Regular city council meeting of March 2nd.

Would you please all rise and join me with a Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence?

And to the Republic for which she stands.

My nation under God.

Thank you.

Marcella, can we get roll call, please?

Councilmember Conde.

Here.

Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Council Member Solario.

Councilmember Weiss.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Present.

Vice Mayor Nielsen.

Here.

Mayor Paneda.

Here.

Thank you.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

First, uh, we get to do introductions, uh, but Sandra's not here.

So uh someone wrote something very nice for me to read real quick.

So although she is unfortunately not here this evening, we are pleased to announce Sandra Sallas, has rejoined the city manager's office as a management analyst.

We are very we are very happy.

I am very happy.

Uh she has returned to the team and welcome her back to the city.

Next up is uh the court.

I believe the honorable judge Jennings, uh, our municipal judge and our court administrator Abril are gonna introduce one of their new employees.

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

Uh Brill and I are honored to be here tonight uh to introduce to you our newest court employee.

It's um Selena Marquez.

She is a court clerk one and started with us on the 17th of February.

We were fortunate we were we weren't thinking she was gonna start until today's day or tomorrow, today or tomorrow, but she was able to start a couple weeks early uh working with HR.

So we're very fortunate that she's here.

And she has a few statements that she wants to present to you.

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, just wanted to share a little bit about me.

My name is Selena Marquez.

Um originally from the area, Goodyear, Avendale, um, graduated from Alberia High School.

Woohoo.

Um, I did move to Texas briefly in 2021 for about four or five years.

Um there I was able to work as an eligibility specialist, um, helping families get benefits that they needed, um, finding local services, community resources for them.

Um, and I was also working for fun at the Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop as I am a cowboys fan.

Um but I'm very happy to be here working for a team, you know, contributing to the city that values growth service and making a positive impact in the community that helped shape to me.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, thank you so much for being here, Selena.

Okay, really quickly.

I mean, I know we have a lot to go over, and and maybe we're short on time, but really quickly, being that it's been a short amount of time.

What have you thought so far?

Um, I love it.

I'm happy to be here.

Everybody's very helpful.

Um, you know, nobody you've never seen anybody smile.

Um I love it.

I'm very happy so far.

Oh, well, thank you.

Judge Abril.

Judge and Abril, thank you so much for creating that environment, and thank you for joining uh the city.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor and Council up next, we have the fire medical department.

I believe Chief Rooney will make the introduction.

Um, and he's probably the one person uh more happy than me about a recent hire, but uh I'll leave that to the chief.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council.

It's my privilege to introduce you to our new senior management analyst.

Her name is Kristen Ziprich.

I'm sorry I said that wrong.

Her name is Kristen Ziprick.

It's spelled Zip Rich, but it's pronounced Zip Rick.

So don't get that wrong.

All right, Kristen brings nearly two decades of uh progressively responsible experience in municipal government, human resources, finance, and operations.

She most recently served as the economic development coordinator for the city of Goodyear.

Yay, we got her.

Where she managed the department's systems and performance pipeline reports and supported strategic business development initiatives.

Prior to that, she served as a management assistant and HR analyst for the City of Goodyear, leading process improvement initiatives overseeing departmental budgets, implementing performance management systems and supporting labor negotiations and citywide programs.

Kristen also brings private sector leadership experience as an operations manager and HR manager, where she oversaw financing and resources IT, administrative operations, engineering for engineering firms.

She holds a bachelor's of applied science and public agency management from Northern Arizona University.

Yay.

And is a certified public manager, professional in human resources, and uh PSHRA certified professional, and I have no idea what that is.

Outside of work, Kristen enjoys listening to a wide range of music, country line dancing, camping, traveling, and spending time with her husband, adult children, and friends.

Originally from the Midwest, she especially appreciates Arizona sunshine and the opportunity to enjoy outdoors year-round.

She looks forward to expanding her travels and approaches life with the same intentional set work.

She writes a great bio.

Intentionality and dedication she brings to her work.

Happy birthday.

Also, my uh mayor, it took a long time to fill this position, but we did not settle.

We got the best person out there, and we're really excited.

Well, Kristen, welcome aboard.

We heard your bio.

By the way, Chief, the illusion is gone now, so we all now know that you didn't write that.

There should have been no illusion.

I told her her job is to make me look like a genius and she's got her work cut out there.

Okay.

Well, welcome to the team, but Kristen.

So I heard a little bit about being outdoors and camping.

So where do you like to uh do the camping within the state?

So normally we like to go up north, so anywhere on the rim, face impressive.

Um we just went to a camping trip in Alamo, so that's the uh cooler months.

I avoid the snow at all costs.

Okay.

Seems like the northern the rim area is pretty uh pretty popular with a lot of our employees.

But well, welcome to the team.

Thank you so much.

And as she said, we uh we didn't settle.

So, and with the bio that we've just heard, um, we really appreciate your experience and what you're gonna bring to the city.

So thanks for joining the team.

Thank you, Mayor Council.

Thank you.

Mayor and Council, up next we have our neighborhood and family services department director, or I believe oh, actually Edith, our uh assistant director, here to present uh a few of her new employees.

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

I am here this evening uh to provide a video of six of our newest employees.

Um they work all hours uh throughout the week, and so it's really hard to get them here.

Uh, but they ended up doing a pretty good job of introducing themselves.

So, with that, I'm gonna go ahead and play that for you.

Thanks for Leah Mulillos, and I am the neighborhood family services specialist here at Arizona Complete Health Avenue Resource Center, and my role is to provide excellent and individualized customer service to anyone who's walking through our doors.

I am also here to support all of the great programming here at the Avigale Resource Center.

I'm really excited to be in this position and to be employed with the City of Abbadale.

I align very deeply with the core values of the city of being kind, helpful, and professional.

What I have seen here is innovation, I've seen growth, and a really deep commitment to community engagement, and that is something that I'm really excited and proud to be a part of.

Hello, my name is Mitchet Banilla.

I'm a senior service coordinator for the city of Avondale.

Um part of my role is to help coordinate services for the seniors.

Some of my favorite activities are helping with or participating and chair exercise, line banding, or volleyball.

Um, my favorite part for working in this department is that as an Avon Doe resident, I can help make a difference in our community.

Hello, I'm Alejandro Navarro, one of the senior services coordinator.

As part of my job, I get to employ my creativity by creating presentations, services, and entertainment for our seniors to make them happy and keep them active.

I feel very blessed to be part of the city of Avondale.

We're making lives better, is not just as Logan, but our mission to our community.

Well, my name is Anjalique, and I work here at the Avondale Resource Center.

I am the customer service representative.

My job is to welcome everybody in.

Hi, my name is Adela.

I am a senior services coordinator.

So I create programs that help seniors stay active and engaged.

In addition to that, I create partnerships with the community to help with support services for our older adults.

My name is Adrian Gomez Flores.

I am a seniors program assistant working at the senior services here at City in Avondale.

What I like doing every day, which is coming to communicate with the seniors, building a relationship with the seniors, and just like getting to know one another, helping them what in any way I could, and then just providing that exploit service to our community as well.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for everybody presenting and all the new employees for joining us.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Up next, we have a presentation by Jill, your procurement manager, proclaiming, I believe this month, a uh procurement month.

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

My name is Joe Ling, the city's procurement manager, and this is the team that supports procurement function for all 20 city departments.

And I would like to uh introduce myself to you.

I'm Sakia Green, Bayer.

Oh, come on, come on up.

Don't be shy.

I'm Laura Robinson, procurement officer.

Brian Garcia, Senior Bayer.

It is our privilege to present this year's procurement month proclamation.

Since 1984, the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing has designated March as Procurement Month to honor those who safeguard taxpay resources while advancing excellence in public service.

Over the past year, our procurement team has modernized our processes from implementing enhanced certificate of insurance tracking to streamlining surplus property disposal procedures.

We had navigate complex projects from park improvements to infrastructure upgrades while ensuring compliance with Arizona statute and maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility.

Our work depends on strong partnership.

And I want to thank our city attorneys, the clerk's office, finance and budget, risk management, and all the departments we work with daily.

Your partnership enable us to serve our community effectively.

As we celebrate Procurement Month, we recognize that our work is about stewardship, integrity, and building a better community through thoughtful use of public resources.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time, I will pass it back to you for the reading of the proclamation.

Thank you so much.

And Councilmember Solaria will be reading the proclamation.

So I have the proclamation for procurement month.

Whereas the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, NIGP has proclaimed March as a procurement month to recognize the essential role procurement professionals play in government operations.

And whereas the procurement division serves the City of Avondale through strategic procurement, contract management, market research, stakeholder collaboration using technology competition and best practices.

And whereas public procurement professionals across the nation collectively influence economic conditions through strategic purchasing actions while safeguarding public funds and ensuring fiscal responsibility.

And whereas the procurement division demonstrates commitment to excellence through adherence to public procurement values of accountability, ethics, impartiality, professionalism service, and transparency.

And now therefore, on behalf of the Avondale City Council, the City of Avondale, Arizona hereby proclaims March 2026 as procurement month in Avondale and urges all community members to recognize and support the valuable contributions made by procurement professionals in promoting efficiency, transparency, and fiscal responsibility in public spending.

Thank you so much for what you do.

Thank you.

And uh, Mr.

Mayor and Council and Jill and team.

Uh, we will want pictures.

Uh if you guys could hang out till after the uh last set of presentations.

Ron, next item.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I I get to introduce one of my very own there, uh, Kate Gregory, your assistant city manager for the proclamation on women's history month.

Look at those great pictures.

Some great people up there.

Um, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council.

Women's History Month is an observ an annual observance that highlights the contributions of women to history.

And this year's theme is Leading the Change, Women Shaping a Sustainable Future.

As we recognize Women's History Month, I want to take a moment to honor some of the extraordinary women who lead and serve throughout the City of Avondale.

We're very proud to have a strong group of women leading in our organization, including many of you who serve on the City Council.

Thank you.

Your dedication, resilience, and unwavering commitment to public service makes our organization stronger and our community better.

Your achievements are not only a testament to your individual talents, but are also to the power of opportunity, encouragement, and belief in what is possible.

Each of us stands on the shoulders of generations before us, of women who came before us, and their legacy continues in each one of us who takes on new roles, embraces challenge, and leads with purpose in our fields.

Thank you for fostering these opportunities and for your continued support of women in government.

And thank you, Mayor.

I'm gonna say the same thing.

There are folks here in the audience, a lot of women in our organization, and I would ask them to please stand for a moment.

And because you're standing, you will also be coming down for a picture after I turn it back to you, Mayor, and a proclamation is read by Councilmember Garcia.

Councilmember Garcia.

Women rule the world.

That's not on here.

But women history month, whereas women of every race, class, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways, and have served as early leaders in our forefront of every major progressive social change movement.

And whereas women have courageously served our country in the military, demonstrated valor, dedication, and service.

And whereas women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights to suffrage and equal opportunity, but also the abolishment movement, the emancipation movement, and the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and the pivotal moments, especially the peace movements, which have all contributed to creating a more just and equitable social society for all.

And whereas the theme of Women History Month 2026, leading the change, women shaping a sustainable future celebrates the contributions of women who are leading sustainability efforts across environmental, economic, educational, and social justice movements.

And whereas it is vital to continue to learn about and celebrate these outstanding contributions, even as the role of women in history have often been overlooked in literature, teaching, and studying of American history.

Now, therefore, I, not Mike Panetta, Jeanette Garcia, by virtue of the authority vested in me as City Council, City of Avondale, Arizona, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as a woman history month and urge all residents to celebrate the contribution women have made to the United States and recognize special achievements women have made throughout history.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Katie.

We'd be happy to come down and take a picture while all of those who would like to come on up.

And um I would look forward to that opportunity.

Okay.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Up next uh is our police chief, uh Chief Espinoza, and I believe he has some other command staff that are gonna come up uh introduced.

Introduced, we'd like to recognize some good Samaritans from our community.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council.

Thank you for taking the time to recognize this group of individuals who went above and beyond what is expected of them.

And they played an important role in the safe return of three-year-old Kalani Rogers.

To tell you more about this case and to tell you the specifics about the actions of these individuals, I'm going to turn it over to Assistant Chief Bates.

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

Like Chief said, thank you again for taking the time to recognize the community and Avondale police employees involved in this incident.

A summary of the incident.

On the morning of Saturday, February 21st, three-year-old Kaylani Rogers was reported missing from her home near 118th Avenue and Thomas Road.

What began as a missing persons report quickly escalated into multi-agency search and issuance of a statewide amber alert.

Through diligent investigation, which included neighborhood canvassing for video surveillance, extensive interviews, vehicle searches, and following up on numerous community tips, detectives were able to identify the suspect in this case.

Surveillance footage confirmed the suspect was seen with Kalani in the city of Maricopa earlier in that day.

The investigation took a critical turn on Sunday morning at a quick trip gas station near 27th Avenue and Thomas Road in Phoenix, Arizona.

A QT security guard, Skylar Emmons recognized Kailani and the suspect from the Amber Alert.

The guard immediately alerted eight employees from Camelback Moving Inc.

who are Kobe Brown, Christopher Dixon, Gerardo Galasia, Rob Hernandez, Kevin Kimes, Michael McCallum, Kevin Pace, and Ralph Vermeur, who were on site on site at the time.

Recognizing the pair and the urgency of the situation, these eight individuals took immediate and decisive action.

They used their moving truck to physically block the vehicle Kalani was in, preventing any chance of departure while they contacted the Phoenix Police Department.

Because of this quick thinking and brave coordination, Kalani was found safe, in good health, and reunited with her family later that morning.

The suspect was taken into custody without incident and was booked on felony charges.

The successful outcome was a direct result of a vigilant community and the seamless partnership between the public, the media, and law enforcement.

So at this time, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council, I'd like to invite you down to recognize these good Samaritans.

Thank you.

Council will join me.

We can pass out these uh pieces of information here.

First up, we'd like to recognize QT Guardian Security, Skylar Emmons.

Next, we'd like to recognize Camelback Moving Inc., Gerardo Galasia.

Kevin Place with uh Camelback Moving Inc.

And Ralph Volmer with Cobalbeck Moving Inc.

Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council.

I'd also like to recognize those who are not able to attend tonight from Camelback Moving, which were Kobe Brown, Christopher Dixon, Rob Hernandez, Kevin Kimes, and Michael McCallum.

Thank you.

So, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council, at this time, we would like to also call up the following Avondale police employees.

But before we do that, I would like to take a moment to say a few words reference this incident.

The first responding officers and supervisors immediately recognized this was not your normal missing person call.

They took action to begin getting on all resources that that we would need that day.

This started with a call out to our criminal investigations bureau and the notification of the chain of command.

Once the details of this incident were gathered, resources from throughout the valley began to mobilize immediately.

Even after the successful reunification of Kalani with her family, it did not end.

As a matter of fact, that is when all the behind the scenes work is done with the investigation.

Each one of our employees played a valuable role in this investigation from traffic control, interviewing those who were involved, working with other agencies to follow up on leads, writing reports, even bringing out the command van to have a place for everyone to work.

Could have Daniel Benavitas.

Did I call Jenny?

She's here.

Jenny, beautiful.

Lucas Co Lucas Connors, Brandy Dacher, Joseph Del Paulo Del Pozo, JC Duncey, Albert Escobito, Jeffrey Felposh, John Horton, Efrain Heime, DeRick Jones, Jordan Mamoy, Megan Neighbors, Alfonso Romanetti, Jarrett Redford, Manuel Rios, Devante Scott, Teresa Scott, Robert Tullis, Burton Van Renz, Jeff Vaughan, Joshua Wheatley, and Brennan Zier.

So thank you to those people that weren't able to attend.

If I can have you collectively squeeze in.

That was funny.

And Mr.

Mayor Council, while we're waiting a second, um we did ask the uh staff to stick around just in case you wanted to say anything to them.

And of course our uh fine heroes over there are are still around for council to address if they would like.

We do have one council member we're waiting for, so should we wait until she returns?

Okay, there's like a sorry, I know you guys probably ready to get out of here.

There we go.

See?

The right decision.

Well, first and foremost, Chiefs.

Chief.

But all those who are involved.

I mean, this was a story that right away.

I know that we were all um provided updates along the way.

You know, much of the state uh was also uh invested in learning about what was happening with uh with this young girl and the story surrounded by it.

And so for that reason, I think there are many questions, but more importantly, maybe comments that council would want to make that maybe the community would like to learn more about in regards to this case.

And I know that it's sensitive because the case is ongoing, so uh we have to be mindful of that as well.

But um, this just a testament, and I I don't mean to go first, but since I'm talking, I'll I'll go first.

It's just a testament again to community.

You folks, as you mentioned, stepped in.

Um, I'm not sure what moved you to do so.

If it was just kind of let's let's act, let's let's do this now.

But regardless, I mean it's what happens when the community gets involved when you get involved.

Who knows what the outcome could have been, but nonetheless, you guys decided to act.

Um, and for that, uh, we thank you.

The community thanks you, the family thanks you.

Uh, but most importantly, uh, it's just it's nice to know, and it's a pleasure to know that not only the community step in, but more importantly, it's reinforced by by city staff and by our public safety who who went above and beyond the duty uh to help uh a young girl in need.

And so I'll step out of the way and turn it over to council.

Council, if you have any comments or questions, we'll start on this side and work our way this way.

Thank you.

Council McCondi.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to just say thank you to everyone, but also too for the just the regular citizens that are now considered heroes.

So thank you for um stepping up and um doing what you did.

Thanks to you and everyone.

There's a little girl that's home safe today.

Um again, thank you so much.

Governor Garcia.

It is the worst fear for a mother to hear that she does not have her child at home.

And what you guys did is just so heroic, but also what the community should be doing is stepping up when these situations happen.

So thank you guys for what you guys did.

You guys are heroes, and I really do believe that in my heart, and I pray that the Lord just protects you guys moving forward, and he just gives you the fruit that you have given to a family, and they have their child home today.

And to our officers, you guys always do remarkable.

Look at this big team to find a little girl.

Like you guys stepped up as usual, but she's home because it took all of us, everyone in that it, you know, that was in that picture, you guys to bring her home.

So thank you guys so much for everything you do.

We love you guys, and we really do pray over you guys every day and hope that you guys get home safe and that we just really acknowledge that you guys are doing the hard things, seeing the hard things.

And I know it's not easy to go home to your wives or your husbands or your partners at the end of the day with such heavy stuff, but there's a little girl home today, and we're just grateful for that.

So thank you all so much.

Councilmember White.

Okay, we'll go we'll just come back this week.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Um Memo, um Jonathan and Bates.

I appreciate everything you guys do.

When I look at the officers, I just wanted to let you know.

I got text messages from other council members throughout the state, just commending the cohesion of the Avondale PD.

I think you guys move as one organization.

It's like each of you are individual people, but it's like the hands, the fingers, the wrists, the ankles, the toes.

I don't know if there's that much coordination throughout um Arizona in one agency.

I don't know if there's that much coordination throughout this country in one agency.

So Avondale PD, um, you are doing an amazing job.

Even standing outside this weekend um at Trace Reels, people kept coming up thanking me, and I said I really didn't do anything.

They're like, but no, you guys support them.

And so please know you you you guys came to a vulnerable dad at a moment where he couldn't find his baby.

And I just know, you know, I'm daddy's girl, and even though he rests in peace right now, that is a very awful feeling to turn around and not find your kid and and know that your kid is not where they need to be at that moment.

So um, you all have gone above and beyond.

You make us proud each and every day.

But you you're not doing it for the recognition.

This is business as usual for you every day.

You go above and beyond each and every day, and I'm so proud to be a resident of Avondale first.

Um, to be somebody who calls Avondale home, but to have your representation, and please know there is not a place or space in this in this country anybody will ever be able to say anything negatively about you because I know the work you do, and I know the people who you are.

You represent us well, and you brought that girl home.

Thank you.

Councilmember Weiss.

Well, this is the outcome that we all pray for, right?

Anytime there's an amber alert, and this is just an attestment to your um quick thinking and your courage for stepping up, and then to our wonderful staff who always go above and beyond.

So thank you for bringing this girl home.

And we're really proud of our department, and we're really um happy and and pleased with the outcome, and we're really proud of you guys for all that you did.

Thank you.

Council Mr.

Solorio.

Um thank you guys.

There's no other words, it's all been set up here, and then some thank you to each and every one of you guys on the police force.

Uh a huge thank you to the uh phone call, the reverse phone calls that comes in, because that's really valuable.

I know I was at a city function when we were at the resource center when that commit came in, people's phones started ringing, you know, city employees, and that's one way to capture attention.

That's one of the biggest things we talked about last year on a national level, having that type of program to let employ to let not only employees but let citizens know that there's a child that's missing or there might be an elderly person missing.

And those types of things speak true to Avondale that we care about everyone.

Thank you to the moving company, Campbellback Moving Company, thank you to Chad, because you know, a lot of that culture, you guys are not just everyday citizens now.

You guys are heroes, but that everyday culture is taught to you at work.

See something, say something.

And you guys really took that above and beyond.

So thank you to everyone involved.

Um, I couldn't be more prouder to live here as a resident, like council member white said first, but even to see it on a national level.

I know our congresswoman shared how proud she was that everyone got her home.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Nielsen.

I think a lot has been said.

I would just like to appreciate or give my appreciation to the coordination effort.

The number of names that you read off for the police, the number of other people that were involved.

You don't get that coordination very much anymore these days.

It's like I want to stay back and don't do anything.

And I don't think any of you woke up that morning, excuse me, and said, Today I'm gonna be a hero.

You woke up that morning saying, I'm gonna do my job, the way that I know that it needs to be done.

But when it came time for you to come together to save that life, you put whatever work you needed to do by its side and went out and coordinated your efforts to do whatever you needed to do.

So thank you for doing that.

And the only other thing I can say is even though it is women's history month, this is history for you.

You need to put that down in a written form or some vocal form to pass on to your kids and your kids' kids so that they know that they might have an opportunity someday to do just what you've done because dad did it, I can do it.

So thank you all very much for all that you've done.

So once again, as you heard, thank you to everybody in this room who has had a part uh in this story here.

And um uh you you heard all of the uh you know statements that have been expressed.

So once again, on behalf of us, thank you so much for everything you've done.

I know you don't do it uh to be called a hero, but this is uh this is a result of just stepping in and doing what's right.

So thanks again.

Can we give one more round of applause?

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Item number three is unscheduled public appearances.

We do have one blue card.

Are there any other blue cards or anything else, Marcel, aside from this one?

Thank you, Mayor.

I have not received any additional requests to speak.

Okay, thank you.

So at this moment, can I please have Rhonda Bill come and speak?

Good evening, Mayor Pinetta, Vice Mayor, City Manager, Council, staff, Avondale residents and friends.

Uh I am Rhonda Bell, uh chair of the Avondale Municipal Art Committee, second term, and an Avondale ambassador, second term.

I am here today to promote our senior art scholarship contest.

Perhaps you've seen the flyers.

And if you have not, uh, please contact me or any member of the Parks and Rec or Municipal Art Committee, and we can make certain that you do get a flyer.

I stand before you today for a call to action, a call for artwork.

Our contest or the actual event is scheduled for April 8th.

So please keep that date in mind, say that date.

But uh, this is our submission windows where we call the artist, and we don't have any submissions.

So I have one ask, one call to action, one finger in the air for everyone.

I need you to at least mention the contest, uh, spread the word.

We want to we need help getting the word out.

Our target audience, high school seniors.

So any senior graduating from an Avondale art, I mean high school, they are eligible to uh participate.

And any uh Avondale resident, if they're uh just a resident uh of Avondale, they can participate, or if they go to an Avondale high school, they can participate.

Uh with that, just want uh you guys uh to um to encourage you to first of all get the word out and second of all invite you.

I will be back one more time before our event, but again, we do need a call for art, call for the artwork, call for artists to participate.

Again, the date is Wednesday, April 8th for the actual event, and then the submission deadline is Friday, March 12th next Friday properly.

We want to make this a great successful event, so I'm calling on Avondale.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Bye for now.

Item number four is the consent agenda.

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

See, and then can I please get a motion?

Got a motion from Councilmember Solorio.

The second from Councilmember White.

Can we please vote?

Item passes unanimously.

Ron, next item, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

Now we I get to hear from our chief again, Chief Espinoza will give a police department update.

Good evening, Mayor, Master and Council.

Uh today we will be giving you a an update of your police department.

During our presentation, we're going to cover four different uh subjects.

First, we're going to talk about our 2025 uh accomplishments.

We're going to give you a hiring update for 2025.

We're also going to provide you crime statistics for 2025.

Additionally, we're going to talk about our priorities and initiatives for 2026.

We'll start with our accomplishments, and I'll talk about the first uh accomplishments.

They are big ticket items for us, and uh they would not be a reality if it wasn't for your support.

So we want to say thank you.

We'll start with our communications center on September 2nd, 2025.

We open the expansion of our Comp Center, which added much needed extra space and updated technology.

Our next accomplishment, and again, this is uh thanks to your support is our uh K9 Training Center, which opened on July 23rd of uh 2025, and it brought us uh state of the art uh training areas and kennels to house our canine partners.

The next group of accomplishments is uh a wellness program, uh, our wellness performance program, which is uh consultation.

This is offered to all of our employees, foreign and professional staff.

And uh if they're willing to uh participate, they get a consultation with a coach.

They also get a brain mapping with the purpose of uh improving attention, memory, emotional control, stress management, sleep, and overall mental career.

The next item is uh we formalized our chaplain program.

Uh historically, we had one or two chaplains.

Uh however, they were not very active.

We would ask them to do things here and there.

We formalized that uh program in 2025.

And the purpose of doing that is to continue to serve our residents historically when we had to do a uh death notification of something uh unexpected, a death uh notification uh of again unexpected, uh for example uh an accident or a homicide, uh, we would have our officers go do that uh notification.

Although we provide uh training to our officers, we're not subject matter experts.

So now by adding uh additional uh chaplains to our program, when we have to do a death notification, we'll ask one of our chaplains who are part of our volunteer program to come along and make that notification.

If I can quickly give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Here about uh five, six months ago, we had a young airman that was involved in a fatal accident.

Um we immediately contacted uh one of our chaplains, and he was able to respond with one of our officers to meet the young widow and uh make that death notification.

Our officer and that chaplain, they stayed uh on site with uh with the widow until we were able to put her in contact with other resources by uh Luke Air Force Base and in contact with her family.

The uh next accomplishment is advanced leadership training.

Uh this was offered to all of our supervisors, in addition to our uh field training officers.

Uh the training consisted of uh developing leadership skills, managing teams, strategic thinking, and uh overall uh leadership.

The uh next accomplishment is the transition of our portable radios uh replacement.

Our old radios were outdated uh technology with the new radio, new radios, which we again implemented uh in 2025.

We have a couple of features that are unique to uh these new radios.

One of those features is called the Smart Connect.

So with our old radios, there's times where you would be in a remote area of our city and uh you had poor signal.

So if that officer tried to get out uh on their portable radio, there's times that you had issues again trying to communicate with Calm with the Communications uh Bureau.

With this uh with these new radios, uh the radios, when they recognize that you're in a poor signal area, they immediately start looking for a um a radio tower, and they'll connect to that radio tower, and we have not had any issues uh with uh connecting with our comm center.

In fact, with these uh new radios, we're able to connect throughout the entire state, and not have any issues.

The other great thing about these new radios is what they call that smart programming.

Historically, once a year we would reprogram our radios.

That uh required our officers to bring in their their radios, our staff would uh work on the radios, reprogram them, and then give them back to our officers.

That process could take anywhere between three and four weeks.

With these new radios, uh, we can do that just by hitting a switch.

So, time saving uh is one of the uh benefits of this new uh program.

And finally, uh the uh one thing that we really love about uh these radios is that they have GPS.

This is an officer safety uh benefit to our team.

The next uh accomplishment is our real-time crime center partnership with the city of Glendale.

Uh we have uh with through the rail crime center, our staff at the center, not only Avendale staff but also Glendale staff, we have access to our city cameras.

In other words, if we have a crime in progress and we need to immediately jump on those cameras to try to figure out what's going on and to provide uh real-time crime data to those responding to those calls for service, we can do so uh through the uh again partnership with the Glendale uh Real Time Crime Center.

If I can give you a quick uh just example of how we utilize the real-time crime center.

About uh six months ago, we had a homicide that happened in the area of 99th Avenue in McDowell, where uh a suspect who had zero connection to our city, they were just passing through, uh, and uh that individual committed a homicide.

All we had at the time as we were responding to the call for service was a description.

By the time that our officers arrived on scene, that suspect was long gone.

However, our staff and Glendale staff back at the uh real-time crime center were able to utilize the cameras and locate a subject that matched the description as the subject kept on walking away from our city.

Uh our staff at the real-time crime center followed the subject, directed officers to make contact with the individual.

Uh they detain him and eventually they uh developed probable costs and ended up making an arrest.

And again, this individual was just passing through Avondale.

We believe that if it was not for the real-time crime center, we would have uh it would have been very difficult for us to make an arrest.

The uh next two items you're very aware of, and uh we look at these items as a recruitment and retention tool.

Uh the first one is the takeoff take-home vehicle program for our sworn officers.

Although you guys voted uh in 2024 for this uh program, we implemented that program in 2025.

And the program has been a success.

Our staff uh loves the program, and in addition to that, uh we utilize that uh program to attract new talent.

The second one is the mid-year mid-year compensation adjustment.

Again, uh your team voted uh for this program in 2025.

However, we implemented this program early this calendar year.

And again, thank you for the two programs.

They both help us with uh recruitment and retention.

Additional accomplishments uh for 2025 are revolving new positions.

Uh, one of those positions is our victim advocate supervisor.

Historically, we had one or two uh victim advocates.

Historically, we had one or two uh victim advocates, however, they were typically managed by one of our sergeants, one of our uh police sergeants is that is not their expertise, so we started uh looking into the uh possibility of bringing a subject matter expert, a victim advocate supervisor.

We were able to accomplish that.

Uh we brought uh Brandy uh who we took from uh the city of Phoenix, and she's been phenomenal.

The idea behind this program is to be able to provide additional uh victim services to our residents here in the city of Avondale.

If I can again give you a quick uh example, with uh kidnapping that we just spoke about, we immediately called Brandy, and she was able to respond uh to the scene, and she was with the family not only on Saturday, but also on Sunday.

So great program.

Uh the other new position is a second dedicated forensic interviewer for the uh family advocacy center.

Uh historically, we had just one uh forensic interviewer.

That forensic interviewer was doing just under 400 um interviews a year.

Uh the average for a forensic interviewer is anywhere between 200 and 250 uh interviews a year.

So after looking at the the stats, we decided to ask for a second interviewer, and uh now that individual is hired and ready to uh go and has been assisting with uh interviews.

The other thing that we did this year is we took a sworn officer's position and we turn it into a full-time recruiter uh position.

The idea behind that is that we uh set a goal for the Avondale Police Department.

We would like to stay under uh have our vacancies under 5%, and uh, we're gonna utilize this uh full-time recruiter to go out, contact people, whether it's in state or out state, and showcase our agency, and uh the idea is to bring more applicants uh to the pool of uh individuals that we test on a on a year-to-year basis.

So uh, and we'll talk more about uh this individual here in a second.

The uh other accomplishment is adding uh we added two patrol lieutenants.

Uh historically, we had four patrol lieutenants, we added the two, and here's our reality.

Our reality is that we are a very, very young department.

We have very young officers being led by very young sergeants.

The idea behind adding uh more lieutenants is so that we can uh provide mentoring opportunities and guidance to our young staff.

Here's our 2025 hiring update on the sworn side.

We hired a total of 21 individuals, three of them retired, and a total of 11 separated from the organization.

Those 11 individuals that uh left the organization on the sworn side, we lost a majority during the academy and during our field training officer program.

A lot of individuals, we bring them on board, we tried to explain to them uh the difficulties of this uh position and some of the challenges that we face as police officers, and uh, but at the end of the day, once they start the academy, you know, they're like hey, this is not for me, and uh they move on.

Others make it through the academy, they graduate from the academy, they start their field training officer program, and reality hits, and uh some of them uh move on.

On the professional staff side, uh we hired a total of 14 individuals.

We had one retirement, and 15 people left the organization.

In the case of the professional staff, the majority of those 15 people that left the organization, the majority were uh uh communications uh specialist or uh dispatchers.

This job is also uh difficult.

They um have a difficult schedule.

A lot of people come on board and they go through the training and they move, they decide that that's not for them and they move on.

Um the good news is with the majority of the people that in communications that go through the training, they come off probation and they're good for the first year or two.

For the most part, they're here to stay.

We have a solid group of uh senior dispatchers.

At this time, I'm gonna turn it over to uh assistant chief Bates to talk about our crime stats for 2025.

Thank you, Chief.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council.

So I've got the privilege of introducing our crime stats for 2025.

Uh, I'll kind of walk through what this is.

Um, and what that is is everybody that uh reports reports in the same manner.

So our group A, which we have listed here consists of three categories crimes against persons, crimes against property, and crimes against society.

So we'll start off with the crimes against persons.

Um in 2025, we ended our year being 11.25% higher compared to 2024.

Primes uh person crimes consist of any crime related to a person on person.

Uh the stats are driven this number to be elevated is our assaults, our aggravated assaults.

So when we look at those numbers, they uh combined equal over 2,000 incidents.

Um and as you can see, we have 2300 um for the year.

So the majority of those particular calls are assaults and aggravated assaults.

Um they are a high number.

Uh the majority of them are domestic violence related.

So this particular category is just a little bit more challenging to address from a police department standpoint.

However, the Avondale Police Department is committed to providing education and resources to victims and victims' children.

And that's uh I think bringing that extra victims' rights supervisor is going to help us in accomplishing some of that stuff.

So next category I'd like to talk to you about is the property crime.

So crimes against property.

Um this category consists of burglaries, shopliftings, thefts, frauds, criminal damage, any crime that is related to a property offense.

We ended the year in 2025 at down uh 3.2 percent compared to 2024.

Uh the primary calls that we had within this category were our criminal damage related calls and our shopliftings and our thefts.

This particular category is an area that the Avondale Police Department has one of its goals, which you'll see later in the slide, but this is one that we we have some area that we are very proactive in, and we'll talk about that here in a few.

Our next area uh our next category is our crimes against society.

This category consists of crimes such as drugs, drug paraphernalia, obscene material, prostitution, weapons violations, animal cruelty to name a few.

So for the year we ended out at uh negative 8.4% compared to 2024.

There are high number the this area has a high number within this category are drug and weapon-related offenses.

So that primarily is what created this category.

So our officers are continuing to remain proactive when it comes to these offenses.

Uh, for example, one area that we have continuous issues with are our river bottom area.

So our officers are down there consistently.

Since we started a river uh bottom detail in 2024, we've made over 500 arrests, which range from trespassing to weapons violations and drugs and drug paraphernalia.

That all falls within this particular category.

So when you look at our total overall, that we were just up uh over 1% compared to 2024.

With the growth of our city and the amount of businesses and residents that we have coming into Avondale, uh, we're committed to ensuring our officers remain proactive during that downtime by either patrolling their assigned beats or addressing specific concerns that are brought forward by the community.

Um we'll be speaking about some of those different strategies on how we plan on reducing some of these crimes and the crimes against property later in the next few slides.

Mayor, vice mayor, and counsel at this time we would like to take a quick break to give you an opportunity to ask questions regarding the crime statistics before we move on to the next slide.

I don't know, quick comment or just observation.

I got the calculator out here, okay?

So if you take some of those numbers, 2394, 2998.

The first one that's six and a half incidents a day.

The 2994 divided by 365 is 8.2 per day.

And the society is 2.3.

You guys keep busy.

I don't know if those are repeats or if they are things I'm just looking at them, you know, on a daily basis, and the 2062 39 again divided by 365 comes up approximately 70, 17 incidents a day.

Correct.

And so the numbers might be skewed in the in the fact that some of these incidents or the one particular call may be a tick mark or for multiple categories.

For example, if there's a robbery and a person is hurt in that process, you have a person's crime and you have a property-related crime.

So just uh you and the staff are gotta be keeping yourself busy just to keep up with you know, 17 of those on a daily basis, kinda.

Thank you.

Just really quickly before we move on, in regards to the crimes against the person, crimes against person uh with the increase, you reference domestic violence uh as um maybe in uh one of the leading reasons as to why this number is so high.

Uh and then the first thing you think about is in regards to the others is you know, being proactive helps to bring some of those down.

In this case, it's it's often out of our hands.

But then uh assistant chief baits, you also mentioned and referenced um education.

Uh, what is that education look like?

Because it from a proactive standpoint, it's like you know, you would think the information would be like let's treat each other with respect and all those other things, but what is a true education look like?

Absolutely great question, sir.

So when we look at some of the the data that's provided and statistics, um typically, you know, one in four children who experience either domestic violence or see that within their household, when they grow up, they tend to either get involved in those types of relationships or they become an aggressor you know on the other the other end of it.

So one of the things that we're going to be exploring is getting more information out to our school resource officers and exploring that educational route there.

The other thing that we're doing is through our victims' rights uh advocates is we're ensuring that we're we're providing good resources and education to our victims as well as uh the victims' shoulders to try and help them get out of a situation like that, uh explaining all their different options, whether the orders of protections or you know things of that nature.

So thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

There's no other questions.

Feel free to move on to the next oh Councilmember White.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Thank you so much, Chiefs.

I think um concerned as well about the crimes against persons because that that increase has gone up tremendously.

It feels like um from 2023, 533 more people got hurt in Avondale last year.

Um and just to kind of have that perspective in terms of you know a two-year shift.

Um I do look forward to hearing those recommendations, but I regret that those uh any of those folks got hurt um criminally here in Avondale.

I think that you know we want to drive that number down to zero.

Um, and I think that starts here how we behave and how we encourage um people to live in order.

But um d I know that you said multiple crimes are often happening at the same time.

When when you are managing crimes against persons, are you also noticing that there's um crimes against society, i.e., drugs or picking up paraphernalia or um additional weapons concerns.

I mean, what are those aggravating circumstances that you see are high bar with our crimes against persons?

Well, the first thing is like from 2024 until present, we've had an obviously an increase in population.

Um don't quote me, but I think it's roughly like 1.8% um with more residents businesses.

Um we often do find that there are other crimes associated when we do respond to a crime against a person.

There's something else there, whether it be a weapons violation, whether it be uh some type of drugs or drug paraphernalia, there's often some some underlying issue.

Um, but the majority of them we found to be domestic violence related.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Garcia.

Well, I want to thank you guys for just thinking about like what you guys can do to educate people.

Um I I know I've expressed it before, but I'm a victim of domestic violence, and to see the statistics is very sad.

Um but something you said is people who live in those houses tend to also be um end up being abusers, and that was what happened to me.

He lived in a house where um he was his mom and they were abused, and he ended up being the same as his father, unfortunately.

But to hear that you're gonna go into the schools and do that education with the teens early on is really I don't want to say exciting, but it's great that that's the approach you're taking because I think that's where it starts is to educate them young, knowing what to look for, um, to have children be able to defend their moms, defend each other.

They don't have you know, we don't want that, but they end up being kids say the lives of their moms sometimes and um letting them know.

So thank you guys so much for taking that that route with that, because I really do appreciate it.

And I hope to see this down.

Nobody wants to see these kind of crimes happened, and we don't want to um we want to support those that um do go through them and to have programs afterwards that they could that that they have those resources for sure.

So thank you guys.

Thank you, ma'am.

Okay, you can move on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh the next portion of our presentation is in reference to our priorities and initiatives.

I'll start with the first one is an assessment of an AI assisted uh report writing software.

As you're aware, every uh employee of the PD that is out in the field, they are required to wear a body warrant camera.

Those cameras capture not only audio but also video.

And uh with this uh software, as the individuals, as the our officers are speaking, whether it's a victim, a suspect, or an investigative lead, that uh audio is uh transformed into a document.

The officer then takes that document, reviews it, and makes sure that it's uh put in a format uh or formatted as a police report.

Uh we started the program today.

This is uh again uh an assessment.

We are looking at see what uh those uh results yield.

Uh what I can tell you is that this is new technology.

There's only a handful of uh police departments that uh have implemented uh this type of technology or are in the process of looking at it and in talking to uh my peers throughout the state that uh again implemented this type of technology, they have seen uh a lot of success.

Uh they estimate that officers spent about 30% less time writing reports.

So uh again, we look forward to the results of this assessment.

The next two topics, you're gonna hear us talk about them here uh during the budget process in a couple of weeks.

The first one is a uh drone as a first responder, a DFR, and uh for us is an officer safety uh uh type technology.

What a DFR uh does is that unlike our uh traditional drones where somebody has uh to deploy that drone, you have to be trained as a pilot, you have to have uh an observer, you have to get that drone out of your the trunk of your car and then deploy it with the uh DFRs, they are um staged on top of a rooftop, and they're linked to our uh CAD system, our uh calls or service.

When a priority one call for service, which is an emergency for us, when that call comes out, it automatically notifies the drone that this is a priority one for uh call for service.

The drone goes straight to the uh address where the uh the incident is happening, and an employee back at the PD as the uh drone uh arrives on scene and uh starts transmitting uh images to that uh operator back at the PD, that operator back at the PD communicates uh via radio to the uh responding officers what they're seeing.

An example of what I'm talking about is perhaps uh we often get dispatched to calls for service involving a large fight, and uh we want to be able to deploy that drone that way when officers arrived, they know what they're getting themselves into.

If it's a larger fight, there's weapons involved, those officers now will know that uh what they're getting themselves into.

The other uh uh side of the coin is that sometimes we get dispatched to a large fight, and we're thinking a hundred people are fighting, and we have multiple units responding from all over the city.

Now with the drone arriving ahead of us, that uh person that is monitoring the video can communicate with our officers, letting them know that it's a two people fighting.

You can de-escalate, let's take those uh units back to go back to their beats.

So again, you're gonna hear us talk about it here in a couple of weeks as part of our budget process.

The other uh item that you're gonna hear us talk about here in the budget during the budget process is we're asking to expand ex I'm sorry, expand the flock uh camera system.

These are our license plate readers.

We currently have 15, and we're asking for an additional 58.

We use these license uh plate readers as an investigative tool, and that's the only reason we use them for.

Uh, if I can give you an example of what I'm talking about, we uh uh several months ago we had well let me go back.

In the city of Lichville Park, uh they have uh a total of uh 38 licensed plate readers.

As you know, we uh patrol Lich Roe Park.

We had a burglary of a high-end home in Litchell Park.

All we had to go uh with it was just an image of a vehicle.

We called detectives out because again, the amount of uh items that were removed from the home uh was quite a bit.

Our detectives were able to obtain footage from the license plate readers and connected that vehicle.

The uh detectives uh subsequently arrested the subject, connected that subject to other burglaries of uh high-end homes, not only in uh Lichwill Park, but also in Paradise Valley and also in Scottsdale.

Uh the other priority uh that we're uh looking at for uh 2026 is our re-accreditation through the Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program.

We were accredited as a law enforcement agency in 2022, and uh we're up for renewal, and that will take place in September of uh of this year.

We are confident that we're gonna be able to get re-accredited again.

These are some of our goals.

The first goal is which we already started is uh to establish a trade uh traffic safety committee.

Uh this is in partnership with our friends at uh the engineering department, uh Kim Moon and I lead the uh the committee, and the objective of the committee is to identify strategies to improve the flow of traffic and reduce traffic accidents in the city of Avondale.

I'm not gonna talk too much about this because uh on April 20th, Kim and I are going to be giving you an overview of the traffic committee.

In addition to that, uh one of our goals is to train for additional officers for the traffic unit, and we'll get into those details here on April 20th.

Along the same lines, uh, we're adding a total of uh 18 laser speed uh measuring devices and 15 radar speeding uh measuring devices, and I can tell you the difference on April 20th if you desire.

The next goal is to implement a building clearing uh training area.

Uh we received uh the supplies to make this a reality through a grant.

And historically, um, when our officers trained to do uh building searching, which is one of the tasks that we uh do on a regular basis, uh whether it's a uh burglary alarm, a residential burglary, a business uh burglary, our officers, when they first arrive on scene, they have to clear an area.

So to train for that, to clear the area along with a partner, multiple partners.

Uh, what we traditionally uh did is we would use a city building.

We would go to the schools, we would ask uh a home builder to use their uh home under construction if we could utilize that uh that building to train our staff.

We no longer will have to do this once we establish this uh uh building clearing up building uh because uh what we're gonna acquire is movable walls.

So you can do different layouts, and uh this will be utilized not only by our patrol officers but also by our tactical uh team.

Additionally, one of our goals is to maintain vacancy rates below 5%, and how we intend to uh reach this goal is by utilizing our full-time uh recruiter.

Um the idea right now we're at 7.3 percent uh our vacancy rate is 7.3, and we intend to bring it lower by having our recruiter bring uh qualified applicants, not only for the sworn side, but also for the uh professional staff.

We also would like to increase our participation in our physical fitness program by 5% annually.

Our physical fitness program is an incentive for our officers and sergeants, and um the idea is to ensure that our staff is physically fit.

Uh, this is a very uh physically demanding type of job, and uh thanks to the support of city management, now we have an incentive.

So officers are able to test every six months, and if they successfully complete a physical fitness test, they get a 250 dollar stipend.

Right now, about one-third of our sworn officers uh take advantage of that stipend, and we intend to increase that uh that percentage by encouraging and encouraging our staff and educating them on the importance of staying physically fit.

Uh the next goal is to increase the number of uh crisis intervention team trained officers by uh a five percent annually.

What uh this intels is uh through the CIT program, officers are trained to better communicate interact and interact with residents with mental disabilities.

And because uh through attrition, a lot of again, we're a very young department.

We have officers that uh got promoted to detectives, promoted to sergeants.

Uh right now we're at about uh 35 percent of our patrol officers are trained.

Our goal is to increase that by five percent.

However, that is uh a very low uh low uh percentage that uh uh we're aiming for because it is very difficult to get into these classes.

However, one of the things that we are uh trying to do is to host a class.

It's difficult to bring all the different instructors together to certify these officers.

Um we're hoping that we can make that a reality, even if uh we have to pay to bring uh our trainers, but we're hoping to beat that uh that percentage by a lot if we're able to host uh that class.

At this time, I'm gonna turn it over to Assistant Chief Bates to wrap up the uh presentation.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh so I get to talk about reducing our property time uh by two and a half percent, and some of the strategies that we're looking at and accomplishing this.

So, some of the things I talked about.

So, recently we just had nine officers complete their field training.

This is huge.

Um we are able to accomplish with these officers is starting to restaff some of our specialty positions that address property related crimes, such as our community action team and our criminal investigations bureau.

Um having those extra staffing out there not only puts more patrol cars out there, but it allows us to take people and start uh filling up some of these vacancies that we have in these specialty areas.

Another strategy we have is holding our staff accountable to the expectations of remaining proactive during the downtimes that we spoke about earlier.

So patrol cars driving through a neighborhood goes a long way to the residents, and it potentially deters crimes that they may not even know about.

Um the amount of times that officers spend either or are busy either on a call for service, report writing, doing some type of admin duty, versus the amount of time that they're available and have the opportunity to be proactive and embrace the community-based policing is what we're looking for.

So we're we're constantly looking at that percentage and looking at where we're at.

And then the other item that we're looking at utilizing, that the Chief talked about is utilizing technologies such as AI.

I think that's going to be huge.

Um, like Chief said, we just started uh the assessment phase of that.

So we have uh a select few officers and detectives that are utilizing that, and we've already gotten some positive feedback on how long it takes to complete reports now compared to what it did in the past.

The next item I like to talk to you about is ensuring the safe traffic flow by reducing accidents by three percent.

And Chief kind of stole my thunder on a lot of these things, but we just added the four officers to our traffic bureau.

That's huge.

Um these ladies and gentlemen don't they have not been to traffic school yet to motor school, but they're planning to go by the end of March and going into April.

Um but for now they've hit the ground running, they're in patrol vehicles, they're out there doing enforcement details and areas that we're having issues with.

So they're out there and they're visible.

Um even my wife made a comment that she was scared to drive in our neighborhood now because she's seeing them all the time.

So and then like Chief spoke about, we're adding the the 18 new lasers.

We're gonna talk about this on the 20th of April.

Um, but this is going to give 18 more ways, patrol officers to identify speeding and speeding concerns and for them to be able to address those, as well as 15 uh moving radars which are stationed in the vehicles themselves.

So as we're driving, we can tell what speed somebody is going.

We are a member of the uh West Valley uh speed task force, and what that is is comprised of all the West Valleys to include DPS and MCSO.

So once a month we choose a city and we pour all those resources and traffic officers into that city.

We identify a specific problem, whether it be a high accident area, uh a lot of speeding complaints, and we do enforcement enforcement enforcement.

So being a part of that West Valley Speed Task Force will bring those resources to Avondell as well.

Another strategy is uh, like Chief mentioned, is the traffic uh committee.

Uh it's comprised of numerous departments within the city headed by PD and traffic engineering.

The purpose of this committee is to identify areas of concern, future projects to address the flow of traffic throughout the city, uh using things like education, social media infrastructure, enforcement, timing of traffic lights, just to name a few.

And that's how we plan on maintaining that uh reduction in accidents by three percent.

At the sum of it, like to chief.

This concludes our presentation.

And at this time, we'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have of us.

Uh Councilmember Silario.

Thank you both for your presentation.

Thank you, Ron.

Ron knows that uh I was most excited about that PD update myself.

I have a few questions for you, Chief.

I will start off with for the K9 training centers.

Are there plans to expand training partnerships or certifications?

Can you repeat the question up for anyone?

For the canine centers, are there plans to do partnerships or training certifications there with other departments or should I say other cities?

Yes.

Uh for the certifications, yes.

Uh we're in fact uh hosting uh the yearly certification uh this Wednesday.

And uh we're gonna bring uh I think it's 25 uh K9 units to do their yearly certification as far as sharing the uh training center.

At this time uh we're not ready to do so.

Okay.

My second question for you, and this goes for Ron and all our city with the strategic plan in place.

I was very appreciative to hear about your more focused and streamlined chaplain service because I know in our strategic plan, I will quote from Aaron, we want Avondale to be a city where all people feel safe, supported, and connected to resources that promote and enhance their well-being.

The city prioritizes public safety, natural resources, health care and wellness while promoting mental, physical, and emotional health.

With the chaplain program being you being utilized by officers and staff, do these folks also help the families after an incident if needed?

Absolutely.

And one of our chaplains is here, Larry White uh yes.

And uh yes, they are volunteers and they're willing to uh help out.

They have uh connections with other resources and uh they're there for the families.

Wonderful.

During and after.

Um and then I saw in the part where it says uh what is the mandatory leadership training currently include and how are we using it to prepare supervisors and command staff?

Ma'am, uh the leadership uh course includes uh developing leader leadership skills, uh managing teams and strategic thinking.

And this was uh mandatory for not only for our existing uh supervisors, but also for um younger officers that have expressed that one day they would like to become uh supervisors or field training officers.

So that that's uh does that answer your question?

Yes.

Okay, yes.

Mr.

Mayor, can I add to that or or maybe have uh the chief explained?

I happen to stop by at one of the trainings.

Uh uh, it's been a while now, and the chief uh police of Scottsdale was there, and he could not say enough about the culture from the interactions from the training that they were putting on and hosting with us for this uh episode.

But do you want to talk about our partnership with uh the Scottsdale program or what they were doing there?

Absolutely.

So, you know, one of the challenges, you know, I grew up here in uh with this organization.

I've been with the organization for almost 29 years, and my concern is that you know, this is all I know.

So we force ourselves out of the organization.

We force ourselves to interact with other uh entities as far as we can.

Uh we have a special connection with uh our uh friends at uh Scottsdale uh through uh the FBI Academy and uh we were able to connect and what the idea behind bringing them on board uh to train our staff is to give our staff a different perspective, not just our perspective.

And and we learn from them and I've been told that they learn from us.

It's wonderful.

Thank you.

And then um my other question is um I know we did the mid-year compensation.

Where are we at with recruitment?

I know last when you guys were here, you were talking about the sergeants and that classification for the pay, but where are we at with the um LTs and the hiring?

So right now we have three vacancies uh for the uh in in the lieutenant position.

However, the reason we still have them as vacancies is because we wanted to give uh our sergeants an opportunity to try the the position before they decide whether they wanted to uh test or not.

So it's been a successful uh plan.

Right now we have three individuals that are acting lieutenants and uh they're gonna be switching over uh here in the very near future, April.

And uh another three sergeants will have the opportunity to be uh acting lieutenants.

The idea behind it it was that hey, we want you to try the position, see if this is something that you're going to enjoy, if it's uh gonna work out for for him or her.

So prior to that, were you getting applications for that already, or is this something that came after from did you have it open originally just for lieutenants to do that, or did you come up with this as a recruitment tool after the fact?

Uh th this was just for internal candidates.

Uh we put uh an email out asking if anyone was interested in putting in for the temporary uh assignment and six individuals uh ask uh uh requested to be part of that uh poll.

Okay.

Mr.

Mayor, Councilmember Solario, uh we haven't advertised yet.

This was pre-advertising for the lieutenant position.

Okay, because my secondary question was gonna be uh for you, Ron.

Um in October we talked briefly about what other cities are doing to retain LTs.

Um he's saying we're having a program where we would have these folks essentially kind of step into that role for a while to see if that would be a good fit for them.

Um if it is not a good fit, do we have a backup for that?

Um is that something you're willing to explore down the line?

And I say this, Ron, because I know you and I have had candid uh conversations about the importance of getting the right people in those roles and looking at ways outside the other cities may be using to retain LTs and doing that.

Mr.

Mayor Council, I'll actually let uh Chief answer that.

We've been we've been strategizing Yes, ma'am, uh we want to make sure that uh those positions get filled.

So um the idea is we're gonna put it out internally and externally and and hopefully we have a big pool of candidates uh that will be interested in the position for us.

It would be ideal if uh it was a homegrown individual that promoted to to that position.

But again, we don't want to force somebody to uh to put in for the position if this is something that they're not interested in in doing.

Mr.

Mayor Council Mercler, I had to ask a question.

When was the last time we hired an external lieutenant that worked out?

We well, we haven't.

Oh, yes, we have.

Uh I think he's now called assistant uh city manager uh Dill was one of our our last uh lateral lieutenants.

Just for the record, I was I was I know, but I'm always gonna be a proponent for wanting to hire within.

You know, Mr.

Mary Council, that that is our goal.

I think the one of the neat things about this training opportunity that the uh chief and his team came up with was to give people a taste of what it's like uh to be in the position.

Um sergeant uh is going from a supervisor to a manager, it's quite a big shift in um responsibilities and attention to different sets of priorities.

So I think it's gonna be exciting.

We'll know more at the end of the second rotation.

When will the second rotation end, Chief?

I believe it's in June, right?

July.

July.

Okay.

Um while I have it in for public record, could we possibly look at other options too in the future that I've shared with you, Ron?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then lastly, I saw your priorities.

Ron knows this because I tell him all the time after I come back from national conferences.

I had the great, you know, I was very fortunate to sit down with Garrett Langley himself, who um is a founder CEO of flop camera.

Couldn't be such a like a more useful tool than that to hear because you always hear the misconception of what is it doing, facial recognition and whatnot, but it is not.

It is a tool to specifically help you guys solve crimes faster in real time.

We even had a business meeting.

I know council member White was at that business meeting where there were several people opposed to it.

But when we're looking at officer safety, and Ron knows this all the time because he tells me it's very expensive, but I want you guys to have DFR.

I had the opportunity to see DFR and how it works as well as Councilmember White.

I think Liz was there too, and it was such an incredible piece to have that I literally text Ron there and I was like, I want this, and he says, ma'am, that's millions of dollars.

And he said no at first, but then I heard that you had some type of meeting and he got to see it, and then he told me that he was willing, he was open to it.

I hugged him.

I said, Thank you, Ron.

Because he was a very stern no, it was right away when I sent him that message.

He goes, Those things cost money, ma'am.

I only want the best for you guys.

I know that a lot of people are against like the camera and the invasion and whatnot, but if it helps you solve crime, like the way we saw that video um with the DFR being deployed to help in a situation where a person committed a crime, they murdered somebody.

It was immediately on them.

They were able to figure it out within 45 minutes, and the car was being tracked.

It was really great to see that.

The AI assessment report, we also heard about that at a conference because they say so much time is taken up with you know, you guys writing reports and whatnot, and also accuracy as well.

So I was super happy to see that.

I know Ron, when he mentioned it, I was like, this is my time.

I'm sorry for all the questions, but I wanted to get it out there, and I appreciate Ron and the staff and you guys for putting this together.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mr.

Chairman, if I can uh clarify, uh we'll prepare the the chief did say we would talk about it at the budget meeting.

Um but it comes with uh some trade-offs.

So for the flock cameras to get up to the number we need, um the chief uh came up with a plan uh using uh RICO funds uh to purchase them and pay for the annual cost for the next couple of years, and then hopefully we'll be able to absorb it into our ongoing budget.

And for the uh FDR, is that what they're called?

The the uh the things in the sky, uh those drone things.

Um we saw the presentation, uh they've made a commitment and and staff uh um mentioned uh that it is uh the ability to reduce call time, in other words, uh reduce FTE without reducing FTE.

And so um while we can't uh you'll see in the budget coming up, we are uh uh do not have excess capacity.

Um we've made a commitment that if we hold one of those vacancies, then he can get two cameras.

Uh I believe it's two cameras with those vacancies.

There's a two drones, sorry, two two drones with those um that vacancies.

Uh we also need a partnership.

We're gonna do an experiment with the Amazon.

So there's some other details that add significant cost, uh, but we believe we have a plan uh to address those.

But we believe we can get started with two drones uh withholding one uh police officer vacancy uh while we uh wait to see when the revenues can support.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that because I know that's one thing that I have you might not know this, but he gets bothered behind the scenes about this because even if it saves one officer's life, the ability to have that and have that deployed in other situations like you talked about, you know, a fight or not really, or maybe having too many resources before it all at once is just there's no dollar.

I mean, obviously for budget reasons there's a dollar value placed on it, but to me that's like super important.

I'm sure it's important to each and every one of us to have something like that up and coming.

I think some of your other surrounding cities already have that in place because I sat next to council member Terry at um when we met Garrett, and he was all ready to go.

He explained their program, how they have it, and I sat there and I said, Garrett, I want what you have.

And I said, and Trey, I said, teach our people that because I want that too.

So thank you guys.

Council Member Voice.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

There's a couple things that stood out.

Um I really do feel like you're moving in the right direction.

And I love the fact that you're leveraging technology.

Um the CIT training, I think that's wonderful.

Um Ken and I were bench watching something this weekend while we were waiting at our hotel.

And I just have to tell you there was somebody on the screen, it was um another police department in another part of the country.

Um, but they encountered somebody with a mental health issue.

And I was kind of saddened by the way they were approaching the person.

So I love the fact that you're gonna work on training for the staff.

Um I went with an officer for a ride along, and she did mention um as a determinant, you know, to deter um crime that they drive around.

And she was that mean that she would she told me that's their goal.

And um, I happened to be in the Fry's like a month later and called um dispatch because there was somebody in the parking lot that was acting suspicious, and as soon as the police um drove in, she walked out and went over across the street into good gear.

So anyway, um the drones, do they do you have the ability to talk through them?

So if you brought one over and there was something going on, would you have the ability to do a siren or anything with it?

Not the DFR, Smaam.

And the reason why is because uh we want to be able to keep them uh as long as we can up in the air.

Okay.

And uh adding a uh speaker, uh anything else would uh weigh them down and it would reduce the amount of time that they're up in the air, it would drain the battery.

Kind of not a problem.

And then the flock cameras, um, they can pick up maybe somebody that's stolen, like a car that's been stolen or reported stolen.

Uh great question for us in Avendale, we don't utilize them that way.

Okay.

Uh in Avengle, we simply utilize them for the purpose of uh in as an investigative tool for our officers or detectives.

We do not use them for to chase cars around or anything like that.

Okay.

I think that was it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Any questions, Council Roy?

Councilmember Condi.

Do you have any questions?

Thank you.

I have a few comments.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um great work.

You guys are just amazing.

I'm always in awe of all the things that you guys do.

Um, but one thing I do want to point out, um, I had not been to tour the communication center since before I got on council.

And I had an opportunity to go see it after the improvements and upgrades, and wow, it was amazing in there.

Those improvements were so needed.

Um, and I really like the separate room so that dispatchers can go so to decompress, especially after a difficult call.

Um, it was nice to see that room.

But um, Chief, I really want to just commend you and thank you because when I was there, a lot of things were said about um the culture that you've created within, of course, this organization, but specifically for the dispatchers that they feel like if they need to talk to you, that you're literally right down the hall.

So just making yourself accessible for them.

Um, I just want to thank you for for doing that.

Thank you.

Um also um it was good to hear because I was curious about the take-home vehicle program.

So by you sharing that it's been a success really makes me happy and know that that was money well spent.

Um and the second thing I really want to thank you is for is having hiring the second forensic interviewer.

Um I know our current interview forensic interviewer sometimes I would see her, and I just thought knew the numbers of people that she was interviewing, and that's really got a pull on someone just to have those that amount of interviewers.

Um and I did have a question um in regards to how do we address mental health calls.

So, say for example, if someone calls in and says that someone's um showing violent or odd behavior, or if someone's suicidal, how do we direct those?

Is there a mental health?

What how do we kind of funnel that?

So we have uh again about uh a third of our patrol staff that is trained, but the other uh the people that are not trained, I think a lot of them understand our culture.

We talk about our culture, you treat people with respect, and I think that goes long ways, whether you're dealing with uh a person that is going through having a a rough day, or you're dealing with somebody that has a mental uh uh health issue.

So um again, one third is trained, but I believe that the rest of them they just are being human beings and they're able to uh communicate uh with with our uh community now.

When an officer that is not trained as a CIT officer responds to a call for service, they'll put it over the radio, and and somebody that is trained will respond to a system.

So uh again, our goal, and we're confident that we're gonna be able to host a class this year, that that is one of our priorities, that would be huge because instead of being able to you know train five percent of our patrol staff, we would make it uh probably a hundred percent of our patrol staff.

We would make it work one way or another to be able to certify to everybody.

Thank you.

And then are we um fully staffed in for dispatchers?

No, ma'am, we are not.

Um and we're working uh towards that.

That's the idea behind having the full-time uh recruiter to increase our pool of candidates, uh, not only for Swan, but for keep sessions such as the uh the dispatchers.

What is the length of training for the dispatchers?

It is about I believe it's four to six months.

I I believe it's I'll have to get back to you.

I at one point it was six months, and I know we were trying to reduce the uh the uh number of uh weeks in training, but it's between four and uh six months.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Garcia.

Thank you so much for this presentation.

Um I also want to commend everything you guys have done.

It's it's amazing to see in our city.

And a lot of the things that I heard.

So I know as a former officer, a lot of the a lot of what I experience is people want to be in a safe community, and that comes with advanced technology that people don't like nowadays, but that is how we keep the community safe.

So just like the flock cameras, just like the AI um transcript, just like the drones, people might not like them, and I I understand their concerns, but I think that mostly um they have a misconception and uneducated on the topic because I know I've asked so many questions about I asked about the flock camera probably like 10 times already, but because I I read what other people are saying and talking about and knowing that people don't understand about it, maybe we could just educate the community on what exactly we use it for because I know I've read in other cities that people are requesting their personal like records for the flock camera, and we don't have personal records for the flock camera, and I don't think they understand that we're not keeping that information, and it is used only for investigative investigation.

So my request is just educating the community if we do approve it to ensure that they feel safe and they know that we're not um what is the I lost the word my concentration.

We're not um in their privacy or whatever, we're not following them, we're not taking note of what every time they go to Fry's or every time they go to somewhere.

Um, and then also with the training for uh responding to people with disabilities and stuff, I think it's amazing, and I also understand that um you don't know who you're speaking to at the moment, and sometimes things happen so fast that you have to respond without knowing if that person is disabled.

So I want to just commend all of your officers, regardless if they have the training or not, to know that we still support them and that we know that that is a difficult decision to make, especially if the person becomes violent or the person is just not on their medication or they're under the influence.

I know that I've responded to somebody that um had diabetes and I thought they were under the influence of alcohol, and once the paramedics came because they ended up passing out, we found out that they were low on sugar and not drunk.

So these are the things that I know that um a lot of people don't understand, but I want you guys to know that I I totally support you guys in everything that you guys do.

And I definitely want to go do a training with you guys in the new building clearing training.

So if you guys ever want to let me in, um, I do like that training.

It's probably one of my favorites.

Um, but I just want to thank you guys so much for this presentation and that you guys are supported by us.

Um I support you guys 100%, and anything you need to ensure that this community is safe, I I want to support it.

Thank you, ma'am.

Councilmember Roy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Um I appreciate the presentation, gentlemen.

Thank you for the time that you put in.

Can you go to the next slide for me in the presentation?

Um, and then one more ahead.

Okay.

And then I think you have goals for this year.

I think we were mostly referring to the goals.

Um this is the priority.

So when we take a look at the the priorities here, I just I think it's it's it's all innovation.

I think it's it's it's all innovation.

And I think what we um lack in in people power, uh, because my background is HR, um, we can get an innovation.

And and so my HR background is from banking.

So I've been under surveillance for at least 20 years of my life, right?

Um people monitoring my goings and comings, me being on camera at work doing my job, uh, me watching people on camera doing their job with a lot of money.

Um and so I think that as you continue to normalize the fact that there is an element of surveillance that we all have to become comfortable with in society, it just keeps us honest.

You know, if I'm not breaking the law, I don't worry about you surveilling me.

So I've never worried about people watching my bank transactions or watching me for that matter, um, because what I'm doing is probably lawful.

And if it's not, I know you will stop me.

And so I think that that kind of confidence that we have in our law enforcement here in Avondale allows for more innovative space.

I just want to challenge you with all of the things that we're going to do to find one additional way to protect each body on our police force.

So, what additional thing can we do to make sure our officers are less likely to get hit when they're pulling somebody over, less likely to have to um engage with an active shooter if they have to confront one.

Anything we can do to keep our bodies, our human bodies on on AVPD out of harm's way is really my top priority for you.

And so all of these things kind of add to that.

But then also as we serve at a national level, and I think about us getting a safe Streets for All grant.

That grant is actually being used by engineering.

So you partnering with other departments throughout the city is vital for us to do that.

So my commitment to you and to the rest of council is that as we go to National League of Cities and as I continue to have the opportunity to serve, I'm gonna try and find additional money to bring back home.

Um and to help the federal government see that we are doing right by our residents, our staff, our team here on this day as and we want to do right by you all as well to get you all as much support, whether that's engineering support, whether that's um support with additional technology, additional bodies.

And and we also I know that um Councilmember Solorio talked about meeting, I guess one of the founders of Flock.

I'm very sensitive to the fact that I think we have also talked to other business owners in um law enforcement, and so as they prov present innovation to us, we want to share that with you.

But I'm so confident that you know what Avondale needs to hear that you went to Scottsdale and they might have learned something from you there.

That's really impressive because I know that you take in everything like a sponge.

So um continue with the innovation, continue to put our sworn and unsworn people first in in PD and public safety, and I think that we'll make it better for all residents in Avondale.

And I think we actually have to make a plea to our residents to stop hurting each other.

I mean, we actually just have to ask the thing.

Um we have to stop hurting each other.

So if the majority of crimes that we are confronted with every day are people on people crimes, and we are doing this at home, right?

We actually have to find a campaign to say, hey, that's not cool.

Let's stop that.

Like that's not a thing.

Um and so um being somebody who um grew up in a very diverse household, multi-generations living in the same household.

I think keeping you know, multiple generations in the households kind of add some of that.

Hey, that's not good.

You know, Nana wouldn't like to see you do that, but that's not every household here.

So uh let's try and find an innovative way to ask people to just stop and be kind at home.

Um that you know, charity begins at home.

So I think that's that's one of the things that you know it doesn't feel like innovation, but being kind at home is uh huge and innovative, and and we take that to the streets as well.

So thank you for all the hard work.

Thank you for putting your lives on the line each and every day to protect us in what we call home here in Avendale.

I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Mr.

Mayor, if I can to add one clarifying, we didn't have it on the list, but I believe this year we increased uh the uh reimbursement for additional armor.

I believe we added uh plates that people could we increased uh the money they could spend to upgrade their uh life vest.

That is correct, and that that is a huge uh benefit for us here in Avondale.

Uh you know, historically you get uh a stipend, and you know, if you wanted to upgrade your vest to a better vest or something that that is lighter, it would cost uh officers money out of their pockets.

However, with uh the new uh amount that we get, we're able to cover the the best uh vest out there possible.

So and the funding, Mr.

Corbin, where did that come from, sir?

Uh we budgeted that last year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Member Nielsen?

No, I just want to thank you all for your vision, your innovation, and your desire to make your guys safe in the city of Avondale safe.

The only other thing I want to say on a lighter side is I don't want to be with Councilmember Garcia when you go in that room where the walls are all moving.

I have a hard time going into Costco and fighting my place and went around there.

So I'm good at it.

I'm sure so that everyone's above me.

Thank you again for all you do.

Appreciate it.

First, let me thank you both for the update.

As you I don't want to regurgitate a lot of what's been set up here.

Some of the things that I wanted to share have already been shared, so there's no sense in going through that, other than just to um just share my my gratitude to the fact that you guys are so I say you guys because chief, you know, this is your department, but more importantly, your team are are just so innovative, whether it's doing the research, identifying opportunities, whether it's working with other agencies, whether it's utilizing technology, I mean, you've you have it's it's here, it's listed before us, and while there might be other places around the country who are adopting some of the software, it's top of mind for yourselves.

And so for us as council members and part of this body, it's nice to know that you're working ahead to be able to provide information to us on some of these capabilities and and uh innovative technologies, which is really what what I heard in a lot of the programming was to transition to a lot of technology.

Uh read a report and sure many people in this room also did too in regards to how AI is replacing uh you know individuals at work.

And while that may not occur here, I just think it's it's funny to learn that even report writing is changing as a result.

What I would and this is just a comment, not a question.

What I'd like to see at some point is kind of what are the uh the prompts that officers will use as part of this report writing to gain the the insight of the proper technique.

Um and again, that's not a question, just more of a comment um as I think about that.

But thank you so much for what you do.

I've had many conversations with folks living in Alamar and South, south of that, who have talked a lot about the river bottom.

They appreciate the fact that uh a lot of what was happening down there has um has over time dissipated.

It's not removed yet, which is what ultimately the goal will be.

But even with the the uh the grants that allowed for uh more um of our services down there with the UTVs and being able for those capabilities to to occur as well, is just again just being innovative and creative, and I thank you uh for all of the members of your team for thinking in that way and and being responsive and in most cases proactive to the community.

So did you did you have anything to say?

Sir, if it thank you.

And if I can just let you know what uh our philosophy is at the PD, it's all about about our end users.

They're the ones that are meaning our officers are sergeants, they're out uh in the community.

So one of the things that we do, we're not very tech savvy.

I don't want to throw Al under the bus, but uh we're that's our reality.

He doesn't mind so we expect our staff to bring uh technologies and ideas to us, and we do so by a program that we implemented a couple years ago is the change initiative.

So any member of the PD at any level, uh whether sworn or not, they can submit a change initiative request.

It could be uh change uh of policy, it could be uh uh for us to look at a new type of technology, and it comes directly to us so that we can explore that and uh and assign somebody that is more tech savvy than us to uh look at that technology and uh put it out to uh to our staff.

So thank you.

Well, maybe there'll be a trade-off, right?

The young some of the young officers are looking towards leadership positions, are learning from those who have more tenure, and those that have more tenure, including yourselves, learn from maybe from those who are exposed to newer technology, so it could be a great trade-off.

Nonetheless, thank you so much for the update.

We really appreciate it and um and thank you for being here.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next item is adjournment.

Or sorry, come summary of current events.

Are there any members of council that wish to share any information?

Okay, well, Councilmember White.

Yeah, thank you so much, Mayor.

On um this past Friday, I had the opportunity to um go to um a black history rock show at Arizona State University featuring Avondale's own show the flow, um, which is my son.

So um that was really amazing.

I got a chance to go see an Avondale artist actually performing at Arizona State University.

And then I also had the opportunity to hang out at Trace Reels on Saturday and Sunday.

I saw Vice Mayor Nielsen and Councilmember Solorio on Saturday, but just had a really amazing time being out in the community.

Stop by a marketplace on Saturday afternoon at Friendship Park.

But I just want to thank Parks and Rec, Corey, Stacy, the entire team.

The Trace Reels area is so beautiful.

It's so amazing.

I don't think any, I mean, we've gone from years where it's cold and rainy and it feels like it's gonna snow down there to this past weekend.

I was pretty sure that the devil was standing next to me.

So it was just that hot.

Um so thank you very much for all that you all do, and thanks to all the staff and folks that were out there this weekend, making it a beautiful place for all of our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to say that we were all at the um shovel today.

Um, the kickoff for um Donatella Park, and I am so excited that it will be all inclusive to um meet the needs of all of our residents, whatever their abilities.

I just love it.

Thank you for all you guys do.

Well, I was joined by council uh last week, and obviously you guys were there, but it was a pleasure to uh be a part of the new uh Fry's marketplace uh and development that'll be happening down there.

So exciting.

Jen and the team, thank you so much for all that you do to make those things come to fruition and staff who is also part of the process as well, everything that you guys do.

Um but at the end of the day, residents are just so happy, happy that that it's there.

And then on Saturday, it was a pleasure to participate in the 25th anniversary of Avondale Little League in their opening ceremonies.

And uh I said it before, and I'll say it again that John Purrell, uh the president of Avondale Little League has done a tremendous job, shared with me that they went from about 200, 150 to 200 players to over 500.

But more impressively, the number of little ones, like maybe six and up, six to let's say nine, uh, was tremendous, which means that for years to come, Avondale Little League will continue to be successful, and uh considering just how competitive youth sports are, the fact that they're continuing to grow is really impressive.

So uh, and also uh I will share um that um as part of the the ceremony that one of the uh former board members of Avondale Little League, who was also a coach, was also a parent, and who was also an umpire, passed away last year.

His name was Chris, and John um had a little plaque dedicated to him that he was going to put on the gate, and he said that he was gonna leave it there until the city took it down.

So I'm hoping that that does not happen and we can find a way to make that work.

I know this is not the uh the intent of the summary, but I just wanted to say that out loud.

Um uh more conversation, I'm sure later.

Uh, but nonetheless, uh thank you, John, for what you do for having a little leak.

I'll go with my told later.

Just kidding, Corey.

With that said, if there's no other uh events to post, if I can get a motion, got a motion from councilmember white with a second from councilmember Garcia.

Can we please vote?

Adjournment.

Unanimously passes.

Everybody have a good night, drive safe, and thank you for what you do for Avondale.