Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting, the Pinetop Lakeside Town Council, to order. We do have a quorum. Councillor Peisler is on Zoom with us, so he will be participating. I would ask that you make sure your cell phones are on silent. And please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for the invocation.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Before I ask Councilmember Furneaux to give the invocation tonight, I would just like to take a moment to remember and celebrate the life of Dennis Hughes, who passed away last week. Dennis was born in Canada, but became very proud of his adopted country. He served as a war correspondent with the Marines during the Vietnam War and was proud of his service.

He then settled in Lakeside with his wife, Laura, where they raised their two daughters.

He started working at Nav Apache Electric as a draftsman in 1979. He progressed through various positions before ending his career there as the chief operations officer. After his retirement, he joined the board of directors where he was serving as the board secretary at the time of his death. Dennis also served on the Pinetop Lakeside Town Council from April of 1996 to November of 2007, and then again from April of 2011 through May of 2013. In addition to serving on the Pinetop Lakeside Council, he was on the Lakeside Fire Board starting in November of 2010 and remained with the Timber Mesa Fire Board after the merger from 2014 until November of 2022. Dennis was a quiet, unassuming man who was known for his wide-brimmed hat, kind words, and ready smile. His contributions to the Pinetop Lakeside Chamber of Commerce were well known, and his commitment to the town of Pinetop Lakeside evident in his actions. His lifelong service is a testament to the kind of man he was. Please join me in a moment of silence as we remember Dennis and keep his wife, Laura, and their family in our thoughts tonight.

All right, everybody join with me in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much for today, Lord, and the community that you've given us to live in. Lord, we're especially thankful for the moisture that you've brought us and just the renewing that you give us every day, Lord. God, we do just ask that you be with the Hughes family and make yourself known to them and comfort them like only you can. Lord, we think of all the global turmoil, and Lord, we just ask that you be with the global leaders, our government leaders, and our community leaders all the way down to this town council, Lord, and give us wisdom to bring you glory and remember you through our actions, Lord. God, we do think of the servicemen and women and their families that are struggling, fighting for freedom worldwide, Lord, and we just ask that you be with them as well. Lord, we ask for our local law enforcement and first responders, Lord, that you be with them and their family and just keep them safe, Lord. God, again, we just ask for your hand to be in this meeting tonight, and we ask for your wisdom to be present. In your son's name we pray. Amen.

Thank you, Counselor, for now. I don't see it excuse me I'd be on our agendas call to the public this is a business meeting at the town council the town values and welcomes public input please address the council as a whole not individual council members do not address staff or members of the audience council action on items brought up in call to the public is limited by the open meeting law council may direct staff to study the matter and reschedule for further consideration at a later date. Items on the agenda will not be heard during call to the public, and individuals are limited to three minutes, but we're not going to have the clock on tonight. I would like to first invite Mr. Kemp-Smithson to come up.

Hello, council. Like Mayor Irwin said, my name is Kemp-Smithson. I am a senior at Blue Ridge High School. And I would like to talk tonight on the bond and override for Blue Ridge on the upcoming November ballot I am in favor of this and I hope that the community does votes and pass this bond because of the experiences I've had at Blue Ridge once as a freshman, I remember I went to use a bathroom stall and I flushed the toilet and it sprayed all over me and it was it was It was kind of a weird experience. I've also had moments where I've been in classrooms during the summer and it's like 90 degrees or during winter and it's 60 degrees. I've been in classrooms where the roof has leaked, and I've also had to leave the school because of plumbing issues where we had days taken off where we couldn't go to school because our plumbing was having to be repaired multiple times throughout the school year. So the bond and the override will help improve our school. My dad works at a clinic in Show Low, and there was a doctor who was considering moving into our community, and they decided not to because they decided that Blue Ridge did not have a school that had enough funding for their children. So I hope that we can be able to pass the bond and override because it will allow important workers to want to move into our community, such as doctors and health care. Now, don't get me wrong, I've still received an amazing education at Blue Ridge. I've been able to save money on college classes through our AP program that the override would help save. My sister was able to get the Flynn Scholarship, which is one of the biggest scholarships in Arizona. Only 20 students receive it, and I attribute that largely to her education at Blue Ridge and the opportunity she was able to have there. I hope we are able to pass the bond and override because I want other students to be able to have the same opportunities I've had and to maybe even improve their chances at getting scholarships and making it to college. And I hope that it will improve our community overall. Thank you.

Thank you, Kemp. We appreciate your time this evening. I would like to ask Seth Bush to come on up.

Hello, Council. For those who don't know me, my name is Seth Bush, and I am the owner and operator for Zia Rides bike events. This coming weekend, we have the Pinewood Showdown gravel event happening right here in the community, and this will be our third year holding this event. We had 205 last year. We have over 300 this year. So the event continues to grow, and that growth has happened in part because of the support that Pinetop Lakeside provides through lodgers tax funding. I'm planning on bringing out a videographer. We're gonna get videos of the event. We have a photographer coming out. We're gonna get photos of the event. Because of your support through lodgers tax, those videos and photos would be available as well if you need to use them for promotional efforts help to attract more people to come to Pinetop Lakeified in order to recreate. And that's a big part of it. The event is based at Wilderness Ranch out off of Porter Mountain Road. The riders compete in three different lengths of events. There is a 28 mile option, there is about a 45 mile option, and there's an 85 mile option. And we have riders that come from all over the Southwest and even further. This is one of seven events that we hold. I put on races in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. So we're really trying to make this a place where people come to compete and race and hopefully stay in hotel rooms and Airbnbs and eat at restaurants. And I just met someone who's potentially opening a brewery here. And I was like, hey, we should talk. So we want to do more of that. And we want to get the community involved. And I just wanted to come tonight to let you know about what we do. let you know that this event is going on if you were interested at all please come out on Saturday afternoon we have a live band happening there will be people awards and things happening we're raising money for tracks the recent er as well through part of the event and you know we just want to continue to bring more and more people to the community ride and to for us as well to get more involved in the community. So if you have any suggestions for me on people that I should talk to and other folks that we could get involved to continue to grow this event and get people in your restaurants and in your hotel rooms, please reach out to me. Let me know. I would be happy to talk with you about that. And again, I just want to thank you for your support. And we're excited. This is the third year of the event, and I've said from the very beginning, if any event is successful, we have 300 in the third year. And we hit that number. And so I just talked to Wilderness Ranch, and for the next five years, we're going to be booked on the third weekend in September, and we're going to keep coming back. So again, thank you so much, and we appreciate your support.

Thank you, Seth, for bringing this event to our community. We all know how much mountain biking can bring to our area, so... We appreciate it and wish you well.

Thank you. And hope to see some of you out there this weekend. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Okay. Anybody else want to address us and call to the public? Seeing none, we'll move on then to item C, which is our 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 unless a member of council requests that an item or items be removed for discussion. Council members may ask questions without removal. Items removed are considered in their normal sequence unless... CALLED OUT OF SEQUENCE. WE'VE GOT TWO ITEMS ON THE CONSENT AGENDA TONIGHT. I WOULD LIKE TO INVITE CODY SEXTON TO COME UP, INTRODUCE HIMSELF, AND TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HIS BUSINESS. HE'S ITEM C-2.

THANKS FOR INVITING ME UP, COUNCIL. MY NAME'S CODY SEXTON. I, 2024, I STARTED A PRODUCTION FACILITY MICROBURY OUT IN CONCHO. AND BEEN UP FOR A COUPLE YEARS. WELL, BEEN UP AND RUNNING FOR ABOUT A YEAR NOW, JUST GETTING counts locally. Got the beer up in the ski resort. Got a few establishes around here, but I'm looking to get a retail outlet, a place where I can sell my stuff that I make on draft. So that's what I'm here for tonight.

Can you tell us exactly where your business is going to be located?

Yes, it's at 1488 White Mountain Boulevard. It's right next to this Pinetops Snow and Cubes Ian's Snowboard Shop.

Well, thank you. We wish you good luck in your new business here. Thanks for choosing our community. Any questions or comments on the consent agenda? Can I entertain a motion? Vice Mayor?

I move to approve the consent agenda. I second that.

Thank you. We have a motion to second. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Councilor Heisler, can you hear? Aye. Thank you. That carries unanimously. We will move on then to item D, which is business before the council. Public comments will be taken at the beginning of each agenda item before or after staff presentation. Any citizen who wishes to address the council may speak for a period not to exceed five minutes on each agenda item. Council members may direct questions through the mayor to staff or members of the public at any time during consideration of the agenda item. Item D1 tonight is discussion and possible action to receive the August 2026 financial report. We have Sarah Simonton with us tonight. So Sarah, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of Council. Your August 2026 monthly financial report is in your packet. We'll talk first, as we always do, about our revenue summary. So looking at our tax year to date general fund revenues, we were at $1.5 million through the month of August. 70% of that is represented in your tax TPT collections, which was about $1.1 million, with the rest of the 30% broken up between our other taxes and our non-tax levy revenues. Our TPT across all funds, this is not just the general fund, but all funds, was actually down 4.1% from this time last year. We did see the two main categories of that is in our largest categories of TPT, in our retail, as well as our restaurant and bars. Both of those were down, retail was down 8.9% from this time last year, and restaurants were down about 13% from this time last year. We are seeing some increases in our construction as well as our remote sales, but those did not offset, those are smaller categories of TPT, and so those do not offset the decline that we saw in our restaurants and bars as well as our retail.

So before you continue, is there anything specific you're seeing, somebody that didn't report, I mean some anomaly that would account for this? Because that's a little bit frightening.

So I don't, we haven't been able to dig into it too much, but I will definitely take that action going forward, especially on the restaurant and bars, given the fact that it was summer. We should see that at least flat, so I don't think we're seeing anything detrimental. So it's kind of alarming here to see that, but I will definitely take that action and then come back and report that out to the council on what might be trending that.

Okay. I'm just hopeful that maybe somebody didn't report.

It could be. Somebody. I will say with the holiday and the fact that council meeting is a little early, there could be some non-reporting as of August in that number. So hopefully we'll see some increases in September.

Thank you. No problem.

Looking at our next slide here is our general fund expenditures. So just the expenditures hitting our general fund and broken up by our different departments. You can see here across the board we're about 16% spent of our budget. We do have a couple of categories or departments that are higher than normal or higher than that annualized amount. But those are things that we've talked about in the past. It's all timing related. Nothing urgent or concerning with these numbers here. Looking at our next slide of our other expenditures by fund, again, same kind of look here that we've seen. We're about 2% in our total expenditures spent so far through August. When I extrapolate out, most of that 2% is really based off of the fact that we have some placeholders in our capital and our grants for future potential. And so when I strip that out and look at the other departments or the other funds, we're about 14% spent, so still well within that range. within what we expect for the year we do have tourism and promotions that is showing yellow right now that is predominantly related to timing around our events payments that we make so that happens in august and then we're kind of wrapped up with that for the rest of the year so no concerns on that And then finally, looking at our last slide on our fund balance, general fund cash as of August, we ended the month with $2.1 million in our general fund bank, which is up from July about $374,000. And then it's up about $600,000 from this time last year. So all good news that we're moving forward in the right direction. And then we're still on track for our projected fund balance for fiscal year 26-27 to be about $2.1 million. That does complete my report, but I'm happy to answer any questions the council may have.

Thank you, Sarah. Does anybody have any questions for Sarah tonight? Councilor Heisler, any questions?

I do not. OK.

I would entertain a motion then. Vice Mayor?

I move to receive and file the August 2026 financial report as presented. I second that.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Councilor Heisler?

Aye.

Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much. Item D2 is discussion and review of e-bike regulations and related police considerations with direction to staff to bring the matter forward for consideration of possible action at a future meeting following any required public hearing. Chief Barnes.

evening mayor vice mayor and council uh at the august work session town council and staff went over a powerpoint regarding the proposed e-bike ordinance but council did not have all the documents at the time for review there were several topics of discussion at the work session and council requested a copy of the draft ordinance for review which was later provided Since the work session, a draft ordinance has been reviewed with some revision and preliminary review and approval of town legal counsel. Staff is seeking direction regarding any provision that counsel would like to revise, simplify, add, or remove before The proposed ordinance is brought forward for a formal consideration At this time no ordinance adoption is requested following Council direction staff will make necessary revisions and bring the matter forward for consideration and possible action at a future meeting following any required public hearing With that I'm happy to go over the new draft ordinance now that Council has had an opportunity to opportunity to fully review it

Thank you, Chief. Are there any specific questions on this ordinance? No. Council by Smear.

I just, just some clarification, maybe on page 56 of the draft, or well, page 56 on our tonight's agenda packet.

10.15.110C, $500 penalty.

Is that where they confiscated? Yeah, per device. Where you collect, pick up the bicycle. Maybe could you elaborate a little bit more on that? What would be circumstances where I gather it's where a bicycle is seized basically and

whether we get it back but is that this is under permit requirements for any vendor that has bicycles or other devices out for sale in a particular location okay in town if they happen to skip the permit process and they're out selling things and that would cause the police department to look into that matter and potentially sees a single device or multiple devices. If it's multiple devices, the maximum penalty will be $2,500.

Okay, so that is for vendors, basically. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Councilor Heisler, do you have any questions on this?

I do not.

Thank you. Councilor Perneau, you're a bicyclist. Any comments?

Well, I mean, I guess my question would be, and just help me if it's right thinking, no matter where I feel on any of these particulars, we have to have something in place to then amend it. Is that true? Could we amend this later? Of course. Okay. Then, no, I mean, we have to have a starting point, you know, to get going. And so I would agree with this.

I appreciate the work that has gone into this. Yes. You're welcome. gone to other communities and looked at what they're doing. So I think this is a great step in the right direction. So then I move to direct staff to bring the proposed e-bike regulations forward for consideration and possible action at a future council meeting following any required public hearing.

I'll second that.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Further discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you, Councilor Heisler. Aye. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Council, appreciate it. Item D3 is a discussion and consideration of legal action to approve the surplus auction list as presented. Frank.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. This topic we discussed during a work session a couple of weeks ago. And you should have the list of all. I think there's 37 items that we want to put up for auction, primarily because they're beyond our service life. And it's just time to get rid of them so we don't have to pay insurance and like that. So we're going to look at the metal building. Councilman Fennel had asked that we look at that we'll do that a little bit later rather than on this auction the staff recommendation is that the town council approved the surplus list as presented and authorized and authorized staff to proceed with the public auction and disposal of identified town equipment and vehicles in accordance with town policy and applicable requirements. The alternatives is not to approve it or to approve with surplus with a list of amendments.

I don't think there were really any changes. And I know we left the stage on here because that was something we had a conversation about previously.

Just clarification on the stage, so there will be a minimum amount that will be required for somebody to do that?

There is a reserve amount on that. That's correct.

Okay, any other questions?

No, that was my question about the trailer. We're not using that anymore, I take it?

We haven't. We've only used it twice, I believe.

Yeah, not too often. I know we used to use it.

No, it's been used twice.

It's been twice is all we've used.

Yeah, this stage, yeah, unfortunately.

Councilor Heiser, any questions, comments?

I do not.

Okay. Thank you. I would entertain a motion then. Vice Mayor?

I move to approve the surplus list as presented and authorize staff to proceed with the auction and disposal of the identified town-owned equipment and vehicles in accordance with town policy and applicable requirements.

I second that.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Councilor Heisler?

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you, Frank. That carries unanimously.

I do have one question. During the construction of the police department building, they ordered about 45-gallon tubs of stucco for the building. It's kind of a pink. We didn't want a pink police department. I would like to... put that up for auction at a later date. You guys are all right, or do you want me to bring it back to you?

I would think that's something pretty minor that you could go ahead and do. Add it to that list if that's okay. Absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, moving on to item D4, which is discussion and consideration of legal action to approve resolution number 26-1829. amending section 402, internal job postings of the town of Pinetop Lakeside employee manual. Our HR consultant is not available tonight, so Christy will lead us through this item.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Brenda sends her apologies for not being able to attend with us tonight. She had several flight delays today, so I'm going to do my best to present this to you. So what we're asking for tonight is for Council to consider approving the proposed amendment to Section 402 of the employee handbook. So we have a lot of things in our employee handbook that we want to go through and look at and bring back to you guys as a whole. But this is something we felt was pretty important to look at right now. The wording that is currently in our town code states that any full time employee may apply for an internal posted opening provided that he or she has completed their 12 month trial period and the employees will be ineligible for openings if either if either of the following applies. So the employee is currently under disciplinary observation or unsatisfactory job evaluations within the last 12 months. So I just want to go through that and explain each three of those, why we don't like that wording. So first one, C, any full-time employee may apply for an internal posting precludes the ability for a part-time employee to apply for any promotion within the town. So as we're trying to really encourage our employees to promote from within and grow and stay with us and keep our operational needs, this kind of precludes anybody who's hired here as a part-time. Even if we don't have a full-time position open and they're hired as a part-time, they can never move up. The other reason why we didn't like this 12-month trial period is because we could post a job today and have somebody who's perfect for a position, or not, sorry, apply for a job that's open, that's perfect and has qualifications for another position, but can't apply for a job, say a job opens up in six months that they're perfect for and have the qualifications for, they can't apply for it. So then we'd have to go outside when we have maybe the perfect candidate internally. So that was one of our reasons for that. The reasoning for wanting to get rid of the word currently under disciplinary observation is because the term disciplinary observation is not defined anywhere in our employee policy and then it lacks clarity and is highly subjective. We talked to an employment attorney about that and that statement without it being defined is just highly subjective. so what we're asking to do is to change that wording simply to any employee so that includes both full-time part-time may apply for an internal posted opening provided the employee otherwise meets the minimum qualifications for the position however if the employee has received an unsatisfactory job evaluation within the past 12 months he or she shall be ineligible to apply for the internal internal job posting So I think that just providing that an employee meets the qualifications and is in good standing with the town We want to be able to allow our employees to apply for and promote from within And I'll be happy to answer any questions that you guys have.

Thank you, Christy. Any questions for Christy?

No.

Councillor Heisler, any questions?

I do not.

Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry Brenda wasn't here. I'm ready for a motion. Councilor Kreismaier?

I move to approve resolution number 26-1829 as presented. I second that.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Councilor Heisler?

Aye.

Thank you. That carries unanimously. Our last item on the agenda is our Town Manager Monthly Report.

Good evening again, Mayor and Council. This is going to be quite a lengthy report just because we didn't have a meeting at the end of August, so I'm going to be reporting to you on the July and August happenings. I did try to narrow it down a little bit, and I'll try to get through it as quick as I can. If I talk too fast, just let me know. So I'm going to go through some of the highlights for the last two months. Our streets crew has stayed very busy with the everyday maintenance that keeps our road system functioning, particularly road patching and drainage work. Drainage and culvert maintenance is especially important during our summer monsoon season. A lot of work may not be very noticeable when everything is functioning correctly, but keeping those drainage areas clear can make a significant difference when we get a heavy storm. Staff has also been in contact with ADOT regarding maintenance concerns along Highway 260. Because 260 is a state highway, it is to be maintained by ADOT. They have shared that they cannot get here before the fall festival parade, so in preparation for the upcoming parade, our streets and parks crews have been out street sweeping and mowing really early in the morning until traffic starts to get really bad and it's starting to look really good. I would invite and gently encourage businesses along the parade route in the main corridor through town to help us with making our town look great by spending some time on maintenance along White Mountain Boulevard. So if you can see in those top two pictures are our guys cleaning out culverts and then doing some ditch work right there for drainage. And then they recently started doing more street sweeping and then patching when it's not raining. So there's some pictures that show some of the good work that they've been up to. Our parks crew continues to have a very busy season. We added a new mower and a sod cutter that were included in this year's budget, and those were already helping staff manage the amount of landscaping work we have throughout our park system. Our weekend softball tournaments have also continued to be very successful. Those tournaments are important recreationally, but there is an economic component as well. Teams coming from outside the area stay in our lodging properties, eat at our restaurants, shop locally, and spend money throughout the community. I especially wanted to recognize the Parks crew for what happened during one of our recent tournaments. We had teams here from the Valley and from Tucson when we received a torrential rain, and it looked like the tournament might have to be canceled. Staff asked for a two hour delay so they could see what they could do. They used four dry and other techniques to get the fields back into playable condition and they were able to keep the tournament going. This is a great example of our staff recognizing that their work has an impact simply beyond maintaining a ball field. I also wanted to remind everybody about the Children's Memorial at Jack Barker Park. We will hold a ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony on Tuesday, October 13th at 10 o'clock. We would like to invite the community to join us for the dedication and ribbon cutting. Pictured here is the beautiful sculptures that were gifted to the town from Frank Smith and Associates. Our parks crew did an amazing job installing the sculptures, grass, and lights. Facilities is another department where much of the work happens quietly in the background During this period staff continued inspections and preventative maintenance throughout our town-owned buildings including inspections of our HVAC systems Catching small maintenance or issues early isn't important because it helps us protect these facilities and avoid larger and more expensive problems later They also handle all of those seasonal maintenance items that simply have to get done, including things like cleaning the gutter you see pictured here at the police department. Facilities also provide quite a bit of support for events in our weekend tournaments. We are excited to welcome Neil Cameron as the newest member of our facilities crew, and we are happy to have him on board. I don't have a picture of him. We can meet him later. I also wanted to include a little more information on the collection center because this gives council a look at both the operation and financial side. Here you will see a side-by-side comparison for the months of July and August, which includes resident versus non-resident use of the facility. Activity varies month to month, but the collection center continues to generate revenue throughout solid waste, green waste, recyclables, and other material. One number I think is worth pointing out is that the center handled approximately 150 tons in July and nearly 155 tons in August. That tonnage equals 34 loads hauled in July and 38 loads hauled in August. Financially, the center reported net income of approximately $14,100 in July and $11,900 in August. We continue to look at the collection center not only as an important service to the community, but also at how we can operate it efficiently to develop services that offset costs. I will forward this report to council so that you guys can take a closer look at these numbers, because I know that's pretty fast to look at those. Community development has had a lot going on, both in their normal permitting and development workload and in several larger projects. Code enforcement handled 21 medium to major cases during this period, in addition to eight smaller cases. Five of the larger code enforcement cases were resolved and closed, and another nine were either in compliance, working toward compliance, or had agreed upon a timeline. The department also completed work associated with updating our sign ordinance, which council approved at the last meeting. Another major undertaking is the readoption process for our general plan. That is a lengthy statutory process, so staff has been working on that schedule and documentation necessary to move that forward. The town welcomed three new planning and zoning commissioners, and staff updated the commissioner manuals to give them a better information and resources as they begin serving. This slide shows a map that has already proven very useful. Staff compiled our town-owned properties into one resource. Along with information about each property, as council has begun discussing potential uses for town property, having that information together has made those conversations much easier. Our clerk's office has had an especially busy couple of months. Lisa successfully completed the administration of our July primary election and the August canvas. Then, most almost immediately transitioned into preparation for the November general election. There is a tremendous amount of statutory work associated with elections that the public doesn't necessarily see, from notices and candidate requirements to election materials, deadlines, and coordination with Navajo County. Lisa has also been heavily involved in preparing the official information for Proposition 456, our Home Rule ballot measure. We will come back to Home Rule at the end of this presentation. At the same time, Lisa continues to support every council in planning and zoning meeting, manage public notices and official records, processes liquor licenses, assists with recruitment, and keeps numerous other statutory processes moving. Lisa is doing a great job supporting the new mayor's youth, or the mayor's, well it is new because it's new this season, the new mayor's youth advisory council and is excited to continue growing this important program. The library continues to be one of the busiest community spaces. We had more than 2,100 visits and issued 48 new library cards in the months of July and August. But what I really like about these numbers is that they show the library has become much more than a place to check out books. We had chair yoga, cookbook club, book club, and our first ever bubble event, which brought about 75 participants and was extremely well received. Our Friends of the Library books and rummage shelf brought in more than 500 people. I would like to recognize and thank our library volunteers. 28 volunteers contributed more than 227 hours. That volunteer support allows us to offer programs and services that would be very difficult to provide with staff alone. Community Services had a couple of really successful events during this period. I'm going to go to this page because the pictures are more fun to look at. National Night Out was a great example of what happens when our departments and community partners come together. It gave residents an opportunity to interact with law enforcement, first responders, town staff, and community organizations in a very relaxed environment. We also tried something new with movies in the gym. Weather is always one of the biggest challenges for movies in the park, so having the availability to move indoors gave us another option rather than simply canceling. That was our first time having the movie in the gym, and it worked well for inclement weather situations. A lot of the department's attention is now shifting toward the fall festival and parade preparations, which I will talk about again at the end of the report. Our police department handled more than 1,800 incidents during July and August, including more than 1,000 calls for service. Activity was somewhat lower in August than in July across several categories. One positive number was reported accidents, which decreased from four in July to one in August. I also want to call attention to our volunteers and policing. They contributed 437 hours in just two months. That included nearly 48 hours specifically supporting events such as National Night Out, the Color Run, the High Country Marathon, and the High Country Marathon. Those volunteer hours provide very real support to our officers and to our community. We appreciate the time that they continue to give to us. Our Marketing and Communication Department continues to manage a pretty broad range of responsibilities. On the town communication side, the focus has been on getting accurate information out quickly and trying to address questions before misinformation has an opportunity to take hold. One new effort is What's Up Wednesday. This gives residents a designated opportunity each week to ask questions directly and give us another way to provide factual information publicly. The department also manages coffee with council and our council and planning and zoning broadcasts, along with the day-to-day website, social media, talk of the town, and public information responsibilities. On the tourism side, the visitor center continues to be managed in-house, including retail inventory, point-to-sell operations, and regional visitor maps. We also completed our first tourism event funding process. Rather than simply handling requests individually, we created a more structured stakeholder review process and allocated $17,500 among five events. This slide gives you an idea of the audience we're reaching. During the last two months, town social media generated almost 187,000 views, while Visit Pinetop Lakeside generated more than 450,000 views. We are also beginning to work on an Arizona Alpine Trail marketing initiative and continuing to look at lodging, short-term rentals, and other tourism trends so our marketing decisions are supported by actual data. ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE SIDE, FINANCE AND MY OFFICE HAVE BEEN WORKING ON SEVERAL INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. WE IMPLEMENTED A 2% COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT APPROVED IN THE BUDGET AND HAVE BEEN WORKING THROUGH IMPLEMENTATION OF PAYLOSITY. THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT INTERNAL CHANGE BECAUSE IT AFFECTS TIMEKEEPING AND EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING, SO THERE HAS BEEN QUITE A BIT OF STAFF TRAINING INVOLVED. We are also continuing to review our internal HR procedures and policies and looking for opportunities to make our processes more consistent across departments. We're preparing surplus vehicles and equipment for auction and continuing to develop the roll-off dumpster rental program that will come to Council at a later date. On the larger strategic side, we've continued our due diligence related to the potential 435-acre land donation. That includes looking beyond the initial acquisition and considering deed restrictions, potential uses, mitigation requirements, possible revenue opportunities, and what the long-term maintenance obligations could be. We've also continued working with police leadership on staffing, fleet, and facility needs, including planning ahead for patrol vehicle replacement rather than addressing those costs only when they become urgent. Before we move on to upcoming events, I also want to take a moment to recognize our employees. I would like to recognize Commander Dan Wilkie for his leadership, dedication, and willingness to ensure that town employees received CEASE Arizona training. This training is especially important for municipal employees because we interact with the public every day and the work that we provide throughout our community in our parks, library, public, Facilities, neighborhoods, and other areas, sometimes simply knowing what to look for can make a difference. Commander Wilkie took this responsibility seriously. He put in early mornings and additional time to make sure the training was available at each of our different town facilities, and that employees throughout the organization had the opportunity to participate i appreciate his willingness to take the lead on something that is so important to the safety of our community i would also like to recognize all of our town staff all of our employees participated in the training staff asked thoughtful questions engaged in the discussion and took the information seriously that says a great deal about our employees and their commitment to being public service keeping our community safe isn't the responsibility of just one department every employee can play a role by being observant, knowing the warning signs, and knowing when and how to report a concern. Before I wrap up, I want to remind everyone that one of our most popular weekends of the year is quickly approaching. Fall Festival weekend is September 25th through the 27th, and there will be a lot happening throughout Pinetop Lakeside, including Run to the Pines, the Artisan Market, the Depot Scavenger Hunt, and of course, our Fall Festival. The parade will take place this Saturday, sorry, next Saturday, September 26th, beginning 10 a.m. The route starts at East Malapai Drive, which is right near the Reese Center, and travels along Highway 260 to Blue Ridge High School campus. For those who aren't attending the parade, please plan ahead for the road closure. That section of Highway 260 will be closed from approximately 9.45 Saturday morning and generally reopens around noon. You can bypass the closure by using Woodland Road to Woodland Lake Road, but please expect additional traffic throughout the area and give yourself some extra time. Most importantly, please use caution anywhere near our parade route. There will be a lot of people along the highway, including families and children, as well as staff and volunteers working the event. We want everyone to enjoy the weekend, and we want to keep it safe for everyone. It is always a great weekend for Pinetop Lakeside, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone out there. ONE LAST ITEM THAT I WANT TO TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY WE HAVE BETWEEN NOW AND NOVEMBER 3 TO MAKE SURE OUR RESIDENTS UNDERSTAND PROPOSITION 456, WHICH IS THE TOWN'S BALLOT MEASURE FOR HOME RULE, ALSO KNOWN AS ARIZONA'S ALTERNATIVE EXPENDITURE LIMITATION. THERE IS ONE DISTINCTION THAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND. is about the town's spending limit. It is not a tax increase, and it does not create additional revenue. Arizona has a state-imposed expenditure limit formula that is based on a municipal spending from 1979 to 1980 and adjusts for population and inflation. Home Rule is an alternative expenditure limitation that Arizona's Constitution allows voters to approve every four years. The easiest way to understand what that means for Pinetop Lakeside is to look at these three numbers. For fiscal year 27-28, the town estimates approximately $23.5 million in available revenue. Under home rule, the town's estimated expenditure authority would also be approximately $23.5 million. Under the state-imposed limitation, estimated expenditure authority would be approximately $10.2 million. So the revenue itself doesn't change based on this proposition. What voters are deciding is which expenditure limitation applies to the town. Under home rule, council still adopts an annual budget through the same public budget process. Home rule changes the expenditure limitation, but not the underlying public process. Proposition 456 will be on the November 3rd ballot, and if approved, would continue home rule for the next four fiscal years. We have a much more detailed information available online at the town website, including facts, the financial analysis, the official ballot language, and the publicity pamphlet. The publicity pamphlet should have been mailed out to all voting citizens of Pinetop Lakeside, so if you haven't had a chance to read through that, go ahead and take a glance at that. If you have any questions, you're welcome to reach out to anybody here at Town Hall, and we'd be happy to answer any of the questions you have regarding Home Rule. And that's all I have for you guys tonight.

Thank you, Christy. That was a great report. And that concludes our business night, so this meeting is adjourned.