Welcome to the Mesa City Council study session for November 6, 2025.

Councilmember Duff will be joining us later.

Otherwise, all council members are present.

So with that, we'll begin with a presentation on what water and wastewater capacity fees, recommended utility rate adjustments.

So that's one A.

Ryan and Chris.

All right, good morning, Mayor and Council.

We just wanted to give a a brief update uh on the capacity fee and the utility rates before they are uh introduced on uh November 17th.

So my name is Brian Richel.

I'm the Office of Management and Budget Director, and along with me uh who's gonna talk about the capacity fees is Chris Hassart, who is the water resources director.

And what we'll do is we'll start off with the uh water and wastewater capacity fee update.

Okay, thanks, Brian.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor Council.

Um, so as Brian mentioned, I want to give a quick overview on the capacity fee.

We've talked about this in in great detail already um on various occasions, but there's a couple updates we want to bring forth to you this morning.

Um first a quick overview um of of why we developed this fee.

Um it's to really raise 400 million dollars over the next decade or so, and this is to fund all growth, water and wastewater growth infrastructure that's needed.

Uh as we've talked about before, um, as we stand today, all of our systems are sized appropriately for our existing customer base.

So if we weren't expanding um anymore in the city, if we weren't developing any vacant parcels, we wouldn't have the need to build any new pipelines, expand plants, anything like that.

So this 400 million dollars uh developed through our integrated master plan is really focused on new infrastructure for for growth.

Um also again, this is a one-time charge.

So as a new development comes in, it would pay a one-time charge, which is the capacity fee, and it would be for their portion of this future growth.

So what we really want to get into today is some of the developments we've had over the last several weeks, and it's really outreach to the development community, those stakeholders, and having in-depth discussions with them, um, answering their questions and so forth.

So you can see from these bullets, this is a representation of the different development community representative stakeholders that we met with.

We had a couple in-person meetings.

Um, there was also other communications.

But we what we talked about is really the intent of the fee with them.

We went over in detail the methodology we use for the capacity fee, and then of course, we answered any questions uh in order to try to address their concerns.

So with that.

So in those discussions, it it really became apparent that the development community stakeholders, they were they were holding pretty firmly to uh a process different than the capacity fee.

So there's a separate statute that that speaks to development impact fees.

It's similar, it's uh I would say it's in the same family, but it's a different process.

Uh it's not the process that best fits our objectives here in Mesa.

Um, so they they stuck pretty firmly to that, didn't offer too much in the way of compromise, but there was an exception.

There's a single family home builder that does a lot of work here in Mesa.

They're pretty pop prominent home builder.

And they did offer um constructive feedback.

They did um feel that Mesa is justified in the in the path that we're taking with the capacity fee, they understood it.

And they also offered some some middle ground solutions that we could work with.

Uh so in the spirit of that, uh, we're here today to offer two modifications to the draft ordinance.

So Chris, before you start, maybe you can explain the difference between I know we're moving forward with the capacity growth fee, but the impact fee.

How what's the timelines on the two and and how one maybe supersedes the other?

Is there some sure mayor and council?

Let me first say that they don't they're they're they're different but similar at a conceptual level, they're very similar in that it's to have uh future development uh pay for itself um as it impacts the um infrastructure for for the utilities.

So at that l at that sort of very high level, they're conceptually the same.

They're just a way to do the fee under two different statutes.

Um the impact fee statute has a more I would describe it as a more rigid process, and it has a very long grandfathering process in which um it's it's basically a two-year oversimplification, it's a two-year grandfathering process.

And right now, since the city has no impact fee, it would grandfather in zero for for two years for many people.

And so um most cities obviously have an existing impact fee, so when they grandfather in for two years, that you're really grandfathering in an old impact fee in amount, not zero.

And so that obviously means for if we were to go that route for two years, development wouldn't be paying for um their impact on the infrastructure, and so uh that obviously was one a factor, one of the factors, and looking at what what was the appropriate route to bring to council.

And so um the capacity fee is uh there's other municipalities that have it, and it's as we've discussed before, it's been upheld um in a case involving the city of Lag staff.

And mayor, I'll just add that um we've we've heard the feedback from council that there's interest though, because impact fees cover a broader spectrum of services besides just water and wastewater.

So staff um based on some of that feedback that council would like to see those other areas uh looked at.

We we will be entertaining um a study to begin the process next year to introduce impact fees in the future.

So just know that it's not an either or now we wouldn't have an impact fee for water and wastewater and have a capacity fee if we were to go that route, but that that's a long process.

It'll take about a year to do the study, have it and get council approval on that, and then as Jim alluded to, the uh two-year grandfathering um process that that occurs.

So we're really talking three years um that um this develop development, new development would not be uh paying for itself or paying anything uh towards this, it would be subsidized by existing homeowners and ratepayers, and so we just did not think that was fiscally responsible for the city to allow that to happen.

Good.

Thanks for explaining the timelines.

Right.

And as uh as Mr.

Smith explained, not only would it be two years in reality in practice, it probably would be more like three years, because it would take a year of considerable expense and work to develop uh land use assumptions and the reports that the consultants would need to help us with just to get to what that structure would look like.

It would take a year to do that, and then you have another two years of grandfathering.

So a lot of this 400 million is projects we need to move on now for development that's imminent that's coming, and some of it's in construction, so we would miss out three years from now, most of that 400 million would already be have be on the backs of the existing ratepayer base.

Good.

Thanks for the explanation.

Go ahead.

So the two uh considerations we want to incorporate into the ordinance, one would affect or it would it would help benefit all um upcoming growth, all new developers, and that is the the trigger um by which uh the growth the impact the sorry the capacity fee would be levied.

So um prior to today, we talked about that trigger being um the permit issuance.

So if a permit is issued to a developer, say uh after the effective date, so say in early January, um that developer would have to pay the capacity fee.

What we're looking to do now is to recognize that there's a lot of development that's very mature in the pipeline that is on the verge of kicking off.

So there's a a lot of calculus that they've already done with their financials to make this make their projects viable.

So anyone who's already submitted their permit application or is about to submit their permit application before the before January 1st, they would be grandfathered in and they would be excluded from this capacity fee.

So even though they might not get their permit until say the spring, that's okay as long as they get a completed permit application into development services before January 1st, they would be excluded.

So that would that would affect all growth.

Um the second provision that we we decided to make in uh consultation with our stakeholders would benefit single family homes and small new small businesses for this fee, and that would be to cut in half or essentially offer a 50% discount for the three-quarter inch meter and the one-inch meter uh for the first six months um after this this ordinance and this fee would go into effect.

So that would help uh single family home builders, that would help small business, new small businesses for this one-time fee.

So those are the two provisions that we're offering.

So for anything greater than an inch, so these larger developments, they take a long time to move anyway.

Um there's no discount that we're proposing today, but those are the two provisions uh that we're putting on the table as changes to this ordinance.

Okay.

So I mean, before we talk about next steps, if you have any questions on anything I've talked about this morning.

Well, I have a a birding question here.

So if I was a home builder and I have uh 30 units I'm putting in, would I have to file uh my application process before January 1, or is it for each building lot?

Or how does that work?

I believe it would be for the full development.

Someone might have to clear that, clarify that for me.

It's per lot.

So it's per it's so it's per lot.

So if you're you'd have to have um we're looking at a basically meter by meter.

Okay.

That explains it meter by meter, Mr.

Hogans.

I may be gonna display some of my own ignorance on this here with this question, but I'll ask it anyway.

What are we basing the dollar amount of the fee on?

The actual cost recovery to the city, or how do we how do we calculate that?

Correct, Mayor and Councilmember Adams.

So this all stems from the integrated master plan that we just completed uh back in March.

So it's a an examination of all the growth that we're gonna need to do on our systems.

So uh over the next 10-year period, that's the timeline, the horizon we looked at.

It's um expansion of plants, it's new transmission mains, interceptor sewers that are specifically to uh accommodate new growth.

So it's just the cost of all those capital projects tabulated together.

Um also new new wells um that are needed for growth, any any new infrastructure that's gonna be needed to support growth only.

Um and that's tied to in AWWA, there's different methods to derive a capacity fee, and the method I'm describing is is called the incremental method.

So it's incrementally looking at all new development and attributing the the cost to just growth, just new developers.

So that 400 million is a tabulation of all growth-driven projects in our systems.

So the fee would be uh let's say 400 million divided by 500,000 meters, whatever that answer is, boom, that's the amount of the fee.

I know that's a wild number.

I see what you're asking.

Um actually what we do is we we distill, so we take the 400 and we look at um the capacity that we're adding into the system, how many MGD of capacity for a plan expansion or a new pipeline?

Um we look at the amount of um water demand um as projected to come from this new development, and we distill it down to the least common denominator, which is a single family home with a three-quarter inch meter.

We distill it down to that, and then we extrapolate up the bigger meter sizes based on on flow rate, because it's not a linear curve.

Um a one and a half inch meter doesn't use twice as much as a three-quarter inch, it uses multiple times.

So we draw that curve, we break it down to the least common denominator, and then based on those bigger meter sizes, we just extrapolate out until the whole 400 million is accounted for.

Okay.

Sounds like sounds like there's good science behind this.

It's it's the documented methodology that is in AWWA, and and not only that, our consultant Black and Veach, who um did our master plan for us, they also um partnered with us on this process to examine the methodology, give their feedback, they gave great feedback.

We made some adjustments based on their their expertise in this area uh to get to our final product.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Ms.

GoFord.

Um couple, where's the 10 years come from?

And then is is it all based on greenfield growth?

Um Mayor, Councilmember, go forth.

So no, Greenfield actually, we're not expanding the Greenfield plant for us, Queen Creek and Green.

I mean I mean vacant lots.

Like not it's all so it's all the remaining vacant lots are in play.

So that's how we determine how much more growth is ahead of us.

And what was the first part of your question?

Where where does the 10 years come from?

Oh, right.

The 10%.

Because you can have growth without just from our experience, and the reason we do a five-year CIP every year is because once you start getting out in latter years, it it gets really difficult to predict and nail down.

So a lot of um former impact fees that other cities will do, they'll they'll do maybe up to 15 years, but we felt that 10 years is already out there to where beyond that, it gets difficult to predict.

And we felt we had a really good um lock on the improvements we needed to do in 10 years, and we felt that would be a better first step to do right now.

It would be the fairest approach for future developers.

And then every on a five-year interval, we could come back and revisit it.

And then if we keep the window to 10 years or so, then we're always gonna have a much more reliable model than if we just tried to go longer.

But since we're doing it every five years, we'll update it.

We'll have to if we have you know uh a spike in growth that we need it to account for or some you know um growth in existing um developments somehow with rule changes, you know, we can accommodate that.

So we're not missing anything because we'll update um on this time horrorizing at some interval, probably about five years, probably coupled with our master plan updates, we'll look we'll revisit this.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr.

Adams.

So we're talking about meters, and I get what you mean by the uh inch and a half having multiple volume of a three-quarter, but let's talk about multifamily projects.

Um a hundred units of apartments or um uh condominium horizontal property regime kind of thing.

Do those have individual meters, and would we apply individual meters to condos or patio homes?

And what about the apartment complex that has what a three-inch main or something like that?

How do we how do we do that?

That's a good question.

So once you start getting into multifamily development center, anything bigger than several units, you're typically gonna have a master, one one service line with the master meter and then backflow devices.

Um so it's just gonna be that meter, but then you're gonna have an HOA if you're a condominium complex, or you're gonna have an apartment manager if you're an apartment, and you're gonna spread out the c that cost.

It's gonna be a bigger cost because it's a bigger meter, but you're spreading it out over the 50 or the 100 units.

So it's it's a lot different than there's that one single family homeowner.

They're gonna pay proportionally a smaller capacity fee, but it's it's them by themselves versus a hundred units in a building.

So it it is per meter.

So again, focusing on the hundred unit apartment complex, if we took that complex with a hundred users, hundred apartments, versus one hundred single family homes.

Are we going to recapture the equivalent amount of money from the apartment complex that we would recapture from those those 100 individual what three quarter meters or more?

It's gonna be an equitable amount of capture because the the whole justification and why AWA has it that way is because it's your the meter size is indicative of what demand it's placing on the system.

So that three quarter inch meter that might be able to flow at max 50 gallons per minute is is placing that demand on our treatment plants and our piping versus that three-inch meter that's feeding this big apartment complex.

Um that's a much I don't have the table, I don't know if it's in the backup slides.

That's a much bigger capacity fee, but it's it's indicative of that much greater demand that's being put on the on the system.

I don't know if it's if it's an exact relationship that that single family homeowner is gonna pay the exact dollar amount, but the idea is that the meter size represents a certain demand on the system, and and that's where the equity comes in in terms of what we're trying to capture.

Thank you.

I I think what I'm looking for here is is to understand whether a builder who is building 100 single family homes versus a developer who's building a 100 unit apartment complex, who's carrying the greater financial burden?

Does the home builder building 100 single family homes end up paying more of a capacity fee to create 100 dwelling units versus the developer who's building a 100 unit apartment complex?

In other words, who's getting a discount here, if anybody?

Yeah, that's difficult to answer.

Um it depends on because there's a lot of factors that depends on because the developer of the 300 lot subdivision is pass just passing on that, baking that into the cost of the home.

I'm not sure how the financials would work with the I'm not familiar, I'm not a developer, so I don't really know how they would structure it.

Yes.

So I'm having a hard time answering your questions.

Mayor and counsel, I would say this.

Um neither is the answer, I think, is because it's based off water flow because the you're starting off with the three-quarter inch meter, and then you're just ramping the fee up based off of flow.

And so it depends on how many units so when you get to who's paying more well it depends on water use how big were those houses did they need a three quarter inch or did they need a one inch were they one bedroom or were they three bedroom because that's going to affect the apartment complex on how big of a meter they are but it's really it's not based off how many it's based off on how much flow can go through those through the meter and so it depends on how big your apartment complex is not just units but rooms and then that builder is going to decide how big their meter is for the flow and that's going to govern.

So it's and and I don't think you were at the study session uh where we had Jesse do the math for us and we spent some time going through sort of some charts and math and so I was trying to pull up the study session I can't remember the date but it was about a month ago and I think you missed it and he kind of walked through some of the math of the calculation but we did do that one time.

And so that's I think the answer is is it's it's the same it's based off just the flow through through the meter.

Okay I I'll dig back through there.

I'll find out if I still have questions.

Thank you.

I think it was around September 22nd um rich something like that.

Okay September 22nd.

But I I think you also have to think about I think what you're getting at is not overburden this the single family.

Correct right for that but they also require a lot more infrastructure.

So you know what I mean to build a hundred single family homes is going to require a lot more infrastructure anyway.

So you're there's gonna be more cost to that to flow you know in the maintaining and operating the water system through a neighborhood of a hundred homes and it is one apartment.

I still agree, you know you don't want to don't necessarily want to overburden them but they are requiring a lot more cost and infrastructure to do that than one apartment building.

So just a thought.

And I think how we reconcile that is when you have a hundred home subdivision there's a hundred meters so even though it's a smaller base of about 9500 times 100 you know you're at a million dollars for that development um versus you're gonna have a higher you're gonna have a higher capacity fee for that two inch meter or three inch meter but um it's just one meter compared to a hundred meters so I think that's that's the way the math makes it more equitable Mr Riddy Chris uh can you remind me uh what's how do we compare it to our neighboring cities with this um I can't remember but even with these changes how do we compare uh now we're near the bottom do you have the in the back of the slides we're gonna and other other neighboring cities have a similar or same capacity fee sure right so mayor council member heredia um cities uh by and large cities have a fee for growth to pay for growth uh some have an impact fee some have uh a capacity fee like we're proposing uh the town of Eloy has a capacity fee black staff has a capacity fee um we're looking for the we don't we don't have it but we are near the bottom so tempe I want to say is between four and five thousand for a single family home I think there's one other city that's maybe seven thousand we're at 9500 and then if you go all the way up to the top uh City of Phoenix just raised theirs the City Phoenix is so big geographically they have a couple zones um but their highest one is around 30,000 dollars a lot we're at 9500.

I know in the previous presentation we had something like that I don't know with these changes could you adjust or or I don't know if they just did the uh the uh comparisons uh how we look at uh with other cities nearby can you share that after so the so and these changes today aren't changing the the cost and where we stand the fee itself is would be about 9500 for a single family new single family home for that meter that three quarter inch meter um but again we are if you look at the middle we're below the middle there's only two entities below us there's several above us and you go all the way up to 3000 plus per unit for us in Phoenix.

Mayor and council member I mean that that's why the the development community is used to paying some kind of you know whatever the mechanism may be to to get cost recovery back um for the impact that they're doing and that's why um even though you may hear some frustrations from industry um it's it's only it's only because they prefer a different method and uh and not because that uh it's it's not the way of cost recovery on on this back toward making sure there's more equity for growth paying for growth and I know that's our frustration on our end is that you know we're not talking about the other mechanism right now we're talking about capacity fees and we're talking about the fact that if we don't implement these that every home that's or every multifamily development that's built in Mesa will be subsidized by existing homeowners and existing ratepayers and so that that has been the crux of you know maybe our disagreement with certain sectors and of the industry but uh to Chris's point once once we had a single family home builder that does a lot of development in the

We're talking about capacity fees, and we're talking about the fact that if we don't implement these, that every home that's or every multifamily development that's built in Mesa will be subsidized by existing homeowners and existing ratepayers.

And so that that has been the crux of you know, maybe our disagreement with certain sectors of of the industry, but uh to Chris's point, once once we had a single family home builder that does a lot of development in the city of Mesa come to us and say a phase in would really help.

They're in the middle of a few subdivisions right now, have their pricing already out, that that this would be really helpful to do a phase in, and we could know understanding the impact it would have on um a builder like that, and also trying to give some relief to maybe some small businesses that were right on the cusp of pulling their meters.

We thought the phase in was a really responsible um repro approach to to strike some middle ground with them.

Alicia.

I think Scott, did you have some?

Go ahead.

Okay.

Uh I I would just like to mention because after the uh initial presentation on this, I had a couple residents reach out and and wonder about what council member her ask, why is ours on the lower side?

And it all comes back to that forecast of build-out, right?

I mean, it's not an equal the calculation is the same, but the numbers are different.

If they have a lot more to build out, their ultimate cost is going to be a lot higher, their fees gonna be larger.

I think if you could just meant kind of go through that really quickly, um, because that was something that people asked me and and didn't understand why can't ours be higher, why is oh you know Chandler's higher and ours is not.

Right.

So mayor, council member go for so I mean if you if you start to look at it that way, and now you're getting into trying to reverse engineer trying to start with what you want to charge them and then work backwards where um really that's not the proper methodology.

You really just we don't want to charge our developers, we don't want to charge them more than we have to.

So we that's why we again to the 10 years, we felt we have good certainty on the 10 years, and and um to be frank, most of the spending of the 400 million is gonna be done really in the next five years.

So there's a little bit more, some wells to build in the years six through ten.

Um we just want to make sure that it's right sized, so to speak.

So we want to look at just the capacity we need to support um build out from all the vacant parcels from here to build out, how much capacity we're adding, what was the cost of this infrastructure we're adding, and then what is the amount of flow and those are the components that work into the equations, the methodology.

Um so it really it speaks for itself.

We just follow the methodology and the results speak for itself, and where we landed was just happened to be lower middle in in that hierarchy.

And mayor, council member, you'll also see a lot of nuance.

The the portion of Phoenix that Chris mentioned, um, they they have zoned the city of Phoenix into different areas and where they collect fees, and so that particular area is up around the TSMC area, which um if you've been up there, you know that's uh lacking for a lot of infrastructure, a lot of barren desert, and and uh it's going to cost substantially more to build a home or multifamily complex up around TSMC than it would in maybe other more developed portions of the city.

And so that's why when you see an area in Phoenix that's up to 30,000, that that's really unique to that particular area and not necessarily reflective of the overall citywide environment.

Even Gilbert's at 18,000.

Do they separate theirs like that?

Yeah, in districts.

Sure, they'll follow the same methodology.

They're building probably the most expensive water treatment plant in the history of Arizona right now at 700 million dollars.

So it it just really comes back.

I'm glad uh Mr.

Butler mentioned that.

So uh again, that 30,000, roughly 30,000 for a single family lot or meter in Phoenix, they're building massive pipelines to get up to the Taiwan semiconductor area, massive pipelines, and that has such a cost that's driving it.

So it's really it's the cost for that capacity that drives the fee.

The fee is gonna be what it is based on those calculations.

And and I don't think we can stress it enough.

That's why we stick to these industry standards on the calculations and and we don't want to burden development.

Development shouldn't be paying more than what the burden that they put onto the system, but they should be paying their fair share for what they are adding to the system.

And and that's always been the rub, right?

Um, you know, there's there's there's certain segments that want to incentivize that development in in many ways by um limiting those those fees.

But the problem is then all existing homeowners and businesses um bear the burden of of that, and we just think that's fundamentally unfair for our existing ratepayers.

Right.

The alternative would be we would we would issue we'd sell bonds, we'd issue debt, and then that debt repayment would be integrated into the rates, and then that would put pressure on the rates, drive that up even greater than the regular lifecycle and rehab that's already in the rates.

Um it's just really part of a big picture.

Okay, and those bond rates you'd be paying over like 20 years for those.

Correct.

Uh Vice Mayor, and then Mr.

Adams.

Yeah, good discussion about the impact on current rate payers.

Can you quantify what the difference would be if we adopt this?

How is that going to impact the need for rate adjustments moving forward this year and in the future on that?

We're gonna show that right.

Yeah, so Mayor But well, yeah.

Well, before you do, yep, uh Mr.

Adams, you want to ask your question because they might move forward in the presentation.

Okay, uh, I wouldn't want to be left behind.

Um just just a couple comments.

I I think this is fair that development pay for development, and I understand why we don't want to make a profit, if you will, because that could potentially disincentivize builders and developers to look to Mesa.

So I I get that, I'm good with that.

Um I'd like to avoid um having to bond any of this for obvious reasons, and I think that if this does result, I mean the other the alternative is everybody gets to pay for the development, and I don't think that's fair because I think what we're trying to do here is keep um the average uh family in Mesa uh from having to bear the burden of any of these costs.

So I'm I understand this, I'm good with it.

Um I'll dig into that presentation back in September, whatever, if I need additional information.

But I I understand your your methodology and your metrics, so thanks for that.

And we're happy to come meet with you and in your office and just walk you through some of it if you have more questions.

I may take you up on that.

Okay, Mr.

Hassard, thank you.

Okay, Brian.

So next steps, Mayor and Council for the capacity fee will be introduction on November 17th with uh council action uh to adopt on December 1st, and the fee as uh Mr.

Hassart indicated, it would go into effect January 1.

Now, with that, what I'm gonna do is it's uh more of a utilities fiscal year 25-26 utilities update.

You've seen some of these, it's more of a kind of a review, but also looking for at the end looking for council uh direction.

So just a reminder that the adjustments main focus was equity between residential and non-residential rates, um, as we just talked about growth paying for growth, uh conservation of discretionary water use, and then also smoothing rate adjustments throughout the forecasts uh as the city has um done in the past.

So what I wanted to show you here is the customer impact of the water.

So from left to right uh and top to bottom, so the top is the residential.

So what I'd like to show is the impact of the current bill of when we presented to the audit and finance committee in the end of August, um, we were at a uh a five and a half percent increase.

But with discussions with the audit and finance and discussions with council, we were able to uh with council's direction and recommendation, we were able to lower that for the notice of intent down to 4.3%, and then with the capacity fee, uh we're able to lower that even more to 4.2% overall.

So what that means was in the original, the tier one where most where the the typical customer is is six thousand uh K Gao.

That was a five point five percent increase that we were looking at that we proposed when we went to audit and finance.

However, with the discussions with audit and finance and the council during the notice of intent, it was down to four percent, and then with council's uh if council's direction is to move forward with the capacity fee, that would drop down to three and a half percent.

So just to show that as through this process with the discussions with audit and finance and council, we're able to lower the recommendate recommended rate for our residents from a five and a half percent to a three and a half percent.

So that's a two and a uh two percent uh uh decrease in the adjustment that we were looking for in the very beginning.

Yes.

Um so Brian, I know that you all have said this before, but I think there's still some confusion as to what a typical user is.

Can you explain that?

And can you tell us how many, and I know you've said this too, how many customers fall into the category of tick typical.

So, yes, mayor, uh council member go forth.

So, what we look at as a typical customer is the median.

So there's two different types of ways to calculate as an average and a median.

We look at the median, so what that is is we take out the very top users, kind of like the anomalies, and then the very bottom users, and we kind of take that and look at okay, what's the median person, median household, how much do they use?

Half of the households are using more and half are using less.

In our calculation, roughly, yes.

And so when that is, that's when we calculate that, it's about six thousand K gal.

Uh so we are um we're using that to become our typical is the six thousand.

So if you take the the average, well, we have um residences that have extremely big lots that use a lot of water.

Well, that's not your typical um or median type household, so we kind of take those out, but then we also take out the lower ones, the real small ones, take those out, and then take the bulk of the the rest of them, average them out, and it's about six thousand KCAL.

So that's what we we calculate as a typical resident.

And so when we calculate this, it's roughly six thousand.

In the past, it has been a little higher, but through uh conservation and through uh new appliances that use a lot less water, we were a few years ago, probably around seven to eight thousand, but now we're down around six thousand for a typical.

Thank you.

Mr.

Adams.

Uh Richard, I'm you're referring to uh three point something, and I'm seeing on your chart four point two on the top line, and maybe I'm looking at the wrong no mayor, council member Adams, you're looking at it correctly.

What this is is the total percentage impact.

So what this takes into consideration is the uh service fee adjustment, which is four and a half percent, and then the tiered one rate percent, which is three and a half percent.

So when we take those averages, it it comes out to a 4.2 percent average for impact.

Understood.

Yeah, there's two two components to the rate that we're looking at, the service charge, which everybody gets charged.

So if you have a meter, you get charged a service charge.

And then the the second component of this is your usage rate.

And so that we take those two and average it out, and so that's a 4.2 percent impact to a typical resident.

Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that.

So um, so the effect of the impact, or I'm sorry, the capacity fee in this chart is five cents per month, 189 to 184.

Am I reading that correctly?

Mayor, council member Adams, that's that is correct, yes.

Okay, I'm gonna ask a hypothetical.

If we decided that we would like to not burden residential users this time, and not kick the can down the road a year to where we would have to look at a double whammy.

What if we took the dollar eighty-four and the three fifty-two and move them down to the commercial and the commercial landscape lines?

What would the loss be to the city if we did that?

Um and would it not allow us to say to residential users, we're not gonna increase your rates this year.

What would the impact of that hypothetical be?

Mayor, council member Adams, I would have to go back and take a look.

So if we do, if we would would not do a rate impact for this coming year just for the residents, what you would lose is the compounding of the revenue.

So that's why some of our neighboring cities are looking to do a smooth rate, like the city of Mesa does, because what would happen is um last year, I believe it was around six and a half, six percent that we did a uh a rate adjustment.

If we did zero this year, instead of a three and a half that we have out, it would be more like a six percent or seven percent, because what we would have to do is make up that revenue, that lost revenue from the previous year to be able to sustain services and uh operations and maintenance of that of the utility.

So if we did a zero, we did we did do uh the city did do some zeros previously, but what that did was we would have to increase the rates a little bit more those following years.

So the impact would be a little more significant.

So for instance, one of our neighboring cities, they haven't done rate adjustments for several years, but then they're doing a 95% rate adjustment.

So that's a huge impact.

So that's kind of how that is because what they lost was that compounding of the revenue to be able to use that and do their repairs and maintenance with that revenue.

I understand the Gilbert scenario.

I appreciate you referring to that.

I I'm not understanding the math of that, because if I took the dollar eighty four increase in residential, and I took the 352 on multi-unit development, which is also effectively residential, and I moved the 350, I moved that five dollars and fifty cents roughly down in increased commercial general and increased commercial landscape by that amount.

Sorry, I I mayor, council member uh Adams, I see where you're going with it now.

So you want to take the the monthly amounts and add them there, that would be a significant increase to our commercial.

And that's when when we when we went to audit and finance, one of their recommendations is part of, and this will get to you hopefully part of your answer is what we were looking at is the equity.

So the equity between residential and non-residential.

And so when we went to audit and finance, we were at 15% increase for say commercial landscape.

Um what we were able to do is we increased it to 20%, which is shown here for the landscape.

We were able to reduce the residential, but same with commercial, we increase the commercial uh as and so what that would do is the percentage for the commercial would increase significantly.

And when you're taking, say, a 15% or a 20% on a higher rate, that impact is more significant than if you took it on a lower rate.

So that's what would be happening is we'd have to increase the commercial and the landscape to be able to recover those amounts, and it could you would be putting a significant burden on those accounts.

I understand.

I think I'd rather burden them than the residential user, and I don't think they're gonna pick up and move.

Just my opinion.

Thank you.

But I appreciate your answers.

Yeah, well, okay.

Well, I was gonna say the number of excuse me.

Thank you.

Um the number of users, you know, you have your residential users and the rate increase.

So you have the number of users here versus the new number of users on your commercial general and your landscape, there's probably less of them than there are residential, unless combined.

I I don't know you'd have to work out that differential.

Mayor.

Yeah, that's 88% of our customers are residential.

88%.

So see, Mr.

Adams, there's you know the well, and there's a percent of revenue that comes in.

Yeah, so is top heavy on on residential, too.

So right.

So I I think mayor and and and council member Adams, I I I think to that point, I mean, it wouldn't be as easy as just moving five dollars here and putting it down there.

But that's a policy, he's making a policy proposal, and that is up to the council to decide.

So, you know, if we want to have that discussion, that's a that's a policy discussion.

Well, what I'm saying is I want to find a way to not burden the residential users and not put it off to where we just have to hit them twice next year.

That's where I'd like to see us go.

So I think we need a financial analysis on how what the differentials are between all three of them.

Mayor, council, we can definitely do that.

If we decided to increase the any of these rates adjustments, we would then need to reintroduce the notice of intent, and this would push back the process of the utility rates.

If we if we did decide to move forward and go through that analysis, and if council through council's direction would like to increase the any of these rate adjustments, we'd have to go through that process again.

Okay.

There's always a timeline, isn't there?

Um, we'll have the discussion over there, but mayor and council uh we I mean if it goes above the notice of intent, we would have to go back and do another notice of tense, but we could kind of sort of stair step it, right?

You could adopt the this rate increase to go into effect in January, and then if you wanted more increases, instead of just sort of waiting till you know March to do this to do a step, we could do the first step um in January and then do another step after that second notice of intent, so we don't lose that sort of gap.

So that's what we were talking about.

We could probably run some numbers too quickly, uh, just to get a order of magnitude.

Because I'm thinking just because we have if 88% of the customers are residential, so we're up around 130,000 connections that are single family, but we only have 5,000, for instance.

I don't know the exact number, but say there's only 5,000 commercial landscape, and we shift that increase, you know, there could be a 80% increase to commercial landscape.

Um I don't know, I'm spitballing, but we could run some numbers and as a first step, and at least we know where we stand order of magnitude-wise.

Well, and this this is a policy discussion.

I'm one of seven.

I'm just not calling the shots here.

No, I I would like to see that as well.

The other thing I I've I've brought up, and this is kind of, you know, I I brought it up last time, so it's not la last minute, but is the fact that the commercial and the multifamily pay less per KCal than residential.

Correct.

And why is I mean, I never really got a I don't know why.

It was I mean, there maybe there's a maybe there's a it's historical.

It's historical.

Um when Mesa was more of a bedroom community, there wasn't a lot of industry.

Maybe you had um Boeing and some others, but um I think is uh this is just what I've learned over time.

I think just to entice and and make the attractive for development, um, commercial development, industrial development, those rates were very, very competitive and low.

And um it's really only the last few years where we started to try to catch that up and and create a better equity between single family and commercial.

Um so when we came to audit and finance uh a few months back, we proposed uh about a three-year catch-up plan to where commercial then is um there's more equity there, and commercial is now paying something more commensurate with the water usage they're using, because they use right now about I think it's around 52 percent of all the water, even though they're only 12 percent of the customers.

So there so one of the one of the key areas of feedback from the audit and finance process was let's speed that up.

Let's try to get that equity done quicker.

So that's what the rates we show you now reflect.

And that I guess what that's what council member Adams is proposing essentially just to speed that up.

This would really speed that up, right?

Right.

Yes.

Why wait two years, I guess.

Yes.

I I guess so hearing the overall the overall discussion, you know, we can move forward with the notice of intent, what we have now, but then prepare for another step process maybe early next year for an increase based on and look at all the numbers so that uh we have that so we can move forward with.

What do you think?

Why don't we see if we can uh mayor and council why don't we see if we can run those numbers that council's looking for and get get back to you quickly on that, just so that you have some magnitude of scale, as Chris alluded to, that that you could look at.

Because I mean we could look at two scenarios too.

I think one would be getting that parody on par immediately.

I think that would be one number.

The other number, though, to council member Adams' point, if you ran his scenario, I think, as was alluded to, I think, for example, that 7.4 percent becomes a extremely large number.

Uh and so, but we'll run it.

We'll run it and let council see the implications of not imposing that on 88 percent of the of the customers and posing it on 12 and kind of what that means for their percentages.

But we can do both of those scenarios, um, right, gentlemen.

Um because I'm Mr.

Me to say he's smiling.

Yeah, smiling.

I I this it needs to be a data-driven process, I think, and I'd I'd love to see the the analysis.

Yes, but it's not without trade-offs, right?

So to your point and yours, like, you know, so Mayor Freeman, so one of the analyses then would be to have both on the the service, the monthly service charge and the usage to have a zero percent rate increase on those first two categories, residential and multi-unit residential, correct?

One of the analyses, and then to maintain the if you did say residential.

Do you want multi-family as part of that apartment conquering?

I thought I heard the first two categories.

Well, it it might be it might be interesting to look at at both of those.

Uh one scenario where we avoid any increase to residential and multi-unit development.

It's gonna be apartments.

It's gonna be reflected in people's rent.

Um, both of them, and then one that only includes residential without an increase.

That that's what I'd like to see.

I don't know what the rest of council would like to see, but um my interest here is how do we find a way to avoid passing on a rate increase to residential users without putting ourselves in a position where next year we have to see, okay, we're gonna hit you double, because we just didn't increase it.

I'm looking to shift the burden from mom and pop consumer, residential user, to commercial general uses primarily.

I I'm okay with that because the residential folks aren't profit generating businesses.

So personally, one of seven, I'm okay with passing that burden on to the commercial user.

But I'd like to see what the numbers look like.

I think we got it.

So council can make the decisions you need to make.

We'll run those analyses and give you those numbers, and then you can see what you're working with.

I think we talked about this briefly.

Um council member Heretia in the audit and finance, and you brought up the point of small business small businesses, how shifting that burden.

I mean, is there a way to tier for the size of business to protect the small business is what council member Heredi.

And I think that's something worth looking into as well.

I know that adds to the complexity.

But I mean, you know, you know, there's always somebody to save and protect, right?

And we I mean we will we can we can look at any scenario council proposes.

But again, once you start drawing that base smaller and smaller and smaller, you know, and initially what's being proposed is a hundred percent bear some of the burden of the increases inflationary and otherwise that we've seen as a result of this.

But then you take out 88 percent, then you're left with the 12 percent, and then you start taking out small business.

And I'm my guess is out of that 12 percent, that's probably a pretty huge portion of uh of what that 12 percent is.

Uh and so then you've you know you're you're sorry, you're you're then putting in if you want to capture the same revenue in order, you know, to to not kick the can, then you're talking about six, five to six percent of the base, then paying for everybody's increase on that.

And and and that what we can run that because right, I mean, we're all just kind of spitballing here too on the numbers.

We can look at that, but that that is just the concern um that uh as we talk about the scenarios.

Yeah, it it's just gonna come down to policy and values that we we set, and that you know, so I I can remember, I think Councilmember Haredi and I about seven years ago we decided not to do a rate increase on residential water.

And to your point, it was double the next year, about 7.25, just to keep up with the growth and everything there.

So your point, Mayor, um, so I feel compelled to say this.

Uh in so in the meetings that I have with all the other regional water providers, the other cities at uh AMWA.

Um as we discussed this process, we all go through this process.

There's been more and more interest from the cities who would do intermittent rate increases, maybe every few years or even several years that are now backed into this situation where inflation got ahead of them and they have to do high double digit rate increases.

There is talk that they're now trying to gravitate towards the Mesa model, which is the slow and steady increases.

So the other cities are going our way.

Um we'll do any analysis you want because you need that information to make your decisions.

But I thought it was worth mentioning just that as a as a finger out in the pulse of other cities.

So mayor and council, we will run that those numbers.

We'll come back next Thursday for study session on the on the 13th and and have those numbers for you next Thursday morning.

So uh the four advice may I know water's not gonna get any cheaper.

You you we're forecasting, you know, higher increase in in purchase of specifically cap water.

I would assume that you know we're paying about $350 an acre foot now, but I don't know what the forecast is, but there's always rate increases with the cap water.

So I'm sure you're gonna keep up with the purchase of water, which which is about 60% of our water is CAP water.

So uh correct, Mayor.

That that's another important consideration.

I'm glad you brought that up.

So we're not talking about it this cycle, maybe not even next rate cycle, certainly the rate cycle after that.

As we get cuts on the Colorado River, we have we've got to make that up, especially so if we get a cut and that brings us down to something we can manage or even use a few long-term storage credits, that's one thing.

But as we're getting cut at the same time, we're growing, and the water demand goes up, we have to find those next buckets of water, and they're scarce and they're very expensive.

So we're not really touching on that this rate cycle, and like I said, maybe not next rate cycle, but it's it's coming very quickly down the road.

We're gonna have to go acquire new water, whether it's uh participating and raising Bartlett Dam or advanced purification or some import of water from California or the Sea of Cortez, it's gonna be very expensive water.

That's gonna be the next hurdle we're gonna have to face monetarily for our department.

And uh Queen Creek just paid a lot for water recently, a lot.

This feels very um for what uh for whatever it's worth.

I I totally understand the like let's not have residents pay any rate increase this year and put it all on commercial, but if if that's a policy change, are we looking at that for every year after this?

Because it's just gonna get exorbitantly too high for anything on commercial end if we want to keep it zero for a political win, right?

We we want to not make our residents pay any money so that we look better, and it's gonna end up hurting our whole city.

So I think I think there's a reason why we exercise prudence on this, and and when other cities are trying to do what we're doing, let's keep doing what we're doing.

We've got to do these small incremental changes that we've seen work, that we've seen create what we need to support our systems in our city.

And I feel like if we were to go zero this year, what does that look like next year?

What does that look like the next year?

And then we're eventually gonna have to charge large amounts, which is much harder on a household budget than a dollar eighty-four a month.

So I don't matter anymore, but we've got to do what's best for the whole city.

But mayor and council member spillsbury, I think so.

To your point, the analysis, and I'm I'm looking at you, Brian.

I think we would do would be to do what we said to zero out the residential increase this year, um, as well as another scenario where it's residential and multifamily, do that analysis, but at the end of the day, over a period of time, it's the reserve fund balance.

We can't let that plummet.

So if we did the zero this year, then in the subsequent years, we'd have to look at what the rate increase for residential would have to be to protect the reserve funds.

And we can't just keep increasing commercial exorbitantly every single year.

We I mean that's totally not gonna work.

Right.

So to your point, then residential would have to catch up at some point in that five-year multi-year analysis.

There's a reason why there's cities look at what we're doing.

Are you gonna provide all that?

Yeah, mayor and council.

Um, what we'll what uh we'll do is we'll create a couple of scenarios, and let me just move to here.

So what we'll do is we'll create a couple of scenarios for this forecast.

And one will be we'll zero out residential service charge and um use usage charge.

And then that'll be one scenario, and we'll see how it impacts, but keeping the revenue the same.

What also we need to think about too is um what we'll show is what's the equity going to be then on revenue versus consumption.

So that's one of the things, one of the levers that we're trying to balance here too.

So we'll show that on the what that is.

Then what we'll do is another scenario where we'll zero out both residential and multi-family of those two and see where we sit with the the um rate adjustments throughout the forecast, and then also where the um equity is between revenue and consumption.

So we'll bring those back to uh council uh next Thursday, and we can have that discussion then.

I just wanted to say real quick, Julie, I agree with everything you say, but we have to keep in mind that right now residentials paying more and using less.

So all we're saying, I think all we're suggesting is let's reverse that faster than what we have what we have forecasted out, right?

We're not saying they should take the burden, but they're using more and paying less as it sits today.

Yeah, so mayor and and council member go forth with that equity.

Um right now, that equity would be 50-50 or a little above for commercial and a little below for residential and fiscal year 2728.

So it's about a a year and a half from now that where that equity, where we have it forecasted.

And and that's why I think it's oh, I'm I'm sorry, I think that's why it's important, Mayor, that we do run those two scenarios because I'm I'm hearing two different things.

One is the almost immediate parity, or or that we should have people paying or the classes paying for what they're actually using.

And then I think what council member Adams has suggested is a scenario by which residential is not it has zero increase.

And so we can run both of those scenarios because those are different.

Those are those are different scenarios, yeah.

Vice Mayor.

This is I want to be very careful about unintended consequences.

And there are a lot of them, but I'll I'll just name a few.

It was mentioned before with the the multifamily that the price of water is always baked into to rent, right?

So however they they arrange that.

But the price of commodity, whether it's food or whatever we buy, if we unduly increase on commercial in order to make up the difference for that, the product costs are gonna go up.

So we're gonna pay one way or the other.

Um here's a great example commercial landscape.

How much how many HOAs are in commercial landscape?

Do you know?

Oh significant amount, maybe a lot of people.

Okay, so when we increase commercial landscape, water prices, and this is a concern I have, that that cost ultimately gets just instead of coming to us directly as a water bill, it gets pushed down to your HOA fee.

Because they're gonna raise, they're gonna raise the rates, they're gonna get the money somehow because they have to pay, or worse, there are certain, let's just call them big box retailers, that when you develop, they have to put in a certain number of trees and greenscape and cover, and as commercial landscape prices go up, that's an easy thing to just let die off, use less water, because it's a you know, they they can say I can save thousands of dollars a month on this by just letting the trees die, and if the city doesn't go around to enforce it, and then we start looking at ugly unsaded parking lots that that and we see them all over town, and then the city starts looking terrible.

Uh commercial general, how many city buildings do we have?

I assume we're commercial general.

Mayor, vice mayor, we the city has its own interdepartmental rate.

Okay, so they're not part of our right with that.

You haven't be impacted by the change here.

We the city would be impacted by it.

And then so it's it's a lower rate, I assume.

How do we pay for that?

Where does that come out of?

Uh it comes out of e in it the individual fund, so the utility pays for the utility fund pays.

So the general fund pays a majority of it.

The general fund ends up paying for it, which is heavily reliant on sales tax, right?

So the sales, it's just the the costs go up.

I it it just feels like a shell game a bit with uh I mean, water costs, what water costs.

It's I think to Councilmember Gofor's point, what is a fair and equitable rate, understanding that there are unintended consequences that bleed down the road.

So we can we could say we held rates zero, but if our commercial landscape goes up 80% and then your HOA fees go up, we just we just play the shell game.

And and that that doesn't seem right.

It so I I would keep that in mind as we start looking at what these uh rates are and really try to shoot for equity in those in fairness in who uses the water, what's your impact on the system, and understanding that water is is getting more expensive, is getting more scarce, but we need it.

We need it for residences, we need it for businesses, economic development, all of it.

We we don't exist as a city without that water.

So that's a conversation we have to have as part of that, just thinking how this impacts other people in other ways.

My two cents.

All right, you have your marching orders, thank you.

We're not done yet, Mr.

Adams.

I uh look forward to these numbers because I think again, it needs to be a data-driven thing.

What what I'm trying to accomplish here, I just want to clarify this.

We can we we can look at all the issues and the consequences, and these are all worthy things to consider.

However, what I'm trying to drive here is the idea that we approach this from how do we avoid increases, if possible.

There's an expense side to everything, and there's a revenue side to everything, and I would remind myself, having been the one no vote on the current budget, that was because we're projecting expenses in excess of revenue out five years.

I realize that utilities have their own uh budgetary numbers that separate from the general, but what I'm trying to encourage here is an overall examination of expenses.

What can we do?

Rather than approach it for all the reasons why we can't, let's approach it from a standpoint of what can we do, what can we do to think outside the box to avoid increasing costs wherever possible?

I'm not trying to put the burden on small business, I'm not trying to put the burden any, or I'm not trying to score points with anybody.

What I'm trying to do is find a way to operate in a manner that costs less so that we don't have to increase costs to the folks who shouldn't have to pay it.

It's great that we're kind of in that lower tier of what other cities cost.

That's fine.

I can't operate my business that way.

I have to operate my business in a way, yes, with with respect to competition.

But I also have to operate in a way that is as efficient as I can make it.

That's all I'm trying to drive here.

I want us to look real hard at this stuff.

You know, is there a way that we can do this and not have the baked in idea that we've got to increase rates?

That's all I'm trying to encourage here.

And I think these numbers that we're going to take a look at will be very helpful to drive that discussion forward.

So that's all I'm trying to do here.

Thank you.

And and I appreciate that because I think asking the hard questions are important.

But I do think that to give credit to council member go forth, and she's been driving a lot.

The fact that we've gone from six percent as a recommendation.

And she said I want to shrink that member.

That timeline.

If we want to tighten it up some more, I'm for that too, without overdoing the burden, right, on small business.

But that shrunk the rate.

I think this idea brought by staff to make sure that growth pays for itself, and now we're down to a three and a half percent rate.

We are doing those things to keep asking these questions is I I think exceptional.

How how low can we drive it?

Yes.

Making sure that we are providing the services that people expect, but also remember that we've driven it down a couple of percentage already.

So it's it's uh in the right way.

If we can shave off another, I'm all for it.

But again, I I just reiterate there are consequences, and we we we do we do need to talk about that.

Okay, Brian.

So you what do you have for us?

Mayor, council.

So I just wanted to show this real quick.

Um, you've seen this before.

You built real quick several times.

I know, I know.

It's our fault though.

Okay.

I'll be quiet.

No.

That the so with the proposed rates with the uh a uh capacity fee implemented, the monthly typical customer for with water, waste, water, and solid waste would see uh impact of five dollars and seventy-seven cents per month.

And then if you've got gas and electric, you see those down there of two dollars and twenty-seven cents and a dollar forty-three.

So um just the the monthly impact for a residential monthly bill would be just under six dollars a month.

And here's the forecast that I showed you.

Um you've seen this before with the three and a half, what we're looking at.

And one thing to to consider too is the way the net sources and uses are in the fund balance, and the way the the rate adjustments are throughout the forecast, is due to uh an implementation of adoption of a capacity fee.

So what we've what we were able to do is take uh a significant amount of those capital projects and take them out of the forecast that would be supported by the capacity fee, and that is why um we're able to have that negative or that net sources and uses and fund balance in the outer years.

What will we be doing, though, as I mentioned before during the budget process?

We did previously push out 180 million dollars of operations and maintenance and lifecycle stuff for water and wastewater.

What we'll be doing is seeing what we can add back to the forecast to be able to keep up with um with those repairs and maintenance, so we don't have to uh significantly increase rates down the road, like some of the uh our municipalities next to us.

So here's the homeowner comparison uh that I want to show you what the Mesa proposed, or we're still uh the third um in the comparison um just above uh Scott's Dale and Chandler.

And then what I want also point out to you, this does include, so we did find um Tempe, the City of Tempe did do a notice of intent.

This does include theirs.

They are looking at 11% residential rate increase, a nine and a half percent wastewater increase, and a four and a half percent solid waste increase.

So that is included in here.

So with council's direction, I'm looking for council's direction on this, is the the introduction for the utility rate ordinance.

What we would do with council's direction is we would notice we would introduce the rate adjustments that include the capacity fee on November 17th, and then with that, the city council would take action on those utility uh rate adjustments on December 1, and those rate adjustments would go into effect January one.

And notice of intent locks in how topic.

So yes, Mayor, Vice Mayor, the notice of intent locked in, the the highest adjustment we can go, we can always go lower, but we would have to re-notice that intent if we went higher.

Okay.

Okay, just just so on November 17th is introduction only.

Correct.

Yes.

Introduction to yes, Mayor.

Intervention only on the we have the two-week timeline.

We do so we'll come back, Mayor.

Um give council that information next Thursday.

Hopefully get some direction then next Thursday, in order so that we can agendize on the 17th.

Because once we introduce, then that's then that's locked in.

Now, if for example, council wanted to see some rates that on certain categories that went above what we posted, we'd have to go back and re post, uh give a 60-day notice on those particular rates.

So for example, if you increase commercial above what it is today, but you lowered residential, we could move forward with the residential um rates under under our notice of intent, but we would have to go back and re post the 60-day notice if we did higher on the commercial side beyond what was in the notice of intent.

Is that correct, Brian?

So that and we can do that.

We we can do that.

I just we just want to be clear of what what that means.

I don't mean that as a deterrent in any way.

I'm just telling you the um implications if we if we increase the commercial beyond what we had posted as part of our 60-day notice.

Is that right?

But could we let's say that happens if we find a scenario we can shape down?

We could could we adopt the lower residential rate, the existing recommendation of current commercial, and then do a second commercial for the difference.

Yeah, mayor and vice mayor, and if you can go back to slide 10, um, because it sounds to me, because that kind of breaks down the numbers and going from the bottom up.

So you're you're interested in sort of the notice of intent to 13.6, I think is what it was the max on the notice intent.

Uh even though the the far right says 7.4, I think the notice of 10 was 77.

So no mayor, council um and Jim.

The notice of intent for commercial landscape.

This is remember, this is a combined of an average of the service charge and the usage charge.

The usage charge for lands uh commercial landscape is at 20 percent.

We increased it from 15 percent per council's direction on that.

So that would be the the 20 percent we could adopt the 20 percent as part of the notice of intent and part of the adoption.

Uh if we went any higher, then it would we would have to renotice it.

So yeah.

Why don't we come back through next Thursday?

Um it's gonna be tight for us because it's and the reason why we came this um this week was to try to start to get the ordinances lined up because of how many documents are attached to these.

It's the rate book.

Um it's the whole rate book.

And so it's very hard to turn that around from next Thursday to the following Monday.

Um, and so we'll start working on that.

Um we we may end up having to we'll we'll look at it depending on what we can get direction on on next Thursday.

We may end up having to continue on the 17th if we can't turn it all around in the weekend um and get the ordinance.

And the reason why it's uh it's an ordinance, it's not a resolution like other rates where it's because under the charter utility rates are by ordinance, and so it kind of locks and as that introduction locks it in, and so it's set for that 17th.

And so, but let's let's come back next Thursday.

We'll try to um get the ordinances lined up as much as possible before then, and then we'll give the direction next week, and then we'll we'll work we'll see if we can get everything done over the weekend and um have it lined up for the for the Monday meeting.

We good with that, council?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Just one thing that concerns me big time is that you know, in 2027, we're looking at potential uh having a water converse conversation, but a 20% cut per perhaps in our CAP allotment starting that time frame.

So that's 12,000 acre feet of water.

We bet we should be preparing today for tomorrow's future cuts and increase in water cuts.

And I don't know how you're gonna do that because I think about you know, we're paying a couple hundred thousand dollars to participate in the Bartlett Dam, you know, expansion.

We have the skiff out in the East Valley, we have water uh new water conservation and Roosevelt Lake.

We want to drill some wells and other parts and get those going.

So we have a lot of things out there to supplement what we're gonna lose, you know.

So you know, we've got to look at how we can have those monies, you know, sooner than asking them people to pay for them right away.

In other words, I just have like to have a savings account for this and prepare for future expenses because I don't know what the expense is going to be, and neither do you.

One important thing, Mayor Mayor Freeman um to recognize, and we've talked about this a lot, is that once we turn on and commission the Central Mesa reuse pipeline, that's gonna give us back 75% of what we're gonna get cut.

So we're very fortunate in that respect.

Um, but there are a lot of hurdles in the future, um, especially if cuts get worse, which they could down the down the road.

So we've been preparing and and we'll continue to prepare.

Okay.

You're saying all that construction on Greenfield's been worth it.

Totally worth it.

Yes.

All right.

Is there a green else?

Ryan, Chris.

Well, that was easy.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh one B is a presentation on Mace's America Rescue Plan ARPA.

Hello, Irma.

Morning.

You're just by yourself.

I am.

That's all you need.

Where is it?

No.

Yeah.

All right.

Are we gonna wait till everyone comes back?

Yeah, okay.

Good morning, Mayor Council.

I'm Irma Ashworth.

I'm the finance director, and I'm here today to provide an update on the American Rescue Plan Act, ARPA, and the city's um use of those funds.

As a reminder, the funds were allocated for eligible uses under the act for responding to the public health emergency and negative impact of COVID and providing premium pay for essential workers, and then also revenue replacement.

There are two key deadlines that the Treasury set out in this act.

The first one was that all uh funds had to be obligated by December 31st of 2024, and the city did obligate all the funds.

And the second part is that all funds need to be spent by December 31st, 2026.

So we have a little bit over a year left to spend the funds on the existing projects that we have.

Um this is summary as of September 30th.

The city received 105 million dollars and obligated the full amount last year by December 31st, 2024.

And through September 30th, we have spent 92 million dollars.

So we have about 13 million left to spend.

Um we did a lot of great projects at the city with the ARPA dollars.

Um I'm not gonna read all of them, I'll just highlight a few of them.

We had the PD Real Time Crime Center, um, the ARPA funds pay for some of the technology there, the 911 mental health response, and ambient purchases.

The energy commodity costs, that was a big um project as well, or um where it reduced the um bill for some of our residents um on the energy side and the um businesses that were impacted.

The United Food Bank that was uh distribution to help them and continue to serve um the residents of the city um and um for those that need um food.

ARPA funds also paid for the business builder at the studios, the construction related to that building, and then um some arts and parks and rec projects and um assistance programs.

Some other projects continued here.

Um ARPA dollars also provided um support for um a park on the land um landlord participation program where the housing department worked with um landlords to encourage them to stay and participate in the Section 8 programs.

And also provided SCADA um, which is for the water infrastructure um investment um and broadband cybersecurity.

And then as a previous mentioned, we also utilize those funds for um premium pay for essential workers.

The city did use revenue replacement, 10 million of the ARPA dollars were used to pay for the general governmental services, and those were allocated to um uh payroll for the parks department and for library, which were two departments that were impacted by COVID.

So currently these are the active projects that we have going on.

Um the Wi-Fi mobile broadband um that is in the downtown area, and that's um probably about 90 percent complete.

Um we also had the restaurant food business and computer program downtown, um, the renovations to that building.

It was the purchase of the building and renovations to that building downtown.

Um, some support for the Mesa Work First Job Access Center, um Leaf East Valley Man Center Expansion Project.

So we have a contract with New Leaf, where we're assisting them in the expansion of the East Valley Man Center, also with new leave, um operational support for the Hellman House um transitional housing, and then Phoenix Rescue Mission Heat Relief Program.

And then the other big ones that we still have going on are the off the streets program.

That is um we have Wintermere and Center combined.

Windomere is the current hotel that we're using to house the homeless, and the Sunair is the property that the city purchases doing renovation on to be able to continue to use as a place for the homeless.

And the community bridges is the partner that we're using right now for the uh additional support programs for the homeless.

All right.

In addition to the ARPA dollars that we received, um, the city uh the ARPA funds were um allocated interest.

Um the initial receipt of the funds from May 2021, where we received half of the money, and then May of 22, we received the other half.

So as projects were um done, uh any of the unspent funds were allocated interest.

Um and the city is using the interest to support current ARPA projects.

So if there are any costs that were um unanticipated, then those interest dollars would be used for that.

Once all the ARPA dollars are spent, so the projects that I mentioned in the prior prior um slide, any ARPA interest that is left in the ARPA fund will be transferred to the general fund and it'll just be a general fund dollars that are available.

Um currently the interest is being used on three main things um payroll on construction contracts.

So we have the restaurant incubator program, we have the Sunair, and then we have the Wi-Fi Mobile.

Those are all construction projects that have payroll from mainly engineering but other departments, and any cost of payroll after December 31st, 2024, we're using the interest um on the ARPA funds because those dollars were not obligated by December 31st, 2024.

It's hard to obligate uh payroll costs if you haven't even worked after.

So that's why we are using the interest related to that.

Any unanticipated infrastructure cost, and then also um that will be on the agenda, I think on November 17th is the furniture for the Sun Air project.

That is my short presentation.

Great.

Mayor Council, we just wanted to give you an update and and um also share with you that again that philosophy that uh councils had about trying to maintain the impacts of ARPA funded projects within the ARPA funding itself.

And so as we go to purchase the FFE for the for the Sun Air facility, that would still remain in for monies generated in the ARPA account and would not have an impact on the general fund.

Any questions?

Julie.

I I know this was just kind of an overall view of what's going on, and and I appreciate I I know that when we got all this money, we had to you know make a lot of decisions around it, and that we decided we were gonna do things that we weren't gonna just put a bunch of programs in place that we then would have to cut because we couldn't afford to do it.

So we wanted to have more of a lasting impact with a lot of these projects.

But um I think it would have been helpful to see some actual dollar amounts on this, just because I mean maybe I'm guessing you just decided not to do that, but I would have liked to have seen like how much we spent on each of these things and how much interest we've received.

Like there's just no actual figures in this, which would have been a little bit helpful, but I could provide that information to you.

I do have a slide that shows where we are on the current projects, if you'd like to see that.

Yeah, and I I yes, please pull that up, Arma.

And mayor council, um, when we closed out, you know, we had a pretty robust discussion when we made sure all the funds were obligated several months ago.

And really, those have not changed.

I think what we really wanted to focus on was the interest earned, the unobligated amount that we're holding back, um, and obviously wanting to make sure that we account for any unexpected expenses that might come up through those other projects.

And and uh, for example, I think we ran into some asbestos or some other construction issues as we were working on the restaurant incubator, and so that is something then we're able to utilize these funds that were from the interest earned to mitigate that, and that wasn't something that was in our initial um construction cost estimates.

So we're able to again try to maintain this to ensure that any unexpected expenses or expenses that are ancillary but related to that project, like furniture for Sun Air could could all go to that before we close out those funds or try to use them in any other uh way.

So on this slide, is this showing, I mean, will we are we planning on reaching the budget, the allocated amount for each of these?

This is just the current expenses that we've already, but we should be reaching the correct left.

And they did reach out to some of the project owners on some of these to make sure that we were on track um so that um again so that we can make sure that that we're gonna be spending all the funds on it.

And I did just realize I I made a mistake on the restaurant incubator.

That four million is what we have left to spend.

So we only spent 2.6 million on that.

Um but um like the Hellman House, for example, that has a c most of these have contracts that end on by December 2026, like the Windamere contract ends to um December 2026.

Same thing with the community bridges one and the Sun Air project that it has done, you know, that's wrapped up pretty quick.

So it's 6.6 million they spent up the 9.2 million.

So this is currently as of September 30th, the budget for that project and the expenses that are are gonna be spent.

If we did not spend all these funds because they would have been obligated, then we would lose out on those funds.

We would have to return it back to the Treasury.

And then I think you had a question on the interest.

So to date, we've earned four million dollars on the interest.

Again, those first funds were deposited in May of 2021.

So we have four years of of interest to earn on that.

And um, and then the current cost of some of the projects that are already talked about, the payroll and the construction contracts, since we have three of them, that 350 is an estimate.

I just basically doubled what we've already spent, and then the unanticipated infrastructure costs, um, those were actual costs that were provided to me from budget, and then the Sun Air Um furniture.

Okay, thank you.

For the record, and Miss Duff has joined us.

Thank you.

Um did that answer your question?

No, I I guess that's why I was a little surprised.

Scott, you say that you know the interest is used for some of the overruns and unanticipated, which was why I was kind of surprised to see that we're paying FFE with interest.

Was that always the plan for Sun Air?

You know, I uh Candace, I don't know if you wanna talk about that.

Um I think the the reason it it was kind of planned in the back end because um since all the funds had to be obligated by December 31st, 2024, we barely got the contract signed for the construction on that.

So, how can you foresee and obligate furniture for a building that you haven't even renovated yet?

So we knew that we were not gonna be able to use the ARPA dollars, and so as Candace and I have talked about, we talked about other funding sources and interest was one of them.

Yeah, so mayor and council member go forth.

Um that's correct.

Irma and I spent probably six months of 2024 um looking at all the projects that have been approved by council, the directions that we received, what we were able to actually obligate to meet the requirements by December 31st of 2024, um, knowing that we still had two years for the to expense it.

And Sunair was one of those where we just couldn't, we didn't know what the who the vendor would be, we didn't know what the needs were, we knew what the cost would be, which was a 750,000 dollars.

But we wouldn't be able, there was no way for us to obligate it by December 31st of 2024.

So that's when we moved it from kind of the ARPA funds over to the ARPA interest, because the interest allows us to not have to obligate it by the deadline and gives us that two years to spend it.

So the 750,000 um for the furniture fixtures and equipment um has always been in the budget for Sunair.

It was just a matter of which pot of money it was coming out of based on the timeline.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Yeah, and and again, this just gave us more flexibility to to try to right size it or write time it into um when we need to do the purchase.

So I have a question going back to slide four.

Uh the completed project, so the interest earned can be used on any of these uh completed projects, like for for example, real-time crime center.

How is that gonna be funded in the future?

Is that gonna be out of the general fund or uh what's our plan there?

Sure, and and and mayor, anyone can I'm just picking the first one.

Yeah, we're just gonna so the idea at least is as I understand, please anyone correct me on this.

Um, that we on the capital side, it was always the intent to build out the real-time crime center using those ARPA dollars and then ongoing operations would be you know borne by the department itself.

And so that so what you're seeing um, and again, please correct me anyone.

What you're seeing is just that capital side of to construct and outfit the the real-time crime center with the intent that uh you know, personnel and other expenses would be obviously an ongoing department expense after that.

And mayor, I will also add that after all the ARPA projects are are completed, and we if we do have leftover funds, you are correct, they could be used for any of these projects or none of these projects.

They could be used for anything because then would just go down to the general fund and they would be general fund resources.

Gotcha.

So we can certainly once we close out all these projects and we know what the balance is, we can come back to council and have that discussion about um the use of those funds.

We just wanted to make sure we closed out all of these projects and took into account any unforeseen construction issues or or other issues that may come up or directly related to those projects before we transferred that balance over to the general fund.

So I'm gonna circle back to the real-time crime center.

If we wanted to offset some of the budget costs for the real-time crime center, we could use some of that interest.

Mayor, that is correct, depending on what's left over.

If that's a decision that staff and council.

That's the council's direction.

That's the council's direction, yes.

And mayor, that would be again, these would be one-time funds that could be applied to anything in the budget after we've closed out this program.

Yeah.

The goal of the ARPA program was to look at resiliency to build up our assets within the city.

Um, not to, as we've talked about, not to add on necessarily ongoing programming, um, but to to, for example, the PD Real Time Crime Center to set it up, get it going, get those capital investments in there, and then we included in the budget each year as a review.

But anything left over, yes, could be one-time funds applied to anywhere in the budget.

Gotcha.

So, Mayor, we'll come back at that appropriate time uh to council get your direction on any unused funds, but but you're exactly, I mean, the real-time crime center obviously is a very technology heavy endeavor and uh and technology changes, right?

So there certainly will be future capital needs in in the real-time crime center.

So that would be one potential use of of those remaining funds.

Mr.

Rudy, uh, real quick, Irma.

Did I miss uh so we in site three show what we see obligated, what we spent um about 13 million ish uh left.

Are we projected to spend down all that 13 million-ish?

Is that what years or yes?

We the project the current projection on all the projects is that we would spend all the remaining funds, and most of them probably by the summer.

I don't think I think there'd only be a few, like the Window Mirror and the C um the community bridges that have contracts that go to December 2024.

But I f I think most of the other ones would be done before then, but definitely before December 2024.

Okay.

2026.

Sorry, thank you.

I apologize, just 2026.

And may I I will add one more thing on the the when we were talking about the crime center, and um like the first three projects acts examples, those were already projects that the city was gonna do, and once the ARPA funds were available, we shifted it to the ARPA.

So it wasn't like we decided that we were gonna create these new programs with ARPA and we would deal with the funding later.

There were already projects that were being discussed and where we're gonna uh be funded by the general fund, but ended up shifting to ARPA.

Well, thank you.

Uh to Miss Billsbury's point, I I would have liked to see the the numbers attached to each one of those bullet points.

So I would be happy to email it to you.

I have it right in front of me.

It's already done.

So thank you.

Uh council, anything else?

All right.

You got off lucky.

Uh next is item one C a presentation on the city's response to homelessness, an overview of the associated programs.

Uh, Lindsay by yourself.

I see.

Sean, Danica, and Jason.

Good morning.

Sean, how's uh Butch doing?

Doing well.

Thank you for asking.

Thank you.

Okay.

Great.

That's his dad, by the way.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Uh, we are here to give you an update on how we are addressing homelessness for community health and safety.

I do have a few uh partners with me here this morning.

Um, and we're really here to um give you uh a good overview on what we've been up to in this area.

We do really focus on community health and safety um and that council priority just to make sure that we have a very responsive, compassionate and inclusive um set of services for this situation.

Uh although the four of us are here today, we are not alone.

Uh we do this work with many other departments and other individuals, and so I just wanted to honor all of those people, many of whom are sitting behind me, and let you know this is a very collaborative approach.

Last time we spoke, there were some questions about um what did we do before 2018 when we started having some of these programs.

And so this is just a good overview of the history of homelessness since around 2018.

Prior to that, we were um we were doing a lot of site and release by our police department, and just in that cycle of arresting folks that were trespassing and had other misdemeanor um situations that um and those folks were really accumulating fines and then um getting into a cycle of being returned back to the community, not a lot of services and a very limited positive impact.

And so in 2018, we saw the development of community court.

And we also saw that year a ruling, the Martin v.

Boise ruling, which required viable shelter to enforce some of our homelessness related ordinances.

And that was upheld in 2019 by the Supreme Court.

After that, we began to see a rise in homelessness as well as many hardships that were related to that.

So of course, in 2020, we had the a lot of pandemic related hardships, unemployment, housing costs rising, mental health and substance use rising, and we saw homelessness rising then as well.

This was also a time when COVID CARES funds were introduced, and we began to see many municipalities across the nation that responded with services with those dollars, including Mesa, and our off the streets program or OTS was uh created in May of 2020 when we first opened and um had some shelter space to help folks that were experiencing homelessness.

In 21, we uh saw the end of the eviction moratorium related to some of those COVID restrictions, uh, and and that we began to see a rise in evictions, a reduction in some of the rental assistance programs, and ARPA dollars were uh introduced at this time.

In 2022, we established the Office of Homeless Solutions, and we began just a more collaborative coordinated approach to our work so that we were all working better and not in silos, and that our services were meeting the needs of Mesa and our community members.

This was when heat relief was really more became more of a city focus because of extreme temperatures and heat related deaths.

In 2024, we saw grants pass the Supreme Court ruling, which did lift the Martin v.

Boise requirements for viable shelter to enforce.

And today we are continuing to see evictions rise and other costs of living, as well as um programmatically, we've had our SMI court, the seriously mentally ill court has been distinguished from our community court, and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Uh with this history, we wanted just to show some of the trends in homelessness and and other impacts, and so this is showing individuals receiving homeless services that are from Mesa.

That those blue uh lines are really showcasing the number of people from Mesa that have requested services within the homeless management information system.

And so, as you can see, that that has continued to rise over the years.

Uh, we also have seen the number of people seeking services, um, which is shown here in in orange.

So this is number of people seeking services in Mesa versus Mesa residents seeking services in the county.

Lindsay.

Lindsay, will you remind me how do they determine that?

I mean, I know they're homeless.

Is it the previous address that they had that they're a Mesa resident, or is it just a self-declaration that's uh Mayor and Councilmember Goforth?

Uh, that is based on their last known address.

Okay, thank you.

This is showing uh trends through the county.

So this is um Maricopa County data, and we're seeing uh from 2024 that for every 10 people that are provided services and find housing, there are several newly homeless folks that are coming into the system and waiting in line.

So 19 new people compared to 10 people uh being served.

So there is a great imbalance there, and we're seeing a significant number of new people entering homelessness each month, uh often for the first time.

So 905 households experience homelessness for the first time in this time period of the the 2024 fiscal year, averaging 962 households over the last year.

Lindsay, to that point, that's a regional grass.

This is yes, this is for Maricopa County.

That's correct.

We do see um similar trends here, but yes, this is just county data.

Thank you, Mayor.

Do we know the numbers for this for Mesa?

I mean this is the county wide graph.

Is your mic on council?

No, it is.

Oh, Mr.

Butler took care of that.

Thank you.

I'm just wondering, do we have these numbers specific to Mesa?

Mayor and Councilmember Adams, uh, we don't we don't have this specific data here broken down by city, and that's why we're um we look at this data um which is showing the people that are receiving services are asking to um for for assistance from a Maricopa County provider.

And these are Mesa based individuals that are shown on this slide.

So these providers would be um anywhere in the valley.

Um yes, the blue line is indicating Mesa residents or with the the last known address was in Mesa asking for assistance from any provider in the county, and then the orange is showing uh the the individuals that are in Mesa requesting services from a Mesa based provider.

Okay, thank you.

I guess I just sorry, I just assume the orange Mesa residents requesting Mesa service.

No, not necessarily uh Mayor and Councilmember Go Forth, not necessarily, those are people that are um have requested services from a Mesa-based provider.

Okay, yeah.

We also wanted to just um acknowledge Mesa eviction rates, and so this is showing by fiscal year between 2019 and 2024.

They have continued the the dip there is when there was the eviction moratorium for COVID-related um impacts, and then the rise again.

The 2024 data is incomplete, and so there are two months missing for uh both May and June.

And so if you take an average, it would be closer probably to 10,000 once we see the final numbers for fiscal year 2024.

And um in the county, we're we're seeing um information that that this is not getting better, that for 2025 uh the numbers are very high for the county.

We don't have Mesa specific data available, um, but that it it will be a record high yeah um for 2025.

Percent right what percentage of the cities is capturing?

Because I don't are we all in North Mesa and West Mesa justice.

So thank you, um Mayor and Vice Mayor.

This is the image is not showing there is another box um that I believe is central Mesa.

So it is the whole, all of Mesa is represented in this.

We're driving home.

Okay.

That's right.

I just wanted to know.

I don't know what justice court I'm in.

So there's three justice courts, and they're all represented here.

Thank you.

Other compounding issues, um, I won't go into all of these here, but um it's not getting better for folks.

We are seeing um increase in rents, um, and mobile home lot rents is is another thing going from 250 to 800 um or more, and about 10 percent of of Mesa residents are living in mobile homes.

We're seeing wages have have increased at a slower rate than housing, um, health care costs, and uh reduction or loss of some of those support services.

We're seeing there's also not enough shelter to meet the need within the off the streets program at the Windamir.

We have as of last week, we have 14 families that are on our wait list.

Uh, we're serving about 30 families there.

We have 14 that are waiting to get into that program.

And so we talk about what so what are we doing with all some all this information and and how we move forward.

This is our the Mesa um housing plan path.

This is kind of our um continuum of care.

It really helps to guide our decisions and how we um stand up services and programming and and work through our strategy.

And this is how um what we have created so far.

So we're trying to create really a visual of how we're all working together.

You can see our community partners and faith-based community is is definitely part of this.

Um they are cogs in this wheel, and this is really showcasing the Mesa um piece of it as well.

Our the blue pieces here are all of our departments that touch homelessness, Office of Homeless Solutions, which is in our community service department.

Um we are focused on really bringing all of these pieces together, make sure that they're all interconnected and working well together.

Um, our police, our fire, transportation, libraries, our municipal court team, um, all really a big part of that.

There's other departments that are not fully represented here.

Um, but just to show uh it is it is a system that is working well together, and then the orange is the uh programs that we'll be talking about today that are intended to really meet the needs of the community as well as the the broader community to to help us work through this complicated issue.

Quick question.

How do the libraries play into this overall scenario?

Thank you, Mayor and Councilmember Adams.

Um our libraries we are in constant communication with because they are impacted by homelessness.

And so one of the things that we've done is we do have our street outreach and uh case management team.

One of those navigators that we have from our street outreach team does serve at the library.

They have open office hours, and and they're a resource for people that are in the library experiencing homelessness to be able to provide connection to services so that they can begin to have more resources and get connected to shelter and not be a nuisance in the library.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So another city department I'm seeing is that's not on here would be our parks and rec, right?

So that's obviously that that should be another blue one on here, I'm assuming, right?

With park rangers and their interaction with homelessness.

Yes, Mayor and Councilmember Spillsbury, that's correct.

They have been a part of our system for a long time, and we collaborate with them and make sure that for example, our our street outreach navigation team, their schedule is set to kind of mirror some of when the parks are closing so that we can have a resource if there is someone that is trying to sleep in the park that night, that we have a um case manager that can come speak with that person and and be a resource for us to lead with services.

Thank you.

Um I'm gonna hand it over to Danica and Sean.

They're going to talk about community court as we get into our program response.

Lindsay, can I ask one question before you exit?

So one thing I've been wondering about, you know, we've seen the dramatic increase in um homeless individuals and and needing shelters, transitional living.

Over since let's say since COVID, do we keep track of how many beds, how many people that were able to accommodate, and has that increased over the years?

Uh Mayor and Councilmember Duff.

We I there would be some data on that as far as um the the number of beds in Mesa.

Are you talking about for the whole system?

Um we have access to to talk about what we have provided through the off the streets program.

But we could we could talk about it.

Because that number has fluctuated.

We have data on the number of people served through that program.

Number of people served.

Um but it would just show the capacity of that program and not the full sometimes.

I'm like concerned that with a dramatic um rise in the cost of living variety of means.

Have we been able to increase our offering, you know, our beds, our offerings, or are we just remaining kind of flat?

Um I know we're making with ARPENs and such, we have made some provisions and such, but uh then we're like we'll be letting go of the windomere and when we get the sun air, so that's actually a step down.

I I don't know if we're making any really true headway in being able to provide those type of services, and because I know the waiting list, they say they turn around away at various navigation services more people than they help.

Yes, Mayor and Councilmember Duff, uh those are great questions.

It it is a complicated system, and there is not enough beds for the people that need a shelter space.

So based on funding, um, we will be reducing our program beds from 85 or our rooms that's not beds, um 85 to 64 as we transition into the Sun Air property, and we have seen uh like the loss of the IHELP program, for example.

Um yes, La MyCeda transitioning out of that service.

That's right, yeah.

Uh services are are being without the funds available, it's contracting, but the population is growing due to the cost of living is a concern that we're not able to increase our offerings over time, it's actually decreasing as the need is increasing.

And I would say that is um a really important reason why we need our street outreach team because they regardless of the amount of shelter, they are able to meet people where they are and start connecting them back to vital resources.

Shelter is one of those, that's very important.

Um you get and you know, a connection is made, but you have to wait in line to get that shelter.

Um, but in the meantime, they're connecting them to many other vital resources, which we'll talk about a little bit later.

So that's an important piece that's gotten better, but you're right, there's not enough, and it's it's challenging.

Mayor Mayor, can I ask?

Yes.

But prior to 2021 or 20, did we offer any beds?

The city of Mesa.

Um, Mayor and Councilmember go forth, the city of Mesa and prior to 2020, we did not.

Right.

No.

So I guess maybe I would just offer a different perspective, which means the more we offer, the less the existing ecosystem of nonprofits and faith-based organizations may offer.

Just another perspective on that, which is I think it's both going up.

They're not less because we're more at all.

I think they need to left.

Um together again.

I mean, you guys tell us, is that what you're seeing?

Are you seeing faith-based organizations and churches doing less because we're doing more?

I I would absolutely say that is not true.

Mayor and council members, I is a complicated question.

I we see that many agencies are doing as much as they can with the resources that they have.

So I don't no one's ever said, well, we're now we don't have to do shelter because you're doing that.

Um it is a piece of the puzzle, and um, yeah, there's there's a lot of good happening, but just not enough, probably.

But our dollars are also, I mean, we're we're keeping more of our federal dollars, right?

We're gonna have to in this area, which goes less to them, so they may have to cut back.

Anyway, uh that's a that's a wider discussion than today, but I just offer a different perspective.

Okay, let's go, Danica.

Okay, good morning, Mayor and Vice Mayor.

My name is Danica Sanchez.

I'm a deputy court administrator at the Mesa Municipal Court, and one of my functions is to oversee the administrative operations of our specialty courts, and our community court program falls within that scope.

Um, so I'm here today to give you um a little bit of history as to why community court was created and how it is achieving those goals as to why it was created.

So prior to 2018, um, we were seeing the justice partners were seeing a pattern of arrest, citation, serving jail time being released, citation book release.

Um it was a common pattern that we were seeing, and we recognize that that wasn't that model wasn't addressing the root cause or the behavior of homelessness.

It was disciplining homelessness, but it wasn't addressing that root cause.

Um these individuals that are that we were seeing, they're mostly homeless-related crimes, loitering, trespassing, uh, minor infractions.

So uh a team of justice partners, um, court personnel, prosecutors, public defender's office, the police met together, they were collaborating, trying to figure out is there an alternative way we can be approaching this problem that we're seeing.

Um, and the idea of community court came to be.

Um, they recognized there was a strain on resources.

Police were going out talking to addressing the same individuals over again with no resolution or a difference in their outcome.

Um that led to, you know, jail costs, booking costs, um, you know, it costs money to house these individuals into jail.

Um, cost money to put the put these cases through the justice system through the courthouse.

Um community impact, these individuals are still out in the parks out loitering in front of businesses.

It wasn't addressing that.

Um we realized that enforcement wasn't enough.

This was a social issue that needed an altern alternative approach and needed a community-based solution.

The justice system alone can't resolve this issue.

Um so then that's when community court was created and implemented in 2018.

So, how community court works?

It's a pre-adjudication model.

It uses um participants haven't been sentenced, they're um pre-adjudication, it's a voluntary program focuses on the behavioral changes uh to try and prevent individuals from continuing the homeless pattern or behaviors.

So each individual works with a peer navigator, helps them connect with community resources to um get them out of that pattern of homelessness, try to get them off the street, get them connected to housing, get them connected to resources that led to the homeless behavior in the first place.

Um participants will graduate community court by showing stability, which includes um uh stable income.

It doesn't necessarily have to be through a job, but um SSI benefits um or other benefits uh that they can receive um will also count towards that some financial independence, housing if they're on the path to stable housing, we're we're looking at that, addressing substance abuse, general mental health, getting them connected, trying to find that get to that root cause of what led to the the homeless behavior.

If they are unsuccessful, if they're not making progress or continuing to show that they are trespassing, having that the homeless behavior, they they will be removed from the community court and go back into a traditional courtroom and see um a traditional path that we're more familiar with.

Question, if I may, on this slide.

Do we have any, and you may be getting to it, if so, I apologize.

But do we have any statistics on the success rate?

I assume success would be considered graduation, stable housing income.

And the other question I have is uh it it's we say physical and mental health services, substance abuse treatment.

That's not an easy or a quick thing to do.

So, how successful are we with substance abuse rehabilitation?

Do we have any stats on that?

Or is it working and to what extent?

Uh thank you, Mayor and uh Councilmember Adams.

Um can be viewed in various different lenses from various different perspectives.

When it comes to the community court program model, we do look at um the number of graduates that are we are passing through the program and counter to that the recidivism.

And so we do have a slide that will touch on the graduates and the recidivism.

Um we want to have as many graduates as possible, but on the flip side of that, we don't want them to come back to the program.

So we don't want to graduate a whole bunch of individuals for them to come back into the program later.

But on the flip side of that, we don't want to graduate anybody and say nobody's coming back.

So we track those two measurements to measure the performance of community court as a whole from a very high perspective from a high angle.

Um and through that, though, there are smaller successes that we can see.

Um sometimes someone doesn't graduate community court, but maybe they got their documents and got a job.

But they didn't do anything beyond that to graduate.

So um, but that's still a success.

And we do have some difficulty tracking those rates because it's really outside the scope of the court.

Like our case management system doesn't have anything to that tracks that so within our authority, our scope, we it's very difficult for us.

But we do collaborate with our partner, which is CBI.

They're the ones that hold the contract for this um for this program.

And so we do uh try to collect as much as we can on that.

What's challenging that we found in getting that information in that data is when, for example, if they're trying to connect somebody to housing, every phone call they make, every referral that they put in that counts as an effort.

So when they pull their data on when how they're um trying to meet that need of the individual, it it looks like there's multi there's multiple efforts, so it's hard to say which one of those efforts actually place somebody into a shelter or place somebody into a housing.

So it's been challenging to capture those metrics, but we have been trying to find a way to be consistent with that.

So let me just go a little further.

So then maybe as a minimum, they might be required to do 90 AA meetings and 90 days, bring in the sign sheet, is that and maybe we get traction or something like that.

Is that is that kind of the path we go?

Because you can't there has to be a willingness, an admission of powerlessness.

So we at least get them to do something like that, looking for some kind of traction.

Is that what we're doing?

Uh yes, Mayor, and council member Adams.

That does happen.

We do require some proof.

Um ultimately the prosecutors are the gatekeepers for a community court program.

Uh they are the ones that file the motion to dismiss the case if they believe that the defendant is has met the the burden of showing that they have changed.

Um, and they do require documentation.

They do want to see proof and evidence that this person has gone through the programs and has done the steps that the court is asking them to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um it's got the numbers.

Almost, yes.

Um the supportive services, I touched on that um a little bit, but getting IDs, birth certificates, um, IDs, social security cards, documents that they need to apply for housing to help them get jobs, do the housing uh referrals, shelters, um, work on mental health, substance abuse uh treatment, also navigators help these participants with job training benefits and education supports.

So really it's a cross-collaboration.

The court system alone, the justice system alone can't solve this, what we're seeing.

So leaning on our community partners really helps us.

Excellent job, Danica.

Umor, uh council members, thank you for having us.

Good morning.

Um shortly after community court was established, we created a special docket called SMI, serious serious mental illness for the defendants who were uh diagnosed with a with with an SMI.

But this year in 2025, we separated that docket from community court and created an SMI court, mainly because it was just procedurally much more complex.

These SMI defendants uh they need a uh much deeper behavioral support and resources, and also these these SMI defendants are are connected to a behavioral health clinic and where they are supported by case managers that are employed by these clinics.

And so, like the community court navigators, these these case managers managers do help with housing and other types of support, but they're very, very involved with it with the actual treatment, very involved in getting it uh coordinated and established and um and and again uh so it's it's very very uh they're very hands-on, these case these case managers.

And like community court, this is a pre-adjudication model, so the there have been charges, but no one's been convicted or sentenced.

And there are plenty of incentives to for these uh defendants to participate in SMI court, and that again would be the mitigation of uh some fees and fines and dismissal uh dismissal of charges.

Looking at the uh the stats, so while as Danica mentioned, we do uh aim for a high graduation rate and low and low recidivism, we uh do so uh but not at the expense of um of readiness.

So uh these SMI participants, you know, they're uh to be able to graduate, they have to show some stability, as she mentioned in in in housing, at least on the on the path to housing, uh finances, and and of course, some behavioral improvement.

So as you look at the chart, so we'll start at 2023 under graduated.

So in community court, which is CC, we had 126 graduates, and in SMI court, uh we had 26 now go down to the return to program of those same 126 graduates in 2023, 19 recidivated or re-offended.

Uh so that that's a 15% recidivism rate.

In SMI court, uh five of the 26 in 2023, uh they recidivated.

So again, that's a 19% uh recidivism rate.

Now we have we've from what we learned from there, we had a much greater focus on as as Danica mentioned, the the readiness and stability.

Well, while graduations are great.

If you've attended them, they're they're wonderful uh events.

Um we do, we love to celebrate those, but we really want a uh a base, uh defendant base that is that is ready.

So in 2024, of the 83 graduates from community court and 27 from SMI, there were only four that re-offended in the community court and three out of uh SMI court.

So we went from that, and that's a five percent in community court, recidivism and an 11% in in SMI.

So we went from 15 to 5 in community court percent, uh, and then 19 percent to 11 percent in recidivism.

Now this year, this is these these numbers are as of a week ago.

Again, the the year is still young, there's still two more months to go.

But we've had one uh re-offend in each of the courts.

So that's a one percent in community court and a two percent recidivism rate in SMI.

And to what do we attribute that?

The why people recidivate is uh is I mean, it's it's endless variables, but we'd love to say it's all because of our efforts and our great team.

It very well could that I know those are uh huge factors, but for now, that is what we those are numbers for.

Yes, go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

You can't call me that.

Oh yes, I guess you can.

So on these numbers, it's I um particularly with a seriously mentally ill.

How well are you able to track those individuals versus do some of them disappear into the ether, or are you able to keep pretty good counts on these numbers?

We are able to number one, Danick and her team are are very, very involved in constant communication with that team.

The case managers are are uh constantly talking with the uh with with the members of the court staff.

So yeah, they have some pretty great uh tracking on it.

There, it's very well tracked, and Danica, anything to add to that?

Yeah, uh thank you, Mayor, and and um I'm sorry, was it Vice Mayor Summers?

Okay, um yeah, and uh clarifying question if I may.

Are you talking post-program or during the program?

I'm I'm just curious as as to the looking at these numbers, is it this is a pretty impressive improvement, and I I just like to know that we're they're accurate.

So are we able to keep track of folks?

Because if they fall out of the system and go to I don't know, Flagstaff or California doesn't matter, and then they re-offend there, then that's not really a success story if we can't track it.

But if we're tracking these and and they're actually doing much better, then I have more confidence in the numbers.

Yeah, these numbers are within the community court program or SMI program itself.

Um our case management system, it's very difficult to track individuals within it.

So these are all manually done where we're running our calendars and I having to identify these individuals.

Um but we are we're doing we're doing that because this is important to us and the reflection of the program.

Um but if it's outside, you know, Mesa, we don't, that's outside of our jurisdiction.

Um, and if it's post the program, it's outside of the court's jurisdiction.

Um we would like to.

Um, but yeah, it's we're limited in that capacity.

So we struggle a little bit with the numbers, but I would assume that that weakness is equal across all the years, then.

Yes.

Agree, yes.

Okay, thank you, Ms.

Spielsbury.

I was just gonna ask, maybe I'm just not seeing it.

Why then why are the numbers decreasing in community court?

Do you think you know the overall yeah?

Mayor, uh Vice Mayor Go, uh, sorry, council member go forth.

I guess I would assume, sorry to interrupt you, but I would assume we have less going through the program, right?

So each year now, are those numbers decreasing?

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Um thank you, Mayor and um council member go forth.

The there are kind of multi uh multiple factors at play that are happening.

Um we're we're really taking a focus as far as the graduation numbers, focusing on that readiness, and so when that criteria increased or that threshold increase for graduations, yeah, we were gonna see some less graduates because the criteria, the bar has been raised.

Um as far as volume, um, the numbers have been decreasing um this past year as well.

Um, just if individuals aren't participating in the program, they are being removed.

Um so we are seeing less numbers in as to that as well.

So less numbers overall participating.

Um there's less numbers on our active caseload or scheduled, but we are actually seeing more individuals show up to court now than we have in recent years.

Okay.

So our the number of people scheduled are less, but the number of people that are showing up is more.

It's increasing.

And that is also a number that we we do track as well.

So why do you think that first number is decreasing?

The first number is decreasing, yeah.

Um I believe the prosecutors are just requesting that the defendants be removed um sooner than what has previously happened in the past.

Um, so depending um, it's their discretion if if they want to remove somebody or if a defendant requests to be removed, uh they'll be removed.

But um, I believe one of the contributing factors could be, you know, after one tempt or two attempts, they're just being removed, and so we're not seeing as many continuances or chances as we had in the past.

Okay.

Miss Spielsbury.

I mean, so I assume you're saying if we have this increase in homelessness, why why are the numbers in our community court going down?

Right.

No, I mean that's I I get what you're saying, but I mean, yeah, sounds like if we're just increasing standards of who gets to stay in the program, then you're gonna have less graduates.

Are we assuming that all these individuals are homeless then?

This is well, this particular court is for the homelessness.

Yes, mayor and council members, yes, yeah, yeah.

They they are homeless um for this program.

And not everyone that's homeless qualifies to be in a community court program.

The community court program would be if they have fines and fees and stuff, right?

I mean, not everyone would fall into the category that they would then go to community court.

Correct.

Yeah, it's the low-level offenses, trespassing, loitering.

So I'm assuming, like, as we're seeing increases in families and elderly and veterans, like they're not gonna be the people who are going to fall into community court, right?

Yeah, I mean that's correct.

So my my comment was just gonna be um, and I for sure can't talk about this without grinding, but I I hope that everyone on our council has been able to go and attend community court.

I've done it twice and um gotten to sit there for three or four hours and watch case after case.

And I've been able to see people enter and been able to see people in the middle of it and then see people graduate, and it is powerful, it is beautiful, it is watching someone's life change right before your eyes.

Um the last time we attended Judge Baylin was the was the judge, and a man stood there and just started crying and said he'd never been treated like a person in a courtroom.

And to know that we have court staff and judges that are that are doing that and seeing them as a person, not as someone who's just, you know, seriously mentally ill or addicted or homeless, but that they're a person, that they have a family, that they matter, is one of the things I'm most proud of in our city.

That we have programs like this.

The hardest thing with the homeless situation is that every single person has a different story.

Every single person has a different situation, and so it takes different things to help that person.

So there's just not this blanket solution to homelessness.

And it's hard work.

It takes a lot of time with each one of these individuals, and we know so many are service resistant.

And I've talked to several police officers that say sometimes it takes 20 times, 20 contacts with people before they'll accept the help.

This is not quick, easy work.

And to know that we as a city have put value on helping the most vulnerable.

Okay, then that's gonna be a hard follow-up.

Next.

Okay, that's me.

Sorry.

Okay.

Uh, we are transitioning just to talk about Office of Homeless Solutions and the work that we do, the programs that we're uh coordinating.

And just as a reminder, um, the focus of our office is really to have a well coordinated, robust, robust partnerships, comprehensive services, and really just support the health and safety of all in Mesa.

So we work a lot with our housed community, we work a lot with businesses, um, and we work a lot with our public safety teams to make sure that this is all working for everyone, and that we're creating uh safe places for people to be and enjoy as a Mesa resident as well.

So, with that, I'm going to um turn it over to Jason.

He is pretty new to our team, but not new to Mesa, and he's gonna talk about his role and uh some of the work that we're doing.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Jason Flam.

I'm the public safety liaison for the Office of Homeless Solutions.

I was a Mesa police officer for 25 years, and during my final three years, I was a community action officer, which uh entailed working directly with Mesa's homeless population and utilizing many of the programs that we're discussing today.

My in my current role, actually that experience gave me valuable insight into how these programs operated from the perspective of an officer in my current role.

I'm trying to ensure that the officers utilize these programs effectively and that the processes are streamlined and practical for them to implement.

When I started this role, my wife asked me about this trend change in my career, and to put it into perspective, I explained it to her like this.

I told her if if our beautiful daughter Allie were to save up all of her money and buy her very first house in the city of Mesa, I'd be very proud of her.

But if someone were to start building a homeless camp right behind that house as our father, I'd be concerned, and I want I would want that house or that camp removed.

Now, if my beautiful daughter Allie were the one building that camp behind somebody's house, I I'd still want the camp removed, but I would want the police officer responding to have great resources to help Allie connect with help and get off the street.

Now, if my daughter Allie were the amazing police officer that I know she could be, and she were the one responding to that call for service.

Not only would I want her to have great resources for that person experiencing homelessness, but I'd also want her to have a professional, someone that's a professional and um street outreach just to pass that call off to so that she's available for emergency calls because knowing my daughter Ellie, I know she'd want to be first on scene to any emergency call to start life-saving measures until our great fire department shows up and does their magic.

So our goal is to promote safe and secure neighborhoods throughout Mesa.

We want to help those experiencing homelessness connect with resources, and we want to help our research our first responders reduce the amount of time that they spend on homeless-related calls so that they're available to keep our residents safe.

And we do this through our core components through heat safety, street outreach, shelter, education, and collaboration.

This is an overview of our heat safety response.

As mentioned in the timeline.

Mesa began providing financial support to expand to hours and services for heat relief in 2022 and more expansively in 2023 through 2025.

And this was due to extreme heat and an increase in heat-related deaths.

The city made of Mesa has four, has provided four significant heat safety responses.

Our portable air conditioner loan program, heat safety transportation service, 22 heat safety locations, and our emergency real rehabilitation program where 64 of Mesa's residents benefited from brand new air conditioner units during the summer of 2025.

Our education and awareness program takes place during the summer months, and it consists of a big social media campaign, some of which is highlighted on this slide.

Most of what we do is in collaboration with others, including Mesa Fire Medical, Mesa PD, and other related departments and agencies.

These are the heat related deaths in Mesa reported so far to us by the county.

It shows 13 or I'm sorry, 34 compared to 55 in 2024 and 47 in 2023.

To be clear, some of these numbers, some of these heat related deaths could have occurred in county islands, and the there are currently many deaths still under investigation at the medical examiner's office.

We continue to find that substance use and air conditioner issues significant significantly impact our heat related deaths.

We believe that as many as three quarters of the heat related deaths have a nexus to substance abuse, but we won't know for sure until early spring of 2026 when we received the final numbers from the county.

This map shows the heat related deaths in 2024 as well as our heat relief locations in 2025.

And here's an example of our well, we use our previous year's numbers to dictate where we're going to focus the upcoming year.

And this is an example of our approach.

If you look at the middle of the map, 85205, it was significantly impacted in 2024 by heat related deaths.

So in 2025, we had six heat relate relief locations in and around that area.

And we also piloted uh heat relief transportation service for the first time in the summer of 2025, which focused on this area, and it is served both housed and unhoused people.

The decrease in heat related deaths in 85205 during 2025 from 13 down to four so far is an encouraging sign that our outreach and relief programs are making uh positive impact.

The numbers on this map, they indicate the number of heat-related deaths in 2025 provided to us by the county so far.

The color coding on the zip codes is indicates the number of calls for service by Mesa Fire and Medical, and this is something that was requested by city council during our April presentation.

We're gonna keep our eye on these numbers and then um adjust our resources appropriately once we have the final numbers in 2026, and that will be done in collaboration with Mesa Fire and Medical.

This slide highlights two things our portable air conditioner loan program and our heat safety transport service, which was our creative approach to combating a rise in heat-related deaths.

And this, like again, this was the first year that we tested this program.

The service was a proactive, targeted approach that focused on the zip code of 85205, and it transported individuals to and from our primary heat relief center.

Again, it served our housed as well as unhoused residents.

Our portable air conditioner loan program served 48 households.

It's worth noting that during the summer of 2025, those of those 48 households, 31 of the households contain served.

I'm sorry, 31 individuals, seniors were served, 11 children were served, and 24 individuals experiencing illness or disabilities were served.

I was able to go to many of these homes and meet with the residents served by this program.

The majority of the people I met with are were elderly, and um, everybody was absolutely appreciative.

They were very thankful of this program.

Both services, the heat safety transport service and our portable air conditioner loan program, they divert from higher cost systems such as medical calls involving Mesa Fire and Medical and Prevent Health related deaths and homelessness.

In addition to our many cooling centers and hydration stations located throughout the city, our primary heat relief center was hosted by Resurrection Street Ministries, and they had the most comprehensive services for heat relief, heat safety.

This slide shows data collected during the summer of 2025.

They had over 13,000 visits.

This location served our housed and unhoused vulnerable population.

And I need to jump back real quick.

Of the 13,000 visits, 3,257 were unique individuals.

Of those unique individuals, 483 were over the age of 60.

98 were under the age of 18, 11% were housed, and 88.5% were unhoused.

In addition to being a cooling center and a hydration station, this day respite center also connected folks with resources.

They receive food.

They receive case management and wraparound services as well as medical care.

This program also diverts from higher cost systems, including calls for service for first responders, hospital visits, and preventing heat-related deaths.

Many of our guests at the Resurrection Street Ministries were connected with case management and wraparound services by Phoenix Rescue Mission with whom we contract our street outreach.

Our outreach program is powered by a hotline, a reporting system, and a dedicated team of 12 Phoenix Rescue Mission navigators.

And I know it says Phoenix Rescue Mission, but they're people that are dedicated navigators dedicated dedicated to Mesa.

They're not in Phoenix, they're actually dedicated to working in Mesa.

Can I can I back you up a slide or two?

Just a quick question.

So we're talking about uh I'm on slide 19.

Um just for clarification, are these 852 transports or those ambulance either Mesa Fire Medical or private service or what is that, or is that just one of our navigators taking someone to a hydration station or this is the one that starts out uh portable AC loan program, and then you have heat safety transport.

Yeah, mayor and council member Adams.

This uh the transports that are listed on this slide are related to our nonprofit partner, um, a passenger van providing a ride to a heat relief center.

Uh, not related to a medical um understood.

Oh, so someone needs water when we take them to a hydration station, we get them away.

Yes, if they're out on the street um and in distress from the heat, uh, which is the typical situation, then we are helping to engage them at a heat relief center.

Okay, all right, thank you.

So our 12 Phoenix Rescue Mission navigators, they're trained to utilize their peer support expertise to conduct street outreach, often in the most difficult situations and environments.

And the critical engagement, this critical engagement provides bri a bridge to essential services, case management, uh, and a path towards stable housing.

We have monthly meetings with our Phoenix Rescue Mission navigators, first responders, as well as the community bridges court navigators from community court and other local organizations to work together to combat um high problem areas and encampments.

Phoenix rescue mission navigators, they cover seven days a week and sometimes up to 16 hours a day in Mesa.

This slide highlights Phoenix Phoenix rescue missions, street outreach and case management.

During the fiscal year from July through September of 2025, Phoenix Rescue Mission Navigators have been working with a total of 719 people.

42% of those folks are were female, 53% were male, and 5% were unreported.

During the same um time period, 31 people entered the Phoenix Rescue Mission residential program.

77 were placed into shelters other than the Phoenix Rescue Mission uh residential program, and 24 were connected with permanent housing.

Now, from February of this year through September, Phoenix Rescue Mission successfully successfully helped place 96 people into recovery programs.

Phoenix Rescue Mission also provided transportation 431 times to other community service providers.

Not only do they provide care and stabilizing resources, but they also provide transportation to these facilities to complete the loop.

Phoenix Rescue Mission's ability to connect individuals with care saves the public money.

It also frees up first responders such as the fire department from medical calls and the police department from nuisance calls, and it also reduces homelessness.

We have a question, Ms.

Freddy.

On uh on the numbers of uh especially the heat relief program.

Is that include county islands as far as some of that data?

I know we work with the county health department quite a bit on this heat relief program.

I'm just curious.

Um, you know, we have a unique um county island, especially in the east side of Mesa with a lot of mobile homes.

Um just curious how we um how do we collect that data if it's I don't know if it's separated or within these these numbers, and how do we deepen maybe the work with our the the county to maybe have a little bit more resources to go out and assist especially um these mobile home parks that are in county island, but you know, we respond to them, right?

So I just curious um if we have had that conversation with the county uh in and seeing how we can get their support to uh maybe uh provide maybe additional uh AC uh replace uh AC program or uh other potential uh opportunities that we can work with them.

So mayor and council member Heredia, thank you.

Um those are great questions.

So in 85205, I believe there is um one of those county islands where we have seen it be highly impacted with some of the heat-related deaths over several years.

And so um that could be contributing to these numbers.

Umce the the final report is completed by the coroner, we are given a little bit more detail.

Uh, when it's a small number of people, we can't get too detailed.

Um, it is protected information, but we uh we work closely with the county.

They actually the health department provides funding for us to have our um day respite center that Jason mentioned was with Resurrection Street Ministries this year.

Uh we we do a lot of outreach with our community engagement team as well, and so any time there is we we try to reach out to the majority of the mobile home parks because we do see that as a highly impacted area.

Anytime there's a uh an area on the map that's showing red like this, uh we do a lot of targeted outreach too.

And so even if the mobile home park is in a county island, uh we can provide them with um flyers to hand out to their residents so that they know they can any anybody can go to any of our heat relief centers, for example.

So that's not um they even if you're a county resident, you could do that.

If if they're looking for an air conditioning unit, we have worked with the county um and other resources.

We might not be able to provide it if they're not a City of Mesa resident, but we are connecting to other resources, so we're really trying to have that collaborative approach to impact folks in in any of these areas.

All right, Jason, for who's next?

I think I just think it's I I love at the bottom of these slides that you talk about that these services are diverting from and or reducing higher cost systems.

We pay for homelessness, either way.

So the fact that we've taken a more humanitarian way to deal with it than just an enforcement side or to not do anything.

We're going to pay for it.

So I just I think that's a really important point to just keep reiterating that we're trying to do the better way, and that it's also saving us money.

And it's the more humanitarian thing to do.

Thank you.

So we're moving to off the streets updates.

Um as a reminder, this program has existed for five years since 2020.

It began in alignment with that Martin v.

Boise ruling in which uh a bed was required in order to allow enforcement of some of our homeless related ordinances.

Uh it also was in alignment with our with COVID funding and that rise in homelessness.

All of that was happening at the same time that this program was stood up.

Currently, we rent 85 rooms at the Windermere Hotel for this program, and we will be moving the program to the Sun Air property in the spring of 2026.

This program supports our public safety as well as community court when we're able to provide housing to both of those groups to really have that leading with services opportunity and make sure that there is a safe place for people to go when an officer or firefighter is engaging with someone in need of shelter.

There are a lot of um rules and requirements to this program, a lot of structure to the program.

It is uh very nurturing and safe place for people to come, but there's also a lot of rules and requirements in place to make it an effective program.

Uh case management is included, and we um based on our previous conversation earlier.

So the this is a shelter that one of the only shelters that I'm aware of, the only shelter in Mesa I'm aware of that uh serves families and women.

This is data for the program, just for this calendar year.

So starting from January, uh year to date, we have served 374 individuals, and we have a lot of data on here.

I will call out that we do have uh a positive exit rate of 85% right now.

Uh and that means that of those 374 people, as they exit our program, they are going to the next positive place on their housing plan.

It can be very different for every person or family, and so um the places they can go are different, but they are going to a um they are not returning to homelessness.

And you can see um with our gender, uh, we are seeing more and more women needing these services, uh, which indicates single women as well as a lot of families that we're working with.

And so question.

Oh, no, go ahead, Mr.

Adams.

Sorry.

Um I'm curious as to why we are tracking this by race.

I understand some of the other metrics, but why are we tracking this by race?

Homelessness is homelessness, whether they regardless of race.

Thank you, Mayor, and Councilmember Adams.

Um race is one uh thing that is tracked in the HMIS, the system um that is created to track this type of program.

Um so it it is well, it doesn't explain why.

I mean, it's in the system, but why, to what extent, what to what end do we want to know the race of the person?

I did not create that system.

It is a um uh coordinated effort outside of the city of Mesa, the system in which it tracks that.

Um I do think it's interesting data that it it shows us, you know, who is being served in the in the community.

Uh, we do have a reflection on that compared to the Mesa demographics, just to see um if we're if we're serving in a balanced way.

But as far as to why I I don't want to drill down too far into this, but I want to serving in a balanced way, we should treat everyone equally, right?

I think we want to make sure we're not seeing a rise in a certain population.

Also, there's a lot of accusations, frankly, that we're housing illegal immigrants.

So maybe let's put that to rest showing how many are non-Hispanic or Latino.

Not that that even means that they're illegal, but I think it's not an uh unreasonable thing to just report the data that we have, not that we're treating one group over another, but that we can see what people are actually experiencing homelessness and are needing services.

I don't know why it's in there, but I can see some reasons why it might be in there.

I think in a city population, we have our demographics, we know our breakdown.

And if um is disproportionate to the makeup your your city, it tells you communities, maybe the outreach.

I can give you some insight into you know who's needing help and and who's getting the help.

I understand that.

I just I just don't quite understand to what end.

Uh every if a person's homeless, they're homeless, and I don't know that it matters.

Um I understand the comment about the um uh uh immigration status, although you know I don't think it necessarily means that we have we have folks who are perhaps not here legally of all different races and ethnicities.

So anyway, just a comment.

Well, also, I mean, we keep track by age, we keep track by gender, we keep track of whether they're a domestic violence victim.

I mean, we it's just helping us see what the population is made up of and which groups of people are needing more attention or more help.

That that's the way I see it.

I don't see it any different than all the other uh metrics we're going off of.

Mr.

Redia.

Uh real quick, uh, you know, I just offer my perspective on sometimes you looking at this data on particularly on race, there's a lot of perceptions that you know the certain population are meeting these these numbers, and as we can see here, um I think it it affects all walks of life, like you're you're saying uh councilmember Adams.

And I think it's important to note that uh in order to compact some of these perceptions in communities that we need to share this type of data with folks, right?

So I I I love this this these data points because it shows that you know men and women and different races and and different um different reasons, right?

Like uh financial employment, you know, jumping up as far as uh the the reason of homelessness.

It just I think gives us a better baseline to how do we tackle some of these strategies and use these solutions to to help people.

Um curious um do we have uh year-to-date totals, not just for 25, but uh with the previous years uh that we've run this program.

Um I know this is 374 is for this year, right?

So is there is there a larger number, I'm assuming of unique uh individuals that we've served.

Yes, Mayor and Councilmember Heredia.

Um I believe we're close to 3,000 people being served in the program.

I can provide that as a follow-up if you'd like.

Since since 2020.

Since one and also the last time I saw this dashboard, we were at a 78% exit rate, which was crazy high, way higher than most of these types of programs across the country.

So to see an 85, like I'm stunned.

That's remarkable to me that we are able to do what we're able to do in with this program.

Thank you.

Okay, where do we leave off?

This data is showing uh where clo where clients go when they do exit the program.

So uh you can see there's many different places, and we provide that list for you here.

Um, if they are returning to homelessness, that is noted as well.

Um there are a lot of different reasons people would go to any one of these places.

Uh, there is a high percentage that go to another homeless shelter.

That is partly because the system is kind of backed up, and so you may be in line to go to a bridge housing facility that is more uh transitional and long term, but you might not have space available yet for to get in there, and so there are times when people go to another shelter.

This is more information on our Sunair property.

So uh we have we did start construction in January, and that continues today.

Uh we are hoping to occupy the property in spring of 2026.

And um, this is showing renderings of the property.

You've seen these before, but just to reflect that we do intend to um have a a nice upgrade on the landscaping and include uh property wall around the property um just to make it a more secure site, and a lot of nice improvements there.

This is showing uh continuation of our program today and the items that will continue with the new property uh compared to the Windamir that we don't have as much control over it.

We don't um own that property.

We have a great relationship with the owner, um, and he works really well with us, but there it's a very expansive property.

There aren't there's not um uh one point of entry, for example.

There's many points of entry, there's not a fence around the property.

So many people can come and go that are not part of our program and and um impact things on property there.

The our new property um will have that fence and just uh a much smaller footprint.

Also uh everything is entered through one door, and so uh all the program rooms are through one point of entry through our lobby, which will be um occupied by staff that are checking people in and out and assisting people and doing welfare checks on everyone as well, and um, it's just a much more structured environment, so we're excited about that.

We will continue to have the 90-day program or up to 90 days that people can stay with us and other indicators here.

Um the big shift is that we will be serving just that a more limited population, still really focusing on Mesa's most vulnerable residents, and again, that's seniors, families, and um those that have experienced domestic violence.

This is an update uh photo of our rooms in progress.

So we um have been able to make up updates to the rooms just to get a fresh coat of paint.

You see new flooring here, you can see um not everything is quite completed, but we are making really good progress, and um we will have 64 program rooms there.

The rooms will um have a joining doors, so we've really structured it to meet the needs of of the lessons we've learned in the last five years in running this program, seeing more and more families.

We have adjoining doors now, so if we need to expand a room to allow for a larger family, we can do that.

Uh we can also close those rooms and serve a lot of single um people or smaller families if we need to do that.

So there's a lot of flexibility in the program.

We've also just created a small intake space and staff space.

We will have laundry facilities on site, security cameras, great little playground.

And in this image here, you can see this is a mock-up of the furniture that we are hoping to purchase.

And we've really done a lot of work to get as many as be able to serve as many people in one room as possible.

So we have a lot of large families that we're seeing.

We are incorporating bunk beds and as much space for people within the rooms and really maximizing that as much as we can.

Compared to the renderings, this is an image of the property from last week.

And so you can see it is very much under construction.

Building one, which is the larger two-story building, is coming along really well, and a lot of those rooms have already been near completion.

We hope to see that playground popping up here soon in the dirt areas in that parking lot.

This is looking towards Main Street from the back of the property.

We are also in the process process of soliciting for a program and property management team.

So we're going through that right now and looking to incorporate a new an agency to help us facilitate those needs on property.

And we're also looking to really maximize federal funding opportunities.

So for the cost of this program, we're really looking at every avenue for that.

Last time we spoke, we showed this image.

So this is showing for the program year 2024 in our off the streets program.

This is Windemere located data.

That at the at the last time we spoke about this, there was a conversation about who qualifies and who does not.

And we talked about that 5% of single women that is there, kind of in the middle top section of that diagram.

That we were we were discussing whether or not that population qualifies.

We've been able to do a lot of research and and our team has done a great job of that.

Just really showing that for single women, uh, more than 90% of women have gone through that are experiencing homelessness, have had some kind of domestic or sexual violence.

Um for that we're using that as a justification to include this population into the domestic violence category and and um qualifying them for the off the streets program based on that data, and based on also that we know a lot of those um situations go underreported.

So we feel like that allows us to meet the needs of the community and the council use permit by making that inclusion.

So we would go ahead, finish.

Um that would uh mean that 15% of single men that don't fall into the other categories would not be continued to have service in our program.

Okay.

Yeah, the single men I wanted to look at is would a single male veteran qualify for this.

Um if he is a senior or part of a family or have domestic violence history, yes.

Okay, but but otherwise just being a veteran wouldn't qualify to go in here.

Um currently the single men can go to uh what's the hope?

East Valley Men's Center.

East Valley, so we'd have to send them over to East Valley Men's shelter.

Okay, great.

Yes, um our mayor and Vice Mayor, uh, we also have our Phoenix Rescue Mission team, and so they're really uh connected to many other places in the community as well in the in the county.

And so if there's not space at East Valley Men Center, which can be the case, um, they may be connected to another place in the community.

Can you expand on that?

Uh this is where I wanted to get to because switching from the windomere to sun air, it's a reduction in in the number of beds.

We're going from 85 to 64 beds, and then the restrictions on sun air.

We can't put men in there.

So that's what a 25% loss in capacity.

So, what is the plan for where do those folks go that are currently being served?

Yeah, mayor and vice mayor.

Uh so that is the importance of that that um team of 12 street outreach and case management navigators that we have with uh currently Phoenix Rescue Mission is serving that role.

They are experts in uh connecting people, they actually have their own um their own shelters, and one of them does serve single men.

And so oftentimes we're already seeing if there's not a good connection point or if it's the best place for for the individual need to go, they are able to place someone in their own program.

They also place many people in East Valley Men Center, and if there's another place that is more appropriate and available, they will do that as well.

So that is kind of our triage team that is able to take anyone in need and start working with them and connecting them to the right resource.

Are they aware of that reduction in capacity and understand that they're gonna be having to take up that slack?

We are in regular communication with them, and and yes, they're aware of that.

Okay.

And I'd like to also point out that our program that we have, the Windomir and the Sun Air is a temporary, it's a 90 day structured program, and the average is 69 days or something.

So this isn't someone is not there long term and then displays, you know, they're going through their program and working through that to get to the graduation and then out.

So I don't have transitional set of a stationary place.

This is showing uh the region, particularly the cities that are closest to Mesa.

Uh we've talked a lot about uh what else is there in the region, and so I just wanted to show that uh we are in collaboration with these other cities as well as Phoenix and others in the area.

Um a lot of them do have their own heat safety programs or facilities throughout the heats, the heat season.

Uh many of them, all of these uh represented here do have a street outreach team.

Some um, you know, in varying degrees, Gilbert has one street outreach navigator that they have a contract with.

Um, but that person is working with our team, and we're doing a lot of warm handoffs.

So our programs are really meant to serve people that were originally Mesa based.

And if we find someone that is in need of services and they were originally um based in another one of these cities or or anywhere else in the county, we're able to really connect with that outreach team and do a warm handoff, and vice versa, they would do the same to us so that we're all aware of each other and um helping to meet the needs of our specific communities is the goal.

Uh many of these cities also have their own shelter programs, which contributes to meeting the need, and all of them have some sort of diversion court, um, community court, or or they may call it a different thing, but they do have that service, and a lot of them have modeled it, I will say, after the Mesa program.

So there is there are other efforts going on, and uh we work with these teams regularly.

Additionally, um, we collaborate with MAG and and other um the the county in other ways and are part of that regional discussion and response.

We do work internally um as a homeless strategy team with all of our departments and make sure again that we're all working together and strategically.

Uh we have that monthly outreach collaborative with our street outreach teams and providers, and we collaborate a lot with our together in service, that faith-based uh community collaboration.

We also do a lot of special projects and partnership, oftentimes with our police department and our annual point-in-time count as well as resource events for those in need.

This is um just an update.

We will have some fun, healthy giving options during the holidays.

We're partnering with Mesa Public Libraries, and so shown on the screen here is one of the bookmarks bookmarks that will be hanging on our holiday trees at the library.

Uh, this is a giving opportunity for the community to buy an item.

Um there's cozy blankets um or kids' blankets on this one that will go back to our off-the-streets uh participants, and so um we're excited to be collaborating with the Mesa team or the library team on that.

We will also see some new um healthy giving uh signs go up.

The the panhandling signs that you've seen um in district four and one will be expanding.

Um, and with that, we're expanding uh the opportunities for giving there.

Uh there is a monetary way to give, but we also have a lot of wish lists that we've created where people can actually purchase an item that goes back to one of the programs and directly to the individual serve.

So that link is provided here if folks would like to learn more about that and give.

And then, of course, uh, we just wanted to end with the resources provided.

So if you are in need of help or you know someone that needs help, uh the Phoenix Rescue Mission Street Outreach Line is really um the best place to call and connect with one of our street outreach navigators.

Our Mesa Homeless Resource Line or our Hope Line is also there really to provide help in navigating through the system, knowing how to connect to it.

A lot of people just have questions and don't know where to go.

Our team, um, my team with the home homeless outreach, our office of homeless solutions uh answers those phones and really makes those connections.

That's also a good line for uh a business or or you know, someone in a Mesa residence that has questions or concerns.

We're happy to talk with them too and and help them out there.

Well, thank you, Lindsay and team.

Uh yeah, I I had a question really quick back at the um some of the data point.

Uh as far as the um the Windermere and Sun Area did I miss it.

So is that is that primarily the previous address was Mesa residence?

Do you have that somewhere in here?

The number served and those that are Mesa residents.

I don't have the data here.

Um I believe we do have that data in this data set.

I'll look and see if I can provide that for you.

The goal is always to um prioritize Mesa residents and primarily serve Mesa residents.

Yeah, I'm just yes, I imagine, because I you know you would hate to be full and we have an Mesa resident come up and there's no room.

Right.

Because we're served.

Not that it isn't regional, we all understand that.

But um, some of our surrounding uh municipalities don't have that.

So when you talk about a warm handoff, and it's a Gilbert resident, what what are you handing that?

They don't have a shelter, right?

Or do they have some other maybe non-municipal the Gilbert team?

I believe they have an eye help program, so that's like a church-based program where they can provide some services, but not emergency shelter.

Uh that is emergency shelter, but only for you know, very specif a specific population.

Um, so that's up to them to to navigate through the system and provide that service.

Um but you're right, not every and not every city has that.

So they have to connect to some regional resources.

Okay, thank you.

Any other quick Ms.

Pillsbury?

Um, I just again great presentation and very thorough, which I appreciate, just to show all of the moving parts.

I love your your uh way to represent that of all these different moving pieces that all have to work together and play off of each other.

So um to you, Lindsay and Jason and frankly too.

Sorry.

Natalie Lewis and Aaron Rain, who started it all on so many other people that have um put so much effort into doing this.

Um we we received a lot of opposition on this um hotel, but we also um you know transitioning this to the the Sun Air Shelter um so much support, and I love to see several of the um 55 plus communities that are in my district that are right around here.

They all said, How can we help?

They want to do um backpack drives and Christmas gift drives and um this older population that really would love to help.

And so let's make sure after I'm gone that we're still reaching out to those populations that want to help.

Also, I want to say that um I work closely with our nonprofits and our faith-based organizations.

That is a special um and particular passion that I've had over the last five years.

And a lot of them are doing really great work in this space, and they're so grateful that we were willing to step up and to put federal dollars into this and effort into this.

And they um uh what I kept hearing over and over again was that we need more they cannot, they're drowning.

And um, I know they're very appreciative of the help.

I think one of the key things is the navigation program that we have that um each person gets assigned to someone, and so someone's looking out for them, they don't get lost.

And I think that um the 85% positive exit rate can be um attributed to having that navigation program.

When you drive around Mesa, Arizona, you do not see homelessness everywhere.

You just don't.

You're gonna find a little you know, person right here and a person right there, maybe, but we are doing an incredible incredible job with homelessness in our city.

It was a priority of Mayor Giles, and to see the way that our our staff has stepped up has been so incredible, and I'm so proud of the work that you guys do and will continue to do.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Ms.

Phil Speery.

Any other comments?

Yeah, I just I don't know, I don't want to be emotional here, but I want to thank you, Julie, for all your work in this.

You've been a champion and done so much work that has made a huge and lasting difference for our city.

So thank you.

Thank you for your time and effort and heart in this issue has made a tremendous difference.

Um I started on on council in 2019, and we didn't have this option.

We were trying to provide resources to community partners, but then during COVID, it became the loss of jobs and everything, homelessness and the critical state of food and and everything became huge.

Unfortunately, we were able to receive those ARPA dollars, which were um awarded to cities to help the most vulnerable in their community in a way that is lasting.

We allocated a lot of dollars to stop the immediate pain, but we knew we needed programs in order to make that lasting change.

Arizona has had the highest rate of the increase in housing nationally, 40 six percent.

Um we've seen the eviction rate skyrocket as a dire that we're in.

Um literally with wages haven't cut kept up.

It used to be an affordable place to live, and you made a moderate income.

There's been a little bit of increase in income, but the price of our housing here is getting it's equivalent to some of the most expensive cities in the United States.

So we what do we do?

What do we do?

I am so proud to see all these people having the resources, and this is a program to lift and help and assist and move out of homelessness.

This isn't just putting a roof over your head and then cross the fingers, and everything's gonna work out fine.

This is a program, and there's very few resources that provide a complete program.

I am very impressed and thankful for all the work has taken years of dedication to this issue to make the difference that it's made.

And to know that these people are not on the street today, and having a future is tremendous because providing just shelter is not enough.

And we're doing the entire program with an 85% success rate.

This is amazing, it's something to be very proud of, and we need to continue the work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

Well, thank you, everyone.

Any other comments?

What I didn't hear, I'll just add one.

I didn't hear about a 24-hour site, so I know seated on MAG.

We've uh there's some regional, especially in Phoenix 24-hour site, so I don't know if that's gonna be a future discussion during our uh heat-related it, but uh work on that.

Okay.

All right, thank you, sir.

Thanks.

All right, thank you, team.

Uh, next is uh current events and conferences attended.

Council members, do you have anything you wish to share?

Councilmember Duff, you want us to start it off?

Sure, sure.

Um of us at the United Food Bank Breakfast, um, Council uh Vice Mayor Summers and Councilmember Heredia.

Um, and of course, we know the dire need of the food banks right now and providing um food to the people who have lost their snap benefits in in addition to their normal load.

So um thank you for attending that, and thank you for everybody to contributing what you can to the food bank banks and resources near you to help those in need.

Um yesterday I also attended a North Fulton Chamber um summit that was over at the studios, the economic development department, and others.

We showcased what we're doing at Mesa Business Builder and our ecosystem of um assisting small businesses, helping them grow and educational opportunities.

Sarah Tuller was there as well.

Um very proud of the work we're doing there to make a difference for our residents and our small businesses to help them grow.

And this morning, I apologize for being late, but I had such an exciting um business opening in my district here at Country Club and Southern Shamrock Food Warehouse opened.

It's 25,000 square feet.

It um they're an amazing Arizona business, 103 years they've been here providing food for our community.

They are more than the shamrock that we know on dairy products, but they're if not the largest, second largest distributor of food to restaurants, and to have one in the East Valley is tremendous to serve our restaurants, but also this is cool.

And to have one in the East Valley is tremendous to serve our restaurants, but also this is cool.

They open to the public tremendous selection of food.

It's like going to a store, more family uh size helpings.

No membership, and we have food available within a short distance of downtown, which is amazing.

Um day, but anyway, within a mile of downtown, we have access to fresh food and and food for families.

And uh we are in a food desert around this area, so it's important to the region as well.

Um I'm so glad to have them as a resource.

I know I I drive seven miles to uh the grocery store to get the food, and now I have options.

So I'm so glad to have them here and and employing people and providing the food in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Mayor.

On the um uh United Food Bank, isn't there a turkey drive coming up?

Thanksgiving tonight, yeah.

In the next couple weeks, just keep an eye out for that.

Yeah, I got it.

Um I was gonna make a comment last meeting, but I was I was waiting for a shorter meeting to to say this thanks.

Knowing that that's not gonna happen.

I'm just gonna do it now.

Uh I want to extend my appreciation to Mesa Police Department Desert Ridge High School for uh for hosting a trunk retreat over in uh neighborhood.

Don Blake uh did incredible work, as did my coordinator Alicia Martinez getting a donation of um uh candy and uh volunteers to help work out there was uh a great way for kids to have a safe Halloween, but also to interact one-on-one with Mesa Police Department.

So uh, you know, kids don't get to see police in in a good light all the time, just by the nature of the work.

So the opportunity to go up and see the equipment and talk to a police officer and get some free candy.

Um I I look forward to hosting those events every year.

So Alicia and Don, thank you, and to Mesa Police, thank you as well.

Thank you.

The United Food Bank Distributions November 19th.

Nine November 19th.

Yeah.

Okay.

Mayor, you're gonna mention EVI.

You can.

Well, uh some of us, uh, Councilmember Adams, the mayor, and I went to the EVIT Foundation breakfast, which does great work in um supporting students that go to EVIT.

So that was a great event yesterday morning.

Yeah, that was the same time as the United Food Bank breakfast, so we had to divide up.

We got omelets.

What'd you get?

Yeah, we got French toast served by the culinary students at Edom.

You missed out.

That's why I got that as night.

Mayor, I'd like to add on.

I'd be uh as a council member, not to mention um the Fiesta police station hosted their Halloween drive-thru.

They've been doing this for years now.

They make a huge drive-thru thing with all the decorations and all the monsters and everything like that, all the black light, it and the families come through in the car, it lines up, and thank you to them to put that on every year.

Um, it's a tremendous event, and our community looks forward to it.

Thank you.

I just want to add when you talk about Shamrock going in Mesa.

I think that's great because you know you go into Gilbert, you have Costco and Wynn foods too, wholesalers as well.

So it's nice to have a wholesaler in Mesa so close.

Um Mr.

Butler and I, as well as Miss Duff, we attended the greater North Fulton Chamber visit.

Mr.

Butler was able to talk.

Uh Georgian I was George.

I was there as the translator.

Uh yes, you were there were a lot of y'alls thrown around, so I helped translate for the mayor and council member duff.

So that was quite there was mayors and council members and chamber leaders through uh that county and chamber, so that's great.

I was able to attend the groundbreaking for the homestead at Lehigh.

That's also known as Sweetwater.

We uh zone that probably about when I was a council member two years ago, so like that.

So they're now uh breaking ground and moving forward with that.

I think uh other than that, Mr.

Butler, would you want to share a meeting?

Uh yeah, mayor and council will um be back here for study session, including the follow-up item on the utility rates that we discussed this morning, that's Thursday morning at 7:30.

But um to piggyback, I know the vice mayor invoked our veterans earlier.

Just one to note that on Sunday we're gonna have an open house at the Mesa Arts Center for our arts and service program, which is a free studio art classes for service members and veterans.

So that's gonna be at the Mesa Arts Center on Sunday.

And then uh this coming Tuesday is the uh annual Veterans Day parade.

So the offices will be closed um so please note uh take note of that and the parade begins with a program at 10 30 and then the the actual parade route I believe kicks off at 11 a.m on Tuesday I'd also be remiss not to uh not to uh uh recognize the mayor for um receiving the Arizona Farm Bureau Farmer of the Year Award uh on Tuesday night so they were desperate yeah so congratulations mayor for receiving uh that award on Tuesday so with that um that's everything Mr.

Mayor oh great great but we also have a barbecue classic in downtown Mesa tomorrow and uh tomorrow and Saturday so don't miss it they'll I'll be a judge on Saturday for the kids' queue um and uh anyway it's uh an event um it's free to attend there'll be music food of course there'll be some tastings for two dollars and you can check out some award winning uh barbecue even for the people from Georgia they love barbecue Georgia barbecue yeah yeah I've never heard of that when you're from Kansas I think well I'll attend a motion to adjourn some of the thank you all right all in favor say aye aye