All right, good evening.

I like to call this regular city council meeting on Tuesday, May 5th to order.

Tonight we have one of our planning and zoning commissioners to lead us in the in a prayer.

So Lisa.

Go ahead.

It's an honor to be able to give the prayer this evening.

Um this Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and I'm just asking everyone to not only this evening, but pray every day, but especially Thursday for our nation.

I realize there are many faiths in the room.

I am Catholic, so I'm going to pray in my tradition.

Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight, humbled, recognizing that we are all equally flawed and in need of your grace.

Guide each of us to seek resolute reconciliation with you and one another, so we may serve with humility, compassion, and truth.

Lord, we ask for an end to political violence in our city, our nation, our state, and throughout the world.

Calm hearts that are angry, soften words that divide, and remind all of us that every person is created in your image and worthy of dignity and respect.

Grant wisdom to those who engage in political conflict.

Amen.

Oh, after report.

Yep.

So tonight I want to bring up our community champion.

It is the uh Shadow Ridge cheerleading squad.

If you want to join me up here.

So go ahead.

So while they're coming up, I just wanted to uh recognize the coach, Coach Colton.

Is he here tonight?

Coach Colton.

And he's you recently came from California, is what it says on the card.

But uh and he won championships there, but here at Shadow this year, he's won two, which was the Partners stunt in November, and then the uh co-ed show chair this February, which is what we're recognizing you for.

So I just wanted to come in and say, well, thank you, Paul, for doing what you're doing, representing the city.

Thank you at the highest level, and say thank you.

So let's all congratulate them on being community.

We're not here right now.

All right, so we have a few proclamations tonight.

We're gonna start with the professional municipal clerks week, and we have your team here tonight.

If you want to join me up here, we're gonna present it to our city clerk Christy and her team and so the the clerk's office does a lot.

Uh prepare the records, they run elections, uh oversee the meetings, post agendas, and just do uh city historian, just a lot of work that they do.

So for us to take a moment to recognize all of their work through this proclamation means I know it means a lot to me, the council, and everybody here in the city.

So from the office of the mayor, whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk, a time-honored and vital part of our local government, exists throughout the world and is the oldest among public servants.

And whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk provides a professional link between the citizens, the local governing bodies, and agencies of government at multiple levels.

And whereas professional municipal clerks have pledged to do to be ever mindful of their neutrality and their impartiality, rendering equal service to all while serving as the information center for local government and community.

And whereas professional municipal clerk clerks continually strive to improve the administration of affairs of the office of the personnel, professional municipal clerks through participation in education, programs, seminars, workshops, annual meetings of their state, county, and international professional organizations.

And whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize their accomplishments of the office of the professional municipal clerk.

Now, therefore, I, Kevin Sarter, mayor of the city of surprise, do hereby proclaim May 3rd through the 9th, 2026, as Professional Municipal Clerks Week.

The next one we're gonna do is fancy because it's in a frame, but it's a small business week, and we have Steve Kaiser, is he here?

If you could join me up here, uh Steve Kaiser is a president and CEO of the Arizona Small Business Association.

How are you?

Thanks for coming.

Yeah.

So from the office of the mayor, whereas small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and are vital to the strength, resilience, and vibrancy of our community.

And whereas, according to the U.S.

Small Business Administration, there are more than 33 million small businesses in the United States, representing 99.9% of all businesses employing nearly half of the nation's private workforce.

Whereas the in Arizona, more than 640,000 small businesses employ over 1.1 million people, contributing significantly to the state's economic vitality.

And whereas the City of Surprise partners with the Arizona Small Business Administration plays a critical role in advocating for supporting empowering small businesses across the state through resources, education, and a strong network of entrepreneurs.

Whereas the City of Surprise is proud to serve a diverse and growing small business community, representing more than 2,000 small businesses here in the city, including brick and mortar establishments, startups, franchises, home-based enterprises, all contributing to the city's unique character and economic strength.

And whereas Small Business Week provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements, resilience, and entrepreneurial spirit of small business owners and employers and to recognize their lasting impact on our community.

Now, therefore I, Kevin Sarter, resolve that May 3rd through the 9th as Small Business Week.

Perfect.

We'll share, we'll share one, Chris.

We're good.

That is Russian.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Did you have some words to say?

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

And uh, just want to thank uh your Office of Economic Development has been incredible to work with.

I'm new to the role since January.

Uh but Janine has been incredible to work with.

We have an amazing partnership with a lot of small businesses right here in Surprise, and we help them as a statewide organization.

They help us as a local organization, and so this has been the model for other cities across the state.

So I can't thank you enough for your partnership.

And speaking of economic development, we have the economic development week, and we're gonna present it to Gene and Janine and her entire team.

And I re I met with Janine yesterday, we went over some of the different projects going on, and I just kind of sat in amazement of all the work.

If you guys can come up and join me, all the work that you do day in and day out, and you really shape what our city looks like through all the different work that you do, and it's incredibly important.

We appreciate all of you.

So I'm gonna read this.

I'm sure it says it more eloquently, but I want to personally say thank you.

All right, proclamation from the office of the mayor.

Whereas the International Economic Development Council is the largest professional organization dedicated to serving developers and advocating the the field of economic development worldwide.

Whereas the IEDC provides leadership and excellence in economic development through conferences, training, research, policy development, and strategic initiatives that strengthen communities, and whereas economic developers promote economic well-being and quality of life, creating creating, retaining, and expanding jobs that foster growth, build wealth, and sustain a stable tax base.

And whereas economic developers support entrepreneurship and innovation, helping to cultivate the next generation of businesses that drive the American economy.

And whereas economic development professionals work across a wide range of environments, including local, state, and federal governments, public-private partnerships, chambers of commerce, and educational institutes.

Whereas economic development efforts help attract investments, support workforce development, enhance infrastructure, and create a vibrant, resilient community.

And whereas since 1926, the IEDC and its preceding organizations have advanced the professional profession globally, marking 100 years of leadership dedicated to fostering growth, innovation, inclusion, sustainability, and resilience in the community of all sizes.

Whereas the City of Surprise Economic Development Department plays a vital role in strengthening the local economy, supporting businesses, and enhancing quality of life for our residents.

Now, therefore, I be it resolved, the Kevin Sarder, the Mayor of Surprise to hereby proclaim May 4th through May 8th, 2026 is economic development week.

How dare you see it?

Uptown, uptown.

I don't want to do it.

When you're tall, we gotta say you should hold Janine up on your shoulders.

Sit her up here.

I'm out here.

I'll hold her off.

Well, he's the devil, remember?

Mayor, thank you so much.

Thank you, Council.

We we can't do our jobs without every each and every department and each and each and every one of you.

So thank you for all that you do, and thank you to the residents.

We can't do our job without all that you do for us.

Um this is a great market.

This is the best profession I've ever could have even imagined.

There was a cheer team here, but I'm telling you, this is the best cheer team in the entire state of Arizona.

I'm so sorry.

They cheer for surprise every single day, and I've worked with a lot of economic development teams.

I've never worked with one better.

So thank you so much.

But they're all equally important.

So that tonight we're gonna do uh the youth week, and we're gonna present it to the city parks and recreation sports coordinator.

Are they here?

If you want to join me up here, and for a while, Jason Bond gets recognized.

Okay.

Oh, Jason.

Oh, Jason.

Oh, Jason.

Okay.

How are you doing?

All right, proclamation from the Office of the Mayor.

Whereas the City of Surprise recognizes that young people are vital to the strength, vibrancy, and future of our community, and whereas Youth Week, observed from May 1st through the 7th is an opportunity to celebrate, uplift, and uplift the contributions, achievements, and potential of the youth in our city.

Whereas participation in youth sports programs fosters teamwork, leadership, discipline, and a lifelong commitment to health and wellness.

Whereas the City of Surprise Youth Sports Programs plays a critical role in providing safe, inclusive, and engaging opportunities for youth to develop athletic skills, build character, and form meaningful connections.

Whereas the dedicated staff, coaches, volunteers, families who support youth sports programs, help create a positive environment where young people can thrive both on and off the field.

Whereas the office, the mayor's office of the City of Surprise is proud to recognize and celebrate Youth Week and the positive impact of youth sports on the City of Surprise.

Now, therefore I, Kevin Sarder, Mayor of the City of Surprise, to hereby proclaim May 1st through the 7th, 2026 as Youth Week in the City of Surprise, and commend the City of Surprise Youth Sports Program for its outstanding commitment to enriching the lives of youth and strengthening our community.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the City Council, uh residents for being here.

Uh, this team is incredible.

Uh, they have serviced over 23,000 youth just last year uh in over 120 different programs, leagues, camps, and classes.

Um, I've been a part of many different municipality athletic organizations.

I currently serve as the chair of the athletic park.

I'm sorry, the Arizona Park Records Association is the athletics chair, and City of Surprise is truly the gold standard for how all youth sports programs should run.

So thank you for all your work, guys, and continue to put out good programs for the youth.

All right, it's our old departments, fellas.

Good job, Vaughn.

Waiting for this moment for you.

That's our roots.

Yes, Mayor, thank you.

Mayor Council.

Tonight we have Judge Dominguez here to present this year's City Court Academy.

Good evening, Judge.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Ms.

Davis.

The Surprise City Court Academy program is successful because of the partnership between our local high schools, the City Surprise Youth Services Division, and the Surprise City Court.

Our program provides structured real world experiences to help our students become responsible and productive members of their community.

Our program has been in place since December of 2015.

This year is our 10th anniversary of the Surprise City Court Academy, which has been commemorated about 10th anniversary of City Court of Academy logo, which is shown for us on screen here.

Our Academy students are here on both sides of us in the chambers.

They're inquisitive, forward looking, and community-minded.

I'm here to report our future is in fantastic and great hands.

From our featured speakers this year, the Academy students learned about government, law enforcement, attorneys, judges, court staff, and our justice system.

As the next slide will show you, we made a field trip, as we do typically every year, to the state courts building.

They heard oral arguments before the ERSO Supreme Court.

That's our usual experience.

However, this year was unique.

This year, at the conclusion of the oral argument for the state Supreme Court, all seven justices of that court remained in court on the bench and engaged with our students, with our academy students in the question and answer session.

You can see the photograph there with the justices in court as well.

It's about a 35, 40 minute session, which was a great opportunity.

The justices discussed the Arizona Judiciary System the State Court of Appellates process their career paths and address questions from our students.

Our group was photographed with the justices you see here on your screens.

The justices complimented our students on the questions they posed and their interest in the law in our community.

The Academy students, here's a separate picture where the students actually got a chance to sit on the bench.

Chief Justice, like the mayor in the middle here is in the middle, and they've done that for us every year.

They're very generous with their use of the court.

The Academy students practiced and then demonstrated case preparation skills, world advocacy skills.

They're in a mock trial this afternoon, just today.

We came from the courthouse.

Each student participated as student attorney or portrayed a witness in this mock trial.

Today is the official day of this program year, our 10th anniversary year.

We acknowledge the individuals who have assisted us this year.

We thank SA manager Andrea Davis, Human Service and Community Vitality Director, Seth Dyson for their support, participation, and leadership.

There's others, because it takes a lot of us to make this program work.

As your name is called, please stand.

Surprise City Court Judge Catherine Goodreau.

Surprise City Court Administrator Elena Cano.

Surprise City Court Senior Administrative Specialist Juan Taruselli.

Surprise Committee Initiative Supervisor Kara Poling.

Surprise Committee Engagement Partners, Patricia Ortega, and Karina Stombaugh, Surprise Graphic Designer Lorena Cano, City Surprise Assistant City Prosecutor Adolfo Inegis, and Defense Attorneys, Christopher Lyons and Matthew Merowitz.

We thank you all for your commitment to the program for sharing your expertise, your time with the Academy students.

Your participation is invaluable.

Please be seated.

The students invited their family and friends to come to the mock trial.

They're here in strength.

So I also thank the parents and the school officials for their support of our Academy students and our program.

We know it truly takes a village.

I'll address the academy students.

Our students have each made unique contributions to ensure the success of their program.

This is their program.

They are all truly outstanding.

Let's acknowledge our students as your name is called.

Please stand and remain standing.

From the American Leadership Academy West Foothills, Rory Sprinkle.

From Highland Prep High School, quite a few, Malia Cheatham, Obadiah Comas, Robert Dryvis, Isaac Garcia, Romina Gonzalez, Serenity Ghosh, Riley Halls, Phoebe Johnson, Mercy Caranja, Leah Laba, Ciara Pearson, Alexander Pimentel, Brenna Potter, Alana Rhodes, Elea Townsend, Jason Tree, from Valley Vista High School, Joshua Feliciano, from Willow Canyon High School, Haley Corrigan, Kesha Hicks, Samuel Sanchez, Natalia Schwartz.

Haley Corrigan.

Kesha Hicks.

Samuel Sanchez.

Natalia Schwartz.

Please, students be seated.

We have a featured speaker tonight, Mayor and Council and Ms.

Davis.

Mercy Carrunch is a senior at Highland Prep High School.

As a school ambassador, she participated in meetings with school staff, worked on in planned projects and events to keep those students engaged.

Mercy served in a social media internship at the school.

She's been involved in at least three athletic programs, has participated in over eight clubs at her school.

Murs was basketball manager for four years, boys volleyball manager for one year, and track manager for two years.

The Academy students elected Mercy to represent them today and discuss her experience in the program.

Mayor and Council, Ms.

Davis, I present Mercy Karanja.

Mercy.

Thank you, Judge Dominguez, and thank you, Council and Mayor.

Um, I am truly honored to stand here before you.

I couldn't be more grateful to my peers who place their trust in me to speak on their behalf.

Um, to me, that means everything because it reflects the community that we've built, one rooted in support, respect, and a shared drive to grow and succeed.

I would like to also extend my sincere appreciation to the judges, coaches, and staff who make this opportunity possible.

Um, your dedication, patience, and commitment have shaped our experience in ways that go beyond what we could have imagined.

You have challenged us to think critically, to speak with confidence and to carry ourselves with professionalism and integrity.

Sorry.

Those are lessons that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

I also want to thank the leadership or recognize the leadership of the mayor and the city council.

Your investment in programs like this shows a deep commitment to the future of young people in this community.

By creating a space like this, you are not only educating us, you are empowering us.

You are giving us the tools to find our voices and the confidence to use them.

This program has opened my eyes to what law truly represents.

And before this experience, I saw law as something as distant, something I dreamed of being a part of, but didn't fully understand.

It is about fairness, accountability, and the responsibility to stand up for what is right, even when it is difficult.

More importantly, this experience has shown me that I am not alone in this journey.

Each of my peers has shown incredible growth, courage, and determination.

We have stepped outside of our comfort zones, supported one another, and pushed each other to be better.

Watching that growth has been one of the most meaningful parts of this experience.

With the knowledge and confidence we now hold, I truly believe that not only myself, but all of my peers are more than capable of achieving our goals.

We learned that we learned to speak with purpose, how to listen with intention, and how to stand firm in what we believe.

These are skills that guide us not only in the future, but impact the decisions we make in our communities.

As we move forward, we will take these lessons, these experiences, and these memories with us wherever we go.

No matter what paths we choose, this program will always be a part of who we are and what we strive to become.

Thank you again to everyone here for believing in us, investing in us, and for giving us this opportunity.

It has made a lasting impact on all of us, and it is something we will never forget.

Thank you.

And mayor, with your permission and counselor permission, maybe we take a picture of the council.

Absolutely.

Right here.

Thank you.

I don't know.

Judge, great job with your leadership and mentorship of these uh young people in the city of surprise.

You and your entire team do an incredible job, and we are thankful for what you do and the opportunities that you provide them.

Our privilege.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Kevin.

Good job.

Ms.

Davis, do you have anything else for your report?

Yes.

Uh next item.

I'd like to introduce our youth council member Peyton Anthony that's joining up here on the daist.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

This marks my final year serving on the Surprise Youth Council, as was my last meeting on the Dais today.

As truly been an honor to be a part of this program.

Looking ahead, we have a few upcoming events we're excited about.

On Monday, May 11th, our youth development committee will be hosting a free resume workshop at the Surprise Regional Library.

This event is a great opportunity for teens to build important skills and prepare for future job opportunities.

We are also looking forward to supporting the safety splash event on May 22nd at the Oasis Swim Center.

This event promotes water safety while bringing families together for fun and educational experience.

This year, the youth council is experiencing exciting growth with a goal of expanding to 35 members.

We have already welcomed 15 new members, which is a significant increase from just four years ago when members were around 20.

We're excited to see this continued growth and the strong interest from youth in our community to be civically engaged.

Additionally, we have recently launched a teen survey to help both the youth council and the city better understand the needs and perspectives of teens in surprise.

The survey is currently live, and we look forward to sharing the results with the city council and the parks and rec department.

Our goal is to help the make surprise an even more inclusive and supportive community for residents of all ages.

Overall, the youth council is excited to move into this next phase with more members, more ideas, and greater community impact.

Thank you for the opportunities you have provided me and your continued support of the youth council and youth services.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's on there.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, do you have a report?

I think tonight, Mayor.

There's eight items on the consent agenda.

Would any council member like to poll one for clarification?

Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve consent agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

It's a passed vote, Mayor.

All right, thank you.

Let's move on to the regular agenda item of public hearing.

Can you please read item number nine?

Item nine, consideration and action pertaining to recommendation to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control on application number 375118.

Requested by Tonja Santuzette Curtis for Gray's Craze.

Located at 15278 West Bell Road, suite 102.

For a new series 10 liquor license.

I'll entertain a motion.

Oh I'm gonna open this agenda item to the public.

Madam Clerk, do we get any requests to speak?

No, sir.

I'll close this item to the public.

Council, do you have any questions or comments?

I move to recommend approval of application number 375118 to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

That's a pass vote, Mayor.

Thank you.

Please read item number 10.

Item 10, consideration and action pertaining to the adoption of the tentative expenditure limitation budget for FY 2027.

Directing publication of said tentative budget and setting a public hearing for June 2nd, 2026 at 545 at the City of Surprise Council Chambers.

One six zero zero zero, North Civic Center Plaza.

Surprise.

Resolution number 2026.

Good evening, Miss Simmons.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

We're here tonight to discuss our FY27 tentative budget.

So I'm going to begin with what our tentative budget process is.

Back in September, we did a budget kickoff with our city staff.

In January, city management and directors reviewed all requests operating in capital.

In February, I came here and did a budget kickoff with you guys.

Tonight, we are here for the tentative budget adoption.

And in June, I will be back on the 2nd and the 16th for public hearing of our property taxes, slides, and final budget adoption.

And then for our property tax and our streetlight improvement district levy adoption.

How is each request evaluated?

We make sure that each one aligns with the council strategic priorities.

We look for benefits to the city, analyze the costs, monitor any funding constraints, then we prioritize.

And if we can't fund everything, we start having discussions on what can be delayed, reduced, or reallocated.

I'm going to share some challenges that we ran into as we were performing those tasks on each request.

Some of our budget challenges you can see here are either state imposed, legislation imposed, or just inflation in general.

Excuse me.

We are still seeing revenue growth, but they aren't quite as high as they have been in recent years.

We are also seeing that costs are remaining elevated, with labor being the main driver.

We are a growing city, but that also means that there are growing demands, demands on our roads, for our public safety teams, for our operations as a whole.

Imagine a restaurant where one server is assigned 10 tables and provides great service.

As more customers arrive, that same server is now responsible for 20 tables.

Even if the restaurant is making more money, the server can't be in two places at once.

Service slows down.

At that point, the restaurant has a choice accept the lower service levels or invest in another server.

A growing city faces similar decisions.

Increased revenue helps, but it doesn't automatically keep our service levels the same.

We have to decide where to prioritize our resources.

So with that, I'm going to go over our revenue that we are anticipating for FY 2027.

This slide here depicts all of our funding sources.

I apologize.

61% of the funding sources are restricted funds, meaning they can only be used for certain things and cannot be shared amongst each other.

The 39% of revenues that go into the general fund, you can see in the purple pie is the main fund that we utilize for the city's operations.

I will break this down further when we get to the slide on expenses.

Now just focusing on that uh that the general fund, purple slide uh slice of pie.

Um, here are the sources of revenue that uh go into that.

Our local sales tax and state shared make up 72% of our revenues.

And the next slides, I will explain these revenues revenue sources in a little more detail.

Local sales tax is our largest general fund revenue stream.

We look at our local sales tax in two ways.

As gross sales and then as a sales tax revenue that we actually receive based on those sales.

Gross sales is a good indicator of what is happening in our local economy.

This is the total dollar amount of all taxable goods and services.

The sales tax revenue that we receive is a percentage of those sales.

Currently, 2.8% for most categories and 3.2% for restaurants and bars.

The graph on the right is showing the trend of gross sales compared to the population.

You can see that in 2025, when the state implemented no residential rental sales tax, we took a significant hit on total sales.

Our local sales tax revenue is still recovering from that hit in 2025.

We were averaging an increase in revenue from year to year at a rate of approximately 13%.

But so far, this year we are only seeing about 7% increase from last year.

Revenue is growing, but at a much slower pace than previous years.

This is comprised of three separate categories and is distributed based on population.

Like our local sales tax in 2025, state shared also took some hits.

Also in 2025, the state implemented a 2.5% flat income tax, which may have helped taxpayers, but the effect on cities is the lost ability to capture higher revenue from higher earners.

Currently, in legislation, is a potential tax conformity that may further reduce the amount of state shared income tax distributed to cities.

Year over year, our average historical increase from one year to the next has been approximately 12%.

Since these changes in 2025, we are only anticipating a 2% increase from last year.

Again, there is revenue growth, but at a much slower pace.7591 to 0.5693, and we again reduced it to 0.5534 for this fiscal year 2026.

The chart to the right shows a comparison of the revenue with population.

The average population increase is approximately 4% annually.

The property tax valuation is calculated on the assessed value of a home, not what the home would actually sell for.

Again, increased population equals increased demand, less anticipated revenue.

Now I'm going to touch on our expenses.

The purpose of coming here tonight is for you guys to adopt our tentative expenditure limit.

This budget not only, I apologize.

This budget, not including transfers, is 975.9 million and is made up of capital operating debt and contingency.

The operating portion is made up of our main operating fund, the general fund, enterprise funds, capital funds, special revenue funds, and internal service funds.

The general fund operating is made up of these categories: personnel supplies, services, non-CIP capital.

Again, I'm reiterating our general fund is our main operating fund.

We also have our water sewer sanitation and stormwater that make up our enterprise funds.

These are restricted funds.

Capital project funds, these are one-time funding from construction sales tax.

Our special revenue funds include but aren't limited to grants, HERF, which is highway user revenue fund, donations, art, and they are also restricted, each one of them.

Then we have our internal service funds, which are our insurance and uh risk, and they are also restricted.

Now focusing on our general fund, you can see here that public safety, which consists of police, fire, and court makes up 50% of our expenditures.

Then we have our public works and streets, uh, which is our facility and fleet maintenance, engineering, and street maintenance.

Uh, they make up 11%.

Our community development, which makes up permits, inspections, code enforcement, and our economic development uh department.

They make up 5%.

Our community services make up 10%.

That includes parks and recreation, human services and community vitality and libraries.

We also have our general government and our central services, our general government are for developer agreement payments that we have to make out.

And our central services include human resources, finance, legal, IT, et cetera.

Ms.

Simmons, Councilman and Hastings has a question or comment.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Just one quick question.

First off, this is a phenomenal presentation.

I love the graphics of it.

Not too phenomenal.

I mean, we've had some awesome ones in the past as well from our previous.

But one question of clarification.

So obviously general funds ongoing expenses.

So you would look at this and say, okay, we spent a lot of public safety.

That's good.

The second priority for me usually goes to roads, and you might see, huh, 11%.

Can you explain?

I mean, I'm assuming that a lot of our roads expenses are capital in nature.

Can you just touch on that?

How I just don't want people to see, like, oh, we're spending more on IT than we are on roads, is that makes sense?

Absolutely.

Councilman Hastings, Mayor Council.

We um this category here of the 11% is the maintenance of our roads.

It's the maintenance of our facilities and roads, which also includes our engineering.

When we come back here and we look at the capital projects funds, um this breakdown here and enterprise funds, these funds um incorporate the capital portions of the expenses.

This here, I mean, unfortunately, we can categorize all of our funding types in so many ways.

So, but the capital portion, the one-time expenses for getting our roads out there, getting street lights um installed, that is separate from this general fund uh pot of money you see here.

So for our fiscal year 2027, uh we are proposing to add 19 positions to our budget.

Uh you can see here two for our fire, 11 for police, two for our transportation department, one for human resources, one for parks and recreation, which is offset by some programming fee revenue, and two for uh public works, which is actually a conversion of part-time funding into these full-time positions.

We are also including um ongoing dollars for contract agreement increases, uh things such as our benefits, insurance and premiums, software and transit.

Within our budget, uh, we are asking for some one-time dollars as well.

Uh, these one-time dollars um will fund things like elections, uh, uh phone system upgrade that uh we are required to do.

Uh, we hire planning and inspection contracted services uh one time, equipment and vehicles, and our overtime for a total of 28 million to our general fund operating.

Ms.

Simmons, can you go back one one slide, please?

Are the ongoing the the benefits insurance premiums?

Can you explain that in that it's the inflation that's creating some of the additional costs in that for the for the health insurance for our employees?

What was that?

It rose what how much percentage it rose 14.9%.

And that is due to um an increase in participants in the plans.

So we you know, we may be increasing 19 positions, but our um families are also signing up for these plans as well.

So it is an in due to increase in participation, it causes an increase in our premiums.

Thank you.

Within this budget, we are also asking for one-time dollars of 350 million dollars.

Uh these dollars go to funding our asset replacement, our vehicle replacements, which replace end of life vehicles, our traffic signals, new and replacement of end of life, uh, continue funding our police substation, our fire, our new fire station, all out in the northwest of our um service area.

Um with this 350, it's continuing roadway design and construction of numerous projects, um, building security and emergency management.

And there is a portion of this that are carry forward of multi-year projects.

And what this carry forward is in order for us to secure a contract with our vendors with our construction crews, we we have to procure the entire contract amount.

And then there is drawdown of those invoices.

So when we procure it, it seems like it's a lot of money up front, but we carry forward the amount remaining on these projects as the contracts are drawn down.

So if we secure the contract, I'm sure we secured it last year as carrying forward into this fiscal year.

Are all those set, or can those contractors come back and say we need additional money?

They are all set.

And that's that is why we we do this practice of securing those contracts early, um, procuring, you know, encumbering is is the term we use, encumbering those dollar amounts for those projects to lock them in.

Thank you.

For our enterprise funds, um, I wanted to highlight that we are also looking at adding some additional positions for these funds along with some contract utility increases, along with their equipment and vehicles.

But the main thing I'd like to highlight here is these are all dependent on um HCR 2016, which will require voter approval, and it would restrict cities, towns, and counties from increasing or imposing taxes, fees, and utilities until 2030.

This would also affect the city's general fund as a whole.

Um, but I really it would really diminish um the availability of our enterprise funds to operate efficiently.

Within the enterprise funds, um, they are also needing, you know, funding for their asset replacement, vehicle replacement, water acquisitions, system enhancements, supply facilities, um, facility security enhancements, and then they also have some carry forward of some current projects.

So earlier I showed you a slide of all the challenges.

I'd like to uh talk to you guys about how us as a city are working towards meeting these challenges.

We are having conversations with every department to realign with core missions, getting back to the basics.

And uh as a city, we are needing to focus heavily on public safety.

From previous years, we with the revenue uh slowing down.

We um aren't able to fund a lot of the services and personnel that the departments needed.

We are asking uh our non-public safety departments essentially to stay within their current base budget, meaning what they were given as their base budget for FY26, um, that will be their budget for fiscal year 27.

Uh, there will be no contractual inflationary or personnel increases.

Uh doing this keeping up with increased costs, uh will result in reducing service levels and some programs.

Uh again, I use the analogy of uh restaurant server.

Um, you know, we have some hard decisions to make, and we have a lot of a lot of needs within our city.

With that being said, I'd like to show a comparison of how our expenditures per 1,000 residents um stacks up to some of the other cities.

And we are just below the median line of 1.8 million per 1,000 residents.

So, what have our departments decided that they can do so that they can absorb some of their inflationary and contract increases, or if we're not able to give them personnel, um what can they do to maintain service levels with the personnel that they have?

So parks and recreation and sports and tourism are gonna prioritize workload and utility increases uh by reducing number of events.

Human services and community vitality is working on prioritizing their new community center, uh, which will mean reducing some events and programs.

Economic development is prioritizing their new Spark surprise.

And that will mean reducing some contractual agreements.

Marketing and communications is prioritizing workload and inflationary increases by reducing some services.

The library um prioritizing their current services, meaning not able to expand to the new community center with the hours that um they would have liked.

Public works um is working on prioritizing their workload and contractual increases by reducing some services, transportation, same, prioritizing staffing and inflationary increases by reducing some contract services, fire medical priority prioritize contractual increases in staffing, limp by limiting wildland to in state only, and reducing the number of recruit training officers sent to training.

And then our police department is focused on prioritizing patrol, traffic, and investigations and continuing their school safety program with their threat assessments, emergency operations plan, and some program changes with their SSR SRO program.

As a recap, I'd like to just bring back this slide to remind everyone that we have asked our departments to realign with their core missions, get back to basics, focus on as a city, we uh need to focus on public safety with the limited funding that we have, stay within our current base budget for the most part.

Um in order to keep up with increased costs, we need to reduce some service levels and programs.

With that, any questions or comments?

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Judd.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Sandy.

Um, I've got a few questions, but before I get to those, can we hear a little bit about the changes uh to our school safety program specifically, the SSOs and the SROs?

Mayor Council, I appreciate you having us here today.

And uh uh Sandy, I just want to say it was a phenomenal presentation.

Thank you.

Um, Councilman Judd, uh, to your question here uh about the SRO and the SSO program, uh Sandy touched on it um about going back to the basics within the city within the police department, even though we're getting 11 FTEs with the police department, hopefully this next fiscal year, there's still a wide range of gaps within the police department.

And so when you're talking about the North Substation coming on board, the population growth within the city, the focus on the traffic, there's there's decisions that I have to make within the organization to say what's gonna best suit the uh the this the residents of our city and uh and what are those core services that we need to provide?

The SRO program's a unique program in the sense that I can uh make transitions from police officers that we have, full-time police officers back into patrol or back into investigations, and then bring on an SSO, a school safety officer.

School safety officers, um they change from day to day potentially.

Some officers, uh, this is all in their downtime, excuse me.

So uh when they're not on their regular shift, they have the opportunity to work off duty.

So on the days that they have off, they can have that opportunity and make a little bit extra money.

They'll be at the schools and provide safety and security for the for the uh the schools there and uh the students uh within the schools.

Uh again, when when I look at the police department and say, so where can we make modifications to make gains and patrol and investigations?

This is one area where if I make a transition from an officer in the SRO program, I still can get pretty much the same service and that core services making sure that our schools and our students are safe and the staff that are the that are within that school are safe.

Um at the end of the day, if if the question is, you know, are are the schools gonna be safe if we make this transition?

The the answer is absolutely yes.

And so when you look at the department of education, when they when they approved this grant um a couple of years back, they knew that police departments couldn't staff schools solely with SROs, and so they gave departments the opportunity and they gave school districts the opportunity to lean in on the SSO program.

And so we're leaning in on that program.

Uh not only is it gonna save us money in the sense that now we don't have to bring on full-time employees uh, you know, that come with uh equipment over time, fringe benefits, those things.

And so now it's a funding that we don't even have to deal with.

And so the officers can make a little bit of extra money going there, and the schools remain safe.

And so those are the biggest transitions or the the biggest differences.

The SRO program, you have a dedicated police officer that is an employee with City of Surprise who will be there four or five days a week, whoever their schedule is, and the SSO is potentially it could be a different officer every single day.

However, a police officer will be at the school.

Which one costs us more?

So the SSO doesn't cost us anything.

So it's an officer that's working on their own time that's going to the school, making money that way.

Um the SRO, however, it's a full-time employee for us.

And so the grant provides us some money again for that position, but it doesn't call it doesn't cover the full effect of bringing on a full-time employee.

And so there's costs associated with that that the city incurs.

And so how many S how many SRO SSO positions do we have right now?

So right now, as it stands, we have 15 SROs currently as it stands.

Any SSOs?

So there's a number of SSOs.

So there's it, I wouldn't say uh I wouldn't, I wouldn't formulate it in the sense of how many SSOs of the city of Surprise have, but how many schools partake in the SSO program?

And right now, if I if I remember right, I believe it's just under 30 schools that have applied for this grant.

And so the 15 SROs we have, what kind of schools are they in?

I mean, they're in the high schools and what else?

Yeah, so they're they're in a number of different schools.

So it could be K-4 schools, K8 schools, middle schools, all the way up to high schools.

So I'm a big fan of community policing, and I think SROs are just a phenomenal tool for community policing.

You know, you have a you have a role model on campus, you have you have safety on campus, um, you're letting you're letting the students have just a positive interaction with with their police.

So we were all up here really excited to see us expand our SRO program.

So I am sad to see us pulling back on SRO.

And I and I think that we still need to prioritize this, even if we can't afford to do it now.

This needs to be top priority for us to get back in to having SROs in the schools that it's feasible and useful to do so in.

So you're keeping them in the high schools.

Um and I'd like to see them in any of the schools that have eighth graders as well.

So the middle schools, the the th the five through eights.

I don't know if it's as beneficial once you get down to the K4s or the K-5s, whatever DI starts doing now.

Um and so do we just we just need to hire more cops that we can do this?

So I mean, what what do we have to do to get back to to fully staff our SROs?

So that obviously that's the the if you want a short answer, yes.

We need more, we need more police officers, is gonna it's gonna help with that.

However, um what I would consider again is the exponential growth that the city's seeing right now, it's that that's gonna be a challenge to hire that many officers that we need.

Um I'm with you, and you and you have my full commitment.

The the second we can bring on more SROs, I definitely want to do that.

I see the benefit that that that bond, that relationship that they have.

I I'm with you.

I see that, and I can totally appreciate that.

And so you do have my commitment with that.

When when we're able to and when we can, I do want to start bolstering that program.

Um in the short term, though, we have some challenges, and so that's where we need to focus on our uh patrol division in particular investigations and our traffic unit as well.

How many officers?

I mean, I know we're doing 11 this year, but how many did you ask for?

Yeah, but uh believe it was 20.

I believe the packages that we had, it was it was near nearly 30 officers that we asked for.

Okay, so we're we're significantly deficient on our ability to fund more police officers right now, right?

I mean, we're we're we're not increasing any department, the only departments we're increasing significantly is is public safety.

Um, you know, police is getting a big chunk of that.

Um so I've got a couple of questions.

Can you go back to the beginning?

Uh Sandy.

When we were talking about our revenue sources, I think it was the first couple of slides.

It was the pie chart that showed our revenues.

This one.

General fund 270, but our general fund expenses are 259.

So why the difference?

Where's that 11 million dollars going?

I'm so in our tentative budget.

Um, I have here.

Uh we have I apologize.

No worries.

And so if you go, and what I'm looking at is the general fund says 270 here.

If you go forward a couple of slides to our general fund expenses, um, we've listed 259 for all of them.

And so I'm trying to understand where that other 11 is going.

I mean, is it debt service?

Is it going somewhere else?

So it would be um between debt service and our obligations.

I apologize.

I will have to look at look at that.

I do I do know it, um, but unfortunately that is the one thing I did not write down.

Well, there's a lot here.

I mean, we've we've seen a ton of numbers here, so that's okay.

Just get if you can, please let me know.

And then another question that I have about our revenues.

And when I when I first got on council, we used to put some of our construction sales tax into operations, right?

It'd go to our general fund.

Yes.

And we slowly phase that out.

You know, we had some good years, we started phasing that out.

Um do other cities use construction sales tax in their general fund?

Um, I believe they do.

Uh it is something that we slowly phased out so we could focus on building our asset replacement and our capital program.

But we're short, but we're short.

I mean, we're short on cops.

We're short on a lot of stuff.

And so this is something we need to really look at to make sure that we're not we're not denying ourselves this other revenue source to bring more money in to take care of of what we need to take care of.

Absolutely.

I mean, we need to get more cops.

We need to put our SROs back up.

That would be a policy decision that we would um have to come together and and come up with what how we want that to look.

Yes.

And so, Mayor and Council, uh, one of the reasons for that, and we have to look at other cities is construction sales tax is dependent on growth.

So we do not want our ongoing revenues to be reliant on growth.

So that is why it goes to construction.

And we don't have enough money going to construction either.

So the reason we're at least political.

So I'm and I understand that, but I mean, sales tax, generally speaking, and we we know we're growing, right?

And so part of the reason we have construction sales tax is to help use that money for these growth problems that come along with it.

So I'm not saying let's move all construction sales tax, but we used to cap it at I think 1.5 million, then we drop to a million, and then I mean, so that was a little bit of money that we would move in to help in situations like this.

So I really think that we need to get back to doing that.

Again, not take all of it, but let's get let's get a little more money in our general fund so we can afford it to operate the city the way it needs to be operating.

I mean, we can't we can't go forward this short on on public safety services.

Sure.

And that is something we could do, but that is also just gonna be a one-time fix.

So if we decide to put one time money that we can't always rely on back into the general fund, we can do that, but it's also one time.

So if we move, say we move the policy two million dollars back to the general fund, then that one year we have two million more dollars, but we don't have that again.

So I'm sure we have fixed we get sales tax every year.

We construction sales tax every year.

Yeah.

But if the growth goes, so if the growth slows down, we no longer have that money.

So the other thing to think of that money doesn't come into the general fund anymore.

So now the general fund doesn't have that money to pay.

So that's where typically your ongoing pace for your ongoing cost.

I understand that.

How much do we bring in in in construction sales tax?

Uh depending on the year, it varies last year.

And then it also.

What are we budgeting for it this year?

Sure.

While Sandy pulls that up, uh the other thing to remember too is that money goes to our construction projects.

So roads, fire stations, police substations, in addition, we have some bond funding.

Uh so the more we take from there, the less we'll have for road construction as well.

I'm looking at for the construction sales tax.

I do have your answer on your 270 versus 250.

Oh, good.

Okay.

That's fast.

I knew I knew I had it.

Um this 270 includes transfers in from our enterprise funds.

They they transfer funds into the general fund for uh the property in lieu of taxes.

And um I lost my term here.

I just read it.

And um uh just a cost allocation as if they were a business.

The the difference, the 259 is strictly only our operating um budget, but we also have transfers out and contingency that make up to make up that 270.

So we transfer to other funds, uh uh const um I almost said construction sales tax.

Um our construction funds, our general capital fund, we we transfer funds out, and then we also have a contingency reserve that is strictly for our emergency reserves.

So the funds are available and ready to use if we needed them.

Okay.

And do you have easily available or construction sales tax number for that we're budgeting for this upcoming year?

I believe I do hold on.

It is not broken down that granular in this report here, but I can get that for you.

Okay.

That's all you have, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Melton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chief, I just uh just just to clarify, just uh so cops are not leaving the schools.

We still have cops in the schools if this program change happens.

It's just a different different revenue fund, allowing to free up our officers to wherever you need to send them.

Is that do I have that right?

Councilman Melton, yeah.

You hit it right on the head.

Yeah, cops will still be in schools.

Okay, great.

And these want to redeploy these as the officers who are serving as a role of SRO, you want to deploy them where once this program change happens.

So so the specific officers that are in the SRO program right now would go into patrol.

And so some of those positions would maintain in patrol, and then others would go into the investigation side of the house where um where they're in desperate need of help over there as well.

Okay.

Uh well, I think this is so how do you know how many police you would allocate to CID?

Do you know?

Uh so right now, as many as you can.

Right.

So so in August, we plan on bringing four officers into our investigations.

Okay.

All right, thank you, Chief.

I that's uh I think you're making a smart move here.

Um if we're behind in CID, I I mean there is a West Valley town that's in some bad news in the papers because their police force didn't plan accordingly, or I don't know what happened, but thank you for um you know balancing the workforce, whatever you gotta do to get us back on track.

So thank you, Chief.

Mayor, I got nothing else.

Thank you.

Councilman Duffy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh so Chief, regarding the SROs, I mean, I understand what you're doing and how we're short, because I can't tell you how many times I've asked you to put an officer somewhere in my own district.

And that's just me.

So not only do you have to deal with what you're dealing with, you have to deal with the seven of us asking for stuff in our area.

So I understand that.

And I haven't had a chance to talk to you yet because I was out of town last week.

But I've heard from I don't know, two or three high schools that are wanting to keep the same SROs that they've had.

I don't know how you're planning to do it, but I just thought I would I told them I would bring it up because the relationship they've built with students for four years, they think that's important instead of having somebody new come in.

So I don't know how you want to do it, but that's I just said I would bring it up to you.

Yeah, and uh councilman Duffy, I appreciate that.

And so there's been a lot of thought behind uh how we're making these changes.

Um the individuals that would be coming back to patrol.

And so that is something that we did consider is those relationships are built.

And if there was an opportunity to maintain the officer in that specific school, we we took that liberty.

And so uh point well taken, and we can definitely talk about this um afterwards if if you like, and and I can kind of uh show you the framework of of uh how this is gonna go.

Yeah, that's fine.

I just told him I would bring it out, and I'm not arguing what you're doing.

Because I'm on you, I'm on you a lot about officers out of my area.

So I appreciate you.

Thanks.

Councilman Hastings.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, everybody.

It was it was a great presentation.

So I think one one thing that I didn't understand.

I well, so so one thing about surprise, right?

Is as we all know, is anybody from North Surprise out here, but you know, surprises, surprises is growing.

And so, you know, I think so.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since since COVID, for whatever reason, and we kind of were waiting for it to slow down, we've been growing at a certain level, and all of a sudden that kind of like reverted back or slowed down this year.

And we're not El Mirage, like or like a tempee.

I'm just I don't know if those are the best examples, like where they're like landlocked, right?

So when we get a budget increase, it's like, oh, like more money for like the same stuff.

Like we're growing so fast that if the growth and income doesn't match it, then we're almost like kind of we're falling short, right?

Does that make sense?

Because like, I mean, we are like the Northwest City, our land area is is kind of terrifying if you if you look at it, um, is as far as like the size um and how much like we're like I mean, like we're all in like what maybe one day could be.

I don't want to see like old town surprise, but you like talk like old town Scottsdale.

Um so I think that's kind of part of it because I think people might see like, oh, we're you know, we're increasing um seven percent, you know.

How are we not affording this?

Because that's that's servicing, you know, that we have to meet that level of service.

So I I want to applaud our our city management um and say manager, Andrew Davis.

Um I think a lot of cities would would look at this and say, like, oh well, you know, and you know, they would maybe propose a tax increase or something to to fill the gap.

And I think that should always be the last resort.

I'm not a huge fan of of tax increases as many know.

Um, and it sounds like all of our departments, correct me wrong, but have adopted pretty much flat budgets, which is a struggle, right?

Because we've seen that growth.

And the only area we've kind of prioritized all of our money that we do have, the growth money we have had into public safety, you know, to support it.

I'm not a huge fan of of tax increases as many know um and it sounds like all of our departments correct if I'm wrong but have adopted pretty much flat budgets which is a struggle right because we've seen that growth and the only area we've kind of prioritized all of our money that we do have the growth money we have had into public safety you know to support it and it's gonna get us 11 officers which isn't what we need you know obviously we need more like Chief said um you know I've thought a lot I've thought a lot about the SRO and SSO program and um disclaimer I'm I'm a school administrator for the for the Dice art school district and so I've worked with both an SRO and an SSO I was a student at a Dice art school when SROs uh first came out so I just I wanted to offer my perspective in hopes that it's it's helpful um and so correct me if I'm wrong because I I definitely am not I'm I don't know everything my wife will tell you that um but as a school resource so you have school it is confusing right because there's like a one word difference you have a school resource officer and you have a school safety officer so the school resource officer is a city of surprise officer who is on shift like with surprise who works daily at the school correct that's correct and we don't always pay the full salary but we end up there's there's costs associated with that and so I almost think of like the school resource officer I think of like the resource I think of like city resources like there are city resources going towards that um the school safety officer that's a newer thing is an off duty officer um from it could be from surprise in my experience the majority of our school safety officers we've gotten have been so from surprise or a surrounding city um who works at a school on a day they aren't on a regular shift at their city so like a day off they like pick up a shift it's up to them and it's paid for by us or the state the state pays for that so it's paid for by the state okay um so the SRO program goes back it's like 15 years ish I remember like when we got into high school it was like kind of this I I think some people thought it was a controversial thing.

I never did I was I was so glad to have an officer on campus.

You know you see the news horrifying things happening um in schools and and places um the SSO program how how new is that program the SSO program is is relatively new and I believe this grant started three years ago where the state of Arizona um saw the need for this where the SRO programs would be funded through the grants but then again like I mentioned before the state understood that not all departments could staff SRO positions and so they created the SSO position.

So you could go outside of your own jurisdiction and go pick up these jobs.

Yeah absolutely so yes the SSO grant so I mean really obviously like this is a new phenomenon like for a while you know we had um we had SROs and if we didn't have an SRO there there was nothing in the school right so now we have this new program it's state funded through the Arizona Department of Education.

So I I went ahead and um I put together a a pro and con column with just really one thing the the main pro and uh counsel and judge brings us interesting points but the main pro of the SRO is which is the one that's in the school every day on shift works a surprise is that you get the same officer every day right and having worked with one it it's it's phenomenal right to have the you know officer build that relationship with the students right just like the teachers do.

But what it sounds like from what I'm hearing from from you guys is the con of that is it takes an officer off the street.

So it takes an officer off the street obviously it's something we're not always funding completely but we fund some costs associated is that would you is that correct?

Yeah that's correct.

Okay so then on the other side we have the SSO which um is is gonna be a different officer you know on the days and obviously um you know so it's it doesn't they don't have like that same relationship but on the other side it doesn't pull an officer off the streets of surprise okay and so I mean like in a perfect world like we have enough officers to have an SRO in every single school enough officers for the street you know exactly right we'd have we that's perfect scenario obviously we know we don't live in a perfect world.

So what I come down to is I come back to what you said and that is what is the overall goal of having officers at schools and it comes down to the safety it would be easy for me to sit up here and um I want to say like be selfish but think of it from like a school perspective and say oh well you know I I like having the same officer every day at my school and shout out to officer Suggs I'm not sure if I should be shouting officers names from the diocese last name but he's he's phenomenal over at the school that I work at that I'm not gonna mention but why I don't want to in good faith supports me that's gonna that's gonna take officers you know off the roads like so how many so how many SROs do we have you know currently uh so currently I believe we have 15.

But why I don't want to in good faith support something that's gonna that's gonna take officers, you know, off the roads, right?

So how many so how many SROs do we have, you know, currently?

Uh so currently I believe we have 15.

Yeah, 15.

So I mean, hypothetically, we hired about 15 officers last year, right?

And that was specified for like the motor division.

We were very careful to send those to traffic.

But really, I mean, that's that would negate that whole amount.

But if you have 15 officers, one's lieutenant, two are sergeants, and you have X amount retire on the back end, you have this many going to schools, right?

You're shrinking that number.

And so the point I'm trying to make as I end this monologue here.

Um, is it's important to have officers in schools.

And we're gonna continue to do that.

But we also have to be fiscally responsible and leverage funding that's available from the state when it's there.

How many of you guys show of hands in the room have seen something in a Facebook page?

You know, it's like where you see stuff happening instead of a surprise, and maybe you've you know to raise your hand, but you've lived here for a long time and you're like, my guess, like I've been here 20 years, like you know, surprises growing up.

And you know, we have to be prepared for things in the schools, but also on the streets to keep our residents safe as well.

And so if this is something, you know, you're moving in the direction, and this is what you feel like is best for our law enforcement officers and the and the safeness of our city, then I I support it.

Thank you.

Councilman Haney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I'll try not to repeat anything that's already been said.

Um we said a little bit.

Yeah.

Uh soundy, thank you.

And I want to thank um obviously public safety leadership, city management leadership, and the directors.

Um this reality that we're facing is extremely challenging.

And I've said it before, we as a city exist as a service organization.

And as we continue to grow, the residents that are already here expect that same level of service to continue to grow with our city.

Uh, but as we have seen increasingly um over the years, is we are continued to ask to do more with less.

Our revenue sources are being cut or attacked.

And um, but at the same time, you all have continued to make innovative changes to try to maintain that level of service, even when it results in those difficult conversations.

And I know the directors are making those decisions, but really the brunt of the work comes to the men and women of this city who are constantly responding to our residents' needs.

And and I I just really appreciate um their commitment to to continue to serve our residents despite the challenges that we are all facing.

And so I wanted to note that.

Um, Chief, I appreciate the clarification.

Obviously, it's it's uh it sucks that we have to have these conversations in this day and age of are we going to have uh law enforcement officer at our school to put themselves in between our children and someone who wants to do them harm, but that's the reality, and I appreciate you rebalancing it.

My belief is uh the safer that our city is, the safer our schools will be.

And that also means making some of these challenging decisions to make sure we can bolster patrol.

Uh, we have an incredible law enforcement um at a team of men and women who leave their families to keep our community safe and their loved ones expect that if their loved one gets in in trouble that their backup is going to be there, and we need to make sure we're making those investments.

I know it was mentioned in the budget.

We are opening a substation, and that was largely due to the collaboration that we've had um with our residents who made that investment as a part of that bond project.

That's just a building until we put highly trained personnel in there.

And if we're not able to do that, we are not living up to the expectation of our community.

And so I appreciate the challenging um decisions that you all made.

I share councilman Judd's um wish that when we have an opportunity to do so.

I believe the SRO program does have a lot of benefits, but at the very minimum, bolstering patrol while making sure that our kids are safe has to be our priority at this point.

And um, it is my hope that hopefully things will start to change for the better, and we'll be able to really make those strategic investments and expand the service delivery we're able to give our residents.

That's all I have, mayor.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Chief, I wanted to uh thank you for your leadership.

Uh it's not easy to come to this uh council, especially with our strategic plan and our focus on school safety and saying we're gonna have to make some changes to it.

But like my colleagues said, it's important that we make sure that our city's safe.

But on top of all that, I don't think the school safety is just about SROs.

I think the commitment that the city has made uh to be a regional, I would say trailblazer in school safety.

And in September, we held a meeting with a hundred different educators, public safety, different agencies, El Mirage, Surprise, Maricopa County, and rolled out a plan to uh do threatened vulnerability assessments for schools across that entire region.

And I know in the city of Surprise, we've done 46 TVAs, and that's where the police and fire go in and look at every aspect of the school with uh, you know, crime prevention through and environmental design, fire issues, um, physical security.

That way, when the first responders have to respond, they know exactly where the entry points are at, where the Knox boxes are at, and I think that's critically important.

We're also helping with emergency operations plans where our emergency manager uh for the first time is working with these different schools.

And I think it's important to say that you know, a lot of the charter schools and private schools don't have the budget to have you know a safety team, and so to have that resource to those schools and have an expert in our um and our city to help with that is also important.

And I think the exercise that we did uh with that 3D model of the school and went through a bunch of different scenarios, had you know, administrators, uh public safety and coordinating and talking uh was crucial too.

So I think when we talk about school safety, it's not just about an SRO, it's a community effort, is building those relationships, and I think that the City of Surprise is committed to that.

We're gonna continue to be committed to that, and we're gonna continue to evolve and lead in school safety.

So I appreciate your leadership in that.

On top of that, I think when the federal government and the state government make decisions when it comes to budgets, it always comes down to the local level.

So no matter what, you know, they want to do flat taxes, they want to do whatever they do, it always comes back to you know, the city, the local government have to make the hard decisions to make it work.

And in this case, you know, we have the flat tax.

Um we have, and I was I was looking over at Mike Boulet, our our director of of water, and you know, if if that law gets passed where we can't uh raise the and we did it what two years ago with the rate increases.

We were very deliberate about it.

We were saying, you know, we're not with the city's not in a position to make money.

Those rate, those increases were specific to uh getting operators and getting the infrastructure that we need to continue to have a safe, reliable, redundant water system.

And so all those things impact the city and how we operate and what we do, and it's a challenge.

But I know through the leadership, Sandy, uh city manager, and really the the collaboration of this council, it's important that we are making those decisions and make sure that we're uh leading uh the city in the right direction.

Uh, this is the first time that our budget has gone over a billion dollars.

I think that's a significant thing to note.

I we uh we kind of brushed over it, but uh there's some things within that budget, I know there's challenges, but some things that I think are important to note in that our asset replacement plan.

We have 15 million dollars for payment, we have 15 million dollars for equipment and vehicles, and when we can fund that through our budget and not through borrowing, I think it gives us leverage to do additional things into the future.

So I appreciate your uh commitment to that.

And my last thing, we have in there the uh contingency is 7.2 million dollars for mid-year.

I know you came back this year with some uh some budget amendments.

Is that 7.2 gonna be enough that mid year when we come back again?

Um so that mayor, that 7.2 million um that you see in the general fund is for our emergency reserves.

We have a contingency fund, it's we call it our general contingency fund, and it's um categorized under our special revenue funds, and there's 25 million in there.

And that is for any emergency.

I'm gonna use the word emergency again, but that is for the case of like what we had to fund this year.

Yes.

Okay, that's where those come from.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Uh Councilman Judge, you had a last thought.

I have a question about the about what we're approving tonight.

So we're approving tonight the expenditure limit.

And I'm gonna I'm gonna ask for more discussion on construction sales tax at our at our next meeting.

And if I'm able to convince my colleagues that we should make adjustments to that, is what we're doing tonight gonna stop us from being able to do that.

Okay, so that won't have any effect on it.

Correct.

No, sorry, Jeff.

I get too close.

Correct.

Tonight is just the adoption of the tentative budget.

We can still make changes before adopted.

Okay.

All right, seeing no other comments or questions, I'll entertain a motion.

Okay.

I I move to approve resolution 2026 65.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please cast your vote.

That's passed vote, Mayor.

All right, thank you.

Please read item 11.

Item 11, discussion and possible action related to a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, BH.

Do we have anything on this?

Sir Mayor Council, yeah, this item as you're aware, this item was added at the last council meeting to draft a letter.

So, based on the motion, the letter was drafted based on that motion.

And so, as it stands, it could be either adopted tonight or there could be discussion between councils.

So it's really up to council on discussion conversation on what you guys want to do.

All right, thank you.

Councilman Judd.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Ms.

Davis.

And so the idea with the letter is the way I understand it is DHS does not have to follow our zoning if the DHS secretary approves not following our zoning, right?

So we're supposed to follow up the DHS secretary can make the decision for his own organization that they don't need to follow it.

So I think it's important that we send in the message that we would like them to follow our laws just like we expect everybody else to.

And ideally, the the letter is non-confrontational.

We're just getting the message across, letting him know that uh we're not that this is not an ideal location for a detention facility.

That's all I'm looking for on that.

Councilman Hastings.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so obviously we're all aware that there's pending litigation now on going between um the state and the uh federal government.

I'd like to get some legal advice um from our city attorney on anything we kind of obviously do at this point.

I know when this item was agendized, and again, you know, since it's a letter.

Um but I want to I want to see, you know, I what I would like a legal advice on actions we take at this point now that litigation is is kind of officially going and like what impact that could have on the city if that involved you know if it involves us, et cetera.

So um that's just I'm not gonna make a motion at this point, but I would like to if we're gonna do if we're gonna do this today.

Like recess leadership.

Are you asking to are you making a motion to recess an executive session?

Is there any other discussion?

Councilman Mountain.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I I don't know if I speak to the legal, I don't know if legal guidance is needed this time for a letter, but uh of course I'll defer to our attorney.

Um I think the lawsuit, I I don't know if I've I don't really I don't really factor the lawsuit into my calculus on this topic.

Um the reason is is because right now we're in a we're we're right now the DHS is paused, and in any moment they can unpause and they can resume track.

And if they do want to proceed, I I don't see what's wrong with getting that letter drafted and ready to roll.

Um but if this council, if my seatmates want to go to e session to talk about legal consuls, I'm okay with that.

But I'm okay, I but yeah, the letter is uh I think it's appropriate.

I think it's still appropriate, even though a lawsuit's been filed.

So thank you.

Councilman Greenberg, thank you, Mayor.

I'm with Judd and Melton.

That's it.

Okay.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that we're anything we're doing, any action we're taking isn't putting the city in a position like that.

So if I mean I don't want to put Jeff on the spot, and you're not gonna give legal advice from the dais, but um if if that is the case and you want legal advice, we should execute executive session.

Yeah, I I think we have a responsibility.

You know, obviously this is this is lining up to be a heavyweight fight between the state and federal government.

Anything we do that drags the city into it, um, anything we do that you know, moving forward now that implicates the city or puts us in a worse any sort of position, whether it's financed or whatever, I'd like all the facts before making that decision.

I don't see an issue personally with this letter.

The letter seems very generic, but I'm also not an attorney.

So I'm gonna move to recess into executive session for legal advice on you know implications of sending any letter to DHS now that there's pending litigation um between the state through the attorney general and the federal government.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded all in favor.

Aye.

All opposed?

Nay.

No.

We're convened to executive session.

I appreciate it.

Make sure I'm on track.

Um are there any other questions or comments debate we need to have?

You know what I was first when this whole thing first started, I was, you know, we talked about doing a letter, and I was like, yes, let's send a letter to DHS.

Let's ask him to comply with it.

I think it was uh a legitimate question back then.

We didn't know what was going on.

Uh we sent I I sent another letter to them asking a lot of different questions about zoning, about all sorts of stuff that we saw.

Um then the AG jumped in and did uh and she said her office is the most appropriate one to do the lawsuit, which I appreciate they should acknowledge that.

Um send in the letter now.

What impact is it gonna have on the situation?

Oh my god.

Is that a question for yeah, it's I mean, we're we're talking about it.

It's gonna force DHS to stop what they're doing.

But we've it's already stopped through it's not gonna it's already stopped through the AG's lawsuit.

They've already stopped it.

So if you're if you're talking about so the the contract has been stopped, it was stopped two days before uh before attorney general Mays filed her lawsuit, and we don't know why.

We I mean city management called NAS, and we don't know why it stopped.

And chances are they're not even gonna they're not gonna give this letter a second luck.

But we should still send the letter, we should still make it known that we want our zoning rules followed.

Yeah, I mean I I too like I like voting on policy, personally.

Um I voted against the last letter that we sent.

I haven't talked about why, and I think at some point I I might.

Um wasn't a fan of the process that went.

I mean, I just you know, we're we're doing these things now.

It's like we're saying letters.

Right, you asked resolution this, letters for this.

I mean, I think what it what is what is the end goal?

Um, to the mayor's point.

Um that so at the time, Councilman Judd asked for the for the the letter.

Then that stop order was placed.

I don't want to speak for Councilman Judd's idea, but I don't know if it was like to delay it.

Well, now it's now it's delayed.

You know, so I'm I guess it comes down to like what the goal if we want to just send it just to do it to s to send it.

I guess is that just we just we're gonna do it?

We're gonna ask him the federal government to comply with our so the idea the uh was that go ahead.

I'm I'm trying to understand.

Like I I wanna get a sense of like what the goal is.

If it was the goal to delay it, okay, it's delayed.

Is okay, so they might not even do it at this point.

I don't I don't know for sure.

You know, are we thinking we're gonna get a response from Secretary Mark Way Mullen?

I think he's a stand-up guy.

I think you'll absolutely respond.

I I yeah, I hope so.

If we send a letter.

But for me, it's the formal process that we can follow.

We we I don't like having an adverse zoning decision in my district in my city.

Right.

I mean, we have our zoning set.

We've we've tried to plan our city in a in an orderly fashion in a in a smart fashion in a way that's favorable for our residents.

So having an adverse zoning decision come through, this is our only avenue of appeal.

No, no.

Okay.

Councilman Melton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, I'm I'm still in favor of setting the letter, and I'll explain why.

Um the facility might they they may not proceed with it.

Uh you know, but they're not gonna walk away from it.

They're gonna own the building.

They could repurpose it for something else.

And uh, I think the letter, the way it's written is a respectful request that they just follow our zoning rules.

Um, and maybe it's strikes a dialogue, maybe it's we are not.

This is not a confrontational letter.

Um, and I think it might even uh, you know, as we continue our dialogue with DHS, this might make a conversation, and maybe we'll get to figure out not only what their intentions are actually, but we could we could ultimately get if they do if they do agree to this, it saves us a lot of hassle on a lot of different reasons, whether they proceed with it or not.

So I anyway, I'm in favor of the letter.

So thank you.

Councilman Duffy.

Thank you, Mary.

I think we make a big deal out of something that's really not at this point.

This letter.

Why not?

I mean, Councilman Judd's adamant, he wants to do it.

He's supported me in a lot of stuff that's happened.

And this is what he wants to do.

It's all he's asking is hey, follow our zoning.

They may not look at it, so I don't see why we're making a big issue about whether to send it or not.

Just send it off.

It's fair point.

I'd like to make a motion if I can.

So any other comments or questions.

Uh I move that we approve to send a letter.

Second.

Move and second it.

Please cast your vote.

That's a pass vote, Mayor.

All right, thank you.

Or another so, Mayor, can I make one comment?

Um, yeah, I would too, but uh, Councilman Duffy is right.

I mean, it's it's a letter.

It's important that you know it's in Chris's uh Councilman Judd's district.

It's important that we support that.

And I mean, I don't I don't think there's a question of where everybody thinks we're out in this position, it's just where the city can be at this position.

But yeah, go ahead.

No, I mean it's just been I think I think in obviously, yeah.

I mean it's yeah, yeah.

So I I think we all understand what we we've been through the last few weeks, and I want to thank all you guys as well as all of our fantastic staff too.

So perfect.

All right, we'll move on to the call to the public section of this council meeting, madam clerk.

Can you please call the first well we what's the first issue we're gonna discuss?

Um I have three requests for Project Bakara.

Okay, let's start there, please.

Okay.

Alexis Young, Maureen Miller, and Mark Hamarena.

If any of you are here, if you would come forward.

Madam Clerk, we put the rules on the projector, please.

Come on.

Any of those three individuals?

Sorry, yeah, you said that.

Yes.

All right, good evening, ma'am.

If you could say your name and crossroads for the record.

My name is Maureen Miller.

I'm at 163rd Avenue in Jomax.

And I want to start by saying that regarding the Baghara Center project, the bar Bacara Data Center project, excuse me.

I admit I was late to the party.

Um it did get pushed aside by me as there were so many other issues that require attention, especially when I read on the surprise website the disclaimer that this project is not in surprise.

I went on to conduct my own research and learn more about this project.

More recent checks on the surprise website has made mention of the city's requests on a multitude of studies and reports.

But as far as I can tell, there have been no updates on this.

Of great concern is the emergency management plan as the city of surprise would be the closest responder.

At a minimum, I would hope that this council would weigh in on the Bacara project.

I know this won't happen tonight, but perhaps you could update and take a stand against this project and provide a statement.

I would like to suggest that this project has no place in our area, surprise or not.

I am a Phoenix native and feel compelled to remind all that this was a desert then.

It's a desert now, and it continues to be a desert, always will be.

We have no business entertaining the Bacara project with the massive amounts of water needed, the generation of air pollution and the safety concerns over proximity to Luke Air Force Base.

It appears we only seem concerned over water and air pollution issues when convenient, and then it is casually forgotten until the next crisis.

Residents are reminded on how we need to conserve water while other big players are given a pass.

We most recently have been reminded of air pollution issues by our own Nick Haney with the waste management fire, and now we're dealing with it again on the Buckeye fire.

These are unfortunate situations that we know will arise at some point.

We should not contribute to the problem and allow a known polluter and user of resources to construct this data center.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will be voting on this project tomorrow, which is May 6th at 9 30 in the morning.

And I just let everybody know, remind everybody about that.

I have a brief follow-up statement regarding the ice detention facility.

I am in support of the men and women of law enforcement and all the people I have spoken to with this pro who were also against the ICE facility, have also been in support of the police.

I'm glad I could clarify.

Thank you.

Good evening.

You can say your name and crossroad for the record, please.

Alexis Young, um Cotton and Greenway.

Hello again.

I'm here to discuss Project Becara.

It will be located half a mile from the surprise city limits, two thousand feet away from the nearest home, less than one mile away from the nearest school, and two miles away from seven schools.

The project will be on 163 acres, the size of Disneyland.

It will generate 744 megawatts of power using natural gas combustion turbines.

This is the most toxic form of electricity generation behind coal.

The EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, remecon rec recommends that residents be at least three miles away.

The construction site is located directly under the 56 fighter wings low altitude corridor, also known as Luke Air Force Base's danger zone.

This corridor sees over 170 flights daily, including including student student pilots.

Military aviation requires stable airflow and visibility, and the industrial exhaust from Project Bacara could create turbulence and distort air and site lines.

Studies have shown that industrial heat plumes can interfere with F-35 operating systems.

A gas power plant built under a low altitude training zone poses extreme risk.

While the developer company, TACNOC gets rich, the residents of Surprise and surrounding communities will bear the burnt of the consequences, including increased health risks, higher utility rates, and higher temperatures.

How can this be considered progress?

The success of Project Bacara depends on the vote of the Baricopa County Board of Supervisors tomorrow, May 6th at 9:30 a.m.

in the supervisor's auditorium in downtown Phoenix.

I stand proudly with the community as we continue to oppose the ice concentration camp that is being built down the street.

We can stop Project Bacara.

Please consider attending the supervisors meeting tomorrow to oppose Project Bacara.

All power to the people.

Thank you.

There was one other name for Project Bacara.

There was Mark Camarena.

Mark, are you here?

What's the next topic?

We'll move on to I have two miscellaneous.

So first is Greg German.

Mine is kind of trivial for this.

My name is Greg German.

Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Mayor Sarter and City Council.

Mine are kind of trivia compared to some of the things that are going on here.

I live on cactus in Litchfield corners of the uh the first one is we asked before to have these um uh generator removed from Lichfield Park and have the electricity restored to Lichfield Park.

It's been running, it's been offline.

The part the electricity there's been offline for months from an accident of some right.

I'm wondering why we can't get an electrician there to fix things.

It's uh kind of ridiculous to be renting a generator for months and running it on fuel all the time.

That's my first one.

The second one's also we my wife also asked for a um recycle bin there, or some because we have some plenty of plastic that would can be recycled at any given time.

We don't have any recycle bins in that park at all.

Um my third one is um you're have you're the safety director of one of the schools or this uh Dysai School District.

Coordinator.

Coordinator, okay.

Have you done any original policies in the safe in the year since you've been on the director?

I don't want to take your time, sir, but I'm not gonna engage in debate with you, and I don't answer questions.

This is a chance for you to know they're hard questions.

You've you've been in the service for how many years, sir?

Can you answer that one, please?

20 years?

There, therefore, you would you you're getting a pension and Ali from military service.

Okay, um, I guess my other big one is uh is anything been done or can something be done about the safety of uh or maybe licensing of the electric the e-bikes that have been going around in the the city because they're getting more and more dangerous for anyone who wants to walk on the sidewalks because I've been almost clipped about two or three times with 20 to 30 mile an hour um e-bikes going around.

So I'm a little concerned about that one.

If that's why we go into the safety thing asking why don't they maybe develop some kind of a safety education at the school district level?

Yes.

Um things that aren't on the agenda we're not allowed to talk about up here, that's why you're not getting answers.

Also, um we do have the item you're talking about on a future agenda item, so it will be coming back.

It was something that was quite previously.

Okay.

Um I just thought I'd also bring up one last thing just for the fun of it, a history question for everybody.

Uh yesterday was the May the Fourth be with you.

Um I thought that was great, but I I also wish people remember what the fourth about 56 years ago happened.

I don't celebrate the May of the Fourth be with you because of this.

And I can't ask questions in them anymore.

The history question is does everyone know what happened on 56 years ago on the May of the Fourth be with you, though?

Kent State.

Four people died because they protested, but because of their protest, things got done.

Sir, can you specify which park are you?

Are you talking about Vera Monte Park?

I'm sorry, what?

Viramonte Park.

Is that the one you're uh Brennan's at the back of the room?

Uh so Brendan SB right there, he can help you let him know about the park, the questions you have about the park.

All right, thank you.

Ready?

Uh next is Lisa Everett.

Good evening.

Good evening, Lisa Everett.

Um over the past several meetings, I have sat and listened to speaker after speaker, some who do not even live in surprise, come forward and attack our mayor and council.

The tone, the accusations, and at times the behavior, including at this moment has been unacceptable.

These are good men.

They work hard for this city.

Decorum.

I'm asking for decorum.

They show up, they put in the time, they carry the responsibility of making difficult decisions on behalf of all of us.

Whether you agree with them or not, they deserve respect.

I am standing up for them today.

We elected these individuals because we believe in their ability to lead and look out for the best interest of surprise.

That trust should not disappear the moment a difficult or controversial issue arises.

In fact, that's when trust matters most.

The reality is those sitting on the dais often have access to information that we do not, things that they cannot share always publicly.

There are complexities we may not fully see from outside.

They are in the thick of it, the way most of us are not.

Before the federal government purchased the facility, which I am against, by the way.

Before the federal government purchased the facility, which I am against, by the way, we trusted our leaders, and we should not abandon that trust now.

And they know, and those who come here meeting after meeting, repeating the same criticisms.

I have to ask you how many of you have taken your concerns to the people who actually have authority over the issue.

Have you contacted Gozar, Kelly, Gallego, Homeland Security?

This was rhetorical.

It is easy to come here and hold a sign and direct frustration at local officials.

That is the easy path.

Real change requires effort and engaging in the right channels and doing the harder work beyond these chambers.

We can disagree.

But how we conduct conduct ourselves matters.

Respect matters, accountability should be directed where it belongs.

I want my council meetings back, meetings where I can have productive conversations where all voices are heard without hostility, and we remember that we are all part of the same community.

Thank you.

Yeah, we did one.

We're going to continue to hold this meeting with decorum.

Uh, there's to be no shouting from the crowds.

Uh, we're gonna call the next name.

We're gonna respect everybody's opinion, whether that's we agree or not.

We've done this from the beginning.

And we are gonna continue to do that now.

Madam Clerk, please call the next name.

Thank you.

I'm gonna call five uh names.

Gerald Ulrich, Bernadette Green, please, Alex Chris, Kayla Bishop, Amanda Mythus.

Madam Clerk, are these is this another topic?

This is a separate topic.

I'm still at the 30 minutes.

And what topic is this?

It's all DHS.

DHS, thank you.

Come forward, and you come forward, state your name, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Alex uh Waddell, 175th Avenue.

Mayor, as you continue to be respectful and accommodating to all who come here, and you run city business, or as one speaker put it, four hours of the most boring uh power city power points.

Your efforts to diffuse tensions and give people an outlet has not been successful.

As a matter of fact, aggressions have only increased, so much so that I was accosted twice at the last meeting.

The first, as I was sitting, some woman came from behind, from behind me and right into my ear and said that I should educate myself because I said we have a constitutional republic, and she believes we have a democratic republic.

The second, as I was exiting and without knowing my history or asking me about my story, this woman called out my name and began to berate me and block my path as I was walking to the parking lot.

When I answered her in Spanish and continued to speak to her in Espanol, she proceeded to call me a traitor.

Mayor, I'm not a traitor.

I love this country, and this country has not been but great for me.

And I know what she meant, by the way.

And as you were ending the last session, and recognize Councilman Milton for his report, their leader and organizer who has no connection to our city began his protest with this complaint.

This is directly from him.

We asked for the video to be turned back on the live stream, and it was refused.

And so they couldn't broadcast their kabuki theater and falsely accused you of suppressing their message.

But lucky for us, the media trips over themselves whenever they call press conference, and we have social media.

So no voices were ever silenced, and no message suppress.

Mayor, let's stop with the childish antics, the red pen props, the pre-manufactured signs, accosting people for not believing the way that you do.

And instead, let's be a great example for the next generation of leaders, which we saw here today, uh, on debating, discussing, and finding solutions together as adults.

And mayor, let not this take joy from us.

We have a great city, and this and the city is uh getting better with awesome events that are coming up that are gonna make our city a national and international destination.

So, Mayor, I encourage you, Vice Mayor.

I encourage you, and counsel, I encourage you, stand tall, stand strong, and stand together.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Thank you.

Speaker.

Any of the other?

Thank you.

Please state your name.

Good evening.

Um, one thing that I would like to say, I have lots of bones to pick.

Um, talking about student safety, Callie Overs has been trying to sign a petition or get people to sign her petition about student safety creating a three mile buffer.

Uh, y'all have been pretty quiet about that.

So if we want to talk about student safety, we can also talk about other cool ideas.

I have a personal idea.

It's called a walking bus.

Have you heard of a walking bus?

Uh, it's pretty much like uh carpooling without the car.

So essentially, volunteers would create certain like meeting points where the students could meet, and then they could walk the students safely to school.

So there are things that we can do.

It just seems like nobody's trying to do anything as far as action for student safety.

Um, noting also that we mentioned that there was a short uh police staff.

How do we think we're gonna manage with a short police staff when the ice building comes if it comes?

Uh there's so many points that I heard in this very uh small meeting just today that I I I have questions for for you guys as far as uh what are you gonna do?

The action that you can do.

You could have contacted the attorney general on behalf of the people of surprise, but you sat there and called us a nuisance.

We have also been silenced because we have a 30 minute time.

Uh, if we weren't being silenced, everybody here could speak, but they're not able to.

So um, I do think you're silencing the people.

And I don't think you're prepared for what ice has coming.

And I don't think you're prepared to protect the students.

I don't think you're prepared to protect the community.

If there was a crisis going on at the ice building, and in surprise at the same time, what do we do with the police that we have?

Just a few things to think about.

There's a multitude of things to think about, actually.

And uh, I think that's about it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I was like point of order, Mr.

Mayor.

We have a not Sir, you're not addressed to talk, sir.

And a certificate for our speakers this evening.

This coin is a tribute to the recess meeting.

There it is.

Yes, I'm gonna call the next five.

So Alexa Coulter, Tina Molica, Jennifer McCann, Ann Bendheim, Natalie Bautista.

I'm gonna take my turn.

I was part of the first five.

Bernadette Green Placentia, Mayor Sarter, Council, and the Democrat running against Abe Hamaday.

And once we are elected, I can tell you that when we take over Congress, we will definitely not fund this facility.

But in the interim, there are things you guys can do.

And you've heard all the humanitarian reasons.

I can see like your eyes glaze over.

So to the NIMBY crowd, the not in my backyard.

There are things that you don't have to rely on, Attorney General Mays.

You can start with the water.

You can start with electricity.

You can start with traffic.

You can start with students.

You can start with the fact that RinChem Chemicals has exceeded already.

And they knew this in December before they bought that facility.

So you're gonna put this 1,500 bed facility, and we're only gonna have like what, 500 people, which I'm not really buying into a hazardous, hazardous waste area.

You have all kinds of reasons.

And you know, I I was a truck driver for 27 years.

It's a 92% male dominated industry.

I got four million miles as a solo female.

And I always said if you want a job done, get a man to do it.

You want it done right?

Get a woman.

AG Mays is doing your job and you are hiding behind her.

So my challenge to you, seven gentlemen, is to stand up, reach between your legs, find a set, and say, hey, you know what?

Just in case that A.G.

Mays lawsuit falls through, there are things that we can do.

And it doesn't have to be on humanitarian things.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

If any of you guys have, and I'm new to politics, but if you have any like political future in your mind, and you don't support your community, and you don't stand up for your community, your first term's gonna be your last term.

And we probably won't even wait.

We'll just recall your asses now.

So that's all I have to say.

But you guys, there's a reason all these people keep coming.

We don't want it.

So I got 30 seconds.

I'll give it back to you.

Elections are in November.

Thank you.

And I'm sure that I have all your support.

Good evening.

Hi, good evening, Mayor.

Um, members of the council.

My name is Alexa Coulter.

Uh, I currently live near Grand Avenue and Reims Road, and I'm here again tonight to speak about my concern regarding the DHS facility.

Uh, Mr.

Mayor, you recently provided several public updates in various ways regarding the communication between the city and DHS.

Um, and I would just be remiss if I didn't keep showing up to use this time uh to point out that beneath a bureaucracy of it all, the meetings and the agendas and the interviews and the press conferences uh at the center of this very conversation are still the lives of human beings in our city as well as in those uh communities across the United States.

Uh bureaucracy really will have us all believing that systems and structures and rules and processes and positions of power should be the framework to lead action.

But in true servant leadership, is it not also incredibly imperative to ensure those bureaucratic structures are rooted in ethical and moral practice?

Is it not the responsibility of leadership to ensure that bureaucracy does not serve as a vessel for apathy?

Mr.

Mayor, in your recent interview with KTAR, you spoke about the importance of pragmatism and governing processes, but yet still have not spoken realistically about DHS's treatment of human life.

Are we truly planning for the safety of all people in our city when we are still not directly addressing the way they will be intentionally targeted when ice exists more prevalently in our community?

You want to be pragmatic about the supremacy clause, but will not realistically address the lack of food, water, and medical care inside DHS warehouses.

You want to be pragmatic about the strain on the city's infrastructure, but will not realistic realistically address the inhumanity of people forcibly kept in overcrowded, unsanitary cages.

You want to be pragmatic about property taxes, but have yet to validate fears people have expressed in this exact room about living in this city once ICE occupation begins.

Public service is a service to all people.

So yes, it is infrastructure and building and fiscal budgets and growth, but above all, it is people.

And it is simply not pragmatic to move forward in a purely bureaucratic dialogue when we realistically know the ways that DHS aims to isolate and harm marginalized peoples in our city.

It would not be pragmatic for me to assume you can change the federal government because yes, the supremacy clause.

But it is also not wild for people in this city to ask for leaders that to make clear their ethical and moral positions.

Can we ask this of state and federal officials?

Yes.

But we can also ask this of each of you, our first line of defense, our most accessible public servants.

And so I'm here to state as plainly as possible that we can be pragmatic, but our pragmatism also should not stifle our ideals.

We did not grow up with the diversity of our friends on Sesame Street or the helping hand and compassion of Fred Rogers, or the encouragement to dream and imagine from LeVar Burton, only to accept the stalemates of bureaucracy.

The people that feel unsafe in our city, the people that fear being unjustly targeted, the people afraid of being villainized and isolated, deserve to know their community members stand beside them, but also that their community leaders stand beside them as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Tina Malica, Cactus and Bullard.

Um, I don't really have a prepared speech tonight.

I'm speaking from the heart, and I'm a little emotional right now because of everything that just happened.

So I actually am very upset about this facility coming here.

As you know, I've raised my family here.

I had hoped to raise grandchildren here someday.

I don't like what DHS is doing, but I know that we all come with different opinions.

And I've tried to come up here and be respectful and calm and express the concerns.

So, Councilman Judd, I've talked to you many times.

I have called the attorney general, and I you said to us that you guys have no power a couple weeks ago.

I have called relentlessly, emailed relentlessly every possible person I could.

And that includes you guys, because you are the first step.

I just practiced, was practicing with the my son for his AP government test.

You guys are the first step, so it's not out of bounds for us to come up here and ask you for help.

On the other hand, I do appreciate what you did tonight.

It's a little upsetting that it's taken so long to get that tiny little step from you guys.

But I agree that you should take a stand and say, follow our laws, don't do this.

I implore you to not let that be the only step.

I know that you, Councilman Judd, were at the press conference and wanting to talk to Chris Mays.

I hope that all of you will talk to Chris Mays and help her with the suit.

Because we know that this pause may not last.

We know that they can change their mind at any moment.

And we know every one of you knows that this detention facility does not belong here.

So I'm gonna close by saying what I teach my children and what I try to believe in is that when the outcome is unknown, the possibilities are endless.

And you, Mayor Sartor has said many times, well, maybe not many times, but you said in your press conference that you didn't want to do anything because you didn't know to know what the outcome was.

I'm holding this book about the women's suffrages.

Where would we be if Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had said, my God, we've been standing outside the state, the gates of the this white house day after day after day, rain and shine.

I've been spit on, I've been beaten.

Now I'm being in now I'm put in jail.

I don't know if anybody cares if I eat or not.

Maybe I'll just give up and go home, and maybe someday Wilson will finally give us the right to vote.

When you don't know the outcome, everything is a possibility.

Do whatever you can.

Just stop.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm Natalie Bautista, Greenway Road, and Cotton Lane.

I'm here today to speak about the ripple effects that your neutrality has had on myself and others.

Mayor.

Well, first, your letter to DHS.

As much as I want it to go forward, it is not ready.

Please revise it.

It mentions nothing about how to achieve safety for our students.

It doesn't mention the intergovernmental agreement.

There's no mention of the great concerns that was raised by three of our Arizona legislators when they found people detained in overcrowded inhumane conditions at the Mesa Gateway facility, which is run by who?

ICE and DHS.

So please go over the letter before you send it.

Okay, so that letter, your neutrality, the lack of action.

It's a moral failure, and it's a failure of governance.

It is a failure to use the authority of this council to protect all persons in our community.

Your neutrality and inaction has given hateful people the green light to harass without consequence.

Grown men feel too comfortable slowing down to shout Trump, among other things, at me from their moving vehicles.

Grown women feel so compelled to say things like God bless ice or threatening to call ice on me when I am shopping, when I'm dining, or when I'm canvassing in my community, district one.

Um an elderly woman sitting directly behind me called me an immigrant uh at a meeting with Melton.

Uh to which what she meant as an insult.

I turned around.

I defended myself, but had I actually defended myself, I would have been kicked out of your meeting.

But this is what I have to endure now.

And it's been worse over the last four months.

Under under your guise is uh fucking uh I don't even know what to call it.

I want to say a rule because it feels like a fucking author.

Yeah, anyway.

Um this ripple effect.

I'm so sorry.

I've seen and experienced more targeted harassment in person and online in these past few months than I have ever experienced in over a decade of living here.

Mayor, you have an even greater responsibility when it comes to this.

This entire community is relying relying on you, the safety coordinator for all of Dysart School District to keep our youth safe.

So please explain why you failed to protect high school student Callie Overs from online threats that she reached out to you about.

Why are grown adults still harassing high schoolers online without consequence?

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence.

But when our own local leaders choose to stay silent and neutral, I can see exactly why they feel emboldened to continue these behaviors.

We're not asking for some performative statement or gestures.

We're asking for you to govern.

Demand the three-mile buffer zone, demand the IGA, put your position on the record, condemn the inhumane and unlawful actions by ICE and DHS, and condemn this increase in targeted harassments and threats.

I shouldn't be begging for this.

It's part of your public duty.

Hate has no place in our community, but the longer that you remain neutral, the worse it's going to get.

And I'm holding all of you accountable for this.

Unless you were listening, you probably didn't hear my speech that I made when you were out of the room.

My name is Ann Bentheim.

I'm ceding my time to Cali Over.

Yes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

This message is for the mayor.

Your position as safety coordinator entails two big responsibilities that you failed.

First, managing emergency plans.

When I asked what plans the district has set in place for students and staff for when this detention center opens up, you said there are none.

There is nothing planned for students having to navigate through the chaos of a brain.

Second, conducting drills.

Every month we have a fire drill.

However, it wasn't until March 13th we had our first shelter in place drill.

April 27th, we finally had our first lockdown drill three weeks before school ends.

This happened after I emailed you on the fact we hadn't had a single lockdown drill this whole year.

What would you have done if a real situation happened earlier in the year and a freshman didn't know what to do because they had no drills to prepare them?

My freshman year, we had monthly lockdown drills, sophomore year, the year you took the position of safety coordinator.

Until this current moment, we've only had one lockdown drill per year.

On top of that, there's a chemical warehouse less than a mile of schools without mentioning it to students.

We're supposed to have chemical shelter in places.

With the one that we had, it was a lockdown shelter in place.

I'm keeping my message short today.

I'm calling on the superintendent and governing board of the district to remove you as a safety coordinator and to release a public safety plan because the students at Dysart High School don't feel secure in their learning environment simply because you won't uphold the duties you vowed to take.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

My name is Ted Murphy.

I reside roughly at uh Greenway and Reims.

I want to start, Mayor, with my three minutes just to go back a couple of weeks, and I want to thank each and everyone on you on that council, city staff, everyone that brought the wall of the heels to surprise.

Did a great job.

It meant a lot to me.

It meant a lot more to those veterans that walked out there and uh shed a tear or two.

It did a tired old man's heart good.

Along with that was uh Vet Fest.

That was also a good event, Mayor.

Now to the elephant in the room, which is this concentration camp.

It is proposed to go in our beautiful city.

Mayor, I did meet with the AG's staff.

I talked to them for about oh, probably close to an hour myself and Brianna Parkinson.

We represented no one, I repeat, no one except myself and my family who lives in surprise.

That's the only folks we were representing.

I'm here tonight to tell you, Mayor, that this letter I have a copy of not a letter I would have written, but then I'm not a city council person or mayor.

Uh you know, last meeting we had, your mayor, I saw a sign in the back of the room.

People were holding it up and said cowards.

I find that rather offensive.

I don't believe there's a person on this dais up here, it's a coward.

First of all, you can't be a coward and putting your name on the ballot.

It don't work that way, folks.

Not in this state, not any place else.

Second of all, some of those folks sitting on that dias up there are military folks.

It makes any difference what branch or when they put the uniform on.

You can't do that and be a coward.

I will disagree with you, mayor, on policy till the day I die.

But I will defend till the day I die your right to disagree.

And we will do that.

Now, this facility, mayor, I asked myself the question, and I hope each and every one of you that represent the citizens ask the same question.

What good does this facility do for the city of surprise?

What good does it do?

None.

And at some point in time, Mayor, you're going to get an invitation to visit a facility.

And they're going to put on a dog and pony show.

And you're gonna say, well, you know what?

Maybe this is not so bad.

But I would encourage you to meet with the folks that I've met with, one young man that spent 14 months in that concentration camp and look in his eyes and see the pain that will always be there.

Meet the young lady who an immigration judge told her she was free to go.

IS agents picked picked her up and took her back to the facility and kept her for weeks.

Weeks.

We want that in surprise.

I don't think so, Mayor.

Thank you for your time.

I do appreciate it.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, that was the last for the evening.

That's your 30 minutes, sir.

Are there any other topics?

No.

Okay.

I'll move on to other business and future agenda items.

Go ahead.

Uh Mayor, I'd like to get an item on the agenda for the next meeting, if I can to talk to us about how construction sales tax works, the history of how we used it, and what we're currently using it to fund.

Um discussion with possible action so we can talk about how it affects our current budget.

Second.

Okay.

Any other council members?

Future agenda items.

Move on to council reports, district one.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to provide a brief update.

Um, obviously, uh, some of you may have been aware uh there was a fire at the WM Recycling Center.

Um, our our firefighters did an incredible job.

Um, and I want to thank our mutual aid partners or automatic aid partners who also responded.

We had a lot of units there uh to make sure that the fire was isolated to that facility and extend um to any of the neighborhoods.

And so I want to thank them for their efforts.

Uh I've been trying to provide updates to my community about that, but um, the most recent one I have is currently uh WM is maintaining 24-hour on-site security, and they're continuing their recovery operations as far as cleaning up that facility.

Uh right now, all exterior debris has been fully extinguished and they're actively removing it.

They're working around the clock.

I was able to see that for myself.

Uh and the complete removal is anticipated by the end of business day tomorrow, which is May 6th.

Uh WM has also maintained continuous operation of industrial sprinkler systems to address any remaining smoldering debris.

Uh, one of the challenges with this, in addition to just the amount of uh material that was burning and could burn, uh, was the fact that it did extend into the structure and the structure's uh not stable, and so we don't want to put our men and women uh at risk going in there essentially just sifting through uh trash or recycling material um to put it out.

So right now they are uh working on uh extinguishing that smoldering debris and uh are continuing to do that, and hopefully we can get a resolution of that soon.

Uh WM is also coordinating with its insurance provider and has met with a demolition contractor.

Uh timeline has not been finalized just yet, but demolition is anticipated to begin within the next couple of weeks, and we'll continue to engage with them and make sure we can provide updates uh to those residents because I know that was a concern for them.

So just want to share that quick update, and I'll continue to update everybody as I get these.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, I just wanted to thank the police department for uh working with our neighborhood reps at the grand, uh dealing with our 17,000 residents and putting something in place to help facilitate finding people who may go missing, which occasionally happens and happened about five years ago when they found a deceased woman under a bush, and they had nothing in place to be able to get the word out quickly.

Uh the community now has uh a live grand app, and we're trying to get everybody on there so if someone something like that happens, um, we can quickly get the word out and hopefully find them before it's too late.

And I don't have any meetings coming until June, and that's all for me.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Duffy.

Nothing tonight, Mary.

Councilman Melton.

No.

Uh, just real quick, I just want to talk about uh Michael Boole's team.

We went, I was at the uh water conference last week.

It was about 4,000 people attended it.

They handed out a whole bunch of awards uh statewide to a bunch of different operators and different uh teams who were doing great work in the water industry, and Mike's team surprise just absolutely cleaned up.

I think we had eight, seven or eight winners.

There are only about 15 awards total for the entire state.

And and Mike, great job to you.

Fantastic job to your team.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

Yeah, you know, I just I wanted to really just shout out our city uh city leadership team, um, city attorney, city manager, city clerk, um, as well as our department heads and um, you know, obviously you guys have had to do your regular job in running the city, um, as well as everything else um that's happened recently.

You've had to address that on top of what you already do, and that's it's a lot of work.

So I appreciate you.

I also want to um special shout out.

Um we discussed you know an issue tonight, but um I really want to shout out our law enforcement officers, um, police officers, um, specifically our chief, um, the ones who've been here at the meetings.

Um I really just really respect what they do, um, those who put the uniform on and really keep others safe, um, as well as um our firefighters who are out fighting the fire, um, leaving Councilman Haney's district at the landfill, and then you see another one happen, you know, down in Buckeye.

Um we all appreciate air for smart as we we say that, but they really do put their lives in the line, and um they really deserve our respect.

Um I just want to thank them for that.

Um, as far as you know, District Five goes.

Um things have been things have been rolling.

We've been focused on the issues at hand, obviously, and um City Center is growing.

It's uh we're in a fun place to be, and there's I'm hoping some good stuff on the horizon.

Um we'll have to wait and see.

Um, but I appreciate um our residents for their for their feedback and all the issues, and I hope everybody has a great night.

Okay, thank you.

I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn.

It's been moved in second.

All in favor, all opposed or adjourned.

We said we'd never break the three-second rule.

We'd never make a separate dinner and never do that.

We'd never let them sleep in our room.

And never become a mini-van mom.

Hey Chris.

Um okay.

Well, I'm not at my desk right now.

As parents, we say never a lot, but never happens.

So when you say you'd never leave your child in a hot car, no, it can happen.

Before you leave the car, always stop.

Look, lock.

For any athlete, you have to have passion for the game to find success.

And here at Surprise Stadium, it's no different for the team that takes care of these fields where their passion is on full display.

Before there can be a single crack of the bat or cheer from the crowd, there's this.

And then we also have rec in Ottawa baseballs here for 10 months.

So we are real busy in the summer and the fall.

Visitors and spectators may marvel at the grass pattern and never know that as much care goes into achieving the perfect dirt.

Next time you watch the professionals take the field, just remember it's the dedication of local hardworking professionals who make that field possible.

We are a very busy place, and we have some of the hardest working employees in the city.

They are the heart and soul of our team.

Cruelty cases, investigations, and then picking up dogs and stuff, and then also deceased.

So when we see like deceased animals on the side of the road, we go and pick them up.

Rattlesnakes is another thing.

If the microchip isn't newer and it hasn't been updated and it's old information, then we just go ahead and post the dog on Facebook.

And then from there, if uh we still don't get anybody saying that's their dog, then the very next day it goes down to the Maricopa County shelter.

Beyond reuniting lost pets, the biggest issues officers face is with owners and leashes.

Either they're well past that required limit of only six feet and under, or they're not being used at all.

You cannot have your dog off leash, and that is what we run into almost every day where people think, you know, my dog is super well trained, so it can be out here, but just make sure that we always have our dog on a leash anytime we're out in public or at a park, unless it's at a dog park.

Two of the biggest tips that we got from animal control is one, make sure that your pet does have a microchip, but also make sure that information is up to date.gov slash animal control.

This is not what you'd call an ideal coworker.

He behaves poorly in others' workspaces.

So I said, of course it itches.

That's what the ointment's for.

Ignores boundaries.

Microwaves fish.

His poor judgment isn't limited to the office.

He brings it with him on the road.

So please stay aware in work zones.

As a parent, it's our job to keep our children safe.

Providing or allowing young people to use alcohol is violating this rule and is also against the law.

Be the positive influence.

Protect, don't provide.

Learn more at TalkNowAZ.com.

The City of Surprise is pleased to offer recycling as part of your weekly curbside pickup.

By sorting recyclable materials properly into your blue can, we can give them a second life, which means less stuff ends up in the landfill.

Here's a list of the items that can be placed unbagged inside your blue recycle can paper, broken down cardboard, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and glass bottles.

Other items like plastic bags, styrofoam, yard waste, and other household garbage are not.