Welcome everyone to our Mesa City study session for March 9th, 2026.

Councilmember Adams is unable to attend and is excused all other council members are here.

Thank you.

Item one council has reviewed the agenda for tonight's council meeting.

I know that we've gone over this recently.

Are there any additional questions for staff?

I like it when it's quiet a little bit.

All right.

Mr.

Manager, Mr.

Attorney.

Ms.

Nothing from the clerk either.

Okay, well, all right.

There's your opportunity.

With that, we're gonna move on to next as current events and conferences attended council members.

Do you have anything you wish to share?

Ms.

Taylor.

Yeah, last week I had the opportunity to attend a Japanese business reception in Phoenix, and I had the great honor of meeting some of our local business, or I'm sorry, some of our business owners that are here in Mesa, localized Mesa that are um Japanese owned companies, and so that was an incredibly enjoyable experience.

We got to hear from the general consulate.

Um and I I was there with Councilmember Duff and Mayor Freeman, and I would like to just make a public appreciation, a shout out to all the businesses that have chosen to be here in Mesa.

And um, I also wanted to inform the public that we are very grateful because there's 50 other businesses that are looking at Arizona and maybe possibly Mesa as well for some manufacturing.

So it was a great honor to be able to be there and just listen and learn.

Great.

And that was in partnership with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and Arizona Commerce Authority and the Japanese uh consulate was there from LA.

There was quite the group there.

Anyone else?

I'll talk about my weekend activities.

Um Saturday, I had attended the um the fire department's family day at the public training uh facility where they have demonstrations of all the type of uh crisis events that firefighters encounter, and um it's very interactive and it's fun for the entire family to see what the firefighters do.

Um I appreciate our fire department, they're amazing.

I also stopped in at the junior sons championship at Eagles Community Center.

Um kids of all ages were doing their semi-final finals, and there was a championship in the afternoon with their little sons' jerseys, playing incredible basketball.

Um, and then I went to downtown Mesa's uh baseball block party.

Uh Sparky was there from ASU, and there was a couple of alum diamondback players, um, Augie Ojeda and um Chris Owens.

And um had a lot of fun with family and um food and the things going on in downtown Mesa for our spring training.

Um that evening I went to the Save the Family Elegance and Hope is the 18th annual gala.

Um they raised significant funds to continue their work for families in need, and I appreciate all that they do here in Mesa.

That's it.

Thank you, Miss Duff.

Ms.

Radio.

Uh just a quick shout out to uh Dobson High School Friday.

They had a award uh awards assembly and being recognized as a A plus School of Excellence in Arizona.

Only uh a couple of schools in the state get that recognition, so it's just a big shout out to all the staff, the students there at Dobson High School.

So great.

Ms.

Goforth.

Yeah, I have a couple uh last Monday.

You and I, uh mayor were at out at a couple of um at Mountain Bridge community out in District Five with also the Madrid community.

Though both of those um communities have been um have received the Firewise designation, so they have put in the work to um do the fire prevention for their communities, which is really important in that area.

Um most people know it's out there in the desert uplands and very close to the wildlands of both the Tonto and Usery.

So those efforts are uh much appreciated by um their residents and and the city of Mesa.

So thank you to those communities for putting the work to do that and get that recognition.

It takes a lot of effort.

Um, I was also out at Segara Ranch the weekend before.

They had a neighborhood block party, America 250 block party.

So that was fun.

I appreciated the invite to that.

And then did we talk about the America 250 exhibit that the three of us went to your Red Mountain Library?

That was a fantastic Liberty Bell was on exhibit.

We had a great turnout.

A lot of people, probably over 100 people, yeah, at least there to come see the the um Liberty Bell replica.

So that was a great event.

And then one last thing, I went to along with Mayor Freeman again.

We've been to a lot of events together lately.

Um Keno Junior High for the last day of the We Run Mesa program there at the at the junior high that Nicole Labor runs.

So thank you, Nicole, and for everybody that came out to that day.

And um congratulations to those students who finished the program.

Great.

Everybody wants to talk about the fire department.

So I'm gonna talk about the police department.

Um very uh sincere appreciation to uh Don Blake over at Superstition Division uh and all of the uh the the resource officers, the uh crime prevention officers we have there.

They held, I believe it was five e-bike safety sessions to try to educate folks on uh how to operate them safely, what the the new rules actually are with those complete.

We are trying to get at least one more down uh in the district, but you can expect some enforcement to start uh within the next couple of weeks, which will be more of a soft enforcement.

The idea will be to uh provide some education and outreach when there's a violation, however, there's a violation of criminal code.

Um they might find themselves in a bit of trouble.

So just keep that uh in mind.

Also, coming up, are you gonna talk about the budget meeting coming up?

So uh we're gonna use our brand new library in district six um gateway library for a proposed public budget meeting.

This will be this Wednesday, the 11th of March from 6 to 7:30.

So hope to see everybody there.

And if you live on the west side, we're gonna have one at the post on uh tomorrow night, um, Tuesday evening from 6 to 7:30.

Yeah.

So either east side, west side, we got you covered.

Thank thank you, uh counsel for pointing that out.

Um we had uh a great event in Northeast Mesa at the Northeast um facility last week, and it was our first community budget hearing, and then the two additional ones that we have this week.

So we we hope um residents will turn out for that.

And I just wanted to say thank you, Mr.

Butler and every one of the staff members that came to the Northeast Public Safety facility for that budget.

Um, that open meeting for residents to come and ask.

It was unfortunate we only had four residents.

Um we you know we have residents that have asked for the opportunity to ask questions and come out and really understand the budget, and so it was a little disappointing.

We only had four residents, and we had maybe 35, 40 staff members willing and ready to answer questions.

So that's unfortunate.

Let's hope that the next two are a little bit more um well attended.

But I wanted to um say thank you to staff and to you for making themselves available to the to the community and to ask questions.

So thank you.

We um I I'm glad you highlighted the fact though that we have the experts in-house there ready to talk to our residents.

So if they have questions, if they um if there's issues that they want greater clarity on, if there's feedback that they want to give to a particular department about something they'd like to see more or less of uh coming from that department, that's the opportunity to do it, and that's just great access uh to have that time dedicated to hear from our management and budget office and from our department um leadership about um all the different programs and activities that those departments engage in.

So please come.

It's a it's a great opportunity to interact with staff if you have questions about our budget.

And oh, I'm sorry.

I just wanted to tap into that about um and community getting involved.

Last Tuesday at the post, we had the um an engagement for advisory boards and committees.

So we have lots of positions opening on our uh City of Mesa advisory boards and committees.

July 1st is a new fiscal year, a new year for us.

And so some people will be terming off their um committees, so that creates openings.

So please, if you're interested, go online.

Um, there is an application to fill out and put which committees you're interested in.

We'll keep it on file.

And uh, yeah, we'd love your your input.

Thank you.

Miss Taylor.

I I wanted to say thank you to Jen and thank you to Alicia for both of those things because I actually had someone ask me about that today.

And please come to the budget meetings.

I don't know where the cameras all are, but we are setting these up for you to come to the meetings.

I had a lot of people ask me, what are the budget meetings gonna be like?

When are they gonna happen?

I want to see more than four people.

I want to see our our engagement happen.

So I am your council member in district two telling you if you're in district two, you better come.

Um and then I also wanted to remind Scott on Saturday.

We went to a ribbon cutting in your district for ice cream for Brewsters.

Oh, yeah.

And it was so good.

And it was such a sweet family.

I asked the owner, I said, why did you decide on Brewster's ice cream?

Like why did you want to open up an ice cream shop?

And he said, Ice cream makes everyone happy.

He said, people are happy inside when they're serving it, and people are happy outside when they're eating it.

And he said, I just wanted to own a business where everyone's just really excited.

And I was like, That's his great response.

Yeah, it's his first business.

It's it's actually right in the corner of your district, mine, and the three corners.

Yeah.

And it's if you want to know where it's at, it's by the Costco On Sauce.

So it's a really great location.

He gave me uh an ice cream cone the size of my head.

It literally was like the size of a leader sale.

Like that much of it.

It was huge.

So yes, please go get ice cream at Brewster's over uh off the Costco Saucman.

And remember, in the summer, it's gonna be super hot.

If you have someone with you who doesn't necessarily want to go to Costco, you can drop them off for ice cream.

Or you can bribe your children and say if you come with me, we will go to Brewster's afterwards.

Good time.

Mayor, would you like to uh mention the uh check that we received from the government, the federal government on the ballistics uh tip sensing?

Yeah.

Well, so Representative Staten came and gave us a check for 430,000 for a shot detection system technology, which uh apparently we have not had that.

Ken could share a little bit more on that, but that money will be used for technology and detecting uh shots within our city, and they could differentiate between fireworks and shots or other loud noises.

So I think that's so important.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Yeah, the check was I don't remember the exact figure.

It was like 430,000.

I'm making it's over 400,000.

It is 430.

430.

Okay, yeah.

So it's significant um amenity to our police department to have that equipment.

And that'll be tied into our real-time crime center, too.

So it'll be just another tool in the toolbox to have.

So we we always like representative Stanton.

He comes uh with a big check a lot of the times.

So he's brought us a lot of checks regarding electricity, uh, water control, water conservation, and uh I'm trying to think of the other things, but anyway, we like representation.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

With that, I want to circle back to Mountain Bridge in Madrid.

You know, Councilmember Go Forth, it was so important for those communities to understand defensible defensible space in case of a wildland fire were to happening within their own community.

And they coordinated with the Arizona State Forestry Department, and they had to meet all these metrics and the volunteer hours that was involved there was quite significant.

And using their own tools.

So, you know, we just applaud them for doing that and reaching out, and it takes a lot of work, and volunteers are the best to know their neighborhoods that well, especially the way those uh neighborhoods were created.

So, as well as Los Sanders, right?

I mean, there's some defensible space.

Okay.

With that, I'll just share with you we had our Lehigh Days rodeo this past uh Saturday.

Over 3,000 people came.

I'd like to thank our solid waste and parks department and police department for traffic control.

Had a great barbecue, petting rights and uh rodeo as well.

Then yesterday, I got to go to the Mesa Arts Center for our America 250, uh, the Mesa Art Center, uh the U.S.

Army field band and chorus uh played their band, and these are the band plays all throughout the United States, and it was so thrilling uh to be involved in that.

Shared a few remarks and listened to a great uh chorus and as well as music by uh the U.S.

Army field band.

And uh anyway, that was just right across the street yesterday.

So with that.

That's all I have, Mr.

Butler.

Would you like to share any meetings with us?

Mayor and council first of all, thanks for those updates.

I know it's a busy time of year and you all are everywhere, so we we appreciate you being out and visible in the community.

So following study session today, we'll have our regular council meeting upstairs at 5 45 p.m.

And then we'll uh reconvene on Thursday for a study session uh uh on Thursday at 7 30 a.m.

So with that, Mayor, turn it back to you.

Do we have a we'll have a study session next?

Yes, on the 12th, uh we'll have a study session actually followed by a uh community and cultural development committee meeting that will be immediately following the study session.

You're probably thinking of the next Thursday, the 19th.

We're canceling uh the study session that morning.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you for the reminder.

With that, council, is there a motion to adjourn our study session?

Thank you, Miss Duff.

Ms.

Goforth, all in favor say aye.

Aye aye.

We're adjourned.

We'll see you upstairs shortly.