Council - Regular Meeting

In the absence of the mayor and the vice mayor, council members, we need to decide who the acting mayor would be for this council meeting.

To Mrs. Lorena. I'm sorry. Give it to her so she can.

Sure, a motion's necessary, Trish, but as long as you guys decide. Yeah, that's fine.

Thank you. So we'll continue. I CALLED THE MEETING ALREADY TO ORDER AT 7 P.M. EVERYONE CAN PLEASE STAND FOR THE PLEDGE.

For roll call, just Mayor and Vice Mayor are attending a student recognition ceremony. So they'll be absent for today's meeting. I'll go ahead with roll call. Mayor Gerardo Anaya. Vice Mayor Juan Castillo. Council Member Miguel Villalpando.

Present.

Council Member Luis Galindo.

Present.

Council Member Jesus Roldan.

Present.

Council Member Lorena Delgadillo. Present. Council Member Martha Gonzalez.

Present.

Acting Vice Mayor, you have a quorum. Acting Mayor, I'm sorry, you have a quorum.

Thank you. Moving on to four point call to the public. Anybody here from the public?

Yes, we have Alexis Leggett.

Hello, good evening, Alexis Liggett, 16500 South Avenue A half, Somerton, Arizona. Good evening, council members. I'm excited to see all the work behind the scenes over the years coming to fruition and being presented to you tonight. As I've stood here several times, both before you and the Parks and Recreation Commission, I want to reiterate that I'm committed to championing these efforts for the Somerton Inclusive Pay Project. I truly appreciate the intentional location of the project, having a park so close to a school, the cultural center, skate park, council events, the fishing pond, the library, and so many other amenities creates a true one-stop destination for families. This is especially important for those that have difficulties with transportation, especially due to a disability. There's nothing like this currently in our community here, and I'm hopeful that soon children who have patiently waited on the sidelines will finally be able to join their peers. I also understand that a second project, the splash pad remodel, is being considered as part of this initiative. While it is absolutely a wonderful and valuable project, it is my understanding that it is not an emergent need and there is currently a functioning splash pad. Unless there are any reports or anything that show that, I'd really like to see that. But given that both projects rely on a similar public-private partnership model, combining city investment with community fundraising, I would respectfully ask that you consider launching these projects in phases rather than simultaneously. A few of the reasons are focused fundraising success, so splitting community fundraising efforts between two major projects at the same time could dilute donor impact and slow momentum. A single clear priority allows the community to rally more effectively and reach funding goals faster. A stronger community buy-in, so the inclusive playground represents a first of its kind opportunity here. Giving it the spotlight allows the community to fully understand, support, and take ownership of what inclusion truly looks like. Project delivery efficiency. So as outlined, this approach is intended to maximize limited funding and accelerate timelines. Strategically sequencing projects helps ensure each one is completed successfully rather than stretching resources across both. Clear messaging and trust. Launching both at once may unintentionally send the message that priorities are competing, and phasing them shows thoughtful planning and reinforces that accessibility and inclusion are being given the attention that they deserve. So for these reasons, I would ask that you consider holding the second project, even if just until later this year, and allow the Somerton Inclusive Play Project to receive the focus and momentum it deserves, especially considering that, again, it is the first of its kind here. Thank you so much for your time, your leadership, and your continued commitment to this community for everyone in the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else on there?

Juan Guerrero.

Well, good afternoon. For those of you think we all know each other here and thank you, honorable members of the council and acting mayor. One of the things that I do want to address today is an incident that happened last week. Two things that I hold very, very dear in this community is basically our kids and our seniors. You know, I've been coaching soccer for practically 30 years, and I've been all over YCSO, San Luis, and in Yuma. And I can tell you right now that probably Somerton has the best recreational program throughout the county.

Second name and address for the record.

403 East 12th place here in Somerton. Thank you. And so one of the issues that I'm having is that we have a tremendous amount of pool of coaches that these coaches put their time and effort to train these kids. Most of these coaches coach themselves in, uh, in competitive leagues, but they come here and they give their expertise to these kids. And you could see year by year how these kids are developing their play. Our purpose as coaches is to have such a pool of kids that eventually when we have our kids going to our high school, they could bring home that championship. So we have a goal in mind. But unfortunately, we do have coaches or one coach or whatever that year by year has put a barrier to the other coaches with his attitude, with his lack of respect, and with his lack of fair play. Last weekend culminated into a physical altercation on the field. And that shouldn't happen. Not in front of our kids. Our kids, we train them to have discipline, teamwork, and have respect for one another. And when you have coaches that can't control themselves or control the parents, then that individual shouldn't be on the field getting or having command of these kids. We put a lot of effort, and I believe we do have some coaches here. They were witness to that. And I'm not here to cast anything on anybody because like I said, it wasn't Parks and Recreation's fault. It's the attitude of that particular coach. So why am I here? I'm here because I would like council to give full support to Parks and Recreation when it comes to exclusion, expelling, these coaches out of the field, whether it be a lifetime with a two year band or whatever, people need to understand that we are not gonna tolerate that type of attitude in our fields. People need to understand that our concern is the safety of these kids. Because you imagine having a kid, a five year old, a six year old, seven year old, that he's playing soccer for the first time in his life. And all of a sudden, you have grown adults fighting in the field. Imagine the shock to that child. So that's the reason I'm here. So I would urge you to give full support and I've talked to the director already and I think he does have something in the works. I wanna thank PD because their prompt response was quick and it avoided an escalation to that. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak?

Good evening, Acting Mayor and Council. Carmen Juarez, Deputy City Manager, and tonight I would like to introduce Mr. Juan Leal Rubio. Mr. Leal is our new Community Development Director, and I would like for you to give him your support, and this is his first full day in the work, so.

Thank you, Carmen. Again, my name is Juan Leon Rubio, and I'm honored to have been selected as the new community development director for the city of Somerton. And I look forward to help working with council, with staff, and of course, the residents of the city of Somerton in moving forward growth, smart planning with the city of Somerton. Thank you.

Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Anyone else wish wishes to Let's move on. Consent agenda. Any members of council would like to remove anything from the consent agenda for further discussion?

Mayor, I would like to remove 5.2, April 26 check registry.

We're going to remove 5.2 for further discussion. And also, I would like to address 5.1, which are the approval of the past minutes. Anybody else? So why don't we approve the five point, well, we can just discuss it. We'll start with 5.1. Andrea did review as I was looking through the paperwork and the agenda, and I did notice that in our notes or the minutes, you still have me as vice mayor. So we just need to clarify that. under any time we approve or motion to approve the consent agenda, I'm still listed as the vice mayor. So I just, we need to just correct that.

Yeah, I'll make the changes before approving and signing that.

Okay, thank you. That's all I have for 5.1, just to address that question.

And so we'll move on to 5.2. This is in regards to the April check register. I know, I don't see Shona here, so we might, I didn't get a chance to email this information, but if I could get more info on 360 business products, there's two checks for that. If I could get more information on that. On that, also the Fremont Fitness. And I know I sound like a broken record, but I have to address it. Again, the mobile car wash, we have another payment for, I don't even have my glasses, 700. seven something i can't see um how many cars did we detail again we had talked about this last month and um also alluvial media we're paying a third party for marketing advertising i had already talked about it it's 4500 we have two staff members um that already do that work um we've had I DON'T THINK WE NEED A THIRD PARTY TO BE PROMOTING OUR EVENTS. WE HAVE STAFF CAPABLE ENOUGH, WE HIRED STAFF CAPABLE ENOUGH TO DO THAT. Our events coordinator, there we go. We've had previous events coordinator that hasn't needed third party support for to promote events. I would, I would agree to it if we would see an improvement in the turnout. But it's been and not that we don't have a good turnout, but it's been fairly the same throughout the years. And we still have these third parties paying 4,500, paying 5,000 every time we have an event. So again, I would recommend not using these third parties when we do already have staff that are hired to do this for the city.

Councilwoman De La Rio, I have a comment too.

In regards to this third party company that we're using, 4500, also want to double check and make sure that we're not circumventing the procurement policy because 4500, that's for probably a singular event and there's multiple during the year. So I don't know if we need to go to an RFP or RFQ which in the other hand, I do agree with Councilwoman Garcia or Gonzalez, sorry. So I do agree, we've invested in staff so they could help us promote the events. And quite frankly, using a third party vendor for this, should have been eliminated just because we do have the extra staff promoting it. And quite honestly, I believe one of the staff members worked at a news station, so she might have some insight if we need to do promotional stuff and she could probably navigate through the rates and allow us to purchase them directly versus using a third party if needed.

And to that point, the news station provides free advertising. So again, we shouldn't be needing that third party.

Mayor and council members, your comments have been noted and we're going to be reviewing them internally and providing you with a response.

Can you send a response to all of us?

Absolutely.

With that said, I need a motion for approval for the consent agenda.

So moved.

Motion was made by Councilman Villalpando. Second. Second by Councilman Roldan. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposes? Motion carries. Moving on to 6.1 presentations, Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition presentation on investments in saving lives, promoting a healthy community, and advancing prevention and education initiatives.

Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for having me, Council. I appreciate being here today. My name is Joanne Pfizer and I'm the Executive Director of the Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition.

There we go. Thank you.

The Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition is a collaborative initiative dedicated to strengthening community wellbeing through substance use prevention and mental health awareness. Uniting prevention leaders, mental health professionals, and community partners, the coalition advances a connection-driven approach to education, advocacy, and supports Yuma County. Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition is not a single organization. It is a collective force for all of Yuma County working together. Our coalition is definitely a collective power. We engage with 12 different community sectors across Yuma County. We range from Tacna to San Luis, all of Yuma, including Somerton, all of Yuma County, and all of these sectors are part We have business. We have civic organizations, law enforcement. Our law enforcement is not, you know, singled out to police departments. It also includes DEA, the Yuma Border Patrol. It includes Homeland Security. We have so many different partners across the state. Arizona Liquor License and Control from Phoenix attends our coalition meetings. We have DDRO from Tucson and religious organizations. All the schools are part. We have parents, media, you name it, they're there. Our measurable impact that I'm sharing with you guys today is really important to look at it at a glance because when we created this slide, we have already exceeded what's here. The prevention efforts that we bring to Yuma County, this is just a glimpse of what we have reached since 2023. One of the biggest events that you may know of is Grad Night that was brought back after being gone for 10 years from Yuma County. And what's exciting is that your upcoming high school will soon have graduates that will be able to attend. This event happens this Friday after graduation at the Yuma Civic Center, and it's free to all senior graduates. It provides a safe place for these graduates to celebrate their achievement. And one thing that we pride ourselves of hosting this event, it is no cost to any of the graduates. So with community support, this initiative happens for all Yuma County graduates, 11 different high schools in the area, including homeschool graduates, the Christian-based YPIC, Sampa Squaw. So many different students get to enjoy this event and have a safe place to celebrate. It's a lot of fun. I'm going to give you a little bit of a glimpse during this presentation, and I hope that you see the impact and the safety that it brings having a substance-free environment for these kids to celebrate in. I'm not sure if you're familiar of why Grad Night began so many years ago. So many years ago, because it was here when I graduated. And we won't say what year that was. But anyways, it was founded because we lost lives that night. There was an accident and students' lives were taken because they were partying. And we just don't want that for our kids at all to ever happen, grad night or any time of the year. So our organization brings prevention efforts to all Yuma County residents You can see there that we serve all residents of Yuma County, but also we're in schools, really, really prominent during Red Ribbon Month. We call it month, even though it's called Red Ribbon Week. And we touch all the schools that we can with all of our champions and different people that we could bring in for prevention efforts and education. You might be familiar with John Abarca. VP Regional Director with Community Bridges. He's a champion of ours, and I'm pretty sure that you have a copy of the presentation, so I won't read his testimony here, but he is a pillar in our community that helps with substance misuse and also mental health. His organization is now opening up different organizations throughout the country, and Yuma is one of their biggest that help people every day. Maria Chavoya is a champion of Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition, and she says here, this one's short, I believe this coalition has a major impact in bringing mental health and other providers, school officials, law enforcement, and other nonprofits together, working for a better, healthier Yuma County. I remember back many years ago when this was not the case. Words are powerful. I hope this shares our video. Do you know if it'll share our video? Is this a video?

Mm-hmm.

Maybe it's there.

It's not going to show. That's OK. It's not a video. It's a picture. It seems like it is a picture.

That's OK. Well, we'll go. We'll go here. Yeah. Sorry about that. I did have a video of Grad Night to share with you, but I guess I'll just have to email it by itself, which is fine. It actually just shows the kids enjoying the event. And we have silent disco. We have a DJ. We have karaoke that they love, which I'm so surprised. that they love karaoke. We have raffle prizes that we give away. It doesn't happen unless community support. And I want to thank Parks and Rec, well, actually the Parks and Rec Commission of the City of Somerton for being a sponsor this year for Grad Night. This is the first year that they sponsored and we greatly appreciate that. So I want to recognize you guys. One of the things about Grad Night is, of course, the public safety impact. And since we brought this event to Yuma County, we have seen great, great impact in the numbers for that whole weekend. So we really know that this is an event that helps save lives. Sustaining a countywide movement, it doesn't happen without everybody working together. Continuing county-wide partnerships and planning is so important to saving lives and strengthening collaboration with the Yuma County Health Services and all of the different healthcare professionals across Yuma County. Unifying the support to sustain YCADC as a long-term entity is very important and provide our community with access to presentations and awareness campaigns. The shared investment in prevention and mental health infrastructure is very important. And it, like I'll keep repeating, saves lives. Prevention is not just an event. It's a long-term commitment to community change. Community change requires all of us working together and making a happier, healthier Yuma County. Here's some pictures of impact for a lot of places, a lot of times. I do want to close. with a little something about this presentation. I would like to highlight that investments with the opioid settlement funds contributing to Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition are helping save lives across Yuma County by supporting prevention and education initiatives that bring awareness, resources, and evidence-based prevention directly into Somerton schools. and the community. These investments strengthen youth education, promote healthy decision making, and help create safer, healthier futures for students and families across Yuma County. I want to thank you again for having me this evening, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Any questions? Let's move on to 6.2, Public Private Partnership Initiative for the Design and Development of an Inclusive Playground and Splash Pad Remodel Project.

Good evening, Acting Mayor and Council. James Jones, Parks and Rec Director. Let me find my presentation real quick. Any clue where it is? There it is okay, so I first want to state that at the beginning of the year, I sat with Louie and I started the city manager and the deputy city manager and we came up with a list of projects for me to partake in. With That being said, this was one of them that they really wanted me to explore and develop so that we could kind of bring more. PROJECTS TO OUR CITY WITH THE HELP OF COMMUNITY SPONSORSHIPS AND BUSINESSES WITHIN YUMA COUNTY. WITH THAT BEING SAID, WE'RE IDENTIFYING SOME PROJECTS AND I TALKED TO THE CITY OF YUMA. THEY DID THIS WITH THE NEW PARK THAT THEY'RE HAVING IN EAST MESA. EAST MESA? YEAH, EAST MESA. AND THIS IS HOW THEY KIND OF WENT FORWARD WITH GETTING SOME OF THAT MONEY TO BUILD THAT NEW PARK. i kind of piggybacked off theirs they provided some of their insight and i kind of came up with this so what is a public private partnership it's a partnership between city and private sector it combines public funds and community investment reduces the taxpayer burden and builds community ownership. Like I said, this was successfully developed and used in Yuma, and they've gone to Evita Health, Chapman, and other partners and used it to kind of build their own park and other projects. I do wanna also state that we are in this process, like as a city, if we collect donations, those aren't tax deductible. So we have been talking to the Arizona Community Foundation to kind of bring that partnership with them and have those donations be tax deductible in the long run. So really what is the reason we wanna bring this to council and have you guys kind of direct us on what to do next is it maximizes limited city funding, delivers higher quality projects engages businesses and residents in Somerton and accelerates project timelines. If we want some businesses from Yuma to move out here, they might want to invest in the community. That's a good time to piggyback off that, kind of get them to come in. So as you see the little graphic, the model successfully used by Yuma, I will continue to say that, and other municipalities throughout Arizona, And it's cool if you have partners. As I bring up a project, this inclusive playground, we have a partner that's willing to work with us and staff time. I know you guys are worried about staff time. They're willing to put the time in with us to go out there and promote this project. The total cost of this project is about $500,000. The city will be putting in $250,000 in a combination of, I can't think of the fees, develop no i can't think about the when they build the development those fees that come in impact fees i don't know why i couldn't think of that impact fees and general funds um we're looking at kind of using a combination to do the match and then the fundraising would be 250 000 as you've seen this is a proposed this is the proposal from extra play that we have you got four four You got the, let me go from the bottom up. You have the new playground texture and surfacing material. We have the communication boards. We have the slides that can be used for both kids with disabilities and also our residents who just wanna go into the park and play. Part of this project, this whole program right here is 420,000. Where's the extra 80,000 come from? That would be to match the surface material and the existing playground there to match this playground so they kind of match together. So we have thought of that to kind of bring that whole playground together and make it one usable space that looks, uh good and connected um this is like i said this will match ada common uh accommodations and like i said a private a private resident is willing to come in and help us with this fundraising next year um the next like as you see this is kind of where we're looking at putting the playground it would be that part right next to the parking lot we'd have to add some uh some ADA parking and things like that to kind of increase the ability to have more people there. But this is where we would like to put it and it matches right next to the existing playground. The footprint of it would kind of match exactly what we have there. It'd just be two separate areas where the kids can get to both areas through one connected sidewalk. The other, as she talked about, the splash pad remodel, we're looking at Joe Munoz. To do a complete remodel, we're looking at between $600,000 and $750,000. What that would do, what that is, is that's a multi-age, so there would be a two to five-year-old features, a five to 10-year-old features, and a 10-plus features. Right now, we're sitting about the five to 10-year-old features at Joe Munoz. That's And this is kind of just an idea of what it would look like. We have a dump bucket. It's kind of enhancing and modernizing the water features there. And like I said, we would also look at the ADA and inclusive footprint of it and make sure that it fits all of our residents. So yeah, it's a lot of money up front. If we were to just remodel the existing splash pad and the footprint it is, we're looking at about $400,000. And that's just not making those three different areas. That's just coming in with new features and doing some extra work on the plumbing side of it and putting new pumps in and just modernizing it that way. So they're both pretty expensive, but like I said, both of these projects were undertaken by the city of Yuma and they were both funded. over a four-year period of time, but they were putting in million-dollar playgrounds and million-dollar splash pads. We're looking at something that's more feasible for our size and our city size and location and how many kids attend the park. So we're kind of looking at it in a realistic manner rather than looking at it as we want the biggest and best, or as you guys put it, the Taj Mahal. We're just looking at something that's feasible for a summer team. Impact to both. It's, you know, if people, if we have an inclusive playground or we have these splash pads that are good, we're going to drive some people into town. They're going to eat at our restaurants. They're going to, you know, maybe look to move here if they're a younger family and we have these amenities for them. Environmental impacts. It's just recirculating water or, you know, you know we're using space that is just open space right now so it's not really going to affect any environmental equality and accessibility we include we're working on our ada this is one of those things that's going to bring us up to an ada standard and safety impacts are you know there's no there's going to be no standing water around. It's gonna be drainage. It's gonna be recirculated with the pond that it already is. Like I said, the big thing is we will get kids to the park with this. We will get families to the park and our parks will be more usable, which is what we want. We want our green spaces to definitely be used. Here's our funding strategy. I brought up some of this. The model uses both of these, okay? The city's base investment will be impact fees and general funds. We can use this for this stuff because we're enhancing because we have more houses, we have more residents, we want them to come into our parks. So we're increasing the ability of playgrounds and spaces in our parks. Community fundraising, we'll have an effort for that. As I stated, we are working with the Arizona Community Foundation We have a couple pots that we're looking at. The city of Yuma actually went out and started their own 503C and went through the Arizona Foundation, and that's how they kind of got those tax kind of abilities to their residents when they donated. They could write those off, a certain amount of them. And then we have sponsorship opportunities. And what this would look like, because this is a big one, $700,000 is a lot. We understand that. So what you do is you create a booklet with the features in it. And let's say a feature is $80,000 and we go to a business and they're willing to buy that feature. We sell that feature to them. That's the feature they buy. We move on until all the feet and we kind of pull that money until all the features are bought. The whole project is funded and then we can move on. So we're not looking. We don't have to look for one big donor. We can look for a lot of small donors that want to give in and kind of make it like a give them a sign or whatever you guys. suggest you want to do with that. Like I said, I think I got the legalese in here at the end for you. So how does the timeline look? Next fiscal year, we're looking at launching and fundraising. That year will be the fundraising, the master planning, the drawings, then the next year, the fiscal year 27, 28 will be the CIP and the construction phase if funded. If it's not funded, we'd push it to the next year until it's funded. So we're just taking on these. This is a project where it's important to us. We're gonna fundraise for it. As soon as we get the funds, we're gonna move forward in the next fiscal year, because it has to be budgeted. So at this point, we're just looking for council's directions and how you guys feel about this. We wanna begin the outreach as soon as July 1 hits and we get that and then just set up the funding structure. So from now until July 1, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk to the Arizona Community Foundation. We're gonna find the best way to make sure we get those tax, tax write offs to these businesses and make sure it's a two way street. They're benefiting as we are benefiting. And here's just the PPP or the public private partnerships. These are just kind of like authorities the Arizona revised statute, these are kind of the ones that fall into this kind of idea. So, and legal has reviewed this and understands it, but like I said, cities have broad authority to maintain parks and enter in agreements with private parties to fund or supply equipment and amenities. Cities may adopt or may accept donated money or equipment from private partners, conditions donated in honor of stated terms. So we can create these IGAs or agreements, like if they wanna name the splash pad after that, we can set that up for a three year, a five year plan. The two other things is the next one is a two part test, valid public purpose and public benefit. proportionate to public funds spent. So any money we put in, is it gonna benefit our city or is we building something way too big that's not gonna benefit our city and we're wasting money? Public funds, funds required competitive procurement. So we have to follow procurement standards just because they donate the money and you accept that donation and you tell me move forward. I still gotta follow procurement code. I still gotta use those, look at the state contracts, figure out what's the best price for this. I know we have one from Extra Play. The reason we have one from Extra Play is that equipment, some of that equipment that's in that picture, they're the only ones that sell that equipment at this time. If that changes in the future and a year from now, we can revisit that. City retains liability for park equipment. So we will have to do the upkeep. I will have to create a five, 10 year maintenance budget on that and include it in my daily operation or my daily operations budget from year to year. Sponsorships in exchange for naming rights. I have talked to you. Cities can apply for the Arizona State Parks Grants to fund splash pads, playgrounds, and sports sports. So this could be... If we get half the money for the splash pad and we want to apply for the grants to try to finish it, we can do that with the matching. And then council approval must occur in public notice open meeting. So I can't just like, okay, I got the money, I'm moving. I have to come to you. I have to tell you what the plan is and you have to give me direction that you're going to accept the donation. It is for this project and move forward. I don't know if you guys have any questions, comments.

Any questions or comments for James?

I do. One of the biggest things that concerns me is those two projects that you identified, they never went through council and they haven't. And I have a big concern when you start advertising it and letting other community members be aware of this because as you know, we are going through the ADA process of identifying all of our city needs. And so for me to put a priority on this without knowing the extent of the report, would be premature. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm gonna wait until the report comes out and then prioritize our needs based on the urgencies. Yes, it's nice to have amenities here at the park. And I understand you're gonna use the impact fees, but at no point in time, that I'm aware of that council decided to use those impact fees for these specific projects. And so I can't give you direction on how to proceed with this, because quite honestly, I think this probably would have been a perfect topic for a work session. So we could all establish timelines, establish criteria and exactly what needs to be done and exactly what the vision is gonna be versus I feel a little bit like blindsided because I never seen this until it's actually here in our agenda.

I can give you a couple. There's no money being tied to this project for next year, so it's not in the budget. It is on the five-year CIP list that was presented at the budget work session.

But you're asking for direction, though, and I can't give you direction until, at least for me, until that report comes out from the ADA. Because if there's some stuff in there that's really urgent, guess what? money is gonna go to that, especially money that's from the general fund. And so we have to prioritize. So I think for me personally, there's other council members. For me, I'm gonna wait until I see the report before I give direction. It's not that it's a bad idea and it's not a bad concept, but we gotta prioritize.

And I don't think we, this is for to give direction, James. This is just a presentation. And I think he's just saying it because you said you're seeking direction and we can give you direction because this is a part of to give you direction. This is you're just presenting today.

Yeah. And the one thing I want to say is a direction could be, hey, we're going to wait until after 88 to revisit this. That could be direction too, which is kind of what I'm getting from him is, hey, I want to revisit this after 88. We have this other project finished and that's fine. I can relay that to, well, we can relay that to the city manager.

Well, this is just a presentation, so we have to wait until, to show if we need to give you direction or not. But I do, any other questions for James or comments?

No, just thank you, James, for the projects. I mean, that's a good idea of bringing the private sector and also our funding so we can combine and help out. Thank you for thinking outside the box. And yeah, once that report comes in, then we can go ahead and give you the direction that you need. And then like Councilman said, if there's something that we can put our funding into it and then go from there. And it seems like you've been talking to some businesses, so you have an idea that who can help out or not.

I want to be clear. The only one I've talked to is the one that came to me with one of the projects, the resident and Parks and Rec of how do they do these private parts. I have not talked to any businesses.

No, I mean, in a good way, that means you're thinking ahead of time because something happens and at least you have an idea of going forward.

Any other questions or comments?

I just have a quick question because of the presentation that you made. The private partnership approach is that I know that this equipment is in pretty expensive maintenance. Does that partnership also because I know our staff will have to maintain, but does that partnership also combine in with the maintenance? Are we still gonna have that partnership?

We can write that in the agreements if we need to, but the main thing is we already have, playgrounds are very fairly, they have a 28 year age life, And as that age life is pretty long, and there's that, when you look at it that way, there's very little maintenance. We may have to paint it every three to five years, which, you know, Joe Munoz, I think it cost us like 300 bucks to paint it. There's a pretty low cost of maintenance on a playground. The big thing is, you have to re-spray the surface material about every year. And with the purchase of that equipment, they usually give you like a five to six year warranty where they come. But after that six year mark, then we'll have to start putting our time in.

I have a question, James. Throughout your presentation, you mentioned fundraising and fundraising. My interpretation of fundraising is of course you know we're going to do a fundraisers and Sally and do what is your interpretation of fundraising.

Well, I guess the big thing is with fundraising, you're just raising funds. That's kind of the thing. Yeah, selling is a part of fundraising, but soliciting funds, going out to businesses, saying, hey, do you want to sponsor this equipment? That's still fundraising because you're raising funds. So that's kind of what I'm looking at is having that booklet, which that's something that – will have to do with graphic design. I guess we're gonna wait a little bit and then we'll know the price of things and that's how we're gonna kind of fundraise is selling those pieces for our community.

So you're gonna be seeking like?

Yeah, it's really just seeking donations. Sponsorships. Sponsorships, yeah.

Okay, what about grants?

So in the presentation, it does talk about the Arizona State Parks and Trails. I have talked to them. They look at bigger kind of projects, but there are like pickleball courts and things like that. I've been looking at Arizona Community Foundation has some grants for this kind of ideas. I have a long list I'm going through one by one by one by one. APS has a bigger grant that you can apply for. So I am going through and looking for those grants, putting them on a spreadsheet, because I haven't moved forward with this project. So I'm just getting that information together so that when I get direction or approval from you, then we can move forward on that process and speaking to those agencies and looking for grants and other items like that.

That's all I have. Anybody else? Thank you so much.

Mayor, perhaps we can revisit this item after the ADA report comes available and we can come back and present it to you and that way we can ask for directive at that time.

Sounds good. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Jamie. We're gonna move on to presentation 6.3, presentation of the code of conduct upgrade initiative for all city facilities, parks, sports fields, and heritage pool.

Good evening, acting mayor and council. Over the last nine months, I've been talking to other municipalities and other groups and asking kind of how they modernize their park rules and procedures. The one thing that staff and I have realized is that they've switched to a code of conduct about five years ago. We're still kind of under the umbrella of we have some park rules listed, but no enforceable action. Some have municipal codes, some have Arizona revised statutes to them. Some of them don't like the language at this park doesn't match the language of this park. and we have nothing within our facilities that state the rules or code of conduct. So there's some education that needs to be done and kind of that's what we're, that's what I'm here to do is provide, give this to you and then in the future, We need a resolution to kind of approve this and make it as a part of our code and the way we do things. So, like I said, this is the whole thing is I'm going to present this to you. I've created this over nine months. I've went through legal. I tied everything to the Somerton Municipal Codes and the Arizona Revised Statues. And I'm kind of going to give you a rundown of what we've come up with. If you want to see the... the actual code of conducts in a larger state, I believe they're in your packet, but we can kind of go. So what's changed and what's not, this is kind of a common parks and rec trend that's changed over the last couple of years. Park rules, they're informal list of prohibited behaviors, no specific language on authority cited. So who do we contact? Yeah, I can call the Parks and Rec, but then who did it? You know, it's kind of a chasing. So this is kind of a quicker way that we can get things. No defined enforcement consequences, inconsistent language across locations. There's really no council approval. Yeah, you have some things in the Somerton Municipal Code, but you don't have a set code of conduct or set rules that can go to every place and difficult to enforce or define legally. Why I'm asking to kind of look at the code of conduct and see if you guys will approve it is, It's a formal policy which defines standards. Every rule is tied to Summerton Municipal Code or Arizona revised statutes. Clear, gradual enforcement action. So there's a step process. You misbehave, this is what happens first, second, third, fourth, and then where we go from there. uniform language across all facilities. So these signs will be placed in all of our facilities, recreation facilities, anything that the public visits, council approved by a formal resolution, that's what will come later, and legally defensible and ADA compliant. So we're going back to ADA standards and making sure that we're following them. Five reasons to kind of adopt them. Legal authority and enforceability. Like I said, everything is tied to the Arizona state or revised statutes or the Somerton Municipal Code. ADD and civil rights compliance. Like I said, it's Americans with Disabilities Act. It follows those guidelines. They're posted, they're eligible. Consistent standard citywide. We're accepting a uniform standard that we're going to accept. our residents to act like, and we're, as staff, going to enforce those rules. So there's no wiggle room. This is what the rules say, this is what we're gonna do, this is the consequences, this is the steps for it. Defined enforcement consequences, like I said, it's a verbal warning, a removal, a suspension, a citation, and then last but not least, because we don't want to always get them informed, police referral. because they are tied to Somerton Municipal Code and Arizona Revised Statues. And then professional image and council oversight, council approved code signals and institutional maturity, meaning we can't adjust these. If we see something that we want to add or subtract, we can. So these are a living document over time that we can always visit. Or if something comes up that we didn't think of in 10 years, because it's an ever-changing world, we can always adjust it. So there's, like I said, there's four code of conducts that we're looking at right now. The facility code of conduct, there's 11 sections. Like I said, access to the facility, conduct in the facility, ADA and enforcement, use supervision standardization at 18 plus. So what that would mean is anyone under 18 plus, or I think I put it at 12 and under, will have to have a parent or a guardian with them. We currently don't have that as one of our rules. So we can have kids show up to the basketball gym and play. And if there's an incident, the parents aren't there to deal with it. And we have no emergency contacts or way to get ahold of the parents. So it's kind of a struggle. So this would help with that. Park code of conducts, there's nine sections. It talks about hours, alcohol, pets, vehicles, and weapons. Park hours, we have that in the Somerton Municipal Code. Glass containers banned, so we have that. Sports field code of conduct, sportsmanship, field care, spectators. You've heard from some of our residents tonight about what's going on at our recreational leagues. We are addressing those. aggressively right now to try to get that under control, but it's starting to spiral. So this would actually give them something at the field that they can relate to. This is something that we can give our coaches, excuse me, give our coaches as the season starts of, hey, this is what's expected on the field, this is what you're gonna teach your team, this is what you're gonna teach your parents, and we can hold them accountable. So that's that education part and then field rental authority confirmed. As you know, we do keep our fields unlocked and we allow people to just come and use their fields as we can. What this would do is actually in part of the signage is on the back, there will be a bulletin board box kind of like out in front of City Hall, where every week we could put the rental schedule in there so that when a field is rented, they can go and look at when it's rented and understand so we don't have that problem where someone wandered on the field and we have a practice scheduled. So that would kind of fix that issue. And then heritage pool code of conduct, there's 10 sections, emission, lifeguard, hygiene, and safety. As I said, these are... um kind of health health there's all there's some health department codes in here with that um this is not what it's going to look like this is just something that you can see it's going to be similar to this but there will be more verbiage and i'll have that in a later on a later page what we're going to do is laser engrave these why because laser engraving will last 10 to 15 years Right now, we put a sign out, and it's a sticker sign. We're going to get about three years out of it and then have to redo it. So doing it this way will make it a little more maintenance-free. We will have to take care of it. We're going to have it be a 32-inch by 32-inch panel just to make sure that they can see it. Citation on plate, so we're always going to have our – Summerton Municipal Codes and our ARS statutes on it. And then at the bottom, we're working on this plan too, where we put a QR code so that if someone wants to rent that Ramada, they can immediately snap the QR code and fill out the form and send it to us immediately and pay right there from rec desk. So it's actually going to streamline our rental services too. So it's going to really kind of clean up a lot of things that are the issues that we're having. And like I said, I didn't invent this. borrowing it from other municipalities and bringing it here. So this is kind of, like I said, these are kind of, you can't read them, I get that. I can show you the code of conducts. I think they're in the later, well, we'll find them. So the signage, you saw the sign I brought, the little sign, that was a model of the sign we're bringing to the parks. It's right there. You'll see that the code of conduct will be in front. One side will have the park name. The other side, if there's a field, and like a park in a field like Council Park, we'll have the park rules and the field rules, the sportsman field rules. If not, we'll find some kind of graphic to put on that side. And that's what the sign will look like. They're going to be placed in each park. Centennial Park, Joe Munoz, and all the fields. And the key with this is we're going to have it be uniform across the city and kind of modernized into kind of the new way that other municipalities are doing it. We all love the Joe Munoz sign. It's old school, but We're trying to advance from there and kind of come up with this. These are the codes that we use, the summertime municipal codes, and this is where we got them. So park closing reservations, alcohol and parks, glass containers, animals and animal control, offenses, traffic and parking, parks and recreation. So these are the municipal codes that we have, and those are where you can find them, park codes, park field. So the alcohol and parks, we have that everywhere. except the community center. So this would put that in the community center also where they have to have the alcohol permit. And then the ARS citation codes, which is criminal damage, disorderly conduct, public nuisance, which is something that we don't have in our current rules. but it's a thing. And firearm regulations and proper parking. I do wanna bring up the fire alarm regulations, because some people don't understand that. Due to us being a city and a public entity, you cannot prevent firearms in the park. It's against the law. And we ran into that in the Yuma County Parks and Rec Commission, because they made that rule. We had to rescind it because it doesn't follow Arizona revised statute law. And that's something I wanna make sure that I point out with the firearms. But you have to have it holstered. You gotta have, there's certain rules with firearms that you have to follow, that they have to follow, but they can have it in a park, which is, It is what it is. Firework restrictions, smoke-free Arizona, those rules. And then service animals, have them on a leash, The leash has to be six foot long. It can't be 20 feet long. Those kind of rules and public pools and health safety. So how would we move forward on this? I'm presenting it tonight. It could go as early as the next meeting for resolution and adoption. Then we would get the signage fabricated. The signs are fabricated. The panels are not because we are looking for this information, what you want to put on them. You want the rules or you want the code of conduct. Once you adopt their resolution, we'll have those fabricated panels made and then staff rollout and training. This could be social media videos. This could be a lot of things. However, we feel like it would best get to our community. Like I said, there's that coaching side where we meet with our coaches and we give them these resources. especially the sports fields and the rules and go over it and make sure that they understand this will be a constant education process with a set resolution, with a set of rules that we could provide our coaches, our parents and our staff, and kind of really put the process in order of how we're gonna enforce this. I don't know if they're on here. Let me check real quick. They are not. Let me see if I can find it. It's in the agenda item. So I know you probably don't wanna look at them all, but I will show you. So this is how they're written. I do wanna point out one thing. It says, these rules establish expectation standards for conduct of facility users. City may enforce these rules as necessary to maintain safety and operations. However, the city does not provide continuous supervision or monitoring of facility users. Our parks are used on the weekends. We can't have someone there on the weekends the whole time. So that's important that we put that there because all that's saying is you still have to follow these and people can still, and at the bottom of the plaque, you'll see where it says report issues to parks and rec and we could put a QR code where they do an incident report too right there and put pictures. We could do that too. We could have a rental QR code and a incident report PB, Jorge Boone. : qr code um but yeah this is kind of how they're written and, as you see there's authority at the bottom, each one, it says summertime minutes quote it points to the chapter. PB, Jorge Boone. : Arizona revised statues it points to the chapter and it kind of goes from there at the bottom, the last thing is always. PB, Jorge Boone. : enforcement. So how are these going to be enforced? Immediate removal from facility, suspension from program activities or membership, take away their privileges to the facility, issue a civil citation where the city might say, we're going to trespass you because you can't follow the rules. And then if they keep coming back, that's when the police get involved. So I don't know if you want to look at any more or you have any questions.

Any questions for James? I have a comment. This is great, James. However, I just want to make sure that your staff is up to par and will be responding to these situations as a community member had mentioned, and someone is there, and I understand that you said that in the weekend when people are using the park, obviously we can't have people there, but during events or during your, whatever you have here that they're gonna rent or sports or whatever, somebody has to be there and somebody needs to be responsible for that, right? And so if you're gonna have, these are great, but is it going to be enforced? That's I guess my question and all of this looks wonderful, but is it going to be enforced? Will they always have to have you there? You have enough staff and are they being trained? Are they being, on how to make the enforcement is my worry and my question.

So I want to address that. We start at the beginning of the soccer season. It doesn't matter what sport.

I didn't say.

I just want to say what we've done so far, so you understand. I had a meeting with the officials and the staff, and I put down the – and I kind of used this as a guide. I didn't give it to them. I said, hey, this is what I want to see, and this is what I don't want to see. If you see this behavior, this is what I want you to do. If you don't do that behavior, you won't be officiating. I flat out said that. I also said to my staff, like, your job is – to support them and always fill out the, if something happens, fill out the incident report to me, immediately call me and they do do that. I think the issue we're having right now is while the staff is at those events and is working and you've heard some of the community members say their Parks and Rec staff is there and they are addressing it, but there's no, enforcement, like, path. What do I do first? What do I do second? What do I do third? So it's kind of like, well, what do you want me to do? All he did is swore, but this guy's trying to fight someone. Do we treat it the same? And I finally said, yes, you treat it the same. Zero tolerance. So moving on, I did give them direction, and they were working on that, but this will formalize it and know that you guys have their back when they do do the enforcement. Because right now, I think there's some, well, what are we allowed to do? What are we not allowed to do? Are we treating swearing the same as threatening? And I'm like, yes, always treat it that way.

Okay, that was my only question, just to make sure that. Any other questions? Thank you, James. I need a motion to open a public hearing.

So moved.

Motion was made by Council Member Dunn.

Second.

Second by Council Member Galindo. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposes? Motion carries. Public hearing 7.1 regarding the zoning and subdivision ordinance text amendment case PLN 26-0065. Agenda.

Good evening, Acting Mayor and Council Members. Carmen Juarez, Deputy City Manager, presenting on behalf of Community Development Department. So I'll try to do my best tonight. The item before you tonight is a city's initiative to amend the subdivision code and the zoning code on several sections for different reasons. The first request is to amend the subdivisions ordinance section 10.2 and 10.3 for compliance with the Arizona House Bill 2447, which is also known as HB 2447. The second one is the zoning ordinance table 232, residential development standards to increase the lot coverage in residential districts for shade structure. And the third request that we have tonight is the zoning ordinance section 235 we are proposing to amend current rooftop requirements for mechanical units. This is the staff report that was prepared by Community Development. We have, as a project description, we have those three that I just mentioned, citizen initiatives to make these amendments to the HB 2447, sections 10.2 and 10.3, flood coverage, increase in residential development standards, and rooftop requirements. We had publication requirements. We had public notices. There was a legal ad in the Yuma Sun on February 28. There were signs posted and city website posting. We had a citizen review meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission during a work session on March 16 of this year. We had public notices also published in the newspaper and a special meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission on April 6th. and this is the final step in the process, presenting before council, and if this is approved, approving an ordinance also tonight. So let me explain a little bit each one of the proposed amendments. The first one is the HB 2447, or House Bill 2447, THIS HOUSE BILL WAS ADOPTED BY THE STATE LEGISLATURE AND SIGNED INTO LAW ON MARCH 31ST OF LAST YEAR WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF JANUARY 1ST, 2026. THIS LEGISLATION REPRESENTS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE STATEWIDE IN DEVELOPMENT REVIEW PROCEDURES BY REQUIRING MUNICIPALITIES TO TRANSITION CERTAIN APPROVALS SUCH AS SITE PLANS, DEVELOPMENT PLANS, LAND DIVISIONS, LOT LINE ADJUSTMENTS, LOT TIES, PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLATS, AMENDMENTS FROM PUBLIC HEARINGS WITH THE PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL TO ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BASED ON OBJECTIVE STANDARDS. WHAT IT MEANS IS THAT IF WE HAVE A DEVELOPER COMING IN WITH A PRELIMINARY SUBDIVISION PLAT, THOSE ARE NOT REQUIRED TO COME BEFORE COUNCIL ANY LONGER. NOW THEY'RE DOING IN-HOUSE ADMINISTRATIVELY WITH CITY STAFF. And that's the list of zoning processes that now they're not required effective January 1st of this year. They're not required to have a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission or City Council. So now everything is going to be administratively reviewed and approved. That's a very, very significant change from what we're used to do in many, many years where all those processes were brought before council for review and final approval. That's a big change from the state legislature, and it's already in place, effective January 1st. All the cities are required, whether we want it or not, It's a requirement as state mandated and we just need to comply. And that's the reason why we are making this amendment so we can change the code and be in compliance with the state requirements with the ARS. So as I mentioned in the report, cities and towns across Arizona, including the city of Somerton, are required to update their zoning and subdivision ordinance to ensure compliance with the new state law adopted by the Arizona legislature. The second request is the lot coverage for residential development standards. This is, in a nutshell, a proposal to increase the lot coverage with a 10% from 40% to 50% when those requests meet a specific section, which is the setback. I call it the setback section, 326P, which is basically what it means is if there's a request meeting the setbacks and there's a possibility to increase from 40% to 50% the lot coverage to upsize a shade, we can do that. That is the blood coverage and residential development. And the third request is the rooftop requirement. This one was included in the subdivision code in 2024. THE CITY OF SOMERTON NOW REQUIRES ALL ROOFTOP AC UNITS TO BE SCREENED WITH A PONY WALL OR SOME SORT OF A SCREEN WITH A MINIMUM HEIGHT OF FOUR FEET. SO THIS IS REVERTING THIS CHANGE. Requirement now we're not going to be requiring the screen to cover those units, those AC units that are going to be basically visible the way it was before. And some of the feedback that we have received from 2024 when it was included in the zoning code, it was poor air circulation to the mechanical unit as one of the reasons, the high cost, additional cost to the actual CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW HOME. NOW WE HAVE TO ADD THE SCREENING THAT CREATES ADDITIONAL COSTS. SO THOSE WERE SOME OF THE FEEDBACK THAT WE RECEIVED FROM THE DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY. AND AFTER REVIEWING WE DECIDED TO BRING IT BACK TO COUNCIL AND PROPOSED AGAIN TO REVERT TO REMOVING THIS PARTICULAR REQUIREMENT. So the resulting action for this if approved the text amendment case pl and 260065 will become effective 30 days after the second reading tonight we if approved by Council, we will. present the ordinance first reading making this amendment, then we have to come back for a second reading. And it will be effective 30 days after the second reading. So we're talking about potentially around July 3rd of 2026 when these changes will become effective. After July 3rd, we are enforcing those three changes that we are talking about. As condition of approval, community development is not presenting any conditions of approval or recommending conditions of approval for this project. Community Development Department had a citizen review on March 16th. Staff conducted a meeting during the work session with the Planning and Zoning Commission as required by the Somerton Zoning Ordinance and ARS when it comes to amending the zoning ordinance. And we had no one from the public present at that time. The Planning and Zoning Commission also issued a recommendation at their April 6th special meeting The Commission voted to recommend approval of the proposed text amendments as presented by staff. Staff recommendation tonight is that the Somerton City Council approves the text amendments presented tonight. And the suggested motion is as it appears on the staff report to approve the text amendment case and the first reading of the ordinance by title only. This is the way that the new wording will appear in this case is the subdivision ordinance. Everything in red. Okay, I'm okay, thank you. This is the subdivision ordinance in regards to the SB 2447. EVERYTHING IN RED THAT IS CROSSED OFF RIGHT NOW, AS YOU CAN SEE, IS THE CURRENT WORDING OF THE SUBDIVISION ORDINANCE. AND IT STATES THAT THE CITY OF SUMMER COMPLAINING AND ZONING COMMISSION IS HEREBY AUTHORIZED TO and otherwise act upon application of preliminary subdivision plots in according with these regulations, the Development Review Committee and the Zoning Administrator are hereby designated to advise the Commission and the City Council in charge with the duty of investigator reporting matters referred to them in accordance with these regulations. The new SB 2447, removes the public hearings, the review of preliminary and final plots from coming before the commission. So now the new wording is going to be administrative. It's going to be staff will do these reviews and approvals. Again, this is exactly how the ARS is now, and we're just trying to be compliant to that. This is also part of the new wording. Everything in red is the current one, and it's being scratched and removed. And everything in blue is the new wording that is compliant with the Arizona revised statute. This has been reviewed by legal, and they have helped us with the new wording to be consistent with the ARS, the way it reads now. So as you can see, everything that states council, the opinion, the approval from council is being removed and replaced with administrative personnel. Administrative personnel is basically community development director and planners. That's that's the. So these are the changes that are being proposed. Everything that states council now is replaced by administrative personnel. This is still HB 2447. And this is the second one, the second requirement. This is for the blood coverage. As you can see, these items that are highlighted here are for residential districts, R18, R16, and R15. They're being proposed. There's a new footnote that is being added to the 40% of lot coverage, and it's highlighted there. Can you see? Can everybody see? Okay. There's a footnote 12. that is being added and the footnote reads, shade structures that comply with Section 326P shall be permitted to increase the maximum allowable lot coverage from 40% to 50%. So that means Section 326P in the zoning ordinance is basically setbacks. If they meet the setbacks that are required, they can increase their lot coverage. They can make the shade larger to cover instead of covering 40% to cover 50%. And then we have the third. This is the third amendment, this is for the mechanical units rooftop right now that code has two subsections a mb. The this staff recommendation is to remove. Section B in its entirety to remove the requirement of the screening around the rooftop unit so we're basically reverting to the way was before 2024. Those are the three changes that are being presented for Council's review tonight. This is a public hearing. If you, Council, have any questions or if there are any questions from developer community that is present or anyone that is present, we're open. HB 2447. That is a big change. It was widely discussed last year and the year before. In essence, what they're doing is they're trying to be more flexible with the process, trying to expedite the processes instead of coming to council. Everything is going to be handled internally now. Like I said, this is exactly what the state is requiring. In fact, we are required from January 1st moving forward to follow this. If our code has not changed yet, we're still required as of January 1st to do the internal. So what we're going to be doing with Juan and community development now, we're going to create... an operating procedure on the internal side when the developers come in with their new plans for subdivisions, with their new preliminary plots or final plots, we're going to create an internal review process that is going to start and end with community development because they're not required to come to council any longer.

So what happens if they want something different what's allowed or what's approved in our code?

We're still required to go by our subdivision code. We have our subdivision code. We need to ensure community development administration. We need to ensure that all the requirements in the subdivision code are followed.

Because the code is approved by council. Correct. So again, so let's say there's a developer that wants something different. I actually like it because Let's work for us. But let's say there is a developer that wants something different that's not in the code, then would you bring it back, bring it before council?

In those cases, what we normally do, we do pre-development agreement with the developers. Agreements come to council for approval. That's something that we would have to work very, very closely with our legal council because it's a brand new change, a brand new amendment and a requirement, a state requirement. So we really need to work very closely with our legal and It's not just Somerton. This is a statewide requirement. So most cities and towns right now, they're working. Some of them are already ahead of the game and they already have their processes outlined. And that's where Juan and I are going to be working, putting those processes in place. But typically, if there's a deviation from the strict Board of the subdivision code that's when we start negotiating some sort of a pre development agreement with the developer that will outline their responsibilities and the city's responsibilities as well.

I like it, to be honest.

Like I said, it's a big, big change for us that we're used to bring all the public hearing, the preliminary plot, and then we're coming back with the final plot before council. It's a change. Now we have to do it internally, but it's a way to expedite for the development community. They want to do it a little bit faster. They don't have to wait for the public hearing before council because it's not required any longer. So basically, this is the information that I have. If there are any questions, Acting Mayor, if you would like to open it for questions from the public.

I wish I could.

Good evening, active mayor and council. Victor Lozano, 223 East Patricia Street. Active mayor and council. I think it's all really good what's happening in our community, especially with this new change in our, you know, this new amendment on that. on this new amendment that 24, whatever, 2447. I think it's great. I'm just a little worried. I'm sorry, I got a problem here in my teeth. I'm trying to speak a little clear, okay? I'm just a little worried that it's not gonna be seen by council anymore. And if something gets done wrong, going to be council responsible for it so that's my only concern but if it's been approved by the state it's going to be better for us as builders so i like that my other concern and as a builder it concerns me because i see builders out there right now before it passes here through council that have got, talking about this AC coverage area, I see builders out there, there's probably, I don't know if you guys have seen them, maybe 25, 30 homes out there that do not have this AC coverage on them and it's not even been approved. So to me, that's a concern because as a builder, when I built these last projects that I just finished, No, they wouldn't even look at my plans if I didn't have that air conditioning structurally on plans. I see buildings out there, usually 30 of them that don't have anything and they're fully completed. That's my only concern. I like it because now we don't have to build them like that. but why were they approved to be built before it passes through council? That is a big concern, council. So please look at that carefully. I like it, don't get me wrong. I think it's gonna be great because we do have a big problem in our community. It gets really hot, they overheat on these air conditioners, and we brought this up to council before. So my only question is, why are we doing it now? Why is it being done out there? Why did the plans get approved before it got approved by council? My only concern. Now, regarding cost, regarding all these issues about we're gonna save money here, save money there, then maybe we should look at a few other items in the construction of our residential housing in our community. Some of those items are like, if we're gonna save money, why aren't we allowed to put shingle roofs on a regular low income housing? If it's called low income housing, why is it not allowed? That's one thing. The other thing is, why are we not allowed to put block walls that are four inch block walls when it's low income housing? That's another point, why are we not allowed to just build a house. and not have to do landscaping. Everybody has to put landscaping on these houses and. If they're low-income housing, why are we pushing all of these little items? And then all of a sudden, all the air conditioning, we're going to have to remove that because there's a cost issue, blah, blah. Well, then we have other cost issues that I think we should also look at. as a community that's gonna benefit all of these builders out here in our community and benefit our residents. And to me, that's my main concern, benefit the residents that are coming to live in their community and our community that are low income. We're pushing them a little further.

Can you stick to the three items that we are discussing? Because that's a little on the agenda.

I just wanted to point out what we had and what my concern is. But I do agree with what we're doing. It's just that when you're mentioning so many things, but we're not looking at the others, I think we should bring them up to the table. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from the audience? Any comments from Council?

Just a quick clarification, since we have it on the screen right here, rooftops. What we are proposing to leave is subsection a right on your screen that states that all new residential buildings shall be built with the following roofing materials, tiles, concrete, tile roof, architectural shingles. That's what Mr. Lozano was referring to. an approved metallic material, or a flat roof, Santa Fe style. They're permitted.

Can you come to the podium and say anything?

Just for clarification, Alex Gallardo, Acting Mayor, City Council.

Alex Gallardo, Max Builders, 725 East Main Street. I talk about this. And it's just a question. Isn't there an ordinance that... precedes this, is this a 2015? Okay, but then we had in 2021, we had, I'm sorry, in 2021, we had an ordinance. And I'm asking you, maybe you know more, I don't know. Do we have a 2021 when we change all these rules, when we put landscape, we put the walls, we put the rooftops, we put, so which one is the good one, this one or the other one? This one will be the one. So now we're gonna be allowed to do any type of roofing.

Oh, perfect.

Oh, perfect. Then perfect. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. I have a question for the builders or whatever.

What's the difference? Why do you guys choose to put a rooftop instead of bottom? Like in my house, I don't have nothing. The AC unit's on the bottom and inside. What's the difference? Why do you guys choose cheaper or... or the space that you're gonna, I don't understand why. If it was up to me, I would put right now a code that no rooftop, I mean, because it's less attractive and it's more attractive on the bottom. So I don't know what's a different cost or.

Different cost.

Okay, so we can pass a code and enforce, like we enforce the walls. Now we can, it's up to us, isn't it? Okay, that's all I needed to know. Thank you.

Acting mayor and council members, I always say that our codes are living documents. We can come back and review them at any time, whether it's a citizen initiative, council initiative. At any point in time, we can come back and review any sections of the code. If you have any concerns, if you have any requests from public, being a living document, we can always come back. And we always have the state requirements. Every time there's a change, there's a new ARS, we need to, we are required to change the codes. But being these living documents, we can, again, we can always come back and review sections of the code if that's what council so desires. Yeah, okay. TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC. I'M SORRY, YES. I'LL MAKE THE MOTION TO CLOSE PUBLIC CARE.

SECOND. Motion carries. So now we need a recommendation, a motion for the text amendment case PLN 26-00065 and the first reading of ordinance number 2026-001 by title only. The motion was made by Councilman Villalpando.

Second.

Second by Councilman Galindo. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposes? Motion carries. Next item is new business. I need to read the ordinance. Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Acting Mayor. Ordinance number 2026-001, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Council amending sections 10.2 and 10.3 of the 2025 Somerton subdivision ordinance to comply with Arizona revised statutes. AND AMENDING SECTION 2.3 RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS OF THE 2025 SUMMER ZONING ORDINANCE REGARDING INCREASING MAXIMUM LOT COVERAGE FOR ACCESSORY SHADE STRUCTURES AND ELIMINATING ROOFTOP HVAC SCREENING REQUIREMENTS. THANK YOU, CARMEN.

Thank you. Moving on to new business 8.1, discussion and possible action to approve tax amendment case number PLN 26-00065 and the first reading by title only on ordinance number 2026-001. And I think this is what we just discussed, the same one. Okay. So since we already made a motion and motion passed, we're gonna move on to nine, summary of current events.

Thank you. We have Terry Trujillo, Human Resources Manager.

Good evening, acting mayor and council members. Terry Trujillo, human resources manager. I would just like to share with you tonight that our employee health benefits open enrollment will begin tomorrow, May 20th. through June 4th. This is an active enrollment, which means employees must select their benefit elections for the upcoming year. Once open enrollment closes, employees will not be able to do any changes until the next fiscal year. Also, unless there is a live qualifying event, then they can make a change during that time. Thank you.

Just quick question. Terry, so let's say they didn't do anything that's going to be defaulted to employee only or?

No, they will not have any health benefit insurance.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Rosanna Douglas, public works.

Good evening, acting mayor, council members. McDonald's opened today, if all of you are not aware. Finally, I thought it was going to open yesterday and I went by and it didn't, but I drove by this morning first thing and it was open. So Chevron is expected to open June 2nd. Circle K is finishing up asphalt demo on Somerton Ave. And last but not least, our public works event is finally going to be tomorrow. It's been a long anticipated event for me especially, but our staff is so excited to give the community a small insight of what we do behind the scenes. We'll have our vehicles out there, free food and games. So hopefully you guys can make time to stop between 11 and 4 p.m. And then I'd like to personally invite council to our Public Works Employee Appreciation Lunch, which is Thursday, May 21st, 11 to one at the Cultural Center. Thank you.

James Jones.

Good evening, Acting Mayor and Council. I have four events for you. Going off tomorrow, our Senior Center's Mother's Day celebration is tomorrow at 10 a.m. Hopefully we're done by 11, so you can take the day off work, come to the Senior Center, then go over to Public Works and walk through City Hall, do whatever you want. Just enjoy the day. The second thing is I want to announce that all of our summer programs are actually on RecDesk right now and live. That's our swimming program. That's our summer camp. That's our basketball league and our T-ball league. We're actually going to start up June 1st. We're going to try something new with a little pop-up camp. So we're going to try to get the kids there and sign them up there. We're going to see if that kind of helps build our leagues and maybe do it for the rest of our leagues. I also want to announce that the soccer retentions for the soccer rules that we're placing in the retentions, we have the one up in Rallo completed with the youth build program with Pep Tech. We are going to start installing those in the rest of the larger facility retentions. I don't know if you're driving around at night. I think this is a big thing for us and we want to celebrate this because we have a lot of kids that play in the street soccer. So this will pull them out of the streets and those retentions and make those really usable spaces. And the last thing is, um, We had a Yuma County community member purchase us a new pitching mound for Joe Munoz. So we'll be getting that in the next couple of days. And that's a big recreational asset that we've been needing to replace and that we got that done free of charge. So that's a good thing. Thank you very much.

Mayor, that's all we have from staff. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't have anything.

Yeah, it's freezing in here. I attended the soft opening for McDonald's yesterday. So it was open yesterday. It was great to be there and meet the owners and the co-owners and staff. They mentioned that they're going to have their grand opening June 16th. And I think in our report from the city manager said June 15th. but they notified us yesterday that it was June 16, Tuesday. So I don't know if you guys want to just to reconfirm that, but the regional director stated that it's going to be Tuesday, June 16. Very anxious for Circle K and Chevron. Looking beautiful. Hopefully, I don't know when Circle K will be ready, but now that we know that it's June 2nd for Chevron, that's amazing. We're just very anxious and just seeing it. kind of itching my hand to go get my soda there. But other than that, that's all I have. It is 8.40, meeting's adjourned.