Okay, I'd like to call the order of the regular city council meeting of February 5th, 2024.

Will you all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silent reflection?

Indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Okay, item number one roll call by the city clerk.

Marcella, can you please do the roll call?

Councilmember Condi, can you hear me okay on Zoom?

Yes, thank you, Marcella.

Here.

Councilmember Malone.

Councilmember Nielsen.

Councilmember Solario.

Councilmember White.

Here.

Vice Mayor Paneda.

Here.

And Mayor Weiss has an excused absence tonight.

Thank you.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Vice Mayor.

Next up is our new employee introductions with Renee Weatherless, our Director of Finance and Budget.

Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of council.

I have the pleasure tonight to introduce our newest member to the Finance and Budget Department, and that is Karen Reed.

Unfortunately, she is unable to be present with us.

But she was hired as an accounting specialist, so she's in our accounts payable and payroll division.

Um Karen does come to the city with over 30 years of accounts payable and payroll and accounts receivable experience.

She moved for um to the West Valley from Maryland and enjoys Skyhacking and other outdoor activities.

Thank you.

Thank you, Renee.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Vice Mayor.

Next up, we have a proclamation for Engineers Week, and I believe Kim Moon is our city engineer's gonna kick it off.

Good evening, Vice Mayor, Council.

I just uh wanted to say uh a few brief words before the proclamation is read.

And we have our group photo from last week up there.

Um the National Society of Professional Engineers initiated Engineers Week in 1951, National Engineers Week or E-Week, is a week dedicated to celebrating the work that engineers do for our society.

It's also an opportunity to support activities that get students interested in engineering and promote future careers in science, technology, and math.

Uh those available in the engineering department gathered for this photo last week, and we have even more team members with us tonight, including engineers from the public works department as well.

So if everyone could come and join me at the podium, be recognized.

All the engineers.

And I just want to say, please join me in recognizing and celebrating our Avondale professional engineers, architects, plan reviewers, inspectors, project managers, right of way, and project coordinators, associates, technicians, assistants, analysts, supervisors, and other professionals in engineering and public works department for in celebration of e-week.

Well, thank you for uh each one of you brings to the city of Avondale.

Um, you know, you're very vital, and so we thank you for uh what you again bring to the city, and I'm gonna go ahead and read this proclamation for Engineers Week if you don't mind.

Proclamation for Engineers Week, whereas engineers provide the talents and skills necessary to analyze and solve complex problems and create the infrastructure essential for the high quality of life which our citizens enjoy.

And whereas the support of understanding and informed citizensry is vital to efficient planning, design, construction, and operation of the public infrastructure, which includes water, sanitary and storm sewers, streets and highways, bridges, public buildings, communications, electricity, and natural gas distribution.

And whereas the health, safety, welfare, comforting and economic vitality, this community as well as the success of project renewal greatly depends on sound public infrastructure.

And whereas engineers address the major technological challenges of our time from rebuilding towns devastated by natural disasters to designing infrastructure that will take our country through the 21st century.

And whereas the quality and effectiveness of the public infrastructure is vitally dependent upon the effort, talent, and skill of public public and private sector engineers.

And whereas the city of Avondale is fortunate to have highly qualified and dedicated engineers whose professionalism materially influences the people's attitude and understanding of the importance of the work they perform.

And now they're for it be resolved that the week February 18th through February 24th, 2024, is hereby designated as Engineers Week in the City of Avondale.

Thank you for all you do.

And staff, if you would please stay for a photo after a few more presentations, we would love to have a photo with council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

Next item, please.

All right, we have another proclamation this time for Government Communicators Day.

Clearly I can't talk tonight, but for Government Communicators Day, and we have Pierre, our Director of Marketing and Public Relations.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I am pleased to be here before you today because this is the first time that a day has been set aside to recognize communication professionals working in government.

This is a day that's going to be held on February 24th, recognizing the contributions of public communicators across our nation.

Little snapshot of what we do.

Here in the city of Avondale, we're fortunate to have uh a marketing and public relations department.

It's a small team serving our 18 uh city departments.

Um just a high overview of um the things that we do.

We are the communications hub for the city and um a full service um department that does um all the work in-house.

And of course, um, as our departments get busier, so do we.

Our workload um grows as our departments get busier.

Um last year alone, we completed over 1,500 projects for the city.

And um just um some highlights of the things that uh we did.

Uh, we developed the branding and marketing for the launch of We Ride, which is you know, you see it uh throughout the community now.

Uh we've developed many comprehensive campaigns for our city departments.

We have uh created custom items for the visitor center, including the Discover Avondale Oppoly, which has been featured in the news lately that was created in-house.

Uh we host um several trainings and marketing trainings for our city departments to help them uh promote their own projects, and we've published award-winning collateral, including the RAVE review, uniquely Avondale Visitor Guide, the annual report, and of course the water quality uh calendar.

And we have we also consistently staff the EOC in the public information section during our NASCAR races.

Um I have some members of my team with me today, a couple out are out sick, but in closing, I'd like to say that we're very uh proud of the work that we do for the city of Avondale and uh we love being able to work for our departments serving the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um I see the team is joining you up front.

So, yes, uh, each function that's been uh of this organization that's been celebrated so far uh are just so vital, and as you mentioned, I mean, we can do great things within this organization, but unless sometimes they're visible, um, and our residents can see, learn, read about what is happening, um, you know, they they would not have any idea potentially.

So thank you so much for what you do.

And I'll go ahead and read the proclamation for Government Communicators Day.

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 calls 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's essential to have strong communications in 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 communications 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 Avondale City Council do hereby proclaim February 24th, 2024 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.

Thank you so much.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Reichs Mayor.

Next up, we have uh the City Manager's Excellent Excellence Awards program, and Torin from my office, our senior management is going to present this.

Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council members.

I'm excited to join you this evening to present the 2023 City Manager's Excellence Awards Program.

The City Manager's Excellence Award Program recognizes Avondale employees who work hard to improve and support our organizational culture and serve the community at the highest level to meet our core purpose of making lives better.

We announced all 2023 nominees and winners to staff at the January quarterly all-employee meeting, and I would like to share them with you as well this evening.

All of our award winners are in the audience tonight, and we would like to ask them to join council after our presentations are done for a picture.

Let's get started.

On screen are all of the employees and employee teams that were nominated for one or more City Managers Excellence Awards in 2023.

In total, we received 30 nominations, with several employees and teams receiving multiple nominations.

Each employee award winner received an engraved award, a challenge coin, an opportunity to have their picture placed on our city manager's excellence awards page on the city's public website, and one day off with pay.

Several award categories also include a monetary award.

Our 2023 award winner was Janet Dayer with the Human Resources Department.

The Victory Lane Award is the second highest category of the City Manager's Excellence Awards and is given each year to an employee who exemplifies the core values of the city and who continually goes above and beyond in care in carrying out our core purpose.

The Guiding Leader Award recipient is an employee who creates a work environment that is team-oriented, fair, and transparent.

Our 2023 award winner in this category was Liana Bell with the Human Resources Department.

The Frontrunner Award recipient is an employee who continually works to resolve issues quickly, streamline processes, provide excellent customer service, and works efficiently and effectively to make Avondale the best it can be.

Our 2023 Award winners in this category were McKenzie Henderson with Marketing and Public Relations and Gabby Babinski with the Office of Public Safety.

The Pit Crew Award is given each year to a team of individuals in excelling in at least one of the core values of the city who work as a team to achieve the city's core purpose of making lives better.

Our 2023 award winning teams are the Public Works Streets Maintenance Division and the Facilities Department.

Our 2023 Award winner is Ariana Ramirez with the Development Services Department.

The final City Manager's Excellence Award is the 2023 Special Recognition.

This award was presented to an employee who exemplifies the Avi Way through their tireless commitment to making lives better in Avondale, supporting a culture of professionalism and teamwork, and conveying their passion for service delivery day in and day out while supporting the city's core values of teamwork, accountability, kindness, transparency, efficiency, helpfulness, leadership, professionalism, and customer service.

Our 2023 award winner in this category is Andy Musquita, our human resources director.

Now, before I conclude this presentation, I would like to share with council just how impactful this event was for our city staff.

The City Manager's Excellence Awards drew the largest crowd of staff attendees that we have had at an all-employee meeting in years, and the energy and excitement around the room was palpable, as you can see in the pictures that we have here on the screen.

Look at all those smiles.

Congratulations to our city manager's excellence award recipients.

As I said, Vice Mayor, Council members, please, after our presentations are done this evening, and members of the crowd who were the award recipients, join our council members for a picture after the presentations.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Sure.

Councilwoman Malone.

Thank you for the presentation.

One of the things when uh Ron got on board as we um can you go back to the picture with everybody out there?

One of the things we asked Ron to do is make sure he took care of our staff.

Thank you, Ron, for loving our staff and taking care of a wonderful group of people that work hard for the city.

They truly deserve it.

So thank you guys again.

Thank you, Ron.

Are there any other members?

Oh, sorry, are there any other members of council that wish to make any comments?

Ron.

Mr.

Rice Mayor, thank you.

Councilmember Malone, thank you for the kind words.

I will have to say that this was uh one of uh uh Tracy's initiatives that she put together, and then of course, Torin uh worked very hard putting this program together, and um Sandra and Asa and the team creating this, and our marketing team helped create the challenge coins.

Uh Alexis, our admin person helped create the trophy, so it was a big team effort, but I couldn't be prouder uh to work for this city and the people that work here.

So uh kudos to all the winners and to all the people nominated.

What a hard job it was to select the winners.

They were just amazing nominations and just fabulous employees, and again, thank you to my team.

And thank you to all those involved.

And again, I'm sure that uh most of those who are recognized tonight don't come to work each day looking to receive an award.

Um, but it's just part of the hard work, and it's it's your daily routine and habits that um exemplify exemplify all the service that you provide again to our residents and to each other.

So thank you so much, and thank you, Torren, for the presentation.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

So I believe uh one more going oh one.

We have one more, Mr.

Rice Manager, one more presentation.

This is a recognition for Deputy Chief uh Aaron Glass.

I believe um Chief Rooney, our fire chief, and uh Chief Nanogee, our Chief of Public Safety, are here to make the presentation.

Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council.

Tonight, uh Chief Nanigan, I have the honor and pleasure of recognizing one of our own.

In addition, we will be uh giving a life safety award, which I just wanted to explain to you as a very big deal in the fire service.

It's the highest award that we give out.

Um, and after Chief Nanagay uh tells you about what happened, I think you'll agree.

But before that, I want to point out that Chief Pauloezy from the Goodyear Fire Department and his command staff are here in support of this uh award.

Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council.

Some of the details of this event are quite impressive.

So two months ago, on December 15th, Deputy Chief Aaron Glass was driving off duty with his wife and daughter at the intersection of Fillmore and Australia Parkway in Goodyear.

While at that intersection, he noticed a car slowly drive through the intersection and up into the roadway landscaping.

Um Deputy Chief Glass approached the car while it was parked and immediately recognized that the elderly driver was in medical crisis.

He immediately went into action and noticed that she was not breathing or had a pulse.

With some assistance from some of the other citizens, they pulled her from the car, and Chief Glass immediately started chest compressions.

Shortly after that, she regained a pulse and started breathing on her own.

Short thereafter, the Goodyear Fire Medical arrived to continue medical care.

The driver was transported to one of the local hospitals and was stabilized and was subsequently discharged from the hospital.

The City of Goodyear and Fire Medical Department commended Chief Glass for his swift and def decisive action at the immediate onset of this emergency.

And just a little side note that you know one of the genuine qualities of leadership is humility.

And also a true leader never seeks attention.

If it not had been for the Goodyear Fire Medical Department, we would have never known this even took place.

Aaron came to work every day, never mentioned to any of us until we got the email from Goodyear.

So trying to get information out of him on what would have happened, he was very humble, but his actions were very deserving, and we're honored to be here tonight, Chief Rooney and I to give him this award.

So thank you.

On the behalf of the Avondale Fire and Medical in the City of Avondale, we would like to present this life saving award to Deputy Chief Aaron Glass for performing acts of duty or acts performing acts off-duty through prompt and alert action and great at great personal risk, which specifically resulted in saving a human life.

Thank you, Erin.

Congratulations.

Of course.

Thank you.

And mayor and council at this time, if you would like to come down for photos or comments.

For recess.

Okay, it'll take about a what, five, ten-minute recess?

Five minutes is great.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

So Marcel, do we have any uh requests to speak at this time?

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We have not received any requests to speak.

Okay, thank you.

Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda.

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

If not, can I get a motion?

Got a motion by Councilmember Malone, seconded by Councilmember White.

All those in favor, or please vote.

Councilmember Conde, how do you vote?

Aye.

Thank you, Councilwoman Conde.

Okay, it passes 7-0.

6-0.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Item passes wrong.

Next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Vice Mayor.

Next up, we have a public hearing for the Tulson Union High School District annexation application.

Presented by Michelle, our senior planner of development services.

Thank you, Vice Mayor and McCouncil members.

Tonight I'm presenting item 5A, Tulison Union High School District Annexation P application field 23-0266.

The purpose of this item is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed annexation of approximately 54.7 acres, generally located at the southeast corner of Alamar Boulevard and Dysart Road, and take action on the item.

So the site is outlined in red on the left.

It's located at the southeast corner of Dysart Road and Alamar Boulevard.

It's currently being used for farming.

And then in terms of the surrounding zoning districts and land uses to the west of Dysart Road, there's some vacant land, zone three of Rivers Ranch, which is a planned future residential community.

And then to the north of Alamar Boulevard is land currently being used for farming, zoned Alamar PAD, and then to the east are single family homes under the con under construction in the Alamar PAD and to the south is also farmland within the Alamar PAD.

So now I'll give you some background, which I did present at the last hearing for this project.

There is one property owner for the site, which is Tullison Union and High School District number 214.

No adjacent right of way is included since it's already annexed into the city.

The site is zoned Rule 43 in the county, and it will be assigned the city equivalent zoning of RR 43 upon annexation.

No rezoning is requested, and the proposed use is a public high school, which is permitted in in the RR 43 district, and we have not received any plans for review at this time.

And the proposal does meet all state requirements for annexation.

And lastly, the annexation petition has been signed and all of required notifications have been completed.

So as a reminder, this is the final public hearing.

Staff recommends that the ordinance be adopted, annexing approximately 54.73 acres, generally located at the southeast corner of Alamar Boulevard and Dysart Road.

And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for the presentation.

At this time I've actually the public hearing.

Marcel, have you received any requests to speak?

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We have not received any requests to speak.

At this time, I'll close the public hearing and open the floor for comments for the city council.

Thank you for the presentation and making sure that we're aware of how the property is going.

And it looks like it's um perfect for what we want to do for education in the area and also to serve the residents.

Thank you so much for all you do.

Any other member members of the council wish to make any comments?

Tina, do you have any comments?

Not at this time, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hearing no additional comments, can I please have a motion and a vote?

Got a motion made by Councilwoman White and Councilman Nielsen.

Please vote.

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay.

Passes the 60.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Vice Mayor.

Up next is we have an update on our parks and recreation.

Good evening, Vice Mayor, Council members.

We're really excited to be here tonight to talk about the Parks and Recreation Master Plan that we're working on right now.

We've been working on it for a couple of months behind the scenes, but this is our first opportunity to talk to you folks about what the plan is and uh what we're looking to do.

So just a little background.

The last parks recreation master plan was uh approved and adopted in 2017.

Um as you know, a lot of stuff has changed since then.

We've been able to achieve a lot of the goals that were outlined in that 2017 master plan.

Um importantly, some of the things like uh revitalizing some of our uh older parks, uh Donnie Hale Park being an example, renovation of the uh Mountain View Community Center that was just completed in December, as well as as well as uh creating some new facilities.

So um uh expanding festival fields, Alamar Park, the aquatic center, these are all things that um were uh discussed in the 2017 master plan.

So as you can see, we've made a lot of progress on on what was included in that document, and now is time a perfect time to kind of look at where we want to go in the next 10 years.

So with that, uh we engaged with Barry Dunn, who is our consultant, and Jason Genk is here to kind of run us through the presentation tonight to kind of talk about um again what the expectations are, what the plan is, the um timeline and our engagement strategy for trying to get the most uh uh information we can of our residents and what they want to see from parks and recreation moving forward.

So with that, I will uh turn it over to Jason and he will uh get us through this presentation this evening.

Thank you.

Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council.

Had to start by saying, wow, we get to go to uh council oper uh presentations and meetings all over the country.

We service uh cities all over the United States, and this has got to be one of the most professionally run sessions I've ever seen.

So just my compliments, absolutely fantastic job.

My name is Jason Genk, and I lead our practice, a parks recreation libraries at Barry Dunn, but most importantly, I'm your project manager, which means I'm the main contact for Brian, Dominic, and the Corey and the entire team to make sure we do our very best to serve Avondale.

Uh I just very, very briefly about me, I promise.

Uh 27 years as a public servant.

Most recently, I was executive director of Parks Recreation Libraries in Westminster, Colorado.

I do reside in Westminster.

I've I'll sorry, I reside in Colorado, Northern Colorado now.

Uh, but I thought I should mention in the 90s I I did work for the city of Phoenix.

I also went to uh graduate school at Arizona State, so hopefully that's okay with folks in the audience.

Oh good.

There's one one clap.

That's that's awesome.

I'm off to a great start.

But I do also want to uh we have several team members that are helping on the project, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about them, but we're very fortunate this evening.

One of my colleagues, James Mickle, who has some specific specialty.

I just was hoping he could briefly introduce himself, talk about his services, and I'll get right to the presentation.

James.

James come on up.

Absolutely, good evening.

Uh my name is James Mickel, and I'm a senior consultant with Barry Dunn.

Um I come by way of Virginia, and I have over 25 years of parks and recreation experience and local government and nonprofit agencies.

Um as a part of this project, I believe in many analysis as it pertains to diversity equity and inclusion as well as parks for recreation uh programming.

Uh, as a part of the request for proposals of the department, we're in Tismo about calling out um the equity lens and ensuring that completing this process and and completing this project to a lens of equity and inclusion, and that's a part of the analysis that I'm completing to include diverse equity inclusion opportunities for all two kit.

Um this week I've scheduled a robust amount of interviews with members of the community, uh random interviews and one-on-one sessions with staff, as well as completing uh a comprehensive uh study of gaps in and recreation programs and assessments.

So really excited to be here, really excited to work with Avondale, and thank you for having me.

Thank you, James.

So we we'll go ahead and get started.

And I'm trying to provide a general overview of the plan, the planning process, but please, any time if you'd like, you can feel free to stop me from going too quickly.

Uh a little bit of sort of the overview of this evening.

I'm gonna go over again briefly the project, uh, and at the end, uh I want to talk specifically a little bit more about engagement, see if you have any other ideas, as well as just address some uh QA.

A little bit about our firm, Barry Dunn.

You may or may not have heard of us.

We have 900 employees.

We're the seventh fastest growing consulting firm United States.

Our team, which is Parks Recreation Libraries, is nested within local government.

I lead the practice, uh, 25 full-time employees that are uh throughout the nation doing all types of uh services for great communities, but none greater, of course, than Avondale.

What is our mission?

We're really working with staff closely and the community to create the future, really looking at that 10-year focus of where we should be setting our priorities together.

Uh it is very important for the work that we do for this to be a living and flexible process and a living document.

Uh for me, for example, when I was even considering retiring from public service, uh, one of the most important things for me it would be to work with communities that have action-oriented and outcome-based planning, and I promise you that is exactly what we do.

Uh some highlights on the uh on the project, very inclusive.

Uh one of the things, and I'll talk about engagement in a minute.

We are really highly regarded for inclusivity as far as the community staff and aligning community-wide and citywide uh priorities.

Uh in the project planning phase, which is where we're at now and getting right into the start of uh engagement and analysis, um, we request as many documents that are relative to the planning process, your your council strategic plan, for example.

We want to learn about that, transportation plans, and as much as we can.

So before we get started, we really want to take a step back and assess Avondale.

And we have already completed the uh full system tour with a number of our staff, by the way.

On engagement, these are the one thing, this is one area that we really pride ourselves on success.

You'll see our multifaceted engagement efforts that we do with a wheel that is there.

And again, uh feel free to stop me at any time.

I do want to mention that from the internal engagement.

We do uh plan to have the opportunity to have one-on-one with council to the extent that's possible to learn more about your questions and input of the great service you provide uh for the community.

Here's a little bit of a taste of sort of what we do.

Um we're very, very proud that many of our clients have won awards for engagement processes that they've done.

We use celebrities, the most interesting man in the world, people from parks and recreation television show.

Um that's an example of a mobile chalkboard in Pflugerville, Texas that did 140 miles and got into every neighborhood net community as part of the planning efforts.

Uh everything from pop-ups, we really pride ourselves in going to where the people are, and so we definitely get out and get in the community as best as we possibly can.

And we also have diverse staff that go in.

You know, it's it's not certainly always me.

It's we have still staff that are multilingual, that are different backgrounds that we bring in to have conversations.

Just an example of some of the branding, to be eye-catchy, to make sure, and we work we're doing this right now with your staff, by the way.

And you'll see that later, but we're not quite done with it yet to give you an idea of what that you know memorable and unique uh capture of what the plan is about for parks and recreation.

We do have an online engagement portal.

You you may be familiar with this called Social Pinpoint.

Provides the opportunity for the community to build off comments to place pinpoints of areas, maybe they want to see a trail connection or rec center or or have a great you know, compliment to that sort of thing, but we do provide that as one of the uh multifaceted uh engagement efforts that we do.

Here's an example of one of your nearby, I guess, neighbors of Gilbert.

Uh, there we were very pleased to achieve 60,000 points of uh contact in that community, and a lot of that was due to the hand in hand process with staff and the consultants.

We don't always expect that, by the way.

We certainly respect that all the staff have their day jobs, but we do the best we can to include uh staff and certainly integrate the already successful processes that Avondale is doing for communication and engagement.

On the internal engagement side, um, everything from organization assessments to even this morning at about sunrise ish, we were with your park staff and kind of picking their brain, getting ideas and doing some preliminary visioning all the way through implementation.

So many of our staff members are trained educators and we work closely with staff teams to do things like once the plan is adopted, we come back and say, let's say your 18-month work plan.

And that's very important that our plans working for communities are off and running.

Just a few more slides, I promise.

This is an example of uh our Siskiy Valley survey.

This is definitely included as part of your engagement efforts, just gives you an idea that in fact we will be doing that also as part of our overall outreach efforts.

I apologize that there's so many bullets here, but you guys are doing quite a bit of an assessment on your parks and recreation system, which is awesome.

So I won't go through all of these uh unless you'd like me to at QA at the end, but I have highlighted a few of them just to call some attention to.

Certainly looking at your demographics and your diversity, where you're growing and where you're going in Avondale, how can we consider that into our future planning efforts and making choices about uh the types of preferences and interests the community and the organization might have.

We have a very unique partnership with Placer AI.

Uh, maybe folks have heard of Placer AI.

Um we use mobile data.

Uh we don't ping people's phones ourselves, just to be clear, we don't do that, but Placer does.

We harvest the data, so if you want to, you know, economic development and wants to learn more about travel tourism, for example, for particular park or particular special event, we can do that for you.

So we help bring different types of data in to make informed decisions.

Here's just an example from uh see Adams County, I think.

No, no, from Bear Hollow Zoo, sort of the heat map and kind of the visitor journey of mapping where people are coming and going when they may visit a park or an event.

James mentioned this already.

This is a lot of work that James does, which is the taking a look at your levels of service and how you're providing your recreation programs.

That's another uh element of what we'll be conducting.

The uh equity of levels of service.

So we have staff coming on site to assess all of your parks, all of your amenities, as well as all map out where all of your partner HOA amenities are at.

We want to take a look block by block, and we do things with the diversity index to take a look at you know recommendations of uh how far people are walking to get to a particular park or recreation activity.

So we map out your entire system, and that helps us understand maybe where you might put your importance on identifying gaps in your community, certainly as you're growing.

So we'll staff coming on site to do that.

And there's a couple more examples here.

Here's an example of alternative providers.

We mapped all the alternative providers of parks and recreation and Mesa, swimming pools and apartments, you name it, just to get a taste of how is the service really conduct in that community, which we'll be doing for you too.

Uh and here it just shows a breakout of walkable access.

The darker shader regions have less access and the lighter the other way around, sorry, but gives you again an idea of how we're looking at communities, and this is just an example of something you will have in Avondale when we are done.

And again, I didn't cover all the areas of analysis, but I'd be happy to go back if you'd like.

Visioning workshops, certainly then we we look we we take the the data, the analysis, we talk with the community, go through engagement, and then we say, do we hear it right?

Did we hear you correctly?

Did we get the data right?

Then we work together in visioning to decide great, here's all this great information.

Now, community, now council, now staff, what do we want to do about this?

So we call those visioning workshops.

Uh, and then from there, sort of developing the draft and final plan, and then going into uh implementation, which is what I talked about previously.

It's really a hallmark of Barry Dunn, and we really appreciate then when the plan's adopted, creating those 18-month work plans so folks are off and running.

And you may be wondering, well, geez, this is a lot.

What do you guys think as far as schedule?

Well, that's actually the last slide.

Uh, and so it gives you a snapshot, and this is a tentative schedule.

This might move a month or so based on some of the metrics that uh Brian and I and the team have talked about, then the ways that we're gonna uh pursue these.

We certainly want to get it right, we're in no hurry, but I'm sure council want an idea as to what this time frame looked like.

So that's essentially what we're looking at from an overall time frame.

From roles and opportunities, you know, certainly, council, you're ready to do such great work representing the community and helping run a great organization, but anything you can do to help us open doors, you know, certainly folks trust council before they're going to trust an outside consultant and all that.

Uh so ways you can help connect us to communities, but things like this, and you don't necessarily have to answer these tonight.

We could talk about in our one-on-ones, but what does success a success, what does success look like to you?

How do you measure that?

And telling us on the front end.

Or uh you heard me go really fast through engagements, but there's certain things you'd really like to see happen, certain constituents that really need a voice, we want to know about that.

Or just really anything.

You know, we're just starting our journey now to learn about your community.

Any ways you can get us a jump start or keep us updated and connected information, we would certainly appreciate.

So with that, uh again, I look forward to having the opportunity to present and talk to you again in the future.

Uh thank you again for everything you do and such a fantastic uh session this evening.

I am available for uh questions, and I'm sure Brian and James are as well.

Thank you all for the presentation.

Appreciate there's a lot to to digest here, but I think it's important that we you know have these discussions prior to the process being rolled out and what it looked like um November, December time frame.

And then you know, just like anything else, if you really want to know what to expect, it's gonna come down to talking to people.

So, are there any members of Camel uh Council?

Sorry.

Camel.

Any members of council that have any comments on this topic?

Okay.

I do.

Go ahead and go with um Councilwoman Conde first, and then we'll work our way through the dais.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Jason.

Um, what a great presentation.

Um I I I like everything that you're saying because I really feel that um when we get that engagement with our community um and that buy-in, it really creates a sense of pride um within our community.

Um I've already had a couple of people, because I have a nine-year-old, so we're usually at the park and they always give me input.

Um, and I would love to, when it's time to do our one-on-one, kind of share some of those things that they kind of input that they gave me.

And we um, you know, I don't know if you guys considered we have a youth commission in Avondale, you know, it'd be nice to maybe get them involved and kind of get their input as well.

Excuse me.

Um, but I just want to just say thank you.

I really like where you guys are headed with this, and I look forward to seeing the outcome and providing some input um so that we can create an even better park parks and recreation for our community.

Thank you.

Councilman Connor Councilman Nielsen.

Thank you.

I appreciate that and the insight as to what will happen here.

Just a couple of questions that we go down here.

One of them, my favorite one is about community involvement.

Tina's mentioned it, and we're seven, and there are 90,000 of us or 95,000 of us, whatever it might be.

How will you get all of those?

Not all of them.

How do you get the involvement from some of those that are older, younger families, non-families?

How do you how do you out what's the outreach idea or the thought of involving the uh community of Avenue?

Thank you, Council, for that question.

I appreciated it.

Uh our approach is is uh I just brought back up sort of the wheel of sort of what we do.

We're very thoughtful about how we're uh approaching different communities.

Sometimes we look at council or a staff, uh city manager, a park and rec director to help us open some doors, but we also realize that there's voices that may not be in regular contact with you.

So we look at um engaging in different groups in the community.

We identify um various stakeholder groups and we do our best to work one-on-one with them to make sure they're aware of input.

Those can be virtual, those can be in person.

We do pop-ups, we'll show up.

We don't just show up at let's say a trailhead, because that's too easy, right?

To do a pop-up in a park.

We go to retail, we go to business to the extent they'd like us.

We don't just show up, I promise.

We don't do that.

But uh we go to where people are.

So that might be HOAs.

Uh it's different for every community, but we work very closely with your uh the award-winning, I saw the award coming up for the public uh uh communications team.

We'll be working with them to make sure that we don't miss anyone.

And we're very proud uh in most cases, and I know this sort of a challenge I'm kind of giving ourselves in most cases.

We we we provide of the highest amount of engagement that our organizations have ever seen.

We work very hard at that.

And I guess just follow up on that.

You talked about a visioning workshop, I would assume that somewhere along the line you're gonna pull again the community in there and have them comment on what things I not been or participated in that, but that's kind of an interesting aspect of it.

Yes, sir, absolutely.

We don't want to have that in a vacuum.

Uh after we do all this great, hopefully great analysis and engagement.

We want to say, do we get it right?

And and or now that you have this great new data, what does that mean?

Help us, help us understand what that vision is, yes.

Two others here.

You mentioned something about keeping track of individuals when they come to participate as to where they're from.

Uh is that Avondale?

Is that North South and East West Avondale?

Is it people who come in from other places?

How does that I mean you're not going to ask everybody where they come from or take a role or anything when they come participate or is that how that works?

No, uh sometimes you might ask folks in our discovery sessions.

We will ask them, hey, you know, what is your how do you know the city or maybe where you live?

But I think what I was referencing there is the place or AI data, and we can find where people are coming from.

And I don't mean it like that, but we can track through the mobile data, people that are coming from all over the world.

And some of our clients that's really important.

One of our clients, for example, Waterworld, which is like the fifth largest water park in the world.

They uh they want to know where's everyone coming from.

So in fact, we can find out.

So, like your events, you may be curious to say, are these Avondale residents?

Are they not?

We can tell you.

What just final one?

We've had recently some individual little rental homes that are open for for um what do you call it?

A smart city smart home or whatever it was.

I was amazed at going over there, you just take your phone and put it on the gate or put it on the doorknob, put it on the doorbell or whatever else, but then go into the house right there, and you've got a little tiny itty-bitty backyard.

I don't know, you call them millennials or gen X's or whatever.

How are you gonna get those guys out of their houses and out of their little backyard right there down to where there's something going on?

Well, sometimes we can't get them down to maybe a particular point.

We typically like to go where they're at.

And so we're very you know creative and different messages meet people in different ways, as you guys are well aware, so we're thoughtful as to what that is.

So we will go into neighborhoods.

We'll go to neighborhoods and provide maybe an experience they haven't seen or something they really want.

We typically look for a champion, whether that might be council or someone in the HOA and the community to help open that door.

But in the case of the Flugerville example, that was uh, you know, the chalkboard was the kind of the idea of the example there, but we we went to every single neighborhood in Flugerville, Texas.

So that was that's an example.

Thank you very much.

That's all I've got.

Councilmember Malone.

Yeah, thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation.

I appreciate it.

So uh a little bit about how we get there.

Um back in 2016 when I first started uh going um out into the community and and actually campaigning for council.

We went into a uh it was a mountain view area, we were doing a parks and recreation, and we had three of us that showed up.

Then we said, you know what, maybe we need to go out and see the community.

So what we um kind of uh just kind of suggested was going out to Billymores, going out to Winterfest, going out to Kid Fest, and it was amazing of all of the community members who wanted to have a say in their park, that's exactly what they did.

And that was a those are huge uh events, and that's how we got a lot of the data um that our parks and recs um were able to build off of.

And when we were doing the skate park, I think you guys had like some type of um event that was here in this office um over here, right in one of the conference rooms, where our youth and our other um community members came in and they told us how they um did it.

It was just the engagement.

I think you guys will do an amazing job.

This presentation looks exactly like what we kind of did back in 2016 throughout throughout 17 and all through um up until now.

So thank you for the presentation.

I can't wait to see it.

I love that feedback.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Councilmember White.

Thank you so much.

Excellent presentation.

I really appreciate it, and thank you for telling us we're a civil council.

We really need to hear that.

Um, especially since you uh had some other cities on here that might not be like us in the area.

So thank you.

Um you talked about um engagement, so I just want I know that Brian's gonna give you a heads up about Trace Rios festival upcoming.

He's gonna talk to you about popping in the parks.

You're gonna probably want to be in centers where our people are gonna be.

And we normally are out at a lot of these events ourselves, so we will be your advocate in those pace spaces and places.

I can only imagine though, um, some of us Gen Xers, we really like QR codes and things you can scan, and so that you know, maybe there's a form that we can jump on and take a fill out, but then we have a lot of folks here who don't use technology, so we're gonna need to use the old pen and paper.

Um, and so we're gonna have to um kind of make whatever way we're surveying and engaging our community just as diverse as the people you want to attract because we have multi-generational folks living here and we enjoy being next to each other, but we just interact um and provide information and data differently.

Um, something that I I'll take a breath, hold on.

Something that I heard you talk about that I really like is the inventory of parks on private properties and in HOAs.

That to me is really important because I um live in probably um an older HO, I'll call it a little older.

It's not that old though.

Uh, but when all the new HOAs came around, you know, everybody's walking through their neighborhoods and checking out what do they have, what I don't have.

Uh, and then if you're doing that inventory, it's not valuable unless you can tell those HOAs maybe where they can get grant funding to upscale their their projects or maybe what they can do to uh make sure the residents there enjoy and use them to the fullest.

Uh I know that we also have um a lot of gated and closed communities, but they normally open the gates during the day, which I find is awesome, and I love that about Avondale.

Uh but I know Avondale is looking to become a more walkable, accessible community with transportation.

I know that a part of the vision of where we're gonna go uh is being able to have trails that really connect us throughout Maricopa County.

So I know a lot of folks are looking forward to that and being able to do that.

It's gonna have to go through some of our HOA properties or at least around them.

So that's that's gonna be important that we have those um public-private partnerships that we go through in this process.

But I really am excited about the work that you're embarking upon.

I look forward to see the outcomes and um receive direction and where you expect us to come in and step up and help out.

I saw that you got you know, possibly 60,000 folks in the community on the other side of town.

I think their population is almost double ours, but you know, I'm sure that we can probably get uh high folks engaged at this process here as long as we go through our marketing team and use all these wonderful resources that you already saw were available.

People are really receptive to that already in our city.

Thank you so much, Vice Mayor.

Thank you so much.

And I think one of the things uh councilmember white um mentioned is in regard to engagement not only with champions as you mentioned uh with us as council but also with the uh parks and recs commission.

So I'm sure Brian, you know, you'll get some feedback from them as well.

But as many opportunities uh for that engagement to occur would be very beneficial for many different reasons, and um, I'm sure the team will work diligently to to make that happen.

So any other comments.

Okay, thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ron, next item, please.

Actually, um, Mr.

Vice Mayor, now it's up for um summary of current events by you or council members.

Are there any events, any summaries that any council members would like to reference?

Councilmember White?

Thank you so much, uh Vice Mayor.

I would just like to um acknowledge uh we don't need a proclamation for it, but it's something I celebrate every February.

It's Black History Month, and um very proud to be the um ancestor of not only black immigrants but also black slaves here in America, and I find that it's super important that we um you know not only acknowledge the history and contributions of those that have come before us but also the contributions of many folks who are um of African and African American descent here in the city of Avondale who come to work every day and make this place great with about 10% of our population in the city of Avondale um representing the African American community.

I'm very proud to sit on this council and I'm very grateful to be celebrating Black History Month.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other members of council?

Tina, do you have anything to offer?

Not at this time, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

That's it.

All right, next item is adjournment.

Can I have a motion to adjourn?

Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Malone, seconded by Councilmember Solorio.

All those please vote.

Councilmember Condi.

Aye.

Okay, item passes 6-0.

Everybody have a great night, travel safe home, and we'll see you next time.

Have a good night, Councilmember Condi.

Feel better.

What's that?