School Board - Regular Meeting

Billy number. I want you. Down. Good. Wonder. What do you want?

Heat like to call this meeting the Xolo City Council to order. Show that all council members are present with the exception of Councilman Hatch who has to be excused tonight. Um, welcome to 2026. Let's uh keep those prayers going for snow. Um, tonight I've asked Councilman Jud to lead us in the invocation, followed by the pledge by Councilman Clark. If you'd all like to stand and join us, you may do so. Our heavenly father, we're grateful for this opportunity we have to meet together this evening for city council. We pray that thy spirit will be with us and and guide us through this evening. We ask that thou will uh bless us to make the decisions that are are best for the city and will help us to come together and grow. We ask that thou will bless our first responders, our police officers, military, our firefighters, and our healthc care specialists that they can uh be watched over and protected. We ask for moisture at this time that we can get some rain or snow to help us uh beautify our land and and uh give us the the moisture that we need. And we say these things in the name of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Councilman Clark, Councilman Jud. Next item on the agenda is called to the public. City clerk,

mayor, any citizen desiring to speak on a matter of may shall be limited to three minutes per person and shall be addressed to the city council as a whole, not to any individual member. Issues raised shall be limited to those within the jurisdiction of the city council. Pursuant to the Arizona open meeting law, the city council cannot discuss or act on items presented at this time. At the conclusion of call to the public, individuals and council members may one respond to criticism made by those who have spoken, two ask staff to review a matter, and three ask that a matter be put on a future agenda.

Thank you. I have a couple here. Uh Mrs. Stone, please state your name and address for the record. Come on up to the podium. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Karen Stone. I reside at 1370 East Pine Oaks Drive in Xolo, Arizona. Um, I would like to know if there are any plans with Panol County inviting ICE into the county and also Phoenix doing the same thing. Are there any plans in Xolo for that? If there aren't, will there be if I should show up? That's my question. And thank you all for doing what you do. We'll uh we'll give that to the city manager and he can get with the chief and find out status.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mrs. McMillan. I did say that right. Correct. You did. Good job. Wow. You could have wrote just a little bit smaller. I'm surprised you're able to read it. Me, too.

My name is Angie McMillan. I reside at 8435 Dear Run Drive in Xolo, Arizona. Um, my first question is, are you guys sworn to the Constitution and you will you guys protect it? And on saying that, are you guys brave enough to stand up to ICE when they break the law? And on top of that, what will you do if ICE starts illegally kidnapping people and illegally detaining them? And also, do you think you should inform the community about the flock surveillance cameras and how they um and every vehicle getting put into an unsecured database and if you plan to tell the community about that. Thank you guys.

Thank you. We'll have the staff get a hold of you and explain that whole process. Next item on the agenda is special events, presentation of the annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year 2025. Mr. Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh tonight I'd like to introduce from Hinton Berdick our independent auditor Chantry Jensen. He is a senior auditor with Hinton Berdick. He's been on our audit for several years now. He's been the the audit manager for at least two maybe three years and he's going to be doing our audit report for us. Would like to take a minute to thank Misha and the finance department and the grants department and all those others who were involved in the audit. takes a lot of time and effort to round up all the data and the information and I think we work well with Hinton Berdick and we appreciate their efforts as well. So at this time I'll turn it over to Chantry who's uh joining us via Zoom.

Hopefully there he is. You see me can see you. Let me adjust my camera a little bit and you can better look there. Let's share my Can you hear us? Okay, Chant Chantry. Yeah, I can hear you good. Okay, the floor is yours. Okay, thank you.

Okay, we'll get started with the presentation. Uh again, want to give our thanks to the uh finance department, uh Misha, Justin, and all their staff. Uh this year was was a interesting year with the turnover we had there at the city. uh changing staff around and it was uh very well represented. I think we handled it very well. The city did a great job getting the information we needed timely uh and really no complaints on our side with with the city. So, we love working with the city. I've been with Hinton Berdick for a number of years, been involved on the city's audit for quite a few years now and just love working with you guys. So we'll get started. Uh the main thing you probably want to know is what opinion did we give. So if you look in your uh packet on page one to three is our uh audit report and we're pleased to present a non-modified report or in other words a clean opinion. Uh that's an A+. You can't get any better than that. So that's fantastic. If you thumb through the rest of the financials towards the end, page 107 108, looks like a little typo right there. Uh we didn't have any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies this year. And that's based on the report uh over internal control and financial reporting and on compliance. Uh as far as state compliance, you can uh see that report on page 109. as far as the uh report on compliance for each major program uh because the city did have another single audit this year that also had an unmodified or clean opinion. So, congratulations. Uh we do uh as we go through the audit process, we're always looking for ways

to help uh help our clients improve processes and certainly if we see anything that's uh not compliant, we bring that to their attention. Uh there were uh this was a reissued or rewarded finding. I think it was similar last year but with different funds. So here the uh this year the uh debt service fund uh just had a little bit of a difference of 41,000 and then the streets light district revenue fund also had a small difference of 15,000. Um those can be explained by the finance department if you want more details on that. Uh it's not a big deal as far as the audit goes, but it just something that came up as we went through the audit. If you have any questions, feel free to ask as we go through the slides. A couple of highlights as far as the government uh governmentwide uh view of it. Total net position was 197,000. That's on page 13. uh net position did increase by 14,580. And so over time, your increases and decreases are an indicator of the city's health. And so the city is uh healthy and and the trends are looking that way as well. So that's great. Um kind of browse through a couple other items. Uh capital assets are a major part of of governments. Uh we had additions of 11 million uh depreciation expense of 4 million. You can look at the tables in the financials on page 35 for that. Couple of significant additions. Um purchased some land, couple of improvements. Uh there's always equipment seems like every year, which is normal.

Not not really any retirements for the year, which is fine. And for the business type funds uh your water sewer uh there was about 3.3 million of additions about 2.9 million of depreciation uh various water infrastructure projects uh of 2.7 million and then again always equipment improvements tends to be just as things are maintained and improved on. So, uh, we'll talk a little bit about debt here. So, the government currently had or this year, last year, FY25 had a net decrease of 627,000. Um, a lot of that is just based on the schedules and the payments going out each year. Um, nothing too major to report there. Talk about the general fund. That is the largest fund of the city. So increased from the prior fiscal year fund balance increased and so that's great. Unassigned fund balance about 130% of total general fund expenditures. So that's that's a pretty good measure. It did go down a little bit from from FY24 but not that much. We also reported revenues in excess of expenditures of 8 million6. And that's a little different than last year. And then actual resources received at about 8.7 million um that were greater than the final budget and then 21 million less than the final budget on expenditures. So budget wise doing great. We'll go through a couple slides here, a couple of graphs. So this is the general fund balance sheet, assets, liabilities, and equity. So you can see

a nice positive trend move upward, which is exactly what we like to see and what we expect. General fund cash balance uh again going up about 2.4 million. Positive trend is is what you'd like to see. So that's good. Revenues and expenses. um similar trend. You can see the COVID years kind of made a little bubble, but other than that, looks like we're getting back on track with uh you know, expected results. Couple revenue slides here. Sales tax revenue continues to climb. Um I think this was 6% increase and it's about a 29% increase over the last five years. So there's a little stat for you. Other revenues, other tax revenues. This is your franchise and vehicle, your state sales tax and urban revenue sharing. For some reason, the graph didn't quite pull those numbers up, but those are the yellow and pink lines are actually increases. Um, and just the urban revenue went down a little bit. Highway user fund. Uh these are restricted monies and so here we have total expenditures um are more than total revenues and that's because of the the revenues coming in are restricted for certain uses. However, there's a lot of expenditures going out of that fund as well. So those are supplemented transfers. Debt service cash trend. Uh last year there was some cash there. This year there's not which is normal. pretty typical for prior years. You can look at last year's financials if you want to see more details on that.

Go to the water fund here. This total revenues and expenditures um not including transfers. And with water fund, you know, it runs like similar to a business. So the the fund charges services and hopefully those revenues from those services are able to supplement the expenses to provide those services to the to the city. So you can see here the revenues are are in a good trend. The expenses are in a in a good trend as well. So that's good. The water fund can support itself. Just as the cash here for the water fund, little dip in 24, but came back, rebounded in 25. Go to the wastewater. Uh, little bit tighter of a gap, but still a good a good trend. So, it's able to collect those revenues and pay for those expenditures as needed to provide the services to the city. and wastewater cash took a little bit of a dip, but um variances aren't unreasonable for cash balances. So, uh we'll look at the internal service fund. This is one that uh I might defer to Misha. She'll have a little more details on if you'd like to know more. Um you can see the COVID years things were a little bit different and now that we've gotten out of COVID, um the the numbers have reverted. So we're having revenues of uh less revenue than we have for expenditures. A lot of that is due to the demand or the claims and the activity for the year. But uh that's something that she does has have answers for if you'd like to know more on that. And uh here's the cash for the in uh

health insurance fund. Again, it's got a healthy cash reserve. There is cash there. You're not losing money. You have cash there. Uh just the just the way the revenues and expenses are running are a little bit different than what we're used to seeing. And then I believe this is close to the end. This is just major fund balances uh for major funds. So our general HERF debt, internal service, water and waste water. So pretty comparable to last year. Um, nothing too unexpected. The city's been doing a great job as we run analysises through the audit, especially with the the water and wastewater funds. Uh, things are looking good there and and that's what the graphs are showing. So, again, we just want to thank uh the staff again. It was a tricky year with the transition, but we got through it and we're really excited with next year um working with Misha and her team. She's got a lot of great ideas and and it'll be fun to see how we can turn a lot of things around and and keep keep improving.

Does anyone have any questions? Thank you. Anybody on our sales tax revenue? I noticed that there's an increase there. Can you tell us what the areas of increases? What what are the major areas that we see the increase in? Yeah, I'll defer to Misha on that first and then I'll add any if if she go back to that slide. Was it the this one? the other tax revenues.

Our sales tax revenue is based on what is purchased within the city. That's a flat 2% rate. It just says that we have more business in the city of Xolo this year. That's a simple answer. More more people coming here, more businesses available, so people are buying more and that sales tax comes back to us. Are we seeing an increase in like car cells and those kinds of things? Is that to get a actual breakdown? I'd have to go and research and but we can do that. We can give you breakdowns of which areas have increased.

I also want to make a comment about our health insurance fund. Um, we know when I worked at the city that we implemented that funding program and I'm really proud of what you guys have done with increasing that and BIGMI has done a really good job in advising us and increasing that fund so that we're really healthy in our selfunded health insurance program. So, good job. Thank you. Anybody else? Thank you. Okay, thank you. Justin, did you have anything closing?

Uh, just an addition on the sales tax. We did add the bed tax which boosted that total, but uh with the tariffs and and the cost of goods sold, that's part of it, too. But so some of it's activity, some of it is uh just the cost of things going up, but we didn't see a trend in a particular area. Retail, uh restaurants, um construction, everything was up a little bit. So it wasn't like a spike in one area. Yeah, you're welcome. You know, I I like the idea of maybe breaking that down more because I'm curious what the bed tax is doing, too. So sure, if we can get that whenever. Okay. Okay.

Thank you guys. You appreciate it. Next item on the agenda is the consent calendar where we'll do consideration of resolution number R202601. Consideration of acceptance of well 4 emergency repairs. Consideration of acceptance of well 13 repairs. Consideration of the minutes of the Xolo City Council meeting on December 9th, 2025. Does anybody want to pull anything or talk about it or a motion? Got a motion by the vice mayor to accept the consent calendar is read, seconded by Councilman Adams. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passed unanimously. Next item on the agenda is consideration of acceptance of updating program for the Xolo Sports and Event Center and programming stage estimate. Hang on, I got to switch pages. Jolo project number FM 4625 Mr. Hansaw.

Good evening Mayor and council. At its regular meeting on July 15th, the city council awarded a pre-construction contract to Hayden Companies LLC for the Shol Sports Event Center. The scope of the work is for this contract is the first phase of the design build contract for the facility. Over the past few months, the design team has been working to identify the possible programming elements of the facility. A public comment open house was held on September 16th followed by a city council meeting to discuss possible additional items that may be included in the final building programming. Uh based on that direction, the the design team has finalized the initial programming for the facility. We had a chance to review that a little bit in December. Uh the Hayden Architect fourline studio team are here uh to present the review of the final programming document including the review of the programming phase cost estimate for the facilities and items included. Uh, with that, I'll have the team come up and, uh, give you an overview. Thank you, uh, mayor and council. Uh, all right. Um, so to reiterate, um, we obviously presented the updated programming design of the facility back in December. Um, so I'm just going to briefly go through that, a very quick recap before I turn it over to Fritz to kind of run through the numbers and kind of spend most of our time talking about the budget. Um, so as you can see here, we have our site that's been identified off of Wolford Road and between Wolfford Road and Lewis Street to the east of the residential development located on Xolo Bluff. The building is located to the southeast corner of the site. Um having a foursided orientation for the main entrance on the northeast corner um with the main entrance into the site off of what is called road X. Um that is a road that is will be named in the future. Um the majority of the parking is off to the north kind of facing the entry of the building and additional off-site parking will provided either to the east

or to the south um to maintain the required parking calculations for the facility. And what you see here is the first floor plan of the facility. You can see um the entry is located here in the northeast corner. The 500 person meeting room is centralized here off the north that opens up to the entry plaza. The large commercial kitchen is in the southwest corner or northwest corner, excuse me. And then the sixcourt gym facility makes up the majority of the build the rest of the building um with bathrooms and facilities on the core outside. In addition to storage as well, there is a second level mezzanine for walking track that surrounds the gym. Um that is connected by obviously required stairs and elevators and some additional breakout space for um stretching and other activities for the community on the second floor. Um so we're going to run through just a couple of the still shots that we reviewed uh back in December. This is a view of the from the northeast corner. um kind of the front entry of the building coming from the future commercial development to the east. Uh you can see it's got a large covered uh entry um to make sure that both during summer and winter that that entry and queuing experience is is enjoyable. And then you can see that lobby area in the back. Um as we kind of rotate around to the south uh west, this is located at the roundabout that will be located at the Wolfford Road and future road X intersection. Uh you can see that we've opened up the corner here of the building um with as much glazing as possible to really help elevate that corner experience and the aesthetic of the building um from the from the street. Rotating now towards the southwest corner. Um you can see this is kind of the view from Wolfford Road as you're coming from uh the 260 um with the access to the secondary vehicular access here to the left and Wolfford Road to

the right. um and using the landscape and architectural features to provide as minimal impact to the sur the neighboring community as possible. And here's a view from the north coming from the majority of the main parking lot. Again, looking straight into that entry plaza that we talked about earlier. Um and you can see the kind of form of the building um that we talked about last time mimicking a lot of the geological and natural features that we're trying to highlight with the architecture. And here is kind of a raised up aerial version. um with that entry plaza located here. The main gin volume is located in the back here along Wolford. Here you can see here's that roundabout again on Wolfford Road with Road X. Again, reiterating that opening of the corners to really help provide that, you know, inviting feel um off of the main community uh access rotating to the west southwest uh again off of Wolfford adjacent to the residential um district. Um we are again opening that corner as well to make sure that every side of the building is treated with visual interest and architectural um integrity. And lastly the last corner you can see um our back house spaces a private uh entry plaza space that will be accessed from inside and secured at um as required and then obviously the majority of the parking lot there. Any questions before we move into the numbers? Okay. I just click on this. I get this right.

Oh, it did. Okay. All right. So, uh, right now, so, um, we were in front of you, um, about a month, month and a half ago and talked about some some of the features of the of the project that had grown from the original proposal to the the, um, I guess a concept. And from that concept, we we were we were a little over $50 million. Um, in the in the meantime, we've gone from the concept stage to a program stage. So what what we're doing there is we're taking the the requirements that SFC has given us for the functionality of the gym and the then the functionality of the kitchen, some of the wishes of the community for the meeting space and some of the other public spaces and then wrapping all of the other spaces, the supporting spaces and things like that around them. We're also adapting the project to the new site. If you recall, we moved from the site across the street to the the site uh north. Um, so all those things we we work through the the preliminary design and we've kind of baked it into the design that Chris just shown you. Uh, in the process of doing that, we've updated the budget to reflect the the scope that we have currently reflected. Um, and Chris has kind of broken it out here for construction is about 47 million. Design and pre-construction is about 4.7 million. There's a about an 8% contingency about 3 and a.5 million. And then we have an allowance of FFN, which is furniture, fixtures, and equipment that would be purchased by the city that's included in the overall $56.4 million budget. Um, we've already approved, the council has already approved a little over four million that comes out of that design and precon. The rest is um would be con what we call construction administration. And we also have an increase in con in design costs because the overall program for the project has increased and the overall value of the project is increased. So, we we are up a little bit from the last

time we we met. And so, um I want to talk about a couple areas that we've seen that happening. Chris, how do I get this?

Okay. Technology. All right. So, um part of one of the one of the larger impacts is the buildings is a little bit bigger than what we had originally anticipated. I think we talked about a building that was around 110,000 ft and we're we're up around 120 plus. Um, we are looking at ways to squeeze that down. That's really driven by the by the size of the three of the six court gym and the spaces that we need around that in order to to do the fun to have the functionality. It's not just six courts. It's also getting the people around them and being able to to run tournaments. So, as that gym grows, the whole building grows, including the queuing spaces, um the the the capacity spaces for the the facility. And then, um you know, adapting the requirements for the kitchen and some of the other areas that that went into the project. We are looking at ways to try to cut some of that out. I don't think we can get all the way back because of the demands of the of the gym and the the functionality of that gym, but we are looking for ways to try to reduce that size and that will bring the cost down a little bit. Um, in in this program, we felt that it was important in the in the lobby area to bring some natural lighting in. So, we added some skylights that weren't in the original concept. Um, we we have included a generator and a fire pump. And this has to go this really goes to the to the the code usage of the building. If we use it as a an event space for 4,700 people or so, um, then we have to have what they call a standpipe system. in that standpipe system has got to be fed by a fire pump which has got to be backed up by a generator. So this is kind of a cascading thing. So I think we're in negotiations with the fire chief on that. We're talking to the fire chief about that and about the the you know whether that's required uh for the usage of this building. Of course obviously we're going to follow the code and do what's what's proper and safe. Um, but this is the the upside cost for that and we will see if we can't bring that down somewhat

too by sizing that sizing that equipment. Um, one of the things that the design team felt was really important was was kind of integrating the interior and the exterior of the building and kind of softening up the the look of the building. And so we proposed a wood sophet that's as you're walking into that big entry if you look up we would have a wood sophet that on the exterior of the building that carries into the interior. It's a very nice uh feature. Um we could there's lots of different ways we could do that. We could design team wouldn't like it, but we could do nothing. We can use other materials. Right now, we've proposed a wood material. It it is a pretty large upgrade to the project and that was about $750,000 of of that cost increase. Um as I said, the program grew, so the design grew about $300,000. Um, we're proposing a plaza that again that kind of ties the parking lot to the building and the and the entry plaza area. So, the the main drive is is all concrete paving. So, there's some functionality there as well. Um, it'll, you know, it it plows off better in the snow. It'll hold up better to the traffic that goes through the front. That was an increase in cost though on the overall program. um championship court. We're using a full what what we call a full overlay court for the championship court. Instead of trying to stripe the championship court onto the top of the other six courts, we're using a a wood basketball court that we'll store that we can bring in and set up on top of the existing court. So, it it's it's better playability. It works better that because you don't have all the confusion of the lines and things like that. Um, we have an all-weather cover over the loading dock area. That's something that we hadn't proposed earlier. Um, the the the team felt that that was important for service and functionality as well. Um, the we got the requirements and spent a lot of time working with SFC for the the

kitchen equipment and the size of the kitchen. So, we we put together a program for the kitchen and priced that equipment out with a kitchen equipment vendor and it came out $500,000 more than what we had carried in that initial budget. Now, I will say that one of the things we're going to do is have a follow-up meeting and try to to downsize that kitchen and pull some of that equipment out of there and maybe future proof put in some capacity for future equipment um and try to bring that kitchen equipment budget down, shrink that kitchen a little bit. And then um there I don't remember what these initials are for, but this is a basically a public safety radio repeater system. Something that is could be required in the building. There's a pro provision in the code that says that once the building is built, we have to go in and test it and see whether the radios for the for first responders work in all areas of the building. And if it if they don't, then we have to put this repeater system in it. So this may or may not be required. It may not may or may not be something that the that the uh code authority or the fire fire department requires, but we've built it into the budget for now in case that needs to be included. Um so that's about a little under $5 million worth of added scope. And so that really do we have another that really kind of accommodates or accounts for uh um where we saw some some increase in cost. So we we are working now um we are at the program stage fairly early stage of the project and we're going to basically looking to go to schematic design stage where we really take this design and and and flesh it out and begin to understand you know exactly how the building goes together and all the systems and things that go in it and hopefully as we as we do that um we can reduce some contingencies and and tighten this thing up a little bit. Now, you know, it is conceptual at this stage. So, um there's there's always a possibility that as we

as we go through the process and decisions get made that scope could be added to the project and and we have to have this discussion again about about where we are with the budget. So, Fritz, I have probably one question for sure. Sure. the the building size since December to now. What? Explain that to us a little bit. Why it went up almost two million from the last meeting.

We we added about the the build when we we had originally conceived of a building of about 85,000 ft. And if you recall, we came back and said in order to meet the program um for the basketball courts and the the 4,700 seats and everything that we wanted to do, we felt the building needed to be about 110,000 square about 110,000 square ft. When we actually sat down and laid it out and laid out the court the way that that the consultant is is asking us to build the courts and then wrapped all the supporting spaces around it, we we ended up at about 120,000 ft. So it's just bigger building cost per square foot. That's that's it's you know it's just a straight math thing. Um there when we were at the previous stage we were conceptual. We were dealing with with not Titan. We hadn't laid the whole thing out and tried to figure out how it worked. And the building looks quite a bit different than what we had conceived it because of moving it to the other site. How are we going to bring people in? How are we going to queue them outside of the conference rooms or the the multi-purpose rooms? how how you know how are we servicing the basketball courts and how all that fits together. So when we put all those pieces together and Chris could probably do a much more eloquent job of this than I am, but when we put all those pieces together, we ended up with more square footage in the building than what we had anticipated. And that so basically what I what I did is I said, well, you know, our building is running about say $250 a square foot and maybe we're not paying that that increase in building size. We're not paying another 250 bucks a foot for that increase in square footage, but we're paying something because the building is bigger. And the correlary to that is if we can make the building smaller, we can reduce cost as well.

May I? Vice Mayor. So, on the building size as well as the championship court numbers, um I'm assuming that you did some analysis as in regards to the offset for the different um programs that we can put in there that would offset that cost.

Yeah. I I mean, basically, as I said, the part of the the biggest driver is the co is the size of those courts because this building really just wraps around the six courts. And so as those courts get bigger, you can imagine that we have to have a hallway that serves that space, you know, an entry hall that gets bigger and and the bathrooms, we end up with more bathrooms and the bathrooms get a little bigger because of the occupancy, which is driven by the size of the building. So it's a cascading effect. So in order to meet the program, we had to make the basketball court bigger, which made the which drove the building bigger. And then um one of the things that SFC told us was that it was really important that we have this overlay championship court in order to bring in the level of games that you want to bring in. If we tried to do it, you know, the the less expensive way with with a painted overlay, they just the the tournaments wouldn't like that or the the championship games wouldn't wouldn't like that.

Thank you. I'll jump in there. Oh yeah, sure. And real quick, I don't know if you guys remember back in September when we started talking about this program and adding scope and the the the gym size really grew because we had the six volleyball courts on the six basketball courts and the the in order to get those bigger tournaments and really get that that uh that drive to bring tournaments here, a lot of them spin those volleyball courts 90°. So now we get 12 of those volleyball courts on those six and that kind of grew. all the back stops had to get bigger on those volleyball courts and that's really where that that size grew on the actual gym site. I so I remember that because yeah when we had it

when you first had it out there there was um no seating for anybody to watch anything. So it was kind of weird that there was seating up the middle. So I I I understand that part. I just just shocking how much bigger. But you're right for when you start adding you you want a big enough place for people to watch. for sure when you start adding a little bit here goes the building again. So

yeah, and I'll just add one more thing to that is, you know, when, as Shane mentioned, when we were here in September, you know, we approved to go to the 6 and 12, which add a square foot to the gym, and all of those ads that we kind of approved back in September to get to the 50 million, that was based on kind of individual room sizes. And as Fritz said, when we laid everything out, it was really in those kind of accessory spaces that feed off of that that added that extra 10,000. And again, that's just based on we have a block we have to work around and we have bathrooms around it and the lobby around it and that's where most of that square footage came from. And so we are looking at the reduction here. Um, you know, we probably could get easily, not easily, but without sacrificing too much, you know, around 2,2500 foot out. Um, anything more on that is probably going to start to really hamper the functionality of the facility. Um, but that is kind of where we're at at this point with that that statement,

you know, and and listening to this, you know, each week and it there's a lot of I guess I look at it a different way. I I see this want we want all this. I think of this at my own house. I want all this done, but now we got to get do what we really need. And it's just and I get it. I I mean I I wish it was I I just wish it had a four in front of it. That's my brain working. And I get it because to cut we don't want to build something in 10 years from now we're we're talking about we need to upgrade or build more or add on and and I didn't I didn't really understand the championship court process for it. So I appreciate that. I I didn't know that is that something that we're bringing up, you know, is it college tournaments up here? I I I don't understand that. of all the the the tournaments I've gone to, not much ba basketball, but I've never seen him bring in another floor. So, I that's obviously something new that's out there. So, I I think it's something that we we definitely have to start buckling down. And I know we've talked about this, we're getting closer, but um I don't know. I the kitchen I have a I have a heartache for the kitchen. I I know we're trying to feed I don't know if we are, but when you look at the design of it, we're trying to feed 4,000 people. I I'm not sure if we need to feed That's what it looks like to me when you look at that kitchen. So, that was something that I really caught my attention on the size of it and the equipment in it. Um it's almost needs to be a full-time kitchen to me. It should be open 24/7, 7 days a week, which is not going to happen. bit.

Vice Mayor Chris, if you would, would you kind of describe uh the functionality of the dock cover as well as the how the championship court works and how what that means to us as the functionality that we are looking to get as well as the um building size. I we we need these things and I don't want to do a project that we're spending this much money for and get 3/4 of the way there and wish that we went 100%.

So if you'll explain those things so we understand why we need to go this direction.

Sure. So on the dock cover again there is a loading dock on the west side of the building. Um there is two bays, one for a semi truck and one for a panel van for deliveries um to the facility and also pime the semi is primarily there for large events um that for future proofing it for large events. Um typically especially with you know the weather that we're hopefully going to get here right soon. um providing a covered uh space for that is definitely preferred and recommended to make that process easier and to attract, you know, to help attract that those events. Is it 100% required? No, it's definitely something that we could remove. Um and still doesn't, you know, doesn't necessarily impact the functionality of the facility. Um it is something though that like just from a performance and facility standpoint, we would recommend if possible. Um in terms of the championship court, I I don't necessarily have the ability to speak to that. I would lean more on SSC. I'm not sure. I thought I knew they were maybe going to be on the call.

Yeah, I'm here. This is Mike. Um, so I would lean on Mike and the SFC team to explain uh the importance of having that separate championship court and the value that brings to the facility.

Yeah. Uh, so good evening everyone. The championship court can be achieved in a couple different ways. um as was shown on the drawings having a portable overlaid court uh is the premier experience. Uh what we found is unless that is a targeted audience and there is a built-in uh program for people to come and use that on a regular basis. uh it gets very labor intensive to bring back and forth and that particular per square foot for a portable flooring is more expensive than the standard uh wood court that that would be for the other six. Um championship courts are important for the tournament space because you know you always boil down your bracket the final two games and you want to give them a little bit of an elevated experience for that game. Uh but that could also be achieved by designating one of the six existing courts as a championship court. Uh that could also be done uh using one or two of the sets of portable bleachers depending on the way it's oriented and some ways to achieve that with some cost savings versus the portable court in the middle. Uh the one benefit uh although at the added cost that the portable court in in the middle give you is the additional horseshoe seating with a retractable bleachers. Uh so if you do want to to court a call it like a Harlem Globe Trotters type event or something like that, they can come in on that championship court and have a larger ticketed audience uh to come in and support that. Uh those events are are typically once per year at best. So it would have to be more than that one event to justify the reoccurring labor and and cost of the stuff. But there are multiple ways to achieve a championship court which we still feel is very important to the to the venue.

Thank you. You're welcome. Um so I assume that the championship court would be stored on site. We're not going to store it off site. And my question is how much uh storage square footage do we have if you know that and then how much space is this approximately going to take up? Um so J the total number of storage I believe we listed on here

we did um 7,214 ft um on the ground floor which is broken up into the main storage area here which is off the loading dock to the west and then two accessory storage spaces um that sit behind the retractable seats. Um, I do not know what percentage of that is dedicated to the um, championship. We do have that broken down in the programming document, so I'd have to look at it. Um, but I don't have that off the top of my head.

Else any questions or comments? Only only comment I have, mayor, is um, kind of like what you said with the kitchen. Seems there's something I don't know. Seems like a lot kitchen. So, what's our what's the process from here? I know you said you're tightening things up from here. What do you mean? Well, for to use the kitchen as an example, right?

Um, we have a a focus meeting. Um, basically we responded to the the data that we got from SFC on recommendations for the kitchen and designed a kitchen around those parameters. Um, but I think it it warrants more discussion about what the true functionality of the kitchen and the capacity of that kitchen. And so we have a focus meeting set up to to go through that with the kitchen equipment vendor or designer and the people who are going to use the facility so that we can we can dial that in. So, um, I got to believe it's going to, especially if we're aiming to reduce the amount of kitchen equipment, that's going to net a reduction in cost. You know, like Chris mentioned, we're trying to tighten up the building and so we're going to try to cut some square footage out of it and and hopefully that'll save us some money as well. So the next step really is to advance the design um to the schematic design level and um and to to to refine the design so that we understand the building better and so that we can we can have a a more accurate look at what the costs are going to be with an eye on on on at least staying where we're at and not growing anymore uh and reducing costs if possible. And I guess we really need to council really needs to decide on that list, that $4.7 million want list that you guys just brought to us. Is that is it all needed? Is it if we cut any of that, are we cutting the functionality of the building? Probably not. But is it something we might need later down the road? And let's not like Vice Mayor, I don't want to cut corners either. Um, we want a nice facility, especially for our community. I know it'll be well used. So,

okay. Anybody else have any other questions? Yes. I'll just make a statement. I think that um you know that when you look at that list we have to you know let's say we build this and if history is any indicator of what when we build something we usually build it and we are at capacity almost when we build it and you know we grow into things and it's like a 4 point I know what was that Shane what was the final number that punch list 4.7 4.7 it's like what's that going to cost us five years after we open it to go back in and put those in, it's almost going to be at least double. You know what I mean? Like

anytime we've had to go in and expand something, it seems like it costs us at least twice as much. So, I agree.

For me, it's like all of the indicators, especially from the auditor just, you know, this at the first part of the meeting, everything's trending this way for the city of Xolo. No indicators for us right now that says that that's not happening. And we have our experts on the phone from SFA who's telling us that if we build this they will come and this will you know this will really transcend us as an as a as a a destination place for sports tourism even if there's a you know hiccup in the economy you know you're you're the uh the all the economists are economy where it's going to be in the tank when Trump started doing tariffs and stuff and that's proven to be fault faulty um but so if you believe one side or the other one thing that was that that is recession proof is sports for youth. And so even if you know a recession occurs, people still want to get their kids out. They still want to provide those things. And so for me personally, I look at it as let's build the best one possible. We've engaged um you know the the best team possible that we could. You know, obviously being constrained by state um procurement laws and stuff like that. And so we've been able, you know, we're we're getting the expert advice that we need and all indicators indicate that we should build it right the first time people will come. I mean, Maricopa County is what the fourth or fifth largest county in this country. Phoenix is the sixth largest city. They're growing exponentially and we're a bedroom community of that. So for me, it makes sense to build it the right way to

Okay, any other comments? Thank you guys. appreciate everything. I can tell you just from experience watching these guys work each week um sitting in on those meetings. I don't say a I don't say a whole lot cuz it's kind of overwhelming, but um I think you're right, Councilman Clark. We we do have the best best team on this for sure. A lot of confidence in these guys. Anyway, moving to the next item on the agenda. Sorry, there was a mo there's a Oh, I'm sorry. Did I have a motion?

I do. I move to approve the updated programming conceptual design for the XA Sports and Event Center and the programming stage cost estimates the Ashola project number FM4625.

Got a motion second by Councilman Adams. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passed unanimously. Trying to rush this meeting for some reason. Next item on the agenda, discussion of cons and consideration of improvements on the Huning House located at 100 North 11th Street. Mr. Heaw. Thank you guys. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh at the October 1st, 2025 during the city council retreat, staff reviewed options for the development of the downtown parcels near the city library along 11th Street. The downtown parking uh lot project has been completed and further improvements are being considered in the area. Landscaping with grass, pavers, concrete are preliminary suggestions to create a downtown plaza area to be enjoyed by our citizens. A public restroom as well as a large romada structure for gatherings is also planned. The existing structure on the property has aged and will need to be removed or relocated to preserve or to be preserved due to the requirements in the city's flood plane management code. staff investigated options for the removal or relocation. Yeah. If the city council would like the structure removed, staff will include the demolition of the building uh with the restroom project expected to bid this spring. A conceptual layout what the future improvements would look like has been provided. Staff also reached out to a area state house movers and enterprises incorporated to investigate relocating the structure to a new location and to provide proper height required by the flood plan requirements. A proposal to lift the building and place it on a new twoft high stem wall closer to the southern boundary of the property was provided. The cost to lift and relocate the structure and provide a new higher stem wall is approximately 77 77,000. That cost is only only includes relocating the structure. In order to get the structure into condition to rent or utilize, uh the following additional improvements would need to be completed.

Uh speestous removal, uh new plumbing, new electrical, and complete internal and external remodeling. To identify the cost for the remodeling improvement, staff would need some direction from city council on future use of the building, for example, restaurant or offices, etc. Um staff's seeking some direction to move forward uh with the disposal of the existing structure or scope of improvements and budget to consider for remodeling. Um I think we attached a couple of just conceptual designs of downtown uh with the structural there in place with it removed or if we we pulled it to the south. Um these once again these are just schematic just showing some plaza areas ramada and grass pavers etc. Um and those are provide I'm here for any questions. Um, just a quick comment. I I definitely like the idea of keeping it and moving it toward the south. I think that gives us better use of that land. What we're going to do with it, I I have no idea. I mean, I if we're I just see if we're going to open up to the public, we got a lot of remodeling to do, right? Right.

If we put anything in there, little store, trinket shop or or do nothing. Is that I mean, you're looking for direction on what to do. Correct. It's a tough decision when you're sitting here and, you know, to try to make a decision on what to do with the house. I I don't want to see it tore down now that it's it's movable. So, I I like that idea and I like the idea of moving it towarding so we can open up that park a little more. So, that's my opinion. I know the other one was kind of more almost where it's at, I believe. Right. So, Vice Mayor,

obviously this is a extremely personal issue to me. Um, I grew up there. Um, my father grew up there. My father grew up there in that little tiny space with 12 siblings. Um, been there forever. My granddad was there and my great-grandfather James Clark's um had the original um merkantile store on Huning right next to that building. As we um discovered this space and tore off the back of that building, we found a a well um had been abandoned and I didn't know it was there, but I lived there in the The house is very um primitive. Um not something that a lot of people enjoy with their homes today, but it was what we had when I was growing up. There was apple orchard there that existed um alongside that well as well as a merkantile. I had eight siblings there and it's very small structure. Um so yes, I would like to see it um restored and but I understand that it's not a building that is extreme value like the Reed Head home. It's not something that is that far in history, but it um I'm sensitive to that, but um it was my childhood home and I would like to see it restored. I leave that to the rest of the council.

That's what you I'd like to see us restore it. Um it's got a lot of history. Uh it's the old downtown. It was in front of the old main street there. Um, I'd like to see it kind of turned on on um also um what to do with it. I have some ideas um you know things we could do make it useful, but I think um restoring it. There's not many of these old structures in town left. This one was in good shape. I was there when the the I looked at it. Um, I'd like to see us restore it and and and move it and and um and we can have a discussion about what we want to do with it. That's my two bits.

I've given you a whole lot of direction here, but I I I council

I I would, you know, I I'm sensitive to the fact that it's historic and Conniey's, but I'd love to just see a plaque there like our original plan. And, you know, I don't know if we move it. It just seems like there's going to be a lot of expense if we've got asbestous in there. It um you know I'm I'm sensitive to the fact that it's somewhat historic just doesn't seem to fit to me trying to accomplish in the downtown that so personally I'd like to see them the money go into something like the Merkantile and then put something there that would honor the the family and something with the history there. Anybody else got any? We We were not given any direction here that I can see.

Yeah. Go ahead, Shane. Let's see. Is there urgency with this? I mean, are we um what kind of timeline are we on that we need to

No, I just remember the discussion at the retreat was just trying to get the downtown kind of tuned up, I believe, by the by the anniversary coming up here in a couple years. Um, we did have the restroom budget for this year. So, that's something that if you look at the plans, um, the restrooms tucked far away from the ramada, the the landscaping and the house move. So, we can move forward with the public restroom portion of that. Um, that's in the budget for this year. Um, and so we were just going to tie the demo to that project and do it all at once. But if we're going to move that structure, then we can get started on the restroom. We'll just need some direction on what to do if that structure does move. Um, the reason why we're asking that is I believe the way that they're going to do the stem wall is they're going to have a stem wall on one side of the building, a center stem wall because it kind of has a a middle bearing point and a third stem wall. And just for future plumbing and electrical, we just need to make sure that stem wall can accommodate if we're moving bathrooms or putting a kitchen in it for a small coffee shop or if it's just going to be for offices with a single restroom or just we just need a little more direction on what when we move that structure what we need to plan for. Does that make sense? How big is it? Like

it's 1,200 square feet. Yeah, right now it's bigger than that. I think it's a little like 7,000. A little less than six. I think I was going to say move it over by the read house. You know, I know you're going to need direction on what to do with it, and I don't think you're going to get that tonight, but I I I really think I want to I personally and and however you want to if we need I want to save it. I want to move it and if they got to put a stem wall in for future use, tell them let's see what it's going to cost to do that. That's part of the project. It's just when we put that middle stem wall through the middle of that building.

I don't know a future use. I don't know if we need I mean we can't predict that. I I I personally want to save it. I'd like to move it toward Huning and and what to do with it. I think we have to discuss that. I know. I I I talked to Morgan earlier about it too. It's like I Good luck. I mean, there's a lot of things that we we really want to do with it. Can we do with it? We don't know if it if it's going to cost us a whole lot of money to open up to the public or just have it for a meeting room. I don't I don't know. I'm sorry. Let me just I was going to ask, is there any sort of grant or anything since it is historical? Can we apply for anything if there's not a huge urgency? We haven't seen we haven't been able to apply for anything.

They they've closed all the all grants for state historic preservation is shut down. It's not an option. Grants. Yeah. What about CDBG? I mean, is that a possibility? Sure, if this would depending on what you the reuse of the the building is, there might be a possibility to use some CDB there. 4,000 or see if we can get 12 people in there. Money like crazy.

So, Mary, if I can just take a minute. So, as part of the plan for that area, as Shane mentioned, the bathroom, but we also have a plan for a ramada. And if we if the if the desire is to to move the house, that would be helpful if we if we know that that's the desire of the council at least to move the house towards Yuning. So we can plan for that remada that's there because we have that in the budget this year and that's kind of a little bit of the urgency is to get the bathroom and the ramada done and some of that landscaping done. We can probably just say, you know, plan to move the house. We can talk about some other options on the plumbing and electrical and maybe some stubbing out, but at least to know that that's okay with the council to move it towards the the Huning area. If not, I mean, I know some would say, let's remove it. And

and you know, Councilman Jud, I appreciate that, too. But I I think about I think like Councilman Adams just made a comment about some of the historical houses we have left in our community, and there's not many. and you have somebody that was born and raised here and raised in that house and dedicated her pretty much her whole life to our community and we have a possibility of of saving that house. I I think that to me I mean I wasn't born and raised here but it means a lot to me and I I appreciate you know the idea of a plaque but it and that was our comment three or four months ago when we thought it was going to blow over but once we had it looked at and we realized we can save it and we can move it and and save it. I I me personally I I want to move it. So, anybody else have

and I don't know Shane if you can pull up that that diagram and map. It's there. Yeah. So, that's that's a rough location. Of course, the goal too and moving that building to the east and closer to Huning. It would be 15 or 10 feet off that property line. We'll meet setbacks and proper code and things. Um we'd like to avoid all the the existing apple trees. Some of those apple trees are are 100 years old. They're very Some of them are dying, but we're going to try to trim them in the spring. Rick's got a plan to trim them and see if we can salvage those. There's a pear tree in the front. We're going to leave all those in place and just move things around those the the orchard, so that won't be exact.

And then um the discussion with the well is something else we need to decide if we'd like to just keep as a like sightseeing well or improve that a little bit. Um that's right there kind of on that right bottom corner of the existing structure. Um and we can shove the ramada around slightly to avoid that. The idea was to do kind of a paver paths, grass and trees, uh a large romada just open for events, birthdays, gettogethers, um weekend events, whatever. So, we don't need any kind of motion, just a direction, right? Obviously. Yeah. I mean, just some direction that that you're okay with this moving it at least to this to the south. That way, we can plan for that ramada and try to work on that well and the bathroom and just kind of get stuff there.

Want to move it? I would I would say if we're going to move it, then I would want to have our grant writer figure out what uses it could be for for CDBT money and bring us back options so that we can look at there is historical preservation or if there it's to revitalize it. You know, I know at one point when the the original idea that we talked about where the business incubator idea came from was when we were talking about this

specific building. And so I had just come back from a trip from Flagstaff and they had their business incubator and we kind of like discussed this house in that context of you know redoing it into a business incubator or whatever it is and that's how that kind of took off. And so I would want to see, you know, direction to staff that what what uh what type of repurposing could we do and how does that work in the CDBG realm because I know that it's already been designated as a slow and blighted area. We had project earlier this year that we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. And so as we develop that list that we give to either the state or the federal government, we should look at

it's a good idea. recommendation is is that if we move it, we also look at it for whatever the possibility is complies with CDBG option. Good idea. So I think the majority I believe is to move it. No, Councilman Jud, you know what? We can't agree on everything. That's why I appreciate that, too. I would say too, I completely agree with uh with Vice Mayor. I appreciate every everything she's done. and I've had a front row from the time I was 16 to see that what she's done with the for the community and it's been phenomenal. Right.

And at the same time I'm I'm the guy who's like we should have tore down the city campus and built it again. So I'm definitely conflicted because I I my natural tendency is to do what's in the best interest of the taxpayers and do what's you know makes sense. And in this case, I think that there's might options so that we can find grants to help fulfill both purposes. I'm usually the guy who says turn tear it down. Sorry. So, we won one vote over. Lost one. I don't know. Okay. I think you got direction. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yes. All righty. Next item on the agenda. Summary of current events.

You got anything? I don't have anything. Nothing down there. Nothing. Um, happy new year. I think it's awesome. Power of positive thinking. So, let's start with snow. Man, I I heard a report that not that I care what other communities are doing, but Flagstaff's like 20 ines down on their snow. So, we need lots of snow. There we can when our consultants for the sports complex come in, can we get them to wear a shirt that says not going to be budget neutral? Is that a possibility? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why every time they come in, it's not budget neutral. Well, that's why when you go to these meetings, you don't say anything because if you say one word, there goes a million. So, anyway, um

city manager,

you may counsel, just a few quick items to report on. We've uh begun the process to prepare the city's fiscal year 2027 budget. We are holding a town hall budget meeting specifically for citizen input on Thursday, January 22nd at 6 p.m. here at the council chambers. And all budget meetings are open to the public. If you want a list of the meeting dates, you can check out our website at xoloaz.gov. And the recreation department is hosting their annual popular daddyaughter dance. It's on February 6. Tickets can be purchased at the Xolo Family Aquatic Center. You can call 5324130 for more information. And in public works projects, the city's contractor um is working on the HVAC system this week at the city campus recreation building. We anticipate being able to move into that building in about two weeks. Excited for that. And then the work is everybody's going to be glad to hear this. Finishing up on the Highway 260 sidewalk and walking path. Hopefully that should be finished up within the next week. No more shutdowns on the road there. And then Rachel did remind me that candidate packets for the council uh seat that are coming up in the election are available. So, if anyone needs a candidate packet, they can contact Rachel Hall at our city clerk. That's all I have. Um, one more thing about the the event center since we're still on that, we will hold a public hearing or public open house probably next month to kind of show the design, but if you're here or you're watching and you have any input, I I'm sure the city manager wouldn't mind a phone call or or because we are in that phase and we want the community support. Um, but we will have an open house. We're I don't know if we have a date yet. I know there's a couple tenative dates out there. Um just keep an eye on our social media page or or visit the website. Um but it'll be next month u another open house. Um scheduling meetings.

So we uh have a special meeting tenally scheduled for January 20th to hold interviews for the vacant council seat. Um, Rachel will let you know kind of what time that meeting will start, but probably around somewhere between 5:30 on that date. And then just a reminder, we also have a budget study session on that date at 6:30.

Sounds good. All right. If I see no more business before this meeting, I'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you guys. Heat up here.