City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Today is March 10th, 2026 and this is the city of Prescuit study session. Roll call, please. Mayor Rousing, here. Mayor Prom Freeworth, here. Councilwoman Frederickson, here. Councilman Gambboji, I am here. Councilman Garing, here. Councilman Grady here and Councilman Riby here. All are present. Item three.

Presentation and discussion regarding a virtual attendance policy for the members of city council. So mayor and council, we do not have a formal slideshow presentation on this item. Um this was requested by Mayor Rousing um to allow for virtual participation in meetings by members of the council. Um when the request was received, our IT staff began looking into some options um for upgrades and enhancements to the equipment and chambers, excuse me. And then I also spent some time um speaking with clerks in other jurisdictions to find out what they do with regard um to virtual attendance policies. Um, in accordance with state statute and open meeting law, virtual participation is permitted if the public body has a policy or procedure that's adopted by the council um that is specific to how virtual participation would take place. Um, we did put together a draft participation policy that was included in the packet um based on the feedback that was received from other jurisdictions. um as well as some concepts that uh city attorney's office and I had discussed um in order to keep everything as streamlined as possible. Um essentially at this point staff is just looking for feedback and consensus from council to determine if and how we are going to proceed with um a proposed policy. Uh you'll also note in your memo that the IT department estimated costs at approximately $11,000 um for equipment, but it should also be noted that we would need additional IT staff um in the back room during meetings um if we do have virtual participation by one or two members of the council. And I'm open for questions.

Okay. Well, let me uh let me start this off uh back in our old uh city hall. Um during COVID we started I think back then it was Zoom wasn't it? Weren't we zooming? I don't remember what platform we used but we did have virtual participation if needed during co.

Yeah. So we we had that uh capacity and uh it uh worked very well and it became a virtual participation kind of became a nationwide uh thing. People started working remotely from home and found it very convenient. and then we uh discontinued it. And as as far as I know, since it was an emergency uh pandemic, we didn't need a policy. It was just instigated. And then uh the previous mayor, Mayor Good just decided that we were over the pandemic and we didn't need it anymore. Is that it was kind of a unilateral decision. Yep.

Which worked well. We didn't need it. But then uh we're in our new chambers here and um apparently the software needed for teams virtual uh remote wasn't installed or purchased. They tried to jerryrig some old software from our old uh city hall or was some something. I don't know exactly what it was, but it's it's been a a process to try to get virtual meetings in this room because we can do them anywhere in the building.

So, we don't we did not bring over any of our equipment from the old chambers. So, that's not accurate. Um the the issue is sound feedback. The issue is also verification that it is in fact the member of council that's participating in the council meeting um and not someone else. Um the issue is hacking of the meetings. There's a lot of facets that go into consideration when you're putting together um virtual attendance and it's important that we make sure that it's secure and done properly and not jerryrigged. Um, and because we do not have virtual participation and have not had virtual participation since we came over into this building, there was not an investment put into that because

frankly there was not a need for it.

Yeah. Well, there there is a need for it. Uh we recently had a member of this uh body have uh surgery and it was important that he uh be able to uh participate. Uh there was a member of the county board of supervisors who just recently uh participated in a county board of me supervisor meeting from her hospital room. Uh we travel and uh in case there's a travel interruption flight canled, we can't get back in time. um you know, we can always uh I think it's a great tool and I understand it not being applicable for an executive session because you never know uh if you're working remotely who's also in the room. But I think this is an important tool. I kind of feel like we're if we don't have it, we're kind of in the the buggy whip uh days here and I think it's time to uh kind of uh upgrade and uh get up to get up to the standard where other public bodies uh are using virtual meetings. So, let's see. Uh do we have any uh comments from Patrick?

Yes, we have some comments from Patrick. Um, so the 11,000 is that a anticipated to be a onetime cost for the technology? I believe so. Dylan, can you confirm? I think that was what Nate. Yeah, that's my understanding. Just to get things installed and ready to go.

And then did I read that they'll likely then need a specific device that if we had a medical emergency, we'd have to somehow get to city hall to get the device. I don't know that the individual would have to get to city hall to get it. Staff could provide it, but again, when we're taking into consideration um ensuring secure connection and things like that, it's preference is that the individual is utilizing a city issued device. Okay. So, one of these iPads or another that the IT department has um in stock because then those are sort of locked and loaded for city purposes.

I just wanted to make sure I understood that. And then um tell me more about the additional staff time that might be required.

So in accordance with the proposed policy, the individual would participate via a team's link that's provided. I would be running additional things on top of what is happening here already. And then in back, our IT department would be making sure that everything is functional. Our IT department in the back handles all of the screens, audio, video, all of that. So that in and of itself is enough job for one person and we want to make sure that that's happening seamlessly. And so somebody else would be needed in order to accommodate the virtual participant. Yeah, that was my question. Right. If if there was what additional capacity back in that room.

Yeah, they'd be in the back. Okay, Mr. Garing. Uh the question the question question I have is uh it relates to I attend three or four meetings a month online with zoom go to meeting or teams and uh it would seem to me you'd be able to identify the participant if they simply if you simply require them to have their camera on

Yeah, that's right. the most of the the um technology challenge has to do with splitting the stream between a live broadcast um the microphones in the room and then the teams meeting happening at the same time. And so if you can um if we we just need a little more hardware to make that happen, it's the the 10 11 grand um and that's the majority of the effort on the technology side.

Okay, we got Mary Frederickson. Thank you. Um Sarah, when you were speaking with the other jurisdictions here in Arizona, uh I think you indicated in the memo 75% of other cities and towns do allow for remote participation. Did you have any discussion with them of the concerns that you mentioned? For example, hacking and identification of people participating. Did they see or the equipment necessary? Did they indicate any problems that they hadn't overcome?

No, they all kind of experienced a lot of the same things. Many are um city issued devices. Um they do a link specific for the meeting, things of that nature. So, it was taking a lot of what some of the other jurisdictions are doing in addition to collaboratively talking with it and the legal department to make sure that all of our bases were covered. Um we did have during COVID because it was so rushed um a couple of hacks during meetings um when we were on whichever platform we were on. And so I I think it's important to make sure that we don't have that happen again, which is why I think if the council, you know, majority of the council wants to proceed with this as an option, we need to make sure that we have a firm policy in place. And I think that's true of anything that we do at the city of

Yes, I agree completely. Um, yes, the CO era was something of the wild west and thankfully that's not where we are anymore. But it's good to hear that the other jurisdictions faced these issues, developed ways to safeguard and are just moving on with having this tool available to their bodies to use. So that's uh you know there are steps to take but I think the end goal is is a good one. I want to just follow up a little bit on what Patrick was mentioning about um uh requiring participation using the city issued and and generally we're talking about emergency issues and I'm thinking if somebody was out of town and their spouse falls down, breaks a hip, can't come home, you have to stay with your spouse, you're out of town, you don't have access to have, you know, your kid run over to city hall and pick up a device. Are we going to have some exception written into uh this policy that there is a way that if you're out of town unexpectedly but want to participate in the meeting that we could do so even though we don't have a cityissued device physically with us? I'm sure we could figure out a way to work that into the to the policy. There's also the attendance policy that allows council members to miss meetings in emergency situations. So, um, you know, if somebody does have something critical come up, you know, I would think if my husband was in the hospital, I probably wouldn't be attending a council meeting anyway. So, I would, you know, that's that's an option. Um, but I'm sure I can work with legal and it to come up with um something to work into the policy.

Thank you. Okay, Lois.

Uh, thank you. Um, you know, I was reading this and um thinking about some of the uh previous issues that we've had. Um, last year we were scrambling to have a meeting to vote about approving an attorney and I was sitting in Ohio and on planned vacation and I did I I always travel with my my laptop, not my laptop, my iPad um just in case things go ary. So I was prepared to participate um if needed when that emergency was called. So you know those are the kind of things like it's you know medical issues, illness, family situations and there are city emergencies that I think we need to have put into the policy. Um, and uh, the other thing for me is, you know, I I I liked your sentence that said, and I think this is what the voters expect, is that council members should endeavor. And I said, plan and endeavor because we do put out the whole year's worth of scheduled meetings, you know, a year ahead of time or, you know, for a whole year. and and we most of us will plan most of our vacations when we're not conflicting because I think the public wants to see us here. So I was you know a little bit I had done some research on my own just benchmarking with PV and you know PV's policy was two times in a calendar year. So we have six which for me is perhaps excessive. So somewhere between two and to six I think is the right number because I do think the public expects us to be present and be part of the discussions. Um but I'm open to that. And then the other thing for me was in two points um in the policy that you wrote the second paragraph it says with

prior approval of the um presiding officer which in most cases 99.9% of the time will be the mayor. And then down in point three, you've got to notify the city clerk. I I said and mayor, mayor and city clerk because you have to scramble to get the technally and the it etc. and the mayor has to figure out how to they're going to maneuver having some people participating remotely. So I think those were my my uh biggest concerns and um and then with limitations. This is one of those conversations we've had times in the past. Um, no member can participate for more than two consecutive meetings. Is that meetings or meeting days? Um,

yeah. Is it study sessions? The way that I think Joe and I were thinking about it is that that definition would mirror what the council attendance policy is. Consecutive meetings would be meeting days. So obviously if you were um out of town and needing to participate virtually today um I would my assumption would be that it would be both of the meetings today and that would be one one meeting. So I think just including clarify that clarify that meeting

and I can definitely I'm happy to adjust the days too. I know PV um has I think it's two days. Some jurisdictions only have one, some had a few. So, there was definitely some variation there. Um, some of the jurisdictions that take a longer break over the summer months were the only one. Um, our council doesn't take as many breaks as some other councils do. So, I kind of worked it up, but those are easy adjustments for us to make based on consensus of council. And I think the point that you bring up, Mayor Prom, is good also that some members of the council do have already cityissued iPads that they keep with them um at all times. So if that's something that you'd like to have regardless of whether or not um this body decides to adopt a virtual participation policy, our IT team can take care of that for you as well.

Okay. Um Mr. Ruby? Yes, excuse me. I think it this is great. I think it helps to bring Prescuit into the 21st century. I Excuse me. I can I think it's also uh the the the usage limitations are good as they are. I would express a concern about visibility in making sure that the person who was remote was seen on the screen somehow so that they their presence would be felt and noticed.

Definitely we would have to have the person up on the screen somehow um the way other meetings are in with it about that. I think it's a good point, but obviously as you know, when staff's running through through a slideshow, that's what's on the screen. Um, so that the people that are here, all of you, staff and our citizens that are present physically

can all see what's being discussed. Um, so that's an IT question, not a me question, but I'm sure that there's a way that they could accommodate that. Yeah, because we're used to going over to the county uh meetings, board of supervisor meetings, and they uh you know, being on both sides of the mountains. A lot of people participate on the board remotely. They do presentations up on the screen uh and they have uh you know, or the person because it kind of helps to have them visually a visual on them because it's like they're uh in the room. But before we proceed uh let's have some comments from uh Mr. Gambboji. I want you to know that if I'm remoting in on my laptop on my deathbed, I don't want my photo.

Agree. You got it. Um Joe, can a representative or a senator remote in to a meeting in DC? I I don't know if that's a legal question. I don't have an answer. My understanding is no, but I don't know. What about in Phoenix?

I don't think they can. I don't I haven't I didn't research that, but I don't I think that for both those legislative houses, there's no remote appearance. I went to uh Presca Valley uh council meeting a couple months ago and I remember one or two of the council members were voted in. So I I really don't have a position on this. I I think it's important to explore what are the unintended consequences before we jump feet first into this. Um the council can function really well with six people or five people for that matter. Um I wouldn't you know one of the unintended consequences now I I guess you'd put a limit on it Sarah I forget you said how many

in the draft I think it's six in a calendar year but like I said that can certainly be decreased. I hate to set up the scenario where a council member is just plain lazy and stays home. Now, if Garing keeps wearing garb like this, I'd welcome him to stay home. So, I I really don't have a position. I It to me it's Mox Nicks, but I think we ought to understand the un unintended consequences of something like this.

Okay, great. Um before we delve into the details of the policy, um this is a study session, so we're not taking a vote, but I would just like to kind of take a poll to see if we have a majority of people who uh support a uh option to have a uh remote virtual uh meeting. So I'll start down here with Mr. Ruby. Yes. Let's enter the 21st century. Mary. Yes. I support it. Yes. I'm a yes. Yes. With less than six. Okay. Good. Mr.

H. Yes. Okay. And Ted. I'll I'll be the first person in Prescuit history in the study session to abstain.

Abstain. Okay. Well, that's yeah, that'll be a yes vote. So, I guess we can proceed in talking about the details of the u the policy. I have a I agree. I think the uh six consecutive I mean two consecutive meetings. I agree with that. But I think six meetings in any calendar year would let somebody sherk their duties. Uh there's already been some comments uh from the public worried that we'll be sitting on the uh beach at the French Riviera half the time uh virtually attending but um so I don't know if does anyone have any comments uh less than six three should we do it three a year this is Mary

yeah Mary I would agree that that six is a a little much and I would drop it down to three although with the change of from meetings to meeting days to accommodate something like this where we have two meetings back to back. So it' be meeting days rather than meetings.

Okay. I would suggest too with the caveat if something out of the ordinary happens that they can get let the uh city clerk and the mayor know. Okay. Uh my other comment was um it's not applicable to boards, commissions or committee members. Um, so we don't want to include the BCC's in that or should we include the BCC's? Would that be an undue burden on it if we did all the BCC's? It would.

We'd have to Okay, that's that was a good question. uh just wanted and also um however in the event of a medical issue, illness or family situation um I think we should include travel interruptions of vacations just kind of make it liberal so that people uh can kind of have a life plan to attend virtually and uh and with the approval of the preciding officer No more than two council members may participate in a study session or vote voting meeting teams at the same time of each meeting. I think we should clarify that. And then under notifications, I I think we should have the city clerk and mayor um notified so that if uh some you know so we know who's going to be attending uh virtually. and then um and then this 2 days uh notification um I think that is fine or even more unless I'd like to see the exception will be made for unforeseen circumstances. So if a flight gets cancelled or uh you know you get trapped someplace you know due to civil unrest or you know there's a million things that could happen. So I'd like the caveat except exception will be made for unseen circumstances. And then um would it be possible because I have the Teams app already installed on my uh cell phone and yesterday when I was uh doing a Teams meeting uh with uh the county actually uh some consultants from the county I could have done it you know at home on my uh cell

phone. So, would it be possible to say, you know, if somebody has the Teams app on their cell phone, cuz would that would people be able to hack into the city um civic clerk portal if you're using your cell phone? You're not using the civic clerk portal. Um that's a stipulation of the policy. So, it's because you can't be participating in both. Okay. Functions at the same time. Yeah. Um, I'll defer to Joe on the your own personal cell phone. I I actually think that's an IT question more than either of us. And we can get it take before we come back for approval and then and let you know what that is and then you can say yes or no.

Yeah, because not everyone's as prepared as Lois who travels with the U iPad. I uh turned mine in about six years ago and have never seen it since. Would you like one?

No. I think the I have enough electronics to haul around as it is. So, um Mary, would you like to make some comments on the draft? Uh the only other than what I had said earlier, the only thing on the notification paragraph three uh where uh mayor, you referenced must notify the mayor or or and the city clerk. And I would just change that to notify the presiding officer and the city clerk just to be consistent with the above language. And also uh mayor, you may be calling in to notify

the prom notify myself. That probably wouldn't work. Yeah, good point. Thank you, Mary. Anyone make comments on the draft? Uh Mr. Garing? So I'd like to pursue this issue of identification of who is participating. Uh for instance the uh various meetings I participate in online the presentations alongside the picture of whoever's online. So I'm wondering if that would work. And then there are a number of my accounts where I use two-factor identification. So, you use a a a username, a password, and then you get an email or or text to confirm that it's you. So, I'm wondering if that should be looked into as to, for instance, being able to let somebody like me use my uh desktop to participate.

Okay, thank you. Uh, anyone else have any comments? Well, um Sarah, do you have any more comments or or how about the manager? We haven't heard from the manager. What did you do in Mariposa County? Did you have virtual meetings? Tell them, before you go, can I I just I've got three comments on the number of Okay. I would love to get to a majority so that I'm more comfortable with adjusting a draft policy. Um, if we could maybe take a poll on what everybody's thoughts are on that, that would help my comfort level. Oh, you mean the six meetings? Reduce the six meetings.

So, we had I suggested three meetings. Um, we could have four meetings or just keep it. I think two would be kind of restrictive if somebody had an emergency. Uh what do you think? What do you guys think? Three. Three. Three. Split the difference. Okay. Three it is. And is is that uh is that satisfactory Sarah? It is. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And okay now let's find out what happened in Mariposa County while you were there.

Yeah sure. In Mariposa County, beginning with COVID, um we did have virtual meetings, virtual attendance. Um that was routed into the sound system, not into video. Um and um and then participation um varied at different times between uh board only participation and board and public just depending on how we were feeling about CO at that time. Okay. So, and then after COVID, did they just discontinue it? It

it continued as an option. Um, in a county like that, another consideration was it's a very large geographical area and some people had more than an hour to drive to get to the um the bu the room where we were having our meetings. And so public participation continued um and also participation from uh consultants and things like that that might charge a large fee to travel to the location. Yeah. Um those were all allowed and um and actually board participation um toward the end there became more discouraged. Um but others continue to participate that way.

Okay. Alrighty. Well, um if there's no more comments, let's uh move on to the next presentation.

Presentation of discussion regarding the city transfer station master plan 90% design that presentation up. All right. Good afternoon, mayor and council. Brady Higs, field operation manager, back in front of you for another week. Uh last week we discussed a little bit about the solid waste fund. This is going to kind of open up the conversation into one specific aspect. So today we have our consultant J.R. Miller and Associates that's going to be kind of giving you a rundown on our transfer station master plan. Um, as far as kicking off the conversation, um, talking about this master plan today is going to give us the opportunity to have some broader conversations, um, internally and externally with Yavapai County. So, last week I touched briefly on an intergovernmental agreement that we have with Yavapai County. Uh it started in 1991 when it was adopted kind of the same time this transfer station became a facility to be able to accept waste at. Inside that intergovernmental agreement there was kind of two phrases. We touched on one last week which was not being able to differentiate um user fees whether you were a city of Prescuit resident or you have by county resident. Also in that language um in that agreement there was language that talked about cost sharing as far as a split between future updates needed to the facility. So today we're going to be touching base on that based on the feedback that you guys pro um provide to us today. I I will let you know that this master plan right now uh it began contract began in May. We've been working through a bunch of site renditions, working on the narrative, but it's at a 90%. We came to you guys at 90% because we are looking

for feedback. We are looking for your guys' thoughts, location, orientation, a lot of those things. But before we could ultimately initiate some conversations with the county as far as whether we wanted to, you know, keep this IGA in place, possibly revisit and look at a new agreement or potentially terminate that IGA, we needed to have a number to be able to go to them and let them know, hey, this is what we're looking to do. And so, like I said, after today, we're looking to hopefully kind of initiate some of those conversations with them and ultimately see where that's going to land um between both us and them. So, to kick off the presentation, I'll kick it over to Brett and he'll get started and we'll be here for any questions that pop up in between.

Thank you.

Do I need to push this? Can everybody hear me? It's on. Okay. Uh good afternoon everybody. Mayor, mayor prom, council members, uh city staff. Appreciate the opportunity to present the findings and the results of the city of Prescuit transfer station master plan. I'm going to do just a few quick introductions here. Again, my name is Brett Wolf. I'm a senior facility adviser with J.R. Miller and Associates. We're a structural and architectural firm that specializes in waste and industrial facilities as well as private aviation. uh I served uh in a lot of roles on project but particularly upfront on the master planning and conceptual layout. So served in that role on the project and I work with our project team as we get into detailed design as well. Uh with me today is Andrew Baird who I think most of you know he led the civil uh component for Kimley Horn who was our partner on this. He also oversaw the mechanical, electrical, uh landscape architecture, environmental components of the study as well. And then Jim Yoast, he's a senior architect with Jim Mill or J.R. Miller and Associates, colleague of mine. Uh we've been working together at the company for 6 years, but we've actually been working across the table for 25 years now. In fact, we did uh the original study for the Prescat uh transfer station in 2005 together when I was with a different firm. So glad to be back here today. A lot has changed since then and a lot of new impacts and and things that drove the need for this study and I'm going to talk about those. So, a little bit of background and the reason for the master plan study as we understood it through conversations with city staff. Uh, as you all are aware, uh, the population in Yavapai County has grown substantially uh, over the period of 2014 to 2024. Population's grown about 20% which is about 42,000 residents to a little over a quarter million. And the Sund Dog Ranch Road Transfer Station is really a regional facility as Brady was pointing. not just purely a city of Prescuit facility. It's a regional facility. So that growth has

impacted the operations out there and we've we've reached a point where that growth has created some issues. Um so the transfer station, if you've been out there on the north face of the transfer station is where the public will drop off the various types of materials they bring. And if you've been out there, the trailers, the you know the various trucks and vehicles that are backing up, it's it's a lot going on. And to be honest, the city staff has done a great job of maintaining that and addressing it, you know, even with all the growth in in users. So, we have a couple bar charts on the right hand side and hopefully you can read those, but if not, I know you have the presentation at at your in front of you. Um, the self-h hall customer trips, which is individual trips out there, and it might be the same user, it might be a different user, have grown about 15,000 over that same exact 10-year period. And then if you look at the tonnage which is the amount or quantity of material received that's grown nearly 18,000 tons per year received at the facility and yet the city staff has done a really good job to maintain that operation. So when we were meeting with city staff initially at the start of this project, uh they made it very clear. They wanted two key things and there was a you know a lot of needs but two of the key things is they wanted separation of city vehicles from uh south hall which is citizen traffic and they also wanted more and increased unloading spaces for the three primary materials that are brought out there. The first one is MSW which Yep. Go ahead.

Could we close the door? There's someone talking on the phone out there. And thank you Sorry, thank you.

Oh, absolutely. No problem. So, the first one is MSW for those who don't aware or know that is municipal solid waste. So, that's garbage. The next one is inerts, which is concrete, tile, uh bricks, that type of thing. And then the last one is green waste. And those are all received at the facility, and they all need more unloading. Right now, it's it's, you know, sort of condensed on that north side of the site. So as we looked at the layout of the site and the the transfer station itself, we took all that into consideration. So here is the uh resulting site layout. And I'm going to try and utilize this tool here to highlight a few key components. But on the north side, give me just a second here. Might have to point to it. I got a pretty deep voice. It'll carry. So on the north side, this is the existing transfer station right here, and that will be converted in the new plan to a recycling only. It'll re receive recycling and then transfer that out. There's a couple maintenance buildings on that north side, including a vehicle maintenance and just sort of a light duty maintenance. And then you have your existing office and then uh staff break rooms up here as well. And then we have the scale and scale plaza out on Sund Dog Road, which is a recent uh project improvement uh that was done out there. and all of those will remain. So the the new scale and scale plaza allows for better queuing of vehicles out on Sund Dog Ranch Road. It also has bypass lanes in both the north and south direction so you can get to the police and fire uh facilities to the north of there. And so all of that will remain. So with that then we took okay what are the new facilities that are needed and we spent time to do that. The first and biggest one is a brand new transfer station, the blue one down there on the south edge of the site. And mind you, the right side is the north side of the site and the left side is the south for an orientation. So the blue facility is a brand new 17,000 square foot transfer station. And my my colleague Jim will get up here and talk about a little bit more later about the features of that.

Um we also provided uh some parking for city vehicles right here. That's about 30 new oversized stalls for uh vehicles of the city staff. So it's, you know, collection trucks, that type of thing that they can park. And then we provided a uh new I'm just going to point to it's a little easier. This new employee parking the existing employee parking is very dilapidated. The the concrete's and asphalt's all broken up. So brand new employee parking as well. So those are some of the key uh new facilities. But the other elements that are very important was the center part of the site. Let me see if I can get this to work again.

Try to that one. Ah, there we go. Thank you. You've done this before. It's not your first rodeo. No, it's not working. So, sorry.

Anyway, uh right here is the self hall drop off uh which is uh the MSW gets dropped off in front of the new transfer station and that's uh selfhaul vehicles. So, citizens we have an inert drop off up here and we provided enough storage for about 3 years of material which is about how often they currently grind that material and then we have a brand new uh green waste drop off here. And the big advantage with having the green waste here is the material gets dropped off and this grinding occurs right there too. So you don't have multiple handling of the material which is currently the case out at the transfer station which causes additional labor for the city. And then lastly, we have a little bit of a uh mulch pickup area. If I can get that thing to work again. I'm going to point to it. Right here is a mulch pickup. So if a citizen wants to grab some mulch on their way out, they're able to do that as well. So, all all uh separated from the city operations and and all, you know, utilizing the existing footprint of the site.

Brett, I have a I have a question. Um, you know, I'm a for I'm a 40-year resident and uh I'm very familiar with the numerous trips out to the transfer station and I just want to commend you. I've always been very impressed at how wellrun it is and uh the egress and ingress uh people seem to handle it pretty well. So, if I went in, let's say I cleaned out my garage and I had some garbage. I go in, hang a left and go over. How do I exit? Because I I it'd be helpful to see some arrows so that you could see the traffic flow because that's so important, you know, where we check out. Yep. Absolutely. Get weighed and how would that work?

Yeah. So, this slide right here shows all the various traffic flows. So, we have four primary user types. I'm going to walk through each of those here real quick.

Okay. Okay. So, and I'm going to point to it on the screen. It's just a lot easier. So, this pink outbound arrow is where all of your citizens or self hall would come. You hit the scale inbound. You get weighed. You come across, you come in this north entrance, and then you take a loop along this north edge. We have tire drop off opportunities here. We have residential bin pickups. Then you drive over here and you either drop off your inerts, which is, you know, bricks, concrete, broken concrete. You drop off garbage at the transfer station. You drop it out on the slab and it gets pushed in so that you don't have citizens inside the building, you know, risking with an end loader operating. And then you have your brush pile here as well. So that's be your three. And then on your way out, you follow that exact same loop around the exterior part of the site. You come out here, you hit the outbound scale,

okay? You do your transaction there. You char your charge based on weight, and then you head on down the road. Okay? And uh one of the most exciting things uh about the transfer station is as you're backing in and trying to unload, you have the uh front loader there scooping things up and moving and uh so we'll still be in there dropping things off with the front loader there. That still will be required, but you a lot more drop off spots. So the amount of overlap of the end loader operating and the vehicles is going to be lessened. They'll be able to adjust because you have more stalls to unload now. Quite a few more. And and so the front loader would push it into a pit where the

correct it drives it in here into a loadout port which loads up a transfer trailer that's below and it loads it from the top. All the top load operation and somehow several years ago we did have a customer drive into the pit. Is that still possible? Possible here. No, they're going to all be outside the building dropping their material off and only the end loaders, the city operators will be pushing that material. Yeah.

Correct. And I just want to let the public know that the transfer station's very important and uh we have to have it because if we don't have it and we don't include, you know, people outside the city limits, uh they're going to be dumping mattresses and trash out in the forest and out in vacant lots or using other people's uh dumpsters. So, it's important that we have this uh conveniently available.

Yeah. So then the last three primary traffic types, I'm just going to walk through these real quickly so everybody understands. This green arrow is your recyclables. So you have collection trucks that go out in the communities, pick up the material. They drive in, we've provided a new dedicated uh scale for just city vehicles. They get an inbound weight and that allows us to track tonnage so we know how much material we're receiving. They drive up here to the north end and they utilize the repurposed recycle or a transfer station that only handles recyclables. And then they go out and either go out on another route or if it's the end of the day, they go ahead and park in one of those stalls. And as you can see, that's completely separate from the city uh or from the cells uh customers. The other thing would be then the transfer vehicle, which is a large semi-trail that comes in and hauls that material away, would come in, it drive up here, it do a backend operation, would get loaded, and then it take that material out and it drive it on down the road. Currently, all that material goes to the uh North Gateway Transfer Station on the north side of the city of Phoenix. Actually, Jim and I worked on the design of that many years ago, but uh that's where that material goes. And then the next primary uh material that comes into the site is the city collection vehicles that pick up garbage around the community. They are uh denoted here by this purple line. So, they come in and just like the recycling uh packer trucks, they get a inbound weight to figure out their tonnage. They drive a loop around this parking area and they do a simple little backin operation. They unload and they either go out to another route or they go ahead and park for the day. They don't need an outbound weight because we have tear weights on all that. So, we know exactly what those vehicles weigh. They only need a loaded weight. And then lastly, the red line, which is the uh transfer operations. It's a contracted uh service right now by the city. They contract that out. Uh there is what

sir? Sir, I'm sorry. I you you need to speak into the microphone. Oh, I'm sorry. Cuz you can't be hurt.

Can't be heard on the radio. Okay, I apologize. So, anyway, the the last one, the red loop, uh, is the transfer vehicles and they um they they do a loop there. They use a yard goat, which is a sort of a semi-truck. It backs in, it drives down the ramp, gets loaded up like we were talking about before, mayor. Uh, then pulls a little bit forward, gets a tarp on top, and then it pulls outside and parks in one of those stalls and waits for a semi-truck to come pick it up and haul it off to the landfill. So, as you can see, the red, the the purple and the green routes are all completely separate from the city uh or not from the city, but from the south hall. So, the public uh traffic and therefore you have complete separation of all that. Okay. And Lois, did you have a comment? Yeah. Before you move off this flow. Yeah.

Um so, I was when I was doing the pre-ereading, I was trying to see that people were being separated. My biggest concern was when you have the pink uh over by brush yard and residential tipping and what's to stop them from just driving east through what looks like open spaces and into the commercial parking area and trying to get out that that's all fenced in. We're going to provide a It is totally fenced. Fabulous. Thank you. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. They were We were talking to the same staff. They were very clear. We did not and and there's going to be like a big sign exit so people know where to exit. Okay, good.

Yeah, signage is part of our construction cost estimate that we'll talk about a little later as well. So, very very key in a facility like this. And then, you know, the city will likely want to have as those vehicles come around the corner and they're near that inert pile, you're likely going to want a spotter to sort of direct traffic. And that's that's what the city will provide out there as well. Mr. Cambodi, I was going to ask you to to sketch out three uh scenarios of travel. You already did two. So, let's say I'm Ken Fidic and I'm bringing clippings from my yard to the to the to to the landfill.

And then on the way out, I want to pick up some wood chips because Brady's been doing a terrible job of getting rid of wood chips. So tra take me through that. So I'm a resident. I'm coming in the dump and I'm going to pick up wood chips. Yeah. So I get this. Wonder if this one will work actually. Here. What? Okay. Oh, go back one. Sorry. Right there. So that route would be this pink exterior route. So you would route around here after you go across. Where's the scale?

The scale is right here out in Sund Dog Valley Ranch Road. You go along this north entrance. You follow this route in here. Come up here. And then you were asking for dropping off of grass clippings and picking up mulch. So you would do a little loop right here. You would back in. You would drop off your green waste here, whether that's wood or grass clippings in this case. And then you would drive up right here. And we pull we have a pulloff line here where you can pull off and get loaded with a full load of mulch and then head right on out of the facility the same way you came in. Yep. Good job. Absolutely. Okay, Mr. Garing.

So, a couple of actually three questions. I didn't see so far a place where the public could bring in their used engine oil andor used coolant. We do. We do have that. And that would be the one sort of crossover point that we uh oops that we have here. Get this thing to work. There are a couple of oil receiving tanks right here on the corner of the recycling center. So, they don't happen often, but we'll have to have those vehicles pull in here to drop that off. So, okay, great. Thank you. Then the uh my other one is it doesn't look like there's a public opportunity to drop off recycling.

Um on that, Brady, how how would you propose to do that? Yeah, Councilman Garing, uh, what's listed in the existing transfer station site, which is labeled as recycle center, um, I believe that there would be opportunities in the future for us to be able to accommodate customers coming in. There might be a cost or at least have a location for them to bring those in. Obviously, that would be only open during business hours and it would be attended to make sure it was clean recycle material only, but in that recycle center, that's where it would be proposed to happen. Okay, great. Thank you.

And what we've typically seen too is sometimes you'll have collection centers or like little bins out in this community where they can drop off cardboard is particular big one obviously these days and that's always an opportunity as well. So, any other questions? Otherwise, I'm going to turn it over to Andrew and he's going to talk about the uh utilities, the landscaping, and some of the environmental considerations. Thank you,

Andrew Beard. Kimley Horn, thanks for having me again, mayor and council. I'm just looking at this slide and realizing how boring it is now after I just saw GRMA slide. Uh, so my apologies for that. The point of this slide is to show the existing utilities adjacent to the project site. We know it's an existing transfer station. So we have water, sewer, gas, electrical, communications. Uh so obviously if a new transport station building goes in, we'd have to extend those services out. But through our work, we worked on the on the new fee booth. Uh we know all of the necessary utilities are there to serve any sort of expansion. We confirm that through this study to make sure sewer has capacity, uh water has capacity. And so this slide is really just to denote that all the needed utilities are directly adjacent to the project site in Sundog Ranch Road.

I think you still have to work the slides for me. Sorry.

Uh and this slide is showing the landscaping plan and kind of our environmental considerations. Just want to step back the the overall site from an existing topography site. everything slopes to the west, outfalls into an existing uh linear basin that's on the west side of the of the project site about the southern twothirds of it. So, our concept grading uh and drainage plan matched that existing outfall. There are inlets within the project site that we have three distinct drainage areas they were matching into. So, we can match uh pre versus post drainage considerations. And then you'll note around It is working kind of. You'll note around the perimeter from the landscape side. This serves two purposes. So, it's a bioail to pick up storm water runoff. So, we have the entire western boundary and the northern boundary is a landscape bio to pick up storm water to pre-treat it before it outfalls into the linear basin and ultimately outfalls uh under the pine trail, but also it serves as a screen wall and a buffer to the pine trail itself. So, uh, trees, vegetation along again that west side and then along the south side to screen where the trail head access is and access to the pee vine. Um, as a bio swale, we'll actually be able to reuse storm water to supplement landscape irrigation. So, you'll get a little bit of savings and in water usage. We've provided drought tolerant plantings that are allowed uh per uh per city guidelines. Um, and then additionally for consideration, it's not shown on here, but we're proposing a six-foot solid screen wall along the south side of the property on the west side. Again, to provide that buffer just to screen uh what would be an expanded transfer station from the pivine trail. Um, so again, just from an environmental and a landscaping standpoint, we're kind of seeing two benefits with that bioell.

And that matches what's out there right now um in the existing condition. It's not shown here. There's an existing bio swell that's probably on the northern twothirds of the site. So, we're matching that concept and expanding it uh as the site would potentially expand. Lois question. Um because I didn't see the map of the pre the current transfer station compared to Are we moving closer west to the Peine Trail with this new design? No, we're not. Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Gambboji. Andrew, what is a solid screen wall? It's a block wall. 6 feet tall.

Concrete block. Concrete block. Yep. Okay. Any other questions? I have a question. Um, you know, a lot of times, uh, there's fires like in tires and, uh, you know, at, uh, transfer stations. Uh do you have any like a fire suppression system? Uh fire hydrants or what do you have there in case there's a a fire?

Yeah, fire new fire hydrants will be spaced throughout the site. We look to make sure we'd achieve fire flow on it. So yes, you would have an updated fire suppression system. There'd be sprinklers within the transfer station building, but when you go to final design, you'd make sure you had coverage in terms of hydrant spacing and enough uh fire flow to meet current the current code. Yeah. And is uh is this facility going to be uh ADA compatible? If people are like in a wheelchair and they want to they're able to drive, are they going to be able to use this facility?

Yeah. when you again when you go the the grading plan we put together was conceptual in nature but once you went to final design where you would need um access for um end users and ADA accessibility we look at ADA accessible routes and parking to make sure that they could get to and from their their destinations the site itself in general is flat enough that I wouldn't see any ADA issues as you went to to final design. Okay. All righty. Continue. That was my last slide I believe. So, I'm going to pass it on to Jim next. Well, luckily luckily I only have one slide. Um, Jim, will you pull that microphone down? Thank you.

Okay. Uh, good afternoon. Uh, so this, uh, exhibit I know doesn't have a whole lot of information on it. Uh, but it was, uh, somewhat intended that way um, because we haven't gotten into a whole lot of design, detailed design. This is really just to show some massing of what the transfer station could look like in a in a 3D perspective. Um so the uh the perspective on the on the north on the top of the page of course uh would show where the um um um where the uh south hall uh residence would drop off where we saw that on the on the site plan a little bit earlier. And then of course um the one door on what would be the left on this particular exhibit uh on the top again would be where the um commercial vehicles would enter. But but then uh I I think what Brett touched on a little bit uh earlier, the lower number two uh exhibit there, the lower um uh perspective, you can get a better view of what that ramp looks like. Uh and that would be a drive-thru situation. You've got a back in right now as you're all aware of. and and that's a little bit of a a dangerous situation, but uh again, Brady's people have been handling that uh well, this this sort of takes that uh uh risk uh and minimizes it a little bit a little better. And then again, along the top of the uh the building, you could see we added some translucent panels. They have them on the building out there right now. And uh allows to bring in a lot more um uh light into the uh facility, brightens it up, and and again, a safety feature. Um, but the building in in of itself is going to be metal. Uh, very similar to what you have now. Metal panel siding, metal roofing, and um, uh, very durable, very uh, cost-effective building.

Any comments, Mr. Gamboji?

My light's not pushed. My button's not pushed. Oh, okay. You're still up here. I can't turn it off, but that's okay. Just checking. All right.

So, we've uh we've talked a lot about the site layout, you know, some of the amenities, whether it's grading, uh utilities, traffic routing, those sort of things. Uh we've talked about the building and obviously my, you know, if I'm sitting here and I'm on the council, I'm thinking, okay, what's this going to cost us, right? That's that's where the, you know, sort of rubber meets the road. So, we broke the budget up into four uh sort of key buckets of cost. Uh the first one up at the top is the building and site construction. That would be the cost for labor and materials to construct the facility as well as general conditions from the contractor. The total on that's about uh $12.7 million. Um and that's in today's dollars, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. Um project development, that's often called soft cost, which would include uh construction management and administration. It would include engineering cost as well as uh insurance and bonding for the project. That's about 3.6 6 million of the total cost. Permits and fees are exactly what they sound like. It's building permits. It's uh utility connection fees. It might include inspections. That's about $320,000. And then lastly, the owner provided items. So that would be it, which would be data and security. It could be signage. Like we talked about, a facility like this requires a lot of detailed signage to make sure the users know how to use the space. Um it's furniture, fixtures, and equipment. And then it's also some level of owner contingency. And that's about 1.8 million. So grand total about $18.5 million is what our engineers opinion of probable cost was for this project.

Now the last task we were asked to do as part of this Oh, go ahead. Now I have a question. Yep. Go ahead. Yes, Ted. So you're proposing we spend 18.4 million. Do you have any idea on a costbenefit analysis? What's what benefit do we realize either in ter in terms of efficiency and can you put that in terms of dollars? Yeah, we weren't asked to do a costbenefit analysis as part of that. It was just, you know, provide a overall capital cost estimate for the project. I I always ask for a cost benefit.

I understand. Um there there's also things you can do in terms of nodal analysis if you were to move the site and that's what this next slide is about. But we uh we weren't asked to do that as part of that. So this last slide uh one of the tasks the city uh requested of us was what would it be look like if we took this entire operation and moved it to another site within the city or the county. Um so with that you'd obviously have land acquisition cost. Uh you'd have to develop all these facilities new. So, some, you know, were reutilizing existing facilities. And then, of course, you'd need the new transfer station and site improvements. And then we pulled that together and did a, you know, a rough order of magnitude, it came up to about $62 million, uh, for that new location. Um, I do want to note that whether it's the new option, a new site, or whether you're refurbing the existing, uh, every year we wait, we're looking at right now in the construction industry about a 4 to 5% cost escalation. Uh, and that's in today's dollars. Who knows with what's going on in the world if that might, you know, change here maybe even more dramatically. But, uh, I think we are looking at about a 5-year delay on on design and construction. And with that, these two numbers would raise to 79 million and about almost 24 million for the, you know, refurbishing of the existing Sundog Ranch Road site as well, just to give you a little perspective on what that 5% escalation would look like. So, you may be asking yourself, what's the advantage? If I'm going to spend more money, what am I getting out of a new a new site? Well, the big one is you you have a blank slate to work with. So, you don't have existing infrastructure you have to work around. So, you can really provide optimal routing of vehicles as well as locations of the facilities on the site. Um, you'd have all brand new facilities. You know, you wouldn't be using a many old administrative building or, you know, refurbishing an old transfer station to make it a recycling uh facility. And then maybe one of the bigger elements is a new site would allow you not to have phase construction. If we're going to do this at the existing site, obviously it's going to require construction phasing and so, you know, you're going

to have to sort of adjust your operations to work around that. That, you know, presents some challenges both, uh, logistically, but also safety-wise. Um, some of the, you know, disadvantages of a new site is you do have to repay for some of that infrastructure. You know, the administrative building, the maintenance facilities, all of that would have to be built new at a new site. Um, you would have increased environmental and planning efforts up front. It's a green field site. That's, you know, kind of the part of infrastructure you're going to have to go into that. And then lastly, and I think it was mentioned here earlier, I think, uh, mayor, you mentioned it. If we don't locate this facility in a centrally located site like it is today, you have the potential for some illegal dumping as well. And so, you know, that's just one of the things. There's there's more pros and cons in the in the narrative and stuff, but we just tried to put some of the highle ones here. So, with that, that is the conclusion of our portion. and Brady's going to get up and sort of talk about next steps and then we'd love to answer any questions, comments or uh input from the council.

I appreciate that, Brett. Thank you. Um so, as far as kind of next steps, I know I kind of laid it out at the beginning of the meeting, but um obviously today we're trying to ultimately complete this uh transfer station master plan uh site map and narrative. and any feedback you guys can provide us, we'll make sure and get that plugged into this document. The next step is ultimately us probably starting to have initiate some conversations with Yavapai County to refer back to that intergovernmental agreement and see what partition participation is going to be like. you know, they have constraints in their own, you know, solid waste division within Yapai County, the rural transfer stations, their funding sources, but see if they're still want to participate, maybe they don't want to. Maybe we look at a new agreement. Um, I will tell you that as of right now in solid waste capital outlay plan, design consideration isn't going to be brought back before council until 2031. So FY FY31 is when that is proposed to be brought back to council for considerations for design considerations and pending those conversations. Um FY 32 33 34 could be consideration for construction if it was approved or adopted at that time.

Let me ask you this. So how much more capacity will this be increasing over our current capacity in like cubic yards? you got hop up there.

Sorry, used to my voice carrying. I forgot we have others that are listening. Um the the new transfer station is about 30 to 40% bigger and so you could probably accommodate an additional 30 40% in capacity. Um but you're also pulling the recycling stream out so you're not having to do a separate shift for that. You have that as a dedicated facility. In terms of the selfhaul material that you can handle, it's significantly more than that. I'd probably say it's at least 50% more just based on the number of unloading stalls that we've added as well. So really the throughput will be that's really your your sort of limiting factor. I don't I don't know that the city collections will see as great of increase as the south hall. You're just going to have more residents from the local communities continue to use this because as Brady's noted to me there's a lot of um other facilities in the county that that don't have the capacity to take on any additional. So we're going to see more at the the Prescuit facility.

Okay. Any uh anyone else have a question? Patrick? Um yes, thanks. So I I see in the project features and goals I think is a nice narrative bulletoint explanation of what some of the benefits are. Um so I understand we're not this we're at 90% design today is or is this 30%? This is this is more like a 15 to 20% conceptual design. Conceptual design.

Yeah. And you know, I think there was something brought up earlier, just an example of the detail of design. So, you were asking about um you know, fire issues and that sort of thing. We we didn't we called out a hot load place, but we or hot load locations. That's if you get a smoldering or a truck that has smoke emitting, you go ahead and drop that outside. You you have a dedicated uh fire, you know, suppression for that as well. Those are the types of things that are part of detailed design. That wouldn't be part of a conceptual layout like this. But yeah, we're probably 15 to 20% right now. So the next stage would be schematic design, 30% design.

So to Ted's earlier point, would we anticipate seeing a cost benefit? I mean $18 million, is that today's dollars or is that 2031? That is today's dollars. Correct. Yep. So would we expect to see a cost benefit at some point where you make a little stronger case for why we would proceed at that point?

Yes. Yes, Councilman Grady. We would obviously come back before then um before the design consideration and could present that to you at that time before we consider awarding a contract to to be go that direction. And since I'm a relatively new to the budget process, um, how is it perceived that the $18 million project costs would be where would it be budgeted out of what resource? You want to pop up? Gwen Gwen can't both. Sorry, they're fighting to get up here.

I'm happy to let him come up. So, mayor and council, the um funding for this project would be considered in the next rate study, the next solid waste rate study, and then it would be implemented through the rates. You're welcome.

Well, as you know, we brought up the budget and uh we're working on our budget and our solid waste division is an enterprise fund and unfortunately it's been in the red. Uh I don't know how many of you looked at your uh water bills which include the uh trash pickup and my residential is only $24 a month at $6 a visit once a week and we are offering uh Rolls-Royce service at Chevy prices here and it's unsustainable. For example, we have curbside uh Christmas tree pickup. We have curbside. You can make an appointment and somebody will come up and uh once a year pick up your hazardous materials. Uh we have uh bulk pickup. You can clean up your yard, garage, whatever, and put it out on your curb and somebody will uh pick it up. And we have recycling and uh we have the blue bins. somebody will come up and pick up pick up your recycling. So, we offer a lot of services that the uh private hauling companies don't offer. And uh so we were trying to be competitive with them, but if you add in all the services that we offer, I think we do a much we do a much better job. And I think our residents would uh you know, we've kind of briefly discussed maybe we should look at subcontracting it out like Prescat Valley does, but the feedback that we've gotten is uh no, we like the service that we get and all the extras like recycling. So, um, what we need to do is work on our budget and work with the solid waste people, public works, and come up with a

plan because we are going to have to either increase fees or cut services, maybe do the both. And one of the other things we need to look at is uh, we pay a lot of money in hauling and we only whenever we go out to bid, we only get one person that bids. And so that's that's not very competitive. And so I don't think we're um you know, if we put out something to bid and we only get one bid, then we need to keep putting out a bid. We just don't take that bid because you don't know if it's a high bid, low bid. So we got a lot of work to do. And uh I think that we can continue with our level of service, but we may probably have to uh be realistic uh on our our fees. Anyone else have a comment?

Madame Mayor, my button is pushed. Oh, okay. Go ahead, Ted. Uh, a couple suggestions. It's good presentation. I know it's I think you said 15%. Yeah, 15% design. Correct. Yep.

So, um, some ideas for moving it along. Um, we're we're looking at either stay where we are or move to somewhere else. and the and the delta is 60 62 million I guess. Um I'd like to I want to go back to my cost benefit analysis. What do we get for that? And I'm sure it's there in terms of efficiency, truck time in, truck timeout, uh resident time in, resident time out. Uh uh but I'd also I think in terms of graphs if we look at the current facility and we look at projections for how big's Prescuit going to get. I haven't looked at it in a long time but I think years ago they did something where Prescuit taps out at 90,000 but whatever that number is. Is it 90? So, uh, make a projection of what how would the current facility be able to handle that? You you had some early bar charts on uh, customer deliveries and customer tonnage, but does that mean that the current facility gets tapped out in the next few years? I mean, I I I do that effort to see physically does it get tapped out and do we have to move cuz right now I'm I I don't want to spend 62 million to build a new place unless I know that the old place gets tapped out in 2035 and then we got problems. So, um, the other thing I wanted to ask is is do we make any money off of taking stuff from Yavapai County?

Councilman Gambboji. Um, no, we we don't. I mean, off our user fees, our gate rate is what we is what we charge for accepting it. Outside of that, there's no extra contributions that that come. So if you're not in Prescuit and you live in the county, you can bring stuff to the landfill and you pay just like a Prescat resident. Yes, that is correct.

Is there other places in the county they could take their stuff? Yeah, Councilman Gambboji. Uh Yepai County does have uh about five rural transfer stations uh kind of scattered throughout the county. Paulen, Skull Valley, Congress, Dewey, Humboldt. So there is a handful of locations. Some of what they're limited on is they won't accept dump trailers. It can only come in in your pickup or in your vehicle. So, they're limited on how they can accept it because most of theirs they don't have a I I don't want to say a site, but they don't have a transfer station building. Most of it it just gets put into rolloff containers that end up getting hauled to the landfill.

Do uh do the commercial haulers pay more? Uh commercial haulers at the transfer station? No. The gate rate is whether it's a residential coming in or somebody that's doing a demo or home remodel, it's all one rate. Okay. If if we were looking at what I'm talking about is capacity analysis, right? Yep.

Uh I I'd look uh at a capacity analysis set parabus and then I'd look at a capacity analysis where we tell the county people go somewhere else. Um and let's see. Oh, and you said this you would be really be coming back in somewhere in the vicinity of 2031 with the more detail. So, so the elements I would the elements I would suggest is one you do a capacity analysis for the current and does that mean we have to go second modify the capacity analysis to throw out the county. Um and third I would I'd make some effort to see if we can cost justify this in terms of efficiencies. You mentioned safety. You know, I safety is near and dear to my heart because I lived in a dangerous environment.

Uh to make the presentation a little more robust because 62 mil was a pretty big lift. But great job. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. Um, uh, I'm not familiar with the IGA that we have with the county as far as allowing them to come and dump at our transfer station. Did I hear you say earlier that there is something within that IG that they are uh, obligated to put in dollars for any expansion upgrade that we might need for the transfer station? Is that part of the IGA?

Yes, Councilwoman Frederickson, that is correct. It was kind of two parts in the language. It doesn't allow us to differentiate between city of Prescuit residents and Yavapai County residents as far as what we charge price per ton, but also in the event of there needing to be expansions or improvements to the existing facility that there is a cost sharing ability inside that language.

And do we know if it's a 5050 split or what the ratio might be? So the in the existing IGA, like I said, it hasn't been referred to a whole bunch. Um, but the existing when it was a started, it was a 6535 split. So that was 65 city, 35% split with the county, but it had to do with population size. So they made kind of an arbitrary polygon of users that were would use the facility. So inside those numbers, the census would change and ultimately that would cause the split to change as well.

And to the extent that it's been suggested that um some analysis be undertaken as to just how much uh is county material coming into the transfer station as opposed to within the city limits. Do we even collect that kind of information on the intake so that we could make that kind of analysis? Yeah, Councilwoman Frederickson. Yes, we do. Um, within the last 18 months, we switched to a new uh software system inside the fee booth that allows us to ask residents if their waste is being generated inside the county or inside the city limits. I will tell you that sometimes it feels like some some of it may not be truthful. We're not checking IDs. We're just asking the question. And I'd say right now it's probably about a 5050 or a 6040 split. And is that selfhaul or commercial as well?

Um I would just consider it all selfhaul even if they're a commercial hauler um or a commercial business. We don't have too many private companies that trash companies that come haul to the transfer station. So I would just lump them all together as selfhaul and um inside those that would that they're all charged. Yep. Okay. So the data might have a little bit of a question mark on it, but we do have the data that we could make some kind of analysis as to prescuit versus county. Yes, we do. Okay. And this question maybe y going this way. Uh the estimate that was put together um in your analysis for another site, a different site, the 62 million.

62. Yeah. Yes. That's a big that's a big lift. Um, did that include the need to purchase property, the land cost as opposed? So that that number would drop if in fact we identified city city owns own land that we assumed a a dollar per acre. That was kind of a a rate we were given to to come up with that. And we assumed a similar size. You might be able to reduce the size. That's about a 22 acre site right now. you might be able to get by with a 15 acre site, but we just assumed I think 20 or 22 acres just just to sort of be similar in in how we develop those costs.

And I guess I have uh two things that weigh in my mind for the potential for moving to another location. Not only the projection of the population growing in our area, and I'm assuming the county is going down similar roads. uh whether or not the transfer station at its current location can keep up with the just the volume based on population growth. Um and so if we're going to get to that point where the population growth has just outstripped us, I think it's a good thing to look more closely at whether or not moving a transfer station to another location might not if it's going to have to happen eventually. a good look at it now I think is a good thing. And the other thing that weighs on my mind is the proximity to uh our our water source. We have that uh outflow under the Peine Trail. On the other side of that is Granite Creek and the lake which of course flows into our water scenario. um is I take it there is not open piles uh at the transfer station now and maybe where how it's redesigned so that rainwater is falling on debris and outflowing to the granite creek. Is that correct?

If this was a landfill I think your concerns would be merited but this is a a transfer station where the material is received on hard surface. It's pushed directly in trailers and hauled away. So you don't have the same leeching of the material that you would at a landfill. And I think you know Andrew addressed it. We're collecting whatever little bit comes through rainwater in those bio swailes and it would be released at a level that's well within permit regulations or requirements. So I I don't think that's a should be a concern here.

That that is some comfort. And um but I am still concerned about volume growing over the years whether or not we're going to outgrow this space pretty quickly. Well, I I think with the existing conversion uh and what I had talked about in terms of additional spaces of unloading and you know the new transfer station, you have a brand new 17,000 foot transfer station in this design. Um you have years of growth that that facility the way those metal buildings are designed, those are you know about 30-year facilities and and I think you know based on the current population growth we we should be able to handle that based on what we've done with this proposed layout. So,

and it just popped into my mind, not that I know your industry at all, uh, but even if volume is growing, just upping the the traffic of the outflow, the number of trailers coming in and leaving, just getting getting it going and out the door. That's a very fair statement. I think we'd want to do a traffic study as part of this other analysis that's being requested to really look at, you locate a new site, there's a nodal analysis, there's more mileage on trucks, there's more wear on trucks if it's further out. So you need to evaluate that, but you also need to look at the increased vehicles coming to this site and and just confirm that we can handle that on Sund Dog. Thank you.

I I have a question. Um going back to the IG as far as the county paying for uh improvements. Uh we recently uh improved the scales, replaced the scales, and did major improvements. Did we build a county for that? Uh no, Mayor, we did not. Most of that improvement was just a relocation of the fee booth and then the Sundog Ranch road was um very deterior deteriorated. So that ended up being mainly a road construction project with an element that we had budgeted some of that um money specifically for the just the scale house plaza but not necessarily an expansion project.

Sounds like a loophole that needs to be closed. Understood. Okay. Anybody uh else out there? Lois.

Yeah, I I appreciated um Ted's line of questioning and I think the question comes when you're looking at 65 plus 4 to 5% on and on and on. If we do play out, could this transfer station with this level of investment being requested, granted, building some point in the in the 30s, um could we be able to handle just our city population? Um, that'd be another thing I'd like to see and understand so that when you're negotiating with the county and if you need other help from the electorate, we'd be happy to be involved as well. But is there going to come a point where maybe for what's best for our residents and our budgets is they have to leave eventually. So, I think that's the question. If if we're going to have to all leave no matter what because we just can't get any bigger, that's one thing. But I I totally appreciated where Ted was coming from. I think, you know, this is an interesting layout. We're not going to give you any none of us are experts in how to design a transfer station. So, I think what you're hearing from us is more usability and the how this will play out in rates over time. Um whether we're sharing it with the county or eventually if we have to make them leave and cancel our IG because we don't want to get into a new more remote larger facility. So, um, especially if they haven't chipped in for our new scales, you know, an IGA is an IGA. Even even if it's small, I think you enforce your terms and your ability to have an IG stay in place so that people understand if we do have to invest these things. Um, you know, how long what's their percentages and how long are they going to be able to be in for them to make up their minds if they they want to stay in an IG. But I think we need to enforce our terms. Thank you. Especially since this IB IGA has been in place

since what 1991. I remember when we closed the uh the landfill and got the transfer station going. So it sounds like it's way overdue to be uh renegotiated legal. Okay. Well, you know, we're getting Wait a second. I got another question. Okay. Well, just a minute. Yeah. Uh it's 2:26, so we got four minutes. That'll give us half an hour break till we start our voting. So, Mr. Gambboji, the floor is yours. I was all good and then you served up this fat one right over to the middle of the plate. So, I got to ask. I'm a former college pitcher. I did a lot of that.

Did you say you in your cost estimates you estimated a dollar per acre? No, we put in a a we were given a number to plug in for cost per land. It was not a dollar per acre. No. And you said if you move to a new location it would be the same size as the current location. Similar size. We we just estimated 20ish acres might be able to squeeze it into 15. The problem is every time you do that you limit your operations. You create safety issues. So we just assume 20 for a new site. So I'm going back to my plea for a capacity analysis. Mhm.

Uh if you needed more capacity, why would you put it on the same size lot? Well, the just to be clear, I want to reiterate my statement. The the existing Sund Dog transfer station layout that we showed here increases capacity significantly and I I mentioned that earlier. Uh we're adding a new 17,000 ft² building in addition to what already exists and we're providing a lot more unloading. So, we'd have to do the specific total tonnage, but we are going off um basically these are the additional users we want to be able to handle and so we can get a tonnage for that that shouldn't be taken. No, you said you're at the 15% stage. These are not gotcha questions. No, because

as Patrick Grady knows, I abhore gotcha questions. But part of your thinking as you go along, um, we couple people have said 62 mil is a pretty big lift. And I'd have a hard time rationalizing spending 62 million to build a place the same size. Yeah. If it was a capacity issue. So factor that into your thinking. Again, this good job, good presentation, good thought provoker. Okay, are we done with our comments? Any any comments from the public? I don't have any comment cards. Okay, thank you. This meeting is adjourned.