Good evening, everybody.

I'd like to welcome everybody to tonight's City of Evoy Council meeting.

It is Monday, March 11, 2024, approximately 6.01.

I call this meeting to order.

Trina.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Councilmember Settings.

Here.

Councilmember Wanowato Rodriguez called in.

Vice Mayor Curtis is joining us by telephone.

Are you there, Sarah?

Here.

Mayor Powell?

Here.

Councilmember Snyder.

Here.

Councilmember Garcia.

Present.

Councilmember Turango.

Here.

Thank you.

Next, if we can all stand for the invitation being conducted by Pete Smith.

And afterwards from me standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh, thou kind Lord.

This gathering is turning to thee.

These hearts are radiant with thy love.

These minds and spirits are exhilarated by the message of thy glad tidings.

Oh God, let this American democracy become glorious in spiritual degrees, even as it has aspired to material degrees, and render this just government victorious.

Confirm this revered nation to appraise the standard of the oneness of humanity.

To promulate the most great peace, to become thereby most glorious and praiseworthy among all the nations of the world.

Oh God, this American nation is worthy of thy favors and is deserving of thy mercy.

Make it precious and near to thee through thy bounty and bestowal.

One nation under God, invisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Public appearances.

No, all right.

Next one to go to council member reports.

I'll start on my right side.

Mr.

Sutton.

Okay.

Left side.

Michelle?

Dan?

I always do.

First of all, I'd like to extend my congratulations to uh some award winners.

The uh chamber of commerce had an awards banquet on Saturday night.

And there was uh some Eloy staff, I guess, or city employees recognized.

First of all, is per uh officers uh and patino were recognized for uh heroic act of going into a uh burning building to uh rescue someone and put themselves in jeopardy.

Matter of fact, they spent some time in hospital as a result of it in relation.

So they were recognized as a first responder.

Uh Blinda Cotta from the planning department was recognized as the city uh employee who uh did uh work over the last year that was uh outstanding, and so she got an award.

And uh another award was given to our own mayor Powell as the Pride Award for a spoke award, I'm sorry, for uh community uh enthusiasm, I guess, and support to the community and activities involved in and so forth.

So uh I guess a fitting award for his uh send off his last year in office, if you will.

But anyway, that's the first thing.

Then the other one was this is a little bit longer.

Last Tuesday, uh Kenzie Lecture, uh Dan Seimer from uh our community development, uh myself and also John Vlaming, who was formerly head of our uh economic or development uh section, attended the urban land institute conference.

This is a yearly conference that's held uh up in North End of Scottsdale.

It's uh for developers, consultants, financial people, uh, architects, and it really is a it's called Trends Day.

There's probably I would guess between a thousand and twelve hundred people attend that.

Uh it's a big all-day affair, no breaks.

They start at eight o'clock in the morning and go to like a four.

And if you have a break, you get up and go out for coffee, whatever, but there's a bunch of quick hitters.

Uh uh panel discussions and uh 10-minute discussions uh on different things.

So it's really a really good uh way to catch up on what's going on in the future and things that we should be aware of here in Eloy.

A couple things I will point out, or I guess my takeaways.

There was an economic outlook done, and I was very surprised, it was very uh optimistic.

I talked about interest rates coming down, inflation was down, and overall, as far as the economy, uh, the uh person doing the presentation was very upbeat on where we're headed for the economy, so it wasn't doom and gloom you hear about a potential recession.

Uh there was a discussion on parking, and it was kind of interesting because it had to do with zoning and ordinances and how many times the cities will copy from other cities when they do new ordinances and relative to parking, they were talking about sometimes in urban areas that parking restrictions for new businesses uh really cause a problem on the new development.

So they brought up the idea of more parking garages and maybe parking lots, which then kind of alleviates that need to have so many parking places for a business because it's uh could be accessed by people just by short walks and so forth, but this then gives more room for uh commercial and retail development.

Uh there was a discussion on uh build the rent, and it's and it's pretty active here in the uh Phoenix area, uh which we're a part.

The interesting thing that they brought up was they said between Phoenix and Dallas, Fort Worth, the development of build the rent homes was double what it was any place else in the country.

So it's something that's happening here because the uh lack of home crisis, I guess.

Uh there was discussion on homelessness and housing.

It was interesting because sometimes you think about homelessness being associated with drugs and uh with uh uh addiction and so forth, but this uh focused more on the fact there's a lot of people losing our homes because of the high rents, and so is that this is a case where people wanted a home, had jobs, just couldn't afford it.

So it was talking about that part of it, and they said if you don't pay attention to those people in the homeless, they tend to be the ones then because of depression and so forth fall into the drugs, fall into that part of it.

So you have to look at the you know the uh root cause sometimes rather rather just say uh homelessness caused by this.

There was uh a big discussion on water and talked about water in Arizona, and the big message was we are not out of water.

You read the papers, you tend to think that, oh gosh, we got a real water crisis.

Well, we do have a water crisis 50 years from now.

And that's kind of what all the talk is about is what can we do now so we don't get into a problem 50, 60 years from now.

But right now we don't have a water problem.

We've got plenty of water to use for development.

The other interesting point, there was a uh professor from Arizona State made a comment.

We for years in our life have thought water is being free, just like the air we breathe.

We're going to have to get to the point that there's a price to water, and so we're probably gonna get to the point in the future, not probably distant future, near future, where water's gonna cost.

It's gonna cost more for water rates, our usage.

Um the fact that they talked that new developments use half the water of older developments.

So if you go into an older development, it's been around 20, 30 years and look at the average water usage, it's double what the average water user is in the new developments.

And so conservation is going to be the key, but it's gonna cost us food water.

If you want uh lawns or you swimming pool, or you want uh uh use of a lot of water, it's probably gonna have a price take with it in the future, which I thought was pretty interesting.

Uh the big discussion on electrification, the power sources.

Uh electrification is coming, and the big concern now is do we have enough uh sources for it?

Where's it coming from?

And what's the transmission lines?

Do we have the infrastructure to deliver it for all the uh electrification things we're doing?

Because everything's going electric now.

And so where's that power coming from?

And is it can the grid handle it?

And then the other last one I'll say is there uh uh next the last one.

There was a discussion about uh electric airplanes, and they said there's by the end of 2025, a year and a half from now, there's gonna be three companies making vertical takeoff electric airplanes.

Now, they use the term air taxis, and I used to think about the time I used to fly these commuter flights from one airport to the other port to catch a main fight.

Well, what happens if these are little you go to the Yale Airport and get one of these little uh electrical vertical takeoff, like uh replacing helicopters almost and fly to the main manager uh airport.

So that's coming.

And they were concerned about the fact airports, local airports do not have facilities set up to handle these landing pads so forth.

So that's the uh vehicles are probably gonna be here before the facilities to handle more.

And lastly, we had a uh a presentation from a uh motivational speaker, and it was on uh kindness, and he challenged us all and just looked and very quietly looked at everybody in the audience, kind of looked around and say, when is the last time you were kind?

Think about the last time you were kind.

And it's trying to stimulate the fact that by being kind to people we get kindness back, you get rewarded, and society is better for it.

So it was quite a day.

Uh you know, good uh connections.

You meet a lot of other people uh from the valley that we've seen at different times before us, other cities.

So uh in the future, council members, whatever you get a chance to go to it, I would highly recommend it.

This isn't your first time going too.

Pardon?

How many times have you gone?

It's probably last six times, maybe seven times.

Yeah, yeah.

I enjoy it very much because you start to get your own uh network that you see every year too, and they make connections over lunch and so forth.

That's good.

Well, thank you for that.

Appreciate you.

Yeah, I'll go ahead, sir.

Yeah, it does slip my mind that uh on Wednesday, March 6th, down here at the City Hall, the USDA rural development did a program for money off it as grants to homeowners here in Eloy.

And I was here for about two hours in City Hall.

I left around 12:30, and at that time they had already completed over 25 applications or completed, signed, sealed, and delivered.

So that's really good news for the people of Eloy.

They will be returning, and it's a 10,000 dollar grant, and they can qualify for a 40,000 loan at low interest, so it's like one percent interest over 20 years.

So people in need in Eloy can almost walk away with 50,000 to fix up their home, and that's just a wonderful thing.

And the turnout was good, and we've got to get that back out to the people that they will be returning, and we get that date, I'll put it out on my social media as well.

I thought I saw that total 50 families applied, and it went as far as the um Congressman Siscomani's office was here to assist as well.

Yes, uh, I met with representatives from Congressman Siscomani's office here and representatives from the USDA that were all here, and we had a great conversation out here.

Why did Eloy qualify and how much they want to do with Eloy?

And the representative from uh Congressman Siscomani's office, CJ.

He took a lot of notes during our conversation, and he was really taken back with uh the demographics of Eloy as far as the size of Eloy compared to the amount of population in Eloy.

So that was very intriguing to him and hopefully good things will come from that.

Perfect.

All right.

Anyone else?

No.

All right.

Well, um, tomorrow I have a Scampo meeting.

It's gonna be here.

So I really will be here for two days in a row.

Um if anybody wants to join us, uh it's at 10 o'clock tomorrow here in our beautiful chambers.

Um also I want to mention that on Friday the Arizona State Transportation Board is having its meeting at 9 a.m.

at the city of Castle Grand, and they're no Florence Online it says Castlegran.

Yeah.

Let me double check a board meeting in the city of Casagran Council Chambers.

I have a board meeting in the city of Casagran Council Chambers.

I thought it was in Florence too until I saw it online.

You'll let me know tomorrow.

Okay.

Online it says on the agenda that it's tomorrow on Friday at 9 a.m.

at the chamber council chambers.

I unfortunately cannot make it due to my work schedule.

If anybody, I know Andy said that you can make it.

If anybody else can make it, um I some staff it's here locally, so maybe we can get with uh Matt and take some pictures of some some roads that are some uh overpasses that can be identified, especially on Sunland Gin.

Maybe uh the call to public and we can speak on that.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yep.

Uh director Matt Rentcher and I will get together and we'll see what we can do.

Especially the overpasses on Sun and Gin.

And okay, too.

Yeah, the overpasses need some assistance.

If it's just a fill.

So um, but yeah, so if anybody can go in and I'll be at their dinner on Thursday night at Lucid.

So I'll be at that one.

So and then also Sarah wanted me to announce that uh let all the residents know who live near the airport or within Eloy, that on March 21st to the 23rd, top skydivers will be doing a 40-way free fall night world record, and we'll be wearing pyrotechnics around moonrise each night.

You will look up and see what looks like a blazing snowflake or fire in the sky.

Don't be alarmed, it's not a UFO.

It's just top-notch skydivers from around the world as far as Australia, Brazil, China, and Finland uh doing the with the best skydivers in the world coming to Eloy to set this new world record.

So we want to date that again.

It's on March 21st to the 23rd.

So we might want to notify our social media that um things are not falling from the sky for they'll call 911 and really uh tie up our system.

So yeah.

And then yes, on Saturday, uh the Chamber of Commerce had their awards, their gala.

Uh the keynote speaker was uh Anna Chavez, who's at uh Eloy resident was a former Eloy resident.

Um she went as high as um working with presidents of the United States, um governors, state of Arizona governors, and also the CEO of uh the Girl Scouts.

And I told her it's her fault that I gained weight during the times while she took over my addiction.

Uh but it was a really nice event, and yes, we did get some awards uh as long as long with uh uh Blossom Digital, who does they do all our videos and stuff.

Um and it was just a really nice evening, and so uh the chamber put it together and they did a really nice job.

And so um, I know we have one staff member there as well from Paul's crew, and they did a good job as well.

So it was a fun night.

So that's it with me, David.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council.

I've got a few things on the agenda for tonight, mostly uh some upcoming events that we have going on.

Uh to kick it off, community services is pretty busy.

They've got a spring break camp that started this week, March 11th through the 14th, and the second week, March 18th to the 21st.

So they've got several registrants available for that.

But if anybody's interested, please contact community services if they want to have uh their child do the spring break camp.

Then next at the end of this month, they're doing an Ely Easter egg hunt.

So we got Easter eggs, candy, carnival games, rides, and the Cretam Kingdom Animals and a special appearance by the Easter bunny himself.

Oh wow.

So come on out for that.

Again, that's the end of the month, Friday, March 29th from 10:30 to 1 in Jones Park.

And then we got a our semi-annual City of Eloy Adopt a Street program going on.

So amongst the City of Eloy, you know, council and staff, there's also several volunteer organizations that join forces on this and go out and help clean up our streets.

So looking forward to picking up trash and just beautifying Eloy.

That is going to be Saturday, April 6th, 7 to 10 a.m.

Um, you know, there's different streets around town that these organizations are part of, but if there's folks listening or out there that want to be part of this event, reach out to Lydia Powell, co-compliance officer with the community development offices, and she'll be able to help you all.

And let's see here, those are the fun events that are going on.

We uh I'm happy to announce that we are new recruits.

We hired two new recruits uh four weeks ago already.

They graduated from the Gilbert Police Academy, and they're four weeks into their FTO training with field officers, and everything's going really well.

They're really enjoying their time here in Eloy and learning all the new ropes for what to do as a police officer and ready to hit the street.

They got four weeks before they hit the street on their own.

So yeah, it's an eight-week, 12-week program.

So they they'll get there.

But they're enjoying what they're doing and enjoying their time here in Eloy.

Uh, additionally, we've got four lateral officers that are being reviewed for positions right now.

So we've got a lot of interest in Eloy and continue to build and maintain our police force.

Um, lastly, and this kind of hits on topic with the Scampo meeting and the bridges.

Happy to report that our city engineering team has returned their comments on the 30% drawings for Sunland Jin and Erica Road.

So those are back in the hands of the engineer.

I think the 60 will come after the 30.

So we are continuing to work heavily on this project.

If you recall, this is the five million dollars that was awarded to us from the state through the help of uh representative Teresa Martinez and TJ Show.

So we are hard at work on getting these plans finalized so we can start construction.

But I know people are really looking forward to getting those improvements on Sunland Jin Road, and we actually have an agenda item today to help with some traffic over there.

Much needed.

Absolutely.

And that all is all I have.

Did you have a comment or you want a question?

Okay.

I have a question about the um spring break.

Paul, do we have full attendance?

Is it is it full capacity with the it is no?

I think about 23 kids in the program today.

Okay.

Thank you for letting me know.

So we just go sign them up tomorrow, just drop them off.

Sign them up at community services versus take them to your house.

Yeah.

Or pick them up on the way from my house to your house to work.

So all right, take care of that tomorrow.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Next one go to consent agenda.

All items listed with the NASTRIC are considered to be a routine matter and will 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 considered its normal sequence on the agenda.

We have items A through M.

Anybody want to discuss any of these, or is there anybody in the audience that wants to discuss any of these?

Steve?

Mayor, just uh just for the record, and although we have it on the consent agenda, we have a number of development agreements that are being terminated tonight as part of the consent agenda.

And I just wanted to make sure to the public or anybody that might be listening in if they have any issues of which they discussed any of those matters if they just bring it to the attention of the mayor as part of the discussion as part prior to voting on the consent agenda, so we can pull those items.

Okay.

Anybody in the audience discuss?

I think we should make Trina read all of them.

Go ahead, Dan.

Yeah.

I know I noticed in these uh all these agreements.

There was letters sent out to the uh the holders of them.

Uh did we hear back or responses back from those, or are we moving forward uh because we haven't heard how was the general feedback to those letters?

Absolutely, thank you, Councilmember Snyder.

We did.

We uh we did hear back from around four or five of the property owners, and in one of the cases, the property owner just wanted some additional information on what was going on.

We explained it to him, and he he agreed with the termination, and you know, he couldn't do anything with the property to move forward with it in the time frame set forth in the DA.

So he was alright.

There were a couple others that did not want to terminate, they just wanted to let the agreement run to its expiration date and needed more information.

So um Mr.

Blaming and I spoke with those individuals and they're fine with everything.

We're just sending out an additional letter to those recipients to clarify and put in writing that their agreement has not been terminated, and we are respecting their desire to have that agreement run for its full term.

Thank you.

All right, since nobody wants to hear Trina talk about all 12 of them.

Do I hear a motion to discussion here?

A motion to approve, so moved.

All right.

Do I hear a second?

I have a second.

Thank you.

Can I get a roll call, please, Trina?

Councilmember Tarango.

Yes.

Councilmember Garcia.

Yes.

Councilmember Snyder.

Yes.

Councilmember Sutton.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Curtis.

Yeah.

And Mayor Powell.

Yes.

Mayor.

Motion passed unanimously.

Thank you.

All right.

So now we're going to go to business.

Discussion and consideration.

Uh.

Yeah, Matt.

Come on up.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, members of the council.

This item before you tonight is not something that we typically do.

As Mr.

Mellowitz alluded to earlier, this is with regards to the Sun and Jan improvements.

Right now we have uh Panaw County has been working on striping their portion, restriping their portion of Sun and Jan as the pavement markings have faded.

We felt in the best interest to uh for the economies of scale to partner with Panawell County and get that to um get our section restriped as as the existing striping.

Um however we did we when we reached out to Panell County to get the price quote from their contractor.

We actually didn't get that until the 26th, which was previous, which was already past the deadline for the previous meeting.

Um we felt in the best interest of of the time and the partnership with Panell County and their contractor to go ahead and and authorize that and then bring that to council for for ratification.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

So this is a contract under Panell County.

Are we working with Panell County on this one?

We are yes.

Okay.

I did notice on some of the scope of work on exhibit A, it had City of Phoenix on there.

Is that a typo or are they going to do it?

It was just a typo.

Is it just a typographical area?

Yes.

Okay.

Shows that I read my packet, Matt.

See?

All right.

Um it hasn't been done already, correct?

Or has it been?

It has not been done yet.

Uh we reached out to the contractor to get a date of when they were supposed to be doing that.

We were told that they were going to be finished with it last week, but as of as of today, it hadn't been done, so we want to uh we've already authorized the contract and send it over to them to and we're just waiting for ratification on on council to move forward with that.

So does this mean that it's gonna be the whole selling gin from the right-of-way into the Auto right away all the way to Bataglia, or is it just a certain area?

The restriping, yes.

It it will be the Panaw County portion has has already been completed, and and actually Chris Wanamaker is the county engineer, he may be able to speak better to that.

Um he's presented on the next time, but um with our portion, it has not been done yet, but we we feel it's in the best interest of the motoring public to have that done sooner rather than later.

I agree, especially in well, it's it's not in the best condition right now, so you really can't see any of the lines as it is in that whole loves area.

So something is better than nothing than threat there.

Um advertisement, how are we notifying the public on this?

We can post it to um our website that it will be starting once we get a firm date of of commencement from the contract.

We can post it to the website that we have.

Um it shouldn't take too long just because it's it's uh uh pavement striping and and that's usually um minimal impact to the to the public.

Basically, they'll have a the striping truck and then they'll have a crash attenuator truck following behind, but the the pavement dries pretty quickly.

Okay, all right.

Maybe we because we have those electrical electric signs, those we do.

We can use that for like you know, whatever date's gonna happen.

That'd be you know that'd be nice for the people to understand what's going on.

Okay, all right.

Any questions or comments, additional ones?

Dan?

No, I'll make a comment because I think I hope they understand that that's a very heavily traveled road in the morning.

They do.

And so to to go out and uh start doing that at uh nine o'clock in the morning, eight o'clock in the morning might be more difficult, so I hope they schedule it more midday when the traffic flow is a little bit lower because that that backs up pretty far from uh it does, Mr.

Mayor, and Councilman Snyder.

We I I have a call in to the contractor.

I have yet to hear back from him as far as coordinating the schedule and the exact date and the time.

What a night time?

It's possible.

Okay.

There's no yeah, well, weekend's busy over there.

And that's that's something that they will discuss when when and if I hear back from the contractor.

Okay, George.

Yeah, it's it's crazy.

Okay.

Well, it's good for right now.

So all right, thank you.

Anybody else for the public?

All right, hearing none.

Uh do I hear a motion to approve?

Item A.

As it's uh presented.

So moved.

Thank you.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

Go to Michelle Can I get a roll call, please?

Councilmember Settin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Curtis.

Yeah.

Councilmember Snyder.

Yes.

Councilmember Garcia.

Yes.

Councilmember Tarango.

Yes.

Mayor Powell.

Yes.

Mayor motion passed unanimously.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Don't go too far.

I'm not going anywhere.

Item B and presentation by Panell County on the half cent sales tax.

Metrune.

Do we have the there we go?

Mr.

Mayor, members of the council.

We have uh Chris Wanamaker here is from the Panal County.

Um he will be present.

He will be presenting on a preserving our future the maintenance of improvement fund update.

This is in regards to the half cent sales tax that was passed um, I believe in 1980 or 1985 was the original one.

Uh every 20 years it renews, it's set to expire in in 2026.

And and Mr.

Watermaker is just here to present what that tax is.

It's it's not a new tax, it's one that's already in place and and the purposes of that.

Okay, Mr.

Warmaker.

Thank you very much.

Uh thanks for the introduction.

My name is uh Chris Wanamaker, the Panell County Engineer, uh Mayor and Council.

Thank you for having me here today to present on this very important topic.

Um on this slide here, you'll see in the top right, there's a sign that says preserving our future.

That is a sign that we are installing out at every project that we're using that we're using these funds to pay for, and it's help it it's to help inform the public of what their tax dollars are used for.

Um and we have a bunch of these signs available.

If if the town would like some, uh just contact us and we can deliver some to you guys to have them installed at any projects that you have that are using this these funds.

So if you're a member of the public, you probably are wondering how is road maintenance funded in Pennell County.

So that we have three primary revenue sources that we use to fund roads, and the first is the vehicle license uh fund, and that is when you register your vehicle.

Um money is collected at the state and then distributed back to the various municipalities.

And then we have our highway user revenue fund, also known as HERF, and that is a little bit more than half of our uh budget for for road projects, and that is the 18 cent uh fuel tax that you pay when you get gas.

Um, and that hasn't been updated since uh the early 90s.

And then the remaining portion of our revenue comes from the half cent excise tax, which is what we call our transportation maintenance and improvement fund, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today.

And by the way, uh in Pennell County, our board of supervisors uh voted a long time ago to not use property taxes to pay for roads, and so currently there are no property tax in the unincorporated county for for roads.

There may be uh cities or towns that have a separate property tax, but I'm not aware of one.

That's just for the public's information.

So a little bit of history, as as Matt kind of mentioned, um, the half cent sales tax was originally authorized by the voters in 1986, passed with a 51% uh approval, and then in 2005, our population had more than doubled, and it came up for reauthorization again, and it passed overwhelmingly with 73 percent approval.

Um, as Matt mentioned, it is set to sunset uh in at the end of 2026 if it is not reauthorized by by the voters.

Now, just for some clarification, this is not the same as as what we had taken to the ballot last year and in 2017, which was proposition 417 and 469.

That was a separate half cent sales tax for what we called a regional transportation authority.

Um that was was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, and then it didn't pass last year when we took it.

So that was a completely separate tax.

That was for new roads, regional roads, and what we're talking about here today is for existing roads, some new projects, which we'll talk about a little bit later, and uh maintenance.

And as he mentioned, this is a tax that's been in place and you're already paying for it.

So a little bit more about the transportation maintenance and improvement fund.

It is collected countywide, and then there is a distribution that goes to the different municipalities, all all different, all ten of them, based on population.

So, how we use the funds, so we do road repairs and rec reconstruction, road widening, traffic safety improvements.

That that could include things like traffic calming, signing, striping, sidewalks, other small type projects, pothole repair.

That's that's a pretty popular use of the fund.

Road preservation, some new construction, and intersection improvements.

So when this fund was originally authorized, we said the county came out and said, let's these are the goals for what we want to use this fund for.

And these goals were improving public safety, managing growth, protecting taxpayers, and improving air quality.

The protecting taxpayers portion, that's pretty important because it costs significantly less to preserve and maintain a road you already have than it is to build a new one.

So by preserving and maintaining what we have, we can save money over the long run.

The air quality components pretty important too because the EPA has mandated that we take care of our dust, our PM10 problems, especially in our non-attainment areas.

And so by paving these dirt roads or putting a um what we call an ARDP or an asphalt rock dust palliative coating over it, we can eliminate the dust and reduce our maintenance costs, and that helps improve air quality for the public.

So this uh graphic kind of shows kind of the financial statement.

So for last fiscal year, um the the lower bar shows that the fund brought in about 36 million dollars total, and again it was distributed amongst the the 10 different municipalities.

This year we're at about 19 million so far collected.

So this chart shows kind of the distribution of how uh it is uh distributed amongst the different municipalities.

Penell County gets a little bit less than half.

Um on this chart you can see this the city of Eloy here last year received about 1.6 million, and so far this year uh this year there I'm sorry, I got the fiscal years wrong.

Last year, just under a million dollars.

Nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand.

All right, so for this slide, I'm gonna back over to Matt.

He's got some project highlights he wanted to talk about here.

Thanks, Chris.

These are specific projects to the city of Eloy.

Um over the past five years, we've used this this funding mechanism to fund the largest portion of our pavement preservation and maintenance program.

Uh in 2018 and 2019, we we did a chip seal of of 12.56 miles.

Uh the next fiscal year we did 19 almost 20 miles.

Um 2021, we did 25 miles, 21, 22, we did 26 miles, and then in 22, 23, we we did five miles, and that was just because of the shift in the operations previously.

We had done a lot of the work in-house, but that pulled a lot of the that pulled all of the streets crews from the different responsibilities that they have, such as the main the weed maintenance, the right-of-way maintenance, the sidewalk repairs, the potholing, and it was focused entirely on the chip seal program.

Uh last year we used a contract to do the to do the biggest portion of that.

We are working with our staff to figure out how we can reach the balance between the contractor doing it and us doing it without neglecting our other duties.

Um we also use that for overlay and reconstruction from the data that we have from 2018.

We've we've either done a mill and overlay or a complete reconstruction on just over three miles with this uh half cent sales tax, uh, as well as the pavement marking.

Uh we've done almost 10 miles uh since 22 uh since fiscal year 22.

This is all coming from the same half cent sales tax, and then with an average of the crack seal and the hot mix asphalt that we have.

We have just under 24,000 pounds applied per year of crack seal material, um, which usually we do in preparation for a chip seal.

So we'll do the crack seal, then we'll do the chip seal on top of that.

The hot makes asphalt is what we use to uh more extensive repairs or potholes.

Uh we we use 250,000 pounds at as on the average uh over the last few years per year.

Um these are some of the the specific projects that we've done with this pavement preservation project.

Um a lot of our chip seal projects that were recently completed in the downtown areas.

Um the tagly road was reconstructed, houser road was chip sealed, um, as well as the the rural roads, the treatment projects that we have, the fog seals and the striping and and things like that.

And it's really so much a part of our streets budget that really we need to continue this so we can keep up with the with the demands in the traffic.

And then these are just some other exhibits showing the treatment in the areas that we've done with this with this funding mechanism.

And then this is just uh just some of the pictures.

This is one Pitaglia Road when we did the chipsal on that, the chip seal and the restrict.

We did 7th Street and 8th Street just recently.

Again, this is the chip seal, and then 9th and 10th, and then this is this is what we're looking at if this tax does not pass.

I'll turn it back to uh to Mr.

Watermaker to finish out with this.

Yeah, thank you very much.

So what we're doing today, um, as I mentioned, the you know, the population keeps increasing, and this fund is set to sunset at the end of 2026 if it's not reauthorized.

So we spent last year um working on some public awareness to get the word out.

We created a website, preservingpanel.com, where you could go, you could see interviews from different people that are involved in this.

You can look at past projects we've worked on, information about how the money has been spent, that kind of thing.

Um January through March of this year, continuing with the public outreach and gaining uh community feedback, and then April through May uh is the potential renewals discussions, and then once the Board of Supervisors calls for the election in about that time frame, our kind of public awareness campaigns will will kind of stop because as you may know, we have as staff, we have to kind of remain neutral at that point and just let the you know with the the tax um the ballots and the and the election do it's do its thing.

See here.

So with that, you know, we do have an open house planned here in Eloy on April 23rd.

It's at 5 30 p.m.

Uh at the the city hall right over here, and that'll just be an open house, and anybody can come ask questions, um, and and see if get any information they want about this.

And then here's here's our website.

So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions about this.

All right.

Thank you.

Anybody on council have any questions?

Yep, Andy.

Yes, Mr.

Wanamaker.

The distribution of these funds to the cities, is that solely based on population, not by geographical size, traffic, or use?

Uh Mayor, council member Sutton, yes, that is correct.

It is based on population.

That population number is updated with every census.

However, if there's an annexation that occurs, for example, um, the the population estimates can be updated.

Um the process, uh as I understand it takes about a year uh to go through because you've got to go through the department of revenues process to kind of update that distribution, but uh it is based on population.

Yeah, follow up on that.

That's an interesting uh question you asked.

So if uh a community is uh let's pick Eli low population, so we don't get a big pie-the-pie.

But the traffic from Arizona City coming up Sun Gin Road uh goes through Ela.

And so even though it's uh the residents of Eloy, the the total numbers low, the volume of traffic over the uh Ely roads could be much higher than's represented by that population.

Is there any consideration of that of uh are different uh arteries being used by the population other than what's in those particular cities?

Uh Mayor, Councilmember Snyder, um that's a great question.

And and to be honest, I don't know.

I again I believe it's just population based.

Now, what the the good thing is is it's a sales tax.

So anybody who purchases anything in this county, and and that includes tourists, people that are heading through Pennell County, heading to Phoenix, wherever, if they stop and make a purchase, a portion of that purchase that this sales tax goes to fund those.

So it does help be a little more equitable as far as people that are using these roads pay for it.

Um but I believe it is just strictly population based.

All right.

Anyone else?

In the public, anybody want to talk?

Yeah.

What about electric cars?

So the question was uh with the vehicle license tax uh and uh and how that plays with electric vehicles.

So um electric vehicles, they pay a registration tax, which goes into this pot of money.

I believe there's a bill going through the legislature right now that's proposing a different rate or something like that.

I'm not fully aware of of that.

But that is an important point because the highway user revenue fund, which is the gas tax.

If you drive an electric vehicle, you aren't paying that, but you're still driving on our roads.

So that is kind of a question that needs to be answered, but that's not you know, that's gonna be something our legislatures are gonna have to deal with is is as as we get more and more electric vehicles on the road.

Okay, Julian.

They're there.

Yeah, um, and like I said, I'm not aware of the specifics of the bill, but I know there's been a lot of different proposals on how to account for the fact that electric vehicles are using the roads but not really paying for it in the way that is these roads have been traditionally funded.

So it is uh something that's definitely uh a challenge that's being worked on.

All right.

So I think the first thing we need to do is is um you know, outreach, public outreach, you know, and and the more the people understand they can ask questions, and I know we have that that meeting.

Um, but we we need to do our part too as a council to educate um and figure out what what why we need this and stuff.

Um so you know, it's uh we had four percent, other communities had three percent, and um yeah, and then of course the Santan Valleys and the Gold Canyons and all they they had the majority of it based on population as well, too.

They're a lot bigger than us.

So yeah, um, education is key.

Yeah, that's that's right.

You know, we found when we did our public surveys that when we educated people and let them know that hey, this is something you're already paying when you go buy anything in the county.

That kind of changed their perspective a little bit.

Oh, okay, it's not a new tax.

I'm already paying for it.

I'd like you know, I want to have nice roads.

Um, and and it was very positive.

So it you're right, that education is very important.

So, what happens if Devil's advocate here, you know, what happens if it doesn't pass?

Then what?

Then what's the county wanting to do at that at that point?

Well, mayor, that's that's a great question.

And you know, we're hoping that doesn't happen, but you know, if it does, uh, you know, we're gonna be in in a world of trouble because we won't have the funds to be able to maintain the roads that we have.

We're gonna have to find very creative ways to use the other revenue sources that we have to try and stretch it out as much as possible.

Now, you know, there are discussions about going back out to the public before that regional transportation authority someday in the future, um, possibly two or more years from now, and that that would be for new roads, that will be for maintenance, but our um yeah, if this goes away, you know, we're we're gonna be in a in a world of trouble as far as maintaining our roads.

Okay.

All right, well, thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I'm sure we'll put that website on our on our or the yeah, on our website so people can go and look at it as well.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Appreciate you.

So there's no action on that item, and um that's gonna be it.

It's it's weird seeing Mary down in the chairs over there.

So are we gonna do we have to get used to this, Mary?

Not yet.

Not yet.

Uh I know I know David wants to say one more thing before we uh we go our different ways.

Thank you, Mayor.

I was just uh gonna remind council and members of the public that we have a work session scheduled for Monday the 18th at 5.30 to talk about the city's completed um classification and compensation study.

So we will have that you know it's open to the public, it will be live streamed, but again, Monday, the 18th, 530 work session.

Okay.

Uh McKenzie will be getting back to you all on that.

I believe the Saturday may is still up in the air because of some folks that yes, don't I can't make it really?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

McKinsey had to step out today, but I'll get back with him and we'll square that away and get a communication out to you all.

Yes.

Trina, you didn't do so bad your first time.

Thank you, Mayor.

Appreciate that.

All right.

Might have to get used to that seat.

All right, guys.

Thank you all for coming.

That's going to conclude today's uh the city council meeting.

We will see you guys, if not here on Monday, see you next Monday.

You guys drive safe.

Good night.