keith Brown? because I spoke with him a little bit via email. You don't need to answer, but Keith is in the back and he said that he would have an update for you. Yep. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker is Crystal Ojan. Good evening, Mayor Smith, Vice Mayor Wade, and members of the city council. Thank you for this opportunity to address you this evening. Um, as many of you may or may not know, my name is Crystal Allen Ojan. I'm a local business owner, but I'm also a human rights advocate. And it's with genuine sadness that I bring a concern forward to the city that I've grown to love, a city known for its growth, diversity, and commitment to being a welcoming uh, safe place for all residents. Recently, a business um honored Kirk, I think Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point, um hosted an event rather that was really concerning and troubling to some local community members here. And while freedom of speech and assembly are fundamental rights, the problem is we have a duty to ensure that public events do not promote fear, division or exclusion, especially given the rich uh racial uh cultural diversity of here in Maricopa. The event did however did stir up some unfortunate fear in some of the community members here. Uh and the reason why Mr. Kirk before his unfortunate passing made numerous public statements criticizing uh calling white privilege a racist idea and advancing rhetoric like the great replacement theory which is a white supremist consp conspiracy theor theory. In addition, Turning Point has faced troubled al allegations of racially

hostile behavior within its organization and has been publicly criticized by civil rights watchd dogs such as Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. Now, a business has the right to host whatever it would like to. However, we have to also be careful that we don't risk normalizing harmful rhetoric and making residents feel unwelcome or unsafe in the city that they live. Let me be clear, this is not an attempt to silence any opposing views. It is about acknowledging the very real impact that racially divisive speech can have on the community and trust of its citizens. I respectfully urge the city to consider the following actionable steps. Create a rapid response protocol when events raise credible concerns of racial or community harm. Provide healing spaces and town halls following polarizing events to support dialogue and understanding. Maricopa has the opportunity to ensure every resident regardless of race, faith, or background feels safe and valued in the city that they live in. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Miss Ojen. Our next speaker is Tena Drake. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Good evening, Madame Mayor and all city council members. So, I'm up here today to just bring up my announcement about the book launch and the community event summit that I'm hosting on October 18th, which is part of the stage coach days, which is also the beautiful gayla that is happening on that day. is going to be a very busy day. So, in the back there are some flyers like this that you guys can all get and there are tickets and all of that. And I'm also encouraging if you are a person that has any kind of organization, any services that you provide to survivors, this is an event for you. It's not just about me, the survivor and a book. I was going through those things as well and I didn't know where to get the services from. So, I know there's a lot of a plethora of organizations out here that have services. So, if you want to reach me, you can connect with me and reach me at sneak@gmail.com or you can find me somewhere on social media. I'm very accessible and I would like to have you in the program so other people can find you and know if something should happen like that to a friend, to a family member, even to yourself that you know where to get help and you don't end up like a person like me trying to figure out where you're going, jumping around and fumbling around and not knowing where you go. So, if you are interested in being part of that event, you still have time. So, I hope that you will sign up and join and also be there. and also the lovely mayor and some other people will be there. I will be there, too. So, I hope to see you guys there as well. You guys have a great day and thank you for letting me be here.

Thank you, Miss Drake. All right, our next speaker is Tori Anderson. Thank you, Mayor Council. I super excited to be here to let you know that our 20th annual seeds of change gayla is sold out. I do have a waiting list um because sometimes people get sick or things happen at the last minute. So if you want to get on the waiting list, you'll need to email me at t o r i l andersongmail.com. But I also wanted to share with you um how absolutely fantastic this community is to me and my family, but to also to other survivors. And I wanted to share with you very quickly with my two and a half minutes. Um 20 years ago, I don't know that many of you realize that uh domestic violence was became very personal to our city. And at the time uh we had Mayor Anderson and council, very first council and five city employees. One of the employees aranged husbands entered the city hall with a weapon and threatened the employees and the council and the mayor. Police chief Melvin at the time obviously was there and several other officers. I think Koozer was there as well and they took control of the situation. But it became very very personal and it was actually at our door. So it happens everywhere. It happens in our neighbors. It happens in our schools. It happens to our children. And I just want to say how grateful and eternally thankful I am that this community 20 years ago acknowledged that this was here and we're going to do something about it. And they did the first

proclamation. Maybe I twisted a few arms, but that's okay. So, I'm just again expressing my deepest appreciation to a city who has given me so much um growing up here. We always took care of each other and we still continue to do that. So, thank you. I look forward to seeing you all at the Seed of Change gayla, which is October 18th at 6 PM at Harris Achin Casino. We've got 21 trees now that are decorated and I'm starting to get pictures and they are phenomenal. The competition is raring up. So, it's going to be super exciting. Put your fancy dresses on. Come ready to do your Christmas shopping. Remember, when you do your Christmas shopping at the Gayla, you not only get a tax deductible gift, but you're giving a gift twice. The money goes to our community members here to stop domestic violence and it also goes to whoever you're giving that gift to. So come on out, do your Christmas shopping and again thank you for being a part of my community and for being a part of my family. I love you all and I look forward to seeing you and working for another 20 years to bring awareness of the effects of domestic violence on our community. It is the most dangerous call our officers go on. So, thank you.

Thank you very much. I hope council you all have your tickets. [Laughter] And don't forget Tena Drake's event as well. I think it'll be very good also. All right, that's the end of my speaker cards. Would anyone from the audience like to approach the podium, speak to the city council? All right, seeing none, I will close the call to the public. And that will take us on to consent agenda. This evening we have consent agenda items 7.1 through 7.9. C I have zero speaker cards on the consent agenda and um council. Do you have any questions, concerns, any need to pull anything? Move to approve.

Move to approve by council member man Freddy. Seconded by council member Marsh. One last chance for questions, comments. Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion carries. All right, that'll take us to the ne to the regular agenda items. Our first item is agenda 8.1, which is appointing one citizen to fill a vacancy on the parks and wreck committee and that is going to council member man Freddy.

I have to break from tradition just a little bit on this one because for the last six years, I've actually put the president of the little league on the parks and rack board. Um, but this time, um, I I met with a couple folks. I talked to a couple people. Um, and the conversations we had involved the new park that's being built and a lot of things. So, it took me a little bit longer this time to find somebody that I thought would be the person who I would want to see on the board. That's why I picked somebody that has a long history of service to their community. I picked somebody that um is a former firefighter, um, retired firefighter. So, they have a lot of time to put into it. I picked somebody that saw what I saw and and the values that I I we were talking and it just kind of meshed. So, I think it works. Um that's why I'm happy to um nominate Kenneth Longman. He's here with his wife today. If they can stand now, I warned him. I said that it's not a position with a lot of time involvement, a lot of hours involved. and he said I want to make it a position with a lot of hours involved. So that's that again made me say this is the guy that I want to put on there. So with that I nominate Kenneth Longman to be on the board.

Okay council any questions, comments, concerns. Motion to approve. Motion to approve by council member Norm, seconded by council member Lman. Last opportunity. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion carries. Congratulations. All right, that'll take us to 8.2, which is an update on Copper Sky Medical Campus presentation by Derek. Thank you, Derek.

Smith, is it open? Hello. Oh, you got to get right on it. Thank you, Mayor Smith. Members of the council, Derek Sheer with the development services division uh to present u agenda item 8.2 which is ordinance OARD25-11. Uh this is an ordinance for a planned area development for the Copper Sky Medical Campus uh P A25-06. Uh the applicant for this uh reszone is Jesse Slim of the BR uh companies. Uh the locations at the south southeast corner of North John Wayne Parkway and West Bolan Road uh for approximately 9.33 acres for a uh proposed planned area development reszone. Uh the vicinity map that you see on the screen before you uh highlight in yellow and then in red uh that's the location in that north uh east uh northwest corner of the copper sky facility there. uh the previously there was a PA a uh that the council and members of the public may remember for development of a hospital at the copper sky. Uh those plans um have not come to fruition. Uh the BR companies have uh stepped forward with a smaller uh proposal. Uh the previous PA a covered uh over uh 23 acres. Now this is down to about 9.33 acres and it's more focused. Uh the previous PA AD was a large hospital uh very uh sports scienceoriented uh hotels uh mixeduse development. This proposal is for a hospital and medical office buildings. Uh and possibly uh ancillary services for that. Um, as we can see on the screen that the proposed medical campus is going to be uh a 1 to twotory 60,000 square foot uh emergency room hospital or four-story with 100,000 square feet and as part of that um minimum bed count will be 25 licensed medical surgical inpatient beds. At

least four of them are going to be universal beds that are equipped for ICU level specific care. Uh there'll be an operating suite uh with one operating procedure room and uh associated pre-operative recovery bays and sterile processing department. Uh 10 different uh treatment bays, intake areas and he helipad various imaging services from CTS to MRIs to X-rays, pharmacy, laboratory, cath lab, basically everything that you'd have on a a full hospital. Um, moving on, there's probably uh with this not probably as part of this uh proposal uh the in the PAD there's some built-in flexibility for what will be developed there. Uh as we can see up on the screen what we have are the three different sort of options going from left to right. We have uh the threetory 50 foot maximum 30 to 80,000 square foot medical office building outpatient services and an ambulatory surgery center. Uh then it can be split with the hospital and the medical offices with a two-story 40,000 foot medical office building that has outpatient surgeries and outpatient service with ambulatory surgery. And then the third one has a retail component of a one-story 15,000 foot retail building, but it's not general retail uh buying clothes or something like that. It is support services for the hospital and the medical office buildings. uh that'll provide you know food and beverages, general commercial uh but then also outside of it will be staff patient parking uh for this. You can see here uh the at the corner the accesses that we're going to have for this development. Uh emergency entrance only, emergency entry only, right in, right out, uh along Westbolan Road on North uh John Wayne Parkway. Uh left in for if you're heading southbound, you can do a left turn in and a right in and right out only. It's not a full intersection, so

you can't make a left turn out of there. Um, then there'll be a cross connection to the property to the south and the main entrance will be off of Greythorn Drive with a full access left in, left out, right in, right out. Uh, there'll also be pedestrian connections all through the development and then to uh the development to the south and then the rest of the Copper Sky facility. Um the proposal conforms with the general plan future land use map designation for the area and staff has determined that the uh find uh findings for this that uh it meets planned area development regulations of the um uh comprehensive zoning ordinance. Uh the land uses proposed are consistent with that. Vehicular and pedestrian connectivity as I mentioned are uh part of this proposal. There's the parking requirements and the open space requirements. On August 15th, notification letters were sent to property owners within 600 feet. On August 18th, uh the site was posted. At August 30th, a newspaper legal ad was uh published. September 22nd, the uh planning and zoning commission meeting. And my apologies, I left out in there that we had the public meeting at the Copper Sky facility. It was attended by about 10 to 12 uh individuals from the public. um was presented by the BR companies uh Jesse Slim uh and AJ. They're here uh if should the council have any questions about their proposal. Um on September 22nd, the planning and zoning commission recommended that city council approve the Copper Sky Medical Campus P A, which is PA case number 25-06, and adopt ordinance number 25-11 subject to the conditions stated in the staff report or as amended by the planning and zoning commission or the council. uh happy to answer any questions you may have about the proposal and again the development team is here as well.

Thank you very much. So on this agenda item I have zero speaker cards so council it's up to you any questions comments? Yes, council member Marsh Derek um at the southeast corner of Bolan and John Wayne there's a tenth of an acre parcel that is Desert Cedars tracked Q. Is that part of this resoning?

Mayor Smith. Uh, Council Member Marsh, no it is not. Uh, they are not in control of that. It's in control by the HOA for the um subdivision, though the developer and the HOA have uh spoken and it can't be developed for anything by the HOA. Uh, it was cut off by the development of Bolan Road. So, it's sort of this out parcel that's they own, can't do anything with it. Uh, the developers are interested in it and my understanding is they've had uh discussions on that and any more details than what I have. Um Jesse would be able to answer the questions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. No.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Um first, I just want to I watched the planning and zoning commission. I've been watching them um the recordings and the planning and zoning commission that we have is doing a great job. I just want to state that. They ask a lot of great questions and I highly suggest that everyone watch those meetings to get a feel for what's going on um in the city and what's coming. Um but I did watch the PNZ specifically related to this and I thought there was a lot of great discussion. Um and I thought that uh member PNZ member Rob uh Robertson made some really good points. Um but I just want to clarify that this this would be the and just have to understanding of the project right this is the reszone to p a which is required and then what's the next step and the time frame

mayor Smith uh council member no the next step would be a development review permit uh this would be a major development review permit it would go back out to the planning and zoning commission as anformational item uh when it's first submitted and while it's going through its first review. Um, and that will get the entitlement uh for here's the building, here's what it looks like, here's a layout of the site. Then the next step after that would be the building permits and engineering and building permits, which would be the nuts and bolts of exactly how the buildings are built and the pavement is laid. Great. Thank you. Is there an anticipated timeline or I am not sure. I would have to defer to uh the applicants on uh what their timeline is for that.

Great. Thank you. Very good. Council member Lurman, would you mind going to the slide that has the minimum requirements? Um just to clarify, these are the minimum requirements, but it doesn't mean that's what the numbers are going to be. So, um it says 24 beds, but it could be 58 beds or 78 beds or we don't know. Is that correct, Mayor Smith? Uh Council Member Lman. Absolutely correct. These are the uh contracted minimums. So, it could be uh way above this, but this is absolutely what the city will be getting. Very good. Thank you. Very good. Any additional comments, questions? Yes, Vice Mayor Wade.

Excuse me. I thought on one of the slides I saw a landing pad for a helicopter. Did I miss that? Yeah, there is. Um I but you didn't mention it in your discussion. So I'm curious is it part of

Mayor Smith uh Coun uh Vice Mayor uh Wade. Yes, there is a helicopter pad. Uh it in my staff report I alluded to it. I'm sorry I didn't mention it here. The helipad is there for emergency evacuations. This is not going to be a uh like a level one trauma center for you know uh serious serious car accidents, gunshot wounds, things like that. uh those hospitals I believe uh Cassag Grand Hospital is one but then several in the valley. So if a patient comes to this hospital uh where the their need of service exceeds their ability to care then they call in uh the air support and uh helicopter them out to a hospital that can uh provide the care that they need.

And I'm assuming that the medical professionals that are treating the patients are going to make that final decision. Yes. All right. Thank you. Very good. Any other additional comments, questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion? So moved to So moved by council member Gettle. Do I have a second? Seconded by Vice Mayor Wade. Any additional conversation, questions? Seeing none, all in favor say I. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you very much, Cher. Thank you, everybody. That'll take us to agenda item 8.3, which is a presentation on stage coach days by Quinn Do you see?

All right. Well, we're we're all excited, ready for some fun part of this presentation, right? Uh Mayor Smith and members of council, thank you so much for having me here. I'm here to talk briefly about stage coach days. Uh we were able to fill in our leadership team a couple of weeks ago and there's so much great information about this event coming up that I wanted to make sure that we shared it publicly and that the council got a taste of everything that is to come which includes Cricut spit and cowpie tosses. So, just hang on with me for a minute, but let me run you through because it's really important that the community know our team has put a lot of effort into making something that the entire community has stepped up and um worked with us to create. So, we have a lot of groups that are carrying pieces of this that are representing that are out promoting it and that are helping facilitate various parts of it. So, we want to make sure we give them credit so that they're um they get a sense to do that. And really, this is an event that in uh earlier this year was presented to council as a possibility to celebrate our city's incorporation. Uh hoping to make it an annual event. So, we're hoping that this year will be I mean, it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of um excitement for our residents and we're hoping that it'll be the start of people and groups seeing some opportunity to participate in that. So, really just the beginning. Um, yep. Just setting the stage there, but we've got all kinds of events. Typically, our events are on a single day. This event stretches out about a week and a half. And there's a lot of businesses getting involved. There's a PCAN pride themed food competition going on, a multi-generational game night, a neon cowboy fund run that Be Awesome is helping us with. So again, lots of groups being involved. If you've ever been saying, "I don't know if there's enough for me to do here in Maricopa." It's the end of saying that because there's tons of stuff to do. Uh I want to draw some attention to this themed uh

competition that these or competition. It's chance for people to come and experience all these restaurants that we have from achin being involved to uh water and ice Nando roots ery. We asked them to get creative and come up with some dishes with that pecan theme. So they're way pecan pie. Uh we've got pecan bacon, uh drinks, desserts, all kinds of food. Uh don't worry about committing this list to memory. All of this information is on the website, but this is going to be going on from October 15th to the 26th, so you can go to these various restaurants and experience all of these different uh delicious dishes. uh the shutter shots. Some of these are um community favorite events that had existed in the past. So we were were brought them back again with some community groups that we have worked with in the past. So Shutter Shots is a photo competition really helping us do a little bit of a time capsule if you will of our city, capture some of those images. And there are prizes uh for this as well. So we encourage people to check out all the rules, but check out the time and date of this. It's a 24-hour competition. Be taking your best pictures in and around Maricopa and submit them for a chance to win some prizes. The art reception, so working with uh the cultural affairs and arts advisory committee, they uh submitted or solicited artists to come up with some creative works with a theme of faces of Maricopa that's on display over at the library. So you can go check that out right now. Um and or actually on Thursday, October 16th is when they're gonna have the art reception as well. So that's the kind of their official kickoff of that. So the 16th at 6 pm to 8:00m over at the library. That's going

to be a lot of fun. So we encourage you to participate in that. um movies on the Lawn working with Achin again looking to connect with some of these groups that we've had great um support from in the past. So they've agreed to put on a couple of Movies on the Lawn for us. They're going to be showing on the same night Wild Robot and Minecraft. I don't know if I'm allowed to say those names, but I guess I just did. Sorry. Two movies and uh October 17th. Um but it's not just the movies there. They if you haven't been out there, they have a great spot out on the lawn with a TV screen out there. There's going to be vendors out there as well with food and inflatables. So, it's a it's a fun night for your entire family. Uh the mini book sale is coming up at the library and cultural center. Uh that's going to be October 18th from 9:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. If you've experienced this before, they really have some amazing deals there for a chance to to gather movies. And again, we asked them to look to make it stage coach themed. So, they're having some John Wayne classics, westerns and tales of the frontier, farming and homestead. So, all these different western themed books for you to come and check out. They will also be raffling away a uh a beautiful quilt that a member of our staff made who will remain anonymous because I won't embarrass Brenda like that.

Oh, sorry.

We all know. So, yes, you can be getting raffle tickets and uh they're going to be sharing those over at the library. So, if you want more information on that, definitely check out what they've got going on over there at the library and cultural center. The fishing derby, this has been a classic in Maricopa, but hasn't been hasn't happened for a while. So, it's going to be happening. Uh and our friends with the parks and wreck committee have been heading this up and helping organize it. Um, normally in the past we've just had a registration fee and you could come and fish. This year we got some sponsors that not only donated fishing poles for 175 participants. So after your $10 registration, you're going to get a pole for free, but they've also Chitwood kicked in some worms for us. So, uh, a lot of different things that you're going to be hooked up with, no pun intended. Uh, as you come and check that out there. So, there are, as I said, 125 spots. Maricopa tends to wait till the last minute. So my advice to you is there are still spots right now. Get signed up today. Get your kids involved and there will be a competition. So it's a 90minute competition, catch and release. Whoever catches the most prize is awarded. Uh the the again our other committee, our senior advisory committee has helped us to work with um the community center to come up with a multi-generational game night. Uh the space in the community center is intimate. It's a tighter space. So it is free to come, but we ask that you register so we get a sense of how many people are come. But it's meant to be people of all ages playing various games there. And again, it's going to be a blast. Absolutely coming there. So highly encourage you to participate in that. Uh the historical society again getting the sense of a lot of these groups getting involved. They've agreed and they're going to be hosting a uh coffee on the porch session on October 22nd

from 9:00 a.m. till 11:00 a.m. getting the chance to hear some stories and some history of Maricopa. If you haven't taken the chance to do that, to learn about the history of Maricopa, it is it is fascinating. It's very interesting to hear about how our city has been um impacted by railroads and the post office. So, uh definitely take an opportunity to take advantage of that. We highly encourage that. and you'll be right next to where the new park's going to be. You can maybe peek over and see how that progress is going. And this is all leading up to the party at Pakana Park. This is a three-day festival carnival that will happen um at Pakana Park. This is we're we're bringing it back to where it all started. You know, we're we haven't done uh an event of this size of Pakana in quite some time. Um, just going to ask the folks in the back if they'll bring up our website because I just want to scroll you through and see just quickly some of the things that'll be happening on this day. And again, don't worry about committing this to memory because you can check it all on the website. And this in fact is it. This is focused just on that day. So if we go ahead and scroll down, this will take a look at what you you'll be seeing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So attractions, carnival rides, that neon cowboy color run. We produced a video on that. So check our social media channels for that. Again, Be Awesome is helping. That's going to be a whole lot of fun. They're going to be able to run around. You do need to register for that. So do encourage you to do that. Um there's going to be a a saloon as well that Roots is putting on. Saturday is the biggest day and live music as well, games and activities and this carnival. If we scroll down here, make sure that anyone who wants to know the details on the carnival, it's all here. There are pre-sale. You can save money by buying in advance. There also is an unlimited wristband ride. This is something that we heard a lot from our community that they were interested in. The last time we put on a carnival is having some kind of an unlimited option. So, uh, Castle Entertainment that's

putting this on for us. They um they agreed and they're going to be doing this from 12 to 3 p.m. you can do this unlimited ride wristband. So, check that out as well. This is going to be a good uh our friends at Goodark are going to have kind of a unique petting zoo. There will be goat kissing. Yep. Hear me right there. The petting zoo chances to ride horses, pig bobbing. If you want to know what that is, you're just going to need to show up. Sounds interesting.

And then if you just scroll down just a little bit here, some of what I was talking about here, it's all scheduled out there, but you've got a cricket spit. Yes, actual crickets seeing who can Do the projectile the farthest. Cowpie tosses. That's a fake cowpie right there. Uh, candle rolling. I hope you're getting the sense that there are a ton of activities. And honestly, this isn't everything on the list. It's everything I can get through without losing all my breath. So, I hope you guys share this with everybody. We gave you some swag there. Feel free to wear your hats throughout the night. Yes. Yes. I love it. Oops, that's backwards.

And really, I want to give just a huge credit to the right way. Huge credit to uh our the staff who was interested in this idea for council for giving us that support to do it and for so many of our vendors who have stepped forward. We have over 60 vendors so far. By the way, tomorrow is the last day to you want to be a vendor. Sign up. So, we do love it. We do encourage you to to take full advantage of this and it really is going to be that first year to get us started and I think a lot of groups will jump in.

I'm telling them how to do their hats. Hey, this is 11 days of super duper fun. And I know I'm probably exaggerating, but I have invited my family to everything. I'm signed up for the fishing derby, the neon run. I'm signed up for coffee on the park. Well, actually, I signed my husband up for coffee on the porch. Um, game night. I mean, this is then you have three days of carnival and food. And I've decided I've already posted your list of peon places to go and I'm I've already decided keto has to go by the wayside for the next 11 days when this is happening. And they're keto crickets. Don't

Oh, keto crickets. All right. I love it. But I'm excited. Council, what other comments? Yes. Vice Mayor, have you planned your vacations for after this activity because community services is going to be bogged down? I got them out of the way. I don't need I hope you got them taken care of. That's amazing to see how much energy and action is going to be taking place. I'm looking forward to a lot of it but and I know these folks are working hard. Thank you very much for your effort. Yeah, absolutely. Council Lurman,

thank you to your team for all the work. I'm really excited about the all the events um especially the food part, the pecan part. We are going to have a domestic violence awareness booth on Saturday at Pakana Park. Please come by. Jim is bringing his dogs who are dyed in purple. So, his dogs will be purple that day. So, stop by our booth. We'll have some things to pass out and it'll be a lot of fun. So, thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Council Member Ghetto.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm a little offended and my light my hat light up here, but Quinn, thank you to to you and your team. Amazing amazing event and it gave me an excuse to grow a mustache out. We're still kind of in the awkward stage. Well, hopefully in the next few days we'll be able to get it trimmed up nice for for uh stage coach, but we're so excited about this event and thank you again for bringing this back to our community. It's a great thing. Thank you, Council Member Marsh. Uh Quinn, in my humble opinion, I firmly believe that Brenda should get a week off after this event. We will we'll consider.

All right. Anyone else? Thank you very much, Quinn. I'd be uh remiss if I just didn't mention because I keep forgetting to mention this when we talk about our events. This event staff has challenged themselves you may might not perceive to do something to preserve some traditions but also do something bring something fresh. So BMX bikes at our last event before the 4th of July live music the drone show at Marry Copa they're always looking for some way to elevate. So they've pulled out all the stops on this one. So

I love it. I love it. I'm excited for it. Thank you. I think that's a job well done. Very cool. Thank you very much for the hat, too. All right, that'll take us to our next item, which is item 8.4 on partnership strategy. And I'm not Oh, Quinn, it's Quinn is back. All right. I do have one speaker card after you're done introducing and presenting.

Perfect. And I I wasn't uh sure if there's something between me, so apologize for that. So, mayor and council, again, thanks for uh the opportunity to speak. Uh just updating this has been as you know a process that we've been going through figuring out how we can achieve some goals of the city to um expand our offerings and programs and specific to some areas that council had had expressed some interest in seeing these areas grow. So I'm going to touch on all that but for the benefit of just kind of resetting the table for our community just resetting to know how we got here. In 2025, council adopted a series of strategic priorities which include a focus on the quality of life for Maricopa residents. Action 4.5 states the following. To ensure all residents are able to enjoy our high quality of life, we will explore what groups may be underserved in our community and seek partnerships to enhance opportunities. So that was the task. And then you'll remember that in April, council approved a new ordinance for advisory committees reestablishing with them, giving them clear direction and goals over how they were going to participate and what kind of um role they would play in serving the council. And I kind of boiled it down to committees being responsible for the pro for this in this process are to gather input and research, recommend staff act uh recommend specific actions to council and staff and help communicate and advocate for appropriate initiatives to the community.

Um could you go back to that slide? Absolutely. There's a couple of things as you go through this rather than going back to the slides. I just want to reiterate and what I like to do is restate something that you said in my own words because I want people to know from my perspective how it's important and other council members will want to share from their perspective how it's important. But that second bullet is so key to ensure all residents are able to enjoy our high quality of life. We will explore what groups may be underserved in our community and seek partnerships to enhance opportunities. And so that's important to me because as we all know, and you might hear me say this throughout the presentation, we do live on a much smaller budget than cities our size across the state. And so we can't offer all things right away and nor do we necessarily want to. So this is an opportunity to enhance, I love the word enhance, and explore what groups can help serve in areas where partnerships enhance opportunities. I just have to reiterate that because it's not that the city doesn't want to do this or doesn't want to do that. It's the fact that we want to do as much as we can and if we can do it through our resources in particular um which are normally space availability um we can even make more available through our partnerships. So it's not a matter of wanting to shred off any responsibility. It's not a matter of not wanting to do something. Enhance opportunities is the goal here. So, I just think that's important for me. I don't know if anyone else has any additional comments on that slide. And I expect that we will uh madame mayor learn a lot through the process of exactly because we may inevitably experience partnerships that are very successful, some that maybe are not as successful, but uh this is uh our you know our staff putting together our best

effort to accomplish what council has laid out which is being bringing the services, enhancing that quality of life and being cognizant of the resources that we have. Absolutely. um and using that community approach. So, an understanding getting a deeper understanding of what our community needs, plugging right into that goal of using our committees to be able to do that. Our partnership strategy outlines the approach that uh city council and staff will utilize for establishing strategic partnerships with private and nonprofit entities in three targeted areas identified by city council which are seniors, teens, and pre-teens, arts, and culture. And this effort will be in conjunction with the city's advisory committee to ensure these efforts are in line with the needs of the committee as opposed to us just kind of guessing or getting a sense that we'll gather as much feedback as we get can get from people who have um a lot of vested interest in those areas. So with those goals and objectives in mind, uh the committees were approached for feedback between June and August of 2025. Um, I'd say that the positive response to the three focused areas was received. There w they did also express interest in potentially seeing those expand in the future into other areas. So, sharing that feedback with you guys that um while not being something specific, if later down the road we said we have a need for young adults, something like that, that that could be considered. This is a starting point of saying in seniors and teens and pre-teens and the arts, this is areas we're going to look focus on. Uh some concerns were raised about excluding partnerships potentially. Um, and we look to address this by clarifying that this is a strategy, not an all-inclusive or exclusive policy. That our approach in in um asking these part for these partnerships was not going to mean that

they any who did not meet all these criteria are disqualified. But really, that's our goal and intent as we approach them is asking them if they can um meet the metrics that we're looking for. um emphasis on maximizing resources. We did get the feedback, some of the original language we had talked about our desire to do this effort so as not to burden taxpayers and we changed that language because the feedback we got from a lot of our committee members is we don't see these types of investments as a burden. We see this as a valuable investment to make in our community and our quality of life. And we said point taken. Let's address the language accordingly. Um clarification on confusion over the an application process. Some of the committee members had expressed an interest or desire to potentially see a way in which nonprofits or private groups could apply for partnerships with the city. There may be some desire or appetite for that in the future. But in specific to achieving this goal, uh our concern with that was that we would might end up pursuing partnerships that didn't align with where we were trying to get to. So that as opposed to taking external requests which we can always take and do. We get requests frequently for various partnerships that we would identify with our communities committees where we want our partnerships and then do an open RFP process to find if there's a partnership that can serve the need that we're searching for. So clarifying and separating that differentiation with those committees and setting an expectation on exploring what can be achieved with existing resources. Just to give a specific example, I know you know parts and rec committee is one that has expressed interest in we or um desire to see um a bigger inventory of fields and I think

the city certainly recognizes there's a growing need there. That said, that's something that's going to require a substantial investment and take years to figure out and make those decisions. We will certainly want to know what those needs are, but we also want to work with our committees to figure out what we can achieve with our current inventory. What what do we have? What space do we currently have? If they are in need of space, if they're in need of advertising, what do we have with our current resources that we can utilize today to bring partnerships to bear today? So, we clarified with that that with them and uh I think they were responsive to that. Again, that we can go ahead.

I was just going to say on that slide, the fourth bullet is what shouts out to me that I want to applaud the committees and for the staff's work on getting that wording straight when we first started talking about that. There was a lot of confusion focused around that. And I think it really emphasizes it nice by saying it emphasizes on maximizing resources. And when we talk about resources, we have space, but we don't necessarily always have the funds to run a program, but other organizations can run a program and use our space. And that partnership makes for a good um good partnership. Um so, thank you for getting that wording. Thank you to the committees for putting that wording forward. I appreciate that. And I look forward to definitely the quality of life by bringing these additional partnerships forward. Anything else on that slide, folks?

Okay. Thank you. And I would add Oh, Council Member Lman,

I think um I moved here in 2004. I've been here a little bit. And I think what what I'm hearing from a lot of people talking about this is that when the city of Maricopa became a city, there were not a lot of resources here. It was a brand new city. And so the city really held the burden of providing a lot of opportunities for community members. So they they pro they offered cooking classes and all kinds of different things. Art classes we used to offer. Um and I'm really seeing that we're at this changing point um of and the city needs to offer a lot. I I totally agree with that. we need to offer everything we can to our community members, but I also see a little bit of a change of a lot of people moving here with passions, dreams, and desires and talents um that they want to serve our community. And so we're in kind of that shifting of not the city offering everything and holding on to those programs, but finding out where are those programs being offered at an excellent quality and where are they not and then the city filling in those needs. And so we're at kind of a unique stage I think in our development. Um, and so it's finding finding that balance of what is needed and what we don't want to step on other people's toes who came here with a dream and a passion to start something and if we already offer it then it doesn't help them. And so I'm really excited. I just saw there's someone who is offering cooking classes for kids and I thought that's amazing. Um, and so we're just at that that turning point. Um, and so it'll be I'm I'm really excited and thankful the committee's too because it'll be everyone working together and making sure that our community members have every every resource and activity

that's available um and offered by the person who provides the most excellent and um affordable rate. So thank you very much. certainly uh have a lot of respect for the the council in that position because it's it's tempting or there's there's pressure to provide all those services all at once. So making sure that you're cognizant of not blocking where some are interested in providing those services and doing it in the in the most sustainable long-term way is is a challenge and we're at this we're we're figuring that out right now with some partnerships already in place but looking to do more. So, our team and our committees, I believe, are excited to see some successes in these areas and point to some victories.

I want to reemphasize is because I'm worried when we use words like not blocking. I know what you mean. But for me, it's not about not blocking, although that's important. If somebody offers karate classes, I want them they're the professionals. I want them to do it. If they offer dance classes, I want them to be able to do it. But what it's really about for me is being such a young city and knowing that there are experts and organizations out there who can't do what they want because they don't have the room, but we have the room. And so if we're looking at our focus areas, seniors, youth, and art, we can we can help there. And so we can bring more fulfillment to our residents. So for me it doesn't have anything to do with about blocking although we don't want to be a block. For me it's about expanding and enriching what's offered to our city because we can create these partnerships. So I just want to make that clear.

Madame Mayor, if I may. Yes.

I think this is also part of the reason we just recently launched the things to do in Maricopa section of uh the in Maricopa magazine. But uh our goal with that is to highlight really all of the different opportunities that that our community members as well as the city have to provide participate in events or to host those type of uh special classes or otherwise that's available for anyone to to advertise in in that section. And if you have horse riding lessons, go for it. Go ahead and put put it in there. If you do swim lessons, if you do whatever you want, um by all means, we want to highlight anything and everything going on in our community. And that's kind of an element of these partnerships is what can we all do together to ensure that again the quality of life improves that we can offer more and more services within our community

100%. Any additional thoughts? Okay, vice mayor.

You know, I I appreciate the conversation that we had u some of the things I see reflected in that conversation. That's what I want to state that I I appreciate being listened to and and being heard and it's manifesting itself in all the activities that you have put together. And I for one am one of those former organizations that would do things um and put provide for the community, not necessarily with the benefits of coming from the city, but it would have been nice to have it be able to use a room or have access to other facilities to do things when I do. And I'm I'm hoping and it's looking like that. I'm hoping that we'll be able to to have that kind of uh environment where people will be listened to and if something positive comes out of it.

Well, we'll certainly be following the pace and guidance of the council. So, it feels like it's going too fast, we can slow. If it's going too slow, we can speed up. So, it's just the the getting that strategy in place so we can start piling up those those win successes and partnerships. I just have one last slide which is it's howdy partner time. Uh just giving you a sense of where we are now. So right uh the initial strategy session was held with our committees already just giving them an update. Um and then asking them to begin taking a look at some survey questions that we proposed. We're waiting for their feedback on that ahead of their next committee meetings and then we'll be talking with them about how they want to distribute that with a lot of different things, but we want their buy in, their ideas, their participation, their energy, and getting out there and getting that feedback from the community. And then that next step will be determining those needs, what the biggest ones are, and putting together some RFPs and seeing what our community has to offer and what the city will bring to bear to help make those happen. On that subject, I love that you're going to be using the committee members to come up with questions to help organize that survey and to distribute it. What I'd like to make sure, and I don't know how you do this, but I'd like to make sure that the distribution is not weighted toward one thing over another thing. One idea that I had was using the youth council at our events, Mary Copa, whatever the case might be. um uh the October event that we have uh pumpkin walk um if our youth council just an idea that it doesn't have to be but they would be out handing out these surveys gathering the surveys. It's more random. You're just like handing them out to people that are there. Um I I don't want it to be weighted toward one group because they're like, "Hey, all my friends fill out this survey." Um I'd rather have a

random view of what residents want if that makes sense and I don't know how you do it and that's just my request. So yes, if you were to ask all the ping pong people what the we need the most is they'd say ping pong or something like that. Yes, certainly understand and I think some of the committees had some some ideas about some of them were interested in more general surveys. Some were interested in kind of like a more focused group like let me bring in a group of teens and start talking to them generally. So we're in the process of getting that feedback of how they wanted to be distributing it. So, so FYI on that um the student council has now broken off into four different uh groups. Correct.

And then those groups have concentrated an effort like I'm not drawing drawing a blank in terms of what they their names are right now but uh that is the way that they've approached it. So now you have, you know, they have the overall body, the the student council body, but you have four different tiers that they can operate in within the organization. So it makes it it makes it a more widespread effort than just having one large group and then trying to go from one large group. So it goes along what you're saying. Yeah. Yes. Uh Quinn, can the uh surveys be online?

Uh we've discussed Yeah. building them into our active net um portal that already exists. So, we're really kind of waiting, gathering the feedback and then figuring out the best way to put it, but I think that's absolutely a possibility and kind of what we recommend. Cool. Thanks.

Very good. Any additional comments? Okay. Uh I do have one speaker card, Quinn. So, if you would stand by in case uh we have additional questions. And this speaker card is Priscilla Beni. Good evening, mayor and council members. I'm Priscilla from Be Awesome, developing confident, connected, and successful youth right here in Maricopa. First, I want to thank you for um initiating the partnership strategy and for naming youth as one of the focus areas. It's a topic that I am concerned about or and deeply find important um both as a resident and someone who is the founder of a nonprofit here in Maricopa. Um, Be Awesome has grown from the ground up and I've experienced firsthand the challenges of starting and building community trust, delivering meaningful services, and all with limited infrastructure and shifting support. Strong partnerships have been an essential to that work, especially our early partnerships with the city, which once was among one of our most impactful ones. Um, I look forward to being able to re get that again. Um while I understand and agree with some of the importance um things I've got to see a draft of the policy and I just wanted to state a concern I have. While it's not required, it is implied that services you'll be looking for will be sustainable on their own and work away from that. While I understand and agree with the importance of fiscal responsibility, I want to highlight that many programs, especially those serving teens and vulnerable populations such as seniors, are simply not revenue generating. The strategy um that encourages partnerships to plan for long-term viability and transition away from city subsidy doesn't necessarily apply to some of these populations. In practice, this could lead staff or evaluators to treat city subsidy as a disqualifier, even if the program is a high impact um but not profitable. I believe this is an important distinction, especially since current city supported services like the senior

center do not operate independently and have no plan to become self-sufficient, and rightly so. they exist because of a long-term public need. Um, if we're applying the same principles across these focus areas, we should acknowledge that youth programming is no different. It serves the public good, fills gaps that the private sector does not. And like the citybacked efforts such as Maricopa, Copper Sky, the Paddle Ducks, USPS, um, SPS, they may not always have some level of public investment in return. I respectfully request that the language around the sustainability be clarified to reflect that it's a goal, not a gatekeeping requirement and that certain services may require ongoing city support. This would ensure that we are not unintentionally excluding the very programs we claim to prioritize and that we remain consistent, inclusive, and realistic as we build partnerships that serve all residents of Maricopa. Thank you for your continued leadership and your consideration of my thoughts.

Thank you. I appreciate those comments. Um I had a similar comment when I actually read through the strategy um not necessarily the presentation on bullet five. While I am a believer that nonprofits and forprofits need to operate their programs at some point on their own. I do agree that there are services such as seniors, such as youth, such as art. Those are I think that's why we came up with those three that are typically in in the majority of aspects operated by the city knowing that there's not nec maybe sometimes in art it can be profitm but that's when you get to the big Chandler performing art center and you have the ability to bring in talent like that but I feel like with those three if you go to any city you're pretty much going to end up with um programs that are operated by the city but knowing that our city can't do that right away for all of those elements. I see this strategy as a way to and when I read um item number five, I I it kind of answers my question, but I agree there's an interpretation possibility problem um in how you interpret it. But I could see some of those activities making their way to self- sustainability, but Um, and I don't see that there's a certain amount of years that they have to get there, but if it's a service that the city typically provides, then I feel like we need a little more flexibility on those types of services. That's my comment. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Yes. Council member Marsh,

I think that in order to make this work, council may want to consider increasing our discretionary fund aotments. Okay. Agree with that. All right. All right. Thanks, Mayor. Vice Mayor, we become a conduit for certain.

See, I I I'm pausing because I see this as what do we have right now? Um if we had all the money in the world, we'd be able to do all these programs, right? But we don't have all the money in the world, but we do have resources in terms of locations. And so I guess my focus is more toward partnering in those locations rather than subsidizing financially. Um but that's just but thank you. I appreciate that input as well. Seed money is important. Yeah. Council member Ghetto, did you have comments?

Yeah, that word must is a little bit concerning to me in that statement. Maybe that's what needs to be changed a little bit. and and I've always read this section as we've had our our committee meetings to be more of an independent goal. Uh that word sustainability sometimes is a little tricky as well, but we really do want these these individuals and groups that do come in and provide these services to eventually to be independent of the city. Now, there may be a long-term agreement still there in place, and there may still be some partnership involved, but ideally, I I'm I'm I'm uncomfortable having the city being the one that picks the winners and the losers in the community using taxpayer funds to do so. So, I think we do have to have this goal of independence um for these partnerships, but that could be a very long-term window. I I don't think that um a lot of our especially when it comes to our seniors and our teens, our youth, a lot of these services are going to be costly. They're going to need a lot of space. They're going to need um perhaps even staff resources. And if these are services that we really do want to see in our city, we're going to have to help get those off the ground. Um but I don't know how entangled that partnership's going to be long term. So, I am I'm a little hesitant to with you here on this and that word must. I don't want that you use that word gatekeep. I don't want that word to be the gatekeeper of who gets to be in the sandbox. I think we do need to keep that open realizing that some partners may need a very long-term relationship to make this work and are we okay with that?

Yeah, exactly. You know, on number five, it ends with each partnership should plan for long-term viability. So kind of conflicts with the sustainability eventual, but anyway, a little bit of word smithing there maybe would help and go a long way. Yes, council member.

Thank you, mayor. And that's one my main issue as well. I just want to make sure and um I spoke to the city manager about this in my threeon-one and my understanding after the threeon-one was that we are not going to necessarily require we are not going to require them to be self-sufficient after three years which was in the initial document. Um, and so that's good news. But again, I want to make sure that um, people we're not keeping people out of attempting to these partnerships because they don't have the ability to be sustainable after a certain amount of time. I think that some of the services that we've outlined are really important and I want to make sure that we're bringing those to the the members of our community and that we don't after a certain period of time just go, "Well, sorry, you're on your own now." and then those services are no longer available for our community because that has happened in the past. And so I just I don't know how we create an assurance that that doesn't happen, but I definitely I mean want to make sure that we're not going to just basically cut the legs out from under these organizations that are going to put all this effort and all this work into providing these services.

I agree. Um amazing things happen once you open your door, right? Like let's say you rent you rent out a room but it's a partnership so you're getting the room for free over at the library and you're operating this um I'll just use it as an example because they spoke to me this chess club where you're educating teenagers young people how to play chess just an example um but that turns into a huge chess competition across the state and we have stellar students who are playing I mean amazing things happen and then fundraising along that for that purpose comes comes along because people see the success and they want to contribute and amazing things happen once you just open the door. Um the other part I want to point out under section four uh item number three which I really appreciate in terms of review and evaluation the city in concert with the appropriate advisory committee will assess whether the partnerships offer the best solutions to those needs. So, Council Member Ghetto, I think that, you know, addresses definitely the fact that city council doesn't necessarily need to be part of that. If the committees, we've given them that opportunity and we want them to take that seriously. I think they're perfectly along with staff able to make the assessment.

Agreed. Okay. What other thoughts, comments, any other changes that you see that need to be made? Yes, city manager.

Yeah. Thanks, Madam Mayor, members of the council. Just one quick additional comment. I think as we started this discussion, part of it was on the focus of enhancing opportunities and that's really the purpose of this strategy. There's not a a desire to create a stumbling block. It's it's a building block, a stepping stone to move forward. And so our goal is to bring in as many partnerships as we can and support however we can in order to make those sustainable in the long run, whether that's through our continued partnership or through their ability to now have access to a greater amount of people because they started small in in a partnership with the city. And so again, our goal is to really enhance opportunities for our community and and that's our goal here. So we can change words. Obviously, we've we've worked with with our committees and gone through those and have words smmith here and there. Is there ever a perfect policy? No. Uh we'll continue to adjust as as necessary and as appropriate moving forward.

But I think the discussion tonight has definitely helped make clearer what the goal is in the long run. Would you agree? Thank you. Very good. Um I know that we have a couple committee members here. Be prepared. I mean, you never know what's going to happen with these when we So, are we putting out an RFP first? Is that how it works? And then because you said there's not an application. So, do we put out an RFP and then we get applications? Is that how it works? How's this going to process?

So, we're going to work with our committees to identify what the areas of biggest needs are because we what we don't want is to go after a fantastic partnership, achieve it, and say, "Boy, that didn't help at all, and that's not what anybody wanted." So that's what we're in the process right now of working with our committees to say where's that biggest need is this is this still working feels very quiet um and then and then putting out an RFP for that for so for to give an example if they said we want some kind of uh you know new senior programming okay what specificity do they want is there something more okay what can we put out an RFP saying who's going to provide that service and I think a lot of the details that we're talking about will be borne out in the actual negoti iation process after somebody presents something. So again, as I mentioned in some of the feedback that we looked to make an adjustment, this entire um approach instead of calling it a policy and saying all things must do this, this is specific to this effort of finding a partnership in these areas that we're asking for those things. So again, trying to meet council's expectation of not having the city carry the weight of everything. Can we maximize our efforts if we remove entirely of saying we're not going to have a requirement for sustainability? Um, we can absolutely do that. That's in there for them to propose that. If they propose something that doesn't have that in there, it can still be considered by the city. The city can still consider partnerships. We're just asking that in those areas that that be part of their consideration that they absolutely note we project that we will always need the city's support with these items or no we think if we got the city support we could take it from there after such such a amount of time. So that's something that we want in the RFP process to ask them about. So that's the intent of all that language there is to say what's your plan for addressing these various areas and then we can consider it from

there. if that makes sense. Very good. I don't think you have Oh, we do. So, mayor, I may make a suggestion then on on section 25 under sustainability. Could we just simply change the word from partnerships must demonstrate to partnerships are encouraged or or partnerships are encouraged to demonstrate a clear sustainable model. It sets the expectation. It doesn't make a requirement. that may prevent that gatekeeping concern we have. And if we're in agree, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion then to accept this guideline with that modification. Second.

Second by Council Member No. Any additional conversation since that change was introduced into the motion. All right. I have a first and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Quinn. All right, that'll take us to our last agenda item, 8.5. And I believe Ben, are you the presenter on this? I have zero speaker cards.

Yep. Happy to be mayor. And um thank you for this opportunity. You know, over the course of the last, I guess really 12 to 24 months, obviously, we've had a a uh real heavy focus on enhancing transportation routes within our community. the culmination and the the key focus of that is state route 347. As we went and had the discussions with the state transportation board as as you all are know are aware um one of the reasons and perhaps the key reason why uh state route 347 was added to ADOT's 5-year plan was because there were local contributions as a part of that. ADOT has specific policies that state if there are local contributions that those projects will receive a higher priority on the list in terms of consideration for inclusion on that five-year plan. So when the city of Maricopa approached ADOT staff and and the ADOT board and said we need to get a state route 347 done yesterday. We need it widened. We need the bridges and the overpasses and all of the things. Um what can we do? ADOT really sat there and and didn't know what the answer was. So, we dove into the policies and found the policies and then we reached out to our partners at Panal County and and at MAG and all of all of the different groups that ultimately came together to bring about $400 million to that corridor. Um, and as we reached out to Panal County, they said, "Hey, you know what? We're willing to to supply $20 million to ensure that this project has a higher priority on the AOT five-year plan." So with our own local contribution of $30 million and Panal County's $20 million contribution for a combined $50 million contribution, that's how we got the uh state route 347 to have a higher priority on that AOT 5-year plan. So what is before you tonight uh as as we signed an intergovernmental agreement with ADOT

back in May to provide that local contribution. Our intergovernmental agreement was that we would provide the $50 million and ADOT left to us how we would get the 20 million from Panel County. So really what this intergovernmental agreement is is simply ADOT or u excuse me panel county's way of saying this is how we're going to provide the $20 million to the city of Maricopa that will come before it's it's due by us to AOT and so effectively it will be a zero sum for us as it relates to the $20 million um of the $20 million portion of the $50 million that is due to AOT for State Route 347. So, this is just an intergovernmental agreement to kind of uh formalize that approach and happy to answer any questions on that.

Council, any questions, comments? Yes, Council Member Ghetto. I don't believe we have any Panel County representatives here today. I can't believe it. Where's the big check? I know we need that check. I know he has one. I know he has one. Um, but just a thank you to our our supporters there in the county for making this happen. um we I don't believe we would have been able to get it over the finish line like you mentioned Ben without their contribution and with all the contributions of our local residents here in this process. So thank you.

Yeah, I agree. I think that the cities have sent sales tax and commitment for our 30,000 30 million wish it was 30,000. um they were heavily considering but when they heard the 20 million coming from Panol County it pushed it over the line and I just can't say it enough because people don't understand how important it was. We would not be here if it wasn't for this. So yeah, I wish Rich was here to thank. I appreciate his efforts there. Anyone else?

Yeah. Um yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm surprised the big check's not here over the head waving it and stuff. And he must be out of town or sick. That's all I can guess right now. I know he called me earlier today, but I didn't I didn't see his call, so I was like, "Oh." But I'm surprised. Um, but you know, the hard work that we put in even when Rich was still on city council and we were meeting meeting with the county and essentially demanding money for the 347. Uh, so it goes back many years. Yeah, it does.

Um, the work that we've put in um as a council, as a staff, just at the county, at the state, at MAG, I mean, just non-stop. So this is just a great commulate commumul accumulation of all that money bringing it together and yeah so very supportive of this IGA. Any additional comments, questions, concerns. May I have a motion? Motion to approve. Motion to approve by council member Norris, seconded by council member man Freddy. One last chance. Seeing none, all in favor say I. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you for participating today. It was a long meeting. We made it through. Thank you.