City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Today is June 9th, 2026, and this is the City of Prescott City Council voting meeting. Roll call, please.

Mayor Ruesing.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Freworth. Here. Councilwoman Fredrickson. Here. Councilman Gearing.

Here.

Councilman Grady.

Here.

And Councilman Ruby.

Here.

And Councilman Gamboge is participating remotely. I cannot seem to unmute him at the moment, but he is in the meeting. Yeah.

So this is the first time that we've done a remote virtual meeting with a council member. So we might have a few technical glitches. So please bear with us. Thank you. Introductions and announcements.

Okay, we have a lot today. Summertime and things are happening. Let's start off with SR 89 nighttime closures. Please everyone plan ahead to support the design of the effluent wastewater pipes. and SR-89 projects, the consultant will be conducting geotechnical and survey investigations along SR-89. So starting in two weeks, from June 22nd to Friday, June 26th, so one week every evening from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. between Phippen Trail and the Willow Lake Roundabout. This work will be occurring. SR 89 will be closed nightly in that zone. Detours will be posted. Drivers should plan to allow extra time. Local traffic will still be able to access properties from both roundabouts. But a hard closure is going to happen between Boulder Creek Lane and Twisted Trail. And so this work is being done every evening to reduce daytime impacts to travelers and residents. For more information, go to sr89improvements.com. The Prescott Fire and Central Arizona Fire and Medical Authority are launching a community wildfire protection plan to help reduce wildfire risk and strengthen community resilience. Our region's wildfire hazard potential is 97% higher than communities nationwide. So being prepared and working mitigation now is important. Community input is essential. Residents are encouraged to participate by completing the community wildfire production plan questionnaire and sharing it with neighbors. And so you can get that. Oh, this is not a really friendly website. H-T-T-P-S-B-I-T dot L-Y forward slash Y-V-K-P-Y-V-T. And I know if you go on social media or probably on the city's website, you'll find a link, which would be a lot easier than remembering what I just said. All right. Next topic, cybersecurity seminar fraud pretension. efforts. The Prescott Police Department invites the community to an upcoming cybersecurity seminar presented by FBI Special Agent Troy Coffer. It is Wednesday, June 24th at 10 a.m. at Yavapai College. The seminar is going to cover how to recognize scams, understanding online threats, and protecting yourself from fraud. In addition, the police department will soon launch a fraud prevention campaign focused on education, awareness, and community safety. So more information on the next phase will be shared soon. Goldwater Lake temporary closure, temporary closure happening for roadway improvements between the 15th and the 26th of June. Full closure of the entrance and exits during paving. Plan accordingly. For questions, reach out to Rec Services at 928-777-1121. All right, something fun. World Cup Watch Party and Moonlight Movie Night. Recreation Services invites the community to a free family event at A.C. Williams Granite Creek Park on June 12th. Gates are going to open at 4 PM. US versus Paraguay will be live streamed on a big screen TV at 6 PM. And then stick around for after sunset with your children, or if you like this movie as an adult, Air Bud, World Pup will be playing. So enjoy an evening of soccer, movies, bounce houses, food trucks, family activities, bring blankets and lawn chairs. No alcohol, pets, nor smoking are permitted. And then finally, we have the summer reading program by the Prescott Public Library is beginning. And it's a theme for the summer called Unearth a Story. And residents can participate in one of three ways. There are paper reading logs available at all the library desks. You can online track your progress through Beanstack at the Beanstack mobile app as well. So for youths age 0 to 18, there's reading challenges running May 21st to July 25th with prizes starting June 1st. And all prizes must be picked up by the 2nd. And for adults ages 19 and over, same kind of a program, June 1st to July 25th. You will read a lot. Participates complete a treasury diary, earn prizes and entries. You can go to the desks at the libraries and ask them about the program. And grand prize winners announced by July 31st of prizes by the 31st. For more information, go to PrescottLibrary.info. Thank you so much. Have a great beginning of the summer.

And I'd just like to add that, remind you that Sunday, June 14th is our flag day. So if you're not already flying the flag, get that flag out there in front of your house and let's enjoy flag day and honor our flag. Thank you.

All right. And our next item is invocation from Pastor Kendra Hobson with St. Luke's Ebony Christian Church. And then Councilman Goering will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to come before you and give you honor and glory. Father, we ask that your will be done today. Bless each and every individual that is here, from our highest law in the land, Father, down to the peacemaker, and each and every household represented. Father, we thank you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Oh, face the flag and quit. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We'll move on to our open call to the public. The city of Prescott welcomes public engagement. Residents may comment and address the council regarding matters that are not included on the posted agenda during the call to the public. If you wish to speak, please complete a green speaker card and submit it to me prior to the meeting being convened. As a reminder, speakers are limited to four minutes and the call to the public will be limited to 40 minutes in total. Citizens will be limited to addressing the council on the same topic only four times in total. If a topic has been addressed more than five times by different speakers, the mayor may limit future discussion on the topic. Topics of a primarily national concern may be limited at the discretion of the mayor, and the call to the public shall not be used to address the council on current or pending litigation matters by a party or their representative. I do have one open call card, and that is from Greg Murray.

Good afternoon. Thanks for providing this opportunity as always. Last July I sent a letter to the mayors, city managers, and city or town council members of Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. I also included the town and city managers and all of the county supervisors. That letter, which also included detailed maps, described the potential to connect the new regional park with grassland habitat to the north, extending all the way into Chino Valley. It also showed how the new regional park would become an isolated habitat island unless the two parcels that separate Granite Dells Estates from the Jasper development both of which are in the city of Prescott, both of those parcels anyway, could be left undeveloped. I noted the well-established scientific principle that isolated populations, especially those of large species like pronghorn, are almost always doomed to local extinction because they're unable to move freely in search of food and water and unable to maintain their genetic diversity. In early January, I sent another detailed letter to the same group, noting that the preliminary plan for development on those two parcels had already received approval and invited all of the recipients to meet with one another and with members of the Central Arizona Wildlife Alliance to discuss the need for regional planning for wildlife connectivity. Several of those meetings took place in February, and I thank those of you who were able to participate. A few weeks later, we learned that the final plat for phase six of Granite Dell's estates had been approved for those parcels. a plan that will forever preclude, or a plan for development at least, that will forever preclude the ability for pronghorn and other wildlife species on Glassford Hill to connect with populations to the north. In late April, I explored the area where that potential wildlife corridor intersects Highway 89 and found that there's already a double 12-foot high concrete culvert crossing underneath Highway 89 on state trust land, and thus much of the land and infrastructure necessary to conserve wildlife in that area for the new regional park and preserve, especially pronghorns, is already available if we're willing to cooperate to make it happen. My letter of last January noted that I have found over 40 articles from the Prescott Courier over the last 26 years about the plight of our local pronghorn herds, and that preceding the demise of each of those herds, wildlife experts and decision makers noted that they knew that those herds were going to be lost, but that unfortunately, no one had considered the needs of wildlife early enough in the planning process. How many Prescott residents even know that there was once such a thing as the Willow Lake herd of pronghorn that vanished completely as a result of the very same process? We now find ourselves on the cusp of yet another such loss. Is it again too late to do what we all know is the right thing, or will we have to explain to our children and grandchildren why pronghorns appear so prominently on our statues and logos in this area, even while they don't still live here? Prescott Valley's Wildlife Corridor Plan and Y-Plan's regional conservation planning efforts are a really good start, but have we already lost the opportunity to protect the wildlife on a major park and preserve that was initially proposed to do just that? Or can city and county leaders, landowners, and citizens agree to cooperate now to keep more of our wildlife on the landscape and thereby enhance the quality of life for both wildlife and people now and into the future? Thank you very much.

Thank you. I'd like to direct legal to give Mr. Murray a copy of HB 2447, where effective January 1st. The state legislature now allows preliminary plats and final plats to be approved without council's attention and solely by community development. So please give him a copy of that so it might help him understand what's going on.

We'll do it then.

Our next item is the consent agenda. We did receive a request from Councilwoman Fredrickson to pull item E from the consent agenda, but outside of that, no other items have been pulled. So if there is nothing else, we can take a motion, Mayor, at your discretion on the balance of the consent and then go through item E thereafter.

Fredrickson here. I would move to approve consent agenda items 7A through 7D. Second.

Please vote.

Mayor, a brief comment on the voting meeting minutes of May 26th. Okay. Page 5, third of the way down, the sentence starts out, City Manager Joseph Young stated. And that was either City Manager Dallin Kimball or City Attorney Joseph Young. We can make that correction.

We will do that.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Geary.

Councilman Gamboge, can you please verbally let me know what your vote is on consent agenda items 7a through 7d?

Yes.

Thank you. That passes 7-0.

Okay, Mary, take it away.

Thank you. And I had asked to pull consent agenda item 7E as the agenda memo left me confused and I had input since then from Public Works who cleared it up for me, but I just thought it would be better just in case anybody in the public was similarly confused. to have some clarification on the record and specifically it was in regard to the requested by the staff increase in the existing contract of one of three vendors, but there was no mention of any change to a contract from the one vendor that has been acquired by that first one where the contract was being bumped up. So I see Public Works Director Gwen is here to make sure it's clear on the record. Thank you, Gwen.

No worries. Thank you, Council Member Fredrickson. So in our utilities divisions, we solicit for suppliers of parts that we need. And we have a contract in place with three different suppliers, Koren Main, Dana Kempner, and Ferguson. This year, Dana Kempner was absorbed into Corb and Main, and as a result, we don't have enough monies on the contract itself to pay the bills for the parts that we're ordering. We have the money in our budget, we just had it on a different contract. So what we're asking you to do here is move the monies from the Dana Kempner contract, which no longer exists, to Corps in Maine so that we can purchase the parts and materials that we need. We have had an unusual number of mainline breaks this year, and so our expenses are higher than the Corps in Maine original contract, so that's what we're asking you to do.

Thank you, and I guess then that, just to clarify, so the contract that was originally set up for Dana Kepner has dissolved, has gone away? They don't exist, so it's no longer a valid contract. And so this does not increase the amount of the three contracts that were out there, now just two contracts, but the amount is the same globally. That's correct. Thank you. You're welcome.

Mayor. Yes, Jim. Gwen, did we get a quote from Ferguson?

Yes, when we solicited for the bid, we received three from Ferguson, Corrin, Maine, and Dana Kempner, and we awarded a contract to each one of those vendors to supply some supply parts that others do not, and so we ultimately enter into multiple contracts for parts every year.

all right thank you yes and if there's nothing further i would move to approve consent agenda item 7e second councilman gamboge can you please verbally let me know your vote on consent agenda 7e yes

Thank you. Passes 7-0. Adoption of ordinance number 2026-1949, an ordinance of the mayor and council of the city of Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona, authorizing the granting of an underground utility easement to Arizona Public Service Company, APS, for new utility service on city property, authorizing the mayor and staff to execute any and all documents to effectuate said underground utility easement. This is consent, so staff does not have a presentation unless there are questions from the council. Any questions?

Do I hear a motion?

I move to adopt ordinance number 2026-1949. Second. Please vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Councilman Gamboge, your vote on consent agenda 9A, or 8A rather, I'm sorry.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you. That passes 7-0. Item 9A, adoption of ordinance number 2026-1948, an ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona, authorizing the purchase of approximately 4.12 acres of real property from Crosswind Leasing LLC near the Prescott Regional Airport, Ernest A. Love Field, including authorization to use the city's eminent domain authority.

And I will address this. I'm just waiting for the PowerPoint to pop up.

All right.

So today, council, you'll be asked to approve an ordinance to purchase a piece of property by the airport and to possibly use the city's eminent domain powers to do so. I will cover just briefly the city's steps in use of eminent domain, and then you will hear from the airport and I believe Brian Sparks regarding the specific parcel of property that we're looking at. So when... you approve an ordinance for eminent domain action, you have to approve two things. Primarily that this property is needed for a public purpose. And so that's what you'll hear specifically, the public purpose, and that the price of the appraised property is generally what you're willing to pay. In this case, we identified a specific property that was needed and the public purpose for it, from what you'll hear from the airport. hired surveyors and appraisers to inspect and appraise the property and have now moved on to the second step, which is at this point we are to make a written offer of before condemnation proceedings can begin. And you'll hear from the airport that there's been some negotiations before this point. But at this point, as I mentioned, we're asking council to approve the eminent domain process, which means that we send a formal written offer based on the appraised amount and any possible damages that we see to the property owner. At that point, the owner may hire their own appraiser or attorney and begin negotiations for that period of 20 days before step three occurs, which is the filing of a condemnation lawsuit in the Yavapai County Superior Court. So the complaint would then identify the property and the public purpose. And the court would make a threshold determination of whether there is indeed a public use or a public purpose. And then usually that would proceed on to evaluation of the property value and a determination there. So that's the general process for an eminent domain proceeding. And as it relates to this specific property, I'll turn it over to Rick from the airport.

Thank you, Joe, and good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Portem, members of City Council. This exhibit shows the layout that we're talking about, but just a little bit of a primer, if you would. In 2025, we started to develop this vision that's on the screen, and really what it does is it develops about a 20, we're working on the final planning, but somewhere between 12 and 20 acres of public use ramps. And the core reason for that is to have flex space for the fire center. So as many of you know, during fire season, we have a large wildland fire. We'll have a multitude of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft that respond to stage in close proximity to that wildland fire. This has been kind of a deficiency of the fire center for many years. We've talked about creative solutions. We hosted a legislative day last year. Our state legislators and representatives came and looked. They toured the fire center, and they agreed that really there's a deficiency that could be fixed and an improvement that could be made with public funds for northern Arizona. So this is really about building a ramp that's proximate to the existing fire center. It includes forest parcels you see on the screen there. The two pink ones are owned by the city, part of the W parcel, if you will, and then two are privately owned. So that's kind of the context. The other remaining background piece I would give you is that the State responded with our plea and our request, and they granted a warrant of $3.5 million in the 2026 budget. So that money has been allocated through a warrant, transferred to the city, so it's in our account to begin this process. It's really a first phase. In that first phase, we'll assemble the land, we'll do planning and design for the project itself, and then ultimately build the ramp and the facilities that support this really essential public service for Northern Arizona and the region. On this slide, a couple things I'd kind of point out is that, again, the vision is being refined, and I'm sorry, if you go back one slide, sir, I jumped too fast for you. So the black area you can see is the ramp, but really the important part is the proximity to the fire center. and really the shared use. We know that this is a seasonal activity, so being good stewards of the public money, we wanna make sure it's flexible enough to do a variety of things. It can support a whole lot of helicopters or a few less large helicopters or the fixed wings, the large air tankers that operate here. And ultimately, as we expand the runway and we improve the taxiway, set the stage so if there is a need for the very large air tankers, we're ready and capable of supporting those aircraft as well. So flexibility is very key. Again, the fire center and just the different aircraft. The next page shows, next slide if you would please, shows the W parcel and the project overall. The triangle on the bottom left is the triangle we just talked about that had the ramp. on it. I think the significance of this slide is that the intent is to extend that runway, shift and extend the runway, and at the same time straighten out the taxiway. So currently we have helicopter operations that operate from the dirt. You know, they're in unimproved situations. We have fuel trucks on the dirt. The helicopters operate from a kind of some seasonally used taxiway, if you will. All that's going to go away. So the plan B, if you will, if we didn't assemble this land that gives that full utility and flexibility, would be to jump around to those white boxes you see, other portions of the W parcel. What that kind of eliminates, though, is that proximity to the fire center. It also makes the project much more expensive because we'd have to extend taxiways in that direction. So finally, before I answer any questions that you have, or for me or for Brian, either one, is that we have, as Joe said, had good conversations with a seller that went back to 2025. As we started to assemble the vision, we talked to the local real estate community and identified this parcel and started inquiring. Unfortunately, it was purchased before they had the chance to buy it with the warrant funds that were in place in September. But we began the conversation in good faith, had efforts about appraisals and what the land's worth and how we might acquire that for this public purpose. At the end of the day, the current landowner purchased the parcel in June of last year for $550,000. We went through the appraisal process and it was appraised at $620,000. As the conversations went on and second appraisals were discussed, the purchase price was much higher. And so at that point, the negotiations kind of broke down. I think that there's certainly an opportunity to continue that. But as the city attorney said, because this has a public purpose and it's very essential to the assembly of lands that helps the fire center meet their mission, we feel like we want to have all the tools in the toolbox. So let me stop there and answer any questions that the council may have of me.

Any questions? I just would like to comment that Arizona is a very strong private property rights state, and I personally support private property rights. And so this is something we're not entering into lightly, but we realize that This is a very critical public safety use that we need to keep the region, not just Prescott, safe. So, continue. Yes, ma'am.

That concludes my presentation. I'm sorry. Joe, anything else to add?

No, I don't know if you have any questions about some of the negotiation beforehand. That's why I think Brian is here if you want to address that. But you've heard from Rick the public purpose and what we're looking at. You have before you the ordinance that kind of lays out that process as well along with the public purpose. So that's the determination. whether to give the go-ahead. Because our charter requires that any real estate purchase is done by ordinance, it's a little bit more cumbersome than just normally we just, before there's litigation, we need council consent or council vote on it. But in this case, we need the ordinance, which is a little bit more formalized due to how our charter is worded. So that's what we're here for.

And Mr. Gehring, do you have a comment?

Well, no, not really, unless we have any public comments coming. Do we have any public comments coming?

I do have one comment card, but I was waiting for the council to make their determination on how they wanted to proceed.

Yeah, I think let's hear from the public.

Mayor, I'm sorry. Before we get, let me just ask, as far as the public interest aspect of what we are seeking, the parcel we are seeking to acquire within the city, is there, I suspect I know the answer, but I want you to put it on the record. Is there any other... reasonable route we could take to accomplish what we want to do or what we feel we need to do to support fire suppression efforts other than that parcel.

Yes, ma'am. That's what I was saying. Those white boxes you see on the screen represent other city on parcels. So they're a little bit further to the northeast. And I don't have it. Maybe I do have a pointer. Let's see here. Nope, I think that turns the TV on. The box of the left, bottom left part, if you will. Thank you, Joe. Just a little more to the right. Steady hand, there we go. Yeah, back to the left, you'll see the fire center itself. Let me tell you what.

I was hoping you'd come get it.

What, the telepathy wasn't working? Is that the problem?

And also we need to hear from Mr. Gamboge, too, if he has any comments.

Let's see here.

He hasn't put his hand up yet, but I'll let you know if he does.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can, Councilman Gamboge. Did you have a question?

No, I'm good. Thanks. So if I can get, there we go. So this is the fire center here. And the subject parcel, that triangle, is right here in the purple. And as I said, these white boxes represent other parcels owned by the city. So to answer your question, the backup plan would be to jump around there. What that erodes, though, is the proximity of the fire center. So they all obviously work very closely together. So even during emergency flex operations, when we have extra helicopters, we'll put them in the dirt areas and the taxiways where we can find approximate to the fire center because they use the restrooms there and they have sun shades there and they have, you know, trucks and all the things that, you know, they need to do their job. So I think to answer your question, to jump to those white boxes erodes that proximity, right? Because then you've got quite a distance, about... I don't know, I would guess quarter to half a mile between the fire center and the new apron. It also adds complexity and cost to the project because then you're connecting it. You'd have to extend the existing taxiway to the northeast, understanding that that As the runway is extended, it's going to change alignment. So it would add quite a bit of cost, quite frankly. So in fairness, to answer your question fully, there is another alternative. It is a much less desirable alternative. And I think at the end of the day, it erodes the spirit of what we receive the grant money for.

So in theory, there are other routes to take. But in practical effect, the parcel we are seeking... serves our purpose and with the least harm financially or by operation.

The best stewardship of public funds and operational proximity.

Does Ted have any comments?

We've covered this conversation before. I think it's pretty cut and dry.

Okay. PRETTY CUT AND DRIED.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE PUBLIC COMMENT NOW?

LET'S TAKE PUBLIC COMMENT.

THANK YOU. JOHN AND KATHY STONE SAFER?

GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. THANK YOU FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK. WE WERE A BIT SURPRISED. I JUST RETURNED FROM MY 60TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION IN SEDONA. WE'VE BEEN GONE FOR ABOUT FIVE DAYS. found in the Prescott Courier that this eminent domain situation is on your desk. It was our understanding that there was a workaround as described in the upper four or five boxes by the airport manager, Mr. Crider, and that our parcel was going to remain in our possession. I've been in Prescott for 28 years doing business as guidance aviation, Helios, Prescott Wing and Rotor, amongst other businesses, including crosswind leasing that holds that parcel. Ironically, that parcel was purchased to support public service. We are an operator for the United States Forest Service, and about 60% of our revenues come from firefighting. And so helicopter operations and firefighting are very nature. That's a big piece of our intended use for that property in a public-private partnership. We're in a public-private partnership with the Forest Service. We've been in one for many years, leasing space on the Prescott Airport and successfully doing so. I also operate a pilot school here in Prescott. I've operated a couple of collegiate programs in the United States. We have supported the Sheriff's Office in Yavapai County. We gifted the county a helicopter about 25 years ago. We've operated that aircraft safely with probably close to 80 or 90 rescues under our belts. And we did that in a voluntary basis with Yavapai County. In addition to that, we've worked for Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project, Western Area Power Authority, maintaining the utility lines throughout this county and throughout the city of Prescott. We've been a strong supporter in that line of work. I could go on. We've flown TENS OF THOUSANDS OF HOURS SAFELY IN THIS COMMUNITY. WE'VE ADOPTED A FLY NEIGHBORLY PROGRAM THAT WE'VE INSISTED THAT OTHER OPERATORS FOLLOW ON THIS AIRPORT. WE OPERATE UNDER A LETTER OF AGREEMENT WITH THE CONTROL TOWER. WE'VE DONE THAT SAFELY AND SUCCESSFULLY FOR 30 YEARS. BETTER PART OF MY CAREER. I TOLD YOU I JUST TURNED 60. THAT MAKES 42 YEARS I'VE BEEN IN THIS BUSINESS. I've been a designated examiner, pilot examiner with the FAA for better than 10 years. I'm considered an expert in the industry. And I want to, I don't want to take too much time here with my background, but I've got a substantial background in helicopter aviation. Our intent for that property is actually synergistic with what the city is trying to accomplish here. It's just I'd like to do it privately because if I privately own that property, I can afford to make a better investment in better facilities. The other piece of this is of recent, we lost one of our properties, the old forest service building adjacent to our current operations, and that is now inhabited by a fixed wing operation. The term of our lease expired early. And long story short, I've been a strong believer in helicopters and fixed wing operations should not be commingled ever. It's dangerous. And when that fixed wing operation came in, I voiced to the airport authority that I didn't think that was a good idea. We had bid an almost identical number on our previous property, but we were not awarded the property. for various reasons and it's made our current space where we currently operate helicopters in support of firefighting, in support of law enforcement, in support of utilities, in support of pilot education in a way that I think is hazardous. So long story short is I decided to take it upon myself and find some available property. We don't intend to cross over to the airport. We don't intend to use the runways. We're a helicopter and set up a heliport on that 4.2 acres. It's very doable. It's very safe. I've already talked to the FAA director from the Scottsdale FISDO. Our consultant has spoken with him. It should be something with the support of the city that could be accomplished. Now, I've been told by Mr. Crowder he would not support that and he would actually block that attempt. So I don't know. I want to work with the city. I've been a good tenant. We've been here for going on 30 years. We love this community. We've raised our kids here and I want to continue to do what we do best, which is protect our community. So without it, we have leases running short. I don't see much option for renewals of our current leases. We'll be pulling out of the community and that's the very service that you're trying to inspire. That's my two cents. My wife might have something to add if we've got any time left.

No, I think you covered it. Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you. That's all, Mayor.

Any more comments from legal?

No, I don't have any comments. I have sort of the background on how the process works. The background in terms of this specific property, you'll have to hear from the airport. But I think you heard reasons why there's a public purpose. You've heard from the current owners of their objections. And now it's sort of within the council decision-making whether the public purpose is worth going forward with the acquisition attempt.

Yeah. And the property's current vacant, right?

My understanding is it's a vacant piece of property, and my understanding also is that it was listed for sale. Correct, in both regards.

And I would echo that the Stone Sapphires are valued tenants. They lease one building from us. They also have a ground lease on another hangar, plus a ground lease on property referred to as a six-pack. So they've been there many years, as Mr. Stone Sapphire said, valued customer. The discussion broke down, though, when my understanding is that they had another buyer for the property. So back to the point about the helicopter operations on that parcel, there was a PAC, just for full disclosure, there was a PAC request that went through last fall shortly after they purchased. And our reason for objecting was that the FAA prohibits and strongly discourages through the fence operation. And while they didn't need the taxiway and the runway infrastructure, it certainly impacted the airspace. So our objection was based not because of the great work they do every day, but because at the end of the day, I threw the fence operation.

Yeah, we have to remember that the airport is under the authority of the FAA, and we have to follow all their rules and regulations if they're going to continue with their grants to us to keep the airport viable. So the Stone Ciphers said they were going to do a similar thing, but just privately.

The PEC request was to build hangers on that private property. So of course that required a special use permit. Our objection was that at the end of the day was basically a through the fence operation because it competed for the airspace. You saw the proximity of the parcel. It's very close to the airfield.

So they're outside the fence. Correct. And then they would have to somehow acquire... acquisition to the runway?

They didn't require access to the runway, but through the fence operation, basically utilizes public airport infrastructure on private property. So as you... The FAA does not encourage that at all.

They're pretty much against it and we would probably be in violation. Yes, ma'am.

And lose our grants. Well, it certainly doesn't set us up in good favor of the FAA. Because of that directive, we've removed all the through-the-fence operations that we have. So we had a small one by college. They willingly gave that up. So currently we have no through-the-fence agreements, and I think that's the gold standard for the FAA that we'd like to continue on with.

Okay. Any more comments? Mr. Goering, do you have anything?

Oh, I do. Okay. No, I can make a motion, Mayor. Okay. I'm an option of ordinance.

Lois, did you have to say anything?

Yeah, I did. I just wanted to go back to Joe. From the vote for today, what is the process moving forward again?

If Council approves the ordinance today, then we will immediately, within the next few days, send the 20-day notice and intent to offer. So it's an offer to purchase the property at a specific price. Okay. So that starts the process. From the time we send the 20-day notice, then in three weeks, so to speak, if we haven't reached an agreement, then we can, and it'll depend on how the negotiations are going, but we can file with the Yavapai County Superior Court for M&A domain action.

So because this property is critical to the vision with where the firefighting operations are, in this period of negotiation on price, would the airport be open to other options the Stone Ciphers might raise in order to keep their business operating in Prescott? Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you.

And I think by other options, if I might, just for direction purposes, you're referring to potential extension of leases and so forth that currently exist.

Or other property.

I don't know. And I think that other property or extension of leases would be part of that discussion, but it would ultimately come back to council for approval.

So I think we should say that we should not give up and leave no stone unturned and look at all the options with the stone ciphers because we take an eminent domain very seriously and it should only be the last resort.

Understood. Thank you.

Okay. Do I hear a motion?

Mayor, I move adoption of ordinance number 2026-1948.

Second. Please vote.

Councilman Gamboge?

I vote yes.

Thank you. That passes 7-0. Item 9B, adoption of resolution number 2026-1984, approving the tentative budget for fiscal year 2027 and setting the public hearing for the final budget, expenditure limitation and tax levy for the city of Prescott.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Lars Johnson, Finance Director. As the clerk read today on the agenda is the tentative adoption of our fiscal year 27 budget, which starts July 1st. This action by council does three things. It sets the maximum expenditure for the next year, which, by the way, can be reduced or reallocated from here, but it can't be increased. So this would be like the expenditure cap for the next year. It also sets the public hearings on the budget and then authorizes staff to notify the public when those hearings will occur and then publish the required notices in the local newspaper. A quick note is if you look at the exhibits attached to the resolution, you'll see Schedules A through G. That's the official forms that the State Audit General requires municipalities to publish their budget on. Schedule A is the only schedule that will be published in the newspaper. So this slide next is the process summary to date. As you recall, we had three budget workshops and then one follow-up budget discussion. Just wanted to thank council for that in-depth review and feedback and direction that we received through all of those meetings. Next, I have just a very high-level summary of what the budget looks like and the changes that were made throughout the Council's input process. First to note is that the fiscal year proposed budget is balanced, and it's aligned with Council's strategic plan. The direction given on the solid waste rates will fix the one fund that we're having a deficit problem with, so that will bring that one to... into balance pending further decisions by council. We will be continuing the voter approved Prop 478 projects. In the budget also is the four new police officers, a new emergency manager that were all in that plan. Police compensation adjustments and recruitment incentives are included in the budget to make progress towards full staffing. We, in the budget, have established a capability to create the standalone court operations and the facility improvements. There's a few other things here. Extending the life of the Sundog wastewater treatment plant increased our operations some, and we have other critical asset maintenance in there as well. The five-year capital plan

Excuse me, Lois. Yes, if you go back to the previous slide. One of the things we talked about at previous meetings is to do a reconciliation on Prop 478, what we promised the voters and where we're currently at. And we have begun doing that work. I've been in meetings with you all. And we've agreed that that will be published. I would like to see that published and publicized prior to the final vote coming up at the end of the month. So hopefully that will reestablish or establish that we're following the process that we promised we would.

Yeah, so we're working with the city manager's office to get that fully vetted and given to the full council in public.

Because I think that's critical before we vote on the final budget, that everyone's crystal clear.

MS. Jim? Lars, I just noticed in the pension funding policy that annually the council reviews the funding balance remaining in the general fund and can use that to transfer to the retirement funding for fire and police. Did we do that? Was that done last year?

Last fiscal year we did allocate funds towards the unfunded liability. I think it was around $800,000. I don't have the number exact. What's remaining for the unfunded liability for fire will be paid off from the state allocation. So this last fiscal year in July or August of 2025, the state gave their last final remaining contribution for the unfunded liabilities. That was a result of the hotshot tragedy that the city faced. So that will pay off the fires portion. The police portion we're expecting to pay off actually after the vote today. This week we'll be wiring the remaining $711,594 unfunded remaining. So once that's in the funds, we will have an updated actuarial report that we'll receive in the fall and we'll see where we're sitting. We're expected to be 100% funded or even exceeding.

Okay, thank you.

The five-year capital plan is, we went through in pretty much detail in the workshop. $145 million is landing in fiscal year 27 for capital projects. Some large projects to note is the construction innovation of the fire and police facilities in Prop 478, the airport safety and runway enhancements, and then expansion rehabilitation of our wastewater and water systems. We also have in the plan investments in parks, trails, and library facilities that enhance community amenities.

One other thing I think is important is also we're making some good investments in streets and roads with a lot of preservation work going on. So I think that's important to the public in how they think about their 1% sales tax going to the streets fund.

Thank you. So just to reconcile from the proposed budget that was presented on the first budget workshop, April 27th, and where we're landing today for the tentative I have on the screen, the operating capital and then the total budgets. There were changes based on council's direction to the court proposal. We reduced the budget totally of $645,056 between operating and capital. And then there was a vote or a direction given regarding the operation study for community development. Three positions were added for the next fiscal year. That totaled $210,648. So the revised tentative budget is $311,496,498. Also to note, the court had proposals on revenue generation and not shown, of course, because it's not expenditure. But we noted on the screen that about $500,000 of additional revenue that would offset the court budget. What that looks like in the total FTE account, 626.5 total FTE. So between the changes, it's actually a neutral change between the two. So on the court side, we reduced three FTEs towards the security officers at the court, and then we added the community development positions. So that remains at 626.5. Now rolling up to the total we saw on the screen earlier for fiscal 27, this shows you how that compares to last year, FY26 adopted budget. The operating budget will be increasing by 7% and capital budget of going down slightly of 1.7 decrease. Overall, it's a 2.6% increase. Again, the action today for the tentative adoption by council sets the max expenditure limit for next year at the bottom line. So the $311,496,498. From here, potential changes could happen, reallocated, reduced, but this is the maximum. My last slide I have for you is just what are the next steps. As mentioned, this action will give direction to do the required publishing. The next official voting meeting of council on the 23rd of June will have the public hearings. We will have the alternative expenditure limitation and property tax levy hearings. And then you'll adopt the final budget, the personnel roster, and the approved expenditure list. And then as required after the hearing on the property tax, we have a minimum waiting period of two weeks before we can adopt the property tax levy. So that would be later in June, sorry, July and July 14th. And that's all I have for you today. And then I'm here for any questions you have.

Yeah, let me start off with the property tax levy. We voted to increase the property tax, and I saw the public notices on Facebook. And I would just like to ask you to not do the per 100,000 value of a home, because there's no homes worth 100,000. So could you please have a city staff change that to $600,000 and change the number so it's a lot more clear, so people will know that their taxes are going up, but it's only going to be like $10 a year or something, something a little more easily understood.

Mayor, I can answer that. Unfortunately, the statute spells out specifically the exact wording that we have to use, and it uses 100,000. So in the budget workshops, I gave an example of a $500,000 residence, trying to make that more realistic. But it is an increment of 100, so it's pretty easy to do a multiplier. And unfortunately, we can't change that currently.

Is there any way we could just kind of add on a little comment at the bottom? For example, a $500,000 home would pay an extra, I think it was what, $7?

I'll work with a city attorney on that to see.

I think that would be helpful if we, because there was a lot of people that were upset about it I mean they see property tax increase but it was you know they just didn't take the time to do the math and you know I think we should have a practical example saying that this is you know seven dollars a year more and that this money will help us out like for funding the library

And I will say, the language in this is statutory, and we can't change it. Now, can we have additional language? We'll check on that and see if we can have additional clarifying language elsewhere in the I'm not sure we can, but we'll check that.

I almost feel this is more of like a PR issue, public relations, and maybe this is something that the city can create to just have a graph for those who are math challenged, like with $100,000 home value, this is how much it would cost, 200, 300, 400, 500. If that shouldn't be in the legal, probably we can have that come out through city.

yeah because you know you're right you know we have to we have public comment period and we need to be as transparent and as clear as we can because it is a it's a property tax increase and we need to have an example to explain it to uh to the public um another thing that um We have our five-year CIP plan, and I saw that the property and evidence storage facility was coming in at being budgeted $48 million. So I went online and contacted the city of Mesa, And because they just built a new property and evidence center storage facility. And Mesa has a population of 533,000 people. So they're about 10 times the size of Prescott. and they built a 31,740 square foot property and evidence center for 23,000, I mean 23,855,000 and change, which comes out to about 751. dollars and change per square foot And that includes total the design the fixings. I mean the fixtures the furnishers furnishings And if you look at us with our 48 million dollar budget And I think we were going to do a twenty two thousand square foot building for property and storage It came out to two thousand and 182 square foot. And we approved, I approved that $200,000 purchase of the property across the street from the Justice Center, but nobody told me it was gonna be $8 million in dirt moving and retaining walls. And I find that unacceptable use of our tax dollars. We have level property out by the airport, by the wastewater treatment plant, plenty of room, easy build, plenty of room for the impound lots, the parking, a single story warehouse. And so unless we fix this, I am not gonna vote to approve this budget. I just find that unacceptable that we were even thinking of spending $8 million in site prep on a $200,000 lot. Any other comments? Mr. Geary?

Thank you, Mayor. Lars, my recollection is that expenditures of roughly $311 million is greater than the revenue for the year. And we're fixing that shortfall with fund balances. Can you summarize where those fund balances came from?

Certainly. And you're right, to balance the budget and on Schedule A of the forms the State Auditor General requires us to fill out shows how it's balanced, but they're essentially, We balance the budget utilizing one-time funds for one-time uses. So capital projects, it's very common that we will utilize previous year's revenues, so basically accumulated savings to pay for those. It basically spans most of the funds, the general fund, approximately 20 million is planned in the budget to be used. A lot of that does come from the Prop 478 funds that are accumulating, for example. We've had a revenue over expenses that goes into a savings account that we then use in the future years to pay for the projects. So that's an example, $20 million general fund. Streets fund is $13.3 million. Our enterprise funds, about $4 million of fund balance. Does that help? Would you like some additional clarification?

Well, that does help, Lars. And then that results in the question for what happens in fiscal year 28. Are we going to have, I mean, we're probably going to have an expenditure of $311 million plus a couple percent. And what happens if we're short next year? I think we'll still have fund balances to pay that.

Yeah, that's a good point. And to look at our current fund balance by fund, it's better to look at where we're at over a longer period of time for fiscal sustainability. And Council saw in the 2, we went through a five-year plan for streets fund, water, wastewater, solid waste. So we do look at it in a longer period of time to make sure that, especially for this capital improvement plan, that it's fundable. You'll recall we're issuing quite a bit of debt to pay for capital projects that then brings a source of revenue but then requires us to pay it back through operations. So we do look at it as a longer period of time. And what's presented to you is doable. It's fundable. All right.

Thank you for that. Yeah.

And, you know, this is my seventh year on council and I just want to thank you. This has probably been the most in-depth dissection of the budget that we've had. And I just want to thank you because it did shed a lot of transparency on it. And we were allowed to have some input. on the expenditures because in the past you know it was just presented to us and we said oh sounds good you know so i want to thank you for all your you and your staff and the rest of the city staff's hard work and putting this budget together lois

Thank you, Mayor. I have three things. First, in this upcoming steps between June 9th and June 23rd, I'd like to ensure that you're adding the Public Safety Tax Initiative reconciliation as a step that's there. I also support the Mayor on her comments related to the police new facility and that had been an issue that we've been questioning from the beginning. So now seeing what MESA has done, you know, I think there's a way of seeing what we could do to make this more taxpayer friendly. And then finally, I had a question as I was going through the legalese documents that you had in here. back on page on Schedule C, page five of Schedule C with the budget. It's the first time I got in touch with some of the money and where it's coming from. And what I was surprised to see is the county intergovernmental revenue has been going up, but we're budgeting it to go down in 27. Is that us just being cautious, or is that us with some intelligence that something's gonna happen from county information? Because all the other ones were going up, largely.

So just to clarify, that's Schedule C. Schedule C, page 5 of Schedule C or 161 in the package. Under intergovernmental, there's county revenue there. So this would be the best projection that we have from the shared projects that we have. For example, the flood control district contributes to that. Maybe give you a breakout on that?

Yeah, I just want to understand if we're being cautious or we really have some intelligence that, you know, we've talked about our concerns about the library fund and other things. And so I was kind of worried with what's going on here. So thank you.

Lars, I have a question. One thing that came out with the CIP plan was the expense to the taxpayers to run water, sewer, roads, and easements, paying for easements that are in our development agreements that we negotiated. And to the tune of... like $100 million, and how are we going to pay for that? How do we, I mean, obviously we're going to have to go into debt, but what's the plan to pay for that?

Yeah, I think we will need to compare notes on the $100 million. What we've done is we're working on a full spreadsheet on all the development agreements, but from what I, the information I received from Public Works is we have, $55 million in the five-year plan towards development agreements. And roughly $53 million of that is funded through impact fees. So the projects that are in impact fees are then paid for over time as the developments occur and building permits are issued. The fees then help pay for the projects. But as you mentioned, we have to get the infrastructure in place. So a lot of those are being done through debt issuances. We issued debt for the project. And then over time, that's paid down. The debt service is paid down with impact fees.

So like bonds? Right. General obligation bonds?

Not general obligation. That would be property tax based. So just revenue bonds. Revenue bonds.

Okay. And do you think this will affect our bond rating?

Potentially, we have a very strong bond rating right now with AA. That's about as good as you can get for a city our size. As we issue debt, we'll get new bond ratings because the debt will then get a new rating. But really what helps us keep a solid bond rating is what's called a coverage ratio. And that's what our revenue... The revenue that comes in each year, how that covers our debt, so there's a ratio involved. As we do our rate studies, that's really examined to make sure that our rates are at a level that we can have a healthy debt coverage ratio. If that remains healthy, we'll have a solid bond rating as well.

Okay. Thank you.

Lois? Yeah, one other thing I just thought about as the mayor was asking questions about our communications relating to the property tax. You know, I think we talked about it a lot when we were in here that day, talking about why we were doing this. But I do think as part of that communication that we want to put together and help the public understand, you know, we've been – under attack from the state legislature on lots of funding and our tax revenues that all the cities have enjoyed. And they've been, as we know, we saw the hurt when they did away with the rental tax and the one that they've been at now two years in a row. So they haven't been successful, but I don't think they're going to be letting up is eliminating food tax. And, you know, I'm not making a political comment about food tax. People feel differently about these things. But the reality is when they do it, it happens immediately. And the other thing that, and thankfully it hasn't happened because we have two rocking legislative LD1 representatives who have literally thrown their bodies in front of the train. And other people have followed them. So I just shout out to Quan and Selena for the work they've done to help us thus far. But You can see the train is coming. It's coming. And so one of the things why we're doing the property tax levy is the state legislature has tied our hands as well, that we can only raise property taxes by 2% per year. 2% of hardly nothing means hardly anything incremental. And if they were to do away with property tax, I think you calculated it was going to take us 43 years of of 2% or 42 or 43 years of 2% increases to make that up in our budget. So what that would mean is overnight we would start slashing services. That's the only choice we would have. And so this was a decision by this council to, you know, it's not much, the numbers are not much but if we don't start on the journey of where we see the state legislature is going to we'll be that many years behind on trying to protect our quality of life here in the city of prescott so that's why we're doing it not because we like to raise taxes it's just something we have to do to protect the city

And our sales tax rate, or TPT, is 9.3%. And every city and town in the state sends 5.6% of their taxes to Phoenix to maintain the state, keep their lights on. And last year, we sent down $123 million to the state. And how much did we get back? About $25, $28 million.

I'm sorry, I don't have the number anymore.

Revenue sharing funds and the HERF funds. So they kept a lot. And we're definitely paying our fair share to the state of Phoenix. And it would have been helpful to have kept some of that. But we're doing the best we can. Any other comments? Ted, do you have any comments out there? I know it's probably about midnight where you are.

It's 114 in the morning and I my comment would be let's move on. Okay.

I thought I heard some snoring over there. Thank you, Ted. Okay, if there's any more comments. Do I hear a motion?

Can I jump in real quick on the police facility?

Thank you.

Just to make sure the council is clear. So what is in the budget for FY27 is a little over 10 points, 10.96 million budgeted to be spent in FY27. And then we can continue to work on total project and siting and all that kind of stuff before we start spending that money so that we're comfortable before we move forward and update in the future. We can update those out years. But all that we're talking about for the FY27 budget is that 10.9.

And was that going to be spent on design?

The full 10.9 is not design. It's usually design is a million or two and the rest is...

I just want to make sure we're not spending millions on designing on the side of the slope.

Right. So we'll bring those contracts back to council so that we can have those conversations and make sure that we're getting it done the way that fits the community.

Okay. All right. Thanks, Daylon. Any public comment on the budget?

None, Mayor.

Okay, I don't want to hear any complaining out there. All righty, do I hear a motion?

Mayor, I move to adopt resolution number 2026-1984. Second.

Please vote.

Councilman Gampucci?

Yes.

Thank you. Passes 7-0. All right. Item 9C, approval of ballot language as recommended by the Charter Review Committee for amendments to the Prescott City Charter to be included on the November 3rd, 2026 special election ballot. We do not have a slideshow or specific presentation for you on this item. Everything was included in the packet at... Previous meeting, the council approved two ballot measures related to charter amendments, the first of which relates to primary calculations and the second of which removed the word magistrate from the city charter since we have a city judge. So we don't need that language in there. These additional proposals from the Charter Review Committee come after a number of meetings of the group over the last few months. And the first is some cleanup language to Article 11, Section 4, which pertains to the city court. And Joe is going to touch on that as well, because there is a... We received communication with regard to some possible revisions that we would need to make to that. So that was not included in the packet. That's what you see on the screen that IT is bringing up for us. And Joe will touch on that. The second proposal relates to development agreements. would be an additional section added to Article 8 of the Charter. And the third proposal is related to that related article. The second proposal would amend Article 1, Section 3 related to powers of the city. And Proposal 4 relates to boundary provisions. in development agreements. And proposal number five would amend article eight, replacing section two, which was a previously deleted section, to add in requirements related to acquisition of real property as it pertains to appraisals and valuation. So like I said, all of the language was included in the agenda packet for your review. And the only additional item is a possible revision that Joe's going to cover.

Yeah, I'm just going to address that real quickly. This relates to the section dealing with the city judge. Now, under the Arizona Constitution, it's similar to the federal constitution. The judiciary is to be independent of the legislative branch. And so what that means is the language that—and this was an attempt by the committee, I'll say, to bring the city judge's— charter provision in line with the other appointed positions. But in doing so, brought over the language that says that the judge serves at the pleasure of counsel, which is language that's not really true for judges. It impinges on the independence of the judiciary. So we would propose removing the language at the pleasure of counsel to as a direct report to counsel. The other part of it that was problematic was the one-year term, which case law from the 80s made pretty clear that two years as a minimum is required to maintain that independent judiciary. The removal for cause though has been upheld in case law. As long as the cause is not a political cause but you know, true cause. In this case, cause is defined as criminal behavior or a violation of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct. So I think we're good on the cause question, but I do think that if the council adopts this, and this will go to the voters, that you should adopt the amended language, which would remove at the pleasure of council and would change the one-year time frame to a two-year time frame.

Yes, Lois. Joe, I have no problem with those suggested changes. But I do think it's important to have in here, even though the contract is every two years, the term is every two years, I do think that we should have an annual performance review between the judge and the city council. And I think that helps us work our way to whether to renew the contract after the end of the second year, because we would have had two performance reviews and we're being absolutely fair and all those other kinds of things. So that was my suggestion.

In that case, the language would be shall serve as a direct report of counsel with a contract to be reviewed every two years, but an annual performance review.

Something like that.

That language we can do.

So it's not at the pleasure of, but it is that we're not surprising someone, have never talked to them, and then two years later we decide not to renew the contract. I don't think that would be fair behavior.

And we can do that. That actually would be consistent with what we currently have in our charter. There is a requirement that the judge present every year to counsel. I will say that as far as I'm aware, that rarely happens. But it is a requirement of our charter.

Mr. Young, I had made the same kind of note myself that an annual review, but the contract renews in two years. So is it a matter of saying that the performance will be reviewed annually and the contract renewed every two years?

I actually think it's more a report, an annual report from the court, and that counsel will give feedback.

Because we wouldn't really be reviewing annually the contract. The contract will be what it is until the renewal date comes up. Right. But annually, we would either be reviewing the performance or just getting a report.

I think report and feedback is the way that has to be worded. Because if it's worded as an evaluation, then we get into the... potential interference of the independence of the judiciary. But expecting a report from the judge I think is fair. Giving feedback so there's no surprises at the end of the two years is also fair. I think that's how it would have to be worded to meet those requirements.

And I think what we can do if the council's comfortable with this is the ballot language for this particular item, if you'd prefer, could be adopted on June 23rd so that Joe and I can tweak based on feedback. We can bring it back and I'm still within my deadline needs for ballot language to the county if the council would be more comfortable with that. And Mayor Councilman Gamboge does have his hand up.

Mr. Gamboge.

If I count correctly, there's one, two, three, four, five charter amendment proposals. Is that correct?

That is correct.

And is this all or nothing at all?

They're all individual. They're all individual, so you could, like I said.

So we're going to vote on these individually?

Correct.

Thank you. I should say that the public will vote on these individually. If you want to make a motion that has more than one proposal in it for approval, you can do so. But I think, as I mentioned, I think that that proposal one needs a little bit of tweaking. You can give us direction to do so, but I think it probably makes more sense to update the language and bring it back for council approval.

I'd like to hear from the city attorney concerns. I think having an independent judiciary is very important. And so do you have any concerns with this language for this proposal?

I have concerns with it as drafted. I don't have concerns with it changing. I think it is important. You know, a city court judge I don't think needs a lifetime appointment like the Supreme Court had. So most elected judges have four-year appointments. I think a two-year appointment is allowable under the case law, and I think it's appropriate. But I do think that the removal during the two-year term needs to be limited under the Constitution. And limited to the cause that we have here I think is appropriate. And that council can go a different direction at the end of two years. So I don't have a problem as long as we update the language.

Are there any concerns around the timing of that two-year term in relation to when a new council would come on?

As it currently stands, the two-year term The current two-year term ends at the end of this year. So at the end of each even-numbered year. And I think that's actually pretty consistent or fits in pretty well with when we currently have our elections. That means a counsel would come in and have a year of experience before having to make a determination on a judge's contract. I think it actually works pretty well.

THANK YOU.

AND I'D LIKE TO COMMENT THAT AND I'D LIKE TO COMMENT THAT ONE OF THE WORDING CHANGES THAT ONE OF THE WORDING CHANGES THAT THE CHARTER COMMITTEE DID Originally, the judge didn't even have to be an attorney or licensed. So this is one of the additions that they added that the judge must be a licensed attorney and in good standing. So I think that was a very important addition. Because one of the goals of the charter committee was to make sure the amendments provided more transparency, clarity, and updates to the charter.

Mayor, if I can just make a point. Yeah, Mary. The last point that Jay made as far as the timing of the renewal for the contract for the judge versus election, new election for council people, I'd only support leaving it the way that it is because it kind of removes some of the political element away from a judge's contract being renewed at the same time people are voting for new counsel. So in addition to the point that, Joe, you made as far as new council member having a year's exposure to the judge before they are being asked to make comment about renewing his contract or not, but I do like keeping it in even-numbered years and then counsel elections in odd-numbered years for those two reasons.

Yeah, I think the timing makes sense. I don't know if they did it because of those reasons, but I think those two reasons are pretty strong reasons to do so.

Lois? Joe, I have a question. The judge may be removed by city council only for cause after notice and the opportunity to be heard. Because I've never managed a city judge before, what would be cause? And I ask this because we did a lot of negotiations the last few weeks on the budget and bringing in some new streams of revenue. And making those kind of commitments. And so I want to understand, like, what could be cause if none of that came to life?

Yeah. And so. I'm going to answer a question you didn't ask first, and then I'll answer the cause question. All right. The judge may only be removed for cause during the term of the contract, during the two-year term. At the conclusion, the contract can be removed for any reason. Now, during the contract can only be removed for cause. What is cause? It's the last sentence. Criminal conduct or a violation of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct. That's the entirety of cause.

wasn't following through on the revenue and other things like that and it was hurting the city, that would be something we'd address at the two-year mark. Yes.

Okay. And that was another thing that was updated originally. It was, you know, basically you couldn't remove a judge. It was, you know, you'd have to do something pretty heinous to get removed.

Yeah, and... Previously, our judge, the city court judge, was the elected JP for the area. And so the judges would have their elections every four years, and they would fight it out. And then we would kind of be stuck with whoever won the election. At this point, we're no longer tied to the JP. The council can have many reasons why they might want to move, go in a different direction at the end of the two years. But during the two years, this establishes that they're independent and can operate independently.

Okay, next item. The next section there.

And that proposal one was the only one where I think needed some discussion and needed our clarification that I don't think it's ready and we need to bring it back to you. Proposals two, three, and four are essentially development agreement related and establish certain requirements that the committee and... the mayor in discussions with the committee felt were important in relation to DAs. I'll go through it quickly, but ultimately we're available for discussion if council has any questions. The first in proposal two is adding some sort of guidepost on the development agreements, primarily prohibiting adjoining and adjacent property clauses and requiring that all development agreements have a specific term and duration. I think this was important for many reasons. I think the mayor brought it up as being important. But what this does is, When a development agreement is approved, council hears what it applies to, the public hears what it applies to, and it will apply only to those things. A lot of development agreements have adjoining and adjacent property clauses, which allows sort of in the discretion of the developer to bring in additional property over time into the development agreement, whether the property owner or the developer subsequently acquires new property or... has developed everything within the development agreement and now wants to develop more area. And I don't think that was consistent with what the public wants. If the public sees a development agreement, they expect that is what it should apply to. So the proposal two is just to require new development agreements, new areas, go through the same process that any development agreement would.

Yeah, it kind of left the door open. with the adjacent and adjoining land clause so that he could bring in new property under the same old terms, previous terms. And also it makes it harder for us to manage our water growth and development. We're working on our long-term water management plan and we're trying to figure out how we accommodate this concept of adjoining and adjacent lands.

And some contracts will help. Right. Some development agreements will have allow for adjoining adjacent clauses, but have specific water caps on the total. And so in that case, we can plan, but others don't. And so additional property would mean additional water obligations. So sort of cutting that off and both Prohibiting adjoining adjacent property clauses and the requirement that there be a term and a duration, I think, allows us to plan better in the long term.

And also, I might add, the state legislature has become enamored with preemptive legislation where they are trying to take over more and more local control areas. And your local city government is at the level where you should have the biggest voice. And unfortunately, that is being silenced. So this is one reason why we need to put these amendments in the charter. It's the people will vote to put these amendments in the charter, and only the vote of the people can change them or remove them.

That's great. Lois? Thank you, Joe, and thank you, Mayor. I'm totally supportive of A and B. I have one question about C. I understand what we're trying to accomplish, and I absolutely get it. But given the wording that is there, could a future council sign a development agreement that sets out terms as 100 years?

Yes. So a council could do that. And we had originally had a, I think it was 35 or a year maximum duration or expiration date. We then changed that or played with the defined date a little bit and ultimately removed the date and just requires that there be an actual defined term and the expiration date. It does allow for a very long one. But I still think I actually think it's better in this format, even though it would allow maybe a potential future council to have a very long term. I think that's better than not having any guidelines as it relates to terms at all.

Well, that's where I'm going. I'm like, we've gone as far as to say we need to have defined terms and guidelines, but then... A future council could say, I don't get your intent, I don't want to agree with your intent, so we're going to set this contract for 100 years. And I just think that's way too open-ended. I don't know that we've gained anything by adding this.

And ultimately... At this point, this is yours. This is kind of the recommendation from the committee. And I'll be honest, I preferred it as it currently is drafted with requiring a defined term, but not having a specific cap on what that term is. Because And I'll give you an example. The recent development agreement that we entered into as a council was relating to the workforce housing up by Culver's. We had a 35 or 40 year term in that event. And the reason we had a little bit longer of a term was so that we could enforce obligations because they made certain promises to keep these units open into certain income classes for 30 or 40 years. And so we actually extended the duration on that for our purposes so that we can enforce that now. Given that sometimes the longer term is in the city's best interest and enforcing it is in the city's best interest, I don't know what a proper number would be. Smaller number doesn't necessarily mean better for the city. So I think requiring that it have a term and that it have an expiration date at least gets us out of a lot of the contracts and DAs we currently have don't have one. And to me, that opens us up to the planning problems and so forth. So I... That's what we get with it. If you want to put a certain defined term or a date, we can do that. It's up to your discretion. But I think it makes sense that we leave it a little vague.

Given what you just described, and I remember the 60-year term for Roto-Cooper with the rates. So I get the point. I'll concede I'm not adding a number. But this is another point where we're adding something to the charter. And who you elect to be up here agreeing to development agreements really matters. Mm-hmm.

Mayor, Councilman Gambucci does have his hand raised.

Yes, Mr. Gambucci. My question has been answered, so I remove my hand raise.

Okay, thank you. And I'm pretty sure the county has term limits on there when people have not just development agreements, but just plats. And People can come up with a plat, and then 20 years later, they don't do anything. And then 20 years later, they come, and it's expired. And then they have to renegotiate it. And so that's what we need to do. We just can't have someone do something like... 50 years ago and then come and expect us to still honor it. You know, there should be an expiration date so that these things just don't continue to build up. One of the things I did, I looked up the new Webster's New American Dictionary because I've been having a hard time with the words shall, may, must and will. And I learned that shall and may are the two most litigated words in the English language and that must is the best and clearest term to use for mandatory obligations in modern contracts according to the plain English drafting standards. Avoid shall, use may with discretion, And we will cautiously. So I think that we really, if we can use the word must, like in this, instead of say, shall not exceed, we should change that to must not exceed to be a little more clear.

We can make that change. This kills the lawyer's heart, by the way, to take a shell away from us.

Yes, there's too many nuances with the word shell, and we just need to get rid of those and make it perfectly clear. No shades of differences.

Okay, next item. Proposal three increases. As the charter currently stands, the city has the power to require new development pay for itself, but doesn't have an obligation to require it.

That's the shall part.

Yes. But the shall doesn't say that the city shall require. It says the city shall have the power to require.

Yeah, shall have the power. And, you know, with me, just person off the street, It looked like, you know, we should be doing that. And for some reason we used to, and then something changed and we stopped doing it. And we've been running up a big bill thanks to this.

Yes. So what this does is remove a few of the... obligations for new developments that state statute doesn't allow us to necessarily require bike paths and other types of things. So it removes some of those, but it does include roads and all the utilities that we can require a new development do, and then requires us to do that. That's the new paragraph, which is the second paragraph. requires that the city mandate that any new large residential development that comes into the city through annexation must or will or shall bring in roads, utilities, and all of that infrastructure and not have the city incur that obligation.

Yeah, I'd like in that second paragraph, must be planned, designed, constructed. I like the word must. But going back to the first sentence, it's right out of the charter. The city shall have the power to require, which... was confusing and was never enforced, I say that we should strike that, strike the city shall have the power to require, and then start with all persons, firms, or corporations must be responsible for new physical development to provide for, furnish, or pay a fee in lieu of, to make it perfectly clear.

How would you define new physical development?

A development?

Just in the way that you phrased it, a person having new physical development, like what could that mean and could we get into any legal conundrums with that?

Well, that's what was in the charter and we're keeping that. So I think it's just any development, physical development.

Do we mean physical commercial and residential development? As compared to a shack or a garage, a little tiny building you're popping up in your backyard? I'm just trying to...

I'm following up on Jay's line of questioning. If I may, I think that kind of fundamentally changes a few things because we have to determine what the physical development we're talking about is. I think that change... maybe one we need to come back to counsel on, on how that looks, because we'll have to have a discussion on what physical development we're referring to. As it stands now, the city has the authority to require this for everything. And that's fine. On the second paragraph, we sort of limit what is the mandatory, and that's new residential development that comes in the city through annexation. I think if we change that first sentence to remove the city shall have the power and just requires every development, it opens us up. And I think we would need to clarify that. And what I'm thinking, for example, would be, some sort of commercial development next door that the city wants and would be of good benefit. And we might want to pay for the water to go next door to us. It would be a very limited cost, and the city would receive a big benefit from that development. And kind of taking away that potential, excuse me, feels pretty heavy. So I think we would need to come back on how that would look.

Yes, Lois. So, you know, I think back to when people sitting up on the dais were in negotiations to bring Costco and they waived some fees and it was a really smart thing to do. So I get the difference between must versus no. Shall. Shall. Because I think those opportunities are far and few between and we need to seize them when the time comes because it paid for itself. And I think it was two years of sales tax and we were doing well. So I I get your point further down in that paragraph. I agree. I don't understand. I get the public rights away, the roads. I don't get the other necessary transportation term. Because I'm like, if we need buses or something, we would reach out to Y Plan. So I just wasn't sure what that meant.

This is a remnant. So this isn't a new drafting. This is a remnant from how it was previously drafted. We didn't remove it because... I don't know necessarily what other necessary transportation includes either, but it's a permissive rather than a mandatory, so I thought that it made sense that it stays in there.

So if someone says it's something and therefore we need our own dedicated bike lanes because you're going to a park or I don't know what, you know, like... Potentially, right. Okay, all right, all right. Further down... There was two terms that I was a little confused about, but if everyone is crystal clear and we have a city definition for them, then I will concede. The word utilities, some people think of the word utilities as

Telephone, cable.

Yeah, all sorts of things. So it's like, could we say water, wastewater, drainage, flood control, and stormwater. I'm looking at Mr. Ruby. So I do think we have to start planting the seeds for stormwater infrastructure. So if we could better define the utilities, that was my first concern. The second one, I wasn't sure what you meant by public service extensions. Like is that APS extending a line to the neighborhood? Or did we mean public safety services? Like if you're going to build, you know, 50 square miles worth of housing, we want you to build a fire station.

No, I think that it's in the clause with all the other utilities. So it's different utility and infrastructure related items that's required to bring those utilities and public services to the location. But if we redefine and clarify what utilities means, I think that will go along with it.

And then the same, what does public service extensions mean?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The public service extension, I think, is just an extension of utilities. And the intent here was to apply to both new utilities and to upsizing an extension of existing utilities.

Okay, I'm aligned to that, but again, because this is about development, if somebody was going to annex a bunch of square miles and we have sunsetted our sales PSTI and we wanna, for some reason, think about bringing that in, shouldn't we have things like here in terms of public safety service extensions? Because we're going to have to provide more police, we're going to have to provide fire, cars.

We can do so. I will say that without even this provision, the public safety is an obligation that's paid for by the new development through development impact fees. And I think we could make that clear that... But this is sort of in addition to development impact fees and would take away from development impact fees, quite frankly, because if we require all the infrastructure to be put in by the developer, they do that in place of development impact fees and they wouldn't have to pay development impact fees. But they would still have to pay the development impact fees that relate to non-infrastructure related items like public service and so forth. Does that make sense?

It does make sense, but I know we're trying to be a little more in tune with what our friends to the south of us manage to get big developments to do. And they build schools, and they build fire stations, and they buy cars for police officers. So I just didn't understand first what public service extension mean. But once I got my mind wrapped around public safety service extensions, then I went in all sorts of directions, which was where I'm just not sure. how far everybody wants to go on this, because I thought this was about trying to bring Prescott into as Jay likes to say, the 21st century, when all these other cities and towns across Arizona managed to get all sorts of stuff paid for. And if they would pay for those kind of things, I would certainly be opening to waiving the impact fee if they're going to build it and maybe lower the impact fee because now all we have to do is staff it. I'm worried about...

sort of going that far in a charter provision. When we talk about cities where development brings in, for example, a police station or pays for cars and so forth, that is done essentially universally through development agreements. And that's the product of negotiation. So requiring that or putting it into a charter, I worry, gets us too far into the specifics of how a development works. And I think that the charter isn't necessarily supposed to be written in that way, that it's more to be written in general. And then we figure out what that means specifically through the negotiation, the development agreement process. Having said that, we, you know, it's up to council. But what we've talked about so far, I think, means that proposal three needs a redraft. And we can do that.

Yeah. And I agree. But for me, what raised an alarm bell with me was the fact that we have been providing all these utilities and buying easements just to get them to a private property owner's property line. And in real life, the owner of the property, you know, negotiates with the seller to bring that property, those utilities in, or they go out and get them themselves. But lately, we have been providing wet utilities and buying easements across state land for the developers and then if we don't do it quick enough for them and can't you know we're dealing with state land a third party and we can't do it then they use it as leverage against us to embroil us in lawsuits to the tune of like $150 million, I think is the latest one, and then leverage that into getting even more concessions from us. So we really need to be careful that we don't allow this to continue, and that's why it needs to be in the charter to protect the public purse strings. So maybe we should say, to clarify it, you know, bringing wet utilities, easements, roads to the developer's private property line and make it, you know, crystal clear that we're not going to be doing that anymore. Because in the past, the developers were responsible for those things. And they went out and did it.

And that's how it was drafted. So that's what paragraph two does. But it is limited in scope. It doesn't cover sort of all the other things we've talked about. But what it does do is require that a development in a newly annexed area has to bring all of those kind of baseline utilities to the property line. And so we're covered there. But we've sort of talked about more things today. And I think we would have to figure out how that looks.

Okay, if there's no more comments, let's move on to the next.

Sorry, Councilman Gambucci has his hand up.

Ted, sorry.

Yeah, you know, there's an old phrase, the perfect is the enemy of the good. I think you're trying to make this charter so perfect. that it doesn't afford future councils the latitude of examples that Lois brought up, like with Costco or with Trader Joe's. So I think we've done some good work. I don't think it has to be perfect. And I don't think it should be perfect because we should understand and put trust in the council. I think some of the problems I have With these past charter amendments, it presumes that the city council is not trustworthy. And I don't think you can run a city with that presumption.

Thank you, Ted.

All right. Second to the last. Second to the last. The Proposal 4 just adds a requirement that large-scale annexations must have at least 25% open space and tries to define what that open space means. Now, there's, I think, an understanding or belief that large annexations need this property or open space requirement now, and actually it doesn't, not under our charter. Under planned area developments, this PAD zoning, there is a requirement to have open space to this way, but this adds it to our charter and establishes a requirement that these large residential developments include open space and that it be meaningful. So meaningful was in the last two strategic plan sessions, we heard meaningful, that open space should be meaningful. I, for one, didn't know what that meant, but this is an attempt to define what meaningful means so that it be contiguous, usable, and preserve wildlife corridors and native habitat to the extent possible. So that's proposal four.

Yeah, and I like the way on your paragraph three, rather than consisting of isolated or fragmented parcels, like if you go out to Prescott Lakes, they have those medians in the middle of the road that are lushly landscaped. Those are counted as open space. Detention basins can be counted as open space. Just a little border around the perimeter can be counted as open space. The developers will figure it down to the last inch. and you know legally if we're going to provide uh public services and city utilities and increase a developer's property values and profit margins we need to get something in return a nexus has to be created so that's where open space comes in and you know legally uh you know we have to require something tangible in return and that's where this usable open space comes in. So, you know, there's a loophole that was, you know, exploited. And we just had Mr. Murray talk about wildlife corridors. And so something like this would be wonderful. And if we had this in prior, those two That plat, the deep well, I'm not, the Granite Dales Estates, well, Jasper's in Prescott Valley, but, you know, we could have had a wildlife corridor through there, and we would have been able to negotiate that, but thanks to House Bill 2447, It doesn't even come before planning and zoning. There's no public input. And it doesn't come to elected officials. And so as a result, it was just rubber stamped, and away they went. And I really think that community development could have had, can, even though it doesn't come to us, can't they require some concessions and some conditions and say, hey, you need to put some, something in here, you know, like a wildlife corridor or, you know, public open space.

I'll say that the community development can act in their own discretion. They sort of are bound by the zoning laws that we have. So what this does is It doesn't apply to PLATS, but it does apply to annexations, which annexation, your authority hasn't been removed by that House bill. It still has to come to council. Right. And it then sets a requirement that when it comes to council, it has to have this open space requirement, and we can review that and go through it before we ever approve an annexation.

Yeah, because we have an open space policy, but we just haven't been able to enforce it when we do our negotiations with the developers.

I think this one is written quite clearly. And I think it's important for us to remember, each of these are going to go to the voters. And so it's important that the language is clear, because when it's confusing to voters, it doesn't have as good a chance of passing.

And then Proposal 5, just briefly.

Sorry, we've got, I think Mayor Pro Tem had something, and then Councilman Gamboge has his hand up as well. OK. Lois?

I was concerned that since I've learned so much in the last year about being clear and unambiguous, that meaningful and functional is in the eye of the beholder. And I was worried with HB 2447 that that might not be accurate. clear and unambiguous for the folks in CommDev who would be handling that. But because this is annexation, which I missed that in the title, I've never been through an annexation, so I have a question about the process. When there is an annexation, will we be getting the level of detail to be able to see the wildlife cars? Or are they just saying we want to have, you know, we're going to do X thousands of homes on X amount of acres? Do we get to this level that we, the council, are the decision maker of what is meaningful and functional? Yeah.

In a large-scale pre-annexation development agreement, it's pretty comprehensive what the council gets. And this provision adds the requirement that it also be comprehensive as it relates to open space. And so you'll get that information. Now, the good thing about... annexation and tying these requirements to annexation is council has full discretion rather to annex. When you get a plat, you do not have full discretion. You're sort of bound by certain requirements and now you don't get plats anymore. But as an example, Depending on the type of projects, you have certain guidelines and handcuffs, you might think. But when it comes to annexation, you have full discretion. So adding that requirement as it relates to annexation, I think makes a lot of sense. And you are empowered to get the amount of detail that you feel is necessary.

And that's why it's important that the city council gets a copy of all the drafts and participates and goes through these agreements line by line, word by word, because there's so many loopholes built into them. And that's why having good legal counsel is so important with these deals.

Councilman Gamboge?

I go back to what I mentioned earlier. The perfect is the enemy of the good. We're trying to design wording into the charter that removes the responsibility of future councils to make rational evaluations. And I think we're going a little too far.

It's kind of a two-edged sword. In the past, we've had council members that don't even read a development agreement. And sometimes it's been hard to even get a draft of a development agreement because we're just expected to have a PowerPoint presentation hitting the highlights and then rubber stamp it.

The proposal- That it's incumbent upon the voters to vote in the right council members.

Thank you, Ted.

Briefly, Proposal 5 requires that the city, prior to a purchase or an exchange of real property, get an appraisal by an independent qualified real estate appraiser who's licensed and certified, and that the city not pay more than that appraised value, unless doing so through eminent domain.

Yeah, the purpose of this is to bring the city's purchases of real estate up to the same level of what the private sector does, you know? It's routine. You get an appraisal. If the other side doesn't like it, they get theirs. And then if you don't like it, then you get a third one and have a meeting of the minds and negotiate. But pretty much every purchase since I've been on council There hasn't been an appraisal. They just go, well, it's market rate. Like, for example, the W parcel that we bought from AED for $10 million, that was just kind of a number that... AED came up with and said, oh, well, we think it's about this. We did a comparison. So we paid it. And then this building here, it had two vacant out of three floors. I think two of them were pretty much just studs. And we just paid the asking price. We didn't get an appraisal. And then on top of it, we paid an extra $250,000 on top of the asking price. And, you know, we just can't keep doing that. And then there was a third case, I can't remember what that was, where we did a similar thing. So this is just to establish a standard so that we, you know, just do what people do in the real world.

I will say I have some... hesitation on Proposal 5. I think the others we sort of discussed. I have some hesitation on Proposal 5 because I think it could limit discretion of councils and the ability to negotiate. I do think having a requirement that appraisal be done makes a lot of sense, but sort of limiting it to the appraised value I think actually could hurt us more than it helps us. But Ultimately, this is up to council.

Maybe the voters too.

Yes.

Dalen, did you have some comments?

No, just other than agreeing with that point of there may be a situation where you know, 5% above praise value is the difference between closing the deal and missing out on a property that we really were wanting to get on and then maybe needing to be in a negative domain situation or something like that. So some flexibility, I think the biggest thing is having the, if you have the appraisal, then there's the ability to hold the city accountable for what we decide to pay. And it's clear and transparent that we paid appraised or we paid above and how much above. Limiting the city's actual ability to execute could just be a wrench in the gears at some point.

Yeah, it's always good to, you know, it's a two-edged sword. You know, you don't want to tie your hands and lose a property over like $10,000 or something like that. Patrick?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I think for me that third paragraph, independent appraisal, It doesn't really cover what you described, Mayor. I think you're absolutely right that when you think of an appraisal process, particularly for a city purchase, this happened a lot in my career, is there was the independent appraisal and then an opportunity for the seller to get their own appraisal. And then if those two still didn't come to agreement, then you each agree on the third appraiser. This doesn't say that. This just says an independent appraisal. The process you just described, which I agree with, gives some of that flexibility that the city manager was referring to.

Yeah, so I don't know. That's kind of a, to me, that's kind of a but we could put that in if you, excuse me, if you wanted to, if you wanted to get that specific. But it's just a negotiation. I don't know if we should get into the details of routine negotiations.

And this is up to you. It'll be up to the voters later. And so I'm only giving my suggestion, which sort of mimics what the city manager said, which is that there must be an appraiser. And say if something appraises for $1 million and then council pays $5 million, well, that council is probably not going to last. There's going to be political consequences for that. And I think that sort of accountability is established by having an appraisal. The real problem I see is... with past, and none of us were here, I think, or at least most of us weren't here, but where there was not an appraisal done. And then there's, it's hard to have accountability because you don't even know what the proper value is. So requiring appraisal, but allowing some flexibility with negotiations, I think makes a lot of sense because it could be in the best interest of the city to do so.

So it sounds like we need to work on that one too. Yes, Jim.

So Joe, does that paragraph eliminate the city's ability to negotiate a higher price for its own convenient reasons?

If the city is selling it, it doesn't apply. But if the city is buying and we want to negotiate a higher price for some reason, yes, we wouldn't be able to do that.

Yeah, I think the airport acquisition is a good example. So I'm not all that in favor of limiting it to the appraised value.

Didn't you say except in the case of eminent domain?

That's what the current draft says. I'll just bring up the property we discussed today as an example. It was a price at 620. We'd be limited to the 620 offer. And you heard from the stone ciphers, but say they came back and said, hey, we'll sell to you for 640. At this point, we'd be going forward to eminent domain with the way this is written. And I don't think that's in the best interest of anybody. That's kind of where I think that requiring an appraisal makes a lot of sense, limiting it to – and this sounds like it's probably not a very popular position to say, hey, let's pay more than appraised value. But I think – Ultimately, the accountability rests in the voters having an appraisal sets and having the appraisal be part of the public record establishes the accountability for a council or city that pays more than that. And I think that voters are smart enough to say, yeah, we paid this much more than the appraised value, but it was for this good reason or it's because it was part of negotiations. Whereas if you pay way higher and there's no explanation for that, I think the voters then change their mind on what they think about that council.

And when we're selling city property, the buyers always ask for an appraisal. And so we pay, you know, we sell at appraised price.

I think we have to be careful about restricting ourselves. We're not going to be able to correct the mistakes of the past or prevent the mistakes of the future. So the tool of an appraisal is really useful, but saying what we have to do with it seems fraught with error.

Lois? Yeah, I'm with the majority of what I'm hearing here across the board. I like everything on this except for paragraph three. I would recommend we strike paragraph three and just get the appraisal and have it be part of the record, but not tie counsel's hands on future decisions and end up going to court where we could have just paid $3,000 or $5,000 more and avoided court.

And from my perspective, just the legal perspective, I think striking the third paragraph, it weakens it in some ways, but I think that it establishes the public record and creates accountability. And I think that that is a good middle ground personally. But like I said, this is council's decision.

You said it's important to have paragraph three or we can...

In my opinion, I would remove paragraph three.

Okay, because it's important to have an off-ramp in these kind of things.

Councilman Gamboge does have his hand up again, Mayor. Sorry to cut you off.

Ted?

I think what Lois and Joe have said is suffice for us to move on, just have that reworked. Again, you're trying to put language in the charter to make it absolutely perfect. And in the case that Joe mentioned about the airport, instead of going to litigation, we'd rather just pay a couple thousand dollars more and be done with it. So to me, let's move on.

OK. So let's ask if there's any comments from the public.

I don't have any comment cards, Mayor.

OK, thank you. So let's summarize. What we've done here, proposal number one, we need to tweak that a little bit about the city judge.

And I think that the general consensus that we heard from that was to do the two-year term with an annual sort of report and feedback from the council, and then we'll take out the language

Pleasure of counsel and utilize what was in the amended that's up on the screen Okay, and then proposal to concerning development agreements Let's see There's some, this is about adjoining and adjacent provisions. Under paragraph C, my tweak was change shall not exceed, and I changed it to must not exceed. Was there going to be any other changes?

I think that was the only change that was. And I think up to council, of course, but I think this could be voted on with that simple change. We could just make that if you're prepared to do so.

Okay. And then proposal three, powers of the city. We had some tweaks to that that we needed to bring back. For example, the city shall have the power to require strike that. and re reword that.

So I didn't have council consensus on that. Um, in the minutes here, I know it was mentioned, um, by you mayor, but I didn't hear general consensus from the council to do that. If there is consensus from the council, of course we certainly can. Um, and then, um, There was also discussion regarding specific definition like wet utilities, easement, things of that nature. But again, not consensus there, just suggestion. So staff does need some direction and consensus from council on how they would like to proceed with proposal three.

I like the notwithstanding the foregoing paragraph. I think it's pretty clear. But like I said, I had an issue with the first sentence because it's exactly like what was in the charter, which wasn't enforced. It was the shall language again. And must is a lot more definitive and clearer.

But then we talked about how that created some potential problems.

Yeah. But I just would like to see shall and may not used anymore.

So if there's consensus from council, the first sentence, which is the city shall have the power, be the city has the power?

No, just strike the city shall have the power to require, and then begin the sentence with all person, firms, or corporations must... be responsible for new physical development within the city. And then all that reminds me, we were going to look up the definition of physical development.

I think there were specific problems with that, though, in striking those first words, because then it leaves new physical development undefined.

Yeah, we were going to look at that.

Yeah, I think that... From my perspective, Proposal 1 is an easy change that we'll bring back and clear. Proposal 2, you could vote for as it stands with just a verbal modification from the shell to must. Proposal 4, I think, is good where it's at. And Proposal 5, we'd recommend removing Paragraph 3. Proposal 3 is the one that I think we're sort of not very close. And maybe we need to bring back and discuss that one.

Yes, I agree.

Does that give you all enough direction to conclude?

I guess the only thing would be, Joe, if you think that it's reasonable on three to have that by June 23rd, because if it's not, that item is not going to be on the November ballot, which is up to the council, but I just want to make that very clear.

Yeah, I guess the first question is, do you want to vote on any of the other proposals? I think you could.

I think we can vote on the adjoining and adjacent one.

Changing three. So proposal two, four, and five, I think you're at a place that you can vote from the discussion I heard.

And I just wanted to make sure of the shalls. There's three shalls, one in paragraph B and two in paragraph C. Are we changing all the shalls to wills?

In proposal two?

Yeah. Because I heard the mayor say at the very end of the second, the second shall in term and duration will not exceed. And I agree with that, but it's like every development agreement will include this. Yes, all the shalls to will in proposal two. Okay.

Excuse me. It says every development agreement shall. Why don't we just say must include and forget the will. Because must, like it says, must is the gold standard for expressing an obligation. It's direct and leaves no room for ambiguity.

Fair enough. If that's the motion, I think that's understandable that if you make a motion to approve proposal two changing shall to must, we will do that.

Thank you.

When we vote on these, are we voting on them separately or all together?

So if you'd like, given the discussion, you can do Proposal 2, Proposal with the change of shall to must or will. Whatever the council decides. Proposal four, I don't think that there were any changes there. And then proposal five, we would remove paragraph three based on council consensus. I think that could be one motion.

I think on proposal four, we also spoke of taking the shells out and changing them to must in proposal four as well.

Are there any, is there a shall, yeah. Yes, there's.

Must dedicate. I see three, I circled.

Okay, so shall to must in both of those two and then removing paragraph three in proposal five.

How would one make, how would one state that motion?

My recommendation would be that you move to approve the ballot language as proposed for Proposal 2, Proposal 4, and Proposal 5 with the stipulation that all shalls be changed to must on the formal ballot language.

Can I just repeat what Sarah said to make the motion?

Oh, and strike paragraph 3 from Proposal 5. But yes, you can say that.

So I don't need to repeat you right now. I can just say ditto.

You can say that you would like to make a motion based on the language provided by the city clerk.

I would like to make a motion based on the language provided by the city clerk.

Second. And I second that. Okay. Ted gets it in the notes.

Mayor Pro Tem, I'm going to assume you're yes since you've made the motion. And then Councilwoman Fredrickson, I need you to click it. Thank you so much. Okay, that motion passes 7-0.

And I'd like to congratulate the council. This is a momentous shift in council policy and I hope that everyone realizes that we are pivoting to do what's best for the people of Prescott instead of focusing on what's best for the developers.

Mayor? Yes. I'm sorry. And this is for Sarah. The resolution, is that on hold until those other two proposals are reworked? No.

So that resolution was previously adopted by the council, the one that was attached in the memo. I just put it in there as a reminder that the resolution was adopted, which set the special election for the city. So this will just be included with the previous propositions And proposition numbers will be assigned once I know how many propositions for sure we're going to have. The county gives me those, and then that will all be included in the publicity pamphlet and all of that information.

And as it stands now, Proposal 1 and 3 are going to come back to us?

Yes.

Yeah, on the 23rd.

Yep, on June 23rd in order to meet the deadline. Of course, if the council is still not comfortable with the language as presented, you do not have to approve it, and then it would just be on a future ballot, but not November 3rd. Thank you.

I'd like to thank the Charter Review Committee for putting this work together. It was really formidable work.

Yeah. Bonnie McMinn had an appointment or something, or she would have been here. Thank you.

That's all we've got, Mayor. That was our last item.

All right. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.