The Mesa City Council held a study session on April 22, 2026, to review the consent agenda, receive budget presentations from the Energy Resources Department, and discuss proposed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with the Mesa Police Association and United Mesa Firefighters Association. The meeting also included discussion of a 911 center project and recognition of staff achievements.
911 Center Project (Item 4B): Councilmember Go Forth asked about the CMAR process used to select Wilming for pre-construction services. Staff explained that the process followed Title 34, soliciting in October 2025, evaluating experience, workload, Mesa-based firm points, and project understanding, shortlisting, and interviewing. The pre-construction services contract is for negotiating a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP); no set timeframe was given but construction is targeted for about a year out. The design is at 30%. The bond for the project was $54 million. Staff noted the contractor selected for the adjacent fire station (Station 223) is the same, creating synergies and cost efficiencies.
Energy Resources Department Budget Presentation (Item 2A): Scott Boucher (Energy and Sustainability Director) highlighted: the public purpose of sustainable, reliable, affordable energy; a 57% renewable electric portfolio; $600,000 in savings from the Parker Davis Voluntary Reduction Program; and participation in a pre-pay program for natural gas starting May 2026 saving an estimated $164,000. Awards included APGA SOAR, APPA RP3 (Platinum), and top 25% for reliability. Key performance indicators: System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) was strong; gas emergency response times met a 30-minute goal 95% of the time. Staff discussed retention challenges with larger utilities but emphasized Mesa's benefits and career development. Fiscal analyst John Petroff reported that electric and gas operations & maintenance were under budget in 24-25 and 25-26, with proposed 26-27 budgets increasing about $300,000 each for electric and gas. Savings of $263,000 were proposed (eliminating college intern program, reducing locating temps, etc.). Councilmember Taylor had no questions; Councilmember Go Forth praised the department and highlighted retention of linemen and gas personnel. In response to a question, staff noted the electric utility has been operating since around 1917 and serves nearly 19,000 electric and 80,000 gas customers.
Public Safety MOUs (Item 2B): Assistant City Manager Ken Cost presented proposed MOUs with the Mesa Police Association and United Mesa Firefighters Association for July 2026 – June 2029. Key points:
All right. Hopefully she'll join us shortly. So welcome. Thank you for your patience. I don't know who you're waiting for, but uh you're all here. With that, welcome to our Mesa City Council study session for April 20th, 2026. Councilmember Taylor will be joining us. Otherwise, council member go forth or participating by Zoom. All other council members are present. Item one is to review the agenda for tonight's council meeting. I know we went over this previously, Council. Are there any other questions for staff? Anyone? Mayor, um Yes, Miss Goforward. Mrs. Galicia. Yeah, we had um a resident ask some questions on 4B. So if we could have Lance come up and talk to us about the about 4B and in particular the CMAR or CMAR, I'm not sure how to say it process, how we how we chose Wilming, and we determine the contract price for those CMR services. Good afternoon, Mayor. Uh council member GoForth. Appreciate the question. So uh Wilming is one of our um contractors that was selected by a CMAR, construction manager at risk. Uh this follows uh our typical process with Title 34, uh how we've gone about procuring uh groups to do construction at times. Um this particular project uh we solicited back in uh October of 25, uh went through a process of pre-submittal, uh solicited, put that out to the to the public. They had some time to look and evaluate what we had on there. Some of the things that we evaluate are the experience, uh the criteria, uh maybe their understanding of the project. Um if they're Mesa firm, the uh they get a certain amount of points. There's other things that we evaluate, like the amount of workload that they have, the ability to do the work, and then obviously um understanding of the project. Uh so there's a number of different things that we do use to evaluate with that uh as an effort with that. We also go to um bringing a panel together that helps uh to uh uh individually evaluate that. We come together and and weigh that out uh with those efforts. Uh ultimately uh uh we shortlist that to a group that we interview with, and then in that case, uh we'll go through interviews and then make a final selection. Thanks, Lance. How about the the contract price? How do you determine that? Is it a percentage of the overall? Uh that that's probably uh thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Go Forth. That's that's one of the things that we evaluate. There's several things that we do evaluate when we go through that effort. Um percentage of the contract price. Typically, when we go out with a uh request for qualifications like like one like this, we'll give a general range because we don't have a set dollar number. Obviously, with this particular project, we went to the to uh bond for a certain amount. And so we gave a range there for when we went out to solicit. Uh that's never fully defined until we uh identify a GMP uh guaranteed maximum price with with that that effort. Um we evaluate uh some of the things like the allocation of uh rates, um maybe uh different things like what type of individual works on that project for pre-construction, are the hours allocated? Have have we defined the scope for what we want to identify uh for the project? So several things are evaluated with that. The percentage of construction cost is just a small portion of that. Typically ranges anywhere between uh somewhere between maybe uh maybe three quarters of a percent to a percent of the overall construction cost. Um of the other things that we the look at and as we do with uh pre-construction is we we uh lock in a CMAR uh fee, a fee for that contractor to do that.