Welcome everyone to our Mesa City Council study session for May 18th, 2026.

Councilmember Adams is participating by Zoom.

Otherwise, all other council members are present.

As usual, Council item was to review the agenda for tonight's council meeting.

I know we went over this agenda previously, but are there any other additional questions or thoughts?

Mr.

Adams, I'll defer to you to if you mayor, thank you.

Uh no, I do not have any items that I would like to discuss at this time.

Okay.

So on uh mayor.

Yes.

On item 11AB.

This is in one or the other, correct?

There is an update to that.

Okay.

Uh I'll take it.

Uh Mayor and Council and Vice Mayor.

Uh the that the idea originally was to introduce both, but the applicant uh just I think it was late Thursday, uh, requested um and agreed to have 11B withdrawn, and so they'll move forward with only 11A, which is the staff recommendation, which is the lower density product that's also um proposal that's also consistent with uh sub-area plan.

Okay, and then since we're gonna do 11A, that sounds fine.

Um the application of House Bill 2721 in the middle of housing.

Do we have a final answer on on that and how that would apply to this case in the future?

So we we looked at that, Vice Mayor, and it was a really good question you brought up last Thursday.

And and our our view of this is in that that that that piece of legislation, they wouldn't be able to switch to middle housing without having to come back.

Um practically we would they would not be able to uh make that switch without having to come back and going back through council and uh and having it as a rezoning.

It would be because it and they'd be changing the density.

Okay, so thank you.

That's it.

Mr.

Adams, since we're on that agenda item, did you want to weigh in on 11A?

27.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Um, yes, I think that uh we're moving forward in the best way that we can to both accommodate the request and uphold and uh uh maintain the spirit of the sub area plan, which has been in place for quite a while.

I know that it was just a small uh adjustment that was made, but we certainly appreciate the applicant understanding how important our sub area plans are and uh uh that they agreed to uh to modify to accommodate that very good, thank you.

Council, anything else on the agenda.

All right, let's go home.

I know items not on the consent agenda is item 12A, and that's the Mesa Town Center Improvement District.

I know we're gonna have a presentation at the study session, so we can reserve comments till then if that's okay with council.

Yep.

All right.

With that said, we'll end uh item one and go move over to or item one and go over to item two, a presentation discussion on downtown Mesa Association services accomplishments and future plans.

Jimmy and Jeff evening, Mayor and Council Jeff McVay, manager of urban transformation.

With me today is Jimmy Chiraccio, and I'm on first time officially in front of this body, introducing Jimmy as the executive director and uh president of the downtown Mesa Association.

Last time Jimmy was here presenting on on uh to you, it was as a project manager in the Office of Urban Transformation.

So we welcome Jimmy in his new role as executive director of DMA.

Um having that three years, I'll just say the three years working in the Office of Urban Transformation has been a great benefit to the formation and really the building of the partnership between DMA and the city, having somebody that understands how the city works from the inside, and as well as having a great deal of uh experience running downtown business improvement districts has been a real benefit to us.

I know it's only been a few short months, but uh we're putting Jimmy up in front of you to present the annual um annual um statement of work and then also looking forward into next year and and budget for next year.

So with that, I'm just gonna hand over to Jimmy and I'll be ready to answer questions at the end.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thanks, Jeff.

Um, mayor and council members, thank you for having me here today to uh go through all this with you.

I appreciate the time.

Um uh as Jeff mentioned, I came in in October with the transition of leadership at DMA um with the goal of specifically as we headed into the holidays and all the events of trying to keep momentum going so we didn't lose track with anything.

Um so we wanted to really focus on events and keeping our clean team active so downtown's looking great and hopping with people.

So um, as you mentioned, we're gonna start off with the uh accomplishments of the last year.

Um before we get into that, I just want to give a quick background on DMA, uh, mostly as a reminder for y'all.

Um DMA was formed uh by the commercial property owners in 1985, uh, with the uh the idea that they were going to uh use the assessment district to fund enhanced services such as cleaning, marketing, and event act and activations for the downtown area uh to help revitalize it.

Um they formed a 501c6 organization, which is downtown Mesa Association uh to manage that.

DMA also uh has a uh uh 501c3 arm, which is Ultimate Imaginations Incorporated.

Uh that's the one we use basically to uh fundraise for our events to solicit sponsorships and get money in to keep those events going.

Uh if you're looking at the district, it's one square mile uh around the downtown of the downtown, uh bordered by university to Broadway, Mesa Drive to Country Club.

Uh as mentioned, it's an enhanced municipal services area.

So this is for services above and beyond the services already provided by the city, um, which we'll get into the details of details of what those are.

You'll see there's four zones uh for that.

The uh zone one is uh the uh top rate payer in the district.

Um that is where the bulk of the activity happens on Main Street.

Um, since they pay the most uh in the assessment rates, they also get the majority of the services.

So, and then it uh gradually goes down by zone.

Uh our priorities for downtown appearance and safety, which is really focused on the the cleaning and the appearance of downtown to make people feel comfortable down here, parking management, which ranges from permits, enforcement, and maintenance of the facilities.

Uh communications, which is both internal and external communications aimed at on informing the public and our businesses of what's going on.

Um activation placemaking, which is mainly events and trying to find engaging activities and things to have downtown uh to keep people interested.

And then our business engagement is really focused on the business health and the business growth uh downtown.

Uh going into operations, this is our day-to-day work, um, mostly focused on the cleanup, beautification, and uh uh parking and things like that.

Um, you'll see here this is our clean team.

Uh, we're at a staff of six members for this.

You probably see these guys out on a daily basis.

Um, they're highly visible with their blue shirts, they have a branded truck and the golf carts as well.

Um, they provide service to all four zones of downtown.

Um, while services can be uh requested or reported to us, our our team is very proactive.

They're out there if they see trash, if they see illegal dumping, if they see graffiti, they jump on it right away in order to keep this this downtown looking good.

They're very proud of what they do, and it and it really shows.

Um, in addition to the cleaning, we've also uh uh do manage the parking lots and garages, the public parking lots and garages, as well as uh Mesa City Plaza, the post and the neon garden.

Here you can see some numbers of uh what the team has done over the last year.

Trash removal is the biggest piece of that, like 29 tons of trash removed.

Um this is everything from litter and debris and debris in the streets, um, as well as uh over full trash enclosures where the dumpsters are.

A lot of businesses sometimes, if the trash cans get full, we'll leave bags of trash sitting beside it.

Our team in the morning usually goes around and make sure all that's cleaned up so it doesn't uh appear disgusting to the public coming by.

Um they also pick up a lot of illegal dumping of uh furniture and things that are just left in random spots and vacant lots around downtown.

Um it's on a downward trend with trash removal, and I actually attribute that to our our trash cans and trash bag pulls.

Um the uh the team has increased the amount of trash bag pulls they do uh with our our trash cans around downtown, um, with the main goal of basically making sure that they do not get over full.

Uh if you could keep those things like half full or less less, less of a chance of someone reaching in and pulling stuff out or animals pulling stuff out and that blowing down the street.

Um so you see that's increased.

Um graffiti removal's also gone down.

And when talking to the team, the basically our uh view on this is if you can keep the graffiti from happening, if you remove it quickly, it will not perpetuate.

You won't have people putting tags and responses or putting more and more stickers up.

So they are taking a very proactive stance, pull down stickers, posters on light poles and any graffiti that they see around downtown, and that seems to be working.

And then the last piece I really do want to point out on these numbers is the uh Plaza and Neon Garden maintenance hours.

We've started doing landscaping at both Mesa City Plaza as well as around the post in the young garden, um, which is trimming bushes, shrubs, and uh mowing the lawn here at the plaza, um, which is growing great.

We have two landscapers on the clean team that are uh have really taken that on as their personal job, and they've done an amazing job with it, in my opinion.

Um something else that we did this year and actually just unveiled just what is it, two weeks ago.

Thank you, Mayor, for being there.

Um the clock tower.

Um, this was in a very interesting uh position for downtown because there wasn't really ownership of it at this point.

It hadn't worked in a number of years, and uh no one was quite sure who was supposed to fix it up to get it going again.

Um DMA actually secured the money through our our special event parking fund uh to repair the insides of the clocks, all the mechanisms, the LED lighting, um, the signage, and then we polished up the copper, got it looking good in.

It's great if you get a chance to go out to McDonald and Maine and take a look at look at it, especially at night.

We have 32 public art pieces scattered around Main Street and just off Main Street.

Um, two times a year.

We uh we basically form volunteer cores to work with our clean team to go out and clean those things up.

Um make sure they're looking good for the public.

Um in order to thank our volunteers, we work with our local businesses in order to secure uh whether it's free items or discounts in order to uh say thank you to them because our businesses really do care how all this looks going into parking.

Uh as I mentioned, we do manage the uh the parking, the public parking garages and lots, as well as enforce the on-street spaces around downtown.

Um with our permit program, we have over 2,000 permits that we have focused on businesses and residents as well uh for downtown.

Um with enforcement, you see the little blue car going around with Angela driving it.

Um she does look at all these areas, make sure the right people are parked where they're supposed to in the right zones, make sure people aren't overstaying.

Um this year we have issued uh 2600 tickets.

Um interesting points that we found out about these.

We actually give three warnings to people before they actually receive a ticket downtown, um, with the exception of permit holder.

Permit holders get one warning.

But if they're visitors to downtown, we usually give them three warnings so that way they know if they're in a no-parking zone or if they stay overstayed the time.

Um, because we don't want people to go away upset with how downtown uh has treated them.

Um we did find Angela gets to know every car that she's ticketing down there because she sees a lot of them over and over again, and we have a lot of repeat offenders.

So additionally, you'll see we did give almost 2,000 warnings to people uh as well while they were down here.

So Jimmy, while you're there where's the most repeat offenders at?

Uh most of them are either on street, a lot of them are uh employees of businesses parking uh on street and overstaying their time limits there.

Um and then some of the closer lots and things.

So about students for ASCII.

Yeah, the the library and ASU is a big one.

Um the students tend to overstay quite a bit there.

So mayor, I will uh I will also add uh this city staff is also response responsible for regular repeat offenses as well.

Okay.

Are you indicting yourself?

I uh I made sure to get myself a nice parking space, you know, permit space close to the office.

But no, there is um it is a common, it is not unique to any one user group.

It is if there is the available availability and ability to to bandit park, it is apparently uh generally human nature.

So I I I've made it more of a point is that that it is not just our businesses, it's just not ASU students.

It is a it's a it's an issue that goes across the boundaries.

I have a question about the funding that you get from the parking permits.

Does that go back into the downtown Mesa Association, or where does that funding go?

Uh no, well, Joe, go ahead.

Um Mayor, Consulmor Tabor Taylor, the parking permit um revenues are a pass-through.

DMA collects them on behalf of the city, and then every month we they they send a check over to us, less their administrative costs, which is usually a few hundred dollars for like QuickBooks and whatever else that they need to use to manage the permits.

That is directly revenue that comes back to the city.

Um B uses it's not a one-to-one, but OMU uses that to offset the cost of the professional services contract that we have with DMA.

Okay, so in essence, it goes back to you.

It it comes back to the city for those enhanced to cover the cost of those enhanced services.

Yes.

Yeah.

I I just want to follow up with ASU students.

I mean, is is as we increase programming downtown, how are we going to accommodate more student traffic?

I'm assuming that not all are gonna ride the light rail or Waymo or other means.

So are we gonna have like parking in certain designated areas for student parking?

I don't know.

It's something that should look at if we have at least some student parking available somehow somewhere.

Right.

Mr.

Mayor.

Is that something, Mr.

Butler?

I mean, is I mean it's we're have a broad conversation on that.

Because you we have how many parking spaces downtown.

You have that on top here, not uh Mayor.

6,000.

It's uh it's uh there's I think it's 5,000 structured spaces and 10,000 spaces in total when you include on street spaces and on and uh off street surface spaces.

Um we have in the past actually designated um spaces with permits for ASU specifically, and and what we have found is that ASU students are unwilling to pay for parking that will save them from being um parking illegally and getting tickets when they know that they can um to the extent they can to work the system.

Um we do still have the ability.

There are areas in our downtown where there are no parking limits um on-street parking within neighborhoods.

The convention center has no limits on their parking.

And so we find that the the students um they gravitate those towards those places that they can park without getting tickets and they go there.

Um the library is a three-hour parking zone, and and um unfortunately uh the the average uh class at the mix center is a three-hour block.

Uh so it works out pretty well that they can park in locations that have three hour time limits as well and and not receive tickets.

Um, that hasn't answered your question though, Mayor.

Um, Jimmy and I have had multiple discussions.

We have garages in our downtown that are not necessarily the best located garages from a commercial business activity perspective, such as a Pomeroy garage over by the courts.

If we can work a and we have been talking about um whether or not we generate a pilot shuttle, um, circulator shuttle that can serve the major employers, the the business district of downtown, the historic district, as well as ASU, and just create a a regular circulator that would feed to those garages and then create a parking rate that would try to financially incentivize those folks that would normally be taking those prime customer spaces to use something that's a little bit more remote if it was convenient because of that circulator.

Work in progress.

It is definitely a work in progress.

Okay.

And make to just make a little bit of comment.

We have all those spaces in the middle of First Street that are underutilized, and again, those are the permit.

We created this.

We didn't have parking in the middle of the street to accommodate ASU.

So there's a lack of wanting to pay for parking, but yet we know at ASU campus in Tempe is a little bit different.

Story there is in no free parking.

Um, but also for a new school in the place of the post office.

The post office is really on the back side, it's right there connected the to the convention center.

And I think if we had that light walk, you know, start that's the first phase would be in front of the school, creating that pathway.

You know, it feels like it's a walk.

It's it's it's the place to traverse between the convention center and to the school to First Street.

It's gonna create a pathway that is more welcoming, of course.

We'll have the shade and such.

Um, sometimes I think I don't know, the students are just lazy, or they just don't know that we have hundreds and hundreds of parking spaces at the convention center that during the week don't get used.

So I think creating that pathway, making it more linked to downtown.

So if they want that option, it's there, but I I don't feel like it's an issue, it's just a matter of wanting to park outside the the door.

Sure.

And and you don't do that in Tempe for sure.

All right, I didn't want to sink on that one.

I mean, that's good conversation, but you know where we're asking.

Mayor, you know, we all love to talk about parking.

It's it's one of our favorite discussion points.

All right.

Okay, moving forward.

Um, special event parking.

This is the uh the what we do for the uh for the Mac at the Sarine Garage when the Mac has large shows.

Um we uh this by controlling the uh special event parking gives us some control over the garage.

Um we have a lot of the uh the guests who come to those events are in need of handicapped parking as well as uh service level parking.

Um what we found is as long as we're managing that, our team can actually help direct people and to spaces that would accommodate them best.

Um so if there are people who are who don't have special requests for parking, like say the ground floor and they can't handle steps, we can push them further up the garage and save those ground floor ones for people who are able who really need access to uh not using stairs or anything.

Um we uh as part of that, we've also uh incorporated new uniforms and tablets for our team.

You see the pictures there of the uniform which has the purple parking shirt as well as the vest with the reflective gear.

Um so they are identified better versus just someone who's wearing regular clothes when they're trying to take payment.

The tablets we instituted because previously they were using phones uh for credit card payments but the tablets actually from the feedback we've got make people a lot more comfortable when they're handing over payment to the team and it gives us they're able to track everything right there as they go so yeah and let's see so going into marketing and promotions this is our uh external communications to invite inform the public about what's happening downtown uh first off is our website traffic downtown mesa.com um you'll see page views continue to go up for this this has been a great tool for us um it's uh has information on everything from the businesses that are down here events um parking available space for people interested in opening a business and all types of other info it's a a great resource um the uh majority of the traffic coming through there is coming from Google searches immediately followed by people directly inputting the uh the website and then also by our our eblast our newsletter that goes out that's the third driver uh the events calendar is the most uh popular part of the website getting the most amount of traffic social media we did have a little lull on this when we had all the transition in the fall but uh we've picked up on all of that again with our new marketing engagement team um they've jumped right instagram just alone in like I say the last month has gained about two thousand more followers um they've also activated TikTok again or started posting that they've uh we've started creating the uh Meet Me in Mesa video campaign which uh is getting great traction it's introductions to our businesses it's like someone's walking through the door and they get to actually see the inside what you can experience there and those are getting a lot of uh interaction and everything so it's going very well we still do a lot of public relations outreach we work with evolved PR for that they get us a ton of positive coverage uh for activities happening downtown as well as info on the businesses and what they're doing this is a $30,000 investment for DMA but we get almost $7 million uh value out of the uh the media hits uh that we see uh followed by that's the eblast which is our newsletters um we have got to that to a bi weekly schedule this is the public newsletter which is uh announcing different events and activities at the businesses um the users keep growing on that the open rate is really good um we redesigned it this spring so it has a better look to it um but yeah it continues to grow there advertising is something that DMA has not spent a lot of money on in the past but we're starting to change that um this year we actually advertised in the spring training guide which has valley wide coverage um we got a great placement in there to let people know that they can come to downtown Mesa um we also have been advertising our events and promotions a lot of that is with the Mesa Tribune um which you see a sample of the ad there.

Speaking of Mesa Tribune we also have started a uh this is our first year for a partnership with them where we are actually creating content uh to contribute to them um we produce different feature stories and any kind of public interest stuff related to downtown uh Mesa Tribune takes it does whatever they need to uh rewriting editing and then publishes it for us uh which has worked out great to get us a little more attention for what's happening uh we also have the banner program the 106 banners that are located uh around the downtown area um we are responsible for managing the calendar for this so when things go up when they come down as well as having our clean team install those um we work with a variety of community partners on what we feature uh we just took down the uh Mesa Public Schools uh congratulations to their graduates um I know some of the hometown hero ones have already gone up for this uh for this next round um but it's great great exposure for everyone we also have helped in some of these cases uh with the production of these banners too the HohoComs ran into a uh uh slight issue with how they produce theirs this year we were able to step in and help them out uh with making sure those got up for spring training so events which is also a big part of what we do here um our events are focused on all aspects of the community we don't look at just one group or one audience when we're looking at what to do downtown um we're across the board from families and kids to things for adults um just in order to drive them down here let them experience downtown and get familiar with the area um we have had a lot of great results of these and get a lot of great feedback from the community on them um mainly because we're giving a lot of free entertainment for families um which is something I think a lot of people are starved for right now as things are getting more and more expensive.

They they like being able to bring their kids down here and do a number of activities.

Looking at what we do you'll see all some of these are repeat events that we do multiple times a year sunset market we do monthly on the second Saturday that continues to grow as we bring in more vendors and more people to that story time has been a great success we're in year two of that where we're activating the neon garden for story time for kids.

Parents bring them down the Mac we're working in the Mac on on uh the stories and who's presenting them to them but we're getting anywhere between 80 to 100 people in the last few events that we were doing there.

I think the biggest benefit from this, and it's you can't ask for better PRs.

When you see all the moms with strollers pushing them around downtown, going to the coffee shops, going to get ice cream, it just looks incredible, and uh it's worked out really well for us.

Um we've continued with some of our traditional events like Halloween and Easter, which continue to bring a lot of people in, mainly focused at families.

Um, but also our bigger events, Mesa Amplified did great this year.

Um, and I'll get into that in the next slide.

But something to point out Barbecue Classic, when we looked at what we sold ticket wise and stuff, we were thinking about 3,500 people.

Mesa Amplified kind of made us rethink that when we use Placer Placer AI to figure out how many people were here because it was a much more spread out event up and down Main Street.

When we look at that for Barbecue Classic, we actually saw 20,000 people on the street over the course of that event in the two days.

Um it does have a bigger return on what we're seeing downtown.

Um talking about Mesa Amplified, um, this was a huge event for us this year.

First year event.

Um we had uh over 500 bands apply to be part of this, and we had to we weighted down to just over 100 that got to perform at 19 stages uh in in and around downtown businesses and on McDonald.

Um our website traffic quadrupled.

When we looked at the number of people we had on Main Street from center to country club, so we excluded the Mac and the convention center.

We had over 27,000 people uh here basically for that event because all the traffic when you looked at it was at night.

Um it was it was really impressive to see businesses were selling out of food, selling out of beer.

It was it was a crazy weekend.

Um, I do want to give special props on this to uh the Nile, the Saltonat, and Cider Corps, they really stepped up and helped us with this.

They were the ones listening to these bands, helping and getting them programmed in spaces, um, putting the whole thing together.

It was just incredible, and uh the whole community really came together.

We look really look forward to growing this into a music and cultural event in the future.

So our business engagement, this is how we assist our businesses.

Uh we do five business promotions a year.

We split those up into kind of different styles.

We do our our um shopping passport focused on retail, that's around the holidays, the taco trail, which is really drives people into the restaurants, and we also do some bar crawls and stuff as well.

Um so we that way we're kind of spreading it out around different types of merchants.

We still do quarterly merchant meetings to keep people informed and uh let make sure that they're all talking to each other as well as us.

Um we have our merchant newsletters, and we've really stepped up our business visitations.

That's something I think that kind of fell off in the last couple years.

Um, we're getting, and not just me, the entire staff is getting out there, making sure they're in businesses, talking with the uh business owners and managers so we know what's happening and making sure their needs are being met.

Um we've also started doing ribbon cutting events, uh, which have been great to announce the openings for things and gets us really great press with those.

We've continued our gift card program.

Uh this is uh unique to downtown.

Most gift cards, you know, their visa or master card and can be used pretty much anywhere.

Our gift card program can only be used downtown uh at a downtown participating business.

Um, there's no additional cost to this to the merchants to participate, they just uh opt into it.

Um we're currently at about 40 businesses participating.

We're gonna do a big push this summer to try to increase that and make sure everyone is still up on how they do it and what they need to do.

But it really does keep all this money being spent in downtown Mesa.

And then uh in administration was basically our internal work.

We had our staff transitions, got the new team in in place, everything is going very well there.

Um we did a property owner mixer to introduce property owners to myself as the new leadership, but also to get them FaceTime with our board members, something that um we felt had dropped off over time, so they know who who represents them on that property owner board and who they can go to if they want to have conversations.

And we're currently in the process of uh reviewing our bylaws for any possible restructuring.

Um, and we'll be getting a presentation on that this Wednesday at our board meeting.

Looking forward to the next fiscal year for priorities.

Um the first one is uh how we can engage better with Mesa residents.

Um we want to start doing some kind of district focused events.

There's you know, multiple council districts that a lot of those people never make it to downtown.

Um we've already had conversations with the Mac and the Mix Center about what we can do to get eyes on those spaces and we can help program.

Um so we invite someone from a different district to come in, do an event there, have food from a downtown merchant that might be there on site, uh, and just get a different feel for downtown and really make sure that they know this is their downtown as well as you know, just belonging to us.

It belongs to all of us.

Um we also want to start doing some meet your neighbor nights.

We've had a lot of new residents move into downtown over the last few years.

Um, we want to make sure they feel that they're part of the community down here, and so they don't just move out once their lease is up.

They should be wanting to stay here multiple years.

We want them to know the business owners as well as all the people that they live next to.

Um, our signature events to grow.

Uh, visit Mesa actually had convened a uh kind of uh subcommittee that focused on how we can build up different signature events for Mesa.

One of the ideas that came out of that was adding a bluegrass component to our barbecue classic.

Um we're actively working on that now with the Arizona Bluegrass Association.

Um it seems to be coming together very well.

The idea will be we'll have bluegrass music being performed throughout the course of the two-day event, um, also activating it with the neon garden, and then on Saturday night doing a main stage concert uh to keep people down here longer uh than just like at five o'clock, the event closing in everyone leaving.

Mesa amplified as I mentioned.

We want to grow that into something very special.

Um, we saw a huge opportunity with the amount of people that came down here and the feedback we received.

Um, so we'll continue growing that.

Uh and then enhancing marketing efforts.

As I mentioned before, DMA has not done a lot of uh advertising in the past.

Um our summers down here have been rough the last few years for the businesses.

Um so we want to try to do something that's a call to action to really get people out here spending money in the summer.

It's gonna be tough, but we think we have some ideas on how we can do it.

So we're gonna be putting resources to that this summer to help try to drive traffic.

And then the final piece um is something we're we've been working on behind the scenes for a little while, but we now have a method to get this thing moving.

Um, we want to do an alley activation pilot on uh the alley behind the post, stretching between McDonald and Robeson, um, using lighting for both beautification as well as safety.

Um we received a grant that I can't say anything else about until uh the end of June when they publicly announce it, but it's a nice big grant that we're able to use to help really get this thing kicked off and do some good work with.

So um more on that coming soon.

So I'm sworn to secrecy.

Um with that, I am going to hand it off to Jeff so you can talk about the city participation.

Uh mayor, counsel, um all the work program that the EMA does is included in a pressure professional service contract with the city of Mesa.

Whether it's the programs, programming and and services that are provided through funding through the assess property assessment, or whether it's through um the city self-assessment or the third bucket of money, it's through the professional services contract alone.

All of those services are included in a professional services contract.

And I could roll the wheel right.

Um so what you see on this slide is on the left hand side, those baseline services, those are services that are funded through the self-assessment, the property tax assessment that the property owners voted upon themselves back in 1985.

So that includes the the clean team, that includes um the street cleaning pressure washing.

So the the overall marketing and um um professional services that DMA provides to the businesses and property owners directly.

In addition to that, um the city has voluntarily self-assesses on property that we own within the downtown.

That self-assessment is significantly lower than if we were to assess ourselves as if we were a property private property owner.

Uh and that reflects the the need that the city uh assessments for private properties based off of the size of the property, the size of their the amount of frontage they have on a public street, as well as then the square footage of the building.

If you can imagine that the city has a ton of frontage on public streets as well as a ton of square footage, and if we were to be assessed similar to uh the private property owners, that assessment would be significant.

However, we do have a lot of public streets, sidewalks, and other areas that are covered by DMA and the services they provide.

So providing that self-assessment reflects that we are gaining services that other property owners in downtown also receive.

Enhanced services that are are then also funded through the professional services contract are over and above the property tax assessment and the city self-assessment, and those cover the things like the parking management.

A very big portion of those costs are the are the excuse me, the parking management services.

And you know, one thing I will note on that is that if not DMA providing parking management services, the service provider would be the Malaysia Mesa Police Department.

And from a cost perspective, that first of all, it doesn't prioritize you know, parking enforcement does not reach the prioritization that we would want um our our police officers using.

Um it is also um much more cost efficient to have DMA provide those services as well.

So this slide is just a quick summary of the overall.

And then you can see the three buck three buckets of funding on the left is the property tax assessments um that go on the tax rolls for 350,000.

City self-assessment is around 230,000, and then our enhanced services contract, so that covers the parking enforcement additional marketing and event production is around 400,000.

Also included in the contract, but actually separate contracts directly with the parks department.

Um but we have included exhibits in the professional services contract, so they're all housed in one location.

Is the the fee for service to maintain the landscaping and the plaza space here as well as the landscape and maintaining the post in Neon Garden?

So in total, um, if these assessments are approved, the DMA's total budget would be $982,000, just under $983,000.

And it's important to note that that of that special event parking revenue that is maintained into account, owned by this by the DMA, but directed by the city of Mesa.

We have uh allotted up to $50,000 to be able to provide funding for additional staffing for parking enforcement.

We have found that that with one parking enforcement staff member covering the entire square mile, that all it takes is the day when she has to be in court defending a parking ticket, and there is no parking enforcement that happens then for that whole day.

So having additional uh body in place has been beneficial to us.

So with that, I think I could just know.

For that, we're we're happy to answer any questions.

Mr.

Adams, I'll defer to you.

Do you have any questions?

For this presentation.

Well, thank you, Mayor.

Just a couple of comments and a couple of questions.

Um first, um, I would say, Jimmy, you're doing a great job.

My corporate office is located in downtown Mesa.

And um, so I see the downtown area every day.

And I'd like to compliment you and the clean team.

Uh there you have one fellow T, I think is what he goes by.

You see him everywhere, and your people are just very conscientious and very good natured.

So we'll just like to say that.

Um couple quick questions.

Um, you know, Jimmy, as I listen to your presentation, I almost feel like I'm listening to a presentation from a destination marketing organization that happens to have management of parking garages and uh runs a clean team.

I'd like to understand a little bit better, since uh you have so much of your activity and efforts going towards bringing visitors to downtown Mesa.

How do you interact with visit Mesa?

How does that work?

Uh Councilman Adams, Mayor, um we are uh actually we are um on a pretty good uh relationship with Visit Mesa at this point.

I sit on their board.

Um we're having pretty regular conversations with the team there to share information, um, share social media post.

Um as I mentioned with the uh the barbecue classic, um that was their idea to add the bluegrass component, and we jumped on that as a great idea.

Um, and we're kind of leaning into them to kind of help guide us in some ways, whether it's through uh uh identifying potential sponsors, but also just sharing any kind of resources they can to help get the word out.

Um but yeah, and then if we can provide is as I see it, if we can provide any kind of uh attractions that they can use to make sure that visitors to Mesa have a better experience, that's what we're here to do.

Make sure downtown's clean, make sure that there's activity down here, so when people are staying at the hotels and they come down here, there's plenty for them to uh stay engaged with so you're you're working to amplify each other's events and uh and put your information out there to the public then.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I like to think so, yes.

Okay, good, good.

Um last question.

Uh you mentioned um uh the banners.

My understanding was that the uh the Mesa Chamber handles the hometown heroes banners.

Are you working with other organizations on some of them?

Uh yeah, councilman, the uh the Mesa, the chamber does produce the banners, but we are the ones who install them.

Um so they basically have them delivered to our office.

We put them up, uh, and then uh I believe they store those ones.

I'm not sure if I think they store them all uh in the end.

So um, but yeah, it's basically we work together to make sure that those are all getting up.

So great.

Glad glad to see you're working with other organizations in downtown.

Good job, thank you.

Thanks.

Any questions, counsel?

Miss Taylor?

Yeah, thank you.

I was curious to know you said that you're trying to get better at talking with the local businesses.

Is visiting them in person your only means of retaining and gaining feedback from the local businesses that are paying the assessments?

Uh council member Taylor, no.

Um they a lot of them have my cell number, so they text, uh they email.

Um, they can come to our office.

Um, whether or not I'm available, someone on staff is usually available during business hours to help them out however they can.

Um, but I feel like a lot of them don't get a chance to get out, and a lot of them don't check their email.

So us being there in person really helps a lot, um, especially if they're not checking any messages we're sending to them.

If we can talk to them in person, it just uh really kind of drives the message home for them.

Um we what we found out and what we've trained the new staff on is that you can email the merchants, you can call the merchants, but you should also show up in person just to reinforce everything and make sure that they're hearing what's going on.

Yeah, because they're busy involved.

Yeah.

Do you survey them?

We have done some surveys in the past, yes.

Okay.

Do you is it scheduled?

Are you gonna do more so you can kind of find a key metric that you're kind you're trying to meet?

Yeah, it's it's kind of as needed.

Like so after events, things like that, we'll we'll tend to do a survey.

Um I think that our team is working on one now, or might have just done one for Mesa Amplified.

So they were they had one put together.

I just don't know if it's officially gone out with the next newsletter yet.

And I'm sorry, I may have missed this.

Did you say how many businesses you currently are serving out of the four zones?

Oh, we have quite a few.

I I can't remember the exact number, but it's over a hundred at this point, easy.

Um, but 40 are part of the gift card program.

There's a lot.

Well, how do what do you mean there are 40 are part of the gift card program, but you're serving a hundred.

Can you help me understand?

Yeah, the gift card program is they have to opt into that.

So anyone who's in the district automatically is part of DMA.

Um, and we promote them through the website through any kind of promotions we do as long as they want to be part of it.

The gift card program, you have to opt in because um someone physically has to go in and set up their card so they can receive it, and then the reports and everything go back uh to our system so it all works.

So some places choose not to do it.

Uh they just see it as more of a hassle.

Some people love it.

So okay, so well done on that.

Um what other cities do we know of that use this type of like downtown association structure successfully in the Phoenix metropolitan area?

This is new to me.

So yeah, Phoenix, downtown Phoenix has one, downtown Tempe, downtown Chandler, and downtown Mesa for the Valley, and then downtown Tucson also has one.

Flagstaff has something similar, but it's not uh in EMSD.

Do you communicate with one another, the associations to just kind of get ideas from one another, understand how you could be more successful?

Yeah, we um most of us uh know each other at this point or have someone we talk to in each organization.

Um we uh also talk to each other through the International Downtown Association, um, which is how we talk with downtowns from all over the globe about uh common things that we're all working on, ideas that we can share, things like that.

But of the Arizona bids, we all do talk to each other.

So you said we service about a hundred businesses approximately.

It's well over that, but yeah, I just don't know the exact number of that.

Yeah.

I'm just doing the math and I'm trying to calculate if we had a hundred businesses and we're looking at a million dollars that we would be investing about a hundred thousand dollars into each business of our services and what we offer them if you were to just blanket that.

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Taylor, I think maybe it's important to I could jump in here.

Downtown Mesa Association and the Special Improvement District 228 that that funds them is a property owner's association.

So the 500 and 500 plus parcels of downtown Mesa paid the assessment.

The businesses we recognize many businesses essentially pay that assessment as a pass-through in their lease and through their rental rate, but it is actually the property owners that are paying the assessment.

We will I I made a note here, we will get the number of businesses, small businesses that are in downtown, so we can get you the whole number.

But in the end, it is it is the 500 and I think last time last time it was around 550 parcels that pay into it.

Okay.

And then the city is one of those property owners.

Correct.

Well, actually, no, the city is not among the 550 parcels that are ratepayers because we are exempt.

Um we can get you the number of parcels that we also represent, which would be another, you know, several hundred because it includes places like Cal de SAC that have uh subdivisions still underneath Jeff Cal de Sach is no longer city.

Or we still own it, but we don't have it.

Yes, but we can get you the but we're assessing ourselves.

So are you saying we're exempt from paying into the we are exempt from property tax assessment?

I see we can we voluntarily assess ourselves at something, I think it's 1.7 cents per square foot.

Okay.

Um, which is a significant reduction compared to what the assessment would be from the the methodology we use for private property.

Got it.

All right.

Just doing oh, and then I had one other question, last one.

What what does enhanced public space management entail?

That's a little vague.

And I think that I think this is related to the plaza and to the and to the neon garden in the post.

It is providing levels of uh landscape and cleanliness that is over and above what our basic landscaping service would be.

Okay, that helps.

Thank you.

I appreciate you guys.

Thanks for that presentation.

Mr.

Radio.

I think uh prior uh presentations, I think wayfinding was uh conversation we had.

Um was it have we done anything uh as far as wayfinding uh signage uh in the downtown I can't remember if it was DMA or or another transportation streets conversation that we had, but so councilman, I believe that was part of the micromobility conversation.

The micro mobility.

Yeah, which um I know that is actively being worked on.

Um I think starting in the fall.

Can't remember the update.

Mayor, councilmember Heredia.

There has been um since we presented in the council uh approved the micromobility plan.

We have been working on transportation and there has been um regular signage switch outs um all across downtown, implementing those new parking hours that we had discussed, going to three hour as the minimum parking um time limit.

Uh and for most areas, um you'll there's consistent, you know, the the blue parking signs, those are consistent throughout downtown now.

Our next we are we are now in the stage of going through and updating all the garages.

Um so we have a a work plan with count with transportation for every quarter, how much we're gonna get done.

The next big lift that we need to be working on, and this will be probably coordinated with the DMA because it'll be easier to work through DMA, is how to get that those more more overt um way true wayfinding where it's like you know, a neon pub public parking with an arrow towards the garage to really help people see or find their way there.

We have started looking at from a costing perspective and figuring out what that's gonna take.

Um so we are definitely working on that.

Um it is something that uh I think will be an ongoing effort because I think wayfinding in general, there's the low-hanging fruit of wayfinding for parking, but there is much broader wayfinding program as it relates to pedestrian and bicyclists and vehicles in general.

And uh to add to that, just the next phase I think also incorporates the uh updating of all the time time zones basically for uh main street, then from Main to the first.

Um so we'll be updating all that signage so it's all the same.

Okay, because right now it's all over the place.

So is that live?

Does that is that gonna live in DA the DMA or is somewhere else in the city or combination?

Um Mayor Customer Heredia for the most part it will live with the city um as these are all city facilities and they are public parking facilities and it's so it's our our you know public signage.

Um but there I think are going to be an opportunity where we can partner with D somebody like DMA to deliver wayfinding where they can use their professional service, you know, contract with a professional um consultants or uh contractors in a much more efficient way than than if we had to work through city contracts.

Thank you.

Anything else, council?

I just want to say a couple couple of words and thanking you for stepping up and um for directing the DMA association, keeping the momentum going.

We had a lot of things going on, and when there's a change of guard, we always worry how things thank you very much for stepping into that role and the momentum has continued.

Um I love the clean team, of course.

They're and they're always like very positive and hello and embracing.

Um and your new um marketing and social media team, they're gung-ho.

I love that they're a little younger and could get into being, you know, or hip uh things that uh yeah.

I you know, we we want to be the cool downtown, and they're helping us get there.

Um also appreciate you know, interacting with the Mesa Tribune.

I've been uh following the stories, and I think that's good.

It really helps the following.

Um I like to advocate that we get that shuttle about the time, you know, when we have cul de sac, because we're gonna have so many residents there, to being able to move that there might be a time to, and maybe it'll be near the time we have a new ASU school and uh cul-de-sac and a lot more activity that we can coordinate.

Um I love that on the Mesa Amplified that you really engaged with the businesses as far as being part of the project instead of the event happening to them, and I think uh that engagement made it was part of the success.

Everybody works super hard.

I realize that, but um more of that, I think we're it's a reciprocal kind of engagement where if you want to be involved, you know, it makes it a richer event.

Um the the Mary Main Street markets, they used to be every weekend, and then now we're just doing them one weekend, the opening weekend, is that it?

Council member.

There's um there's the opening weekend, and then we do one on the second Saturday of December, or second Friday of December as well.

Um if they were every week, that might have been before before I even remember or before I came to Mesa to work in general.

Um, because I only remember them doing one additional on top of the opening weekend.

But I mean it's something we can always kick around the idea with.

I'll talk with Roger.

Yeah.

As long as we keep the activity in the center of downtown around the tree and such during Christmas, it's nice to have people pour in in the center of downtown, hoping they'll disperse throughout the businesses.

Um thank you for the art in the windows in the um what is it?

The old buckhorn?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The jellyfish thing all lit up at night is awesome.

Need to do more of that in vacant windows.

I think it adds a lot to downtown.

It's fun to look at.

I think is like the glue between the businesses and the residents and the visitors and everything, and keeping all that momentum or working together beautifully.

I appreciate the job you do and the interaction with uh the urban transformation department.

You have to, you're part of that family, you're not leaving.

No.

Okay, thank you.

Well, Jimmy, thank you for your enthusiasm to this new position.

Looking forward to working with you.

And I think it's important to have this conversation to know that Mesa, even though we self-assess and put monies into the program, we were receiving value from your services, and I think that's important to know because most people don't know.

You know, I asked the question about the parking, you know, at the Sarine Garage and how we could defray some parking, you know, because I heard some complaints.

Why do I, you know, elderly couples having to pay to park in a garage next to the Mesa Arts Center?

And I know that's optional, but there's some things that we can maybe do on that part of it.

But uh using the values that we receive.

You know, I talked to Mr.

Butler earlier today about we would have to employ employees, you know, to do what you're doing, so it's more advantageous for us to utilize your skill sets and your labor force and keep our downtown square mile um very clean and businesses.

You know, we were we received two protest letters, as you know, uh regarding tonight's agenda item.

Did you want to respond to them?

I mean just a comment, and then I know there's some letters in support, so I mean it goes both ways.

Yeah, um, Mr.

Mayor, um of the protest letters uh that I saw um one person had issued three letters.

Um two of his parcels actually do not pay into the district.

Um there are zero assessment because they're residential uh parcels, so they actually don't pay in.

He does have one that does pay in.

Um it's a uh a vacant property.

Um I'm aware of where it's at.

And then uh the other one is the uh uh a new development that's going in um over at Country Club.

Um and uh what I when I read that letter, I was I looked immediately into what our clean team has been providing for that area.

Um and there's been a large amount of trash building up around construction fence and things like that that were the ones regularly having to remove.

Um so I I just want to say like that there's a value to what we bring that other people may just like go because it's not as important to them as it is to us, but okay.

Jeff any mayor, uh I can I I can weigh in or I can I can weigh in and give you my thoughts, but I mean we are in we're in a world in which you know there are just fun there there's just going to be folks that are fundamentally opposed to to any property tax assessments in general, and um the the the two letters that that we received, or the two property owners that we received letters from are essentially my my takeaway is that they just don't necessarily believe that this tax benefits them at all.

Um both are out of state property owners, so they don't they don't see directly what benefit they are receiving from the DMA.

They don't see you know as council member Adams uh everybody likes tea.

Um as he noted, and everybody gets along with everybody.

He stops me on the street and chats with me as well.

Um, but they don't see tea out in front of their property because they're not here to see that happening.

So to me, um, the fact that we have only received um letters of protest from two property owners.

Um that is actually a very good sign of the quality of work that DMA is doing when you have 550 plus property owners that could be objecting to an assessment.

Good.

Thank you.

I know he's here at 5 a.m.

in the morning, so I appreciate that because most of us aren't all right.

Well, I think that concludes our presentation.

Uh we'll move forward with that tonight.

It'll be on the agenda.

Thank you, Mayor.

You bet.

Uh item three is to acknowledge receipt of various board minutes.

Is there a motion to that effect?

So moved.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, Mr.

Radio.

All in favor say aye.

Aye, aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.

Um, next is current events and conferences attendance.

Council members, do you wish to share anything that you've been with?

I know several of us attended some events together.

You want to go, Miss Steph?

Sure, sure.

Um, Thursday night I attended the 2026-1 firefighter recruit academy of graduation here at the Mesa Arts Center.

There was 12 um new firefighters that'll be joining the ranks.

And um thank you for everybody who does the work a lot of work on that.

Um Saturday, I actually left downtown, which is a rarity, and I went to the America 250 live music celebration to add Red Mountain Library and listen to um the Sugar Thieves and Phoenix Jazz.

It was super good.

It's very enthusiastic.

I was like, it's a great afternoon out for me.

Um and I approach the library as well, and a lot of good programming there.

Today I served as a council member for ULI Urban Land Institute's City Council Day at Cronodale School.

Seoul High School.

Now I realize that is not here, but they have an honors program and it's uh for an economics around urban planning.

And the they have teams that put together developments and they talk, they're quite impressive.

They talk about um you know the revenue the city's gonna receive on the development open space job ratio, transportation, historic buildings, retail, homeless absorption rates, um satisfying the constituency groups is quite extensive, and I I love volunteering to support the program and wish we had it in Mesa High Schools, but maybe one day thanks.

Thank you.

Anything else, Council?

Okay, if not, uh Mr.

Butler, can you share schedule future meetings?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council.

Obviously, we'll convene upstairs immediately following adjournment of this meeting, and then on Thursday, um we will have study session that morning, but we'll open that with the Eastmark and Cadence uh CFD meetings, um, our annual meetings on that, uh, and then followed by study session.

A little homework for you all ahead of ahead of schedule tomorrow when the agendas come out.

This Thursday, we'll review the agenda for the 6-1 for the June 1st council meeting.

That's a week earlier than we normally do because that's the 28th is going to be dedicated to our uh strategic planning session follow-up.

So we're not gonna review the agenda on the 28th.

So we're gonna do an early review on Thursday.

We may not have all the backup material, but we'll have most of the material.

Then uh staff will be available um leading up to the first to uh answer any questions, additional questions that staff may have.

Then on the first, we'll obviously have study session before the meeting, and we can address any lingering questions that may still be out there.

So just wanted to highlight that for you because it's a little bit unusual, but we just wanted to not distract from the work on the 28th and and do an early review this Thursday.

Okay, thank you.

I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Miss Goldforth.

Ms.

Duff all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

We'll see everyone upstairs.

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.