Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody. Good evening. Uh I'd like to call this meeting of the Pinetop Lakeside Council to order. We do have a quorum just barely. Um please remember to silence your cell phones. I'd ask you to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. And please remain standing for the invocation. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'd like to call our uh police department chaplain, Nathan Weller, up to give the invocation tonight. Thank you for coming.

Heler. Heler, I'm sorry. That's okay. I'll do better next time.

All right. Would you bow your head with me as we just ask the Lord's blessings upon this meeting tonight? Lord God, I thank you tonight for the public servants in this room, our mayor, our city manager, and our town council members. Lord, as this coun council gathers to serve our community, grant them the wisdom that reflects integrity, humility, and a desire to honor you. I give thanks for the way of service they have chosen to take up on behalf of all of us here. Help them, Lord, to trust more in your providence, more in more than in their ex experiences, more than their accomplishments. May the words and actions tonight serve to inspire and uplift those that we represent today and in the years to come. I also pray for all of our first responders in our community who are always ready for an emergency. Keep a hedge of protection around them and their families. And it's this that I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Thank you very much, Chaplain. Item B on our agenda tonight is called to the public. This is a business meeting of the town council. The town values and welcomes public input. Please address the council as a whole and not individual council members. Council action on items brought up during call to the public is limited by the open meeting law. The council may direct to staff to study the matter for consideration for future agenda. Individuals um are limited to three minutes. We have one request tonight. Lesie Wessel would like to address us. Welcome, Lesie. Thank you, Mayor. Um, do you have a Is this microphone working? Can you hear me?

Yes.

I've had surgery and I don't have to. Um, uh, two two things I wanted to just bring to your attention tonight. It's kind of been bothering me and I haven't known quite what to do about it. One is the condition of our highway. I know that we are scheduled with AOT to have a rehab of our highway in 2027, but I think to continue to drive on our highway the way it is in this condition for another season is ridiculous. I think we were supposed to have a complete rehaul of our highway a couple of years ago when Xolo's highway got rehabbed, but they ran out of funds and time, I guess, in the season. Now, we're waiting this long before we can have a decent highway through our community. It's not right. other communities have a decent highway through their community. I would like to see staff, council, somebody talk to AOT and say move this forward. It's too long to wait for that. Second item is Woodland Lake Park. Uh just in recent meetings recently, I've been hearing some council people not really sure whether or not we should own the remaining acreage of Woodland Lake Park. I for one as a citizen of the community feel that it's very important that we do we have an appraisal that's going to be completed here in the beginning of June. We have a a donor that's willing to purchase this park and donate it to the town. We have this acreage that we could do so many things with if we owned it. And I would consider I would really encourage the council to work on this and to try to get this completed as soon as possible with all the dots and you know tees are crossed and dot eyes dotted that you have to do to make it happen. But I think it's important for us to have this acreage mostly the way it is. But there are many

things that we can do with it to make improvements and to make it work for our town, for recreation, economic development, many, many different things. So, those are two things that's been weighing on my mind. I just noticed that we have a new agenda item added and I'm not sure if it's proper for me to just say I think you do not have enough people here tonight to take action on D5 and D6 that it should be considered discussed and put off for another meeting where you have more council people here that can weigh in and decide what's best for that organization the town versus maybe um a rushed action on this particular these particular items. So, I would encourage that you hold off making a council decision on those at this point in time until you have more counsel to discuss it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Leslie. We appreciate your comments, Kenny Kale. Mayor Irwin, council members, uh when I attended the coffee with council meeting on April 7th, 2026, I I requested a written explanation and did not want a verbal explanation. My concern was about a position, not an individual. This position was awarded $71,000 salary. I was then accused of costing many individuals about a dog park in town. I asked how many individuals reported this. The amount changed to a handful. I asked again how many. There was no response. Once again, I was told that there would not there would be no town committee for a dog park. I was directed to have a citizens committee develop a plan that would be submitted to the council, which I have already done. A council who have already voted down a dog park proposal, distri demonstrated a lack of concern, or assumed the expense of a town committee was too great of a burden for the town. I was told to find funding for a project without council support. I regret the series of statements I made identifying the numerous times I've been threatened with the rest or I've been told I was not allowed to talk about a dog park to uh to town employees. These statements were true, but it showed my anger over the clear acts of intimidation. What I didn't express was the respect and admiration for the majority of employees I see creating a better life for us. With a degree in public administration, I know these concerns are not the acts of a responsible United States government. That a United States government allows for the free expression of ideas. that United States

government understands that there will be disagreements. The United States government allows for a dissenting voice. The United States government is sensitive to the public voice. The United States government divide divides derives its power from its citizens. I'm requesting a public apology in writing with an explanation of how this council could improve uh could approve management salaries that are so high above the pay scales for communities like ourselves. While nonprofits are design denied requests and other town employee positions are are not filled. This places a greater burden of work on all employees who are paid at the minimum amount. Thank you for your time. Once again, Kenny, thank you for your passion for our community. Um Karen Rubin,

good evening, council, Madame Mayor. Um I just wanted to come up and just give you a little bit of an update on things that have happened and are upcoming with the Chamber of Commerce. Um so in April, we held a wildfire preparedness meeting. This was open to the public. Normally, our meetings are open to members only. and we partnered with the Timber Mesa Fire Department as well as had some Pinetop fire um employees or firefighters there as well. Um we presented to the community some things that they could do to help prepare for our upcoming wild fire season, things they could do to their homes. Our attendance wasn't as great as we would like to have seen it. Um but we are going to discuss and try to do another one if we can to um open it up to the public much like we did with the um meet the candidates event this week. But um I think overall it went really well. I want to thank the Timber Mesa Fire Department for uh coming out and presenting what they could do to help the community pro protect their homes and and our neighborhood in general. Um I think that it was a really um well put together event. Um and I look forward to more of those in the future as does the entire chamber of commerce. Um we held that at the uh school district's um conference room so we had plenty of room to do lots of things. they donated that room to us at no charge which was fantastic as well as the um sound um and screens and everything. So, um really great. That's one of the things that we did in April. May 2nd was also open to the community meeting that was meet the candidates. We held that this week. Um my personal opinion is that it went really well. I want to thank the candidates that were able to be there. Um everybody was very respectful of each other and the community. Um, I think that the uh attendance was outstanding. We had approximately 60 people in the room, including uh town employees, candidates, and chamber members that were here. Uh, the room was full enough that we needed to grab a couple extra chairs, and I think that's a that that strikes a great success for our community. Um, I understand that there's going to be some more events coming up and the

chamber will support those things as much as we can because we'd like to see the voter participation rate go up as much as possible. Um on May 20th, the chamber um is going to partner with the town for a cleanup day. They've chosen the 20th as their cleanup day that they do uh around this time of year every year. Um but what we've done as a chamber to try to expand upon that is the chamber has done an adopt a highway program. We're taking a mile. We asked the Rotary Club of the White Mountains to also take a mile. So rather than us all come together and just do the section that the town has done in the past, we're expanding that by another mile on each side. Our goal is to grow that and have other businesses like my own come in and also adopt additional miles so that we can help with the beautifification of our town. Starting with just the cleanup, but hopefully expand that in a bigger way so that we can make the appearance of our town prettier and more welcoming to the visitors that come to our community. Uh we want them to come in here. We want them to stay. We want them to spend their money. So this is kind of one of the steps that we're taking to that. We want them to stay here and not in our surrounding towns. Um my time is up but that's okay. The only other thing that we had was in August we have the color.

Okay. Thank you Karen. Thank you for your passion for our community as well. Thank you. Okay. That concludes uh the request to speak tonight. So we'll move on to the consent agenda. All items listed are considered routine matters and will be enacted by one motion of the council. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the town council requests that an item or items be removed for discussion. Council members may ask questions without removal of the item. Items removed are considered in their normal sequence. Are there any questions from the council? Entertain a motion. I'll move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

Thank you. We have a motion, a second to approve the consent agenda. Further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Item D, business before the council. Um, individuals may speak one time for five minutes on each agenda item either before or after council discussion. Um, so we will just move right on to item D1A is the annual joint presentation about wildflower wildfire preparedness. We have our emergency manager Katrina Jenkins with us tonight. Welcome. Thank you for coming. I'm bringing friends. Good. Chief, welcome.

Thank you. I knew there was a Okay, good evening everyone. Thank you for having us. Um, it's that time of year again where we are everybody's talking about wildfire and what's going on. Um, I appreciate the opportunity to give our annual update on the outlooks. So, as you see before you, this is kind of a usual graphic that we give you on the significant potential, and I stress potential. um not what is but the potential for wildfire for May, June, and July. As you can see, May and June look an awful lot alike. It just kind of creeps up a little bit north of our state. Then in July, once the monsoons take over, it kind of clears out. It's pretty standard stuff. Oh, wrong way. Sorry. Okay, so this is one of the biggest pictures that c that catches people's attention and that's why I like to use it. It's our drought map for the state of Arizona. As you can see on the left hand side, that's the drought map for this year. The one on the right is last year. Significant difference. All that red and maroon burgundy colors means more extreme, severe, excessive. Right now, we're in moderate to getting up into the higher with the the beige and more orangey colors in our two counties. and that's what we look at. Um, that's kind of help with some of our indices that we examine. So, this is a new one. I haven't brought this one to you before. It's a list of the number of fires, the number of acres burned for the last several years. The column I want you to pay closest attention to is the one on the far left, that 70%.

What that means is of all of those fires, 70% were human-caused. That means 70% of those fires could have been prevented. I'll pause. Okay. So, here's the big question I know Chief's been getting, I've been getting, many of us in the room have been getting. When are we going to go into restrictions? So, we do meet every week the W White Mountain Fire Coordination Group. Um, we get our reports about the weather, forest conditions, we get the votes from our local fire chiefs, from the local police chiefs association, um, as well as federal forest, tribal, BLM, BIA, you name it, we've got them all covered, as well as myself and the Apache County Emergency Management Team. We review all the indices as they're given to us. Um, two of which you just saw, the drought map and um, the potentials. There's probably about 15 more that we look at. I just didn't want to take up too much of your time tonight. So, with that, um, currently our indices show that we're not in that desperate state of needing to enact those restrictions just yet. Could be could be soon. With that, I do want to say we use the data, the science, and the information provided, not fear or emotion to choose when we go into the recommend going into those restrictions. Okay. So, what do restrictions mean? That's the prohibition of certain activities for all of us. whether it's in our backyards, um on the forest, whether it's state

trust lands or city parks, um these behaviors, including using propane grills or smoking in certain areas or taking those extra precautions is what we're looking to to do so that we mitigate some of those human-caused fires. We always stress this year round because it's not just a season. Fires can happen anytime. we've seen it in January um December. So, we do need to take those extra precautions because we are in a wildland urban interface. Um it's up to everyone and I want to stress that it's very important. I hear quite often the restrictions are just for those folks coming up to visit and on the on the reverse I hear from those visitors those are for the people that live here. they don't apply to us. My analogy is it's like your seat belt. Everybody's required to wear your seat belt. Everybody's required to follow restrictions. Whether you're here for 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, five generations, restrictions apply to everyone. Okay. So, what can you do? meaning what can we as the public, our visitors, our residents all have a role in keeping our community safe because we want to keep that gorgeous tree line the way it is. Part of it is being prepared in case there is a problem. The ready set go program has been in place for a number of years. I don't even know how long, more than a decade. So, being prepared, having that kit, signing up for the alert system through the county, um having a plan with your family, your neighbors, your friends, all of the above. Your kids need to know that plan.

Please don't forget the pets. Um quite often we we have an evacuation and people aren't prepared for their pets with their records and and extra food for the pets. You are required to take your pets with you and still care for them. So, um, set means there's something going on. You're paying a close attention to those vetted sources of information, whether it's Timber Mesa's website or Facebook page, my Facebook page, or the county website, um, the police department, whatever that source is for you, just as long as it's a vetted true factual source. Um, and then one of the things that I like to talk about is if you have a mobility issue, livestock, um, concerns about leaving in a timely manner, you can go. You don't have to wait for the go. You can leave early. Um, get yourself to a safe place. We encourage that wholeheartedly and just keep an eye out for when when and where we set up the shelters. Last but not least, go means go. Don't wait. You may not get an more than one alert. You may not get somebody pounding on your door. Go means go. If you hear about an evacuation from a true vetted source of information, go ahead and and follow the instructions by our public safety um chief and his team, the volunteers that help them, sheriff's office, whoever it may be. maybe a different direction than we're used to. Sometimes there's only one direction. So, please be thoughtful, be safe, be calm, and get the get everybody out. Um, here's a couple of those resources for information. Um, the sheriff's office does have an app for information. Um, the QR code on the right is for the

alert system. So, I highly encourage anyone that has not signed up for the alerts to go ahead and do a quick screenshot of that. You can also find the information on the county website. Um, help prevent fire forest fires. You've heard all of these tips on a regular. Um, it's nothing exciting or brand new about any of those. We just really expect people to pay attention, use use use their tools and understand what's going on. And finally, I'm going to turn the show over to Chief because he's going to talk about this part, the defensible space, and and his actions and how his team's ready.

Thank you, Katrina, and thank you for always having the open invite for us to tag along and and join the conversation. Mayor, members of the council, thank you for allowing us to say a few words about wildfire preparation. I don't know if you've seen this or not, but there's actually a new wildfire in the state that just occurred today. It's down by Horseshoe Lake, just kind of north of the Cave Creek area. It's already at 300 acres. Uh, so the wildfire season is absolutely here and that's kind of typical. The wildfire season kind of starts over in New Mexico. We've had several resources already in New Mexico, southern Arizona, and it's just going to creep this way as what was indicated on the map that Katrina provided for us. The fuels are drying out. Um, as it relates to fuel, a lot of people think of the grasses and the trees and the limbs and the bushes. U, but I really want to reiterate your homes are fuel as well. And this image kind of great creates that great representation of what we need to do for best practices to protect our home. And you see several different uh zones there. And this is all based on on the firewise methodology which is a great program. Uh there's been other other things that kind of adopted a lot of these pieces and I know Karen is very familiar with uh the wildfire prepared home through the insurance business of home safety. U there's a lot of pieces in there but one thing I really want to stress to the community is that 0 to 5 foot. That is one of the most crucial areas that that we need the homeowners to really dig in and pay attention to. And it shouldn't have any vegetation in that area. It can be rocks. It can be decorative type stuff, but any type of things that are going to burn, it's we consider it fuel where that ember can land, that has to be cleaned up. And so, if I could urge this community all across the rim country is really digging into that 0 to 5 foot. Of course, if we can get a little bit further than that, that that five to to 30 ft and really get rid of those ladder fuels, those ladder fuels that want to carry that ground fire, which we'll see, right? that's going to happen. We live in a wildland urban

interface. We live in a community where wildfire can occur. But if we can eliminate the ladder fuel from getting up into the canopy, we as firefighters have a better chance of putting that fire out. And so I really want to urge the community to pay attention to that 0 to 5 foot mostly and then call us. We'll gladly come out at any given time. Well, not necessarily at midnight, but give us a call. I know Pinetop Fire Will, Timber Mesa Will, Hebrew Overgard, Taylor Snowflake, every fire department across this mountain has good qualified people that would love to come out, walk your property with you, give you some great recommendations on how to mitigate your land. Of course, there's several great grant opportunities. I know the county administered several Pinetop fire course does. We do as well to to help that those those homeowners that might be in need of a little bit extra dollars to help get that mitigation work done. But use the resources. I know the town has done phenomenal things with with partnering with the green waste here to help give a spot to go to. I'd encourage you to do more if you can cuz that's that's huge. Giving the location for a residents to take that stuff to to dispose of it properly. Uh goes goes a long way. Burning is is acceptable when we have open burning, but that obviously puts a little bit of risk out there. So if I can stress anything, it's that 0 to 5 foot. Give us a call. we'd gladly come walk the properties and help you see if it's a little more out there. And then finally, and I know Karen again is wellversed in this, but really want to stress that wildfire prepared home. Uh, and that is through the IBH IBHS, insurance business for home safety. Uh, they have a facility on the east coast where they go and they burn homes and they see what Inberass is going to do. They know it can work to protect your homes. Go to the website, just Google wildfire prepared home. Dig into it. That is going to become the standard that we're all going to live by to help make this place resilient long into the future. And that's my hope and desire

for the certainly the town of Pinetop Lakeside. I'd be happy to answer any questions I can from the council. Thank you, Chief. Any questions? Okay. We appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, Katrina. Again, thank you. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate you always being a willing partner. Always. Okay, Katrina, before you go on to the next part of this agenda item, I just I'm going to ask you the same question I ask every year. Okay. Once you're on the emergency management or emergency alert phone tree, you're always on it, right? Yep. You're always on it. I don't delete anybody until you call me yourself and say, "I don't live there anymore or I changed my phone number and we need to do an update." You live in that until forever. Forever. Okay. I just asked that for the general public knowledge.

That is a great question. Thank you for that. Okay, thank you. So, I think you're probably ready to go on to item B of D1, which is consideration and approval of the 2026 Navajo County Community Wildflower Wildfire Protection Plan. It's a mouthful, isn't it? It is. It is. Go right ahead. So, I like to call it a CWP to shorten that whole thing up.

Um, again, could not have done it without our partners. Timber Mesa came prepared at the table. Pinetop Fire was at the table. um but also our federal forest, state, tribal, all of those partners were again at the table to help us create this plan. Um the community wildfire protection plan that we currently are under until you approve this one is 10 years old. So it it actually expires June of this year. And that's why we wanted to update that plan and get a new one going for this one. We'll do a shorter term and it'll only be a five-year plan. Um the purpose of this plan is to help protect our communities by identifying areas that need attention whether through um private property grants like chief was just mentioning or through larger scale forestry projects those kinds of things. So treatment mitigation of wildfire is the name of the game for this plan. And um with that I'll shut up and answer questions. Okay, thank you. Any questions for Katrina?

I know this is very extensive and a lot of work went into it. Um, we had a great team doing it. Yes, I saw that. I do. I I don't know if you could just uh elaborate on just a couple of the changes from the last one. Maybe um honestly the the biggest bigger changes were kind of the format. We went by the the new template from our Arizona State Forestry and Fire Management. They they provided a great template and we kind of took that and transferred everything into there. The other than that, the bigger changes is identifying projects, what we want to do for the next 5 years. Nice one. No, you're good.

Okay. I'm like, if you have, please by all means jump up here because he was instrumental in this. So I don't want to leave him out by any means. Um, Chief Morgan again was instrumental. Like I could not do this without the team. I have to stress that we have so many people and there you'll see the the projects identified is for everybody. Yeah. It was a pretty amazing group of people that came together to pull this. For sure. Yeah. So I don't have any questions. Any other council members have a question then? Okay. Then at this time, I move to approve the 2026 Navajo County Community Wildfire Protection Plan. I'll second that.

Thank you. You have a motion to second. Further discussion. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you again for being here. Kina, it's always a pleasure to see you. Pleasure. Thank you for having us. Thank you. And same, Chief. Thanks for coming. Item D2 is discussion and consideration of legal action to approve an improvements agreement between the town of Pinetop Lakeside and the Pinetop Lakeside Pickle Ball Club for installation of mini split air conditioning units in the town gymnasium. Christie,

good evening, mayor and council, members of the public. It's nice to have so many people here tonight, including our police department and their families. Um, tonight the item I have for you is um consideration of allowing a a use it or a it's an upgrade agreement for the gym. Uh, and it's going to allow the Pickle Ball Club of Pinetop Lakeside to install four mini split air conditioning units to make it a lot more comfortable in there. Um, we currently have an agreement with them, a use agreement, and this is just an agreement to do some upgrades to the building. The um agreement that I wrote has been reviewed by our town attorney. Um there are some stipulations that we included to match our purchasing policies that are required and some of those are um that the club will provide a 100% performance and payment bond prior to commencing work and that the club will maintain appropriate insurance and name the town as an additional insured. I do have the insurance and um I do know that Mark Diltz, the president of the pickle ball club, is working on those bonds right now. Um I did put in here that there was no additional cost to the town. That is incorrect. We are not asking for them to pay for the electricity to run the mini split units. I believe this is a fair trade-off. They are installing these in uh town uh town um facilities. That will also benefit the town and other users of the gym. I would just ask that they stay vigilant in turning those off when the gym is not being used. Um, and then I would recommend that staff or that council approves this item.

Thank you, Christie. U Mark, did you have anything you wanted to add?

Um, come on up to briefly. Um, I've been working with Christie. Really appreciates your support on this project. We've been talking about this for a couple years. Um, we felt like the time was right to do it. Um, Apple teams come in there in the afternoon and use a gym from across the mountain. They've talked about how, you know, much of a sweat box it can be in there. Um, with us just kind of busting at the seams with the club and we have like over 500 players come through there in the summer. We're having to try to utilize the afternoon and the evenings and this will allow us to do that. So, one of the stipulations that was put in there was performance and payment bond. I did get that secured. Um, what we talked about was we would finalize that tomorrow after this is passed through town approval. So, we appreciate that.

Yeah. So, I think we're all set. So, thank you. Uhhuh. Any questions or comments, Councelor Heisler? I I just wanted to say I have no doubt they're going to be diligent. I I joined the pickle ball club a couple of months ago and Mark came down and gave me the whole rundown of turn the lights off, lock the door, here's the little quirks with the door, make sure you lock the uh the porter john outside like um so I have no doubt that they're going to be diligent in um making sure those things get turned off at the end of the the day. Yes. Thank you. And we did we did look for not only a costefficient solution but the most energy efficient. We worked with public works buddy at the time to talk about what would be the optimum solution that would give us better energy efficiency and and reduce electric bills. And that's the the systems that we went with.

Okay. So, thank you. Any other questions? Anything else? All right. Okay. I would a motion. Thank you, Council Heiser. I move to approve the improvements agreement between the town of Pinetop Lakeside and the Pinetop Lakeside Pickleball Club for the installation of four minisplit air conditioning units in the town gymnasium and authorize the town manager to execute the agreement. I'll second it.

Thank you. We have a motion second. Further discussion. All those in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you again to the Pickle Ball Club. Um we're going to move on then to item D3 which is um the town of Pinetop Lakeside proclamation of National Police Week 2026. This will be commemorated in May with significant events including the 38th annual candlelight vigil on May 13 26. Whereas the Congress of the United States has designated the week of May 15th as National Police Week in recognition of the service and sacrifice of law enforcement officers across our nation. And whereas our heroic police officers put their lives on the line every single day to protect their fellow citizens, maintain law and order, and safeguard the rights and freedoms of our community. And whereas law enforcement officers serve with courage, integrity, and dedication, often placing themselves in harm's way to protect our communities and uphold the rule of law. And whereas these officers work tirelessly to safeguard life and property, maintain public order, and ensure justice for all, frequently making personal sacrifices in the line of duty. And whereas members of this select group have shown courage, bravery, perseverance, and commitment to who those they serve and defend while enduring long shifts in dangerous and unpredictable circumstances. And whereas we honor and remember those officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty as an ultimate sacrifice and service to Arizonans, recognizing their bravery and profound loss experienced by their families, colleagues, and communities. And whereas it is fitting that we expressed our deepest gratitude and appreciation to the men and women of law enforcement for their unwavering commitment to public safety. And whereas May 15th is designated as Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of all fallen

officers and their families. US flags should be flown at half staff. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Stephanie Irwin, mayor of the town of Pinetop Lakeside, do hereby proclaim the week of May 10th through the 16th, 2026 as National Police Week in the town of Pinetop Lakeside, and do call upon all residents to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities. Let us express our deepest gratitude and appreciation to the men and women of law enforcement who through their steadfast dedication and courage willingly place themselves in harm's way to protect our community, safeguard our loved ones, and preserve the peace and security we hold dear. Let us further honor the memory of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and stand in support of the officers who continue to serve and protect us each day. In witness whereof, I adhere to set my hand and cause to be affixed the seal of the town of Pinetop Lakeside, Arizona done the seventh day of May, 2026. And I would also like to remind the community that we are going to be having an open house of our beautiful new police department on May 13th at 9 in the morning. So I would love to have a lot of people come out and join us on that day. It's been a long time coming. This will segue right into item D4, which is presentation of the 2025 Police Department awards. Chief Barnes and Commander Wilkkey. Good evening, Mayor and Council. We are here tonight to do our annual awards. These are for 2025. We really appreciate being able to do in this forum. I think it's important for everybody to see what our officers and supervisors accomplish and our civilian staff and our volunteers. So, with that, I'll start with the first award, which is our volunteer of the year. That's Nathan Heler. Nathan has been with the

Nathan's been a volunteer for the police department since 2023. When the department needed a new VIP supervisor, Nathan Nathan volunteered and was selected. He started as a VIP supervisor on May 1st, 2025. Since taking over this role, it's very clear that Nathan is a passionate about the volunteer program and his fellow VIPs. He not only does an excellent job with normal supervisory duties for his position, but Nathan consistently seeks to make improvements for the people that work within the program to provide excellent customer service for the people that use and the services of the program. Nathan's motivation and commitment to the VIP program and this department are commendable. Thank you, Nathan. Our next award is for our civilian of the year 2025. That's Maria Rivera. She is our records clerk. So Maria is a star employee that exemplifies dedication and dependability. Maria's workload is a never-ending cycle of records request, report processing, data evaluation, redacting, quality control, and customer service. All of her tasks are timeconuming individually, but together they are overwhelming. On top of all that, staffing changes have forced Maria to be more active at the front window, greeting customers. But Maria's ability to maintain a positive, can do attitude and consistently exceed expectations earned her this award.

The next award is for superior performance. The recipient is our detective Ricky Bunch. Ricky is a highly motivated detective with incredible work ethic. As the only detective with their agency, he handles larger than normal case load. Ricky also serves on the Navajo County Major Incident Team, Navajo County Homicide Task Force, Navajo County Multidisip Disciplinary Team, Navajo County Sexual Assault Response Team, Internet Crime Against Children Task Force, Maricopa County Cold Case Working Group, and the Navajo County Fat Fatality Review Team. And I'm sure we probably missed some, but that's an extensive list. Ricky is a wellres is well respected by his peers and supervisors because of his he's a true team player. Ricky continues to seek out higher education not only professionally but personally. He just attained his bachelor of science degree in criminal justice and he's starting to work on his master's degree in forensic science. Ricky has written and administered grants that provide specialized DNA processing and cold case on cold cases. the staff support from the investors guild on cold cases, electronic data downloading equipment and software and a grant through Arizona State Parks for a UTV and that also came with overtime so we can uh patrol the forest and enforce laws with that UTV. Ricky's ward is appropriately titled Superior Performance for all that he has accomplished. and he is not in attendance tonight, but he's in training in Phoenix doing leadership training. So, continuing to further his education. The next award is the our supervisor of the year 2025, Justin McNeel.

Justin is an outstanding well-rounded supervisor. As noted in his evaluation, Justin is a mature sergeant that knows when to be ultra profofessional or keep it light according to the circumstances and audience. This statement is part of what makes Justin Justin. He is a professional, a professional, a leader, a peer, a friend, and a mentor all at the same time. Justin's matur maturity and professionalism are built on over 15 years of experience with our police department while also being a team leader on the White Mountain Special Response Team, a former K-9 officer and an instructor at the Northern Arizona Law Enforcement Training Academy where he is very active. Justin was inter instrumental in bringing a K9 back to our department using private donation from a citizen. He coordinated every aspect of getting K9 Arco, who we have now, on board while also mentoring officer Ghana to be a K-9 handler. Justin's leadership contributed to the following numbers for his entire squad. So these numbers reflect what he and his squad did over the year 2025. So together they wrote 500 or they completed 58 traffic stops, 227 citations, 367 cases, and 237 arrests. So Justin has earn earned supervisor of the year for 2025. And last but not least is our officer of the year, Eduardo Bonia.

Eduardo was selected for his exceptional dedication and service to our police department and the community. His willingness to go above and beyond has not gone unnoticed. He is always willing to step forward and work extra shifts whenever coverage is needed. In the absence of his sergeant, he takes on the responsibility of leading a squad with confidence, setting a positive example through steady leadership, sound judgment, and the willingness to support those around him. He has helped create a workplace built on trust, respect, and excellence. Eduardo Eduardo has some impressive statistics for 2025 that helped earn him his award, and these are his and his only that he performed. 513 traffic stops, 184 citations, 139 cases, and 80 arrests in 2025, earning him officer of the year. Sorry, we'd like to get all the recipients up here to take one group photo.

Yeah, everybody can come back up. Thank you, commander. Thank you.

Thank you, man. This is quite an impressive group of individuals and I am very proud that they're part of our team here. So, thank you all for your service and keep up the good work. We're 100% behind you. We're going to move on then to item D5, which is information discussion and possible legal action to approve the restructuring of the community development department function under the public works department and authorize the creation of a community development manager position. Christie,

good evening, mayor and council. Um, I just wanted to I know that we had a citizen stand up and say this item felt a little rushed because this got put on the agenda last night, but I wanted just to assure you that this is something that I've been studying for about four or five months now. I've gone back and forth on it because it seems like so much work under a director. Um, but as I interviewed potential applicants for these positions, it became a really clear to me that I believe this is a structure that is going to work for us right now at the point in time we are in our organization. I would like to try this um restructure. I I I believe in it. I think we have a really good staff that in the last several months has really stepped up and shown how delegating and mentoring other um employees and growth can happen within the organization. and I believe in the applicants that I have for these positions. So, I do want to just share a little bit of what this organizational structure looks like. The first item that I have is um to approve the job description of community development manager and um establish a starting pay range for that position. I don't want to put a top-end pay range on that until our salary study is done and we know if we're going to do 12 steps, 15 steps, and what those percentages will be between steps and then that will give us what our top end pay range is going to be on that. And we do have a human resources um consultant that is working on that for us. So um I have a public works director and if everybody hasn't heard yet, I did offer a job to Frank Young. So congratulations TO HIM. WE HAD FIVE REALLY uh talented applicants for that. And Frank has been acting in the interim position for uh

community development as well as his building official title and as of recently a temporary acting and interim of the public works department. Frank has a wide range of knowledge on both of these departments and under Frank I would have an administrative assistant to the public works director which is already in our organizational structure. Under him he would directly supervise the fleet maintenance supervisor and then a community development manager. Um, I did not I think that this this uh job has room to grow into a director position, but right now this is going to eliminate the amount of direct reports I have as a town manager and allow Frank to work with this applicant if they should accept this position to bring them to the best that they can be and work into a director position. under the community development manager. I would like to move the engineering technician from it's still going to be they're going to work together cohesively, but the engineering technician would be managed by the community development manager. I'm going to be hiring for a building official. So, I'll be posting that job soon because Frank is going to be starting as a new role as public works director. And then we have a part-time code enforcement officer. These three individuals here would report directly to the manager who would then directly report to Frank. and then Frank would directly report to me. Um, this is another item which is the next agenda item but if you want I can go through this whole organizational structure in this item if you want. The what I'm asking in the next is just to establish a salary range for the operations manager for public works

because the operation manager exists currently. Yeah, we have the the job title. I could be mistaken. I believe that when we had an or employee in that when they left we didn't fill it but we left it there. It was never added to our salary survey though. So, because these two are just intermediate manager positions, um I want those to have the same starting range. I am hoping if you guys will approve this tonight to give us a salary range for operations manager to post that internally and give some of our awesome employees that we have already in public works an opportunity to do to uh grow into that position. Do you guys want me to go ahead and talk about that structure as well now or do you want to wait till we get into the next agenda item?

Wait for the next item. All right. So, are there questions for Christie? You know, I'm I'm going to I have a question. Okay. Hang on just one second if you don't mind. Um Christy and I had a long conversation about this this morning and I kind of echoed the the comments that Leslie Wessel made earlier that I feel like this is all of a sudden and while you may have been considering it, the council hasn't been considering it. And I think with only four members of the council here tonight, I'm a little bit uncomfortable moving this forward. Um I do respect the the re rationale behind it, I'm just a little bit feel that it is rushed. Councelor Halls,

I was going to echo the same thing. I'm new at this. Um we only have three other council members. I would appreciate a little bit more time to have more people comment on it. Okay. And it's probably a great idea. Um, but having a little time to consider it would be appreciated. Any other council Heiser? Any comments? Vice Mayor?

I guess my only comment is uh everybody has an opportunity to come to the council meetings. The council members knew this meeting was on the agenda and I just feel like it's tough to I guess they didn't maybe know that it was on the agenda, but they knew we had a council meeting scheduled tonight and they still weren't scheduled to be here. Um, I feel like the business of the town has to move forward. um they've gone a long time without staff members filling critical positions within the town and it would be nice to get some of those positions filled to give us a a steady structure and organization and be able to get some projects off their plates but I also respect the fact that uh maybe everybody feels like it was rushed and and needs to move forward. The question that I had was it run through the finance department uh with approval.

Yes, it was. Um this actually does not increase any cost. It doesn't increase any positions within the town. These are all staff members that we already have and are accounted for for our budget. It actually saves us a little bit of money while we're trying to be fiscally responsible on moving this this uh position down to a manager over a director position. So, they were definitely fine with it. And this was just put on the agenda yesterday. Yeah. And yeah, I've been looking at organizational structure for a while. So, and until the reason why I didn't bring this to council before is until I knew who the applicants were going to be and if this structure would work and then when I had the applicants, it was really clear to me that this is a good structure.

Well, I and I again I have no doubt that it probably would be a great structure, but I do feel like it's a little bit individual specific as far as um you think you have a person to fill these positions and so now we're adjusting our our staffing requirements, our organizational chart for the individual. Um, so I would prefer to table this for two weeks and bring it back at the next council meeting. Um, I would

go ahead. The only thing I would say is that, you know, the town manager runs the business of the town. Um, then that and the town manager is responsible for hiring employees and putting them in positions and the result of tableabling this for two weeks could just be that the town manager chooses to offer that job as a director level position. And so I think that it's smart of us to consider that the town manager wants to restructure the organization. But again, if we want to table it for two weeks, that's that's fine with me. I would like to table it a couple of weeks and I'm fine with that and I agree. It is within my purview, but I did tab put on the recommended motion for council to approve the restructuring, not just the salary. So, okay, mayor, any comments?

No, that's fine. I I'm good either way. I can you guys make a motion for that then? Yes. Yeah. Um I move that we table this item until our next council meeting which would be May 21st. I'll second that. Thank you. We have a motion to second. All in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, Christie. I appreciate you working with us a little bit on this. Um we'll move on then to item D6, which is information, discussion, and possible legal action to approve establishing a starting salary for public works operation manager. Christie.

All right. So, this is Thank you, mayor and council. This item is um just to approve a salary range, starting range for adding an operations manager back into the salary range. Well, actually, we never we're not adding it back in because I don't think we ever had a salary range, but we do have a really good um job description for that. Um the reason why this supervisor for facilities is crossed out right now is because we did have an employee resign. We did hire a third crew member for that, but right now I'm not looking at replacing the facility supervisor. Um, I believe that the operations manager can handle getting these guys started for the day. And if uh they want to appoint a lead or a supervisor at some point, they are more than willing to do that or happy I'm happy to let them do that within their department over at public works. Right now, we have a street supervisor with three crew members, a parks supervisor with three crew members, and a collection center supervisor with a full-time crew member and a part-time crew member. the operations manager would oversee the daily just projects and make sure and that they're staying on budget and then report that back and work closely with the public works director and then the crew members would all um work with under the purview of their supervisors and that would be the structure when they do reviews. So this is just this item is just to approve a starting salary range for that position. Okay,

thank you Christie. Any questions or comments on this item? Okay. Then um I would entertain a motion. I'd move to approve the starting salary range of 64739 for the public works operations manager and authorize the town manager to add this salary to the town council approved salary scale. Second. Thank you. We have a motion to second. Is there further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Um that concludes our business tonight. Thank you, Christie, for all your work on this. Um, thank you all for being