He's posting.

All right, good afternoon.

I'd like to call this regular city council work session to order Tuesday, June 16th, 2016.

Madam Clerk, if you can call the rule.

Mayor Sarder.

Present.

Thanks, Mayor Greenberg.

Here.

Councilman Haney.

Here.

Councilman Duffy.

Here.

Councilman Melton.

Present.

Councilman Hastings.

Here.

Councilman Chad.

Here.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have quorum.

Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible of liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, please read item number one.

Item one presentation and discussion related to the public safety master plan.

Mayor, Council, uh, first thanks for having us here tonight, and you'll be happy to know you don't have to hear from me hardly at all tonight.

Um, you are going to hear tonight from City Gate.

Uh, they're the folks sitting behind us about a year ago.

We uh hired them to take a look into both police and fire, and to look at where we're at today and where we need to go into the future.

I think tonight you'll see two presentations.

The first one will be fire, and then the second one will roll right into the to the police presentation, then we'll take questions at the end.

One thing I'd like to point out tonight, though, you are you are going to see a lot of things that are gonna cost a lot of money.

And what we would like to do is talk maybe about that in the fall at a budget retreat with you guys tonight.

We really just want you to take a take in the content that these guys are gonna share with us tonight.

And so if you have no questions for me, I'm gonna turn it over to Mr.

Stu Gary here to kick off the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

It's a triple pleasure to be before you.

Uh, I did the first master plan for surprise fire in 2007.

This is my third update to plan fire and EMS here.

I want to really convey the thought that this is not a needs assessment, tune up, nothing's wrong.

I've watched this city and fire medical evolve for a long time.

You have two high capacity, high-quality, squared away departments.

This is a master plan about how they can evolve as your city continues to evolve over time.

So that's the context to take this.

Is it a needs improvement?

Gotta fix it tomorrow.

How do we evolve and maintain customer service quality as we go ahead?

So the groundwork of both master plans is population and growth projections.

We worked very hard with city staff.

The numbers on the screen can seem large, but over the next five years, you currently have applicants or entitled projects that if the national local economy supported those applicants moving forward, you could conceivably add within the city limits in five years, 35,000 new residents, and within the two special planning areas outside the city, you could grow to 42,000 in your planning footprint.

Now, what are the odds of that occurring?

We don't know.

But we have prepared a master plan that says if that's the pace, here's what the departments will need.

If the pace is half as fast, you're gonna move more slowly.

None of us think the pace will be faster.

But I want and and your community development can in another session tell you these are not speculative growth numbers.

These are projects before you or entitlements.

You have some stale entitlements that date to the Great Recession that have never come forward.

Those are not in these numbers.

This is not Pollyanna.

This is what your staff thinks are the best, most credible numbers as of six months ago, and where we think the development will actually fall in the dirt in a very precise manner.

And that picture on the left is your current population density, not growth spots.

The picture on the right is where all of those dwelling units could eventually be built, and they basically fall, no surprise to the council, no pun intended, in three macro areas.

South Southern Core City, out to the west, and up north.

That growth could happen in three directions at once, which would be more of a challenge, frankly, to staff to service populations over a distance than in one area.

But you can't control where the applicants ultimately year by year pull permits.

So the fire medical master plan evaluates those impacts of continued growth.

We recommend service levels, and we remind all our clients in both themes at the beginning.

Fire and police services, fire especially in the United States is a local control issue.

There are no national or state standards telling you how many people over how many minutes to deliver what level of customer service.

You have the level of public safety you can afford to the customer service levels that your council sets forth.

There are in the master plan 59 key findings, which sounds overwhelming, 35 actionable recommendations, but you have two very comprehensive, intricate performing agencies.

Two core questions to the council going forward will be what outcomes do we want?

Keep the fire to the room of origin, the building of origin, the block of origin, what should our officer customer service response times be for differing types of emergencies?

What should the depth of on duty staffing be for simultaneous emergencies?

Fire medical is a strong department that is currently at its limits.

It's being strained, as are both departments.

The master plan recommends near-term improvements, some of which are already underway.

We'll talk about that at the end.

Increased headquarters staffing, second ladder truck is purchased up front and is on order, and peak hour ambulance surge capacity during daylight hours.

The plan is growth driven.

I've mentioned the 35,000 new residents, but a way to picture that is if it all happened hypothetically, that's a city within a city.

It's going to trickle in over time.

But quantitatively, cumulatively, it's a city within a city.

So fire medical over 10 years could easily need 74 additional full-time personnel, three additional fire stations, and the public safety center.

We'll talk about all that briefly.

Headquarters staffing, three of those are needed as soon as possible in the next fiscal cycle.

The northern ladder truck we've mentioned is on order and will be staffed when station 310 opens.

The chief can address that later if there's a question.

And the peak hour ambulance is related, needed to relieve overworked core units, peak hours of the afternoon, more in the central city.

If you think about that population density map for both departments, where your population density is the highest, that's the highest locations for calls for service.

And as you get sparser populations, calls for service are less frequent.

Facilities are needed to address the growth that drives at least three more fire stations within six years, if if you maintain that pace.

The public safety center is needed to be front loaded as soon as possible.

That's a capital investment.

You'll be working on funding how to over the next few years.

Three fire stations are needed within six years.

The department must increase its facilities for people training and operating practices, growth strains, training, hiring, quality control oversight.

All of that growth cannot happen with the existing headquarters team, admin team in either agency.

If you're going to add demonstrably new levels of service, training, quality oversight has to follow in kind.

All of that facilities, hiring, IT, fleet, logistics impacts, overall city staff, given the growth of possible of the city and these two master plans plus parks and rec to follow us tonight.

We strongly encourage your city executive to consider a growth citywide growth officer.

An orchestra with that many moving parts needs a conductor and a master plan of the master plan.

Somebody has to say if fire's gonna hire this many three years from now, can HR human resources accommodate it?

Will the vehicles be there?

Will the physical building be there?

And that can't come at the expense of other departments who kind of go up or down in the annual budget cycle.

You're gonna grow the entire city enterprise together in an organized way.

Today, 77% of the public street miles are reached within a first due fire truck.

If if, and I know it's not the choice of this council, you said no more fire stations, that 77% coverage number would fall.

Simple math.

I add more road miles, I add more people at risk, my coverage is going to decay.

I've mentioned the single ladder truck.

You currently have too few stations across a thousand mile road network.

And the concentration of spacing of stations is inadequate today.

It's only 22% of the road miles, because for a serious building fire, I need multiple units to come together quickly.

And the stations are just too far apart today to do that, other than in the old urban core.

So strengthen deployment and coverage, site the second ladder truck.

We recommend spacing stations at five minute travel.

You've got a hundred page plus master plan.

We talk about that in depth.

Adopt an eight-minute multi-unit travel time goal.

So don't let those stations continue to be so scattered apart, you can't collect them together effectively.

We talked about adding peak hour ambulance coverage as you grow.

And I want to slow down now, number five, tier first due time to density.

We said in the beginning of the report and in the slide deck, should you have equitable customer service to similar risk neighborhoods.

And as you grow, the neighborhoods won't be similar for a while.

So we're recommending in the police medical plan tiered response times.

So when you become urban population density, you hit your current 630 minute travel goal.

But you're gonna have a suburban layer that will be less dense.

The tax base has to grow, the need has to grow, they get 730 travel time.

A developing edge area might get eight minute travel time in a rural area.

If someone goes with a subdivision map way, way outside the station system, but are otherwise entitled to do so.

But it's only 500 people.

They can't expect urban six and a half minute travel time until there's enough collective need to site and staff the next fire station.

So in an administration, we've offered three priorities in the master plan.

Uh priority one is to meet regulatory requirements, primarily an EMS billing, uh healthcare protection act management, safety program management.

As a reminder, the medical component of this agency is equivalent to any hospital.

It is mobile health care.

And you must meet all the federal state healthcare standards for training, quality oversight, drug control.

It is health care on wheels.

And there's no exemption from those requirements just because you're a fire department.

Priority two are nine to ten more additional FTEs on critical failure points.

You have radio, breathing equipment, protective clothing, uh, training instructor support that keep the machine running backstage, metaphorically.

You're very thin in those areas.

As you add staff, if any one of them were to have a sustained illness, long-term injury, you have what we call a critical point failure.

You really need to understand what it's the technical backstage staff to keep the front-end customer service safe and moving.

And then the third capacity is in the in a in an outer years, more fire inspectors, some more radio and admin support, and some dedicated departmental human resources staff.

Breaking those into four themes for ease of retention, EMS quality compliance, I've mentioned that, reducing single points failure.

We talked about that.

We didn't talk yet about training capacity and resilience.

You're in a shared regional training center today.

Depending on the pace you need to add new employees year over year.

If the public safety center can become to fruition and you build your own training facilities, you would reduce shared reliance on the Glendale facility, and you would start to do it your own more cost effectively, both for on-duty police and fire members as well as your new hires.

And then member wellness and human resources support are mentioned in the master plan.

Phasing the stations to keep growth, the those first stations in order are most likely 310, which is funded in design, you have the land.

The followed up by uh 11 and a 12 within six years, alternating both sides of highway 60.

And I'll show you a map in a second.

Until you get the at or under overgrade crossings, you have a road network barrier that's gonna follow the growth where the stations go, either side of the 60.

Station 312 would be sited to where most of the growth is occurring by that year when you get out that far.

So if you look at it on the map, mile and a half radius circle, uh, the reddish pink lines are where coverage exists today.

You don't see a lot of that color in the north and west city.

Well, the roads aren't designed yet.

So some of those entitlements haven't actually laid down a road network.

So a mile and a half circle is an insurance services industry approximation of coverage.

And there you see in upwards of 10 years, you could easily add uh up to uh eight stations, four on either side of the 60, just depending on the pace of growth.

But again, early neighborhoods emerge really far from a fire station, are not going to have urban downtown customer service response times.

It's just not practical for any community, not just yours.

The public safety center capital needs are important for police fire recruitment training, a new upgraded, expanded 9 11 dispatch center, logistics, warehouse facilities for both fleet maintenance and training spaces, both indoors and outdoors for not only ongoing continuing education, but your recruit training.

It's a large campus, you won't build it all in one year.

Fire station 310 is the first anchor tenant as things start to happen out there.

So your near-term next steps tonight is just to review, have a brief moment to ask a few questions.

This is not a cemented action plan.

This is a master plan taking best practices and our combined knowledge from a lot of other clients and years of doing this.

You're going to have discussions with staff, eventually end up in a budget meeting in the fall, and the staff is going to have to build a multi-year implementation plan with attached funding strategies to accomplish keeping services commensurate with growth.

And at that point, you can adopt a master plan reflective of both agencies and the city's ability to pull the triggers in time.

Chief.

All right.

Good evening.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council.

We have anticipated the growth, and we've been actively trying to work within our budgets.

So since 2022, we have hired 50 people.

We've hired 20 people in 2026 already.

We've used strategic overhiring, anticipating the people were going to be leaving.

So we have nine overhires.

So we we've really been doing everything that's within our power to try to prepare for this, but it's we're not able to obviously meet the demand.

It's just an insatiable demand.

So this coming fiscal year F-Y27, we did have two civilian positions that were approved.

That falls in line on page 12 with the packet that you guys received.

Uh it's actually in the subtotal priority number one.

So it is a radio technician and a PPE cleaning technician.

And the double-edged benefit of this is that what would happen is that once we hire the civilians, those two sworn folks that we have in a forward position that are doing those imperative jobs, they'll be able to come back to the field.

So the other thing that we've been doing is we've been actively training paramedics as much as possible.

We're training over 21 of them this year.

So we are absolutely trying to uh manage the fire department within you know our current budgets.

And I'll give it back to Stu.

And now the police department.

Thank you for your attention.

One second, sir.

Councilman Duffy has a question or call.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chief, the um 74 full-time personnel.

Are you was that the math on that?

Was it like factoring in possible retirement numbers?

Or was that just based on population?

Are you factoring like how many retire every year?

And then, yeah, Councilman Duffy, the 74 that you're seeing in the presentation, those are new FTEs to the organization.

Those are not including retiree.

So it could be more.

It likely will be more if to Stu's point if growth keeps up where we're at right now, and if everything stays on track and the projections they laid out do come to fruition, then it would likely be more than that.

Um but those 74 to keep to prepare us for the future.

Okay, that's what I wanted to know.

Thank you.

And then I know we have more questions, but we're gonna get through the PD presentation, then you guys can have at us.

All right.

Thank you.

Good evening.

It's uh it's an honor to be addressing you this evening.

My name is Tom Woodward.

I was the manager of the police side of this project.

Uh presenting with me today will also be Jack Surrear, and he is the law enforcement principal with Citigate, and he was an integral part of the team that performed our assessment on the on the PD.

Uh, to begin with, I'd like to let you know that we were quite impressed with the leadership at the PD.

Uh, we found them to be very dedicated, um, very energetic, and I would particularly like to recognize Mike Robbins.

Mike Robbins was the primary point of contact.

He was always very responsive, very thorough.

And the point of contact that we have in any project like this is really, really critical to bringing it to a successful conclusion.

So I'd like to recognize Mike.

With that, purpose and policy framework.

So the master plan has recommendations for current uh staffing increases and other things.

And that's to bring the PD up to the level that we see is required to meet its current burden.

And then it also has additional recommendations based upon the projected growth.

That is the 35,000 additional residents over the course of the five-year period.

There are no state, federal guidelines that tell you what you must do.

So it is largely a decision about the level of service that you want to provide to the public.

There are, however, organizations like IACP, ICMA, and others that provide valuable guidance for this type of work.

And our recommendations are all consistent with those entities.

Of those, a lot of them can be accomplished with current resources.

Some will require a one-time expense.

And then the new positions, of course, are an ongoing expense.

What we saw is a strong department, but it's very strained.

While there have been a lot of uh increases to try and keep pace with growth, it simply hasn't kept up.

So we are recommending 22 additional positions in the first year, and that is to bring that the agency up to the level to meet its current demand.

It's also important to point out that as the PD grows, you're gonna have some critical needs for recruiting, training, things of that nature.

So that the agency needs those resources in place to be able to meet that burden of growing the agency.

Recruiting in particular is extremely difficult in this environment.

That's going to be really critical to the success of this plan.

The uh recommendations over the course of the five-year period are phased.

They are driven by growth.

Again, that's the 35,000 new residents.

Um ultimately we are recommending over the course of that five-year period in a phased approach, 115 FTEs.

Uh precinct 200 is already being built.

Um, that meets a very critical need.

Um we do anticipate that you're going to need some additional stations down the road, but that is currently being done.

And also um the department needs to scale up its policies and its its approach to that of a a metro level PD.

That's where you're headed.

So again, to meet current needs, we're recommending 22 additional positions.

That is in addition to the 17 sworn positions that you have already approved and funded.

Uh so we are not recommending any additional officers for patrol in the first year.

Um we feel as though that 17 is a uh a good start towards bringing patrol up to its needed level.

Um we recognize we're we're rec we're recommending 22 positions as it is.

Um span of control is a critical issue.

And we did find that we had some concerns about that in the department, particularly in patrol.

Once you get above an eight to one ratio of officers to supervisors, it's difficult to properly supervise your officers in the field.

Um that is particularly a critical issue for the PD, where you're gonna be bringing a lot of new officers on board.

New officers require closer supervision, and also they require mentoring to come up to speed.

So uh span of control is one of the things that we looked at.

That is a critical need to be the need that needs to be addressed.

Again, growth drives the continued staffing increases, the population increase we've already talked about, the additional positions.

Of those additional positions, 53 of them over the course of the five-year period are for patrol.

That's where you're really, really critical need is in the department.

Also, agency support must expand.

It's not possible to bring patrol up to up to staff by stripping away positions from the other areas of the department.

Criminal investigations needs additional personnel.

Tactical support needs additions to traffic.

Traffic will actually be in good in pretty good shape once you fill all the existing vacancies for the already approved positions.

We are, however, recommending a police aid for each of those two squads.

There's a lot of efficiencies that come from that, and it's less expensive than additional officers.

We do anticipate another squad in that five-year period.

And the neighborhood response team.

Many of the things that we we are recommending in our study have already been accomplished by the uh by the leadership at the PD.

That's one of them.

They actually are calling it a tactical response team, but it's the same thing.

And the concept is you're not big enough for a full-time SWAT unit just yet.

And so that will modify it and it will become further support for patrol.

So in the over the next five to 10 years, the department's going to need to increase people, facilities, operating practices.

That growth, I talked about the additional recruiting, human resources, other demands that are placed upon the department.

So growth strains human resources, recruiting, training, equipping, quality oversight, logistics, and fleet at a minimum.

You need somebody to effectively oversee the growth and efficiently execute the plan.

And as you reach the end of that five years and continue to grow, the PD will grow into the need for that that second chief, even without the growth.

Patrol, as I said, is especially stretched.

ICMA recommends that an agency allocate 60% of its sworn to patrol.

Currently, the PD is at 38%.

And as I said, you cannot meet that need by stripping other areas of the department.

So that's the most critical need.

Patrol is functioning below the needed strength.

Again, the 60% standard.

You've already approved 17 additional positions.

That's a very good start to begin to shore up patrol.

Um and 43 additional officers over the course of the five years.

School resource officers are very valuable, but they should not be applied towards that 60%.

They simply are not available to function in that capacity.

And the interim six squad model that is currently in patrol was necessitated trying to meet the growth demands, but that has pushed the span of control beyond that eight to one that we talked about.

And again, geography matters.

Stu talked about how the city is kind of split in half diagonally by US 60.

And that is very problematic when it comes to response times and being able to shift manpower for a major incident.

So we anticipate that in addition to uh station 200, you will be needing two more additional stations in time.

The first of them, we anticipate in beat 42 in front of you.

You can see an arrow that's pointing towards beat 42.

The second one would be for beat 32, and that's up at the at the top in the northern part of the city.

And the city is is needs a multi-precinct model as it grows, uh, particularly being split down the center by uh US 60.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jack Surrey.

And just real quickly, uh the things that uh both Tom and Stu have talked about when it comes to leveraging the public safety center.

We've kind of put it back up on the screen here.

We think there's a lot of efficiencies that can also happen uh with this in the future, given to the travel time and other things that are involved with um some of the uh uh decentralized training that currently goes on with and with a climb in personnel, both sworn and non-sworn, uh, this would be a great time saver for uh current staff and future staff's time when it comes to training, which we find in the mod in modern times is a significant amount of time that uh our personnel um are engaged in.

Um you can see here that our recommendations include uh a five-year phasing of the personnel that we've recommended.

Uh, that includes also in that right-hand side, you'll see also uh things like police age, dispatchers, and crime analysts are included.

We're very sensitive to the fact that uh uh just throwing sworn staff, which are very expensive uh to service servicing a community um is not always the best solution.

And also uh we want to look for the most cost-effective solutions as well.

And that's why we've included a lot of those in our report.

Uh looking at uh at the uh some of the things that Tom has already talked about with the office of the chief.

I'm not I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time here, but there is some additional staffing uh needs within administration finance and training training, uh is going to be incredibly important as you continue to bring on new personnel, both sworn and non-sworn.

So we were recommending some staffing there, and also uh some benchmarks for um basically looking at the the amount of training hours as those increase, uh, giving you some benchmarks and guidelines as to when you should add additional staff to the training function.

Um additionally, um looking in the agency support division, uh, there is going to be uh a need to really focus, as I said, a little bit uh certainly on training, but also hiring and recruitment.

Uh you're in a competitive environment here uh and uh with other other agencies, um, people are kind of shopping around to see where they want to work.

And uh you've got some phenomenal people that are engaged in both the training unit and the hiring and recruitment team.

Uh and we were making recommendations to help bolster that because I think you've really kind of got lightning in a bottle in some ways that I was I was very pleased to see when I was uh here on site um this last year.

Uh going through uh criminal investigations, a lot of your senior staff now come out of criminal investigations, and you've got really a fantastic group there.

Uh there are some needs for some additional staff uh to meet the uh the current needs of the department.

But additionally, we've also put placed into the report uh an equation to show benchmarks as you can continue to look back at um how uh the the workflow is going through investigations uh to determine whether or not additional investigators should be needed in the future.

Um going on to the tactical support division.

Uh we've as Tom talked a little bit about uh traffic uh uh and as well as canine.

Canine right now is understaffed, really for the the Metro department you're becoming, having that 24 hour coverage is gonna be important uh for service to the public in the future.

Um and also uh we're seeing across the industry with all of our clients that real-time information center, which is currently present, and there's uh plans to go ahead and potentially bring that together as a fire medical police team and also to integrate uh uh drones as first responders to be able to go out and look at a and survey a scene prior to the um uh the the uh response of of police officers uh to a critical incident.

Uh, but we find these real-time information centers are really becoming not just an amenity, but something that communities are starting to look at uh government and saying, uh, you know, do you have these and what are their what are their capacities?

Um you'll see here this is the uh the phasing that we talked about.

Again, the first year is really about focusing the staff up for uh what's currently needed, and then looking at uh building in the additional support through supervision and support staff in uh the first three years.

And then, and then we're starting to really get out to that that five-year period where future growth is really gonna drive whether or not those numbers grow with it.

Um again, you've got a lot of things uh to look at in this plan.

Uh we've enjoyed very much being a part of this whole process over the past year, both police and fire.

Um, and with that, I'll turn it over to uh Chief Beecher.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council.

I greatly appreciate this.

And uh Tom, Jack, it was uh quite the pleasure to work alongside you and Stu.

I can't thank you guys enough.

And then uh I'll I'll share Tom's sentiments about Commander Robbins.

He did a phenomenal job and really linking uh the project with the city and the police department.

So phenomenal work there.

And so what I'd like to talk about a little bit is uh the collaboration that we've had with Citigate and then kind of what led us up to this point a little bit.

And so uh it's it's what it was re uh refreshing that uh as Citigate was conducting this uh this project, this uh summary of needs, uh, they were working hand in hand with us and said, hey, we see this gap, maybe you can fill this.

And so there's a lot that we were doing uh as this was going on, and and several of those accomplishments are listed above here.

And so uh in FY27 alone, uh bringing on the nine sworn positions along with the two professional staff positions, and then the seven overhire is something the police department's never done.

And so we're reaching that moment in uh in uh the police department's career where there's quite a few officers that have the opportunity to leave.

And so getting ahead of that curve is is gonna be critical for us.

Uh and we talked about uh the the restructuring of the department a little bit, uh uh talked about True, the tactical response unit.

Another one that was talked about too is the chief of staff position.

And so uh those modifications right there.

So uh the chief of staff position, making that into a unit of itself with a street strategic engagement unit.

Not only does that have uh a lieutenant, our PIO, but are also our recruitment.

So not only is it a uh an internal dialogue that we're having with our staff, but it's that outward uh body that we're pushing on to really gain the confidence in the community there.

Uh and and most of you were probably there at the groundbreaking, but uh the the North Substation is underway, and so we're already gaining ground there.

Uh and then uh overall, though, uh the last couple of years, and several of you, the the council uh been a part of this for for several years and really die uh investing in public safety.

And so since 2022, we brought on 58 new FTE positions.

And so none of this is quite shocking.

Uh, we saw the growth with the city of surprise.

And so that's a sentiment to you and in uh the appreciation on our end to you to be able to see this and to really help us uh forward these new positions.

And Jack talked about this a little bit and and Thomas Well, but really focusing on the basics of law enforcement and what that is is patrol work.

And so uh they they threw a uh a percentage up there uh of 38% the last couple of years.

I'll tell you right now, uh, we're having shift change in the next couple of months.

This is the most officers that have been on patrol since I've been a part of the city of surprise.

And so that that number is increasing already.

And so with my leadership coming in, the team that we've had around, uh, we saw the need to really bring it home back to basics, and that's what we're focused on right now is really beefing up patrol.

And then not only uh uh just increasing numbers, but being strategic about that.

And so in the 32 beat district one, the north side is surprised.

Uh, by January, the goal is to have 12 total squads.

And so I believe it was Tom that talked about the six squads that we currently have now.

The goal is to have 12 squads by January, 12 sergeants on the road.

So we're doubling the numbers that you just heard about that were reflected in July of this last year.

Uh and then knowing the growth that's going to be happening within the city surprise, uh, there was a map that showed the beat structure that we have.

That's going to have to be redesigned.

And so we're we've been working hand in hand with City Gate to see what what does that look like for our responses?

And so we're working uh working with that.

With that being said, we'll take any questions in uh for the fire department.

Cody's gonna be working alongside me here if you have any questions for the fire team.

And so I'll let Cody introduce himself if you want here.

Thank you, Chief Peter.

I am Cody Warell.

I am now the interim assistant chief for the fire department.

So I'll be kind of filling in for Chief Sperlong who had a had a step away.

Congrats on your promotion.

Thank you.

Mayor Council, we got uh this is the QA portion of this.

We got about I think 15 minutes or so for any questions you guys have.

And uh we've got everybody in the room as you can see here, ready to dive on in and answer any questions.

So with that, we'll open it up.

Oh vice mayor.

Thanks, Mayor.

I don't know who wants to jump up and answer this one.

So the thing that I've said it a few times that we're never gonna have enough money to do all the things we want to do.

The thing that concerns me is it's like a field of dreams, the anti-field of dreams situation.

Build it and they will come.

What happens if we build a station and we don't get the recruits?

I've been searching for data on trends in recruitment.

What are you guys seeing, or where can we find the data on what is the projection on do people want to become firefighters, EMS police?

I'll jump in on on the recruitment component from the police side of things.

And so I don't have any hard data for you, but what I do have is is real life.

I mean, the just things that we're seeing for the police department alone.

And so uh there was a point up there about recruitment from the police department side.

We do a number of different things, and Jack kind of touched on this with uh, you know, managing a bottle of lightning in a bottle kind of thing where we have uh uh Briesa and and Ryan who've been dealing with uh implementing new processes and and different things to get people involved.

And so the speed program that we have where uh potential recruits can come in, work out with us on a weekly basis.

That that's shown great numbers.

And then from the interest to the badge is another one where it's a five-week series that we bring uh uh potential candidates in, they can kind of get a feel for what it means to be a police officer.

And so this last recruitment that we had, the last testing that we had, we had eight, eighty candidates show up.

Uh and I'll tell you right now, one of our uh neighboring agencies, uh, much bigger than us had 20 that showed up.

And so it's that that investment in the community, investment in those that are interested.

And so we don't just see them as a face, we see them as hey, this could be somebody that can join our family that we can bring them in.

And so we're we're looking forward to that.

And uh, and we've done some phenomenal things from the the PD side of things.

And so as long as we're willing to invest, I think they'll come.

And I'll I'll go ahead and add into for the for the fire department, we're in a much similar situation.

So we've created several programs in the past a little over a year.

Uh one of those which is on deck is what we call it.

It's it's a similar one where anybody from the community can come out, check out what it's like to be a firefighter.

There's no strings attached, there's no expectation of um you're trying to, but it's trying to just see and engage with the community, see who might be interested in a career in the fire department.

Then the next step to that is we actually have a cadet program.

The cadet program is somebody who's then identified that they do want to become a firefighter.

So then within that, they come to training sessions weekly and have monthly and help out and volunteer with uh with the agency, then also go out to stations and do ride-alongs, really immerse themselves in that program so that they can understand what it's like.

And then within that, we help them prep for upcoming interviews and the the physical requirements that are tested within that.

And as a testament to that program, um, the last recruit class we had, over half of them actually came from the cadets.

And then the other piece of that, uh as Chief Beecher is saying, is whenever we do the recruitments, you know, all agencies all talk to each other.

We had roughly 500 uh applicants for our process that we're actually going through right now.

We're getting ready to do first round interviews for that coming up shortly.

And when we talk to the other agencies, our numbers are usually one to 200, um, better from what some of the agencies around us are actually seeing.

So the recruitment is is working, it's engaging with the community, looking for other avenues that we can engage other areas, such as uh like we've going more to the military, trying to target some of the people coming out of there.

We're now in the school's teaching, you know, EMT program over at Valley Vista.

So there's a lot more community engagement, so that it's helping us make sure that our recruitment is where it needs to be.

Mayor, if I could jump in here real quick, I don't want to cut this short, but we do have parks in rec that need to get up here and also present to you guys.

Would it be possible if we could collect further questions and then come back to you guys so that we can get Holly's group up here?

I don't want to rush through one to get to the other one to rush to that one too.

So if we have to move parks back to the right and council has more questions, we'll do that today.

So council, it's up to you if you have more questions.

I'd love to hear those and and work out what's going on with the public safety.

Not to discredit parks, but I want to make sure that each department gets the focus that it deserves.

Understood.

Councilwoman Milton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I know I don't know who's gonna best answer this.

Maybe Chief Beecher.

Uh I understand CID or challenge is a challenge, just keep a staff.

I know we're we're we're trying to staff that right.

What is uh is there a particular what's in CID's case load right now?

What's is there a particular classification of crimes are seeing maybe increasing or just a function of population growth?

Where is CID having the most challenges at?

Uh so case management is always uh you know on the the top of your mind when it comes to the investigation side of things.

And so um there is an opportunity, I think, with with the growth that we're having and with the, you know, if we're able to adopt um some of the findings that the City Gate has come along with and and really bring on some more staff.

That's kind of where you can kind of bring on that more proactive nature that that Tom and Jack were were talking about.

And so something you know that I like to see in the future is is the family violence component of it.

And so I think that there's some the ground that we can gain there.

Um but yeah, there's uh obviously the case management is always the the top of your mind when it comes to the investigation side of the house and as more population or as the population grows, obviously those numbers are gonna tick up, and so we have to keep pace with that.

Thanks, Chief.

Go ahead, council.

I'll make it quick because definitely when I get to parks.

I know they're they're out here as well.

Um, I think I think that really the thing that we're seeing here, and the motto of this is uh surprise is growing up.

Um we're not a small town anymore.

Um we're almost, if not already there, depending on how you calculate the last census, but we could be upwards of close to 200,000 people now.

And in some cities, right, if you take like a landlocked city, like I don't know if Tempe is necessarily landlocked, but it's mostly developed.

And you maybe you have two officers retire, you hire two officers, you know, you're maintaining kind of like, right?

So we're growing at such a rapid pace that if we don't grow our public safety, our police and fire departments on that same trajectory, even if like we grow it just a tad less, we're falling behind.

And I think one thing I've learned is you hire the 17 officers, you know, but then how many are I mean, one, like promotions happen, too, but like how many are retiring?

You know, how many are, you know, do people transfer to other departments, people move around.

Um as chief, this is a tough thing probably for you to sit through.

I mean, you have only been our chief for like for less for less than a year.

And this is kind of the um, you know, you're we were working pretty hard on this, and I I appreciate it.

Um, the one thing that stood out to me was um, and I'll just leave it at this was the patrol percentages.

Um recommending 60% of the department being patrol and 34% current.

Um so I appreciate your continued work on that.

Obviously, we need to support you from our positions as well.

Um you do have our support, and I'm glad that we've gone through this process um so that we know what we're looking at.

And sometimes it's better to hear it from a third party, not from you from council from the city manager to have someone come in and present that.

So, you know, we've we've got some work to do, and we'll support you.

So thank you.

Go ahead, Councilman Haney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I just had a question.

Maybe this might be for you, ask me.

So obviously, now here's here's the playbook.

Um, and then now there's gonna be further discussions on how we're going to go about and try to implement some of these recommendations.

Is that correct?

Yeah, Mayor Castle Haney, that's right.

Uh, I think what we're gonna try to do is talk about the tough part, which is how we fund some of these things moving forward this fall in the budget retreat.

Okay.

All right, I'll probably save a lot of my questions in for that.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

I just want to thank the city gate folks, Tom's too, Jack.

Uh, appreciate your work on it.

Uh, like the councilman said to have a uh outside uh group come in and kind of give us a good solid look and honest look.

It's important.

And um, yeah, there was uh there's a lot to do.

But I think I know that the the council that we have is up to the task, and all the leadership at the city levels up to the task and the leadership, but our uh police and fire departments are certainly up for the task.

So I'm looking forward to digging more into it, appreciate the uh the effort in it.

And I think we're ready to hear item number two, Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Item two presentation and discussion related to the parks and recreation master plan.

Yeah.

Well, hello, mayor and council.

I'll try to go through this in a quick 15 minutes.

I'm missing the it's a hard stop, right?

At 5:30.

So, Mayor and Council, we have a little bit of time.

So if if you would like, we could probably go a little bit late.

Uh, we'll have time between 5:30 and the six o'clock meeting.

So, but at 5:30, we'll have to take a pause and make sure there's anyone in the audience that showed up for the public meeting.

Let them know that we'll have a slight delay.

540, 545 would probably be the latest we'd want to push it, but we can push a little bit.

Is that okay?

I just want to make sure that every that you get your time as well.

Cause parks is you know part of the community.

So we love it.

We can't go after place and fire.

There's no money left.

So that's scary.

Um, anyways, I have less badges and people with guns behind me, but I do have our amazing consultant in Shannon.

So basically the same.

Um, so we're here to present the parks and rec master plan.

We are working with our consultants, dig studios.

Um we've worked with them before.

They've worked on our general plan.

They did our last parks master plan in 2015.

Um, why do we do park master plans really to just to figure out our growth, where we're growing, to have a plan in place, um targets, goals, all of those things.

Who we involve is everyone.

So our stakeholder engagement, we include the community.

We have lots of community outreach, our board, um, you guys as council staff.

We have lots of meetings.

I'll tell you all about those.

We're gonna talk briefly about where we are today, and then we're gonna kick it over to Jay and see all of the research and data he brought together to show us where we're going and where we need to be.

Anything?

All right.

So public outreach and community priorities.

We did a lot of work on reaching out to um we had we had them come to our darker link surprise party.

They had a booth out there.

Um, they had a lot of great feedback, um, had a lot of conversations about transportation.

So Jay learned a lot about that too.

Um, we had three different community meetings where we attended council meeting.

I once again went after public safety at Mr.

Haney's meeting.

Um, so that was fun.

We had um groups at the fields at countryside.

We went out and tried to engage as much as we could.

So what we heard from the public is they really liked picnic areas, playgrounds, expanding amenities.

There was a strong sense of pickleball.

Pickleball was very active and engaging and taking part in the survey.

They need safe bikes, pass walkways, a lot of interest in indoor recreation.

So we have a lot of outdoor recreation, but because it's so hot, we found from all ages that they would really like indoor places to go in the summer to work out or walking paths.

Shade seeding, trees are important, and of course, safety.

So when we're looking at benchmarking, there's a lot of different standards that we look at.

And we're doing that just to ensure it's apples to apples, but it's not going to be.

So let me explain real quick.

So we look at the National Parks and Recreation Association, which is the only national board that we have to look at, but we're looking at that nationwide.

And as you can imagine, parks and climates and demographics vary from region to region.

So surprise Arizona isn't the same as New York City, that is not the same as Wyoming, that's not the same as Hawaii or Iowa.

So we bring that up because we want to show you guys that we do have a national standard, but it is hard to compare us to everybody else.

So then we compare ourselves to our regional peer city.

So we have taken a longer look out.

We looked at all of the cities in Maricopa County for our draft.

So we'll show you that.

Thank you to our council members for their feedback on that.

And it shows us where we stand to next to our demographics of our current climate culture, all the people in Maricopa County.

And then we also look at our current level of service.

So just because surprise is new and young and growing, and this is our growth, we can tell you what the national average should be, or we can tell you what it looks like to keep up with growth.

So parks are scalable, they are a quality of life.

Um they are, I would say that they're in need, but I would say most of you would probably say they are a want.

Um, but open space and quality of life is incredibly important.

We also look at our current facilities and amenities.

So what we have, and then our programming and wait lists.

So a perfect example of that is OASIS Swim Center.

When we had the aquatic center in Hollyhawk, we were maxed out at capacity.

We had a wait list of over 3,000 people that we couldn't get in.

Once we open that pool, that wait list had gone.

So when we look at our current programming, we don't always compare ourselves to other cities.

What we do really well is youth sports.

Um, so that's one what we would look at with fields.

We have over 15,000 kids that run through our programs, and that's not including the club sports entities and then anybody else we have in.

So that's something that we would factor into.

Um then how many acres we have.

So we're taking our 2045, we're using the 2026 mag population numbers to come up with this and then figuring out what we need.

So where we're at today is we have five pocket parks.

So those are less than five acres.

We have four neighborhood parks, which are five to twenty five acres, and then we have four community parks, which is 25 to 100 acres.

Um, what we don't have is a regional park.

And when you when you look at the data, we'll kind of explain that's probably our biggest need, not to spoiler alert, but I'm trying to go fast.

Um, community park functions as a regional park.

But as you can see with all of our events, we don't have the space and especially the parking for the city as it grows.

So eventually what we're using as a community park, we're gonna grow out of that.

Um just wanted food for thought that we don't have that scale.

And we also have four specialty parks, Fields at Countryside, Dreamcatcher Park, Mark Coronado, and then youth baseball.

Those are asterisks because those are under sports entertainment and cultures department to manage and maintain.

Um, but we included this in because they in our part of our inventory.

So our current amenities, this is I'm not gonna go through all of this, but you can see some of the areas we're we're great at.

Um, some of them we definitely have some deficiencies.

I would say if you look at soccer and multi-purpose fields, um, that's where we're deficient.

I would say that um playgrounds is another one where you can see that depending on which which metric we're going at, we're behind.

What we have done wonderfully though, is open space.

So um, thanks to council and last year, we did get 3,500 acres of open space when we had essentially zero.

We did have Lizard Run and the Asante Mile before, which I think collectively is 1.7 miles.

And now we have 3,500 acres.

So we have made leaps and bounds.

We've gotten um the fields of countryside, Oasis community or the Oasis.

Um we've done some really good renovations.

So we've definitely checked off a lot of the boxes on the 2015 master plan.

So gonna take it over to what's in the parks and rec master plan now as we move forward with growth.

And then I don't okay.

I'll go fast.

All right.

So excuse me.

Go ahead and go to the next, I guess.

All right.

So we start with basically our base level.

Right now, we need to add about 567 uh acres of developed park.

Even though we have open space, what we're looking at as develop, meaning that you can program it, you can walk through it, everything else, but it's not natural.

Uh, this is all based on our now our pure cities that are basically about 3.2 acre per thousand, where we're at 1.4 acres per thousand.

So that's a big gap.

So that's one of the things we have to really start working on.

This is somewhat a little bit more of a complicated chart, uh, but it actually compares our current app basically inventory.

Then it has our surprise target based on the NRPA, which is the um is sort of the orange color, and then the target based on our regional averages, which is in the purple.

You can see we're good in some areas, but we're really big deficits.

For example, playgrounds, which we mentioned before, but we also from baseball fields and soccer.

I mean, I think um Shannon was saying we have 164 teams currently uh of soccer that are trying to play on, you know, technically 10 fields.

They can be split up in some of the other schools.

But again, that's one of the big deficits.

So, and then there's some interesting things on here.

Like if you look at tennis courts, while we're comparing our 25, we have an amazing tennis and racket facility, but we don't have any free tennis courts.

So while we have pickleball courts, they have a tennis facility, but we don't have anything that's open to the public.

So taking that into consideration, um, but really everything, and then recreation centers too.

Recreation centers, we have community centers, and I do have that on a couple slides.

Um, but they don't function as true by definition.

Um, rec centers.

So rec center, think of indoor walking tracks, fitness facility, multiple rooms, multiple courts, um Rio Vista is a good one to look at.

There's a new one in uh Queen Creek that just opened, Foothills in Glendale.

Um, Goodyear has a new one.

So those are what we're looking at where you can hold lots of different people, um, lots of different avenues, lots of different activities going on in the same time.

But we do have community centers, which we are on par with.

Also, we're looking at so regional parks, we're currently needing literally uh two regional parks.

And that again starts filling us uh a portion of the inventory you don't have.

And those are typically 100 acres and sometimes 200 acres.

Uh, we do have a couple locations, and I think that's where uh McMick and Dam open space actually can really help.

We have uh 3,500 acres, but even if we use three to 400 acres of that for developed park, that can meet not only for the regional parks, but also up to two community parks, leaving us to really find two more, uh, two more areas.

And again, following the previous presentation, it really was looking at growth corridors.

So being able to follow where fire and police are going uh is a really big boon.

I that's basically how uh basically the rescue uh oasis park actually came to be.

So they do marry quite well.

But also, as we mentioned before, the rec centers, this is something that have great need, and we saw that across all demographic.

Uh, and and Holly did a good job of kind of explaining what those are compared at.

And then also the last one is the large recreational kind of indoor field house.

We're seeing a trend now for indoor shaded air conditioned space.

We're also short on basketball courts, volleyball courts.

So this is can actually fit that need, and that way you can actually serve as basketball, uh, also indoor volleyball, and also indoor pickleball, uh, basically temporary courts.

We also are looking at part of that acreage we want to develop is not so much develop the pocket and neighborhoods.

That's something that the HOAs do very, very well.

Those are five acres and smaller.

What we're looking at are the community and regional scale, like I mentioned before.

The reason why we're looking at the community parks and regional is uh the city of uh surprise is really looking at programmable space.

Anytime we get below about 25 acres, it's really difficult to get programmable space plus the parking.

So that's why we're really focusing on the 25, preferably 50 acre, you know, minimum up to a couple of regional parks, which would be even up to 600 square or basically 600 acres or so.

But like I said, those are the ones you really want to concentrate on.

It helps your maintenance, it also helps your programming in the future.

So when you're looking at this map, if you look over to the right of the map, we have these dots.

It's basically like if we were gonna put a regional park, a regional park is gonna service about a 10, 10 mile radius.

So we would have them close to somewhere.

And if you can see right where that is, that is on land.

We already have control over.

Um, so that's great news.

And then our next one would be on something that we'll talk about in a little bit on how to obtain them.

And then the same with the community parks.

We would be able to figure out how we could situate those on McMick and Dam and that land that we already are stewards of and working with the county, which saves us a lot of money when it comes to land and costs.

And then also partnering with our public safety friends that just went first.

And if they're doing anything, we want to do something with them because they're they're the best.

And an example to the right is a master plan that we looked at.

It's this is right around Tribuby Wash on the back side of McMick and Dam, immediately south of the planned uh basically public safety center.

And so this is an area that could actually serve as a regional park.

Another one we actually put an example of this is on the backside of the CAP Central Arizona project in Phoenix, um, which is reach 11 sports complex.

So this is actually controlled by uh Bureau of Reclamation.

And so those are available for recreation.

We have to check and see what available land is north of there, but there is substantial land.

Those take though, about six to seven, sometimes eight years just to go through the lease process.

So it's not as quick as flood control, but again, it's land that's within your growth corridors, and probably the next thing you should probably look at in the next couple of years just to get it ready to go for in the next uh eight to nine years.

Green armature.

I know this is uh something that actually shows up in both the um the previous master plan and then also in the general plan.

And the main thing we're looking at here is this is probably one of the most important diagrams for your future growth.

What it's actually showing is there's a number of washes.

There's three major washes, the scale of Indian Minwash, if you're familiar with that one in Scottsdale.

So you have three major washes running from north to south.

Then you have two basically um uh man-made elements, which are the McMicon Dam and then Central Arizona project or CAP, those your east-west corridors.

Those become very, very uh important in the basically the framework of the building of your city.

Going to the next.

And what that leads to is you've got these major issues.

I mean, basically open space areas.

And the other thing you're really blessed with is you have a regional park already on the scale of what Scottsdale has and the city of Phoenix has.

You just had the county maintain it, which is basically the White Tank Regional Park.

Very significant park.

They're also looking at possibly a north trailhead that could be actually serve part of your community and also kind of expand their community itself.

And then the next is when we start looking at all the plans mixed together.

This is one that probably crosses virtually all your departments, and development to where you actually, when new development comes in, you want to make sure you really protect your water, basically your corridors, especially your open space corridors from your engineering standpoint, which you have an engineering uh basically drain study going on right now.

It's all about protecting those.

But at the same time, that actually provides now the corridors for all your multi-use paths.

And what's really shown on here is when to keep that connected community, both north, south, east, west, is when your new arterial system and your major minor arterial system comes in, being able to grade separate those, and we always call them not, you have to have culverts going over washes.

So just upsize them enough to get somebody through them.

And like I said, there's just that incremental things as you go through.

But this by far is one of the most important maps across virtually all of your departments.

So some of the key takeaways from this is council had asked me a question several budget retreats ago.

Do we need small parks or do we need big parks?

And I'm going to say yes, like I said last time, but uh that's not really the case.

We need specialty parks and we need regional parks.

So we're looking at the bigger one.

I think the bigger investments we can make, but I would never say no to we need fields.

Um, we need indoor gyms and space.

We rely very heavily on Dysart School District, um, which we are great partners with them, but we are at their mercy.

They are in control.

So if they have a school function, we move all of our stuff and um just to have a little bit more.

And as we continue to grow, if we have 15,000 kids in our programs now, imagine when we have 30 and we have the same amount of space.

So a regional park could get us there as well.

It's just really the timing.

So specialty parks can be great.

We're the programmable, and we've seen through our numbers that people are very active, especially in the youth community and they're getting more and more youth population are moving in and the demographic is lowering.

And so parks are becoming more important than they were before.

Um, and then another one is securing and preserving land.

So start looking at that CAP land.

It is a 10-year process.

We will probably do another master plan in 10 years.

So our hope is we would have moved the needle on that.

Um, hopefully at least have a regional park and design um and maybe have a specialty park.

We're not trying to ask for too much.

Um, but we do just to keep up with growth and try to be taking care of our residents.

Um, in addition, we want to make sure that after this, we'll take your feedback from council, and then we want to coordinate with our other plans that are going.

So ensuring that we have the same information that's in the transportation master plan and the public safety master plan and all of our numbers are tying, and that we have our information on trails and parks and the transportation master plan that talk to the general plan.

So then we can also work with development and developers can come in and say, hey, all these plans talk to each other.

We just see I have badges.

They were just a little bit late.

It's exactly like having police and fire here.

Sorry.

But making sure that all the plans talk to each other and we work with the development community to get some of these pathways to get these public access to work on the parks.

No, we don't want your pocket park.

That's not gonna be ours, but we will negotiate for a 25 acres of land to build a community park.

So I think that's where making sure all these plans work together so that we have a stronger development for people who are developers.

So we can go in and point to this that all talk to each other.

Um and then we of course have to work with our capital improvement plan and our budget to make sure that we're not putting out information that's completely unobtainable.

And I don't want to put out a scary number.

So I'm not gonna give you any numbers.

How's that?

Um because parks are scalable.

We can start with really big grand ideas and we can shrink them down.

We want to make sure they have lights.

We've learned that that's very important.

Um parking, so that what we do build, we finish.

So with that, I would happily to entertain any questions.

All right.

Thank you.

Councilman Hastings.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Holly, awesome.

I I really appreciate all your work with the parks department over the years.

It's it's been a few years now, and you've you've, I mean, you're away for a few years, you came back, and um I'm a little disappointed.

I there was a you had a very tan colleague next to you.

Um, I think he's back now in uh in a white suit with some shades on.

I thought maybe he'd be helping with the presentation, but that's a he's he consults a lot, but we don't take his advice until he's 18.

That's okay.

Um, you know, I don't think you know, when I was a lifeguard, you probably would have let me in a 10 mile radius of a city council meeting.

So um that's okay.

But um, you know, do we have any insight um into you know what recreation amenities residents are looking for?

I can't remember if we've done, and again, surveys are tricky because you know, obviously, I hear the most in, I mean, I think a very passionate group is is people who play pickleball.

They're very active.

Um, I also hear a lot of people talk about indoor recreation centers.

I think the one thing I think of is you know, we just did a pool instead of a park because I always joke again.

This like our summer is like half the year, right?

And so obviously with parks you can program them, but it's just so dang hot outside all you know, all the time.

And again, I know like surveys kind of a slippery slope because how do you really gauge?

Obviously, like one group could really just like share it out with all their, you know what I'm saying?

It's like careful what you ask for, and it might not really reflect what surprise residents want.

But I mean, do do we have any insight of that?

Have we done surveys?

I mean, I hear a lot of people offer a lot of different ideas, and as we know, there's only so much funding to go around.

So we actually we got when we did our results on online, we got 1700 comments.

Um, there was it was skewed on pickleball um quite a bit, which we love pickleball.

We will always take any courts.

Um, but outdoor playgrounds um and facilities, indoor and outdoor.

I mean, it's it's hard because everybody wants everybody has their own different special interests.

So some people who like pickleball, they like swimming, they like I don't know, bad mitten, racket sports and ice skating ring.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is where I think the local benchmarking really helps because that way it really does level things out.

When we go to national, for example, if you look at pickleball, we have more than enough.

But if you look at the rest of the valley, we're a few short.

Same way on a lot of the ball fields.

Like I say, but that's how we use to kind of even the plane field a little bit on the different comments.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I mean, obviously, everybody's got you know a preference of their particular um preference.

But no, it's it's good to see this, and it's good to see kind of where we're at.

I mean, as far as pickleball goes, you know, I think it might be here to stay.

You know, at first, I think I I was guilty of thinking, again, but he's here, but um, that it maybe it was like a trend, it would come and go, but it does seem like it's really um picked up.

But yeah, no, absolutely.

I mean, we definitely need, I mean, we talked about safety um with public safety, which you guys got to follow.

How lucky?

Um, but also quality life is there too.

And you know, things to do in surprise isn't just places to shop at, but it's places to take your kids, take your family.

Um, part of being a family-friendly city is having those options here.

And we do see, you know, Peoria other cities um putting things in place.

Um, so I appreciate this, like kind of take at the temperature of like where we're at and um the feedback from yourself.

And again, thanks, Holly, for all the work that you've been doing in the parks um department, parks and recreation department.

Parks and recreation department.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilman.

And uh, Councilman Judd.

Oh, I was gonna say, Mayor and counsel, I know we have to get to our CFD meeting.

Uh, and not to catch you off, but this is also we talked about the public safety master plan.

This is also a topic that we were gonna bring to the budget retreat and talk about the different capital projects that we have and the operating.

So, this is another master plan we want to have a discussion about during those budget retreats to talk about the operating, the capital, the impacts funding, how do we get there?

So I think that will be a very thorough discussion as well during that time.

So just wanted to add that.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Miss Davis.

We're not gonna rush through it.

If you if we're scared, we'll talk.

Um, go ahead, councilman.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll be quick.

So uh for starters, Holly.

Thank you for the work that you do.

And I wouldn't I want to disagree with with one of your first points.

You said um parks are probably more of a want than a need.

And I think parks are definitely a need.

And the reason I think they're a need is because team sports are the first introduction that our youth get to leadership and professional skills.

And so running them through the programs that you do really do really does give them a great start off on life and interacting with each other, problem solving practicing and all those.

So this is very much quality of life and a and a need.

Um, a couple of quick questions because I promised I'd be quick.

Uh, the 547 acres that you had at the beginning there, Jay, uh, was that the total number of acres that we need, or is that the total number of more acres that we need of more acres?

And again, this developed acres.

So you do have the 3,500 acres you already have at McMacon Dam, but we do need that additional.

So over the next 20 years, we're gonna need another five to 600 acres of park space if things go the way they're going.

Correct.

Um, and then just real quick on the McMicken Dam, it's 3500 acres.

You know, and the goal with that is to mostly have that untouched open space, pristine area.

However, as you guys have noted, there are a couple of places on there that would be fantastic spots for community parks, you know, as long as we're careful and we maintain the wildlife corridors and the natural wild that goes through there so we can so we can maintain a long string of wild area, plus our big string of bike trails and all that.

But there are a couple of just fantastic places to put community parks in there.

And I really like the area uh in Councilman Haney's district, they're off of 163rd and Deer Valley.

There's just a great big chunk of land there that we could have a really nice community park on.

Um, I didn't see anything in here about the archery range.

What the archery range is.

That's a specialty park, sir.

We want nice inexpensive archery range out there.

Um, and then I I think it and this was mentioned a couple of times too.

It's important that we get after the Bureau of Reclamation property.

We need to start that process.

And I'm ready to go out, start talking to people, knocking on doors, do what I need to do to facilitate this along.

It is gonna take a lot longer.

Well, the I mean, the McMacon Dam took quite a while, and this looks like it'll take even longer.

So it's important that we get those going and make meaningful progress on it.

So if we need to hand it off, we can continue handing handing it off.

So if we can come up with if you can come up with things for me to do on that, I'm happy to take them on and go do them.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ums Osborne, I was at I did my fellowship here a couple of years ago.

Remember, I was putting all these master plans, trying to find them.

I had to dust off the parks master plan, and I looked at it, I was like, we have not done nearly any of this.

And I don't want to sit here today and have you say this is what we need to do without taking action.

What does this council need to do to move this forward?

So it doesn't become a lost plan, and we're looking at it 10 years from now, not taking any action.

Well, that's a great point.

It's I think if we talk about it during the budget retreat, it's a priority.

So I appreciate you saying that parks is a need.

I feel the same way, but I'm very loose-lipped.

Um so I appreciate that.

It's making sure that we're trying to accomplish things.

And we did accomplish a lot.

The 3,500 acres coming from zero, and I know we accomplished that in the last year.

That is a huge, huge undertaking.

So I would say that my focus would be a regional park.

Um, also again, specialty parks, depending on the timing for that.

And working and putting it in a place that's strategic, um, maybe with my friends that went before me.

And trying to make sure that we put in things that we know that the community wants because we all know that it would probably take bond funding to get something like this done.

Um so ensuring that that's a priority.

And I guess once you go out to bond, that's up to the public to see if they really want it.

But that would be my recommendation is a regional park and moving forward and then continuing with the bureau and the CAP to go after those lands.

And I feel like if you can accomplish those things, those would be the biggest wins.

I think you could cross off some of those amenities in the original park and make sure that those are incorporated into there.

Um, but I would say that that would be my biggest three things that would be my in my next 10 years, I would want to accomplish.

Looking forward to supporting you.

Thank you.

Okay.

I would add just one more.

And again, it's just uh it's more just looking at your major framework.

We always have sort of the saying the right of way is the most difficult thing.

The trail is the easy part.

If you can get your um basically secure these drainage ways, your right-of-ways, get your grade separation.

You can at least get everything set up.

Having to go back and try to retrofit those is enormous, and a lot of times it doesn't happen.

So this represents literally 45 miles of basically community pathways in the future.

And again, those can actually be taken down, even start going today.

But like I said, that's just keeping your eye up when development comes through and planning and stone is going through things.

Do you have the easements established?

Do you have the right-of-ways established?

That's one of the key things you can do, along with uh basically the you know, basically the bricks and mortar type construction.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate your time.

I'll understand a motion to adjourn.

Second.

It's been moving second.

All in favor, voice vote.

Aye.

All opposed.

We'll adjourn this meeting.

Commission meeting.

Uh Tuesday, June 6th, 2025.

Madam Kirk, please call the roll.

Chair Starter.

Present.

Vice Chair Greenberg.

Still here.

Board Member Haney.

I'm here.

Board Member Duffy.

Here.

Board Member Melton.

Present.

Board Member Hastings.

Here.

Board Member Chet.

Here.

Thank you.

We have Quorum.

Thank you.

Please read item number one.

Do I do the pledge?

I will do the pledge.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.