Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening council and concerned citizens. My name is John Turman. My wife Carol Berg and I moved to Quail Creek a little over two and a half years ago because we wanted to enjoy a quality 55 plus retirement community with among other things a wonderful view of the Santa Rita Mountains. At the time we purchased our new home in Quail Creek The sales staff made no mention, verbally or in writing, of the proposed Hud Bay mine. However, if we had been aware of the proposed mine, we would not have moved to Quail Creek or Sourita. While not located within the town of Sourita, as you know, the mine will have grave effects on our health, the environment, the wildlife, our water, and our air quality. This brings me to my main issue. After researching the many negative impacts the mine will have on our community, the issue of depreciating property values near an open pit copper mine is a very concerning real issue for all of us. My research from sciencedirect.com has stated that property within the vicinity of a new open-pit copper mine could see a 10 to 30 percent depreciation, not to mention the increased time on the market to sell any property. My current retirement plans are now very much in question. We feel mislaid and betrayed by a council that is hiding the negative effects of the mine instead of doing the right thing by informing us and fighting the disastrous effects of this new open-pit copper mine. We implore the council to consider the depreciation issue among all the other negative impacts of the proposed HUD by mine before welcoming Copper World as a thoughtful investment in Sarita's economy. Thank you.

Thank you. Noah, and then Rich Corrado.

My name is . I've lived here almost 20 years. I want to talk about a few things, but we'll start with I want the names of the 10 officers that shot the playground. I've asked for it multiple times. You should just tell people. The community needs to, they deserve to know the transparency of, yes, our officers were negligent with their firearms and shot into a playground. You should just give it to us. I don't know why it's so hard for you just to list off the 10 names. I know you gave us Medina. You gave him employer of the year when he got indicted for it and put his picture on the wall. But give us the other 10. Give us all 10, the other nine. And whether they, like him, chose not to participate in the investigation and what their jobs were. Because there were three fire instructor officers there. And they don't think they did anything wrong. You guys have neglected the bad behavior of them. And let's be honest, all of our police officers from our chief down. Our leadership's been bad in this police station office, starting with the chief. So that's the first thing. Second thing, I had to spend a day cleaning up the washes. And you know what I found? A lot of fentanyl foil. me and the person that picked them up, maybe that's where we should be focusing our efforts, is cleaning up things that are dangerous, that are in our communities right behind Ross's, that had bags of mail there, stolen goods, lots of trash. But let's not just blame the people that were there that were bad behaviors there. The wash wasn't maintained by the city. There was junk and debris and trees. And that's not the only wash that wasn't maintained properly by the city to maintain our town. So let's fix our washes. Let's go after things that matter. Let's not go after things that Like, I don't know, the last paper full of every little kid that's riding his bike and trying to go after the kids that ride their bikes for being too fast, too dangerous, too loud, too whatever. I'm more worried about fentanyl and foil and the drugs than I am about kids having fun on their bikes and getting from place to place. But our chief has just messed up with his priorities, and you've supported it. Now let's talk about the survey. That's my real reason to come here. The survey was crap. You know I said the survey was awful. You did a survey before. It said that we wanted the bond. We didn't. And then what Shane said is, we'll do it anyway. We'll either push it through a bond again. And then you had another survey saying, why didn't you support the bond? And then Shane met his will. And we're redoing the police station that we voted against. So yeah, it doesn't matter what people say. You didn't listen. And you just vote for it anyway. But let's go through those things, because you said it all turned out great. Everything was down. So does the government act in my interest? It went from 25% to 16%. That's a 56% decrease. All town aspects dropped. Every single department in your town dropped significantly, except for Lisa Coles, who went better. And you didn't even acknowledge her and say, good job. Your department actually improved over four years where every single department dropped, especially the police. But no one dropped worse than the courts, which in shame said, Well, the people are upset at the courts. They must be doing a good job. Well, maybe that's not true. Maybe people are upset at the courts because there's an issue, which you guys directly hire and can do. So I've got more things to complain about. You'll get it in the email. But the point is, your survey said you guys are doing bad across the board. Your safety dropped by more than 86%. You have multiple statistics that dropped across the board. And you chose to ignore it and say, we're doing great. It's bull crap.

Rich Corrado and then John Doherty.

Mayor Murphy, town council, town staff. As the situation becomes more self-evident, residents voice clear opposition to HUD-Bay Minerals' Copper World Mining Project. HUD-Bay's trust by this community no longer exists. We watch what they do, not what they say. The Colorado-Arizona project water will remain unreliable at best. The new pact between California, Arizona, and Nevada will make little to no difference. Yet HUD-based still claims to their support of project renews and cap water to restore diminishing aquifer to 105%. This is misleading. Using HUD-based website figures, they claim they will use 3 billion gallons or 9,400 acre feet of water per year. But Project Renews only has a 7,000 acre foot capacity. Where would the additional 2,400 acre feet, 800 million gallons come from? It doesn't. It is mathematically impossible. If HUD-BAY cannot prove its ability to restore the aquifer to 105%, it is in breach of contract. Additionally, construction was initiated on Project Renews in 2014. To date, it is only 25% completed. Explain how completion is reached by 2029. And what about your quiet plans for the data center? Again, where does all this water come from? HUD-based position appears bold, defiant, and non-compliant. Can they be trusted? Remember, trust not what they say, watch what they do. Water rates will increase. HUD-based states they will pay for all the water they use. They are inconspicuously high to the fact that such a large amount of water to a particular region begets a higher price for availability and delivery services. Are residents ready to pay an 8% increase to subsidize HUD-BAY? Now let's shift gears to the concept of power. The mining industry typically derives all its power from the grid, so naturally I found it quite interesting to learn that at the last TEP Center RETA connection hearing on May 26, TEP's filed application for additional power has expressly excluded any mention of the Santa Rita substation. It was implied the substation was for residential growth. Now we find out it's to supply a copper mine. I found it equally interesting that the power line ends adjacent to Copper World's switch yard. This would allow Copper World to build not one, but two 138 kilovolt stations. This is an enormous amount of energy. And even though HUD-based states they will pay for all the electricity used, rates will increase for the same reasons as the water use, availability, delivery, demand. At this point, I'm trying to understand who's more deceitful, HUD-BAE, TEP, or this council. I frankly find this council's failure to inform the public about crucial facts regarding the Santa Rosa substation and its insidious support of the copper world to be, in a word, despicable. Why with no financial, physical preparation, or compensation should this community pay with our health, our wealth, or our future? We trust not what you say, but we are watching what you do. Thank you. Thank you.

John Doherty and then Judy Middleton.

Good evening, Mayor. Well, the Vice Mayor's not here. Members of the Council? Staff? She's in the ether. Okay. My name's John Doherty. I'm Executive Director of Save the Scenic Santa Rita's. Well, we now know that HUD, Bay, and TEP are going to jointly build a substation that will power Copper World. But we didn't know this until I found an email buried in more than 1,000 pages of documents on May 26 that was filed less than six hours before the public hearing for TEP. And what that email showed us was that this council or this staff has known prior to March 12th that this was going to happen. And that email said, hey, refresh my memory. It was from your development services director to TEP. Refresh my memory. When were you going to, where are you going to locate the co-located stations? On what land? So they knew that the TEP Santa Rita substation and HUD Bay's switch yard were going to be brought together and it was going to be located on TEP's land. Now on January 12th, your staff met with TEP and they discussed Copper World. It's in TEP's report. What did they tell you, Mr. Dilley? Anything? Because you didn't provide any information about Copper World to this community at the January 26th meeting. Staff said nothing about Copper World. And TEP said nothing about Copper World, zero. And at the end of TEP's presentation, this is what the mayor asked.

Just because I know there's some concerns, this is really just connected to having future capacity and growth. This is not connected to Hud Bay in any way, is it? No, it is not. Okay, thank you.

I'll play that again, just so you all get it. I can't play it again right now. But, you know, you made it sound there that it had nothing to do with it. The average person sitting here would go, I guess it has no connection. Well, I knew that the TEP substation and the Santa Rita and the, uh, HUD-based sub-switchyard were next together because it shows it on the map, which we passed out to everybody. You can see it there. And you could see it there. This town knew that these things were co-located together. This town knew that this was going to be a joint effort. And this town did not tell anybody. No one. And why? Well, I can theorize, and it's a theory, that the plan was to shift the cost of this $18 million power line from HUD Bay, which is going to be the primary beneficiary, to the rate payers. And I believe that this town and this, particularly you, Mayor, facilitated the belief that they were not connected at all. So we would like to hear from you. What did you know at the January 26 meeting about this joint substation? And if you didn't know about it, why didn't you know about it? And if you did know about it, why did you say what you said that misled the public? Thank you for being here.

Judy Milliton, yes, and then Paige Humphrey.

I've got to put it down. All these tall people.

That's okay.

So good evening, Mayor Murphy, council members, staff. Yeah, just speak up a little bit. Okay. Yeah. I know. I have a quiet voice. So, Mayor Murphy, council members, staff, and residents. My name is Judy Middleton, and I live in Quail Creek. My husband and I moved here in 2014. We fell in love with the area and the view of the majestic mountains, the Santa Rita Mountains. And I have to say, I think they're magical. I've always felt that way. So unfortunately, we loved living here, we love living here, but unfortunately that's now in jeopardy. Our idyllic area is now threatened by the Copper World Project that could change character of our community in ways that are simply unacceptable. Heavy truck traffic running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, which will create constant noise, road hazards, and dangerous conditions for our residents. The dust and air pollution from mine operations and unpaved roads. For older adults with respiratory conditions, this is not a minor inconvenience. It's a serious health risk. The degradation of our scenic surroundings and natural landscapes directly diminishes the quality of life and the property values that drew us and thousands of others here. After the Pima County Board of Supervisors formally voted to oppose the Copper World Mine Project in January of this year, county leaders passed a resolution to send their opposition directly to the company. in mid-may of this year pima county administrator jan lesher sent letters to hud bay minerals its major investors including tokyo-based mitsubishi corporation and canadian regulators to formally warn them about the unresolved risks and irreparable damage of the proposed copper mine copper world mine in the santa rita's The warnings outline significant corporate and project risks, citing water supply uncertainty, ongoing litigation, severe environmental impacts, and tribal and cultural opposition. Our community chose Sarawita to enjoy our retirement years in peace, health, and natural beauty. We ask you to stand with Pima County and with us, your residents, and make clear that the quality of life for residents of Salarita and the surrounding areas must come first. Please ensure that you are doing all that you can to live up to the stated mission of Salarita, which is right behind you, and it doesn't look like it right now. but it's dedicated to being a vibrant, innovative, and diverse community with exceptional municipal and fiscal leadership, public safety, amenities, and economic prosperity that creates an outstanding quality of life for all.

Thank you.

Thank you. Paige Humphrey.

Good evening. Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Paige Humphrey, and I'm the outreach coordinator for Save the Scenic Santa Ritas. Thanks to a March 12 email exchange between town staff and Tucson Electric Power, the public now knows that TEP and HUD Bay Minerals are planning to jointly construct the Santa Rita substation as part of the Santa Rita Connection project. The email exchange, buried in TEP's 804-page Certificate of Environmental Compatibility application, indicates that the town knew about this joint venture at least as early as the date this email was sent. In the email exchange, Salrida Community Development Director Ana Casadei asks, can you please refresh my memory? Is the co-located substation proposed to be built on the parcel owned by Rosemont or the adjacent ASLD parcel? Cassidy's use of the phrase refresh my memory suggests that the town knew the substation would be co-located before this email exchange took place. If the town of Sarita has known about HUD-Bay and TEP's joint venture since at least March 12th, and likely much earlier, why hasn't the town disclosed this information to the public? The people of Sarita deserve to know about this project from the town government, especially when this joint venture could result in residential rate payers subsidizing HUD-based costs to connect Copper World to TEP's electric grid. In TEP's certificate of environmental compatibility application, there is no economic analysis of how much of the $18 million cost of the Santa Rita connection will be borne by residential rate payers versus HUD-Bay. There's also no discussion of how much money HUD-Bay will contribute to the Santa Rita substation construction. I urge the town to immediately prepare a detailed report on when town staff members notified council members, including the mayor, about the HUD-Bay TEP plan to jointly build the Santa Rita substation. This information should be publicly shared as soon as possible, but no later than before the next town council meeting on June 22nd. Thank you.

Thank you. Having no more further cards, I'll close the call to the public and go on to item number six, which is council and town manager brief summary of current events. Council member Lytle? Nothing. Nothing. Council member Rose?

Yes. In light of the recent new information that we received both here tonight as well as in our emails, because TEP was the first time I ever heard TEP connected to HUD-BAY, I would like to have TEP invited back to our next council meeting on June 22nd so they can clarify what they say, because I feel like as a council member I've been misled by TEP with the information that they gave us on May 11th. and I think the resident should also be aware of hearing from TEP what their connection is from them with HUD-Bay. If, or what, or whatever, all the questions that everybody has. And then I do have some more things. Okay, keep going. I want to make sure people at least got to hear that. I also wanted to say and I appreciated the U of A and the Eller College of Management inviting us to the breakfast that was very inspirational listening about from our economist I really love the presentation that they gave but I specifically really enjoyed the panel that spoke about what's going on so I wanted to make mention that and then also both Diane councilmember Perla and I have been part of the civic craft and this month will be our last meeting in person and then at the conference in August I believe we'll have like a little graduation or something but I do want to say that if they're opening this up and I believe they are for the next year I really encourage people to join because it's been really very it's just a leadership there's been a great way to meet people across the state and pretty much every quarter we get to meet in person otherwise we're meeting on team so just wanted to put that out there thank you thank you appreciate it councilmember priole

Mayor, I'm sorry, can I ask a clarifying question on the request? Yes. So is that basically just resetting the clock or resetting the agenda from the May 11th meeting and just having them come back in and allow the opportunity to restate or answer questions and then give the council an opportunity to weigh in on which of those options? Is it a redo of May 11, I guess is what I'm trying to ask, or is it a different kind of meeting?

I think it's a combination of a redo to give us more clarification and more enlightenment of what all these maps mean. And I also think I would like to get more information, I'm not gonna say honesty, but more information about their relationship with HUD-Bay. If there is one, if there's not one, how is this all playing out, especially with the emails that did come to us, and what does this all mean?

Yep. That enough clarity for you? Yes, please. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it.

Diane, did you say you had anything?

No. Dr. Gillespie? No. Nope. I'll piggyback off of the... Oh, yes. Thank you. Kara, did you have anything to report?

Not this time, thank you, Mayor.

Okay, thank you. Well, actually, it was thank you, Debbie Morales. I forgot you were up there. Again, I thought it was enlightening, the yellow breakfast on the state of the economy and towns that are growing and actually Tucson shrinking a little bit, which I found interesting. uh... i did get to attend the police academy graduation we had four uh... graduates one i've known since he was a fifth-grader which was interesting decided to come back to the community and service another one was a son of one of our police officers so i thought that bode well for us that they were recommended and that particular one was the student uh... the class leader uh... of the whole class so that was fun i did get to attend a ribbon-cutting for precision plumbing It's always nice to have ribbon cuttings with our chamber, and both of them are citizens, residents of the town of Sararita, starting a new company. And also, being on the Salvation Army Advisory Board on the National Donut Day on last Friday, We gave out 64 dozen donuts to fire, police, and Northwest Hospital. So that was a nice event. And our next scheduled meeting is June 22nd. And Shane, did you want to add anything?

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Just note that the June 22nd meeting is the last meeting before your summer recess, and then the following meeting, I believe, is going to be August 10th. So we'll have an item, I think, on the agenda for June 22nd to amend that schedule, or no?

To bring that August meeting back by a week because of the league? We don't?

Oh. Perfect. Well, your next meeting will be August 10th after that, so enjoy your summer. Yeah, just a couple of things real quick. Your Board of Adjustment is a body that meets as needed, which averages once every one or two years, so it's not very often. When they do, they will be meeting on June 9th to review a request for a zoning variance on regulations relating to monument signs in commercially zoned areas. The reason why I'm bringing this forward to you is the Board of Adjustment ruling is final unless the applicant decides to appeal, in which case it would then come to the town council for a decision. So I just wanted to put that on your radar as a potential out there. I hope all that process goes well for the applicant. And... I just, I also, so we got the Stars and Stripes event happening during the weekend of July 4th. We're looking forward to that. We have just a reminder that parking will be restricted on the Camino de las Quintas Avenue like we did last year with shuttle pickups occurring. So we're looking forward to this. The special things for this upcoming Stars and Stripes is We're going to have 250 drones marking the 250th anniversary for our country, which I thought was very appropriate. And, of course, our fireworks display is going to be bigger and better than it was last year in response to that. And 250 flags out. yeah of course and then the parking and maintenance yard expansion and pickleball court design at the animax Park has been submitted to the Planning Department for review so we're making a lot of progress with that and we hope to have a contractor in place in July to complete the work this summer so just keep that on your on your radar that's it mayor thank you appreciate it next is item number seven madam clerk

2026 legislative session update.

Karen Cruz of the Cruz Group is here to present the item. Usually Luke would introduce you, but I know he's on vacation, so.

He is on vacation. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. As the Mayor said, I'm Karen Kruse with the Kruse Group, and I am your contract lobbyist down at the State Capitol, and I'm really honored and thrilled to be with you tonight. I don't usually get to do this, as I'm stealing a little bit of Luke's thunder, so I just really appreciate being here. I just wanted to go through a couple of quick things, but first I want to share some late breaking news as of late Saturday night they do have a budget it is done they are going to be dropping the budget bills tomorrow and they will be wrapped up by Friday is my understanding so we will be thankfully done with the legislative session as of Friday that's the that's what I'm hearing that's the goal so so far we have been in sorry let me move that so far this is a little bit updated from when Luke put this together we are at day 148 as of today session has been going on. 1,998 bills still have been introduced. There have been 188 of those that have gone up to the governor. Of those, actually 125 have been signed and 63 have been vetoed. The bill moratorium has been lifted. They took about a month break to roll up their sleeves and discuss the budget and try to figure out the big themes of the budget and then get in a room and squish it all together. So they took that month to do that. And I also want to take a moment to personally thank Councilwoman Priolo. She has been just really fabulous this session, and she has spent time and been down at the Capitol and had meetings and been carrying our water with our messaging up here with members that represent Sowerita whenever she's run into them. And so it's just been tremendously helpful, and we really appreciate your support and help with that. Just a few of the bills, a couple that we were watching that were favorable to the town was Senate Bill 1016, which was a strike everything. It was a municipal improvement district's petitions. That is still sitting and awaiting action on the floor in the house. This week, they also have about 100 bills that they still have to churn through. So they will be, in between the budget, they will be dealing with some of the other bills that are still percolating out there. Hopefully this is one. The other one is 2720, House Bill 2720, the Prostitution Assessment Anti-Human Trafficking Fund. That one was actually signed by the governor on June 4th. So that's good. Some of the ones that we're not particularly fond of that we're also watching is Senate Bill 1418. That has to do with small modular reactors, and that was a local control issue that we had concern about. That is also waiting on third read in the House, so it's one of those that's still percolating out there. It may or may not get heard. I'm not sure what they ended up negotiating about that one Senate bill 1566 malicious delay That one was signed by the governor on May 29th That's a local control issue but the bottom line is most cities didn't really maze raised that much of a fuss about it because it was They were already doing the things that the legislature, this bill, was asking them to do, which is just not be malicious in delays of issuing permits and things like that, which we don't do. Most don't do. Senate Bill 1624, photo radar enforcement, civil penalty. That one also continues to wait action in the House. It's still sitting on the waiting for cow action. And then House Bill 2999. um that was one that that we as a town engaged in this was allowed developers to form infrastructure finance districts this was signed by the governor also on june 4th and we were disappointed but we were one of the only voices expressing concern out there about it we thank you again for your support of issuing or submitting veto request letter to the governor outlining our concerns about the bill and why we wanted her to veto it but in the end I think we were one of the lone voices which is okay that's a good thing but she ended up signing that one And then ongoing actions and monitoring budget talks. I just shared with you the late breaking news about the budget. What I do know about the big issues Data centers was, and the tax credits around data centers, was the largest issue. It was the biggest boogaboo between the governor's office and the majority in the House and the Senate that they were trying to wrangle how to manage data centers and the proliferation of them going forward. Where they ended up, the governor's office began from a position of wanting to eradicate the tax credits going back, so any data center company that had an existing tax credit, yank that out, which is not a good business, that's not a good look for us as a state from a business perspective, and then proactively going forward, issue no more. where they ended up is a three year moratorium. So for those that have a tax credit currently, fine. For any that are in the pipeline, okay. But for any, there's gonna not, there's no additional certificates that will be issued for tax credits for three years. The tax credit program, expires in six years anyway so there'll be three years of a moratorium and then beyond that they just have three years to discuss how and if and what they want to do with the tax credit program going forward from there so that will be for the next administration and the next legislature to try to figure out we already talked about the veto request letter on 2999 and then the other thing I just wanted to quickly touch on is is the, and again I want to express appreciation for permission to engage in this dialogue. There was a bill that passed last year that mandated utility companies submit a wildfire mitigation plan. They were trying to limit their liability in the event that they started a wildfire and so we were wrangling around what that language would look like last year and again thank you so much we were at the table we watered it down so they are now in the process of submitting they have submitted those wildfire mitigation plans TEP had theirs I think last month There was a hearing down here about it where they presented it. DFFM, the Department of Forestry and Fire Management, hosted all of those open hearings around the state. They chose to do an accelerated rulemaking process which means they had a one hearing for public input and that was it to learn about for these utility companies to present on their wildfire mitigation plans to get input about them there was no real robust dialogue around it. And so the stakeholders that are involved, including Pima County, Coconino County, Sourita, and others, in addition to the insurance companies, the trial lawyers association because it matters to communities for a variety of different reasons we are gathering a letter that has been drafted and we're securing signatures on that letter to the governor requesting that she pull back on approving those wildfire mitigation plans and go back to a real rulemaking process we don't know that that's going to be successful but it's important that she hear our voice about our concerns about the process as it has gone through so far because it really hasn't been much of a process and that puts us at risk as a city and I believe that is all I'm happy to stand for questions and again I really appreciate being here tonight yeah I know what were some of the differences the governor

was trying to dig in on, and I know the majority was digging in. There was education, there was ESAs, there was some other things. Any other big takeaways on where the compromise ended up being on some of those other issues that you're aware of?

mr. mayor yep sure they on prop 1 2 3 for example that had been discussed through through session they had been lobbying back and forth you know what they wanted out of out of that the Republicans wanted to memorialize school choice in the language which would have memorialized it in the Constitution and And the Democrats and the governor said absolutely not. The governor, on the other hand, wanted to restrict the ESA program in the language and memorialize it in the Constitution. And that, to the majority, was an absolute non-starter. So they decided to just kick the can down the road. They decided not to just table it. They're not going to deal with it this year. They'll wait till after the election, see what the landscape is, and then they'll resume conversations that the the program expires at the end of this year this fiscal year so they will just figure out to put 300 million back into the budget they did decide to figure out how to backfill that I don't know exactly how they ended up doing that but they ended up back filling that 300 million and back into the budget Data centers was really the big, big issue. And then there were some other little ticky-tacky things that they disagreed on. Conformity, I don't know exactly what they did with conformity. I'm waiting to kind of hear more about that.

Oh, yeah, I was going to ask about that, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know where they ended up with that. I know the governor's was talking about her proposal was full conformity for one year and partly because she didn't really have a choice because her Department of Revenue issued tax returns to everybody and so there wasn't really a way to dial that back. I don't know where they went from there. I know that was part of the negotiation, though, and how they tried to figure out how to backfill some monies and et cetera to pay for some of the programs. I know also there was a, what had been proposed in the Republican budget about a month ago was a straight across 5% cut, agency cut, across all agencies. They negotiated a 2.5% cut across most agencies. So law enforcement, police, fire, those sorts of entities ended up not getting cut at all. And all of the universities, originally there was talk about University of Arizona being the only university to take a cut. There was some politics and some flaring tempers about something that U of A had been doing, but they ended up negotiating that it was a 2.5% cut across all public universities. So that was another big thing that quelled tempers around picking on U of A. And those are really the big themes.

Yeah, the other one that's from this region is Rio Nuevo, and that was a big... Do you know what happened to that?

I don't. I don't. I'll find out.

Yeah, if you just find out. I'm just curious. Yeah, yeah.

I'll try to find out for you, for sure.

If that survived or got jettisoned from it.

Yeah, I'll try to find out for you.

Any other questions for Karen?

Mayor, I think on the support to request a veto from the governor on 2999, it was interesting as I was talking with my counterparts across the state as to why other agencies weren't kind of picking up the banner and running in opposition to this. And I guess early on it was negotiated that The league would largely just take a position of neutral on that if the bill itself held municipalities financially harmless. In other words, usually with these CFDs, these financial... programs, there's something that backs those types of investments. And historically, with these kind of districts, it's the public infrastructure that does that. And so as long as municipalities aren't held responsible financially for that, then the league was taking a neutral position, which apparently wasn't the case initially, but they negotiated that in. I still in my mind struggle to see how this is all gonna play out if a local developer wanted to utilize this tool. Right. You know, does the town take that? Does the municipality take that infrastructure before it's all paid off? You know, because then... What if it goes bankrupt or something, right? You know, the only way I could see it really working is if the infrastructure that's paid for by that developer is held private. Until? Until the bond itself is paid for. And then if the town wants it at that point, we may not, right? You know, 20 years down the road, we may not want that infrastructure.

Or like we do even on a year turnover, we... demand that be up to new standards, so to speak, but I don't know how 20 years from now you hold it to new standards as we do now.

Yeah, and then when we do our community facility districts, we incorporate into that cost an ongoing maintenance component. Who owns that? Are the developers going to do that so that there's a mechanism to maintain that stuff over time? So anyway, a lot of questions, but at the end of the day, the bill that was adopted is one that is clear that it holds the municipality financially harmless.

I'm guessing the first one we'll see new will be FICO maybe someday, but that's probably a long ways down the road.

Well, I mean, you know, the new specific plan, you know. Oh, that's right. You know what I mean? Any kind of new development coming in. Even small pieces of it. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, it's just going to be interesting to see how that plays out. The other mechanism is still obviously a viable option for a developer, too, if they want to do it.

Right, because it's really their, Karen, it's really their choice, right, whether to format themselves or allow us to keep doing it. Correct. It's permissive.

Right. Mr. Mayor, yeah.

Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. Great. Appreciate all your help.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Item number eight is our consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion. You were just testing me. I passed, thank you. Motion to accept the consent agenda.

I'll move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries. Next, Madam Clerk, item number nine.

Annual report from the Sotterita Teen Advisory Council.

Well, I appreciate their patience and I appreciate Mr. Felix being here and introducing the item.

yes good evening mayor and council is that is that mic on mark it just sounds okay please okay yeah um this year's uh just want to highlight one change that we made with stack this year is that a stack moved from parks and rec to town manager's office and the goal of doing that was to make the committee more collaborative effort among all the departments So during the year, each department was assigned a STAC meeting during the year. And what that meant is that we helped guide the agenda and just make sure that there was good discussion among the group. For example, town clerks participated twice. Our first session with STAC was to let them know what a town clerk does. We dived into all of our duties, what a town clerk did. And then we followed that a couple months later, giving the STAC an overview of our elections. And one of the things that we dived into was just how to get more young people to vote. And we encourage STAC members who are 18 to register and be a participant in our elections. And it was very fun and very engaging. I know that's gonna be part of their presentation is their collaborative efforts with all departments. So with that, I am pleased to turn it over to Stack for their annual report.

Good evening, welcome. You saw a little bit of our government at work this evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Councilman, and staff. As Mr. I'm so sorry, I don't remember his name. Felix. Felix stated, yeah, we are stuck. And we did go through a bit of a change this year. But first, this is what we did. So we did have community development come. And we got to see the maps and zoning plans. And we were able to understand how land is designated for different uses. And we were able to just look at the different colors and what they mean, as well as try and find things on the map, which things look a lot different. And then we also discussed future plans, such as the proposed zoo in Sarita and what that would mean and how it would affect our community.

We also learned a bit about the town clerk as Mr. Felix went over. We talked a lot about elections and how those went and how we could encourage people to vote. We also talked about the town records and public meetings and how those went and a little bit about permits and how those were assigned.

So our first official event this year was Winterfest. And so we were able to run a booth with hot chocolate, candy cane syrups, and our annual Wishes to Santa chain. All of it was a big success and was more organized and prepared compared to last year, as well as we decorated our float, Candy Cane Lane, the night before. And overall, we all had a really fun time. And it was a successful event where it went smoothly.

And I didn't die on the float, so that's a good day at the end of the day.

Yes, the float was safe.

OK, so for our public works, we had Daniel and I don't know how to pronounce it.

Well, it's Nalo, but that's probably not the correct spelling, but that's OK.

It's OK. We learned about speed limits, signs, street signs, and how they were selected and installed. We also discussed wastewater management. and learned about the new trash system and implementation of the light at Walden. And we also talked a little bit about the do not block box in front of Sarita and how that was freshly installed when we were talking about it too. And then we had a field trip. We went to Public Works, and we saw the different stages of water treatment, which was... Pretty interesting, I bet, right? It was very interesting. It was not all appealing, but that's okay. It was very interesting to be able to see how everything was treated, and we also learned what chemicals they used, and how the water was used afterwards, and how the fertilizer was used afterward as well.

global water is going after you. They'll talk about all the clean water and all the good stuff happening.

And then this year, as part of the learning more about government, we did get to have a town council, a mock one. So Mr. Lytle and Mr. Dilley came and spoke going for or against, I want to say it was apartment buildings. And so we kind of got to see what it felt like to be all up there and have people telling us how to think. and which way we were supposed to think. And we're not gonna lie, it was a lot of pressure, but it was really fun and it was really interesting to learn by doing.

And have you decided to run for election in the future after that?

We'll see. Who knows? Okay. And then at that same meeting, we did get to listen to you, Mr. Murphy, as well as the town manager, and get to learn about how we have a council manager form of government here and what that meant. Thanks.

We had a different stock meeting where we discussed law and court, and we had explained to us how the different court systems works and the different branches and how they contribute to the local government. Yep.

A new thing we did get to do today was this year was our shadow day. So I got to go to the town manager's department and I got to discuss with our town analysis how the different bills affected Sarita, such as the wildfire one. was one of them that we discussed. And then I also got to talk about future plans with Mr. Dilley and the path that our assistant town manager, Ms. Beth, had from engineering to assistant town manager, which was really, really interesting.

We also had some of our STAC members went to community development. And they learned about approval processes for businesses. And they also reviewed town safety protocols and the procedures in the different departments. I got to go to Parks and Rec, and I learned about the different parks and how they manage facilities and the different activities they had set up for all of the public. They had different kids ones and teen ones and adult activities, which is really interesting to learn about.

And then our final event this year was our annual teen memorial. And once again, our Tanner Bell Carr Foundation came out and we were able to provide cookies and lemonades and we had floating lanterns for people to decorate as well as the luminaries. So overall, this year's stack was shifted its focus towards learning more about local government compared to previous years, which had centered more on planning and running events. But while we did enjoy learning about how the government operated, we discovered that we especially enjoyed hands-on activities and being more involved in the community. And even we noticed the meetings where we were learning about the government, but doing hands-on learning, we really enjoyed.

Next year, we were hoping to participate in organizing more events, and that would be able to help bring awareness of STAC and bring more teens to be involved in the community and be able to appreciate what the town is doing for them as well.

Thanks. How's the recruit? I know it was the applications were open, right? Yes. How are you doing on receiving applications number-wise and such?

I can't tell you for sure because we don't have access to that, but we were able to put, I at least put the applications in my AP government classroom where Mr. Nelson, the teacher, told me that there were quite a few people applying. So hopefully we will have a higher turnout this year.

We also had at Sarita High School, we had it put into the announcements so anyone who was interested and heard about it was able to find the papers that they needed to be able to sign. Yeah, great.

I believe the deadline was this past Friday. This past Friday? Yeah, so I'm sure things are getting tallied up.

And I know, you may not know the answer, but, and the stack's coming to the annual conference as they typically do, correct? Yes. Yeah, we look forward to that. With the display board. So you're working on the display board yet?

Not yet. Not yet, okay. We will probably start in July when the stack reconvenes.

Right, great, thank you. Well, obviously we appreciate all your involvement. Not killing me at Winterfest was an extra perk. But no, connecting in, learning more about the town, both elected and staff-wise. Staff pays much better, so if you're gonna go one way, go staff. But no, we appreciate your involvement, and you're the future. We're gonna age out. We're already aging out. So really appreciate your willingness to learn more and hopefully get involved. Any questions from any of the council members? No? Yes, Ed.

Okay, which one of you will be mayor?

I got that. I did serve as president this year.

Great. Well, thanks for being here. Oh, I'm sorry.

I just want to say you guys are doing great work. Good job.

Thank you.

Yep, thanks. Keep it up and keep the tradition rolling. I've been very proud how the numbers change. have stayed strong, as well as you being the flag bearers at the annual conference. Not all towns do that. I don't need to be up there, so I appreciate you're the ones carrying that and representing us, because again, you're the future. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you for having us.

Madam Clerk, item number 10.

2026 annual report from Global Water Resources.

Thank you. And Mr. Nalavalli will introduce our representatives from Global Water Resources in Saguaro District Water Company. I had actually forgotten that you had changed the name from, I think of it still as Las Quintas, but...

Yeah, just before I get started, I want to say that was a great presentation, and that's a great program.

So that was pretty awesome.

And maybe going forward, you know, we can connect in global water maybe for part of the tour, right? They saw the messy side. We can show them the cleaner side, right? Sometimes the messy side is more fascinating. Absolutely.

so good afternoon mr mayor council and staff my name is eric burkett regional water excuse me regional manager with global water and today we'll be giving you the high level annual report And with me today, so also in the audience we have John Corwin. He's our VP and general manager. Jake Lenderking, he's our VP and water resources and legislative affairs. He'll be presenting the water resources piece to this presentation. I'm sure everyone's interested in that more than what I have to say about capital improvement projects. And then we also have Alvaro Gaxiola, sorry about that Al. He's also one of our newer employees and he's also in the audience. So I just wanted to give a, Just a high level overview for perception for folks that might not be familiar with our service areas. So we do have a small blue piece that's west of the I-19. That is our Suaro Las Quintas Arenas water system. And then we have a large section to the east of I-19, and that predominantly makes up our Farmers Water Company system. And then also in the area, we have two smaller pieces to the east, and then a smaller Tetris piece to the north, and I'll touch on those in a little bit near the end of the presentation. But right now, the Farmer Water Company serves just over 3,500 service connections. Coupled with the Las Quintas Arenas utility, we serve close to 5,000 customers, and we do anticipate, obviously, organic growth in the future. So I'm gonna go over the memorandum of understanding. I'll talk a little bit about the community outreach that we participate in the community, talk about the 2025 capital improvement projects that we focused on, what we have planned in 2026, and then Jake will provide a water resources update. So in April of 2022, the town of Sarita and Global Water entered into the Memorandum of Understanding. That's really where the foundation of our partnership was formed. In the four years that have transpired, we have also entered into two voter-approved 25-year franchise agreements, as well as a 10-year lease for 8,000 square feet at the Samtec facility. So the first slide I'm gonna share is just some of the things we do in the community. We usually participate in between five to 10 events a year. The feedback's been positive. It actually, the feedback improves each year the more we get out there and promote water conservation. One of my favorite ones is the Cerrito Water Festival with the middle school. um i know vice mayor isn't here but if anyone's ever been a school teacher i just want to say thank you because after about six hours i was exhausted and wondering how people do it full time and now i'm just touching some of the 2025 capital improvement projects so here if you look at this list you can see we did extensive uh our focus was extensively on a lot of our well rehabilitations and replacing of equipment. We do have a couple other larger projects that were sprinkled into this, but our main focus was focusing on our source and our supplies. And then I also added in here, I know everyone's aware of the Dawes. Jake's team did a few years worth of work on that, and that finally went into effect January 1st of 2025, so it was a good way to kick off the year.

Eric, would you explain, not just for the council, but the public listening, what the Dawes is, please?

So it was a designated assurance of water supply. We were able to prove that we can supply 100 years worth of water to the community. And then I will let Jake expand on that a little bit more. He is the subject matter expert. One of the first projects that we did this year was we added emergency backup power to our continental WDC, which is our water distribution center. This one, I was pretty happy that we were able to accomplish this, because our largest customer is the La Posada community. um so it's important for some of those residents there to have uninterrupted uninterrupted water during a power event because of different medical needs etc and then i kind of i slipped this slide in it's it's a cross cut of a well because most of the projects i'm going to talk about are going to be the well rehabilitation and pumping equipment replacement it's not the shiny exciting capital improvement project but it's a very important project So essentially in this screen you can see you got your borehole and about halfway down you can see the perforations in the casing. So over time mineral deposits start to form on these perforations and it starts to reduce our pumping capacities. So we try to, approximately every eight years, take a well out of service, remove the equipment, inspect the equipment. Then we wait 24 hours. We send the camera down to take a look at the casing to make sure there's no holes or anything that needs to be replaced. And we can also take a closer look at the perforations because, like I said, they start to choke off. And it kind of gives us an idea of the timeline it will take for us to clean those. And then once that's done, we replace all the pumping equipment and we put it back into service once it passes the bacteria compliance test.

So do you have the ability to clean those perforations so many times and then at some point you actually have to replace the pipe and pull it out and put new water down there?

Yeah, it really depends on the water quality.

Okay.

So I've seen well casings up to 50 years old that are still intact. I've seen some that are 20 years old and need to be re-sleeved. Right. It really depends on the water quality and constituents in the water, pH, acidity. So the first two wells that we rehabbed were in the Farmer's Continentals and what we refer to as Cerrito Public Water System. So the Continental well is the one that supplies La Posada with their potable water. And I'm sure some of you have seen the Cerrito well. It's adjacent to the El Checos on Cerrito Road. So the equipment in both of those wells were approximately eight years old, which is about the average life expectancy. So, and typically what we do see after we do the maintenance on them, we do see our production increase. It's not significant, but it's no longer decreasing.

Right. You know it's working, at least it worked, right? Correct. To do that.

Yeah, we want our capacity.

Right.

So some of the other issues that a lot of water utilities are faced with is redundancy. We've had conversations with FICO. They do have an old ag well in our Santa Rita public water system that they allowed us to investigate to determine what the water quality is. So we did what is called a spinner test. Essentially we zone off different quadrants of the aquifer and we take samples to see what the water quality is. Nitrates and arsenic are very common constituents in Arizona water. So the early indications from the engineers that are working on this We may have found a zone that is below the MCL or the maximum contaminant level for both arsenic and nitrate. So we're going to keep investigating that more. And if this is something that we could purchase to add redundancy to our system, we would do so. And again, I know I told you we did a lot of well rehabs. This is another photo. You can see some of the piping and the pumping bowls. Nothing glamorous, but this was our LQS well six that we rehabbed and replaced all the equipment.

Sorry, Eric. I know there was fire flow challenges. I'm going to touch on that. You're going to touch on that? Okay.

I knew that one was coming. This is also at our swirl system. This is also at the LQS well six where we do have arsenic treatment. Over time, the electrical components and the screens that control the equipment start to fade. So we took the opportunity to upgrade it. And so now we have more visibility and it adds a lifespan to the equipment. Just a couple other things that are going on in the area, not within town limits, but I had touched on the two smaller pieces of service area to the east that fall in the sea cap. The developer that actually owns the land is transitioning all that to solar, but we have started phase one with Sunbelt in what we, this is the Tetris-looking piece is what we call Verano. It's probably about 20 minutes from here. You just take a ride down Serena Road and north on Wilmot. So phase one has started. The first phase will be 477 homes with a estimate of 2,000 new homes coming here in the future. So Mayor Murphy, so you beat me to the punch. So here's some of the projects we're working on in 2026. The two big ones. The first one is we're at 90% design for uranium treatment removal system in our Saria public water system. We're not over the MCL yet, but we're getting close. So to be proactive, we decided to take the initiative and do the treatment. The design will be completed this year, and we anticipate construction to be completed in late November. And that'll remove uranium effectively and keep it safe for the public. Some of the other small projects in our land.

And on that, Eric, because there may be questions about that, is that just unnaturally occurring at various parts in the United States, so to speak?

Right, yes, the decompensation of rock formations in the ground, correct? Same with arsenic. So some of the other projects we're working on, we're really trying to find new ways to prolong our equipment, our pumping equipment. So we are actively investing in what we refer to as the soft starts, and we're putting them on numerous booster pumps and well equipment. Essentially, all this equipment spins at over 3,700 RPMs, and when the equipment starts and stops, it's instantaneous. So there's quite a wear and tear on the equipment. These soft starts actually ramp up the equipment slowly and ramp the equipment down. Then in the LQS, everyone's probably driven by and seen the old standpipe on Twin Buttes. So that equipment, I believe, was installed in the 60s and we've currently upgraded one of the standpipes and we're gearing up to upgrade the smaller standpipe. And then going to the LQS fire flow question. So a couple years ago we did do hydraulic water modeling on the system. There's a lot of challenges. The pipe size is under capacity. The storage tanks, they do not provide enough capacity for fire flow. So what we've done is we've finalized the scope of services with Corolla Engineering, and legal is currently getting ready to execute the master service agreement. But the scope on this project is we know we can't just go in and build fire flow in three years and have that type of rate shock to our consumer base. So the scope of this project is to find ways where we can incrementally make improvements over a five, a 10, a 15, and 20 year period. We'll slowly start bringing fire flow services into the system, improving the system. and trying to minimize the rate shock to such a small customer base. I forget the initial estimates. If we were to just go ahead and do it, I want to say it was somewhere in the 30 million range. That was just to get us base fire flow. So we're hoping with this approach we can start doing things over a period of time and eventually get there. And then the next slide is a rate review update. Just for transparency, we're sharing with everybody that we're planning to go in for a rate review in 2027. And we estimate the new rates will go into effect in late 2028. Part of that rate consolidation is we are going to consolidate Fibrous Water, the Saguaro Water District, and the Ocotillo Water Company. Once these companies are consolidated under one business entity, it gives us a larger rate base and more flexibility with our capital spend. And as part of our outreach, we've already started reaching out. We meet with all our stakeholders. We're in the process of scheduling with the HOAs with over 100 dwelling units. I've already reached out to La Posada, and we have a date on their calendar to have a conversation. And then after we meet with the HOA, La Posada will be meeting with the Pima County Supervisors, because in some of our outlying areas, the Pima County Supervisors are their only representation.

Mr. Mayor, can I ask a question on that? Eric, can you go back to that slide? Does Global Water see the potential I mean, it could be a long ways out, but the potential for LQS and this consolidated company to actually have shared systems where they're connected and it even further enhances the company's ability to make improvements where improvements are needed.

Yes, this is a great question because if I could have interconnects with every water system, I would. It's really geographical. So we do have, I mean in the future there's a potential for LQS and the farmers to be connected. Some of our other smaller utilities, we have an abundance of utilities in the Three Points area. It's really just, it is geographical and when you start running water mains, you know, a mile or two miles, they start to add up pretty quickly. But redundancy is always top of mind, for sure.

We had talked about the potential for the farmer's company and LQS to connect via El Toro, right? Is that kind of what you were thinking? Yeah, correct. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, in the future, correct. You know, I've talked to other water departments in the area asking if they have excess capacity. You know, there's also an opportunity and something like that. right sorry about the uh i know the cip part was this didn't seem very shiny and fun but uh if we can't pump it out of the ground we can't get it to the public right now i'll hand it over to mr lending king for the water resources update thank you thanks thank you

Mayor and Council, thank you for having us. I'm Jake Linderking. I work on Water Resources and Legislative Affairs for Global Water Resources. Today I'll touch on a couple of different things here. One will be just a little bit about who we are from our philosophy, getting into our designation of Assured Water Supply that you'd ask about. A little bit on legislative piece and then wrap it up with just a really quick piece on Oh, partnership, and we're working with Greater Green Valley Water Stakeholders. But first, I'm going to spend just a minute on what an acre foot of water is. I always use the term, and I always forget to define it. It's enough water to cover one acre, one foot deep, or about 326,000 gallons, really about four homes for a year. And often, you'll see it abbreviated MAF for Million Acre Feet or KAF for 1,000 Acre Feet. So jumping right in.

Councilmember Priegel had a question.

Thank you, spread the word. Had an old boss that used to say that acre feet are like leagues under the sea, no one really knows what that means. Right. So who are we? We were founded on the philosophy that water is scarce. This is an ad that Global Water ran in the early 2000s, and people didn't like it. But we recognize that scarcity is a fact of water. There's a finite amount. And it informed our philosophy of total water management. So really thinking about how we can deploy recycled water where possible, strong conservation programs, AMI, or smart water meters, paired with innovative rate designs that include conservation rebates. So the key there is the smart water meters give people the data they need to make in deciding how much water they're going to use throughout the month. And there's that conservation rebate kind of gives customers a target. When you combine all these things together, you can see here from our largest utility on this bar graph on the bottom right, the blue bar to the left is our gallons per capita per day in Santa Cruz Water Company, the utility in and around Maricopa. And the average for the Greater Phoenix going down in Pinal AMA is 214, that blue bar more towards the middle. So we like to think that our approach works and it really inspires conservation and keeps things moving. I hope to have a similar graph like this here after a few years of data. Moving into our designation of assured water supply. This is a very rigorous process at the Department of Water Resources to prove up a 100-year supply. You have to meet each one of these criteria, whether it's physical availability, legal availability, and continuous availability of each water supply you're pledging. I won't go through all the rest, but I'll mention down there is a consistency with the goal of the active management area. I'll touch on that and how that interacts with our DAWs and customers today. Before I jump to the next slide, I did want to mention on physical availability. We worked on a regional groundwater model with Montgomery and Associates for about a year before we applied to the Department of Water Resources. really refining all the puts and takes to the whole regional aquifer over a hundred years and then we took that model to the Department of Water Resources then proved that we have this water supply and they reviewed it asked questions asked us to make changes and so on and that process the Department of Water Resources also took just about a year.

Did I just hear you say that you were able to prove a 100-year water supply?

That's correct.

Could you explain how you do that?

Yeah, yeah. This physical availability test, this first bullet here, uses a very sophisticated groundwater model called MODFLOW. It's a widely accepted way of interpolating and understanding the aquifer through many data points of many different wells and pump tests that have happened across the aquifer. And the model is trued up with real data regularly. So this process that the Department of Water Resources require applicants use has been going on for decades. This kind of modeling is really sound science and people get PhDs in this kind of stuff. So they use this regional groundwater flow model. It would go from all the way up towards Red Rock along the I-10 all the way down just a few miles south of us. and east all the way to Vail, and we're up against the mountains on this side. So it's this regional model where all the existing pumping that DWR has data for is all actually modeled to be pumping out. And then they also take all the applications approved and pending for analyses of Assured Water Supply, issued certificates, and issued designations of Assured Water Supply. Even water that's not being used today, but there's a permit issued. and they pump that out year over year in this model for a hundred year model run. And then where's the depth to water at the end of that? Is there enough there for what you're applying for? Yes or no. And that's the overall process. It's extremely robust.

Could I just piggyback off of that one because You've been listening probably all of tonight, right? And it's come up a lot that HUD Bay can pump 6,000 acre feet a year. And there's Project Blue on the east side, up in Marana potentially. So how do you model, some of those would have been already on the books, so to speak, right? So you would have taken in, for example, Hudbay into there, but also future residential, would you have included like Sarita Farms having 15,000 homes eventually into that? Now obviously when they go there, they're going to take agriculture off. And my understanding is agriculture uses 70% of water in Arizona. Towns and municipalities, about 22%. And industrial, commercial uses about 7%. So obviously, from a water perspective, trees go away, homes come in. We're probably better off, but you're the expert, I am not. But just going back to what's on the books and what the future might look like, how do you model all of that to come up with your 100-year, you know, assured water supply? Because, you know, you're hearing with CAP and Lake Mead and all these things that some think, you know, we're going to be an arid desert with no more water. Can you just sort of touch on that a little bit?

Yeah, yeah. Mayor, council members... If you don't mind, let me hit on one more slide. Yes. Or a couple more slides, because some of those questions are in here. OK. The modeling piece is what's known. And a big part of that was our designation of assured water supply for here. And then I think a couple of these slides will answer a couple of those questions, and then happy to go over more. Great, thanks. OK. So we, as Eric mentioned earlier, we did receive our designation of assured water supply at the end of 2024, effective January 1st, so we're under our first full year, and we proved up that 5,306 acre feet per year. So we're using today just about 1,000 acre feet. So what happens in the groundwater model is it's showing us actually pumping that out every year, year over year, even though we're not using it. So that's how you prove it up. Overall, we were able to, with our designation, shrink the overall water footprint right here in the immediate area as there is an existing analysis of assured water supply that was much bigger that FICO held for the overall development. Again, we're going from a process of not again, I guess the first time I'm saying it here today, analyses of assured water supply that developers or landowners would hold and convert those slowly over time into certificates of assured water supply, one subdivision at a time, where we now have a designation of assured water supply that covers our area and an area of expansive growth, as you can see, that the 5,000- Could you repeat that?

I got lost on that one from the certificate to the- No, that's okay.

It gets complex and I totally understand. In an assured water supply process, in order to get it, there's two different main application mechanisms. One is the landowner or developer would apply to get a certificate of assured water supply. Okay. Often they'll have an analysis of assured water supply before that. And they'll just, with the certificate, might be for, say, 100 homes or 200 homes. And they'll just kind of do little pieces like that, go through the whole ADWR modeling process, prove it all up, and just do a little piece at a time. Designation of assured water supply is by the water utility. So we went out and got a designation of assured water supply that kind of transcends or covers the whole area for a much larger piece. We wanted to ensure that the water was there. So when we did that, we actually, FICO reduced their analysis of assured water supply because now we have a designation for the growth in that area. So overall the permitted pieces of assured water supply went down a little bit. We also have a replenishment obligation that was there before. There's a little bit more for the things that weren't subdivision use. Now those will be part of that replenishment piece. And ultimately, a designation of assured water supply as a conduit for bringing in new renewable water supplies in the future. If an area develops only on certificates of assured water supply, there's some volumetric accounting principles that DWR won't allow for different renewable supplies to be applied in certain ways. It's a very complex issue, but having a designation of assured water supply really kicks the door in on that issue and allows us to be able to import more.

I know I've heard over the years paper water. Is that something similar or am I off base? Because You know, you can have paper water, which is not wet water, that actually is going to be on the aquifer. Correct me.

Yeah, with the 5,306 acre feet, we proved up physical wet water. Physical wet water. Yeah, the groundwater modeling is based on wells drilled into the aquifer and pump tests over many, many years. Paper water is kind of like having a long-term storage credit in one part of the basin, but maybe applying it in a different part that maybe the water might not be there. Right, thank you. So I mentioned replenishment and I mentioned consistency with goal and I covered a little bit about certificates of assured water supply. This is one thing that'll change for our customers and residents here for the farmers water company service area, the area we received the designation of assured water supply. This wouldn't be for the other areas like Las Quintas, Serenas, a separate company and separate growth profile, if you will, and also the other small areas that Eric mentioned. This is just the farmer's water company piece. So previously, all of those individual certificates of assured water supply, had to enroll in the CAGRD for replenishment. And that is a piece that each individual landowner or parcel, each house, actually pays for that groundwater replenishment on their property tax bill. It's part of how a certificate of assured water supply basis moves forward. Now that we have a designation of assured water supply, that property tax piece goes away. They're not going to pay individually. The bill comes to us and will ultimately be on the water bill in the SWS. So it'll be all lumped in together. So it's one small change where previously they were billed, landowners billed, I believe in October and April. and now they'll be billed on a monthly basis. It'll be rolled up into the bill, and it'll be closer to the time of use, which is important for when you buy a commodity that it's priced with when you're doing it. Just touch on the legislature, and then I'll get to Ag to Urban, which is another piece of the legislature, which I think you'll be really interested in. There are a lot of bills. We heard that earlier. I won't get into it. I'm really kind of happy that most have failed. I really appreciate our state's deliberative process. A couple I wanted to highlight, Senate Bill 1137 updates the 811 process. That's the call before you dig. So I'll just put in a little... Little thing there, please call 811 before you dig. People hit water lines and power lines and other things. This updates it, hopefully makes it a little bit easier for communication between large projects and utilities, helps prevent underground utilities getting hit. Aggravated assault is just what it sounds like. That's where assault on utility workers actually moves up to a higher charge as aggravated assault. There's been some utilities around the state having problems. I didn't even realize that. I never heard of that. I didn't either, and they shared some stories with us and asked us to support it, and I'm happy there. Some other folks are running it and leading it. Both of those bills are passing with bipartisan majorities. They should probably go this week. By all indications, they sound like they'll be part of those last minute bills that were mentioned earlier. And the last one's one where, you know, it's been near and dear to my heart. It doesn't apply right here, but hopefully these kinds of principles can apply here in the future. It's PICWA bonding. It's Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority. So it's been an entity that's been out there and had bonding authority, but it was a little bit misconstrued. We were able to tweak that a little bit, and now for that entity, they can go out and perhaps buy and import water and help make that area a little more resilient. So there's some principles there I hope to duplicate here. Now moving into Ag to Urban. This is a bill that passed last year in the legislature and was signed into law. It creates this new program called Groundwater Savings Credits. And the reason it happened is because there is so much water savings. Down here it says estimated 70 to 80%. It really varies from farm to farm, but the average farm is using about three and a half acre, feet per acre. Some much, much more, some less. And those GSC credits are only going to be allowed for 1.5 acre feet per acre or one in the Phoenix and Pinal active management areas. So you can see a huge reduction from 3.5 to 1.5 or 3.5 to one. And we support it. We really wanted to be down here in southern Arizona. Unfortunately, that didn't happen in the bill. There was a provision in the bill that allows for the Department of Water Resources to create rule to add it here. And we're hopeful that he'll do that in the coming years. Last thing, and then if I didn't hit on what you were looking for, I can speak more to it for sure. We're really happy to be working with the upper Santa Cruz providers and users groups, mostly a group of utilities working with Reclamation on this Green Valley and Sarita regional area study. It's a follow-up study to a previous one that was the upper Santa Cruz study which covered well into Tucson. That one was published and so now we're moving forward with this with a more precise aim. That one had a bigger aim of let's understand it, let's have some general ideas what to do to add resiliency and sustainability to the region. This one is specifically how do we get more water in the ground? Arturo Gabadon at Community Water has been great to work with on it. Donna has always been kind of the whip, making sure we all get there and attend, and poking Reclamation to keep them going. And Reclamation has funded this and is working with us on it. We have another meeting coming up on Friday on this. And I'm hoping in the years to come, we'll talk about how this study led to additional sustainability down here. And with that, I think I'll take any questions or turn it over to Eric. Yeah, no, just, yep. No, do you want to go first?

The little button, yeah.

Okay, I'm going to just say you confused the heck out of me. And I'm going to ask this for a friend. HUD-B, like where do we stand with HUD-B? You know, all we're hearing is there's not going to be any more water. We're running out of water. There's no water. And you're saying, oh, we've got water. So where are we at?

Mayor, council members, this is a great question. We proved up our piece of water. To the extent that some of their water was already being pumped was in that model. The extent it's not, it's probably not in that model. We're of course always concerned when there's more pumping on the aquifer. You can see the slide right here, I'm speaking to trying to add sustainability. That said, we're still in the fact gathering time. We are still trying to understand it more. Eric just shared with me today and we talked about the importance and I'm gonna go meet with the mine and learn more. But one thing I understand is that they are to replenish the aquifer. So I need to understand more about how that agreement works and how they'll implement that, and I can come back and talk more about that.

Yeah, but just to piggyback off of Debbie's question, because I thought I heard during the presentation when you do the modeling, everything that has been permitted gets taken into account. And my understanding is HUD-BAE is permitted, to draw 6,000 acre feet. So just to be clear, was that included in the modeling when you got your DAWs? Not what they're pumping, but what they're already permitted to do. I get future maybe data centers. I don't know if you could... you know, consider Project Blue, because they were supposed to be water-cooled, now they're air-cooled, and it's not under construction, so I'm not even sure of the status of that, but certainly HUD-Bay, to Debbie's question, you know, is permitted to draw 6,000 acre-feet a year. So just to qualify, was that involved in that modeling?

Mayor, council members, I'm not sure. It depends on the timing of the permit issuance. I understand it might be two permits and one of them was older, so that piece would definitely be there. I'm not sure about the nexus of when our groundwater modeling and permit happened and when their permit happened, but I'm happy to research that.

Yeah, would you mind? I think it would be a good answer to have. Yeah. I appreciate that very much. Anybody? Yep.

have a lot of questions you're right yes he has a pencil let me get some water by saying he's gonna get a bigger pencil get a bigger pencil I have an extra one up here if you could you please tell this council what the health of our aqua for is in your opinion

with everything you know so far.

Mayor, council members, I think the health of the aquifer is pretty darn good. Why? We, about just over a year and a half ago, did receive that designation of assured water supply for over 5,000 acre feet. It's 4,000 acre feet more than we use today. And I think that's a general indication that the aquifer is reasonably healthy, that the Department of Water Resources issued us the 100-year piece. In the greater Pinal and Phoenix active management areas, the Department of Water Resources has closed groundwater basins to those new those kinds of permits if we were seeking a designation of assured water supply in a in a town near Phoenix maybe they didn't have one or a town near Casa Grande the Department of Water Resources would not process that application because those basins are closed to groundwater in that way so the permitting of that

shows the health of the aquifer basically. You wouldn't have been given it if you couldn't show that we're a healthier aquifer than the Phoenix area.

That's right. And that is one of the reasons that the Ag to Urban program was not allowed to come down here. Oh, I see. It was a place where... When they closed the regional aquifer system, the Phoenix and Pinal active management areas to new growth on groundwater, as they did, really they ended up inadvertently leaving landowners who are farming, pumping three, four, five, six acre feet a year, or three and a half is the average, when they knew development could use less. So was it a wise choice? to close the basin and still have all this massive amount of pumping that's grandfathered in, or should we find a way to make that pumping less? That same issue isn't present here in the Tucson active management area, and I'll say yet it will happen. The Department of Water Resources will close more basins in the state when it's time, and that's the time when they would look at that Ag to Urban program. Thank you.

Continue.

Could you describe our aquaphor and are there different levels to it and different depths? Give us a simple, visual.

Mayor, Councilmember Piello, I believe the simplest thing would be thinking about a bathtub filled with sand and marbles. The sand is gonna be water between the sand of a smaller space and other places that are gonna be bigger spaces like marbles and even really big marbles where there's more loosely held water. It's a really big bathtub, so some places where there's more pumping, the water level has been drawn down, and it hasn't equalized across horizontally. Is that helpful around the edges of the bathtub or mountain ranges?

Well, are there different depths to the aquaphor? Could there be water on one level of surface, and then if you drill down really deep, you hit another body of water down deep?

There can be. There definitely can be. Those fracture bedrock aquifers in different places, different aquitards where they actually keep the water from coming up that they'll hold the water down so when you drill to it you can actually have water that could flow up to the surface without being pumped. um there's a variety of different things generally in the basin and range province of arizona so think about just north of phoenix all the way down into mexico these the ranges the mountains or the bedrock and think about that same expression of the bedrock going down inside all of those basins or what's just commonly called basin fill and that that that's um that's uh like rocks and whatnot but a little more unconsolidated and that holds the water when you get to the bottom of the base in that bedrock in general in the basin and range province is considered not to hold useful water. So generally it's in that unconsolidated fill material in the basins.

Can I piggyback off of that question? So when you talk about the active management area and then you talk about the aquifer in general, can you just do a 101 description on when we all kick around the aquifer, you as global water or a water expert, for Pima County, what do you consider our aquifer and how does that differ than the active management area?

The active management area is a regional piece. There's two sub-basins here, the Avra Valley and the lower Santa Cruz sub-basin. Each of those are like their own bathtubs. They're connected in the middle. These bathtubs also connect north up into the Pinal active management area and also south. So there is some connectivity. But generally, in the greater Tucson region or Tucson AMA, there are two aquifers here.

That was helpful. That's what I was kind of looking for. Thank you. Continue.

AWDR is the governmental agency that is responsible for issuing permits for the wells, correct?

That's correct.

Do you have confidence in them to do a proper assessment?

Mayor, council members, they take a really long time, and I have a lot of confidence that they review it very well. In fact, they're taking, they're so diligent, they've frustrated the entire water community. And I can say that out loud, because they know that. They have statutory time frames, in particular for an assured water supply that's 295 days. Sorry, not statutory, licensing time frames. They're found in the Arizona Administrative Code in rule. and they routinely blow those time frames now to ensure that they do a good job. They're not rushing anything.

So when ADWR issues a permit for a well, let's say for Hud Bay, you have confidence that when that well permit is issued that it's been well studied and that the water is there for Hud Bay to operate?

There's a few different, Mayor, council members, there's a few different pieces in that question. An individual well requires a well permit and notice of intent to drill a well. A new well or a replacement well in the same location or different, there's a lot of different permits there that it could have been. That is a very rigorous rule that they have to follow a five-year, 10-foot drawdown analysis on impacting other entities around them. Their general industrial use permits, I don't know.

Could you backtrack? I want to make sure I'm understanding. And could you speak in more layman's terms, please? Yeah, I'm sorry. Make it simple.

Okay. I'm sorry I'm going too fast and too detailed. I'm trying to understand.

I seek understanding. Our citizens are very concerned about the aquifer and the impact of HUD-BAY on our aquifer. So I'm looking to you to help us.

Mayor, council members, I really appreciate you looking to me. I can't give you all the answers. I don't know all the details of HUD Bay's piece. I'm gonna try to answer each question and I'm happy to study it and circle back with you as well. For individual wells, the Department of Water Resources requires to understand how they impact other nearby land and water users. and they require what's called an impact analysis. And it looks at how an individual well will pump over five years and what that drawdown radius is.

What's a drawdown rate?

Every well pumps, they pump their own water out and down and they create a cone of depression at the well. How that cone of depression is shaped and how it affects other folks is a lot to do with the exact well, the attributes of the aquifer right at that well, how much water is pumped out of that well, and how that well is constructed. that cone of depression as it moves away from that well from pumping, that 10-foot drawdown radius is what they're protecting. So if a well owner is to pump and impact another well owner with a 10-foot drawdown at their well, they either have to get a waiver from that well owner or DWR will force them to shrink how much they pump so they don't get that impact in five years. That's specific to well permitting. There's other permits that they would have to have, like a water right, and I don't fully understand the water rights that they have at this moment. I don't fully understand the wells, and I'm, again, happy to go and research and think about it and circle back.

But definitely to her point, ADWR is very concerned, and they study those types of things. They just don't willy-nilly say, oh, Tom Murphy wants a well permit, and they just issue it to me, right?

That's correct. They have a lot of people that watch this diligently, and they feel passionately about it, and they... They send out a lot of letters of notice of deficiency if you don't get it right and then ultimately you don't get the permit if you don't get it right. Thank you.

Jake. One of the constituents that during call to public was a well owner and she was very concerned that her well would have to go deeper and deeper and deeper every year because Hud Bay was going to suck out the aquifer and drain it. Does ADWR take that into consideration when... they assess a well, could you explain that? Yes. She was very worried about that.

Yes, they definitely do, and that speaks to the process I was just talking about, that drawdown analysis. The person who's trying to drill a new well has to prove to the Department of Water Resources that it won't impact people more than that five-year, 10-foot drawdown. That's what's in rule today.

I saw Mr. Palladini getting a little nervous over there, and I'm guessing, I'm not a lawyer, but because of, I'm assuming because of the agendized item, it really is impacting, I know you're an expert, so we really love having you here, but are you looking over at me that we really need to keep it more to, you know?

Well, yeah, Mayor, we're a little bit, I think we're kind of, you know straying a little straying from the agenda item and we're also responding to call to the public right so i'm afraid we're kind of just going a little bit off course here so we need to tack back to use you know water and sailing terms right so we're back online yep

Okay, so tell me if any of my questions are not permissible. Do you, in your areas that you're serving, sir, are you serving any of the active minds as to in Sawadita, active minds?

I don't believe so. Okay. No.

Okay. And then how deep is your deepest well?

Excuse me, I'm going to look to Eric on that one.

You have to, I'm sorry, Eric. I'm helping you get steps in, but because of the rapid.

Yeah, most of our wells in the area average depth of 800 feet. 800 feet, okay. Some of them are deeper, some of them are shallower.

And just in general, because you do have Maricopa, Is that an average depth for all of Arizona, or because of turning off the spigot sort of up in Pinal, they'd have to go deeper?

No, I can say out in the three-point areas, our wells can be up over 1,000 feet. Okay. So 1,100, 1,200.

Is there a common mare up in Flagstaff for wells to be 1,500, 2,000 feet?

And would I be wrong to assume that because of the health, of our aquifer that has some sense of you not having to go deeper or not, or is it just where the water is and have to get to it?

It's both. It is some sense of here, but for example, in Flagstaff, some of those have fractured bedrock aquifers where they are just deeper water.

Right, right. So that could be just the natural geology in some areas, not necessarily

always about just the health of it in general but we're getting to a question that councilman preolo asked earlier about you know different different layers of an aquifer i know up in flagstaff they would reference the a aquifer and the b aquifer and the c aquifer it's one one aquifer but there were different levels and some of the water was a lot older right and and they would they would test to find out

where that where the cleanest water was right and and that's what they would and I know west of us you know some of the wildcat divisions they have to haul water you know closer to a soccer in Freeport because doesn't matter the way just the bedrock is there's no water that's or you'd have to go so deep it probably wouldn't be cost-effective that's correct okay I'm going to switch to another line of questions all right is there fluoride in your water

It's naturally occurring here, and I don't know the extent of what exactly we have here.

So we don't have, Jake is right, we do have fluoride in the water. I couldn't cite every well, but if you were to go onto our website, we have our consumer confidence reports, and we're required to list all of our sample results annually. I know the MC alpha fluoride is four,

um and there's also a public notice triggered at two uh we've been fortunate we've never had that issue so we do the fluoride levels in this area are generally low is there any fluoride that's added to the water supply that isn't naturally occurring no fantastic is there any tap to toilet water you mentioned uh recycled water is that tap to toilet water

No.

What's the difference between tap-to-toilet and recycled?

We in Global Water Santa Cruz and Global Water Palo Verde, the sister company that is wastewater and recycled water utility, uses Class A plus treated recycled water to irrigate outdoor landscapes.

Okay. Microplastics. Microplastics.

They exist, and I think we're just starting to scratch the surface and study them as a greater community.

So when you hear about data centers, you've heard from here that that is a very hot topic, I think, everywhere in this country, and that if a data center happens to come within Sawarita, we've got two active minds, and we've got Hudbay that wants to open. How does that sit with you when you hear about data centers?

I think they have their own business and we have ours of being mindful about water and we're gonna apply our mindfulness and our total water management philosophy there. We in other places have talked to data centers and we've talked to them about net water use. So making sure that whatever they use is gonna be netted out by whatever they may return. Some of those, I think maybe most of them went away because it's a pretty tough topic. But ultimately, I hear they're moving towards a lot of air cooling where it's more expensive. So I think that's going to be an ongoing piece of public debate about the balance between land use, water use, and power use. And we're going to look out for water.

Okay. I think I heard you say that Smart meters are going to be used in your business? Did I hear accurately?

I think you've already installed, haven't you, most of those? And that's when I've toured the facility at Samtech. Correct.

All of our meters have smart meters. So our consumers have their personal usage information at their fingertips.

If somebody wants to not have a smart meter, can they say, I don't want one at my house?

haven't come across that yet but we own the meter so i'm going to say they're going to have a smart meter they're going to have this is no choice no i mean because our equipment operates and talks to other equipment so we would put something in different they're not going to communicate

OK. And then you caught my attention one other area. You talked about that the water bill caught the cost of the water used to be on property taxes. And in the future, it's going to be on the individual consumer in a rate increase. Did I hear that accurately?

Mayor, council members, yeah, the, I don't know. Maybe the wrong way. There we go. So the CAGRD.

What is that?

It's the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District. We can just call them the replenishment district. So in addition to proving up the water's actually there, there are replenishment obligations for new growth. So the CAGRD or replenishment district does that on behalf of the users. So today, for subdivisions in the farmer's water company area, or historically speaking, they got certificates of assured water supply in each individual household. land has a CAGRD, a replenishment obligation, recorded against their land. So they are obligated to pay the CAGRD for this replenishment. And the replenishment district, they buy water and they put it back into the ground in various places. I think Pima Mine Road might be the closest one here. Trying to talk them into using the FICO GSF, working on that still. So they previously, under the old way, these things were just on the property tax. So it's there, it's probably in the escrow account. Everybody can look when you get your little postcard about what your property taxes are. It'll list out Central Arizona Water Conservation District and Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District. Both of those are water fees. The one that's the conservation district is one that's not going to change based on use. The one that is the replenishment district, CAGRD, is one that you're paying for exactly what you used. You're paying a replenishment charge based on use. Because we now have a designation of assured water supply, that cost is going to move off of property tax bills and instead come to us and end up on customers' water bills. It's a very small cost, but it's one that's been there all along.

I know I received that, I think, from the Salarieda Water Company a few months ago, that my water bill was going up a little bit because of the CAGRD. So that's probably an example of that.

Where do they buy that water? Where do they buy the water to put back into the aquifer?

The CAGRD has a pretty robust and big water supply portfolio, and they continue to buy it. Is it CAP water? Some of it is. Some of it's lower priority CAP water that they're actually losing. Some of it's higher priority leases, tribal leases. Some of it's long-term storage credits water that's already been stored. So they just buy those and they make sure they never get

I heard it was millions and millions and, you know, just keep multiplying of gallons in storage.

Yeah, their storage obligation now is between 30, I think almost 40,000 acre feet per year that they're replenishing and basically extinguishing water back into the aquifer. So they've been on it and buying water for well over 10 years now. I would say by far the experts in water purchases, they have the money to do it because they collect this from all over and they continue to buy it and store it.

One more question.

Okay.

Thank you for your patience. The Colorado River, and cap, do you have any concern that we're gonna have less cap water here in Sao Arita because of the issue with the Colorado River?

Mayor, council members, definitely. I'm remiss that I didn't include something on the Colorado River in here. I'm sorry about that. But in general, the Colorado River is in a very serious place. It's very serious, and the seven basin states have not negotiated a new agreement. A 20-year agreement is expiring. The three lower basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada have in fact come to an agreement on how to take cuts on themselves and submitted that to the Department of Interior. That has not been approved or integrated yet. That will happen this year before October. Under that program that they've submitted, they would be subjecting CAP municipal priority water to a 20% reduction, meaning City of Phoenix, Tucson, and so on, and the tribes, such as the Gila River Indian community and so on, the telonom nation all would take for their M&I and Indian priority water a 20% cut.

So if there is the potential of a 20% reduction in CAP water, how does that impact the DAS, the 100-year water supply issuance?

Great question. We do not directly use any CAP water. Our DAS issuance is based on groundwater that's here. So we are, you could say, drought resilient with our groundwater supplies.

OK. Thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you. Are we going to turn it over to somebody else and continue?

Turning it right back over to Eric. Thank you for the positive engagement and questions. Appreciate it.

Thanks for your willingness to research a couple of more global, no pun intended, issues.

Yes, mayor and council. So the last slide is to discuss a transition and make some introductions. Some of those transitions are John Corwin, who's been our vice president and general manager, is going to be moving into the role of vice president in strategic programs. That created an opportunity for myself. I'll be moving into the role of director of operations. And it also created an opportunity for Mr. Alvaro, who comes to us with 20 years of utility experience. He'll be working out of the Cerrito office. I'll be working directly with him to make sure the transition is smooth. I will not be going away. So you will be seeing me. And I'll still be talking to staff.

so like i said if you ever have any questions always feel free to reach out to me do we get any credit because we're so awesome to work with that john and you have moved up the uh... the chain well yeah i would say it's because of the fantastic partnership that we have with the town absolutely that's kind of what i was getting to in a justful way i just wanted to drive it home yeah i know you know and i've appreciated your continual attendance at our meetings and willingness to work with us and Explore, you know new opportunities parcel 30 other types of things. So really appreciate your Your hard work and your partnership along with the rest of the team. Oh, yeah, it takes a whole team. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you Eric and that will wrap up the the presentation unless there's any more questions Any more questions? Nope. I think we're good. Thank you. All right.

Thank you everyone rats to a couple of you Next is item number 11A, Madam Clerk.

Discussion on possible adoption of ordinance number 2026-200 and resolution number 2026-0870 related to the memorandum of understanding with the Fraternal Order of Police.

Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say, Victor, you stood up too soon. That's okay. That's practice. Mr. Dilley is going to handle this. And just from my colleagues, it's a two-step process, so just be aware of that. There's the ordinance, and then there's a resolution. Unless Shane corrects me, I think that's accurate. Shane?

I think that's right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. As we started this effort, this was the year where we needed to update and renew the MOU with the Friends of Police fraternity order, and we started those negotiations.

Are they here today? Do we have reps here tonight?

I don't think we do. We started those negotiations in November by virtue of a letter from the FOP. And there were three points that were being requested in these negotiations. One is that We would clean up the MOU. There was some ambiguous language in the MOU that made it unclear in terms of who received the benefit of the MOU itself. So that was the first request. The second request was to have the town consider the implementation of a wellness program specific for our sworn officers. And then the third request was to consider changing the term dates of the agreement itself from what has historically been every two years, the cycle started again with renegotiating the MOU, to an interest to lengthen that term perhaps four years, and it ended up being that we changed the term from a two year to the first term would be a three year to get it off of the election year cycle. and have these contracts renewed in an off election year. The reason behind that was that we would, if there was ever an issue in these negotiations where we hit an impasse, we wanted to be able to have either the FOP or the manager's office take that issue to the council, to an established council, a council that had had some time in their belt understanding the the representatives, having met them, established relationships, and better understood the need for these items. So we thought having a conversation with an established council was the better way to go. And so to get us off of that election cycle and still honor the intent of the request, which was to lengthen those terms, the first term would be a three-year term, and then every term after that would be a four-year term. Does that make sense? So that was one change. There were no proposed changes to anything that impacted rates or specialty pay, anything that impacted the ability, how the process that we followed, if there was a grievance or if there was a course correction with any of the sworn officers, that was all stayed in place. One of the proposed changes was to move from having, so the existing MOU applied to lieutenants and sergeants and down. As we looked at the region and the common practice, lieutenants are often considered management, and so this proposal had that change where it only applied to sergeants and down. And then it took care of a lot of the clarification where the previous MOU had some language in there that made it confusing, like did it apply to civilians or didn't it apply to civilians? And so we just cleaned it all up and made it clear that this MOU is for sworn officers. And any of the benefits that had previously been offered to civilian employees at the police department, we handled that through just department policies so that we could handle it both ways that way. And then really, the effort on the wellness program, we developed a department policy that allowed, based off of circumstances, that's determined by the shift commander or the sergeant, if there is an opportunity for our officers to use the gym for a half an hour a day or half an hour a shift. And that's not a guaranteed, but it's available if there's time and people can do it. And there's some conditions around the use of that, but it's a department policy. The FOPs reviewed that. It's common practice with our sister communities up in Oro Valley and Marana and the city of Tucson. We felt that it was important to, as long as it worked for us and there was protections in place to ensure operational coverage, that we stayed competitive that way with our sister communities as we compete all the time for these officer positions. So all in all, the MOU that was presented to you in the packet highlighted the various areas that were impacted or new. and we think it was a pretty clean and productive round of negotiations with our FOP partners. So I'm happy to answer any specific questions if you have any on the proposed MOU, but I think we're ready to go.

Thank you, appreciate it. Any questions for Shane? No? If not, I'll entertain a motion on the ordinance portion of it.

I move to adopt ordinance number 2026-200. I second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by aye. Aye. And Vice Mayor, you're still in there? Maybe not.

I am, my apologies, yes, I say aye.

Okay, thank you. And next, Shane, we would go to 11, the continuation 11B, or 11A, continued from the first one.

Okay, so you did the ordinance just now, we need an adoption of the resolution.

Yep, I'll entertain a motion on the resolution portion.

I move to adopt resolution number 2026-0870. We have a motion, do I have a second?

Second. We have a motion to second. Any more discussion? All those in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Any nays? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Madam Clerk, item 11B.

Discussion and possible adoption of resolution 2026-0872, a notice of intent regarding a redevelopment improvement incentive agreement.

Thank you. Now it's your time, Victor, to come to the podium.

I was a little anxious to go to bed. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, good evening. Before you is a notice of intent. It's by state statute that city or town adopts this notice of intent when entertaining a development agreement. In this case, Roadhouse is proposing to redevelop Desert Sky Theater. Actually doing it as we speak, about a year ago or so, if you recall, we began to engage with Roadhouse and their representatives. At the time, they began to look at the purchase of what was the former Desert Sky Theater. for the redevelopment of their signature Roadhouse cinemas. So we do have Josh Snyder who's with Roadhouse. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to provide any updates if you like on the work that's happening. as we speak there at the former Desert Sky Theater. We will bring back to you the development agreement at the next town council meeting. So we do have that agreement in draft format that's now being reviewed. by legal and will be by both parties in the coming days and so then on the June 22nd meeting we'll present that development agreement and walk you through that but for the purpose of this evening this is really procedural in this resolution and adopting the notice of intent but I'll pause there and if you'd like to hear from Josh I would love to hear from Josh on things are going and what are they found and

When they're going to open? If we can get it on the record.

I'm not going to commit to anything. Mayor and Council, so we started construction about a month ago and doing a lot of demolition and We saw cut the whole lobby out of Desert Sky and we're going to be building a very large kitchen. And we'll be installing recliners in the auditoriums, about 350 seats. I believe there was 700 seats before in that theater, so we'll be cutting the seat count way down, but, you know, a lot more comfortable seating. We're getting laser projection and hoping to open by before Thanksgiving. Right. That's our... Yeah, so yeah, so far so good. And the town has been excellent to work with very straightforward permitting process, which we appreciate. And, you know, we got to the start of construction very quickly.

Great. Well, you know how excited, I know you know how excited everybody is, so I'm glad that we're doing everything we can. We're excited too, yes. Absolutely. And I guess I'd go back to, you know, if you have 700 seats but they're empty, they're not bringing in any income, right? So filling up 350 are better than having 20 in 700 seats, right?

Exactly right.

Okay, thank you. Any questions for Josh? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to adopt resolution number 2026-0872.

I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, signify by aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. That's seven ayes. Josh. And thank you. And having no more further business for the public, we're adjourned.

And I'm guessing that it's posted.

We did.

Yes, right. Me too, 100%.

Right, right, everybody, but just to be...