The Bullhead City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, at 1:00 PM in the City Council Chambers, followed by an executive session. No legal action was taken during the open meeting. The meeting featured two discussion items: annual funding for The Legacy Foundation Christine Stamper Center for Help & Hope (operated by Catholic Charities) and proposed increases to city water and sewer rates along with new discount programs. The council heard presentations, asked questions, and received public comment.
1. Catholic Charities – Center for Help & Hope Funding
Catholic Charities presented on the shelter’s operations and financial needs. Key points:
2. Proposed Water & Sewer Rate Increases and Discount Programs
Staff from the Utilities and Finance departments presented proposed rate increases:
Good afternoon. This is Tuesday, June 3rd at 2025. It's one PM. We're here for a special meeting, actually, two special meetings uh back to back, followed by an executive session. I'm calling this meeting to order. Could I get a roll call, please? All council members are present. Thank you. All right, Toby, would you like to lead? Yeah, good afternoon, Mary Domingo Council members, good afternoon. Uh this afternoon we're gonna spend exactly one hour. We do have a hard stop at two o'clock for our next agenda item. So we've asked Catholic charities to come and give a presentation, allowing us plenty of time for council discussion and input from the public uh within that hour. So we'll be we'll be precise but also give ourselves an hour to talk about the issues that came up during our our budget meeting. And so uh Jeff is gonna introduce the item and talk a little bit about that, but um I mean we're all aware of the conversations that we all had together at the council meeting. Um we all are aware of the issues of homelessness in our community and how we're addressing those issues. And so today really it's sort of a focal point though of the funding for Catholic charities at the center. It's not really about anything that happens at the park or on a bus or at a veteran's court. It this conversation is not that. Th those conversations certainly will happen, and in fact, Garn and I are looking at other ordinances and things right now to address issues within our parks and within our community. But that's not this. Uh the team from Catholic charities, and they have a PowerPoint they're gonna cover. Um, but we have Olivia McCormick, who's the board chair, uh Paul Mulligan, who's the president and CEO. Um, Kathy Peterson, executive director for Northern Arizona. We have Sandy Flores, who's Northern Arizona Senior Program Manager, Rebecca Vaughn, who's the community uh relations coordinator, and then we have some local um team members, Carrie Lynn and Danielle. So with that, I'll turn it over to Catholic charities. Kathy Peterson. I want to start by saying that we're very grateful for the funding and the support you have provided over the years. We're here today specifically to talk about the legacy foundation, Christine Stamper Center for Help and Hope. It's a lot at the mouthful of words. Uh we provide fifty-seven beds of emergency shelter, forty beds for individual men and women, eight beds for veterans. We call that our freedom wing. And then we have a separate secure area for to house up to three families. We um provide hot meals. We have Chef John and we call Chef John and his army of volunteers. We couldn't run our center without our volunteers. But usually we serve a continental breakfast, a hot lunch, and a hot dinner. And anyone is welcome. If you're hungry, you don't have to be sheltering there to receive a hot meal. If you're hungry, we welcome you to come and share a meal with us. We also have seating inside and on the back porch. On the back porch, when it gets really hot, it becomes a cooling station. We have mysti misters that go on out there. And then also in the back porch, we have kennels. So people we can keep their animals in there. We give them water, of course, and food for their pets because they consider their pets their family. We have a laundry room, we have showers, we have a group of computers and Wi-Fi that our guests can access. And uh we're unusual in terms of most shelters. We're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that's pretty rare. So thank you for your time.