City Council - Regular Meeting

Congratulations. She's done. You got it.

Okay, we'll go ahead and call to order the um study session here and we'll go ahead and start. Larry, are you going to take this here at the beginning?

Yes, madame mayor, members of the council, uh thank you for the opportunity to present on a couple of topics. Uh I know the council is aware that we have been working on uh an effluent allocation plan. Uh there's more following that. But uh certainly very attached to that, at least in my view, is the water resources plan that uh the city has been working on. I was trying to think back a bit ago how many years it's been. I wanted to say three or four, but I think it's actually been five, six or seven years. Fred or Terry Sue will probably give a bit of an uh overview. But uh what you're going to find following this uh presentation on the Save It program is a bit of an update on where we're at with the effluent allocation program and what I consider to be the link between water and treated effluent. And so, um, as I said, uh, the city in conjunction in in a strong partnership with Arizona water seven or eight years ago really began down a path to evaluate our water resources particularly in Cassagrand, but certainly that expanded to the panel AMA and one of the uh, hefty goals that we've established as a group was uh, conservation a water management a water a demand management program um, and uh, which is really focused on conservation. We've tagged it as save it and we've been in partnership with Arizona Water. They've certainly been the the mastermind behind the program. We've assisted where we've could where we can financially as well as in promoting the program. But uh we were covering this topic a few months ago and felt like it would be uh appropriate to give the mayor and council and the community a bit of an update on the program. And so we're honored tonight to have Fred Snyder, the president of Arizona Water Company, and Terry Su Rossi, who will be delivering the lion share of the program. I believe they've got some other guests that they can introduce. And we've got Ruca, and I'm not even going to try to say your last name, Ruka. We've got Ruca, who really oversees the program uh on the line, so she is listening in as well. So Fred, I'll hand hand it over to you.

Thank you, Larry. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. Um, I just want to say when we were putting this presentation together, it was actually uh a little I would say fun in the sense of going down memory lane because you think of these things as Larry said, you know, this was like a year or two we did this and then you realize this started six years ago. So, uh, kind of fun. So, uh, I'm Fred Schneider, president of the company. I have, uh, Terry Sue will get up after I am, uh, after I'm done. She'll walk through the program. So she probably has all the meat and potatoes of the real program, but I want to kind of circle back to where we started this program originally. So it all started about a little over six years ago. So at the end of 2019, uh the city of Kasa Grande applied for a grant through the Lincoln Institute and that grant was awarded. It was uh kind of run through the Sonorian Institute and the Babbot for Land and Water Policy. uh that uh that was a two and a half day session that we uh all met up in the Phoenix area, Scottdale area, and it was two and a half days of talking about um water policy, uh water conservation, trying to be water smart, uh in what we what we do for the city, uh and kind of going through the folks who were there. And I guess this is the reminiscing part. Uh, we had former mayor Craig McFarland. Uh, for former little city council member Dick Powell. Uh, we had former uh, planning director Paul Ty. Uh, we had the economic development director Richard Wilkey was there. Uh, we had um myself and Terry Sue. Uh, so kind of a fun fun group. At the end of the two and a half days, we were tasked with putting together kind of a water strategy, water policy or water message. Um and everybody kind of stepped up at different times in this meeting and it really culminated uh I think the thoughts of all of us of what

water issues do we have in front of us and part of this is is admitting that one that you have a problem uh kind of like the seven steps and two uh where did it come from and what are you going to do about it uh so it's very uh I I want to read this because it really is kind of a a coming together moment at the very end of the day so we developed was our community, farms, and businesses need water to thrive and we risk becoming too dependent on groundwater. But we maintained our agricultural economy on the Colorado River, cap water, and we grew our communities on groundwater, both of which are expected to decline. And here we are six years later realizing just how true that is. And this is the admitting part. Therefore, in order to protect our quality of life, help meet the future needs and grow our economy, we need to do three things. We need to reduce our resilience on groundwater, invest in a sustainable water supplies, and use the water we have more w more efficiently. So, we kind of ticked this off and said, you know, number three is probably the easiest thing for us to jump into and start making progress and then we'll start working on the other two. Uh, and that's where we kind of came together with the concept of an integrated demand management program. And Terry Sue will get into the difference of that and a water conservation program. We call it a water conservation program more often because it's kind of the slang term. I use it kind of like when you say, "Hey, go grab a crescent wrench." Well, Crescent's a brand company that makes it. It's an adjustable wrench, but we all call it that. Um so similar we call it a water conservation program but an integrated demand management program is much more robust and much more detailed where we don't just look at ways to save water for others we reflect on ourselves on how we can save water kind of a balanced approach. So with that I'll turn to

Terry Sue to get in the meat and potatoes of the program. Good evening. Good evening, mayor and council members. Oh dear, little sensitive there. Thanks. Yes, I'm a little a little shorter than Fred is.

Uh so, thank you so much for having um us here today. And I'm disappointed that Ruca will not be here this evening. Um she not in person, but she is on the line. So if if we get stuck, we can always talk to RUCA. But I wanted to just sort of go back a little bit in history also. This has really been an amazing journey. And I think one of the key pieces of this was the general land use plan. So back in 2020, the city was doing its 2030 general land use plan. And that would became an important part of what we were doing. And it was timed just right with the the workshop that Fred just referred to. And there were three or four water resource goals that came out of the the general land use plan. One was to implement water conservation measures to reduce the outdoor use of water. Another was to reduce the daily total water use per capita and the daily residential water use per capita by 15% from the 2020 levels. Then there was also the maximizing the use of the effluent as an alternative to groundwater and then developing additional water supplies. And so today's presentation is going to focus on the first two goals in the general land use plan. There was a a graphic, this graphic appeared in the general land use plan. So this was so Paul Paul Tyson and I put this together and we based the 2020 use was based on at the time that we did this was in um in the 2020 time frame, but we hadn't the actual water use for 2020 yet. So we used the 2019 data and we projected it to 2020. And so the GPCD at the time, the gallons per capita per day was 199. And so in this graphic we hold that water use constant. So the green uh the green bars represent the 199 and then we multiply that by the population which is the axis on the right. And that's how we came up with the total water use by 2050

of 30,000 acre feet in if we did not do conservation. If we met the 15% goal, which would be to reduce water use down by um to 167 GPCD, that's what the the line represents there. The blue the blue bars represent. So if we were at the 167 in 2020, the water use would be 13,277 acre feet and by 2050 25,876. I'm going to come back to this graphic because I'm going to show you some results and where what we are now projecting today. But let's talk a little bit more about the uh save it program as an integrated demand management program. So we do use that term differently and I and uh I am very particular about that because integrated demand management means a lot more to me than say a conservation program means. And so for example just the word integrated. So the idea behind the the integration is that this is not just Arizona water company. This is Arizona water company and the city of Cassag Grande. And there are assets that the city of Cassag Grande brings to the table. And then there are assets that Arizona water company brings to the table. And when we bring those assets together, we can create a completely comprehensive conservation program that we could not otherwise have created separately. Um and so the other thing about demand calling a demand management program is that it is not just about um it's more really than just a conservation program and it is not based on the idea of we are conserving for the sake of conserving and it's not just the right thing to do. There is an entire business imperative behind why we are doing what we are doing and we are here to supply water forever. So it's uh it's not we're not going away in a month.

We're not going away in 10 years. We're not going away in 20 years. It's our responsibility collectively as a community as an water or as a water company to provide water indefinitely to the community. And so that's part of the idea behind the integrated demand management program is that it is much more than a conservation program. The other thing that we came to realize is that the conservation program needed to be and conservation program and an integrated demand management program needed to be to reflect the unique character of the communities that we're serving. So with each community that we serve, we needed to figure out what were the values what are the values of that community? What are what are the characteristics of that community? We needed to design the demand management pro program consistent with that. And so uh we could have just implemented a statewide program. We serve we serve um 300,000 people across the state of Arizona 24 different water systems. We could have picked one conservation program say water use it wisely and we could have just you know checked off a box and said that's it we're done and it would have taken a lot less work and a lot less effort but we do not believe that that was the right thing to do at the time and we did not think it was the most effective approach. We didn't think that it honored the uniqueness of our communities. And we made a decision six years ago, however long ago it was, that we weren't going to do that. And so we designed these very customized integrated demand management programs. And to this day, we feel that that was the right decision. And this program is really the flagship program. So you can see from this graphic here that the save it program was the first one that we launched. And when we were at the water smart workshop, we talked about the idea that the conservation program would be a regional program. But in the course of those two and a half days, we discovered

we really couldn't be a regional program. We needed to just focus on cas. So we did. But what what happened subsequently was that this became a model for all the other programs that we have developed throughout the state. We have developed uh 10 other such programs and you can see them along along the time frame. The most recent one of which was flow forward which is out in our white tank water system. And all of them are modeled after this program. And this program to me is our flagship program. I I probably wouldn't say this in another community, but this is my this is our favorite program because we put our hearts and souls into this program. And we hired Rua Mihoescu. that is her last name in February of 21 and she was you know maybe 21 years old at the time and uh a week into this we put her in front of a camera with uh with the mayor of the city of Cal Grande then and she was off to the races and she's created really everything that you see and I I cannot say enough good about um a good what a great job that she has has done. Um, and then Fred was pointing out, and Veruka points this out a lot, that the integrated demand management program is not just about what other people do. It's about what the city's doing to use water wisely. It's about what Arizona Water Company is doing to use water wisely. So, it isn't just about what is the customer going to do. Um, so there's just a lot behind that and I kind of want to take a little time to explain that because it is um I think more complicated concept than people really realize and in the end we see the water that we save as a water supply. So that's kind of the last point that I want to make about that. So there's a lot in that. So let's talk about some of the city efforts that what did the city come to with the table. So I mentioned earlier it's about the integration of

the assets of the city and the integration of Arizona water company's assets into a single comprehensive program. So the city and so at a high level that what the city was bringing to the table was the general land use plan and the ability to set policies and land use policies within that within that particular document. The ordinances the city had a number of ordinances that had already developed and then they were also doing a turf reduction program. So, we're going to be talking about some of those things here in a little bit more detail. Arizona Water Company was also doing a number of things. And so, we are regulated by the Arizona Department of Water Resources and were regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission. And we had tariffs specifically related to water conservation. Everything from high water use customer inquiries to doing audits to leak detection programs to meter replacement programs to conservationoriented rate structures. And then since we've been doing the program, we've also developed some rebate programs and some conservation kit programs as well. And then this is one of my my favorite elements which is the project wet. And so we have really as the city and Arizona water company, we have really embraced project wet and we have done so much more with it. We had done some project wet uh workshops before with the fourth graders. Um but we really took it to a whole new level and and if you have not participated in one of these workshops and you would like to um I highly encourage it. They're so much fun and so rewarding. I know the mayor I think there are a few pictures there of the mayor and she's been out there uh working with the fourth graders and it's really just a delightful program. So getting a little more detailed of the city's accomplishments. The city has done a lot of turf reduction and there's a little timeline down below. It shows some of the efforts that the city made before we implemented the save it program and then uh reductions since the

save it program. In total, the city has reduced its turf by almost 800,000 square feet. And so it's been a very active program and we've been involved in helping with the city as well. It's been a pleasure to work with your staff. They're just amazing. Um, and then we've also done some signage. We've done some work with the uh with the splash pad. So, there's been a number of things that have been happening um not just not just before the save it, but since. And then on uh the Arizona Water Company specifically, we've done a number of these commercial industrial institutional audits, some of which were the cities. We've attended uh roughly 35 events in this time frame. seems like it's been more than that. And the toilet rebate and program and the conservation kit program are a more recent effort within the last year. And so we're just in the process of beginning to really ramp up on those. And if you want a conservation kit or a toilet, please uh check on our website and we would love to provide that benefit to you. So let's talk about the results. And so uh first thing I want to do is I want to introduce we brought a staff person with us with this is Bridget Bonitz. Would you mind just raising your hand, Bridget? Yeah. So, Bridget is our numbers gal and she's the one who's done the analysis to help us figure out the impact of the program. And there's a lot of detail behind this, but we're going to kind of describe it to you at a higher level. So, I'm going to just begin by describing what's on the chart. So, on the left side is the uh acre feet. For those of you who are unfamiliar with that term, an acre foot is enough water to serve probably about four homes here in Kasa Grande for a year. On the right we have uh gallons. And so the first this doesn't have a little or does it? Oh, it won't point. Okay. So on the left you'll see this particular is is all the deliveries to our Casa Grande customers. In 2020 there were roughly 27,000

customers and in 2024 there were 33 32,000 customers. The customers in 2020 used on average about 161,000 gallons per year. And in 2024, our customers used approximately 141,000. The amount of water that we saved over that time frame. And again, the methodology that we used here is we assume that the 2020 water use would remain constant. That without conservation that the top line is what the water use would be. And then with the conservation which is the actual water use it represents the difference between those lines represents the amount of water saved. So between 2020 and 2024 cumulatively we saved about 5,000 acre feet and in 2024 alone we saved a little over 1,200 acre feet. Now the other thing that we did was we that I'm sorry that's a 12.4% reduction if you're looking at from the 161,000 to the down to the 141,000. The other thing we did was we thought we should do a control total. So a control group. So we just looked at customers who were the exact same customers, exact same names, exact same account numbers in 2020 through 2024 to see what what is going on with those the control group. And so on the left we had uh 14,000 customers and you'll see there's 14,000 on the far right. That's because those are exact same customers over time. In 2020, those customers were using about 214,000 acre feet. Today, they're using about 200,000 acre I'm sorry, not acre feet, 214,000 gallons and uh 201,000 gallons in uh in 2024 and their water use reduced by about 6.1%. Now, it's these there's a probably a good chance that these customers go back much further. The older customers in general use more water than the new customers, right? And so the uh

cumulative water use based on these customers alone was about 1,600 acre feet and today in uh 2024 about 600 acre feet. So that I think confirms or reaffirms the other numbers that we have as well because the new customers are going to be saving water as well. Um but we wanted to do some little control totaling. Um, so now this graph looks like the graph that I showed you earlier, but this one is 2020 through 2024. And it just takes and looks at the data a little bit differently than the graph you just saw. So again, the green represents this is what the water use would have been in 2024 without the conservation program. And the blue represents what the water use actually is. So in 2024 again we've saved uh over time we've saved about 5,76 acre feet and roughly 1,200 acre feet in 2024. And then this is a revision of the chart that I showed you at the very beginning. Now there are a couple of things that are a little different. Number one, the 2020 water use is the actual water use that occurred in 2020. The other thing is that the the numbers that we use here are the uh more current MAG projections. So the the projections that you saw in the previous chart were based on the 2019 MAG projections. These are based on the 2023 projections, but the results are pretty are pretty uh close to what we pres we projected before. And I just need to pull up my notes so I can see what I put on here some numbers. And so the the difference between 2050 what we would have used versus what we are using that's the difference between the 27,000 and the 23,000 is about 4,000 acre feet in 2050 and that would be on an annual basis going forward. In the general land use plan this the comparable number would be about 50 4500

4600 acre feet. So when we talk about the integrated demand management program about a water supply, what this represents is that we're expecting the conservation to provide us with a 4500 acre foot per year water supply into the future. So that's a pretty good uh outcome. Actually, it's a a great outcome. Um there's still some there's actually a lot more room to grow. So we're not done. Conservation isn't one of those things that you you do and then you stop doing it one day. is something you do indefinitely because new people move in. Uh things work for a little while and then you need to change things up. Um and so this is a little bit deeper dive and what we noticed here is that there's some areas where we're going to be able to um let's say uh get a little more water savings out of including commercial and industrial users and our temporary lodging users. But that doesn't mean that there isn't potential in some of the other areas where we've got reduction. You can see in the mobile homes and the multifamily individual meters there is some reductions there but there could likely be much more reduction than that and even in the single family and the multifamily master meter there's more opportunity for reductions. So to date, we have spent um since the conception of the program a little over half a million dollars. And based on the amount of water that we've saved, the 5,000 acre feet, that's about $108 per acre foot. And in terms of a water supply, that is a very affordable rate. Uh finally, what I want to do is just talk about kind of this these uh these Olympic rings, if you will, that you see up on the on the board. And in the course of doing this presentation, RuCa worked really hard on this presentation and and Fred and I talked a lot about just kind of the history and what this kind of all means. Um, but for me, this has kind of been and I've I've worked in

this industry a long time, you know, 40 some odd years, but but there's there's not that many times in my career that I've seen a public policy come together quite like this public policy has come together. And uh it's really a very remarkable example of a public private partnership where things are aligning very well where the parties are cooperating to the degree that we have cooperated and it's really created a remarkable outcome and and it wasn't like that happened out of chance. It was because we had a council in place in the past and a council today that has been a champion to this kind of a program. Uh it's because Arizona Water Company has made a commitment to to do these kinds of activities. Their board itself is committed to these kinds of activities. It's because of the people who've been involved and the hard work that we've all put into this. Um and and there's, you know, maybe there's a little luck involved along the way, but but really we work we've all worked very hard to bring this to the point that it is today. And we all should be very proud of our accomplishments. Um and and I would say that the the embracing of the program that the city has made and repeatedly demonstrated and the championing of this program uh we could not have been successful without that. So on behalf of of Arizona Water Company, I just want to thank you for being amazing partners and for uh creating this wonderful program. And and it's not it isn't just me saying that. So there's more to it than that. For example, with the Department of Water Resources, they took this very concept and we went down to them and we said, "This is what we need to be successful." And they said, "You know what? We love it and we're going to put it in our fourth management plan. It's now a part of the regulation." And it's in the fifth management plan. We went to the Arizona Corporation Commission and we took uh and we got the first programs

that we were based on this program approved in our eastern in our eastern group. We opened up a pathway for every other private water company in the state of Arizona to do the same. We were the first um the first private water utility to get funds expended on conservation approved by the corporation commission. So, it's really been a remarkable program. Uh it's a great example, a great model, and it's one that we are so proud of, and we hope that you're as proud of it as we are. And I'll be happy to take any questions. Thank you, Terry Sue. Um, any questions, comments from anyone? Sure, ma'am.

Uh, you know, many, many years ago, we didn't have quite the relationship we had today with Arizona Water in the city. And I'm very glad to see how it's working out. So, good job. Because a lot of times we hear about the water company, we have to explain, well, unlike some cities, it's a private company. But now, it's good to say because you guys are handling that. So, I appreciate it. Um, and how I didn't realize we were the first one. So, that's really cool. And we're very proud of it. And, uh, as you can see around town, I did have two questions.

Hopefully easy. One is kind of related is related to this. You had a picture of like the big backflow, I think, or something in front. I I don't know my water terminology, but one more. Yeah, that guy on the right right there. Or is that a master meter or whatever that is? But sometimes those leak around town. I see them when I'm driving. Is there a number you can call or do you guys have something as part of our program? I mean, I know it's not yours maybe, but like because if you go, it's usually out of business and I know if you go in there, they're like, I don't know who to call, you know? So, I don't know if we had some kind of program like that where we could all chip in and be like, hey, can you help them out?

Absolutely. So, Council Member Herman, that's a great question. I'd say hop on our website, call our local office. Uh, I will say we're one of the few utilities that still have local offices. That's one of our core values. We'll always have a local office in all the communities we serve. Give them a call. Uh I'll say uh you know, we had um Panel Central reporter Jod here. She called me one time and said, "Hey, you guys got a leak over by the Walmart and and so we called the office. They got out there, got the issue fixed. Wasn't ours. It was theirs. But we got a hold of the right people. So let us know if we if it's not our facility to maintain. Some of these belong to the customers. We'll get with the customer. will coordinate repairs with them and make sure we get the issue addressed. So, absolutely let us know.

Thanks. Yeah, because I learned lately um Lisa and I were meeting with some people and we have to look at this as a whole system, right? Not just downtown, not just there. It's everything working together. That being said, uh this is kind of unrelated, but to the water company. Something came up uh with some some citizens the other day about the cap charge on the water bill, and you know, like we don't use CAP water. I'm like, yeah, it's really a big part of the portfolio here. So, I don't know if you can briefly explain that so people know why they get a cap charge. I mean, I know it's from the federal government back in the day because we all had to chip in to build it, but but we do use a cap water here even though we don't really directly drink it, but you can explain better. So,

yeah. So, so I think for two parts of your question, one is how do we use our CAP water? And yes, we do have cap water. Uh we have a uh Cassag ground has a cap allocation of 8,884 acre feet and we store that water underground and we recover it through our groundwater wells and when you recover that it's called recovered cap water and I would say about half of our demand is met with the um cap water. So it is a very important part of our entire uh portfolio. And as far as how the costs uh are um are assessed is that the central Arizona project is uh is the board that manages the CAP. They set the rates. They they tell us what those rates will be. Uh we pay a part of those rates are a capital charge that is like a mortgage payment on the CAP and then they're fixed OMR and there are um you know uh what do you call them like energy costs associated with it. And so all of those costs are then uh they bill us and my my department manages all the billing on that and then uh in a rate case those those costs are included in the rate case because they are legitimate obviously legitimate costs but those prices change every year. So the cap sir charge is about taking that incremental change and putting it into a a factor that then we're allowed to charge on on the the cap water as it goes up. But there's it's a just straight a straight pass through cost. So and and Fred's actually much more on Yeah. Did I get that?

I know. That was pretty good. A lot to learn about, right? Yeah. It's funny because people don't think that that's part of our water, but it's a It is. Yeah. At least. Yeah. And all and all the costs of the cap water are just passed straight through. There's no there's no profit that anybody you're not allowed to make a profit on your cap water.

All right. Thank you. Good, good question. You're right that comes up. Um, no, and and I just wanted to thank all all of the Arizona Water team for for just your partnership. Um, it truly is um a great partnership. I know you guys we meet monthly, our water resource meetings. So, they are, you know, always keeping us up to date on things that are going on. And Ruca is on the phone and she's there with us every month giving us an update on the Save It program and um sharing all of these numbers. I think the biggest um um not impact but for for the community was the turf reduction. When we pulled all the grass out here at um city hall, I thought that brought a lot of attention, you know, to the community. We were definitely getting calls, but hopefully people see why we're doing this. And I think, you know, we have to set an example as a city. So when you say that we reduced our turf by 800,000 square feet, you know, we hope our community members see that we're doing what we can as a city so they can also do something on their part, too. But um so we'll continue to to build on that program and and as far as that project, what if any of you want to go to that that is really cool um you know to participate you know with all of their staff and you have the high school kids that are sharing um educational um you know programs and exercises to the kids at their level. Although the whole are you smarter than a fourth grader? No. I mean, these kids these kids are like amazing, you know, and and the things that they absorb and and everything. But that's such a fun program. So, you know, thank you and I I look forward to attending that again. So, um but no, appreciate you being here and we look forward to ongoing. I know there's always things we're keeping our fingers crossed on a couple other things coming up, but um but thank you for your partnership. So appreciate it and thank you for being here.

Any other questions, comments? All right. Well, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

If we as we are transitioning, absolutely want to express our thanks as a staff to the Arizona water team. Uh it's been said tonight at least four or five times, but it is absolutely the case that uh when we struck out on this endeavor, we knew that we needed to the city needed to be a leader. It's it drove many of the projects that we've proposed, but certainly we're seeing a result of a community effort that is really modeled after this program. I do appreciate the flag I Terry Sue has indicated that we are the flagship. Uh but I also think that we set the tone for the for the logos and for the themes for the rest of them as well. They they had to become very creative. So um you saw in uh Fred's presentation and Terry Sue's presentation a bit about effluent. And as the mayor and council know, we have been going through uh a fair amount of dialogue and we'll continue that on on our effluent allocation. It was one of the goals that was established uh six years ago uh and to is an effective use and and and quite frankly the city of Kasa Grande felt like we were ultimately heading down a path. There's been a lot of change in the landscape with with water in general. Uh I know that many of you are aware of that. There's probably still news to come. But I thought what I would do this evening if we had a little time, I didn't know how much time we'd have left, is just to just to kind of uh bring the dialogue that we had uh at our last council meeting together very briefly. Uh and what I I thought I would start with is if I can get this thing to advance. Oh, that's the wrong way, I guess. Oh, I'm Can you go to down to go down a number of slides? These are all the slides that we had at our last meeting, but keep on going. It's the last three. I know that staff has filled Keep on going. There you go. Staff has filled a couple

of questions following our December 15th uh council meeting. I've had a chance to to update a few of the council members that were not able to attend that night. But I I think it's important to stress and it was one of the reasons why we thought the save it presentation although properly timed that it would be a good one this evening. You're going to see a couple of presentations that get that really get incorporated to our effluence strategy related surrounding water uh because they're intrinsically connected and and and I'm sure that you're seeing that you're hearing that more and more regularly. You heard us talk as a staff the how important treated effluent is going to be with the water rights, the water supply determinations and infrastructure planning and and and certainly as we go through this process, it we we want to ensure that we're coming up with a strategy that ultimately is going to meet the best interests of our community. I did want to take a minute just to introd introduce the team and they're not here this evening. you're going to be meeting individuals, some of the individuals that I I introduce here, but I wanted to give everybody a context of the folks that are going to be working with us uh over the course of the next couple of months. Obviously, you know, Fred and Terry Sue pretty well. Uh we also have Westwater Research who has been uh a partner with the city of Kasa Grande and outside resource. Amanda Long is the new point of contact with Westwater, but we also through uh water research have Cliff Neil working with us and he has been a very important element of our designation of assured water supply application uh which serves the Copper Mountain Ranch area. Uh he is he's uh a well-known expert in water resources and and we're happy to have him as part of the team. Uh recently added out of the Kyle Center is Cath Katherine Sasonson and Sarah Porter will be involved in assisting the council guide this this process uh this allocation process and then obviously we have a various uh uh administrative and technical staff on the city team that are going to be intricately involved. Uh

here's just a a quick recap and ultimately want to give you kind of a picture of of how we're going to bring these two together to help the council come into an allocation strategy if you will. I talked about the December 15th meeting. Tonight we had the Save It program. Obviously, uh starting on the 20th, uh Katherine Sasonson will be in and we'll be talking specifically about treated effluent volume projections. I think it's important for us to understand the volumes that that uh we can anticipate and allocation approaches so the mayor and council can begin to understand that. Uh we're hoping and this is still tentative that um that Arizona Water may be back on February 2nd. I'm not trying to put any pressure on Fred. We've talked about this generally to talk about some of the changes in the land landscape with the alternative designation of assured water supply uh known as the a program and giving uh this council and our community a bit of an update but more importantly talking about the role of effluent within that program. And then on the 17th, which is a Tuesday, obviously, uh we'll continue that dialogue with Katherine on our effluent allocation approaches and strategies. And perhaps um I'm hoping that we can give a bit of an update on the city's designation of assured water supply application that's before ADWR right now. I know that our C council member Herman talked briefly about the the uh the fact that many of our residents are uncertain about the fact that the city of Kas Grande does not own a water company. And we frequently at the leadership academy go over it as one of the misnomers in the community that Arizona Water is a private utility company providing water uh domestic water for the lion share of our city limits. But the city does own a water company outside of the city limits to provide that may ultimately end up being a uh the uh a part of the solution for the Copper Mountain Ranch development north of town. We do have an application before the Arizona Department of Water Resources and we're hoping for very promising outcome. Hopefully by the 17th we may even have

some direction. And then the thought is that somewhere between the 17th but very likely on March the 2nd we'll be finalizing uh the final the final elements of the allocation strategy to to ultimately memorialize that help guide some of the continued decisions that the mayor and council are going to be making related to both topics. But with that mamera it looks like I'm going to be able to yield back some time to the mayor and council this evening. But I'll certainly stand for any questions

questions comments. just just a you know thank you. I know you know this is something that we have a as a council have been talking about as far as the effluent strategy and so um appreciate what we've done up to this date and this timeline and I'm hoping we can really stick to it and not keep bumping it back um because I know this comes up you know it's an ongoing ongoing basis with with development so um it's going to be really important for us to have this as we move forward so appreciate that. Thank you, mayor. Anything else? Okay, we'll go ahead and close the study session and resume at 7 o'clock. Thank you everyone.

Prom Brent Bedillan, if you can please stand if you're willing and able. Our beloved Father in heaven, humbly we gather this evening, this wonderful evening, and give thee thanks for the bountous blessings that we enjoy. We're thankful for this time of year that affords us all an added measure of peace and kindness and goodwill towards men. We're thankful for this upcoming year, for a new year. We pray that we'll all work forward uh to making the efforts that will make it a a great one. That we'll accomplish things that will be in accordance with thy will and things that will help draw us together as a community that we'll all benefit and create this uh wonderful community that we can raise our families in and peace and harmony. Father, we're thankful for this um pioneer heritage that we have that makes this community so great. We pray that we'll all put forth our own individual efforts to keep the momentum going that we'll see some great things happen. We're thankful for this state, for the freedoms of this country that we enjoy. We're thankful for those that are far and wide protecting our freedoms. Please help us to not take this great service for granted that we'll be thankful in our hearts for the dedicated service provided by so many. We're thankful for the leaders of this community from our mayor to the city council to all those other officials that serve. We're thankful for our first responders and for so many that make uh Kasa Grande what it is. Now again, it's

um with gratitude in our hearts that we ask that thy spirit be with us tonight, that we'll be able to accomplish those things that thou would have us do. These things we now humbly pray. And this we do in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Madame Mayor, may may I have the floor for a moment?

I I would like to take a moment to recognize that we lost a very good friend this uh this past week. Uh John Ellsworth uh served the city uh in the police department, but his service was much uh greater than that. He was a veteran of the uh United States Air Force. He uh came back to the area and served in the Department of Corrections. He served with the Kasag Grande Police Department. Uh served with the Panal County Sheriff's Department. and most recently he did uh at least three maybe four terms as our uh local justice of the peace. Um it's a big loss for this area, for this city and uh I would I would like to ask for a moment of silence to remember John. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Grant. Thank you, Brent. And thank you um Bob for the moment of silence. Okay, Adriana. Next on the agenda is the roll call. If you can accept for the record that all the members are present. So noted.

Thank you. And next item are the minutes. Mayor Fitzgiven, I move to approve the minutes of the city council regular meeting of December 15, 2025. Second. Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. Next are the claims. Mayor Fgiven, I move that we approve the claims report for December 11th, 2025 through December the 29th, 2025.

Second. Okay. There's been a motion and a second to approve the claims. Is there any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. And the meeting agenda approval. Are there any changes to the meeting agenda?

Yes, madam mayor. We've learned that our middleweight champion is unable to attend tonight. He's got other obligations. So, we had asked for removal of F1 from the agenda. And just to remind the council that we do have an executive session. Uh so, you may want to move reports up prior to that. Mayor Fis Given, I move that we move reports ahead of the uh executive session. Second. Okay. There's been a motion and a second to amend the agenda. Um all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed?

Okay. Special presentations. We have a couple presentations here this evening. The first one, I have a nice little plaque here for Mr. Michael Shortino. I got it right, didn't it, Michael? Where did Where did he go? All right, Michael. I I'll go ahead and step down there, Michael. So tonight we're recognizing and honoring Michael Shantino who began his career with the city in May of 2006 as an equipment mechanic. An equipment mechanic has to have special certifications to work on fire department apparatus. Our apparatus was being maintained up in the valley and it made sense to take care of it here in our own maintenance shop. Michael stepped up and worked to get his emergency vehicle technician certification in 2009 and was promoted to that classification several years later and eventually earned his master EV technician certification. Michael, on behalf of my fellow council members, the city of Cassagrand, and the citizens whom you have served over the past 19 years, congratulations on your retirement and all the best to you and your family. Congratulations. I think they want to get that also say a few words and then you can say a few words. We'll let the chief first.

My name's uh Dave Keane. I'm the fire chief here in Cassag Grand. Uh I just want to tell you, Mike, we appreciate everything you've done for us over the last 19 years. Our fleet is superb. Greatly due to your efforts and the rest of the people that work in Kevin Lewis's shop and Ryan Witty's shop over there. Um we appreciate the trips you've made back east with us to accept apparatus and all the work you've done. And uh I just want to tell you congratulations on your retirement. Thank you.

And present you with a nice plaque. Just a few words. Uh, chief. Thank you. Thank you,

Captain. always had my back. Scott Miller took a chance on me. I told him I always have his back. He had mine. Was my best man at my wedding. 20 years. Where did it all go? But Kevin Lewis, he started two weeks after me. He comes into the shop at the southside. Funny as hell. Here comes this guy walking up the thing and I'm working on a fire truck outside and I look up and go, "Who are you?" And he go, "What are you new or what?" And he goes, "I'm the public works director. Can you say open mouth and insert foot?" And I did that thing. Uh, yeah. There's been some ups and downs, but Kevin always had my back. I told him I always have his. He's had my back more than I had his, but that's beside the point. Uh Kevin, I don't think Ryan Woody's here. So, um, one thing with Ryan, he came into the shop. I had to train him to be an EVT. And the funny thing about it is he had a little bit of problem with learning AC. So I'm thinking here, I go, Chief Miller, I go, I couldn't figure out what was going on. You know, I had to think of a way so I can teach him this. And I'm not a teacher. I'm a wrench. You know, get with the program. So, um, Ryan Woody raced cars. I was sitting watching the, uh, what was

it? Daytona or one of those races. And it dawned me like a light bulb came on. Okay, here we go, Ryan. Turn one. And I explained it. Turn two, turn three, turn four. One week later, you thought he did air conditioning all his life just by doing those simple things, thinking how you can get through to somebody. And uh Kevin Lewis showed me that, Chief Miller showed me that and it works. And when everybody works together at it, we can move mountains. So again, thank you very much, Chief Keane. This is great. Wherever you're at, there he is in the back hiding. Thanks, Chief. And that's about it. And thank you See if I can take this off. Okay, this is exciting part two. Um, so next we are excited to recognize the community tradition that truly brings people together, the 2025 electric light parade. This event continues to be a highlight of this um of the season, drawing families, neighbors, and visitors together to celebrate creativity, community spirit, and holiday cheer. We would like to thank our community service departments that's here with us led by our community service director Danny Gyos along with his staff, our public works department, PIO office, and both the police and fire departments for their hard work in planning and delivering another successful parade. We also extend a sincere thank you to our event event sponsor APS. I think I saw Richie here somewhere. Um, where are you Richie?

There you are. APS um for their continued support and partnership which helps make this event possible. So at this time I'm pleased to introduce community service director Danny Gyos who will present the 2025 Electric Light Parade Awards. Please join me in welcoming Danny. Thank you.

It was truly a wonderful event this year and I really want to thank the community because this is truly a community event. If you uh attended the uh parade, you would have noticed that how much work went into each one of those floats. Everybody that participated in this this uh float deserves an award. Unfortunately, we did have to pick the winners, but thank you again for the entire community for a wonderful event. Um we're going to go ahead and get started. Uh Mr. Rosales, if you can come up here because we do have the first award which is the electric light parade APS power to make it happen. Can't get it up. Great job.

Okay, I think you can Okay, the next one is the most original. We have city of Cassagran public works department. Are you here? Okay, the next award is the most festive and that would be Hexel. Is Hexley here? Okay, the next award is most creative costumes. Sorry, I can't. The studio of dance, are you here? Okay, we have the Gene Layman Public

Safety Award and that goes to Eloy Fire District. Royale and greatest. Biggest and brightest goes to Mission Royale Adult Community right here. I can take it for you. Thank you so much.

I think you didn't like your face. Home school. People's choice. And we have now people's choice. Can we have Homestead Homeschool come up?

No one. Does somebody are are you with them? Okay. Okay.

Oh, would you like to say

it? Oh, okay. And the mayor's award goes to the city of Cascran public works department. It wasn't just me that picked him. Really, I swear. But but you deserved it for sure. Congratulations.

One, two, three. Now we're going to move She has the winner though. One second. Technical difficulties. Okay, we have the first winner, Snow Cute, which is 1747 each Birch Street. Do we have that person here? No. Okay. Well, they had a snow cute house. Uh, we have the Clark Griswall Award and

that's for 468 East Rio, please. Oh, and what what is your name? Cy. Corey. Yeah, Corey. And we have Corey here to to get the presentation. Okay. So, Corey can display that next year so you all know who the winner is.

Okay. Now, we have the Jingle Bell Rock, which is 2070 East Pedmont Place. Are they here? They did not come tonight. Well, again, thank you all for coming out. Congratulations to the winner. Congratulations to the community for a wonderful event. Thank you very much. Some of these other groups that are here, you can tell the first and second place winners are here. Do you have a list of them? Because some of them are here. I can see the Wildats and Do you have that list?

Okay, hold on. We're we're going to hold on just a second because we see that there's several other groups here that got second and third place and so we apologize we didn't go through all of those. So we're going to make sure that we recognize all of those groups to see if they're here. So hold on just a second. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Why don't you? Okay.

Okay. For the most original, we have second place is um APS. And for most original, uh, third place took JNS remodeling and renovations. And most festive, uh, second place, we had Desert Sky Mustangs Car Club. Uh, third place, most festive, Youth on Track Cycling. We have most creative costumes. Uh number two, um ASU Preparatory Academy. And in third place in that category, we have Boys and Girls Club of the Sun Corridor and the Gan Layman Public Safety Award. In second place, we have Arizona City Fire District. And in third place, the American Medical Response, AMR. And the last category is biggest and brightest. We have number uh in second place we have Lucid Motors. And in third place for biggest and brightest is Cassagran Middle School Wildcat Cheer and Student Council.

No. and and we really do want to thank you and of course you know most of the my fellow council members and a lot of the staff were there that evening and you know we do so much in planning this event but it wouldn't be the same without people like you and you know organizations that come out and share your creativity and your talent and um so it just really makes an impact. This this event is growing bigger and bigger every year and it's because of all of you sharing all of your talents. So, we appreciate all of you. Your your float was great. All the excitement with the cast, you know, the wild cats that were up there, the Mustangs, I mean, all the creative floats, um, were were just so so amazing. So, my two little grandchildren loved it. They kept him entertained the whole time, a 2-year-old and a one-year-old. So, um, so again, thank you. Happy New Year. Happy holidays, and we hope that you join us again next year. And thank you to the community service department for everything. Thank you. Okay, we'll wait just a couple minutes here.

Okay. So, thanks again for everyone for coming. Um, the next item is the consent agenda. All items listed with an asterct are considered routine matters and will be enacted by one motion and one roll call vote of the council. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or member of the public so requests in which in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered in its normal sequence of the agenda. Is there anything um anyone would like to remove from the consent agenda from council from staff?

Okay. So if we can get a motion. Mayor Fitz Gibbons, I would move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Okay, Adriana, if we can get a roll call vote, please. Council member Rammo, yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Hston, yes. Council member Herman, yes. Mayor Promp Dylan, yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Okay, public comments. We have a few speaker cards here. I'll go ahead and start um with the naming the the names on the speaker cards. And I know there's a couple of them for item K2, which is on the CG link. If you would like to come up now or we can wait and you can come up during the discussion of CG link. So, I'll I'll go through these cards when we get to um your name here. So, yes.

Um, no, not now. Um, if this is just public comments, but you if you would like to wait until that comes up on the agenda, we can have you speak then if you're okay. Or you can speak now. That's fine, too. Sure. Let's go. Why don't we go ahead and and they did? Okay. We we can go ahead and have you speak at this time. I'll go ahead and name bring up what what is your name, sir? My name is Paul. Okay, Paul, let's go ahead and start. Yep.

Okay, Paul, go ahead and we'll start with you. So, Paul, if you can come up again, give us your name and your address when you get up here. And Larry, I think I have the microphone off. He's going to turn it on for you. I turned it off.

Okay. My name is Paul Haye. Last name is spelled H Eh. My address is 1831 Northwestfall Lane here in Castle Grande. I'm here to speak about this uh Metro Link. I guess Metroink now also T-Mobile. Uh I heard today that they merged. Um I first learned about this when I saw flags being put around my neighborhood. And what got me concerned was flags that look like they're going to come right across my front yard. Um my front yard's about the size of two postage stamps. Mine's one of the older homes in the neighborhood. the other homes have about a one or a half size postage stamp. But at any rate, I got concerned about that. And so I asked the person who was putting out the flags, I go, "Are they planning to come through here?" And he goes, "Well, yeah, that's the way it looks." And I said, "Well, how can they do that?" He says, "Well, you have to find out your plot plan." So I called the city and everybody was very nice, very courteous, right? Was on the phone about a half hour from this person to that person. Let me transfer you. Let me transfer you. Let me transfer. Oh yes. Okay. After I explained the problem, explain the problem. Explain the problem. Got back to the first person. Nobody has a plot plan for the city for the residents. It doesn't exist. So that concerned me. So, I called the county. Same thing. They don't have it. So, I called Metroink. That conversation didn't go very well. Probably some of it was my part because I was kind of angry by that point. But I said, "I need a supervisor out here." I said, "I need to know what's going on with all of this."

So, a supervisor did call me. Um, but before I get to that, um, I did some investigation into Metroink. All right. I first googled it and they said the internet service is good but the construction is not. They do damage the people's property. They they uh kill vegetation which in our neighborhood Cottonwood Ranch you have to have five plants in your little half a postage stamp front yard or you get fined. So, who's going to replace those plants? All right. Um, they also uh damage other property uh sewer pipes and uh driveways, sink holes. So, I did some investigation on my own and I started talking to workers, all kinds of workers. I'd see them, I'd stop them, hey, talk to the guys that are doing the job, right? And uh I told them I'll never give up your I'll never give up your name or where you work because I know you you know I don't want you to get fired, you know. And they all told me the same thing. All right. Driveway damage, sink holes, sewer pipes broken, of which, by the way, I have a picture of one of the sewer pipes where the cable goes right through the sewer pipe. All right. uh irrigation systems broken. I've since found out from the from the supervisor that came out that it's the homeowners duty to locate the irrigation systems. Who knows that? None of the homeowners know that because I've been talking all over the whole neighborhood and

everybody's upset. Believe me, very upset. And even if they did know it, do any of you? Maybe some of you do, but I don't think most of you would know how to go out and stake where your irrigation system is. All right. So, who's going to be responsible for that? All right. As I said, plants being uh being uh killed, landscaping. People have found mounds in their front yard. Also, sink holes. All right. uh paint on the on the landscape because when they're marking for the the cable and everything, they're painting here and there and everything. All right, I know that paint's going to come off eventually, but people are upset that it's on there because they have pride in their property. All right. Um um I've also been told that the company's cutting corners, all right, and they don't clean up after themselves. They're very, very messy workers. So, you know, we have all of these problems and I'm wondering who vetted this company to begin with? Who who did anybody check into the quality of work that they do? And my other question is, who's going to take care of us after they're gone for two years and things start showing up? because most people on on the council know you could hit a a sewer pipe and not have any symptoms for maybe a year or two. All right? Or a water line. So, a year or two from now, uh when things start showing up, who's going to who's going to be responsible for that, you know? So the supervisor called me up on Friday said, "Well, because we had set up meeting up for Friday." And he says, "Well, I guess I don't you need you to come out." I said, "Why not?" He said, "Well, you already

had a meeting. They already sent somebody out." I said, "No, they didn't. Nobody's ever come out." So he said, "Oh." He said, "Well, I come out." Very nice man. His name is Tony. Very respectful. Tried to be very helpful. explain to me exactly what they were going to do and how they're going to do it. How they're going to bore under the properties. I don't know how they're going to do that with these little front yards with all these shrubs and all this stuff, all these utilities and everything. They're going to bore under with about a size of a coffee can. All right. And then uh Paul, we're going to have, you know, we have a three minute limit and we have quite a few speakers. So um

let me just finish up. Okay, you can finish. Right. At any rate, sewer lines weren't being marked. Nothing's being marked as far as that goes. And my question to the council is what my community, Cottonwood Ranch, wants to know is, are you going to stop this until this company uh gets their act together before they start digging into our neighborhood? because I don't know what's going to happen when they start digging. All right? And we want answers as to who's going to be responsible after they leave because everybody sitting there knows because none of you are children. You know, two years from now, if we call the city, the city's going to say, "You need to call Metro Link." We'll call Metro Link and they go, "No, it's not our responsibility." You know, a sewer line is $10,000. A driveway is $25,000.

Thank you. I don't have it and none of my neighbors have it. Thank you. And you know, we can't comment on this because it's not on the agenda. So, we are unable to comment on your remarks, but we can have one of our staff members um Larry, I don't know if you or Stephen want to follow up with them to see about um how we can have these discussions. So, um so unfortunately, we can't comment. It's not on the agenda, but we have your record. I appreciate that. But you have my phone number. Yep. We Yep. I will Please have someone contact me because the neighborhood. Got it. And you you got a couple thousand homes and they are not happy and nobody wants this, right? Nobody wants it. It's been forced on us. We don't they don't even want it.

Well, thank you. Thank you for coming for your comments. We do have your record. So, thank you. I'm waiting for the call. Okay. Thank you. I have your Yep. your number. And then it looks like Debbie Debbie um all these people together they all signed up with me. Okay. I'll give all of these. You have Rob Elder. Are you all together? Okay. So, and then Deborah Elder. Okay. So, we'll make sure that we give this information. Yeah. The phone numbers are on here. The phone numbers are on here. So, thank you. And it and it's Metroet, right? Metroet. Metroet. Yeah. Metronet. Okay. T-Mobile. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for coming. We appreciate it. Thank you for listening. It's not adversarial. It's We need help.

We We appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Um other public comment. I have a speaker card for Brett Whan. So Brett, if you My neighbors left, but no, I was here to support my my neighbors uh in Cottonwood Ranch. Since I was here, I thought I would also make public comment.

Okay. Can you give your name and your address? My name is Brett Whan, 1244 East Judy Street here in Kas Grande Kasanoi Ranch. Um, my streets have effectively become a drag strip. People are well over exceeding twice the speed limit with nothing to stop them. Uh, we've me and several of my neighbors have made calls to the police. They don't seem to care or understand the urgency. It is a neighborhood that has a couple of schools within it, so there's lots of kids walking. Um, and more so when you kind of move throughout the city, Almost every intersection here has a memorial uh memorial cross which already shows people are losing their lives. And so I see the city building. There's lots of four-way intersections, lots of red lights, and that doesn't really seem to solve the problem because we already see where the crosses are. So I'm just kind of curious what the city actually has as a plan because I would never let my son or kids ride a bike across the city and this is a small town. I'd never let him walk across TKLE and that's only, you know, a block away. So, I'm just hoping that there is more of a notion, more support from the city to get the police officers out there where they need to be. Um, and just a general plan with developers to make sure there's something congruent as the city grows because I mean, I don't even know if I would ride a bike, too. Um, and roundabouts are a thing. So, if we really need to I I know the city's reviewed a lot of things and it seems like we're missing the plot here. So, um, thank you,

Brett. Thank you. And actually our our police chief is back here. So maybe um our chief can can say a couple words. There you go, Chief. Okay. Um next next speaker card is um Barbara Sundust. Thank Thank you for coming and for the input. Um Barbara. Okay. My name is Barbara Sundust. My address is 1273 East Cordova Avenue in Cassandr. And I actually want to start I had my own beginning, but it it's already says 2:49 on the timer. Okay. Well, that

she started it probably right when you walked up. You have three three minutes, but go ahead. You can keep going.

Okay. Well, it doesn't it says I only have 20 seconds. Okay. Anyway, I want to start with what Mike said. The gentleman retired. I'm not going to try his last name, but he said, "Whenever we work together, we can move mountains." Well, I think we have a mountain. And um I I know that I've come um every time that there's a city council meeting and I'm probably going to keep doing that if God willing um to say this the sort of the same thing. But this is a new year and so there's new hope, I hope. Um, and I I'm addressing not just the city council, but everybody that's here in the audience and people who are watching that exactly what Mike said, if we work together as a community, not just as a community to try and find a solution to the homeless situation. when we had Laundry Love um a couple last week, last week we had Laundry Love and there are some homeless people who are able to get to Laundry Love. I don't know where they're staying, but they're able to get there. And I know that some of them they have to hide at night to sleep someplace and then they have to walk around during the day because they can't be caught anywhere. Caught anywhere. So, I I just really um think that as a community Oh, and and again, I'll bring up the elderly women. I I can you imagine being my age and well, maybe a little younger than me, like 60 or something. I'm I'm more than 60. Anyway, and sleeping in your car that that's how you have to sleep, sitting up or however you do it. And um and some of these women actually they they work as much as they can. They can only work so much. They get um some unemployment or some um health benefits. So they can o so they can only work as much as they can and then they're stuck

and they can't afford any place and they're living in their cars. So I'm just saying that maybe as a community we could somehow do something to earn to get to to make donations. Somebody in the community offer a shelter, somebody in the community make donations so that we could get some kind of a a tent community for people. one of the ladies that I talked to at Laundry Love and she I mean she's just an ordinary lady. She's not a drug addict. She's not an alcoholic. She's an ordinary lady, but and she if she lived in uh Go ahead.

Okay. If she lived in a campground area, she would help take care of it. She would be um she would take care of her things. She would take care of the yard. They would do things to help their situation. So that I I'm kind of rambling because I started off wrong, but anyway, I'm just saying that if we as a community, if businesses got together and donated a building that's empty and fixed it up so people could stay there so that I I'm so I'm not just addressing you. I'm addressing anybody who can hear me that if there is some way if we could donate m if people could donate money so that we could get a shelter and and I we need a shelter that's like I know some people right now who are in um either the cite or the blue moon they're there for a month and then unless they're some they can come up with something they're stuck their same they're in the same situation they were before where they have no place to go. So, I'm I'm sort of begging the city of Cassagrand um to come up with some kind of a a plan or just make donations, do something so that we could come up with a shelter for women, especially women, but men too, that they could stay in until they were able to um get an apartment. It's hard to find apartments that you can afford now. So anyway, I'm just I know I'm making the same plea over and over again, but um even anyway, I'm just begging that maybe the community could do something, not just you guys.

Thank you, Barbara. Okay. And the last speaker card I have is Tyler Stein. And Tyler, if you can give um your address, please.

Yes. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Tyler Stein and my address is 810 East Stonewood Drive. I've lived in Castigran most of my life except for the three years I went to college. I'm here to speak on behalf of Rural Arizona Action in support of the project SWAR annexation and the subsequent reasonzoning of that land. There's an organization based in Phoenix that is working on a referendum to essentially veto the mayor and council's decision. And as someone who was born and raised in Cassagran, I do not support the referendum effort. I support and trust the mayor and council's decision last month to approve the annexation. As an organization, Rural Arizona Action cares about economic justice and environmental stewardship. Affordable housing and child care are huge priorities, not only for our organization, but also for many people living in Cassagrant. In the past, Lucid has partnered with the city to address both of these pressing issues. And I believe that in the future, Lucid will continue to be good partners with our community and our organization intends to see that through because this is where Rural Arizona Action began and it's where we're going to to remain and thrive. When Lucid builds, they are expected to pay impact fees which are used to help pay for the cost of development. Impact fees are beneficial for our community because they help pay for roads, police, fire, and amenities that our community members enjoy. They are also one of our community's highest employers. Lucid is also an electric vehicle company that cares about sustainability which is important in ensuring that we have a healthy resources for future generations to come. We also support annexing the land because to become part of castrand because it gives the city more control on what is being developed and it gives easier opportunity for community members to give input as they would be able to stay closer to home instead of having to drive to Florence. We thank you for the opportunity to allow us to speak.

Thank you Tyler. Is there anyone else that would like to address the council? Okay, I'll go ahead and close the public comments. And we are in item I1. Kevin,

thank you. Staff recommends that the mayor and city council authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with Freightlininer of Arizona. They're doing business as velocity truck centers in an amount not to exceed $854,882. And this is for the purchase of two new uh automated side load trash trucks for our city sanitation operation. The units that are being replaced, uh, unit 5104 and 5106 are both 2013 Freight Liner, um, automated side load trash trucks, and they've, uh, we've pushed them way past the, uh, uh, planned 7-year lifespan. So, we've got every uh, bit of use out of those uh, vehicles that we can, but we're now starting to uh, run into issues finding parts for these units. they're just uh we're just having a hard time keeping them running. So, um we had originally looked at uh continuing to use these side load uh trash bodies on new chassis. That was our original project. However, when we were going through uh putting this project together uh getting the cost, we were unable to come up with a vendor that could help us uh make that switch to the new chassis. and the price uh benefit just wasn't there for us to support that. So, we did change the project to purchasing two new trucks and uh chassis. So, um, we originally budgeted, uh, uh, $750,000, uh, we have a $750,000 available, but we had to, uh, use $104,882 of savings from another project, and that was our water carrier out at the landfill to offset the additional costs based on what our project scope was changed from. So, with that, I'd be

happy to answer any questions. Any questions, comments? Yeah, I have a question. What What's being done with the old trucks? What is there any value left to them? Are they going to be sold? Are they going to be sold for the parts or or Yeah, typically we're able to trade those in, but if we're not trading those in, then we will dispose of them at auction. So, what's the plan with these? Is they are they going to be traded in or I don't exactly remember or recall uh what we're doing with these. Okay, that was my only question. Sure. Kevin, in the the recently that there's a company that does business here in town that makes these bodies and I think we've used them before. Are we able to use them again or is this a different type of

We are we are purchasing different vehicles this time. Okay. Any other questions, comments? Why why Freight Liner this time? Um we've used Freightlininer in the past. Um, you know, a perfect example is the uh vehicles that we're replacing were also freight liners. A freight liner is the chassis or the uh truck body that we're using. Uh the automated side loads are are ones that we've used in the past and have performed very well and it was the best prices that we were able to get at this time. They were good prices. Okay. And

no other questions. So, if we can get a resolution number, please. Resolution number 5875, a resolution of the council of the city of Cassagran, Arizona, accepting a proposal from Freightlininer of Arizona LLC for the purchase of automated sideload trash trucks, authorizing expenditure of the city fund of public funds, authorizing execution of a contract with or purchase order to Freightlininer of Arizona LLC, and authorizing the transfer of budget authority. I move that we approve uh resolution number 5875 as presented. Second.

Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Okay, if we can get a roll call vote, please. Council member Ramo, yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Hston, yes. Council member Herman, yes. Mayor Prompillan, yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. A item I two, Kevin.

Thank you. Staff recommends that the mayor and city council approve a bridging agreement with Allison Mills Contracting LLC to provide construction services for the intersection improvements at Panal Avenue and Rodeo Road, an amount not to exceed $579,420. We are asking authorization uh to use a Panel County uh job order contract. That's the bridging agreement that we'll enter into with Allison Mills to perform the uh construction at this intersection. And this is um part of the Arizona Department of Transportation state highway system. But uh we see the need to really make this improvement. Uh if we wait for the state to do the work, then we're going to be waiting quite a while. And there's a need now for us to uh make these improvements at this intersection. that'll be extending the uh length of the turn lanes off of uh uh panel onto Rodeo in both north and southbound directions as well as looking at dedicated left turn signals at the uh east and westbound movements. Uh, of course, we've got the subdivision to the west and the fire department there with their new preeemption uh equipment to manage that signal. Uh all these improvements will help that traffic and safety in that area. Um, with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Sure. When When do we think this would start? As quickly as we can get it going. Um, uh, I don't have the timeline in front of me. It's something that we can uh provide in uh Larry's uh monthly update. Um, we give the uh project update list and that should have that detail in it now. Okay. So, um, I'll make sure we're able to highlight that in next week's report if that that would work for council. Yeah, that'll work. I just want to make sure we have a start date and kind of expected duration on that. I sure

Kevin, is there any mechanism to at least apply for some kind of reimbursement from the state? Um, I'm not aware of an opportunity for them to help us out with this funding at this time. It is something that we look at. Um they're working with us on the Centennial Signal uh north of this location, but uh we have no funding for this project. Okay. Sure.

I can say it's much needed, especially I mean obviously during the the heavy traffic times. And one other thing is I don't know if you'll be working on the traffic sign. you are because there's left turns, but certain times of the year when the sun's at a certain level, it doesn't give you a left turn arrow. Um, specifically around 7 a.m. in the morning. Um, when you're heading heading westbound, making a left turn uh south onto Panel. So, just noticed that in the past. We can have that. That is a uh A DOT signal. uh that's their equipment, but we can definitely work with them and and bring that uh issue to their attention. Thank you.

Or you could just go to work at a normal time. Got to go to the gym first, Brett.

No, thank you. And and yes, please definitely let us know. I know this is one of the projects that we decided to um implement, you know, expedite um due to traffic concerns even though, like you said, it is AOT um road, but this is something we know that needs to be done. So, we're going to do that. And I know um Larry, there there's something on panel improvements on the ADOT, you know, one of the the projects, right, that that we have. We're waiting to hear from ADOT for all of Panel. Um but we I don't know when that's going to happen. Madame Mayor, we have not received any update on that particular project. Okay. So, yes. So, thank you. Looking forward to that. There's going to be several other of these projects coming up hopefully in the near future.

So, any other discussion? I know a lot of them. No other discussion if we can get a resolution number. Resolution number 5876. A resolution of the council of the city of Cassagran, Arizona, accepting a proposal from Ellison Mills Contracting LLC for the intersection improvements at Panel Avenue and Rodeo Road, authorizing expenditure of public funds and authorizing execution of a contract with or purchase order to Ellison Mills Contracting LLC. Mayor, if it's given, I move approval of resolution number 5876 as presented. Second. Okay, there's been a motion and two three seconds. I don't know how many seconds. Um, any other discussion? Okay, if we can get a roll call vote, please. Council member Romo,

yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Hston, yes. Council member Herman, yes. Mayor Prompellan, yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, K1 Kevin.

And then finally, uh, my last item for this evening are actually two items, uh, two resolutions. Staff is recommending that the mayor and city council pass a debt authorization resolution for the greater Arizona development authority or GADA and the water infrastructure finance authority of Arizona or WIFA uh for the wastewater project uh financing application. Excuse me. Uh the city of Kasa Grande requires additional funding to complete the uh second phase of our uh uh expansion of our wastewater treatment plant. We're starting to run out of some of our fund balances. So we're looking at different opportunities for funding that expansion project. These are two uh funding opportunities. We've not made a decision whether to move forward with one or both of these or a combination of them. uh but at this time to meet their timelines we need to pass these resolutions in order to continue in the process with these two groups. So we'll be continuing to do that evaluation and working through those processes but this gets us uh to at least open that door so we can determine uh how best to move forward with financing our uh our our expansion project. So okay with that I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Okay any questions comments? Okay, no questions, comments. So, we'll do them one at a time then. So, first resol the first resolution, resolution number 5877, a resolution of the council of the city of Cassagrant of Panel County, Arizona to authorize the application for a loan from the Greater Arizona Development Authority. Mayor Fitzgiven, I move to approve resolution number 5877 as presented. Second. Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? If we can get a roll call votes. Council member Rammo, yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Hston, yes. Council member Herman, yes.

Mayor Pson B. Dylan, yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. And the second resolution, Adriana. Resolution number 5878, a resolution of the council of the city of Cassagran of Pineal County, Arizona to authorize the application for a clean water state revolving fund loan from the water infrastructure finance authority of Arizona. Mayor Fitzgiven, I move for approval of resolution number 5878 as presented. Second. Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Adrianne, if we can get a roll call vote. Council member Romo, yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Hston,

yes. Council member Herman, yes. Mayor Prom Dylan, yes. Mayor Fiskans, yes. Motion carries. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Okay. Item K2.

Mayor, members of council, good evening. Um this evening the transit advisory committee or TAC is recommending that the mayor and council approve phase four of the five-year transit implementation plan. This includes the planned expansion to add a fourth planned expansion and the addition of a fourth vehicle. Um um this expansion would be mostly northerly um well primarily northerly um from Cottonwood Lane to Courtzson Road bounded by Panell Avenue to the west and Pier Road to the east. Further, uh, the TA is further recommended that this phase include the addition of a small area north of Courtzson Road to serve a pocket of 55 plus uh, manufactured home, RV parks, small neighborhood, apartment complex, city park, gas station, convenience mart, and um, a few other various businesses. What I'd like to share with you this evening is just a a little bit of background. Let's see. See if I can remember how to use this.

Well, there we go. Um, at this time, this is a map of the existing CG link or Kasa Grande link service area. Everything in purple is the area that we serve right now. Uh, last year in the summer months, July, um, city council approved the the addition of a little service expansion. We were went north of Cottonwood between Kasa Grande Avenue and TKEL Road um to serve a pocket of u individuals that were riding the service and they were crossing the road to stop at a virtual bus stop at the 7-Eleven convenience mart. Um other than that historically we began in October of 2023. Uh it's been two years already. Uh it's a curb to curb shared ride service. It's microtransit so we don't operate on a fixed route. We go to people's homes and then drop them off at their destinations. We get as close as possible to a home and a destination. When we began service, it was free of charge. We've implemented a fair since that time. We've made a a minor service adjustment. Um and um we now also operate on Saturdays. So our current hours are Monday to Saturday from 7:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. What we're proposing I went the wrong way. What we're proposing with the implementation of phase four is the green area that you see on your map. Again, we're going north to Courtson uh and then Panel and Pearson to the east and west. Um the purple area of course is where we're already operating. We're already serving the recreation center at North Pier and also there's a complex that's a prof professional village at the corner of uh Pier and Courtzson. We received a number uh oh let me back up a moment. Um this area this new area

does include some parks. It's the Rotary Park which is very uh uh close to the the North TLE edition. Uh Pratt uh Frank Pratt Park and Burus Park. There's two elementary schools or excuse me, there's Choa Elementary School and Cactus Middle School that would be right uh adjacent to the new service area. We don't actually go on to school property, but we can serve adjacent areas for uh students or parents or employees of those facilities. There's um apartment buildings that are in this area that we believe will find a lot of passengers uh whether they're using it for discretionary trips or school or shopping or work. Uh Courtyard, Agavei, the O'Neal Apartments, Aanita, and Cottonwood Ranch. In addition to the three new um complexes that are being built to the west and south of the recreation service, we will now actually be able to serve the the post office. We are not able to do that at this time. And in this new service area, there's also a a various um array of medical and dental offices and then additional um stores and some shopping available. What I wanted to share with you today is um some wrership information. Since we began through the end of December, we've provided over 76,657 one-way trips. This year, July through December, we've provided we look at these in the fiscal year in this uh depiction. Um well you can see the breakdown here. Um 17,787 so far in this fiscal year, 35,493

the previous year and the first year we operated was a partial year at 23,377. So you can see the progression. We're on target. Uh we're estimating that we'll hit 20 excuse me in the end of this fiscal year about 37,000 one-way trips. I also wanted to share some metrics. I I took a look at the numbers in a calendar year uh to just give us a different perspective. So from January through December 31st of this last year, 2025, we provided over 36,000 trips, one-way trips, and the average rating for those trips 5 being the best was a 4.86, which we think is very good. Our on on time our pickup on-time performance is extremely high at 99%. Our drop off it look it doesn't look as good but 94.4% is really not shabby and a lot of that has to do with a lot of the construction and delays uh that there have been around the community and detours that were you know multi-week or multimonth. So it it changed things up and I might also add that whenever there is work being done on the streets uh that will impact our service because our scheduling program is built around Google Maps and if a contractor or a company or utility doesn't upload that data into Google Maps then we we provide a routing that's you know done in real time and it'll be wrong and the driver has to make some corrective actions behind the wheel. Um, as you can see, we have a direct ride. So, if on average, if you were a solo passenger, it was about a six 6.6 minute trip. Very, very convenient. If it was a shared ride, it would be about 12 and a half minutes. And um nearly 55% of the time it's a shared ride service. So, that and that's our peak peak hours

of the day. Um, I wanted to back up a minute and let you know that anytime we make a service change, whether it's planned or not, we do have to hold a public hearing. And we held two public hearings back in May. One at the Dorothy Chandler Senior Center and one at city hall. Um, following that, there's a 30-day public comment period. We received 37,000, excuse me, 37 comments. And um I wish although we'd still be devouring that information at this time. Um so we we advertised um how individuals uh whether they be residents or business or anybody and you know we went through the the whole litany of uh resources that we have available to us and of course English and Spanish. Um, what I would like to mention is that of those 37 comments, most of them were mostly to expand within the city of Kasa Grande. Uh, we had a couple of people that'd like to see us go to Eloy and Arizona City. Someone wanted to have us go up Jimmy Kerr and Ery uh up as far as the I 10 freeway and then travel into Phoenix and Gilbert. So, uh, and then, uh, our friends at Lucid made a request to expand service in that direction as well. So after all this data was gathered after the 30-day period, staff took a look at all that. We looked at some possibilities um and then we brought it to TAC and and they reviewed and and um had an opportunity to really seriously look at, you know, what could be done other than what was planned to do. What else could we do? And the the bottom line is to expand further than what was planned, it really degradates the system. And I know that just sounds trit, but when you have more area to serve with the same amount of time and hours, you can't cover it as

well. And that's why the folks that did the planning of that five-year transit plan before I was on board, you know, um they they had the the wherewithal and the knowledge to know that this is lit what you can do and do it well and realistically. So we wouldn't have late excessive late pickups and drop offs. We wouldn't have a reduction in the number of available trips. We wouldn't see excessive ride times. That's when you're on the vehicle and traveling to another point or your destination. and it and and and we didn't want to affect the reliability and quality of the service. So, what the tech did and and they looked again they looked at all of this in earnest um they liked to stick with the plan that was originally laid out for us as phase four in that five-year transit plan with the caveat of adding that little section again. Let me go back north of Courtzson. And what that does is and we had I have received requests to serve this area. The um let me look real quick because I forget names. Um the Kasa Verdia Estates and Rancho Val Vista communities. So, knowing that and the fact that there's two other similar parks in that region and the the um um the apartment complex and some of the other businesses, what TAC decided to do is what you see provided here uh or submitted here.

Um let me move on. So the other big question is the car's act how all this is funded. Uh when the city received a 2.5 a little over two and a half million dollar cares act fund which was transit money without any local match requirement. We knew that we had two to two and a half years. And as it turns out we're going to hit that two and a half year mark in March of this year March of 2026. And then we will go back to our formula funding and that's where the local share of costs or local funds are going to be required. So what I'm depicting here and this is I anticipated that you were going to have these questions. So this is why we're going to be looking at this at this time. In this little um table we can see we have the data for July through November of this fiscal year. But let me explain this to you very quickly. Um at the very top in the green there's two columns. One says remaining grant funding and the other and then it says federal share of cost at 100%. So at the beginning of this fiscal year we had $785 and uh $217 in our car's act funds. In July service ran a 75,905. You can see in the in the column to the right of that where our remaining grant balance has been deducted by that 75,000. So when we got to the end of November, we have not seen the December bill yet. We had a 422,805 remaining balance and car's act is paying 100% of the charges that are our monthly operating

charges. Okay. Now let's look into the future. beginning with December through June, the end of this year, there's probably a little more data in here than you need. Um but if we follow this same reasoning when we get over to in the green now you can see we started in December um after we um with 344,256 but once we get to March we only have a remaining balance of 67,738. So in the month of March of 26, we will use up the final amount of our car's act funds and then to the right of that then we begin using our allocation of our section 5307 formula. And what the formula grant does, it covers 50% of the operating costs, which is the bus on the road, you know, doing all that stuff, paying for the drivers, fuel, and again, that's a 50/50 split. Um and from March through the end of the fiscal year we can we know in the most we know how much the estimated operating cost will be in each of those months March April May June and then if we extend so 94,000 5.98 in March and it's all around the 94,000 uh to $90,000 range and that's because there's so many days operating a month and we know what the hourly cost is so we can project how much we expect to be charged. We have never actually been charged the full possible hours because that's sometimes we just don't

operate if there's no passenger need. So we've never hit that maximum. But this is the worst case. If you look again to the right um in the green area, you can see that with regard to our operational costs, it will run 153,509, that's the city's local sh funds, local share, and that's for the balance of this fiscal year. Okay. in next fiscal year and we're working on the budget now but based on these numbers and again we know what hours and days and what to expect in the next fiscal year beginning in July that it'll run our operational costs will run about $47,000 a month and another thing that I wanted to mention is the VHR the one two three four the fifth column that's the vehicle service hourly rate Once we go from three vehicles to four, the fourth, the hourly rate drops um from 8392 to 75.80. So I just wanted to explain what you're looking at on this page. And this was a comparison just for argument sake uh for the balance of this fiscal year. We did a comparison of operating the service with three vehicles like we have so far up to this point and then op and then the cost to operate it with four vehicles at max use. So, what this shows, what this represents is

down on the um I'm I'm not sure how I want to direct this for you to look at, but if we were to operate three vehicles and not make any changes, the cost would be five have $500,40 and 7 $780 to operate three vehicles or 651275 afford to operate four vehicles. The bottom line is this would be an additional $110,000. Um again, that boils down to 55,000 uh um in addition the local cost that we would be paying out of pocket. So this was a comparison of three to four vehicles and just as an option. So um that was bonus uh fiscal data provided to you. Um I just want to go back to the point that um this has been a very successful service as you know we've provided nearly 80,000 trips in a little over two years time. Um, we are probably providing we we probably have about um I would say 20 um probably about 40 to 60% of our riders are regular riders and then the balance are occasional and each month we still do have new riders that haven't ridden with us before. So, we're still growing and expanding in that area. Um, with that I wondered if you have any questions.

Thank you, Tim. Okay, any questions, comments? Sure. Bob, does the cost of going from three vehicles to four vehicles, does that include hiring an additional driver? Yes, the cost of the driver's salaries, their training, uh, is included in the vehicle service hour rate. Okay.

And actually, we're we have a three-year contract with, um, with our contractor, um, RK, um, RTW out of um, Salt Lake City, and we have already budgeted this year, the first three years worth of budget, and we did plan on a reduction in the vehicle service hour rate. Um, which is typical in the industry. If you're putting more vehicles on the road and it's a more mature service, some of those costs actually go down. So, that rate, yes, the drivers are included in that rate. Okay. And the addition of the drivers. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to say um first of all, we do appreciate all the work that you all done behind the scenes and especially with adding this piece. Um I knew from the beginning that this was going to the people north side's going to be like we need this we need this this transit right and you're including now the post office. Yes. With this one. Um, and from the area where I live at, I have a lot of them are asking for transit service. And so, and with us moving this way, this going to be great for our city. Um, I love the vehicles. The vehicles are very nice,

you know, and um, just appreciate all that you all doing and and the service that you provide for the citizens of Cassand. And I I just knew we were going to be going north. I know it and so and we're going to be planning for for some other things too down the road probably as well. That's we have two more phases to go. Yeah. Question. Sure. Just want to say thanks to our uh trans advisory advisory committee too. Done a lot of work and I know Mike's here. He's done he started from the get-go on it. Um so thank you. And uh but what was our projected riership? Do you remember when we first started? because I think it was uh pretty low compared to

it. It really was. I was I I think I remember telling y'all that I would be very happy if we hit 20,000 in our first year and we far exceeded that. We haven't we're finding kind of a a common or level um area, a sweet spot of of our wrership and what people are doing. I didn't provide a heat map. Um, but we I can at at some point in the future, but there's a lot of commonality. There's a lot of people doing the same thing. And, you know, I I have to advocate for the service and just say, you know, how are these trips being provided before? You know, how are people getting to jobs or to training or to do the things they need to do, medical appointments? They're adding to the city sales tax. you know, I mean, there's some positives that come with this.

Thanks. Questions, comments. Just a quick question. Uh, how long is the lifespan of those vehicles? Oh, that's a good question. We have five vehicles and they're all different. So, it's based on the vehicle type, and our larger vehicles have a 14-year life. Well, it's 14 years or x amount of miles. The smaller vehicles are two minivans. They're going to have a shorter lifespan of seven years or x amount of miles, which is about 160,000 miles versus 250,000 miles. Okay.

Um we have a vehicle that's already exceeded its useful life, but you know what? It's actually still useful and we're using it. So, um, we do not, um, we don't have a common type of vehicle like some service is just everything's the same. So, ours is going to be all over the place, right? And those vehicles are provided by the contractor uh that they purchased a new vehicle for this expansion and that did not that again that was built into the cost that they're charging us. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

No, well, thank you, Deb. Thank you for the update. Um, again, it's it's exciting to see where we've come with this. Of course, Mike, you know, I was on that committee with you years and years ago. So, it is exciting to see, no surprise that the wrership is growing and um the expansion is necessary. But, you know, I know when we talked about expanding, data was really important on, you know, where we were going to expand, when we were going to expand, and to make sure it was successful. But um but all your planning and executing against everything it has brought us to to the success of the program. So so that data is is important you know as we evaluate all this and it looks like those numbers definitely justify the the expansion. So so in in the end you you said it's going to to go to the fourth vehicle it's about $55,000 um annually. Is that for next year or is that for this year? The remaining

in the next fiscal year. So this year we're looking at about 153,000 in local funds. In local funds. Okay. My screen just went blank. So I don't Okay. So where did I get the 55,000 per per year? Oh, it's about 47,000 per month. It'll run year month. Okay. Yeah. Oh, here it is. This it. Yeah. Was that the difference between having three vehicles? Three or four? Yes. Three versus four. Correct. That's No, that's with the fourth. Okay. Okay. Yeah, there it is right there.

Because we get the the match on there, right? Okay. Okay. Well, I mean, it's it's great to finally use some of these monies. for years we were we weren't utilizing the funds the the resources that we had access to right so it is good to have this okay any other questions comments okay so it looks like we are what are we it's a resolution yeah the resolution number so we'll go ahead and move forward with the resolution number please

resolution number 5372 a resolution of the council of the city of Cagran Arizona amending resolution number 5372.1 to expand the service area for the CG link transit service and authorizing the execution of documents by the city manager. Mayor Field, I move that we approve resolution number 5372.2 as presented. Second. Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Okay, if we can get a roll call vote, please. Council member Rammo. Yes. Council member Dugan. Yes. Council member Edwards. Yes. Council member Hston. Yes. Council member Herman. Yes.

Mayor Protemp Dylan. Yes. Mayor Fitzgiven. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Deb. And great job. Congratulations on moving that forward too. So exciting. Okay. Next item K3.

Yes, Madam Mayor. Item K3 is a motion to authorize the city manager to negotiate an effluent purchase agreement for up to,300 acre feet uh per year of direct delivery effluent with Cactus LL Cactus 110 LLC provided that the infrastructure delivery system shall be the sole expense of Cactus 110 and with any agreement subject to review and approval by the mayor and council. And I thought I would give uh I know the mayor and council is very familiar with the project uh the the the copper mining project uh but I'd like to give a bit of a history for those that may be watching for the first time and ultimately incorporate some of the affluent goals and objectives that we've had as a city as we as we consider this particular motion in 2019. The Asarco copper mine which was known in our community as the Sacone mine uh and was operated in the 70s and 80s was originally acquired by Elim mining. It is uh currently being redevelop by redeveloped by Arizona Sonor and Copper Company with its subsidiary Cactus 110 LLC holding the land and mineral rights. The intention of the company was to study the areas and establish a development plan to reopen the mine for operation. Through various uh uh evaluations and studies uh during this period, it has been determined that the cactus mine project contains a significant copper resource and should advance towards commercial mining using a variety of mining uh options to produce the copper cathodes. The overall projection suggests um and you and I know that many of you heard this at a recent study session by the company uh thousands of tons of copper uh being produced over a multi-deade mine life potential potentially uh producing somewhere I'll say a 100,000 tons per year but certainly with the uh with a output of in the billions of

pounds with a within the lifetime of the mine the project uh for Cas Grand is a is a bit unique in that the copper uh that the current open pit as well as various land holdings that are currently around the mining operation are within panel county. The company has also acquired various land holdings that are within the incorporate city limits. Incorporated city limits for those within the incorporated city limits. Past councils have approved the land entitlements for their mining operations to expand. An economic impact analysis uh has been conducted by the company which has determined that their project would generate hundreds of direct jobs during operations and indirect jobs through local economic activity. The over uh the overall impact uh uh projected billions of dollars in local and state activity during the life of the mine. I know we've heard it's equivalent to a Super Bowl um every couple of years or every year uh in our in our state and our community. The company has also conducted several surveys within the community in Panol County. The polling and community engagement initiative suggest strong support from the constituents for reopening and operating the mine. Uh the company presented to the mayor and council in a study session format providing an overview and timeline of the project a few months ago. At that time, the company suggested that they anticipate finalizing their feasibility studies in 2026. This would lead to advancing the project for financing and construction phase within a 24-month period with the first production of copper to commence somewhere in the 2029 uh time frame. The company has acquired the appropriate permits to pump groundwater for the project. However, the company seeks to uh demonstrate responsible water stewardship to the community of Kasa Grande and as such has made a request from the city to acquire treated effluent for use in their mining operation and dust control with a goal of preserving groundwater within the

community and the decre and decreasing the volume of discharge to the north branch of the Sanders Cruise Wash once the appropriate delivery infrastructure is constructed to the site site by cactus mine. They have also indicated a willingness to construct and maintain the delivery infrastructure over the course of the term of the proposed agreement of any proposed agreement. They uh the company has has taken the necessary steps to conduct testing of our treated effluent and have found that the uh the treated effluent to be well suited for their copper mining operations. They have also conducted initial engineering on the delivery line and have found a fluent gravity flow uh could be utilized from our dischar discharge point at our water reclamation facility to their site of location. that I I know we've been talking about this uh madame mayor and members of the council for several meetings, but certainly over the course of the last several years. The city's goal is to allocate effluent to recharge uh to recharge earning long-term storage credits as well as direct use by customers who have acquired the resource. As of 2024, the water reclamation facility process approximately 6,300 acre feet with deliveries to man to our managed recharge facility located on the Santa Cruz Wash uh and of approximately 4,300 acre feet of of uh effluent which essentially generated approximately 2,000 acre feet of long-term storage credits each year. I know we talked about that at the study session about that variance. Um, and ultimately we're anticipating that ADWR will be will be providing us the most updated uh long-term storage credits accounts. But ultimately what we find is that uh is that we have a variance between what we deliver to our managed recharge facility to what is actually generated. Part of that is is actually created by uphill uh upstream disturbances, storm water

runoff, uh uh various irrigation districts running through the wash. We do not generate credits at that point in time. In fact, we as of 2024, we calculated that unearned amount of effluent to be roughly 1,300 acre feet 1,350 acre feet of effluent that we essentially ran down the wash, but had no credit either through recharge or reuse. The mayor and council is aware of the fact that we currently distribute direct uh direct use uh 540 acre feet to the Dave White golf course and roughly 1,200 acre feet per year to the Desert Basin for use in their industrial um in their industrial efforts, processing efforts. staff believes that entering into an effluent agreement, purchase agreement with Cactus 110 would allow the city to ensure beneficial reuse of the effluent uh reduce the mine's reliance on groundwater and still give the city flexibility with the remaining u effluent resources. And again, I know that we're still in a bit of study phase of that, but essentially from at least from our chair, the goal is that we maximize the recharge into long-term storage credits and we direct deliver the effluence so that we essentially are not losing any type of credit or any type of value for those particular for uh for that particular treated effluent. Accordingly, staff recommends that the mayor and council adopt the motion, which will provide cactus 110 with evidence of the city's intent to negotiate in agreement in good faith and allow them to proceed with their feasibility reports as part of the opening the mind. That is a very key element to to the company. Uh I know they articulated it during their presentations uh along the way. Uh they've been very very patient. They actually made the initial request to to acquire effluent early upon their arrival. Um, as the mayor and council is aware, we have we uh were actually processing a application for a

designation of insured water supply. We were uh told and felt as if that any changes to any type of modeling would have an impact on that application. And so so they've waited patiently but are in need to finalize their feasibility reports. As such, the motion uh is made and recommended as suggested to to give them a bit of a bit of comfort in knowing that we are still uh looking to best maximize our effluent and to actually limit the pumping of groundwater out of out of the out of our aquifers. And so with that, Madame Mayor, I'll stand for any questions. Thank you, Larry. Any questions, comments? No.

Well, I'll go. But go ahead. I want to thank Larry and Stephen and the team and then the the Cactus Mind team. It's been a long road and a lot of work, but uh appreciate everybody sticking in there. And it's interesting how it works out, right? We've been doing all this studying about water and we have this water going down the wash. We're getting no credit for and we'll be able to put it to use, which will also leave more water in the ground, which as we learned earlier is very important at this juncture in our community. So, seems like a pretty good deal and uh for everyone and I know there's there's a lot of uh uh economic investment on the mind's part for infrastructure and costs and everything too uh to be better stewards of the environment. So, I think it's going to work out pretty well and I'm glad that we finally got to this point. So, thanks for your work on it, Larry, too. I know I know Larry lost sleep at least one night.

Any other questions? No. And no, thank you. and cactus miner. You know, we we appreciate your guys's, you know, partnership and dealing with the city of Casran. As you can see, it's pretty complex issue. I think the study session was great. You know, earlier when we talked about, you know, conservation and um you know, with water and you can see this is one of the strategies is using effluent. And so we've been trying to move forward on this affluent policy and it looks like we'll hope to have something um in March moving forward. But um hopefully this just reassures that our commitment. It's just we're really just kind of waiting for the and getting you know Arizona Department of Water Resources getting back with us um is why we've kind of you know slowed down on on on this process. But um so yeah. So with that, I guess Larry, so we just need to make a motion for this and then and then what will be the next steps?

Thank you, mayor. I was I was actually going to mention that that obviously uh any type of agreement is subject to the review and approval by the mayor and council. Okay. And uh we ultimately will uh finalize uh an agreement for review. Obviously, I understand the desire on the part of the uh community and the elected body to ensure that we are uh that that the that the various provisions of the development agreement protect the city from from the use of effluent. So, we'll be looking at that very seriously. But ultimately the next step would be once that agreement is finalized, it would be coming back before the mayor council. It'll come back before us. Okay. Okay. So, we'll just have we just need a motion then.

Yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, I move to approve the agreement with uh Cactus 110 LLC for the proposed use of effluent water. Madame Mayor, yes, I think I think the agreement is not done. So, we don't want to make a motion to approve the agreement. Approve the I think the action the motion would be to authorize manager negotiate the agreement. That's what I Thank you. Mayor Fisk, I move to authorize a city manager to um negotiate an effluent purchase agreement on the Cactus 110. Second. Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, mayor.

Thanks again. Okay. What are we on next? Okay. L1. Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of the council. Well, we are entering election year, so this is uh just in time. I I will be presenting to you tonight the proposed text amendment to the city sign code, specifically section 6043A, which regulates political and campaign signs. Thank you.

Uh the purpose of this amendment is to bring our local sign regulations into alignment with the Arizona Revised Statutes to clarify the time frames when political signs can be displayed before and after elections. Currently, our sign code allows political signs to be placed no earlier than 60 days prior to the election and requires them to be removed within 10 days after the election. The proposed language updates the these time frames to reflect the state statute. Under the amendment, political signs could be displayed up to 71 days before the election and must be removed within 15 days after. In addition, there is a new provision for candidates who advance from the primary election to the general election. Their signs could remain in place through that period and must be removed within 15 days after the general election. To summarize the changes, the pre-election period increases from 60 to 71 days and the postelection removal window extends from 10 days to 15 days. Staff has received no public comments concerning this proposed amendment. This item was heard by the planning and zoning commission and was unanimously uh recommended to the city council for approval. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Well, love this song. I think I'm going to use that now. Um, okay. No, thank you. Appreciate it. Any, um, questions, comments? No, I'm glad we're, you know, I mean, obviously we needed to do this, but the only thing I mentioned to Larry earlier, Adriana, was to make sure that those people that pulled packets that you might have the old information in, to make sure that we're sharing that with any candidates that we've given um, the old dates. Yeah. Yeah. We'll send it updated once it's uh cured.

Right. Okay. Um Okay. So, it is a public hearing, right? So, I need to open it up for a public hearing. Is there anyone that would like to come up and speak on this? Okay. I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and if we can get a resolution number, please. Resolution number 5879. A resolution of the mayor and the council of the city of Cassagrant, Arizona, declaring as a public record that certain document entitled the February 2026 amendment to the sign code of the city of Cassagrant. Mayor Fitzgians, I move to approve resolution number 5879 as presented. Second.

Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Okay, if we can get a roll call vote, please. Council member Remo, yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Huston, yes. Council member Herman, yes. Mayor Promp Dylan, yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, yes. Motion carries.

Okay. And if we can't get an ordinance number next. Ordinance number 3493, an ordinance of the city of Cagran, Arizona, amending section 6043A of the city code of the city of Cassagrand concerning political and campaign signs, adopting the February 2026 amendment to the city code of the city of Cassagrand by reference, preserving the rights and duties that have already matured and proceeding that have already begun there, establishing the survability of the various sections of the ordinance, and establishing an effective Mayor Fiven, I move that we approve ordinance number 3493 as presented. A second.

Okay, there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? If we can get a roll call vote, please. Council member Ramo, yes. Council member Dugan, yes. Council member Edwards, yes. Council member Hen, yes. Council member Herman, yes. Mayor Prom Dylan, yes. Mayor Fitzgiven, yes.

Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, before we go into executive session, I think we have reports. So, um, if we can go ahead and start with Rebecca, um, I want to say first, happy new year to everybody. And then I also wanted to mention the unity march on January 15th that uh, Cactus Middle School, CGMS, Belago, Cottonwood, Palivvery, and Coyle will be participating in. It is a simulation activity similar to Dr. King's March on Washington and it was also something that was recognized in 2011 for promoting cultural diversity by the Arizona Parks Rectory Parks and Reich Association. So we'll all start at Lancola. We'll walk down to Par Park where we'll have a little rally and then um Anthony Edwards will be there speaking and it's something that we've been doing for quite some time. time. It's something that the kids enjoy and we also learn a lot about the history and why we're doing that and so it's a really important thing for our students for our community.

And then in addition to that um we are doing a sock drive at Cottonwood Palver the district office and cactus to support the MLK uh day of service. What time is the unity march does it start? We start at 12:30 and then we walk. The rally starts at 1. Okay. Thank you, Anthony.

Um, also on MLK day, we'll have our annual day of service on the 19th and we're asking that you know that the council if anybody's free that day, come out and join us. Um we will be uh giving away um food to the homeless as well as feeding all of our workers. Um this is our fourth year in doing that. Um we're looking forward to we will have a choir singing. I'll be singing too. Um and also um we'll be um of course serving the food to all of our workers. Um the serving of the food that we'll be giving away um will start at 900 a.m. and then the service itself will go about 30 minutes and that starts at 10. And so about 10:35 then we'll be sending all of our workers out. They'll be cleaning up in the area, different areas throughout CG and then when they'll be coming back and we'll feed them and then we call it a day, but that'll be our day of service. And just want to say that our youth come out in big support of this. Our youth commission will be there. Um all the high school football teams will be there. Rotary uh I mean a lot of youth about 400 um will be there. And so I just wanted to make mention of that on the 19th of January. Also, I wanted to make mention I I know uh uh Councilman Hules already mentioned about Judge Ellsworth, a good friend of mine as well. We also lost Allan Church, principal uh here at uh Casan Union High. I think he was also a junior high too

as well. And so, um, it's will be this coming Saturday at the Presbyterian Church, and I believe that starts at 11 a.m. Just wanted to make mention of that as well as we're praying for the Ellsworth family and the church family. Thank you. Amen.

Thank you. Um, also on January 17th is the downtown street fair annual. um car show, vendor booths, shows, bands, music, all kinds of stuff. So, go down there all day on Saturday and then continue on to Sunday. But the car show is on Saturday and that's a huge one. So, see everybody there. Beautiful weather. Um the youth commission is planning their uh trip to Washington DC. So, they're looking for donations for that. And Aidenary is helping. Um and we appreciate it. And there is a meeting on Thursday at 4 for anyone interested in helping them out um at the rec center. So if you need more information, contact myself and I can help you get that what you need. Um another neat thing about Cassagrand is when we had the state championship football team a few years ago, one member Grant Johnson was on there and went to high school with his mom actually and he walked on to Alabama team and was in the Rose Bowl last week. So, we got another good sports story from Cass Grand of of local people. So, that was pretty neat.

And also, I want to thank Danny, uh, Kevin, Stephen, um, helping to work with Holly from Main Street and the tourism board about a mountain biking event hopefully coming to the city in March. That would Yeah. So, it' be pretty neat to have a youth mountain biking competition here. So, takes a I talked earlier together we can move mountains and literally we're kind of going to move part of the mountain so we can have this thing. So thanks. So it'll be a lot of fun and as we get it solidified we'll let everybody know about it. Good. Thank you. Thanks Brent. Uh no updates. Okay. No report. Thank you. No reports.

Good. Hopefully you had a great holiday. That's why you relaxing holiday.

No. And and and happy new year to everyone. And I just really wanted to, I think I brought it up the last meeting, just just thank everyone in the community for all the, you know, everything that people do for our community. It just, it's amazing to see all the outreach and and um the, you know, what people give to to those community members. And I did go to the Blue Santa event with Cash Police Department and just amazed what the police department does. Um just your team of volunteers, chief. I mean, it was just I think they served um 700 students, you know, with gifts. And I'm not talking one gift. They received, you know, maybe five or six or so gifts for each kid. And it was so organized, a welloiled machine on what they do, having these families come in and you had your Santa there, blue Santa. Um but u but just thank you to your team and the team of volunteers for everything they do on top of everyone else in the community. And just thank you to the city staff. It was a great year last year. You know, so much going on. And so, thank you for just being open and, you know, just all of us working together to make sure that we serve the community. Looking forward to 2026. We know we have a lot of challenges moving forward, but, you know, hopefully moving together and and working with the community, we can continue to, you know, move move forward in our our growing strong community. So, thank you. Um, the MLK, you know, committee, both of them. Thank you to your group. you know, it's important to see celebrate. You know, we celebrate this day and so it's important for our community to see why we celebrate. So, I'm just, you know, truly grateful to both of your groups for what you're doing to make sure that we as a community are celebrating Martin Luther King. So, I look forward I'll be there at both of the events. So, look forward to that. Um, on this Friday, Panel Partnership has for any of the council and anyone else that want to attend, the Panel County mayors are going to be there kind of presenting on our cities. you know, what we've achieved, what we're doing moving forward. So, if anyone would like to attend that um

early breakfast at 7:30, um that's this Friday. Just let um Larry know. And um as the legislative session is getting closer to starting, I know one of our goals and objectives is to make sure that we're on top of, you know, what's happening there. you know, we met with Senator or Representative Martinez and um Lopez and and next week, I think it is, we're going to be meeting with um show um Senator Shop again um to discuss, you know, some issues on, you know, um the what what's going to happen in the legislature and what we're looking for. So, we'll be meeting with them. Thank you to Rob. Rob is kind of been coordinating some of the activities with our um legislators um in this for this new session coming up. So, look forward to that. And so if there's anything you guys want to talk about, I know we we've talked about some of the issues when it comes to transportation, local control, um you know, housing, things like that is what we'll continue to talk about with our with our legislature. But let me know if there's anything else. And um lastly is the chamber award um dinner is January 23rd and wanted to congratulate Matt Herman will be recognized um for community service award. Very welldeserved. So congratulation Matt um on that. So if anyone would like to attend that dinner is um January 23rd. So again I think that's it with me and we'll go ahead and move forward into executive session if we can get a motion to go into executive session. Second.

Okay. All those in favor please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Exe. Okay.