Cave Creek approves $75 million budget, pursues 4,050-acre open space acquisition amid water cuts

So, we're going to uh play the video and uh then we're going to talk. The video's first. Bo, I want to make sure I Yep. And then we'll uh I'll I'll talk and explain all the details that are going on and give you the uh uh what's really happening in town after you see this uh PR piece. Welcome to the town of Cade Creek's state of the town. Our annual report to the citizens highlighting the achievements and major projects of 2025.

No town can meet its mission of serving its residents without being financially strong and Cave Creek remains on a solid foundation able to withstand future uncertainty. The town continues to provide services to its citizens and prioritize improving infrastructure to meet the needs and safety of our community. We are proud to accomplish so much for its residents without a property tax.

Using the town's comprehensive strategic plan as a road map, the town is prepared to achieve pivotal projects that shape and improve the town today and into the future. For fiscal year 2024 2025, the town sales tax revenue increased nearly 12%. Much of this increase is primarily due to an 84% increase in construction sales taxes. In 2025, the town's revised user fees went into effect. A study was conducted that focused on non-utility user fees, aiming for 100% cost recovery.

For some services, the new user fee will charge full or near full cost recovery. In contrast, for other fees, a lower subsidized rate is now charged due to less activity. As required by state law, the town is audited by an independent certified public accountant to asssure that the financial policies of the town are accurate.

The auditors concluded that the financial statements by the town are in conformity with the generally accepted accounting principles, the benchmark for government accounting standards. The town's strategic plan guided the budget process, focusing on fiscal sustainability, economic vitality, safe and vibrant community, an innovative and high-erforming organization and infrastructure.

In June, the town council unanimously approved the fisc year 26 budget of just over $75 million, which includes approximately $18 million as a placeholder if needed for the acquisition of 4,05 acres of open space zoned Arizona state trust land within the town's boundaries. The council directed the town manager to form an open space ad hoc committee to examine the future use and potential acquisition of this state trust land.

The committee consisting of town residents is finalizing its report to present to the town council. The committee's presentation and recommendation will be available on the town's website at cavecreekaz.gov. Cave Creek takes great pride in its sense of community and practice of neighborh. The 2025 annual community grants program awarded $40,000 in grants to 13 deserving Cave Creek and Desert Foothills nonprofits. The recipients received awards ranging from 1,000 to $5,000.

The grants were awarded to nonprofit organizations based on criteria related to safeguarding the community's health, safety, welfare, history, culture, and making a significant difference in the well-being of Cave Creek. The town received funding from the one Arizona plan opioid reimbursement funds to provide education and support local programs that combat opioid use.

The town distributed some of these funds received so far through the Foothills Caring Corps and the Cave Creek Unified School District. Some of these funds help sponsor volunteer awareness opportunities and programs through the Desert Foothills volunteers. In 2026, the United States will be celebrating its 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which resulted in the founding of our country.

As one of the ways the town will celebrate this important event, Mayor Morris issued a proclamation that the town is participating in the greatest American cleanup campaign, which is part of the Keep America Beautiful. The town is supporting local volunteers with three community cleanup events and two yard waste dropoff events. The town will also use the 250th anniversary as a theme in a number of other ways. Cave Creek is nationally recognized for its western heritage and lifestyle.

Cave Creek Rodeo Days, held each spring at the Cave Creek Memorial Arena, is one example of celebrating the town's western way of life. Now in its 49th year with rodeo fans filling the arena for each session, it's easy to recognize the need for additional parking. In 2025, the development services and public works departments expanded the parking lot, nearly doubling parking capacity and created an alternate access to the rodeo grounds to address the heavy traffic during events.

With the ongoing success of the rodeo days and the outstanding quality of the Cave Creek Memorial Arena, the Turquoise Circuit Finals Rodeo looked to Cave Creek to hold its annual event. Comprised of rodeos and athletes in New Mexico and Arizona, the Turquoise Circuit is part of the circuit system devised by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. The local landmarks program in partnership with the Cave Creek Museum held four events in 2025.

The landmarks program celebrates iconic buildings and spaces within Cave Creek. Locations recognized as landmarks included Cave Creek Regional Park, Cave Creek Memorial Arena, Spurcross Ranch Conservation Area, and Rancho Mñana. The Foothills Food Bank held its long-awaited grand opening in May. The town worked with the food bank to review and approve plans for the construction of new food bank offices and a warehouse as well as new public works and utilities office space and a workshop.

The town leases land to the food bank in exchange for a tenant lease of a portion of the facility. Tourism is an economic lifeline for the town of Cave Creek. Since there is no property tax to support programs and services, the town relies on sales tax and user fees to support the vital services of the town. To increase the visibility of the tourism bureau for visitors, the bureau relocated to a new central location on Cave Creek Road next to the Dairy Queen.

In January 2025, town medians were replanted with native trees and hydro seated with native desert adapted plants. A plant salvage contractor was hired to relocate various cacti from other sites to the medians as well. The lush landscaping adds to the town's already inviting and natural look. Water is the town's top priority.

A warming environment and a persistent 30-year drought have limited the vital winter snowpack and sharply reduced the volume of water in the Colorado River, straining a critical water supply for millions across the American Southwest. Scientists say the long-term outlook remains concerning with significant challenges ahead for water management in the region, including Arizona and our town of Cave Creek. Cave Creek receives nearly 90% of its water via the Central Arizona project.

While the long drought may threaten the town's water supply and its 4,400 customers, residents can be reassured that for more than 10 years, the town council and staff have been proactively working on solutions to secure new water resources and maximize current ones through technology. Thanks to long-term planning, the town has banked excess cap water for future use or to trade with other communities.

By having this banked resource available, including the reopening of town wells, the community will have enough water at its current user rate for another 10 years. Although our banked water offers some security, it's important that we plan for our water future. The Phoenix Interconnect will enhance the reliability of the town's water system and significantly increase the sustainability of the town's water supplies.

The town has invested nearly $18 million to enhance the reliability of the town's water system and provide up to 1.4 million gallons of treated central Arizona project water per day or approximately half the town's current peak day demand when needed. Additionally, the system will add 1 million gallons of reserves and provide an additional water supply for firefighting.

Once finished, it will provide the town with a second source of treated cap water, enhancing the systems reliability and redundancy for improved delivery capabilities. The interconnect project is expected to be operational by spring 2026. Technology is helping the town conserve water and helping customers save money. The utilities department launched the My 360 application in 2025.

My 360 lets users track daily water usage online, helping you stay informed and in control of your water use, even when away from home. Another way to help water customers save money and help preserve our community's water resources is through conservation. Thanks to the work of the utilities advisory committee, the town has launched a campaign featuring water saving tips and cactus Charlie as a mascot to raise awareness on this vital project.

Wildfire season is a year-round concern for Cave Creek. Last year, the town of Cave Creek and Daisy Mountain Fire District opened the Cave Creek Fire Station, greatly enhancing the firefighting resources to respond more quickly to wildfires and incidents in town. Public safety for residents and visitors is a priority for the town. Because our region has a history of wildfires, the town actively communicates with residents about preparedness.

The town hosted two community wildfire awareness meetings. One in March held at the Cave Creek Fire Station and the other in April held at the Desert Foothills Library. Local, state, and regional firefighting partners educated homeowners on how to protect their property. We encourage all residents to stay informed, attend future meetings, and take steps to safeguard their homes against wildfires.

One of the key messages delivered by the town and the Cave Creek Fire Department is the importance of keeping dwellings and other structures clear of vegetation, including invasive weeds, overgrown bushes, and untrimmed trees. To help residents dispose of this green waste, the town holds two drop off events in early spring, collecting nearly 54 tons of green waste and saving residents more than $9 million in container and dumping costs.

The public works department continued its work improving town roads. Following the 2020 pavement management plan, part of the town council strategic plan goals, the department improved and repaired portions of 19 town roads at a cost of nearly $2 million. A couple of the projects included the pulverizing of existing asphalt, then mixing the ground asphalt into a newly mixed material to pave East 32nd Street from East Carefree Highway north to East Madic Road.

Roads were also improved in the Red Dog Ranch community, where crews milled and removed the top layer of the road before installing a thicker pavement. Another road project the town completed in 2025 was the northbound lane of Cave Creek Road from the town limits to the Carefree Highway. The development services department had another busy year in 2025.

The department processed more than 400 permits, adding nearly $50 million in valuation for new buildings and structures, both commercial and residential. The department implemented a new online permitting and inspection service system that greatly streamlines the submittal process of documents by contractors and residents.

For more than 25 years, the town marshall has worked closely with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, providing community policing services to our town and surrounding residents. In addition to educating drivers on the importance of safe driving through the town core and pedestrian safety, the Marshall is responsible for emergency management, special event safety, and other law enforcement duties, making Cave Creek a safer community. 2025 was another successful year for the town.

Town finances are strong, major projects were completed, and our public safety programs and services, always on call and ready to respond, continue keeping our community safe. We look forward to 2026, accepting the new challenges and opportunities that face our unique town. I didn't realize we did that much last year, but uh looks like look pretty good. So, we're going to go through uh a number of things here.

Um, first of all, uh, one of the top areas is fiscal conservatism is making sure we run a frugal and very efficient town. Uh, I'm happy to report we have about $30 million in the bank as as reserves, and it's a good thing we have that. That's it's a a very high number, probably more than we need, but we have some things going on uh that we're going to use that money at some point. that $30 million is driven by sales taxes and especially those uh construction taxes.

Now, construction taxes can go away. We have a downturn, they're gone. So, we kind of look at that as a one-time stuff that we do something like paving roads or things like that. We're not going to hire anybody on dollars that are going to go away at some point. I'm proud to report too that we don't have a property tax. Uh and we put in over $6 million worth of spending in emergency services without any property tax.

Uh that is entirely funded by the sales tax in town plus some miscellaneous taxes. So we got to have a really good deal and we plus we saved uh the residents in town from saving the rural metro fees. So that was uh one of the best things that we've done in the last decade probably. Um going forward there's some really good news.

In 18 months, we're going to make the last payment on most of the bonds that we used originally to uh buy the Desert Hills, the King Creek Water Company, and then revamp them to put them into service. And that's going to give us a real boost in cash flow that we will be able to do do things with. Um we have been subsidizing water and utility fees and uh when that goes away, uh it's mainly in utility area.

So that will reduce the amount of subsidies that we've been taking from the general fund and give us the ability to handle some of the real problems that are coming our way in the future. Uh some of the things that we're doing with things like that one is streets. We are uh on an active program, a managed program to improve the streets in town. For decades we did not keep up with that and now so we have some catchup to do and we're doing that as we talk.

One of the two major initiatives we have is open space. Um we've taken on the challenge of buying 4,05 acres on the west side of town of prime desert territory out there and we'll see more about this in a few that in a few minutes. Uh plus water, water, water and we have central Arizona project with us. Welcome Tammy. Um, utilities are in flux, uh, pending developments. We we are in a bid process right now for selling the Desert Hills Water Company. The bids are in.

We won't have any information on that until we do an extensive financial analysis, which should should complete sometime in March. Um, we have some reconfiguration of our water system. The high point of that is the interconnect project. Now, the interconnect project has some great things. uh that was uh started when I was on the water advisory committee 13 years ago, my first entry into the uh town government and it does three things.

Number one, it uh removes a lot of single points of failure so that if the pipeline goes down on that 12 13 mile run up Cave Creek Road, if we use lose one substation to a lightning strike for example, the whole system is down all the way from there all the way up to our tank which is down there be kind of behind local Johnny's. Um so it's a reliability project and that was the main reason for starting it. But after the fires in California, what happened over there? Ran out of water.

Well, the the laws right now mean you can't really use a lot of your storage because the water ages over time. And so, it's a problem when you're in a a town like us that has all these people scattered all over these hills uh with these pipelines going and uh it could be a quarter of a mile to your neighbor. Uh so, we have to really work hard to keep the water from aging.

And the final thing is with the chaos that's going on in water in Arizona, the central Arizona project, the negotiations between north and south, the dams, the uh reservoirs are almost empty. Uh this gives us the ability to trade water. So we are connected to Phoenix. Phoenix has been a magnificent partner for us. They're helping us in the things that we do. And uh I I just can't say enough good things. And we have uh some plans. We haven't tal quite talked them into everything we'd like to do.

So, uh I'm I see Shawn over chuckling over there. He's handling that for us, but we're trying to talk Phoenix into some further improvements. Um here's a spot we really don't want to be. We are the most impacted town on Colorado River water because 90 to 95% of our water comes from the Central Arizona Project. Um, we have planned for a 25% decrease, a cut back of 25% in what we're getting right now.

And with that, we would have to use stored water, which Vice Mayor Roy here, okay, she is uh she uh pushed the council into storing water five, six years ago, and we now have a year and a half supply underground out in West Phoenix. And so that is our last ditch uh reserve if something happens. But we're going to be counting on the Arizona Water Banking Authority and CAP to deliver water next year um because uh we're going to be probably need some water next year.

But you don't have to worry about being out of water because we have made these plans in in the past. Plus, five years ago, we stopped a lot of development. If you want to build a subdivision in our town, you got to bring water with you. We don't have water for subdivisions. What we do have though is we have legacy developments like Kava Springs and uh there the one the development that's behind town hall those got their water allocations many years ago and those contracts are still active.

So we have commitments there that we cannot fill right now. Um and you'll hear more about water when we talk about Harko Hala here in a few minutes. So um the last thing I want to talk about on the finance, uh, finance area is you saw that number, $75 million budget. Well, we only going to spend 75 - 18, $57 million worth of that.

And that's because when we did the budget last year, we put a placeholder in because originally we were planning on having an election uh to borrow money to buy the 4,000 acres over there. But our ad hoc committee has come up with a lot of ideas. We have $2.5 million on hand. We have volunteers who are going to raise a lot of money. Bill sitting back in the audience there who are going to raise money and we're going to find a way to get that done. We found partners.

Desert Foothills Land Trust, the county and even the state is interested because this is prime desert land and it ties together the town to Spur Cross and it ties together the the county park on the other side of town by the rodeo grounds. It ties that into it, too. So, it is a dynamite project. Um, I'll be fading from the scene in December, but uh the council and everybody I have talked to in town is 100% behind this. Uh we we hope to do it without a tax.

Um but as the years go on, we may need one. But one way or the other, we're planning on doing that. So, let's um move back to water for a second. We're in the midst of a 30-year drought. And I I looked at the numbers from Colorado. Their snowpack, it's well behind the average. It's snowing back east like crazy, but it's not getting to the Rockies. And that's where our water comes from.

We have dramatically low lake levels to the point they can't even get the water out or it would damage the equipment or they can't uh generate hydropower there. And there are dire predictions out there. Plus, we have a disagreement between the northern states who are kind of north of uh Arizona and the southern states which are Arizona, California, Nevada. Uh the governor just got back from Washington where they were negotiating or trying to negotiate. I understand there was no no progress made.

Um so my prediction is we'll be in court and court battles over water last decades. So there is literally nothing concrete in how you can plan for what's going on. But your town has been planning for this stuff for over five years now. And we got plans right now. We have people working on this every single day. Um, I mentioned a year and a half watered thanks to the vice mayor.

And one of the ways that you can help, and we're going to be asking everybody in this room that lives in Cave Creek to conserve water, outdoor water. We're not talking about showerheads and uh, glasses of water and restaurants. That's peanuts. The water in this town is summertime use outdoors, irrigation water. We live in a desert and the entire Maricopa County area which receives a lot of this cap water is going to have to adapt to that.

We're going to have to start living like we live in a desert with desert plants, not grass, not the kind of trees you'd see back east. It's happening and the town has uh the utility workers are utility uh advisory committee is working on it. You saw the little cartoon character cactus up there. Uh we have a lot of other things going specific things uh plumbing things and a lot of others to stop that. But conservation is the cheapest water there is.

Why go out and desalinate which is the most expensive water you can get which you can just conserve a little bit. And so outdoor leaks, swimming pool leaks, things like that. Last month, I only used 3,800 gallons of water, the lowest I've ever used, and was using the uh my three the 360 project that we have now where you can see your water bill and you can see your water consumption on an hourly basis, which is wonderful for troubleshooting.

So, if you see it went up when you when your pool started to fill, well, you can go out and see how much water you're using or when your irrigation turned on. That's that's a really big one. So, we've got that going now. In 10 months, it's going to hit the fan because that's the next water year starts in 10 months in uh January 1st of next year.

At that point, I'm we're expecting to have a cutback and we're expecting to approach the Arizona Water Banking Authority, which has stored a lot of water for just such a situation as this. And we plan to be in line u asking for the and we're paying taxes on it by the way. So on your tax bill, your property tax bill, you've been paying money for this water. So we're going to be standing in line to uh to get that. Harua. Uh how many people can pronounce that word? Harwaha is right here.

It's about a two-hour drive from where we are on the far edge of that map. And here's I 10 headed into Buckeye and then onto Phoenix. Um and so we signed a contract with earnest money to buy 500 acre feet of water for 100 years and that was 11.2 million we were planning on. The problem is you're out here you it's a farming area and it's been polluted over the years. So we would have to pay money along with partners who were in this phase with us. There are going to be three phases.

We were in phase one. We have to pay money to get it out of the ground wells. Clean it up because it has nitrates and other things from the farming area out there.

pump it uh 10 11 miles underneath I 10 and then put it into the central Arizona project canal where it'd come to us just the same way that our central Arizona project comes in and we were all prepared to spend 11 and a half uh the project the phase one engineering was uh way way late and uh when it did come in the price was something and I can't disclose those things that we have NDAs. We can't we can't talk about a lot of the things that I'll be hinting at today.

We have a lot of more detail that we can't disclose. But the price was way too high and we and what happens on a construction project, they never never come in on time and on budget. So that was one big factor. We couldn't really predict what it was going to cost. The second big factor is the timing. There are there were two big partners in there, two big cities, and one of them didn't need the water for 10 years. So, were they going to want to spend money now to get that going?

We couldn't be sure of that. Uh would their council approve spending all that money? Because they've got a democratic process like we have. They can't spend money until someone says, "Hey, let's vote for it and say yes." And there's another city, Queen Creek, and the other side that's replacing their groundwater system. And both of those towns needed the water for future development. Well, what do we need the water for now? We need the water now. So, the timing did not match up.

And that was a real key element in our decision to not exercise these Harka contract that we had had signed up for. Now, u we had $50,000, I'll call it earnest money in there, and we got that back. In the meantime, we went through a huge due diligence effort. We have hired outside water attorneys. We've hired outside water experts. We have our own expertise in house. And all those people, I I'll guarantee you every single day, there are people working on your water in this town.

Every single day. Not not just delivering it here, but the future, too. Um I was working on it this morning. Let's see if I missed anything on the harquala. Um, we are going to need water. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

these legacy contracts we have which amount to about 40% of our cap allocation they were entered into decades ago some of them and those are contracts that don't didn't have an ending date so someone comes in and says hey I want to build a subdivision up at Kava Springs for example that project has been going for 30 years uh it's still there's still not a single house up there although there is some movement on that so we have all these legacy commitments that are contractual over the years that we are required to to fulfill.

And the state signed on, by the way, this is the state has issued certificates saying that we have a 100redyear supply of water. Well, guess what? The Colorado River is not cooperating. So, if you're getting anything out of this as far as the uncertainty, well, the other thing to get out of it is the fact that the Colorado River is no longer a the reliable guaranteed source of water that everybody in the state thought it was. And that's why we were out of Harkwa. Well, the state saw this too.

And so 20, 30 years ago, the state set aside harquala. That's the project I talked about that we backed out of phase one. They set it aside to supply water here uh in the central Arizona area. And uh so the state, they have contracts, they have people that are managing that. The state, the department of water resources is working on that. We've been discussions with them.

Uh and so at some point we'll probably need to they have 90 uh 90 million acre feet 90 million acre feet of uh water out there underground and at some point I think we will do a deal out there once the smoke clears. So in phase two or phase three you can expect we'll be evaluated all the time along with the other sources. Now there was nothing else available.

There was no other wet water source that we could find in this uh year-long uh crisis uh action that we had trying to find some more water. Um but things will probably break free once the the Washington situation starts to clear away and the state situation starts to clear away and here we are a little old Cave Creek out here uh with these great big and the climate the climate of course is not cooperating. So, uh, we will be in line and we will buy a lot of water. So, it's going to happen.

And I'll I'll just tell you my theory on this. Um, one thing that I spent a lot of time on and one of the the main things when anybody new comes into council is who pays for stuff? Well, this water was contracted. This future water we require was contracted and the and the council bought a water company that by the way didn't have any water. So, we would not be in this situation if we hadn't ridden to the rescue. There's a good western term for you, of desert hills. They were out of water.

And now we're putting 20 30% of our water goes to Desert Hills. If if that wasn't happening, uh we wouldn't be in the situation we're in as far as being short. So, there are just a lot of things going on on on this thing. But who pays? So if we raise rates for the people who are customers today to pay for water for somebody who doesn't even live here now that's a tough thing.

Now we'd probably borrow it and so it wouldn't be all at once but then you have development so there's a mismatch and when you have to spend the money and when the people who are coming would pay for it they'd pay water fees. I've uh a friend of mine told me that a a water meter in Colorado on the dry side costs $100,000. Now that's before you build a house. So if you want to build a house on the plains of uh eastern Colorado, $100,000 you can buy one in Carefree for 5600.

I understand that's just a rumor though. So my my theory on this is the town council decided to buy the water company with no water. The town council is our water manager in town and uh we have this $30 million and we have a solid tax base. So, um I will be advocating that that that the town subsidize those water purchases because it's fair. Okay. On a better subject, more interesting subject is the open space. There's 45 acres on the other end of town.

And we we did a contract about 20 years ago with the Arizona State Land Department who has land all over the state and they auction it off. They don't sell it, they auction it off. Um our town leadership 20 years ago signed a contract and negotiated a really good deal, but we couldn't get it funded at the time because the town had no money. This was back in the dark days when we have a $15 million a year general fund now.

I bet they weren't uh 30% of that back when they did this, but it was a visionary deal. We've renegotiated that. The people that renegotiated are in the room with us today. And we had we extended it by 10 years. And we also um put in there they put in there as as a as a condition that we have to buy 160 acres of land within five years. Thanks within 5 years. And so we have $2.5 million in the bank that we plan to get that contract started to make the first down payment on that uh on that land.

Um we've got lots of partners. I talked about Desert Foothills Land Trust. the county. There's some great the county wants to expand their park, but it's going to take them some time because they they've got to and I urge you all to vote yes on the uh vote for the county jail because if you want to hurry spur cross along, they've got to solve that big problem they have with their tax issues in the county jail out there. Um the land is zoned and protected.

So, if somebody were to buy that land out there today, they'd have to leave it blank because we have it protected. What has happened though is the legislature overrode the zoning for that Scottsdale had on some land on the AX deal, that the company that makes the uh but whoas tasers and and the cameras that all the cops wear now. Um and they wanted to build a mixed residential and Scottdale said no. and the state came in and made them do it.

That kind of gave us took us a back a little bit with them interfering in micromanaging in the town of Fair. The legislature micromanaging is not new though. They micromanage all the time. So, so we the the council they made the decision and started the ad hoc committee uh to investigate buying that 4,05 acres on the west side of town. So, we we want to own it rather than just have it protected by zoning. Um, we're going to use historic partners. We're going to use our own money.

Uh, we're going to use private fundraising and we're going to use uh, well, the our partners, Maricopa County and Desert Foothills Land Trust is is in there with us and Desert Foothills Land Trust has been a wonderful partner with us in Spurcross and other things we do in town. In the worst case is uh and the the original proposal and the reason the budget was so high that we originally wanted to do a spur cross type of tax where you pay the money and then it goes away.

A special use bill bas knows the special use uh tax that is for a specific purpose. But we decided what if people vote no now you've decided you want 4,000 acres and you've got a referendum that says they don't want it. So that's a little more risky than slow but sure. It's like the hair the hair and the tortoise. Um I am absolutely perfectly confident uh confident that we will get that done and during the remainder of my administration we'll be working on it. the emergency.

We now pay for one and a half fire stations, but we have two Daisy Mountain and we are partnering on a on paying the bills for a fire station that's over on 32nd Street and 24th and Cloud 24th and Cloud uh which is about 200 feet from our border. And so now Daisy Mountain has a station there that gives service to the west side. Instead of a 20 minute response time from our station, they'll have a five minute response time. That's going to save lives.

And of all the things I've been associated with um in my time in town government, I think I'm most proud of what we've done in the emergency services. Um with this with the danger we have from wildfire. Uh we had one on Spur Cross two, three years ago. It was a lot different than the one we had in May of 2020 when the fire started and the automatic aid kicked in and we had Scottsdale and Peoria and Glendale and uh Phoenix. Those fire engines were all rolling this way.

We had 20 pieces of equipment in there and they knocked that thing down right at people's back door. So that's going to save houses, could save lives in this town. The the medical part of that, which is 75% of the calls, will save lives. So this town is far far safer than we were four or five years ago and without a property tax. So I'm very proud of our council uh for putting that together. Uh that's one of the real high points. Law enforcement, we had a lot of stat.

This is the last thing before we I think we're going to take some questions. Uh we had um a bad record on Cave Creek Road with people being hit by cars, pedestrian problems. And um so we've done a lot of work there. We have gotten we put sidewalks in. We've put curbing in to to stop illegal parking. Uh we have put three crosswalks in town that are lighted. When you push the button, it lights up and someone can cross the the street at night. Uh enforcement, we give out a lot of tickets.

This is my favorite part of this whole speech coming up now. Anybody want to guess? You heard it. Guess what percentage of the tickets go to residents? Because I thought it was all those people from somewhere else. 70% of the tickets. My wife is laughing here in front, but I always expected one. Never mind. So, uh those uh that Cade Creek Road is a lot safer than it was just just a few years ago and and we're very proud of that.

Now, we've got a few issues here and there, but in general, the town is a lot safer. So, let's summarize up real quick. Two big issues, the 4,05 acres and the water situation. We're working uh night and day on the water, maybe only daytime on the 4,05 acres. Um the second thing is the town's in great financial shape. Um we have strong uh reserves right now. We have a better situation in 18 months when we make those last payments.

Um we have um strong construction bringing money in and we're using that money to pave roads, take care of the water, uh get ready for the water problem that's coming up here and to pay for fire department. That's that's uh we no new taxes if I didn't mention that. So with that, I'll I'll close this. I thank you for being here. I think uh if we have some questions, we take a few for a few minutes here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Would this would the staff in the room please stand? YEAH.

Uh that's another asset we have. This is the most talented staff we've ever had. I think uh we keep having other towns hire our people away and then we h we hire back. We have staff here from uh Phoenix and Tempe and uh Peoria. Half the staff's from Peoria, I think. So we getting people who know how to run town governments, know how to run water systems and all that sort of thing. And we have one from Sedona. Yeah. Sherry uh Sherry joined us a year or so ago and she's from Sedona.

So uh questions, just put your hand up. We'll bring a microphone out to you. Uh oh, this is my neighbor. Oh, it won't be a tough question. Okay, thank you. You can answer it though. Um could you elaborate a little bit on the other alternatives that your the town is pursuing for the water resources? I've heard um Vice Mayor Royer and you and and the film said we have a 10year supply of water, but for those of us who want to live here our entire lives, that's not so reassuring.

So, can you talk a little bit about what the other alternatives are that we're looking at and how realistic they are? Well, we looked at recycled water, but it was too expensive. We're putting new We're refurbishing the wells that we have right now. We're putting those in service. That's more of an emergency because our part of the aquifer that we share with Carefree is a lot smaller and it's it's fractured volcanic.

It's not the kind of aquafer they have down in Phoenix, which is a mile deep of sand that holds a lot of water. Um 70% of the water in Arizona is in agriculture. And I I think what's going to happen and I know that there are people with water who are sitting back waiting to see Harka kind of established a price. It was 21,500 per acre foot for 100year supply.

Uh and so I think that there's going to be water coming on the market and that which was another factor that we thought about when we decided to delay and when the when the when people understand when our state government and we've been to see the governor's office, we've been to see the DWR, we're in uh I'm in contact with someone there with someone there or in central Arizona project or the water bank weekly. So we're all over this. They know our situation and they're using us as an example.

So, a lot of water is going to come out of this and there are people working with farmers to say, "Well, look, don't farm and we'll buy your water from you." Uh, the feds have a lot of money. So, I I think what's going to happen is the feds are going to put some money in this to handle situations and we'll we'll probably get some help there. Thank you. Don't worry. Sleep tight. I'm not certain of where the 4,05 acres are.

Uh but I particularly am interested in the uh all that property to the north of Spur Cross or I mean schoolhouse road go out or school school cross ends and all of that. Is that part of the 4,000? Yes. Yeah, 660 acres and that is that's you know thousand ft from my house but we we're we're doing a priority basis to find out what are the what are the pieces of property that we want. So most of the property is on the other side of Seven Sisters behind you.

And the piece up here at the end of Schoolhouse Road running right through here, uh that is probably the piece that is closest to where we sit today. But it's uh you know just north of Glory Road and uh and it's over by the park in the rodeo grounds and it's up near uh Kahava Springs. It's uh 12 12 pieces of property, right? It's 12 different parcels of property and includes some absolutely marvelous the washes, the hillsides, the things like that.

It's really worth preserving and it'll be another thing like spur cross which is our signature uh thing that happened in the whole town. I think everybody wants and I have heard nobody no one who's against it. I don't need it. I speak loud. Um we're we're recording though if you don't mind. Okay. It's So, we give water to um Desert Hills. How many residents? I thought they were all for the most part on wells.

No, we have 1,900 customers out there and and and we stopped new service out there 5 years ago um because they they're on an aquifer and historically used well water, but the well started going dry. And if you notice around here, one thing you don't see up here when you're using groundwater, there's no recharge. Uh Phoenix used to have the Salt River running through it. So that recharge is gone down there, too. So in order for it to be sustainable, you've got to have recharge.

And we don't we don't have it here. They don't have it in Desert Hills. They don't have it in Phoenix, really. Yeah. My first time when I first moved here in 2017, somebody came to talk to our office about water and the whole thing is is that um built on granite. So once the water's gone, it's gone. I mean, it's it's you're not getting it back. Yeah. It it's it's called mind water. You know, the the Colorado River, it refill recharges. When it snows, it comes down here.

But the water that's underground, if there's no recharge, it's a oneand done. But we need diversity, too. I mean, if you've gotten anything from today, it's the fact that the Colorado River is not reliable for us for the future for all the water. There'll always be some, but we've got to have a diversity of supply. And we we spent a quart of a million dollars roughly to get in the Bartlett Dam project, for example, for Verie River Water, but the price of that uh has tripled and now it's doubled.

Three times two is six. So, it's got six times what we anticipated. So, uh Hark Halo Water was offered at 21,000 per acre foot. I did a real quick calculation the other day and the Bartlett Dam is now 77 $75,000 per acre foot. So, they're pricing themselves out. That project is in deep, deep trouble because the feds want half the water and the construction price tripled right after we got into this project. So that that project I think is going to be for us it's on life support.

Uh there's going to be a lot cheaper water than $75,000 an acre foot out there. Other questions? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. When you speak about safety, first let me go back to thank you for the fire department and all the emergency services. Um, fantastic applauding to everyone that did that. When you talk about safety, I have a question. We live off of Cape Creek Road by Rancho Mñana in those town homes. So, we are on the inside of that curve in or out of town. Mhm. Okay.

Um, visibility is very limited and traffic has increased and you talk about the speed limits and people that aren't following the speed limits and a lot of people do a U-turn right by the gate where we are. Um, it's gotten we've lived here 20 years. It's gotten exponentially worse over the years.

Um, so I was wondering if there's been any thought as you've gone into town and come out if you there's been any thought to um something in that area, stop sign, roundabout, something to help cuz I know they have had some serious accidents there. Well, every street and every corner in Arizona has their accident history, the type of accident, the number of people that are hurt, how severe the injuries are, and so it's all statistically done.

And then the engineers take those statistics and they uh then they have they get warrant they call warrants, which is if it rises to a certain level, then something happens. And for as far as I know, we have no warrants right now. Um, in fact, we've made it safer because now the speeds are down in town. The speed limit, this the average speed, the 85% and u the the above 85% of the 15% of the cars were going 43 miles an hour or faster in the 30 mph zones. That's the Cape Creek.

That is way way down. And mine's anecdotally. We have the engineer in here. We probably wouldn't want to handle that. But what I would do was I'd call I'd talk to Hal Maron. He's over there. And uh tell him what what's going on here. And we can take at least a cursory look and see if it looks like it might meet these engineering standards that are required. Because when you do something in traffic, you solve one problem and you make another one. And so they try to balance all these things out.

For example, well, I'm going to put a stop sign in. Well, now someone runs a stop sign and t-bones you and kills somebody. So, you can actually make things worse with traffic changes. And that's why it's all done with the national there's a national method of doing these and uh Hal can get that figured out for you. Mayor, if I may, town manager, um we've had similar requests from another neighbor that is in ranching because of concerns that have been expressed.

I just want to let you know that we engage the traffic engine to do exactly what the mayor mentioned um which is to look at traffic alternatives u traffic mitigation alternatives application. Um we will engage the residents once there are some u um proposed u mitigation efforts and we will have you um look at those before those come to council for their final determination and decision. But thank you for bringing that forward and and it is being worked on right now.

Our traffic our public works director is working on that. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh are there other questions? We got time for one more. Well, that that was easy. Well, I want to thank you all for being here. I'm really proud of this little town we have. I hope you are, too. conserve water in the summer, your irrigation, and get on the the 360 program that's on the town website. Uh we got fire season coming up. We're going to take a look at our preparedness here at an upcoming meeting.

Uh we've got a great fire department, automatic aid. You got people working on your behalf and we have a great staff that's doing that. Uh they're working day and night to to just for you, keep you safe and keep you wet. Thank you very much.