Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody.

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order. I'd like to welcome you all here. I would ask that you please make sure your cell phone is silent so we don't interrupt our meeting. We do have a quorum. I would ask you to stand and join me in a Pledge of Allegiance, and please remain standing for the invocation.

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.

Councilmember Hulse.

Our Father in heaven, it is with gratitude in our hearts that we come before thee tonight and on behalf of the benefit of our community, and we thank Thee for the protection that we've had from fires and from other dangers. We pray for those around the world that haven't been so fortunate, that Thou will be with them and that through relief, people will be safe as well. Tonight, as we seek the best way forward, we pray that Thou will bless us with clear heads, with patience, and with wisdom to do what's best for everyone. And we're thankful for the great place where we live, for this beautiful mountain that we love, and ask that thy will be done tonight, and say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen.

Thank you, Councilmember Halls. Item B on our agenda tonight is call to the public. Any person wishing to address the Town Council on a matter within the jurisdiction of the Town Council, it may do so at this time. Comments are limited to three minutes per person and shall be addressed to the Town Council as a whole rather than individual Town Council members. Pursuant to the Arizona Open Meeting Law, the Town Council may not discuss or take legal action on items brought up during call to the public that are not specifically identified on the agenda. However, individual council members may respond to criticism, ask staff to review a matter, or request that a matter be placed on a future agenda. We have several requests tonight. I would like to call up Jonathan Roloff. Where is he? There he is. Welcome. Thank you.

Mayor Irwin, members of the council, good to see you guys tonight. It's a beautiful lakeside day here, but I have my three minutes ticking away, so I'll get to the punch. Pickleballers, good to see you guys. All right. First of all, I just wanted to go over a few items just so the town and the school district can continue to have a great relationship. First of all, I want to take a second and thank our PLPD, our law enforcement officers. We would like to recognize them at our governing board meeting next Tuesday, but we understand that there will be a training down in Tucson, so some of you can't be there. So we just wanted to come and thank them tonight because our school district did not get the school safety grant that's talked about at the state level quite often this year. But that has not stopped our gentlemen from coming over and being a strong presence on our campus to make sure our kids are safe. So we want to thank them and appreciate them for once again it's a great partnership and when things aren't going well at the state level we appreciate that in a small town here we can work together and get things done. Secondly, Now that we're back in session, we had a lot of informational sessions last spring before we called for our bond and override. We are going to have another informational session. I don't know, maybe Sterling will come, maybe some other folks might be there. It will be on September 30th at 5 p.m. in the boardroom, so everybody's welcome.

Even pickleballers, you guys are all welcome to come down.

And let me know we have a couple pickleball, and I know we have a couple pickleball courts outside there, so. BUT WE'D LIKE TO WELCOME EVERYBODY DOWN ONCE AGAIN SEPTEMBER 30TH AT 5 P.M. IN BLUE RIDGE BOARD ROOM WHERE IT WILL BE AN INFORMATIONAL SESSION ABOUT THE THINGS, SOME OF OUR INFRASTRUCTURE AND DIFFERENT THINGS AND HOW WE PLAN TO USE BOND AND OVERRIDE SO THAT WE ARE BEING RESPONSIBLE STEWARDS OF OUR TOWN'S FINANCES IF WE GET APPROVED THAT WAY. NEXT THING I WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IS WE SENT IT OUT TODAY. WE'RE REALLY EXCITED. WE CREATED WHAT'S CALLED A YELLOW JACKET PROFILE. The reason we created that is because we know every organization that has a certain degree of organizational excellence has an identity. And what we want to do is we wanted to honor the past greatness of Blue Ridge and set our vision for moving forward at what is our identity at Blue Ridge as far as delivering an excellent education to the kids in our community. We sent that out. I would be happy to email it over and share it with you guys. We're going to be very transparent. We got it out to OUR PEOPLE INTERNALLY TODAY, BUT WE'D BE HAPPY TO GET IT OUT. AND SO YOU GUYS CAN SEE IT, BUT IT WILL BE SOMETHING THAT WILL BE PART OF OUR DNA MOVING FORWARD, AND WE'RE CALLING IT OUR YELLOW JACKET PROFILE, AND IT WILL BE OUR IDENTITY OF EXCELLENCE THAT WE'RE PROMOTING AT BLUE RIDGE. SO WE'RE NOT JUST A SCHOOL, WE'RE A HUB FOR THE COMMUNITY THAT'S GOING TO HELP OUR KIDS, AND WE'RE GOING TO MAKE COMMITMENTS TO THE COMMUNITY THAT WE'RE GOING TO STAND BEHIND. LASTLY, WE... We set four goals for this year for our school district as adults. And we want to be very transparent of those and share them with the community because we think transparency, we want to get it out there and we want to have everybody know what we're doing. First of all, we want to build positive relationships between staff and staff, student and staff, staff and community. The second is a high level professional learning community. We as adults decided that we need to commit to lifelong learning so that we can promote that with our kids. OUR THIRD GOAL IS HIGH QUALITY TOP NOTCH TIER ONE INSTRUCTION. WHAT TIER ONE INSTRUCTION IS IS THAT'S WHOLE GROUP INSTRUCTION, WHAT WE WOULD TRADITIONALLY CALL WHOLE GROUP INSTRUCTION. WE WANT TO BE THE BEST IN THE STATE AT TEACHING KIDS. GOAL FOUR IS GOING TO BE WHAT WE CALL A MULTI-TIER SUPPORT SYSTEM. SO WHEN KIDS ARE STRUGGLING BOTH ACADEMICALLY AND BEHAVIORALLY, WE PUT THE SUPPORTS IN PLACE TO GET THEM BACK INTO THE CLASSROOM SO THEY CAN BE PART OF THAT HIGH QUALITY TIER ONE INSTRUCTION. BECAUSE ULTIMATELY WHAT WE'RE ABOUT AT BLUE RIDGE IS INSTRUCTIONAL EXCELLENCE. And I guess that's my time. Thank you.

Don't run off yet. Do you have a flyer on the September 30th informational meeting, or will you have one at some point? If you would send that, send that, and we will share it on our social media so that more people are informed about what you're asking.

Yes, according to them, we have a flyer that we will send out and share. And we would love if all the pickleballers came. I'm sorry, I'll stop. I've already started the second three minutes. Holy smokes. I'm long-winded. I'm a teacher. I can talk. I'm sorry. I'll take it short.

That's okay. I have some latitude here. If you would provide that to us, we'd appreciate it so we can make sure that the community knows about it.

You got it, Marilyn. We'll make sure you guys get it tomorrow. Can we commit to tomorrow? Tomorrow. We're committed to tomorrow.

Okay. Thank you guys. Thank you for coming. We appreciate it. I appreciate a good year. Jack Babb.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, staff, and I hope that clock stops for me like it stops for him. But importantly to all the audience here, and I don't want to get myself in a pickle with them. They'll probably be... I'm here. I'm Jack Babb. I'm representing the Navajo County Fair. My position this year is secretary, and I'm out promoting the fair. The fair starts in two weeks. We've got it coming up, and we've got a lot of things we're celebrating. The fair this year in Holbrooks is 95 years old. That goes in conjunction with the Mother Road. Route 66 is 101. And most importantly, the United States turns 250 this year. But we have a lot of events scheduled. We have a lot of rodeo, the demo derby, and so forth going on, and especially the livestock show. I have rec cards showing the fair itself, and I've left some fair books on the back table for you all. But to support the exhibitors in our communities within Navajo County, there is the annual livestock sale coming up. It is on Friday the 18th, and it begins at 1 o'clock. And what better way to support the exhibitors than to watch, learn, maybe purchase an animal, and at the same time you fill your freezer. What a deal, right? Whether it's a steer or pig or maybe a goat or a lamb, there's always that opportunity for everybody. And I've left some flyers on the back table. Some people aren't able to purchase an animal on their own or even with a partner. But there is a buckle sponsorship where the top contenders, the top exhibitors, receive their buckle recognition for showing the animal showing off their results, how they've learned, but also showing off their market animal. The market animal also teaches the exhibitors how to care for and to step up what they need to do to take care of animals. We did begin this country as an agrarian society, and we can continue that as well. If you have any questions, you can feel free to contact me. My contact information is on the card. I do have to go to another meeting to do the same thing. But I appreciate your time. If you have a few questions right now, I can answer those.

Anything for Jack? Thank you for your passion for the rodeo and bringing this to our attention tonight.

Not just the rodeo, the fair, too.

You're right. You're right. The fair, the livestock auction, the whole nine yards. Thank you. Okay, that concludes call to the public. Item C is 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 town council requests that an item or item be removed for discussion. Council members may ask questions without removal of the item from the consent agenda and items removed are considered in their normal sequence. We do have one correction to consent agenda item C2, the August 4th, 2026 town council minutes. The header and certification block both reference a regular special meeting and public hearing. Both have been corrected to reflect the accurate meeting type consistent with how the August 6th agenda was posted. Any questions from the council on anything? A motion, Vice Mayor?

I move to approve the consent agenda with the corrections as noted. I second that.

Thank you. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Item D is business before the council. Public comment shall be accepted on each agenda item following the mayor's announcement of the item and staff or presenter remarks as applicable. Each person may speak once for up to five minutes. Questions from council members may be directed through the mayor to staff, presenters, or members of the public during consideration of the agenda item. Item D1 is discussion and possible action to receive the July 2026 financial report. We have our finance manager Sarah Simonton on the phone. Can you hear us, Sarah?

I can, Mayor. Can you hear me?

Very well.

I apologize for not being there in person I had my AC went out down in the valley last night and so we've been trying to get it fixed today so that caused me to not be up there in person but I would rather be there in the cooler weather than down here for sure so but tonight I do have your July 2026 monthly financial report that I'll present and I'll be happy to answer any questions once we're complete So first up, looking at our total revenue for the general fund, we had, let's see, we had total revenue for July of about $811,000 collected. You can see here the tax collections, TPT tax collections was about $542,000. We had other taxes of about $224,000, and then non-tax revenue was about $45,000 collected. This represents about 10% of the general fund revenues for the fiscal year, so we're off to a good start. Specifically, looking at our TPT across all funds, we are down about 2.3% from previous year. Construction, which was down, or sorry, construction, which is up from prior year, about 28.6%, and remote sales are up about 19.2%, are partially offsetting the drop in the brick-and-mortar retail, which is down by 8.2%, and then their restaurant and dining is down about 9.6%. I will mention before we move on from this slide, Mayor, you had a question last month about the residential TBT tax that we were seeing and calling out. Once we looked at that, we determined after investigating that tax code that was coming across from the state, that that was really associated with something that should have been categorized in the other category. And so we've adjusted that here in this report as well as adjusted it in our comparison points for last year. so that we're ensuring that we're comparing apples to apples and similar data points throughout the rest of the year.

Okay, thank you, Sarah.

No problem. Moving on to our general fund expenditures for July, we are at 7.89% across the general fund, which is compared to our target of about 8.33 if our expenses were linear. We do have some departments above target. However, those are similar to what we saw historically where we have annual payments that are made in July for the full year. For example, the Navajo County Courts contract is due in July, which represents over half of the budget for the magistrates, so that's what's showing here and why they're red. Similarly, with Town Council, there's annual dues for the League of Cities and Towns that's also causing that to show red right now, but it's all things that we historically see and we have no concerns over the budget. Looking at our other fund expenditures, we are under budget, or under the target of 8.3%, which is expected. For example, you can see here some of our capital projects is under budget significantly, as well as our grants. I do want to remind the council, as well as the folks that we have in the room, that those are based off, that budget is based off of setting an expenditure limit. And so that is to ensure that we have adequate budget capacity if we were awarded specifically like a grant, so that we would be able to accept that grant and spend towards that grant. And so that's why those budget numbers are so high, as well as that capital has a lot to do with the park purchase and things like that that's going on. And so we do anticipate seeing those kind of running below budget significantly, at least until we get more throughout the fiscal year. Looking at our fund balance, we ended the month of July with $1.7 million worth of cash in the general fund. That is down about $25,000 from June, but it is also up from this time last year by $121,000. So that's good news. We are currently projecting our fund balance for fiscal year and for the general fund to be at $2.1 million, which does align with the budget. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions the council may have.

Thank you, Sarah. Any questions for Sarah? Seeing none, I'd entertain a motion. Councilor Heisler?

I move to receive and file the July 2026 financial report as presented.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, Sarah. I hope you get your AC fixed.

It is working. It's just going to take a bit of time to get cooled off. So I appreciate it though.

Okay. Thank you very much. Move on then to item D2, which is a presentation by Pine Top Lakeside Pickleball Club President regarding the proposed location of community pickleball courts. While Mark's coming up here, I just want to preface this by saying we've been considering this a lot. We actually discussed it extensively at our work session today, and I know that Mark would like to present some things to us, and so this is his opportunity to do so, and I welcome you all here. Thanks for coming, Mark.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, town council, town manager, and staff. I really appreciate the opportunity to come before you tonight and speak to you about the Pickleball Club, the future of these pickleball courts as well. My name is Mark Diltz, and I'm the board president of the Pinetop Lakeside Pickleball Club. I know that you have a very important decision in front of you regarding the plan for the community pickleball courts. Based on the June budget planning meeting, it has been stated that this project is the town's top priority project for FY27-28. Up until a couple of weeks ago, our club did not even know that there was a possibility that the town wasn't moving forward with the state parks grant for building the outdoor courts next to the town gym and that the MMRC location was even being considered. I'm assuming it was news to some of you as well when it was presented at the August 6th town council meeting. Before the town invests any more time and resources investigating this alternative location, I think it would be beneficial to share some updated information with you that I think may affect your decision, including the cost effectiveness of each location. also want to make sure that the town council has a more complete picture of some additional factors that are relevant to the location decision besides cost and finally i want to convey to you that i'm here representing hundreds of pickleball club members from the pine top lakeside pickleball club that will be affected by your decisions a few of them have joined me here tonight as you know we've already had to share with them the hard news when the court bill was initially delayed by year due to the town's changing financial situation. So before I jump into the presentation, I think I should explain real quick. Lisa and Annie were great about helping me get set up for the presentation. I called Lisa yesterday, said, do you guys have a clicker so I can advance slides? She said, yes, just make sure you're pointed over here. Then I asked about a laser pointer, and I heard that the laser pointer you guys have is not visible because the lights aren't turned down. I thought, boy, if only I had a green laser pointer. I thought, I thought, I've got one. but it was attached to the end of my handgun. So I didn't think it was sending the right message, bringing my handgun in here, even unloaded. So I detach this, but I do feel compelled to say hello to my little friend.

I think it worked, yeah.

Okay, all right. So I guess I can advance the slides. So let's start, first of all, I want to go over what has transpired the last two years in terms of this grant and the project moving forward. In October of 2024, Public Works leadership approached the Pickleball Club with a proposal to partner together on a grant to build eight outdoor courts next to the gym. The club committed to raise $100,000 by November 2025 in time for the grant submittal. The Tom Jim site that we just showed on the previous slide has been our club's shared vision with town leadership over the last two years. By September of 2025, the Pickleball Club had successfully met their fundraising goal of $100,000 for the state parks grant. This included a Scion auction, things I've updated you all on before, fundraising tournaments, and just many, many private donations by club members. On September 23rd, 2025, after meeting with town leadership, and we did this over at Public Works and discussing the town's current financial situation, the Pickleball Club board committed to increase our club's grant contribution to $125,000 through continued fundraising. On October 16th, the town council voted to approve the state park's grant application for the eight board project at the location next to the gym. It was on March 11th of this year, actually, that the Public Works leadership was actually notified that the project was in fact selected for a state parks grant award. This project was ranked number two of six projects that were submitted, and there was a full grant award offered of $678,960.40 for an overall project budget of over 1.35 million available. On May 13th of this year, there was a meeting hosted by the town manager. And present at that meeting was public works leadership, the mayor, the vice mayor, Councilman Heisler, and two people from our Pickleball Board in Madison. So prior, we were at the final step of approval for this grant. And prior to the final approval step by National Parks, there was a lot of discussion about how to move forward. Town leadership met and decided to not accept this initial grant award, and it was decided to spend the summer updating the grant application for a resubmittal in the fall, which is where we're at right now, with redoing the in-kind contributions by the town and seeking out donations after the engineering drawings were completed. There was never any talk at this point about altering the court's locations before a September submittal. Next thing I want to go over is a couple of key questions I think kind of get guys to where we're at right now First of all, why did the town leadership decide not to accept that state parks grant back in May? I think when the town leadership looked at the budget saw that it was over 1.35 million that was too large for the town's current budget and public work staffs cutbacks had meant that the in-kind contributions needed to be reworked so That gets to the next question. What if this project didn't cost over $1.3 million and we could fully complete eight outdoor courts next to the gym with a parking lot, sidewalks, and a bathroom by the end of 2027 at almost no cost to the town? So part of, I think, the flawed thinking in all this is the original $1.5 million estimate that was prepared early on in this project phase was based on the way Show Low built their courts. And they have not held up extremely well. For those that are familiar with it, there was cracking that was exhibited on a lot of the courts in the first year. So as it turns out, that properly building pickleball courts requires a certain amount of expertise, and that you're best off working with companies that specialize in constructing pickleball courts. So thanks to Mike Kowalczyk, who's our board vice president, the club has obtained a written cost estimate from a company called Custom Courts and Tiles, which is exactly this. They're experts in building pickleball courts. This written estimate says that they can build all eight courts with post-tension slabs, all the court coatings, the nets, all the fencing that's required, 10 feet on the outer fence and four feet on inner fencing and 16 lights for only $396,000. We understand that if the town was to move forward with this, there'd need to be three competitive bids. But this means at the high end, we're talking $396,000. It could be that the project cost could come even lower. The same company has completed other projects in the White Mountains, including four courts for the Pine Top Lakes Association in 2022. And those courts are holding up extremely well. I want to go ahead and show you those. on the next slide. This is what it looks like at Pine Tops Lake. So this is what they look like today after four years of being there, no cracking at all, some great quartz. So when you look at the construction costs, and I spent a lot of time digging into the numbers on this, if you add in the bathrooms that were quoted at $75,000, some electrical work to complete the setup of the lights, concrete sidewalks and curbing, Asphalt parking lot next to the gym and the site drainage system as quoted previously the total project cost is only five hundred ninety five thousand dollars with the clubs a hundred twenty five thousand dollar contribution the town's estimated two hundred thousand dollars of in-kind contributions and a matching state grant of three hundred twenty five thousand you would have six hundred fifty thousand dollars to complete this project and Complete it very soon You might even be able to afford a larger bathroom and benches or picnic tables. So additional asphalt parking could be completed later. So again, this is what the courts could look like. This is the same company, some projects that are completed down in the valley. And you can see some different kind of lighting configurations they had on those. The next thing I want to move to talking about the history of the town gym and the club before we talk about the location of the outdoor courts i thought it was appropriate to talk about this there's been a lot of discussion lately about the club's use of the gym and a myriad of other things that could be done in that gym instead of pickleball so the town gym i don't i don't think any of us knows exactly how old it is i was not able to get an exact date but i know it dates back to before 1950. it was originally a high school gym then it was a junior high gym and then it was shut down It has been around a long time, but it's held up well to the test of time. The early club members, the very first club members, approached town leadership about using this abandoned gym in 2012. So they started utilizing it, but by 2014, the roof was falling apart. We have quotes from board meetings that were held back in 2014 after they approached town leadership about what do we do. The mayor at the time told the club that the town did not have the money to fix it or to tear the gym down. club stepped up raised $18,000 and replaced the roof for the town the club later paid for a new floor as well as other repairs and improvements and as you can see the main reason that Jim is still standing today is that the club came along and basically rescued it So air conditioning was added in 2026 because the club had accumulated sufficient fee money to make this improvement. As you know, we went through the proper channels. I worked with the town manager. An improvements agreement was put together. It was approved before town council. So the gym is now much more usable in the afternoons and the evenings, which has greatly expanded our capacity to be able to use the gym. and have more players utilize the gym every day. And it's allowed the town to use it as well because, as you know, Priscilla and Annie organized a movie night over there and utilized that in August. So some of you may or may not be aware that the club has had a long-time use agreement with the town. That agreement was modified significantly in 2023 to reflect that the club now provides a year-round service to the town by operating, maintaining, and improving the gym on the town's behalf. while also providing recreational pickleball to the community on a fee structure that is actually set by town council. As a nonprofit, I think we very much fulfill the role of lessening the burden of local government. We provide the staffing necessary to run recreational pickleball. We take our stewardship of the gym very seriously. And I think another thing that I think you all are aware of is the club is currently serving hundreds of residents every week, and it's positively impacting their physical and their mental health. I was quite concerned over some statements that were made at last week's planning and zoning meeting, some of these in the preparation packet and some of them during the meeting. Number one of them that I saw was Town Gym cannot stay on the current path, which was indicating that Pickleball Club as a primary user was not a good option. Another one said free the Town Gym for broader community use, and it mentioned a bunch of other potential uses for it. One of the statements made during the planning and zoning meeting is, are we really throwing good money at a bad thing? So there was an impression given during that meeting that the gym is on its last leg. I think that was improper. The gym has held up very well. And as I point out in this last bullet here, with the model we've got right now with the use agreement, the gym is actually self-sustaining under the current use agreement. There are fees being generated on a regular basis that can be utilized to fix and improve the gym, which is what we have done. So now let's talk about the two locations that are being considered. First, let's talk about why should you build the outdoor courts next to the gym? So first of all, you'll be honoring the town's commitments over the last two years to develop a community pickleball center next to the town gym and completing the town council's highest priority project for FY27-28. Our club members donated their hard-earned money towards supports at this site and don't want to commit $125,000 raised towards another location. We've gotten a lot of feedback. I know some of this has been seen for those that have monitored Team Reach, which is the app that we use to communicate as pickleball club members. And it's pretty emphatic that people are not willing to support using that money that they've raised at another location. This project could be completed by the end of 2027 at minimal cost to the town and great benefits to the community. It's a win-win. The site next to the town gym has already gone through the state park sprint process and received SHPO approval. SHPO is the State Historical Preservation Office. so the first step is getting through the state parks grant team and getting their approval which we did the second step is getting the shippo approval which sometimes they'll require an architectural survey which has been done at the town gym site they didn't actually require that but they basically said that we were able they were able to analyze the site and it's not needed and then of course the final step is the national parks approval since these are land and water conservation funds So having a combined indoor and outdoor community pickleball facility at the present location has many advantages. First of all, you've got three indoor pickleball courts that are already available at no additional cost to the town. Outdoor courts would be available for gym overflow during the summer when demand for the courts greatly exceeds the gym capacity right now. So we have lots of people go through there every day, but there's a lot of people that can't play right now. Indoor courts would then be readily available whenever the wind and weather change and people are playing on the outdoor courts by having a combined pickleball center there at that location. Another major factor is Public Works is responsible for Parks and Recreation, and they are depending on the Pickleball Club to oversee recreational pickleball for the town. They are not staffed for this. This was something that was emphasized very heavily by Matt Patterson when we had our town hall meeting over here last summer in July, that they are not staffed for this, and they are dependent on the Pickleball Club to run pickleball activities for the town. So if the outdoor courts are built next to the existing gym, then club members can oversee those outdoor court facilities, but not at a remote location. And I don't know what the fee and usage structure might end up being, whatever the town would want for those outdoor courts, but I do think you're probably going to have a lot better cost recovery than you do with the current arrangement at Woodland Lake, where I would guess that a tiny percentage of people that use those couple of courts there ever pay for them. Okay, continuing to talk about the location next to the town gym. One of the things I really want to point out is one of the discussions about why not, you know, why go to Mountain Meadow and not do the town gym location is the $75,000 cost to put in a bathroom next to the town gym. So there's also been discussions, if the courts don't go in next to the town gym, that there's going to be some other facility there, a park, a community facility. They're going to need a bathroom. So the point is that every year that the town delays placing a bathroom near the gym is another $3,000 down the toilet, and that's pun intended. You're basically paying that every year for porta-potties, and every year you delay putting a bathroom next to the gym, that $3,000 is going down the drain. There would be ample dedicated parking spaces at the town gym location. There's actually going to be 74 spaces adjacent to the courts. The proximity to the police department further provides additional oversight and security for the outdoor courts, which would make it unlikely that we'd have any issue with vandalism there. And if future expansion of the police department is a factor, there will still be adequate room for major expansion. We would love I think what I heard was in the past police officers used to come over and utilize the gym and play We would love to have them do that. It would be close proximity for them if they did that So now let's move on and talk about the mountain meadows This is the conceptual plan that I think you all have seen before it was shared at the Planning and zoning meeting last week a couple of things. I want to point out on this is You'll see that there's only three outdoor courts represented here. And you also see this event center slash pickleball, indoor pickleball facility represented here. So two things there. There's not eight outdoor courts represented. And the building that's represented there is not the building that the town has sitting around ready to use. That's a 60 by 40 building, not a 60 by 80 building. So why not MMRC? Why not move it over to Mountain Meadows? Well, first of all, it's not ready for court construction right now. The documents prepared for the planning and zoning meeting indicate the need for a comprehensive Mountain Meadow use plan that could take 24 to 30 months. MMRC may not have room for eight public courts. If this is the conceptual plan, going back to the previous slide, actually, back, back. I scoped it out and I looked – could you fit eight outdoor courts between these two service roads? There is simply not room to put them there in the configuration that's shown right there. You could maybe fit six. You cannot fit eight. There's also significant parking issues at Mount Meadow right now. For those people that have talked to parents, grandparents that have gone down there on the weekends, the current use by youth sports teams and softball tournaments overwhelms existing parking that is there right now. Now, in that conceptual plan, there's also talk about using this for an event center, outdoor event space, and food trucks. So that would mean the pickleball courts at Mountain Meadow would be almost unusable over the weekends because there's just not enough parking available for them. That's also a huge factor in that we would not be able to host tournaments. The club would not, local schools would not, because tournaments are held on the weekend when the parking situation is already overwhelmed. And we have not talked about this, but tournaments could be a significant source of revenue for the town. If the town chose, we could set some pickleball tournaments up. do some sort of cost arrangement as some of you may know there's a major major pickleball tournament being held at the solo course this coming weekend and estimates are that they're going to be able to raise at least $20,000 to that single tournament so another thing that hasn't been talked about is the way things are situated right now is Mount Meadow recreational complex only has one two-lane road providing access from 260 and I don't know if anyone has looked as they've talked about developing this complex more looked at the traffic load on Woodland Road But I think that's a real issue Whereas the town gym site has several different roads that have you know quick access off of 260 so the accessibility There's not gonna be a bottleneck there Another big thing as far as pickleball goes is the Mountain Meadow Complex is very wide open, which means the winds are much worse. And I've talked to Public Works folks about that, and they said, yes, it's very windy out there. And most pickleball players won't play when it's too windy. And there's just nothing you can do about that to fix that problem in Mountain Meadows. Last point on this slide is that unattended courts at Mountain Meadows, which they would be if there's not anybody sitting down there next to them, would be more vulnerable to vandalism and improper use, skateboarders, people with bikes that may damage the coatings and the nets. I've heard from several people that have been associated with pickleball courts in other towns, and they said this has been an issue, that if courts are left unattended, unlocked, that there's often damage to the coatings and the nets. So again, talking about Matt Meadows. So again, this is key. Go ahead and get a drink of water. Sorry. The funds raised by the club would not be available. It's been very clearly expressed to us by membership. The folks donated that money. The money was raised for a specific project and site in mind. That first graphic that was on the first slide was the plan for the last two years until the last month. And so it's been very clearly explained to me by club members, board members, that that money would not be available if the project was moved over there. So that right there, $125,000 doubled, means $250,000 taken out of the budget that the courts have built over at Mountain Meadows. Another smaller factor is utility prep has not been completed at the Mountain Meadows site. Another thing is that any kind of indoor pickleball facility at Mountain Meadows would, in reality, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I ran a quick cost analysis on that, and I'll share that with you momentarily. But this is money I don't think the town has right now. You're going to have to at least buy an additional metal building if you can even get one that will mate to the one that's in storage right now. Concrete and port construction, lighting, insulation, heating, cooling, Those are all things that are going to have to be accounted for if you try to build an indoor pickleball facility over there. And one of the final things that I've heard is a reason not to use the town gym site but to use the Mountain Meadows site is that they're concerned about neighborhood noise. So I tried to do a quick analysis on what it looks like at the two locations in terms of single-family homes in the vicinity. And this is what I came up with. I took Google Maps. I tried to overlay the court sites. I'm looking for single family homes that were present there. And from what I could tell, there are similar issues over at Mountain Meadows. This is the town gym site. There's where the courts would be. There's the gym there. This is the police department. This is the church. You know, naturally, because this is right along 260, most of this is business. There are two, maybe three homes right in here. There are some homes located in here. This is business over here. So the impact to single-family homes is not great. I looked at the Mountain Meadows site. I had a little harder time getting this one to line up with Google Maps, but this is the best I could do. There are a significant number of homes along Woodland Road here. There's a large neighborhood down here. And I think somewhere in here is Dr. Hamlin's home. And he might have something to say about this. So I think everybody knows where that home is.

All right.

So finally, I want to go over what is, I think, one of the biggest factors for town leadership as they make a decision on this, which What are the costs of this? So I spent quite a bit of time over the last week studying this. There's been a lot of hand waving about potential cost savings by moving Pickleball to Mountain Meadow Recreation Complex. But to me, that's not what the numbers say.

So I put together these tables.

And at the top, you're going to see one that says available funds. So right off the bat, when you look at the available funds, because the Pickleball's Club donations would not be available, right off the bat, you're $250,000 ahead with the town gym location. And the second thing I put together is let's look at outdoor forecast and what those are, trying to look apples to apples across the two locations. It's going to cost $396,000 for eight courts at either location. You're going to have to do some electrical work at either location. Utility prep has already been done. Over at the town gym site would need to be done. Over at the Mount Meadows site, I know you need at least electrical. I have a hard time believing, depending on where it's located, you wouldn't also need to bring some water over there. If it's at the location as presented in the conceptual plan, I think it would be too far away from any water source to not bring water adjacent to the courts. A dead account, there's parking already over at Mountain Meadows, so no cost there, and $30,000. I ran some numbers very carefully using Google and the AI assist and everything about what it would cost to do asphalt parking on that parking lot next to the gym. Sidewalks and curbing. I calculated it very carefully. You'd need a sidewalk that completely surrounded the outdoor side of the courts. And you'd need curbing. You'd need sidewalk to take you to and from the gym, to and from the bathroom. You need curbing just around the paved parking that you'd then have next to the town gym. You're not saving all that money over at Mountain Meadows. You still need sidewalks. You're going to need a sidewalk that surrounds the outside of the court, where you're going to have people bringing in gravel and other debris onto the courts and damaging the court surface. So there's a lesser amount there, but it's not gone. I accounted for the bathroom over at town gym site. You don't need that at Mountain Meadows. I could argue that that really shouldn't be part of the cost, because like I said, you really Bathroom at that location soon to keep paying that $3,000 a year Site drainage system. This was quoted from something Madison put together previously for 47,000 at Town Gym There's going to be some sort of drainage system needed over at Mountain Meadows that has not been analyzed yet because the location hasn't been decided just with apples to apples I put that there so at that juncture The outdoor cost to the town is nothing. And basically with this cost estimate, you've got $55,000 surplus in order to do some extra things like picnic tables, benches, and perhaps you could do a two stall bathroom, a larger bathroom. So right here, you're already $150,000 behind by going over to Mountain Meadows with what's available right now with in-kind contributions. So taking this further down the road, because there is definitely Then some move to eventually have all pickleball things over at Mountain Meadows. I tried to do a cost analysis on what it would take to finish out a 60 by 80 building and actually make it usable, not only for pickleball, but a multi-event center. So I went through some pretty careful analysis, tried to get numbers for all these things, buying another, you know, what would it be, I guess, 60 by 40 building to mate to the one that exists, looking at lighting electrical, utility prep, For construction cost which is going to be a 60 by 80 slab plus two ports plus the coating and everything Insulation this is a very much on the low end. It could be 10 10,000 all up the way up to 100,000 depending on how you insulated it 30,000 for for heating cooling which is based off the many splits that we just involved in install at the gym So I think on the very low end to build out that indoor or facility you're talking $200,000 so at that juncture if you're looking at the big picture and between indoor and outdoor ports, you're $350,000 worse off over at Mountain Meadows. If you're talking, if money is the driving factor, you're that much worse off between that and the town gym site. So in summary, we recommend moving forward with submitting the updated State Parks and Trails grant application for the town gym location later this month. Now, listening to comments at the working meeting this afternoon, it almost sounds like that's off the table. I'm very disappointed in that because, to my knowledge, that was the path we were still on whenever I left on vacation and came back. But now I'm hearing that maybe that's not going to happen there's still time if town council chose to put that as forward as the direction if you did that by moving forward with the town gym location for community pickleball courts you'd be able to complete eight courts with a parking lot sidewalks bathroom lighting the whole whole shebang at minimal cost with in-kind contributions that are already going to be available you could even start hosting tournaments beginning in 2028 which could boost town revenue through entry fees and tourism dollars Again, Town Council stated during the FY26-27 budget planning that this project is the top priority for FY27-28. You could fulfill that at the gym location. On the other hand, if things are moved to Mountain Meadow, you're talking about delaying the project by years. They'll cost far more for the town, and it has multiple disadvantages compared to the town gym location. Questions? Questions?

Thank you for all that information. Council members, any questions for Mark? Please. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from the council?

I would just like to comment. I know that took a lot of time and effort to put that together. And thank you for doing that. Made some compelling arguments. I wasn't able to be at the work session, but thank you for taking the time to do that.

Thank you.

If you guys could hold your applause. I admire your passion, and I understand your passion, but this is supposed to be a business meeting, so I'd appreciate it if you would adhere to that. We have some folks that would like to speak to this issue. I do also admire your passion for this, Mark, and the club's passion for it. I hope we can come to a mutually agreeable solution and move forward. So Mr. Bill Kidd would like to address us? Okay, well then I'll come back to him. Thank you, Chief. Michael Zimmerman.

I'm just curious, is it five minutes or three minutes?

Five.

Oh, then I'm good. Mayor, councilmen, staff, thank you for allowing me to speak. At the outset, I want to make it clear that I am not a board member of the Pinetop Lakeside Pickleball Club, and I am not speaking for the club or its board. These thoughts are my own. When I led large organizations, I expected people who brought me a problem to also bring at least the beginning of a solution. That is the spirit that I start from this evening. When I watched the planning and zoning work session and read the minutes afterwards, one thing seems clear. Contrary to what we've been told, there is already significant momentum for moving the Pickleball Courts from its current location, perhaps to the Mountain Meadows Complex or Woodland Lake. We may agree or disagree, but if the town is considering a move, we should stop arguing only about where Pickleball has been and start talking about what it could become. One fact must be part of that discussion. As has been discussed earlier this year, the town applied for an approximately $678,000 in grant funding for eight Pickleball courts at a specific location. That was approved, but not accepted by the town. That does not mean the money is in the bank, but it does mean we should not discuss this project as though no meaningful outside funding sources exist. If the town no longer wants the outdoor courts at the current location, or even continued use of the gym for pickleball, that is a policy decision. If the grant cannot move, that is a grant administration issue. Those are legitimate questions, but they are different from saying we can't proceed as planned because we can't find the money. If Pickleball moves, let's not simply move today's limitations somewhere else. Let's build something that serves this community for the next 20 or 30 years. Seven indoor courts with championship courts, eight outdoor courts also with championship courts, tournament capabilities, flexible community space, and infrastructure supporting other sports and events. Early estimates are that a first-class project might cost $5 to $5.5 million, assuming no land costs and utilizing the restrooms and parking facilities in existence at either Woodland Park or Mountain Meadows. But we may not be starting at zero. We've heard unofficially, I want to emphasize unofficially, that town... Cash and in-kind participation might be capped at around $500,000. That is not a commitment. That is just a discussion point. The club has raised approximately $125,000, which has been stated previously, and the roughly $678,000 grant recommendation, and potentially we begin with more than $1.3 million committed to the project. I am not a grant writer nor a researcher, but in just a few hours with limited knowledge, I was able to identify public and private funding specifically for projects like this that exceeded the total cost. I would estimate that we should start thinking about a four-to-one ratio for grants because only 25 percent are likely to be awarded of what we apply for. It will take work and probably, in pickleball parlance, a few lucky bounces. But it is realistic enough to investigate before settling for an inadequate solution that is, at best, temporary. The town could own the facility. The club could operate it, as we do now, without requiring a new municipal workforce. And tournaments could bring visitors who support our hotels, restaurants, and local businesses. A quick, educated estimate is that a weekend tournament drawing 50 teams with half of them coming from out of town would generate $40,000 in economic impact for the community. So if a town says Pickleball belongs at Mountain Meadows or Woodlands, perhaps our answer does not need to be no. Perhaps it should be, okay, if we're going to do this, let's do it together and let's do it right. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. We appreciate your comments. Did Mr. Kidd come back? Bill Kidd, come on up. You forfeit? OK. All right. Thank you. I have one more request to speak from Frank Young.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I am speaking as a resident today. I am off duty. I live at 495 South Walnut Creek Loop in Pinetown. I was recently in a discussion with somebody who had told me that a friend of theirs went to the pickleball gym because they heard there was a pickleball there. Well, they tried to get in, and the folks there would not let them in. WANTED THEM TO PAY A FEE, WHICH, YOU KNOW, I CAN SEE THEM TRYING TO BRING IN MEMBERS OF THE CLUB. BUT AS A RESIDENT, I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO TAKE MY GRANDSON OVER AND PLAY. IT SOUNDS LIKE I COULD GET DENIED. I CAN GO TO ANY OF THE BALL FIELDS. WE COULD PLAY CATCH. SO AS WE MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE SOME

requirements is maybe time limits or open play time and like that where people don't get turned away and that that's all i had to say thank you frank appreciate your comments um is there anything further from the council i would just like to thank you again mark for your passion on this project and i assure you that the town is taking Very careful consideration of all the options that we've got here and keeping in mind that we have had some kind of a conversation with you over time that this is what we're going to do. Councillor Heisler would like to read a statement.

I appreciate everybody taking the time, Mayor, Council, and everyone here tonight. I prepared some comments tonight from several different perspectives. I'm an avid pickleball player. I'm a member of the Pinetop Lakeside Pickleball Club. I'm a resident of this town and I'm a council member. I also just completed an election where I spent months listening to our citizens and one message I heard repeatedly was pretty simple. Plan for the future, be fiscally responsible, take care of our primary responsibilities and make sure we can afford the things we commit to. So I want to explain how we got to where, how I got to where I am on this project. When council approved pursuing state park grant last year, my understanding was that the outdoor courts would be built next to the lakeside gym. Grant funding would cover a significant portion, the club would contribute, the town would provide some in-kind work, and the remaining cost of the town would be manageable. Based on the information presented at the time, I voted yes. But that vote was a decision to pursue grant funding. It was not a promise that regardless of what we learned afterward, Regardless of the ultimate cost, regardless of our financial condition, and regardless of whether a better alternative existed, we would build that exact project at that exact location. Afterward, we learned more. Questions arose about whether the town actually had the money necessary to complete the project without affecting other priorities. Questions arose about projects estimates itself. We did not yet have completed engineering or firm contractor pricing supporting all of those numbers. We also learned that while the project had been recommended for substantial grant funding, there were still additional requirements that had to be completed before those funds could actually be received. The club's own recent discussion also recognized that approximately $678,000 as recommended funding, not money already sitting in a town account. At the same time, another grant funded project required completion and could expose the town to repayment of money already received if we failed to finish it. Staff was also short-handed. New employees were being hired, and there were other time-sensitive responsibilities affecting the entire community. So staff essentially said, give us more time to do this correctly. Engineer it, verify the costs, understand the funding, and look for legitimate donations and in-kind opportunities. Then make a decision based on complete information. That was not an effort to kill pickleball. That was responsible government. As those questions were being discussed, another issue came up. What is the best long-term use of that lakeside property? There was discussion about designing that property as a park, in part so park funds might be available to the project. That caused me to ask another basic question. If our existing park resources are already stretched, does it make sense to create another park requiring additional development and long-term maintenance simply so we can pull money from that same limited fund? That led to a broader land use question. What is the highest and best long-term use of this town-owned property? And if we want eight outdoor pickleball courts, is this really the best place to put them? That is how Mountain Meadow entered the conversation. Mountain Meadow is already a recreation complex. It already has parking, restrooms, sidewalks, and supporting infrastructure. So it made sense to ask whether recreation might simply be a better fit there than creating another recreation site on another piece of town property. Staff studied the issue and took it to the planning and zoning in a work session. A work session is exactly that. It is a place to ask questions, discuss possibilities, explore ideas, and no final decisions were made. And that's exactly why we are here tonight. Not because the town received grant money and decided to spend it elsewhere. We haven't received that money. Not because the town took the club's money and redirected it. We haven't received the club's money. And not because anyone sitting up here is trying to stop pickleball. We are here because the more we learned, the more questions we realized we needed answered. One of the biggest issues is cost. We have now heard that a professional pickleball contractor believes eight courts themselves can be constructed for approximately $400,000. I think that is great news, and I hope that number proves accurate. But that is not the same thing as saying the entire Lakeside project costs $400,000. At Lakeside, we cannot simply pour eight courts on undeveloped public property and call the project finished. We still have to address parking, bathrooms, ADA accessible routes, sidewalks, drainage, utilities, site work, and whatever other improvements are necessary to build a complete public facility. Those costs do not disappear. Mountain Meadow changes that calculation because much of that infrastructure already exists. So let's take the approximately $400,000 court number and use it at both locations. Then add what Lakeside needs, then add what Mountain Meadow needs. That is the comparison the council should make. The question is not whether eight courts can be built for $400,000. The question is, what does the complete project cost the taxpayer at each location? And cost is not the only consideration. Even if the numbers were close, we still have to decide whether permanently committing the lakeside property to another park use is the best long term use of that land. This is about cost, but it is also about land use, long term planning, and making sure we put the right use on the right property. And every dollar we spend here has an opportunity cost. If we can save several hundred thousand dollars by using existing infrastructure, that money does not simply disappear. That money could help us take care of our employees. It could help replace aging police cruisers and other equipment. It could be the difference between paving another road this year or putting it off again. It could help us maintain parks, buildings, and infrastructure we already own. Saving three or $400,000 on this project is not just saving money on pickleball, it preserves the town's ability to solve other problems. That matters. I also want to put the club's contribution into perspective. I absolutely respect the approximately $125,000 the club has raised. That is a significant amount of money and represents a tremendous amount of work. But under the project that was presented, the funding was roughly a large grant contribution, approximately $125,000 from the club, and roughly another half million dollars or more from the town. So let me reverse the situation. If the town came to the pickleball club and said, we will give you $125,000 and help you secure a grant, but you need to find the land and come up with another several hundred thousand dollars, would the club simply agree without doing its due diligence? Would you verify the costs? Would you make sure you had the money? Would you consider another location if it accomplished the same goals for substantially less? I believe, of course, you would. And I would expect you to. So why should the taxpayers of Pinetop Lakeside be expected to do anything differently? I am not anti pickleball. I play pickleball. I want outdoor courts. But I also represent people who may never pick up a paddle. I represent people who care about roads, public safety, employees, parks, infrastructure, and all the other responsibilities this town has. That is the responsibility that comes with sitting in this seat. I also want to talk about the word partnership because I have heard it a lot over the last several days. Relationships matter to me, but a good relationship does not mean two parties always agree. A good relationship means mutual respect. It means honest communication. It means both sides listen. Both sides are allowed to ask questions. Both sides try to understand the other's position. And sometimes both sides have to compromise. A partnership cannot mean we are partners as long as the town agrees with the solution we want. Pickleball Club brings a lot to the partnership. You have built a successful organization. You have raised money. You have volunteered countless hours. You have helped improve the gym and created recreation and fellowship for hundreds of people. The town itself has formally recognized the club as a longstanding community partner and acknowledged the improvements and maintenance it has contributed to that gym, a gym that I don't think anybody here has any interest in taking away from you guys or anything else. I appreciate all of that. But the town brings something to the partnership too. Public property, public facilities, existing infrastructure, staff time, grant administration, potentially hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars, and ultimately the long-term responsibility for whatever gets built. Both sides matter. Over the last several days, I have seen words like betrayal, bait and switch, mismanagement used simply because the town is considering alternatives. I find that disappointing. If council looks at a project costing more than a million dollars and asks whether we can accomplish the same objective for hundreds of thousands of dollars less, that is not mismanagement. Spending the money without asking that question would be. There has also been discussion about a much larger and outdoor complex at Mountain Meadow. I appreciate the thought and effort that went into that concept, Mr. Zimmerman. The proposal itself estimates first class version of approximately five million to five and a half million dollars. Maybe someday something like that is possible. Maybe grants, private funding and partnerships could help make it possible. I am willing to have that conversation and I would think most of us are. But it's a concept. A concept is not engineering. An estimate is not a bid. And potential funding is not funding. We need to learn from the situation we are in today rather than repeat it on a larger scale. So my position tonight is pretty simple. Show me the complete cost at Lakeside. Show me the complete cost at Mountain Meadow. Show me what infrastructure is required. Show me what funding is actually available. Show me the long-term implications for the land. Show me which option provides the best value to the entire community. If the answer is lakeside, show me the numbers and I will consider it. If the answer is mountain meadows and we can provide the same eight outdoor courts while saving the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and preserving another piece of town property for better long-term use, then we need to have the courage to consider that too. And if we are really talking about traveling roughly a mile down the road to play on the same eight outdoor courts in order to save that kind of money, I think that is a very reasonable conversation to have. I want the town and the Pickleball Club to continue working together. But partnership has to work both ways. I think we still agree on the most important thing. We want quality outdoor pickleball courts in Pinetop Lakeside. So rather than fighting over one particular piece of property, I would like us to figure out how to accomplish that goal responsibly at the right location with the right land use and at a cost that the taxpayers can afford. That is what I support, and that is what I believe a real partnership should be able to accomplish. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Heisler. Okay.

Any other council comments at this point in time? Okay.

Thank you all for coming tonight. Again, I admire all your passion, and I hope that we can come up with a mutually agreed upon solution for everybody. OK, we are going to then move on to the next item on our council agenda tonight, item D3, which is discussion and consideration of legal action to adopt ordinance number 26-494, repealing and replacing town code title 17, chapter 17.108, sign regulations. We're still having a meeting, guys. Thank you. And amending Title 17, Chapter 17.132, Administration, Enforcement and Penalties, Section 17.132.030, Criminal Penalties. Jennifer, why don't you just hang on for a minute, okay?

I guess I'm not as exciting.

Okay.

Go ahead, Jennifer.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council, staff, and members of the community. I'm really excited tonight to present to you all a repeal of Title 17-108 sign regulations. I want to bring us back to when we were discussing the political signs, and that's where this first came to the conversation when Attorney Bill Sims said that he would happily revise the entire chapter back over with us. We took advantage of that opportunity as seeing as how our town sign ordinance was one of our oldest standing town codes that needed to be reviewed in order to make sure that it's up to current standards. Because quite frankly, when businesses would come in and submit sign permits or ask questions, ABOUT THE SIGN CODE, WE HAD A REALLY HARD TIME BEING ABLE TO EXPLAIN IT BACK TO THEM. AND WHAT WE FOUND IS THAT THE SIGN CODE, RATHER THAN ADDING RESTRICTIONS, WE ADDED DESCRIPTIONS AND ADDED MORE DETAIL TO IT IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE THAT IT MADE MORE SENSE FROM THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SIGNS THAT ARE OUT THERE, BUT ALSO LOOKING AT LIGHT SIGNS, OUTDATED SIGNS, DANGEROUS ITEMS AND ADDRESSING THOSE ISSUES TOO WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY AS WE DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING AT THE TIME. Additionally, we added in standards. When we do find signs to be not compliant, what those escalation steps look like. We didn't have those before in our sign code, which made it really challenging to be able to have a compliance conversation with our businesses in town. The ultimate goal in our sign regulations was to be able to strike a balance between the needs of the business, but also preserving the community character that we love. So looking at the sign ordinance, the first step that we took was we reviewed the, at Attorney Bilsom's direction, the Cave Creek signs ordinance, and then compared it against the Sholo one. and collaborated it all together, and then brought that back to the Planning and Zoning Commission for a work session that was in June. After reviewing it through the work session, we then cleaned all that up and went back through with Attorney Bilson's page by page, line by line, to make sure that everything was legal and compliant to statutes. At that point, then we brought it back to the Planning and Zoning Committee for a public hearing, and we had no opposition at that hearing. For tonight's recommendation, The financial, sorry, got my packet a little twisted up.

There we go.

Sorry, getting in over a little bit of a cold. So no one spoke at the public hearing. And the alternatives that we have for this evening is, one, is to repeal the entire sign code. It's a little bit easier because there were so many different additions to each one to make it a little cleaner. It's to repeal the sign code. and then amend it with the new sign regulations, and then also amending Title 17.1.32, administration enforcement and penalties, just by we added in signs 108 to that section, so that way it applies back to that section. Alternative two is that we don't adopt it, and we provide direction for staff regarding additional revisions and modifications. Alternative three is to continue consideration of the ordinance to a future town council meeting and allow for additional review. And I just want to close by saying the goal is not to create more restrictions. The goal is to simply provide more information, more direction that's a lot more current to what businesses are trying to do today to promote their businesses to be successful in our community. Anything from temporary signs as well as to permanent signs, promotional signs, all those things were taken into consideration if a business is trying to promote themselves. So it gives them a lot more information and detail on how to go about that as well as we made updates to the sign permit too so that way it matches side by side. We still kept the ability for if there's something that falls outside of the sign code or needs to be looked at because not every single business within our community is cookie cutter that we can sit down and look at it and we have done so and we make adjustments accordingly to be able to authorize that sign that's what i have there's a lot to read in here council questions for jennifer comments council heisler

I know that there were several things that I think we've heard from businesses and stuff recently about, I know there's the business in Lakeside that has a historic sign they took down to fix and then felt like they couldn't put back up. There was realtors, I believe I see some of that in here, but I just want to make sure, is that stuff encompassed in here and where did we end up on it?

Yeah, so the signs that have been taken down, the legal non-conforming signs, we do have some businesses that want to come back and bring back a lot of that historic look, especially in Lakeside, because it does have a little bit kind of a more retro feel to it. So we do have a business that we're working. I don't know how else to call that. I'd like to see a lot of revitalization, and like I said, I think it's a really cool part of our town, and it has a lot of opportunity. So we are working with a business down there right now that has asked to be able to do a rooftop sign. We looked at different locations within their property, and so right now we just asked them to make sure that they're reviewing the engineering before they come back and submit the sign permit, because we want to make sure at the end of the day that it's safe. But we looked at their property and there was not a lot of adjustments that they could make. They could do a monument sign, so they're looking at that option too. We wanted to make sure that they're taking all those things into consideration so that way they have a couple of options to choose from. So we are looking at that. In terms of the realtor signs, we actually had some pretty good pieces in it. I just don't think it's very well read. So we try to highlight that a little bit better and emphasize it a little bit stronger so that way it's more apparent and more clear.

So it sounds to me like the signs like the one in Lakeside then would be covered under your review and approval.

Correct. Because there's going to be things that fall outside that we can't predict where they might have some sort of new idea or anything like that. But we want to first be able to look at if it's not something that makes sense or that's not directly in our sign code. And we spent a ton of time researching different sign codes. SIGN ORDINANCES OUT THERE, LOOKED AT SEDONA, LOOKED AT FLAGSTAFF, COTTONWOOD, ALL THOSE DIFFERENT AREAS, AND FELT, WITHOUT GOING OVERBOARD AND MAKING IT SO COMPREHENSIVE THAT SOMEBODY'S NOT GOING TO READ IT, BUT AT THE SAME TIME MAKING SURE THAT SOMEONE CAN QUICKLY POINT OUT WHAT APPLIES TO THEM, WE INCLUDED THOSE THINGS IN THERE TO THE BEST OF OUR ABILITY AS TIME GOES ON.

SO I THINK THE REALTOR SIGNS YOU'RE REFERRING TO IS LIKE DIRECTIONAL SIGNS SAYING OPEN HOUSE.

YEAH.

In general, I know that there was the temporary signs, I think, on A-frames, which I saw covered in here. Yeah. There's the ones that are in the yard. Yes. Yeah.

Like pushing people, say, go down this way.

And I think there might have been some misconceptions over time that kind of build up over the years about what is or isn't in our code. So one of the things that we've discussed is that Once this is approved, doing some sort of PSA video about yard sale signs and real estate signs, just kind of make it fun and light, but also just letting the community know what are the changes so that way they feel a little bit more educated about it and they understand it and it's more ongoing, especially yard signs, yard sale signs and things like that.

I think that's good. I do think we have to own a little bit of that responsibility because a lot of the conversations I've had was through code enforcement where it said, we can't do this.

And that's kind of not where you want that conversation to start. It would be better if it's able to start from, oh, I saw a video or I saw it posted online. Because I highly doubt when I go to have a yard sale, the first place I'm going to look is the town code. So I just don't think people think like that. And so you have to be realistic with how the normal person operates and where they're first going to look and usually social media and things like that. So we've talked about once this is done, doing some PSA videos, making them simple to the point, enjoyable, and then holding on to them so that way when those seasons come, that we're typically, I could be wrong, Council Member Forneau, but maybe summer is the best time for real estate related signs. I don't know if winter is a big season for us, but... Different things like that. Same thing with yard sales. And then as things come up, making sure that we're addressing them. And then we can hold on to those files permanently and replay them.

We have, go ahead.

Where did we land on real estate signs? I can't stand them, just for the record.

Oh, really?

Okay. I feel, my opinion is that they're advertisements for the agent, not for the home. Yeah. And people can get to homes just fine nowadays. So I'm just curious, where did we land on that?

I don't have the whole thing memorized. I wish I did. I want to say that I did. I believe that's under temporary signs. Jennifer, was it just that they needed to be picked up every night? Yeah, I believe so. I think it's no more than three. And it's within the proximity of where the house is being sold.

I mean, I probably differ than some people on that, but...

I know they're still allowed. I think they just have to... Yeah, they're still allowed.

Yeah.

Because we don't want to take that opportunity for them to be able to advertise for it. That might have been one of the ones. So it's under signs not requiring a permit. Section 108.050. And this is the one, yeah, we left this one relatively the same because there wasn't, it actually wasn't that obscure or anything. It was pretty cut and dry. Temporary real estate signs, temporary signs indicating that the property on which the sign is located is for sale, rent, or lease. Only one sign is permitted to face on each street adjacent to the property. Such signs shall be a maximum aggregate area of 16 square feet on residential lots and a maximum of 32 square feet on non-residential property for each street frontage. No more than three off-site open house signs up to six square feet are permitted per property being offered for viewing. These signs may be placed on the property on or other private properties with the permission of the owners. They may not be placed in any public right-of-way. I think public right-of-way is the one that... we see the biggest offense. So I think we need an education about what is a right-of-way. I think people just don't know about it and why that's a problem. I didn't, you know, it's not the first thing that people think about, so that's where that's at. What are some of the issues that you see that you'd like?

Again, just my opinion, but I mean, if we have four houses in a neighborhood and we have four agents putting their arrow there, it just looks like a bunch of trash on the corner. And so to me, it's... It's not effective. And then secondly, it just, I mean, nobody uses those signs to actually get to a house. Maybe once they get close, you're not pulling off the highway. So I don't like them on the main corridor for sure.

Todd, you're not talking about an open house this weekend.

No, open house is probably different. Just the general arrows that are all, like, they're just all over the place.

Less temporary.

I go do a highway cleanup. They're like one of the number one pieces of trash on the side of the road.

I will say it's kind of tough. That's an industry one that we could look at visits with the Arizona Department of Real Estate and how they kind of view that. And I think it's worth considering.

Does your ordinance cover the difference between residential and commercial?

It does.

Okay.

Yes.

Because that's a whole other level of size. You could have billboard size on some of these big acres, acreages, you know, not around here, but...

No, but those are in there. We did keep that. So anything that was dimensional or height or anything like that, we didn't change any of that. If anything, we added a couple more details. Something that we should probably look at going back into the future is we learned a lot about lighting of signs. They, I guess, are measured by nits. I didn't know that until after the fact recently in that the sun is 10,000 nits. sign across the street over at the Blue Ridge Pet Clinic has turned down to 6,000 nits at night. So I think that's something that is consistently evolving is how those things matter into it. So just trying to get it up to the current, to today's standards so that way businesses can function off of it. But I do say that when it comes to commercial and residential and all those parameters, we didn't change or modify what we had in the past because it works.

This is Councillor Phillips. I have a question.

Go ahead.

You're talking about doing away with the old and just implementing a complete new one. Did you do any research to see how many business signs will not be in compliance if we make this new one in effect?

I didn't do it side by side throughout the street after going through this in pretty good detail. For the most part, aside from things that are hanging off of natural environments, we already had something when it came to our maintenance where you couldn't be doing those types of things so brought that into this one so there are some situations when it comes to props that will come underneath that that will be compliant but it wasn't to begin with just under a different part of the town code so making sure that that matched and aligned but as far as the sign by signs I didn't go through and count them I apologize However, there's already a lot of signs that are in really good shape throughout our community. Things that don't have signs up where you can stick your arm through and things like that, I think we all know that that was an issue to begin with, where they're falling apart or faded and you can't hardly see them, things like that. So regardless, we didn't have an escalation process to address that, so we wanted to bring that in so that way we could have a compliance conversation about it.

there that was my question you do have some type of compliance thing you're not going to do directly to fines or anything like that you're going to work with the business owners give them a chance to correct anything

Yeah, fines is like the last place that I would want to go to. I'd rather just be able to have a good conversation about it, mostly to their benefit of how not having a good looking sign or a sign that is in disrepair and how that impacts their business and working with them to put them in contact. We've got some great sign businesses here in the local area, referring them over to them and talking about what's a good timeline. We do have timelines set inside of our escalation process. However, I understand that through conversation, not everyone's budget is a little bit different. And so being respectful and reasonable when it comes to those things and just working alongside of them, I would hate to see any one of our situations end up in a fine, but it's the last, last, last, last resort. It has to be really extreme and on a permanent sign, more importantly, not on temporary. Thank you.

I was just going to ask, is there a provision to have signs that are in good condition, commercial signs that are existing, grandfathered in if they don't meet the current code.

Sure, so that's called legal non-conforming signs. One of the floating thoughts I had recently was it would be nice to make a permit for that where we go back around and we issue a legal non-conforming permit so that way they have that and they can keep it in their business records. To use Christy Elmore, for example, she has a couple of businesses up the street. And she had the paper copy of one that Christy had given her for some of her businesses. She just happened to have a handwritten letter from Christy from a couple of years ago. and it never got transferred over to the estelle family and so i let them know that christy has this document you might want to have it because it's part of your business records so i think that's something worth looking into and considering we don't have something like that right now but i think it's important that they have that in their business records should i i'm not gonna be around forever i'd like to think so but um it's important that they at least have that documentation that stays with the property that is part of the new It's not part of the new one. It was an afterthought that I had. I think it's worth exploring to be able to issue that longstanding documentation so that way they have it.

Without that provision, they would be in noncompliance and subject. Which would be very... Not reinforced or not, but they would be...

Yeah, so you'd be looking at some pretty old, old signs and stuff, but they were legal non-conforming going into the last code, and they continue to be legal non-conforming. When they become no longer conforming is when they completely disrupt the sign. Usually it has a lot to do with the structure of it. When they change out the copy, that's not changing the sign, and that still keeps it conforming. It's when they actually change the physical structure of it. Did I answer your question?

Oh, I had another question about offsite signs for businesses not located within our community. I know we had a big conversation about that years and years ago when we did the sign code. Sure. And I know that there's a proliferation of them at the corner of White Mountain Boulevard and Porter Mountain Road. And I think technically they're supposed to lay those down at night. I don't see that happening, and I believe they're supposed to have a permit, annual permit. Do we follow up on that with them? What are we doing?

For the temporary signs, for the businesses outside of it, they should be applying for a temporary permit. And we should be following up on it. I will say with code, with not having a code person right now, it's going to be a struggle to work through that one. But I agree, those signs that are for businesses that aren't within the area and addressing it, but they should be having the temporary sign permit.

And an annual is temporary sign permit, if I remember correctly. Is it an annual? Don't you have to redo?

The temporary sign permit is for 30 days, I believe.

But they're A-frames. Correct. Oh, I mean.

Yeah, those are annual. But like a banner and stuff, that's 30 days.

We don't have an annual sign permit. No?

Not for the A-frames?

Just an annual business license.

I think the A-frames, they can just put, you just can't put them on the sidewalk.

Well, I just remember that being a big point of contention years ago, because they're not paying taxes in our community yet for advertising. We wish everybody well, but it doesn't work.

Let me follow up on that one.

OK, I was just curious.

No, it's a good question, because I was thinking about, I didn't realize you were talking about the A-frame ones. For some reason, I was thinking about the political signs that were over on that corner.

Well, we have political sign-free zones as well.

True.

I'm not sure everybody's really aware of that.

We do. Yeah, the whole stretch.

The whole stretch.

Yeah.

They're there. The other question I had is about charitable events and they put up the banners. I had somebody call and say, well, why couldn't I put mine up? And so-and-so put theirs up. And I said, well, I think, no, it was that they wanted to put up an event sign. And there were political signs there that didn't have to follow our code. And I explained that those political signs have a different that we really don't have much control over those other than size.

Yeah. Well, I believe they also have to have the property owner's permission in order to put it up first. And once they have that, then they can apply for a temporary sign permit. And for nonprofits, they don't pay for a temporary sign permit. They don't have to worry about that. But they do have to submit the paperwork for it.

Maybe we should make sure everybody's aware of that. Because I know we have all the same recurring, you know, the annual steak fry dinner, the U of A golf tournament.

We do. And that would be a good thing to just do another PSA talking about. I think temporary signs as a whole is a really big area of confusion because you only do it temporarily. And so it's not something that people really spend a lot of time deep diving the research on it. And that's where a lot of the confusion and questions come from and stem from. And that's the back and forth area. So I think it's worth it just to be able to talk about it and review it in an easy snapshot form on all of the temporary signs because that consistently comes up. And it doesn't have anything to do with the permanent signs.

i appreciate the work done on this by you and funding zoning i'm sure there were a lot of people that contributed to it because the previous code was just very difficult it was thank you it's hard to explain to people very much though Thank you. Any questions, comments, or I would entertain a motion. I'll give you a motion. Vice Mayor.

I move to adopt ordinance number 26-494, repealing and replacing town code title 17, chapter 17.108, sign regulations and amending title 17, chapter 17.132, administration enforcement and penalties, section 17.132.030, criminal penalties.

I'll second that.

We have a motion to second. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Thank you, that carries.

I'm abstaining.

Oh, okay. Councilor Phillips? He's still on.

He might have muted himself.

Just give him one second.

In favor?

Aye. Okay, thank you. All those opposed? Thank you, that carries with a vote of six ayes and one abstention. At this point, we'll move on to item D4, discussion and consideration of legal action to adopt resolution number 26-1828, approving a memorial and monument application and guideline for town-owned property. Christy.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, members of the public. Thank you for those of you that stuck around and are interested to hear what the staff is up to here at the town. I did bring this to the town council during a work session. I wrote this quite a while ago, so I might read some of my notes on this because I don't remember exactly everything I put into this. But this is about putting processes in places. This is something very similar to the tourism event sponsorship program and then the community event sponsorship program and just having a process. for when something like this comes forward to us so that we know the guidelines of what there is to do. So this is about, from time to time, we'll have a member of the community that comes to us and wants to put a memorial or a monument up on town-owned property. So I wanted to give a few... A FEW IDEAS THAT PEOPLE MIGHT COME TO US REGARDING A MEMORIAL. SO BRONZE PLAQUES, MONUMENTS, MEMORIAL WALLS, SCULPTURES, PUBLIC ARTWORK, BENCHES, TREES, MEMORIAL GARDENS, HISTORIC MARKERS, AND OTHER PERMANENT IMPROVEMENTS. SO WITH THAT, I DID COME UP WITH SOME MONUMENT AND MEMORIAL APPLICATION GUIDELINES THAT I GOT WORKING WITH ATTORNEY BILL SLIMS AND THEN LOOKING AT WHAT A FEW OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS REQUIRED. THERE'S AN APPLICATION INVOLVED. IT JUST ASKS FOR THE APPLICANT'S NAME. the person or event being honored the community significance what that person did or it could be a family it could be a building or anything what the significance is for our town the connection to pine top lakeside the project information what the long-term maintenance cost would be to the town if it was something that included some grass something like that so with that they can do some supporting documentation like letters of support historical records photos Engineering plans this is something that would be reviewed by staff just to make sure that is complete and accurate And then it would come to Council for approval denial or approve with conditions So this is just about setting another process in place so that staff that comes after us will know how to do This process if it comes before them Questions comments I didn't

I move to adopt resolution number 26-1828, approving a memorial and monument application and guidelines for town-owned property for the town of Finetown Lakeside. I'll second that. Thank you.

We have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Please signify by raising your hand. Councillor Phillips?

Aye.

Thank you. Aye. Thank you. Got it. Thank you. That carries unanimously. That concludes our business tonight.