Council - Regular Meeting

I don't even know that was fast for you. Okay. different colors. People are really proud of their plane.

Is it asking us to do it again?

I don't know. I had to do mine again. just a little bit individual stuff whole packet. Councelor Hammond, can you hear us? Okay.

Oh, hey page one. I sure can. Um, we'll be starting in a little bit as well. Great.

I apologize for the delay. I will open this city council regular meeting. It's April 22nd, 2026. The time is 5:35. I ask everybody to stand for a moment of silence and invite them to join me with for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

A reminder to all council members to put your microphones on. Um,

madame clerk, will you please do a roll call? Mayor Kidman here. Vice Mayor Pharaoh here. Councelor Hettinger here. Councelor Peller here. Councelor Roundtree here. Councelor Cojan here. Councelor Hammond here. Item number three, community recognition. We have none for tonight. Item number four, consent agenda. Only one item on it. I'm looking for a motion. Councelor Cojan, move to approve the consent partial agenda. Second. We have a motion from councelor Cojan, a second from councelor Pller. All in favor say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Thank you. Item number five here from the citizens. I only have one blue card, but this person is asked to speak at the agenda item for which she was wanting to uh address. So, I will call on that person at the agenda item. One moment there. Item number six, reports and announcements. for mayor's reports. I have nothing for this week. We'll move on to the city manager's current event summary.

Thank you, mayor, members of council. A few things going on around the city. Uh the page artfest um attend I guess they had over 600 attendees, so I think that would be a success. Sorry I couldn't attend that. Um and in May, look forward to the Golden Hour Roller Rink and a country concert upcoming events. Uh some other things going around town. Uh Paige attacks trash seem to be a huge success. Want to mention a few of the the folks responsible here. It's a part of the list. There's many more. So, we want to thank everybody, but special thanks to the Canyon Club, Betamu Sorority, the uh Glen Canyon Recreation Park people, the park service, and the and the conservancy, Aramark, the Leche chapter, Cookanino College, Fair Harbor, Republic Services, and like I said, many, many more businesses and individuals. Uh, so big thanks to that. Um, and then lastly, for those that made it to the the oral arguments, the sup state supreme court was in town, and I think that went over pretty well. Um, we even managed to get a few of them down to Horseshoe Bin. So, I want to thank uh PD for helping us out and and Deb and the folks at Horseshoe Ben and and the Simmons family with the their analopee tour van that they loaned us at literally the last minute's notice. So, a special shout out to them for for helping us out and uh and I think it was a a great time for them to be there and uh hopefully we'll catch them on the next goround when they're they're doing a rural tour and like to get out to

rural Arizona. So Paige was their time and I think that's it for now. All right. Thank you. Um item number seven, boards and commissions. Any council members attend a board meeting since our last looks like we have several. Let's start with councelor Hinger.

I attended the youth advisory commission on Monday on behalf of Vice Mayor Pharaoh. Uh the one thing that they are working on is um as an overall goal they are trying to create more events for our youth in the community. So this Saturday they have a movie night that they're doing. Uh they're going to show Top Gun Maverick and I think it's great that they're trying to they're trying to get themselves out more and also have more activities for the community. Councelor Peller.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh I got to attend attend a airport advisory board meeting. Um that is a uh board that is normally uh the liaison is Mike Pharaoh and I was just filling in. So I uh scrambled down a bunch of aviation terms here and I only understand half of them. Um but uh there's going to be some taxi lane milling and runway ceiling going on that's going to shut down our airport for a day. Um Contour reported that they had uh a thousand passengers more in Q1 than they did Q1 last year. Um they're going to keep going with the construction as we voted on in the last meeting or maybe the one before that. Um they've got some business that got can get kicked down the road to the next meeting. Um and then the big discussion item of the EAS uh carrier bids um there was a unanimous consensus to uh award the bid to Contour. Um, and because they're a new board and they're still figuring out the uh the waters of Robert's rules, about right after they had that vote, they uh wanted to say that they'd recommend a two-year deal, but that wasn't technically within the uh scope of that vote, but um and then substance abuse task force didn't meet because they couldn't get a quorum.

Okay. Council Roundree. Yes, I attended the library um advisory board meeting and they are just planning for their summer and for fall and getting ready for that, but I'm not going to read their extensive things. Just go online. I promise you this summer might be one of the best summers they've ever had and reading programs and activities and everything that they're doing. They just are shining star for the city of Paige. I know I say that every single time. Um but it would take me 30 minutes to read everything that they're doing. So go online and look at all of the activities for youths, teens, elderly children, preschool. They cover it all. So make sure you check out the library calendar that's posted regularly online.

Thank you. Did you attend one? No. Um I attend the same one they did.

Oh, you were you were a double. Okay. Um I did attend the uh page utility uh board meeting last night. Um the utility is doing well. All funds are healthy. They reported on several very large projects that they are involved in. Um and anything with PUE with it when it's large, it's large dollars, but they they're they're proceeding very well down there. Um they completed their they agreed to the final budget that they are going to present to us on our combined meeting on the 13th. And we also had our Nexus partners out of Washington DC on screen at that meeting and they were updating us on their efforts with Senator Kelly and Sen Senator Ggo's offices dealing with 2027 earmark requests to help pay for our portion in the city boundary of our second straw project. um millions and millions of dollars are they're working towards trying to get earmarks uh settled and put into the whatever the dockets are that they call it in Congress and also pushing to keep us at the top of the line for the Great American Outdoor Act, which would secure 20 over $28 million for the portion of the project on the uh park service land and they've put out the RFQS for the entire project for environmental and engineering to get those started. And I guess it's best practice if we have all of that part done and it's a shovel ready project for getting these funds released. They like projects that are ready to go. So they are working very hard on that. So a lot of progress with

pee. So, and that that is it for item number seven, boards and commissions. Item number eight, under new business, we have special event liquor license application, Grand Circle Arts Alliance. I ask for a Sure, Mr. Mayor, I move to approve the uh special event liquor license for Grand Circle Arts Alliance. Second. Have a motion from councelor Prowler and a second from councelor Cojan. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I.

Any opposed? Thank you. Item number 82. This is for our blue card. You wanted to wait until after presentations. I can do that. The EAS carrier bid evaluations and presentations. I will either turn this over to Lur Davis. Yes. Or do you want me just to announce who's first? Yes. Laura can. Laura, you can announce. You can. Sorry. Our airport director. What?

Hi. I have a few notes before we start the presentations if I may. Greetings everyone. Mayor, counselors, everybody. Hi again. I'm Laura. I'm your airport director. Um, and I'm happy to be here to present all of our bids. But first, I'd like to thank all of our air carriers for being here tonight and also going through this whole process with us. Thank you. Um, fun fact, Arizona has 83 airports, which is a lot of airports, but less than 10 of them are commercial, which I think is crazy, and that means Paige is very special. Um the fact that we attracted the interest of so many tremendous service providers is truly a wonderful thing. So I thank you guys. As requested, we'll have a representative from each air carrier do a presentation. I have a brief presentation that's basically a summary of our consultants and a little explanation of the DOT process that we're going to go through and then we'll have a Q&A after that. Um just a few words of vocabulary because there is a lot of jargon involved in all of this. Uh the main ones I think are first one part 139 certification. So when you hear part 139 we're talking about the airport. That's the airport's certification by the FAA. That means that we can have air carriers both scheduled and unscheduled operate out of our airport. someone like a GA airport would not necessarily have that and there are rules and regs that go along with part 139 and that's what we have instructions for every year. Another thing that deals with the airport is the class. So if you hear classes bandied about tonight, a class three airport, that is Paige. We are a class three airport. That means that we are able to have air carriers here that are up to 30 passengers. There are rules and regulations of

course that go with class three. Class one, those are airports like Sky Harbor that can have and host the much larger aircrafts. And they also have rules and regulations that go with class one, which are different than class 3. Class one is obviously going to be more strict than class 3. Um, part 135 and part 121, those are the other ones you'll probably hear tonight. Those refer to the operators, the air carriers themselves and how they operate. So a part 135 operator is authorized to have aircraft that have 30 passengers or less. A part 121 operator, again those are the larger aircraft with more than 30 passengers. There's less restrictions on they can have as many passengers as they want. I guess how big of a plan you want, you can have um for class just like classes with different restrictions and rules. Same with the part 139 or part 135, excuse me. Here we go. And part 121. So part 121 tends to have stricter rules and regulations than part 135. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. Without further ado, um advanced air Thank you, mayor, council. Thanks for having us tonight. Levi Stockton, I'm the CEO, president uh of Advanced Air. And uh we have been coming to Paige, I think for eight years trying to be your airline. So, here we are again. U we operated out of uh LA, Hawthorne airport. Um and we focus on the Southwest. So, this falls right within. Let me see if I can Is this do anything?

It should my packet still not downloaded. Should be now. Okay. Okay. What did you do? Cuz

I just maybe Okay.

All right. Um so um we offered uh uh 12 round trips uh in our 30 passenger Dornier 328. Um we are part 135 and the Dorier is actually a 30 passenger airplane. So it's it's meant to fly 30 passengers and what that means is it also gives the best performance and that's important in Paige because performance here is important with the size of the runway, the altitude and the temperature. Um so we um uh offered uh 12 round trips in our Dorier and then additional three round trips in our King Air given a total of 15 um to Phoenix and then an additional three from here to Wendle Rock. Uh we also serve as Gallup and we've built a good relationship with the Navajo Nation and we believe bringing them in uh in the area is is important for air service. Uh the Dornier like I said uh is the best performing airport in this uh airplane in this category and operating out of here for the most part can operate in the full 30 passengers. You can see when it's close to 100° uh we're limited down to 24 but um that's going to be much more than than the average airplane that can fly in and out of here. Uh so the Dorier is built for uh Schwar runways, high altitudes um and and airports like this. Uh it's a unique airport uh and the Dorna is a unique airplane and uh we believe it's the right fit for you. We operate three of them uh looking at a couple more and we're also looking at a a good uh portion of Emperor 145s to add to our fleet. So you may hear tonight uh the fact about the number of airplanes um know that we'll have one airplane dedicated to here, another airplane in LA as a backup uh and then a third that

supports uh our other routes uh Crescent City and Mammoth that can also fill in and and and help support. So again, our footprint is the Southwest. We operate in uh New Mexico, Phoenix, and California um and a little bit of Nevada. And so we are concentrated in this area. This is the only area we focus on. Um and we have uh done that for reliability and the ability to deliver an amazing product. Uh our network uh has been 98% completion, 91% on time. Uh we have like I said uh other dorese as as backup. In addition, at our King Airs, we have uh 10 of them in our fleet with six of them flying in the New Mexico Phoenix area every day. Um so an enormous amount of backup and support there. Uh here's some pictures of our aircraft. Um the uh the Dornier is like I said 30 passengers, the King Air is nine. And then we also operate a fleet of of uh high-end charter aircraft. uh kind of giving you the full picture of our operation. Um so we believe that you know having the most frequency to one airport is the most important thing. Being able to go down for a day trip uh fly in the morning connect uh and into connecting flights or get in late and get back up to um Paige. Um so we um you know had all 12 flights plus additional three so a total of 15 flights in and out of Phoenix and Paige. uh that can change it can change in in the future we can be selected and you know down the road you want a different you know option we can look at it but I believe frequency is more important than having a uh not not daily service to one destination uh so if you split up 12 round trips you're

going to end up with you know seven and five um and you're not going to end up with the ability to you know go in the morning and come back in the evening or do day trips and so forth Um, and then I think another thing is is we hold our fairs to what we put in our bid and our fairs will stay in that. And I think it's important to hold people to that. Um, we have a a fixed fair. Um, and it's not going to change. And so I think that's that's key to giving a reliable service that people can count on. They know what they're going to pay and it's not going to change today. It's not going to change tomorrow. And it's not going to change six months from it. So, thanks for having us today. And, uh, I guess in the Q&A, if you have any questions, we'll be happy to answer.

Thank you.

Where did Laura go? Did you want it back or do you want me to say if you have the list? You want I have the list. I I think it's the same list that you have. Was Denver Air next? Okay. Denver Air.

Hey, good evening everybody. My name is John Coleman. I'm a senior vice president of corporate strategy at Denver Air and uh Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, I think you might be online and it's good to see you again, city manager and counselor. It's pleasure to be here. Um we're uh Denver Air Connection. We put in a proposal here. We did a a variety of options. Um we did a pa uh page to Phoenix um like you have now. We put in an option for LA and uh we also put in an option for Denver. most economical um to the DOT proposal on the table today is our our double phoenix option. I'm not going to spend a lot of time. I might have to get Levi to show me how to use this thing. My goodness. Is it that? Oh yeah. So, all of the airlines presented to you today and you are very fortunate in that all of us are very capable airlines. We have uh um a lot of you know uniqueness to us to us all but there's a lot of similarities to us too. We all um for the most part have inner lines. Our our in airline um package is uh Delta, United and American and that's on every single flight because the flights aren't branded as one or the other. They're every single flight to Phoenix would be able to connect to all three of those of our partners. Um the uh airplane that we have, we have uh we fly the 145s. We also fly the Dojet which uh Levi was talking about. I think that Levi and I are the only operators left in the states flying those things. Um they are a very capable airplane. Um one unique thing that I will share is that uh Levi here is also, you know, he's the the founder of Advance, but he's also a pilot, which is something that's unique. I mean, in our airline, all of us that run the airline on a daily basis also fly. So, um, last time I came here to visit with the advisory board, uh, I flew myself in in maybe that airplane. So, uh, we have the 145s

that we fly, the Dorner 328. And it's absolutely correct that that Dorier 328 is the answer in one way or another for Paige. The we fly that airplane on a daily basis to uh, Turide out of Denver and then onto Phoenix, then back to Turide. And when I'm talking about Turide, I'm not talking about Montros. I'm talking about actual turide, the one that's at the mountain at 9,100 ft and 7,000 ft long and arguably the hardest commercial airport in North America. Uh we think that on very very hot days we might have some seat limitations even on the do on the dojet, but uh for the most part that airplane's going to perform in and out of here in 30 seats. Um that picture actually is a turide. So uh we are a 121 operator. So there's a little bit of difference between what you have on the table here today. So uh you have uh advanced and contour and sky west charter that are running as 135. So there's only two proposals today that are part 121. And I know that um I know that Lord did a very nice job of giving you a little bit of detail on that. But the thing is is that 121 is the highest level of safety in the industry. It allows you to have scheduled service and by scheduled I mean actual scheduled service and not public charter. And there is a difference that uh I don't have a lot of time to get into but there's a there is a difference and there's a reason that some some airlines are 135 and some are 121. It's very difficult to get and maintain a 121 and run at that level of safety which by the way the city of Paige is entitled to. you're entitled to scheduled service. Um, and you're entitled to multi-engine airplane uh airplanes and you're entitled to the the best level of safety. So 121 is on par with Southwest Sky uh Sky West Main Sky West is 121 and United Delta and so on and so forth.

Um, talking about alternate EAS, I'm in the at the moment you all are participating in alternate EAS and I just want to give you a little history uh in our experience and so as you know and I respect the airport advisory board's recommendation of contour. I can certainly understand why they might might have made that and and it's very likely I would think that as your representatives that you may take that recommendation um from time to time um the DOT will take a look at it as you know and they're going to ultimately make the decision on who your provider is and I guess I'm here really to share with you that uh if it does go that way I want you to be comfortable with us. We have tremendous community satisfaction and I'd encourage any of you to reach out to any of the communities we fly and speak to them. They're um I think that uh hands down they will all speak very very very highly of us. But alternate as is uh when there is no other u otherwise qualifying bid. So a 121 bid fits into regular EAS. They built this alternate EAS program so that if there was no other option that a community could take that. Uh, our bid is the only bid that is qualifying for EAS. It's also the only one that fits Paige. Um, in this in the case of Sky West, for example, um, let's see if I can make this work. I do want to talk about this briefly. I promise I'll I'll keep it short. But, uh, in the case of Sky, regular Sky West, they are part 121, which would be scheduled service. Um, but they don't have any 30 seat airplanes which can't fly in page. In the case of Sky West Charter, they're part 135 which has to now go into alternate. In the case of Advanced, they are in the same boat and as is Contour. In our case, we are the only qualifying essential air service

bid on the plate for you all. And um while I'm not going to spend all night talking about that, uh we did have in Clovis, New Mexico, a community recommendation for um sorry Matt, but it was contour and uh and we prevailed in that because we were regular EAS and they were not. They would have to participate in the alternate EAS system or program, which you know, and there's a lot of communities that works for, but when there is an a qualifying bid, um the DOT will look at that pretty seriously. Um, I know that you guys probably got this packet and you you're welcome to read any of this data. Um, I already spoke about this is why why DAC is the is the qualifying bid, the really the only one on the table that really actually fits what you all need. I think that, you know, with our connections, the airplane that we the airplanes that we fly, um, I think we're a good fit and I, uh, respect your decision and I know this is complicated. there's a lot of numbers and you know data to consume and that's sometimes confusing but at the end of the day I'm we're we're here for you um answer any questions and um appreciate all the time that you've given us.

Thank you. Number three is Sky West. Yes, Sky West. It's the right button. Got it. Good luck. Thank you.

Mayor, city council. My name is Cody Thomas. I'm here representing Sky West Airlines. Um, this is not my first time here. Not my first time talking to you guys. This is actually my fifth work trip in the last year to Paige. Um, this opportunity is extremely important to Sky West. Uh, we're head headquartered in St. George, Utah, 2 and a half hour drive from here. Um, in every way you guys are our neighbors. You're actually the second close EAS community to Sky West outside of Cedar City. Um, we understand this environment, we understand this operating landscape better than anyone else. Um, we are, to be very frank, um, Sky West is proposing a very different proposal than any other carrier. We're not talking about status quo. In our opinion, the air service is okay. Um, when you talk about roughly 10,000 employments on an annual basis, that's extremely low considering the amount of tourism that comes through the city of Paige. We think we have a very clear path to increase the inflamements but also elevate the product for the passengers um and elevate the product to a 121 standard as well. Um but I'm not here just representing Sky West. I'm also here representing Delta American as well. So with our service, it's a fully coded service, not an innerline. Everyone else is offering inner lines. There is a major difference between innerline service and code share. Code share is the brand. We fly airplanes in here that are branded with American and Delta colors. We are held to the same standard as those carriers. The passenger experience is exactly the same. Um there's information in your packet. We've gone through the differences between these in the past. I'm not going to rehash all of them. Um but the experience on code share is dramatically better, which is why our employments are the highest within the EAS portfolio. our communities outperform innerline communities in every situation. Um, as far as our service pattern, so we we understand Phoenix is extremely

important for Paige. Um, and so we're proposing to serve Paige. Um, and if that ends up being ser or servicing Phoenix, if that ends up being year round, um, so be it. We're happy to do that. Um, Phoenix is a wonderful, uh, airport. Sky Harbor has a ton of connection opportunities. So roughly 300 peak departures to 117 unique locations. Um someone else talked about frequency. Uh we we we just don't believe that's true. If you have flights that are timed to the correct banks, there's a lot of frequency and a lot of connection opportunities. You do not need to add more flights with smaller airplanes in order to capitalize on that. And we have the stats to prove that. The other opportunity we're looking at here, and this is really just more of an opportunity that we'd like to review collectively with the city, um, is having a seasonal service to Salt Lake City. As you guys know, Salt Lake City is another major international hub. 265 peak departures tound 100 unique, uh, destinations, including international. um that opens in another another international gateway during the peak season of tourism here in Paige, but it also opens opportunities for those individuals that come to Paige uh that have houseboats here um or ski boats that are parked that would rather just not drive and fly. Um and we think there's a great opportunity to do that. Um but this is just there available for consideration. This would be under the Delta coded operation. So we need to talk a little bit. There's a lot of confusion unfortunately about our proposal, things we can and can't do. Um we we have done a thorough evaluation of this airport. Um we've evaluated the runway. Structurally the runway is fine. There is no concerns with that. There's heavier airplanes than what we're proposing to fly coming in today. And to be specific about what we're flying, we're proposing with this branded operation to fly a 65 seat CRJ700 and a 50 seat CRJ 550. Uh both of these airplanes will perform well. We've done a thorough review of the

performance of those airplanes in and out of page. Um that information should be included in your packet as well. I'm happy to talk through any of that, but there we do not see concerns with that. Yes, we will have weight restrictions during the peak heat of the summer, but when you're talking about a 65 seat jet maybe needing to go down to 55 seats, that's still a lot more seats than a 30 seat carrier, right? So it creates a lot of opportunity to really increase employments which is what we believe the collective goal is here. Um so weight compliance all all variants of our airplanes. So with Sky West Charter, we're talk about that here in a minute. Fly a CRJ 200 30se seater very similar to what Contour flies in here today. uh CRJ 550, the CRJ700 all fall well within the constraints of the airport as far as weight. Um as far as safety standards and and the path to to the class one certification, there are some changes that need to happen to the airport. We acknowledge that there is not a comprehensive list that has been provided yet. However, this is not new. airports going from class 3 part one 39 like Laura alluded to to class one happens all the time. We do not think this is a big price tag. Uh we think that we have some creative ways to help the city cover those costs knowing that those are costs directly related to our service. That information is also in your packet. So um please do not let cost considerations deter from getting an elevated level of service here because we think we have a very good solution to solve that. And then operational readiness, minimal impact. Um, you know, displacing the threshold. Our understanding is that the the threshold was recently displaced in page. So, there's probably a pretty good data point to show what is needed there. Um, but we do not think that this is a long-term project. Uh, we think it's more short-term than long-term. Um, and very, very easily done. We have a lot of resources that we'd be happy to pledge

to the city as well uh to help accomplish that. to be specific about what we want to do here. And Laura is correct. Right now, Sky West Airlines cannot fly to Paige commercially because they're not class one. We do have Sky West Charter. Sky West Charter operates a 30C CRJ200 very similar to what comes in here today. Um, and we would do that under the current alternate EAS program. Um, no no changes are needed to the airport to get that done. Um, well, we would continue to provide interline service to Phoenix during the duration of time that it takes to get the airport up to class 139. Anyone can guess at this point how long that's going to take. We recently went through this with several other communities and it's never taken more than a year. The optionality that we provide here is if the goal is to elevate air service and bring Delta and American Airlines to Paige, Arizona, which would be a groundbreaking opportunity for the citizens of Paige, then we can continue to operate Sky West during that Sky West charter during that transition period. And as soon as the airport is ready, we can transition to Sky West Airlines. Um, we think it's going to be it would be a very seamless transition. The reason that needs to be done in this format is that if you bring in or extend the current carrier, their willingness to allow you to switch to another carrier may or may not be very easy, right? For us, we're going to be perfectly aligned with you guys on transitioning to full 121 branded service. We're going to we can start from day one. We can dedicate resources from Skyos to come out here and help your team get that done to shorten that timeline. But as soon as that's done, it's a simple process. This has already been cleared with the DOT to transition to Sky West Airlines under that alternate EAS program. So we don't have to rebid. It's the same subsidy. We would just transition to the new service.

I just need to tell you to wrap it up because of the time.

All right. I'll kind of skip through this. So a few things that performance in Sky West, I mean 99.97 controllable completion. We we do complete flights at a very high level. Um this is our maintenance in infrastructure across the country. No one else has a map like this. Not even close to this. When it comes to operational reliability, we have 550 jets. We have a hundred on standby. Um no one's going to be able to perform and support this operation like we can. We're two and a half hours away from here. We're going to make sure it's successful. This is some data points that I really want to share and I'll wrap it up here. So there are a couple communities that recently transitioned from Contour Service to Sky West. So on the lefth hand side here was the last 12 months that we operated in Shannondoa, Virginia. You can see what the employment numbers were and what they were in 2025 uh when Contour took over. 45% reduction. We started this service up again in March 2026. You compare that to the previous year, it's an 87% increase in employments. Same thing in Lewisburg, Virginia. Same story, same timeline. 108% increase in employments. They lost 48% when when Contour took over. Canyonlands, Moab, Moab just went with Sky West. Same story. That is how we got to this number. We we honestly believe that we can get to an 18,000 employment number, which again will completely change the dynamic of air service here in Paige. And I will Am I about out of time? Yeah. All right. I'll leave it with that. Thank Thank you very much for the opportunity. And we have contour. Oh, I I can wait for the presentation. Um, good evening, mayor, counselors. It's it's always a pleasure to return to

Paige and I'm honored to have the chance to speak with you tonight. Um, first let me say we are humbled to have the airport advisory board's recommendation of contour to continue service and page. I know from watching your prior council meetings that the airport advisory board was specifically formed to bring expertise and experience from members of the community closest to aviation to the decisions impacting uh your airport. And so it is quite an honor to have their support. The advisory board, including the its chairman, the general manager of the prestigious Amaniri resort, was unanimous in its decision. That decision was then concurred with by city staff who worked closely with an independent air service consultancy. This is all a testament to the overwhelming case that Contour remains the best choice for this community in this bid cycle. And I hope to show you in the few slides that I've prepared why that decision is so obvious. Now, I realize that there has been much debate in this council and in this community about the virtues of larger aircraft. I'm not here to tell you that it is a path you cannot or should not pursue. Only that in this moment, Contour offers page the most comprehensive product operationally and commercially of any of the carriers that can be selected. That is supported by fact. It is not promises cloaked in smoke and mirrors. It is not uh presentations littered with half-truths, just designed to confuse uh you about the service that you'd actually be getting at any given time. There are carriers here that have attempted to steer this conversation to a dead end because Paige has been a part 139 class 3 airport. It was a part 139 class 3 airport when the bids were submitted. It was a page part 139 class 3 airport six months ago. It's been a p

139 class 3 airport for many years. Some of the things being talked about by this council are not even the things required to change part 139 certification. So the process has not even really yet begun. CIDA badging, cida uh environments that require fingerprinting, criminal history and records and background checks, the displays threshold, enlarged hold room. That is a customer experience item that has no bearing on the airport's class certification under part 139. No airline is capable of telling an community what changes need to be made to achieve part 139 certification. That is a decision for city staff aided by consultants and engineers that you would have to hire to determine scope and the cost and a timeline for achieving all these things. So I'm only here to talk about what Contour can offer today. What I can deliver on day one of a new contract and even on that basis the case to support Contour is very clear. First of all, let's talk about our performance in Paige. The performance that Contour has produced in Paige operationally is industryleading. As you can see, relative to our major airline peers, Paige enjoys better on-time performance and our completion factor is 99.4% 4% over the past 12 months. We've had a grand total of eight controllable cancellations. That's not eight round trips. That excuse me and not even controllable cancellations. That is eight segments canled in the last 12 months out of 1342 scheduled 1332 scheduled flights. That is phenomenal reliability. We continue to grow traffic in Paige. We've doubled in plainments from that of the previous carrier and even our yearover-year numbers for the same quarter continue to grow. As uh councelor Pller uh stated, we reported passenger counts year-over-year that are a thousand passengers higher in the

first quarter versus last year. We offer more interline partners than any other airline here. We have four that are currently online. Delta is signed and in the process of being implemented from an IT perspective. But that means on any passenger searching for a ticket to Paige, there are five airlines that would connect on a single ticket from page. So any point in any of those airlines network, you'd be able to go on to their respective uh website and type in uh a search for from a point of origin to the city of Paige and search results would generate. that has an unbelievably large impact on the marketing and reach of the air service here. We've proposed three options for air service. We have proposed an option that would continue service to Phoenix and in Phoenix exclusively. We're the only one of the carriers uh proposing service that uh of that you can actually select in this bid cycle that operates from Terminal 4 in Phoenix. We're also offering a choice of mixed service between Phoenix and Las Vegas. And lastly, a choice uh between of mixed service between Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Now, we operate both the ERJ135 that Paige currently uh receives service from and the CRJ 200 uh that Sky West Charter would operate. So, we have performance data on both airplanes. I can tell you we have never, not once in our term here, flown a CRJ 200 into Paige. And for good reason, because here's the performance. In summer, the CRJ 200 is so severely limited off one of the runways that it renders the service almost unusable. As you can see, off of runway 15 in summer months, when three of your months average around 95°, if runway 15 was necessary, you'd be a you'd be looking at less than

a handful of passengers per flight. it is not the appropriate aircraft per page. So, I think this chart highlights some of the differences and then I'll I can get to a summary that hammers home uh our points. All three of the selectable options for this bid cycle are under part 135. Part 121 service is not eligible for selection with the airport's current certification. We have booking engine and website that is live. Sky West Charter. If you were you were to try to book a ticket with Sky West Charter today, you can't. They have no website on which you could book it. We have a mobile app. We have the most number of EAS cities served of any of the three selectable options. And with all due respect to my colleague uh John from Denver Connection, there are a variety of reasons why a community would select alternate EAS, not simply when there are no other viable options. Vernal, Utah just submitted a proposal for alternate EAS after having been served for by Sky West for many years. That is a par 139 class one airport that chose uh to continue service with contour uh because they'd like to reallocate frequencies on a seasonal basis. That is harder to do under traditional EAS because it provides less flexibility. So we have the greatest number of EAS cities served, the greatest number of interline partners. We're the only ones operating in terminal 4. We have the right type of aircraft to continue serving Paige. And this, you know, reiterates some of those points. We have the largest jet fleet of any of the par 135 operators, the most interline partners. We're the only ones in terminal 4. We're the only ones offering Las Vegas if that's the desired option. The CRJ200 is not a viable airplane for Paige. Full stop. It should in theory remove Sky West Charter from

consideration. Any discussion of the benefits of Interline verse code share is also irrelevant. None of the carriers operating under par 135. The only bids capable of being selected are offering code share service. So it doesn't make any sense to talk about it or debate it any further. Same with the differences between 135 and 121. The airport can only receive service under part 135 with its current part 139 certification. So I'm really at a loss to understand and I say this for the community's benefit how there has been so much discussion around proposals that are not really eligible for selection. I I think once the community and hopefully council understands what the diff what can actually be selected in this term that the choice of continuing service with contour is abundantly clear. Um it has been an honor serving page for the past 8 years. We have never abandoned a single community that we've been uh that we've been contracted to serve. In fact, we've stepped in when other carriers uh have done just that. And so we hope to continue serving Paige. It's been an honor and we look forward to hopefully serving Paige for many more years to come.

You um I will go to our blue card. If Tina Hullman wishes to address us for three minutes, just give us your full name and city of residence, not your full address. Great.

Tina Hullman, Page, Arizona. First of all, I'm very thankful to have the opportunity tonight to reaffirm my strong support of Contour Airlines as our preferred air carrier to provide air service to Paige, Arizona. In almost 39 years of living here, I am safe in saying Contour Airlines has provided the best, most reliable service we have ever enjoyed. Contour brought jet service to Page no when no one else would. They've been serving our community for nearly eight years. Now that the time has arrived for the council to make a recommendation again to the DOT for our essential air service, I hope you will recommend Contour as our continuing choice. I attended all of the airport board meetings where they talked about the EAS service. Uh Tom summarized parts of it, but some of the things that the board specifically said were the words that they used to describe contour. That was that Contour was fantastic. They offer great connectivity. Their pricing is consistent. They have proven longevity with excellent service. Contour employees are local citizens. the board is happy to endorse Contour for expanding into Las Vegas and other potential destinations and that there's no need to worry about the weight restrictions in the heat of the summer where planes that with the planes that Contour flies. Contour already has agreements with major airlines including American, Alaska, JetBlue, United and Delta is soon to follow. Passengers can book tickets directly through Contour on or on any of the major airlines. They have been providing essential air service since 2018. Sky West Charter was barely approved in August of 2025, less than a year ago, not even a full year ago. And as the

saying goes, if it isn't broken, don't fix it. I would encourage you to please renew the agreement with Contour and keep them as our airline. Thank you. Thank you. I guess now we go to our airport director.

Awesome. Thank you.

Hello again. I will try and keep this brief uh because I know we want to get to the Q&A section of this. I'm sure you have a lot of questions. This is basically this is based on our consultants and also some of the questions that you all had the information that we got from the consultants. So I'll try to make this as brief as I can and not reiterate some things. This is just the comparison overview that was provided to us by our consultants. It's in your packet. Uh the estimated ticket price again like some of them I know some of the carriers have guaranteed their prices others have not. So I just put estimated on there. um just gives you an overview of the number of passengers and the kind of aircraft that they're offering us as well as the hubs. Just to highlight their partner airlines, I know each one did address this as well, but who they have agreements with. Each one has a variety details to consider. We had a specific question about terminal access and where the air carriers came into Phoenix versus where those your their interline agreements were. So we have advanced they're in terminal 3 and their interline is also in terminal 3. The little green check mark means that they match is just for that. Uh contours in terminal 4. Uh American they're also in terminal 4. Denver Air they're in terminal 3. They match with Delta and United. Sky West is in Terminal 4. They match with American. This was in everyone's um packet hopefully. Uh so this is just a highlight of the annual marketing investment that each air carrier committed in their bids. Details to consider. We've heard the the page is hot and high and we are. Yes, we have that high elevation and we get the really hot temperatures in the summer and as all the air carriers addressed,

it is a consideration for Paige. It does limit what we can have at least currently. Um, we also have a shorter runway just because of the way that we are situated uh which can kind of affect what kind of carrier can come in here and the size of plane performance at a glance. This is from the Skybury aviation safety website. I am not an engineer. I am not a professional. Uh so and we weren't able to get this information from our consultants. So this is also anecdotal. It just basically shows you how long each of the air carrier proposed aircrafts are. Um that's important because for us for our ARF index which is our firefighters and the capacity we have anything over 90 feet needs an extra truck which we have and we provide but that's just something to keep in mind. Uh it also shows that all of them save the 900 is able to take off on our runway and Sky West is not going to be using the 900 anyway but that was in your packet so I included it in here. We've already gone over the class three and the class one. If you do have more questions about that, please do not hesitate to have them during the Q&A. Here are the things just to pause for a moment. So, yes, we the airport board makes their consideration. We make a recommendation to the DOT. Um, and they're generally they tend to go with what the community suggests, but that is not guaranteed. They look at a lot of different things. So, this is just so you know what they're looking at. Okay. Um, first they look at the demonstrated reliability of the character of the carrier, excuse me. They look at the marketing code share. They look at the quality of the marketing that service that they're going to provide. They look at the total compensation proposed, which is what the

grant amount is going to be, how much money they would like from the government, and our community recommendation. So reliability, all of the biders are in good standing with the DOT. All their financials are lovely. Everyone is good to go. Everyone is on the same page. Airline partnerships, they're going to look at that. So everyone has at least one interline agreement. Some have more than others. Marketing, we saw on the other slide, we have two that are offering 75,000 and two that are offering 25,000. And here's just the the subsidies. So again how expensive uh the carrier this is not for us again it is the grant it is the money that they are asking the government for to say in order to provide service to page under the EAS or the AEAS this is the amount of money that we would need to operate and so that's why it it changes depending on where they might want to go you can see so the most expensive was Denver Air going to LA the least expensive was Denver Air going to Phoenix just depends on on the airport and their numbers. Community recommendation. Again, we're going to submit a letter after you all decide which carrier would like. We submit a letter to the DOT. And while they do take our our recommendation into consideration, our preference is not guaranteed as I said. So, they also might accept the carrier that we like but change the leg. So if we say we want A but and we want to go to Vegas, they can say you can have A but you're going to go to Phoenix only. And that's generally based on the amount of money. But I don't know what else their criteria are. Um few more things we talked about are recommending that fouryear or two-year agreement. Something to keep in mind because we will need to ask the DOT for a four or a two-year agreement.

um according to our consultants and what I have also heard and experienced. So the EAS program is frequently on the list of things that are going to be cut by the government. Usually it is saved but um the climate currently makes it more likely not to be saved. That's just something to keep into keep in mind. And uh also if we would like ultimately to have a larger air carrier here and we want to do that transition from class 3 to class one um I've heard anything from 6 months to four years to never depending on on who you ask as to how long that might take. We make a proposal to the FAA. We say this is what we would like. They see what we have that the way that they come and look at our airfield. They look at all of our manuals and they see what we have compared to what we need. and then they give us a checklist and a timeline, but we won't know that until we have a consultant to help us and we actually apply for the process. It's not something we know at the outset as to what that is. So, just to be safe, it would be lovely to have four years guaranteed with an air carrier so we can do that process and not have to worry about also um switching carriers after two years. Uh the advisory board recommendation as we mentioned they did recommend contour and that is it on to questions and answers and I did I turn that off? Did I do something bad or

Laura? Let me ask you the first one. Yes sir. You were mentioning AES um or EAS. Yes. Always on the cutting board. What about AEAS? The Yes. One one and the same. If one's going to be cut, they're both going to be cut. Hopefully, it won't be, but yes, it would be the same. It's the same overall program is my understanding. Okay, questions? I don't have a question. Oh, I move to recommend. Let's Let's do Let's do Let's allow some questions first. Let's make a motion. Make a motion and then do some question back and forth. Yeah, if you want.

Okay, go ahead. Make a move to recommend that DO2 select Contour Airlines as air carrier for next four years to serve Page Pest Airport under the alternate essential air service. I have a motion from councelor Cojan. I see a hand from councelor Hammond. Is this a second? Oh, okay. We have a second from councelor Pharaoh. Okay, you got that run. So, councelor Hammond, do you have a hand up?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I don't know if you have a specific way that you want to do Q&A. Um, I have four questions for the air providers and two for staff. So, I don't know if you want to go like each counselor gets all their questions out or if you want a popcorn or what are you thinking? Let's go ahead and have you do yours. um you can just tell us which which person you would like to start with.

Okay. Thank you. Um so my first question is for our attorney. Um can you please explain to me the legal restrictions that you and well don't don't just explain to me obviously explain to everybody present. Um you and I had a conversation earlier about the legal restrictions on us accepting a potential bridge proposal like Sky West has offered. Can you explain that to everybody for our benefit? City attorney, can you hear us? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes.

Um, so I I'm I'm not the expert here, but we have um it's based upon our understanding and uh we have confirmed this with our consultant is that uh to our knowledge and to their knowledge that has never been done. Um and the the trick as I understand it or the problem as I understand it is that if we award uh the the charter service under AEAS uh we the larger aircraft can't operate under AEAS. So we would have to transition to EAS to bring in the larger aircraft and um and that would trigger a rebid process by DOT. That's what we've been advised um that uh it wouldn't be a a seamless transition that we could control but that it would require rebid from DOT when we tried to transition to the larger aircraft.

Thank you. And could the gentleman from Sky West, I imagine that you may have you may have a different opinion.

Would you like to respond to what our attorney just said? He's getting to the podium. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you for the question. So um so alternate EAS is not necessarily defined for carriers that feat that meet the traditional EAS program. That is true. Um however, we would be entering alternate EAS with Sky West Charter, which does, but furthermore, we've had conversations with the DOT about this. 49 USC 41745 explicitly states the community may use its grant to hire a certified air carrier. Sky West Charter Sky West Airlines are certified air carriers. So yes, you can go with Sky West Charter and then transfer to Sky West Airlines under alternate EAS. Um, thank you. My second question is for the city manager. Um, at our last meeting, we voted against altering our airport expansion project, which would have accommodated some of the requirements to achieve class one status. Um, are we has that ship sailed? I I think the the biggest argument was that hopefully if we stuck with smaller planes, we would get more frequent flights, but every single one of our proposals is still for 12 flights a week. So, I think that in hindsight, um, I don't I don't even know if we could relook that at this point in the contract. And so, I just wanted to ask you about that.

Thank you, counselor. I would strongly advise not to. I've already caused the contractor enough heartburn, I think, with the extensive delay the first time. So, um, as far as that contract goes, I would not recommend looking at that again unless council absolutely directs me to. I work under the direction of council, but um, I think that decision was made and I don't like to go back and redo decisions if we don't have to. But uh I will say that, you know, if if the airport does get expanded, we need to look there's of course Laura is an expert on this or more of an expert than me. Um, but there's the security procedures and the and the manuals to change and things, but I also would want to look at the runway and the the length and the and the strength of the runway. And, you know, I understand some of the carriers have expressed interest in that. I appreciate their confidence in our airport. Um, but I would want to hire geotech consultants and airport engineers to confirm that and give us estimates of what we need to do. Do we need to change any taxi lanes for longer wingspans? Uh, any of that security perimeters around the fence? Uh, I apologize for the short notice, but we did have a report from our consultants that I handed out on paper and we're working to uh see if we can publish that on our website too for the public after this meeting and get that out there. Um, that talks about some of those requirements, but the engineering requirements are not there. Uh lower on the uh master plan for the airport or the other plans. Is that mentioned at all about

accommodating the or the runway or anything for larger aircraft in general? Maybe not the 30 versus 60. Sorry. No, no, of course. Uh yes, sir. Uh in the master plan we do have there there are it's a 10year plan. So they do ultimately there are some versions of the plan that have a much have a longer runway or they've moved the runway entirely depending on on on what the airport needs at the time. So there are plans on the current master plan that you can see on our website actually uh if anyone would like to look at it um there's a link for it. You can see there there are some plans to that's included in the expansion of the airport.

Right. So, and I hope I haven't lost track of your answer your question counselor, but I would that's one reason u staff is recommending just going ahead with the four years is to give us the time to prepare and plan for that sort of thing and watch the market to see what it bears. Um, and I think the 12 flights per week may have something to do with the subsidies. Yes, sir. Uh, so the 12 flights a week is what's covered under the grant subsidies. So as you know right now we have more than 12 flights a week with contour um and other ones have offered 15. It depends on what the air carrier itself wants to offer and what they want to take on but that is the amount that is covered in the grant itself.

Okay thank you.

Um and then my next question if I can start with Sky West. I have questions for three questions for Sky West but this one overlaps with Sky West and Denver. Um so as you are aware one of the main reasons that our airport board is recommending that we stick with contour is because of the sort of mismatch between um 139 and 121. Um which means that current given our current situation we're limited to allowing 30 passenger aircrafts to operate out of our facility. But here you are proposing larger aircraft to us. So um how do you respond to that? Tell me how you expect to provide essential air service to our community with planes that seat 50 to 60 passengers. Or to put it another way, how do you think we can propose that to do um that we want to go with a a carrier that operates under 121 when we're only able to accommodate 139?

Yeah. So, a couple questions there. Uh maybe the second one first. So you would be recommending Sky West Charter. Um considering this is alternate EAS um in in traditional EAS then you you do have to stick with the with the carrier that you've selected. Under alternate EAS, it's essentially a grant to the city that would give you the option to switch to another carrier during the term of that grant agreement. Um and so that's why we think u we know that this is doable. I mean there's no question in our mind. Um, and as far as um, and I can send some examples, but as far as transitioning from 139 class 3 to class one, look, we understand our competitor's job is to make this sound really confusing. I assure you it's not. Um, many many airports do this and it's not a big deal. Um, and we are pledging creative financial support to help with this, but I assure you this is just not a complicated situation. There's an airport in New Mexico that recently didn't have TSA. They were part uh class 3139 and they got TSA on property and were able to upgrade to class one within eight months to bring in commercial air service. So, it this is just not as big of a deal as as is being laid out and and we are here to support the process.

Can I have a comment? Thank you.

Uh thank you for the I'm John with Denver Air again. I don't know if we're on camera, but I got to clarify something. Um, the class three restricts you to 30 seats. It doesn't restrict you to only 135. So, I be real clear about that. Um, the only proposal here that is 121 and flies 30 seat airplanes is us. We have 50 seat airplanes that we use in other markets. If the market ever grows into 50, we'd love to have the extra 20 seats. I can assure you that. But um it is a complete it is completely untrue that 121 cannot operate at page. It can operate 121 with 30 seats. We do it uh we fly 121 with a 30-seater into tide every single day. We fly um some of our fleet have 30 seats in them. We have 145s that have 30 seats in them. Um, so just to clarify that, yes, you can have 121 and in the current state of the airport today as long as you fly 30 seaters, which we do. Thank you.

Thank you. And I will mention that in the consultant report that we received very late this afternoon, um, they did mention that to upgrade our security, we're talking about like $150,000, which is definitely doable. And in terms of creative uh cost recruitment, that would be like upfront landing fees given years in advance. So, just putting that all out there so that we're all on the same page. Um, okay. Next question. This one is for Contour Denver and Sky West. Um, okay. So this is this is related to the existing runway and from what I have read um you can fly in and out on our current runway. We might need to change some lighting and some striping um to accommodate different aircraft. But the the big thing that's being thrown out there is that you can't operate at high temperatures and that there would have to be uh weight restrictions. And actually, I would love it if Contour would answer this question as well. Even though they're not proposing to use their 60 passenger jet tonight, I I would just like to know if that's something that they see as a potential in the future and how all three carriers would get around that summer heat.

Go first. Uh so I just to to clarify we operate both our CRJ200 and the embryer series of airplanes with 30 seats. So um because under part 135 we're limited to 30 seats. That's how we know from operating both the CRJ 200 same aircraft as Sky West charter and the Amber 135 that we currently serve Paige with. The CRJ200 is a heavier aircraft. So even the 135 at certain times in the summer we do encounter very rarely but we do encounter payload restrictions. The CRJ200 would encounter significantly more payload restrictions which again because Sky West Charter only operates the CRJ 2000 that's why we don't believe it's a viable option. So, you know, in terms of more seats, we would have to operate that under 121 at some point down the road if we were to reinstall larger seats and uh begin to operate under that certification. But I I also want to make very clear in response to something else that you said. I have not uh or excuse me that Cody said, I have not tried to water down or complicate uh what is required for part 139. I'm simply saying some of the items that have been discussed like the hold room really has no bearing on part 139. Part 139 is uh the same thing with CIDA security is not really I it can play a role but there are way the the scope of 139 is way broader and every airport is different. You guys operate a person uh

a passenger terminal that supports a ton of non-sterile operations to have the volume of non-sterile meaning no security. you guys walk out to the ramp to have that volume of operations operating adjacent to a secure area that requires fingerprinting, criminal history, and background check. Like, I've never seen that before. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm also saying every airport is different. And you guys haven't begun the process of really exploring any type via any type of third party analysis what is required for par 139. So I I you know I I hope I've I've answered your question on the performance but you know there there are other factors here that I just have not come up to the extent that I believe they they should have and and you know what your part 139 analysis may come back and say you know what you have an 18month uh you know path to getting there. I don't that's that's not my role. But I do know that nothing has really been commissioned to this point to even understand what the scope is. And if that's really the starting point for this conversation, then I absolutely think four years is appropriate. Um and so I yield my time to my colleagues of Denver and and Sky West.

This is a hoot. We don't get to do this very often by the way. So thanks for the thanks for that. We I'm enjoying I'm enjoying the conversation, too. Thanks. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's a wonder one of us hasn't taken the other on that table and just made something of it. But um that's not true. I have a lot of respect for all everybody here. Enjoy the work and enjoy talking about these things. Um I'm the only pilot. Well, Levi and uh Donnie are pilots, so they would speak to this too. But my experience in a 172 doesn't count, John. No, if you want to go buzz the damn. Uh there's two ways to solve it. Okay. First of all, Contour has a airplane. It's like what what is the normal thing on the 135? 45 37

37. So they've pulled 37 or seven seats out. Okay. They're already weight restricting the airplane, which is an advantage. Okay. Because now instead of being fully loaded as the airplane was designed, they've already got a little bit of a pad in there. And yeah, there are days in the 145 when it gets really hot. Um uh you know, you would have a problem. And what we will do is we'll fly 30 seat 145s uh which are a little bit bigger than the 135 but nevertheless um very similar. Um and then the dojet really doesn't have an operational problem until it gets tremendously hot. And the real simple thing is this. You know what? Don't fly. Don't try to land and take off or you can land if you want but don't try to take off when it's 105 degrees. So you do a flight schedule that's creative. You don't fly in the heat of the day. You know, in the summertime, I would suggest something something like a an early morning out. By the way, we'll do an over overnight airplane here. Early morning out and then something a little bit later in the day for, you know, you can get a late flight out of here. And by late, I mean 6:00 at night or whenever we determine temperature works. But, uh, but that's the answer. You know, in those months that is super super hot, you just don't fly when it's 105 degrees.

And to be fair, I mean, I just looked up historical weather data. We all know that we can achieve those temperatures, but it I mean it's pretty rare. Like maybe a couple times a year and it's it's no different than weather restrictions in any other part of the country, right? Where you get snow storms that cancel flights or you get hurricanes that cancel flights. Like weather happens sometimes. Yeah. And heat happens and it does, you know, it does become a problem. But uh you have great questions. So I thank you for that and uh I yield.

Yeah. So I actually agree with John. Um again, it's solvable. Sky West flies 2600 flights a day to very complicated places like this can be solved. Early morning flights, timing the flights at the right appropriate time. The average high temp in in Paige in the summertime is 97. Yes, it does get hotter that than that on occasion, but uh we'll we'll course correct and address that. And let's just stick with facts for a minute. It's not like Sky West has never flown a CRJ a 30 seat CRJ 200 here before. Sky West Charter has been in business for three years and we've flown a ton of flights. We have flown full flights in the summertime in and out of Paige. That airplane can operate here. We provided you guys the performance stats. Please look at the performance stats. If there's questions on the performance stats of our airplane, please let us know. But we are confident that this airplane will work here.

Okay, I have two more questions. Thank you everybody for sticking with me. Um, city attorney, question to you. Um, Denver Air Service made the point that they are the only provider that can fly under EAS and that according to DOT, if there is a viable EAS option, we have to go with it. Is that your take? Um, that's not my understanding, but I'm not an expert. I I I mean I guess I guess if the question is that whether we have to select them and they're the only ones that we can select, that's not my understanding. Okay.

Okay. Final question, and this is for all carriers, so you all get a chance to get up there again. Um I'd like for you all to explain your backup plan in case your primary aircraft assigned to Paige is out of commission for maintenance or repairs. How far away is your nearest comparable aircraft? Um and is it actually comparable? How soon can you get here? Uh what do you do if you're missing crew? Each of you address those things, please. And councelor, may I add to that a little bit too if uh mechanic staff too, what their plans are for mechanic staff. Are you okay with that as well? Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. City Manager.

Thanks for the questions. Once again, I I can be This is John with Denver Air. I can I can put this uh pretty quick. We're a three-legged stool. We have a cargo operation. We have uh a metro liner which is a smaller turborop passenger operation in a handful of communities and we have the jet service. Our Denver uh Denver is where we're based. I have a pilot uh and a cargo airplane on standby 24 hours a day that let's say for example the airplane comes in here at night and uh the pilots call maintenance and say we got a problem or they you know let's say they got to change the tire or something nitnoid like that. uh they can fly the uh mechanic and the part uh from Denver. It takes about an hour. And matter of fact, when I flew home from here the other day, I flew on one of our cargo metros back. So, uh the the recovery pan is heroic. We're already in Phoenix, as you all know. So, we have that DOJet that flies the Turide thing. My suspicion is is that in some way that would be integrated and then uh you know, we've got uh the Dough Jets in Denver. We've got the 145s in Denver. So, I I would suspect that with the addition of of the of the, you know, the cargo airplane availability, the 24-hour availability of that that that is uh I'd call it heroic in our recovery. You know, we're we have virtually no controllable uh cancels, whether it's crew or maintenance or anything like that. So, um it's an interesting thing and I I know this meeting is going long, but as an airline run by pilots, it is a little bit different. I mean, we we have a uh we have this mentality of we made a promise, we're gonna get it done, and we really want to fly when we say we're gonna fly. So, we work real hard at that.

Thank you. Thank you. I yield.

Okay. Uh Contour uh has mechanic in page at all times, even if it's not a local mechanic. We TDY a mechanic from our headquarters in Smyrna to be here for all of our uh arrivals and departures. With regard to the spare aircraft, uh, Phoenix is a base for us for aircraft and crew. So, we keep spare aircraft in Phoenix. And like I said, it is a pilot and flight attendant base for us. And if I could just go back to one question for just a second, I think I can provide an answer. Um, page contour provides service under traditional EAS and alternate EAS. The department has evolved its position on this matter over the years, councelor Hammond. So, uh, there are options that weren't available four years ago that are available today. Effectively, the department will allow a community to choose either traditionally as provided they provide a written waiver of their right to scheduled air transportation. That is a waiver provided only for uh the duration of the term at hand. Uh, alternatively, you can do alternate EAS, which is effectively a deviation. It's still part of EAS but out of the traditional EAS program for a prescribed period of time via a grant agreement. Um but any of these carriers could be awarded under traditional EAS uh for Sky West Charter for Contour and for Advanced if the community provided a waiver of its right to scheduled air transportation. There are pros and cons of AEAS versus traditional EAS. I'm not here to you know debate those. But one of the core differences would be that as opposed to a reimburseable grant, the contract with the carrier becomes a contract between the Department of Transportation and the carrier and it takes the community completely out. That being said, it does uh alternate EAS inherently has a lot of flexibility with

seasonality that allows you to move frequencies between seasons and stuff that isn't historically available under traditional EAS. So, this is perhaps a longer conversation, but I could tell you you could have either you could have these carriers under either program if you so chose. There is a path to doing so. So, thank you,

Councelor Hammond. This is Cody with Sky West. Um, let me be clear on this one. This one's not even close. When we're talking about maintenance infrastructure, Sky West has over 20 maintenance spaces. When you talk about maintenance reliability, you want to have maintenance bases strategically placed across the country. In your packets, you'll see a a map of those maintenance locations. Um, this is important because you stage mechanics and airplanes in those hubs, and those are the same hubs that we're offering to fly from Paige, right? That's extremely important. The second item, Sky West has 19,000 employees. 3,000 of those employees are dedicated mechanics and the best in the industry, right? Those mechanics not obviously work on Sky West Airlines, but they're also contracted to work on Sky West Charter as well. Um, and so there really is it's really apples to oranges when you talk about maintenance, reliability, capability. Furthermore, we're headquartered in St. George, Utah, two and a half hours from here. We're starting a maintenance base in St. George, Utah as well. It won't take long to get recovery mechanics, airplanes, whatever it is. And so we feel like we're very well positioned that way. Let's talk about airplanes. 550 airplanes. We have a hundred standby airplanes. That's a bigger fleet than my competitor's entire fleet. Um, and with Sky West Charter, uh, we have 10 10 aircraft on certificate. Five of those are dedicated as recovery airplanes, but we can flex airplanes from Sky West to Sky West Charter by taking 20 seats out of those airplanes. We do it all the time. And so, it's very easy for us to flex up that fleet as needed. Okay,

thank you. Councelor Hammond, was that the last one or one more? No, that was it. Wasn't there somebody from Advance? Did they want to address the maintenance question? Yes. Okay, here. Hi, Levi. Uh, we outlin this in in our proposal, but we uh we have a spare base or spare aircraft in Hawthorne. We have an air uh operation in Phoenix. We'd have a mechanic here. And just as Denver Air is, we often have a King Air with a mechanic on standby to to go to an AOG. So, uh, see zero issues recovering an aircraft. Thank you. Thank you. I yield to my fellow counselors. Okay. Councelor Hettinger,

I have a question. It's just for contour. Sorry, everyone else. Um, I was wondering, I noticed in your proposal you talked about the change in 2025 with the baggage agreement with other carriers. I was wondering if you could quickly explain what that is, how it's a benefit, and then how that's impacted. I know in the proposal it was mentioned that if, for example, Alaska Airlines is in Terminal 3 in Phoenix, so passengers would have to go out through security, but does their baggage transfer with them to tr to terminal 3 or would they have to pick it up and take it?

Sure. Uh listen, Contour continues to grow and in fact this past year we're is our uh greatest year in terms of revenue, fleet size. Uh we have uh over I forgot the number in our presentation but uh somewhere in the vicinity of 40 regional jets uh and our overall fleet size is 50 airplanes. We're one of the largest part 135 uh operators in the industry. As a result of that growth, we continue to sign new airline partners. Um when this contract term started, our only interline partner was American. Now in over the past few years, we've added uh first Alaska, then United, then JetBlue, now uh Delta, which means that you can connect from any of those carriers to Contour on a single ticket. With respect to Las Vegas, and this is the interesting thing about Las Vegas, the entire terminal, there are two concourses, but it is all connected behind security. So, there is never a need to and your bags are transferred to your final destination. But in terms of TSA screening, there in Las Vegas, there would never need to never be a need to leave security and be resscreened. In Phoenix, 80% of the passenger traffic in Phoenix is from Terminal 4, which is why it's such a big deal that we're there. It allows for uh passengers connecting to American to avoid rescreening. Now, your baggage, check baggage would transfer seamlessly to any of those five airlines without you having to go to the baggage carousel and pick it up. However, if you were going to JetBlue, Alaska or United in term uh JetBlue or Delta in terminal 3, again, the majority of the volume is in terminal 4 because it's an American hub, but if you were transferring to terminal 3, you would have to be rescreened by TSA, but you would not need to reclaim your bags.

Thank you, Councelor Kosan. Mr. Mayor, I have a question for uh Sky West Charter who's representing them. Okay.

How many EAS contract your mic? Where's my mic? It's not in here. We couldn't hear you.

So, how many charter contracts do you have today? So, Sky West Charter started roughly three years ago and has been in operation since. Um, as previously was mentioned uh in the fall of last year, we were approved for our part 380. I know that's another term um that essentially allows you to fly scheduled service. So, that entity is new um just to the scheduled service avenue, but uh we just started bidding on EAS contracts. To be very specific to answer your question, we were just recommended in Pendleton, Oregon. That'll be our first EAS market. Um, but we fully intend to grow that. So, the question was, how many do you have today? So, we've been recommended in one so far.

Okay. And then my next question would be for Contour. I think Contour you think. Um, since you fly both planes, the CR J 700 200 and also the other one. And the criteria here says that it takes 5,000 ft for the CRJ to take off and land. And our airirst strip is only a mile long. How is that considered safe? I mean, I don't know about you, I'm not getting on that plane if

there are a lot of variables. There's temperature, there's prevailing winds. So, there are a lot of things that can impact the required takeoff distance at any given time. Uh, I agree that if you waited till 6 or 7 p.m. to avoid peak temperature in the summer, you could probably operate with fewer restrictions. However, if you operate to Phoenix or Las Vegas at 5 or 6:00 p.m. and first land in Phoenix at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., how many connecting flights do you think are available at those hours? That has a serious impact commercially on the viability of the service and the ability to generate passenger traffic. So, what you want is the ability to maximize both. You want to maximize performance and you want to maximize uh the commercial viability of the schedule that you have and you know contour has always done that. We've never operated at off hours just so that we can uh you know operate with fewer payload restrictions. The overwhelming majority of even peak temperature scenarios with the ERJ does not result in a significant or any payload restriction. And that is a major factor in why we believe that the ERJ or to be fair to Levi and and Denver Air Connection Adornier would also be okay. Um but the CRJ we just don't believe has the performance to operate on a consistent basis. Again, winds change. You have very hot days that you know come out of nowhere. And so you you can't have a airplane that works 90% of the time. 90% of the time is not good enough for passenger reliability. So

thank you. I hope I've answered your question. Any of councelor Roundtree. So I've been going down my list of everyone why I'm looking at my phone and thank you everyone for asking a lot of the questions I have. So I think I'm down to just a couple. Um, and one is would be for everyone. So, you offered up marketing money and so how would you specifically use that marketing money and then for Laura and our staff, how are we going to track that that marketing money is increasing our employments and that we're getting our money for our whatever. So, sorry that's for each one of you. We'll start with Cody

and then I have another question that's just for Cody. Everyone will answer and then I'll let Sky West answer the last one.

Okay. Yeah. Great. Yeah. So, we we put $25,000 of marketing in the proposal. Uh the DOT requires us to ear tag a specific number. Um look, $25,000 may be enough. It might not be enough. Um Sky West is here to fill airplanes. I I think I've been very clear about what our goal is. It's not to collect a subsidy and stay status quo. It's to grow. And so we are going to invest marketing funds up until the point where we start to see that growth. Um but to be very specific to answer your question, um we typically do a monthly reconciliation with our with our communities on marketing funds. Uh we have someone dedicated at Sky West that handles that that works with whoever you guys determine at the city of Paige to work with them. Um, we have marketing firms that we have that we can help that you can use. Um, and so, and if you don't want us to do that and just give you the money, that's fine, too. But at the end of the day, uh, we are dedicated to making sure we fill up the airplanes, and $25,000 is enough. Then we'll we'll we'll put up more.

Yeah, I I this is John with Denver Air. Thanks for the question. I It's a placeholder. 25,000 generally speaking uh are geo targeting. But but what what's you really should know about us is that we work handinhand with the community um to determine you know where you think the dollars need to go and you guys have experts that you know because you live here and we want to become part of the community. That's one of the things that we do, you know, from day one is to start working together so that we can grow the airport and uh we found in all of our communities that so you guys would know you, you know, your chamber of commerce, the airport, we'd work with the airport and we do one thing you don't want to do is go out and spend a bunch of money on Google ads or you know geo targeting and that kind of stuff and us compete with one another. So it's it has to be it has to be a a collective effort. Um, again, yeah, I like any of us here, you know, the the the number that we put on the DOT uh document is uh I would say the minimum across all of our channels, you're going to see a spin higher than that. But uh yeah, that's that's a just like Cody, it's kind of a placeholder. So, um I hope that answers the question.

Hi, Levi Advanced here. Um very similar. We'd come into the community, figure out where the money should be spent, how it should be spent, you know, our billboards, radio ads, is it newspaper, print, what is the best way to do it, and then we would double down and and really um spend the money until we saw the results. So, uh we had 75,000 in there, and likely we would spend a lot more than that. Um, Contour, I believe, tripled its marketing spend from our last proposal specifically to address that issue. Um, we can work in a variety of ways. I largely echo what my colleagues have said. Uh, we are happy to write a check to the community. Otherwise, we are happy to work collaboratively to determine where those funds get spent on an openbook basis so we can manage the budget together. you guys are, you know, eyes and ears on the ground if you see certain opportunities or events or things like that to pop up. Uh you guys are in a much better position to make us aware of what types of opportunities you think are going to generate the best uh the best results. But absolutely we we've increased the budget specifically to achieve that objective.

All right. So if we all of you can just by raise of hand or shake your head. So, for an example, if we were going to have a special event that we knew that we were coming up and we wanted to encourage out people to travel here for that event, you would be able to have our marketing team or our our tourism or somebody economic development, someone contact you and say, "Would you work with us because we're going to have this event in six months?" That type of thing. Okay. And then um for contour, I just want to say thanks because over the years that you've been here, you have addressed some of our needs. When we complained that we wanted to be in terminal 4, we just switched to TW terminal 4. When we complain that people couldn't contact Contour, we can now easily do that and we have an app to even do that and bag transfer and so many other things. And so you have been growing and appreciate that. And then the last question was um a citizen called me this morning and asked me and challenged me to go on and try to b book some um flights from Moab to different places to see the cost. So um and if I'm wrong, please correct me, but I believe that you were the only ones underpriced that it was left blank and I think Laura chose to enter that amount there. And so, um, individuals told me that they felt like a roundtrip ticket from Moab to Salt Lake. And I Googled it for three different dates, um, several weeks apart, and it ranged from $576 a round trip to,700 a round trip and 679 a round trip. So, those prices or those amounts, what I was challenged to do by a citizen, was pretty high. And they said that they thought that Moab is is now um, did they go to class one? And they are they EAS?

Yes. So Mo Moab is class one EAS. Just recommended Sky West Airlines to take over the contract. The odd thing is is they're currently served by Contour. Any bookings that you see out there right now are with Contour. Well, I booked that way out so that I would try to because I heard that they would be taking over later summer. So that would still be Contour if they're seeing those flights because we don't publish schedules until until it's awarded by the DOT. So that's not our pricing. Do you know what month you were looking for? I was looking for June. Yeah, June would be us.

Still would be you. But why did I I looked under Sky West though. I didn't go under contour. I went under Sky West trying to book on Sky West's website. I didn't go on Contour and I didn't go under bookings.com or or any of those services. I went directly to Sky West. So there's a couple things there. So Sky West, because of our relationship with the mainline partners, you don't go to skywest.com to book flights. You go to Delta or United or American, right? Because that is the code share advantage. That is one of the many, but we don't we don't sell tickets on Skywest Airlines.com. We will sell tickets on Sky West Charter because it's the Interline agreement.

Okay. Well, they just asked me to do Sky West, so I did. And I was able to. It booked up and it gave me flight times and two choices. You have to send me an example of that. I'll look into it. But yeah, that's seems odd because So what do you think? She put in that price. So what do you think our the price would be? So So our estimated price uh to Phoenix and Salt Lake with Sky West Airlines with Delta and and American would be $110. With Sky West Charter, it would be slightly less at 105.

Okay. But we will lower those if the demand is not there. If the airplanes are not full, then we're not going to keep the price there and just collect the subsidy. We we have a clear mission to fill the airplane. So, we'll lower them as needed. Makes sense. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Prowler.

Um I have a couple of quick questions. um one for um Contour. There's a quoted $90 average uh ticket fair for the Phoenix option and it's also exactly $90 for the Phoenix and Vegas option. Does that just mean that that the cost of flying to Vegas is exactly the same as Phoenix and that average doesn't move? So let me all I want to be very transparent about what these projected averages are. These projected averages are just that projected because they're dynamic. And so we can't what I can tell you is because the operating cost and the stage length to Las Vegas and to Phoenix are roughly the same. We would likely set up our inventory in the same ways, meaning six seats at $59 and then another eight seats at $79. Now, the exact mix of fairs depends on how full the flight is, how what percentage of seats are booked at the last minute when fairs are higher. Uh but we are constantly revenue managing that to both maximi, you know, we are incentivized to maximize revenue, but we're also incentivized to maximize passenger traffic. We don't want a $300 fair that's going to result in four travelers. We want, you know, a $100 fair that's going to result in $30 travelers. The fair is lower, but overall revenue is greater because volume is greater. So for any of the carriers you're talking about say for I think advance which does flat rate fairs all of us are projecting what we think the average would be based on the you know our estimation of what the demand would be and historical booking trends. So, like I said, Phoenix, the chances

that Phoenix and Vegas end up at the exact same average fair is low, but we would set them up so that if demand were exactly the same, it would result in the same average fair, if that makes sense.

Okay, thank you. Um, and from the three options you guys presented, um, have you is there any sort of market research what there's the most demand for? Listen, when we served Las Vegas up until COVID, Vegas underperformed Phoenix, but that was before we had any interline agreements with any carriers. Now, Las Vegas offers connect will offer connectivity to five airlines. Whereas, again, as we just discussed, Phoenix is really important. There are a lot of very important ties between Paige and Phoenix for business travel, for government travel, for doctors coming up to work at the hospitals. We think that's very important. We don't that's why we think any service pattern should include Phoenix. But for passengers uh looking to connect to airlines other than American, we want to make sure that we have a sterile, meaning no need to be rescreened beyond security option. plus Las Vegas. I really think that if you are going to split frequencies between into another market and there are pros and cons to both. I'm not, you know, I could very easily, I think, make the case that all the frequencies could remain in Phoenix. But the interesting thing about Las Vegas is demand is so peak to and from Las Vegas on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday that it really gives you a great opportunity to match that capacity to where all the demand is. So for us, you know, I would say either seven and five, you could add in Tuesday or Wednesday, or even eight and four, meaning the only four frequencies a week would be Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday. uh leaving uh a double daily to Phoenix on one of those days is also a viable option. Um and the other thing is we're happy to adjust as needed. The bookings for Vegas so far have been very strong,

but if we see that, you know, one of those days is underperforming or Phoenix is going gang busters, that is a a decision that we are always happy to make and and adjust per the community wishes. You guys have a dedicated airplane, meaning an airplane whose schedule is entirely set effectively in conjunction with the city. Now, we optimize it based on the connecting banks of flights at the hubs. uh we we time it so that the flights on average arrive at the hub like 60 to 75 minutes before those clusters of flights that you know all the all the airplanes come in passengers get off transfer to other airplanes and then get on a plane and go out again. So we schedule our flights to clo match up to that closely. Um, but all of us, there isn't a single airline here that isn't incentivized to maximize your passenger traffic. That is a given.

Thank you. Any other questions? I haven't seen any hands from our I've got one for for Frank. Uh, kind of the same thing. Do we have any uh on our side of things studies as far as uh passenger demand, tourists demand, economic demand for uh Phoenix route andor others that make more sense?

Not that I know of. Um but it's not that we we couldn't do that. I think Adam, it's our marketing and tourism guy would would jump at the chance to to look at that sort of study. Um he's a big numbers guy. So um I do remember and I think you may have been there too. The board seemed to be interested in the Vegas flight for various reasons um that may have already been mentioned. So I just wanted to mention the board had discussed that too. Yeah, thanks thanks for reminding me of that. I did not jot that down in these uh terrible green notes I've got. So, councelor Hettinger,

on that note, with our recommendation tonight, are we just choosing a carrier or do we also need to in our recommendation to the DOT suggest the routes that we would be interested in seeing as well given that the grant amounts differ. And I I think at this point, and the carriers can probably correct me better than than I can, but at this point, I think if we changed routes during the bid during that, that's not as big of a deal. Um is the is the recommendation of the airline and and maybe the two or Oh, we do because it it determines the subsidy that needs to get approved.

Yes. But we can under Aea, yes, we could at some point change the where we want to go maybe. But yes, we need to tell them who we would like um for how long we would like them and what the chosen route would be with that carrier. I stand corrected. Thank councelor Pillar.

So um I know I have my preferences, but Las Vegas makes the best sense because you can book. I did go on and I tried the different airlines to do different flights and you usually can get connecting flights out of Vegas the cheapest and so I would recommend that if you're if you're looking for connecting flights that Las Vegas be Phoenix and Las Vegas be our two choices. Councelor Prowler.

Um I just wanted to ask uh being as there's multiple options or rather multiple airlines here that have m multiple options each, would it make sense to um go for the highest dollar amount that they that we hope they'll reimburse and then if need be adjust it to a lower one later on? Um I do not know that.

Maybe our airport director can help us. Well, in what I have been told and in our experience previously, um the DOT does tend to go with the least expensive option, but you I imagine you are welcome to whatever if you want to go with the highest one. They they just might not choose it. They tend to choose the lower if it's going to be between the two. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Frell. Uh thank you. Uh, I was looking at the request for council action that staff provided. It only asked to pick a carrier and the years of the contract.

Yes. Uh, Vice Mayor, I I apologize for that. I think that may have been my uh inexperience with the EAS bidding process, but I would defer to the expertise of our airport director and in the airlines here that if we need the airlines um and we do have a hand up from city attorney. I don't know if he's wanting Yes, please Josh bail me out of this one.

No, pal. Um, so just my recommendation, having been through this, I don't know how many times now, five times or whatever, I would definitely recommend that we not just select the highest subsidy amount, but that you pick uh the service that you want. Um, because cost is a factor that DOT will consider. Um, and again, we are only making a recommendation. So if we pick the highest subsidy, they may not follow our recommendation. and then we're kind of at their mercy as far as who they do select. Um, as far as was the question whether or not we have to put the subsidy amount in the motion

I while I would ask that no our locations. Oh no, the location and yes, do we need to amend any emotion any motion that's been made?

I I don't think so. I guess if so what what what staff would do with a motion the way that the motion's done right now is I believe it's um that to award it to contour for four years we would need a uh hub location. So, we would go with Phoenix, I would assume. And then just like we've done over the past few years under AEAS, and it's entirely up to the carrier. Um, but they added, I think, a Denver flight, they've added a Las Vegas flight. We do not have to go to DOT for those secondary legs for permission for those or anything. That's um just between us and the carrier. Uh, we're entitled to, if I remember correctly, and one of the carriers can can correct me if I'm wrong, we're entitled to at least medium hub service, I believe is the the term. Um, so that's what we would be selecting is Phoenix. Um, and then whether they go to Las Vegas or anywhere else would be between us and them. I

Sorry, Josh. I think you may not have it in front of you, but I think the trick is that the proposal, say for example, contour had three different route combinations in the proposal to the DOT and they had different subsidies for each combination of destinations, I think, is the question council's asking. Contour's handled that in the in so he's he's been wanting to clarify. May I have contour?

I think just based on my own personal experience with the DOT selection process, I think the variance between the bids by DOT standards is very slight. Um I do think particularly if Salt Lake City is not your preferred option and given that this is a public meeting uh you know to broadcast uh that you're simply choosing the most expensive proposal to have that money available. In theory, yes, you're right. We could make service pattern changes from there once the subsidy has been established. But I would encourage you to pick the service pattern that you actually want. In this case, given the variance is slight, I think it likely that DOT would give you the appropriate subsidy for that service pattern. Yes.

So, if we choose the Phoenix and Vegas option, we're still only getting 12 flights. I I want to be clear under alternate EAS and even really under traditional it is an average of 12 weekly flight. Oh yeah, I understand that.

So as all of you know as residents of this city, demand to and from page is significantly lower in the winter months. We have historically reduced frequency in the winter months and save those frequencies for the summer months to better match uh capacity to demand. Um AAS provides an easier mechanism to moving frequencies between seasons, but there are markets um and it can be done with DOT if you guys wanted traditional EAS to change the number of frequencies by season. But as opposed to that being completely at your discretion, the community and contour or whatever carrier under alternate saying, "Yes, we agree. We're going to do nine in February and 14 in July, and we're going to make those schedule changes." Every time you wanted to make an adjustment under traditional EAS that deviated from the normal 12 round trips, you would have to go to DOT and and provide them with sort of a full updated schedule so that they could issue an order and set up the financial system to support that variance. Most EAS markets are not nearly as seasonal as as Paige and so um most run at 12 round trips a week when there's a jet throughout the year, but it can be done either way.

So, so if we choose the Phoenix and um Las Vegas, then we will we would have to commit to regularly um having flights and we couldn't back off. I mean, so like what Josh had said that right now, you know, we're we're just our hub is just Phoenix, but then last year you picked up a few flights to um to Denver and um now you've recently picked up a few flights to Vegas. So if we go with just the Phoenix choice, you could still choose to make some flights to Salt Lake or Las Vegas if you wanted to. But if we choose the Phoenix and Las Vegas, then are we committed to having to No regular?

No. Alternate EAS allows you to switch hubs at the community and carriers discretion at any time. U but it doesn't change the grant agreement amount. The grant agreement is established and really it's it's the communities to use under traditional EAS as long as there is no change to the subsidy. In either event, there's really no change to the subsidy. But under traditionally as long as the carrier and the community agree that an amendment to the service pattern, i.e. substituting a different hub, would not result in a change to subsidy. D I've never seen a case where the DOT is unwilling to approve it as long as it continues to meet the statutory criteria of a medium or large hub airport. We wouldn't have to worry about that though because it would be under AEAS for if we were to select contour whether it was Phoenix, Phoenix Las Vegas or Phoenix Salt Lake.

Yeah. So that's what I wanted clarification on. Yeah. Thank you.

Either one is possible. So again, I think the pros of alternate are seasonal flexibility at the community's discretion that's easier to administer. The cons are uh it's a reimburseable grant, a little bit more administrative work, not much. I hope Lur would agree. Uh but the community does float what probably on average half a,600,000 every month for a few weeks a month while the community awaits reimbursement from the Department of Transportation. So for some communities that is a reason why a community would say we prefer traditional EAS with a waiver over alternate EAS. Um it's we serve communities both ways and we're agnostic ourselves. So

councelor Hammond and then councelor Pller. Yeah. Question for uh Sky West. Um, under the charter proposal, there's Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake, and LAX listed. Is that and or are those ors? Uh, it should be it's represented as and or ors, right? I mean, we're okay with doing one of them, a combination of of two of them. So, yeah, it would be it would be and or. Okay. So, pick pick your two basically. Correct. Okay. Thank you, Council Per.

Um, this is a question for the city attorney to kind of bridge off of uh a thought that Vice Mayor Pharaoh had. Is the intent of the council action here uh just to select an airline or is the uh motion we're looking for also going to involve the proposition within that airline? when you say proposition. Okay. Do you mean the the proposal? Sorry.

Yeah. So, given that we do have um differing subsidy amounts depending on the route options that you select. Uh I I do I I retract my prior statement I guess and would recommend that yeah we we we need to select uh a carrier and the route option and then staff would also like um a recommendation from the council on the duration that we're seeking. And I would probably add alternate versus standard EAS as well in the recommendation.

Councelor Peller again. Um, all right. With that having been said, I'd like to shift gears and amend the motion on the floor. So, get your pens out. Um, to uh specify Contour's proposal number two involving Phoenix and Las Vegas service. How many years? Oh, shoot. Um, let's do four years. The original motion already has four years in it. Thank you. Yeah, I'll second that amendment.

We have an amendment to the standing motion by councelor Pller with a second from councelor Hedinger. Councelor Hammond.

Uh, yes. I'd like to offer a substitute motion. I really want to see a setup for growth and I think there's one proposal on the table that does that. None of our strategic priorities as a council include keep things the way we've always done it. We do have a strategic priority to foster diverse economic growth and I think Southwest or Sky West can do that for us. So I move to substitute the motion on the floor and move to recommend Sky West Charter with Service to Phoenix and Denver as our Aeas provider for four years. Okay. I don't know that we can substitute a motion without voting at the current motion down. Am I correct on that?

You can't. You can. You're supposed to debate both motions until one is agreed upon. A second, I imagine. Okay. So, we have a an alternate motion from counselor.

Councelor Hammond. Do I have a second for having an alternate motion at this time? I do not have a second for the alternate motion. So, we will that one does not carry. Comment from councelor Roundtree. I do want to um I do agree with councelor Hammond and when we went out with Volair Air I think um we were excited at that possibility that we could become a class one airport and I had hoped that we could have re um reached that level in time for um our new contract that's coming up soon. But I I'm I need to go with a something that's for sure, something that's solid, something that um I that doesn't have too many ifs in it. and there were too many ifs for me. So I um want to encourage staff that I personally do want to see us to grow and to in four years or whatever become a class one airport. But at this time I want to I'm just flattered that we had such great I mean Tina's back there and others in the community. We know some of our past air surface options um and they were kind of scary and um how great it is that we're at this level and had this great number of people who wanted to service our community. I'm grateful for the time that you spent, the bids that you put in and um that you kind of acknowledge to us that we should be looking to be a class one airport. So, I want to thank everyone for that, but I'll have to go with the um agreeance with the the motion that's on the floor. Councelor Hettinger,

I'd like to reiterate that one of the reasons I because I know the airport advisory board recommended two years. One of the reasons I like for is that the change from class 3 to class one is so unknown. And so I think there's the need for analysis on what the value is to the city, what the cost is to the city with that change. Um some market research on where we could go, if the bigger planes are better, if more frequent flights are better, if we're going to run into issues with weather in the summer. Um, so I personally think it would be great to start working on that analysis and then we have four years to really come back. I think we got some great information tonight. We had some really strong competitors um or carriers come with recommendations and um I think we could spend the time figuring out what the next right step is for Paige rather than trying to rush into making those class changes and running into construction and those types of things.

I just say I agree with that. Councelor Hammond and then did did you raise your hand or you just want to say yes I want to vote on amendments so we can get to the motion. Okay. Councelor Hammond, I don't think, sorry, I wanted to just say that if we do go with what the advisory board suggested as two years, that doesn't make us any worse off in two years. We can continue going, but but it keeps us from being stuck too long with something if we're ready for a change. If that makes sense. That's my opinion is that if we're going to go with the motion that's on the floor, um two years as the advisory board suggested is more appropriate.

The um advisory board actually didn't pass it with two years. That was more of a conversation that happened afterwards. Am I correct? Yes. Correct. Um, councelor Roundtree um because of the Laura expressed as something that somebody from the advisory or the airport board called and shared with me their concerns about possible changes and that we want to make sure that we are have a firm contract for the next four years because of possible changes. I would I understand the two years and and I would like to be able to do that, but my gut tells me that we better secure a fouryear. And councelor Prowler, real quick,

um I just wanted to say thank you for uh all all the airlines coming out and giving us 48 options to choose from. Um you're now all well aware that we're a bit out of the way here, a bit remote, and that's a good amount of travel. Um and that's the issue we're trying to solve here. But I really appreciate uh the the effort put in by everyone. Um I talked to a ton of our constituents um kind of asking how often they fly, uh where they fly to, uh what what seasonality of that is, what color they would like the plane to be. And by the way, lime green won that one. Um and uh I I I think we're headed the right direction here. Um I I think the motion on the floor is is the right one for for Paige at this moment and then we can you know if if the uh future's headed towards a class one airport that buys us some time to achieve those goals.

Okay. Then I will call for a vote on the amendment to the original motion. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Okay. So we now have an amended motion on the floor. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? Nay. The motion it carries six to one with councelor Hammond. Okay. Opposed. Okay. Thank you. Are we good to go on or do we need a little break?

We take a Okay, I will five minute break.

We are on. Hey, thank you for coming out. Appreciate it. Thank you guys. Have a good day. Safe travel back to St. George. I will reopen our regular meeting. The time is 7:47. Moving on to item number 83 under new business, the bid review and award for airport on call architectural engineering consultants. I'll turn this over to airport director. There she is.

But wait, there's more. There's more airports. Yay. Um this one, so uh for the architects and engineering, we just have a recommendation. Um we went through the proposal process the RFQS for both planning and for the A&E. Um this is for the architect and engineering first correct. Um after interviews and reviewing the proposals the staff recommendation is CNS.

Say that again. That the staff recommendation is for CNS. Okay. For our engineering and so yes. So, I think if there was a motion, it'd be for council to award the on call contract to CNS services, right? Yes. Be able to stay within the um your microphone, council round. So, they're they are their bid is I mean, we're not having to increase any funds or anything. They fill in all of the requirements. They met all the requirements. They scored the highest amongst all of our applicants. Okay,

I'll look for a motion. Councelor Hinger. Mayor, I move to award the contract for airport on call architectural and engineering services to C and S engineers. Second. I have a motion from councelor Hettinger. A second from councelor Pller. Any other comments or questions? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Item number eight, four, bid review and award to airport on call professional planning all the way down. Yes. So we would be looking for a similar motion except for our planning. Um after the same deliberation with their proposals and interviews, staff recommended Kaufman and Associates.

Kaufman councelor Hinger. Mayor, I move to award the contract for airport on call planning services to Kaufman Associates. Second. We have a motion from councelor Hedinger and a second from councelor Prowler. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Item number 85, selling merchandise at Horseshoe Band. This is over to you, city manager.

Uh, yes. Thank you, mayor, members of council. This was at the request of one of the council members to come up and I I guess would be looking direction from council. I will say maybe preface this a little bit that uh in the upcoming budget. You will see we have uh some rather large capital projects maybe proposed for council's consideration concerning Horseshoe Bend. uh one getting utilities out there and two maybe a a roadway to extend the frontage road or some component of that out to Horseshoe Bin. It doesn't quite get to the stage of vertical construction of a contact station or a full phase three out there. Um so this could be revisited in the future. But uh as far as any recommendation for merchandising out there, I would hesitate to do that um under city run things. We're not good at selling things. So we would look to you know depending on where the station is located. If it's in the park service or something, maybe the park service or the conservancy would run that or something like that. And also with the frontage road, you'd have opportunities for lots of retail along that frontage road leading to Horseshoe Bin. So you could keep the parking to where they get in and out for the attraction as quickly as possible. But any discussion or direction I'd be open to.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, when we set that up originally, it was supposed to be a contact station only on phase three and or four, whichever one you want to call it. And I think to have sales out there would distract from the the nature of itself. So I'm opposed to any selling merchandise out there. Councelor Hinganger.

Um I was the one who originally brought this up so I can kind of speak to my intention behind it and that might be helpful as we discuss it. Um this came up I believe it was during our director presentations and when we talked about these extensions to Horseshoe Bend, it was mentioned that previous councils had said we didn't want to sell anything there. Um the I think one of the great examples in my mind is Navajo Bridge. There is an area there. They've got restrooms. They've got things you can buy. I I don't see this as a very commercialized area, but just providing place for people to cool down and also spend some money. Um, and so my idea is thinking about that ahead of time so that as we're planning for utilities and future expansion at Horseshoe Bend, if the rest of council agrees, then we could make sure that we are thinking about an area where we could sell merchandise, not extensive, but just um like a lot of national parks have a place for like a visitor center almost.

Councelor Roundry.

Yeah, for future I would hope in future phases that we were going to address some type of vending. The only thing that I would I thought along with what Kenna remembering what she had said um when this was brought up is that I've actually been out there like I think five times this year taking people and last year and the number of people who don't have water and that are having difficulties and there's no place to like buy water. So, I think there should be some minimal things, vendings or purchasing or possibilities or or something because um and people want stickers, but I don't want to see the line slow down and it take longer for somebody to enter um at the contact station purchasing there. So, I don't know how this would work or how this would happen without anything else being out there, but I do believe that um people do really like to collect a sticker or something at every single place. It's a really big deal for kids and grandkids. And so, I don't think at the contact station if they say, "Yeah, and I'd like a sticker too with that and an extra dollar or $2 or whatever." I don't think that would slow it down too much, but I don't want to see the contact station selling a lot of things. But we really do need to sell some fluids out there.

My go address that city manager and then councelor Hammond. Thank you. Uh we actually do sell water out there right now for a dollar. Um we're not making any money off of it by the time you figure staff time to go get it. But the intent is once we get water out there that will be replaced with the water fill stations for your bottles and water fountains. So that need should go away in the future. And they actually I think do have some stickers out there that they sell at the ticket booth just for that reason you said if someone wants a sticker but again it's not really a money-making operation but that's the only two things we sell out there right now is water and stickers.

So can we ask Debbie because she had made the comment about selling wasn't it you Debbie that brought up the conversation that we had. Can you go to the microphone about retail and I said yeah so I think you had brought it up and it caused us to have a conversation when we were doing budgeting our big huge meeting budget director

you you had asked about retail the only retail we sell because of safety is bottled water we can do it in the booth it takes us two seconds more to get a bottle of cold water or room temperature water to the customer it's a dollar we back out the tax so it's very easy to ring in. It's very easy for the customer to get. We have it in all three booths and we've had a substantial change in the fact of not having 911 calls because we have dehydr, you know, hydration now. Um the stickers are small little stickers. We sell them for two bucks. Um people were buying them like crazy. But now that you look back and I just did a a report for Frank and our numbers in selling water and selling stickers have gone down in the last two years just because there's so much advertised now for horseshoe band in the town of Page. So I don't know that we need to go any further with retail unless we have a larger parking lot and water and sewer and all that kind of stuff to go with it. Okay, councelor Hammond and then councelor Pller.

So my understanding of this conversation is that this is an attempt to be really ahead of the curve instead of reactionary and think ahead to years down the road to help inform staff what should be designed out there. Um if we're going to have a retail option that creates a very different vertical building than if we're not. Um so I'm glad that we're having this conversation well in advance. I again it's probably a little cart before the horse. Um there would need to be a lot of people to talk about this but I do like the idea of the conservancy being there. Um one of the only concerns I have about having a retail operation out there is competition with local vendors. And the nice thing about the conservancy is that they are limited to selling items that are educational or interpretive in nature. So if you look at what they sell and at um Navajo Bridge is a great example of a store that the conservancy runs um it's not like your typical chachi chachkis and t-shirts. it's stuff that has more of an educational value and so that limits some of the competition with um local sellers and um whatever we do out there I think we need to approach it thoughtfully so that we're not drawing so that we're meeting visitor needs without drawing the economic base away from downtown if that all makes sense. So generally I'm in favor of having some sort of retail option out there. um what exactly that looks like. I I think we're years away from deciding, but I'm glad we're having the conversation.

Okay. Who was it that I said next? Councelor Prowler.

Um I I think we're we're kind of starting to head down the uh similar direction of like there being light amounts of of merchandising. We don't want a full-on shopping center down there. Um, but something more restrained and tasteful. Um, something that's not gonna, you know, create a bunch of litter. Um, I I I also like the conservancy idea. That seems reasonable. Um, and we wouldn't need to necessarily plan building designs around that. Um, I think someone also mentioned food trucks, which is a bad idea. that's that's no um like permanent impact. Um that's at least worth exploring, looking into um maybe like a like a limited permitting system for for uh spots down there, you know, hot dog cart, something like that.

I I personally would recommend that we instruct staff to include all such options going forward with the planning of this infrastructure going in and any other buildings. I know rest the restrooms are going to need to be first, but anything beyond that, I I feel comfortable instructing staff to always include these different retail or food or just liquid, what whatever these different options are to include those at the planning stages as we go. Councelor Hammond and then councelor Roundtree.

Yeah, I appreciate the mayor's recommendation and totally agree with it. Um, I just wanted to mention one other thing because it it would impact design down the road. I think it would be lovely if we had a maker space out there. Um, we have a ton of artists in the community and there's not really like a centralized place for visitors to see how some of the different artwork um comes together in in our part of the world. And I think that that would be really interesting for it would it would be beneficial to the artists themselves to have a place to work. It would be interesting for visitors to come and see how things are crafted and then it would be a logical place to sell items that would not again conflict with other retail options in town. Um so anyway, that's just like my dream if I waved a magic wand that's what we would have there.

I think that kind of opens it up that there's probably a list of things that could be asked to look at when they get to planning phase. So what I'm saying is so are we starting in so is somebody developing what phase three looks like just the infrastructure not yet.

Yeah. So to me I think we should be having that discussion first of what we want phase three to look like and what we want it to feel like and have public input on that. And then my concern would be too much retail down there right now is the parking is full and we want people to get in their cars and leave right now. So, if we're going to c and I love the makers idea in phase three, like I I really want someone to make sure they put that down and and encourage staff to look at that idea. Councelor Hammond and I like that. But right now, I'm just nervous about

keeping people there any longer when the parking lot is really full and that was my understanding from our budget meeting is that we have concerns. So, um, so I'm hoping that whatever we're discussing or approving this is, I'm not sure why we're doing this at this stage yet if we don't know what phase three or we haven't even given direction or one of our boards haven't given direction of what we want phase three to look like. So, I'm not against fundraising down there. I'm concerned that we're talking about it now before we've given direction of what we want phase three to look like.

Councelor Hettinger and then councelor Pller. And I mean, as the one who brought this idea forward, I think what we've discussed has satisfied my concern, which was that we were going to start the basic infrastructure with the idea that there would be no retail there. So, we're going to build just a contact station and not think about other things. Um, I think, you know, we should decide who agrees with the mayor on his direction. But I I think this is the discussion for tonight. I think there are probably lots of great ideas that we could discuss in the future, but for now the question is, do we want staff to consider allowing retail in future phases or not? Because previously, council has directed staff not to allow retail down there.

I I would like the options to look at. I would like to look at the options first also. I don't want to approve or not approve and I want to see the options. Councelor Peller. Agreed. And thank you, Councelor Hedinger, for bringing it up. Yeah, I think this is the first time we've really uh looked at this issue. So, we're all kind of shooting from the hip. Um I would love for council or sorry, for staff to look at kind of all the ideas there are, stuff that, you know, we've thrown out there, stuff that they think is a good idea, stuff that, you know, they've heard from other people and condense it down into uh you know, what's feasible, what do we have the space for, what's going to create a ton of trash, what do we even have the power for? That sort of stuff. you know, tell us why our ideas suck.

And this and this and this will be definitely down the line because first a big project of just getting water, sewer. Yeah. Yes. I mean that that's going to be a huge project among in itself 12 and a half. Yeah. So we're we're we're we got to get that part done first before we really this is down the line. So,

but I I just want to say I do appreciate that because it leads me to think that if we're getting utilities there and not putting in some sort of restroom, I'm probably going to get fired. So, I need to put more thought into this than just the numbers. So, I appreciate the input and direction. I think we'll incorporate all of these into maybe some options before we go through final design and present plenty of have plenty of time to present it to council and the public. Want to make a motion? No. No. Oh, comment. Okay. Yeah. I when we set this up, I want to know how many people here have seen the conceptual drawings in the floor plan for that what we call phase three, which is the actual building to be out there.

No, we need we might start with that. And I didn't see that water um doing that stuff. I just don't want it to turn into a flea market out there. Right. And I'd just like to say I didn't say that see that until Miss Moses showed it to me is I think the conservancy had part of that. Right. So, right somewhere. It's it's there. So, okay. Um I'm looking for a motion to give staff direction. Do we need a motion? Need a motion? I don't I don't think so. If council doesn't feel that, I think I've got adequate direction to bring it back for whenever you do need a motion.

Okay. Thank you. Item number 86, resolution 1341-26, call of general election. City clerk, will you please introduce the resolution by title only? A resolution of the mayor and city council of the city of Paige, Cookanino County, Arizona, to submit to the qualified electors of the city of Paige the proposed initiative regarding the lanes on Lake Pal Boulevard at the general election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, directing the preparation of theformational pamphlet, designating the deadline for arguments, establishing the conduct of elections, setting forth the voter registration deadline and early voting dates, designating the election format, and setting forth the canvas deadline.

Mr. I move to adopt resolution number 1341-26 called general election. Second. We have a motion from councelor Cojan and a second from councelor Hettinger. Any question or comment? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Item number 87, direction on potential purchase of state land. This is over to city manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of council. I'm trying to get to something that's not airport on my airport here. So, uh, so this came up during the interim period. Uh I think the process was started discussing with the state um potential opportunities. There's a section of land about 640 acres across the river that's owned by the state that basically is a carveout of our city limits that were annexed over there some years ago. So the the city the staff prepared an application to go to the the state land board people and they accepted that application. So the next step in the process is to generate all the environmental archaeological studies that that go with that. Um and with that we got some rough cost estimates of somewhere around 85,000 or so. So, with that possibly going over 100,000 and exceeding my spending authority, I wanted to to maybe get direction from council to to see if we wanted to proceed forward with potentially getting this to where the state land board would want to put this up for sale. If it goes up for sale, it does go advertised publicly. So, there could be other biders. If if other biders are successful over the city, then those costs would be reimbursed to the city. But if we're successful biders, that's part of the deal to pay for that.

Councelor Cojan and then councelor Pller. So why would we want to buy this land anyway?

I can answer. We the the land came available not too long ago and so we thought it would be worth looking into to see if it would be viable to even look at it or to purchase it and have it be city land separated from our city proper if we wanted to do other types of business ventures. Councelor Roundtree and I were out there this week and saw it. It's a pretty flat area out there. But um in proposing to the state as possibilities, this all kind of became enticing because a lot of people were opposed to a data center in here close. Well, what about a property that's further away? There's other other things that could go on further away, which you know, may or may not be feasible for the city. That's why we wanted to just look at the possibilities.

Who who was the next one after him? Councelor Preller.

Um, from my understanding when I talked to the people that do the Arizona state land sales um at the League of Cities conference, they're all a relatively new crew and so they've been like redesigning, reworking a bunch of those processes. And if I remember correctly, the only other people I could re really put in for that land purchase would be other governmental type agencies. Um, correct me if I'm wrong. Um, and that would I I couldn't tell you how many other governmental type agencies we have in the area here that would be interested in that splotch of land. It's got to be relatively few. Um, so it might not be all that hotly contested. Um, but I mean, is is there a way we could put in a bid for that without needing to do the uh studies up front?

Not that I'm aware of. City attorney, do you have any insight on that?

I don't I wasn't really involved in any of these processes, so I'm not really sure what the process is. Um what I do what I did see um was that it goes to public auction. um was was the steps that Linda as interim city manager had sent uh the steps to me in an email and it was that if there's a party that's interested they get an appraisal um jump through these hoops and then once everything is um established then the state advertises publicly and it just goes to an open public auction basically. Um,

so that could be opening Pandora's box then. Then if somebody else gets it, then we get all the money back from any studies that were done. Um, when you say public auction, Josh, does that mean that if it's appraised at a certain amount that a public auction could the city could obtain it for lower than that total?

No. I think the my assumption would be that if it's anything like u our land sales the the the appraised value would essentially set the reserve price so to speak that it would have to be at least that much but it could be more than that. Um the the one I guess concern that I would have about some other party acquiring it is that uh if it wasn't annexed in then they wouldn't be within the city limits. Councelor Roundtree and then councelor Cojan.

Yeah. And so there were some questions when we drove out there and some of them were answered, but there are other answers that a department head has gone um and he won't be back and he couldn't answer some of my questions. So I did want to know how far water was out there. Um and I think that the piece of property would encourage other council members to go out there and look at it because I think it would be a great place to um sell off sections of 10 acres sections for homesteads. Um people could, you know, have um septup tanks. Um if water is that far out there, I think it would be a great thing to um put up to sell to possible realtors for other um you know, resorts or or our means or an option for the fact that we have a problem with our industrial park that has slowly gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and we need some place to have an industrial park. So I think it serves several options. So before we make a final decision on if we want to go look at it and bring it back to the table or if we want to go ahead and have it surveyed because whoever did buy it would you know if we bought it then the survey fees would be worth it and if we don't and someone else was to win the bid then they would reimburse us the 85,000. So I'm open to different options but thought maybe everyone should look at it first before we make uh if you haven't gone out and seen it. I was aware of it because how many years I lived here and and what it used to be used for. I've been out there on a horseback a few times and a few other times. So, I think it's a really great piece of property that we should consider looking at.

Council Cojan and then councelor Preller. Oh, wait. Did you have your hand up again? Yeah. Okay. Yes. So, if it goes to public auction, it sounds to me like we're open up Pandora's box because anybody could end up with it and then it would be a mess. So, why why do we want to buy it at this point? Makes no sense at all. And the only reason it's it we got that is when we annexed it and that was PU's choice to control the lake Pal pipeline intake. Yeah. The annex was is actually of our service territory of course for bee right

and that's included in it. Councelor Preller, do we who's so the only access from the highway to that splotch of land is the old dump road. Um, and I'm not just I mean, sorry, fairy swale road is what it's in the county records, but everyone knows is the old dump road. Um, do we own that road? It's showing up as green. I think I was told that we have rightaway on it, but I I haven't confirmed that, but the employee that took me out there said that they thought the city owned the rideway on that road.

That's that's my understanding and I don't want to I'm the newest one here. So, my understanding and Sylvia were also very new was that it was actual city limits that were annexed, not just a a service area designation. Okay. So, anything within those city limits would be we would take over the designated park service territory though. I I city the city put in that road. So, we'll have to find out more details.

But as far as dedicated rightaway on that road, there might not be. And you can probably dedicate road by a resolution or ordinance if we needed to designate a exact footage of right away. So, can we give direction then to find out our answers about utilities and how far they're out there and the road and all of the information before we make a decision if we want to move forward to have it um surveyed? Just some basic some basic. Yeah, more basic and then encourage all the council members to go out there because my opinion changed a bit when I went out there and looked at it. Councelor Heinger,

would it be asking too much to also look into the process of annexing it into our service area prior to an a purchase?

Yes, thank you. That was I don't know. I asked that question of we're working with our lobbyists to coordinate with the state land board and they said that process was rather cumbersome and the state through their various committees would have to accept that sort of annexation. So they were implicating that it was actually easier to buy the property than to get the state to be willing to be annexed. With the concerns about potential other buyers though, an 18 to 24month cumbersome process might not be something that I would consider as cumbersome versus if I if we were less concerned about other buyers. Um, so I think it would be helpful to to understand how cumbersome

and isn't there some legislation right now about annexing that could possibly change that's before the Senate unless it died? I thought I read a few weeks ago something about that. So, I would just like to get more information and to answer all of our questions and then bring it back and we'll make a before deciding on whether or not to spend that kind of money on a on something. Councelor um Hammond, do you have the hand up? But yeah, I took it down because I agree with the idea of uh getting more information and then bringing this conversation back at a later date. Councelor Prowler,

I I agree with that as well. Um but I I'm not really interested in um buying this land for buying its sake. It seems to be that we're kind of steered towards buying it before someone else considers buying it. when when it first came to our attention that it was available, the the items that we thought, oh, you know, the possibilities include so many different things that because it's separated from us. um and small you know power small power or data center or you know there there was a lot of possibilities and we thought well it's it's available now and it wasn't available before we might as well at least just look into the possibilities and see if it's even a feasible thing for the city. Um I would have a hard time swallowing it at those prices. I mean, not the not the research price, but at at the purchase price that it says is likely. I would have a hard time swallowing that. I I would hope that something is that far away from anything would come in at a lower much much lower amount. But of course, unless you have a appraiser, appraisal done, you wouldn't know that.

Yeah. So, we won't know how much it really will be and and and possibilities that it does have. We do need to possibly have a power source. I mean, we just signed a WAPA contract that at year's notice and so there are a lot of ifs and a possible real need for that. So, that's why I think we kind of did want to look at the property, but now looking at it, I've had so many people over the years say, "I wish I could buy a 10acre lot um for homesteading, for having animals and and everything." and what a beautiful addition it would be to our community to have a place for people to have those type of home cho um choices out there. So, I would encourage council to go look at it for us to think about it and to come back with more information.

Councelor Per,

I I think I just want us to have like the right of first refusal on it. Um, I I know that we can't specifically do that, but we can get in on like a monitoring or alert list if someone else tries to buy it if I believe. Um, and then, you know, should that time come, we would have to, you know, hastily discuss it and and find the money, um, if that were the case. But that doesn't force us to do something about it now, if there's really no other larger interest in this spot of land. One thing like councelor uh councelor Roundtree said is those people who would like large amounts of land that would be the opportunity where here in our city proper right now that really wouldn't be an opportunity if there is a demand for that type of stuff for people that have horses and animals if that if they want to have more than a bigger than our ranchettes can do which are full that that might be the best place or option for Councelor Rry.

Yeah, because we hear so many people keep saying, "Well, why can't we look like Canab and as you're driving in Canab, you see how many people are growing out there and that's what they're doing. I mean, they're using sewers and then water and electricity have been supplied and some of them are even doing, you know, solar for electricity and we don't have any place that we can um offer those type of property opportunities or living opportunities." And I've always wondered where we could. And then when this came for sale and I was out the other day with you, mayor, I was like, "Wow, this would be a place where we could actually do that." It be beautiful views. Council,

I think we're missing the boat. If we do that, buy that. Then anything goes out there. We have to provide police, fire, and everything else for that property. So to do that at this point is insane to me. And the padlock on that gate is very sticky. It would take the cops a while to get through. City manager.

Yes. And I I would just maybe like to remind council too that if they want to budget for a large purchase like this with the budget meeting coming up, we got to figure out where to fit that in the budget and what we would cut to make that fit. Did the state as far as you know when they accepted our application is there a time limit on like if we decide we're going to come back and decide at a future time just about this this research cost not about that we don't want to put it into our budget right now about the purchasing price. Did the state give us a time limit on how val how long this application is valid that they accepted? I I can come back with that information because the reason this came on the agenda now was Tom was advising me, Tom Dorne was advising me that we needed to give the state an answer if we needed to move forward or not. So that they were starting to ask for an answer. So, so I can find this information as quick as possible and bring it back to council. And I'll also coordinate with Tom and and see let the state know what our concerns are and what research we're trying to do before we give them an answer if we're moving forward or not.

As far as you know, can we do one part like just an appraisal part and not do the geological expensive part if we if we want to just know that little piece of the puzzle, right? I think typically in the process the state would do the appraisal later, but we could always have one done. I don't think there's anything stopping us from doing one ourselves, but I was just curious about that.

And and the dollar amount I had in the staff report was just for me and the other appraisals we've had around the city that were closer to town. So, that was just throwing something out there to realize that you're talking whatever figures millions are for this that it's probably into that range somewhere. Councelor Hammond. Yeah, I was just going to ask um the city manager if he has enough information, like if he feels like he has a clear direction or if we need to keep on this topic. Councelor

Coan wanted to ask you. Sorry, I I didn't know if I should answer him first, but uh uh I I think so that I I have some direction to move forward and then then bring it back. I I don't know more information if we need an I don't know Robert's rules to know if we need a motion or not, but I I understand what I need to do. Okay. Fantastic.

If our our intentions are to provide property for ranch edit, larger ranch edit states, we have 2,200 acres outside of the 500 acres that we gave to that's right here inside the city, which makes a lot more sense to me. Okay. Any other comments? Okay. So we will move on to the last item which is a potential future agenda item about protecting the future of recreation on Red Mesa. This one was councelor Hammond. Right. Right. Okay.

I'll make a motion that we put protecting the future of the recreation on Red Mesa on a future agenda. Second. We have a motion from councelor Roundtree. A sec.

Oh, we don't need a motion for that. That's right. I'm sorry. We We will just instruct city staff to come back with at the I know it's it can't be a super fast process, but what is it exactly that we're asking for city staff to come back with councelor Hammond? So for this, this is just requesting permission for us to talk about it on a future agenda. I think that the direction that we give to staff happens in that conversation if we're willing to have the conversation. My mind was stuck in motions. So I get it. Reszone is probably what we're looking at. So yeah, or detailed boundaries, um, all that kind of stuff. Correct. Yeah, there's a lot that needs to be addressed with that.

There's a lot that needs to be addressed. So I I I would say bring it back. Yeah. For this cause, two thumbs. Okay. Point of order. Do we want to have counselor Hammond read the background for the record or are we all good? I thought you did a great job. So Okay. I think we can cover that. To make it questionless. I think we can cover that when when it comes back. So we have made the request that that come back to us at a future agenda item when we can tackle that issue. Okay, with that I will adjourn our regular meeting. The time is 8:27. Our next regularly scheduled meeting, Wednesday, May 13th at 5:30. And for