--------- Morning. >> We ready, Steve? >> Yes. We'll start with roll call. Uh, Chair Montgomery, >> present. >> Vice Chair Shashonovich, >> present. >> Commissioner McKver >> here. >> Commissioner Marian. >> Commissioner Shelton >> here. >> Commissioner Kleberg, >> present.
>> And Commissioner Miller, >> present. Chair, we have a quorum. >> Fantastic. Welcome to the uh Tuesday, May 19th meeting. Uh we're looking for approval of the minutes to start this off. Get a
I move to approve the minutes from the April 21st meeting. Second. >> All right. Fantastic. I believe our first presenter >> Oh, we need a vote on that. >> Oh, that's right. Uh all in favor? Hi. >> Hi.
>> Hi. >> I'm moving quickly. >> All right. Today, our first presenter is from Westworld and they're going to provide the Scottsdale strategic plan. We're very excited uh to have Will here
to walk us through this. Will, the stage is yours. >> Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of of uh the commission. Um, we are here today, but I'm joined with
by by Mr. Carter from NWCC. NWCC is the sales and marketing arm of of Westworld. They have been doing the sales and marketing for Westworld for for over a dozen years, and I think they they should take a bow for what they've accomplished during that time period. So, we're very appreciative of our
relationship with them. Um, Carter and I are here today to talk about the strategic plan. And let me first say that the strategic plan at Westworld would not have been possible had it not been for the TDC. Uh you provided the funding for this project. Uh Westworld
is a an organization that's been in existence for 40 years. And Westworld has been very successful during that 40 years, but we've never had a strategic plan. And I'm of the ilk that uh if you don't have a plan, it's very difficult to get to where you want to go. You might get to where you want to go, but
it's probably not as efficiently and effectively as you'd like to get there. So, uh, thank you very much for that. And if you take a look back at for for I've only been at Westworld for little little under two years, but you take a look back at at our budget for the last
number of years, uh, the TDC has been uh, very supportive of Westworld on many dimensions and uh, we would not be where we are if it wasn't for you. So, I I I just want to say that before we we we launch into our presentation.
We uh started this project about two years ago and the first step is to find a consultant to to walk us through a shepherd so to speak. And we did a national search and what we were looking for, we were looking for somebody who had an understanding of public assembly
facilities, a place where people meet and gather or events take place and also somebody who had an understanding of the of the Phoenix Scottsdale metropolitan area. and we we selected Keen Independent. They're a local organization and I I think they did a very good job in helping us through this
process. So the first question that we tackled is what is Westworld? And I think the best way to to answer that question is on two dimensions. The first is the factual dimension. Westworld is 386 acres of
event facility. We have 11 equestrian arenas. We have 300,000 square feet of indoor climate controlled space and we have a large tent which isn't climate controlled space but that's another 120,000 square feet and you can control you can put air conditioning in there if
if you you make the effort to do so. We also are 10 acres of grass field. We're we're 12,000 parking spaces. We're a thousand permanent horse stalls. We're 400 temporary horse stalls and we're 500 RV spaces.
individually those attributes don't mean a whole lot but when you bring them together that's where the second dimension of this takes place and that's the emotional dimension because that creates a very rich and fertile uh place to to do events to conduct events and I think
that the second part of this definition the emotional part is best told by pictures this right here is a concert that took place during bike week a couple years ago the band was corn we had 8,000 people at that event enjoying the event.
This right here is a a picture of the Good Guys Car Show. And what the Good Guys Car Show is all of the the men uh around the country who spend their evenings in the garage tinkering on the car that they've had for 20 years and have spent hours and hours and hours out
in the garage, risked their marriage. They come out to the Good Guys Car Show and showcase their event or showcase what they've done. Um, so that and we do that that event twice a year and it it covers the entire 386 acres. It's it's an amazing event if you've never seen
it. Um, for the last two years we've had the the the Global uh Arabians Championship Tour, which this is our tent. And if you've ever seen our tent on a normal day, you'd say, "Whoa, they really transformed that tent." And this is a a a worldrenowned event. It's they
they only do like seven stops around the globe, and we were selected as as one of the stops. So that's very that's that's something for us to be Scottsdale still to be proud of. And this is a picture from the Bear Jackson Auto auction which has been a Westworld stronghold for for
decades. Um this is a an event which started in Scottsdale years ago at the Safari Hotel of humbled means and now it's a worldrenowned event. You you can go many places in the world and say Barrett Jackson Auto auction. They know about that event.
This right here is our north hall which was transformed for the ESPN Super Bowl party a few years back when the Super Bowl was was in Glendale. And this right here was a corporate party. So we can do a lot at Westworld.
Westworld's an amazing facility and uh having a strategic plan in my opinion as I mentioned early will will position us for for great things in the future. Um when Keen uh took reigns of this project, they went out and tried to
gather information. They used a number of tools with which to do so. They interviewed people, they had focus groups, they had surveys, they had planning workshops and they they came back to us with with their findings. One of their findings was that Westworld
should prioritize and we should prioritize by serving as a space for community gatherings. We should do our double best to enhance the tourism. We should bol bolster economic impact and we should we should add to the quality
of life within the community. They also came away with the with the with the results that uh we serve our customers fairly well. We have a net promoter score of 76. And what that means is positive uh results from a survey question minus the negative
results gives you your net promoter score. and net promoter score of 76 is something to be proud of. However, we should be working towards trying to get better at all times and our strategic plan will help put us in that direction. Um, we also have uh we also they also
took a look at our uh our our event days uh and as you can see with that spike there is that was during the co year. So uh many of the question facilities around the the country closed down during COVID. So Westworld uh which stayed open um benefited from that but
you can see if you take out the co years we do an average about 600 event days a year we have which in essence means we have a lot of events that we have multiple events on on many days the two Saturdays before last we had five events on one day so it's a very busy facility
and as you can see the uh from the graph the two lower lines that's the number of uh equestrian and non-equestrian events we do so we We do approximately an equal number of equestrian and non-equestrian events. So we're a very diverse facility. Our annual attendance, if you take out
the COVID uh years, hovers around 800,000 people a year. So that again is something for us to be proud of. Um finances any every organization lives and dies based upon its finances. If you can't make you can't make ends meet,
then it's very difficult to survive in the long run. Um the one thing that is important to note about Westworld, although over the last five years we've averaged an operating loss, a loss which includes uh debt service of $4.2
million, it's important to note that we we generate tax revenues here which uh are approximately $4.8 million. So actually it's a it's a net gain to the city. And the the real bolster that that West
provides to the community is that if you take a look at the ratio between economic impact and operating loss, for every $1 of operating loss that Westworld has, we generate $39 million
of e $39 of economic impact. Well, that doesn't mean anything unless you compare us to other major public assembly facilities. Westworld there is bolded but the what is considered to be the premier equestrian facility in the land is is in
Fort Worth that's the Will Rogers Memorial Center and for every $1 of operating loss they they bring in 36 point $36.2 of economic impact we actually beat them and we're better than the Phoenix Convention Center which
brings in $17 of economic impact for every dollar of operating loss so uh Westworld has a lot to be proud of. Uh we as Carter's gonna going to outline here in just a few moments, there are a lot of things we have to work on too because it's all always our endeavor to
try to do better today than we did yesterday and hopefully we'll do even better tomorrow. So at this point in time, I'm going to hand things off to Carter and he's going to walk us through the strategic plan and the results. Good morning. Excuse me. Pardon my
voice. Good morning. It's good to see you all this fine day. Um the strategic plan really was a great thing for us to get done and thank you for all of your support for it along with the city council. Um through the process of looking at everything, they developed a
SWAT analysis amongst many things. Um just to touch on a few items, um the flexibility of our facility and our amenities, I really personally believe as somebody that deals with uh producers and clients directly is one of our greatest assets. If you're trying to
move into the convention center, you have to park in a parking garage, load up a dolly, go through a hallway, down an elevator. Our ease of use and flexibility of space is like always one of the top factors that people move
other locations to come to us. We're very adaptable, flexible, and can meet their needs in a more time-sensitive way, which saves them money. We also offer a lot of different events, diverse events offerings. This last weekend we
had a a reptile and plant expo in our south hall. We had a a raining um Mother's Day slide raining horse show in the equidome and in the outdoor arenas. And then we had collecticon in the north hall which was a large collectible
probably I'm guessing 7,000 people over both days maybe more. We'll get the exact numbers from the producer after a few more days. But it was a very packed great weekend. Um, weaknesses, uh, something that you all
and the city council and all of our government here has already been helping with, deferred maintenance and upgrades. We've gotten a lot of support recently that hasn't always been there in regards to repairing some of our barns, replacing temporary stalls, improving
Wi-Fi, getting drainage projects going. Um, and so that's been a great help and appreciate the support. Um, uh, let's see. Uh, let's go with unclear identity and branding. We are such a mixed
group of different types of events and event producers that sometimes it makes it hard. Some people only know us as Bear Jacksons. Some people only know us if they ride horses. Um and so something that for us to work on and just try to expand upon in the future. Um
opportunities um telling the story of Westworld and build visibility. I think it's important we get the word out to the rest of our community partners and to the region in itself that of all we're doing and how
busy we are and that one they should come out and enjoy an event and if they don't want to enjoy event they should know that their city is hard at work with their taxpayering money being the best return on investment possible there. um threats, restrictions around bidding,
contracting, marketing, and other items hindering venue process. Um, you know, some states have different rules and laws, and they're able to just write blank checks to get international shows to move there. Arizona and Scottsdale is
not that way. So, we have to be more unique in how we structure deals and how we can incentivize top events to come. and that's something that the TDC has always been there to help and support in. So, we appreciate that.
Um, part of the Keen U strategic plan was to look at the city's vision and the city's mission and then create one that is in support of that for our department i.e. Westworld. vision statement, you know, a city with exceptional
experience, outstanding livability, community prosperity, and distinctive character. Excuse me. And the mission of the city of Scottsdale simply better service for a worldclass community. Um, Keem helped us
develop this that in support of the city of Scottsdale's vision, Westworld will bring the modern west to Scottsdale as it's a premier event driven economic engine. And in support of the of the city of Scottsdale's mission, Westworld will
deliver success to Scottsdale with our diverse high impact equestrian and special event programming. And then we we collectively working with the consultants all talked and and figured out what we wanted our core values to be. Um we want to be
accountable. We want to exhibit ownership and understanding and honesty and follow through with our event producers. They need to know if we say this arena is going to be dragged at 2 am in the morning so they can start classes at 3 that they don't need to check. They know it's going to be done.
And so we find that to be an important thing for us to continue to focus on. We want to be flexible. Events are very dynamic, fast-paced environments. There could be weather challenges that come in. There could be um a a singer is
changed out at a concert and you get 10 time or twice the attendance. than you were expecting. We need to be flexible with our event producers and help them navigate that. We want to be collaborative, work with our producers to help ensure their success, which
becomes our success. We want to be serviceoriented and treat everybody with respect, um, dignity, and strong communication and commitment to success. And then we want to be good stewards of the city's property. Manage all forms of risks to guests, clients, and city
assets. And then for the next five years, we've got five strategic or for the next five years, we've got four strategic priorities. One, compete for the best. Bring the best car shows. Bring the best horse shows. Bring the best concerts,
the best off-roading events. We want to strengthen and unify our organization so that we can better serve the citizens of Scottsdale and the clients that we have at Westworld. We want to engage with the city and the region um to make sure we're working collaborative
collaboratorly. Sorry, I'm not speaking well today. Um and we want to plan for the future so that you know events go through trends. I've seen over my 12 years certain events that were the thing in town are starting to fade a little. And so we
need to look into the future and make sure we're growing as a venue and as an organization that is along with the trajectory of the event world. And with that, I thank you very much for your time and give it back to Will. Thanks, Carter. Uh, in the packet that
you received, you should have our full strategic plan. And in that strategic plan, there's a set of 50 deliverables which fall under these four categories. and we will be working towards accomplishing those 50 deliverables over the course of the next five years. The
first one and and arguably one of the most important one is to determine what types of events we're going to pursue in the future. So that's uh we're working with Judy Doyle and Greg Kaitton on on coming up with that uh distinctive direction. So once we get that then we're going to be working on on uh the
the a future direction of what programming we bring into Westworld. Um, when Carter and I were before you back in the fall, you asked us a question and that question was, "What can the TDC do for Westworld?" So, we've come back with
an answer to that today. Um, with our strategic plan, we we're now now beginning, well, we're not beginning, we're focusing on the future and what events we want to try to attract. I think it's important that we work collaboratively with uh other departments within the city and and to
to how to to position Scottsdale to attract some of the events that maybe we haven't been able to attract before before we compete as Carter had mentioned in an environment where our competitors provide seed money to events for that to motivate them to come in. So, we need to figure out a way to get
over that hurdle. And if we're able to get over that hurdle, then we can we can begin the process of attracting events that uh we we might we we we wish that we had in the in the past and hopefully that we could get them in the future. If that makes any sense. At this point in time, that concludes our our
presentation. We'd be happy to take any questions that you might have. >> First of all, thank you very much. Um, I appreciate you guys coming back. Um, I noticed in uh some of the weaknesses that and when I was reading the packet, I was kind of trying to match those up.
You mentioned limited marketing visibility as one of the weaknesses and one of the challenges was the unclear branding. When I went through the packet, I didn't see how you were trying to address that. Can you speak to that? >> That's we're going to be doing that with this. We're now we're in the process of
beginning that process. >> Well, how what will you be doing, I guess, is my question. >> Well, I think we need to a figure out what Westworld is and and we are in the we are hopefully with the pro approval of the budget uh we'll have a a marketing person halftime uh that we
can work with them on on getting the message out better than we have in the past for we don't have a dedicated marketing person on staff right now. So that's that's that's the first step. Um and and to ensure that uh we we identify
arteries with which to get information out to people not locally but also regionally and nationally to put Westworld's best foot forward. So those are those are uh priorities on the on the horizon that we're going to focus on. >> Okay. Commissioners, any questions?
I first of all, I want to tell you that when I went out to visit with you all, Westworld's not an easy place to book. It's very complicated. And I was really impressed with how well you all understand your your facility and kind
of how to get around all those little idiosyncrasies. And when chatting with I think it was your brother, um you we do have some events out there that are not really financially particularly good for us. And they felt like they could make
some progress with kind of weeding those out or at least renegotiating the contracts so that they become a little bit more cost-effective for the city. How are you doing on that? >> Well, the first step is to get uh our
our direction approved. And as I mentioned earlier, uh the uh we're we're creating a a mantra, if you will, of how we're going to pursue events and and and reconfigure our event lineup. Um we have
80 events each year. Uh let's say we identify that there's 10 of those events that maybe should uh be housed somewhere else. Then we need to diplomatically because they they're our customers. They're they're uh they're part we and they're important to us and we're
important to them. Figure out a way to transition them somewhere else. And that'll be a that that won't be a tomorrow thing. That'll be a stairst step transition. I don't think that's a a a transition that you can you can draw a line in the sand and say next year you
aren't going to be here. We're going to bring in somebody else. So we have to we have to be respectful of of the relationships that we have with people and how those events uh have uh have to be able to survive in the future. So that that's not an easy hurdle to get
over. But uh once we get some of our uh our initial uh programming uh approved by senior city management, then then we'll start the process of going down that path. >> Okay. I clearly understand that that's not anybody's idea of fun, particularly
as a salesperson myself, but but it's good to hear that you're at least on that process. Um, also in one of those um one of the I think it was the strategic plan presented last fall, I saw something where you were going to you were wanting us as commissioners to
make sales calls with you. >> Uh, I didn't see that one. >> I No, I I >> I'll have to go back. I think it was in the future, but I just want to let you know I'm ready. So, >> it but but to to to springboard off of that statement, I I think we should all work
collaboratively uh to toward for common goals and we all have our role in the accomplishment of that collaborative goal. And maybe there's a situation where maybe having somebody from the commission accompany us on a sales call,
maybe that would be a good idea. Um I I I think we need to teamwork is is is the the theme of what the message I'm trying to to deliver here. >> Okay. >> Okay. We've discussed this one. How do we control the number of days moving in
and how how do we control number of days of moving out for some of these events? >> Well, we we have some longstanding contracted events that uh until those uh contracts come to fruition. I'm not so
sure we have any uh leverage in that. We spend a considerable amount of time addressing the areas in which we do have some influence. Uh and that is with with the other events. Uh
you're but we are um anchored in to some uh long-standing events where that the the contract that will govern that. Um, but I'm not so sure that that's necessarily a bad thing from the
standpoint that those events help make Westworld what it is. Can we over the course of time free up some more load in and load out days? We can and we are working on doing that. >> So, when I was up there walking uh with Carter, we were talking to Quarter Horse. Quarter horse was given a good
pitch talking about the value of their event, talking about the amount of spend they do with their event, but they made it very clear that they were staying on property. How much are they paying when they're staying on property with their RVs? >> Um, yeah, this $50 a night.
>> So, how do we increase that? And how should the hotels feel about that? How do we increase the number of >> How do we increase $50 a night to a higher figure? And how should the hotels that surround Westworld feel that here's a big spending customer that's staying
in RVs but not staying in local hotels that surround Westworld? >> Well, that's the culture of the event, though. The the equestrian community travels by by RV. Uh,
I would look at it a different way. If we have an event that they bring RVs and that's the way it is, I'm I'm not so sure we want to mess with that that that that system.
Let's go out and find other events that we can bring in that on on on weekends that we have available that will satisfy hotel room uh increased enhanced numbers of a hotel stays. That's how I would
look at it. I'm not so sure that that uh trying to persuade the equestrian community, which are on a tight budget, that they need to be spending more than $50 a night for what we might do is we might see they go somewhere else. >> So, you don't think there's any room to
raise the price from $50 to a higher figure? >> Uh yes, there is. Uh but a lot of those uh uh rates are are locked into the contracts. So, when the contracts come due, then yes, we can we can work on that. Are we going to be able to take a
$50 uh night stay and make it 70? Probably not. We might be able to make it 53 or 54, but it's going to have to be stairstepped. It's not It's going to have to be incremental, not exponential. >> Got it.
>> I understand. Is there an opportunity? >> I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. your your commissioner, your mic. >> You just pressed the button once. >> Oh, okay. Sorry. Um I understand our uh stall rates are pretty friendly as well.
I think your your young assistant told me that in we get $20 a night and in Tulsa they get 50. >> Yeah. So, I was wondering if there's an opport and I understand that that they're on tight budgets, but is there an opportunity to get a little bit more
on the stalls, too? Uh we are always trying to optimize the amount of revenues coming to the city of Scottsdale. that always uh um I'm not so sure that the information
that you got was accurate because uh uh I was actually out to dinner with uh a lady who brought our our horse show last week and uh the the rating show and she said you guys are cost too much money
and she spent the evening telling me how expensive they were. Now, we call around other facilities and and and we get a pretty good feel for for what they they charge and and no, we're we're we don't believe that we're we're expensive. Uh but the other facilities aren't going to
tell us that they're contract. The the Los Angeles Rams don't give their playbook to the San Francisco 49ers before the game. And so the other facilities, they're not necessarily telling us what they're charging either. Although you can glean give get give a pretty
good good feel for how we compete but but nonetheless please note that we're always trying to optimize the amount of revenues for the city of Scottsdale while at the same point in time not losing business. >> I have another question for you. You mentioned events that you're competing
to get that you don't have now. You said you mentioned something about the other groups providing seed money for those events. Can you give us an example of one of those events that we really really would like but we're missing out due to some practice like that? >> Well, there's a number of equestri
events that uh go to other places because of that offhand I I don't have an actual event name. I can get you a bunch of them if you'd like. Um but uh prior to my arrival at Westworld, Austin and Carter um when events were bid sp
put in bids for events and we're told u that we appreciate your your offer uh very good facility but we're going to Tulsa or we're going to Dallas or we're going to wherever because financially it's just a better deal for us because
they provide us some seat money. So that is one of the challenges that we deal with. Any other qu any other questions? No one. All right. Well, Will and Carter, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate you.
>> We appreciate you. Thank you, >> Steve. We're going to keep moving along here unless you have anything. Next up is the Experience Scottsdale third quarter performance uh measure report uh by Rachel Pearson. Um Rachel, you going to do it all all by yourself or you'll
be having um partners in crime? >> I'm all by myself today. >> This is going to be spectacular then. I look forward to it. >> Although I do have partners in crime in the audience, so if I need any assistance, we can certainly call on them. Well, Chair Montgomery and commissioners, thank you so much for having me. I am here to provide an
update on some highlights from Experience Castell's third quarter of the 2526 fiscal year. As a reminder, we're in the fourth year of our five-year contract with the city and we are tasked to perform 17 performance measures on behalf of the community. As you saw in your third quarter report, um
we have over, as I mentioned, 17 performance standards through the first nine months of the fiscal year. We have already surpassed 15 of those performance standards. We are on our way to uh meeting and hopefully exceeding the remaining two. and ultimately rest
assured that our team is continuing to drive results across all of those performance measures for the remainder um of the fiscal year. So I wanted to start just by sharing um a little bit of information about um some of our high season efforts. So, as you all know,
high season January through March, we see tons of amazing tourism driving events, many of which are at Westworld. Um, helping to bring so many visitors into our community. And as some of you may have experienced directly through
the hotels, um, we had a stellar season, um, just incredible January through March uh, this year. In fact, STR, the hotel data firm, showed us that February and March actually saw the highest occupancy levels that we have seen in the past six years. So, very strong. We
also saw year-over-year increases from January through March in occupancy, in rates, in revenue per available room. All really showing that strong pricing power for our hotels and resorts. Now, in order to promote the high season and continue to drive visitors here, uh we
have our signature events campaign really focused on those tourism driving events. And what we saw was that all total we had over 314,000 visits to our website, our curated stories, and our event listings around that time frame. It's actually 9% over
what we experienced from our summer campaign the year prior. So, seeing great growth in our campaign results. Part of that campaign as well, we partnered with the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies around spring training. We know that their season ticket holders are the ones most likely
to decide to hop on a plane, come here, and enjoy spring training. They're going to stay longer. They're going to spend more. So, our team focused on that high yield audience through our partnerships with the teams, making sure that we were uh participating in dedicated events for those season ticket holders, customized
communications, and other campaign efforts that were directly going to that particular audience. Um, we also combined some spring training and golf promotions through Colorado Avid Golfer. We know that those golfers are choosing to come here. It's a perfect time for
them to be here. We hope that they extend their stay and are also enjoying events like spring training. Now, recently, you've heard us talk a lot about international and how we are staying the course. Our team uses that that phrase a lot and US Travel Association recently put out some
information really pushing in on that and leaning in on that, saying that, you know, it is much easier to maintain one's presence even when things are down than trying to go back in and regenerate demand. And that's really our team's philosophy as well. Um we're excited
that in the first few months we have seen some interest from some of our international markets continue to grow and visa destination insights we get reports from them about some of our visitors from the international markets and we know that year-over-year in the first three months of the calendar year
spending by those international visitors was up 11% year-over-year. We have not hit our 2024 numbers yet, but we're still seeing um some growth over last year, which is wonderful. Um in the international market, we are partnering with Brand USA to reach affluent
travelers across Mexico, France, and the United Kingdom. Uh we're doing that through various campaigns, hoping to generate about 37 million impressions through those combined efforts. Um during the quarter we also had our international public relations agencies that we work with in various countries
had an opportunity to meet with nearly 70 travel writers um during media missions in Toronto and Vancouver and also during international media marketplace sometimes just referred to as IMM if you've heard that before. Um and those events took place in Berlin,
London and Paris. And you all know we have exciting new service to Taiwan that not only gives us access to Taiwan but about 60 other uh feeder Asian markets and so had an opportunity in partnership with the Arizona Office of Tourism to
host some luxury travel writers from Taiwan um who were here experiencing Oldtown, getting to know our dining scene, experiencing the arts and culture of our community. The last element I want to touch on today is uh the focus that we always
have on meetings and events. You all know how important and critical those are to our community and we are always looking for how do we drive new business to the community. It's great that we have fantastic repeat business. We have long-term relationships with our customers, but we want to make sure that
we're always have that pipeline full of new customers as well during the quarter or excuse me so far this fiscal year. So for the first nine months, um we have about 26% of the leads that our organization has generated that are representative of new business to the
destination, meeting planners we haven't worked with before, organizations that haven't met in our destination. So really thrilled to continue to expose Scottsdale to those individuals. One industry that we are honing in on a little bit more is the legal industry.
Um we feel like there's a lot of growth opportunities in there and so our team actually helped secure something called the legal summit. Um it that summit brought about 60 legal meetings professionals to our community. So we were able to attend the event, bring it here. Um and that is going to provide us
hopefully a lot of new business by that legal market who got to experience the destination firsthand, hopefully bringing their future meetings here to our community. During the quarter, we also had an opportunity to attend the United Soccer Coaches Convention. This
has about 1,200 soccer coaches and tournament directors. Soccer's a loud sport. I feel like it's going to be a loud convention. So, um, had to have been a lot to be there, a lot of excitement, but ultimately we know how important um, those soccer tournaments are to a lot of our city venues as well
as other youth and amateur sports. And so attending that ensures that we continue to keep Scottsdale top of mind, hopefully bringing new tournaments to our community as well. And then finally, um have some great kudos to share with all of you that our convention sales and
services team received. Um many of you are familiar with Humps Brrisco, who is a third-party meeting planner. They're one of our largest partners and for the third time they named Scottsdale, experienced Scottsdale as their destination partner of the year. And this really is about the relationships
that our team has built and the service levels that they provide um to the Humps Frisco Associates who are the ones voting on their destination partners for the year. So very proud of our team for that. And then the second is from Prestige Global, also one of our third party partners um who named Scottsdale
one of the top destinations based on total contracted sales. Um and so ultimately we were number five ahead of a lot of our competitors and other major meetings markets. So next time you hear from us after the fourth quarter we'll
have some updates for you on some of our efforts around the summer need period really ensuring that we continue to see a great summer here in Scottsdale and then also some of the efforts that we are focused on with luxury travel advisors. Uh we've talked a little bit
with you before about all the doors that have been opened for us to attend some new invitationonly exclusive events with those top tier travel agents and so we'll have some more information to share with you then. Thank you so much for your time and I'm more than happy to answer any questions
that you have as well. >> Commissioners, any questions? >> I I just wanted to say Rachel, your team huge award for HB and prestige. Congratulations. That's that's a great note for the city to win that award for
Helms Brisco. That's heavy congratulations to you. Uh I would say congratulations as well. Helms Brisco is the you know best of class out there. So uh congratulations and we're seeing some lift this summer just so you know already on bookings.
And I was joking with Chris here on the legal community. I mean, there's so many. Clearly, they've got a robust marketing budget with all the ads for legal these days. So, let's go let's go get some business from them, right? >> Absolutely. >> I have one question. I think what what are you most excited about that has the
most potential that's, you know, starting to show up on the radar here for you? >> Um, specific to the meetings market or >> Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. >> I I do think that legal is is an area that we're continuing to focus on to grow. um because there is an opportunity
there. We feel like they're a great fit for our community. We haven't necessarily seen um high percentages from that market in the way that we do from other key areas. You all know um you know, especially in the corporate uh arena, it is all about medical and
pharmaceutical. We see a lot out of financial and insurance. Legal seems like a tangential uh you know, group that we should definitely be seeing more of. So, we're hoping to increase their presence here in our community. >> Any other questions? Well, as always,
Rachel, thank you very much. And again, congratulations to you and the team. You guys do some amazing things, and we're happy you're on our side. >> I will pass the congratulations along to our sales team. Thank you. >> All right, Steve, chairperson, next item is the staff report. included in your
packet was a bed tax collections classification report, our bed tax budget, uh tourism budget, I should say. Any particular questions on any of those? >> Any questions? >> I will note two kind of anomalies related to the limited service was noted
in your report at negative 20%. There's some internal collections going on there that cause that. It should balance out next month. As well as the retail collection was extremely high as a percentage. I believe it was over 100%. That again is due to some collection issues and some variance. We should see some leveling out in the next couple
months. >> Okay. Anyone? >> Yeah. Um so according to the report um if I understood it correctly uh postevent the polo event received a quite a bit of money from us and did a
whopping 60 room nights. Is that correct? Did I read that right? >> I'm I'm sorry. I was >> the polo event. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So are we going to do that again? >> Uh that is correct. In fact, that's one of my updates for upcoming agenda items. The Apollo event will be here uh in June to present as well as the Arabian
Breeders will be and those are the two of the grandfathered events that we discussed out of the event development that we'll be bringing forward. So, they will be here in June. >> Okay. Do you are you going to recommend that we do that again? >> Well, I have to see their information they provide before we make any
recommendations. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. There are no other questions. Commissioner reports. Anyone uh enjoy some of the spectacular events we have here in Scottsdale?
>> I did get out to two golf events. The Epson Tour, the ladies LPGA uh developmental tour was at TPC last month. It was wonderful. Sponsored by Carlile. Uh the TPC did a great job. Weather was fantastic. Uh it's it's a really cool. And then I was just up on
Thursday night at the Desert Mountain. It's the 11th annual USGAA National Fourball. It's a big deal. Every state is represented with a few teams. Desert Mountain did a great job showcasing. Both events are being featured on Golf Channel with updates on scoring as well, which is a national audience. So, uh,
I'm I'm really proud that we're partnering with both of those events. >> Um, I had the opportunity to attend two events at Cattle Track, which is a new part of Scottsdale Arts. I did a cattle track talk which was very interesting
and then the o the kind of the opening event to introduce them into the Scottsdale Arts family I guess and um I think there's opportunity to do a lot of fun things down there and if y'all haven't been there it's a ranch like right in the middle of Scottsdale and I
had no idea it was there and I don't live but two miles away from it so I thought that was really interesting. Um, I also attended the Merkantile Market which was very well attended. Those are a lot of fun and farmers market of course is a big win. And um, I just been
also attending some of the Oldtown marketing meetings locally. And um, so I decided to walk a couple of their districts just to see what was what. So uh, so far I've done the Fifth Avenue shopping and Brown and Stson. Of course,
I'm intimately am um acquainted with Scottsdale Fashion Square already, so I'm gonna tick those off before it gets way too hot and get my steps in. So, uh we have a we have a great old town area, so I'm proud to represent it.
>> All right, Steve, any public comment? >> No public comment. >> All right. Identification of the future agenda items besides the one you mentioned. Yeah, the two events will be coming next month and we're we're getting starting to get some of our annual reports starting to come in along with Travel USA and our return report
should be here in the coming weeks. So, we'll start scheduling those for presentation over the summer into the early fall related to some of the reports we're receiving. >> All right, fantastic. One another note. Yeah. So, the um the stadium, I mean, the TDC gave them a
couple million dollars and when they presented, they indicated that they thought there were 10 or 12 events that we might be able to bring in that we haven't now as a result of that investment. And at some point I would like them to come back and tell us which events they are and how they're doing on
booking them because I would imagine those big events are you know the booking window is kind of far out but you know I'd like to hear what's going on with that for >> sure. >> Fantastic. >> And just mentioned they do do have a West Coast Conference baseball tournament this weekend actually starts
tomorrow which runs through Saturday. So I I don't know if that's one of those events but it we'll definitely have an update from them in the coming months. That was one we'd like to keep from getting back to where it came from. We were talking about the Westworld getting events. If we can get these college
tournaments, uh, you have the golf, um, they they make a big difference in terms of our exposure and more importantly the dollars that they bring in. So hopefully we can continue to down that path. Other than that, I guess all I need is a motion to dismiss. >> Ajourn. >> Ajourned. Excuse me.
>> I motion to adjurnn. >> I second. All those in favor? >> I I Well, thank you very much for not making fun of that dismissal thing and making a motion to dismiss. >> You guys have a spectacular day. Part: 2
Looks like a social group we've got here tonight. Hello there. I would like to call uh the May 19th, 2026 city council regular meeting and work study session to order. City clerk Ben Lane. May I please have a roll call?
And before we start, I want to recognize that Councilwoman Whitehead is out sick and uh I for one and I'm sure the council and you all share this. We appreciate her consideration for not showing up uh ill. So wishing her the
best um of health moving forward. Go ahead. Uh Ben Lane, please. >> Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Barowski, >> present. >> Vice Mayor Adam Quasman, >> present. Council members Jan Debosquez >> here. >> Barry Graham >> here. >> Kathy Littlefield
>> here. >> Marian McCallen >> present. >> And Solange Whitehead >> I am here just not there. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh city manager Greg Kaitton >> here. >> City attorney Louis Santea >> here. City treasurer Sony Andrews
>> here. >> Acting city outlayoff >> here. >> And the clerk is present. Thank you mayor. >> Thank you very much. And this evening we have police officers Kim Savage, Kyle Sholac, and Ray Wilburn, as well as firefighters Jerry Brown, and Candace
Beerley. If anyone requires their assistance, please let a member of our staff know. And uh for the pledge of allegiance, I am going to do a random call out because Councilwoman Solange Whitehead is not here present. So, I'll
ask our outgoing vice mayor to lead us in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation
indivisible. >> Thank you very much. And for the invocation, I'll turn it over to Councilwoman uh DBosquez. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. It's my pleasure to invite Ryan Goble from Scottsdale Bible Church um to give us
the invocation tonight. Thank you so much, Ryan. >> Thank you for having me as always. Uh if you would like to pray with me, go ahead and let's bow in prayer. Almighty God, we come before you this evening grateful for the ability to live in this great city. Uh God, as we look at budgetary
matters tonight, would we uh do so in accordance with your will? Would you guide us? Would you give us wisdom and discernment? Uh Lord, I I ask that we would treat one another as neighbors, uh not as adversaries, and instead that we would seek the good of all mankind. Lord, allow us to have peace and
discernment this evening. Keep us safe. Uh we are grateful for our public servants. Uh thank you for them. Uh be with them always. It is in the name of Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen. Thank you. >> Thank you, Pastor Goel.
Moving on to the mayor's report. Uh, so Scottsdale is our foundation is built on our citizens, our residents, and we have a long history of visionary leaders uh, that come up with great ideas, big
ideas, and leave the city better when they found than than when they found it. Tonight, we're recognizing one great example of that and one of Scottsdale's most defining achievements, and that is the Indian Bend Wash. What was once a
floodprone divide threatening homes and businesses became a model for the entire country. In the 1960s, a concrete channel was proposed. But our residents uh had a much better idea, a bigger idea
that we could develop a green belt that would control flooding while creating parks, lakes, and open space for the entire community to enjoy. And that in fact happened. The vision became a reality when voters approved funding
funding in 1973. And by 1985, the Indian Bend Wash was completed, which transformed risk into resilience and innovation and enjoyment. Today, more than four decades later, it remains one of Scottsdale's greatest assets and one
that we all enjoy so frequently and so accessibly. Protecting our city while embracing our quality of life is the mantra of Scottsdale. Throughout May, we proudly recognize Indian Bandwash Month and the legacy of communitydriven
planning that made it possible. So, good job all of our uh everyone that came before us. So, that's exciting. And moving along, I want to thank Vice Mayor Quasman for his service over the last eight eight months. As we say,
so long to this vice mayor and at least for that title. and move along to Councilwoman um Mary Mckllen will now assume the role of vice mayor starting on June 1st. Uh and congratulations, thank you both to uh Vice Mayor Quasman
and congratulations to uh Councilwoman McCallen for taking the helm. All right, as is always the case, uh I thought we had a proclamation to read. Do we have a proclamation treat? No. Okay, I'm mistaken. That's for tomorrow,
right? That's for tomorrow. Got it. Uh, which Maryanne, soon to be vice mayor, will be delivering for for us. Uh, as is always the case during tonight's meeting, the council may make a motion to recess into executive session in order to obtain
legal advice if that is needed on any applicable item on the agenda and if so authorized. The executive session would be held immediately and would be close to the public. Moving on to meeting minute approvals. Uh, I will entertain a motion to approve
the regular meeting minutes of April 14th, 2026, special meeting minutes of April 20th, 2026, and executive session meeting minutes of April 20th, 2026. >> So moved. >> Second.
>> Please indicate your vote. There we go. All right, moving on to the consent agenda. Uh, consent agenda items 1 through 22. Do any members of the council have any questions or wish to remove any of the items from the consent
agenda? Seeing none, uh, Councilman Graham. Actually, >> thank you, Mayor. Bear with me. >> No problem. >> Um, on second thought, not tonight. Thank you.
>> All right. So, seeing no comments, there's no public speakers. Uh, no questions on any of these items. I will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda items 1 through 22. >> So moved. >> Second.
>> Please indicate your vote. >> Yes. >> Thank you very much. There we go. Moving on to the regular agenda. Item 23, public hearing and adoption of proposed fiscal year uh 2026 27 budget tenative
budget and five-year capital improvement plan. Uh this evening we'll be hearing from our city treasurer Sonia Andrews and uh go ahead and start. We will now open up the public hearing on this item.
Sorry, mayor council. Thank you so much. Um, I will hand this over to our budget director, Scott Selene, to make a present quick presentation. Thank you. >> Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of the city council. Um very happy to be here tonight to discuss the uh tenative
budget. Um it's a much shorter presentation this time for you. Um this is the uh timeline the adoption timeline for the budget. Uh we showed this last time but uh tonight May 19th is a tenative budget adoption and we'll be back before
you at the June 9th meeting for the final budget adoption. Uh just as a quick reminder, the tenative budget um according to Arizona state law, once adopted, the total expenditure budget cannot be increased uh upon the final budget adoption. So
the tenative budget establishes the maximum level of expenditures. As a matter of process, we have only incorporated council driven changes into the tenative budget from the proposed budget. Uh there are two changes in the tenative budget compared to the proposed
that we presented to um previously before you. Um on the operating side, on the operating side, we'll be adjusting the aviation fund transfers out and contingency forecast for our current year. This was to reflect the land purchase that was authorized by the
city council on April 14th. I do want to emphasize that this will only show changes in the current 2526 5-year plan for the aviation fund. Uh there are no changes to the overall budgeted expenditures for 2627 next year as a
result of that change. Um but you there will be some changes in the five-year plan for the aviation fund. On the capital side, we adjusted the ambulance annex project um to move $ 8.6 million from fiscal 2627 into the current year 2526 which was approved by
council uh in March. And again, this change will not present any overall impact to the 2627 capital budget. Um, but it was a change that was made that we've incorporated into the tenative budget. This table shows the overall impact of the changes that we just discussed to
the tenative budget. Um, as I mentioned there are those two changes we discussed do not present any overall change uh from the proposed budget. So the tenative budget is the same total of $2 bill118.9 million and this slide is just included. We
showed it last time as a reminder that the overall budget uh number that I just cited and it splits it up into the operating budget of 838.2 million, capital improvements.81.9 million and then finally contingencies and reserves of $398.8 million.
Uh this is another slide that we showed last time. We just included to show that when you look at the overall budget and compare it to last year's overall budget, um you see an overall reduction of $85 million or 3.8%. So tonight we would request that the
council entertain adopting ordinance for 4710 um which will establish the tenative budget for fiscal year 2627 and ordinance 4711 um as presented which will adopt ten tentatively the five-year capital
improvement plan for fiscal 2627 through 3031. I believe that brings me to the end. Be happy to open myself up for questions. Wow. No questions >> before we Well, he was asking for questions. Anyone have any questions?
>> There are public comments to answer your question. >> Okay, no questions. So, we'll move on to uh the public speakers. Steve Sutton, followed by Ethan Nolan and then Dan Isac. Steve Sutton address on record.
I'm concerned about things being put in the budget where proper studies haven't been done prior to agreeing to finance them in the budget. It's my understanding that uh we have a crosswalk in the
budget now. Crosswalk at 66th Street and Sha in the budget. And from what I've heard, there hasn't been any kind of study that would normally be done for that type of
project before putting it in the budget. This reminds me a lot of another project that just got approved by the council for an additional $3.8 million. And of course, that's the parking garage over in the parking corral, which at this
point almost certainly that's going to happen short of someone fearing that that may harm their ability to be reelected, which I doubt it will happen. Uh I've taken a look at that
intersection, that crosswalk, and uh before that kind of money is spent for something which it appears less than a thousand people will benefit, there should be some type of study to see what the impact is on Shave
Boulevard's traffic. Uh, I'm having a hard time understanding why a crosswalk would be needed there since there are signalized intersections on either side of that. One at 64th and one at 68th Street.
And anyone needing to cross over to the other side if they were standing at 66th Street and Sha would have a walk to the intersection that's the equivalent of where I'm standing right now
to Brown Avenue. Not very far. And that's a walk we expect people to make all the time. Think nothing of it. In fact, we're going to move the farmers market down here behind the uh city hall and expect people to walk from there that distance
to see Oldtown next uh next winter. So, it's hard for me to understand why there would need to be a crosswalk put for such a short distance between two signalized intersections. And I hope some type of study is done to make sure that's absolutely essential and not just
something for a small special interest group. Uh that crosswalk will affect thousands of people traveling on Shea Boulevard every day and I think we need to consider the needs of the many uh ahead
of the needs of a very small few. I'm hoping that I won't be accused of anti-semitism for bringing this up because that's certainly not the case. Uh, in fact, I went 67 years in my life without being accused of being an
anti-semitic until I came to this chamber. I hope that doesn't happen again. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Steve. Next, we have Ethan Nolan. Ethan Nolan, Address on Record. Mayor, members of council, we are here tonight
to talk about the 2026 2027 budget, including the five-year capital improvement plan, the CIP, on which you will provide your preliminary approval tonight. I suspect many of the public comments you will hear tonight will be focused on the water projects that have been removed from the CIP without
sufficient explanation. But I wish to comment in a slightly different fashion. Uh, one focused on the roles and responsibilities in our form of government. The city of Scottsdale is unique in that it is a charter city. As such, great difference is to be paid to what is set forth in the governing
charter. Article 1, section two of our charter sets out our form of government, which quote, "All powers of the city shall be vested in the elective council, uh, which shall enact local legislation, adopt budgets, determine policies, and appoint the city manager, among other
roles." Section 3, article 1 describes several specific powers of the city, including at some part L, the power to quote, provide for the protection, development, enhancement, storage, transportation, and replenishment of the water supply.
By contrast, in article 3, section 2, the city manager's role is described as quote, the chief executive of the administrative branch of the city government. There is an inherent tension in the city manager form of government between what is policymaking and what is administrative. Oftentimes budget
control can substitute for policy control with city managers shaping policy by deciding which initiatives get staffing which are prioritized uh which are delayed. I fear this is what is happening with the CIP. In 2024, our
city council adopted the strategic plan for water infrastructure. Even Barry Graham voted in favor, making sure that he would have a future vote on funding around APRW. Now, here we are less than two years later. Our council has not approved any
change in that policy. And yet, it would appear the substantial investments necessary to move that policy forward have disappeared from the CIP. The budgetary decisions taken by our city manager and his staff are effectively altering a policy approved by this council and as such cannot be allowed to
stand. It appears our council and our city manager have forgotten the roles allocated to each of them in our charter. When our council seeds policymaking authority to the city manager's office through simple misunderstanding or intentional deception, transparent decision-making
is lost and public comment public trust erodess. If this seating of authority is allowed to continue, residents will demand more coherent, transparent representation. To conclude, council has set a policy regarding our water infrastructure. If
the city manager's responsibility, it is the city manager's responsibility to implement this policy full stop. If circumstances have changed, whether through increased cost or greater urgency, that information should be presented to council for council to make whatever modifications in the policy it
deems appropriate. Let's discuss in public how to address our city's water needs. Under no interpretation of our city charter does the city manager possess the authority to modify the policy unilaterally without by withholding, delaying or eliminating capital expenditures. Thank you for your
time. >> Thank you very much. Next we have Dan Isaac. >> Dan Isaac address on record. We are fortunate to live in a great city. We have low taxes. We have great services. It's a beautiful city despite some
nefarious forces within our government. This budget has a lot of good things in it. But there's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on. At the last meeting, our city manager almost dislocated his shoulders, patting himself on the back
for demonstrating fiscal restraint. Let's talk about this fiscal restraint. Our operating budget outside of funding our police pension is actually increasing. The overall is decreasing because we had
prepaid rightly so some of our pension obligations. It was a good strategic move in the past. But we don't get credit for showing fiscal restraint when we return back to a normal contribution. Nor do we get credit for fiscal
restraint when we saved $10 million by eliminating positions that were empty. Those same positions were in this budget, the current budget, so that we could come in under budget to make people look like they succeeded. But now they've been removed to make it look
like people are being fiscal hawks. The budget also delays city fleet vehicle replacement. In other words, kicking the can down the road. But the most disturbing part of this
budget is kicking down the road the biggest issue facing our city, which is water sufficiency. Now, I am not one of the people who believe we're going to run out of water. Scottsdale has done great effort, made
great efforts to ensure our water supply. We have a three-year reserve. in fact in our recovery wells. But guess what? We don't have the infrastructure to actually pull that water out of those recovery wells.
And this council, because of our city manager, who bends to their will, has pushed off $200 million of capital improvements earmarked for
water sufficiency. And that includes new sources or alternatives for water. It doesn't matter how good of a monsoon season we have this year. CAP is going to cut the supply to the state. Even if
Scottsdale doesn't need to cut, the state is going to tell us that we have to cut. And we have zero dollars in capital improvement to ensure our water supply.
This is all games and it's games because it's an election year and I am disgusted by the decisions that our city managers made and that four people on this council have supported. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dan. All right, that
concludes public comment on the item number 23. So, turning now to Councilwoman McCallen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I do have a question for our budget director if he could come back up. Thank you, Scott.
Okay, my question I just want to confirm this that 48.2 2 million have been taken away from CIP that was to go to Bartlett Dam. 67.7 million from APRW
and 158 million other dollars taken away from CIP projects for a total of 263.9 million taken away from water out of this out of what was planned in the for the budget for CIP. Is that correct? Uh,
Madame Mayor, Council Member McAllen, um, that that is my recollection that those are the numbers. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now. >> I do, >> but that is my recollection. Thank you. >> So, that gives me great concern that
that is being taken out of CIP because if it doesn't go in this year, we're a year behind and then a year behind and a year behind. Like one of the citizens just said, we're kicking the can down the road. we will be highly affected with the um cuts from water that are
going to happen to our city through cap. So um although there are some great things in this budget, getting rid of water infrastructure is not one of them. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. So, yeah, I
um agree with Councilwoman um that that um McDow that there are some good things about uh police and fire pay increases, some great revenue streams that predate this council. So, I should thank all my former colleagues who made sure we had
infrastructure funding and uh Prop 490 funding so that this budget has some revenue. Um there are multiple examples that concern me. This seems like a budget with a target amount and a uh
city management having to look backwards to meet that amount versus looking forward and making sure that the city uh needs are covered. U for starters um I'm going to focus on water as well, but we have two projects that come to mind that
do not have um uh significant contingency funds. So what does that mean? That means when you build the garage and we know when we finish the uh road project on Scottsdale Road which we lost we forfeited four people forfeited $31 million which
taxpayers will never get back when we um when those projects have cost overruns it'll hit the general fund. And so that is why in the past councils have always had um significant contingency funds um
so that there were no surprise hits to the general fund which funded police and fire and everything else that we expect from the city. Um but I do want to focus on water. Um just to give you an idea of where we were at the end of 2024 and
where we are today. Um, in the the past council, which I served on proudly, we had a water and sewer operating reserve requirement that we raised to 25% to protect against mis uh mishandling
money. We had a $5 million conservation and drought reserve set up because we recognized that this uh drought was going to impact um Scottsdale and we would need to conserve more water and that takes money. And we built up a $108
million capital replacement reserve. So where are we today? the $5 million conservation and drought reserve has been tucked into um the capital uh the capital replacement reserve which has
been renamed but regardless and the and this budget will deliver a $80 million uh capital reserve fund whatever you want to call the reserve fund. So that's a loss of the 5 million plus 28 million. So over $30 million in reserves are
gone. we have um costs, operating costs going up and we have rates that don't cover those costs. So again, kicking the can down the road seems to be the the uh way to describe that. Um and then we have an
increase in cost of water that we know is coming and we're not funding for that as well. um our rates are some of the lowest in the valley and can continue to be as long as we are disciplined and
follow rate models. But rather than do doing that, we picked a number for a rate increase that is not backed by any data. So how much does water cost? We're paying roughly $300 an acre foot now and
we are now looking at 550 and 600. some of the numbers we've looked at that looks pretty cheap today. And of course, we know that it goes all the way up to something like $7,000 an acre foot for um del water. So, uh government's job is
to um budget for a worstcase scenario and then work diligently and disciplined to deliver what is best for the residents. This budget does not do that. Um the this budget eliminates $115
million of funding for council adopted policy projects. So in de facto this we have this budget is being used to override um a council approved policy. Um, and
this is being done without council meetings, without community outreach, and without any data backing the the reversal of this policy. In short, no transparency. There's 138 million other water capital
improvement projects removed. Do I know what those are or how important they are? They if they were in there to begin with, we'd probably need them. But again no transparency, no meetings to discuss these projects and
in short they will be back and then we will have a right rate spike. Um so you know we also have I should say water balance uh our ending water fund balance is in decline. So we're not going the
right direction financially and we're facing a future of less water. Now, it's something that for 30 years the city councils have prepared for that. We've just reversed that in in in this year.
In fact, I think many people find it shocking with how quickly we could reverse the progress we've made up until um this past year. So the cuts are coming in 2027 whether or not Scottdale is budgeting for those cuts and um our
job is to deliver water but also deliver water that our residents can afford and to follow follow datadriven data backed uh modeling to set rates and um to maintain our infrastructure. So these
are all big concerns of mine. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Quasman. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. And I'm I'm going to move I'm going to move uh uh the tenative budget forward, but I understand that Council Member Graham wants to speak, so maybe he could second
and then speak to the second or whatever he would like to do. I don't What is that? Okay. All right. Um I just want to a couple couple brief remarks before I I uh I move the tenative budget. You know, it's getting into election silly season and unfortunately there's people who
want to scare you and make you think that that Scottsdale is not going to be able to deliver water to the residents and that's just simply untrue. Uh all of those concerns that were spoken by my colleagues um were asked and answered in the last council meeting by the city
manager. If you have a spare 5 hours, I recommend you go on YouTube and you could watch the discussion yourself. I will never be doing that ever again because I experienced it the first time. Um, the fact of the matter is is that we
are working diligently and my colleagues know this. We're we're working diligently to make sure that the future of Scottsdale's water is secure. We're going to have to um uh we're going to have to make tough choices moving forward. Everybody knows that. everybody
and believe it or not behind closed doors when it's not in front of of residents we actually all agree on what we're doing moving forward. I understand that uh I understand no we do in terms of making sure in making sure that we have a vested interest in securing water
there is no disagreement at this in this dis um methodologies will always be debated that's not even a question of course of course my colleague I have a tremendous amount of respect for my uh my colleague Maryanne here we have a different difference of opinion and the
fact of the matter is is that is that uh uh policy-wise there is not a group of people who think that we don't care about the water and we don't think that there's a problem. That's just not true. Of course, there's a water shortage. Of course, the feds are crack are having are uh are causing a tremendous amount
of problems and making sure that that Arizona's future water supply is at stake. And of course, we are doing everything we can and will be making sure that water will consistently flow in Scottsdale at the right rate. um to
insinuate that uh that the city manager is is picking rate increases or rates out of thin air is ludicrous. Um this budget is fiscally conservative. This budget provides core services and this budget makes sure that the taxpayer is
protected and that is why uh we're going to support this this budget. With that, I move to adopt. Let's see. Apologies. right there. No, those are those are that's the next uh that's the next
issue. Um >> with me I got it. Adopt ordinance number 4710 and uh 4711. Um is that Mr. City Attorney? Do I need
anything else besides that? mayor and members of the council. That that is fine. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Councilman Graham, you're up next, but I also have a couple of questions obviously before we move. >> Thank you, Mayor. And I will second the motion on the table, and I will share
some comments with you. And some of these are just going to be rebuttals to what you heard tonight from uh my council colleague. This is um I was on boards and commissions for 10 years before I was elected to city council.
Was elected to city council in 2022. So I've been through the budget 23 24 25 26. And I mean what we see here is is just performative. It's performative. some of the scare tactics that and the rhetoric that
they're subjecting you to I think is a little bit beneath this process and I'm going to go through some of those because it's just regretful. Um this budget is lean. This budget is transparent. This budget prioritizes our roads. This
budget removes ideology, harmful ideology from your city spending. This bud, this budget prioritizes public safety. Not just public safety in word, but in action. Public safety
that not only goes for certain metrics, but cares about how you actually feel and feeling safe in your city. This budget is about I mean, this budget gets back to basics. And so to hear some of the rhetoric
about a budget from my colleagues, it just tells you that like the vice mayor who still is the vice mayor till the end of this month that we're in campaign season. Like I said, that's why I was going through how long I've been doing
this and how you see when it's an even year that the rhetoric changes a little bit. You are being subjected to an onslaught of biased information,
fear-mongering about dry faucets, about dry about your taps running dry. And it's just and what can we say about it? You know, it's they're going to say it, but we also have the right to respond to that. And it's just if you
look at the budget, if you actually are care about if if you actually carefully review it, it's just so far from the truth. Um, I want to read something real quick from Scottsdale's water interim senior director, uh, Tira Ryden Diaz
published an op-ed today and I'm just going to read a couple sentences from it and she says, "Our city of Scottsdale's senior director, interim senior director of water resources. If you follow water news in the southwest, you've likely noticed a shift in tone in recent
months. While the headlines remain serious, the conversation has become more balanced. And she's talking about the wider conversation across the entire uh basin states, all the way from Wyoming down to us. Um alongside concerns about drought and
Colorado River reductions, there is growing recognition of the planning investments and regional cooperation helping stabilize the system. That broader context matters for Scottsdale residents. The key
message remains unchanged. Scottsdale's water supply is reliable, secure, and actively managed. and she goes into helpful detail about her for coming from
her expertise, not from council members up here trying to chase headlines, but this is a water administrator with decades of of experience. Um, you know, we I heard the term gimmicks thrown around about this budget
and um I would just say e every budget what they're arguing about is making changes to budgets. And you could make that same argument about every budget passed by every municipality, every governmental level
when you make a change and someone characterizes it as a gimmick. Council member Whitehead, she just spread another falsehood that she can't stop spreading about the $31 million forfeiture for the roundabout that she voted for on Dynamite and Scottsdale
Road, one of our major arterials. The the the funding is secure. Uh city staff carefully swapped the grants at no additional taxpayer cost and those grants are secure. I don't know, she knows this, she's been told
this by city staff. We've discussed this. We voted on it. It's been covered. I don't know what more, but she keeps saying the same thing over and over again. Um, and I just found it rich coming from my colleague when she said that cost
overruns were not she's she's concerned about how we're we're we're budgeting for our contingencies. Now, she's concerned about contingencies. We've had contingencies and we've had reserves in every budget and they get tweaked and altered all the time and now
she's concerned about cost over overruns hitting the general fund. I I I just I can't believe I'm hearing this because it's like what do you think it what do you think it was when she voted for $30 million cost overrun in 2024 for the same roundabout that we're talking about? What do you think about the sewer
line that was 50 over $50 million in budget? Uh where did that come from? That's how budgets work. But she's stating a she's stating a fact to scare you. Um the same can be said about our water and contingency, a water sewer
contingency. Um and she says she says um that we should plan >> point of order. >> No, >> you're just go ahead >> politicking. >> Councilwoman Mallen, according to protocol, please state your
point of order. get to the point. >> So, Councilman Graham, can you focus on the budget discussion? >> Okay, Madame Mayor, I'm responding to comments that were directly just made. So, if you want to have a You want to have a >> If we could keep it to the budget, that
would be terrific. And you've made a lot of points that were not a not about the budget. >> Okay. Well, I was talking about watering contingency. Um, you can go too high. You can go too high when it comes to contingencies. And guess what? That's
what she was complaining about. You can go too high and then you have your cash sitting around, which is exactly actually what happened in our budgets over the past several years. We had significant amounts of your dollars sitting around and it was partially because we couldn't spend it because we
had a spending cap. But that money wasn't being used for you. we weren't putting that to work for you. I'm a firm believer that you should not over uh uh contingent you should not overbudget your contingencies because what ends up happening is you collect tax dollars and they sit around and they eventually
become temptations to spend as cookie jars or pet projects. So I'm definitely opposed to that. Um there was a complaint about uh the cap replaceer was renamed.
We rename we we rename stuff all the time in every budget going backwards. So um raising water rates. Here's a question for um city manager. If I can ask if I can put
you on the spot. uh there was an accusation that we may not be raising our water rates to plan for the future. If this is a budget as we know and a budget is a authorization to spend. It's it's not the actual approval for the any
specific project. But if new information becomes to city council, can we change the budget to be flexible and accommodate for changes in in in ground scenarios for the water situation? Madame Mayor, uh, Councilman Graham,
what I how I would answer that question is, uh, a budget is a plan and given the best information that we have today, uh, for the next 12 months, it's it's good plan and should we receive new information and we expect to receive new
information. We have considerable studies out. We will return to council when those studies are complete to receive policy direction for development of 2728 uh budget development at that time. What I would say I'm proud of uh as it
relates to rates is the introduction of a 1% increase uh specifically designed for source and supply. So on the water side on the wastewater side we have a we'll discuss rates later but a three and a half% increase. On the water side, we have a 3 and a.5% increase if you had
a closed system or didn't have some uncertainty. So, what we wanted to do is introduce to our rateayers this concept that there is uncertainty in our future and we need to start uh to develop a revenue stream to fund new source and
supply determine the industry and that will be up to policy direction based on city council. This gives us this flexibility u moving forward. Thank you. >> Yeah. And um I that you kind I maybe you read my mind or read read my notes, but that was actually my next question about that was uh making people aware of that
and how we're planning as a city because um we all saw what happened in Gilbert. We're not Gilbert. That's not going to happen here. Um there was a comment about my from my colleague about you budget you should be budgeting for your worst case scenario
and I again fundamentally disagree. The way a budget should work is that you budget for the likeliest scenario and you build in safeguards for risks. Um I heard claims about no transparency, no transparency.
My the vice mayor talked about our five-hour meeting. We've gone through this. We're passing this in an open meeting with full uh notice to residents and
I think overall this budget is this budget is a budget to be proud of. So, in in um in conclusion for my the seconding of Vice Mayor Quasman's motion, um I think that this budget gets us back to
the basics, moves us away from harmful ideology, prioritizes our public safety, and gets us back to the basics of what local government should do. your roads, public safety, quality of life, and
spending your tax dollars wisely. So, those are my comments to second U. Vice Mayor Quasman's motion. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you. So, I think it bears repeating uh some of the uh questions that at least I've received getting some
of those answers. And I'd like to ask the city treasurer a couple of questions um because I'm still a little bit unclear on this. uh we talked about this during the um presentation on all these
budget items and that is when we remove items from the capital CIP and we uh take them out completely. So that's over five years that they would have had a budget uh line item associated with them. uh if we decide say next year and
I understood um the city manager's explanation and I think it makes sense that if we don't know the actual cost of a project however I think we never really know the exact actual cost of a project because we're always five years
ahead ideally fiveyear you know CIP plan um but I get the logic how do we get them funded how are they being funded if we then decide to put them back the project back in say this time next year.
Is it just a year catchup and we have to revise all the CIP year years for the next five years? Is that how that works? >> U madame mayor, members of the council, the council is adopting the budget for fiscal year 2627, right? And the
five-year CIP and we do bring the five-year CIP back to council every year for adoption. So if next year there is a change in the five-year CIP, you will be adopting a new CIP. If there is a change for fiscal year 2627,
then we rely on the contingencies and reserves that are adopted through the budget process to fund the additional um capital that's needed. >> Okay. So I think the answer was we are free to put the projects back in once we
have more certainty associated with them and we have the ability to then fund them and catch up. Is that is that accurate? I just want to hear from you on that. >> Um Madame Mayor, members of the council, the uh it is correct we have the
flexibility to add projects back in when we update our CIP every year. However, the risk is that we don't have the funding in place because we don't know. Funding is always a forwardlooking exercise. We need to know what we're
trying to fund today over the next five years as best as we can. Otherwise, it is very difficult for us to establish rates and our uh capital financing program. So, it's not so much the inability to change the CIP and make
sure that we, you know, have the CIP dollars. It's more making sure we have the funding available. >> And so, do you see a problem with uh having the funding available once these projects, if they're put back in, which I'm told that they will be, um, and I
certainly would advocate for that uh once we have more certainty on the costs. Yes, Madame Mayor, members of the council, the sooner the better. So, absolutely, we do uh we do expect that the city manager is going to identify the cost of these projects. As soon as
he has them, we will be able to um develop the funding strategies for them. >> And I think these question the BR the budget review commission had questions associated with this although they weren't tasked with really dr um getting
deep into these topics. Uh but that they did raise concerns and and that was really after the presentations were done at the last meeting. Um so and getting back to the hund00 million well not getting back to it but in terms of the hund00 million that is um unallocated
that is for water needs and there's some flexibility there. Should that be projected into the water rate increases this time around or I know it's 2728 so that's that's not the way I should ask
the question. We can still um factor that in to the water rate adjustments if and when that's needed next year during that allocation when it becomes specifically allocated. Yes, madame mayor, members of the council, yes, we
can always include them in next year's uh rate study and identify the rate increases. The again, rate development is forwardlooking, the more ability we have to identify the capital
expenditure needs, the more we're able to smooth out the rate increases for our residents. And if we are only looking at one year capital needs and um developing rates for just one year then we fail to
see you know the next year and the next year and there could be larger rate fluctuations with that approach. So the preferred approach which is in our comprehensive financial policies is to ensure we smooth out the rate increases for our residents and that requires us
to have a forwardlooking methodology. >> In your opinion have we successfully done that with this these rates and this budget? >> Um in my opinion we could do better. I think we are looking forward to working with the city manager to quickly
identify the five years. I know a lot of uh there were good reasons for removing some of those projects, valid reasons for um you know ensuring we have the proper costs in place and the proper projects in place. But it is uh important that we we make sure that we
circle back around and um and have the rate um follow up with those and make sure that we are able to do what we need to do from a rate standpoint. >> Okay. I appreciate that. And um I'm focusing on you this evening because I don't recall you really having a at
least I didn't have a a big dialogue with you. I don't recall any on this topic. And uh you know as a reminder um uh our city treasurer is an independent um chief financial officer and a charter officer. So it's incumbent upon uh that
position that charter officer to really you know give us guidance in this regard. So, while it's different than I've ever seen um or been exposed to, and I think it's a it's a new approach, um I I think not all is lost. I mean,
there's a lot of people that I've heard from that do think all is going to be lost. And uh I think we have the ability to be nimble and the sooner we get this information, the better off we are. Um and you know, it can be addressed uh as
we go. I have determined that not all is lost on on the um on the well of course not the advanced water purification and Bartlett Dam project. We do have a placeholder in there for the feasibility study. So on those two those have been
the two biggest projects we've heard about and the most risk associated with in people's minds. Um, but I don't share that position because I do think we can catch up and especially with the Bartlett Dam uh feasibility study. We
still have a seat a seat at the table and not all is lost there for sure. So, uh, while I share concerns about not funding these projects, um, I do see the logic in being more precise and, uh, taking closer looks at them. And
finally, I'm going to ask the city manager because I I think water is a really big issue and you know, candidly, we just heard from both sides of of the political discussion and I I appreciate that. I've been a candidate and you
know, that's you you feel very strongly about these issues, but I do think it's incumbent on us to really have an open dialogue. we've already decided to bring forward as a work study session uh as a group and I know we've talked and you're that's on your horizon to set that up.
Do you have any indication? I would say sooner rather than later. Um but what is your what's your estimate of when we can have a a water full water discussion uh work study session? >> Madame Mayor, we're working with uh the
city clerk's office to schedule that. We do have some uncertainty as it relates to uh a variety of a cap is a good example. We may have some more certainty in that over uh the coming weeks and
months. And so uh if there is direction from city council uh if it is important to have those results uh then that might be helpful for us to know. Uh from my perspective, if knowing the percentage of our major portion of our portfolio,
having some certainty in that reduction could help the discussion because then we would be more specific in how we intend to fill uh or make that gap uh that based upon the central Arizona project water. So uh we look to do that
very quickly. I would just briefly add to some of your earlier comments uh that we look to add them back in just briefly just like you suggest based upon the feasibility uh studies that we have underway and so I it's exactly spoton as
you articulated and then when those projects do come uh in 2728 we have anticipated rates that would align with those capital projects and just as a reminder we have $330 million worth of water and wastewater projects for next
year I will tell you that is more than we will be able to complete And so we are significantly investing in this critical and then as we get those feasibilities designed we will fill out the five-year. We needed to to clean slate it a little bit as we uh
recalibrate with those appropriate numbers. Thank you madam mayor. >> Okay and thank you very much both both the city treasurer and city manager. And in closing I I do think it's important to have uh the water discussion soon. You know, I I guess it depends on when
the when the allocations the decisions come down on on the uh on the cap or Colorado River, right? Um, so that's a that's a moving discussion
and I do think that if we're going to be removing capital projects um, moving forward and making any firm decisions, we need to have that open, you know, a dialogue uh, a policy discussion on that. And I hear what you're saying that that hasn't happened. This is just kind
of putting it on hold. So with that, I don't see any other questions. And uh unless anybody else has anything else. Nope. All right. Well, we're going to vote on this. And that is as a reminder item 23 which uh that motion has been
made 4710 and 4711 to approve the tenative budget. Please indicate your vote. >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you very much, Scott. I don't know. Scott left already. Oh, he's like,
I'm out of here. All right. Item moving on to item 24. Uh, this is you again, so you left too fast. You got to come back. Um, this is the public hearing and adoption on fiscal year 20 26 and 27 rates, some of which we just talked
about a little bit. and we'll have Scott Seline uh present on this and I'll open this public hearing uh now. Thank you, Scott. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of the council. Um I'm here tonight to discuss the proposed rates
and fees. Um I just mentioned that uh we do have city staff available um should um I not be able to speak to any specific questions about various rate and fee uh changes. This is the timeline for proposed rate and fee changes. Uh the proposed rate
and fee changes were presented in detail on March 3rd, 2026. There was a 60-day posting compliance period um and 15-day posting compliance. And then finally tonight, the public hearing and adoption
on May 19th of the fee changes. This slide shows a summary of the major uh fee changes for water and sewer. Uh there is a an overall water fee increase of 4.5% um and a sewer fee increase of 3.5%. The
yellow text on the slide indicates how much in additional revenue it's anticipated that these rate and fee increases will uh generate and then uh miscellaneous service charges for water about another 100,000 in additional revenue. This was a chart that was shown at the
um initial presentation on March 3rd and it shows how our proposed rate and fee increases for water and sewer will have us stacking up against our peer cities according to some general assumptions that were listed at the top of the slide. My understanding is that these assumptions are meant to approximate a
typical residential customer. um our adopted rates had us at at uh second lowest amongst our peers and our proposal will result in an increase and obviously the actual increase that an individual customer will pay depends on their
specific usage uh within that household. Another thing that I would add is that this chart hasn't been updated for um my understanding is this chart has not been updated for any other cities that are adjusting their water rates and fees. Um and once this all the other cities go
through their rate and fee processes we could this chart will be updated. Uh moving on uh this slide shows a shows the solid waste anticipated solid waste increases at the bottom of the slide. Residential rate increase of 2% generate
about 700,000 in additional revenue and then a commercial rate increase of 4% another $200,000. Uh some further propose further proposed fee changes. Uh planning and development is proposing to eliminate, add or modify various fees um based on state mandate
or non-use. And then you have the projected additional revenue listed on the slide. Uh for parks and recreation, um we're proposing that the year-round youth sports field allocation rental rates be replaced with seasonal rates and um that the pilot uh roundhouse at
the McCormick Stillman Rail Railroad Park be made permanent. On the preserve side, uh we are proposing the elimination of the annual professional photography permit um that as moved by by the council when these were presented back in March.
A few others listed here on the slide. Scottsdale Stadium is pro is proposing some inflationary adjustments to current fees and to make permanent the pilot firstbased patio fee and locker room fees and also the banyan room fee is being eliminated.
Tourism and events uh proposing increases to the banner install and removal fees under library and human services. a a new platinum room and a collaboration room booking fees and a new collection agency fees being added along with a 3D printer usage fee. And
then for the police department proposing an increase to the offduty officer pay and the offduty vehicle use fee. Uh this slide is very small, but it's meant to provide uh the language of what we are requesting that the council entertain in terms of adopting the
resolutions and ordinances for the rate and fee changes. And then that brings me to the end of the new content. We do have the slides from the previous March 3rd meeting. They're included as a resource only if there are specific questions. So with that, um I will stand for questions if
there are any. >> Thank you very much. I do have Councilwoman McCallen. I think we have some public speakers on this, too. Why don't we take them first? >> All right. Steve Sutton and then Dan
Isac. >> Mayor, I apologize. Those are for non-aggendaized comment >> myself. Sorry about that. You sure? Going once, going twice. All right. We're going to turn to Councilwoman Mckllen. Thank you, mayor. Uh, thank you, Scott. I have a question. Did we
use an outside firm to study what the rates for sewer and water um proposed would be? >> Madame Mayor, Councilwoman McAllen, I would defer that question potentially to a representative of water or potentially the city manager to speak to that. Okay.
>> Um, Madame Mayor, members of the council, uh, we do do have a rate consultant that we have. I think it's black and beach and they have started the rate model but they are actually on hold waiting for us to provide
additional information. uh for the 4.5% it was done in-house and so we're again you know to uh the same point we talked about uh we will work with the city manager's office to ensure we get updated information from all the feasibility studies or any other kind of
studies to complete the picture for our rate consultants and bring our rate consultants back. >> So my question would be if we started it why did we stop before we got an answer? Madame Mayor, Council Member uh McAllen,
so we just to back up, we have uh a wastewater rate study from about 2021 that is outdated. That one is first priority to be updated. Then the one specifically mentioned, we have a 2024
water uh rate study, relatively new, and but the course of my entire career, those are guidelines. and then you develop internally your based upon uh with your existing staff and your capital projects then you set rates for
next year. That was the course that we were on. Uh we were initially in some transition with some staff and thought that we may need that third party for assistance. We have uh what one of the best staff members who worked in quite frankly one of the largest utilities,
public utilities uh come on board and was able to assist in that rating uh process and so the rates are developed were developed internal which again is common practice for what I am familiar with. We will re-engage
uh first of all again the wastewater one because that one is outdated. They're five-year plans. The water one is up to date, but given the modifications that we have within the capital projects for water and wastewater, we will update the
water rate study as well. Thank you, Madame Mayor. >> Okay. I have a follow-up question, mayor. Um, so, city manager, so you said the 2024 study, were there the rates they brought back, were they higher than what we are actually proposing? >> Yes,
>> they were higher. So an outside firm thinks that we should have a higher rate than we are proposing. >> The rate study uh done by the firm represented earlier uh yes has double-digit rate increases for five years and it also that would have been
in 2024. So would have been applicable last year uh in the same situation and we did not uh we did it as a course of practice with internal staff. That is a rate model. Uh that is a a
guide. Uh but then we developed those on an annual basis existing and we are tracking lower uh than that estimation and that estimation had more capital projects in it than uh we need. I will give one specific example on the
wastewater treatment plant for example. We were planning to grow to expand the wastewater treatment plant. I said do we need this? because we were planning for growth but because of conservation on the water side we do not need that expansion. So therefore we remove that
project. That's just an example there of a project that is removed for legitimate they're all legitimate reasons but that has gotten lost in the dialogue uh because of other uh modifications to the capital plan. Thank you.
>> Okay. So, mayor, I may, if I may. So, I just want you to understand my concern. We didn't raise the rates last year. We're not raising them higher this year. Can we see what it's going to look like next year? An outside firm said we
should raise them. We're not raising them high enough. I could deduct that next year they will be exponentially higher. And that is my concern. Just a statement. Thank you, Vice Mayor Quasman. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. First of all, u
Mr. City Manager, did you want to answer that if that it was it was a statement, but do you want to answer it as if it were a question? >> I would that I would say that in our proform of what we do in many of the five-year projection projections is some type of uh inflationary measure and what
we do have projected out for water and wastewater is a 5% increase. That is kind of a baseline. uh I will tell you that the capital projects have a direct correlation to rates and so with the 100 million that we have added for 2728 we
added 3 percentage points to the standard 5% so it is a eight rate increase just giving everything else being the same and so what we have to do then is find efficiencies in order to put downward pressure on that rate the
rate model it doesn't really calculate any efficient ies it's just like what is needed it's like a wish list and as a result it's 11 12% increase for 5 years that was under a previous uh administration previous management and quite frankly I don't believe that's
realistic I think that is extremely high I believe that as we find the capital projects that are required to be done appropriately find the water resources we can have it lower than that as such for this next fiscal year. Thank you. I
I just want to say I I am that is music. I'm sorry. >> That is music to my ears. That is absolute music to my ears. As a taxpayer, as a resident, when I hear my city manager telling me, "I'm not going to raise your taxes or your fees as much
as as much as some outside firm wants them to or the previous administration, the previous council would have wanted. Uh that's just music to my ears. That's why um that's why we were elected. That's why we were put here. That's why you're the city manager. And it's to
promote fiscal discipline and not uh not arbitrarily raise rates and fees on the taxpayer. I have one question and that is and and I apologize. I'm going to ask leave of the council to to ask a question that might not be exactly as
part of these ordinances. It's a reg it's a it's a fee question. So, if it's not in order here, maybe we could just take it as part of something to think uh for the future. And that is the fee on the McCormick Railroad Park playground, the indoor playground. And it's on it's
on this right here. Here's the deal on this one. I with all due respect, it's too high. And we're hitting summer and uh I do and it's going to be packed and it's going but unfortunately there are going to be those who are unable to access it because of that because of
that fee. Um, as a parent of five children, it it hit me in the pocketbook and I was surprised how high it was. Um, and I really believe that specifically that fee should be either seasonally
waved or um either seasonally waved or held uh to what it is or reduced. Uh, it's just it's it's something that this is not a this is not a birthday party. This is a way for kids to get outside of the house in in the summer. This is a
it's a big deal. And so, um, with that specifically, what what resolution is that? That's the what number is that? Is that is that's 13667? >> I think I think it's 1365. 655.
>> Okay. >> It's a parks and recreation department. >> Okay. >> Is that is there any methodology that I have at this time to be able to amend that and and specific uh that specific aspect of the fee?
>> Mr. city attorney, >> mayor, and members of the city council. Yes, you you could um make a motion to u amend that resolution uh to set the fee to a different amount. >> Go ahead.
>> May I uh Yeah, if we could get in more information. I'm intrigued by this. It's been a long time since I had a baby that was young enough to go to the railroad park, but I'm dismayed by what you just said. So, uh, maybe we can get a >> Is there is there anybody presentation on it?
>> Is there anybody who's able to do that? Thank you. Thank you, director. >> Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of city council. Nick Moliner, senior director for the parks, and I recreation and preserve department. um relative to the fees at the the roundhouse fee at
the McCormick Stoman Railroad Park. That fee, we did a pilot for that fee and we did a lot of um benchmarking to see what that fee should be. Initially, that fee was projected to be a little bit higher than it is now. And there's some
modeling that relates to how we ticket for for the attraction. So the fee is is projected to be $6, which is two tickets. So the train and carousel fee is that those fees are each $3. So the
the indoor facility, the new indoor playground would be $6, which is two tickets. >> So So again, it's So basically, you're bundling the fee is the fee for $6. Uh you'll have to excuse me. The most This
is anecdotal information. And I admit I admit I'm using anecdotal information here. The plan with my family was to go just use the indoor playground and so we we weren't going to be outside on a on a hot day. And so but we were getting charged the am I am I am I correct in
saying that even if you only want to use one of those one of those uh facilities, the indoor playground specifically, the beautiful new indoor playground at at at the at the train park. Um you're still going to pay the $6. Am I correct? >> Correct. Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor
Quasman, yes, you would pay $6. That is projected to be the entry fee for that attraction is $6. >> Right. So, what I'm going to move to do is bifurcate those two and just keep things separate and not have a if you want to create a package ticket, that's
something else, you know, and that's something. Is there a way to to >> and Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor Quasman, I I want to clarify that. So, it is an independent fee that you can pay. So, you can go to the railroad park and pay
the $6 fee, which is two tickets to get you into the roundhouse attraction, totally separate from anything else. What we did in keeping which we lowered the fee. The fee initially some of the fee modeling had that fee at both $10
and then at $7.50. So, those are the fees that we originally had talked about. When we look at the $3 fee, what it allows us to do, it's not a bundling package. What it does is it keeps the tickets the same. So, from a customer service standpoint, someone can come and
buy a ticket pack and they would use two tickets, two $3 tickets to get into the roundhouse. And that's totally independent of using any other attraction. And so, so that was the methodology that we used to determine that fee, which was significantly lower
than we initially projected, >> right? and and and and Nick I Mr. Molinary Minar um I'm thank you uh call me Adam I uh I I truly understand that that you've hit below that what you were expected but that doesn't help the
individual with all due respect when they're going there and they're trying to help have many kids in in a very hot summer. So uh real quick on what is the fee for the pool to use the pool? >> The pool fees I believe are $3 a price for drop. So now, so you're seeing kind
of where we're at like here. And I want to thank for thank Council Member McAllen for the assist uh uh on that one. Um so I'm going to move to I want to move to make that $3. So I just want to I I think that if we cut that in half, if we cut that fee in half and I'm
going to ask the the park uh what what is the revenue generated since the do we know relatively what the revenue generated per day is on this? Is this a is this a money-making venture? Is this a break even? Are we taking a bath already? Where are we at?
>> Yeah, Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor Quasman, I'm going to answer I'm going to back into that question if if that's okay. The McCormack Stillman Railroad Park operates out of a special revenues fund. So, it's not what we would consider one of our enterprise funds, but the park pays for itself. And I think that's an
important consideration as we look at the fees that we're recommending to council. And we do see those fees as being relatively conservative. I want to mention and we've had several pressures on the the expenses at the railroad
park. A lot of that is personnel. We've seen that over the past 10 years for this council. I I would consider maybe council councilwoman Littlefield, but we haven't raised fees at the railroad park since 2016 2017. So with all due
respect, I mean this is a new you saying you haven't raised fees on other things, right? This is a new project and there was a and it's twice as much as everything else, right? And it's exact and we're coming into a summer season where it's going to be the premiere and I understand in a normal supply and demand you're going to have an increased
demand. So you you're going to and a limited supply so prices will go up. I get that. But the fact of the matter is is this is a jewel of Scottsdale and we want this to be a jewel of Scottsdale for everybody, not just not just the kids of doctors and lawyers. And I I really think that having something to to
to the effect of either a seasonable a seasonal price decrease or a you know something something where we are incentivizing Scottsdale residents in the summer who don't have as much means to be able to be there to be able to go and enjoy an
indoor part of the park in a way that's very special. Um and so I I hear everything that you're saying. I think everything you're saying is reasonable. I I really do. Um, but I'm going to make a motion here to um to reduce that fee to $3 and and and
uh as part of as part of the 13655, am I correct? Is it What's the best way for me to do this, >> Vice Mayor? The best way to do it would to be to vote individually on resolution
13655 um adopt it as is except as um modifying the one fee to reduce it to uh $3. Um and I assume you want to keep the non-resident fee the same or do you are are you um
>> that that's correct. I think that's correct. The non-resident fee the same 50% more. So that's a that's nine for nine for non-residents. Am I correct on that? >> Vice >> 50% more.
>> Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor Quasman, the the rates at the Railroad Park are consistent across the board as it relates to residents and non-residents. >> Okay. All right. So yeah, just to remove that down to $3. So I would I I move to
I move to amend resolution number 13655 to be state be stated as is however with p pertaining to the fee of the indoor playground uh the new indoor playground
to um to cap that fee at I have a second, but I want to hear from the city manager and also I have a question. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was just going to add to the discussion. The mechanical society is very interested in the rates in this area. So, I just wanted to add
that to the discussion when we did the pilot. uh we actually had intentions of of even a higher rate and then it was 750 I believe as referenced and then there was uh interest in pushing it lower and they were interested in
pushing it higher. So I just wanted to add that to to the context of that group um just just context. Thank you madam. >> Thank you. And my question you have anything else? My question uh just to
confirm. So there's three attractions and they all three are $3. >> Madame Mayor, there >> the train, the merrygoround, and the roundhouse. >> No, the train is a $3 ticket. >> The carousel is a $3 ticket and then the
roundhouse is proposed to be a $6 ticket. >> That's what I meant. Th those three attractions. So it's, you know, 10 bucks and you've got four >> I would like to That's a lot of money. I don't know. I almost think there's an there's a reason to also lower that in the summer or get give some discount. I
mean, I think that's a lot. I don't think it's always been that way. I mean, 2016, I know we haven't raised it since then, but yeah, when my daughter went, we it was a lot cheaper than that. Madame Mayor, with with permission, um I I uh I just want to say we have we have
passed tax increases on ourselves, some of which I did not uh uh uh uh support. We have in order to to protect the parks in order to to preserve the parks and to make sure that we have we have all of these tax money coming in that we're not
spending yet we have the fees that remain that fees remain high. I just it's something just doesn't sit right with me. And I think that that I I trust the city manager will be able to to to pencil it pencil the number and the city
and um the city treasurer will pencil the numbers on on a non-economic engine of the city that could benefit so many wonderful children and families. As we remember, Scottsdale is for families. Uh, Councilwoman Whitehead. >> Thank you. You know, I do have some
questions. Um, as far as Councilwoman Bosman, um, I was, um, obviously the one of the main reasons, one of the advocates for keeping the fees as low as possible. And so, it's not that I don't support a lower fee. I that was
something that I absolutely monitored. But I would like to have I don't like the idea that we make really some impactful decisions on the dis without uh allowing staff to provide us with the impact. So even though the railroad park
is not a um it is a separate fund. I don't believe it's funded by Prop 490. I could be wrong. Can someone answer that question? Madame Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman Whitehead, we do we are not funding the operations of the McCormick
Stoman Railroad Park through Prop 490 or the parks and preserve tax. No, the the >> expenses for the operation of the park, including the personnel are all funded through the park special revenue center, which is supported by the tickets that
we sell for the train, the carousel, and now the roundhouse. So, so it is funded by the the attendance, by the writership, by the folks that are coming in and riding those rides. For the roundhouse specifically, there is a
significant personnel impact that occurs for that specific attraction. So, we see we've had to hire staff. We have to staff that that area. So, there's there's an expense to that. And what about so also I you know and I want to point out today uh week of the
50th anniversary we've had staff that I know were working overtime. So I do want to know what the impacts again this was, you know, and this has been my fight to fight because I want to make sure that
our parks serve all children, but I do want to know the impacts and when the city considered adding a fee for the summer concerts, I successfully fought that and they're still free. But we do need to understand what the impacts are
because the our secret sauce is that we maintain our city. We don't think in terms of this summer. We think in terms of 10 years from now and if does this how you know where are the savings if I'm sure they could be found and I'm
sure I'd like to support it but I just want to know what those impacts are. I don't want to be uh not maintaining this incredible asset that I'm was thrilled to be part of and see come from idea to u fruition, but I just I'm uncomfortable
making a decision without I mean can we delay the vote on this item? Is there any opportunity to do that? >> Thank you. Was that >> that's a question? >> Oh, can you repeat that question? It didn't come through as clear as as it
>> Okay. Is it is it possible to to delay this vote on the fees and let staff have an opportunity to look at what is the impact um on maintenance staffing? H how to to see if there is some sort of uh
way to get the fee down without impacting our ability to upkeep this facility and staff it. I don't think that's a good idea. >> Is there a possibility to vote on this at a at a later meeting or we pretty much tied in for this meeting?
>> Uh certainly there would be if there was a a desire to do that. Um so I see the city attorney has something to say. >> Yeah, that's mayor and members of the city council. If the council so desires to um delay this particular resolution
or this particular fee, it can do so. the um the main requirements are um notifying uh the public about the the potential fee increase, but in this case it' be a um decrease um from what's been
proposed, so that shouldn't be an issue. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Dascus. >> Well, I actually I'm not done. >> Okay, go ahead. Go right ahead. >> Okay. I do want to um No, that's okay. It's hard when I'm not there. Um, you know, I do want to talk about the simple
math associated with rates. I got to tell you, Gilbert was proud as peacocks when they kept their water rates low. Um, so our cost increases are going up and so the 3.5% rate increase does not
cover the 5 to 6% cost increases. And that's without to even achieve that we had to eliminate you know substantial uh infrastructure funding. So we are I just want to stress this is a math equation
and every day that every time we collect um a water bill we are furthering the hole. I'm gonna support I just as I supported the budget. Um I think it's important to understand that um you know that what we're seeing again is
water prices, energy prices, chemical prices are going up. Our reserves are going substantially down and we are not meeting the modeling that is provided by our consultants. And unlike past um
years, there's no um I haven't been provided any data other than we cut out a bunch of projects we're going to eventually need in order to justify a lower rate. I haven't seen any efficiencies as Brian Beesme used to call them so that he was able to come in a bit lower than what
the modeling might have suggested. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. And pardon me again for moving on too quickly, Councilwoman Dascus. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, Nick, we had long conversations about this fee
and we did with Greg as well and we worked really hard to bring it down to the $6 level. Um, and it was you you're right, there was a a real desire for it to be much higher. Um, and like like Vice Mayor Quasman, I said, as a mom
with kids that goes to playgrounds, our proposed fee was very very high. So I was I was pleased when we came to a lower number. Um one of the factors that you raised at the time and that the railroad society raised at the time is
that they operate um independent of the city. And so one of their concerns was if we lowered the fee too much then um what it would require potentially is for the city to then bring in and provide
coverage essentially. So 20,000, 50,000, 100,000. Um, and we didn't necessarily know what that would be. We didn't know what the attendance would be. And so we took a flyer. Uh, the railroad society came alongside us and said, "We're going to we're going to try." And so um I
think what would be helpful because if we lower the fee to a point that it changes the financial structure between the city and the railroad society then that's a significant change in our relationship. So, I think it would be helpful if we had an opportunity to
examine what attendance has been, what the um intake of fees has been, and then um based on that, we can extrapolate what attendance could be moving into the future. And then we could determine from there um what a potential fee could be
um or we could then potentially talk about whether we wanted to have a change in the relationship and if that would be amicable to the railroad society. So, um I do think that it might be beneficial if we came back um to discuss this at a future point because I think there's a
lot of information that we just don't have yet. Like Vice Mayor Quasman, I went to the railroad park. I I took my girls. Um my my son came and so it was two adults and so I was kind of surprised when I had to pay for him and my two girls.
>> That point to that point. Um, Council Member Dascus, I think that that's one of the solutions that we're going to be able to fix. I I'm going to amend my own motion. Um, but I think that supervisory me additional super the what I call the
grandparents tax. It shouldn't be an it shouldn't be an extra fee for somebody to sit on a bench watching their kid. That that doesn't cause maintenance problems to the to >> Yeah. But let's take a look at what the attendance has been and if there are a lot of these two parents coming or not,
right? If we if we took away that part of the sec like let's take take a look at this because we do have a relationship with the railroad society and we want to make sure that this continues in an amicable way. Um and so this is this is something that was
thoughtfully done. So we let's not we want to do something but let's just do it in a little thoughtful way if that works for everyone >> to that point. Um I don't want to I want to be clear that that it's not that it's not thoughtful. It's just I understand and I understand what council member
Dvascus is saying. Um after Council Member Graham speaks I'm I'm happy to amend my motion. I think there's I think we've come up with a thoughtful on the-fly uh solution that I think will work for everybody. >> Uh Councilman Graham. >> Yeah. I the thing about the So I Okay.
Starting point is the fees all the fees are too high. Every single fee. >> Okay. >> Okay. Yes. Every single fee is too high. Um at the same time our we subsidi everything is subsidized the what goes
into the general fund one way or another when you have a staff member that helps out here and there it is it's actually a most if not all the fees are actually below what the market would probably bear. Um I I totally agree with the
feeling you get about the roundhouse. You know, it's it's like, hey, I'm taking my kids. I'm taking my kids. It's like like how much? You know, it we we all have that. And it wanted they wanted to raise it a lot
more, didn't they? Because they've got their caring costs, they're paying staff, they've got power and water and, you know, all that, all the amenities. Um, it's a balance. And so I think that
maybe doing it on the fly up here. I mean, if I could wave a wand, I mean, for starters, >> yeah, I could wave I could wave a wand, but I need to get three more wands to wave. Um, it, you know, it's like I would I
would like to see something where it's like after the first child there's a discount or after the second child like you don't pay after the second child. But then that puts staff into a tough position where they have to police and monitor and it's like people try to game
the system. It's like I'm gonna bring my friend's kids and oh yeah they're mine and then it's just like you're you're asking too much of your staff to do that. Um so the compromise is you know what it's like it's like everything else. It's like you can go simple and unfair or you can go complex and very
fair. And so it's it's kind of like we don't want to deal with like burdening our staffers with policing and hey you over there that family I'm not so sure that's your child. You know it's just like I mean one thing I I wish we did
was I don't think that a Scottsdale resident should pay the same price as a non-resident. And I think we have some of that built into our fees in some places. Um I have a Scottsdale mailing I have a Scottsdale address. Like I think
that maybe I should pay $5 and non-residents should pay $6. I mean, I don't Then you're even getting into the kind of the same situation a little bit where it's like you're you're asking to you're asking a lot of your staff members, all right, show me your ID. All
right. And then how do I know that those kids reside with you in Scottsdale? And so it it's just that we all want it to be fair. We want to benefit um Scottsdale residents. We want it to be as cheap as possible and we want So I
I'm just a little bit hesitant. I don't know what maybe council the vice mayor can revise his motion because I'm totally sympathetic to I'm I'm I'm sympathetic to everything he said. Um it just kind of and the other thing is like
this isn't I mean the other last thing I want to say is when you lower one fee you're kind of in a way asking for every other fee payer of everywhere else to sort of subsidize that a little bit vice mayor doesn't agree with that. He says, "Come on, man. It's all It's all It's
all Yeah. Um, you know, why are we not I don't know. I mean, he I I agree with the vice mayor, but like what is the answer?" Like, give me the answer, right? And so, um, maybe, yeah, come back to us. Let's find
something or maybe the vice mayor is going to revise his motion to be just an excellent revision. Um, but those are some thoughts I want to share. Thank you, Nick. May I provide just a little bit of context and then whatever we ultimately decide in terms of going forward.
The the fees at the McCormick Stoman Railroad Park have been carefully thought of and the fees have been discussed on this dis over the last 15 years. When we raised the fees from$1 to $2, it was a a major major
council issue in a decision. But we we are committed to keeping the rates at the railroad park as affordable as possible. Again, we haven't raised the major rates for the train of the carousel since I I was there. I was the manager at the park at that time. I think it was 2017. And we have seen
incredible cost increases since 2017. And we are the only area within the valley who have we've been able to keep those fees low and keep the park accessible as staff at the park have been able to implement really strategic
most of them are special events to keep costs low. So the proforma the the costs that we came up with for the roundhouse did not come out of nowhere. We've we did cost modeling. We considered what it would cost on a cost recovery model for
for the staffing the personnel. It is a unique structure. So to answer the question that council councilman Graham said, we do charge a resident and a non-resident fee for most of the activities in the parks and recreation department. If you come to an afterchool
program or a summer program or the pool, there are rates for residents and for non-residents. to be able to to to manage that at a place like the railroad park where you have a hundred people getting on a train every 15 minutes is unmanageable. There
there would be no way for us to do that. But as as city manager Greg Kaitton said, we also have a relationship with the Scottsdale Railroad and Mechanical Society that was founded when they gave us the land for
the park. That was a gift to the city of Scottsdale. And there has been this synergy between the city and the mechanical society that we would operate the park in a fashion where we do keep the fees as low as we can, but that there would be some type
of cost recovery, which is why this this revenue and the budget structure is what it is. And as Councilwoman Debbasca said, when we did look at a a higher fee when we did when we looked at what the capital cost was going to be for this
attraction, when we looked across similar type attractions, this is a fraction of what those attractions cost anywhere else. So, it is extraordinarily affordable. Um, I'm we're certainly willing to to
look at at any recommendations that anybody has. We are as committed as anybody to keeping the railroad park as accessible as possible. >> Thank you, Mr. Molinary. Um, I'm just going to chime in. I seconded it. I This
is a park that is not treated like every other park in Scottsdale. Um, you know, I I I think we should be offering it for free. I hear what you're saying. Um and I know we have the relationship with the uh with the society that's you know kind
of the steward um partner in this but I think more important than any part of this discussion is that this center centerpiece of our park system you know our parks in Scottsdale should be as accessible as possible to every child in
Scottsdale and from the surrounding areas PV you know this was long time PV centerpiece too, right? So, I I I completely support um Vice Mayor Clausman's uh motion and idea and you
know, $6 to get into this roundhouse that we just all celebrated opening. I think it's too much. And I think, you know, if the city has to find a way to support this, um unlike every other park that we do fully support, right, I think
that that makes sense. I do think that makes sense. Um, our residents that pay, you know, they pay a lot to live here. We're constantly in the highest, you know, bracket of of everything in the city or in the county, in the state.
And, you know, we deserve to provide a great experience. They deserve for us to provide a great experience. So, I mean, I couldn't I couldn't agree more with the motion. I actually think it should even be more of a relief in the summer. Um, so I'm going to stand by. I I hope
you don't amend it too much and gut it. I don't think we need to study it. I think we can we can figure this out. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, I'm I'm I'm grateful for your support. It really does. It It means a lot. Um, I'm I don't
think we're going to gut it. I think that I I'd like to make a friendly amendment to to an alternative mo a friendly alternative motion. Um, but first I would like to ask a question to uh to the city manager. If we um while we're looking at this, just to gain I
want to get I want to get as much consensus as possible on this and just to gain um to gain that runway. Um, can we do a what would do you think that we can get away with a um a summer special just as it just to make sure that kids
are able to go there at the hottest months? maybe a Memorial Day to Labor Day um reduction to $3 and a um alongside a uh a secondary parent, a secondary supervising supervising parent that's not, you know, a
non-participatory supervising parent, you know, a w a wave for that fee so that grandparents could come with their family, not get charged, you know, an exorbitant rate as well just just for that seasonal period. Would that be is that something that we could be immunable to? Madame Mayor and
uh vice mayor, absolutely. I hearing the discussion, I think we have some flexibility from a if you uh put that in the motion to give staff some flexibility. Yeah, I believe this would be the first time for the summer for for this uh element and we can introduce a
new program and test it quite frankly uh given that latitude. I hear I hear in the discussion sympathetic to it, appreciate it and I think we can accommodate it. I think it'd be a huge win for everybody and it gets everybody on board. I love consensus. Um go uh I'm I don't have the right to ask to answer
your question, but I think Council Member Graham has a question. >> Well, I it was my second, so I just want to speak to your amended and sec I'll second that because it gives us the test pilot and maybe twice as many people will show up because it's half the price. So, I I think there's a way to
figure this out like you just said, uh, Greg. So, appreciate that. City attorney, I don't see Councilman Graham on there, but city attorney has a point. And then I'll turn to you, >> Vice Mayor. Uh, >> yeah, I'll make I'll make the motion. I'll make the alternative motion formally. Is that Is that okay? >> Yeah, if you could withdraw your first
motion. >> Yeah, I withdraw my first motion. >> And then perhaps um make a motion to adopt 136. >> Wait, say it one sentence at a time and then I'll repeat after you like I'm taking an oath. Go ahead, >> Vice Mayor Cosman, if you could make a motion to adopt resolution number 1365.
Five. >> Five. >> I mo I move to adopt resolution number 13655 >> as presented with the exception related to the roundhouse fees >> as as presented with the exception as related to the roundhouse fees
>> establishing um a seasonal fee >> establishing a seasonal fee >> of $3 >> $3 per person. per person >> with the exception for a secondary um supervisory adult >> with the exception for any secondary or
tertiary etc. supervising adults >> with the dates for that the applicability of the seasonal be uh fee to be established by the >> with the dates of the applicability of the seasonal fee to be established by Memorial Day 2026 through Labor Day 2026.
I can. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> All right. I don't see anyone else on the board. Are you still on? >> I was >> I was He already spoke. >> I was just going to ask for I was just going to ask for the clarity on the motion which I just got.
>> Okay. So, we're good. Let's So, are we done with the discussion after this? >> Anyone have any other questions on anything else? >> Ready to vote. >> All right. You have everything you need, right? Okay, let's go ahead and take a vote on
there was a lot this motion and then we'll vote on overall. Okay, just this motion. Got it. >> Yes. >> All right, that motion passes and then we will turn to >> you have you have them. Okay,
>> I have the other um Sorry. Yeah. All right. I move to adopt resolution number 13658, ordinance number 4708, ordinance number 4709, resolution 13661, resolution 13656,
resolution number 13667, resolution number 13668, resolution number 13665, resolution number 13660, and resolution number 13666. >> Second. Go ahead. It's fine. Do you want
to speak on that, Councilwoman? Okay. >> I don't see any questions on that. And uh we have two seconds and a motion. So, let's go ahead and take a vote. >> Yes. >> All right. >> So, this is our public comment
announcement time. And which >> Mayor Baroski, I apologize. We have uh the Scottsdale marketing plan. >> Did I skip you? I don't want to leave you to the end. That would be terrible.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're right. Sorry about that. Actually, no. No, no, no. I see Kevin Burke approaching. So, we will hear from Kevin Burke. Here we go. Nope, I don't have my notes. Sorry. Go right ahead. On
the Experience Scottsdale strategic plan. Thank you. >> Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the council. The item before you this evening is Experience Scottsdale's uh strategic business plan for fiscal year 2627.
This document was developed in coordination with city staff and has been uh presented to the tourism development commission. The tourism development commission has recommended approval of this plan. Similarly, staff recommends approval and so tonight we're
seeking council adoption of resolution 13675. And with that, I would like to turn the floor over for a few brief slides for Rachel Sako, president and CEO of Experience Custo. >> Thank you.
Welcome, Miss Sako. >> Thank you, Mayor Browski, Vice Mayor Quasman, and members of the council. I'm Rachel Sacko, president and CEO of Experience Gusto. I want to first off thank you so very much for giving us the opportunity tonight to review the
strategic business plan that we presented to you, our program of work as well as our performance standards and our budget for the coming fiscal year 2627 which begins July 1. I know that many of you, I think almost all of you have heard this plan maybe at least once
when we invited you to come out and meet with some of our general managers of Scottsdale Resorts um to dialogue with us to make sure we were hitting the mark that you wanted. We also and that was back in March. We also invited you to come to the tourism development commission or to listen online and watch online and that was in April. I know
several of you have told me that you did just that. So, you've heard our presentation that our team brought to life. And then just a few weeks ago, we also just had our tourism industry update meeting. I know I saw council members that were there as well as our city manager as well as our deputy uh
city manager as well. So, this is maybe for some of you our second or third time to go through this plan. Therefore, I in respect for your time tonight will just go through a few highlights and then be able to answer any questions that you might have about the program of work,
budget, etc. I also want to let you know that our chair of the board, Ronan Aram, who runs the Valley Ho, a general manager, uh, and is the chair of our board, is also here tonight if you have any questions regarding our board. Uh what I'd like to be to remind you of is
that the experience Scottsdale, this is our nearly 40th year of being the contracted destination marketing organization for the city of Scottsdale. We take that as an honor and a point of pride. And one of the things that we try to do every single year is to execute
this program of work that you charge us with through our contract with best practices. And that's why when you asked us last year or the year before if we would please become accredited by a destination's international program, we were eager to do so. And we actually
received the accreditation with distinction. And for me to stand here and tell you that we that organization has said that this organization that you're contracting with has certainly working with the most rigorous standards
that we could actually apply, which is a point of pride for us. and what Scottsdale deserves. Only 11% of the DMOS in our country have had that accreditation with distinction. So, I'm very proud of that. I also want to let you know how important your partnership is, not just to Experience Scottsdale,
but to the 400 plus members in this community that are business owners and operators that not only are directly involved in tourism, but many of whom are large corporations and small corporations as well. that even if they're not involved with tourism decide
to support how important tourism is financially, etc. because tourism has such a huge impact on the success of their business and also that they understand that tourism elevates our lifestyle when you live here in Scottsdale. This program of work before
it got to you has had a lot of oversight, a lot of vigorous discussion and that's exactly as it should be. We started this program back in January looking at our proprietary research, looking at the focus group results that we've had throughout the year. And we sit down with the city staff, we sit
down with you, we sit down with our business community, our board, and others. And what we're looking for is to come to common ground with are there opportunities that are out there that experience Scottsdale could amplify for this community? And are there equally
important challenges that experienced Gutsel could mitigate? And our effort again is as we execute this program of work is to make sure that what we are doing both positively and mitigating would allow us to increase the bed and sales tax collections that this city so
depends on and our residents depend on as well. I'd like to talk with you just a little bit about our performance standards. We're um we've always had performance standards and what we strive to do is not just meet them but to exceed them. So in the coming fiscal year you will
once again see 17 performance standards that were given to us in in concert with the city staff as well as in uh conversation with you and the city leadership as well. This fiscal year we also had 17 performance standards. Then we have actually as you if you read our
third quarter report which I sent you of the 17 16 of those standards have not only been met but they have been exceeded. We have one more standard that I know we will meet by the end of May and will likely before we close our fiscal year have exceeded that standard
as well. I say this to you because for us the performance standards that you exact from us and expect from us is not an aspirational goal. It is a guarantee. We have never missed a performance standard. As a matter of fact, we pride
ourselves on making sure we try to exceed them because again, that's what you expect from us. I also want to talk a little bit about our budget. So, oftentimes I have people in the in the community ask, well, how does your budget get actually how how do
you get drive your budget? And I said, we don't. The budget, as you may know, if or for those of you in the audience that aren't aware or who are watching, the budget is given to us by under your direction by our city staff in conjunction with whatever the financial
services department feels the expenditures or if you will the uh the collections from the bed tax would be and we receive by ordinance prop 200 45% of the bed tax visitor generated bed tax dollars. This year, our budget is pretty
much what it was, well, for next year, pretty much what it was for this year. We are looking at about a $23 million budget, of which Scottdale's contribution and investment is $16 million. That's 45% of the visitor generated bed tax. We also combine that
budget with some of our other long-standing partners like the town of Paradise Valley as well as the state of Arizona. And we also combine what we receive from our private sector membership dues into that budget. And what's great about it is that $16
million then becomes $23 million, which helps us brand, market, and bring business to Scottsdale. The contract that you have with us requires that Scottsdale, the experienced Scottsdale, keep our non-program operating expenses
at or below 20%. I'm very proud to tell you that this fiscal year as well as even last fiscal year, those admin and general expenses were at 14%. Quite a bit lower than your threshold of 20%. What that really means to you and to
everyone in Scottsdale is that 86% of Experian Scottsdale's budget goes directly into our programs to again bring sales and bed tax dollars to our community. So the packet that you have before you once again I'll go through some of the rigorous oversight that it's
received. It has gone through our executive committee of the board who looked at it and received a lot of comments about it. It also went to our entire board of directors. For those of you in the audience or at home that aren't familiar, we have been honored to have council representation for many,
many years, actually probably for decades that are on our board of directors. Each year the mayor of Scottsdale will appoint a designate or someone who will be a council liaison that can come back in full transparency and tell the rest of the colleagues as well as citizens and residents what
experienced Gastil is doing and make sure that what we're doing is transparent. So Mayor Barowski this last year and also for the upcoming year has appointed Councilwoman Miriam McCallen, soon to be Vice Mayor Marian McCallen to our board. We also have the city manager on our board of directors and we also
have the chair of the tourism development commission on our board. We see this as an opportunity because we have city representation that dialogues with us to make sure we are doing what we should be doing and that we can also hear from you directly from you what are
the needs of the city to make sure that we are implementing those as we as we plan for our programs. Um as I had mentioned before that it also goes through the board of directors. It also goes to the tourism development commission as was mentioned and uh our
hope is also that our hospitality community as we present to them give us feedback on how this can help them meet their needs to be most successful. I'm not going to go through all of our programs but what I will do is just uh look at a few of the highlights here.
Our main goal that you charge us with is branding and reaching the affluent luxury visitor. That has been something that we have done since the beginning of when I began working for experience Scottsdale. It has held us in goodstead. As you can see this map, we are now able
through the research that we have that allows us to drill down to households with um the luxury income uh very very cost-ffectively. We are now reaching over 40 different high value, highincome markets, if you will, throughout just
the United States, not to mention the ones that we have in Canada as well as in Europe as well. What I can tell you also is that be using our audience personas, if you had a chance to look at our program of work, we're able to drill down not only on where the affluent
visitors are, but also to reach them through the programming that's available as we buy television, commercials, stations, etc. and those match our personas so that we know I can tell you we are in the right place at the right time with the right message meeting that
luxury audience that you have charged us to bring here and I'm just so delighted that every single year as we can become more efficient in drilling down on where those luxury visitors are and with our attuned messaging that we are expanding how we reach those audiences not just
domestically through the nation but also internationally as well. You'll also see us doubling down as you saw in our program with the meetings. Group meetings are absolutely imperative to our hotel community, our resort community, and we have a lot of new ways, as you might have seen in our
program of work as to how we are going to bring more of those group meeting planners here. 26% of the groups that we book are actually new to Scottsdale. And our goal is to not just fish where our resorts and hotels are fishing. We want
to bring new business to the table. We want to work harder to make sure that when they receive a lead from us, it's genuinely a lead. We are also doubling down on those travel advisors that are national as well as international that are the front door for the luxury
visitors who are coming from all over the world. and we would not have the opportunity to get in front of unless we were training those adviserss. Happy to answer any questions you might have about that. Lastly, one of the things that we're doing is amplifying the things that
Scottsdale has that nobody else has that is a part of our unique offerings. So, you'll see us looking at the attributions that we feel we own and are so proud of. western art and culture, family offerings, golf, luxury
amenities, whether it be a stay at a resort, a spa, or even culinary. You'll also see in our program of work that we are here to aid this city when they unroll the upcoming five-year strategic tourism plan. We've always been a partner in that and are happy to assist
the city in achieving their goals. You'll also see us working continuously for air service development. We've had a long relationship not just with Sky Harbor International Airport bringing new business in and new flights, but also with Scottsdale Airport. As a matter of fact, the next time that
you're at Scottsdale Airport, you might see a new promotion that we have with JSX as well as Retrieve Airline. As a matter of fact, we are wrapping the JSX plane that will be going to some of our key markets. So, it will always be wherever it's in the air or even
landing, it will have a moniker and a branding for Scottsdale. Something that we're really excited about as well. I guess what I would say now is that it's been an honor to continue to serve this uh this community through tourism. We know how important it is. I want to
thank you for your support of what is one of our largest, most important um industries in our community, generating over 3.7 billion dollars every year. And um I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have or to bring that program of work more to life for you if
at all possible. And again, as I mentioned, our chair of the board, Ronan Abraham, is here as well if you have questions for him or I regarding the board. So, thank you so much for your time and for your support. >> Thank you, Rachel. We appreciate it. Uh Councilwoman McCallen,
>> thank you, Mayor. Um thank you, Miss Sako, for your presentation and thank you for all your work. Um, also thank you for uh, Chair Ronin for being here, chair of uh, the board and then the the chair of our TDC, Chris. Thank you for being here. Also, I attended your TDC
meeting like I always do as a member of the board. Uh, this morning, um, it was announced by one of your team members that you just received a prestigious award. I would like you to share that. I don't want anybody to go home tonight not realizing not just all the
achievements you guys have done, but that you just received another award deeming you guys the number one destination marketing organization in the United States. That's very exciting. Um and that was from Brisco Helms, I believe, which is a local company here.
>> Correct. >> Thank you. Thank you def very much though, Councilwoman McCallen. Um, humbly speaking, this is an award that for us is like receiving an Oscar because Helms Brisco is while it is actually uh headquartered here in Scottsdale, it is an international
company. It is one of the largest what we would call a thirdparty planning company that actually books business throughout the entire world through many many if not all of the major destinations. the this is the third time the third time that Experience
Scottsdale has been uh designated as their destination marketing partner of the year and it's something that we take very very seriously. I think it shows our our relationships with some of our our staff that have been there a long time, the dedication, and this comes
from not only this corporation, but it comes from the attendees and the meeting planners who work with your experience Scottsdale and see us as their partner of the year. So, thank you very much for that accolade. >> Well, no, congratulations. You did the work. And with that, I would like to
make a motion to adopt resolution 13675 authorizing approval of the fiscal year 2627 strategic business plan which includes performance standards and budget. >> Thank you, uh, Councilwoman Dascus.
>> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Thank you, Rachel. Can we go back to the slide that has the results from the performance metrics? One of the things that I Oh, there we go. Uh, one of the things that I think about when we're thinking about
these contracts and how we're performing and how we're meeting and exceeding expectations is it's very easy to add up bookings sometimes, but then sometimes people come and they didn't tell you, right? And so there are some bookings that are you can put in the in the box
and say, "Yes, we were definitely responsible for that one." Um, how do you calculate how many people visited Oldtown? How how is that calculation made? Is it um cell phone pings? Is it um you know
the the convention bookings and they you talk through restaurants and and make reservations? How do you calculate that? >> Well, first of all, to your Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilwoman Dascus, for the question. First of all, what you see in our performance measures, getting back to the convention
sales bookings, we only take credit for bookings that we have executed a lead on and that actually we follow up and we know has a booking. In terms of other uh ways of seeing has our advertising worked as an example, we have some new metrics that allow us to actually have
pixels. So if we are advertising in a certain place, we can tell if you have seen it and then we can send you a retargeting ad. And then part of that uh followup will also be if you happen to come within a certain amount of time to Scottdale, we can actually see how it
shows up. It is through your cell phone. If you are in Oldtown or other areas, we don't necessarily know where you went, but we can tell you've been in Oldtown. So, it's very reliable and very very often used by almost every destination marketing organization and the city has
something similar in Placer. Um, so we know that those are accurate. Um, that's why we're able to track and say very confidently if we've placed an ad, we know if you've seen it, then we also send you a retargeting ad. If you've actually looked at that one again and
then you show up here, we can then say it's likely that you're here because of that ad that you saw or at least it had some relevance to your choosing to come to Scottsdale. >> That's interesting. Technology is amazing. >> It is. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Thank you.
um you talked about the six personas that you um uh uh unveiled last year and the opportunity that it brought to highlight Scottsdale in various ways. So I was hoping maybe you could give us a little bit of a description of how that has impacted your results and how you
see that impact moving forward specifically related to those personas and any differences that that has caused. >> One of Thank you for that question councilwoman Dvascus. What the personas have done for us is have allowed us to look at what what are the attributes
that Scottsdale has that relate to various segments of that high value luxury visitor that we are trying to attract here and that allows us to drill down into synthesizing our message directly to that particular persona. Um
otherwise everything is just come to Scottdale but it's a much um a much more relationship oriented message if I can say I know that you are a golf I know you're interested in golf so we're going to target you with a golf message or we
have a family unit message. So, I wouldn't send this family message unit uh perhaps to someone who was definitely not with a family because it wouldn't make sense. But if you are bringing a family here, you're interested in certain attributes and that gives us the
opportunity to direct it to you and it is meaningful to you and that's why we can tell if you actually have looked at it and then with a retargeting ad if you've actually come here. the wellness warriors as a persona that allows us to once again delve into we have such
luxury spa and luxury uh resort amenities. And so that message is very much spot-on, especially if you were looking at trying to capture someone's interest in 60 seconds or even 30 seconds. The more targeted and precise precise you are, the more effective your
marketing is going to be. The foodies are another one and some of these cross over to be candid. Someone who might be a wellness warrior might also be a foodie might also be an indulgent individual. But again, what's behind all of these is our team's ability to look
at crafting a message that resonates with you and no matter what of those p personas and to actually purchase the type of um whether whether it's a television particular show, if you're a history buff, we'd be going on the
History Channel. If you are someone that's interested in foodies, you might be going on a on a food channel of some sort. So, not only can we get to the right market for the luxury audience, we can develop our message that resonates with you and then we can place that
message on a medium that you are most likely to watch. >> That's fascinating. Have you seen um certain personas rise to the top that are more successful than others or >> Well, Councilwoman Dascus, I think all of these have been vetted because they
are all part of what makes Scottsdale. It's one thing if you have one thing that you hang your hat on. In Scottsdale, we have so many. So for us, that's why it's important that we can target those messages. They are all important. Um I wouldn't want to I
wouldn't say that the West is more important than golf, is more important than spa and luxury or is more important than family. All together how fortunate we are that we have so many touch points in which we can talk about why you should come to visit in Scottsdale. And
now we have the ability to parse out those messages because we can so coste effectively actually reach those 40 some odd markets if you will. Not to mention the international markets that we're also deploying in year round. We just began deploying um consumer messaging
year round in the United Kingdom which is something that we were never able to afford to do before. So as that technology grows and the research grows and our ability to be more cost scalable, so can our messaging grow and we can then slice and dice and then tell
you maybe I'll be able to come back next year and say this is what's happened as a result of being in the international markets. But so far they are all doing well and it being such a seasonal destination at different times of the year. >> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you Councilman Graham. Thank you, Miss Ako. Thank you, mayor. Um, was the most recent city audit that we did on experience Scottsdale was that 2022 late? Okay.
Um in that audit we found that um destination marketing contract can be strengthened by addressing the fact that the contract allowed experienced Scottsdale to co-mingle accounting reporting in its city funding. U contract terms were not sufficient to
limit administrative cost and maximize the destination marketing programs. performance monitoring activities can better assure ensure focus on the city's objectives and contract compliance and um so we recommended a full accounting
of city bed tax monies strengthen fiscal monitoring improving performance um where is experience Scottsdale on those recommendations >> I would um ask probably our city manager to maybe address that I think some of those comments that you made council member Graham were probably directed at
the city as well in terms of that particular audit had a lot to do with the city's ability to actually look at um what the performance measures were and how they were actually accounting for things as well. I feel that we've had an audit every single year that has
always been clean. >> Um we have we have outsiders who have come in even apart from city auditors who we've asked to actually go through um a recommendation on our best practices. We've done that on our own and our our chair can speak to that. And
we have also been deemed to be an excellent um excellent steward of not only our our dollars but also our return on investment and even so with the destination accreditation that I mentioned as well. I think there's 121
areas that they come in and do a deep dive on. It's like having another audit and that was just recent a couple of years ago. I feel very strongly that and our board members who are part of the city, part of the uh the city leadership and certainly part of the tourism development commission can all look at
um what a transparent open book we are. So I feel we're extremely responsible to the city to the citizens and certainly with our dollars. >> Well, very good. And um the uh strategic plan is definitely impressive, thorough. >> Thank you.
>> Thought out. It's got a lot of very nice objectives. Um budget this year, $23 million, 71% of it or 16.2 million is funded by Scottsdale bed taxes. Um how would you
what would what what's your headcount right now? Do you know that off top of your head? >> Sure. We are filling a couple of new positions. We'll be somewhere between 40 well right now about 43 employees. We'll probably go to 45 employees. Does that how does that compare to other DMOs is
that do you feel like your headcount is too high or too low? >> No, I feel that our headcount when we go through our audits and I I'm on the board of US travel so I meet with my colleagues uh frequently. I just came back from a destination's international CEO conference and we are on the smaller end. Um we always will aspire to be
under 50. We are also looking at one of the things I I should mention is that no matter what your budget is um you have what we are doing with our budget outside of the advertising which everything that we do from our advertising and marketing is produced in
house everything else is relational. We are we if we have a budget we also have to have people that execute it. So we have people that are on the road. Um, so we try to keep that balance between what our budget is because that's where we go
to trade shows, that's where we go to meet with and train uh travel advisors and you can only do that if you have people, >> right? Um, so you think you have kind of a lower than average headcount? >> From what I can tell from my peers, I
think we are where we need to be for Scottsdale. I think it's probably lower than many. What are you seeing in the, you know, in your comparative DMOs as far as, you know, you guys probably get together and I mean, what what kind of trends are you
seeing as far as any changes, forecasts, AI disrupting anything? >> Thank you, Councilman Gra. Member Graham, that's a really excellent question. AI is one of the things that's changing how all of us travel industry or not are being able to respond to you
know search engine now that you're if you're looking at something right now we used to just go to Google right now and that's what we would do with Google search and we would use that as a as a research tactic now you don't hardly ever go beyond because it's probably AI that comes up it gives you one snippet
correct for those of you that do that so it's changing the way we're able to look at the reliability of Google search and search engine optimization. Um we also look at we all share in common whether you're in travel industry or running any corporation. um the uncertainty in the
world right now. People who want to come to the United States of America still do want to come whether you're from Canada or whether you're from Europe, whether you're from um from Taiwan. Um they do want to come here, but I think that there's also some reticence as to what
how welcome will I be? And are there wait times? Do I need visas? So, we're all looking at ways that we can make our opportunity, particularly in the international market, a more friendly, seamless, and easier place to travel. Travel is not as easy as a lot of people
would like it to be. And yet, it's essential and people want it and they need it. And we're trying through US travel and others to try to make sure that this is a good experience for worldwide travelers especially to come here, which is one of the reasons we love touting that Scottsdale airport has
24-hour customs service. Many people don't know that that you can fly in and have your customs cleared there. It's an incredible opportunity that we try to amplify every chance that we get. the Yeah, I think the AI thing I mean I just I mean we're getting ready to go to
Disneyland this summer and like I asked you know AI like what's the best day to go? How do I do it? And then we we just spent a long weekend we just spent a long weekend in Flagstaff. My wife said write me a familyfriendly itinerary for you know a family of four with two
5-year-old twins and a 10 lb poodle mix and go. And like it's just not like it's just it's just not you know that yeah I'm talking about pumpkin my new poodle. So, um, and it just, you know, and you can interact with it and say, "Oh, I don't want to do that. I want to do
this." And like that just that just seems very disruptive to kind of the old guard about Googling something and yes, >> top results and, you know, sponsored listings and um, but at the same time, AI pulls from
somewhere, right? They pull they pull they have their sources too. >> Council member Graham, thank you for that entry. is what we say is even though we may not be reading as thoroughly online some of the articles that we generate for Scottsdale AI reads
them all. So that's an opportunity for us to be able to make sure that um Scottsdale is still getting out there. What we do know about AI as well is that not being upto-date on all things human, sometimes it will give you an itinerary
that uh doesn't necessarily know the hours of a restaurant. So, you have to be careful. That's why the human touch is always important to use AI appropriately, but also make sure that your expertise is in there in terms of giving good customer service, making sure that all of those things are indeed
accurate. But it does change the face of just about everything that I think all of us touch in business. >> Now, you mentioned that you have lower headcount um than maybe your competitors or some of your peers. Do any of your um officers or employees or board members
um have an interest or work on any of your vendors, your third party contractors or vendors that you use? >> I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. your board members, your officers, or your employees. Do any of them have an interest in any of your contractors that you use? You see, I'm
asking, you're saying, you said you said you had a lower than average headcount. So, I'm just wondering if Well, sometimes that, you know, it's kind of a make or buy decision. You can go farm something out or use a third party contractor. I just I was curious about like how how I was kind of curious about one of the
ways you were able to do as much as you can with a lower headcount. Council member Graham, are you asking if there all of our board members have a conflict of interest uh form? So, there is nobody that is engaged in anything that we would be contracting with if
that's what you are asking. We have >> No, I I wasn't asking I I know that there's nothing improper happening. I I wasn't it wasn't a question of impropriety. I was just was kind of curious how you were able to do so much with a lower headcount. That's kind of what I was asking.
I think I would ask my chair of the board who could probably tell you better than anything else. And I know we've also got some some folks in the audience that have been working with us for years and I think they would probably say the the the staff that we have is absolutely top of their game. They know what they're doing. They have relationships.
They are passionate. They they love the work. They perform at the work. They always exceed. When you have employees like that in your business, you are quite blessed actually. Well, thank you uh for speaking to us tonight. Congratulations entering entering into
the I think the fifth year. Congratulations on completing four years of a 5-year contract. Congratulations on the award that my colleague just mentioned. You guys I know you guys are start walls full of awards. I I know that. And um thank you for presenting to
us and sharing your strategic plan especially in this you know this environment that's just requiring and demanding. so much agility and change from all of us. So, >> actually, Council Member Graham, I appreciate that more than you know. Thank you so much for that compliment. And all I can tell you is that it's a
team that loves working. We're we're honored to do this work for Scottsdale. We love Scottsdale. We live here and um thank you very much for the opportunity to continue for another year. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Rachel. Appreciate it. Um I will make the Wait, don't leave
yet. >> I know that was that was a little I just want to say a few words. I swear I won't I won't keep you long. Um, so piggybacking off of what Councilman Graham just said, I think you uh you
have a remarkable knack um for keeping, you know, a team together for very long time. So I do think that that speaks volumes about the you know just the level of sophistication and and u I don't know
just positivity about the organization. And it also helps with the bottom line um and and less turnover. So congratulations on that. I think I've seen that for you know 20 years now of 16 years firsthand um and we've all seen
it here for a long time. So good job on that. And uh I will say that having just um dispatched the uh mayor's uh OldTown Task Force, um I I've heard a lot of feedback and it's a great group of very
involved and passionate Oldtown um business owners, property owners, and to a small extent residents. Uh, but I've heard some feedback that they would love to have more of your attention um, experience Scottsdale and having it um,
not suggesting that you do make it all about outside the state of Arizona or outside, you know, the local economy, but having a more dedicated focus on Oldtown. I think that I think we're we're ripe for that idea. And so I would
encourage you to um I'll encourage the chair to maybe have you come in and or a member of your team come in and and discuss that because there is a real feeling that that's not um as activated as it could be. Whether or not that's true, I I think there's an opportunity
to strengthen that relationship and they need it. They really need it in that area and uh you know the city's doing what it can to do that as well. And um you know Kevin Burke is now uh heading up that that charge and with the
dedicated um marketing budget for the city. You know hopefully we'll have more um more of a touch direct touch with the merchants and pick up the pace and we'd love your help with that too or at least I personally would. So with that, thank you very much for coming to speak to us.
It's always great to hear from you and keep up the good work. >> Thank you, Mayor. and I'd be honored to help in any way we can. And as as Kevin knows, working very closely with the Oldtown team and um and working very closely with so many of our members that are in Oldtown. I'd be happy to do
whatever. So, thank you for passing that feedback along. >> Terrific. I appreciate that. All right, moving right along now to public comment. Uh we're voting. This was not just an update. Okay. Sorry, I'm getting sleepy up here. Hungry. Maybe hungry.
>> Oh, that's right. Did I second it? No, you second it. All right, we're going to vote on this. Thank you. >> Yes, >> that motion passes. Thank you so much. All right, finally we get to public comment. And uh, of course, this is
reserved for Scottsdale citizens, business owners, and or property owners to comment on non-aggendaized items that are this is the important part within the council's jurisdiction. So, we're gonna uh and no official action can be taken on these items and speakers are
limited to three minutes. And that's it. Let's call up Steve Sutton, followed by Dan Isaac. Steve Sutton, address on record. I'm going to ask you some specific make some specific requests are within your purview. I'd appreciate if I wasn't
interrupted with points of order, uh, which appear to be being used more and more to just disrupt the person speaking to break their train of thought and make it more difficult to get their point across. I think some patience should be used. So, here are some introductory statements. Uh, first off, I learned
today about 115 that there was a serious terrorist threat against a Jewish religious center here in Scottsdale. I don't know if anybody else caught that today, but they apparently arrested somebody who was an Iraqi national in Turkey who was involved as a threat
directly toward a Jewish center here in Scottsdale. I'm appalled by that. I'm not Jewish, but I am a decent human being and despise bigotry. And we definitely have a problem with anti-semitism here in Scottsdale, but only because it is a small part of the
bigotry that is in Scottsdale and pretty much everywhere else in our country. Now, I'm not saying that a huge percentage of people are bigots, but bigotry exists. We must face that. That being said, I think that the perception of any anti-semitism uh within this
council, it's completely wrong. In fact, I think it's more likely you could make a case that there could be a perception of promotion of not just Judaism, but religion in general. I've attended every single one of your council meetings except the last
one. I unfortunately couldn't make that one. I've seen all of the invocations. I have seen many examples of invocations that were quite lengthy, involved lengthy introductions of the people giving them, people that are accompanying them, a lot of relevant
information. Um, takes quite a bit of time. I think it would be wise if the council decided to be more inclusive if they're going to uh be having these lengthy invocations and started inviting people who are not Christians, who are not Jews, maybe some of our seek
populations, Hindu population, Muslims, Buddhists. I think that would be show far more inclusion here in Scottsdale. But I also think it would be wise if the council realized that maybe the invocation should be short and
more generic in nature so that it's not targeted toward any one belief system that every invocation can be understood and appreciated by anyone of any faith. Now the other thing I'd like to say is
that it's a huge mistake to uh not proceed with this ultra purified water. You're basically throwing money down the drain now. You say toilet to tap, which is just absurd. Unproven technology. No, that's absurd, too. It's a very proven technology. Finally, Councilwoman Jan
Debakus, I'm calling on you to resign from office effective immediately. There is obviously more than enough evidence to indicate that you're not fit to be on the council. >> All right. Thank you, Steve. Uh Dan Isaac.
Uh, Dan Isaac, at the last meeting, I gave a challenge to Jan and Adam to actually make up for their actions. They didn't do it. And I said that I'd continue repeating their bad actions until they did something. Well, you're sick of
hearing me, so I'll let Jan speak for me. Honestly, I think there's two point attorney. >> What is your point of order, council? >> Point of order. Uh uh city attorney, is
this an appropriate >> Excuse me. What is the point of order? And allow me to make a decision on it. >> A point of order. A point of order. >> A point of order is made to the parliamentarian according to the rules of procedure. So you go through the chair and if you don't agree with my
decision, the council can agree or vote to overrule the parliamentarian >> and then it will go to the city attorney. >> The parliamentarian >> in the interest in saving time, can you state your point of order? >> The parliamentarian makes a decision. >> Okay. No point of order. Do we want to move on? >> I have a point of order.
>> Okay. Please state it. >> City attorney, is this appropriate uh and complies compliant with our rules of procedure? Thank you. And and before you answer that, can you please go over the point of order that is in the council rules? I happen to have it right here because I'm I'm a little tired of what's
going on here. The point of order should be made and stated succinctly. I have the opportunity to rule on the point of order and then if appealed, it goes to you for decision. Is that right? Um so mayor, members of the council, in terms
of any member of the council, including the mayor may consult with the parliamentarian. Um my deci my rulings are advisory only. Um and in terms of point of the or order, the presiding officer is supposed to rule on a a point
of order. >> Correct. However, >> can we just leave it at that because that has not happened. >> There's there's one more thing I I do have to say, mayor. the um council as a whole can overrule the presiding officer on a point of order. >> That's what I just said. But Councilman Graham is out of order every time that
he bypasses the chair and goes directly to you. So, let's start over. No point. >> The council rules, as the city attorney just stated, require a point of order to be succinctly stated, not just for the purpose of interrupting. and you're it
is to be directed to the chair and if you want to make a motion to appeal my ruling on that then the council needs to vote and you need to go through the city at the parliamentarian that is the council rules of procedure. So can we
move on then? >> Point of order. >> Let's do our research later. >> But but what you said is not true. The point of order anybody >> the city attorney just said what I just said. Councilman Graham, >> I move to override the chair. >> Point of order.
>> Excuse me. I haven't even heard the point of order. You don't need to come running to the rescue. >> Point of order. >> What's the point of order, >> Madame Mayor? >> Yes. >> Any member of this council can always at any time call a point of order. >> Can you state your point of order,
>> which is what I'm doing, but you have disrupted me on multiple counts to lecture? >> Oh my gosh. You know what? Now I'll call on the parliamentarian, the city attorney. This is He's out of order. You're out of order. So, let's continue the meeting. Councilman Graham, you're
making the centerpiece yourself again. >> So, let's just go move forward. Can Hey, >> Mr. Isaac, >> I call it point of order. This this this >> What's your point of order? >> Nonorm non decorous comments. >> Rely upon the rules.
>> Yes. According to Robert's rules, non decorous comments are a point of order. >> You don't need to yell. I know you've been missing for a while, but you don't need to yell. >> Madame Mayor, I went to the restroom. I apologize during a 4-hour meeting. If you'd like to know, if you'd like to know, I went to the restroom.
>> I don't need to know that information either. So, >> what was the number? >> You're out of order, too. You're out of order, too, Vice Mayor. So, all I asked for simply, if you didn't hear it, was for Councilman Graham to state his point
of order in accordance with the council rules of procedure. He has refused. He's out of order. So, let me move on and cut to the chase. As a reminder, Dan Y, >> and this serves true for everybody, not
just you, the the non-aggendaized public comment is for you to speak or anybody else on matters that are within this council's jurisdiction.
>> Correct? So, please start with and I'm I'm probably going to have every speaker on non-aggendaized comments just for the sake of argument start with what the issue is, you know, the subject line and how it is within the council's
jurisdiction. So very briefly tell me how your your comments proceeding forward will be within this council's jurisdiction >> because the rules of procedure and our code of ethics applies to our elected
officials not just when they sit on that deas but when they make statements representing themselves as elected officials and therefore any comments by a council member in a public forum
is within the purview of this body and I call on this body as I did last time to hold other council members to the standard that they have agreed to abide by. So, can I interrupt you because what
you are just proceeding down the path with this council cannot vote on. Now, if it was an ethics violation that is, you know, reported, that's something that we ultimately would vote on, but what you're describing is not within the
council's jurisdiction. >> Madame Mayor, I respectfully disagree because the behavior of council members is within the purview of the council. The council get a legal opinion on this. Okay. And I would appreciate as always
an objective legal opinion about this. >> Mayor and members of the city council, as you know, my duty is to the municipal corporation and of course I would provide an objective legal opinion. So, um there are certain prohibitions on
non-aggendaized public comment. Uh some of them are um for example, it can't be electioneering. Um and as the mayor has rightly pointed out has to be within the jurisdiction of um the city uh council, right?
And generally to be in the jurisdiction of the city council, it'd be something that the council had authority over to that they could ultimately vote on. Um in terms of um the the meeting, it's a limited public forum, meaning people don't have an
absolute first amendment right. Um but we have to be contentneutral. Um under the first amendment for example um defamatory or slanderous statements are not protected by the first amendment. Um and um fighting words are not protected
by the first amendment and we try to uh keep um rules of decorum obviously and u as Mr. Isaac pointed out one time he quoted a um ninth circuit case of Costa
um regarding using profanity. Now I don't know what his tape's going to play right now or whether he gets to play his tape. We do have um content restrictions on on YouTube. um that we're probably not supposed to broadcast bad language.
And um and there's obviously a uh uh we we took away the right of citizens, not the right, the ability because they didn't have a right and there is no first amendment right to have your um speech televised on cable 11 or
otherwise. There is a right to address the council if public comment is provided and um the the intent was uh when we remove the audio uh video to deal with these types of issues. Right now um Mr. Aishek and
others have um are now exploiting a loophole with the Elmo um equipment. Um, and the the Elmo equipment obviously uh uh wasn't thought of when that it had that particular capability to play
videos that would be broadcast in cable 11. So the council could um interpret its rules in a different fashion if it um so chooses in terms of the applicability of audio visual plain because Mr. Isk is will not be prohibit
is not being prevented to um express his first amendment rights in other ways. It's the he doesn't necessarily have have the right to play um music or or videos or or or what have you depending on what the council decides.
>> Such a decision would be effective at the next meeting. Correct. >> Not necessarily. They could vote on the rules right now. at when they made changes to the public speaking rules. You said that they became effective at the next meeting. >> That's a little different. They can suspend the rules at any time.
>> So I look, that was a really long answer, Luis. And the question was is what Mr. Isaac is presenting within the council's jurisdiction and legally is it prohibited if it's not?
It was a long answer because when you're dealing with the First Amendment, it's an intricate and complicated subject. >> So, it sounds like he can proceed based on what you're saying. And I don't think just because we don't like what someone's saying, we can prevent them from
>> I'm not I'm not saying he can proceed because I don't know if it's in the jurisdiction. Presumably, he's going to play a video um of uh some tape of some investigation. arguably a county attorney's investigation is not in your jurisdiction. Um so um I assume that's
what he's gonna play. I don't know. >> Well, say it again, Dan. What is what is the issue? Look at me and tell me what look at the council and say what is in your comments that is within this council's jurisdiction. the actions of three council members presenting
themselves as Scottsdale City Council members making a false allegation to the Maricopa County Attorney's investigators. And there is no trademark, copyright, or other issues because this is a public document that
Jan Debascus willfully willingly participated in and knowingly had it recorded. So, I'm Luis, you're I don't you're not giving me much to work with. I'm going to let this proceed and I I just think we don't have a choice.
>> I move to overturn the chair. >> Well, it's the parliamentarian that you would be appealing to. >> I No, you're the chair. According to Robert's rules, you're the chair. >> Presiding officer. >> The presiding officer. I move to override the presiding officer. That move that motion needs a second.
>> Okay. Point of order. What did you or >> I'm overturning I'm o I'm I'm moving to override overrule the rule of the providing presiding officer that that the usage of the the the or the scope of
Mr. Isaac's nonverbal comments are in or are are decorous to the uh are within the are interpreted within the rules to be uh to be the intended use of the Elmo which we have provided for a very
specific uh methodology. That's what that's what >> I I'll second that and I want to speak to my second. So, I'm seconding the motion that this this this was the presiding officer, if I understand you correctly, the presiding officer made a ruling that the
content that the video that he's about to play is within our jurisdiction that we can take. >> That's not at all what I said. If you heard what I said, excuse me. So, now I'm going to ask for the parliamentarian to give me legal advice right now. Mayor, you are give us
cuz I'm I'm I'm speaking to my second and our rules say We're wasting time. Councilman Graham, >> second the motion. And actually, it's not a time to speak. You may, according to the rules, make brief remarks. And I
am going to ask for the parliamentarian. I just asked for his advice. You all heard it. He did not say that Dan Isaac could not proceed. Okay? So, if you want to reject his first amendment rights and the council's rule, rules of procedure
and somehow overturn that, I'm going to ask the city attorney to chime in. >> Madame Mayor, I did not my motion was not to limit his ability to speak into a microphone. That was not that at in no way, shape or form was that motion. And I said what was what was beyond the pale of decorum of the council was the usage
and and it broke and in my the movement was that it broke the motion was that it broke the rule of the council when we limited the the ability of video audio video equipment to be played at uh
during non uh non-aggendaized or agendaized public comment. And so that that is really >> that wasn't your motion. you move to overturn my ruling >> which is saying that it was allowed. >> So I'm sorry you're not it that's
different than what you said because the subject was he can use the Elmo. There is no rule of procedure that prohibits him from using the Elmo. The question was is he prohibited legally and is he outside the council's jurisdiction with
this? I asked for our city attorney's opinion and he said he did not say yes to either one of those things. So I'm not going to be the one stopping him from expressing his first amendment rights. I may not want to hear it and I
you know I didn't hear from the city attorney that what Mr. Isac has specifically declared as how it's within the council's jurisdiction. What the city attorney, and correct me if I'm wrong, Louise, did not say is yes, it's
prohibited. >> I'd like to re >> help me out, Luis. >> Mayor, members of the council, what I was trying to do is outline the parameters, right? Ultimately, it's your decision or the council's decision as a whole to decide whether Mr. Isac's
speech is permissible or not under the first amendment. and um that's why I talked about def defamation and I would counsel you Mr. Isaac to be careful about that um and uh all the other factors that are involved but it's your
decision not mine and um I if if appropriate we might want to adjourn and go into executive session and receive the legal advice on this topic. >> We're in open forum. This is important to everybody in the city of Scottsdale. I don't think this is executive session
material. you just gave us legal advice. I would completely not think that is necessary to waste more time on >> and that's the body's call. My point is I outlined the parameters. I discussed limited public ver forum, the limits of the first amendment exceptions,
defamation, fighting words, um jurisdiction of the council. I did mention that I I that uh a county attorney investigation is probably not within the jurisdiction of this council. I thought I said that. Um and but ultimately it's the presiding officer who can be overridden by the rest of the
council's determination to determine whether this this is pro proper or not. >> Yeah. Well, I'm relying on your legal advice to decide whether or not uh Mr. Isaac can go forward. And you haven't
given me anything to rely on. So, if they want to, you know, limit his First Amendment rights and prohibit him from speaking, I don't I I don't know what I have to work with here. I'm sorry. >> I may I reclaim the floor?
>> Uh, you're not even on the board. So, >> because I was I was >> your brief remarks to your second I thought were made. I was second I was seconding my my I was seconding I was giving remarks to my seconding the motion when I was interrupted which by an out of order interruption.
>> I know how that feels. >> Yeah, it's common. >> Mr. Isaac, please. This is not a dialogue. Thank you. >> So, can we can we get back to this because you're not you're not being brief with your second. You seconded the motion. What What do you want to do here? I don't I really don't. >> So,
>> yeah. residents of Scottsdale deserve better than this than what we're seeing before us. And um you know what I see before us, we've this body has agreed to a set of rules of procedure and we're supposed to abide by those and um the
what I heard the presiding officer the the parliamentarian gives his opinion and the presiding officer makes a determination. I heard the presiding officer determine that the we know what we know what the tape is going to what we're going to hear from the tape. we we we have a reasonable expectation about
what is going to be played and the presiding officer made a decision that that was within our jurisdiction and actually that violated what the opinion of the parliamentarian. So there was a motion to overrule that which I seconded. And I also want to just
reiterate that the presiding or the parliamentarian mentioned that this is not a time state law prohibits electioneering from non-aggendaized public comment and arguably uh councilomanus is a candidate in one
sense and therefore it is therefore is illegal to electioneer for or against her. Um and I'll just remind as a reminder it's me members up here can always consult with the parliamentarian that's in our rules of procedure. So those are my
comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. And uh contrary to what happened, you can always consult with the parliamentarian. You just cannot interrupt a public speaker and do it at the same time. The point of order, we've
already discussed that. And uh the city attorney did not provide legal advice that prohibited what Mr. Isac said he was going to say unless I misunderstood you. Again, it was a very long explanation.
>> Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. I believe I said that um what Mr. Isix going to play and I I don't know for sure but I suspect is something related to a county attorney investigation which would not be in the jurisdiction of this council
>> that I agree with and you did not say that and and excuse me we don't know what he's going to play. So let's get back to this. You can we can move on. Let's get back to this. No, no, no. You can't direct questions to the city
attorney. I'm sorry. >> I need to follow the rules. So therefore, I need to understand what the rules are. >> No, let's understand the rules later. Let's stay away from the county attorney's investigation and please just keep your comments to with what's within the council's jurisdiction. What we can
actually vote on, >> you can vote on censoring censuring bringing ethics complaints against your colleagues. >> I don't think that's accurate, Dan. I think we can vote once an ethics complaint has metriculated through the
process and we're not there. So I I I don't think that's true. >> So you're saying that any one of you can say or do anything at any point in your official capacity outside this deis and we're not allowed to comment on it at public comment.
>> I would find that hard to believe too. City attorney, I'm going to ask the city attorney that too. Um, mayor and members of the council, there's a misunderstanding here. You can comment on matters within the jurisdiction of the city council and
regarding their their their them being council members. That's not the issue. The issue here is you're going to want to play a tape. It's not you speaking. It's someone else speaking on a recording council member >> and and you're you have uh the
opportunity >> to express your first amendment rights right through alternative means there's no requirement that you be allowed to play um audiovisisual requirement requirements. So, let's Excuse me. That's very good. I appreciate that.
That was very helpful, Dan. Let's not play anything on the on the Elmo that's related to the county attorney's office until we get that resolved with the city attorney and not tonight. Okay. >> To that point, I withdraw my motion.
>> Thank you. So, Dan, speak speak to the if it doesn't include what they think it's going to include, um, please proceed. I'm sorry. I'm a little confused. >> That recording of the county. >> So, don't play the recording. That's Jam
>> conspiring to have you removed from office. >> That's the consensus that has has resulted in this big huge fight on the DSO and involve the city. >> I will not play the recording even though it doesn't violate current council rules.
>> But in that recording, Jan Deboscus made it clear we want to vote the mayor off. We can't do that. she's not going to resign. So, the only way to get rid of her is to have her con convicted of a crime. And then false allegations were
made. And both Barry and Adam participated in that. So, I do want the ambo please because I would like to address other comments made by our council members which if you want to talk about defamation and false
statements. Jan Debascus fail calls me a failed Democratic candidate. Jan, I'm a 4x4 as of 2020 according to the Arizona GOP. So you don't mind lying is
what we've learned from that email blast. You also >> point of order. How is this not electioneering? >> Because do you >> this is this is this is election. >> Excuse me. The count the city attorney would like to speak. >> Yeah. Mayor and members of the council um Mr. Rishek presented a document that
mentions the recall election. Uh the state statute on city resources is very clear. It includes elections and recall efforts. So you can't be talking about or posting political stuff regarding the recall. >> So I can just read the highlights which
don't mention the recall. >> Yes. >> Okay. Partisan. >> Okay. Can you start the time again and let's try to stay out of muddy waters and just focus on I know they're all muddy. I get it. I get it. They're not muddy, but people don't like hearing. >> Okay, we're gonna start the timer again
and let's try to keep it. >> So, Jan Debos sent that I am a former Democratic failed former Democratic council candidate, never been registered in the Democratic party, never pulled a Democratic primary ballot, voted in the Republican presidential preference. So,
in other words, Jan, you lied as usual. You said that it's a partisan ploy by a failed Democrat. Not a partisan ploy, not a Democrat. You're making it a partisan ploy. Uh, Adam Quasman, I've never seen a self-proclaimed conservative team up
with the radical left. Nobody in the radical left is involved with me. Barry Graham. Sorry, I have to get my reading glasses out. He regularly abuses the public comment period with profane and personal attacks. Nope. Never use profanity.
Personal attacks? No. I've stated facts about what people say and do on this council, including shots at her Christian faith. I'm a Catholic. I support Christianity. I support Judaism. I support pretty much any religion that doesn't call on hurting other people. In fact, I'm
missing choir practice. He even filed a bar complaint to have her license that was quickly dismissed. It was dismissed because of lack of standing, not because of lack of facts. He fought to kill the 27,000 signature resident Axon referendum. No Barry, you
prevented us from ever voting on that. You asked Ben Lane to pull it from an agenda item. You stopped residents from voting on Axon. I would also like to take a moment about Adam Cosman's claims of anti-semitism. He said that anybody
who wants 500,000 >> gentlemen's time is expired. >> My time is expired because you interrupted me constantly. We're going to give you five more seconds. Talk quick. >> Adam, you said $500,000 being focused on in the budget is is anti-Semitic. You worked with a city manager to remove
less than a five figure budget for Junth. Does that make you a racist? No. >> Thank you. Thank you, Dan. All right. I think that concludes public non-aggendaized public comment. And Vice Mayor Clausman would like to say
something. I move to suspend the rules and end this nonsense once and for all. I move to I move to suspend the rules and disallow uh for this meeting and we will bring a real motion to the next meeting. Um I understand that it will not apply toward
toward uh uh current uh non-aggendaized public comment but this is it just needs to happen. We're going to suspend the rules and interpret the publication of of audio video um uh equipment and and
things and and usage of audio video equipment on the Elmo as a misuse of the Elmo and that the Elmo was uh is intended for stationary objects. >> Point of order, Vice Mayor Quasman, this is not agenda. Public comment is closed.
I could I can suspend the rules at any time. >> There. Yes, but it's not agendaized. If you want to have a policy, >> I can make a rule suspension at any time. >> Uh, can we get a city attorney opinion on this p the non-aggendaized public comment is closed. There's no one else going to use the
>> doesn't matter. This is this we need to stop this nonsense immediately. >> We will have to have bring that on an agenda in the future. Mayor, members of the city council, probably the cleanest thing to do, Vice Mayor Cosman, is at the very before the
beginning of um non-aggendaized public comment, make your motion then. >> Make my motion then I will I will adhere to that just out of a out of an interest of intellectually. Can I suspend the rules at any time during a meeting? >> Generally, that's correct. >> Okay, moving right along. Next we have
there are no citizens petitions and next we have a work study session uh which includes one item for session uh for work session presentation quarterly financial and capital improvement plan updates. Scott Selene, budget department
director, and Allison Timku, city engineer and transportation and infrastructure senior director will present tonight on uh the receipt discussion and possible direction on the city treasures
quarterly financial presentation as of March 2026 and B to receive discuss and provide possible direction on the city engineers quarterly CIP presentation as of March 2026.
Uh who we going to hear from first? >> Yes, mayor. Uh mayor, members of the council, I'm going to present um on behalf of Scott. >> Okay. >> Mayor, I apologize. We do have one public speaker for work study. >> Okay. And that's what he can he can speak after this,
right? The presentation. >> Uh we we norm for work site we normally take the speaker. >> Okay. Thanks. I don't see Steve though. I think he left. If he if he comes back, did he Someone's up there shaking their head. If he comes back, we'll hear from him, but since
he's not here, I wasn't going to call on him. Okay, so can we go ahead and proceed, Sonia. Thanks. Okay, next slide. So, uh, our quarterly financial update provides highlights of the general fund, primarily revenue collections to date and budget to actual expenditure
variances. Next slide. Um there is really nothing out of the ordinary for this quarterly update. Primarily our general fund revenues are uh 5% above budget primarily based on sales tax var favorable variance of 2% higher interest
earnings as we discussed in the past. Um the one uh new thing is there was a an error on a distribution report from the Maricopa County which resulted in an overstatement of our primary property tax that was fixed by the county in
April. So you will see that uh large variance in property tax be corrected in April. On the expenditure side, we have 4% below budget primarily due to personnel savings and also timing of expenditures. Very typical of um of what
we see variances result from. Next slide. And I won't go into a lot of details because this is what you've also seen before from the prior quarter in terms of our revenues. And as I mentioned earlier, the um unique one is
the uh property tax variance. Next slide. And this goes into the um more specifically the general fund revenues. The large uh negative or not large, the minus 7% and other is
primarily due to ambulance service program revenues collections that are delayed and or um uncollectible. Next slide. And this is the 1.1% sales tax. And we've covered a lot of these variances in the last quarter is they're
pretty much the same from the last quarter. We've got we're looking at some negative variances in in certain categories as you see on the slide and some uh positive variances based on what the the businesses have reported. And next slide. Moving on to state shared
revenues. Um the largest variance is the auto and leure tax for 13% over um uh our budget and that's primarily based on what they've reported to us probably higher activity. Next slide. And on to the expenditures.
The personnel and uh contractual service ex expenditures. Those are basically due to as we spoke before vacancies and personnel savings and also delays in spending and um when we get invoices for specifically paramedic school and IT
systems integration. And next slide. And on the commodities and capital outlay those are also due to timing differences. items were ordered but have not been received and paid for yet. And next slide. And the this just shows you
the uh budget variances by department. And I think that's the final slide. I can answer any questions if you have any. >> Thank you, Sonia. I don't see any questions and so we'll ask uh Allison
Tim Q to come up. Um, good evening, mayor, members of council. First, we have a short video for you. Welcome to Investing in Our Scottsdale quarterly recap highlighting projects from Scottsdale's capital improvement
program. Booster Pump Station 55A. As our water and wastewater systems age, the city not only maintains existing infrastructure through replacement and rehabilitation, but also focuses on future growth. The booster pump station 55A rehabilitation and replacement
project is an example of just that. Located adjacent to Scottsdale's water campus, additional capacity is needed to accommodate the large growth in water demand in the pressure zone, which encompasses the Air Park and Crossroads East. The addition of a new pump was recently completed to meet near-term
demands, but the long-term solution will be a full replacement for the booster pump station. In combination, these projects will help to build a reliable system that will serve the public for years to come, but also offer reasonable levels of redundancy. Welcome to investing in our Scottsdale
quarterly recap highlighting prop roads east. The addition of a new pump was recently completed to meet near-term demands, but the long-term solution will be a full replacement for the booster pump station. In combination, these projects will help to build a reliable system that will serve the public for
years to come, but also offer reasonable levels of redundancy to help ensure continued service when the system is strained or experiences unforeseen events. The recently completed upgrades to booster pump station 55A cost $678,000
and increased capacity from 19.4 to 23.3 million gallons per day. In late 2026, a much larger project will begin to fully replace the aging pump station and its electrical systems, which are near the end of their design life. The $33 million project is a comprehensive
long-term replacement that substantially increases capacity, improves reliability and pressure performance, modernizes the facility to current standards, and supports future growth in pressure zone 4. Scheduled to go into operation in late 2028, the new booster pump station
will help ensure that our water supply is readily available when we need it most. Spring paving program. Scottsdale is on the move. This spring, the city is rolling out a $17 million paving program, the latest step in a major commitment to improve our roadway
infrastructure. This spring alone, crews will treat approximately 237 lane miles of pavement across the city, ensuring our streets are smooth, safe, and reliable. The program takes a strategic community focused approach, prioritizing high need areas. Each street is
carefully evaluated to determine the right treatment for long-lasting results. A key highlight this year is the introduction of liquid road, an innovative treatment that protects pavement, reduces cracking, and improves the overall appearance of the roadway. With a total paving budget of $42
million for fiscal year 2526, Scottsdale continues to invest in infrastructure that keeps the community moving. Recent work from the fall of 2025 included major improvements in Oldtown, enhancing streets, alleys, and parking areas. With a proposed $45 million paving budget
next fiscal year, the total investment over two years will reach $87 million, representing a major step forward in addressing the transportation needs of our community. Thompson Peak Dog Park. Scottsdale's newest dog park is under construction. The 3 and 1/2 acre
facility is being built adjacent to Thompson Peak Park. The $6.1 million project is funded by bond 2019 and reflects Scottsdale's commitment to community spaces and outdoor living. The park will feature three separate fenced play areas known as cells. These open
spaces will rotate, allowing the grass to recover and ensuring a clean, healthy environment year round. Visitors can expect thoughtful amenities throughout, including shaded seating, water fountains for both people and pets, and convenient waste disposal stations. A
new pedestrian foot bridge will seamlessly connect the dog park to existing park features, making it easier than ever to explore the entire area. Additional parking along Hayden Road and brand new restroom facility will enhance accessibility and comfort for all visitors. Adding a unique artistic touch
or custom art panels will be featured on the park's central shade structures. Inspired by storytelling and folk art, the designs celebrate the joy, personality, and playful spirit of dogs alongside the beauty of the surrounding desert landscape. Like all Scottsdale parks, the dog park will be open daily
from sunrise to 10:30 p.m., offering plenty of time for exercise, play, and community connection. Once complete, Thompson Peak Dog Park will become Scottsdale's fourth official dog park, joining the beloved destinations like Chapperel Park, Horizon Park, and Vista
Del Camino Park. Transfer Station expansion. Every day, the city of Scottsdale works behind the scenes to keep our community clean, efficient, and sustainable. At the center of it all is the solid waste transfer station, the hub of the city's refuge and recycling operations. Built
in 1996, this facility was designed with future growth in mind. Since then, Scottsdale has added more than 30,000 homes. Today, the station processes an average of 425 tons of material daily, and it exceeds its operational capacity nearly every week, a clear sign that
it's time to expand. By allowing collection vehicles to offload materials locally, the transfer station reduces the need for long trips to distant landfills. That means fewer miles on the road for collection vehicles and lower fuel use. Each year, this centralized
system already saves 150,000 vehicle miles and 60,000 gallons of fuel. The expansion will build on those efficiencies and prepare for the future. The upgraded facility will expand capacity from handling 70% of Scottsdale's waist stream to 100%. This
means more flexibility, improved efficiency, and potential cost savings for residents. This expansion isn't just about more space. It's about rate stabilization for residents and preserving our regional landfill capacity. With a capacity to handle 100%
of the city's waist stream, the expanded transfer station will give the city flexibility in where it takes its waste and create opportunities for cost savings. By separating green waste, like yard debris, from bulk trash, more materials can be diverted away from the landfill. This project will also
introduce new partnerships. Licensed private haulers and commercial landscapers will be able to deliver clean green waste directly to the facility, supporting local businesses and improving service efficiency. These partnerships are expected to generate revenue, helping offset operational
costs over time. During construction, temporary traffic adjustments will be in place to ensure daily operations continue without interruption until the project is complete in late 2027. With a project budget of $26.2 million funded through residential solid waste
rates, Scottsdale is investing in modern infrastructure today to build a cleaner, more efficient, and more sustainable tomorrow. 68th Street sidewalks. The city of Scottsdale is planning important improvements to 68th Street,
designed to enhance safety, mobility, and infrastructure for the community. Currently, gaps in the sidewalk system make it difficult for pedestrians to travel safely along this corridor. That's about to change. This summer, sidewalks will be built on both sides of 68th Street from the Arizona Canal to
just south of Camelback Road. The new sidewalks will fill in a gap in pedestrian accessibility and provide a consistent paved sidewalk to improve safety along this corridor. The $2.9 million project will include asphalt improvement on this segment of 68th Street and the road will be restriped to
its current lane configuration of one lane in each direction. At the same time, the city will complete upgrades to the 68th Street storm drain system, helping manage water flow and protect the roadway. By coordinating these projects together, the city aims to minimize impacts to residents and the
traveling public. This project was created in response to a citizen request and added to the city's capital improvement plan by the city council. Building a better Scottsdale for everyone. And that concludes the latest highlights of capital projects in our community.
Thanks for watching. Okay. Thank you. So, I just wanted to go over real quickly with you um the project budgets for um the projects that were highlighted in the video. The first one was the booster pump station 55A. The total project budget is 31.4.
Funds spent were 3.4 um with a remaining budget of 28. I think it's a misprint here at two, but it's 28 million. That's funded by water rates. The pavement overlay program um total project budget is 131.4 4 million
funds spent today is 44.8 with 86.6 million remaining um funded by transportation sales tax and her funds add a dog park to Thompson Peak Park bond project 42 total project budget 6.4 with 2.2 spent 4.2 remaining that's
funded by bond 2019 and general fund the transfer station expansion project 26.2 million budget 2.2 fund spent 23.8 8 remaining budget funded by solid waste rates. And then the 68 street sidewalks
uh $3 million budget with 02 fund 2.2 million fund spent with 2.7 remaining budget um funded by transportation 2% sales tax. Um so with that, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer.
>> Uh Councilwoman McCallen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the report, Allison. I'm so excited about the Thompson Peak Parkway, I mean the Thompson Peak uh park and the dog run finally being done as well as um 68th
Street sidewalk. I grew up just south of there and that has been needed for decades obviously. But most importantly the street overlay which everyone's all excited you see it happening everywhere. Um so thank you for that. But the next thing is people are asking where can
they find the information? when is their area being paved next? So, can you remind the citizens where they can find that information, please? >> Um, yes, Mayor and Councilwoman Mckllen. So, we do have a dashboard um a public facing dashboard on our city's website
where um residents can go to see um where there what what is planned for the spring paving um program that's going on right now. uh we will be adding the fall pro program and we are finalizing our 10-year paving plan and once that is
finalized we will be adding that to the website as well. >> Councilwoman Dascus. >> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh this morning at the gym, a gentleman asked me when will the dog park be ready? What's the date? What are we approximately looking
at? I told him end of summer, early fall. >> That's correct. Yes, Council um women Debbasquez, we are targeting uh August September completion for that. >> Perfect. Okay. And then in the in the the video, I lost the number. How many miles of paving? 232.
>> I think it was 237. >> 237. Thank you very much. Great work. Thanks. >> Thank you. Thank you very much, Allison. Appreciate it. >> And Sonia. All right. With that, that concludes the
work study session. And I'd like to ask if any council members have a report. Anyone have a report? Vice Mayor Quasman. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Okay. Uh, three quick things. First of all, um, it is it
it is a always fun to play a tourist in your own in your own town and in your own existence. Being a city councilman is just incredible. It's it's an amazing thing and you got to, you know, sometimes good to step back and smell the and smell the roses. uh being vice mayor was uh was amazing. I'm so
grateful uh for that opportunity. But I recommend doing what whenever you have the turn to be vice mayor and the mayor gets to do this whenever she wants to do this. Um I recommend the following uh thing to do and is write a letter to your children um as as that title. I think that it's one of the things I'm
looking forward to doing um next week is writing that letter and seeing and and being a part of uh being a part of the city government is so it's so awe inspiring that they deserve to kind of know your thoughts. That's one. So congratulations Maryanne. That's one.
Number two, um congratulations to Scottsdale resident and physician Dr. Benjamin Benson um who testified uh just last week when I was out of town. Um he had during this council meeting he his wife had a baby boy. So there's there is
a new Scottsdale resident, brand new Scottsdale resident. So congratulations to baby boy Benson the triple B. Um and then finally uh I'm I just want to I want to reiterate what uh what was said before. We we fully believe in first
amendments in in first amendment rights at at this council and the government and the local and the municipal government. Um um Mr. Isaac has a right to say without other than fighting words and and and those very small um very
small exceptions. He has a right to say whatever he wants. And that's and it could be hurtful. It could be it could be mean. It could be all those things. We're big boys. We got big boy pants. We could we could wear them and be up here. But we have got to take control of the
decorum at this council or else we will continue to have the reputation that we have. And that means and that means ging down ging down behavior that is out of order. And I I really want to say that
we will change the rules again because they are they are abusing a system. Um it's the same four people abusing the system every time. I want to make sure that we preserve rights, but we have got to create and really put our heads
together to make sure that we create order in our meetings. Everybody will benefit from this. So, with that, thank you, >> Councilwoman McCallen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just uh tomorrow we will be saying goodbye to
our assistant fire chief, Carrie Swick. I can't believe I'm going to start to cry. It's been over three decades of service to our city and um I encourage all of you who can make it tomorrow to come say goodbye to our assistant fire chief Carrie Swick who has served our
city loyally. >> Thank you, Councilman Graham. >> Thank you, Mayor. I want to congratulate all the families out there with young kids that are wrapping up their calendar years. I'm kind of new to that and my boys are finishing their first year of
preschool and I was a proud papa and it just got me thinking about all of the families and with all this whether it's preschool, middle school or high school. I mean we've got something like 180
schools in Scottsdale with our public schools, our private schools, our parochial schools. Um, so that was a proud achievement for me. And I wanted to also report to you that Wallet Hub did a intense study on cities across the
country and it rated their happiness. It measured how happy are those cities. And would you know what Scottsdale ranked as far as happy when looking at cities 182 cities across the country? Anybody guess?
>> Third. Third. Kathy just guessed third. And the study was we were the third happiest city in America. So ha Kathy Littlefield Kathy Littlefield is in tune with with uh the happiness level of her constituents. Thank you.
>> Thank you. And with that, this concludes our meeting. And uh I'll move to adjourn. Second. >> Thank you. All right.