Council - Regular Meeting

Frank if you can I mean you can

city council Okay, I will open this city council special meeting uh May 14, 2026. The time is 8:04. Um city clerk, will you please do roll call?

Mayor Kidman, here. Vice Mayor Pharaoh, here. Councelor Hammond, here. Councelor Hedinger here. Councelor Peller here. Councelor Cojan here. Councelor Roundtree here. Thank you. One item on the for business. I'll turn it over to the city manager for our preliminary budget.

Thank you, mayor, members of council. Uh want to present to you our fiscal year 27 budget for the city of Paige. Um, today we'll be doing it uh maybe different than years past, but it it should work. We're going to got a little introduction first, then we'll look at um the revenue projections. Um then we'll go through and if council members have any questions on any of the operating budgets, we we can run just run through the book on that. Um then I've got some slides for the capital portions of the project. Um the equipment in the projects then we'll talk about the staffing requests. Um a little bit about a the CIP budget which is the look ahead CIP and look ahead and then we'll let you know what the schedule is for approving the budget. So

yeah, this budget we've been I guess Linda working on this since February

hard since February. So entire staff has been working on this for about three or four months. Pretty solid. So a lot of work has gone into this so far. Um here just a reminder of the city's strategic vision um that we're ecoourism based. We're the center of the grand circle. Um we strive to be fiscally responsible and provide a diverse economy that offers housing, health care, employment opportunities as well as entertainment, dining, and recreational choices. Um, also with the budget in mind, our values, our teamwork and collaboration, accountability, transparency, and proactive communication, fiscal responsibility, integrity, customer service, and continued strategic planning. Um, and this was from the from the meeting a year ago, February. Just always want to keep in mind these strategic priorities of housing, infrastructure, safety, and security, communication, quality of life, and economic development. Most of our uh capital expenditures are centered around these these priorities. So, now we get into the meat of it. Um, with the budget this year, we're we're running a little bit more than last year. Um, not too much. The total expenses we're looking at is about 110 million. Um,

so Linda, that net change is down 16 million or is that the fund balance change? The fund balance is

Oh, the fund balances are going down about 16 million. So, um, we've got very healthy fund balances. So, this budget as proposed does eat into those fund balances a little bit, but but not much. It's a um and how we look at that is Adam, have you got a mic? So, I had part of the revenue is our is our economic outlook and Adam looked at the tourism outlook. So, the next couple slides we've got he can talk about that a little bit.

Thank you. Uh so obviously no one has a crystal ball when it comes to predicting future trends in tourism. Uh however, it's really important to to to try to determine to the best we can what that's going to look like. So um in general uh international visitation remains strong uh particularly in key Asian and European travelers. Uh Canadian visitation uh appears to be strengthening compared to earlier, which is good news. Uh domestic leisure travel demand has softened regionally. However, Paige continues to be outperforming many comparable Southwest tourism markets such as Flagstaff and Las Vegas. So Flagstaff Revar is down about 7%. Las Vegas even more. Uh right now we're looking at 11%. Paige is only down 5%. So uh we're we remained uh a resilient destination in terms of um the numbers and and where do these numbers come from? Uh a lot of it is from AOT and what they provide from uh the RMI trip report, Herman Global, uh some of their various partners that provide data. We're also looking at Co-Star data for occupancy in the hotels. And then also we're kind of looking at it from a a countrytocountry basis to see what those trends are and um and how we can kind of predict what uh what those could look like in the future. So um ultimately, you know, fiscal year 24 and 25 were outliers. Uh we saw a lot of strength those years. And so basically what what we're expecting is kind of a return to normal. So, still growth, but not as much growth. Uh, so you'll see the the bars on the chart that um that have the cross-hatches on them and the diagonal

lines. Those are predictions. So, as you can see, not an not an a large amount of growth like we've seen previously, but the good news is is we're not really expecting uh any serious decline. So we're also looking at the broader economic uh picture um to to make that determination. Uh if you look at what's going on in the stock market right now, uh things do look really good in a lot of sectors. So um you know uh in general people spend more when the economy is doing good. They uh they have that uh higher level of comfort and they they want to go out and travel. So, um, as far as we can tell now, this is this is basically what, uh, we're anticipating, um, as far as fiscal year 27 as well as the remaining for this fiscal year as well.

All right. Thanks. So, when you look at the revenue as a whole, um, this is how our our funds are are kind of split up. The uh actually the largest fund is our capital projects fund at 32 million. So we do supplement that with grants. This year we're expecting about 15.6 about 30 million in the general fund and about 7 and a half million in land sales. Um that's our prediction for what would actually close this year on the land sales. Uh we did include 4.3 million for the Tan Arena. We we expect that to close during fiscal year 27. Um we got Horseshoe Bin running about 4 million revenue and then the golf fund at 2.6. So maybe one thing to look at is how does that compare to to last year? So last year the revenues were were 87.3 million. Um and this year we're expecting a little bit more revenue at 94.3 million. Um, and so at this point maybe is there any questions we could answer about the revenue side of things?

If not, we can move on. Let me um since we can't see their hands, I'll ask our Oh, you can see their hands. Okay, Cindy will tell me if they raise a hand. I don't see those. And if questions come up later on, we can tackle those, too. So, okay. But

this is kind of trying to explain our thought process of how we figure out how much money we should be taking in. So, um then we get to some of the fund balances. Uh we've got an emergency reserve fund balance of of 12 million. Um that's per ordinance and that that balance is fully funded and we don't intend to eat into that. So, we'll maintain that. So, then if we're going through our budget book, we start hitting the the operating budgets. And here here's where I'll just ask council um as we go through these operating budgets. Um we'll go through the book and if council members have any questions on any of the operating budgets, we can kind of take them from there. Uh, I just put it in alphabetical order so we can run through the book with one exception of Horseshoe Bend. Deb might have to leave us early. So, um, I wanted to go ahead and take her first. So, if we run through the the Horseshoe Bin operating budget, um, page 63, Okay, hang on. Let me get to it.

Um, it's way back there. It better be everybody's book, right? I hope so. I'm not sure. Okay. So, what we've got is um be pretty close to last year, Deb. Right. So, uh, any questions for Deb on the Horseshoe Ben budget from council?

No questions. Okay, with that maybe we'll move to the next one. It's a city attorney. So that's where I figured these we might not have many questions on these. So that's where I figured we would just run through them because a lot of them are fairly standard year-to-year expenses. So, um Josh, I think your budget

it's under fairly similar. We did I think maybe add a little bit for a clerk or something. I asked for it. Yeah. Yeah. So, say that again. A part-time Oh, that's been You've been trying to fill that for a while. Well, no. This is a this is a new position to assist with um primarily with video redaction. That's become a real challenge of redacting all the body cam videos. Right now, Narina's kind of doing all of that in addition to all of our other and requires her to come in almost every weekend to do that. And

just to note, I was incorrect. That's not in the budget yet. We don't have any new positions in the in the budget yet, but it's it's towards the end of the the meeting. But, uh, as long as we're here, I figured we How far back is city attorney? Why? We're not finding it. It's under city administration, and it's the first page under city administration.

We're on page 12. So, we actually cut some operating expenses and the total is only up 3%.

So, I have a question then. So, you cut down um contract services and that's down a lot from 2025 and 2026. So, if you ended up needing more, would that have to go into an emergency? I mean, where would you get the funds if you ended up needing more contract services? Um, so from the I don't have my assistant city attorney prosecutor position filled. So there's extra there. Um, unless I fill that and pay them at the top of the range that's budgeted for that. So typically from there, there's usually some other places. Um, and then it would be a contingency if you know if if I needed more. But I don't expect that. But if you want to put more in there, that's fine.

Well, I it's not that I am, it's just down and I am I I believe that we're going to be expecting um needs for contract services. So yeah, I mean the 65,000 should be plenty to cover anything that comes up in a day-to-day type of situation where that would really balloon and be problematic as is if there were litigation and I don't see any knock on wood on the horizon there. But I've heard that there was and that's why I was concerned about that. So

nothing that our insurance doesn't. So when we have litigation against a city that's like a you know we have some going on right now a couple of different cases that are um or claims or whatever that are pending out there but those are um all situations where the insurance would provide the defense. So and that's typically what we would see if we have litigation against the city most of the time our insurance is going to provide the defense. So if it's um typically if it's like employee related issues or tors you know slip and fall all that kind of stuff um our insurance provides the defense on that so I don't have to hire an attorney to do that. So it's it's um but if the only time that we would have well not the only but like contra breach of contract would be something that we would have to defend. I just individuals from the no data center have told me that they're definitely going to bring suit and cause against the city and challenge us and everything.

Yeah. Soon. So that's where I was just concerned whether that will happen or not. All I know is that a couple on the group have told me that they're definitely planning that. So they haven't filed anything with the city. So I'm not aware of anything like that. But Okay. Uh, next up, city clerk and Cindy, I guess you council is your budget, too. Yes. So, I don't know if you want to say anything about it or

any questions about the city clerk or city council budget. It's pretty much the same as last year. So, are do you have three full-time employees or two and a half times? Well, it's two employees and then myself, right? But all three of you are a full-time. I thought the last time it was two full and one half. No, just just the two full-time and then me. Okay. Last time you were trying to get that third one filled, but it was problematic, right? Well, no. I got I got the third one filled and then Yeah. But then she wasn't here that long. Yeah. And then I refilled it.

And refilled All right, changes there. So then next we go to city manager. What page are we at, Linda?

15. So, here we've got um we it looks like substantial increases and the big thing is in the contract services. Um, in this we have the continued 120,000 for the lobbyists. This is where we put the 150,000 if if council wants staff to look at child care services. Um, that's where this money is. um the $350,000 match for the quality connections that microtransit system that NICOG came and did the presentation on. That's where this is and that's that's the big increase you see there from the 350 to the 700. So, um that's really the the big thing there. Um and I'd be happy to entertain any questions with that. Do

councelor Roundry.

Um yes. So um I'm questioning the lobbyists. We questioned it last year and we said that we'd go forward with that lobbyist position, but I'm I'm just concerned that that's a lot of money for one city. That would be a we can hire our own full-time person. and he handles lots. Amy lobbies for a lot of different individuals. We could have a full-time position there for somebody to go down and lobby throughout the state with different organizations. So, I just have concerns. I haven't seen um the value there as much as I had hoped that that would bring. And then for the 150k for the child care services, it's been in here a couple time in a row now that that's been available. But if we're not going to advertise, and it is definitely on um our um strategic priorities, and we know um that our employees need it, we know we have officers and and um city employees that definitely need this. And so if we're not going to be advertising or putting it out there or are or making it known to the community that we're interested and we're looking for this service and I know that other entities in town, some of the other major players in town have told me when is this going to happen or asked is this is going to move forward because they would be partners in this project. So I definitely want to see the 150 for child care services to stay in there and then but I want us to do something about it. I want us to be proactive about it.

Okay. Uh and I'm definitely like the grant writer is a definite we need grant writer. That's crucial for us.

Okay. Yeah. and and we've we've talked about this one on oneonone and and from a city perspective, I I just for the all of council's benefit, I struggle with the the early child care part as a city government because I'm not sure where it fits in. Um, usually that's more of a a county or state government function. Um, some cities I think do that. But what we what I would propose we look at if council does want to move forward with this 150,000 is as we look at some way to maybe uh figure out how to do that. Is it is council looking at this just for employees or is it the whole community to establish a daycare center? My understanding was we and I may be wrong on some of the other council members was that since there was the IGA aspect of this was that with the city was willing to put forth this much money to team up but not necessarily try to run a daycare but it was just to help support the existence of the daycare that could be of benefit to city employees and whatever the other entity.

Yeah. whichever entities were going to join. When the county came up here and we were looking at it, um they were trying to bring a group of professionals together. Um a a group of employers together and so it was this was going to be a nonprofit and it was going to be a group effort in town to Okay. So, we aren't going to be running the dayare and as long as the word is out that we have this fund available for the you know that talk to us if you're wanting to try to start up a daycare. We may be able to hop on and help. I don't know how to how how does that work with legal issues but

yeah I mean we're so if it as long as it's done correctly then yeah that that's that's a little bit so there's two kind of tracks here my understanding was always that we were talking about partnering with the school district that was what Darren's kind of and that's what the money was budgeted for with was an IG with the school district to to run a joint daycare for our employees and maybe for some of the the rest, but primarily focus on the two entities and their employees. If we get into a situation where we're looking at so that's

doing a grant to a private business to start up a daycare or more on the economic development side or something like that, then there's different legal considerations from the standpoint of how we have to approach that and the value that we have to get as the city organization. Um, and so they're very different approaches to um, and I think I don't know. I guess we would need some direction or uh, whatever on on what the council is really anticipating for this money and then we can figure out the legal logistics of how to make it work.

So, if we have that money in there, oh, Councelor Hammond, I'll get you to in just a moment. Um, so we have that money in there, budgeted in there. Then when these opportunities come up, then it can be brought to the council for the for the detailed approval. Is that sound workable or is that Well, I I would maybe rather phrase it rather than wait for the opportunities to come up, if it's in the budget, we need to seek out those opportunities, I would think. So yeah, I I especially with the other governmental w with the IGAs, with the other government entities. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I think it needs to be put out there by a PIO that we're looking to enter in with a nonprofit or um a government agency to support. It's only birth to K childcare facil services. Councelor Hammond.

Uh thank you. I would like to suggest with 150k that's that's not going to create a child care center, right? That's not enough money to do that. But if we want to be proactive and really move the needle towards that, um I would like to see us use at least part of that money this year to hire a consultant to come in um meet with different businesses, meet with other government organizations, develop a plan for us to to help inform us on this is the feasible way to go forward. To me, that would be a sensible, responsible way to spend some of that money this year. Maybe not even all of it. Thank you, Councelor Roundry.

Um, we don't need to hire someone to do this. First things first is had already come a couple years ago to try to facilitate that. There's other government agencies that will facilitate that and already have helped other communities have grants and and and things out there available. Um, and I'm sure that they would be more than willing to come back up here again. Um, and I mean I can't say that they would, but I'm sure I'm pretty sure that they would and they would go ahead and facilitate that just like they were trying to do last time and they did a great job last time they were here. It just kind of got shut down when there were other players at the table and then it was announced that the school district and the city was going to do that and then they were like, well, how about us? We thought we were here for us all to work together. And so I'm thinking this time if they were all brought back to the table and reassured that we were there to work with all of them in an intergovernment agreement, I think that first things first would definitely probably facilitate something like that.

Council Pler, did you have your hand up or no? Um, not on this. I just wanted to circle back to lobbyist at some point, but we're having good discussion on this. So I just want to make sure I'm clear on that. If you're talking about a nonprofit coming in and doing that, would that Josh, would that be a grant that we would have to do for that? I'm I'm getting between the school district, which is a government agency, and then nonprofits, which are private organizations.

Yeah, probably. I mean, it it's kind of two different things whether we're talking about supporting a daycare center for the commu broader community versus for primarily our employees. That's kind of the distinction. And if we go down the nonprofit road, it would probably be more open to the community and it would it could be done, but it would look different. Our approach would look very different than if it were just with the school district. I don't think the school district's going to be interested any longer. They shut down the middle school and they're tied on space now. They before they had lots of extra space and now they don't. So

that's kind of why I'm almost leaning towards uh councelor Hammond's suggestion of even if it's not hiring a consultant, maybe talking to the county or Niko or some organization to maybe get some assistance because um like I said with the way we're set up right now with our government, I'm not sure where our skill set is as far as the employees we have for early childhood care. Um I'm not sure what department that fits in at this point. So, council H or

I'm not sure why you keep going back to that. Our intention was never for the city of Paige to start another entity or hire employees to do this. It was always to partner with a group and First Things First or NACOG. Either one, I'm sure, would be thrilled and excited to support Paige in doing this. So, I we've sat on it for two years. I don't want to hire a consultant and it's going to be another six months or next year before we approach this. I would rather um contact those entities that support these type of services. Um I know that the Trump administration has just recently um made some announcements about um support for these type of entities. Um ma matter of fact, I think it just occurred in this last week or two. So I think it's time that we if we're serious about this and it's one of our strategic priorities, I think it's time for us to push this forward and get it done. whether it's with somebody with a nonprofit or we do could go back to the school district and maybe they do have room available. I've been told that's the reason why they didn't continue to move forward with it is because they lost their space. But um I think we just put a priority and we move forward with this. I don't want to hire and spend money on a somebody else to tell us what to do when we already have county and state um agencies that would be very supportive in this. I think that's what I suggested was maybe going to the county and state.

Yeah, that's what I had suggested when I said first things first. I would let me maybe finish my thought. The uh the problem I'm having with the city government is if we have 150,000, I want to make sure that 150,000 is used properly and is accounted for and spent for what it's meant to be spent for. So trying to figure out where in the city staff who watches over that money and make sure it's going to the right thing. There's been a lot of fraud in daycare lately and I don't want that to happen here. Definitely.

So um that's my concern is if I'm responsible for spending taxpayer money, I want to make sure it's accounted for and spent wisely. And I don't mind going to the county or NICOG. I think that's a great idea to do that. Um, if we want to do that, I just wanted to make sure we have that council has that expectation because we're talking about two or three different things here. We're talking about private nonprofits. We're talking about public. And it's what I think we should do if council wants to leave this in the budget is is have staff come back with some sort of plan, talk to these agencies, come back to to council before we spend that money and present a plan for it.

I like that. Councelor Hammond.

Yeah, Mr. Marberry, I agree with that. I don't think we need to tell you how to skin the cat. You can um figure that out. But I did just want to clarify that the idea around a a consultant or a contractor, if you choose to go down that route, the reason you have my support is because I understand when I look at the org chart, there is not currently a person designated to take on special projects like this. Um, it still takes a lot of manpower or woman power. um even with partners that are available to work with, somebody has to coordinate the meetings with those partners, develop the plans, develop the agendas, develop the agreements. That's not something that I think we currently have the capacity for. So again, um Mr. Marberry, I'm totally comfortable leaving that money in your capable hands to figure out how to skin the cat. I just want you to know that if I if if you need somebody to pick up some slack and put in some extra hours, I support you spending the money that way.

Okay. So, but but so my understanding is that from the council that we'll leave this money in, but we'll develop some sort of scheme that I'll bring back to council before we start spending this money. And sounds great. and understand that it's a priority that has been sitting in the budget unused and needs to get moving. Yes, I like that. All right. Now, we go back to uh maybe the lobbyist question. Um Council Per, you had a question on that one or

just I was just going to say it sounded like there was some some uh push back on that that we might not be getting our money's worth. Um, and I I know I've already uh spoke with uh Manager Marary on the phone about the down the road 50 pages from now uh new position of the assistant city manager. Um, and I just wanted to say that if we wanted to see if we could kind of trade those responsibilities and in-house that, I'd be in favor of it. Um, but I don't necessarily see the need for having both of those on there. Um, I think we're double booking ourselves a lot. I was just wanting to see if there's any interest to go along with that. Councelor Roundree,

I I don't think we need either of those positions. I don't think it's time to have an assistant manager this time. Most of all, because he's caught probably one of the most I mean, his administrative assistant could have easily have applied for the city manager's position with her experience. So, I think he has a really really capable um inroin. So, I'm not seeing that we need an assistant um manager either either of those both of those positions. I quick question. Is there um for the lobbyist, was there a contract date on that lobbyist? It's in the fall

where it started or ended or was is this just a month-to-month continuation agreement? September was when it started and was it for the full 12 months or was it a I cannot I don't know if there's a I don't know if there's a termination provision like you know we x amount of days we can terminate or whatever. I remember when when we when we kind of picked it up for renewal when under interim Brian Hill, it was more of the let's see for a few months if this continues to be worth it or not and then re and then revisit that and make a decision. Yeah. And sorry and I and

Okay. And I was doing research. There's other um entities or other groups or that we can approach for lobbying. My understanding even League of City has um lobbying opportunities and we're a part of League of Cities. So I'm just questioning that that's where we stood was that if we saw the need I mean I was convinced last time I wasn't real in favor for that much for a lobbying position and I believe it was last fall when we redid his contract and it was to see if if we got anything from that and now we need to revisit.

We haven't had a report. We haven't had any updates and you know nothing seems to be happening with the services that we've been paying for. Councelor Hedinger.

So the um councelor Peller I am intrigued by your idea of the assistant city manager versus lobbyist. But in my mind those are two very different functions. Um, I think if we are going to have a lobbyist, it should be someone who is an expert in knowing how the state government works and can truly serve us well. Um, the things that come to mind recently that we've used our lobbyists for are the roundabout. I know that we're looking at additional roundabouts on 89 and then we also have our state trust land potential deal that we're working through. So, I I'm not totally convinced that we don't need a lobbyist. If we're going to keep one, though, I think like everything else, we should have priorities that we're following up with because I agree. I don't feel like we've gotten a ton of recent information or maybe it's just not coming to the whole council and only individuals are aware of it. Um, but I I still do see that there are some things that a a knowledgeable lobbyist could be super helpful. Councelor Hammond and then we'll go over here.

Yeah, I if I understand Councelor Peller's intent, correct me if I'm wrong here, Tom, but um I think it's less about who does the lobbying work as where we find the money for an assistant manager. And so if this is a place where we can cut costs and that assistant manager is seen as more valuable than the lobbyist that we use sometimes and you know we'll see how the state land deal if we're going to move forward on that or not. Hopefully we make a decision today. Um I just I agree with Tom. I think that this is potentially a logical place to cut costs if we feel like that assistant manager position is important.

Council Prowler and then Council Roundree. Yeah, if I can if I can answer that. Um, so the assistant city manager um role is a maximum cost of $222,000. Um, and we just spent I don't know how long discussing that. We don't have a special project skunk works division of of uh city hall. Um, so you know, if if we could bring someone inhouse that covers the duties of the lobbyists and and that performance already, if we can find a way to extract an additional $102,000 out of that, we're coming out ahead. And on top of that, that's money that's being out paid out into the local economy um rather than making it somewhere down to the valley. So, um I don't know enough about the lobbying side of things to understand how much of that is possible to in-house. Um but I I would could see some overlap and and maybe some future potential to take on the the special projects of, you know, daycare and whatnot.

Did you still have a comment, councelor Rantry?

Well, I'm hoping that we enter an agreement with someone who's going to know about daycare and that we're not going to have our hand in it. it just to be a supporting role. I've never seen that we should increase our budget or have more employees or anything for a project like daycare. That's where someone else is going to be running it and we're just going to be supporting it. So, I mean, of course, they would bring back their budget if we're going towards it, but I don't a special project like that, checking on it. It'll I don't know if we want to go with somebody else. I agree with and Kenna Hedinger or councelor Hedinger in regards to we do need someone down who who is a lobbyist, but I we just need to know $120,000 is a lot for the couple things that we've asked and not any information back, no reports, no contacts, no anything from him from a very long time. And so I'm concerned about that. And I still stand that um I'm going to have to be really convinced about assistant um um city manager and and no disrespect, but when we hired someone who had not been a city manager, it was my concern at that time um that it was somebody that could could do what has been done in the past. And so basically, we're going to say now that we replaced the city manager with two or three times in regards to salary. That's a lot. Um, so I'm just not ready to assist as assistant manager at this time. I'm just

We'll we'll be revisiting that that one further into the budget. Um, can we move on to the Well, may or may I Yeah, go. Yes, please talk about my budget. Uh, okay.

The the lobbyist there is they do provide Tom does provide reports to me. I can share those with council. Uh he has been working with the state land board. Um I've kind of got him on hold for that because I'm not I wanted to know where council's direction was on that because it had never even been brought before council before he started lobbying for it um with the state land board. So also he uh was working on the roundabout a little bit. I think Senator Hatley, he he worked with Senator Hatley to request $3 million for the South Lake Pal roundabout. I'm not sure if that made it through this year. Um the other question I had for that is if his lobby efforts or for some of these big water projects and trying to work on that, is utilities contributing any to this 120,000

for that for that um lobbyist? He is not connected to the water project. Okay. That's a different lobbyist. Yeah, that's that's the nex the nexus group out of Washington and that's completely in the pee. Can I can I jump in on that point because that's

Thank you, mayor. Um that's why I raised my hand was I don't think anybody has looked into potential cost savings in changing that scope of work for Nexus, who like the mayor said is currently strictly focused on uh lobbying for water projects. But I just wonder if we changed their scope of work to include the minimal in my mind it's it's much it's a much smaller need for other city projects to lobby. Maybe there would be some cost savings there. So I think it's worth exploring.

The the situation with Nexus is a little unique because they are specific for Washington DC and dealing with the federal side of these projects. So they would not be I mean they do have some connections in the state but like they've told us previous meetings their specialty is trying to unlock those funds through the Washington DC federal infrastru you know the bureaucracy. So the what is it Dorne? Is that the name of the one that we're using for the state?

Um I don't know that they would be necessarily compatible to try to pull Nexus on that. We'd have to ask on that. And that's an example. Nexus is like is it 50,000 is what we pay the PEU pays them. And so we're paying Tom twice as much. And then being new to the League of Cities, but it says that most smaller rural municipalities use um services from um League of Cities for um lobbying for their needs. So, it to me it does seem like a lot what we're getting for the 120,000.

Tom's contract is only 55,000. So, we pay him about 5,000 a month. So, then why does it say 120,000? But but Tom's contract specifically is 55,000 and we can it is it it runs from July 1st to the end of June every year, but we can terminate that with 30 days notice at any time. So just kind of FYI on the So the one the 120 might just be a carryover of what was budgeted for lobbying services in the past and that we just kept that. Yeah, there might have been other things involved there. I don't because $55,000 is different. We may have gotten our value for 55,000 but for 120. So I'm concerned why this says 120 if it's 55.

Councelor Hammond. Wait, is that a is that a new hand? Sorry. Legacy hand. Legacy hand. Okay. So maybe we reduce this to 55,000. I mean there there Linda, you could tell me this. There's there's not a chance that that pee nexus happens to be linked into this 120. Is there? Okay. So I bet it would be separate. Okay. So I Yeah, I'd say we could push put that down to 55 and still review the benefit. And um like you said, he's been giving you reports and working on certain issues. So that's my suggestion.

Yes. And I can forward those to council if council wants to see him. I just thought there was nothing because we used to see information from Tom Dorne on a regular basis and I've reached out a couple times to find out what that information was because I've never received it and and he hasn't answered back. And if it is 55, that's a totally different story than 120. And So, I would like the facts on that. If that's 55, then I would consider and then can we do a contract with him this time that goes monthtomonth instead of an entire year? Well, I mean, we can probably Okay. So, that I would maybe Josh that contract is monthtomonth, isn't it?

Effectively, yeah, because we can terminate it at any time with 30 days notice. So, yeah. Yeah, if council ever wants to terminate that, we could we could do that. Or if I don't see the value in it, I'll bring it to council. Um Okay.

And see how that goes. All right. Um next, general services. Um, I do want to make one note here with utilities that we need to make a a change for that. We budgeted the splash pad for $61,000 for uh water bills. We got our first month's water bill. Um, and so projecting that out, I think we need to run that up maybe Robin to 100,000. Right. Uh, what was that first month's bill? Is it the first month's bill? Oh, microphone. Please.

Yeah. So, I can repeat it. So, 12,000. Sorry. I don't know where the mic Adam Adam's got the mic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The first month was was $12,000 and that's many gallons of water. Yeah. 1368,000. Oh, 13,000 1368,000 gallons of water one month.

Okay. So, so it's using a lot of water. So, just just to note, we need to that number needs to go up. Which line which line was that? Is this on page 16? On utilities on page 16. Utilities. Oh, okay. at 765 needs to go to to 8:05.

Councelor Roundry, so what months um are we going to are we going to close it down at certain months where it's not going to be um functioning? Correct. And so do we know yet at that time or are we going to wait on seasonally? Like if we have a a longer it's going to be warmer, it'll be open longer or it'll close or do we have an estimate, Robin? Notice, we're basing that cost on eight months. On eight months and I'm assuming that as soon as school's out that we could have twice as much of what you're saying in regards of water needs.

Yeah. for the summer months when school for those two to two and a half months when school's out. We could even double or triple that amount of water possibly. Right. And so we're we're this is our best guess. It it might overrun this, but until we have a good year's worth of data on it, this is our shot at it. And councelor Prowler,

I uh I sincerely hope that the uh unexpectedly high water cost is just due to them testing the facilities down there and getting that set up and it being novel and never seeming to sit empty. And I'm hoping that once we see regular usage patterns that that dollar amount's going to go down um long-term average. Um and that hopefully we're just way over budgeting for this and it all, you know, never ends up needing uh to go anywhere because that seems that seems like a huge amount of money uh for for water that's dumped on concrete. Um, but we'll we'll continue to monitor that because at this point, you know, it's it's what we chose to do and we're going to we're going to pay for it, but we'll keep an eye on it. Couldn't have said it better.

So, yeah, hopefully we won't need all the money, but at this point, I think it's uh responsible to go ahead and up that dollar amount and then see where it's at. We could even look at maybe adjusting the timer. Right now when you activate it, it runs for 10 minutes. Maybe we cut that down to seven or eight minutes. Yeah, let's do that.

And see where that works or something. Play with some of those measures to try and get as much conferation as we can. And again, maybe it's because it's new, it's being used a lot. Maybe the novelty will wear off a little bit and you'll start getting less continued usage um and things like that. We do have, as long as we're on the subject, we do have our cameras up and running. I was looking at Kane at the splash pad. So, as far as if you're worried about vandalism and things like that, we are monitoring that site and, uh, and watching for it. So, um, we'll continue to monitor that, make sure it's not broken and just running water, that sort of thing.

Councelor Rantry. And then just a reminder to make sure um that on the grand opening day there's lots of cracks already in that contract. So and the in the um cement so that we need to um if it's under warranty they need to address those some of those issues. Well, there's two types of cement, right? Cement that's cracked and cement that's about to crack. Right. Well, it's Well, I'm saying to for it to open and already have as many as it does in it, that Okay.

Right. We we will monitor the cracks under a warranty basis just like any other project. We look and and see if they're displacing or not and and adjust accordingly. Sometimes you can route and fill them. Sometimes they they need more work. Sometimes they're just hairline cracks that it's better to just monitor them for a while and see how that goes. But we are monitoring that under the warranty period and we'll uh bring the contractor in as needed. Thank you.

And as far as the uh new positions and things, I'd like to maybe take that input and discuss it later on in the meeting too and get into the meat of it then and we can talk about the merits or lack of interest later. Um, we do have under city manager substance abuse fund. Um, I don't know if there's any questions about that. So,

I'm I just have one question on that. Typically, what is it that the that they use that money for? chair. That's the task force. Their money for substance abuse education. Um those goggles I think were the last for supplies for for their they had other activities. Okay. Yeah. That's the one board that actually has some sort of spending authority. Okay. So this is their budget for the education for substance abuse.

Okay. All right. So, next we have Adam. We've got this budget. Uh, just to remind council, we've reorganized a little bit with um economic development. So, Adam was hired as PIO, but he also has marketing and tourism experience. So, we've tried to maximize our dollars there. and we have the communication and tourism department. Um, we've got in there. So, if you're not used to seeing that title, that's what that's about. Um, so it's a little hard to to judge some of these percentages. Um, but we did look at the reorganization of this and and how we're spending money on on marketing and um that's where some of these major changes are. So, if there's any questions, I'm sure Adam can can answer them if council's got any questions about the strategy here. Councelor Rryree.

Um I had asked when I met with you guys and Linda, did you end up finding out the number of what we spent in marketing last year in economic and development? Because I remember we had a long discussion in here about it and I know that we ended up raising it from what this um proposal was that I have from last year. Now to be honest, I haven't had time to look at that. I've been trying to prepare this but um cuz my concern is that last year we addressed that 356,000 was too low and we increased that marketing by quite a bit and I do remember because I remember Amanda's um objection to it being

oh we lost your mic still on so I'm not for sure. So we the objection that that it get we got closer to a million. So I don't know if we ended up approving that much, but I know that we approved a lot more and so it's down less than it was in 2025. And um it says that it was budgeted 356, but I thought that we end up putting more money towards advertising and it's even lower this year than it's ever been. Adam, you have any insight into that? Yes. You have some new techniques that are saving us a lot of money that we don't need that much.

Exactly. Um, is this working? Okay. Uh, so the fiscal year uh 25 marketing budget uh was a little bit higher. Uh 26 saw even more increase in that budget and uh about 200,000 came out of the horseshoe bend budget for fiscal year. that now you're right. We did take some money from Horseshoe Bun and put that into advertising.

However, there's going to be a surplus of about 300,000 in the marketing budget due to cutting some of the sports broadcasting ads that we were doing previously. Uh, a lot of the um a lot of the marketing the

There we go. Oh, there the the main marketing line item here I have broken down in into um another document which we didn't do before. Uh so, you know, coming into this role, it was it was a little difficult to see exactly where a lot of those funds were going. Um so now it's a lot more transparent and defensible. the new marketing budget relies a lot more extensively on digital marketing ads um and not so much on the broadcast side of things. The uh as far as the the main marketing line item, the difference there is minimal. It was 350 I believe and now it's uh been cut to 3

14

314. Yep. So the amount of value that we're getting now is substantially higher than what we did uh for the first part of fiscal year 26. Um and the reason for that is that we're getting away from print. We're getting away from those broadcast ads. And if you actually look at the amount of impressions, uh, website traffic, the the the real, uh, meat and potatoes of the value of those ads, the the Google Trends interest and horseshoe band, how many time people are searching for hotels, uh, we can easily compete and and surpass those results uh, with a much lower budget. So, um, and a lot of the the budget difference is actually in the facade improvement program, which we moved to development services, uh, as well as the marketing co-op program. We're getting rid of that. Uh, we never did that. That was a line item on there. That was, um, the idea was we would help small businesses with a marketing co-op program. the reality of running those programs at that level, you really don't see substantial savings. So, my idea and something that I'm already moving forward with is more training for local businesses uh to give them the tools to do that on their own. And I

for a lot more effective of a of a way to um to help our local businesses. Also, we're doing things that incorporate our local businesses more like our digital passports. So, we've contacted um primarily every business in the city uh to let them know that they can be a part of this new digital passport that will be translated in a number of languages to help with some of the the language barriers of our international travelers. Uh we're getting good participation with that. So, in a way, um, the marketing co-op has kind of folded into something new and something more effective. And that could be said for a lot of the other line items in this budget. If if you'd like to see the full uh budget that includes uh line for line all of the marketing spend, um, I have that. I have the formulas as to how that was calculated and and why we're doing that. Um, and then I also have the the preliminary results. We haven't started with a lot of the fiscal year 27 obviously but uh using that strategy for the remaining fiscal year 26 you can see clearly that that we're building a lot more traffic and interest in the community.

Thank you um councelor Hammond and then back to councelor Roundry.

Uh thank you Adam. I just wanted to say when I opened up my budget binder and looked at this um this section, I was really pleased to see the work that you've done. Um I think it's great that you're taking a more data-driven approach to our marketing strategies. I appreciate you being sensible and logical and responsible with our budget and cutting costs where you can. Just overall, I'm I'm really pleased with this. Um, I will say something that I hear a lot from local business owners is sort of confusion over why the city spends x amount of dollars on marketing, the chamber spends x amount of money on marketing, and all of the individual businesses, well, not all larger businesses spend more obviously than small b small businesses, but there's a lot of redundancy when we think about the community holistically. Um, and I think that the longer you're here and the the more you build those relationships through the training program like you're establishing, um, I think that there's potential there for us to even cut not just our internal marketing budget even more, but create efficiencies for local businesses as well. So, looking forward to what you continue to do in this arena.

Thank you for that. Councelor Entry,

the same thing. I just wanted to say thank you. I mean, I fought hard for this position last year and there were a lot of doubt. I think you've easily paid for your salary and and the things that you've done and the things that I'm hearing. And um I want to remind you that you know the complaints were in the past is the city was taking a lot of credit for um bringing us out of COVID and bringing all this tourism in and our budget was so little compared to what they've spent. Um, I just love that you're now working more closely with the businesses that you're going to do the training program. Um, that you recognize their benefit because I want those businesses out there that are hearing this, we recognize the dollars you're spending on marketing. Um, and we appreciate what you're doing for our community with those dollars. And um, just I'm I would not to add to your work workload, but I would, you know, maybe it's not monthly, but quarterly give us an update or something because I've heard about some of the things that you've done. I've noticed it um online and I've had a couple people at make com positive comments. So, I would like to be able to say more and let people in the community know more what you're accomplishing for us because I think you're doing more than what we even expected and I appreciate that.

Well, thank you and and I can generate those reports quarterly. Also, we have the economic development newsletter that's going out by monthly and that has the updates. Thank you. All right. Any other I guess no changes on that. So, next up we have I it was this way when I got here, but I think it's still to this. Oh, sorry. So, so if we wanted to talk about the business blockade program, was that still under Adam? the business I'm sorry

business facade. Yeah, the business facade. No, that no that's going to be under uh development services. I just want to make sure that that had been moved. Thank you.

So, so another fairly new department but not new employee is community services. This is uh Debbie. Um, and she's got she's got a big one. She's got the library, parks and trails, recreation, and special events, and the community center, and probably some other stuff I'm not remembering either. So, um, if you want to hand the mic down to Debbie. Um,

do you want to talk anything about your budget at all or just answer questions or what do you think? I'll just go ahead and answer questions. I'll go ahead and wait and answer questions for now. Thank you. Okay. Does council have any comments or questions on any of page 20 through 26?

Councelor Hammond. Just one comment. When we expanded Debbie's position to take on special events, number one, I'm so pleased that we made that call. Debbie has always done phenomenal with special events at the library, and since we've given her more to do, she's just proved that that talent extends to all arenas of things that she touches. She's incredible. Um, and I I kind of just wanted to double check that we're paying her appropriately for the the new work that she's taken on. Does anybody remember if we gave Debbie a big fat raise?

So, she she was supposed to have a stipen when she took it on until the city manager and everything came on, but did that become permanent? That is a good question, right? because it was a temporary measure, right? She's director and paid. We just approved and did it because I knew at that time that we questioned that and that she was supposed to be compensated that councelor. Yeah. So the answer to that yes kind of got we got garbled but yes there there was the correct compensation put in place. Yes. Okay. Councelor Roundtree.

Yes. Everything that council Hammonds I think Debbie already knows I feel that way. Um, I feel, you know, it was difficult and the transitions we had to make with different employees, but the decision to put Debbie over those others were only a a blessing for this community. I appreciate that. So, I just have one question. So, last year under the meals program, that 60,000 that was supposed to be a grant or money was supposed to come in, but because of where everything was falling, we didn't know if that would happen. So, we put the 60,000 into the budget in case the money didn't appear. Did it end up appearing? Did part of it come up? Did more then? where did that end up at? And then it's proposed again this year. So I'm assuming that's only in there as a proposal again as like it was last year because we were waiting because that funding doesn't happen till July or something. So my question is on that meals program for that 60,000. What came in last year for it and then um so I'm assuming it's back in there for that same reason as it was last year. Um, so we're spending Nikko money first. Um, and prices have increased and so we are probably going to use some of that money. Um, we don't know if we'll get that grant till July or August.

That's what the same thing with. Yeah. So it is kind of a holder, but we are spending some of that because of the cost of food. And you're saying above what we get from Nikk. We're having to Yes. Okay. Um, did that answer your question? Yeah. So, but so do do we know how much we end up getting last year from NACOG for the program? We received 77,000. So, 77,000. So, how much of the 70 I mean, how much of the 60,000 did you have to go into then? so far this year. Uhhuh.

We ended up receiving because last year we put 60,000 in there in case we didn't get Nikk's funding because like you said, we don't know. It doesn't come till July, so it needs to be in the budget if it doesn't show up. We we haven't spent anything on that. Um I do know NICOG is pushing for less processed food. So it's it is going to go cost more because less processed. So again, the 66,000 is in case the Niko doesn't come through. So there should have been leftover money from that program. Thank you. Yeah, just to clarify, rest of council, so far it's been zero this year. So, NICOG didn't fund in July last year. No, you're you're still using NICOG funds, right? And you won't start dipping into until closer to the end of our fiscal year. Correct.

Right. The the zero is city money that we spent,

right? So, so far the 60,000 total should still be sitting there. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, next we'll go to to Sylvia. And this is the uh used to be planning and zoning. Um, and when Sylvia came on board, she's got economic development experience as well. So, we we put some uh she's got some of the economic development side of things with the the land sales, and this is where we're putting the business uh facade program that that we hope to uh bring before council, much like the uh child care. it it may have been budgeted for in the past and really didn't get going with all of the turnover we had, but we hope to maybe work with Josh and get something that is palatable that's not some sort of gift violation or or something that we can do that. And I just want to also hedge a little bit of concern. We have had some businesses that said they were promised some money in the past and weren't given it. uh anything we do, we hope to be able to make retroactive to try and fulfill at least some of what we've heard are those verbal promises. But uh Sylvia, do you want to say anything about your budget or answer questions or what's your thoughts there?

Answer questions. Okay,

mine is just about the f the the facelift, whatever we want to call it. Thought it's a thought improvement program. Uh, and so that was 200,000 and so in the budget it is 100,000. Are we not going to replace back to that 200,000? Um, the reason why I'm cons and and I do know that there were four businesses that came forward and wanted to access those monies. Two were denied. two were told that they were approved and that they would meet whatever the standards were. I saw the the paperwork, so I know that it existed for them to apply for that. But the important part for this program is that our beautifification grant requires 2.5 million in businesses improvements. That's and so

1.5

1.5 Thank you for the correction. So 1.5 million. And so part of this was to incentivize so that we could come up with that 1.5. So this program is really important or replace it with some other kind of program because we're required in that grant to come up with businesses and we had um uh businesses who did that. Um, I won't announce them, but we all can appreciate what they've done to theirs. And I don't know if the grant's going to allow us to go back and retroactive apply those businesses who did those beautififications. You see what I'm saying? So, are we going to be looking for another new group of businesses to put in 1.5 or are we going to be able to go back and retroactively um count their improvements and the costs that they put into their improvements um towards the the grant requirements? Frank, there's a couple people that can answer that. Frank and Josh can help me with that. Anybody want to chime in a little bit?

Uh, deflection. Well, if council wants to go back to 200,000 on that business facade program, we could we could do that. Um, and the as far as the match goes, I think the original intention with that private business match, a large portion of that was they were expecting to sell the uh public works, the old public works property for 1.5 million. I think that's where that figure came from is the stories I've heard. But whether or not that sale goes through is is another issue. Um,

the paperwork I I don't know that we should be publicly, but the paperwork does identify a different business in town. It identifies two, Ace Hardware and um and the the sale of the public works building and I believe it was 1.8, but 1.2 and 600,000. I know that ACE um went in and did a facelift. So,

made those. Yeah, we're the the approach that we've taken so far is that we're trying to find new um businesses that will um replace that match. Uh but obviously we'll ask um and use every dollar that we can about whether we can retroactive or you know what time period um because we may need that um if we can't find businesses that are willing to commit to you know $1.5 million of of new improvements. So we're working on that right now.

Councelor Pller and then councelor Hammond. Um, I I just wanted to uh while we're on the subject of this going from 200,000 down to 100,000, this has been around for a couple of years. How many of those years have we actually paid out more than 100,000? We haven't yet. Never. Okay.

We we we we the program only functioned back when Tim Swan was here. That's when the we we did it for one year. Uh, I believe we had one applicant and it was determined that that applicant didn't meet the guidelines. I don't think we paid out any when the program was formally functioning and we actually had an application and a review process. There's been money budgeted. I don't know if it's been budgeted every year or just last year. There was money budgeted, but there was never a program with an application and all that stuff that was approved and put in place and advertised to the public as far as that we had a functioning program. And so right now it's on a first come first- serve basis. If

no, there is no there is no program. So if somebody comes in, we don't have the you know the program in place to evaluate an application or any of that kind of stuff. So I did want had one. Oh, go ahead. So I've got councelor Hammond waiting first. Go ahead, councelor Hammond. She heard me.

Thank you. Uh yes. So I just wanted to say I also had the kind of question concern about why are we going down to 100,000? To be honest, I I feel like that money has been sitting there for a few years and it hasn't been used. So, um, and as as you just heard from multiple members in the room, part of that is, uh, some miscommunication, I think, between the city and businesses in what's available, how to apply, all of that. So, I would love to see us do a good concerted effort to expend this 100,000 this year, and if that happens, then next year we have the option to increase that budget. But, um, for now, I think that it makes a logical place to cut costs in a year when our revenue is down. Agreed. Councelor Rantry.

So, it was advertised in the paper and there was an article about the program. So, we did have businesses come in and they tried to access it and they were told regularly that the program would be coming soon and they need to put the ba paperwork and etc., etc. Council had discussion on it. So, we don't need to go back to the past, but I put a future agenda item request already in so that we can address this. It's needed. Um, I would like to see the 200,000, but I would agree with Council Hammond. I would consider because we're going to have to make cuts this year. Um I believe we're going to have to cut some of this budget. And so I'm willing for this year to to cut out a h 100,000, but it needs to be in there because of it. It needs to go in handinhand with the beautifification. And again, the reason why nothing's happened with this money and why it's sitting there is not because this businesses aren't interested in it. I know of one business person who applied for the money and was denied and they said, "But I'm going to apply again because now I know more what the qualifications were back then and there said I just haven't beautified the front of my business which needs greatly to be beautified until she said this city gets the beautifification guidelines in and kind of the aesthetics and the colors and she said I'll be applying for it." So again, we just as the council, we need to direct that this moves forward so that this money can be spent. I don't think it's sitting there because no one wanted it. It's because business had try to access it. They talk among each other and they all know the money is sitting there and they want to know how to access it, but the program hasn't existed. So I I've already put it on a future agenda item.

So I would like to respond to some of this. Okay.

Let me just maybe Josh, I think I heard two different things. One was that we had a program and one that was we didn't have a program. So you were here, you've been here, I believe it was precoid, we had a program for one year. Um and then we did not have a program after that. Funds were budgeted at some point after that. So there was a few years where there was no funds budgeted. There was not a program after we did kind of the trial for one year. And then whether it was two years ago or one year ago, there was funds appropriated again or budgeted for a program. But but it was not the same. We didn't implement the same program as before. It was intended to be a different program and the program never staff never put together the program if that makes sense with the documents and the and the requirements and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, maybe maybe a solution for this would be we we leave the 100,000 right now that Sylvia and I work with Josh, figure out what this old program was that I just learned about right now. Um, and we bring it back, get something we make sure is legal that we can do and see how that goes. And if it winds up being a huge success and we need more money, maybe I come back to council with contingency asked if we need to go to that 200,000. But we try and work our budget now with the 100,000 and see how that works. Is see if council's okay with that.

That sounds good to me. Perfect. Sylvia, you were want you were needing to respond. I would have I would like to if that is that okay? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So part of my economic development background included the facade improvement program in Cuman, Arizona. Established it, ran it for about five years. So I'm not I'm new here, but I'm not new to the program. And I was going along the same thought process that the first year typically go with a pilot program and we still need to draft this one up so that it will be coming back so you could see what the criteria would be and and so forth. Yes. I You have a question?

Yeah. Well, so my only statement about the 100,000 though is if we're going to do two retroactive two individuals that were told that they met the requirements of the program, you know, and if we create a new program, whether they do or they don't, but that's already 40,000 off if it was going to be like it was before. And I haven't got the clarity of whether they could spend 10 and we matched 10 and 20 was the highest, but one person told me they believed it was 20. They could spend 20 and the city would match 20. So that'd already be 40,000 taken out of the 100,000 retroactive. And so then that basically would only leave how many more businesses to apply um if we left at the 100,000.

But then city manager could come back with us to us with a contingency request if he sees that there is um good response from the community and that it's moving at a faster than this one-year pace. Sylvia, you got I I will leave it at that. Sorry, I can leave it at that. Okay. Okay. I'm glad I'm glad that you I'm glad you already have such good experience with a facade program. That'll be very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. That makes me feel really great, Silia.

Yeah. And I apologize. I wasn't seeing Sylvia. So, but but this is this is part of what we're trying to do is use our staff with the skills they have and she does have extensive experience in this. So, um that's where now you can maybe see why that program is under her. Um so, um and she's also once we get little primer for this, once we get to our capital projects, you will see a huge dollar amount under development services that has to do with some things. So, um, she's got a lot on her plate this year. Um, any other comments or questions for development services operating or

No, just thank you, Sylvia, for the big mountains that you've had to try to move. Thank you. And next we have finance. So it's Linda. That's I think we've seen too much of each other these past few months, but thank you for your help. Um

you want any you have any comments about your budget? I'll answer any questions u that the council may have regarding any of the there's a significant increase in um bank fees but that comes with taking more transactions and the growth that we do. So adding the par club and all of that as we're taking that hasn't really that's just started but um when you take more credit card charges you get more bank fees and they have gone up. So we are looking at that. we we do a comparison. I'm in the I'm in a current process right now of um having that evaluated to make sure that we're getting the the best deal we can out there. Um you will see in here uh an increase for additional furniture for my um new person. We are going to transition uh we've trans transition we're in the middle of transitioning and training with our third party ambulance biller given them notice that as of July 1st we will be bringing that function back in house to bill and that will um we we're in the process of getting that person I'm going to get that job description out and we're going to start getting applications for that position and hope and get that hired so here within the hopefully within the next month or so. But if you have any other questions, I'll be happy to entertain answers.

No, no questions. Anything there? No questions. Thank you. Good with that. Okay. Next on the list, we have fire department Chief Reed. Um any comments before questions?

And again, fire is another one. They have a a lot in the works that's more on the capital side of things um versus the operating. So, um,

questions. Um, councelor Prowler and then councelor Roundtree.

Uh, I just noticed that your budgeted amount for overtime hours is up by like 40%. Um, and, uh, I think last time I talked to you about it, you were doing all right on staffing, um, because of the whole pay grades thing. Is that not the case anymore? No, that's that's still the case. Um we it's hard to anticipate the overtime um backfilling with all the with all the new activity in the um the transport the inter facility transports and just overall um responses is we're just kind of keeping that placeholder still there for those funds.

Okay. Do we need to create a schedule for our structure fires so they don't happen at inconvenient times like the one that may be going on right now? Yeah. So, I had the same overtime question, so I won't repeat that. You answered it. Thank you. And then you have the largest travel, meals, and school expenses of $70,000. Could you just give a little explanation on that? Is that for all of your staff goes out of state for training or

not out of state, but we um we have a lot of required training in medical and fire both. Um we uh like this upcoming budget, we're looking at sending two two uh folks to paramedic training. And that is uh that just by itself is $22,000 just the initial cost to get both those those two folks in there. Um, in addition to that, we have uh reertification training for 25 members that we have to keep up on every year. So, it's it's pretty expensive.

So, because Yeah, cuz from 2025 it was 20,000 and now it's 70,000. So, that's three more than three times the amount. So, do you have in place for people who get that training that they have to stay to page for so many years before they can leave or they have to pay back their training costs? Yeah, we we have that actually for the paramedic program. We have a uh u any of that big training that we that we provide. We do have a an agreement that they have to stay for so long after becoming certified. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Counselor Farrell, the TAC medic is included in this training budget.

Tac Medic can absolutely be included in this budget. Um we're we're hoping still to get that program off the ground. Thank you, sir. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Oh yeah. What point do we need a break? Would now be a good time for taking a little five minute break? Sure. Any we will come back. Take a take a recess for just quick quick recess. Walk around.

Okay, I'll reopen the the special meeting. The time is 9:40. On to the next one. Right. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, next up we have what was a human resources page 35. Rachel, any comments or just questions? Nope. Nothing on my end. Councelor Hammond and then councelor Roundry,

I have two questions. Uh, first Rachel, I was wondering if you could explain to us more contract services, the big jump there.

Yeah, definitely. So, um, with having to hire a city manager, um, actually, I'm sorry, that's wrong. The employment issues is if we need to hire um outside legal services for situations with the police department. And then the jump with um Alliant, the Alliant program, if you'll remember, they did our comp and class study and we have them on contract um to assist with new job descriptions um and just really ensuring that we are staying where we need to stay as far as um our pay skills. So if I have a new position and we need like for instance the PIO um I sent the job description to them and then they went ahead and they do all of the comp and class for that position specifically and then tell us where we should place it within our pay scale. Previously we just went hm this seems right and we'll put them here. This is just another way to maintain our pay scale and not fall back like we have in the past. Oh, good. So, we have more deliverables coming from them. That's great.

Absolutely. Okay. And then my second question for you um is on the recruitment and retention increase.

Yes. So, if you'll remember, we had to hire a city manager and a public works director um and believe it was Sylvia's position. All of those positions we went through Duffy and um Duffy um they do quite a bit for us. They provide great information, great candidates. Um, they are expensive, but they're worth every penny. And we did put um some extra money in there just in case we have to hire any of those more executive level positions. Hopefully, I won't be using any of that, but I would rather have it budgeted than not budgeted.

Okay. Yeah. I'm thinking so like 26 we paid them for the people that they already recruited, right? That was 148. Yes. Okay. And so you're setting aside 220 just in case. What was that? Sorry, Linda has something to add. Yeah, actually the number to date in 26 is is 206. We Oh, okay. So, uh, so we went over budget. Yeah. And quite a bit. Personally, I'd like to see this budget number cut if council's confident they don't need to find a new city manager next year. So,

yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking. We we hired so many executive level positions last year. I really don't have any plans or desire to do that again this year. Um um let me ask a quick question. So, Rachel, last year was a very large year. Have we had any other years large like that? Uh no, we haven't. Okay. Council Roundree.

Yeah. So, um, so when I asked this question when I was in the budget meeting because you've addressed the other concerns, I had both of those, but the other one I had was you have picked up a tuition program. I mean, where employees could um get training or I always explain that there was a tuition program and I thought it was in this 62,000 under the lion program. So I must misunderstood when I was meeting with um Frank and um Linda. So forgive me for un the misunderstanding there. So could So the notes I have here are wrong. So they had explained to me that you had picked up a employee training tuition program.

Um I would say that we're working on that currently to find finalize a policy. You guys will have that come before you. Um but at this point we are working on that and um you know the number for that is it depends on how many people actually go through with it but so that's not budgeted in here because I was told some of these numbers increases budgeted in the employee training. So under employee training under the 40,000. Okay. Thank you. So, I'm excited about that program and hope that it does go through and it it does become a possibility for employees to um take that training and get tuition or um other things

and and I do want to apologize for that was my mistake on that. Um but for rest of council's benefit, the the intention here that Rachel and I have discussed uh for some sort of tuition reimbursement or certification reimbursement for staffing is for education purposes is to make it a citywide program that's standardized and and and run through HR to where maybe they get some sort of uh tuition assistance for some degree or training that uh is beneficial to the city. We want to make make it apply to the city, not just, you know, if they want some random degree that's not applicable to the city. um that's where there's a little scrutiny, but then also have some sort of commitment with that as well that's been discussed that they um work for the city for x number of years or something or else the city may may be able to ask for that money back. Um so that's the sort of program Rachel's going to be working on and and will bring to council.

Okay, councelor Hammond and then back to councelorry. So, going back to that um recruiting and retention bonus line, I'm just wondering if we can either lower that amount this year or if um somebody can provide a logical way that we would spend that money if we don't use the full 220.

If I'm not correct, I believe that the signon bonuses for fire and PD or executive levels come out of that line item as well. Do we so the the if the PD and the fire department are both trying to hire and using sign on bonuses, we would need ample into that recruitment protection line.

Okay. But again, we have a 48% jump from last year. And that just especially with you saying that last year was an exceptionally high year. That seems too high to me. And u city manager, did you say that the 148 was what was budgeted, but we actually hit close to 210? We're currently at 206 for this year. Um, Rachel, could you maybe explain the fire and police? Do we have a set policy on that or is that case by case?

Um, well, yeah, I mean, it's basically case by case. If they're moving here, we'll do u moving expenses as well. We do moving expenses with our executive positions as well. Um, and then the bonuses are usually five to 10 depending on their experience and level of qualifications. Is is that trying to get the laterals correct there that maybe already have the training and experience? Correct. Yes. So, councelor Roundree. So, you think, sorry, finish. I just want to Yeah. finish this thread. Um, so Rachel, you think that with fire and police bonuses, we will use that full 220 this year?

I don't think we're going to use the full TW 220 because of hopefully not being a needing to go recruiting on a higher level for executives. I just want to make sure that we have everything covered. Um, so I don't end up having a budgeted of 148 and then end up going over to 202. Um, but if you want to go ahead and reduce it, that's fine. I just um trying to be cautious. Yeah, I this is just me speaking. Everyone else can weigh in, but I would be more comfortable reducing that amount and being more cautious with the overall line of

the bottom line of the budget this year and especially again in a low revenue year. 27. Okay. Councelor Roundry. So, I'd have to I was wanting to finish my thread and that's the reason I raised my hand back up, but I will um comment on what councelor Hanman said. Yeah, because in 2025 it was 6,500 basically and then it went to 148,000 cuz we thought we were going to hire some, you know, a city manager and then we end up hiring a lot more than a city manager and so I would assume that it would have gone over. So, I can't believe once we've hired all of those. So it makes me a little nervous that you know of something that we don't know that there's going to be some major people in this room that are going to be exiting. So I I'm nervous with that number. That's not the case at all.

So that's what I'm saying. I want to make sure that I want to understand why it went up that high. So I agree with councelor Ham and I would rather see it go back down unless you can really explain why it should be that high. And I do respect um moving expenses and the things to bring in some of our positions and our our services out there. But so I want to go back to finish that thread. So I'm at that program. I'm really excited about it to you. And that one program that I brought to you from the League of Cities, uh they said they can actually tailor and create a a position. So if you have a position that you want to fill in page that they'll actually make a college degree and they'll put the classes together and they'll create and give a a degree for exactly the person you're looking for. So if you found someone you'd like to train and do that. So I would really like to see that kind of a program and then they keep them here. I mean we've helped them obtain this degree and then they choose to stay with us for a long term and then we're actually getting somebody trained for the needs that our community needs instead of someone just going out there and say I'm going to get a bachelor's and blank and then go try to find a job. I loved that new program and how it would create exactly what we needed. So, I would hope that that's coming out of this spending for the this next year, this type of

be completely honest with you, counselor. I've tried to reach out to that program multiple times and they've never gotten back to me. That's interesting. Well, we'll have to go back to League of Cities. hopefully they're going to be there. Um because I was they had an entire meeting on it where we could go in and sit down and they explained to the communities how it would work and everyone in there was so excited. Especially a lot of the rural communities that were there like this would be a program that could really help us keep and retain employees in our community and help um people get college degrees while they're working. Um so I hope that it's not fraudulent or something. That's sad that we didn't hear anything back from them, but if we could find another type of program like that, because I've heard that there are other programs out there like that,

right? And I know that quite a few of our employees um are completing or working on or looking to uh work on degrees that would fit within the city. Um I like that program because it could tailor it to our needs. you as a HR person could say I you know or their department head could say I would like these skills from this person and they would have created a program and then degreed and agreed upon and degreged and given a degree in that it's like we were creating our own degrees that's what I liked about that program councelor Pller and then councelor Hettinger

uh yeah that 206,000 for uh the past year that includes the sign on bonuses and how many uh goes of Duffy recruitment services and moving expensive. How many positions is that? Was it three? Um that would be four positions executive. And then as far as um PD and fire,

I would as far as like sign on bonuses and moving expenses, I would say we've probably had at least four or five between the two of them. and ballpark figure um approximately how much did we spend uh on average per those four positions? Uh five 210 it depended. You talking about recruiting or bonus? Um whole whole thing if like what what's the cost of if if one of you all got struck by lightning? What's the What's the cost to the city to go through Duffy, find someone, and then give them a move moving bonus?

It depends on how long it takes to be completely honest, but we're looking probably around 60,000.

Okay. Um I I agree kind of with the sentiment that uh last year was abnormally bad and we are trying very hard not to have any more years like that ever again. Um, I think having uh kind of the the dry powder budgeted to lose four executives in a year might seem like a lot going forward. Um, I'm I'd be happy to just kind of budget for two and then if it goes over that, you know, have a have that be contingency. I don't know how how you all feel.

Yeah. Councelor Hinger. Yeah, I I feel like this has come up a couple of times and I know that later on in the agenda we're going to talk about new positions. So maybe it would be helpful to come back to this item after we have an idea of what new positions we're looking at if we're looking at potentially a lot of new police and fire and assistant city manager, those types of things. Once we have that conversation, it feels easier to have this one. I don't want to cut it yet until I understand that better. That makes a lot of sense.

Council, we're arguing over $100,000 because if we don't spend it, we're not going to spend it. We just asked her to do merch up. So why are we going to cut the $100,000 out? Makes no sense. Um, not entirely sure. So, am I not entirely sure what council's desire is on this? Um, I support councelor Heder's decision that we wait until we look at new hires. Okay. Come back to this. Yeah, let's do that.

So, maybe we put a do my corporate lingo, put a pin in this, and we'll come back to it. All right. Any other questions on on um on her budget?

All right. So, next we have information technology. Sorry, page 37. Kane, do you want to say anything first or um Well, as usual got lots of new software, so you guys can ask me any questions you need.

Is there any of it that we can get rid of? That's such a huge number. Kane, it's more than what you guys make by a lot. And thank you for your I mean, do you guys do all your online training or something? Because you have the lowest budget in travel, meals, and schools. So, and you guys don't like going out of town and I mean I just So, so I appreciate the low travel meals in schools um and how responsible you guys are in that the software licensing. I mean that's

you got to think that's that's every department that has their own software. So when you when you think of all of the um you know your agenda management, your HR, your finance, I mean there's new stuff in there that they've come to, you know, to not just to me, it's their their kind of software. So if we have something in particular we need to look at, we may have to go to that department and and ask them.

That's the only reason why I asked managing the animal hospital. Everyone wanted new software and whatever. And then I would start looking through and say, "Come on, you guys. You haven't even entered this this this for two months it shows that no one's even logged in even used that." And so what we would find that that was a place we could always cut because there were some of these software things that you just think are going to be the coolest best new tool and you get it and you use it for a couple months and then it doesn't. So I I'm sure everyone's trying to be really responsible, but I'm just hoping that that doesn't happen because software is so easy for people to do that. I mean, you have to agree that for people that think they need some of these things and then it's it

Yeah. No, I agree. And I do actually go back through and every year and go, are you using it type thing because I do pay the bills on it and it is in my budget. It's for us to be able to look at everything all in one spot. I think that's the the best thing for you. Otherwise, it'd be kind of scattered around. Um, but you know, there are some expensive ones in there. And if we want to dig in deep, we may have to kind of go to those departments on some of the new stuff and go have them help explain why they would want it.

Yeah. And checking to see when somebody logged in and used some of them because I mean, if they're needed, it's definitely, but half million dollars, that's just so much. council and then council for what you guys do. I I don't know if there's anything on the software budget that's going to significantly move the needle. I mean, you'd have to hit one of the the pretty big ones and telling, you know, PD to go without Spilman's not going to make you any friends. I'm not asking that.

Um, what the heck is spy care monitoring? So that they actually monitor all of our all of our phone, all of our cell phone, all of those bills for us, all of the lumen, everything. So if there's a a contract change or we have a spike in a in a invoice, I can go right to them and they can go, "Oh, you know, you had this install." And then they do all the research and they can actually cancel everything. uh when we did the last uh the big audit on all of our phones in the entire all of our phone lines, they helped us actually cancel and and audit everything for us. So, it was actually a good good piece of software for us, but it's nothing it's nothing spying. How's that?

Okay. Yeah, I with the name I you know did some research and couldn't find anything and you know I I appreciate the explanation. Yeah, councelor Frell. Thank you. With the uh infrastructure upgrades, is that is that what we're doing to expand fiber throughout the city? So So I do have fiber and stuff in capital budget. Uh this is all kind of the technology and all of the little pieces of hardware that that go in for that. Okay.

So or just everything in general. if you need if I need a you know a new monitor, new keyboard, new network equipment, new that's kind of that fund that we work out of for the entire city. Thank you sir. Hang on. We Kane, I cut that. So No, no, no, no, no, no, you didn't. The 1.5. No, no, that's something different. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, you the the whole RTC that's different. Yeah.

All right. Um, yeah. And just for council to know too that that question about do we really need this, we had that same conversation preparing the budget. So, um, I specifically asked him to go back through all the departments and it was kind of a pain in the neck, but he went to every department saying, "Are you sure you need this?" Because I also noticed this huge line item. So, it was a big deal. And this has been pretty well scrutinized, I think. So, and you can see in there, I've actually highlighted what's new, so you can kind of get an idea.

All right. Any So, we're good with it. All right. And magistrate court. I will do my best to uh answer any questions council may have. Uh the judge wasn't able to be here, so we went over the budget and uh if anyone has any questions, I hope I remember what he went over. So, no questions for that. Okay, that's good for me. All right, let me come up to the police department. Chief, anything you want to say first or

so? Okay. Uh, happy to answer any questions or comments council may have for police department. Councelor Roundtree, I saw that you increased your special events by quite a bit and I appreciate that. I think it's really great and I think it's important for our community. So, I want to thank you for that. So, I'm going to tell you that it's one time when I'm going to say thank you for spending more money. I appreciate that. Maybe we should ask for more. What we actually did was uh special events was spread out amongst uh multiple departments or divisions and we just moved all of that into admin because Ally kind of runs all that. Anyway,

you didn't increase your spending. I just I think public presence and um and education and getting that there in our community is so important for for what you guys do. And so, um, I thought that you were spending more money on it, but maybe you should have asked for money.

Thank you. Though, one thing I I will bring out is we added the real time, uh, crime center as a division. We used to just have administration, patrol, communications, and investigations. And we we added that because, like you guys were just talking about, technology is is growing. And in law enforcement, that's no different. and our uh our a lot of our equipment, a lot of our the the technology we're using now, license plate readers, the drone, uh cameras, um that's that's all we put it under the real-time crime center. So, we don't know what that's going to look like. That's going to be ever evolving uh from year to year. So, how much we all spend on it this year and years to come, it it would be easier for us to just put it in its own division and pull from there than than mess with like criminal investigations and patrol and all that kind of stuff. That's why we added it.

You're doing a great job there. But that drone is expensive to repair. Yes, ma'am. I noticed that. Councelor Hammond. Uh, thank you, Mayor Chief. I just wondered all the investing that we're doing in technology, is that reducing the need to increase the number of positions that you have overall or is that still a need long term?

It's a it's a good question. They they work hand in hand. The technology accomplishes tasks and and goals of ours that that boots on the ground simply can't. Um, currently with the the equipment we have, the real time crime center equipment, cameras, and all that kind of stuff. Um, we're we're we're stopping crime before it happens. In my opinion, we've we've captured people that are wanted in our country or in our state that are that have come into our town and we we learn that they're in our town. They're already wanted for violent crimes that they've committed elsewhere. and we know we're they're here and and that's just one example. We we we've been able to find them, locate them and get them into custody on to answer for crimes that they already committed elsewhere. They don't have the opportunity to commit those crimes here. Um and and that's that's one benefit of of license plate reader. We we had a gentleman that was missing in another state that came through here last last week that we located and and he was fine. Um, and it that's just one example, the cameras. Um, we had a stabbing in the park last year and the suspects fled before we even got on scene and yet with the use of our technology, we we had the suspects, we located them, haded them in custody at another location within an hour after the stabbing. Um, and and I could go on and on about these types of uh examples because it's not like a one-time thing. We're using this this technology every day and and we have crime scene specialists and and we've we've we've changed one of their we we've added jobs to one of them, but he's primarily working in the real-time crime

center now. Um, and it's just watching the cameras, um, listening to dispatch. They're able to also uh uh view the officer's body cameras when they're on scene. Uh the mayor and vice mayor saw that they they were actually in the real-time crime center. We were doing a demo when a felon uh ran from probation and and we were able to track the felon's movements uh for up to I don't know seven, eight miles away from where the actual uh crime happened when he ran from probation. So, um, boots on the ground are great and but we have to be able to fill those positions. Um, we I believe we still have two positions that were froze um when when we went to the step increases, but um since I've been here in ' 07, um we're we're we're better staffed now than we've we've ever been, but we still have a couple certified people that want to come and work for us right now. But quite frankly, there's reasons, whether it be housing or whatever, that they're hesitant because they can't find a place necessarily to live um or work for whatever. I mean, there's other reasons, but we need this technology for the men and women that we have right now to do the best job possible. We need this technology.

You you mentioned the stabbing. You said last year, but I think you meant last month, right? No, no, the one I'm talking about was was last year. Um, oh, the the that was a whole different different one. Different one. And that's just an example. Uh, the mayor is talking about another stabbing that we had again that we used our technology to to to locate um and identify the suspect. There was another case that we were discussing last night after council where an individual burglarized our schools. uh they broke into the schools, they burglarized our schools, they they burglarized vehicles, and with the technology we have, we identified them and have charged that person in in in short order.

Councelor Roundree and then back to councelor Hammond. So, as you're talking about this technology thing, I just recently couple months ago got the notification to update my emergency services, you know, where you can register with the county and you'll get notices. And this is the first time it said, "Do you have security cameras on your home?" And I said, "Yes." And then it had me identify all of them. So, how does that help the citizens of Paige? Is that only a county program or what? Because it's the first time I've ever, you know, they want to know who's in the home and, you know, what their age and if you have a dog, that's standard. But this time it said, where are your emergency cameras and do you have them in the backyard and the front yard and do they locate? Do they hear sound? And you had to answer all these questions. And I was like, how does that help us as Paige?

It it does help us. We work handinand with with the county. And in fact, they're up here during our balloon riata, our July 4th, all that kind of stuff. But if you sign up for that uh through the county, um it's it's up to you if you want to let them or us gain access to your cameras, whether it be live or just us asking later after the fact. Um we solve crimes that way. I mean, we we've had crimes in our own community where we go look at doorbell cameras of people that are just in the area. Um, we had a shooting on 10th Avenue not that long ago and we were able to utilize cameras that were not ours to help us identify those suspects and those guys have been charged. They're in custody. That was because of cameras other than ours. But th those were the folks allowing us uh to to view their security footage. I mean, that's what it comes down to. Well, my understanding it was after the fact, but maybe it is live. But my understanding, I think the question told me that it would be after the fact that I could be notified and they want to know what was going on.

There are some programs. There was a little girl killed up in Colemine a few months back and u and we were sending our our two of our detectives and um some of our equipment up there to coal mine to help Navajo PD and the FBI with that. And um some of the evidence garnered from that investigation was was from a doorbell camera in that community where the little girl uh went missing from. And so again, it is it's it's people don't like it. I don't want to look at your cameras if you don't want me to. I'm I'm all about everybody's rights. We all are. Uh we uphold people's rights every day. That's what we do. But man, if your cameras or anything you have at your house can help us solve a crime or locate a missing child or something. Yeah, we're going to ask.

Thank you, Councelor Hammond. Yeah. So, just um quick follow-up question, Chief Lang. Do we need to be looking at more positions for officers for boots on the ground? Right now, I would say no. That doesn't mean I'm going to say that next year, but we really need to put our our resources in into the real- time crime center and this technology. Um

we go we go to other cities and other agencies, Poria being one, um Salt River being another, and um you know, those are bigger agencies, bigger cities than what we have here. But if you look at the amount of tourism uh that we have coming into our community like every day now, um it it bolsters our our service area uh if you will. It it bolsters the amount of people that we're we're having to serve. We we need this technology to keep keep it makes our job better. We're just way more efficient. I want to do eight of those total.

Okay. So, any other any other questions? Councelor Per. Um, I haven't seen the um, Real Time Crime Center yet and I'd love to someday head over there and take a tour. Um, is there something at a technical level that is special about it that it requires the Starlink service as opposed to being run through the already existing and paid for ISP or Cradle Point environment? Yeah, it's we we asked for Starlink. So, we did some training out out at Armagary not too long ago. We did some active shooter training with with Kain County and all all the agencies in in the county. And I think we just we put that on there because doing those scenarios, it was it was uh active shooter training and they had actors as victims and suspects and all that stuff and um people were having to respond. It it seemed like Starlink is what everybody else is using and it worked in the in that that scenario, not just at Armagary, but in the desert around there all the way in the page. It it just it worked for everybody and it was seamless. And I I I think that's the primary reason we we put Starlink on there.

Yeah, I've seen the Starlinks on the top of the sheriff's vehicles and I'm sure it does wonders for their gas mileage. So

yeah, in King County have them in all their units. And I mean, look at look at their their area. It goes all the way up to Duck Creek and, you know, out in the boonies and and the sheriff was with me when we were out there. Uh he and I were observing that training and he said that that's the best equipment that they they found works for them. Also, is there isn't there um an added benefit having the Starlink for when we have a really large event like Fourth of July balloon riata when all of a sudden everybody's using their phones trying to and it kind of bogs down the internet our internet capacity and it can freeze up the police capacity as well.

Yeah. And I I think we we accidentally maybe showed you guys that. We we we showed council some drone footage that we took during July 4th. It was basically to show all the congestion in and out of that area and uh and you could see that there was some hiccups and that and it's because all those people down there on their phones and and all that stuff is what I understand. I mean that might be a cane question but well I think it's all about the connectivity you know especially when they're out doing their remote remote stuff. So they're talking about having one mini unit that they can use in multiple units. So it's not like it's on every every single unit or anything. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Thank you.

Any other questions? No, doesn't look like it. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate your guys' support.

Thank you, Chief. All right. So, no adjustments there. Uh, next we go into public works. And just a little brief announcement, Rachel, we're still expecting our director Monday. May 20th. May

Oh, Wednesday. I just keep hoping that it's sooner. So, um can't wait for that help. That'll be a huge help. Um so, with that, I I will do my best to take care of public works. Any questions or comments for sheets 49 through 51? We we'll take care of streets. It's kind of its own fund in the HERF and we'll take care of that a little bit later. But this would be building maintenance, central garage and uh admin,

councelor Roundree and then councelor Pller. So um under salaries so what was budgeted for 2026 and what is budget proposed is a huge increase. So it's 44% increase 54% excuse excuse me increase. What new what new positions are you suggesting for there? Are they back? Um will we be talking about those later and should we wait? You're talking about at the top of page 51 admin public works administration. Uh

maybe help me with that one. I'm not sure why it went up. I mean, 54% that's huge. Yeah.

So, we can I would have to look at that. So we we we accounted for our new our new director that we're hiring and when you when we hire a new person coming in on the medical benefits we always benefit we always budget on the highest end until we know what they are. So if this person comes in with single coverage versus family coverage huge difference in dollars right there. So, we have the salary for this person. Um, we've I think there's an additional stipen on the hiring agreement with this person

and um then we budgeted the high end for the um the medical like I said and then the people that have stepped in currently the people that have stepped in to help Frank manage this department are receiving a additional um pay increase until this person is hired. And when and so those rates will come down and we did not make those adjustments on those rates that extra I think it was like five bucks an hour we put in. So we can probably relook at that and bring those down for this budget year. Um not sure if it would

I mean it'll account for all of that. Plus, we have the um we have the 8% uh cola and merit built into that. Yeah. And for example, the police admin I thought was high at at 30%, but that was going into the step program as well as the increases there. But this one I apologize I didn't I did understand that. I'm just saying I hope that we're not paying our new public work person that much more than what we're paying our past one because we could have kept him if we would have um he chose to leave.

Well, yes, that's true. But it's still had to do with salary. So, I'm hoping that this person is not going to be paid that much more than what our previous one was. That's 54% is a really huge chunk there. This public works admin covers more than just that salary. It obviously covers the admin staff and our our streets crew, too. So, we have all of those people plus the director, your um your administrative staff person. Who else is in there? That's why I that I would like a breakdown of that. That 54% for one department increase in the salary is a lot. So, I I would like some explanation. Oh, AK that's right. We moved our city engineer over here.

He was budgeted our city engineer was currently budgeted over in this um in development services. Well, planning and zoning was planning and zoning. We did a restructure in within this year and so that's a big part of that salary increase there. So it's all right. So that makes a little more sense than if you put somebody with an engineering into that. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that. And again, you can see why I need a public works director sooner rather than later. Um,

all right. Any anything else on that? So, just one quick clarification on what you were mentioning, Linda. So, some of these I want I want to call them stipen stipens or or additional pay to the people that have been stepping in to fill that gap. You're saying that on the proposed that additional rate was just kind of continued on until the next year, but that could disappear if you recalculate. We can make that adjustment. You know, we just didn't in the budget process. You didn't know if we were going to have we were going to have we didn't we didn't know when when that was going to end, right? Okay. So, we can certainly make that adjustment going before we do the schedules if you'd like.

Okay. And I and I would like to take this time to to thank the public works staff for even Gary that retired on me. Um Mike and and Tamara and uh AK coming over there and stepping in with basically taking over all of the capital projects. They've just all done a top-notch job with really not having that that leader. you know, they've been coming to me some, but my time's so split. They they've just been basically stepping up and and taking on those roles that they haven't had to deal with before. And uh so I can't I can't say enough about them of just jumping in there and and working as a team to to get it done. So, all right. So, we'll keep that. And um next we go to one of our another new department. I think was the airport budgeted separately before

it was budgeted under the public works department as a separate department. Okay. So, it had its own sheet. Now, we've pulled it out. Yeah. Okay. So, so Laura, any comments you want to say before um take questions?

Okay. Good morning. Um I tried to keep everything as copathetic as possible, but you will notice that there's a big jump for the ARF expenses. Um, and that's because initially that line item prior it used to be just for vehicle expenses like our the trucks that we have for airport ops and now it's become ARF expenses which are certainly more um a bit grander than our typical truck budget. So that's what the main bump is right there. But I'm happy to answer any questions. Nothing has yet. Councelor Hammond.

Hi Laura. Can you just talk to us a little bit about the increase on the very first line um the transfer to capital funds? Is that my Linda? So it's it's the she's asking about the transfer to capital funds to cover. So I guess the airport's not covering is that part of the expansion um transfer to capital funds. So what happens at the end of every year um because the airport is its own fund, we take the expenses that are budgeted that may have been paid out of capital that or grant fund. Well, not really grant funds, city grant funds maybe. um

capital capital funds that we paid for it out of capital, but the airport really should have paid for it. So, this is an an annual interfer to reimburse the capital fund for what really the airport should have paid for. That's what that's what this is for. Locations, huh? And that changes every year and you don't know until the end of the year, I guess, what exactly that's going to be allocer will cover city oh expenses.

Yeah, the input councelor Hammond some of those transfers too not just for capital projects but also a portion of my salary or some of those other salaries that we work on airport stuff as well. That's some of that transfer too. Yes, we do that for Horseshoe Bend and we do that for the airport where we take the personnel costs of people in upper management that work for those departments and then make those those funds um cover those expenses. So there's a whole allocation percentage. So we might take a percentage of of cranks and my salary and whatever other department heads and and apply it to that. The reason you see this broken out is because the airport is its own fund and Horseshoe Bend is its own fund whereas most of us sitting in this room are paid out of the general fund and so it's it's these were standalone funds. That's why you see that but that's what that dollar amount covers. It's kind of making the airport pay for that portion of um the capital expenses that they should have.

So I have a quick question on that then. Um, why the big increase to the proposed? Is there something coming up that we expect there to be much bigger transfers? You when when Frank goes over the capital section on here, we're going to see that tie in. Okay. No spoilers. Okay.

We do have some big capital projects coming up the airport and ongoing. So, so that's yeah, that's the and maybe answering councelor Hammond's question, I think part of that money is for the terminal expansion and some of those projects that we classify into the capital fund, but they're airport projects. So, they transfer out of that airport enterprise fund into the capital fund general fund money. You could do that with HERF, too, if this is my plug for um the fact that the state gas tax hasn't been raised since 1991. HERF is and that's the gas tax money is HERF. HERF is not even covering our operating expenses, much less any C capital street projects. So, when when you're talking to your legislators and things, that's another thing there to think about. So, but um any I guess Laura, any other questions maybe or questions for Laura?

I don't see any here. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And then we'll go back to the cemetery fund, which is another public works, but it's much like the airport. It's its own enterprise fund. Um, a special revenue fund. Sorry. That's okay. Any comments or questions on that one? No. Thank you.

All right. We move to Jake with the golf course. Again, this is another separate fund. Any comments you want to say about the operating J? Uh, no comments, but happy to answer any questions.

Think we're good on the operating. This is one. Is this where the 170 is? Councelor H. Yes, it's in the maintenance. Councelor Hammond. Yeah, I just had one question going back to the inner fund transfers tabs. The amount budgeted for the golf course is like over two times what it was last year. And so I wanted to understand that better. Uh let me find that line item. I think I might be able to answer that, Jake. I Let's see where that is. That's page That's on page 40, right? The inter transferage. On page

I think she's talking about this one. What page are you on, counselor? Page 40. Correct. Uh yeah, I think that that's correct. Okay, let me get to that. Is that the one? Oh, no. No. Oh, that's where you're at. She's just going back. Okay. So, let me make sure. Transfer to golf fund. Yeah. So, that takes care of any shortages I guess from the

So, part of our thing with the with the golf course is we have to budget depreciation for them. This is something that Jake doesn't do. This is on the finance side. So we add a depreciation cost on his equipment and his carts and all those kinds of things that because he's an enterprise fund over there. So the rest like the general fund doesn't do the depreciation on like our vehicles and all that but for an enterprise fund you do that. You'll see that with the utilities budgets as well. Um and then if the golf course falls short um the general fund is going to cover that cost. So, that's all wrapped into that money that we budgeted in here. And I do recall that in our last year's audit, we ended up taking a hit on this because we didn't budget enough in depreciation. So, we wanted to make sure that we put the money in there for the depreciation cost, which goes up because now he's got all his new carts and everything, as well as any shortages that he might have come up. Um, whereby if his revenue doesn't come in, but his expenses to keep that course green are still needing to happen. um then that's covered. And then another thing that was just added this year in this in the golf course budget and the maintenance budget is what the managers are getting ready to talk to you about with the page utility enterprise is charging us for uh an extra 170,000 for piping and utility costs related to the water.

Right. And if I can maybe expand on that a little bit, that's on page 61 under maintenance and supplies. That's where we put the the 170 that was talked about last night with the utility board. Um, and a little bit of information maybe got after the meeting, but my understanding the way that letter was written that the utility was wanting to charge us that. So that was a payment we were going to make to utilities. There was some discussion after the meeting that the utilities expected us to take on the care and maintenance of the equipment and the plumbing for the pumping and that and that's not my understanding of how that letter was written. So

that wasn't my understanding because their personnel were still going to do it. Okay. Perfect. I just want to make sure I've got council's backing on that. Um that's how we felt from my from my meetings, my attendance and their pee board meetings. I could I could clarify that, but my understanding is they have the people and the knowhow to do it. They just wanted to make sure that the true costs of the of that part of the golf course was just, you know, included in the in the in the right categories. Yeah. So, that was my understanding because and this is no fault of Jake that

Yeah. Right. that expense is coming on because in my mind they need to get rid of that water and then there's a I think they get 50% recharge credit for it. So I'm a little sore about this, but if the utility and council are okay with it and and there may have to be some I don't know some fine-tuning to how those calculations are, you know, in my opinion applied into that. But councelor Peller. Well, I was first, but Oh, counselor. They answered that question. Um, you answered my question basically. But I do have another question about the Pau contract in regards to water, but I'll go ahead and confirm to the two of these guys first, especially John.

Um, does it would it make more sense in last night's utility meeting, it was broken up into three different uh line items on their budget? Would it make more sense to break that up here and maybe not take all of those? Like it it would make sense for the golf course to take over the the pipes and the valves, but maybe not the water or the utilities for the pumping costs. Is is there any merit to that? I don't know. Jake, do you guys have the skill set to work on all those big pumps? And um generally we bring somebody in from Phoenix to work on the pumps.

So that that's that's kind of my worry is that PUE they work on pumps this size and everything. Most of what the golf course does is irrigation work. So as far as water distribution systems, I'm not they're not certified. They don't have their operator licenses. Um I'm not sure how that works in with reclaimed water. Um because my experience with reclaimed water is we simply pumped it to rapid infiltration basins. We never broadcast it like this. But um I I would be afraid if if the quote city side of things started taking over that actual work

and yeah I don't and I don't I don't think that was their intention and we can clarify that. Okay. Yeah, councelor Cojan. Yeah, the the city only gets 2700 acre feet of water allocated from the river and because the reclaim it's closer to 43. So that 2,000 above that that PU is selling should take care of that. They're they're not giving that money to the golf course or to the general fund. So PUE should pay for all that. and we'll have to get into those details. Disagree. Councelor Hammond.

Yeah, for the record, I know I missed the pee budget meeting last night, but um for the record, I don't think that we should be changing the way that uh water is allocated to the golf course. I agree with councelor Kjan. Um, you know, PeeWee kind of gets salty about correct charges and stuff, but I I think sometimes they are prone to forget that they're not a corporate entity. Their job is not to make money. Neither is it the city's job or the golf courses job to make money. Our job is to provide good quality of life for our people. And the golf course is a big part of that. So, um, and yeah, if you all made the decision to change the way that that is built, then I guess I'm the minority on that. But, um, my opinion is that we should leave it the way that it is.

C, Councelor Hettinger, and then Councelor Roundtree.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I want to go back to what councelor Peller said because my understanding from yesterday's meeting was that um, the utility and the utility board understood that pumping the water up to the golf course, some of those bigger things needed to happen anyway and they get a credit for it. And their concern was, and again, apologies if I misunderstood this, but it sounded like they were just talking about little pipes and irrigation valves throughout the golf course. Um, and I I'm guessing that those aren't really as little as I'm as they are in my backyard, but I thought that they were only talking about the pieces specific to the golf course to do the irrigation on the golf course. And I thought that made sense to potentially have that transferred to the golf course, but I I wouldn't want us to transfer all of the responsibility and cost of pumping reclaimed water just because both sides are getting a benefit from it.

Okay, Councelor Rryree. So, I agree with Tom and what Kenneth said. So, I can see where some of it possibly should transfer over, but I do question about all of it. So I guess we might need a further discussion with PU because when I went home last night and thought about it, I came with the some of the same conclusions in my thought processes. Well, and then we'll of course need clarification on that misunderstanding about who does the actual maintenance.

There's a misunderstanding there. And we're looking at the wastewater budget right now and they've got 40,000 for pipes and fittings, 20,000 for valves and controls and then 86,000 for utilities. That's the approximately 170,000. That's actually 146 that they've got budgeted for that. But the letter said that the letter said 170. Well, it was closer. We rounded up to 170. It was 167. So, yeah. Um, here's So, they were basing that off of last year's budget or something from the

Yeah. So, the letter had 167. Um, so we bumped ours up to 170 just for rounding. And then when I looked and added theirs up, it added to 146. And it was after the meeting that Katherine had stopped to clarify with us that we were taking over it and they were planning on taking this out of their budget. I said that was not my intention. My intention was to receive a bill quarterly, monthly, whatever from the utility and pay you for the fittings, the you know whatever utility charges or whatever. And so that's when I brought it to Frank and now clarified with the council that that was our understanding. So I thought maybe I had misunderstood it

as well. So, let me make sure I'm hang on just a second. Jake, does the does PUE maintain the all of the irrigation equipment on the golf course? As far as I know, they supply us with any irrigation equipment that we may need to get the water onto the golf course. Okay. So, a lot of like Simpson Norton stuff. So, if it's a a sprinkler head or valve, that's PUE helps us with that. So, yes,

this is and that that's why I was asking because that's also in their letter. So, what they're saying is normally if they didn't need to water the golf course, they would just use portable water cannons which are relatively simple. Their request is that because we're watering the golf course, all this specialty equipment for watering the golf course, that's the in the letter it was 167 that they're asking for. So, that's their justification. for that that rather than using just a plain old water cannon, they're having to buy valves and piping and and sprinkler distribution systems.

Yeah. Whether whether they sprinkle it out on the desert or whether they sprinkle on the grass, they should pay for that because without that reclaim or also they have to uh get rid of that water. They don't have a choice. their ADQ permit requires them to get rid of that water. So why it should be at our expense and not theirs don't make any sense. I agree agree with councelor Kjan. They're getting the money for that reclaim water that they're selling.

There's some clarification that we'll need because I know that there's some strange rules with ADQ. If you're going to w put it out on the desert, there's a different rate that you get if you and unless you're going to put it on grass. I don't understand why they the ADQ would would uh only give you a partial credit for if you're watering lawn in your own city. I think it's really bizarre.

I know why. It's because because they said that the grass consumes part of that whereas you just spray it out of the desert goes right to the reclaim. That's sort of the two differences. It's still they have to get rid of that water is what it they're going to be 2 million gallons a day at some point. So maybe in interest of keeping them well I'm not sure how to deal with the budget but I'm wondering since this letter came in maybe a better avenue should would it be advisable to create a agenda item for council to consider this letter and maybe invite the Brian and the board chair to come to the meeting and discuss it at a council meeting as a standalone item,

I think. And we have we have time for that in this budget cycle, don't do we not? We still have some time to have them come to council or let's put it this way. After this meeting, with all the changes that we have going on today, my staff is prepared to present this the schedules, the state of Arizona schedules to the city clerk by next Tuesday morning. Um,

okay. Although we can extend that, we don't have to adopt the preliminary budget on the 27th meeting. Um, it just pushes everything back, which ultimately says we won't have a an operating final budget um by July 1. That's not the first time this has happened. Um, but we could extend that. That's just kind of the I mean, if you want the time to meet with the board, we would just extend our um preparation of the council schedules, the adopting the preliminary schedules. Mayor, we wouldn't have to do that because once you submit the preliminary budget, it can go down. It just can't go up.

It can. You're correct. So, the preliminary budget, and this is another slide the manager has. the preliminary budget or tenative budget, however you call it, by state law has to be adopted by the third Monday in July. After that is adopted adopted, then we have the final budget, usually 60 uh 30 days later. Okay? So, we're scheduled right now to do the end of May with the tenative and the end of June for the final to be operational by July 1. we still have that that tenative can go all the way to July and just going to push back any projects because I'm assuming that the city manager is not going to want to execute a budget for next fiscal year without having the final numbers in the event that the council chooses to lower the number. So when we adopt the tenative that'll be the highest number. The number can only go down by the time we get to the final adoption. So we can so we can

if we want to continue these discussions with pee and get clarification and firm it up, we can go ahead and put these numbers in the budget and then pull them out and pull them down to where we discuss and agree. That is a true fact. You can do that and it won't go down. It'll just go it'll just shift within the funds, right? I mean well if the city to pee um if the money is going to be spent somebody's well right now it's budgeted in two places. They've got it budgeted and we've got it. So it will go down. So, um, they're budgeting 146,000. We budgeted 170,000. So, yes, over overall budget inclusive of the utility, it's double budgeted right now.

So, if both of these are are presented with their with that budget, one of them is going to come down and we can we can tackle that in the final. We can do that when we adopt the final. I I like that. Council Prowller, I I just want to throw out looking at the um past year actuals um for that that PUE presented um that they're significantly lower than what uh they budgeted and then we added another safety buffer on top of that. So there's a a huge uh gap between what the past actuals have been compared to what's being budgeted now. Um and that that might that and we could also and and that's part of the discussion we can have.

Yeah, I think that's causing a bit of sticker shock and inflating these numbers. Okay. Well, I don't the actuals here. Well, actuals for 24 and 25 as compared to what they're budgeting here. See this 11. Okay. Compared to the 86, it's what council's talking. I know that um spending 36, right? Councelor Roundree. Well, it'll probably come back. I think it's in the capital breakdown, but you are fixing those lights cuz I want the phone calls to stop. So, is that accurate? That is the the 30,000 back there is to um address the the light issue for Yeah, driving. I've got some money in there for that. Okay.

Okay. Because I'm just I just wanted to make sure of that. So, anyone listening to this, yes, we're going to address those. If not, we can talk about it during the capitals and make sure. That's what I wanted to make sure we're discussing it then. So, so are we clear then on on this for Frank? Leave it as is, but between tenative and final, it could come down. Yeah. And they'll have their meetings with the board. We'll reach out to PUE and see when they can come to a council meeting and and maybe discuss it so that everybody understands everything and we get it square because in the end it's all city money, right?

One way or the other. It's just how do you accurately account for it? Account for the expenses. Yeah. Where it comes down to. Um, okay. The next one is another one for me. This is the highway user revenue fund. Sorry. Oh, sorry, Councelor Hammond. I didn't see your hand. I apologize. That's okay. No worries. Um, just real quick, if we're going to have that discussion with pee, do we need to first put it on a future agenda item at our next meeting? No, this is something that Frank can just put on the agenda. Okay.

Right. I can I'll just find out when they're available and s get with the counselors counselors can't do that. Yeah. So, the mayor and the manager can put anything on an agenda. It's just us that have to have future agenda items. The council members,

yeah, the city staff staff and um city manager and city attorney can put an item on the agenda as needed. All right. Right. So again, the the HERF fund um again, this is a kind of a soapbox issue of mine that normally I would like to have the streets crew salaries in this fund, but um with the the transfers we get from the state, I'm sorry, which page are you on? Oh, I'm on page 62. Okay.

Uh you will see there's there's no salary items in her anymore. Um, I think that's probably been that way several years now, Linda. Yeah, it's probably six or seven now. Um, and nothing we can do about it. It's just my gripe of having worked in public works for years that you're if you want to operate the HERF fund like an enterprise fund, you can't because you're not getting enough money from the revenues to support that. So that's why those salaries are in general fund is otherwise you would have to do another one of those inter department transfers to take care of that.

But that's where we've got the the operating expenses for the street crews in here. Um and we just tried we've got a little bit of uh even a little deduct. We just went through and our uniforms and things tried to get that consistent throughout the different divisions. So, any questions or comments on the HERF revenue fund, which is our streets operating budget? Nope. I see no qu Oh, councelor Roundtree.

I just wanted to have one suggestion. Um, I think that I mean we went from 140,000 for street repair to the 800,000 and I think a lot of repairs were done last year and it looks like we're going to commit to that again this year. I for the PIO I maybe a few pieces letting our citizens know that that's being done because you hear a lot of complaints about that and I think that we have improved on that.

Thank you. Okay, got that down. All right. So, next I'll go ahead and if we go back to the slides. Yep.

We'll start with uh some of our capital items. Um, and I kind of divided this into capital equipment and then projects. So, request from public works for capital equipment. Let me see. So, I can see this as well on mine. Um, so we've got three items under public works. The diagnostic scanner, that's not just for automotive, that's a heavy equipment scanner like a like a car dealer would use, but this is also for the heavy equipment. So that central our central garage can help diagnose and repair some of that equipment inhouse. Um it's expensive, but it I think it would with with how far away the big dealers are in Prescuit and uh Phoenix, it it would help us. Um then we've got the the barricades are the ones that I think were rented um at least for one or maybe two events last year. I think they tried a couple different barricades. So, we put these under public works, but they're they're intended for special events and even where police might need to use them for for parades and balloon riotta and those sorts of things. Uh, that to go ahead and purchase a set of those at 150,000 and then we would have public works help stage those and and set those out for us. And then my understanding, I think council may know more about this than I do because we use them, but

they're fairly easy to move around once you get them on site. Um, that's what that item is. And then the the new street sweeper is not a cheap piece of equipment, and I hate street sweepers because they always break. Um, but we need them, especially in this town with the sand and gravel that we get on the roads, especially with Highway 89. Um, with all of the motorcycle traffic that tours through here and all the locals, especially, uh, with bicycles and motorcycles, that's not good. But they they just said they can't keep up trying to fix that beat up old street sweeper, and it's time to get a new one. So,

councelor Frell, the 150 for the barricades, is that in addition to what was budgeted last year? I'm We had set aside that approximate amount last year and did not use it except we did rent some. We set aside more than that. Let me check on that real quick. we have that in the budget last year.

We had it we didn't put it in as a CIP. So the answer is no. That's not a carrier. It's not in addition to this is brand new money. Um we had money budgeted in last year's budget in the fiscal current fiscal year. We we rented this year and we used it against that rental. Um but we didn't put it in a CIP program where we banked the rest of it. Okay. So the bids or the bids for the PD will 150 cover the streets that have to be covered cuz we budgeted more last year. Do you know chief? Any help with that? Or assistant chief? You got a microphone?

Needs a microphone. Who's got the mic? There you go. So we got a updated quote from the company that we were looking at to provide the coverage. The quote is a lot more than the 150,000, but looking at the quote, I think it's more than we need for the coverage that we used last year for Blue and Reata. So, I think we can it'll probably be closer to 200,000 to get from the quote to get coverage for Lake Paw Boulevard and Elm Street. That quote came in last night during

Councelor Hedinger and then councelor Roundtree. Um, I love the idea of the diagnostic scanner and just want to confirm that we have the knowhow in house that we'll be able to use it. Yes, his name's Sheldon. Awesome. Okay, thank you,

Council Roundree. Um, I know that we budgeted more last year by quite a bit because it was a sticker shot for me and I thought that was way too much for barricades, but when I noticed them, I felt a lot more secure during um, our activities. So, I do think that's low for the barricades. And I'm not being able to find the numbers, but I thought it was closer to 500,000 because it was a big point for me that that was an awful lot for barricades. And I wouldn't want to spend that much, but I'm more comfortable with the quote that you just got. Yeah, the quote we got was for 330,000. Um, but the number of barricades, it's, you know, that's for like 150 barricades, which I don't think we need that many.

Go ahead, councelor. So, is your in your opinion, because we're we're going to go by what you guys feel because you were out there using them, that number instead of 150 should be 200. Yeah. For It'll give us 89 barriers for uh about 195 not counting tax. So whatever tax will be on top of 195,000 and that includes the trailer. Yes. Good.

And also just so council knows if we could not get these delivered by July 4th, I may need to rent barricades for that event. And if we don't budget for it here, I would expect that to maybe come out of contingency. So you can pay for it out of this year's budget. You could do it out of this year's And we didn't use these barricades for July 4th uh last year just for balloon regard. Just balloon regard. Oh, okay. So, but we could use them for the fourth. We could pay them out.

The the Fourth of July doesn't have as as critical of a need for barricades as the balloon riata, does it? I mean, we have the parade, which which is not quite as hard as the big balloon riata. Well, and they use their vehicles as as temporary blockage devices. So, their their their patterning and their planning suffices for Fourth of July. I'm concerned when we have the tens of thousands on the Bloom Reata. So I would like to see that number raised to to cover their last their interpretation of the last bit of what would work for the team which is closer to 200.

So so we increase that 150 to 200. We can use our old street sweeper as a barricade. Yeah. Councelor Round Tree. And I hope that we're going to start once we own them that we'll start using them for more things like Elm Street and other things. I'm hoping that that we're not buying this just for the blue. Right. Correct.

Okay. Okay. All right. Uh did I make sure I didn't click twice? Okay. So, next on equipment we have fire. Um So, they've got two items in there. The CPR device and then one of the the ambulance is a replacement chief. Is that correct? Okay. We can. So, and that uh that picture is actually the CPR device, right? Yes. So, correct.

Um any comments or questions on that? How old is that ambulance? The ambulance that we're replacing is a 2018 ambulance with ambulance. 70,000 miles including idle time. That would be closer to 140 150,000 miles of use on that vehicle. We'll break down the back.

Where is the ambulance on our list here? It's all the way in the back on page. Let me Good point. Let me also I am on page 72 and I see the um CPR device, but under public safety and fire, I do not see the ambulance listed under there. Did we get that back? It's on the bottom of page seven. The very bottom. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. It's way down there.

Okay. Yeah, I grouped these together, but I will do my best to try and also coordinate it with uh we're on page 72 as far as the book goes. And my apologies, for some reason, we have public safety fire divided into two areas. That shouldn't have happened. We have the CPR device closer to the top and that ambulance at the bottom. Probably because we started to take it out and then put it back in. Maybe.

All right. Next we go to police. Um, and if I can maybe tap in to the assistant chief or chief. We've got a few slides with this maybe to explain some of theirs big software expenses.

Sure. Yeah, we combined a lot of our uh Axon. We had a bunch of different contracts under Axon for our body worn cameras and various different things of drones and um so we got with them instead of having contracts all over the place that expired at different differing times. They went ahead and combined all of our contracts together into one big contract. This first slide kind of covers um everything that the new contract would cover. Uh, and I can explain more of any of these if you want to get more explanation on it. Um, this was is the cost break. It's a 10-year uh, contract and there's a fixed annual schedule fee for each year with year one being a little bit reduced and then year 2 through 10 being um, split evenly. And then they gave us a little slide on the breakdown. And if we were to to wait and do two five-year contracts instead of a 10-year contract, there's the cost uh difference and the cost savings for the 10-year. Also, one big advantage for the 10-year is they um agreed to include it's a an AI um portion of the contract. So, any new AI technology that Axon puts out in the next 10 years, we get added on for no additional cost because we have that package. Um, so we thought that was a big benefit as well.

And so if you're going with this package and you're concerned about your services, you can't you're tied in for 10 years. Yes. You have to pay it out for 10 years. Yes. because I've done equipment that and things that I got into at the animal hospital and it was the same thing and then the services weren't there or the services fell off or and I want to have a data center issue here but one of the big concerns is is data centers are not being built that things are going to slow down and some of these type of things are going to really be affected so if we're out five years and it's it's not being effective if we're tied in we have to pay it off right

yeah we've been using Axon for almost 10 years now, but we've previously done a 5-year contract. Um, so some of the maybe some of the technologies, you know, they're not promising anything in as far as in the future. What they're promising is what we are already getting. And that's our body warn cameras, our tasers and things like that that I don't see going away in the next 10 years. Our software, I see that. But a lot of this information is controlled by and stored in and and those type of systems are right really being questioned right now where they're going to where they're going to head and what's going to happen, who's going to be fighting for them and the cost. So I'm kind of glad that they're tied in because the cost could really start going up on some of these services as storage houses for these services are massively limited.

Sure. And and we u brought that consideration in as well. Uh getting tied into this fixed cost for the next 10 years. Instead of like I said two fivey year they projected the cost in five years from now would be significantly higher. Yeah it probably is going to be significantly higher. Can we go back a slide again just see what what all include or sorry one more. Cool. Thank you.

I got a quick question. when when the vice mayor and I were doing our little tour and we happened to go at the right time where we got to see this all in action. Um you were talking about use you some parts of your program were a the freebie program for lack of a better term. Does this bring it back bring it up to where you were wanting it on the software program? Yeah, when we tied all these contracts in together, they kind of um gave us the starter contract so we could test out the equipment, but this this builds in the the full program full which had more capabilities than what we even witnessed during that chase or

Yes. during that escape. Councelor Frell. And I just wanted to comment how phenomenal it was that we were able to be in a controlled center and have that loan officer approaching somebody that was potentially risky and be able to join in and see. So you have people watching what's going on through that axon camera as well as the the drone to provide officer safety. Significantly significant. And I've met with several officers about that and what they were reluctant at the beginning, they're act very happy with that that new process. So, and I it was impressive to watch.

And one thing that we've found like like chief mentioned, we've been touring other agencies that have a more developed real-time crime center and their officers get used to that and that comfort and the officer safety that comes with that. And a lot of times if they're leaving an agency, they're they're looking to go to an agency that has that capability already in place.

Any more questions on the Axon software? Councelor Pller and then councelor Roundtree.

Uh I'm I'm just a bit hesitant on the locking ourselves down for 10 years. I think uh having like tasers and a replacement plan for those uh makes total sense. Um now we're looking at two drones already, but I I think the um software and platforms uh we're we're seeing a lot of use out of and Axon is industry leading on that, but there's there's going to be market competition and 10 years is a really long time. um if if four years from now there's someone that can do it for significantly cheaper um you know the the automatic redaction or whatever I think we would be uh you know kind of painting ourselves in a corner uh for for a while on that. So I I feel like it would be uh it might be more expensive but it might uh give us flexibility down the line to just go with the 5-year option.

Council Roundtree. So, a little bit is what I was trying to think because I've gotten into these type of deals. So, it's right new technology comes out and you want to go that way, but you're not. I mean, they're really hard on these contracts. You don't get out of them. You pay for them life. I actually had to get out of one when I sold my animal hospital. Um, cost me a lot of money. So, we have to understand that you are tied into this. and I'm excited about this technology, but with this type of a a software commitment, you will pay for it whether or not there's something else you want to do and you'll have to maintain all of that equipment and everything else. So, I'm I'm I'm really excited about this. I think it's at my age, I think that these type of things are exciting um for our communities and for our citizens. I I'm so glad that you guys are investing in them and I'm going to go with your approval for 10 years, but I just I'm I'm kind of with Tom. I just that software ties you in and your other flexibility for other technology or other things that come out or other directions you're going. That's 10-year commitment and you're stuck to it because if you decide to go somewhere else, we're still paying for that. We aren't you're not going to get out of these type of this type of a software commitment. Councelor Ferrell,

I and I can understand a 10-year commitment in this, but when you go to IPS West, IC West, you go to IC East, you go to these conventions, uh, Axon leads the way for law enforcement. They they are the the team out there that's self-investing, working with the community, shows up at the community, they come here, they meet with our group. uh there's a they act axon acts like more of a partner in terms of driving new and when you're looking at officer safety and something that's attached to their chest as they go through that connectivity the the software the speed of messaging I think it's important to look at a good commitment like this and I see it as a good partnership but I understand what you're saying on a 10-year but I've been dealing with Axon since they were first out and I've watched them mature and what I like about their maturity is they team up with grounded boots in the ground which are are our officers.

I appreciate that. That makes me feel better because I knowing that about them because I want these services for our page. Councelor Hettinger and then councelor Kjan.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I was just going to echo what Vice Mayor Pharaoh said, but from a different perspective. Um, because they are industryleading, I think anything new that's coming out around this, like there might be companies that do things better for a little while, but it's going to come back to Axon. I think they're going to do things the best and give the most um like the the best value as well. So, I'm I'm comfortable with the 10-year um because they are the industry standard. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Kent.

Yeah, if you pull up that third screen where So, if you're you know what, make two more million dollars just for the comfort of not going with the 10ear. So, why would we waste 10 two more million dollars? Why don't we just go with the program? Done. One thing I'll add is with Axon, they're not brand new. Um, they are industryleading and as far as our partnerships go, um, to echo what what the vice mayor said, we have regular meetings with Axon on all these different subjects and topics. I mean, they they they own Taser now. It's all cutting edge, you know, their their company is cutting edge and but it's not like we sign contracts and then it's just we have the product and we don't hear from them, we don't talk to them. Uh it it is truly a partnership and it's one of the better partnerships that we have.

Thank you on that one. Okay, the the next item we have here is our Pharaoh uh 3D scanner. Uh and the radios are here as well. So, there's two different items here. Uh our 3D scanner is is past the warranty life and that's the reason that we're looking to uh purchase a new one. We use it all the time. Every uh major collision accident collision scene that we have, we use it. Uh we have a number of our staff trained to use it. uh crime scenes, we bring it out. Uh so we get a lot of use out of it. Um but the software no longer supports the um getting new software for that equipment. So we would have to buy a new unit.

Yeah. Yeah. And one one thing that uh councelor uh Hammond brought up earlier and if you look at the photo that accident there was a really horrible accident but that that would have tied up uh without the ferro scanner that that would have tied up at least eight of our people for probably 10 or 12 hours. And as you can see with the ferro scanner you got one person operating it and then you got two people uh you can't see in that though you know doing traffic control. But that's another benefit of technology.

Uh and the second part of this is our radio. There's a uh radio upgrade that our uh communications provider would like to do on our water tower that would increase the capability for our whole radio system. This is police and fire uh both. And then also um adding some spare portable radios to our inventory. Councelor Pharaoh and then councelor Roundtree. I just have one question on the Pharaoh scanner. Um they wish they'd spell that correctly. No. Um the the PH, right?

Yeah. PH. Uh we were testing software to integrate with the drone and the ferro scanner to create a quicker means to 3D um crime scene or a scene. Is is we're still working in that direction? I believe we do have the software to tie in the drone scans with our pharaoh scans. Yes. Great. It because I overall we have the greatest capacity with those two to to to capture scene at the least impact to the public. Thank you.

So my just question is and everybody understands that you have a computer that works great and and it software doesn't work and so you have to get a new one even though it's perfectly fine. So, how old was this? How long did we have this old scanner for? Before it was just the software because it probably I'm assuming functions fine. You've taken great care of it. It is because of the software. So, seven, eight, 10, 40. Yeah, I think it's seven years if I had to estimate. So, probably Yeah. So, it should still be around and they should just But they've got us tied. So, thank you.

Okay. brings us to our our real-time crime center. Um so for this portion, like I said, this is new new program. This is um a big program for the police department. It's where we think law enforcement is headed. Um money in this capital item is for additional LPRs, um surveillance cameras, and uh speed trailer software that can tie into our real-time crime center. Okay, it doesn't look like we have any questions on that one.

And then this is part of our um capital improvement program that we fund every year. It's requesting to pull money out of that fund to purchase two new patrol units for the upcoming fiscal year. Is there uh detail as to if that's an an F-150 or an SUV unit? I think there's still some discussion on exactly what type of vehicle that's going to be. Um we went to a smaller Ford Explorer recently um for some different reasons. There's we've had some issues with the Explorer. So now we're having internal discussions on the best and tying the garage into it as well as far as what the best

product to go with.

And if I can add to that too, um that's where I might look for a new public works director to help and see if they he's got some input. A large portion of that is your upfit cost. Half of that is is your upfitting. So, um, I want to rely on some of his experience, too, to to see if we're using the the right upfitter for the right vehicle, and that may depend on which vehicle we choose and which upfitter we use, too. So, we want to this is a good year to to look at that and and see where we're at because I've had decent luck with the they're explorers, but they call them interceptors. Um, same thing, but uh we haven't had good luck with that one this year compared to some of the trucks. Um, and just not sure if it's an upfitter issue or maybe the model year. Sometimes you get a model year that has some issues. Um, so but that's we would figure that would cover either one I think, right, Chief? So,

yes.

Okay. No questions. All right. And so that covers that. If you look at the page 72, that's about 900,000 or so. Um, not cheap, but it's public safety never is cheap. I've got this. So, then we move on to to it. Um, they've got some things. Uh, we don't have good fancy pictures with that, but it it's just bunch of

circuit boards and things. I think our You maybe want to just go down the list and describe these a little bit?

Yeah, I think our actually that one's really loud. Okay. So, I think our biggest thing is, you know, we we do want to invest more in the in the camera system this year. Um, so the the network or the what we would say the DVR, NVRs, um, there's one that's been in place that was before I was here. So, so and we've kind of got a lot of disparit. This this new system we can do one big server to kind of take up to couple hundred cameras now. So, so that's probably that that biggest thing there. Um, call recorder server that is for public safety when when anything's coming into 911 and all that. They re they redo that server every five to seven years. So in so it's due and then uh we had the uh printer here in city hall at the end of hall that's been here before I got here the large format that finally died. So any questions? Any questions? I don't see No. No questions. I don't see any questions. All right. And just wondering, mayor, lunch is here. Do we want to go a little further or break or what is your wishes there?

I'm fine for having a quick lunch. We can make it quick lunch. Okay. Does council concur? Do all the people sitting out here concur? Do you want to maybe figure out a time for the counselors? I will go ahead. I will.

I will reopen our meeting. The time is 11:52. Um, where were we? All right. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, next we've got up All right, community services. Um, we just got a few here. Debbie, help me out if we need it. Parks is asking for ditch witch hydrovacuum. I call those ve well vector trucks, but that's a trailer. Um, the Toro Dingo you see on the bottom left, it's a handheld machine they use for trail maintenance and other items. And then Rick is asking for uh some batting cages with shades. And I believe Debbie, those batting cages, they they got a couple, but Parks and Wreck really wanted a more robust setup for batting cages. Is that

right? and that's what they were promised in the budget. Um, but we ended up getting really inexpensive ones that you have to haul inside every time you know you you're done using them. And so this one would be able to be outside at all times. as well. You've got these two. You want to anything you want to say about those or we good? We're good. Unless they have any questions.

Yeah, the community center kitchen is some upgrades there. That's that's one of my problem child buildings. I guess not mine, Debbie's, but it's just an old legacy one that's a patchwork of buildings and and Becky and her staff do their best at keeping it going. I will note that the toilets seem to be flushing. I think we finally got that project squared away after we went back in and tore out some more concrete. But uh but for now, we're looking at some some upgrades of some of that kitchen equipment so that it's safe and everything. And then the trailer is for Lette and the special events to help them move equipment around.

Yes. Can I just ask what the kind of scope of the kitchen equipment replacement is? So it would be the refrigerator and the stove. the stove often needs requires somebody to come in and fix it. So, that would include that. And then also the flooring. Um, like he said, it is a add-on and the flooring is just just needs to be replaced. I can see that.

Okay. Just checking for offline too. Um, We're good. Golf course. Jake, um I love this picture of Jake's current sound system. We've talked about that. That's the uh JBL Party Box. Yeah, I pretty much have to lug that around all throughout the property when we have events. Uh it it would be very nice and very professional to have a a new audio system. Uh that would also allow allow for more first tea control on busy days to announce those groups as their tea times arrive.

And and going to the equipment, I will note that he really needs two mowers. Um but just for budget concerns, we we figured at least try and get one this year. Yeah. Try to replace that 2010 rough mower. That's that's pretty old. All right. Thank you. And then we move to the airport. We start running into more money here. So I didn't know whether to call this airport or fire.

Well, technically it's it's us because it's fire at the airport. So, it is under the airport ARF budget, but is but if you guys need specific details about the actual turrets, I will defer to the expert at my left here. Jeeoff, you want to at least there's so much fun for you. Do you want to at least talk about how you've struggled with it?

Yeah. So what what this uh request is for is you'll see that picture on the on the bottom left that turret um the current apparatus at the at the airport is more than 20 years old and those turrets um have become very unreliable. They uh they frequently fail during operations primarily in training. Um thankfully we haven't had any operations that ever required them. Um because it's because of the brand of truck it's very proprietary and very expensive to upgrade. Um doing this upgrade would would make this truck useful well into the future. Um and that would be including maybe uh changing the index of the airport um and adding another truck at some point if we need to. Any questions?

Nope. Oh, one from Council Roundree. I I'm sorry. I was in the restroom, so it's not for you. It's back to the batting cages. Oh, missed that answer, and I'm really sorry about that, but because I've had um citizens question me about it. So, why is it back in the b um the budget? And he said that you mentioned something about pulling or dragging them out, and that was not because I was in parks and recreation, and the original plan for those, it was supposed to be out front, and the citizens could come at any and access them and we were supposed to be build this big thing and then we backed off um to do something different but why did they end up buying microphone

the two machines that were being pulled out this was supposed to be a permanent unit that public could go and use so I don't understand right and that was before my time so I can't honestly answer that sorry I was just telling council sorry about that so what I'm saying is where did this jump from back to where you're pulling out batting machines to where the proposal was we were supposed to build a nice uh community unit so people could go down at any time and walk in and have batting cages.

Yeah, you are correct. Um that was before my time so I can't answer that question. I'm not the one that chose them. Um however, the PRA board did say exactly what you said and that's why we put it back on the budget this year to buy the correct ones that this one will stay out there at all times for the public to come use it whenever they'd like.

Right. because there were supposed to be like three and there were supposed to be two adult-sized ones and one for younger or for kids that was smaller in the original plan and and where did those funds go? Did we spend those I mean on the existing I mean what happened to those other funds because we had there was a lot of money that we had budgeted towards these batting cages things and then they said they had to change the plan because it was going to be more expensive than they thought. So that's just my that's what as some citizens have come to me and asked and I was aware of that because I had been on park and recreation when we originally planned this. They they did purchase one and it is a mobile one where you have to take it back inside after its use. Um and again I don't know why that was chosen. Um

so what happened to the money that was budgeted for the the batting? It was supposed to be like a little complex and was supposed to be between the paracub and um the sports complex right there at the end of that parking lot and there's plans drawn up for it. I mean there it was I don't know if it was ever executed if they if they never spent the funds the funds would remain in the fund balance of

I I recall them bringing it to us but I don't recall council accepting the the plan. Well, yeah, there was I thought that because it was so much overbudget and so we asked them to to possibly bring it into the sports complex, but I didn't think it got cut so far that we have just one batting machine that you have to pull out. Yeah. I mean, there I thought I don't recall it ever coming back to us with a paired down plan. Council councelor Hettinger.

I was just going to try and provide a little bit more context from the parks and recck board staff has already done an incredible job. But yes, I believe it was last year during budget time that we were given an idea of what batting cages could be. And then the board found out a couple months ago um that that plan ended up being way more expensive than was budgeted. So they purchased the one It's very cumbersome for staff. They have to pull it out. They have to feed it one at a time. They have to bring it back in every time it's used. Um so, but that was a a previous staff member who's no longer here who made that decision. And so when they brought it before the parks and recck board, the board made a lot of these same comments of this isn't what we were expecting or what we were promised. Uh, and so that's why money is being put in now to I don't think I don't think we're going to get to what we talked about last year because it sounds like that was way more expensive than we anticipated it being. Um, so it sounds like this is a a more reasonable while also being more functional for the city option.

All right. Thank you. This is an example if we need to put on the agenda item or something where we're tracking these things um where we make these decisions and we need to make sure because there's still many items that we were told to that would be brought back to the board and there aren't. So, I guess I'm going to write that down as future agenda item how we start tracking these things. Okay. Well, I can I can do some research on last year's budget and what money was allocated and report back to you counselor on that. Okay. I mean, I would like that. Thank you.

All right. So, now we get into the fun part projects. Uh this year we'll start with public works. We're looking at Copper Mine and Hall Road uh design. That's the roundabout at Copper Mine and Hall Road. It also includes extensive sidewalks or I prefer to call them multi-use paths on Copper Mine, 10 foot wide sidewalks. Um that plan also includes a at this time at least a street connection kind of between the rodeo and annex park connecting Hall Road to Highway 98. Um, and this this is the continuation of of that design. It was the consultant started working on that and then we realized we hadn't been allocated the grant money yet. And with a lot of grants, if you start spending money ahead of receiving the grant, you don't get reimbursed for that money. So, uh, we're making sure that we have all the grant paperwork in place before we start working on that design. Um, that's that project. I put in here, $50,000 for a pavement assessment plan. Um, that's a good report to I think the last one Kyle did may

have been six or seven years ago and so it's it's time for a new one. Those report costs are coming down with the use of AI and other things. Um, the latest technology with that is you can mount your cell phone onto your dashboard, drive the road, and it will record all of the information for the cracks in the street and the signs and things. Uh, last one I did was about $300 a mile, and some of the cost other groups around the state using some of this technology are getting $30 a mile. So, I'll work with with our new public works director and he'll come up with a plan to uh I wanted to give him some room to update the pavement condition and start working on a good capital improvement plan and an outlook for the uh program street maintenance and the the the projects for the street improvements that we've got going. So that'll help us plan not just what we're doing next year, but five to 10 years out. Um, and this year working with the with Mike and and AK and the streets crew, I think Vista is already designed actually. So to to rebuild full reconstructive Vista, if I got my directions right, north of Lake Pal from from Lake Pow to Navajo and then the Navajo part, there's a a section of that which would be more of a overlay kind of a millenfill section and don't quote me on it, but I think it's from like 10th to 12th or somewhere around there. It's not the whole section of North Navajo, but it's in the area of Vista. Um, for that project, that's what that $2 million is for.

Are you ready for questions? Yes. Okay. Councelor Frell, on on Vista, uh, does that the utilities or is this new plan include utilities going underground or the poles staying above, wiring above? with the dollar amount. I don't think so. It's And I don't think it includes uh it it may include curb and gutter and sidewalks, repairing those or maybe looking at those, but um the utilities are above ground there, I think. Right.

Yeah. From from 1050 Vista West, it's all above ground. that would probably significantly increase the cost of the project if we wanted to look at undergrounding those. I just was wondering because there's been discussion in the past on that. Yeah. Yeah. Councelor Roundree and then councelor Cojan.

Yeah, that's kind of how I felt about this is that we had construction and I wanted to know more exactly what it does include whether it does include curbing if it doesn't and then the North Navajo part is going to come into our beautifification. So, if we approve this, how is that going to affect if if we come back with recommendations or changes on that? Because a couple of the programs showed blocking off or making it wider. So, I I don't know if we shouldn't hold off for this until we have more information because I we have discussed like Mike said about the utility pools coming being down and I want to know exactly what's in this. Councelor Cojan.

Yeah. The PU recently took and put the power under underground over there and they tried to get the telephone company and cable company to go with them and they would refuse to even talk to PU so that's why they didn't have them but the electrical is underground but that this new construction is everything inside the curb and doesn't take care of anything outside the curb. So if we are if we are taking the time to do a a good resurface of Vista that's probably should be the time in which the city should contact th those two entities and say look we're doing this big project we need you to come on board and then coordinate with pee in my opinion. Um I do have one concern as a business owner with sidewalks in front and back. Um, just wanted to make sure that that the city is coordinating with the business owners so we don't end up with a curb and gutter like we had in front of Big O Tires where they installed new curb and gutter and then they had to come back and cut the whole darn thing because they didn't coordinate a usable curb shape for the go tires.

That was an AOT project. Oh, was it the AO? Why? That's why they got the goofy curbs in there. Okay. Well, that that one was a that one was a sad situation. Councelor Hammond and then councelor Roundtree. Um yeah, I was just going to suggest I

I also love the idea of reconfiguring the power lines on Vista at the same time that we do this paving. Um, but from my conversations with pee owner, business owner buyin on those private properties has been a challenge in the past. So, um, I I don't I don't know. We might need some legislative effort to direct that and I don't know how popular that will be or how quickly we can get that done. I like the idea. I just think that we all need to commit that if that's the road that we're going to go down, council has some work to do. Understand councelor Round

that's what I'm agreeing in regards to I want to know what portion of North Navajo because I don't want us to have to cut or re if the beautifification comes back with a suggestion for buses there or or pull in or I mean there's three designs and I don't know which one but a couple of those designs would affect that little bit of area there. So definitely um

I can answer that. The section of North Navajo that this project's concerned with is across Lake Pal Boulevard from the BU from the beautifification project. It's in the area of Vista and and North Navajo, not North Navajo. The beautifification project is between Lake Pow Boulevard and 6th if I'm not mistaken. Uh the section streets is recommending working on is past it's down by from Fred's down further north where where the where the road was where the road meets Vista. So where North Navajo heading past Fred's

right towards gets back up with Vista where they have that terrible I mean you feel like you're off-roading whenever you go through that intersection right that's that's the area of this so anything to do with the other side of the street where the beautifification project is would be taken care of in the scope of the beautifification project. So you're saying it starts basically where the old museum is and goes down towards Freds. No, no, it doesn't. I'm saying it starts at Freds and goes further down towards the elementary school. 10th 10th Avenue is the Goliard Park Road, right? Starts there and goes down to did you say 12th Avenue, which is right at the big church,

right? And those aren't that's from my memory. Before we would bring it to council for a bid, we would have that presented to council. Okay. But the question is, do we want to have the money in here? We can work on the scope of the project, but do we want to include the money in here? I say yes, let's keep the money in there. Okay. I say we keep the money in there and yes, just Yeah. Look look look to expanding the scope if needed.

Yeah. And I I'll take these notes back to public works and uh we'll work on the design and and make that presentation to council so that before we go out to bid, council's comfortable with the scope of the project. Well, and I I can probably speak for several on the council and and in the community where the idea of getting these ugly power lines in some of our areas that we want to flourish, getting them down underground has been a long long time topic. And there's, in my opinion, there's no better place to start than Vista. I think that's the ugliest street of power lines in the city. Yeah, the some of the details and I think councelor Hammond alluded to that is part of the issue is how do you

connect the properties in and handle the drops to the properties? Who pays for that?

Um how do you work out those details? Yeah, PU's done a lot of their primary stuff, but where it goes into the buildings, that's where you get into the legislative where you start having to dictate not only to the business to the to the property owners over there that they have to underground theirs as well, but also the other utilities, the secondary, you know, the the internet and all that and cable. And if we legislate and then fight with them as to who pays for it, if the city wants to pay for everything, then it's fairly easy, but that's really expensive. And so typically the fight is the government comes in and says, "Yay, verily, you have to underground this and by the way, it's going to be at your cost." Um, and that's where the fight is. U, so it just kind of depends on how aggressive we want to be about

putting those costs off on somebody else. And then the other trick is when you're talking about the the the property owners themselves and you're dictating what happens on their property. Sometimes that can be a little bit of fight as well. Um but the reality is if we're paying for it, it becomes less of a fight typically. Yeah. And Josh, my experience, it's a little different here because PUE is a subset of the city, but with say SC Broadband or someone, a lot of that is actually in the franchise agreement that states whether when they have to pay for a relocation and when the city would have to pay for a relocation. Is that correct?

It could be. Yes. I don't know if our agreement with them addresses that specifically, those issues or not, but we could look. Um, we we don't have, as far as I know, the franchise agreement though with um Lumen or Centry Link, Cent or whatever they're calling themselves these days. Um,

yeah. And that's my understanding. Hardly anybody does cuz those old Mob Lels, there's federal legislation that says they do not have to enter into franchise agreements. So, you rarely see that with the phone companies that there's even any sort of agreement. So, it's you're kind of at the whims of what they want to do. They're typically not responsive at all. SEC, we have a working relationship with them. we'll be able to work it out. But typically, Sentry Link or whatever um it rings to a phone that nobody answers.

That's been my experience throughout my career that the phone companies are the hardest to work with because they've got the backing of the feds to Yeah. It comes down to when normally when they do writeway work with the franchise agreement, you've got that worked out. But with the phone companies, they will apply for a permit each and every time they make a pavement cut. So, councelor Hammond, did you have a hand up? I did, but I think um our attorney and our city manager are covering all the points I was going to make. Okay. Councelor Per,

um I just want to say that I'm really excited that we're working on a solution to the copper mine and hall intersection. I don't want to jinx it by saying roundabout. I think we're headed that way, but traffic mitigation is needed in that area. And I'm thrilled that we're also looking at doing sidewalks. I think that's money well spent. Um on the uh I Oh, on the copper mine side of things, I wanted to ask is that going to be uh sidewalks on both sides going down to that intersection or just on one for now? Uh, I'm not sure if that's been determined yet. Uh, my recommendation would at least get some sort of 8 to 10 foot sidewalk on the public safety building side of the street. Uh, you've got so many kids that that walk out to Lee that way um and use that at least that side of the road. Um, I could see a sidewalk there and then maybe we could talk to our consultant as to what they've seen as far as putting one on the other side. But I would think at least that western

and it's going to keep going past the public safety building all the way to the light by the high school. Right. That would be my hope is to get it all the way from Lake Pal down to 98. Fantastic. if we could and then I would at some point love to continue that all the way to the city limits.

All right. I I won't oppose that. Um on the uh Vista and Navajo thing, um I'm excited that that's getting some attention. Uh Vista sucks and that's not a 20 or two late criticism of Microsoft. Um it it was our worst street 10 years ago. It's still our worst street. Um, and I'd, you know, love to see it fixed up. Um, but that the concern of the timing of, uh, utilities, I understand that we want to look at that. Um, do we want to break that out into two separate line items as two projects just in case one stalls out, we can still go ahead and do the Navajo project?

So, we could. Right now, Vista is looking at about 1.5 million and the Navajo is 500,000. So, we we could break that out. And uh that's just the only reason I put them together is because we would probably want to bid those if they go as one project together, you save money. So, even if they're two line items, we could still bid them as one project. Okay. Can you give me those numbers one more time, please? Uh 1.5 and 500. Okay. Thank you, Council Roundree. And then Council Coach. So, I guess I want to start a fight here with Tom, but I still think industrial park is our some of our worst streets in town. They just got a new road.

They did. But that's what I seeing that um Okay.

We one of our strategic priorities that you read off at the beginning is to become more diversified. Um, an industrial park is where we need some of that to happen and it's not. So, we don't have anything any improvements planned for industrial parks, roads or grading or fixing or anything this year at all. I mean, we did last year and I felt like I had to really fight just to for us to do that and I thought it was going to be a future thing of addressing our industrial park needs, but if they're not if if you have not identified any more after we satisfied them. So, I guess they think that we're not going to help them for another 20 thou or 20 years because they got their one road. I'm just concerned that industrial park has doesn't have any road improvements or any plans down there.

Have to because we we definitely need to increase other industries in town and that was one of our goals and that's where we would be having them look to come and put a business in or if council wants us to shift from Vista over to industrial park. I mean we could look at that. They're both industrial streets. I think I'm going to say Vista takes priority.

Yeah, right now I would. And if it's my understanding, how many of the streets down the Well, we're kind of getting off, but um let's just go to council coach and I'll come back. If we break out those two projects, that's going to increase the cost of both of them. So, it don't make any sense because the utilities are behind the sidewalk anyway. They aren't in the road. So, so if we redo the road and put in the sidewalks that they're planning, the power could come later and not have to redig up everything new. We just did.

Primary is already underground and it's on behind the sidewalk in the utility easement and there's only three overhead lines crossing over that street that they could bore underneath. So, in order to hold up the project for councelor Hammond,

uh, two points. One, I agree with councelor Roundtree that industrial also needs treated there and there are like if we look at Vista and industrial as being the worst areas next worst comes up really fast along the airport arrow needs to be reinforced especially for the heavier traffic that's going down that street. Um the street over by Straw Bullies is almost as bad as Vista. And so I just kind of wanted to point out the pavement condition plan that is on here is designed to give us like a five-year plan of when all these areas are going to be treated and prioritized. So I'm comfortable frontloading Copper Mine Hall, Vista, and Navajo. Also recognizing that that pavement condition plan is coming. Um, and then my I guess my question on the Vista Navajo paving idea because I I again it would be a great opportunity to reroute those utilities underground but recognizing the the amount of work that we have ahead of us. I'm just sort of wondering fiscally if we can plan that for the second half of the fiscal year so that council has the time to bite off the legislative piece, meet with the businesses and do all of that if if um if you all think that that's feasible or if we should just cut our losses and deal with the pavement. it. Personally, I think with what councelor Cojan said, knowing that he he understands the location of those easements, I feel comfortable going forward with the pavement of Vista and Navajo, knowing that we can still come back and do the

utilities if we can breach all those if we can accomplish all those hurdles. As as far as timing goes, what I'd say is I will consult with staff and when we get our new public works director on board, I'll get with him and our engineer AK and our streets superintendent Mike that's been here since the 80s or 70s

um to to look at that and assess that. And I don't know that we need to decide in this meeting the exact timing of bidding that out that we can come back as staff and and and do that with council. And I wanted to take this time to kind of give my philosophy as far as project management goes in the businesses. just know that the 30 years I've been doing projects, my philosophy with with dealing, especially on commercial streets like that is you really wind up going doortodoor with those businesses. And so I would literally go doortodoor with those businesses and give them my card. So as is our public works staff, that's what I intended them to do. If it hasn't been done in the past, we will do that in the future of getting a lot more intimate. I think uh Sylvia has done that on the uh development side of things uh going doortodoor and and meeting these businesses and and going in there. And that's what we need to do on the public works side so that you don't wind up with the what was it big tires thing. So, um, that's just a little insight as to my philosophy of how I want to run things that that you will see that level of communication with the businesses. They should have someone with a 24-hour number during the project that they can contact.

Yeah.

As they go forward. So, so we'll see that with the businesses, but we'll also need to coordinate with the utilities and things. and we'll we've got time to flush this out and and get it going. We're I don't know that we're looking to to bid this out July one right now, but we'll make we're we'll take all of these uh comments and I appreciate the the comments. It's all very good insight from council and good notes for me to take and make sure we include in that because I am new to the city and the public works director will be new to the city. So, uh, you guys have been here a lot longer and and have that insight. So, I I'm not saying don't give me those comments. I need those comments and that level of guidance. So, I appreciate it. But rest assured, we are taking notes and we'll um look into all of everything you're talking about.

Right. And do you need anything more on this? I think I'm good if Okay. So, I'm good with keeping the keeping that 2 million in there. So, yeah. So, here I would like to maybe um run through a couple projects. I've got these lumped under development services. Um, some of these were hard for me to categorize, so I might be throwing Sylvia under the bus for a little of these, but uh I'm sure she can handle it. If if Have Have you got a microphone over there yet? Okay,

let me run through these and she might be able to help on some of these and then maybe we'll attack it towards the end. Um, so we've got and I'm not sure how much of a capital project is in here, but do you mind talking about what your plan is for the the housing study?

Sure. Okay. So, as we all know, housing is a need in Paige. That's that's that's easy to be said, right? Um, but our last housing study update was done in 2018 and since then many things have changed. We've had a a later census. We had um different things change like tourism drives go up and different, you know, variety of things like that. So now it's time to go ahead and get back to getting this update to the last census to the latest trends. Um, being that I'm dealing with a lot of the land sales as well, you know, one of the things we have as an asset here is our city land that, you know, we could offer to future housing development. But if we don't really have a plan of what our needs are and where we'd like to direct it, it does kind of leave it like a open slate, Frank. Um so with this plan we hope to get more of the facts down um as far as getting the current like how much single family housing we have now, how much manufactured, how much mobile, how many apartments, what are we lacking, where would we like to go and then we can because I have made a lot of um contacts and Adam as well. We both have with a lot of different housing agencies, housing funders, developers. But first, we kind of need to know what direction we want to go. And that's why I'd like to get this housing update updated.

Okay. And next, we've got the downtown beautifification. Um, if you look further down there, it's the total I think Sylvia is 9.75 when you include the grant money. Yes, I do see that down there. My thought is a little low. I did you want to speak on this a little bit? Um or did you want maybe just give an update of where we're at as long as we're on it? Uh well, we're at the end of our public outreach. Um we're working on a final design to bring uh forward soon if I remember correctly. I I was there was a little design that came out while I was out last week. Right,

Josh? I might need a little bit of help here because I was Yeah, kind of. Okay. Right. We're Yeah, we'll be bringing a We're looking to bring on a Seymar construction manager at risk soon so we can have a that'll come to you guys for approval, but um so that we can have a the general contractor on board as we finalize the design so that we don't end up going out to bid and finding out that we're we way overdesigned what we can afford. So bringing them in earlier.

Yeah. And then so with that being said, thank you Josh. Um, a lot of the public outreach I think we really did a good job trying to do our best to make sure all the surveys were getting posted, reaching all the um, not only like residents, tourists. I mean, I think we had so many surveys. Adam was and his team was involved just as well and talking to the businesses to get a lot of input so we could have more input on these designs and making sure that everybody had some contribution including the businesses within the area and the property owners of the area. So feel pretty confident that we did at least make sure that everybody was aware of what we're have what we're doing what the opportunity you know had opportunity to input and now we're looking at the result of those designs and they'll be coming forward soon for you to see

councelor Preller uh now that all the public input is done we have a number for how many people answered that and how many businesses yeah Adam is better at numbers than I am. Do you recall that, Adam? It was a lot. Okay, that's the right answer, right?

Our uh our consultant was actually uh really impressed with the turnout during the public outreach that we had. Uh the uh the last survey, I believe, is is still open, so we don't have final numbers, but uh it was it was looking really good. It was in the 2 to 300 range. Um so you know the feedback that we got was really positive overall. Um and uh and there is going to be one more round of public outreach with that final design that uh should be coming shortly.

Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah. And and I will say there has been some comments about why is it taking so long, but the reason is because I think the from what I heard with the last project that failed, they were saying there wasn't enough outreach. So we want to take extra measures to make sure there was enough outreach this time. So if it seems like it's taking a long time, maybe. that we want to dot those eyes and cross those tees and look under the rug for anybody that may be hiding that wants to come in on this thing. So, councelor Hammond,

thank you. You're exactly right, Mr. City Manager. We really wanted to try and get as much public input as possible and a lot of people were pretty negative about that idea and they said, "Oh, people in Paige, they just won't participate. They won't get involved." So, I think we're all really curious about the final numbers of involvement in this project. So, when you do come back to us with the final designs, if you can please um check with the design company and the contracting and the surveys and just let us know how many people actually fed into this plan, we would we're all interested in that.

I would I would like to include Thank you. Um, I'd like to include there were several departments that help with the public outreach because over the years what I've learned with various projects, you have to reach out to the public in various ways. Not everybody's on social media. Not everybody, you know, sees the the billboard somewhere. So, we really did make an effort. POE assisted us also by getting us notices within their utility bill. So, a resident got a chance to see that in their bill that there was a survey available. um events over in Debbie's department helped out with a lot of the flyers at events. So, we really did try to bet out every way to notify people um that this survey was available.

Yeah. And we'll make sure when it showed Thank you. Yeah. And I I took a note that when Claire comes in to report on the preferred alternate or whatever it is, um that we'll provide you guys some uh data on the the survey input. Thank you. Anything else on this one? Sounds good. All right. Um then we've got historic property survey. Sure. Give a 30,000 foot on that one.

I can general overview. So, one of the things that I uh did in the past was I was a certified local government representative where I was prior where I worked closely with the state historic preservation office. And so, one of the first steps I'd like to do here because um we don't have really have this area established yet is work on becoming that leazison again to make that connection. Um, we are one of the younger cities in Arizona, but we still have a lot of history here. Um, obviously as far as having the federal camp here to build our dam and even just researching, you know, the Bureau Homes itself or Lake Pound Museum was one of the testing centers for the cement that built the dam. There's a lot that we have that we could um basically conduct an initial survey of the properties. And once you do that, then you have a survey completed and you could be eligible for other grants. Um, possibly create a historic overlay district if there's a certain area. But you have to establish that foundation first. So that's what this project intends to be is establishing that base.

Love that, Silia. Thank you.

All right. So maybe just to summarize Some of the things we've got going that fall under the development services umbrella also includes the uh money for the Desert Ridge subdivision. That's the Newburn area. I think council's agreement with that so far was to provide 1.5 million or so towards the public improvements in that project with the condition that it u not be allowed to have short-term rentals. So, this is where we're accounting for that. Um the next one I don't if council wants to discuss. Um, this is I think Genta came and presented last year about budget time and I'm not sure if it was in the budget or not, but they've requested uh $2 million for the public improvements along the property for the studentworkforce housing area below the college.

So, this this this item, if I recall right, was never approved by council. It was a they were going to be coming back to us and they they had not to this point come back to us if my memory serves counselors. Do you agree? Right. You agree. Okay. So, Genta had given us a loose number, but it was a future number and they were going to be returning to us.

Okay. Well, maybe that's partly my fault. they've come to staff and I think their cost estimates at this point are about 1.9 million that they're looking at. So, um this is where I've got it in the budget they would come with a more formal presentation uh to council, but does council want to consider this in the upcoming budget? Can I give that little update Frank as well? Oh, yes.

Status. Okay. So, apologies. I didn't know it didn't come back to you as well, but um we have spoke with Genta. We have spoke with the college as well. And we did put in for a congressional spending uh request that had a lot of support from the community and some of the legislators in our area. So, we did move forward on working on that, but we could probably bring you back an update as where it's at, right? Um okay. Back to council. But we did have some action on this project. Yeah. So, so the the formal ask never did take place. Councelor Hammond, did you have a hand up? Was that Did I see hand?

Maybe she came. Councelor Roundry and then councelor Frell. I agree. I'm concerned that we they never came back and gave us a formal ask and that then it's on our our develop I mean it's in our budget and that should have been something that should have been the other way around first. I'd like to be more familiar with this. I council Farrell

uh likewise I I they we never heard a firm plan because through the arc of their story started with we don't need help then suddenly it was 1.9. So what is the help? How is it you know h how do we stay out of gift with this and and and h what's the benefit of the city? We just never got the full story. Councelor Hammond.

So, we didn't receive like a formal presentation in the economic development and advisory board. Um, but there has been discussion around this. And I think from Gentara's perspective, they're waiting on us to find out what's available in our budget. So, it's a little bit of a chicken and egg uh conundrum that we're stuck in, I think. Um, but regardless of what their ask is, I think by law, in order to avoid the gift clause, we would be restricted to offering support to streets and utilities and sidewalks. And that's really all that we could do regardless of what their ask is. Um, so for me, I'm comfortable leaving this in the budget and if we don't use it all, that's a great problem to have. Um, but I I wouldn't want to scratch it from the budget and then not have it available.

Council Roundree, I I just don't want them to say, "Yay, the city approved 2 million in their budget." Um, I I I want to know what it is first and uh um economic development board can't speak for the city and and tell them that's great. They might say they like the idea and they're going to forward it because they agree and approve the idea, but we should still should have seen or heard about something about it. Councelor Hedinger.

Uh I just want to say that I agree with councelor Hammond and councelor Roundree. I also agree like I want to see the full plan, but at this time since we're discussing budget, I am comfortable leaving the 2 million in. I expect to receive the full presentation from Genta what they plan on doing with that money. We can then decide if we want to spend two million less than that or nothing. But at this time, I'm comfortable having it in the budget so that we can have that discussion later. In the end, the end price will have to come before council anyways. Correct.

Councelor Hammond. Yes. Uh my final point on this would be it almost doesn't matter what Genta wants to build or if they build. To me, we as a council need to think about how do we do public works improvements in this area that will benefit the community. And again, that's streets, sidewalks, and utilities. Now maybe Genta is the catalyst that prioritizes and motivates us to put that in, but we should be thinking bigger picture and long term about a street in that area. Utilities in that area are going to benefit the community regardless of what Genta wants.

Yes. And if I may on that, uh, of course it's up to council to do that, but also one thing to consider, uh, when you're looking at development, usually the developer pays for at least the half street development along their uh, development for the for the off sites or the bordering improvements. um this is a special case much like um Desert Ridge to where you're looking at some public benefit to that too. So that's where council would consider it. But um when you when you got the housing and and maybe even some housing for city employees included in there, that's um some of the look of that where this might be an exception with that. Um but I agree that u as far as putting it in the budget that would be my recommendation if council was wants to consider this that the details can come later but I don't have the authority to spend this money without council's approvals and I never would. You will definitely see the full plan come before and and like councelor Hammond said, if it if it's a no-go, then we've got a $2 million buffer in the budget for some sort of electrical bill that we have to pay or something.

I'm good with that, Council Roundree.

I'm good with that, too. But I don't want to set precedent that then when they come back, then we create kind of an anonymosity because they're thinking, well, you guys budgeted. You could have given us the two million. I don't want to approve something that I don't know what it's going to look like or any of the specifics on it and put two million budget dollars budget into something that I don't know what it's going to look like. But I do agree that I'm willing to look it into this because they have approached this in the past. But I want to make sure that this isn't happening in the future. I mean, we need to approve something. We need to know what it is that we're approving before we're putting into our budget because they're right, our citizens are. There are other places like along hall road that would love this $2 million to complete the sidewalk way along there. And we've heard a lot from that for a long period of time. Um so there are other areas in our community right now that would be sitting there thinking well I wish they'd be giving us $2 million and we could come to them with a proposal. Um

you could change you could change the name of it to just city directed infrastructure project or something like that and take off CC and Genta so that we're worried about creating an expectation. Yeah, I'm not wanting to create an expectation is what I'm trying to say. So, thank you, Josh. That's a great suggestion. Yes. Thank you, Councelor Hammond. Is that an a Oh, it was an okay. Okay. And that's also a lesson learned for the city manager to to make sure to schedule accordingly and bring big projects like this to council prior to budgeting. So, I'm taking that note as well. In all fairness, it was brought to us way before you.

Yeah, way before. Yeah, that's that's where I maybe the miscommunication was. I thought it already came to council, but it did. And we only in a only as a future longterm possibility. Yeah. So, so we'll do that and maybe Did you get the note for that, Linda? Okay. For change the name. That's what What was your suggestion, Josh? Council directed infrastructure projects or something like that. Just change your name and we'll forgive you.

We can change the name. I just want to have a just a reminder that when we've done this in the past and we had ended up with things like potential facility improvements or road improvements and it's like what was this $2.5 million for? I don't know road improvements. So which road was it? So we'll change it to that but when we have this conversation all of you help me remember.

Okay. Yep. And that's where some of these uh five-year outlook plans will help because there should be a a page on that project years ahead of time. So then we've also got on here uh $30,000 to to look at a dark sky designation plan. And I'm throwing that in Sylvia's court because I I'm I'm not sure I'm skilled for that. So, okay. Maybe maybe a few of us. Well, I'm going to just I guess this is kind of new for me too today. Yeah.

So, um that we're going to need to do a dark sky or sounds like we don't have one here. So, um I know there's always a balance to it uh between trying to protect our our lighting so that we can see our beautiful stars and yet also um have safety, right? So, that we'll be looking to do a study I would say a little study on that comparison and get a plan together to bring forward. That was a suggestion I had and if we if council wants to move forward with that, I'm going to assign that to Sylvia. So I feel good with that.

The dark sky community does seem to be a very uh important designation that the people around here want to maintain and to spread. And in order to do that, we're going to have to have a plan, not just shoot from the hip. So councelor Pller and then councelor Roundtree. I was just going to say that uh about 10 years ago, the last time this was kind of uh thrown about that that was um there were uh a good amount of people that were not in favor of adopting uh dark sky practices. um and that that was somewhat unpopular and we might be chasing our tails here on on this. But I mean if it's just uh looking at what it would take um but I mean we might in the short term get get more bang for our buck by just looking at uh the lighting ordinances that we already have on the books and maybe uh putting some teeth to that. Giving it some teeth. not putting some teeth in that. I'm sorry.

Understandable.

Yeah. So, I'll just add to what he said. So, that's basically so like when people have been approaching to me about the poor golf course and their lights and I thought we had dark skies. So, my concern is a lot of people think we already have some strong ordinances that we are not that we're not enforcing. One of the complaints about the data center thing. Well, yeah, you know, you guys are going to say the data center won't shut put off light if it goes in, but you're not controlling the golf course. Sorry, but that's I've heard that so many times. Um, and city's the biggest abuser of the present light ordinances. And I'm not familiar as a council member. I don't know what our present light ordinances are. Um, I would really like a study on that. and if it's because we need teeth. And then I heard that there was something that can't measure correctly that there someone was talking about how to measure right now cuz people have been complaining my neighbors is way too bright. So it's just something that we need to but more than just dark ordinances. I mean I just need to know I think the code forcer or something was talking about not being able to settle a dispute in regards to complaint about somebody's admitting too much light. So, our citizens need to know what our code is because there are some that are really believe that we are already dark skies. And I said, I don't know, and it's something I have not, as a council member, I am going to admit that I need to understand more about

lighting is tricky just like just like signage. Lighting is tricky. You don't come in for a permit to change your light bulb outside, you know, but there's different bulbs. There's different um whether it's aiming or shielded. So there's things we're going to have to look at within our current code and how we want to move forward with a dark sky ordinance and the community would have input on that as well. So yeah, we'd have to connect the two and then after too. So if there is a violation, who who will be enforcing it, right? That's that's the other part of it as well. Yeah, his part about putting some teeth into it. Who cares if we have an ordinance if there's nothing you can do with it?

We can we've enforced it. The the issue is that recreational fields are um exempt so our government properties from the lighting ordinances. So like the ball fields, you have to have lights, big lights to light up the softball field. So those are exempt. The golf course would fall under the same thing. Although we're trying to mitigate that. So the data center and you know whether the city can have ballfield lights or the high school can have ballfield lights is not what we were told 9 years ago when we went through this um by some expert from Flagstaff is that there is not a standard definition of what constitutes dark skies or a dark sky certification that may have changed in the last nine years. Um but our lighting ordinance does require shielded um and that it be down lighting and we have a color temperature regulation. You can't be you know but um so that's why we're not that's why the city doesn't it doesn't have anything to do with the data center. The data center would still have to comply.

Well, I've said that and I understand that. But do you see what I'm saying when people are saying things that it's not enforced around town and they give you examples and and so I would like to understand it more. I think council and I think the information and I think this is a great study. We've prosecuted those cases. So, it has been enforced on a on a complaint basis. We we have um required some people to change and they have changed their lighting when when we found violations. Thank you, Councelor Hammond.

Uh thank you. So, I agree. I think that this study is going to be beneficial for us to help answer all of these questions. Um, and I'll I'll be honest, I am the one who requested this, so you guys can throw stuff at me later if you want, but I I think the challenge is and I remember councelor Pller 10 years ago when we when the city talked about this and it was a very hot topic and there was a lot of um heated debate back and forth and a lot of people don't understand the many different ways that you can mitigate light. As Josh said, you can shield things down and still have it be as bright as you want. um ball fields are exempt, Christmas lights are exempt, like all of this stuff. At the time that the city was looking at this, the um an expert from International Dark Skies Association came out and did measurements and I think it the city was already something like 80% or 90% compliant with what would be needed to be designated as a dark sky place. So it it's not a huge piece that would need to be corrected. Maybe this is 10 years ago, right? So, I would expect that part of this plan does updated measurements and tells us how close we are. If we're still at the 80 to 90% range, I think it's doable for our community to achieve this with some education, some public involvement, um possibly looking at incentives or grandfather clauses for businesses. Um but if on the on the other side, if we have somebody come in and analyze this and do the measurements and say, "Ah, you guys you guys blew it. you're only like 20% of the way there, then maybe it's not worth pursuing. But I think that this study will help answer those questions about do we pursue this or not.

Okay. Thank you. I think we're good on that one. All right. Thank you.

Um and I'm going to the next slide is going to be uh parks and wreck projects. But before we get there, I've got several that are on page 73 that aren't included on the slides. So maybe we just run through those just to make sure we hit everything. Um I'm going to start under the second public works. We've got cemetery expansion at 250. That gets two blocks of the remaining eight blocks that we need to expand in the cemetery.

When you say a block, what is that? A dimension. That's what they told me. So, I would have to refer to that. But it's it's enough to get us by for now without they staff wanted to do more, but when you look at the cemetery fund, I didn't want to over spend that fund. And so we tried to stay within our our limits there in the cemetery fund. Council Rentry, which direction is that going to be out towards Lake Powell Boulevard? No, west. West towards Page Fort or No. So out front and and and west, not behind, right? Towards the um Seat School, towards the main street.

Towards the main street. Okay. Thank you. And with the dollar amount, we'll be bringing these plans before council. Okay.

So then we have this is the um flooring that that Debbie talked about. The kitchen equipment was 25,000 and then the flooring is another 25,000. So they kind of that one's equipment, one's project. So that's why they're separated a little bit. Okay. Tell me if I'm wrong, but you guys are good. Council

Oh, not not the kitchen equipment, but the or sorry, not the flooring, but the kitchen equipment. Can I just ask that before purchase is made, we look at uh pricing out uh induction stoves for there with how much usage they get. That's, you know, safer, less heat in the kitchen, less energy usage. Got that? Okay.

Thank you. And then we've got it's under public works, but it's for uh some police department building upgrades. Um, since it's a facility, I put it under public works. Um, is there any questions or concerns about that one?

Okay. And then the library electric, that's another one where it's a library, but it's a building facility. They've got a bunch of uh issues with every time they plug stuff in, they pop breakers is kind of how I had it explained to me. So, it's trying to work on some of the electrical issues within the library and and bring someone in to to maybe separate some circuits and do some of that electrical work uh to to make that system so they can use the library like they need to. Is that the best way to say it, Debbie? Yes. Thank you.

So, um then we move down to public safety fire. That's another one that looks like it's electrical upgrades. Chief Reed 20 grand for working on some on the fire training grounds. Improving the fire training grounds to have electrical forens.

Okay. Uh, next one that I don't have a slide for is, uh, got 30,000 for some animal shelter upgrades for some shade structures and dog runs. Any questions? Good on that one. We've talked about the the assessment and the housing study. Um, okay. And that's a good reminder. So, before I move on to general government, I do have one I want to talk about kind of a combination of public works, IT, and police. They had originally asked for some money for some fiber optics to go with some of the uh is it the RTC cameras systems and that that was not in the budget but uh with council's permission I think we're looking at 250 would would we need to add into the budget so that they can utilize some of the camera equipment that they were looking to purchase for the real time policing. center. So, that's not currently in the budget, but I would with council's permission add that into the budget to the the real need is eventually about 1.5 million, but we think with 250 we could start next year and see how that goes and then work from there.

So, which which category would this go under? Just out of curiosity, would it go under? be a capital project under um public what public safety PD. Are you guys good with that? How much fiber are we laying from where to where? So we would go from starting at city hall and go all the way to copper mine. Okay. And so we can connect all the street lights basically. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Councelor Pharaoh. Why isn't that under IT or public works? It's an infrastructure thing. Why is it go under PD?

Well, then let's put it under Are you comfortable under it? So, we'll put it under it then. Thank you. Sorry. When you said Yeah, I guess I guess that might be better in the end because Kane, you're going to run that project anyway, aren't you? Yeah, I'll run that. Yeah, it looks it's an IT project and he's going to pump other things through it. You know, the whole idea of fiber is all those individual Yeah. And the really way we should look at it is who's going to be managing the project. Yes. So, yeah. I don't guess chief wants to solicit bids for fiber optics. So, is this stopping off at the street lights or at the traffic signals? We'll go into this traffic signals.

Okay. Yeah. We'll probably go into those boxes where the All right. Oh, that's a good point. I thought you meant the actual individual lights. So, you mean the signals? You're connecting the signals. Yeah, but then then there'll be cameras on the lights themselves on lights are on the signals. Okay. I guess my talking to an engineer. The traffic lights. The three lights the red lights that are on the signals. Okay. Because in my mind when I say when I hear of lights, I think street lights. Oh. Oh. But you're talking traffic lights. Okay. I'm with you now.

It's like my wife says, "How how right do I have to be?"

Um All right. So, you got that note in there, Linda. Put that in. Thank you. Um so with that um we'll move into some of the general government and there may be some discussion about this and maybe if we kind of take I'm almost thinking three items together if we want to maybe discuss them as a whole. I've got 2 million in here for city hall improvements, which was a continuation of I think there was some money budgeted this year and we with the staff turnover and everything. We really didn't get there for adding the chambers on. They may have budgeted 600,000 or something for that. Um

they they brought us some preliminary drawings. Yeah. more plans.

And the input I got from some of my public works staff is there's so much more work that needs to be done on this building. Um, we need I mean Cindy's windows shake when the air conditioner comes on. All of the windows basically for this building are ancient. They break on you when you try and open them. They need replacing. the the HVAC. We we can hang meat in the conference room over here, but Kane is sweating and it's on the same thermostat. So, just doing those. Um, but I also wanted to wrap that discussion into the feasibility for the for the Page Middle School. The mayor and I toured the middle school. That's an expensive expensive project, but is it something council wants to look at? And the reason I bring that up is if we're looking at if we want to look at moving to the middle school and taking on that huge project, it really wouldn't make sense to do the improvements here at city hall because what you would probably want to do is move city hall and the courts up there, utilize that space, and then try and salvage the value for this property for someone to use for a hotel or whatever purpose they need to. Um, so I was wanting to maybe talk to council about that. And it wraps into the swimming pool design, too, because if you take on the middle school property, that property may be big enough to get a pool facility on top of the mesa there. Um, rather than down in all the blowing sand

and it would be connected to a gym, already a brand new gym. That's another possibility. So,

yeah. and the the school would probably look for a shared use agreement on that gym um for that. But that's a 27,000 square foot building, I believe, with a really nice kitchen in it for community center uses. Um it's appraised, I think the appraisal came back at $18 million, so it's not a small thing to look at. I don't know if the city could afford to pay that. Um, but the the plus side of that is if the city does buy that from the school district, that money goes back into this local school district. So, it's it's not like the funds would go to a private property owner and we're buying private property, but uh it would require a substantial bond. If you look at between the the pool and the remodel and the buying of property, maybe 40 million is not that maybe even on the low end, Linda, is something like that. So, I know I haven't talked to all of council about it, but this is kind of where I wanted to maybe have that discussion. Is it something even worth looking at or do we just um see where it's going to go?

So, you're asking about that $30,000 line for the feasibility study. Yeah, it kind of combines the 30,000 for the feasibility, the 2 million for city hall, and the 2 million for the swimming pool design.

Councelor Roundtree, and then councelor Prell. Well, that building's 18 million and they're saying it needs five million in repairs and it probably needs a lot more than that than $5 million in repairs. And if we were going to then buy it as a city, it would need a lot more than that. And we've been told the swimming pool at least from Darren in the past and the committee that existed for that and his plans was 40 million for thing. How are we going to bond at 50 million? and don't we need to maintain our bonding for our possibly um second straw on our redundant line? So, I don't even know why we'd be considering that. And then on regards to this building, I know that I was the lone person out on adding on in the building here, but at that time I said that shouldn't we be putting our money first into um updating this building and addressing the needs that we knew were in this building before we added on to this building? So, I think we should do that phase first. If we have any money, it should be to fix the windows and the things that you addressed before we add on. And until I know what the bonding power, I'm not even don't even want to see the 2 million in creating a plan for a swimming pool until we know what we can bond at and what our ability is before we start spending money that then spent $2 million to create a plan of what the swimming pool is going to look like and then find out that we can't bond at that because our we need th that somewhere else. So I I have a lot of questions here. Did we Did we get an answer? I I thought that there was a possibility that we wouldn't have to pay fair market value for that building.

I haven't got an answer for that yet. That's an answer I would want to have. That was I had a meeting with the superintendent on something else and he thought that we wouldn't necessarily have to. That's not to say that but but that it's not like a legal issue. It was an option that he thought was available between government agencies. Yeah, especially if we were going to have a shared use agreement on the gym and some of those things moving forward, they could be substantially lower. Yeah.

And also shared use on the the gym. I mean, we wanted a shared use on the pool and they're they're digging up a a pool that we had the money that we could have had a swimming pool here within a year, but now they've torn out the concrete on it. And so, we're having to build a $40 million pool when we could have taken five or 10 easily and already had our public pool back. but they didn't want to enter an intergovernmental agreement for the pool. Councelor Preller, um then councelor Hettinger.

Oh, shoot. Um I mean, if parks and wreck has taught me one thing, you're not officially a government until you've got a pit somewhere. So, um no, I'm kidding. We don't want to pit. Um I I don't know. It It seems like a huge ask. We just spent a ton of money on updates for the court. Um, and and that sort of stuff that I think we would end up uh double double paying on in the long term. Um, that's an awful lot of leverage and and debt and whatnot. I think at least doing a study so we can make an informed decision on whether this is a good idea or not isn't, you know, that that's not a huge dollar amount, but when we're casually throwing around, you know, several years worth of revenue for for this. Um, we're getting pretty footprint heavy uh as far as buildings and land and everything goes. Um, and all those costs are going to come creeping up on us in 10 years time over the over 10 years time. Um, if I think about how much the city has already grown over the past 10 years and we're still kind of trying to um, you know, make make use of all of that. Um, this this seems like we might be biting off more than we can chew. Again, a study to explore that is might not be a bad idea. Um, if we do that though, I would like to see uh at least like a couple different options of, hey, maybe we only want the building or hey, maybe we won't only want the field out back for a pool and to keep the track or whatever. Just kind of a couple different options at different price points.

Councelor Hinger.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'm going to respectfully disagree with what the I partially disagree. I guess I'm really excited about the idea of the middle school. I think one of the benefits of having a recreation and aquatic center there versus down off the Mesa is it's so much closer to a lot of our housing and our families. Um, it would become much more accessible to a lot of our community. Um, so I'm excited about exploring feasibility with the middle school. definitely agree that there are a lot of unknowns and there would be questions to be answered and I think that would be the purpose of the feasibility study. So I'm I'm very much in favor of holding off on the um city hall

sorry improvements holding off on the city hall improvements and any other aquatics design until we had more information about the middle school. Okay, councelor Roundtree.

And also the middle school is the newest, nicest building, but this um school district um supported closing that building over others because they said it was the most expensive to maintain for the electricity and the repairs and everything on that building that was their very I was described by a council member that Yeah. Ouch. like couple times some of the other buildings. So we would be purchasing a building that the community already is aware of was very expensive to maintain. Councelor Hammond.

Um me personally, I think that the middle school is it doesn't fit with our strategic priorities. We have a strategic priority for quality of life, which includes a swimming pool. Tons and tons and tons of people in this community are crying out for a swimming pool. I'm a huge advocate. I think it's criminal that we have an entire generation of children from this town that had to either drive out of town to learn how to swim if their parents were rich enough to do that or they just didn't learn how to swim. It's it's it's I see it as a huge failure on the part of this city and one that I would like to rectify. I would also like to quit having um Chief Lang and his folks chasing me out of the Marriott pool.

Joking kind of halfway. Um but really to me that is a huge priority. I want to move forward on the design on the pool. If the middle school is a bridge too far, which I think it is, yes, if I had a magic fairy wand and I could wave it and we could get the middle school, that'd be great. I don't see us getting to a $30 million non-strategic project to move city services there. It just doesn't make sense. Um, so I would rather move forward with the previous plan of putting the pool at the parub. Okay. And then I don't know what to do by city hall.

Councelor Roundtree. Um, I agree with that, but I would like to hold up on the swimming pool design until we get answers on bonding and where and a presentation and where that's going to leave us all at at projects that might have to need our bonding abilities before that. And when I asked the other day if we're still bonding at 15 million, we weren't for sure what that new number was going to be. So, if I leave this in the budget, I'm fine with that because I'm in favor of the swimming pool, but I don't want you to go out and start moving with it and hire somebody for the 2 million until a there's some other answers there for us for me before I give a final final on that. Personally, I would I would like to see us go ahead and do the feasibility study because as long as it includes some cost mitigations as far as like selling, like you mentioned, selling this property here and other entities that may be willing to join with the city on that property uh that need larger facilities like the the different courts. Um, and then with the cost of sold sold um, properties that could help mitigate the price overall. I think it would at least be worth the feasibility study myself. Council,

it's obvious we need a lot more information before we make any decision. So, we need to get that study done and then go from there. Uh, count councelor Hammond, can we keep all these line items in the budget since it sounds like everybody wants to do the study first and then depending on the results of that study, we may be able to go ahead and move forward with the pool design andor fix up city hall.

And if not, again, we have money left over at the end of the year. So, so what I plan to do with this if we keep these items in the budget is we'll look I've already talked to the architect. He's already visited the site. He already has a set of floor plans. We've already talked to our bonding consultant. Is that the best way to describe him?

Uh Steel and Associates. Um so we can pull that together. And just to let council know, I wouldn't move forward with the other projects until we have this result. I would probably even hold back on like the community center upgrades um to know where we're at and what the timing is on those. Some of the equipment we may if it's a hazard, we may need it now. But but I will consider that as well that all of this that might be affected is put the priority in this feasibility study and getting that as quick as possible so we know what direction we're going um before we I don't want to waste any other money. That's what I wanted to assure council is that I'm not going to waste money on other projects when we don't know the results of this. So this one would be the priority to do it as timely a fashion as we can. So that's that's how we'll proceed there.

Okay, I'm good with that. Just before I get to you, councelor Hettinger, I just wanted to share that I did with the city manager go on a roomto room walk through with the superintendent. And for those who haven't been able to go through the details of that building, it it really did open to my mind a lot of possibilities. I was just a little bit overwhelmed by the possibilities that the property could do and such a feasibility study will greatly help to focus those those possibilities for for many different many different things. Um, councelor Hettinger.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, on that note, I wanted to confirm because I know the parks and recck board was also very excited about this. Part of that feasibility study is how we could use the middle school as a rec center and possible aquatic center. Correct. Correct. Correct. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure because I I agree that that should be our priority. Um and so I wanted to make sure that that was part of this whole discussion. Thank you. Because the middle school already has a lot of the facilities for a rec center in place, you know, rather than necessarily trying to build our own new one separately. This this could be a big opportunity if the feasibility works out,

right? And yeah, even to the point of basketball facilities and that sort of thing which RK is always looking for. Yep. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. I was making some assumptions and wanted to confirm.

Yep. All right. So, that gets us back into All right. Parks and Wreck. Now that we've talked about parks and wreck, we'll talk about parks and wreck. So, uh, so I'll just run through some of these projects and then we can talk about numbers, but Debbie, if you got a mic, help me out with that, too. So,

here it is. Um so first up we have a another plan um for the parasite and the amphitheater site and again taking into consideration anything with the middle school or anything might affect this too. We understand that. So um I guess Debbie it's just basically developing up developing a good written plan and outlook for for both of those properties. is what we've got there. 80,000 for that. Yes.

Um and this is we've got resurfacing. We've got 160,000 for resurfacing uh basically all of the courts. Okay. Uh, okay. The parks department has asked for my money. And we've got these on the last slide, some of the money, too, but they're in the book on we're still on page 73. The curbing around the play playgrounds for ADA compliance and accessibility, 35,000. And then trail maintenance, 25,000 for continued trail maintenance. um some of the various trails around town and they've got a description here of some of the things they're looking at. So the the curbing they're looking at Golard Park for some ramps and uh John C Memorial Park and then trail maintenance some areas around the amphitheater even the little strip of city property that goes towards that shell cave is what I call it. Um that area there. Um working on some signage and things for that. Um then we've got Frost Park. Uh this would be stage one for that to work on a botanical style park for Frost Park. Uh 50,000 is the budget for that. shade structures, picnic tables, park benches, signage,

preventing motor access, motor vehicle access, and of course the BMX track, we've got that in there, but it's kind of a rollover from this year. So, we that project technically will be constructed after July. So, we've just wrapped the money into that. And this is one I've got Adam helping me with trying to build that relationship with the park service. Um, but they've requested some help from the city. There's a 13mi trail that runs from the dam to Horseshoe Bin. They call it Vermillion View View Trail. So, the park service is requesting about $330,000. Aren't they Are they asking for is this materials because they will have the the labor to to build it

with the core? I'm getting a thumbs up from Adam on that one. That uh that's for the materials and then the park service would provide the labor. You want to hit that? Where's Where is it at on here? That's correct. So, um the the idea is that we would pay for the materials and then they would provide the labor. So that's not down there. Should have been down there. And if you're looking on page 73, the Vermillion Views Trail is actually the last one under general government.

And to add, this would be uh a really unique trail and that it would be certified for bicycles. Uh not many trails in the National Parks Trail System uh can receive that. So this plan would include getting it to that stage. It would include uh three in andouts with uh kiosks, so access points to the trail uh with trail head information. Um and it would be connecting Horseshoe Bend near the overlook uh all the way to the Glen Canyon Dam parking area on this side of the river.

Councelor Pller and then councelor Roundry. Uh I'm I'm glad we're talking about this trail at least uh because most people don't know it's there. Um it's opened I don't know like 2019. Um and no one can seem to agree or could seem to agree on the name for the trail. I heard about six different things. Um and I just kind of got wind that there's a new trail that goes from the dam to Horseshoe Bend. Go out and ride it. Um I was not informed that only like the first quarter of it is actually ridable. I heard, "Oh, NPS paid for some professional mountain biker to come out and, you know, design loop-de-loops and whatnot." Um, and after the first quarter, it becomes unritable and it's just navigating from Karen to Karen. You got no idea where you're going, and you got to hike through a canyon, whatnot. Um, so getting the uh getting it to be more cohesive on and advertising it all the way through um I think would be a good thing. Um, this does seem like a lot of money for moving a lot of rocks around. Um, logistically, we have to think about what you do when you get to the end of that trail because again, seven years ago or whenever that opened, um, I popped out at Horseshoe Bend with a bike and got a lot of side eyes um, and had no way of getting out of there without riding on the pedestrian path. Um, so we we might need to figure out how we can um incorporate that.

I think the idea um at the time when this was originally brought up was that the trail would end shortly before the connection to the Horseshoe Band Trail and there could be a bike rack there and then it would be a walking path to the actual overlook itself. So it would not connect. Um, as far as trying to establish a fee for those walk-ins, uh, would be a separate thing. But yet, you're right. The trail is not usable. It's not viable currently for, uh, bicycles with this plan. That would be, um, the ultimate uh, ultimately where it would be. Um, another thing to think about too is 300,000 or 330 is really steep, no doubt. But uh if you think of the potential in marketing this as a new trail and all of the social media, Instagram and Tik Tok videos that we would be getting for free from influencers to check this out, the the equivalent marketing value of that would far surpass maybe slightly overpaying a little bit. Um, one additional thing to note with this is that the parks uh, service hoped to to be able to have the capacity to to do this uh, currently, but now with a lot of the issues um, with the lake and uh, you know, they're running short on capacity. So the idea here is to get the funds in place so that we could also uh concurrently apply for grants to cover a lot of that and uh whether they have the capacity um in January of fiscal year 2027 is why we would need this in that line item kind of a just in case they can do it then then our end is covered too.

Uh I'm I'm not so much concerned about the loss of revenue at uh Horseshoe Bend because bikes get in for free down there. Um, but that would be concerning that you get to the end of that trail and then have to turn around and go back uphill 10 miles. That that's the only bailout.

So, there would be three points where you could um enter and exit. One would be Tunnel View Road. Then, of course, the parking lot area over by the dam. And then as far as what that would look like, um there could be a a separate trail parallel that's returning to the Horseshoe Bend parking lot area uh to divert the bike traffic away, but that would be something that would have to be looked at in terms of what was uh in the original scope. Now, that wasn't part of it. So,

okay, let me get uh councelor Hettinger and and Hammond and then we'll go over to councelor Roundtree. Thank you, mayor. Um, Councelor Per, I had similar concerns about the Vermillion Views Trail, just making sure that bikes don't get stuck at Horseshoe Bend without a way to get back out. So, thank you for addressing that. Um, the other thing that I wanted to bring up was a priority of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board that I'm not seeing here, which is an inclusive playground at Annex Park. At their last meeting, they made a recommendation that the city set aside 800,000 for that and then pursue grant opportunities to hopefully get up to $1.6 million for a very top-notch inclusive playground there. And I know that we've got money from the recent Tanner land sale. Obviously, that hasn't gone through yet, so the money doesn't come in until later in the year. Um, oh, never mind. Thank you, Frank. I'm gonna be quiet now.

No, feel free. What was that? Anyway, great to see that 1.6 million there for an inclusive playground. Thank you. I was thinking I thought I heard that word earlier. Well, I'm I'm glad you asked that, Councelor Hedinger, because even though I see it on the slide here, I don't see it in our binder. What am I missing here, Frank? It's not in our binder. That was my next point.

Oh, okay. Uh then if council's comfortable, I'll move straight into that and we can talk about it all together. So this came in with the last parks and wreck meeting. Um these are their they rather than giving specific projects or something. This was their their list of priorities that they wanted to recommend council look at when we're considering the budget. Not all of these items were included in the budget at the time. So, I brought this up for council to consider and to see how this works with the priority of the projects, what they want to include and maybe not include. Um, so if I'll just maybe hit this list a little bit too. So um so they wanted to look at feasibility of aquatic centers and things. They were excited about the middle school as well. That's 30,000 is in the budget right now. Um there's an urban trail master plan 75,000 that is not in the budget right now. Um but we could put it in. I think that money is part of the contract amount with the Tan Arena sale. Um, the Vermillion Park playground equipment replacement was a priority of theirs. That was also a request from staff. It didn't make it into the final cut of the budget, but staff said they would have to remove that equipment regardless if it got replaced or not. So, I just want to make that point out that um that is a priority. Maybe we should look at putting back in there in the budget. Uh Vermillion Park is it's over on Hall Road, Debbie, is that right? Um across

Hall Road. It's close to Annex Park, but it's still a neighborhood park over there. Um and the big dollar amount is the inclusive playground at Annex Park. The way the board phrased it was they would look at the city looking at 800,000 but they would want to try and get that matched with another grant because the that those are very expensive playgrounds um the one they showed from Xolo I think was 1.2 million the one proposed at the parks and recck board was about 1.6 six, but they understand that that's expensive and and would maybe want to look at trying to get a grant to match half of that. And there were some grant opportunities discussed at the parks and right board. Then they also had the removing view trail that we just discussed. And then the of course the BMX track since it's ongoing, they wanted to make sure we complete that project. Um, the only thing I'll say about the BMX track is we do have an additional 90,000 on top of the 500 for for lighting and and benches and trails around the track. Um, because the the option that we chose for the track was more just for the tracks. So, the consultant has recommended that we provide some sort of lighting and uh amenities around that track. So that 90,000 is to maybe supplement that with some some things we can do as staff and not have to pay the consultant for, you know, we can do lighting projects without bringing in a mountain bike consultant. Um, but now that we've thrown all that money at you, how do we fit it in the budget is my question. So,

um, councelor Hammond and then councelor Roundtree,

my question for you, Frank, was going to be how do we fit this in the budget? Um, sounds like the feasibility study for the aquatic center is already in what you were planning on. Um, the urban trail master plan, I personally think we should hold off until Tennerina closes if that means pushing it out another year. um playground equipment, playground at Annex Park, those are not currently in the budget, I think, and five and six are. So, so just I want to make sure that I'm on the same page with you. Two, three, and four are not in the budget as you wrote it. Am I understanding that right?

That's correct. Okay. And then in your estimation, do you think that we can add those items? What is the consequence if we add those items? Do we need to cut something else? Are we going to dip into our reserve or are we just rich enough to do it?

Linda, I think we really I'm not we're already cutting into some of the fund balances. I'm not sure how much that's one of my next slides is at what point does council feel comfortable eating into those fund balances. Um because if we added in even another million bucks for this right now we've got for parks and trails um and recreation well parks and trails we've got about 8 800,000 in the current budget in there. Um, so if we add another two million in there, I would It's a question for council. We could reduce fund balances or try and cut somewhere else.

And you have another slide where we'll get into that more. Maybe, but I it's really an overall question. I'm I mean, philosophically, I'm not opposed to dipping into our savings. That's what it's there for. Um, but I just want to make sure that we're leaving ourselves plenty of cushion as previous councils have set this city up really well with that with that buffer. Councelor Rantry.

So, first on the Vermillion View Trail development, thank you for explaining that, Adam, because I totally agree with you. So when Tannerina so graciously um agreed in our mitigations to give us the $75,000 to do a master trail plan, I wanted to see that in there because this is the type of thing that's going to cause tourists to come, tourists to stay longer. These are the This is a purchase for Vermilia Trail that's going to increase our our our income and and I'm fine to move forward with it, but the 75 million for the um urban trail master plan needs to go in because if we wait until we receive it, then it's an entire year again before we get to use it. So, it needs to be in this master plan. If something falls through, which I know that they're not going to, but we don't know what's going to happen in the world or what might fall through, then we just can't spend it. But we need to do the urban trail master plan and start focusing towards it because that's what's going to increase our tourism um view for Paige and keep people here longer and and cause people to want to come. I think pictures of riding along Vermillion Trail um with the Grand Canyon on your right hand side and the Colorado River. I mean, not the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River down there is going to be impressive and people are going to want to come to it just like they probably maybe not as many people who want to come see Horseshoe Bend, but to be able to ride a bike all the way along there to Horseshoe Bend, I think it has to connect. It has to go in to Horseshoe Bend. Um and then we know that Tanina also has how much money was put towards repairing the trails up there that needs to be in our budget. I mean so that we can get on that. So there was money put in that supposed to repair that. Then we all agreed that that money

from the sale of the undevelopable part of that land deal was going to go to parks and recreation. Personally, I hope that goes towards more trails and more of those type of activities. Even though I do agree with the inclusive playground, um I've had a lot of phone calls on why those special need those swings are gone. Um and that does need to be restored. We have to get an inclusive playground in this community. It's very important. So I don't So if two if three and four is not in the budget, I don't know how we get that in there, but I believe um the urban trail master money is in there. And I think that the repairs to Red Mesa should be in there because we know those funds are coming. If they don't come, then we don't spend them. But we know that we're supposedly going to be receiving those soon. And then I've put on for a future agenda item um my concerns that came up with Linda and Frank and our conversations about I'm proud of the fact that we're all doing these new land sales that people have to meet certain level of agreements or we can repurchase. But what happens if that money from land sales that you guys have listed in this budget come in and you spend them and then something happens and something falls through and the citizens are like, "You promised we could purchase that property back. Do we need to be holding those funds off?" So that conversation isn't here. It's a future agenda item I put in there, but we can't be spending land sales that might be attached to a contract that we might have promised the citizens that we will buy back if they don't fulfill their program. So, that's something that we have to discuss.

So, quick question. The um the amount of money that council voted would be sent toward parks and wreck. Um is that amount included in the budget plan or is that not in here? That was a question I wanted to ask council is council like to because that money if if the if if it closes at this like mid fiscal year if it's in the budget then that amount of money can be used for the second half of our fiscal year. Correct.

Right. Uh we I think part of our land sale money we did account for Tannerina closing this year. Okay. Um but my question to council is the the motion for Tanina was that 1.8 million of that 4.3 go towards parks and trails capital projects. Okay. How do you want to account for that 1.8 million? Does does the BMX track count towards that?

I would I would say no because that was a previous project. I would say new projects that come about because we have that ability. But that's my concern as we're approving this budget. How many of these land sales that you think we're going to be getting money on is towards this budget? And then if we spend that and then the community is like when you guys were really bragging about how you're doing these new contracts and something happens and something follows through and I know we're all have a hard time with Huntley at the end of over there about why he didn't finish his project but it was in the midst of COVID. It was in the midst of um

materials doubling or tripling in cost and so that failed. So I don't think they entered here and planned on their project failing. I don't believe Tanina does, but we don't know what's going to happen economically or what might happen. So, if we spend those funds or how are we going to go back and get those public funds back to go back and purchase those pieces of property? So, we wouldn't spend that until in my opinion, we wouldn't spend those funds until that land sale was completed and we had the funds.

Well, I understand that part, but Linda, our our contracts now are stating that we have um repurchasing. So they have so many each contract has a different thing. Josh can explain this. Do you see the problem that we're creating is that there's

if we take these monies in Josh and then we have contractual things and we've been promising the citizens in contracts that no one's going to be land grabbing and we spend that money but if three years from now they don't meet their um contractual obligations and the property has the right to come back to us, we still have to repurchase that back. And so we're having to go back and get that4 million or that 7 million or that $2 million to go back and repurchase that so that they're not land grabbing. So are we going to spend those funds now the minute they come in or are we going to sit and hold them for three years or five years, whatever the contract says? Yeah, that's a I guess a budgeting question as to whether or not you want to wait and spend the money after the repurchase right has expired or whether you would just come up with the money later from somewhere else if we needed to buy it back. But that would be years. So under that scenario, you know, we wouldn't be able to spend any of the land sale money this year for three years. That's what I'm saying. We've created a problem. A problem that I think that we're solving that the citizens have been concerned about about land banking, but we've created another problem.

So, I think Josh, you probably don't have the contract in front of you, but Tannerina specifically was they have to spend a million dollars within 12 months of closing. Does that sound familiar? Maybe not. Uh, let me see what it is here. I do have the contract here. I just need to get there to that provision. Um for Tannerina, it is um five years from the date of closing, they have to spend $1 million.

Okay. So that's I guess Council Roundry's point is if we budget $4.3 million in land sales and they don't spend a million dollars in five years. But the way I guess budgeting works, Linda, though, is that the money would be spent from general fund monies and so it's not really the same dollars. Well, the way we have an ordinance ordinance I think out there that that ordinance it says any land sale money gets that we receive gets moved over to capital projects. So it goes and it sits in the capital projects fund um when we have a land sale. And then now we like we're discussing here, we have this little caveat here of they don't come through with meeting certain requirements and we have to give the money back. So

So I guess the question to council is when do you want us to put the revenue in the budget? Is it when we receive the revenue at closing or is when the repurchase conditions expire? I guess personally I would say when the when it closes and and if the worst comes around we figure out how to cover that going backwards. That's my personal opinion. Councelor Pller. Yeah, it's and then councelor Hammond.

I mean don't don't count your chickens before they quack, right? I I think if we're going to do these repurchment clauses, we need to like your mark that money and put it in an escrow account or something or at least not spend it. Otherwise, we're just going to pass a steamer off to the next generation um to to solve somewhere down the line uh as soon as we need to repurchase one or uh something falls through. Councelor Hammond,

I agree with Councelor Pller. I think it would be completely irresponsible for us to spend those buyback funds before the repurchase rights expire, especially when we have a known land banker sitting on the largest parcel that's ever been sold in PA's history.

Council Roundree. So Josh, is that not correct then? If they do go ahead and spend a million dollars before the five years, then it could be a year or two years that we would could access those funds, right? It wouldn't have to be the five years. As soon as they've met their requirement, then the land is we can no longer repurchase it back because they've met our level of requirements. So then it wouldn't have to be five years. It could be next budget. Okay. Councelor Hettinger.

Um, I appreciate that we are being very responsible with these funds coming in and making sure that we can meet the obligation if we ever decide that we do want to buy back or need to buy back land. Um, my question to council would be, you know, knowing that our general fund has basically $30 million in it or 30 plus million, is there an amount that we would be willing to spend up to, say we would spend up to 5 million of land sales because we would be willing to take that out of the general fund. If not, totally fine. But just an idea to throw out. Um, you know, I know we have these two really big land sales that happened recently, but the money is going to come in in very different timing and so is there a dollar amount that we would spend up to on capital projects ahead of time or no?

I say no. Council Pillar, I'd be happy with at least uh like the interest it generates. I mean, it's these are big dollar amounts we're talking about and that would cover, you know, like the 75K for the master plan that that kind of stuff, but I don't know if we want to, you know, go any higher than that. So I I So on this particular screen, what I'm kind of sensing from the council is the three items that are is it three items that are already in the budget or four. One, five, one, five, and six are already in it. And the other three we should hold off on.

No.

No. Council Roundree. So, we know the 75,000 that we get from Tan Arena when we receive it is ours. If they change their mind, we don't pay back the 75. We don't pay back the was 150 or 100,000. How much was it to repair the trails up there to on the undevelopable as and they need to be adjusted. We don't get that. They don't get that back either. So, we can spend the 75,000 and the amount that they have for the trail system should be in here. So, it needs to be added as number seven because that can go in. we know we're going to receive that from them. We know we can use that funds. But the other, you know, just like PEU was hit with 5 million or whatever it was that you guys dealt with with it a year or two ago and look at the cutbacks and uh what that caused. Yeah. $5 million that the citizens want us to buy back. That's could be a big cut for a future a future council. So, um so I think one, two, five, and six definitely be need to be in there. I'm willing to look at the inclusive playground because I did talk with the park and Rex and they do believe that that grant I mean they're not always for sure things but they're pretty sure that grant's going to be there.

Um but the question remains where where does that where does it 75,000 doesn't come from anywhere. We know where it's coming from when we add in the the repairs to the Red Mesa Trail. We know that that's there. Um the BMX track I thought it was already in the budget right? It is. So, the Vermilion and then the Vermilion View Trail. Um, there my understanding also because I talked with Adam a couple months ago about this,

there's probably going to be grant money there. And so, that's something that we know is going to bring tourism and dollars into Paige that is going to pay for itself in a year or two. I mean, I I really believe that those type of projects are going to pay. An inclusive playground at 1.6 6 million. That's not going to bring tourists here, but that's something for quality of life is a is a real need. And we've taken out the few um inclusive playground pieces of equipment were removed and there's none available right now. So, we have to address that somehow. But the Vermillion Park playground equipment replacement that I don't know if that has to be replaced right now because you said that's not in the budget either.

No. So, so I'm saying that one we could hold off for because I think the inclusive playground material um playground needs is a must because there are none. This at least has a playground there and could be replaced at another time. Okay. So, that's my take on the rest of those. Councelor Peller,

I I think spending that amount of money on number five on the Vermillion View Trail is going to be entirely too much. Um, we just sold off a bunch of trails that have considerably higher visitation than that one. Um, this one's half not even on our land, and there's nothing stopping us from advertising it now. If we want to improve it, we can have some service projects out there to to line up rocks. We don't need to spend 300 grand on that trail right now. We can wait till uh park service finds their bearings and and do that at a later date. That might be the only anti-trail quote you'll ever get from me. So savor it. Shocked.

I would have to disagree on you with you on that one. Councelor Hettinger and then councelor Hammond.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, one note, Councelor Roundtree, the Vermillion Park playground equipment has to come out for it's um I believe our parks and trails manager said that it's not safe. So, it is coming out. If we don't replace it, there won't be anything there. But what I'm looking at is, correct me if I'm wrong, city manager, I think you said that the Tannerena land sale money is already in the budget. So if we want to have that money protected, we're not looking at just cutting some of this. I think we need to go look at potentially cutting an additional three to four million from capital projects. Uh, one thing we've been kind of whispering about over here is that we have 7.5 million budget in revenue for for land sales and we believe most or all of that has some sort of repurchase clause attached to it. Not just Tanina, but the Valco property, the Desert Ridge property. um those other properties. So, as far as philosophy here, we're we're looking at a $7.5 million. If we cut revenue, should we cut expenses by 7.5 million?

Councelor Hammond.

Well, that changes a lot of things. Um, I was going to say I'm in favor of doing the inclusive playground using a fund that's not the land sales fund, but it sounds like we need to it's not we don't need to just worry about that playground. We need to worry about $7.5 million of the budget plus the playground. So, it sounds like I don't know, but we may need another meeting because that's a big change. Um, and then just real quick, I just want to offer a friendly argument with my fellow counselor and bike trail lover, councelor Pler. Um, remember when we did our our rough valuations on the trails at Red Mesa that we sold, we estimated those to be worth about $1.5 million. And that was for like seven miles of trail. I think five and seven miles, something like that. Adam, correct me if I'm wrong, but this Vermillion Trail is quite a bit longer. And so to me, $330,000, it's still a big chunk and we need to think about that in context of our overall budget, but for what it buys us, it's a screaming deal.

It's six miles in each direction, so 12 miles in total. And okay, so probably going to be worth over well over a million dollars when it's done. But it's it's already walkable. It's just that threearters of it isn't bikable and the majority of trail users are walking. It's really hard to identify where it starts and stops now. Um, just going up there. At one time it had some rocks to kind of help you to find out, but at this time it's I wouldn't direct people to it because of that. Maybe there is a chance that that staff could work on it and get it back to where it was in 2019. And then I I think that we could promote it. So, but we can do that for under 300 grand. Well,

there's a big difference between a a professional trail and a bunch of currents that you follow through the desert. What kind of materials are they looking at? Were they thinking of making having a trail bed? Um, what what makes it to the level of that you were describing? I think they were going to create their own TNG based on the n the natural rock and then use that to line it. Um, but it included, it's not just the the trail bed. It also includes um leveling and grading in a lot of spots. Little bridges. Drainage is huge.

Yeah, drainage. Um, just to to make sure that it's it's safe for riders.

Okay. Council the Roundtree. So, um, the discussion I had with Josh, so if they meet their requirements and if a couple of these other projects from land cells meet their projects, then the, um, being held to, um, the standards for repurchasing goes away and then those funds become available. So, we have $2 million for the city hall, we have $2 million just for the swimming pool design, and then we have $2 million for the Genta, which now is the council directs to future projects. So, right there we have $6 million. And if some of those projects become available, then we'd have the funding for that. But we definitely don't want to go out and and get a $2 million until we come back with the feasibility study. And we don't want the $2 million for the city hall either until we have that feasibility study. So, by then, if those are left in the budget, it wouldn't really put us over budget if we don't spend them. If the we have to consider the feasibility. So, we could be into next year. And we know that some of these projects are going to have met their requirements and um we won't have repurchasing rights back because they will show that they're going to complete the projects. Am I not correct?

So there's at least so our time our time frame on some of these

um budget lines may be to our advantage in that regard that we will not be find ourselves in trouble because we will be at a point where we know that we're not going to have to repurchase Right. So that's what I'm saying. So some of them will happen soon. There are others like you're saying some big projects that are going to take a few more years that we're going to have to decide on the future agenda item or I mean I just didn't think that that was something we could decide today what we're going to do with those funds. I thought it would need to go before an agenda item. That's why I have it as a future agenda item already. I've requested it. Councelor Hammond, is that a new hand?

Old hand. old hand. Okay. Well, that's my consideration. We kind of beat this one to death. Um, so instruction to staff on this particular item. I mean, Deb, councelor Roundtree, you've kind of circled all the way back making it sound like we would be safe to go ahead and approve all of these items to be on it because of the 2 million 2 million 2 million that we will not have spent yet. And we could we we kind of have given oursel a safety net in that part of the budget.

Well, I just want to know what Linda thinks about that. Do you see what I'm saying? That they're here, but you I mean, how do these work? I just I don't want you guys then going out and us coming back and we're in and the whole next year is $7.5 million. What I'm saying is I can see a solution to that problem because I believe some of these guys are going to meet their requirements sooner. But if they don't, um, you know, we're not going to be spending that. You have to agree, we're not going to be spending the $2 million in city improvements until we get that feasibility study back. We're not going to go ahead and have someone construct a a plan because we don't know for sure where we want to put the pool. So that 2 million, that's four million's right there. That's already off of the budget. And then we have the housing, you know, we still have to Gent that they have to come back and let us know before we even approve that. So we've kept that in the budget. So there's 6 million and the um the inclusive playground annex. Um I don't know where we go with that. I do believe that he'll probably get that grant. I think the type of grant he was talking about is probably a pretty easy grant. So whether they cut back the what they're going to do for them play inclusive playground or maybe they make the inclusive play playground over at the Vermillion Park that they're taking out so that that's transferred or they put just a piece a few pieces like personally I I love the idea especially because my daughter's in BI and behavioral interventionists and these parks mean the world to families who have children that need these but shouldn't we have a piece of equipment in each park so that when families bringing all the other children or the cousins to the city park, that one child only has one park they can go to. I'd rather see a piece of inclusive playground equipment at each one of our parks in town instead of just one part.

That that would kind of be a discussion for another Well, I know that, but do you see what I'm saying? We're approving 1.6 for one complete entire Our part would be 800, correct? Right. And part our part would be 800. So, so what we're what we really need to decide is if we want this 800 plus 150 to so 950 to be put into this if we need to cut 7.5 million. I'm just giving you another suggestion that um that maybe we shouldn't do the 1.6. So, I've given you 6 million and another 1.6 even though it breaks my heart to even suggest the inclusive playground. Councelor Hammond and then councelor Hettinger.

Yeah. So, I'm just thinking if we don't have the money, we don't have the money. If we have to wait a year or two until these land sales close and then do these projects, that's I think a responsible reality. We're all excited because we walked in with this list of beautiful projects that we want to do, but at the end of the day, we can't tank our city on land grabs and lose our leverage there. Um, unless Linda, I just wanted to ask, do you think that there's a way to shift $8 million into the other funds so that we don't have to use land sales?

She's thinking,

well, I don't know about shifting funds. I think what I'm trying to understand is if this repurchase if this repurchase right thing that we we've just started doing I I think that's good to be able to do that but if it's going to delay the city of Page receiving the ability to spend those funds I think that's really the question because like councelor Per brought up having those funds held in an escrow account I can't see if a check or a wire comes through our office me being able to not report it in in our general ledger somewhere. I have to I have to report that and record that as revenue coming in. If it's going to sit at a title company in escrow for three years or however long, five up to five years until it becomes a reality for us, then it's not ours until that point in time. That's how I see that.

So perhaps escrow was the wrong name. Sitting sitting in an interest earning account. Yeah, that that works.

Okay. So, if it's sitting in an interest earning account, then the city's going to receive that and we're going to show that we've received that revenue. It's going to be in our books. We may not have it. We won't be able to spend it. We can put it in a special like your emergency reserve account. We can create another account like that, have that money come in, invest it, and just kind of pretend like we don't have it. Um, is the way I look at it. not to spend, not to budget, and don't budget for the project until we've passed that repurchase right point in time. And we say all is well and good, whether it be five years or less, however that works with the land. Now, then at that point, in the meantime, we get some interest.

Yeah. And you can get some interest. And at that point, then you can spend. Now, however, you know, we don't have that crystal ball. So, how how long is that going to take? And when when is the appropriate time to budget? we can budget and we can have it there knowing that this can't happen unless AB and C follow through, right? Um with these land sales is the way I kind of see that.

So you're saying perhaps we could say put something in the budget and say but this is dependent on I mean I'm I'm fully expecting that Tanina is going to be spending their $1 million very quickly compared to a fiveyear plan. I think you can do that. If you have a contingency in there and we're all aware of that, then we can I think we can do that. Okay. Councelor Hedinger.

Um, so I know one of the things that was brought forward was the $2 million for the pool design, and it's easy because it's a large amount, but personally, I I'm just not comfortable with that project. I'm okay with it being dependent on our middle school feasibility because we have more control over that. I'm not comfortable with that being dependent on the land sale. And so I would prefer that we find $2 million somewhere else because we could potentially be pushing that off for five years if Tannerina takes takes time to get started. Um because we we don't know what's going to happen and I I would hate to see our pool design be pushed off for five more years.

Councelor Roundree and then councelor Kjan. I thought the same thing. And so if we were to prioritize those um councelor Hinger, I would put that as the top priority um as soon as we got the feasibility or the the the study about the middle school back. Um so I would put it up there, but I think we have a couple of other land cells that are going to come in besides those that we would have money that we could spend on because I think they're going to be like shovel ready, aren't they? Well, we're still trying to get it to that point. Yeah.

Yeah. But on some other projects. So, I think that we would get funds rather quickly and that we could prioritize that as being one of the top ones once we got that um $30,000 study done that he's suggesting for um the middle school looking at the middle school. Um I mean, which I I'm going to try to be open-minded. Maybe I should go walk through it, but um I just think that's way out of our plan or it's too expensive.

Council Ram Kjan. Yeah, if you go back to the very first slide on this meeting, we're supposed to be fudicially responsible. And that's like we don't spend money that we don't have. When we That's how come we have money. The previous council believed that and we've lived that for years. That's why we have money. When I first got on council, we didn't have money. So, we can either do the budget like we're supposed to or we can do it like my daughter does and thinks that she may get the money. Thank you for that, Councelor Hedinger.

I agree. And on that note, I'm concerned about the $5 million coming out of the general fund. The like I I just don't know where we balance being fiscally responsible and we are collecting tax money from our citizens and it should go towards benefiting our citizens. You know, we're starting with 84 million in the bank. We're going to end with 68. Are we comfortable with that? Or do we expect to have more than 84 million? But in that case, why are we still taxing our citizens if we're not providing services for them?

Okay. Okay. Well, so we've again, we've talked this one almost to death. So, doesn't the swimming pool that sales tax have a where that money is coming that's supposed to be going to a certain spot? Is that money not there to cover the swimming pool? We have around $3 million from that increase in sales tax. And so, that's not going that that is set aside just for it's the swimming pool.

It's being tracked. It's being tracked separately, but it's all a part of our sales tax revenue. I mean, in the report with the state of Arizona where we're getting our city sales tax, it's not pulled out and doggeyeared for anything special. We're we're doing that. We're tracking it for that question to come. And someone's going to ask and they've asked, "How much money have we got from that increase in sales tax in September of 2019?" And the answer is $3 million. I can tell you that.

Right. So, so that to so we do kind of have a line item that we had the and we still need to bring that back to the agenda, guys, because I believe the approval of the swimming pool fell under a a problem that we had with open meeting law violations. Um, and it wasn't handled correctly. So, I think we'd still have to bring that back and approve the swimming pool. Um but so can uh councelor Hedinger. So I I agree with you in that sense that that we're bringing a sales tax that we the board committed to going towards that swimming pool. C last council pre let's make this the last one. um

our council heading if she needs

the we can sit up here and say that we're against land banking till the cows come home but if we don't have the money to exercise that option when it comes up then what we're doing is enabling land banking. Um and our numbers are public so whoever we might make that call on would know. Um, so we need to have, you know, at least partially that money in reserve, otherwise the whole repurchasement clause is just wasting Josh's time. Um so you know we we might need to need to scale back some some projects here and make a separate list of back burner projects that we can greenlight uh you know tenative uh you know the the the money uh the repment requirements being met by certain contracts. We might have to make a separate list of these are slightly lower priority projects that we'd love to get to if this project is successful and we have that money free, but we can't spend that money ahead of time. So, I'm going to for staff, I'm going to suggest that we tell them to keep what's already on the on the um budget, but to but not the new items that are not on the budget. I don't know how anybody else feels about that. So, I think we can we can spin here all day.

Yeah. What I would suggest is on along those lines, mayor, is that we keep the 7.5 million revenue for land sales in the budget like we have it. We keep the projects in the budget right now, but that I hold off on pool design, city hall, the Genta housing or whatever we're calling it, the council directed infrastructure, and even the Vista Navajo Drive projects. That's $8 million. So, don't pull the trigger on those until we start seeing some of the land sales. Know they're going to be spending money because like the Tanina is $4.3 million. But they've told me they plan to spend that million dollars within the first year. But so if we've got it in here and we see that 4.3, maybe we can start cutting loose some of these projects.

So along with that, do you recommend that we put on that? You're going to hold on the eight. Do you recommend that we put in the annex and the Vermillion playground? The that's almost a separate question because that's where I was going back to another one is it goes back to does council want to include this project in this year's budget.

Okay. Um, if so, what do we want to cut out or do we want to just add it and eat into our fund balances more? And also, how do we want to total up that $1.8 million to where we know that obligation is fulfilled? Um, is it these six priorities that we want to look at? Once we hit at least 1.8, We know that that obligation has been settled. Councelor Hedinger and then councelor Hammond.

So I think those $8 million make sense for the land fund, but there's another 8 million that were over budget this year. And like how many of those are looking at the general fund, our personnel, those are ongoing expenses. Is this sustainable or are we going to be $5 million over budget every year and not be giving any raises to our employees? I I think we have 16 million that we need to really look hard at cutting from this year's budget. Oh Jesus, we can just sell a kidney every year. It's not problem year. While we're thinking about that question,

so respectfully, I'm going to disagree with councelor Hedinger. I think that this year is a product of a really bad tourism year, and we shouldn't expect all of our years to be that bad. Um, and I think that we should go with Mr. Marbur's suggestion that we cut 8 mill not even cut 8 million keep those projects in the budget but with the direction to staff that it doesn't get spent until sales start closing and the funds are there to spend.

I'm going to respectfully disagree. Tourism is a macroeconomic thing. Uh it moves slowly. If we're having a downward year now it's likely we might have more and we're not going to jump right back to record setting years. I don't want to have the same meeting be a lot more uncomfortable next year.

I'm gonna have to agree with him and I've agree with everything Adam has said, but I talked and called before this meeting to prepare with a couple people at the state level and they said that um foreign um travel or um into um the Phoenix airport or into Arizona was down and so they believe that because of the war that we are going to have a downturn. So since we are relying on tourism, I'm I think that we should prepare for that possibility. So

So if we do have a downturn and we go with this budget and I mean we will trim things throughout the year if we see such a downturn. Um we're not going to actually end up like in the red in all of our accounts, are we? I mean we're going to decrease from the previous year, but we will not be in the red. Am I correct? You want to go budget at a glance or if we spend money we don't have, we will we always have a balanced budget before. This be the first time we had a balance. First time we're not counting on the land sales.

We count on land sales before, but we blew 30 million and got nothing to show for it. that one. Oh, go ahead. Oh, you want me to? Oh, well, well, let me look at I got to get back here because I can't read. I can't see that one, but the

Yeah, and that I have a slide in the future of this, but it's a good question and I guess we'll hit it. Uh so really what you're looking at with the overall budget is we're as counselors have said we're eating into our fund balances by 16 million. That's 19% of those extra fund balances and it's kind of philosophical question for council. We've got very healthy fund balances. Most cities besides emergency reserves all of their fund balances are close to zero. So Paige is in a and tell me if I'm wrong, but Paige is in a pretty good spot. The question for council is you want to maintain that comfort level of having those healthy balances in case the economy does turn down more than it has or more than people are projecting to to get through those tough years? or are you keeping too much money that you're collecting from the citizens and should we be spending that money as we get it? There's some arguments that you shouldn't have too big of balances otherwise you should be giving the money back to the citizens.

Yeah. And and if we're not giving it back to the citizens in projects in these in these um playgrounds and in the swimming pool plans and so forth, then why are we holding on to it? Right? That's and that's kind of a philosophical question for council is what is your comfort level with those fund balances? So, we're we're truly not going I mean, we're we're for the budget year, we look red, but for our overall the money that we have, we're not in the red. We still would have 81 million 81 million in our pockets, right? Or in the city's pockets,

right? We're we're spending that's allocated for other things. for for the year we're spending 16 million more dollars than we're bringing in. But we also have current fund balance of 84 million according to 16 but that's after that. So 68 + 16 this is the difference between these two right? Right. I'm comfortable with that. I personally Yeah, you're right. Yes. Councelor Hammond,

I'm comfortable with that. I have um have a much more visceral reaction to looking at a balance sheet of $86,000 and saying we're not going to spend it on projects that benefit citizens. That turns my stomach much more than spending 16 million more than we brought in this one year. Councelor Roundtree,

I kind of agree with that except for some of those expenditures are going to trigger huger expenditures and even larger differences for coming up in the years to come up. I mean, the the building the swimming pool 40 million. So, we're going to spend two two million on a plan and it's going to be 40 million. How much for the uh the middle school? 18. I think that's going to be 2830 million. And then um

that's what we would have to figure out on what I'm saying. So some of these expenditures though are triggering some huge uh future uh you know commitments towards. So it's not like we're going to go over budget because we need more in police or fire or you know and some of those type of areas that that we are giving back to our citizens. It is triggering future councils and the citizens to some huge possible future costs.

Councelor Hettinger I don't know if this is something that we have on hand, but is it possible to see how much of the budget is one-time costs like doing a road improvement versus ongoing costs? I'm thinking of things like the splash pad utilities. Um, right? Like those and and that's already in place, but what of these projects are that are already budgeted that were over the 16 million? How many of it is a onetime fee? We're spending 16 million this year that we don't have to spend next year versus things that are ongoing. That's exactly what I was trying to say. Um counselor,

just one second on that. No problem. It's inclusive. See, we have we're going to need a break. That's everything. You know what? How about if we take a 5m minute break while you look for it? Yeah, it might be good. Okay, we will go on a quick recess. Let's make it quick. Sorry, I hung us up.

both of them on. Yeah, I still don't know what to do. We are back. We're just waiting for a couple people. Yep. I will reopen this special meeting. It is 2:29. What did you find out? All right.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, so I think to answer Councelor Hedinger's question of one-time expenses, the good number might to look at might be at the end of the capital breakdown on page 74 is the $40.7 million. Those are all one point one time onetime expenses expenses. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Where was that again?

Page 74, the end of the capital breakdown as of 5426. Um if you total all those capital items, the the grants, the equipment, and the projects, it's it's $40.7 million. Those are all one time expenses.

Council Roundtree, they still trigger commitments to future commitments. You can't say that if we're going to spend $2 million on a plan for the the pool or for the others that that's going to bring in a whole lot more expenses. No, we will budget for those expenses a future time.

Well, the the the plan wouldn't be the actual construction and cost of the of the pool itself, right? It's going to be for maintaining all of those new like if you do the middle school, the school district got rid of it because it was one of the highest um to maintain. So if if we budget for those in the future, right? But if we look at a feasibility study, it doesn't trigger buying a middle school. No, it doesn't. But um fixing the library electrical grade is not going to bind us to anything in the future at all. It's going to fix a problem. So a lot of these projects are fixing problems. Correct.

But doing a design doesn't obligate you to do the construction. You may you may face backlash for doing a design and not doing the construction. You may waste money, but you still do not have to physically spend the money for construction if you decide not to go forward with the project.

Councelor Hinger. So, personally, knowing that we've got 40 million of capital, and I apologize that I didn't put this together earlier in my head, if we're only 16, if we're overspending our budget by 16 million, but 40 million of that is to projects and big things that we don't have to spend every year. I'm much more comfortable. We've got 68 at the end, the ending fund balance. We're over by 16, but we're spending 40 on big projects. that makes me feel personally a lot more comfortable with the budget as it stands. Yes. Um but happy to discuss if anyone else still has concerns.

Okay, that being the point, we still need to go back to that one screen and give our opinion on those items to stay in budget or change. So, all right. And then I don't I was asking Linda what our budget looked like last year if we brought down fund balances last year, but I don't know if we have that handy, but we'll we'll try and find that. I think it goes back to my question with the parks and wreck projects. Do we want to budget the 1.6 6 million for the accessible playground in this year's budget or maybe wait and see and look at that next year.

For those who are familiar with that grant, if they receive the grant, how of how quickly do you usually need to use the grant? Like if we wait till we see that they have the grant and then budget that for next year. Council Roundtree,

isn't this another project that didn't come before us and get approval for this park and it should have come through? And that's where we could have stopped and questioned whether or not we needed an entire complete inclusive park or whether or not it would have been better to put inclusive um park equipment at each park in town. So, we haven't This is kind of like the other project where we're approving a budget item for something that we haven't seen or reviewed or approved on and it hasn't it's not been a a council item. It's a large enough item it would have to come before council, right? And so, it hasn't. So, and I'm telling you, I'm really would love to see this park. I'm extremely in favor of councelor Hettinger and then councelor Hammond.

I can provide some context there. This has been a um a project that the board's been really excited about. So board members have done their own research, which is how that $ 1.6 million number came up. That's not from staff. That's not a bid that went out. That is members of the park board reaching out to people because they are very excited about this park to try and get an idea of what dollar amount they should request in the budget so that we could go through this whole process. The other thing that we've heard from staff at the parks and rec advisory board meetings is um you can't just add accessible equipment to existing playgrounds because the whole thing has to be accessible. And so if they were to add accessible equipment to existing playgrounds, it would have to be in an entirely new area. Um you couldn't like add it to something that exists already. And so that's one of the reasons that the board pivoted away from wanting to have accessible equipment available more widely throughout the city and instead focusing on doing one park. Very well done that would work for kids of all abilities.

So Councelor Hedinger, can you explain to me is that an ADA rule on the um partial versus full playground? Where does that come from? Um, I don't want to overstep because I'm not an ADA expert, but that is what staff told us and I believe it is from the ADA rules. Um, if something's already existing, they were not able to add accessible equipment like into that wood chip area. They'd have to create a new wood chip area specifically for the accessible equipment. But if any staff members are there that want to correct me, please feel free.

Right. This this comes from we've had talks with the with the board um and staff uh our park staff has talked about the big issue with ADA accessibility is not necessarily just the equipment. It's also the footing and the type of surfacing that you have around it. That's why nowadays it leads to complete facility design rather than just at a piece of equipment here and there. And I understand councelor Hedinger's point. Maybe what I'd suggest is maybe she wants to come to the parks and recck board meeting and discuss it within there because this is their current recommendation is that one facility there rather than one piece of equipment at each one. But maybe it's something we can handle separately through the parks and rec advisory board. Um

councelor Roundtree, you had your hand up and then wait I think I skipped over. I did say councelor Hammond.

Thanks. Yeah, just to put that in another way, if you have an accessible slide, for example, and then you have non-accessible wood chips on the way to the slide, it doesn't do anybody any good. So, it's not that there's like a rule that you have to have like type things everywhere, but you have to think holistically about the design. If something's intended to be accessible, the whole experience needs to be accessible. Um, so that's that. My opinion on these kind of last minute items from parks and wreck is that we leave them all until next year. They're they're put in late. We're over budget. I'd love to do them in the near future, but I think just not this year.

Council and sorry, one more one more thing. The botanical Frost Botanical Park, I'm not sure we should move on that right now either. I understand the intent and then it's been a long time coming and people really want to see that as a park. I'm just not convinced that a desert botanical park in Paige, Arizona makes a ton of sense when you can walk like a quarter mile and be in desert botanical. Anyway, council roundree and then council prowler,

the Frost Park was a board approved project and it's been put off for some time. So, it isn't already been brought to the board. It was already approved and went through that a few years ago. um the um accessibility like yeah I agree that there are some ex you know inclusive pieces of equipment that can't go but there are others because all of our parks are accessible by wheelchairs or handicap or or other things because our parks have already met some of those requirements. So yeah, there might be some inclusive park pieces that can't go because of footing and some other things, but there are other things that can be especially like the swings. Um, so those things can be included. And I want to go back to the fact that the the money for the um that we're receiving from as soon as um Tanner Arena closes, those funds should be available. And if we don't put them into this year's budget, we have to wait an entire no whole year before we can start a trail um plan system or or hire somebody to to look at that. So those things we know the money is coming. We know it's not tied to anything and that we know it's earmarked for those specific things. I think they should be in the budget.

Councelor Prowler.

Um Amanda, I really appreciate your uh view on the botanical park because that's exactly how I feel about dark skies. Um but um I think it's uh it would be irresponsible for us to not do the project on the Vermillion Park and not prioritize that higher than the annex park. Uh it's a tenth the cost. There's a playground there. Now, if we tear that playground out, that is well utilized because there are plenty of kids in that area that don't have a lot else walkable in their in their neighborhood. Um, I think it would be irresponsible of us to not plan replacement of that equipment that's being pulled out. Um, especially when it's like a tenth the cost of the annex park. Um, if we're also if we're talking pulling stuff out of the budget, I would much rather see um Vista repaved than the annex park as well. Those are um roughly similar dollar amounts. Um Vista right now is not ADA accessible. I I rode my bike down Vista on the way here this morning and my teeth were straight before I left. So,

right. So, from what I'm hearing for uh maybe so we can move on, what I'm hearing is we we need to add in the 75,000 for the urban trail master plan. We need to add in the the 100,000 for redoing the trails, Josh, in the contract, was that a city expense? I know I'm asking a separate question, but it's it's not really to redo the trails. It's just $100,000 that they're giving us as compensation for the trails that they took. Um, so,

okay. So, we'll find a way if we have to reroute any of those trails, we'll find out how to do

now. Yes, they have to ensure connectivity separate from the 100,000. They still have to ensure connectivity to the existing trails that that remain. So, we don't need to worry about that. Just the 75,000 for the urban trail master plan we'll put in there. Um, the question, I guess, is we'll maybe hold off on annex park for a year and look for grants that maybe we could budget for next year and and reassure the parks and recreation board that we understand it's a big priority of theirs. Um, the question to council is, do you want to remove Vermillion View Trail and and add in the Vermillion Park playground equipment or find a way to add in the park equipment?

Personally, I would say leave in the Vermillion View Trail because when the labor is available from the park service is not always up to our choice. And if we're not ready when they are ready, then we can miss out. That's my personal view. Okay. Councelor Roundtree,

I agree with that. Um I I don't understand. The 100,000 is going to be there for Red Mesa. So why if we know it's going to be there in a few weeks, why wouldn't we go ahead and use it now? Why would we wait for 100? It's not like it's in the budget. that money. Hopefully, you're not planning on spending their 100,000 somewhere else because it is earmarked specifically for Red Mesa Trail. And so, we have that 100,000. Why are you going to wait an entire year? Because he just said it's not earmarked for Red Mesa Trail.

How is that not Josh that part of the mitigation and the whatever with them? We just didn't ask for 100,000. It was to fix and repair and and I was a part of the mitigation. I don't know how much I can say though. I can't say because it was an executive session, but that was that go towards Red Mesa Trail, wasn't it? What what the the contract just says that they're compensating us $100,000 for trail impacts to the property. It doesn't dictate what we do with that money. It just says that they're paying us an additional $100,000 because there are trail impacts to that property. What we do with that money is up to us.

Well, I would suggest that it needs if we recognize there was going to be impacts to those trails, then it needs to go to fix those trails. And I would hope that it wouldn't go anywhere else. And if we have that money, then it needs to be there. But we don't need to fix those trails because any trails that they're losing connectivity to, they're reconnecting. This that 100,000 is for the trails that are disappearing. That's compensation to the city. That's revenue coming into the city. Councelor Hammond, I got such an echo. Does everybody else have an echo?

Uh, I don't. But I agree. Um, those funds should be at your mark or set aside into a separate account. And I'm sure Linda can help us with that. But the more important point to me is that if the deal falls through, we would have to give that money back. We don't. We've already um addressed that. I confirmed that the 100 and the 75 we do not need to get back. Is that correct? The repurchase right only applies to the property. Um the purchase of the property, I guess to try and move on. Do we want to put Vermillion Park playground equipment in the budget?

I would say yes. It's only 150 compared to some of these monstrous numbers that we've been worried about. I would say yes. Kenna Kenna Hedinger says yes. Okay. Anybody else? All right. So, we'll try and move on. Uh, and hold off. You're So, the the conclusion of that screen was hold off on the annex park, but the others are in. Is that correct? Is that our recommendation?

Right. And we'll use this at least the first five of the six priorities here listed to count towards that $1.8 8 million at some point to know when that obligation's satisfied if that works for council. Say that again. Uh it comes back to the original motion for Tannerina said that we need to spend $1.8 million on parks and recck capital projects. Okay. How do we define that? So I'm I'm suggesting we define that as a numbers one through five until we get to at least 1.8 million. Okay.

I agree. and quit arguing about it. Councelor Hettinger, is that a thumbs up or one count? Sorry, a counterpoint is the parks and rec board specifically asked the feasibility study of the middle school not be taken from that 1.8 million because that is a larger city project that could potentially benefit parks and wreck. I know it's only $30,000. It's not a lot, but that would be my one request that that 30,000 not be counted towards the 1.8 million. I agree with that. Fair enough. Easy enough. Yeah. Thank you, Councelor Hinger. That makes sense. Thank you. All right. Airport. Wake up floor. Sorry, everybody.

Okay. I guess it's technically a project, but um or technically maybe equipment if I've got it in the right thing. Uh uh. So, we've got in the budget here. Um, see if I've got a number here. So, second ARF truck. Yes. Replace the Dodge. Do you still want a new Do you still need a new truck, sir? Well, yes. Yes. It is undeniable that we need a new ARF truck. So, that's what that is. Yes. Um,

and we're hoping that part of the the projects that we're doing with the different buildings, you'll you'll see like hopefully we're hoping there's some extra federal money so we can split it so that we're spending some and Yep. And our grants are got a slide on that coming up. It's 1.2 total. Yeah. Um, which seems cheap for a firet truck actually these days. Um, so then we go to parking lot. I've got a couple slides on this floor if you want to maybe discuss a little bit in the next.