Town Council - Special Meeting

Did they go to the winter? I don't know. New daughter. I was They were my sister. Yes. Awesome.

Together. Good afternoon. I'd like to call this meeting of the Pent Lakeside Council to order. We do have a quorum. Please remember to put your cell phones on silence if you would please. Um, we have one item before us tonight. This is a public hearing discussion and consideration of possible usage use for our community development block grant funds. These are funds that we get through Nikko that cycles uh periodically over a cycle of six or seven years I believe. Um I'm going to introduce Rich Orond from NIKOG who will lead us in our discussion if you would please. Thanks for coming over today.

You're very welcome. Thanks for having me today. So yeah, I'm I'm program manager for the CDBG and housing department with Northern Arizona Council of Government Snake. Um, so I'll talk to you for about 10 minutes here about what some of the perimeters are for CDBG, community development block grant are. Um, some of the things I'm saying I'm saying because we this is a federally funded program and there are all kinds of rules and some of the things I'm saying are I'm obliged to say in order to make this public hearing an official public hearing. So um first of all it is as I've said it's federal funding um that comes in provides funds for generally housing and community development activities um in rural it's meant for rural Arizona works in obviously the four counties of northern Arizona um it comes down through the Arizona Department of Housing which administers it at a state level and then they work through the cogs the councils of government to work with rural municipalities um and counties to deliver the funding out on a on a rotating basis as you've pointed out. Um so and CDBG can fund actually even though it comes through housing it can fund a diverse uh assortment of different kinds of projects. Um to be eligible for funding, however, it does have to meet at least one out of three um national objectives that HUD has. The first and the most commonly used uh objective is that the project has to um that at least 51% of the persons who are benefiting from the project must be considered low or moderate income individuals. um

specifically meaning um 80% or less of the area median income. Uh the project can also be used to aid in the prevention of slums and blight. Also can be used to serve some sort of urgent need like an urgent health need. Those last two are far less uh common. uh only 30% of the of Department of Housing's annual allocation can be used for slums or blight or urgent need. And in fact, it's usually far less than that because the um hurdle one has to go over to show slum blight or urgent need are pretty significant. Um so we're really most of our projects are about focusing on um addressing low moderate income uh individuals. Uh it's worth noting that uh at the federal level there are certain groups that are automatically considered low and moderate income individuals that include seniors, adults with disabilities, uh homeless people, um abused children, battered spouses. So projects that involve um ADA accessibility that involves building a senior center or a homeless shelter something like that are automatically qualified. So let's talk about how much money is available in this case this year. So as I pointed out uh ADOH ARNA housing um allocates money to uh NikoG for our region. uh we then allocate it out to the counties and then within each using sort of a population and poverty formula uh proportionally and then within each county there's a rotation on who receives funding in any given year. Um this year obviously it's Pinetop Lakeside's turn. Uh you actually have an agreement with Taylor.

The county in general has a 4-year rotation but you and Taylor have agreed to switch off. So, it's every eight years that you will receive funding. And this is your one in8ear chance to get some funding. Um, the state gets about $10 million in CDBG funding. Uh, our region gets about $2 million. Navajo County gets about $500,000 uh dollars of that and Pine this year Pinetop Lakeside gets that full amount. It'll be on the order of 500,000. Um it was a little different last year, but I won't bother giving you a specific number because every year might go up, might go down a little bit, but it'll be if um history is any teacher, it'll be um somewhere on the order of 500,000. no guarantees because that has to be first the proclamation at the by Congress on how much this CDBG program gets nationally and then all that gets divvied up until it's divvied up into your portion. So until all that divying happens um we don't know exactly what that amount's going to be. That number should come down somewhere in late spring, probably Mayish. you'll have an exact amount before you you have to put in an a proper application to the department of housing. Um it is worth noting that um later in the year there is something called the state special projects fund uh that is also CDBG money. the money, this $500,000 I'm talking about right now is um the regular rotation money you're going to get every year. However, every year um well, most every year, last year they didn't do it, but most years ADO has a state special

projects fund, which is an additional pot of CDBG money up for competitive bidding. So all of the jurisdictions that are that are um eligible to receive CDBG funding in a given year can also apply to that SSP fund for additional funds. Um they didn't do it last year. We're hoping two years worth of money is going to show up this year um for that SSP. So consider that as another possible source. Um but again, that's competitive, so there's no guarantee. This $500,000 is set aside for Pinetop Lakeside. Um, okay. Let's talk about the types of projects one can do with CDBG. I'll give you uh a all kinds of examples uh that would be allowable eligible projects. So first of all you can do projects in public works and safety things like uh improving water systems, wastewater systems, uh road and street improvements, drainage improvements, uh fire protection facilities and equipment. Uh you can do um sort of housing facilities and removal of architectural barriers meaning accessibility improvements for those with disabilities. Um you can also do things like a senior center or food bank and support those kinds of projects. Um public services specifically things like uh public safety services and health care educational programs services for senior citizens or homeless emergency assistance. Those would be the type of non-infrastructure projects you could possibly do. um housing obviously through the depos department of housing. So you could do owner occupied housing rehabilitation

where um you rehab homes for lowincome individuals um throughout throughout the town um letting them stay in their homes. Leadbased paint evaluation, home ownership assistance. Um you can also do neighborhood revitalization. That would be more like historic preservation, uh, demolition of certain properties that are in poor condition. Uh, commercial or industrial rehabilitation. Those are a little more rare and would involve higher approval at ADH site. Then you can do things like planning, capacity building, um putting sort of uh town plans together and having that paid for in part by CDBG, uh community development plans, housing plans. And lastly, uh it can be used for um administration up to 18% of the total grant amount. Can be used to um pay for the general administration of the grant. If you were to have Nikk do something on your behalf, that would come out of your general funds as well. I have a little list here of what what Pinetop Lakeside has done in the LA since 1987. Uh we've been we've been keeping track and actually I think this list went back to 1982. I didn't put the first two down there, but um Hightop Lakeside has been receiving CDBG funds for a long time. Since 1987, you've in fact received $2.2 million worth of CDBG funds. In the 1900s, you worked on some street improvements, did a woman's shelter and a senior center, some housing rehab, uh domestic violence awareness and a shelter. Those were in the n in the 1980s and 90s. In the 2000s, uh looks

like there was some more housing rehab. There was uh senior transportation, big brother, big sisters mentoring, um in addition to that, domestic violence facility, uh some commercial facade rehab, a wildfire mitigation program, and then since 2010, it's all been uh road work. There was the Jackson Lane sidewalk. Um there was a senior center safety renovations, but um then there was Woodland Road sidewalk improvements. And last time in 2018 that you had CBG funding, you worked on the Johnson Drive infrastructure improvements.

Uh, okay. So, let me tell you, I'm almost done here. Let me tell you about sort of what the timeline looks like um going forward. So, um, by April 24th is your deadline to for all communities to have selected and prioritized the projects you want to do. So, we'll be bringing forward projects here tonight. Um, it is ultimately up to the town council as the final word on what projects will be moved ahead with. Um, all projects that will be considered must be brought up in this public hearing tonight. If it's not brought up in this public hearing, it cannot be considered at the next public hearing. I assume you'll probably do this at your regular council meeting in April perhaps, but by April 24th, you have will um need to select the projects you want to move ahead with. Um and if you're going to add any nonCDBG funding onto it from the general funds of the town or whatnot, you would need to commit those funds by that time. Um we will submit the full application to you will with our assistance if you wish uh submit the full application to Nikk by June 5th. Uh the Nik's regional council has to approve all of the project ideas throughout our region. That'll happen in mid June. And then by we'll work with you back and forth on that application, refine it, make sure that it's 100% project ready, ADOH approvable ready, and have that into them by August 1st. Um, we anticipate the actual grant award will be somewhere in uh the monies will be available probably later late in the year. probably the way it's been moving later and later every year, it's probably going to be about November before the money is actually released

and you will sign an agreement, a funding agreement with ADOH to move forward. So again, this is a call that the public council members, the town staff, the public can all bring forward and should bring forward um ideas for the use of the 500,000 or so dollars that um is available through CDBG. Um and we're going to get all those ideas down, but if you can uh if you have an idea, please present the idea. If you have an idea of a budget rough, it doesn't have to be anything exact at this point, but some idea of money, please uh let us know that as well. Um and um if oh last thing, if you are speaking and presenting a project, please do make sure you have signed in this on the sign-in sheet. that is a requirement. Otherwise, that's everything I have and I'm open to any any and all questions you might have

about the process and anything else. Thank you for that, Rich. That was very informative. Before we start hearing from folks, I would like to ask the council if there are any questions or clarifications that you have for Rich. Councelor Heisler, uh, I just wanted to ask how you said number one, and we'll focus on number one because I think that's the main one you were pushing, but 51% low income. How is that determined? Like if you're putting in a sidewalk for example or you do the senior center, how do you determine that you're serving?

Great question. Um now if it was a project that served the entire town, you could look at the low moderate income uh numbers for uh according to census block. As it turns out, uh Pinetop Lakeside does not meet the criteria for low moderate income for the as a full entity. So you do not have as your entire population, you have less than 51% low moderate income. So a a project that simply serves the whole town period um that would not qualify. You would need to show that the neighborhood the area that it was in um is serving uh is 51% or greater of low moderate income. So basically, you're going to draw a a a use area around this project and you can determine what's a mile around. Depends on what the project is, I imagine, is who's going to use it. If it's a park, you might determine what are the reasonable things. And then you you will do a household survey of that area. Um, and there are very strict rules in the application handbook about what are how to form a random sample and what is the percentage of people you need to survey and what's that process. But if you wanted to go in that route, you could um you would need to do a a survey of the area that uh is in question.

Thank you. Yeah, there's a lot to it. There is unfortunately it's very Any other questions from council members before we start? Okay, I'm going to open this up. I know that um do we have a list back there of folks that wanted to speak or Thank you, Melena. If you can also, mayor, pass it down so all the council members can sign it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we'll do that.

Thank you, Melina. Okay, we'll just go ahead and start from the top then. We've got um Dave from Meals on Wheels. If you come on up to the podium, please. Still learning to walk. Uh good evening and uh thank you for having this uh this public hearing. You've all been given a copy of the uh handout that I brought with me tonight. Uh what I'm here to talk briefly about is our proposal request um uh for funding specifically for the Pinetop Lakeside area that we service. And uh if we were to get funding, it would only be used for the Pinetop Lakeside uh funding. and I've outlined that this request falls under the public uh public services uh category in the uh CDBG. Um uh I've been lucky or unlucky enough to have done a number of these usually for healthc care clinics uh in poor areas but anyway so this falls under public services uh because we do provide education social services to residents up here in the meals on wheels uh program through case management provided by Nate and our staff. Uh the um uh second page just gives a synopsis of the dollars that we spend up here. Uh NICOG has a process to approve uh to uh assess and approve people to come on to the program and that's what they have done for uh many of the clients that we have

that we service up here in Pinetop Lake. So if we look at congregate clients, they have approved 13 uh clients up here. Uh but that does not mean that they fund them. Uh so while they've been approved, they haven't been funded. So the White Mountain Meals on Wheels uh uh provides the meals for these folks. Uh we don't charge the folks for money. We have to try. where uh we're uh we have to suggest a donation, but they fall into the lowinccome category and we track their income on their assessments uh when we get them. So, uh, we do 3,380 meals up here in congregate, uh, that come down to, uh, the senior center, uh, there and it costs us $3,420 that we are not, uh, paid for. So, that comes out of the funds that we raise uh, at the um, uh, White Mountain Meals on Wheels. For home delivery clients, we service 22. Our the senior center up here, it's a great center. Uh they don't have the home delivery program, so we provide that up here for Pinetop and uh Lakeside. So, uh number of clients approved by Nikk up here are 22. However, they only fund four of them. So that four costs us uh so we derive $10,400 for the population home deliver population up here but uh we pay out an additional $468 $46,800. So it costs our program $77,220

to service Pinetop Lakes. And so that's why uh I'm here uh to present this to you. I've given you a little bit of more information. I didn't want to overload you with statistics. I can do that in a much more detailed uh application. I'm used to uh doing this for uh for clinics. Uh it's not just about meals, it's about the population. So, if you take a look at that table, we've got uh we've got 54% of the people we serve here. This is the only meal they eat a day. And so, uh that's why we're committed to uh this region. As I said, we service Pinetop, Lakeside, and Xolo out to Lynen and sometimes out to Koncho uh uh to help folks out. uh uh the um uh these people take uh uh many medications and some with 31% have lost weight because they don't have enough food. If you go to the uh about the population the uh population here most folks uh for congregate uh uh 90 uh 93% are between 70 and 89. And in our home deliver population, we've got 50 60 70 80 about 90 uh 90 95% of them are over the age of 70 as well. 64% of the home delivered population live alone. All but two use a walker, cane or wheelchair to ambulate. And um uh 77% of the home delivered clients when we do the clinical assessment uh for nutritional risk 77% are at uh

nutritional risk level three. So the meals that we provide is that my time? I'm sorry.

That's okay. Uh so uh uh so 77% of them um uh uh lost my train of thought are at nutritional risk level three and we track them pretty closely and we monitor them. We as you know home delivery we do the welfare check on them as well and we have had a couple of instances where we've had to call 911 uh when we get there. Fortunately, we did get there and we had a couple of people that were down and were able to get assistance. I've got some uh uh budgetary information here for you to peruse at your leisure, but I wanted you to know how hard we work and where our funding comes from right now. Uh from uh me, White Mountain Meals on Wheels uh in total. It's uh we also as I mentioned do welfare checks, nutritional education, uh nutritional counseling and we do uh provide some coordination of some services for the population up here. So that's what I have for you tonight to consider.

Thank you very much. I can do a lot more if uh we're approved for some level of funding. I know I'm asking asking for 60. Uh we'll take we'll take anything. Thank you for being here. Are there any questions for the council for for um Dave? Councelor Turner, how many days a week do you serve meals? And how many days in the of the week do you home deliver? Uh we deliver four uh four days. On Thursday, we deliver two meals, one for Thursday and one for Friday. Okay. Can I ask Rich a question?

Of course. When this analysis on the income level is done, is it appropriate to consider the client rather than the neighborhood? Absolutely. In this case, Meals on Wheels would be an easy choice because I assume all your clients are seniors. Yes. Yes. So, um, so they are automatically considered in that low to moderate income category. Um, so they're Adam. Yeah, no problem at all. Thank you.

The average household income, and don't hold me to it, I put it in specifics, is about $1,100 a month. And out of that, most run on a deficit. The other thing I didn't put in here is that many of these folks don't have family support. So, we're it. The need is great. Okay. Yes, Vice Mayor. Um, so you're serving 22 right now. Is that the way I understand this? We're serving uh no 30 uh 22 home deliver and then 13 congregate. Okay. So those attend lunch at the senior center in Xolo, correct? And those are all from Pinetop Lakeside. Yes.

But this is only Pinetop Lakeside population. But but you still don't come up into Pinetop really. You're more of the Lakeside area. That's the way it used to be. Is that still the case? It's a mix. Okay. To give you the exact, but it's it's a mix. I mean, can did you get up to the popppler area and that I know we've got a couple of north of here. Um uh out toward um I used to live here. I should know where that is. Up around the area where we have uh like the car show in the sun. Yeah. Okay. To the pines, you know. We'll we'll go up there. We have a 2hour window of delivery to maintain temperature for the meals. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Anything else? Okay. Well, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you for your consideration. We appreciate all the work that you do as well. Um, so I know we had a list of folks that that signed in. I don't know that they all necessarily want to speak, but I Who from the senior center? Megan, are you going to come up? Okay, come on up, Megan. And I'm sorry to interrupt. Um Rich and I were just speaking and um we wanted to to make sure that that everybody understands too that um it is we can only choose one project. We can't split it up into multiple projects. So that's something to keep in mind with with asks.

Thank you for that. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate and it just for just as a little more color to that clarification. So, ADOH only allows one project per municipality. If you were county government, they would allow you three, but one per municipality. Um, and it can be one plus a planning project or one plus a design project or one plus some equipment purchase, some fire equipment or a van or something like that. So, there's a little bit of exception to it, but in general, you will only be funded for one main project with that funding. Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate it. Okay, Megan, go right ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Megan Campbell. I'm the director at the White Mountain Community Center. I've given you guys this packet of paper that includes our sponsorship paperwork in it that has all of the basic information for the amount of meals that we've served since 2020. Moving forward to 2025. This year alone, the amount of meals that we have served has nearly doubled because we're now opening our doors to people that are not senior citizens. We're serving meals to homeless, low-income people as well. So, we are now serving about 10,000 by the end of the year meals annually to Pinetop Lakeside area. We also have a community food bank that we operate that has distributed 300,000 pounds of food between um from June to July of this year. will have distributed probably pretty close to 350,000 pounds of food. We do that with the collaboration of United Food Bank and our partnership with Safeway Albertsons. So, we pick up food every day of the week from Safeway Albertsons to distribute to the community as well. I don't know, I' I've put a bunch of pictures in here you guys can go through, but since 2022, we've been working with tons of different damage issues that the community center has, including the leaky roof that created a ton of water damage for our kitchen and our main entrance area. We did get the roof repaired, but now the kitchen is in bad disrepair, including a walk-in refrigerator that is no longer functional. Um, we have been limping it along, but every year that's $10,000 in repairs to that walk-in that we just puts huge constraints on our budget to try to keep it operating. I mean, it's sitting right now with a bad coil because the whole thing needs to be replaced. The water damage on the outside of the building actually damaged all of the compressor unit on the exterior part of the building as well. So, what we're asking is to have our kitchen renovated for this project to help us be able to perhaps consider a meals on wheels program out of Pinetop Lakeside, which is not something that we've been able to do up to this point because of the restraints constraints that we have due

to our budget issues and the damage to the kitchen. Okay. Thank you, Megan. Before you run off, any questions for Megan from the council? Okay. So, you I do have one qu Go ahead. Um, I guess uh I I think you're certainly a worthy cause for sure. So, we get this money this year and and I would like to see something like you doing some delivering of foods and things like that. I guess my question is next year when we don't have this funding, are you going to be able to continue with that?

Absolutely. Our program's been operating since before the town was actually incorporated. I mean with the new if if you were to grow it into actually taking meals out meals on wheels type situation have no issue with that you would be able to continue that even without this funding from this year right so like I said the biggest issue is the kitchen just will not handle even adding those extra meals um to the kitchen as it is. So yeah if we had the kitchen overhauled we'd be able to take on more meals and provide more meals for the community as a whole as well. Do you have an estimate on what that take to redo the kitchen? Probably about 75,000. Okay.

So, I guess kind of tagging on to the vice mayor's question, once you start a program, and I know you have budgetary restrictions, are you going to be able to continue that program? I mean, how are you going to accommodate the extra work involved in delivering home meals? Um, you know, the extra cooking. So you will have enough funding to be able to have extra staff or well most of those home delivered meals are done by volunteers. So that would be something we would definitely have to look into to gain more volunteers. We have a ton of different partnerships in the community including like Unisur and these guys that are willing to help us in a lot of different ways. Okay. So you don't feel it' be a problem to Okay. Okay. Thank you. I think that's really Yeah.

cut to the chase bottom line there. So Okay. Councelor Heiser. I I just wanted to ask I guess for the the sake of asking week 500,000ish dollars and one project. Correct. So again though to to reiterate what Rich said, you know, if we had one project and it was maybe equipment or planning or something like that, that's certainly something that we could take into consideration. Yeah, that could be a side project along with the main project. So the equipment like not not a kitchen remodel though. No equipment needs to be public service equipment like fire equipment. Buy a a van for an organization or or yourselves, police,

buy defibrillators for rooms or something like that. Um, unfortunately, police actually is one little exception because they have their own funding sources. But dang it. So, I I guess the question that I have is if we're talking about $500,000 and and and that is money that we will likely get if we were to apply for up to $500,000. Mhm. So, what could the senior center do with $500,000? Aren't you saying that they could have a planning and zoning project on top of the senior citizen center project? Sure. Usually those planning projects are less than the the ma the pro the central project.

So an example of of a planning project that that we've done before um could be anywhere from 60 to $200,000 in engineering um documents just depending on the the size of the project whether that would be um a road or a a new community center or something like that. So still talking about not a lot of money.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is I I mean we haven't gotten that far yet, right? So I guess for me if I was going to pick a project and I think the I go to the senior center a lot and I look at it and the building itself is in could use a ton of you know upgrades and you know I think there there looks like there's probably three or four different facilities all attached to one and so like from my perspective if I've got that money I don't want to spend $74,000 and and throw away $425. like I I'd like to see what that project looks like in whole if we could if we and I guess that's what I'm asking. Is that is that what I'm hearing? I would I would uh I would suggest you think bigger. Yeah. You think

so? I guess that's kind of where I'm coming from is I would like to like I think that's a great project to I mean I I go there. I see the senior citizens that are in that building. I see the programs that you guys are doing and I feel like now that it especially now that it's the community center like what could we do to really improve that building like with 500 grand I think that's a lot of improvements

and we could definitely expand upon that. You know our food bank and kitchen as a whole operates on one side of the building and that side of the building is the side of the building that received the most damage from the roof leak. So right now we have someone in there trying to work on our flooring but just all of it is rotted. So I completely understand where you're coming from. If we were able to take off that one side of the building and expand the food bank and the kitchen together, I think that that would increase our operations by at least 25% up here. Okay. Yes, sir. Hang on a second. Um, I just want to clarify one thing. This money is allocated to us, so it's not an if. Well, that's what that that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like I I I just want to I guess clarify for the rest of the room. Like we're

I'm not going to I don't think it's responsible of us to throw away half a million dollars to fund a a $74,000 project. Like I think we need to think a little bit bigger. And I honestly we were asked a couple weeks ago to come in with ideas and that was one of the things I had on my list was like can we in invest in the community center and make it something better than it is today. Okay. And I 100% agree with you. It would be amazing for that community center and the growth of the community as a whole. Councelor Phillips, question for you, sir. So, my understanding is 500,000 one product. We can't do a community project of I don't fix a road in town for 100,000. Then we still have 400,000 that we could use with other these other charities.

That's correct. So, we have to pick a single project and that money goes there up to 500K. That's correct. you you there's one project there's as we've been saying there's a couple little exceptions where you can add on equipment or add on a planning project but those are very specific exceptions. You can't do two infrastructure projects. You can't do two main projects. So something like this

you do have to choose. Now, it's it's all up it's up to you. If if the $100,000 project is just going to have such an impact that you're okay sending the rest back to ADOH, then that's your choice. Um, but you you can uh you know, you can make that decision. But anything that's not used in that one project will be unclaimed and and go back to eight to for lack of a better, we could build a new senior center if it's under 500,000. We could build spend it all and just build a new place for the senior and the community center. I imagine then your costs of architecture and other things would then also go up. But if you could do all of that for under $500,000. Okay, go for it.

Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Councelor Smith was next. Sorry. Um yeah, the senior center doesn't own the land that they're on. It's owned by the school by the school district. um that might be a problem um to build a new building if they won't give a you know a longer longer term lease. So you might be want to think about putting if you do a another building um somewhere else uh you know on on on land that the town the town owns instead of the school district. Okay. Vice Mayor.

Uh, and my question for Gria, uh, in something like this, I mean, you could do if you did some rebuilding of the building and and you could get a van or two actually to pick up seniors and do that. All that stuff could be included in this. Is that theoretically? Yes. Yeah. As well as maybe delivery vehicles to deliver meals or something. Yes. Okay. Thank you. It would depend on the specifics in general. Yeah. Okay. And Councilman Smith, our lease is 20-year lease on that property. Yeah, but it can be cancelled for sure. It definitely could be, but they haven't at this point in the 40 plus years that we've been there. Right. I I know they haven't.

And there was a discussion at one point about them releasing the property to us as well. So, I'm not sure if that's something they're open to. Yeah. I It might be a problem to build a building, though. You know, on on lease land that you you don't have a long-term lease. It still could be a problem. It's just a good thing for us to all be aware of. Yeah. Okay. Did Did they Can I go ahead ask I thought that they gave the deed to We do own the building. That's just the building itself. The building. They own the building. The dirt. Yes. That was uh given to them by the school board in 1984. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Good point. Thank you, Jerry. Yeah. Um, anything else for Megan? Okay. Thank you for being here. We appreciate it. Um, are there any other community groups that wanted to speak on a particular project? Ralph, come on up.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'd like to uh speak on a uh a youth center rather than a senior center. Now u uh this comes about because some years ago when we first started the NAMI chapter up here I traveled over into Apache County and saw what they had done over there. Uh the background of what they did over there was some juvenile judge in Apache County got sick and tired of all the juveniles flowing through the system and he put together a project. It now falls under Apache County juvenile department I understand. talked to them the other day and got a website. They have a little video which I gave to Christie that we could look at at some point in time. But um so it started about 10 years ago and uh they built a a complete uh youth center down in Round Valley just below the high school about a a mile below the high school and they converted the jail in St. John's into a youth center also. And so these are afterchool centers. Uh if we were to do something like that, I think the price would be substantially in excess of $75,000. But if we built a new building, maybe we would build a building for a senior center and a youth center part of it. And maybe that would come up to is $500,000. So I think it's something to think about. I'd like at some point Christie has the

website information and you can look at the little video. It's a series of pictures of the building of it, some of the activities in it, etc. When I toured it some years ago, I was very impressed with, you know, after school instead of the kids getting into trouble, place for them to go and, you know, I think we have some land close by to Blige High School that could be used for that. Thank you. So, um, question for you before you that must be staffed in the afternoon then.

Yeah, they have, uh, they have some kind of a staff there. Uh, I talked to the young lady at the Apache County Juvenile Department to get that video and um um, she teaches middle school and then apparently after that she's kind of hosting things at the youth center. Right. Thank you. Before you run off, any questions? I I am again more for rich. I mean would this fall in if we did something for seniors and youth? I mean

okay so the it still falls underneath that criteria 51% low to moderate income individuals. Now seniors are automatically considered low to moderate income individuals. So if you have one more senior using it than youth using it, you've met that 51% and you you've done it. So you just has to serve a little bit more senior than youth and then it would Well, I don't think we'd have any problem with how the amount of activity we have in the senior center in in terms of the number of people that would be using it if we did some sort of a combined build. Mhm. Okay. So unless you had some kind of a survey of the families of the youth that were likely to use it, then you could use that survey results.

Okay. That would be a huge hurdle really when you think about the logistics of all that if you had primarily for senior and some extra uses. Okay, thank you for that. Anything else on that topic? Thank you for thinking out of that one. Okay, anybody else from the public? Eric, come on up.

Thank you so much, Mayor. Thanks for the opportunity to consult. Wait till you get up there to speak. So it it's recorded, please. Yes.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, councel. Um I'm Eric Kramer with um Save Our Park. Um I want to make a suggestion to you of a project that would more closely fit the criterias of the grant. Um, I'm sure being on the town council, you have heard at some point in your career that we need more water in Woodland Lake, and we certainly do. It It's a number one concern of the people in the community. Uh, you hear it, we hear it. Um we need to drill a well uh bring up enough water to fill the lake and um we this brings us into the ballpark of the parameters of this grant. Um, we've talked to the well drillers um in the area um not immediately in town but in in the neighboring areas and they've come back with three 350,000 to miraculously 500,000 um that would cost to drill the well, put in the pump and be able to bring water up u to the lake. And um it's uncomfortable being here speaking against uh starving seniors or whatever. You know, it's um it's tough, but it's it's a more appropriate um project for the funding. Um and uh it's a real need. Um it's a very important for tourism to our community, for the economy of our community to have water in the lake. Um it's not going to happen easily or um with a small amount of money, but it's

something that that we need to get done and I think this might be the perfect project for this and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Eric. Any questions? I guess councelor couple of questions that my understanding is once that water hits Woodland Lake, we don't own it anymore. Correct.

Well, that that is true unless we have a conservation agreement with the irrigation district and in my talks with them, they're very happy to do that. that this water um we would get permission to put it into the lake and we'd get security that it would be available uh for rec for recreation use and it it's critical to our community to have the lake. I mean, everyone in town expects us to have the lake and and we need to do it. I I think the the secondary question that I have and I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but the there's sounds like there's some significant repairs that need to be made to the dam and maybe maybe if we were looking at a project, maybe the dam repairs are the mo more appropriate use of the funds and then the well comes after because we can't fill the lake until we repair the dam.

Well, we need to get a handle on that. Um, and we also need to be careful of owning what we own and not trying to own the problems that somebody else has. Um, but it's a good thing to investigate and and we should get to the bottom of that. I think that's a really big issue with a lot of moving parts that we need to investigate. Absolutely. Yeah. The last question I had was how does that work into the 51% because like everybody around Woodland Lake is pretty high income.

Yeah, that that would that would be probably the one hurdle to overcome for this project is to show demonstrate how it's meeting uh low moderate income individuals.

I'll I'll I'll be quite honest. Um, one of the the projects that we've proposed um previously to to Isabelle and to Rich was uh the pickle ball courts over by the police department. Very similar a recreation thing to to the woodland issue. Um, when you draw that that area, you include the shores and that shoots it up. When you have Woodland Lake Park, you would automatically have to include Woodland Hills. That's going to shoot that way up. It's I I would imagine it's probably not going to fall into that 51%. Yeah.

Well, in in deference to Councilman Smith, I don't not sure that we have to include Woodland Hills in our project, which is a nice neighborhood.

Lakeside is is the is the better. But um I I do want to remind that um this area immediately adjacent to Woodland Lake Park, we have Big Springs and that has been assigned um to the the Native Americans in our area, the Apaches, the um the Zunnies and the Hopes. and um they are not necessarily high income people. Uh so there there is a need there and uh I think we can work on getting the right demographics if we need to.

Vice Mayor um I think that was the question I was going to ask. Okay. Um, I guess I mean I would love to see if we could do a afterchool program and a senior center in the in the area we hope to get soon, but uh I don't that's probably premature, right? I mean, uh, yes. If if if if we could though put something at in the park that would accommodate the seniors and the youth, I mean, that would be a possibility because again, as long as it accommodated the seniors, but Okay. All right, Councelor Smith.

Yeah. Well, I I guess you all know I've been working trying to figure out how to get a well to for Woodland Lake for a long time. Then I've been working with Save Our Park and all other people um including the uh Forest Service who would love to have water in that lake so that they could provide uh fishing year round for the seniors and the people who can't afford to drive up to the to the lakes and the in the mountains. I'm I'm sure we've got a a group of people there that would really appreciate um a well um and like I said, I'll be happy to help work on that project. U I've been working on it for two or three years. I've got I've got all kinds of numbers uh figured out for how big a well we need and and uh how much it would take to fill the lake um and keep it maintained. M maintenance is easy because you have seepage and and uh and uh you have evaporation

which you can calculate. Um but you don't know how much is going out the dam if if the dam is leaking. That's more than seepage. So you would have to fix that. Absolutely. You know, come out, you know, fix fix that problem. But it would be a great u great boon for the for the town. And that is of magnitude uh uh project. a project of that magnitude is big enough uh it might be more than 500,000 to do that. I I I've heard more bigger numbers than that.

We have we have interviewed the local well drillers who have recently drilled the well. Okay. We have a very good handle on that. Okay. Thank you, Eric. Um Christy, did you want to say? Yeah. Um, before we start looking at water, I think it would be far more important that we look at maybe some planning on what it would take to make our dam to where it's stable. Currently, the dam does not meet standards and there's a lot of work that needs to be done um to the dam before we could do anything. And the problem is it's not our dam. That's that's a conversation for another day. It's a little bit of a wicked, but but is that something maybe we could use for as a planning on top of helping another organization?

But but I have another question for Rich along the line. I mean uh what about that? As as Jerry brought up, I mean probably there's 51% of the people fishing at the lake are all right. Seniors. Is that how that fall? The challenge is that it can't just be anecdotal. you do have to sort of justify that 51% and demonstrate it in some objective objectively verifiable way. Okay. Um so that would be unless you sent out a surveyor to to go around and survey all the people coming to the lake for a month. I don't know. I imagine there is some way of doing it, but it it would be a challenge to show that that was the case.

It is not hard to find old people and find top lakes. Let me assure you of that. Thank you, Eric. The these other issues are are very worthy that, you know, the seniors, the meals on wheels, that kind of stuff. Something the community should certainly support, but I don't think we have to use this grant opportunity on that. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Okay. Is there anybody else from the public? DJ, come on up.

Make sure all these folks Mayor, vice may council. Um, so before I say what I want to say, I I'll need to sign that. Um, whoever that list before you leave, I've got it up here.

Okay, if you don't mind, I'll come and grab it from you. So, I love these ideas. Um, one thing since we are here to put things on the table is the idea of maybe a workforce development program, you know, whatever that looks like. I know we've we've spun workforce uh in different circles, different conversations. um and all of that drives the economy, etc. But specifically to this program, um I'd love to to at least float the idea of developing a a more substantial workforce here, whether it be through housing or education or something of that nature. But, uh you know, we can unpack that as we go on. So,

okay. Any questions before you run off? Okay. Thank you. And come and get it. Yeah, please. Thank you. You can hand it back to Melena when you're done, please. Okay. Um, I would like to ask staff because I know we have all been kind of brainstorming some maybe some town sponsored projects. I'm going to let Molina answer that because she's got a whole list going here we've been working on. Okay. Thank you, Chrissy. Molina, go right ahead, please.

Yeah, and some of them we've already addressed. Um, of course, one of the the things that we have talked about quite extensively is a community center. um and what we could do to help our current community center or a new community center. So that is um something that that certainly we would like to explore the idea of primarily focusing on the seniors. Um you know the comment was made that that it's not hard to find a senior citizen in Pep Lake and I I would tend to agree with that. Um so that's a an idea that we have been throwing around. Um, additionally, the um, Yellow Jacket Youth Center building that is currently being used for the Nexus Coalition for Drug Prevention. Um, I don't know. Uh, and then also the library has been uh, using that building as well for some of their programs. The library tends to focus a lot on, you know, single single working families. um and a lot of senior citizens use the the library. Um that would be something that we would have to delve into a little bit more to see how we could come up with that 51% that of the library users to to kind of do a twofold project improving that whole area for the library usage. And um uh another thing that we had on our list to do with the library was the roof and an addition. In addition, we um I believe do have full construction plans. If it's not full construction plans, it's certainly um preliminary plans for an addition on the library. So, that was something else that we had on our list. Um we talked about the pickle ball courts. That's not a project unfortunately that uh I think we can make happen. Um Chief Barnes um had a

request and it kind of sounds like maybe that's not uh feasible for um emergency vehicles and trailers. Um but since PD is special and doesn't get any of that funding, darn it. Um, couple other things that are on our list are um the purchase of some snow plows um to see if if maybe that would that would fall into the category. I know Council Member Heisler, we've we've had extensive conversations about getting some new snow plows. Um and and certainly those are not used for only snow plows. Um those can be used for for other um other issues too. uh a Mountain Meadow master plan to complete the so if we had a see if we could come up with a infrastructure project say for the community center and then a um working on a master plan complete master plan for Mount Meadow Recreation Complex. Uh we couple more things that I had on here um is the buses for the four seasons connection. That is something that we have in our budget that will be will be in our next fiscal year budget and I don't remember the dollar amount off my top of my head. I think it's somewhere in the 50,000 53,000.

It's definitely between 30 and 60. I don't have it with me but

um and then uh council member Smith in our work session last week also brought up the senior um bus passes. Certainly the the wrership of our Four Seasons connection is is primarily the seniors and and lowincome individuals that that don't have vehicles that can can transport them to and from work or doctor's appointments. Um, the last thing that I have on my list uh that uh Christy brought up was and and I don't know that this would would work because it's already been purchased but it's not paid off is our um 299 our cat 299 skid steer with the moltrahead that we use for fire mitigation. Um, I don't know if that's something that we've already purchased. Um, and it's it's a lease payment. So, check $300,000 piece of equipment roughly. So,

we donated to you. Anyway, um, yeah, those are the projects that that we've had and and I forgive me if I'm forgetting any that uh that we came up with. We had a lot of brainstorming, so um those are the ones that I have on my list. Okay. Thank you, councelor Phillips. Um, when you talked about the the library and the community center, are you talking about would this would a project like that revitalizing that area cuz those three buildings are right there together? Is that would that could be considered one project and 500,000?

Consider something like that neighborhood revitalization. If you were to do it under one procurement, for example, it sort of could be defined as a single project. you had one general contractor doing the whole thing potentially.

And I'm sorry I I missed one on my list. Um it of course we have roads that are in in much need of repair. Uh so there's always um the Porter Mountain Road. Um we still have we we did that amazing project for the Porter Mountain Road safety improvements for the school. Um, and I believe that I I and don't forgive me if I'm incorrect on this, but I do believe that that that neighborhood in that area is falls under that 51%. Um, as well as potentially um Springer Mountain Road, the um that whole subdivision up there, those roads are in much much needed repair. Um, and then, um, another thought just to throw it out there since we don't talk about it tonight, we can't keep it on our list, is uh, the historical commercial district improvement if uh, downtown Lakeside or um, up in Pinetop. So, things to consider. Okay, we have it's a list.

I think I'm up to 15. Okay, I hope everybody else is taking notes. Historical neighborhood. Um could I add? Go ahead. Of course, please.

Uh I I looked at a couple of years ago and talked with some other communities. Um um I think if we're going to do something with transportation and the buses, I think this area could use some small vehicles going out to to get seniors mainly and and bring them to places. And maybe that could be put along with if we did something with the community center, I don't know, with some buses or even minivans that could run out and pick up seniors and take them to appointments they needed and things like that. Like a dialer ride kind of almost. Yeah, something like that. How would we can pay for the ongoing costs along?

Yeah, that's anyway. But that's a good idea. Okay. Anything else from the council? Council Heisler, I just had a couple of things to add and maybe the burden of proof on these is really high, but like the snow plows, I love that. Um what's the burden of proof to is that an infrastructure project or is that how how do we prove that that service is those kinds of of public service equipment like that that is sort of automatically counts as eligible. Okay. Um and then I assume that as this process moves forward you guys are going to research these projects and come back to us at at the April meeting. Um I wanted to throw a couple of things out there too. I'm not sure if they got mentioned or not. Maybe I missed them. Highway lighting.

Is that something that we could It it we looked into that a little bit. I know the burden of proof is kind of high, but Yeah. Yeah. We'll add it to the list. The Pinetop Lakeside Museum I keep hearing about that is in disrepair. The building and the roof. And that's kind of what I um what I talked about with the historic district um improvements is that would be part of that historic district of of downtown Lakeside. um around the police department, um the jail, the um old Lakeside Market building, um all of all of those, the museum, the gym. Is that not too close to the shores and then would cost drive up or

that's what I I that's where we would have to really look at um seeing how we could phase that project to see because it's historical. Um it's okay. Yeah. Worst thing that we can do is fill out our funding requests and um and get them over to to me and we can work with NACOG and and decide what we're going to be able to do. Okay. Thank you. Did you have something else? I I had uh two more things. The Nature Center was something else that came to mind as uh I think they're nonprofit and maybe there's some expansion potential there. Again, I'm just throwing out ideas cuz they don't get talked about. Mhm.

And then the last thing I had, which again sounds like the burden of proof is pretty high, but it but water uh water system improvements for firefighting capabilities within the town. Yes. And I I apologize. I I meant to have that on my list as well. I did reach out to Jay Cook and I I think it was just a a little bit short notice for him to be able to come here. Jay Cook is with Pinetop Water. Um but yes, water infrastructure um would Yeah. Okay. Good. 20 20 things. That's what I've got as well. Thank you, Taylor. Anything else, Councelor Smith?

Yeah. Well, I had three things on my list and you've already talked about two of them. The well I thought was a good project and um the senior bus um pass program. We'd really like to save that. And if we could somehow tie a 30 $40,000 into that uh from some way, it would really be nice because it's all seniors. It's only good for seniors. It's a it's a slum slam dunk as far as uh qualifications um for that. Uh, and the other third thing that I had on here was, uh, if we just consider Lakeside, I we we probably hit that 51%. And we need street lights terribly bad. We really need street lights in Lakeside.

Yeah, that um, Council Member Heisler did bring that up. So, I have that on the list. Yeah, I agree with with that also. So, that was my three the three items that I had. Yeah. So Rich, when we did those sidewalk improvements you brought up earlier, those were one of those was right there near downtown Lakeside as well. How did we get around the 51% because the shores has always been there? I mean, not always, but it's been there for a long time. That was before my time. I could get you that answer, but I'd have to go and do a little research back to that.

Mary French Jones, she did. And I I briefly looked at some of the documents from the last uh I think it was 2018 2019 that we did the Johnson Drive um improvements project and that really incorporated a lot of the sidewalks there in front of the library and then continuing down to the the community center. Um, I think that what from what I looked and gathered was that the way that we got that that worked was because it was the senior center at the time. So, it was primarily benefiting the seniors and then also the patrons of the library um were estimated to be in that that low to moderate income as well.

So, if we went back to that project in Lakeside that parallels Lakeside Market Mhm. Or I don't know what if if everybody knows where that is. That sidewalk is below grade and there's drainage problems along there. So I don't know if that is something part of the lakeside revitalization historic that you were considering, Molina. Yes.

Okay. So, the the buildings as well as the the infrastructure with the roads and um maybe even the water infrastructure um lumping that all into one project or if it's a smaller project that we choose that could be a planning um that we could do as well or look into I shouldn't say it's not my choice what we do. Spended our money already. Did we Did you mention MMRC water tank? Um, I I did actually already ask about that and that uh the answer that I got from from Isabelle at NICOG was that would be a hard cell because it

serves the whole community. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Christy, did you have anything to add? No, we had a list that we've been working on at director meetings that Lena has presented to you. Okay. I sure. Okay. Anything else from the council? Just one quick thing on the senior bus pass program that would actually be coming out of the area uh on for aging AAA in Niko. Uh Todd Morris can give us numbers on that and maybe there's a way to work that through Niko and not impact our thing and get some money there. I'd be happy to reach out to Todd and ask.

What's that? I'd be happy to reach out to Todd and ask if that's something that outside of the CDBG. Yeah, Todd's got all the numbers. I don't have the numbers in front of me as to what it would take to extend that program for 10 years or something, but 20 30 grand would probably do it, I'm guessing. Okay. I don't know. All right. A lot of needs, a lot of um food for thought. Councelor Turner,

I'm looking down the road here. We We have to prioritize. I've got the top five in my head right now. You might have a different set. You might have a different set. How do we prioritize that? And I'm not looking for an answer here, but we consider getting some input from the public on these 20 items. Well, yeah, but I'm thinking of a survey or something where we'll have another public that can guide us.

Well, we will have another public hearing um in April. Um I don't know that we really have time to do a survey like that because we're backing up against deadlines. We have two months roughly to get this done. And when you say you have five projects that you're considering, remember we really need one project. Yeah, I have my favorite. But um so how can this group of seven go in a room and come out with that one project?

Not easy. Mena, go ahead. So, so part of this process too that Rich kind of touched on a little bit is every person that is here, the organization, us as council, um staff, we have to fill out a funding request form. Those are on the back table. So, before you leave today, please pick one of those up. Those need to be um filled out and returned to me um or even here at town hall uh so that we can consider those. So that is one thing that we will get to NICOG and together we'll work with NIKOG prior to the April public hearing and council meeting to determine if these projects even meet the criteria. So some of these projects might not even make your your top five. I don't know what those are. Maybe one or two of those don't meet the criteria to to move on to the next step. So, we'll have a a more of a um consolidated list, if you will, of what those projects could be. And then, as as Rich said that unless it's mentioned here tonight, it is it it can't be considered. It has to be something that we've mentioned here tonight. Correct.

That's right. Yeah. So, does that answer your question or help a little bit? Yeah. I'm not going to be on the council for that meeting uh for other reasons. So, good luck. Okay. Anything else? Anybody else wish to speak because this is a public hearing. Come on up.

Um I'm I'm Mary Willie and I'm I'm just going to speak on behalf of both uh senior centers um uh in Pinetop and in Xolo. And I know that they don't have Pinetop doesn't have a meals on wheels program, but being in the pro in in that program now for a year. I just wanted to elaborate a little bit more on the things that that you see as a as a volunteer driver because I'm not sure if you're familiar or experienced with having that um ability to serve those people and see them on a daily basis. And I have now for a year. And um real quickly on the topic of the transportation, just speaking to those clients themselves, transportation is important and in the bus system is is is very important, much needed, but they need doortodoor

transportation. That's what they ask for. Um, and as far as um, meeting with the clients in their home, we've had several people that we've actually found um, that we're not home, but yet we're home and we have no way to access. So we we've come across where I um my boss Dave here has um shared that we have come across someone here in Pinetop that I for the last the last time that that I had served for served them their lunch was on a Monday and I saw that person last on Monday. it was their neighbor who had contacted us and said hey we have not seen our neighbor but we see that you have attended you have brought you have been here every day but you know our conversation went that I we haven't seen them they have not opened the door and I brought up the the idea of maybe having some way of uh some some sort of emergency access to our seniors who are homebound and alone that we have a way to enter their home and not necessarily call always call have to call and and use the resources of our police department to do a welfare check, but some sort of system that we are able to access their home and find them. Some of these people are hoarders and you have to you you don't know where to go. Um you have to think about your safety as well. The volunteer people who are there volunteering their time, how much um what can they do? So, these are some of the things that I want you to, you know, Pinetop to take into consideration when you're looking into adding these types of programs. These are the types of things that you're going to have to look into and make sure that you have the people who are willing and capable of doing these things. I mean, what kind of resources are you going to need? So, it's it's been a great year for me learning that stuff and um which wherever the funding goes, I I'd love to see that there is some more help for a

lot of these people who uh oneon-one are seeing the need and the loneliness and you know just they need it. They really do. Okay, Mary, appreciate that. Just real quick, um the the fire departments, both of them up here offer residential Knoxbox programs. It's free. So, all they have to do is call the fire department. They'll come out. They'll take one of their house keys. They'll put it in a box. They'll secure it on the outside of their house. And then you just call the fire department. We come out. We open the house for you. Good to know. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anything else then for the good of the Anything else from you, Rich, that we need to consider tonight?

Only a reminder to for folks in the public that spoke, please fill out one of those requests for forms for requests for funds. get them to Melena. Um, all of these forms will be filtered to us for a little vetting to see if they're viable and feasible and us to give feedback into which ones will be easier and harder from the ADH perspective. Um, so those forms are sort of a a very useful part of this process. Okay.

Could I just add one more thing? I've just thought of it. Uh, I want to put it on the list. I don't know if it'll get any traction or not, but um the Forest Service wants to sell the old campground and that could make a good addition to the town uh if the price is is right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Is is can I ask I mean Rich is that I mean real estate acquisition is that even feasible under these acquisition of land is allowed for housing purposes. Okay.

Um, it's very unusual what you're I don't know exactly what you're describing and what that property is, but it would be we would definitely need to run it through ADOH and it would again it needs to serve somehow be shown that it was going to serve low and moderate income individuals, reduce slumber blight or serve some emergency need. Okay. Okay. Thank you again for coming tonight, Rich. We appreciate it very much. And I know Molina will be working very closely with you as we move forward on this. Um,

and I'm sorry, one last thing. These forms are are two-sided, so make sure you fill out both sides and they need to be turned into me by March 13th. Two weeks roughly. Okay. Thank you again, Rich. Um, I will go ahead and close the public hearing and we will adjourn our meeting tonight. Thank you.