Town Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. The meeting is now called to order. Would the clerk please call the

roll? Here.

Vice mayor

Hengdin Keller. Here.

Council member Lavelle.

Here. Council member Liechman. Here.

Council member Moore. Here. Council member Pace. Here. Council member Thomason.

Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you. As a reminder, this meeting is being streamed live on the Internet and will be archived in the town's website for future viewing. The first item on the agenda tonight is study session. These items are scheduled for discussion among the council staff or their designees. Votes will not be taken on any of these items at this time but may be scheduled for final action later in the meeting or at a future meeting. Members of the public are asked to hold their comments until a call to the public which is scheduled to begin shortly after 6PM. Public comments will also be invited when the agenda topic is placed on a future agenda for action. There are two items on tonight's study session agenda. The first is a discussion on the 2026 legislative agenda. Mister Chang, would you like to lead us off?

Thank you, mister mayor, members of council. I'll go ahead and invite up, Doug Cole from High Ground and our management analyst Amy Revenar who will be prevent providing us the presentation this afternoon.

Good afternoon, mayor and council. Thank you for your time today. You have before you a copy of the legislative agenda from or in your packets rather from last year that we've adjusted with some track changes. So you can see we've made a couple of minor adjustments for the 2026 legislative agenda summary. This is a document that is public facing.

Every year we come together as a group to update this document based on current priorities and what we expect to see in the legislative session starting in January. So as a group, this is your document to create, adjust, and modify to your will. And we would like to go through this together and get feedback from the council as to any potential changes you would like to see moving into the 2026 session. Doug Cole from High Ground is here to assist with any questions you may have as we move into the session. There are a couple of items of note on this agenda that we'd like to bring to your attention that we think are going to be key matters moving into next session.

Mayor, with your permission, I'd like to begin with a review of the legislative agenda.

Please.

Thank you. The legislative agenda summary does open with a general statement about the town and its priorities. We like to emphasize to our state legislators that Paradise Valley is a unique entity. We are unlike any other municipality in the state. And because of that, we are a key attractor for tourism from out of state individuals.

We also wanna highlight that we are a residential community with key resorts that are top notch in the state and in the nation. Also indicated in our opening statements are PV priorities, a limited government model that emphasizes, preserving quality residential living, low density large lots, quiet neighborhoods, and preservation of open spaces. We do have just one change noted in this opening statement to correct a misspelling. I'm sorry. Where are the changes noted? Those changes are placed in red.

Oh, so they're up there. They're not in our okay. Yeah.

They should be in your, legislative agenda, excuse me, in your town council agenda packet as well.

Okay. But that doesn't have to read. Mine doesn't.

Sometimes when you pull things up on the iPad, does the track changes don't show as well or not at all, I've noticed.

Okay. I'll look up here.

Thank you.

It's not

is it on?

I have not at all.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, let's see.

Did you go through Granicus?

I think it's yeah. It's through Granicus. IPad

does. Granicus doesn't

Does it show it?

Granicus just won't let me

in. Okay. Okay.

Please continue.

Thank you, Mayor. As I mentioned, the opening statement does include only one, minor correction to address a misspelling that was erroneously included in last year's agenda. Moving into the action items, we emphasize again that quality of life and public safety concerns for preservation of neighborhoods. This emphasizes one of the areas that I think is going to be key in the next legislative session, which is where we're looking at, bullet number three, short term rental impacts on neighborhoods. There's been a bit of activity in this space since the last legislative session, so that is one area I would really like to emphasize for this council's consideration this evening.

Also included in this section is keeping an eye out for any legislation, that could negatively impact the town, as it refers to any state or federal laws that could impact our town code. That middle bullet in this section is I'm just keeping an eye again on town ordinances to make sure that we are not impacted by state mandates that remove local authority. The second section of our 2026 legislative agenda draft is, emphasizing our financial stability here in the town of Paradise Valley. We are very fortunate to have a fiscally conservative council that is mindful of the way that we manage all of our public funds. Part of that is working to ensure that we do not, lose any of those state shared revenues that help to support the town and avoid any necessity or discussion of a property tax in Paradise Valley.

We did have a recommendation from the staff at High Ground to reword this first bullet to provide a little bit more clarity when it refers to local share. The recommendation, came from Jessica over at HighGround, she encouraged us to add in the language, that the Paradise Valley share of state shared revenues in some way if that was amenable to council to just reinforce that local share is referencing those state shared revenues. The second bullet is referring HEERF, the Highway User Revenue Fund. This has been an item that was discussed in the prior legislative session. There was some concern that the legislature would alter or sweep HEERF funding which could negatively impact Paradise Valley.

So we want to keep an eye on that. Next is the, transaction privilege tax which we know is a very important part of revenues here in Paradise Valley. Keeping an eye on any, legislation that would further limit what those state shared revenues look like. We also want to work with any and all interested parties in the legislature where possible, Again, providing that those state shared revenues are held harmless. And then we have the single tax code as well.

The last section of our action items is public safety, traffic enforcement, and smart technology. This is one that we see activity on every year. We also see a significant use of our legislative agenda when speaking with our state legislators and reinforcing that this is a key priority for Paradise Valley. This section emphasizes our ability to maintain the safety of all of our residents and community members and guests, through photo enforcement areas. It defines it as an essential tool to provide public safety with limited resources, again, emphasizing our our fiscal conservatism there.

The third bullet does have a recommended edit to include the word all to maintain all public safety technology and tools. That was APD staff recommendation. And then finally, education outreach and signage related to, photo enforcement, public safety, and smart technology is an effective behavior modification and traffic safety tool.

Mayor, I'm gonna ask a

question. Question?

Would it be good to put maintain local control of all public safety technology and tools? Just an idea.

Thank you. Mayor, Vice Mayor, I appreciate the suggestion. Thank you.

Any other questions at this point?

Moving into our continuing priorities, these are not necessarily action items that we anticipate seeing quite a

bit of

movement on during the next lead obsession, but are continuing priorities for the town. Those include zoning and preservation of quality of life and any other emerging trends that could contradict the existing town code or general plan as mentioned earlier in this document. We did have another staff recommendation for rewording here to emphasize the density mandates being imposed by the state as something that the town does not support, and to continue our ability to control sober living homes. Based on this bullet itself, I do think that this could be moved elsewhere in the document if that was something that council was looking to do. The reason being I do think zoning is something that comes up every year.

So I don't know if that's something we wanna put into our action items or if we wanna keep it on a continuing priority. That is at the discretion of council. Other continuing priorities, state shared revenues, maintaining rights of way use such as, for utilities, and emphasizing legislation that allows us to maintain a sustainable pension structure, because the town has very successfully paid down our unfunded PSPRS liability. We have gone from 71% unfunded liability all the way down to 5.1% of unfunded liability. That is based on the 2024 number.

The 2025 numbers have not yet been released by GFOA.

Any question? Councilmember Lehman.

In the first dot at the end, I think we need an and between including density mandates and the and the keep going over. Right. Right. Right. Right there. You need an ant. Thank you. Wanna clarify that those are separate items.

Mayor, council member Leitman, I appreciate the suggestion. Thank you.

Council member Thomson.

Thank you for your press thank you for your presentation, Amy. I have, couple thoughts. First of all, I think up at the beginning in the overview, I think we should emphasize our statement about local control. We talk about believing in the importance of local government, but I think believe emphasizing that is going to be very important. That's an overarching comment to council member Andy Keller's vice mayor Andy Keller's point about local control down at a specific level.

So I'd like to suggest reemphasize it there. Secondly, with the indulgence of counsel, I'd like to suggest kind of a fresh rewrite or edit. As I read this document, it appears to have grown over time and the construction is not parallel. The grammar in English feels a little sloppy. We have acronyms in there that are not always identified. We'll take a little work to do that cleanup, but perhaps not that much. So I might I might suggest that as an additional edit for the next round.

Thank you. Other questions or comments at this point? Council Member Pace.

Thank you.

Do we need to worry about the whole air traffic stuff coming from deliveries to, taxi services, things like that that could invade into Paradise Valley? I know we have a drone restriction, but, you know, that's the talk right now. And it's starting to launch. I don't know what we do have a restriction where we can't do hot air balloons and we can't do helicopters in Paradise Valley. I don't know where the air taxis fit in, but just something to think about. I don't know how fast it's gonna be during this session.

If I may, mayor. Please. Good good, flag, council member Pace. We have not heard of any preemption because that would be a preemption coming from Amazon or who some of the other other providers, maybe, you know, Waymo's getting in that space. So we'll watch for that.

That that comes under the preemption that that's throughout this document here that we'll watch for. I've not heard of any concerted efforts like we've heard about some other things that we're gonna talk about here in a minute as an update, but we'll we'll watch for that. That would be a preemption type. And I don't know of any I haven't seen any concerted effort within the league or any other of the major cities to to try to come after and and granularly regulate those activities, which usually is what causes causes the the preemption.

Okay. Thank you.

Vice mayor. One

quick question. Under the where we had short term rental impact on neighborhoods, do we I wanna add the, timeshare, in neighborhoods. I know, council member Lavelle worked on this before with, Picasso. I'm not really sure, or I can't remember what where it went, but I know that there's two locations already in Scottsdale. So I'm just kind of thinking that we should maybe have that as a add on, just a suggestion. I yield.

I would support that.

Any other questions for Amy or mister Cole at this point?

Councilmember Moore. Thanks, mayor. Hey, Doug. This is for you. The and I'm kinda on the lines of what council member Thomas was just talking about. My question was when you present this to the legislature, do they do they have a hard time reading it? Do they I mean, we understand it because we're here. But, I mean, how do you how does it read to you? Is it does it it seems a little choppy how how it reads and may not be fully they may not fully understand what it all entails.

Mayor. Yeah. Mayor, council member Moore. Paradise Valley does what almost all active municipalities do every year. And as you know, we represent a number of municipalities. Every one of them has this document, And and it and it does grow over time, and it does get edited. And they do get read chiefly, not by the broader members

of

the legislature, but by by our congressional by our legislative delegation. And it and it also it's something that's as Amy said at the front is is forward facing to the to the residents of the town. And and it says what what your collective goals are are for the legislative session and also gives your legislative team along with the the town manager and the town attorney and and, the two of us sitting here at the end of the table some leeway on some things that aren't specifically mentioned under, for instance, preemption because there there are many things that are preemptive, and and gives us the opportunity to work on those without as things pop up in in in committee hearings that we can we can can opine on even though we haven't brought this specifically to you and say in general, we don't like this because it's a preemption. And then we'll come back to you to get more direction from But but that's the purpose of this of this document to to plant the flag. Like all things that that are edited and reedited and added to over the years, you know, they they they they can get a little cumbersome.

And and I know we did a lot of editing last year, if I remember correctly, and the year before, and it just my memory serves me correctly. But, you know, our delegation knows pretty well because you all communicate with them all the time, and we bring them to breakfast and we talk to them all the time, you know, where where things are. I look at this document as as as a general business statement. This is what we're this is what this this enterprise is gonna be working on and what's important to us, and also letting letting your residents and your constituents know that this is what's important as we're speaking down at the legislature. Now anything I mean, you can pick up any newspaper, read any website, and find mistakes and grammatical stuff.

It's, you know I I I leave that to staff and you all to decide what to do, but I think it's pretty clear about I think this this has been a living document, and it's worked well for us in the past. So I know it's a roundabout answer to a very direct question, but this is not meant to be the end all.

Yeah. Thanks. Good feedback.

I hope hope it answers your question. Councilmember Lavelle.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Amy. Thanks, Doug, for being here. Nice presentation. I'd like to emphasize, I think, that all all my peers have some great feedback and points today and, spot on, and, thank you for asking.

As far as the drones, I know Tolleson has them right now. So, you know, once again, sort of like some of the other issues like our, group homes and stuff getting ahead of it is certainly something I'd prefer rather than chasing it when it shows up. And I think to my some of my fellow council members, points about what constitutes a timeshare or a fractional. I know there's been some lack of clarity on that over the years when I've asked, you know, and legitimately so, but it might be something we wanna revisit. I know we address it in our general plan specifically with those terms.

So, you know, understanding what act exactly that means might be something again, I know there are besides Pacasa, there's equity estates and a bunch of other ones coming in. And then thirdly, my question, Amy, is if can you share any of the specifics about you said the short term rental, there's been some some little, activity or movement about that. Is there anything you can share that we need to be aware of a little bit about what's happening that I'm unaware of? Thanks. Council.

Mayor, council member LaBelle, there has been, a working group at the league of other intergovernmental representatives and lobbyists working for municipalities across Arizona who are getting together and comparing notes right now in preparation for the session. That group is looking at all of the kind of rumblings and murmurs at the legislature about what could be coming down the pipeline. There are other municipalities in the state who are really leading this effort. Paradise Valley took the forefront a few years back with our work on short term rentals. And so at this moment, there are other municipalities like Sedona and Flagstaff who are really charging forward at the forefront.

We are in those meetings. We are staying engaged in those conversations. Doug, you might be able to provide a little bit more clarity as to what specific legislation we're expecting.

Yeah. So the league the league at the at the conference back in August at the Princess Resort is looking to put a cap on STRs because, you know, we had that moratorium. We we had the the reform issue. I'll remember back in 2022, and then we all the league agreed, that the league, not individual cities and towns, would not do anything in that. And that moratorium has now told.

So the league is working with the aforementioned Flagstaff, Sedona, Lake Havasu City, Page, Scottsdale, Us, others have this working group about what potentially could be introduced to give more tools to municipalities and how they deal with STRs. Now for every cause, there's an effect. Right? Or every effect, there's a cause. And mister mayor, with your permission, I'd like like to pass this around.

This was in the, yellow sheet yesterday or day before, which is the gossip sheet for the legislature as many of you know. And as you can see, since the league, Pat, authorized that in their in their resolutions committee, as you can see now, Airbnb is is funding this new group that has committed to the 6 figure effort to get friendly legislators to work against the league's efforts on on doing anything more with STRs. So I just wanted to pass that out. So it's starting already, and it's only October. Interestingly enough, miss the gentleman who'd be heading up this effort, his lobbying firm represents Airbnb, also represents the Arizona Association of Realtors, and also the homebuilders of of Central Arizona are clients of of the gentleman that's heading up this effort.

Just wanted to make that connection.

Yes, please.

To your point on the realtors, you're right. There's a lot of collaboration going on right now. I'm noticing, with the Pacasas, with the equity estates, and, overlap in ownership, a lot of that going on. So thank you for clarifying what I think I'm already seeing. I appreciate it.

Yes.

The question vice mayor.

Thank you, mayor. I do support what council member Thomason, mentioned about lining things up and making it look a little bit more fluid. So I'll pass from that.

Other questions? I would say, for Scholl and Amy, you for presenting this. I think the brevity is important because of the fact that the legislators get so much information and I think this is a a good amount of information without overkill. I think I think that's important to note. I do agree.

I think we should go through with a fine tooth comb because we wanna put our best foot forward, make sure that we've got everything lined up as best we can, and we're avoiding any typos. Everybody's human, so things happen, but making another pass on that makes sense. Mister Cole, I've got a question tied to, I I know, Amy, you had said that there are rumblings, we know that there are other groups just like this one for, Airbnb that are are out there. And I, full confidence that, this team is paying attention to those items. And moving forward from this, short order, we'll be considering this for adoption.

And we'll have the same type of dialogue with both of you about where things are at, what might be coming up. And we've heard a number of rumblings and specifically about photo radar, even as today on the, in the newspaper and on the radio. So give us an idea of how that interaction is gonna go with us as we move forward.

Thank you, mayor. I think you're referring to an article that appeared yesterday in the Phoenix New Times regarding a company called FLAC. That's an LPR, a license plate reader company that many municipalities in the in the valley and the state use. There's and I and the genesis of that was a Tempe City Council council candidate is making making his opposition to LPRs part of of his platform when as he seeks a seat on the Tempe City Council. So that draws in other municipalities, business municipality included, into that discussion as as we start as we move towards the legislative session, which which most of our conversations sitting at this table have been regarding of traffic enforcement usage of this technology, not so much of LPRs, but now that's being brought into the discussion.

So that's being the fall before a legislative session. You know, these things get brought forward and just as as here with Airbnb, we're gonna see we're gonna see more and more of these issues being brought to light as people prepare for the legislative session. So it these are things we all need to watch. If you if you all find find things in your in your when you're out and about talking to to your friends, families, and constituents, please let us know. We don't catch everything that's out there on social media, but we like to know about it.

And, you know, the game begins, unfortunately, here in October as I said earlier. But it's a little bit disconcerting that LPRs are now being brought to the forefront also because I think that is a and I'll let the the chief speak for himself. I think that's a very, very valid tool for law enforcement. And I I don't like the specific spotlight focused on that that technology.

Thank you, Doug. And I would also say that and kudos to the chief and the breakfast with Kabul the Kabul program. We brought in two of our delegation representatives, senator Warner and representative Carter, to participate in the focus on photo radar and LPRs, I thought it was great presentation. I was grateful that the delegation was there. So that gives us some knowledge that our delegation's paying attention and that they're interested and as we move along.

Doug, just to kind of follow-up on that, as you as we hear and we see things, we're in more of a reactive phase to see what might come forward and in that and you're in those discussions. Is it is it at all in your mindset that we would get more proactive with helping craft legislation that may be coming forward?

Regarding I I think there's on behalf of the league and STR things, I think that they will be proactive and hence the reason the Airbnb sees that and is reacting back. I think it's the jury still out on what's gonna happen on LPRs and photo and photo enforcement technology. I don't know what the vendor may or may not do. As you know, the vendor introduced a bill that went nowhere last year that we talked about at this table. I don't you know, I we what we can and what what I will guarantee you, 99.9% that senator senator Wendy Rogers is gonna reintroduce her SCR to send photo technology authority to the to the statewide vote to bypass the governor because the governor, of course, has has a strong record of vetoing the legislative attempt to do that.

Now whether whether someone introduces a bill to that would make local governments go to the voters at some point before they introduce voter enforcement technology or LPR or make municipalities that currently have that technology at some point go back to the voters to reaffirm that use? I don't know. I I think that that may be a pre that may be a defensive maneuver on municipalities part, but I there is no concerted effort at this point to proactively introduce something. So that may be something you want to discuss with your fellow mayors that have this technology and you, the council members, discuss with other councilmen. Because remember, we've we've got a lot more municipalities using this technology.

Tempe has stood their program up and Phoenix is in the process of staying their program up. I think I'm missing one other East somebody in East Valley, I think. Yeah. The Scotts. I know, but new programs besides besides so there's there's more there's more people at this party. And depending upon how the session goes and and how how far along senator Rogers SCR gets along, that may be something that we all may collectively get together and offer. I don't know. That would be up to many executive sessions, I guess, and all those municipalities decide what to do. Thank you. I hope that answered your question.

It did.

Thank you. Okay.

Other questions for Amy or Doug Cole?

No other questions unless there's more for the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Cole. Thank you, Amy. Appreciate it.

Thank you, mayor. Members of council, I appreciate it.

Alright. Our next study session item 25 dash two four four is discussion of health care request for proposals scheduled for forty five minutes with our HR manager, Gina Munger.

Check. Check. No. Just kidding. Thank you. Thank you, for having me today to discuss this with you, mayor and council. I do have some guests arriving, but they were told 04:00 start time, so they should be along shortly. But they are going to be here more so to answer questions and things that you may have. I'm here today as as announced to present this to you today. So this is follow-up to the funding that was, approved in fiscal year twenty six for a health care RFP.

And so what we're hoping to learn today is a bit of our history about our health care benefits as well as the self insurance options. And then the council ask for you today is is there consensus by council to issue the RFP for health care benefits? That includes both self insured pools and fully self insured options for bidders. And I want to stress that there is no leaning one way or the other by the town as to which options we're looking at. We just want to kind of have a cast a wide net to understand what the options could be out there and then from that what makes best sense for the town.

So as I mentioned, fiscal year '26, council did approve, for budget to have a consultant hired to help us with this project and we have hired CapFi Consulting. They are off the state contract and the current statement of work is not to exceed $21,001.25. I believe council approved a budget of somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,445,000 but this is this is where we're at with respect to the contract specifically. That contract includes just under $7,000 for a self funded feasibility study which we'll discuss in a moment as well as preparation of the RFP itself which includes all of the healthcare benefits and then helping us analyze the bid costs, and recommendations, for consideration for council to be approved. So I wanna also emphasize that they are here to act as advisers.

They are not making decisions on our behalf, that that will rest with the town. There'll be a committee established to go over that information and make decisions based on council guidance as well as, you know, the best interest of the town. Okay. So where are we today? So we have been with the Arizona Metropolitan Trust, which is a self insured pool since 2017.

There are currently tens, towns and cities in that, and I've listed them there for you. Each city has one representative on the board of trustees and that is the town manager. There are alternates on the the board which I'm an alternate for the town. So the the process is with those those trusts is they are the ones who have the fiduciary responsibility of the trust as well as decisions for plan design and everything related to the management of the plans that are offered by the trust. The current contract expires 06/30/2026, so I will note bonus points for anyone who caught that error on my part.

So the contract expires June year. So what happens with that contract? If we were to end the contract or if not renew in this case, then we would have a surplus at this point as of sixthirty of this year of $320,000.08 and 30. So what that means is that they would pay that in two installments back to the town. Those are the surplus and that is effectively what we paid versus what our actual claim costs were since, 2017.

So that number of course would likely change between now and June but that kind of gives you a ballpark of where we today. Okay, so self insurance pool which is what we are in today and so what is that? And so this is a very high level discussion just so we all can be on the same page. And what it is is it's a hybrid between fully insured which is off the shelf, you just went and bought a Cigna plan and you pay an amount and that's how that works versus fully insured where you as the individual entity own everything about it from plan design to the networks that are offered to the coverages so forth. So right now the pool is a hybrid of those two things and it's allowed by statute that's noted there and there are multiple entities that collectively pool resources basically to benefit one another.

By having a pooled program you have all of the members and so it spreads that risk out over a greater number of folks. And so which is why if you noticed on the slide presentation that there were a number of the smaller cities and towns in there and it's because the risk, you know, one large claim could have a bigger impact on a smaller organisation than a larger one, which is why you also don't see larger cities on that list. So as I said, it provides that opportunity to have the risk spread over a larger amount. Also provides greater control over cost administration than a fully insured plan which is you have basically no control over that. And the claims are paid as they are incurred.

So the things about a self insurance pool that you need to understand is, as I said, the risk is affected by the claims activity but it's affected by all the members of the pool not just the claims of the individual city or town. So in the case of a self insurance pool, you know, the takeaway is, you know, the members are either being subsidized by their claim costs or subsidizing others. And so that's what we're trying to sort out is are we subsidizing or are we being subsidized. So with that, the individual entities, so each city or town, we are limited on decision making regarding the plans itself and design premium and so forth There is one vote out of the total number of municipalities in the pool, which I should add there is Sun City Fire. So there is one fire district as well.

Surpluses and deficits are maintained by the pool and so that was where I had to ask to get that number to understand what our specific surplus was. And the fiduciary responsibility rests with the board of trustees so they are responsible for, you know, the future viability of the pool. So now we'll talk about fully self insured and the fundamental difference is instead of having a pool, a group of entities, there is only one and the statute up there is what allows that to occur and other than that it is similar in scope and responsibility in terms of what the board does for the trust and so forth. It's just instead of it being spread over board of trustees, it is managed and operated by one single entity which is the model you see in a lot of larger cities that this is how they operate is they're fully self insured. So there are a lot of considerations.

Fiduciary responsibility is one. Potentially more risks, higher more exposure to large claims. Monthly expenses can vary because you pay as claims are incurred versus just a flat monthly premium. As we go down the list, there's more administrative responsibilities because it is just the nature of a trust board. Costs and risk are solely are affected by the claims of the entity, meaning whatever happens with us is how we are affected by that.

Reserves are also maintained by the entity. A fully self insured then does allow you for to manage your plans the way you choose and the way that makes sense and the way that the board of trustees that you would have for a fully self insured deems is appropriate and responsible. So it does have lower fixed costs because there is not all of the additional administration that would go with managing a larger pool and more members. So there is that. Cash flow was more there because the pool or excuse me, the fully self assured they are able to determine the costs associated with managing the plan.

And the last bullet I think is an important one and it's the full transparency of the financials of the trust. And that is not to say in any way that currently it's not available. It's just you have to request specifically information on behalf of the town. Everything that's presented by the trust, of course, is the pooled information. So when you're talking, you know, large claim costs and, you know, administrative costs, it's all based on the activity of the entire pool, which I think right now is just over a thousand members. So it's sometimes difficult to know, you know, how are we affected by what's happening with the rest of the pool. So I just wanna touch on that briefly. Before I continue on, I will pause and see if anyone has any questions.

Any questions from the council at this point? Yes. Councilmember Moore.

Thanks, mayor. Gina, how many for the fully and self insured, how many municipalities out there are what do we have? A 100 employee people in our

How many employees do we have?

Yeah. Total.

As of today, we have a 121.

121. So how many municipalities out there are fully self insured with such a small number?

None to my knowledge.

So are you expecting that to come back as a possibility even?

So the study that we'll discuss later in the presentation basically explains why the town is a candidate for it, not to say that it's something that, you know, the town is asking to do. But effectively, it's based on claims history activity, which and then you you couple that with the reserves that we had and the financial stability. The the model that they showed and they did, you know, over 5,000 simulations that said that 70% of the time that being fully self insured would outperform being in the pooled, model that we're in today. But but, of course, it's all projections and it's all, you know, estimations and assumptions. Right?

So so we know those things can change. What I learned from the feasibility study that we will talk about was just that it's a possibility. I'm not here today to convince you that this is the direction we should go. I'm simply here today to say this is an option that could potentially save the town money and or enhance existing benefits without increasing costs. And I think that's just important information for you as counsel to be able to consider and decide if that's something that you're interested in.

Thank you.

Other questions at this point? Councilmember Labelle.

Thank you. Thank you, Gina. So if I'm understanding correctly on page four I'm sorry. Yeah. Page four is what we're what we're using right now. Page five is an option, and page six is an is an option. Correct? Okay. Thank you. And so my question would be in the self insurance pool, where it's a hybrid between the traditional and we we would coordinate with other cities. How are the members of the insurance pool and the other municipalities chosen or vetted? Who puts that package together? Who decides who we're gonna partner with? What if there's no one else available? If I'm getting too deep in the woods and you're gonna get that later, don't you know, I can wait. But I'm

gonna pass that question to you, Andrew, because you were more involved in that.

Sure. If councilor Merle Bell, if I understand the question you're asking about the existing pool that we're in, right, the self insurance or how a a another pool so there's there's a multiple different, pools that are available. We're in one of them currently. Okay. The membership who gets admitted into or can leave is subject it's the documents that, that first of all, the board would decide ultimately whether or not to admit new, cities, towns, or districts to be part of the pool.

So you'd have to go through an admission process, you know, with financial statements, things like that, no claims history, etcetera. We would have to have done that back in 2017 when we became part of the Arizona Metropolitan Trust. So the the the board of directors, would decide that, and we are one vote on that board. In fact, in the last year, the Metropolitan Trust has added two new members. They added Cave Creek and and previous to that, they added Guadalupe, Town Of Guadalupe.

So we've actually had to vote twice on new members over the last year. Conversely, at the same time, the last three two of the three years, we've had two members leave. One was city of Avondale, and one was Pinal County. So over that time, it's really the board. And then there's a notification process.

You have to give a certain amount of days notice, and Gina talked a little bit about you would get back out if you're owed for your contributions, if your contributions exceed your claims history over time. So that's how that the pools work. The criteria that they use for admission would be the kind of things that a fiduciary would look at as to whether or not admission of new members, would be beneficial to the bottom line of the of the, of the pool itself. That's the kind of thing that, you know, we'd be guided by typically.

Want me to council member Thompson?

Thank you. I'll jump in with some questions about the pools. First of all, I wanted to thank you both for investing time with me earlier this week to ask many of my gnarly questions. I'll come up with new ones. So in regards to the pool, do we know the number of lives in the pool? Currently,

for the entire pool? For the entire pool.

I want to understand what percentage of the overall risk we are.

And you come back Yeah. With that later. Me do that for you.

The other thing you shared with me that our employee only premium is zero. So we pay 100% coverage for employee only. We pay, if I remember correctly, 90% of the cost to add a spouse, and we pay 85% for a family. So one of my questions, and this might be for the consultant, is what is the premium distribution for the other members of the pool? Obviously, if we have a zero premium population, we're going to have almost 100% enrollment in the pool which will reduce our risk profile compared to other members of the pool that probably have a different risk profile.

So I would be curious about that. I know we're not here to make decisions yet, but that kind of data would be helpful to me. Also, I assume there are other pools in Arizona that we could or could not be a member of. My question for you is that something that would be considered as part of the RFP, not only the financing mechanism, but if we decide to stay in a pool, which pool we'd be part of.

I think the short answer to that is yes.

The Okay.

The RFP, if we get the direction here at study session today to move forward with what we are envisioning to work with CAPFI on would be to invite other pools and our pool to bid as well as the the self insured model, as well. So and we would have criteria for kind of distinguishing between the two types and within the type. Right? So if there is, you know, a stronger financial posture of another pool that we could we could you know, that they are inviting us to join, and we would look at that relative to where we are now and to the other bidders. That would all be criteria we'd wanna look at down the road.

And my last question and then I'll I'll, take a breath, mayor. Relative to consideration of a self funded arrangement, I would like to suggest that we bid an aggregate stop loss. I know individual stop losses have been considered in your presentation, and I know the town does have the resources to self insure at an aggregate level or a catastrophic level, but I would certainly be interested in costing out some aggregate protection. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice mayor.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you for the presentation so far. Question for you on the Arizona Metropolitan Trust. They're their own entity. Is that correct? Or is it I'm trying to understand how they operate.

Yes. So they operate under the statute as a as one entity but they are pooled qualifying agencies if you will. So like I said, there's I think most of them are cities and there is one fire district in there. So, basically, they are just government entities that comprise the pool.

Okay. I well, I've one of my colleagues asked for their financial statements, their audited financial statements, which I find very interesting because their current assets don't even list like they own a computer or anything. So is are there employees? I mean, they've gotta have employees. I don't even see where they have so the only thing I can find is legal was 11,000.

I'll see if I can I'll see if

I find the whole picture here very interesting.

Sure. Because do they

have a desk?

Right. So the trust is a legal entity comprised of all of the various member agencies. So Yeah. They're staffed by and contract with Gallagher as the third party Okay. Consultant. They would be the employee base that would be implied provided by contract to the pool. Same with illegal so so the trust in itself doesn't have employees because they contract with Gallagher to provide that staffing administrative services.

Okay. That was my Yeah.

Yeah. And and I can help a little bit further. So Gallagher's where you'll see, like, the administrative costs and then you have AmeriBen that's likely listed there and they are the third party administrator for the actual claims management. And so Gallagher is the broker that oversees all of the benefits and then they go out and solicit the contracts for the benefits that are provided through the trust. All right. Got it. Thank you.

Councilmember Hulibman. Thank you, ma'am.

I have two questions.

One is if we did when I looked

at the

financials, which were very helpful and surprisingly thin that Andrew sent over to us, I guess, yesterday or earlier today. I noticed that the pool had reinsurance as a line item, which means that at some point we have a third party insurance company coming in. And I was wondering, first of all, would we do that with fully self insured because that's incredibly important to me. And I'm not quite sure if Anna's question was the same thing because I don't know the difference between stop loss and reinsurance or stop loss a I just don't know. So the intent of the RFP is to, for lack of

a better term, compare apples to apples. So whatever what we have today is what we are we intend to go out to market for. We at this point are not cutting anything out of what is existing within the trust. If we were to go to another pool or we were to go fully self insured, the expectation is that we would maintain the same level for the purposes of bidding so that way we understand what we are getting. And then from there, we can decide what's appropriate if that's the path we choose to take.

Understood. And what is stop loss? Is that a cap per person or is that a

No they're not. So it's basically insurance for your insurance. So if you have a large catastrophic claim that costs one individual that costs a significant amount, you basically buy insurance to say that if you have a claim that goes above that amount, this other insurance kicks in so you're not paying say perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars towards It's a the same

thing that I'm

thinking Is of the

insurance, as yeah,

I think the Which was the line item?

Yeah, I just didn't want to speak. I was looking to see if the consults were here. But I believe they effectively do the same thing. Don't know if they're exactly the same, but that is

what it is.

Thank you. Yeah.

And my second question is brought up by something that council member Thomaston said. As I would like to know what other peer cities and towns, what they charge, for family and spousal coverage or because hearing we're at 8095%, that seems a little high to me but I just don't know what the comps are. That would be very interesting to know.

Thank you for that and just as a quick reminder, council also approved us to do a comp and classification study this year so we are in the process of getting that contract signed and then that will be a part of that information that comes out of that so that we will see exactly what other other comparators that we use are, you know, charging in terms of, premiums for their staff.

Thank you. And I think I along with that, I'm just worried about the timing because we have I saw something when I was reviewing these materials ahead of time that said we have to give them ninety day notice before we back out if Yes.

And the timeline that we have, assuming that we go out to RFP when we plan in the first week or so of November, we will meet that timeline with time to review the bids and bring it to counsel for consideration. Keeping in mind that, you know, the recommendation maybe we stay where we are. So, know, I mean, we just we just don't know. So but, yes, CAPFI is very well aware because I've made them very well aware of our timelines and the the priority must be that council has the opportunity to review this information to make a decision on behalf of the town.

Excellent. Thank

you. Just a brief note on your question, though, council member Leipman. I'll defer to mister Gaylord on this as well, but the contract that we have right now with with the the trust expires at the end of this fiscal year. So the ninety day notice would be would would apply if we were leaving while in con in the contract term. If the contract expires, then we have it. But so the timing should work out based upon the fact that the contract would expire. Terms of reapproval of it, since they would be bidding, we would probably have an agreement with them that that the terms would continue if they were the ones who were selected. So I think either in either event, we should be fine Mhmm. Based upon what we've worked out as preliminary timelines assuming we get direction today.

Thank you. That's helpful.

Thank you. Other questions or comments? Council member Moore.

Thanks, mayor. If if we opt out of our current plan, do we have to requalify to get back in?

The provisions in the current contract state that we would basically have a three year blackout period where we could not reapply to the Arizona Metropolitan Trust for three years.

And to renew our contract, do we have to qualify?

No. We would we would need to sign an extension contract that that I believe, was brought to counsel in '23 as as part of that process.

Thank you.

Other thoughts, questions at this point? Alright. Gina, please continue.

Thank you. Before I move on, did want to circle back to council member LaBelle's question because I may not have fully answered it. We entered into the Arizona Metropolitan Trust in 2017, and I did go back to look to see how we came to that decision as an organization to do that, and I was not able to locate any procurement documents or anything like that. What I did see was more of a comparison to the prior pool we were in compared to the trust and how that was going to benefit both the town and its employees. So with without making too large of assumptions, I'm not certain that we went out even for procurement back in 2017.

So this is the first RFP process we've done in some time, as near as I can tell. Okay, the feasibility study we've all been hearing about. So this is part of the contract with CAPPHI where they effectively did a study to see that if the town was in a position to even consider going fully self insured. And so the details on this slide are the tools that they used in which to do that and you'll see that it was very very well known, very thoroughly used, as well as over 5,000 planned simulations were done in order to determine the results of this study. So this wasn't just a one or two off and they took information both on the low end and high end of claims to really come up with a reasonable result from that study.

Hello, sorry. Mean a quick introduction. So these are the folks from CAPPHI Consulting, Dave Thomas and Allison Sparks, and so they will be here to answer questions for us when we are ready to do so. So some of the assumptions that you'll see, this is a lot of, health care lingo, but what you need to understand about these assumptions is that this is what we currently have with the Arizona Metropolitan Trust. So again, it was very important that we make sure we were comparing what we have today with this study going forward in terms of if we wanted to consider this as an option.

And so this is the results of the study. You will see basically if you look at the AZMT, Arizona Metropolitan Premium, those are the projected premiums. The 150 ks ISL, that is that stop loss insurance that you've been hearing about and based upon which type of coverage was elected, those are the resulting premiums. And then if you move all the way over to the SF cost self funded, that's what the projections would be if we went fully self insured. And then the very far right column is just a, real simple here's the projected savings.

Now keeping in mind these are projections. However, they do give us a sense of what is possible if we were to consider going here. And so it was just important for council to understand the reason why we were looking at this. So not only would we potentially see projected savings, but also we would have more control over plan design, and and things of that nature. Any questions?

Councilmember Leitman.

Thank you, mayor. As I read through this, I got hung up on acronyms. Like, on the prior slide, it says PEPM. Is that

Per employee per month. It's a a cost.

Okay. Is that per employee? Is that per insured? Like if an employee has three family members versus I mean, is that really just per the bodies in the buildings?

It's per employee.

Per employee. Okay. And then I mean I sorry. I have

to say I got lost 150 ks ISL. That is the individual stop loss. So that is that insurance on the insurance.

Oh, so it's essentially the same as reinsurance. I I I had the pleasure of Council Member Thomason looking it up and giving me the answer there. I just don't know again what AZMT is?

That is the Arizona Metropolitan Trust. That's their acronym that they use.

Okay. Where are Thank

you.

So again you can see the projected savings and I will note that the way they chose to, run these feasibility numbers was the $2.40 ISL individual stop loss. That is what we currently have with the trust today and keep in mind that the trust is a pool of 1,000 to 1,100 members. So the higher stop loss, right, because you have a larger pool to offset any large claim cost. Where if we were to go fully self insured, we would probably be more looking at the $150,000 insurance stop loss and it's because smaller pool so larger claim could have a greater impact. The point of that would be to mitigate that impact. I just want to explain the difference of

the two numbers there for you. I have one more question on the stop loss and then I'll stop asking questions because I'm Is there an absolute cap on benefits that would get paid out on a per employee basis? I mean, if someone has catastrophic cancer or, you know, a kid in the NICU for a year, is that is there an absolute cap? Because I'm really not in favor of those. That is No.

There's not.

There's not.

There's not. It's unlimited protection. Whether it's a $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 claim, reinsurance would pay for everything above the one

And when you're saying

And before we answer any questions, maybe it'd better if you could come up and sit up at the at the dais here at the table so we can make sure people on the home edition can follow along.

So You'll be fine. Thank you. Right. So to Dave's point,

there is not necessarily a cap to what that benefit is for a member. When we're talking about the individual stop loss, really that is a function of the protection for the pool or the plan that the town owns. So the ACA years ago said that plans in order to be compliant can no longer have any maximum coverage limitations. So an employee, a member, a dependent on the plan could incur $5,000,000 in claims, and still have that appropriate coverage, without that impacting directly to the plan, again keeping at individual stop loss deductible.

Wonderful. Thank you. Any

other questions before I move on from this slide?

Please continue.

Okay.

That information, So we also wanted to share CAPPHI's analysis of the market conditions and and how they think the town will do in the market in terms of visit or excuse me, bid solicitations and so forth. And so based on those information, you know, we are looking very positive from the bidder standpoint is that we have stability. We stay with our pool. We have you know, our claims history is strong in terms of and that's recognized by the surplus that we currently have. And so this just tells us that this is a good time for us to go out and see what else is out on the market.

And then lastly is just the timeline, because there is concern about that so it's important to recognize that we're we're looking to get with this. And we effectively started from when budget season in and worked our way backwards. So because we wanted to ensure that there was time for the fiscal year twenty seven budget to be have this as a consideration whatever the final decision is from the RFP process. So and with that, the ask again is to just consensus to issue the RFP to include both self insured pools, which is what we are in today in which there are several are in the state, as well as fully self insured options. Again, there is no desire to push one or the other.

We are simply wanting to see what's all out there and then, you know, take a look at things and and then move forward in in the best interest of the town. Thank you. And with that, does anyone have questions?

Mister Gaylor. Mister mayor, if I may, just a a fine point. We've talked about this, but mister Ching was explaining that that the term is ending at the end of this year. Under the current arrangement with ACMT, their three year terms, and I think this goes, council member Moore, to your question also. There's three year terms. It's very difficult to to terminate in the middle of a term. And so not only is it a convenient time to renew at the end of this coming year, it's kind of the only time if you want to do it. And so now is a good time to look at this because if you don't look at it now, really, you're gonna wanna wait another three years. It's not it's not practical to look at it during the three years.

Alright. Questions? Thoughts from the council? Councilmember Pace.

Thank you, mayor. So, and thank you the consultants and Gina for bringing this forward. When you're looking at, maybe we can go to number 11. When you're looking at the projected savings, so it's looking like there could be a quarter million plus savings a year. That's what the projections are. Is that what Kathy is is thinking there on 11? Just wanna make sure. Yes. Yeah. And is that, how does that compare to others you've been looking at in the industry? Does this look more favorable to be considering doing something or is this pretty much what you see all the time?

Yeah. Great question. So really when we're looking at this, the number that we pay attention to the most in the industry is not so much the projected savings amounts because when we're talking about dollars, what we're spending here could be different what than, you know, another city or another town, school district, any other municipality you're spending. So what we really like to pay attention to instead is that kind of second to the right column, that SF greater than the pool. Essentially, what that's saying is that but what is the likelihood that moving self funded would, outperform the function of the pool that you're currently in?

And so when we are looking at that, when we see anything above about 70%, that is generally very, positive which is also why we see kind of a reflection of the increased savings year over year and why that percentage continues to increase year over year. So that's really what we would pay more attention to as compared to savings. Generally, when we see something about 70% or higher and it's not just anecdotal, but speaking with the actuaries who run the Monte Carlo model in those simulations, anything at 70% or above is generally considered very positive and appropriate to make a move into a totally self funded arrangement.

Okay. So when we're looking at this, this is why it's coming now, which is good, Gina, you know, is that we've kind of outlived our time with the trust. I mean, I was here when we put that in, and we did very well with it for a long time. But we're now getting to a point when, we can make more money and be more profitable and have more control and some other benefits you get with it by moving into possibly a different direction.

Yeah. I'd say for one thing, we don't always see it this way. That was a good question that you asked. We don't. Sometimes we see really bad claims that somebody, a group has coming into a situation like this. So that would not be a good time. But you guys have been really well managed. We can see that. Your surplus situation is great. We understand the things that that Gina's been doing in her department, which are great. And we just think you ought to be benefiting from that.

Yeah.

So, I mean, nine of the in in the the information we had, nine of the municipalities rates were almost identical, like, really, really close together. And then there was one that was skewed pretty high. And so that just means that that tells us that you're not really benefiting from the good things that you're doing and we think you should be. And I think those numbers bear it out. But we don't always see it this way.

Yeah. That's what I thought. That's good. No. That's good to see. That's good to be looking at it. Thank you.

Councilwoman Wiebmann. Thank you, mayor. I am thinking about the fact that we have a relatively small employee pool, And my understanding of risk is the larger the pool, the more the risk is spread over. And I understand what you're saying about we manage our people well and we do things to keep them essentially healthy. Years ago, I worked for a law firm that had a self lawyer.

We had a self insured and I was pregnant with my second child. I started getting comments from other partners about the fact that I was running up the self insurance. And I want to be very careful, and it didn't make me feel good. I I want to be very careful that when we think about that, we don't let health seep or age, which is correlated to health, seep into our hiring, our retention, and our employee decisions because I've seen it happen. And later is when I was a partner, I saw it happen.

And I I'm just very concerned even though I see the wonderful savings. I am very concerned about the creep of some sort of discrimination or preferential treatment coming in if we have such a small pool, and I just wanna put that out there. Thank you.

Councilmember Pace.

Yeah. I mean, that's a it's a good point that councilmember Leyden raises, but I think the organization is very clear from Andrew Chingdow to Gina. They don't discriminate. They do things based on skill. I always call it the step of a person skills, knowledge, experience, performance. We don't look at it's gender blind, race neutral, color blind. So they're gonna be basing it on numbers, they usually have when they look at with the consultants, individual cases, it's it's blinded to the rest. So that is true in all these plans general and general, but I know what you say. We've all seen the discrimination happen. But I don't think that would be part of the philosophy or, you know, values of the town or the leadership here.

It's really just about the numbers. And if we're losing money and just giving it away because the trust right now, when you look at how it changed from 2017 to now, it's it's changed a bit. And we tend to be in the good camp and get the benefits of all that and have done a good job to help give to the trust and give monies for them. But we probably should be looking at whether we can get that money back out and save it and use some things that might be beneficial for the employees in some of the plan design. So I don't worry too much.

You know, people have, unfortunately, medical issues that can happen to anyone at all ages, but we, it's not gonna be protected whether it's fully self insured or others. You just have to be cognizant of what works, you know, and that you're being careful with your other, which I think they will be. But it's a good point to make for councilman leaving the race. So, yeah, it's like I'll just add one thing. You know, one of the classes when I teach the MBA classes at ASU, one of the things I used to trick them all the time when I go in is I would do an employment class and I would tell them and I'd kind of set them up and let them do the modeling that if we would just hire not women who are pregnant, we could actually excel with the numbers on the finance.

And they would fall for it, you know, and there'd be this big debate in the class, right? So it happens, you know, that people aren't thinking sometimes and they go down a that if you're thinking just

I would say let's stay focused on the subject where we're at because I think the question before us is the idea of going out to the RFP. That's the

question that's been asked. So

I guess is anybody specific on more questions for Gina or the team? Yes. Go ahead, vice mayor.

I don't have a question. Thank you, mayor. I don't have a question, but I do support us going out for the RFP. And that's all I have.

Thank you. Well, if there's no other elements of the presentation, would without hearing any other opposition or any opposition, I believe that you're seeing

a green light to go out to the RP.

And just before we wrap on that, could you recap again from this day what the timeline looks like and when that will come back and then that window between when we'll hear the details and when a decision point's gotta be made.

Thank you. Yes. So on the screen there is the general, timeline that we are looking at and I've worked with Allison very close and she is keenly aware of the deadlines that we have to meet in order to ensure that council has adequate time to review this whatever the results are from the RFP. So, we expect to have those bids in January and be be proceeding with best and final presentations by then so that by early February, we are coming forward with proposals for consideration.

Thank you. And with that, Gina, I appreciate all the time and attention you've given to this and continue to give to this and the detail that you brought forward. Very enlightening. A lot of good questions tonight. I think we're anxious to see what, what the RP will bring back and then determine how the next steps may work for the town. But thanks to your consulting team as well for participating and for building out a great presentation tonight.

Thank you. Thank you, counsel. On behalf of the town, we appreciate the support.

Thank you. Alright. That, that concludes the study session, for this evening. The next item is the executive session which is not open to the public. So just as a note to those folks that may be following along on the livestream, once we go into executive session, we will we will pause the video and the livestream until we begin the business meeting, which is at 6PM. So nothing wrong with your computer or your television. It's just that we are suspending that for, the potential of going into executive session. Again, the executive session is not over to the public, and I'd ask if there's a motion to go into executive session to discuss item twenty five two forty two. It's been moved. And seconded by council member Thomason. All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Alright. We'll begin executive session.

Once we got plenty of time.

All right. Well, good evening, everybody. Good evening, and thank you so much for joining us tonight. The town council meeting for 10/23/2025 is now called to order. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Mayor Stanton? Here. Vice mayor Andean Keller? Here. Council member Lavelle? Here. Council member Liepman?

Here.

Council member Moore? Here. Council member Pace? Here. Council member Thomason? Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you. Our first roll of order is the pledge of allegiance, and we've got two very special pledge leaders today. We have Maya Abrams, who's in seventh grade at, I believe you said, Cochise? Coco Pop. And Evie Abrams, and you are a freshman at Chaparral.

So thank you so much for being here and supporting the the the municipal judges that are being sworn in tonight. And if you would please if anyone could rise, we're gonna recite the pledge, and we'll be facing facing the flag when you do. Excellent job. Thank you so much. Pleasure to thank you. We got out of thank you. I got a pin. Thank you both for being official pledge leader. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Good luck at school. Alright. Next up, we have presentations. Each year, the council invites chairs from each of the town's volunteer committees to update the council on their recent activities, and we have two updates tonight. Mister John Graham, welcome. Chair of the Paradise Valley Municipal Preserve Trust will present the first update followed by Katherine Kaufman, chair of the historical committee. So please welcome mister John Graham. Thank you for being here, sir.

Thank you for

having me.

So this is something near and dear to my heart. Served on the Nature Conservancy Board for over twenty years. That's something that's in my wheelhouse. So I'm gonna just give you a brief update. And so the first slide is you can see up there. Right? Okay. The purpose to preserve what cannot be replaced by man. It was the it was created in 1997 to acquire, maintain, preserve, and protect in perpetuity undeveloped and developed property that can be returned to its natural state and conservation easements on and around the mountain areas in the town of Paradise Valley. The trust operates as a five zero one c three charitable organization.

The history is in 1976, the town formally adopted a goal to acquire open space on Maui Mountain. The first donation was made in 1978. In nineteen seventy nineteen ninety seven, the Maumee Mountain Preserve was created. In 2019, it was renamed the PV Mountain Preserve Trust and increased the membership to seven. So here are our seven members.

So I chair the organization. We also have a great group with George Getz, Krista Berlanti, Steve Evans, Scott Lamar, Fred Pecos, who was the past chair before I was chair, and our newest member, Reni Romero. As far as the stewardship, we accept donations of land, not just on not just on Mummy Mountain, cash investments, and other assets. Land is maintained in its natural state in perpetuity. Land may not be sold, traded, redesignated, leased, or subleased.

No access or use of the non preserved land shall be permitted, police and utility exceptions. Trust may inspect, review, and monitor the property. They may undertake cleanup of the property. So these graphics, like, are really great both on Camelback Mountain and Mummy Mountain. So the lighter green are are pieces we already have and then the darker greener ones we're still pursuing.

So of the three twenty acres on Mummy Mountain originally identified, approximately 235 acres are now in the preserve in feed title or conservation easement. As far as twenty twenty four successes, we had the the donor wall was was designed, completed, and installed out there, and I think it looks great and certainly appropriate to honor the people that have made the donations. We also had a donation of a piece of property at 5562 East Road Runner. It's 4.395 acres, and you can see it in the slide here. So an important piece of property.

As far as current projects, we have donor outreach and probably all of you have seen that the children's book, the story of Camelac Mountain, which is still for sale at the Desert County Gardens and other places where we have a small revenue stream from that. But more than the money, it's to create the awareness for the trust and I think it's a successful effort to do so. Questions?

Thank you, mister Graham. I appreciate you and your team, but I'd open up to the council members if there's any questions or comments. Council member Thomason.

John, thank you for your work and your your dedication. Your pep your passion is evident everywhere. Is there anything more this council can be doing to support you or the trust in acquiring the additional lands that we're looking for?

The only I can really think of is we have, from time to time, held socials like at at the sanctuary or other places where we explain it and bring people that either are fully aware, have potential property, or whatever. And those would be the types of things that would be nice to have you there to help cultivate the donors. As you might guess, it's not typically an overnight deal where somebody decides to give you their land. But I think we've you've seen the the slides here. We've got enough of it that I think it's it's a very persuasive thing for others to continue to to help us out. So that I get basically, advocacy from the standpoint of the town council.

Councilmember Pace.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you again, John, for being here and to the whole members. Please please give them our our thoughts and care for all that they do and all the residents and we'll keep sending the message out there to get more donating, we hope. We still have a lot of land over in Clearwater Hills. I know people are asking now if they can donate too, so we'll see. But no, I love what you guys do. I think it's great. I think the outreach is great. It's such an important part of the whole town to preserve the lands, to keep it there for the generations we'll never meet, and to keep it in its own natural state. So we're working on those issues. We had some people shining spotlights as we know last week.

Yes. And

so we had the police and they were helpful and they were all out there and just so everyone knows they were shining major spotlights from a location that the the facilities did not know. They were hiding it from them, the person who rented it. And they were up there for hours. The owls were going crazy. People were calling like crazy, like, we gotta stop this. And and it's unfortunate people don't realize that our lands in the trust are preserved in their natural state. So there's no commercial lights that are supposed to go on them anymore. There's no laser lights. There's no spotlights. So we all have to do our part to help preserve that trust land so that stays like it is and like it was meant to be by the donors. So thank you for all you do. Send that message back. We had to deal with that last week. So thank you

very much. About that. Thank you for being getting on top of this. All you.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Council member LaBelle.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, John. That's it was it was a a great presentation. I learned a little bit about the the percentage of land that you've already acquired and what you're doing to get the rest of it. I liked your opening statement to preserve what cannot be replaced by man. That's just, you know, that kinda says it all. So congratulations on fifty years of you guys doing this. So you said 1976, did you say? It was yeah. So thank you for everything you do. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions? Council member Moore.

Just thank you, John, for all the work that you and your committee do. Just please share my gratitude to them if you would.

I will.

Thank you.

And I also wanna thank Duncan Miller, who's a great person. He's makes this a very easy job. And so thank you.

I thank him every day.

Absolutely. Very great role for Duncan Miller. Yeah. John, thank you very much. And please convey to all of your colleagues how much we appreciate their dedication and how important this council and this town feels about that preserving that open space and encouraging people that if they would consider donating, we thank them for that. For sure.

Alright. Thank you all.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

Alright. Next presentation will be on behalf of the historical advisory committee update and the chair of that committee, Catherine Coffin. Hi, Catherine.

Alright. Hello. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council, for allowing me to give you an update on the historical advisory committee. Above listed are our current members of our committee, and the two newest ones we have are Kathy Hanke and Whitney Huncheck, who just joined us this past year.

Slide three, this is our purpose and goal. And the committee was formed in 1996 by then Mayor Marvin Davis, with the past mayor of Joan Horn as our original committee chair. This since my last update in 2023, the committee has added 27 new interviews to the town's website, which is you can see from the list here on the slide. The following interviews have been conducted or are scheduled, but have yet to be completed for posting on the website. They are Marsha Sibilla Bonnet, Shari Stillman Burkart, Anne and Fred Christiansen, Patty and Fred Lau, Mary Audrey Mellor, Terry Rendell, and Harry Slayle.

Including these seven interviews, we'll have interviewed 98 people since Wow. 1997. If you know anyone who you think would like to be included in our oral histories, please let me know. There's no rhyme or reason on how people are chosen or when they're interviewed. On these next three slides that I guess you're forwarding, which is good.

Okay. Since 2023, the town has recognized six homes on these slides, five, six, and seven. We are in the process of recognizing nine other homes and businesses. We will be recognizing the Calvary Church of the Valley on Invergordon Road, built in the mid nineteen thirties as a private residence, and then as the Desert Lodge before the Calvary Church purchased the property in December 1968. The Applewood Pet Resort on Lincoln Drive, built in 1951, is a place where they specialized in raising apricot poodles.

Who knew? 5404 East Palo Verde Drive, built in 1959. We do not know who built it, but we do know who designed it, and that was the the wife and the daughter on a whim, and they followed their plans. 5312 East Royal Palm Road was built in 1961 by Peter Shields. 6022 North 51st Place was built in 1961 by George Christensen.

6122 East Quartz Mountain Road was built in 1962 by Ray Wise. 5525 East Lincoln Drive was built in 1962 by Jim Paul. We have a lot that are gonna come before you. I'm just giving you a prelude to this right now. Christ Church of the Ascension on Lincoln Drive, built in 1965 by Benny Gonzales.

And finally, our last one coming before you soon is 5840 North Casablanca Drive, built in 1973 by Bill Tull. We would like to encourage any town residents who own homes with which are either at least 50 years of age, has historical significance or has architectural significance to apply to our program. Okay. I guess I should have shown Did you show those slides? Okay, I'm sorry.

I'll go through those. Okay, just because This first one was built in 1926. It was the Lan McGargie House, and that we recognized I think we recognized this all last year. The next one was 6330 East McDonald Drive, which was originally built in 1931 by Robert T Evans, Duncan McDonald, and Neil Gates. Oops.

Sorry. The third one is 7530 North Hummingbird Lane, originally built in 1964 by Merle d DeMars and designed by architect Calvin Straub. This next one was 5150 East Orchid Lane, originally built in 1961 by Keller Construction Company. And the last two here are fifty four zero one East Palo Verde Drive, originally built in 1965 by Paul r Brim. And then lastly, 6105 East Joshua Tree Lane, originally built in 1967 by Bernie Young.

So those are the six houses that we've recognized today. We have these nine pending because we have a technical glitch, but we'll get to we'll figure that one out. That's another day, another time. This here is our heritage celebration. This last year was the first time we ever did the historical committee hosted a a heritage celebration, and we hosted it at 63 East McDonald Drive, which was in March 2024 is where the town recognized the house as historical.

That was the Robert T. Evans house, Duncan McDonald, and Neil Gates. And in actually, the early nineteen seventies, Benny Gonzalez renovated that house. So this is the the yeah. This is the house over here on the right that we had the party at. Sorry. Here. The celebration was well received and attended by about 70 guests, which included those people whom we had interviewed, those whose houses we have recognized, town council, and town staff. Also in attendance were several people from Scottsdale. What was really exciting was that we had four guests who were affiliated in some way to this home.

Two of our guests were the granddaughters of Robert t Evans, one guest was the granddaughter of Neil Gates, and the one guest was the son of Benny Gonzales. With your approval, we hope to do a second heritage celebration in the 2026. So that's our hope. Other current projects that we're working on is we continue to archive mayor Lowry's and mayor Plunge's paper documents, and any other mayor that comes forth with paper documents, we will archive those with one of the gals on our committee that's a professional archivist. We are also in the process of putting together a list of artifacts gifted to the town.

We would like to document who gave these gifts and what the honor was for. A lot of times you see things spread around here, whether it's the Solari bells or what have you. We don't necessarily know who gave it to us or if it was an honor somebody, so we would like to document that in one single place. We are also starting to collect a list of homes designed and built or built by known architects and builders. It's our hope that the owners of these homes would like to be part of our historical property recognition.

At this point, we're starting to tally up those homes that were done by Al Beetle. So that's our full thing right there. On final thoughts, I always like to give you guys some of my final thoughts. And so as I've interviewed many long time town residents, I find that there's a common theme among most of them. The people who started the town the town were independent minded and had a spirit of adventure.

You had to be pretty tough moving to the desert prior to nineteen fifty fifth to the nineteen fifties, when air conditioning was just starting to become more common. As Nancy Glenn said in her interview, in the nineteen fifties, Paradise Valley was just starting to bloom. The new residents were really were mostly coming from the cold climates that were looking for sunshine, clear air, and blue skies. The beauty of the surrounding mountains of Camelback, Mummy, the Phoenix Preserves, and the McDowells only made Paradise Valley that much more appealing. In reading Neil Folkman's interview from 2000, he talks about his father, Marvin Folkman, and the land he owned that what he called Colony Ranch, which was developed in the nineteen fifties.

Colony Ranch bordered was bordered by the Bernal Dike on the North side, Invergordon, Sunnyvale, and Scottsdale Road. Neil talks about the many offers and ideas that his father received as to what he should do with this land. Such ideas and offers included a car lot, a trailer park, a movie theater, a racetrack, and even an airport. Marvin realized that future growth depended on the initial development of the land and that these ideas were not congruent with his vision of Paradise Valley. In the end, because Marvin loved this area with the views, he decided to sell his land as five acre residential lots so the people could could live and enjoy with the open space of Paradise Valley.

The idea spread, and when the town of Paradise Valley was incorporated, the town council made sure that the town stayed residential and kept the zoning to a one house per acre minimum. I thank Marvin Folkman for being a visionary and to the council for allowing me to speak today. Thank you. And I'll take any questions.

Thank you, Chair Kaufman. Thank you very, very much for an amazing leadership role you you have with the with the committee, and we're just grateful for the update. And I would thank our council liaison to the historical committee, council member Leitman, for her leadership and partnership and ask if there's any comments from the council. May I? Please.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Catherine. That was that was a lovely presentation, and I have to say I was have been the liaison to this group since I started on the council last January. It has been such a pleasure, and I have lived here now for thirty seven or so years, and I have learned so much about the history of Paradise Valley. If you haven't gone on to our website and read some of these interviews, I highly encourage you to.

They are fascinating. They are fun. They are well done, and kudos to the historical committee for all, the HAC, historical advisory committee for all that you do and it's been a pleasure and Catherine, thank you again for your wonderful leadership and be sure to pass on our thanks and deep appreciation to everybody on your committee. They do a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Any other comments or questions? Council member Thompson.

Catherine, your individual leadership is inspiring. Thank you. And relative to the interviews online, what she said. Everybody should go online and read them. They're just really fun. Thank you.

Council member Pace. Thank you, mayor. Thanks for you and all that you guys do on your committee. I also it's really nice to see in ten years how it's now evolved with the historic recognitions. Thanks to council member Lebel and you and the team there to add that to the equation to have more history and roots in our community. And I know you're doing the archives with Jenny Nagel and everyone, so you guys have really expanded. You're still taking suggestions for interviews. Is that still Yes.

I have a list. Okay. Yeah. I bet. It it it is a process. Yes. Just so you know, it is a free fall free flow interview. I don't really have any questions except for when did you come to Paradise Valley? When did your family come to Paradise Valley? You know, to and then the conversation starts snowballing.

Sometimes it takes them two hours to get into the grit of it, and it really is fun, but at first, they're very shy and they don't talk. So a lot of times, I'll have three hours and poor Duncan, he has to download it for me. And then trying to transcribe those three hours takes a while, and then I try to bring it together so it's so it's an understandable interview. It's not a hodge podge where we jump from topic and go back and forth and back and forth. Try to get it so it has some continuity to its topics.

So it is a process, so it goes slowly, but I do get it done. I've I'm working on Harry Slayles right now, and I would just like to even express for you today, Duncan showed me the original minutes from October 1962, where Harry Slayle's grandfather, Harry colonel Harry c w no. Harry c Wilder was one of the original funders of the town of Paradise Valley.

Oh, wow.

He was one of 31 people that gave $500 to the town so we could start.

Wow.

I find that to be pretty profound in here I'm interviewing. And and, you know, the joke of it was is he didn't even know. Harry didn't know. But now he does. And I I gave him a copy of the minutes, and he has a daughter, so hopefully his daughter will cherish that. And so according to John I think it was Jack Huntress's interview, I think it was. He said that John Bunnell gave each of those 31 people basically a star, like a sheriff's badge star. And so they have that whether Harry has it or knows that he has it or I I don't know. I don't but his grandfather did get one of those stars as one of the original contributors. So that that was pretty exciting.

No. We commend you. It's so good that you're doing those interviews and we'll send more your way and you've got a list and and look how much care and attention just telling those stories is why it's

so important.

No. It's fine.

Thank you for

your service. Alright. Thank you. Any other question?

Council member Lavelle.

Thank you, mayor. Catherine and the entire historic advisory committee, thank you guys so much for everything you do. I will hop on that bandwagon of reading the histories and the interviews. It's it's amazing. Yeah. I mean, it's I don't even need my bookshelf because you could just go there. It it really is. And, Catherine, you do a great job with those. Thank you. Know some other people interview also, but very nicely done. I would also say that these homes are that you started recognizing. I think the the great thing about it is it's a point of pride in the town. Mhmm. Just as a reminder for anyone who may not know, you know, there's no deed restrictions. Oh, right.

Yeah. No. It's okay. Yeah. Just I think that it's a great way of showing how even a limited government can still promote and, encourage pride in its history through means that are nonregulatory. So you do a great job of that, and I think it's kinda become a little a little brand. Right? So instead of your Chanel purse, you have your historic recognition. I don't know. Both. Or you have both. I don't know. This is Paradise Valley. So the the other thing I was gonna say is that as far as the heritage party that you guys put on, that literally was the party of the year. We had party crashers. We had crashers. We didn't know how I mean, you you know what I'm talking about. It was I know. It was fun. I was getting texts going, can we come to the party? I was like, I

don't know.

Ask Catherine. Yeah. And I'm glad you're gonna do it again. So thank you guys for for all that you do. It's a lot.

So thank you.

Appreciate it.

Well, with that segue, I'm asking for permission or or approval to have the next party. So I don't know. So hopefully, you guys will you know, we we kept it on a very tight budget. I think we spent less than $5,000 for over 70 people at a party, which I thought was pretty pretty good. And so we'd like to duplicate what we did last year. So with your blessing, we're gonna go ahead.

Well, we've got a couple more comments because clearly you are a beloved committee, and and so I would like to ask council member Moore.

Oh, mayor. Thank you, mayor. Oh, Catherine, thank you for the for the update as always and for your many years of service doing this. I mean, it's I mean, how many years have

you been chair?

Oh, chair? Not as long as I've been on the I think I was on the committee at, '97 or '98. I don't know.

'98

and then

Something like that.

And you've been chair for

many years. Yeah. When Ann Townsend left, she asked me if I would do it. Was like, oh,

Yeah. Well, thank you and all the committee members that have that that the hard work you do. You did mention about can you share with our residents the how would they how do you how does the process work for the application? Do they is there a formal

application? Yeah. There is a form. It's on

our web a go to?

You could do it online. I'm looking at Duncan because he's my digital guy. I think it could be it can be down oh, downloaded, but you can't enter this stuff online. Okay. So yeah. And then I have Jennifer Gustafson as our primary contact for any house that would like to be recognized. So some other people are picking up pieces and, you know, their neighbors or whatever, and they're bringing me the paperwork. So just yesterday, I got the one house from Mountain Shadows, which I'm thrilled that there's an an original house still sitting in Mountain Shadows West. That's always exciting.

That's a rarity. What's that? That's a rarity.

Oh, it is?

And then the the committee gets together and and

Yeah.

It's it's actually wonderful. This with the

with the person that they'll

Yes. So at our next meeting, which is November 19, we have the Applewood Pet Resort coming in, and we also have Jennifer Daggett coming in from Mountain Shadows. So those two will present their homes, their their business and their home to the committee. Obviously, it's an open meeting, so anybody can come. And last time we had Ginny Simpson, and we had the Christ Church of the Ascension. So That's great.

Well, thank you for all

the work that you do. What we do. What we bring to you is a condensed version of what Yeah. What they have presented.

Well, thank

you. And vice mayor.

Thank you, Catherine. I always loved the historical committee. I mean, my mom was on it for quite some time. So I appreciate all that you do, and I have a little fun. I love the what was it Mary Glenn said in the nineteen fifties?

Nancy Glenn. Nancy Lord

The Paradise Valley was just starting to bloom. Mhmm. I think it's funny. In 1960, my parents bought nine acres on the side of Mummy Mountain. My dad was an executive at Honeywell at 19th Avenue in Deer Valley Building his team was building the automatic controls for military avionics. Mhmm. And his executive team was making fun of him for buying nine acres on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Right. And so now look at it. But Right. Yeah. They weren't dumb dudes either. But yeah. Yeah. So I just think this is such an a you unique town, such a beautiful area.

Our mountains are iconic. Our history is so great, and I love that you I saw Herb and Annie Richardson were interviewed.

Mhmm. Yeah.

Man, if Yeah.

You were a kid growing up in Paradise Valley, you spent time at Richardson Stables.

That's right.

That's right. No. They were great. Yeah. They were great. I mean, I I I didn't read off the list, but hopefully, you all saw. We have some incredible people that we've interviewed. Yeah. And I I feel blessed to get to have gotten to know some of these people.

Yeah. What a fun Yeah. Fun thing to yeah. I love it. Yeah.

The best nonpaying job I've ever had.

Exactly. Or

paying job. Actually, I could even throw that in

there. Alright. Well, thank you for Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. And Chair Coffman, I want to say again thanks to your entire committee. You know where we're gonna go if you don't know where we've been. And you all do an excellent job of codifying that information and collecting it. And thank you, Duncan Miller, for your ongoing support. I do have a bit of trivia for you from the Mark Stanton world. Our first family pet was from Apple Applewood.

So Is it a Yeah. Little Poodle? Yeah. It poodle?

Little poodle. Yeah.

Was it

a poodle? I don't remember the I think it was Ever had?

My my

mom picked it out

and You don't

have pictures?

Just having a dog. I don't I imagine there are some, but I don't have any with me. I don't have any I didn't have any on my phone, but I'll I'll find them.

Find one and we could add it to his repertoire of pictures.

Happy to. Happy to. Chair Kaufman, thank you very, very Thank And please thank your committee and we look forward to even greater work going forward and That we're was the party of the century. And chief, I don't know where your your officers were to cop stop those party crashers from coming in, but it was an awesome event. So thank you for

doing that.

Thank you. Okay.

Alright. Alright. That was that was great. The next element on our agenda tonight is the call to the public, and the call to the public is an opportunity for residents to address the council on matters that are not on the agenda. In conformance with open meeting laws, the council may not discuss or take action on any matters raised.

However, the council may respond, to criticism after all public comments have been made, ask staff to review a matter, or ask it to be placed on a future agenda. Speakers are asked to state if they're a town resident and if they would like to please limit their comments to three minutes. And if you'd like to address the council, please fill out a speaker request form at the podium when you enter the council chambers. And once completed, just hand it to Duncan Miller, and he'll be he'll be happy to bring that forward. So we have one request to speak, mister Miller, and I believe that's Berkeley Danelski.

Thank you, mayor, members of the council. I'm here tonight regarding the townwide stormwater master plan. There are we were looking at the data for our individual lot, and we discovered, some errors or glitches in the modeling. And, I I state this with a caveat that I realized that this study was intended for a big picture view of townwide drainage issues and not really a micro level. But, I am here to notify the council just in an abundance of caution because I wanted to ensure that, no important drainage decisions are made about our lot or surrounding lots in view of this.

And, again, I'm here, as I stated earlier, in abundance of caution. So in comparison to the new two d flow model, the county's two d flow model is accurate and matches our lived experience. An an example of this would be on the on the town wide. And, again, I'm speaking for our specific area, not what the study was intended for, which is a a macro view. But for our specific area, the data we received, the townwide model does show that there is three feet of water in front of our property that would happen during a serious storm as present day conditions versus same exact scenario on the county model.

It's point one foot. And just to let you know, this would represent flooding conditions. And then the many, many, many decades our family has been here, that's never occurred. And we've seen the historic storms that would what these models were intended to predict. And we have never had our house flooded.

And the three feet of water in front of our property, which is what that town wide study shows for our house would indicate flooding conditions. In both studies, both two d flow studies have the same NOAA 14 rainfall data. They were associated with the same consultant, and they were both relatively recent, one in 2019 and one in 2025. Also, the historic ultimate outfall for a location appears to be incorrect. So and if necessary, I will follow-up with more data and engineering analysis.

But and again, I just wanted to emphasize that this is out of an abundance of caution just to ensure that no errors on a micro level for a macro level study would be applied to us in any way. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Tom Clerk. Are there any further requests to speak? No, mister mayor.

Alright. Thank you. Next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are considered by the council to be routine and are normally enacted by a single motion. If a member of the council or the public would like to discuss any item, it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. Would the town manager please summarize tonight's consent agenda?

Thank you, mister mayor. We have one item on tonight's consent agenda. It is item 25 dash two three seven, which is approval of the minutes of the town council meeting of 10/09/2025.

Thank you. Would anybody on the council like to remove an item from the consent agenda? Would anybody in the public like to remove the item from the consent agenda? Alright. With that, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Mayor, I move we approve the adoption of the consent agenda as submitted. Thank you, council member.

Second. Seconded by council member Leibman. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. Thank you. Next, we move on to public hearings.

So we don't have any public hearings tonight, but we'll move into action items. And the action item that we have before us is discussion and possible action to reappoint the municipal court's presiding judge and associate judges. We are very thankful to have our our wonderful volunteers for the municipal court. The municipal court has the jurisdiction to hear all criminal misdemeanors, traffic civil traffic offenses, and Tout code violations occurring within the town limits, as well as jurisdiction over orders of protection, harassment injunctions, and the issuance of summons and arrest warrants within town limits. The court is made up of the presiding judge and eight associate judges who are all serving as volunteers for the town, accepting no compensation for their services.

On 10/09/2025, the town council met in executive session to review the judicial surveys and performance evaluations for the current judges. The staff recommendation is to reappoint the judges listed in the staff report. I'd ask if there are any questions from my counsel colleagues regarding the staff report. Alright. Is there any in the audience that would like to speak on this item?

Alright. I'd ask if there is a motion.

Mayor, I move we make the following appointments to the Paradise Valley Municipal Court for two year terms starting 11/01/2025 through 10/31/2027. Do I need to read them all? I will. Jay Tyrell Tyuber, as we know Ty Taber, presiding judge. John Aron, associate presiding judge. Steve Cohen, associate judge. Jack Cunningham, associate judge Terry Gould, associate judge Linda Laurie, associate judge Stanley Marks, associate judge Karen Nagel, associate judge and David Sandroyes, associate judge in a new appointment.

All right. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by the vice mayor. I'd ask if there's any discussion on the motion. And then I would ask for a vote. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Awesome.

Well, that, motion passes unanimously, and now it's my honor to administer the oath of office to our, municipal judges. And I'd ask you if presiding judge and associate judges would please come forward to the dais, and we'll I'll recite the oath, and then we'll have to do a team photo with the council and the municipal judges. So if you could face me before we sign yet, not not quite we're not quite getting the signature yet. Everybody relax. We're not going there yet.

I'm gonna go ahead and swerve you in and collectively. And so please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name. I do solemnly swear Do solemnly swear. That I will support the constitution of The United States. Will support the constitution of The United States. And the constitution and laws of the state of Arizona And the constitution and laws the state of Arizona. That I will bear true faith

I will bear true faith.

And allegiance to the same

And allegiance to the same.

And defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And defend them against all enemies, foreign And that I will faithfully and impartially And that I will faithfully and discharge the duties of the municipal court Just charge the duties of the municipal court judge. Judge According to the best of my ability. According to the best of my ability. So help me God.

So help me God.

Congratulations. Thank you so much. Now if I could ask go ahead and if you wanna turn to the table and put your signatures there, and I'd invite the council to come up, and we'll ask Duncan to help us stage a team photo. Yeah. I can't remember what is it that was.

You gonna call? He's a guy. His name I can't remember. My mom named

him. Yeah.

I remember. Just a

little one.

I remember my grandmother.

Sherry, it's a pleasure. Pleasure to pleasure to meet you. Oh,

I just I was talking to Duncan, and Duncan was talking to me. He said, do you because sometimes we wonder who's in the audience. And so he said, well, what they're here for? So I went over and introduced myself, and then I found out that oh, that's beautiful. And one of them is a chaparral grad. Yeah. Vice mayor is a chaparral grad.

I never went to go play. I had

a chair come when was 23. Me too.

Yes. Yes. Well, it's a pleasure. Thank you for coming up. I appreciate you. Thank you. Alright. We're gonna reconvene the meeting, the business meeting in a minute here. If we can I know that Jeanette Wisenoffer, our court administrator, has has asked that those that may wanna celebrate, there'll be a small reception over in the community room for the justices and their families? So, Jeanette, I appreciate that.

Alright. Moving right along, we've got our next, final item on the agenda tonight, which is future agenda items. And the town's future agenda is subject to change, and the public meeting schedule is available on www.paradisevalleyaz.gov, and click on meetings and agendas. Are there any items on the upcoming agendas that the town manager would like to note at this time?

Thank you, mister mayor. Yes. As part of our agenda packet that we publish prior to every council meeting, the clerk includes a future agenda schedule. And so if if members of the public go online, they would see that starting in our first meeting in 2026 it's hard to believe we're already talking about 2026, but it's almost upon us. And then going through the meeting of March 12, there's a number of what we call capital improvement project contract approvals that will be on the councils for action items, including the approval of the curb replacement project between 40th And 44th And 45th Street, Mcdonald to Valley Vista, the approval of the Las Brisas And Cheney intersection improvements.

On the January 22 meeting, the Mockingbird Lane construction contract, that's the project between on Invergordon And 56th Street will be on the council agenda for approval. The Doubletree Ranch Road entryway construction contract will be on the council's agenda on February 12 for approval. And the approval on March 12 is for the sewer system and manhole repair, which is an ongoing capital project as well. So I wanted to make sure since it's such an important component of the annual budget that the public understood that these were all moving forward and it's it's nice to see that kind of movement in the CIP project area. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Town Manager. Does any council member wish to make a motion to add an item to a future agenda?

Can I ask a question?

One question.

Mister Town Manager, on February 12, we're approving the Doubletree Ranch entry monument contract. I know we've been talking about that for a year plus. What are we doing in the next four months before we get ready to sign it? Point of order.

This is for motions, and I have some comments about that project if we're gonna open it up for discussion.

Fair enough. Good question to the town manager. And town manager, I don't know if you have any immediate response or if you'd like to you'd like to wait to address that.

I can elaborate briefly. One of the things that we've been waiting on for a little while now is the approval of the intergovernmental agreement that we'll need with city of Scottsdale because almost all of these improvements that we'll be doing as part of this contract are actually within the city of Scottsdale. So that is something in the interim that we're gonna have to have prior to the construction contract being approved.

Thank you. And I remind my council colleagues that this is a point to make a motion for adding something to the agenda, but I appreciate the the question. Alright. Is there any other member of the council that would like to suggest or make a motion for an agenda item? Alright. Thank you very much for that. Now we'll move on to mayor council and town manager updates. I'd ask if there 's any reports from my colleagues and the members of council. Councilmember Labelle.

Really, thank you, mayor. Less of a question and a comment about just a thank you and a shout out to the Arts Board for their event on October 14. Thank you to all of our staff, our council members, and our residents who showed up. The artist, as you know, Curtis Dickman. He's up gonna be up here for a year, and we've had tons of positive comments about the art. And I heard the event was a success. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there, but thank you, everyone, all of my fellow council members and residents who showed up and enjoyed the show, and to the arts board who did a fantastic jobs and staff. Thanks.

Outstanding. Other comments? Councilmember Thomason.

I just wanted to we had the homeowners association meeting Wednesday this week. Mayor, thank you for joining us. And I wanted to call out the participation of four staff members, particularly Amy Rebinaur and Aaron Sweeney, who took leadership and prepared for that meeting and brought some create create creative ideas forward. And secondly, to Isaac Chivera and Chris Martinez, who gave an overview on our stormwater management response, which residents found really, really helpful. So thank you very much.

Our next meeting is January 15. All are welcome that are part of an HOA. And if you're listening to this and you're part of an HOA, please reach out to Amy Rebinaire. We'd love to include you at our next meeting. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, council member. Other reports? Council member Pace?

I have

a quick one. You probably heard. We're very excited. Scottsdale Plaza Resort has now been branded as Kimpton and the name is Maralina. So look forward to that when it opens back up and a great addition, and they're spending a lot of money, a lot of time in making it an improved area. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. Other comments? Vice Scott. Sorry. Councilmember Moore.

Yep. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to give out some public notices that for ACOPS will be at the Trunk Or Treat event tomorrow at Cherokee Elementary. That sounds like a really fun event. The the shredathon will be on November 1, and then coming up is coffee with a cop on November 5, and the presentation will be over the an active shooter presentation. So it'll be everyone's welcome to come to that. And, of course, our car show's coming up on November 8 and the Veterans Appreciation Car Show. I hope to see everybody there. And, mayor, if you wanna take over the 09:00 walk, you can give a presentation on that.

I gotta I gotta twist on it tonight, council member. Go for it. I think, vice mayor, you have a Yep. Report? Yep.

Thank you, mayor. Okay. So planning commission met on Tuesday. They had an audience of one that was me. And they approved a lot split in tone in Stone Canyon. Also, they reviewed the managerial amendment process. So just a reminder to my council colleagues that when those are approved as managerial amendments, please read through them. And if you You can ask questions. And if you have an issue with it being a managerial amendment, it only takes three people to appeal that, up to seven days. So just remember the managerial process.

I've asked questions. There was something on the trash at the Paradise Valley Medical Center. I thought it was too high. And the Scottsdale Plaza Resort had quite a few changes in a managerial amendment. So we met on that and figured out a process.

So I just wanted to remind my colleagues about that and ask questions and also that there is the it takes three people to appeal the managerial amendment in seven days. The next planning commission meeting is November 4. And, yeah, the car show is coming November 8, and the mayor's gonna be a greeter. So we are very excited about that. And you all have your hats. So that was my homework to bring it to you guys.

Thank you.

And I yield.

Thank you, vice mayor. And thanks. Well, great reports from everybody. Appreciate it very much. Just got a couple updates from, from my chair. Obviously, the car show is such an epic event for this town, so grateful for the committee that's worked so hard for that and, and all the volunteers that support it. So make sure you, I think it starts at eight in the morning. I think it begins at eight and goes to about eleven, 11:30. So make sure you put that on your on your list of activities for the weekend coming up on November 8. Also, I want to thank the arts opening team again.

I'm hearing nothing but great reviews and interest in Curtis Dickman and what he's done and just great to have that that stimulation of all the great art and appreciate it very much. It was a great opening event. Also, Public Works continues to amaze and impress And thank you, Isaac, you, and Chris, and your entire team for doing remarkable work, working with so closely with our police department and and just continually, especially with this rash of storms we had coming out and making it all look like it never happened. So thank you very, very much for the dedication of your team. Appreciate it.

And then finally, to council member Moore's point, my twist on the 09:00 walk, which you know I'm obsessed with 09:00 walk. Make sure you're checking things out. But what's coming up is Halloween. So with Halloween around the corner, I got Trunk and Treat coming over around the corner, but you don't know who's around the corner dressed as a ghoul or a goblin. So when you're out and about, if you're driving, make sure you keep your eyes open for town trick or treaters that would be out having some fun on on Halloween. So do your 09:00 walk, but keep your eye out for those young trick or treaters. And thanks, chief, for having a trunk or treat event. And with that, I'll turn it over to the town manager.

Thank you, mister mayor, members of council. A number of you mentioned the upcoming, Veterans Appreciation, Car Show on November 8. In that vein, we received some bittersweet news this week that Diane Whalen, who has worked for the town in the attorney's office for twenty five years, announced her retirement. Sure. She'll be leaving in the January, and she is very much associated with the car show because she has been involved in the organization, in the planning, in the execution of the car show every year since it's been around.

Since year one to now, we're in our twentieth year of the car show, and she's amazing to work with. On my very first day working here in Paradise Valley, I was in my office, and it was cold. Sometimes the air conditioning can be a little too cold too hot, so I walked outside to warm up, and she was out there, first person besides immediate staff that I worked with that I met outside. And she was so warm and welcome and inviting. I will never forget just how gracious she was and is. And, you know, twenty five years is a long time to work anywhere, and she has had a distinguished career with us, and she will be missed. But she has promised that if we wanted her to, she would love to come back and continue to volunteer for the car show

Oh,

that's great. And, you know, I'll give her six months before we make that call. Because I think we should we should let her enjoy her retirement for six months. But she's awesome, and we'll miss her. And, you know, if you're at the car show, she'll be right there at the table and walking around and working. So give her a congratulations if you see Diane. Thanks.

Thank you, mister John, manager. The next regular meeting is scheduled for November 3

I'm sorry?

Oh, John, I

apologize. If you if you

could indulge me just on behalf of the legal department, if we're talking about Diane Whelan, I feel like someone should say she is a treasure, not just the with terms of the car show, which she's very devoted to. But in general, she's been a great servant to Paradise Valley. She's provided excellent service. She's a wealth of knowledge. And the attitude that mister Ching just described is the attitude that she brings every day with everyone here at the town. And so I think

that deserves a round Thank of you, John. Appreciate that very much. And I'll agree with that. Next regular meeting is scheduled for 11/13/2025, and I'd ask if there's a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

It's been moved. Is there

a second?

Council member Thomason. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Have a great night, everybody. Thank you. I yeah. I'll get a picture of that dog. I know.