Mesa City Council Study Session - July 21, 2026
Mesa City Council Study Session - July 21, 2026
The Mesa City Council held a study session on July 21, 2026, with Vice Mayor presiding. Mayor Freeman and Councilmember Goforth were excused. The council reviewed agenda items for the July 20 and July 27 meetings, including discussions on property tax rates, a memorandum of understanding with the FBI, and impact fees. The session also included unanimous approvals of board appointments and meeting minutes. Note: The transcript indicates the meeting date as July 20, 2026, but the provided timestamp is July 21, 2026. This summary uses the provided date per instructions.
Discussion Items
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Secondary Property Tax Rate (Item 5A): Councilmember Taylor announced that the city is reducing the secondary property tax rate from 0.8582% to 0.85% due to successful development, spreading the tax burden among more residents and businesses. She clarified that Mesa does not have a primary property tax, and the secondary tax funds capital improvement bonds.
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FBI Memorandum of Understanding (Item 5B): The council discussed a proposed MOU with the FBI's Phoenix Field Office for the Safe Streets Task Force. Commander Reno explained that the MOU would allow six gang detectives to be deputized, providing overtime reimbursement, four vehicles, and access to FBI forensics. The MOU builds on a 13-year existing partnership with the FBI for Indian reservation enforcement. Councilmembers emphasized that this involves Mesa police officers, not federal officers, and is distinct from other city task forces. The MOU has no specified end date but can be terminated with 30 days' notice.
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Impact Fees (Item 6A): Brian Richel, Director of OMB, explained that the city is sunsetting old public safety impact fees under the 2012 state legislation, as the debt for the public safety building has been paid. The code is being updated to remove the fee schedule, but the city is actively pursuing a new impact fee study to ensure growth pays for growth, with a consultant selection underway.
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Planning and Zoning Board: Councilmember Adams noted that recent appointments have resulted in full seven-member votes on planning cases, addressing previous concerns.
Key Outcomes
- The council unanimously approved appointments to boards and committees (motion by Councilmember Heredia, second by Councilmember Duff).
- The council unanimously acknowledged receipt of minutes from various boards and committees (motion by Councilmember Adams, second by Councilmember Heredia).
- The council reviewed upcoming agenda items; final votes on items 5A, 5B, and 6A are scheduled for the July 27 meeting.
- The study session on July 23 was canceled; the next meeting is July 28 at 5:15 PM.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon. How is everyone today? Welcome to the Mesa City Council study session for July 20, 2026. Mayor Freeman is traveling internationally. Uh so he will be excused today. Also, Councilmember Goforth is absent and also excused. All other council members are present. First order of business today is to review uh the agenda items for both July 20 and July 27th, since we will not have a council study session on Thursday. So a lot of these items I think are overlapping between introductions, yeah, introductions and adoption. So we'll start with a July 20 meeting. Does I know we went over this the other day, but does anybody have questions or comments? Yeah. I I'm probably the only one who might have that. Um you said the 20th, right? Correct. Okay. So I just wanted to, it's more or less a statement. Remind everybody in the public that 5A, um, which is levying the amount to be collected by secondary property tax. I just double checked with the city staff, and it was great news. I want to kind of celebrate. We're actually dropping the tax rate from 0.8582% down to 0.85%, and that's because development has been so successful in the city that we're essentially spreading the peanut butter thinner. So it's less of a burden on our residents. We're reducing the tax rate that they're paying because other businesses and new residents are helping to pay that. Um also just to remind everyone, Mesa does not have a primary property tax. When you get your tax bill and you have your primary and your secondary, um, I think a lot of people get a little bit confused about this. I have people talk to me about this. Your primary tax is your county tax and your school bonds that you're paying back. That's not the city of Mesa. The city of Mesa only has the secondary tax. We don't have a food tax, um, and that our secondary tax is paying back our capital improvement bonds. So I just wanted to kind of remind the public of that because I got a refresher on it as well. And then uh I had one question for item 5B because I've gotten a few emails. Well, you didn't tell us if it was chunky or smooth peanut butter. Yeah. Um, I'm gonna go with smooth. Yeah, yeah. And pre-mixed and pre-mixed. Yeah. Anyone else on that item? No, um, as council member um Taylor had mentioned, we've received quite a few emails in 5B. And um ready to discuss it and address it. I don't know if you just want to wait till we get upstairs since we've heard from members of the public and have a further discussion, or you want to do a preliminary touch? I'm fine to wait, but if you'd like to kind of breed discuss among us, we can do that now, and then with the public up there. I like that. Okay. Okay. Go upstairs with it. No, we could discuss right now and go over it. Yeah. I just had some questions.
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