Town Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us for this special meeting. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Mayor Stanton? Here. Vice Mayor LaBelle?

Here.

Council Member Andeen Keller?

Here.

Council Member Liepman?

Here.

Council Member Moore? Here. Council Member Pace? Here.

Here.

Council Member Thomason.

Here.

We have a quorum. Awesome. First element we have, first item is 26-199, discussion of possible action to suspend a section of the town council procedures regarding remote attendance at council meetings. And I would ask if there's any comments from the town clerk about that.

No comments, this is just a procedural rule that needs to be suspended because there is a majority of the council that is attending remotely.

All right, very good. With that, if there's any discussion, I'd ask if there's a motion.

Mayor? I move we suspend section eight of the town council rules and procedures prohibiting more than three council members from attending a council meeting remotely. I second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passed. The second item for discussion and possible action to approve Resolution 2026-11, amending Resolution 2026-11. 26-01, relating to proposing a permanent adjustment to the 1979-1980 basic expenditure limit of the town of Paradise Valley to be submitted to the voters of the town in the election on November 3, 2026. And I believe Mr. Ching is going to be presenting that.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. This special meeting and this item for consideration at this meeting came about, and I'll just give you a brief chronology. As you know, this council, passed the referral of this resolution, the original resolution, to the ballot for the November election in February of this year. At the time, we prepared the language and the calculation of that 1979-1980 base expenditure limit based upon the demographic information we had at the time and based upon the inflation information that we had at the time. That was all we had. So at the time, it was passed. It was passed with the intent to then, of course, put it on for November. We, as part of our requirements under state law, have to provide our calculations for these ballot measures to the state auditor general. They came back with their comments within the last week or so. And their comments were, since you passed this resolution, the calculations have changed, the demographic information, the census information has, the mid decade census information has changed slightly, the inflation adjustment has changed slightly, so therefore your language should change. If it doesn't, if it stays at the base 79, 80 base expenditure limit that it is, then the effect in 2026, 2027, would be that the increase in the expenditure limitation would be closer to $21 million than what was council's direction, which was $20 million. If you want to stay at $20 million, you need to adjust downward the base expenditure limit for the 7980 number from 4.2 roughly to about 3.9 million. So that's what's in front of you. So the resolution that you have that was in the packet last week provides that downward adjustment. So the intent of all this is to keep it at the number that Council directed for the actual increase to our expenditure limitation, which would remain at $20 million if this downward adjustment was made. And I'm saying a lot of things that intrude significantly upon the expertise of our CFO, Leslie Duresch, who's in the room. If there's anything that needs to be added, I would certainly allow her to do so if I missed anything. Okay, all right, she prepared me well. So that's really the sum and substance of what this is. I would characterize it as a technical adjustment. Had we passed it, their adjustments came out in April, so any action after that we would have taken into account anyway, but because council's action predated their April adjustments, they factored that in for the purpose of the ballot question for November. And that's why we're here today, to make sure that we capture the intent that council had back in February, if that is the vote of council.

Thank you, Mr. Ching. I'd open up for questions from my colleagues for Mr. Ching or for our CFO, Leslie DeResh. I think Councilmember Thomson has a question.

I don't think my question is appropriate, but I'm going to ask. I'm interested in understanding the timing relative to publishing the ballot initiative and the opportunity for public comment. I recognize that is not directly related to the amount. And I'll either leave it to the attorney or staff to decide if they can answer that in this context.

I think that's a good clerk question, because he knows all the dates for the election.

So we need a good clerk to answer it.

Luckily, we have one.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Thomason, believe it or not, ballot proof language is being released today and the proof has to be approved on July 2nd. So it's timely that the council is taking action on this today because I was planning on releasing the notice accepting pro-con statements for the ballot measures tomorrow, but that depends on the council's vote today. because the ballot language that I would provide as part of that announcement includes this base expenditure limit number. So the short answer to your question is tomorrow.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Absolutely. Questions from the Zoom gallery? Council Member Andine Keller.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank staff for bringing this back to us and organizing the council meeting to get this matter taken care of. And I still fully support the change and the expenditure limitation increase that we've discussed and it was approved earlier in the year. And I think, you know, it's for the residents, so. That's why I wanted to just make those comments to publicly. So anyway, but thank you to staff for bringing this forward and for explaining what was going on. And I yield from there.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Pace.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Yes, I agree. Thank you to the staff for bringing this up, even though the group voted as a majority for the expenditure limitation. I think it was very thoughtful and the right thing to do when the amount went up than what we approved. So I'll be supporting the technical amendment to keep it at $20 million. And I do think it means we don't spend it unless we need it. Just like for 10 years, we've shown good stewardship in not spending all the money. And we always had the right to increase bonds and issue bonds without any approval from the residents and spend more money if we wanted to. And we don't do that. We tend to be fiscally conservative, but it's a wise thing to do to have this buffer with this expenditure limitation increase to 20 million, not the extra that they just added based on the population numbers so that we have future councils who can get things done if needed. We've got open items with capital improvement projects, but we also have The new changes that may come our way on police staffing and forces with the photo radar issues that may increase our needs, and there's other things that we have looked at that may come up. So I think it's wise to do it. It does not mean we're going to spend it, but we should be making sure we're fiscal stewards by having money available if needed, just like we've done this before and voted for it with our residents and for the past 10 years have been good stewards. Thank you. I yield.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Moore.

Thanks, Mayor. Just clarification, and I know that this is the answer, but we are only voting on whether or not to keep it at 20. There's no vote of whether or not it's to do it or not. It's just the procedural things, correct? So those of us who voted no in the past for the expenditure limitation, this doesn't really have anything to do with that. This only has to do with the technicality of... the amount, is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else, Councilmember Moore?

No other questions, Mayor, thank you.

Absolutely, Vice Mayor?

No questions.

No questions? All right, is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak on this issue? Not seeing anybody in the audience who wants to speak on this issue, I'd ask if there's not any further discussion. Is there a motion?

I guess I'll do it again. Mayor, I move we approve Resolution 2026-11. Second.

All right, it's been moved and it's been seconded. And I'd ask if there's any further discussion. Not seeing any hands waving or signaling, I'm going to ask if we can call a voice vote. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? The motion passes. All right, with that, I'd ask if there is no further business for this special meeting, if there's a motion to it.

Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. Can we have a roll call vote? I didn't. Did everybody vote in the affirmative? Okay, we're getting a roll call vote, that's fine. So the motion is on adoption of resolution number 2026-11. Council Member Andeen Keller.

Aye.

Council Member Andeen Keller votes aye. Vice Mayor LaBelle.

Aye.

Vice Mayor LaBelle votes aye. Council Member Liebman.

Aye.

Council Member Liebman votes aye. Council Member Moore. Aye. Council Member Moore votes aye. Council Member Pace.

Aye.

Councilmember Pace votes aye. Councilmember Thomason?

Aye.

Councilmember Thomason votes aye. Mayor Stanton? Aye. Mayor Stanton votes aye. Thank you for your indulgence.

All right, motion passes. Now back to a thought about a motion to adjourn this special meeting.

Mayor, I move for adjournment. Second.

It's going to move in a second. All those in favor to adjourn this special meeting, please say aye.

Aye.

All right, have a great 4th of July. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.