In the Avondale City Council meeting the like to call the order, the Alamar Community Facilities District Board meeting.

Julie, do you mind doing roll call, please?

Board Member Conde.

Here.

Board Member Malone.

Board Member Nielsen.

Board Member Solorio.

Board Member White.

Here.

Vice Chair Paneda.

And Chair Weiss.

Here.

Thank you.

Ron, item number two.

Mr.

Mayor Council, I'm assuming that there'll be a vote on the minutes.

Has anyone is uh anybody have questions about the minutes, any discrepancies?

If not, can I get a motion?

I have a motion for Councilmember White.

Uh I'm sorry, a board member White, a second from board member Solario.

All those in favor, please vote.

The board votes yeah, unanimously, thank you.

Um three is adoption of the Alamar Community Facilities District Fiscal Year Tentative Budget.

Anyone presenting that?

Okay.

Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the facilities board.

Renee Weatherless, the district treasurer.

Am I here tonight to present the fiscal 2025 tentative budget?

So the Alamar Community Facilities District formed in 2018.

Um the district can levy uh taxes and issue bonds independently from the city for the purpose of constructing public infrastructure within the Alamar District.

So for the fiscal 2025 tentative budget, it totals just under 3.3 million dollars.

The revenues generated from that come from primarily our property tax, which is levying a primary and a secondary tax rate.

The combined tax rate is four dollars and fifteen cents, and that is per 100 of net assessed value.

The budget itself, it covers minimal operating expenses as well as the cost of debt.

And should the district issue bonds, it would also cover any capital expenditures from those bond proceeds.

So the next steps of this particular budget tonight we are here presenting the tentative budget.

We do need to post a public notice before the public hearing and the final adoption of the budget as well as the property tax.

So with that, we're requesting a motion to approve resolution one-2024, tentative budget and expenditure limitation for Alamar Community Facilities District for fiscal year 2025.

Renee, thank you for that.

Are there any board members that have a question about the budget or any possible uh bonding questions?

Seeing none, can I get a motion, please?

I have a motion from board member conde, a second from board member Panetta.

Any further discussion?

Please vote.

The board is approved the budget 70.

Can I get a motion to adjourn adjourn the meeting, please?

I have a motion from Councilmember White, a second from Councilmember Nielsen.

Any further discussion?

Please vote.

We are adjourned.

I'd like to call the order the city council meeting for uh Monday, May 6th.

Uh, would you all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of reflection?

Is that me?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and shoot the republic, which just stands one nation under God and individual with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, everyone.

Julie, do you mind doing roll call, please?

Councilmember Conde?

Here, Councilmember Malone?

Councilmember Nielsen?

Here.

Councilmember Solorio?

Here.

Councilmember White.

Here.

Vice Mayor Paneda?

Here.

Mayor Weiss?

Here.

Ron, item two A, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Up first, we have recognition of our fire medical citizen academy graduates presented by Gabby.

Hi Gabby, all right.

Okay, how are you?

All right.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council.

Uh tonight I would like to introduce a few of our 2024 Citizen Academy graduates to you.

Um this year we were able to host seven classes.

Um here in Avondale and from our surrounding cities to the fire and medical operations and some of our crews.

So night one, we uh introduced them to our emergency operations center.

Um talked a little bit about our safety procedures and emergency operations as they relate to events here within the city and obviously emergencies.

Um, class two, we visited station 172 and offered them some information related to our community risk reduction as well as our fire inspections and investigations.

Um night three, we took them to our training center and showed them some of our ladder company functions.

You can see those there with the uh car.

We got to smash it up a little bit with some of the gear that they used.

Um that's probably a class favorite, especially because they get to go up into our ladder truck a hundred feet in the air, and then they get to use the hose, and it's super fun.

So, class four was held at station 175 where they earn their certificates in Stop the Bleed, and they learned a little bit about our threat liaison officer program.

Class five, um, we talked a little bit about our engine company functions and kind of discussed how they're a little bit different from ladder company functions, and they were able to use the hoses, which are pretty powerful.

Class six showed them how important emergency medical services are to our department, especially.

We like to call it our bread and butter.

Um, they were able to earn their certificates in adult CPR.

And then in our final class, we gave them a look into our special operations, um, which introduced them to our wildland team and our technical rescue teams.

Um, you can see they're in the middle, they're in our brush truck.

Um, and on the right hand side, they got um a little display from our technical rescue team.

Um, all of our crews were very quick to tell me how impressed they were with um the engagement and the questions that everyone in this class asked.

Um they had a really good time with them because of that.

So at this time, I would like to introduce Cynthia Caesar McCarthy to share her experience going through this year's academy.

How are you?

Excellent.

How are you here?

Good, thank you.

Well, I'll really try to stay to three minutes.

I've been warned.

Um good evening, everyone.

My name is Cynthia Caesar.

Tonight I stand before you with a heart filled with gratitude and a profound sense of appreciation for the city of Avondale and its support for the last eight months, which has led me to this moment.

In June 2023, after 16 years, I was rediagnosed with breast cancer and started my journey again.

On November 6th of last year, I stood in this room graduating from Avondale Police Academy during my first and second surgeries.

So when I learned about the Avondale Fire and Medical Citizen Academy, I was thankful because I knew this academy would get me through my third and hopefully my last surgery, which it did.

It's been a challenging road to recovery, and I remain incredibly grateful for the opportunity to stand here today stronger and more resilient.

Both academies provided me with a sense of purpose, sometimes simply a reason to take a shower and get out of the house.

But more than that, it gave me a deeper understanding of the sacrifices our first responders make every single day.

Like they're not just eating bonbons and watching movies and not, and when they're not fighting fires or rescuing a cat from a tree, instead, they are often sleep deprived and still have a daily schedule filled with working out, training, and attending other activities, serving their communities like this academy.

I also want to take a moment to mention that I am part of Homes for Heroes, a program that holds a special place in my heart and a reason why I signed up for both academies in the first place.

I want to express my deep appreciation for the opportunity to give back to those who serve our community so tirelessly and let you know that I look forward to staying in contact with Avondale Fire and would love to periodically drop off boxes of goodies to each firehouse as a small, very small way to express my gratitude for the amazing work they do.

I have so many great memories, but let's just say nothing can compare to the bucket with encouragement.

I was left with a sense of pride doing something I didn't know I was physically able to do.

In closing, I want to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who has been a part of my journey, to the instructors, mentors, my fellow classmates, my family, my wonderful friends.

I thank you for your guidance, your support, and your friendship.

Of course, thanks to Gabby, she's kind of awesome.

And to our first responders, thank you for your bravery, your sacrifice, and your unwavering dedication to keeping our community safe.

We all owe you immense gratitude for your selfless service.

As I stand on the brink of this new chapter, I do so with a renewed sense of purpose and a profound appreciation for the everyday heroes who inspire us all.

Lastly, as a tradition, uh I usually pin everyone who listens to my story.

I did not know there'd be so many people here.

Um anyone I haven't pinned already, um, I'd appreciate being able to approach and uh pin you today, and thank you so much for listening to my story.

So, Councilman Salorio, I know you were part of this.

Do you want to kind of let us know what you thought?

I know your uh your mom and your dad went through this also.

What were your thoughts?

Um, I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped put this together.

I understand this is the second class that went through it.

Um it really was super insightful.

You know, even sitting in the council seat, I learned so much more.

Um I hope to come back during my last class because I actually had to take um I actually had my own personal ill illness that um that one last night of our class affected me, and I had to be transported, so I got to actually use our services.

And um, just the level of care that you know that is given to everyone that we saw throughout those weeks on the different calls that they go on and then when they talk about them and to really live it and see it on the other side of it, uh, made the experience a lot less scary.

But anybody that's that lives in Avondale should really take it, should take the class and really just you know get that understanding on what we think first responders do, but what their job like encompasses anything.

Like I didn't know that when you don't you think about all these different things that can happen.

Well, who do you call?

You call the fire department.

The fire department answers pretty much any call.

So I was, you know, I can't say thank you enough, and the knowledge that I have I get to carry forever.

Most students aren't as dedicated as you are to test the facilities that they're right.

Thank you for that, everyone, right?

That doesn't usually happen, right?

Sorry.

Um awesome.

Uh you know, we do this for a reason.

We do the police, we do the fire, we do the public works, we do what we do water, we do all of it.

Because I think there's a greater appreciation for people who go through that academy, and they're our greatest spokespeople.

They're the ones who go out and tell the community, oh my gosh, this was incredible.

And it's also a way for us to engage with the community on a different level.

A lot of times people see the people who work for the city as just city employees, and the truth are they're human beings and they have families and they have aspirations and they have goals.

And this allows you and everyone else who go to these academies to meet them on a personal level.

Plus, we get to hear incredible stories like we just heard.

And um, my hope is that this will continue long into the future.

Chief, any of your thoughts on this mayor, I just want to say that uh we're blessed with the best firefighters in the state.

Both the men and women that work for our department have a lot of passion uh for this community, and um, I think our citizens saw that.

Thank you, Chief.

I appreciate that.

Right.

Thank you, Gabby.

I appreciate that.

So if you haven't heard, it is um economic development tourism and small business month.

And Cheryl, I see you walking up, so I don't want to take all your thunder, but thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council.

Um, I am proud to announce that before you tonight we have a proclamation recognizing the economic development tourism and small business month.

And if I may, I would like to introduce you to your office of economic development and tourism here tonight with us.

If you can all come up.

So I'm gonna start out with Nikki Taylor.

She is the one uh that puts Avondale on the map.

She's our destination manager for Discover Avondale.

Uh the person that makes everything look beautiful in our department is Susely Morales Chemoluski, and she is our brand specialist.

Uh I also have the glue to our department, Stephanie Hippen, our our resource specialist.

By the way, they may get new titles tonight.

Just depends on what I remember.

Adam Shipley is our resident sustainability business attraction, business development manager.

And then, of course, we have Jamie Lynn Gonzalez, who is our community and economic vitality manager.

Am I right?

I'm good.

Uh and Jamie is really, she brings the fabric of our community together for conversations and to make sure that everybody has a seat at that table.

And then absent tonight, but ever so with us as always is Ken Chapa, our economic development director.

We have a proclamation to read.

Um, Vice Mayor.

Yep.

Whereas the International Economic Development Council is the largest professional economic development organization dedicated to serving economic developers, and whereas the Avondale Economic Development and Tourism Department promotes economic well-being and quality of life for other communities through engaging in activities that focus on creating, retaining, and expanding jobs that facilitate growth, enhance wealth, and provide a stable tax base.

And whereas the U.S.

Travel Association is the national nonprofit organization representing and advocating for all components of the travel industry, and whereas the city's destination marketing organization, Discover Avondale, was established in 2020.

And whereas the City of Avondale is a premier destination for tourists and visitors, attracting over one million visitors in 2023.

Whereas the City of Avondale, Arizona celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy and community.

And whereas the Avondale Economic Development and Tourism Department supports vibrant communities to enhance the quality of life for Avondale residents, creates jobs, boosts our local economy, and preserves our community.

And now therefore it be resolved that the City of Avondale recognizes the month of May 2024 as economic development, tourism, and small business month, and reminds individuals of the importance of this community celebration, which supports expanding career opportunities, supporting small businesses, and making lives better.

Thank you, Vice North.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

So you can tell that the economic development team is not a huge team compared to other cities.

But if you look at the work that they do, all the new businesses, you're gonna hear about a couple of things that are happening tonight when it comes to um tech jobs coming into the city, but our health care corridor, what's happening on the boulevard.

That was all brought about by the economic development team, and they do outstanding work, and we're incredibly proud of all of you.

Um so thank you for everything that you do every day.

And tell Mr.

Choppa we miss him tonight.

Ron Item uh two C, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Next up, we're gonna see a presentation by Anisa and Torin to celebrate uh one of our interns.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

My name is Denise Romo, management analyst in the city manager's office.

Uh Torrin and I are here tonight to recognize the accomplishments of our 2023, 2024 Marvin Andrews Fellow, Dillard Collier.

This year we were both fortunate enough to have the opportunity to supervise Dillard's internship at the City of Avondale and are excited to recognize him tonight.

We are also excited to be um also celebrating his graduation from uh the ASU Master of the Public Policy Program.

Uh for some background, uh the Marvin Andrews Fellowship is designed to identify the country's most talented students aspiring to executive levels in local government.

Selected fellows are Masters of Public Administration and Masters of Public Policy students who are interested in careers in local government.

Fellows receive the opportunity to serve as management interns with cities in the Phoenix Metro area during their time in the program.

Uh several city employees are alumni of the program, including Torrin and myself.

Uh the City of Avondale is a long-standing partner uh of the fellowship and has hosted several Marvin Andrews fellows since the program's inception in 2009.

Um I believe our first fellow was Edith.

Um so shout out to her for the 2023-2024 school year.

The city hosted Dillard Collier as our Marvin Andrews fellow.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council.

I think we're gonna have a couple rounds of applause for Dillard tonight.

My name is Torrin Sado.

I'm our senior management analyst in the city manager's office and currently in development services as well.

So a bit about Dillard.

During his time with the city, Dillard worked in a variety of departments, expanding his local government knowledge and contributing to high priority projects across the city.

Diller served on projects in the city manager's office, our City D audit City Auditor's Office, our development services department, our neighborhood and family services department, our finance and budget department, the Office of Public Safety, and in the Parks and Recreation Department.

Dillard made significant contributions to all departments in which he served, utilizing his growing his research, project management, analytical and community outreach skills.

As an example, in neighborhood and family services, Dillard worked across several divisions and contributed to creating an updated home repair policies and procedures guide, planning the point in time count, homelessness solutions symposium, and the upward bound college preparedness event, as well as assisting in the city's 2024 heat relief plan.

On top of his projects, Dillard also participated in professional development and in trainings, as well as ride-alongs with our police and our street outreach and navigation resource teams and tours of our sort of our city's facilities.

He truly jumped in ready to contribute and become a contributing member of our city department and our team.

We are appreciative of Dillard's hard work and his dedication as a Marvin Andrews fellow in all departments in which he served across our community.

His positive attitude and his passion for public service made Dillard a wonderful addition to our city.

At this time, we'd like to recognize Dillard for his completion of his internship and his master's of public policy degree.

Congratulations, Dillard.

Dillard, come on to the microphone.

Oh no.

So it's a lot.

So tell us what surprised you what surprised you the most.

So you you you did this kind of having an idea.

Obviously, there's Marvin Andrews fellows who have preceded you.

What surprised you the most after your time with the city of Avondale?

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members.

I think I've worked in a lot of organizations and public sector institutions.

I think the amount of compassion and professional energy that this particular community generates and has invested in me has been something that I've been ready for and open to.

And I think Avondale represents a role model for me of a community and that really invests in its employees and also is so supportive and incredibly welcoming for someone who is so new and kind of naive and in local government management.

So I think just the amount of openness and professionalism and amazing opportunities I've been exposed to.

It's been something that I wanted, but you know, was I was like, oh, it's you know, it is is all of this happening to me.

What's next?

Uh I'm still applying to positions, but super interested in continuing my journey in local government and uh specifically like management analysts, management assistants positions, and applying to a lot of Avondale positions.

So you may be seeing me more than you potentially want to, but you're saying is there's a direct line between Marvin Andrews fellows in the city of Avondale is what you said.

Okay.

We're so happy for all the work that you did with us when you talk about Avondale being a compassionate community.

I think that resonates not only through our residents, but also through our employees.

Uh there was an uh thing that went out today for St.

William Church and Mercy House and the food that was delivered to help them feed the community and get the community back to where you know that they rely on St.

William, and I know um that resonates throughout the entire community.

So thank you for everything that you've done.

We look forward to seeing you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So 2D is water safety month.

Pretty apropos when it comes to our new aquatic center.

There we go.

Right, so water safety month, and we have to open up our brand new aquatic center, which we sort of did earlier in April, and we'll give a quick update on our uh our Wave Fest and our soft opening that we did in April for you guys, in addition to our water safety proclamation.

Ah, there we go.

So, our Avondale Aquatic Center, we did our soft opening for our residents on April 20th.

It was a great success, as you can see from some of these amazing pictures on that day.

Mayor enjoyed the slides, Councilmember White.

So we had a great time out there.

We had over 491 participants.

This event filled up in just over an hour.

We had 400 spaces open to the public and filled up in just over an hour, and then we had 800 people on our wait list.

And so we did present those people on the wait list with an opportunity to register pre-register for Memorial Day weekend, which is our opening weekend.

And about 500 of those people have registered for Memorial Day weekend opening.

So we're excited to have been able to give them that opportunity, even though they didn't get the opportunity on the 20th.

It was an opportunity for our staff, 32 of our staff to be able to lifeguard for the first time.

We have a very, very green lifeguard staff.

And so the opportunity for them to be out there and see people actually in the water and run through an actual opening was a great opportunity for us.

We had zero incidences, minus one small scraped tow.

And so lifeguards handled that well, and we're we're excited for the rest of them.

Had a couple lessons learned in between registration and some people trying to get in that weren't residents, but uh we were able to work through some of those, and we've made some changes for our future openings.

Uh additionally, aquatic center recruitment.

We are staffed and ready to go for the summer.

We ran through some staffing models this morning, um, and we are ready to go, and our staff are ready to go.

So we have 58 lifeguards hired for the summer.

Um additionally, we have four management staff that'll be able to staff all of our programs for this summer.

So we we made some big lofty goals to go into this summer from all the operations that we're gonna have, and currently we're we're modeling that we'll be able to host all of those, in addition to pool reservations and room reservations.

So, some upcoming uh dates.

We have registration that opened last week for all of our swimming lessons and teams.

Uh right now for the month of June, we're just over 50% filled on all of our programs and just since Thursday.

So really excited, lots of demand for the community for our programs and our lessons.

First session of swimming lessons will start June 3rd.

And then we have our grand opening for Memorial Day weekend, that's Saturday.

We'll host a patriarch pool party on Monday, which is actually Memorial Day.

Uh additionally, we'll have a Father's Day swim where fathers will get to swim free at the facility on Father's Day.

Um open swim and complimentary hot dogs on July 3rd, hosted by you guys council.

So we're excited to have you guys out there at the facility.

Um and then on the 4th of July, we'll host our Stars and Stripes event.

Um, so you can come and hang out at the pool before you go over to light up the sky.

Um and then deep dive cinema featuring Jaws.

So we have our LED screen out of the facility, and we're gonna be hosting our movie night, our float and flick.

Um, and we are going to traumatize a whole new generation of children at our pool by watching Jaws.

We're super excited.

And then we'll finish up the summer on Labor Day with our red, white, and pool event.

So we're super excited for all of those events, especially Jaws.

So at this time we'll take any questions before we'll have the mayor go ahead and read our proclamation.

So when we were doing the soft opening, and I'm glad there were some details to work out after the soft opening because that's what it's there for.

But we talked about Jaws being played, and uh when Sherry and I lived behind City Hall at Roosevelt Park, we had a pool.

And I would go put the ball game on the TV in the backyard and clean the pool.

And I always had to do with the light on in the pool because it was always that jaw scene of the swimmer, and then the I'm like, and Sherry's like, you know, there's not a shark in our pool, right?

I'm like, well, I realize that, but you just never know.

So um any questions from council on this?

Any comments?

We will be cooking out there on July 3rd, so it'll be exciting.

And Curtis?

I'll just make one quick comment here.

Uh two weeks ago, we were at Universal Studios where Jaws was originally filmed.

I hope the real one that you put in the movie here is really going to do something because it was went on the tram by there.

He got up and kind of fell back in the water mechanics and everything else.

And he's just like the way he used to be.

Curtis is not going in the pool at nighttime.

He's just not.

We'll make it fun.

It'll be great.

Thank you, appreciate that.

Awesome.

Well, the water safety proclamation that you're about to read, Mayor, just wanted to address that for just two seconds.

Um, May is water safety month, and we're going into a critical time in summer.

Drowning continues to be one of the most critical items and and and problems in our community from a safety standpoint of young children.

So it's imperatively important that we make sure that everybody has access to water safety education.

And May at the beginning of summer with Memorial Day being the historical kickoff to summer, and it's starting to become very warm in our community, and people start getting in pools and rivers and lakes, that we remember and and remind everyone that to stay safe around water, to remember the ABCs of water, which is adult supervision barriers and classes and swimming lesson classes.

We're going to be rocking and rolling here fairly soon, but we want to make sure that everybody's recognizing the importance that it is to stay safe around water.

And so with our our police and fire partners helping us out as our first responders when when it comes to drowning prevention, uh we'll be doing a mock rescue with them here later this month, uh the same day as our employee event um to make sure that our lifeguards are ready and that we're working with our first responders on our drowning prevention uh response and and programs.

Um but with that we want to make sure that we recognize May as water safety month.

And we've heard we've heard a couple stories over the last couple weeks um of tragedies that have happened in pools, and uh if we can prevent them, we can't prevent them in other cities, but if we can work as hard as we can to prevent them in Avondale and the water safety classes and all that goes a long way.

So I'm honored to read this proclamation.

Whereas recognizing the vital role that swimming and aquatic related activities relate to good physical and mental health and enhance the quality of life for all people, and whereas understanding the essential role that education regarding the topic of water safety plays in preventing drownings and recreational water-related injuries.

And whereas awareness of the contributions made by the recreational water industry is represented by the organizations involved in the National Water Safety Month Coalition in developing safe swimming facilities, aquatic programs, home pools and spas and related activities, providing health places to recreate, learn, and grow, build self-esteem, confidence, and sense of self-worth, which contributes to the quality of life in our community.

And whereas recognizing ongoing efforts and commitments to educate the public on pool and spa safety issues and initiatives by the pool, spa, water park, recreation, and parks industry.

And whereas understanding the vital importance of communicating water safety rules and programs to families and individuals of all ages, whether owners of private pools, users of public swimming facilities, or visitors to water parks.

Now, therefore, I Kenneth Weiss, Mayor of the City of Avondale, Arizona, do hereby proclaim May 2024 as water safety month, and urge all those in the city of Avondale to support and promote this observance.

Proclaim this sixth day of May 2024.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Ron, any updates from the city manager's office?

I do have a uh uh single update, um, Mr.

Mayor, and I hope this goes okay.

I appreciate uh my staff working to make this happen, but um, I believe that there is a member, uh I think it was the mayor, who recently received his bachelor's degree in government with economics on state and local public policy from GC.

Wow.

So I knew I was in trouble when I saw my entire family here.

Yes, Mr.

Mayor, we uh did uh go about and invited them, and I'm glad they made it.

We also um it's time to do pictures with our groups, and we actually uh have some things to to celebrate, and we invite you and council and whoever's here uh to have a piece of cake with us rather quickly before we uh go into the regular agenda after we take pictures.

Mr.

Mayor, we couldn't be prouder of our leader and this accomplishment, this major milestone in your life.

So congratulations and thank you for all that you do.

I wish I would have done this when I was 18.

Um, for those of you who don't know, and in the back row is my wife Sherry, my daughter Lauren, and my daughter Delaney.

Raise your hands.

You did this, please stand.

No, no, no, no, you don't get to do this.

Stand up, come on.

Stand up so we know who you are.

Go ahead.

Stand up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So as you often do with your family, you you sacrifice for your family, and Cher and I sacrificed to put our two daughters through college.

Lauren got her degree in criminal justice from ASU.

I'm sorry, from GCU, Delaney got her degree uh from ASU.

Sherry got her bachelor's and her masters from GCU, and I was never gonna go back to college.

I had had probably two years of college and it was kind of enough.

And Sherry just kept on pushing me and pushing me.

And she said, There's no better time for you to do this than now.

And I can we talked about this um at graduation.

It was six years ago, almost six years ago when I started the first classes at GCU, and I can remember we were out of town, and I had to take this first class, and I remember looking at it and going, I can't do this.

It's you have to write in a specific way, you've got to do discussion questions every week, you've got to write papers and take tests and quizzes.

And she said you can do it, and it'll be over sooner than you think.

And when you're all done, you will have your degree, and no one could ever take that away from you.

So to my beautiful wife and my beautiful daughters, thank you for continuing to push to the city of Avondale.

Thank you for always making it possible because it was the tuition reimbursement that really helped.

So thank you for that.

So do you want to do this now?

Or and is this everyone can come up and have a cookie and take a picture as we'd like to get a picture with you guys in Dillard, and we have the uh Academy, uh, the Fire Academy.

We'd like to get pictures with council.

So while you're doing the pictures, my staff will be uh working on cutting this, and you're all welcome to have cookies and cake.

Thank you so much for doing this.

This is awesome.

If we can start with Fire Academy.

For those listening online, we will be taking a short recess.

The silliness is out of the way.

Item number three is unscheduled public appearances.

Um we have some cards for a later item on the agenda, but for this.

Matt, I saw you, you're around right.

Matt, come on up.

And Julie, that's all we have for call to the public for this one, right?

Yes, Mayor.

And do you guys just mind uh saying your names just for the record?

Will Penny?

Linda Carroll.

Isaac Maheta.

Officer Matt O'Halloran.

Mr.

Mayor, I hate to interrupt, but I need the officers to step to the mic so we can hear you.

Because not maybe not all of us know who you are, so Linda.

You are not.

And the people on TV need to be able to hear you.

So please speak into the mic.

Perfect.

Linda Carroll.

Dennis Mercado.

Good.

Okay.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, uh, Mr.

Corbin, and city staff.

My name is Will Penny, the president of the Avondale Police Association.

It's my honor to come before you to present several scholarships to local high school uh seniors graduating from Avondale High Schools.

If you're receiving a scholarship tonight, please come up.

Um we began this program three years ago with funds raised by association members.

In previous years, we awarded one scholarship to each senior from the five Avondale high schools.

This year, with the assistance of generous grants from the Avondale Community Assistance Program, we have done we were able to double our efforts and have awarded a total of 10 scholarships of 1,000 each to local high school seniors for their college endeavors.

I'm pleased to present you six of the ten recipients this evening.

Um just raise your hands as I call your name.

Oscar Roisco Baeza, graduating from La Jolla High School.

Uh Coral Cervantes and Dominique Vargas graduating from West Point High School.

Sabrina Nazari and Victoria Flores graduating from Augrifia High School.

Xavion Scott Jones graduating from Australia High School.

Oscar Orisco Bay is currently dual enrolled in classes at uh Australia Mountain Community College and is part of the WestMet program at La Jolla High School.

He plans on pursuing an education in fire science with his ultimate goal of becoming an Avondale firefighter.

Coral Cervantes plans to study software engineering at Arizona State University as excited about the opportunity to use her education to develop platforms for local governments to improve citizen engagement and data-driven solutions here in her hometown of Avondale.

Dominique Vargas is looking forward to studying engineering at Arizona State University and is currently volunteers as assistant coach for the Avondale Little League team.

He's excited on content to contribute to the growth and development of young athletes in our community.

Sabrina Nazari plans to start her education at Austria Community, the Austria Mountain Community College before moving to Arizona State University to pursue her degree in cybersecurity.

She hopes to help Avondale communities secure against online threats and even investigate criminal acts online.

Victoria Flores has already been accepted to High Point University in North Carolina and will pursue a degree in nursing and pre-med.

She wants to pursue a career in the medical field and ultimately return to Avondale to help Avondale community in women's health care.

Xavion Scott Jones plans to start with a degree in business and would eventually like to return to school and pursue a law degree to assist clients here in Avondale.

He plans to return to the city and contribute to the Boys and Girls Club here in Historic Avondale.

I'm grateful to the City of Avondale, our city council, and our partnership with city staff that allows us to honor and recognize these outstanding students.

They represent the best our city has to offer and will continue to grow and thrive.

Thank you for allowing Avondale Police Association to offer these scholarships in our efforts to make life better in Avondale.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Mayor Council, our city photographer is here in the lobby, and she would love to take some photos with the students and their families out in the lobby.

Will thank you for doing this.

This is this is pretty amazing.

Linda, everyone, Matt, everyone.

We we talk about we talk about the talent that's in our youth in our city, and we know sometimes the challenges they face when it comes to going to college or getting a degree, and this will go a long way to that.

So incredible.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you.

Item number four is consent agenda.

Are there any counselors who wish to have an item removed for separate consideration?

Hearing and seeing none.

Can I get a motion, please?

I have a motion from Councilmember White.

A second from Councilmember Condi.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, please vote.

Passes 7-0.

Thank you, Council.

Mr.

Corbin, 5A.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

And Council.

Next up is our public hearing on in resolution 1043052, Hermosal Ranch Technology Campus North, Major General Plan Amendment.

At the same time, we will consider 5B, which is the public hearing for Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North rezoning.

And I believe Josh will be making the presentation.

Hey Josh, how are you?

Good, thank you, uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

As the city manager said, the tonight's agenda item is uh Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North Major General Plan Amendment, as well as the Planned Area Development Rezone.

These are applications PL 23-0299 and 23-0300.

The purpose of these items is to review a proposed major general plan amendment and rezone for the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North Planned Area Development and conduct a public hearing.

This will be the final public hearing where council will take appropriate action.

The site is located at the southwest corner of Lower Buckeye Road and Avondale Boulevard.

It's approximately 239 acres and currently contains a dairy farm.

In terms of the surrounding zoning districts and land uses, north of Buckeye Road is the Del Rio Ranch single family subdivision.

To the east across Avondale Boulevard and south of Lower Buckeye Road is the Raceway Rancheros single family subdivision.

That's a county island.

And then south of that is the planned Shadow Ridge subdivision.

To the south is the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus South Planned Area Development, as well as the Sierra Estrella Energy Storage.

This is a battery storage site and an existing SRP substation.

To the west is the Cantata Ranch single family subdivision zoned Cantata Ranch PAD.

These are a couple photos of the site.

The first is looking southwest from Lower Buckeye Road.

The second is the same direction from along Avondale Boulevard.

This first photo will show you uh where it's expected that the data center will be located.

You can see the dairy farm facilities in the background there.

And then the second photo shows the approximate location of the proposed commercial center.

As mentioned, this is a request to amend the general plan land use designations of a state/slash low density residential and medium density residential to business park and to increase the existing local commercial land use from 16.45 to 28 acres.

The pale yellow that you can see is the estate slash low density residential, the orange is the medium density residential, the pink is local commercial, and the business park is in the purple.

The business park designation allows for large scale campus development that provides abundant employment opportunities and offers amenities such as attractive streetscapes with excess landscape setbacks, pedestrian connections, efficient circulation, and refuge areas for active and passive activities to keep a healthy lifestyle for all employees.

This category accommodates enclosed light manufacturing, corporate commerce offices, data centers, research and development industries, solar and renewable energy facilities and manufacturers, motorsports related manufacturing and limited warehouse and support services for these primary employment uses.

The local commercial land use category is one that is primarily used for providing for the daily needs of goods and services to the surrounding residents, and these types of uses include grocery stores, gas stations, neighborhood and retail services, and office and medical uses which serve consumers residing in the adjacent residential areas.

The rezone request is to rezone from the Diamond Pea Ranch planned area development, which is the highlighted in red on your screen there, and from the Fleming Farms planned area development on the east side of the property showed in blue, as well as agricultural to the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North planned area development.

The new underlying zoning district for these or for this development will be Commerce Park and Community Commercial, also known as CP and C2 and our zoning ordinance, and will facilitate the development of a technology campus, which includes a data center as well as a commercial development, which will host a variety of community commercial uses.

This is a conceptual site plan showing what the site could look like at build out.

The uses mentioned in the staff report for the employment center component of the site are narrowly tailored to achieve the ultimate end goal of developing a technology campus while achieving the city's goal of having a high quality employment center project that limits potential off site impacts to the surrounding communities.

Some highlighted deviations from that narrative include an greater setback along the north property lines, increasing that from 25 to 100 feet, an increased setback along the west property line, increasing that from 50 to 230 feet, and then as well as allowing for increased building height from 35 to 50 feet, and then potential screening increases from 15 to 25 feet.

Additional deviations are highlighted in the staff report.

But I can also provide that information if you'd like.

Uh, that they've asked for in their planned area development narrative.

This trail will eventually be connected to the adjacent commercial property once that gets developed, and then will also run south to the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus South Planned Area Development.

There's two viewshed analyses that I'd like to kind of highlight.

This first view is facing south across Lower Buckeye Road, and you can see the SRP substation in the background.

The first view shows what it looks like right now.

This next view is what you might expect to see were that data center to come in and be fully developed along with the improvements that the applicant is proposing.

The next view will show you what you might expect some two-story homes to look like were they to be developed.

Were this project to remain as a single family subdivision?

As you can see, there's some significantly smaller setbacks, which create the appearance of some larger buildings, even though they aren't built to the same height as the data center.

A single family subdivision could expect to be built approximately 20 to 30 feet from a right-of-way, whereas these are again 100 feet from Lower Buckeye Road.

Josh, can you go back to the can you go back to the picture with the one picture before this?

Just for comparison back and forth.

Okay.

This view is situated along the eastern property line where the development changes or sorry, the eastern edge of the of parcel B on the property, where it changes from employment center uses to commercial uses.

Again, this first view is the current conditions.

Second view shows some of what the data center will look like with some of those buildings being set back even further than 100 feet.

And then this next view shows again the houses.

And I'd just like to highlight the land use buffer that's shown in between the employment center and the commercial.

You can see that line of trees on the on the left side of your screen.

Additional view analyses images are provided as exhibit G in the packet.

So staff's analysis for the major general plan amendment finds that the amendment will facilitate employment uses at an appropriate location and scale where alternatives are not available.

The site's current land use designation of local commercial, estate slash low density residential and medium density residential do not advance employment and land use goals of the 2030 general plan.

This site is ideally located adjacent to supportive power and transportation infrastructure to support these types of uses.

And the current general plan does not have other BP sites with these advantages that are of suitable size.

And again, this property is 212 acres of data center use.

This amendment provides new business opportunities within the growing technological market that is always seeking access to reliable power.

The addition of business park land uses to the general plan reinforces Avondale's economic stability and sustainability.

Uh at this area at the southwest intersection of Avondale Boulevard and Lower Buckeye Road more attractive to potential commercial development.

It's expected that the increased acreage will allow for a potential grocery anchor to develop the site as as a local shopping center to serve the southern portions of Avondale.

Furthermore, the proposed major general plan amendment will not result in larger or more extensive public infrastructure improvements.

Replacing residential with employment uses will likely generate less demand for public safety services, as the developers indicated that private security will be utilized to secure secure the site.

Additionally, the intended use for the property will result in lower water and wastewater demand than the current land use categories expect.

Details of this specific analyses can be seen in the general plan amendment narrative as well as the applicant supporting documents.

But based on preliminary water and wastewater reports, the applicant is expected to utilize approximately 15% less water and 51% less wastewater than what was planned for in the city's integrated utility master plan or IUMP.

As shown in staff's recommended stipulations with the rezone request, the developer will not be permitted to use more water or sewer capacity than what was previously planned for.

Overall, the amendment is consistent with the intent of the Avondale General Plan 2030.

So for the rezone, staff's analysis is that the proposed Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North Planned Area Development is in conformance with the proposed general planned land use designations of business park and local commercial.

The proposed PAD is also in conformance with the PAD requirements of the zoning ordinance, subdivision regulations, design manuals, and other applicable regulations and requirements unless otherwise modified by the PAD narrative.

Adequate public infrastructure to support the proposed development either presently exists or will be constructed by the developer.

And finally, the recommended conditions of approval are reasonable to ensure conformance with the provisions of the zoning ordinance and all other applicable city codes, ordinances, and policies.

The proposed development standards outlined in the PAD are consistent with the city's commerce park and community commercial zoning district requirements.

Noted deviations in that narrative serve to foster compatibility with the existing residential and uh with the existing residential uses and provide continuity with the approved employment projects nearby.

That's the Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus South.

As part of the public participation, there was a neighborhood meeting held at City Hall on January 30th of this year.

There were seven attendees aside from the applicants team, city staff, and one council member.

Discussion was primarily related to the topics you can see there.

Uh there were some security concerns with the power line corridor and the accumulation of trash and just the general upkeep of that area.

There was concern about the data center scale, uh concerns about potentially blocking uh views of the mountain.

Uh and then there were also questions about right of way improvements that might come along with this project regarding the trails, the sidewalks, and the roadway expansion.

Um there were a lot of questions about commercial development.

There was a lot of interest in the potential for a grocery store.

Um, that's greatly wanted at this area.

And then there was uh some questions about the project's timeline when final build out would be.

One was from the Southwest Gas Corporation and one is from the State Historic Preservation Office, both of which indicated there were no conflicts.

Uh to date, there have been 50 comments that were made on the city's Avondale Connect platform, most of which were generally opposed to the project.

Uh respondents expressed that the property could be better utilized as a commercial development that provided grocery store and restaurant options for the residents.

Others added that they believed the property was ill-suited to the expansion of a large-scale employment use and that the project would be better located at a different site.

Additionally, there were concerns about traffic impacts, property values, and the potential for increased water demands that could be affected by a data center and technology campus.

All of these uh comments have been consolidated as exhibit F on your packet.

Uh at the April 17th Planning Commission meeting, uh the members voted four to one to recommend approval of both of these items.

Questions uh raised by the commission were related to the potential economic impact and benefit of these types of buildings, as well as the compatibility with the surrounding area, uh, any kind of tax or economic significance and overall significance to the community.

Um, and then there were some also there were also some questions about the landscape buffers as well as water and wastewater usage.

And with that, staff is recommending approval of item 4A, which is a request to amend the general plan 2030 land use map designation from a state/slash low density residential, medium density residential, uh, and local commercial to business park and local commercial.

Staff also recommends approval of application PL23-uh zero three hundred, which is a request to rezone approximately 239 gross acres from the from Diamond P Ranch Planned Area Development, Fleming Farms Plannedary Development, and Agricultural to Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North Planned Area Development.

Uh that concludes staff's presentation, and I'm available for any questions.

Josh, thank you for that.

Let me go and open up the uh public hearing on uh 5A.

Is there anybody in the audience who'd like to speak in this issue?

I have 13 cards total.

11 people in favor of this item but do not wish to speak.

I have two cards of people who are in favor of this item and wish to speak.

Uh Hector, do you want to come up and go first, sir?

And again, state your name for the record.

Start the clock.

Let me get there.

No, no, no, sir.

We're good.

Um Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, thank you for the opportunity of being here.

My name is Hector Hernandez, and uh I'm a lifetime resident of Avondale.

Um I've been here pretty much all my life.

Um and I just want everybody here to think about, you know, before I 10 used to go through before it got approved to go through, used to get off on Dyser Road and went down Bug Kai Road.

I don't know if any of you guys remember that.

But can you imagine if I 10 wasn't approved?

Can you imagine the traffic that we would have now?

It would be crazy.

So Avondale has done great things for the city of Avondale.

And I believe that we should keep on doing great things like this data center.

I think it'll be a great addition to our city.

And um, you know, me as a carpenter, I live here, I want to work here.

Uh we have over I want to say two thousand members that live on the west side that would love an opportunity to work close to their house instead of traveling all the way across uh the city.

We have built great projects like the nuclear plant, Palo Verde.

Um my brothers and sisters work there.

We built that and it's safe.

I know that last time there was some safety issues about it.

Believe me, when the carpenters get a hold of a project, we build it safe, we build it on time and under budget.

We build great buildings like the Diamondback Stadium, we build the Phoenix Sun Stadium, the Phoenix, the Carnel Stadium.

We have built great projects, and we know how to do them and do them right.

So if you give us the opportunity to, we would love to do this data center and and uh and make Avendale look great, which is already does.

But I believe and I strongly am with this project, and I know that you know a lot of my brothers and sisters are here, and I want to thank them for being here, but they could have been a whole lot more if then you have to work across the town.

But uh yeah, give us an opportunity.

I think you'll be doing a great thing by approving this uh for our residents here that we would love to work close to our home.

Thank you.

Thank you, Hector, for that.

Appreciate that.

Uh the next member of the public who'd like to speak is Martin.

Martin, I uh is it Matsumoto?

Okay, good.

I'll give myself an A on that one.

Uh good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and people of the council.

Um, I lived here my whole life, born and raised here in Avondale.

And my 35 plus years working in Carpentry, I've never worked in Avondale.

I've always worked on the East Valley from Phoenix, downtown Phoenix to the East Valley from Scottsdale to Chandler, Gilbert, and I still working out there.

And um, I like to have the chance to work here in my backyard.

And um, you know, like my brothers and sisters here, you know, we want to spend our money, we want to spend our time here, not on the road driving stuck on I-10.

We want to be with our families, spend our money here.

You know, that's what we want.

And given the opportunity to build this thing, we were we're proud of our work and we show it every day.

And these guys right here bust their butts off, and we're proud of our work.

And if we build this place, you guys will be proud of our work too, and we have more opportunities to build stuff here.

Thank you.

Is there anybody in the audience who'd like to speak on this issue?

Could I have a member?

Could I have the members of the who are here tonight in favor of this, please stand up?

If you're in favor.

Thank you for being here.

Appreciate that.

With that being said, are there any other comments online, Julie?

No, Mayor.

I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing.

Um I will tell you that when I hear the words of Fleming Farms and Diamond Pea Ranch, when I tell you when I first got on council in 2006, we were voting on it back then, and that was supposed to happen.

Those two developments were supposed to happen way before that.

I I think for Avondale to move away, which we are from a bedroom community, for a community that relies on um uh jobs that in some cases are entry-level jobs.

We need to move on from that.

And the location of this facility is ideal for what we're trying to do for a technology center.

We have the medical corridor along McDowell Road, we have the boulevard, but the data center allows us to bring in high-tech jobs.

It allows us to support the community as they live here and want to build projects here, and it shows that Avondale can bring these projects forward.

I will tell you that the part of me that there's another part of this that I'm excited about, and that's the 28 acres.

As a council, as a team, we hear about grocery stores from Alamar and Del Rio Ranch in Cantada and and Verde Trails.

We hear about the need for that.

There was not a plot of land big enough in South Avondale to build that build a grocery store.

My hope, and I see Nick out there.

My hope is that if this gets approved tonight, that there is a true effort to bring a grocery store and neighborhood related facilities to that community because they sorely need it.

And it's something that they have been asking for for as many years as I can remember.

I wanted to open this up to other council members who may want to speak.

Not necessarily that you have to, but if you do, I'll go down the line.

Max, any comments on this?

Thank you, Mayor.

I actually had a couple of questions.

I I should have probably asked them earlier, but I just was wondering how many um employees would actually be on site at this facility.

Do we know there uh mayor vice mayor uh council member White?

Um I can provide uh some cursory numbers, but the applicant is also here uh prepared to give some information if you'd like based on uh previous uh conversations that we've had, it's approximately 150 employees for the data center.

That's awesome that we're gonna be creating 150 jobs, but I I see the union presence here, and I'd be remiss not to acknowledge them as well.

I I I believe in bringing jobs and and this is kind of like um sometimes you have that ricochet effect where it negatively impacts your community.

This sounds like it would positively impact union workers who live here.

Do we know for sure that union workers will be building this from the applicant again?

Uh I can speak to the applicant and get back to you on that.

That'd be great.

Mr.

Mayor, yeah, if it's more specific questions, I know that uh Caroline is representing the uh developer, and I believe she's in the audience or any of them could come up and uh be happy to answer your questions, I'm sure.

Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, it's great to be here on this very festive night.

Hopefully we can keep the party going.

Um Carolyn Oberholtzer with Bergman Frank Smiley and Oberholtzer, 4343 East Campbell back in Phoenix.

Um and uh councilman, the question as to where the labor will come from is not yet determined.

However, um when they do build these large-scale projects, they tend to utilize the same organizations, and I can't tell you who the data center uh developer is going to be yet on this.

Uh not because I don't know, but because we can't, it's confidential until we get a little bit further down the road.

Um, but they will be able to talk to the city at that time about what their uh contractor will be and and where the contracted employees will come from.

And I I just hope that our public environment here will show you kind of the direction that um the residents are are looking to take.

So I I don't want to influence any of those decisions, they're completely corporate and business outside of our scape.

But I think that if people live here and want to work here, the least we could do is make sure we're providing those jobs here.

There's no question that this carpenter the the carpenters here are uh of the best in the business and very, very sophisticated and capable of doing absolutely anything as their resume will tell.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That's all.

Curtis.

No, I just really appreciate the presentation.

I know in the past we've been able to maybe see where and how these things might be.

They're about a piece of paper or something.

The technology is now here and available that you can look at that land today in the future and what it might look with whether other types of houses and other things on there.

I was impressed with that.

If we can get a view of what that whole thing might be, and it it doesn't look bad at all.

I really enjoy it and appreciate it.

And uh I guess that's all I gotta say.

It's just it's it looks great and appreciate all the work that has been done and that will be done to get it taken care of.

Thank you, Curtis.

Appreciate that.

Gloria.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh, thank you to the carpenters for being here.

Umions are amazing.

I'm a child of a Lyuna member who worked for 30 years retired.

So I know the importance of union and communities, and like many of you, my father never worked where we lived.

It was always about 30 miles or further, so it'd be great to see a development like this.

Thank you, Gloria.

Tina.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

And thank you all for being here.

I know you guys could be at home right now with your families, and so thank you for taking the time to be here with us tonight.

Um, I kind of want to just echo kind of what my fellow council members are saying, um, especially what council member White said.

You know, we definitely want to make sure that we bring businesses to Avondale, but it'd be nice to have um folks like yourself being part of that development and building up.

So hopefully we'll see some of your faces and you guys will be able to come to some of the local restaurants and have lunch there, and and better yet, get home in time not so late to your family, right?

You're not having to battle that traffic.

Um, but I also want to say thank you to um our staff and um Carolyn for addressing the residents' concerns.

I know there were quite a few of them.

Um people had questions, and I had questions myself, and this presentation did cover quite a few of them.

So I just want to thank you for addressing those concerns, and I'm excited to see what that looks like.

But just like Mayor had mentioned, um, one thing that we have been hearing time and time again is grocery stores south of the 10 um and being able to provide goods and services um for that surrounding area.

I'm very thankful.

So thank you guys so much for your work.

Thank you, Tina.

Veronica.

Thank you for the presentation.

I also want to say uh thank you guys for coming, showing your support of the project.

Um I grew up also here in Avondale, so um on lower buckeye, there has not been anything, and I'm always saying traffic signs, traffic signals, and safety.

And this this project's gonna provide that's gonna provide two um additional traffic signs in that area.

It's gonna also provide um the just the build-out of uh I believe it's uh sidewalk sidewalk path and whatnot, but it also allows you guys to be able to work if that's uh the choice of the developers and it would give an opportunity for you to be inside your own home.

I always say or in your own city.

I always say work, play, live in Avondale.

That's what I do, and I want that for all of us.

Thank you again.

Have a good thing.

Thank you, Veronica.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I'll look at this from a slightly different angle, and that is in terms of the overall economic impact that'll be generated as a result of this property of this project.

But more importantly, if we're looking at uh, you know, highest best use, and more importantly, the benefits that our residents are going to receive as a results of a project like this uh is a potential grocery and the fact that the 28 acres uh are now um being designed to be able to accommodate uh a grocer and potential gas station as well as commercial uh projects.

And so we we hear it.

Uh I did go through all of the different comments.

I read every comment that was listed there uh through the system, uh, some of which many of which were very consistent in terms of the goods and services that they were looking for.

And in this uh instance, it is a win-win if you look at it from tur from the city standpoint in terms of infrastructure, um, what the developer is gonna bring to the table, and that is gonna take a little load off of the city uh in that aspect, but more importantly, again, the impact that we will receive as a results of this project and the benefit the residents uh along Avondale Boulevard will be able to enjoy in the future.

And as your comment you alluded to in regards to taking it seriously to bring your grocer, I know that um you have heard um Carolyn and the applicant have heard loud and clear, just as you heard loud and clear, uh, you know, some of the information regarding setbacks and um you know the overall look and aesthetic of the project, and you've done everything that you possibly can from you and the applicant, I should say, have done everything that you can.

It's very clear that when you look at the viewpoint, uh whether it be a development with two-story homes or the difference between that and the current project, it's abundantly clear that there is at least still some view there uh across the street looking south.

And so for all the points that I just listed, um, I think that Avondale will uh benefit from this opportunity.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

So I I look at the economic impact that this has on our community, not only from the jobs for people who live in our community who are gonna work on this project, hopefully.

But there is an attack on cities from the legislature, and we've seen it with a rental sales tax that will hit us to the tune of somewhere between five and eight million dollars a year taken away from us.

That money goes to public safety, police, and fire.

Cities have to find a way to replace that money, and they just can't do that willy-nilly.

They have to have smart development that happens and development that benefits the community.

This project and the expansion of the technology campus does that for us.

Along with the construction sales tax with the uh taxes on electricity and property tax, it not only benefits the school districts in Avondale, especially Littleton, but it allows the city to move forward with plans for station 176 in Alamar.

It allows us to build our police force, even though we're fully staffed.

Ideally, we should be at probably eight to ten percent over that full capacity staffing for people who are on vacation or PTO.

This allows us to do that.

I will tell you though, at some point we have to look at moving adding additional technology besides data centers.

So we talk about research and development, very serious about that, especially with the SR 30, hopefully coming in somewhere around 2030.

That corridor is going to be a major transportation corridor and connect high-tech businesses in the East Valley to California.

This is ideally suited to that, but we have to have research and development.

150 jobs is incredible, and we're looking forward to that.

I'm looking at the possibility of hundreds of technology jobs that really benefit the city and allow more of our residents to live or to work in the community where they live.

So I think we've said everything.

Can I get a motion on item 5A, please?

I have a motion from Councilmember Salori, a council a motion from Councilmember White.

Any further discussion?

Please vote.

Passes 7-0.

Congratulations.

Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak on this issue?

Sir.

I'm Michael Torres from local 1912 Union Carpenters.

We've built numerous infrastructure projects here in Arizona, TSMC, as well as we got Carpenters out in Chandler in the West Valley.

We're building these projects, and I think it's very important that we make it a livable wage and uh prevailing wage so we can have more of our brothers out there working and doing this project for you guys.

Michael, thank you for that.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Julie, anybody else online?

No, Mayor.

I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing.

Um can I get a motion on this item?

I have a motion from Councilmember Malone, a second from Councilmember Condi.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, please vote.

It passes 7-0.

Congratulations.

Nick, thank you for investing in Amadill.

Ron IC.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Up next, we have a public uh we have yes.

The public hearing results of the biannual audit of development impact fees.

I believe Rob will be making that presentation.

Good.

All right, goodie.

Well, we have to stay with the entire meeting.

All right, we're here for the real exciting part.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council.

My name is Robert Bear, and I'm here to give a brief presentation ahead of the public hearing on the biannual impact fee audit.

This audit covers fiscal years 21 and 22.

So per Arizona revised statutes 9-463.05.

In order to charge development impact fees, the city must adopt an infrastructure improvement plan and land use assumptions.

Per the state statute too, the city must have some way of monitoring the impact fees.

The statute allows two methods.

Either the city can create an infrastructure improvements advisory committee or have a biannual certified audit from outside professionals.

The city has opted for the audit option and use Heinfield Beach to complete the latest audit.

There is no timeline to complete this audit in statute.

As part of the budget, we did move up the biannual impact for the next cycle, which will be fiscal year 23 and 24.

Um, and so we'll be back next year.

Um and that we did that so we can have more actionable information related to any findings that we had.

As far as this uh this uh audit's findings, we just had one related to our growth projections.

Um so there were some variances noted between um the growth included in the city's land use assumptions and the actual growth in the city.

Um the variances are noted on the slide.

So for example, our population was off by about one percent for 21 and 22.

Um there is no action regarded uh needed by the city regarding these findings.

It is difficult to project the future, obviously.

Um the land use assumptions projected slightly lower pop uh slightly lower population employment, but uh um residential housing and non-residential square footage were higher in the land use assumptions.

We did update our land use assumptions in uh calendar year 23 as part of the updated impact fees.

So um council action is to hold a public hearing on the biannual certified audit for development impact fees collected between July 1 of 2020 and June 30th, 2022.

Rob, thank you for that.

I'm gonna go ahead and open up the public hearing.

Is there anybody in the audience or online who'd like to speak on this issue?

Julie?

No, Mayor, thank you.

I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing.

Is there any questions from council on this?

Seeing none.

Thank you for that.

Ron Item D.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Up next is the adoption of the fiscal year 2025 tentative budget.

Uh, your finance and budget director is making the presentation.

Hi, Renee.

Hello, good evening.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the council.

I am here tonight to present the fiscal twenty-five tentative budget.

So you can see our um pathway through this year's budget process.

We are at the tentative budget stage and we'll be following with a final adoption.

So the tentative budget adoption sets the maximum expenditure limit.

So the final budget can be reduced and changed, but it cannot increase above the tentative budget total, and it may be amended throughout the year.

So I just wanted to point out that included in the agenda item in the packet, we did include uh a narrative summary.

So in that summary, you do see charts of revenues and expenditures and where the tentative budget um is allocating our our budget funds.

Um so tonight what I am planning to cover is as we have with every meeting of the budget, we cover all of the changes since the last presentation.

So last time we presented the city recommended budget, and tonight from that point we're noting the changes that we have made in this version.

So starting with the $5 million for the family advocacy center, this is action that council had taken in previous meetings, and we needed to include that appropriation into next year.

The next few line items noted are just some additional expenditures that have either come to light or changes that occurred in um operations that need to be included in fiscal 25.

I will make note at the bottom added two FTEs.

These are not two new positions being added since the last change.

It's just two FTEs for sake of statistics.

Those were already included in the cost and in the budget of the city recommended budget.

And then the changes in carryover, that just has to do with operations and the amount of spending that's going to be able to be accomplished by June 30th.

So we would need to carry those funds over.

So our upcoming actions after um tonight's tentative budget adoption.

We do have a couple of notice requirements for the truth in taxation, and then we will bring forth the final budget for adoption by council as well as um adopt a tax levy after that.

So tonight we are recommending a motion to adopt resolution 1044-0524 adoption of the fiscal year 2025 tentative budget.

Council, are there any questions for Renee?

Okay, can I get a motion on this item?

I have a motion from Vice Mayor, a second from Councilmember Nielsen.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, please vote.

Thank you.

Ron.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Up next is our uh Avondale's public transit program update.

And I believe we have Matt Dudley who will be presenting tonight.

And it looks like he brought some of his team, including his.

Hey Matt, how are you?

I hope they got cake.

They work all day and now you're bringing them up here.

You guys can sit right there in front.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council.

I'm here going to give you an update on the status of your transit program.

Specifically, we're going to talk about our Boulevard Boulevard Transit Center completion, our transit shelter replacement program, our We Ride Microtransit Service, and our upcoming We Ride uh initiatives.

First up is our transit center, which was completed this morning at 5 45 a.m.

Um almost three years in the making.

Uh funded primarily by federal funds, regional proposition 400 funds, and some matching local funds.

Some of the amenities that we have were two bus pull-outs, which will help our express and our we-wide service.

It's directly connected to the boulevard uh parking garage, which gives residents direct access.

It has a beautiful enhanced shelter with the AV logo with uh nice seating and some solar lighting, and we're gonna add an art element into the program.

So we're gonna be working with the uh the art commission here during the summer to design something that will really kind of reflect the uh the character and the community of the uh surrounding area, probably sports related.

Next up is our bus shelter.

So our bus shelters are a little old.

I think they're they're going on with that design about a quarter of a century ago when I was looking about a quarter of a century ago.

When I was looking about a quarter of a century ago, I think the the hit was uh number one hit in the nation was um Ricky Martin's uh live in La Vita Loca.

So it's been quite a while.

So what we're going to do is give our shelters kind of a modern look, and you can already kind of see that out there over there at uh Friendship Park.

These are the two current shelters that we just put up kind of in the last year.

So, what we're going to do is add 13 locations throughout the city with advertising kiosk.

Funding again comes regionally.

This is not local fund, this is regional Prop 400 funds that Avondale is going to be allocated, and that we will get reimbursed with.

These are the bus shelters.

So these are going to go along our primary Valley Metro routes along McDowell Road and Van Buren, and you can kind of see right there that our bus shelter right outside the Civic Center is also going to be replaced.

Next is our We Ride program, our regional and international award-winning Wii Ride program that we expanded in October of 2023, coincided with the discontinuation of Zoom in late October 2023.

It is one zone.

We had our pilot zone to the north.

We added another 12 miles to the south, so now we have about a 22 mile square zone.

Our fleet expansion went from four vehicles to 11 vehicles.

And our since our expansion, our ridership has skyrocketed.

To put it in perspective, that last month where we had Zoom service during the weekday, we had about 3,500 passengers for the for the month.

Just this last month with We Ride, we had 7300 passengers on the Weed Ride system.

So that's about a hundred and five percent increase.

So I think this next uh slide will really kind of put it into perspective with our weed ride statistics.

Again, went from 12 to 22 miles with our North Zone for that um approximately one year, getting about 15,000 boardings.

Just in the last seven months with our expanded zone, we're over 42,000 passenger trips.

Went from about 70 daily boardings total to about 323 daily boardings, and our shared rides have pretty much skyrocketed up to 64 percent, which means we're getting some great efficiencies out of that.

And you can kind of see that it really is reflected in our on-time performance.

It's it's dipped one percent, so it's still kind of in the mid-90s of 96 percent, but our favorability has increased.

Even with our average ride durations going up a few minutes and our total trip time, which is really kind of booking, pickup of the ride, and the and the drop-off kind of moving up to 34 minutes.

Our residents have really kind of um embraced the We Ride program.

And this is with 560 virtual stops throughout the entire city.

Um, considering such large ridership, I wanted to kind of move along and talk about our riders.

So we have kind of an idea.

So we did we just finished up our first customer um survey.

This customer survey ran for the uh about three weeks.

Survey was sent to our existing WeRide customers only, and we had three goals when we were looking at the survey.

Um, most importantly, what can we do better?

We're always trying to improve.

But we wanted to understand the demographics a little more and understand why our residents are using WeRide.

We reached out to a little over 1,500 active users, and we had a response rate of a little over 15%.

So the next six slides will kind of provide us with some really great information.

Um, one of the questions we asked were what are some of the main reasons why you would use the re ride service?

And really, kind of like the top two would be residents have limited access to a personal vehicle, uh, coming in a little over 23 percent, and cost savings compared to other forms of transportation, um, like an Uber and a Lyft, which is progressively getting a little more expensive.

And the third answer being I am unable to drive or do not wish to drive.

What do you use We ride for most often?

Shopping and work were the top two, followed by medical appointments.

But we've also had some great adoption from our college students at EMCC.

Um the school students just love it, and again, they grew up in the Uber and Lyft type of area.

So for with them being a poor college student once myself, this is kind of a lifesaver for them.

And not to, you know, even that that's 8.72, we talk about regional transportation is our We Ride service really provides that first mile, last mile service so that if residents need to get into another city, they can connect to the Indian School Road bus, McDowell or Indian School, um, or even down there kind of 99th Avenue in low lower Buckeye to connect to Phoenix Services so that way they can kind of um head into those areas.

One of these questions here if the We Ride service was not available, how would you primarily travel within Avidale?

Again, this is kind of a uh reflection again on using a private rare uh ride share service.

I was uh when we first started this, I was up in Garden Lakes and I was talking to a resident, and that resident was uh talking to me.

Again, this was almost going on three years ago.

How expensive it was just to travel a mile and a half over to the Fries at uh 17th and Indian School.

So by spending less money on a private ride share and using the We Ride service, that's more money they can utilize in in their own services instead of giving it to a private ride share service.

Arranging transportation with a family member again sounds easy sometimes, but sometimes it's not so easy.

So that that topped it number two, and then the third one was I would often not be able to travel, which means they're finally being able to kind of get out of their houses and and travel around to kind of Avondale.

What changes would encourage you to use the We Ride service more often?

Um top number one was service on Saturdays.

And I I wish I could say this was really a surprise, but we get uh constant comments, just kind of like Uber and Lyft when you're when you're doing these things.

Residents will leave comments, and these comments will get almost kind of directly.

Um late hours of service in the evening came at number two, um, but also service on Sundays and early hours of service in the morning.

Given that this is a technology-based type of program, we can see, especially with with our service opening at six, that there's a lot of residents also looking at travel between six and seven o'clock in the morning.

So we're also going to instant uh do some earlier morning service.

This is some basic demographics.

Um what you see is kind of it it's it's pretty well mixed when it comes to who's using We Ride, and that's a fantastic thing.

We like to say it.

So that means it's all facets of the community.

Um over here, how many vehicles are in your household?

Again, that is 60% of zero to one car households utilizing that system, which describes the following categories best describes your employment status.

Again, we're looking about 50% of the the users are employed full-time or students.

What is your annual um income household?

60% of our Wii ride users are making less than $50,000.

So by having a very um a service that is very inexpensive for them, those dollars can go a lot, lot further.

You know, we talk about these great statistics, and these awards are really great.

But what is even greater, I think, are the comments that we kind of see from our residents.

And again, you can see a lot of them, you know, a lot of them are talking about low price transportation.

You can see that there was a resident who had back surgery, and that while they did use the Zoom service before, they can get to more places utilizing the We Ride service.

Here's a resident over here talking about uh being able to become independent and being able to serve her community as a volunteer at Banner Australia Medical.

Um residents talking about drop-ups and and pickups and how they are pretty close to the community, that they don't have to walk a quarter mile, a half mile to get to a fixed route bus.

And then the one that really kind of like is a resident who is working two jobs, and this allows daughter and the son to kind of take to the basketball game practices, and she is able to kind of meet them there.

So, what is next for We Ride?

So it's kind of talking about earlier.

Right now we're from 7 to 7.

So what we would like to do is kind of expand those hours from 6 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

This will also kind of match up with our sister We Ride City over in Goodyear.

Um we are also going to pilot a We Ride Saturday service starting in November, right before the holidays.

You know, we have a lot of our residents going to work, going uh shopping.

However, we want to give them the option to be able to kind of go out there on that Saturday morning.

Maybe they've been working kind of all week, and so we're going to offer about 45 service hours during that Saturday, right before the holidays, so they can get out there and shop Avidale.

And we are looking at our summer program.

Um we are looking at half off Mondays and Fridays.

Traditionally, transit during the summer with school being out, people going on vacation, ridership kind of dips.

Monday and Fridays are kind of our our low days.

So what we're going to do for our residents is say, hey, come out.

Maybe you haven't tried We Ride before.

Come and take it, half off Mondays and Fridays.

We're also kind of working with our contractor, Transdev, and our technology provider, RICO, to provide free trips to school lunch sites.

Um we got the technology part of it, so now we're kind of working with school districts, so we're working with the resource center to be able to get those students out there during the lunch who may not have that option for lunch to be able to have free work we ride trips out to uh these uh school lunch sites.

Next is a video, but before I do that, I just want to uh kind of give thanks.

You know, um over here in the gallery is my uh WeWrite uh counterparts and I have Patrick, Elizabeth, and Nick.

And these are our WeWrite employees of the year.

So they provide a fantastic job in what they do.

But I also want to thank, you know, thank Ron, the executive management team, um, council, the public works division.

They make my job extremely easy, which is you know, I've had nothing but support from all levels of management of this organization, which is something honestly I haven't been accustomed to up until like these last three years.

So with that, I would like to play a short video that we created last year.

All right.

City of Avonville is a sururban community, and our city layout is not conducive for what we would call traditional public transit, such as the bus systems.

67% of the people who ride transit every day in the valley have no other way of getting to work, school, medical, anywhere else.

And so having a good public transportation system is critical to our residents.

And as we were coming out of the pandemic, we were trying to find ways to increase that ridership.

And what they recommended was that we try an on-demand service like microtransit.

What we wanted to do was bring a customer focused type of transit service to the residents of Avondale, something that was actually pretty cheap that was in line with the fears that we had for the current regional bus service.

There's other services out there, and they can be expensive.

The WeRide service is very inexpensive and reliable.

We've been very happy with the results of our microchancet system.

We do get comments in regards to how great the service is, but most of our comments are about how great our drivers are.

When we did WeRide, we wanted to make sure that it was reliable, that it was stable, that it was functional throughout all of our residents, and that it met their needs.

We received feedback from a customer.

She is a mother of two, and she was diagnosed with epilepsy, and that prevented her from being able to drive and has been struggling over the last several months to get herself to work.

She discovered We Ride, and her sister wanted to thank us and let us know how excited she was that she was able to get her independence back in the first time in 12 years in public service.

That was the first time that a call like that made me tear up.

And so that just shows the impact that this uh system has on the community.

The key to a successful transportation program is having a multimodal approach.

It's a program like WeRide, and for us, hybrid model between public transit and ride sharing has been has been a success.

All right, and with that, uh feel free to address any questions.

So, Matt, when I look at the percentages, when I look at the numbers that you present.

77% of the people who use WeRide use it for shopping, work, school, or medical transportation.

They would have no other option.

When you looked at how many cars they own, 80% of them, if we didn't have WeRide, would have to rely on some kind of either a family member buying a car, doing those things, but using a car, which when we talk about multimodal transportation is an issue on our roads and our freeways.

We will never be able to build enough freeways to accommodate the growth that's happening.

It's these types of projects that help us get where we need to be, not only as a community but as a region.

Talk about a data center coming in, talk about all these other jobs that are coming in.

You've got to have people who can get there from our community, and this does an incredible amount for that.

I see I I'm sorry, uh for in the first row.

What's your name?

I probably see you more than anyone driving around, and you always have a smile on your face.

Um the ridership is incredible.

I will tell you that I love the Saturday idea, but I also love the Sunday idea sometime in the future because there are people in our community who want to go to church, but they can't.

And they're stuck at home.

And that church outlet is the only time that they may have during that week for fellowship and being with people who they love to see in their friends.

So I would love, and I'm not saying 2024, but sometime in the future, I think we need to add a Sunday, even if it's a very shortened from 6 a.m.

to 11 a.m.

I think that would probably cover most of the church services that they could go to.

So council does anybody have any questions?

Any comments?

Veronica?

Thank you for the presentation.

This is exciting for the expanded hours.

I just have a question.

You might have covered it.

How many additional um positions will the expanded hours will be needed?

We will be adding probably three more vehicles to it.

So it'll probably be about four or five positions that we'll be adding to cover that service.

Another thing I get why I'm in the community is the senior living areas on 4th Street, Cashin, I think down on Dysart Road.

And I know you said you had like five over 500 uh stops.

Is there any that are near there that they can just walk out of those uh um areas and just uh grab the we ride?

Yeah, mayor, vice mayor, council members.

So with that 570 stops, uh one of the things I'll have is kind of a monthly we ride recap, and it really kind of covers about it.

It's about 297 uh you know feet from outside your door to about a a wee ride stop.

But if there's any particular ones that you would absolutely love for us to look at, um we are open.

You know, the beauty of a microtransit system is uh versus a fixed route system where if I wanted to go and add a bus stop, uh traditional bus stop down the street, that would take me six months to a year.

Here with a virtual stop network, you have that flexibility so we can adapt to our residents' need more quickly.

So if we're finding that there's an area where it's difficult for maybe maybe that virtual stop is a little further away than average, we can easily go on there lat long, uh I make a phone call to Canada, and next thing I know, probably a day later, that virtual stop is installed.

Perfect.

I'll reach out to city management uh to see where we're at with that.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

Anyone else?

Max.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Matt.

I think there have been some pretty big milestones.

I'm not sure um if they were shared with council in regards to rides and so forth and so on.

Can you share additional milestones with rides taken, maybe that weren't in the so with our three uh city coalition of Avondale, Goodyear, and surprise.

Um, in the month of March, we hit 100,000 riders between all cities.

And within that 100,000, just a I think it was like two weeks later, um, Avondale itself were 50,000 of those of those trips.

So we've hit some some really good strong numbers, um, especially since we saw that addition to South Avenue.

So that's covering pretty much all those residents north of Lower Buckeye Road, um, including Les Legas, um, Alamar Park.

So now it's pretty much where 100% of those taxpayers now have access to public transit, where before it was only um a select few around a circulator that operated every two hours.

So we're we're definitely giving residents a lot more choices.

Max.

So you made a comment about feeling supported.

Okay.

I'm gonna tell you that you and your team have done a phenomenal job with this.

Um, this is the talk you you you talked to other council members from other cities, and this is um this is one that we're incredibly proud of, and one that is the envy of the West Valley.

So thank you for you for everything that you've done for this.

I know you've put your heart and soul to this, and it is greatly appreciated.

Thank you, uh comments from well, before we get into summary of current events.

I do want I have two things.

Um we heard last week that uh Shirlene Pania is is retiring from the city of Avondale after many years.

And is am I okay?

Yeah, this is part of the current events of five minutes.

Yes, yes, sir.

I got that look from both of you.

I the way you started out had me confused.

Oh no, no, I apologize.

This is a summary of current events, and I'm speaking on current events.

So Shirlene is retiring from the city of Avondale after 30 plus years, and she will be sorely missed, and we are very happy for her.

And then we got news today that Brian Hughes is retiring from the city of Avondale.

And Brian, you will be sorely missed also.

But um, how much a few more a few more weeks with us?

Four weeks.

So we will harass you as much as we possibly can in the next four weeks.

And Corey's like, yes, we will.

So I just want to say that and how much you guys, how much you and Shirlene have meant to to our city.

So, council members, anything else from you?

All right.

Uh can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session?

I have a motion from Councilmember Nielsen, a second from Councilmember Malone.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, please vote.

We are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Be safe getting home, please.

They get so nervous when I talk.

I don't like that.