Town Council - Regular Meeting

and also remind everybody that it is going to be uh broadcast live and you can watch it on replay at a later date. Uh tonight's invitation will be given by Joanne Estrada, our administrative specialist, uh followed by the pledge of allegiance. We were going to have a couple students, they didn't show up, so she graciously allowed us to just continue to the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Oh, I pledge allegiance to the flag of Well, we saw invocations.

Oh, sorry. Yes. Um, dear Lord, we give you thanks for the opportunity to serve our community. We may we approach our responsibilities with open minds and committed hearts. May our deliberations tonight be guided by fairness, integrity, and respect for one another. Help us to see beyond differences, to seek understanding, and to always act for the good of all who call this town our home. Grant us wisdom in our decisions, patience in our discussions, and unity in our purpose. Amen. Amen. And magically, we have people appearing. So, welcome McKenna and Han. And whenever you're ready.

Okay. Thank you. I pledge algiance 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.

Thanks for being here. Uh tonight we have a few presentations. Um, I'll also beginning with a proclamation for April 11th through the 17th as the week of the young child. Uh, representatives from First Things First were unable to attend this evening. Um, and so accordingly, I hereby proclaim the week of, uh, April 11th through the 17th in the town of Salita as the week of the young child. And then we move to our 2025 employee appreciation awards. Nathan Barrett already at the microphone over there, our deputy community development director will present the 2025 Tanosarita Employee Appreciation Awards. And if my colleagues would join me down on the floor, and our job manager.

Good evening everyone. Tonight, we have the honor of presenting the 2025 Employee Appreciation Awards, marking our third year of presenting these four special awards. These awards recognize the hard work, dedication, and exceptional contributions of our team members who consistently go above and beyond in their roles. Each of these awards serves as a reminder of the impact our employees have on the success of our organization, community, and the positive difference they make in our workplace culture. The four awards being presented tonight are the Saguaro award, the Santa Cruz award, the Sarita Award, and the B. Sawarita Award. The two B Sawarita Awards honor an individual and a team who consistently exceed expectations and contribute meaningfully to our town's success. Their outstanding performance and dedication bring pride to their department and to the entire community. Be Sawadita is more than just a phrase. It reflects our shared commitment to the community we serve. Today's recipients embody the passion and energy that help Sawadita grow and thrive. The B Sawadita Awards celebrate our collective effort to build a brighter future for the residents who call this place home. The Saguaro Award for teamwork and cooperation is presented to an individual who is generous and caring toward their team members and always goes above and beyond to help their co-workers. The Santa Cruz Award for dependability is presented to an individual that can always be counted on when assistance is required. This employee consistently proves to be reliable by giving 110% no matter the task they are called on to perform. The Sarita Award for responsiveness is presented to an individual who responds immediately to a perceived need and excels in responding to the requirements of their job with

swiftness, enthusiasm, and sensitivity. Nominations for these awards are submitted on behalf of the employees by their colleagues and co-workers. To be nominated for such an award by one's peers peers is truly a testament to the positive impact that these individuals have made in the lives of those they work and serve. So without further ado, we will announce and recognize the winners of the 2025 employee appreciation awards. As your name is called, please walk to the front of the room here on the right hand side. Greet the council members and receive your award. The Saguaro award for teamwork and cooperation is presented to Bianca Kihada, the management assistant in the town manager department. Bianca is one of the hardest working and most reliable people in the building. She is always approachable, always kind, and always happy to help, no matter how busy she is. She takes care of everyone, staff, department heads, the town manager, the mayor, and council members alike. She is a teammate in every sense of the word and someone who consistently lifts others up simply by being who she is. Bianca, thank you for your service. The Santa Cruz Award for dependability is presented to Nicole Serene, permits compliance coordinator in the parks and recreation department. Nicole demonstrates a strong work ethic, approaches every task with motivation, and takes pride in her accomplishments. She is a model of consistency, always stepping up to the plate to solve problems and taking the initiative to

overcome obstacles to ensure the job gets done effectively. Nicole's reliable initiative and commitment to excellence makes her an indispensable asset and an inspiration to all staff members. Nicole, thank you for your service. The Sarita Award for Responsiveness is presented to Lily Robinson, marketing coordinator in the parks and recreation department. Lily is an employee you can count on at any time. She proactively anticipates the needs of her team and always has the necessary resources readily available. She routinely demonstrates her commitment to townwide efforts by assisting other departments through the timely development of essential flyers, advertising materials, and engaging promotions across social media platforms. Lily is truly vital to her department and a model of helpful, dependable responsiveness for the entire town staff. Lily, thank you for YOUR B. Sawita team award is presented to our technology division consisting of Ronald Bishop, Jorge Rodriguez, Becky Pard, and Daniel Ortega. On the morning of August 25th, 2025, the town of Sawita faced a potentially catastrophic cyber security threat. The scope and nature of the alerts suggested a coordinated and targeted cyber attack with the potential to compromise sensitive personal data and disrupt town operations. Over the following days,

over the following days, the team worked tirelessly with partners to conduct deep forensic analysis. Despite the initial indicators of ransomware and C2 activity, the investigation ultimately found no evidence of successful exploitation or data exfiltration. The technology division's swift and strategic response prevented what could have been a devastating breach of town systems and sensitive data. Technology division, thank you for your service. The Be Sawita Individual Award is presented to Aaron Medina, Detective Sergeant. Sergeant Aaron Medina has consistently shown exceptional dedication and leadership while supervising the Criminal Investigations Bureau. Throughout the year, he has worked long hours, responded to numerous on call incidents and call outs, and regularly taken on overtime assignments, including stone garden operations. Despite this demanding schedule, Sergeant Medina always maintains a high level of professionalism and remains fully committed to supporting the mission of the Sawadita Police Department. Sergeant Medina, thank you for your service. We also wish to acknowledge the many other great employees who are nominated for one or more of these awards. As mentioned earlier, each of these employees were nominated for an award by one of their co-workers or peers. Nominees for the Saguaro award for teamwork and cooperation included Danna Hamburger, Dustin Sinclair, Elise Don, John Garcia, Nathan Barrett, and Carlos Suarez. Nominees for the Santa Cruz award included Idales Moyet, Brandon

Massie, Carmen Tena, Lauren Connell, Kristen Norris, Sutarat Jen Chartier, and Sergio Bergos. Nominees for the Sarita Award included AC Marriotti, Mark Felix, and Becky Pard. And nominees for the Bis Aarita Individual Awards included Liliana Sto, Manny Alvarez, Sul Luendowski, and John Garcia. We would also like to acknowledge the nominees for the B Sawarita team award which included the building safety team, the court clerks, the finance department, the Sawarita water reclamation facility staff and the human resources department. Please join me in giving a round of applause to each of these amazing people. Mayor, if I could just a point of privilege. Um, if I could have those uh our B Sawita B Sawita award recipients come back forward uh to the front. Both the individual and the team members, can you come up just for a second?

Did they leave already? Where's the IT team? They're in their They don't like the spotlight. The the IT folks, come on back in here. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. If you could just stand up here next to the mayor and council, that'd be great.

Mayor, thanks for affording me this opportunity. Um, challenge coins are a long-standing tradition used to recognize service, commitment, and shared purpose. Originating in the military and adopted by civic organizations, challenge coins are small symbolic tokens to express gratitude and respect. In the town of Sorita, leaders share challenge coins as a personal gesture when someone they interact with has made a meaningful contribution to the town as its community and its community. Coins may be given to residents, volunteers, partners, staff or visitors whose actions reflect service, inspire collaboration, and result in a positive impact on Sawarita. As res as recipients of the town of Sawarita's highest employee honor, the B Sawita Award, it is fitting to present each of you with a challenge coin. This award recognizes your outstanding contributions through leadership, innovation, problem solving, and achieving meaningful results that positively impact the town. Your dedication and commitment to exceeding expectations truly reflect the spirit of Sawita. And this coin serves as a small token of that recognition and appreciation. So, I'd like to give each of you challenge coin. Thank you for your service.

Thank you. Appreciate your service. Thank you. Thank you very much. on this one. I thought weird. Well, congratulations all and as you saw by the screen afterwards, um not only did we have a lot of uh deserv deserving award winners, but we had so many different submissions from um across our our whole organization. So, um that was um you know just awesome as spread uh throughout our our community and our um town staff. So, I really appreciate that. U Madame Clerk, may I have a role, please?

Council member Gillespie here. Council member Lisk absent. Council member Lidle here. Council member Morales absent. Council member Pello here. Vice Mayor Eggert here. Mayor Murphy here. Corum present.

Thank you. And I know uh Debbie was trying to audio in. Have we not been successful? Um I I saw I actually just saw a text. I'm not able to connect. So, if we can maybe work on that, we'll continue it. They just were award winner. Um, but we'll we'll see if we can work on that and then um but I'll continue. Uh, next is call to the public. Uh, the call to the public is now open. Individuals may speak for three minutes. Spokesperson's for 10. Please note the advocacy for candidates or ballot measures are prohibited by law. The council cannot discuss matters not on the agenda. However, at the end of the call, the public council members may respond to criticism, request staff to review the issue, or add the topic to a future agenda. I have two um Kevin Walton.

I got shot. Good evening. You could tell the IT people. Um hi, my name is Kevin Walton. Um, I forgot to first admonish uh mayor and town council. Uh, Kevin Walden, a recent uh transplant from the People's Republic of California

and a former elected official uh having served four years on a board. Um, I believe in the process of uh participation in public um activities and in in the governance. Um, I'm here to kind of introduce myself. Um, I promised I was never going to be a Gadfly, but I'm going to resend that because I believe it's really important, especially what we're doing international and across the the country, a lot of the the division we're having. I think it's important that we do have public input into all these things. And so, my commitment to you is that I will be respectful. I will not try I will make every attempt uh not to blindside you, try to give you something in advance, a white paper or something on those issues that are meaningful to me and just ask the same amount of courtesy and respect on the way back and uh we'll uh I'm looking forward to living here. Uh we own a home now here and uh it's a great place, grandkids and all that and glad to be here and hope to be able to contribute to your to this community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Uh, next is Noah Sunberg.

Hey, I'm Noah Sunberg. I've lived here since 2008. I will not make the same commitment. Okay. I'm here to talk about your corrupt police. You have a culture of corruption and it starts from your chief. It's been there since way before he beat up the guy. It's been going for a while. And now you guys say employee of the year, the B ser employee has an indictment against him which could turn into a felony which could take his off life his um opportunity to serve. It also could take his um retirement over reckless endangerment with a firearm. Now let's be honest, there were 10 and you're scapegoating one. We should hear about all of them. We should know all their names. We should know the circumstances behind it. It's pretty clear that both the Oro Valley police have said and the Miranda police have said and the trans jury has said that there was misconduct criminal negligent endangerment misconduct and you gave him an employee of the year just right now and said yeah you can shoot up a parking a park but let's be honest there were a lot of guns fired that day at that target you don't know how many times you guys missed and you guys don't really care because you're not taking it seriously you're totally delaying it postponing it slow walking It's been 6 months. You knew the day that it happened, exactly what had happened, and you kept the public out of it. We still haven't been told the information about it. You knew then. You didn't do anything until the grand jury indictment, even considering looking into it further because we have a bad chief that we need replaced. And you've done nothing as a council to take it seriously. And I wish you would. I wish you wouldn't waste money on surveys that you know the answers aren't aren't accurate because when you do them they don't turn out the way you want to in your elections and then you do another survey trying to understand why we didn't do what you wanted and then you buy a building for millions of dollars to do pickle ball which you can't get anybody to use because you don't care about our finances. You do not care about us. I know some of you guys have other

loyalties that are on the council duty which is to the residents but you need to fix your police department. There is great police officers in our police department led by garbage. Let's be honest, not only the sewer flows downhill. So does leadership and all the other things. And ours has a smelly source and we need to take it out and make a better police force. And it starts with the police chief. But let's be honest, it starts with Shane and you guys. You guys should all resign. You have misrepresented us, have not done your duty, have not been courageous, have not been diligent, and have not protected us. So do your job. Thanks. Thank you. Uh that's all the call public we have. Um yes. Um I I don't think it's appropriate to let that kind of comment sit. It's definitely an a criticism that I think is worthy of of some discussion back. Um I don't I don't care to have a banter back and forth with the public. I will tell you that as we went through that process back in August and we had various agencies review this, it wasn't just a siloed attempt. It was an honest attempt to get um outside perspective on what we do because sometimes we get tunnel vision and we get close.

We're into the weeds and so we have other agencies review as part of the due process. We followed that due process and the outcome not only from the various agencies but the county attorney's office itself. um found that the actions were within policy and were appropriate by way of of um of best practices in the industry. So um I'll just leave it at that, but it wasn't uh it wasn't a siloed attempt and and and I believe that we followed due process to make sure that uh however the outcome was, we uh took appropriate steps. Thank you.

And thank you. And I know um you know, we live in a great country where the presumption of innocence is always at the forefront of our legal process. Thank you. Uh, next we come to council brief summary of current events. Councilman Lidle, I'd like to pass until I hear what others have to say. Okay. I may not go back to you. No. Um, do you know if Debbie is I know she can hear, but she might have a difficulty um commenting back. I was just going to see if she had anything. Councilman Priello.

So, I've cut my teeth as your legislative ambassador and I have uh been able to interface with our legislators both in person and on the phone and I see the beauty of the relationship and I can report you all that there is mutual respect and open ears to hear what we have to say. And what more can one ask for but open ears and mutual respect. Thank you, Councilman. Vice Mayor, you do spring break. I didn't go anything. I did. So, you're you're you're done. Okay.

Talk to you about Rocky Point. Uh well, that's okay. Um well, um we had a couple of youth uh present to us about Miles for Freedom. Um yeah, the 5K. That was on Saturday. and myself and Councilman Lisk, Councilwoman Lisk, um, attended. I only could stay a few minutes cuz I had to go up to Morirana with the, uh, food bank and ride on their float. But she wanted to, and myself, uh, send a special shout out to Elise and her committee. And, um, when we interact with these youth, like we do on a regular basis, I'm always so impressed. I would say 90% of the walkers were probably youth and about 10% were adults. Are you Elsie? Um Elsie

Elsie Elsie H.

And uh she was just wonderful. There were 70 walkers uh in runners and they raised $2,770 um for trafficking, preventing trafficking of uh humans. So that was wonderful. And mentioned we know to Morirana. Um just wanted to shout out to our fire department and our PD. Uh, Green Valley Council had their fourth annual first responders fair um down on historic Canoa Ranch and Northwest Hospital was down there, UC, it was a a really great event. It was hot. Um, it was a little warm, but it was a really wonderful event. And in competition of that, the Salita Gym, uh, one of the owners is Crystal. They she was holding a little fundraiser for the Hundred Club, you know, that supports fallen officers and first responders. and they had a um athletic competition, you know, flipping the tires and dumbbells. Um so we we were divided in loyalties on, you know, to be down at the first responder fair and there. So I made the suggestion of maybe next year they could get together and then hold that event actually at a historic Canoa Ranch. So I was I thought maybe they had to have a gym, but they just needed some equipment that they could haul down there. Um so um again, another

hopefully it's not so hot.

And hopefully it's not so hot. And then also that uh just a few days before that Northwest Hospital they had a ribbon cutting for their new Da Vinci robotic um operating device. So it's the first one that Northwest Hospital has here which will allow to attract um physicians that have these skills that they learn in residency but not all hospitals have those as well as expand the uh delivery offering. I heard today like OBGYn will be added um to some of those and then I think um general surgeons are going to be able to do a little bit more than they previously had done. So I made the suggestion we take a robotic dog and our Da Vinci and have them fight each other. There you go.

Um but it was really nice and just as a reminder because it's before our next council meeting that uh April 4th the Bunny Bonanza out at Quail Creek Veterans Park. Uh it's I think it's 9 to 11, but uh there's two uh egg hunts, one at 9:30 and 1 10:30. Um so um look forward to that before our next meeting, which is April 6th, which is 2 days after the bunny bonanza. So that's all I had. And madame clerk, item number eight. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you have anything now to add?

Okay. I didn't know if uh council member Prio was going to mention anything or not, but we did meet with several residents over at Ranch Resort and uh it was quite interesting. Uh they got to see the faces behind their votes as they say and uh we got to speak over some pretty fun issues. Issues. Yep. Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Yes. Yep. The microphone.

The mic. So, the Sawarita Beautifification Coalition had a meeting. It was myself, Councilwoman Kim Lisk, and Liz Budro. We met for an hour and a half brainstorming on next steps. and Councilwoman Lisk wrote to the our fellow colleagues in the civic craft program, fellow mayors and council members and vice mayors from around the state picking their brains, wanting to learn from them. What beautifification projects have they done in their community? So, we are getting feedback from them to not reinvent the wheel, but to learn from whatever's what's already been done. and we have uh good plans to move forward and a a a tagline is kind of manifested. So, I'm going to float it out. Clean is beautiful.

What do you think? I like that. It's beautiful. Okay. Thank you. Now, if both of you want another shot at it and we can go back and cover it all. Okay. Thanks. Uh Madame Clerk, item number eight, town manager report.

Mr. Dilly. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Uh as as has been done in years past, uh whenever we have the uh Saurita employee annual awards presentation, I often um give up my my floor for the presentation of the manager report. Um, I'll do the same tonight, but remind the council and the public that that report is online on the town's website under the town manager's office and um and encourage everybody to read it. Um, it's got a lot of great information there about uh projects uh events and updates on on just things happening here in town. So, thanks.

Yep. Thank you. Um, Madame Clerk, item number nine, 2026 legislative session update. Thank you. And Mr. Smith. Luke Smith, our management analyst, will present this item. And I'm assuming Karen Cruz might be on teams. She is online. Yes. Okay. Online. Thank you.

All right. So, uh, the session started January 12th, 2026. We're at day 71 of, uh, the 100 days of law. Many are anticipating this might go a little over just because for the main reason of budget conformity, which has not, um, made much progress. Uh 20 measures so far have made it to the governors of this morning. Five were signed and 15 were vetoed. Uh what we're watching is budget conformity and strikers coming up or in other words replacing language on a bill uh that we have to keep an eye on. Favorable bills that are coming up. So HB2793 is going to committee or went to committee today. Uh this streamlines annexation process for adjacent territories specifically when there's a single property owner. uh it basically allows digital filing reducing posting requirements and uh provides some enables roadway jurisdiction transfers and other agreements uh to streamline uh annexation. Uh SB 1167 is allowing towns and cities to post online rather than having to post to print uh which we're hoping will make it through. This one goes to committee on Wednesday. uh HB 4026 public infrastructure improvements and distribution limits. This one went to committee today and this one specifically it talks about uh changing so it removes the $200 million aggregate cap for TPT tax and replaces with the $75 million annual cap and the 200 million was a one-time the 75 million will be a rolling annual uh for that sales tax SB1818 uh wayind wayfinding signings this one went goes to committee on Wednesday this one specifically streamlines is a process for installing directional way uh wayfinding signs. And I see Richard out there. Uh this does appropriate a

$300,000 grant to rural communities to implement these or to put these signs. So it might be something we look forward to to in the future. HB2720 uh deals with prostitution and human trafficking. And so what this one is doing is increasing or attacking sex trafficking on the demand side by having harsher penalties for prostitution and an assessment fee of $200 which would go to an anti-RA anti-human trafficking fund if passed unfavorable bills. Well, I'll pause there. Are there any questions on any of those? Any questions by colleagues? No. So unfavorable bills that we're looking at. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Oh,

what if the what if the person who's prostituting themselves is being sex trafficked? Well, I don't know how they would deal with that potentially. This this potential uh specific law deals with the person who is paying for the uh the prostitution or who is it's yeah, it deals more in the customer side of it.

Yeah. uh unfavorable bills SB 1538 uh that deals with moving violations. Let me look at my notes here for this one here if I have it. All right. So, this one ended up being a strike everything amendment. Uh requires municipal employees to or providers. So, it was a a movement violation that went to more of a control substance worker compensation. Uh, and so if there's terms of PTSD, what they're trying to do is allow for psychotherapy drugs and psychotherapy treatment to be um covered and would potentially increase our liability on that end for those drugs, which has not yet been approved by the FDA. So, we'll see how that one goes. Next bill, HB250, continuation state land. that one here. Sorry. Uh this bill includes provision where conceptual land use would So basically if the state has a an intended use for land theirs would supersede any land that uh would be annexed by the the city.

So if they already have what zoning on it and then we brought it in, then their zoning would supersede ours. Yeah. and potentially even after the fact. So if we decide to annex and and after the fact and they say sorry we we can reszone or take this back. So that that the language on that is loose and so Okay. Yeah, that was a specific question I asked and the league said exactly that's what we're wondering too. Right. That's probably why it's unfavorable if we don't have clarity on it. Yeah. What what are we agreeing to at the end of the day? Right. Exactly. Thanks. uh 2795 would prohibit the towns and municipalities from uh deciding or zoning um or not deciding to zone for small modular nuclear reactors. And this relates specifically to data centers,

right,

as they come along. Uh HP 2118 uh would prohibit uh towns and cities from requiring certain licensing for food vendors. HB 2946 limits development fees and forces us to do like a four-year phase in on these. This one is going to uh rage um I forget the acronym for that committee but on Wednesday and then HB299 and see yeah our finance director is still in the room here. All right, but this one uh has state level preeemption of municipal zoning. So basically uh if we create like a special finance district uh or a special finance camp can be created and it gives control of that to the developer not to the municipality so they can charge the fees. Um and some of the things we're worried about well if the district fails who has the liability for that? Uh right now it most likely be us because no one else will be there to pick up the tab on this. Does the by right um zoning and such does that fall under this one or you know where we can have a public hearing and um but it's by right they can do whatever they want anywhere they want. Um does that fall under this one or is that a different one?

I'm not sure that that doesn't ring a bell for for this one. Okay. Maybe Karen can weigh in um at some point on that one. Thanks.

And finally, dead or mostly dead. So it's a lot over here. So HB430 in 2022. Uh this one imposed a moratorium on fee tax increases till 2030. This would fall under the mostly dead. We thought it was dead. Um and there was amendment language proposed that would exempt wastewater fees. Um it's we anticipate this going to show up under HCR 2016 as a striker amendment. Uh and so this we're waiting for language on this, but we believe this one's coming back in a different form under a different bill. Uh the same the same sponsor also had the TPT sourcing destination. This is the one that took any online sales that happened here in Sarita and gave it instead to the city where the warehouse is at. Right.

This one failed on third read and did not make it. Uh well, I think the deadline's this week, so it doesn't look like that one's going to survive. Good. Can we can we have a great funeral celebration?

Yes, we can. A grateful dead celebrator. Uh SP 1241 mandates towns accept or permit inspections from private third party. This one died. It stalled in Senate on 224. And sorry, there's the strikers. I don't know why that's out of order. Uh HP 2040 was a motor fuel tax holiday. Uh we're expecting a striker language on that, but we're reading waiting for it. And HP 2873 uh may allow for referendum positions to withdraw. Uh we're expecting psych uh striker language on that one as well uh to see kind of how they change or what what they become. Luke, um, either on the dead or mostly dead list or on the unfavorable, it is there still this this effort by the utilities on on um, mitigation plans and and what have you? Is Karen on the line and can she give us a bit of an update on that? So I'll I'll I'll introduce that briefly here just for a second and then Karen if you

is that a bill or is that something different

that oh here let me put her So let me introduce it briefly. I'll put the mic to her. So what's happening is as I understand the history of this last year the utility companies tried to pass a bill that basically said they can exempt themselves from any fires they might cause uh if they're in compliance with their mitigation plans. The bill did not make it through. So they are attempting to do something through the forestry department of forestry where using an exempt rule thing where basically they can put this rule into effect and bypass our legislature. Uh and the rule would be uh you know that if they're found in compliance with whatever plan that they produce and again there's questions as to how rigorous our re the review process is for that plan and basically right now they've just submitted the plans they already have and said here you go and if those were to pass and then they're found in compliance if they start a fire the liability would not be theirs. It would be or they would use that to shield themselves. Got to stop talking with my hands here. All right. Uh, so I'll let Karen I'll put the mic to Karen and she can uh offer more information on this.

Yeah, absolutely. And good evening, mayor and council members. It's good to be with you this evening. Uh, and Luke was um Luke was was very um hot on uh how close he is. The bill did pass last year, but we were able to with the insurance industry and the trial lawyers, which is a very unholy alliance. If you know anything about politics, they do not get along. um

the insurers together helping to push back a lot of what had been presented in the legislation originally by the utility companies and we were able to water it down um enough and compromise enough with the utility companies where they were still mandated to provide present a bill a um a mitigation plan Um, but if they're found in substantial compliance, only substantial compliance with that plan, they could be exempt from liability if they in fact are responsible um of starting a wildfire. So, uh, the process has been interesting. Um because of the timing, the Department of Fire and Forestry Management has opted to do a exempt rule making process which means there's no or very little I should say very little public input. um it literally bypasses the um the real kind of rule making process which is very arduous and very detailed and lots of public input and it it it bypasses that whole process. So basically the APS mitigation plan was uh was offered the public hearing for exempt rulemaking occurred last week. uh they basically kind of walked through what their meditate mitigation plan is um and they admitted that it really isn't any different than what they're already doing because what they feel they're doing is already best-in-class. There's no standard by which to measure that, but it is by their uh by their calculation a best-in-class plan and it

is pretty robust. Um but who's to say? Um and TE has theirs coming up on April 7th, their exempt rulemaking hearing and then SRP also has theirs, but it has not been scheduled yet. So once they go through all of this rulemaking process, those plans then depending on public input and any changes that need to be made that DFFM feels needs to be made based on input from others then those plans are set and that is that.

Did that help Shane? if and Shane can probably walk you through a little bit more about what that really means for cities and towns, but at the end of the day, if they're not held liable for any kind of property damage, that would waterfall onto counties and cities and towns to cover that through their insurance and and private property owners, I guess. But, you know, this is mayor and council and thank you, Karen and and Luke. This is kind of an overflow of an overflow of what's happened in California

and the utilities seeing the kind of liability that that the utilities there have been slapped with with all these uh wildfires and the property loss caused by those fires and it's you know through lobbying efforts you know kind of metriculating down into these other states um ours included and so we have to watch that very carefully and make sure that um our interests are being protected because it's it's not our utility. Now, we do have a couple of cities and towns in Arizona that do own utility power utility companies.

Um but we're not one of them and uh we certainly don't want to be liable for fires caused by the utility company's infrastructure. Right. Thank you.

Thanks. So just a real quick summary summarization. We are continuing to monitor track this these um this legislation in contact with Karen. Reach out to other uh jurisdictions. Um council member Polo has been making outreach herself uh with our with you know direction from Karen and myself and um we've seen good responses so far from our legislators. Uh I will point out one thing just real quick. I'll reference this on your desk. You have this packet here. This is a draft of what our legislative uh packet will be when we go to Washington in midappril. So um I ask if you to to review it and if you have any recommendations to let us know by Friday uh because on Monday we plan on printing and start to binding binding this.

Uh thank you. Thank you Luke. Karen, did you have any other uh closing comments on any of the bills that Luke uh covered or how the legislative session is going from your perspective?

Yeah. The only thing I just will report on, first of all, I want to say uh to Councilwoman Priolo, I I just really appreciate her her passion and her enthusiasm and her expertise and just her uh political prowess and helping us advance our our capital. It's just extremely helpful to have that and I want to express my own personal gratitude for her for that. She's been really amazing and it's great to work with her. Um the only other thing I want to update you all on is the state budget and where we are at with that. Um the there it's getting to the point in session where tempers are running high. Uh the Senate has declared they may decide to take a two week pause in order to work on the budget. The House has not agreed to do that. Um, there are several issues outstanding between the governor's office and the legislative leadership that they need to work out before they can pass a budget that they're in the process of trying to negotiate. Um, and it's getting rather heated right now. Um there's even talk of the Republicans passing a budget, sending it up to the governor and then siny dying, meaning closing down and forcing her to veto the budget and then call it special session to get continue to negotiate the budget. So tempers are a little high right now. It's unforeseen whether we're going to get out anytime in May or whether it will stretch out till the end of June like it did last year. Um, but we're monitoring that as well.

Thank you. Any um last uh comments, Shane? Nope. All right. Thanks, Karen, and thanks, Luke, for staying on top of it. I know it's an everchanging environment uh dayto-day. Just a little. Uh next, we move to item 10, which are our consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion at this time. So moved. Second. We have a motion in a second. All those in favor signify by I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh, madame clerk 11A, please. Discussion and possible action regarding resolution number 2026-0860, a grant and aid agreement with the Tona Oadon Nation.

Thank you. And Richard Lemons, our grants and uh contract officer, present this item. And Jan Christensen, director of the Smiles for Veterans, will be participating. And I think Richard, you'll be um introducing uh we had more than Jan here, some of the other attendees, which we really appreciate the their attendance.

Yes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. It's a privilege and pleasure to be here today. Very exciting um topic brings us here. Uh just a brief summary. uh every year the uh Native American tribes uh are required due to state statute to uh distribute 12% of their um gaming profits. Uh so they do that in a a very democratic way. Applications are taken. It's competitive process. Uh so due to the requirements, some of the organizations are required to have a a government or local uh entity to be a sponsor. So I come before you tonight uh that is the case with this organization. So um the staff is recommending that resolution 2026-80860 uh be uh passed to allow Sarita, the town of Sarita to approve the granate agreement from the total nation to smiles for veterans in the amount of $50,000.

Thank you. Um Jan or anybody would you like to come up and just tell the council? We're very nice. Um a little bit about it. Um when I that good before they said they were going to be nice back. Oh, good. Um, and when I read the application, I mean, there were many good things in there for the grant, but the one that, uh, as a veteran myself jumped off at me was that 90 year old 98-year-old World War II veteran um, that this organization's helping to get dentures um, with between 40 plus other veterans that this um, grant um, will be providing. But I hope I didn't steal all your thunder by saying all of that, but uh, welcome to your town council meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate it. Thank you, council members. Uh we're we connect needy veterans to critical dental care and we have a network of providers, one of which is Kristen over there on the end who's who's our board president. Um in 10 years of doing this, we've helped over 1500 veterans receive critical dental care and in last year alone 234. So this, you know, obviously ranges everything from fillings to dentures and whatever.

And we appreciate the your participation in this matter and and Richard very much so. He's really worked his tail off on this and I want to make sure that he gets his recognition because he's really gone above and beyond for us and we really appreciate it. Thank you. No, I know. and and thanks to providers cuz I know I know she's um humble but um has provided a lot of that uh denture work and such at no cost. She hasum for that. So a lot a lot a lot. So I mean thanks for being a helpful part of our community. Um really appreciate it very much. Um thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

No problem. at this time. Um, any anybody would like to mo make a motion at this moment? Yes. I'd like to move to approve resolution number 2026-080. I second. We have a mo motion uh six 660 6. Yep. Um and from another veteran. Thanks for making that motion. Appreciate it. Um okay, I'll second it. I appreciate that. a military man. Yeah. Um, any other discussion? All those in favor signify by I. I. I. Any nays? Motion carries. Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Um, item 11B. Madame clerk. Discussion and possible action regarding a contract with town manager Shane Dilly.

Uh, thank you. Um, you know, this could have been on consent agenda, but I just wanted to, you know, just say a few words and allow other council members. Um, Shane's entering his fourth year um with us, which I can't believe. His first year, I promised him a honeymoon. That hasn't worked. We kind of walked into Vulcan um around that time, but you know, obviously we passed 418 and 419 from the technical management committee. He's been nothing but a leader uh with the other uh town managers on crafting what I call the compromised plan. It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was certainly a compromised plan of investing over $2.6 billion in ourselves and um and so many other things. Um I honestly I decided to run one more time uh because of uh the working relationship that Shane and I have um along with you know fantastic colleagues and obviously uh department heads and things but most interaction I have is with Shane as it's supposed to be uh as he is the town manager and I just couldn't be any happier on the direction that we're going from when we sit through the budget retreats from our attrition rate you know plummeting um to you know his thoughts about 410s and just trying to be the uh town and employee um uh community of town of choice um in our area. So um I I just you know wanted to show um and express my appreciation for all the things that he's done. It hasn't felt like four years. It maybe feels like four years to you but it hasn't like hasn't felt that. and every time I need a wingman, especially with U Pag RT over the last five well six years for me, um you know, it's it's been he's been more than helpful and um I can trust his advice um implicitly. So um anybody else?

Mr. Mayor. Yes. Um I just wanted to echo what you said. I agree with everything. Um, I was in I was up at Quail Creek speaking to uh lots of residents on um Friday

and I was talking with one of the residents um regarding our town manager and and saying how they feel like it's going in the right direction and they like senior leadership and and I shared with them that Shane has this great ability to be able to know what needs to happen for him to find success and to take somebody that may be not on board with that that have their own agenda and they wanting something completely different for their success. And this idea, you know, you find common ground, which everybody talks about. Shane's one of the few people I've seen that can do it like he does it well. And he does not sacrifice the essential things for what he needs, but he sees the other person or the other um group of people, whatever it may be. And it's masterfully done. And I love being in the room um when he does that. So, thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Any other council members before we move to a motion? Yes, Diane. I'm not going to miss an opportunity to express the deepest gratitude for Shane Dilly. It is an honor and a pleasure to serve with you and we're lucky to have you. And I know there's an opening in an Agalas and I'm going to hang you if you entertain that idea um on there. Um at this time, I'll entertain a motion. If so, moved. Mr. Mr. Mayor, I move to approve amendment number one to contract number 2500054. Thank you. I second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Shane. If you'd like to say a few words, we kept you in the humble the humble range. Uh it really is a it really is a team and you all know this uh uh you know this the B Sawita is all about team um and and I think that it's it's manifest in the the work that we're moving forward and doing for the community. Um, so your your trust and confidence in staff is um is so important and really appreciate the ongoing uh collaboration and partnership in our retreats and the day-to-day interactions that we have together um between my office and each of each of you. Uh it just has been a wonderful experience and you know it hasn't it hasn't been hasn't felt like four years. It feel sometimes

when I'm upstairs and I and I'm sitting in those benches right outside of the Sorro uh conference room. Um I I remember viv vividly the day when you guys were contemplating your candidate options for this position and sitting there wondering am I going to be uh lucky enough to be chosen for the spot and I still feel that way today. Um it's a great it's a great honor to be able to serve this community. Uh, and I I appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thanks. And and for I know Kami probably legally for the record, but I got a text from Debbie and she was a big I as well, but but I don't think that works for the official record. Just wanted you to know that. Uh, Madame Clerk, item 12A, study session regarding cannabis dispensary zoning regulations. Thank you. and Anna Cassidy, our community development director, will introduce uh Lindseay Shouy and Michelle Santaro uh from Gamage and Burham and we'll present this item. Good evening, Mayor Murphy's. I was waiting for you right there.

We've got a crowded front row today, so I decided to come up out of the dis for tonight. So, thank you for allowing the study session tonight. As we've all said, it's a study session. There's not an official application. Tonight is just for learning and discussion. And before we go into that, I did want to clear up a little bit of confusion on the staff report. So, if you look at the second page of the staff report, there's a table that indicates current and proposed zoning regulations. And the the bit of information in there that created some confusion was the sales type, the medical sales versus the adult use or recreational sales. So, the table is actually accurate in terms of zoning regulations. Our zoning code only talks about medical marijuana sales. It does not talk about recreational use. But there are some nuances that go into that, some external factors that affect what type of sales happen at the dispensary. And I'm going to let the attorneys dive into those details. So with no further ado, I will introduce Lindsay Shouy. She's a partner at Gamage and Burnham. And she has with her Michelle Santoro, senior land use planner at Gamage and Burnham. Tell me when.

That's great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome to the meeting.

Thank you, mayor, vice mayor, members of council. Uh Lindseay Shouy, for your record with the law firm of Gamage and Burnham. I could hear that buzz with the last I'm like, I'm not as tall as he is. We're hopefully we can press that button and get it lower. Um thank you so much and thank you to staff. Anna, thank you. It's been great working with you. And I had the pleasure of working with Shane Dilly when he was assistant city manager up in Flagstaff. So, it's wonderful to be I am new to you. Um, but I but I'm not new to Shane and and have worked a little bit with your city attorney before. So, I'm really thankful that we're here for a study session. This was a recommendation by staff. I actually go on the record and say I actually speak about the marijuana regulation, you know, in many jurisdictions across the state of Arizona. I probably do more work in this space than most lawyers. And it's complicated, right? It's tricky. We've had two citizen initiatives. Um, so I know a lot about it. I I don't actually use it. It's funny. I'm on the record and also in many jurisdictions saying that. Not saying I wouldn't. You know, the one of the greatest um uh use the people who who take gummies is for sleep. So women and and men in their like 40s to 60s using sleep. That's a lot of people who use the product. But um but I do know a lot about the regulatory framework and it is a little confusling. So we're going to walk through it. I I welcome any questions, comments. I also um welcome any uh interruptions from city manager or or town manager or town attorney. I also sometimes speak too quickly, so I will slow that down too. But look forward to an interactive conversation and that's why we're here that the report is it was um very short. If we file for any text amendments, we'll make it more detailed and and take you through it. But really looking for direction tonight and just start the conversation because most jurisdictions have amended their ordinances multiple times. You guys haven't and and so we'll get into that

as to you know the different citizen initiatives that have passed. Oh, thank you. I didn't know about that. Um perfect. So there we go. Lindsay Shouy, Michelle Santoro. Michelle is sitting over there and will come tap me on the shoulder if I say anything incorrect and has all the backup information. So if I look to if you ask me a question I don't know I'll look at Michelle and see if she knows the answer. Um so the history as we all know and this also is part of you know it's interesting you had your legislative update both the medical and the adult use um initiatives were passed by citizen initiative and gosh there's strengths and weaknesses right in that process because any changes have to be made by 75% change and you can't get the legislature to 75% of them to agree on anything. So, we are stuck with some interesting rules and some things that don't totally make sense. So, again, we'll walk through that. But again, in 2010, Prop 203 passed. That was a medical program. Um, after a failed attempt, I think it was in 2016. And also, I had nothing to do with the initiatives. So, I just work with these laws once they come into play. I believe there was a failed attempt for adult use in 2016. Um, in 2020, we call it the other Prop 207, right? resident re real estate zoning attorneys talk about the other Prop 207, but this is the other Prop 207. It legalized recreation marijuana statewide. One thing that was interesting about that is the state preempted all cities and towns that there were 130 medical licenses at the time. All of those 130 licenses were given not only the right not only but also the obligation to sell adult use. So, whatever your license name was, it's called ABC Cannabis Company. If you had a medical license, you were awarded an adult use. It it was

called an establishment license. Therefore, all medical dispensaries across the state did both. In that legislation, it said cities, towns, counties cannot prohibit dual use licenses. So, you'll see many cities and towns did go in, they amended their ordinance to say dual use. However, it is the right of the jurisdiction to allow or not allow establishment only. Establishment only, there are 26, they're called social equity licenses that can go anywhere in the state. They were given to social equity applicants. And then there are another 14 that are in surrounding county jurisdictions that didn't have medical dispensaries at the time. So, there aren't that many. One nice thing about the Arizona marijuana program is it's very highly regulated. I am someone who comes from more of a anti-regulation, more of a kind of a conservative mind stance on government and kind of government staying out of business. However, in this case, I do think we did a nice job. There are only 160 licenses in the entire state and we're not giving out anymore. So the framework of kind of marijuana dispensaries, I would say, is in place. They aren't moving that much anymore. You know, you saw them kind of moving around more. I'd say most dispensaries are here. I am here on behalf of Jars Cannabis. They purchased Hannah Meds, the only dispensary in your jurisdiction. So I'm not here suggesting that a new dispensary come in. Frankly, we're happy we're the only ones. Uh uh so yeah, we're here. Between 2020 and 26, there were a ton of text amendments. I think Gilbert had four or five. PAC had three or four. Um, Phoenix, I know, had probably three or four. And so, your code is actually very unique that you're one of the only ones that has the original language. Therefore, I'm here

this evening asking for cleanup. Well, I say clean up on a few of them and then the establishment license is the one at the end that we'll that we'll talk about. But again, your jurisdiction um has a lot of the same uh regulatory framework as many other jurisdictions when the law was first introduced. And we're asking for a few changes. One of them is the size. Second is the hours. Third is a dedicated lobby space. Fourth is a drive-thru. And fifth is establishment only. And I didn't put this on the list, but I would like to bring up delivery if you don't mind. city attorney. I know we didn't advertise for that, but you can cut me off if you want me to.

So, I just want to clarify. Delivery meaning that they can go and deliver it to a home. Correct. Okay. I just wanted to understand that one. Yes. Right now, uh medical marijuana dispensaries are permitted to deliver marijuana to qualifying patients in the manner provided. So, we'll start with this one. It's the only one not listed. Uh and looking again looking for direction on all of these. Right now, medical dispensary is permitted to deliver technically by Prop 207. You're not allowed to make different rules.

So, we would we would like to clarify um with the town that we can do delivery. The Arizona Department of Health Services has very strict regulations on delivery. Um so, we would like to clean up that potentially clean up that language or just kind of get your thoughts and guidance on delivery. So the town has the right to prohibit delivery altogether or allow it for both. But we can't prevent it from medicinal, can we? You can prohibit delivery. Oh, okay. Yes. But right now we can deliver um is delivery um allowed at all. Corre is for medicinal. Correct. And you're looking at to go to recreation. Yes. Um we don't at all right now.

Well, I think you do. No, this is your code. All we do from Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. Um, and a quick question because I was able to visit it. Yes. Um, over the weekend, which that's what you were doing. I I was um we did have a very busy weekend, but and and I tried to go in when there's a lull and there was no lull. So, I'll I'll expand on that later. Um, but I know there's so many tight controls when I was in there. Um, how does how do those controls work on a delivery system? Obviously, you're already doing medicinal, so there has to be something similar from the whole process that I watched um down in the BU building itself.

Yeah, mayor, vice mayor, uh members of council, very good question. And if if if you give me the nod that okay, ask for it and kind of we'll see what happens down the road. The delivery rules are a very thick rule. We just got it passed in Prescat Valley. Um and I had my whole binder up there, you know, talking to council about it. We we did the size of the dispensary and delivery. Um it it's very very highly regulated. The dispensary has to have the ID of the person who's getting delivered on file at the dispensary. The orders are placed directly with the dispensary. There is a bag with the product that's put together closed sealed. I saw that

with the name on it. It then has to it goes into a car that an unmarked car with a camera and voice recognition at all times. I'm not kidding you. It is it's unbelievable. Then they have to have a trip log. The trip log doesn't just say A to B. The trip log says north on speedway, east on whatever. It has to have north, south, east, west. They have to follow that trip log and they have to keep it on file. Every car that is used not only has that camera and consistent voice control and there's a camera on the delivery person, the car has to be called back within 2 hours at any time. So, if the Arizona Department of Health Services gets any complaint about a car, it has to be returned to the dispensary for inspection within 2 hours. Those are part of them.

There are more rules than that. Um, so, so yes, if if if this is something that the council, again, you're not giving me a nod that you're going to vote for it or not, but that is something we would like to ask for, right? And I know I I witnessed the sealing of the bags and, um, you know, watching them, you know, be checked and everything and, you know, they carried them out and, you know, they kept them in the car and then drove away. So, um, that was just an observation. Thank you. It's a very, very detailed uh, very detailed process. So, our first request um ex again the existing hours in the zoning ordinance are 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. We are Yes, we're here respectfully requesting 7 to 10. Yep. Diane,

what days of the week are they in operation? Uh mayor council member 7 days a week. Seven days a week. Yep. Yeah. Um if you can see, the city of Tucson has amended their ordinance to allow 7 to 10, as has Pima County, as has Morirana. Uh, Benson is 6:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. Vale is 7 to 10 and Green Valley is 7 to 10. And then Phoenix, I did try to compare juris southern jurisdictions. I can also talk about, you know, the more northern jurisdictions too. Um, but again, if if your dispensary isn't open, then chances are people will go be going to somewhere else and the sales tax will be going there, right?

Uh, so that's our first request. Second request, the lobby requirement. So again, the League of Cities and Towns, this was in 2010, right when this all first started, proposed an ordinance that said 25% of the gross floor area needs to to be the lobby. I'm not sure why. We've all we're we're kind of all scratching our heads as to why we thought um but everyone did and Mesa had it. Mesa just took it out two and a half, three years ago. Phoenix took it out 2020. um everyone has kind of slowly taken it out of their ordinance. I think the idea was and in the first dispensaries had a lobby and kind of a man trap and a buzz you know bulletproof glass and so the intent was a lobby area that was independent.

Um I believe soita may be the last one that still has it. Mesa had the 25% like I said until a couple years ago. Um, we have proven that dispensaries are safe and secure with the 25% lobby requirement now the way they're operational. We always want to make sure we're in compliance. Therefore, we're just respect respectfully requesting that that stricken from the ordinance just so that we're never in violation of it.

Yep. Um, I would just weigh in a little bit on that because when I did go in, I mean, obviously it was large and it was barely used because you went right to sort of the cash register, check in on that. Um, I'd certainly be comfortable. Me personally, I wouldn't want to have zero, you know, maybe five or 10% because I I sat outside for a while first just to see the activity. Um, so if it got really busy, which it was that day, um, there was a little bit of a lull, you know, to get through. Um, so to have zero, you know, I wouldn't necessarily be in favor of that, but certainly that was a lot of empty space. you know, they had two ATM machines there. They did have some chairs, but it was almost not half the space, but it it felt like half the space was being in in a lobby. Um, so I certainly, me personally, I'd be open to reducing that. I don't know if I'd want to go to zero, but you know, 5 10% just to have some overflow. Um, you know, if we agree to expand, I think that would be helpful, but that's just my individual thought.

Yeah, Mayor and great thought. And we will always have a lobby, right, that we we have to file uh follow building code, safety code, all of those things. So there will always be kind of a lobby area. The request is more kind of taking it out of the ordinance. But I hear your comment and comments and very much appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. And a good segue. Uh so yes, uh city of Tucson, no lobby requirement. Veil Oh, Veil Green Valley and Puma County. Uh do pardon? Veil, Green Valley. Yes. Yes. Valley and Green Valley follow. Correct. And Morirana has no uh lobby requirement. Neither does Phoenix anymore. Um Benson either mayor, just to be clear, Veil and Green Valley would be Pima County. Yeah. Right. Right. So that's that's why they have a 25% Puma County would apply at Veil and Green Valley.

Right. They're not separate jurisdictions, but Right.

Yeah. No, thank you, John. Uh and and that gets into the next one, the the allowable square footage. Mayor, as you stated, 2,000 square feet. Gosh, it is small. It is just a small space. Um, again, this all started with the original 2010 medical marijuana. No one knew how big it was going to be, how safe it was going to be, any of those things. I think we all thought small controlled spaces. With the addition of the recreational adult use, and they with the dual use license, they all have to be in the same space. So, you can't have a dual lency where you have a 2,000 square foot here and 2,000 square foot here here. Um, in 2020 is when Phoenix changed. We actually, so in the city of Phoenix, every year, if you have any type of marijuana use, you go in front of a hearing officer and we check police calls, neighborhood services calls, and it is noticed to see if any members of the public have any questions or comments about the operation of the dispensary. And in 2020, I was getting the police calls and I got some fire calls and I'm calling my client saying, "Why is a fire department being called and they said, "Gosh, with the in Phoenix was 2,500 square ft um with social distancing and and medical and uh adult use passing, too many people had to wait outside and so people were passing out because of the heat." So that's when Phoenix went up to the 5,000 square ft. You know, again, just looking for flexibility as your one and only dispensary. Um, if we had the chance to expand, we would like to. We don't expect we would do any more business. It would simply be a little more breathing room for everyone. Perhaps we'd, you know, we could make a more medical, you know, a couple medical stands, point of sales unique to that. Um, it just efficiency of our space and having a little more breathing room.

More lobby. No. And that's why I'd be okay with less than 25 because if you took 5,000 square feet and put 25% aside, that's a lot of empty space, my opinion.

Uh so city of Tucson is 10,000 square foot. Uh Puma County, which again is the same as Vale and Green Valley, uh is 10,000 ft. Morirana, no size restriction. Um uh Phoenix goes from 5,000 to 10,000. Phoenix proper is 10,000, but a lot of the neighboring jurisdictions, including um uh Tempe, is 10,000 square feet. Uh Maricopa County has no size restrictions at all. So, we didn't we didn't want to go as far as 10, but we thought five was a nice jump from two. Um allow drive-thru. This is this is a new I shouldn't say new. Maricopa County has always allowed drive-thru. The state allows drive-thru. You need the same cameras, safety, security. Um, and again, it's proven to be safe and secure. There have been drive-throughs around uh for years. The um the primary users of drive-throughs are actually seniors

or people with pets.

Well, can I go back to when I visited Sunday? Actually, there was two folks that came in in wheelchairs. Um, one was pretty definitely a veteran because I could tell by, you know, the stickers and things like that. and you know where it is, it's on a little slope and um things like that. And I just thought, you know, for the elderly, the infirmed, um you're sick, whatever it might be, um you know, especially witnessing those two elderly people in wheelchairs. Um that was certainly something that I was open for because of just, you know, if you can get it, you can get it. If you want it, fine. Um I don't. Um but you know I I'm trying to always think from a consistency basis. You know we issue a lot of uh liquor permits um from here for organizations which you know are is legal. Um actually we'd like to get a brewery here by by some uh in our town. Um I know some of us don't drink. Um I know probably most of us don't partake. Um but you know again it's for me it's back to the consistency. Um there was a voter initiative um on there, but certainly um for me, you know, the the drive-thru is certainly a a convenience for u and I also witnessed probably half were from an age perspective were coming from Green Valley on Sunday and the other half were probably more ours. Um and we were from my opinion we were doing some of them a disservice by making them get out of the car in 101 degree heat and two in wheelchairs and bring them in. That was my observation on Sunday.

Mayor, that's 100% uh and surprised. There's been a request for it again. It's it's health issues, elderly, pets in the car, and frankly temperature, right? I mean, gosh, right, you just said it 101 in March. Um, when you have to visit, you know, you have the opportunity for a Walgreens to go through a drive-thru, it's the same thing. I've got one thing I'd like to bring out. Yes. Uh earlier you were asking about delivery.

Well, now you're saying you want to have a drive-thru. Well, if you have delivery, why do they have to have a drive-thru? I don't understand. I mean, if you can deliver it, why should they why should we have to make it simpler enough to have someone drive through it? I don't understand that. Mayor, council member, great question. Um, I think some people like getting out of the house. Some people are out. It wouldn't have like a You don't have a message board. You don't have any of those things. You know, there's no squawk box or something when you think about an Arby's or a Wendy's or something like that. Um, it's just another it's another avenue for people.

Convenient. I would say convenient. It's kind of like going through the fries and you have that drive-thru, you know, on there for people not getting out or getting out. Mr. Mayor. Yes. And I this may be directed to staff or or our attorney. Do we allow alcohol to be picked up through a drive-thru? I stumped them. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we we do. Um typically I want to say do drive-throughs require a use permit? It depends on the zone. Yeah, but it is allowed in the town. You could. Okay.

Yeah. Again, it it it's it's essentially seal, you know, if there is a drive-through liquor store, it would be sealed. You know, you're not handing out a cup of ice and a like they do in Florida, but um they used to at least, but no, so yeah, you could do drive-thru and depending on the the zoning, it would you might may require like a special use permit or conditional use permit or something like that to deal if there are other impacts, right? And I know during the pandemic, I don't know what we had to do for that. We were also allowing um delivery of alcohol if they bought, you know, food. I remember Pub 22. It really kept them alive um by by

Well, you know, and and just you you can by way of I don't know if it's Uber Eats or one of the you know, you can order alcohol, right, by delivery. Um, liquor stores will deliver, you know, if you order from Safeway or Fries, they'll, you know, as part of their home delivery, right? They'll they'll Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's highly, it's again, it's the same. It's It's highly regulated, but And I would guess, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I bet the controls of delivering adult use marijuana are probably even tighter than uh from alcohol, from an Uber Eatats or whoever it might be because we're talking special drivers and special cars. Correct.

Uh, correct. Yeah. Special drivers, special cars, you have to have a facility agent card, which means you've had a full background check. It is. Yes. Much higherly regulated, but correct, John. They both happen. Yeah. You know, for again for if you if you order food online or delivery, it just can just you just add it to the menu. They just add it to the menu. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Diane,

do you have any information on dispensaries um that do medical as well as social use that have drive-thrus? So, what percentage of the businesses for social use as compared to the disabled medical person who's there to pick up their medical marijuana? Mayor, council member, great question and I do not have that data with me, but if we come forward with that application, absolutely. Um, we do represent, yeah, we represent multiple people who have existing dispensaries, I can tell you it has proven to be safe. It does not increase sales normally. It is simply a convenience factor for someone who's already

and and just to clarify D because um if they originally had it for medical um because I learned Sunday um there's a $300 fee and other things to actually have it. So we as far as how many drive-throughs there are, we certainly can find out that. But knowing where why they're buying it um they can now buy it as easily or cheaper uh actually from uh res um recreational use than actually medicinal. So we won't even necessarily know if they're buying it for recreational did they have an issue they would like to um alleiate you know based on that. Am I off on that?

No you're Mary you're correct. And that that gets to the to the last item and and this uh if there's any consternation amongst council uh happy to have a conversation but this is not uh a hill we we want to die on. Um as as you said right now we have a dual use right and so in order to be a medical patient a you're registered b you have to pay you pay $200 a year I believe for a card or 300 300 I thought I heard it was three. It might be

it could have been three. I and and and I don't so but then when you're a medical patient you get more potency more quantity so so there are reasons right and lower taxes so when you're medical you don't have there are more taxes associated with the adult use with the establishment license many people have uh lapsed their medical card uh when adult use came online in part people just don't like being on lists right they don't like being tracked all those things I don't But so the medical cards have gone down. Um the establishment use has gone up. In a way that's good because with establishment you collect more taxes. Uh I come from Canada so they're we're big on taxing everyone up there for everything especially alcohol. Uh so yeah so we we were again there are different licenses right? So there's the dual use license and there's establishment only. Um we did put it up here for discussion to have an an establishment only. Again, I represent the your new dispensary owner, but we are the one and only, and we would love to continue to be the one and only in town. Um, the establishment only license allows the opportunity. Our client does have a lot of dispensaries across the state and actually in other states to put a different license here. Again, not to open another dispensary. It's kind of the paperwork behind the scenes from the Department of Health Services. But if there is any I've had a couple discussions with your town manager and town attorney. They've been very diligent in following up with me. If there is consternation about the addition of the establishmentonly license, we are happy to remove that from our list of requests and just move forward with the other ones.

Yeah. No, I I mean thank you for that. I was obviously looking it through visiting it. You know, I was comfortable with all the other you except for the zero on the on the lobby. Um, but you know, this felt more like sort of opening up the Pandora's box, so to speak. Um, and knowing where this particular location is. I won't say necessarily literally off the grid, but as far as our town goes, you know, it's a destination. You have to know it's there um and get down to there. Um, that would that would be the one I would have the most, you know, trouble of because I haven't seen any issues with the one um that is down there. That's just me personally. Um and again what they can do today is what they can do tomorrow right even if we did nothing on all these changes. Um but you know we are free market uh limited government uh you know community. So again I voted against it you know when it was on the ballot. Um but it is approved um on there and I you know I take it almost back to the ridiculousness you know if you know when they tried to outlaw the big gulp right well you know what whether it was 80 ounces or whatever so people were buying 240 ounces um um you know to me watching who was coming in there on that one particular day having the convenience um on there it was controls that I've seen much more so than I've ever actually seen alcohol um over over time. So, um, you know, again, that was the the one I would had the most difficulty with, um, on there. But this is a study session. Staff needs direction. Um, um, and I guess before I go to others, you know, the hours, you know, if someone wants at 8:00 at night, we have a lot of workers in our town where our average age is 37. Um, do I want them

te, you know, taking their tax money to another municipality? No, I don't. Um, I looked up all the others, you know, in our area and it was, you know, mostly it was 10 o'clock, um, you know, for that. So, am I going to try to take some convenience away and they're going to go to some other location? No. Um, I have no problem with that. Um, obviously, you know, we have our, no pun intended, but our our workforce, our our business is growing Serita. Um, so you could take that literally and figuratively. um on there. So, you know, 5,000 ft um was um I didn't have a you know, a problem in that. If a business wants to, again, I'm trying to be consistent. If any business came to us um with the exception of this one, we would celebrate, you know, we'd be out there breaking ground with them, right? You know, to expand. Um so you know hours um size of course drive-thru you know watching you know these folks um debilitating um condition in some cases um you know the lobby for me personally you know 5 10% um cuz like you said you're going to need a lobby anyway so if it's something that's reasonable u that's on the record and not to have that um establishment only I guess is the the term of But that would be the one I'd probably I would have the most heartburn with.

Okay. But I appreciate that. Again, staff needs direction. Uh Diane, thoughts? Um I did hear I'm sorry. I did hear from uh Debbie and Kim and um they were you know good with what everything that was presented. I didn't get into the detail of five or 10%. I think they did say they certainly would want to see a lobby so of some sort. But understand when they went in to visit, none of us inhaled just to be clear. Um that it's like, whoa, that's a pretty big space for not being utilized. So, but I think they still had a comfort level of having something. So, they wanted me to at least put that out there on behalf of um both of them. Um Vice Mayor,

I have no comments. No comment. Okay. Council member,

um I'm still wrestling with the drive-thru option and and worried about impaired drivers. Um that so that's that's something I'm not sure on. Can I throw out there though when I saw them come out, you know, on Sunday, um, you know, they walk in and they walk back to the car and then they would, my opinion, they would still have the same availability of whatever you think they're going to do. Um, so yeah, from a drive-thru or, you know, get back in the car because it's about, I don't know, 20 yards, 10 yards, um, from there. And again when I for me when I saw the two gentlemen um in the wheelchairs um one was struggling pretty mightily I was I was thinking I wish they had the availability you know to do that. That's just me. But um you know and again for me alcohol if I go to fries or Safeway I can break a bottle open um as easily as I you know supposed to keep it you know home. So I I for me that's how I process all of that, but everybody's entitled to their to their thoughts.

And council member, if I may, I mean, the laws are still there's no you're not allowed to consume on site. Um and and this dispensary owner definitely has they they've banned people from their locations if they are violating the rules. They are very regulatory conscious and they you know they do they see people they give them one warning and then they will ban them if they do any infraction. So, and and not consuming I'm saying any of those things. It's still illegal to drive impaired, all of those things. So, we don't support any of those things. It's it's for a convenience factory.

And that that's something I I appreciate where if someone comes in and they say, "Oo, this guy should not even be here, you know, um to help keep the residents safe." um that might be a little bit difficult in the car, you know, if they're going through the drive-thru to kind of look and say, "How is this person doing?" I I still have mixed feelings on the door dash delivery, but I could see that being a safer option there, too. Um and and with kind of more of the reg regulations on that,

but so these are some things I'm wrestling with. Yeah. Yeah. Because the Door Dash would take away the driving impaired, right? Because they're having it delivered to their house. Um, Council Member Prio,

I don't have peace in my heart about this and I too went there. Um, so as far as the lobby size, it's a lot of un it's a lot of wasted space. they could utilize the space that they have to to have a bigger work area, product area. Uh because that lobby was very large. The hours I think seven to seven, seven days a week if somebody wants to go get um marijuana for social uses and you know they are limited because uh supposing it's someone in our town where you have to come to work at 7 in the morning and then right you leave at 6 by the time you drive there. Is it an I I just don't have peace in my heart about this. And I also did some re I asked for some research uh on the impact of medical uh not med I have no quibble with the medical marijuana and I agree with council member um uh Lidle that if there's delivery service did do they have to pay for that delivery service or is that included in their fee? Mayor, council member, I don't know. I I I will come back with that answer. I I don't because dispensary so there is no legal requirement to charge a fee. I know different dispensary. Some do, some don't. And and I don't know with this,

you know, because obviously that might be a consideration. If there's a fee for the delivery fee, but if it's included in the price of the medicinal marijuana, then they get what how more convenient can it be? They come right to your home. Gas is so expensive now, so they don't have to drive to the store. They have door-to-door service delivery. The hours, I think, are fine the way they are. Uh I am not in favor of increasing the hours. I'm not in favor of the drivethru, and I um am okay with the lobby being utilized in differently to expand the space that they have for the the products that they're selling. That's the same. That's the same.

Um, any comments? Com Council Member Lidle.

First of all, I want to thank you for a great presentation. I app I do appreciate that. Um, saying that I have to speak from my heart. I'm opposed to the entire thing. I'm I know it's tax dollars that comes to the town and everything, but sometimes it's about more than just money. And I think this is a time that it's more than just about money. Um, you say we can have it delivered to the home. That's fine. How do we know that a 14 or 15 year old isn't taking it over when he gets there? We have no way of knowing this. Um I remember back on the streets of Philadelphia, uh we had the package stores that were the only ones who could sell alcohol, but they didn't keep the 13 and 14 year olds from getting bottled wine. So, um I'm opposed to it. Thank you. Thanks. Any Shane, do you w to weigh in or Anna? Um, you know, usually we can get a pretty good sense of um direction. I'm not feeling that tonight necessarily until um something comes back as a as a proposal um you know to us. Um, but how would it how or maybe for the applicant as well? Um, how would you see this progressing forward based on what you're hearing tonight best on um based on what the applicant may um submit at some point kind of how you know can you just play it out for us a little bit because I know when I was reading the

background we have to go to PNZ right and have a public hearing and all these kinds of things. So, based on what you heard tonight, you're probably more confused than maybe you were right at the beginning. Maybe not. Um, but just kind of give me a layout of how you think it might proceed from here.

Thanks, Mayor Murphy, members of the council. So, this is a an issue where staff didn't feel comfortable just reviewing it from a land use perspective and then bringing it to you like we normally would if we're looking at say setbacks or landscape regulations. It's like you said, we're hearing different opinions from the council and we as staff are here to help get the council the code that they want. There is no formal application at this point. So, we haven't dug in and done a really thorough analysis because right now there's nothing to analyze. So the next steps would be if the if the dispensary and their attorneys feel that there's enough support on the council to submit an application, they would submit that formal application to the community development department. And at that point, we would do the thorough analysis, see how it interacts with some of the other regulations, look at adopted policy, and see how the proposal fits in with policy. Then bring that analysis to the planning and zoning commission. It is a zoning code text amendment. So it would follow the same procedure as any other zoning code text amendment. So there'd be a public hearing before the planning and zoning commission. They would make a recommendation and then we would have another public hearing with the town council where we would bring you the commission's recommendation and you would ultimately decide which way to go.

Okay. Thank you. Did you have any It was a great presentation. Any followup with us or any need any clarification? And I know you you were taking notes, but

I Yes, I've taken copious notes. No, mayor, vice mayor, members of council, thank you. Thank you for your time. And and it's normal to have this it's it is it's an ideological, you know, we all have different challenges in terms of of things. So, so I I take no personal offense. I'm I am happy that everyone you guys have a great council who can agree and agree to disagree. And uh if if we we will probably move forward with an application. I did hear some support for some of these items. I don't think you will see establishment only in there. So, I'll I'll save that suspense. Uh but we'll work uh between Shane and Anna and and John on an application that that they're comfortable with and and maybe different things, right? Anna, as you said, maybe a a use permit for a drive-thru or something like that or or certain standards or Yes. So, there there's a lot of work to do, but we we are going to bring look forward to seeing you again. It'll be a nice presentation and you can tell me you don't like it again. But uh

we didn't say we didn't like it. Oh, he did. Not not the president. You like the president? No, I you will you will probably see me again. We'll put in an application, work with all of you. Uh I am with the law firm of Gamage and Burnham. Shane and John and Anna all do know how to get in touch with me. If you have any followup through Shane that you would like to share with me or contact me directly, um please it is a complicated topic and and we have lots of emotions over it. But thank you very much for your time. I appreciate you guys taking the time on a long night to hear from Thanks for being here. We appreciate it both of you. Uh next, uh Madame Clerk, item 12B.

This is the study session regarding the compensation and classification study recommendations. Thanks. And Liliana Sto um our acting human resource director will introduce the market study u with consultants from Valiant. Yes. Good evening everyone. As you all know, we've been going through a comprehensive market study. So tonight we have um Kim De Phillips and Mike Canfield with Valiant to present the findings to you. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. We um we're excited to be here. So uh on behalf of our entire team, the valiant team that's not all here tonight, just two of the partners are here.

Yeah. Just get a little closer to the mic. You can move it and then and the whole podium comes up. Right there with your right hand. That little button. Oh, yeah. Right. No, that one. There we go. Not too high. Okay. Well, we'll share. Go. Got it. Middle.

Okay. We'll we'll we'll compromise. So, thank you again and um uh for having us and thank you for selecting us to do this very important work. Our we're with Valiant Consulting Group out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We were selected back in October to do a compensation analysis for your organization and very pleased uh to be here tonight to tell you about the kind of the final presentation that we made. Although there's still some work to be done. I know you've got budget process and so forth, but we're here to give you a brief overview of kind of the 30,000 foot view to to give you some uh results of the findings and some of the options looking forward to maybe make some adjustments. So again, before I go any further, I just want to give a shout out to your um your town manager. Um Shane has been great. He's been involved the whole time. Liliana from the HR department has been involved. And in fact, uh your directors have been involved. We've met with them. Uh and great courtesy, but more importantly, great involvement. And the more involvement we have in this type of study, the better the quality comes out. So we think we've come up with some good ideas and some good options for you all to consider. So, what I'm going to do, uh, my name is Mike Canfield and I'm the president of the corporation and, uh, Kim Dealupus is one of our partners and she does, uh, project management, oversight, and make sure that we're on the right path. Uh, Stacy couldn't be here as the certified compensation director that handles that department. Um, she had a previous engagement, so we're going to cover it for her. And I think I need to see if we can uh, operate the slides. There we go. Okay. So just um briefly over the agenda that we'll talk about tonight um we're going to review the deliverables um the analysis itself some key concerns that we were brought up initially we'll talk about those um I'm going to talk a little about or I'll I'll um let's see I'm going to talk about um external market evaluation and then the structure recommendations which is really talking

about a market structure and how we design that but then we want to get to Kim and really talk about the meat of the the part of the report isn't that where you are competitively with your salaries and what it would take to become more competitive. Um and and Kim will cover some of those cost numbers that we've worked out and then there's a request for review process that we've gone through. We've also evaluated some of your policies and uh we have some we we've submitted some implementation. So that's what we'll cover tonight. We'll be brief. We know probably between you and maybe a late dinner. Uh but we'll be thorough and we'll be here as long as you'd like to answer any questions you have. We know this is a very important study for you. So

with that, I am going to turn it over to Kim. She's going to talk about we did a we did a study about mayor and town counselors, which is a difficult one to do. There's not a lot of data out there floating around, but we did do some good work. And I'm going to let Kim talk about that. So

great. Thank you, Mike. I think before we move into that, which one am I? There we go. I think in in front of you, you have a copy of the executive summary report. Perfect. And the areas that are covered in that report are listed here. We're going to go through each of them hopefully in enough detail that um you won't have any questions, but if you do, please feel free to ask. So, the deliverables in this project, we start out um getting to know you as best we can, getting to know your positions, what you're about, your strategies, your objectives, and we pull together a master list of titles. And that's what we're we're pricing in the market is the the positions that you have in your organization. Uh the market review is really the heart of what we do. And that's looking at your jobs in comparison to other comparable jobs in the market. And we'll talk about how we do that and how we identify the market um shortly. We um prepare for implementation is essentially what we're doing at this point where we spent a lot of time with your management team, your leadership team and HR um determining what was the best way to implement this program for you. Uh we looked at your policies. We have provided an implementation plan. Um because we recognize this isn't something you all do every day. We want to make this change management as simple as possible. Um, and then of course we've Mike already mentioned the communications were fabulous with your team. So with that, we'll move into the mayor and town council review. We essentially looked at comparable Arizona cities and towns and we based the cities and towns that we looked at. We based it on population size, but also on those areas that were really regionally relevant. Uh certainly like Morirana was mentioned as a a town that was and I think I said it wrong, Morirana. Um as a town that was um regionally relevant. So those are the

areas we looked at for the mayor and town council. And getting right into the heart of it, what we found is your current salaries are listed there in the middle for mayor and town council and you're a little bit below the market average as you can see there. So just information for you to um to note. We also were asked to look at how many ben what types of benefits were offered for these positions. And from what we found with the cities and towns that we looked at, most do offer medical and retirement, some kind of medical and retirement plan for their mayor and town council members. We could find nothing that showed dental and vision and life insurance were offered to these positions. So there there you have it. Um, do any questions on this piece of the study?

Any questions so far? Vice Mayor, I find it interesting that you started with this one. They want to get behind them. Yeah, we'll get the toughest part first. Okay. I'm just pointing that out. Excellent. Okay. Yes. So, I'd like to ask a question. So with the mayor and town council w with the an employee um their market adjustment studies are done how often for the town for your town that might be a Liliana question but you have to come to the mic

from a historical perspective how often have we been doing it I don't want to answer wrong the last time we did it was about three years ago okay before that it was a while, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. I don't recall the exact years, but it was a while before the last one, right? So, really, it's up to us. It's up to us. Yeah. It's up to us to determine when we want to do the next one, basically. But I think there's been a commitment mostly, not for us, but for staff to try to be a little bit more regular on doing every three to four years. Three to four years. That's what I was thinking. Thanks, Lilia. Any other questions related to this topic? Nope.

All righty. Thank you. So, a little bit of formatting problems there, but when we first started back in October, started this study, we met with your HR department and we wanted to, as I mentioned, we wanted to learn as much as we could about your organization and we asked some several questions about why do the study currently? What challenges are you facing? What objectives do you have with regards to this study? And we came up with key three key concerns to address and to kind of treat as the overarching umbrella for uh the objectives of this study and the the problems we wanted to help you solve. So those were we heard that you wanted to have a compensation system that really is competitive and fits within your budget. Competitive not only with your external competitors but also and I shouldn't say competitive competitive with your external competitors and then also internally consistent. And that leads to the next key concern where we were to look at take make an take an in-depth look at your positions to ensure that you're paying fairly amongst your positions. So positions are aligned based on minimum qualifications, job responsibilities uh and that pay mirrored that. Finally, you were eager to h have a system that can be easily maintained over time. We think it's fabulous that you have a commitment to doing these studies on a regular basis, but we also think that you should have a system that is easy to administer and keep up to date, keep current internally so that you don't have to do these kinds of studies that often. We understand that they're expensive. So, this is part of what we'll be offering to you is training to help your HR team be able to keep the system up to date with changes in your market. I think with that, I'll be turning it over to Mike.

My turn. Thank you. So, as Kim had mentioned, one of the the really the objectives of this study, and we covered this with everybody, in fact, every meeting we've had, we've had this slide in it, the objective really is to be externally competitive and internally consistent. So, whatever we can do to maintain that and to achieve that is we know we're on the right path. So, I'm going to talk a little about market um determination and then I'm going to move into uh the structure, but I'm I'm first going to talk a little about where we went, how we did that. So, when we look at defining your market, there are really three things to look at. Location, industry, and size. We're not only comparing you, for example, to just cities. Um you're not com you're competing for employees for other industries. So, location is important, size is important, and not any one of those are more important. So generally um you're right there in the middle. So we our our certified compensation professionals do exactly that and use uh different data in order to come up with what is the market pay for each of your positions. What is the market pay for each of your positions? And I won't go through all of these, but you can see we use a a ton of salary surveys that gives us data that you can slice and dice right down to to counties, uh to cities, uh to type of organizations, and you can see we use nonprofit, we use um uh federal state type things. And then we also have uh comparable employers throughout the area. And then lastly on the bottom there, we have we've been doing this work since 1996, I think, and 1997. and we have uh a lot of data in the southwest um so and across the country. So those are some of the areas where we found the data to assess what your market is by position. So there are three things you can do in the market. You can either lag the market and pay below. You can match the market

and pay right at market or you can lead the market. We determined up early that we wanted to give you an idea of what matching the market would be. Once you understand what the market is, you can make these decisions, but you can't make them until you really understand what is market. And so, I think we've done a good job assessing that. And we'll share how that works uh in in just a minute. So, I'm going to I'm going to bounce ahead and talk a little about if I can move this up a little bit. I want to talk about this graphic. It's a compensation highway. What we've done is we've created a wage structure. And to start with, we start with the lowest paid position down on the left hand side and then we look at the highest paid position and then we draw a line from one to the other. We did this for exempt, non-exempt and executive. So you have three different wage structures. So that line is your market trend line. That's what market is going to be. Some everybody all of your positions should be paid somewhere on that line. The question is where and how is it structured? Well, we know that not everybody's going to be paid right at market. You have some people that are entry level. They just got out of school. They've never had a job. We probably want to pay them below market. The question is how much below market? And some people have been here been in their jobs for years. They're seasoned. They're excellent at their job. They have special um skills that you need. You need to be able to pay them above the market. The other question is how much above market do you want to pay them? You got to make sure that your responsibility is to be fiduciary responsible for your your citizens money that are being paid. So we we that's why we draw the top line is a maximum and the bottom line is the minimum. So you've got percentages which I'll share with you in just a minute of above market and percentages below. You can see along the bottom are grades. So we slice them up into grades so we can slot them in by market. And this is very

important. What we did is we looked at the position and slotted it in this line based on the market of what their position is currently paying. That's a total market-based system. Um, and we'll cover those little dots in just a minute. So, I'm going to go back up and show you really what it really looks like. I don't need to go over all these numbers, but you can see that what we did is we spread those. So, we've come up with grades um non-exempt any 1 through five and the range spread is 35%. That's a minimum to maximum. The midpoint differentials going up are 10%. So, you want advancement opportunities to move up in grades. You also want the ability to pay a little bit below market and a little bit above market. And that's what that spread gives you. So these are the numbers and I you don't need to go through those but you can see that it's a mathematical equation there and what we really want to draw your attention to is midpoint. That's that mid do dash dot line that you have um that is our market point. So, when we go out and search for a job for a an accountant or let's say a custodian or or something and we find that the the average is right around $18 an hour, we're going to slot them in any one grade one. So, that's what drives where they're positioned. We have one for exempt and we also have one for executive and all that's market-based. Again, midpoint is the one we want to pay attention to. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over, I believe, back to Kim to talk about after we do the study and find out where they belong, where are you all compared to where you should be on this line. So, Kim, do you want to handle that?

Absolutely. Okay.

I'll add to this and with a market study and and this is something we want to ensure that is clear. You'll see in I believe it's appendix A list of all the positions and where they're placed in terms of which grade. Now an employee could look at that and I think it's don't quote me on this but I think in any four you may have um a maintenance worker and also a marketing coordinator. Now those are two very different jobs. The key is they have market rates that are similar. So how their job is priced in the market causes them to be in the same grade. So with that I just wanted to mention that before we moved on. So the compensation highway is something that we kind of get excited about because it gives you so much information in just this one graphic. As Mike mentioned the dashed line in the middle is midpoint which just by looking at that you also know that's what mark it is for each of those grades listed along the bottom. The minimums are set. We we put a lot into thought a lot of thought into what the minimums and maximums should be. As Mike showed you in that previous chart, there is a specific range spread from the bottom to the top. And the midpoint differentials, which are the differences between the midpoints of each grade, are very specific. Once we've drawn this compensation highway or your structure on this graph, then we overlay it with a scatteragramgram of your employees pay rates. So each of those dots represent an rate of play, a rate of pay for your employees. This is a nice graph because it gives you that 35,000 foot view of how healthy is our organization in terms of pay. And quite honestly, you're doing very well. It's clear that you do pay attention to pay for your employees. And the reason I say that is because most of your employees are on the path. Those black dots are employees who are paid relatively close to the midpoint for their job. We do want to draw your attention to the green dots, which are those employees

who are paid below the minimum. We believe these are key. These are individuals who can go out into the market and probably find a job that pays more than they're getting paid with the town of Sawarita. So, they're just a little too far from the market rate. We recommend bringing them up to the minimum of the structure. That's the first thing we'll recommend. And we'll show you the cost of doing that in shortly. Likewise, on the other end, you see just a couple of red dots, employees that are paid maybe a little higher than we'd want to see in terms of the market. And while they may very much deserve their pay, we also want to pay attention to the your tax dollars and and you want to be spending your citizens tax dollars appropriately. So, we don't want to continue pushing the pay of those employees up too high. So, we color them red as in stop. Maybe you don't want to push them up too much higher than where they are. This is the highway for the non-exempt team. Now I've got the exempt team up there and they look just as great. You've got I think it's one green dot, one person that's below minimum and no red dots. So, as I mentioned, the key here is we recommend that you bring those green dots up to the minimum. Pay those employees that are marked in green at the minimum of the the structure. So, what does that cost? On this this slide, you'll see a pie chart that shows a breakdown of those same color coding, red, black, and green. And so, 20 employees are in green. 20 employees are paid a little too far from market. If you were to bring all of those 20 employees up to the minimum of their grade, it would cost just over $51,000. That's an annual one-time cost to bring them up to the minimum of the grade. If we're talking your total payroll spend, that's about 32% of your payroll. I do want to point out these numbers are base

salaries. They do not include what you pay in taxes or benefits. It is just a base salary market study. There's another column there that I want to draw your attention to. It says average compa ratio achieved. As you may know, a comp ratio stands for a comp comparison ratio, and it's a quick determination of how your salary compares to the midpoint. So, if you're being if if you're an individual employee and you're being paid uh exactly what market is, you're your comp ratio is 100%. So, if you were to bring employees up to the minimum, your comp ratio, you'd be paying your employees at about 95% of market. That's a perfect place to be. We recommend that employers be between 95% and 105% of market. Why do we recommend that? Because you're going to have people who are new. You're going to have people who have been around for a while. It's hard to be right at 100. So, this is a lovely range to be in.

The 20 employees that were below. Are they across multiple departments or or you know kind of central to one or another? They are across multiple departments. We have provided your leadership team with kind of a a lot of reports that break this data down. One of which is a departmental report that shows um some departments don't have anyone below minimum but but shows which which departments have more um it shows all of the information and shows the comp ratio. So um quite a few different reports out there that are accessible to your management team. Okay. Thanks.

Absolutely. Now, I mentioned bringing those employees up to minimum who are in green. I'm going to go back to a the non-exempt highway. If we take a look at Oh, let's just take a look at one of those green dots. Let's look at grade four, which is four from the left. You have a green dot there. Valiant is saying, "Bring that person up to the minimum." Well, I don't know who these people are, but let's just say that that black dot hanging out there at minimum is someone who's been here a while, and they may even be training that green dot who just started two weeks ago. Bringing that green dot's pay up to the same level as the person that's the black dot might not make that person who's training the green dot very happy. That's something that we call compression. It's where employee salaries do not differentiate based on what an employee brings to the do to the job. Their experience, their education, their knowledge. We've got we've recommended a plan for compression as well. And I will say this is something where your management team had a lot of input. We actually reviewed five different models of how to address compression. And the current the the best plan, the optimal plan that the management team felt is listed. I'll go oops I'm going backwards. I'll go ahead and the slides to show you the recommended uh compression mitigation plan. This plan looks at where employees were relative to the midpoint in your pre your current structure and ensures that you keep them whole in this new structure. So that if they were at say a 95% compar ratio in your current structure, we want to keep them around a 95% comp ratio in this new structure. So it's trying to be as fair as possible. We did cap it at midpoint. Um there are a few other items that are being looked at to ensure that this is a fair plan to everyone. So it's kind of a moving

target. Of course, also these numbers can change because you have people coming and going every day. But the bottom line to address compression in this manner costs about 200 and my eyes are going out on my 293 $293,000. If you add back in the cost of increasing employees temp um to the minimum of the range that comes out to about 344,000 which is 2.14% of your payroll spend. Again these are annual annualized dollars. Um, we will say that we recognize compre dealing with compression is a lot more expensive typically than just bringing employees up to the minimum. We realize it's a lot of dollars to spend and think about. So, um, hence the reason we had a number of different models provided to you all. We've given you a lot of numbers. We have a few more things to talk about, but before we move on, any questions?

Any questions? I'm I'm following it. Um, but any any qu Yes. Yeah. So um sir, you said that there are employees that are hired that are hired below market. Why would that be? Oh, sorry. Well, at the time we might not know what market was, right?

Um so that's why hiring somebody every three years to say here's market. Um I assume that you probably had a pretty good feeling that they were close to market. you're close to market because um you really look pretty good. As Kim said, we do this all over the country. Um and this is one of the best highways we've ever seen. So, you're doing this, whatever you're doing, you're doing it right, but every now and then you need to check to say, are we off market? Are we close to market? So, I think we've answered that. You're really close to market. And the green dots that we see here, we've see some because of uh rampid wage inflation and the end of COVID that didn't address it like you did. Their numbers are more like up to 10% of payroll per annual just to get green circles up. So I know that's a long-winded answer to your question, but I don't think anybody intentionally said we're going to hire you below market. That's just the esta that's the established price for that job. And we're telling you that particular job, not that individual necessarily, that particular job should be priced a little higher if you want to be closer to market.

And like you said, the market could have changed over the the three or four years. Um people not coming into the industry. Um so all of a sudden you had to, you know, ramp up, right? So we might have hired at the time, you know, really close to the bottom of the market, but maybe the highways moved on us. Um, from a from mayor's and council, I I I think I'll also add when we did our last market analysis

was at the end of 2021, you guys just implemented it um, prior to me coming on with the town. Um, that analysis didn't look at 100% of our positions. And so as as as well as we as well as we tried to um hire competitively, uh obviously if you're not if you're not evaluating 100% of your positions, there's inevitably going to be positions that aren't, you know, as close to market as we'd like it to be, which underscores the importance of every,

you know, every every three or so years we're we're retapping um you know, the uh what and analyze what the market really is. So, thanks. If I could one more, not done. Okay, please. The red dot, the two with the red dots, is that with overtime pay or that is just their straight salary. That's just the straight salary. Does not include overtime pay. I could you help me understand how that could happen

where somebody would have a red dot. So somebody could somebody could be in their in their position for 15 20 years and over over time they just get to that the top of their their range. One thing that that that this organization hasn't done historically very often is apply a COLA. And and we've talked about this in the past, the difference between a COLA and a merit. And we've lent we've leaned heavily on the merit side because we like the idea of of pay for performance. Totally understand. Um but all pay for performance does is is move somebody in the range. it doesn't move the range itself.

Uh it's the cola adjustments that end up moving the ranges. One of I'm sure these guys would uh you know uh end up sharing this with you by way of strategy. But for an organization after after having a a a market study analysis performed would suggest that to maintain that position you you apply a combination of COLA and merit so that your ranges move with inflation over time and you don't end up having so much of of this. Right. So,

and you know, from my military days, um, you know, you may not get promoted obviously every year, but we always got a cola. So, as you moved along and then you got promoted, it wasn't this huge spread to cover uh because if you stay in that position, there's inflation and other things. So, the cola was able to move us forward before we tested, you know, for another rank. Um I mean the problem with colas and as we all know it's great because it's moving the ranges which is very important for an organization to maintain compatibility right um competitiveness um but it applies to everybody whether you're performing or

or not. So that's kind of the that's kind of the Russell. If you're going to apply a COLA, you have to place greater emphasis on the need for the performance evaluation process um to hold, you know, to make sure that accountability is is is uh is stressed, right? And that and then you're looking at a hybrid, right? Cola can move the ranges, but then to keep those highly performing folks motivated and here then oop, sorry, then you have the um the merit, you know, on top of that.

Right. So that that's just our history and probably explains why we're seeing some of this. Although to to what we've heard from Valiant, a lot of our a lot of our employees are have fallen within the highway, which is which is a great thing to see. And that's largely due to the fact that the council has been supportive of of merit adjustments over the over the past four years, which has kind of helped people move in those ranges, but it just hasn't elevated those ranges because we haven't applied to COLA very often.

Yep. If I could, mayor, I'd mention that tomorrow Stacy is training with your HR department how to maintain this and it's exactly that. So, if you think about moving that range, the the all of the lines, the mid, max, and min up. You could do that through u an initial study with a partial amount. So, um or you can do it with the cost of living index, right? So, I think cost of living index came in for 2025 around 2.9 or something. If you did the 2.9 and moved it up, those two red circles would drop right inside, right?

So, you're very, very close. We see some red circles that are way off the chart and it could have been that they were demoted and they kept their pay or whatever. There's a lot of reasons, but um just to be commanded because you you managed this well. Uh even coming out of you know, COVID and the years that we've dealt with with high inflation and especially wage inflation, you've managed it well. And so those are really manageable. Those red dots are really manageable. They're going to get fixed pretty quickly, right? Yes. One more. That's okay. Please. Okay. Study session. Yeah.

Could you help? I'm trying to wrap my mind around your uh the con the concept of compression. Could you go over that again? I want to ensure that I understand fully. Absolutely. That's a great question.

Compression occurs when we have employees who are paid very similarly, but they have very they bring very different things to the job. So the example I used is if you look at any one of those green dots, they're under the minimum of the pay structure. We're going to say bring them up to the minimum. They need to at least be at the minimum. Unfortunately, some of those dot black dots that fall close to the minimum um may have and I don't again I don't know who who these people are but it's possible that when you bring up a green dot to the minimum the people that are f that are being paid currently right close to the minimum they might have bring more qualifications more experience more knowledge to the job that they're currently in. So if you have a green dot and a black dot that have very different qualifications or experience or skills being paid the same, it's really unfair to that person that's a little more qualified. So they're compressed. Uh we were actually I'm going to use a term that I fell in love with last week. We were at another council meeting where the HR director called it um squish. They got squished together. They were too squished together. where they their pay did not differentiate enough between uh between the two of them. So I don't know if that helps a little more.

Could I try one as well? Sure.

Um when I was on the school board when they had the mandatory minimum wage, you know, raising um obviously on the school side with facilities and housekeepers, there's more of those people kind of already at that minimum. Um so when the mandatory uh minimum wage kicked in, well, you might have been a groundskeeper for 3 years, right? So, you're making I'll make it up, you know, $15. But then when the minimum wage kicked in, that moved that new employee to $15. And you, Diane, are going, "Well, I've been here 3 years as a groundskeeper." So, it it costs the district about a million dollars um to fix the compression to to kind of move that range. Um and you see certainly see a lot more of impact on it when you have a lot of people close to that minimum to that level to that minimum wage. So all of a sudden you kick them up. Well then somebody's already sitting there and then you got to move everybody else up or that person who's been there three or years isn't probably too happy that all of a sudden I came in and I'm making what you did and you've been a good groundskeeper for three years. So So it's that compression that all of a sudden kicks up and then now that

squishes it squishes. Yeah. The Yeah. technical term. So the thing to think about here and why it costs more is the green dots are few. When we start doing compression, more employees are going to get um a bump in pay to get them spread through that structure probably where they should be to get unsquishy to get unsquishied. Thank you. We've got a new term. So does that did that clear it up? Yeah. The compression. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Moving forward, we um let's see where are we? We also have a process in each of our studies. It's called a request for review phase. We presented a preliminary report to the management team. And as it was almost a final report, but we gave them what our findings were and asked them to ch come back, take a look at it with a fine tooth comb, and if there's anything they wanted us to they wanted to challenge and have us take a second look at the market, we did so. Um, for instance, we know that managers every day are hearing from employees, I saw a job down the road and it paid this and if they wanted to submit that and have us take a look at that, we did. Um, during this request for review period, we received 29 requests to review our findings a second time. Um, what we'll do is go back, take a look at the market, see if we can find any more data to support what you're asking us to do. if we can. We made that change in the final report and supported um whatever the request was. There are times however when as we mentioned before this the key thing that we can bring you in this study is what is the market what are market rates. So if we can't find data in the market to support a request we noted that and kept our um recommendation the same. So the request to review is essentially just an opportunity since we're not here every day, you all are to come back and um say to us, please take a second look at the at what your recommendations were following that request for review or while during that request for review period while your management team was looking at our initial findings, we were also looking at things like your policies, your compensation policies. We've provided the management team with a redlinined version of your compensation policies with some recommended best practice wording. And I won't go through all of these, but um kind of the key one, and this is what Mike was touching on is that top green

middle guidance for adjusting the structure over time. Stacy will be showing your HR team how to look at the structures compared to market and look at inflation, cost of labor, cost of living and determine how much to increase the structure by every year, every two years. Um during CO we are recommending that people look at their structures at least every year whereas typically it's closer to a year and a half to two years. Fortunately, we're a few years out from CO and it's maybe settling down a little bit. So you can look at it every maybe two years or so. Additionally, we've provided an implementation plan. What we've seen work at other organizations in moving away from their old structure and adopting this current structure. Of course, the first step is approval. We recognize there are some budgetary talks that will be coming up soon and that that will probably happen during that time frame. Um looking at the feasibility of of this our recommendations and then approving the structure. Next would be to prepare for implementation. Actually choose a date when you're going to implement. Um ensure that everything is in order in the in the back rooms. You know, making sure you've got forms or HIS systems are set up to handle these changes. All of those things that need to happen in the background before actually flipping the switch and implementing the structure. Also, under implementation, we mentioned train supervisors and communicate to employees. Something we pride ourselves on is making this system as easy as possible to not only administer but also explain to employees so that employees understand why they're being paid what they're being paid. So we recommend having all of this communication happen before you actually flip the switch and implement the program. Um the first thing we recommend after adopting the program is increasing those employees that are below minimum up to the minimum and then working with compression.

Typically it takes a little bit longer to increase um to provide compression increases and then maintenance. We've spoken about that already that we'll be teaching our HR team to do kind of what we do. Um if you have new positions, how would they go out and look at the market, slot that position into your structure? Um we're also providing a tool that is the valant salary placement calculator which is um a method. It's actually anel excel spreadsheet with your structure built into it. So when you're hiring promoting an employee there is a starting point. Let's put in what the job is. Let's put in what the candidate brings to the job and determine what's an appropriate pay rate to pay them. It's not an end all be all, but it's certainly an objective recommendation to help your management team, your HR team determine what's an appropriate pay rate. So, we'll be we've provided that to them as well. It's something that we guarantee for as long as we're both in business that um if you increase your structure in two years, let's say, by 3%, all Liliana's got to do is send us the an email and say, "Hey, we upped our structure by 3%. Can you reprogram the the salary placement calculator? We will do so at no no cost to you. I think I'm going backwards again. I think that's everything.

Thanks. I know we heard during the um budget retreat um like in the PD, you know, we had um you know, people within the scope, but then like commanders and I think lieutenants were way outside. Um, if every department had something like that, was that part of one of those 29 questions or re-evaluations to go back out or how did how did those all land with me? I I think that yes, I mean, we got probably um request reviews from several different departments. If you if you jump on the microphone, that'd be great. Thank you. We got requests from several different departments and probably the PD was one of them, but we also sat and presented this information to the directors as well.

And so they got to look at it before they sent requests for reviews. Okay. Um, so we did get 29 of them and we addressed all of those in the final report with either a yes or a no. I think we approved most of them, but some of them we may not have if there wasn't data to back it up. But yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Well, it looks like obviously you put a lot of work into it. So Shane, from your perspective, having all this data, what will you be looking at when we go to our next retreat on kind of that hybrid, I guess we were talking about before on because obviously we only have so much revenue, right? So you have new positions, we have uh bringing market, you know, we have cola, we have merit. How do you what what do you want or need from us tonight? um based on all the information that we've heard and what will your recommendation you know be for us to take a look at and get back to you on you know various data points that we were presented. Thank you mayor members of the council. also want to express a a heartfelt thank you to our our partners, our consultants um valiant in their in their efforts to bring to us um what is market in considering all of the positions in our organization. Uh, one of the things, one of my goals with uh, a market analysis like this is um, is is how can we implement the recommendations as a whole? Because uh, all too often an employer that goes out for a a project like this gets the gets the results and then decides that they're only going to peace mill it. you know, one year we'll take care of this section, one year we'll take care of this section, another year. By the time you get full circle, you're already behind the eightball.

You got a lot more green dots again.

Yeah. And it's it's just really tough. And so when Valiant said that that we've we went through five different scenarios in terms of how do we implement each one of those had a had a a price tag to it. And and so we we landed on um a fifth hybrid type option that was explained to you earlier where we're going to bring everybody if they're under midpoint then then we'll try to maintain their current position in their range. Uh that's going to affect quite a few of our employees but but not all not everybody. Um so our um we still have to crunch our numbers in putting the budget together. Um we have a couple of tools available to us. Uh you know the department heads and leadership team have all come together and realized hey our priority needs to be taken care of the the employees that we have.

Um and you know as you as you saw during the the budget planning retreat there's obviously demand. And there's obviously um justification to add more employees to our to our ranks because our community continues to grow and the demand continues to mount. Um but in in remaining competitive and being able to keep and retain our employees, there's a significant investment that the organization makes when we bring a new employee in. Attrition costs, right? um you lose that investment and you have to go back out and retrain again and there's a there's a pretty hefty price tag with that.

So if we can maintain competitiveness in the market as an employer, it it just helps us um in a number of ways. It helps morale, it helps productivity, build culture, build culture, it just helps in a lot of different ways. And so um the emphasis this budget year is going to be okay. Um it's going to be a larger ask on our employees because demand is growing, but it's um it's it's an intentional decision to say, okay, rather than go and hire new employees, we're going to take those resources and we'll apply it to this solution. Mhm.

On top of that, that's not going to be enough. And we kind of heard that uh at the planning retreat. So, um we're also getting kind of creative. Um uh we're assuming that the council is going to also once again be supportive of a merit adjustment for the for the employees. Um we know that the the state approved a minimum wage increase that was that was effective January 1st and that was about a 3.1% increase.

Um that means that compression is really playing out that we talked about, right? If um if we're not moving our ranges, but now we have to hire at this level because that's minimum wage, there's a possibility that we're hiring new people in at a higher salary or or hourly rate than than what we hired, you know, hired somebody last November. Right. Right. And and that's a that's a problem.

And so, um we're going to recommend taking some of those resources and applying a COLA. I can't tell you what percentage right now because we're we got to see how the numbers play out. But taking some of those resources and applying a cola in in uh in the first of the year, so July 1st to try to um soften the impacts of the inflationary number that hit us in in January. And then next January, we'll take a balance of that allocation of merit, put it into a merit for pay pay to perform. and then and then take resources that we've discover that we've found through um through scaling back on on day operations um so that we can pay for the entire um implementation and we'll have that effective July or January 1 as well so that which is a strategy because then you're only you're only facing half of a year of of financial impact and allowing yet another year to recover from that. So, um it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. But, um but that's our strategy. And so, an outcome from tonight would be making sure that your questions are answered

from what you've been presented. Uh and then knowing a bit about our strategy and what so that when you see that come to you in the form of a a recommend a recommended budget, you'll know where it's coming from and why. And uh and hopefully it'll be presented in a way that garers your support and we can move forward. you know, in terms of a budget.

Thanks. Well, I know a lot a lot a lot of work, you know, goes into putting all this together on behalf of staff and having this data obviously to help them, you know, is very helpful. So, I would anticipate being presented something that we're probably pretty comfortable with because, uh, we have to have a balanced budget, right? and we have to uh you know I know you're engaging with the employees on something that's balanced with uh what can we afford and kind of the direction that we want to go on retention and those types of things. I mean I I will tell you that um you know some of our some of our highest attrition has occurred over the years in our police department.

Mhm. Uh you heard during the budget planning retreat that recruitment has been highly successful over the last uh 12 to 18 months. Um but I I would argue that it's all it's been it's been improving for the last several years. Um this this study has resulted in a recommendation that that further is going to help that cause and in terms of the starting salary for our our officers,

right? Um and and it's going to so right now I think we're at a I think we're at a $57,000 number in terms of starting salary for our officers. If you look at where um Oral Valley is now, Oral Valley has a a labor agreement um that that forces the organization to uh be 95% of the of the the market. And I think they look at state and and Phoenix area as well as this this area.

Um they they always increasing and it's always this this cyclical battle that occurs in terms of hey you know um where does where do our officers start and I think they're around 64,000.

This study I believe puts us around 63,000. And so if you look at where Morirana is and where Tucson and where Ora Valley is, it's right where we ought to be in terms of our size of an organization in comparison. And so I'm really pleased to I I believe I have those numbers at least in ballpark. Um but the outcome is going to really help us in terms of our continued efforts to address the attrition, make sure that we're at a healthy rate, um and that we're staying competitive. And I'm I'm pretty excited about that.

Thank you. any further discussion? I know we're going to have, you know, another two-day retreat and then, you know, the final budget will come to us. Um, but is everybody comfortable kind of what was presented and the direction that staff is moving um from there based on their own inter excuse me, internal conversations they're having with department heads and staff. Liliana, did I miss anything AC Beth from a budget team standpoint? Okay. All right. No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Safe travels back. Thank you. Having no more further business, we're journ.