Council - Regular Meeting

Do we need to have Chuck give her?

OK, I will call this regular city council meeting to order, August 26, 2026. The time is 530. Welcome to all members of the public who are in attendance or watching online. I'll ask everybody to join us for a moment of silence, followed by 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. Okay, a reminder to all council members to put on your microphones. Silence your regular phones if you haven't. Madam Clerk, will you please do roll call?

Mayor Kidman?

Here.

Vice Mayor Farrow? Here. Councillor Hammond?

We can see her.

Here. Councillor Hettinger? Here. Councillor Preller?

Here.

Councillor Kojen?

Here.

Councillor Roundtree? Here.

Item number three, consent agenda 3-1 for the City Council regular meeting minutes and 3-2 for an airport grant agreement.

I make a motion that we accept the consent agenda item 3-1, but that item 3-2 be removed to answer questions. Second.

Item number 3-2. Well, let's see. It's kind of in a motion. We need to pass the motion before I can move it, don't we, since it's in the motion. Any questions, comments? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK, so item number 3-1 gets moved down to the first item of 3-2. I mean 3-2 gets moved down to the first item of unfinished business. Or new business. New business. Item number four, there are no community recognitions for this meeting. Item number five, hear from the citizens. We do have one blue card to request speaking from Taylor. Do you wish to do it now or at the agenda item? Item number six, reports and announcements. For the mayor's reports and announcement, I'm going to defer to the council members that were able to attend the League of Cities this last week and see if they would share some bullet points of what they were able to glean from that conference. There's four of you. Who wants to go first? I didn't ask anybody to go first. Any volunteers? I'll dive on the grenade.

Yeah, so we were at the League of Cities and Towns conference for most of last week and had the opportunity to meet a bunch of the elected officials within the state, as well as listen in to some classes that they had down there for the issues facing Arizona, kind of the municipal level. I sat in on a couple about Arizona's power future and Arizona's water future and basically learned that the concerns we have about water and power are vastly different from what the rest of the state has. We're worried about water redundancy and not lack of water. So, you know, bit different. Shows how unique PAGE is. and a lot of the talk about power futures didn't really apply too much to page either because we have our own utility which keeps our power rates low by the way and we love that um other than that they kept us fed really good um the braised beef was awesome and uh we'll do it again next year okay counselor headinger

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to share a couple takeaways, mostly from the opening session and then the closing session. So the opening session was by a lady from the Dignity Index. And the session was all about how we can communicate better with each other, particularly when we disagree. And I thought it was a great reminder of the importance of trying to understand different perspectives, listening to people we may not always naturally hear from, and then making sure that disagreement doesn't prevent us from working together. And I think that's something we can all work on, and it's something definitely that I committed after this conference to trying to do a better job at. And then the closing session was all about building greater community trust. So those were my two big takeaways from the conference, just how do we communicate better with each other, and then also how do we plan ahead and think about what we want our city to look like versus always reacting to things as they come.

Councilor Cogent, you want to go next?

No, I'll wait.

You'll wait. Councilor Roundtree.

So I'd actually put in a future agenda item request for this because I feel like we go down, communities have school boards and councils and people go down to these meetings and they cost the citizens money. And so what is the value they're gonna get back from them? And so I would still like to have a future agenda item to discuss that we get to sit down and we get to discuss some of these things that we've learned because we see very successful city mayors And council members and some of our elected officials give us information, and I think it's pertinent. But because regulations, we can't discuss them among each other. And I think it would be great if we could and how those things could help us. Ken and I had the opportunity to attend the ASU Morrison Institute and the Kyle Study for Water. And I want to highlight that I'm really grateful for ASU's commitment to this. They're organizations that make long-term analysis and research for communities on neutral ground. They stay politically neutral. and they don't advocate for anything. And so it's the Morrison Institute for Public Policy and the Kyle Center for Water is a vital opportunity for us as council members to see their research and their information. because it's not affected by all the digital noise that's out there and all the false narratives. And you wonder sometimes as council members how to make a decision. And so I like to reach out to this organization and get information and research from them often. So I'm really grateful that we went there because they have objective evidence-based research. They depoliticize very complex issues. They bridge the academic-civic divide. They help institutions become more anchored and truth and actual data. One of the things I thought was really interesting that they shared at the League of Cities was that in 30 years, the city of Phoenix hasn't used any more water than what they did 30 years ago. And that's because they have been very successful of using techniques to be more sustainable with water use. And we don't understand that. All of us look at them, we see how large they've grown think that they have to be using 10 times as much water. But in actuality, they aren't, because of some of the things that they've implemented. So some of those things were really interesting to me. So I appreciate that we were able to attend the League of Cities this year, where it talked about water and put water more in perspective for me as a council member. So I'm going to leave it with that, because I have about eight pages of notes of all of the classes I attended. But I'll leave it there.

OK, thank you. Councilor Cogent? Yeah, they did have several sessions. Most of them, we ended up in the same one because they pertained mostly to paid, so that was pretty much it. But then we did hear from the governor. She spoke at the luncheon, so that was pretty good.

Thank you. OK. That was all for that item. We'll move on to 6.2, City Manager's Current Summary, Event Summary. You were also there at the League of Cities. Did you attend any of the different ones than the council members?

I think usually there is at least one council member in most sessions that I went to, so it was a good conference. It's my second one I've ever been to, so it's always a little bit overwhelming with that many different cities and officials, but it was good to meet some of the other fellow cities that you deal with and just some of the information you get outside of the sessions too is just as valuable. Some of the contacts you make and the shared experiences that you go through with other cities. Some of the ones I attended were, of course, the data centers. There was the resolutions committee that I think everybody attended. to me was interesting. It was hard to hear some of it, but there were several resolutions about short-term rentals that went through. So it seems that PAGE isn't the only community dealing with issues with short-term rentals. And I do want to maybe shout out to Councilor Hettinger, who probably doesn't want to brag about it, but she was actually on one of the panels in one of the sessions for Women in Leadership. So I attended that, and it was great to see someone in page taking a leadership role there. So congrats to her wonderful discussion. Even if I was one of the few men that were there, it was still enlightening and great to see. And again, I think the governor was one of the highlights. One thing I took away from that is I think she's done some work with the Early-age child care that I think is in our budget and on our priorities that I want to use my staff to reach out to her office to see if we can maybe incorporate some of that in because that's a council priority to work on so that's one thing I took away that I'll work on With that and see if we can incorporate that into those priorities With that I'll maybe move on to a couple things local We just had Powell Days last weekend. For those that could attend, I think about 200 people did attend that. We've got some campfire nights coming up, or actually that was on the 22nd, so upcoming events. We've got a concert in the park on September 5th, which I think is Labor Day weekend. If you want to attend that, those are always good to attend. And then we are already working on the balloon regatta. It's never too soon to start on that event. So staff and we had a meeting today coordinating with that. Looks like we have at least 49 pilots registered already. Appreciate the staff working on that. So with that, we'll let you move on to the further agenda. TODD BANDUCCI- Thank you.

Item number 7, 7-1, council liaison reports on board meetings. Were there any attendees since our last meeting to report on? We'll start, Councillor Preller.

yeah i gotta get this out of my system quick i only have a memory that's good for 24 hours and this happened last night so before that's gone we had a planning and zoning commission work session here yesterday there were three items that were being discussed one was a text plan amendment to basically from tesla to allow electric vehicle charging as a sole use in the c2 zoning designation um another one was the minor general plan amendment and zoning map amendment for the colt springs phase three project basically converting a couple of those to equestrian parcels and then the last item was uh the wesley is working on unified zoning right now um the wesley if you look across the street they've sunk a lot of time and effort into that property and it looks fantastic um i'd say it looks like a million bucks but we it was revealed yesterday that they've actually spent two million just in the overhaul um however Their parcel has two separate zoning designations. It is the C2 commercial and the blue one. Oh boy. The service commercial and C2 commercial. So that is all getting unified and will be coming soon to a council meeting agenda near you. Thank you. Councilor Roundtree.

So it's in Phoenix, but I have some news for the library that I'd like to share. They have been awarded $10,000 to support the development of a family resource center at the library. And I hope that RPIO gets the opportunity to put that information. But the funding will help create a dedicated and welcoming space where individuals and families can connect with resources and receive assistance in one convenient location. I'm excited about this because I've advocated for women and helped women over the years and to have one coming in locations instead of directing them all over town for getting information will be really, I'm excited about this part of it. While the library already provides many of these services informally, this funding will allow us to establish a more organized and visible family resource center. The funding will assist with creating the space and providing resources such as diapers, hygiene, self-care items, basic needs, supplies. community resource information and other materials for families in need. They also plan to have a dedicated computer and workspace where individuals can complete applications, access online for services and connect with community organizations. This is going to be an important part and I'm excited that the library got a grant for this and I hope it's something that after that spending and that grant period is done that we can continue to support. I hope it's successful.

Councilor Cogent. The Economic Development Board met on Monday and there were reports from the Chamber of Commerce and also the Glen Canyon Conservancy with not any good news. Tourism is down about 50% and the sales tax is down in the 20s. Down by 20. Everything's pretty well leveled off, and so it's really slow. And they did move forward with the face of facade improvement program. That'll be coming to us shortly, I think.

OK. Any others? Thank you. Item number 8-1 of unfinished business, potential purchase of state land. Turn this over to our city manager.

Point of order, Mr. Mayor. I think we missed 7-2.

Oh, I'm sorry. Hold on that, Frank. We did miss item number 7-2 because I was writing all over the place.

I would like to make a motion that we accept Tiara Cody's application and appoint her to the Youth Advisory Commission Board.

Second. Motion from Councilor Roundtree, second from Councilor Preller. We accept Tiara Cody on our Youth Advisory Commission Board. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I don't know if she is here, but we hope somebody gives her a message. We thank her for being willing to step up and do this. OK, now on to item number 81, potential purchase of state land to the city manager.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Staff has been working on the application for the state land purchase. We did get the appraisal back. Pleasantly it was less than expected, about $5,000 an acre for $3.2 million is the current appraised value. So the next step would be to perform an archeological assessment. That could cost upwards in $80,000 range. We do have one estimate that's a good bit lower in the 40 to $50,000 range. But with that, I just wanted to make sure council, it gets close to that $100,000. And with the looking at the 3.2 million in the future, I just wanted to make sure to take those extra steps to run this through council rather than using my authority. Currently, timeline-wise, we've informed the state that we don't plan to close before July of next year. But if council wishes, I think staff could work some numbers and come back with some budget options. If council wishes to move that closing up, we could move that closing up into this fiscal year. So that's, I would just, if council wants to provide direction for us to bring back some budget options, we would be more than happy to do that as a staff.

What was the state's response?

To your information that we may not try to tackle it till our next budget year I think this bond that they did not so I don't see that as an issue they were just asking what our proposed schedule was and That's I've talked to finance and I think we could come up with some good options whichever way council wants to move and the study that you're talking about

If this goes through and somebody else purchases the land, then we get reimbursed for this one that you're talking about, correct?

Correct. The way it works, it'll be advertised publicly. And so the winning bidder, for lack of a better term, would be responsible for the cost for both the appraisal and any additional studies. So if we weren't the successful bidder, we would get reimbursed by whoever it was.

Councilor Roundtree?

Councilor Cogent was first.

Was he up first? Okay, Councilor Cogent, and then Councilor Roundtree, and then Councilor Hammond.

I'm just going to ask the same question again I asked before. Why are we even looking at this land? We just annexed 16 square miles over on that side of the river. According to the areas where someone will provide statutes, we can sell that land. All we have to do is follow the same procedure we do with the land we sell on this side of the river. Right now, we're Originally, the city of Page was only 15 square miles, and now it's over 31 square miles. So why are we buying land that we don't need? And if we do do anything over there, we have to provide all the services over there. It says right on there on the appraisal that we have to provide power, infrastructure, police and fire, and everything else. So we can't even develop this side. So why are we buying land on the other side of the river? MIKE BOYLE. Quick question over.

Is there a difference between the annexed land and this square mile?

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I think the annex portion, if I'm not mistaken from the attorney, can correct me, but the city doesn't necessarily own the land that gets annexed. They just have jurisdictional control of that. And this would, if we purchased this land, the city would actually have fee title.

Ownership of the state land section and then could annex it in as well so the annex section that's over there right now we have the the service territory for it, but we couldn't turn around and say oh we're going to Build a Costco over there. We couldn't sell part of that Not unless we own it yeah, and we're not able to own that annex part that we already did I

I'm not aware of any land on that side of the river that we own, but I haven't looked closely at it. I don't think we own any land over there.

For the statutes, we could sell that land that we annex. The municipality could sell land that they annex.

Sorry, Councillor, but annexing just is jurisdictional control. It is not actual ownership of the land.

So we'll have to.

So it's like if you had a neighborhood that if, for example, Greenhaven wanted to annex into Page, you wouldn't necessarily own all of the properties in Greenhaven. The city wouldn't own those. They would just be within the city limits.

Yeah, I'll have to look at the statute again. But I could see it if we were landlocked to be buying land, but we're not landlocked by any means. Councilor Roundtree.

So I'm confused of why we had an appraisal done and so I went back and I listened to the meeting and the directions that were given and then I looked at the minutes and I thought that we didn't want to spend any money in regards to this piece of property until we had questions answered and one was utility and infrastructure information that was out there clarifying the state land board application timeline and process and how it worked. investigating annexing and the feasibility and timing of annexing this piece of property. To report back the findings before any purchase decision was clearly stated in the directives that were given. And then to coordinate with the state lobbyist, Tom, so he could communicate council's concerns and research time and find about how the process would work. I had heard that they only meet once a year. If then we meet once a year, how does that work? And then consider budget placement of when we're going to place it in the budget. And so we've already had the budget. And then so I had those type of questions I were hoping were going to be answered. And I see that our director of our utilities is here. So can we ask him to answer any of these questions? Because I didn't want to make any more decisions about this piece of property. And I thought others from re-listening to the the meeting twice. I'm pretty sure that I'm real clear on that. And then the minutes said that staff directed to get additional information about the area access utilities and the process for the annexation and bring this conversation back in the future meeting. And it was stated in there that we didn't want to spend any more money until we had more discussion and more conversations and more questions were answered about, like John has a legitimate question, what do we want to do with that piece of property? What's the possibility or why are we looking at it? So can we ask? CHRIS JERRAMSEN.

Was there anybody, any council members? Oh, Councillor Hammond was going to be next, and then we can. Councillor Hammond. COUNCILMEMBER HAMMOND.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. To Councillor Roundtree's point, I think we need more information to make an informed decision. And so I would like for the city manager to proceed with the archaeological study, talk to the budget office about where we could potentially find this money. so that we can make an informed decision about whether to proceed or not. CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Thank you.

Councillor Roundtree and then Councillor Heddinger.

ELIZABETH BUTLER, I think there's a point in time for that. But I think we need to have the other questions answered first before I want to spend $100,000 or $80,000 to $100,000 on an environmental study and we're not interested in the property because of the other findings and the other questions that need to be answered.

CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Councillor Heddinger.

I think the unanswered question for me right now is, do we have something that we want to do with this land? So going back to my thoughts earlier from the league conference, it's very fresh in my mind. I don't know when it's the right time to do it. But if we're thinking about something this big, I think we have to get the community involved and see if this is something they even want. And what would we put out there? And can we think ahead to that? And if that's not something we want to do at this stage, then maybe we don't need to be buying the land at this point to Councilor Cogent's point of we do have other land. So I know I was in favor of going forward with this earlier. But at this stage, I just feel like we should figure out what that would look like and see if the community as a whole agrees that that's what we want to do with the land. And if not, then we could save ourselves some headache. We'd have some headache of some town halls, but less headache on the other side.

Can I have Director Hill come up and share?

That's what I was going to suggest, Mayor, that I think Director Hill has some that started when he was interim manager. And I think he's got some good ideas for some of the uses out there and can maybe elaborate on that a little bit.

OK.

Good evening. Can you blow that up a little bit? All right. Very good. So yeah. Can we hear him? This is the area. Can you guys hear me?

No. No, not very well.

Oh, OK. So real quick, this is page, traditional page, you can see. back in it was about 15 18 years ago remember the lake powell pipeline so lake powell pipeline was planning to come in and they were going to come right over here on this side of the dam and their plans were that we that we were to understand they were going to come in and serve themselves in other words gut page out of the opportunity to serve those facilities and there's a saying utility professionals or gentlemen until it comes to territory. And so the only way we can protect it, we're not APS, we're not NTUA, although they're similar to what page. The only way we can protect service territory is through jurisdictional boundaries. That's why that area was annexed. When we annexed this, we did a very close study And this whole area that you can see, this is north. I'm going to point out these transmission lines. That's a three, excuse me, a 500 line that goes from the old NGS site across the river. That's owned by Nevada Energy and SCAPA. And then there's also a two, this thing doesn't point too well. There's a 230 KV line that goes up to Rocky Mountain Power, Utah Power. And then the 138 line that belongs to Garcane. What's interesting is when we approached the state about annexing this when we were studying, they said, no, we really don't want annexation because that could diminish the capability of us selling that property to somebody else. While studying this land, we met with the interior attorneys up in Denver. And as you know, this area down here, you can see it now. It wasn't then, but this is now Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. It depends upon who's in office as to what that's going to look like next week, but we don't know. And then this area up here, north of this boundary that I'm trying to point out here on this thing, is all National Recreation Area, managed by the Park Service. So none of the land that we annexed, we own. That was strictly to have jurisdictional authority. Remember, we can't Trump the federal government so that we can say federal government, these are rules. This is our zoning. And they could say, yeah, that's cute, but go away. That that's what they get to do on that. And they made that very clear when we annex this, it's absolutely not our property. This is green Haven. We didn't monkey with those guys. We didn't ask them if they wanted to be part of it. of Greenhaven, we weren't sure that they would want to be. That would be a vote. We also left out Wauweep. But this area here, from a utility standpoint, I want to say is very strategic. And this is kind of a chess move. Like you have discovered, you're one of the few cities in the state of Arizona that has a power company. You also have the second biggest in Arizona. Only one bigger is Mesa. Just downtown Mesa, they're not growing. They just have a 4KV system downtown. They're bigger than we are. But other than that, it's page. So we're kind of lonely out here, being an Arizona municipality with a power company. What do we do if we want to build generation someday? That's the question, and now we're making chess moves. I don't know the future, but you're sitting there at a board, and what do we do? Right here, I don't care who's in office, what I've been told by the attorneys is this guy, this is a magical corridor that's called an energy corridor. So all the federal land managers, whether you're BLM, Monument, National Park Service, they say that Any new infrastructure for utilities is going to go through that corridor. Magically, there's not a lot of land like that. Magically, this one square mile sits and intersects that corridor. Wow, what an opportunity for having a power company. The other thing that you need to think about in the future is you'll never reinitiate this landfill. Whether that was a good idea 30 years ago or not, that's debatable. But if you ever want to do another one, that would be the location that you would consider doing such a thing. The other thing that considered on this property, what's different than the deeded property we have here is over on the other side of the river, you'd have fee simple title with subsurface rights. I sat in a lot of meetings when I first took this job with an NTUA attorney, Walter Wolf. And he's no longer with us, but brilliant guy. He was a Navajo Nation attorney that negotiated the CRISP agreement that formed Page and Glen Canyon Dam back in those days. And he would love to remind me that we have no mineral rights or subsurface rights here in Page. So that would be the only fee simple title that the city would have. that would have some subsurface rights. And I'd have to ask AI why that's a good idea, but that's, I mean, we could, we could go down that path if we were going to ever drill for whatever minerals. So that's keep in mind also that because of that old dump, that property does have a paved road. That's in reasonably good shape out to the site. We do have V phase distribution out there, power distribution. That's where our line goes down that goes out to Marble Canyon, Lees Ferry, where we serve that. There are wells not on that property, but ADOT has a couple wells just to the north. There's a couple ranchers that have wells out there. Those apparently, and of course, Park Service. Park Service ones have been pretty dicey, as you know. But the others have been working. So the idea here, and I'm not doing a sales pitch. Maybe this is a good idea. Maybe it's not. But you have a piece of property here that is very different than what we have over here and could provide some Options are worth money in the business world that could provide options in the future for your utility and possibly for the city for other industrial locations. Any questions? You got the next slide? One other thing I wanted to point out. Here's another moving chess piece. When we sat down with the interior attorneys, And I put this up. This is the Utah-Arizona border. Notice all this blue. This blue down here is the piece of property that we're talking about. The interior attorney said, the reason you have all that blue is what Utah, the state of Utah, was able to do is they moved all the state land, the state trust land, this they call it up there, down here to Big Wat, a lot of them. So they identified areas that they want to take state land out of parks and monuments and wilderness areas and say, well, let's put it, we'll trade you state, because it's not really much good out in the middle of where there's no roads or anything in the middle of the wilderness area. We'll trade you where it could be sold. So this, look at all this state land. That was moved out of the parks and monuments and wilderness areas that they created over the years down here. that the interior attorneys told us the same thing about this area north of the power lines or that energy corridor and south of Highway 89. So that's another piece to think about there. So that maybe not in our lifetime, but that may be page in the future. DuPage, whatever. But those, that's, I just wanted you to have that information to consider.

CHRIS JERRAM, So my understanding is that sewer crosses the line, crosses the bridge to service Greenhaven, but water does not. So there is no water in the area, but within a mile, mile and a half, there would be opportunity to connect into for sewer.

MIKE PATTERSON, There is a well, an ADOT well right about there.

That's a water well. So if we dug for a well, yes. But I'm saying for sewer treatment, it does go across the dam out to Greenhaven, but there's no sewer that direction. We'd have to tie in, which would be a mile to mile and a half. MIKE PATTERSON.

There is a Forest Main. You're correct. Park Service owns the Forest Main at the corporate boundary, crosses the river. And then Greenhaven would own the closest Forest Main that ties into the Park Service, and it all ends up here.

And that was concerning sewer, not water. That's sewer, yes. Okay, Councilor Cogent.

Mr. Mayor, it's all well and good, but the city's not in an investment portfolio, and we're not going to be in the generation business, and we're not going to be in the mining business. According to the tax director, we still have 70% of our land is still owned by the city, and it makes no sense for us to buy that. Councilor Roundtree and then Councilor- Even the wells won't do us any good because anything within 100 miles of the Colorado River comes out of our allotment if we take any water out. Councilor Rountree?

So I did an investigation. I looked back over online. You can see the history of the pages, zoning maps. And so we have a concern about the data center being placed where it is because it's park and recreation. And that wasn't park and recreation. That was supposed to be future development for our industrial park. So people who bought down there, they should have known that they were buying homes close to an industrial park. But now as a council member, I have to agree that we have a lot of homes close to that property. And that's probably not the best place for us to continue to have industrial park. And so cities have to have an industrial park area to be successful. It's a big, important part. We can't continue to just rely on tourism. So I see this piece of property as also an opportunity of where we could place industrial park so that it wouldn't affect. Because if you look at that, we have developers that are developing a certain part of time. They're not going to want an industrial park to further go out in that direction. We have other tourist attractions. Where else are we going to put further large industrial park opportunities? page that we could grow that wouldn't impact citizens and housing and other entities and this is a piece of property I think we should just look at it I don't want to spend any more time money on it right now but I would like to gather more information and talk to department heads, citizens about it. I would like to forward finding more information. And these questions that we put forward last time, I'd like to have them answered so that we could responsibly, because we do have to plan for the future. I mean, we don't invest a portfolio of money to make money. But looking forward to the future of Page in five years, 10 years, 20 years, that's the reason why the annexation occurred is because people were forward thinking and evaluated what could possibly happen. And if we are aware that there's going to be an energy corridor go through there and it could benefit our utility company that we own as a city, then I think it's something that we should pause and take some time to evaluate.

CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Councillor Preller and then Councillor Hammond.

Yeah. So is there any way that would be possible that we could annex this block of land without needing to necessarily buy it?

I think they already responded on that question, didn't they?

Yeah, the, the short answer, well, it's not a short answer, but, um, legally it can be annexed if the state is willing to be annexed. I think is normally how that works. The annexing party needs to agree to it. Um, So it could go through a similar process through the board approving that, and there's other review committees they would have to do, but as Director Hill alluded to, the state is not really interested in pursuing that. They would rather sell it to someone that would handle that process. In their mind, it's more marketable with the less restrictions on it as possible. So in their discussions, they said, yes, technically it's possible, but it would be an uphill fight to be able to do that.

I think I would be more inclined to try that. It's lower. I realize it's uphill, but it's less of a risk on our end. Because if we go and buy this now, we are speculating that we'll get a return on that investment someday. When that day comes and how much that return is, we don't know. Whereas if we annex it, the benefits of tax revenue are basically the same for us when someone else does decide to want to build on it.

Would such an annex allow us to even do anything with the property or be the same as the annex was there?

It'd be under jurisdictional control, but as we just discovered when the other annexation occurred there, they declined. to be annexed in that. So I just don't see that process moving forward.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN. Councillor Hammond and then Councillor Roundtree. ELIZABETH BUTLER.

So I want to say that I appreciate Director Hill's forward-thinking approach and thinking about the long game and not what's going to happen two years until the next election or four years, but thinking generationally about what happens to our community long term. I also appreciate Councilor Roundtree's comments about thinking about having an industrial zone in an energy corridor, which, granted, it's beautiful out there, but it's also surrounded by huge, loud power lines already. The idea of separating industry from residential is appealing to me and I think very progressive and forward thinking. And so I have one question for Director Hill, which is in your experience as a utilities manager and interim city manager over multiple interim sessions that you have done, have you ever seen the value of land in our area go down over time?

MIKE BOYLE. : No, I haven't. Those of us that have property here in town wish it would go up faster, but I haven't seen it go down. What was interesting is even during the 2000, there was a couple areas there that were kind of bleak. Right after 9-1-1, it was kind of a dip. But then after the 2008 financial crisis, as people call it, A lot of housing markets went down. But if you recall, Page didn't get hit that bad. We were kind of insulated from that. So we kind of march to our own drummer and do our own thing here. But that's no. Short answer, no, I haven't seen it go down. One of the things that I want to be sure I point out, ever in my bullet points say that this is a good speculative piece of property. I just thought it would be just consider the usefulness down the road and that it does have some differences from the property we have on this side of the river.

CHRIS JERRAM, Yes. CLARE DUDA, You're not the one that should be answering that question anyway. CHRIS JERRAM, Well, I understand that. CLARE DUDA, We just sold 500 acres for $14,000 an acre.

CHRIS JERRAM, Excuse me if I may finish. My point is not that this is a good speculative deal. My point is that the longer we sit on this and work through a slow bureaucratic system, the more we open ourselves up to the possibility of somebody else buying that land and doing something with it that we don't like. So in the interest of good decision making, I suggest that we direct the, in fact, I'm going to make a motion that we direct the city manager to proceed with the archaeological study and discussing with the budget officer in order to bring us back more information so we can make a proper decision.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Point of order, there was a question still on the table before a motion.

I think I can make a motion anytime, and discussion can continue. And then continue with the question? Second. Okay. We have a motion from Councillor Hammond, a second from Councillor Farrell. Okay, question on the... Continue?

First of all, on the point of order, you'd have to explain why in more detail, and then the council gets the vote as a whole whether or not that point of order stands, but my question is that The reason I want more information on this is the reason why if Brian is still here, and from my understanding from living here as many years as I do and all the ranchers and that I've been on that piece of property on horseback over the years, is that it had a 99-year lease or it was tied up to some ranchers in the area. And that's the reason why. So I don't know if that's factual or if that's just what was believed. And so why that was cut out on both of those sections is my understanding. And so maybe the state would lean more towards the opportunity to incorporate it when they understood the history of why These two little squares were dotted out like that. So I don't know if you do know why or not. And then I've read where some towns will swap land. And so you could technically swap. And not even for all of it. If we want to just have a portion of that, 500 acres or 300 acres along the corridor, if we'd want to consider swapping instead. And I've researched and cities do regularly swap land. So do you have any information of why those two blocks were not annexed? Or that one?

At the time, we were working with Jennings Strauss, Scott Rhodes, when we were doing this annexation effort. And so the state of Arizona, when we contacted them, met with them, they just said, no, we're not interested. And we left with the impression that it was pretty much their policy not to do that. If it's within city land currently, that's fine. There was a few rare cases like that throughout Arizona. when a city is trying to annex not to allow the annexation on state land. That's what we were told. So it was just like, the answer is no, go away.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN. City manager, and then we'll move to the motion.

TODD BANDUCCI. To follow up on Director Hill, that's my experience when dealing with other state land sections and other jurisdictions that they typically would rather sell it than annex it as their policy. And as far as this breaking up of the section, it's very rare that they would allow that. They want to sell the sections as a whole. The only time I've managed to deal with an easement was for a roadway along one border of the section and they they had to make they wanted it to move over to the edge they didn't want to split the section so they're very particular about that as far as if it's grazing rights that the counselor is talking about i believe and i can verify this with with coming back for more information that when when the land sells the way those rights are established that when the land sells those rights go away by that's what the agreement is so but we can absolutely verify that The one thing I will say, too, on the timing that we can, when we come back for more information, we'll have that, but I believe the board makes the second Thursday of every month, so as far as timing goes.

You're talking about the State Trust Board?

The State Land Board of Appeals that would make those decisions. Arizona State Land Department Board of Appeals. Okay. But we can verify that. Councilor Hettinger.

Thank you, Mayor. I am going to vote no on this, not because I'm opposed to it, but just because I would like, if we have an idea of what it could be used for, if that's industrial, I would just like to see that presented to our citizens and see if there's interest before we move forward with something that would be extending the city and spending $3 million. So I would just love, I know that's extra work for staff, but I would love to get some input on if that's the direction people would like to see moving an industrial park out there.

Final comment, Councillor Renshaw.

Yes. One of the things that we learned to build trust with our citizens is that in advance we ask and have meetings and have people send in comments. And so I agree with Councillor Hettinger. I would like a public open time to hear how the public feels about and what they think about this piece of property.

Councillor Priller.

If we go ahead with this archaeological study, are the results of that going to be public knowledge? Can someone else, a competing party, use that to shortcut the process?

My understanding is once everything is done and the state allows it to open for sale, other people can bid on it as well. But then they would, if they win it, then they have to pay for all of that.

Nobody can sneak in and buy it without the city knowing about it, unless we were totally asleep at the wheel, because it's a public auction. The sale is a public auction. so whether we do that or somebody else does it and even if the city's interested in buying the land it's still going to be a public auction and somebody else may end up with the land okay i think we're missing the point even if we get the land it's going to take tens of millions of dollars to do anything over there we have a i'm going to move on the motion we have a motion on the floor i've had a lot of discussion

What was the motion exactly again for having the manager move forward with the geological study and giving us more information from the state land trust or whatever they're called? Is that correct?

From the budget office, Mr. Mayor.

The budget office.

As to how to allocate money to buy it, is that the finance department?

Finance department, OK. Anyways, all in favor, say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Nay. We're going to need a roll vote on this one, please.

Mayor Kidman?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Farrow?

Aye.

Councillor Hammond? Aye. Councillor Preller?

Aye.

Councillor Hettinger? Nay. Councillor Roundtree? Nay. Councillor Kojen?

Nay. Motion passes 4-3. Item number 82, unfinished business, resolution 1352-26, sale of real property on 105 Arrow Avenue. City Clerk, will you please introduce the resolution by title only?

A resolution of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Page, Coconino County, Arizona, authorizing the sale of real property by sale bid.

Let me turn this over to city manager or city attorney.

TODD BANDUCCI- Yeah, really briefly, this follows up on the previous council motion to sell the two parcels on Arrow. This and the next item are related to that. So the sale process would be sealed bids. And just that way, there's no listing fee or anything with that. And you get the potential highest price. And the reserve limit is set at the appraised value. TODD BANDUCCI- OK. Councillor Hammond?

I move to go forward with the sale of the properties mentioned by sealed bid.

It should be adopt the resolution.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I move to adopt the resolution. Sorry, I didn't write down the number. 1352-26.

1352-26 to sell the two parcels just mentioned by sealed bid. I'll second. It's just the first property on this one, Councillor Hammond. And we have a motion.

The one property.

OK. Second, the adoption of the resolution.

OK. Motion by Councillor Hammond. Second from Councillor Hettinger. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. Item number 83, which is the other half. City Clerk, will you please introduce the resolution by title?

A resolution of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Page, Coconino County, Arizona, authorizing the sale of real property by sale bid.

Councillor Heddinger.

Mayor, I move to adopt resolution 1353-26. Second.

Second. Motion from Councillor Heddinger, second from Councillor Preller. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We are back to item number 3-2 of the consent agenda, the airport grant agreement. And was there some questions concerning this item for anyone in particular, Councilor Roundtree or anybody?

I am just looking for the 3-2?

Yes.

Yes. So I just wanted an explanation that where we're going to come up and why it didn't end up in the budget, $500,000 plus that wasn't in the budget that's possibly going to have to come out of contingency now. And so I don't understand where that's a lot of money to.

Who can answer that one?

I can answer that, Mayor. So this item is the grant agreement with the FAA concerning the design of the fire station the design contract already went through council for our consultant of the 1.04 million but this is the federal reimbursement for that and some other items in there including admin expenses environmental clearances eligibility study normally these faa reimbursements are 95 faa two and a half percent state and two and a half percent city this one's a little different because part of the design of this fire station is also to serve the for lack of a better term, outward facing portion of the city. So the fire station can respond to fires not just on airport property, but also in the city proper. And it would include facilities such as living quarters and some other facilities associated with that that the FAA does not consider essential for airport fire protection. So that's why you see the dollar amounts different this and I apologize maybe for some of this being a little convoluted the Eligibility study was already completed in the previous fiscal year so we can take that money off the top and as far as The money that was not in the budget based on this, I talked to the finance department, and we've got two projects that were in the budget that the money was spent. We were extra conservative in our budgeting with the T-hanger construction and the terminal building construction. there was some expenses of those spent last year that we thought might be in this fiscal year so we've got a between those two projects 1.4 million dollars in this year's budget that won't be expended on those airport projects that we could apply to cover this even though we were incorrect in the in the budgeted amount for the match for this grant finance is confident that we have uh more than excess i think right now the numbers we need to do this is about 364 289 if my math is correct and finance is telling me we have 1.4 million available again apologies for it not being accurate at the beginning of the budget year but we we so we'll end up using just under 400 000 out of the 1.4 million correct counselor entry

Thank you very much for that explanation. I appreciate that. But just for future, I'm not comfortable with that large of an amount showing up in a consent agenda. I think it should have been on an agenda item and that explained. That's a large sum of money just to pass through a consent agenda when we have fiduciary responsibility for that. But thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it.

CHRIS JERRAM, COUNCILOR HEDGESTER.

Mayor, I move to approve PGA WPG 3-3-04-0025-050-2026 grant agreement. And that might have been why it was in the consent agenda.

And I second it.

We have a motion from Councilor Headinger, second from Councilor Roundtree. Any other questions? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? On to new business, number 9-1, presentation by Victim Witness Services, human trafficking. Michelle Rucker, please. Hello.

Good evening. How are you? Doing a lot of work here. It's great to see it happening. My name is Dawn Pennypacker, and I am the advocate here in PAGE for Victim Witness Services. We have Michelle Rucker. She's going to be giving you a PowerPoint. I wanted to start this out by sharing an incident that happened last summer. It contains no personal information or identifying information, so nothing like that. There was a young lady that came out from the Mideast who had just barely graduated from high school. She had met a man on the internet and had an online relationship with him for a few months. At his invitation, she said yes to go to Page for him to visit in person. She reported that it started out okay, but it just got weirder and weirder. He was asking for sexual acts that she was uncomfortable with. He would get angry and violent when she didn't want to comply. He tried to give her alcohol to subdue her. She thought that this was all her fault, that she couldn't say no to him since he was paying for things. She had no idea what to do or how to get away or get home. While at Lake Powell, she was feeling physically sick, emotionally distressed, and felt that if she went back to the hotel with him, he would hurt her. She was panicked and nervous. Someone there at the lake, we don't know who it was, noticed her and made eye contact with her and realized that she was asking for help. This person called NPS, and when they got off the kayak, they were able to get her away from this perpetrator. She had not had food or water in days. and she was hysterical. We were able to get her safely home to her family. The point of this story is that someone being educated was able to notice the situation and was instrumental in saving maybe her life. Education is key in these situations. So the question that we have would be if hotels, motels, resorts, and other tourism businesses in Arizona are required to complete training on this pervasive and growing problem, why would we as a city not require Airbnb owners as well as their staff to spend less than an hour and take a free training on trafficking? With that said, I would like to introduce Michelle Rucker. Michelle serves as the Deputy Director of Northland Family Help Center, where she provides leadership across programs supporting survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking. With more than 10 years of experience in the anti-human trafficking field, she brings extensive expertise in prevention, training, survivor services, and multidisciplinary collaboration. She is a founding board member of the North Star Task Force, a multidisciplinary regional effort focused on strengthening the identification, response, and prevention of human trafficking and child exploitation in Coconino County. Prior to joining Northland, she served as the Anti-Human Trafficking Program Director for the Arizona Attorney General's Office, where she advanced statewide efforts to combat human trafficking. Michelle, I turn it to you.

Thank you so much, Don. And thank you, Mayor and Council, for allowing us to be present here tonight and be part of your meeting. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen really briefly. Before I dive into tonight's presentation, I just want to underscore that what Dawn just shared is not, while it's a disturbing story, it is not a unique story. Having worked on this issue from a statewide and now a regional capacity, I can tell you that trafficking within our hospitality tourism, including our short-term rental industry, is absolutely something that should be top of mind for all municipalities across Arizona. In my time in this field, I have worked directly with municipalities on this issue, and I can share that we absolutely know that this is a concern that is happening in every single town, big or small, rural or metro. The key is, is that it's going to look different depending upon what community you're in. your urban areas like the Phoenix area are going to have a different trafficking landscape than we have in rural communities, especially here in Coconino County. So before I even dive in, I just want to open up and say that any, you know, preconceived notions that we have about trafficking that we've seen in the media are likely false and likely not representative of what we actually see in the victim services field and law enforcement here in Coconino County. So the purpose of this presentation tonight is more to just introduce the task force. So the task force was only formed a little over a year ago, though this work has been over 10 years in the making. I want to talk a little bit about what we actually mean when we're talking about trafficking, because there's that term gets thrown around a lot, and it can be really confusing. So we're going to talk about some definitions tonight and then i'm going to share resources and how what really really what we're doing to address this in coconut county i'm and how that we can just partner it all be part of the solution as a collective. So the North Star Task Force, like I said, was launched last year in January of 2025. I represent Northland Family Help Center. I'm the victim services lead on this task force. And we as Northland Family Help Center are one of the primary victim service providers alongside victim witness who are serving the population of trafficking survivors. And so we provide emergency shelter to both adults and youth survivors of trafficking, as well as survivors of domestic and sexual violence. And many of the folks that we serve actually do not originate where we're located in Flagstaff, but from neighboring communities and neighboring counties. We partner with the Coconino County Attorney's Office, the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, Flagstaff Police Department, Northern Arizona University Police Department. And then there's another organization in here, which is really important for everybody to pay attention to, and that's Apple Jack's Ranch. So Apple Jack's Ranch is 100% survivor led. And what I mean by that is every single person on their staff has survived some form of trafficking in some form and Every single person on their staff was trafficked here in the state of Arizona, many from rural and outlying communities. So we have really a multidisciplinary approach to doing this work. We've got, of course, service providers like myself, but we've also got survivors working alongside law enforcement and our prosecutor's office. So when we talk about human trafficking, again, like I mentioned, this term gets thrown around a lot and used when really it shouldn't be utilized. Human trafficking has actually a pretty narrow definition and it's defined both in federal and state law through either the Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act or Arizona Revised Statute. So human trafficking is an exploitation-based crime in which traffickers utilize elements of force, fraud, or coercion to control victims. And they're controlling victims for either one or two purposes, for sexual exploitation or labor exploitation. So when someone says that they have experienced human trafficking, that doesn't really tell us a whole lot about what has happened to that individual. We need to get a little bit deeper. We don't know if they're talking about labor exploitation, of working in an industry, in a community where labor is unregulated or where we have bad actors who are not necessarily paying their employees, they're underpaying their employees, or they're misrepresenting labor opportunities or having those folks working in unsafe conditions. The other side of this, which is what we're usually talking about when we talk about trafficking, is commercial sexual exploitation, otherwise known as sex trafficking. Breaking these down a little bit further, Labor trafficking is when we're utilizing force, fraud, or coercion to recruit, harbor, transport, obtain, or employ a person for labor or services. Labor trafficking happens all throughout Arizona. And again, it's going to be driven by what is happening in that community. So with labor exploitation specifically, labor trafficking is routinely tied to whatever is driving that local area's economy. So I'll use Flagstaff as an example. Our number one economic driver is tourism. So it would be no surprise to me to find that the vast majority of our labor exploitation is happening in some way, shape, or form alongside or adjacent to our tourism and hospitality industry. And that's why we actually work very hard with our local industry to ensure that labor exploitation and commercial sexual exploitation are not harming our businesses here in town, because we know how important those businesses are to our local economy. Sex trafficking, the definition of this is much more nuanced and quite more intricate. So sex trafficking is when we have a commercial sex act. induced by forced fraud or coercion or in which the person performing the act is under the age of 18. A commercial sex act is any sex act at all done in exchange for something of value, including a sex act for drugs, a sex act for money, a sex act for a place to stay for the night because you got kicked out of your apartment. If a sex act is exchanged It's something alongside something of value. That's a commercial sex act. When an adult engages in a sex act that is commercial, and we can show that it's been induced by forced fraud or coercion, that's when we have a sex trafficking crime. Now, the really key part of this definition is what I have highlighted in red. If the person is under age 18, in the court of law, we do not have to have evidence of forced fraud or coercion. If we find that a juvenile in any way, shape or form has engaged in a commercial sex act, they are considered to be a victim of trafficking, full stop. And honestly, this is the vast majority of who we suspect to be victims of trafficking. We do have adult victims, but oftentimes they actually start off as child victims of sex trafficking. And then frequently will either continue to be victimized in adulthood or depending upon the circumstances of the way in which they're engaging in commercial sex they may be engaged in what we would call quote-unquote voluntary prosecution activities we also see co-occurring intimate partner violence sexual assault and strangulation again when we're talking about a commercial sex act this is any sex act at all where something of value is given to or received by any person um so to bring it back to housing if we have a juvenile whose family is having a hard time making ends meet and they're about to get evicted from that apartment. Maybe landlord promises that child that is living in that apartment, hey, if you provide a sexual service to me, I'll give your family two extra weeks to make up the rent. Just even in that instance, we have something of value that is exchanged. That child is the one who's performing that sex act, so automatically they're gonna be a victim. The something of value was exchanged In this example, between landlord and those parents. But this could be, again, for food, a place to stay, clothing or jewelry, drugs or alcohol, a phone or promises. When we talk about force, fraud, and coercion, I also just like to break down what we mean by that because that's such a key portion of the definition. The vast majority of the time when these crimes occur or begin, we're going to see this begin as fraud. So if you've seen a movie that has depicted trafficking, oftentimes they're going to start it with a kidnapping, a white van, or some sort of very violent act. But really how this begins is much more sinister. Typically, it's the exploitation of an existing romantic, platonic, or a familial relationship. I'm going to say that again. The exploitation of an existing romantic, platonic, or familial relationship, meaning we have a relationship that's built on trust that is then utilized as leverage to get that individual to engage in commercial sex or exploitive labor for the benefit of the other person. We also have coercion, which could be anything from taking advantage of somebody's substance use disorder, utilizing children as a mechanism of control, or blackmail and sextortion. In rural communities, we have a very unique situation. We don't experience trafficking the same way that Phoenix does or the same way that Tucson does. We do have an increased risk of trafficking due to several factors, including poverty, limited resources, and stigmatization. It is probably true for all of you, but here in Flagstaff, we can't go to the grocery store without running into somebody that you know, right? That's one of the perks of being in a small town. But as a victim of a crime, that can be really tricky if you want to seek support and then you risk running into the law enforcement officer or the victim service provider who was helping you. We do have higher rates of familial trafficking. In any rural community, that is where we see this happening more often than we do pimp-controlled trafficking. Again, trafficking within the family system, which means that this often gets misunderstood to be potential child abuse or domestic violence. Unless we have really well-trained law enforcement, they may not pick up on the fact that we actually have trafficking when it could really easily look like a child abuse, child neglect, or a domestic violence situation. We also have disproportionate rates of trafficking in non-white populations, including Native American individuals. And we also see over-representation by runaway homeless youth on those who identify as LGBTQ and youth who are connected to child welfare. victim mindset again this makes it really tricky for us to get a really good read on exactly how many victims we have in a given area many victims do not consider themselves to be victims because they're not aware that what is being done to them is a crime we could spend all day talking about why this is but again we only have a limited time tonight so i'm just going to share that point with you and share It often is going to take victims years of being out of their situation to really have the retrospective understanding. Hey, that was exploitation. I was a victim of a crime. They're also likely engaging in criminal acts themselves for survival. We call this forced criminality. And the reason why that is, is their trafficker likely is having them commit crimes. so that they can say well if you go to law enforcement we're gonna they're gonna find out that you're committing crimes and you're gonna face penalties anyway so what's the point in coming forward oftentimes the people that have trafficked them are also the person that they love and trust most in this world maybe it's a relative a parent a partner a friend or another trusted person so understanding and diving into how that happened and how to get out of that situation can also be really tricky They also distrust folks in positions of authority, including law enforcement, NASA's, even in victim services. And they fear that they or their loved ones are going to be harmed. So with that, I just wanna share that as a task force, we are committed to serving every single nook and cranny of this county. We are providing free training for professionals, including law enforcement, prosecutors, Anyone that is really interested, including victim services. We also provide city-based training through a certification program if that's of interest. We also have just recently as a task force hired a brand new human trafficking mobile case manager. who's able to serve as a bridge after acute victim services are rendered to help in more ongoing support of victims of trafficking throughout the county. So somebody that Don can work with, especially if you guys do identify more victims, in helping more in a long-term capacity. And again, we're just always here as we're modifying policy and practice to work with you all in community and address those needs as you see them coming forward for your community. And with that, So I want to share my contact information. Again, my name is Michelle Rucker. I work with Northland Family Help Center and my contact information is here. If there's any ways that you all as a city or town would like to get engaged on this issue, I'm more than happy to talk through what that could look like.

Thank you. Any quick questions for Michelle? From council members? Councilor Roundtree?

So Michelle, so cities and towns all across Arizona and across the United States, but Arizona specifically this last year, were adopting new vacation rental regulations. And the ones that I'm familiar with and that I worked with from the League of Cities all placed human trafficking education requirements on those who run vacation rentals. And our council chose not to do that. So I was grateful that you came back tonight. And I want to draw attention to the council that tonight you guys approved the airport grant agreement. Are you aware that you approved a human trafficking element to that grant? So for us to stay in compliance with the airport grant agreement, there's a human trafficking. Our hospital, our schools, our motels in town, and other agencies all have human trafficking pieces to them. And I think that I would like for us to go back as a council and readdress why we chose not to make our vacation rentals a little bit safer and to educate those who clean. I've spoken with, after our meeting, I had several different citizens reach out to me.

CHRIS JERRAM, That's something that we can definitely address.

So I would like us to readdress that.

Do you have any questions for Michelle, though?

So that was my question to her, was about have you done any research on how many cities are adopting the human trafficking ordinances that are part of their vacation rental policies?

I don't have specific data points regarding how many cities have adopted that, but as expert in this area, I can share that we do have quite a few human trafficking cases that are generated out of short term rentals. So, as a means to protect those short term rental owners, I would highly recommend. I always highly recommend education for everybody. I'm not necessarily making an opinion on this issue, but just for anybody. especially in the tourism industry, it can be highly beneficial to have that education.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Did you have any other comment that you needed to make? No, sir. OK, moving on, item number 92, special event liquor license for application for Glen Canyon Conservancy. Councillor Preller?

I move to approve the special event liquor license for Glen Canyon Conservancy.

Second.

We have a motion from Councillor Preller, a second from Councillor Edinger. Any questions? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And we are at our executive sessions where Mr. Taylor, where did he go? Oh, he's still there. Did you want to address the council at this time before we go into executive session? So you'll just state your name and city of residence, not your actual address, and then you'll be given three minutes.

We need a quick little history lesson about what you guys are going to vote on in the executive session because there's some history involved. Obviously, we'll do it quick. When Tiffany and I bought our residence over 20 years ago, everybody in that row of neighborhood had excessively large yards. We had no idea that those yards only entailed a very small piece until we asked to put a pool in. We asked for the permit to put the pool in and the city said, we can't have you do a pool, it's not on your property. That was news to us. We said, totally understand that, what can we do? The city said, we're gonna find some slivers across here that's an easement and we will sell them to you and the neighbors. At that time, the neighbors had that opportunity to purchase the property, everybody did but our neighbor. They said that was a one-time deal at the time and That's where we were. We purchased the property. We built our pool. Everything was fine. However, our neighbors decided to put up a large fence on their property and extend that fence all the way onto the city property quite a ways. We simply called the city and asked for code enforcement to enforce that. The fence didn't need to be on that property that is the city's property. Code enforcement asked them to lower the fence to the legal height because it was too high and didn't ask them to take it off the city property. From that point forward, they decided to build a large shed on that property, which was city's property. They've since asked, the city has asked them to stop building that. They did for a couple months and they've since now continued to build as of last weekend. To solve this problem, to go back, when the city didn't When the city didn't do as asked with their code enforcement, I said, then we will purchase that piece of property. The city denied that and said, we will not sell the property. I said, well, I don't think that's exactly fair, especially if we're not going to enforce the code. So let's take it to council. Since that time, the neighbors have also asked for that city property. This has been a long time. I've asked for the code to be enforced over nine months ago. I asked for the city to be purchased over five and a half months ago. It's only been a few months since the neighbors have asked to purchase the property, and that's what you guys have tonight. I have huge concerns. We don't know if it fits in the sliver category because there's been no appraisal. There's a ton of concerns about that property. So I ask that we look into that and we discuss it more than decisions being made based on very low knowledge of what is going on there. It's super frustrating to us because we asked for the right thing to be done by the city. That didn't happen. We said, okay, we'll fix the problem. We'll gladly purchase the property for whatever the value is. And now we're in some sort of interesting situation based on the fact that the city has the neighboring property. And if it doesn't fall into a sliver sale, it could fall into a negotiated sale. So thank you.

Okay. Okay. We have executive items, two of them. Do I have a motion to go into executive session? Councillor Hedinger.

Mayor, I move to go into executive session for items 10-1 and 10-2. Second.

I have a motion from Councillor Hedinger, a second from Councillor Coggen. All in favor say, oh, question from?

Can we have an explanation so the citizens watching will understand what we're going into executive session for 10-2?

our last council meeting there was two presentations that overlapped the same parcel property and this but our city attorney was not here that week or able to zoom in and this executive session is to give us the opportunity to discuss this property with city attorney and city manager with that all