All right, good evening, everyone.

I'd like to call this regular city council meeting on Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 to order.

Tonight we're gonna be led by uh Ray Grimm and the invocation.

Ray, if you could Heavenly Father, we praise you, we honor you tonight, Father God.

Father God, I first want to pray for Bob Wiganroth as he is leaving our city, Father God.

I pray you bless him for his years of service and faithfulness to our city, Father God.

And Father God, I pray that you bless him as he goes to California in his new season on life, Father God, to be with his family.

Just bless him and his family in Jesus' name.

Father God, I pray over our mayor and council, Father God, that you would give them wisdom and insight as they make their decisions tonight for our city.

Protect our first responders, fire and police, Father God, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Ray.

All right, tonight we have some pledge presenters on.

Let's conduct the roll call, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Mayor Starter.

Present.

Councilmember Greenberg.

Here.

Councilmember Duffy.

Here.

Councilmember Melton.

Present.

Councilmember Judd.

Here.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have quorum.

Okay, perfect.

I got so excited.

It's caliber.

They're here today, so they're gonna lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

So your students would like to uh you would all join us and they'll they'll leave us.

Thank you.

And there's a couple of your students had some remarks they wanted to say.

Go ahead, ladies.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Brooklyn McMillian, and I'm Alison Gribble.

We are both eighth graders at Caliber Academy.

We are two of the house leaders at our school, and we are here tonight with some of our choir members and cheerleaders.

At Caliber, we recently launched our house system.

The purpose of this program is to build a positive and supportive school culture by promoting character development, academic excellence, and school spirit.

The system connects students and staff across all grade levels, helping everyone feel a stronger sense of community and belonging.

Through friendly competition and earning points for accomplishments, students are encouraged to show leadership, teamwork, and kindness every day.

Thank you so much for having us this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you.

I think we're good.

I don't want to break in.

All right, so tonight I we have one proclamation, and it's for Epcor water.

And I'm gonna I'm gonna read through it, but just and they're gonna say a few one of you is gonna say a few words, you gentlemen.

Um but it's a it's important.

You know, the city's growing, and Epcor is a part of our our planning area, and they have a they've got the 100 year assured water supply, and it means a lot to the city, it means a lot to our growth, and we really appreciate it.

So I'm gonna go ahead and read this.

Proclamation of recognition.

Whereas Epcor Water provides safe, reliable, and high quality water service to the residents and businesses of the city of Surprise and surrounding communities.

And whereas Epcor Water has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to long-term water sustainability through sound planning, investment, and infrastructure, and adherence to the highest standards of water resource management.

And the Arizona Department of Water Resources recently granted Epcor Water the designation of assured water supply for its Agua Fria district, which includes portions of the City of Surprise.

And whereas the designation of assured water supply ensures that sufficient water supplies are physically, legally, and continuously available to meet the needs of current and future customers for the next 100 years.

Whereas Epcor Water is the first water provider to receive a new 100 year designation in the Phoenix Active Management Water Area in 25 years.

And whereas this achievement supports the City of Surprise strategic plan for responsible growth, sustainable development, and regional water security, while reflecting Epcor's leadership and proactive water stewardship, and whereas the City of Surprise recognizes the partnership and collaboration between Epcor Water, City staff, and regional water management entities in achieving this significant milestone.

Now therefore I, Kevin Sarter, on behalf of the City of Surprise recognize Epcor Water USA for obtaining the designation of assured water supply for the Agua Ferry District and commend the company for its dedication to ensuring a sustainable water future for the surprise communities.

Epcor greatly values the partnership with the city, appreciates the continued efforts of your staff and city leadership throughout the years.

Thanks again.

Mr.

Wingroff, do you have Mr.

Wingroff?

Do you have a report?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council.

As always, it's a pleasure to welcome recreation coordinator Shelby Fenwick introducing our youth council members.

Shelby, good to see you.

Okay, I think I got it.

I don't know, I want to break it.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

It's good to be with you tonight.

I'd love to introduce to you our youth council sitting on the dais with you tonight.

First up, I have Braden Aftanski, who is a junior at Paradise Honors.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Brayden Aftanski.

This is my fourth year on the council and my fifth time up on the dais tonight.

So first I'd like to talk about what we're doing this year in our reach committee and specifically what I'm helping plan.

So our committee is focused on getting teens involved with the residents of surprise.

And I've had an amazing opportunity to be to be part of the planning with our senior center.

So what I'd like to do is since I volunteered with SYC in the past for the senior center, and I find it uniquely important for teens to be with our older and our wiser citizens.

We were planning on doing more with our senior center, getting involved with their activities and hopefully planning some of our own.

I'd also like to announce that the surprise youth council is starting an initiative of open invitation for all teens and youth to come to our meetings.

It's sort of function is a call to the public so they can announce any concerns, issues, or just talk to us if they need to.

And thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening.

That is all I have.

Thank you, Braden.

Next up is Emma Tran.

Emma is a freshman at Paradise Honors.

Hi, my name is Emma Chan, and I'm a freshman at Paradise Honors, like Shelby had mentioned.

This is my second year serving on Supply Youth Council, and I'm a proud member of the outreach committee along with Baden.

With Veterans Day coming up a week from today, SYC is incredibly honored to participate in the parade and the after festivities.

And we would like to show our gratitude to those who have sold to our country.

It's a privilege to walk alongside with the community, celebrating and honoring those who have died and for um all lives and for their courage and dedication.

We have annual committees, we've been busy planning upcoming events for the year.

One of our events is the North Gun Battle at Sopai's library on Friday, November 14th, where we invited members of Surpai's police department to join us.

We are grateful with the collaboration with Supai's PD.

Their support and involvement means a lot to our council.

It's always great to partner with them in building a positive relationship between youth and law enforcement.

We are excited to host this event to create a fun, safe, and engaging environment for the YFA suppis.

That's all I have.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight.

Great job, Emma.

And that is all I have.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Madam Clerk, do you have a report?

Nothing tonight, Mayor.

Okay, there's 10 items on the consent agenda.

Would anyone like to pull an item for clarification or have any questions?

Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Thank you.

Please read item 11.

Item 11, consideration and action pertaining to recommendation to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control on application number 361764.

Requested by Camilla Arcone for Headwright Brewing Company.

Located at 14312 West Wadell Road, surprise Arizona, 85379 for a new series 12 liquor license.

I do not have any requests, Mayor.

Council, do you have any questions or concerns?

If not, I'll entertain a motion.

Right.

I move to approve liquor license application number or recommend application number 361764 to the uh liquor license.

Airs and department of liquor licensing control.

Thank you.

That was a recommendation to approve.

Yes.

Okay.

I second.

Approved.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

There's me.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Thank you.

Please read item 12.

Item 12, consideration and action pertaining to recommendation to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control on application number 358350 requested by Guillermo Vega Gomez for El Red de los Postionis.

I hope I said that right.

Two.

Located at 19194 West Gordon Way, Whitman 85361 for a new series 12 liquor license.

Okay, this being a public hearing, I'll open this agenda item to the public.

Do we get any requests to speak?

I did not, Mayor, but I believe the applicants are here if anyone has questions.

Okay, I'll close this agenda item to the public.

Why are we voting on a item that's in Whitman?

Right.

Can I speak?

Sure.

That's I believe their mailing address.

Mayor, I I believe they're uh the they this is the old, I believe this is the old track side bar.

And if the if the applicants here, I'd love to hear what their plan is for it if they want to share.

Yeah, if you could come up and how on your plan a little bit, please.

Just yeah, just before patent.

When you're driving down grant, just before you get to hours.

Hey, good evening.

You could say uh I guess your business.

Yes.

Um so we are family owned and operated.

Um, and we are looking to create a family environment and um contribute to the community and be able to have families be able to have some good dinner, good lunch, and um you know, we're looking to expand.

We've been in business for about 18 years now.

So uh this is going to be our second location, and we thought it was a perfect area.

Perfect.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions from council?

If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to recommend approval of application number 358-350 to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

Second.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Please read item 13.

Item 13, consideration and action pertaining to a proposed zoning text amendment to update the surprise municipal code relating to noise and construction start times.

Ordinance number 2025 17.

FS 250482.

All right, good evening, Trevor and Mindy.

How are you?

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, we have one combined presentation for this item and the two following items related to some legislative um updates and respective text amendments to address each of those three uh bills at the state level.

So the 56th and 57th state legislature for Arizona um passed a series of bills recently related to administrative approvals, middle housing, and construction start times.

So we're bringing forward three respective text amendments to the LDO to conform with these changes.

Additionally, our presentation includes two other bills that are just for information for the council only.

So the three bills on the left are the bills that we're uh bringing forward text amendments to take action on tonight, and the two bills on the right for housing design plans and sober living homes are our informational only that will um could potentially require some additional um action in the future.

So HB 2447 is related to administrative approvals.

If you recall last at the end of last year, we brought forward a text amendment to address um some further states uh changes um in addition to some of the the changes that we're making for administrative approvals already.

This HB 2447 further modified that section of state statute, changed some of the language from May to Shall.

Um some of this does not um did not require additional changes on our end, but um there was some language that needed to be cleaned up to fully be in conformance with state statute.

So um there was also an addition for at-risk submittals to be able to um be issued on site um for preliminary grading and drainage work, and then it also requires cities um to allow applicants with a history of compliance with building codes to be eligible for expedited plan review.

And then it also requires cities to allow applicants with a history of compliance with building codes to be eligible for expedited plan review.

So these are the sections of the LDO that are affected by this text amendment.

And the amendment also includes some additional stricken language that was needed based off of our text amendment last year that was inadvertently left out.

So just general cleanup overall.

As far as the as far as the um expedited plan review, this is something that we're looking in for just to make sure that we're in compliance with state statute.

But up to this point, we have not historically provided an avenue for expedited plan review because of our already exceptional uh review times compared to other cities in the West Valley and across the valley.

Um we beat everyone else's plan review time.

So we have not done this historically, but in order to comply with state statute, we'll be building a program to allow for that.

There are some proposed fee changes that we'll bring forward in the future once we have everything ironed out to ensure that staff time is accounted for to accommodate this.

So what we're proposing at this point is to double the standard plan review fee and include a minimum 1,000.

And then if it goes beyond third review at an additional 20% fee just to ensure that, you know, if they're coming in and asking for expedited plan review, they should have their plans in order and shouldn't need to go beyond three reviews.

The next bill is HB 2721 for middle housing.

So this requires that prior to uh January 1st, 2026 that cities adopt regulations for middle housing, and what they mean by this is duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and townhomes as a permitted use on the following.

So uh it includes lots that are zoned single family residential within a mile of the central business district.

The city at this time does not have a central business district, so this provision does not apply to surprise.

And then at least 20% of uh a new development of at least 10 contiguous acres.

And as we've seen with these um recent state changes, there's the exception that it does not apply to land within the vicinity of the military airport.

So much of the city um is not subject to these new provisions.

However, we do have to um comply with state statute and adopt um these standards to ensure that we aren't uh required to allow for these home product heights on all lots for single-family residential across the city.

So this is the map that you've seen in some of these past legislative changes.

The areas in yellow are the areas within the vicinity of Luke's facilities and therefore not uh subject to these uh changes, and then those outside um on the west part of the city off of Sun Valley Parkway and farther in the northeast, those are the areas where this would.

The state um bill further states that municipalities can't discourage the development of middle housing, can't restrict these housing types to less than two floors, can't restrict the floor area ratio to less than 50 percent, can't restrict permitting or plan review requirements that would other otherwise be required for single family residential, can't require owner occupancy of these structures or require structures to be sprinkler to comply with commercial um building codes, and we can't require more than one off-street parking space per unit.

So the um bill that or the text amendment that we brought forward that complies with these again would only apply to those areas with that are the 22% of the city that's outside of the vicinity of the military airport.

Okay, Senate Bill 1182 standardizes construction times during the summer across Arizona.

It prohibits cities from restricting construction activity between 5 a.m.

and 7 p.m.

from May 1st to October 15th, and it allows concrete pouring one hour earlier.

So the following sections of code are being amended for compliance.

Our local code already exceeds those requirements.

So the current code allows construction from 5 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

Um the only updates needed are small code references to formally allow that earlier concrete pour and to align our noise standards with um the new state language.

Senate Bill 1529 requires every every municipality create or participate in a program offering permit-ready housing design plans.

So cities must have pre-approved um design options for single family duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units.

The intent is to reduce design costs, speed up permitting, and encourage affordable housing through standardized pre-reviewed plans.

We will have the single family single family plans available for use by July 1st, 2026, and the remaining duplex, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units will follow by January 1st, 2027 as required.

So I'm pleased to report that Senate Bill 1308, the sober living home bill passed this legislative season.

This bill creates a comprehensive framework for the operation licensing and oversight of sober living homes.

It requires cities establish a process for re reasonable accommodations when distance limitations apply.

Um it states that cities cannot reclassify a single family home to a to commercial because of a sober living home use, and it ensures that the city's definition of sober living home matches the expanded um state definition.

The bill also makes patient brokering unlawful.

Um it expands sobriety requirements and testing within the home.

It requires house policies and procedures, a good neighbor policy, financial transparency, requires a notice of patient rights to be posted in the home, and it requires operator fingerprinting.

Um additionally, the bill requires sober living homes obtain and maintain documentation from local jurisdiction, confirming compliance with zoning, building and fire code requirements.

Um it includes a statement of legislative findings supporting the protection of residents living in these homes and the community at large from unscrupulous operators, and it sets a series of penalties for non-compliance that the Department of Health Services can enact.

It also requires information sharing between DHS and local jurisdictions.

So in preparation for this meeting, we held a neighborhood outreach meeting on September 17th at Surprise Regional Library.

We had one resident in attendance, and we did receive one inquiry via email.

Questions centered around the middle housing definition and how these changes will impact certain areas of the city.

Feedback was in um neither in direct support or opposition of the bill.

On October 2nd, the planning and zoning commission recommended approval of the proposed zoning text amendments to confirm with uh the recent legislative updates.

And to recap, um our required neighborhood meeting was on September 17th.

Planning and zoning recommended approval on the second, and if um if approved tonight, these actions will bring the city into compliance ahead of the state's deadlines.

So if council wishes to approve three separate actions are required, one for each planning case.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

This is a public hearing, so I'll open this agenda item to the public.

Did we get any requests to speak?

I did not, Mayor.

Hearing none, I'll close this agenda item to the public.

Councilman Melton.

I mean, can you can you go back to that slide?

Uh was about the concrete four times.

I think this was the only, maybe the only part of the tax we had to really change.

Is that was that correct?

Yes.

And and to align the noise and vibration standards.

Yes.

Right.

Uh, and we we've actually uh and I'm not I'm not actually concerned with this.

We we've gone through this with the OTS uh and during during the uh as we're pouring out the pads for the resource center.

The city works very well with the community, giving them heads up, letting them know uh you know what we're doing.

And so um I'm pretty comfortable with this change.

Um I'm I'm pretty sure you know Seth and your team are pretty good at outreach, and I imagine other departments are.

So I don't imagine this would be a problem.

Um but if I'm wrong, you know, I'll add public works.

Do you do see any issue?

This no.

All right.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate it.

And again, thank you for the the good relationship that our directors have with the community to give them heads up on these things.

So absolutely.

Thanks.

Councilman Greenberg.

Thanks, Mayor.

I only have one question.

Can you go back to the slide that had the word sprinklered on it?

Um do you know which one?

Oh this one.

Yep.

Yeah, there we go.

Are you saying that can you co-clarify this as far as who needs and who does not need to be sprinklered?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor, Councilman Bring Grahamberg.

If a developer wanted to take advantage of these new allowances, we would not be able to require those middle housing structures to have sprinklers or comply with the commercial building code.

Is this multifamily also?

Yeah, it's duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and townhomes.

So multifamily with no sprinkler systems.

Yeah, it would not include like traditional apartments.

We're talking sprinkler ceiling, like fire suppression sprinkler.

Okay.

Correct.

Not like garden.

Correct.

Okay.

We have no control over that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

So you know other questions, I'll entertain a motion for item 13.

I move to approve ordinance 2025-17.

Seconded.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

Thanks, Mayor.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Thank you.

Please read item 14.

Item 14, consideration and action pertaining to a proposed zoning text amendment to update the prize municipal code relating to middle housing.

Ordinance number 2025 18.

FS 250481.

Okay, this being a public meeting item.

I'll open this agenda item to the public.

I did not, Mayor.

I'll close this item to the public.

Council, do you have any questions or concerns?

Hearing and seeing not a channel motion.

Uh Mayor, I move to approve uh ordinance 2025 18.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

All right, thank you.

Please read item 15.

Item 15, consideration and action pertaining to a proposed zoning text amendment to update the surprise municipal code relating to administrative approvals.

Ordinance number 2025 21.

Case FS 250479.

Thank you.

I'll open this agenda item to the public.

Do we get any requests to speak?

I did not, Mayor.

Close this item to the public.

Council, do you have any questions or concerns?

Hearing none and seeing none, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve ordinance 2025-21.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Please read item 16.

Item 16, consideration and action regarding a zoning text amendment to the surprise land development ordinance to modify residential development standards.

I move to approve ordinance number 2025-119.

It's not a role.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

This item before you is actually an applicant-driven zoning text amendment related to residential development standards.

So as we've seen with some of the stuff across the state, um applicants have also identified certain limitations in ambiguity in the LDO related to our residential development standards.

They have identified them as either hindering or prohibiting certain home product types within the city.

And so they're proposing changes to provide clarity and increase the uh variety and amount of home products that can be allowed within the city.

So there's multiple sections of code that are proposed to be um amended as part of this overall text amendment.

Primarily they're trying to address standards within R1, R2, R3, the Surprise Heritage District residential overlay, as well as the TND.

There's other sections in here that needs to be amended, amended to accommodate um some of the overall changes in these residential zoning districts, but that's where the bulk of the changes are.

So I'll go through and summarize each of the changes.

I won't go through each um individual edit, uh, but if you have any questions, uh please let me know.

So in the glossary, there was some uh discrepancy between the definition for single family dwelling unit and um what we had for a townhouse.

This the townhouse product is kind of unique in that it is attached to another dwelling unit in typically a series of of multiple dwelling units, but they are um individually sold.

Um, and so there is some cleanup uh within these definitions to clarify that.

Um this would help create a distinction between the two and um help with our uh use categories as well.

So we also added townhouse as its own separate use category in the use table.

This will, in addition to the uh in addition to the definitions, we'll create that distinction between the two.

In the R1 zoning district, the only change being proposed is in the lot category B of R1.

Um the applicant is proposing an allowance uh for an increase in the maximum lot coverage if the home builder is providing an R V garage.

Um so it would increase from 45% max lot coverage to 55%, and this is just to accommodate that uh that uh provided RV garage.

In the R2 medium density, um, this is where the bulk of the clarifications are to allow for a variety of um different or smaller home product types.

So there's clarifications um to differentiate between these housing types.

There's some specificity for town homes, there's um some reductions to minimum standards to allow for six-packs, cluster homes, um smaller home products, um, and alley loaded products, uh basically just increasing the diversity of of what would be allowed in the R2 district, and then as well, there's some supporting changes um for related to setbacks and subdivision requirements so that these products can be allowed within our zoning code.

In the R3 residential high density um zoning district, there's a um separate development standards table being proposed specific to town homes.

Again, this goes um with clarifying how townhomes are dealt with in our code.

This is not an increase in um density that would be allowed within R3, it's just um currently in our R3 zoning designation, it's specific, it's it's more geared towards apartment style multifamily, and this would allow the town home product to be allowed within the zoning district.

In the residential overlay for surprise heritage district, the same changes that are proposed to be made into R3 are being added into this zoning district.

This is just to create some consistency within our code and allow that same home product, and then again in the TND district, um, making sure that we have consistency across the code and don't have any conflicts.

There's other supporting changes being proposed within sections 107 and 108, as well as the PES.

And then one of the things that staff worked closely with the applicant on was in order for these um additional or different home products to function, we needed to make sure that it was going to function not only on the lots themselves and the specific development standards for those home products, but uh that the overall community still functioned and didn't have negative impacts on the the greater community.

So things like parking, how how solid waste does their trash collection, ensuring uh proper lot frontages, access, transportation issues, um, and product design.

There was two neighborhood outreach meetings held.

One was uh on April 9th at the Surprise Regional Library.

There was three people in attendance after some additional staff review and the addition of the R3 standards into the uh residential overlay for the SHD district.

We requested that the applicant hold another neighborhood meeting in the OTS to ensure that you know these these changes were viewed by the community.

So that second meeting was held on August 13th at Windmill Suites, and there was one person in attendance.

There was questions and comments on the housing types and proximity to their existing neighborhoods.

So throughout the process, staff worked closely with the applicant to ensure that these changes were going to not have any unintended consequences and make sure that they still function correctly and the planning and zoning commission recommended approval to city council.

With that, I'm available for questions, and so is the applicant.

Okay, thank you.

I'll open this agenda item to the public.

Madam Clerk, do we get any requests?

I did not, Mayor.

I'll close this agenda item of the public.

Councilman Greenberg.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Trevor, I don't know if we need to deal with this here or you're dealing with it in some other fashion with regard to the conflict between the LDL regarding casitas and grants, CCNRs regarding casitas, where the city doesn't allow them in the front yard and the grant doesn't allow them in the backyard.

So basically they're not allowed anywhere.

How are we gonna deal with that going forward?

Yes, thank you, Mayor, uh council member.

So this specific text amendment does not address accessory dwelling units or casitas.

Um I believe in the grants specifically because it's under the PAD zoning.

Um there's there's an avenue for clarification there.

This text amendment would only apply to um what we call hard zones, so the the zoning districts that exist within the LDO today.

Okay.

Councilman Melvin.

Trevor Burrus, can you there was a you mentioned uh setback requirements changes in R2.

Can we can you elaborate on that?

What is what does that change look like for setbacks?

Yes, thank you, Mayor, Councilmember.

So some of the some of the changes to the setbacks tables within R2 are clarifications, some of them are reductions.

So um there is a an existing requirement of five foot on one side, seven foot on the other side in the smallest lot category in uh R2.

The proposal is to change that to five feet on both sides.

So it wouldn't have the five and the and the larger seven on one side, it would be five on both sides.

And have you any feedback from our any directors in the city that's gonna be an issue?

No negative feedback.

Oh negative feedback.

Okay, thanks, Trevor.

Thank you, May.

Okay.

Council, any other questions or comments?

Uh Trevor, when I I'm hearing this, I hear density.

Is that what this is gonna do?

Create more density.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, no, there's there's still other provisions within our code and and development strength standards that would restrict the overall density.

Um, I think on a on a smaller scale, um, there could be some communities or portions of communities that um if they utilize these um allowances for smaller home products, you could have a community that would appear more dense, um, but on a on an overall subdivision basis, they still have to meet all the open space requirements, um overall density requirements and things like that.

Okay.

And it just allows more product types.

Is that essentially what this does?

That's correct.

Okay.

Councilman Haney.

Uh Mayor I think you just answered uh my question.

That was kind of what I was leaning.

This is mainly just to try to allow for a variety of housing types within these zoning parameters.

Is that pretty much the gist of this?

Yes, that's correct.

So so under our code, there's some um, there's either standards that that make it difficult for the home builders to build what what is um what they're seeing is marketable today or um outright prohibited.

So some of these products um are the cluster pack homes where um they're kind of access through a either an easement or a share so shared drive.

Um there's uh a product that uh some builders are looking to do where it's accessed through an alley.

Um there's some smaller lot developments that that home builders are looking to do just to to lower prices a little bit um and and kind of attack that housing affordability um aspect of it.

But um essentially that's okay.

So they're they're trying to essentially, if I'm understanding correctly, they're trying to adjust what kind of products they can bring to the market based on kind of what we're seeing today.

And but as far as the zoning and everything, we still have that control.

It's just the variety of what kind of product are we looking at under these zoning standards.

That's correct.

Mayor council, it's really trying to make that affordability to where you instead of renting, yeah, you have home ownership, and then they can build the equity and by providing this additional product line and cleaning up the code.

It sort of balances that out.

And also it's a good um show of faith from the city showing that we heard the legislature about that middle housing and being able to provide that type of product within that vicinity of military airport, but still then regulate the density that occurs.

Okay, so the goal is to encourage ownership rather than renting.

Okay, and and I actually like that just obviously things are challenging and and that for folks to be able to have the ability to own something.

I mean, that that's that's the huge because one of the complaints I get from residents is you know, if you if you have folks renting, which the folks that are renting would much rather buy, um, but a lot of times they have a new neighbor almost every year.

And so to be able to have that opportunity for some folks that maybe otherwise want it and have that diversity as product of product, um that's a good thing.

So all right, thank you for the clarification.

Councilman Duffy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Trevor Burrus Just uh regarding the R2 from going from five and seven to five and five.

What is that two feet stopping?

I'm curious.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember.

I'd actually defer that to um the applicant.

I think they can probably explain a little bit better of what the home product is that they're looking to do that would fit in that five and five rather than five and seven.

Oh, I didn't even see Jeff back there.

All right.

Uh thank you, Jeff Blyley, 701 North Ward Street.

Uh yeah, uh, council member, it it really does the two feet makes a difference because with those uh the smaller lot sizes, I think that what we're proposing is uh 30 or 35.

I can't remember if it's 35, 35.

There's a 30 wide product or a um 25 foot wide product that fits on that.

And so if it's if you have to go to 23, it's just it doesn't fit on the on the home on the uh lot.

That's why the five and five is what is necessary.

So in making them smaller, it still fits in the R2 category.

It's not adding more homes.

No, it's not adding nothing's adding more homes.

You add that when you do the zoning case.

I mean, everything the density is just still there.

We're still having to comply with it.

The the whatever zoning's in place, we could do it.

And if we wanted to do in the future, you'd control whether or not we were allowed to do that.

Um that that's really the one of the key things on that particular change.

And as Louis pointed out, the other the other issue with that I thought was important was the town home product.

We can do town homes now.

We can do attached products and a lot of these smaller products, but they can only be rented.

We can't subdivide them uh and then sell them.

And so this really accommodates that for sale product rather than the full rent product.

Okay.

All right, okay.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, I remember when I was in um high school.

Probably not super long ago, but longer than Trevor, maybe.

No, um, you know, houses were like was like 150,000, you know, or something.

So to my shock, you know, it's like you always kind of have that number in your head.

And then, you know, like my mom bought her first home when she when she was like 21.

You know, for me, it was it was 30, and the house was almost half a million dollars.

It's like, I mean, the house payment almost 3,000, like that's expensive.

You know, I think part of the American dream is you don't you don't have to own a home, but having the ability to own a home, and so I love the idea of having that as an option.

You know, it's not the end all be all for everyone, but I think that we need to help.

I think this provides opportunities, not only for people for people who are starting families, um, but also maybe you know, seniors who aren't who aren't you know ready to move into a you know facility, you know, for them yet.

And um I think we gotta be flexible.

The reality is there's a housing shortage and development is for sure a struggle.

We know there are traffic concerns, and so anything that we can do to move the needle just a little bit, I think we've got to be willing to take a look at.

And so um I look forward to seeing, you know, what things when we went through this process, you know.

Um so here's my question for you.

So resident sees this, you know, in the paper or something, right?

They're gonna call us, you know, probably probably call Nick or Councilman Haney.

Um, sorry.

Um not that anyways, former vice mayor, um how would we kind of sum this up to them?

Because we're we're not gonna if I send them a link to this meeting, you know.

Um, I love listening to talk.

I don't know, you know, who knows what the residents think.

But how what would you say?

Like I had to sum this up as kind of like how like why we're doing this, you know, how it fits into kind of our plan for a surprise.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor.

Um, I I would just say that it's um kind of refinement of the code to allow for uh a greater variety of home products that we're seeing in today's market that home builders are wishing to build.

Yeah, and I think we have to do that.

Like one thing I've asked, you know, City Center is it's zone to mix to use, it's owned by Carefree Partners, the West family and Scott Phillips, and and they really don't necessarily have to get our input on anything, but um they've asked, and really, you know, obviously they're if there's going to be you know density per se, it would usually come to the city center.

And so the one thing I asked him is like, hey, look, you know, obviously the density is how we get the shops that everybody wants, but can you at least you know you know bring different products and stuff, you know, change it up and stuff.

And so I love the idea of an ownable town home.

Um, that's great.

So I'm I'm super supportive of this, and I look forward to seeing what comes down the road because of it.

So thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Very sorry, I didn't restart.

Yeah, I move to appear of ordinance 2025-1-9.

So I can it's been moved in second, please cast your vote.

Thank you, Trevor.

Unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Please read item 17.

Item 17, presentation and discussion from the Maricopa Association of Government pertaining to the status of the Grand Avenue Corridor study.

Oh boy.

Good evening, John.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm here this evening to welcome MAG interim executive director as of Monday, John Bullen, and Principal Planner Bradley Williams.

As you recall, the city executed an agreement with MAG with your approval in the fall of 2023, October to be exact, to thoroughly study the Grand Avenue Corridor from loop 303 to SR 74.

The important effort is evaluating current and future conditions along this corridor to identify strategies for safety, mobility, and supporting our local and regional growth.

Today's presentation will share the most updated draft findings with the final study releasing in probably January, early 2026.

With that, I'm gonna defer to uh John to kick it off.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh members of the council.

Pleasure to be back here to provide an update on our US 60 study.

Wanna uh first start by uh thanking the city for your continued support uh with MAG.

Um really extend our appreciation to Jody, Eric, Bob for all their partnership.

Uh before I turn over to Brad to really go through the study, want to provide a little bit of context uh for those of you that might not be familiar, Maricopa Association of Governments or MAG is a voluntary association of governments in all of Maricopa County, plus portions of Northern Penal County.

Uh we also have a federal designation that we're responsible for long-range transportation planning.

Uh, and we also serve as the stewards of Maricopa County's dedicated half cent sales tax, recently reauthorized through Proposition 479.

Uh so it's under these parameters uh that we initiated the study uh to really identify long range transportation solutions in the Northwest Valley.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Brad to go through the presentation.

Thank you, John, and thank you, Mayor and members of the council for the opportunity to speak about this corridor study for Grand Avenue US 60 between State or Loop 303 and uh SR 74.

I don't need to describe the area for you and its uh location within the county within the city within within our region is what I mean to say there.

Uh but I do want to talk about the size of the study area.

You'll see that it's very broad.

On the east side, it goes all the way into Peoria to Vistancia Boulevard.

On the west side, it reaches all the way to the Haciampa River.

And the reason it's so large is that there just aren't a lot of roads.

The the transportation infrastructure in this area is not very um dense right now.

So we need to understand how those roads are going to evolve over time in order to be able to predict what we think will happen on US 60 and uh be prepared for what needs to be there.

So I'm gonna start with a little background.

Uh the uh stakeholders, the key stakeholders on this study include uh the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Cities of Surprise, and Peoria, Maricopa County, Arizona State Land Department, and uh the BNSF Railway.

And on the railway, I just want to point out that they have provided to us information on their proposed intermodal facility, including what the vehicle trip generation will be, both passenger cars and heavy trucks.

We've taken the information that they gave us, we put it into our models.

The assumption is if they're built, we want to have a plan that can deal with what is happening.

So that's the way we've done it, and BNSF has been attending our technical meetings throughout the the period of the study.

There's one thing we're not doing, and that is we're not making recommendations on whether certain roads should be elevated over the railroad tracks or not.

Uh we just felt that this isn't the appropriate venue for that.

There are lots of other things going on right now where that's being discussed, and those are more appropriate for that.

So we're just defining when and where things are needed, not what the elevation will be.

Where we are in the schedule right now is that we have uh had two public meetings so far on this and received great feedback.

I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.

Uh, and we're at the point where we're developing our recommendations and some implementation plans.

So we're presenting this to you.

We presented it to our transportation committee at MAG a couple of weeks ago, and we have our final public meeting coming up next week on the 13th of November, where we will be sharing those recommendations with the public.

This was back in August of 2024.

We had a great turnout.

And this was our opportunity to ask people what are your priorities?

What are your needs?

What do you want from this study?

As you can see, we had about 150 people attend that meeting.

Access to both the freeway and to uh US 60, and also safety was very important.

Now let me talk about some of the key findings.

And the first one is just the amount of growth that's occurring.

Uh and I'm sure most of you are already aware of this.

But if we look at 2023, uh there were 47,000 people living in this study area at that time.

By 2050, another 200,000 people will be living in this area.

That's a six-fold increase from 2023 to 2050.

Uh and here we want to give you something that might help to visualize what that means.

On the right, we have a map with a bunch of gold dots on it.

Every one of those gold dots represents 15 people.

That means a hundred dots represents 1,500 people, a thousand dots represents 15,000 people.

And you can see that in 2020, there was some fairly dense development south of the 303, but not much yet north of the 303.

But now, as we look how this has grown over time, 2030, 2040, 2050, we can see what's happening and we can see where the densities are going to be.

So this is the growth that we need to prepare for.

Now, we know that that growth has already created one very severe congestion problem.

And I want to talk a little bit about that.

We're looking at a photograph that was taken, I think, in uh late 2023 or early 2024.

And you can see this is as if the camera were on top of the interchange of the 303 and US 60 looking straight north.

So we can see uh US 60 going diagonally over to the left.

Uh and you can see that the traffic is backing all the way back into the interchange at that point.

But if you look a little further, you can see the backup on 163rd Avenue, which is even longer and even has longer delays to it.

So this is the level of traffic that we were looking at at the time where we were starting this project.

Um the question now is why is that congestion?

Ice seems to be isolated just at this one location near the 303 in US 60, when the rest of the area seems to be working quite well.

And this diagram on the right will help to explain that.

The light blue circles are interchanges.

So if we start from Peoria, we have Lone Mountain, we have Joe Max, Happy Valley Road, and El Maras Road, which is only half an interchange because there's no access from this study area to that interchange.

And then we have US 60 and Bell Road.

Well, that means there's a actually a nine-mile stretch of the 303 in which there's only one interchange that people can use, and that's US 60.

So as people are moving into this area, what choice do they have?

They really have only one choice, and that's to go to this interchange.

And that's why we're seeing such huge congestion at this point.

So, what about in the future, say in the year 2050?

Is this still going to be the same problem?

Uh, what you see here are the same interchanges we looked at before, plus a couple more that we think that are currently being planned and might be in place by 2050.

The three on the west side are green.

Those are the ones that uh carry the most traffic.

Almost 300,000 people a day are going to be traveling from the study area to those interchanges in 2050.

The other five on the east will carry just over 150,000, roughly half of the amount in the green interchanges, and they have five interchanges to deal with that.

The interesting thing is the US 60 approach to that interchange will have over 160,000 vehicles a day approaching it, which is more than the five and the east, all added up together.

So that tells us where the challenge is.

The challenges are on this west side, and it's a difficult challenge to solve.

Now what I want to do is look at the general plan roads that we have for surprise and Peoria in this study area.

And you see all these gray roads.

These are the roads that are currently in the general plan.

And we want to look at out to the year 2050 as if all these roads were built, and if they were built to their full number of lanes.

So typically a larger arterial street would be three lanes in each direction with a uh turn lane in the middle.

So we assume that whatever the general plan says is the full width of the road is there.

And then we ran our models for the year 2050 to see what it would look like.

When we did that, we found that there are three different categories.

The first one I'm calling underutilized, and what that means is that traffic is using the road, but you don't need the full width.

You might only need two lanes rather than three.

You might only need one lane rather than two.

And those are the green roads that you see here.

So that's a lot of roads that don't need the full width by the year 2050.

Then we have a category of roads where we do need the full width that's in the general plan.

Uh and these are the blue roads that you see here.

Then there's a third category, which is the general plan is not providing enough lanes for the anticipated demand by the year 2050.

And those are the red lines.

I think quickly you can see that US 60 Grand Avenue is red for a long distance.

The primary reason for that is that there are no plans right now to widen Grand Avenue.

So it is what it is at the moment, and that won't be enough.

The other one is Bell Road, Sun Valley Parkway.

And the interesting thing about this one is by the year 2050, this road will carry more traffic than any arterial street in the valley carries today.

And it will require more lanes than any arterial in the valley has today.

This road also is an arterial street.

It's not a freeway or highway, which means it's not eligible for funding through Prop 479 in our freeway lifecycle program.

This is something that is going to be more of a local jurisdictional issue to find a solution for.

So that takes us to our study purpose.

Our study purpose is very simple.

Where do we need transportation improvements and when do we think they're going to be needed?

This is a question that needs to be looked at strategically because we are going to have some issues for sure.

The developers are going to build most of these roads, and we know that that's the case.

But there will be gaps.

There will be gaps that need to be filled in, and we don't have a developer ready to build the road.

So those problems are going to come up.

And we need to anticipate them and have a plan to deal with it when it comes up.

At this point, we had our second public meeting, and we had dozens of possible solutions to the problems that we just looked at and asked for their input.

We had about 250 people respond to this survey, and they spent a lot of time.

They looked at those dozens of possible solutions.

They asked questions, and on average they submitted something back 22 times per person.

So that tells us they were very engaged, they spent a lot of time, and they took lists seriously and gave us their recommendations.

From that, we found uh very generally their alternative, their most important alternatives were improving access to loop 303 and improving access to US 60 Grand Avenue.

So now we're ready to look at some of our recommendations.

The first one is to deal with Grand Avenue, Loop 303, and 163rd.

That's the element that needs to be uh addressed, and it's very complicated.

So we actually have to go through three steps.

The first step is to implement whatever small improvements we can as fast as we can, and that's underway.

The second one is to build another interchange so that there's an alternative route that people can take.

And once we have done that, we can build the major upgrades that are going to be needed.

I want to start with the small improvements.

This diagram shows what improvements have been done already and which ones are still underway.

The yellow lines are the additional lanes that have already been added.

And the blue lines are more additional lanes that are currently under construction.

Once that's done, we move to the second phase of this, the second step, which is to build the 155th Avenue interchange, which you see here on the right.

This is located about a mile east of the US 60 interchange.

And you can see it's a rather unconventional looking design.

There are two reasons for this.

The first is that it can't connect to the south because south of the freeway that's fully developed and fully occupied, and so there's no opportunity to do that.

When we look on the north side, we have another problem.

Oops, that didn't show it.

It's not on here, but there are high power electric transmission lines paralleling the freeway very close to the north.

And the only way to get across those is to go under them.

So that means we have to take all the ramps, bring them down to the ground as quickly as we can next to loop 303, bring them to a trap traffic intersection, and then go underneath the line.

So that's the reason it looks the way that it does.

Then we can, after those two are done, we can start building the major upgrades.

You see two circles here.

The one lower green circle is the interchange with loop 303, the other one is the intersection with 163rd Avenue.

I'll start with the interchange.

And the design concept that we are recommending would essentially put an elevated intersection over top of the existing interchange.

And I'll get into a little more detail on that for a minute.

But what that will do, it allows us to separate major movements of traffic.

Some of them will stay down at grade, some of them will be up in the air going through the intersection.

And that helps us to be able to manage them better.

Then at the 163rd Avenue, we're also putting in an elevated intersection.

And again, traffic on Grand Avenue stays at grade, but 163rd Avenue above that is able to separate the traffic.

And it's the separation of traffic that makes this manageable.

I'm going to put some arrows in here to just show you how some of the key movements will be done.

So for example, if you're on the west and you're going eastbound on Grand Avenue and you want to get to southbound loop 303, you will get off before you get to 163rd Avenue, take an at grade ramp that continues without stopping all the way until you're on loop 303.

So there'll be no stopping for that movement whatsoever.

And if you're coming from 163rd Avenue, you would have a left turn at the elevated intersection.

But remember all the Grand Avenue traffic is down on the ground underneath it.

So there's not a lot of traffic.

And once you make that turn, again, you go non-stopping all the way to the 303 without any more stops.

If you're going in the other direction, let's say you're northbound on the 303 and you want to get to 163rd Avenue, you stay at grade, you go to the existing westbound lanes of Grand Avenue.

Um, you turn there, and then you continue without any more stops all the way until you're on 163rd.

And the same if you're coming westbound on Grand Avenue, you go through that at grade intersection.

All the other traffic is up in the air in the elevated intersection that you see there in the diagram.

So it's the separation of these key movements, the way that we've done it that gives us a very high capacity with much reduced travel times for everybody.

There are no long queues being created even in the year 2050 with this design.

So just to summarize what the status is on these three steps for the small improvements, most of those improvements have been done.

Um there are a few still underway.

They'll be finished within the next less than six months from now, they'll all be done.

And they definitely add capacity, which reduces the congestion.

But remember the growth.

The growth is coming so fast that it's filling up that added capacity just about as fast as we're able to put it there.

Um the 155th Avenue Interchange is going to start design very early in 2026.

It's one of the first things we'll be doing in the new year when Prop 479 gives us money to spend.

And that's programmed for construction in 2028.

Once that's done, we can construct the major upgrades.

We're also going to start design of those in 2026.

And so we will be ready to implement that as soon as possible.

However, we have a bit of a problem because that's programmed for to begin construction in phase two of Prop 479, and that covers the period from 2031 to 2035.

Next.

One question from Calemon Mountain.

Thank you, Mayor.

It was a fascinating demonstration review of the proposed changes, especially in the as it relates to 163rd.

And that's great.

In that same design.

But let's be honest, whoever designed that.

So westbound 60, and if I want to go north on 303, it is ridiculous.

So how does this take that into account?

All right.

So if you're coming southbound on the 303, that's your question.

I'm on the 60.

You're on the state and I'm heading west, heading towards the 303, and I want to go north.

I'm sorry.

Okay, so if you want to go northbound, um you are you go underneath the 163rd.

So you don't stop at that intersection.

I don't understand.

And now you you're going to be elevated.

No, I'm coming from all the way on the other side of three or three.

I'm coming towards so I'm the right side of the map.

Yeah, so flying from the left or right side of the map, going to the round.

Oh, from the right side of the map.

Yes.

So you're going westbound on Westbound.

And you want to go northbound.

Yes.

Okay.

So if you're doing that, I'm sorry.

Um you go to the elevated intersection and make a right turn.

No light.

Uh there would be a light there.

Um when we design it, it would be possible to have a free right turn if that were needed.

Uh, but that that signal works quite well.

Um it will only be during design that we know whether it will be a free right turn or whether it will have a stop to go.

Mayor Councilmember Milton.

So if you look at the lights on uh just on the other side of the blue line there.

So uh Brad, correct me if I'm wrong, but traffic would actually transverse to that light just the left of the blue marker, make a right and get on 303 north.

Yes, that's right.

So you would take the black road that curves towards the south a little bit.

That's going up in the air, and then there's a traffic signal right there at that location.

This intersection right here, this interchange.

We're looking at a diverging diamond.

Um, that's the kind of interchange there is at Happy Valley Road and I seven I-17.

Uh, and so that's a very high capacity um intersection.

So you would turn right at that point to the northbound ramp uh that takes you over the railroad and on to northbound 303.

Okay, thanks.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

All right, thank you.

Okay, um, once we we now have dealt with the green circle here, which is the interchange at the 303 and 163rd.

There are other needs that are going to happen at these other um interchanges.

I've talked about how much traffic there is on Bell Road.

We're going to need to widen some of the ramps at these black circles uh to accommodate in the year 2050 the traffic that we're going to have there.

The next thing I want to uh talk about is moving into access to US 60 Grand Avenue.

And I think one of the most important things we need to do is have an ability to go from one side of Grand Avenue to the other side without having to turn onto the highway and find another way to do it.

Right now, I think the distance is seven miles that you have to go once you pass 163rd before you can make a right turn into the area, and that can't happen with quarter of a million people living in this area.

So we've identified eight locations where the general plans create an opportunity for us to have a connection with Grand Avenue that crosses all the way to the other side.

Uh and I can run through those, I think quickly.

Uh number eight down at the bottom is 163rd Avenue.

Uh the next opportunity is at Joe Max Road and Pat Tillman Drive.

That's actually four miles up the road.

That's the next opportunity where you can cross and get from one side to the other.

Then we have Patton Road, 203rd, 211th.

Then we have Dove Valley and Black Mountain Road is number two, and number one is Gates Road.

So those are the locations that there is an opportunity.

And the important thing to understand here is that those opportunities need to be protected.

And what I mean by that is we don't want someone coming in and putting in a development that takes one of these opportunities away.

If we do that, then we have fewer opportunities to get across.

We'll have wider streets on Grand Avenue, and we're going to have bigger intersections in order to do them.

So our recommendation is to be sure that these opportunities are protected over time.

And so it's got a section south of the freeway and north of the freeway.

You saw the density map that I showed you early for the year 2050.

This is what that map looks like inside of the box.

So if you look south of the 303, we see that there's some changing densities inside this box getting higher as you go south.

And this box is basically going from I'm sorry, not this box.

So what I want to do is take another box.

You can see that the density is actually going to be higher on the other side of loop 303.

So now I have this box.

This box is between Reims Road and Bell Road.

And you can see what the development looks like there.

All right.

So what that means is with the high density of development, we're going to have more signalized intersections.

We're going to have unsignalized driveways to restaurants and to medical facilities and business areas.

And that means reduced speed limits.

Now, if we go north of Patton Road, we have a completely different scenario for the year 2050.

And this can maintain a rural environment.

This can still be a highway with 65 mile an hour speeds.

But we have to be very careful.

Every single red circle that you see here is an existing access driveway or some other kind of connection that exists today on this section of the highway.

Now this highway, traffic is growing very rapidly, both passenger cars and heavy trucks.

And heavy trucks, there are two different types.

There are background trucks that are growing very rapidly.

In fact, those background trucks have grown so rapidly over the last five years, we had to make a change in our model, our transportation model to accommodate how fast those background trucks are growing on Grand Avenue.

And then, of course, if the BNSF facility comes in, we have another group of trucks that are going to be on this.

So with the growth of traffic and the increase in trucks, we're going to have safety issues at every single one of these red circles.

And when I mean safety issues, very soon we're going to be required by law to do something to make it more safe, whether that be a signal or put in acceleration deceleration lanes or something like that for all of these red circles.

And that's going to require some careful attention and planning.

I've had a number of conversations with ADOT about this.

They've prepared a number of access management plans like this in the past.

And they tell me they do not have any legislative authority to enforce those plans.

And the reason for that is the State Transportation Board has never approved one of these access management plans.

And without their assistance, there's no provision in law for ADOT to enforce the access management plan.

There is a mechanism to enforce it.

It's a local jurisdiction general plan.

And so looking at how this is going to happen over the future with some structure and some care so that it doesn't become chaotic is going to fall on the local jurisdiction to be able to enforce that.

So this environment is going to be rural, high speed limits, growing truck volumes, and so it's the face.

This is all a safety issue here to deal with.

And also we have recommendations, for instance, for an access management plan that will address the safety issues that are going to be necessary here.

A reminder of the schedule, we have a public open house.

It's at the Asante Preparatory School the evening of November 13th.

And thank you for the staff that are assisting us to get the word out for that.

And you're all, of course, welcome to come and experience it yourself if you wish to do so.

Once that's over, we'll have additional comment period from the public.

Then we will wrap this up in a final report that will go to Meg's policy committees for acceptance early next year in January or February.

And so that's it.

Thank you very much.

And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Great presentation.

Councilman Jutteline.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Bradley.

This is a great presentation.

There's a lot of information.

This is very dense.

Can you go back to the implementation schedule?

Now the plan that you're showing us here, is this expected to change at all between now and the final report?

I expect that there may be some fine-tuning.

We have, by the way, been in many conversations with your staff.

And I want to um say that your staff has been very active and very helpful from the city manager to the transportation director to the traffic engineer to the Intergov.

Um, there's been great interaction with your staff on this project.

Uh and uh they're aware of the things that we've discussed and even more details than this.

We'll continue to have those conversations.

I expect there may be some fine-tuning as this uh gets wrapped up in the final report.

Okay.

And I think um you'll have to ask my colleagues, but I'm sure they all agree that we would like to see you know, staff, city manager, community development, transportation start immediately putting policies, rules, ordinances, general plan in place to protect everything that you're talking about here, and then put together a plan for long-term implementation of this.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Councilman Melton.

Thanks, Bradley.

I know I know I I know crossings aren't in the study, but do we know how many acre crossings exist today in the study area?

There are three or four, depending on how you define them.

Okay.

There's one at 163rd Avenue.

Uh but on the south side of it's just this little tiny road that gets you over towards uh Deer Valley Road.

Um, then the next one is at Center Street in Whitman.

Um there's um well, at a at 203rd, there are two 203rd connects to it in both directions, but they're offset.

So there's a thousand feet or so in between the two of them, so they're two T intersections.

We're recommending that that be changed.

Um so if you call that a crossing or not, it's not a direct crossing.

And then you have uh Gates Avenue.

So those are those are the four locations that exist.

And those are at grade today.

Oh, they're all at grade today.

Oh, that grade.

Yes.

And only two of them are signalized.

Um center street is signalized and 163rd is center signalized, the others are stop controlled.

Have we asked BNSF to look into that?

We've been very careful.

Um, so that I will draw the question.

Thank you, Bradley.

I appreciate you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I uh no more questions.

Okay.

Any other questions from council?

Councilman Duffy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well, I'm looking at the step three, the major upgrades.

Am I seeing this right?

If you're getting off on the 303 to go west on 60, you still stop at a stoplight.

Let me get to that drawing.

Here we go.

Yes, question again.

If you traveling on the 303, trying to get to west 60, are you still stopping at a stoplight?

If you're on the 303 and you want to go to you want to go west on 60, west on 60, and you're getting away.

You're gonna go to yes, you're going to go to the same intersection we talked about earlier and make a left turn.

So you're still being stopped.

Yes, but the traffic is much lower.

It's you say that because it's separated from other key movements are taking away.

So the 8,000 BNSF tracks have to all stop.

Mayor and counsel, I I think the key here is when you look at intersections and you look at stopping, the key is how much time has to be saved for each phase.

And so, really, what this design does is reduce the amount of time such that you can clear the cues pretty quickly, and there's only one stoplight.

I think the other key too is you're separating the Grand Avenue traffic for much of it.

And so traffic just traveling to and from on Grand Avenue doesn't actually have that stop light.

So it's it's the folks that are trying to make that specific change in movement that actually go through the stoplight, and it's just one light as opposed to waiting for a bunch of different phases.

My question is, why are you stopping them?

Like if you're on 202 to 10, you don't stop.

It's a flyover.

Why are we not doing that here?

Why are we stopping people?

Well, I think I can answer that very quickly, and it's it's with dollar signs.

This is a very expensive.

If we wanted to put sorry, that's not a reason I can give, and people are gonna be like, let's vote for this guy.

Yeah, mayor, members of the council, uh a couple other factors to take into account too.

So with the system to system interchange, traditionally what you see is that there's long runways out.

And so uh most of the time, so if you're traveling on um I-10, trying to go to the loop 101, um restricted your your access to 91st Avenue is largely restricted.

Uh so you can only make that from certain movements.

Here, one of the biggest challenges is the volume of traffic coming from 163rd going over to loop 303.

And so if you were to build big system flyover ramps, uh a lot of the traffic that's coming from 163rd wouldn't be able to utilize those or make those movements.

And so this really helps separate those movements, protects the heaviest movements from themselves.

And I think I just to sort of reiterate a point Brad made in its simplest terms.

This concept performs very, very, very well in 2050.

Um in transportation terms, we look at whether or not things are failing as a measure of are are folks getting frustrated sitting there waiting at stoplights, even with all the projected growth that we see in this area, projected truck growth, the projected population growth, all of these movements, none of these movements are failing in 2050, which is really impressive when you look across the system in its entirety.

And I can add a little more detail to that, technically.

There will be no movements that whoever stopped at the red light, can't get through in one cycle.

Okay, there that we are not building queues that get longer and longer because they can't get through in one cycle.

That was that was an absolute requirement to the consultant team when they put this concept together, that that happened for every single movement.

So and they've they've succeeded with that.

So this is the reason this works, even with a couple of signals is because of the way we've separated those key heavy movements to get most of them out of the signal entirely.

We can't get all of them out of the signals, but we end up with such a small number of vehicles still at that signal that it works very well.

And Mayor and Councilmember Duffy, I just want to reiterate this point too, because I think it's important to you and certainly your dialogue with your constituents.

As we were developing these concepts, it's not that we put any sort of dollar constraint or financial constraint.

We wanted to look from a technical perspective, what are the right solutions for this particular area?

We wanted to look from a technical perspective what are the right solutions for this particular area and given all the different considerations, whether it be uh some of the fairly substantial utility conflicts, because that's another factor out there just in terms of avoiding those high high power lines um speed with which it can be delivered being able to accommodate and prioritize movements.

And this is the concept that rose to the top so just to provide you that reassurance that that's an exercise we went through and then just sort of taking a step back and looking at it more broadly.

This is a planning study.

So we we're covering this from a very high level from here it will go to ADOT to do more of a formalized engineering assessment.

And so they'll certainly take this recommended alternative continue to fine-tune it continue to analyze it continue to look for opportunities.

And so it'll undergo additional scrutiny additional public review additional public comment.

So this is early but I think the good news is we were able to come up with a concept that solves the challenges out there both today and in 2050 and does so quite well.

Okay so I'm just hope with all the warehouses on 303 the northern area the UPS FedEx Pepsi they're all there and if the railroad goes in I hope they understand how many semis are going to be stopped at that stoplight.

And I to me I'm not an engineer and I don't work for ADOT I don't really have a clue really but to me it doesn't sound like the best idea and I hope I'm wrong.

That's all I got.

Sorry Ms.

Merrick Councilman Haney Thankor Bradley and John, thank you for your presentation.

It's always good seeing you but it seems like every time I see you you deliver some grim news but um I understand that like a lot of us up here and we always have this saying is it's not our fault but it is our problem right now.

And so I I appreciate the level of um detail that you provide within the study but in the presentation but also for your willingness to always come out to my community meetings and I know it's not easy to deliver that information and a lot of times some of that frustration is directed to you all and we've had conversation about that but I'm very appreciative of our partnership and your willingness to continue to engage our residents.

And my hope is anyone who's looking at this presentation especially as a policymaker at all levels of government can see just the type of urgency needed for action.

I think when I'm seeing this and I I receive emails daily um including the weekend all hours of the night and sometimes early morning regarding this corridor and specifically traffic and and so while I'm looking at this presentation I just keep reflecting back on some emails I've received and so um I always tell folks I'm here to represent you because everyone's busy with their own you know lives and family and so I'm going to ask the questions that um I know there's no doubt that I'm going to get next time I see somebody's residence.

So a few questions I want to start with is number one when we're talking about a study the question I get is why are we studying what is the purpose of the study the studies take some time and when you're sitting in traffic and you hear just hold on and we're we're doing a study that can be frustrating so can you explain a little bit what is the purpose of the study why do these studies take so long yeah well yes it's a fairly long answer I'm afraid but give it to me this is a complicated problem especially the area that needs all of these improvements a very complicated problem.

We can't find a solution until we can properly define the problem and that took time we had to run the model we had to do special things with the model and find out who's going from where to where how is that going through what is the number that we need to serve and so we had to go into that level of granularity that took time to do we had to create a model calibrate that model then run through all the different alternatives and look at different scenarios to come up with the concept that we have and it was a challenge to our consultant but as I said their fundamental rule was no turning movement at all in this system ever has to be delayed because it couldn't get through a cycle and they met that requirement but again that took time and that's only the beginning of the time now we have to go into design and um for improvements like this design is going to take two years.

And it starts with there's a pre-design where we have to look at different alternative design concepts and pick the one that works the best we have environmental assessments that need to be done to going through that process is a multi-year process.

So by starting we're we're able with the 155th avenue to start immediately into design we can do that because the predesign process has already been completed by ADOT that allows us to start the design in 2026.

We can do that because the pre-design process has already been completed by ADOT.

That allows us to start the design in 2026.

But again, it will be 2028 before we can actually start construction of that design.

Uh and for the bigger one, uh this major upgrades, uh, we have to go through that pre-design process and then go into design.

So starting in 2026, it's still going to be um after 2028.

It will be around the time that 155th is under is finished.

And the objective is to have that design ready so we could go into construction the day after 155th Avenue opens to traffic.

Okay.

That's a challenging thing to do.

Um, but we have an additional issue, and that is right now with the way the money is programmed, we wouldn't be able to start construction until the earliest would be uh 2031.

Uh and so that's an issue that we're still dealing with.

We would like to be able to start that sooner.

I would like that a lot.

Actually, Mayor and Councilmember Haney, too.

I I think there's a couple other important elements I really want to emphasize too.

I I think, you know, uh credit to you, the mayor, um Jody staff for all the work that's put into this because you know, while while it does seem like a long time out, uh, and certainly will feel as much.

Uh there's a lot that's been done in the interim.

There's been a a lot that's been done to accelerate and advance these schedules as much as possible.

Brad had talked about the first phase.

Um it's important to get those improvements out there.

Uh, they're they're helping, they're not the solved for.

We've we've talked about this in your community meetings.

Uh, we have growth that is rapidly catching up and and will soon surpass, but it was important to put those in-term improvements out there to provide some level of relief.

Uh the acceleration of 303-155th uh is critically important.

Um that that's a project for which funding initially hadn't been identified for 10 plus years.

And and we were successful in advancing that um because of the advocacy of the city and the importance of this from a regional perspective to advance that.

And so, well, 2028 seems like a long ways away in in transportation terms from where we stood last presenting to this body uh with with no identified funding in place.

Um, it's really a markable accomplishment and and certainly will provide that alternative access that that residents and and folks need.

And then the last thing I'll underscore uh certainly none of this would be possible without Prop 479.

And you know the voters approving that extension has been instrumental because none of this would even be possible without that critically important funding stream.

And so that that's another element, um, really important element.

And as we look for opportunities, look for what we can do to advance uh the ultimate improvements uh at the end of the day, that's gonna be a critically important.

So there's been a lot done.

Um we we've certainly will continue to look for opportunities to optimize to cut time where we can.

Um, but doing things like advancing the final design and advancing the construction, there's been a lot of success stories too, just in in responding to uh the concerns that you all have heard from those residents.

And so if I'm hearing you correctly, we we went from really no funding source allocated to we're looking at construction at in 2028.

That's correct.

Okay, which I agree.

I mean, that that's incredible.

And what I always saw my residents is and I think all of us can agree, we're long overdue for solutions.

And so whenever you're long overdue for solutions, it does not matter what time frame I provide, it's never going to be quick enough.

And and I think we all realize this.

We weren't in these positions years ago.

Um, and so we are doing the best that we can.

But um obviously we our job, especially us as policymakers is to continue to push the envelope push forward to see if we can be creative and identify obviously we have those in-term improvements by identify ways we can kind of shorten that process down.

And so for a project of like 155th, is it typical to have about two years for design?

Uh mayor, councilmember Haney, I uh uh two years design is fairly standard.

I I would say really where uh the the city has been successful in optimizing things is concurrent to the planning study.

Um when it quickly became apparent that there was a need for an additional interchange there to help alleviate some of the problems.

Uh we worked with ADOT, utilized half cent sales tax funding plus legislative appropriation to to really accelerate things and doing those two concurrently shaved at least one year off of the time frame.

Um additionally, with the success of Prop 479, in addition to the legislative appropriation starting design in January, February, uh that shaved probably another year off.

And so there's been years shaved off.

And so um, while certainly there's a frustration, why does it take so long to do this formal engineering analysis?

Um we've been really trying to optimize that schedule as much as possible and shave it off on the front end to to quickly advance.

But we'll we'll certainly continue to work with ADOT, figure out opportunities to what we can do to accelerate that as much as possible.

And with the 155th, correct me if I'm wrong, it's I know this is a very, very rough estimate, so no one hold me to it, but that interchange will take approximately what, 10,000 plus cars off of 163rd Avenue.

Um I I don't have the number at the top of my head, but I um it's it's going to take more than 10,000.

Okay.

Um the Grand Avenue yes.

Okay.

So that's gonna be a huge, obviously, addition to our area.

Um my next question is when we're talking about growth, and this is another question I obviously get is Northwest area, district one is exploding with growth.

How are you guys doing your projections uh as far as the growth from now to 2050?

And I think it's important we're talking context of I know it's 2050 seems so far away.

Um, but in reality, when a lot of these homes were approved, I think the mentality was, well, that's so far away when they actually will get built.

And now we're living in it's so far away, and it is extremely frustrating.

And so um I think it's important for us to know it with within this context of it will it's rapidly growing at a at an exponential rate throughout the years, not just it's not just 2020 to 2050.

So, how are you guys calculating that growth?

The um the we have a group that that comes up with the growth forecast.

And it starts with the state demographer telling us for our region how what's the population growth and what's the employment growth that we're going to experience over time, year by year, actually.

Uh, and from that information that gets aggregated into various geographic locations in the valley.

Uh that process is an interactive process with all of our member agencies, all of the cities are um are the person we have in charge, meets with every city.

What do you have in your plans?

Where are they located?

Getting copies of whatever whatever development plans are are being considered at the time and putting a time frame together as to when that's going to happen.

So that's a process that gets updated every three to four years.

Uh and it's it's year by year by year.

It was just recently updated, I think in 2022 or 2023.

So this has been fairly recently done.

Uh, and so that's the process that we go through uh to get those numbers.

Is it based already on entitled lots or how does that work?

It's based on what every city is currently dealing with from the development community.

What are they proposing to do?

Um, what timelines are they being given?

And then it takes that and and for the whole region that is done.

Uh and and then it's it's put together in in that way.

So um it we've done our very best to hear from you on what you are considering here, as we do with every other city, and that goes in.

It gets um approved by the regional council um after, and that again, I think was 2023 when that was approved.

Yeah, and and mayor, council member Haney, I I think it's important too to consider if you go back to Brad's charts of growth and you know, particularly the the growth line.

You look back at 2020, um, and and I think we had around 20,000 people living in the area.

Uh and and certainly the challenge is we look across the region, okay, where's that growth going to occur?

How quickly is it going to occur?

Really, what we've seen over the last five years is this explosive growth.

And um that has been the challenge of uh it's hard to project, particularly when you have old entitled lots when exactly folks will come in when that occurs.

And so part of the challenge has been, okay, that that's all been occurring very rapidly.

But if you look going forward and and you look at that line chart going forward, the growth that we've really seen over the last couple of years, we're projecting to continue.

And so um one of the reasons it was so important to do this study is to take into account, okay, if we if we take this rapid acceleration of growth um and and know the strain that it's going to put on the transportation infrastructure, what improvements do we need?

And so I I'd say, you know, from that perspective, um, I I think we're working with with a good forecast in terms of it's very aggressive for the amount of growth.

Uh, we know what's gonna come in out there, and we've identified transportation solutions to address that.

Okay.

And I guess where I'm going with that is uh if you're a resident, you're you're watching this or you review it later and you see this continuing pattern of growth.

Obviously, you're already frustrated, you're sitting in traffic, it's taking you 30 minutes to get somewhere, it should take you five to 10.

You you see this timeline that frustrates you even more.

And then you you see the continuous trend going upward of growth.

And as you look at your councilman or the city council, you're questioning, hey, you guys have access to this same information.

You're seeing the same thing I am at this chart.

Are you guys just continuing to approve and approve and approve?

And I know that a lot of it in this area, these are title lots that various factors, market, it's market-driven, and now they are building.

Um I don't want to go into too detail what we can and can't do, but the concern then is from the resident is as we continue this growth.

I think we as a council have to look at um what parameters can we put in place to to kind of like you said, protect those some of those solutions that you propose.

I think everyone here, there's there's a housing crisis, we understand that, but we have an infrastructure crisis.

And I know you mentioned that at a certain point legally, then you do have to do something.

And my concern is we shouldn't let it get to that point.

Um, already there is a public safety concern in the area.

We cited it when we were discussing the resolution of BNSF.

Um, I see it all the time in the email.

I I I think your study is spot on with identifying what challenges face our area, but more specifically what solutions.

Access is an increasingly growing problem.

And when people feel trapped, that is not a good feeling to have.

And that is increasingly what they feel.

And not only do they feel trapped, but then they're they're seeing rooftops being brought up, they're seeing more and more folks moving into the area.

And they're looking to us to solve this problem.

And that's kind of the situation that's created up north.

And and I don't, and I've I've said it in TPC, I've said in other areas.

I don't think this is something as simple as residents are not in my backyard folks.

I don't think this is simple as residents just hate traffic.

I think they're very real concerns.

We we said earlier, I think in the work session, we have a lot of young families that are that are coming in our area.

We just talked about uh an amendment to allow variety of different housing products to hopefully encourage ownership and get people to put roots down here.

But my concern is everyone that puts roots down here, everyone that travels our roadways with their family, they don't feel safe.

And I think their concerns are valid.

And I I know you guys are the messenger, and I appreciate your study.

Um, but I owe it to them to continue to convey how they feel and and to try to get some of those emails that I receive and put them out.

And I'll talk to anyone at all levels because I don't think this is something that we can wait on.

I think we need to continue to invest in solutions, identify ways to expedite some of this planning.

Um, because I think 2050 is seems so far away, but I mean, life goes so quickly.

And at the end of the day, as we continue to trend upward, already folks are stuck in traffic, already folks feel trapped.

We we've got to do something.

And I think we as a city, and and credit to to Jody and our partnerships with MAG and those and the county and the state and and pure, we we're working on that on our as much as we can in our.

And I know you guys are too, but a lot of this is is through the state, and they're gonna have to really kind of assist with that.

And and so we have invested over you know, approximately a hundred million dollars to try to help, you know, this area, not just us, but obviously with our state and other funding sources.

But like you said, the interim provements are good, but they're they're just they're interim.

And as over time, as we see that growth, the overall effectiveness is gonna decrease.

And so um, what I'd like to see is us to continue to obviously have that conversation.

I like councilman Judd's um suggestion of like, let's look at the access management plan on the US 60.

Um hopefully with the legislative session, we can continue to look to see if there's ways that we can get some funds to expedite the process.

And I hope every policymaker at all levels has access to this presentation and can see.

And if anyone thinks it's just residents that are just frustrated at traffic, I will happily give them access to my email or my voicemail, and they can listen to those voicemails because um this is a growing problem.

And like I said, we're long overdue for solutions.

And so any relief that we can provide at the interim without letting it to the point where we have to pull the trigger legally because it's unsafe, because how many accidents, how much congestion is going to have to get us to that point, or then now we're we're forced to act.

And I hate being reactive.

And like I said, I know we inherited this problem, but we're here now and we need to do everything we can to make it a little bit better.

But thank you guys for your presentation.

Thank you for always being willing to come down to the community meeting.

I I tell my residents all the time is government moves slow, but it's very helpful to have some friends in the government that are willing to advocate alongside you.

And um, you guys have been in the trenches with us, and I I appreciate that so much.

So thank you.

All right, thank you.

Uh great presentation.

What I'm thinking and hearing is you know, we have to we're gonna make some hard decisions for our budget when it comes to some of these artillery roads that we have to support in the near term.

I mean, 2028, we're gonna build that out.

I know it's in district one, but it's uh it's a city effort, and we you know, we um really have to think hard about the next few budget cycles to make sure that we're putting money away to um support that.

So uh, but thank you.

Madam Clerk, please read item 18.

Item 18, consideration and action pertaining to acceptance of drainage easement from parcel B2 at Desert Oasis L C for roadway improvements along 163rd Avenue.

Good morning, Lloyd.

Good evening, Mayor, Council.

I'll make the next three items pretty quick for you.

Basically, this is um drainage easement to uh combinate for the roadway improvements for 163rd um from this parcel.

So you can see what the drainage easement location is and adjacent to 163rd on uh on that parcel.

That's it.

Okay.

So these were the last minute items that were added that should have gone to consent that are on just regular agenda right now.

Okay.

Good good clarification.

Any questions or comments from council?

Aaron Nunn will entertain a motion.

Thanks, Mayor.

I have a 10 questions I'd like to ask Lloyd.

Alrighty, sir.

I know you are.

Uh I moved to accept the drainage easement from parcel B2 at Desert Oasis LLC.

It's been moved and seconded, please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Thank you.

Please read item 19.

Item 19, consideration and action on accepting a special warranty deed from Dakota Creek at Desert Oasis LLC for parcel 503170 along 163rd in Joe Mac.

Again, mayor and council, same location, just right at the corner that helps us get the roadway in as well as uh move the drainage and handle that drainage that goes through that intersection.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions or comments from council?

Hearing and seeing none, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve accepting a special warranty deed from Dakota Creek at Desert Oasis LLC.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous pass vote, Mayor.

Please read item 20.

Item 20, consideration and action pertaining to acceptance of drainage easement from Dakota Creek at Desert Oasis LLC for roadway improvements along 163rd Avenue and Joe Max Road.

And again, it's just a drainage easement to accommodate for where that structure goes in the drainage into that parcel.

Okay.

Any questions or comments from council?

Hearing and seeing none, I will entertain a motion.

Did you yeah, you were yeah, there's some questions of opposition, right?

Yeah.

I moved to accept the drainage easement from Dakota Creek at Desert Oasis LLC.

Second.

Please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous cast vote.

So we're gonna have to break into east session before we hear item 21.

So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn to E session.

You get a second.

All in favor of voice vote.

Aye.

All opposed, we're adjourned to east session.

Bad driving affects us all.

We said we'd never break the three second roll.

Well, I'm so on you.

Okay, I'll readjourn this regular city council meeting.

Madam Clerk, please write it up write, read item 21.

Item 21, consideration and action pertaining to approval of an employment agreement with Andrea Davis, appointing her a city manager effective on November 29th, 2025.

Pursuant to surprise municipal code, section two one two zero.

I'll understand a motion.

Well, I'm gonna talk.

Okay.

Councilman Judd.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, you know, Andrew, you've been at the city for a long time, and and uh you were you were really instrumental in helping us get through 2008.

You've you've you know all the city departments.

You're very forward with your comments if we come with you, whether it's a good idea or a bad idea.

You're you're very good at at tempering expectations.

And uh I I have a lot of respect for the way you conduct yourself, um, your professionalism, and uh I think you'll make a fantastic city manager for our great community.

So with that I move to appoint Andrea Davis.

Nothing.

We can still talk.

Anybody else have any questions or comments?

Yeah, okay.

Well now we gotta now we got all good.

No, I'm just kidding.

Um I I actually um believe it or not, I don't write out everything that I'm gonna say from the diet, so that comes as a shock for a lot of people.

Um so I was I was like, okay, you know, this is this is a big deal.

Andrew's great for this job.

Um, but ultimately what it came down to is there's just like this, I don't know, it's like this 90 song or some quote I heard once, and it was uh dance with the one who brung you, you know.

I think our city is um kicking ass and taking names.

I think we're doing a pretty good job.

I think Bob has assembled a pretty fantastic team.

That was one of the things I asked Bob when he came here because the last city manager hiring process without getting two in the weeds.

Um was a bit stressful.

And so when he came, I asked, you know, him and you know, some of us were on the council then.

Um I asked him that, you know, I we want him here as long as he's willing to stay, but that one day everybody decides to hang it up, and at that point that um there would be somebody ready to go.

And I think that we have a lot of outstanding directors.

Um, some that are one that's gonna make a great city manager now or later this month, um, and some that are gonna make amazing, you know, moves later at, you know, either here or at other cities.

Um and so I can't say enough positive things.

Um, the other thing too is I I think I think our city needs a leader now.

Um, we don't need, in my opinion, um who needs on the job training, who needs to get caught up on surprise issues.

Like we need somebody to ready to go.

And that's not the sole reason I like Andrea, but I'll just I'll stop with that before I ruin her chances.

So they took my tablet away, so I'll have any questions or comments.

Um, you know, I I just want to say that Andrew, you're gonna be a great city manager.

Um, I would like to see in a process to hire the city manager.

I think we rushed it, but uh, I do respect you, and I think you're doing a tremendous job.

So with that, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to appoint Andrea Davis as our new city manager.

Second.

It's been moved and segmented.

Please cast your vote.

That's a unanimous yes.

Andrew, did you want to say that?

Oh, yeah, so real quick, I know now how do I even follow that?

But mayor and council, thank you.

I am honored to serve as the next city of surprise, city manager.

Thank you.

I look forward to working with all of you.

I look forward to serving our residents to caring for our employees.

We have such an amazing great team here.

I think we have something very special and unique in this city, and I'm grateful to be part of its future.

So thank you again for the opportunity and all the wonderful things that you said.

Well, most of you.

Oh, then you can go in there.

Okay, let's readjourn the regular city council meeting.

Uh, does anybody have any other business or future agenda items?

Yes, I have one item, Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh so a while back.

Um so pretty much the way things get off the agenda.

Um, the mayor can add it.

From what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong.

The city attorney can add it, city clerk, like city upper level city leadership, and the mayor can add it.

Um, the only caveat in that is that two council members, instead of being able to get something on the agenda with 24 hours notice, have to do it like the Friday before, and I just think we should kind of bring that up in line with everything else.

It used to be even worse, and then we kind of changed it to, I think we talked to the former mayor and stuff, but I think that whoever gets something on the agenda, I mean, a lot can change on 163rd or not to lay hard strings, but um, between Friday and Monday.

So that was just that was my thought.

Keep it the same across the board.

So anybody else have anything?

Mayor.

We had we do have one call to public.

Oh, that's right.

And Krina reminded me of it.

Okay, I'll do that one next.

Okay.

Um, we did, Vice Mayor, you talked last meeting about um like awards and recognitions and naming.

Do we have a policy on that at all?

Do we know in the city, Bob?

Do we have a policy?

Yeah, so I pulled up on the good question on the boards and commissions.

There is a it was kind of put together, I think it was convened around the time Mark Coronado passed, and it was kind of a it was a committee, and I can send your exceptional leader.

Yeah, and so it was like a the chair of each commission, and there is like a not sure if it's in code or if it was memorialized somehow.

Bob, do you want to I'll I don't know it offhand, but I can do the research if you want to f follow up what you're what you would like to look for.

Yeah, I just want to know if there's a like a policy in place as far as like is it uh employee, is it a resident?

Like we just I think we need to put that forward that way we just have we're gonna we're doing it the right way.

It's the honoring exceptional leaders task force.

Um does that ring a bell, yeah.

So I I looked it up and I kind of read from that.

Is that Mark?

Is that in the city?

Yeah, Mark Coronado, yeah.

So it's it's uh from what I understand it was used to honor Mark Coronado, but also people in the community, especially specifically.

I think I know Dick McComb, I'm not sure if he went through kind of that process, but I think they tried to formalize the process.

Um, I see some nodding heads, so maybe we can check around and ask people just to know, yeah.

Sounds good.

Good question.

All right, before we move to city council reports, sir.

My apologies for skipping.

Um, I will now open this meeting to the call to the public.

Did we get any requests to speak?

I just have one person left, Roy Dunbar.

I appreciate your patience, sir.

My knees are killing me.

So good.

And city council.

You can say your name and crossroads for the rest of the Roy Dunbar.

Okay.

Um let me just read from this notes okay.

So as one of over 1,200 members of the Project Bacara opposition group.

Uh, I wish to express our opposition to Project Bacara and to urge the city government of surprise to assist us in our efforts to stop this project.

In our opinion, it is outrageous uh that this project could even be contemplated so close to surprise residential areas.

The proposed facility is one half mile from surprise neighborhoods, one quarter mile from homes that have been in place for nearly 20 years.

The most heavily impacted surprise developments are Rancho Gabriela, Greer Farms, Marley Park, Copper Canyon, and others.

District 6 with a population of we think 27,000 to 30,000 will be most impacted.

The project plans include a two million square foot data center and a 760 megawatt power generation complex consisting of 18 natural gas turbine generators, each with a 72, each with 72 foot tall exhaust structures.

These generators are intended to supply power to the data center and possibly to the power grid.

This is a gigantic industrial project occupying 160 acres of unincorporated land.

We realize that the city of Surprise has no direct authority regarding this.

But no one we speak to in our surrounding neighborhoods wants this complex.

But we all we will get are the detrimental environmental impacts and reduce property values if this project goes through.

But if I may quote Abraham Lincoln, the purpose of government is of the people, by the people, and for the people.

So we ask and expect that the city government of surprise as elected representatives by and for its citizens to join us in opposing this terrible project.

The actions of the city council can tremendously influence county officials who make the ultimate decision to prove or disapprove.

So we ask the following of the surprise city council.

Number one, the city council to submit to the Arizona Corporate Commission a notice of it of intent to become a party to the proceedings.

This must be received by November 20th, uh 20th, 10 days before the first of five days of hearings to take place in front of the Arizona Corporate Commission starting December 1st.

We ask that you instruct city surprise city engineers or departments to review and provide professional input to the environmental compatibility study submitted by the corporation Taconock, who are the applicants to the Arizona Corporation Commission.

Sir, um there's a three-minute time limit, and we want to hear you.

Um Bob, if we can get maybe Lloyd to talk to him about where we're at currently with all of this and hear your concerns, and then um make sure that we we hear you because it's um it's important.

I have about 45 more seconds, and I'll be done.

Would that be all right?

Go ahead.

Okay.

All right.

So saying we ask that you would instruct the surprise city engineers uh to review the uh environmental compatibility report submitted by the applicant to the ACC.

We also would like to have you send a letter, if you can, for Chris Judd's to Chris Judd's constituents informing you of this project.

One of our biggest challenges is getting the word out.

Um further, can we get the city to appoint uh to appoint a point of contact for the Project Bacara opposition group, which now consists of 1200 members, and I can assist the city with that, and I am willing to be a point of contact.

And lastly, we'd like you to issue a resolution opposing the project if you can come to that decision.

I'm sorry.

So we have over 2800 petition signatures now and growing every day.

Lastly, I understand the constraints that the city council has as a governing body, but let me just say that it is not important to us, as we discussed last night, that the city council by opposing this project be viewed not as pro-business, but just one look around at the construction in the last few years should dispel that notion.

What is important is to protect the quality of life in surprise, and we know that the council agrees that this should be a foremost goal in surprise city government.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Um, I'd still like to connect them with uh look Lloyd, thank you.

Okay, thank you, sir.

Let's move on to the city council reports.

Umcoming community meeting, November 19th.

Uh, we're it's gonna be centered on parks and rack holy's gonna give a presentation, and we are going to be off site.

We're gonna do it at the surprise stadium.

So November 19th, starting at 6 p.m.

I hope to see you there.

Thanks.

Councilman Greenberg.

Pass.

Councilman Duffy.

Nothing tonight.

Councilman Mountain.

Uh, just real quick.

Uh this Saturday, 5 p.m.

at OTS movie night.

So um be fun.

Yeah.

It's gonna be great.

Uh it's gonna be at my centennial park.

So I don't know what movie you're playing.

Shame on me for not knowing, but uh Coco.

Well, cut it cocoa's the movie.

Coco.

I don't know what that means, but it sounds great.

Yeah.

Thank you, mate.

It's warm.

Okay.

Thanks, ma'am.

No, the movie is the movie's cocoa.

Is that what your question was?

Yes, yes.

Oh, so there's no cocoa.

Um there might be, yeah.

All right.

Well, still please come.

Please come see what's the party.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilman John.

So, real quick, I'm excited that next Tuesday we're gonna have the Veterans Day Parade, and we're finally gonna have festivities after the parade.

There'll be live music and activities to do around after the parade's done.

So after it's done, come over and have a good time.

Thank you.

Councilman Joe, you stole my thunder.

Oh no, you still still your thunder, yeah.

No, no, no, it's okay.

Well, you know, it's important because that's one of the things that Councilman John and I worked on when we when I came on council.

But we also have these uh veteran shirts that's gonna have the America 250 logo on the front, American flag on the shoulder, and then um just City of Surprise Veterans Day.

So, any how many shirts do we get?

Like a thousand or so.

So we're gonna pass those out at Veterans Day.

Also different sizes, they're they're for veterans.

So uh it's just a way to continue to bring the the city together.

Uh veterans show our support for their service, and then the party afterwards.

So I'm excited for that.

Uh with that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor, voice vote.

Aye.

All opposed, we're adjourned.