Okay, I'd like to uh call the order the regular council meeting of November eighteenth, twenty twenty five.

Can you join me in an attitude of prayer?

Creator God, we come before you asking for your presence with us today as the Gilbert Town Council meets.

We seek your wisdom and ask that you guide each of our council members in their thinking, in their listening, in their conversation, and in their decision making.

We are aware, Heavenly Father, that we will not always agree.

So we ask for patience with each other and the awareness that there is not always a single right answer, but more often a means of compromise and collaboration that leads to the best outcome for all of Gilbert's residents.

Grant us perseverance to seek the best outcome in each issue before our council today.

We thank you for our council members and ask that you will bless them for their service.

We pray that you will rise up the next generation of leaders who will serve our community, help our current leaders to encourage them and mentor them well.

Bless our work here today, so that Gilbert might be a refuge for its citizens, a place of kindness, peace, and economic opportunity for all who live here.

We thank you, Lord, for the beauty of our city and state, and for the natural resources that you have blessed us with.

Help us to be responsible in our use of these resources and to be faithful stewards of our talents, bodies, and planet.

May our meeting today honor you in always, and may we be faithful in our service to each other and to you.

We pray all these things in your holy name, knowing that all honor and glory is yours forever.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor.

I ask you now to all rise.

Our Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Councilmember Torgeson.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation, under God, indivisible authority and justice for all.

We now ask the clerk to call a roll.

Mayor Scott Anderson.

Here.

Vice Mayor Bobby Buckley.

Here.

Councilmember Chuck Bongiobani.

Here.

Councilmember Kenny Bucklin.

Here.

Councilmember Young Kaprowski.

Here.

Councilmember Monty Lyons.

I'm here.

And Councilmember Jim Torgeson.

Here.

A quorum is present.

Thank you.

At this time we have one proclamation.

I'd ask the Gilbert Days Rodeo Committee to join me down here in front of the Daisy.

Hello.

Jimmy McKay.

Okay.

There is spokesman in this group.

That's right here.

You you two.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll get to you in just a second.

Unless you've uh been under a rock for a few years, you know that this week we have a very special event in Gilbert, uh, the Gilbert Days, and this group is responsible for a lot of the planning that goes into Gilbert Days.

And so we want to thank them and recognize them for all the work that they do.

And we've always done this every year, had a proclamation uh declaring Gilbert Days, uh, because it is so important to our community.

So I'm going to read the proclamation, and then we've got a couple of spokespeople that would like to say something.

Okay.

Let me begin.

Whereas the Gilbert Promotional Corporation has actively promoted Gilbert, Arizona through the annual celebration of Gilbert Days for many years.

And whereas this event has become an occasion enjoyed not only by the residents of Gilbert, but by citizens from around the state of Arizona and visitors to Arizona.

And whereas the Gilbert Days celebration provides entertainment for spectators as well as participants in a week-long celebration of Western festivities.

The official opening will begin November 14th and 15th with the Pony Express 100 mile ride.

Did that go off successfully, by the way?

Good.

I remember watching that at one time.

Now, therefore, I, Scott Anderson, mayor of the town of Gilbert, Arizona, do hereby proclaim the week of November 17th through the 23rd, 2025, as Gilbert Days in the town of Gilbert and do hereby call upon all the citizens of Gilbert and all visitors to join with us in celebrating Gilbert Days.

Thank you.

Let's give them some recognition.

And I'm going to hand the mic over to Kylie.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you for being out here tonight.

I'm Kylie Carrasco, Gilbert Days Rodeo Queen.

I'm here with all of my committee who has been working hard for a whole year to get this rodeo to where it is today.

Now, here at Gilbert Days Rodeo as well as Gilbert Promotional Corporation.

Our goal is to keep the Western Heritage alive here in Gilbert since 1978.

And that's exactly what we're doing this weekend.

November 21st to the 23rd, we'll be having a blast, three days of rodeo, as well as kids' events, food, and vendors, everything you're not gonna want to miss.

We're also having a dance this year at the end of the rodeo that we're super excited about.

So make sure to get your tickets at Gilbert DaysRodeo.org, or you can get them at the gate as well at our super cute ticket booth.

We hope to see you guys there.

You got anything to say, JD?

Well, I think she pretty much covered all of that.

So what I would just like to do is thank this group of people that is right here, because they work out tirelessly throughout the year to make sure this gets kicked off.

So along with a handful of others, so thank you, and thank you to the town.

Do you want to introduce them?

I can.

You just want to go through a live.

Sure.

Yeah.

Ed Musgraves.

Joan Musgraves.

Courtney Seymour.

And I'm JD McGee.

And then Padilla.

Alba Padilla, Gilbert Days 2025 Princess.

Sandy Martin.

Sarah Peace.

Kathy Padilla.

Bobby Padilla, born and raised.

Jen Padilla.

Patty Williams.

Josh Morris.

Thank you again.

These are the people behind the great festivities we have this whole week.

So let's give them another round of applause.

All right.

Do you guys want to sweeve it together?

Just a little bit more.

Right under the Gilbert would be good.

So if I won't get one of the chat.

Do you want to be about the question?

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're going to do a little change in the agenda.

At this point, we're going to bring forward the uh report from the town manager so you can share information that uh people that are here might be interested in.

Patrick.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, good evening, Mayor Council.

Uh wanted to provide an update with in water and utility and give a high-level overview of the listening sessions that have been held, the third-party audit and the status of that, some expanded customer service support that we're doing and the billing portal.

Starting with our listening sessions, the town's completed two of the three scheduled listening sessions.

The format is comprised of tables where a council member, staff, subject matter, expert, and note taker engage in a two-way conversation with residents for up to 20 minutes at a time.

Notes were taken to ensure feedback and any action items were properly accounted for.

Let me see if I've got the date here.

I do not have the date here.

I will get you the date of our last listening session.

Oh, it was the next slide.

Our last listening session will be on.

I told you I'd get it for you.

Just didn't realize it'd be that quick.

Wednesday, December 3rd, 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

at the Santan Vista Water Treatment Plant.

During this Santana water treatment plant session, residents are also invited to join a facility tour to learn more about Gilbert's water treatment process and operations and walk-ins are welcome for this listening session.

The third party meter audit.

The town selected Kimley Horn and Associates LLC to provide the independent audit.

The selection was based on their commitment to objectivity, credibility, data transparency, and public communication and handling of sensitive information.

Kimley Horn has provided initial data request and met with staff on November 5th to clarify and refine the audit scope.

The anticipated timeline for that audit work to be done is four to six months.

Expanded customer support.

In October of 25, the water conservation team completed 124 water efficiency checkups compared to 68 checkups during the same period in 2024.

This represents an 82% increase in service volume.

These checks provide an average savings of 65,000 gallons per year per checkup.

The building portal.

The town has been able to activate continuous consumption reports.

These alerts flag the utility customer support team to review potential consumption issues and trigger when necessary a proactive outreach to residents to investigate any issues the resident is experiencing.

434 residential continuous consumption notifications were sent out this morning.

We're also aware that a small number of residents are experiencing issues accessing past water usage in the online portal.

We anticipate a long-term fix to be accessible soon.

In the interim, there is a temporary workaround.

Customers can view their usage by selecting both meters in the check your usage drop-down within the portal.

Additionally, past water usage is also available on your PDF billing statements, which can be accessed directly through the portal.

To ensure you stay up to date on the progress being made related to the water and utilities, we encourage you to scan the below QR codes.

The first one is to utility updates page that serves as a single source of truth when it comes to progress updates as well as additional troubleshooting resources.

The second QR code is to sign up for the town newsletter so you can receive direct email communication on essential information such as water and utility updates.

With that, Mayor, that is finishes the overview of our water and utility.

Thank you.

We'll proceed on to communications from citizens.

Vice Mayor.

Okay, good evening, everyone.

To begin communications from citizens, I'm going to be reading the rules of decorum.

So we value the participation of our community members and robust exchange of ideas.

However, it's essential that this discourse remain respectful and constructive, reflecting the professionalism expected in such forums.

Misinformation and personal attacks undermine our collective efforts and do not contribute to the productive dialogue necessary for our town's progress.

This is an opportunity for the public to address the town council directly about issues impacting the town.

Accordingly, the town council will not allow for moments of silence or the playing of music or other recorded material, which could distract from the meeting decorum or violate copyrights.

While we understand and appreciate the passion our community members bring to this session, we remind everyone that clapping during the meeting is not acceptable.

This practice can cause just can disrupt the flow of discussion, potentially intimidate others, and detract from the respectful atmosphere we strive to maintain.

In accordance with state law, we are enabled to provide responses to public comments during this meeting.

Please be assured that your comments and input are heard and valued.

In accordance with town code, each speaker is limited to three minutes.

Priority will be given to Gilbert residents, business owners, and property owners.

Public comments will be limited to 30 minutes total at the beginning of the meeting.

The town clerk will notify the council once the 30-minute limit has been reached.

If additional comments remain, they will be heard after the conclusion of the public hearing items with the same three-minute limit per speaker.

When you come up to the podium, please state your name and the city of your residents.

Yes, uh Richard Young.

I'm a resident of Gilbert.

I'm here to speak against the 30 by 30 program presently with the police department.

That program sets a quota for hiring female police officers.

I don't have any objection to hiring women for police officers.

I have an objection to hiring someone on the basis of a check box, a quota.

And that leads to problems.

It's led to problems everywhere else.

One of the objections to that is that this council has already established a policy against it.

You've passed you have a policy for hiring people on the basis of their qualifications, male, female, whatever race they may be, whatever religion they may be, their individual qualities and their ability to perform the job is the only criterion for hiring them, not check boxes.

The other difficulty uh with this is that it could cost you federal funding.

The um United States Attorney General has a memorandum expressly expressly saying if you engage in this type of program, you can lose your federal funding.

I urge you to find this, look at it.

You're putting your federal funding at risk, well, the police department is by doing this, and you don't want to do that.

Lastly, it's simply illegal.

The courts have generally been opposed to this.

The uh students for fair admissions versus Harvard established it fairly clearly.

We'll not discriminate on the basis of demographics.

You can discriminate on the basis of personal qualifications, which actually was the ideal of Martin Luther King at one time, rather than uh checkbox categories.

So I I don't think the council is even aware how far this program has developed.

You inherited it, you didn't create it, you inherited it.

Now you've already taken a step to get rid of it.

I think you need to finish doing that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Young.

Our next speaker is Catherine Mason.

I'll defer to the next speaker.

She's going to donate our hours, I have our minutes to me.

Yeah, right.

We can't, we can we don't, yeah, we don't do that anymore.

All right, thank you.

Uh okay.

Uh the next speaker is Dave Rosenfeld.

I am Dave Rosenfeld.

I am a resident of Gilbert, and I want to say, starting that I was absolutely shocked by this council looking me in the eyes and saying that my removal from the Veterans Advisory Board was not retaliatory, and then literally hide behind Chris Payne and refuse to allow me to speak during the administrative actions at the last meeting.

I was going to start by saying your actions were irrelevant.

They were not.

It would have been sad, but valid.

And if it was, and everyone on this dais is absolutely wrong for not taking corrective actions.

Councilman Lyons pointed out four sections of the code that I specifically violated, the first being maintaining the public trust.

The town clerk for illegally creating policies and resulting in records deletions, the chief of police and fire for actions they've taken, this town council in its entirety for conspiracy, misconduct, terroristment, stalking, corruption, retaliation, incompetence, spying on employees, release of private records, and withholding public records.

I reiterate the neighbors' comments only because Councilman Lyons stated that one of those four reasons for me being taken off the VAB was civility.

But in the last five years, my name has never been mentioned at all.

I didn't violate state law by sitting on the dais and engaging in conversation with citizens during comments from citizens, not once but twice, and then apologize on live TV as Councilman Torgeson did in his own words, go on an F-bomb-laden diatribe on a reporter, and then reiterating, but you deserved it.

He wanted to apologize for ripping the man's head off.

All after the vice mayor had told him that he was out of order, and his response was no, you're out of order.

Monty, did Jim make it very clear that he was speaking on his own behalf and not on behalf of the town council when he went on his F-bomb laden diatribe.

I suspect that that reporter took it where he was speaking from town council.

But we'll come back to that.

I did not sit on the diatri or on the dias and apologize for how I treated the public with disdain, as Councilman Bon Giovanni did, and saying he was gonna get off social media, and then just a few days ago commented one of the realtors involved in a news article, was recently kicked off one of the town's commissions, so he had other motivations.

Shockingly, Chuck, we all noticed that you chose not to call out Ann Shute because we all know she runs Go Gilbert, and she would have shut you down.

Everyone here tonight is questioning whether these things are going to be dealt with under the code of conduct, and if those results are gonna be made public, as the attacks against me were okay.

Our next speaker.

I am done.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Daryl Grosson.

My name is Darrell Grosson, and currently unemployed engineer and a Gilbert resident since 2012.

I want to start by thanking Kenny Buckland and Jessica Marlowe for allowing me to ask some very difficult questions for an hour and a half on Saturday.

While I left with more questions to ask, this is the sort of communication that is required to solve these kinds of problems.

One way discussions in three minute segments will get us nowhere.

Unfortunately, my conversation with the town only highlighted the critical failures of this administration.

Key staff and council members did not appear to be aligned and lacked fundamental and lacked critical fundamental information for proper decision making.

The logic behind the tiered water rates was not known.

It is deeply concerning that senior staff could not answer this fundamental question quickly.

Furthermore, I was shocked to learn that the town had full knowledge and understanding that most residents would be hit twice with the new rates, once for their personal utility bills, and a second time through increased HOA fees.

This double penalty is reloaded has resulted in some HOAs increasing their fees as much as legally possible, which isn't enough to cover the increases, unless they're on reclaimed water.

This seems to be an intentionally deceptive tactic to increase water revenue.

The rate rollout was a complete failure.

Staff understated the increases by claiming only minor changes.

The reality is that the total expense to residents, both base rates and water usage rates, have more than doubled in four years.

Staff misrepresented the total impact by glazing over critical details, and the council failed to pursue a complete understanding of these increases.

This was a negligent failure of duty, and I am sorely disappointed.

My extensive research, which I am prepared to share, shows the catastrophic impact this is having across our community, from struggling single parents and retirees to large homes and small farms from which Gilbert came into existence.

Even pushing them to the brink of imminent financial failure.

The absolute final step or sorry, the absolute first step to solving this complex issue is simple.

Return to the last known safe condition.

I strongly recommend reverting to the 2023 water rates immediately and enacting a moratorium.

Over the next four to six months, we can collaborate and develop an equitable and reasonable solution for all residents.

As an immediate necessary fix, certified many farms must be placed on a business mixed use water rates, a simple programming change to immediately mitigate their financial hardship and hope they can stay in business.

Town credibility is at an all-time low.

Stop blaming leadership, pass leadership, stop misrepresenting facts on social media, and stop approving excessive salary increases while the public struggles.

I am still waiting for verifiable data that previous leadership failed to act, and apartment complexes are paying the new SDF fees.

I have spent months analyzing this data.

I'm an engineer ready to help you solve this problem.

Other solutions exist.

You simply haven't created you haven't been creative enough to find them out yet.

We need to do better for our community.

Thank you for your time.

Okay, thank you.

Um can we have Patrick look into that or somebody should?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, our next speaker is Bill Spence.

My name is Bill Spence.

I'm a resident of Gilbert and former Gilbert Councilman.

This past July I had a series of conversations with Councilmember Kenny Buckland regarding Gilbert's public records program.

During these conversations, he made several concerning statements about Gilbert Police Department policies implemented by former police chief Tim Dorn.

In reference to Chief Dorn, he said he fudged numbers.

He changed how we do our calls for service.

We went from 15,000 emergency calls a year down to just over 500.

He created a priority zero, which nobody else had.

The creation of a priority zero reporting category lowered GPD's reported response time from six minutes 31 seconds down to four minutes and artificially lowered the police manning requirements simply by manipulating the numbers.

In 2010, a study by Corona Solutions said that Gilbert needed 46 additional officers based on the workload and work goals.

The fudge numbers by GPD said we needed 202 officers when Corona Solutions said that we needed 274.

We only had 228.

Gilbert Police Department has been significantly understaffed for the last 15 years due to this unlawful policy, and the police and the police officers and the residents have suffered as a result.

Councilmember Buckland continued by saying, for the next six years, I fought with him saying, you're killing this town.

You're putting our people at risk.

You're putting our community at risk.

Regardless, in 2016, Gilbert was named the safest city in the U.S.

among the 100 largest cities by the FBI based on the UCR data that was provided by the town.

Chief Dorn was allowed to retire in March 2017.

Mike Silver became chief in June 2017.

The priority zero policy was codified by Chief Solberg in January 2018, and the practice continued until 2023 when the reporting systems no longer allowed for this type of data manipulation.

We were no longer the second safest city in the country.

This information is no way suggesting any misconduct by the rank and file police officers that risk their lives every day protecting the community.

These officers are also victims of bad policies and corrupt leadership.

This also does not implicate any wrongdoing by Councilmember Buckland.

He tried for several years to change this policy, but was subjected to retaliation like so many others who tried to expose the truth.

I have been repeatedly harassed and threatened with civil and criminal action by council members, the town, and even Chief Solbert.

The town has taken extraordinary steps to prevent me from accessing these records.

They even hired an outside law firm to investigate me.

The public records narrative being pushed by the town was intended to intimidate residents into silence and discourage them from requesting information.

And now we know some of what the town is trying to hide.

There is so much more information to disclose and so many more things to investigate.

Patrick Banger and Chief Solberg were made aware of the trouble caused by these policies, yet they continued to reporting manipulated information.

They betrayed our police officers, misled numerous councils, and jeopardized the safety of our residents.

The council has a legal and ethical responsibility to take action.

I am demanding an immediate investigation of the town from an outside law enforcement agency.

Failure to do so would make this entire council complicit in the conspiracy to cover up misconduct in what may be the biggest scandal in the history of our town.

Okay, thank you.

Our next speaker is Maureen Hoppe.

My name is Maureen Hoppe and I'm a resident of Gilbert for 24 years.

If you haven't read your inbox, I sent a formal letter to the entire council requesting an investigation into multiple code of conduct violations.

Not one of you has acknowledged my complaint, nor has anyone attempted to address the evidence of criminal misconduct that I presented.

It appears you all intend to cover up the misconduct of one of your own.

I allege corruption of the town Gilbert officials, a belief that is shared by many Gilbert residents.

I previously submitted complaints to the attorney general, at least one, which led to an investigation of the town just a few short months ago.

Although the town attempted to keep this investigation quiet, the town attorney, Chris Payne, doxxed me.

Two current council members also doxed me, and then posted false information online with the intent to incite public harassment.

At the last council meeting, Councilmember Lyons continued perpetuating these lies with the absurd claims regarding public records.

Where's your receipts?

Where's your documentation?

Show us the proof, not magic Monty Math.

Several council members continue to unlawfully make false and defamatory statements from the dais without a shred of evidence to support their claims.

To the contrary, I have produced records and uncovered evidence of repeated misconduct by town officials.

I have a few records to share with you tonight while you think about your next actions.

First, I have for you an email between town attorney Payne and Gilbert's outside counsel, Andrew McGuire, outlawing, outlining events and identifying potential criminal misconduct by multiple council members and proves the deliberate withholding of public records by the town attorney.

This is just one of the records that the town is trying to destroy.

Second, since we're all talking about water, I have an internal town email discussing a $621 and 19 cent water bill credit for Councilmember Torgeson.

I'm confused because Councilmember Torgeson has stated multiple times that his property was vandalized, but seems to also want to try to claim a water credit.

Is this a council member hookup?

Is it fraud?

I look forward to your explanations.

For the last two years, I've been threatened with both criminal and civil action.

I've been stalked and harassed by certain council members and their friends.

Recent comments lead me to believe that this harassment was aided by town staff.

Encouraged by these same council members, the town even hired a law firm to investigate, threaten, and intimidate residents seeking public records.

I believe there is a widespread corruption in the town of Gilbert, and the guilty are running for cover.

The town manager directed records to be purged prior to his departure.

And now you also have proof in your hands right here that the town attorney withheld evidence from investigators.

This optic of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours smells like a dead carp.

Are you going to keep turning a blind eye to this, or you're going to actually do something about it?

Gilbert's heritage and reputation have taken a hard hit as a result of your actions, or rather your lack of actions.

You're failing our community, and we deserve better thank you.

Um our next speaker is Brittany Bremhall.

My name is Britney Brimhall, and I live on nearly two acres in White Fence Farms here in Gilbert.

Mayor, Council members, and town staff, thank you so much for listening to us at the listening sessions and for genuinely engaging with the residents.

I attended both, and I'm grateful for the conversations that I've had with many many of you, especially Councilmembers Bongiovanny, Torgeson, and Buckland.

Tonight I'm speaking on behalf of the large acreage families whose properties still reflect the agricultural heart that built this town back when Gilbert proudly called itself the hay capital of the world.

These properties remain a living piece of that heritage.

They make Gilbert feel safe-rooted, green, and neighborly.

We aren't using water carelessly.

We grow food, we raise livestock, we create shade, greenery, and open space that benefits the entire community.

We supply local markets, share our bounty with their neighbors, and we provide the small town charm and agricultural richness that subdivisions simply cannot replicate.

But the current tiered water system places an unintended and disproportionate burden on us.

Here's the reality.

Four normal homes could easily fit on my acreage.

If each used 30,000 gallons, they'd pay about 450 combined.

But a single homeowner maintaining that same total land area using the exact same amount of water pays nearly $900.

Same water, same land, but one homeowner pays more than all four households combined.

For those of us with livestock, the stakes are even higher.

We are legally required to provide water and cooling.

Failing to do so would be animal neglect, criminally actionable, yet we're charged many times more for the water that we legally are obligated to provide.

Arizona law requires water rates to be just and reasonable.

Charging one family multiples more than four families using that same combined water cannot meet that standard, and the town has already acknowledged that this outcome was not intended.

We're not here angry, we're here hopeful, and we're ready to partner with you.

We're asking for a thoughtful course correction, whether that's a revised tier structure or a separate maximum rate for agricultural or large scale or large acreage properties.

Simply a system that reflects reality of maintaining several times more land crops and livestock than the average home.

And when these families aren't crushed by unintended water penalties, the entire town benefits.

We contribute more to the local tax base, we support local businesses, we maintain our properties preventing blight.

We preserve open space that cools the town and reduces the heat island effect.

We strengthen the small town character that residents love and that draws people to Gilbert in the first place.

We enrich this community, we feed this community, we strengthen this community.

We love Gilbert.

We've put our roots down here, and we simply want policies that honor Gilbert's past while supporting the families who keep its agricultural spirit alive today.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Barbara Colvin.

My name is Barbara Colvin and I live in Gilbert.

And many of you, if not every one of you, has seen me because I've been here at every meeting and every listening session so far.

And you guys can't even get your stories straight.

I've attended the listening sessions, a bunch of bobbleheads shaking in agreement.

But no, there will be no reduction in the existing rate increase, and the April 2026 is still being projected for 25%.

In the first listening session, I was told that there were nine, six to nine proposals that they were being evaluated to reduce it to a minimum of 12% or stay at the 25% projected percent increase.

Quoted in the Gilbert Independent.

Water manager Rebecca Hamill gave the town council an in-depth look at municipal utility rates, outlining how rising costs, infrastructures, projects, and long-term planning are shaping the town's water bill.

Gilbert takes a proactive approach towards retaining our infrastructure.

Even though Gilbert's water meets the definition of affordability.

That was the end of the quote.

Keep up.

There's no way.

And that is a big fat joke.

Who and what governing body can honestly think raising a resident sewer water trash bill by over 135% is okay.

And it appears this only applies to single family homes or acreage homes, not the thousands and thousands of apartments up and down every street.

We were told the apartment tenants are paying their fair share.

Sorry, but the level of trust has gone out the window.

I'm believing that from any of you.

And I've been visiting many of these apartment complexes, and there's all these little fees to the city for this and that on their utility for water and sewer.

I went to one this afternoon.

I says, What are you going to do?

Put a meter by their toilet, and every time they flush it, you measure how much money, how much water they use to flush the toilet.

I'm referring to the $30 flat doubling of our sewer on the houses.

At the town hall on 1014, Jessica gave a slideshow about the projects underway, and we should see.

This is a quote we should see a 40 dollar increase in our bill.

Not one of that has been there.

She needs a new calculator.

You cannot do an overall 50% increase on the bill, 100% increase on sewer, and expect your bill to only go up 40 dollars.

Sewer was a $30 flat increase.

Plus, you are still planning on plant uh raising it the 25% in April of 2026.

Most of the residents do not have six-figure salaries or anywhere near that.

So to take your increases and add them up with other monthly essentials, SRP, APS, gas, mortgage, food.

These salaries of these people aren't going up.

They're going to be out of a home.

All governments have budgets.

Within these budgets, there are rainy day funds, emergency funds for faulty projects, line items for oops, that doesn't work.

There's a way that you can look at the budget and come up with some sort of solution.

We're not here just with complaints, we're here with some type of response, viable response from you guys.

And it's not happening.

I had one Congress person tell me in the first listening session that there was no more apartment complex going up.

Everything's on hold as far as installing the new meters, the new faulty meters, and the apartments growing.

You can't go down any street without seeing them.

And then second listening session, I was told the same thing.

Here, Gilbert Sun came out today.

Two controversial projects, wind town of Gilbert, okay.

A 91, I know it's up, a 91 community area, and a 357 more apartment complex going up.

Revise your little thing.

It is not accurate.

Your input, our input does not help you improve the essential services you rely on, water, sewer, trash, and recycling.

You say you take that responsibility seriously and deeply value our trust.

Your trust, our trust in you has gone out the window.

If you're having issues with your utility bill, we're here to resolve them with care and transparency.

I haven't seen any of that happen.

And thank you for being part of our community.

We hope connecting with council members and staff has been helpful and meaningful.

There's a big fail on that one too.

And I will be back at every town hall meeting there is and every listening session there is, and I'm not done talking about it.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Vice Mayor, we have about five minutes remaining for this portion of the meeting.

Okay.

I only have three left.

Um council agree we can finish them up.

Stayed in three minutes.

Yeah, if you yeah, if you stay within your three minutes, you there's three people left.

We can do them all in this first session.

So the next speaker is Jenny Jones.

My name is Jenny Jones.

I'm a resident of Gilbert.

Um, you guys know me because I've spoken here before.

I spoke in June about the arson that burned our part of our property down after our daughter was targeted.

Tonight I'm here because several public statements made after that meeting did not reflect what I actually said and dismissed concerns that were based on evidence.

Councilmember Buckland publicly labeled my concerns as concerns as unfounded.

Torgenson said they were just silly.

Town spokesman Jennifer Harrison issued a statement claiming my comments were deeply concerning accusations and insisted that every investigation follow state law.

Councilmember Koprowski publicly supported that statement.

Those remarks suggested I accused the Chris Payne, the town attorney of protecting his nephew.

I did not do that.

I said his nephew was named in police reports for earlier mortar incidents, and that he was referenced in our arson report for related crimes.

Those references came directly from police documentation.

My concern was transparency, not accusations.

Now I want the public to understand the actual timeline that Gilbert police withheld for me.

Police uncovered two separate solicitations to that targeted our daughter.

Two separate solicitations to assault her, both by the same juvenile who later threw the mortar that set our barn on fire.

The first solicitation happened on June 20th, and the second on June 24th.

These are not vague comments.

They were direct attempts to get someone to attack our daughter.

Then on July 3rd, less than two weeks later, our barn was set on fire.

Gilbert police discovered these solicitations in December during the phone extractions.

They had clear evidence that my daughter had been targeted for violence by the same juvenile who caused the fire, yet they never told me.

Arizona Arizona law requires that a parent of a juvenile victim be notified.

They did not, that did not happen, not once.

I asked repeatedly for information before the juvenile sentencing for the arson, and the department refused to release it.

I stood in juvenile court, unable to speak about the danger to my daughter because Gilbert PD withheld information they were legally required to give me.

We had to obtain the unredacted subpoena or report through a subpoena.

Only then did we learn the actual truth.

Everything I had suspected was correct.

My daughter had been targeted twice in the days leading up.

After I filed a police report last month with this new information, I was given only a case number.

I was not given a victim rights form.

I was not given victim service contact.

No investigator has reached out.

It's now been over a month.

This is the second time our case has required victim rights or that victim rights procedures were have been ignored.

These are not small mistakes.

These are violations of the Arizona Constitution and state law.

In June, everything I shared came directly from police reports.

When council members and town officials dismissed my concerns publicly, it did not just affect me.

It sent a message to every victim in Gilbert that their concerns can be brushed aside even when the evidence supports them.

Because the comments about me were made publicly, the correction needs to be public as well.

I am requesting a public acknowledgement that my statements were represented inaccurately and a public apology for labeling labeling my concerns as silly or unfounded when the truth shows the opposite.

My request is simple correct the record, address the victim rights violations, and ensure that no other parent has to have information subpoenaed to learn that their child was targeted for victims multiple times.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Our next speaker is David Rigsby.

Thank you, Councilor Mayor, for giving us a little bit of extra time.

I'm David Rigby, citizen of Gilbert, and I just wanted to express my appreciation of the town leadership and the council in being available.

I attended one of the water listening sessions and was very impressed with the all hands on deck effort to reach out and connect face to face with citizens.

I feel as we meet face to face.

There's more human interaction.

We're able to understand and have conversations on a level that online communication, which often goes south quickly, doesn't.

And so I was impressed.

I appreciated being able to speak with Jessica Marlowe and understand more directly from one of our public works directors.

I had many of my questions answered, but still have many more.

I'm inspired by a request that young Koprowski gave back when discussions were being had about the 515 million dollar transportation bond to make a more public presentation of how this money was being spent and place that somewhere prominently, like on the Gilbert webpage.

Maybe that information is there, but in my efforts, which have been fairly extensive, it's hard for me to piece this all together.

I feel like as citizens, we are an intelligent community community.

We are able to handle information, we would benefit from understanding more clearly where this money is going.

And that relates in particular to the increased funds that are being generated from the drastically raised water rates.

It's one thing to say, hey, there's a 600 and some odd million dollar water treatment plant, which we're halfway through with, but where is that money going?

When does that money pay for that difference?

When does that or where does that money go in addition to that?

Having something that is transparent, public, easy to digest would be something, as young Koprowski had mentioned, I feel would be very beneficial to our community.

I think it would go a long way as far as education and transparency.

There's a lot of confusing elements to enterprise funds, which have to be used specifically within their lane, versus capital improvement projects versus transportation bonds.

The two plus billion dollar budget of the town of Gilbert is massive.

And to have seven people as the gatekeepers of that, where the rest of the community were trying to work, we're trying to pay for our water bill, we're trying to celebrate our kids who we I appreciate you giving them their day in our city and recognizing them.

We're trying to raise families, we're trying to work hard, we're trying to provide for the future.

If we could have help to digest some of these complex issues and have them presented in a way that helps us make sense, I feel there would be less pitchfork people and more constructive efforts to build our community in what it could be.

I love what Ms.

Brimhall said.

We're not here angry, we're here hopeful.

And I close with that.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker and our last speaker is Carissa Arnold.

And if you would say your name and your city of residence when you come up.

My name is Carissa Arnold.

I was a resident of Gilbert for several years and recently moved to Mesa.

However, I continue to do business in Gilbert.

My daughter was assaulted in Gilbert as a minor, and it now has been proven that the investigation was mishandled and that evidence related to her case was deliberately deleted by the town.

I have tried repeatedly and failed to get this council to take any action.

Tonight I am speaking directly to the residents of Gilbert, and I hope you all are as infuriated as I am.

In my hand, I have just one of hundreds of records that confirm direct involvement from the town manager's office, the town clerk's office, the town attorney's office, and leadership in within both Gilbert Fire and Gilbert Police.

I have obtained records that show that the direction that sorry, I have obtained records that show at the direction of the town manager's office, the town of Gilbert is actively engaging in unlawful conduct by concealing and destroying public records, including records that may contain evidence of serious misconduct and widespread corruption involving town officials.

As these records show, the town clerk's office has spearheaded the deletion efforts with an emphasis on deleting records over two years old.

And while a few residents attempted to bring these issues to the attention of the council, those warnings were ignored and re even resulted in retaliation.

The actions being directed by corrupt and misguided leaders in no way imply misconduct on the part of police officers and regular town employees that are just trying to do their jobs.

Employees are being directed to take actions that violate Arizona law, and this council must demand protection for these employees so that they can come forward with what they know, especially within the Gilbert Police Department.

The town is having a crisis, and the House of Cards is starting to crash down on the heels of Mr.

Banjo's conveniently timed departure.

As the first rat to run off of a sinking ship, he appears to be deleting all ro deleting all record of his time in Gilbert.

Suspicious to say the least.

One way or another, the town will be investigated and the truth will be revealed, and you are currently on the wrong side of history.

It is time for you to make a change.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

With that, that concludes our communications from citizens for today.

Vice Mayor?

And yeah, does anyone have a response?

Yeah, I believe I have the right to respond to something that I believe is a false criticism or misleading.

Am I accurate?

Correct.

Okay.

Yes.

Do you make any comment regarding anything that is said by any revenue?

I appreciate your comment.

I just saw my legal counsel, and I have the right to speak.

But I believe there's a false criticism.

Councilmember Buckland.

Chris, can you make a statement to that, please?

Yes, uh, Vice Mayor Buckley, Council, under state law and communications from citizens, the council cannot respond until after the last citizen sits down, and then the council has the right to give direction or respond to criticism.

Okay, so Mr.

Spence said some things, some I believe are accurate, and some I believe are misleading and taken out of context, so I'd like to clarify.

We did have a conversation last year about public records.

He expressed some concerns to me, showed me what he thought was evidence that our policy was inaccurate, as any council member should do, followed up with legal and confirmed that we are following the law.

Whether you agree or not, I'm convinced and I'm satisfied.

As a matter of fact, I encouraged Mr.

Spence, if there's a process called litigation, that he has the right if he believes that we are not following the law.

I encouraged you to take legal action against us because I honor your rights to do that.

Secondly, speaking about police staffing.

When the context of this was we're talking 12, 13 years ago, it is true that the former chief did not listen to the Corona Solutions software, what it recommended.

And it is true that he went a different direction and created a priority zero.

And it is true that I fought with him over that because I thought that was compromising public safety.

Our officers and this public.89 officers per thousand, which is scary.

And I don't have the exact number today, but when I took the dais, it was around 1.3, which is a dramatic improvement.

Not where we need to be, but a dramatic improvement.

So what I will not listen to is false criticism that our chief of police is continuing to not look at data and hire when he's working very hard to do that, and he has tremendous support from this council to get to the right spot so that we don't sacrifice safety.

So there's the further context that I feel needs to be added to create an accurate picture.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lyons.

Yes, I'd like to just address uh two things that was said.

Um, as far as Mr.

Rosenfeld's request that I do the resignation just because I wanted it done.

You and I had a conversation in a meeting upstairs one on one, and I asked you to resign.

Four days later, you reached out to Mr Our attorney, sorry.

Yeah.

And requested legal uh help with legal counsel or legal advice, paying for that.

You didn't give me a heads up for that, you just did it, which I found very disrespectful.

Now we have to do an executive session on this.

You requested when you were notified, which we have to notify you that we're gonna do that.

You requested to make it public.

If I'm gonna have to set up here and ask you to step down in public, I am going to explain why, especially from somebody who helped found that board, which is a very important milestone to do.

I did not take that decision lightly.

That is why it was done the way it was done.

You were given the opportunity, you chose not to do that.

You wanted it public, it became public.

I gave you the opportunity in private to do it, you chose not to, and I felt like you disrespected me by not even giving me the courtesy to tell me that you were going to request counsel.

That was four days after we had that meeting in mid-September or late September.

Now, as far as my math is concerned, this was another person that talked, Ms.

Hopi.

Um Ms.

Hoppy.

All right.

I am a journeyman toolmaker, and part of that is machining.

I can do advanced calculus and I can do advanced geometry in order to do that machining the way I need to.

To build aerospace components, I had built spacecraft and I have built aircraft, and frankly, every bomb, every bomber we have in the inventory except for the B 52.

So when it comes to mathematics, I am extremely good at it.

But I'm gonna break this down for you so you understand it.

Yes, I am, and I'm gonna explain why and you listen.

When those documents come in to be requested, okay, it takes the type of documents that are being requested, take typically maybe 10 hours of review.

You make the request, our county, our town clerk has to look at that.

That then goes to IT.

IT will pull all those documents.

They end up going to legal, I think a paralegal, is that not correct?

They have to review them.

Then the town attorney has to review them, and they have to be redacted anything that cannot be released publicly.

So 10 hours is a minimum of what is required to look at those documents.

Okay.

With that said, all those people cost this town money.

And I I estimate conservatively a $50 an hour wrap rate.

Now, a wrap rate is a fully burdened thing.

Their salary plus benefits, and $50 an hour is very conservative when you have a paralegal and a lawyer on it.

I've had to hire lawyers, they can go anywhere from 325 to 500 bucks an hour.

So I'm saying 50 bucks an hour.

The documents that Mr.

Rosenfeld requested originally in his request was over 800,000 documents.

That's not pages, that's documents.

And I worked with Dave and the town clerk to try to narrow that down so that we could get what he needed.

And we worked on that very diligently, but Dave was not satisfied with the results of it.

And we ended up, I think, providing about 7,000, something like that.

But let's just say we provided 5,000 documents at $50 an hour with 10 10 hours each, that's $2.5 million.

That is conservative.

That cost this town for a fishing expedition over something that could have been handled in private, which I offered to mediate or help mediate between him and these two gentlemen.

Now, I am also, I have a master's degree in mediation, so when that came up, that wasn't just a casual thing to offer.

I would have set up a third party to help them with that.

He said he did not want to do that until I'm talking right now, and I'm talking about math.

All right.

I just did in your wrong, and I'll just put it that way, and I'll double down on it.

And do whatever you say, ma'am.

But I'm telling you right now, do not say that I don't know what I'm talking about.

These requests are costing this town millions of dollars, and a lot of it is over fishing expeditions.

Now, the lady that came up here recently about her daughter, that's legitimate.

But when you have a conflict between a person and two council members that was offered to be done off site by a third party, that's that's just irresponsible.

And I'll put it that way.

You were literally sitting here arguing.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

We won't have any outbursts from the audience, please.

And I'll ask you to be removed if it continues.

Thank you.

So I wanted to explain how I came at that.

Now you may disagree with that or not disagree with it, but I had to look at the whole thing.

And that is the reasons why those two things were done.

And the reason I'm responding to this, Dave, is because it grieved me deeply to be able to do this.

However, you made a very good case tonight that I should not have been worried about it, that I made the right choice.

So thank you.

Okay.

Council member.

Let me just check in with Chris, make sure we're still within the bounds that are established for responding.

Yes, so thank you, Mayor.

I'll just read from the agenda exactly what it says, pursuant to state law action taken as a result of public comment.

Must be limited, directing staff to study the matter, responding to any criticism, and scheduling the matter for further consideration.

So what is in bounds is responding to criticism that was made during communications from citizens.

And Councilmember Bon Gonnie.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yeah.

And you're responding to criticism, right?

Yes, yes.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who approached us with a very difficult problem.

I mean, people are very upset about water.

I get it.

And I want to thank everyone who came up and who have attended the listening sessions who have been civil, who have who've discussed their their issues, who've brought us data and proof, and just know that we are working on that.

And I want to thank you again for doing it very civilly.

My comments are about corruption, and my statements do not include our last speaker.

I would like to meet with our last speaker.

Um my comments I want to make about it does not include that person.

You know, being up here two and a half years, God, we hear corruption, corruption, corruption all the time.

So I I decided I want to do a little research into it.

What makes people call people corrupt?

And there's four different reasons.

First one, they have a gut feeling.

No proof, just a gut feeling.

Number two, they have a gut feeling.

They investigate, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of our taxpayers' money, receive thousands of files from record requests, and find nothing.

But they have a gut feeling.

So it's got to be true.

Number three political theater.

People who are seeking attention.

Maybe they have personal issues with some council members up here, but that doesn't make us corrupt.

And four, my biggest concern out of all of them is mental health.

When someone becomes so obsessed to try to prove that we're corrupt that they're taking hours of their day and spending hundreds of thousands of our taxpayers' dollars, I'm very concerned about mental health.

And I'm fully here to help them.

But conspiracy theories only last for so long.

Here's the unfortunate thing.

We live in a society where truth doesn't even matter anymore.

If you say a lie enough, I can make anyone believe it.

Give me an example.

My sister.

My sister's a nuclear engineer.

She spent four years as an undergrad degree, earned it, a master's degree in nuclear engineering, earned it, and recently retired from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

My sister earned the right to call herself a nuclear engineer.

But I can convince everyone in this room tonight that I'm a nuclear engineer.

I can do it.

I just have to say the lie enough.

I didn't get a four-year degree in nuclear engineering.

I need to get a master's degree in nuclear engineering.

I didn't work for the Nuclear Repertory Commission.

But I could say it enough.

I could say that I'm a nuclear engineer this time around, and people will believe me.

It's not true.

I can tell the newspapers, social media that I'm a nuclear engineer, but that doesn't make me one.

But I can fool everyone in this room by saying that I am if I say it enough.

My point is this if you tell a lie enough, people will believe you.

If you say that this council is corrupt enough, people will believe you, and reputations get hurt.

And I will not have my reputation hurt.

However, I respect your First Amendment right, and I will defend anyone's First Amendment right, even if they stand in front of us and absolutely lie.

I will defend your right to lie.

Everyone has the right to redress their government, but you need to know that your right ends the moment those words exit your mouth.

You do not have the right for me to believe you.

And you don't have the right for Gilbert taxpayers to continue to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a fishing expedition.

There is nothing to hide.

But if you believe that myself or anyone on this council is corrupt, take your evidence, not your gut feelings.

Take your evidence, bring it to the attorney general's office, and file a complaint.

And maybe you'll waste state money at that point instead of our money.

But I'm gonna tell you something straight out.

I worked many, many years, worked on many board of directors.

I have seen corruption.

And just because you claim it corrupt doesn't make it so.

And again, I want to thank those citizens who came up today with issues, legitimate issues, and came up and done it respectfully.

We are working behind the scenes for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Torgason, are you responding to criticism?

Yes, ma'am.

Um the first person I'd like to address uh was the the mother of a child.

For some reason, my voice is not carrying today.

The first person I'd like to address is the mother of a uh who was her daughter was targeted twice.

Uh the comment silly was not directed at you.

The comment silly was directed at the thought that Chris Payne would risk his entire career to cover up a nephew.

You have a very concerning situation that I wouldn't diminish.

You know, you lost uh you lost property, you lost uh from my understanding an incredible car collection, uh a barn that was probably nicer than my home.

So don't think that I think you were silly or your concern for your family is silly.

The thought that Chris would endanger his career is what I thought was silly.

And I didn't think you had made that clearly.

I was asked if I thought that was possible.

I said the thought of that is silly.

So please, I take your situation very seriously.

Uh Clarissa, if you have evidence, please go to the AG.

Because if it's not being highlighted here, go to the state.

I understand your daughter's situation.

You've explained it many, many, many times.

Uh I certainly wouldn't want to cover up something to leave a young woman at risk for assault.

That would uh that doesn't fit my moral code.

It's it it I don't think it fits anyone's moral code up here, and I don't think anybody would hide that.

But if you have evidence of that being hidden, please take that to the state AG and go to town with it because quite simply it's not fair to leave her at risk.

Uh, in regards to other things, Miss Hoppe.

Uh yes, I did get a credit for doing the irrigation uh replacement, smart irrigation.

Every single resident of this town is allowed to participate in that.

And when you have been vandalized or had a leak, there is a there is a program for every single resident of this town.

My property has been vandalized many times since I came on council.

This particular one was actually incredibly genius that they broke my foot my old irrigation system, went in, popped the lock, and changed it to watering my lawn from 11.58 p.m.

to 403 a.m.

six days a week.

The town found that.

So I encourage every one of you to do it because it'll save you a lot of water and it'll they'll reimburse you.

Uh Mr.

Rosenfeld.

You have proven again why Monty made the right choice.

I gave you a second chance after complaints from people on the VAB and volunteers.

I didn't feel that you were a proper fit anymore, even though you'd established that board and did some great work back then.

Our former mayor vouched for you, promised she'd get you in line.

She failed.

The first report back was from a volunteer that refuses to volunteer anymore.

And the problem I'm I'm feeling here is that you can't take responsibility for your decisions.

You've made decisions.

We all make decisions we regret sometimes, think say things we regret.

That's when people step up and they hopefully apologize for saying something in the heat of the moment.

But you don't listen.

You're concerned only with yourself.

If you noticed there were dozens of veterans in the audience before you spoke, and they all left.

If you notice no one on your board spoke in your defense, no one stayed for you.

No one has complained that you've been removed.

And that is because of your behavior.

And quite simply, you have done this to yourself.

You have become your own villain.

You need a villain because you don't accept the responsibility of how you've treated the people on that board.

You don't take the responsibility for calling everybody on this dais all the way down the line from left to right corrupt.

You can't take that responsibility for yourself.

So you've created your villain, you created your enemy, you're your own worst enemy.

Look in the mirror and figure out what you got to do to change how you're dealing with things because you were offered many opportunities to speak before you called people corrupt.

Uh I was more than amenable to sitting and talking and explaining why I didn't want you on there and why I gave you a second chance.

But you didn't want that.

In writing, I've read the writing.

You didn't want to resolve anything, you wanted to continue your diatribe.

And that's fine.

You're allowed to.

Now you have a hundred percent of your free speech rights.

You can criticize me every other week, and I'm sure you will.

But every other week we'll be talking about how you can't look in the mirror and you have to find a villain.

You have to be a victim to justify your position rather than just take accountability for acting inappropriately with several people.

I'm actually tired of talking about some of the stupid things I have heard this evening.

I we don't have the power.

This no one on this council has the power to hide anything.

We simply don't have the power to hide public records requests.

We cannot do it.

If anybody I'm the first guy to dislike local government, and that's actually why I ran.

But if you think this local government is so coordinated and such a smooth machine that it's gonna hide, it's gonna come up with an agenda to hide mass malfeasance.

There's no company that good.

There is no no one is that good.

No government is that efficient and that well run to hide malfeasance on a large scale.

And if there is proof of our police hiding things, please bring that to the state.

But to talk about it, throw it out there, claim you're the one person in the world that can see it and draw attention to yourself for that when you know it's you know it's not true.

But go ahead.

Please go to the AG's office with it, and if it's true, I will be the first person to eat my words and follow through and do something with everything from town management down.

Because if there is some sort of grand scheme to lie to this public about what's going on with crime in this town, I'm the same victim you are, and I won't stand for it.

You can prove it.

I'm sure there's seven people up here that will clean house real fast because we'd have to start with everybody in the town management office for allowing it.

So please make your case to the state, because obviously it's not getting ears with our council, but you're allowed to go to the state and continue to.

If you think you've got it, go for it.

But I just don't think that we're that well oiled a machine that we can hide grand deception like that when we're having trouble with some communications to turn into the disasters that many people in this room are concerned about today.

And I really think that we need to be more focused on fixing some of these disasters and avoiding other ones from the future than being pestered with being called corrupt.

And I'm just highly disappointed that this is the way people spend hours and hours a day.

And they have nothing.

Mayor, I have a point of order on what I said to clarify something.

Um I always want to be accurate on public record, and I was trying to remember a number from many months ago.

Our chief once again proved his value that he is very in touch with his department.

Um and it sent this to me.

I didn't see it, but uh it is uh the actual number is 1.164 and 340 sworn.

So our chief of police has in fact improved from the 228 of 112 new positions.

I think that data speaks for itself.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay, so with that, that concludes our communications from citizens and the responses after.

So, Mayor, shall I go into consent?

Yes.

Okay.

So with that, I am going to move on to the consent calendar.

And to begin the consent calendar portion of the meeting, I will pass the time over to our town manager, Patrick Banger, to provide an overview of the items on the consent calendar this evening.

Please note item 7A will be removed from the consent calendar and heard under the public hearing.

Patrick.

Thank you, Mayor.

Vice Mayor members of the council.

Running through the consent agenda tonight.

Again, if you have any questions, I'm going to go through these on a high level.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

We can bring up additional staff members to answer any uh questions in more detail that you may have on the items.

With that, I'll get started again.

Our three categories that we focus on is strong economy, prosperous community, and exceptional built environment.

Starting with agenda item number two, it's a fire service training IGA.

It's an amendment to an IGA agreement with the City of Maricopa for fire service training.

This proposed amendment alters the fee schedule and requires upfront paying payment for all academy training conducted at the Gilbert Public Safety Training Facility.

The rate will be evaluated annually and is currently set at $5,000 per participant.

The fee schedule is developed to recover all non-durable materials and delivery of instruction, and the revenue collected goes into the general fund.

Agenda item number three, child abduction response IGA.

You have before you a motion to approve a resolution authorizing an intergovernmental agreement between the town and the Arizona Child Abduction Response Team, otherwise known as AZ CART, to enhance the town's capacity to respond effectively to child abduction cases.

Through this agreement, the police department will be able to both receive and provide mutual aid during critical incidents involving child abductions.

There's no direct financial cost associated with entering into the IGA.

Any expenses incurred during the deployment or participation in AZ Court operations will be absorbed within the existing police department budget.

Agenda item number four, the Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant, design and final phase IGA.

This for approval of Gilbert's proportional share of $701,000 in change in accordance with an intergovernmental agreement between the City of Mesa, the town of Queen Creek, and the town of Gilbert for the Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant, Phase 4 expansion design concept report.

The purpose of the design concept report is to define the basis of design criteria for the expansion project.

The GWRP is jointly owned by the three municipalities.

After completion, the plant will bring Gilbert's share of the total capacity to 16 million gallons per day and will continue to produce high quality reclaim water suitable for direct reuse for landscape irrigation and groundwater recharge.

This item is rate supported through the wastewater replacement fund and a 2027 wastewater system development fee.

I'm sorry, um five Urban Three Agreement.

It's an agreement for services with urban three in an amount not to exceed 149,000 in change for the purpose of providing value per acre update and scenario projections and to approve general fund contingency in the amount of 149 in change.

Urban three's scope builds upon the foundational analysis and introduces a comprehensive approach to fiscal modeling and redevelopment planning.

These deliver deliverables will equip the town with a model for guiding sustainable build-out and long-term economic resilience.

This fund this item is funded via the general fund contingency.

Agenda item number six, Northwest Redevelopment Plan.

This is a motion to approve a contract with the Lakota Group in an amount not to exceed 295,000 in change and to approve general fund contingency in the amount of 295,000 in change.

Entering into an agreement with the Lakota Group will enable the town to advance a strategic community-informed redevelopment plan for the Northwest Gilbert that reflects local priorities, market realities, and long-term municipal goals.

This item is funded via the general fund contingency.

Agenda item number seven, legal research subscription agreement.

This is a motion to authorize the town attorney to enter into a subscription subscription agreement with Lexus Nexus for a six-year agreement.

I'm sorry, term in the total amount of 208,000 in change.

Lexus Nexus is a comprehensive legal research platform used by attorneys, judges, and legal professionals for access to an extensive collection of legal resources.

The contract is funded via the town attorney's office and the town prosecutor's office operating supplies budgets.

Agenda item number eight, an emergency management MOU.

It's a motion to approve an MOU with the Department of Homeland Security that will allow the town to send staff members to the Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center to serve as a representative of the town and the region at the Office of Operations Southwest Intelligence Watch Desk.

Approval of the MOU is a necessary component by DHS for participation in the program.

Participation in the NOC program will strengthen Gilbert's emergency management and public safety and facilitate improved collaboration with local, state, and federal partners.

The NOC covers all costs for the participant.

The town will be responsible for the costs of in-town transportation for the employee, which will be included in the fiscal 27 budget planning process.

Agenda item number nine, a facilities inspections cooperative purchasing contract.

It's a motion to approve a contract for structural engineering services not to exceed $200,000 per year to cover costs associated with a cooperative purchasing contract with Kimley Horn and to approve general fund contingency in the amount of $50,000.

The contract will enable the town to receive comprehensive professional engineering inspections and reports for our town wide facilities.

Structural engineers from Timley Horn possess specialized certification and professional licensure with stamped credentials in this particular area of expertise.

Any other services will be supported through the respective buildings infrastructure and repair budget, general fund contingency in the amount of $50,000 is requested.

Utility billing services, cooperative contract, agenda item number 10.

A motion to approve the cooperative contract with CBIS Direct Inc.

for utility billing print and mail services and utility billing advertising insert services.

The annual cost for this services is estimated to be 113,000 to be paid for from the utility building budget.

Agenda item number 11, the Leighton Lakes Crossroad Lift Station is a job order contract with Archer Western Construction in an amount not to exceed 571,000 in change for construction services with the Leighton Lakes Crossroads Lift Station and Project Management Construction Management Services Contract for Job Order Contract Project Contract with Hazen and Sawyer in an amount not to exceed $99,000 in change for the Leighton Lakes Crossroads Lift Station.

This contract supports the rehabilitation of a degrading 36-inch gravity sewer line at the crossroads lift station.

The item is rate supported from the wastewater replacement fund.

Agenda item number 12, the Santana Vista Trail Crossing Improvement to task order with CS construction for the Santana Vista Trail Crossing at Ray Road, an amount not to exceed 294,000 in change.

The improvements include signs and markings, driveways, sidewalks, and the installation of a pedestrian hybrid beacon.

This item is supported by the parks and recreation system development fees.

Agenda item number 13, the Gilbert Road Median Improvements Task Order.

It's task order with Nesbit contracting in amount not to exceed 99,000 in change for the Gilbert Road median improvement project.

This task order authorizes construction of the medium in advance of Union Pacific Railroad's planned crossing upgrades.

The project's initial design concept review for the Elliott Road to Juniper Corridor required early coordination with Union Pacific Railroad and the Arizona Corporation Commission, which identified non-compliant railroad gate arms posing safety risks to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

To address these concerns, the project was fast-tracked to install raised medions, accommodating a future quad gate system with Gilbert constructing the medians and UPRR installing the gates by spring of 2026.

Failure to complete this work could result in the intersection being deemed unsafe and potentially closed.

This item is funded with voter approved 2022 general obligation bonds.

Agenda item number 14, Aquifer Storage and Recovery Wells.

This is a job order with Felix Construction Company in amount not to exceed $674,000 in change to drill an exploratory borehole within Crossroads Park.

This is an effort to increase recharge capacity within the town reclaimed water system.

This item is supported via the Greenfield Wastewater System Development Fee.

Agenda item number 15, a grant from the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community to authorize acceptance of the 12% gaming contributions grant from the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community in a total amount of 90 196,000 in change and approved grant funding contingency in the amount of 196,000 in change for the following contracts.

Town of Gilbert contract for the Native American Internship Program in the amount of $51,000 in change.

Helping hands for single moms in the amount of $50,000.

Agenda item number 16, the Ripering Education Center Surreal Parking Lot Change Order.

It's a change order with Lake Flato Architects contract for the design concept of a riparian education center, Southeast Regional Library Parking Lot Connection in an amount not to exceed $53,000 in change.

The development of a riparian education center will promote the vision and awareness of the beneficial impacts of the Riparian Preserve.

The Surro Parking Lot Project will include improvements to the lot and connect the parking lots on the north and west sides.

The proposed change order seeks funding for further refinement of the Riparian Education Center location concepts.

And this item is funded through the general fund.

Agenda item number 18.

Water transmission line construction phase approval contract.

It's a motion to approve from construction phase to construction services contract with Aiken Gardner in an amount not to exceed 590,000 in change for the transmission main assessment and rehabilitation phase three.

The CIP project was developed to complete a condition assessment on nine miles of 30 inch and 36-inch diameter water transmission main from the treatment plants.

The project will complete operational improvements and the assessment of the pipeline to determine remaining useful life and identify corrosion areas for repair.

This item is rate supported via the water repair and replacement fund.

Agenda item number 19, Gilbert Regional Park Phase 2 Design Services.

Approval of the Gilbert Regional Park Phase 2 to design services with DIG studios and an amount not to cede exceed $5,399,000 in change.

Phase two is required to continue design services to finalize construction documents and provide post-design services through the end of construction.

This is a necessary contract to align with pre-construction and project manager construction management contracts approved at the last council meeting.

This item is funded via the general fund.

Agenda item number 20, solid waste and recycling mini side loader.

It's a motion to approve fiscal year 26 solid waste residential fund contingency in the amount of 160,000 to purchase one automated mini side loader.

The purchase of an additional automated mini side loader will improve operational efficiency and enhance safety and provide backup capacity within the reuse refuse fleet.

The quoted cost for the new unit is 350,000 in change, which exceeds the original budget of 190,000 due to market wide increases in truck manufacturing, equipment customization, and freight costs.

An additional amount of 160,000 in change will be funded via the rate supported solid waste residential fund contingency.

Agenda item number 21, solid waste and recycling side load refuse vehicle replacement.

To purchase one automated side loader refuse vehicle and authorized CIP contingency in the amount of 166,000 in change, to purchase one automated side load refuse vehicle.

This request is to replace an automated side load refuse vehicle that was declared a total loss following a truck fire.

The town received 166,000 in change from the insurance recovery for the damaged vehicle, and the cost of a replacement vehicle is $530,000.

This item is rate supported from the Solid Waste Residential Replacement Fund.

Agenda item number two are claimed settlements.

Consider approval of contingency in the amount of $531,000 in change for the claimed settlements incurred for the period of July 1, 2025 to September 30, 2025 from the general fund in the amount of 36,000 in change, the streets fund in the amount of 227,000 change.

The water fund in the amount of 4200, the wastewater fund in the amount of 8,080, solid waste residential fund in the amount of 115,000 in change, and the solid waste commercial fund in the amount of 139,000 in change.

This is an emotion to approve fiscal 26 general funding contingency to fund six mid-year limited term agreement positions, including one record shift supervisor and five record specialist two positions in the amount of 331,000 in change.

These six positions will enable the department to better manage the increasing volume of digital records, improve service delivery, reduce delays, and support long-term plans for digital records management.

Failure to approve these positions, risk continued inefficiency, staff burnout, and our ability to meet statutory requirements, ultimately leading to customer dissatisfaction.

The positions will be supported via the general fund contingency.

Agenda item number 24, IT department positions contingency request.

This is a motion to approve an additional two mid-year FTE positions for fiscal year 26 and information technology.

A contingency is requested from the general fund in the amount of $891,000 in change for the FDE positions and an additional three mid-year LTA positions, one over hire, five contract services, and one other position for immediate hire.

These positions will support the increased demand for growing technologies across the town.

IT has also been reviewing existing contract services to identify potential cost savings that can be applied to the ongoing FDA requests, allowing for the shift of funds to support these positions and minimizing the overall amount requested.

This item will be supported via the general fund contingency.

Agenda item number 25, quality of life initiative positional request.

This is a motion to approve a mid-year FDE authorization and staff to hire seven FDEs and fiscal 26 to support quality of life projects.

Of the quality of life programs.

This is a motion to approve the ratified bylaws of the updates, personnel policies 3.7 to 3.7.6 to include a half-day holiday for Christmas Eve.

Agenda item number 27, PKID landscaping bid awards.

This is a motion to reject all bids but the bids of the lowest and best responsible bidders, waive clerical errors and award contracts for the parkway improvement districts work to dupper landscape in the amount of 213,000 in change, and Reyes and Sons landscape in the amount of 148,000 in change.

Gilbert has 11 PKIDs, and the town is responsible for the maintenance of the common areas.

This item is funded through the PKIDs.

A motion to accept the resignation of John Tats from the Judicial Selection and Advisory Board, effective November 18th, 2025.

Agenda item number 28A, the self-insured trust board resignation.

A motion to accept the resignation of Anthony Panapanitto.

I probably just murdered that man's last name.

My apologies, Anthony, from the self-insured trust board effective December 1st, 2025.

And that concludes the consent agenda items for this evening.

We're happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

All right.

All right.

These are what you want poll?

Oh, okay.

All right.

So council member Torgeson has some questions on agenda item number five, number six, number thirteen, sixteen, nineteen, and twenty-five.

Mayor Vice Mayor, could you repeat those again?

I got five, six, and what was after that?

Five, six, thirteen, sixteen, nineteen, and twenty-five.

Thank you.

Okay.

We'll start at the top with number five.

If I can have a Mike or Dan from our economic development team come up.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Are there questions pertaining to this item?

Jim?

The uh I wanted to ask, as we're we're waiving the formal purchase procedures on uh Urban Three, and then as we go into the Lakota group.

Tell me, I know we've worked with Urban Three before.

Tell me, tell me why it's in our best interest to waive a standard procedure like that.

Sure, Mayor, Council.

Um as we're approaching this um this contract with this particular vendor, um, given the previous work that we had done with this particular group, um we learned of a particular um area of unique value that they provide, and in that um their um emphasis on uh value per acre and um some of the visualization tools um warranted um us moving forward in a contractual nature with urban three.

Um what we'll be doing with Urban Three is updating some of the recent analysis that they've done on behalf of Gilbert.

Um, in addition to that update of information, um we will have information that allows us to do performa modeling on development, not only in the heritage district, but throughout the town.

And so as we understand those sort of revenue impacts of proposed new development um at the parcel level, um, but also by use type, we're able to um understand some of the direct and indirect revenue impacts of private development resulting from some of those new investments, public improvements as well as infrastructure investment.

Um and then finally, um Urban Three's work has already helped us better understand some of the financial return on mixed use development.

Additionally, this contract will allow Gilbert to assess potential value of all land as part of a comprehensive real estate portfolio.

And so this model um can also um create visualizations as we contemplate different development scenarios.

Um the visualizations will help us um zero in on sort of priority sites, and then we can use some of the comparisons from that prioritization to existing projects as well as projecting the impacts of future build out.

And so by applying these unique insights, we think we can make more informed decisions and maximize the value of Gilbert uh remaining lands.

I can go into additional detail, but that's essentially a high level of the unique value that Urban 3 provides which sort of stemmed from waiving some of those initial procurement components.

Right.

Now having been presented, have them having them, they have done a presentation before, which I was impressed with.

It was it was excellent, and it really did help.

It's sounding like it's pretty almost a spec unique as you use the word, specialized, not something that's very easy to compare apples to apples.

Mayor, members of council, um, it's not so much the compare apples to apples, as I would say because of the previous um um engagement, they have unique insights into sort of our cost models and um and our delivery of service, cost of those services, and so as we're trying to develop these uh performos and scenario-based um um projections from development and uh investments, um, they are in a very unique position with that acumen that they developed from previous um analysis and previous studies uh that we can build on that to essentially compel us down more of a portfolio management strategy as it relates to uh the town of the land that the town of Gilbert owns okay.

I'm happy with that.

Okay.

And then on six, and the reason I bring this up, Dan, is the total between this is substantial.

And I'm and part of me is wondering if it would be better in the long run to have one or two people on staff than to do something like this.

Is this something that you feel in that we can't do anything about this moment, but is this stuff that's more outside of the uh of a typical staff, even somebody if you hired with a background like this?

Is this something that you feel in I'm not we can't do anything about this moment, but is this stuff that's more outside of the of a typical staff, even somebody if you hired with a background like this, is this something that you would typically go to a third party for?

And if you do, why uh excellent question, Mayor?

Council.

Um a lot of ways we can certainly address that.

Um in a lot of situations, bringing on additional staff helps with capacity and helps with our ability to um process information, do the work if you will.

The in this particular case, we think that there are some unique benefits that look the Lakota group brings to our redevelopment efforts.

Um specifically the acumen that they've gained and learned over hundreds of redevelopment plans that they've done nationally.

Um so not only are we able to benefit from the perspective that they bring to the table as a consultant, um, but equally as we go down this path of creating the first ever redevelopment plan for the Northwest area in Gilbert, um, they are able to um engage in the public or engage with the public in ways that perhaps staff cannot.

And um through their facilitation, through their ability to bring in stakeholders and facilitate engagement and conversation within the community.

Um it really helps us create an unbiased redevelopment plan.

These redevelopment plans exist in tenure increments as prescribed by state statute, and so by utilizing and benefit by utilizing a consultant, we benefit from their acumen, we benefit from their reach and um and work with hundreds of jurisdictions that have created redevelopment plans.

And so there's a tremendous amount of best practice that we gain by bringing on that expertise.

Um that in my humble opinion, bringing on a couple of staff members um may never provide for the town of Gilbert.

And so um the benefits in this case seem to outweigh bringing on additional staff for the purpose of creating a redevelopment plan.

Yep, okay Mayor, Vice Mayor.

Councilman Torg, if I could just add to Dan's comments, I think this we have been on a multi-year journey to understand what's happening in the Northwest Corridor, which is one of the oldest areas of our town, but still one of our largest bases of employment, and to take action when we start to see things happening that are a kind of a bellwether for what we will see when this community ages on a larger scale and address those now when those those issues are more manageable.

What the Lakota group will do as Dan indicated in creating that plan, I believe that the town will need to add staff into the future to begin execution on that plan and maintain and even enhance the vitality in that uh part of our community, which is a critical importance to Gilbert's overall um fiscal health.

Thank you, Dan.

Okay, anyway.

I have one one item, Dan.

I'm assuming that the ULULI study that we did years ago will somehow be considered in the work that they do.

Mayor, members of council, absolutely.

The technical assistance program that ULI engaged in our community with staff, with stakeholders, with developers, um, with business owners, property owners, um, and just our general citizenry, we gained so much understanding through the ULI um task force.

Um we will absolutely build on the momentum and the and the information that was generated from that ULI group.

And um, in my humble opinion, um the work that we're doing today um really stands on the shoulders of that early work that ULI helped us with.

Thank you, Dan.

Okay, uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilman Torgan, we'll move on to item number 13.

If I could have a Ryan from our CIP team come up.

Councilmember Torque.

Mayor Council, do you have a question for me?

Yeah, was this this project?

This is the one that started out at about 330,000.

Is that correct?

Uh mayor council, that was for the entire corridor from Iliot to um Houston Avenue or early Guadalupe Avenue.

This is just a piece of that to do the piece that's adjacent to the railroad.

I'm sorry, the what?

Adjacent to the railroad.

This is just the piece adjacent to the railroad.

So when the railroad comes in in the spring of 2026, we're gonna install the medians on both sides of the railroad plus some driveway upgrades for safe pedestrian and vehicle access.

Okay, so it's not part, it's not necessarily par down from 330,000, it's just that portion.

Okay.

That is correct.

That is my question.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, we'll move on to item number sixteen.

Ryan, if I could ask you to stay up here.

On uh number 16.

Sorry, I was checking the last one off.

Uh I see a change order, and we're trying to connect these two driveways.

But someone had mentioned to me that there was already three versions of this.

And without knowing, I'm asking you, is this the fourth iteration of this?

Uh mayor council, great question.

So we did have three uh options of different locations for the ultimate um part of the DCR for the location of the the building itself as we um reached out to all the different stakeholders and the the town manager's office, it was uh directed to us that to look at the existing building a little more thorough to see if there's an opportunity to add instead of a separated building to have this part of the building itself, the current library itself.

Um so this change order will be to to do an assessment on the building itself and see if there's an opportunity to have the educational center as part of the existing library.

So this change order will be for that fourth concept.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, Ryan, if I could ask you to stay up for one more item, number 19.

And really, this is me asking for a delay because I still think we need to reprioritize some things, and it's an awfully large ticket to throw on a consent agenda.

And realize I'm not, it's not that I'm anti-park, or it's not that I don't respect the work that you or Alina or anybody else puts in, but I think we need to step back and have a real long discussion.

We got we got blindsided by something here recently, and we have roads coming up and other things, and I want to make sure that we haven't committed forward.

So it's really not you explaining it, it's me explaining to you why I'm gonna ask to delay this, because I think we have to have a long, real hard talk about the priorities that are coming up in the very near future.

And I know we talked about this a year ago, but that was a year ago, and some things have changed.

So it's really me just saying this isn't me diminishing any work your team has done.

This is me saying we have to really take a deep breath before we move forward.

So I'm just gonna ask to delay that one.

That will be the one that I pull from this from this consent agenda.

Okay, so what we'll be pulling then item number 19 for a separate vote.

Correct.

Thank you.

And I do appreciate the time you guys put in.

I really do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ryan.

Okay, and the last item uh it was number 25, Vice Mayor.

It was number 25, correct.

Okay, if 25, you I don't need an explanation.

Just correct the spelling in there.

It's it's yeah, just correct the spelling.

Okay.

Okay, so it looks like we have uh we'll do a vo and that that completes yours right, Patrick.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, yes, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um then, so we will pull uh item number 17 was removed.

And uh then we'll pull item number 19 for a separate vote.

Does anyone have any statements or questions on that?

And uh, we're voting to delay this.

Is that correct?

Well, it will be separate, yeah.

We'll discuss it separately.

Okay.

And you and anyone, no one has a question?

On what we're we're we've pulled number item 19.

We're voting on item 19.

Uh and uh with a request to table that again or re remove it.

Vice Mayor.

Yeah.

I'll be voting to approve 19, but I recognize the need for a separate vote if there are different votes needed.

Okay, yeah, I'll I'll call for a vote.

Yes.

Um okay, so is everyone understand what what council member Torgeson has requested a delay on item number 19, and that's the item that we discussed prior regarding the regional park for design.

Okay, well, with that.

Are we discussing that?

Is that your thing?

I think we're supposed to vote on the consent agenda first, and then the item removed.

Vote on the overall consent.

Oh, I'll oh okay, okay, because sometimes sometimes we do that first.

Okay, so then we will uh let me get item number 19 out.

All right, so does anyone have any question on the remaining consent agenda items before I go any further?

All right, well, with that, then um I will move to approve consent agenda items number two through number 16, number 18, and then number 21 through number 29.

Do I have a second?

Vice Mayor, can we please clarify that item 7A is being moving to public hearing as well?

Uh oh, okay.

Do we need to add 7A then?

It just needs to be part of the motion.

To the motion.

Yes.

Okay, all right.

Okay, so I'll I'll just restate these, adding uh 7A.

Thank you, Shivelli.

Uh so I move to approve consent agenda items two through seven plus seven a and then eight through sixteen, and then eighteen, and then twenty one through twenty nine.

Vice mayor, apologies.

That that was to move seven A out of consent calendar to public hearing.

We just didn't want to be it to be part of the consent vote.

Oh I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

All right.

Okay, so all right.

Well, we'll we'll go ahead with the the motion and leave out item number seven a and that's moved to public hearing.

And Vice Mayor, could you could you just clarify that you meant to include 20 item 20 as well?

Um item 20 is not on my sheet.

19 was uh is we pulled.

19 is being pulled, but I believe 20 should be included.

All right.

Uh okay, so it is there.

We need to add that.

Okay.

Thank you.

It was not under on my list.

So shall we start over once again?

Okay.

So I move to approve consent agenda.

Uh items number two through 15, and we've removed item 7A.

And then 17 has been removed.

Items number 18, 20, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 25a, 26, 27, 28, 28, uh-oh, is in there twice, 28A, and uh through 29.

Are we correct?

I think the only one missing is item 16.

Okay.

So we have items two through two through 16.

17 was removed, and then we have item 18.

19 is pulled for a separate vote.

And then we have items 20 through item 29.

All right.

Can I have a second, please?

Pardon me?

Minus.

Uh I think I said minus 7A.

77a, we said that.

Okay.

So 7A was moved to public hearing.

All right.

Shall we try again?

Do I have a second?

Sure, I'll second that.

All right.

Seconded by Councilmember Bon Giovanni.

Can we vote, please?

And the motion passes 7-0.

Okay, so now we will move to item number 19 for a separate vote.

And does anyone have any questions on that?

Oh, sorry.

Uh let's see who is first here.

That did not go through there.

Uh okay, Councilmember Torgeson.

I just want to say that I believe that we can wait till our December meeting to move on this because I I believe that there's a I believe there's a an appetite for a great deal of change and a great deal of reprioritization or confirmation of prioritization, but I believe that that needs to be discussed uh December 9th and not today.

So I'm for moving this to our uh discussion down the road and to include it in our uh retreat on December 9th.

Councilmember thing, Vice Mayor.

Um for consistency sake, because I know last meeting we pulled some things also, so for consistency sake, um I agree that I think we should wait a couple of weeks and discuss all those items that we put on delay before um I'm not sure Patrick or or Chris.

I believe we voted on this the the in another meeting to you know to put this on the agenda for a vote.

Is are we like revoting on this again?

It's my understanding this is the companion piece to an item that was voted on last meeting that was for the construction manager at risk, and this is the design professional services.

Right, right.

Could we have staff?

Okay, confirm does and you know, do you do you have any any more questions or you want?

Oh, great, thank you.

Yeah, mayor council.

So last council meeting, the council voted to move forward and approve the pre-construction services for the construction contractor to move forward.

Um this one we didn't uh we were negotiating the fees, or we would have brought that at the same time.

So we negotiated those fees, and now this is for the design services to continue from 60 percent to final completion of design through construction services.

So this is a separate contract.

And to confirm no shovel is hit dirt yet, correct?

That is correct.

All right, also I have the question that we asked initially.

Is this going to cost us money to stop this project where it is?

Uh mayor council.

We're we're currently we have a lot of contracts currently expending money at this time and a lot of work then effort that's been put forth to to move this forward in addition to last council meeting voted to move this forward.

Um so technically with the shovels on the ground, there's not addition, there's not halting work where um cost could increase, but the longer the longer we wait on moving forward with current rates and inflation and different things hitting projects.

It's it's we don't have a a strong um looking forward of what that cost would be, but the long the longer you wait um historically the data showing that the prices will increase.

But no shovels have been put in the ground at this point.

Okay, and we are 60 percent complete.

We are 60 percent with design moving on to 90 percent.

So this so this brings us to 90 percent complete.

Correct, through construction to put the post-design services, yes.

Okay, vice mayor.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Um thank you, council member umsky for reminding me.

So for consistency thank sake, since we voted last meeting to approve the first part of it, I will support the second part of it.

I just want to add that if if this is an important item that we want to talk about as council and we get additional support.

Another option we could do is um continue this item to the December 16th meeting.

So at least it's a date certain, but it would be after our discussion.

All right, anyone else have any questions?

If not, someone want to make a motion.

Would you like to make the motion?

I'll make a motion to move this to the December 16th date for consideration at that time after our retreat.

All right, so we have a motion, please vote.

Second, well, I'm sorry, I need a second.

I'll second that one then.

I'll be consistently inconsistent and go.

Thank you.

I've been very consistently in the consistent.

All right, please vote.

All right.

So we have a four-three vote and the four yes votes carry.

All right.

That concludes the cons the uh consent calendar.

Thank you.

We'll move on to public hearings.

Uh we have several items for public hearings.

I know of two that uh we want to take off and and discuss separately items 30A and 30 B.

Does anybody have any problem with adding item 7A, item 30, and item uh 31.

Do those all together.

Is that okay?

Okay, I'll open the public hearing on item 7A, 30 and 31.

I'll close the public hearing and ask for a motion by the council for those items.

I'll move to approve 7a, 30 and 31.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded, please vote.

I'm getting there.

Thank you.

Motion carry seven zero.

We'll move on to item 30A, general plan GP25-03, zoning Z2503, Harvest Grove.

Staff presentation will start with Mayor Council.

Good evening.

Um, this is the Harvest Grove project that uh you saw in October.

Uh was it on your October 24th meeting agenda?

Um, the item was continued that night in order to allow the applicant and staff to continue working together on this very important project.

We've been working closely on this for several several months now, and there were still some outstanding concerns uh at the last meeting, such as um Coronado Road and traffic circulation.

So we need a little extra time to continue to work together to to bring this forward.

Um we've continued to work closely with the applicant on the project as I've mentioned.

Um, and uh we really do appreciate the collaboration and the in the process that there are the projects that we've made, the progress that we've made on this.

Um however, as you're gonna see in our uh presentation, there are still several outstanding concerns and challenges.

Um staff is gonna walk us through those challenges and and outstanding issues, and then you'll be able to kind of see where we've um uh how we've landed on our our recommendation.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Keith and let him get started.

Thanks, Kyle.

Thank you, Kyle.

Mayor Anderson, members of the council.

Good evening.

Um so as Kyle stated, this is the Harvest Grove project.

Um the site, as you know, is located in south of the loop 202 freeway and the in that whole uh the hospital, it's in the Valvista Medical Growth Area area at that southeast corner of Germain and Valvista Drive.

Um the request today before you is for a minor general plan amendment on a hundred and approximately 179 acres and a PAD rezone on the entire project site, which is a little over 311 acres, and they have some deviations that which I will discuss here in just a little while.

Um far as the presentation overview items that we are going to cover, obviously the general plan and rezone request.

We will be recovering.

I mean, or our excuse me, um uh covering open space, um traffic and circulation, uh phasing, uh some the deviations that the applicant is proposing, and also uh we will talk some about public participation.

So the first item is general plan and rezone.

So the first request by the applicant is to change the existing general plan designation, which is our guiding document for land use, which will allow the applicant to change the underlying land use on 179.37 acres.

You can see on the left, the exhibit on the left is the current general plan map where the project site is currently 2.5 to 3 dwelling units per acre.

Based on the exhibit on the right, approximately 179 acres of that current designation will be changed.

The rest of it will stay the same as it is today.

And that yellow piece in the middle, that yellow portion that you can see is the portion that is not changing.

Everything else will be changing all of the other colors.

So you have that changing to things like regional commercial to place more dense land use categories at the north end.

They are also proposing residential, 14 to 25 dwelling units per acre, 8 to 14 dwelling units per acre.

And also there's also residential in the project that's five to eight dwelling units per acre.

And then you'll also see the commercial piece, of course, is 35 and a half acres approximately.

And then there's some other residential, the higher density residential in the north end, right next to the commercial is 25 to 50 dwelling units per acre.

So there's a lot going on here as far as the general plan amendment, but only 179 of it acres of it is actually changing.

So zone change.

So this next request is for the PAD rezone on the whole entire site, which is 311 acres.

From the existing single family 15 and single family 35 zoning districts to eight new zoning districts.

And you can see those zoning districts on the screen.

That's all up in the north portion of the development.

There is a dashed line on that exhibit on the left.

Everything north of that, which is all basically SF 15 right now, is in the SAN is outside of the Santan character area.

Everything south of that red dashed line on the screen is inside the Santan character area.

So you will see outside the Santan character area is the more dense portion of the project.

And the less dense portion of the project is everything south of that dashed line within the Santan character area, which includes zoning districts such as multifamily low, single family attached, single family detached zoning, SF6 zoning, and SF8 zoning.

You'll notice there's a little notch cut out in the project in the bottom left-hand corner.

That is a commercial piece that's about 12, a little over 12 acres, which is another case that I will present after this case is done.

That is not part of the overall PAD.

It's its own separate parcel, own separate project, and that is a zone change and general plan amendment for commercial, like neighborhood commercial.

But that is not part of this larger project.

Okay, this slide shows this color version of the development plan, illustrates the design of the entire master plan.

The site covers approximately, like I said before, 311 acres and will include 1,741 dwelling units.

As a part of that total, 1,015 units are single family homes, located mainly in the Santan character area, which is south of that blue line that's on your screen.

This time it's a blue line.

Lot sizes for the project range from about 1,600 square feet up to about 10,800 square feet, which provides for a wide range of housing options within this community.

The plan also proposes 726 multifamily units on three separate parcels.

Two of those parcels are in outside the Santan character area in the north portion of the property, and that's about 580 multifamily units that are located at that north end that are outside of the Santan character area.

Within the Santan Character area, there are approximately 146 units in the multifamily low district at that south end in that parcel 11, which is inside the Santan character area.

A design for the multifamily low parcel will be submitted later.

As of right now, it's just a bubble diagram of that.

So that will be submitted at a later date for staff review.

The proposed density is approximately 7.75 dwelling units per acre outside the Santan Character area and 5.04 dwelling units within the Santan Character area area.

When you combine those two densities together, the overall project density is approximately 5.54 dwelling units per acre.

Site access will be provided by five major entrances, one off Germain Road, three off Valvista Drive, and one on Queen Creek Road.

Each entrance ties into a one mile central collector that carries most trap most of the traffic through the neighborhood and feeds residents into their subneighborhoods and the local street network.

Secondary entrances at the north end, north and south ends off Coronado Road give each sub-neighborhood a single point of access without creating additional through traffic routes.

There have been a number of items staff has expressed concerns with over the last 11 months since we've been reviewing this project, which I'll highlight a few of those in just a few minutes.

But before I do, I want to acknowledge that one of our most significant concerns had been the plan that you that has that was present that staff has been reviewing for a long time and that was reviewed by the planning commission did not reflect Coronado Road along the eastern boundary, which connects Germain Road to Queen Creek Road.

Since the continuance that you approved three weeks ago, the applicant has revised their plan to include this critical collector roadway.

The remaining concerns and the reasons for a recommendation tonight that staff is recommending for denial of the project deal with traffic related concerns.

Because of that, in a few minutes after I am done speaking, we will have our town engineer, Susanna Struble, come up for a few minutes and talk about circulation and traffic concerns that the town staff still has.

Prior to her coming up, I just wanted to uh share a few concerns from a planning perspective.

The first concern I want to bring to your attention is the vision and character of the development with respect to the Santan character area, which about 75% of the project is located in.

The Santan Character Area, which was created in the year 2000 to capture the unique qualities of the South portion of Gilbert, which historically prior to development consisted of agricultural land.

The people of the Santan Character area and town staff envision the area as a combination of rural and suburban neighborhoods that enjoy the natural environment, including wildlife and small-scale agricultural activities.

Within the Santan Character area, emphasis should be placed on outdoor living enjoyment and the ability to live and play in a secure and safe environment.

Low and medium density residential developments should blend with farming, trails, open space, and commercial uses to make up what is the character of the Santan character area.

Given that said, staff does not believe that what is proposed by the applicant, based on the development plan in front of you, that as a whole, that it complies with the vision of the Santan Character Area.

The Santan Character Area section of the general plan indicates that master plan communities are generally characterized by lots ranging from 6,000 to 10,000 square feet with an average density of two to three and a half dwelling units per acre.

This density is intended to blend across the character area, the whole entire character area, allowing for some variation, including pockets of development that may fall above or below the average range.

So while the proposed development does fall within a pocket above the range previously mentioned, staff's primary concern lies in the proportion of lots that deviate with the established character.

While some additional density can be anticipated of the 1,015 single family lots proposed, approximately 403 of them are under the 6,000 square feet.

In addition, the inclusion of 146 multifamily low units further amplifies the deviation.

The high concentration of sub 6,000 square foot lots is inconsistent with the vision for the Santan character area as outlined in the general plan and raises concerns about compatibility with the intended character that was established for the Santan character area.

Staff concerns with safety and livability stem from a key inconsistency with the established vision of the Santan character area.

The proposed development includes 125 alley loaded homes and townhomes fronting a one mile long collector street that bisects the site and that you can see right there in front of you on the screen.

These homes would be located just 15 feet from the sidewalk and 29 feet approximately from proposed on street parking spaces.

And this is a condition that does not reflect the prevailing character of the Santan character area and is not found anywhere inside the Santan character area.

We would also note that the proposed collector is anticipated to carry approximately 3,000 vehicle trips a day.

The alley loaded homes fronting this roadway do not include backyards, leaving front yards that, given the traffic volume, are neither inviting nor practical for use.

This configuration again is not found anywhere in the Santan character area corridor and then in the neighborhood and introduces a distinct urban form that most along the most visible corridor of the site.

Staff believes this design approach is incompatible with the Santan character area's intended scale, rhythm, and residential identity, and may undermine the long-term livability and the cohesion of the area.

Another concern is the applicant is requesting alternative roadway cross sections, which staff believes is compromised with designated on-street parallel parking spaces and bike lanes outside next to travel lanes, which could result in conflicts between cars and bicyclists.

While we're excited for the development of the property, our primary concerns as our primary concerns as we review any new project is safety and livability of the communities within our town.

You may hear tonight that some of these staff concerns are a matter of preference.

And while we appreciate the design goals of the applicant, what is not a matter of preference is ensuring appropriate circulation and functionality of town rights of way.

This one is King Bird, which is an east-west street on the north end of the project.

And this is a more standard uh cross section, but you can still see the bike lanes and so forth.

Partridge drive, which is the uh collector in the middle in purple, um, is is more of it's it's it's has a large median in the center, so it is a little bit different than uh what a standard cross section would be.

Uh Coronado Road and the minor collectors.

So you see that this graphic has not been updated yet.

Uh it will be later once we go through preliminary plat.

Um you see the development plans been updated to show Coronado go all the way through, but this these we didn't have time to update all these exhibits, but it shows that north end and the south end in pink where Coronado was originally proposed to go, and this is the cross-section that they are proposing for that.

So those are the cross sec street cross-sections.

Um the last thing I want to show you before, or the second to last thing I want to show you before I turn the time over to Susanna, is the open space plan.

The development is proposing approximately um 69 total acres of open space, which is about 29%, which which does far exceed the 10% minimum that is required.

So we appreciate the applicant providing that.

There is a 4.2 acre central park, uh, pocket parks.

There's about five little over five acres of pocket parks, and about 4.62 acres of trail corridors.

Um just wanted to quickly note that there are several locations within the development, the thing near the single family parcels that lack conveniently located open space, which per design per um design guidelines.

Uh they have to have open space by walking or biking within 880 feet, and there is a condition of approval in the staff report to address this that they do that they have to update their plan to provide that um open space more conveniently located to some of the lots, and that's mainly in the south area.

Last thing I'm gonna speak about for now until I turn it over to Susanna, is the phasing.

Wanted to show you their phasing plan.

There are three total phases.

You can see the phase lines.

I've I've highlighted them in red.

Um, phase one is to the is in the top half, which includes the commercial, those multifamily pieces, and some of the the town homes and alley loaded product and single family, and then in the middle, you have uh obviously a mix of of the the alley loaded homes and single family product, and then down in the south, you'll have the multifamily low and and some of that um single family detach type housing.

But there's three total phases as I stated.

Opening the first phase opening in 2027 is what they're projecting now with full build out by 2032.

So as I stated, many of staff's concerns and the reasons for denial deal with safety and traffic related concerns.

Because of that, I am now going to ask for our town engineer, Susanna Struble to come up and share some additional concerns with the proposed development.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council members.

Um, as normal, traffic and transportation in this community is part of our infrastructure, that critical piece to keeping us safe, efficient.

Um, and we're here to basically assure that we're making that investment in our community.

So, with that, um, this subdivision has some very unique characteristics to it.

Get this through here.

Um, and and is there for due to the just the size of it as well as some of the the unique characteristics of where its location is right now.

Um, we have taken a very very deep dive in working with the developer to support looking to say how does this um subdivision actually or this development actually affect our traffic system in this area.

And some of those unique traffic characteristics are the fact that we are right there on the edge of the State Route 202, especially where the 202 starts heading from going east-west to north-south.

So we see a little bit of an increase or an increase in our traffic volumes that come to the south there, so they don't have to go north to come south.

They will use Valvisa, which is one of the the roads on the west side of this this development.

In addition to that, um, we've seen some challenges going on as of rate, uh, as of late, in the fact that we are doing some widening in there.

That widening is really assisting in helping congestion on that 2022.

So that's kind of a very good indication that we're continuing to see growth and in intensification of the traffic numbers that are going to come through here.

This project actually rides on the edge of an employment corridor and a growth growth areas within our general plan.

The central employment area is marked in number four on the map that you see right here.

Within that employment area, which is where we basically have a lot of generators to get in and out from a business perspective and other items.

But within there is the Valvista Medical Growth Area that is just to the north of this site and actually encompasses this site along Valvista all the way over to Greenfield south of the freeway.

That is where Mercy Hospital is at, and there's quite a bit of traffic, etc.

that goes on through that that growth area.

We also have the east of uh and east of this is the Gilbert and the 202 growth area, which would be um this doesn't make sense.

I'm sorry.

This is also east of that.

Um the east, which is along Germain there on both sides of the 202, all the way over to Gilbert Road.

Again, those are areas where we see business improvements and and employment centers for us, and then also the Santan Mall area, which is up a little bit farther north from here.

In addition to that heavier traffic loading, what we also see is around in the general vicinity of that are several key facilities in the area that are going to affect the characteristics of the traffic.

We have the Greenfield Water Reclamation Facility, the South Area Service Center, we have a water reservoir that is just adjacent to this site on the other side of Valvista.

In fact, we have asked for a reservation for another well site in this area to help support us.

Our largest reservoir that we have in the town is also sitting just east of where the Coronado is, just south of Germain.

Um we also have a future South Police substation that will be heading down next to the South Area Service Center.

We also have a fire station in this area, mentioned Marcia Hospital, we have the Gilbert Regional or Gilbert Soccer Complex and Perry High School.

All of those items are showing that we have a very unique traffic management area in the town, and this subdivision is really adding to that.

Um primarily because it also is very complex, it's very high in density and it's very large.

So we've taken a very intensive look at this from a circulation perspective, and as Keith had mentioned, um we have the proposed development circulation plan, that spine road down the middle, which is Rome Avenue, that is a Rome Street, I believe it is, and it is the central spine that is about 93 feet in width versus an 80-foot, which would be our normal collector roadway, and then there are three other collectors that are along between Valvista and Rome Street that attach.

And then we have also on that eastern boundary the working with the developer, they have provided us with the opportunity now to have that 40-foot corridor for Coronado as well, which we will be matching on the other side to build the the collector on that side.

So some of the other concerns in this in this area is that the local circulation, and I think Keith methods of this as well, is it does carry the majority of the internal traffic.

We have a lot of closely spaced local streets and intersections in here, which has prompted the request of a variance to basically accommodate that different than what our specifications say.

The intent of that variation is to assure that we've got, or that variance is to assure that we have site distance limitations and increased and decreasing in the conflict points whenever we have an area that is less than what that standard should be.

We also have a lot of alley accesses on here, all of those lots that are fronting the 125 odd lots that are front played.

I'm having a hard time talking tonight, I apologize.

Have alley loaded in there.

Those alleys also have entrance points and exit points onto different roadways, and there are some closes closeness in their speed or in their spacing as well.

So we're looking at that as all as a part of the circulation with this.

In addition to that, um, with the facing homes, with the on-street parking, the raise medians, um we are putting some traffic or they are putting traffic calming throughout the area, and they've also requested a variance for modifying our our standard design speed.

So we've worked very diligently with the with the developer as it relates to the circulation.

We've looked to make sure that we are are accommodating all of the needs that they have within, but also addressing how the impact of this subdivision is really going to pay play a difference in the rest of the corridor in this area.

And we are you know really needing to make sure that we've we've accomplished the items that need to balance all of that together.

So what we know from the project is that this project itself will put upwards of 27,000 vehicles into this area.

That's seven times greater than the existing current or the current zoning that we have.

This ask is really four times greater than the Santan character area, even.

So what we know is and we have known is that by the year 2050, we will be seeing some overcapacity at key intersections on the Valvista area.

Those include the Valvista Loop Toe 2, Mercy, Melrose, and Germaine Road.

That over saturation with this development will occur 10 years earlier than what was expected.

And so again, we want to say how can we deal with that, and we work very diligently with them in assuring that we had enough area to basically provide the volumes and different mechanisms than the arterials that run around that.

And Coronado is one of those areas that that is going to help support some of that reliever.

So you have the spine in the middle that allows you to get in and out of the subdivision, but you also have the Coronado area that will allow, or the Coronado Road that will also allow us to take some of the additional spillover traffic that goes through here.

So we have through this process since um October of 24.

We were asked, is it okay to re remove the need for Coronado?

And the answer was if you can show to us that we don't need Coronado, then we will consider having not Coronado there.

We've gone through an eight to nine month process in looking at that with them.

They have provided us two to three, four different studies, which is pretty typical for a subdivision or a development that's this large and has the complexities of the area traffic on it.

We have looked at it several times with them, and with that conclusion, I think we've agreed that the Coronado is a necessity.

What we did find, however, as we were going through this towards the end after we met with the planning commission and into where we are today, is that we still had some capacity issues at the corner of or at the Rome and Germain intersection.

That needed to be resolved, and we've asked them to resolve that and figure out a way to mitigate that that challenge that we have at Rome and Germain.

Basically, right now we have too much queuing lengths in there, and we also have a potential that the signal timing will be very difficult for our to us to look at.

So the intent would be is to somehow move some of that traffic off of that intersection into another place so that we can basically continue to have the layout as it is.

If that can't be met and can't be moved in within the current circulation, we've said we need to look at partridge, which was another collector roadway in the general plan.

They do have partridge that takes us all the way or into at this point.

I'm gonna go back a little bit here.

They do have partridge, which is that purple line that goes to Rome, but there's nothing from Rome to Coronado.

So basically, what we're seeing is we also have three other access points onto Coronado from the north and on the south, and those areas within the middle piece of that is also generating traffic and has no access onto Coronado, its access really is onto Rome and then out through those collector areas.

So what we know is traffic is complex, and this is even more complex because of some of those current characteristics.

So trip generation is something that we've um I think agreed on for quite some time.

We've also through this TIA look, we've had some trip trip distribution areas, which basically says where is the traffic going to enter and exit that is um generated through this site.

We've had an agreement on that.

Um, and then the trip assignment is where you basically will say, do they take a left turn or they take a right turn, do they go straight?

So we have been working diligently with them on that with the addition of Coronado, that changed some of that modeling.

So we've been working with them diligently to work in say how does that work.

In fact, we've also gone out to our regional modelers at MAG to kind of tell us how this is affecting from a regional perspective and how that may support us in that modeling or support them in the modeling.

That has been a very difficult process, and the fact that MAG can only provide so much at so much time, and then the information that we get, they send it to us, we look at it, it goes back and forth a couple more times.

So we're in the process of continuing to look through that, and we at this point in time have not had a reconciliation on how they're gonna go to fix the germane and Rome intersection at this point in time.

So we we can um so our outstanding issues on that traffic impact study, which we have not approved to date, is that we don't have that proper mitigation at Rome and Germain.

The queuing length signal timing interruptions on on Germain, we do not want to have signal timing on Rome be longer than what it is on Germain, and so we're trying to basically work on that balance with them through that, and it may require, as I said, a traffic relief with partridge to make sure we're getting that traffic out of that intersection so that we can mitigate it as best as we can.

At this point in time, the last submittal that we had, and we've gotten some other submittals as of today on that traffic is a traffic memo that we received Sunday night at about nine o'clock at night, and we've been working ever since then with them to determine how and what else can we do to get explanations to figure out how we can move forward with the traffic impact study and the approval of that.

To date, we have not had enough time to review it.

So one thing that we are doing is we, you know, without having that completely modeled the way that we feel is the right way with traffic distributions, with the fact that Rome and Coronado are in that model in the way that it needs to be.

We haven't felt comfortable that we have 100% of that picture, and so we have asked for a stipulation, should you choose to approve that would allow us to basically say, let's get that TIA approved.

This is the time that we need to do it.

If we don't do it now, that just means it's gonna exasperate once we start putting things in the ground.

So let's do it while we're still back and forth.

You're gonna hear tonight as well that as we go through some of this modeling out through the trip distribution, through the trip assignments on this, that it's a subjective process.

And so one of the things that we want to make clear on is that yes, there's some subjectivity on the type of modeling or the approach that you take, but when it comes to the actual modeling, there is a very objective method to basically determine how that those trips get distributed and how they get assigned for those turn turn lanes.

We need to be in agreement with that, and that's the important part with this.

If we can agree with that, then I think and mitigate those issues there.

Um the final issue really is at Germain and Rome.

We're ready to basically move forward with an approval on the TIA for this.

But we feel it's very, very important to understand that because we know adding partridge between Rome and Coronado is going to affect how their lot laid out is, the character of the area that they want to basically build, et cetera, et cetera.

We're very hopeful at this point in time that we can do that without having that that extra piece of collector in here, and we're working very diligently to try to have that happen.

So, in addition to that, we have several technical variances, and I've listed four here.

So we've talked about this already in the non-standard cross-section with on-street parking on Rome Street.

Um that creates some extra maintenance responsibilities through some of the language that we've provided you with stipulations.

I think we've got that handled and feel comfortable with that.

That design speed at this point in time is about five miles lower than the town's standard at this point in time, but it does meet of our own standard, but it does meet Ashtow 35.

And they've worked very hard with us to get that taken care of, and we appreciate their efforts with that.

Roosevelt Water Conservation District does have a line that runs about where the partridge alignment is.

We want to make sure that as they realign that and they bury it, put it in the ground in a pipe, that we don't end up with some priorite concerns with that, and that that pipeline sits out from underneath our roadway, and so we we're working with that on that.

And at this point in time, the preliminary plat that they have submitted is providing us with the fact that that submittal shows that they are resolving that.

But we do want to make sure that we get that stamp of approval from RWCD before we absolutely approve what is happening with that relocation of that area.

So the last item here is that below standard residential street and alley spacing that we talked about.

Our standards, say 165-foot spacing.

There are areas in here that it's only 79 feet across.

It reduces and creates challenges with intersection site distances.

We want to make sure people can pull out into those roadways, make those turns safely.

We make sure that we don't have too many turning conflicts and that we are safely basically addressing that traffic as it goes in and out of those neighborhoods.

And then also the site distance, we want to assure that it goes through there.

So we have worked a lot with them on this already.

This would be just kind of that last piece of the puzzle that we want to put together.

But I want to show you here are areas that they are looking at right now on that below standard spacing or challenges that we have.

They've asked for about 11 spaces, right, or 11 places right now in their techno variants.

We have these areas that you're gonna see that are in circled here that are also saying let's address those from an alley perspective as well, make sure that we've got those site distances corrected in that area as well.

Make sure that we've got those site distance corrected in that area as well.

What we know also is with this density, we are going to expect several concerns with how parking is.

The developer has provided us a parking plan.

And we've looked at that pretty diligently with them at that at that point.

But as it sits right now with the densities that we have in this area, we are going to expect the same thing that we see in other areas within the town where we have high densities, large developments, smaller areas that we get a lot more complaints on parking on street parking, because there is a lot of that going on in this one as well.

So from a site distance and turning conflicts, just a little bit of an area there.

What you're gonna see is when they come up, if they don't have enough spacing, they can't see around the house or they can't see around the corner to see a car coming at them.

So we'll continue to work through that with them, either in the preliminary plat phase for those technical variances or other areas just to make sure that we've got those lots in a way that we can get around and be able to see uh effectively with the traffic.

So we're considering a little bit of realignment in roads.

I we are not looking to lose any lots at this point in time, just some realignment of a few of their roadways, which may um add some additional race crosswalks for traffic calming and different methods for traffic calming, because we will have some straight areas that we may not have right now.

So our outstanding traffic mitigation requirements at this point in time is let's get that traffic impact study approved before the preliminary plat.

Um and we want to basically um make sure that any proposed deviations from the engineering standards are approved, which supersedes that proposed development plan.

We are concerned that the lots are laid out the way they are with any approval on that right now.

We do have a stipulation in there that helps us with that.

Um we also want to dedicate and construct partridge drive if it's needed.

So that's one thing that we want to make sure that if we do need that from that mitigation up there at Rome and Germain, we have the ability and the opportunity to do that.

So we are asking for that to happen.

Um and then again with RWCD just making sure that we aren't strapped into a prior rights issue and that that pipeline doesn't sit underneath our roadways.

So those are four of the outstanding items that we have from a traffic perspective right now.

Um, and but you know, I want to really stress at this point in time now's the time that we can help you with some of the challenges we have throughout town as it relates to speed, congestion, safety, those types of things.

This deep dive into this traffic analysis and looking at it from this perspective is to help support that.

This is a pretty high density area with a lot of challenges already.

We want to make sure we can get it right before we can't fix it.

This is really kind of an infill, even though it's very, very large, and we don't have a lot of options at this point in time.

And and truly request that when we get into the ordinance on this, when we get into the stipulations on this, um, we've worked very diligently to add the stipulation in a way that will support us being able to have some freedoms to make sure we get that traffic appropriate at this point in time.

Um but we're here to help on that, and we're here to work with them.

So I think I'm gonna turn this back now to Keith.

Thank you.

Thank you, Susanna.

Um, so the next part of the presentation are PAD deviations.

So the following slides um outline the requested deviations for each of the zoning districts.

Um as the proposed plan has continued continued to evolve.

Um additional deviations have been requested since since planning commission.

Um some of those deviations include increased lot coverage from 55% to 65% for SFA product.

I'll I'll show you the tables, but um, I'll just go over the the things that have been added since the planning commission.

The FS6 zoning district, they have created a 45 by 86 deep foot deep lot to be able to accommodate uh Coronado Road on the eastern boundary, which they're asking for a 3,800 square foot minimum lot size.

Uh reduction of front, side and rear setbacks for those 45 by 86 lots that they are creating.

Uh lot coverage increases for one-story homes from 45% to 60% for the new 45 by 86 lots as well, and an increase to 50% for 60 by 125 and 65 by 130 lots.

Um, and then lot coverage increases for for two story, two to three story homes for 40 from 40 to 50 percent on the new 45 by 86 lots.

So I'll go over these tables.

Just a deviation for the landscape percentage from 45 down to 27% for the MFM portion of the development.

They're asking for a deviation from the rear setback down to 18 feet.

This is the transition between the multifamily medium and the SFA product.

Town staff is supportive of that, as that is to kind of create a higher level of integration between the multifamily medium and the single family.

And then, of course, a deviation for lot coverage.

And then the blue is going above and beyond some of the standards that just aren't in the code.

And then height, they were proposing to reduce the height of some of these homes.

And then the side setback of five feet.

Or slash property owners.

Town staff has received 12 total emails.

We've received five phone calls from surrounding residents expressing, and all of these have been expressing opposition.

We've held three meetings with interested parties.

Town staff also received a letter from the Gilmore developer expressing concern that the proposed regional commercial and multifamily parcels don't reflect the area's established vision.

They urge a distinctive mixed-use design in the con in the in the commercial area and high quality architecture and pedestrian-oriented pedestrian-oriented placemaking rather than a conventional disconnected shopping center.

The management of the Gilbert Soccer fields to the east met with staff and expressed some of the concerns that are on the screen.

Trails and open space.

Since that hearing, staff has had a number of discussions with the applicant in an effort to address outstanding concerns.

As a result, several of those concerns have been resolved through additional conditions.

I know Susanna mentioned quite a few of those.

Those are also included in your packet, I believe, is attachment twenty is the revised document that shows all the revised conditions that based on the planning commission's original approval.

So as a result of the presentation tonight and all the information we've mentioned, staff is recommending denial of this project of the GP in the rezone case.

However, if you do desire to move forward and approve the project, we have prepared obviously the conditions that I just mentioned, which are included in your in your in your staff report as attachment number twenty, which I'm sure you have seen.

So you have a few action options tonight.

You can deny the request per staff's recommendations.

And you can also you could also approve the request with conditions, all the as modified the modified conditions and all the conditions that have been presented to you in attachment number twenty.

Thanks, Keith.

As you can see, we've gotten a long way.

A lot of things have been accomplished.

However, we just still have enough outstanding concerns that our recommendation for denial still has not changed.

So thank you very much.

That that concludes our presentation from staff.

We are now open to any questions if you have any.

Thank you, Keith.

Thank you.

We have had a request for a bio brain for five minutes.

Do you want to do that before questions?

Okay.

Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order.

Council, do you have questions for staff?

Yep.

Councilmember Bon Giovanni.

Thank you, Mayor.

Who's taking it?

Suzanne?

Depends on what it is.

Okay, here we go.

So right now with the changes that are being asked, we're looking at seventeen hundred and forty-one units.

Umath, not Monty Math, because Monty Math is much better than Chuck Math.

If we didn't change anything, if a developer came to us and kept everything the same, about how many units would be on that property.

Um Mayor Anderson, Councilmember Bon Giovanni.

So if I understand the correct the question, if they didn't change the zoning and it stayed the way it is today, how many units would there be?

Yes.

So I did some I did some calculations a while back.

I I think there'd be approximately four to five hundred homes potentially.

That's a rough estimate.

I didn't use money math either.

It was it was well beyond fingers and toes.

So please explain to me the at this point the the vehement denial compared to what it was 10 days ago.

Mayor Anderson um members of the count of the council I I can understand how how you would uh have that concern um we've always had the same the level of concerns that we presented to you tonight um the previous over the the 10 days or the briefings and things like that we focused more on on Coronado Street and that kind of took the focus off of a lot of our other concerns that we have which are a lot of planning safety livability type concerns.

Those concerns were in the staff report to the planning commission so we haven't really reduced the number of concerns until recently with Coronado Road did eliminate quite a few of them but we still have a lot of the the concerns with the character of the Santan character area we have the concerns with the with the alley with the alley loaded homes fronting collector streets the livability portion of it you have townhomes across the street from single family homes you have all of the traffic concerns so we still and all the site distance concerns and the the technical variances those concerns have always been there.

Like I said I think Coronado and the focus on that took a lot of the focus off of a lot of the other concerns.

Now that the Coronado issue has been resolved which we appreciate the applicant working with us on that we're bringing up the other concerns because they still exist they have not been resolved.

I hope that makes sense no because the way it was spoken about is that these were things that were worked out that there were technical differences that were being worked out or worked out that weren't a flaming hot mess like was just presented to me the di the the difference between 10 days ago and today I wouldn't think we were talking about the same presentation I'm not I I didn't fall asleep during our your presentation I was very awake in discussing it and part of it I told you I just didn't even care to hear about because I didn't agree but the the way it was presented this sounds like I'm landing Houston in the middle of Gilbert and there's going to be deaths on every corner from lack of visibility and and too many entrances none of that was discussed.

None of that and I was awake so don't tell me I didn't hear it.

Also a lot of the times with our briefings um we we focus in on something specific because we don't have a lot of time to go through the 50 minutes of slides and things that we just went through.

So and uh I also uh mentioned earlier that we have been working diligently with the applicant and so a lot of the items and issues that we that are still there we thought would be cleaned up by the time we got to the council meeting we we had a lot of hope in the fact that we would get some of these things um worked out and that's why even tonight um we've had all those different lines of stipulations because we felt like those are concerns but with the amount of stipulations we have that would help out with a lot of those concerns or make some of those concerns go away but yet I'm looking at let's call it 50 plus of contention correct I don't uh mayor council I don't know that it would be 50 I saw eight corners that had red lines around them alone.

Yep.

I mean there's there's about 50 items there's there's several concerns for sure.

Right how could we have avoided this how could we really have avoided this because we didn't get red into this to the last two months mayor counselor we've been we've had these conversations in these um comments we've given these conversations in the comments to the applicant for the last 11 months so at that very time we talked about when when the this was first submitted before we even before we even had a formal submittal when we were at the pre app level we talked about the general plan and where the the circulation plan was we talked about the transportation master plan we walked through our concerns with the alley loaded products we talked to them about all the different deviations and made it clear that on a 300 acre site we don't know that there should be that many deviations you should be able to follow the development standards and not have that many those that many deviations those concerns just continue to to snowball.

We talked to them about all the different deviations and made it clear that on a 300-acre site, we don't know that there should be that many deviations.

You should be able to follow the development standards and not have that many that many deviations.

Those concerns just continue to snowball.

And so when the plans come back in and there's no changes to it or there's little changes to it until we start to get closer to meetings, that's when we start to really say, okay, well, these concerns and issues that we've had are not going away.

So it's time to really point these out in our in our presentations.

And like I said, when we did the briefings, it was we focused more on, hey, there's circulation problems, there's technical variance problems.

We didn't go into all the details.

There's coronado issue problems, hoping that we could get to to this point.

But to your point, we we did work on this.

Well, we've got comments that have gone back to the applicant since um well, yeah, since January.

Well, you know, and I'm not trying to find fault here.

Don't misunderstand me.

But I feel that what was handed to me was sugarcoated.

I've been accused of having poor bedside manner, but I'm a great surgeon.

How's that?

There you go.

So instead of sugarcoating something, can I get it straight?

Because I really feel that this was softballed so poorly.

I I feel like I don't even know what I just read.

I don't I I I'm looking at a plan that that seems cohesive, and now these little technical variances as they were referred to, things that will work through not to worry about are sticking points.

And somebody's looking at, I don't know, a couple a billion dollars of investment or whatever it is.

I can understand them having trepidation.

I can understand them being 11 months into something and highly concerned about their investment.

Uh that's not to say that they're even right in what they want, but I mean, I think we've sugarcoated this and we've we've not we've not related where it really sits in the process.

Uh mayor counsel, I will I will say that from the very beginning we have indicated to the applicant that we were not going to support this project.

And we've let them know exactly why the entire time.

Now we've continued to work on it to hopefully get to a point where we were still going to recommend denial.

We were still not in support of the design, we're still not in support of the circulation.

But if we can get to a point where we can have enough stipulations that the plan has to change in order to meet those concerns, that was always our hope that we could get to a spot where it would be approvable.

So I apologize if we if it feels like we were sugarcoating something, but I think maybe our optimism clut clouded our judgment a little bit as we as we had those those discussions.

But we've been very clear with the applicant from day one that we were not supporting this because it didn't meet the transportation master plan, it didn't meet the general plan, it didn't meet this character of the SantaM character area.

There were a lot of different things that that pointed to us toward that direction of denial.

Thank you.

Can we move on to presentation by the applicant, please?

Good evening, uh mayors, members of the council, Brennan Ray, 2325 East Camelback here on behalf of Lenar Homes.

We are certainly very excited to talk to you tonight about Harvest Grove, which we believe is a high quality mixed-use development.

Uh that's an integrated master plan community on one of the last large parcels within the town.

Um we know that this development is consistent with the goals and policies of the town's general plan, as well as the Santan Character Area Plan, which I will get to in additional detail as I go along.

Harvest Grove builds upon the decades of experience that Lenar has building high quality master plan communities, uh including some that already exist in the town, one that's around the corner from this Leighton Lakes was Lenar's flagship development uh approximately 20 years ago when I first started practicing.

And they have continued to build on that foundation.

We have, as staff indicated, work um closely with them more than any other development that I've ever been involved in in any municipality.

Uh, and that I think that that reflects the desire and intent um to provide um a development that is uh gives opportunity for people to live within the town.

Uh we know that the housing plan that is in the process of being um done by your town's economic development team.

It's going to talk, I shouldn't say it's going to talk, I don't know what it's going to talk, but I anticipate that it will talk that there is a wide range in need of housing to be provided at all levels.

And we'll get into that a little bit more.

But we are certainly appreciative of staff and working with us.

We have met close to 30 times over the course of the past 10 months.

That doesn't include the countless phone calls, conversations, emails, and other things that have transpired as we've gone along the way.

We are appreciative of the planning commission's recommendation for approval.

That was a rather lengthy discussion that night as well and are appreciative of their recommendation.

And we would request your approval in accordance with their recommendations with the modifications that are presented in attachment 20 to your staff report.

There's two additional changes that we're going to want to discuss in greater detail.

But let's get into it and talk about it.

This is really a unique site, and that if you look at this map, it shows exactly what it is.

It is stuck in the middle between very intense commercial employment activity along the 202.

You can see that it's stuck next to the Gilbert Mercy Hospital complex.

And you can see all the density and intensity that exists around it.

You can see also that we are on the edge of the Santan character area has been noted.

And so consistent with good planning principles, as the mayor knows from his former life, you transition densities, intensities away.

And so as you transition away from the loop 202 and all the intensities there, there's going to be a gradual step down, not a market step down, but a gradual step down between those developments.

And especially as you look at the edge of the Santan character area where this site sits, that even within the site itself, there's going to be a transition, recognizing that that is how planners plan.

So what is Harvest Grove?

It is a complete neighborhood solution.

We've spent a lot of time and there's been a lot of what I will call relatively negative discussions that have occurred from the moment this meeting started.

And so let's talk about the positives that Harvest Grove is.

We are adding 45 acres of commercial that does not exist anywhere in this on this site, not on the general plan or on the zoning.

We are providing over a thousand for sale single family detached and attached homes.

We are providing 69 acres, a third of the site is going to be open space.

When we get into the financial implications and talk about impact fees for the single family residential, the minimum, we estimate that the minimum impact fees is going to be 44,500,000.

That includes 18,000 of, or excuse not 18,000, I wish, so does Lenar.

18 million dollars for water.

It includes an additional 4.4 million for sewer.

We know there's been lots of discussions about water and sewer rates, and we are absolutely paying our way with those that will go to benefit the town and the system as a whole.

When we look at the commercial and what it will generate, 1.4 million in estimated annual sales tax.

We have a commercial developer that is ready to go to move on it tomorrow.

If they could submit construction plans yesterday, they would have done so.

They're so excited to come forward with this.

And representatives from that commercial developer Barclay group are in the audience tonight as well.

Then we look at the estimated property tax.

But currently, this site generates 411 to the town of Gilbert on a property tax basis.

We estimate that with the single family that that will increase to about 350,000 annually.

So we've talked a lot about the Santan character, and I'm going to touch a little bit more on it.

For 26 years, and I know the mayor was the author of it.

For 26 years, the Santan Character Area Plan has done exactly what it's intended to do.

That is why South Gilbert continues to be a very desirable location for people to live in because it does exactly what it's intended to do.

And as I mentioned, this site kind of has a unique position as it relates to it.

I talked about transitioning densities and intensities.

Even within the Santan character area at the edge, we need to still consider transitioning things as we move further south.

This would be a much different discussion if I was saying on 440-ish acres further south of the site relative to what the Santan character area entails.

Because as you look at it, I know staff presented it, it would appear that the focus is on lot sizes.

Yet, as you will see, the focus of the Santan character area is on the design.

And you can see all of these 12 that deal with green belts, collector street system, optimizing open space, including some commercial buffering uses, building landscape, use building and landscape that blend in, promote in-field development, and design parks and open space.

So you can see the theme here of what the Santan character area is.

These are the exact goals and policies taken from that plan, and we satisfy these goals and policies.

Importantly, as you get a little bit deeper into the plan as we have, there are development criteria.

This is kind of the regulatory aspect of the document.

And as you go through it, you can see in there that there are six very key, very specific development criteria when talking about how it should be in the Santan character area.

And as you look at it, again, open space, minimum 10% open space, rural design themes, screening lots from the arterials and trail system.

And as we go through, you will see again that we are satisfying and in some instances exceeding what this development criteria is.

You start with this first one with criteria one and five that deals with open space and buffering.

We have a four-acre park, four and a half acre park that is sitting in the middle of this development.

We are providing tree-lined streets everywhere you go.

Through the design of the landscaping in open space, we are meeting that intent.

If I need to get an expert, Andy Barron, who's our designer, can go into a lot more detail than I'm sure you want of exactly how we're satisfying and meeting these criteria.

If we go to development number two from that again, regulatory list, minimum of 10%, as staff indicated, and as I've said, we are providing almost 70%, almost a third of the site is open space.

And you can see the character of it, achieving that agrarian theming through a very linear plantings, as you would expect to see with rows of crops and stuff like that.

Again, I can go into more detail or Andy can relative to that, and you can see some of the outdoor amenities that we're anticipating to be including in this again with open space in mind.

When we get to number four, this deals with kind of the fencing, rural design themes, fencing, country entry treatment, you know, responsive to the Santan character area.

And you can see here again what we're doing with the low fences with the use of the materials in the walls themselves with the design of the entry monuments and as we look at that.

And I know there's been a comment about you know, homes on a collector street aren't rural.

I respectfully I don't know that that's entirely true because all of us have been in the rural parts of this country, rural parts of Arizona, and what you see as you drive through those rural areas are homes up on the street and the farms behind.

But we've got to adapt it consistent with the area of which we find ourselves in, again, in this area.

If you add everything in, every spot that every person can walk through here, it totals over 23 miles.

But again, for purposes of what the requirement is, it's the 1.47 required, and we're providing it, and you can see that illustrated with the red lines and everything else running through it.

So again, I want to kind of just emphasize what a complete neighborhood solution this development is and the impacts that it's going to bring, the positive that it will bring to this community.

Lenar has been in the business since 1954 over 70 years and has built over one million homes.

They've worked hard to become and stay one of the country's top builders.

And Harvest Grove is going to be no exception.

I know that staff, and this is staff express some concerns about safety.

One thing that will not be compromised in this is safety.

Some of the things that we talked about, and I'll get into a little bit more, but rest assured that Lenar has worked hard to earn that reputation of being one of the top builders and safety is not going to be compromised.

And so I do not want there to be any doubt in your minds relative to the safety of this development for the residents and the people that are going to live here.

So I can go into a lot more detail than that, but I want to focus on a couple of things.

And so we are somewhat surprised as well that there still are concerns that linger because we did provide Coronado.

I know there was some debate back and forth about is it is Coronado a different cross section?

Is it smaller?

Do we shift it over to the city of Mesa?

And Lenar has come back and said, nope, we agree.

It took us a little minute to listen, but we did listen.

And we have provided Coronado in the alignment that it was needed for.

Because as we've talked with staff about it, we understood that the need for Coronado was because of regional issues.

That if you look at it and look at how Coronado flows and its importance, you've got a lot of traffic that's coming from the southeast heading to the northwest.

That's where the majority of the traffic comes.

And so Coronado became the regional collector.

And as we look through it and went through it, again, we understood staff's desire and need for it and have worked closely with Susanna as she indicated about it being out there.

And so as we look at it, we agree with all of the stipulations.

There's two though that I do need to talk about.

This is revised condition O, and I did have a handout.

I don't know if it got made its way around.

We have provided them the uh information, and I have my traffic engineer if we need to, but if we provide them information that we believe is responsive to their concern about the Roman Germain intersection, as Susanna alluded to.

We work tirelessly, they work tirelessly.

I know that they worked on the days that they shouldn't work because they only go four days a week.

We were working well into the weekend as well to provide them the information.

At every turn, we've tried to provide it, and so we have provided that with them.

And so we are absolutely amenable to this condition to agreeing that a traffic impact analysis be approved before the preliminary plat.

We are agreeable that the modeling that we need to demonstrate that partridge is not necessary, but we make a simple request that changes May from will that if we do satisfy and provide staff sufficient justification for partridge not to be needed, then the town will waive that requirement for the extension.

And so that's one subtle change that we are on on that.

And I can get more into the details if you would like as to why we request that.

As we've gone through the process, we have provided access.

This is on the northern part, the more populated part of this community.

Again, most of it lies outside the Santan character area, but you can see all the green arrows, all the access that we are providing there on the north for people to get in and out, including two access points onto Coronado.

On the south, again, a little different situation, not as much population, but nevertheless, we do have some smaller lots down there where we are still providing access as we go through this.

We know, and staff hasn't reviewed it yet, but that we are looking at the issues that they talk about, and in particular the level of service.

With this development and with our traffic impact analysis, we are proposing three additional traffic signals that will be paid for by Lenar.

One at Coronado and Germain, Rome and Germain, and then Partridge and Valvista.

Again, all things as staff indicated, working towards mitigating the impact that this development will have.

Because I don't know that when we started this, we understood the regional impact.

I don't know necessarily that staff understood the regional impact and congestion that occurs in this area, which is why we've had as many discussions as we've had about traffic and traffic safety as you look through it.

And so we're happy to keep working with staff with them through that on that stipulation.

The other stipulation that deals with a town well site.

That is stipulation R.

The town came to us very early on, and as staff indicated, wanted a well site on this site.

They've got one across the street on the west side of Val Vista.

They've got another one off of Coronado.

And based on what we've been told, this spot presents a great opportunity for the town to put an additional well site there.

We have no problem reserving that site for the town.

We had no problem figuring out a way to design around it.

Our concern with this stipulation again are deals with kind of the open-ended nature of it.

As drafted, we have the reservation there.

We start it with an appraisal, and it was kind of an open-ended thing that the reservation went away when a purchase contract is be entered into.

Because of this site, because of what it is, we would like that there be a kind of a shot clock as to when it is.

We understand there's stuff relative to the acquisition of the site that are outside their control, but we know the town needs it, but we need an additional assurance, and that's why we've put a shot clock on it.

To alleviate that, as the town has to ask staff, you guys for funding and stuff.

We have agreed, we would like it that you know that we can extend that 180 days as agreed to by the parties.

Because the concern with an open-ended stipulation, there is a limit window in which this site could be incorporated into another portion of the development should staff not want to move forward with that.

And the concern would be that if staff delayed on it for a long time, that we end up with a piece of property that has no value.

And that is not a situation that we want to be in.

So I've passed those out.

Let me touch on a couple of other things relative to the variant the technical variances and the deviations that we are requesting.

Most of the developments that I've worked on in the town for the past 20 years have requested some form of PAD deviations.

As we've worked with staff, we understood that they were supportive of those PAD deviations.

This is one of the first time I've ever had to stand in front of a council and talk about technical variances because usually those are on the back half.

That is through the plat, that is through the process, and we have worked through a number of them.

When we initially started, there was a lot that we were asking for, but through working with staff, we have worked tirelessly to eliminate any technical variances concerning safety and site visibility.

I know that Susanna presented there are some that are internal to the site, but we don't have them out on Rome.

And those are internal.

So the reason why that we are here tonight is because we think we are providing a complete neighborhood solution.

Again, the financial impact we can get into.

I can talk further if you would like about the design of Rome.

I respect and appreciate that the town's gotten a lot of other phone calls from other communities where there are collector roads with homes fronting on them.

That's why we've done something, done something more by providing off-street parking there.

Where there is not the off-street parking, there will be no parking.

And we will we will work with them on that regard.

We've worked hard to with the design of Rome, including input from some of you relative to its safety and livability and stuff like that.

So with that, um, I I felt it important if you'll indulge me a couple minutes more, Mayor Council.

I'd like Alan Jones, uh, who is the president uh division president for Lenar, um, he better than I can explain the why.

Why is Lenar looking at this site?

Why is Lenar proposing what they are thank you, Mayor and and Council members.

Alan Jones, division president of LENAR here in Phoenix, and I just want to make an important point that has been stated but but hasn't been emphasized, I don't feel sufficiently, and that is that this is a master plan community, and that means that there's going to be a variety of housing when you look at the location of this property.

We couldn't be more excited to have one of the large last pieces of property to develop in the town of Gilbert.

I've been doing this in this town standing in front of the council and others for the past 34 years and developing here.

Couldn't be more excited.

Our team, I'm here representing over 300 Lenar associates, and over a thousand employees of our trade partners.

We're developing a master plan community that has a variety of housing.

And one of the very interesting things that was said by the planning commission was the reason why we can support this is because of the fact that you are providing a variety of housing.

We could have all executive housing here, and it would greatly limit the number of people that would have the opportunity to live on one of the last pieces of property in the town of Gilbert.

But that's not what we're doing.

We're doing an appropriate transition from what exists to the north of us and transitioning down to executive housing.

Of all the needs in the valley today, is mortgage attainable housing.

And that's what we're trying to provide.

And so we feel strongly and have met, as it's been stated over and over again with your staff, and we appreciate their efforts.

And we feel that what's happened is they've sufficiently identified the stipulations that are needed to make this community work.

So we're respectfully requesting your approval with the stipulations that they've provided that we feel actually provide an incredible community, one that all of us can be proud of and will stand the test of time.

But it's a variety of housing that we're trying to accomplish here.

So thank you for your support.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have.

Questions for the applicant.

I have some.

As you mentioned, I am the author of the Santan Special.

It's called the Santan Special Area Plan back then.

And I've been very consistent through this whole process that my concern is the character of the area, the rural character that we want to promote.

And I feel as though I was betraying what I represented years ago.

And the only time that I've ever seen the planning director at one podium and the town manager at the other podium where we debated whether what kind of character this area would have.

And we reached a compromise.

But I want to play some show and tell with you.

Show me or tell me.

But convince me that we are meeting the intent of that plan in these areas.

The first is, and you've been saying you've been underscoring this through your whole presentation, and I know staff did too.

Rural, rural versus urban.

Uh this is to be a rural area, rural neighborhoods, and rural design themes.

Um what design themes are there that bring to mind a rural character in this project.

Mayor, members of the council, Andy Barrett with ABLA, uh based in Tempe.

Um I I think I'm gonna start, if you would indulge me, by answering the question starting with kind of proximity.

And I think it's something that's really important for us to understand.

Um, you know, this graphic is something that we put together quite a while ago, and I think we've met with all of you at one point or another, describing how the area is really changed.

And Mr.

Mayor, I I would say that at the time that the Santan Character Area Plan was established, the the 202 freeway didn't exist.

And I think that the general plan has taken into account a lot of that change that's occurred.

And if I go back and I don't have access to the slide that Susanna had presented earlier, but there was a large employment area shown basically at the west or yeah, northwest corner of the Santan Freeway, generally Caddy Corner to where the Harvest Grove project is shown.

And what I think it's important to understand is that this is a high traffic corridor, right?

There's a lot of trip generation occurring there.

That means that there's a lot of people, there's a lot of intensity and density.

And I think when we look at it from a regional planning perspective, a lot of the things that we consider are the fact that the intensity of that area influences the character of what occurs.

And if we consider the southern end of the Santan character area, you would all agree that it's less intense, that there's less commercial activity, there's less employment.

But as we move further to the north, that intensity changes.

And I'm not arguing that it doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't be rural, but the nature of what the 202 has done to the area has changed that.

And that influence has to be considered.

And I think that's why we continue to kind of look at that, is that that transition from something that is semi-urban, frankly, because the corridor moves thousands and thousands, and I don't know the number off the top of my head, but I would imagine the Santan Freeway is moving 50,000 plus cars a day, if not more.

And because of that, the intensity and employment, the location of the Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, the Santent Motorplex, all of our commercial and retail services that are in the area, that changes the way that the character of that location lives.

So when we consider what we've done, we're looking at it from a perspective of how do we bring and pay homage to that historical reference using materiality, you're going to using organization of plant materials, uh, expressing character through architecture, um, street scene, etc.

We've talked about, and Alan did a fantastic job of pointing out the fact that we are trying to provide a variety of housing.

As we consider the intensity that occurs to the north, which is less than a mile away, we're looking at how we can transition that down.

And we do that through a few a series of ideas.

One of the most significant things that we've done, and I don't think Brennan touched on this, but against Valvista Drive, we have an 80-foot setback.

That setback was intentionally established.

We certainly didn't need to do that, but we paid very close attention to the fact that we needed to organize a very structured street tree canopy that was set back far enough that we could feel that there was that openness, that agrarian character, that transition, that rural feel, right?

So that separation helps us establish that.

The organization of how we've created a pronouncement at that entry.

We wanted that monument to be able to have impact, scale, layers, all of those things that you would see in an agricultural component.

If I was on a farm, I would have something big that sort of went over my roadway, right?

And those were things that you can see in old ranches.

So we're trying to take some of those materials, those forms, and express those at our entry.

As we get down into the street, as you see in the sketch that's on the screen, that organization of plant material, the way that the tree canopies are structured.

If you imagine the Circle G projects, which I know you're all quite familiar with, that's really the look that we were going for with the street tree canopy.

There's very structured street trees that will run in patterns all the way down.

Our understory planting is the same way.

So we want that structure and organization with the grasses, with the organized green shrub materials, that people can walk and be separated from the curb lines.

That was something that was intentional as well.

And when we think about open space and circulation, the the fact that we have, and I want to make sure again we're paying attention to what's on that west side.

That separation from Valvista was really important.

So the rural components to the extent that we consider blending the intensity from the north to the south, having a multitude of products that are integrated into a plan so that we have multifamily, we have townhomes, we're transitioning into larger lot sizes.

We have 10,000 square foot plus lots that are within this community itself.

So you go from something that can be very small, a townhome attached product again, more attainable housing component, integrating that into something as we move further to the south edge that becomes a little bit more rural in character.

The open space that's been integrated on the streets themselves on Rome, there's great separation.

We have great separation on partridge coming in as well.

Again, that expansive open space so we can create more of that rural feel.

A lot of it has to do with the way that we've organized the street scenes, the tree canopies, architecture, parks and open spaces being connected, and then the materiality that we've used throughout the project.

You can keep going.

I'm here all night.

It talks in the plan, it talks about small scale agricultural activities being established in the open spaces, agricultural themed open space.

I don't see any of that here.

Or it could be small pockets of an agriculture themed product of some kind.

I don't know if it's corn or sure.

Whatever.

It's a fair question.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the council.

I I think I would respond to that by saying that we're somewhat early in the process.

That's something that we could certainly look at.

We've met with Lenar numerous times about the level of program that we're providing, uh, the character of what we're providing within the parks.

Uh it's something that we can certainly integrate.

Um I don't I'll look to my team here.

I don't see any issue with that.

Uh, agricultural themed components, we've certainly accomplished in other master plans within the Santan character area.

We could certainly integrate.

Thank you.

It also talks about unique projects that use agricultural themed open space, landscaping, um, themed fences and so forth that are agricultural in nature.

Mayor, members of the council, I I think that we've we've definitely hit a home run on that.

So we're using natural materials.

So the perimeter walls are slump walk, again, looking back to you know, historical times, that's a natural material that would have been used in building homes, uh, certainly fencing, perimeter conditions.

Uh, the fencing that we're using along Rome Street, which is more on the alley loaded homes themselves, uh, we've actually designed to mimic more of that slump block.

And you can kind of see it on this rendering, middle of the page, the low fence that's kind of horizontal above the entry monument on the right side.

You know, that's a street scene component that we're planning on using that would integrate some transparency in the front yards, but at the same time bring some of that character internally.

Um the materiality is intentionally brought to be able to have authentic materials.

So we want to use steel, we want to use stone, and we want to use you know, slump block and concrete materials.

So again, these are all natural materials that would be found in a rural setting in an agrarian character.

We believe that we're doing a good job of integrating that.

From the landscape perspective, um, the patterns are really the key.

And any project that we've done in a in a agricultural setting, it is very much about the tree canopies and the understory planting.

And we plan, and I know Mayor had met with you specifically and showed you some of the diagrams that we had started.

The planting is very structured intentionally, it's very organized intentionally, and it's layered intentionally to ensure that we have seasonal appeal and that there is plenty of shade on the parkways and walkways.

Can anybody keep a horse in this property?

Uh Mayor, members of the council, great question.

Uh no, the lots are not large enough for that under town zoning code.

So in that in that aspect, that that's there's a lot of discussion in the Santan character area about equestrian equestrian trails, access to places like the Queen Creek facility, the horse facility.

And that's a big part of the character area.

That's why I ask whether or not uh you have any equestrian trails anybody can ride through even if they can't keep horses.

Uh understood, Mayor.

Uh I would say that oftentimes when it comes to equestrian trails, we look back at the municipalities requirements from a regional perspective, and and there aren't any equestrian trails shown on the town's parks and trails master plan in this location, uh likely due to the fact of of where it's located.

Um certainly further south there they do exist, uh, but not within the Germain and Valvista corridor.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Any other questions?

Councilmember Bon Giovanni.

I think Councilmember Buckland was before me.

Councilmember Buckler.

Thank you, Mayor.

A couple things.

Um Brennan.

So I just want to get some clarification.

Um you had made a statement about uh perhaps staff was not recognizing the regional impacts here.

You were talking about your staff or our staff?

Our staff I know had brought it up multiple times.

That's that was the whole debate over Coronado.

Yes.

Through through through the mayor, uh Councilmember Buckland.

Um at the very outset, staff did indicate that Coronado was needed because it was identified on the town's general plan and it was identified on the town's transportation master plan.

As we had those early discussions with staff, we talked about Coronado uh in the context of being a collector road.

Um Coronado being a collector road, which under my way of thinking, and I confirmed it with staff at the time, a collector road collects traffic from within the development and then disperses it out to an arterial street.

Uh in this instance, the collective nature of the road, it would take traffic from Harvest Grove and put it to the north.

Those were the discussions that we had early on of if we're able to show that Coronado is not needed, then uh we wouldn't need to put it in.

Um obviously there is no traffic generating from the east.

Uh there is no access to the soccer fields, the Blandford community on the north does not have access.

Um the regional uh the wastewater treatment plant pulls access from Valvista, and uh there's a cemetery on the south side.

So those early discussions that we had with staff were not focused on as I indicated that there was a regional need for it.

This notion of a regional collector.

That was not something that was uh that we were ever aware of uh as we uh as I stood outside of the council chambers on another case that I was working on with Lenar, I did have the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion with Susanna relative to that, and it was only in the course of that conversation that it became apparent that the need for Coronado was because of the regional impacts that I had that I had talked about and mentioned earlier, that you look at this area and the impacts of it, of the need to provide some relief from Valvista to remove some of the traffic off of Valvista because of it being a road of regional significance and giving people an alternative route to get up to the freeway, whether it's through the Gilbert Mercy uh medical center area, as I've outlined there, or whether it's getting up to Germain and heading to the west, uh, and vice versa.

So yes, we have known that they've wanted Coronado all along, um, but in terms of the regional significance and the regional impact of that, that was not made aware to us until uh whenever I was here that night on Willowbrook, so a month ago, two months ago, that we understood it.

And it was in response to that.

Uh I mentioned we we we listened a little later, but it was in response to that and understanding the regional component of this collector road that Lenar agreed uh to put Coronado in.

Um and so that's that's the history uh of it uh as the discussions that we've had, and we've had lots of them, but again, it wasn't until a month or two ago that we were aware and understood from the town's perspective the regional constraints for um for Coronado and for it to go in, which is why we asked the continuance so that we could figure out how to put it in.

Understood, and I appreciate your willingness to finally get there.

I think.

I'm concerned maybe you guys weren't speaking the same language, but um the TIA.

Because one thing that's getting me is I was I'm trying to look at this from a big picture.

Totally respect the the rural character design at the same time.

We're a community of 292 plus thousand people.

We're really a big city.

Um I can you know I'm a little different, and I can accept some concessions as long as they're reasonable, they're fair, um it doesn't blow up your original plan.

Um but I was expecting that when we got here tonight, we were gonna have some kind of resolution where both parties, staff, and you had come together, had agreed to terms, we're gonna be able to move on with this thing finally after all these months.

And and then once again, the TIA report, which has been asked for repeatedly got heard Susanna say tonight that it got to her it on Sunday night before this meeting.

And you and I have talked about the fact that we don't have enough staff.

I've I've demonstrated the data that we're the lowest staffed agency in Maricopa County, and you have to plan accordingly so that they have time to review the documents because what I don't like in language is things like um these stipulations that you know approve it if the town approves that plan, because what if they don't?

Um these things need to be dealt with earlier.

Um and then finally something that I learned tonight um as well or today in the addendum packet is the thing that Councilmember Torkson spoke about was these circles all over the map and what Susanna described as site limitations in the neighborhood which create traffic risk.

And what this ex-cop ex-traffic cop's not gonna do is risk these people's safety because they can't see around a corner or get a kid hit on a bike.

And what I don't and I guess I'm speaking to you and staff, I don't see that any of these modifications, unless I'm missing something, address that issue.

Yeah, uh, through the mayor, uh council member buckland, uh thank you.

Um I'm I'm um it sounds like you want a little more history of it.

So if if I may I'd like to ask Don Cartier to come up and explain where where we've kind of been in terms of when talk about a TIA and what a TIA is intended to do, um, and really a TIA is designed to look at the impact of the traffic around the site, not at the regional nature.

And so again, once we understood the regional component of it, we worked with staff um and worked with MAG.

MAG is the agency that has the big picture view and is able to direct us.

But Don can provide a little bit of color on that.

But we have we have been responsive to that again.

Uh the first part, I don't know that it was communicated uh or I wasn't listening.

Um I'd like to think I'm a good listener.

Um, but we did not understand that regional component until again I stood outside of these council chambers on the Willowbrook case and was able to have that conversation with Susanna.

But let me have Don explain kind of where we've been from that point up to this point, and then I'll address your other comments.

Thanks, Brennan.

Don Cartier with ZivTech, and uh thanks.

You know, it's a late night, so talking about traffic late at night is always sure thrilling and exciting for me at least.

Uh the through the mayor, uh council member buckland.

As it relates to the TIA itself, you're right.

We were working through a process on what would be a very typical traffic impact analysis where we generate trips through the ITE trip generation manual, we distribute them, and as town had indicated, you know, we had worked through a lot of the process of where those trips would go.

Uh, but as we started looking at the bigger picture of the region, decided, and this is along with the town.

So we had a meeting to change the methodology of what we were doing.

And we're in the middle of the methodology.

I think the the methodology change as you saw presented today, you know, it's it's uh keeping a lot of things the same.

But what that mag model does for us is it allows us to take a view of what's happening in the town in the future, not just with Harvest Grove, but with what's anticipated to grow throughout the entire region and town.

So we can see where all of these long-range traffic shifts are happening.

And what we learned from that mag modeling is that Valvista is a uh pretty large thorough corridor in terms of thir through traffic, cut through traffic.

Um there's a a predominant amount of traffic in that mag model that is using Coronado, but it actually shows a much larger distribution of traffic both south of the project and east of the project than what we had looked at initially.

So that's the information that's being reviewed now and presented.

In the end, if if we're talking about the impacts of those changes, you know, and what we're talking about is um what we've been what we've really been focusing on is Rome and and Germain, that's been a big focus.

You know, if we're talking about the regional traffic shift really being more south and east, it takes a lot of pressure off of Rome and Germain.

But the addition of Coronado itself also takes a bunch of pressure off.

And so in the work that we've done and and we're sub have uh was submitted Sunday evening, and and much to what's all been said, everybody's been working around the clock.

This has been a uh challenge for everyone involved in terms of just making sure the information is right.

We want to make sure the information is right, uh, but we also want to make sure that we have a chance to work together.

Um but I what I would say is what we're seeing in all of that um is that there's less predominance uh to use the northwest movement than what that traffic study showed, and that the information we've been able to present and the town has not had a chance to thoroughly review it, shows that you know what we're presenting, it works, it works much better than what was in the TIA.

But I appreciate the stipulation that's been presented.

I think that's something we can work with and through.

We're really close on the traffic.

We were really close before.

So I anticipate that just finalizing these last few pieces.

Umce we just peel apart the mag model and everyone has a chance to review it, uh, that we'll be real close again.

I can go into a lot more detail.

Uh but with respect to the additional questions.

Again, we um uh agree with that condition O relative for the TIA um because it has been there and we agree with the process that is outlined with it.

We just want to change that one word from from May to Will, but we have no problem agreeing to that stipulation, and that was um you know, to staff's credit, that was them working with us, uh trying to find a solution to be able to move this forward, that it had the assurances in place that I know staff wants that the council wants that we want too that this is going to be uh the type of development that we all expect it to be.

So I'm understanding it does cover what I'd asked about though, the those site line limitations.

So not that stipulation.

Um stipulation O deals with the traffic um impact analysis.

The deal with the site visibility triangles, um, that stipulation is uh stipulation um staff will probably tell me and whisper it over my ear.

Um is in November.

Uh if you look, and uh and and I can read it if you want.

Um, I just need to know, and I think Kyle just confirmed it.

Yeah, I think I missed it.

Yeah.

Uh and I didn't want to miss something that important.

So Kyle, that's confirmed.

Yeah, I think the important part uh through the mayor, council member bucklin that I that I will read um goes to the very heart, I think, of your question that um in terms of the layout that this includes, but it's not limited to compliant with um you know um site distance at intersections, visibility triangle requirements, and minimum horizontal and vertical curve radii and length.

Those are kind of the key components.

And again, where we're requesting the the separate the reduction in the separation, uh we worked really hard.

When we started, we had a bunch that we were requesting on Rome, uh a bunch of variances that we were requesting, but through working with staff, we have eliminated the variances needed for Rome, which you would expect.

Where we are requesting these, um again, just to illustrate is a result of the product.

Uh, and that's gonna be kind of down in here where I've got shorter product, smaller product that by necessity is going to require my streets get a little bit closer.

But even in those instances, there's still our site visibility requirements, the safety aspect of it.

And we are going to ensure uh as Susanna indicated, we we've got to work on some tweaks and some changes to move some lots around.

Um Suzanne, I think stated she's not trying to lose lots.

We're glad to hear that.

We don't want to lose lots.

Um, but that is something that is part of the process.

And and and again, just to reiterate, it it's a little bit unusual that we are talking about technical variances at this stage of the game.

But we recognize the importance of it.

We recognize the importance of this piece.

And that is why we are comfortable with the stipulation that staff has presented relative to that and ensuring that we work with them through the additional processes.

Councilmember Bon Giovanni.

Thank you, Mayor.

It's late night, so I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go right to left field.

Okay.

Um first of all, we've worked with Lenar homes before.

Um good product, but even like a couple of months ago, a much, much smaller project.

For what I can recall, this is probably what 10 times bigger than the last one we worked with Lenar Homes.

So I'm gonna ask a question completely on left field.

Um and might be from someone behind you to ask this question.

Um has Lenar Home shifted their sales strategy significantly um since early this 2025.

Uh through the mayor, council member Bon Giovanni, I will let them ask or ask answer that question, but I want to make sure I understand it.

Okay, because the last development that I had before you was a 91 lot subdivision down at Riggs and 156th Street.

That is a much different site, much smaller site, much different location than the site that we're talking about today.

So I I'm I'm I need help understanding.

Is there another Lenar development that you're talking about, or are you thinking of that one?

That one.

Okay.

So again, the question, so I make sure I understand it and and we can all answer it correctly.

Is what is Lenar's um has Lenar's strategy, sales strategy changed at all significantly or pivoted since 2025?

Okay.

Our uh our strategy is similar as it has been, you know, over the years.

One thing I do want to point out though, is that when we do executive type housing, okay, it's going to be different than it would be in the smaller product.

Sure.

Here's my concern with the with a thousand homes here.

Um Berkshire Hathaway invested 800 million dollars in 2025 to support Lenar's pivot to build a rent strategy.

Invitation homes partnered 1.25 billion dollars in capital to buy uh to buy into the uh buy to rent projects.

You guys have sold the brep to um private equity firms, Black Rock and Blackstone.

So I'm wondering when the you know, with a thousand homes here, what's gonna stop you guys from selling the private equity and making all these homes or a significant amount of these homes purchased to rent we uh we don't have a desire to do that on this location.

This is a location that is completely suitable for sale homes, not for rent.

Okay.

This yes, different location is suitable for that, not here.

Kyle, is it is it can we make that a stipulation?

Is that legal to do that?

Uh mayor, council member, could you please re repeat that?

Yeah, can we make it part of the conditions that they cannot um sell the private equities for a um rent to buy situation?

Is that legal, Chris?

I to my knowledge that wouldn't we've never done anything like that.

I don't think that we've ever controlled any type of sales, and I honestly wouldn't even be sure how to police that.

Okay.

Yeah, and I agree.

I don't think we'd have to take a look at it, but my initial review is I don't think we could do that.

Okay.

I'm not making the accusation.

I'm just saying this is a thousand homes, and you know, we've seen a history of that with it.

I don't want that to happen here.

Yeah, through the mayor, council member bongiovanni.

We certainly understand, but as you heard from the division president himself, um that is that is not that is not in the plans here.

That has not been the plans from the minute that Lenar started talking with me about it.

It has not been in the plans for that.

This is um there is a need for four-sale housing.

Um there is a rental component that is that, but that is not what Lenar is proposing.

There is another entity that will build and develop the two multi-family parcels.

Um so um Lenar's model, consistent with Leighton Lakes, consistent with a lot of the other high quality master plan communities, is that it provides a place for people to live because that's that's that's what we need.

Uh you guys have done a great job roughing me up over the last little while with rental housing, and so I'm actually very proud to be able to stand and say we're bringing a thousand for sale homes.

Thank you.

Uh I do have some requests to speak, so I'd like to ask them to come up at this time.

I stuck it out a long late night.

Thank you.

We'll start first with Dave Crozier.

These uh remarks are all limited to three minutes.

Two, three.

Thank you.

That's gonna be tough for me.

Dave uh excuse me, Dave Crozier.

Uh I was a resident here in Gilbert for 30 years.

Um just recently moved to Mesa.

Uh served on the Planning Zoning Commission and uh 16 years on the town council, three times as vice mayor, uh, one in all four of the elections in the primary, so had something going right for a while.

Um there's several of those council members here, previous council members that are here tonight.

There would be five less had to leave.

Uh Cynthia Dunham, previous mayor would have been here, but she couldn't make it through some health issues.

But um, I just wanted to talk about some of the background and how we got here.

Uh years ago, there was uh uh a sudden increase in growth to where it was overwhelming.

We couldn't keep up with we almost killed Scott Anderson, Mayor Anderson over this, but we actually put in a zoning moratorium for a year, so we stopped building for a year so that we could redo all of our all of our uh general plans, the land use ordinances, everything, all the details, all the background documents because we needed to get a handle on the growth.

And the Santan character plan came out of that, and um it was really important that we've we came up with a win-win between the uh the people that wanted a more rural character versus other others, and this was a consensus of Scott as Mayor Anderson mentioned earlier.

There's a lot of uh negotiation when this plan was developed, and um and so I'm a little bit sensitive when we go in for a general plan amendment, even if it's a minor one, because this took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to come up with this plan and and to come up with something that the community really wanted and uh desired for a win-win.

Um, and so uh I think you need to take that very seriously when somebody comes in and wants to do a uh uh a minor general plan amendment and uh and increase the zoning basically from two to three point five up to like five point five now.

So that's overall density.

And so um that's a significant change.

I think there's a lot of things to this project that are good.

Sounds like the the uh the open space is good, the trail system's good.

Overall, I think there's a a lot of good things here, and I don't think you should be completely thrown out, but I think there's some major a few flaws that need to be addressed.

Uh sounds like the Coronado Road issue is got addressed.

I hope it meets the standard, the town standards, and then it's design, and that there's still some concerns about uh loading on the interior.

How much time I got left, Mayor?

About a minute and a half?

19 seconds.

How long?

17 seconds.

Anyway, just uh one last thing I just wanted to point out is that uh I don't know if you know Bill Lund, but Bill Lund was the uh Walt Disney's uh son-in-law, and he came to us.

Is that it?

I'm out of time.

Okay, he came up with a dream to develop that area around Gilbert Mercy.

We need to make sure that whatever we do in this project that we preserve that um that area.

That took a lot of work and a lot of time, and uh uh that and it's kind of our baby, and so we want to make sure that this project doesn't have an adverse impact on that on that future medical uh area.

He wants us to be the cancer the cancer research center of the world, and uh is uh it's an opportunity that we don't want to give away through a project like this.

Um not that this is bad, and I know Mr.

Jones uh has a lot of integrity, listens to people.

I'm glad he doesn't work for Day Brown anymore.

But uh I think they'll do the right thing and listening and come up with a solution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Cindy Barnes.

This is way past my bedline bedtime.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Cindy Barnes.

I reside in Queen Creek and have lived in Queen Creek the last 18 years.

Prior to that, I'm a fourth generation Gilbert native.

I'm uh I farm in Queen Creek currently, and I've got long routes to the town.

Um I've been a volunteer with Gilbert Youth Soccer Association for over 30 years.

I'm currently the president of the board, and I'm the former.

I've been on your parks board for 12 years.

I was part of two of your general plans, Mayor.

You remember the 2012 that we worked on together.

In my time of growing up in Gilbert and living here until I was in my late 30s, I watched the town grow from 8,000 to 200,000 residents.

I helped plan the soccer complex with many folks in this room.

I participated in your general plans.

So I understand Gilbert's general plan.

I understand why Gilbert was built the way we are and why we look the way we do today.

I'm here tonight to voice my concerns against the Harvard Grove Development Project.

It doesn't reflect the Santan character area as what we planned.

I appreciate Councilman Crozier's.

I never realized we had so much sophistication with the balance, but I I credit you, the mayor, for leading us that way as the planning director, and I credit this planning staff for trying to make you all realize what we've been trying to preserve for the last 30 years with this plan.

The character is the community's roadmap for development.

It emphasizes low to moderate residential density, a predictable step-down pattern of density near existing homes, and a transportation and utility network that doesn't overwhelm before planned improvements are in place.

Harvest Grove proposes close to twice the density that the character envisions.

This will mean more traffic and pressure on the road infrastructure that was planned for.

Current traffic, I think, will push Valvista towards a D-rating gridlock that is in the Mercy Medical Corridor that I see seriously hope will be protected.

I was one of those people that was so passionate when we were getting the hospital and all of that economic, so we didn't have to keep driving to Chandler or Scottsdale or Phoenix for health.

Not to mention the increased daily headaches for all of those residents that have lived there the last 30 years and voted for your general plans that we've had.

Aside from this project, it's way out of line with our character.

So I hope that we can work with Lenar and build something that is in this agricultural rural setting that fits with his and doesn't create traffic gridlock and keeps us safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Larry Morrison is next.

Members of the council, mayor, I'm Larry Morrison.

I've been a resident of Gilbert since 1987 in the same house.

So and I was on the town council.

I was planning and zoning for two years, and then I was on the town council for 16.

And in that time frame, I was acting mayor for three months while we went from an internally elected mayor to uh at general elected mayor.

So there's quite a bit of history.

Anyway, um I'm not really for this plan, but a little bit of history, so I don't reiterate what's already been set up here.

This area was designated the way it was because SRP doesn't have water down there.

And we couldn't at that time that we were looking at this figure out how we were going to get water or supply water to the Santan area.

So if we had lower density, maybe we could, you know, have new wells dug, get water, but not to the high density that would require a lot of water and maybe put the town in jeopardy, especially knowing that there were going to be water restrictions coming in the future, which at that time was 20 years in the future.

Just a couple real quick comments on some of the presentations that were made by Lenora and I appreciate them coming here and taking the time and also staff.

They wanted to go from five to five and ten yard setbacks, side yard setbacks to five five.

We dealt with that in development.

And what the builders did is they put pop-outs on the side of their houses.

So you actually had maybe one foot between the side yard fence and the house.

Then they would put an AC unit there, and you couldn't get back.

So you got to give us space so that we have for safety reasons to be able to get back there.

Lenard said they would put in two stop lights.

Jermaine Road and Queen Creek Road are very busy roads.

So how you and Valvista.

So how are you going to get out there without some sort of traffic control?

They're talking about Coronado, but it still goes up to Jermaine and goes down to Queen Creek.

They're talking about income for the town, tax monies.

Okay, you can go to the Santan Village, but that's a lot further away than Ellsworth and Queen Creek, which is also a major shopping area.

So you have to consider that not all of the revenue is going to be coming back into Gilbert, that there's people going to be going to our neighbors to shop.

Just as a side note, I used to sit up there sometimes at two o'clock in the morning.

We'd get through.

It's not too now.

But then I'd have to get in a car and drive to Safford, so I'd have a business meeting at eight o'clock the next morning.

So I appreciate your time.

And for the developer and the staff, thank you.

Thank you.

Next is uh Steve Ure.

Okay.

Oh, I see that on the card.

Thank you, sir.

Bob Lawrence.

Thank you for allowing me to speak this morning.

My name is Bob Lawrence, and I live in the town meadows neighborhood across from Highland High School.

I've been there 34 years, raised my family, four kids there.

Um Lawrences have been around Arizona for a while.

My grandfather chased Pancho Villa with the Buffalo Soldiers.

Almost a hundred years, oh more than a hundred years ago.

Never caught him, by the way.

I'm semi-retired after 45 years in commercial construction, mostly working with Intel, Boeing, and Valley School Districts.

I was a safety officer at my company as well as the general manager.

I've also been a youth soccer coach and administrator for the past 30 years here in Gilbert.

As the president of GYSA for many years, I was involved with the planning and the building of the Gilbert Youth Soccer Complex, working with the city manager at that time and with several mayors.

And the high schools that are nearby.

A teenager who was impatient, cut around cars, ran her over and killed her.

Since then, I've always worried about safety around schools, especially the elementaries, but we're not dealing with those here, just the high schools.

So I have witnessed multiple accidents around Highland High School where I live over the years, sometimes with kids being very seriously injured.

Don't want to see that happen around these high schools here or around our soccer complex.

In this area, we have 2400 kids playing soccer on Saturdays, and they practice through the week, usually two practices a week.

So we have five, six, seven hundred kids per night out there.

They're mostly kids under 12 years old.

The added traffic in this area will not just affect the soccer complex but the nearby high schools, as I already said, and uh businesses and as well as residents in the area.

Um along with the soccer, I wanted to comment on the uh the lights at the field.

Um there are plans to build uh two-story homes.

I think that would be a mistake.

Um people are going to be not happy about those lights shining into their homes.

I know we're working on on newer lights in the future.

Uh it's a big dollar issue.

Um, but we'll we'll keep working on that.

But I know that's going to be a problem for people if they're in a two-story home and possibly problems for people at the soccer fields, although I don't know what those might be, maybe trash coming over the wall or something.

I I just don't know.

Um in closing, I would like to ask that the traffic corridor be more closely examined before any decisions are made that will impact the safety of our soccer kids and local residents.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Last uh David Rigby.

Well, I work overnight usually, so this is fine with me, but I apologize for each of you for having to be here so late.

But thank you for that.

I uh work at two different hospitals along that corridor.

Um I travel for work down through that area every day, and it is extremely busy already.

The dust hasn't even settled on the Gilmore property that's adjacent to this property, right next to Campoverdi High School in the north and Perry High School in the south.

There's a lot of different traffic coming through here.

We have a development, contrary to what Mr.

Ray said that there isn't shopping or commercial.

There's a safeway that's going in right there.

And so that's simply not true.

There's gonna be a lot of traffic from that.

We don't even know how that's going to affect uh the commutes or traffic or safety of young drivers of walking school students.

The bottom line with all of this, it just feels like we're trying to push a square peg through a round hole.

This is something that doesn't fit in that area.

It's contrary to the Santan character.

The 2020 voter-approved general plan clearly lays out a well-thought-out placement of this.

And it's not a transition area, it's an area that is there to offset all of that building.

And if I park my car halfway into another lane, that doesn't mean it's okay just because I'm transitioning into another parking lot, parking spot.

This is something where we need to protect this green area, the agricultural and lower density per the Santan character.

This is what the town of Gilbert people want.

When this was first posted on Go Gilbert, there was 422 responses unanimously against this project.

The town planners are unanimously against this.

I'm surprised we're even here right now, this late at night, talking about roads or plans, it doesn't fit.

This isn't what the citizens of Gilbert want.

I have not met in my talking with hundreds of different people, a single person who thinks this is a good idea to cram more high density into an already congested area.

As the town council, you have the opportunity to decide whether or not we change the zoning of a gem, a gem of an area that's one of the last areas that we have that is a green agricultural low density area that characterizes what we moved to Gilbert for.

Yes, this is an opportunity if someone wants to move from Phoenix.

Is that better?

Yeah, is it better for someone from Tempe?

Yes.

But is it better for the citizens of Gilbert?

Absolutely no.

Lenar, they're a business.

They want as many homes as Mr.

Ray said.

We don't want to lose lots.

That doesn't take into account the lack of safety that went into this plan.

It's a poorly designed plan.

There are parallel parked cars next to townhomes, 125 of them facing the main street that cuts through this property.

Across the street, a general park, and if kids come running out between these cars, they're gonna get hit.

3,000 cars a day going through that corridor.

It's a bad design, it doesn't fit.

This is not right.

We do not need to change our zoning and give up the last gem of land that we have for a company that is seeking to preserve as many lots as it can with ignorance to the citizens and the safety for profit.

Thank you.

Councilmember Torneson.

You know, several points have been made.

That the 202s is there, that wasn't part of the consideration when this was done.

Uh Gilbert's closing in on 300,000 people instead of 3,000.

Uh there have been changes.

Uh not all change is great.

Some of it is uh the the district itself, the San Cantan character district or whatever was previously called uh certainly when it was instituted meant a lot.

It preserved things.

Uh they were trying to control growth, and they did.

But nobody's done anything with this lot.

That doesn't mean you should give up the zoning.

It doesn't mean you need to do anything.

But for perspective, no one has built houses that fit the Santan character district parameters.

Maybe somebody will.

And to object to it just based on one of those 50 things would be odd also.

I would be much more comfortable if you guys could find a point that addresses all of it so that we had one decision to make, not 50 decisions, and not balancing what we feel will happen in the future or won't happen.

For me, I would like to see one more everybody take one more bite at the apple to try and get on the same page because I can find little tiny pieces to object to that give me pause at the same time I know the world changes.

We have to find what's gonna work for Gilbert in this century.

We have to honor the past, but at the same time we have to plan for the future and what is what are we getting.

I just think we need to I think you guys need to go back to the table and then duke it out one last time or give it up.

Councilmember Bongiovan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I was really excited about this project.

It's down the street from me.

I thought it would be great for you know, move a lot more families into Gilbert.

Yeah, I really like the idea of 21 million dollars going into our water and sewer fund 56 million owning our general tax um base.

Um and I came in here today right on right on the edge of not knowing yes or no.

Um and then I heard what the mayor said and I heard what that last gentleman said, and um I agree with with with both of them.

I just don't think right now at this point that um this is a project that's good for Gilbert.

Councilmember Buckler.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm uh I'm more in line with Councilmember Torgson right now.

I it it's it's easy to criticize all these things, and it's also easy to say we we don't want density, yet at the same time we say we don't want to pay taxes, you know, and we want high quality standards of living, and I've seen uh you know that matrix a million times that Patrick has presented, and and is true.

Um you can have two of those things, you can't have all three.

So I think there's still some compromise to be made.

I hope there is.

Um we do need some density, or we do need to raise some revenue.

We've had the legislature hit us to 14 and a half million dollars when Santan Valley incorporates, we're gonna lose another hundred uh one point eight million dollars, two million dollars now.

Um you got done saying we're lowest staffed agency in Maricopa County.

Our people are drowning, and we need to take better care of them.

So I'm also cognizant of um where we can if there's a way to continue to work it to get some density, um, build some revenue so we you know, you know.

We we got it, we have some financial issues coming up.

Um 2029, first time we do not have the revenue to supply you guys the services that you deserve.

I don't know if you're aware of that.

Um so I I don't want to throw the baby out with bathwater here.

I think maybe I I don't like the fact it's taken this long.

Um I think both sides are responsible for that.

There's no blame on anyone.

Everybody's working hard.

Um I'm willing to wait if we think we can get to the drawing part and get a better product.

I think I think Councilmember Torkson's right.

Um, I I'm just kind of at a loss as to what to say and what to think because I agree with the mayor and Chuck and the last gentleman that spoke, and I don't understand why you know you couldn't come back and make this where we could just vote on it so that you guys can get on with your project or not.

And uh our staff has has just put in so many hours on this project.

And um I and and I have to agree uh with the mayor.

I mean we we did this, and yes, things change, and that's why we did the character area, because we you know we want people to remember the true character of Gilbert.

Um I I just the way I feel right now, I I don't feel like this fits.

I don't know how you can even make it fit in the character area.

And I'm you know, I'm still open, I'll listen as long as you guys come back, but uh that's just where I'm at.

Thank you.

Brandon, do you have something you wanted to add?

Mayor Mayor, members of council.

I appreciate that it's highly unusual for me to stand up at this point of the discussion given that the public hearing is closed.

But in light of the comments that we've heard this night, we respectfully request a two-week continuance to December 2nd.

Um we don't know if that's enough time for us to get everything resolved.

We have some bigger outstanding issues that are compelling us to try to get it resolved by December 2nd, which I believe is the next council hearing.

In the event that we are not able to get things worked out by December 2nd, uh, with respect to a lot of the traffic comments that we've had, the technical variants questions that we've had, it really goes to the heart of the safety of it, which we believe we are creating a safe development.

But in light of that, if if we are unable to get it worked out, we appreciate that it's a short time, but we'd like the opportunity to try, and that if it is not worked out by December 2nd, then we will continue it uh a little bit further out.

Um, but for a variety of reasons, we need to uh ask and try to see if we can't get it done by the second.

If not, we will continue it further.

Thank you.

Council council member Lyons.

Just one thing I would I I'm thinking back to the ranch development over the last couple years and how there was a lot of contention on that, if I remember correctly, and the developer worked with the residents to try to help alleviate some of those concerns.

I know that's another wrinkle to add in to this, but I've noticed that you know there seems to be some struggle getting some of this together, and I might recommend to help in order to kind of expediate this, is maybe bring some uh crosstalks on online and and maybe consider reaching out to the folks that are sitting in here and getting their input and see if we can't get um kind of a consensus to help them feel more comfortable with it and us feel more comfortable with it.

And I don't know if that's right, Brunan, to be honest with you, but it's just a suggestion.

I thought I'd throw that out there to you.

Through the mayor, council member lyons.

We're happy to have discussions.

Uh certainly my contact information is available for anyone who would like to contact me.

There is no secret to it.

Um we have uh not been contacted by this particular group of neighbors up to this point.

Um and so we we will reach out and have have at least a conversation with them.

No guarantees on the outcome of the conversation, but we certainly will have a conversation with them.

Thank you very much.

I I think I appreciate that, and I think they would too.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Council, what's your pleasure?

I'd like to move to continue this to December 2nd.

I'll second that.

Sorry, yeah.

It's been moved and seconded, and we continue the item till December 2nd.

Please vote.

Mayor, can I make any can I move to amend that motion and move this to the December 16th council meeting given the holiday next week and our staff has already been kind of slammed, and we have our upcoming retreat that they're preparing for I don't think we're gonna get anywhere by the second.

Do we need a second an amendment?

Yes.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded.

The original motion be amended to postpone this till December 16th.

Please vote.

Motion carries seven zero.

So Mayor Anderson, clarify from a procedural standpoint, what that means is that the original motion was amended.

So now you've got to take a vote.

On the original motion.

On the original motion as amended to December 16th.

So just another revote with that.

Another revote.

Well, yeah, basically be another vote to confirm that the amended motion to December 16th is what you want.

Okay.

We'll take a motion that to confirm that December 16th was the intent.

The young's ready, her fingers right on there.

It's like are we gonna vote?

Go for it.

Please vote.

Motion carries seven zero.

Um assuming that this would carry for the the other item also.

Yes.

Mayor, members of council, with respect to the companion case that is attending it.

We would respectfully request a continuance to the December 16th council hearing.

Thank you.

Is there a motion?

I move to carry that item to December 16th.

I'll second that.

And moved and seconded to move item 30b to December 16th.

All of please vote.

Motion carries 70.

Thank you.

Uh administrative items.

We've got a couple of items.

Um consider appointment of Gina Starkey to the redevelopment commission as an alternate member with the tier term beginning November 18th and ending 2025 and ending October 31st, 2026.

I have a motion.

I'd like to move to consider the appointment of Gina Stark.

You know, the redevelopment commission is an alternate member with the term beginning November 18th, 2025, and ending October 3rd, 2026.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please vote.

Motion carries seven zero.

Item 33, Council Administration consider acceptance of the budget report and contingency report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026.

I move to move.

I move for items.

I'm getting tired.

Serving three.

The council consider the acceptance of the budget report and contingency report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026.

I have a second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please vote.

Motion carries seven zero.

Council administration consider appointing a council subcommittee for the recruitment selection and appointment of town manager.

We've talked about this one already.

Um we need somebody other than the ones we've talked about.

I move to I'll consider appointing a council subcommittee for the recruitment selection and appointment of town manager that consists of Mayor Anderson, Councilmember Lyons, and Councilmember Kaprowski.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded that we appoint a council subcommittee.

Please vote.

Motion carries seven zero.

Thank you.

Did we handle seven A?

Yes, we did.

Okay.

Uh you can see the future meetings that will be for regular or study session.

Take a look at those.

Communications report from the town manager.

Anything tonight?

Mayor members of the council, nothing further tonight.

Thank you.

Reports from the council.

Councilmember Bon Giovanni.

Thank you, Mayor.

Gilbert Days Festival and Parade.

Join us for live music, food, and drinks.

Local shopping and family phone at the Gilbert Days Festival.

We're excited to share more than 80 amazing floats and entries with the community at at this year's parade.

Uh it's going to be festival location, Gilbert Regional Park.

Dates uh November 21st and 22nd, time from 4 to 9 p.m.

The parade location is at Gilbert Heritage District on the 22nd from 8:30 to 11 a.m.

Finally, water tower holiday lighting.

Kick off the holiday season at the Gilbert Water Tower Holiday Lighting.

Enjoy an evening filled with twinkling lights, festive cheer, and fun activities for all ages on December 1st at the Water Tower Plaza at 6 p.m.

to 8 30 p.m.

That's it.

Councilmember Torgerson.

Not a thing.

Not a thing.

Councilmember Buckland.

Thank you, Mayor.

As uh serving council liaison and board of directors to Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority.

Um, real quickly here.

Often here I don't see riders on the bus.

Why are we paying for that?

Things like that.

Wanted to give some quick data.

Uh one, Gilbert pays zero for those transit services.

Costs are fixed and covered through fare revenue, advertising, federal funds, and regional funds.

That's the biggest portion 88.3%.

Um good news is people are using our public transportation.

Um the F uh FY 25, 162, 106 riders.

That's an 11% increase over FY24, and prior to that was a 38% increase over prior.

So our citizens, our residents are using it.

We don't have any dedicated fixed routes in Gilbert, but um not everybody has a car and these services are working.

So I just wanted to give a quick report out on that on behalf of Valley Metro.

Thank you.

Any other reports?

Councilmember Lyons.

Uh I should have a presentation pop up here in a minute related to the Veterans Advisory Board.

We wanted to thank everyone who came out and participated in the Veterans Day events that took place uh there at the Water Tower Plaza.

We had the car show from three to five and the ceremony from five to six.

Mayor, we appreciate you speaking there, and I want to thank everybody who took the time to come out to be a part of that.

Um also we wanted to uh part of our fundraising efforts is the uh state 48 uh t-shirts.

Um they're up for sale and supports uh veterans stuff.

You can use the QR code there to order it.

I'd encourage you guys to uh uh take advantage of that.

It's a pretty cool looking shirt, and it supports our veterans in the community.

And uh finally, we've got the uh uh Gilbert Military Tribute Banners, uh giving honor to those.

We're honored to do.

Uh encourage you to take a look at that.

Uh we do display those on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day.

Uh take a visit to uh the Military Tribute Banner uh organization there.org uh website and um look at beginning one for uh one of the veterans in your family.

So that's all we've got.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any others?

The only thing I've got is we uh open the giving machines this Monday and uh Gilbert leads the nation, if not the entire world and the giving that's done in those machines.

So I'd encourage you to check those out down at Watertower Plaza.

I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Moved and second, and we are adjourned.