Thank you, everyone.

Welcome to our Mesa City Council meeting for March 23rd, 2026.

All of our council members are present.

We appreciate them.

We're going to begin tonight's meeting by a invocation by Pastor Gregory Dansby from the Holy Temple Church of God in Christ.

And after him, we'll be followed by a pledge of allegiance led by Sergeant Arthur Stewart, a recipient of the Army Commendation Medal with Valor, and two Purple Hearts while serving in the U.S.

Army.

So if you please stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.

We come before you this afternoon, thanking you for your goodness and for your grace towards us and for blessing us to see this day.

A great day to honor you with praise and glory.

I humbly approach this opportunity in sincerity to invoke your divine presence into this room.

Let your presence be felt by all those who enter.

God, I ask you to lead and guide our mayor and each council member that they have been elected as they carry out the affairs of the citizens of this great city.

I ask that you lead and guide these leaders in the decisions they are tasked to make on the behalf of others.

God cover and protect this city and all who travel in and out of it.

Let our city be a drawing force that attracts people and companies that will impact this city for the better.

I thank you for inclining your ear to my prayer.

Your word says that if I abide in your word, and your word abide in me, I can ask what I will, and it shall be given.

Your word also declare that your eyes and your ears are in every place.

And I bless you.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor.

Arthur, come forward.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God with indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor, and thank you, Sergeant Stewart.

You're both welcome to leave if you want.

And um, thank you for your service.

I've known uh Sergeant Stewart since he was a very young man, so I appreciate your service.

Uh Mr.

Christopher, time's yours.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

These are the items on the consent agenda.

All items listed with an ask for this will be considered as a group by the city council and will be enacted with one motion.

There'll be no separate discussion unless the council member citizen request, in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as a separate item.

Item two, approval minutes of previous meetings is written.

Item 3A, Act and Liquor License Application for Jin's Smokeshop, 1927, North Gilbert Road.

Item 3B, Acting Liquor License Application for Paladino's Italian Eatery, 2711 South Alma School Road.

Item 3C, Actman Liquor License Application for La Tiendo One Stop, 1620 West University Drive.

Item 3D, Act and Liquor License Application for Happy Food Mart, 406 North Country Club Drive.

Item 3E, Acton Liquor License Application for Mama's Soul Lounge, 1038 East Main Street.

Item 3 Liquor License Application for Salt Sea and Land Tacos, 2853 South Saucman Road.

Item 4A has been removed from the consent agenda.

Item 4B, approving three-year term contract with two-year renewal options for streetlight painting services for the Transportation Department.

Items 4C and 4D have been removed from the consent agenda.

Item 5A, approving resolution to enter into an option to lease and option to purchase agreement, a ground lease and a purchase and sale agreement between the city of Mesa and Helix Apartments to lease and after development and sale of city owners land southwest of the intersection of Center Street and the University Drive.

Items 5B and 5C have been removed from the consent agenda.

Mayor and Council members, these are the items on the consent agenda.

Thank you, Mr.

Chris Ferr.

I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Thank you, Mr.

Redding.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Please cast your vote.

Mayor and Council uh Kevin, did you choose 6A and 6B or did you say they were pulled off?

Uh they're not pulled off according to my list.

I don't think you read those.

Did you read them?

Christopher, Kevin.

Okay, item 6A is an introduction of the ordinance.

Uh zoning ordinance 25-774.

This is for property at the northwest corner of Ray Road and South 71st Street.

Major site plan modification and many conditions of approval of ordinance 5699 to allow for a 26,000 plus square foot industrial building.

And item 6B is uh introduction of a zoning ordinance 25-326 for Acres property located east of the southeast corner of Warner Road and South Mountain Road, rezoned with a bonus intensity zone overlay and site plan review to allow for development of a 15,344 plus square foot commercial building.

And those are additional items of the consent agenda.

Okay.

You want to remotion that?

Are we good?

No, I think we're good.

I think the intent is that's the one.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So I we've had a motion by Mr.

Reddy, a second by Vice Mayor, and two of us still need to vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everyone.

Okay.

Mayor's discretion.

I'm moving item 5C to the front of the agenda, and that's to item 5C is to take action on the resolution modifying fees and charges for Falcon Field.

Currently we have 29 speakers, and you're all welcome to speak.

However, if you wish to uh combine your thoughts or have someone speak for you, just let me know and we'll move forward.

So if you all want to speak, that's just fine.

With that, I'm gonna turn to our city clerk.

She will tell me uh who's up first.

Mayor and counsel, if I could just read one statement again before and I did this at the I did it at our prior study session, but I'd like to just also for the public, I know council's aware of this.

Uh the proposed fees and charges for Falcon Field includes landing fees.

Staff are proposed is proposing landing fees to make Falconfield Airport as financially self-sustaining as possible.

The fees are not being proposed to reduce noise or flight traffic, discriminate against a specific user, or favor one user over another similarly situated user.

That is not allowed under the FAA rates and charges policy.

Simply noise reduction of flight traffic is not part of or reason for the proposed fees, and it's not part of its agenda.

So I just ask that the members of the public be thoughtful as they make those comments in that regard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Smith.

Each one will have three minutes or less to speak on this topic, and so uh Miss Mosley, you'll have to keep track of everyone for me.

I will do that.

Uh our first speaker tonight is Ellie Padgett.

And next in line after Ellie is Dan Struford.

Thank you, Ellie.

And you have three minutes.

Uh late, thank you so much for having me this evening, ladies and gentlemen of the city council, as well as my neighbors and um uh accomplices.

Uh so I I'm Ellie Padgett.

I'm here in opposition of the fees because I believe the policy is misaligned with how the airport generates value.

Um the field that has been established since World War II when my father served uh as a green beret, uh, is actually runs on operations like fuel uh sales hangar, hangar leasing and maintenance.

If we lose general aviation and the importance of its uh small traffic training, as well as starting the landing fees on other um, you know, well-established uh folks who like the EAA, for example, who average age 65.

Um, we lose a lot of our local economy.

And I live at the end of Mesa at the Red Rock Reserve in a million dollar house, not to brag, but I'm but the point of the matter is is that I appreciate um the peace that comes from the smaller planes as opposed to the larger jets that are more powerful.

Um we aren't fixing the airport's finances by charging people who are to use it.

It would be better to charge people who are transient out of state, or be even increase the hangar fees on the larger um aviation.

Because if we do, what will happen is we will ruin the ecosystem that is currently surrounding it.

And we can't get that type of environment back.

We will become more like Scottsdale with larger jets and private aviation that will be louder and also um more busy and destroy our small um traditional ecosystem that has been existed for a very long time.

Um Falcon Field works because it's of its accessibility to pilots like me and in its role in shaping pilots.

Um once you start discouraging, it's very hard to replicate.

So I urge you to protect what what makes this airport valuable and not dismantle it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ellie.

Uh we'll move over to Dan, I believe.

And who's after Dan, Holly?

Yes, after Dan Stroofert is James Maxie.

Okay.

I am uh Dan Stroyford.

Uh I've been uh based at Falcon Field for probably 15, 20 years.

Um invested a half million dollars in a hangar there.

Um so I'm pretty, you know, I'm I'm stakeholder, I'm tied in.

Um I've got uh I've got over 20 years in aviation, and to be clear, I'm probably not the kind of person that's gonna pay the landing fee because I'm when I leave with my airplane, I'm out and I'm in, and I'm not gonna exceed the five or ten or whatever landings um uh you know per uh per month that I think is in the proposal.

However, I am here because I've got a lot of aviation experience, and I can tell you that these sort of fees are really not the way to go about it.

Um the first thing is I mean, if the airport truly needs additional money, and and I think that's debatable because of you know, you look at some of the spending that's been going on at the airport, and I always assumed that the airport must be flush with money because there's a lot of spending going on there.

Um that really needs to be looked at with a fine-tooth comb before we do something like landing fees.

This is gonna get attention from all over the country.

Uh, and probably you're gonna get you're gonna spend more on legal fees trying to defend this than you're gonna get in revenue from the fees.

So that needs to be kept in mind.

Um in fact, Gateway Airport from what I've heard runs 1.5 million in the red, and Mesa doesn't mind supporting that.

So not sure why we're applying a different standard here at Falcon.

Um, you know, uh the city of Safford actually tried to do these landing fees and decided they weren't working and backed off of them.

So you might wanna you might want to also take a look at that.

In addition to um there's legislation at the federal and state level to uh eliminate the use of ADSB for collecting these fees.

The you know, there's a whole safety aspect to this in that there's a lot of people coming into Falcon Field, a lot of people that maybe don't like landing fees.

If they turn off their transponders, two planes hitting each other and falling down in a house, you're gonna have a lot more problems than just some shortfall.

And I think the community members aren't gonna like that either.

Um clearly that's not legal, but you know, if if money encourages people to be less safe, they might be less safe.

Not a good idea.

Um, you're looking at uh one other thing, one other point to make is that we're establishing a whole new method of revenue collection.

And I'm gonna say something that's detrimental to myself is that instead of a landing fee where we have to pay a vendor maybe a certain large percentage of this fee, why not just increase the fuel flowage tax or land lease rates?

Because you know, you can collect those fees with the system that's already in place rather than having to make a new system and pay an existing vendor.

Um, and also with the time left that I have, I would say that maybe also if you're gonna impose fees, make it 10 per aircraft, not 10 per based aircraft per month, because that way it won't punish visitors who want to come to Mesa.

That's it.

Thank you, Dan.

Good timing.

Uh Jamie, is that correct?

James Maxie.

James.

Followed by Mike Sperry.

Okay.

Hello, sir.

You have three minutes.

Good evening, counsel and mayor.

I appreciate you having us here tonight, and thanks for uh listening to all of us.

Um the reason I um speaking about this is um when the talk of landing fees came about um back in November, I submitted a FOIA request to the airport on November 21st.

Um I've actually made many FOIA requests to the city of Mesa over the years, to police department, to public works, um, and I've received timely responses to every single one of them.

Uh I've heard from um administrative assistants uh within a few days normally and had those complied with shortly.

Um I never heard anything from the city.

Um I finally heard back on February 22nd from Jessica Alonso at the airport, who um went and said, Hey, your request is too broad.

Um you need to rain that in, it's gonna take us too much time.

So I replied and I narrowed it a little bit for her.

Um, but I said, hey, the courts in Arizona um go and have reaffirmed multiple times that um just because it's too broad doesn't mean you don't have to comply with it.

Um so she sent me that on February 22nd.

I responded on February 23rd.

Uh we're now at 122 days of non-compliance on that FOIA request.

Um so um I believe uh City Attorney Smith was actually in correct earlier when he said what the um city air what the airport um was um saying that these um have these uh fees do and don't do because we have had no transparency from the airport and we actually don't know why they are um why they're implementing the fees.

Um secondly, um I'm here on behalf of a nonprofit organization based at Falcon Field called um Falcon Flying Club.

Um Falcon Flying Club um owns and operates two aircraft for um a group called the Aviation Explorers.

Um Aviation Exploring, there's a group called Career Exploring.

Um there's police explorers, there's fire explorers.

Uh that's where many police officers and uh firefighters have gotten their start.

There's also a group called Aviation Explorers.

Um, and I don't know if um if anybody behind me wants to raise their hand if they've been involved in that program in the past.

Um I was a product of that.

Um there are many students that are product, but what that group does is um we have volunteer flight instructors, we have volunteer mechanics that all volunteer their time to be able to train um junior high and high school students to fly aircraft as cheaply as possible and as safely as possible.

We have many that are fire tanker pilots right now, Air Force um and Navy pilots, as well as general aviation pilots and commercial pilots.

And uh, if these landing fees go into affect um our program that's been around for I think about 30 years at Falconfield Airport isn't gonna exist anymore because we can't afford to uh run it and um uh allow students to learn how to fly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh next, Holly.

And mayor, just to uh was just notified, we have several of the requests to speak are people that are downstairs in the study session room.

So I'm gonna read, I'm gonna give two names ahead of each one so they have time to start walking up.

Very good.

So the next um person up is Mike Sperry.

And following Mike will be Dan Wheatzel and Brent Crowe.

Uh good evening, uh mayor and council members, and thank you for inviting me.

I'm a uh resident of uh Red Mountain.

I'm not a pilot.

And my wife and I have lived here for uh about five years, and when we first moved in, there were very few flights uh over our uh community, and it as those flights have picked up pretty drastically over the last couple of years.

I've read that the uh cost of the airport has gone up, and that the airport's also running a deficit.

So uh I'm really here representing a lot of my members of my community who are very concerned about how those cost will be taken care of.

So uh I guess up front I would say we're asking you to vote yes for landing fees, because we believe that the uh pilots that use the air airport should be responsible for paying for the airport.

And I kind of use an example in uh local golf courses.

Uh members who own their or pay for the membership, pay for their uh golf cart, uh pay monthly fees.

Also, many of them pay a trail fee for the right to use the trail.

So it's not the taxpayers that pay for it, it's the the golfers.

So uh when the airport runs a deficit, uh the question really becomes how is that gap gonna be filled?

And we think it's only fair that uh the people that use the airport pay for the airport.

So I think that's it.

We're just asking the the uh council members and the mayor to please vote yes to the landing fees, and that's uh from a lot of feedback from our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Um next.

Next, we have Mr.

Dan Wheatzel, followed by Brent Crow and Trent Hyde Key.

My name is Dan Weitzel, and I want to thank the mayor and city council members for giving me this opportunity to speak.

I'm part of a leadership group that has been organized to represent the citizens of Los Cendus, Red Mountain Ranch, Reserve at Red Rock, the Groves, Alta Mesa, Apache Wells, Fountain Hills, Apache Junction, Summit, and Gold Canyon, as well as Mesa residents in general.

In the past one to two years, residents of North Mesa and these surrounding communities have experienced a noticeable increase in repetitive flight activity.

While the associated impacts are real, that's not why we're here tonight.

Falconfield is structured to operate as a self-sustaining enterprise as it stands today.

It is not meeting that goal.

And if the proposed landing fees are not implemented, the burden will ultimately shift to Mesa taxpayers.

It is not the responsibility of Mesa residents to subsidize the operational costs of an airport, especially when it is being used by private businesses as part of their operations.

This is a matter of fairness and financial responsibility.

Aligning costs with use is a reasonable and appropriate approach.

I urge the city council to approve the proposed landing fees and to continue to ensure that Falcon Field moves toward a financially sustainable model in the long term.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

I believe it's Brian next.

Uh Brent Crow, followed by Trent Heidkey, followed by Curtis Brunez, and I do apologize if I don't pronounce your names properly.

Just state your name so we keep on track.

Uh good evening.

My name is Brent Crow.

I live in District 6.

Uh, I've been a certified flight instructor here in Arizona since 2005, and I want to thank you for giving me the chance to speak.

I'm here because I'm generally worried about the unintended consequences that landing fees will have, not just on pilots and flight schools, but here on Falcon Field, our local economy and on the air, uh aviation uh safety in it itself.

Arizona is one of the few places in the world where pilot training thrives because of our weather and our freedom that our airspace infrastructure provides.

That combination lets us train thousands of pilots safely, efficiently, and affordably.

Uh, in fact, many countries send their pilots here specifically because we don't impose landing fees that make flight training more expensive, less accessible, and less safe.

Uh introducing landing fees at Falcon Field puts that all at risk.

Uh, first off, about 80% of Falcon Field's traffic is flight training, and most of those operators are based right here, and they simply cannot absorb this new cost.

If the fee is implemented, those aircraft will have no choice but to move their flight training flights elsewhere.

Um that means about 350,000 operations a year are pushed onto nearby airports that already have said they do not have the staffing or infrastructure to handle that burden.

Second, the revenue at Falcon Field that the revenue that Falconfield expects to collect won't materialize if the traffic leaves.

Instead, the airport will lose federal funding because the grants that the airport receives depend on operation counts and the remaining tenants will face even higher expenditures.

Rather than strengthening Falcon Field, the fee uh would weaken it financially.

Third and most importantly, the per this proposal uh introduces serious safety risks.

Other towered airports in the area cannot handle the uh cannot accept the overflow, which will force students into flying further to smaller non-towered airports with limited infrastructure.

That increases the chance of mid air collisions, runway incursions, and pilot errors.

And on top of that, students will then be forced to reduce their number of practice landings simply to avoid extra fees.

Less practice means lower proficiency, and that affects every future pilot who trains out of the Phoenix metro area.

I also want to address that the list of comparable airports found on the airport's website.

Um the reality is that landing fees at General Aviation Airports like Falcon Field are rare, and when they do exist, based aircraft are usually almost always exempt, and rates are much lower for flight training aircraft under 2600 pounds.

The comparison simply does not reflect the typical industry practice.

So, in some way, this fee threatens our airport's health, our economic engine, our training pipeline, and the safety of flight operations in our region.

I respectfully ask council to delay a reconsidered landing fee proposal until a full inclusive risk assessment and financial analysis can be completed.

Let's take the time to get this right.

Uh, not just for today, but for the generations of pilots who will rely on the decisions made here tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brian.

Next we have Trent Heidkey, followed by Curtis Brunes and David Wynn Stanley.

Holly, when you announce it, uh we have some seats here in front, so those that are coming to speak, they can sit in these reserve seats here in the front.

Okay.

And then they don't have to stand in the back.

Your turn.

I'm Trent Heidke.

I've been a tenant for 35 years.

Seen a lot of things during the course of those 35 years.

But I'm not gonna get I'm not gonna stand up here and give a speech.

What I am gonna do is ask you guys some questions, because we've asked and we've asked, and no one's answered.

To a gentleman's point earlier, there's been a uh a request for information, none of it has transpired.

I don't know how you can sit up there and say you're making an informed decision when you haven't let the rest of us understand what the basis of those decisions are.

So, number one question is taxpayer dollars are being used to fund Mesa Gateway to the tune of 1.5 million dollars a year.

You know that, I know that.

$850 million a year is coming into the economy of Mesa Falcon or Mesa based on Falcon Field.

You guys know that.

Look it up.

Those are not my numbers, those are ADOT numbers.

If you're gonna fund Mesa Gateway, why are you not funding with taxpayer dollars, the same taxpayer dollars?

Why are you not funding Falcon Field?

Filling in the gap that's there.

Okay, so that's question number one.

The other question is Mesa Gateway does have landing fees.

There are two dollars and twenty-two cents per thousand pounds based on aircraft under 6,000 pounds.

That same aircraft at Falcon would get charged 24.

So $13 in a Mesa Airport versus $24 at a Mesa airport.

How can you square the difference between two airports, same situation, Mesa Gateway also does not charge for based aircraft either?

Falcon wants to charge 20 bucks a landing for based aircraft.

Yeah, yeah, they're gonna give us 10 free landings.

Yeah, that's fine, but some of us don't just fly 10 times a month, okay?

So that's the other question that I've got tonight.

Another question is help me understand after 80 years in operations since World War II, as was pointed out earlier.

All of a sudden you wake up one day and figure out there needs to be landing fees.

Who did not see this coming for the past 10 years for the past 20 years, and all of a sudden now we've got an issue that requires landing fees that are quite frankly egregious based on the rest of the country, let alone your own Mesa Airport that's right down the road.

So I I don't understand how you can sit there again and make claim to make an informed decision based on information that you've been given that we haven't been given.

And that the incongruities just don't line up, is the bottom line.

Next is you have five seconds, sir.

Okay, I'm good.

All right.

Thank you guys.

All right.

Thank you, Chip.

I wrote some of your questions down.

We'll get to those.

Uh next person.

Curtis is next, and followed by David Wynn Stanley and Carl Storkman.

Hello.

And thank you for the time.

Uh I'm a local resident.

I'm an airplane owner.

I'm a pilot.

I'm a 30,000 hour pilot, uh, Czech airman at a major international airline.

I'm a designated pilot examiner.

Previously, I was the CEO of one of the biggest flight schools here in the valley.

Uh, I also started the United Aviate Academy, so I'm pretty familiar with the airspace with uh flying in the area.

Um I'd like to speak a little bit about fees.

Uh without a doubt, the airport has a right to seek self-sustenance, and and no one really doubts that.

Uh, fees are acceptable, landing fees are acceptable.

What I'd like to point out is that landing fees on based aircraft are completely without precedent.

So to base uh to um cause the based aircraft to have to uh suffer landing fees is essentially to try to deny them access to the airport.

There are 5,000 airports in the United States and 4,999 of them don't tax uh based aircraft that are doing training missions.

So to do that puts you in the league with LaGuardia, JFK, uh, Newark, Chicago, Atlanta, right?

You're taxing, you're you'd be taxing the flight training airport planes right off the airport.

Uh so we don't think, many of us don't think that is the right way to go about the fee generation.

There all are alternatives to generating fees, and I think it should recognize the fact that uh the number one producing nation for pilots in the world is the US.

The number one region in the US for producing pilots is Phoenix, the number two airport in Phoenix is Falcon.

This is an essential part of our aviation infrastructure and of our national interest uh to do something that would be so contrary to the based businesses that are so vital to the national interests isn't in our best interest.

So we have submitted, and I know the the mayor and the council people are uh aware, we have submitted some ideas for different methods of revenue generation, and I'd like to advocate that you take the time to seriously consider those, do the objective benchmarking that's necessary, and when you do that benchmarking, you're gonna find out that taxing the uh the the uh training businesses that are at the airport isn't the right way to do it.

So fees are appropriate, raising the fees is probably appropriate, taxing training uh entities off the airport probably ought not to be appropriate.

The modeling that has justified this uh isn't accurate.

To think that the flight training activity or the activity at the airport would only go down by 10% is a fiction.

It'll go down by a great deal more than that.

So the actual construct doesn't work.

It doesn't work, and if you were to adopt it, you'll find out that it doesn't work.

So I'd like to be part of the solution, and I know a lot of other people here would too.

Thank you.

Thank you, Captain.

Uh Mr.

Winstanley.

Followed by Carl Storkman and Todd Bristol.

So, Carl, if you'd like to come up and take a seat up front.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members and staff.

My name is David Winstanley.

I live in District 6 near Eastmark.

I would like to speak in favor of the proposed proposed fee increases at Falcon Field.

In particular, I would like to support the concept that any city enter any city enterprise must be fully self-sufficient.

Much like the capacity fee that was passed back in December, which was growth for growth, Falcon Field must pay for itself and not burden the general fund, and that is the rest of Mesa citizens being taxed.

I recognize that some cities subsidize their airports because they believe them to be sufficiently valuable to spend citizen taxes to keep them open, but I would argue that with two Mesa City airports, we cannot afford to do this.

The city budget is already taking a two percent cut given the current economic conditions, as we learned in the community budget meetings last week.

Thank you for those, by the way.

Uh, and the budget, and we cannot afford another burden.

It was of considerable interest, and my reason for speaking is in the Southeast Valley.

We had debates on this subject, and you might say why.

And the answer is that some people thought the landing fees were too large, but they did not understand, even my fellow conservatives, that um without them ta other taxes would have to be increases or other services cut in order to co cover those costs.

The history of Falconfield's using funds from land sales to prop up its operations was not known to many of the residents in the Southeast area.

And the result of the debate was uh that we should keep uh the Falcon Field being an enterprise and keep it self-sufficient.

I urge you to pass this resolution and keep Falcon Field open and self-sufficient.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Winstanley.

Carl, you're up.

Uh, who's next?

Uh after Carl is Todd Bristol and Chris Nugent.

Hello.

Thank you for having us speak tonight.

Uh, my name is Carl Storkman.

I am one of the business owners out of Falcon Field.

I probably represent the smallest.

Yeah, probably the smallest flight school out of the field.

We've got six employees, four total aircraft, and these landing fees would effectively cripple our ability to compete and keep our doors open.

So I think as you can all see, right?

These landing fees, while they are not designed to specifically target flight schools, are definitely going to hurt us a lot, right?

They are going to completely inhibit our ability to operate out of the airport, a $20,35 landing fee per landing.

We get a lot out of Falcon Field, right?

Falconfield is an amazing airport.

It's an amazing place to train out of.

We get a lot of real world experience dealing with controllers, other aircraft separation, and you can't really find that anywhere else in the valley, right?

Falconfield as an amazing place needs to be able to remain a public airport with free access to airport operations.

This doesn't just hurt flight schools, however.

This is also going to wildly impact local businesses in the surrounding area.

Right?

We are we are common patrons at the fix, Venencia's pizzas, Milano's, right?

If we're forced to shut our doors, our students are gonna leave.

If the students leave, the local businesses are also gonna lose revenue.

The rampers are gonna lose revenue.

The tower operators are gonna lose revenue.

Their entire pay scale is based on the amount of flights operating in a particular day, right?

Those are some of the best tower controllers we have.

They are rock stars.

They are amazing, amazing controllers.

And the way that we get good, the way that we get good as pilots is by practicing in these crazy busy environments.

A lot of my peers have moved on to 121 and 135 operations, and their success and commandability in an aircraft is largely think to their experience in Falcon Field.

Now, I know that this proposal is not specifically designed to target any particular operation.

However, the proposed landing fees are significantly and almost directly it would appear to be designed towards small fixed-wing aircraft, right?

Which are, as we all know, primarily operated by flight schools, right?

So thank you again for listening to this matter.

We urge you to vote no and at least reconsider the flight schools at large are willing to work with you to help find a better self-sustaining financial solution, right?

There are other ways to do it.

There are better ways to do it.

We can model ourselves after Deer Valley.

We can also just come together as community to find a better way to do this.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Carl, for your time.

Uh, Todd.

After Todd, we have Chris Nugent and Thomas Noon.

Thank you, Todd.

Good evening, everybody.

Uh yeah, I'm my name is Todd Bristol.

I'm a pilot and a tenant Falconfield for about 20 years.

And you know, when uh local and federal governments come up with these proposals, they they they do the best they can with the information they have, but sometimes they miss out on a little more depth in research, and there are a lot of unintended consequences.

I'm gonna play a video an audio clip from a video from Tom Costello on channel uh on NBC about the Potomac crash that happened, and there's a lesson to be learned from this.

So, we released NTSP video capturing the midair crash at Reagan National Airport one year ago this Thursday, an army helicopter crashing into an American Airlines regional jet.

All 67 people died.

With family members in the room, NTSB investigators today identified a long list of contributing factors for the crash.

There's no singular person to blame for this.

These were systemic issues across multiple organizations.

Investigators determined the chopper was flying 100 feet too high, relying on altimeters that the Army knew were inaccurate.

The chopper also flying with its ADS B precise location transmitter turned off.

We should be angry.

Because for years no one listened.

This was preventable.

So as you heard, she said it was preventable.

Um, you know, we're talking about the ADSP that you guys are going to be using to actually tag these aircraft coming in.

And one of the things is what if you could hear from what they talked about, is a lot of the things they knew that could happen that could bite him in the in the butt, but they decided to roll the dice and just say, you know what, we know that the altimeters were not working right.

We knew that the ADSB was turned off for the military planes, which they're allowed to do, but look what happened.

So again, the highlights is cause it would they talk about the things that contribute to the accident, and the ADSB didn't cause the accident, but it's one of the contributing factors, and in aviation, what you have is a lot of contributing factors called the error chain.

And if we remove one link from that chain, the outcome is different.

In this case, it would be life and death.

Uh, I mentioned this because they specifically they specifically called out the ADS ADSB system to track the aircraft.

And of course, you plan to collect the fees on that.

It's a powerful tool when it's used for safety, but not for generating money.

They mean they uh had uh they had their ADSB on during a flight, but it was off because the military is allowed to do that.

My point is that you're planning to use the same ADSB to collect fees from the aircraft that land at Falcon.

In effect, you're taxing them.

I have spoken many pilots over the few months, and I have heard some say they would just turn their ADSB off and avoid landing fees altogether.

Point is humans are dumb.

They do dumb stuff.

And although using ADSB to collect fees won't actually cause the accident, it will contribute to a factor that the attorney could use as a partial source of compensation for a for a claimant.

Even worse, a pilot with their ADSB in the off position could cause a misrepresentation of what controllers relay to pilots and contradict their perceived landing sequences.

It's happened to me.

Results in other incident and complaints about pilot staff like myself.

I have already experienced a close call when another pilot miscalculated the number of targets in the pattern using ADSB.

Your time's up.

Okay, thank you, sir.

Thank you.

All right, we know how you feel.

Uh Chris.

After Chris, we have Thomas Noon and Gus Palmasano.

Okay.

Chris.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor and uh council members.

My name is Chris Nugent.

I'm a Mesa District 5 uh resident, and I'm also the president of the Arizona Pilots Association.

Um APA, as we're known, is a nonprofit organization that advocates for general aviation in Arizona.

Uh we run an aviation education program for students through our scholarship program, and our members support community service organizations like Flying Samaritans and Angel Flight out of places like Falcon Field.

First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that this is a complex issue.

It doesn't have an easy solution uh and it faces both the community and uh Falcon Field itself.

I do want to reiterate the recommendation from uh AOPA Aircraft Donors and Pilots Association, APA and the Arizona Safety Aviation Safety Advisory Group to defer this vote until the following high-level actions can be completed.

Establishing a Falcon Field Advisory Board consisting of residents, airport users, businesses, and the airport administration.

Charter the advisory board to complete a financial review of the current fee proposal, including the methodology used to develop the landing fee uh schedule to ensure that they are fair and reasonable, and to evaluate other revenue sources such as FAA minimum standard fee programs, which some airports like Goodyear and Deer Valley use.

Um perhaps a changes to the Falcon Field Transaction Privilege Tax, and finally landing fees if required to make the airport financially self-sustaining.

And finally, charter a separate group under the advisory board to revisit the current Falcon Field fly-friendly program to mitigate the noise impact, congestion, and the safety issues that are currently concerning uh the residents at Falcon.

Again, we recognize this is a complex issue, and our organizations stand ready to support you in that endeavor.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Thomas, correct?

Correct.

Followed by Gus Palmasano and Stephen Devine.

Good evening.

I'm the owner and operator of uh Leopard Aviation, second largest flight school at Falcon Field.

Um I've got copies of what I'm gonna read to you tonight.

If anybody needs a record, um this proposal will impose significant, if not financially ruinous effects on our family and leopard aviation.

We request that you exempt tenants and subtenants of Falcon Field from this proposal.

One of the reasons is because I signed three years ago before spending eight and a half million dollars improving the airport and buying airplanes in reliance on a 40-year lease.

Section 9.2 of my 40-year lease says landlord agrees during its ownership of the airport to operate and maintain the airport in its public in its public airport airport facilities as a public airport consistent with and pursuant to the sponsors' assurances given by landlord to the United States government.

Section 9.1 is granted the non-exclusive right to use the airport necessary for ingress and egress to the premises, including taxiways, runways, taxi uh taxi lanes, aprons, and navigational aids for the purposes of operating aircraft.

I was required to uh install minimum improvements.

Tenants shall construct in the premises, the improvements, the minimum improvements shown on the development plan, which is attached to the exhibit D.

I fulfilled my promise to spend two and a half million dollars upgrading the facility.

I've got pictures of what we did to this thing.

I was told by the airport director at the time it's the nicest looking building and will encourage other people to do the same to Falcon Field.

This landing fee proposal in effect takes takes the cost of the operate and maintain promise made by the city of Mesa, the landlord, and puts it back on Ranger Investments, family partnership, the tenant, and leopard aviation, the subtenant.

In the lease, I was told that the land lease cost would be $600 a month plus annual CPI uh increases.

The landing fee proposed threatens to increase that to approximately $65,000 a month.

And I can tell you that'll take us from the black to the red, and we will stop flying airplanes at Falcon Field, which is I believe the entire intention of this thing when it's that severe.

We can put it all back on our students, and I can tell you 95% of our students are very, very price sensitive.

Our volume will go down a half if we do do all of it, at least a half.

We deal with this every day.

Nineteen out of 20 people students come in, they want to take lessons, they want to have a career as a as a pilot.

They can't qualify.

FICO scores are too low, they don't have enough money saved.

19 out of 2020 go away.

So that's a very price-sensitive group.

If we put this back on them, they're gonna stop taking lessons.

Thank you.

Your time so appreciate it.

Thank you, Thomas.

Can we can somebody hand these out?

Yes, I want.

You can hand it right here to your to your right.

Uh Holly, who's up?

Um, next is Gus.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Gus, and then after Gus is Stephen Devine and Stephen Holt.

Sir, you can sit here in this reserve seat over here.

All right, go ahead, sir.

Mayor, council members, thank you again for letting us have the opportunity to speak about this tonight.

I spent the better part of the last half hour listening to everybody, and a simple question keeps going through my mind.

We live in a country where our economy is built on you pay for what you use.

Should the users of anything not pay for what they're using?

The issue before the council this evening is really a very simple matter of dollars and cents and fiscal fairness.

If I leave the meeting tonight and I take the light rail, I have to pay to use it.

If I go to a gas station, I have to pay to use what I use.

If I go to the grocery store and pick up a loaf of bread, I have to pay for that product.

Likewise, those who use Falcon Field, and especially those who use it in high frequency, should contribute to the cost of the wear and tear on the runways and the facilities resulting from the high level of flight operations annually, nearly as high as Sky Harbor Airport.

Let me remind everybody of that.

We're approaching 500,000 operations annually.

This evening, you have, and we'll likely hear more concerns from flight school representatives and pilots that a $20 landing fee will be fee will be devastating to their businesses.

I've operated several businesses in my lifetime, and this nominal fee is simply part of doing business.

It's no different than increases in rent or utilities or advertising that business owners' face every day.

It's the cost of doing business.

As a taxpayer, I have no problem with my tax dollars going to freeways or schools or libraries and infrastructure that we all use.

However, I do have a problem with my taxpayer dollars going to pay for the maintenance and repairs of runways and facilities that I have never used and will likely never use in the future, especially when those facilities are heavily used by commercial entities operating as part of the business for profit.

As Mesa residents, we are respectfully asking you to vote yes on landing fees.

We trust you to protect your constituents from the current and future costs association with associated with maintaining Falcon Field.

Taxpayers should never be forced to fund business profits of any kind.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Did you say Gus is next?

As that was Gus, right?

This is Stephen Devine, followed by Stephen Holt, followed by John Keith.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Stephen Devine, and I'm a small business owner at Falcon Field.

I'm here tonight, not just for myself, but for the pilots, mechanics, instructors, students, veterans like myself, families, and those whose lives depend on this airport.

Falcon Field is not just pavement and hangers.

It's a history, it's a sacrifice.

It's a living piece of American aviation.

This airport carries the legacy of heroes like Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson, men who help define what courage means, what service and sacrifice to this nation means.

To place burdens on Falcon Field, it's not just pad policy, it's a disservice to their legacy.

These landing fees will not just change and heart airport owners, they will punish opportunity and growth of future aviators.

People to become pilots, this is an absolute burden and a hurdle to them.

You're going to be killing businesses such as myself.

I own three airplanes, and I have 42 students.

I've come from nothing, and I've now made this into my positive business.

Let's be honest.

For many of us, this is not just a small change.

This is a threat to our survival.

Businesses will close, jobs will be lost, aviation activity will leave Mesa, and once it's gone, you can't simply bring it back.

Falcon Field has served this community for generations.

It has brought jobs, education, commerce, tourism, and pride to this city.

Now the people who have invested their lives are being told to pay more just to stay here.

As someone who grew up in a small general aviation family, I know what it means to serve my community, and I know what it means to serve my country.

And what this board is deciding to do is going everything against what they stand for.

This proposal also raises serious concerns with the FA's standardized use of ADSB-related tracking for fee enforcement.

That is not what safety systems are meant for.

You're going to be creating an absolute disastrous safety issue.

And it sends the completely wrong message to the aviation community, which is built on a culture of safety and integrity.

Please do not be the council that is remembered for putting a price on Falcon Field's history, legacy, and community.

You're gonna be known if this passes as a board of community and the council members that destroyed the legacy of this airport and destroyed Falcon Field.

You're gonna be turning your back on thousands of individuals, thousands of your voters and constituents.

If you do this, you will destroy the airport.

You will absolutely wreck it.

And I and I again, I'm speaking boldly and loudly, but to everyone out here, we know what this is really about.

This has nothing to do with the fees, and that's why the FOIA requests have come out, has nothing to do with you guys trying to generate revenue.

We know.

It has to deal with noise abatement.

And on that, all I have to say is please, at the end of the day, look at the history of what Falcon's done, look at what's done for its people, and look at what it's done for the community.

I thank you for your time, and thank you for being here.

Thank you, Stephen.

Uh, next speaker.

Another Stephen Holt, then John Keith, and then Emmanuel Lucero.

My name's Stephen Holt.

I'm here to talk about uh the uh young Eagles program at Falcon Field.

Before I do, I think I have enough time.

Uh, let me just put a couple things in context.

Uh one is I'm a new pilot.

I got my pods license at 62 years old.

Um I got about 200 landings before I got my license.

So just to give you the idea that at 20 bucks a pop, that's four grand.

I think I spent 17,000 on my on my pilot training.

Uh and I got at Red Rock Flight School at uh Falcon Field.

So it's a pretty big increase if you're gonna pass it on to the students, right?

Percentage-wise, four grand.

The other thing is, you know, 10 landings a month.

That seems reasonable, but you know, you get a day where the crosswinds are just good, like you might have a 10-not crosswind.

That's a great day to practice.

So I might go out and do seven touch and goes to get that down because I don't ever want to land in a crosswind, but sometimes they have no choice.

And you have to practice on the days that it you can.

So just keep those in mind.

If you're thinking about tens enough, not always.

And it is a lot of money if you're a student.

Okay.

Young Eagles program.

So the Young Eagles program, uh I organize that at Falcon Field.

We give we give uh free flights to kids eight to 17.

I get a volunteer pilot, takes the kid up, shows them all, shows them how the plane works, takes them up on a flight, gives him a debrief, lots of pictures of smiling kids.

It's very funny.

The kids at the end of that, they get a membership to the Experimental Aircraft Association or EAA.

They get um they get a uh a magazine, and they also get a flight school, a uh, I'm sorry, a online ground school.

So any kid who's you know, usually 12 to 15, those kind of kids, they're interested in this stuff.

They go on to that uh online school, and everything that they need to learn to get past the written FAA test is provided on that.

And so you get a lot of kids who really get into the the program.

It costs the pilots about 75 to 150 dollars to give a flight, and that's based on engine wear and fuel and oil.

And that's you know, planes are expensive.

We don't collect any money, they're all free.

We're not allowed to collect money because of FAA regulations.

So, you know, it's hard to get the pilots to give flights, and now I'm gonna have to ask them to pay 20 bucks out of pocket.

I really weary that this program's gonna go away.

And um, you know, that we just won't have pilots that volunteer.

I spend most of my time tracking them down.

And I'll leave you with this.

I got an email yesterday from uh a guy, his son, uh Tim O'Hara Hayworth, just got out of uh the Air Force uh flight training program, finished it near the top of his class.

He's gonna start flying C 130s.

When he was eight years old, he got a young eagle flight through the EAA, and he got his pilot's license through the Explorer Post here at uh Falcon Field.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Next, we have John Keith, followed by Emmanuel Lucero, and then Robert Graham.

And for those of you waiting, there's a seat up front for those that will say on deck.

Go ahead, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you guys for being here.

We appreciate your time.

Everybody behind me, including the pilots, instructors.

We've all heard of the fast FAA safety team.

I'm one of the representatives.

I was thankfully given that represented represent the top representative accolade in 2024, Brent Crow also received it.

Um we echo what Chris Dugent said from Arizona Pilots Association.

We also echo what Arizona Safety Advisor Group is echoing.

We are concerned with the volume that's gonna leave Falcon to an already busy, very unique situation.

The airspace here is really good, so is the weather.

That's why everybody trains here.

It's a great place to train.

I native, I've done it all here.

Um this is concerning beyond just a basic concern.

This is gonna get ugly real quick when these flight schools leave and go to other airports that are a tax, who also have controllers and airspace that's already completely saturated.

If we add more planes and more volatility to that, it's only gonna make it unsafe.

We can't speak on behalf of the FAA saying we want fees or we don't want fees.

We're gonna be transparent about that.

That's up to you guys to decide that.

But we are letting you know some of the changes that will occur here in the state if you let these fees go.

If you guys have any questions, I'll be sticking around afterward as a part of the FA to answer any questions you guys may have.

Thank you, sir.

Uh next we have Emmanuel, followed by Robert Graham, followed by Carrie McPherson.

Hello, council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here.

I'll be brief.

I'm a newbie, so I just state your name first.

My name's Emmanuel Lucero.

Okay, thank you, sir.

And there was another design speaker who who is more articulate and uh topic specific than I but unfortunately he doesn't know the time.

It's a time factor.

So I just want to uh comment that uh we're residents in Sky Mountain Estates, and I was aware of Falconfield, I like the museum there and whatnot, but I I don't see it uh useful otherwise.

And I I uh lived grew up in LA over by uh Los Angeles International Airport, had friends that lived on the on on the under the runway, and it was extremely loud, excruciating a lot.

But you would pause in mid-sentence before the plane flew over, and then you speak again.

And we lived over by Jake's Ranch, which is by uh gateway, and that that takes commercial flights and whatnot.

But there was no problem with low flying aircraft.

And over the years here, four years in residence, there were planes, it wasn't a problem, but now it's become a problem increasingly so.

I am retired, so I'm a homebody.

So I go outside and our we're we're uh kids are out of the house and take the dog out, and there are planes flying over constantly, much more so than our first years of residency.

And so I I just I'm a taxpayer, like many of the uh people here, and I I don't agree with taxpayer dollars being used to fund this.

I think that uh the uh air airport should be self-sufficient in that regard.

That's that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you, Emmanuel.

Well, certainly thank you for the opportunity.

You bet.

Okay, next we have Robert Graham, followed by Carrie McPherson and Chris Goates.

Hi, name's Robert Graham.

Good evening, mayor, members of the Mississippi Council.

Um I'm amazed resident, I've lived here about 12 years.

I've lived in Arizona my whole life, I'm being 49 now.

Um tonight because I believe the current approach to funding Falconfield is not sustainable long term.

Falconfield is a very active airport with private jets, training operations, and other aviation use happening throughout the day.

That level of activity creates real costs, runway wear, maintenance, staffing, and ongoing operational needs.

While federal and state grants help fund major capital projects, they do not cover the full cost of operating and maintaining the airport.

As activity continues to grow, these costs grow with it.

At some point, the question becomes simple: who should pay?

Should it be users of the airport or should it be the Mesa taxpayers?

I believe in a straightforward principle.

If you use a service, you should help pay for it.

That's how we approach many other city services and should apply here as well.

Being my daughter in junior high, if I want to use an auditorium at Shepard Junior High, I'm expected to pay for that service to be able to use it.

I can't just be a just I'm a citizen here, doesn't they expect me to go and be able to use auditorium, you know, that takes electricity, takes you know staffers at the school to allow me to do that.

So I don't I expect I'm gonna have to pay something for it to use it.

Landing fees are not unusual.

Airports across the country use them as a standard tool to help remain financially self-sustaining and reduce reliance on general tax dollars.

This isn't about restricting aviation or targeting any particular group.

It's about fairness and responsible budgeting.

Mesa is growing, air productivity is increasing, and the cost of maintaining the infrastructure will continue to rise.

Is that realistic to expect tech payers to absorb those costs indefinitely without asking users to contribute?

I respectfully ask the council to move forward with implementing a fair and reasonable landing fee structure so that Falconfield can remain sustainable without playing additional burden on Mesa residents.

Mesa taxpayers should not be expected to subsidize airport operations now or in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Next we have Carrie McPherson, followed by Chris Goates and James McCartney.

Okay.

Thank you.

State your name, please.

Carrie McPherson.

And appreciate the chance to talk to the city council mayor and city council.

Um a lot of things that everybody got a letter from me.

Um hopefully you got to read it.

I got responses from a couple.

Um I won't go over those items.

A lot of things have been said already on that, but there's a couple items like uh during the council study session that I I saw that I I wanted to kind of comment on.

Um and it's been brought up a number of times about the FA grant assurance 24 uh being that the airport with its fees has to be self-sustaining.

Um but when you read the whole thing, it's self-sustaining as possible, you know, as close as you can.

Doesn't mean it has to be a hundred percent.

There's nothing in there that says funding can't be provided from some other source besides just those fees.

And I that was stated that oh, well, I don't know how these other cities get away with it.

Well, they can because it's not uh you there isn't anything that prevents it, so to speak.

Ideally, the fees should pay for everything.

Um of the items that I don't think has been really talked about a lot, but out of uh the Falconfield Airport site, the ASU economic benefit analysis, the 2.2 million uh uh benefit daily, and uh 811 million, and this is annually benefits the city because of Falcon Airport.

So the fact that there's this benefit going to the city, it's not like the airport's taking away.

If it needed a little bit of funding from the city, that shouldn't be an issue.

There's a lot of these places, okay.

Yeah, you have to fund yourself.

They're not looking at the services being provided also to the city and the benefit that all residents get because of that, not just the airport users.

Um, the landing fee that's being proposed is really accessible when you do look around the country.

I did a quick study of that.

For majority of airports that have landing fees, if you're under 6,000 pounds, you're exempt.

If you're um if you're base there, you're exempt.

They're more designed for corporate larger aircraft, that type of thing.

Those individuals that can afford to push off additional costs and stuff, unlike myself as a general aviation pilot.

I'm retired.

I do a lot of volunteer flights for angel flight and for blood around Arizona.

I'm paying for all my stuff.

There's no way for me to get money for to do any of that.

It's just another burden on me.

Um, yes, 10 flights are considered free, but again, depending on what's going on, I can burn through those.

And it's just another cost on top of everything else I'm doing.

Um I think this is whole base, the landing fee thing is based on a false premise is that you can fund these with landing fees.

We're gonna lose tons.

Well, first of all, anybody from out of the area, they're gonna go to Chandler, Deer Valley, Sky Still, they're not gonna come to Falcon.

I know what I do when I go looking.

And if there's a $20 landing fee, and I can go over here and not pay a landing fee, I'm not gonna pay the landing fee because fuel and everything else is about the same.

So I just want to make sure that maybe postpone the thought.

And I I like the idea of doing some deep delve into what's actually gonna happen.

But I think the impact on the city of Mesa, not just the airport, is gonna be pretty drastic.

Thank you, Kieran.

Thank you.

My bad.

Uh, Chris is next.

Followed by James McCartney and Kevin Curtle.

Well, Council members and mayor, thank you for your time.

Uh, my name is Chris Getz, I'm a private pilot out of Falcon Field, and I'm here to ask you to make the right decision for Mesa and Falcon Field and for the people who keep that airport alive.

Because this proposal is not just about revenue, it's about whether the city will protect one of its greatest assets or start charging it into decline.

Falconfield is not a burden on Mesa, but rather a pillar.

It's one of the region's most important general aviation airports with more than 800 based aircrafts, a long history of training, airport dating back to 1941, as others mentioned, and an economic footprint.

The airport itself says exceeds 811 million, which rises to 6.8 billion when adjacent Boeing activity is included.

That is not something you weaken lately.

It is something you protect.

And yet tonight we are considering a policy that hits the very people who create that value every day.

The flight schools, the instructors, the student pilots, the small operators, the aircraft owners, the local aviation businesses.

These are not people draining Falconfield.

These are the people making Falconfield matter.

So let's be honest about what a landing fee means for Falcon Field.

It's not just a fee on pavement, it's a fee on practice, training, and safety.

And that is exactly why so many pilots and operators are alarmed by this.

At a training airport, repeated landings are not abuse of the system.

They are the system.

That is how pilots are trained.

That is how proficiency is built.

That is how safety is reinforced.

That is how accidents are prevented.

The city's current proposal would charge most base aircraft about $20 per landing after 10 free landings each month, with the city saying the goal is to generate at least 2.6 million dollars annually to keep the airport financially self-sustaining.

Pilots and flight schools have already warned publicly that the fees would raise training costs, hurt safety, and could force some schools or operators to relocate.

And if that happens, the damage will not stop at the runway.

When training activity leaves, jobs leave.

Maintenance work leaves.

Fuel sales leave, students leave, business momentum leaves.

And once the aviation ecosystem is damaged, it does not come back easily.

The airport has taken decades to build what it is today.

And since 2023 alone, yearly operations at Falconfield have increased by roughly 120,000.

Much of it tied to the kind of training activity, the repeated landing fees will hit the hardest.

So this council is not being asked to approve a harmless adjustment.

You are being asked to approve a policy that can make Falconfield less competitive, less accessible, and less useful to the people and businesses that really depend on it.

And here's the part that should trouble every one of you.

If fees reduce activity and reduce activity hurts revenue, the answer cannot be to keep squeezing the remaining users harder.

That is not sustainability, that is a spiral.

A historic airport does not become stronger by punishing the very activity that gives it life.

Council members, if you see Falconfield matters to Mesa, then prove it.

Protect the students who are trying to learn, protect the instructors trying to teach, protect the small businesses that are trying to survive, protect the airport community that has made Falconfield an economic engine, a training hub, and a point of pride for the city.

Do not tax the repetition, do not punish their growth, do not make safety and opportunity more expensive.

And tonight you have a choice.

You can vote for a fee, or you can vote for Falconfield.

Please vote no for landing fees.

Thank you so much for having me.

Chris, appreciate it.

Next speaker.

James McCartney, followed by Kevin Crittle and Stephen Lewis.

Hello, thank you, Council members, for the opportunity to speak.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, I was sitting on my back patio between 1220 and 120 and counted 47 flights coming over my house.

That's almost one per minute.

And it didn't include those that veered away from the departure path and veered away.

This level of repetitive training activity and constant touch and go operations has fundamentally changed the quality of life in our neighborhood.

While we recognize that Falcon Field is a vital asset to Mesa, the sheer volume of this activity has reached a point where it is no longer a background hum.

It's a constant disruption to the peace and well-being of tax-paying residents.

However, the reason I'm standing here is not just about noise, it's about economic fairness.

Falcon Field operates as an enterprise fund.

By definition, that means it should be self-sustaining, supported by those who use the facility rather than relying on the general fund or the pockets of the Mesa taxpayers who may never set foot on that airfield.

We are at a financial crossroads.

Since 2006, the airport has relied on a one-time 4.6 million dollar land sale to mask its operational deficit.

That savings account is almost empty.

Currently, airfield revenues are approximately 375,000 with airfield expenses of 2.4 to 2.6 million.

As noted by the city, critical airport maintenance is being deferred to balance the budget.

We can no longer use a band-aid approach to maintain to maintenance while expecting Mesa taxpayers to eventually foot the bill for a total runway reconstruction.

Tell me, who should bridge that gap?

We believe the most equitable answer is a user pay model.

In almost every other public utility or industry, those who utilize the infrastructure the most and put most wear and tear on it, contribute the most to its upkeep.

I want to be very clear.

We're not asking for landing fees as a tool for noise abatement.

We understand the FAA regulations and that federal funding prohibits using fees to restrict aviation activity based on noise concerns.

Instead, we're advocating for landing fees as a tool for financial sustainability.

Implementing a fair fee structure ensures that Falcon Field can maintain its own infrastructure and remain a premier aviation hub without being a perpetual financial burden on the city's residents.

The current increase in repetitive flight training has strained the goodwill of the community.

While we cannot legally use fees to stop the noise, the impact of our quality of life directly influences how we feel about subsidizing the operations with our tax dollars.

We ask the council to pursue a path of balance.

Let's make Falcon Field financially independent by ensuring that airport users contribute their fair share toward the facility they rely on.

Thank you.

Thank you, James.

Uh Kevin.

After Kevin is Stephen Lewis, and then Greg Hadley.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Kevin Crittle.

I live in District One, and I'm here on behalf of my family and a few of the neighbors who live in our area.

And thanks for having all 20-something of us.

You must be exhausted.

I think everybody else in here is probably exhausted as well.

Um, but it's really nice of you guys to accommodate the whole group.

So thanks for doing that.

Um, I support Falcon Field and the aviation community, but I also believe that it needs to be done sustainably.

Um it's uh straightforward decision tonight.

We've heard a lot of great speakers tonight on both sides of the issue.

Um, but really the the concept is are we going to ask Mesa taxpayers to subsidize the business owners that are flying um flight schools out of Falcon Field?

Um Falcon Field is one of the most active training airports in our region, and those high frequency flights are the driver of operational demand, and more importantly, for council, it's the driver of long-term maintenance concerns.

Um we've increased flights and we've increased the maintenance costs, the staffing costs, every aspect of Falcon Field's cost structure uh increases based on the number of flights that are being flown.

And just from a basic economic perspective, as you all understand, uh, when usage drives cost, our pricing should also uh reflect that usage.

Uh we don't charge everyone the same for water or electricity.

Uh if I want to fill a 40,000 gallon pool, I'm going to be charged accordingly.

Uh other folks have made that point tonight very well.

The same is true of electricity.

Um we've recognized, and I hope the council recognizes the drastic difference between Falcon Field, which is primarily a local general aviation airport, uh, deriving uh uh a simpler set of economic benefits from Gateway, which is a much larger regional driver of growth.

Uh, I think there is a massive contrast between Mesa Falcon Field and also uh Mesa Gateway.

Um a usage-based structure as a port is important for a place like Falcon Field uh with the density of flight training and also um the different cost structure and the different way that uh those costs are paid for over time as compared to Mesa Gateway.

Um it's also important to recognize that landing fees aren't that unusual, right?

Like this has been a tool that's been used in similar communities for a long time.

It's to address a very specific funding shortfall.

It's to make and enhance uh Falcon Field as a long-term viable asset.

If we let deferred maintenance become uh you know the tune of the day, we're not going to be a world-class aviation facility.

Pure and simple.

Um the last point I'll make is I think it should be intuitive to all of us that if we invite people from other cities, other states, and from around the world to come and enjoy the benefits of Falcon Field, those people from other cities, other states, and from around the world should be willing to bear the cost associated with Falcon Field.

Um, and if it costs $4,000 for students, let it be.

They will be top 10 wage earners in this state.

They will earn as as first officers and pilots, two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars eventually in their career.

It's an extraordinary investment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

Uh Stephen, is that correct?

Yes.

Followed by Craig Hadley, then Mark Hunsucker.

Greg, if you're here, you can come to the front, please.

There's a chair for you.

Stephen.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor and Council members.

I appreciate this opportunity to address this uh gust buddy on this uh very important subject.

I have been in the aviation field for over 50 years.

I'm a retired FAA air traffic controller, was also a first-level supervisor and operations manager.

Did 27 years with the FAA, and I'm a four-year Navy veteran.

I am a CFI and my wife and I own a single-engine airplane, and we fly out of Falcon Field.

I stand in opposition to this proposal of the landing fees at Falcon Field.

Um, I do not command the language to tell you how strongly I oppose it.

Um I did meet the airport director a couple of weeks ago.

She's very hospitable and pleasant enough, but with all due respect and believe the director has lost her way.

There is no one on the current staff who is an active pilot.

Consider that for a moment.

There's no subject matter expert on staff to provide input for somebody who actually uses the facilities.

I believe this believe this is uh time for the airport director to go.

She is fooling herself, and by extension, she is fooling you.

In my opinion, the problems have been created by the aviation department at Falcon.

I am pro-business.

I don't believe that the aviation department did anything to manage the growth over recent years.

Instead, the aviation department head behind the FAA's requirements, and this is a classic example of government creating a problem and then stepping in to solve it ineffectively.

There should, in my opinion, been have been a series of approved minimum requirements during business applications.

Like you said, it's a classic tale of government in action causing a problem that now they are trying to solve.

For those who have come behind them and vote no for this horrific proposal, I thank you for your time, your attention, and your consideration.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it.

Next speaker.

We have Greg next, followed by Mark Hunsaker and Jeff Whiteman after Mark.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

It's uh a pleasure to be here this evening.

Uh I am the owner of Simply Fly Flight School, which is one of the largest flight schools on the field.

Uh I echo a lot of the sentiment that has been mentioned this evening.

Um particularly want to point out the detriment that this will be to my business, to my students, to my flight instructors, to my mechanics, to everybody that I employ here at Falcon Field.

We do pay a lot of the expenses out there already in the rent and the fees that we already pay out there.

I am very also I'm also very concerned about the safety and the issues that this will cause as it forces us out into the other airports, particularly the uncontrolled airports, and the amount of traffic that will be out there from all of the flight schools.

I feel like this is going to be detrimental to the airport as a whole and will not benefit the airport at all.

In fact, I see business going down.

Um as has already been pointed out, the city generates or the airport economic engine that the airport is for the city generates $811 million annually for the city of Mesa.

So if business decreases by 50% at the airport, is the city of Mesa really ready to absorb that 50% cut in that $11 million.

Just a thought.

Also, with the growth of the airport, I find it hard to believe that there is going to be that much of a deficit.

I too echo some of the other things that have been said tonight that the airport uh management has out of touch with the airport, and that the airport has been mismanaged for years.

And something needs to happen.

I feel like this is trying to throw money into a pit that's not going to solve it.

I would welcome the opportunity to be part of an advisory board to make the airport self-sufficient to help make the residents of the area to find a solution for them as well for the noise that's going on that they're suffering with.

I do feel for them.

And I think there are some solutions, but I don't think this is the solution.

So I'd encourage you to please vote no for this, and then let's find a better solution for all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

Uh Mark Hunsaker, followed by Jeff Whiteman.

And then Justin Durand after Jeff.

Somebody left uh sunglasses.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor, and council members.

Mark is behind you.

He's coming for his glasses.

Here we go.

Thanks.

Gotcha covered.

Thank you.

Uh, thank you for having us tonight.

I know this is a long list of people that would like to speak on this matter.

It's uh it's got uh some touchiness, I know, for occupants and tenants at the airport, but as well.

I come as a constituent of the area.

Uh I've currently lived in my current home for 26 years, directly southwest of Falcon Field within a uh linear mile of the air of the runway in the airport.

So needless to say, um, over the last 26 years, I've been a witness personally to the changes in the airport.

Um, seeing them personally and can speak to them authoritarian authoritatively, excuse me.

Um, in those 26 years, I I will also say I'm an aviation fan.

I love planes.

I grew up flying uh assessed in 210 and a 182 with my dad around Arizona as he went to different uh appointments, and so I love planes.

Um, and up till around five years ago, I would have never complained about the amount of uh flights and airplanes flying around uh Falconfield because I enjoyed seeing them and watching them, and they never seem to bother me.

But that's changed over the last five years, and I can't say with any specific specific specificity uh what that is exactly.

Um, but I know that the amount of flight school uh training flights has increased dramatically.

Um earlier today that over 80% of the takeoff and landing at that airport are currently training flights.

Um that that's a lot for any airport, in my my opinion.

I think uh that's basically telling us that Falconfield has become a training site, uh, not a normal airport for the area.

Um I have a concern about safety.

Um I can think of just recently in the last few months, three specific accidents, accidents that have happened uh on the southwest uh corner or area of that airport, two of which were training flights, and two of which crashed and landed uh within a thousand feet of my home.

And so I naturally have some concern about uh the increasing amount of training flights in the area, and if we're talking about increasing that even more over the next few years, that becomes difficult.

Um I just want to speak quickly about a couple comments that are made.

If anybody's maybe pay attention to what's gonna at Falcon Field, Falcon Field is booming.

You can drive around Falcon Field at almost every square inch of Falconfield is being developed as hangers, private hangers right now.

There's buildings growing up all over, and there is plenty of business interest and opportunity for people to come in to supplant or replace perhaps some of the uh flight uh repetition flights that we may lose by these increased fees.

Again, uh landing fees are part of doing business, and I think it's uh I would vote for you.

I would hope you guys would vote yes on this matter.

Um, I think it's something that is needed for this particular airport.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Uh, we have uh Jeff Whiteman.

Is it the first one?

Yes, Mayor, followed by Justin Durand and Kay Hunsacker.

Mr.

Whiteman, the mic's yours.

Okay.

Mayor and counsel, uh, thank you for uh taking on such a passionate, emotionally charged issue as this.

Um I've lived out in the Falconfield area for over 36 years.

I own a relatively large business in Mesa.

I fly two aircraft out of Falcon Field, and my family has been tenants of Falconfield for over 60 years.

Um I also understand how neighbors do not want to pay for my flights or the maintenance of my flights.

It's kind of like you move to a neighborhood or moved into a golf course, you enjoy the golf course, you understand the golfers will play, you get a few balls in your yard, but then top golf takes over that hole, and you're and it's madness.

So now we're asking the homeowner, hey, would you also subsidize the maintenance caused by all by top golf?

So from a as a business owner, I understand I'm trying to look at both sides of this, and based on the aircraft we fly.

After I use our 10 credits a month, I'm not aware of anybody that will pay more per landing than we will.

But I still believe it's the right thing to do.

And I know it's gonna upset people.

I've heard it for what, over an hour.

Uh but doing the right thing is not always doing the easy thing.

So I commend you for doing this.

I strongly encourage you to vote yes on this.

The residents of Mesa should not shoulder the burden of maintaining Falconfield.

Those people that use Falconfield should take care of that.

And I know that will create some animosity with some of my neighbors out at the airport, but that's just how I see it.

But thank you for standing strong.

I have just another minute, so I'm gonna use it.

I heard a lot of talk about how the airport is gonna crumble, and it's that is not the case.

One, I think the airport does a good job with the cars they are dealt.

I believe that if there's any reduction in air traffic, it will that will be filled back in with business jets.

There's a lot of people that want to use Falcon Fi from the business jet community, but it is like flying into a beehive.

Uh, we use contract pilots sometimes, and we warn those contract pilots you're going to fly into a level of intensity that you are not used to.

It's okay, take a breath, it's gonna be okay.

But it's a very crowded airspace.

So I encourage you to do the right thing and create a self-sustaining airport and don't rely on the citizens of Mesa to do that.

Those funds are needed somewhere else.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Whiteman.

Uh, who's after Mr.

Whiteman?

Justin, followed by Kay, followed by Art Jordan.

Justin, uh Katie.

There's a C here if you'd like to use it.

Thanks so much.

My name is Justin Durand, and I was born and raised in Mesa.

I attended Salt Falcon Hell, Redmore Ranch, Shepherd, graduated from Red Mount High School, and I now live in Los Andes.

I've always had fond memories of Falconfield, and my father even surprised me with a flight lesson on the morning of my 16th birthday.

In spite of that, I still think users should pay their fair share.

As we all know, Falconfield Airport is running a significant deficit.

Um taxpayers currently bear.

As the city contemplates landing fees, we should note usage-based pricing is standard practice and widespread across city facilities, including $32 per hour to rent a soccer field, $22 for a park remotta, $4 for lap swimmer at the aquatic center, $1 per printed color page at the public library, and $4,722 to rent the Akida Theater at the Mesa Arts Center.

As a city grows, and Mesa has grown 30x since Falcon Field was founded.

The status quo often needs to change.

Twenty dollars per landing is a small fee, less than what it costs to rent a Ramada in the park.

Obviously, we are seeing a lot of airport users complain about the landing fees tonight.

But there's no reason why taxpayers should continue to subsidize these users.

It's like expecting taxpayers to cover the tab every time someone rents a soccer field, uses the pool, or prints pages in a library.

The people using the service may not like the fee, but that does not mean the general public should subsidize it.

Usage-based landing fees ensure shared responsibility for Falconfield's costs, protects and protects taxpayers now and in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Justin Katie, you're up.

And then who is after Katie?

After Kay is Art Jordan, then David Lee Beatty.

Hi, my name is Kay Hunsaker, and I reside in Mesa.

My husband just spoke a couple of speakers ago.

We're about, like he said, a mile from the airport, but I'm gonna speak in regards to our family business that we own at 3825 East McKellups, which is a half a mile just west of the corner of Greenfield and McKellups.

Um the takeoffs landings go directly over our property.

We've owned this property since the early 80s, um, so over 40 years.

Um I've heard a lot of business owners, flight school owners tonight speak of the impact that this fees will have on their business, that their businesses may no longer be businesses because of them.

Our business at 3825 East McCallus Road has changed due to the increase of airplanes going over our business.

We have outdoor seating.

We've done evening weddings and events, and the noise makes it very difficult, almost impossible.

Um we grow citrus.

I um pack citrus, sort citrus every day.

I'm outside two to four hours with the planes.

I've have customers that lately have said, how do you handle the noise?

Because it is a lot.

It is a lot lately, even more so.

But it's really changed the environment of our business too.

So I underst um it's not only the businesses in the airport, but the surrounding businesses are affected by the noise and things.

I know this tonight is about the fees and not the noise, but the noise does affect us.

Um I am here to agree with the fees.

I think if you play, you need to pay.

Um, a big concern that I've been kind of studying a little bit too is about our the health impact of these flights.

And I could be wrong in this, but I understand the fuel used in these small planes is still leaded fuel.

I don't know the impact of that.

Um toxicity that's um flying over continually.

I would ask if the city has any studies on that.

I would be interested in knowing that and the impacts of our communities or just school close by, parks close by, and businesses and and residents, of course.

Um the growth of Falconfield has exploded.

We've heard tonight a lot about World War II days.

We're not there.

My 90-year-old father-in-law learned to fly at Falcon Field.

Um, but it's not the same.

And the the amount of flights that increase.

I I read um, you know, we've had almost a hundred thousand increased flights from two thousand twenty-three or more than that to two thousand twenty-four.

Where's the ceiling?

How many are we gonna allow to keep coming in?

I appreciate your time tonight, and thank you for listening.

Thank you, Katie.

Uh next speaker, please come up.

Yeah.

Right?

Uh, Art and then David and then Connor Hilly.

Art and then David.

I will try to make eye contact, but I also want to be somewhat articulate, so I have a few notes.

Art Jordan, uh 20 years in the lower reaches of Lasendas, the previous 20 over in the Citrus Grove, so kind of two different sides of the whole thing.

Um I believe that the issues have been well framed and spoken about by all of the speakers tonight.

So I'm not going to try and repeat any of that, but I I am I showed a modest amount of interest in this a year ago and called the airport director and were was told certain things that don't seem to be holding water at this point in terms of that the city of Mesa had no control over the issue.

It is how the conversation went.

Blue and white, you know, blue and white airplanes.

And when I'm out in my yard working in the lower reaches, the thing that has caught my attention and I bring to you tonight is their touch and goes.

I mean, they're they're coming up into La Senda circling, going back, and they're back within three minutes.

It isn't about corporate jets bringing business to Mesa, it's about flight schools operating a public airport, in my opinion.

Everybody's already talked about paying for what you use.

We all heard that in Maricopa County for 50 years with the ballpark and the libraries and everything.

That's an old issue, and it there's always differences of opinion on that.

What is a public amenity?

But I want to go back to my notes for a second.

I think this is my key point.

If there truly are 140 planes right now, what is the council's goal for five years from now?

Is it 200 planes?

Is it 225 planes?

And what was it five years ago when people weren't complaining?

It might have been 80 planes or something like that.

So I think we need, I think we need to visit that issue in terms of capacity.

It's touch and go.

It's the repetitiveness on cool mornings on Saturday and Sunday.

The military planes occasionally come over at the low altitude also.

The correct decision, in my opinion, is pilots should pay the real cost, including landing fees.

Prices go up every year in most sectors of the economy.

Customers adjust.

And they make market decisions.

Your time's up.

Thank you, sir.

Uh David?

After David, do we have to do that?

After David, we're down to the last four.

We have Connor Hilly, Carrie Davis, Darcy Hoish, and Jacob Abukotter.

David, the mic's yours.

Good evening.

I'm David Beatty.

I live in District One.

Um I'm native of Mesa.

I took my first flight at Falcon in 1966.

I worked at the airport in the 70s when I was in going to high school, and I got my pilot's license at Falcon in 1979 when I was 18.

I've been flying out there a long time.

I I like to fly my my wife and children and grandchildren around the state.

But uh I am not opposed to the airport being self-sufficient.

What I am opposed is the the way it's being proposed.

Um my thoughts here are gonna stray a little bit from most everybody else, and it might not be popular.

Um if the finances are a problem, uh I would say maybe you should look at the airport staff.

They're the ones spending the money.

They need to be both uh fiscally and operationally responsible.

We have one of the busiest airports in the country because of all the training.

We only have staff there four days a week, with the exception of maybe uh the guys that are running around the field.

Um to me that that doesn't make any sense.

Uh again, if there's if there's a deficit, I'd look see how they're spending their money.

What what's necessary and what's frivolous?

And to me, I see a lot of frivolous.

Um of the things that came up was uh recently a lot of time and effort and money was spent on a driving program.

Well, I I would say prove me wrong, but 90 some percent of the people out there have a pilot's license that says we know what all that signage and marking is.

Why do we have to spend all this money on a on a driving program?

How much money was spent on that?

Some of you know.

Um the transparency is terrible.

I was when I got on a list for a hangar, I was told I would be two years.

It took me five years to get in the hangar, and I know people that got in hangers before me that got on the list after me.

So there's some shenanigans going on in the staff.

Cassagram posts their their wait list on the on the airport bulletin board.

They're they're transparent on their list.

Um I also want to know I support uh an airport advisory committee because as was said before, the staff are not pilots.

They don't have a they don't they don't have the background or the training that that we have had.

Um I'll leave it at that.

Thank you for time.

Thank you, David.

Next speaker.

Connor Hilly, followed by Kerry Davis and then Darcy.

Good evening.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for being here.

Uh and I want to particularly thank everyone who's here who has one of the other important issues on the agenda.

I appreciate your patience with us tonight.

Uh my name's Connor Hilly, I'm a district five resident.

Um, I'm a pilot, I'm a newly minted flight instructor just a few months ago.

Um, and I moved here, I moved to Mesa, Arizona from Georgia about two years ago.

Um, and the purpose of me speaking tonight is I want to emphasize the economic impact beyond just the flying that goes on at the airport.

I know a few of my fellow citizens had mentioned the uh $811 million economic impact per year uh that has been projected from Balcon Field.

But I just want to emphasize that a little more about the people who come here for the training.

Um, like I said, I'm I move from Georgia, I rent here, I bought a car here, I go to small businesses all around the city of Mesa, right?

I shop at the Fries on Higley, and I pump my gas across the city.

These things are often overlooked when we talk about an airport, right?

It it might not seem like the economic impacts are quite so wide, but everyone who comes here is pouring economic activity into the community.

And in a time with rising gas prices and other things that are putting pressure on our local economy.

I worry that the trade-off for getting the airport to self-sufficiency is going to cost a much broader economic impact than we realize.

Um, some of us have also stated tonight that that we want the airport to be self-sufficient, and I couldn't agree more.

I'm happy to pay to keep the airport self-sufficient, I use it, and I don't think it's right that people pay that burden that that otherwise don't use the airport.

Um with that being said, though, I think a lot of aviation leaders have discussed here tonight that there are other ways to get the airport to self-sufficiency without risking the economic impact that we're talking about, and without driving people out of Falcon Field.

Um, I I someone said, and I don't remember who, but they said that if you use, you should pay, right?

And and usage drives cost.

The more people that use it, the more expensive the airport's gonna be.

And that's certainly true, but the less people that use it, the less revenue the airport's gonna develop.

And the concern is that we're going to start sort of a downward spiral here.

We're gonna have this fee, and then now we're gonna get less pilots.

I know they're projecting 10%, but like others, I I think it's going to be substantially more.

Um, and that decrease is gonna create a bigger shortfall, and now we're gonna be back at square one uh with less traffic um and less revenue for the airport.

So I would encourage the uh proposal to be at least tabled to sort of investigate uh different ways to sort of prevent the shortfall and ways that won't impact aviation and like I said, the local economy so harshly.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Connor.

Uh you said Mr.

Davis is next.

Yes, Mr.

Davis, followed by Darcy Houish and Jacob Abu Cater.

I'm sorry, who's after Mr.

Davis?

Uh Darcy Hewish.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Kerry Davis, and as most of you know, I am opposed to rate increases.

As the former mayor and uh as the mayor, I served as the president of the San Bernino International Airport Authority.

I do support you in putting forward this rate increase.

It's a little uncut, it's not customary of most of my comments, but I do realize that there's deferred maintenance and you have to pay for it.

And if you don't pay for it through those landing fees and the additional uh fees for the uh storage rent, then you're gonna be putting it on the taxpayers.

And so I echo those uh sentiments that have been put forward by those who favor this uh rate increase and put forward my support in behalf of this rate increase.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Davis.

And we have Darcy and Darcy Jacob.

And who's following Darcy?

Jacob.

Jacob.

Thank you so much.

My name is Darcy Hearish.

I appreciate your time to listen to us.

I'm a resident here.

I've been in Mesa, Arizona now for 26, 27 years, and I live one less than a mile from this airport.

And I have memories of my girls sitting out on blankets, and we would watch the airplanes go over, and it was fun and it was beautiful, and it was the kind of an entertainment piece.

And as we've heard tonight, the history of Falcon Field, we know going back to 1941 to 1945, it was a training for World War II, all of that, but it has not been a flight training school until the last maybe decade.

It has just really the last six years, it has exploded.

Eighty percent of the flights going out of Falcon Field are training school flights.

So what was once a beautiful place to live, I would never build my house where it is now, ever.

We had neighbors that were wanting to build a million-dollar home next to us, would never do it because they asked me an honest question.

How is the air traffic?

And I said it's miserable.

I know that's not the point where to argue, but the fact that I'm paying tax dollars to support something that has robbed me of peace of life.

I can't even take a Saturday or Sunday afternoon nap because this is what I listen to.

Every 18 to 38 seconds, this is what I hear.

And I'm gonna play it for you, because I don't have any more important things than fancy things to say.

Give me a minute.

I'm also not tech savvy, but I'll use my time to find this.

This is just today.

I could go out any point any day, starting at 6:45 in the morning typically.

It wakes me up in the morning and I go to sleep with this at night.

And if I sat here for another 18 to 38 seconds, you would hear the next one come by.

It is unreasonable that the citizens of this area have been overlooked and it has progressively gotten worse.

And as others have said, you cannot compare Mesa Gateway, which is a commercial airport where you have commercial flights going in out to Falconfield.

You just can't.

When you look at the surrounding and how close the homes, the schools are, and the city is strong.

It will make it without corroding the noise in the in the lifestyle and the tax dollars of the city.

And we appreciate your time, and even considering this, it's it's a great honor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Darcy.

Uh Jacob is next.

And who's is there anyone after Jacob?

Uh, Mayor Jacob is the last speaker for this item.

He's the last one.

Yes.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh, thank you very much for the time.

Um, I have unfortunate news for anyone who doesn't like the general aviation noise, swap that out for jets because that's inevitably what's going to happen.

We've heard a lot of perspectives from business owners and from locals.

I live at Higley and Brown.

I live directly underneath the downwind, and I'd like to give you a student's perspective.

So a lot of people don't know this about flight training, but student, it's not what you think of.

It's not, you go to ASU, you get scholarships, and that's how it works, you get financial aid.

None of that, none of that applies to student pilots.

So that's who's directly going to foot this cost.

That's why the business owners are so concerned.

It's because their students are already financially struggling to make it because aviation is notoriously and historically a difficult system to get into, and it should be difficult.

It should be a struggle because you don't want pilots who are incompetent.

You want pilots who are determined and who have grit and who can stick it out.

And so, in this sort of difficult and fundamentally broken system in other places, when you have a place as as distinct and as unique as Falconfield is, you're you're taking this opportunity to basically get rid of all of these uh systems that are in place for these local flight school business owners who are trying to do the best that they can with the resources that they have in order to keep their students there in training.

If you raise these these fees or the uh the landing fees that you're talking about, you're not talking about a single one-time use fee.

You're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that are ultimately going to get footed to the students.

Now, when the students can't pay that, fight school doors are gonna close.

That's what's gonna happen.

So I understand that there's uh uh a certain aura here of uh flight training has has boomed.

So that there's sort of I've heard sort of an up and down uh tonight about how there's too much development, there's not enough development, there's too much noise, and then I don't understand.

So you're gonna substitute that for flight for jet noise.

There's other ways to uh develop funding for the uh for the airport.

It's a tight-knit community of locals and the local business owners there are who need to be supported in this.

So as uh developments arise and as new uh uh businesses come in who are uh corporate aviation 135, 131 operations, then yeah, there's there's ways for revenue to come.

That's not gonna directly foot the bill to students and to businesses who can't afford it.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jacob.

All right, Miss Mosley, that's our last speaker for this agenda item.

Yes, Mayor.

All right.

Okay, council and uh city attorney and city manager.

Mayor, council, if I could just for one second.

Um there are there were a few comments regarding noise and traffic and capacity, just a few, but I just want to point out, and I know council knows this, but just for the record and also for the public.

Uh those are not factors for consideration of the fee tonight.

And the comments, those comments are not, and I know council will not consider those comments that are not uh a basis for establishing this fee.

So I just want to make sure that the public is aware of that and just reiterate what I said at the beginning uh for what's the basis for the fees.

Thank you, Mayor.

You're welcome.

So uh a lot of questions were asked.

I know we have Jill, our outside attorney, so we have an outside council here along with our city attorney.

We have our airport director here.

And I I made some uh wrote some questions down.

Number one, uh taxpayers supporting Gateway Airport.

Can you can you uh respond to that, Mr.

City Manager?

Sure, Mayor, um council.

I know and there has been a lot of discussion tonight about the role of the city and whether the city should subsidize these operations.

Uh the distinction that we Falconfield operates as an enterprise fund of the city, and an enterprise fund is meant to function as a business and to be self-sustaining.

There is a mechanism in place, and which is what we're discussing tonight to allow that fund to be self-sustaining, to provide for that infrastructure that directly benefits the business operation that's occurring there at the airport.

And so uh this is a way to ensure that we can maintain and sustain an airport um that all users of the airport will be able to benefit from the infrastructure and the maintenance that um that we will conduct as a result of being able to make sure that this is a self-sustaining enterprise fund.

And what about uh monies towards Mesa Gateway Airport?

That question was asked, taxpayer dollars being used to fund Mesa Gateway Airport.

Yeah, um, and and again, that's not an apples to apples comparison because that is a separate legal body that's a separate uh authority established under state statute that formed um the Mesa Gateway Board and uh and they operate uh we are one uh participant in that board along with Queen Creek, Apache Junction, Gilbert, and the Heela River Indian community that all serve as owners um of the airport.

Uh we do pay a membership fee, which all owners do to be um to to be able to have a seat on the board of that airport authority.

It is not an enterprise fund of the city and operates under um separate jurisdiction and authority under state statute.

Okay, thank you.

The other question was asked about landing fees at Gateway.

ICITUS uh on the Mesa Gateway Authority Board, and there are no landing fees on aircraft under 12,500 pounds, so a six thousand pound aircraft, there'll be no landing fee at Gateway Airport, only though that aircraft above 125.

Um we talked about the economic impact.

Uh that was something that was discussed by a lot of different uh speakers tonight, and uh that is something that we have considered, but nothing that was driving our decision tonight, whether we approve or not approve this uh discussion.

So with that, I'd like to move over to council for any discussion here.

And I'll if I may on your last point that you're you were correct, there's no landing fee under 12.5.

Yeah, based on uh the needs of that airport because they've also documented that they are running at a revenue deficit on the aviation side, so that potential does exist.

Okay.

So you've given the authority to the executive director, to the executive director or managed fee if needed.

Got it.

Okay.

Uh council, uh you want to start, Miss Taylor.

Why don't you start first?

Do you have any questions or comments?

I'll start to my right and we'll finish to Mr.

Adams here to the left.

I really only had well, I had a couple questions.

I think most of them are answered.

But I was curious to know does Falconfield have any type of bulletin board or any type of calendar booking system so that if you do want to sign up for a hangar or uh a tie-down, you can put yourself in a waiting list.

Oh, hi, Corey.

Mayor, council member Taylor.

Um we have explored that possibility.

Um there are some airports, as someone mentioned that do have that.

But there um the current system that we have in place, the database would um list the names, and um there are people that don't necessarily want their names to be published on that a local bulletin board or whether it's online.

Um we have tried and have looked into the possibility of perhaps assigning a number to someone when they get on the wait list, and then they can go and look on a list that would again probably be on our website that would say, okay, number, you know, 23, you're um, you know, fifth on the list or whatever.

But our current um database system does not um allow that type of scenario.

So we are looking at the possibility of acquiring some additional uh new database system that would enable us to be able to do that so people can just look online and maybe see what their number is and and um see where they are on the list.

But anybody is always welcome to call us or send us an email.

We have a couple members of our team that are highly focused on that, so people regularly call in and just ask where where am I on the on the wait list?

And we're happy to provide that information.

Okay, thank you.

I think my only other question was really around the differences between the Mesa Gateway Airport and Falconfield and the enterprise setup.

So thanks for answering that.

I just needed some clarification on it.

All right.

Vice Mayor.

Is it all right?

Yes, give me a question.

Gentleman first.

Uh Corinne, could you give us a brief because we had this in the study session before?

Would you give us a a brief overview of the different operational buckets, if you will, what has to pay for what and how we got to a revenue shortfall.

Yes, uh, mayor, vice mayor summers.

Um, I'd be happy to do that.

We uh a couple of years ago we made the decision to restructure our approach to how we look at our finances and our accounting using and decided to use uh a system that is is supported by the FAA, which is a cost center approach.

We established three separate cost centers at the airport.

Uh the first one is the ground leases, the second one is the hangars and city owned hangars and tie-downs, and then the third one is the the airfield.

And we decided that the first cost center that we would look at in terms of whether it's financially self-sustaining or not, it would be the hangers and the tie-downs.

So we looked at that over a year ago to um and ultimately came to discover that that cost center is not financially self-sustaining.

So we put together a plan that we brought last year initially to council to raise those rates on the hangers and the tie-downs over a period of three to five years to make that area financially self-sustaining.

And of course, council only approves fee increases on an annual basis, but council did approve um that increase last year, and we're also uh requesting and recommending an increase this year as well.

Then this the second area, and we knew that this was gonna be the the big one to tackle was the airfield cost center, and that cost center consists of the primary parts of the airfield cost center are those areas of the cost of the airport that are non-exclusive, meaning they're not leased out to anybody, they're not necessarily used predominantly by, for example, the city owned hangar tenants.

And that cost center consists of the primary parts of the airfield cost center are those areas of the cost of the airport that are non-exclusive, meaning they're not leased out to anybody.

They're not necessarily used predominantly by, for example, the city owned hangar tenants.

So we're talking the runways, the taxiways, the airfield lighting, the perimeter for the city.

Everything on the movement area.

Everything in the movement area, yes, and some things in the non-movement areas that are taxi, taxi lanes and so forth that are non-exclusive.

And then, of course, the third cost center is the ground leases.

And those are just for the ground leases that we currently have in place.

And then Scott, you you talked about how there was a land sale a number of years ago, and then that was helping sustain the operations here, and that money is run out, so we're at a point where we're going into deficit.

Would that be accurate?

That would be accurate if we don't uh change the trajectory of of how we would finance the these infrastructure projects.

There was also a question that was asked, and I apologize because I'm I'm just taking these in kind of the order I heard them.

Um was there a full financial assessment conducted?

And when did we look at things like the fuel flowage tax and what other up funding opportunities were done?

I remember there was a slide on the fuel tax.

Yes, Mayor, Vice Member, Mayor Summers, we did look at a number of various options besides just the landing fees.

We did look at the fuel flowage fees, which we are recommending a small increase in the fuel flowage fee.

The challenge with the fuel flowage fee is that with the situation that we have at Falcon right now, we have one full service fixed base operator that is a fuel provider, and another one that just that provides jet fuel.

The prices that that you charge for your fuel and for your fuel flowage fees are going to they are very price sensitive because the the users of the airspace in in the Phoenix area have lots of choices.

And of course, if we raise the fuel flowage fees too high, of course, the fuel providers are gonna have to pass that along to the customers, and then at that point, the at some point very quickly the price of fuel at Falcon Field is so far above what is being offered at other airports that people will just not fuel at Falcon Field.

Okay, so it's a balancing act, isn't it?

It's a very much a balancing act, yes.

Um emergency services, angel flight.

I heard somebody speak to that they do angel flights here.

Are there exemptions for things such as that fire protection?

I know.

There are there are uh I'm sorry, Mayor, Vice Mayor Um Summers, uh there are some exemptions that are included with the landing fee recommendation, and uh medical flights are included within that exemption.

Okay, so angel flights would be part of that.

Okay, very good.

Um I heard somebody say that landing fees on based aircraft is completely without precedent.

Is that true?

In your experience?

Mayor, uh Vice Mayor Summers, when we did our research, we we researched and surveyed numerous airports across the United States.

The ones that we did ultimately include on our survey list that we provided, not only to you, but onto on the website for everybody to see.

We contacted all of those airports directly and spoke with them and verified with them are you charging this fee for everybody?

And they said yes.

I would also like to mention that, and and this was after we had posted our information that on March 1st of this year, the city of Van Nuys uh or the Van Nuys Airport, which is part of the Los Angeles World Airport system approved landing fees at Van Ny's Airport, which is a general aviation airport that's part of the Lawa system, and their their landing fees apply to all users of the airport, and that's just very recent.

Okay.

And I'll ask one more and then I'll let some others speak.

But how did we get to this figure of 10% drop in economic activity where it would still be a sustainable model for the landing fees?

I mean, we had one one commenter suggest 50% drop.

Um I don't know where that came from either.

And that 80% of the activity is flight schools.

So if 80% of the activity are flight schools, how did we get to a 10% number?

Was there a study done on this or mayor, Vice Mayor Summers, the answer to that question is this that no one knows at this point exactly what that number is going to be, and it you even if you talk to other airports, each airport has their own set of circumstances as far as you know what types of operations they have at their airports and what other airports might be nearby that people could go to.

We we were trying to be positive, think positive, because if we increase that, let's say we went up to a 30% reduction, at that point, we would have to increase the landing fees that we were recommending.

So we were trying to keep the fee as low as we could, but also factor in, you know, some type of loss.

Now, as we move forward, if council does approve the landing fees, obviously we are going to start collecting and seeing this data.

So a year from now, when it's time for or actually it would probably be sooner than that, in the next six months, we're going to begin looking at the fees and charges for next year, and we'll have a little better idea of what that loss number is, and we can adapt accordingly.

So, as a follow-up, did we ask other airports that have implemented a landing fee, what their reduction in activity was?

Mayor, uh Vice Mayor Summers, we did not specifically ask those airports because again, it it just depends upon that what that particular airport, what what their makeup is, what the proximity is to other airports and so forth.

So and uh so we we did not ask that question.

Okay, Mayor and Vice Mayor, if I could add, um there was an initial assessment with actually a higher percentage than 10 percent, um, and that results in a higher landing fee.

And and then the airport um look looked at a what I'll call more conservative number and dropped or optimistic number, you might say, and dropped it to 10 percent.

And by doing that, the landing fee came down.

Um, and so the idea was is to to keep that number um percentage low to also help keep the landing fee lower.

And so um the the initial estimate or guesstimate was as a higher percentage than that, but in order to make the fee lower, we're we've estimated the that number lower, but like Kareem pointed out, we'll we'll probably be back in a year potentially to see how we need to adjust that if that's necessary.

Thank you.

Ms.

Taylor, I saw you.

I just wanted to clarify.

So you were saying that we didn't do an apples to apples because that doesn't exist.

Is that right?

It's just not it's not really plausible.

Uh Mayor, um, council member Taylor, um in the industry, it's well known as if you see one airport, you've seen one airport because every airport is a little bit different.

Um, you know, we've seen discussions tonight about the fact that there are some airports that are subsidized or or given money from their municipalities and other airports like Falcon Field that are not.

So it's very hard to really get an apples to apples because every airport is just unique.

Yeah, and that's I would say further evidence as to why we also can't compare Falconfield to Mesa Gateway either.

That's just not a real estate comparison.

I would agree with that a hundred percent.

Okay.

Ms.

Duff.

Yes, I have uh just a few questions here.

I have uh some concerns, and maybe we discussed it last week, but I'd like to review it again that the nonprofit entities I've heard tonight, aviation explorers and young eagles, and I'm sure there might be some others.

The education part of taking youth up and exposing them to aviation as a career, those activities as a nonprofit would incur the landing fee.

Is that correct?

I know there's exemptions on some nonprofits.

I don't know that you're mayor, council member Duff, that is correct.

We tried to look at that initially to see if that would be a possibility, but we really had to narrow it down to what groups can you really tie back a service to the community that is basically an emergency type of service, such as um such as the medical flights and so forth.

And so there are a lot of absolutely wonderful groups, 501c3s that are performing wonderful things to get young people interested in aviation, and the airport has always heartily supported the efforts of those groups.

But because of the fact that we're gonna have to try to fine-tune a system to determine if someone is actually conducting one of those flights or if they're using it not to conduct one of those flights, but saying that they are that's very, very hard to track.

And I'm not saying that that you know I I don't mean to be disparaging in that regard, it's just that administratively it's very hard to keep track of that.

And and mayor, councilmember Duff, can we just add that would be again after the 10 flights that they would be the 10 landings that they are given as part of this, so it would only be after that.

Now I can understand that you have an owner of a plane who's doing it as a service to the community and to the youth.

How do differentiate their flights versus the ones in which they're doing the education nonprofit work?

Um I'm not that this is a side question and debating to ask it.

Um I heard and as far as being able to track the flights with the ADSB, so is that how it's going to be tracked as far as evaluating the landing fees?

Calculating the fees.

Mayor, council member Duff, uh thank you for asking that question.

There the initial approach would be if council approves this to hire a third-party vendor who would use the ADSB as is commonly used across the United States for tracking for tracking flights.

However, there is uh legislation not only federally but here within the state that um is recommending that airports not be allowed to use that type of system to generate revenue.

If that legislation were to pass, then we would work with our third-party vendor to use the more traditional approach, which has been used for many many years prior to the ADSB coming online, and that would be to set up and install a camera system that would be there to take photographs of the aircraft as they are landing.

Okay, okay, I understand.

And I know there was a a bunch of stakeholder meetings, I assume you met with the flight schools as well in those meetings.

No, um, Mayor, Councilmember Duff, we as the airport since December we held um 17 public meetings with folks.

Um I I should say 15 that were sponsored by the airport, and then two of them that were actually um we were asked to participate in a meeting with them.

Um but the airport itself, let's focus on the 15.

We, as the airport, we held 15 meetings since uh early December to uh first of all let the tenants and the aeronautical users, whether they're based at Falcon or if they live in Boston, everybody was welcome to participate and to be involved.

The first few meetings were held more as an educational tool, but we did of course give them the opportunity to ask questions if they had any or to follow up with us.

And then the last set of meetings that we held most recently was strictly a question and answer.

That was after we had posted everything that we posted on not only the airport's website, but on the City of Mesa website to show people what our methodology was, how we came up with this, how we got to where we are, and so forth.

So we and we've we've held numerous meetings with individual tenants and users as well.

Yeah, thank you for all your work.

I know it's been extensive.

Um in those discussions was there any discussion about doing an advisory board of for the airport.

I've heard it several times through emails and some comments tonight.

I've heard I've heard that being floated around, but um in the meetings that and and yes, there had were a few comments that were made during those meetings about the possibility of establishing an airport advisory board.

Okay, but nothing has really been decided about that.

It could my understanding is that would be a council decision.

Yeah, Mayor and Council, and I think the way that the city has viewed this is that you all um not an appointed person, the duly elected representatives of the city that stand before the voters um and and serve in the capacity that you do serve as uh the ultimate decision maker and board of directors for for the airport, and so um there's no better way to get um public input and and feedback than the way you all receive it through many different forms, including tonight, but also the numerous emails and phone calls and correspondence that you receive.

Uh there's um you know, having a an appointed board that uh is not as uh accountable to the public as you are as that's that's something that could be entertained, but I don't know anyone more accountable than than the seven of you towards the residents of this community.

Well, we can have discussions about that later, and I know it's not what we'll we're evaluating right now, but I will say you know, having stakeholders, um people in the industry on an advisory board, I think gives more expertise to um you know evaluating how we're structuring things and how we go forward.

Um we have these proposed fees, we know we're upside down if we don't adopt them.

Um I I in the position now that we could um I know we'll be voting shortly, but we uh adopt those fees, but take a hard look at how things are going, what's working, what's not, and being very efficient and accountable for how we're running the airport um and adjust, be have the freedom to adjust after a year.

We're gonna learn a lot about what we're doing, and maybe consider that advisory board.

I'll take the lead of council member go forth um on that since she's uh very ingrained into the community and and has Falconfield in her district.

But I think there's a hard analysis that we can do after a year and um revise and adjust as we go forward to make sure that we have an airport that is um financially sustainable and and fair to all the users.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Duff.

Mr.

Adams.

Well, thank you, Mayor.

Um just a just a few comments and maybe a question or two.

Um you know, one of the one of the scariest things I've ever gone through in my own business is whenever I have to contemplate raising prices.

Nobody likes it, and the first thing you always think about is how many how many customers or how much business will I lose.

It's a legitimate question, a legitimate concern, and we've talked about that.

Um I I see this uh as a complicated issue, but I also see it as as uh as a simple issue in these terms.

We have an airport enterprise that needs to be as self-sustaining as possible.

We've heard that FAA guidelines, we've heard comments that uh are our overall budgetary situation.

Um we're trying to uh reduce costs, we're trying to uh get that picture to look uh much better than it has, and um you know, this is uh the simple part of this for me is um I I agree that users should pay the cost.

There are many, many people in this city who will never set foot at Falcon, who will never use any of the facilities there and don't fly airplanes.

There are a great number of businesses though that are tied to the economic impact.

You know, it's interesting.

I I looked real quickly here.

We talked about 811 million dollars, but if you really drill down into it, um a lot of that's indirect, a lot of that's counted twice.

It's it it's it's not 811 million dollars directly from Falcon.

There's there's a a broad effect there, um at least according to CHET GPT.

If you let that do so, and it does some pretty good research.

So I I hear that, but uh you know you know, when we hear these numbers, we have to drill down into these numbers to really understand what they mean.

Um for certain, and I don't doubt, is we've uh we have a lot of deferred maintenance at Falcon Field.

Um and I ask a question of Ms.

Nystrom at a study session, uh, and and I'll ask it again, Corinne.

That deferred maintenance, is that starting to affect safety, in your opinion.

Mayor Council Member Adams, the answer to that is yes.

Okay, thank you.

And I agree with that.

Um I think that from what I've heard and what I've learned, I think we've done a uh a reasonable job of looking at comparable airports and comparable fees.

Uh they are not popular, understandably so.

Um listening to some comments earlier, it would lead one to believe that perhaps there weren't stakeholder meetings, that there wasn't input solicited and received, but it seems like there was.

Maybe there were some folks who didn't get notice of those meetings or couldn't participate, but to my knowledge, we have uh reached out and gotten stakeholder participation.

Um I heard a comment earlier planes are expensive.

Yes, they are.

Um I think that there will be some who will be greatly affected by some of the proposed fees, and there'll be others, hobbyists, if you will, who may not ever reach that 10 threshold.

Uh I think that I think our charge is to come up with a solution that's it was said earlier, balanced for all.

Uh this is one of these issues where uh, you know, is it fair to all concerned?

Well, it depends on your perspective, and it depends on what your objectives are.

No one's ever happy to accept a price that goes up.

But I heard from a commercial user earlier who feels that his impact, his company may be impacted at a greater rate than anybody else.

And he made some comments that seem to me were were very much in favor, understands the need for the airport to cover its costs.

Um I would ask um Mr.

Butler, do you feel that as a city that we have done our due diligence and we've drilled down and we've looked at these financial issues, we looked at other airports, and that uh the recommendations before us are made in good faith with facts in compliance with FAA regulations and so forth.

Mayor and council member Adams, I I do.

I really want to credit to staff to Corrine and her team at the airport, to um to to Jim and his team and and Jill serving as our outside counsel on this.

Um we have spent a lot of time meticulously looking at this, consulting FAA regulations, looking at the long-term stability of the airport.

And I think um, as been evidenced, sometimes it's it's hard.

You know, we unfortunately the seven of you on the dais have that hard um time, whether we're talking about this or other fees of having to keep track with inflationary costs to keep uh track with setting fees that reflect uh what the deferred maintenance um or the maintenance needs in the future of our facilities, whether it be an airport or another uh facility that we operate uh to to make sure that it's sustainable into the future.

And I think that that is something um we have to start doing that with Falcon, just like we are striving to do, as we talked about downstairs about some of the other uh software that we're getting to track our other deferred maintenance and and uh projects within the city to make sure that we're keeping track of that.

And so this is a very reasonable solution for um a to allow this enterprise fund to be self-sustaining, to do it in a fiscally responsible manner, and to do it in a way that's fully compliant with FAA regulations and the charge of the FAA that these airports should be self-sustaining or as nearly self-sustaining as possible.

And so that means getting that reinvestment from the users of the airport to make sure that we have infrastructure that is safe and reliable and user uh user-friendly for all uh airport tenants and guests that uh frequent to the airport.

Well, I appreciate that.

I one of my biggest concerns is if we don't address this deferred maintenance issues soon and in the manner prescribed, and I I have not heard a better uh solution presented.

Um that the ongoing effects will be uh mountingly deleterious to the city's interest, it will cost more exponentially as time goes on that that these uh deferred uh repairs and maintenance are not uh addressed, and we have an obligation to um to make this enterprise self-sustaining.

So I appreciate appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Okay, Miss Goforth, uh, before you start, I asked Ms.

Goforth to, since Falcon is in her district, that she would be the lead elected official over sight on this topic because I can tell you from years past being on city council, this is exactly why the council before did not want to discuss landing fees at Falconfield or any other increases because it would cause uh angst among everyone.

So I asked Ms.

Goforth to set up her team, and so we're gonna hear from her.

Thank you, Ms.

Gofort.

Thank you, Mary.

I appreciate you indulging me in allowing me to go last here.

I think most of the questions that have been raised are asked by um uh members of the public have been answered, but I just have a couple of follow-up questions before I get into my comments, and I know we're all uh getting a little bit tired, but I do have some um some comments to make here at the end.

Um there were a couple of questions um and concerns of transparency um that were raised.

And so I would just like to ask either Mr.

Smith or Ms.

Owens the the FAA requires us to put out certain information, certain documentation, notices, and financial information.

Um in your opinion, have we complied with those requirements by the FAA?

Yes, Councilmember go forth and counsel.

The under the when adopting new rates, the F the Department of Transportation through the FAA expect certain information to be made available to the aeronautical users in tandem with the consultations that are that have were taken place.

That information includes the historic financial information, cash flow, uh profit and loss, balance sheets, includes justification, traffic information, and planning and forecasting information.

That is everything that was posted on the city website and the city and the airport website made available in advance of the latter half of the consultations.

Great.

Thank you.

Um Jim, did you have anything to add?

Mayor and council, there's been a whole team that's been working on this to ensure that the compliance with what you just asked.

And so we also have an in-house attorney that's been looking at it along with Jill to ensure that we did comply with the financial disclosure requirements.

Great, thank you.

Um Corinne, if you could just confirm, you know, it's been raised that maybe that there may be other uh fee structures that could or should be um evaluated.

Did we look at other fee structures?

You went in uh in response to vice mayor's question about the cost centers, and you explained the different cost centers, and that we have um increased fees in in certain areas of the other cost centers with the hangar and the tie-down fee.

So we have used some other of those fee suggestions, but can you just confirm that we've looked at multiple um fee structures and that and why we came to the conclusion that this one would was the one that uh was best to ultimately uh use in this situation.

Yes, thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Goforth.

We did look at several other options, and these were options that uh are being used at other airports.

Again, you can't uh just identify one airport and say that it applies to everybody, but we did want to see what other airports were doing.

Some of those other airports are charging a business fee that they would charge to every uh business on the airport on an annual basis.

We have uh we came across one airport that, as far as the flight schools, just the flight schools, they are charging the flight school uh a flat dollar amount um per flight hour that they are in the air, whether they are flying in the pattern or whether they're flying somewhere else.

Um the challenge with those other these other options, and then of course there's the fuel flowage fee and adjusting the fuel flowage fee accordingly.

The challenge that we've run into is that because of the increase in costs of maintaining the airfield cost center, and the majority of that is directly related to maintaining the pavement.

We none of those other sources of revenue were going to get us where we needed to be because it costs about uh our numbers show that it costs about 2.4 million dollars a year for us just to operate the airfield cost center.

The fuel flowage fees and some of the other smaller fees that we collect right now only bring in about $374,000 a year, so there's about a $2 million shortfall there.

If you are charging businesses a business fee, it would have to be an exorbitant amount to get the $2 million that you need.

And then what would happen is now you are charging your based tenants a fee, but the none of the itinerants are being charged that fee.

And so, in an effort to try to create equity across the board as to whether you are an itinerant aeronautical user or if you're based at the airport, the really the only way that we could get to cover that two million dollar shortfall was to look at a landing fee.

Thank you.

Um I mentioned, and you mentioned the cost center structure, fee structure or financial structure for the airport.

Is that something that the FAA supports?

Is that something that they even address?

Mayor Council Member GoForth, yes.

Uh the FAA does support airports using the cost center approach, and there are a number of airports across the United States that use that approach.

And it allows each it allows each cost center to cover the costs of that particular area as you've done.

Okay.

Mayor Councilmember Goforth, that is correct.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Um it was also raised um how the landings apply, and they whether they apply to an individual, a pilot, a company, or a tail number or plane.

Can you just reiterate or talk about that?

How how is it applied?

Yes, Mayor, council member go forth.

The uh agreement that we would ultimately have with a third-party vendor would set up the system so that it would tie back directly to the end number of the aircraft.

Okay.

So it's by aircraft.

No.

It's the end number of the aircraft.

So each go ahead, sorry.

And who the owner of that aircraft is.

Okay.

So each in number, each town in number gets 10 credits towards the landing fee.

Mayor, councilmember Goreforth, the answer to that is yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Um that's based aircraft.

That is all aircraft.

All aircraft are itinerant.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate everybody's questions, everybody's comments tonight.

Um, and I want to thank everyone who's taken the time to engage on this issue.

Residents, pilots, airport tenants, aviation organizations, and staff.

The level of participation shows how important Falcon Field is to our community.

I want to start by being very clear about what this decision is and what it is not.

This is not about regulating flight schools or addressing noise through fees.

This is about ensuring that Falcon Field can continue to operate safely and remain financially sustainable.

For years, the airport has balanced its budget budget by relying on a one-time land sale and by deferring needed maintenance and capital improvements.

That approach has run its course.

We are now facing a structural gap, particularly in the airfield, which we've heard, where annual costs exceed dedicated revenues by more than two million dollars.

While this gap has developed over time, it accelerated after 2020 as inflation drove up costs, especially pavement, which is why in early 2024, the airport moved to a cost center approach, an approach as we've heard that the FAA supports.

In fact, FAA grant assurances require airports like Falcon Field to be as financially self-sustaining as possible, which this proposal is intended to achieve.

And while we do not receive, while we do receive federal and state grants for certain airfield capital improvement projects, these funds do not cover ongoing maintenance.

We are seeing the consequences of deferring investment.

Pavement conditions are declining, and the longer we wait, the more expensive those repairs become.

And to be clear, as we've heard, staff has already reduced project projects and is currently taking a band-aid approach to maintenance just to stretch limited dollars.

That's not a long-term solution.

There has been discussion about why Falcon Field cannot be funded like other airports.

It's important to understand, again, as we've heard, that Mesa Gateway is not owned solely or controlled by the City of Mesa.

It is governed by the gate Mesa Gateway Airport Authority, a multi-jurisdictional authority that includes other cities and a tribal nation.

Economic activity generated by an asset, whether it's Falcon or any other major facility, flows into the city's general revenues and supports citywide services like public safety, parks, and infrastructure.

We do not isolate and redirect those indirect revenues back to a single facility.

There have also been claims that this proposal is not compliant with federal requirements or the city has not been transparent.

I do not agree with that characterization.

In response to feedback from aeronautical users and stakeholders, the proposal was adjusted to increase the number of free landings from five to 10 for Falcon Field based aircraft.

As we heard, just so I can clarify, it is all aircraft landings.

That is correct.

Okay.

At this point, we have had a thorough and deliberate process that included input from aeronautical users and stakeholders, and I do not believe additional delay will change the underlying facts or improve the outcome.

And delaying action will not improve the situation.

It will only increase costs and further decrayed airport pavement and cut back on airport capital improvement projects.

Falconfield is a valuable economic asset, and we want it to remain that way.

But long-term requests, success requires a sustainable model where the costs of operating and maintaining the airport are fair and reasonable and shared by its users.

I will not support any option where Mesa taxpayers broadly subsidize the airport.

This is not an easy decision, but it is the responsible one.

I appreciate the work of staff and the many aeronautical users and stakeholders who participated in this process, and for those reasons, I will be supporting this item.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Goldforth.

Any other questions from council?

If not, I will entertain a motion.

The agenda item is to approve modifying the fees and charges for Falcon Field 26-0280.

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.

Thank you, Miss Goldforth.

Please cast your vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Don't even look out for the bullets.

Everyone, we're gonna get started here in just a minute or two.

Please.

This one's your stuff.

Okay, everyone, welcome back.

Uh, we're gonna excuse Mr.

Adams, he's uh leaving for a business trip at all times of the evening.

All right.

With that, uh Miss Mosley, I have item four A, four C, four D, five B- and seven C of consent.

Correct.

Our first speaker on 4A is Reggie Braun.

Reggie to come forward, please.

I think you left.

That's the use of cooperative contract for purchase of emergency communications for a 911 system.

Mayor.

Okay.

Well, all right.

Um, if let's go to 4C.

I was just gonna say if he left, he's on several of these, so I don't know if you can vote on all of them at one time then because if there's no speakers.

No, let's vote on them.

So let's just won't you call them individually?

Individually, okay.

Uh council, I'll ask for a motion to approve item four A, which is 2600 two six six, use of cooperative contract for purchase of energy communications and tech.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Second by Ms.

Reddy, please cast your vote.

Oh, I have to mark, I'm sorry, I didn't mark council member Adams leaving, but we can call it.

He's Pardon?

We have to call that he's absent for this vote.

I have to change him in the system for the next time around.

Unless you want to redo it.

Let's redo it.

Let me fix council member Adams on that desk since he's left.

I just have to mark him absent, is all I mean.

No, he's not.

All right.

Do you need a verbal for you?

No, you can go ahead and start your vote.

You can redo the motion and the vote, please.

And then motion still exists.

Please cast your vote.

Motion passes unanimously with Mr.

Adams present.

Let's move to item 4C.

Is there a motion to approve item 4C of three-year use, three year use of a cooperative term contract with seven year, one year renewal options.

26-00269.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Mr.

Reddy, please cast your vote.

Motion passes with Mr.

Adams present.

Next we'll move over to 4D.

Adams absent.

What did I say?

Present.

Oh, he wasn't present.

Item four D, we have two speakers.

I don't know if I'll say your name correctly.

Lumar isabeth Garza, or if you're here, uh four D is uh our North Higley lift station Thomas Rhodes Sewer Project.

Louis More is a Betty Garza, homeless but not hapless.

I had you pull um, and I requested to pull four D because it seems to be tied in with seven C, and I'm wondering why one was put under the consent as four D and 7C was not.

Um but my question is under you you're gonna have uh the project service area of approximately 350 acres in size, includes American Leadership Academy, Sunshine Acres, Amazon, Longbow Longbow Golf Golf Club, home to suites, longbow marketplace, ascend at Longbow High Point, as well as industrial uses in undeveloped land.

And you need to increase capacity as well as address un underserved areas and deteriorating infrastructure.

I'm wondering if any of this, if you could answer between 4C and 7, or 4D and 7C, what was going to be the water usage?

Because it sounds to me like you've got the data center issue here.

And basically you're awarding 284,000 for pre-construction services.

And does that tie in, and in fact, does that tie in with 7C?

I I can't tell what I got.

I I do appreciate the three minutes because in Maricopa County, it is a pitiful two minutes, and on top of that, they interrupt the entire time.

Um let me see what else we got.

Does this include that um on 4D?

Will it include recirculated water for the residents to drink?

Because we had to have the we had that problem in Maricopa County where we ended up calling it shit water.

But thank you.

If you could um tie those in two together, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, you're welcome.

So item 4D is consideration of a lift station for future growth in that area.

And Mr.

City Manager, you want to do that.

There is no connection between item 4D and item 7C.

And we'll just note as was mentioned downstairs, item 4D is paid for by capacity fees.

So it is uh an issue again of of growth in that area paying for growth.

Yeah.

And this is just the uh CMR CMAR for contraction uh contractors that will come for the pre-construction services.

With that, we have a second spokesperson, Nathan Allen.

Are you still here, Nathan?

Okay.

You have three minutes, Nathan.

This uh this uh agenda item, you know, kind of concerns me because over the past uh at least what three plus years on one end through social media, you're telling us to conserve water on the other end.

Um, between this and the water park on Power Road and Elliott, among others, the data centers, the golf courses.

You're approving a lot of water intensive projects during a water crisis, and yet you're asking the public at the same time out at the other side of your mouth to uh conserve water.

You can't do both.

You either have to have one or the other.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I will say we can do both.

That's why we're doing this.

Uh do we have spokesperson engineering?

Do we have engineering water department?

Okay, Lance, and maybe Joe, you can come up and help him answer a little bit of the engineering and water component.

Thank you.

So we interdite identify yourselves so he knows.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Uh Lance Webb, city engineer with the City of Mesa.

And Joe Judice, Water Resources Director with City of Mesa.

Uh, so to touch on that question that was asked, uh, this project is specifically just for wastewater, the collection of wastewater in an area uh north northeast uh Mesa.

Um the developments that are are noted in there are just notable developments that currently are either served one way or another.

Uh one that is not served in that area and others north of the freeway currently don't have an option.

And so this this is the ability to work with the contractor to engage uh and start that effort for construction.

And then on the water part of it?

Yeah, related to water.

Again, this is a particularly a sewer lift station project, so this is intended to be able to provide sewer capacity, the ability to remove wastewater from any of the properties in this area.

It's both um uh a little bit to serve some undeveloped land and allow development to happen, but also just to serve the capacity that already exists in that area that's overwhelmed.

Are most of the parcels in that area on septic anyway, or are they some served by sewer today?

Yeah, so mayor, there's uh the number of uh developments uh and and areas just north of the 202, excepting uh the ALA school is currently served primarily by septic.

We're anticipated that way.

All right.

And and so notable when we collect the wastewater and treat it, what do we do with it, Joe?

Yeah, with the collected wastewater, we are treating that um a lot of the effluent now with our new exchange with the Hill River Indian community.

We're delivering that to them so they can irrigate, and in exchange, they're giving us water as a resource through the Central Arizona project that we're able to deliver to our water customers.

Okay.

So Nathan, to your point, we're trading water for water, we're collecting that water and giving it to the Heela River Indian community for their priority water so that we can meet our water demands in our city.

Okay.

All right, gentlemen, any questions?

I was just gonna say one thing if I could, Mayor.

Uh add on to what um these gentlemen have said about the parcels north of the 202, are either on septic or are vacant and undeveloped, and they're undeveloped because there isn't the capacity for the wastewater um and the sewer uh system.

So yes, there's a few on septic, but there's quite a bit of uh greenfield land up there just waiting for this infrastructure to go in.

Thanks.

And I just wanted to say, I just want to remind everyone, and Nathan, this is for you too.

We're not this is not using drinking water.

This is just collecting wastewater.

That's it's like a sump pump.

You know, we're just pulling it up and pushing it down downhill.

This is not us actually drilling out for more water out of our wells or aquifers.

So just to be very clear, it's not using drinkable water that we're asking to do.

We're just wastewater, sewage water.

That's it.

Collecting it and moving it down the line.

Okay, thank you, gentlemen.

Uh council, if there's nothing else, I'll entertain a motion to approve item 4D, 26-0293, North Higley lift station.

Thank you, Ms.

Gofort.

Thank you, Mr.

Riddy.

Please cast your vote.

Motion passes with Mr.

Adams absent.

Next is item 5B.

Uh Reggie Braun is not here.

So council entertain a motion to approve item 5B.

Thank you, Mr.

Reddy.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Please cast your vote.

Motion passes with Mr.

Adams absent.

Next we'll move over.

I'm going to go to item 7C first.

Uh it's off for consideration.

Uh Miss Lumar Zibeth Garza, you're up again.

This is approving authorized same matter to a First Amendment and a DA with R and S development group.

Louie Mar and Zabetti Garza, homeless not hapless.

Um again, tying back to that 4D.

Was this an agreement?

Um that I see that you have uh it's a first amendment, so you already have the agreement.

You did not publish it online as to what the agreement um was all about and what is this first amendment that you're talking about, and does it relate to 4D?

Because it seems to have the same um names of the people involved with this uh First Amendment development group agreement.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Um Mr.

Smith.

Mayor and council, they're not those two items are not related.

Um the the original the original agreement would have gone to council, would have been provided to you at that time.

Um this is an amendment as I remember this um, and I didn't do this particular agreement, is to to allow for um I think this was the self-storage um that allows them to expand into another phase, and that's what this is allowing them to do.

Is the applicant here for this item?

Uh Mr.

Anderson.

Wow.

Mayor Giddy, you want to can you give some reflection on this?

I should I'd be happy to uh Reese Anderson with Pew and Lake 1744 South Alvista.

Thank you for your time this evening.

Let me tell you quickly what this is and what it's not.

This is an existing RV and boat storage facilities approved years ago.

It had an existing development agreement for that.

Uh under that existing development agreement, we've actually pulled the permit to start phase one.

We've even paid the in-loo sewer fees that will provide for when the sewer line comes through, we'll connect to it.

Um, what happened here is that ADOT came and offered us, and if you look at your presentations from the staff, you can see a very small trapezoidal piece at the bottom.

It's four acres.

That got added to the existing 10.

So this evening, what's before you is simply adding the four acres that no one else can use to the existing 10 acres that's been approved and permitted.

And so the expansion of the council use permit, the the master site plan changing, the amendment to the DA, the minor GPA, all those things are happening because we acquired four additional acres from ADOT and included in the site plan.

Otherwise, it couldn't be used with anyone else.

So that's it in a nutshell.

I'm happy to go into more detail, answer more questions.

It's been a long evening.

I don't think you want me to, but I'm happy to.

Okay.

Any questions from council, Ms.

Gofor?

I do have a question.

Um, and I for you or for Mary.

Uh my question is about your public outreach.

So originally this was rezoned in 2021, and you did public outreach at that point.

Did you go back and do any recently?

Because the there's the area has changed.

There's even a neighborhood that didn't exist in 2021.

So that's my question.

Was there additional public outreach for this new phase?

I'm happy to share some thoughts, Councilman.

Unless Mary wants to go first.

Well, let Mary answer this first.

I just kind of a yes or no, and then you can give me your thoughts.

Thank you.

Uh so mayor, council member go forth.

There was no additional neighborhood meeting, but there was notification sent to um those properties with it within a thousand feet of the uh project site.

Um there were 41 properties within that vicinity, so they did receive notice about the project, but there was not an additional uh neighborhood meeting at that point.

Um, just for clarification for the rest of the council, the neighborhood meetings aren't necessarily in the zoning code.

They're more of a policy that we encourage our applicants to go out and meet with the neighbors and staff attend those meetings so that we can get that feedback from the the uh applicant.

So I just wanted to make that uh that clarifying statement.

Go ahead.

Nothing to add other than that the very first meeting we had, nobody showed up and we did send others.

Haven't heard a peep from anybody.

Well, as I said, there's there's a a neighborhood that didn't exist back then.

Sure.

And you're are you talking about this recent notification?

No, no, just to give you a give it until it's been raised by a resident to me that they're that they didn't have the opportunity to see um any any new information, and so um that that's my question.

It should public outreach have been done again more so than just the notice.

So mayor council member go forth.

As I as I mentioned, it's not a code requirement to do the outreach.

We do encourage applicants to you know do that outreach, especially when it hasn't been done for several years, but there is no there is no requirement for that.

I guess in this case, since there are residents that were not there in 2021, I would like to see them have the opportunity to see um the plans and ask questions.

Can I ask that we take this off the agenda and put and and give them that time and put it back on for I don't know, Mr.

Butler, the next council meeting?

Is this neighborhood within a thousand feet?

So I I don't know the answer to the question, and and I and I'll just let's assume that it is.

And let me just give you my best thought on why the time delay may not matter.

Okay.

If I could, council member go forth.

Which is again, if you look at the picture, and I'm gonna draw on there with my hands, I have a bad habit at that.

But remember that the project faces Thomas Road now, Higley on its west side, the expansion area is going to the south.

So, with the utmost of respect, even if the case tonight was denied and didn't go forward, the projects that's there is vested and under construction now.

I agree with you.

But there have been changes.

You you all are making changes based on the extension, and the the community members haven't had an opportunity to see those changes.

I agree.

I I agree with you.

Those changes realistically are improvements to landscaping on the visible part.

Right.

But as far as visible parts to the South, I just don't I I'm happy.

I mean, you have the authority to do that, and we respect that.

But I substantively, I don't know that it would make a difference, but I'm always happy to talk to anybody anytime anyway.

Okay, great.

I appreciate that.

That that's what I would uh ask if the council to do if we could.

And mayor and council, you you could continue it to the it's the April 6th is the next council meeting for a date certain.

Okay, um, you would want to continue 7A, 7B, and 7C, all three are sort of a pack, you know, they go together.

So you need to continue all three.

Can I make do I make a motion?

What do you anybody have any comments?

I think the mayor is a good question.

Well, we'll just we'll just have to do a continuance, yeah.

So I don't need to make a motion.

Yeah, you have to make a motion, yes, please.

Okay, so I I move to continue 7A, 7B, and 7C.

To April April 6th.

What's the date on it?

April 6th.

With your permission there?

Uh I don't have it.

Let me get a second and then I'll have a discussion if there's a second up there.

Second.

Scott, second meeting.

We have a second.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Go ahead, Mr.

So I'm gonna argue against myself here, Councilman Goforth.

I just wonder if April 6th is the right date.

And here's why.

And so I'm arguing against myself.

But in to follow the spirit of what you're asking us to do, I need to be able to get the notices together, which we can do in one or two days, but then I need about two weeks to get it together.

So if I could quickly look at a calendar to see could I when can I hold a neighborhood meeting?

Right, and then get it back to Mary.

So I'm I'm nervous that April 6th might be too quick, and you're gonna be surprised to hear something that from me.

But I think that's the honest approach.

I appreciate that.

And mayor and council member go forth, I was gonna say the same thing.

I think April 6th is probably too too quick.

Okay, thank you.

I know our client would love quicker, but honestly, I just want to be respectful to the process you're asking me to do.

Thank you.

April 20th.

April 20th.

All right, so the motion's for April 20th.

Yes.

I'll take a seat now.

As the applicant, are you okay with that?

Well, um, I I've expressed our preference, Mayor, and we really would well.

I'd like to know why why this rose up so fast.

I don't know either.

I don't I wasn't aware of it until I walked in the seat.

I was just made aware by a resident.

By one resident.

Yes.

I don't know how many they represent they've talked to, but the one one resident notified me.

No, you can make comments.

And without microphones, okay.

I think you'd have to use the microphone.

Uh mayor, that no nobody's motion has showed up on the screen yet either.

Okay.

Well, anyway, I'll I'll just speak loudly.

Okay.

Well, it it hadn't it wasn't an option to speak.

Anyway, if you look at the map in the presentation.

It is locked in there, as no exposure.

I think delaying it is only costing the applicant money to wait a month for someone to review it.

I I just don't know.

I think it's costing money with uh without a different outcome.

As I said though, the Mary, you correct me, please confirm this.

The outer perimeter has had some changes.

Mayor, council member go for it.

That's that's correct.

There's some some improvements have been made with signage and landscaping and those types of things from the original plan.

And I think that's the major concern, right?

Is for what that outer perimeter, um, what kind of improvements are on the outer perimeter.

This is a zoning concern to the resident.

Yes.

And those have been changed since the expansion.

So are the improvements within the standards that we have in as a city?

So, Mayor, if it's okay, I'm gonna ask Evan to come up because he can speak to the details of those those uh improvements that are being made on the site.

Uh thank you, Mayor, council members.

So, yes, there have been some changes between phase one and phase two.

As everybody has pointed out, um, phase one is on the um north, the Thomas facing side.

Let me pull up an aerial real quick.

So some of the there were a couple changes that that have happened.

Um, that's not good.

Does it show up?

I can talk you through it.

So there have been a couple changes.

Um two two big ones.

There have been some increased landscaping included along Thomas Road.

And then the development agreement is is an amendment to the the first development agreement.

In this development agreement, we're actually restricting uses as well to better tailor any sort of future development to the site.

So we're restricting uh multifamily development, um, restaurants with drive-throughs, data centers.

There's a list of things in item 7C, the development agreement that we are restricting.

So there hasn't been any functional changes on the site.

It's always been bowed in RV storage.

On the southern portion of the site, they're picking up some additional stalls for Bowden RV storage, and they're enhancing the landscaping along Thomas Road.

Is there screen for that?

I mean, I mean, is the landscape used for screening, or is there some other additional and the mayor?

There are landscaping requirements in our code.

It's a certain number of trees and shrubs per every 100 feet.

So they're meeting the code requirements, but they're also going above that, and they're they're doing it in an enhanced manner that provides some additional interest along Thomas Road.

So they're going above what is required and they're doing it in a way to to better beautify the site.

Is there staff approval for this?

Uh staff is recommending approval and the planning and zoning board also recommended approval uh five to zero.

Okay.

Well, we have six of us left.

Uh we can see where we end.

I'm in favor of moving forward and combining 7A, B, and C.

That's my uh first impression.

If we have uh P and C approval, everything else, staff approval.

Uh I'm sorry that one person may not have gotten the information they needed.

Uh I've heard from the applicant.

So there and and it seems like it's a a very a four-acre piece that's pushed up into the uh is that Thomas Road.

Uh pardon?

Or or Higley.

Over to Higley.

You want me to ask you?

Sure.

So if if um if you're looking at the same picture on your screen that I am, which is the landscape plan, the gray shaded area is phase one.

That's what's approved today, and the construction permits have been issued.

The white area is phase two, and that's actually pushed up against an A-Ot drainage channel and the off-ramp for Higgly Road.

So it's not adjacent to any residential neighborhoods there at all.

Okay, so how far is the closest neighborhood?

To the north and other and and I think they're just the holdover homes that are in the RS 90.

Otherwise, you've got to go all the way south across the freeway.

And so again, we'll defer to whatever the council decides.

Um, but you know, really here that I mean the the I think Evan said it best.

The landscaping that's there and approved today complies with code.

Well, we've done here by adding the four acres.

We've actually enhanced it and made it better, including some monument and landscaping along the corner that wasn't there better in the previous case.

So in my opinion, what you're getting today with this case is actually better than what's approved.

And I think those are positive things.

Reza, uh Mary, is there enhanced landscaping on the west side as well?

Or enhance um along Hagley, Councilmember Goforth.

I'll ask Evan to answer that question, but I will say that the close that residential neighborhood is about 1300 feet away.

So I do I did want to clarify that.

And I think you did say Reese, the closest is south of the 202.

It's not, it's east on Thomas.

Yes, east on Thomas.

Well, it's about 1300.

Correcting me, I'm just in my mind's eye, everything to the east is really empty or commercial.

I'm trying to think of I'll look it up, but I it's not that close though.

I mean, not to argue with you.

1300 feet.

Sure, but that's more than the thousand that we would notify.

They they they feel like it's pretty close.

Well, I respect everyone's thoughts on it.

I'm just suggesting to everyone that the changes that are happening are actually positive.

I appreciate that.

Evan, if you could just talk to the uh on the west side, you mentioned the north side, can you uh thank you, Mayor?

Council member go forth.

Um so the this is a unique property, though the west side of the property line is is kind of right here.

Um so they are asking for a deviation to reduce that to five feet.

They're they're they're planting that area, but in addition to this, they also need to plant the adjacent right-of-way.

All of this area between their property.

I'm sorry.

Oh, sorry.

Pointing at things, and nobody can see you.

Um so this area here is their property line.

There's five feet of landscaping, which is a uh PAD deviation.

Um, in addition to that, they also have to plant the right of way.

This whole area is City of Mesa right of way.

So as part of this project, they need to plant the the portions on Thomas and then the portions on Higley adjacent to their property in in city right of way.

Appreciate it, Evan.

And and for everybody, I I have worked with the applicant to to make these enhancements.

My point is just to give um the surrounding residents a little bit more uh time to review it and ask questions.

Um I don't know, you know, we can just go ahead and take a vote.

That's how it works.

But I have a motion on, or do we how do you want to do it, Jim?

We're gonna do a motion.

You have a second.

Did you record that?

Is it was this a motion?

For continuance or for approval?

Okay.

I heard council member go forth make a motion first.

I didn't hear a second, and nothing showed up on the screen.

The second speech.

And then April 20th, same thing.

So what would you like?

Well, you can tell me the original motion so we can write it down because we didn't we didn't it didn't show up, so I don't know if the machine is tired.

It was a voice motion.

But if there was a second, I have some of the vice mayor did the second.

But there was no vote for the first one.

Okay, and then April 20th was our first and the second.

That would be that's the ask, yes.

That's the motion.

That's the motion currently for continuance till April 20th.

Okay, you the machine should work.

It looks like it's working if you want to make your first and your second.

So this would council, this would be a continuance till April 20th, correct?

All right.

All right, perfect.

And now you can well, we have a tie here.

Motion fails.

Um motion fails, right?

Yes.

Okay.

So with that, we'll go back to the original, which is is there a motion to approve items 7A, B, and C for a minor general plan amendment, rezoning and site approval as specified.

So motion by Miss Duff, second by Miss Saretti, please cast your vote.

Okay.

Motion passes.

Thank you, everyone.

All right.

Thank you, Miss Goforth for your advocacy.

Well and well good.

All right, with that, I think uh we've covered all the items off the agenda of consent.

Okay.

With that, we'll move over to items from citizen present.

Mr.

Braun is gone, so I have a Mr.

Smithson, Jason Smithson.

Following Jason is a Kevin Tutu.

Is that the right word?

Jason, you have three minutes.

Mr.

Mayor, Council members, I'm here today to propose a proactive step for the city of Mesa that addresses a real and severely underreported public safety issue, which is drink spiking.

This isn't a hypothetical problem.

It's difficult to detect, and it is rarely reported.

In fact, 91% goes unreported.

A focus group was held at ASU campus, and out of 180 students, 31% reported they have been a victim of drink spiking.

Tempe has already passed an ordinance, but as Mesa looks at this issue, we have an opportunity not just to follow, but to lead.

What I'm proposing is a drink spiking prevention and put patron safety ordinance that focuses on three things tools, awareness, and accountability.

First, let's look at tools.

This ordinance would require establishments that serve alcohol late into the evening to carry drink spiking detection kits and make them available to patrons.

These kits are not perfect, and we should be honest about that.

They don't detect every substance and they shouldn't be treated as a guarantee of safety, but they do provide an added layer.

They empower individuals, and just as importantly, they create a visible deterrent.

Second awareness.

The ordinance would require clear signage so patrons know these tools are available and understand how to report the concerns.

Because one of the biggest challenges with drink spiking isn't just prevention, it's that people do not come forward.

This also would include a good Samaritan provision, ensuring that someone who reports a suspected incident, especially someone underage, is not punished for doing the right thing in that moment.

And finally, accountability, and this is where Mesa can lead.

This proposal includes staff awareness requirements so that when a situation arises, there is someone trained to respond appropriately.

Because prevention doesn't just happen with a test strip.

It happens when someone recognizes a problem early and takes it seriously.

It also includes data data tracking and a one-year review.

If Mesa is to implement something like this, we should know whether it's working.

We should measure it, evaluate, and adjust if needed.

Now I want to be clear about something.

This ordinance is not a solution but a step.

If we present it as an anything more, we risk creating a false sense of security.

But if we treat it as part of a broader approach to safety, it can make a real difference.

This proposal is practical, it's measured, and it acknowledges both the urgency of the issue and the limits of the tools we're using to address it.

I'll be sending the council detailed information, including statistics, and I ask that you give this serious consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Smithson.

Kevin Titu.

Hope I said the last name fairly close.

Thank you, Kevin.

You have three minutes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Kevin Teichu, and I'm a resident of Mesa for the last 25 years.

I'm an immigrant and I'm also a naturalized U.S.

citizen.

I was born in Canada, and it took me 24 years to become an American citizen.

I went through the legal process, I filled out the paperwork, I waited, I worried, and like many immigrants, I carried the stress and uncertainty that comes with trying to build a life in a country that you love, but you're not yet fully part of.

So when I hear people say that immigrants should wait in line, I understand that perspective.

I did wait in line.

But I also understand something else.

Not everyone has the same path, not everyone has the same circumstances, and not everyone has the same luxury and clearer pathway to citizenship.

Recently, I heard someone stand up here and say that people who came here illegally should simply go home, and that their presence disrespects those who follow the rules.

I see it differently, and that's why I oppose 287G.

The people we're talking about are human beings.

They have families, they have children in our schools, they work jobs, they contribute to our communities, and just like every immigrant before them, they came here with one simple reason, and that was for a better life.

The same dream that brought me here and the same dream that built this country.

Their neighbors, their workers, their parents, and their children.

And while immigration law is complicated and deserves thoughtful policy and discussions, basic human dignity should never be complicated.

Because if we're being honest, one of the very first lessons most of us were ever taught long before policy or politics was simple.

It was to be kind.

It was to not bully and treat people with respect.

Yet today we're seeing families separated, people held in detention for extended periods in conditions that many would not consider humane.

We're seeing fear in communities, fear of being taken, fear of being separated from their children, and fear of simply le living everyday life.

We can have disagreements about policy, and we can debate enforcement, but we should never lose sight of the fact that the people that that were affected by these policies are human beings and deserve to be treated with respect.

Mesa's a diverse city.

It's empathy and understanding.

And it's remembering the basic lessons that our parents taught us as children.

Lessons about kindness, respect, and others' dignity.

And those were the right lessons then and the right lessons now.

And that's why I oppose 287G.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Kevin.

Uh well, Miss Mosley, do we have anything else?

Any others?

We have other blue cards for this item.

If you, since Reggie wasn't here, do you want to call a third person?

Or I have 11.

You you do?

Yes.

All right, let's try one more.

But I think David Winstanley, I don't see him in the audience any longer.

Oh, there you are.

He was next in line.

Okay, he'll be our last speaker.

I won't keep you long, three minutes.

Sorry, I couldn't resist it.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and staff.

My name is David Winstanley.

You all know me.

Um, my first rhetorical question since you can't answer, is how many, how much did each of you on the council pay toward building the Eastmark Great Park?

Answer, with the exception of the vice mayor, you paid zero, nothing.

That is because the Eastmark Great Part was funded by a CFD, community facility district, in which the local property taxes are used for local construction.

Compare that to Red Mountain or Dobson Ranch, which were paid for by all Mesa residents through citywide bonds.

I will be back later this year, actually in a few months, uh, to talk to the about the East Mark CFDs on May 14th to ask you to stop buying any further bonds.

Details to be provided at that time.

But tonight I'm trying to make a very different point.

I also want to remind you that back in November you approved another localized taxing district, the so-called Palo District or Palo District, to redevelop the old Fiesta Mall.

And I understand there is a downtown taxing district, but I could not find details about it on the website.

Why am I talking to you about taxing districts?

Because at a previous city council meeting, there was significant parochial arguments between folks who wanted to urbanize West Mesa and downtown, and those who did not wish to pay for that.

I was one of the latter.

And parochially, I live in suburban district six.

I understand that we all live in Mesa, and that we need to find some open and honest discussions about our differing visions for the future of Mesa.

I am not aware of any reasonable economic study that purports that a city must grow to stay alive, and if it is landlocked, it must grow up.

That is vertically.

Former Mayor Giles repeated this hypothesis often, but I know of no supporting data for it.

What I am suggesting is that if folks in districts three and four want urban amenities, such as 95% subsidized transit, they pay for it themselves using such taxing districts.

By the way, paying 95% of the transit with taxes, whether Prop 479 or Mesa City taxes is not a subsidy, it's welfare.

Transit-oriented development was removed from the agenda in January, but perhaps we needed to have that discussion to come to a more common vision for our city.

I would like to continue this discussion, in particular, the concept of using local taxing districts with local representation to pay for very local amenities, but I do not know of a format or a venue to do so.

So I welcome your input individually at your convenience.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Uh council, that's all we have.

I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Is there a motion?

Thank you, Ms.

Taylor.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, we're done.

Thank you.

Have a great evening.

What's left of it?