City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Today is June 23rd, 2026, and this is the City of Prescott City Council voting meeting. Roll call, please.

Mayor Rusing?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Freeworth is joining us virtually. I see you in the teams. Mayor Freeworth, can you hear us?

I can hear you.

Can you hear me? The answer is no.

Good answer, Ted. Mm-hmm.

LET'S GIVE IT JUST A MINUTE TO LET'S GIVE IT JUST A MINUTE TO MAKE SURE THEY CAN GET THAT MAKE SURE THEY CAN GET THAT GOING. GOING. I'LL CONTINUE WITH THE ROLL CALL. I'LL CONTINUE WITH THE ROLL CALL. WE GET BACK TO MAYOR PROTEM. WE GET BACK TO MAYOR PROTEM. COUNCILWOMAN FREDERICKSON. COUNCILWOMAN FREDERICKSON. HERE. HERE. COUNCILMAN GAMBOGGI. COUNCILMAN GAMBOGGI.

I AM HERE. I AM HERE. COUNCILMAN GEHRING.

COUNCILMAN GEHRING. HERE. HERE.

COUNCILMAN GRADY.

COUNCILMAN GRADY. HERE. HERE.

COUNCILMAN RUBY.

COUNCILMAN RUBY.

HERE. HERE.

AND MAYOR PROTEM FRUWORTH. AND MAYOR PROT There we go. All right. Thank you. We'll now move on to our introductions and announcements. Councilwoman Fredrickson is going to do the announcements today since Mayor Pro Tem is not physically present.

Well, I'll try to rise to Councilwoman Lois's request. Announcements, always great. So today, June 23rd, 2026, good afternoon to everybody here in chambers and anybody who's watching online. I'm going to share several items of interest in and around Prescott. The SR 89 nighttime closures. Now through Friday, June 26, SR 89 will be closed nightly from 7 o'clock at night through 5 o'clock the following morning. The closure will run between the roundabout at Phippen Trail and the roundabout at Willow Lake Road. This is to allow the city's consultant to conduct geotechnical and survey investigations in support of the design of the effluent and wastewater pipelines and the SR 89 improvements project. Nighttime closures will allow the necessary work to be undertaken while minimizing disruption to traffic. Detours will be posted. Drivers should allow extra travel time. Local traffic will still be able to access adjacent properties from both roundabouts. However, there will be a hard closure in place for the half mile stretch between Boulder Creek Lane and Twisted Trail. Additional information is available online at sr89improvements.com. Also, a temporary closure at Goldwater Lake. Goldwater Lake remains closed through Friday, June 26, while roadway paving improvements are completed. The entrance and exit roads are fully closed during this work. If you have any questions, please contact Recreation Services at 928-777-1121. Cybersecurity Seminar and Fraud Prevention Efforts. The Prescott Police Department invites residents to attend a cybersecurity seminar on Wednesday, June 24 at 10 in the morning at Yavapai College. The seminar will provide information on recognizing scams, understanding online threats, and protecting yourself from fraud. Granite Mountain Hot Shots Remembrance. A commemorative ceremony and tribute for the Granite Mountain Hot Shots will take place Monday, June 29 at noon at the Granite Mountain Interagency Hot Shot Crew Learning and Tribute Center. Also, a moment of reflection will take place on Tuesday, June 30th at 4.42 in the afternoon at the Yavapai County Courthouse Plaza. The Granite Mountain Hot Shots Memorial, located on the east side of the Courthouse Plaza, stands year-round as a tribute to the 19 firefighters who gave their all that day 13 years ago. Residents and visitors are invited to take part in these commemorative moments and to learn more about the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew Learning and Tribute Center by going online to gmihc19.org. Independence Day and America 250 celebrations. To celebrate our nation's 250th birthday, Prescott will be hosting a variety of Independence Day events and activities. Beginning June 29 and throughout the week, residents and visitors can enjoy the world's oldest rodeo, In addition to the rodeo itself, from Friday the 3rd through Sunday the 5th, the Prescott Rodeo Days Fine Arts and Crafts Show will be held downtown at the County Courthouse Plaza. On Saturday, July 4th, the Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo Parade will be held around the Courthouse Plaza beginning at 9 in the morning, followed by the annual Whiskey Row Boot Race at 12 noon. On Saturday, July 4th, also, Prescott invites residents and visitors to the Prescott Freedom Festival at Pioneer Park from 3 o'clock in the afternoon through 10 o'clock at night. Admission is free. The celebration then continues on Sunday, July 5th with the annual Host Cart Races on South Cortez Street, a family-friendly tradition featuring friendly... competition, teamwork, and firefighter pride. Please be aware that the several events will result in street closures and increased traffic throughout the community. We encourage residents to plan ahead, allow extra travel time, and take part in one or more of the many activities celebrating America's 250th birthday. holiday closures, and service schedules. Can't have one without the other. In observance of Independence Day, Prescott City Hall will be closed on Friday, July 3. The Prescott Public Library will also be closed on Friday, July 3, and Saturday, July 4. Residents may continue to access the library's digital resources, including e-books, streaming content, and online services 24 hours a day online at prescottlibrary.info. The Prescott Transfer Station will be open on Friday, July 3rd, but closed on Saturday, July 4th. Residential trash and recycling collection will continue on their regular schedules. However, commercial routes normally scheduled for Saturday will be collected on Friday, July 3rd. So don't miss it. Normal operations for city services will resume on Monday, July 6th. We encourage everyone to stay informed, participate in these community events, have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day holiday.

Thank you, Mary. We will now have a moment of silence for the Granite Mountain Hot Shots, followed by the invocation by Pastor Dan Hurlburt with the Prescott United Methodist Church, and that will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance by Councilman Grady. So please stand. We shall never forget the Hot Shots, and we will hold the 19 in our hearts forever.

Let us pray.

Great and loving God, we thank you for this lovely summer day. As we prepare for the celebration of 250 years of independence, we thank you for the freedoms we enjoy in our nation and for those who faithfully served and sacrificed for our country to preserve our freedoms. As we remember our hotshots, we pray for wildland firefighters who are on active fires right now. Give them strength and keep them safe. We pray to you for the upcoming rodeo for all those who will travel to our city to enjoy the festivities. We pray for the safety of the participants and the stock. Today and every day we are grateful for our parks and recreation facilities where we can enjoy the rest that you have called us to. We are grateful for the resources to provide for these spaces and all who work to keep them beautiful. We lift to you now these, your council members, who have the best interest of those they serve in mind. Guide their thoughts and actions by your presence in this meeting, and help everything they do be within your will. We pray this in the name of the author of liberty. Amen.

Please join me in our Pledge of Allegiance.

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 now have a presentation, annual presentation from Prescott Frontier Days regarding the 2025 rodeo events.

Good afternoon, Council, Mayor. Pleasure to be here. Jim Dewey Brown, General Manager, Prescott Frontier Days, and the world's oldest rodeo. So, yeah, she said 2025. We're all about moving forward and celebrating. We're going to talk about 2026, with a little bit of 25 spread in there. So this year, 139 years of rodeo. This year, World's Oldest Rodeo celebrates 250 years of freedom. We start Monday 29th, as Councilwoman Mary gave us, Monday the 29th through July 5th. We have a mutton busting every performance. That's always a fan favorite. And like she said, rodeo parade, July 4th. Rodeo dances, July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. We're very excited in our improved and increased bus schedule. Should alleviate some traffic. Hopefully our folks at the parking are ready for it and our police department. So a little bit who we are. I'd like to introduce some folks. Kim Lopez is our president. She's not present. Rex Henshaw, vice president. Brett Mills, not present. He's our treasurer. Susie Davidson, our corporate secretary. Robbie Long, he's our arena director. He keeps everything rolling in the arena during the rodeo. Neil Knapp, Mike Davidson, Jerry Watson, and Steve Myers. I also got some staff members over here on the other side of me. Summer Logan, operations. Where's she at? There she is. Katie Ramos, communications and admin. Jason Owens, office and finance manager. Sherry Jakura, events manager. Mike Alderete actually is driving to Santa Fe because he picked up another rodeo to work. So hopefully he doesn't win best ground for them. But as long as he does a good job. Jaron Owens.

Where is Jaron?

Jared didn't come. He's filling in for Mike. He's a facilities assistant. Karen Davis, sponsor relations coordinator. Greg Mingarelli, advancement manager. Diane Hilton. She here? Nope. In our ticket office ladies. They're busy selling tickets. Barb Hanson, Pam Neck, Mary Carey. And of course, I've got two... special guests, Devin Blackmore and Ty Blackmore. They are our admin assistants. We also have 400 plus members and 400 plus volunteers that put on this rodeo. We are worldwide. Last year, this is my 2025 speech, we had 46 states and 17 countries visit this town and enjoy the rodeo. You guys have... A copy of this, I believe, on your desk. The sole Arizona entry in Wonders of America in National Geographic this year. So we're very proud of that. Returning this year, we have our 12-time announcer of the year, Randy Corley, alongside James Horcasitas. Nine-time clown of the year, Justin Rumford. Bullfighters, Bo Sheets, Court Hunt. Fan favorites, Broken Spoke Clydesdales. And then this year is featuring Legend. He's the young colt named after the rodeo. New this year is our specialty act duo, Bethany and Ryder Kiesner. Bethany is a trick rider, and Ryder, he does all kinds of stuff. You get to see some fire whips and some gun slinging and some rope slinging, so that'll be fun. Everybody knew that last year was Kirsten Vold's last year. They were 50 plus years as our stock contractor. She retired in December. So we have new stock contracting firms representing us this year, Double J Rodeo and Sammy Andrews Rodeo Company. If you guys are familiar with Bodacious, the bull, Sammy Andrews raised that bull. But next up, I want to thank you guys. And all those guys back there in the red, white, and blue, city staff, city council, what you guys did, the lift that you guys did in the last few months with the new seats and the new sound, they're amazing. We're proud. confident and very proud to present that to our fans, our contestants, the community, the city, the county, the state, of course the sport of rodeo as a whole. So thank you so much. Appreciate you. Last up, it's my pleasure to introduce Manuel Lucero. He is the director of Museum of Indigenous People, and he's going to kind of give you a sneak preview of our upcoming collaboration.

Hello, everyone. Madam Mayor, Councilman, Councilor East. I don't know about this whole rodeo pair-up. I play for the other team. I'm just boshing. The very first all-around cowboy, best all-around cowboy, was a man, young man, named Juan Leveras. Now, Juan Leveras... was a Mexican-American fellow. He's born in Mojave County. His mother is a Yaqui Indian. So your very first best cowboy was an Indian. Cowboy's a job, not a person like black and white TV used to make us all think. But if you had the grit and the guts to do the job, well then you did the job. And you can't tell me that there wasn't, once they learned from the Vaqueros coming up, that there wasn't any Indians with them cutting through Indian territory to run that cattle up north. They'd have their throats cut if there wasn't. You know, history's history. But we want to do something that brings that all back as Americans. Just like on the back of your dollar bill, you have that eagle hole clutching that bound group of arrows, because that comes from an old Iroquois Indian story about how we are stronger together than we are one. One arrow is easily broken, but bound together, no man can break them. So coming back together, we got some we hope that all the folks like. And hopefully it's the beginning of a new thing, which actually is an old thing. It's kind of weird. But we hopefully will have some singers and some other performers from the indigenous side of that Old West history that will be out there. and it should be a pretty good thing. So I thank you all for your time. That means we're all related. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, and we will move on to proclamations, and we'll keep the rodeo theme going, and Councilman Gamboge will present the proclamation for rodeo week.

It doesn't fit very well.

We have a vendor for that.

We have a vendor coming in to get you to do it. Get you to the front line. Pull it up. Where do you want us?

When have you ever seen a cowboy wear a seersucker suit?

Yeah, how about that?

All right, let's begin. Whereas the world's oldest rodeo is celebrating its 139th year, and whereas the rodeo is a collaborative effort that instills civic pride and supports our Western heritage, cowboy culture, and values, and... Whereas the World's Oldest Rodeo began in 1888 at Forbing Park to celebrate ranching, equine, and agricultural heritage through the organized rodeo competition. And whereas... The current Prescott Rodeo Grounds were established in 1913 via a generous donation from J.W. Daugherty, and whereas on May 9th, 2006, Prescott City Manager Steve Norwood and City Council Members Jim Lamerson Suttles and Bell publicly affirmed that preserving the historic rodeo's presence in Prescott was a city priority and Whereas on June 19th, 2007, the Prescott City Council and Yavapai County Board of Supervisors unanimously transferred ownership from the county to the city via resolution number 3829, which guaranteed the rodeo and its historic public use would remain on the site permanently. And whereas in 2008, the world's oldest rodeo was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, an honor recognizing rodeos of national distinction that have made significant and lasting contributions to the sport of professional rodeo. And whereas today, approximately 500 volunteers generate their time and talents each year to operate the world's oldest rodeo, ensuring broad public participation, affordability, and access to events that serve residents and visitors alike. Whereas the annual World's Oldest Rodeo generates approximately $7.7 million in economic impact each year supporting local business, tourism, hospitality, employment, and related economic activities throughout the City of Prescott, Yavapai County, and the State of Arizona. Now, therefore, Kathy Ruesing, Mayor of the City of Prescott, does hereby proclaim June 29th through July 5th as the World's Oldest Rodeo Week, and we encourage our citizens and guests to enjoy and support the rodeo. Congratulations. we'll get up here real good oh do you want us to turn sideways okay It's like a throwback. Yeah.

Ben would say the first participant in care.

And Mayor Ruesing will now present a proclamation for Parks and Recreation Month. Let's get all of our Parks and Rec staff in here. And I think before, well, I don't know if Christy wants the video before or after, so.

Man, that is a nice shirt.

How do you get a shirt like that?

We're so patriotic.

Wow. Here's your shirt.

What a great looking group, huh? Yay. These are the people that work so hard to keep our parks and trails and recreational open space usable, functional, clean, and in great shape. mayoral proclamation, Parks and Recreation Month, the whole month of July of 2026. Whereas parks and recreation is an essential part of communities throughout this country, including Prescott, Arizona. Whereas parks, trails, recreation programs, open spaces, and community gathering places enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors in Prescott. Whereas access to recreation, nature, community spaces supports physical health, mental well-being, social connection, and a strong sense of belonging. Whereas Prescott's parks, lakes, trails, recreation programs, athletic facilities, and special events help define the character of our community and contribute to our local economy and quality of life. Whereas park and recreation professionals, volunteers, and community partners work year-round to steward these spaces and create experiences that bring people together. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Kathy Ruesing, Mayor of the City of Prescott, do hereby proclaim July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month. in the city of Prescott and encourage all residents to celebrate the power of parks and recreation by exploring our parks, trails, programs, and public spaces throughout the month. We'll see you out on the trails.

You want to say a few words? I do. We have a brief video to share. Cue it up. Prescott, everybody's hometown. But a hometown like this doesn't just happen. It takes a lot of work to maintain and build that connection. to connect people to people, people to nature, and people to community. This is how a place stays everybody's hometown. Thank you, Mayor. So the National Park and Recreation Association celebrates National Month in July, and this year's theme is the power of. The power of well-being, the power of health, the power of community, and the power of connection. And that's what Parks and Recreation does. That's what the men and women behind me take care of parks, recreation, and amenities. That each and every one of you, how you plan your day, how you plan your weekend, how you plan your joy, and how you plan your peace, it is them to be thanked. Parks and Recreation is about connection. We connect people to people. people to places, and people to community. Thank you.

Yes.

All right, and Councilwoman Fredrickson will make her way down to the podium right now to present a proclamation for PTSD Awareness Month, and anybody that's here for that can come up to the front.

Let me just ask, not that every combat veteran has PTSD, but they are a particular population that has experienced things that might lead to that. So I know we have a combat vet here on council, Jim Gehring. Anybody else here in the audience? You wanna come up? You can represent combat veterans. Please stand. Hi. Hi. Mary.

I'm Jennifer Sickler.

Very good. So this is a mayoral proclamation, PTSD Awareness Month, June 2026. Whereas post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, can occur after a person experiences trauma, including but not limited to the stress of combat, rape, sexual assault, child abuse, bombings, accidents, and natural disasters, and affects approximately 13 million adults in the United States annually. And whereas PTSD is associated with chemical changes in the body's hormonal system and autonomic nervous systems and is characterized by symptoms including flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, avoidance, hypervigilance, anxiety, and depression. And whereas the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces, who proudly serve the nation and risk their lives to protect our freedom, deserve the investment of every possible resource to ensure their lasting physical, mental, and emotional well-being, And whereas combat-related PTSD stress among our men and women in the armed forces is significantly pronounced, given that they are often exposed to highly traumatic events for weeks, months, and even years. And whereas between 10% and 30% of service members will develop PTSD within a year of leaving combat, while others may not develop symptoms until years later. And whereas despite its treatability, many cases of PTSD remain undiagnosed and untreated due to a lack of awareness of this condition and the persistent stigma associated with mental health conditions. And whereas raising awareness of this condition is necessary to remove the stigma and to encourage those suffering to seek proper and timely treatment that may save lives. and whereas all citizens suffering from PTSD deserve our consideration, and those who are affected by PTSD from wounds received while protecting our freedom deserve our respect and special honor. Now, excuse me, now, therefore, Kathy Ruesing, Mayor of the City of Prescott, does hereby proclaim June 2026 as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month. We encourage people to reach out to their fellow citizens to provide support and remove the stigma associated with this disorder. And I appreciate our combat vets stepping up. Thank you very much.

Hello, everybody. My name is Dr. Jennifer Sigler, and I'm a clinical psychologist, and I'm the program manager for our PTSD clinical team and the substance use disorders team at the Northern Arizona VA. I just wanted to say that this year we had our fifth annual PTSD Awareness Walk and Barbecue on June 7th at Watson Lake, which is a beautiful park here in Prescott. So thanks to the Parks and Rec folks. And five years ago when we started this walk, we had about 30 people that just met in a parking lot and we just walked. We only had a few vendors. We had no barbecue, no big gathering, basically just a small group of people who showed up because we cared. And this year we had over 200 participants, an entire community, support, connection, and a shared purpose. And to me, that growth says something, right? It says that this matters. It says that our veterans matter. And it says that this community shows up. So I just want to thank the council, the city of Prescott, all of you here today for showing up and showing support to our veterans. Our team at the Northern Arizona VA at any given time treats about 300 veterans with post-traumatic stress. And we're very proud to say that we can offer all of the frontline best practice treatments for this concern. We have psychologists, social workers, peer support specialists, and medication management providers. And this Friday, the VA is actually hosting a Freedom 250 event at the VA. It's going to be at the Ramada at our VA starting at 10 o'clock. And we're going to have a ton of different resources for veterans, including our table with PTSD resources. So if anybody wants to talk, wants to have more information, please join us. And thank you all again.

Thank you. I'm just gonna take a second and say thank you especially to the VA. My husband, not combat related, but was run over by a drunk when he was on service. And so that is part of his diagnostic collection. And I know he is seen by the VA and they do fantastic work. So I just wanted to say a special thank you to the VA.

Just briefly, many of you may not know that I flew 138 missions in Vietnam and also spent three months on the ground calling in airstrikes on enemy positions. And I would say most of us had nightmares. My nightmares stopped perhaps three or four months after I got home. Thank you.

We will move on now to the open call to the public. 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. with the following stipulations. 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 legal matters by a party or their representative. I have two comment cards today for the open call and our first one is from Nancy Burns.

Can you hear me okay? Okay. My name is Nancy Burns, and I'm a retired psychologist. It's especially good to be here today where there's a joining of recreation and awareness of PTSD. So thank you very much for all of that. Actually, I have a brief comment, and it's about a recreation issue. And it may be a budget issue. I don't really know. My main source when I approach the council is always going to be the courier. I've subscribed since 1994. I read it cover to cover pretty much. And I don't know if everything in there is exactly the truth, but I at least stay informed that way. Okay. About three weeks ago, I read in something, and I lost that paper, and I think it just got into recycling before I caught it, about $100,000 plus of taxpayer money is going to be spent fencing a portion of the Peavine. I don't even know where. It didn't say. It was just a really brief comment about it. And I went, what? They're going to put barbed wire fence on either side of the pea vine or one side? I don't know. It wasn't very much. It was just this little tiny factoid. And I haven't been able to forget about it. So I'm bringing it to your attention just in case there's something that you want to look at because As an avid hiker with well over 20,000 miles hiking, I have hiked all of the Prescott Dells, the Peavine, including up by Chino Valley, some of what goes through the airport. I have to admit, I haven't figured out if you can go through the airport. I tried back a while ago, and I did portions of it, but it wasn't all connected at that time. Anyway, the only thing I haven't done is some of the new stuff way up by Glassford Hill beyond Easter Island, if anybody knows where that is. And that's because it's too hot. It's too hot to go there right now. So I have been out there. Thousands of hours. And I've never seen a cow on the trail. And that's what it's supposedly for, to keep cattle out of somebody's yard. Somebody must have complained. They must have some sway. But I've never seen a cow on the Peavine. And I've not even seen a cow pie in at least two decades. So please don't spend taxpayer money putting barbed wire between the open spaces and the P-Vine. Thank you, and thank you for your attention to important issues.

Thank you, Nancy. Could we put Christy, the Parks and Rec Director, in touch with Nancy to discuss the fencing issue?

Yep, absolutely. I think they're making eye contact now.

Yeah, thank you. Deborah Ordway.

Deborah Ordway, Mrs. Mayor and to the Council. My concern is what's on the ground. We have businesses and now businesses are reflecting on their parking. So when they have to park outside and then they get a ticket and they have to change and go back and forth. So my suggestion is if the city council can find an empty lot, and we do have empty lots like Wells Fargo's lot over here that's chained, that our businesses that have businesses can park safely without getting a ticket. And if we want customers to come to the stores to buy and to bring business in this town, we need to support our businesses. My second one is I don't know if there's an ordinance in regards to RVs parking on the side of the road. I heard a complaint from an RV that he got a ticket, but there was no sign saying no parking. So if the city council has an ordinance, it puts it on their website. But most of us don't go on websites. But parking signs are valid, and they can see what the city requirements are instead of getting a ticket. So for our outsiders that are coming into Prescott that don't know the rules, somehow if our city council and the city and the police department can come together and find a clue to how we can better efficiency to that problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Deborah.

That's all, Mayor.

Okay, next item.

Our next item is the consent agenda. Councilman Ruby did request that item 9B be pulled for further discussion, but I have not received any other requests from council. So excluding B, council, you can make a motion on the balance of the consent agenda.

Do I hear a motion?

Ms. Mary Fredrickson, I'll move to approve consent agenda items 9A, 9C through 9G.

Second.

Please vote.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I vote yes.

Thank you. That passes 7-0. Item 9B is approval of award of the fiscal year 27 ACRA Trust Grant Program funding. Finance staff is available. I know Councilman Ruby had some questions on the budget that was presented by one of the applicants that funding was recommended for. And they can address those questions. And then IT can also pull up, there's two items in the folder. The presentation from finance is what's before you at the moment. And then there's also an application from finance. ONE OF THE APPLICANTS, IF COUNCILMAN RUBY WOULD LIKE TO HAVE THAT PULLED.

YEAH, I'LL START BY SAYING THAT THE ACKER TRUST AND WHAT IT DOES FOR THE CITY IS FANTASTIC IN TERMS OF THE WAY THAT IT SUPPORTED MUSIC EDUCATION FOR KIDS IN PUBLIC PARKS. I ALSO, I AM THE LIAISON TO THE CIVIC ENHANCEMENT COMMITTEE, SO I WATCHED SOME OF THIS PROCESS, ALTHOUGH SOME OF IT HAPPENED AFTER THE TWO AND A HALF HOURS I WAS THERE. The Acker Trust runs basically on a principle of $500,000, correct? And it is the interest from that through which we fund programs. The impact of the Acker Fund has reduced because $500,000 doesn't produce what it used to 20, 25 years ago. So in part, one of the things I want to say is I'd like us to look at ways to increase the balance within the Acker Trust Fund. I'D ALSO LIKE TO, I TOOK TIME ON THIS BECAUSE THIS IS SOMETHING I CARE ABOUT WHICH IS HOW WE DO CULTURAL FUNDING AND I LOOKED AT THE APPLICATIONS AND THERE WAS ONE APPLICATION TO ME THAT WAS KIND OF INCONSISTENT AND I HAD CONCERNS BECAUSE I THINK THIS YEAR THE INTEREST THAT WE CAN REWARD WAS 14,000, CORRECT?

ACTUALLY, NEXT YEAR'S PROJECTOR IS ABOUT 21,000. 21,000, OKAY.

So when I looked at the different applications, there was an application that came across to me as inconsistent. The expenses did not tally up. And there was expenses for rent. There was expenses for personnel, for administration. The award was for music books, but there was no mention in the expenses of that particular item. For a granting award, that doesn't make sense. Additionally, in the funding earned, they list, it looks like it's for 40 students and there's $4,500 per student of income. That comes into $90,000. So this grant application and the budget had incoherencies and inconsistencies. and i don't think that we should support something like that i think that we need to have a clear process and i get worried when there's programs specifically for music education that include rent administrative costs and staff benefits in the project budget because this organization's balance sheet doesn't reconcile with their application i would like to make a motion to award the OTHER TWO ORGANIZATIONS, BUT TO WITHHOLD THE FUNDING OF THIS PARTICULAR ORGANIZATION.

BEFORE WE PROCEED, COUNCILMAN RUBY, I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS. WHERE WAS THE ACR TRUST COMMITTEE THAT GOES THROUGH ALL THE APPLICANTS? Where were they? Didn't they look at the financials?

That would be the Civic Enhancement Committee. And I was surprised because I was in the meeting when the presentations happened. I was surprised that this application was not reviewed more carefully. I think that we have to hold our participants to a higher standard.

Did you speak up then?

The meeting went well over the two and a half hours that I had allotted. And I was surprised to see when the packet came through that this application had been awarded. I didn't think that it would get awarded.

And which, we have the Arizona Philharmonic, one-stage family, Prescott Life School, which is the one you have concerns about?

This would be Prescott Life School. The Arizona Philharmonic and the one-stage family had solid applications. Yeah.

Well, since this was on the consent agenda, I just got one page. I don't have anyone's financials or anything. So I would suggest that the... Applicant in question, maybe it gets sent back to the committee for consideration. Are we under some sort of a time constraint here?

So the funding is awarded for the upcoming fiscal year. All of the applicants complete the same application packet and provide the same budget information to the Civic Enhancement Committee. All of those applications, I believe we had nine applications in total this year, which was more than we've had in at least a decade. All of the application packets were reviewed by the Civic Enhancement Committee in advance of their meeting. They're sent along with their agenda packet, and then they received presentations from each of the applicants as well. Following those presentations, the Civic Enhancement Committee discusses the different program applications and then they make recommendations to the council. So this is their recommendation. It's up to the council how they'd like to handle that. We usually award the last meeting of June because it aligns with the upcoming fiscal year. We need to know how much finance needs to allocate within the accounts.

So what was your motion, Mr. Ruby?

My motion is to award Arizona Philharmonic and One Family Theater the award and to withhold the award from the Prescott Life School based on a budget application that is not coherent.

And maybe when you say withhold, should we just say maybe send it back for further reconsideration?

I think a deeper explanation of that budget would help because it looks like an organizational budget for a project budget. And when you say 40 kids and it's 4,500 admission per student, I count 90,000 and the expenses don't align with the award. It's problematic.

So you have some concerns? Yes.

Madam Mayor, may I ask Councilman Ruby, you said it's not coherent. What is it about it that's not coherent?

Is it possible to pull up, Sarah?

John, can you pull up the secondary item, which is the application packet from Prescott Life School? And so the funding request from the school is to cover the costs of instruments based on the information that was submitted by the school and on their presentation. That was what they were requesting. And I apologize, this is a PDF, so it's a little bit difficult to see. Staff wasn't informed until this morning Councilman Ruby had concerns about the application. So this is, as I mentioned, the standard template form for all of our ACRA grant applicants. This has been the same form that they fill out for at least a decade. They have to provide the description of what the project is. is four. They list their funding amount. The Civic Enhancement Committee can recommend funding in the full amount requested or less or no funding at all. Then each of the groups goes into a little brief history of their organization, of their program, This was the first time that Prescott Life School has applied. They established based on their application in August of 2024. And then they cover their project goals and program goals. And then if you continue to scroll down, they'll have to cover how many students will be assisted, should funding be awarded. It goes through all of their project objectives and the activities that take place during the program. Some of these programs are full year. Some of them are like summer programs for students. It just kind of depends. The biggest requirement with the Acker Trust is that it be related to music and enhancing music education for children in the community. And it does have to service youth as well. So, and then if you continue to scroll down, I believe Councilman Ruby's issues were related to the budget, which is on the next page. And they do have to provide their nonprofit information as well, which this organization did.

Okay.

And then this is the budget sheet that all of the different groups complete. So it lists what any earned funding that they have is, what their grant amount requested is. Can we pause here? And all those other items.

Because when the admissions lifts 4,500 per student and there's 40 students, that to me says 90,000. They tally then 4,500 plus the private contribution of 5,000. That does not seem accurate. If you go into the second part of expenses, I don't see any expenses in here that are coherent with the request for music books. It looks like we're funding employees, administration, and rent. That doesn't seem to be part of the ACRA mission.

And that's why I have questions. I think this is just their financial statement. I don't think it's something...

This is meant to be a project budget. If you look at the AZ Philharmonic, it's listed specifically as a project budget, which is the request.

So they got it mixed up. Maybe they thought they just needed to make a financial statement instead of a project budget.

The issue, though, here is what is the money being spent on? You create an expense list and a budget for a grant so you know how the money is being spent.

I should add, too, that all of the organizations that receive money from the Accra Trust do have to file a report at the end of the fiscal year that outlines everything that the grant funding was spent on. That's a different report altogether, but that is something that comes in for us to have a record of as well.

And where is this life school located? I mean, it's homeschooling, so just everyone stays at home, or do they have one school where everyone goes to? I don't know.

It's a school.

Where is it located?

I just moved here, but I've been there. It's a church, and it's... Ma'am, if you could speak into the microphone. Sorry, I know you weren't expecting that. Thank you.

I really wasn't. It's a school, and I don't know. I think you go down 89, and it's going to be on the left-hand side, just a little past that waterfall thing.

I don't know. Oh, okay. Yeah, I know that church. Yeah, it sits up on a hill, and it's an actual church. I think it's a Lutheran church or something. I'm not sure.

Yeah, according to Google, the address is 2025 Iron Springs. Uh-huh. And there's nothing in the policy that would preclude awarding because of any religious affiliation. So I want to be really clear about that.

Do the other two entities spell out what they would spend the money on? Yes.

I can pull up their applications. I wouldn't be able to project it onto the screen because I don't have access for that. But AZ Philharmonic has received funding for a number of years. They're one of our regular applicants. So their application is always very, very thorough. And same with OneStage. They started applying, gosh, I think probably... maybe six or seven years ago. And they also provide information. And then, like I said, their end-of-the-year reports, too.

Mayor? Mary? If I can, since this is the first time Prescott Life School has applied for the ACCR program, And again, as the mayor mentioned, that may have been a misunderstanding on their part as to what they are supposed to be providing on this form, thinking what they spend their money on versus what the project money would be spent on. Is it possible to approve the distribution we have here with the codicil that the award to Prescott Life School is pending their provision of a project budget that shows what the $4,500 is being spent on. And if they don't come up with the plan for spending $4,500 on music instruction or equipment, then that money does not get delivered. It goes back into the trust, I imagine.

Mayor. Yeah. Okay. Patrick? I think in light of what Councilman Ruby has raised, I think that this project should be sent back to the committee. If it's incomplete or inaccurate, that's not for us to say. This is the committee's work. It should be sent back to them.

Yeah, I agree. I think the committee has more experience with these things and can work with the school to help them out. This is obviously their first time. Maybe there was a misunderstanding, but I want to thank you for looking at this because this is something that people really need to pay attention to nowadays.

I think also in light of our special events policy, which is much bigger figures, having applications that are consistent and transparent with how the money is being spent, it's really important that we model that.

So I think that we should pass the other two and then send Prescott Life School, send them back to the committee. Jim?

Thank you, Mayor. I've got a quick question for Councilmember Ruby. Did you say 40 students at $4,500 each?

It's listed in their application that the project is for 40 students, and then the admissions says $4,500 per student for income. So that, to me, is an inconsistency.

That's $180,000.

You're correct. Your math skills exceed mine, Jim. Thank you.

Damn the engineer on the council.

Okay, well.

Do we need that to be an official motion, Sarah? Yep, we need a motion.

Yeah, and I just want to clarify and make sure too that the council's direction to the Civic Enhancement Committee is clear. What I am hearing from you all is that you want to approve the funding as recommended for AZ Philharmonic and One Stage Family and then you want the recommendation for Prescott Life School returned to the Civic Enhancement Committee for them to get additional information regarding the financials, they would then again have to make another recommendation that will come back to you all again. But I just want to make sure that that's the directions. Okay. So Councilman Ruby, you can make that your motion. You've already made a motion. I just want to make sure that you're good with that action and then somebody can second that. Yeah. Can you repeat your motion?

I will try to do my best to mimic the amazing Sarah Thornhill in legal language. I make a motion that we fund AZ Philharmonic and One Family Theater and send the Prescott Life Family.

Prescott Life School.

Prescott Life School back to the Citizen Enhancement Committee for further review and clarification on the program budget.

Second. Please vote.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I vote to approve Jay Ruby's amended amendment.

Thank you. That passes 7-0. All right, item 10A, adoption of ordinance number 2026-1950, an ordinance of the mayor and council of the city of Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona, authorizing the acceptance of real property dedications of portions of Jenna Lane and James Lane from CDC Prescott LLC, an Arizona limited liability company, as outlined in the map of dedication as provided by Lion Engineering and date stamped 4-21-2026, authorizing the mayor and staff to execute any and all documents to effectuate said acceptance.

Any discussion, questions? This is just kind of a boilerplate exercise to meet the development agreement requirements. Do I hear a motion?

I motion to pass consent ordinance 10. No.

That's fine. Second. Okay, please vote.

Yes, Sarah. Thank you. That passes 7-0. All right, item 11A, public hearing and consideration for a new Series 12 restaurant liquor license application from Lauren K. Merritt, applicant for Cowboy Kitchen, location 106 West Gurley Street. The application fee has been paid and the sign has been posted for the required 20 days. Staff has reviewed the application and determined that it is in compliance and no public comments have been received. It has been a little bit since we've done a liquor license application. So again, we'll need two motions on this. The first would be to close the public hearing following any discussion. And then the second would be your recommendation for the liquor board.

I move to close the public hearing.

Wait, let's have some discussion. Any discussion? Is the applicant here? No. Okay. Now you can go.

I MOVE TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND.

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Fredrickson, I'll move to approve, that is to recommend to the liquor license application number 398417 for a new Series 12 restaurant liquor license for Cowboy Kitchen.

Second. Please vote.

Yes, Sarah. Thank you. Passes 7-0. 11B, public hearing and consideration for a location owner transfer series seven beer and wine bar liquor license application from Steven Bruns, applicant for Prescott Indoor Golf and Social Club, location 3227 Lakeside Village C. The application fee has been paid and the sign has been posted for the required 20 days. Staff has reviewed the application and determined that it is in compliance and no public comment have been received.

Any discussion by council? Is the applicant here? I'd like to make a motion. I move to close the public hearing.

Second.

Please vote.

Sarah, I vote yes.

Thank you.

That passes 7-0. I move to approve liquor license application number 398831 for a location transfer series 7 beer and wine bar liquor license for Prescott Indoor Golf and Social Club, location 3227 Lakeside Village, number C. Second. Please vote.

I vote yes, Sarah.

Thank you. That also passes 7-0. All right. I will read the title for our next item and then I will go through the process because it's a little bit of a tricky one. And then I'm happy to answer any questions on process before Lars begins his presentation. for the fiscal year 2027 budget expenditure limitation and tax levy and at a special meeting adoption of resolution number 2026-1985 approving the fiscal year 2027 budget expenditure limitation approved expenditure list and adopting the city authorized position roster. So the way that this item will work in accordance with statutory requirements that Staff will provide a presentation regarding the budget. There will be council discussion and any public comments will be taken following council discussion. Then there needs to be a motion to close the public hearing. Following the closure of the public hearing, the council will move to approve the property tax levy that has to be done by roll call vote. per statute. That item will come forward again in July in order to meet our posting requirements. After that vote is taken, we will recess the regular meeting and then convene a special meeting, at which time I will read a new title, I will do a roll call, and we will conduct the business of discussing the approved expenditure limit, or the AEL for simplicity's sake. and the adoption of the resolution which approves the budget. Your first item will be to approve the AEL or make any changes. Lars will cover that. Those items will then be attached to the resolution, so that's why we need vote on that first before the resolution is adopted. Once those two items are done, the special meeting will be adjourned, and the regular meeting will be reconvened, and we will continue with the rest of the agenda.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Lars Johnson, Finance Director. I have a very brief introduction before the public hearing. Mainly, I wanted to bring up... It's not moving forward. Okay, the schedule of where we've been, because this is a milestone, we're adopting the budget. We've had three council workshops and a follow-up discussion on the budget. So there's been a lot of public dialogue that has occurred that has been incorporated into the budget through the tentative adoption that occurred two weeks ago from council. Then we went and did the official noticing as required in the newspaper and online. And today we have the public hearing. The budget remains unchanged from what was presented at the tentative. The total budget for FY27, which begins July 1st, is $311,496,498. That's a 2.6% increase from the year prior. You'll see on the screen the different categories operating capital and contingency. From here, I have additional information on the property tax, since that's largely what is also being at the public hearing. First is, why is this being asked for? What's the increase for? The property tax helps fund essential public services through the general fund. So it goes into balancing that fund. These departments are largely, mainly, public safety, recreation, and library. There's also general support in the general fund as well. These departments don't charge separate fees for their service, so we rely on general taxation to help pay for these services, such as property tax. It is one important component we've heard from council, the need for diversification of revenue. Sales tax-reliant community has a very minor component of property tax. It's 4% of the total operating revenue. But I would say it's important. It's a stable source. We know that the sales tax is subject to economic volatility. It has been subject to legislative actions that have reduced our ability to have sales tax in the past, such as the residential rental component that Hit the general fund by $1.1 million over the last two years. So we are looking, proposing to increase the levy from last year was $2,304,514. The current year proposal is $2,492,987. So what that works out to on a rate basis is a slight increase. The county assessor gives us the total valued property in the city and then we take the levy, divide it by the property values and that gives us a rate.

I have a question, Lars. This property tax, so we are taxing every lot every home and every business that is on a lot.

Correct. Yep. Real property.

About how many, how many units would that be? Like 30,000?

Sorry, I don't have that number of units. I have the total valuation, but not the number of units.

I'm trying to break it down as we're spreading this increase across, like, say, maybe 25,000 homes and lots, and then you throw in businesses, and we're spreading $188,000 over all that.

Yeah, I think your estimates are in the ballpark.

Yeah.

And note that because it's based on the property value, a person with a vacant lot would pay less. A business is going to end up paying a little bit more because that property is more valuable.

You have those numbers on pages 7 and 8. Madam Mayor, I have a question.

Yes, Ted.

Lars, some time ago there was something related to short or long-term rentals where we lost a tax. What was that tax and how much did we lose?

Yep, thank you for the question. So effective January 1st of 2025, the city, based on state action, state legislative action, can no longer tax residential rental property, which for the landlord landlord they would pay based on monthly receipts so that's long-term rentals 30 days or more um this that equated to a 1.1 million dollars in the general fund that we lost that 1.1 that we lost right and if i understand your premise

The property tax is a more steady income than sales tax. Is that correct? Fair statement. I think last, was it last year that our sales tax revenues went down for a few months compared to budget?

We're actually estimating flat. We haven't seen a decrease yet as far as collections go. We've seen taxable activity decrease because of this residential rental loss. If you take that out of the equation, we're at 3% roughly increase, but the collections are flat because of that loss, basically.

And then as far as supporting our libraries, we're in a library district where we pay to county every year. Daylon, can you? refresh my memory how much we send to the county for the library district and the small amount that we get returned.

Yeah I'm trying to remember exact dollar amounts. I know that 24 percent of the library tax revenues are generated within the city of Prescott and only about eight percent of the revenue or one-third of our contribution returns to our library and that's in the in the ballpark of $150,000 to $160,000, $70,000 that we get back about a third again of what we generate for the county libraries.

Generate for the county. So this property tax increase would definitely be well used by our library to make up for that shortfall.

Yeah, absolutely. And if I could jump in just on one more thing that makes me nervous is we talked about the rental impact But then in the very next legislative session, the legislature was talking about eliminating food tax. Food tax. And we can go back and forth and debate the merits of having a food tax or not having a food tax and the philosophy and the politics behind it. But the impact to the city, if they were to do that, is over a $10 million annual impact. Annual.

And it would also gut our Prop 478 public safety tax because we wouldn't be able to charge that on food, that extra 0.95%.

Right. If we raised property tax the maximum amount that we could, it would take us 43 years to make up for the lost food tax and then we'd still be 43 years behind. So the thought of... Trying to be a little more diverse in our revenue streams, trying to be more prepared for whatever the legislation might do, mitigate impact, is I think a fiscally responsible thing for the city to be doing because we don't know what the legislature's gonna do, we don't get to control all of that. So having more than one way that we can generate some revenue to support, again, vital services, libraries, recreation, public safety, That's, you know, again, that's fiscal responsibility and planning for the future.

Yeah, and as elected officials, we need to realize that we're in charge of the public's purse strings, and we need to take that role very seriously. And I personally... don't like tax increases, but in this case, I think it would be well spent as far as being invested back into our community.

And to that point this might be a good time, it's probably the next slide, but particularly for our viewers to see the very modest impact it will have on their taxes depending on the size of their valuation.

Good point, Councilman. That does lead into the next few slides I was going to shift from the city point of view to the resident, how this would impact them. And the first thing to realize is that what we're talking about is only the city of Prescott's line on the property tax bill. So on the screen, you'll see an example of a tax bill from 2025. City of Prescott's amount is 4.7 of the total, so most of it is Yavapai County and education. So this particular property, with the new tax rate in place, you can see $122.12 was the City of Prescott's amount, and that would go to $124.48, so $2.36 higher. Not taking into consideration, of course, that their property value may go up. Now the next slide, if IT could advance it for me. It's not working here.

Lars, I want to grab the clicker that's on the podium and see if that one will work better. I think we need to do some battery replacement maybe.

So I walked through a quick calculation here on the screen in that I used an example value of $500,000. Limited property value is the value that we use to calculate based on state law. That value can only go up 5% a year. Now, this home's value is much higher than that in the marketplace, but this is the calculated assessor's calculation for the limited property value. I did some looking around, and it looks like 20% to 30% higher than limited property value represents a market value. So there's a significant spread. When you're looking at your home value, make sure you're comparing your limited property value. Would you repeat that, please? Sure. So the county assessor calculates two values. One is called the full cash value. That's roughly equivalent to the market value of a property. And then they calculate a limited property value. And that is the value we use to assess property tax. That value can only go up 5% a year max.

And any idea what percent that value is compared to the retail value?

I did some spot checking around the community and 25 to 30% lower is the limited property value.

That's what I thought I heard.

Thank you. So this home could be a neighborhood of $680,000 to $700,000 market value. I have the 2025 values is where we were at last year for the City of Prescott's portion of the property tax. And that's $116.45. Next year, likely everyone's limited property value will increase 5%. I can't guarantee that on an individual basis, but looking at that spread, it'll likely go up 5%. So that would be taken into consideration here. Then there's what's called an assessment ratio. So each type of property has a ratio. And for owner-occupied primary residences, it's 10%. So you take that ratio to get the net assessed, multiply by the rate, and that gives you what next year's tax amount would be for the city of Prescott.

How much of the $8.19 would go to Prescott?

So this calculation is all to the city of Prescott. So thank you.

Let me comment. So in a home, $500,000 home, say you had a couple living there. So each couple would pay $4.09 a year, which is kind of like a cup of coffee.

Yep. This is an annual amount. So this is just to help residents understand the calculation, what's behind it.

It is working now.

The next slide here, I have a chart. So based on your individual limited property value, what the increase would be for you. On the far right column is last year's adopted amount to the current amount. And then with the 5% increase is the far right column. So the $500,000, like I just showed, $8.19 would be the annual impact, and then varying levels for different property amounts.

So is that to say that Councilman Gehring's property tax would go up $33?

You know, you have to keep in mind that earlier Mr. Gamboge said I must be old enough to have been the first rider in the rodeo. And I explained to him that, no, I'd have to be 152, but I'm really only 125.

Jim showing off his math skills again.

So that's kind of helpful as we enter the public hearing and for the community to realize the dollar impact on this increase.

It's like if you have a million dollar home, you're looking at a $16.37 increase in your taxes? Yep.

OK. You must be a math wizard.

I study with Jim in my off time.

Next, I just have a quick follow-up from the tentative budget. I didn't have the answer when Councilmember Freworth brought this up. This is in regards to the official exhibit of the budget. There was a question on the general funds intergovernmental for county. That is on page 105 of your packet. The interesting thing with Auditor General is they require the vehicle license tax to be underneath the county category, even though in our budget we always show it as a state shared revenue that does come from the state and not the county. So there's a reconciling difference that probably caused some confusion there. But I also wanted to note that the library county aid was budgeted for 27 for what we received in 26. The information we got from the county library district came later in the process and we didn't adjust the number. We will be getting $504,971 from the county library district next year. And that was to answer that question. Let me know if there's anything still.

Mayor Portempre-Worth does have her hand up, Mayor, if you'd like to. Yes, Lois.

Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I would like to go back to the last slide. So just context for the voters. We began, I believe the city council prior to me joining, began every few years adding a tiny bit of property tax for all the reasons that have been outlined to date. And so when was the last time that we increased our tax levy in the city of Prescott?

The last time we went through the truth and taxation process to add levy over and above new construction was FY24. So that was three years ago.

So that was three years ago. And I believe that was the policy of those previous councils was to look at this every three years and do the 2%. just to kind of start building up that diversification of revenue. Is that a correct statement?

Yes, that's been our trend. Not sure if there's an official policy, but we don't bring it every year. So if the council doesn't utilize that 2% a year, the maximum still increases and it's available for the future. But we've been every three years taking that approach.

So I just wanted to reiterate what... our city manager talked about earlier, is if the state legislature was to do away with food tax, we would change the way we've been operating, which is every three years we've been taking the 2%. We would begin to start taking the 3% every year, and it would take us 43 years to make up the loss. And so the concern there is we don't have a lot of levers here. The state legislature, as compared to our friends over at the college district or other boards who can just vote to approve property taxes, cities and towns are limited to 2% max per year, which raises... the $183,000 or something you articulated earlier, and we're only doing it every three years just to start to build up that diversification. So for me, if we were to say because potentially the county is going to increase property values by 5%, that's their lever. We never know when they're going to do it, if they're going to do it, why they're going to do it. That's not in our scope. But the only thing that's in our scope is 2% to make that decision. And if we don't take small steps, we could have a really big, big quality of life impact to our libraries, our parks, and even our general fund for public safety if, you know, If the state legislature does these things, so I just wanted to make that connection before you moved on to answering my other question from the last meeting. As to why Council has been considering this and that it is something that we don't take lightly at all, and in fact that's why we we only do it at a pace of you know, once every three years for the last six days, six or seven years I can't remember how long we've been at it. Thank you.

Thank you. So covered that. And so the last thing I had here was the slide on what's next. After my presentation, the council will have a public hearing, and that public hearing is for three things. One is the budget, and then the alternative expenditure limitation has a public hearing requirement. That's the voter-approved home rule authority given to city council. What we adopt for the budget becomes the expenditure limitation. And lastly, the property tax levy and truth in taxation hearings combined, all in this one big public hearing. and so then as sarah mentioned after this we'll enter into the special meeting and i'll have more information about the ael and so forth there and i'm happy to answer any further questions any questions mr gearing do you have any comments sarah i have my hand up oh yes i was just going to get that thanks

I was like, don't move on. Go back to the follow up from June 9th slide. I think it was one or two before this one. There it is. I have a question because this came up recently in some discussions I've had with some downtown business people. There's a super long wait to try and get into the parking garage. And what I know is that we all see the white vehicles. Line number three, county contribution to the parking garage. This says we're making $500. And from what I heard from some of the other folks that I was talking to last week, they pay that amount for one car for the year for local businesses to have a dedicated spot down on the first floor. And I'm sitting here going, there's a whole lot of spots that are being used by white vehicles and we get $500 in total. Is this correct? Am I thinking about this right? Because it seems like absurdly low. And we're not treating our businesses as nicely as we're treating the county.

Yes, Lois, we had a little friendly discussion with the county about that just yesterday. Oh, fabulous. And it's the result of a very old, outdated policy. uh intergovernmental agreement for parking involving uh the parking garage and that spot behind the chamber of commerce that weed ridden eyesore that actually has 40 spots in it and for some reason the county was reserved 20 of those spots for juror duty which they don't use so they when we get on jury duty we get told to go use the garage So anyway, we had a nice conversation about that, and we're going to modify that and get that cleaned up. But you're right, that is something that, because we need to get all the parking that we can, especially if the Whiskey Row Hotel goes in there, and we need to find all the parking. So thank you for pointing that out.

So I'm sorry, the net of this is that we're not going to get the $500, but we also will lose the cars, which is what we really want?

Yeah, we'll move the cars. Amen. Thank you. And we'll get those 20 spots at the Montezuma parking lot next to the Salvation Army.

Fabulous. Could we prioritize some of the businesses that are on the waiting list and have been for a very long time? I think we're off topic. Okay. Thank you.

All right. You're correct. Thank you.

Again, just here for any questions, and then once that's done, you can open the public hearing.

So if council does not have any further comments, we can start taking public comment under the public hearing. And I have one comment card. It is from Ken Fittick.

Well, good afternoon. Ken Fittick, Soaring Avenue, Prescott, Arizona. So I'm probably tilting in windmills this afternoon now that I got more details. But since I had a comment card, I figured I might as well take advantage of it. So we're talking $190,000. Is that correct?

Roughly, if you round it up from 180.

I'm rounding up from 188 to 190,000. And I realize it could be $4 or $8 or $16 or $32, depending on what kind of a home you have. So on the surface, it's not a lot of money for perhaps the property owners in the community. But not everybody can afford a $5 cup of coffee. And so it's more the principle of the matter. And I still don't, yes, I understand maybe someone else can, but my point is, I don't believe we've had the 478 resolution reconciliation that Mayor Pro Tem Forworth called for. Has that been discussed? Because I thought that was going to be discussed today in this budget part, and it's apparently not been discussed today. So maybe I'm off base here and tilting at windmills because the windmills are not in present.

Lars, do you have a comment?

Certainly, Mayor. So we did work with City Manager's Office. We put that on the website now under the current budget process. If you look at June 23rd day, we put a link to the full reconciliation that was developed.

Okay. So I'm remiss in not checking the website.

Well, I think it just went up today, didn't it?

Right. Although I'm not remiss. I haven't looked at the website today. OK. All right. So maybe my comments are more related to that Prop 478 reconciliation or whether we're ahead or behind what we estimated or what. finance director and his team estimated for expenses for the taxpayer. I'm concerned about the taxpayers since I am one and most everybody in this room probably is. And so the last thing we need are more increases. Again, I realize in dollars, it's not a lot. It's the matter of the principle. We just went through a big increase a few years ago, and the voters approved it. But apparently, this one does not require voter approval, just the council. So I'm just challenging the council, what if you didn't approve the levy? What happens to the $190,000 that you didn't get? Because governments have a habit of increasing but never cutting anything. And so I was hoping that the public safety prop 478 was gonna cover a lot of the issues that we were majorly in shortfall of or concerned about. And I understand you gotta keep things open and I'm all for libraries and parks, don't get me wrong. That's not the issue. It's just the message you send to the community, here comes another fee or tax, even if it's only a cup of coffee for some people that don't mind paying that kind of money. You follow my point? I hope you do. Anyway, I hope you use best practices as a council in determining whether this is the best use of taxpayer money when you look at all the different revenue sources that you have. Thank you.

Thank you, Ken.

That's all, Mayor. So the next step would be to close the public hearing?

I move to close the public hearing.

Second. Please vote.

Yes, for me, Sarah.

Thank you, Mayor Partem. Okay, that passes 7-0. The next action for council is the approval of the tax levy by roll call vote. The motion and second are initiated in the same way and then I will do a roll call vote.

I move to approve the property tax levy by roll call vote. Second. Please vote.

Mayor Pro Tem Verwerth.

Yes.

Councilman Gamboge?

No.

Councilman Grady?

Yes.

Mayor Ruesing? Yes. Councilwoman Fredrickson? Yes. Councilman Goering?

Yes.

Councilman Ruby?

Yes.

Passes 6-1. The next action will be to recess the regular meeting. We will recess the regular meeting at 4.43 p.m. Mayor Ruesing, I need you to call to order a special meeting of the City Council.

The special meeting is now called to order. Mayor Ruesing? Mayor Ruesing? This is roll call. Oh. Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Freeworth. Here. Councilwoman Fredrickson. Here. Councilman Gamboge.

I am here.

Councilman Gehring.

Here.

Councilman Grady.

Here.

Councilman Ruby. Here. All are present. First item is discussion and action regarding approval of the approved expenditure list, AEL, to be placed as an exhibit in resolution number 2026-1985.

So in the budget process, sorry, Lars Johnson, finance director, we're in a new meeting. In the budget workshops, we presented the authorized, sorry, approved expenditure list. We should use AEL for short. Then we asked council to let us know if there's any items on that list that you'd like to be removed. We've compiled, excuse me, I apologize. We highlighted all the items then on the list that one or more council members have asked to be removed. First I'll just explain here first what the AEL is for a summary. In the city procurement code the approval threshold for purchases is 50,000. Anything above 50,000 goes to council. In the code, it allows us then to compile this AEL of list of items that will be procured this next year. Council can then give us direction. If it's on the list, that means council gives staff authority to move forward with procurement and to execute a contract with the mayor's signature. So if there's any items on the list that you would prefer to come back to you throughout the year for further discussion, public involvement, whatever your reason might be, you can ask for that to be removed. And I just had, before I have council go into that discussion, Of the highlighted items, there's a couple that I wanted to provide some context on, and that's on solid waste. So on page 6 of 10 of the AEL or page 96 of the agenda packet, there were three items highlighted regarding solid waste operational contracts. And just wanted to point out that this is business as usual. There's underlying contracts here. So the first one, waste management disposal fees. There's a 25-year contract with waste management already in place for a rate by ton that increases by CPI. The reason it's on the AEL is we have to establish in our system a max spend amount for the year. But if that's not on the list, we might have issues with operations and that we have to utilize the contract July 1st to start disposing at waste management. And then there's a hauling fees contract as well. That's a contract in place through April 1st of 27. Then there'll be a renewal option after that. And then the same thing with the recycling process fees. So these are all existing contracts that were there more for setting an estimated spend amount.

Let me ask you this. This solid waste, our transfer station, it's an enterprise fund, and it's underwater. It's in the red by about a million dollars. And so what's the plan to fix that?

Good question. So we will be studying this through a rate study next year. Council gave us direction to do an internal rate adjustment. So this Friday we'll be posting a notice to increase, notice that council consider an increase to fees that would be effective October 1st. So council will have more discussion on August 25th regarding the fee increase.

Because apparently we have been, Unfortunately not keeping up with we've been offering more services than we can pay for.

I think that may have been an intent by pulling these off the AEL is that there's going to be a rate study and some study on this which we will definitely will be doing through the rate study process but just keep in mind if those are pulled off we might have some operation challenges.

Yeah, and I just wanted to emphasize that our transfer station isn't just for the city of Prescott. citizens. It's more of a regional transfer station and it's used by the county residents. The closest transfer station that the county has is in Pauldin or in Mayer. So you can see a lot of county residents and even the commercial haulers, you know, the landscapers are going to be using our sundog. So I think we've been having a problem with having a large increase in use because it's so convenient. And we haven't been keeping up with charging the right amount of fees. We're just too nice, I guess.

So that's all the presentation I had. Council then can consider motions to give us direction on what the AEL looks like for next year. I had three options in the minutes for example motions. One is approve as was presented in the budget workshop, which is everything on the list. One is to approve it less the highlighted items. And then the third one is any variation that you might want.

You know, this is really interesting. I was really surprised to see how many items were pulled by everybody. So I'll start off with the items that I had concerns with. And then if anyone wants to volunteer their thoughts about what items.

After you're done, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem does have her hand up.

Okay. So... The main three that I had issues with was the $48 million allocated for the property and evidence facility. I guess it might have a police substation to it. And I did some research. I compared it to a property and evidence facility in Mesa. And then I went out and walked the property that had been bought. I originally thought it was a $200,000 property, but it's actually a $1.5 million property there on the Prescott Lakes Parkway across from the Justice Center. And it's on a 45-degree slope. And we're going to be putting a parking lot, an impound lot, and a large warehouse on it. And I found out recently, because I haven't been involved in any of the discussions by police or fire about their facilities, that we were going to spend $8 million in dirt moving and retaining walls. And I find that unacceptable. We have numerous properties that we already own that are level. that we could use instead. So that's the big one that I had an issue with, and we really need to work on that. The second one is $8 million for the Gateway Park in the Dells. I believe in a light touch on the land. And this was going to involve a parking lot, restaurants, all kinds of gyms, I mean, jungle gyms, facilities. You know, kids can climb on the rocks. We don't need to build a playground for them in the Dells. And it was going to be located right across from a mass-graded, mass-production housing, AED's housing phase there. So why would we spend all that money to listen, have people come and listen to construction and trucks going back and forth? So that location and that expense I had an issue with. And then the third one on Highway 89, there was a plan for... sewer pump station that's going to go in across from where the waterfall is there on Prescott Lakes Parkway in 89. And we were going to pay for it to benefit the private property owners along that stretch of highway, of which there is one private property owner. And the private property owner can form his own sewer improvement district and then charge the other property owners when they tap into it. So he can install it himself, pay for it himself, and then have the private property owners that have frontage along it, they can tap into it. That's the way we did it when we built her office. So we're already in debt to the developers with our development agreements to the tune of about $100 million. So this is time, you know, it's time for us to say stop. You know, we're not doing this anymore using taxpayer dollars to benefit private property owners for their own benefit. So those are my top three. Does anyone else have any comments? Mayor Pro Tem did? Yes. Okay, Lois? Yes. Hi, Mayor.

Yes, I... I did pull items off of the AEL because I felt either they reached a large dollar expenditure threshold and or because it's also a topic that warrants public education or their ability to provide public comment to before we incur expenses. And so for me, you know, when I think about how we get information out to the public, be that a radio, be that a newspaper, or be that via our own website, items that we have on our agendas make a big impact to the community and their understanding. And so I did pull, you know, with this whole idea in the airport budget, I did pull the items that were there, either because we're going to be getting a lot of federal dollars and making some big extensions, and I think that's really important news, or improving the terminal facilities vestibule on how you get onto flight. So I picked things that I thought were important for the public to know and understand, and that I just didn't foresee millions of dollars getting spent that council never talked about. So those were the airport ones I pulled. I pulled things in the city manager's office that are changes to the way we've been operating. I believe that, you know, the work that we're going to do with the federal advocacy is going to be well worth the dollars when you think about the airport. But it's a new contract. It's a new way of doing it. And I thought, you know, it warrants a five or ten minute discussion on a council agenda as we get into a new space and area. The same thing with... employee class and compensation studies. How does the council even know what's going on and the results if we don't even get to talk about it? And the same thing with the DMO. This is a new approach and it's worked in some other communities, but I know there was a lot of concern from some of our tourism partners that we were walking away. And so again, for me, it was warranting having that kind of a discussion. I think the public has been very concerned about our expenses with the city court, and so I picked the city court project on page 92 because I really think that we need to manage that and make sure that we're delivering the dollars and not just walking away and, oops, we went another 25% higher. The rodeo grounds, of course. I mean, my goodness, the public is very concerned what we're doing, how we're spending it, and we have a bunch of legislators that are very concerned. The parking garage, being aligned with the Prescott Downtown Partnership and the Tourism Advisory Committee, people cannot speak enough about what's going on with our parking garage. And I felt like if we were going to end up doing the elevator itself, It would be a great time for us to talk and hear from the public and our local businesses about how they feel about our entire garage and what's going on there. So these were some of the items that I did end up pulling. I can go on and on with the capital projects related to police and fire for the same reasons you had brought up. We need to make sure that we're staying on top of the costs and they're not going dramatically higher. And then on page... I was the one that picked the solid waste ones because I didn't know that us agreeing to look at a budget was going to put our entire trash system at risk. disarray from what I just heard from Lars. So we've been talking about how our hauling fees and our disposal fees have been getting higher and higher. And the council sat here this year and was like, wow, we didn't know this. We didn't know this for two years. And I don't want to ever have that feeling again that I didn't know. So if you're telling me we're locked in, Lars, and there's nothing we can do and the rates are just going to be high, but they're not going to get any higher, I'll be more than fine with pulling the solid waste ones. But I feel like if the AAL is causing council to not know what's going on and funds going underwater, I have a big problem with that. So I'll pull it if you tell me it's not going to go any higher.

Question here. Jim? I had a question for Lars. I thought we adopted option two on solid waste that was going to come close to balancing it for a while.

Correct, Councilman. So we're moving forward with an internal study, which means We're going to propose the rates that were talked about on scenario two during the budget workshop. That would be discussed at August 25th meeting to be effective October 1st. That would adjust to get us out of the deficit position. At the same meeting, we're bringing forth an option for council to enter into a rate study consultant to study this in more detail. So the contract we have in place, already in place, we can't necessarily change the per ton, per hauling, all that until the renewal dates. So that's what I bring that comment forward is they will be offered.

OK, so the contractor won't increase their rates. They'll honor the contract this time because I know they increased their rates in the past and we didn't know about it.

Yeah, they're honoring the rates. They have a contract for hauling until April, March 30th or March 31st of 2027. So that's in place. The renewal then can come back to council with the rate study to determine what we do about hauling, such as opportunities for self-haul or whatever other things we might have.

And one of the problems has been that we've only had one bidder for one of the contracts. It's for the hauling to the landfill. One bidder.

This last round, that's definitely what happened. We had one bid.

And that's unacceptable. Mayor, Ms. Mary.

If you don't mind, Lars, just to clarify, since Councilwoman Lewis just said something about there was a surprise rate increase, but the contracts currently that are highlighted in these three items under solid waste, is there an aspect of that contract that allows them to up their rates other than outside of a renewal negotiation?

Yeah, maybe we can ask Brady, I see him in the audience, to give some more details on that, the operational side.

Thank you.

Brady Higgs field operations manager for Public Works Councilman or Councilwoman Fredrickson so in the three contracts I can go through the ones that we're talking about so the waste management disposal fees inside that contract language they're allowed 75% of the CPI so whatever the CPI is that year they get 75% of it that's how that contracts been that just comes around every fiscal year so every July 1st the hauling contract you talked is there anything outside of the annual adjustment so they're eligible for an annual CPI adjustment and it's the full CPI and then they're biannual fuel adjustments. And those happen in April and October. And those can either go up or go down just depending on what the fuel commodity is. So if diesel fuel prices go down, the price per ton goes down with the adjustment.

And that's a two-time-a-year adjustment? So the fuel prices, as we know, fluctuate pretty severely. It is at that moment in time in did you say April and October? That one moment in time will set the rate for the fuel

Councilwoman Fredrickson, it's the prior six months. So in April of, I guess I'll just use October because that'll be the next one. So in October, they'll look at the prior six months and it's the average fuel cost for the prior six months.

So it's not a one-time snapshot of the cost. It's the average over the six months.

The prior six months.

All right, so these contracts, these three contracts that have been highlighted, the amount can change, but only as written into the contract, either the CPI or percentage of the CPI or the fuel adjustment. Do you know, and maybe this is to Lars, if the amounts that are listed here on the AEL are what we know will be going forward? Or can these go up or down, depending on what the fuel does for us?

Yeah, the amounts we put in the AEL are our best estimate for what those contracts will cost over the next fiscal year. Since it's a per ton basis, that can fluctuate, as Brady brought up.

But whatever it fluctuates to, it is per the terms of the contract that we have signed off on?

That is correct.

And do we know when those contracts come up for renewal?

Yes, Councilman Fredrickson. The waste management disposal fee ends in 2030, the initial term. And there is, I think there's two five-year options that are in that one. The hauling contract, it's last year of its initial term. So it ends March 31st of 2027. And then there's two one-year options that are included with that.

The extension options are at whose decision point?

I believe the language in the contract is if both parties mutually agree upon.

Okay, so whatever extension we would have to agree to it.

That is correct.

Okay, thank you. Sarah, can I speak?

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. So Brady, we discussed within the last year that there was some, last time we bid the contract, I think it was the hauling contract, you know, that the bidder came back after we agreed and raised the rates. And because it was on the AEL, we didn't know about it. So things were happening that council was not aware of, if I recall the stories correctly. And that was not this council. It was last year's council that we were having those discussions, if I recall.

Yeah, Mayor Pro Tem, I mean, the hauling contract went out to a formal bid process. There was only one bidder at the time, but the award of that contract came before council at a regular voting meeting to approve the contract, the hauling contract.

But then it went up, didn't it?

Mayor Pro Tem, I mean, yes, between the prior contract and the new contract that they entered into, yes, that is correct.

So that's what I'm talking about. When things go up and we don't have view of it anymore. So that was my concerns. But if you're telling me that this budget amount that you have here, Lars, is going to be that budget amount for 2027 or less, you know, so be it. But I just... You know, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, you know? So that was my concern with waste. Yeah.

Mayor Pro Tem, if I may, Janet Ramsey, Public Works. I just want to clarify, I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding. The time between the contract expiration and the new bid, that's when the increase happened. So it wasn't within the terms of the newer bid, correct, Brady?

Correct, and it did come back before council for the award of the contract.

Right, so the increase came with the new bid from our one bidder, And that contract was in fact approved by council.

But didn't the one bidder terminate the contract early and then come back with a higher rate? And then we don't have any other bidders. That's the way I remember it.

That's correct. But in fact, again, we did have to come back before council. So it wasn't something that was done on the AEL.

Yeah. Okay. I was going to ask, Brady, you know, we're obviously a regional transfer station. You didn't know the transfer station was so exciting, did you? We're a regional transfer station. Do you know what percentage of the users are in the county?

Yes, Mayor. So when we have a new software program, when we come in and take weights and measures, we started asking people where the waste was generated from. And I'd say right now it's probably 60-40, 60 city, 40 county. Wow. I will say when we ask that question, I feel like some people get a little nervous, like we're either not gonna let them in or we're gonna charge them more. So I don't know if those, I mean, we are not physically checking IDs. We're just asking the customer at the window when they come in, whether they have trash or brush and where is it generated in the county or is it inside the city? So like I said, those might not be accurate, but that's as accurate as we have.

So it could theoretically be 50-50 if you have a margin for error. And that's one of the discussions we are having with the county is a little more help with our transfer station because we are providing a big service to people out in the county so they don't have to drive to Paulding, so they don't have to drive the mayor, or heaven help us, dump it out in the forest. So we've got some options on the table and we're working, gonna be working with them with that.

So thank you.

Any other questions about the exciting transfer station? The award-winning transfer station. Any other people have comments about their concerns with the AEL that we need to discuss further?

Councilman Grady you are still on the request list but I didn't know if that was from your last comments and I can just remove you if you're all done It's getting late I know I Have a Jim Gehring

Thank you, Mayor. I was wondering about holding the funding for the city court. Is that going to interfere with the ongoing renovations?

If I may, Councilman, just to clarify, this doesn't take it out of the budget by removing it from the AEL. It just requires then that these contracts would come back to you in a meeting to approve them.

All right. Thank you. So we're not holding anything up. Right. Right. But we can still change it. Okay. Okay.

I'm going back to that same topic on waste management, disposal fees, hauling fees, and recycle fees. You made a point 10, 15 minutes ago that if the council included these three items, that created some budgeting and operating constraints for the finance office.

What I was referring to is that there's contracts in place and we need to use those contracts starting July 1st. Based on council action today, we might have some things to work out because the next available council meeting is July 14th or the first meeting in August to bring these back to you in a meeting.

I just wanted to thank you for all your work in doing this budget and putting together that 300 some odd capital improvement plan, phone book, New York phone book. It was actually very pleasant reading. I enjoyed the narrative style and the details. Seriously, it was very engrossing.

Appreciate the feedback, and I want to defer that to the many city staff who put their hours of effort into helping prepare this.

And we actually read it. And Mayor Pro Tem has her hand up again. Yes, Lois.

I hope you're on mute, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. Thank you. Sorry about that. I'm ready to make a motion when discussion ends. It's hard for me to watch because you're less than an inch wide, so I can't see what's going on.

So before we make that motion, we have three options. Move to approve the AEL as presented during budget workshops, or move to approve the AEL with highlighted items removed, or move to approve the AEL with the following items removed, and then you fill in the following items that you want removed. So which one were you gonna choose?

I was going to choose number two, but I don't want to cause a problem for July for waste management, so I was going to turn those from yellow back to white.

Just the transfer station ones?

Yeah, the solid waste transfer station ones.

And then leave the rest the same because I'd like to leave the rest the same. So you would like to move to approve AEL with highlighted items removed except for the waste, the transfer station items.

Correct. Thank you.

Okay. I'll second it.

If I might just clarify, is it all four? There's four items highlighted in solid waste?

Yes, all four.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll second that. Please vote.

Sarah, I'm a yes.

Thank you.

That passes 6-1. And then the next item, which unless there's further council discussion, staff does not have any presentation on that, would be the adoption of resolution number 2026-1985, approving the fiscal year 2027 City of Prescott budget.

I move to adopt resolution number 2026-1985. Second. Please vote.

That around me, yes.

Thank you. That passes 7-0.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you very much, Lars. We'll see you next year.

Okay, and our next action is, Mayor, I will need you to adjourn the special meeting. This meeting is adjourned. And we will reconvene the regular meeting of the city council at 5.15 p.m. And we will move on to item 12B, which is a continued item, approval of ballot language as revised for amendments to the Prescott City Charter to be included on the November 3rd, 2026 special election ballot. Staff did make revisions to two of the proposals that the council discussed. at their June 9th meeting as directed by the council. And those two items are before you for approval. And then Joe added one additional proposal in there, which added language to a previously approved amendment to the charter, which I will let him cover.

If I may, Mayor, address Proposal 3 first, because that was the one with the small change and you've already approved Proposal 3. So Proposal 3 is the section dealing with appraisals. Based on our discussion at the last meeting, Council approved it. It was approved removing the appraisal requirement in terms of a limitation on how much the city can spend. This allows the city to spend maybe perhaps a little bit more than the appraised value if it's in lieu of condemnation or if it's otherwise approved. But it does require an appraisal be obtained by the city and that that appraisal be public record so that there can be accountability for any sort of purchase decisions. Now, the one change I did make, and I made it based on feedback from our real estate specialist, and I don't see if he's here, Brian Sparks, was that we put a limit in where the appraisal requirement is only needed if the value of the property is over $100,000. The reason why this was requested by Mr. Sparks, and I think makes a lot of sense, is most of the real estate purchases we make are in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. They are essentially easements or rights of way. And so adding an appraisal requirement would essentially double the cost of those expenses. So that's Proposal 3 and the one change that we recommended.

Thank you. That makes sense.

In terms of proposals one and two, as Sarah mentioned, we just made the changes based on discussions that we had. The first being proposal one, the city judge. As we discussed, case law says that a judge's contract has to be for at least two years. There's some indication in case law that maybe a longer amount would be approved, but I think two years is the baseline, and that's the changes that we made reflecting that conversation we had. ANYTHING OTHER QUESTIONS ON PROPOSALS ONE, TWO, OR THREE THAT WE CAN DISCUSS, THEY'RE READY TO BE VOTED UPON BY COUNCIL OR DISCUSSION AS YOU SEE FIT. YEAH.

AND THEN ANOTHER CHANGE THAT WE DID EARLIER WAS REMOVE THE WORDS JUSTICE OF THE PEACE BECAUSE THAT WAS OLD-FASHIONED AND OUTDATED AND CONFUSING. Powers of the City, I see that you've got the word must be planned in the second paragraph. So it looks pretty good to me.

Mayor Pro Temferworth has her hand up.

Yes, Lois.

Hi. One more shall in Proposal 1. about the fifth line down or whatever, it says the city judge shall also provide a written and verbal report to council on an annual basis. Can we change that shall?

I think Lois muted in the middle of her speech.

Can you hear me? There are quite a few shalls in proposal one that didn't get unshalled.

So you want to change the shall to must?

Yeah, we must get a written and verbal report on a manual basis.

We can do the same thing that we did on the other two. I apologize for missing that. I was focused on the actual substantive changes to the language and not the shall versus must versus may versus might versus will.

But if that's the only issue, that could be part of your motion with changing the shalls to must, and we can do that.

Yeah. Because as I said previously, the most litigated words in the English language are shall and must. Or no, shall and may.

Mayor?

Yes, Mr. Gearing.

I just had a suggestion to the council. I'm not standing firm on it, but I'm wondering if in the terms of the city judge, it should say minimum and up to four.

Yeah, I don't know if we should get into the four, because that might be confusing to the voting public, because when we had our last round of charter amendments, 12 out of 13 passed, and the one that didn't pass was changing the mayor's term from... two years to four years. So I think the voters kind of like a two-year term for their mayor and probably for their judges to kind of keep a close rein on them. So I think just not confusing the situation with four because, you know, we can do it, you know, just with the review, annual review extended if we wanted to. Couldn't we, Mr. Young?

you could did you say you could could you do it for four was that the question well if we wanted to do it um you know during the review we don't have to put it in the charter no but this under this language the judge's contract would have to be for two years both minimum and maximum. It can only be for a two-year period. It could then be redone after the two years is up and extended for another two years, but this language wouldn't allow any longer term.

Yeah, I think it might just confuse the public. I was going to also ask while we're contemplating, I was going to ask our city clerk for if she has any details about the voter information brochure and how much it's going to cost to submit a letter of support or opposition to the charter amendments. Do you have any deadlines? Because I certainly don't want to miss any deadlines.

So the argument filing period is always opened after all of the ballot language is approved by the council. So I'll do that by the end of this week. We issue a press release notifying the public that argument filing period is open and when it closes. I'm trying to find out for my staff right now what the fee is because I don't know off the top of my head. And it's usually about six weeks that we keep it open just to meet my deadlines for publishing the publicity pamphlet. And it is just a per argument fee that is charged.

So if you want to make a comment about all of them, you can't just submit one letter and talk about all of them together? There's a word limit, so it depends on how verbose you want it to be. Okay.

Not me. I think it's like $100 or $200.

I don't have that information right in front of me, but it's included in the release. Yeah. I think in the open space one, it was $100 for 484.

And that information goes, like I said, in a press release. Mayor Pro Tem's sticking her thumb up, so that must be right. Yeah. And it's also available on the city website on the election landing page, too. We put the press release out with all that information.

And can you send council an email about it, too, so that we don't miss it and we can disseminate that information?

Thank you. Are we going to have a vote on this?

Is there any public comment? There's not. Any other discussion? So do we vote on each one individually?

You can vote on all of them together if council's comfortable with that. And then I would just include in the motion that it also includes changing the shells to must in the city judge section. OK. Mayor Pro Tem, did you have another question?

I did. Thank you. I had a question for Joe. On article, what is that? Proposal 2. On Proposal 2, last time we were talking about, my question is, if we decide we're going to, for purposes of our water management policy, if we're going to be working on on stormwater. Is stormwater considered either in that whole first paragraph, is it considered five drainage or six flood control, or is it its own separate topic that should be maybe referenced now?

I think that It is both drainage and flood control. And I think that given that we don't have that ordinance passed at this point, I don't think it makes sense to put it in. But when we do approve an ordinance, we can make sure that the ordinance includes language that this is part of the both drainage and flood control efforts of the city. And then the charter will apply.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, well, let me take a stab at this under Sarah's watchful eye. I move to approve revised ballot language for amendments to Prescott City Charter Article 11, Section 4, relating to the city judge as presiding officer of the city court.

Do you want to do it all as one motion? So it's up to you how you want to do it. If you want to do it all as one motion, that could be approval of revised ballot language as presented by staff for all three proposals with the caveat that all shalls be changed to must in Article 11, Section 4.

Okay. Well, let me start over then. We'll start from the top. I move to approve revised ballot language for amendments to Prescott City Charter Article 11, Section 4, relating to the city judge as presiding officer of the city court. Move to approve revised ballot language for amendments to Prescott City Charter Article 1, Section 3, relating to powers of the city requiring the infrastructure for new development be paid by the developer. And three, move to approve revised ballot language for previously approved amendment to Prescott City Charter Article 8, Section 2, relating to acquisition of real property and adding an appraisal requirement and changing the shalls to must in Article 11, Section 4. Second. Please vote.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I'm a yes.

Thank you. Passes 6-1. All right, and the last item on our regular agenda is 12C, LDC 26-004, adoption of resolution number 2026-1993 and adoption of ordinance number 2026-1951 in ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona, amending the City of Prescott's Land Development Code Article 6, Section 6.8, Hillside Development Standards by adopting the public record. Document entitled, Revisions to City of Prescott Land Development Code, Article 6, Section 6.8, Hillside Development Standards, Providing for Penalties and Adopting a Severance Provision.

All right. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council. Jacob Lund, Community Planner for the City of Prescott. I just want to preface by saying this may be slightly repetitive to Alex's presentation she gave you guys at the April meeting. study session for this item, so I do apologize. But today we'll be going over resolution number 2026-1993 and ordinance 2026-1951 regarding the LDC updates to the Hillside Development Standards. So I'm sure all of you are aware most of the lots left in Prescott for development are not your easy flat lots that can be developed pretty simple. What we're starting to see on the planning side of things are lots that contain many different slope categories ranging anywhere from 0 to 40% or greater. So with that, we have been requested to determine how the hillside development standards can apply to commercial and single site development. So with that, we'll preface with the intent of the hillside development standards is to allow safe, reasonable use of slope properties while minimizing environmental damage, protecting public safety and natural hazards, and preserving the natural scenic character of the community. So this is where we start getting into some of the proposed changes for LDC section regarding hillside development. The first spot that you'll see is LDC 6.8.2. So under the current applicability section of the land development code, it's been staff's interpretation that the hillside development standards only applied to residential land splits and subdivisions with sloped areas greater than 20%. So that is part of the reason that we're here today. As I'm sure many of you are aware, the Hillside Development Standards were brought to Council's attention during an appeal of a written interpretation of the Hillside Development Standards to the Board of Adjustments on September 18th, 2025. At that meeting, the Board of Adjustments upheld the community development's interpretation of the hillside development standards, basically saying that it did only apply to residential land splits and subdivisions. But from there, council directed us to research the hillside development standards to figure out a way that it could be applied to single site development for commercial or multifamily projects instead of just to residential land splits and subdivisions. So this will be the first change that you'll see if you're following along in the agenda packet. This will be on page 135. This will be the proposed changes to the current LDC 6.8.2 applicability. The two main points here is gonna be number one, proposed residential land splits and subdivisions. The hillside development standards will still apply to. The previous hillside development standards applied, so the new proposed changes will also apply. And then number two is going to be for commercial or multifamily development of lots that are two acres or greater. So with that, any area of a parcel that contains 20% or less in slope, the Hillside Development Standards do not apply. Modifications can be made to the Hillside Development Standards in accordance with Section 6.8.7.

Madam Mayor, I have a question. Yes, Ted. What were the parameters for picking two acres?

I believe at the study session they went over that, and Joe can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was related to property takings and due to the size of the parcels.

Yeah, essentially. I mean, we have to draw a line somewhere. If it applies to every possible property, then you end up with properties where no development can happen at all. Then it becomes a taking under Prop 207. So two acres was selected as sort of a medium ground. And related to the big issue that we were trying to fix, which is sort of clear cutting of large swaths. So a two acre piece being developed for an individual is different than these 20 or 30 acre parcels.

All right. Thank you. So with that, I believe we're at modification. So modifications can be made to the hillside development standards as long as they're in accordance with Section six point eight point seven. With that, it will require either city council to approve modifications or waive hillside development standards or the City of Prescott Board of Adjustments. It will really depend on what type of project we're seeing request the modifications to the hillside development standards. So with that, residential subdivisions, residential land splits, those were already kind of in your jurisdiction for waiving of The hillside development standards are relaxation, so those will stay. With the commercial side, I believe they will be going more to Board of Adjustments with a variance process somewhere along those lines for modifications. So aside from the applicability changes, again, largely this is mostly a cleanup of the existing code. A lot of the language is going to stay in place. We are going to be moving some areas from one section to another without changing much of the language. The biggest item that's gonna be changing is the LDC table 6.8.3, which can be found on page 137 of your packet. And I'll also be going over that on the next slide. So this is the table 6.8.3 from the current land development code. This table is going to be correlating the majority of the changes to the land development code. So this table regards your slope categories, maximum disturbable area, minimum lot area requirements, depending on the steep slope category. With this, I would reiterate that the changes that I'm going over are only for the commercial component. This is gonna be for commercial, single site development of commercial or multifamily projects on those two acres or greater lot sizes. So with these types of projects, the first thing I'll touch on is this bottom area, the minimum lot area provision. With this, the minimum lot area will not apply to the single site development. So with that, staff is going to heavily rely on the maximum disturbable area from the table above. So with these different types of properties, it's pretty common that we see multiple different slope categories either ranging from zero to 40% or greater. When we do see these types of developments that have multiple slope categories, we're going to require that they provide a slope analysis or a slope category map, which I'll have on the next slide and go over in more detail as well. But the last change you'll see on that table, there's a density transfer bonus option. We actually removed that from this table and put it in its own section, 6.8.4a. So if you wanted to see that, that is on page 139. So this is what staff came up with as kind of a hypothetical project to show how the hillside development standards could be applied to single site development for commercial or multifamily projects. The big thing you'll notice is, obviously it's very colorful, but it does correlate all of the different types of slopes that you'll see on this lot, ranging anywhere from zero to 40% or greater. So when someone submits a project, we are going to be looking for something like this to be submitted with it. The big thing they're going to provide is this disturbance envelope that's going to be here in black. This is going to show where all of the development is going to take place for the particular project and then it coincides with the category or slope category that we have at the top of the slide. So within that build disturbance envelope you have different color slopes. I will call 0 to 20, kind of the lighter green, it's not really yellow on the map. But of that approximate 20 acre parcel, they are disturbing 5.42 acres within that disturbance envelope. For slope 0 to 20%, we're also not as worried since you can disturb up to 100% of that slope category. It's the 20% to 40% or greater that we start to look at it more heavily. So within the disturbance envelope that's provided on this example, you have your 20 to 30% slopes, which is the darker green. And then within the disturbance envelope, they're only proposing to disturb 1.58 acres, which comes out to 29.70%. And if you're looking at that table on page 137 of your packet, they would be allowed 30% maximum disturbable area of that certain steep slope category. For the 20% to 30% slope categories, we would think this is okay. Moving on to the 30% or 40%, they have approximately 3.65 acres of that slope category on the entire parcel. Within the disturbance area, they're only proposing to disturb a quarter of an acre. With that, that comes out to 6.85%, where they're allowed a maximum disturbable area of 15%. So they're okay with the 30% to 40% slope as well. The largest slope category we're looking at is 40% or greater. So with this proposal, they have 4.58 acres of that particular slope category total on their lot. They're only disturbing within the disturbance envelope 0.12 acres, which comes out to 2.62%, where they're allowed 10%. If staff were to receive this project reviewing for hillside development standards, we would feel comfortable approving this since every slope category is under the maximum disturbable area that's permitted per the table on page 137.

Let me ask you this. Would staff have the authority to waive this if they wanted to?

No, staff would not have the authority to waive this. That would come down to city council or the Board of Adjustment.

Thank you.

So this was presented to the City of Prescott's Planning and Zoning Commission on May 28, 2026. Mayor?

Yes, Mr. Geary. I have a question. I think there needs to be a wording change on 6.8.4 . What page is that, Jim? I don't know if it's got a page number. It's in the actual land development code section showing the changes.

Is that regarding the density transfer bonus? Right.

And where it says, talks about density transfers, I'm thinking it should apply to slopes greater than 20%, not 20% or greater.

Yeah, that could be a change we would definitely make. Kind of correlates to the planning and zoning recommendations that I was going to go over on the next slide, but that could be something we could update.

Okay, thank you.

All right. So with that, the Planning and Zoning Commission did review this on May 28th, 2026, where they recommended to approve LDC 26-004 with modifications by a unanimous vote of six to zero. Down here with your bullet points are going to be the proposed modifications. So a lot of them had to do with spelling errors or missing greater than symbols. So very minimal changes that they came up with, but we thought for transparency, it was good to put this into everything and give you all the information from that meeting. So the first bullet point is going to be the inclusion of greater than signs and greater than language within the associated tables, figures, and text. So we did go back and change all of those. We can go back and change that as well for Mr. Gehring's recommendation. Labeling of our density transfer bonus table. We actually didn't have a table name for it, so we just called it table 6.8.4. Changes to LDC 6.8.4.D2 to read as the minimum driveway width shall be 10 feet. A single driveway that serves more than one resident shall be a minimum of 20 feet in width. The original language came into play with the single driveway. It just said a single driveway that serves more than one residence shall be 20 feet in width. The Planning and Zoning Commission didn't want to limit applicants to making sure that their driveway is 20 feet. They wanted to make it a minimum of 20 feet. So we did change that language. And then the fourth modification they requested was regarding the hillside wall standards section 6.8.51. They just wanted us to label the existing figure as a figure so that it was more consistent with the rest of our land development code. So we did go back, we called it figure one and we made it a little larger and easier to read. And with that, that would bring us to the recommended action. So staff recommends to move to approve resolution number 2 0 2 6 dash 1 9 9 3 and ordinance number 2 0 2 6 dash 1 9 5 1 for revisions to the city's land development code article six section 6.8 hillside development standards as shown in exhibit a of the proposed resolution.

Thank you. It was an excellent presentation. And I want to thank Community Development for all your hard work in taking care of this section. This is very important. Our hillside code is very important to the community. In reviewing the documents, I have one comment, one small change on page 141 of the code. 6.8.7 exceptions to hillside development standards. Number one, it says city council may modify or approve exceptions to otherwise required minimum hillside. I would like to change just add in front of City Council just say only City Council to kind of emphasize that only City Council can do modify or approve exceptions. And I think it's a given that it can be appealed. We don't have to say anything about the Board of Appeals. That's not going to confuse people.

Yeah, I mean, it's up to you. Is it a given? Yes. Because the Board of Appeals is the process for appealing. So we do not need that in there. I think it helps for clarity, but it's up to you. And I think including only City Councilman Modify, that's fine as well. Okay.

All right. Any other comments? Any public comments out there?

No, Mayor.

Okay. Mr. Gamboge, you look like you have a question.

Yeah, I'd like to go home. Could I make a motion?

Sorry. You've got to earn that high-paying job paycheck. Mayor. Yes, Mary.

I actually did have one just on that very point you brought up where under 6.8.7 exceptions and the mayor wanted to modify Section 1 with only city council. Is that not... Crosswise was section 2 or paragraph 2 of that same section?

Yeah.

It goes on to talk about the Board of Adjustment may approve exemptions.

Yeah, maybe Alex can provide a little more context just because I think our understanding was that you could do a variance to the hillside development standards possibly, which would be approved by the Board of Adjustments.

Yes, that's correct. Alex Bramlett, planning manager. So currently under our code, as it's written right now, for land splits and subdivisions, if you go through that process and you want to create any kind of exemption to hillside development standards, that's a council-approved process. With this added-in change for site-specific development, it's not otherwise a council process. So it's an existing parcel, say two and a half acres, they want to build multifamily. and they may not be able to hit quite the percentages on that table. It's not a built-in council process. Typically in our just normal code process, if you need to deviate a little bit from setbacks or a little bit of the height, that is a board of adjustment process. So we built that in since it's a single site development that those kind of variances needed would go through the normal board of adjustment process.

And if I remember correctly from my time on the Board of Adjustment, once that decision is made, that does not come to the council then. It just stands on its own unless somebody takes it to court. Correct. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, may I make a comment?

Yes, Ted.

I'll support this as written. I will not support it if it says only the city council.

Well, I think it needs to say only city council may modify or approve exceptions. I think we need to have it come to an elected body and have it noticed and on the website so that the public will know what we're talking about and maybe they might want to come down and put in some comments.

Yes, Patrick. How does that relate to what Alex just brought up about page 142, paragraph 2 about Board of Adjustment may approve exemptions? Yeah.

Well, that's... How do we reconcile?

If it... The Board of Appeals can appeal what we decide. If some... Yeah. The Board of Adjustments. I'm sorry.

So Alex Bramlett again. There's two different things happening. There's the existing code as it is applying to subdivision. That's the council that can make exceptions to it. Then there's single site development. So there are two different processes. So by adding only to that first paragraph for exceptions. It's just for land splits and subdivisions. Then you have exceptions to then the added component for single site development, which is entirely separate and will be a Board of Adjustment process. So if we add in only, that will just be, it's extra confirmation, but it's really not impacting then. Single site development still goes to Board of Adjustment. Anything exception-wise for subdivision planned area development will go before council. That stays the same. It shouldn't have too much of an impact.

Okay. Thank you. So are you still against it, Ted?

If you put only council in it, I'm against it. I've been supporting boards and commissions for years, and I think this is another slap in their face.

Well, this is going to add extra transparency and public input to have it heard by the elected officials. So if there's no more discussion, I'd like to make a motion. I move to adopt resolution number 2026, 1993, and move to adopt ordinance number 2026, 1951 with the amendment to add only to 6.8.7, paragraph one, only city council may modify or approve.

Second. Please vote.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I'm a yes.

Thank you. That passes six one.

Thank you.

And that is all we have on the agenda for today. This meeting is adjourned.