Town Council - Regular Meeting

YouTube if you want uh what you're doing. Uh tonight's invocation will be given by Nathan Barrett, our community development director, followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Emma Ro and Monset Mequet. Did I do okay? Okay. Um both fifth graders from Copper View Elementary School. Nathan.

Our dear heavenly father, we bow our heads before thee this evening in humble thanks for this day and for the opportunities we have to serve our community. We thank thee for all those who serve whether here in Saurita or far from home. We thank thee for those around us who seek to lift and inspire and edify. We thank thee, Lord, for this nation we live in and the freedoms we enjoy. We thank thee for the men and women who protect those freedoms, who give of themselves to keep our community safe and secure. Please bless them and their families, keep them safe from harm, and bring them home safely at the end of every day. We ask thee at this time to bestow thy spirit upon these council chambers. May it fill our hearts with peace, patience, and understanding. May we have grace for the human failings of ourselves and of our neighbors, and bless us with the ability to see the divine in each of us. May thy spirit bless these proceedings with the dignity and deliberation befitting a free people under thy hand. We give these thanks and ask these blessings, Lord, with humble hearts in the name of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Emma. Come up to the microphone there. They can hear you. There you go. You just begin whenever you're ready. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Appreciate it. Now, one of the things you have to know, you have to stay for the whole night. And no, you don't.

I know it's a school night, so you guys feel free to take off whenever you want. Okay, great job. We hope you come back another time and do it for us. Thank you. Madame clerk, may I have a role? Council member Gillespie, present. Council member Lisk here. Council member Lidle here. Council member Morales here. Council member Polo here. Vice Mayor Eggbert here. Mayor Murphy here. Quorum present. Thank you. Um, next is item number five. Madame Clerk, Proposition 403, post selection community survey results.

Um, and um, Haley is going to be introducing this item um, and also introduce our guests that we've been working with from New Point and um, welcome and take it away.

I feel very close to you right here. Um, mayor, members of the council, my name is Haley Tavoyan. I'm your public information officer. Can I know everyone fairly well. Um I'm excited to close the chapter on the bond project. Um as we know the public uh declined our proposition that we go forward with um that measure last November. So, what we wanted to do before we turn the page is take a minute to measure uh what we can know about voter attitudes about this specific proposition as well as a broader swath of is there an appetite for a future bond. Um and so New Point who helped us all along the way with uh Prop 403 is going to come share more about what we learned throughout the survey process. Um, one of the main takeaways for me is, um, what I've learned in PR is you haven't done your job well if you don't debrief properly. You know, measure the outcomes. Uh, take notes. If you ever plan to do something again, you need to do it differently. So, that's really what New Point's helping us do here today. So Mary and Steve, who you've heard from before, are going to come give you some data as well as some kind of anecdotal info that um Shane and I specifically found interesting in regards to what was happening leading up to this specific election. So a lot of issues related to our purse strings getting tightened and it was a hard time to ask this question. So um with that, I'll take it over to uh viewpoint.

Thank you. Yeah, my Air Force days, we used to call it a hot wash after you go through a major exercise or something before you forget. You know, you always want to come back and debrief and document lessons learned. So, in case either we go again or we do in a different way or in the Air Force we have another mission that we learn from it. So, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Um, for those of you whom I haven't met, which is not Can you just bend that bend it down a little bit closer to Are you insinuating I'm not real tall? No,

it's true. Um, I'm Mary Rolley. Um, I'm CEO of New Point Marketing and Market Research and Steve Lynn is with me. He's our chief strategy officer and has decades and decades and decades of um, seasoned seasoned.

We're almost the same age. Um anyway, a great depth of experience in working on elections um and on research aside from elections as well. So um with that, I will walk you through what we did. So, um, as Haley said, we're here today to try to, um, get some insight on why the residents, how they voted, and why they voted the way they did, um, and what else impacted the results of the vote vote, things that were um, occurring in the world. Um, keep in mind as you look at a survey, it's a picture in time. And I've got the comparison to the survey we did in 2024 before um the council decided to put it on the ballot. So I can do some comparisons on that for you. Um so let's take a quick look at um the history here. Um and the goals for the initial survey which was done in March, February and March in 2024 was to get a sense of public uh preferences for what might be included in a bond package because at the time there were more ideas as there always is than there was funding um availability. So wanted to get a sense of what did the town residents want. Um, we also wanted to get a sense of support, level of preference, um, and voter support for the different components so that we were trying, um, as a combined effort here to to put out things that people wanted and were likely um, to at least consider voting for. We also, because the town had never done a bond before, we wanted to also get a sense of do people know what a bond is? Um, and if you haven't lived in a community with a bond, how hard is it to get people to understand?

Even though it's a common uh funding source for municipalities, if you've never dealt with it, it can be very confusing. Um, and then lastly, get a a sense of um what tolerance there was for people to say, I would spend X dollars a month for this and what I'm going to get out of it. So let's look at the methodology for the survey we did this year. Um it was in the field between May 10th and June 8th of this year. We had 611 responses with a confidence interval of 95%. And what that means is if we were to repeat this um survey a 100 times we would get comparable results 95 of those times. Um we also had a margin of error of 4% and the industry um preference the standard is to be between three and 5%. So we were smack dab in the middle of that. That means at any level when you look at a number you could say plus or minus 4%. Um and to give you a sense in 2024 when we did the survey um we had 1985 responses which is a significant response um same confidence interval because that's most commonly used for this type of research um across the industry and our our margin of error was only 2.1% for that survey which is which is what below the industry um standard. So on the postelection research, what we were trying to do was find out why people voted for or against Proposition 403. Take a look at the other things going on

in the world that might have impacted what happened in the election. Um get a sense of did people really understand what was on the ballot? How clear did was it made to them so they they really knew what they were voting on? um and also to look at the major neighborhoods, how did they compare uh to the rest of the community. So, we have a few of the demographic demographic, excuse me, um statistics to show you. We won't go through some of the common ones like gender and and that kind of stuff, but the we picked out the ones we thought were most applicable to this particular question um on the ballot. So the first we looked at is how long have people lived here? Because if you're brand new to Sorita, you might not have as deep a knowledge of what the needs are versus somebody who's lived here longer. And in this case, we kind of had both ends of the spectrum. If you look at the bar chart, the second bar is people who've lived here 1 to five years and the fourth bar is people who've lived here 11 to 20 years. And those were the two most common um areas for respondents. We also wanted to know if people lived here year round and um turns out that 99% said they did. This com in this compares in 2024 to 2.8 who said they didn't. So pretty comparable data there. Next we looked at are you a homeowner? Because if you're looking at a bond initiative the impact is going to be on a homeowner rather than um an apartment dweller. Um and 98% said they were homeowners. And then there were people who said other we had 1.48 who were renters. Other was they lived with other members of the family. That that type of thing. Um 2024 we had 97% home

ownership. So um again very comparable thing that we looked at. The next slide I have to say is our most colorful. Um our research director is quite proud of this one but um it gives you a sense of all of the different um neighborhoods and the biggest response not surprising was from Rancho Sorita with 45% followed by Coil Creek with 17% and Madiraa Highlands with 10%. Um and you can see the other um communities and and we've got all of this broken out on how people voted if anybody wants that information. Another factor we thought was important is are there children at home? Particularly looking at a rec center, maybe the trails, things like that that a family would use. And um no is 64% and yes was um 35%. And in 2024 um people with no kids were was 50%. So it was pretty again um comparable. Um we also looked at children's ages and um it it broke out with the youngest kids under five was 18 almost 19% 14 to 17 33% a third and then people with kids that were 5 to 13 was 60 or excuse me um 48%. So to give you a sense of okay then voting activity um which we asked people um if they were registered and how they voted. So in this group of respondents 98% plus said that they were registered to vote and um 97% 96% excuse me said they did vote. And when we asked people back in

2024, um 92% said that they would um vote and 2.9% said no. And the people that said I don't know, 4.7%. So again, we had some some comparable numbers here to look at. So next we asked, are you aware that we have a propos had a proposition on the ballot? Now, this is post so you would assume it would be very high and it was. it was 98%. Um, so people knew what was in there and then we said specifically, well, what was in there and they got it right. Um, it was the rec center, the police department, um, and if you look down um, all the way down to trails, the the top in this list are the things on the ballot. Um, the additional dog park was mentioned early on, didn't make it. other people. We have some open-ended responses of things people thought that didn't fall into any of these. Uh we threw in a ringer of um sewer system improvements just to see if people are paying attention. And then the pistol range also was talked about but didn't end up on the ballot. But if you look at that, people knew what was what was in Prop 403, which is important. Then we asked them about funding and said,"Well, what kind how are we going to fund this thing that's on the ballot um and municipal bonds by far got the best recognition followed by property tax." And I have to admit that those two are somewhat the same. And so a lot of people that chose property tax probably thought, well, that's what's going to fund the bonds. I have no way of knowing that for sure, but it makes sense. very very small amount said sales tax and nobody said gas tax. So those were accurate. Um then we said do you support

bonding in general? And we were surprised to see almost 31% said no. Um because it's such a common way to fund municipal projects. But again, if you haven't lived in a community that's done that, you might not be familiar. Um and then um the larger group said um yes they would but they would want to know what it is which I think makes a whole lot of sense. You're just not going to blindly vote for something if you don't know what it is. Then we said well how did you vote? And 72% said they voted no and 20 28% said they voted um yes. And the respondents who were 35 to 44 were most likely to vote yes. However, um it was still less than those among that group who voted no. Um only 34% of those making over 150,000 a year said they voted yes. Um which is interesting because one would might assume that that's the group that would be able to pay the easiest for this. Um and then the responses were pretty much the same across um different demographics. Um the 2024 results of you know would you consider uh how would you consider voting? A third said yes um and I've got that backwards. Excuse me. A third said no and um twothirds said yes. Typo on our slide. I apologize. Um then we asked them why why would you um consider these projects? Why would the town consider these projects? And the reasons given u most was well we've outgrown what we

have today. We need the improvements right now. and and there's been a lot of communication about the history of growth in this community consistently. So, I think people um took a look at it, some of them, and said, "Well, if we're already at capacity and we're going to keep growing, what do we need?" Again, that's my interpretation, not anything cast in stone. Um the next group said they supported the projects. They felt the cost was reasonable. um felt that it would be smarter to build things at today's costs. Um and if they're going to pay for it, they want to be able to use it. In other words, I don't want to pay for it today and have my great grandkids be able to use it. Um then um the other reason was my friends and neighbors supported it. That was less than a half a percent. And as we're going to see going further into this, that is a key point. So then there we go. Um the characteristics um of of people voting um on how did they vote generally younger residents um voted and um over 47% of those who were voting um had kids at home. Um the top three reasons for voting no were the same um across a lot of the respondents. Um and the open-ended responses that we had, they said, "Well, we already have a a recreation um facility." And that's from Rancho. From Quail Creek, uh voting behavior behavior was similar. Uh they had more male respondents um to this questionnaire than female, which is typically unusual. We see more often, even if very slightly, more um females

voting. Um big population, they're over 65. Again, no no surprise there. No one had kids at home. And the top three reasons um were similar except that they ranked inflation higher than um the other two that we dove into more deeply. Next, oops, I'm sorry, I didn't get Mary, I'm sorry. Did you did you cover why folks voted no? We we haven't gotten there yet. But that was a slide ahead. That was a slide backwards. Oh, if you don't mind going back one more. No, not at all. One more. Sorry. There it is. There we go. If you don't mind covering that, that would be great. No, that's the most important. I think you did. Yes. But the next slide is no.

Okay. Yes, I did do Yes. Sorry about that. That was a test in your path. Yes, you did. Um, okay. So, we talked about why people voted yes. I must have hit the button twice. Why did they vote no? And of the top um four reasons that people gave um most common related to other costs, costs increases and taxes. Um recent property tax assessments, the fire district, the school district, even though that wasn't an increase. often when there's a a renewal, people see it as an increase. Um

well, just even though the rate didn't increase, if property assessments or values go up, then people are paying more out of their pocket. So that makes sense, this response. That's true. And they did mention um bonds. Um they wanted to break up what was in the proposition and vote on everything separately. um which given the ballot we had which was two-sided you know double page double page

um I'm I'm not sure what would have happened had we done that but typically that's that's not done just because um sometimes the things that would help carry with a bonding organization um need to need to be there and so um and I know we were concerned about ballot weariness you knowuring that time too.

Um again it's a it's a strategy but um it was the case um people thought inflation was already making everything too expensive. Um 10% 11 um said we didn't see the value of the projects. Um 10 and a half% didn't didn't trust town government to be responsible. Um 1% didn't understand how the projects would be paid for. only a half a percent didn't know what was included and um a small quarter of a percent didn't realize it was on the ballot. So, and then again, nobody said my friends and neighbors opposed it. So, okay. So, we went through

the next one was Quail Creek. Okay. Then Quail Creek. Now, we're caught up um for Quail Creek. Again, voting behavior was similar. We did go through this one. Um I don't know that I got down to the last reason, which was again inflation being the highest. We went through the other parts. Uh MadiRaa Highlands um had a slightly more positive um vote of yes. um they had um roughly a third were 35 to 44 and 30% um 65 plus 41% with kids at

Is there a separate slide for that one just to advance it um and they had slightly lower education levels compared to the other ones and the top three reasons for voting no again were the same and there but they're also less amenitized than some of the other communities Yeah,

we got that in the focus groups for sure. Come on. This isn't okay. There we go. So, we ask people um how they how they like to hear about things, how they where they got their information from. Um number one is the town website, direct mail, um newspaper stories or ads, um online news sources, local Facebook groups, emails, word of mouth. Those were the top and among the very top are um communication pieces and components from the town. So people were listening um and paying attention to what the town put out. Then we asked them Oops. I think the clicker's the problem. There's one more and it's not coming up. Well, I'll just read it to you. Um, we asked them how they wanted to hear about things in 2024 and it was basically the same information. Um, emails and Facebook groups were higher than the website, but the top numbers there all came out in the same way. Then we just to kind of relive the year um we started out with the council retreat in January. Then um in the late spring we did um the public opinion survey. Um in June council voted to put this on the ballot. Um in August the ballot was printed by the county and sent to um be mailed and it was mailed in mid August. So, if you look at that and knowing the ballots start to come out in October, um it was already well in print by the time um that it the

other information came out. Um the county tax invoices came out in September. Um and that included uh the new Santaorita fire district and of course higher property valuations. Um the early um ballots were mailed out October 10th. So you can see between August and October, there's not a lot of time there. Um and then the election um was held. If you look at this, there's one key component missing and that is a citizens group wanting to get behind um passage. So what were the challenges with that? Oops. I don't know why this is jumping around.

Well, you had it. No, that was it. That was it. Okay. No, no, right there. Okay. Um, as I said, there was no ground game. Whoops. I don't know why I'm having such difficulties today. I apologize. Oops. No. Uh, Mark's coming to the rescue. Thank you, Mark. There. Oh, okay. One more.

There we go. Okay. Sorry about that. Um, we didn't have a ground game. Um, basically, and I know, um, the mayor and Steve work together to try to, uh, make this happen. And, um, it's really, really key to have a ground game. Um, I can't stress that enough. It's key to, um, building trust, to have people hear from their neighbors that this is important. Um it's it's important to overcoming aversion to tax if that's a key factor. Um and people talking to their neighbors give relatable messages. It's not an ad. It's not even something on the website. It's personto person which is um always most effective word of mouth. And the likelihood of a bond being and I I did a lot of research on this and it it basically came up within very tight ranges of this. The likelihood of a bond passing without vocal citizen support. If you have that, it ranges from 55 to 70%. If you have no advocacy at all, it ranges from less than 20% to 35, which is not going to pass. Um, we talked about the tax bills um a little bit about the school district and then there was also um a lot of national sentiment as and I've I've got data on that I can share as well as how throughout the year people saw um prices going up. if you remember all of the news stories about the price of eggs

that we all saw. Um, and then it just ramped up over the year. So, um, that's it. Um, any questions? And I appreciate your putting up with my the skills. Diane. Yes, Diane. Just wanted to add one more thing if I may. Get out of here.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, uh, this last slide is very important, but I want to point out something. Even with a ground game, even with a ground game, it was going to be difficult to overcome the things that they said were problematic about voting yes for a bond this year. And it would have been closer. Uh but it it may still not have have passed even with a vigorous ground game. And if if you remember when we started this process, we told you that if you had roughly 62 63% positive on any one of the any one of the items, the likelihood is it might pass. And we had those numbers on the on the the package that you put together. Obviously, when things changed in the environment, particularly with respect to the the county the county tax bills going out, which had as as the manager points out, not only an increase because your valuation went up, even if the rate stayed the same, but also the addition of the fire district and the addition of the school bonds, which were also an increase because of increased valuation, even at the same rate. people were basically they had had it with increases. And when you looked at the at the projects that were there, I think there was a sentiment that if the lead project on the bond package was a recreational project for people to swim and have a good time, that may not have been the right time to ask for that investment that year. And that's we you can't know that until you do it. But I I just want you to to know that um it was probably a tough year to go out in any case,

right? And I know to the ground game, I know with um RTA next being on there, the business community is looking at raising over a million dollars probably. Obviously, it's a bigger region. It's all of Puma County, not just us. But that's the type of ground game and money they're actually looking at raising um to support that type of initiative. Yeah. And and we had, as I recall, we had one contribution of $5,000. Right. Mayor.

Yes. Yes. And council, I I also want to point out um you know, we can we can look back on this and and uh and view it as um as not our our shiniest moment in our in our history as a community. But I would note that I would note that there is only one reason that you take something to the voters. It's because you want to know the voters's will. The only way to do that is to put it in front of the voters. I I I think this has been successful in that we wanted to know what the voters in all of these individual meetings. We invite the kids here in the in the council chambers. We invite parents in here.

The parks and recck groups come in and what have they all been telling us for the last who knows how many years, even longer before I've been.

You know, we need X, Y, and Z. Where is this? How come we don't have this? Well, the only way to know if a community is really serious about supporting those types of amenities is to put the question in front of the voters. And that's what we did and you got and you got the response. I I would view that exercise as a success in that you know where the voters are sitting and then we go through this exercise to understand the why behind the way they voted so that you know in the in the future if if you ever wanted to do you know take another stab at some of these projects you at least have the benefit of looking backwards and and probing our our community a little bit more in terms of why you voted the way you voted. That's all.

Yeah. And I found it ironic that right afterwards probably had five, six plus emails, maybe you did as well, asking for more pickle ball courts. And I'm like, we just had a question on adding more pickle ball courts um on there. But it was

to the manager's point, the other thing that this did in a positive way is it introduced to the community the concept of bonding for improvements. And for a community that has never gone out for a bond before, that becomes very important. m mature communities and I not that celebrate is not mature. You're 30 years old but you're still a teenager in many ways in terms of governance. Um they're used to this question being asked periodically because it's the way municipalities fund the future. You've now introduced the concept and the question then is when is the next time when there's enough need and enough support and enough concern on the part of the the electorate that they would want to bond for improvements that they would help you decide which are the most important to to put on the ballot. And so it's not going to be a new concept anymore. It's something that the that the town now is prepared to deal with in the future. Right.

Thank you. Diane, you have a question. Yes. Uh so in one of the slides it said that 10% of our the people that responded felt that the town was fiscally irresponsible. Talk to me about that. That disturbs me. How typical is is it to see that response? And I'm scratching my head about that budgets and our

wonderful finance manager that aces it every year and wins award after award after award. And we have such an open transparent process with budget retreats that are public and so much time and energy and transparency. I'm scratching my head about that one. That means 90% were happy with the government. So that's what I take from it. Well, not only that, Mr. Mayor, but that is an extraordinarily low number by comparison. Oh,

in other words, if you ask that question across municipalities in the United States, 10% is a very low number for that response. So, I would not look at it as being a slam of any kind. I would say, as the mayor said, 90% of the people don't feel that way. They didn't mention it. But it's also the case that only 10% felt enough to mention it, right? And that's a good number for the for the town to know, right? That's how I took it. I just want to add um one last thing and that is one thing the town can really feel proud of is if you look at where people got the information, right?

And and how well they knew what was on the ballot. They were getting the information from the town and it was put out there in such a way that it was digestible. So Haley didn't pay you to say that, right? No, she did. No. Okay. Just checking. Um, any other questions? To my right. To my left. Um, we have Do you have any wrap-up comments, Shane? Or you're okay? Okay. Uh, Kim, did you have any? Actually, actually, yes. I was trying to raise my hand on that. Oh.

Um, I just I mean, I've run bonds before where I used to live. Bonds are very difficult even when they are a community is used to them coming every four years or every you know 10 years depending on how who's running the bond the school district or the um the um community the government but I think as that was pointed out I think the big thing is hearing from your neighbors and support when you hear other people supporting not just your council because they're just going to go oh they just want this but they put this bond together um I think the groundwork is is the big factor in why this actually probably failed as as the other things that came up. But I think I really think Sarita should be proud of what they did for a first time out and it was a big package. So I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of what we tried and that's how you know you take it. That's why you run bonds. You find out from your constituents, from your residents what they want, what they don't want. and by having the follow-up survey really helps us move along and what the future's going to be like if we do want to run a bond in the future. So, thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you. And I just had a quick question because I know Morirana and Oral Valley now they have a big bigger um um sales tax base, you know, so they've ran half cent, you know, for Nuran Park and Oral Valley. Morirana, very conservative town, very similar to ours have run it twice. uh one for the police station and one for their recreation center, but they were able to probably because of that sales tax revenue, they were able to pay it off in four or five years. Um is there any history on, you know, doing a sales tax as opposed to bond um if we had that ability? Now, our problem would be a package like that. We'd probably have to go out 20 years or 15 or something which probably wouldn't have the same appetite as five, seven years.

Again, you have Mr. Mayor, you have to look at the you have to look at at where the community is in its development, right? And who is moving to that community now? There's the large influx of of families near-term in Selita are younger, right? But you have an invested group of older people who have been here a longer period of time and who for the for a large part of of their existence have their own amenities with them in their community. Right?

And so when you talk about amenities that are not only distant from them but also either duplicative of or not particularly high on their list of needs, you have a different result. Morirana is growing at such a high rate in so many different areas and it's so spread out

that they have an an automatic sort of problem to solve just by virtue of the fact that everybody in those small communities that make up Morirana are a long way from the infrastructure that they're developing. And so they can parse that out in different ways and get people to buy into it simply for convenience if nothing else. The other thing I would say about a sales tax, of course, it's regressive. Uh where a property tax is not. And so it it also means that um when you put a regressive tax in place, you are disadvantaging the people who can afford it least. And that's a problem in any community. Right. Thanks.

Thanks. And we have one speaker card. Noah maybe representing that 10% of the population that But it's more than just a 10%.

So I'm Noah Sunberg. I've lived here for 18 years and I was against the bond. I was pretty vocal about it at the time because we used to run on being fiscally responsible by not having bonds. That was Mayor Bloomberg's big theme and you threw it all away and you went against it and you say it's just a vote we want to find out. You know, you should know beforehand. The fact is people heard you, they listened and they didn't believe you. That's what's the truth is. And I don't know what you and Steve were trying to do to coordinate things. Hopefully it wasn't with independent expenditures because I don't know if that'd be reasonable. But the people got together, the people didn't support it because the people didn't support it. So saying, "Hey, if people had gotten together and wanted this, we maybe would have had a chance." Well, the people didn't get together to support it because they didn't want it and you pushed it and you didn't care. And he said, "We're going to spend and then we're going to waste all this money on pictures and elections and on polls that don't mean jack." And we're going to finish up by saying, "Look what we did. We're going to have a poll that doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know." That's what you just did. You funded something in. You said, "We'll double down." Hey, we have a road bill that's going to ask where we want regional connectivity, but we're not going to pass a bill. It doesn't give us regional connectivity, and we're all going to vote yes, even though we're not going to get regional connectivity from this bill, and most of it's going to fund projects that aren't in our area for a decade. Didn't help us. But did we learn from our past thing? No, we didn't. You just said, "We want to do what we want to do, and we'll pay people to try to convince you." Why didn't you do what we wanted to do? How come we can tell you next time? We're telling you what to do, and you didn't listen, so we're going to tell you what to do again and again and again, and we'll waste your money doing it because who's going to stop us? We're happy to do it. We'll waste the money. We'll ask and we'll say, "Give us a hand. We did such a good job pushing something we didn't that our people didn't want, and we didn't listen to them, and we put out fake polls. We spent money trying to convince them this

is what they should do. And when they said no, we didn't say, "Let's take it on the chin and let's do better next time. Let's do maybe a reduced thing because guess what? I bet you if you'd put an outdoor pool, you might have gotten it cuz maybe that's what people really wanted outside of the communities already had it. Maybe pools in Arizona has precedents elsewhere. Maybe we've already paid for a pool that most people in the community didn't feel like they got to use with the school district and maybe feel a little bitter about that some of us were part of that process, too." So yeah, I think that if you'd done what you'd wanted to, you were not going to get what you wanted. The town doesn't want it. But the solution isn't let's do more polls. Let's do more things to convince ourselves. We just didn't do the first time. We bragged about not having this and we're going to keep doing it. And now we want to just push it on you again and we're going to give ourselves an applaud because we didn't listen to the people and the people said very loudly, we are not happy with what you did to us. Thanks.

Thank you. Uh next is call to the public. Uh call to the public is now open. Individuals may speak for three minutes. Spokespersons for 10. Council cannot discuss matter is not on the agenda. However, at the end of the call to the public, council members may respond to criticism. Report request staff to review the agenda item. Um add the topic to a future agenda. And we do ask for civil discourse or harassment, personal attacks, yelling, discriminatory remarks will not be tolerated. Uh please direct all comments to the council as a whole and allow others to speak. Um Noah. So I'm Nomber. I've lived in this community for 18 years and I want police we can trust and that we like and that we're not afraid of. Ones that don't in 4 seconds throw someone to the ground. And I want a council that will do the right thing and say so I know we had some reports but you can take whatever you want from what Morirana said and from what um the DPS said but that was a violent attack. And whether you think it was criminal or not, I think you guys know it wasn't right. He was thrown to the ground in 4 seconds. He was never trespassed, never arrested till afterwards. He was falsely accused of um assaulting a police officer. The chief said he arrested him for resisting arrest. Well, what was the arrest he was resisting? Because there was none of that mentioned because he wasn't trespassed. He wasn't accused of being arrested. He just was thrown to the ground. He was accused of assaulting police officers and Morirana said, "We found nothing of the sort." And the chief was upset that the Miranda went that way, but he sided with the the investigating department. It was wrong. And I just want you to know that there are stories that have

villains and heroes. And when we attack people first, we choose violence first. We're the villains. And we're a council that accepts that and says, "I'm not going to rebuke that. I'm going to stay silent. Well, stay silent. You're a coward and a villain. But if you you need to say this wasn't right. We expect more from our town. We want better policing. We want our people in our town and our town to be proud of our police. And yes, they deal with all kinds of elements. And some of them maybe are annoying. Maybe some of them aren't the best group of people. And maybe some of them are seven-year-old ladies that have the door smashed into their face. that should never have happened, which we fight against. We do our own self-d deposition claims there. When we throw a guy to the ground, we make false accusations that the police chief even admits, isn't in the video. I think he grabbed for the gun. So did your commander Carlson. Never happened. They both know it didn't happen, but they said it anyway. Why would we lie about stuff? Why would he claim things that are false? So, I want to be proud of my police. And I'm not with Chief Nolan. I want to be proud of my council. I want you to be fiscally responsible. I want you to do what's right. I don't want I want you to look at the zoning ordinances and say, "Hey, they can build a tar factory right next to our community and stop that. I want us to not push bonds that we don't care about." I want us to say we want people to know that we did the right thing and we'll speak up and say what's right even if it's hard. Thanks.

Thanks. Uh, next we come to brief summary via council and town manager events. Uh, oh, I'll go with Kim first if you have anything, Kim, so I don't forget you. Thank you. Um, no, I don't have anything to read for it. Thank you. Thanks, Councilman Lidle. Oh, is that what that was for you? Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was a gift.

No. Mayor, council, uh, friends and families, this past Saturday went to the 16th gathering of American Indian ind Indian v uh, veterans. It was amazing what the Tono and Pachy tribes have put together and it's an annual thing that I did not know about. Um, I learned a lot.

I learned a lot that uh we need to work with them. We need to work as a community and uh we need to take that first step. But it was a really great event. It was about 3 hours. The presentations were great. Food was okay. But, uh, I I would recommend any veteran, any veteran or a family member of a veteran to look into this for next year. Thank you. Thanks. And I'm sure you'll be on the the invite list. So, make sure we we're aware of it when you hear because you were there. Yeah. Council member Morales.

Deb, did you pack?

Um, yeah. You know, I wanted to mention a few weeks ago, probably a few months ago, when we started this whole waste management, um I I know I mentioned it to you and to you, Shane, about a couple that came and approached me about how this is wrong and you know, they didn't want it and they have three things a week, three pickups a week in Quail Creek. Um yesterday, they approached me again and they are very pleased with the whole process. So, thank you, Daniel, to you and your team. Um, it was delightful to hear them say that. You know, they were impressed with how how much the the how quick the trash cans were picked up and how quick they were delivered. And I don't think they saw any hiccups. They were getting three pickups a week because because we couldn't understand like there's only two people living in that house. Why do they need three pickups?

They have small they had smaller trash cans. M. So now they're saying their trash cans are too big and they want smaller ones. So thank you Daniel. Absolutely. Diane,

this morning I attended the Sawarita Winds meeting. It's a community meeting at the Awarita Unified School District and community leaders gather every month uh to show support to the school system and to share what's going on with their respective communities. It's always an an invigorating process. Plus, I am going to be attending a conference on water issues at the Tucson Convention Center. Um, many of our residents have concerns about our the amount of water we have in our aquafor. So, I'm continuing to pursue that.

Thank you, Dr. Gillespie. Placem just one, but you were there. Um, so it was the pleasure. We were um the Arizona Corporation Commissioner uh Renee Lopez came down and visited our community and uh invited the mayor and I and the town manager to meet with him and it was just a great experience to first build the connection with another commissioner on the ACC. Um he had a wealth of knowledge. It was a wonderful um hour or so of just getting to know him and um asking questions and being able to um I don't know overall was just really good. that got a better understanding of their role and also what he has done previously. So just wanted to it was just really great.

Yeah. And his background was amazing being a nuclear engineer, naval officer and

um and again learning what the uh ACA um ACC um does. Um I don't think we had touched on a lot of us went to the League of Cities and Towns. I think that was between our last meeting. So, um you know, thanks for the uh attendance and um the vice mayor got a 16-year award um on there. So, congratulations. And I think in the interim, hasn't been mentioned, I attended the Arizona Park and Recreation Association and Winterfest was the event of the year award winner there. So, um from a town from 25,000 to 100,000. So, it was a really um a nice event to attend. Also, uh Mayor Honey was the public official of the year and his son was there to pick up the award on his behalf. Um so, that was a a wonderful event. So, that's two years in a row. Dylan won last year and uh the event of the year was Winterfest. So, we get a lot to be proud of. And I know no one's going to um be happier when the full transition of solid waste is because I think Daniel hears from me oh I don't know 32 times a day on um uh you know because people reach out to me what about this neighborhood and you know waste management was picked up. So has been doing a yman's lift on you know getting this thing done. people don't realize to deliver not only all new cans but also to pick them up and we've got I think Diggins is out of business and you know so we have to go get those and so thank you Daniel it's a I know it's a big lift from there. Um did you have anything before I just go to the

Yeah, Mayor I had three items I needed to cover or wanted to cover with you. Um first just as a reminder we continue to have a a vacancy seat on our board of appeals. I just wanted to bring that out in this public forum. Uh the vacant seat is specific to the fire industry. Um just a reminder, the board of adjustment hears appeals of building official decisions and will be involved in the uh adoption of the new 2024 international building code that's slated to hit you guys later this this year. As a reminder, there is no vacance there. I'm sorry, there is no residency requirement on this board. So, I just wanted to put that out. If you know of anybody that might have an interest and and meet those qualifications whether they're a resident or not um

sure yeah along that sort then get that those names over to um Anna or Nathan. Thank you. The second item is um as an organization we've been official we've officially begun implementation of the priority based budgeting tool. Um remember that the council directed staff to implement the PBB tool this uh this fiscal year and so that effort has begun. We've completed um well I'm sorry before I go there the the tool was you asked us to implement this tool to accomplish really three higharching outcomes. Um one was to enhance the mayor and council and staff's ability to make datadriven decisions during the budget process. Um second uh was to help bring greater transparency to the town's annual budget process. And the third um reason was to better align budget allocations with community values. And so um I'm pleased to announce that we've successfully completed phase one of implementation. And what that involves is the creation of cost centers or programs. So, um, you know, we had to we had to break down all of our services into these programs and we've done that and now we're um we're in phase two and that's where we allocate cost to each of those programs. So, we're basically restructuring our entire budget um to match up with these these programs so that in the future we can say what is it what does it really cost us to do this service for the community? um what does it cost us to do that service for the community? And that involves personnel all the way down to materials, pencils, paper clips, you know, that paper, that kind of stuff. Um and so I just wanted to make make you aware that we're we're wrestling through that implementation with the high hopes of being able to um take a crack at

utilizing the tool in your next round, your next budget round for fiscal year 27, right? Yeah. So, and the third thing I wanted to update you on is u that the uh you know one of the mayor and council has approved new positions in our organization which is the risk manager position um that has recently gone out on the streets for recruitment. So, um, happy to report that we've begun that process and looking forward to getting that position on board to help us, um, be be smarter about how we do our work out in the field, safer about it, and have less injuries and claims that affect our insurance premiums. So, uh, thank you. That that's the other.

Thanks. And I did forget to mention, I saw George in the audience. Um, the I19 reminder, the influential citizens impact um, is tomorrow night. So, I know I'm going to be seeing a lot of you and um hear about all the wonderful folks that have been submitted. I know M. Trinowski is one who's been nominated and uh was that and Liz Yep. on there. So, um hope to see a lot of you there. Uh and our reminder, Monday, September 22nd is the next regularly scheduled meeting. Moving to item number eight is consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion at this time.

So moved. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Madam clerk, item number nine, discussion and possible action regarding town council legislative ambassador guidelines and a council appointment.

Thanks. And I know Shane's going to take that, but I just wanted to um you know, start, you know, if anybody's thinking about it. Um, you know, when you represent the council, it's the, you know, you might have everybody has individual biases and leanings and such, but this position will be for somebody that can carry out the will of the council as a whole. May may agree most of the time because usually we're pretty aligned, but may not. Um and also secondarily just think about the time availability because once the legislative session starts it has to be a little bit more you know flexible to be able to take that um take that duty on. So with that Shane do you want to talk about that position? Sure.

Sure. Thank you mayor and council teacher

don't don't really have a a presentation per se to go through but I do have some uh talking points I want to cover you cover with you about this program. This is this is um you know the pioneering of a new program for the council to consider. I want you to know that um this is uh merely a proposition and of course the council doesn't have to move in this direction if you don't want to. um at the end of the day. Um but uh we're bringing it forward as staff because we see value in the proposition as we inter interact with the state legislature trying to move forward u the council's legislative priorities at the state level. um you know, when it comes to uh providing testimony at the on the floor at the state legislature or meeting with uh our state representatives to advocate for the town's position. We as staff, we see value in strategically inserting a representative from our town council. So, a local a local elected official to um you know, put a nice bow tie, you know, on on a on that on that package. You your voice just has a lot of weight as an elected official. And so, um, every year we go through this exercise where we revisit your legislative priorities for the upcoming year. That will probably hit around November, um, December at the very latest, but usually around the November period. And, um, and with that, we have our agenda slated for the upcoming um, legislative year. And that would involve not only the work that's done at the state legislature, but part of that is also the federal agenda that that um that a council delegation takes care of at the at at the federal on on on Capitol Hill. Um

with that said, this this is ex um exclusively focused at the state side, this program. And um and what what we want to what we're proposing um is something that we think will help promote the policies that align with the with Sawita strategic goals and the council's the Marin council's legislative priorities. Um we're proposing that a council representative be chosen from amongst you. Um the how to go about that we can talk about in just a few minutes but I wanted to describe what we hope these you know this the responsibilities would look like. Um you know we proposed the criteria for selecting a person um uh follow and I'm I'm pleased to say that I think all of you qualify. Um, but it's, you know, having a general common knowledge of our community, um, what we're about, um, how we tick, um, being familiar somewhat with the legislative process and staff can help whoever is chosen or selected, um, from year to year, um, with that as well as our state lobbyist. Um, but also be confident in their ability to communicate. quite frankly, you're going to be meeting with people who can come across as having a lot on their plate and a lot of, you know, a lot of details in front of them. And so to be able to, you know, have a very concise message and deliver that message um is is very important. So we look for that in whoever you guys um select as as your as your representative. Um as a role this uh this individual would act as a primary spokesperson for Saworita during the legislative session um as a rep as

an elected representative would provide testimony um answers answer questions and clarify um the town's stance on relevant legislation. um would collaborate with the mayor, the town managers sta the town manager and and staff and the town's contracted lobbyist to ensure that the town's legislative priorities align with proposed legislation. Um and that the the designated representative would serve at the pleasure of the town council and the term of the assignment would be tied to each legislative session. So, we would be back again like this tonight with you at the beginning of next fall to appoint yet another person. The idea is that could rotate or it could be the same person depending on how the council lays out on this. Um, does that make sense? Any questions on that so far?

Any questions? Nope.

Um, staff would be here to help prepare that person all along the way. And if you were ever asked to give testimony, there would be speaking points. We would talk about um maybe the pros and cons to uh the the town's position, what they may hear from uh the legislative floor or the representative they may be talking to, and how to be prepared for that conversation the best we can. Um, let's see here. Uh, as you mentioned, Mayor, this would require um some flexibility on the schedule. Um, and perhaps even odd hours of the day, not necessarily just your traditional 8 to5. Um, if you ever follow the legislature and and and what's happening on the floor, it doesn't really jive very well with a an 8 to5 schedule all the time. So, and then sometimes the individual meetings with representatives could be even at odder hours. It just depends. Um, rest assured, we would do everything we could to keep those within the typical 8 to 5. Um, but just know that that flexibility might be important at some point. Um, obviously, uh, part of the role of this of this legislative ambassador would be to help build bridges, build relationships, um, connect dots and help us advance the the council's legislative priorities for, you know, for that for the community and for that uh, particular legislative session. Um and then at the end of each legislative session, uh the council representative would provide a brief to the town council and key stakeholders about their experience and the legislative outcomes of the session. So they would be involved. Normally we had our management analyst provide that

uh that report. Uh the council ambassador would join staff in in providing a more rich um account of the legislative session. So that that would also be a responsibility. And then of course um part of that debrief de debrief would be um soliciting feedback from the ambassador on what went well, what maybe could have gone better, how can we how can we continue to um evolve the program in such a way that we become better and better and more efficient uh over over time. Um, with that, happy to answer any questions and then we can talk about maybe a process to help you guys make uh a decision if you want to move forward with this.

Any Well, first of all, any well, questions and or think it's a good idea and to at least put it out there to look forward. Um, vice mayor, I think I see you leaning towards the mic. You saw me end the mic. Um, I'm just clarifying to make sure I understand. uh they would the representative whatever we talk about during the legislation and we say these are the areas that we want that is the role of this representative on those issues not going out on other topics or other things it's what the council decides they would like the the town to represent

yeah I yes the answer the short answer is yes I would I would go as far as saying that I if if you found out as a council that the ambassador was actually talking about more things than what the legislative priorities are for the council, then I would suggest that that person needs to not be your ambassador anymore because the the authorization that you're giving that person um is to echo your voice as a council, as a unified council in terms of what your legislative priorities are, to echo that voice and that's the only business that they have, which is I think maybe part of the comments that the mayor was making on the opening end of this. Um, you you might have you might be in front of somebody as an elected official and you have a personal agenda that you want to get done as an elected official yourself, but if you're there as the town's ambassador, the council's ambassador,

you are only charged to speak to the points that the council has already spoken to and said, "Move this forward." Okay? And this person would need to because sometimes we have not had a huge controversial um agenda point for people, but they would have to be able to say even though I disagree with this personally, the council has said that they this is something important to them and they would need to be able to still um support it and and rally behind it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the person would need to be able to put away their personal Yes. Okay. Yes. That's the idea. Yeah. Just want to make sure I you know I would venture a guess that that could be challenging at times. That's why I wanted to make sure that's identified.

Yeah. Yeah. Good point. And it's and it's very appropriate to have that clarification here now at the front end of it. And my third thing is is I'm assuming that this would not work for anyone with a full-time job like doctors and teachers. And I would venture a guess that that wouldn't as as much as you might like it like. So I know two people that are for sure out. Okay. I'm on there. Any questions? And were you thinking um working on the pro on the process or could we make a motion tonight or all of the If the council can see itself through making a decision tonight, I think that's very appropriate. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. I guess one of the things is is Oh, did you have a comment, Kim, or just coughing? I do. I do. I I don't know how to do this since I'm virtual. I put my hand up, but I don't know if you see me or don't see me. Um, but can you hear me? I'm not even sure if you can hear. Yes, we can hear you. We can hear you. Okay. I think this is phenomenal. And personally, I would love to um nominate Council Member Morels because I think she's knows the town. She's a great advocate for the town of Sarita. And um I I know she I think she has time. I shouldn't say I know she has the time. if she want the nomination, but I think she'd be a great ambassador.

Yeah, you'll have to I'm sorry, Kim. You'll have to repeat that because we got everything but the nomination. Oh, sorry. My nomination is Council Member Morales. Oh, okay. Um, are you going to not travel and stick around? Are we doing nominations right now or we're just giving direction? Well, no. It It's potentially a nomination. Um but you know one you'd have to be willing to do it and you know be around um January to about May June no travel.

So Mr. mayor, members of the council. Um I I think I think one one way one way I saw us getting through this is kind of similar to how you guys handle the the mayor and the vice mayor, right? And you just go down the line and see what nominations come forward and then you guys act on those nominations. That might be but usually when we do that it's are you willing to accept the nomination. That's why I was kind of Can I point some This may not I'm not sure if everybody's ready to even say they want to do it or not. So, I'm wondering if we should wait and allow the people to consider what the time constraint is and the obligations are before we start nominating people. They're like, I don't know what I just got signed to. Yeah, that's our I mean, that's that's kind of the

I just saw I just saw De Morales's eyes going, "Wait, what?" My my comment on the front end is my is if the council could see its way through making a decision tonight, great. But if you feel more comfortable, you know, having some time to digest and then coming back on the 22nd or even a later date, um, that's fine, right? Any any thoughts? Yes, Diane.

So, I would like to put my own name in the hat. I have a keen interest in doing this and it's been developing over years. Um, I have been meeting with Mina Mikross on a monthly basis to go over the uh his legislative report and to take a deep dive into understanding how bills are passed. Um, I have a lot of experience in being able to testify and to present positions. And during my three years on this council, I've developed an appreciation for the tension that exists between one personal stance and what's in the best interest of the town. Because sometimes what's good for one's personal position and then when you sit on this side and you see what the town council has to deal with and all of the uh contingencies then you know you have to support what's in the best interest of the town. I have the time, I have the interest and I also rub elbows with uh legislators and people in political positions. I'm very comfortable swimming in those waters and I'm keenly interested in it. So I nominate myself.

Okay. Well, well, yeah. So, so I think I've I feel certainly a majority to come back and um I'm assuming you're going to want to keep your name, you know, in the hat for the 22nd and then have everybody else just kind of think on it because one Yeah, I think we should all wait. Somebody else nominated Debbie. So, um, but you can come back on the 22nd and and then, um, see if you'd be willing to want to do it, willing to do it, and then we'll probably have a process like we do, mayor and vice mayor. We'd have a couple people potentially on the docket. That sounds good.

Or not. Is everybody in agreement to kind of at least be thinking about it and then come back on the 22nd, but we know we have somebody that is interested and somebody that was told they're interested. That could be fun to just ask him to. Right. Right. Well, we could do you could do that on the 22nd if you want, but um at le I feel as a majority at least that for the process just to come back on the 22nd and and ponder on it, pray on it and think about it. Okay. Everybody okay with that? Sure.

Thanks. Having no more further business, we're adjourned. Thanks everybody. each other. I would be This is totally what I want to do if I wasn't working. What's that? This is what I do.