Prescott council faces $70M PFAS remediation mandate while senator champions $3M airport ramp and rural legislative agenda

Good afternoon. Today is October 20th and this is the city of Prescuit special study session. Please roll call. Mayor Rousing here. Mayor Prom Freeworth here. Councilwoman Frederickson here. Councilman Gambboji I am here. Councilman Garing here. And the record will reflect that Councilman Grady is excused from the meeting and Councilman Ruby is absent from the meeting.

Today we have one discussion item presentation and discussion regarding a legislative update from Arizona State Senator Mark Finchum and Alexis Suzdorf will get us started. Yep. Uh, mayor, mayor prom, council members, uh, for the record, Alexis Susorf. I'm the proud lobbyist representing you all at the Capitol. I really wanted to be here today to first apologize that I wasn't able to join my colleague Nick a couple weeks ago for um, the great legislative update he gave.

um just uh you know it was a a great session and we've got a some good years ahead and we were really excited to report out and I'm so sorry I couldn't be here but I did want to be here to um support our u fantastic senator Fincham's presentation be here to answer any questions either now or after the council meeting.

So, um, first and foremost, I did want to update on a couple of the legislative priorities that, um, this council has had, um, me and Nick working on just really briefly, um, to give a status update on, um, some of the specific bill priorities, where we're at and where we're going. Um, so, uh, first and foremost, I just wanted to ensure you're aware that we are revisiting, um, House Bill 4130, which the city pursued last year.

Um, this is the legislation that would allow the mid-year budget adress adjustment specifically for grants, promoting greater budget transparency rather than requiring the city to build an overly con uh conservative contingency budget. This flexibility particularly is helpful in situations of federal airport funding, which would come in a large lump sum.

Um, we are reconnecting with Representative Walt Blackman who sponsored this bill last session to discuss his interest in sponsoring again or identifying another legislative champion. So, just wanted to update you where we're at on that one. Um, secondly, we've made progress on the criminal liability protections for first responders and healthcare professionals. We're working with Senator Kevin Payne.

He's the chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee on that legislation that would address this issue while maintaining accountability for intentional misconduct. Um, we're also coordinating with stakeholders on other city priorities including the tax increment financing, TIFF, the license plate reader technology and construction manager at risk or Seymour Seymar authority for airport projects. Rick is here as well to help answer any questions there.

Um, and we've been working really closely with your staff to advance these initiatives. Um, we will keep the council informed on some of these specific um, bill efforts, but I'd like to um, turn it over now to introduce Senator Mark Finchum, who represents um, legislative district 1 here. Senator Finchum has supported the city through legislation addressing municipal hiring and development approvals, including Senate Bill 1085 and Senate Bill 1469 for this council.

He has also been a leading advocate for family court issues, working through legislative committees and advancing related policy initiatives in this area. I want to thank the senator for joining us today and I'm going to stick around answer any questions with you all. Thank you, Senator Finchum. Thank you, Alexis. Welcome Senator. Thank you, um, Mayor and members. Um, I'm not sure the protocol for handing things out, but I have the budget item. Do I just give this to the clerk? Okay.

So, I don't I don't want to take a lot of your time today because I know it's a beautiful day and fall day here and uh the weather will turn cold enough soon enough. So, um thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. This is I'm going to have some comments for you and then I'm actually more interested in hearing from you the priorities that you would like us to consider you want me to take back to the legislature in our next session. We have begun to open folders.

However um because of the probability of me being in leadership in the next session, my folder count will be substantially less than it has been in the past. So, but we can be virtually assured that I uh in the next session, not only will I be the chairman of the federalism committee, the federalism committee is kind of an interesting cat. Um, it is the committee that interacts with the federal partners.

So, basically what that means is I'm on a plane a lot because our federal partners aren't here. They're unfortunately in Washington DC. Now, we do have interaction.

for example, yesterday uh some interaction with the US Marshall Service uh in a good way uh a resource for child rescue and we have a number of other programs that we are um out of my office we are deeply involved with Department of Justice on everything from moneyaundering and election fraud, election campaign finance fraud all the way up to election machine fraud uh which while the media seems to ignore uh we have just mountains of evidence to show that machines should not be used in any election any time period.

Uh they are filled with parts from the Chinese Communist Party uh who loves to tamper with all kinds of things including our electrical grid and um our DoD systems. So, the other thing that I'll probably be uh assigned to, last year I was the chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, and I'm very proud to say that we did over 210 uh audits, the largest number, in fact, I don't I think that number was actually been revised up.

We did more audits than any other legislative session in Arizona's history. Over 210 auditors working for Auditor General uh Perry. uh and we were able to identify hundreds of millions of dollars that may be lost from social programs because of current executives frankly incompetence uh three years behind on this the single audit that is required by HHS.

So that is likely to be an impact that is felt at the local level when it comes to things like SNAP um access anything that is receiving HHS money is at risk and we're looking at somewhere on the order of $400 million being withheld until we get caught up on our audits. Um, so a lot of the federalism committee work is also related to title 4 of the US code which deals with family courts. Uh, and I'm glad Alexis brought that up. Typically, that's at the county level.

That's not at the state level, but it does have an impact on your constituents, and I want you to be aware of it. Um, we had 12 bills last year that were sent over to the House. Unfortunately, they died. um for various reasons um which I'll not go into, but those bills will be resurrected again this year and uh I believe that the uh the court probably has come to the realization that we're not going to give up on family court reform.

Um also we deal directly with HSI, which is the um Homeland Security Investigations. um the FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, some people would say incompetence, but I'll be kind. And of course, ICE. So, we have uh for the the local scene, we've got right now nine different water projects, new water projects. Now while Prescat and Yavapai County is not serviced by CAP, we do have reports all over the county of people's wells going dry or the well the watermark going down. Okay.

So of the nine projects, two of them are private enterprise projects. Um they're a bit of a stretch. They are going to require the passage of federal legislation that has to do with something called the National Infrastructure Bank. It is not funded by taxpayer dollars. You'll be happy to know it's actually funded by US treasuries.

Uh if you happen to notice the news as late as this morning, uh there are countries all over the world, especially in the European Union, which are doing everything they can to dump their treasuries. Well, that we're happy to accept them back at a discount. So that's one of the things is uh would be funding the infrastructure bank that gives them the horsepower to um go to private sector lending and all that. The other seven uh WIFA has a uh a briefing package that I'd be happy to send to you.

But like the budget information, it's good for about an hour. In fact, uh the budget sheet that I've just handed to you, that was updated, and I'm not kidding you, that was updated an hour ago. your document was printed 90 minutes ago. So, I'll go over the new numbers with you when we get to that part of my comments. So, um unfortunately, Arizona has slipped from number four in job creation to number 47 over the last three years. Um I don't know if you know who Mike Row is, Mr.

Dirty Jobs himself. Uh Mike is on a campaign and working with the uh with with assets within the federal government to emphasize we don't need more university graduates. I know that's an unpopular statement, but we have unsustainable debt with kids that have got unusable degrees flipping burgers at McDonald's. What we need is trades. electrician, plumbers, carpenters, heavy equipment operators.

For every five individuals who is leaving a profession in the trades, we have two coming in to replace them. That is not sustainable. And that means that the price of labor is going to skyrocket. It also means that it's a target-rich environment for kids that want to come out of school and get a six-figure job. Um, we're also working right now on um, a couple of different projects and I've got to be careful about what I say because I don't want to interfere with negotiations.

Um, one of them has to do with a new concept of farming and that would be in Yavapai County. It deals with the contained water system where human beings never touch the produce. No herbicides, no pesticides, no dirt. So, I'll let your mind kind of think about what that looks like. Also, we've got a number of organizations that would like to set up manufacturing and even one outfit that wants to set up a meat packing plant here.

Um, one of the other things that I've talked with uh the mayor up in Chino Valley, and we've unfortunately have not yet met with the folks of the Cottonwood Railroad, but I want to try to revive the spurer that used to be part of the Fred Harvey system and bring that uh as far as as far down if if it's feasible as the Prescuit Airport. Um it is a I believe that it will be a an attraction very similar to what it is uh for Williams and the Grand Canyon Railroad for the Verdie Railroad.

Um there is a a growing number of tourists that would really like to have that kind of an experience. Um so um one thing that I I think I would be remiss if I didn't tell you um because I know that I wrote you a letter about it. I am very concerned about the adoption of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion in narrowly crafted documents like general land use plans.

That is no place to have that kind of that kind of language and quite frankly, it will place future funding from the state and the federal government at risk. Um especially when those protections already exist in federal and state law. this idea of of triple redundancy, you know, what is the purpose of government? It's to protect the civil rights of the people, not to lord laws over them so that they can't live their lives unencumbered by governmental units.

So, what I'd like to do now is give you a bit of a budget snapshot, and I'm going to focus my remarks on the document that I gave you, the fiscal highlights. And if anybody that's watching this would like to have it, um, that is actually available online at the Arizona legislature Arizona legislative website, which is ag.gov. Click the JLBC um, link, and you'll be able to find this. So, if you I'd like to draw your attention to the lower right hand corner where it says year-to- date results.

Um, I was actually pretty happy about those. Um, unfortunately, they're no longer accurate. as I say uh as of about an hour ago. So, what I'd like to do is give you the more um up-to-date information. And uh it's all good. Let's put it that way. So, um through September, year-to- date revenues for fiscal year 27 current fiscal year are 5.4% over the prior year and 93 million above the enacted budget forecast.

So, we're trending positively for the year uh so far, but not in a way that will generate significant new revenues. We still have got additional costs that are not included in uh the reconciliation uh of these figures. However, the um FC FAC forecast for the remainder of the year is growth at about 4.1% which as you see um was 2.6% last month. So that's a significant increase. Um JBC is not anticipating a huge surplus. Uh only about 173 million at the end of this fiscal year.

So I think we're going to close out the year on a on a positive note. Um unfortunately uh if we look into fiscal year 28 um at the end of that fiscal year, it's going to be closer to $61 million in surplus because we have escalating costs for health insurance and such things.

This leaves literally no room for new discretionary spending uh as this ending balance does not include roughly 500 to 600 million uh for school capital, state employee health insurance and a few other recurring one-time costs. Uh the ending balance could increase if revenues continue at their current growth rate for expenditures if they if the expenditures decline uh relative to assumptions. But as always, time will tell. Um, so that really concludes.

Oh, um, one last item that I wanted to talk to you about, um, besides water is, um, we are continuing, actually two items. We're continuing to pursue, um, funding for the airport to finish that project out, as well as um, rural road repairs. Now, how does that impact you? Um the ramp on 89 would be one of those things. While it's not a repair, it's a pending project. Um if you travel to Phoenix at all, you'll notice that near the 303 there is even more construction of a Super Spaghetti Bowl.

I think at least that's what it's looking like. Um I for one, and I know that I'm joined by all of my rural colleagues, um we're just a little bit tired of the lion share of HERF money going to the great state of Maricopa. So, one of the things that we'll be taking a run at in this next um iteration of the legislature is to set aside a uh c a pot of money specifically for rural road repairs, rejuvenation and building where necessary uh mainly expansion.

So, for example, u the ramp on uh for 89 would be included in that and could quite possibly the repairs that are needed along the um extender from um Willow Lake Road down to 89 through the Dells. Um the money is already there. We just need to redirect it to the rural areas. U within HERF there is a uh for example an electric vehicle. electric vehicles are paying road use. Um we want to try and move some of that money and dedicate that to the rural roadways.

And then finally for education um we are going to see a pretty significant increase in uh the cap auditing capability for ESAs. Um, we expect to see I expect to see at least 10% growth uh in the exercise of the ESA option for kids, especially once we have a governor that will approve uh the federal ESA uh money that could come to us. Um, right now the HOBS administration is denying kids their opportunity to have that.

So, with that, I'm happy to hear from you what you would like to have me focus on in the next session. Well, thank you very much, Senator. We really appreciate you coming up and u speaking to us today. My pleasure, man. And I want to thank you for advocating for rural Arizona because as you know sometimes we do get forgotten up here.

But I think that the uh with your help the state legislature will start paying more attention to us because we are growing and we are thriving and we are interestingly working together and supporting each other so that we can have a bigger voice down in Phoenix. So uh you mentioned roads.

Roads are so important for us out here in rural Arizona and we have so many in disrepair and uh as uh I'm on the executive board of Y Plan and uh along with all the other mayors and we're we're banding together and supporting each other's projects such as the uh Chino Valley uh highway 89 improvement project and we're advocating for Highway 89, Highway 69 which is our main connector to uh the interstate I17 and also for highway 169 which is the the cutoff and it's our our main road to get to the other side of the Yavapai County into the the Verie Valley.

So, uh those roads uh especially 169 is um in very poor repair and AOT does have plans for it. But if you could continue to uh support AOT and fund them and make sure that they don't forget about uh rural uh northern Arizona because there's I I think I don't know if it's just a money problem or if it's just an allocation problem. To that point Mayor um there seems to be a disconnect between legislative intent and administrative will. I'll leave it at that.

We we we are going to uh engage in a number of conversations in the coming legislature that perhaps will redirect a little attention by ADOT. Uh I for one am one of those who is not at all happy about how they set priorities. That's why I want to take the rural money out of their main budget and dedicate that to rural activities. Yeah. And uh also thank you for uh supporting uh the trades and the workforce.

Uh we have Yavapai College here and they are uh our pipeline for uh the trades in our workforce here in Yavapai County because it's so important. Not everybody wants to go to college and as you say take on six figure debt and then they come out with a degree and there's no market and they'll never repay that debt. Yeah.

To that point, Mayor, um I'm one of the people back when I was in the House of Representatives, I was one of those who voted against the enabling legislation for community colleges to offer four-year degrees. I think that was an enormous mistake. Um so now I believe the we're going to have to put a little bit of pressure on the community colleges to refocus. Yes. what their primary mission is. Their primary mission was for a two-year degree in certification, mostly in the trades.

And that's one of the reasons that I um with the CTEs and and all of the education that we've got that we're putting kids through high school to get them credit into the community college. Um that I believe is the role that the community colleges, Yapai College included, um need to take on uh a little bit more seriously. the two-year degrees in that offering, especially when kids come to find out because I'm talking to kids that are in high school right now.

They're stunned to find out that they could get an operator job on a CAT D9 with training and certification knocking down $130,000 a year. You're not going to get that with a college degree. Yes, I agree 100%. Um I don't know if you got a copy of our legislative platform. We just got a copy of this and I need to um update it for you. Speaking of updating, on the bottom of it, we talk about funding priorities and uh they're in order of importance.

Uh number one, phase two of the Northeast Airport ramp for wildlife, wildfire, helicopters, cargo, and innovation for 3 million. This is a very important project. It'll be important to our economic development and most importantly it's important because we are a fire center for all of northern Arizona. So it's important that we have the capacity to increase uh our capacity to keep uh northern Arizona and the prescuit area safe.

And number two onramps between highway 89 and 89A which were uh previously designed with AOT funding. That's 4 million. Uh we would like to bring that uh project to uh fruition. I think it would be very important. That's a very important intersection here in uh the central highlands and be important for economic development. Number three, um the multi-use path on SR89 from Frontier Village to Lee Boulevard, 4 million.

Uh I've been working with uh Y Plan and we will be having the funding from for that. So you don't have to worry about that. the Fipp and Trail lowwater uh crossing. Um that's something that uh we're going to be taking care of because uh we uh committed to it uh to put that in for the developer. And then last but not least, the purchase of 400 acres to expand Granite Dell's Regional Park. Um that's not a big priority right now.

Uh right now we're working on with state land to either uh get a special land permit, use permit for the land around it first and get that committed and then uh we can work on uh private uh parties to get funding for for that. So our main uh funding priorities are the the first two the uh airport ramp I mean airport apron and the uh the ramp for 89 89A. So we'd respectfully like to um request that. And also, we have our airport director, Mr.

uh Rick Krider, who would be happy to speak and uh uh fill in the details for us about that very important project. Good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Prom, members of council. U let me let me begin by saying um a huge thank you to the senator. Uh we had a a vision a couple years ago, this inspiration of building a ramp that supports the forest service but also supports other activities as the mayor said, the cargo ramp and innovation center and uh maintenance repair overhaul.

to your point sir the uh there you know many jobs in aviation that require trades and technical skills and uh we feel like we're in a natural place with a pre-minent aeronautical university that trains some of those folks with a great uh community college that also has trades and it's just a matter of connecting the dots between the community and the institutions to build that pipeline and bring the jobs here. Um I've got a few slides.

The mayor gave me a little bit of heads up that we might be talking about this. And if it can bring those up, I can uh give you a little more some pictures to back up the story. I would I would add it's not lost on me the distance to Mesa Gateway Airport for refueling and recharge of uh firefighting aircraft. As a former stump knocker myself out of the uh Ironwood shots down Northwest Fire District, there is a beautiful sound when you hear those uh that P3 oran flying over. Yes, sir.

Getting ready to cool things off for you. So, absolutely. Well, this uh this last summer was a great example of that. We had uh the pocket fire that broke out in the Sedona area. I think in July alone, we had 200 sorties or 200 uh fully fueled tankers that uh supported that. So, proximity is everything. Um, you know, the ability to fly at a press good and and dump a load on a fire in Sedona a few miles away versus going down to the valley or Mesa is a is a huge difference. It affects life.

It affects property. So, Senator, going back to um what I spoke of, this vision uh two years ago that was uh leading up to the fiscal year 26 legislative um uh priorities and and uh budgeting. We had this notion of assembling four parcels uh to the two pink ones and the two green ones uh and expanding the airport boundary so that we could build a large ramp that could be used uh for the Forest Service. You see the aircraft just to the left of the screen.

Those are the chase airplanes, the command aircraft that uh lead the firefighting efforts. Uh so you see the proximity. Um in a in a minute I'll show you the how the airfield geometry is going to change to make that even closer. Um but we had this idea we with your help and your leadership we had $3.5 million um appropriation in that budget year uh that we put to good work. We uh with council's help in the last few months we've assembled the four parcels. Uh we've closed on three.

The third the fourth will close within the next couple of weeks. Uh we've engaged a consultant to do design for the ramp. Um let's see if I can go forward here. Oops. I'm doing got the wrong button. There we go. Um with uh with your help, we've assembled the property. We're you know digging into the concept of what this might look like.

But as good stewards of public dollars, we want to make sure that uh we have a ramp that's available for attack helicopters and the the large air tankers the three to the two to four or two to five months a year that they're needed, but also make good use of that asset when it's not fire season. So this notion of uh cargo and innovation center and maintenance, repair and overhaul and some other things that would benefit from that ramp, that proximity have come into play.

Uh one of the things as we work with our partner Ember Riddle is that this notion of an innovation center where you can connect uh the good work and the good research and development that's done with practical applications uh would be a great idea for Prescuit. Uh this is a picture of a kind of a similar project they've got in Daytona Beach, Florida. And then another example in St. George.

that communities across the country are are kind of figuring this out that if you if you have higher education institutes that are either trades or technical uh technical you know skills um tying that to industry you through maker space and innovation space and commerce and meeting space and eventually office space right uh that's a that's a recipe for success so we began to have those those conversations with the educators and the institutions and to cobble this all together and and tie that back to this infrastructure that you helped us begin.

Um if you this is if you look at the site I just showed you the little triangle on the bottom left um you can think bigger. We're going to extend our runway in the next few years uh both shift and extend it to 10,000 ft extend the taxi way. So uh the city property that's owned to the northeast um is really prime for even more of that. Uh you mentioned the trades, the the aircraft mechanics and the maintainers.

Those are all good solid jobs that are six figure uh fix six figure jobs that are needed and places like uh you know Prescuit are prime candidates for those activities. Means repair overhaul, avionics, uh conversion of aircraft uh and all that stems from the research and development and the quite honestly the workforce development that that happens here. And to that point if you don't mind Yes sir. Um I think it's it should be a priority to reach out to Puma Community College. Okay.

And um see if we can't partner with them okay to bring um at least a portion if not duplicate what they have for their aircraft mechanic school. Okay. Um there no matter how many they turn out, it's never enough, right? So having a second facility that's closer to where the students might be, I think it'd be a win for everybody. Okay, we'll we'll do that. So this is a little bit of a notion as the as the consultants they kind of flesh out what the future might look like.

You see for the large helicopters on the ramp these are Chinook size aircraft can also be used for large air tankers. And to your point Senator you know Mesa is the one place that can handle the very large air tankers the widebody aircraft if you will. So as we extend extend the runway and we play even a bigger role uh in the in the universe of fire response uh we want to be prepared for that.

This also shows the innovation space and the some of the other things um and eventually you know uh expansion to that northeast as I as I spoke of uh before if uh the riddle chancellor were standing here today he'd talk about kind of a unique opportunity that he sees and we talked about just a bit about this uh before the meeting started advance advanced air mobility is a big topic in the industry it's a big topic in Arizona and I think uh Prescuit has a unique role to play in that in that realm as well so one of the things we're trying to connect with is who are the folks that are doing research and development on these new vehicles and how might Prescuit play a role in the testing and the research and the um the you know the market market proving of the new vehicles at altitude.

Uh what what we have that Oklahoma City doesn't have is altitude you know high density altitude and and airported altitude to test these new vehicles and that again is uh builds that pipeline to other things in the future. So, with that, I'll stop and answer any questions you might have, but I want to end with again a sincere thank you for the support and the leadership that you provided and uh getting this story started. Yeah, thank you, Madame Mayor, Mr. Manager.

Thank you for the the compliments. Nothing gets done down there without 31 and 16. So, uh it wasn't just me. I had some colleagues that came along with it. That's not lost on me that your plan here facilitates um even uh more robust and and rapid transfer of freight. Um I think that we've got an opportunity. I know that Amazon, Walmart, some of those organizations that would like to avoid I17, if they can fly that freight in on a daily basis, that solves a huge logistical nightmare for them.

um particularly with u um daily use goods uh namely food and and food stuffs right some of the things that I mean it's kind of nice to go to Amazon and within 3 hours have shaving cream delivered to my apartment that's no wonder CVS is closing all their theiries you don't they're not needed anymore but thank you very much madam yeah I just wanted to comment you if you look at the map we've got already got a FedEx distribution center there and uh we could uh work with them for a through the fence and accommodate them in the future.

Uh any comments from uh council members? Mr. Gambboji? Senator Fenchum? Yes, sir. As a Caterpillar retiree, I want to thank you for mentioning a Caterpillar D9 and not a kamasu. Uh it's the truth, sir. Mike Row worked with us at Caterpillar. Now I have to confess I do have a college degree in engineering but I think even Mike Row would ask this question.

We recently lost some water rights on the Colorado and I've heard that Arizona is thinking of building a pipe for a desalinization plant which I would guess would be hundreds of miles where California could run 100 yards into the ocean and desalinize. Uh, I'd like this Phoenix to consider cutting a deal with California where they desalinize and take less out of the Colorado and we don't spend a ton of billions of dollars to run pipes into Arizona and take more from the Colorado.

Um, Madame Mayor, Councilman Gambio Gam Gambboji, is that am I pronouncing it properly? No. Gambboji. Gambboji. Um that's actually one of the plans that is part of the nine. Um quite frankly uh I I think that um California and perhaps even the courts, I mean, they they flush 1.9 billion gallons of water down the river to keep the fish alive. These are the people that believe in the survival of the fittest. Darwin put those two things together.

I don't understand why uh that is their their primary um objective when they've got people that uh rely on that water not just for drinking but for food. And Imperial Valley has been just decimated by this. But I I would agree with you. And then of course we've got um holding part of Colorado responsible for using water that's not theirs. Denver's not on the Colorado River. They're on the front range. What's up with that? Yeah.

So that's a discussion that we're having uh through the federal federal framework. And I I I don't mean to correct you. We didn't lose our water right. We got a governor that gave it up. There's a big difference between the two. So, um, but to your point, working with the state of California on a couple of different initiatives. Um, that is what's some of that is being scoped right now. Uh, because it's negotiations, I would feel very uncomfortable in revealing what's going on with WIFFA.

But um there, as I said, there's nine different plans for new water. Um none of them are mutually exclusive. I would still advocate for building a pipeline for Del um for a couple of reasons. One of those that extends the Monroe Doctrine, quite frankly, we we've got good partners to the south in Mexico. They need water and they need power. We need a patch of land to facilitate both.

So, a water power sharing agreement with um and I would call on President Shinbomb to perhaps have a conversation with President Trump. Um I know she's read art of the deal because I've heard her talk about it. I think there's an opportunity there uh for both countries to benefit from that and looking at a a water supply that comes from the south instead of just one from the north.

I think it would would serve everybody's interest in addition to holding California accountable for their water use and doing the trade-off that you have suggested. That is one of the plans that they're discussing. Mr. Garing, do you have any comments? Uh, yes. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Senator, a couple things. I'm really uneasy about the idea of voting machine fraud and I'm I'm wondering what is being done about preventing that in the future.

And um you know there was an incident recently if I understood it correctly where uh Maricopa employees were inserting flash drives in voting machines after hours and that makes me really uneasy. So that's a concern. Um, Madame Mayor, um, Councilman Garing, I could probably keep you here for a couple of days on that discussion considering that when I take off my Senate hat, I'm the executive director for the Election Fairness Institute and that's the research that we do.

Um, so myself, Senator Rogers, Senator Schop, uh, we had, I think, two or three others, uh, signed on to a letter that we sent to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

uh election uh security section uh calling on DOJ to come in examine with great scrutiny Maricopa County since it's 63% of the electorate in their state and to based on the findings that we have already found ask them to put Maricopa County under monitoring just like they did with Sheriff Joe because of his alleged mistreatment of individuals. Now, that has cost Maricopa County $330 million so far.

And that is not an idle threat because every single machine that they are utilizing has chips on it on the motherboard in their systems that come from the CCP and the PLA. Every single one. Now, I happen to know that under um NDAA section 6805, that's the National Defense Authorization Act, a new piece of law was put into place, and I'm stunned that a certain party actually voted for it. Uh it calls for endpoint testing and monitoring.

Now, to the non-technical, that means can your system be penetrated from outside the fence? If it can be, it is a national security threat because our elections are perhaps the most important thing about being a citizen this in this nation. If you are disenfranchised, that means that your vote didn't count on who your leaders are going to be. And we now have evidence going all the way back to 2016 that certain counties have indeed been penetrated.

Yet, they did they just refuse to acknowledge the fact that they got a problem. Um, so I I'm I'm with you. It's inexcusable that you would have individuals running around with a thumb drive inserting those into computers that are supposed to be secured. The EAC, Election Assistance Commission, certified software.

Since there's nobody sitting on that commission right now, my question to Maricopa County, who approved the software patch, air quotes that you submitted into those machines, and that's why we've called upon the Department of Justice to come in and take a look. All right. Thank you. Uh, I got a couple more that are probably pretty brief. On the railroad, you mentioned the railroad extension. Uh, is that a rightaway issue or is the rightway there for it?

Um, Madame Mayor, uh, Councilman Garing, we've not made it far enough down that path, but there there is a historic railroad right of way. Um, as I'm I'm sure you're aware with the the Fred Harvey organization at one time had rail that came down and it supplied food and milk to all of his hotels in the West.

So finding that rail right of way um and perhaps we make a bridge and I'm I'm really talking out of hand right now but finding a bridge of state trust land if there is a break in that rightway to bring that down. Um this is a very doable thing. Now is it going to take some time?

Yeah, you're probably looking if we were to start tomorrow, you're looking at probably a five to a 10-year timeline, but in the grand scheme of things, I think that there's an opportunity not only for tourism, but for freight transfer. You start looking at meat packing and you start looking and and it's not lost on me, by the way, the very same thing that was done 100 years ago with Fred Harvey. Well, not quite 100 years, the very same thing, transport of people and food.

So, I think it's a possibility and it's one of those things that um uh frankly I think the private sector might be able to step in and do that instead of government because there is a profit motive there. All right. Thank you. And let me leave you with this. I'm a graduate mechanical engineer, four-year degree.

And among the things I had to learn back in the 60s was I had to learn learn to run a horizontal lathe and a vertical milling machine and weld with gas and weld with an air gas as a as a undergraduate at Kalpali in St. Louis Vispo and their motto is learn by doing. So it's not totally lost I don't think. Thank you, Lois. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, uh, Senator Fincham, for your advocacy and help on behalf of the city of Prescuit.

Um, I particularly, uh, appreciate the money that you've secured for us, especially as you see our our airport aviation um, economic development plan coming to life and and uh, the future plans that we have are big. Um the other thing though I do want to bring to your attention and it goes with what you said about the education needs. We are also super interested in advanced manufacturing technology and health care.

Health care continues to rate we just are fielding right now another survey by annual survey of our community and it continues to rate a problem that everyone is having for different treatments having to go down to the valley constantly. So, anything that you've come across here, you know, that could help us with with health care up here is also an area that we are interested in.

Um, and then finally, we do get concerned about CAP's problems um because we have a big water ranch up there at the Big Chino and very concerned about what might happen down the road with the state um over my dead body. Bless you. That's what I was about to ask for is to help us protect what belongs to Prescuit and Prescuit Valley.

Um, and even some of the unintended consequences of certain people partnering with others down in the valley and bringing forward resolutions or bills to the legislature that don't have either Prescuit or Prescuit Valley's blessings. So, just continue to be a champion for us down there and make sure that we're brought in ahead of time. um because we want to play nice with everybody in the sandbox. Um but when we're caught off guard sometimes it doesn't look that way.

Yeah, thank you for your comments, Madame Mayor. Madam Mayor Pro10, um I mean it over my dead body. They have got water resources um south of New River that's dry um that I think that they have not fully explored. And um I I my viewpoint is that the big Chino is kind of a break glass in case of emergency. uh when you're giving up your rights to 700,000 acre feet of water they never should have lost. Uh that is not an emergency.

That's incompetence and that is something for u the state administration to figure out to get back to the negotiating table and say my bad. Of course that probably isn't going to happen unless we have a new governor. So, but we'll continue to fight for Arizona's rights, uh, water rights. Now, one thing that, um, I think is is very interesting that we're seeing is the significant rainfall that we have had because of the El Nino effect. We're not done.

Um, I'm just hoping that God blesses us with those storms going a little bit further north. Yes. You know, if you hit snow in Colorado, please the page, okay? Uh, and I even had one constituent say, "Well, if we put up a bunch of those wind machines and turned them around and had them blowing north, perhaps we would be able to blow the storms further north." I thought that that was a a humorous suggestion. Um, I tried to explain to them those I see an editorial cartoon in the future. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm sure the press could also probably pick that comment up, but no, I I I appreciate your your concerns about water reservoirs and um frankly to the other council members point um we're going to have to have the the water conversation is a whole of community conversation. And when I hear about individuals trying to go off on their own and cut a deal here, cut a deal there, that's not how this is going to work.

And whenever there's been whenever I've gotten word of it, our staff down at the Senate has chased it, tried to run it to ground and make sure that we know who's behind it. What is what are their objectives? Um it's and I I believe it was Mark Twain that said, "Rumors travel like wildfire." and I forget the rest of the quote, but could not be more true. Somebody said something. Well, when you take it out of context, you can twist it into anything you want it to be.

So, I think that uh we are we are going to have some solutions. Yes. Do we have an urgency about things? Absolutely. No question about it. Are we going to run out of water tomorrow? No. But look, we've been talking about this urgent matter since I entered the legislature in 2015. Um, I'm glad that people are finally taking it serious, more serious than they did in 2015.

On the scale of 1 to 10, I think that now 10 being the highest level of urgency, I think we're at about a nine and a half and people are paying attention to it. That's one of the reasons and and forgive me for wax acting poetic, but um I think that's one of the reasons why the National Infrastructure Bank legislation is really starting to grow legs. Um because it is infrastructure and it benefits the entire Southwest. It's not just an Arizona benefit.

It would benefit Nevada, Colorado, California along with our partners to the south. And I am going to call Mexico a partner because they they do hold a certain amount of uh opportunity if only they'll be willing to unlock it. So, thank you. One other um point um and I don't know if this new infrastructure funding mechanism might be of value, but I did have a chance um last week to touch base with Congressman Crane and also mentioned it to Congressman um Gosar's office.

We received two weeks ago an update of what we would need to do here in the city of Prescuit to remediate PAS in time for the current federal um designation. I don't know if you got a chance to see that presentation. Um, if not, I would love we'll send I'll send it to you as well. But it was um, you know, just little old Prescuit. It was about a $70 million hit over the next two to three years.

Um, totally not funded because our our takeaway from the lawsuits that we're part of on that is only going to be about three to$6 million. And the rest of it is going to come out of we're going to have to fund it. And as you know, the only place we get our funds is from our taxpayers and citizens. So, that's a huge surprise and a huge concern.

And um you know, we're not when we can blend our way out of it, we're still providing citizens with healthy water, but we're being asked to adopt all these other little county islands and communities that have their own water service and water problems. Um and we don't even it's we want to help people. Who wants to have people not drink safe water?

But but honestly, we're struggling right now with the amount of loans and other things we will have to do in order to fund $70 million of unplanned spending. So So that's another concern. There's two solutions. One, help us find better ways. Um if there's loans or other things out there, um but the other the other for me is very concerning is is trying to um hit that deadline. And is that deadline something that the federal given your role with the federal government and the liaison to Arizona?

Is there anything the federal government can do? Because because think of all the little towns alone in LD1 that will struggle with trying to figure this out. Um so I think we're kind of on the leading bleeding edge of trying to figure this out and I'm it's scary. Yeah, that's um I'd love to see the presentation. Uh, I'm sure that Secretary Zeldon probably knows about it. If he doesn't, I'll see to it that it gets on his radar. Congressman Crane was kind of totally caught off guard.

And I and I said, "Now think about everybody in CD2. How are they going to pay for this if the lawsuits are only giving us, you know, 16th of or more less of what we need?" Right. Well, and I know that, um, no offense to anybody on this council on the DAS, but I'm sure you remember Love Canal. So, um, that's when the EPA really came into it's the concept of the EPA came into its own. Um, there are a lot of communities around the country that have got that very problem.

But this you've landed on something, you know, as far as how do we pay for that? I can't emphasize enough uh the the need to maximize the return that you're going to get from the rodeo grounds. And I know that there's people out there that hate the rodeo. Well, there's this concept called moving to the nuisance. That rodeo's been here since 1888. I don't know anybody that lives here that's that old.

In other words, you moved here knowing that that rodeo grounds was here, that the rodeo is a part of this community. And for those that want to try and interfere with its maximization, I will remind them when that land was accepted by the city, there was a covenant on it, a deed, a deed restriction, it will forever in perpetuity be used for a rodeo. If you don't like that, you should probably move back to where you came from because it's going to be here.

Even if the city were to liquidate it, whoever takes possession of it is going to have to live by that deed restriction. So knowing that perhaps the best thing to do is maximize the profitability through TPT sales tax um a a strong partnership with Rodeo Foundation with a um PFD and it can't be a lopsided negotiation. I'm not going to put myself in the middle of that because I'm not a negotiator. But I will tell you that um you just can't cut stakes off a cow you're trying to milk.

Joe, understood. I think this council is very pro the rodeo. It was a 70 vote to approve the master plan. So, we we will be working with them and trying to find win-win solutions. It is part of our economic development plan to maximize TPT. So, thank you. And to that point, I I pray that um the judiciary put an end to the vexacious litigation that's going on on that that front.

Speaking of the rodeo, I want to thank you for um saving the 15.3 million dollars from being returned to the state treasury with your burb your uh budget reconciliation bill. Funny the power of five words, madam. Yeah, it's brilliant. Thank you. Uh Mary, thank you. Um Mayor Prom, you you stole my thunder a hair. I just wanted to bring up one of my pet peeves, which is unfunded mandates.

Speaking of the PAS remediation, uh when that presentation was provided to us a couple of weeks ago now, um yeah, the numbers were eyepopping and I don't know, men, maybe you can clue us in whether or not there's discussion down uh Maricopa Way.

uh as far as helping rurals deal with that unfunded mandate that came when the federal EPA dropped the the parts per million billion I don't remember which it is is it million okay when they dropped the trillion I kind of thought it was at least billion it is four parts per trillion four parts per trillion okay whatever it is the feds the EP EPA dropped it down very significantly and have left uh municipalities that have a water system on the hook.

And so I don't know if there's any discussion down in the legislature as to whether or not to help the rurals, the small budgeted cities and towns that are staring at eye crushing numbers. Um Madame Mayor and uh Councilwoman Frederickson. Frederickson. Um, I know that Morirana has the same problem. Um, I know there's a number just about any any place there's an airport or an air strip that has um CFR equipment, crash fire rescue equipment, they're going to have a PA a PAS problem.

Um, and that's not the only source of it, but that's where you get significant concentrations of that. I'd be curious to know when the uh the current EPA rule was adopted if it was un I I I have a hard time believing it would have been done under Secretary Zelden. I it probably was under the last administration. Yeah. So, I mean it would be nice if we could get to zero. All right. Let's live in the world of is a world of ought.

Um, I think that it is probably something that we can approach Secretary Zeldon and I'll uh I'll I'll count on Alexis to remind me of this and bring it up and perhaps we can um work with the folks in Morirana and some of the other because I'm I'm betting that we have the same problem in not only uh Yuma, you got a military installation there along with Flagstaff. So getting uh with the Arizona Association of Counties, we can probably get a handle on how many um claimants there might be.

I don't want to talk about plaintiffs because I don't know who all was a plaintiff in the case. Um but lobbying the uh Secretary Zelden to talk about how do we how do we change that and make it more attainable over time? And then are there federal funds that perhaps we can um lay against that? Um because I know this current administration is quite frankly um much more proactive about uh the environment than the last three administrations.

They're doing everything they can to improve quality of life across the country. I appreciate that. I know Prescott is not uh standing out in the field alone on this issue. there are many small uh budgeted municipalities and cities and towns uh that are going to be facing the same issue.

Let me bring up one other thing which is I really appreciated uh the comments you made earlier about your efforts to pull funding specific into the rural areas as opposed to the big pot of money down to the south of us that tends to get spent down to the south of us. So, I appreciate that and I'm I would like to hear your your thoughts as to whether or not that same kind of concern for the rurals, smaller population bases uh in other forms of legislation.

I'm thinking particularly about governance that legislation comes out of the legislature down to the south of us that may be perfectly lovely for large urban areas but don't really fit well in the smaller population zones. Um so I don't know maybe you can tell me is that the kind of discussion that is undertaken when legislation legislation is being proposed as to whether or not it fits yes all the different areas in Arizona. Yeah. Mayor Bruceing Councilwoman Frederickson. Uh yes actually it is.

In fact, uh myself and Senator um Kavanaaugh, we were the only two members of the legislature that voted against the zoning takeaway for um Airbnbs and and VBOs, not to be confused with bed and breakfast. Um some people conflate the two. they're not uh vacation rentals. And I think that uh a vast majority of the legislature has now come to realize that perhaps Senator Fincham and Senator Kavanaaugh were right.

Um I don't know what we're going to do on that, but I I've never been a fan I should say I don't know what we're going to do to get something across the finish line to repair that. Um I've never been a fan of the idea of oneizefits-all. Um what is good for Maricopa County quite often is not at all good for the rurals and that's one of the reasons that you will see in some of the legislation that comes out uh a population cap.

So for example 500,000 population and above which conveniently grabs panel puma and Maricopa leaves the rest of us out of it. Um those are the kinds of things that we can do to exempt rural counties and communities. Um I there is a doctrine a fairness doctrine that the law should apply to everybody equally. Yeah, I get it.

But when you're talking about political subdivisions that have been granted existence by the legislature, the legislature has a responsibility to protect and and quite frankly, and I I think this will our our general counsel would agree with me to indemnify uh the smaller political subdivisions on things that come out of the state. So unfunded mandate is the word that everybody uses. I'm not a fan of those.

Um, unfortunately, we can't really do much about that when it comes out of the federal government. We can push back a little bit, but you know, here's here's another example uh that kind of goes along with that. Um, we have Prescat National Forest. Why is that not the state Prescuit State Forest? H, do you have an answer for us? No, that's a rhetorical question, ma'am. because in 1976, Congress told the Department of the Interior, "Dispose of unappropriated lands." Yet, they won't do it.

So, when I spoke with um Secretary Bergam, I wasn't very I wasn't salty, but um I was pretty pointed. I said, "Look, uh it's not your fault. The prior mismanagement of the forest lands over the last 60, 80, 100 years has led to a situation where people are now having their their homeowners insurance canled because of wildfire activity because part of its drought, but the vast majority of it is poor forest management.

You've got this school of thought that has taken over the Forest Service for decades. Um that runs contrary to human existence in this land long before the white man arrived. Um I when I lived down in Oro Valley for example, I lived about a half mile from a former Hulcom uh village and their University of Arizona did a great job in telling that story. Every spring they would fire their village. Everything blankets roofs anything that could burn, they burned.

As they were leaving town, headed north up into the co cool country. When they came back in the fall, the game was plentiful. The grass was green. They didn't have overgrown weeds. They didn't have uh trees that were really more of a brush than anything else. And they didn't, above all, have an ongoing fire danger. They managed the land. they manage the fire load.

So, um we have asked the uh Secretary of the Interior to please consider um reformatting uh flood insurance to include earthquake insurance, hurricane insurance, and of course, fire insurance into a package. Those are the four major calamities. And the concept is fairly simple. If you have a property that scores a four, you need all four insuranceances. If you have a property that scores a one, all you all you're concerned is fire insurance, then you're in a different class.

And then of course the federal government uh because they created the problem with forest mismanagement, perhaps they pay for the insurance or at least cover a portion of catastrophic loss. They're never going to do it, but we can put pressure on Congress to at least open up that conversation. I know that I've I've talked to Congressman Gosar and Congressman Crane about that. Um I'm I'm low to say that we're not making much progress on it, but it's still under consideration.

So, back to your original point, ma'am. Um the the unfunded mandate issue and how do we how do we deal with things that the state tells the political subdivisions to do? Um, that's going to be a continuous battle at the legislature because when you think about it, the vast majority, I would say three fifths of the legislature comes from Maricopa County. We're the underdogs. So, we got to have strong voices down there that are going to stand up for rural communities. Appreciate that. Thank you.

And Mr. Gambboji, did you have some comments? Senator Finchum, I always thought that Pifos came from firefighting foam and Councilman Garing shirts, but I've since learned there's a number of sources for POS, and we're treating the end of the pipe. Yeah. Every septic tank in Yavapai County is leeching POS into the ground. A bigger pur I didn't reach. every septic tank because PE people use POS, it goes into the sewer system. So the sewer system may be polluting our wells.

So I think it's important that we take a look at how do we cut it off at the pass instead of just treating it at the end. Um, thank thank you Mr. Gambboji. Mayor U Councilman Gambboji, it's my understanding and I'm a little rusty on my my recollection, but when I was down in Oro Valley, I know that there was a significant amount of conversation around banning PAS. And what you're what you're talking to is the use of it in shampoo and soaps, liquid soaps. Okay. Cosmetics.

Councilman Garing shirts. dental floss. It's it's all over pots and pans. So, it is a uh it's an unfortunate reality that the chemical industry went wild with this and now we are living on the back end of that now banning the use of that uh PAS in any um consumer products. I think I believe they've already banned it in in firefighting foam. So, we're making progress. And if you won't use it for that kind of foam, why would you use it on your body directly?

That seems kind of counterproductive, quite frankly. So, but again, that that is something that is probably going to be uh at the federal level. I I can look into it with the Department of Environmental Quality here in Arizona. Um, I'm I'm pretty sure that with all the attention that has gotten down in Morirana, uh, they they've got a standard or they're at least working on something that, uh, is in environmental protection, but I'll check on that. Okay. Thank you.

Is there any uh any more comments? Do we have some public uh I got one more question. Oh, excuse me. This is my favorite question. So, how do you grow vegetables without dirt? You've heard of hydroponic, sir? But doesn't hydroponic include water? All right, Madame Mayor, uh, Councilman Gamboji, um, I don't want to give away the proprietary uh, information of a potential future employer.

But imagine a system that's closed that only needs so much water and constantly recycles its water because it doesn't have herbicides, pesticides, and human contaminants. Once you have the system charged with, say, well, we'll just use a number 50,000 gallons, it's basically taking a small sip out of the aquifer, maybe to the tune of a,000 gallons. indoors. It would be indoors. Sounds like the biosphere. It's a controlled Well, it's a control. This the technology is a controlled environment.

And um I'm I'm I'm doing my best to get them to look at uh this this particular company uh to look at the space between Prescat and uh Chino Valley. But they've got to have the right piece of land. It's got to have water, right? It's got to be close to to highway. I mean, there's certain things that it's just got to have, but each one of these facilities would um employ about 60 people, and they literally run like a clean room.

This is the um the market for health food produce because quite frankly when you see organic on all the the things that are in the store if it's in a plastic clamshell it's already contaminated. Now of course the grocerers and the farmers are going to tell me what did you just do to us? You threw us under the bus. Hey, the reality is if it's in some kind of a container that is related to plastic, it's contaminated. Okay, so people are now looking at what are the options that we've got.

Can we package it in paper? Can we package it in what are the things we can do? But more importantly, getting away from herbicides and pesticides. That is the biggie. And if you can have sterilized, remmineralized water that is precisely controlled, you're now able to put up a product that truly is an organic product.

Lois, I would love if at some point you have an hour or two in the next few months for us to be able to give and our staff to give you what the work we're in process on on our long-term water management plan. Okay.

And I think that would be helpful to you as you're hearing legislature emerging or negotiations emerging to understand where we're starting to work our way towards um and the amount of really great engineering and science that has gone into um you know and projections I should say of how much water do we have left in the city of Prescuit for all of our plans moving forward.

So, I think that would be a worthwhile exercise and if you you know had any input or challenges, we would love it because we're working our way towards a a plan by by next summer um having a a policy in place. So, I think that would be something that would be mutually beneficial if we could spend some time on that. Well, let's see what we can put together. Okay, great. Okay, if there's nothing more, uh Mr. Garing. Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh, Senator, it occurred to me to me to to relate uh an experience I had in my early uh years as a water engineer. The state of California Department of Health Services suddenly reduced the maximum allowable concentration of nitrates in drinking water from 90 to 45 milligrams per liter.

Part of the solution was that uh the municipalities did blending which we do here in Prescuit to the best of our ability, but also the Department of Health Services allowed temporary waiverss for the various municipalities to to be able to gradually spend the money required to meet that standard. So something to think about. All right. Okay. Thank you. If that's if that's it, I want to thank you very much and we'll move to any public comments if we have them. We have them. Thank you, mayor.

Okay. All righty. If there's uh we have none. Nothing more. Okay. I think this uh meeting is adjourned.