Paneda.

Here.

And Councilmember White.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Up first is we have our employee introductions.

Uh Jody Novak, your director of Delaware and Services is going first.

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

I am happy to introduce to you our new employee in the development services department, Alex Rodriguez.

He is a building inspector in our building inspection team in the building services division.

He started with us on January 6th.

He had moved out here from Texas where he has a wealth of experience in building safety as well as fire services.

And if you have any questions for him, please let us know.

Yeah, so the first question I have to ask is it the cowboys?

Are they your favorite team or okay?

I didn't want to I didn't want to assume, but you never know from Texas.

So now that you've been here uh a little over a month going on uh a little longer than a month, what are some of the things that you've learned about this city uh as compared to other places that you've worked that uh let you know that this is the place to be?

A lot more structured, a lot more uh the uh my team is a lot more uh it's more of a team than I was just a bottom other municipality.

Uh of course a lot bigger, but um this is a little more like what I was doing, not in Ron Walk, Texas.

Okay.

I'm very comfortable here.

I'm very happy with the team that I've chosen.

Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you, and thank you for joining the team, and we appreciate you being here with all of your experience.

Thank you.

Next we have uh uh proclamation who uh Pierre, our director of marketing public relations will start us off with um honoring our marketing and public relations staff.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thank you very much.

I'm Pierre Sameri.

I'm your director of marketing and public relations, and I'm joined here by my team from the NPR department.

Um we wanted to be here today to uh acknowledge uh government communicators day, which was celebrated on February twenty-first uh this this year.

Um as you know it's commonplace to um to recognize various professions in government.

So you have things like engineering week, which you um acknowledge at your last council meeting, you have parts and recreation month, you have law enforcement month, and so on and so forth.

And now you have government communicators day.

In this case, we only get one day.

So the purpose of government communicated stays to recognize the vital role of public communications in local government.

Um this time I'd like to point out that it isn't just my department that's involved in communications.

We do have various um employees throughout the city who help their departments in the communications functions from public safety to public works and park parts and rec.

So um they are folks that are going above and beyond um behind the scenes doing their best to um highlight the contributions of this essential city function.

These are just a quick overview of some of the many, many things we do.

It's a diverse range of duties that we have within our department.

So we are essentially the communications hub for media relations, digital media, graphic design and marketing, and branding services in Avondale.

I want to take a moment to uh just highlight some of our successes.

Uh we are uh the marketing and PR department is one of the smaller departments in the city.

We are essentially just seven people handling everything from graphic design to photography to all your media releases, uh, as well as the merchandise that you see in our um visitor and visitor center.

So last year we responded to about 1,500 projects for our departments.

Our departments are really busy, so they keep us busy, which is job security there.

We're very happy about that.

Um you're familiar with our rave magazine that's mailed to every single household in the city of Avondale.

Right now it goes to 33,000 households and more as as we keep bringing on new residents in the city.

Uh you see out Avondale Oppoly that was designed at for our visitor center, and that was done completely by our own graphic designer, Krista Wilson.

Uh we have uh brand standards guide that was worked on really hard by the team, in particular Noli, who's another graphic designer who's been with us for more than 20 years, uh, working on all the beautiful uh graphics and and brand that you see throughout the city.

Uh we help our departments with a lot of their hiring.

Uh and then you're familiar with We Ride.

Our department was the one that created the branding and marketing collateral for our microtransit service that is not just utilized in Avondale but throughout the West Sally.

Um this is the team, and with that, Mayor I'd like to turn it over to you for the proclamation.

Thank you so much, um, Pierre.

And if you wouldn't mind, I don't want to put everybody on the spot, but we gotta highlight your success.

So would the team rise and be acknowledged.

With that, I'll read the proclamation.

Whereas the role of government communications professions is to inform, educate, and engage their communities, and whereas robust communication and government creates trust and inspires residents to take action and be involved.

And whereas government communications create relationships and call to action, build awareness and understanding through storytelling, engage and foster engagement on civic issues, and use all channels to include people in critical decisions.

And whereas it is essential to have a strong communications and government because it's a foundational element of living in a democracy where citizens have the freedom to make their voice heard.

And whereas Avondale's Marketing and Public Relations Department serves as the hub for the city's external communication to residents, visitors, and the business community.

And whereas the City of Avondale is proud and has deep gratitude and recognition for government communicators, professionalism, dedication, hard work, commitment, enthusiasm, and sacrifice.

Now, therefore, the mayor and city council do hereby proclaim February 21st, 2025 as government communicators day in the City of Avondale, encourage all residents to recognize the members of the marketing and public relations department, along with other city staff, including public safety personnel who have dedicated their careers to ensure the City of Avondale has effective, impactful, and successful communication strategies that resonate and are relevant.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Not very often they get to be in the picture, but we'll get a picture with council and them as a group.

So don't leave.

We want a picture of all of you all.

Okay, thank you, Ron.

Yep.

All right.

Next up we have a presentation by the Department of Transportation.

Uh Kim Moon, your director of engineering will introduce our guests from ADOC.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

We have uh guests this evening from the Arizona Department of Transportation.

I just want to take a moment and have them stand.

Uh Kimberly Larson will be our first speaker, but I just wanted to recognize again.

All right.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to the first speaker, Kimberly Larson about Lup 101 at our 10 system interchange improvements, and then Gael Lima for the state road 30 improvements.

Thank you, Kim.

Good evening, Mayor Pineda and City Council members.

Thank you so much for inviting us to speak and have a chance to present on these projects this evening.

I'm Kimberly Larson, Community Relations Project Manager with ADOT.

I am assigned to the Loop 101 I-10 System Interchange Improvements Project.

Quickly, I just want to also introduce the rest of our team that just stand, I should say.

Rashidal Hawk, design project manager for both of the projects we're presenting on this evening.

And the design project manager for the loop 101 I-10 traffic interchange improvement project, Troy Ziglitz.

So I will start with a project overview including the timeline and the key elements of the planned improvements as well as the public outreach and the construction, a little bit of information about the construction impacts.

So the project encompasses the loop 101 from Indian School Road to the Interchange and I-10 from the Interchange to 83rd Avenue.

The project's purpose is to mitigate some of the existing and future congestion in the area, and to achieve that, several improvements will be implemented, which include a direct HOV ramp connecting loop 101 HOV lanes to the I-10 HOV lanes east of the system interchange.

A new ramp connection will also be created from southbound loop 101 to 91st Avenue.

A new combined southbound loop 101 exit to Thomas and McDowell Roads, as well as the construction of noise walls were warranted throughout the project.

And we are currently in the design phase, and we'll be wrapping up the final design very soon.

ADOT and its project partners have held three public meetings during the development of the project between 2022 and 2024 to inform the public and gather input on the project.

So I would like to share a brief video that will illustrate for you how the project will look once it is completed.

And I believe just a moment.

So this is southbound on loop 101, and as you'll see on the right, highlighted is the new combined Thomas and McDowell Road southbound exit ramp.

The loop 101 is being widened on both sides to provide room in the median for the new direct HOV ramp connection.

And now we're gonna turn and look at I-10 heading eastbound.

And as we progress, you can see that small green area is the new exit to 91st Avenue from loop 101 southbound.

The eastbound I-10 auxiliary lanes coming from loop 101 will be extended to the east to provide additional merging length, and uh the project limits end at there at 83rd Avenue.

And as I mentioned, um we are currently um in the final design phase.

Um the team expects to conclude design here in the first quarter of the year, and the project will then go to advertise for construction bid in the second quarter, and we anticipate construction to begin this fall.

Uh we also wanted to mention that the project construction is programmed at 291 million in the MAG Freeway Lifecycle Program funded through proposition proposition 400, um the dedicated half cent sales tax in Maricopa County to fund transportation approved by voters in 2004, and which was recently recently extended by voters.

So with construction um just around the corner later this year, I wanted to mention some of the um impacts and what to expect uh when that happens.

Um we will uh see periodic and overnight weekend freeway closures and restrictions uh as well as temporary cross street ramp closures that may last up to 60 days.

This um would apply to the interchange ramps such as McDowell and Thomas Road.

Um the system ramps at the loop 101 and I-10 system interchange would only um require weekend and or overnight closures.

Um there were also expected to be temporary closures and lane restrictions on some cross streets and frontage roads.

And we'd just like to stress to the city that ADOT will avoid freeway restrictions and closures during those major events and major holidays in the area, and to provide um and we will provide advanced notice on construction restrictions to our stakeholders and to the public throughout our various communication methods.

So that concludes uh my portion of the presentation.

Um if you have any questions on this project, um our team would have be happy to answer those at this time.

Are there currently any questions from council members?

Councilmember White?

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

We really appreciate the heads up that there's going to be construction in the area.

When I look at the feeder lane that comes off from Thomas Road, that will also feed into McDowell.

So we're combining two existing exits with one throughway now to have McDowell and how is that closure going to impact um the traffic, I guess, going southbound on the 101.

About what time frame do you see that taking for that portion of the project to be completed.

Um I will say it's probably a little too early to predict um the phasing of the project.

Um when we have advertised and selected um a contractor, we usually then at the start outset of the project um we will hold a pre-construction meeting with stakeholders and the contractors.

So I can't um I can't say at this time when that might happen.

If you have I'll invite Rashidal and Troy to provide any other insight.

Honorable mayor and member of the council council members.

So uh approximately we are uh we have estimated uh about 30 months of construction period, as you have seen in the presentation.

It is beginning in fall after award uh of the contract.

And then within the 30 months period, we have phases of construction.

And to uh answer to your question on the Thomas and Magdalene combined, uh request uh our design manager, Troy, to provide uh more uh information on that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council, and thank you uh for your question.

Um just to provide a little bit more context.

Kimberly is absolutely right.

Usually ADA likes the contractors to have some input into the phasing and traffic control of the con of the uh project.

What we have done as part of our design process is we have laid out a construction sequencing plan that would allow those ramps to be open for the most of the duration of the project.

Now we will need to have some short-term closures of those ramps.

We would not close them both at the same time.

Um so if we do need to close the um the Thomas Road exit for uh let's just say a 60-day period.

Actually, I'm gonna back up.

Thomas Road, we're planning to keep open.

Um because we do have a hospital there in that in that general area.

And so what we're trying to do is do some temporary paving to keep that to keep it around.

We will need to experience some overnight and weekend closures, uh, maybe a very short duration closure that would extend a little bit longer, but we would not close McDowell at the same time.

Um, and vice versa.

There's a lot of traffic in that area.

Um, but the big benefit of combining those exits into one is it's gonna remove a lot of that weaving from the freeway and help hopefully uh clear up a lot of that congestion as you approach the system interchange.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that.

It is a safety concern.

You hit the nail on the head with the hospital.

I think the only thing we could possibly ask is once we know those milepoles, once the contractors are in place, if they could give us a tight time frame on that, and I'm sure that's what you're gonna require of them anyway.

So we'd just love for you to share that with us.

Absolutely.

And I would like to follow up on one of that.

You did mention major holiday or major events.

The NASCAR races are considered major events and they are listed in our special provisions that the contractor would have to keep the freeway open during that time.

If I can just a supplement in the end, is uh dating uh when we will get that contractor on board.

ADOT resident engineer will have construction engineering and parking meeting.

And as partner of this uh project, City of Levond representatives also will be invited.

So there will be in the loop.

If there is any traffic control, there will be advanced notification process to Kimberley and other meson metals.

So we just want to make sure that uh we are keeping everyone in the loop for any kind of impacts.

Thank you.

All good.

Any other questions or comments?

Uh, you know, uh Councilmember White said something that's important in regards to safety.

And while many of our residents may not be utilizing the southbound lane uh in the mornings for work, they may for leisure and other things uh heading east.

The bottleneck that occurs down at the bottom after you are the traffic is coming south.

I think is going to be something that will uh at least allow for to be a safer uh transition uh for our residents and those coming from other parts of the West Valley.

So I'm sure while it progress brings pain, it'll be something that our residents will at least uh find uh important as we move forward into the future.

So thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members.

Uh that concludes my time.

Thank you again so much.

I will now turn it over to Guy Al Luna to talk about C Route 30.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Mayor Pinella, Vice Mayor, members of the council.

Uh my name is Guy Alduna.

I am the ADOT Community Relations Project Manager who is assigned to the state Route 30 uh 97th Avenue to Loop 202 improvements.

I'll be covering uh in this presentation some background on the project, uh, the selected alternative for SR-30, uh, planned improvements that are included in the project, uh, as well as the project timeline.

In November of 2017, ADOT held a public meeting to present the four build alternatives and the no-build alternative and identified the recommended build alternative to be carried forward for detailed analysis and additional public input.

In early 2019, ADOT recommended a build alternative for the SR-30 alignment.

That decision allowed ADOT to begin advanced right-of-way acquisition and some preliminary design work.

Uh this project is now in the final design phase.

Uh the map that you're seeing uh shows the project area between 97th Avenue and Loop 202 in orange.

Uh the project is located entirely within the city of Phoenix.

Uh however, future sections of SR-30 uh between the future southward extension of loop 303 and 97th Avenue are shown shown in green and will include work in the cities of Attendale and Goodyear, but are not included in this project.

This map shows the project area of the SR-30 segment between 97th Avenue and Loop 202, and includes locations of new cross streets, uh traffic interchange, sorry, locations of new cross-street traffic interchanges in the green circles, uh, new bridges in the light orange, and the SR30 loop 202 system interchange uh in the blue circle.

Uh the future SR30 west of the project area is shown as a gray dashed line.

This SR-30 project will include approximately four and a half miles of new freeway from 97th Avenue to Loop 202, with three general purpose lanes in each direction.

A new SR-30 loop 202 South Mountain Freeway system interchange, uh traffic interchanges at 91st Street, 83rd and 67th Avenues, which uh will include bridges to separate SR-30 and cross street traffic.

Widening of existing bridges at Loop 202 and Baseline Road, Southern Avenue, Broadway and Lower Buckeye Roads, the Roosevelt Irrigation Canal, and Buckeye Road to accommodate the new system ramps between SR30 and Loop 202.

Drainage improvements and energy efficient lighting throughout the project area, and noise walls were warranted based on the noise analysis.

Uh aesthetics of the SR-30 loop 202 traffic interchange will match the existing themes on loop 202.

Uh final aesthetics for the SR30 SR30 section between 97th Avenue and Loop 202 are under development at this time.

Uh this image shows the system interchange between the existing loop 202 uh Red Mountain or South Mountain Freeway and the future SR-30.

Uh the red lines show where bridge structures will need to be built for the ramp connections.

And the yellow uh shows the new SR-30 freeway main line as well as the interchange ramps and crossroad improvements at 67th Avenue, Broadway Road, and Southern Avenue.

Uh to construct this interchange, a number of existing bridges will need to be expanded and new bridges constructed uh along loop 202, including bridges at Broadway Road, Southern Avenue, and Baseline Road.

SR-30 will be initially constructed as an interim uh freeway with three lanes in each direction.

Uh ADOT will acquire the right-of-way for the ultimate freeway configuration uh so that SR30 can be widened into the median in the future.

Uh this image shows the approximation of a typical cross-section of SR-30, uh, showing uh three 12-foot general purpose lanes in each direction with inside and outside shoulders, as well as the wide center median for future expansion.

The SR30 uh design will accommodate future improvements that include an ultimate uh roadway configuration with four general purpose lanes and one high occupancy vehicle lane uh in each direction and direct connecting HOV ramps between SR 30 and loop 202.

Uh this exhibit shows the ultimate roadway configuration with the four general purpose lanes, one HOV lane and 12-foot shoulders on each side.

New right of way uh will be required for construction of SR-30 between uh Cerebral Avenue and Loop 202.

Uh utility easements may also be required but are expected to be minimal and will depend on the actual utility relocation uh designs that are negotiated with utility companies during the final design phase.

In addition, temporary construction easements may be required, but are also expected to be minimal uh and will depend on construction methods and maintenance of traffic requirements.

This project, which includes only the planned section of SR30 between 97th Avenue and Loop 202, does require the acquisition of business and residential properties, but the acquisition process is underway and it's nearing completion.

Uh the project is currently in the design phase, which began in October of 2024.

Uh ADOT will host a public meeting in late 2025 or early 2026.

Um design is anticipated to be completed by fall of 2026, and construction is tentatively expected to begin in spring of 2027 and should be completed uh sometime in 2029.

Uh we also, regarding funding, this project and the other sections of SR 30 uh leading to loop 303 are funded under Prop 479, the half cent uh transportation sales tax.

Um and the Avondale segments that are uh well they haven't been phased yet, and that's still in discussion in the Maricopa Association of Governments.

Uh the we're anticipating the segments will be uh Bullard to Dysart, Dysart to Avondale, and then Avondale to 99th Avenue.

So that concludes uh my portion of the presentation, and I'm happy to take any questions uh with uh any time remaining.

Any questions from any of the council members?

Okay, Councilmember White?

Thank you so much for the presentation.

It's great to hear the first segments kicking off from the City of Phoenix.

The order that you just shared, this will happen based on the time frame you've built out.

Is it a good approximation that 2032 is when we might see some of that development here in the city, sir?

I I can't speak to that.

I know that the actual phasing is still under discussion at the MaryCop Association of Governments, but I can definitely look into that and um get back uh to um uh Kimberly uh with uh some additional information if that's okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much for the for the presentation.

I'm not sure how many in the audience have seen the plans.

Uh not just the segment from 97 to 202, but just in its entirety of its position and location and how it's going to run through here Avondale, um, obviously, which we are all uh concerned with.

And I know that many of the meetings that I have attended, uh the dates have kind of they've never been solidified, and I know there's a lot of moving parts uh for that.

I've heard the 2032-33 uh-ish type of time frame.

Um but again, going back to my original comment on the 101 interchange is again safety and the fact that I 10 has become such a parking lot that this reliever uh freeway, if you will, will provide that same opportunity for our residents that the I believe that the interchange will bring to the 101, which is improvement speed and mobility for our residents to go east and west.

And so as much information as you can share, we would love to have access to so that we can continue to push out to our residents as time starts to move forward.

And um, we really appreciate uh that opportunity.

So if there's not any other comments, then um we appreciate you and the team being here today.

Thank you for the opportunity.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, up next we have Josh Perez, our code compliance manager to present a new program we're starting an all-star curve appeal award program.

I'm here to present our co-compliance and office of public safety's newest recognition program, the property all-star curb appeal program.

So why are we gonna have a recognition program?

One of the goals of co-compliance in the office of public safety is the beautification of neighborhoods and our commercial development throughout the city of Avondale.

This new program will provide us an opportunity to begin recognizing and rewarding property owners who are taking those extra steps that are maintaining their properties at higher standards that we hope other property owners would aspire to as well.

Our recognition program will have two categories.

Our first category will be residential.

This will include all single family residential homes throughout the city of Avonville.

Our second category will be commercial, and in addition to all commercially zoned properties, properties such as multifamily units, such as for example, uh apartment complexes would be included in this, and HOA owned areas and properties as well.

So, how would we submit a uh nomination to be having your property considered or a property considered?

We will be using our AB Wise app to allow residents to submit a property for consideration.

This will provide the resident or citizen a opportunity to take a picture and provide a brief statement on that property that they would like to be nominated, and those will be go all the submissions would be forwarded to the co-compliance division where we would screen all the entries and then create a list to provide to a selection committee.

A selection committee will be comprised of members of the city uh city staff and also a member of the neighborhood commission.

Once they are given that list, they will be having some criteria.

Some of those criteria points that they would be using to evaluate the properties are landscape design, use of lighting, heartscape elements, and use of water conserving plants.

The sele selection committee will provide the recommendations to the co-compliance manager, and those recommendations will be forwarded to city management to make that final selection.

Once a property owner has been selected, we would like to invite that property owner to come to a city council meeting to be given a certificate and a sign to place in front of their property to show that they've been awarded.

And we would also like to feature them in upcoming raid publications.

And we would like to present this word on a quarterly basis.

How it would be look in your front yard designed by our amazing marketing team.

We're really happy with their help.

But uh again, this would be uh provided to the resident.

It'd be um printed on a corrugated plastic material so that they can place it on the outside of the residence.

And again, it's just another just a way for us to just take that time to just appreciate the property owners that are taking that community pride in their homes and again hopefully get that recognition and promote that that other property owners are going to do the same.

So with that, I would like to say thank you to all the city council for your continued support and leadership, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Any council members have questions or comments?

Okay.

Okay, council member will council member conde.

Thank you for the presentation.

What a great idea.

Um I did have a question.

So there's two categories, so just a regular home that includes homes in HOAs and then the commercial.

Did we consider doing like a non-HOA home and then having an HOA home?

So making three categories rather than the two?

Right now we just consider all residential homes.

So that would be residential homes at every you know, whether it's in a subdivision that with an HOA or if it's you know like a rebu one of our revitalization clean uh you know homes as well.

So it's open for anybody to submit a recommendation, and that's where we would take kind of some of those considerations uh with the selection committee and the criteria that we built.

But I mean, those again with the once we implement this, obviously, you know, our hopefully our goal is to that it grows, and if there's more categories we can create later on.

Thank you.

Councilmember Garcia.

This is a very cute idea, especially because I see people in my neighborhood and in other neighborhoods taking care of their homes, like going that extra mile.

Um, I have a veteran in my community that goes and takes care of the entire neighborhood because he wants everyone's yards to look clean.

Um, and I'm glad that they have to nominate themselves and you're not walking around because I don't want you to go to my go to my house and be looking at it.

Um but um w with this, it would be really fun to do something like during the holidays included with this because I know people decorate for like Halloween and Christmas.

Do you guys plan to do anything special for the for those times?

Um that is to consider with this program.

Um I would probably need to speak with my arrangement to see if that's something we can include in maybe in the future.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Council Murray Slorial.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um this is great.

It's often, you know, many people see code enforcement for what it really is, and bringing something like this to the neighborhood only creates more positivity and it creates the atmosphere where you know people want to get involved, and you know, it might be the one home that maybe sticks out that wants to, you know, wants the really cool sign in front of their house to share that ability with other neighbors.

So thank you for creating the program with the folks that um put all the hard work into it.

It'll be exciting to see who is your first winner.

Thank you, Council.

So I appreciate it.

Any other members of council?

It's already pretty much been said, but again, I think just you summed it up in one word, and that was pride and and appreciation.

And again, just like our students who do well in in school and get the AVI awards, and not necessarily to get the award, it's just who they are.

I think this is a great way to um celebrate that achievement for homeowners who are just taking that step of pride, and hopefully we'll allow and spur uh that type of of um opportunity for other residents as they see the award pop up in their neighbors' yards and and even in their own.

So we really appreciate this, and I look forward to seeing the first winners of these awards.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, up next, we have a presentation by jury, our family services manager with neighborhood family services to talk about our opioid youth prevention services grant award presentation.

As they're getting ready uh to make this presentation, I think this might be a good point, time to point out um because he won't.

Uh the previous program and this program are both under the leadership of Deputy City Manager Nanegate.

Um, and I just really appreciate the creativity with a little bit of uh direction and idea how he's able to get his teams.

And I know this program that you're getting ready to hear about, Chris's team and Edith and everybody has really been involved, but just really impressed with the work that they're doing to bring great things to our community.

So thank you, uh Deputy Nanoge.

Thank you.

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

My name is Darique Guajardo.

I'm the family services manager with the neighborhood and family services department, and I have the pleasure of presenting on the youth opioid prevention services grants, which include awarding the nonprofits that are recipients.

Um I want to say a huge thank you to kind of just echo what Ron said to Mayor and Council for supporting this endeavor.

The purpose of these grants um is to provide um nonprofit agencies with the opportunity to be a part of the prevention efforts um within the community and to diversify the program offerings that we would get from say just one organization and being able to provide multiple grants, it allows for that diversification.

For FY25 and 26, we have um been provided 200,000 uh for these efforts, and the maximum award for each project is fifty thousand dollars uh for this fiscal year.

I would also like to add um there was three specific areas that we really wanted to focus efforts on, um, and that was prevention, education, and mentoring services.

So each of the recipients um that you will hear about tonight all um will be focusing their services around um those key areas.

A little bit of background in November of 2021, the city council granted approval for the city of Abondell to participate in the one Arizona Agreement distribution of youth opioid settlement funds.

This agreement was finalized in 2022, which was a part of the 2021 national opioid settlement, which resolved all opioid litigation from state and local subdivisions against pharmaceutical distributors to effectively distribute 1.12 million in opioid settlement funds over the next 18 years.

The state, counties, cities, and towns reached an agreement to disperse funds based on population and severity of harm.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the process that went into making these grants possible for the community.

Thank you so much.

At this time, we would like to ask members of the committee to stand and be recognized for all of their hard work in developing the grant and going through the process of reviewing and selecting recipients.

Thank you all.

And now we're going to award the recipients.

As I call your organization's name, please come down to the front and accept your award.

We have big checks and little checks.

So make sure that you get both checks as you come up.

Not my kid is using the funds to expand comprehensive youth opioid prevention education, early intervention support, and treatment navigation to Avondel Youth.

And Mr.

Mayor, as a reminder, we're going to get pictures after this presentation with all the award winners and council.

Thank you, Ron.

Yes, so I will mention to all of the awardees, please stick around for that photo opportunity before you head out for the evening.

Law firm Terra Impact is the next recipient.

Jobs for Arizona graduates is the next as the next recipient, also known as JAG.

They will be using their funds to support their young leaders for youth well-being program at three of the Avendall High School campuses.

Youth for Youth.

Youth for Youth will use the funds to expand and strengthen their youth resiliency and drug drug prevention program with a special focus on youth opioid prevention.

Sounds of autism, sounds of autism will use the funds to support training sessions focused on opioid awareness and prevention for those on the autism spectrum.

That concludes our award presentation.

Does any member of the council have any questions?

Any question or comments from any of the council members?

Okay.

Councilmember Voice.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

And I really commend Chief and your team for attacking this at the use level and trying to prevent opiate use.

I work in the hospital.

I see opiate dependency.

It's a different, it works differently than other drugs.

You become physically dependent on it.

And so and a lot of the drug cartels lace their other drugs with opiates in order to get people addicted to them and dependent on them.

So I commend you for this work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Voice.

Any other council members?

Okay.

Again, you know, just I know it takes time to write these grants, and uh we really appreciate the opportunity for them to come before us, and more importantly, um moving forward through the process, which I know is not easy.

And so I hope that all of the uh recipients today, and I actually I know that they will use uh the funds in the manner in which they were um uh you know applied for and it's only gonna do you know good things for the community.

So thank you to and all the team, Chris as well to uh Super Chief Nanogay.

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor and Council, I believe we're ready for pictures.

We could start with the uh awardees and the and the big checks, bring them down here with you as uh our photographer uh arranges all of you, and then we'll get a picture with the marketing team as well if they don't mind.

Um if I could have you guys one second, and now my list was one step now.

Yes, and then it's gonna be right over here.

Beautiful stays there in my seatback.

All righty, looking right at here.

Three, two, one, three miles, three, two, one, big miles, looking right at my camera.

Awesome, thank you guys.

Awesome.

I know.

Beautiful.

I'll have you right there, right over here.

Over in group right next to Council Number White, no lead right next to me here.

I'll have you right over here.

Smidge.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

I know, right?

That's what we're gonna tell people that you also care for.

Okay, item three is unscheduled public appearances.

Marcella, I have several blue cards here.

So um as I call your name, uh if you could come up to the podium uh and state your address for the record, we would appreciate it.

I'm just gonna read them in the order in which I have them.

And then we also have a couple, I believe, uh Marcella, that are not here in person or maybe, but that you will read aloud, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

So first we are going to uh ask Teresa, and if I uh mispronounce your name, I apologize up front.

Teresa DeSante.

And after Teresa, uh, Mayor, would you like to say who will be speaking so they can make their way to the podium?

Oh, yes.

Uh, and after that would be uh Walter Walter Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Hi, yep.

Feel free to start when you're ready.

Right, Miss Mayor and uh Vice Mayor and Council members.

I am very embarrassed about one of your council members stating that uh Tom Hanks pedophile, he's the most decent person, and what gives her the right to say that what gives you the right to say that?

Not Dr.

Dee Garcia.

You put a bad taste in Adele's mouth of saying that.

You just barely got hired on.

And I never I've lived here all my life, and never, never have I ever came across any of you guys talking bad about the city.

Newcomer, it was she's doing, Mayor.

And uh, because what you're stuck enough to Trump.

I know you did this for the Trumpsters, because everybody knows that you're so proud of wearing that hat, which is okay, but I think that you should do it in a proper way.

And I also want to ask you, Mr.

Mayor, if Tom Hanks sues Garcia, are you gonna be liable for her actions?

Yes or no?

Sorry, I we cannot respond from the dais.

Okay.

And if it is, Avendale's taxpayers are gonna pay for the lawsuit.

I don't think it's right.

And uh so let me ask you a question, Garcia.

Where'd your parents come from?

Did they come here legally?

So it's like I said, you've been elected and you've been taken to this position, and I I think that she did very wrong for the city of Attendale.

And uh I think I really think that she should resign.

Or have a resign.

Because I think it's a bad, bad choice what she did.

I don't know what she was trying to prove or anything.

Hey, like you said, freedom of speech.

But doing it in manly way.

Not call somebody pedophile, and it doesn't mean battle.

Because a lot of people don't understand Spanish.

Like me, if somebody from Germany told me something in German that meant far, am I gonna know?

No, I'm not gonna know.

So I'm asking you, why did you do that?

You put a bad taste in Avonville.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Teresa.

You're welcome.

And thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member, except you, Garcia.

And just as a reminder, and I know that it was mentioned at the beginning of the meeting.

You may not have caught it, but um during this unscheduled public appearances, council is not um able to respond directly to residents.

So um uh just be mindful of that.

So if you uh ask us questions directly, we are not able to respond uh directly to those two questions.

Good evening, mayor, the A council.

My name is Walter Gonzalez, the third generation of old town Avendale.

I'm here today, quite embarrassed and frustrated with the quietness from the council.

Um, but let's get to the facts.

February 16th at 824 p.m.

Councilmember Garcia shared on her personal but public expo file.

Hey, uh pedo Tom Banks, Tom Hanks, not all MAGA hat wearing patriots are white.

In fact, both racism comes from the elite democrats, you ask for with 13,000 comments, 15,000 reshares, and 95,000 likes.

On February 17th at 822 a.m., the Tesla owner Elon Musk shared the post getting national attention with 8.3,000 comments, 28,000 reshares, and 234,000 likes.

February 18th at 2.30 p.m., Councilmember Garcia shared on the same page.

I'm actually surprised more people don't know what the awful truth about the Hollywood elite.

People are defending them as if they have a personal relationship with them.

It's weird.

February 20th, AZ Central published on two articles titled Why is Elon Musk praising an Arizona Council Member for attacking Tom Hanks and another op-ed titled Tom Hanks should sue Elon Musk on an Arizona official.

February 21st at 1154 a.m.

Councilmember Garcia then shared on multiple platforms, including her council Facebook.

I'd never used the word pedophile.

That accusation originated from others, not me.

My original post on X focused wholly on racism, race and racism.

I have witnessed from liberals directed towards Latinos like myself who support President Trump.

In a post I used a Spanish word pedo, which translates to fart among other meanings in the Hispanic community.

Let me be clear, I will not apologize for exposing racism of the left.

The majority of those demanding my resignation are not Avondell residents or outsides, intent on bullying and showing division.

Behavior that only violates and point out my original posts.

This has led to harassment and threats due to misinterpretation word fart bellow in Spanish.

Yesterday, Councilmember Garcia posted on a Facebook Facebook page, a follower posted.

Unreal.

I feel sorry for haters who are triggered at the slightest truth.

Tom Hanks is a pedophile and pimped out his own son.

Councilmember then Garcia reacted to it and put the Karen emoji to respond.

She also on February 9th said, Kendrick said game was rigged, drink was Drake was a pedal, turn off the TV after the Super Bowl show.

In the song Not Like Us, Kendrick says, Boo wap wap wop, I do my stuff.

Why you trolled in like a bitch?

Ain't you try or trying to strike a cord, probably a minor, certified lover, certified pedophile.

But in conclusion, I guess the residents of Avendale 100% got it wrong and misinterpreted what she said, and as well as Kendrick Lamar.

Thank you.

Thank you, Walter.

Next up, we have next up is Roger Picarill, and after Roger will be Mary Alvarado.

Thank you, Mayor, Council members very much.

Excuse me.

Sometimes frogs sneak into my conversations.

I'm Roger Pickerell.

I'm state commitment for LD22.

And I'm also the state GOP chap.

I want to bring I want to start off by stating something today.

An idea of understanding.

Wisdom is the godly and practical use of knowledge.

Those are words that I think we all should integrate into our lives each and every day.

I see so much infractions of penniless a lot of times in our lifestyles.

You know, our families who can see that.

We need to be able to take control.

And that is that is definitely what meekness is in the word of God.

Makeness is power and control.

And I think we need to start exercising that ourselves in this in these premises.

All fall short of the glory of God.

But one thing to always understand, too, is that we can all pick up five smooth stones.

But Jesus said in the garden.

And not everyone in this council room.

Is when you go home tonight.

Think about things that you all fell short for.

And that is, and we're not we're not perfect, but we're forgiven in the eyes of God.

We should not be judgmental for yes, we will be judged at the end.

My encouragement once again is love one another, as you would want to be loved.

Yourself.

For you know, as a model prayer.

Jesus said, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

We have to take a lot of things seriously now, because we got bigger fish to fry in this nation.

We have borders to be worked on.

We have fentanyl.

We've just showed great fights for uh opioids.

We got death in the streets.

I must see programs like in Glendale to get 60,000 veterans off the curb.

We need to be fighting more serious fights and start considering where we stand on the cornerstone of the author of a was.

God bless you, God keep you, and thank you very much.

Thank you, Roger.

Mary.

After Mary, uh, we will have Don Di Simon as well.

My name is Mari Alvarado.

I will address the group in uh Spanish, and then I will summarize it, translate it to English.

Le pido yo al Consejo que tome medidas immediately.

Gracias.

Mayor and Council, I want to express my shock over the recent behavior of Councilmember Garcia.

As a resident of Avondale, I find her conduct not only incorrect for a person elected to a nonpartisan position, and I also find it unacceptable.

What a shame that Councilmember Garcia, who is given the trust and responsibility to serve our community, acts in a very disrespectful and irresponsible manner.

This is the violation of the trust placed in her by the people of Avondale.

The council cannot overlook this lack of accountability and disregard for the standards expected of public servants.

As such behavior has no place in our city of Avondale.

The behavior that was just presented by two other people.

We deserve better, and it is your duty to ensure that those who represent us adhere to the highest standards of conduct.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to address you.

I rise in support of Councilwoman Garcia and the Post calling Tom Hanks a fart.

I have known Councilman Garcia for about a year.

I met her during her campaign, and she has called me an old fart many times in a very friendly and kind-hearted manner.

So when I saw the word pedo, Spanish for fart, it was obvious to me what she meant.

And let's face it, at this point in his life, Tom Hanks is definitely an old fart.

And I totally agree that based on his recent Saturday Night Live skit, he is indeed a racist old fart.

To those who jumped to the conclusion that Councilwoman Garcia was calling Tom Hanks a pedophile to paraphrase Shakespeare and Hamlet, methinks thou dost protest too much.

This said, Ms.

Garcia's two actual points in her post remain true and unchallenged.

Nobody has challenged her main points.

Her first point that was that not everyone in the MAGA movement is white, and this is very true.

In fact, President Trump got a large percentage of the minority vote, helping him get 54% of the popular vote in what proved to be the least racially divided election in America in half a century.

Her second point was that Tom Hanks and the other progressive elitists who write and produce Saturday Night Live are racist for putting on the racist skit known as Black Jeopardy.

In fact, if you check the internet, you will find that most of the backlash against Tom Hanks is coming from people of color, including Councilwoman Garcia.

Despite the unifying nature of this last election, elites like Tom Hanks and the writers and producers of Saturday Night Live chose to double down on the racial wedge they have been driving between the American people for years, rather than choosing to nurture America's current trend towards racial unity.

Shame on them.

We, the American people of all colors, races, creeds, and religions are coming together as one big American family.

And the elites in this country should either get on board the Unity train or get out of its way.

I thank you for your time.

Jeff, Jeff Pray.

And after Jeff, we got Robert Maxwell.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the council, I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak.

The idea that a woman of any color not be allowed to speak her mind or that she not have the ability to be conservative in her values without being attacked.

This just it goes beyond my comprehension.

That's it.

Thank you.

Robert Robert Maxwell, and then after Robert uh Natasha.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, esteemed members of the council.

Um, I would like to start my remarks by um, I guess condemning the racist attack on Miss Garcia by a member of the audience.

I'm sorry that you had to be subjected to that, uh, no less by someone claiming to carry a banter of anti-racism.

It's really ridiculous what I'm witnessing here tonight.

Um, I actually was going to speak about something else, but I guess I should speak about this matter since we're talking about this as opposed to some of the more productive things we could be discussing to embedder the city.

Um I was excited when Miss Garcia was initially elected to the city council because she has such a large following.

Um the city of Avendale's Twitter account, plus the police account, plus the fire account, plus the school district account.

Um I was hoping that she could use her platform to talk about issues that are important for the community.

And so far she's she's done that.

In fact, she's knocked it out of the park.

She's getting dialogue from the richest man in the world who's engaging with her.

I've seen her get invited to the inauguration of the president, and regardless of one's personal opinions on that, I think that that puts us on the map.

Um so I would like instead of individuals shaming um Miss Garcia for her personal beliefs.

Uh, I would like to see members of the city, members of the city council, uh, people involved in some of the great projects we've seen and some of these initiatives, I'd like to see them lean on Miss Garcia to get some of the word out to embedd the community.

And I would also just encourage people to just be careful about using broad stroke ideologies to cover up their own personal partisan animus, and I think that we should leave that animus outside of spaces like this uh if we're really going to move forward and unify, not only as a city, not only as a county, not only as a state, but as a country, which I think we all agree we need to do.

Um I just want to say thank you, Miss Garcia, for speaking up.

Um continue using your voice, continue using your platform, and I encourage everyone to look inward before looking outward.

Thank you.

Natasha Edmonds, after Natasha is Marissa Patino.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members, and city manager's office.

For the record, my name is Natasha Edmonds, Chair of the West Valley NAACP Economic Development Committee.

We do have members in the audience, as well as one of the ambassadors of Avondale.

As a city ambassador, I have been approached by several citizens of Avondale who have expressed concerns regarding social media posts made by a member of this council.

While it is understood that city council members have the right to share their personal opinions on their personal social media pages, I want to remind the council of the commitment made when taking the oath for a nonpartisan seat.

This oath signifies a pledge to act in the best interest of the city as a whole, beyond personal or political affiliations.

I encourage all council members to review the City of Avondale's code of conduct, which states, I quote, the professional and personal conduct of members must be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Members shall refrain from abuse of conduct, harassment, personal charges, or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of other members of council, boards, commissions, staff, or the public.

Members shall demonstrate civility and respect at all times.

This remains true in both public and private encounters, as members should be aware that the public nature of the office they hold means they are always on display.

With this in mind, I would like to formally request that the council agendize the following for next city council meeting in order to hold a discussion and vote.

The topic should be strengthening the standards for city council members.

Consider implementing a policy that ensures city council members during their term refrain from posting statements on social media that contradicts the nonpartisan nature of their seats.

For the sake of maintaining Avondale's nonpartisan integrity and ensuring that all council members continue to represent the entire city rather than political affiliations.

So thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Next up, uh Marissa Patino.

Marissa Patino.

And after Marissa, um after Marissa, we have Ryan Hartwig.

My name is Marissa Patino, and I'm a resident of Avondale.

I come before you today to encourage you to enforce Avondale's code of conduct, resolution number 1006-0121, statement of purpose passed and adopted January 19th, 2021.

Article 3, as stated conduct of members.

The professional and personal conduct of members must be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of improprietary.

Members shall refrain from abuse, conduct, harassment, personal charge, or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of other members of council, boards, commission, the staff, or public.

Members shall demonstrate civility and respect at all times.

This remains true in both public and private encounters, as members should be aware that the public nature of the office they hold means they are always on display.

The comment made by Jeanette Garcia on 216, 2025 on her personal X page not only violates the code stated above, but also demonstrates that she is not acting in the best interest of the people, as stated in Article 1.

This post has garnered so much attention that Elon Musk himself has reshared it and has over three million views.

This has brought unwanted attention to our city in a negative light.

She then went on to accuse political activist Jose Hernandez of sharing her information that is public information provided by the city of Avondale and threaten him on the same personal platform.

Her personal political stance and outlandish claims prove to many that she will not make decisions based on merit, but on her own personal beliefs, as she did on her personal social media platform.

I'm calling for this council to uphold and enforce the code of conduct and act accordingly as stated in Article 11 subsection A.

Each member of council has the responsibility to intervene when other members' actions appear to be in violation of the code of conduct.

This can take the form of an informal verbal conversation.

These instances shall be documented in a memo to be maintained by the office or the city of mayor and city attorney within the mayor's office.

Jeanette Garcia's actions and personal beliefs directly interfere with her ability to act in the best interest of Avondale citizens.

And it is embarrassing that you are allowing these actions to go unaccounted for.

Thank you.

Ryan Hartwig.

After Ryan, we got Tex Poleski.

Hi, my name is Ryan Hartwig, and I've I've lived in Avondale about a year.

It's a great, great city, great community.

We have young children.

I've done over 200 interviews in the last five years.

And I helped get a criminal referral to the DOJ against Mark Zuckerberg.

So the issue here I think is just it's free speech.

I mean, let's let's be honest.

We shouldn't punish someone for their for what they're saying online.

Um so like it being 2015, I attended a protest.

I also have a mosque in Phoenix and had a I had a sign up.

It was uh a drawing of Mohammed and like there was controversial.

I don't know, I don't know why it's controversial, but it was.

So I was I was on the cover on LA Times, and a couple years prior to that, like in 2012, I had some friends, I I was didn't have a place to live for a couple weeks.

So I had some friends from the mosque and Tempe who helped me out.

I've been to the Mosque and Tempe.

So I love I think it's important to have a very you know a very uh tolerant city and the accepting of all faiths and religions, whether it's Muslim, Hispanic, Latino, white, um, uh any every color every color imaginable.

So that's for me, this issue is more about free speech.

We shouldn't punish someone uh for what they say.

And and when I worked at Facebook when I went to I worked at Facebook for as a content moderator, so I was I've seen I've seen a lot of crazy comments online, like and the worst things imaginable on the internet.

And so uh and interestingly enough, when the the phrase when when you would call someone a pedophile online, like if someone was calling someone else a pedophile, we would not we would leave it up.

It was one of the few things we would leave up, even if the person was reporting it, like the same person was reporting, we'd leave it up.

So I mean the internet's we know the internet's not a not a fun place to be.

Uh but and I want to also anyways, that's my main point is uh regarding free speech, and then also just want to make extend the invitation to the city here.

If you need any help or uh training on uh the dangers of online cyberbullying, for two years I reviewed over 90,000 pieces of content, many of which involved uh minors being attacked, sexual exploitation of minors.

So if you need any assistance in crafting any kind of training material to protect the the youth in the in Avondale, I think that's very important with the um you know the dangers of Instagram and and all any kind of social media where kids get involved in sexting and whatnot.

So I've had some experience in that.

So that's that's my I want to leave that so that we have some you know productive aspect of this meeting.

Um once again, thank you for um for the great city.

Like I said, I've loved it here last year.

And uh hope you guys can promote free speech uh in the city of Avondale and not end up like uh Germany where modern day Germany where people get arrested for hate speech.

Thank you.

Tex Tex Poleski.

Good evening, folks.

My name is Tex Puleski.

I'm a born and raised Arizonian and a proud Jew who's lived in this great state all my life.

I am here to speak in defense of one of Arizona's finest, Councilwoman Jeanette Garcia.

Councilwoman Garcia has long been an avid and engaged member of her community and a true patriot, dedicated to both her home state and her country.

She valiantly served our nation in the United States Army, where she served with distinction.

And since the end of her service, she has been devoted to the greater good of Arizona and her fellow citizens.

Therefore, I find the salacious, vile and outright racist attacks against her to be thoroughly beyond the pale, some of which we've heard here and uh here tonight from members of the audience.

Jeanette Garcia's service, both military and public, entitle her to the greatest respect deserving of our veterans.

And her integrity and honor are second to none.

So too is her well-deserved reputation for directly speaking the truth and nothing but the truth.

And yet, this council has done nothing to defend her from her attackers, who have said such vile things as that a proud American citizen and veteran should go back to Mexico or be deported, or as one esteemed member of this audience uh directly implied that Councilwoman Garcia is herself an illegal immigrant or the child of illegal immigrants.

This in so doing, this esteemed member of the audience unwittingly proved Councilwoman Garcia's point that the nature of leftist racism is that they are incapable of accepting or tolerating the fact that a minority, whether a proud Latina or a proud Jew, could possibly disagree with them.

This should not be a partisan issue.

And I find the distinct lack of moral and testicular fortitude of this council in failing to defend one of their own sitting members to be incredibly disturbing.

This council should stand as one to defend one of its own from lies and slander.

And so I call upon this council to do just that and publicly issue a statement of support for Councilwoman Garcia against her attackers.

And if that is too much to ask of this council, then this council does a great disservice to the integrity of the offices they now reside in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, I have three additional requests to speak that I will be reading.

Okay.

The first one is from um Jessica Pinya.

And I quote, Mayor and Council, my name is Jessica Pinya, and I want to express my dismay regarding the recent conduct of Councilmember Garcia.

Her actions do not reflect the values of integrity and accountability that we expect from elected leaders.

I was made aware of her disturbing behavior after an article I read.

I decided to look on her social media pages, and she filled she is filled with hostility, where she belittles, threatens, and uses offensive language towards those who disagree with her, many of whom may be her own constituents.

This type of behavior is unacceptable and does not align with the leadership Avondel deserves.

As a community, we need leaders who set a positive example and are nonpartisan, which is the best interest of the residents.

I urge the council to address this behavior.

Thank you, Jessica Pena, in quote.

The next one, Mayor, is from Andrea Ojeda.

And I quote, Mayor and Council, I am writing to express my concern regarding a recent article I read about one of our elected officials, Councilmember Garcia, who has used social media platform to spread uh dubious rehearsic and hateful messages.

As a resident of Avondale, I believe our elected officials represent all residents of the city.

Without fueling division or intolerance, the office of councilmember is nonpartisan, and it is essential that those in these positions work to unify our community rather than sow discord.

When public officials use their platform to promote hate or create division, it is it undermines the trust and cooperation needed to serve the best interests of all residents.

This kind of behavior not only detracts from the progress our city should be making, but it also creates a toxic environment for residents who expect their leaders to foster a spirit of respect, inclusivity, and collaboration.

Avondale is a diverse community, and our leaders must reflect the values of unity and understanding.

I urge the mayor and council to take appropriate action to address this matter and ensure the that each of our elected officials are held to the highest standards of professionalism and respect.

The actions of one individual should not reflect on the integrity of our city government.

I trust that the city council will consider the concerns of residents like myself and take steps to address this issue in a way that restores confidence of our elected leaders.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

I look forward to hearing about the actions you plan to take.

Andrea Ojeda.

End quote.

And the third one is from Alejandra Lopez, and I quote, as a constituent of Avondel for the last 19 years, I take pride in our community.

Tonight I am disappointed and ashamed in Councilmember Garcia.

As an elected official, there is great responsibility to uphold truth and integrity, calling anyone a pedo uh with no facts is reckless and harmful.

As an elected official, her words carry weight.

She hid behind the use of colloquial Spanish to justify.

And educated Latinas, we both know these words are used informally, and nowhere in her statements was she write in a spanglish format.

Leadership means taking accountability and not making excuses.

Our community deserves a representative who can engage in fact-based discourse rather than unfounded attacks.

End quote.

Thank you, Mayor.

That concludes all of our requests to speak for tonight.

Okay, thank you.

Marcella.

I know that we are not able to directly uh respond back to anything that was asked or questions.

I do know that we do have the opportunity to respond to criticisms, but at this time.

Did you have anything you would like to say?

Do you want to move forward?

Okay.

Well, first I want to say I'm a Christian first.

Kingdom first and the Lord first.

I give all the glory to God.

And throughout all of these attacks, I know that there's fear, and the Lord tells us not to not to fear, not to be intimidated, but to give it to him because he is the greatest of all.

You misunderstood my statement, but the biggest part of my statement was about racism that I do experience all the time, specifically by other Latinos, because I am a Latina conservative.

Our community should not be afraid to be conservative or to be outspoken about their beliefs, their religion walking down the street because of somebody yelling at them because they don't believe the same thing.

It is unfair to anyone else in the community that has the same beliefs as me to feel that way.

I apologize to all of the city staff who has been harassed this entire week by things that are not city business, that we took over an hour to speak about stuff that are not city business.

This was my personal life, and to the people on the council who have received emails about this.

That is the only people I owe an apology to.

I do not own apology to anybody else because I stand on my words.

I will not apologize for having free speech in the United States of America as an American citizen.

That is something we should all have.

And I want to say thank you for those who have supported me and that showed up in support.

And for those who feel like you've been attacked, you have not.

This was not towards you.

You had you are not related to the person in the post.

You are not personal friends with them.

You would not be here if Elon Musk did not retweet me, and 38 million people saw that tweet.

You would not be here if I wasn't a Latina conservative.

You are only here because you are upset that you found out that I am a MAGA conservative.

But I actually presented myself that way the entire time.

I've never hid who I was because I knew this would come up eventually.

I have always been honest and transparent in my views to everyone that I have spoken to.

So for that, I just want to say thank you for everyone who came to support me, and I will continue to uh represent the people of Avondale on this dais by the people who elected me to be here.

Is there any follow-up to this?

We move forward.

In accordance with the agenda item, it says we have the opportunity as council to ask that the matter be put on a future agenda.

I request that we have an executive session to determine if there's a code of conduct situation that this council needs to address.

Of the 14 commentaries I heard, there were four in support, two that were neutral, and I heard a total of eight that were in disagreement with that and called out the code of conduct.

So just to honor the commentaries that we received, I do request an executive session to determine and take a review of our code of conduct, sir.

Ms.

Mayor.

I'll work with the city attorney in the mayor's office to decide how to move forward with that request.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Okay, with that being said, uh we will then move on to item number I'm sorry, to the consent agenda.

Are there any members of council that wish to pull any items from the agenda?

Seeing then, can I get a motion?

I make a motion.

Oh, sorry.

Uh Councilmember White made the motion, second by Councilmember Weiss.

If we can uh now vote.

Okay.

Item passes.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Council.

Uh next we have a public hearing for annexation.

Hopewell Avondale application presented by Sylvia, our planner with development services.

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

Uh, I want to thank you in advance for joining us tonight.

Um, it's an honor to be here uh presenting this item to you, so thank you for your time.

Uh tonight I will be presenting item 5A, uh, the Hopewell Avondale annexation.

Application PL-24-0242.

Okay.

So the purpose of this item tonight is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed annexation.

Uh this strip of land is located east of the northeast corner of El Mirage and Indian School Roads, and it is on the southeasternmost part of the Hopewell Avondale parcel itself.

Uh the area to be annexed was formerly uh Maricopa County right-of-way, and it is now part of the Hopewell parcel.

Uh, but technically it is still within county jurisdiction, so we want to incorporate it into um Avondale jurisdiction.

Uh and this was an annexation proposed by the Hopewell Avondale owner, the property owner.

Uh, this item is for discussion and public hearing only, and no action will be taken this evening.

Uh the adoption for the annexation ordinance is to be considered on the upcoming March 24th uh city council meeting.

So here on the screen we have both uh maps, the aerial map and the jurisdiction exhibit.

Uh the site is outlined in red, uh, and it is located as mentioned previously uh east of the northeast corner of El Mirage and Indian School Roads, and it is on the southeasternmost part of the Hopewell parcel, which is in the dotted blue on the jurisdiction exhibit.

Um for context, the jurisdiction exhibit shows the five-foot wide strip uh considered for annexation.

And uh yet the strip, as you can see, is located in county jurisdiction, which is shown in gray.

Uh, I will give you a moment to view the jurisdiction exhibit.

Um the city of Avondale is in blue.

Uh, the city of Phoenix is in the red color.

Uh Maricopa County is in gray.

Uh, the Hopewell parcel is dotted in blue, and the annexation area is outlined in red.

Continuing with a little bit of background on the request, there is one property owner, which is Hopewell Avondale, and they're the ones who initiated the annexation request.

The five foot wide strip being considered for annexation is five feet wide by 500 feet long, and it totals approximately 2,501 square feet in size.

And it is part of the Hopewell Avondale parcel.

The Hopewell site is currently vacant, and there aren't any buildings or residents in the area.

It is zone day one, and it did undergo a site plan and design review process with the city.

It was approved in uh June 29th, 2023.

The approved site plan was approved for a one warehouse building with industrial uses.

Annexing the five foot strip would bring uh this strip into the city jurisdiction, and it would make the site developable in its totality.

Uh finally, the proposal meets state requirements.

Uh staff conducted research on this annexation.

And uh we did file the blank petition and affidavit, and all required notifications have been completed.

As mentioned previously, this is the first of two public hearings.

Uh the hearing will need to be opened, followed by council discussion, and then the hearing will need to be closed.

As a reminder, no action is required tonight.

And the second public hearing will be held on March uh 24th at our city council meeting.

Thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate your time tonight with us.

Uh that concludes my presentation, and I am available for any questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

At this time, I'd like to open up the public hearing.

Marcella, do we have have we received any requests to speak on this issue?

Thank you, Mayor.

We have not received any requests to speak.

Okay.

Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and open it up for comments from the council.

Are there any comments in relation to this item?

Okay, seeing none, uh, then um I appreciate the presentation, and uh we'll move on to the next item.

Thank you for the question.

Thank you so much, Council.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Council up next, we have our annual comprehensive financial report.

Uh, I think Renee is gonna make the introductions and we'll hear from our auditor.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council.

Um, we're here tonight to present the the fiscal year 2024 annual comprehensive financial report as well as the results of the audit.

Um, and here with me tonight is Brittany Williams engagement partner from Heinfeld and Meach, which is our which is our external auditor.

Um so with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to Brittany.

Thanks, Renee.

Uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of City Council, thank you so much for having me here tonight.

Um good news.

I have nothing but good news for you tonight.

Everything looks really, really good.

So this should be a good one.

Um just to start you out, again, my name is Brittany Williams.

I'm the engagement partner for the City of Avondale external financial audit as well as several other audit reports that come out.

We've met with audit committee members, uh Councilmember White, Councilmember Nielsen, or Vice Mayor Nielsen, and um all of those individuals quarterly throughout the year to give them update status on the audit.

So they're very familiar with this.

And um, you know, our firm is a local firm.

We specialize only in government audits.

We feel they deserve our focus, and so that is where all of our personnel and staff are trained just to do government not-for-profit audits.

Uh the first order of business is the independent auditors report.

So this is our report on the financial statements of the city of Avondale.

It it's just the first page of it, and the very first paragraph you can see is our opinion.

So our we issued a clean what is called an unmodified opinion on the financial statements, and that is a clean opinion.

That is what you want.

These are some of the other audit reports that we issued this year.

Um, in addition to the auditor opinion with the annual comprehensive financial report, we issue a communication to those charged with governance.

I send a letter directly to the audit committee members at the end of every audit to open up the lines of communication and let them know if there were any issues that we encountered during the audit.

There were none.

Um we also issued the highway user revenue fund accountants report, and that was a clean report as well.

We have issued the single audit report, which is the federal compliance piece of the audit, and the annual expenditure limitation report and the LMR CFD report.

We are still working on the impact fees report, which is done every other year.

Let's see.

The single audit report uh contains several different uh schedules and reports, reporting on government auditing standards, reporting on our test work over the federal awards, and it has the schedule of expenditures of federal awards, which is every single federal dollar that the city spent during the year, and which federal agency had passed that money through.

We test federal programs and we report back to basically the White House to tell them and all of those departments whether or not the monies were spent in accordance with standards.

This is the one page in the single audit report that'll give you the synopsis of everything that we came across.

The top section there is the financial statements.

We issued an unmodified opinion.

There were no findings under federal awards.

We also issue an unmodified opinion on compliance for our major prep federal programs that we tested, and there were no findings.

The two federal programs that we tested this year were the CDBG entitlement grants and the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds.

And there were no prior findings to report on.

So this is a very clean report.

This is as good as it gets.

Like I said, nothing but good news here.

Everything looked really well, really, really good.

These are some resources for elected officials if you want to learn more about reading financial statements.

And this is our firm.

If you would like to know more about us, and then with that, I will open it up for any questions you may have for me tonight.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Are there any members of council that have any questions on this report?

Okay, Councilmember White.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Thank you so much, Brittany.

It's good to see you.

I just wanted to um share the audit committee received this information.

Vice Mayor, Councilmember Salario, and myself, as well as the remainder of the audit committee.

We missed Jared, he's not here.

That's the only finding I have this evening.

It's really good to see a clean report for the City of Avondale.

I want to commend all of our staff, um, Barbara, Renee, all the hard work you all do in accounting and finance to make sure things are clean and clear.

I think that we've been going for a very long time wanting to make sure people understand that we're having sound operations here.

And when you go back and double check and look again, that all those things are falling in line.

So we're always nervous when those auto reports come out.

But to hear that it's a clean report, I think people are like underwhelmed.

This is like the most exciting thing happening at our unit tonight.

So thank you very much for being here, and thank you so much to the um audit committee again and the entire staff here in the city that's done everything to make this happen.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Wright.

Any other members of council?

Okay, Vice Mayor Gilson?

Brittany, I'll just echo what Max has said.

Thank you very much for your work, your group that's done that for the opportunity.

We have to work with you on listening to these things and how good Avondale really is doing.

We've got a wonderful staff, and they're they pay attention to those things.

And you're there to catch them, and you haven't been able to catch them yet.

So we're grateful that it continues that way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I just want to extend my gratitude to Barbara and Renee and Maggie in finance.

The team does a great job.

They're they're really we work with them all throughout the year on all these different reports, and they're very responsive and very welcoming.

So thank you.

And thank you again and again to the team, Renee, Barbara, and the team.

Uh, great job.

And this just goes to show the residents, and I know that maybe the residents wouldn't read through this report and find it uh, you know, a report that has a bunch of bills and whistles, and yet it just demonstrates how responsible we are with the residents' money.

And so uh for that I'm very, very excited.

So thank you for being here and appreciate it.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thanks.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Up next, we have a utility rate discussion presented by Rob, our budget manager, and then Kirk Abate, our director of public works.

All right, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council.

My name is Robert Baer.

I'm the city's budget manager, and joining me up here is Kirk Bailey, uh Public Works Director.

And we'll be going through um utility rates uh discussion tonight.

So the agenda for tonight is we are going to first review our water, sewer, and solid waste utilities and some of the expenditure pressures that they are facing currently.

And then we'll go into uh recommended rates for water, sewer, and solid waste utilities, and then we'll open it up for council discussion.

So there's no council action tonight, but it is a discussion and we're looking for feedback.

So with that, I will hand it off to Kirk.

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

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide some overview on the city utilities.

We're gonna start out with a water utility overview.

Uh, you'll see on your screen here just some high-level um developments over the last couple of years.

We're now serving about 28,000 customers, which has been an increase of about 5% over the last two fiscal years.

We have 380 miles of water mains, that's a 17% increase over the last two years.

And along with those water mains are the fire hydrants and the water valves that also go along with that.

Operational budget has increased 17% up to 7.8 million currently.

120% increase in capital projects over the five years.

A lot of that is due to new projects and inflation, and we've talked to you about that before and in previous meetings.

And our total production of water usage in FY24 was 4.6 billion gallons.

That's up 2% from the previous year.

You might wonder well, how did the customer growth increase by 5%, but the production of water only by 2%?

It's really a function of the makeup the base of the of the water production.

So the original amount, say 4.5 billion gallons, incorporates a lot of yard large users.

One of the biggest being the city itself is a large consumer of water, but also large HOAs and schools.

When you talk about the new customers, we're talking about a lot of residential development, which generally will have a lower water use per household than some of those large users.

So that's why you see kind of a little bit of a difference there.

What that is is the cost to bring the water to the city from our providers, Salt River Project and Central Arizona project.

We don't necessarily pay for the water, but we do pay for the infrastructure and the operations to get that water to the city.

Electricity has gone up 14%.

That's the electricity that runs the wells and the pumps in our system.

Again, capital costs to new projects and inflation.

Chemicals up 20%, so that's our chlorine and also our filter and treatment media that we use, and then personnel services.

We've added a couple of staff for the last couple of years, and of course, the cost for wages and fringe benefits and things like that that continue to increase.

Right before we did the road resurfacing.

You might recall that disruption during the summer.

That project was completed and actually cost about 26% more than what it was originally budgeted for in fiscal year 23.

Well number 26 is a replacement well on the uh would be the corner of I-10, south of I-10 and on the east side of the Alba Freo River.

That project is expected to start construction in 2025.

And it was about a 20% higher cost than what was originally budgeted in fiscal year 23.

And the last one is our Encanto shared well.

That's a well that we share with Salt River Project as well.

We're expecting to see construction at some point.

It really depends on when SRP actually does their part to construct that well, but our part is under design.

The reason I highlighted these three projects is because it really addresses the need for water production.

We are increasing the production of water in the city, and we have not increased our production capacity, the wells at adding wells for over 12 years.

So it's important that we continue to add wells so that we can keep up with demand.

Couple of large projects we've talked about in the in the actually several times we've met in front of council.

The first one being our participation in Bartlett Dam, or is what's called the Verde River sediment mitigation project, the VRSMP.

This is a project that involves 22 partners in the in the valley.

All of the partners have various allocations of water coming out of this project and different cost shares related to this cost of construction for this project.

This is a new water source for the city.

Approximately 4,700 acre feet annually that really is going to replace a portion of our cap of our cap water, CAP water, our Colorado River water, as we see cuts to that water volume and after 2026.

We're anticipating some significant cuts there.

So areas out of the Salt River Project Service Area.

It could also be stored for long-term storage credits, so there's a lot of value to that.

And really, the purchase of this participation as this project is and improves our water resiliency in the face of the oncoming of the current drought that we think is going to continue.

The project, we've gotten some word recently that the cost for the project is increasing substantially to the tune of about $3.7 billion, which is up quite a bit from the previous estimate about a year ago.

We have a meeting this Thursday, all of the partners of the project along with SRP to discuss what the next steps are going to be with regard to this project.

It's still a very cost-effective water resource for the city long term, and we have to think about this in long term, you know, long duration, not just today, but we're talking 50, 100 years in association with our assured water supply.

We still need to invest in these types of resources to make sure that we maintain our water security.

But as we meet with the partners, we'll be talking about the timing for this project.

Some of the partners may decide to change their participation level and their allocation, and then also strategies for funding the project.

The intent was to have this project 50% funded by the federal government, and then the 2022 partners would be participating in their half primarily with cash.

But we may be working with the federal government to figure out other uh ways to fund this and even prolong the term of payment.

So more to come on that for sure.

Another high-level project that we've talked about a few times is PFAS contamination.

So per and polyfluoroalkyal substances.

Um back in April of 2024, the national primary drinking water regulation was finalized that set a limit for these chemicals at four parts per trillion of PFOS, which is your plear fluoroctane sulfonic acid and your prefoa, your perfluoroctinoic acid limits on those in drinking water as long as as well as four other PFAS compounds.

With this regulation, we're required to meet that limitation of four parts per trillion before April of 2029.

And we have developed with our team internally and with consultants an action plan and a strategy to meet those obligations.

The estimated cost for that project is 120 million dollars with an annual operating expense of about 4 million dollars going forward.

In the FY26 budget proposal, we have $18 million proposed for design and land acquisition.

Our plan at this point is to proceed to meet the current regulations and the deadlines that are set before us, but there are some possibilities that regulation or deadlines could change.

These types of regulations have a tendency to get expanded in time to a longer time frame just for to allow providers to meet those obligations and generate the capital they need to do these types of projects.

So we are setting ourselves up to adjust, stay on course to design and get ready, be ready to implement if the deadline stays, be flexible and implement over a period of time if the if the if the deadline is extended.

That's all on the water utility.

So we'll talk now a little bit about the sewer.

So about 26,000 customers, 4% increase over the last two years.

And remember that our that's our water customers are actual water meters.

Some of those meters don't serve households, they serve landscape and things like that that aren't necessarily contributing to the sewer, and that's why the the uh customer count is less.

264 miles of sewer mains, uh that also there's also lift stations involved with that, lots of manholes, an operations budget of 9 million dollars.

That's up from seven up 7%.

Five-year capital 190 million, up 49 percent.

A huge part of that is inflation.

And we're in the last year, fiscal 2024, we've treated 2.75 billion gallons of wastewater.

Some of the expenditure pressures of diving a little deeper, landfill costs.

So we have to take our biosolids, which is a dry brought dry byproduct of the treatment process to the landfill.

Electricity increase of 18%, so that's the pumping stations, the lift stations in the system, as well as the operation, the electrical equipment at the plant itself, capital costs, chemicals are up 36%, and then our sewer supplies, pipes, pumps, parts, all those types of things, certainly suffering from inflationary increases.

For the for the sewer.

So the first one is DISORT Road Replacement Phase 2.

This is a section of sewer from Corral to Lower Buckeye.

You might remember phase one, which was about a year and a half ago, which was Riley to Corral right down the middle of Dysar Road and underneath the railroad tracks.

It was a quite a long project.

This is the second phase of that.

But finally, the last one is the odor control system improvements at the water reclamation facility.

That project was completed just within the last month.

And in that particular case, between FY23 and 25, the budget for that nearly doubled from $4 million to $8 million, really driven by inflationary increases.

So a little bit about the water reclamation facility expansion.

The diagram shows, and you can look at the legend existing features, proposed features for this current expansion, and then future expansion features.

This plant is expandable to 15 million gallons a day.

Right now it's currently got a capacity for 9 million gallons a day.

The proposed project that we're working on right now will take that capacity to 12 million gallons today.

We've asked for additional 22 million dollars in the FY26 budget, and you can see overall the cash flow per fiscal year for this project with a total project cost of nearly 156 million dollars.

This this the expansion of 3 million gallons per day is equivalent equivalent to about 3,360 acre feet of water.

And the reason I bring that up is that actually actually about 10% of our assured water supply in our portfolio.

So the beauty of this water is once it's treated, whether it's come from the Salt River project or the Central Arizona project, once we treat it, we can then use that water anywhere in the city.

And as we see growth happening in these off-project areas, it's very valuable to have that water available for to meet those off-project demands.

So I I kind of can think of it as almost like a water conversion plant because it shakes SRP water and turns it into something else we can use somewhere else beyond cleaning it up.

The last utility we're going to talk about is solid waste.

We have 25,800 customers, that's an increase of 8%.

Trash tonnage has actually gone down a little bit over the last couple of years.

Recycling has increased pretty substantially, and the bulk waste has gone down.

And if you want to you know think about why that might be, we've done a lot of effort in improving recycling through the city, especially in some of the areas where recycling was not done so well, uh, where we were taking a lot of contaminated, contaminated recyclables to the landfill.

We've been able to, through education and a lot of outreach, we've been able to change that trend where uh everything that's put out for recycling actually goes to the recycle center now with very little contamination.

Again, there's some pressures there.

The big one is being the cost of recycling.

That market continues to change and is very volatile right now.

Recycling costs less than landfilling, but that hasn't been the case in the past.

And we do see a possible change coming this next quarter where that'll change slightly and it'll be cost a little more to recycle.

Uh so we continue to monitor though that behavior, that market, and uh make sure that everybody's aware, budget for it, plan for it, make adjustments if we if we need to.

Vehicle expenses have gone up tremendously.

We're up to about $500,000 to purchase a new trash truck.

We're a few years ago that was only $350,000.

And I say only that's still quite a bit of money.

Personnel expenses have increased, 20% increases in the landfill.

So we take all of our solid waste to um the Glendale landfill, and they increase pretty much annually.

We have a little small increase in our contract with them.

So good news is the cost for fuel maintenance repairs have actually gone down from what our estimated uh budget was, primarily because we estimated higher on our fuel costs than what we actually have seen over the last two years, uh, not counting what you're paying at the pump today, but over the past couple of years, we we we enjoyed a lower cost for fuel.

Some operational changes that we made, and you're all familiar with these, I know.

Some operational changes that we made, and you're all familiar with these, I know our overall objective, but any of the changes were were to maintain current service levels.

We changed the book trash zones a couple of years ago.

And then of course this month we've changed the curbside recycling and trash service to a new schedule.

And again, you're all aware of those.

The whole idea of that was to level the workload across the entire operation.

So we didn't have some days that are heavy and some days that are light.

Really, it's a matter of optimizing operations, because you've heard me say this before, we're never going to come back and ask for more resources until we know that we're making the most efficient use use we can of the resources that we already have.

A lot of that change was as a result of an operation study that we completed a couple of years ago.

We've also leveraged technology.

So we've implemented implemented a routing software.

We've put um tablet computers in all of the waste trucks that helps them follow routes, it helps them to record things that they see out in the field.

Um maybe a can that can't be collected because it's too close to a parked vehicle.

We've implemented video cameras on all of the trucks.

All of those technology implementations have really helped us to reduce the number of callbacks for alleged missed collection service.

So we would get calls.

Somebody said we missed your we missed your can, you missed my pile of bulk trash.

Um we can now review those items on the on the video or in the pictures and determine exactly what happened and get back with the customer.

In a lot of cases, we can offer them uh for a fee to go back and pick up their trash.

I think Rob actually touches on that in part of his presentation.

But it has cut back on the number of of out-of-service calls or out-of-route calls that we get and when we were doing those before, that's just extra fuel, extra vehicle costs, extra labor that all of the utility rate payers were absorbing.

So that's it for an overview on utilities.

I think we'll turn it back over to Rob for the rate portion of the discussion.

Mr.

Mayor, uh, given that it's really two different things we'll be talking about, now might be a good time so that if council has any questions on the operations and the cost increase before we get into rates, uh, might be a good time to ask uh Kirk uh those backup questions.

Thank you, Ron.

Are there any members of the council that have any questions or anything to add?

Go ahead.

Uh Councilmember White?

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Kurt, thank you for the presentation.

I just um concerned with the really high cost for recycling.

I know you said it's still lower than what our regular um landfill expenses are.

Um, what's the time horizon you think where it might become unaffordable or a cost that we'll have to pass on to our residents?

I I'm sorry I didn't catch all of that.

What's the time horizon that you think we might have to review and look at?

Is recycling worth it anymore in Avondale?

So we are as part of the utility rate study, there'll be an increase regarding solid waste and implements in July.

July first.

July 1st.

So that will, you know, that uh takes into account our projection of recycling for recycling.

It's hard to say.

Again, the market has gone up and down so much.

Um it would be it's a it and other cities have done it, they've stopped recycling for a period of time.

I think it's something that we will really have to think seriously about when we get to the point that it does cost too much, because it's hard to turn it off and then turn it back on again because it's a behavior that take took a long time to get started in the first place.

But um I wish I could tell you, you know, that it's gonna be a certain rate forever.

We just we just don't know right now.

Mr.

Mayor and Council Councilmember White, um I've I'll come back to council if it costs too much.

Remember, we're still required to pick up twice a week at every residence, so we do that by picking up recycling and the regular trash.

So while it would reduce maybe our dumping fees by a little bit, uh it would still have to be dumped.

So you're only really seeing the differential, so we're just watching it closely to make sure it stays within the budget.

I think you'll see the percent increase is very small in solid waste, but we've made a commitment to come back to council with that very hard discussion that you'll have to have about policy on recycling when we can no longer fit it within uh the budget that's approved by council.

Um this is the first time in the two and a half years I've been here where it's cost less.

About a year and a half ago, we were getting ready to have that discussion because it was so expensive.

But every quarter I believe the price is reevaluated.

Yes.

And and so we look at it on a quarterly basis.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Any other members of council?

Uh as we transition into the discussion regarding the utility rates.

As we transition into the discussion regarding the utility rates, I just want to communicate how important it is for our residents to know that from an operations perspective that you guys have really maintained the efficiency and have made such improvements, whether it's changing the routes, uh, whether it's utilizing technology and things of those that nature, that often the conversation uh goes to uh a situation where you're discussing, well, as an organization, before you increase or whatever you might do with rates, you discuss how do you become even more efficient.

And I am here to say uh, you know, on record that your department has done just that from that operations perspective of looking to figure out how do we maximize efficiencies, our our savings, and taking all those things into account to be as efficient as possible from again from an operations perspective.

So I don't want that to get lost in the conversation as we shift over to talking about rates as well.

So I just wanted to make sure that that I mentioned that.

Thank you, Bear.

Yep.

All right.

So the way we pay for all that water, sewer, solid waste service that our residents and our businesses depend on is through charging utility rates.

So for our utility customers, we we charge utility rates in in response to the service they receive.

So it's not like police or fire or parks where you know you pay sales tax and that goes into the general fund.

These what the what our residents pay goes directly to fund water, sewer, and solid waste, and that's what we're talking about tonight.

Our utility rates must cover all the operational, the maintenance, and the future infrastructure improvements associated with each of these utilities.

Additionally, um we have self-supporting utilities, which means that what we charge our residents goes directly to support those utilities.

We do not use sales tax dollars or other funding sources to subsidize our utilities.

And additionally, we do not use what we charge our residents to subsidize other city services.

Um we also make sure that we're forecasting um what are what we need in terms of utility rates over the long term, because we don't want to just make sure that we have well-funded um utilities next year, but we want to make sure that we're being fiscally sustainable and being responsible to our utility customers with utility rates that we're proposing.

So the first slide I'm gonna show when it comes to utility rates is where we currently stand compared to the 13 largest municipalities in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

So you can see that we're on the lower end, so we're the fifth lowest of our 13 comparison cities with a combined water sewer and solid waste bill of 106 dollars.

So you can see the range right now goes from 160 dollars per month for Goodyear all the way down to 74 uh month for the city of Chandler.

So going a little bit more into detail about water rates.

So I'm gonna first describe the structure of our current water rates.

So right now we have a base charge, which is uh determined based off of the meter that connects to the residents or the business.

So right now for a three-fourth inch meter, which is the typical meter connected to a residential home, that charge is ten dollars and fifty-four cents.

And then we have tiers related to how much water you consume on a monthly basis.

Um for residential and landscape customers, we have three tiers.

Um so for that first tier, which is for the first six thousand gallons um of water used for a residential customer, that charge is two dollars and three cents per 1,000 gallons.

Then once we get to more of the discretionary water use, um, one note about water usage is 70% of um water usage occurs outside of residential home.

Um, we start to increase that rate because the the more water you consume, that means the more wells we have to add the larger pipes we need in the system, the more water we need to purchase.

So for the next tier, which is for that six thousand to fifteen thousand gallons, um, that charge is three dollars and fifty-six cents.

And then for um truly high water usage customers, we have a third tier, um, which is five dollars and nine cents for anything above fifteen thousand gallons consumed.

For commercial and multifamily, um, we have a flat rate per 1,000 gallons of $3.09.

And that is because if you think of like a commercial business, there's less discretionary water usage.

So if you're running like a small restaurant, the the amount of water usage you have is probably gonna be steady month to month.

Um it should be noted that a lot of commercial and our multifamily will typically also have a landscape meter for that outside landscaping that is more discretionary in nature.

So going into a typical water bill for a um Avenue resident.

So we benchmark our Avondale residents at 9,000 gallons a month.

So you can see that they have that base fee um of ten dollars and fifty-four cents, which is connected to their meter size, and then we have two tiers.

So that first six thousand, um, they're charged two dollars and three cents per 1,000 gallons.

And then they have that second tier for that second for that next uh $6,000 to $9,000 or $9,000 gallons of consumption, which is $3.56.

So right now our average resident is paying about $33.40 on their water bill.

So when we're looking at water rates, right now we need to first off ensure that we're keeping pace with inflation and we're keeping pace with what the infrastructure needs for our water utility are.

So we need to keep up with the escalating costs of providing service.

We also want to make sure that we maintain fiscal sustainability.

As you've heard from Kirk, there's you know the drought declaration on the Colorado River, which may impact the water supplies we have, so it's important that we continue to invest in other water sources.

We also need to make sure that we comply with federal regulations related to the Safe Drinking Water Act.

And we want to make sure we have transparency on the purpose of our rate increases.

So I'm gonna go step through a financial forecast for the water utility right now.

So we have a reserve requirement for our water utility, and that is six months of operating expenses we keep in reserves in case there is of any emergency or any significant issue.

So if we were not to raise rates and we did not have to worry about what we the Bartlett Dam project and the PFAFs project that um Kirk was describing, we would go negative below our reserve requirement we project in fiscal year 2829.

With the those two projects, the the Bartlett Dam and the PFAFs, um we would be looking at going significantly more negative, especially once you get to those out years, we'd be negative 60 million dollars.

So I think this really shows the need that we have for rate increases for water utility.

So our current proposal, um, we have a few different parts to this that I'll step through.

So for those base and tier rates, um January 1, 2026, we're looking to implement a 6.7%, we're proposing a 6.7% increase to those um base and tiers, and then another additional 6.1% January 1 of 2027.

But to also make sure that we have that transparency on the water bill for our customers, we also want to make sure that we separate out what we're looking for for the additional treatment, especially related to the safe drinking water regulations and PFAFs.

Um we're looking to have a fee of 7.5% on the total water bill for the design that'd be dedicated for the design and land purchase of treatment facilities.

And then an additional water resource fee to make sure that the city can continue to invest in the city's water supply, and that would be 6.2% on the total bill, and that would also go into effect um January 1, 2026.

So this is how that uh proposal would look on the average water bill.

So you can see that uh first the water bill that we first went through, that $33.40 water bill.

So January 1, 2026, with the changes that we're proposing, um, that would go to $40.22, so about a $6.82 per month change, um, about a 20% change overall on the water bill.

And then additionally in January 1, 27, you see that increases again with that um more that inflationary rate increase at 6.1% to 42.66, $2.44 per month.

Um you can see that the treatment fee and the resource fee do also increase with that, but that's just because of the fact that the the base water bill is going up, so those percentages would collect just a little bit more.

So with those proposed rate changes, um, we are projecting that we would be able to stay above our reserve requirement throughout our 10-year financial forecast.

Next, going into sewer rates.

Um the way sewer rates are structured is just a little bit simpler than um water.

So we have a base charge related to that meter size, that the meter that's connected to your house, though for sewer, it's nine dollars and sixteen cents.

Um then we take the what we call the water winter average for residential customers, so how much water you're consuming during those very low consumption months when your your landscaping doesn't need as much water, we say, okay, so you consume this much water, we take 80% of that, and that becomes your sewer bill for the the next 12 months.

Um we have a consumption charge related to what we project your consumption is, and that is $4.53 per $1,000 gallons, and that is across all residential and business uh customers.

So for our benchmark sewer bill, um, we typically project our residential customers using about 8,000 gallons.

So we have a sewer usage fee of $9.16.

So if they have a usage of $1,000 gallons, that rate is uh $4.53 for a total usage fee of $36.24 for a total bill of $45.40.

With our sewer utility financial forecast, um, without a rate increase, we'd project that we would go below our reserve requirement um in fiscal year 23 or fiscal year 33.

So it's not as dire of a forecast that is it is for water, but there is still some need for an inflationary increase for sewer utility.

So right now we're um we're recommending a 2% rate increase that would become effective January 1 of 26.

So that would raise that uh current bill from 45.40 to 46.30 cents, a 90 cent per month increase.

And then we would propose another two percent increase January 1 of 27, and that would bring that bill up to 47.21 cents, another 91 cent increase.

So with that um projected rate increases, um, we would project that we would stay above our reserve requirement throughout our financial forecast.

Finally, going into solid waste.

Solid waste has the easiest rate structure.

So there's not a lot of math involved in here.

So if you have one trash can, one recycling can, you get the monthly bulk service, that is $27 a month currently.

If you have two trash cans, one recycling can in monthly bulk, that's $43 a month.

And we also have that special one-time pickup fee that Kirk was talking about for $28.

So by far, the vast majority of our residential customers have the one trash can, one recycling can um bill, so that is $27 currently.

With solid waste, um our financial forecast, you can see that we are projecting we'd go below our reserve requirement.

So our reserve requirement for solid waste is four months of operating expenses.

Um so we project we'd go below that reserve requirement in fiscal year 27.

Um, and you can see how that uh forecast gets uh progressively uh more negative over the the forecast period.

Um that is really driven by the fact that well, the trucks um related to pickup of solid waste have really gone up in price over the past five years.

So what we're proposing for um solid waste customers is going from 27 dollars currently and implementing in July 1 of 25 um a dollar sixty rate increase, about six percent on that total solid waste bill, and then July 1 of 26 an additional one dollar and seventy-five cent increase.

So with that, um with those proposed rate increase for solid waste, you can say we stay above that reserve requirement.

You can see that there's kind of a dip in 28, 29, and 2030.

That's because um a lot of our solid waste vehicles go up for replacement then.

So we replace the vast majority of our solid waste vehicles in the three-year fiscal year time frame, and then we have a few years where the fund balance recovers, and then we go through that cycle.

But we stay above the reserve requirement throughout our 10-year financial forecast.

So to sum up the recommendation, so for water, we're looking at um a rate increase of 6.7% on the base and tiers, that consumption fee, and then an additional 7.5% for the additional treatment fee related to the Safe Drinking Water Act requirements, and a 6.2% water resource fee.

And then in 27, we would look at a 6.1% rate increase.

For sewer, we're looking at a 2% rate increase in 26 and 27.

And then for solid waste, we are looking for $1.60 in fiscal year 26 and $1.75 in uh 27.

So when it comes to that combined utility bill, so currently, if you add up what we're projecting the benchmark customer is for water, sewer, and solid waste, that combined bill is $105.80 per month.

Um if the recommended rate increases are implemented, that bill would go up to $115, $13, about a $9.33 change per month, or an 8.8% rate increase.

And then for January 1, 27, um that uh bill goes up to $120.22, $5 about a $5 increase, about a 4% increase on the total bill.

So if the rate recommended rate increases um are implemented, we'd go from being the fifth lowest to being about middle of the pack with our comparison metropolitan cities.

Um so we'd still not be anywhere close to being the highest.

And I also want to just um show that we're not the only ones facing a lot of expenditure pressures with utilities.

So I'm not gonna go read through every one of these uh ones, but like for example, Gilbert, their base fee, which is only $9.16 for us for sewer, they're proposing to increase their base fee for residential customers from $32.75 to $62.01 come April 25.

Phoenix um increase their rates 13% for water, 7% for wastewater.

Peoria increased their total utility bill 8.4%.

So a lot of cities are facing a lot of the same expenditure pressures um as we are when it comes to um our utility rates.

So there is no action tonight.

Um, but um we are looking to have a notice of intent um um up for council consideration on the March 3rd council agenda.

So that starts the formal process for adjusting water and sewer rates, but not solid waste rates.

It does not set the rates.

So if we were only increased the rates a penny, we would still need to pass this notice of intent by city council.

Um what is entailed by this is it one sets the date for the public hearing, which would be May 5th.

Um, it also says that we must post a report to the website that has more detail on our financial projections and the recommended rate increase, and that would be done 30 days before council action on May 5th.

And then a public notice would be published in the newspaper at least 20 days before council action.

So these are these are the next steps in terms of our utility rate adoption process.

So tonight is for discussion feedback.

We come back March 3rd for the notice of intent.

Um if the notice of intent is passed by council, we do the required um public noticing and outreach in March and April.

Um, publish the notes of intent in the newspaper around April 20th, have the public hearing on the rate adoption on May 5th, and then you can see when we would implement those rate increases for um water, sewer, and solid waste.

So with that, uh I'll open it up for questions and feedback.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um members of council, is there anybody that has questions or comments?

Vice Mayor Nielsen.

I'll just pick one quick comment here.

I appreciate a couple of mentioned in the thing that's just really having to do with long term.

I said on the AMWA water board down there with the 10 municipalities there, and everybody's concerned about water and sewer and everything else.

Uh however, there's some developers that are more concerned about the next five to ten years, take what they can and run and not look for the opportunity to provide for children, grandchildren, or maybe even great grandchildren.

So I appreciate the insight, at least we're using here in Avondale to look forward to be able to provide for those who will come after us and be able to provide a nice life where water will be available, sewer will be available, as well as the other amenities that we have here.

So thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Any other members of the council.

I know that when I was first appointed last year, um, I had my the very first conversation that I had was with a resident who called uh my office and I happened to be there, so I answered, and the conversation centered around utility rates.

Um she was uh on a fixed income, and the increases, as you can imagine, um did not make her her budget very happy.

So as I shared with her, that one of the uh one of the factors that led to that was, and I know that even prior to me being on council, was the um we did not increase rates uh over uh a significant number of years.

And then when we I say we, when the organization realized that we were behind and needed to do the increase, it was a sudden shock.

And as part of this plan, these utility rates, I don't think there's anybody up here who walks and talks with our residents to say we're here to increase your rates.

And I don't think any of us take it lightly.

Um but as demonstrated as part of this presentation, um, this is not a revenue generating activity.

It is keeping up with not only the pace uh and the costs that are associated with providing water, but even the decisions that center around that.

And I know that there are other cities in terms of comparables, um, Goodyear being one, and residents often talking about the data centers that are coming to town.

You know, ours, the ones that are coming to Avondale were uh nearing development.

We were fortunate to require the closed loop system, which meant that we do not require the same amount of water as uh our neighbors.

So for that and the decisions that we have made, uh I'm very uh we're for unfortunate to be able to communicate that to the resident.

And having a conversation I can only imagine with uh this resident as well after this in regards to rates being increased or the particip the potential for them to be increased again.

I again have to have that conversation with this resident to share with with her that uh this is not revenue generating, this is more of keeping up to date with what is required from us.

And so um I I take that conversation and that responsibility uh very seriously, but I also know from an organizational perspective that infrastructure and service it costs money.

So um I I look forward to many more questions, hopefully from council, um, even maybe even some creativity or innovative thought moving forward, but here's where we are today.

And so um I would really appreciate if I don't know if this is something we can do in terms of a road show or how we get this information to the public in terms of education.

Uh I know the public hearing will be coming up.

Is that March 3rd that was referenced here?

Um March 3rd is just the notifies of intents of the official public hearing would be May 5th.

Okay, so May 5th, and that all of us do uh justice of having those conversations with residents as well so that they are educated in in what we've discussed here tonight.

So um are there any other comments at all from other members of council?

Okay, so with that being said, I appreciate again the presentations and and the information shared.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, with that we are at item six, which is our summary of current events.

Are there any members of council that have anything to share?

Hi, Mayor, I have something.

Okay, Councilmember White.

Thank you so much for your recognition, and thank you also to the city uh manager's office and staff as a member of the Leadership West Um Class 31 best class ever.

We visited uh Treasure House this past Monday on February 17th.

Treasure House was founded by Kurt and Brenda Warner Um to um to help their eldest son Zach who suffered a traumatic brain injury, and it was just um it was breathtaking to see how the um intellectually um disabled community uh gets the opportunity to go to the treasure house and possibly learn life skills so that they can become employed and possibly learn how to live on their own.

And so just going there and spending time um again with people who maybe on the spectrum have developed developmental disabilities, some people have unseen disabilities, seeing them have life skills and being able to live in a community.

It was really amazing of the amount of residents that are there, only one has a driver's license, which was something that I just couldn't understand.

Um, but you know, you have to kind of see it to believe it.

So I just wanted to share Treasure House Phoenix exists and that they have a strong mission.

And then, you know, if if people in the community want to learn more about it, definitely um visit online.

When I think about the team and their team leader, Laureen Tanner, um, the CEO of Treasure House, she does all the fundraising for that organization pretty much by herself.

And so I was just floored to know that she's able, it's it's uh it's a private organization, they don't get any federal funds.

So when money is being taken from different places, it doesn't even stop their ability to serve the intellectually disabled because they get all private money.

So I was just proud of that, and I just wanted to share that with council and thank you for allowing me to represent this um team on leadership west class 31.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Nielsen.

I had the opportunity last week to go to the new Deacon Sini Park over in Old Avondale.

It is an amazing place.

Thank Parks and Rec for all the work that they've done on that.

They've got place for kids there, a kid park, they've got a ninja park.

And if any of you want to go to a swing that handles wheelchairs, they've got a wheelchair swing over there.

That's just an amazing thing.

So thank you, Parks and Rec and whatever else.

It was a great opportunity to be there.

And then the next day or two days later, I had the opportunity to go downtown to GPEG and meet with uh 50 different Japanese delegates.

The consulate general there said he's got about one trillion dollars that they want to invest in the United States.

And I do give credit for Jen Stein being down there.

I couldn't keep track of her because she was going all over the place trying to talk with each and every one of them and strum up some business for Avondale and bring some of those technology um opportunities here.

So thank you for economic development and all the work that you're doing.

It was just a great opportunity to to see her at work and meet some of those people that she knows, and it was great.

So thank you very much for that.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Okay, Councilmember Garcia.

I went to an opening of a new medical center this uh I mean like two weeks ago, and I think it's just so wonderful that we bring those type of businesses out here because we travel from the West Valley all the way to the East Valley all the time for medical care.

You know, being a veteran, I most of the places they send me to end up being in the East Valley.

So knowing that now we have like a heart and arthritis place right down the street.

It's like they picked it up and dropped it there.

It is beautiful.

The staff had was wonderful.

And um talking about new businesses, I know Apple decided to invest back into the United States.

So since we're building a lot of stuff kind of south, it would be awesome to maybe look into getting them to build something so we could have revenue for that from Apple as well here in Avondale.

I can see Jen giving the thumbs up.

Um I last week on Friday had the awesome opportunity of attending um Luke Air Force Base Rodeo Awards, which uh consists of not only um service members but uh civilian personnel.

And I gotta tell you, if you've never been in a hangar as jets are flying by, if it doesn't make you feel uh patriotic, I don't know what will.

Um but most importantly, what I wanted to convey is just how important Luke is uh to our region.

Um in addition to that, uh not only the members who live within our city limits, uh, but those that uh you know shop at our stores, eat at our restaurants.

Um and one of the things that uh was conveyed uh in in in um by member of the by a number of the members there was that as we transition from the F-16 to the F-35, the best fighter pilots in the world are training right here in our area.

So that's awesome, and it's time.

Okay.

Next item is a German.

I see we got a motion from Councilmember Connie, a second from Councilmember Solorio.

Please vote.

Everybody, please drive home safely and have a great rest of the evening and week.