Trust and the Avondale City Council meeting I'd like to call to order the regular city council meeting of November 3rd, 2025.

Would y'all please stand for the pledge and a moment of silence or reflection?

One nation under Godissible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Marcella, if we can have a roll call, please.

Councilmember Condi, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Councilmember Solario.

Here.

Councilmember Weiss.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Present.

Vice Mayor Nielsen.

Here.

Mayor Peneva.

Here.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Council.

Up first, we have a presentation by Chief Espinoza to introduce our 2025 Citizens Police Academy.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council, good evening.

I am Officer Benavides, and I have the privilege of introducing and celebrating the wonderful group of people sitting over here behind me.

These have completed the 2025 Citizen Police Academy.

The Citizen Police Academy invites community members into the home that we call Avondale Police.

Every Wednesday night for eight weeks, these neighbors get a behind the scenes look into the work and the people that make our police department special.

From a mock crime scene walkthrough to a swap demo, our desire as a police department is for our citizens to have a greater understanding of what we do and a deeper connection to the kind of people that we are.

As host of CPA for these individuals, I can attest that the three hours of CPA on a Wednesday night go by very, very quickly.

It's because we do a lot, but it's also because we have a lot of fun.

Much more can be said, but of course, I'll just leave with just one more note.

Avondale community members are my favorite people.

After spending eight weeks with this group of people, I am even more encouraged to continue the work of making Avondale a safe and a beautiful place to live.

As a domestic violence survivor, the biggest impact for me during the academy was the West Valley sex and human trafficking task force.

I had no idea how traffickers controlled their victims, the strict routines, and the constant changes and the unrelated pressure to meet their pimp demands.

It's heartbreaking and eye-opening.

It gave me a deeper appreciation on how much dedication and teamwork it takes to seek justice even in the most difficult times.

Lastly, another big takeaway for me was the compassion, patience, and dedication shown by every officer who took part of this academy.

Officer Benny and Officer Redford, a special thank you to you both for organizing an amazing academy for the food, hospitality, your openings and willingness to help.

You took the time to get to know each and one of us, and that speaks volumes about the heart of the department.

Throughout the this program, I've learned about the city and its people than I've ever had before.

The city of Avondale is a truly community-based unity and full of heart that I am proud to be a resident of.

To the officers who dedicate their lives serving and protecting, thank you.

You're not just officers, you're heroes to inspire the next generation to lead with courage and compassion.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Glenda Shagoya.

And I wanted to thank the opportunity through the Avondale Citizen Police Academy 2025.

I am actually a resident of Glendale, so I got a little bypass into this.

Plus, I have a son and his beautiful beautiful wife and two wonderful granddaughters who also live over here.

My son's also a detective with Avendale.

So I've done some write-alongs and I got to see some insight.

But I'm also one of those mothers who likes to know what my kids are doing, and I've been involved since they were born.

And this gives me some great insight.

With uh involving myself with my five children, that it also allows me to come in and be involved in the CPA training.

I learned about the high-risk vehicle stops, building clearings, uh, the canine units, the motor units, real-time crime center, the use of force information that all officers need to know when they interact with the community.

The VIP, the budget, the hiring process, taser training, SWAT, anti-sex training trafficking operations, special investigations, and detective work.

This included the sensitive areas such as the death of a child and the domestic violence.

We also got to investigate our own crime scene.

But I'm gonna actually tell you, I need a little more training before I can be hired.

I only got 24 hours.

Um, under the leadership of Chief Espinoza, we became um away with Avondel PD in a very new unique and almost all aspects.

Everyone I personally interacted with, with the exception of my son, I'm kind of biased.

Um, they were all passionate.

And they all took their roles and responsibilities with great joy and dedication.

Like community is not defined by the borderlines, but by those who are participating in it.

So I felt like I was part of that community.

Our last night we were treated with a great burgers and dogs cooked by Chief Espinoza and some of the um the assistant chief Martin, who with the CPA in our Halloween costumes.

I don't know if you guys got that side of the story.

But I will say this the right shoe got the best costume.

So thank you for Officer Redford and Benedia and the BIPs, and with the respect to the department for allowing us to be able to come in and be part of this, and also to my son, who's also my hero, for recommending that you know what be involved.

So I might not be involved with Avondale, I might be involved with Glendale, or I might choose to do both.

Thank you.

At this time, I'd like to uh recognize each individual person sitting here.

Um so I'd like you all to stand to be recognized in front of Council as I call your name.

Trusha Michelle Burns, Von Ryan Burns, Glenda Tragoya, Yvette Hernandez Ibarra, Dolores Fujol, Christopher Davy, Josh Coghill, Guadalupe Garcia, Jacqueline Nunez, Lopez Davy, Brenda Gonzalez Lopez, and Amanda Billman.

Oh, two more.

Daniel Shu.

Say Dan.

And Xiaomi Perez, one of our speakers tonight.

I present these attendees who have successfully completed the 2025 Citizen Police Academy.

They it's been a very proud and rewarding time for all of us to spend our eight weeks together.

Thank you, uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council for the time we're taking uh to recognize all these folks.

Thank you so much, uh, Officer Benavides, uh, Chief Espinoza.

I know that uh Councilmember Weiss and I were able to go down and chat a bit with uh some of the members of of the CPA and um I mean I asked them a couple of questions, but more importantly, I just want to share with the rest of the community that these opportunities are here.

The academies are here.

We actually provided a couple of others of they are interested in joining, and hopefully you will take us up on that.

Um, because at the end of the day, you are an you are our ambassadors.

And by you able by you being able to take uh a snapshot of what happens behind the scenes with this organization, you are then able to go and share that information out with your community members, friends, family, uh, etc.

So just uh from me uh to you, thank you so much for participating, and we look to seeing you in even more.

Are there any other members of council that wish to share any words?

Okay, Councilmember Garcia.

Um, thank you guys for participating.

I am a little biased.

I think this is one of my favorite um academies.

Um, but it's really awesome to hear the testimonies, and especially um, as domestic violence survivor to hear another domestic violence survivor to see and experience what the officers have to deal with behind the scenes and knowing that you know we can't we help everyone as much as we can, and it is awesome that our officers have that special unit for it, and they do such a wonderful job.

Um and thank you, Benny and your team for doing this and for all the officers that were involved.

It's really nice to see, you know, what they go through on a daily basis and have a better understanding of their their day-to-day job.

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember White.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, um, Chief Espinoza, Ben Red, um uh Sergeant Chavez, thank you so much to each one of you who participated.

I love hearing from our speakers this evening.

So as a mom, thank you for giving me permission to stay with my kids for the rest of their life.

I really love that.

And if we have to make exceptions to the rules to bring our Glendale family and our Peoria family in to see what we do here, what a great exception.

And you're your your son is our hero as well.

Uh all of our officers are our heroes out here.

They put their lives on the line every day.

Um and and they come to people when they're having sometimes their worst day.

So um, I really appreciate everything that you all were able to communicate accurately about how wonderfully you serve our community here in Avondale.

We're so proud of them and so proud of all of you and really appreciate your time and love for our citizens here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you again for being here tonight.

Thank you for participating.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council.

But don't go too far because I believe we're gonna be taking some photos.

So if council wouldn't mind joining me down with members of the uh of the CPA, we can take some photos.

Next item on the agenda is unscheduled public appearances.

Uh Marcella, have we received any requests to speak?

Thank you, Mayor.

We have not received any requests to speak.

Thank you.

Item number four is consent agenda.

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

Seeing none, we got a motion from Councilmember White and a second from Vice Mayor Nielsen.

And do we ask for team uh Councilmember Conde to provide a voice vote?

Councilmember Conde, how do you vote?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Up next, we're gonna see a presentation by uh Kim Moon, your city engineer on the Agua Fria pedestrian bridge aesthetic and proposed cost.

I'm Kim Moon City Engineer and Director of the Engineering Department for Avondale tonight.

Looks like uh Stacey Matthews.

And just want to welcome her.

This project provides for integrated user-friendly, safe off-street connection that minimizes conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists, thereby improving accessibility and promoting active transportation throughout the city.

The next few slides include analysis and summary of key aesthetics, considerations and related costs of the bridge concept for your consideration.

As part of our evaluation, we looked at three primary material options for the pedestrian and bicycle bridge: weathered steel, wood, and concrete.

Each of these materials has different characteristics in terms of span length, maintenance, and performance under local environmental conditions.

Weathered steel allows for the longest spans, which means fewer piers are needed within the channel.

It requires moderate maintenance and costs, yet has shown to perform very well in our dry climate.

Wood, on the other hand, would require the most piers, short distance between spans, and has greater maintenance requirements and costs.

It tends to deteriorate more quickly in our hot sunny environment, making it the least practical option for long-term durability.

Concrete offers moderate span lengths and maintenance requirements and performs reasonably well in dry weather conditions.

However, it has higher costs.

When we compared overall cost performance and maintenance, weathered steel emerged as the most economical and durable option for this project.

A few important criteria based on the agency's ADOTS requirements determine how high the bridge needs to be and the amount of disturbance allowed in the channel.

The elevation needs to clear the maximum potential water level and also provide clearance for vehicles to work underneath.

Both ADOT and the county require a minimum of 13 feet six inches of vertical clearance, so their maintenance vehicles can safely access and travel through and work under in the channel.

You can see an example of the maintenance equipment in the photo on this slide through the chain link fence.

The levee serves to protect the park area, which sits on a higher elevation than the channel.

So this alignment ensures a functional and safe connection while maintaining the levee's protective purpose.

Shown here are preliminary design plans for both the north and south ramp connections on either side of the proposed bridge.

On the left, you can see the north ramp as it zigzags to the corner of Friendship Park due to change in elevation.

Note that the bridge cannot connect to the levee on the aguifria in this location.

On the right, you can see the south ramp that will connect with the existing multi-use path.

It was built under I-10 previously.

Comparing the two pictures, you can see that the north elevation at the park is different than is more than the elevation at the south, hence, it requires more ramp length to zigzag to get it to the right elevation.

The next few slides are on three potential weathered steel bridge types.

An H truss bridge, a tide arch bridge, and a bowstring bridge.

These bridge types provide different visual aesthetics relative to the difference in the cost of each type.

These three types all perform well structurally and use the same durable weathered steel material.

The main differences come down to visual character, fabrication complexity, and overall costs.

All three bridge types include security lighting attached to the railing, communications conduits if needed, and allowances for decorative pylons, some artwork, signage, specialty lighting, in addition to the pedestrian light.

As highlighted here in orange, the H truss bridge is the most straightforward and functional design, with vertical and diagonal members forming the sides in an H-shaped pattern.

It's typically the most cost-effective option, simple to fabricate and easy to maintain.

The structure has a clean and simple look, and it fits well in trail settings.

It has an estimated total project budget of 7.6 million, which includes escalation to the year 2028.

Estimated annual maintenance of $75,000 will fluctuate from year to year and can include bridge inspections every two years, electrical power, power washing, and lighting replacement.

In these graphics, you can see the view of the length of the bridge and the pedestrian view from the bridge entrance.

In this graphic, you can see the bridge from the air with Friendship Park and I-10 in the distance.

As highlighted here in green, the tide arch bridge has a short function, has short functional arches rising above the deck, with the bridge itself acting as a tie that holds the arches together.

It creates a more open, elegant appearance while maintaining strong structural performance.

It's slightly more complex and costly to construct, but offers a more iconic visual statement.

This has an estimated total project budget of 8.2 million, which includes escalation to year 2028.

Similarly, estimated annual budget, a little bit higher of $85,000, will fluctuate from year to year and can include inspections, electrical power, and so forth.

In these graphics, you can view the length of the bridge, the pedestrian view from the bridge entrance.

In this graphic, you can see the bridge from the air with Friendship Park and I-10 in the distance.

In this graphic, you can see the view of the bridge from I-10.

The third bridge, as highlighted here in purple, is the bowstring bridge.

It's similar to the tide arch bridge, but is typically taller with more curved members and diagonal webbing that give it a more decorative aesthetic.

It offers good strength and visual appeal, but because of the additional fabrication evolved involved, it can be more expensive and is a heavier bridge.

This has an estimated total project budget of 10.2 million, which includes the escalation to 2028.

Again, similarly, a little bit higher maintenance costs, estimated at $95,000, which will fluctuate from year to year.

In these graphics, you can see the view of the length of the bridge and the pedestrian view from the bridge entrance.

The bridge from the air with Friendship Park and I-10 in the distance.

And the view of the bridge from I-10.

Council still also has available for consideration an at grade crossing instead of a bridge.

Or until a bridge can be installed in the future.

Last week I spoke directly with several representatives from ADOT and a representative from MEG to confirm that if the crossing were designed as an at-grade crossing rather than a bridge, there would be no issues with the previous funds and that was used in other portions of the Agua Fria Trail.

And they confirmed that is true.

An at grade crossing would be fully ADA accessible, providing a concrete path connection across the channel.

However, this design would not include our typical trail amenities.

There would be no decorative granite, no lighting, no site furnishings, since those elements are not permitted within the A-DOT channel.

This project also includes contingency from additional requirements, some additional requirements for an AT grade crossing.

Would also require a gate to restrict access during flood events.

Because it's located directly within the flow path of the channel, maintenance would need to occur regularly, especially following storm events.

This includes removing sediment and debris that collect on the concrete surface and making occasional repairs due to ADOT's maintenance activities or water flow impacts.

Annual maintenance costs are expected to vary year to year depending on the number and intensity of storm events, typically ranging somewhere between $15,000 to $50,000 per year for concrete repair and debris removal.

The amount would vary on the number of severity of the storm events.

This is a high maintenance effort as related to other portions of the trail system.

This slide outlines the current project funding status and total budget for the pedestrian bicycle bridge.

Some funding has already been identified for this project in our current budget.

We have 456,000 allocated for design through the general fund.

An additional 6.5 million was identified as an early construction and estimate, but at this time remains unfunded.

The design funds are partially expended for the design and concepts, such as you saw here this evening.

There is proposed bond funding for the project, which could provide up to $8 million for construction.

If approved by the voters in the bond election, this would bring the total available project budget to roughly $8.4 million, including the design uh funds already allocated.

As a reminder, our estimated project costs range from $7.6 million for the H truss to $8.2 million for the tide arch to 10.2 million for the bowstring bridge, and one approximately 1.2 million for a basic out-grade crossing.

Council feedback tonight will help us confirm which design direction aligns best with these available and potential funding levels.

Next steps.

Once funding is determined, uh then we can complete the design and proceed with uh permitting.

There will be some additional permits required for this portion of the trail system.

And with that, here's a summary slide of some of the options that I presented here this evening.

I welcome any questions and comments you may have, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you on your feedback and preferences, and I'm prepared to take notes.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Kim.

We appreciate it.

Uh at this time, this item is for discussion only, so at this time I'll open the floor for comments.

Are there any members of council?

Okay.

Councilmember Silario.

Kim, thank you for the presentation.

Much appreciated.

Um when I look at this, I like the HTresh bridge or the tide arch bridge.

Just because I think if we're looking at cost 7.6 million would probably be the best fit for it.

But I was looking around at different bridges, and that is quite a common one in Arizona.

Um the one that when I had Googled the information earlier was one that came up in Yuma, and they said that it requires little to no maintenance.

But I also do like the tide art bridge just for the aesthetic of it, and because it is a little bit, it has the extra, I guess, height per se for it.

Um I'm not a fan of the at-grade crossing, but that's just me.

Um the bowstring bridge is really nice, but it's also more expensive.

But I would go with either the first one or the second one.

I'm just not a fan of the at-grade crossing.

Thank you.

Councilmember Weiss.

Kim, thank you for the presentation.

My first gut before I looked at all the slides and had your presentation was um, you know, we have budget and two million dollars sounds a lot better than seven million dollars.

But the fact that we would have no lighting, that it would I don't know about anybody, but any time there's rain or a storm at my house, um, there's mud and it dries and you're constantly picking it up off of the concrete.

So that makes me a little nervous about having that grade.

Um I like the look of the truss, and I like the fact that it's the cheapest.

I like the fact that it has lighting, and I feel that um it's probably a safer option than or at least something that's going to be used on a regular basis versus um the other.

And that's kind of where I'm at.

Thank you.

Any other members?

Okay, Vice Mayor Yelson.

Thank you so much.

I guess I'm gonna hit my metallurgical background for a minute.

Weathered steel.

Why not galvanized?

Why not something else that's gonna last a little longer?

What's the life expectancy of weathered steel?

I mean, if we've got rain out there, you're resting it all the time.

It's material.

I know that if you put your galvanizing on or paint it or whatever, there's gonna be more cost.

But just the idea of you know, weathered steel fine, but is it going to be 20 years or 25 years?

And if you galvanized it or painted it or epoxies it, whatever, does it now go from 50 years to 75 years?

Just the idea of minimization of maintenance, I guess, is what it looked like in the materials.

Mayor, Vice Mayor Nielsen.

Um previous life when I had similar questions about weathered steel, it actually does have a similar life cycle as other types of steel.

The um rust, once it forms a crust, doesn't go too deep, actually helps with uh maintenance because you don't have to paint it or clean it that often.

And um it's last a surprisingly long time.

Um but I would be happy to follow up with some additional details.

Thank you.

And I think the other one is just how many people will be using this bike path.

I mean, I don't know that we've got an estimate today.

Do we anticipate two people a day, 50 people a day?

Once it's in, are we going to get them over?

Then you got uh I tend they've got to go down and under.

It's just are we building an 8.2 million dollar bridge for 25 people a month or whatever might be.

Again, I don't know if we can decide how many that will serve, but that would be just you know another question along that line.

Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council, um, I can ask Corey if he has an idea.

Part of this, whether it's the bridge or the aggrade crossing, is to create the connection to the parks.

So council's priority has been from festival to friendship.

Also, so when you take our east-west uh paths like Van Buren, you know, from all the neighborhoods to get to there, they couldn't use their bike along Van Buren, get to the Alba Freya Trail, and then be able to go to either park.

So I think the numbers today are very different than the numbers once we complete the connection from the two parks.

Um but uh uh Corey can maybe give you a number of uses today.

Yeah, uh uses today would be, I mean, even right now on the Agua Free, and maybe everywhere we did have trail counters out there, we're seeing anywhere from 50 to 60 people per week.

Um, but that wasn't the trail network that led you to a dead end or no connection that was uh skiing to a regional amenity.

Um we do know we have that traffic concern at Friendship Park.

This would allow an alternative mode of transportation to get there.

You could ride a bike or walk to the park, you no longer have to use a car or take up a parking space.

Um the park currently is seeing 1.3 million visitors a year.

Um, so it's pretty significant.

Um I'd also say a connection like this with the connection with the um hub of the park uh being a part of it uh would make the park an amenity that others would want to come to and possibly host race events or the city could partner with them to host race events because we'll have a pretty strong segment of path that you can get to south from Friendship Park.

So it also become maybe an economic driver uh to attract some new visitors to our community.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that Corey.

I think just the last comment of the ones there.

I like the tiered arch one just uh better than all the other ones, just uh the way that it flows and whatever else on there.

So my preference.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Any other council member White?

Um, Mayor, I I want to um if Councilmember Condi has something, I'll let her go first.

Councilmember Connie, do you have any comments?

Yes, I do.

Um actually I agree with Councilmember Solor and Weiss.

Um definitely am not um interested in the at great crossing, just because she mentioned with um water flowing with dirt, having to keep that upkeep and maintenance is gonna be more.

But I I do like um the H truss.

Um, the main difference between that and the tiered arch, obviously, is just the arch, but it's this looks like it's exactly the same width in materials being used.

So my preference would be the H trust first and then the tiered arch um second.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Carnegie.

Councilmember White.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Thank you so much, Kim, for an amazing presentation.

Thank you so much for being out here.

Um if you may, sorry, I just want to give a brief story because I just got back from Portland, Oregon's MPAC Transit Conference, and I had the opportunity to go to a pedestrian-only bridge, the pedestrian, I'm sorry, in transit bridge, it's called the Telicum Crossing.

Um it's a space where there are no cars that are there, and this bridge spans the Willamette River.

And it's a called the Bridge of the People because um it's the first kind in this country built specifically just to facilitate non-auto transit across a bridge.

So seeing this come out to Avondale is amazing.

The thing I like most about their bridge that I see in these features, which is why I wanted to share, is the cable stay designed, so it's more of the artistic kind of cable, but I see some elements of cables here in our bridges.

So the the only option I really like here is a tiered arch bridge.

I'm I'm fearful of bad kids like me who go to the edge of stuff and want to jump off, right?

You just want to try and propel and all that kind of stuff.

So I would like a higher um edge to the bridge.

Um, but I like how their cables are going to be in this type of structure because it's super important to the engineering um of the actual infrastructure.

And I believe that are coming out with very good reasons to have a bond for this type of item.

And so I believe that if we are able to have those funds, that fits into that affordability space.

Um and then one of the neat things about the bridge that I had the opportunity to see they have running water under there, so their lighting system changed based on the river's current, which was something really neat that I learned about.

So it might be neat if we have you guys shaking your head.

Um it might be um neat if we have something functionally fun about it that makes it Avondale specific.

And it sounds like you guys are doing some of those engineering design elements already, so I won't overstep my bounds.

I just wanted to share my experience and my support.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, before you you go on, um I didn't hear the vice mayor.

Was it was he also the H as a primary H Vice Mayor?

Oh, tiered Arch Bridge.

Thank you.

Uh so the at grade crossing um is it literally at grade at the bottom?

Is there a pad?

So as was referenced earlier in regards to debris and rainwater.

And while we don't get a lot of rain, I don't know how often ADOT flushes or any other uh uh organization utilizes that channel to flush out things from time to time.

I don't know.

So whether it's related to weather um or if it is uh related to um a scheduled release, I don't know how often that would impact uh this this crossing.

Um I I was fine with an at-grade crossing uh because it would solve a situation uh that we have now where our residents are um not permitted to cross, obviously, and utilize Friendship Park as it's meant to be used, and as Corey mentioned, you know, that it might entice those folks, uh a bridge uh the connection point would entice folks that may not ultimately go to the park, start to utilize the park.

Um and so for that, I mean many other council members have have voiced their support for one bridge form or another.

I am uh just fine and happy with the at-grade crossing.

Um that's where I stand right now.

I know that the you know the dollar amount is less, and that's not necessarily the full reason.

As again, we could build another bridge later if the bond was passed and we decided to use the the money here, then that might be a good opportunity as well.

But looking at the discussions we'll have later surrounded by budget, I'm just really thinking at impact uh at this moment in time.

And so for me, an at-grade crossing bridge would be sufficient uh for this usage.

And if we had money grants or anything else, then obviously a bridge would be much more desired.

Um so that's my feedback, and I don't know, you don't have any feedback, Councilman Garcia.

I don't want to spend 10,000 or million, I'm sorry, even worse.

Eight million dollars on a bridge.

I think that at grade crossing is what where I would go.

Um if we were to go any any other way, I would definitely be knocking doors asking uh voters if they want uh to spend eight million dollars on a bridge because I can't imagine that I would want my money when people say that the budget is tight on a bridge where we could spend that money elsewhere in the city.

Okay.

So did you uh do you have what you need from us, Ron?

Ms.

Mr.

Mayor Vice Mayor Council, yes, we appreciate your feedback.

Okay, all right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Kim, for your presentation.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council.

Up next, we have a presentation by Chief Espinoza.

Actually, he'll kick it off to the lieutenant on the speed safety camera program.

Uh the council had questions at the last presentation.

Uh, we've tried to answer most of those questions and then uh seek direction.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council.

As you may recall, on September 8th of this year, Lieutenant Iwin, on behalf of the Avondale Police Department provided an update on the status of our speed safety camera program.

Uh, during that meeting, you requested additional research on the program's effectiveness.

And today, Lieutenant Iwin will present the data you requested along with our our department's recommendation regarding this program.

And at this time, I'll turn it over to Lieutenant Iw.

Thank you, Chief.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council.

I'm Lieutenant Justin Nylon.

It's uh an honor to be here again.

And yes, this is a secondary feedback to the initial presentation we gave on the ETH of September.

So some of these slides that we're gonna go over are repeat slides from the initial, but I think it's important to get that groundwork back, and then we're our data is driving us with this program.

So with our deployment assessment, we look at reviewing of the accident data, and that's prior, during, and after a site location.

And again, just a reminder there are two speed safety cameras that we utilize for this program.

We also look at the speed data pre-during and after a site selection for completed cycle.

Again, we use a covert box, which I'll get into more of that logistics, and obtaining the pre- and the post-speeds.

Again, this program was derived to help reduce the number of vehicles speeding in our roadways for the long term and help curb and bring healthy driving behavior to the city of Avondale.

So program effectiveness.

We have the three locations up on the board here.

These three locations are the locations that we used to cite our violators.

So location one was Van Buren and 107th.

Location two was on Dysart, which was Thomas and Indian School, and location three was Avondale Boulevard, and that was just north of Jefferson and just north of Maricopa Street.

One of the points of feedback council wanted was how many citations from this program were generated to resident versus non-resident drivers.

So again, we use a date range of August 1st, 2024 to July 31st of 2025.

So our resident non-resident citation issued totaled 12,127, which our resident received 2,174, and non-resident was 9,953 citations.

And this just provides council with a visualization map of actually where those cameras are at and which direction you would have to be traveling.

You'll see on here we have blue would denote the Van Bieren 107th, yellow denotes Dysart.

Green is Avenue Boulevard, and you also see on here red, which on October 13th is where we deployed the speed safety cameras on McDowell Road at 109th and 112th Avenue.

So we'll look more at program effectiveness.

We're gonna look at Dice Art Road first.

You'll see on here that we have pre-during and then two posts.

So initially, when we have a site that we're gonna utilize our speed safety camera, we'll put our covert box.

A covert box is as simply that it's covert, so no one's alert alerted to any any device capturing data.

It's very small in size and is placed on a light pool to get the natural flow of traffic for our vehicles.

And that is posted one week prior to the deployment of our speed safety cameras, and for post-deployment, we wait a week and we deploy it, deploy it for our post-speed.

Here you're gonna see a fourth post-deployment speed, which redeployed that covert box on September 22nd to the 29th.

We only looked at the average speeds that were above 11 miles an hour.

So Dysart Road is 45 miles an hour.

So we only looked at speeds that were 56 miles an hour and above, which our average speeds were consistent with all four at 59 miles per hour.

Now, if we look down to that second block of data, we're gonna look at the total number of vehicles and the total number of vehicles that were exceeding that 11 mile an hour range.

So with our pre-deployment, we saw 60,000 vehicles, and 3200 of those were exceeding that 11 mile an hour range.

Our post-deployment, we saw 59,000 vehicles, and we did see a decrease in the number of vehicles that were speeding at 1,600, just shy of 1700.

And just frame a reference, that was May 6th to May 13th.

Our post-deployment again was September 22nd to the 29th.

We saw an increase of vehicles at 5% at 66,000.

And we saw our number of vehicles jump back to that pre-deployment range at 3100.

Now we're gonna look at Avindale Boulevard.

Here the speed limit is 45 miles per hour.

Again, our pre-during and post average speed remain the same at 59 miles per hour.

If we look down to that second block, we'll see the data for both locations.

For our pre-deployment number of vehicles, we saw 128,000 vehicles, and we saw 2900 of those vehicles that were over that 11 mile an hour threshold.

We did see a 22% increase at 50, 157,000 vehicles that were traveling, and we did see a decrease about 37%.

So that brought us about 1,800 vehicles that were over that 11 mile an hour range.

And again, at the request of council, if need be in four months, we would do the same thing that we did with Dysart Road, would be go back to see if there was any change in that learned long-term driving behavior.

Another piece of information council asked for were the number of citations that were issued by our officers in the city of Avondale.

And you'll see on here we do have a date range of October 1st of 2024 to September 30th of 2025, which is different than the date range that we used.

The reason for that is our track system, which is our digital system for giving citations and warnings, didn't actually go live until the very beginning of September.

So to be consistent, we wanted to give a give it up a full year worth of data.

So again, this was only for our officers' writing citations and warnings at 2701A, which is our speeding citation.

Our citations were 1,240.

Our warnings were 979.

So that averaged 185 citations and warnings per month.

So we're gonna look at budget implications.

So this is our total anticipated cost for fiscal year 2026 with an average for our speed safety camera and associated expenses at 209,482, and personnel for four employees.

Currently, we have the two that are full-time for courts and the PD with council's approval, there'll be two additional employees, which brings that total up to 352,000, which is a total of 561,482.

However, I do want to highlight that this does not include when we have a high number of captures on our camera.

So as I alluded to earlier, that we moved the cameras onto McDowell Road, we saw a significant increase in the number of captures, and within that first week, we already had to outsource some of that workload from our single CSO that does all the work for this to other CSOs to help get through that queue.

Again, this is a repeat.

This is the court collections.

The general fund brought in uh 391,000, court enhancement fee was just under 40,000.

Defensive driving school diversion fee was 287,000, and our court enhancement fee was just over 25,000, which brought us to a total of 743,665 and 19 cents.

I want to touch on some of our speed safety strategies that here at the police department we're committed to.

We're committed to prior prioritizing filling our traffic officer vacancies.

So currently we only have three, and we have vacancies for eight.

And the reason for some of those vacancies is that we have some of our officers that promoted to sergeant and moved over to other specialties.

However, knowing that we have some vacancies, I want to come to a solution and how we can fill some of these vacancies.

We just graduated eight from our law enforcement academy that are entering into our field training program, which we can when they complete and become solo capable, use those to fill some of these vacancies.

We also have one of our officers that is in the final weeks of his field training program, and we have a lateral that is in the field training program.

And two weeks ago, we just sent 10 of our recruits to the academy to become law enforcement officers at the end of their training.

So we have some numbers coming in that would help fill some of these vacancies for our officers.

And again, we only do have the one CSO that primarily handles these uh traffic safety queue reviews.

We have currently we have five speed trailers, and those speed trailers, which I'm sure you've all seen, are placed on the road that give the digital readout of what your speed is along that road.

They're usually deployed for a month at a time.

But not only do they provide a digital reading of speed, it also captures data.

And that data is daytime and number of vehicles and the number of speeders through a certain area.

And with these speed trailers, we do see a decrease in speed by the end of them.

However, I can't attest to if that speeding reverts back to normal pre-deployment speed, much like our speed safety cameras.

We also do have four covert boxes, which I touched on earlier, and these covert boxes are used to get that natural flow of traffic on our roadway to ensure that we're deploying our resources appropriately.

So that kind of leads us into our next bullet point, which is a target enforcement.

So using the data that we're getting from our speed trailer and our covert boxes allows us to do target enforcement.

So fully staffing our traffic bureau allows us to get our officers in strategic places at dates and times.

It also allows us to spread our officers throughout the entire city of Avondale, getting more visibility of traffic officers on the roadway, and with the ultimate goal of decreasing the speeding on our roadway.

We'd like to increase our LIDAR and radar units for our patrol officers.

With the implementation of our take-home vehicles, prior to we had 10 LIDAR units in our department where an officer, when they come on shift, would have to check that out and utilize that for their shift and then check it in at the end of shift.

But now with our take-home vehicle program, we're committed to purchasing more LIDAR units so that our officers have that tool readily available to available to them in their patrol vehicle.

That way where they're not responding to calls for service.

Also, I'd like to touch on when a traffic stop is conducted by whether that's a traffic officer and/or an officer on the roadway, it does humanize that traffic stop.

Not every single contact we've had with any all of our citizens, as you saw before, results in a citation.

Some of those changed behaviors result from just a simple warning that we give our officers or give our citizens of Avondale.

So continue on with our speed safety strategies.

We'd like to do a new speed safety campaign.

We've done some of these in the past where we've done videos and some of our posts on our social media page.

As you can see, we're very fortunate, as we saw yesterday with the raceway here, to do some of our slogans that actually cater to that.

So as you see here, uh slow down, life is not a race, leave the driving to the professionals or some of the slogans that I think we could easily use, which makes it very simple and it's a catchy phrase for our citizens to jump on board with.

Something that they're going to remind them that when they're traveling in the city of Avondale that the speeding is not going to be acceptable, and just those unified messages.

And these are held throughout the West Valley where the host agency will identify areas of concern and all agencies will conduct enforcement in those specific areas.

Here in Avondale, we've had the pleasure of hosting a couple of these.

We'd like to increase those number of host aid hosting of these task force.

That way we get a lot more officers in our city driving down that speed and just having a very big visibility of officer and officer present presence on a roadway.

We'd also like to partner with our engineering as uh Director Moon spoke earlier on roadway design, which is designed to decrease speed and accidents.

They currently have a grant, which is a safe streets and roads for all.

I know they feel concerns from our citizens just as much as we feel concerns from our citizens, but partnering with them, take it into environmental designs on roadway to maybe make it feel like it's a little bit smaller to help naturally drive down that speeding on that roadway.

And currently we do have traffic cameras at a good majority of our intersections, and these traffic cameras allows us to tap in and look at live feed of the number of flow of traffic that we have going through our city, which also allows us to divert our officers in specific locations if we see an increase in traffic.

We also have a flock camera system that we utilize and would like to continue to utilize and grow that program.

The flock camera system is very important to us when we get descriptions of vehicles and maybe not a license plate, but a description of a vehicle, and we can utilize this system, which would allow us to figure out where this vehicle is traveling at dates and times, and hopefully make contact with them to advise them that whatever drive behavior they're conducting is not safe for our roadways, and just hold people responsible and make sure that we're being good partners and stewards with all the drivers on the roadway.

So our recommendation is uh based on a review of data, including long-term effectiveness of our speed safety cameras, cost analysis, employee time commitment, and we did a debrief of this program.

Our recommendation is termination of the contract with VARI Mobility.

We would remove the speed safety cameras on December 31st, 2025, and cancellation of the program of VAR mobility on June 30th of 2026.

And the reason that we have some months gaps in between there is to allow for the PDQ and the courts queue to be cleared out before the cancellation of the program.

And the cost of the cancellation of the program is 107,000.

And myself and Chief Espinoza will be up here to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for the presentation, a lot of information and definitely one that uh members of the community have uh have, I know, chatted with me on and shared their information and their their opinions and thoughts on this program itself.

So I will open the floor to comments from the rest of the council.

Okay.

Councilmember Weiss.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um looking at the slides where you went back, number one.

Um when we asked you for more data, you gave it.

Thank you so much for bringing coming back and giving us more data.

One of the things that at the last council meeting that we discussed this that kind of dawned on me at the end of the meeting was the fact that we couldn't move the cameras because um we hadn't made a change in driver behavior.

And we couldn't do it until we got to uh like a 50% decrease, I think it was in speed, uh speeders.

And the fact that we couldn't move it for so long just to me is also a data point.

Um looking back at Dice Heart Road and seeing that that was not a sustained decrease, um, that it went back to the pre-deployment um number of people who were speeding again.

It just it kind of tells me that this probably is not um a good that this is it didn't do what it we wanted it to do, which was to decrease speeders and to promote healthy driving.

Um so I I would support um your motion.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any other members of council.

Okay, Councilmember White.

Thank you so much, Iron.

I appreciate your presentation.

Excellent um information.

You did get above you went above and beyond with the additional data points.

So I wanted to thank you, Chief, and um for also presenting that.

I have quite a different perspective on concerns, so I'll talk to you based on the industry that I came from.

Um I shared this in private, so I'll take it to the public as well.

Um I think about a contract, um, the contract period is normally put in place so that we can get a run of data based on our relationship with the organization.

One of the things I admire most about the city of Avondale, and also I shared this with City Manager Corbyn.

Um, something that changed about us since City Manager Corbin has come to the city of Avondale is our credit rating has increased.

So when we went out for a bond, we got higher credit rating.

Outside of City Manager Corp and I also joined the city, and our credit rating increased.

Those are the only two major changes that happened.

But when I think about it in terms of credit rating increase in contracts that we enter into, really shows a matter of good faith.

So ending a contract before the terms of the contract are over, it's kind of like closing a credit card on your credit file.

You might not be swiping that card every day, it might have a zero balance, but you're showing that you're not willing to keep it open.

So, regardless if you have good credit or not, when you end that contract, an unused credit card contract, your credit rating still goes down.

I'm sure many of you who've done this have experienced that.

So I'm concerned one that our credit rating has increased.

We've gone out for a bond specifically indicating we're bonding for public safety, and now we're gonna say, hey, we're gonna reneg on this one contract.

That doesn't feel good for me.

Um if you can go back to the expense slide, there were quite a few HR expenses that we had in there.

So I'd like to look at those a little bit more, please.

That's that's it.

So with the expenses, it's 500, about a half million bucks.

And let's say that we made about three quarters of a million.

We'd say we got a quarter million profit here.

So simple math, if you just want to round the numbers, a quarter million profit canceling that contract.

We're still coming out on top.

However, it's it's just kind of how do we look?

And when you go back and take a look at the slides, there was one I think um council member Weiss referred to the DISART behavior pattern.

Can we take a look at that slide?

I just want to make sure.

So the lower information is we started off with 60,000 500, let's say, pre-deployment vehicles that we captured.

We went up, we went up an additional 6,000 vehicles.

But we changed that behavior post-deployment for the first set.

So it went down to 59,000.

So maybe the word got out on the street that hey, they're they're tracking speed over here.

So maybe we just, you know, told we we were clear, go don't come down here.

And if you're gonna speed, we got more drivers once those cameras went away.

And so those numbers, of course, went back up.

But the the thing I think that's most impactful is we did change behaviors, and so now more people are driving on that through way, and it's still less than the top number.

So we still decreased the amount of people speeding.

So we met our ambition.

And I would hate for us to make a foolhearted decision when we're asking the public to vote on a bond for public safety to cancel a contract because now we're gonna make our credit look bad, like we can't keep a contract.

So I would there's a couple more slides I wanted to speak to.

If we can go forward, I think one or two more slides here, please.

I really am very excited about the tracks.

I feel like um what Chief Espinoza was able to share with me is these are like cigarette adapters and we have take-home vehicles now, so we'll be able to deploy more of those because we're gonna get bond funding.

But I think we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time because we've already applied for grant money from straight safe streets, um, safe streets for all grants.

I know that we've had a great partner at National League of Cities, um, Brittany Kohler.

Um, Secretary Sean Duffy hasn't pulled any of our transit dollars here.

Um, those grant fundings come through Secretary Duffy.

So I want to make sure that if we're getting federal funding to do things in Avondale, and um we're getting bond funding to do things in Avondale, that we do as many things in Avondale as we can to keep it safe.

So to save 107,000.

I know you guys put safety first.

I know we're gonna do more things, but to whom much is given, much is required.

So I think we need to be able to walk and chew gum at this.

And so this is this is not something that I would be able to support.

Um, but I respect that this is something that um you all would like to look at alternatives for, and I want us to be mindful because we've gotten grant funding to keep things safe, and we don't want people to second guess us when we maybe put a part of this in that research grant.

Like we're already doing this to research how things look.

So we just we have to be mindful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember White.

Councilmember Garcia.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

I appreciate it.

Um, I was against them to begin with, and I'm really glad that now we're able to terminate the contract and that we're we have our officers that will be able to do the job, and you guys have a plan to set the thwarts.

I appreciate you guys uh presenting that to us, and I look forward to seeing you guys out there pulling everybody over but me.

So you've heard uh obviously some um you know different viewpoints here.

Simply for myself, um, with speaking with the community, and I've already shared my examples uh the first time this came up was how can I demonstrate to the community that we're taking speeding seriously?

Uh and the idea of having um the speed cameras while many residents uh when I was going door to door shared with me how much they disliked the idea, I was able to um essentially share with them the reason why I would vote why I voted and approved uh when we went through with the contract um for the speed cameras, and it really stems from safety.

How do we make a dent in uh the overall uh safety of our roads?

And these two speed cameras, as you can tell by some of the numbers that were listed, even if you look at revenue, were successful.

However, I'm also looking at overall impact.

And to speak into that point, from what I've heard tonight in regards to the presentation is that and aside from two cameras which are capturing two data points, two streets at a time, um, that there is some effect, whether it's uh the increments are large or small, we can we can talk about that uh in a different conversation.

Nonetheless, based upon what was shared tonight through the presentation in regards to uh expanded coverage uh as well as more uh members of the motorbike team, uh the different tools that can be applied in regards to the LIDAR and the radar, to me satisfies what my commitment to the residents was in regards to safety, and that is if I can utilize tools, software to make two roadways safe, then how can I get in the way of making even more roadways safe here tonight based upon what you've shared?

And so uh out of respect to the uh presentation and the motion uh that was uh recommended and provided here, I see no problem with removing the speed cameras and allowing uh the police department under your supervision, Chief Espinoza, to provide and add these additional resources, including uh the campaigns as a as a means to uh uh reducing and hopefully eliminating speed um as a factor here in this community.

And so with that, I see that Mayor Oh, sorry, uh sorry, Councilmember Condi.

I'm so sorry, Councilmember Condi.

It's okay.

Um I I agree with um Mayor Paneda.

I too in the beginning did uh vote for the cameras, and I think the whole thing we were talking about is how do we change behavior?

And it looks like it might be changed temporarily.

But then yes, it did help a little bit.

But the overall impact, um, I think only having the two cameras, and I know that at some areas because of the way they were positioned, um, due to the sun, it wasn't they weren't able to um properly um gosh, property monitor, properly monitor those speeds at that point when there was a lot of sun.

Um, but I do think that this new speed safety strategies.

I feel like this is a great way to um let people know that we're serious, that we're doing a campaign, um getting some additional um officers out there.

Um I think this would be more beneficial than the speed cameras that we're currently doing now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Conde.

Councilmember White.

I think that um just to be clear, uh, five to one are the statistics if we just want to make it.

So for every six tickets, five of them for non-residents.

So our residents weren't being the major people impacted.

Only about 18% of the citations that went out were Avondale residents.

So one, I want to thank our Avondale residents for not being bad actors.

The majority of the people getting caught by these speed crammers were not our residents.

So first and foremost, I want to thank our residents for doing that.

They have safe behaviors, and so it it to me definitely fulfilled the purpose, and I want to highlight that.

So um and I do want to let you know you can pull me over if I'm breaking the law.

I will I will receive and take your feedback.

Thank you.

I was kidding, just so it's on the record.

Okay.

Uh did you have comments?

Okay, Councilmember Splorio.

Um, I do appreciate the extra things that you've added, the above and beyond presentation.

Um, I really would like us to have more enforcement in the areas where they were at.

I know we can say it, but we need to do it for our people.

Um, and I get that sometimes vacancies become open or not.

I did look into the Safer Streets grant.

That is a large portion of the Safer Streets grant to have countermeasures in there.

So that may be something that we may lose, which is a grant.

So I mean granted, certain things we know we run by our residents and such, but that is a big component, and I actually have a reference number for that.

So if we're prepared to lose something like that for counteractive measures of safety, we also need to consider that part of it.

I get that some people think it's a nuisance, and I think that we can do better in some areas like a campaign and such, but we also need to think of both sides of it.

We're talking about not spending money for a bridge and you know, doing that, but yet we want to give take a hundred thousand dollars and do that.

So I mean I can go out to our people and justify where we spend our money all day and every day, but that is one of the safer streets components that is written in there for the 2025 standards.

Councilmember White?

And and and again, I want to thank the current administration, Secretary Sean Duffy, for being able to make the safe streets for all grants available for us to have here in the city of Avondale.

And I want to acknowledge the current administration has not taken a dime of money from the City of Avondale, and from what I understand, not from any of the MAG people in the West Valley.

I don't know what's going on everywhere, but I know that we're safe over here, so we want to show our appreciation by using the money we get grant funded.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, no other comments.

We got a motion from Councilmember Garcia, a second from Vice Mayor Nielsen.

Oh, sorry, Councilmember Weiss.

Okay.

Sorry, I didn't see your hand.

No, no, no, it's okay.

Councilmember um Solario, thank you for bringing up the grant.

I do have a question.

Does our termination of this contract affect our grant?

Uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, we don't believe so.

We have a comprehensive safety plan uh that we just presented to council, so we believe that we'll be able to um keep the grant.

Uh we're just getting started with it.

The first year is planning, second year or second phase is implementation of those kinds of things.

So we we believe that we'll be okay.

Um, as a member of the National Transportation Infrastructure Services, I just want to clarify we have a research grant.

This is research data that we should be collecting through the contract period.

So there's the contract period we're cutting short, and this is a part of the research that was used just for clarification.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

Thank you, Councilmember White.

Okay, no other questions.

We got a motion from Councilmember Garcia, second from Vice Mayor Nielsen.

You could all please vote.

Aye.

Okay, item passes five to two.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor, my council.

Thank you, Chief Hisponozen, thank you for for all in your part of your team.

Appreciate it.

Uh item C, please, Ron.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council.

Up next, we have a uh budget presentation that uh Renee uh is ready to provide the good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council.

Um, tonight we are kicking off the fiscal 2027 budget process.

And during the adoption of the fiscal 26 budget, um, we had communicated to council that we would bring back um in our next budget process a conversation to discuss uh revenue and the assumptions that we include in the budget.

So um that is what we will be doing tonight.

Um we will be um providing you an update on our capital improvement plan.

We will cover our forecast, and then we will look at our property tax levy and the property tax rate, as well as discussing um our financing needs here in the city.

We'll take a look at personnel and FTE and anticipated compensation changes for next year, and we will end with revisiting council's priorities as well as soliciting your feedback um on some of these assumptions as we build the fiscal twenty-seven budget.

And we will end with revisiting council's priorities as well as soliciting your feedback on some of these assumptions as we build the fiscal 27 budget.

So with that, I'm going to take this time to turn it over to James Melanese to present our CIP.

Thank you, Miss Weatherless.

All right.

So as always, like to start with some wins.

Already since July 1, we've knocked off some pretty big projects.

That first one with a star, thank you all for attending today's ribbon cutting at Fire Station 171.

There is a star there because as the chief noted, and I believe the architect did as well.

We still have to tear down the old building in behind.

So it's we're still working on finishing it, but we're going to count it as a win already completed since July 1.

Uh the canine training facility, which is the photo shown up there next to our detention center.

Uh is an excellent use of our resources to make sure that we train our canine officers here in Avondale instead of sending them outside the city.

Our police communications bureau model allowed us to expand and give the team that work there so many hours and they're so dedicated, those consoles the best equipment they need to provide the best service they can when somebody dials number one.

And then old town phase three.

This is obviously the third phase of six phases in Cash and that was completed earlier this year, complete reconstruction of streets and replacement of water lines.

Under construction, if you look right outside here, you see the amphitheater shade sales going up.

The posts are already in, um, and it will be done here in just a couple weeks to allow programming in the wintertime.

The basin meridian restoration, uh, they should have remobilized today or started showing back up today.

They had taken the week off for the race.

Um they'll kick work back off next week.

It'll be done in mid-December.

But that's to really restore that whole pathway, the low water crossing.

They've already got it, so the water is flowing much better under the low water crossing by clearing out the vegetation.

Um we're very excited about what that does and how that'll help us help our parks department host Nature Fest in February.

Civic Center Park.

It's a nice little aerial image of the park under construction right now.

Um it'll be opening here very shortly.

Um again, this park is an extension of the library with you can kind of see some of the reading benches set around in a circle around the park, um, lots of trees, large grass area, Ramada playground, um, an amenity that's kind of missing in this part of the city will be open very soon, so stay tuned for ribbon cutting on that.

Friendship park improvements.

Again, we are adding pickleball to the north side of the city.

We didn't have it in the north of I-10.

Uh, this pickleball courts are in, they're just doing the finishing touches on them.

We are also currently renovating the dog park, which I believe uh Mr.

Lariva was one of our number one complaints about the park.

Not that we get a lot of complaints, but that was what people focused on a lot.

A lot of that was around drainage, which we've handled with the rain that we've recently had quite well.

And then the last one I want to touch on is the Western Avenue Pedestrian and Cafe Lights.

Uh, this was a partially grant-funded project.

It was an earmark from the late Rep Grahava to replace all the pedestrian lights between central and Dysert.

In addition, what that project is allowing us to do is to string cafe lights across the street.

So the lights are about halfway a little bit more than halfway done already.

This should be wrapped up in the next couple weeks.

And then the contractor will be able to start stringing the lights across the street and really make it more festive.

It'll also tie into all the new holiday decor that's going to be on Western Avenue for this holiday season.

And then coming soon, uh bridge housing.

If you drive by there, you already see the fencings up and the trailers on site.

They'll be starting this week with actual demolition.

Uh that project obviously will be to provide transitional housing to Avondale families for up to a year.

Um then it has, of course, the functionality of being across the resource center with all those services readily available.

The central and western intersection improvements.

We're currently timing this to be around the start of summer or when the end of school year, so we impact the Michael T.

Anderson school as least as possible.

Same same plan we had for when we did Western Avenue between uh Central and Fourth Street.

Uh that project is under design right now.

We're doing some other improvements in the area.

We're running some new fiber line through there.

We're gonna be upgrading the signals through there, uh, so it'll key up really well to take care of before or again by the end of the fiscal year.

Deslie Lorenz Parker model.

And I do have to apologize for a little bit of confusion on this image.

We paid for a nice rendering early on, but we didn't want to expend the funds on this project to keep doing renderings as we kept going through iterations.

So the grass that you see up there is not going to be grass.

It's actually going to be more of a gravel.

This is going to be a teaching garden.

Our sustainability team out of public works is going to work with the local schools.

You can see that there's bus pull-outs along the park.

So again, we really want to use it as an educational experience that we kind of are lacking here in Avondale to teach people about how to do zero maintenance or zero gardening.

And then the fire training center.

This is really to replace the fire training towers down by the mosque off 4th Street and Lower Buckeye.

But it includes other improvements.

So lots of training facility for them.

Again, the purpose here is similar to the canine training is that we want to make sure that our public safety team spends as much time in Avondale as possible so that they're ready to respond to emergencies, right?

Otherwise, they're traveling to Glendale or Luke Air Force Base or something to get that training opportunities.

All right.

And then we've got a lot coming still.

I just again, this is a small highlight.

Donatella Park, that's the image that you're seeing right there.

So Donatella is in the Donatella neighborhood, just behind Phoenix Children's Hospital.

And you can see there's a walking path, there's a basketball court, all those nice amenities for that neighborhood.

Crystal Gardens Lake Dredging project has been going on for a couple years now.

We're seeing the end.

We're seeing really a difference in the amount of water that those ponds are holding and they're able to treat.

So it really helps our public works team.

Old town phases four, five, and six.

Again, that's a continuation of that long-standing council commitment to take care of our older neighborhoods.

We're currently working on phase five.

We're able to negotiate a start to that a little sooner than phase four.

So they're working just south of MC 85 and Old Town.

But phase five is going to be coming and starting very soon, and they'll be on the north side.

And then once those two projects end up, and they should be ending up around August of next summer, we'll kick into phase six, which is Las Legas.

And that'll complete that commitment.

We also have Old Town Plaza.

This is taking a vacant lot at Dysart and Western and converting it to a plaza as a welcoming space as you enter into Western Avenue in Old Town Avondale.

Softball field improvements at Friendship Park, just trying to make sure that we have a good softball little league fields for our youth sports or sports teams.

So those improvements are going to be starting up here in the 2026.

They'll carry over a little bit into the summer, and they'll be done July, August time period.

And then finally, this signal at uh Thomas Road and 11th Avenue.

I won't spend a lot of time on it.

I know Miss Moon talked about this just a couple weeks ago.

But again, it's a project that we are moving forward with, and it will be online early in 2027, fiscal year 2027.

Okay.

So with all that fun stuff out of the way, in the previous years, I've stood before you and I've asked about your priorities.

So I'm doing the same thing here tonight.

We have a lot of projects.

We have a lot of uh needs for the city, and we don't have the resources to take care of all of them as quickly as we might want.

And so we're asking for your help to go through and figure out what those priorities are.

Um when we talked about this last year, we've had a little bit of change on council, so it's not the exact same.

And it's also just another year.

So it's to give us an opportunity to go through here.

I'm gonna spend quite a bit of time tonight talking about projects that are unfunded.

So I don't necessarily need your feedback on these items right now, but I'm gonna bring up the slide again at the end.

I do want to say I pulled out maintain budget.

We know you want us to maintain the budget.

I can confidently say that Mr.

Corbin and Miss Weatherless will not present a budget that is not balanced.

Um, but we do have a lot of competing issues, and it's a little different this year.

There's more unfunded projects than I think that we've had really discussed in previous years.

Okay.

So with that, what do I mean by unfunded projects?

Two rule of ways we're talking about that.

The first is I believe last year we introduced a new concept.

Rather than coming to council and saying, hey, there's a there's a project we want to construct, and it cost X million dollars, and we want it all in year one.

We said is no, that's not an effective way of doing things.

So what we're doing is we come up with, we conservatively estimate what that project's gonna cost.

And we consider unfunded in future years for construction.

But we ask you to let's take a study, get a study done, get design done, get those costs a little bit better understood so that we're coming to you with the most truthful, most accurate information we have.

So a lot of those projects that we've started doing over the last couple years that we've studied, we've started design, they're currently in an unfunded status.

So we're gonna talk about some of those.

And when do we need to kind of move those up into funded status if we still want to move them up in funded status?

The other thing I wanna touch on, we consider unfunded.

We know conceptually, and probably better than conceptually, some of the projects that we need to finance, right?

But we don't necessarily know when we want to finance them, right?

We want to finance projects for when we need to take on that debt, not in advance, because we don't want to start paying interest before we need to, right?

Um, and so we don't exactly know what it is.

And so it's kind of in this quasi-funded, quasi-unfunded state.

So we're gonna cover some of those projects today, too.

And then I'll let Miss Weatherless actually get in the details of financing and how they work.

Okay.

So general government unfunded.

Uh there's four projects here I just want to identify.

These are a great kickoff because there's good explanations for why these might be unfunded, and it kind of clarifies this whole process a little better.

The first of these is Las Legas Veteran Housing.

We've identified property in the Las Legas neighborhood that we think would be a good use to repurpose for veteran housing.

Uh we asked council last year for some funding to correct some legal issues with it.

Lot lines are just not in the right place.

Two lots, we want to combine them.

That is in process.

We also set aside in programming, again, it wasn't funded, we didn't ask you for the budget, but we kind of had it scrolled away.

What do we do if we need to move forward?

This is a council priority.

Luckily, at the same time, our team over at NFS, Mr.

Lopez's team, is doing a great job.

They're looking for partners right now.

They believe they have already identified nonprofits that are gonna apply for grants.

So once we get the property set up, hopefully they can get federal grants to come in and build this housing and do what they need to do to make sure that we're taking care of veterans in Avondale.

The municipal operations warehouse.

This is a uh a look at our operations center.

Currently, mainly houses public works, but it also houses parks, facilities, traffic engineering.

We're running out of space, essentially.

Um, as we continue to grow events, parks needs more space for storage.

As we grow more buildings, facilities needs more storage space just for all the things that go into buildings, so on and so forth.

As we get more intersections, we need more uh guys who can main manage intersections.

So we asked for some money last year to do a study.

We did the study, um, and we asked it for additional funds to also start design and to start cleaning up the site.

So the site is gonna be starting here in the next couple weeks.

They're gonna start actually removing all the dirt because if nothing else, we wanna make sure we have a nice clean site for our neighbors, and so that was a priority to get that taken care of.

Shade at the resource center uh is another item that's kind of up in the air.

It's a need of the resource center.

Um they've gotten a lot of as they do more events outside, there's been a request for hey, let's have more shade outside.

But at the same time, um, if you recall, we came last year and we talked about potential expansion of the resource center, right?

Um council was gracious, and you did fund a study for an expansion of it.

So we did that study this past year.

We have an idea of where that cost would be in the out years, um, and I'll touch on that a little bit later on.

But that kind of balances there.

Do we go ahead and invest in shade today if maybe in five years council doesn't want to, or council wants to expand the resource center, and now we're tearing out something that we just put in.

So we're trying to balance that.

So I hope that kind of gives an overlay and kind of where some of these questions on unfunding might be.

Most of my slides, you're gonna see I try to be alphabetical, sometimes I didn't.

This is one I didn't.

Um we actually worked with our parks recreation and libraries team to try to come up with what we think the priority listing would be for council and for the community.

Um starting with friendship park entry and exit.

Uh, we know that it is a problem, especially on the weekends during league time.

Um, and you just can't get in and out of the park fast enough and safe enough.

So this would add another entry exit down by the softball field to allow more vehicles to enter exit out of the park on a McDowell.

The Ofria trail improvements, uh talked about that a little bit during Miss Moon's presentation.

Um, but this would complete all those connections all the way from Indian School down to a festival fields, and even further south.

Uh Fred Campbell Park is an older park off of Central Avenue.

Um, both our bond committee and I believe council brought this up as a park that needed remediation.

Um, so this would bring that up to that uh standard, that Avondale standard that you see at some of our other parks would bring that community park up to that, or sorry, neighborhood park up to that.

Uh the pedestrian bridge, I have the range there that Miss Moon presented earlier.

Uh, and then civic center library improvements.

The library is 20 years old.

It has space that could be utilized differently.

And so that would kind of grab some of those funds to do that to improve the library and services.

Shade at parks again, it's one of those top issues when the parks department surveyed residents for the parks recreation and libraries master plan is one of the top concerns.

And so this would be general shade just in all our parks.

Like how do we put shade in more of our parks?

Festival Fields Disc Golf is currently under design, so this would add a new amenity to the to the city.

We don't have disc golf anywhere.

This is on the southern part of festival fields, kind of grow into the river bottom there a little bit.

And there right there is the cost for construction, which right now is unfunded.

Like I said, we are in the middle of the design.

Library office furniture and shelving.

Again, most of what we've done to date on the two libraries recently, either what we just did at Sam Garcia or the plan work and uh Civic Center library would be more on the public-facing side.

This would also take care of staff.

And then indoor pickleball at Civic Center.

I know our city manager was very excited about this project just a couple of years ago.

Um we did a study on it.

It was very expensive.

Um thankfully we have a wonderful economic development team that is looking for a public-private partnership that we hope that we can bring to council soon that would significantly reduce that cost to the city, um, but still provide an important amenity.

Right.

Public safety.

Um again, what I'm pulling out here is Southern Avondale Fire Police substation.

It's up there for 28.8 million dollars.

That is the complete cost of the project, including a new fire apparatus.

Of that, we had earmarked 10 million dollars to come from bond funding.

So that's why it's there today.

It is not fully funded as of today.

Four additional communications consoles.

Uh thank you again for your investment in our communications bureau.

Um, but uh unfortunately we continue to grow as a city, and as the signal splits in the future, uh, the team there believes that they will need continued additional consoles.

The boulevard substation is an opportunity for PD to have more of a footprint within the boulevard.

We continue to grow the boulevard.

We're gonna have, I believe Miss Stein said somewhere of up to 50 events per year.

Um, and so we want to make sure our one of the ask here is from PD is to have that more presence there on the campus of the boulevard.

The firearms training center, again, this is goes back to the same thing as the canine training and to the fire training.

Uh right now our officers drive down to the Gripstick in Glendale to do their firearms training.

They don't always have times to get in because they're competing with so many other agencies.

Um, this would have a facility here in Avondale.

Um again, once again, keep our public safety team within the city they serve as much as possible.

Public safety facility assessment goes back to that note of that our facilities, we want to keep them at a certain level.

We've invested or you've invested quite a bit in our public safety facilities.

We have a lot of brand new facilities.

This would actually look at some of our older facilities.

Um, fire station uh or sorry, public safety northwest, which is also 172 in Crystal Gardens, is built in the 90s.

Um I can tell you some of the restrooms there are not ADA compliant right now, which is fine.

We're not violating any rules.

Um, but one of the things we want to do when we take a look at an assessment is let's look at it holistically because if we do need to expand one restroom to add a shower, what what is the cascading effect on that space, right?

So we're looking at them holistically.

So this is this will be looking at 172 in Northwest Public Safety, it'll be looking at Fire Station 173, it'll be looking at 174 at Estrella, it'd be looking at Cashing.

So it's looking at all those facilities, our older um our public safety facilities, and saying what do we need to do to bring them to that same standard that we see now at the other stations?

And then finally, the uh I think I skipped one.

I skipped over the main PD headquarters expansion.

Um so this would be an expansion above the uh the evidence lab.

The facility was built with a future second floor and planned.

Um again, a plan if we have the opportunity of bond funding, this is one of the uh uses we saw for it.

And then last is a public safety headquarters where um that would give a better home to our fire team and our office of public safety, and it would also take use of a current vacant city lot here on the uh Civic Center campus.

And then transportation unfunded, same kind of deal with signals.

A lot of them we know will be warranted at some point, of course, being when it meets certain standards within the manual and uniform traffic control devices once development's complete.

But we don't exactly know when development's gonna be complete, and so that's why they're kind of unfunded, so they're kind of out there.

Um item with a bullet, obviously, is that one at Avondale Boulevard in Miami.

That's where the fries is gonna be going in.

The extent of that signal is a bit more, mainly because of the irrigation on the east side of Avondale Boulevard.

And the total extent of our cost on that is still we're still looking at that.

Okay, and then water and sewer unfunded.

I know we've talked about the water and sewer needs quite a bit, but it doesn't hurt for a quick refresh of where we're at.

So for the water plant expansion of our treatment plant expansion, we're currently at 60% design.

We've hired a contractor, which is great because that contractor can come in, they can help us figure out feasibility.

How do we build the thing, right?

Because there's a lot of pipes, there's a lot of type spaces around the yard.

Make sure that everything fits together and gets us better cost estimates.

We're still tracking for December 2028 opening of the expansion.

That shows us, I think we're somewhere in like the 8.7 uh million gallons a day in December, so we want to be ready in January 2029 to go live, but it's something we're gonna continue to make we're gonna continue to monitor.

Um we're keeping a close eye on building permits to see if that needs to change and if that needs to move at all.

The PFAS regulatory actions.

Uh, I won't try to pronounce what PFS stands for, so please don't ask me.

Um, but it is something that the Biden administration did put in a couple years ago saying that we were out of compliance with um the standards for PFAS and our water.

Um the Trump administration has uh pushed that out slightly, I believe two years, um, but it's still something that we expect we have to move forward with.

Um so council did provide us with some funding last year.

So we have purchased land where we believe would be the best locations for some new equipment.

Um we're gonna be kicking off design on the finalized, and once we have the finalized plan, we can kick off design.

And I have that number there, the 18 million of 130 million dollars budgeted, because I know in Miss Weatherless uh presentation, she's gonna talk about how we finance the 18 million dollars.

Um so it was funded, but it is gonna be financed, so she's gonna touch on that.

And then the Bartlett Dam expansion.

Again, this is an opportunity for the city to expand our water portfolio.

It is still very early in discussions.

That $15 million is a Avondale share is still very much unknown.

Okay.

All right.

All right, and now I want to talk about new projects.

So these are projects we haven't previously discussed in other budgets.

We may have discussed them in other meetings.

Um, but I do want to circle back around on them.

Um I a couple of these, like I said, have been discussed at other meetings, but they weren't part of that other process.

And so they're still in this.

How do we fit them within our uh plan annually and the cost overall?

So the boulevard.

Miss Stein did an amazing presentation.

Um I got very excited about it, um, but there were some large numbers associated with it.

So I just want to cover them all again, one more time.

Um, first of all, blueprints capital.

So they that they're the ones who answered that RFP to develop the southern part of the boulevard area.

Um this is the city cost share for infrastructure, so this is the streets, this is the the greenway, that area for staging and events.

Um is currently at $6.6 million.

It's still in negotiation.

The next one is Park Avenue and Van Buren signal.

Um as Park Avenue gets built, and I'm talking about the warrants, right?

We can expect at some point we'll need a signal on Van Buren at Park Avenue.

The dollar amount here is really unknown.

With a lot of our signals, um, especially at this stage where there's nothing that's been built.

Um we don't know what the neighbor, what the property owner across the street's gonna do or when they're gonna develop across Van Buren.

Um, but we know that, and sorry, and sometimes we would expect that developer to contribute, right, to a signal.

So this number could vary quite a bit depending on what development happens in the next few years.

And then the boulevard parking and pad site.

So this is a vacant lot on Roosevelt and Avondale Boulevard.

We needed to purchase some of it anyway, to the half half street rose or the Roosevelt half street improvements.

Um but there's an opportunity here for the city to engage and really activate that site.

Part of the reason why it's sat vacant for so long is there's contamination on the site.

Um I understand it was a crop dusting site, and so there was some fuel leaks and some other chemicals that might have been on site.

Again, our wonderful economic development team is working to obtain grants to handle the cleanup.

So we'd be looking to purchase it, um, clean it up, and then find a buyer either through an immediate sale or a lease to sale, similar to what is happening with embassy suites.

And then finally, the Roosevelt Half Street improvements.

Um Avondale Boulevard to park to make it the full street section it's supposed to be.

Um it would align our completion with embassy suites.

That's our goal is to get it done before besuits.

The design on right-of-way activities currently are on next council's agenda item.

All right.

General government.

Our buildings were built somewhere between 2003 and 2008 on this campus.

We've already replaced the chiller system, but a lot of the rooftop units are coming due.

It's just a normal replacement cycle.

So our facilities team is looking at a phased approach of about $13 million to upgrade, or sorry, to replace the rooftop units and the interior VAVs.

That's the air boxes that move the air around inside each building over the next several years.

The resource center expansion, so I touched on it a little earlier.

We had that study.

The Western Avenue properties.

So this is a continuation of investing in Western Avenue.

So there's two properties that we own in Western Avenue that we may look to demolish those properties.

And then we're also looking to purchase small parcels in Western Avenue just to better help development come in where it's a little difficult for things like parking and entry and exits.

More to come.

And then last, we have the advocacy center.

The advocacy center continues to grow.

The need has not gone away in the West Valley.

The building that they're currently located at is not meeting all their needs.

Previously, we had talked to council about uh purchasing a facility in Goodyear.

It didn't pencil out cost wise for it.

Uh so again, I keep throwing back to Miss Stein, but our economic development team is looking for solutions to provide them, most likely some sort of a lease to build option.

All right.

Parks.

Donnie Hill park improvements.

Uh we want to continue to invest in Donnie Hill and Cash and So we want to look at doing a splash pad.

Um so we're talking about asking for money for a study.

We don't know if a splash pad will work there.

Um the infrastructure is a little tight on the older part of the town.

Parking's very tight at the park.

So a little bit of funding would allow us to take a better look at it and then come back and give you better options about cost and and everything associated with it.

And then upgrading the playground, we do have a pretty good handle on playgrounds.

We've done a lot of them lately.

Um, and so we feel pretty confident that this would bring it up to that Avondale standard.

We also have additional improvements at Friendship Park.

Um, the gazebo is not in a good condition.

So, how do we get how do we either remove it completely, relocate it so that would be a better condition for the park itself?

Um, we need more shade specifically in the area around the lake, and then site furnishings.

Um we have a lot of those gabion seatings with the metal baskets with the rocks inside.

Um, those are not really easy to maintain, they haven't provided the best comfort for our users.

Um, so we're looking for different uh furniture.

We're gonna use the pickleball courts as kind of the model for that.

So when those courts open, you'll see us a little sneak peek of what the furniture will look like throughout the rest.

And then phase two of pickleball.

We left space that we can continue to expand.

We do believe there's gonna be the need there for additional pickleball north of I-10.

Um, and would council want us to go forward somewhere in that one and a half million dollar range because a lot of the infrastructure was put in in that first phase.

Uh North Landing at Friendship Park, this was a grant project.

So I believe we've talked to you about already.

But $700,000 is our share to get this funding to get it built.

So that would take from the bridge that Ms.

Moon talked about and redo some of the melto use path around like the soccer fields to provide more access.

So if people come and they park, they can get to that bridge, hopefully, or the the at grade crossing, however, uh council wants to move forward on that to allow that access.

And then the Avondale Boulevard Trailhead, this city of Phoenix actually reached out to us.

This was part of the old Rio Salado project.

Um they had identified a trailhead location at Avondale Boulevard just north of the bridge across uh the Gila.

Um it's currently owned by our partners at McFlood.

They seem to be open to allowing us to have a trailhead at that location.

Phoenix will secure the grant funding for it.

Phoenix will install it.

We just have to pay our match.

And it looks to be about 1.4 million dollars.

And that would be four to five years out from now on their time frame.

Transportation, uh so streets expansions.

Uh, Miss Moon touched on the lower Buckeye Road expansion uh just a couple weeks ago.

Um there's no such thing as free money.

And then looking forward to other needs in the area at the 107th Avenue underpass at I-10.

It looks like there's space for additional lanes.

So this would have that initial study, the DCR, to go back and say, okay, how do we do this?

Is it possible?

And then is there grant funding available for the project?

All right.

So I covered a lot of projects, right?

So I want to circle back again, like I said, to these priorities.

The number one thing was hey, complete plan projects.

Those first three slides, I hope demonstrating that we are doing what we can to complete those projects.

The second thing is secure grant funding.

Lower Buckeye Road is a perfect example of staff going out and getting those funds to take the burden off our residents as much as possible.

Expand trails and sidewalks.

We have a plan for the Awa Free Trail, right?

Um we are also looking at rules.

Can we improve sidewalks?

You've approved finance, you've approved funding in years past for doing ADA improvements on sidewalks, or we're making those improvements now.

We're looking at gaps in our sidewalks, and how do we get those done?

Um aggressively treating our roadways.

The payment management crews are out there every day.

I think well, I think they took a day off a couple of weeks ago because of the rain.

Um, but they've done a lot in just a few um short years.

We're continuing to enhance our facilities, new facilities, fire station 171 is a good example.

It also works to community pride.

Um that was designed to align with historical town Avendale, and then we continue to look for how do we promote recreation within the city, whether it be by trails or parks or bringing in more tourists.

And with that, I would really love some feedback on this priority list and everything I've talked about today.

Yes, okay.

Okay.

Okay, members of council.

What are some of the priorities?

And based upon what you've heard uh from the presentation by James, uh please provide that feedback to him and the team.

Councilmember Royce.

Hey James, thank you so much for the presentation.

That was a lot of information.

Um and I know that we do have some bonds, and we don't know for sure that they're gonna pass.

My hope is that they do.

Um but I did have a question with regards to water conservation, and it was with regards to our bond on the parks.

One of the things that's listed is conserving water.

Um I've I've mentioned this before, um, Taron.

I think we own about two percent of the water meters in the city, and we use about 23% of the water.

Um, and so my hope is that in some way water conservation is also considered in some of this planning moving forward, especially with the bond if it does get approved.

So that would be something that um is important to me.

Um then the advocacy center.

Um, I was on the board um for the advocacy center at one point, and it has outgrown that it really has outgrown that building.

It's beautiful building, but they've outgrown it.

Um, and so my hope would be that that would also be a priority too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other members kicked council member Silario.

Thank you, James, for presentation.

I always enjoy a PowerPoint point presentation done by you because you got it spot on.

Um that was a lot of information to take in, but I will say this.

I like I see our priorities, but like Councilmember Weiss, some of the water conservation things, especially with uh I know a lot of the community events, people bring up water right away because it's been in the news and people hear that, and that's the first thing that comes to their mind.

Um, as well as, you know, right now I'm I'm looking at the list that you gave me, and I could give up a bridge for uh some of the other stuff that are there.

I'd like to see some priorities on some of the public safety stuff that was in there that's being looked at for the future.

Um, because as we all know, it is wonderful to have the best of the best and have trails and have enhanced facilities and all that, but we need people to take care of those things because you know we like to have nice things.

So that's where I'm at.

Thank you.

Councilmember White.

Thank you so much, Amir.

Thank you, James.

Um, I just wanted to go through some of the things that I highlighted.

So the the priorities for me really haven't changed with the top three.

Um, I think um come one of the things that just kind of stuck out with general government that we don't have funding for, which hits under my favorite price point, like a million dollars, like anything we could do under a million dollars, we can do right.

Um, so like the Las Legas Veterans Housing, that's about 950,000 dollars.

Um, the canopy at the mosque.

If we can't get them the 15 million dollar storage facility, let's not have them working out in the heat without shade.

Um I am not gonna talk about parks because I think a lot of what we talked about before in the presentation with engineering and stuff like that, we show a heavy affinity for parks because that's really where um the people touch the city the most frequently.

So um I'll let the bond speak for itself.

But um, if we're really interested in um putting safety first, we really actually have to put safety first.

So I do, as um council member Solorio just said, want to elevate the priority of all of our public safety needs and be cautious with our prioritization of transit needs.

I think when we have 155 million wastewater project, and we have 15 million of it spent already, we're a tenth of the way there.

Um so we got to get 90 percent of the money.

Um, and and that's still over um 130 million dollars.

And we need it.

So I think water conservation and all those things are great, but we have to work with what we have already, and we do have to expand that.

That's a safety concern.

Clean water is a safety issue.

Um, so I think that being able to do everything that Kirk's team does and um be able to have the appropriate infrastructure to get it done, the right vendors to do the work, that's that's huge.

Um couple other things I just pulled off.

When I think about the trailhead, of course, the Phoenix is Phoenix is doing it, getting the grant money.

Um, that 1.4 million dollars is a little over my million dollar price mark, but they're gonna get the money of 1.4 million.

We got that.

Um, but something that I learned interestingly, um, in communities that have more access to trails, trail heads, what we're seeing is we're giving people more access to get to work because they if they can't afford a car, they can't like in the Pacific Northwest.

I thought people would not ride their bikes when the rain is cold.

But people just want a way to get somewhere.

So a bike is cheap, people can skateboard and walk.

So I want to be mindful that if it's really expensive to do the trailhead projects.

I think that we should go for it though, because we'll help economic development.

And for people who otherwise we might be thinking are unsheltered or whatever, using these trailheads, they might just be walking to work looking in a way that they can clean up once they get there.

Those are valuable beyond compared to help people getting place to place who choose not to drive and who otherwise want to stay in their community and move from one end to the other.

Um so uh we just gotta move cautiously there.

Very excited that we're able to look in the face of what might be a little bit of an economic downturn.

Some of the assumptions that are put out there are acknowledging that things are slowing down with the economy, whereas we all anticipated it would be skyrocketing right now.

But um, we're we're a resilient city, and um uh those are my priorities.

Thank you.

Councilmember Garcia.

Thank you for the presentation.

That was a lot of information.

Um, but it was really good.

And it it kind of puts perspective and dollar amounts to all the projects.

Um for me, public safety is always number one.

You want to live in a safe city.

Um, if you don't have a safe city, people don't want to move move there.

Um, but also having clean water, having nice streets that you could drive in is nice, and not having traffic all the time, but uh ensuring that like the roads are improved.

Um if I had a dream, the veteran housing would be one of my top priorities as well, as well as an advocacy center um to have room for those people to go and be able to do that.

Um but for sure public safety is my number one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Nielsen.

James, thank you so much.

There's way too much to assimilate though.

Um I'm just thinking as I'm looking at some of those things, or some projects that have time needs on them.

I mean, uh PFAS and some other things are six months, six years out or whatever.

I don't know if there's some way to organize these things and say, okay, these need to be done within the next 18 months or something like that to get them so they're they benefit the water, they benefit the advocacy center, whatever it might be.

I uh I'm I'm I'm just looking at you know, in me trying to decide, you know, what's the priorities in my mind?

You you send it out and we take and we check the top five that we want.

I don't know that that's a proper way to do it, but if there was some way you can put it in a timeline so that you can say, okay, the PFAS, yes, it needs to be on the Bartlett Dam.

The Bartlett Dam is going to take forever and forever.

Can we put that out?

You know, maybe we look at one one year to 18 months and 18 months to two years and something like that to see where those needs might be and maybe just helpable for for for me to make a decision of like the what we need to you know put the money for today, and uh, can we let it go sideways for Bartlett Dam or whatever a little bit later than that?

I just some type of a timeline would help me at least look and see what would be needed.

And you know, some of them from my old days with uh you know a financial management.

If you get the smaller ones taken care of, then they're taken care of and then do not handle bench if we handle the bigger ones.

But uh I don't know, just some type of way to time those things to see when they need to be and what we need to do with those would be helpful.

Thanks.

Thank you so much, Vice Mayor.

Go ahead.

Uh Vice Mayor.

So we'll present the budget in that exact format.

So we'll fund things in the year, because you you guys will uh council approves a five-year CIP plan.

And so we will fund those projects backwards on the due date.

So whenever the regulation for PFAS is, we'll count backwards and we'll put the appropriate funding in there.

So when we actually bring the plan forward, uh we'll make sure that it's uh date appropriate and and uh uh to to be successful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My priorities are pretty simple.

There's three of them.

Uh and ironically, the bond covers two areas the parks were exit and obviously public safety.

I think many of the things that are listed as part of the bond are not a wish list.

They are items that are necessary uh and are required.

And so regardless of the bond passing or not, we as a council are gonna have to be um uh responsible on determining which project goes first and how are we going to fund those.

That that'll be a decision that we'll have to make um unfortunately if the bond does not pass, and if it does pass, that'll allow us to uh bite uh a little bit more off than uh than we would otherwise.

And the third area, and um forgive me if this sounds uh too um focused on on business, but uh economic development.

And the reason I list that as a high priority is if you look back to last week to opportunities that are in front of us, it does require a certain amount of investment.

But unlike some of the other items that are that are listed, this then returns back revenues to us.

So while we are investing in these projects, we're looking back to receive revenues as a result.

So um being that they're not passive and that they will provide uh sustenance for our future and for our our um for our our revenues, I see them as not only necessary, but um a top priority, at least for myself.

Uh and so I look at it that way.

So those are the the three areas of concern and priorities for myself.

Try Councilmember Condi, I I don't know why I keep forgetting you, I apologize, but do you have any comments?

Yes.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um I think a lot of the priorities um for me, I mean some of the council members already um shared it, you know, public safety, obviously, number one for me.

Um of course I've always all about trying to house um um families and definitely veteran housing is one that you know I would like to see if that's something we can have in our city.

It sounds like Chris has kind of already started getting information on that um you know regarding grants and other organizations that do that and do it well.

And I know we talked about the resource center providing shade there, but since we are planning on um expanding at some point, um I would have to say that would be something that maybe we can circle back around um later when we kind of know when we're gonna be doing the expansion.

And um another thing is just water, having water safety, whatever we need to do to keep our um residents with clean water and enough water, anything that's related to health and safety, whether it's lighting, whether it's streets, those are my priorities is just making sure that the folks here in Abondale are safe and they have what they need to thrive in our city.

And then of course the advocacy center.

Um I am still on the board of the advocacy center, and I know that um they're busting out of the scenes there, and I know that we have been um exploring different options.

So I hope that um we can maybe get some information, you know, later in the first part of next year to see kind of what um those options are.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Condi.

Councilmember White.

Thank you, Mayor.

Full disclosure, I also serve on the Friends Board with Councilmember Condi, and so I just automatically kind of lump that into public safety and security because that's such a sensitive area, and we're really hoping that the facility that will happen one day, we believe it will happen.

It will happen in Avondale.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did you guys get what you need?

Oh, hold on, we should have.

Based on the information we received tonight, we will uh reconfigure this list.

Uh we can now begin to uh prioritize some of those uh projects as we uh uh determine how much money we have, but yeah, that's very helpful.

We'll come back to you.

I believe it's gonna be in the spring uh based off the information we received tonight and and when we get closer to knowing our uh actual numbers for 27.

So I'm gonna wise had another comment.

Oh, or question.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just a really quick question.

Um the substitution that's at cash in, how often is it used?

Because I know we're talking about the boulevard now.

Is that one used on a regular basis?

Mayor vice mayor, council member wise, we use it uh regularly because we want to keep our presence there in cash in.

So you'll see officers uh sitting and out of there, as well as our uh animal control law.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Mr.

Man, and I I received one question about uh a plaque on Western for the former representative, and we are working on uh recognizing him for giving us those grants.

More more details to follow.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

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

Thank you.

Not okay.

I will hand things back over to Miss Buddhaless.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, James.

Thank you, James.

All right, so now we will head into the rest of the presentation, starting with the financial forecast.

So as we um look at building the forecast for the fiscal 27 budget, um, there's some general assumptions that we make and what we anticipate coming at us.

So, in what you're seeing in this version of the forecast, we do not anticipate any changes or of structure to the sales tax or state shared revenue.

Um as you know, we lost approximately five million dollars from the elimination of residential rental tax this year.

Um we will be looking at um projecting our contracting sales tax revenue to return to more of historical trends.

Um so we're more conservative on that, and we will take a look at contracting in just a bit.

And then we know we have our data center projects that are underway, and we do not have any um revenue projections at this time um to include in this forecast.

And then we do not have any adjustment for tax conformity.

So this goes back to the um one big beautiful bill that was signed in July of this year.

Um, as you know, the Arizona sales uh sorry, income tax is based on the federal taxable income, and there is some changes that um legit the legislature, the legislature would have to make and to conform to that federal tax.

So that is yet to come.

If you look at the projections that the JLBC put together, um they were projecting as much as $380 million revenue reduction, for which we we would see a potential um revenue reduction as a portion of that because we receive a portion of those um state taxable income.

So at this point, we do not have any projections in our forecast.

On the expense side, we did include some anticipated compensation increases for cost of living and merit, and we'll go through those as well.

And then our overall inflation factor um is 3% per year.

So you're used to um seeing our general fund forecast, what you're looking at right now is our ongoing revenue and ongoing expenses.

Um factors that we talked about or the loss of residential rental.

Um we're also seeing uh revenue reduction that we have projected starting in fiscal 27 for the incorporation of Santan Valley.

So we do get um those state shared revenues, and when you have another city added to the pool, then everybody takes a reduction.

Um so that is included in there.

And you can see in 27 through 29, you start seeing our ongoing expenses exceeding those ongoing revenues in our one-time expenses.

Um this is pretty typical.

We make the assumption that all of the capital projects that are budgeted in the current year get completed.

Um but as you know, a lot of that carries forward, and so this chart is pretty typical.

In putting those two slides together, we're looking at what is left in the general fund balance.

So first, starting off, it's above stabilization and capital reserve.

So stabilization being our 35% of prior year expenditures are set aside, and we had a five thousand five million dollar set aside for capital projects.

But we'll talk about that in a second.

So our actual balance above stabilization capital reserve was just under 1.2 million.

We're projecting that to go down this year to 36.6.

Now, with all of the things that we'll be covering here in the next slide, you see that we are planning to use our fund balance going out to the end of fiscal 30, where we are sitting at 200,000.

So what is included in this forecast for general fund?

So the first is in our ongoing revenue that we talked about, property tax levy is set at the annual 2% increase.

And that's something that we'll discuss in just a bit.

To make this forecast balance in total, we have already made a reduction to the general fund asset replacement of $3.4 million, and this is from fiscal years 27 out to 30.

We have the mid-year compensation increases that were previously approved by council for police officers, sergeants, lieutenants, and battalion chiefs included at a six-month run rate.

However, we are still under negotiation.

We are putting that in our forecast of $3.5 million, and the plan is to use that $5 million capital contingency to fund that this current fiscal year.

That means that in the future years, in order to get that contingency back up to five, we would have to carve that 3.5 out, or else future years would be at 1.5.

So we have a Webb Avondale, excuse me, land lease agreement.

So we have some future revenues forecasted.

And James also spoke about the lower Buckeye Road expansion.

So we know this is a priority of council.

It is included, however, it is included in the dedicated sales tax fund.

It is not in the general fund.

I mentioned the reduction for Santan Valley Incoration.

And just to remind everybody, where we were planning the Southern Avondale fire station, we do have staffing currently set to start mid-year of fiscal 27.

So just to touch on a few things, what's not currently in this assumption?

So as I mentioned, that 5 million capital contingency, if we use that 3.5 to purchase land, then going forward that would become a 1.5 million dollar capital contingency.

James also mentioned the construction of the Roosevelt half street improvements of 1.65.

Now that construction is not currently funded, nor is the blueprint Park Avenue investment of 6.6.

Some other things that we have out there that we know are coming our way are the five-year renewal of the PD take-home vehicles.

So currently we are leasing those vehicles.

We are currently assessing what is more cost efficient, whether to lease or to purchase.

Either way, we will have to make a decision out in fiscal 29 for 30 whether we choose to purchase or renew that lease.

So this would include some one-time asks we have repeated each year, like the summer programs, like contracted services for development engineering just for operations.

So as we move forward into the process, these are things that we'll have to evaluate and figure out how to balance in this budget.

Just for a reference point, when you look at how much in one-time funding did we fund in fiscal 26 on one-time supplementals, and that was 5.7 million.

So looking at our revenue.

So sales tax is our largest revenue resource in the city.

And this chart, typically I would say look at the top line.

But this year, you know, we lost our residential rental sales tax.

So current year is in orange.

The solid orange line is our first three months of actuals, and that dotted orange line is where our budget is.

That difference between what our prior year run is and this year is because of that loss of residential rental sales tax and the fact that we do bring back down our contracting revenue compared to prior year.

So when you look a little deeper into sales tax, you can see on this slide, this is our top four sales tax categories, and those top four make up 86% of all of our sales tax.

So the first one is retail.

Over the past 10 years, retail has increased, and it's more than doubled, going from 21 million in 2017 to 42 million in 2026.

And just to note, the estimate here for fiscal year is a three-month actual plus nine months of budget.

Through the first three months of the year, however, our retail category is running at 4% over budget year to date.

The next category is auto dealers.

So you can see a bump going from fiscal 20 up to fiscal 22 has been pretty stable since then.

However, this year, for the first three months, we have seen a decline.

That's the green one at the bottom, which also has doubled in 10 years, going from 4 million to 8 million, and year to date it's running right at budget.

And then lastly, talking about contracting.

We talk about how cyclical that is, and we have gone from as low as two to three million dollars up to as high as 10, 11 million dollars.

We have this budgeted this year at just over 8 million dollars.

And year to date, we are 7% over budget.

So looking overall at the sales tax revenue, you can see those large losses coming from auto dealers coupled with the other categories that have been holding our overall sales tax is running at 4% over budget for the first three months.

So taking a quick look at some of our other projected revenues.

If you recall in our financial policies where we have our public safety sales tax and dedicated sales tax, we added a requirement to maintain a minimum reserve.

And the reason why we did that was because we started putting more ongoing operating costs in those funds.

So looking at public safety, it public safety sales tax fund is a voter-approved half cent sales tax, and it does currently fund ongoing costs, including salaries for public safety.

The projected balance in our forecast at the end of fiscal 31 is at 3 million, which is just at the minimum reserve balance.

And again, this is going into the budget cycle.

Our next fund is dedicated sales tax.

This is another voted voter-approved half cent sales tax, and this fund can be used for water, sewer, streets, and transportation projects.

You can see here we have a projected balance of 17.6 million dollars at the end of fiscal 23, and the minimum reserve is less than a million dollars.

That is because it's primarily capital-driven.

We don't have a lot of ongoing costs being funded from that.

We have currently $5.8 million to work with going into this budget.

There is no minimum requirement in the HERF funding.

And then with water, sewer, and solid waste, we have seen those, and we'll look at these in the following slides.

So the first is water.

These were presented with the rates that were approved earlier this year.

I just want to note that this forecasted fund balance that does meet the reserves out there in future years.

It did include the assumption that we would issue $63 million in revenue bonds.

So that $63 is made up of $18 million for the PFAS project, which James had mentioned, as well as $45 million for other water capital projects.

So it we will be returning to council at some point this fiscal year to begin that process for issuing revenue bonds for water.

The next is sewer.

So with sewer, obviously we have the reclamation project included in these projections.

This includes an issuance of $145 million.

Now keep in mind that the repayment of this debt was split between the growth that was hitting sewer development impact fees and a portion of it, 40% was embedded into the rates.

And then we have solid waste that is set to maintain the minimum reserve balance.

Now let's change gears and take a look at our property taxes.

So just a simple overview of property taxes.

They're made up of two parts.

Primary property tax, which is the revenue is collected and used for operational cost.

It's an ongoing revenue that goes into the general fund.

The secondary property tax, it's restricted, and we can only use that to repay bond principal and interest, and those are general obligation bonds approved by voters.

Now, as I had mentioned early in the forecast, per Arizona revised statute, the property levy, which is the total dollar amount that's collected, it can increase year to year by up to 2% plus any value for new construction.

So you're looking at what was approved in the fiscal 2026 budget, the primary levy was 4.3 million, secondary levy was $6 million.

Our primary property tax rate of just under 61 cents, we will talk about that in just a minute.

And then our secondary at just under 85 cents, that is voter-approved bond obligation that is set to repay that.

And our rate for fiscal 26 was flat to the prior year.

So just to give some context on where the city of Avondale falls in line with a total tax rate compared to other cities, we are right there in the middle at a just under $1.46.

Now in this chart, the blue is the primary property tax rate, and the orange is secondary related to the city's bonds and debt repayment.

Now, if you recall back when we had the conversation about property tax and levy, we focused on what's highlighted in yellow, the $84,791.

And the equivalent rate was $1.2 cents.

So that is something you see on your property tax bill equal to $160,000.

Now on the left-hand side, that is the calculation on how the bill gets calculated.

You take your limited property value times the net assessed valuation, which in this case is 10%.

So that math comes out to a total of $1.90 on the tax bill related to increasing the levy for that 2%.

And then when we have this conversation on whether council elects to increase that levy or not, we need to make sure that you're aware what is the future impact of not increasing the levy.

So in this chart on the right, we talked about this when we adopted the fiscal 26 budget.

But because the levy is impacted and compounded, if you had that over the five-year forecast, it's the equivalent of losing approximately 470,000.

So that is that blue section on the chart.

And that is just assuming it's a one-year reduction.

But if council were to choose that no primary levy increase was set for the full five-year impact, then that would be a total of 1.4 million dollars of reduced revenue in our forecast.

And again, property tax is an ongoing revenue.

It is used to cover salaries and operating expenses.

And lastly, in this particular slide, we're showing again property primary property tax in blue, secondary property tax, paying down current debt in orange.

This with our bonds on the ballot for tomorrow.

This is where we were projecting to maintain a steady tax rate.

The green would be new issuance of debt as we pay off old debt, provided that those bonds get approved.

This would be our plan so that way we could keep our tax rate consistent going out in the future.

And then talking about financing, I just mentioned we have our proposition 404 for 68 million for parks, recreations, and libraries, as well as proposition 405 for 55 million for public safety, and we will see the outcome of the election.

In addition, as I mentioned with water, we have projects in our current CIP that are not technically not technically cash funded.

They were funded on the assumption that we would be issuing debt.

So obviously our reclamation facility expansion, PFAS, which we only had 18 out of 130 million, Bartlett Dam, as well as the remainder of the LMR fire station and other water projects currently in our fiscal 26 CIP.

Now I'm going to turn gears to what I'm calling revenue opportunities as we move forward.

And at the end of the presentation, we will double back and solicit your feedback on some of these things.

Since we had some revenue losses, we are looking forward at is there any place that the city can increase revenue.

Well, this year in May, we implemented some late fees, which has generated some revenue, and that is going to be new revenue in our forecast going into fiscal 27.

And then we are proposing a credit card service fees.

So looking at late fees, so the program commenced in June of 25.

The city currently charges fees, late fees, it's the greater of 1.5% of the balance or $2.

And then we do not charge any late fees on balances of less than $25.

So since that program commenced in June, we have assessed over $100,000 in revenue through October.

And when we were looking at proposing the start of these late fees, we had about $25% of all of our utility bills being paid late.

Our latest indicator is that number has gone up.

It is now 27%.

The second thing was credit card fees.

Looking at charging what you would see is convenience fees or credit card fees when you pay bills.

So this is just some preliminary information that we got from one of our credit card processors based on their customer base for the year of 2024.

So in their customer base, 70% of their customers charge fees for customers to pay using an ACH transaction.

That means I'm putting in my banking information to make that payment.

That would be our proposal going forward is to maintain a free ACH transaction.

Credit cards in general, 75% of their clients charge some type of fee, and we are looking at a possibility of doing that.

And when you look at those clients broken down in Arizona, 83% of their clients charge fees.

Some other revenue opportunities that we'll be coming back to council with.

The first is development services.

So we need to update the building code, which would bring us to use current valuation tables.

Now this is not changing the current fee, it is updating the valuation table, which we are currently using from 2012.

And then lastly is our annual fees and charges.

We bring them to council each year, and we plan to do so.

We made the the effective date this past year, September 1.

We are looking to keep that same cycle of September 1.

So we'll be bringing back proposed fees and charges to council later in the summer.

Now to take a look at personnel, just showing a little bit of history of where our FTE growth has come has come since 2023.

Excuse me, to the current year 26 that we've grown about 8% from 761, these are FTEs to 124.2 this fiscal year.

Now if you look at the flip side on those positions, what have our vacancies done?

Well, they've done just the opposite.

We've gone from 66 FTEs worth of vacancies back in 23 down to 41.8.

And that orange line with those orange markers, that is the percent of vacant positions as a total of all the positions in the city.

So 9% of our positions were vacant back in 23, and today that is down to only 5%.

So this is also a driver of our vacancy savings.

So on this chart, um, going back to 23, these are salaries and employer related payroll related expenditures for all of the city for all funding sources.

So basically, if you focus on the black writing on the left bottom, the vacancy savings.

Back in fiscal 23, we realized $8.3 million of vacancy savings.

We had that many positions in the budget, we weren't spending because those positions weren't filled.

But we have done a very good job of filling positions.

However, what that means now is we have no vacancy savings, which is where we would typically pay for unanticipated things that happen, where we would fund our vacation sellback, where we would fund termination payouts, where we would know that we had cash to fund one-time requests for the following year and one-time capital projects.

So right now we're estimating at $2 million, but that $2 million is across the entire city across all funding sources, not just the general fund.

So at this point in time, our fiscal 2026 employee compensation plan is to take effect on June 22nd of 2026.

So in addition to the mid-year increases that were just approved by council last meeting, we are anticipating for police officers to receive a 3% COLA and the 5% merit step.

Now, just like last year, we included a one-time payment for employees that were topped out, or at the in this case the top step of up to 2%.

For police sergeants, that is 3% COLA and a 3.8% step, and all of these employees would be eligible for the one-time payment.

Lieutenants are a 3% COL and 4.66% step, battalion chiefs at a 3% COLA, 4.56% step.

And general staff would be a 3% COLA and a 2% merit.

Now fire MOU is still currently in negotiations.

Looking at our employee benefits going into next fiscal year as we trend out where our claims are, where the market is, what we're hearing from our consultant, we're looking at the potential of having a double-digit increase to premiums in fiscal 2027.

So that's something we need a little bit more data on.

We will be doubling back.

Open enrollment isn't until the spring, and so we'll be including that in the version we bring forth to council in March.

And in vision, we had excuse me, we had um a plan where the actual rates ended up coming in higher for the buy-up, and so we opted to subsidize that difference for employees in the first year.

That subsidy is ending on June of 2026.

So that means that people that are on the vision plan with VSP, they have the option to have the the basic or the buyup plan.

There's two different tiers.

If they choose the buy up in fiscal 27, they'll have to pay the full rate of that plan.

And then our employee benefits committee is meeting in December.

So if there's anything else that's coming out of that group, we will incorporate that into our budget process and include it when we bring back the budget.

So now at this time, we wanted to look at council's priorities.

Now these were the same priorities that we had going into fiscal twenty-six, um, which were economic development, as were mentioned.

A lot of these were mentioned already.

Parks and rec, public safety, connected communities, services, and personnel.

At this time, I am open to hearing if there is any change in these priorities so we can take that into account as we build our fiscal 27 budget.

Any members of council wish to share feedback in regards to these priorities as they're listed.

I mean, I'll I'll go ahead and go first and share that I essentially read these off in the same order when I was uh speaking to James and I still hold firm to those priorities myself.

Other members of council.

Councilmember White.

Thank you so much.

Um Ms.

Weatherless for uh very very comprehensive.

I I know how much work you put into this, and this is really important for us to see um this information um since I like to take the deep dive um a couple of revenue sources.

Well, I know we had uh quarter of a million in revenue we just wiped out um to save 107,000, so that's a concern.

But if we're looking at future revenue streams, um I would um want to go back to the um credit cards.

Can we talk about that for a second?

Never thought I'd get to do anything for my former industry.

So as a legacy MDNA employee, um, when I think about credit card fees and doggone it, we pay our bills late.

Um that's really awful.

But it sounds like that's revenue.

Um so I I would like us to it costs money to spend money, period, in this day and age, regardless.

So I'm I'm concerned that we would shy away from ACH fees because we need every dime we can get, and we're wasting money in certain spaces and spending money in other spaces.

So if we are comfortable charging people fees to pay us by credit cards, we're comfortable charging them fees to pay us, period.

I get that it's gonna be expensive, but um you referred to the big beautiful bill and other things are just gonna go up.

These that's what's happening because we're gonna lose.

You said somewhere upwards of three million, three hundred million.

Um yes, Mayor, Councilmember White, 381 million is projected in fiscal 26 at the state level.

Thank you.

So when I think about, I mean, we have to catch every dollar and dime we can get here.

So this is just a really easy low-hanging fruit to me.

Um as it relates to picking up some money up off the table.

Um also when I was taking a look at the secondary our debt pay down process, that slide where we're paying down with the secondary property tax.

Can we go to that one as well?

Um the future debt pay down.

I think that um, you know, I really uh I I I'm excited to find the outcome of every election, any election, but tomorrow's election is super important because we will be able to afford our dreams to some extent based on if those uh if our voters choose to have those bonds, but if they do not, I'm very nervous and because I don't know how we would fill that gap otherwise.

Can you give us some insight to that?

I think is or are the graphs that we're seeing the line graphs showing us what happens if the voters don't approve the bond.

Is that what we were saying with the budget?

Um our our revenue and expenses kind of go flat on the so Mayor, but um Mayor and Councilmember White, are you referring to our general funds like that I showed that those do not include any bond um proceeds?

So this is really just us being able to get the debt and pay the debt back.

Correct.

So we will be capable in paying the debt back if we are able to issue the bonds.

Yes, because it gets added to the property tax bill.

Okay.

I'm very um I'm I'm uh very wishful for that.

I think, and then the other um piece that we went to FTEs from 2023 to 2026, um, we've grown our FTEs and also how much it costs for us.

And so I think in the last meeting where we were talking about, which would take us to the fire police slide that um, and I'm I'm giving my thoughts in the best order that I can with my notes here.

We talked about having a salary savings.

I think it was referred to as four million.

Is that actually two million or the four million?

Or is it the 3.5 million from the last fiscal year?

3.5 million is from last year, and we're we only have three months for this year, but we're projecting about 10 million dollars of vacancy savings for fiscal 26.

So we still can we so we're probably in that same range in space.

So we do have that um that salary savings to kind of work with from FY25.

So that we realized the whole 3.5 million, right?

We did realize it, and those monies were rolled into the balances you did see in the general fund forecasts.

So those monies would already be spoken for.

The $2 million are what we what we say when we fund something from contingency.

So for example, the the mid-year compensation increases that were just approved, we said we would use vacancy savings and whatever is left and then go into contingency.

So some of this is already spoken for.

So that is with what we're gonna be spending for that mid-year taken out.

Okay.

That is the mid-year uh salary adjustment already taken out of the two million.

Some of it some of it.

Awesome.

Um, and then um thank you for your payments with me.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, council.

Um retail tax revenue.

I didn't know that people love to shop in Avondale.

I want to thank our major anchor businesses here.

We have a Costco, we have a SAMS Club, I think we have Home Depot here.

I did not know people liked it that much.

So when I take a look at what we have coming over to the Boulevard, it's super important.

Uh Jen, I see you back there, you're shaking your head.

I appreciate what you're doing, bringing businesses here.

Um, and I'm thankful for all the businesses that are even looking at us coming here.

Um, this is gonna be what saves us, and this is that optimistic view that I have because sometimes I talk about the therapies that I have to go to, but the retail therapy is my favorite.

Um thankful for all the people that come into Avondale to spend money.

I think this is this makes me feel good because it makes me feel good when I shop in Avondale too.

So I think that's where we're gonna be able to get some money.

We talked about um I think in the water, um, we we're gonna go out with 63 million dollars for a bond, 45 million um alternate water um, I guess alternate water, um, I forgot how how you phrased it, that we're gonna have to get monies to um be able to take care of everything.

That bond issuance is something we have to go for in the future, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

So I I just um uh the detail you went through, I want you to know I tried to process it and then synthesize it.

I hope I'm on the right page, but I think that you've given us the most honest forecast with the most difficult information that we have to look at going forward, and I'm really grateful for this.

And I I think that um when I look at our priorities, I think that the best opportunity for us to make more money without changing what we're doing right now, is encourage people to come buy in Avondale um and shop in Avondale.

But other than that, I um I just want to thank you for all that you do, all of the budget and finance work that's being done by your entire team.

I see um part of teammates over there, you know how hard you guys are working, but um, this is real serious stuff, kind of scary for me lightweight, because um this is kind of an area I I understand and I feel I breathe and I live.

Um so I I just wanted to pull out the high bars that I understood and and I'm concerned about one.

Yeah, Mr.

Mayor, I want to confirm with Renee because I don't remember what the last slide was.

We also need feedback on the property tax at this time, or do you have another slide for you?

I have another slide.

Fair enough, thank you.

Sorry for interrupting.

Do you want us to continue with our feedback or do you want to go on to that slide?

Um we can continue on to the next slide and then um coverage.

We can continue on to the next slide and then cover all right.

I believe it is might be our last one.

So in addition to the priorities, I wanted to double back to the things that we discussed.

So if we could start, um the one is property tax, the rate and the levy.

So as you saw in our forecast, um, we do include the two percent increase to revenue.

Now there was some conversation about that this past summer with the adoption of fiscal 26.

Um we need some direction as we build the forecast and budget for 27 and beyond whether she we should make that assumption of including that increase.

Um the credit card freeze we talked about, as well as um annual fees and charges, those are things that you know as we develop it and come back with them uh for firm proposal, that will be something that we are presenting um for council's consideration.

The issue in some debt, as you mentioned, um council member white.

Um we will need to come back this fiscal year, and as James had mentioned, we don't want to issue bonds in advance of when we need the cash flow.

We don't want to be playing interest um just for the sake of having cash on hand.

So we are working um with our projects to build up cash flows to find out when we're gonna need those dollars.

So we will put that proposal together, work with our financial advisors, and bring forward um uh uh a proposal.

The reduced capital contingency.

Now, this is something that right now we have a priority to spend $3.5 million on a land purchase.

Well, we know we have that five million set aside that we can use.

The question is, do we want to carve out $3.5 in future years to build that back up to five million, or do we leave it at the 1.5 until things get better?

Until revenues increase, until we see some data center revenues generated.

Um those are things that we can take into account.

And then lastly, on medical insurance premiums, as I mentioned, we could be looking at a double-digit increase um for employees and the city.

Um if there is um any appetite not to assess the rates that would balance out our self-insured fund, then we need to know that as we set those rates going into open enrollment.

Um so though that doesn't conclude the presentation, I would continue to um take any feedback that you have.

Uh Councilmember White, do you want to follow up on any of what you just said for these this last slide before I move on?

Thank you.

Um for the property tax rate levy, credit card fees, annual fees and charges.

Um all the things.

Thank you.

That was short and sweet.

Uh Councilmember Weiss.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Renee.

Um I did have a concern.

Um it you were saying that 27% of our users paid their uh water bills late.

Is that something new that's happened recently?

I mean, is that or is that been an ongoing issue for years and years?

Mayor and council member White, um that has been ongoing.

And that is one of the things we looked at when we started assessing the late fees.

I just wanted to make sure it's not due to hardship and that it may just be Okay, so that's okay.

Um I would love to see though an option that was free for people to sign up if you if you put your bank information in and you pay your bill to your bank, you know.

I would like to see something that's free, but I do um but I do agree with credit cards um if you are using those.

And then I did have a question on the salary savings.

Um we mentioned buying back vacation time.

Has that been in has that been considered or taken um I mean is that do you have an idea about how much that costs every year?

You're talking about two million dollars right now.

But typically how much are we spending every year for that buyback?

Because I know that that comes out of that salary savings, correct?

Um yes, Mayor, Councilmember Weiss.

Um yes, and it's an expenditure we don't put in the budget because we have typically used vacancy savings for.

So vacation sellback is dependent of um in some cases um at least for the MOU, they have a higher limit for a regular 40-hour employees, they're limited to a week.

Um that number has been as much as 300,000 or over half a million dollars.

Okay.

Thank you.

Can I follow up on that really quickly?

So that number, this is that for the end of this year, December of uh the 2025.

Would that be from the $2 million number that we just referenced?

Okay, that's a good I just want to make sure because that's important.

Any other okay.

Councilmember Solori.

Mr.

Mayor, I'm sorry, but I'm just taking notes so we can make sure we get council's wishes.

Uh Councilmember Weiss, I didn't uh did you have an opinion on the property tax uh levy?

Um sorry, thank you so much.

That's a dollar ninety basically per home, and then it ends up being eighty-three thousand dollars for the first year.

I think that um I feel the exact same way that I did before.

That um I'm in agreement with it.

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Silario.

Thank you for the presentation, Renee.

Um I too, like Councilmember Weiss would like to see some kind of like electronic transfer to pay our bill, you know, rather than what we currently have, like an ACH or something like that.

Um something that's free per se.

Um because I think that's important.

Um sometimes, you know, if it's set up that way, not all late fees could be avoided, but some folks might, you know, be apt to have free payment, you know, a free charge, I say no no charge.

And um it might be a better solution.

I will also say that um I personally don't want to have a property tax.

That's just my feeling on it, because I feel like we're getting into times where we're really putting the burden on the people that live here.

And it might be this or that here and there, but that stuff adds up.

So that's where I'm at.

Thank you.

Councilmember Garcia.

No, on the property tax, I'm okay with the late fee or the credit card fee thing because I'm always late on my water bill, literally every month.

Um a free option is great.

If they do like an automatic like thing, then those people obviously are really well with their money, but I pay a credit card fee for almost everything that I spend my money on.

So I'm definitely okay with that.

Um yeah, and that's it.

Okay.

Councilmember White?

I just had one more thing.

I was thinking about the innovation of paying in person being for free.

So I think if we take any payment in person, we can facilitate that for free.

I know that we might have a difference of opinion on ACH, but to me, if you're spending money online, it's a protection to you and a protection to us for us to charge you a fee.

So if you've given us your checking account information, I think our free option is right here outside of the clerk's office.

If you want to pay, come pay in person.

That's free.

Thank you.

Councilmember Condi.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Renee, for the presentation.

Um I'm okay with the um annual credit card fees um in the late payments.

I'm really on the fence about property tax because I know there's a lot of people that are struggling right now with um just everything, just the cost of increase for everything.

But I just want to make sure, you know, when you say it's a dollar ninety per home, that that's that's really what it's gonna be.

And is this something we can circle back to?

And I guess I just wanted just to see exactly if we didn't have it.

I think you showed a slide.

If we didn't do it, how that would affect us long term.

Do you have that on there?

So, Mayor, Vice Mayor, uh, and Councilmember McCondy, I put it up.

So the one year was the eighty-four thousand dollars to not increase the levy.

The and that's a one-year impact.

The five-year cumulative would be as much as four hundred and seventy thousand to not increase one year's levy.

Okay.

Oh, here it is.

Revenue impact.

I'm on the fence with that.

I mean, it doesn't.

I'm just kind of I'm I'm on the fence with that.

Do you need a definite yes or no?

No, Ron Ron said that's okay for an answer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thanks, Ron.

Any any other comments or or is that concluding your comments?

Okay.

Mayor.

Uh Councilmember Solario?

Question for you.

What did we pay last pay out last year for vacation buyback?

We can send you that number.

I don't have that off the top of my head.

Okay.

Also, since we last upgraded our water billing system, have we had more issues to pay?

Um, Mayor, Councilmember Solario, since we last upgraded our water billing system, you're talking about going to the Munis in 2023.

Have we had any more issues?

I'm gonna have to look back.

We have not.

Okay.

Because it's not the most friendliest site to pay stuff on.

I will say that.

And we hear that often.

Okay.

Vice Mayor Nelson.

I was just gonna say you have those six items or whatever we've got there, if we can come to you know an agreement on five of them.

And if it's delivy, you can easily make a change one way or the level one way or the other and show us what the difference is as long as the other ones are fixed.

I don't have a problem with credit card.

I mean, you drive down the road right now, and any one of the QTs has got 359 or 349, you they have already got that built into it, whatever else.

I think all of us.

Uh automobile insurance uh has gone up two years ago, 26 percent.

So there's that has nothing to do with you and I, but as those those funds are out there uh an extreme amount on that.

So if we can walk one, two, three, four, five of those, and then we can look at the levy and say, okay, this is what it is with or without that, the two percent levy on it.

You're only having one variable instead of five or six others.

And thank you for trying to remember all of this stuff.

I'm glad you do it because I'm not able to.

So I just want to pick up on that.

Oh, sorry, did you have uh anything?

Okay.

Uh pick up on the comment by the vice mayor in regards to um does that make it easier for the team in regards to knowing that we're pretty uh consistent with five of the areas and maybe some are on the fence with the levy and providing uh a snapshot of what both would look like.

So, mayor, we we do have an opportunity to come back to council in March after we have pulled together all of our estimates and and requests.

Um so we can certainly present that at that time.

Okay.

I I I would I would appreciate that as well.

That's a tough one for myself.

I know that last go around um that I struggled uh on that as uh you well know.

Uh and so just moving forward, I wanted to make sure that council is fully aware of this.

Oh, sorry, this will go around of what the impact will will or will not be.

So that's important.

I'm okay with the credit card fees, uh, as was by mentioned by many others.

It's just something that uh has kind of become standard practice nowadays uh in regards to uh those fees.

Um you don't have to go back to the slide, but I just want to drive this point home one more time, and I know that council member white alluded to it in regards to folks coming and shopping here uh in Avondale spending their money, um, just the opportunity that we have here in regards to economic development in the generation of sales tax and revenues, and again, being the one area, one of the few areas where we can actually do that.

So the more we build and bring those uh opportunities here, the more revenues that we'll gain.

Um and then quickly, I know that we are not taking into consideration any uh funds from uh the data centers or any of those things.

However, can you remind me, and Ron might be you?

Can you remind me when we can anticipate those coming online?

And mayor, vice mayor.

And I don't hold you to these numbers or where's the Corey at Corey Can I have a commitment date?

No.

Um the hope is uh uh the one we have only one building that has any type of CFO, but it's uh it's um outfitting um isn't expected to late next year.

Okay.

Um so so my guess is um FY27 late uh before we start to see any.

Um it really depends on how fast the others uh start to move.

The ones down on uh Litchville Road and um Lower Buckeye Road.

Uh the second building is up, first building is they're working on tenant improvements, and they're we're doing the groundwork for the third building.

So it really just depends on how fast the occupant gets in and begins to use electricity.

Um but the first building they can they can work in, and then the other three, it just kind of depends.

Uh I expect it to have a difference and not until probably FY28 or 29, probably closer to 29.

But say 29 probably sounds about it.

Before we really start to see enough of the buildings being used to have an impact.

And I just say I just share, I asked that question because again, as you can uh as any resident or anybody who is watching this meeting can tell that there's a we were facing a lot of pressures uh from all aspects, and so uh some of these projects that will come online will hopefully alleviate some of that pressure, but in the meantime, you know, we're gonna be faced with making some of these uh serious decisions.

And so I did you get all the feedback from me that that you're looking for?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor Council.

Yes, it the the one outstanding of course is the property tax.

Uh my current plan is to present a budget in March or our draft, probably without the first year, but keeping the five-year forecast for the property tax and several year on that thing, and then showing you what more we can do by keeping it in.

Okay.

Um it's easier to put something in than to take it out as we present a balanced budget.

So we'll do one year without it and show you what we could do if we had it in there, if that makes sense.

And my hopes is that considering what I assume you heard as far as uh the consistency on the others, yes, we'll allow that to become what make the work I don't want to use the word easier.

Manageable.

That might not even be the word to use.

We have we have our marching orders Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Okay.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

No other questions.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Renee.

James, thank you.

All right, Ron, next item, please.

Mr.

Mayor, uh the next item is uh we received a request uh to reconsider uh the council action on October 20th at the 2025 meeting, which approved uh fight um uh item uh 5D, which was the mid-year public safety salary adjustments.

So um we will to continue there it's gonna be two steps.

Uh the first step is uh the motion to reconsider.

Uh if the motion passes, so if an if we get four yeses, the original motion is back on the table as if it was never adopted, so council can then uh decide what to do with the agenda item.

If the amendment fails, so if we receive four or more no votes, uh the discussion is ended.

Uh the decision council made at the last meeting uh stands.

Okay, I think that's what you need at this point to move forward.

Um and and staff is available to answer uh questions uh on this first step A.

Okay.

Are there currently any questions on this motion in regards to reconsider what we passed uh two weeks ago?

Uh uh Councilmember Conde, any comments.

No, I don't have any comments at this time, but I can say that I'm listening, having Renee make that presentation.

Um, I really appreciate that.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Okay, well, it looks like we have a and the discussion would occur only if this comes back.

All right, so we have a motion to reconsider by councilmember white, a second by councilmember Solorio.

Please vote.

Councilmember Con.

Oh.

Councilmember Condi, how do you vote?

I so we got three uh yeses, we got four no's.

So it looks like it failed.

So at this moment, we will not reconsider and keep the January 5th date as uh we voted on two weeks ago.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

Item six, summary of current events.

Do any council members have anything to share regarding any events?

Well, I uh uh as many of you attended the race on Sunday.

Some of you might have attended the race uh on Saturday or even Friday.

And um it's just great to see Avondille in the spotlight.

I know that all the signage says Phoenix Raceway, and that's something that's been debated many, many times.

Uh but nonetheless, uh the economic impact that is felt by Avondale.

I just want to thank all of those who came from across the country or different parts of the state uh to spend money here, lodge here, uh recreate here, but more importantly, come and watch a fantastic race.

Um I know that I was holding for I I'm not a NASCAR fan per se uh to the degree that I know all the racers, but I know that I was really cheering on number 11, who was leading and then changed their um this is based upon what I heard on the on the TV.

Uh changed four tires as opposed to two, which may have done them in, but although that's the decision that him and his team made.

Um and he ended up coming in second place and did not win the championship.

So while I was cheering them on, it was also good to see uh the other general other gentleman who won.

Um and then a couple of weeks ago I was able to attend a uh Hispanic celebration that was started by Pep uh Judge Pep Guzman.

I'm not sure if I cover that or not.

Um, but really quickly it's just nice to see members of the community being celebrated and highlighted uh and achieving um gratitude from the community who may not necessarily hold positions uh that otherwise you see kind of a celebrations um uh uh be um can't even think of what I'm trying to say here.

Uh but normally you you see CFOs, CEOs, uh vice presidents, presidents of corporations getting a lot of awards, and that's great.

But there are unsung heroes in our community, and I love to see them be uh not only as celebrated but awarded as well for their good work.

Any other council members?

Nope.

Okay, council member White.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

I had the opportunity to represent um Valley Metro RPTA and also the city of Avondale at the MPAC conference um in Portland, Oregon.

Impact uh used to be called Railvolution, but um a couple of years ago we hosted it here in downtown Phoenix actually in 2023, and they changed the name.

And I just wanted to um provide kudos to um to Kurt to Harold because uh Matt Dudley presented on behalf of We Ride to this conference and mobile uh multimodal transit is so important and being able to share the benefits of having microtransit out in this part of um out in this part of the country is so important.

So that was a really big hit, and we were grateful because um what we're seeing is microtransit um and municipal spaces and places tied to governments is so different because most people are just kind of used to the Uber and the Lyfts of the world or even um the um automated cars that we see over um in in um Tempe in downtown Phoenix.

So um we're looking at alternatives.

I also wanted to um as well as you I wanted to thank the president of the Phoenix Raceway and the entire team for allowing me to host um uh guest at the raceway this past weekend.

Um I actually had the opportunity to meet Kyle Larson, the driver of Car5 on Thursday, and um we all knew it was in the cards, he was gonna win.

So to watch him pull off the race, um, you know, I feel like I'm I'm more than honored to be placed amongst the champions that have raced on our track and they know me and have made a personal connection.

So I'm very grateful for that.

Um in addition to that, I had the opportunity to meet one of the newest members to the staff and to the team with Visit Phoenix, um, Joel Kester.

He's um uh somebody had the opportunity to share, and he's gonna be in charge of sports and event um for Visit Phoenix, and they really wanted to be able to to um activate that asset.

The title on the building is still Phoenix, and so there's a huge public partnership with that.

And so one of the things he shot out there, I wanted to make sure I shared it with um our city management and our team, but was having indoor pickleball and some of those um uh garage spaces that are unused because we don't activate that when they're not there.

Um and he even thought about accessible indoor pickleball.

Um, so just to know that there are people who are coming out to our region.

He just moved out here from the state of Oklahoma who want to activate and do things on site, really made me excited.

Thank you.

Councilmember Weiss.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I was able to attend the Day of the Dead um event at the historic um Goodyear um historic cemetery, and Ballet Folclorico was there, and they um they just did a wonderful um job.

Renee was there.

I got to see her and got to meet her mom.

And I wanted to also thank the um team who uh I'm sure it was in perks.

I put in an Abbey Wise um ticket, and within two days, we had a new flag um hanging there.

Um so thank you guys so much for that.

That's it.

Really quickly, I was not able to attend uh the uh Halloween celebration.

Uh so thank you all of you who were there.

I heard uh by community members who went and visited that once again it was a hit.

A lot of folks that were out there.

So um I was unfortunately or fortunately with Awa Freya Union High School District uh at their fundraiser for the Hilltop School for the Arts.

Um so that's why I couldn't be there.

But thank you for all of you who were.

So that's it.

All right.

If we can get a motion to adjourn into executive session, got a motion from Councilmember Garcia, second from Councilmember White.

Please vote.

I thank you, Councilmember Condi.

Okay, we are now adjourned to executive session.