They're gonna go over there and speak.

Good evening.

Welcome to tonight's Eloy City Council meeting.

It is Monday, November 27th, 2023.

The time is approximately 6.07.

I call this meeting to order.

Mayor, can I get a roll call, please?

Councilmember Sutton.

Here.

Councilmember Curtis.

And for the record, Councilmember Curse Curtis is participating via phone.

Here.

Mayor Powell.

Here.

Councilmember Snyder.

Here.

Councilmember Garcia.

Present.

Councilmember Tarango.

Here.

Thank you.

Next, if we can all stand for the moment of silence, and then we'll have Vice Mayor Rodriguez do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Congratulations to the flag in the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands under God.

Thank you.

Public appearance.

Anybody?

I don't see a whole lot of public here.

Anyone on start with my right side?

Anybody have anything they want to talk about announce?

Yes, Mayor.

Myself, uh Vice Mayor Rodriguez and Councilmember Schneider were privileged enough to go to Atlanta to the uh National League of Cities Conference.

It was an extremely well-organized conference, and I think we all got a lot out of it in the long run.

The peer-to-peer sessions were fantastic.

The uh the whole setup was good, and uh Atlanta was a good city.

The uh one of the best parts about it was the fact it was paid for about 60 percent by others, not by Eloy or us.

So that worked out kind of well too.

All right.

Thank you.

Did you guys want to add to that, Jose?

Or well, I like to get Councilmember Snyder's point of view since he was there.

It was great.

I know it's gonna be the white hair that confused you.

It was a really good session, a lot of information there to cover several different items, including homelessness, gun safety, and just response to quite a few things, including even the small city gathering where we had to share information with others.

Very informative and got to find that many of the communities are size are facing the same issues we are.

Okay.

Did you want to add to it?

Um, I loved it.

They had mobile um mobile workshop tours um this time around so that you can get a hands-on uh perspective and learn, you know, in a different media.

You get to be there in person.

So I really enjoyed that about this training.

All right.

Anybody on this side have any questions, comments, announcements?

No, I'd like to ask the question of the three.

So what are you going to do personally as a result of being there?

So we put together a presentation and have submitted it already to the uh city manager and the mayor for review, so that way we can um maybe later discuss his our plans.

So you don't have any you want to share now.

Uh it's not our uh though they just talked about what they thought they did.

But they they're gonna have a presentation later on.

So I guess I can look forward to an agenda session and where we're gonna have the review.

Yep.

Okay, look forward to it.

Yep.

Uh I attended uh along with uh our uh vice uh city manager, assistant city manager, yeah.

Uh attended the panel partnership last Friday.

And our uh city manager was a uh panelist and did a city proud talking about uh what was happening in Eloy and joined other city managers from the valley.

And I think uh each of them talked about uh what was the hot item and I think everybody was talking about the same thing and needed more money to do things.

They all had a lot of good plans.

And it was kind of uh nice seeing all the city managers sit together and kind of enjoy each other's company and uh kind of uh you get the feeling of working together to make things happen.

So I think uh our city manager did as proud by his participation.

Good.

Jose anything?

All right, thank you.

Uh my announcements uh nothing really too much.

I hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving.

Um David, you're up.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor, members of council, just a couple of things on my announcement for today.

Um the big news is on December 9th, we've got our tree lighting and electric light parade event happening.

So that starts at four, goes to 9 p.m.

The tree will be lit at 645, and we do have a float in the parade for council members.

So Mary got a lot of candy, right?

A lot of candy.

So we shouldn't run out this time.

Everything everybody's gonna be happy.

So look forward to doing that on December 9th with uh council and members of the public.

It's always a great event for us.

We also um our public works director, Mr.

Rentcher informed us today that all of the solar LED stop sign lights have come in.

And that crews were working today to install them at our problem intersection, Bataglia and 11 mile corner road.

So by the end of today, I'm getting a nod yes.

We have new LED stop lights, so there should be no reason when anybody who's running those that intersection.

Not everybody's gonna be lit up.

We got that intersection lit up with solar LED, and then we've got the other um uh it intersection right there at Bataglia and Frontier also with a lit up light LED stop sign.

So we've got that lit up.

Sorry for the pun like a Christmas tree over there.

Oh, I got nothing from you guys.

Uh moving on.

Uh Reese Across America is also happening this month, uh December 16th at 10 a.m.

in the city cemetery.

It's sponsored by our Pennell Hispanic Council.

So please join them if you're interested in showing up to do that event.

Uh we also on December 7th, that's a Thursday.

We are celebrating our employee appreciation event that we do every year.

We're having it at Ropes and Ranch.

It's gonna be a lunch event just like last year.

Uh everybody was happy with the format, how it all went, so we'll be closing city offices at noon that day so that city employees can participate in that event, have a good lunch, tell some good stories, do some appreciation time for our years of service awards as well.

So again, uh we'll be closed that afternoon, December 7th from noon to the rest of the day and reopening on Friday.

And my last update is we are moving forward very, very well with our pedestrian hybrid beacon at the corner of Main Street and Frontier.

The crews are working very hard on that.

Falcone Brothers.

Uh, we've got a couple of change orders that have come in that we're approving as with any construction project.

There's just unseen uh conditions that lie underneath the ground.

So as things have been pulled up and moved around, we've found some different issues we've had to address.

Nothing that's been outside the budget.

Um that we didn't try to anticipate.

Matt and his uh I'm sorry, the public works director Matt Renscher and Mr.

Rafuccio are working hard at addressing that with the construction crews, keeping costs down.

So we're happy that that's moving along and should have that done in the next month or two.

Yep.

Okay.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Member.

Thank you, everyone's too David.

I I get quite a few questions from people in the public asking about the water tower.

Is there anything any updates you can give us uh you can share with uh people in the community because they see it's been done a while and you keep saying there's things, but just anything you can share?

Absolutely.

I'll kick this over to our illustrious assistant city manager who's managing that project for us.

Uh sorry for cutting you off there early, Dave.

But um, yeah, so we actually just started a work order with APS, and so we should be hearing back from our project manager, hopefully by the end of this week and starting that process.

And so that's gonna take roughly three to four months to move that pole to the south side against the wall, and then once that's kind of initiated, we're gonna go with repairing the lights on the water tower.

Okay, could you share with the public uh you know, people probably aren't aware of what the process is or what the problem is or what you're trying to what the fix is, but I guess that's kind of maybe you can share some of that.

Yeah, so essentially with the lights on the water tower, it's not as simple as just replacing bulbs or anything of that nature.

It's because it's a synchronized lighting system that we have to get a professional lighting professional from the uh what's it called?

Um HLC, the company that's gonna come and repair the lights, and because they're synchronized, uh it's it's very specialized work, and so essentially once we move the APS pole, they're gonna be able to come in and replace those lights.

Uh the current problem with it is with that APS poll being there, it makes it incredibly difficult to have repairs on the facility because it we have to shut off the power and everything for anyone to go up on the lift to work on the lights.

So by being able to do this, we're gonna be able to effectively work on that tower more effectively.

Thank you.

That helps because I think there's a lot of speculation, the community what's going on, but just knowledge is uh a good thing sometimes.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Next, we're gonna go to consent agenda.

Items all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be a routine matter and be enacted by one motion and one roll call vote of the council.

There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless the council members still request in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considering its normal sequence on the agenda.

So we have the four items items A, B, C and D.

Um, anybody want to discuss any of these?

I do no go ahead.

Yeah.

Uh well, I'm confused.

I think I'm gonna remove item C because it says discussion and possible actions, so I'm confused why it's in the consent agenda.

And then uh item D, I'd like to remove that as well.

Yeah, okay.

So um, so we have two items now.

Items A and B.

So do I have a motion to approve items A and B?

So moved.

Do I hire a second?

All in favor, say aye.

Oh, we ought to do roll call.

Sorry.

Councilmember Seton?

Yes.

Councilmember Curtis.

Yeah.

Vice Mayor Wanavatha Rodriguez.

Yes, Mayor Powell?

Yes.

Councilmember Schneider?

Yes.

Councilmember Garcia?

Yes.

Councilmember Tarango.

Yes.

Motion pass unanimously, Mayor.

Uh go ahead, Dan.

Item C.

No, I'm just uh would turn this over.

It says discussion and possible action.

So I'm guess I'm confused of what uh discussion is and is this a proposal of action or just what this is.

So I'd like to have uh explanation, I guess.

Yeah, I think councilmember.

Mayor.

Okay.

Mayor, I have a question about C that maybe can get covered too.

Okay.

I I just wanted to.

I I know that it says that you know this this um possible action within the budget.

I just wanted to get um the city manager or Brian to just remind us of the backstory of it.

Okay.

So Dan and Sarah, Dan is there have the same question.

So go ahead.

Yeah, sure.

Uh okay, so to address the discussion possible action, that's a mistake.

Who was originally on business and then then got moved to consent because it was something we've done for now the second year and just missed the language interpretation.

So this this is just an approval, no business in discussion.

But then to answer Sarah's question, the backstory of why we're doing it, is this started last year when we were looking at the COLA increases and justifying a 4%, 5% or 6%.

Um the budget only allowed us to put in the 4%, but we had enough to budget for 5%.

Uh as a way to basically show appreciation and in good faith towards our employees.

The five the extra one percent of the budget was allocated to award a $500 bonus check.

So we factored in what it would cost to give every city employee a $500 bonus check.

And depending on withholdings and whatnot within each individual's pay salary, will depend whether they get the 500 a little more, a little less.

What uh police will actually get a little more because of PSRS and whatnot.

But this is a way just to um not do a one percent, but also just give a bump to everybody during this time of year from council to show that appreciation for what the employees are doing.

Um, in the lower scale employees, it provides them almost a paycheck worth.

Um, and then the higher level employees, it's it's not there, but it gives a you know, it's it's across the board, fair equity to all the employees from council to show that appreciation as part of the pay increases in the adoption of the annual budget.

Uh one of the questions I have, and I guess maybe I was aware of the last uh several years we've done something similar to this like this, but one of the things that's surprised me, or I just I had a question of is the individuals impacted.

Uh I read this, and it's for council approved appointed positions.

What is that?

Council.

Are they on contracts?

Are they are they sell are they part of the city?

Or just I'm confused of have we done that in the past?

Is that new?

Yeah, and also uh part-time employees.

Is that employees as of a certain date?

Someone who just joined within uh last month, are they eligible as opposed to someone who's been here all year?

Uh and contracted employee, what who's the what kind of contracted employee we talking about?

And there was if someone's under contract in the city, are they considered a an employee to get this step is also I'm just I'm confused of some of the definition of who qualifies who doesn't.

Certainly.

So kind of take that in chunks.

Let me get I'm pulling it up on my computer so I can go through each of that.

The contract employees are well, let's start with the council appointed employees.

So those would be myself, um, the city clerk Mary Myers, our city attorney, Steve Cooper, and Judge Valdez, the city judge.

So in last year we didn't include those in the coax, so we had to come back and redo that.

So this year what we did is we put that into the one coax so it's one fluid approval process at that point and can be included in all of that.

So that was last year was two separate.

This year we put it in the one.

The contract employees came up because we do have two employees that have been previous employees of ours that have been contracted in.

So we wanted to include them as part of it too, because they're basically here working uh part-time almost full-time status.

That's John Blaming, our commute our previous community development director who's on an ESI contract, and Jeff Ehrman, who's our economic development specialist as well.

Um last year that was excluded, and there was questions as to why when we only have one, maybe two of those employees that are like that.

So this year we made the decision, let's put them in.

They they've provided a service like all the other employees, they're getting paid out of the you know, they just rolled into a contract status, then holding a part-time or full-time status with the city.

So I guess my question has to do then when it comes to those cut those uh council appointed positions when we do annual reviews and we look at the um I guess money that the salaries you want to call it that.

We've always taken into account what the cost of living and some of these different things are.

So now I think we need to think about when we do those negotiations or whatever, that there are bonuses being paid along the way that have not been included in the past.

So I just it's a question I have that is kind of changing uh precedent of what we've done in the past on the those uh positions.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I think it's something that we can once we go through the contract negotiations with each one that we can look at doing and incorporating.

I know with my recent evaluation, we had talked about adding language like that into the contract so it's more clear.

So yeah, with like Steve's and Mary's and mine and the judges, we can incorporate those as those hit those milestones.

So if I'm not mistaken, when we do discuss contracts, sometimes the majority of the time we do the equivalent of what the city has given their employees.

Correct.

So that one percent that they guess what you're saying is they're getting an additional one percent on top of that.

Potentially, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly right, Mayor.

I'm saying is if we're going to start doing this now, we need to think about that.

Come the contract negotiation time, if you call it negotiation, yeah, because they've already been given that increase that we would normally include in.

And so we it needs to be included in the contract, so there's no misunderstanding of what they're entitled to, not entitled to, so forth.

And so that that's the point I was trying to make.

Okay.

Go ahead, Steve.

Uh Mayor, Council members.

I just wanted to let you know that um I've been coming to your council meetings for 18 years now, and no we I've never gotten a Christmas bonus because I'm not full-time and I'm contract employee.

And so it's been ball humbug for 18 years.

And if you were to give me one, I had to discuss with my partner why she didn't get one.

So please, you know, don't figure us in there.

Brian, Brian, correct me if I'm wrong, we've we've never gotten one, and I don't I don't think it was ever the intent of the council that we would get one.

This council or prior councils.

Well, thank you for saving us money then.

Um that's fine.

I mean, we can I mean it's it's new this year, I suppose.

Anybody else have any comments, thoughts on you have any uh comments on this?

Um I just wondered if it was sort of the intention that um because we had this in the consent agenda, if this is gonna be an ongoing thing from year to year, or if it was um this is still kind of a one time thing to kind of cover the cost of inflation that's kind of been enrampant in the last couple of years.

What what the intention is behind it?

I think the intent was everybody gets the four percent up front and then more of a one percent as a bonus for the Christmas time.

So it it equivalents to the five percent overall, if I'm not mistaken, Brian, that somehow we do something like that.

So we we budgeted five percent, and then in July they get four percent and then one percent.

That's that's go ahead, Sarah.

Oh, okay.

I was gonna say, but I are I I remember that.

I remember our cola being four percent, but their talk of it bumping up to five percent because of the you know, status of the economy and inflation.

Um, but are we saying that five percent is now a normal cola to be potentially awarded as a bonus, or is it just still kind of a a one time we're normally doing four percent and the extra one percent is like you know, basically for this year and last year?

Yeah, it's pretty much year to year.

To my knuckle, there's been times where we've done only four percent across the board.

So this is just a year to year um, I guess you could say, or yeah, that that's correct, Mayor.

And and Sarah, a council member.

Um we'll evaluate that during the budget, just like we have every year.

So we'll what um Brian, our finance director does is he works out that scenario when we go to approach council members and go over the budget of what a four percent looks like, what a five, six, etc.

And we've just historically always factored in that extra one percent in there.

It's all it's year by year and determined by council.

The reason that we moved it up to the consent agenda rather than having it on a business item was because it was already approved at the as part of the budget.

So when council approved the budget, they approved this increase, and we just put it there as consent.

Uh yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay, gotcha.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah, my only qu qualm with that is I don't recall ever having discussion of how that money was distributed.

I mean, we talked about 5%, 4% putting the money in there, but there was never a discussion to my mind, or to my knowledge, of uh part-time employees, contract employees, uh uh appointed positions that discussion never occurred.

So that that's what was new here and what why I wanted to have a little bit of discussion so I fully understood because when we talk of budget about maybe a four percent COA plus a one percent maybe cost of living and uh uh one percent merit or whatever come the first now, were we really talking about the contract employees?

We were talking about the appointed, because it seems to me we weren't doing that, we've never done it in the past.

So that kind of got slipped in here, and that's where the the questions are coming from.

I think the only thing that was different this year is the part-time contract employees.

We've done it with everybody else.

Not with our appointed Steve's never got it.

Mary, didn't you get it last year?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

We had to come back separately.

Yeah, and came back and did it separately.

It wasn't on the same thing.

But the ones that are different this year are the two part-time contract.

Yeah, but everybody else has it's been fair game across the board.

Okay.

Yeah, I I just want to be sure that going forward there's a an understanding of exactly who's included, not include.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll add that to our notes for the budget so that when we talk about it, we we got that marked on and can delineate that better in the uh explanation.

Absolutely.

All right.

Any other questions or comments?

No.

All right.

Do I hear a motion to approve or move forward with item C.

So moved.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Before we start the rule claw, do we have a problem with uh conflict of interest?

Is it you and uh Sylvia?

I was told last time if it affects everybody, then there's no confidence.

I'm just asking just asking.

I mean, I can I can I'm just I'm just asking.

Oh, I I understand.

I got you.

Mayor, council members, it's sad when you have the Arizona revised statutes on your phone as the go-to item on here.

Um the conflict of interest statutes have some definitions in ARS revised section 38 502.

Basically, it talks about uh is a general general rule what talks about whether there's a a substantial uh direct conflict of interest or basically an indirect one.

Generally, if a spouse or or a family member is part of a as part of as as related to a council member, there is the possibility of having that to be a substantial conflict of interest.

However, they basically define specifically what is called remote interests, which are not conflicts of interest, and they have several exceptions.

And when you go down there, there's quite a few on there, it says that that a member of a trade, business occupation, profession, or class of persons.

In this case, the term is class of persons consisting of at least 10 members, which is no greater than the interest of other members of that trade, business profession, or class of persons.

That is the mayor had pointed out, that's usually an exception to that.

That's the conflict of interest.

However, a council member certainly is free to refrain from participating in the matter if there is a relative involved, but technically, because of that class interest statute that they added a few years ago, it removes from the substantial conflict of interest to a remote conflict of interest, which is not considered part of the conflict of interest laws under the state of Arizona.

Now, if we were doing it just for her department, that's one thing, or their department, because it's under 10.

But we're doing it for the whole the city employees, therefore it does not make it a conflict of interest.

And I guess if it if it was just for the part-timers or just for the council appointed, it would be a different than what it is for the city employees as a pool.

Yeah, agreed.

Okay.

No, I just want to question it.

It's not going to affect the thing to vote, but just I will make it on record that myself, my wife does work for the city of Eloy in one of the departments.

And then I will also go on record to say that my husband works for one of the CDB law departments.

Okay.

For our city attorney, there's no conflict of interest.

That is correct.

Because the number of city employees in excess of the number of 12 of that occupation, that makes that type of interest and interest a remote interest.

However, a council member, they if they feel basically that they shouldn't participate in it, they certainly would have the right to refrain and not vote.

So we got a first and a second.

Vice Mayor Wanavato Rodriguez.

Yes.

Councilmember Turingo.

Yes.

Councilmember Schneider.

Yes.

Councilmember Curtis.

Well Councilmember Garcia?

Yes.

Councilmember Seton?

Yes.

Mayor Powell.

Yes.

The motion passed unanimously, Mayor.

Thank you.

Next we're going to go to item D, which I was going to pull discuss.

And then Dan, I think I'll go kick this one off because you've been doing a lot of talking.

I my concern was I thought that this was not a one year but a one-term, longer than one year for somebody to come back and apply to be on the on a board or commission.

And seeing that we're doing it to one year, that was my concern is not having it, having it long longer than just one year, having it one term.

I was even under the impression that it was once you did three years or three terms consecutive, you could no longer be on that on that board or commission.

So how I read it is after one year of not being on a board or commission, they can reapply.

That's how it reads.

So my concern is is I guess I'm confused why I wanted to pull it, discuss it, because I'm confused by it.

Mayor and council members, I first of all I'd like to apologize for any confusion.

When we had this discussion, we had seven seven different voices talking on there, and you've had some committees and boards where you've had a hard time getting people to apply and stay on there.

And it was clear to me that the council wanted to basically have a term limit in place.

Sometimes we don't get around to when we should of basically having those terms filled, so we had a lot of holdover terms.

The general provisions under Arizona law is that you continue to serve until your successor is duly appointed.

So before you tonight, when it was brought to our attention that the council wanted to clean this up a little bit, on the specific, we did add a term where someone on any of these commissions would have to sit out a year.

If the council believes one year is too short, you can go to two years.

If you want to go to three years, which I believe is generally the length of the terms that we have, you can basically move to approve the agenda as amended by basically substituting one year to two years to three years, or even if you wanted to do one term, one you know one term.

And so you have options in front of you on that, and we're we're just trying to clean this up.

I think for and I don't have the best memory in the world, um, but I I can remember that if of a commissioner or board member did three three consecutive terms, they're no longer allowed to be on there for either one whole term or that's it.

I think that that's my confusion on it.

It's it's now we're kind of scrambling all over the place.

I thought once you you're out, you're out.

Like Larry Brown, he's he's out, he's done.

Mayor, I've got a comment when you have a second.

Okay.

Um go ahead, Sarah.

Yeah, so I agree with you, Mayor.

Um, I think that originally our original intent was after three years, um, or three term.

So nine years, you're done, and there's no um returning.

But if we were going to clean this up and allow that, because I think the reason this came up is because there's been questions about are they allowed to reapply after you know a term is done.

I think it should be at least one term they sit out, and then after that, they're only allowed to serve one additional term, not three more terms.

Um so I'm okay with that idea or the idea of being after three terms, um we're done.

I'd like to hear what the rest of the council has to say about it.

Okay, thank you, Sarah.

Then you're itching to push that button.

Go ahead.

Yeah, uh, yeah.

No, I I think I can't agree with you, and Richard, I brought it up before about cleaning it up because I was confused too, but it what we meant by one term.

It really wasn't defined well, and that's why I asked it to maybe to just look at it to clean it up.

Uh the questions I have now, a couple of questions is definition of a term.

Uh is it uh a full term from when you that person's term ends, so it's three years, or is it till a one other term vacancies been filled, and the next vacancy they can apply?

And it was a definition problem there.

And then I'm gonna go back to what the attorney just said about statute says that you may remain in your position until that position is filled, even though your terms expired.

So my question then is when does the clock start on that one year or three year?

In other words, if you have to be serving four or five months longer than when your official term was, is the one year clock going back to when your term expired, or when you actually were replaced?

And that was kind of where some of my confusion was as well.

As to that issue, that's why I had come up with the language that it would be a that period that when they cease being a member of that commission.

Okay.

And we would be able to track that in the minutes when their last meeting and then when a new attorney when a new board member was appointed to take that place.

That's when I think would be the most would probably be the best way to have the where the clock would start.

Otherwise, if we don't get around to full on them, we're gonna have different timelines out there.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Uh I I think I kind of agree with uh what uh councilman uh Curtis said, Councilmember Curtis, that after sitting out one, if it's one year, then uh or one term, however we want to define it, is that they'd be eligible to come back for one more term, but not three more terms.

Uh you know, I I support that depending on how the rest of the council feels.

Uh but I think that I know in the past we've had problems getting people to apply for some of these boards of commissions.

In the last year or two, I don't think that's been a problem.

We've always had several people to choose from, particularly in planning and zoning.

And I think even uh the cemetery board, I think even some of these other boards, I think we've always had multiple people apply.

So maybe we're getting past that.

And if we do have a problem, uh the the person whose terms expiring continues on, and then we can always go out and uh I guess uh prime the pump a little bit to get more people to apply.

So I'd like to see it uh remain uh three terms and out.

Yeah, okay.

My thoughts.

Thank you.

Anyone else have any questions, comments?

I I just my my concern with with one term out and then come back for a whole term, that's kind of confusing for everybody.

Um to me, three tier nine years on a board or whatever's equivalent four years or or twelve years.

That should be plenty of time to do something.

I I don't to me it's like once you're done, you're done.

I don't I and unless it's to the point where we just can't find somebody case by case, but I don't think holding them out for one three-year term and then come back is gonna help the cause.

It's just too confusing to me.

I think we should just make it simple and just you have three terms of whatever, and you're done.

Fresh, fresh complete.

Then you have fresh blood out there that can come in.

Um seems too messy to me.

Just make it simple.

Once your term is done, you're done.

So the people can kind of you know find loopholes, they'll do two terms, get off that one for another one for a whole term, then do three more terms, then you're on for five terms.

And so it's just it three terms is that's a in and out done.

Um I just don't we kind of have to don't want to make it too dirty.

I will bring this up.

I don't want to confuse things on the planning and zoning commission.

We do have an alternate position.

And in that alternate position, we requ there's term limits on an owner position.

And I think we need to think about that on a position term should not count against the three terms as a full member of the commission.

I think it should be the as a board member, not an alternative, uh alternate.

That's that's that's I'm gonna be sure we don't confuse that.

Because that alternate could be there for one year, it could be there for three years or whatever.

So that I'm talking about as a certified appointed board member or commission.

Mayor, I have a question.

Are you talking about three consecutive terms or are there intermittent terms?

Just as long as it's three terms, then they're out.

Is that what you're saying?

Or do they have to be consecutive in order for them to be see that's that's what I'm talking about?

You can do two terms, tip down one, and then come back three years later and do another three terms, then you have five terms.

It's it's kind of yeah, I think just three years, three terms total.

Three terms total.

Mayor, members of council, uh, just to reiterate what the actual ordinance says as it is now is members serving on blank commissioner board as of the effective date of the ordinance shall serve no more than three consecutive three-year terms from the starting date of the members' initial term.

So in the ordinance currently, it states consecutive.

They can't do the two get off and come back on it.

What if they do though they can, but it's got to be three, yeah.

Yeah.

So I I just I don't I I have a um for me it's be the reappointment after one year of the date they see sitting on whatever board of commission.

To me, it's you're done, you're done.

Three terms, you're done.

Just make it simple.

That's my thoughts on it.

Fine.

Yeah.

So maybe make up I will make I'll make a motion that um just we don't even have to make we just take out the red ink, right?

The red writing on there uh mayor, council members, um right here if you want to leave it the way it is, you don't have to take any action on it.

If you want to address the issue of ex officio and you want us to come back with you, I'd ask that you give us direction on what you want.

And I'm hearing what I believe from at least half the council is three terms, that's it.

And there was a question whether or not the ex officio, whether that should be charged to the alternate, yeah.

The alt the alternate, yeah.

And if you want to us look into that issue, I would suggest that you basically table it directly, you know, give us the direction and we'll come back with you to look at that.

It it could very well be that the ex that the alternate or ex officio language may be you know that might be where we would tighten that up that that would, you know, that that would not apply to them.

Okay, but I want to make sure that we tonight that we give you exactly what you're telling us that you want.

So we would right now just leave it as it is because the corrections would have to be voted on, and that's all the items in the red.

Okay and then we would focus on those provisions in the city code instead of the terms okay so I guess I guess my motion would be make a motion to leave it as it is without any addition language that is in the current or that is proposed current and leave it as a three consecutive three year term and with no additional mayor if you would consider saying that we the that the council take no action with the rest of your statement okay so that we we would not consider this ordinance this evening.

So I'll make a motion we take no action on this item okay I make a motion we take no action on this item second it all in favor say aye aye any opposed hearing none okay but then I think we need to direct uh staff to clean up the language and also remove the term three consecutive no from yeah three consecutive is in there for the alternate three no no for the normal it's in it's in the ordinance mayor now that the council adopted is three consecutive it's been on there I know what it said when removed consecutive say three terms period period so you can't yeah you want to remove consecutive and just say three terms.

So now we have to come back you have to bring it to you have to bring it to council later on the language with that so not right now yeah that's what I'm saying yeah direct to come to revise that with that change yeah yeah and to look into the provisions as they relate to alternate and ex official members correct gotcha I'm like we already voted on it Dan no I was I thought what you were trying to get at we're directing council what we or staff what we want them to do as a result of this.

Gotcha yes at that never mind all right Brian oh is it we done uh yes yep uh business Brian oh we forgot he's over there all right good evening Mr.

Mayor members of the council um tonight before you is a presentation from Nick Dodd he's the managing director from Raymond James um Nick tonight will uh do a presentation on our geobonds kind of what is uh geo bond uh election general obligation bond um kind of go over some scenarios the pros and cons of uh of a geobond um kind of looking at uh what our maximum issuance could be if we uh look at doing the maximum value that we are allowed to and then also a general discussion with counsel um oh just over the the what what can be expected if uh we do do a secondary property tax um on the November of 2024 um also tonight um in in the audience is uh Zach Sake is he's uh with Greenberg Charage he's uh uh uh our bond attorney that uh if there's any other questions that he may be able to help council address also um with it tonight so I'll step down and I'll have Nick sit here and I'll run the presentation from the the podium so I'll turn it over to Nick right now thank you welcome Nick good evening Mr.

Mayor and members of the council my name is Nick Dodd I'm with uh Raymond James as Brian mentioned and it's a pleasure to be here um I've presented on other bond matters for the city over the years um but we've never talked about general obligation bonds I believe in your package you have the presentation and Brian just pointed out for the screens I do have some printed copies if anybody needs one by one on council no so the city manager and finance director approached me and and and also Zach and asked about uh putting forward a presentation and so on on slide three um so general obligation bonds this is probably the best or strongest credit any local government could have because it requires voter approval and that voter approval then uh means you

Next slide.

So the city manager and finance director approached me and and also Zach and asked about putting forward a presentation and so on on slide three.

So general obligation bonds, this is probably the best or strongest credit any local government could have because it requires voter approval.

And that voter approval then means you can set a property tax at whatever rate is necessary to repay those bonds.

And in fact, you would be required to set the property tax at well, whatever level is required to pay those bonds.

In some cases, some jurisdictions have gotten voter approval because it's the cheapest costs of capital, but then they'll substitute other revenue streams.

You mostly see that for like a water or wastewater enterprise system.

The difference here is this has a built-in repayment source, whereas those bond issues you had to identify uh ongoing revenues and budget for it every year.

This is the only type of debt that comes in, comes with the built-in repayment source.

Under Arizona law, um there's two they they kind of make a distinction between what they call 20% projects and six percent projects.

You can see 20% projects are listed as lighting, open space, parks, public safety, recreational facilities, transportation, water, and wastewater.

It's pretty all-encompassing.

There was a change a number of years ago, and they were moving some projects around to try and get certain types of projects into the more broad 20% category, and the six percent category is all other general purpose improvements.

So for the most part, you have a limit of 26% of your assessed value is the amount of bonds you can't have outstanding at any one time.

You you could seek approval for a higher amount, but you could not sell a higher amount until your assessed value grew to a level that you could then have them be outstanding.

How long does that usually take?

We'll get into what your historical growth rates have been.

You'll see.

Um, I mean, some of the fast growing cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area have seen 20 and 30 percent growth in some cases year over year, you know, buckeye uh parts of Mesa have grown.

So you could grow into a capacity very quickly, or you it could take a long time.

It just if we went ran into another financial crisis like 08 where property values plummeted and then stayed low for a long time.

Question to 20 percent, it appears that you could those could be used for just about anything on that list, or are those all in it all project specific as opposed to the six percent says general purpose.

Can it can you maybe explain it a little bit?

If Zach, who's your attorney, I just play one on TV.

Um he may want to answer that.

How I would answer it is I think a city hall building might be forced into the six percent category.

Something that's not specifically lighting open space and parks are pretty easy to understand.

Public safety would be police and fire, um, you know, recreational facilities, parks, um, baseball fields, that kind of thing.

I don't if you have a specific thought in mind, we could say we think this is where it goes.

But I think city halls and just general municipal buildings are probably the most vague and would probably most attorneys would say in the six percent.

So what are the pros and cons?

Obviously, the pros are um uh it's not set not subject to a tax rate limit or your debt capacity, uh levy limit capacity.

Um the terms and interest rates are generally the best available because the voters approved it, the rating agencies and and the secondary property tax, which is unlimited.

The rating agencies, which is like the people who give you your credit score, view it as basically your highest credit.

So if I remember the city's sales tax credit is an A rating, my guess is this would probably be like in the low AA category, and the higher your rating is the lower your interest rate costs are.

Um, it does allow for voters to have input on and kind of prioritize capital projects within the city.

The residents who use those roads in the future would pay their proportionate share versus pay as you go is just that, right?

You take money today, pay for a long-term project, and then the future users don't really have to cover their proportionate share.

That's more of a concept, and as opposed to like you know, you have to kind of buy into you think that's appropriate or not.

Um requires all current and future taxpayers to pay the same, so that everybody would pay the same tax rate within the city, regardless of whether a project was in their backyard or you know, on the other side of town.

Um, and typical bond process once it would be approved would be about two to three months to sell the bonds and raise the money.

Um the cons, it does require an election, which takes time.

And in Arizona, cities can only go for elections on uh in November.

So you basically one day you're um and we'll walk through the timing of how you kind of back up from there.

Um it's uncertain as to whether the voters would approve it.

Um you get into a bit of an issue if if a project it fails, and the project and the the policymakers determine it was important enough and you go forward with it anyway, and you use general fund dollars for projects.

We've seen in certain jurisdictions where that makes the residents upset, and they would come and tell you about it at a meeting.

Um typically the election process takes about 10 to 12 months, so we're about a you know, almost within a year from the next general election, and so this is pretty timely.

Um you do have limited capacity, which we've talked about, and we'll kind of quantify that for you as we go forward.

Um this is just high level preparing the ballot.

You have to, these are things if you were to go forward.

Um, the the lawyer would sit here and get very specific with you and and work with staff on what you could and couldn't do.

But the there are some parameters around how much like how you distinguish projects and kind of categorize them.

Um you could have multiple questions and and would actually probably be required to have multiple questions, unless you were only gonna seek road projects.

But then even in that example, you you know, Casa Grand had an election a year ago, and they specifically said in their road projects, it would not be for the industrial uh parts of town because the city wanted to make it very clear to the voters that the industrial areas of town wouldn't be the beneficiaries, that it would really be the major arterials.

Um when you do your sizing, obviously you you'd have to work with staff and get estimates on what the project cost is in today's dollars.

When you think it you would actually come online, adjust for inflation, uh incidentals, you know, soft costs, both planning, engineering design, and the hard capital costs can all be factored in into that.

And I don't know if there's any questions or if Zach wanted to add anything specific.

Okay.

Turning to the next page, um, this was just intended to provide you guys uh an example of a question.

This would be this was intended to be for a parks and rec open space question for 15 million dollars, and this is just example of how a question like that would be worded.

And if you were to move forward, you know, really the process is you identify the projects, then you figure out what what can be grouped together in a question or what has to be separated out, and then if there was specific desires of the council, like in Casa Grand to make it clear to the voters that we're not gonna do industrial roads, you you you could then add something to that effect.

So here's the city's historical assessed values and and your um property tax rates for the last uh decade.

Uh obviously you've not had secondary property taxes, as you all know, and so you've just levied a primary tax rate, which has been fairly consistent and gradually coming down.

Um we show the growth because um under state law when you make assumptions for how you prepare a bond program and what you show the voters, um, you have you're allowed to use historical averages for certain time periods.

So for the first five years in the future, you can use the 10 year average.

So that's why you can see your 10-year average has been 4.15%.

So that seems like a pretty reasonable estimate for a city that is in a growth corridor, and you're likely gonna have businesses and residents come to town.

Probably would outpace that, but you could only assume 4.15% for the first five years, and then every year thereafter, you can only assume 20% of that number.

So that's the 0.83.

So the models that we've built where we forecast what tax rates would be, have those assumptions built into them.

You could assume no growth.

You know, there's certain taxpayer advocacy groups in Arizona that would probably wish you had no growth in the models because obviously with no growth, the tax rate's gonna be higher.

As valuations grow, the tax rate comes down over time.

So they're trying to balance it to be fair for both you know what you're suggesting to the residents who are deciding with what's realistically gonna happen over 20, 25 years.

This is just a graph on your assessed value.

The good news is it's generally been going up.

So now if we turn to your capacity, so we've broken this out the on the left hand side is your six percent.

That's kind of the catch-all general, that might be your city hall example, and then the 20% on the right hand side.

And so you can see uh today, based on existing assessed value, the city of Eloy has roughly 43 million dollars, just a little over 43 million dollars in bonding capacity.

So if you had 43 million dollars in projects and wanted to go out and seek voter approval, you could, and if it was approved on day one, even though you probably couldn't spend 43 million dollars on day one, you could sell 43 million dollars in bonds.

You could seek 50 or 60 million dollars in approval, but only sell 43 million dollars, and the other 17 million kind of sits on the shelf for future projects once your assessed valuation would grow into being able to do that.

So the assumptions you see on this page here, um, we've assumed maximum authorization at current 43 million dollar capacity.

Um we've got two scenarios for you.

Uh, one where you issue it just immediately, uh, all 43 million, so it's kind of you just rip the band-aid off and the tax rate goes up as high as it's gonna go.

The second scenario, we phase those bond sales in over a three-year period in roughly equal amounts.

Um, I've mentioned how we assumed the growth, uh, 5% interest rate and 25-year uh repayment term.

So here is a lot of really small numbers.

Um on the left-hand side, that's your assessed valuation.

The last few years are actual, and then you can see starting in 2025, uh, that's where we assumed your 4.15% growth for five years, and then the 20% of that are the 0.83.

You don't have existing um debt, and and just so you know that this table is laid out how you would prepare something for a voter information pamphlet, because what they want you to show is you have existing debt, so you have an existing geotax rate, and you have new debt, so your new secondary rate.

So, what this is trying to demonstrate to people is you currently don't have a secondary property tax rate.

So you can see if you sold all 43 million dollars at once, uh, your debt service would be roughly three million dollars, three million fifty thousand dollars a year paid back over 25 years at a 5% interest rate, and in year one, your tax rate would go to $2.27.

Obviously, as values grow over time, that tax rate gradually creeps down.

So you can see the average tax rate is a is $1.83 over that 25-year period.

And we do the average because you'll see in just a second, we have to demonstrate in the voter information pamphlet what the cost is to the residents, and we use that average tax rate.

So here now you can see, and these also would be in a voter information pamphlet.

This is these how these numbers are are in statute.

And so this is what you'd be required to say to uh a potential elector in uh for a 43 million dollar bond.

If you had a home that had a limited property value of 250,000, that means you're on the assessed roll at 25,000 because the assessment ratio is 10 percent.

If you apply a $1.83 cent average tax rate for that 20-year period, the the estimated annual average cost to that homeowner is 459 dollars, and then we show what it is on a monthly basis.

And then we show what it is on a monthly basis.

Commercial and industrial, obviously bigger values, they go on the assessed value at a higher ratio, so they pay higher taxes, and then agricultural and other vacant um is shown to uh and so you can see what those kind of different uh costs are.

So this would be for the secondary property tax, not the first correct.

Okay.

So what if you capped out at 99 cents versus not or just not going over a dollar versus the dollar seven?

Uh Brian, can you go back one page?

So, Mr.

Mayor, if I understand your question is what would if you said we're only gonna go up to 99 cents on the secondary rate, what could you afford?

Yes, or or can that can that be?

Um, so there's a from a policy perspective, you can say we're only gonna go to 99 cents and we'll never go above that.

From a practical standpoint, if your valuations went down and you had debt outstanding and you didn't have any other money to pay, you would have to raise your tax rate.

Cities do um between primary and secondary, use the two to get to a balanced aggregate tax rate, yeah, and they will essentially use other revenue sources to backfill if they have to.

Okay.

And and including some cities will adjust their primary if they need to use a secondary.

It's a little easier and probably better.

Brian could explain why, not to adjust your primary so much and more adjust the secondary and backfill debt service.

Um, but you you can cities do and have historically targeted tax rates.

I I'm just gonna ballpark it here.

Uh a $1.99 tax rate would probably be around $25 million for you guys today on average.

If you only wanted to go though uh like 99 cents right out of the gate, you would probably be like between 15 and 20 million, and then as values grew and that debt paid off, you would layer in that second one as as you write as your as your values are growing, your tax rates coming down, and then at some point in the future you layer in the second bond sale to keep your tax rate consistent at the 99 cents.

Okay.

All right, because I know other communities do that as well.

It's either the first or the second, whatever it is.

I don't know if it's a primary that they don't go over 99 cents, and the secondary goes up or or vice versa.

I just know some cities do do that as a resource.

The prior to Prop 117, which was approved about seven or eight years ago, a lot of cities really did do targeted tax rates.

I would I would say it's been my experience that cities have gone away from targeted tax rates, including Phoenix, who for the longest time targeted very specific tax rates, because Prop 117 kind of changed a lot of the rules around uh taxation and shifted everything to one assessed value versus two.

And so a lot of cities realized it was getting too hard to do targeted tax rates and have have basically said on the primary, we're gonna max it out, take whatever growth we can get, and on the secondary, we're just gonna let it be what it is.

But from a policy perspective, you guys could say we're we're only gonna we'll never go above a dollar, but I would caution you if you prepare voter information pamphlet, you have to prepare it a certain way, and you might not be able to demonstrate in a voter information pamphlet that you're gonna stay under a buck.

And so then now you have a messaging issue with the community, because you're out there saying we're never gonna go above a dollar, but when they go to vote, they see a dollar eighty-three or a dollar fifty or whatever the the number is, and and you'd have to really be careful how you you know, through your not your advocacy, but the advocacy for the pro-bond group, and that was a little lead in to a slide here in a second.

Gotcha.

But it is doable.

Yes, okay.

So, real quick, we'll go to the second snark.

This is just phased in with the theory being you can't spend 43 million dollars on day one.

Because you phase it in and now you have about 27 years versus 25 years, your average tax rate goes down a little bit.

You you don't you don't ever get to the 227.

You can see it, it it initially comes out of the gate at 80 cents and then goes to $1.47 and then to 209 and then gradually goes down once all of your debt is fully loaded.

Um because we assume assume the same interest rate and the same par amount of bonds, the interest costs are the same.

So theoretically, uh you would just stagger this because you you would be realistic about not being able to spend 43 million dollars at once.

And just on that point, um, you have to spend your bond proceeds within two to three years.

It's a it's kind of a reasonable expectation test.

So that's why I think 43 million dollars being spent all at once would probably be challenging.

And so uh a staggered program you might be you know a little bit more in line with what you'd do.

Uh this table just demonstrates the exact same calculations, just using the different tax rate.

Um I don't know, Bryan, do you want to speak to this a little bit?

We can switch these next couple slides are just what I show council um during our budget presentations with property tax that kind of a comparison between what other cities are at as of uh in this year's budget, you know, you'll see that you know ELA's property tax rate and what it is comparable to other ones.

So it's just our comparison of you know, we're us in the town of Florence are the only ones that don't have a secondary property tax.

Um the next couple slides are just the dollar bill that we're just showing that looks we're we only get six percent of the dollar on a hundred dollar bill that comes back to us and property tax, the rest goes to other jurisdictions, schools, Pennell County.

So this is what's in the Ely proper is about six percent.

The toll tech and rope scenario is around seven percent.

So um with those dollar bills and and stuff, and then we get into uh mayor council, good evening, Zach Sakis.

I'm a bond attorney at Greenberg Troeg.

I've had the pleasure of working with the city for a while now.

Um, and and Nick and I are blessed to do these presentations and work with cities all over the state.

So um typically, if a city is considering a general obligation bond election, the time to present the city's historical good financial practices and good financial health to voters as part of advocating why the city thinks a general obligation bond election would be appropriate, uh, would start about now, maybe in the next couple months, but it must be completed before council you know uh considers calling the election.

Once the election is called, any sort of advocacy or lack of neutrality um must stop.

And so once the election is called, uh samples um where I get the frantic phone calls in the past include you know banners being hung on uh municipal dump trucks driving around town, uh bumper stickers on police cars that say vote yes on bonds, all those sorts of things.

We can't use city resources to advocate one way or another uh for the election, and that would include if you if you convene a committee of citizens that are interested in helping determine project priority or what what level of taxes might be appropriate.

Once that bond committee is convened, once the election is called, um the city needs to disband the bond committee because then there's no longer you know city appointed residents serving on this committee.

If members of that bond committee then choose to independently form an at their own advice advocacy group to promote uh voting yes on the bonds within the community, that's of their own determination to do so, but they're not using city resources to do so.

Um both calling, yeah, and you know, general threats of the Justice Department there at the bottom of the slide, which we'll try to avoid, and that's that's the goal.

Um I'll let Nick do the closing one.

I would just hit real quick um on a few of the earlier slides.

Um this will require um an amount of coordination between city staff and county election staff.

Typically, the election um is called Nick will get to that.

The one thing just based on the earlier discussion, the city will need to determine if you're looking at specific projects for voters to consider, or if it's a program where bonds will be issued, you know, in several series over the years.

And in either situation, one trap that I see city councils throughout the state fall into is they say for voters to be comfortable with this, we need to pin down exactly where we're gonna spend the money.

And I'll tell you when you do that, as soon as you get voter approval for a park located at the corner of you know Maine and First, somebody's gonna donate land at you know Smith and Second Street, and then you're you're trapped because you have voter authorization to do this project, but now you have a way you could do it financially more advantageous for the city.

And so where we rely on council um and knowing their community and knowing their citizens is talking to citizens and understanding that there will be a description potentially of projects or projects the city intends to complete with bond proceeds, but that I think anything we all have seen over the past few years, things change pretty quick, and whether that's materials costs, supply costs, or just sometimes better projects become available or become a higher priority for the city.

Um we we build in that flexibility, or we prefer I strongly prefer to build in that flexibility for the city to be able to utilize those bond proceeds to accomplish generally what the voters have approved over time, and then I'll let Nick do the wrap-up slide.

Thank you.

So what are your next steps?

Um I think the timing's right to have this discussion.

I think Brian and David have done a great job of identifying this as a topic, and and so I think you all need to talk amongst yourselves with staff and figure out where you're at, what you want to do.

Um as we get into the new year, you know, we'd be happy to come back with a specific presentation for specific set of projects, specific bond amounts, and specific bond programs with targeted tax rates or whatever, whatever the desire is to see if you guys if that changes how you feel.

Um, but the reality is what you need to do is by early spring of next year, you kind of need to start to have a well-formed plan.

By no later than May, you would need to call the election.

Uh and I would say most jurisdictions call it probably more in the February or March time frame.

Um, but the timing becomes really important because then we have to prepare the voter information pamphlet.

We have to work with county elections department.

Um, you've got to get all that stuff done.

You have to call for pro and con statements from the community, you have to translate things everything to Spanish, and then now with early voting and vote by mail, you know, those go out in late September, I think, and vote by mail starts in October.

So you can see county elections and next year's a general election, they've got other jurisdictions they're gonna be working with.

So they have some very hard deadlines, and so that's why when you back up from you know, kind of a May deadline, really having a better sense for what you're thinking in the you know, March, April time frame is probably better.

And then if you call the election, we'll we'll work with staff to you know get everything done in a timely manner, and uh you'd have your election next year in November.

All right, thank you.

Did anybody on the council have any questions?

Just a general opinion.

Deference be doing something like this with a general election versus an off-year election.

I mean, people are talking about that, and we just went through a fairly heavy election cycle for a lot of school districts in Arizona, and I know a number of the school districts who didn't pass their elections have said they will probably have to wait for two years to come back in 25 because their their concerns are voter turnout will be heavy, and given the current political environment, you know, certain factions are just anti-debt, anti-tax, not gonna support, doesn't matter, right?

And and so that you know there are political consultants that you can engage that could probably give you a much more artful answer.

There's no doubt though, people are thinking about it.

I was at Penelope.

I mean, I think they're specifically talking about avoiding that, right?

I think for that exact reason.

So there's no doubt local communities think about that.

It's also voter fatigue.

Yeah.

Last ballot, we had like a million things on there to vote for.

And people just by the time they turn the page, they're already exhausted.

So can you do it on an off year?

So if it's 24, can we do it on two year 25?

The only restriction you have is you can only do it in in the November, what you call November General Election.

November general elections.

So every November, you know, there's typically an election.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

Right now, Eloy doesn't have a secondary property tax or an outstanding bond like this.

You guys seem to be pretty good in Arizona.

You have the whole state.

What percentage of cities our size have secondary property tax versus those that don't?

Brian, can you go back to your yellow with the yellow?

And that this is certainly your peer group.

You can see Casa Grand has geo bonds, their secondary rates gonna go up because they've got more to do now.

Coolidge does have a small geobond.

Uh Maricopa has geobonds, Florence doesn't.

So if you go into Maricopa County, um I'm trying to think of a city in Maricopa County.

That doesn't.

Correct.

Yeah.

So in Buckeye, they've chose CFDs for big master plan communities, which typically have three to four dollar tax rates as a way to have growth pay for itself.

I I mean, I I mean Phoenix does, Scottsdale does, Chandler does, Gilbert does, Mesa does, Queen.

So most cities have most cities have secondary property tax rates.

They identify, like I think what Cass Grand did is they said it's gonna be for like Treco Road or McCartney.

They they kind of put that on.

Did they do that for you?

They they had like four different options.

Do what Zach suggested, which was keep it certainly in council workshops, and they've made it clear which roads were gonna be done and in what priority, but the the question itself was pretty general, just the carve out of the industrial.

Okay.

This is open space still open space one.

I just changed it from this is an example.

This is what this is their own initiative.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Any questions, staff?

So what's the next step?

I guess from our perspective, we gotta wait to hear from David and Brian, and I think they're probably looking to get direction from the council.

That that's absolutely correct.

Yeah, we're at this point that it was this as it's been discussed from the mayor for the past two years now.

Um we've brought it up loosely during both budget cycles as to whether or not we float a secondary property tax to try to get it passed to go forth with some of the larger projects that we've got on our docket.

As you know, the focus of council's last budget years is infrastructure.

Well, infrastructure is not cheap.

When you're looking at a million dollars a mile for water and a million dollars for the sewer and a million dollars for roads, it adds up real fast to start extending our infrastructure out to these areas that we've seen growth happen in the city.

So doing a secondary property tax, getting the 43 million dollars where you see the 20% on cover the wastewater and water component of it would really help us in our efforts to get the water alliance to where we need to get them.

Yeah, well, it's just call it what infrastructure to where it needs to be, but it'll go quick.

Um, and then we've got parks projects, we've got some other big ones.

One of the ones uh five years out is a community center.

We've been pushing that one for a little while as well.

We've got I know we'll see it on this year's CIP, the police department have a records retention management software system that they need to start looking at purchasing as well.

So that's something that the that'll be a couple million dollars, I believe, is the last time we looked at that.

So there are several high dollar capital improvement projects that we're looking at within the next three to five years and beyond.

So um, this is the like Nick pointed out, and the mayor has been pushing for the last couple of years.

This is a good time to examine our funding sources and availabilities to continue to grow the community and be successful in our endeavors.

So at this point, that was long-winded.

Apologies, but it's up to council to determine if that is something that you all believe we should move forward with and direct staff to take the necessary action to present some ideas to council that you guys could see.

The timing is actually good as as Nick said, you know, having a decision no later than early spring, but you know, pump bringing that back to March is probably more advantageous.

We'll be doing our budget retreat historically, end of January, beginning of February.

So at that point, you guys will begin to see the CIP and some of the projects that are out there, and good time for us to discuss whether or not we still want to move forward with it and do a call for election.

I know several years ago we did a um survey to the residents, and a lot of them say we had a secondary property tax.

Would you support um a regional park and things like that?

And and it it passed.

And if it passed, and um I don't know how long ago that was, but it was 25 years ago.

So maybe we start off doing a which is my uh survey.

If the city is to do a secondary property tax, would you guys be in support of XYZ infrastructure parks, open trails or or you know, things like that?

I mean either way the voters are gonna decide one way or another uh whether they support or they don't.

I think the one in Coolidge two years ago barely passed, and they they're able to redo their whole uh pool area aquatic center, but it passed.

Uh Cas Grand had three out of four fail.

So it's a it's a crapshoot, but it's definitely something to entertain.

Um since we we don't have all the money in the world.

I'd like to see how how we can you know try this, you know, even break it up.

You said 45 million 44, 43.

We separate that from you know where the investment's at.

You know, is it 15 for parks and um outside, and then the rest goes infrastructure or vice versa.

Uh that's something that we need to look at if this is something the council wants to move forward with.

Um it doesn't hurt to try, you know, and it's something to think about.

So David?

Thank you, Mary.

Quick question for Nick.

Um, the projected scenario one and two debt service and tax rate is reflective on basically a projection of our growth as it stands today.

So, say we do this, we get additional revenues to put in the wet infrastructure, and all of a sudden we go from having on average 800 new homes to 2,000 new homes each year.

How will that affect the tax rate?

Will that lower that tax rate, or will it still remain the same throughout that repayment period?

Mr.

Mayor, members of the council's Mr.

City Manager, uh, for purposes of ballot presentation.

We we have we're statutorily required to follow a certain process.

The practical reality is if you get to 1200 or 2,000 homes and see dramatic increases in your assessed value, your tax rate will would drop.

And so it's entirely possible you forecast a 87 and 87 cent average tax rate, but if you experienced on average double the growth forecasted, you'd have a 93 cent tax rate or something.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, okay.

I just want to say I've been involved with your last two bonds, and so when I turned the corner tonight and saw downtown all lit up and the police station, I've obviously been in this building numerous times.

I you guys have done such a phenomenal job, and it was makes you proud to be a part of it and to come down for the holidays and see it all lit up.

I just well done.

I'm you've really done a nice job.

I I remember you when I first got on council, you were coming to the old facility over there.

So yeah, a couple couple of companies ago.

Yes, I guess you could say so.

Yeah.

Dan, could we go back to what the uh the individual review you had those, so I understand that sure.

So that's gonna be on slides.

The first slide is 12.

So this was the dollar eighty-three tax rate.

So there's real value of a home or a property, which is basically market value, right?

And then it goes on the assessed roll, and depending on the type of property, you uh primary residential and rental are 10%, commercial industrial are 15%, agricultural vacant or 15%.

So you're just simply applying those uh assessment ratios to the real value to get to the assessed value, and then tax rates are applied per 100 of assessed value.

And so the easiest way to do that is you would divide that in this first example of 25,000 by 100 and multiply it by the $1.83 tax rate.

Excuse me.

At $459 here, we're showing is the increase just for the secondary property tax at the assumed average dollar eighty-three tax rate.

That is correct.

Is that going backwards?

I'm sorry.

I'm thinking too, you know.

Uh the homeowner, you know, they're always gonna say, show me the money type thing.

And so uh to kind of sell this, the first thing you're gonna say, what's it gonna cost me?

And so you're probably going to look at that limited property value is not the uh uh assessed or the uh actual market value.

That that number is quite a bit less than that.

Because I'm looking at my tax rate.

The uh I actually dug it out today.

The uh limited property value is probably about uh just a little bit more than about half of what the cash value, what the market value is and this is what we're required to show statute.

Okay, agreed.

Agreed.

And the there's market value, which is full cash value, yeah.

That's basically, and then limited is restricted by how much it can grow, so it depends when you bought your house and market value follows the market.

So a limited property value of 250,000 dollars is probably a market value around 500,000, roughly.

And so that means that somebody with the 500,000 home would be paying 460 dollars more a year for this secondary tax on top of their normal.

Okay, that's people are gonna look at it that way.

To the city.

To the city, yeah.

Well, yeah, but I'm looking at my tax bill, and uh, what does my tax bill uh relative to the city is uh well it's uh well seven percent or something like that.

So if I'm looking at uh 459 dollar increase a year, plus well I'm just looking at my tax right now.

It's uh it's only uh five hundred dollars a year total, so it's almost doubling what my city tax would be versus what I'm currently paying.

So that's people are gonna look at that.

So you have to think so.

That means that we have to think very carefully on just what the projects are because it's it's gonna be a good sale job.

You have to convince the public that it's worth the extra money to do that, and so it's just uh selection of the projects.

And I I guess I have heartburn because I'm just I'm gonna beat the drum again.

Where's that vision?

Where are we headed?

What are we trying to accomplish?

We've got all these projects.

Okay, if we're gonna do this thing, okay.

Which of these things in this master plan are we trying to accomplish?

What we're gonna spend the money over here, okay.

Where's the check mark or which box are we trying to accomplish?

I don't see that.

And so I understand.

Well, we get together and we'll pick some projects and see, okay, to where are we headed?

To what end?

What are we trying to accomplish by doing it?

We want to grow.

Well, that to grow to what we're gonna be a bedroom community, a tourist community, we're gonna be a small manufacturing community, we're gonna be a suburb of Casa Grande.

We have need to find any of that.

And so I just before we start talking secondary property taxes and projects.

I think we have to make a decision on uh where we really want this community to go.

I don't know.

That's just I'm really at this point in time.

I think we're premature, my opinion.

Premature property secondary property taxes until we make better definition of what things we have to do to get to where we want to go.

And just don't go get money and see what we want to do.

Let's decide what we want to do, find out how much it's gonna cost us and have a definite goal of what do we have to do to fund it.

I mean, because we just I'm gonna keep going here a little bit.

We just reduce the uh restaurant bar tax.

We increase the the property tax for this year.

We uh just put uh five million dollars out of the general fund into the uh economic development.

So we're doing a lot of things financially here.

I want to be sure that are all gonna end up with the result we expect them to happen because they all should be going to the same common goal or common direction.

I guess I'm not comfortable with that right now.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, that's why we have work sessions to talk about this.

You know, right now we're just in the beginning stages of the presentation, and then we can kind of see where we're at.

You know, we have till what do you say March, May, March?

March to announce it.

So I mean, we have four months.

Technically, if you well, we know next yeah, next month it really doesn't count, so three months uh to really uh have a plan, I guess you could say.

What we can do too is you say, okay, this is what it is this year, what what do we look at next year?

Does the rates go up?

Do we get more money for next year?

Because we we held off a year.

Um you talk about voter fatigue and and everything.

It's a federal election too.

So you can have a presidential election with the U.S.

Senate election with mayor council election.

Council election.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is something to start with, and then we kind of we're not making any decisions right now.

Something just to start and get the you know, see where we want to go.

But aren't we giving our I thought I was I heard that we were to give staff direction where to go?

Didn't I hear that?

Council Member Snyder, yes.

That that was what we wanted was direction whether we should continue the process of looking at this as a possibility for the November 24 general election.

If uh council decides that you want to continue to investigate this, as noted, we've got until that March-April time frame to actually say we're gonna do it, but at least this gives us the springboard to start the discussion.

Brian and I and McKenzie can begin looking internally at some of these larger projects.

We'll be again looking at the CIP budget.

Uh we'll be as mentioned, we're gonna have our council budget workshop coming up at the beginning of February, so that'll be a time to further discuss that.

Um McKinsey is also working on acquiring uh strategic planner to help with council to get a good direction of where council wants to go, set up that mission and vision that we've been talking about for the last couple of years and understand to your point, Councilman Snyder, where exactly we want to go, how we would want to use this money, and what's the overall vision and mission of the council?

So uh good time to be talking about this as we kind of put all the pieces together and a good topic to think about for all the members as we hit the holiday season and what we're really trying to do is for Eloy.

So, yeah, to both both points, this is a good time to talk about.

It's also a good time to determine whether this is the right time.

Do we have the right um trajectory and vision to move forward?

So you have staff to do it, Mary.

A lot of that falls.

Well, a lot of it'll fall on the city clerk.

Um the line sure of doing, I don't know if you want to explain more on that, but it sounds like a majority of that will fall on the clerk's office.

Um there is her and two other full-time staff that can assist.

Um, I think she feels confident that we can do it.

Look, yes, she's she's confident.

We can do it.

Yeah, we do what we need to do to get it accomplished.

This is what council wants.

At least we know where we're at, at least maybe see what's next.

Uh what's what's the second step?

What's the third step?

We have a council retreat coming up, and maybe we identify or we have a work session before the council retreat to identify what our vision is, and in the slogans or whatever you said.

Um we can get direction direction.

Um so at least we get this thing going.

We can kind of tie everything together, and you know, what was Sylvia said, and Dan's concern is is now is the is it a good time with with the uh an election right now, you know.

And you know, it's you always gonna have to take that crapshoot sooner sooner or later.

And so mayor, I think in addition to exploring the process of maybe going out for another bond, is to also do conduct another survey.

As I said, just that earlier in the meeting, and let's see what the public wants, what are they looking for, and how can we make it work out?

No, it's the public safety of the parking wrecks, is it roads?

You know, and go from there.

That'll give us an idea of what kind of support we might be getting from them too.

Okay.

The last one was several years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Michelle.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think part of it, I think it's been talked about before is is most citizens when you talk about infrastructure improvements.

You most of us don't think about that on a daily basis, but to try to do not just sewer and um water, but to throw in that um recreational facility because sometimes at least that's a tangible thing you can touch and see and use every day to include the water in the sewer and you know, all of those types of things.

So I think that's something we need to talk to our community about.

It's it's also important that we talk to or survey as well.

Is the ropes and ranch, and the reason why is because they have all the amenities if we're to go to like a a recreational center.

What's gonna get them out of the gate to participate in our facilities?

What's different from city versus what they have?

Is that they just don't want to be you know cooped up in their in their gated community, they want to come outside, or you know, do we actually have something?

I have a lot of people that I talked to out there, they want to get outside, they want to visit our parks and visit, you know, they they do go to our our our areas, you know, just to get away.

And so, but it's also education.

We gotta educate everybody.

It just can't be one person or one section.

We gotta let everybody know, you know, and if we're gonna do surveys, I would suggest strongly suggest we don't do it individual surveys on social media.

We'd let a city survey come out, and that's how it's project projected.

Not everybody has what do you think?

What do you think?

What do you think?

Because that can be too confusing.

We need to have a uniform survey that comes out and then we can possibly share it on our socials and say, hey guys, be on the lookout for the survey.

That's what we're doing.

Have uh you know, open houses here and talk about it if they want to come over here.

There's so much we can do, but at least we're getting the the we're we're writing in the sand, I guess you could say, you know, we're starting something out.

Um that would be my suggestion as the mayor.

This let the city um put the survey out.

And so go from there.

Um I think we all have great ideas.

That's why we're up here, we're elected, because the people trust us to make the uh a good sound decision for this community, and that we're transparent, that we don't do things behind a wall.

We're always out there, we're explaining, we're talking to them, and so um that's why we're we're respected up here.

So this was sir, thank you.

Sarah, are you there?

Yes.

Um, yeah, I I think that um, you know, when I see that 4593 estimated annual cost, I think, wow, that's big.

Um, but the way Dan explained it, and I'm not sure if this is exactly accurate, that would be a five hundred thousand dollar home, not a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar home.

Um so I I'd like to get some clarification on that.

Um because that's that's a huge increase to people's property tax.

Uh and that I I can't imagine there being an appetite for people wanting to pay five hundred dollars more a year in property taxes, unless we had a really great program that you know of of improvements they were gonna make that appealed across all of Eloy, Robson Ranch, Toltec, downtown that you know all the taxpayers, all the property taxpayers and property owners feel comfortable thinking, well, for $500 more a year, I'm gonna get XYZ.

So that's kind of awesome.

I'm into it.

Um, but to get someone to want to spend five hundred dollars more a year on their taxes, it's gotta be pretty awesome.

I know for me it would have to be.

Um so I like the idea of doing improvements, and I think it was really educational getting this bond um seminar because we understand a lot more how it works and and how it could be used.

But I think we have to, like Dan said, um, you know, think hard now about what projects um would really benefit the public, and you know, what are those numbers in reality for most of Eloy's citizens and their um average uh property tax, how much does that really go up?

And that's gonna tell us if there's you know potentially an appetite for this.

And I think if we do a survey, which I think is a fabulous idea, um again, a social media survey is gonna be pretty much useless because it's just gonna be people on social media, and that's not everybody, but some sort of a unbiased survey to property owners.

Um, if they'd be willing to pay more on property taxes for XYZ, um, then that would be useful information for us to have.

Um, and I I think all the all the plans and and strategies, you know, getting those in place and doing those in January with our retreat, like David said, and kind of getting a master plan and then maybe deciding this is something you want to do now that we have more education on that.

I think that's that's all awesome.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else have any questions?

No.

All right.

I I I think and to Sarah's point, I think when you put the survey out and you say, Well, you support a property tax.

I think it's very important to put some dollar amounts out there, how much it might impact.

And so, yeah, well, I'll support a property tax.

Oh, it's gonna cost that much.

I didn't realize that.

So I think it somehow you have to put some some value there so they know what you're talking about.

Then they can make that judgment.

Well, my boy has been this amount of money to accomplish this.

There's always that value judgment that uh, and so you want to give people a chance to do that rather than say, would you support a secondary property tax?

That's what I think we made the mistake the last time.

We said, would you support a secondary property tax?

And people said, Oh, yeah, I'll spend another 10 or 12 dollars a year.

And that wasn't what we're talking about, you know.

Okay.

I know I got a I got a house in Talltech and I got a house and here Eloy proper, and it's they're not too far off what I pay to the city, even as a whole to the county.

Now, when I I pull up my house in in Castle Grand, that's a whole different ball game because it's in the county section.

It's not in the Castle Grand City limits.

So yeah, I I can get it, but then you know, we have the college and you have the high school and Tall Tech and ED4 admin administration tax, which I've never seen before.

So good.

Then we can turn that into our property tax.

See, we can transfer that to the one to the other.

All right.

Um direct staff to kind of just you know, kind of investigate, see what we want to do, and then I think we should have a work session before our um our retreat to kind of touch base on this and so we can kind of um see what direction or vision or you know um ideas we want to do moving forward.

Our our retreat is in what February?

February?

Yeah, historically we've either done it at the end of January or the first weekend in February.

That's what we did last two years was that first weekend that Saturday.

Okay, in February.

Apologies.

Is it possible to pick some dates now?

Because we do have the holidays coming.

You are I mean, so we can get them on our calendars.

We are one step ahead of you.

Um myself and the Cisney City Manager, we're gonna meet and look at that calendar and get that together for you guys.

Yep, we're Brian and I were just talking about it at our morning meeting.

Make sure it's an off-council.

So all right.

Well, thank you, gentlemen, for your time and your effort.

Uh and we'll see you next year, I guess.

Or sooner.

Thank you, guys.

See you next year.

Yeah.

All right.

That was the so no action be done on that one.

Man, it's already almost eight o'clock.

Uh, next one, uh, business item B appointment of a council member to serve as vice mayor for a period of one year, effective December 1st, 2023 to next year.

November 30th, 2024.

Vice Mayor, how are you?

Good, thank you.

Um I just wanted to say thank you all for nominating and voting me in as vice mayor this past year.

It has been uh great privilege working alongside the mayor.

He's been a great mentor and a pleasure to work with.

Uh together, along with our council team, city manager, and staff.

We've accomplished so much this year.

I've learned plenty during my time as vice mayor, and now it's time to share the knowledge and experience with the new vice mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I appreciate your your time.

Uh we spent a lot of meetings together with staff.

It's a lot of work.

Dan knows this, it's it's it's a lot.

And so um I'm commitment.

Yes, I I keep my vice mayor up to date.

Uh I communicate with them as best as I can.

Um the night before.

Yeah.

Um, but no, it's it's uh, you know, as we as we are getting busier, uh time um to participate is is key and gold.

So thank you for your time, appreciate it.

A lot of Monday or Tuesday morning meetings with staff, and so just to kind of update with the agenda, and um I trust my vice mayor's as I have with Andrew, with Dan and you, and who the next one will is, and so um thank you.

That's it's it's been fun.

So and hope you enjoy the freedom now of not hearing me every five minutes.

Uh all right.

Well, moving forward, did you want to say something, Dan?

Yeah, I'm just uh move forward.

And uh it's just in my business world, it's always been kind of a tradition, not tradition, but just a thing that when people are not at a meeting, they get nominated for things.

And so we have somebody who is on the phone but is not here, is probably paid some dues, uh, planning and zoning and so forth.

Thank you.

Let me open open it up.

Well, I can open up for yeah, a second if anybody has any additional nominations.

I'll second Sarah.

Okay.

I hear no additional seconds or first.

So it's on the table for Sarah Curtis to be the next vice mayor.

Uh Miss Mary, can we get a roll call, please?

Oh do you want to ask Sarah?

Sarah?

Hi.

Um, yeah, if um it is the pleasure of the council to nominate me as vice mayor, I would be honored to serve.

So I'll leave the decision up to you all.

All right, well, thank you.

All right, Miss Mary?

Councilmember Tarango.

Yes.

Councilmember Sutton.

Yes.

Councilmember Garcia.

Yes.

Mayor Powell.

Yes.

Councilmember Snyder.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Wannawato Rodriguez?

Yes.

Councilmember Curtis.

I guess yes.

The motion passed unanimously, ma'am.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Congratulations, Sarah.

Yeah, thank you.

All right.

Uh well, that's it for us.

Ladies and gentlemen, want to thank you guys for being here.

We have no reason to go in executive session.

You guys drive safe.

Um buckle up.

Don't drink and drive and say no to drugs.

Have a good night.