I'd like to call this uh March 3rd, 2026 city council special meeting and possible executive session to order. City clerk Ben Lane, please conduct the roll call. >> Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Barowski, >> present. Vice Mayor Adam Quasman,
>> Council Members Jan Dubasquez >> here, >> Barry Graham, >> Kathy Littlefield >> here, >> Maryann McAllen >> present, >> and Solange Whitehead >> here, >> city manager Greg Kaitton >> here, >> interim city attorney Louis Santea >> present, >> city treasurer Sony Andrews
>> here, >> and the clerk is present. Thank you, mayor. >> Thank you. Oh, and the possible executive session items include discuss and consult with uh representatives of the city to consider our position and instruct uh representatives regarding
negotiations for the purchase sale or lease of real property. Discuss and consult with the city's attorneys for legal advice and to consider the city's position and instruct its attorneys regarding contracts that are the subject of negotiations. These matters all
pertain to real property located at 75th Street and East Main Street in Scottsdale. And item number B is for legal advice uh and to discuss and consult with the city's design designated attorneys to consider its
position and to instruct attorneys regarding ongoing litigation in the matter of Weaver versus Washburn um which is in the Superior Court of the State of Arizona. And finally, item number C, uh, consult with the city's attorneys to consider our position
regarding negotiations for the purchase of real property and long-term storage credits and discuss and consult with the city's attorneys for legal advice and to consider the city's position and instruct its attorneys regarding contracts that are the subject of
negotiations all pertaining to uh, long-term real property and long-term storage credits in the Harkila Valley. Can I have a motion to recess into executive session? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor say I.
>> I. call resume the special meeting now that we've concluded the uh executive session and let the record reflect all the council members are here. Uh moving on to the presentations tonight, we have
the employee recognition program which uh the council will recognize proudly uh employees with 20 or more years of service as of March 2026. This will be presented by Holly Peralta, communications and public affairs uh
interim senior director. >> Okay. Meor and city council members. Thank you for having us tonight. >> Hello. Tonight, I'm proud to recognize dedicated employees who have given 20 or more years of service to the city of Scottsdale. And those who can join us
tonight represent Scottsdale Water, our one-stop shop, facilities, maintenance, code enforcement, inspection services, and parks and recreation. Together, they represent 125 years of collective service to this community. That kind of longevity does
not happen by accident. It it reflects commitment, professionalism, and pride in public service. These employees have helped deliver clean water, safe neighborhoods, well-maintained parks, responsive inspections, and reliable
city services that re residents depend on every day. I would like to invite them to join me up here who are with us tonight. We have Jason Bowman, Jimmy Hempen, Thomas Meyers, Steven Peterson, Rick Valenuela,
Darko Frostic, and Chris Walsh. Come on up. Thank you for your dedication and service. And we are grateful for your work and proud to rec recognize your milestone. You're still here.
All right, jobs well done. We appreciate your service, all of you. Uh, moving on to board commission and task force nominations. Vice Mayorwasman, will you please take the lead on this? >> Thank you, Mayor. This evening, the city council will be nominating Scottsdale residents interested in serving on
citizen advisory boards, commissions, and committees. Scottsdale City Council is responsible for establishing city policies and enacting laws in support of those policies. The council relies on volunteer citizen-based boards, and commissions to research issues and make recommendations in support of the council's mission and goals. The information and recommendations provided
by council appointed advisory boards is valuable tool in helping council members in their deliberations. Appointments for these positions will be made at a special city council meeting on March 24th. As we begin our process this evening, I'd like to note to my colleagues that an applicant only needs to receive one nomination in order to advance to interview before the council.
And when I call on you, if your chosen applicant or applicants have already been nominated by a council member, please state no additional and we'll move on in the process. Thank you. And now, let's get started. And by the way, I'm also reserving the right when there are single nominations
to just uh to to close the nomination uh for that for that particular board. Okay. Thank you. The board of adjustments is a quasi judicial board that hears variance requests, appeals to the zoning administrators interpretation decisions and decides on administrative decisions or zoning requirements which
create unnecessary hardships in the development of property because of exceptional or extraordinary conditions. uh Rand Hun uh resigned in December to serve on the budget review commission. So there's one vacancy and one applicant and therefore I nominate uh Stephanie
Rimmer to be that uh to be that nominee and therefore Stephanie Rimmer has been nominated. Moving on, building advisory board of appeals. There is one there is there is not an opening right now. Um as
such we'll move on to the current curtain opening will be included in the next cycle of boards and commissions appointments. As such we'll move on to the next commission. The human relations commission provides advisory uh recommendations to staff in the city council on human services priorities and
programs and funding allocations for Scottsdale Cares community development block grants home human services emergency and general funds. Uh Cynthia uh Romano's term expires in March. She's eligible for reappointment. However, she
did not submit a new application for consideration. So therefore, there is one vacancy in seven applicants. The applicants are Suheani, Alexandra Blansky, Paul Epstein, Vincent Indonesa,
Katie McGinty, Rutherford Pascal, and Kimberly ShraMM. Apologies in advance if I mispronounced any mispronounced anybody's name or mispronounced anybody else's name in the future of this hearing. I will now entertain nominations for the human relations
committee. Each council member can nominate one applicant and I will start with mayor, please. >> Thank you. Paul Epstein, please. And I'm moving on moving on to the mayor's uh the mayor's left with uh council member Littlefield and to the
left. >> Uh thank you. There's one opening and I would like uh Katie Mcini, >> Miss ShraMM. >> No additional. >> No additional. No additional
>> and no additional for me. The nominees are therefore Paul Epstein, Katie Mciny, and Kimberly ShraMM. Moving on, I'm saying most
human services advisory commission. There's one opening. The human services advisory commission provides advisory recommendations to staff and city council on human service priorities and programs and funding allocations for Scottsdale. Oh, we had this. Sorry. I apologize. We're moving forward to the Industrial Development Authority.
There's two openings. Uh the Industrial Development Authority's main function is to issue taxexempt bonds for certain types of private developments for the purpose of attracting new economic activity into the community. There are special qualifications for this. There are um there are no formal requirements,
but given the nature of the work of the that the IDA conducts, it suggested that members be comfortable working with detailed financial proforma, feasibility studies, and financial projections. David Hyde and Evelyn Resett's term expired in February. Both are eligible
for reappointment. However, only Evelyn Ret has submitted a new application for consideration. There are two vacancies and four applicants. The applicants are Michelle Gardner, Evelyn Ret, Dean Sims, uh Elias, and Carter Stout. I will now entertain nominations for the Industrial
Development Authority. Each council member can nominate two applicants and we'll start with council member Littlefield. >> Thank you. Um Michelle Gardner and Evelyn Rashett.
>> No additional. >> Carter Stout. No additional >> uh Dean Elias Sims or Sims Elias. And no additional. >> No additional. >> With that, with that, all four applicants, Michelle Garner, Evelyn Ret, Dean Sims, Elias, and Carter Stout have
been nominated. >> Moving on to the library board. >> Vice Mayor, sorry about that. >> I I apologize. Can we go back and do the human services? >> Yes. >> Did I skip it? >> I thought that's when we had Kimberly ShraMM and >> ah human relations and human services.
They sounded the same. I apologize. not, you know, brevity isn't always the uh the uh the benefit to go the way to go here. The Human Service Advisory Commission, one opening, the Human Service Advisory Commission provides advisory recommendations to staff in the city council on human services
priorities and programs and funding allocations for Scottsdale Cares Community Development Block Grants, home, human service emergency, and general funds. J uh Jeff Jameson resigned in January and there's one vacancy and nine applicants. These
applicants are Hugh Cedon, Christa uh Deitrulius, Michael Dill, Jackson Fox, James Co, Bill Milico, Carly Shener, we'll go with that. Is Carly here? No, not here. Okay. Um Cindy
Schoff and Kiana Stassy. Stassney. We'll go with Sassy. Okay. No. Entertain nominations for the Human Services Advisory Commission. Each council member can nominate one applicant. We'll start with council member Graham. >> Council member Mcraham, if you need
additional time, I'm happy to move on and come back to you. >> I think I'm ready. >> Okay. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Ceden. No additional. >> No additional. Cindy Schae James Co.
>> Carly Shenator Shinixinator >> and I have no additional. So the nominees are Hugh Cedon, Jackson Fox, >> no I apologize, James Co. I apologize.
Hugh Cedon, James Co, Carly Schneider, Cindy Schul. Thank you members. The next commission is the library board.
Am I correct with that? Thank you. The library board advises the city council on general policy relating to the program services and future development of Scottsdale public libraries. The board oversees the library special revenue fund which is made up of donations and funds generated through the sale of used books and magazines.
Enid Enid Siden's term expires in March. She's eligible for reappointment and has submitted a new application for consideration. There is one vacancy and 10 applicants. And the applicants are James Boltima, Matt Cobb, Isabelle Dorch, Matthew Farber, Jeff Flancer,
John Grossclo, Mary McBride, Vernon Neurona, Patricia Pellet, and Enid Siden. I will now entertain nominations for the library board. Each council member can nominate one applicant. Council member Dubasquez,
>> Patricia Pellet, >> Council Member Mallen, >> uh, Enid Signed. No addition. >> No additional. >> No additional, >> Mr. Farber.
And I have no additional nominee. The nominees are therefore Patricia Pellet, Enid Seiden, and Matthew Farber. The next commission is the McDow Sonor and Preserve Commission. The Mcdow Sonor and Preserve Commission provides citizen oversight for acquisition, preservation,
management, and stewardship of the McDow Mountain and Related Sonorin of McDow of the Mcdow Mountain and Related Sonoran Desert for the benefit of this and future generations. Carrie Olsen resigned from the commission in January. There's one vacancy and five applicants and the
applicants are Steven Lichbla, Michelle Marco, John Veich, David VA, and Cynthia Wenstrom. And I will now entertain nominations for the McDall andor Preserve Commission. Each council member can nominate one
applicant. Council member MacAN, >> Cynthia Westerm. No additional >> John. John Beckage, >> Cynthia Winstrom, >> no additional. >> No additional. >> And I have no additional nominee. The
nominees are Cynthia Wstrom and John Beckage. The next commission is the Neighborhood Advisory Commission. The Neighborhood Advisory Commission advises and makes recommendations to the city council on policies, plans, strategies, and programs for the preservation, improvement, and revitalization of
Scottsdale's housing and neighborhoods. Nancy Dodie Brady's term expires in March. She is eligible for reappointment. However, she has not submitted a new application for consideration. Therefore, there is one vacancy and four applicants. And the applicants are Lawrence Beer, Jane
Brena, Terry Nickerson, and Kelly Perez. And I will now entertain nominations for the neighborhood advisory commission. Each council member can nominate only one applicant. Council member Whitehead, >> Jane Brena,
Terry Nickerson, >> Jane Brena, >> no additional >> Kelly Perez. >> And I will nominate Lawrence Beer. All four nominees have been nominated.
All four applicants have been nominated. >> No additional. All four nominees have been nominated. We have fun here. All right. Parks and Recreation Commission. There is one opening. There we go. Parks and Recreation Commission advises the city council on
the acquisition of lands and facilities for use of park as parks or recreation centers and on the operation, use, care, and maintenance of these parks and recreation areas. Eric M. Shop's term expires in March. She's eligible for reappointment and has submitted the sole application for
consideration. Therefore, I nominate Mr. Mashup and he and he is deemed nominated. The next commission is the tourism development commission. The tourism development commission advises the city council on matters concerning the expenditures of revenues and the
transaction privilege tax on trans on transient lodging, the bed tax. I really don't like calling it transient lodging which is called we call it the bed tax and designed uh designated for tourism development special qualifications as specified in the Scottsdale city code
the tourism development commission shall consist of representative uh of representatives of the tourism industry in Scottsdale including a minimum of four Scottsdale hotel years one member of the Scottsdale convention and visitors bureau and balance and a balance from elements of the tourism
industry Anna Merir's second term term is expiring and she is ineligible for re for reappointment. Therefore, there is one vacancy and five applicants and the applicants are Kathy McKver, Darien uh
Nwen, Douglas Presley, Brian Silverstein, and Prescuit Smith. And I will now entertain nominations for the Tourism Development Commission. Each council member can nominate one applicant. Mayor Barowski, I'm going to start with you.
>> Douglas Presley. >> Kathy McKver. >> Not additional. >> No additional. >> No additional. >> No additional. >> I have no additional nominee. Therefore,
the nominees are Kathy McKver and Douglas Presley. Finally, the Veterans Advisory Commission has one opening. And the V Veterans Advisory Commission consists of seven members, at least five of whom shall be either military veterans or work for
organizations supporting veterans. The commission advises the city council on veterans programs, policies, and practices and serve the community connection point uh for veterans and the community where they live. Thank you to Justin Layman. His tumor is expiring. is eligible for reappointment and has submitted a new application for
consideration. I will suspend until >> some 41 has finished playing. I used to listen to a lot of that music. There's one vacancy and four applicants. And the applicants are Scott Burke, Justin Layman, M uh Michael Leie, and Joseph Linquist. Uh Council Member
Whittlefield, >> Justin Layman, >> Scott Burke, >> no additional. >> No additional. No additional. >> Joseph Fenquest. Lenquest.
And I will nominate Michael Leie to complete uh to complete the nominees. All four applicants have been nominated. Turning it back over to you, Madame Mayor. >> All right, good job. Uh that concludes the special meeting and so we are going
to adjourn. Move to adjourn. So moved. All right, we are adjourned briefly. We'll be back at 6. I'd like to now call the March 3rd, 2026 Oops. We're going to wait for Ben Lane to get back there. March 3rd, 2026 City Council regular meeting and work study
session to order. City clerk Ben Lane, may I please have a roll call? >> Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Barowski, >> present. Vice Mayor Adam Quasman. >> Council members Jandy Bosquez. >> Barry Graham >> here. >> Kathy Littlefield >> here. >> Marian McCallen
>> present. >> And Solange Whitehead >> here. >> City Manager Greg Kaitton >> here. >> Interim city attorney Louis Santea >> here. >> City Treasurer Sonia Andrews >> here. >> Acting city otter >> here. >> And the clerk is present. Thank you, mayor. >> Thank you very much. This evening we
have police Scottsdale police officer Sergeant Eric BS and officers Kyle Sholac and Ray Wilburn as well as Scottsdale firefighter Ray Iglani. I hope I'm saying that right. If anyone requires their assistance, please let a
member of our staff know. For the pledge of allegiance, I'll ask uh Councilwoman Jan Debasquez to lead us in that. States of America stands one indivisibley
and justice for all. >> Thank you. And for the invocation, I'll turn it over to Councilwoman Maryanne McCallen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, welcome to the city council meeting this March 3rd. Um, I'm sure you all realize how blessed we
are as a nation, as a city. Um, with that in mind, I um I want to read this prayer that was offered up um actually on the Senate floor uh two days ago
actually. Yeah. No, Monday, yesterday. So, with that, if you please bow your heads. Almighty God, we lift up our military troops, asking for your divine protection for them, strength, and
wisdom as they serve on land, sea, and air. Surround them with the shield of safety. Grant them courage in danger, and comfort their families, bringing them home to us safely.
May they find peace, hope, and guidance in your presence. And we ask you to be with those families who have already lost loved ones. We do not take our freedom for granted. Again, we ask for your guidance and
strength at this time, protecting our democracy and our freedoms here and abroad. Amen. >> Thank you very much. As and for the mayor's report tonight, I want to let all of you know that this this coming
weekend is the 73rd annual Rodeo Scottsdale, also known as the Prada Del Soul. And of course, that celebrates uh our western heritage here in Scottsdale. And it will once again take center stage out at Westworld. It is a PRCA
sanctioned 4-day event and it runs March 5th through the 8th uh at Westworld the Scottsdale Ecuadome Marina. So so center stage um widely regarded as one of the most uh respected professional
rodeos in the country. Rodeo Scottsdale showcases classic events including saddle bron riding, bearback bron riding, steer wrestling, tie down roping, team roping, barrel racing, breakaway roping, and bull riding. And
uh I know where I will be this weekend for sure. It's a fun event. So go check it out. And moving right along, we have let's see, am I on the wrong page here? I think it might be. One second here. Oh, presentations. We don't we already
did that, so we'll we'll pass that. We had our 20 year plus employees that were here and we celebrated them. Um, as is always the case, possible executive session announcement. We uh may recess into an executive session if the council
approves such action, and that would be only to obtain legal advice. uh on an applicable item on the agenda. If authorized by council, the executive session would be held immediately and will not be open to the public. The public meeting, however, would resume
following that executive session. Next, on to the meeting minutes. Uh we have the approval of the minutes involving special meeting minutes Janu of January 7th, 2026. Executive session
meeting minutes of January 7th, 2026. Regular meeting and work study session meet minutes of January 13, 2026. Do I have a motion to approve those? >> I'll please indicate your vote. All right.
on to the work study session. Uh we've received there I don't think there's any comments on this. Is there Ben? No. Okay. Tonight we have one item for work session presentation and discussion and
this is the CIP plan item which was cons continued from our February 24th meeting. And we'll ask Scott Selin to uh budget department director and Allison Timku to come. She's the city engineer uh and transportation and infrastructure
senior director and uh they'll give us a presentation uh so that we can provide possible direction on the city treasur's quarterly financial presentation and on the city engineers quarterly CIP presentation as of December 2025. Thank
you. Welcome, Scott. >> Thank you. Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of the city council. Very happy to be here tonight to present the second quarter general fund financial update. The information you'll see in this presentation u reflects actuals through
December 31st, 2025. And as usual, we'll take a look at revenue collections to date as well as budget to actual variances on the expenditure side. This slide has some highlevel takeaways. Um overall general fund revenues are 5%
above budget as of December 31st, 2025. Sales tax and interest earnings are both performing favorably. State shared income tax was showing a very large positive variance um because December was showing seven months of
revenue rather than six. This issue has been resolved and you'll see that in the January report when it comes out. On the expenditure side, the city is 4% below budget due to a combination of personnel savings and also timing of expenditures for commodities and capital
outlays. This slide looks at revenues by category. I'll I'll start at the total row at the very bottom. Through December, the city had collected $230.9 million in the general fund uh versus a the budgeted revenue of 219.6 6 million
for a 5% positive variance. Looking at some of the most significant individual categories on that table, local taxes was a total of $3.7 million um over budget, higher than budget, and about 3.2 million of that was due to the
local sales tax. And the electric franchise tax accounts for the remaining positive variance. interest earnings came in uh significantly higher than expected. Our state shared revenues were also significantly higher than budgeted in
large part due to the issue that I spoke about about state shared income tax. Again, that issue has been resolved. Charges for service is also showing uh positive variance um due to the issues listed on the slide. Higher cell tower lease payments, golf course revenues,
and Westworld facility fees. looking at the sales tax down to the individual category. Um there are a few categories that are performing fairly significantly above budget. First the other activity category that's about three4s of the way down on that table there. It's showing a positive variance
of about $2.7 million which equates to 24%. within that other activity category. Um most notably services with retail and wholesale are driving that that $2.7 million positive variance.
Construction is performing high uh better than budgeted higher than anticipated as is dining and entertainment about 700,000 higher than anticipated in the budget originally. The automotive category has performed relatively poorly through the first half
of uh the fiscal year. That appears to be due to a combination of both technical reasons and u decreased base activity. Um some car dealerships have reported decreases in sales, but we'll continue to monitor that category as the
the year goes on. This slide shows a 12-month rolling total of the 1% general fund sales tax. We include this to kind of give a big picture of trends that are occurring over the last three years or so. Uh you'll see that that line is remaining
just under $180 million roughly over the last 18 months or so. Looking at state shared revenues, we've already discussed the state shared income tax um issue um earlier in Q3 that has been corrected. That $4.8 8
million positive variance uh should have been about $800,000 um for six months of revenue had it shown six months instead of seven. State shared sales tax showed a fairly significant forecast loss in the month of December. Um last month or I'm sorry
the previous report before December showed I believe a 6% positive variance and now it's showing a 2% negative variance. The reason for that is the department of revenue started dispersing um state shared sales tax to Santan Valley and that began in December and
not only that it went back and corrected for I believe three previous months that Santan Valley was entitled to upon its incorporation. So that's what caused that um that to change significantly from November to December. And then finally auto and lu tax is
showing a fairly healthy positive variance as well. Moving over to the expenditure side, the uh personnel services is showing a 2% positive variance. That is to say 2% lower than budget. Um on the expenditure side due to the combination of vacancy
savings and salary savings, the contractual services category, the second category on the table there is positive due to some delays in receiving invoices for some software that was purchased as well as some training that will take place later than originally
anticipated. Commodities and capital outlays is kind of a similar story. We've been delayed in receiving some equipment and invoices for purchases that we've made. We do expect that this will decrease over the remainder of the fiscal year. The contracts payable category is second
from bottom. It's a small amount, but I did want to address it briefly. Uh the variance here is due to a timing difference between when a payment to the Bureau of Reclamation was budgeted versus when it was actually paid. I believe originally it was budgeted in December. We expect that to have taken
place in February. This table breaks up the expenditures uh for the year by department. Um I do want to call out so on the police department there. The last time I was up here there was a question I believe from council member Graham about why the actuals for the current year are significantly
higher than the previous year. So you'll see the police 103.4 million through December versus 71 million um last fiscal year. The reason for that is the $50 million PSPRS payment that was authorized through the budget. Uh through December, 25 million of that had
been paid out and those expenditures show up in the police department budget. So that's the main driver of that. Uh with that, I'd be happy to entertain any questions. >> Councilman Graham. >> Mayor, thank you.
Good presentation. Um, I'm going to give you my uh standard um pep talk about underestimating revenues. When we underestimate revenues, and by the way, let me just step back. Revenues
are way higher than we expected. And kind of what I when I think about some what the health of Scottsdale, I mean, I think about various metrics. I think about house prices. I think about, you know, the strength of the economy. But one of the measures I look at, I track
is sales tax revenues. And so we should be, you know, maybe the press will cover. I think Scottdale's on fire based on these sales tax collections. We were supposed to be in recession. They I guess they canceled the recession again, didn't they?
So I was very happy about Yeah. Hopefully. So I was very happy about that. Um, but when we so sharply, and I got a budget review commissioner in the audience, so he's going to give me the the side eye if I get this wrong,
but um, when we so sharply underestimate revenues, we we can miss opportunities to deliver services and deliver on projects. When we know the revenues that are coming in, we can plan our capital projects better. um we may end up
needlessly raising fees in taxes because we're underestimating revenues. um we could inefficient we have could have an inefficient resource allocation because we have also what I'm looking at here is a significant under expenditure
of um budgeted expenditures or under yeah yeah under dispersements and there's a massive delta there where we we we cut way less checks than we expected to and we collected way more than we expected to. So what's that money doing? It's just sitting in a is
it just sitting in a pot? So, we have to scramble and, you know, do something with it. And so, now I get it. Okay, that's that's the I'm being I'm being tough on you. I understand three three four percent two two to 4% like there's going to be
there's going to be an AV there's going to you can't nobody can guess it perfectly. Um, but I just want to as much as we feel good about oh we have we didn't write enough. We didn't write as many checks as we thought and we we we collected way more than we expected. there is still a cost to that to our
taxpayers. Um, and so something to just think about and consider not to be too conservative when we put these projections. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, uh, Councilwoman Whitehead. >> Um, thanks, Scott. And also, thanks for
coming back. That was awful. You stayed till 9:30 at night, uh, and then we canceled your presentation. Uh, what is the cost of Santan? What will be the kind of average cost to the city of that addition? >> Madame Mayor, council member Whitehead,
my May I are you speaking about the state shared sales tax or the state shared income tax or everything together? Because >> everything together, what is the cost of adding that to the to the to the small pie? >> Um, >> if you don't know, you can call. >> Madame Mayor, Council Member Whitehead,
I will need to I don't have those numbers in front of me right now. I'd be happy to get them to you. >> Okay. And and just another observation that that's the uh aberration with the auto sales that was really quite steep. I just do we see that as um because auto
sales are happening elsewhere in the valley or is it just auto sales? Do you know offhand generally in the state in the country? What's going on there? Any any insights? >> Uh council member Whitehead. Um madame mayor, council member Whitehead, I would need to speak to some experts about what might be going on there. All I've all
I've known so far is that it appears to be a combination of technical reasons and decreased base activity. I could seek to get more information about that. >> Okay, those don't mean anything to me. So, I'll look forward to followup. But anyway, thank you so much.
>> Thank you. I don't see any more comments. So, thank you very much. Now, we'll talk hear from Allison Tim. Uh, thank you. Good evening, mayor, members of council. Um, first I have a short video and then a few slides.
>> Our Scottsdale quarterly recap highlighting projects from Scottsdale's capital improvement program. Thompson Peak Parkway Bridge. When DC Ranch was built, the city and the developer entered into an agreement that required the developer of DC Ranch to design the Thompson Peak Parkway bridges
over the Riotta Wash. At the time, the developer was only required to build one bridge due to lack of traffic volume in the new community. When the area developed and traffic volumes warranted it, the city agreed to build the second bridge on the east side of the roadway to accommodate northbound travel. Voters
in the 2019 bond election approved $6.3 million in funding and design work is now underway for the second bridge, which is expected to begin construction later this year. Over time, with development in the area, the Thompson Peak Parkway Bridge has kept up with the vehicular volume. However, with an
increase in bicycle traffic along this segment of roadway, only having one bridge has become a safety concern for motorists and cyclists. Currently, the four lanes of traffic and two bicycle lanes that travel Thompson Peak Parkway merge into two travel lanes and two bicycle lanes over the existing bridge.
Adding the second bridge will allow for four vehicular lanes of travel along with two bicycle lanes along the entire corridor, completing Thompson Peak Parkway and improving access to nearby schools and parks. Water campus connections. The city of Scottsdale is building a new
large water transmission main to strengthen the city's water distribution system and help prepare for future growth. This new water man will connect two new well sites, a water reservoir, and a booster pump station, all at the city's CAP water treatment facility. By linking these new well sites, which are
currently under construction, the project will provide additional capacity to the city's water distribution system, helping ensure a reliable water supply for residents and businesses. The project also introduces a key new capability, the ability to reverse water flow during periods of low demand.
During these times, treated water can be sent back into the ground through well sites 160 and 161, recharging the existing underground aquifers. These aquifers act as natural storage, preserving water for future use as the city continues to grow and demand
increases. This project represents the third phase of construction on the large water transmission main which began in early 2025. Construction is expected to be complete later this year, marking another important step in building a resilient and sustainable water system for the city's future. Scottsdale Road.
Work is underway to rebuild a two-mile stretch of Scottsdale Road from Joeax Road to Dixletta Drive. The project will improve safety and drainage along this busy corridor in northern Scottsdale. Construction began in December of 2024, and the project is approximately 50%
complete. Construction has been taking place both north and south of the Dynamite Boulevard intersection, and this portion of the project is scheduled to be predominantly complete this spring. Work on the redesigned intersection will begin in early 2026 and take place for the remainder of the year. A raised center median has
replaced the continuous center turn lane to minimize vehicle conflict points. New left turn in and left turn out lanes are being built at busier crossings. The new profile of the roadway will eliminate dips and rises in the road which created unsafe conditions and forced restrictions as water collected in low
points. New coververts are being built as part of this project to manage storm flows. A shared use path and bike lanes will improve safety and usability for pedestrians and bicyclists. The entire project will receive final paving and striping at the end of the project, which is scheduled to be complete in
late 2026. Fire Station 606. The city of Scottsdale is making major improvements to Fire Station 606, located at the northeast corner of Vinda and 108th Street. Originally built in
1985, Fire Station 606 has served the community for nearly four decades. Over time, several of the building's critical systems have reached the end of their useful life. In addition, the station's tri-level design presents operational challenges and does not meet current ADA
accessibility standards. The station's sewer line has failed, causing unsanitary backflows, while aging electrical and HBAC systems are also in need of replacement. The renovation will transform fire station 606 into a modern single-level, fully accessible facility
designed to better support firefighters and the community they serve. The updated design lowers the existing upper level by 4 ft to align with the main floor and includes an addition to the front of the building. The renovated station will also be equipped to house an ambulance, enhancing emergency
response capabilities in the area. This $7.2 million project began in January and will take about a year to complete. These improvements ensure that fire station 606 will continue to serve the community efficiently and accessibly for decades to come. Temporary fire station
to ensure uninterrupted emergency services during construction. Fire station 606 crews relocated to a temporary fire station in mid December. Thanks to a valued partnership with the Scottsdale Unified School District, the temporary station will operate from the former Noah building near Miracle League
and Choya Park, just a half mile from the current location. The temporary facility includes living quarters for four firefighters, complete with a kitchen, showers, and bunk rooms. A weather protective enclosure will house the fire engine, and during wildfire season, a brush truck may also
be stationed on site. Fire Station 606 is staffed by a four-person crew, including two EMTs and two paramedics, providing all hazard emergency response. This temporary fire station allows crews to maintain the high level of service residents expect throughout Scottsdale.
And that concludes the latest highlights of capital projects in our community. Thanks for watching. Okay, thank you. So, um then I just wanted to quickly go over um the project budget overview for these projects. So, the first project is build 62 build a
bridge on Thompson Peak Parkway over Riata Wash and the total project budget currently is 6.3 million with 0.5 spent and the remaining budget of 5.8. And this is bond 2019 funding the water campus connections deep well recovery
and recharge project total project budget 55.8 with 36 million spent and 19.8 remaining funded through water rates grant and MPC bonds and Scottsdale road Joe Max to Dixleta total project
budget of 43.7 million 20.4 4 spent to date, 23.3 remaining funded by transportation sales tax. Um regional sales tax and uh grant funding and then renovate fire station 606 total project
budget of 7.2 million 1.1 spent with 6.1 remaining and that was funded by the general fund. And then I do have a couple of slides to go over just an update of where we are with um the Scottso Road um Joeax to Dixletta project.
So I wanted to review again um the total project funding and what that actually means. So total project funding includes many elements including design, right of way, utilities, construction, construction administrative services and
then contingency which is usually estimated at about 10% at the start of construction. So, I think sometimes it's confusing that people get the total project budget confused with the actual construction budget, but there's a lot more that goes
into the project than just construction. And as you recall with this project, um, pre-December 3, uh, we had the federal grant, um, that was, uh, surface transportation block grant of 229.2 2 million which was federally funded
through that program. Um, MAG was able to get that approved um that we swapped that federal funding with regional sales tax with Prop 400 funding. So, we were able to switch the 29 million that was
previously federally funded to 29 million that's MAG regional funded. So, that was great when that happened. Um, if you recall back in April of 2025, I explained that the HSIP grant um was
another federal fund and it was forfeited when we changed the project from the roundabout to the traffic signal because that grant was specific for the roundabout. But at that time, we noted that we would be replacing that with transportation sales tax locally
funded and that that will come to you in the future. um in the form of a future council action because that requires uh council action to do that and then the remainder of the project is funded as it was with the transportation sales tax. So our total project budget before
December 3rd was the $43.7 million and then after the funding swap um on December 3rd it's still $43.7 million. And then this slide shows basically um the breakdown of the funds on the
project. So the first item I have here is the $29.9 million that's um representative of the construction for the project and our new costs. uh are we're um anticipating 32.9 million and
that includes um the change order to the contractor for the change from the roundabout to the traffic signal. The next item is design and previous costs for that were coming in at $2.7 million. New costs projected are $3 million and
that also includes the change order to the designer to the engineer to change the design from the roundabout to the traffic signal and the construction administration cost. So because it was previously federally funded, we had um
construction administration costs of 1.45 million. um we were able to save some money there um by changing it to regional funding. We didn't have to meet all the requirements of the federal funding. So we were able to decrease that contract. So now we're at 89
million for construction administration utility relocation. Um we had paid uh APS $2.47 million to relocate their facilities. Um, and then with the change from the roundabout to the signal, we
did have some additional utility costs that had to be relocated um, with the new design for the traffic signal. And then rightway acquisition originally came in at $2.19 million and we had about $40,000 extra of rightway that we
needed to acquire um, with the new design. And then administrative costs stayed the same. And then here it shows when we went into the project, we're estimating about a 10% contingency of 4.4 million. And then with the
additional cost, we're looking at just under a million dollars in contingency to date. So what we're showing here with this slide is it was a $43.7 million project um as it was approved by city council in September of 2024. And it's
still a $43.7 million project. and we are able to um accommodate all the changes within the existing budget. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Councilman Graham.
>> Wow. I didn't expect such an in-depth uh conversation about that project, but it's very uh illustrative and I appreciate you appreciate you going through it, Miss Tim Q. Um I want to call out for the DC Rants Bridge. I want to call out our voters
for supporting bond 2019 for that project. I think a special recognition belongs to Chris Irish at DC uh uh DC Community Ranch. Am I saying that right? >> DC Ranch. >> DC Ranch. I don't want to misspeak there. And her advocacy for that entire
community to make sure that project was um kept on um on pace. I also want to call out for that project, Representative Joseph Chaplain who that has been important project for him and he has also been an advocate to keep it
on pace and I think it'll be um great addition to that area. Scottsdale Road, it's frustrating, isn't it? You're getting some complaints, aren't you? >> Yeah, the construction is pretty impactful. >> Yeah, it's you know, it's just the lack
of east west I think in a couple places. Um some of my co-workers that you know my co-workers come in and they they say Barry what's what are you doing on Scottsdale Road and um >> irritate you.
>> Exactly. Yeah. So, thank you for I know that I brought this issue up with M city manager Katon and he was able to add a temporary stop or stop light there and you know work through that and uh I'm excited about station fire
station 606 that was kind of deplorable with the conditions they'd been subjected to. So, I'm excited about that. Scott still wrote just that that grand exchange. Um when I bumped into Nathan Dome in Target the other day, I reminded him that was a good he did a good job on that. You remember remember
that Nathan? And you had you played a big role in it too, Miss Tim Q. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Councilwoman McCallen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh Allison, I wanted to also uh comment. I'm very glad that
the DC Ranch Bridge is being built. Um they've been waiting a really long time for us to do our side of the bargain when we negotiated that with them and I'm grateful uh that it's being uh completed. So, thank you for all your
efforts on that. >> All right, I don't see any other questions. I have a quick question about the project that was rescoped roundabout to light. what what made the contingency um it went from 4.4 million to under a million. So, how does that how does that
work out? >> Um so, with the changes, mayor, members of council, um with the changes to the both the construction contract, the design contract, the utilities, and the right of way, that basically um dropped the contingency down because we use
contingency to pay for that. >> Okay. All right. Um, I don't see any other questions or comments and thank you very much for the presentation. Appreciate both of you. Moving on to the consent agenda, we have
items 1 through 4A. Do any members have any questions about uh any items on the consent agenda? Nope, I don't see any. I have a question. Uh, and it's the, uh, TDC, the bike week funding. Can someone is
someone available to talk to us about that? Hi there. What number is that? Four. There we go. Hi there. Uh, so my questions pertain to, and this has come up a couple of
times before, I know bike week's been going on for what, 15 years? at least I think seven >> and it's Kevin right? >> Yes. Kevin Burke, senior director Mike development and tourism. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Uh so it's been going on for about 15 years and my understanding I'm very I'm supportive of the of the event
but I know that we have a three-year maximum I think for event funding and that's that begins to run on the on the inception of the event when it's a new event. And we've seen this happen a couple times. So, I I really um I'd like
to hear what what the justification is for for doing this now 15 years or whatever it's been uh later. >> Madam Mayor, thank you. >> And it's $75,000. >> Correct. Madame Mayor, thank you for the question. Um my understanding bike week has been going on for about 17 years in
the community. The current request is for $75,000 from our event development bucket. We have several different programs that run through the TDC that are all using tourism dollars. uh prior to the three years of event development
funding, they were using the marketing funding bucket and so it was a separate program that they were eligible to use uh before they switched over to this program. So this would be the third and final year of this particular event's eligibility under the event development
bucket. >> So the three years they can shift around to different sources of funding. Is that what you're saying? Metame two separate programs right so for the um earliest years they weren't using this event
development program it was a different program right and then they are eligible to you apply for funding through this other program the event development program for only three years and this is the third of those three years >> okay I I'd really like to have a
discussion about the funding and how that all works at some point in the near future so we can get some clar at least I can get some clarity on that. So, thank you very much. That's all the questions I had. I don't see anyone else that wants to speak. Um, and we'll leave that on the consent agenda item. So, I
should note that item number one uh was pulled by staff and will be continued to a later date. So, that leaves us with items 2 through 4 A. Mayor, >> I I apologize. Item 4 A was also pulled by staff and will be considered at a later date as well.
>> Okay. So that leaves two and three. >> Two two >> two three and four, excuse me. Two through four. And I see that now. Councilman Grim, >> you want to >> I was just Mayor, I was just going to move to accept the consent agenda items. Do I need to enumerate them? >> Two through four.
>> Okay. Uh consent agenda items two through four. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor, please indicate your vote. >> Thank you. And I should note, I think I already did this, but we didn't have any public comment on the consent agenda items. Moving on to the regular agenda, item
number five. This is a presentation, discussion, and possible direction to city staff regarding the city's proposed rates and fees. And for the presentation, we'll invite Scott Celin Selin back up, who is of course the
budget department director, and David Walby, uh, interim water resources senior director. And are we going to have all you come up right now? Do you want all these people up here right now? >> Madame Mayor, if I may, we just do we'll start off with rotate through as we go
through the presentation. Okay, madam. >> Sounds good. Let's do that. Thank you, Scott. Please proceed. Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the council. Uh, for the record, Scott Seline, happy to be here tonight to uh, kick off tonight's agenda item about rates and fees. This slide that you're looking at,
excuse me, is just a reminder of the process that must be followed in order to enact rate and fee changes. First, the proposed rate and fee changes must be presented uh, in detail uh, before you. That is what's happening this evening. After tonight, there will be a
60-day posting compliance period that must be observed. After that period has run, there will be a public hearing and adoption of proposed rate and fee changes that is scheduled for the May 19th meeting. Speaking first about the enterprise
funds, per policy, the rates and fees must be reviewed annually and developed pursuant to a multi-year plan. Rates and fees for enterprise funds are intended to recover all direct and indirect costs of service including debt service and
also to provide uh for future capital needs. Tonight, water resources and solid waste will be presenting fee change proposals to you for non-enterprise funds. Rates and fees uh per policy must be reviewed periodically
um and should be based on an acceptable recovery rate for direct and indirect cost of service and each department will have its own methodology for determining that. Tonight we will hear rate and fee change proposals from planning and development services, parks and recreation, Scottsdale Stadium, tourism
and events, library and human services and police. This slide summarizes the anticipated revenue uh changes that um that will be realized as a result of rate and fee changes. Starting on the lefth hand side, um we anticipate that the proposed
rate and fee changes will generate about $118,000 to the general fund, about $79,000 to the special programs fund for parks and recreation and preserve. Approximately 90,000 to the stadium facility fund. Then moving over to the
enterprise side, um we anticipate that between water and solid waste about $9.2 million in total revenue, increased revenue I should say, as a result of the proposed rate and fee changes that will be presented tonight. And with that, I will uh hand the
presentation over to my colleague David Walby. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Scott. >> Thank you, Mayor Bowski, members of council. My name is David Wby. the interim senior director for water resources. The proposed rates for FY2627 were
developed using an ongoing rate model that is flexible to ensure rates are valid. Cost recovery is sufficient for a robust water utility and to maintain healthy reserves as required by financial policies. Increases to the base fees are
proposed to better reflect the recovery of fixed operating costs and adjusted to capital to capture the demand availability designed into the system. Increases to commodity rates are proposed to generate sufficient revenues to maintain the water fund and sewer
fund as a self- sustaining enterprise while encouraging efficient water use and urge conservation. study believes that a strategy for annual marginal rate increases is to smooth out the long-term revenue requirements produced for an affordable
and predictable rate for its customers. What we're looking at is our proposed rate and rates for both water and sewer. On the water side, it captures an operating and maintenance cost of three and a half and one for asset or assist
to funding additional water sources and supply. On the sewer side, looking at three and a half%. I'll jump back to the water rate. Uh the water fees increase is effective November 1st of 2026 and on the sewer effective July 1st. So, just
want to make that distinguish there. Oops. For operating, we look at significant cost drivers as it relates to our rates. And we have seen over the last four years uh these rate uh increases for the top four significant drivers for us. Raw
water costs have increased over the last four years, 6%. Personnel services, an 8% increase over the last four years. On the electricity side, it's a big jump there, 34% and chemicals 8%. Again, over the last four years of an increase.
Looking at our CIP or significant drivers for next fiscal year, I pulled a few in here just to to make uh some points to uh first is there our drought driven improvements and we're looking at additional um ASR well, aquafer storage
and recovery well. uh approximately $9 million for the CIP continuation of our automated meter uh program and that is an AMI advanced metering infrastructure and this is going to allow customers the end users near real time to read track
consumption patterns and better detect uh leaks in a faster manner. For the lift stations, we have a number of lift stations. The two that I wanted to make a reference to was uh both station 52 and crossroads uh lift stations each approximately $9 million
excuse me to for next fiscal year. And finally um another uh driver for capital is boosters uh pump station modifications and improvements uh to 55 and that's approximately 17.1 million. looking at rates, um, water rates, base
fees. We separate, uh, base fees from volutric fees. And so this is our base fees, our current, uh, uh, look at rates through our different meter sizes. I want to point to the 1-inch meter. It's kind of our benchmark as we look at this
uh, across water and sewer utilities. Our current rate is 31.45 45 and with the proposed increase of 4 and a.5% we're looking at a 32.87. Again, that's for a base fee. That's an increase of $142.
For the volutric component, separate from the base fee, again applying a 4 and a.5% rate increase, we have separating out different tiers and that determines that's determined by how much volume of water the end user is using.
So that first 0 to 5,000 gallons, that rate uh would move from a current $1.72 to $180, for example. On the commercial side, very similar with our tier structure to help drive
and encourage conservation. The more volume of water end users be using the proposed increase uh as you can see there across the different tiers increases but again it's supplied at a 4.5% rate increase
and we standardize that across all tiers for this year. on the sewer rates. Similarly, we have a base fee and then a volumetric fee. I just wanted to touch on the base fee establishes again fees for fixed operating costs and provides access into
the city infrastructure. The rates at 3 and five 3.5% equals or allows for on the 1inch meter an $8.20 20 current uh base fees $849
and I'll need some assistance. There we go. Thank you very much. Back one. Thank you. Looking at miscellaneous service charges, we have our meter and service line. This is a straight cost recovery for us and the cost drivers there are labor and raw
material costs either brass or copper. You see the rates uh currently an FY2526 fee ranging from 20 $2,400 to $4,790 moving up to $2,790
to just under $5,000. $4,960. And on the far right, an estimated revenue change of an increase bottom line of $64,783. Looking at the 1-inch meter size, again, as I pointed out earlier, it's essentially kind of our benchmark and
how do we compare as a utility uh providing cost of services for our end users. This graph shows where do we compare to other uh large combined water utility users here in the valley combined there is on highlighted in red
combined for a 1 inch meter using 16,000 gallons the end user would see a $521% $521 increase on their That was the last slide for that I had. I'll take any questions.
>> Councilwoman Whitehead. >> Uh, Mayor, are there public speakers on this item? >> Uh, there are. And it's not it's not arranged according to topic, so I'm just going to take them all at the end. >> Okay. Very good.
>> Yeah. Um, okay. Um, yeah. So, thank you. Thank you for the presentation and I do want to take this opportunity to speak to my colleagues, which we don't get to do unless it's a public meeting and also to the public on these rates. I mean,
it's very important that these rates deliver that which we all need and desire, which is water security. And I think it's evident in this uh presentation that uh the water rate
increase is very low. 4.5% sounds scary. I mean it really does in an inflationary time but decades of leaders that came before us made big investments that have enabled us to keep
water flowing and keep uh rates down. So, I just want to it will be up to this council to decide what the rates are and what you get with those rates. Uh, you know, I want to say nobody chooses Scottsdale because it's the cheapest
community. We choose Scottsdale because it's a world-class community that we can depend on to conservatively use our resources and uh whether it's tax dollars or water and ensure that we uh
remain prosperous. So obviously we live in a desert and that scares a lot of people but that's actually our strength. uh living in a desert for generations has made sure that Arizona does not take
water for granted, does not politicize water. We work together for water and we've been very successful at that. There's many success stories. What's concern and I will say one other thing is the situation we're in is not
unexpected. We've been planning for this also at least for 25 years. But it is much more severe than perhaps we had hoped or even planned for. Let's just talk about some of those costs. The 34%
increase in utility costs, that's carrying your water uphill, whether you live in Desert Mountain or you're carrying it from uh from the Colorado River. Those are electricity costs. Well, our water department is the biggest electricity user in Scottsdale.
Our bills are anywhere from 10 10 to$16 million a year. So when you talk about a 344% increase, that's that's a big number. Um we also know that water costs are going up. Water certainty of new water is
going down is is more difficult and we're seeing drastic cuts in the Colorado River. Uh 57% was the number that was given to us and that's 70% of our water. So, what I am going to be communicating with the public and with
our staff and hopefully we'll be having uh healthy conversations up here um is what are we going to fund and and with these water rates? And right now in the preliminary budget, the most certain new
water source we have, our advanced purified recycled water, something we've invested in for 25 years, is zeroed out, is not in the budget. And this again, we're we're losing water, but we have planned for 25 years to replace that
water with new water sources. So this is not a approval of a rate, but this is this is my opportunity to say that the rates have to deliver that which we want, which is water security. And we we're going to have to look really hard.
There are four new sources of water to replace the cap. And this is long-term planning. Two of those are removed from the preliminary budget, but that's where that's why it's preliminary. this council is going to have to work together to uh probably to fund those
projects and make sure that water keeps flowing and that our rates stay low. So, um I think Gilbert is the cautionary tale. I'm grateful we never went that path and I want to keep keep us off that path. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Dascus.
>> Thank you, Mr. Wave. It was a great presentation. Appreciate the opportunity to hear from you. Um in your last slide with the bar graphs, you're comparing the cities and um look at Chandler. Now, we've all heard what's been going
on with Gilbert and that their their numbers are going up, but I'm just wondering what's going on in Chandler. What have have they just not taken rate increases? Um they are significantly lower than than their competitors. So, can you give me a little background on that? >> Thank you. Uh, Madame Mayor, members of
council and counciloman Devascus, um, yes, every utility is a little bit different and unique in terms of how they approach their uh, their water service. And I know for Scottsdale, one of the things that we don't get into into great detail, but I think Councilwoman uh, had you you
hit on it a little bit there. Water is very heavy to move uphill and with our rate uh elevation changes throughout the city, we move a lot of water uphill. That being said, we have 18 major pressure zones, about 400 pressure
reducing valves. Once we get that water uphill, we have to lower that water pressure and make it um usable in a residential or commercial uh business or or home. That being said, Chandler has three pressure zones. They just don't
have the infrastructure. They're very flat. So, from that standpoint, they don't have the same challenges in terms of uh cost drivers as as we do, particularly looking at electricity. So, I would say that's the answer for very
simplistically as to to the why in in respects to moving water is why the rates are lower potentially. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, I see the city manager would like to say a few words. >> Thank you, madame mayor. I just wanted to add a little bit of additional
context uh to how some other municipalities treat enterprise operations. So, the way we treat enterprise operations here, just for the audience's purposes, that's government's way of saying it. It operates like a business. And so uh with that it does
not receive any taxpayer dollar any taxing dollars any property tax any uh sales tax anything of that nature. And and so as a standalone uh enterprise operations they have to pay uh fees. They actually pay into the general fund. And this is where maybe there's some
differences with our counterparts across the valley. For example, we have direct costs indirect costs that they pay into the general fund. In addition, uh franchise fees. uh the franchise fees for for right away and things of that nature. It is not an insignificant number uh for the water utilities. So
that may be something that our counterparts across the valley may not uh contribute into. I also wanted to take the opportunity to highlight the way we do our our rate increases here particularly on the water side is we don't uh it's been historical that we
don't want to have an increase when potentially there's higher utilization in the summer. For example, on the wa wastewater side, we start July 1st, uh which is the beginning of our fiscal year. Uh because that is a high utilization for some outdoor use on the
water side, it's been practice to delay that. And so we delay that uh implementation date or effective date until uh November. And those of you uh in all of us good with math, you might say, well then you only have twothirds of the year. So the rate actually for
the first year is going to seem like a higher number because of what we actually have to capture over eight months versus 12 months. So I just wanted to add that uh in the flavor particularly for uh the water discussion uh different than the wastewater discussion. The other thing that you'll
that was just want to emphasize from what my colleague presented was the three on the water side three and a half percent uh which really captures operating uh the operating uh impacts uh from fixed costs of utilities and other
utilities that are passing on their rate increases to us. And then we've introduced this one point or one percentage increase for new source and supply uh as referenced from the cap uh reductions. We don't know what that is at this point in time, but really planning for that for this new source
and supply really meaning if we didn't have that cap change or that uh central Arizona project modification, then we wouldn't need that 1%. So thought for transparency purposes, it might be helpful to separate that out. In addition, I just briefly comment on the removal of the advanced water
purification, the AWP uh ADQ. Sorry, there's a couple acronyms there, but Arizona Department of Environmental Quality changed their regulations or or added some regulations in the spring of last year. As soon as we uh received
that information, we outsourced to a engineering contractor to understand what the capital investment costs would be for AWP and operating costs. This came up through the budget review commission recognized that we had
historically budgeted this project anywhere from about 15 to 20 million and it escalated up nearly to a hundred million. Recognizing that was a different scenario for this capital project. So we endeavored on a year-long process here. We'll be finishing up this spring to really have and present
information to our policy makers to make this decision of this source and supply of the AWP. what is this going to cost us on not only the capital basis but on an ongoing expense the cap the the operating side. So a capital expenditure
which has increased significantly from what we had originally planned and also an operating expense. We didn't feel comfortable in this year's uh budget present to kind of put a question mark or a guesstimate in the budget. So, we removed it until we're we have a solid
number and then are able to present that for city council consideration. We believe that is a significant uh modification in our operations and want to bring that forward uh for consideration at a policy level before
we start to introduce that into uh the budget process. Thank you, Madame Mayor. That completes my comments. >> Thank you. Thanks for expanding on that. Uh Councilwoman McCllen. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, city manager, for that. Uh, thank you, David,
our new interim water director. Thank you so much. I know you've been here a very long time. Your knowledge surpasses the amount of time you've been in your current job. So, we're grateful for you. Um, we know this is going to literally be an uphill uh situation with water.
Um, finding out the cuts to cap and with the city of Scottsdale having 70% of their water portfolio in the central Arizona water project uh causes huge concerns if they're talking a 30 35% or
greater cut. So, it's very important that our citizen, our residents understand that if their rates go up, it's because the cost of doing business and water is going up. These are things that although like Councilwoman
Whitehead said that we prepared for, there are things that supersede preparedness sometimes like 50% of the Colorado River water not going to Phoenix or or going to Arizona. So that
being said, I know that this is just proposed ideas, but how we process our water currently and the advanced water purification. Um, and I know that our city manager just explained that it's kind of in flux
right now, our investment into it, needing water and using water, especially water we already own by pur over purifying it or you know the advanced water purification. It's water we already have that we don't need to purchase more of. We've already invested
into it. I would urge us to continue that process and stay the course and keep everything on the table at this point so we're not losing ground literally groundwater um and that we're um at least staying ke even keel because
if the cost of water is going up then our rates are going to be going up and that's just the facts but I know I I don't envy your your your position right now but I appreciate appreciate how much time and effort you, your department,
and the city manager has put into this. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead. >> You know, I'll just add one more comment to that, and that is that it's our job again to conservatively plan for water we know we'll need. Um, and no rateayer
will be mad if we end up with a surplus of water and end up in a situation where we can uh reduce costs or not raise costs in the future. But uh it would be very reckless to not tap an opportunity
that is totally within our local control and actually not that expensive. So I think a government's job is to deliver water. A government's job is to plan for the worstcase scenario and work diligently to deliver the best case. And
so that's why it's going to be important. Um we have four new water sources and we better make sure that we have access to all four in time and adjust our rates. Again, our rates, this is not a Gilbert scenario. We've kept
our rates low, especially we keep our rates for the water you need low. So those lower tiers, we always keep those affordable. And you saw we're third lowest uh in the in the valley. So thank you. >> Thank you. I don't see any other questions or comments, but I'll be
supporting this. Uh and it's important for the public to know that this is, as has been discussed, an enterprise fund. It's not a revenue generator. These are absolute necessary costs to provide water to residents and businesses. So, um, and and I think we've done a really
good job at keeping rates down and we'll continue to do that. The only discretionary, uh, amount in there is that 1% for future sourcing of water and that's going to be necessary as well. Um, so, thank you very much for that. Good job. And >> that mayor, council members, thank you very much.
>> Of course. All right. Next, I think we have Dave Bennett from Solid Waste, and he is the department director. Welcome. >> Good evening, Madame Mayor and council members. Uh, yes, Dave Bennett, solid
waste services director. I'm here to speak about the solid the proposed solid waste rates and fees for fiscal year 2627. Um, this year we once again hired an outside firm, Burns and McDow, to perform a rate analysis.
Oops. Um the objectives of the rate analysis were to identify the total costs of providing solid waste services and recite solid waste and recycling services to our customers. The the analysis validated that costs were being
accurately allocated to the correct customer classes. Uh this step is crucial in ensuring that our residential rate payers are not inadvertently subsidizing any portion of our commercial services program and most and
most importantly design rates that protect the financial integrity of our operation. So, for our 85,000 plus single family residential uh customers that receive weekly trash and recycling service, monthly brush and bull collection, and a
host of other services, we are proposing a 2% increase. Um, a 4% increase for our,00 plus commercial refuge customers and our on demi ondemand rolloff customers as well.
And lastly, a 4% increase for our commercial customers that utilize the various uh container sizes for their recycling needs. Uh this slide shows the estimated revenue each service pro program would
generate from the proposed rate increase. Uh uh in previous council presentations I've shared this graph that illustrates the volatility uh we've seen in the recycling markets over the past three years. Uh the next slide I'm going to
present will give you a clearer picture uh on yearly recycling costs. So if you could could you focus your attention on the the bottom row those three boxes going from left to right. So the bottom left box on this slide
illustrate or represents the average cost to manage a ton of refues and recycling for fiscal year 24-25. Uh for fiscal year 24-25, the average cost per ton for recycling was $6.21
compared to $32.15 for every refuge ton. The bottom middle box represents the average cost for this fiscal year. This year, the average cost to manage a ton of recycling has increased to $38 compared to $332 for
every refuge ton. And the bottom right box represents the average cost over the last five years to manage a ton of recycl excuse me a ton of refues and recycling. So during this five-year period, our cost per ton for recycling
average $940 lower than the cost to bury a refuge ton. And if you don't mind, mayor and council, I just want to give a quick shout out to our residents. Uh this year, each year around November, we
perform an audit at our MURF material recycling facility and uh our residents did a great job. We we're at a little over 11% contamination job or 11 and a half% contamination rate. So that's
important. Uh our IGA states if we if our threshold exceeds 15% then we have to pay uh residual cost. So the 24,000 tons that we bring there annually approximately 25 or 2400 tons is
actually contaminated. So, if we had to pay that $35 residue charge, that would significantly impact our our cost. So, a big shout out to our our amazing residents and our outreach team that has helped keep that uh contamination rate
low. Uh, in regard to comparing our monthly residential rate to other valley city other valley cities, we once again fall right in the middle of the pack. I will once again state as always the level of of service and the number of service we
provide to our residential customers far exceeds most of the other valley cities on this list. And with that, mayor and council, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Thank you so much. That's that was an interesting point. I didn't I didn't
realize that that we get penalized for contamination. That's that's good. We should spread the word a little bit louder. Um, Councilwoman Woman McCallen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, uh, David. I I love that you shouted out to our
residents and I love that you explained why that the education um from your team and from our city's information team that residents understand that their actions really affect others. But with that, I have a question. If you can go
back to the for um the chart that lists out the very first uh chart, it lists out residential, commercial, front load, rolloff right there. My question for you is Holiday Park.
It Holiday Park the area of housing. Why is that singled out? So, uh, Madame Mayor, Councilwoman, uh, Mallen, I want to say approximately in 2016 or 17 to give you guys all a little bit of
background about Holiday Park, I believe the borders are Osborne to Avalon Road, 68th Street to 64th Street. >> Very unique community. Uh, back in 2016 or 17, we established this rate. uh be
I've been here for 32 years. Prior to like 2012 or 13, uh we lost a s significant amount of business in that area. So the privates were running that and they came to find out due to the the wires that are overhead and all that
there there's a lot of uh accidents in that area. So they stopped providing services over there. So we then decided we're going to create a holiday park rate. We're going to pick them up commercial. We're also going to provide to to eliminate blight that's in that area. We're we created special holiday
right park rate. So what you're seeing on that rate if you most of them are most of the the properties in there are dup are forplexes. So that rate typically is divided by four and passed on to those uh the people and those
occupants in those businesses. >> Okay. Uh thank you. Um, also, so that makes sense then, uh, using, so you're using, uh, basically doing what a commercial entity would have done and it's not a commercial rate. It's it's
equivalent for being residential. >> Correct, Madame Mayor. Councilwoman, yes, that's correct. >> Okay. Thank you for that explanation. I knew there had to be an explanation because I thought, why would one of the poorer areas in Scottsdale be charged more? I wanted to make sure there was a
reason. And obviously it's safety and the overhead lines, all of that. So, thank you for explaining and that it actually gets divided up because it's a forplex. One person wouldn't be paying a greater amount. They'd be paying a a dividend of it, I guess, or division of it. So, thank you, Dave.
>> You're welcome. >> Uh, Councilwoman Whitehead. >> Oh, thanks. Okay, so I can't believe you've been there 32 years. Thank you. But the other thing is I that is just such a good government story, right? when the when the private companies give up on an area and don't provide services
that's we always fill in. So, good job. So, um on I just have a question. The you know the recycling markets are all all over the place. You know, is there one product in particular? Is it is it like cardboard that's c the failing of
the cardboard market today versus two years ago? Is that what we're seeing there? >> Yeah, Madame Mayor, Councilwoman Whitehead. Uh so the composite of our recycling stream is basically three or four main things. So it's our uh card
cardboard and mixed paper. So our fibers >> and then you have our PET are plastics and then you have aluminum and there's some other items in there. But the m majority of the impacts in our commodity markets are being are in the fiber markets and pet uh uh during this year
and I I should say during last year um there's a lot of the the fiber that gets cleaned up before going over overseas to the Asian markets. They have facilities here in the United States. some of those facilities shut down and so that's kind
of u created a a problem for that that specific area and then the pet I will say the Asian markets have been impacted by what China's doing as is in relations to kind of flooding the market with raw material in that so a good a good
example on the on the pet there's high density uh I I forget the name of the name of the material but it's a very valable commodity. For example, um just the previous year, uh our partners, Republic
Services, who processes our material, then markets it, they were getting around $1,000 a ton for that high density material. Now, it's around $60 a ton. >> Okay. Yeah, I know it it's it's a fluctuating market. I sure I don't like the idea of flooding it with the you
know nonrecycle but uh is do you know and one other question um so the Phoenix when we were sending it to the Phoenix MURF probably around the another time that we were paying more um they were recycling about 70% I think of what came
in or is the uh Republic Services Murf at that kind of level >> Madame Mayor and Councilwoman Whitehead. Uh so we currently, let me give you a quick background. In 2019, >> yeah, the our MURF that we have at the
Salt River uh landfill that's located there, that one burned down. And so for a little bit, two or three years, we were utilizing the city of Phoenix to recycle all of our material. We are now since 2023 taking a 100% of our material to the rep uh to the Salt River
community landfill. >> No, I know that. And thank you. But that's good. The public didn't know that. No, I guess my question was um the Phoenix was reporting over 70% of what came into their MURF as ending up in some sort of market. And I I you know what, maybe that's an off that's I'll
call you. So I was wondering if Republic Services is keeping up with that uh ability to uh you know divert most of you know 70% to a market to a um or if you know where they're at. So with
regards, Madame Mayor, Councilwoman Whitehead, with regards to the city of Phoenix, they do have some challenges with contamination. I think what you may be talking about possibly may maybe incorrect is that they do have a high contamination rate. They have challenges in certain parts of of Phoenix that do
have a higher contamination than Scottsdale. I'll give you an example. We had a panel discussion in Flagstaff uh three or four years ago and a member from the city of Phoenix team uh up was up there and approximately 45% of their
material at that time was was contaminated of the re overall recycling stream. So >> okay. So maybe I have bad data. We'll talk offline. Thank you and thank you for everything you're doing. >> You're welcome. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you very much. I don't see any other questions. So, thanks for
joining us here, Dave. Next, we have Aaron Peralt, uh, Planning and Development Services Senior Director. Good evening, mayor and city council members. As you know, the city
um I'm sorry, as you know, the city regulates development in property improvements throughout the community. With regard to that, the city also provides services to support the development community. Um in those efforts, we have a fee sheet that is
associated with those services that we provide. With that fee sheet, we review it annually as we're doing this evening with you. And for fiscal year 2627, the planning and development services department proposes no increases to our
existing rates in fees. However, what we are doing is we do have to add a few new fees and modify some of our existing fees due to new state mandates that are not unfamiliar to you. In terms of the
land division actions that the city provides services for, those actions um have been adjusted so that we do not have a public hearing process associated with them. So we need to adjust eliminate some of those fees and adjust
some other fees associated with that. In addition, as we've been talking with the community over the last two years, as well as with city council, we have some new statemandated case types that have been established and should sound very
familiar to you. ADUs, multifamily, and middle housing. With those case types, we now have to establish fees for the services that we will provide to review those case types. And then in in addition, as a department, we're taking
the opportunity this year to remove some fees that are associated with cost recovery for antiquated requests that we have on our fee sheet still. For example, providing information to our customers on compact discs. I can't remember a time where I've seen a
compact disc floating around the department. So really, those those eliminations are just really cleanup for our customers and the fee sheet itself. So what that looks like in terms of the new case types is we've established fees
based on the estimated work that would go into providing those services. In terms of accessory dwelling units, that's more of a minor review from a staff standpoint. So that proposed fee is similar to our administrative review that we already pro provide for other
minor reviews. In terms of multifamily and middle housing, that involves not only plan review but also design review associated with those projects. So those fees that were established are similar to our development review fees that we
have for other projects currently. In terms of the land division fees, as I mentioned before, we're eliminating some of those fees associated predominantly with the review and public hearing processes that we will not no longer be
doing and then readjusting um the preliminary plat and certification of correction fees um as per the state mandates that we are now providing. And then finally again those compact
discs and providing hard copies of our general plan and other ordinances. We have not had requests for those for years. Everything is provided easily online to our customers. Should anyone come in and really want a hard copy of
those um we can certainly print that inhouse and then just charge them the graphic printing fee for that. So again that's just a clean up for us. With that, that's the proposal for rates and fees for 2627. And I'm happy to answer any questions.
>> That was easy. I don't see anyone. And we have some eliminated. So, yay. >> Thank you. >> There we go. Thank you, Aron. Appreciate it. >> Uh, next we have Kevin McKe, Deputy Parks and Recreation Director.
Good evening, mayor, council members. Thank you for having us out this evening. We are proposing four um uh sets of rates and fee changes for the parks and recreation and preserve department. And um we'll really only see
um impacts for two of those four proposals, which I'll go through in just a moment. I will note that all of these fees were vetted and ultimately recommended for your approval by both our parks and recreation commission and our McDall and Preserve Commission.
So, first we'll start with the parks and recreation side of the house with our youth sports field allocation partner team rates. So, our parks and recreation division partners with several youth sports organizations that meet specific criteria spelled out in our youports
field allocation policy. So, through that um these groups receive priority for field reservations and they also um have the benefit of a discounted field rental rate.
Um, we recently updated this policy uh to prioritize residency for um for those organizations that are serving Scottsdale residents. And through that uh almost three-year process, we uh
developed some new criteria for that policy. And with those policy changes, we are now ready to roll those out next fiscal year and have to update uh the fees that we're assessing for that. So under the uh former policy, we had our
yous partners paying 50% of resident field rental rates year round. We are now introducing um additional um u non-primary season rates that will have
those groups paying 75% of those resident field rental rates uh during the non-primary season and that's really intended to help with our field prioritization. I'll also note that these fees go back to a special revenue fund that um uh
ultimately funds improvements going back to the fields used um by these partner groups. So those are not only city of Scottsdale fields but fields uh used through our intergovernmental agreements with the school districts. So you can see um these four different proposed
rates here. And again, those um uh two non-primary season rates are the new rates that we're introducing. To add some context, um that would come out to um uh for the partner primary season
rates uh at 50% that would be $5 per hour during the daytime and uh $1250 an hour for the evening time. And for the non-primary season, that would be $7.50 50 cents an hour during uh the daytime
and $18.75 during um evening hours. Next, we want to formalize uh a fee that we've piloted for the new roundhouse at the McCormick Stillman Railroad Park. So, if you're not familiar, um this
opened in August of 2025. It's our new indoor playground, which is just uh amazing and uh I know a lot of community members very excited for that. We've had a pilot fee in place of $6 um per entry for one hour. Uh that's
equivalent to two ride tickets at the park and um the first accompanying adult with a paid child is admitted for free. those um fees very affordable. I've got three small children. I can tell you it
doesn't get much cheaper than that. Um and they've been uh wellreceived by the community and um also align with the benchmarking that we've done. So we are hoping to make that uh permanent fee. Next over to the Mcdalor Preserve side
of the house. Um the preserve has a single day commercial use and guiding permit uh per person fee. So this fee applies to commercial activity within the preserve. So things like competitive trail runs, fundraisers, bus tours, bike
rental, drop off, etc. Uh this fee is charged in addition to daily commercial use and guiding and guiding permit fee of $50. That current fee is $5. We are proposing a modest increase to $7 and that will
help us achieve full cost recovery um and as well as it will align with um fees assessed by Maricopa County Park System. So again, we're going from $5 to $7.
And the last uh proposal we are making is really more of a clerical change um to uh make sure we are in line. We've gone through some reorganization over the last year. So this is to help clean up our rates and fees. This is the annual professional photography permit
and um this is adding a permit line to the preserve fee schedule. Um again following those organizational changes. So, that is all I have for you. Happy to answer any questions that you have. >> Thank you, Councilwoman McCallen.
>> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Kevin, for the presentation. I'm really glad that you guys uh looked at the residential um aspect of the youth sports and allocating those fields accordingly because many of the sport activities the
teams that were happening um we know that there are a lot of people who aren't residents and they were gaining the residence um reduction fee reduction by being a part of a group that presented itself as a Scottsdale group. So, taking the time for the parks and
recreation commission and your department um looking at that, making sure that those youth sports teams are actually predominantly Scottsdale residents in order to get that break um is really great. So, thank you for doing
that and investing the time and for all the people on the parks and rec commission that did that. Um I appreciate your work. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Councilwoman Whitehead. Thanks, Kevin. Looks great. I just want to call out Councilwoman Littlefield and I, we were
involved in that whole roundhouse discussion and it was so important to us then that if we used public dollars to make sure that pretty much it'd be affordable for all kids and so I'm thrilled to, you know, I was thrilled when that $6 fee was tested out and I'm
absolutely supportive of keeping it at $6. So, thank you for and and park staff committed to us then that yes, we will keep this affordable for all children. So, good job. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, uh, Councilwoman Littlefield. >> Thank you, Mayor. And yeah, I'll just
ditto what, uh, Solange just said. Thank you for doing that. >> Councilwoman Dascus. >> Hi, Kevin. Thank you so much. Um, on the single day commercial use guiding permit per person fee, uh, going from $5
to $7, that doesn't feel like a big number. Maybe achieving a $1,000 difference. Um, is there any opportunity for us to keep it at $5? I It seems like we're
nickeling and dimming a little bit here. What are your thoughts? >> Um, I'm I'm going to uh I'm I'm looking over to my experts over on the preserve side of the house. Um, but that >> I mean I don't we I want to encourage people to come. We want to keep it as as
low cost as possible. Um, I don't care what Maricopa County costs. I want people to come to our preserve, right? Right. I want them to come to Scottsdale and be motivated and think low dollars, you know, just like we uh were able to achieve the $6 for the roundhouse, you know, $5 here feel that feels nice.
That's a good number. And a thousand bucks really. So, I just to me I was just like that's that's one that like could we potentially take a look at that? Um and uh the other comments I had were on the
stadium, so they're not you. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I also I have a question about the uh photography professional photography fee. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Uh and where was it before if it's just been moved or whatever you've
mentioned the clerical update only? And why do we charge people to take pictures in the preserve? Um well I uh so this this change um yes to your point um Mayor Barowski uh was formerly listed under our what was
formerly the community services division and um so this this change is just uh reorganizing that under directly under the preserve um uh division. Um, this is a fee that, um, has been, uh, previously
approved, um, multiple times by the McDall andor Preserve Commission back in 2017 and 2020. And um I I could uh um ask my colleagues in the preserve uh department to maybe expand on that a
little more >> because it's not it doesn't seem like it would cost the city anything to have professional photographers taking pictures in the preserve and it would also seem to be like an advertisement for us potentially. >> So I'm super curious about this. Mayor,
members of the council, um Kelsey Lamper, preserve manager. Um this only applies to commercial photography, not personal photography. >> Do we have someone checking at the gate? Like, how does that even get enforced?
>> No, we do not have someone checking at the gate. um those commercial photographers have to apply annually or in this case um well this is the annual permit but there are also single day use
permits for professional photography um I mean it seems like everyone's could be a professional photographer with social media >> yeah enforcement is definitely something
that um we we cannot enforce 100%. Um but we do have success with ensuring that these um commercial photographers are permitted. >> Okay. And do you know what uh how much
revenue that generates per year? >> Currently that generates um I believe it's $3,500 a year. Uh 3,900 >> per year. >> Yeah, I don't I don't like that one. I
don't know. I'll let Councilwoman Whiteheads >> Yeah. So, I I'll weigh in on this. So, first of all, I just want to make sure everybody knows. I think they do. The preserve is free, right? So, I agree with Councilwoman Debbascus. We want everybody to have access. So these are
charges for commercial operations and I really support that and the reason I support that is because we do get just like in our swimming pool same thing we get complaints from the residents and the visitors if you have huge commercial operations coming in with lots of people
and sort of uh t taking up you know space in the preserve if you will. Um and in the photography it's not the person who wants to take a picture of a bird or it's just for like a wedding photo type situation. I think that is what I have always understood. So I
think it's just a delineation. It's not about revenue. It's just about balance keeping the preserve um accessible to the public and not in a sense taken over by commercial entities. I think in the early discussions gosh decades ago
that's really what we were trying to achieve. and ensure that in fact it is free and accessible to any visitor or member of the public who wants to come by. >> So, Councilwoman Whitehead just added a lot more color to that. So, is that the
criteria? What qualifies one as a commercial photographer? >> That is required to get a permit. What's the How's that defined? Madam Mayor, do >> you want to Yes. Thank you. as my colleagues looking up some data there. I just wanted to add a again a little more context. It's not uncommon for
municipalities to charge uh when there is public space when there is commercial activity that is generating potential profit. And so that is how many organizations look at it. Uh but that is certainly up to the governing body. If
someone utilizes something for personal utilization um personal use if you will then that feels different for a commercial activity uh that is likely charging someone else. So that's it's not uncommon to look at
public space through that lens, but that again is something up uh for council consideration. >> So I I was still looking for the answer on that. What qualifies someone? Thank you for that, Greg. Uh commercial photographer. >> Sure. Uh mayor, members of the council,
commercial would be classified as someone who is charging a fee um to others for those photographs. >> So like someone going to take their kids. Yeah. I had chess. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm going to pass this
along to Councilwoman Mckllen. >> Thank you, Mayor. um as the past chair of Parks and Recreation Commission two times, actually being on staff when we originally wrote fees and charges way back in the 80s. The commercial aspect
is really an important delineation because as taxpayers, you get everything for free. You go to your parks, you use all that. But if you start going to your basketball, the basketball court, say at Indian School Park or at Mountain View Park where someone's holding their own
aerobics class, not paying for the fees, they're using it. And so the use of the facility gets worn down, but it's not by a taxpayer, it's by someone else, a business making money off residents goods. So that is really important um to
point out in the preserve. Um, a professional photographer would also be possibly a class, someone teaching people how to shoot wildlife, things of that nature where people are being charged to attend a class and then they come out and they are possibly, you
know, louder or may need a certain private area. So, that charge would also incur something like that. Um, so it I know it seems nominal, but it's really important that our um facilities, our
preserve, our parks are used for our residents and people who visit Scottsdale, but that nobody's abusing that use um to the expense of the taxpayer. So, just a comment. >> Uh, Vice Mayor Clausman, >> this is the dumbest fee I've ever seen
in my entire life. This raises no money. This is useless. And this is about a principle of making sure that you could go free to a certain place, but you can't charge money for a certain place. Nothing's free. There's public services. Nothing's free. Free. It's t taxpayer
funded. Y'all are paying for it. I'm paying for it. Everybody here's paying for it. I hate when I hear politicians tell me that something is free. It's not true. They're just not charging a sir charge. The purpose of a tax is to is to do two things. influence behavior and
raise revenue. It is it is a legal form of pocketing other people's money. This does not work. Clearly, this tax is inefficient. How many people used this tax last year? >> How many? >> 13. >> 13 people.
>> Yeah. I think I think let's this is absolutely absurd. And if people are going to vote for a fee increase on principal or a uh keep a fee on principal because they love fees so much, God bless them. Right. But I'm not
supporting this. This is this raises no money and it's for 13 people. Get rid of it. >> Well, and taking for going along the lines of what you just said, it's for the 13 people that were honest. >> Right. Right.
>> There's about 1300 people that weren't. So that's >> You're 100% right. You're 100% right. Ridiculous. This is ridiculous. >> It's like uninforcable. And you know, the people that are just honest, it's kind of sad, which I'm proud of them for being honest, but um so all right,
enough of that. So I don't know how we carve some things out, but it sounds like we want to. I would agree with the $5 maintaining the $5 fee as well. I think seven is just awkward. Um yeah. So, Councilman Graham, >> so is there a motion to take a
sledgehammer to that fee? >> I direction. So, >> um my other question, my other suggestion is we should bring those 13 people in that paid and maybe do some sort of proclamation and do a do uh some sort of recognition. Like that's the
kind of honesty and integrity we want to celebrate in this city. Thank you. >> All right. I think you do. You have your direction? I I think we had some consensus on those items. So >> uh someone wants to keep the fee, but
we're you know all right. Uh moving right along. So thank you for your presentations. We appreciate it and keep up the good work. Uh, next we have Kyle Urban, Stadium Operations Senior Manager, who's probably very busy this time of the year. It's been beautiful
out there. >> Pleasure to be with you, Madame Mayor, and members of council. It was quite warm today, uh, but Team USA was at the stadium, so it's been quite a busy day for us. I'm here to talk to you today about, uh, raising fees at Scottsdale Stadium. Um, we're proposing a blanket
fee increase of 5% across all of our rental areas. We have roughly 11 different areas that we have a fee for. Those are broken down in the slides that will follow. We're proposing these changes because we haven't raised our
rates since 2023. Um, I've included some very generic information about the CPI that I won't bore you with, but our goal is to cover some of the cost increases we've experienced as the cost of doing business have gone up and the cost of custodial, which is our primary or I
guess our largest expense on an annual basis has gone up. We'll show you some of our fees here and I can talk to you a little bit about uh what's new and what's changed with this 5%. We've done some rounding as well to make these numbers easy to sell in the
public space. Um with that, you'll see there were a couple fees in the past that had 50 cents attached to them at the end. We've made it round uh so that when our events coordinator and our events team are going out in the public, they've got some easy and more sticky numbers to share with folks.
Additionally, um let's get to this one. You'll see there are a number of new fees that are included. Um among these fees, we have a fee for our first base patio, which was recently constructed within the last couple years. We came to uh get a pilot
fee for that. When we were under parks and recreation and ran with that at the pilot fee rate, we'd like to make that permanent. um that matches the Charo Lodge, which is a similarly sized and similarly popular area, just a slightly different uh piece of the stadium. Along
with that, we built a left field patio last year, and our hope is that that left field patio can also match those fees. Having fees for each of these spaces allows us to rent out the facility to our maximum ability. And having some consistency across those spaces helps when we're trying to sell
to folks that are interested in renting multiple areas. See, and this is sort of our last page here. And I apologize to folks in the audience. I know these are a lot of different fees, but they're 5% across the board as opposed to or without considering the ones that I called out
individually as new fees. And I'm happy to take any questions. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Dascus. Thank you, Madame Mayor. on the first slide that you showed us um that had the fieldhouse on the um yes uh you you zero
there's a zero out for the banyan room half day was that on purpose >> it was indeed and in fact I forgot to cover that. So, the reason we're taking that away, the banyan room is a third floor room at the stadium, and I believe many of you have met there before. It's
incredibly difficult to get equipment in and out of and very, very staff labor intensive. Uh, the half-day fee actually hasn't been used very heavily. And for us, we feel that if we're going to use that space, it behooves us to have it be a full day rental. >> So, we're just not going to offer it for
the half day bas. >> That is correct. And we would still offer the full day. >> Oh, okay. And then um what I wanted to understand with the remainder of the fees like the the um the left field and um you know the locker room is that year
round? Is that during spring training? Like do we have different fees for during spring? Can you explain that a little bit? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. Um with spring training, the Giants have exclusive use rights to Scottsdale Stadium in February
and March. So what they charge during that time we don't have a say in the other 10 months of the year we're looking to program those spaces as much as possible so that the citizens of Scottsdale can use the facility and everyone in the community of Scottsdale can benefit from it.
>> So the idea is that during the off baseball season someone might want to rent the left BM patio for an event and then that would be >> Exactly. And we actually have 22 different events that are booked for April at the stadium outside of that use
period. And year-over-year we continue to increase demand there. And as we expand, um, we certainly just want to keep up with the market. Um, we did some venue analysis in 2019 when establishing these fees for the first time and also
did some venue analysis in 2024 uh to look at what others are charging. and we're a little bit unique in that we have to compare not only to other ballparks um but know where we're located and compare to event venues in Oldtown that we're competing against every day. >> This is helpful. Thank you. >> You bet,
>> Councilwoman Whitehead. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Kyle. Um you guys have joined a you're doing a great job. A bunch of us were at the stadium and you had the fire drill and everything. You guys are calm as can be. So, good job on that. I was I was feeling for you. Um, so those are good
questions. So we, this is still pretty new in that we didn't really I I think when I first was elected, we didn't even have access to the stadium on the in the off season. We're we're recharging is So is this whole fee structure pretty new?
>> So we did have fees in place before historically. I can give you just a snapshot of sort of where we're at for this year in the non-use period or the non-Giants use period compared to where we were in 2122. >> No, I that's okay. I don't need that. I I just I know well obviously we built
the extension of the stadium, but it I thought that we the city did not use the stadium or use the fields uh offse. >> It's changed over time. Um, okay. Since since the '9s, since the new version of
the stadium was built, we used to have a AAA team. We no longer have that. >> Okay. >> Um, but we've gone from 33 event days in 2122 to close to 100. >> Good job. >> Um, and then we also have four mounts of baseball at the ballpark. So, >> yes. Okay. Well, good job and thanks for being here.
>> Thanks. >> Thank you. I don't see any other questions, so we appreciate you presenting to us tonight. >> Thank you. Uh, next we have Kevin Burke, uh, economic development and tourism senior director. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the
council. Uh, finally, the item you've all been waiting for. This is event banner fees. So, the city maintains 194 uh banners on light poles in the Oldtown area as well as provides ability for special event producers to use two
banners overhead on Scottsdale Road. Uh what we are proposing is a phased in three-year cost recovery approach to begin to recoup some of the actual costs of the city's contract costs for the placement and removal of these banners.
Uh primarily that is associated with the vertical banners which are pictured here on those 194 light poles throughout Oldtown. So, uh, at present, the fees for the horizontal banners across the street are $150. Uh, we would
propose next year to increase that to 200. At the end of the three-year period, that fee would be increased to $300. For the vertical banner fees, the smaller banners on each of those light poles. Our current fee is $25. So, we're proposing in the first year to increase those to $33. Those would be increased
to $50 at the end of the three-year uh phased in cost recovery period. I'd be happy to answer any questions on that. >> I just I I have to ask why is it necessary to what's have costs got up
gone up for us to to manage these or what's what's the basis for the increases? Madame Mayor, members of the council, historically, my understanding is that city staff actually was the was responsible for taking uh putting up and
taking down those banners. A number of years ago, uh we stopped doing that. It was essentially overtime costs that the city was incurring to do that. And so we moved to an outsource or contracted model. And so we know very clearly what the cost is to actually put those banners up and take those banners down because we are paying a contractor to do
it. Right? So, in this current fiscal year, the city is effectively subsidizing the cost of placing those banners. And so, this three-year cost recovery approach is intended to close that gap. >> Okay, that's helpful. I appreciate it. >> Thank you very much, Kevin. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next we have Mike Beck, a library
department director. Okay. Good evening, Mayor and Council. It's my pleasure to be with you tonight. I'm here to talk and represent our proposed library fees for 2627. Next slide, please. So, first, I'm requesting formal
establishment of rental room rates for the designated civic center library platinum room and the Arabian branch collaboration meeting rooms. These rooms are currently not on the meeting room schedule. So, the library regularly uses our rooms for programming. So when
they're not in use, uh we rent these rooms. They're available for private and commercial rentals through facilities booking office. Reservations are managed centrally through and are interested parties can book online through that office or by calling 48-312-7707.
Currently the library has eight meeting rooms that are available. So this would raise our total to 10. Um, so what we're asking for is a formal approval to add these existing meeting rooms to our rates and fees schedule. These rooms are
already fully equipped and so with council direction, these rooms can be made almost immediately after July 1 pending your approval. There's clear demand for public uh facility meeting spaces. So like HOAs, businesses and private people can uh rent these rooms.
By adding these spaces uh spaces, this will expand our availability, meet growing demand and generate additional revenue. The library will continue to look for ways in which we can generate uh additional revenue opportunities for rental rooms, but also we can market and
promote this service as well. Next, I'm proposing the reestablishment or establishment of a $15 collection agency fee for long overdue materials. The library has utilized a collection agency since 1998 and many valley libraries use this same provider. This
service has a strong return on investment. So for every dollar we spend on invoicing, we get $6 in either financial restitution or our materials returned back. So, for example, in fiscal year 24-25, we spent 14,000 on invoices and we recovered over $93,000
in either financial um restitution or in our returned materials. Prior to sending an account to a collection agency, patrons receive up to three notifications from the library to kind of give them a heads up and a warning that um the items are overdue. So, we do
notices at 3 days, 6 days, and 10 days. So, this proposed $15 fee would only apply to those patrons who have ignored those notifications and uh only sent to the collection agency after 45 days after the last notice. So, at least 55
days notice. So, after that, we elicit the services of the collection agency and they do a general nudge process meaning that they further include up to three letters. They also do multiple emails, phone calls, and even do skip tracing if necessary to kind of help
safeguard and protect our collection. Overdue accounts are updated daily so the patron returned those materials and collection agency referrals are submitted weekly. So when materials are not returned, they are marked lost.
So the $15 fee would cover approximately 128% of the average agency cost. So, we paid directly $11.73. So, we're proposing a $15 onetime flat fee that accounts for inflation, postage increases because we work, they work
through the postal service, but also material replacement and staff time. So, this is a cost that the city currently absorbs. And so this proposal simply passes that cost to the small number of patrons that are having materials at least over 55 days overdue and uh who
have not respond to repeated notices. Importantly to note is that since July 1st, 2020, the library is not charged overdue fines. So library materials check out for free. Our goal is not to penalize patrons but to help ensure the timely return of materials so that
others may access and reserve them. Recovering materials recruites reduces replacement costs. So like almost invariably the the items that are checked out are more than likely the new materials and so we also have to replace those materials. It helps preserve the book budget so we stretch our book
budget dollars more for new titles rather than purchasing replacement or duplicate copies. And it also allows patrons to receive requested materials more quickly. And and so we're anticipating that this would proposal would probably uh approximately be 9,000 in additional
revenue. Finally, I'm proposing a modest fee for a 3D printer usage. So earlier this year, this mayor and council approved the library's $25,000 maker space grant. So you thank you for that. So we are already in processing that grant or
implementing it. And so we have purchased new 3D printers. Currently, the 3D print jobs are free during the grant term, but after July 1, we're proposing a modest fee of 10 cents per gram per print job for each 3D printing
job. So, the good news is the pre uh printer CAD software tells us exactly how much it weighs. And so, it makes the pricing transparent and easy to calculate. And within just a week and a half, if you go to the next slide, I put
a modest $500 fee. And I'll humbly fall on the sword. In a week and a half of launching it, we've already have 74 3D print requests. So, I might be able to add a one or a zero on that $500. So, I think we've really hit on something big. It's a value added resource and it's a
new service. And so, we're looking for opportunities to continue this service beyond the term of the grant. And so, with that, um, I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have at this time. Councilwoman Dascus, Mike, thank you so much. Um, my little
girls use the library. Recently, we had a project on Marie Curi and um uh my daughter couldn't find the book and so uh we we I got several emails and finally we found it in her library bag that she got as a a third grader. So, of
course, she put it responsibly where it was supposed to go. Um and so we have been recipients of these emails of course not to collections but um I think it's really important that we maintain it uh in a in this kind of
friendly you know if you're overdue but you know there's no cost. Um sometimes those things happen. So um uh I'm not really comfortable with the idea of having collection agency fees. I I feel like we want to really encourage people use library. I understand your point
which is that we want the books back so that other people can enjoy them as well. Um but I do feel like the system works really well today. Um I get I get emails they let me know and um and so I I would recommend that we take that fee out. It it doesn't seem to bring enough
revenue to be worth the irritation for me. You know, you might then decide not to use the library because you're aggravated over 20 bucks or something. So the 15 bucks. So, um I I would recommend that we remove that. I did see that um the offer for the free um 3D
printing that came to residents. Um I I received the email. I'm sure many of us did. I think that's really neat. Um and so I'd be real interested in maybe you can come give us an update after a few months. How is that going? What are people Can you give us some pictures of
what people are building? Um and you know, I I think that could be really fun. So, >> fantastic. Thank you, Council Member Dascus. Councilwoman Mckllen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh Mike, thank you for the presentation. I have a question about the room rental. Um is this for
Scottsdale residents only or uh can non-residents reserve the room at a greater price? >> Yes, ma'am. Uh Mayor, Council Member Macallen, that is correct, too. And so the um platinum room is the rectangular room on the basement level of the civic
center and the uh collaboration room is the room directly behind the public service desk at Arabian. So yes, >> but um is it reservable only for Scottsdale residents or can non-residents reserve it and be charged extra how we do all our other fees everywhere else?
>> Yes. And so mayor uh council member Macallen and so we would just be adding these fees so that existing policy would still be in place. So yes, so what we would do is they would have a um yes we'd have a commercial rate and then we also have a resident or non-resident
rate, I believe. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead. >> Thank you, Mayor. So, I will say that using humor and logic, I also no longer support the $3,000 uh revenue stream on
the photography in the preserve. But I um Thank you, Mr. Quasman, and all. So, what was the fee? Go back to uh Councilwoman Dubas's comment on the the service, whatever, the debt collection.
And how much can show me where's that fee that how much are we collecting on that? >> It's about twothirds down uh council member uh under miscellaneous. So we get we pay this fee currently out of uh the library's operating budget. So it's about $11.73
right now. And so the collection agency fee also helps us um put some gravitas behind it. So typically we'll have anywhere between 360 and a thousand books that go to law status. On any typical year, the library adds about 16 to 18,000 volumes a year. So if you're
doing quick math, we potentially are losing anywhere from about 4,000 to 12,000 books. And so we staff is recommending the collection agency fee. So instead of saying can you please bring our materials back, we just say please don't bring our back uh please
bring our back materials pretty please. So this gives us a little gravitas. we're already customers and residents are already able to check out the materials for free. And so we feel that this one small $15 fee was worth um charging that as an offset to help
balance out that fee because if they continue to if we continue to have materials that go to that loss rate, you know, we could actually almost break even on our print collection. And so, like I said, in a typical year, we add 16 to 18,000 new items. And so if we're running that gamut of having between
four and 12,000 books lost a year, we're barely getting our collection ahead. And so that's why we're coming to council tonight to propose this fee to help stop that a little bit. So >> yeah, I think I it is a really friendly service. I certainly have spent many, you know, many hours in the library with
my three kids when they were kids. Um I I kind of I I feel like I want to leave that to your discretion. I want to support your advice on that because um libraries do struggle and we've done
really well and keep our libraries clean well stocked and adding new services and the 3D printers. So cool. So I I think that's something that yeah it doesn't sound like something I would want to support a collection service but because
we are so uh resident oriented and we we're so good. I had a book, my son left a book in the desert, so when I brought it back, it had little tooth marks in it from the little mice out there and it was rejected. Um, I thought it was cute,
but um, and then I the room rental is huge because I do get requests for a room. So, I think that's really important. And again, I'm just the maker space, the 3D printer, you know, we're just we're just Scottsdale and this uh, libraries were just one of the many reasons we fell in love with Scottsdale.
So I think if you are advising us to keep that service to to add that gravitas to make sure that those people who really aren't going to return the books otherwise I'm going to support you on that. So thanks >> you mayor council member >> Vice Mayor Clausman. >> I have a dumb question. Why don't we
just treat people like adults not have collections services and just if you don't return the book by a certain amount of time cost money to replace the book. So, uh, mayor, council member Cosma, and so we do, and so that's what we do. So,
when somebody has an item that's more than 45 days lost, they get charged or that book goes to loss status, and then they're charged the retail price of the book that we pay for. For example, if somebody checked out 30 overdue books and didn't bring them back, we're looking at anywhere between $500 to $800
for that. We hired the collection agency to try to get that whole entire $500 to $800 in materials returned, right? And then that's when we charge the collection agency fee. The library has done its due diligence, but they're not responding to us. And therefore, we have to respond and forward their account to
the collection agency. So, you know, we're talking about real numbers. Like, for example, the collection agency from the last fiscal year, that was $93,000 in materials that we didn't have to buy back again. Did I I hope I answered your question clearly. Thank you, Council Member
Cosman. >> All right. I don't see any other questions or comments. And uh I would support leaving that to your discretion, too, for sure. >> Thank you. >> All right. We'll move along to Chief last but not least, Chief Leuk.
>> Thank you and have a good evening. >> Thank you so much, >> Police Chief Joseph Leuke. Good evening everyone. Good evening uh honorable mayor, council members. Um mine should be relatively quick. I'm covering two fee adjustments.
Um as you know, as part of the service to our community, we provide uh safety and security to those who want to hire our officers in an offduty capacity. And in addition to that, sometimes we do provide a vehicle for these services if the area has a footprint large enough
that we need to patrol or it's something on a roadway and we need a vehicle with lights and what have you. So we have um increased rates ranging anywhere from about 10.5% to about 13 a.5% as outlined on this table. What this does is it
brings us directly back into market uh in the valley of where our uh where police officers um what they earn in in any offduty capacity. And so you'll see um a little bit of a a increase in um
holiday pay because that's usually um earned it about double time and a half. And so that's why you see much bigger figures there. But it's um pretty straightforward. The vehicle fee, which we do collect to offset some of the cost of using the vehicle, went up by about a dollar to get us right back into market.
So, we weren't too far away. And that is all I have, but if you have any questions, happy to answer them. >> Great. I don't see any questions. Good job. >> Thank you. >> The closer. >> The closer. >> All right. Uh, we do have two public
comments and sorry, oh, city attorney, >> mayor, member, excuse me, mayor, members of the city council, we would ask that the council um do a motion regarding the the um
suggested fees. Um, just so we're clear about the direction tonight. >> Do you want to remind us? I think we took out the $7 one. We took out the Do you have a list? >> Yes. Um, so the guide fee would be reduced from $7 to $5. The commercial photography would be eliminated. And
then when we're not 100% clear on is um whether the council supports the collection fee or not. >> If if he thinks it's the right way to go, that's a lot of books that are missing. That's a lot of money. >> Yeah. >> 93,000. Yeah.
I would make that motion then that um we proceed with the suggested uh fees and charges uh minus the making the one from 7 to five and excluding the $300 photography fee. >> Sounds I think we should all nod or do
we want to >> I mean we're not really supposed to vote. I thought >> it says it's agenda for possible direction. >> Okay. Well, that's that's direction I support. Let let's hear from the speakers real quick.
So, Ben Coffman, are you still here? >> All right. Thanks for your patience. >> Hello. My name is Ben Kaufman, address 8007 East Mlullen Boulevard. Um, been a resident for 15 years, first time speaker. So, uh, wanted to talk about
trash. Um, so really appreciate the city. You know, I think they've been doing a great job in the trash collection. Pleasantly surprised with the 2% increase that's proposed, but I do want to point out some some alarming growth rate trends in
this solid waste. Um, since 2017 to this proposed rate, trash has gone up 102%. uh compared to uh other cities which haven't seen such a drastic increase. Um
so Chandler has gone up 28%, Tempee's gone up 38%, Mesa's gone up 22% in that same period. So it's pretty alarming that Scottsdale has gone up 102% where other cities have managed I think a
lower percent growth over that time period. Um, and I recognize that service levels could change. Uh, other factors play into it, but I think having that detail in this presentation would be helpful for residents to understand the
changing dynamic and budgetary factors. Uh, being an enterprise fund, um, I do think it's important to have the budget to come along with the rates so we can understand the inputs that the rates are coming to. Um and so I think there's
just a lot of gaps or things that are missing in the presentation for the rates if it is supposed to uh support the budget and the operations of the cost. Um couple factors just really want to highlight. Uh so the budget piece um really would be helpful to have cost
drivers really historical and projected cost drivers in terms of gas uh vehicle cost uh the recycling costs usage and so it's hard to pick out and and paint the picture of really what's going on to really drive the cost growth uh to
reflect that residency uh need. Um, also really want to highlight over the past couple years of the presentation, uh, there have been items that have talked about in terms of ROI. Uh, a good idea is the alley conversion cost about a million dollars over four years and
there was illusions to cost savings. So we'd be curious what we have received in returns of savings on those investments. Uh and then lastly it is 2% but uh what is the current fund balance of the solid waste uh department and could the fund
balance be used to minimize or to avoid a cost increase uh this year while we evaluate um the cost in totality. So again really love the service. I think they do a great job. I just uh I think having some transparency and just having
a a a more lively discussion in terms of the the total uh program would be helpful for residents and the and the staff and and council. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you very much. You raised some excellent points and I see um Dave
Bennett uh solid waste services department director is back to maybe speak to some of those. So, thank you for coming to visit with us tonight. Yeah, Madame Mayor, council members, if I could allow, if the gentleman can come back up to the mic, I just want to make sure I address all of his points. Number
one, when we talk about our rates and fees, um I want to say back in 2016, that's when we we had our rate was $16 for our residential monthly rate was $16. At that that year, we did a u they
had a rates and fees analysis. Hadn't been done for 10 years. We hadn't raised our rates. So you had a a a marketable change then. And then as we went into as far as cost drivers going into sub subsequent years, one of our main cost
drivers was related to operational costs during COVID. And then we had cost drivers related to recyclables. If you remember in 20 believe 21, fiscal year 21 when we had the loss of the MURF and we had to take our materials to
recycling or to Phoenix that IGA with the community. They uh Republic services who was the oper operator of that. They claimed force majour. So we had to renegotiate uh a recycling agreement. The previous rec uh recycling agreement
had a floor price of $5. So no matter what the recycling markets were at that time, we always received $5. That completely changed after that. So that was another cost driver. And if you guys can remember um and we're seeing it this year, uh previous to that, we didn't
have the most stellar uh safety record. I believe 2021 2022, we were paying out uh around a million2 in property and liability claims. this year or last year I should say fiscal year 24-25 we paid
out $48,000. Some other decreased costs this year that we that we're seeing is our uh fleet that's fuel costs and M&R costs have been reduced and to speak about the alley conversion the ROI we did see that
so in 20 2003 we had approximately I want to say 70ome 6,000 residents right now we have 85,000 then at that time we were hauling around 55,000 residential tons each year. We're
doing that now. This past year, we hauled with 85,000 residents, we hauled away uh disposed of 55,000 residential tons. And so that right there is a a big impact of removing all of those extra recycling or excuse me those extra
refuge containers out of the the alleys and residents were forced to have curbside uh container service and pay for the extra tonnage that they were actually uh producing. So I hope that helps you with some of the questions and
>> No, I appreciate it. I Yes, I appreciate I mean I think it's just having the budget to go along with the rates to have a complete informed discussion for the residents to see, right? Because I think you guys probably are efficient. Um it's just hard to understand that.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. That was a great response off the cuff there. So, thank you. Appreciate it. >> Uh let's see. We're done. Are we done? Oh, Linda, I'm
sorry. Linda Milhaven. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Linda Milhaven. I live here in Belgian Trail in Scottsdale. I'd like to talk to you about water rates and fees. I'm glad to see from the discussion tonight, it looks as though you're going to plan on supporting the current rate increases.
Um because, as we know, uh I I applaud all of you for the work you do to try to keep tax rates and fees as low as possible. Um, but we know that we also need to blend that with quality. None of us chose to live in Scottsdale because it is the cheapest housing we can find.
We all pay a premium to live here because of the quality. And so I think the same thing should apply when it comes to water. It's not that we want the cheapest water, but we need to be investing in quality and sustaining our water future. So I'm glad to see that you're going to approve the the
increases. As you know, the water rates pay for capital improvements. And one of the things that is of great concern to me is the fact that you're planning to take out the Bartlett Dam expansion and the advanced purification, water purification out of the 5-year CIP.
I've spoken to you and disagreed with a lot of actions this council has taken, and nothing causes me greater concern than to take those two water projects out of the long-term uh capital plan. I know it's been suggested it's not a change in policy, but it in fact
suggests a change in policy. We uh we know that the water from the we're going to have to take water cuts and we need to find additional sources of water by leaving them in the CIP. We it stays as part of the plan. It's a placeholder to say that we need to continue to
investigate those options as additional sources of water. To take them out is suggesting that those are projects we're not interested in. And I think that that would be folly without additional discussion. Also, three senior members of the water department have departed to
make substantial changes in policy without new leadership in place. I think would also be folly. Uh and then finally, um the sustainability plan included a section that talked about conserving water. And as we approach the drought, we not only have to look for
additional sources of water, but we have to find ways to encourage and inform our residents about how to conserve water. And so I would encourage you to also at least revisit the um the water conservation portion of the sustainability plan to help inform our
residents. And then uh interestingly enough, the solid waste conversation, make a few more comments there. solid waste conversation. The sustainability plan also included sections about how to improve reuse and recycling which as we saw recycle cost us a lot less than refu
and so I think that would make common sense as well. So I hope that um you will live up to our long history of leadership in the water in the water world approve the rate increases today leave the two projects in the five-year
CIP and revisit the sustainability plan to enhance uh water conservation. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you very much, Linda. All right, that concludes our public comment period and so that is closed and so we have a motion on the table. I think there was a
second. Do you have the motion? You You Okay, >> we're not there yet. I'm sorry. That was on the agenda item. Those comments. All right. Uh so we have a motion on the table with a second. So let's take a
vote on that. All right. Now we have public comment. All right. Which you'll be up here shortly. Public comment is reserved for Scottsdale citizens, business owners, and or property owners to comment on non-aggendaized items that are within
the council's jurisdiction. No official council action can be taken on these items and speakers are limited to three minutes to address the council. If you wish to speak and you haven't already signed up by this time at night, you can let the city clerk know. But uh I'll
start with Steve Sutton followed by Melissa Kemp, Linda Milhaven, Avon Cahill, and Crystal Care. Good evening, council. At last week's council meeting, Adam Quasman and what can only be described
as an emotional outburst erroneously asserted I made a threat and an appeal to incite physical violence against the council. He was referring to me saying an over 2,000-year-old phrase that today is a metaphor for unwavering commitment to a
cause, relentless advocacy for a single goal, calling for the total defeat of something. The day after Mr. Quasman's outburst, Scottsdale city attorney asked me if I would be willing to meet to discuss helping him with his goal to ensure residents, staff, and elected officials interact in an respectful and
productive environment. My attorney and I met with a city attorney today. Today it was made perfectly clear to the city attorney that I have not and am not threatening physical violence. I have not never acted in a way that a reasonable person could interpret as a physical threat to the council. I have
always acted and will continue to act within the bounds of the law. It is very hypocritical for any council member to imply I am a threat since when since May 2025 through action and inaction the council has increased the
probability I'll be physically assaulted. What some of you had said inside and outside this chamber what your surrogates have published for you on social media and said in person to disparage and harass me. Barry Graham's false and failed attempt to use the police to intimidate and potentially
arrest me has all increased the probability I will be physically attacked. None of you have publicly protested those threatening actions toward me. Now, what was said at the February 24th council meeting that should be most alarming to everyone was
Adam Quasman saying, quote, "From language in German that did not start until there were Jews on the council." Mr. Quasman is insinuating I made anti-semitic comments on September 25th, 2025. I use German words that do not
have an English equivalent. The words vlam baseron which roughly translates as an attempting to make something better but making it worse and sha which means pleasure from someone's misfortune. For the record, I am not what Mr. Quasman and Mr. Graham supporters have said I
am. I am not an anti-semite, mentally ill, or someone on a police watch list. At the end of the same 20 September 25th council meeting, I asked Mr. Graham to ask, pardon me, I asked Mr. Quasman to ask Mr. Graham to intercede in stopping their supporters from calling me a skin
head, which is coded language for Nazi. Mr. Quasman refused to do so. Mr. Quasman's comment insinuating the use of German language is anti-Semitic is an insult to all Germanspeaking people. Mr. Quasman, have you and your
supporters no decency, sir. >> Thank you, Steve. Appreciate you coming down tonight. Uh Melissa Kemp. We need a short person mic. Hi, Melissa Kemp. Address on record. Uh, last week I drew a bright line that
listening here during active city council meetings in city hall on the record has primacy. Anything else, any other conversations offsite, they're just conversations, but it's not verifiable accountable listening as you would get in city hall during a public
session. Tonight is about the cost of treating that distinction like it doesn't matter. On February 11th, 2025, this council voted to eliminate the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. That night, 47 people signed
up to speak, and reporting shows that 45 of them spoke against eliminating the office. Only two spoke in favor of closing it. That's in addition to the multiple emails that you received ahead of time. When 45 residents warn you on
the record and only to applaud, who exactly are you listening to? It's clearly not the residents who took the time to show up and speak on the record because the residents did the hard part. They signed up. They showed up. They followed the rules and they put their concerns, their thoughts, and their
warnings into public record. But the four member block voted to remove the office anyway. You could have paused and taken the matter under consideration and looked for alternatives, but you didn't. If you are going to justify a decision
like that by alleging waste, inefficiency, discriminatory practices, then the public should be able to see your data behind those allegations on the record that supports that decision or action before you take it. Not ideology, not
talking points, data. To date, I have seen no data that supports the position you took against the vocal, present, and active voices that were here in this room. Makes me mad. Ah, but now the city is absorbing the fallout from that
decision. Controversy, mistrust, reputational damage, and the real resources that you've drained. We've had ethics complaints from the uh affordability and ADA and accessibility act on infrastructure that cost us hearings, judges, staff times, and legal
review. In January 2026, the NAACP publicly called for the city manager to resign over how their concerns and discussions were handled by our staff, not diversity, equity, inclusion. What is the stewardship question that Scottsdale voters should hold on to as
they move into election season? In a recent work study session, the council spent extensive time discussing how to best use a $100,000 of a budget line item in a Scottsdale tourism. The cost of the negative publicity alone, and the
headlines coming out of city hall, the internal cleanup that follows these decisions are easily more than $100,000. You cannot market your way out of a trust problem. in the future. Stewardship isn't just what you choose to spend your
revenue on. Understand that good stewardship is avoiding the predictable, needless mistakes and expenses from ignoring public comment and citizen complaints. Thank you. >> Thank you, Linda Mullhaven.
Nope. Okay. Uh, Avon Kale. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Ivon Cahill. I do agree we need a shorter person mic up here. Um, thank you for allowing me to speak. My address is on record. I just wanted to talk a little bit again tonight about a subject
I've talked about for the past uh several months and that's about transparency when it comes to the cancellation of the roundabout. It seems like um we get the story if we ask about it that we just swap funds, everything just, you know,
went away. Don't look here. Everything was just taken care of. This swap for this and that swap for that. But there's some stuff that I believe that we haven't been told and I really would like to get somebody on council please give us a report on it. I know there was
a cost to redesign the project from the roundabout to the signal. I know there was a cost for additional land for the intersection. I know that there was a penalty for cancelling the federal project. I heard
it was 10% but it may be more. I know there was a cost to relocate utilities that had already been moved and then they already they had to move back again and then you had to pay for penalties and or like I said on the existing
contract. One of the people in this department that I talked to that has since left the city also said there was close to a $2 million grant in there for the safety. So, I was recently at a meeting and somebody asked one of the council
members, "Well, why did the prior council even approve a roundabout?" And they said, "Oh, I don't know. I guess it was ideology." I mean, that's totally a lie. It wasn't ideology. And many people in this room that followed this know
that's a lie. So, it was an F-rated intersection. Do any of you know the names of the people that died at that intersection? Do any of you know the names? Do any of you know the names of the three people
that had lifealtering injuries at that intersection? Probably not. So to tell a constituent, oh, it was ideology, the Green New Deal, we wanted to get rid of that. Is just false and it's misleading and it it really makes me angry. I'm not
a fan of roundabouts. I hate them, but to lie about it is not correct. And then to hide the fee is not correct. Also, I heard at that same meeting somebody made a flippant comment about, well, can you imagine putting roundabouts where they
have to haul horse trailers? And if you remember a very distinguished citizen, resident of our community who lives right by there, Lee Courtourtney, who's a very renowned in the Arabian horse world and also as a realtor friend of
mine, came to testify that night. She came and said she'd much rather have the roundabout because she didn't want her horse trailers being t-boned and her horses being t-boned. and to say that it's ridiculous to put it there when
people talk about is it's just not fair. So, I hope that you start to get some reality in this and I hope that you'll be honest with why things were cancelled. Yes, it was could have been an A-rated intersection for safety with
the roundabout. It was an F. It will be better, but it's only going to be an E-rated intersection. So, you're still going to have a signalized intersection with a very dangerous spot there. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Avon. Uh, next we have Crystal Carroll, and that's our last speaker. Um, in the non-aggendaized public comment. >> Hi. Um, thank you for letting me speak,
uh, Madame Mayor and City Council. Um, I wasn't going to get up and speak, but I want to I think I need to stand up for other um small businesses. I'm speaking as a small business in Oldtown. Um, after the last time I got up here and
spoke, um, I want to address something that started uh, circulating the community. And um it's come to my attention that several people had came into my cafe after speaking pretty passionately and told me that uh Quasman
was letting people know I was an anti-semite. And so I think that we should be able to which I am not an anti-semite. I'm engaged to a Jewish man. So that lie kind of backfired. But
as a small business, we should be able to get up here and speak and express our concerns or whatever's going on without people spreading vicious, horrible lies in the community. And sadly, not only
was this told by to me by several people, it's upsetting even as I talk about it, but it was also told to my fiance by other Jewish people that Quasman let them know I was an anti-semite. So, which I am not. So, I
just think that you guys need to be help. you guys are in a and uh you're working for the taxpayers and you need to represent everybody and it takes a it takes time away from our family, away from work to spend gosh, I've been here
for two and a half hours. Uh and to to do that and then you trash our name in the community just is not it's not right. and I am just a community member and it it's actually in the state of Arizona you can't uh viciously accuse
people of lies because it's slander. So I just want to encourage you to still get up and speak and um we shouldn't have to worry about any kind of slander in our own community. Thanks. >> Thank you Crystal. All right, that concludes our non-aggendaized public
comment. And next we have receipt of citizens petitions uh petition in this case and uh Steve Sutton is going to come tell us about the petition he has presented which is related to his previous petition on
citizen petitions this and it asserts that the council's rules of procedure violate article 2 section 15 of the Scottsdale city charter and requests that the council eliminate option B of section 8.2
of the rules of procedure. Go ahead, Steve. >> Well, you've already said much of what I was going to say. U this petition is motivated by a couple of things. one that certainly got the attention of
people, the actions of the council to hinder and discourage public criticism through public comment of any kind by changing many rules, including the petitioning rule. But more importantly, the concern that the current rules are
in violation. Uh, this petition is Scottsdale City Charter, Article 2, Section 15 mandates that any citizen of the city may appear before the council at any regular meeting and present a written petition and that such petition shall be acted upon by the council in
the regular course of business within 30 days. The council's rules of procedure violates the charter and requiring citizens to submit petitions to business days in advance of a council meeting and by also allowing the council to outrageously dodge acting on citizen
petitions by directing the city manager or other responsible charter officer to investigate the matter and prepare a written response to council with a copy to the petitioner. thus avoiding the charter's requirement for the council to act in the regular course of business
within 30 days as required by the charter. In accordance with article 2, section 15 of the Scottsdale City Charter, we the undersigned hereby petition the Scottsdale City Council to eliminate option B in section 8.2 of the council's rules of procedure. as
agendaizing the petition for the next available council meeting will allow a charter officer to make presentation for consideration by the council and in full light of the public. Thank you. >> Thank you, Steve. I don't have my speaker screen up. Anyone want to talk
about this? >> Mayor, I apologize. The computer froze. Okay. You can do a voice vote when it comes time. >> I don't have anything to vote on. I don't know if anyone wants to make a motion or if anyone has any comments. >> I mean, I'll talk about this for a
minute. I don't I think it makes sense to agendaize it. I mean, there are certain occasions where maybe a report is is easier. Anyone want to talk about this? I mean, not easier, but more appropriate, I should say.
You know, petitions have played a really big role. Thank you, mayor. I guess I'm taking the floor. Petitions have played such a huge role in our city's budgets. So, petitions are really important. We were requested because of staff timing.
I mean, our staff work very long hours. That's something that concerns me that there's just a need to have the two-day period. And at times uh residents come forward with a petition that makes no sense to
agendaize. I think the key is is if a petitioner wants it agendaized is to really reach out to the different council members ahead of time and basically lobby them to get it on an agenda. Plenty of times I have voted to agendaize something but I've been
outvoted or vice versa. So I think it's critical because uh while Mr. Sutton has brought forth a lot of petitions and in fact we've acted on them. Um I I think we've acted on them without agendaizing and certainly the dog park we just took
care of administratively. So I think it's you know this has worked. This isn't um an affront to anybody, but there is a reality that when you submit a petition, it takes time and so we need to um
and we are better at evaluating it if we have time. So I I don't think two days is a huge penalty. I think having that option to have staff just take care of something is makes us more efficient and actually helps a lot of petitioners. So,
I um I would argue that uh again, petitions are important, but I don't support it. I don't I'm happy to have the city manager look into it or to take no action and just to encourage Mr. Sutton to get those petitions in two days ahead and if you really want
something agenda, call each of us and give us your reasons. And we we do listen. >> Thank you. So, I also want to point out that I would prefer to get rid of number three, take no action, honestly, because I think that having some response when
someone takes on the, you know, the challenge and the time to submit a petition to us, it's there's usually some questions that need to be answered or answered or information provided. So,
I' I'd be more inclined to to do a removal of the take no action so that at least we get some response to the uh the petitioner. >> I'd support that. I' I'd motion to
remove take no action. >> Oh, sorry. >> Yeah, we hear from the city attorney. >> We We can I guess we could agendaize it to talk about it. >> Yeah. Mayor, members of the council, it's only agendaized for one of three things. Either um agendaize it for a
later meeting, take no action, or direct the city manager or another responsible charter officer uh to uh do a report. >> So, I'll make a motion to agendaize it for a future meeting.
>> I'll second it. That way we can discuss maybe taking no action off there. >> And can I speak to my second? >> Sure. Of course. >> Thank you, mayor. Um I believe I was one of the people that asked for the two-day um waiting period on petitions because
of the staff turnaround and when they were coming at us rapidly over the last year and we literally would get a petition thrown at us as we're starting. So then you're having public officials who are not educated on what the petition is or the understanding of why
it was needed. So in order for and to make sure that it was a resident, we had a gentleman who came to several city council meetings who was not a resident handing in petitions. So this gives our staff time to actually authenticate that
it's resident driven and that um the educate us on what it is. So uh I would support keeping the two-day time. I know that may not be popular, but it would give you the residents um an opportunity to have us make educated
decisions, which is important. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And before we vote, uh, Councilman Graham has a something to say. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'll just make an alternate motion for item number two. >> All right, let's uh vote on that.
All right, that motion passes. So, we will not agendaize that for a future meeting. Thank you very much, Steve. Appreciate you being here tonight. Moving right along, mayor and council items, PS, PRS appointments. This is an item that was continued uh from last
week's meeting, actually February 24th. I don't know that was last week and it's about the public safety personnel retirement system police and fire board uh and uh the council requested to
well the resolution to the concerns was to uh have the nominees come and they're not speaking tonight are they? No, no one's speaking tonight. Okay. So hopefully every I think whoever wanted to meet with the candidates did or spoke
to them. And uh at this point I'll uh entertain a motion to appoint either Bob Besson or Carl Frasier Fraser. They were both great uh applicants and we were fortunate to have them and I supported
Carl Fraser. Fraser, excuse me. Uh, and I'll make a motion for Carl Fraser. >> I'll second that. >> Vice Mayor Quasman. >> Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to make an alternate motion for Bob Besson. >> All right, we'll go ahead and vote on
that. And again, I I don't want to vote against Bob Besson because he was a great candidate, too. So, that's unfortunate. But um it's not unfortunate, but they were both great candidates. So I'm going to support Bob Besson because I feel like Sorry. Oh,
pardon me, that was loud. Uh who do we have that wants to speak? What >> moving forward on this? Um may I suggest that we put this in the same kind of nomination >> uh system as the boards and commissions? I don't know how possible.
>> Is it all right to ask the uh city attorney to do that? because it this is an awkward way to do to vote for this. Um, and I want to give the respect due both to Carl and Bob that they deserve and it should be the same methodology.
So, just thank you to both the nominees. I'm grateful and uh and it just the structure was already put this way, but we'll fix it. >> Yeah, I would agree. And uh you may recall Carl was the the individual that brought this to our attention which I
certainly appreciated and I thought it was very well said. >> I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> If I can, I'd like to second his motion to move this. >> Oh, sure. >> into with the other boards and commissions. >> I >> No, he didn't make that motion, but he made the motion for Bob Besson,
>> but you can second it. I think it was seconded. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Littlefield. All right. So, with that, we're going to go ahead and vote on Bob Besson's appointment. All right, that passes. And thank you
again, Carl, for your efforts and for applying. Okay, council member reports. Do we have anyone reporting here? Councilwoman Dvascus, Councilwoman McCallen.
>> Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I just wanted to remind the audience that um, Kathy Littlefield and I provide office hours on the Monday before our council meeting. So, our next office hours will be on March 23rd from 4 to 6:00 p.m. We look forward to speaking with you. And
um, also we received a notification, you know, we received these um, emails from the city. Um, our wonderful citizens academy has openings. Um, it this is a tremendous program. It's a Scottdale government 101. It's an opportunity to learn about the city and how we run as a
business. And so, um, I would encourage all residents to reach out and take the opportunity to learn more about our budget, our water department, our police department, our solid waste. Um, it's just a fascinating process and the city really pours their heart and soul into
it. So, I hope you'll take the opportunity and sign up for the the Government 101 Academy course. Thank you, >> Councilwoman Whitehead. Uh, I just want to call out city of Scottsdale employee Caesar Alcantar. I
hope I'm saying that right. We received a nice uh email about his exceptional service. So, thank you to him. >> Thank you, Councilwoman Mckllen. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just wanted to congratulate the Scottsdale Historical
Society and our staff um that assisted them in the Founders Day celebration last week. Uh Winfield Scott, our founder is 189 years old and >> and he was there. >> Yeah. Dressed as Bruce Wall. Thank you, Bruce Wall. Uh just wanted to
congratulate them on a wonderful ceremony and to remind everyone about the rodeo. I'm going opening night. Are you riding again in the entryway in the flag? >> Not in that one. >> Oh, okay. >> The bull riding. I'm on hold. >> Doctor's orders. Doctor's orders.
Uh thank you. Okay, Councilman Graham, >> our next council meeting will be, I think, March 24th. Does that sound right? That same day, a couple hours before that, or at 2 p.m., we're going to be doing a ribbon cutting and unveiling of the Museum of the West
expansion, the Eddie Basha Art Collection. This council just stroke a check for how much? 90,000 >> to uh promote it. And uh so I'm helping them. I'm I'm pushing that right here.
And I'm telling you, I'm looking right at you in the camera, right at you at home. You need to go to that event on March 24th at 2 p.m. to celebrate what's going to be a great addition to Oldtown Scottsdale. Thank you. >> Thank you. That concludes our business
tonight and motion to adjourn. >> Thank you very much.