Good afternoon.

Today is Tuesday, February 17th, 2026.

It is 3:30 PM, and we'll call this work session an executive session of the Bullhead City Council to order.

Can have a roll call.

Council members are present.

Thank you.

Item one.

Are you gonna read item one, Debbie, or do you want to just hop right into it?

I whatever you want to do, Toby.

We can hop right into it.

You got it.

All right.

Sounds good.

Our first item this afternoon council is to talk about the transfer of the land donated to the city as part of the Black Mountain Range uh project.

So Travis put together a heck of a packet.

I'm sure you've all had a chance to read it.

But today what we need to do is try to bring that whole process to a conclusion.

So we're looking for your advice and what you'd hope to see be brought back at a future meeting.

And so I'll turn it over to Travis, and then I'll probably have a few things uh and questions to ask uh the council after Travis's presentation.

Thank you, Toby.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council.

Um the item before you tonight, or for discussion, um, so we wanted to give you some background and information on, as Toby explained, a land transfer that we've been working on for some time now.

So this this transfer actually dates back all the way, uh I believe it's 2019, if I'm correct.

Um so we're upwards of uh I believe or since the actual signing of the agreement we're six years into this.

Um so the uh just for background purposes, this the state uh or I'm sorry, the federal government has this general kind of uh process that they uh go through whenever you are looking to have land transferred to the city coffers.

Um you can't just go and ask for the land and say, give me this piece of land out here.

If we do identify land, we think it uh uh we would like to have it.

We can work through a legislative process to have the land transferred, and typically really the basis of the transfer is you give them land they give you land of you of equal value.

So that's how where we're at uh in this process.

Um so there's some land that we had acquired.

Um and um the city manager probably can give you a better history on how we actually got this land, but I believe it came from the Laughlin family, transferred over to the city, and then um we identified the land down by community park, as you'll see in your packet as a potential land transfer.

So the land by community park is owned by the federal government, and we're um thinking um the option is to transfer the land, the black mountain land over.

Um so in throughout the whole process, the the uh federal government, they have a a um um appraiser come in, look at the land values, give you uh direct values, and then again, as I said, you build a process where you swap equal value of land.

It's a several acres of land, a lot of land.

It doesn't have the same value that it has for a l uh the land that uh we're looking at right on the highway.

In most cases, the idea is that you're trading land that may not have the development potential as the new land.

So in this case, um, as you see in the appraisal, the appraiser believes that this is more the land by community park is more developable.

Um so as Toby stated, we've gone through the process and really we're at kind of the final decision making process where okay, do we take the final step and move forward and initiate the transfer?

So we just want to educate you all and get input and thoughts about where we're at on this product on that.

Again, this isn't a this is surely a workshop.

We're not here to finalize a decision, could be a decision that comes back later at a future meeting, but this is just a workshop at this time.

Um so I think you have most of the details in your packet.

So I won't go on a lot about beyond that, but I am here.

If you have any questions, anything that doesn't that you need clarified, I'm here to answer any questions.

And Travis is right, the land and buildings were donated by Don Laughlin.

In fact, in 2015, we had to wait five years under that agreement for a basically a tax write-off by the by Mr.

Laughlin and uh their business.

So ultimately, we waited until 2020 to start that process, and uh the land exchange was approved, and we thought you know this would go great, and the federal government would be gung-ho to get these things done, and they're they're slow, they're super slow.

So we're finally at least to a point where we can have this discussion today so that we can move forward.

So I think the options in front of us are a few.

Um probably the preferred option would be to do the exchange.

So it's 1,100 acres up on the top of the Black Mountains that you really can't get to.

It could be sold if we didn't do this uh to a rancher or someone just looking to build a land holding up on the top of the mountains.

Uh we could do that independently and never look back.

Now, the benefit of doing the land swap would be that we would actually own half acre to an acre when it's all said and done of land and community park.

So right now we lease it all through the public purpose leases, which are restrictive, right?

So it's as if we own it, but we can't turn around and sell it, we can't turn around and put a Starbucks on it.

We can't even put a building and outsource the concessions, right?

So when people say, hey, the bell, why don't you outsource the the concession there?

We can't.