Town Council - Regular Meeting

All right, thank you. Hi, everybody. Good to see everybody back together and back in session. Hope everyone had a good break. I know everybody was in touch with the staff and working on issues, so it's nice to have everybody back in person. Meeting is now called to order.

Would the clerk please call the roll? Mayor Stanton? Here. Vice Mayor LaBelle?

Here.

Council Member Handean-Keller? Here. Councilmember Liebman?

Here.

Councilmember Moore? Here. Councilmember Pace? Here. Councilmember Thomason?

Here.

We have a quorum. Thank you. First item today is going to be an executive session. And executive sessions are not open to the public. So those folks that may be tuned in at home, we're going to suspend the video and plan to be back online at about 4 o'clock for the balance of the study session. So I would ask if there is a motion to go into executive session.

So moved.

It's been moved.

I'll second.

Seconded by Council Member Lietman. All those in favor?

Aye.

Anybody opposed? All right. We are now moving into executive session.

We turn our microphones off today. Everyone's here.

I like it. Oh, no. I don't think it's musty. My allergies are closed off my factory senses. Mr. Miller, are we prepared? All right, well, thank you, everybody. The public meeting is reconvened, and the next item on our agenda is the study session. These items are scheduled for discussion among the council staff or the designees. Votes will not be taken on any of these items at this time, but may be scheduled for final action later in the meeting or at a future meeting. Members of the public are asked to hold their comments until call to the public, scheduled to begin shortly after 6 PM. Public comments will also be invited when the agenda topic is placed on a future agenda for action. The first item is to receive a report from our public lobbyist, Douglas Cole, regarding the summary of the 2026 legislative session and a preview of the 2027.

Legislative session mr. Cole Thank You mayor counsel for the record Doug Cole with high ground and we are your contract lobbyists and it's good to be here and Happy almost fall feels like it's summer and 108 outside today, but hopefully the weather will change here shortly And I hope all your summers went well It's good to be here. I always look forward to our time together and have an opportunity to sit down and talk a few things about the Puzzle Palace, commonly 1700 West Washington, under the Copper Dome. It's a TV show. It's a TV show, yeah. It's Mayor Councilmember Thomason, yes, it is a reality show. Anyway, I don't know if anybody would watch it, though. So I have put out in front of you three documents. And the first document is the overview that you normally see that we look at. It's a similar document that we look at during the course of the session. It's kind of a summary wrap up. And then for your amusement is the eight propositions that are going to be on the ballot here in November. And then lastly, there's a grid chart, a single page that has all the resolutions that were passed the league late last month that most of you attended. And by the way, thank you for your great, great attendance at the league. I think it was very well attended, not only by the town, but by your fellow other 93 municipalities. I thought it was a good event at the Arizona Biltmore. So moving quickly, because I know we have a half hour, right, Mayor? Yes, sir. Moving quickly, as you can see, it was 153 days of session. We adjourned in June. I was happy about that, because lately we've been June 30, or even late as August under the Hobbs administration and having a Republican legislature. As you can see, I think the most stunning or eye-watering thing that happened during this session is that next line, 2,030 bills. That's never happened before, folks. We went into, you know, usually Senate bills, you know, begin with a one, 1,000-something, and then the House bills are 2,000-something. We moved that. The House got into the 4,000. So I don't think that's a good milestone, personally. That was my 35th session of being down at the legislature, and having 2,030 bills is... Amazing amount. As you can see, only 264 were signed into law. So do the math on that. And then 151 were vetoed. And by the way, that was not the record for the governor. She did 174, I think, two sessions ago. But that's still a big number. And a lot of those bills that were vetoed, like, why did she veto so many of them? A good many of them, I'd say probably around a quarter of a third, were bills that she had already vetoed before. They just keep sending them to her. So general effective day is day after tomorrow, so on Saturday, for bills that didn't have an emergency clause in them. So any questions on that, just overview? So here we go with the fun stuff I put up top. This was Celina Bliss's bill. This is what we call the Sedona Prescott bill. You know, Celina Bliss represents Legislative District 1. And they've had a lot of challenges, as the town has also. That bill failed to receive a committee hearing in the Senate. We can anticipate that a version of this bill will be returning next year. Again, elections have consequences. We'll talk more about the election at the end of this presentation. But it may have a different fate next year, depending upon what the legislature says. This is a bill we talked about over the course of the session. Going into photo radar, our favorite topic. This is SCR 1004. As you will see on your referral page, is also known as Proposition 319. It's on the ballot and We've talked about this quite a bit during session nothing much changed there. It's exactly what what when last time I was here We talked about that will be on the ballot. It'll be one of the eight that made it 1624 was a bill we talked about a lot the town worked a lot behind the scenes with with other cities with Scottsdale all the other other photo enforcement cities Phoenix Mesa Chandler And this is a bill that kind of got a little weird because, as you can see, it capped traffic violations at $75 if they're a photo. But we got them to take out red light and school crossing violations. And then at the end, one of the lobbyists added $15 of the money would go to the police officer training. So it's what we call a vendor bill. So it would go to a specific vendor. And the governor, even though we made it better, the governor, no liking, and she vetoed it there towards the end. Again, we talked about that one. And we also talked about 2369. As you can see, we managed to kill that one also. You'll see in this report, we did a lot of good job of killing bills, bad things. So I was really kind of happy about that. LPRs, a topic that's kind of emerging. It's kind of getting the flavor of data centers. I don't know which one has more public data centers or license plate readers. It is quite the public debate, and I know that you are all laser focused on that. Senate Bill 1111, this is a bill we brought you early on. This is the bill that Chief, you worked on with the Chief's Association. This was kind of the let's get ahead of the regulation. There are no statutory. I'm sure I'm telling you stuff you already know from your fine legal counsel here. There's not a lot of law in Arizona Revised Statute that are directly related to license plate readers. And this was kind of getting ahead of of putting some guidelines and how they should be operated and such. Unfortunately, it didn't make it. It got hijacked at the end by Senator Hoffman, who wanted to basically completely eliminate the bill that he offered on the floor, would have practically eliminated the operation of LPRs in the state of Arizona. So I bring that up because we probably are going to see both of these back in one form or another next year, including Senator Hoffman's striker, which I didn't include to this because it didn't go anywhere. It was just offered on the floor. If I put in this report every amendment that was offered on the floor, we would be here until probably Thanksgiving. So that's not here. But I do have that language with me if any of you want to see what Senator Hoffman up. Because he's head of the Freedom Caucus, we can anticipate that. that Stryker language will be back. This was Senator Fincham's language. As you can see, didn't make it very far. It also died in the Senate. tourism legislation here's one that we supported more happy about experience Scottsdale and in in Councilmember Pace sits on that let on the Legislative Council so she's probably tired of hearing me me and others talk about this bill this is a good thing yay we won one this past this is a multi-year endeavor and We finally get across the finish line and we'll see you know It's all up to you how you move forward with it working with your with move Scottsdale and partnership on that any questions cool zoning Assisted living occupancy I think we all know this bill I This one, Manny referred to as the Paradise Valley bill. I want to thank you for, want to thank the town and your legal staff and the town manager, everybody working where we got a seat at the table. And I think we made what could have been a very bad thing. I think we made it OK. So that's how the process ought to work. Yes, Mayor. Go ahead. Senator, let's, Mayor, Council Mayor Pace, Senator Kavanaugh was the only Republican that voted against Senate Bill 1350 back in 2015 and has been a champion on keeping local control. Where he is specifically with the current town council and what's going on in Fountain Hills, I don't know. But historically, he has been the only Republican that has been the consistent no vote on taking over municipalities' authority to regulate short-term rentals.

He's for local control, but then he's jumped in now completely opposite on that for local control for Paradise Valley. So is he changing position, or is it just it's good for Fountain Hills, or he doesn't really believe in local control for municipalities anymore?

Mayor, Councilmember Pace, I was speaking specifically to STRs. Are you speaking to the assisted living bill? Yeah, I think that he has been a champion STRs and did introduce this bill, yes. I don't know what, I can't speak to what his motivation is behind that. He did work with us though on getting to a point where we were good with it. As you remember, this was early on. This was one of the first bills out. And so he could have chosen Mayor, Councilmember Pace, to not let us work with them and try to get the bill where we were OK with it, recognizing that our number was not 10 on your original code that you passed. But he did allow us to work with him and have a seat at the table. And it's a compromise process. Please continue. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that. All righty. Getting into other things, and a lot of these we were able to kill because, as you know, we've done a lot in the past with ADUs and other things. So as you can see, that bill died. This bill died. I like died. Usually that's good because we fight a lot of preemption stuff, right? This one, unmanned aircraft. This gets into a preemption, one of the stuff that passed. So we put that in there, so recognizing what may be coming ahead. public body executive sessions agenda. I'm sure Mr. McGuire and your town manager have read these bills. We get these every year dealing with how you do e-sessions, how you notice meetings, where you notice meetings. We get these every year. Police officer certification. This is an alternative to AZ Post. I'm sure the chief knows about this. For folks that were discharged veterans who are MPs. Cities and Towns posting website. Again, I just referenced that. Senator Angus, who is a longtime Mojave County supervisor. That could have been a lot worse. She did a good job with that. Firefighters occupational disease cancers, we see. These coming through where our public safety folks are as new cancers and new illnesses emerge within our public safety folks, those are brought up and those lists are updated. Traumatic event counseling, again, dealing with just general issues here that could touch the town. Water bills, there were a ton of water bills. I got to tell you, most of them were vetoed. Most of them were introduced by Representative Gill Griffin. She's moving back over to the Senate. We'll see a lot more with the new CAP allocation. That was not so kind to the state of Arizona, where we were supposed to cut 700. in 60,000 acre feet a year just from Arizona. And none of our friends in the Upper Basin get any cuts. That will be a big topic coming forward. Digital goods. This was a tough one we all fought on. And then on 2290 TPT sourcing. These two bills and 40-30, these three bills, excuse me. These are bills, as you can see, two of them by Representative Justin Olsen, one by Mr. Cupper. These were bills were all hands on deck by the league. Nick Ponder in my office on behalf of the league and in the town and others, we were front and center on these. We also appreciate all the all the help by professional staff and helping these and again this this was the referral on freezing rates these were all all hands on deck we were able to kill and of course Wendy Rogers municipality emergency majors in their vote so those were huge preemptions that we got attacked mayor and council we were able to kill and and stop so those are just kind of session highlights as you see a lot of a lot of stuff was was we were successful, and we're always successful when we all stay together as municipalities. And where council members and mayors across the state join together and call and thank you all. This is the point I have in my notes here. Thank you all. Every one of you have been involved, from going down there to picking up the phone and calling one of our LD4 delegation members. We are very, you are one of the most active municipalities with your legislative delegation. And it's kind of been a hallmark of the town. And thank you, thank you, thank you. It makes my life a lot more productive with you all helping out. Because you're the electeds. You're the ones that are getting the calls from your constituents here in the town. And I really appreciate what you've done. And I also want to thank my colleagues at my firm, Nick Ponder and Jessica Blazina. I think you both work, and others, Scott Smith, that work on municipal issues. You may not see them. You see me sitting here. They're better looking than me. But you got me. Sorry. But it's a team effort, working with everybody. And I appreciate, again, the town attorney, the town manager, your clerk, Amy and the mayor always being available for phone calls and saying, we got a problem. So let's fix it. So any questions on the legislative overview? And we'll get into the future session here in a minute. Any questions on what happened in the last session? Mayor, I see Council Member has a question.

Thank you. This is a wonderful presentation. I just have a question about HB 2875. local regulation prohibition unmanned aircraft. That went by so quickly, I didn't quite understand And I'm trying to read it, and I don't quite understand why this is a good thing.

Well, I would, Mayor, Council Member Lee, it's a preemption. It's a preemption. We did pretty good on killing a lot of our preemption. This isn't one of them. I think that they were looking, industry and others were looking for some consistency is what they normally say. So it is a preemption. And I see the town attorney has it.

It is a preemption, but as you will see coming up in our zoning ordinance amendments in another month, there is a little silver lining for Paradise Valley. The bill is a preemption bill against takeoffs and landings of commercial drones in commercial areas, but a specific allowance for prohibiting them in single family residential areas. Yes, and you just happen to live in a community that is very much single-family residences. So we will be bringing back a don't land your drones or take off your drones NPV provision to comply with this, along with the other zoning package we'll bring you a little bit later on.

See, Amazon wants to drop.

Well, they can drop them. They can't land or take off.

Right. So what if they don't?

So remember, the current system of delivery is to hover and drop.

Oh, OK.

So we wouldn't be able to prohibit that. But takeoffs and landings from residential is prohibited. So we're going to take the little tiny cracker that we got out of this thing and put it in play. Chad will run out of the room when they say this it'll be our zoning enforcement violation I think councilmember pace has a question also On 2075 that caught everybody's attention Do we have?

protections for are first responders, because we're not supposed to have these when planes are up. Is that somewhere carved out for police and for drones? And what does it do for zoning? Is it all drones in work by the municipality, or is it limited to first responders that they have to set down because of the planes, the helicopters, and other things? What is the safety component of that?

I think it's public safety.

So that overrides this. We already have a provision in the state.

No, this bill specifically carves it out.

That's fine.

All right. Not seeing any other questions at this point.

Please continue. Thank you, Mayor. So moving on to the next document. This is the single page chart that's up on here that I handed out here. This is the every year, as you know, the league has if you look here on the bottom here, has their five subcommittees, their committees. And one of them, called the Neighborhood Sustainability and Quality of Life, NESQL, was chaired by I think somebody you know. Oh, that would be you, Mayor Stanton. Yes, indeed. Yes. So thank you, Mayor, for chairing that committee. Because that was one of the most, if you look here on the chart, look at all those things that your committee got on, passed by the league as resolutions. So I wanted to bring those to you because they're STRs. So what this means is the league on Tuesday of the two weeks ago, heading the third week now, at the Biltmore, all of your fellow municipalities voted on these as these would be legislative proposals that the league staff would get introduced in this session, this upcoming session, and try to get across the finish line. So as you can see, four of them. went through Mayor Stanton's committee and were presented to the league as a whole, and they agreed to move forward with them. So this means that league staff now and their contract lobbyists, which would be members of my firm also and others, will be out looking for sponsors league legal counsel working with legislative counsel, draft language, and we'll have that for you once that gets all drafted up. And these four items will be put in front of the legislature and work through the process and hope, and I'm sure there'll be other STRs, but this will have the the backing of the league and other municipal lobbyists and mayors and councils will hopefully be working with their legislative delegation to get this stuff passed. So pretty straightforward things. And the details, we'll have more details once the legislation gets drafted. Mayor, do you want to add anything since you were chairman of this committee?

No, other than it's very clear that the idea of local control is a priority. And all of these municipalities rallied to these particular items that I think are important to all of us on the short-term rental issue. But clearly, I heard it over and over again, The threat to local control and what does that mean not just on short-term rentals, but on zoning and other factors? And so it was to your point mr. Cole it was great to see the working together for the common good there may be differences for each one of us and specifics but collectively it's clear that local control is a priority and

So any question on any of these leaks? Well, again, I know these are just summaries, but we'll have language in front of you probably around January of next year when we get started with the session. All righty. We're moving right along here. Last is the four-page document in front of you, two-sided, meaning that there are eight propositions. There were more, but the Arizona Supreme Court and other courts have thrown some of them off. So the first three propositions that you see, 141, vehicle miles. The next one there is 316, local governments have adopted increasing tax on groceries. This doesn't affect the town, but it does affect your fellow many fellow municipalities. So that's the grocery tax prohibition. As you can see it has a nuance It cannot be increased those that have it Cannot increase the maximum rate of 2% That was that was passed in the also the 25 session and in and lastly in 25 session Dealing with drug cartels and terrorist organizations. So those were the three that came out of the 2025 session and So they've been around and they will be making the ballot here in November now we move into the into the propositions over past this session relating to student athletics Must as you can pretty straightforward of what what that does there and These are mainly issues that came out that were bills that the governor had previously vetoed. And so the legislature, since she had vetoed them numerous times, the legislature said, no, we'll go around her and refer them directly to the ballot. I think it goes without saying that any of these policy issues And every one of these ones now that we have, these are not citizen initiatives. Every one of these are referrals from the legislature. The one citizen initiative got kicked off the ballot for not having enough signatures through the legal process. But it goes without saying, because Arizona has the Voter Protection Act, that if any of these pass, then they're going to be voter protected, meaning that they can never be rescinded. They can only be amended to further the purpose of the act with three-quarter votes of both legislative chambers and the governor's signature. So really kind of locks this into what the original proposition states. So I always like to remind people of that because we can get these issues and They sound good, but they can never be changed, even though voters have passed them. So again, another bill that the governor had vetoed here relating to preferential treatment. Then the next one's the big one here. Yep, here we go. One we've all seen many, many, many times and that we helped negotiate. So this is the one, Prop 319. This is dealing with photo enforcement. And I underline the words photo enforcement. And then we have how school districts spend money. Another issue the governor had made known that she would not support. So 60% for bigger school districts in the classroom. And then we have another one. This is probably one of the most controversial ones on the ballot. This was forwarded, another one the governor vetoed, forwarded by Representative Culloden, who's running for Secretary of State. This was his bill that he championed. And this requires voter ID, including those that are vote by mail, which, as you all know, 80% to 90% of Arizonans vote by mail. And no one seems to know how that's going to happen if this passes, how people that vote by mail would show their ID. So if this passes, I think it's going to cause a tough effect on how elections are going to be operated in the state of Arizona. So with that, those are the eight that are going to be on the ballot. And so what does that mean? We only have eight. So Maricopa County announced that they designed their ballot last week. And it's only going to be one piece of paper this year. Two sides, but just one piece of paper. As you remember last time, it was two pieces of paper and four sides. So that's what you're going to see on the ballot. I think we're 28 days out from ballots being mailed or less. Yeah, 28 days, 27 days. So election's underway. Again, there's a feeling by some that it may be a wave election. Don't know. It's hard to tell at this time. It's a very unsettled times with the Iraq war and affordabilities and other things. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens. As you know, the legislative margins between the House and the Senate are very narrow. So I'm going to take a couple of swing districts. And by the way, LD4 is a swing district. So as you all know, just look at your street corners, and look at your mailboxes, and your phone calls, and your text messages here in LD4. You are a target, nationally targeted. Both parties are targeting. state legislative let state legislators legislatures and LD4 is one of the districts that is a national nationally targeted district along with congressional district one and your congressional district. So you guys are in ground zero here in Paradise Valley. So your votes really, really, really count here and could help shape the future of if the legislature stays in Republican hands or whether it goes tie. I'm kind of betting on a tie in the House of Representatives. That has never happened, by the way. By the way, fun fact, last time the Arizona House of Representatives was out of Republicans' hands was in 1967, I think it was. Been a while. The state Senate was in Democrat hands from 1991 to 1990 through 1994. And then it was tied from 2001 to 2004. 2003, sorry, both of those three. So the Senate was tied then. It was in Democratic hands early 90s. House has not been in any other hands besides Republicans since around 67, 68. So a lot of these things, what does all that mean? It means a lot. The governor has been a champion. This current governor has been a champion of being a backstop, as you saw all those vetoes, on local control and municipal authority. So that's something to watch for. If the legislature would happen to change, then we'll have to see what the new environment is. what the current environment has been for many years with some of these preemption bills. So we'll just have to see what happens. We also, luckily, we didn't see a budgetary attack on state shared revenues this year, which we thought was coming. Did not happen. That's very important to the town. Another thing we did not see was construction sales tax. We kind of got a little reprieve from that. As you all know, we have fought those battles time and time again, which is so important. That's one foundational revenue source for the town between state shared revenues and construction sales tax, and also trying to limit, we don't have a food tax, even though it's on the ballot. It does affect your other municipalities and such. So another thing that we saw, which no one, I think, we thought about it in the past, and you saw it as one of the league resolutions, When you get a town like the town of Santan Valley with over 100,000 people all of a sudden comes online, well, your state share revenues get diluted a bit. So we're going to see every municipality, including the town, is going to see that a bit. We did get some funding, as the chief can tell you. We did get some earmarked funding. Last year, we had $100,000 for the shooting range. And then any further monies on that were stopped in the appropriation process. But we did get $150,000 for, I'm drawing a blank, Equipment. Equipment.

I think we've gotten one or two installments of that already, haven't we, Chief?

Yeah. One. Yeah, so that's, yeah, so that was Senator Warner got that for us. And then we also, and then a part of another bill, which was Senate Bill 1847, we got about $55,000 for a records management system, records management system in the Chiefs. A lot of municipalities got that. So there were some bright spots on the money. It's been a very lean year. Next year will also be a lean year. Long-term projections by joint legislative budget committee shows that things will get stabilized after the next fiscal year as an effect of the flat tax and the drawdown of COVID funds. So with that, I think it stayed in 30 minutes. I did.

Well, open up for questions from my colleagues. I would please extend our great thanks to your team at High Ground. You all do a remarkable job in a very challenging day-to-day climate. So we appreciate you and our staff working with you to find the best results to help protect and keep Paradise Valley front and center on legislative issues. One question I would have, Mr. Cole, is moving forward now. What do we see for the next steps for this council? Are we going to be going through the process of creating those, refining those legislative priorities? And how does that look on the timeline?

Yeah, I think we'll bring to you probably in December, January, town manager. Yeah, for the city priorities, I want to say it's in November. November, okay. It's our November meeting. So we'll go back through that. So please dust that off, and it's a good document. And the reason I like the way you do it here in the town is because it gives – It gives the town manager, town attorney, yourself, the vice mayor, when things are moving pretty quick, you have the authority to, as you all know, because you've all been involved in this, you only have to have 24-hour notice on an amendment in a committee. And things move pretty quick. We can't bring everything in front of council and say, hey. And so we've got to stay under those guidelines and allows us flexibility and maneuverability and be a little agile. So we'll do that. It's a good document. I think that everything that's on the one from last year, I think, is still very topical. But I think it will be in front of council after the election. Yes. So we'll see what happens. But this could be a couple of weeks before we know on some of these really close races, like here in LD4 and CD1. So we'll do that. And then we'll get the league bills dealing with STRs. And then there'll be pre-filing starts in November, usually around Thanksgiving. Members of the legislature are eligible to pre-file bills. We'll start to see some of the maybe hopefully more happy things. But I'm sure we'll still see the stuff that we were able to kill this past session come back again and again and again. I hope that answered your question, Mayor.

It did, thank you. And I have questions for my colleagues at this point, for Mr. Cole. Again, thank you, and thanks to my colleagues. I think we're all in lockstep in working together to find the best pathway through the legislative puzzle palace that we look at. So thank you, Mr. Cole. Thank you and your team and my colleagues. We'll be ready to go.

And keep your request to speak passwords and sign-ins active because we'll be... Love how you guys use those, and you use them judiciously. And I know you all have our LD4 legislators' cell phone numbers, and God bless you. You're so great about call to actions and making stuff happen. I really, really appreciate it. With that, I know you have other things to talk about today, Mayor and Council, but it's always good to be here, and look forward to our next meeting together.

Thank you, Mr. Cole. Thanks very much. All right, we have our next item coming up. We have is for discussion, item 26204, discussion of temporary use permits. And that's 60 minutes, for 60 minutes. And we've got Mr. George Burton, who is going to be presenting.

Good evening mayor and council members So the June council meeting Council asked staff to provide a brief update regarding the temporary use permit process So my goal today is to give you a little bit of background and about the requirements of the temporary use permit So Jennifer this afternoon I want to briefly go over the background discussion and then next steps And the TUP was added to Article 11 of the zoning ordinance back in November of 2005. And it basically identifies requirements and process for off-site construction facilities and on-site sale facilities. And since this was created, we've had a total of 32 requests. Twenty-one permits were issued, four rejected, seven were complete, and zero have been revoked. The rejected applications were not accepted because they were either associated with projects not related to the town or they weren't meeting all the criteria. And based upon the number of requests, we get about two requests a year for temporary use permits. And broken up between basically private development and also utility capital improvements, the utility capital improvements are probably about 2 thirds of the permit TUPs that we've issued. The other third are for private development. As you can see by these numbers, most of it's been for resort redevelopment. We did have two that were actually related to construction of individual properties. Those were both for new single-family residences. One was used off of McDonald and 56th Street. Another one was used on Indian Bend Road. So the TUP does allow some requirements for, again, those off-site construction locations, and then also the establishment of promotional sales activities, basically, for the SGPs. Like when La Silla developed, they had the villas. They created a model home. And they're showing the fit and finish to help sell that. Mount Shadows did something similar to that as well. So the code identifies that a TUP property can be used for storing material, temporary offices, structural building components, employee parking, sales office, and other support facilities. And the TUP process is administrative. So as long as they're meeting all our requirements per code, we can issue the permit. So the TUP section of code identifies that they have to provide us with written permission from the property owner. They should ideally come to us and ask for the permit before they use the site. Provide any screening and buffering that TUP is valid for two years or issuance of CFO or CFC, whichever is first. Providing we get a complete application that we have to act on it within seven days and they can ask for a one-time six-month extension. The typical stipulations or conditions that staff put on a TEP is that we require the construction trailer or sales office to be set back 20 feet from all property lines. We note that the temporary generators have to be compliant with their town noise ordinance. We require dust control. It should be in compliance with county requirements, and any activities shall comply with state and town construction hours. Our code does have a section to revoke the TAP. So if they're not following it, we can revoke it, which we've never done. Typically, when there are occasional deviations, we notify the applicant and they bring it into compliance. But should we have to revoke it, we have to give them written notice by mail, post the property, and then we can revoke it. And if they continue with the violation afterwards, we'll send it to the attorney's office for prosecution. So recently, we did have one property associated off of Horseshoe Lane for the work on Tatum Boulevard for Southwest Gas. We did receive some complaints about lack of dust control and occasionally exceeding the permitted hours of use. Staff did contact the applicant. They gave us a schedule for watering down the yard. And then we told them, if you do have to deviate, let us know so we can see if it's approvable or not. Since we did contact them, they contacted us twice to go an hour beyond because some equipment broke. And they got done within, because they were allowed to go till 6 o'clock, so they got done prior to 7 to get that wrapped up. After we communicated with them, we didn't get any more complaints. So again, per council's request, we just want to provide this brief overview, take any input. And I just wanted to also provide this map here that was in your packet. This starts to show the locations that have been used for temporary use permit sites over the past 20 years. And I'd be happy to answer any questions. And again, if there's any direction or research council would like us to do, we'll make that happen and come back at a later date with that information.

Thank you, Mr. Merton. Appreciate that. Questions? Council Member Pace?

I'll go first. OK, thank you, Mayor. Thank you. And this came to us because why, on the TUPs? How did it come about?

The most recent one was that complaints that we received for the Tatum project.

OK, and was it brought to county? Are you bringing it from staff, or did we ask? You asked them during the gym meeting. Someone asked on TUPs. OK, because I'm on minor SUPs, as far as my focus is. But on the TUPs, what do we do in this? I was reading the, and thank you, the staff report was good. So George, thank you for that, and the PowerPoint. I was looking for how do we deal with the cars that get parked. So I noticed we have the setback and the tools for where they can put equipment and how they store it. And of course, dust control, which that sign is supposed to be posted on the front, small sign, so people can complain directly so we don't even have to get involved. And they're very picky at Maricopa County, so they will be out. But what are we doing in all this recognizing the vehicles and where they park? Because what I see is it starts destroying landscape and the buffers and our areas because the cars are trying to park for people working everywhere.

They're supposed to park on site. So like the horseshoe one that was most recent, they did have a parking area designated on there. What they told us, they were going to have all their employees park on site. Due to the complaints, they did have a person man the yard to make sure they were coming in not before the start hours, and then it was being closed up at the end of day.

OK, but is there something that says that in our code right now? Or is that just something you're doing when you do the TUP? Is it mentioned parking?

When we do the TUP, we stipulate in compliance with the submitted plan. So that would have to be on site parking unless they specifically ask to do parking in the right of way.

OK, or they can choose to park someplace else and bus it in. Correct.

That's another option as well.

But is it in our code, or you just do that as part of your TUP process? I'm trying to find out, do we need to amend things to make it better and stronger and clearer?

We do that as a TUP process. It doesn't specifically identify that in code. Those are stipulations that staff adds during the process.

OK, I mean, I'd be happy to amend it to add traffic management, because we did it in the hillside. It's very clear there for a constructive safety management plan. It's not here, in my opinion. And it would help because it would make sure they're thinking of that when these utility companies who've not been treating our residents and areas that good lately would remember those components as they plan and come in before instead of you guys having to say it's our process or it's been our precedence to do it. I'd rather have it clear right in the thing. And then I'd also suggest that for consideration is to add traffic and specifics about it. But if they damage the landscape all around it, because what we see is It doesn't take long in a week for the first car comes, and then the bushes are OK. And then the second car, and then pretty soon it's all just dirt, and it's back to a parking lot. And then we end up with the hikers and everybody else using it forever more. So maybe we could put something about traffic. And then also, damages done must be restored to the landscape level before they started, something like that. I'm just throwing that out. And then the third thing is, and maybe this falls under here, maybe it doesn't. I've been on a real tirade lately, as the town manager knows. I'm tired of the utility companies tearing up the roads and not restoring them like they were. And so we have the divots and the dump. I'm reporting it all the time. So where do we put in for temporary use that if they damage the roads to do their work, that they have to restore to the level that was there from Public Works and the trades before that? Where does that go?

I was going to jump in real quick just to make sure, because you and I have had correspondence with concerns you've had about construction in the right of way. And that's a separate topic we're talking. I just want to make sure, because I see Mr. McGuire reaching for the button. I just want to make sure. Today's presentation is about the code approved process to allow for temporary uses in on property for the purpose of construction, as we've seen the examples mostly for either resort construction or for utility work. So you're right. I mean, the utility work would take place off that site. We're talking about the actual parcel in town that has been approved for a lay down yard or for equipment. So that's the focus for today. We're happy to look at other things as council directs, but we'll make sure.

Today is that. So I would suggest the traffic be discussed. This is just me. I'm throwing it out for everybody. But the traffic be addressed. Damage to landscape in the area, whether it's right-of-ways or the area. And then if they damage any of the roadway tracking off the site and on, that it have to be repaired to the standard that whatever that level of the road is, that Public Works has worked so hard to get done. So those would be my three things. Thank you.

Had to change that.

Thanks, Mayor.

And I just support what Council Member Pace is talking about, and I think it does apply to this temporary use permit. And we do have good examples of the most recent one that we've had the complaints on. And the things that I saw, even though we asked for screening and stuff within that permit, I really didn't see that taking effect in either one of these locations that we're using right now. We have... pretty tall 40-foot, 55-foot trailers stored on the properties with materials in them and everything else. They're far and above the walls that are around the perimeter. So I support moving forward with something that also talks about, and I almost think that this should be a public hearing process where the residents in the area know about it and they can give input to because this is a really intense use within a residential neighborhood and it takes them it gets catches them all off guard I I know that Tom Andrew Chang and I have went by this one a few times together and I don't yeah we all I don't see the dust control being mitigated properly. I don't think they follow Maricopa County dust control procedures. They don't have track out areas. I mean, their dust control is to water it down right before you get there, and then 10 minutes later, this powdery dust is everywhere, and it's just unmanageable. You really have to go in with a... with an artificial agent or AD or something like that and code it if you're going to do something like that. But again, I'm in favor of a public hearing process, not an administrative process in this. I don't see where they, maybe they did, but I don't think they did. I don't think they had their SWPs and their actual permits from the county for dust control, stormwater improvement prevention plans. site tracking and they did that quite often with their heavy equipment. They drive it in and out of that construction yard and those tires are huge and they track it all the way down the street. And I think that was an issue. Definitely parking on site. I'm a firm believer that, and I think we're going to get to that in a future council meeting with Temporary construction fences and how their place and everything else because it's it's a real issue with Construction parking and how it's occurring around town right now, so glad we're gonna be addressing that one coming up but within this area here, I think it should be a formal plan and Laid out and and I just actually the entire thing should be a site plan and and all the proposed Trucks trailers storage offices Anything that they want to bring on a residential lot should be on a site plan that is clear and defined. It can't just be anything that they want. It has to be approved prior to. So I mean, I think I'm glad you brought this forward. I think the entire thing needs to be revamped. A two-year permit, wow, that's a long time to give permission in a residential neighborhood. And I don't support that either. I think this is, and I don't do this in the, In my commercial business, I would never approve of something in that length at all not even close We're talking short weeks for something otherwise they need to figure it out within their Right of their way area that they were doing and we talked about that there's plenty of examples within their right-of-way where they could have been Parking equipment like they do and all other municipalities. I think this one was clearly a a an issue that we needed to bring forward and update, so I'm glad we're bringing it forward. So I'm open to staff going back, re-looking at the whole thing, looking at all the complaints, looking at all the things that is discussed here, and then bringing that back forward to us. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. I think Council Member Liebman.

Thank you, Mayor. I strongly agree with both of my colleagues who have spoken. I think it's We have to protect our existing residents. So in addition to all of your great suggestions, I'm thinking that we require gates so people can't park on weekends and things. I am also a little unclear, and I read it. I tried to understand this. When resorts get a TUP, a TUP, is it on their property or is it on an adjacent property?

Both, depending on what it is. If it's for a sales facility, that's typically their property. So they get the TUP for that. But then if they also use storing material offsite, then they'll get a TUP for that as well.

OK. I'm a lot less concerned with the sales uses than I am with the construction uses for the machinery, the dust, the noise, the parking, all those things. So in addition to gates, I think we need to put in a strong enforcement. And I hate to say it, but maybe we charge them for us to enforce it, because I really felt our recent citizens' angst. And we can't let that continue happening. I'm also wondering if we might want to prohibit these on residential lots entirely. I mean, these are in neighborhoods. So I'm wondering why they have to be, you know, it's basically a commercial operation in a neighborhood, in a parking lot in a neighborhood, and we don't otherwise allow that. And my final question is the Southwest gas on Tatum. My understanding is these use permits can only be given if the construction or the event, whatever it is, is happening in Paradise Valley. And a good part of Tatum is owned by Phoenix. So I don't know exactly where the Southwest Gas was, but I'm not comfortable. And help me out here. This is a question. Was all the work being done in Paradise Valley on the Paradise Valley portion of Tatum?

Part of it was. But again, we also look holistically, not just if it's within town, but does it benefit the town? So upgrading the gas line will benefit our residents.

Maybe we need to not look at it so holistically, because that was a big construction project. And Phoenix doesn't keep our median nice that's on Tatum. And maybe we need to be much less generous in what we give because it has a real effect on our residents. So that's my spiel. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, I read the material. Thank you, Mr. Burton, for all the information that you provided for the study session material. And I read the material. And my one and only question was, where do we have it in here where we're communicating with our residents regarding these? TUPs, and I don't see it anywhere. It's not in there, no. And so that's a concern for me, because I wouldn't want to live right next door to something like that. And so I think that's important. Now, when they have these existing TUPs,

Is there signage that says if they're to... We haven't put up signs, so if they have any questions or issues, they can contact the contractor, but also they can contact us as well.

Right, right, right. No, I agree with Council Member Moore and Pace on the public hearing process, because, you know, with the resorts, they have an SUP, and then this is a TUP, but it's a commercial... And there's no notification to the residents. So in any event, I agree with moving forward with studying this and making changes. Thanks.

Council Member Thomason.

Thank you, Mayor. A couple of questions. TUP that was issued on Doubletree near Scottsdale Road, not on the town-owned property, but the private property, as I understand it, a six-month extension was granted. It was originally two years, and then it's been six months. So that's been going on two and a half years already. When's that due to expire?

I believe it has finished the road by the other day. They saw the construction fence up, but it doesn't look like any of the equipment's there and that it's all been removed. I contacted the contractor, but they haven't reached back out to me yet.

OK. For background, I presume that whoever is asking for the TUP and using the property is compensating the private property owner. Is that the traditional?

I'm not certain. All I get is the letter of authorization that they have the right to use it in any financial agreement the town's not a part of. So I'm not aware of it.

So we don't know. I'm assuming that if my lot is rented to a construction company that there's some compensation involved. OK. I am glad we're bringing this forward. I'm agreeing with my colleagues, probably even more violently and enthusiastically. We are a single family residential community that has been fighting for between 60 and 70 years to have a quiet, dark sky, peaceful community with lovely views. And that's why people buy here. So my opinion is the day of many construction yards in the middle of neighborhoods that are visually disturbing, audio disturbing, noise producing, I think those days need to come to an end. We have construction fatigue in the town because our town is going through a revitalization. It may never end, but there's a lot of construction that goes on. I'm personally disturbed that private enterprises are profiting at the expense of the neighbors by putting a construction site in the middle of the neighborhood. So I don't have a specific request for yes or no, this neighborhood or that neighborhood. But I think we need to clamp down on them. We need to reduce them. I think they are just contrary to who we are. And I think we really need to tighten them up. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor.

Thanks. I couldn't agree more with everything that I'm hearing today from my colleagues. I think that the 2005 ordinance, that's the last time it was written, rewritten, or looked at. I think that everybody in this room would agree that the town looks very different today. work that's going on is very different today. And I would argue that I don't think that ordinance provides sufficient protection at all for the neighbors today, given the scale and the duration of today's projects. It's just not the same as it was 20 years ago. So well overdue for a look. Couple of questions I would have is, or points that my other colleagues have made. Two years is a very long time. There's no disincentive there to just, you know, pressure's not on. Notification to neighbors is not even negotiable in my book. Everything's negotiable, but I would like to see that supported. My question is, 32 requests over 20 years. Is that correct? Am I understanding that? Correct. Correct. Yes. So have those requests escalated? And have the complaints escalated also? Because there's no timeline as to did we have one every four years, and now we're having just generally.

Yeah, I didn't go in that level of detail. A lot of them were typically issued around 2005 to probably 2012 when Montalicia and Mount Shadows was redeveloping because they got a lot of the projects from Montalicia. We didn't get many complaints because they bought the neighboring properties and then used them for the TUP's storage area. Same thing with Mount Shadows. We didn't have many complaints because they used East is a staging area while they're developing the west side, and then vice versa to some extent. Overall, we haven't had too many complaints, just some of these one-offs, like with the recent horseshoe and a couple of other ones. Similar again, it was mainly dust control and not following the hours of operation.

OK, yeah, that makes sense. And I would agree with Councilmember Liebman that The resort and the construction of a project like that's a little bit different than what Councilmember Thomason is referring to that's happening in our neighborhoods right now. So also, just one last question. So the issuing of the TUPs is not really subjective at all, right? Code states shall be granted. So you can't. really take a subjective look at, hey, that doesn't really make sense right now the way our code is written. We're not able to have any kind of discernment.

We have some because, again, we do add some stipulations regarding the setbacks for the construction trailers and whatnot. Basically, a lot of it's reiteration of other parts of code, the noise ordinance, desk control per county, so that thing. But other than that, it's just you meet the checkboxes, and we have to issue it if they're in compliance.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Thank you. And then one very last question. Dust control, we know it's regulated by Maricopa County.

Correct.

Who enforces and what is our tools for that? And that's not just to this issue. It's a lot of other issues as far as enforcement. So what is the process? What do we actually do when we get that complaint?

So when we get the complaint, we'll go out and take a look, see if they're watering. If not, like on this one, they made them give us a schedule on how they're going to mitigate the dust control.

And how do we follow up and check that?

We just spot check and make sure the ground is wet. Yeah, the county, but from the town's end. We made them get that scheduled. This contractor was good because they were sending me reports showing that when they had water to help substantiate that they're following. And once they implemented that, the complaints about dust stopped.

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate the report. And I look forward to looking into it deeper. So thank you very much.

Got a couple more points to make. First, Council Member Pace.

Thank you, Mayor, and thanks for everybody's comments. I think they've been really constructive, and it's good that you brought this forward. The one thing I wanted to understand, has the process always been administrative? Is that why it's not even? Correct. And why wouldn't we have given this to planning to look at and provide feedback and a public hearing process, because our planning has plenty of time. And they're helpful with institutional history and can help with all these things. And we seem to be putting too much in staff and not enough back to people who live here who can actually help guide this. So why did that never happen? And it's before your times. George was here, but Chad.

Yeah, Councilmember, Mayor. To your point, kind of generally, I guess I'm going to ask for a little more guidance on whether we really want to do these or not. Because all the things we're nibbling around aren't going to change what they are, to be honest. They're actually pretty well monitored and managed, for the most part, if you presume that they should exist. If you don't want them to exist, then that's something different. We can stop doing that. So to answer your question specifically, the code specified that they'd be administrative. The staff would never come and say, please send this to the planning commission.

Why wouldn't you do that? There's the big fundamental thing I have a problem with. Why wouldn't you, as chair of planning community, say to us, you know what? It would help us if we started getting more of the people who live here involved in public processes. We have a planning commission with professionals. We have policymakers here sitting at the table who can help guide that bridge when everybody's brand new. Why wouldn't I hear that from you, Mr. Weaver?

I mean, I'm sorry you're critical. It's not our position, frankly. It's just not. It's not our position to suggest that.

Well, I'm going to be advocating for processes to go public and back to people that know in the town, whether it's planning or council on every front. So that's going to be my new messaging.

Any process you set forth when you adopt the code, we will follow. And that's what we've done with this one. I would suggest to you, again, with this one, you have to decide whether we really think these are still appropriate. Because the town has changed over time since it's been mentioned. I agree. You are not going to find with these that bringing it forward to a public meeting is helpful. You're going to hear the neighbors don't want them. And so we have to decide, you have to decide as a body, do we need to allow them for certain construction purposes, or do we not? Because these folks can store on the site where they're constructing along the roadside, as was mentioned, and they can store out of the town. They do have options. But I think the council just needs to decide if it's appropriate. to have these, because we have, I think to George's point, it was asked, are they escalating? I think early on in the timeline that George highlighted, we had the TUPs for the resorts. We haven't had those in the past several years. The ones we've had recently are not

Mm-hmm.

Greatly escalated, but they're the construction utility variety.

Utilities again, yeah. So OK, so following up on that, and I appreciate it. I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated with what's happened. And the summer has been a really rough time for how many complaints I've gotten, more than any time in the 10 years I've served. So we need to start pulling back, getting control, setting our brand, setting our standard. And if the TUPs, I don't have a problem with construction needing it. The problem is we need to have a process where they submit a plan. It's going to have a public look at a planning meeting or wherever. Because people do better, and the construction trades and the utilities will do better if they know it's going public. It doesn't even mean we have to say anything. Half the time, it'll come in in good shape. But when it's behind the scenes, and it's by stop, and it's busy, they don't do as well. They try to shortcut. They skirt the system. They don't do as well. But if we could do it right and tell them it's part of the process, I'm a big advocate for these utility meetings. I think they need to go back on the agenda like they used to have, quarterly, is I think what Bob Lee used to do. I don't remember anymore. Every six months. Because then you educate them. Because some of our biggest problems right now are not our construction trades. It's our utilities. And they're causing damage. They're not reporting it. And I went through that already with some of the fights this summer. They're not following the Blue Stake rules, the name that's got now. And they're not self-reporting when they have screwed up in our town. So I have a problem with all of that. And I think it needs to be a more public process. I hope you'll consider that. I think we've got planning sitting there with great professionals to help us. And it will help you guys as staff. And then enforcement. We have GPS now on the inspection, I understand, on the trucks, because I went through that this summer. I want GPS and audits on that, that they're going by these sites. And it's published in a metric to management, which is you guys, to say, did our inspectors drive around? This is what my construction companies do.

And Council Member Face, we have a couple more. All right, I know.

But those are some of the things I'd like to see brought back when you bring it.

Thank you. OK, we're going to do a couple more. And then we're going to wrap up the discussion. Otherwise, we're going to be here for another week or two. And this is an important subject matter. But Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Mayor. I just think there's enough. been said here that unanimously supporting that we should probably put a halt to these if we can. And legally, can we do that in this study session? We've got a lot to talk about whether or not these even go forward. I think there should be a temporary halt on all residential TUPs until we come up with a policy that our staff We'll be able to follow whether that's even doing them anymore or not. So what is the procedure for that? And I think if I have the council support for that, I think that's the right move to take.

Council Member Moore, the procedure is to bring you back a code amendment to get rid of it or to implement something. Because right now, your staff is commanded to issue We can't really change that by some sort of a moratorium, not really a mechanism for that. But we can certainly bring back a mechanism to remove TUPs from that process altogether until if you decide you want to have a process that goes before someone else with public notice, we can bring that back. But we can remove it from the code until then as your means to do it. That's the mechanism. is just remove and then replace if you want to replace. Or if you don't want to replace, to Mr. Weaver's point, leave it as not a use. And utilities will need to find other places to store, which may be the rights of way. We'll have to keep that in mind. But there's also then off-site. There's out of town. There's other areas. That's the policy and decision of the council on whether or not you want to, how you want them to be if they're going to be. But if you want to put an instant stop, we have to amend your code to Yankema.

I'm going to miss Councilmember Pace. Go ahead, Councilmember Thomason. I'm sorry. Okay, Councilmember Thomason. Oh, go ahead.

Okay, so I appreciate that answer, and I think that there's been enough said here that maybe that's the next direction we take, because I don't think staff wants to issue another one because there's just too many issues right now that's been brought up. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Thomason.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say, you were looking for direction on next steps. I'm just going to put out my opinion. I think it's time to stop issuing, to amend our code so that we no longer issue temporary use permits on residential properties. I think the time has come. I look forward to hearing the arguments against that. But I think those days are over. No more on residential properties.

Thank you, Councilmember. So wrapping up, first of all, Mr. Burton, thank you very much. And Mr. Weaver, thank you and your team. The temperature is pretty high in the room right now because I think all the reasons that I'm in complete support of my colleagues and the sheer fact that a lot of the complaints that we get about dust and other issues we need to get ahead of that. And I think clearly you've heard from this body about some of the details that we just need to rein in. And I do support the idea of putting a process in place to curtail the issuing of these TUPs. I do think you heard, I watched a lot of heads nodding while everyone was speaking, which tells me that you've got a fully unified council on this subject matter, and it is a priority. Unless, Mr. Ching, you want to give anything back to us on this particular subject, there's a lot of information. And I know Mr. Weaver and Mr. Burton were furiously taking notes, but we've said this before, but please review the game tape. Please review what you heard today so that we help you help us get the right answers in short order. So, Mr. Ching, I don't know if you have anything you want to add.

There's direction. or at least consensus that I heard that can go in either a very direct or a very complex way. And I'll go with the direct first because Mr. McGuire mentioned it, which is even if there was a desire by council for us to come back and have a more robust example of options of what a TUP could look like, We can do that. But at the same time, if the desire of council is we just don't want to have any more issued until we get our arms around it, the way to do that is to strike the current language in there and amend the code so that staff isn't issuing temporary use permits anymore. You know, that's the policy that currently exists. We don't make policy. We just execute and administer the policy of direction of counsel, which is what this is. A previous counsel, to be fair, but that's how it arose. So to stop it would be very simply, we would bring you something probably quite quickly that could just simply strike all of this out. And then therefore, staff has no administrative ability to issue something that no longer exists in the code. At the same time, if the desire is to, for instance, look at it and determine other ways to do something like this that could answer some of the many things that we've heard, we could do that. For instance, I've heard at least two council members say we shouldn't issue them anymore in residential areas. Every section of town, with the exception of something that's under a special use permit or right of way, is a residential area. So it would effectively end it other than those that might be used by resorts, for the most part, or maybe some of the limited office uses we have, or churches, for that matter, which aren't obviously residential either, or this property. But nonetheless. If the desire is to stop it, the way you do that is to simply remove it. And if we remove it, you can always come back if we provide you more information and add something back in that's a much more narrow and limited version of a temporary use permit that doesn't allow them in residential areas and is only for a certain duration, et cetera, et cetera. You gave a lot of good examples of ways that we could narrow and sort of mitigate some of the concerns that you've heard. and you've expressed. So we're happy to do that too. So the initial step that Mr. McGuire suggested is something we could bring quite quickly, which would be simply to strike it, and therefore not issue any. But at the same time, staff could look at ways to bring back a narrow version of a TUP that addresses some of the concerns and gives you options after the fact if, in fact, there's a desire to have that, which would include things like who is the ultimate deciding body, what kind of notice would you give, et cetera, et cetera. And we can do all that too.

And I do see there's some hands moving up. Again, I want to be judicious on our time and with our resources here. One thing I would say is you heard from, there were some specifics on individual council members, but I heard a uniform space on addressing this in an expedited way, but a thoughtful way. So looking at that, I listen to what you're saying, and I think Mr. McGuire, we trust your judgment on how we look at this from a timing wise and avoiding unnecessary or unintended consequences that we are potentially looking at. So I am going to suggest based on that that if there's other additional thought that you want to offer to Mr. Chang on the subject matter that you do that and give that some thought of what we may bring forward for potentially either a study session at the next meeting or action steps that we would entertain at the next meeting. Mr. McGuire?

Just keep in mind, this is a zoning code provision. So it's going to require action by P&Z before you all can take action on it. So it's a text amendment. It's going to have to go through a normal process. But I think we can pretty clearly take this as a statement of direction to P&Z and move forward from that. I don't think we have any trouble with that. From my perspective, the easiest thing to do is to park it completely for now and then see if there are any avenues after that. Because what I generally don't like to recommend is that you ever put a process in place that simply puts a public body in the bullseye of angry neighbors. And if you have a notice process that's going to put P&Z in a position where they never want to issue on those permits, Why do it? I mean, honestly, we usually use the permitted with conditions approach because of that. And this might just be a topic that there isn't a good answer to. But we'll make sure that the Planning Commission has on their next agenda that is available the opportunity to put a halt to it. And then you all can decide that when it comes back to you.

And I do see there are a couple of council members that are quite anxious to weigh in. I'm going to go with Council Member Liebman first.

Thank you. From what I'm hearing, the easiest thing to do would be to take it out entirely And that would affect all the residential lots. But if you take it out entirely, the special use permitted properties, the resorts, the churches, et cetera, could still get the equivalent of a TUP through the SUP process. So if we take it out entirely, we wouldn't need to re-put something back in because we've already essentially done it because we have the SUP process in place. That's my suggestion.

And I'm going to defer to the experts on the timing for that. But I think you might have hit on a functional equivalent. It just might have a different lead time.

Yeah, because if it went back, they'd have to. Because again, the way our SCP section code is structured, you have managerial, minor, intermediate. probably either fall most likely as a minor amendment because managerial is limited beyond anything that's audible or perceptible. Any amendment, though?

Could it be coupled with their their amendment, unless it's for a purpose. If it's for their own property, we're going to have an amendment already. So I can piggyback onto that. It could, yeah, if they're already going through, yeah. But I guess that's a point of clarification then to your point. Are we talking about then not allowing, say, SRP or APS or others to use SUP properties as temporary use permits for their projects in town?

Yes. After what happened with Southwest Gas and what we've been talking about, I would think so. That's, again, my opinion and my recommendation.

And I think Council Member Pace has one. Yes.

I'm going to say this right here, because I'm going to tell you where this will end up if we don't think about it. I agree with everyone that we need to do something. We cannot ban them. Utilities are megabucks for lobbyists. They'll have a bill in front of Kavanaugh and everybody else in two seconds, and we will lose the right to have any control. I can just tell you that right now. What I would suggest, so I would not take the easy way route as lawyers, which would be the easy way, is not to have to write it, the code amendment, and just pull it. That's going to mean we're going to be blank. That means we're in the legislative session. We'll have lobbyists with bills in two seconds at the legislature. I would do a partnership approach where we are modifying and we come back with a code amendment by the next time. I'm a lawyer. I can write it over the weekend. We can vet it if we have to have Southern people involved. We don't need to wait and stall it. That's what I'm telling you. If you just ban it and wait for six months and we can get one drafted and approved, it's going to be a problem. So I would fix the comments we have in here, write the code amendment, get it done within two to four weeks, and have us get it to planning and get it done. because we are running a risk if we ban it. Now, I like the idea. And what I was going to suggest is if people are already paying rent right now in private and we ban putting it on a residential lot, which is consistent with PV and consistent with our neighbors, but allow the house of worships to have a screened and appropriate section to make money, to stage it in our communities, I personally am good with that. Because this time around, we'll actually have parameters. The problem we have with the Southwest Gas and the other ones at Doubletree that we got complaints about last week is we don't have parameters, and we don't have any checking, and we don't have any enforcement. Once we put that in place, these things will be clean, perfect, wonderful places. And that's partnering with our stakeholders, which are utilities, and the construction. And we're not totally banning, but we have an equivalent better solution that serves our community. So that's my two cents in thinking this through a little bit bigger.

Just saying. Mr. McGuire, Mr. Chang, anything on those final comments?

Mr. Mayor, we're happy to go at whatever pace you want. But bringing back the amendments and having the study session discussion will push the pace back. It pushes you off. Because remember, every time we go, to P&Z, we go on a 14-day notice ahead of time for hearing. So each increment of time moves it a month is the rough math on where we end up. So we're happy to do that. It does mean more likely January action for a code amendment, a text amendment.

And that does seem excessive. I'd look to my colleagues if there's support for moving quicker on this, or if we feel fine with the idea that we would. Because we have to follow the process with planning. So I don't have an argument with that. I don't think any of my colleagues do.

Just again, we take direction from a consensus of council. What Council Member Pace said is something that we could work on and do, but we would need to know that that's council's prerogative. What we've heard from other council members is similar, but distinct enough that if there's some way that we could kind of get back and see where we want to go. where we want to land as a group, that would be helpful. One of the things that we will do, if there's a process that involves planning commission and having to do that, is there things that we can do perhaps with the conditions of approval if we get them to come in? And again, we get maybe two to three a year. So it's not like we expect a deluge of new ones that are going to test us in the meantime. There may be some that maybe still exist that are about to expire. And obviously, the discretion is not to extend. So we probably would listen, I would think, and understand what counsel is telling us. But I do think there is a distinction between saying we would allow it with conditions but severely curtail it as opposed to saying let us cease it by removing it from the code and then work on a replacement code or not, depending upon whether council, when you see it again in terms of options, would say we're better off or we would prefer not coming back and having a modified code. Both paths have a result. They are similar, but they're distinct enough that I think it would behoove staff to know that we have a clear direction from a consensus of council as to how you want us to proceed.

Well, obviously, we're not going to take a vote and study.

Not a vote, no, but I'm just saying just in terms of going around the table and explaining where would you like staff, how would you like staff to proceed in terms of bringing something back?

All right, let's go around the table and see. Vice Mayor?

I'm going to lean into whatever's most expeditious. I think this rolling it down the road, almost four years now, I think sometimes things have rolled from year one to year four. Expediency, whatever that takes, is where I land. I don't want to overcomplicate it. Legislator can preempt anything they want all the time, all day long. And I don't think we can't. We should consider it, but not be afraid of doing what we know is right. And that's where I land. So you guys can interpret that how you like.

Council Member Moore?

Thank you. Yeah, and I do agree with that. I think we should park it, remove it for now, and then continue the discussion later. We don't want to issue another one at this point. And there are other avenues you can do, TCEs, temporary construction easements, and locations for right-of-way improvements and things like that. I think we should bring it back and have a hearty discussion. But I'm in favor of moving along as quick as we can and eliminating it the way it is.

Council Member Thomason?

I agree. Due process is wonderful, but government takes too long. We'll be talking about this forever. So I agree. Let's kill it and rebuild it.

Council Member Liebman?

I agree.

Nice. Council Member Annette Keller?

I agree as well.

Council Member Face.

I'm still going to stand on I'd like to see the full code amendment by the very next meeting and then we do a statement of direction to planning for the meeting after that and get it on the right track because I can see what's going to happen. We did this with group homes and I think that's a mistake. But I want to get it fixed.

And I thank my colleagues for that feedback. I concur. I think we go through an expedited process. We look at taking a bigger bite of the apple. Hopefully, this meets with staff understanding. And I hope that, Mr. McGuire, we're OK on the pathway.

Based upon what we've heard, the Planning Commission will have the great pleasure of having a bill on their next agenda so that they can move it back to you for action and then later consideration of the options.

All right. Mr. Ching? Agreed. And since I also heard bring back something else, to Council Member Pace's point, that's something we can start working on internally right away. I mean, we got a lot of good information feedback that if there is a successor to what we have currently, that we have a good foundation to start building something. And we'll certainly start doing that internally right away.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Weaver. Mr. Burton, thank you very much. And my colleagues, thank you. We took a break for a while over the summer, but we are back.

And we are on task. And I appreciate all the input.

And again, Mr. Burton, thanks for the presentation. Mr. Weaver, thank you. All right. That concludes the study session items at this point, unless, Mr. Ching, there's something else we.

No, that's all the items for study session. We have our meeting at 6. We have one more item on exec, but I think it's going to be much more longer than 25 minutes, so we might as well just do it after. We do have dinner has arrived, so if we want to take about a 20-minute break and get right into the regular.

I'm in support of that. I hope my colleagues are all right with that. Let's take a breather, take the break, and we'll come back. I think there's going to be some food coming in. But take a break, and we'll reconvene at 6 p.m. at the dais. Thanks, everybody. All right, well, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining us. The town council meeting for September 10th, 2026 is now called to order. Would the town 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.

Council Member Thomason.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. But before we do the pledge, I'd like to ask for a moment of silence and reflection of 9-11, of the tragic and horrible attacks on our country, and to the incredible bravery of the police and fire and emergency medical that were there that day and continue to protect and serve our country. So please respect a moment of silence for the tragedy and the horror of the 9-11 attacks. Thank you. And to lead us in the pledge, I'd like to invite, I think, Commander DeVente. We've got representatives from PVPD and Phoenix Fire to come forward and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. And please thank your colleagues for us as well. All right. Next up, we have presentations on the agenda for this evening. And this is a very special, bittersweet moment because we're fortunate to have so many talented artists in our town, so many incredible artists. And they contribute so much to the culture of Paradise Valley. And each year, we highlight one artist who is the artist in residence. And that year is coming to an end for Dr. Curtis Dickman, who shared this vibrant, if you look around the town hall here, this vibrant collection, multidimensional artwork that's been up for a year. And it's been inspirational for all of us on council to be surrounded by it, as well as the staff to get to enjoy this. And the council would like to formally thank Mr. Dickman and present him with a gift. And I'd ask Council Member Leitman, the liaison, to the art board if she would like to introduce Dr. Dickman.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to reiterate the wonderful artwork we have there. I love the pop art colors and things like that. And I would like to welcome Dr. Dickman to come up and receive our thanks.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Curtis Dickman. Thank you.

Such a pleasure. It has been a delightful experience and phenomenal exposure. I'm so appreciative to the town for the opportunity. And speaking of gifts, I'm donating two pieces of art to the town. The first piece is on the wall there. It's called Doorways to Camelback Mountain. And if you haven't seen that piece before, if you walk up and down the aisle, as you observe it, the doors open and close. So it gives a beautiful perspective of Camelback Mountain from Paradise Valley and really is symbolic of the importance of the town and the arts community. The second piece is leaning against the counter there, and it's seven different views of Camelback Mountain, and then there's a camel, a symbolic camel on top. That piece is called Eight Humps. So I am so grateful for the opportunity. And again, it's been a fantastic experience.

Let me present you with this plaque here. Again, bittersweet because we are going to miss Dr. Dickman's work so very much and so appreciate your talent, your willingness to share that with our community and definitely with the council and the staff. So thank you again, Dr. Dickman. All right, next up this evening, we have a... a presentation to recognize 5841 East Hummingbird Lane as a historic property. And Catherine Kaufman, the chair of the Historical Advisory Committee, is here to present the committee's recommendation.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council members. On April 6, 2026, Rosetta and Elliot Ravinsky presented their home at 5841 East Hummingbird Lane to our committee for consideration under the town's historical property recognition program. In 1973, Frank Freeman purchased the 1.25 acre vacant lot on the north side of Mummy Mountain. In 1974, his son, Steven Freeman, designed and built the 3,500 square foot home in a Turanian style that integrated the home into the mountain slopes. Constructed of solid concrete and masonry with wood trim, the home is well insulated and designed to naturally regulate the temperature. More than 100 windows provide unobstructed views from nearly every room, while the split-level design creates privacy and distinct living spaces without the use of doors. In 1992, while driving through the area, Mr. Ravinsky was drawn to the home by the striking stained glass all-seeing eye window prominently displayed above the entrance. Associated with Freemason and as a Freemason himself, he was intrigued by the stained glass. Even though the house was not on the market, Mr. Ravinsky inquired about purchasing it and within weeks became its second owner. After moving in, Mr. Ravinsky updated the kitchen, bathrooms, and flooring while preserving the integrity of the original 1974 design. He imported quartz tile from Italy, and his wife Rosetta designed portions of the flooring to resemble a Persian rug accented with 24-carat gold paint. Mr. Ravinsky has resided in the home for 34 years and has noted that it offers both privacy and expansive views of the surrounding area. On behalf of the Town's Historical Advisory Committee, I recommend that the Ravinsky Home, located at 5841 East Hummingbird Lane, be recognized by the Town Council through the Historic Property Recognition Program.

Thank you, Chair Kaufman, and please thank your committee as well. So with that, I'd ask my colleagues all in favor of approving the Historic Advisory Committee's recommendation to recognize 5841 East Hummingbird Lane as a historic property in the town of Paradise Valley. By unanimous consent, please say aye.

Aye.

Congratulations. I'd ask the homeowners to come forward. And Council, let's go and join up in front for another photo op. More pictures. Mr. President, please. So the proclamation repeats what Chair Kaufman had just said. But on behalf of the town, congratulations. And thank you for preserving such a beautiful home. Would you like to say anything?

Yes. I have been a resident of Paradise Valley for over 50 years. And when I bought this home, it was very special for me. And I love Paradise Valley. I love waking up every morning looking at the views from my property. And I wanted to thank everybody that has supported me and the property to get approved for the Historical Society. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Congratulations.

Congratulations. Again, if you want to pose up here with that. Thank you again. And the Vice Mayor made a comment that this is good because we're all getting our steps in a little extra tonight. So thank you for that. All right. Next up, we have a presentation as to receive an update on the Paradise Valley Spire Preservation Project at the 30% design of the plans. honored and grateful to Scott Jarson, who has done so many volunteer efforts for the town. It's greatly appreciated on your expertise. And I want to thank you and your committee that's been working throughout the summer and invite you to come forward and give us an update, if you would, please, Mr. Jarson.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Honorable Mayor and members of the town council, good evening. We are pleased to present this 30% design progress for the Save the Spire project. We've had a busy summer and some great people to help us along the way. So I'll go through the presentation and kind of talk a little bit about where we're at. For those who don't know, the history of this fire is really amazing. It was designed by Taliesin architect William Wesley Peters, who was Frank Lloyd Wright's son-in-law. It graced this property for a number of years and was a landmark piece saved from demolition thanks to many people who contributed and the town itself. So we're very grateful. We're going to restore and relocate this beloved landmark. And the Spire Group was formed. So let's talk a little bit briefly about how we got here. This started back in 2023. It's moved on. The spiral got safely removed during demolition of the structure itself in 24. The location design and fundraising experts, fundraising ideas were explored. And the council reviewed conceptual design in April of 2026. And that's when We decided that we would have a 30% design check-in, and that's why we're here tonight. So the design, really what we have wanted to do from the get-go is to save this really beautiful piece of art and relocate it to a new setting, someplace that would be appropriate, not overwhelming, and a fitting relocation project. Oops, going a little too fast, sorry. But what's changed since April? From that initial April design to the present design, quite a bit has changed. We really responded to Council's feedback in that late spring meeting. The actual spire height now has been reduced significantly to just 74 feet overall on the spire itself. The overall height from the center base to the tip is 78 feet. And the concrete base has been significantly reduced in height from 3 feet at its lowest point to 11 feet overall at the highest. It's a really significant change, and you can kind of see it from A to B in the slides in front of you. So overall height now from the lowest grade point, which this will be recessed, we're at 85 feet. That's a big reduction in what we originally had presented. But what else has been happening as we've been working with town staff and this dream team, as you can see on the left panel, we have an amazing technical group. Town has been very welcoming. We've had regular coordination meetings almost every two weeks to bring this forward. The technical design group meetings have been just phenomenal. ALL ON, ALL SUMMER. THEY'VE NEVER TAKEN A BREAK. THE DESIGN REFINEMENTS ARE SIGNIFICANT. THE SITE COORDINATION HAS WORKED OUT REALLY WELL AND ENGINEERING TECHNICAL ISSUES HAVE BEEN EVALUATED AND PROGRESS TOWARD CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS HAS REALLY BEEN FAST TRACKED. WE'RE AT 30% AND BEYOND. I THINK WE COULD WRAP THIS UP QUITE QUICKLY. I'M SORRY, I'M HEAVY HANDED TONIGHT. We explored as a group with the technical committee every possible location within the town campus. And we wanted to make sure they were all well vetted. And we finally came to the simple choice that the center and heart of the campus was the proper location for a lot of reasons. Of course, viability. It was best choice because that's where it can be installed with the least disruption. There's a lot of infrastructure on this campus, as we're learning, and this is the place where that's not going to get into our way. But it is a beautiful, prominent location where it can be enjoyed and sort of pull everything together on the site, and it becomes part of the civic landscape rather than just an isolated artifact. So we're quite pleased with this location. and it's an appropriate setting for this architectural element. What it also does is it sort of embraces that location and incorporates some of the existing infrastructure that's on that site and sort of ties it all together, as I'd mentioned. Site and technical considerations were considerable here because we had a lot of coordination done between our technical group and town staff. They've been great. We've evaluated drainage and site flow considerations and incorporated into the design. at 30%. Structural and installation requirements ongoing, but we think we can put it exactly where it needs to go. And the landscaping surrounding site relationships have really been refined. You'll see this a little more as we look at the illustrations. But the technical questions may come up, but we're addressing them as we advance in design. Which brings us to private funding. A lot has happened in a very short period of time. We've always known we'd have to raise private funds for this. We're well on our way. November 13th has been earmarked as a very important fundraiser for the group. We have our prospectus in development. We have key potential donors identified and think we're going to have great response. Initial outreach has been fabulous. We are looking at grant and public funding opportunities to help move this forward in a timely fashion. We have a wealth of in-kind contributions that have been in place already and are welcomed. And we've got our bank account opened and a website and a QR code and over $100,000 of in-kind donations to date, so we are well underway. But then it's important to keep with that fundraising community visibility and outreach. We've built some amazing awareness around this and already underway media presence donated and secured. We are really very grateful that the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Conference is in Arizona in November. They're allowing us some extra visibility to get the word out on this. Community participation has been great. It's ongoing. And we're kind of developing a recognition plaque opportunity for donors. Our fundraising leadership, as you can see, thanks to Jordan, Catherine, Christine, and Colleen, again, our second dream team. So I think we'll be moving forward quite rapidly. So next steps. Here we are at 30%. What do we do next? We're checking in tonight. And as we proceed with our final design development and technical coordination, we'll coordinate that with our fundraising efforts. And November 13th is our kickoff. Our next design milestones, we have construction documents very far along in this project. We're just waiting tonight. We can kind of green light the rest of them. We can, I think, have our CDs done by the end of the year and be ready to build this as soon as the money comes in. And we're pleased to report this project has advanced so much since April. It's been a lot of fun, and we're very grateful. to everyone in the town and the council's support on this project. I'm very grateful to this amazing team, as you can see on the right hand. These are people embedded in our community that are absolutely selfless on this. This has been a heavy lift and I'm very grateful to everyone's support. We're ready and eager to begin and we thank you for your continued support of this important piece of Paradise Valley's history. I want to just say on a personal note, this project has been so heartwarming to be involved with because of the grand nature of how everybody's coming together from Council to staff to volunteers to committees It's one of those things that everybody has gotten behind and it shows what a great community We are and how we all kind of pull the oars in the right direction I'm really grateful so I do have a a couple of exhibits, but more importantly, if you have the time, we've got about a minute and a half, hot off the press, a fly-through elevation rendering that we could project if you would like to see it. It's pretty great, and it's about a minute 30. Do we have time? Certainly. Absolutely. Please. I've only seen this once, so you're going to be the first preview here tonight. That's me going to the post office right there. Slow down, Jarson. Too fast. I was speaking earlier how this... artistic monument. It feels like it's always been there when I see this in this film. And it reminds me very much of my youth when you'd be at Indian Bend at Mockingbird and you'd see this spire. And to see it in this location so beautifully illustrated, it really feels completely appropriate, like it's been there from the get-go. This is a great shot because the benches you see there are all existing. And they don't get much use, but they'll get use now. And I love how it's been integrated into that spot. So there we go. I think we're off to a really good start, and I hope you think that's as beautiful as I do. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Jarson, I want to thank you and your dream team, as you referred to them, to come forward and thank you for listening to the feedback the council had given you and coming back with the 30% design as we had requested. And congratulations to the dream team. Clearly, this is a labor of love, and you've got some incredible talent. that has offered so much of their time and their talent to bring this forward. And I just want to say a thank you to all the members of your dream team and those that have been working with you, obviously staff and the great support that you have been hopefully seeing and coming to this step. So thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you. And we're very grateful for your support. Thank you.

All right. If there's no questions, thanks so much. Thank you.

Oh, well, please, Vice Mayor. Go ahead.

Just the volunteers that showed up tonight from Save the Spire, if you could just stand up and let us see who you are and all the work that went in in that video was Eric Peterson's team. And all of the renderings that are in the package. I apologize. You can look at, I don't know if you have any questions. Scott will be here to show you some of those. And also our tech team and engineers who did all the site plans or anything will be here to answer any questions. But come on, guys. Fire team, stand up. Bravo. Yeah.

Nicely done. And Mr. Jarson, I'd ask if you wouldn't mind coming back to the podium for a minute. I think we have a couple of comments that some of my council colleagues would like to share or a couple of questions. And I think Council Member Moore, you're next.

Thanks, Mayor. Mr. Jarson, thanks for that presentation. You're welcome. It looks like you've come a long ways on a lot of this. Just a couple of clarifications and questions. On the 30% plans, was there a reason the SPIRE is not part of those plans? What do you... You only have the spire itself in the presentation. It doesn't show on the plan. It's just the base.

So are you referring to some of the exhibits from the presentation or in general?

Well, your plans don't show the spire itself. It just shows the base and then it shows the dimensions of the base.

Yeah, let's look at that real quick. That would be kind of the easiest thing. Okay. Let's see. We'll get to that, actually, technical drawings. So it's shown in elevation. It's indicated on the drawing itself. You can see the pentagon shape. That's the base the spire is assumed to be on top of it. The spire itself is constructed. So all we need to do is modify the base, shorten it, and get it secure onto the base itself. So from the standpoint of we don't need to put drawings in place for the spire because it's already completed.

Okay, thank you. That would be a question for our staff then as far as for technical review for structural integrity and shear and engineering. Are you going to be requiring those type of documents as far as for approvals on the review?

If I may add on to that, we do have the original plan set from the original design and construction. So from a dimensional standpoint and from early engineering, granted it's from 1961 to 63, we have enough data to put into the plan set to complete. So I'm confident we'll get the information needed that makes town feel secure.

Yeah, I was just curious because I don't see where it's called out the color. the materials that you're using, as I said, the structural integrity, and also in the illustration it shows a plaque, but it doesn't call out what the plaque is. So I'm just looking for full clarity on the set of plans. I mean, in order to construct it, you're going to have to have a full set of plans for sure.

Yeah. We've got Eric Peterson here to answer some of the questions. Mr. Peterson, how are you?

Yeah, thanks. Mr. Mayor, council members. Yeah, we're just at the 30%, but all of that's going to be in there. We have a structural engineer that is designing all of that. In the final drawings, we'll have the spire and how it attaches, and we'll show all the height details so it goes through the reviews. But just to answer your question, we're thinking that it stays the original sort of light blue color that it was originally. And we'll have a sample piece for that. And then it'll be a gray concrete board form base that matches all the other signage that's around. And then we haven't totally, we're still in negotiations on like exactly what the plaques are going to be, if we're going to do those for major donors or if that's going to just be significant historical data for the town of Paradise Valley. And then we do all of the, bricks on the ground for donors. So that's still just kind of in our group to determine. But it will be finalized when we have 100% set.

And I'm sure you'll probably have future lighting. You show details on light fixtures, but it doesn't talk about what's going to be lit up, how long it's going to be lit up, what your proposal is. Just clarification so we can look at it later on. Yeah, it'll all be there.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Thomason.

Thank you. Mr. Jarson and committee, congratulations. A huge amount of work has gone in here, and I think it's emerging into something very beautiful. And when you look around the town and you see things that are beautiful, there's not only the final object, but there's the process that got there. And I think this will be an equally beautiful process. So congratulations, and thank you to all.

Thank you.

Couple technical questions. So the height, the actual spire height, metal to metal, I'm assuming has not changed. The reduction in height is because it is essentially below grade and because the plinth is lower. Am I correct or has the actual metal to metal changed in height?

We have shortened it. We've taken a piece off of the top and I think and you can answer this, but I think some of the bracketing below has also been modified so that it'll sit lower onto the base itself. So a big effort to try to overall compress the spire, but still keep an inspiring vault at the same time.

The original drawings that were submitted back when we were in very early concept, we were going off the original drawings that were drawn and then our team went actually and measured the piece that we took off, and it was already less. And so this reflects what's actually there. And then those early ones, when we were really concerned about climability and things, we had that base significantly taller to avoid that and then we've all kind of come to the decision that's probably not going to be an issue and that is where we've got most of the height out of it. And then this is in an already depressed lower basin and then that gets another like six feet out of that.

Perfect. I especially want to call out the reduction in the size of the plinth. That was a point of great concern for me, and I know a number of people that I talked to. Not just the height, but the sheer mass of it. So I really thank you for being responsive to that. Very much so.

It helped our cost, too.

We like that. I guess I won't buy concrete futures now. A couple more questions. So the video, which was very helpful, shows a bricked pathway. Is that conceptual or is that evolving as part of the plan?

Yeah, I mean, conceptual now because we think that's a really good way for people who donate to It's a very standard way for donations on projects like this. It pays for the pathway and it allows it. Now, whether that's red brick or white brick or whatever type of brick it is, you know, paver, we're not quite there yet, but that's just to show a concept.

Makes some sense. Thank you. Next question about the amphitheater. So we know there's, I'm going to call it a mini amphitheater already down there. And I can see that in the drawings and I can see that in the flyover. The computer was like coughing a little bit when it did it, but I get it. There has also been previous talk about expanding the amphitheater. Is that envisioned at this point or are we going with the existing site?

Yeah, I think our goal was to try to take in everything that council suggested at the last meeting, incorporating the 30%, and we didn't really want to exceed the scope of that. And so we did celebrate the existing benches that are there that really sort of serves that purpose now. That isn't to say that that couldn't be expanded if that's something the town wanted to pursue. It's harmonious with the general design.

Thank you for the clarification, and thank you for not scope creeping it into something bigger at this point. I appreciate it. I think we have a beautiful, natural, humble little space there. And I personally would hate to see that lost as we put this new piece of art in there. So thank you. Trees. I understand from the drawing that we need to remove two trees to accommodate the placement of the spire. Is it the intention that those trees would be relocated or replaced? I happen to love trees.

Yeah, I think we'll have somebody just check the tree and make sure that it can be, but we'd love to relocate it if possible. We've got a landscape architect that's working with us on this.

Perfect, thank you. And you're walking me into my next set of questions regarding funding. Is it the committee's expectation that the committee will fund the landscaping, the site prep, and the engineering? Or is there any expectation that the town will take up any of those components?

I'll speak to that. At this time, we are self-funding the entire project. If there is an element that the town feels that's within their scope and desire to take on, it's certainly there, but that's not our intent. Our intent is to fund the entire project, including the landscape installation. So that is one and done. So we are raising enough funds to get that all complete, not just put a beautiful object in the desert and let everything else fall in place.

And what about ongoing maintenance? Obviously, the Arizona sun has not been kind to the first 50 years of this fire. What's the thinking about ongoing maintenance costs, what they will be, and how those will be funded? Is it expectation that the town would take those on going forward?

I would think that we will put an analysis together to that. It's fairly stable. It sat up on that structure for decades and I don't think it was ever It had any maintenance. To my knowledge, it did not. So I think once we put a very serious powder coat finish on it, we're good for a good long time. That isn't to say storms or events beyond our control would contribute to maintenance, but the base itself, board form, cast and placed concrete, it is the final finish. You don't need to refinish it. So I think outside maybe some landscape maintenance and occasional touch-up But that wouldn't be in our budget now, but if it's something we need to talk about, we can plan ahead.

Perfect, thank you. And the last dollar amount that you shared with us was a rough estimate of $500,000. Is that still a number you're thinking is accurate, or is it moving as you're getting closer to final design?

You know, it always goes up. But I think we've got a fundraising goal that exceeds our current actual cost bids. And we have two competitive bids right now. The whole overall scope of the project It's coming in about, I'm going to average the two at about $650,000. Our fundraising goal is $750,000 so that we have enough for surprises and make sure it can be completed. But it's a very tight, it's a very, let me phrase this correctly, the budget we have in place is highly realistic, so I feel good about it.

Well, that's the end of my questions and comments. Again, I want to thank you and the committee for your work and your diligence. This is absolutely no small effort, measured all the way up to 85 feet, and I thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Liebman.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate your answers to all of my colleagues' questions. I just have a few follow-up questions and comments. The budget of $750,000, is that your fundraising goal, or does that include your in-kind of about $100,000 to date, or is that in addition?

Thank you. Our fundraising goal, hard... hard funds to be able to complete the project is $750. And then the in-kind is through a lot of the hard work of the people in the room to get us to this point.

Understood. So thank you. So the total... Benefit to the town we're talking probably by the time it's all done just under a million dollars.

That's correct.

Yeah, so I Personally, I'm delighted about this. I think that you listened very well to what what the council had to say personally I would have liked to have it a little taller and

We can do it.

I like that real skinny pole on the top that's 10 feet. But thank you so much to your dream team, all of you, including our esteemed Council Member LaBelle. And I'm delighted to hear that It is going to be painted blue because I was disappointed in some of the renderings I saw that it was gray or white because the blue looks so beautiful and was the original color. But thank you again to everybody who's been involved. I can't wait to see it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Awesome. Council Member Andeen Keller. No comments? Council Member Pace.

Thank you, Mayor. And first, thank you to the volunteers and all the hard work. This is a huge project and a lot of volunteer and passion to do it with a lot of hours, especially from the beginning people as it's growing. And thank you for listening to us. I know we had to throw a few things at you, but you did address it. So the hype got reduced, which is perfect. The plinth that we were concerned about, that we asked about, we talked about, got reduced. And it actually looks way beautiful. And I think the video was really a nice touch, because it really gives the flow of people now using that space, which doesn't get used enough. And I appreciate you bringing in Rod Cullum, who was in my ear all the time about the amphitheater area and making that space not replace it, but tie in. And I see you have him on, and it's great to see how it ties together. So that was all great. A couple follow-ups. As we brought up in the first time, the only thing I had was I do want to make sure the town and council are involved in any approvals on the recognition and the bricks and the plaques, whatever it turns out to be, that's still on town property, and we're very picky about how things look. And I know you will do a great job, but we don't want to just have, you know, we have to deal with signage and marketing and what people put down and all these things. So we want to make sure that blends with our humble community and the style. And I don't know what that looks like in my head, but I think. There's other creative ways of just ugly plaques. And so maybe there's some thought about that. DBG, Desert Botanical Garden, has a lot of ways they do donors throughout the property that looks nice. So we've got to think about that and how that blends in with maybe some of the memorial plaques too, possibly. I don't know. But this is an idea to throw in there when you're at the end or close or whatever. So I'd still like to make sure that doesn't just go off by itself and we get surprised by that bricks or not or anything like that. I think it's beyond impressive that it's self-funded. I think that is awesome, and it's brought, you know, really this ties together history, ties together art, ties together architecture. It's a legacy project for Paradise Valley, for sure. And that will now be a new meeting place for everything that happens when people are meeting for the car show, for whatever it is. So I think that we're very lucky that you guys stepped up and had a vision in the day, and here we are, and it's going to happen. So thank you, and thanks for keeping us surprised. The video was really a nice touch. I love seeing how it's going to look. It gives more of a feel to the area. And I like the way the landscape blends with that and walking back. So it's going to be very pretty. So thank you, and congratulations on the next step. And good luck at the fundraiser. I'm sure it will go great. Thank you.

Thank you. We're very grateful. Thank you, Council Member. We have a final speaker from the dais. And I am so grateful for the vice mayor and her intentions to help this project along and work closely with your committee. And I'm just incredibly proud of the work she's put into this. And so I would turn it over to the vice mayor.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to all of Council for your feedback and support. It means a lot. It's very important. It was very important to the entire group that we showed a good effort to listen to concerns, because we want everyone to be excited and happy about this, as we should be. So beyond thanks to this incredible I literally get goosebumps when I think about the people I'm working with on this and how everybody is showing up from such an organic, highly motivated place with asking nothing in return except for just being a part of this wonderful group. I want to make sure we thank the Historic Advisory Committee and the PV Arts Board, who are also working together on a joint fundraiser, which I think is really cool. I don't remember the different groups working together on projects before. So I think that's a nice collaborative piece. I think that this is going to, not that PV isn't already on the map, this is really going to be an iconic visual of who we are for decades and generations to come. And it's going to be really cool, right? So just a big thanks to everybody and to staff for guiding our members and all of our new members who When asked to step up, some of our newer members, like Nick Podnoff and Jenny Nagel and Colleen, never hesitated. Oh my gosh, I'd be thrilled to be a part of this. And that's really been indicative of how our residents are showing up for this piece. Even just the light touches on pledges already. There's going to be a limited number of spots at some of the bigger numbers. Thinking we might have this I don't know I'm being it might be done sooner than we think so. Thank you to everybody Thank you to staff. Thank you for to To our residents for supporting this.

Thank you. Thank you vice mayor. You've heard it Again, there's great enthusiasm. Thank you for understanding working with staff and the questions from colleagues and knowing that your your team's professionalism is spot-on so there's every clear expectation that you'll exceed expectations across all these, including the fundraising efforts. So again, thank you all to your committee. Thanks to the Historical Committee and, of course, the Arts Committee. And most of all, thanks for this being a labor of love. I know it's not going to be, we've got a ways to go still, but you're certainly 30% plus there. So stay at it, and thank you for presenting tonight. Excellent. Thank you all very much. We're very grateful. All right. Next up, we have the call to the public. The call to the public is an opportunity for residents to address the council on matters that are not on the agenda. In conformance with open meeting laws, the council may not discuss or act on any of the measures raised. However, the council may respond to criticisms after all public comments have been made, ask staff to review the matter, or ask that it be placed on a future agenda. Speakers are asked if they could state their name and if they're a town resident. and ask to limit their comments to three minutes, please. Also, if you'd like to fill out a speaker request form, they're on the podium on the way into the council chambers, and you can fill that out and please hand it to our esteemed town clerk, Duncan Miller, and he'll present that for your opportunity. So right now, Mr. Miller, I have two requests. All right, first I would like to invite Terri Green-Sterling.

Good evening. My name is Terri Green-Sterling, and I live in Paradise Valley. News reports say that you are interested in updating antiquated town ordinances. This takes courage and vision. Thank you. Thank you as well for voicing a desire to regulate pickleball via updated ordinances. As you think about how to regulate pickleball, I draw your attention to the November 2025 issue of the American Planning Association's magazine. An article in this issue is entitled, Managing Pickleball Through Zoning. aptly. It is a roadmap, really, of the problem and how to prevent it through zoning. The article lists best practices for amending existing zoning ordinances to regulate pickleball. Among other things, the article details why noise ordinances like ours designed decades ago simply can't pick up the true impact of pickleball noise to nearby homes. The article also lists several existing ordinances that serve as samples of how other municipalities have tackled pickleball through zoning. Every town and every ordinance is a little bit different, and each ordinance is tailored to the town's needs. Almost all these sample ordinances require significant setbacks. I'd like you to think about setbacks as you think about regulating pickleball through zoning amendments. The setbacks in the ordinances that I've read range from 60 feet to 600 feet. Almost, let me see, excuse me. And several of the ordinances also require neighborhood notification and a public meeting before the permit is issued. As an aside, and this is my own observation from looking at a lot of these ordinances, municipalities have hired certified acoustical experts for advice before writing or amending the language to the ordinances. Spendarian & Willis is a Tucson firm and it is recognized nationally as an expert on pickleball acoustics. Its website shows an impressive client list that includes several municipalities in Arizona and other states. I have made copies of this article of the American Planning Association magazine for each of you. And the town clerk has graciously agreed to deliver them to you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right. Next to speak is Jennifer DeFreeze, I believe it is. Jennifer?

Good evening, Mayor Santin and council members. My name is Jennifer DeVries. I live in Tolleson, and I'm here with the Maricopa County Libertarian Party. And I don't live in Paradise Valley, but these cameras stand nearly in every town in this valley. And the Fourth Amendment needs a defender at every podium where they stand. This afternoon, you met behind closed doors with your attorneys for item 26233 for legal advice on the town's contracts for automated license plate readers. Now, I don't know what was said in that room, but when a town needs lawyers to talk about its cameras, someone is asking whether those cameras have become a liability. And I'm asking the same questions for your taxpayers. Paradise Valley has run plate readers since 2015, more than a million dollars worth. Today, they are flock cameras. And like at the one at Lincoln and Tatum, your police have reported about 70,000 plates photographed today in a town of 12,000 people. Every plate logged, stored, searchable, shared with some other 50 other agencies. No warrant. no probable cause, no judge. Everyone is searched all of the time in case someone turns out guilty. The founders had a name for that, a general warrant. The Fourth Amendment was written to abolish it. And Arizona's Constitution, Article II, Section 8, no person shall be disturbed in his private affairs without authority of law. The violation is obvious, but we are forced for the courts to say so, and they're starting to. In June, the Supreme Court said a search is a search, even when a tech company hands over the records. In August, a federal judge threw out a dragnet warrants because the government cannot have access to an entire haystack because it may contain a needle. 70,000 plates a day is a haystack. Waiting has a price. Aurora, Colorado paid nearly $2 million after Miss Red Plate put a family with children at gunpoint. San Francisco paid half a million dollars after the same kind of Miss Red put a woman at gunpoint. You've heard from your lawyers in private. Please make the decision public. Please end the contract. Please don't trade one vendor for another. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Keep it. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, that'll conclude call to the public.

Mr. Miller, there's no other requests? No, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Next on our agenda tonight is our consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are considered by the council to be routine and are normally enacted in a single motion. If a member of the council or the public would like to discuss any item, it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. Would the town manager please summarize tonight's consent agenda? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

On tonight's consent agenda, we start with item 26-224, approval of the minutes of the town council meeting of June 11, 2026. Next item, 26-225, minutes approval of town council special meeting of June 25th, 2026. Item 26-226, approval of minutes of town council special meeting August 4th, 2006, 26. 26-229, discussion and possible action to ratify acceptance of a grant from the Arizona Department of Administration for operation of the 911 emergency telecommunication system. Item 26-239, discussion and possible action to approve the First Amendment to contract CON-27-022-POL with LSH lights for police vehicle accessories and installation. Item 26-235, discussion and possible action to approve the second amendment to contract CON-23-022-PBW with PowerTech Contracting LLC for maintenance, repair, and replacement of traffic signal equipment. I'm going to pause on this one, Mr. Mayor, because the number that's in the agenda for the amount of the contract amendment is incorrect. It's correct in the exhibit to the agenda, and it's stated correctly within the staff report, but the actual number is $86,700. So I would just ask that the clerk note that so that if and when the approval comes in motion that that is noted, that the correct amount should be $86,700. Thank you. Next item, 26-241. Discussion and possible action to ratify the approval of the third amendment to the professional services agreement with JT nap group LLC for capital improvement project program project management services Next item, 26-236, discussion and possible action to adopt resolution number 2026-14, restricting pavement excavations on Scottsdale Road pursuant to section 5-10-1.C.4 of the town code for a period of five years to prevent unnecessary disruption and damage to newly resurfaced pavement. And finally, item 26-237, discussion and possible action to adopt resolution number 2026-15, restricting pavement excavations on Invergordon Road pursuant to section 5-10-1.c.4 of the Town Code for a period of five years to prevent unnecessary disruption and damage to newly resurfaced pavement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Town Manager. I would ask if there are any council members would like to remove an item from the consent agenda.

Yes, Mayor.

Council Member Pace.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to remove items 26-241 and items 26-236 and items 26-237 from the agenda tonight. Thank you.

All right. So with that, would anyone in the audience like to remove an item from the agenda, from the consent agenda? With that, I would ask if there is a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item 26-241, 26-236, and 26-237. Mayor, I'd like to approve the consent agenda as submitted, removing 26-241, 26-236, 26-237 and amend 26-235 to correct the amount the total amount to be eighty six thousand seven hundred dollars Thank you, is there a second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor of the consent agenda as motioned Anybody opposed all right that passes and with that councilmember pace you've asked that 26 241 26 236 and 26 237 be removed

Yes, thank you, Mayor. On 26-241, could the town manager or the appropriate person, if it's Mr. Weaver, explain what are these services for for Jeremy Knapp and the amount of money and what is it? Why are we doing it? I just need a little bit of clarification.

Yes, Mayor, Council Member. So Sam Kayat, our CIP manager, left the town, and so we had a number of big projects that needed assistance. So Jeremy stepped in, was knowledgeable, and has been helping us with both Doubletree and Mockingbird.

Great. Okay. And Jeremy's done a good job because he's been here a long time before, and he steps in often. He's like our part-time substitute teacher all the time.

He was a warm self for us. He is. He was very good.

He is. Okay. And thank you for that, Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Weaver. And then I had a quick question on 26. They're both similar, the 236 and 237. Maybe this is Mr. Martinez. Can we explain a little bit about why we do this and the importance of it, and have we done this before to restrict and kind of give us some context why it's so important or why you're asking?

Sure, we have done this before with Lincoln recently. I think it was 20 2021 where we had the five cut our five-year no-cut moratorium We also did it with Tatum in 2017 so the reason for this is to try to protect the newly paved roadways and prevent utilities or as much as we can come through and make cuts to the newly paved roadways.

And do they honor it? Or how does it work? How does this actually get work in implementation? Because we've been having some problems on McDonald's. So I'm curious, how does this work when the utilities come? And do they understand this? And are they told this? And then how do they fix it? And who signs off that it's back to normal if there's an emergency that they have to cut the road?

Right, good question. So if there's an emergency, then the moratorium allows them to do their work. And then through the engineering department permit administration, they require them to restore to a certain extent, which is a lot more stringent than just a normal cut out in the neighborhood roads. So I hope that answers those questions about...

you can hold them accountable to make it so it's smooth again and restored.

Correct.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for the question.

Absolutely. And with that, I'd ask if there is a motion to approve 26-241, 26-236, and 26-237.

Yes, Mayor. I move that we approve 26-241 and 26-236 and 26-237. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposed? Great. Consent agenda is complete. Next up on the agenda, we would have public hearings, but there are no public hearings scheduled for this evening. And accordingly, with action items, there are no public items scheduled. SCHEDULED FOR TONIGHT. I'D ASK THE TOWN'S FUTURE AGENDA, WHICH IS COMING UP FOR DISCUSSION HERE, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE, AND THE PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULE IS AVAILABLE ALWAYS AT WWW.PARADISEVALLEYAZ.GOV AND CLICK ON MEETINGS AND AGENDAS. ARE THERE ITEMS ON THE UPCOMING AGENDAS THAT THE TOWN MANAGER WOULD LIKE TO NOTE AT THIS TIME?

THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR, MEMBERS OF COUNCIL. AT OUR SEPTEMBER 24TH STUDY SESSION, We will have a presentation by our Chief Information Technology Officer, James Bailey. He's going to come and talk quite a bit about things that have been going on in his area and some of the work that he's been doing on the digital concierge and how that particular AskPV device or tool could be expanded and used in a lot of different ways that I think will answer a lot of the questions that I think council and residents have had with respect to the ability to sort of be, you know, informed about when a code complaint comes in and a question comes in terms of tracking and where it is and status and things like that. The applications to our municipal operations are significant and I think all beneficial. And I'm excited to have him come to two weeks from today to explain that a little bit more. So be on the lookout for that. Thank you.

Mayor, oh.

Thank you, Mr. Town Manager. I'd ask if there are any agenda items that the council would like to recommend. Councilmember Pace.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to follow up on the list of agenda items. I didn't see two of them on here, but is it just coming? I didn't see the zoning interpretations, and I didn't see the minor SUP amendments for us to talk about, or the 311 program similar for the residents to have access when there's any complaints so it's streamlined in some way. Where do they fit on the future agenda schedule? Or are they in process to be added?

The first one that you mentioned, I believe, is going to be on the September 24th agenda.

Okay. The minor SGP is on the agenda?

Not the minor SGP, the one you mentioned before that. The zoning interpretations? Yeah, that is going to be on. That's on the study session.

So where is the minor SGP? I thought that was the same night? Because it makes sense to have one right after, and it has to be agenda-sized. So where is that at?

whether or not in terms of changes to the SUP process. I know that that was raised, but I think that's still to be discussed. The 311 and the idea, maybe I did an inartful job of trying to explain part of what James' presentation will be in two weeks, but he's going to be talking about how the application that he's been working on can be used in a way that can be as good, if not better, than a lot of 311 software that's out there. So that's the hope, is that we're moving towards that by the work that he's already done.

Okay, thank you.

Again, these questions or suggested agenda items?

It's a question that, depending on the answer, may be a suggested agenda item.

Very good. Council Member Thomason.

Earlier this evening, we discussed the temporary use permit process, and there was enthusiastic council support for an expeditious addressing of this issue. And I know it's only been a couple hours, and you're on the fly. Can you tell us when we might expect to see this come back to council?

I'D LIKE TO, I MEAN, WHAT WE DISCUSSED WAS THE INITIAL SORT OF, YOU KNOW, TERMINATE THE CURRENT CODE LANGUAGE. IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE TO COME BACK TO COUNCIL FOR DIRECTION BACK OR MAYBE NOT. I GUESS I'D HAVE TO ASK MR. MCGUIRE IN TERMS OF TAKING THAT DIRECTLY TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION BECAUSE IT'S A ZONING CODE AMENDMENT. SO THEY WOULD HAVE TO GIVE THEIR INPUT. BUT ASSUMING THAT CAN HAPPEN WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH, I'm just guesstimating here, but I think it might be... What? We don't know yet.

Mr. Mayor, we'll help the town manager out with this one a little bit. Because of the statutory requirements for posting those items, to get it to P&Z, the quickest way we'll need to craft it and post it and get it on the next P&Z meeting after that. Following that, we will be able to get it back to council. Since we're halfway through September, rough math gets us. It's two P&Z meetings. Chad is correct. So we're looking at November or December at our best.

So if we're lucky, we'll see this back at the one meeting in November. I said if we're lucky.

That was a question. If we're lucky. With that caveat, yes. Yes. Luck is always a good thing. All right. We understood the direction from council. We're going to try to get it back as quickly as we can. We understand that process is in place for a reason. Some of it's statutory, of course, so we would have to make sure we comply with all of that, of course. But the desire to see it quickly has been well received.

Thank you for the clarification and your focus on it. Appreciate it.

Thank you. All right, Vice Mayor.

Yes, thank you. Just going to piggyback on at the last agenda setting meeting where we were talking about looking at the minor SUPs. And I think that Councilmember Andeen had brought up putting that on. And initially, the conversation was October 22. And I might have been misunderstanding what kind of an umbrella can fall under. But I do think I had mentioned, could we bring that in on the September 24 when we're talking about the zoning interpretations? My understanding at that point was that I got a yes. So I thought it would fall under that umbrella. So if it's not, I would also double down on let's get that on an agenda sometime coming up somewhat soon. So I yield.

So I would defer to the town manager on that agenda item that we had been discussing. Is that inclusive?

Yeah, I mean, look, I know we had that discussion, and I'm not trying to be, you know, dilatory at all. I was just thinking about making sure that when we presented that we were able to sort of do so in a way that got to what it was that we were being asked. We will certainly make sure that we, you know, attempt to try to get everything back and on for September 24th. That's not a, you know, that's not something I think that's unreasonable to ask, and we'll move forward accordingly.

I appreciate that or just make sure it's on at some point. Yeah, we can do it that that was the direction I thought we had so want to continue down that path of course vice mayor You'll be in that meeting.

Okay.

Thanks All right other questions or comments regarding future agenda items Thank You mayor well since we're discussing a future agenda item that the rest of the council wasn't involved in can you explain to us what you did in agenda set a meeting that We're gonna be seen regarding the sure

So the request had come in for, you know, obviously we have a process for four council members to direct, to put things on, but a manager, the town manager or the mayor can also place things on the agenda. So the question was, it came up this way, as I recall, was there is a process for minor amendments to SUPs that doesn't go to council and only goes to the planning commission. And the concern was there was, excuse me, the managerial. I'm sorry, I thought it was both managerial. Okay, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's talk about managerial. So the managerial process, there was a desire to maybe have it come back EXPLAIN HOW IT'S USED AND GET DIRECTION FROM COUNCIL IF THERE ARE CONCERNS OR DESIRE TO WANT TO SEE POTENTIAL AMENDMENTS TO THE WAY THAT WE CURRENTLY DO MANAGERIAL AMENDMENTS. AS YOU KNOW, IF IT FALLS UNDER THE CRITERIA FOR MANAGERIAL, IT CAN BE DONE AT THE LEVEL OF THE TOWN MANAGER, BUT THAT ALL OF COUNCIL IS GIVEN NOTICE AND IF A NUMBER OF COUNCIL MEMBERS INDICATE THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IT BROUGHT TO YOU, YOU'RE BACK OUT OF THE MANAGERIAL AMENDMENT PROCESS, THAT'S WHAT WE CURRENTLY DO. But then the concern was can we kind of see how that's working and allow counsel to have an opportunity to look at that?

Thank you, all right, and I think councilmember and Dean Keller I can provide further detail if needed or I

The reason that I brought it up in the agenda-setting meeting was when I was council liaison to the planning commission, there was a managerial amendment that was approved. Staff did nothing wrong. They did nothing wrong at all, but it was to the Scottsdale Plaza Resort, who had just gone through the planning commission and through the council to be approved. However, there was a managerial amendment approved that allowed for a bigger event center. if I remember correctly. And the planning commissioners came to me and said, we never approved that. How is that getting built? And I said, well, it was a managerial amendment. And so that's where the impetus of this whole, let's look at the managerial amendments, just because the staff, I mean, like I said, staff's not doing anything wrong. They're following the code. It's just the planning commission was like, we never approved this event center as it stands today and as it's being built. And they were all surprised. So we had a meeting with the chair of the planning commission. And it's incredibly hard to get four council members together, which constitutes a quorum, to agree to not move forward with the managerial amendment. So that's why I brought it up.

So it's a discussion that will be in a study session. Correct. Thank you, Council Member. All right. Any other questions or comments or suggestions on agenda items at this point? We can move on to Mayor, Council, and Manager comments. Are there any reports from the members of Council? Council Member Thomason.

I do not have a report, but I do have a moment of gratitude. I would like to thank Susie Hawthorne, who is sitting out here today. And she brought us a plate of her very famous homemade praline treats. And they are waiting for us during executive session. Most executive sessions could benefit from sugar. So I want to thank her. But on a much more substantive basis, I think Susie's gift of homemade goods is a representation of this community. She is a longtime volunteer. She's a longtime attendee of Coffee with a Cop. She's an engaged, passionate member of the community. And she represents dozens and dozens like her. So Susie, from the sugar to you personally, to what you represent in this community, I just want to thank you.

Very nice. Agreed. All right. Comments, reports? Council Member Keller.

Thank you, Mayor. The Historical Advisory Committee is meeting on the 16th at 3 p.m. We're busy, busy doing all sorts of stuff. Town Hall presentations and historic property recognitions. Well, I guess the Town Hall, we're talking about historical property. And all sorts of information. So if you want to come listen in, you're more than welcome to. I yield.

Councilmember Liebman Thank You mayor.

I wanted to report as the liaison to the Arts Board and we have our chair sitting out there So wave Colleen. Thank you the Arts Board met after a long summer on Tuesday just passed and I Have to say it's a great board they work so well together and it's a pleasure to be involved with them and But next month in October, we will have a new artist, and that's Martin Galbutt, who will be installing his artwork. So I invite everybody to come look at it. It's very different from what we have now with Dr. Dickman. And they are also working on studio tours in the spring, which has been very successful. So they're going to be putting out a call for... any artists in Paradise Valley who have studios in Paradise Valley to maybe open their studios to these tours. So I just wanted to shout out to the Arts Board. They're sure on top of things, and they do a great job. So thank you. Awesome.

Council Member Moore.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Just a few announcements. Our great police volunteers will be hosting a Red Cross blood drive here at Town Hall on September 15th. And last Wednesday, we had coffee with the cop, and a member of the Attorney General's office provided education on fraud schemes, which was certainly very interesting. And then our next coffee with the cop will be on October 7th. And a reminder, every first Wednesday, the chief hosts a coffee with a cop at the PD at 8.30 a.m. So that's when it occurs.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council Member Pace.

All right. Thank you. First, thank you to my teammates that went to the league. We had a number of you there, and I heard great things. And everybody loved Mayor Mark. That was great to hear, too. But you guys networked, and I wasn't there. Sorry I was off traveling. Appreciate and the youth committee and carrying the flag thought it was awesome. Kudos to the vice mayor for caring and helping with that all year long. And it's really proud to see how they've evolved. I think all of us were a little tentative of are they going to stick with it? And where's it going to go? And do we really want to make a part of this? And I loved having them with the flag with the with the vice mayor. That was very cool. Second, I wanted to give you a little report on the experience Scottsdale. We have our annual audit coming up, so town manager and I will be going to that meeting with the auditors and then bringing back reports and you'll get information quickly after that. I think it's in like three or four weeks. We've still got the Paradise Valley Food and Wine Festival putting together. So we've met with the resorts. And so stay tuned. We might have another good addition in town. And we do it fall and spring. So we're working on how that's going to look, what's going to happen. It'll start really slow. And then over years, just like the wonderful art stuff, it will build. But it'll be events tied at different resorts throughout our whole PV community for residents, for guests, for people to come stay, to come enjoy it. So probably be like a November in the fall and then probably in April. We're trying to pick not the peak times, but a slower time that would make sense to do that. So stay tuned on that. And then annual experience, Scottsdale meeting. And I forgot the date. It's in my calendar. I was trying to find it really fast. My apologies if anyone remembers what it is. But if you guys are, please, everybody come. We want to have everybody on council there if you can. I've also invited our two new council elects, and they're both coming, so they've already signed up, Bill Anacikis and Bob Brown. And it's a great time for us to network with Scottsdale and with others around, so we'd love to have that and then catch up on what Rachel Sacco and the Experience Scottsdale team is doing and planning. And a lot of things are different with AI. So there is new stuff. So even though you've gone in the past, it's a little bit different world right now. And we've got more international airlines that are here. So things are changing a little bit. So it's all good. That's it.

I yield. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Pace kind of hit it before. That's okay. No, it's fine. It was great. It was a great league conference. Super exciting. Arizona Biltmore never disappoints. It was great meeting with other municipalities and learning more about what's going on with the state. Yes, the youth group did amazing. the Youth Council. They were really excited to help out this year. It was their inaugural year. And we got some feedback. We just met with them a couple of days ago and got some feedback on the event and hopefully put some suggestions in. And then our intern, Melissa, was a wonderful addition and help. And thank you so much for really taking an interest in them and showing up for us at the League Conference. And, yes, thank you, Mayor, for bringing up 9-11 tomorrow. Never forget, I was on an earlier life. I was a flight attendant for 32 years, and the day is a very somber day for me. And a lot of my colleagues, you know, I'm still friends with, and it's never forget. Yeah, I yield.

Well, thanks, everyone. I've got a couple updates, and I'll turn it over to the town manager. I want to thank Melissa and welcome her to the team as our new intern. And if you haven't seen this week's edition of the Paradise Valley Independent, you certainly should because she is featured, which is well-deserved and very well-written article. Excited about that. Make sure you get some copies. And we should all probably get her to sign one because it's just the beginning of a stellar career ahead. And so we're so grateful that you're going to be with us through May. And thanks to the Independent for showcasing that wonderful talent that we have. And we're so grateful to you. And you did jump in head first on helping out the Youth Council at the League. And I greatly appreciate that. And along the same lines with my colleagues, The League is such a great, important way for us to network and work with other municipalities around the state. There were over 1,700 registered attendees at that event, and they were from staff members, elected officials at the municipal level, at the county level, at the state level, and at the federal level. And it was a great chance to talk and listen to best practices and things that we may or may not face in the town of Paradise Valley, but it's just a really – it's a very – a useful tool, and we're so grateful. And I'm particularly grateful to my colleagues that did so much, and our staff that did so much to attend and to be part of those discussions. We showed up, and I was proud, very proud of everybody. And the Youth Council, a lot of Youth Councils participate at one level with the League, and they will carry their town or city flag. And so this is the first time that we had that opportunity with our Youth Council and the Vice Mayor, who typically escorts the flag. the Jenny Simpson flag right back here. And it was just really heartwarming to see and the presentation. And I believe there is a display in the lobby, I think. Is that where the...

The display that the Youth Council made is actually in the boardroom in case council members wanted to see it who hadn't, but we intend to have it on display in the lobby.

Perfect. So take a look at that. They came together as a team, and we did have a follow-up meeting with them a couple days ago. I sat in briefly on that, and they had great feedback, and their enthusiasm towards what they can offer is stronger than ever. So we're very, very fortunate to have that group. Also, I wanted to thank Susie for the treats. We appreciate that very, very much, Susie. You're an icon that way. Thank you. And finally, I was just going to mention, again, we've got a Day of Reverence tomorrow. So please put some thought to that and remember that we all came together pretty well. after 9-11 to to unify and that's a place where we can still find some space to go and I I just ask everyone take some takes the thought about that and with that I would pass it over to the town manager Thank you.

Mr. Mayor. I just have one item. I want to discuss or not discuss but just really talk about more shortly after we adjourned and went on hiatus as a council for meetings and I made a decision not based upon any specific threat or anything like that, but just more based upon some recommendations about security that in these conversations I've had with the police department to close during business hours the door, the locked door that is between the lobby and this part of the town hall building. I understood that that would be a significant change. I had just gotten, I think, right around my three-year anniversary with the town, and it was something that had been on my mind pretty much that entire three years, but I didn't want to rush into something, and I wanted to do it at a time when... Hopefully the traffic was less, which was true. Summertime activity levels are somewhat less than maybe other times of the year here in the building, just to see, and to see whether or not we could make that work. I think it's fair to say that the jury is still out. I've gotten a lot of good feedback, both positively and concerns about losing the small town feel about closing that portion off and access and some difficulty in reaching somebody. I have certainly always tried and encourage others to look out for individuals in the lobby. We actually lucked out a little bit this summer because we had an election and for a significant few weeks there in the summer there were election workers and Mr. Miller was stationed out there and so he was certainly able to help and direct as well. So some of the things that we're still looking at is some sort of a volunteer presence i've gotten a good response when i've asked about it we put it in the weekly and we've asked some of our existing volunteers and we've gotten a number of people that have indicated that they have interest in that but the reason i'm i'm speaking to this today is because i know that it's it's generated conversation uh in the community and i appreciate that because the fact that this community cares about that as much as it does i think speaks volumes about the type of community that Paradise Valley is and why I enjoy so much working here is because something that maybe in other places might be seen as sort of a mundane detail is something that is important, and it's important for all the right reasons. It's important because people care about the character of the community that they live in. They care about their connection with the staff that works for the town. They care about access and about being able to do things like parking their car, walking in the building, and looking at all of Dr. Dickman's amazing works on the wall. And I care about all those things too. And trust me, staff does too. appreciate the fact that we are able to work in a historic building that cares about art and cares about its history. But at the same time, I want to make sure that we create as safe an environment as we can reasonably to the people who both come here to visit, to conduct business, and who come here every day to work. So balancing all those things takes time. And to start somewhere at least by something that was clearly not an expenditure of money, A, and B, clearly reversible if need be, which is simply whether a door remains propped open or closed, seemed to be sort of a small first step. But it's by no means, and the message I wanted to communicate tonight is that it's by no means the end of the conversation. It's really a beginning. to continue to look at that and other options, to continue to try to make it a welcoming place for members of the community to come and conduct business, whether it's the post office or our community development counter or whatever type of business. When I talk to people about my experience working here in the town, one of the things I tell them is, I can be sitting at my desk and a gentleman who just spent two hours playing racquetball or tennis can walk into my office in the middle of summer, sit down at my conference table, and we can talk about something that was on that person's mind. I don't want to lose that. It's important to me as it is to the community because having that level of connection in a town like this speaks volumes to why people care and the fact that we as staff want to be and ought to be receptive to that at all times. And I tell you this because I think we're on the right track, but we're by no means done. And I think there's a lot more work that can be done and will be done. So that was sort of I wanted to let folks know that this is something that we're still working very hard to get right and that we're not done with that exercise by any means. So I just wanted to say that today and to thank those who have weighed in on all sides of this and offered their opinions. It's all very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Town Manager. And with that, that will conclude our business meeting at this point. And I would ask if there's a motion for the council to move back into executive session to consider items 26234 and 26232. So moved.

I so move.

Moved by the Vice Mayor and Council Member Thomason. All those in favor?

Aye.

Our next regular scheduled meeting is for September 24th, 2026. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. We can't adjourn yet, Mayor. Thank you.

Mayor.

Oh, I'm sorry. We're not going to adjourn. That's the conclusion of the business meeting.