Cave Creek Council votes 5-2 for four-year terms, extends home-rule budget authority to $56.5 million

okay welcome to the regular Town council meeting the town of K Creek Arizona Monday March 4th 2024 have the roll call please council member augeron here council member bunch here council member alkama here council member McGuire pres counc member rhs here Vice May Royer here mayor Morris present but we're very fortunate tonight to uh to have Senator Kavanaugh here he represents Us in the state legislature and there's always a lot of fun there so uh Senator if you would lead us in the pledge and then the floor is yours all right thank you very much uh everyone please rise and uh join me in pledging allegiance to our great nation I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty all right well first uh thank you for uh inviting me it's always a a nice break to appear before a governmental body with adults on it you know he hasn't heard you have a wobbly Podium but that's okay uh I feel like I've been back in Fountain Hills with Grady at the the manager's table so you stole him from us uh so before I begin uh let me just tell you real little briefly about myself because many of you might not know my background and that's always important to know because now I'm your state senator so uh so as my accent May uh give away I was not born in Arizona I was born in New York City uh I uh attended I graduated from NYU back in 1973 right after that I uh went on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police uh I was there for 20 years I retired as a detective Sergeant uh I I spent most of my time at the bus terminal in time Square before Rudy Giuliani cleaned it up so it was a a really fun 20-year police career um right after I got on the Port Authority police uh we had moved to a small town outside of Manhattan and uh I ran for the Town Council and I spent three years on the Town Council there it was a very small town one of those towns where when you enter it says you know welcome to lafette uh elevation and then we have elevation set of our population because it was like 1,200 but it was a nice a training ground for for later um uh you know government and Town Council uh work um again I was on the p i 20 years uh I got a master's degree in government while I was a cop there and then eventually a PhD in criminal justice because I taught a little bit in the police academy and I said wow I said rather than become the chief of police which is why I got the master's degree in government politics uh I want to teach but I I didn't want to do real teaching which is K12 uh I wanted to do College teaching which is basically half the work and twice the pay and uh that's funny because it's really true uh but I wanted to do criminal justice obviously so I got a PhD from Ruckers and criminal justice uh in 73 I retired because you have a 20-year pension my wife Linda who some of you may know because she was mayor of Fountain Hills for a little over six years uh she uh hated the cold so uh uh har and me and our two kids uh moved here to Arizona and we wound up in uh fountain Hills course we'd like the small town uh atmosphere and I'm sure I don't have to tell you the benefits of the small town atmosphere uh got there uh Linda said don't get on the Town Council when you're on when you're on the council last time everybody started hating you because they only remember that the vote you disagree with I said okay I won't she said hey uh go on the Parks and Recreation Commission and volunteer that's a nice thing so uh I got on the parks of Recreation Commission the first issue was trails in the washes which I thought was a good idea which everybody who lived on a wash hated so I was in the middle of major controversy so she said well you might as well run for Town Council so after about six years on Parks and Rec I ran for the Town Council uh no I'm sorry after about four years uh and I spent six years on the Town Council and then I decided to increase the pool of people who I could annoy by running for the state legislature uh and I've been in a legislature since 2006 so I'm in my 18th year I've served in the house for eight years then I went to the senate for four years then I went back to the house I think for like another four years uh now I'm back in the Senate uh so I call myself trans chambered uh I also have been on the Appropriations Committee for all 18 years and most of the time I've been either chair chair or vice chair usually chair of the Appropriations I'm currently chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee we are uh now in a situation where we have a$6 billion do state general fund budget we are short about $1.7 billion uh this coming budget year uh so we'll be doing some Cuts we'll be doing some fund sweeps and we'll probably be deferring some of the construction projects that we have approved in the last couple of years uh it will not affect State shared Revenue so you're not going to be losing any money I don't know if any of the plant construction projects impact uh Cave Creek most of them are state roads we don't do too much in the area of uh uh County and and City Construction so probably won't impact you in any great way so what will well in terms of my bills I do a lot of bills uh I like two years ago when we had a republican Governor I had 30 bills signed into law which which is a lot of bills for a legislator um last year I think I had 20 signed into law uh we have a Democrat Governor which is pretty good from a Conservative Republican although she vetoed 30 of my bills so I kept my credibility with my Republican base uh but I got 20 past do a lot of Humane Animal legislation uh I've three times awarded the Humane Society of the US legislature of the year uh I I I used to do a lot of anti-illegal immigration legislation uh 1070 what have you little tough now you know the governor won't sign it right now uh one of the big bills that I got that I got passed out but I'm not sure if she's going to sign it or not is to enhance the penalty for obstructing traffic when you obstruct a large number of people uh I'm sure we all remember images of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco which was block where people were trapped on it for 4 hours as demonstrators blocked the traffic and the police stood by and do nothing did nothing so I passed the bill to increase the penalty for intentionally blocking more than 25 cars uh to a to a class six felony to deter that kind of behavior uh so a lot of times I I'll see things and I say hey that's there ought to be a law that's crazy and I run a bill like that uh I get a lot of complaints from people people who belong to homeowners associations uh most of them were good they stopped people from building you know purple houses next to yours but uh some of them are uh homeowners associations from Hell which persecute their their people so I usually run bills to help people out that have those kind of HOAs uh very often it's a flag bill you know like this session some woman the Widow of a World War II veteran who died wanted to to fly the service flag of her husband next to the American flag uh but she would have to like put up two two poles on the side of her house it's not a she didn't have a yard and the HOA said no you can't do that so running the bill that let people in hway have two flag poles off of their house instead of one and that's pretty common uh type of a thing uh let me talk what about what I think is the biggest threat that the legislature uh currently poses to you and it is a threat that has been there for the last maybe four years or so that so far has has been defeated but which I fear uh we may not be able to defeat this year and that is uh the legislature basically nullifying most of your zoning ordinances most of your building codes uh this is now in the past these efforts always failed because uh even though the Democrats in lockstep would get behind the league of cities and towns and say no no we're not preempting local jurisdictions uh now in the name of affordable housing they're open to doing that uh and then you have a number of Republicans who don't think government has any right in telling people what to do with their land and they're o open to these things and I fear and I don't know where the Govern will stand but uh I guess she could go either way I don't know what you know manner of democrat she is on this issue but there are bills that would uh basically uh elim uh greatly encroach upon your single family uh zoning where they would get rid of minimum lot sizes let them build very multif family houses and one family zones another bill will anybody build an accessory house a CA uh and needless to say you'll have people building them not for Grandma but because they want to do an Airbnb rental uh and make money off of it uh they're also uh they want to limit your ability to set standards aesthetic standards there's one bill that wants to limit your ability to to to to cribe certain building materials so they're going to literally you know walk all over and trash uh your your ordinances if they get a majority of the votes uh so be for warned on that uh the other big problem is the short-term rentals and I'm not 100% sure how big a problem that is for you but I mean Cave Creek is generally a desirable place to go to and those are the places that have short-term rental problems uh I mean Sedona is the uh uh you know the the basket case where it's so popular tourist wise that literally 40% of its downtown residential housing is short-term rentals which means that the people who work in town they work in the schools or in the businesses can't live in Sedona it's a real crisis for them because the bottom line is you can make more money renting your house for short-term rentals if you're in area people want to be then renting it to a a long-term uh tenant and that's how the situ ation uh skyrocketed this came about about oh maybe six seven years ago it was a Senate Bill uh and it was sold as uh basically uh letting uh the empty nesting you know grandar and grandpa with the vacant room make a few extra bucks renting it out to the exchange student from Sweden uh didn't work out that way like nobody rents a room in their house for short-term rental nobody wants a new stranger every week living in their house it's all renting uh the whole house and companies came in uh I mean there corporate there companies selling stocks uh and and buying massive numbers of these houses so what you basically have is a a decentralized horizontal Hotel complex which is you know destroying neighborhoods uh the the peace and quiet of surrounding neighbors uh having served having served uh three years in the left at New Jersey Town Council and six years on the Fountain Hills Town Council I knew the the Dirty Little Secret that municipalities have which of course is that ordinance enforcement especially noise complaints and the life at night is something which is extremely and based upon that there's virtually no way that that municipalities can adequately police these things that's why when the short-term rental Bill to let people do this uh came up about six years ago uh the vote in the Senate was uh 29 for one against and I was the one against I said this is going to cause major problems this is going to be a disaster and of course it was uh I was able to pass a couple years later a Bild Banning party houses because some people bought these houses purely as event venues and those were total horror for for the residents you might have been around when we had a couple of those uh I got to to ban that but it's still a problem with you know different people strangers coming into your next door neighbor's house and making noise and outside smoking cigars and the smoke rips over and the noise so it's a disaster I will continue to try to to limit them uh but like I said uh there's still a flavor for for allowing this the move to reform is hard to get the votes for because there's still some support for them um the other issue I think are the Sober Living homes I don't know if you got hit by any of those problems but they became a major major disaster uh particularly since there there's virtually no regulations uh and there's very Surly no oversight in these places so a lot of them were were being abused uh Senator Carol has a pretty good bill which will allow more restrictions and more inspections which I'm hoping we I'll be voting for and which hope that we get through uh and I think he has a chance to do it because uh the governor and Democrats were like really upset at the the way that uh people who were gaming that system victimized uh Native Americans from the Navajo reservation they were going up there and picking them up in Vans and bringing them down to Phoenix and putting them in these Sober Living homes which were just generating Revenue you know from from the government so they are they were upset because of of that so they're they aren't looking too fondly on on them so they may be uh enough votes I think to crack down on the Sober Living homes but again uh before I'll I'll open to questions the biggest threat you have right now are to your zoning to your aesthetic standard reviews to the materials you use in your houses and I would urge you to to contact my house cohorts and tell them that uh you you don't want that to uh you don't want to lose the ability to do that because my position has been I moved into a single family uh to a one family zoned area with kind of mediumsized lot size because I want a little space and I don't want somebody you know if there's a vacant lot down the street building a a a three-story multifam house which is what these people will will let you do and by the way if you think you're protected by your HOA uh one of the laws wants to overrule the ability of an HOA to limit this stuff too so they're coming to get you so watch out and any questions any questions or other areas want me speak to I'd be more than happy to um I have one and other Council may want to start thinking other things but uh last year we had the prohibition on the sales tax on food uh which would have absolutely gutted our town because we we depend on it and uh what's uh what's the likelihood of that coming back uh well it's supposed to take effect uh doesn't it take effect in 26 that that's the I think that's the rental oh I'm sorry which one you talking about the the the the prohibition against taxing oh I I heard nothing about that so uh I think for now that that's dead okay great but you know the legislature is Zombie Land so these things can rise from the dead next year so so but I think the league of cities does a pretty good job in monitoring that yeah I thought you meant the the rental tax but yeah uh I haven't heard anything on the food okay uh Council Ernie Senator welcome I had the pleasure of sitting in that middle seat two in in May of 2020 when we had had two major wildfires in the town of Cave Creek uh the East Desert fire and the um uh the uh fire I'm a little dismayed at seeing the fireworks stuff come back again uh we're a Wildland Urban interface Community um irresponsible use of consumer fireworks especially what they're kind of showing that where they a little bit not full aerial but aerial from the ground are concerning to us because we have this invasive weed called stink net or uh you probably got it out in your neighborhood as well if you don't it's coming uh it's a very dangerous thing I'm wondering if there's any way to to to it I I seem like around 200 I've been here since 2005 so you're like a relative newcomer starting in 2006 um I said I was a Pioneer the we were able to to do some stuff several years ago and then the then the legislature and infant wisdom came back and and took that those rights away from us is there any way that you can can can stop that from being a danger it's a big deal this community yeah there is a bill uh that at least will uh allow you to uh like license the um the uh the people who sell them and and put some restrictions on on on you know where they're sold and what have you uh I there was a bill last year to limit noise making ones but it didn't go anywhere because the current law doesn't allow noise making ones it's purely the aesthetic type ones uh the problem is in terms of banning them is like it was pasted you know many years ago 06 whatever you said uh what year was it 05 05 and everybody said if you pass this there'll be forest fires and the state will be Ablaze and we really didn't see that so to the extent that you can give us reports of where those fireworks have started a fire that would be helpful because you know you need kind of evidence to do that uh and you know and there could also be other um restrictions in terms of you know when we're in a high Wildfire warning area you can't you there are things we can do but we really could use we need to have evidence that's saying these things are causing fires because we haven't we haven't gotten that yet and that would be helpful yeah yeah yeah it was it was nice when we had the ability to actually regulate locally when you when you say uh uh licensing where they're sold from directly across Carefree Highway is is is is fries which is in the city of Phoenix and I'm sure Phoenix would love to have the sales tax revenue from those from those particular devices which end up in Cave Creek and and we all know that very few citations are written on July 4th our New Year's Day it just doesn't happen because because it's over so fast but so is a fire well I mean get evidence to the league and I think the league is in in a good good situation to put you know reasonable restrictions I think the restrictions areon reasonable and founded on information it's something that can happen yeah yeah when you get to sign disaster disaster declarations for 2500 Acres of fire in in a community that's 32 square miles it's pretty scary yeah yeah thank you you any questions from Council well thank you very much Senator okay my pleasure and uh you know I just if you have any issues come up or you have questions just you know just give a call uh you know I'm I'm there and you know in a couple weeks committee hearings will be over and we'll be waiting for the governor to uh you know start serious negotiations so I'll be twiddling my thumb a lot so I'd be more than happy to entertain any calls well thank you very much thank you thank you next thing on the agenda tonight is uh public announcements does council have any public announcements I I have a a comment and um well the the comment is this as I drive down Carefree Highway and look north um the debris that comes from the businesses along that street is just piling up along Carefree Highway on our side of the street and I'm wondering is there any any thought any plan going into getting that cleaned up um are there citizens that will help us clean that up is there where's the daylight there uh mayor counsel um I just want to let you know that over the weekend I received an email from a a citizen that has offered to kind of help with that and in fact there's supposed to be some people here representing him um tonight and I also offered to meet with him um a lot of cities have what's called um adopt a street program and so um I've talked to Hal how and I will be meeting with this resident to see if there might be an opportunity to um handle it that way awesome thank basically we provide the bags they pick it up and we then um collect the bags all right good I just wanted to congratulate our town for hosting a wonderful stateof the town our first inaugural event that we've held and Bob did a wonderful job uh leading the discussion and the staff was excellent as well and it was a full house at the library and a lot of important information was disseminated um and I think a lot of people hopefully watched after the fact so I just think it was a um a great idea it was Bob's idea to have it um because a lot of other communities have these states of the town cities um and now we do and it's a great way to have FaceTime with our uh residents and our visitors and for them to learn about what we're working on uh in the past our accomplishment ments but also looking forward so congratulations to all others next on the agenda is called to public bill Port this are we working yes great Mr Mayor vice mayor member of the council as always I want to thank you for your service here this is a challenging job and it pays so well we've really earned the money this time I'm here to talk about the trail situation and I'm really kind of puzzled why we're having to do this again but I have to tell you I'm greatly impressed at the authority of this Council because because it turns out if you go to the Supreme Court and and you're not satisfied you can always relitigate right here in front of this Council and I'm kind of puzzled by all that so I watched you know the videos are wonderful because you can watch it more than once and I have to tell you the first time I saw this and saw that this trail that we've been promised since I first heard about it in 2011 that's not happening I was it it makes you angry but the more I watched this I realized that you know we have a problem and that we have a divide in the town that you know about but I listen to this and it's we're the deplorables we're on the wrong side of the tracks We're The Outsiders and then I I thought about that some more I wasn't angry I was sad about that because for some reason the side of this town doesn't consider us their neighbor they don't consider that we are equal citizens in Cave Creek you know I heard one of them say we've got enough Trails well this is the trail map right here for Cave Creek that's on the site if I fold it in half and show you the west side do you know what's not on here one inch of Cave Creek Trail nothing at all on the west side of the creek how did that happen so and you know I'm thinking about this and I look at this and say okay the trail on Morning Star what happens when you get on the trail on Morning Star you know what you ride right past your neighbors well why am I not entitled to ride past those same neighbors myself doing that what did we do wrong that somehow we're not entitled to be part of the town but I realize that really what's happened is those people are scared and they're scared because they've been told a lot of things that just aren't real and I have to tell you that this is about a trail not about a road we've never come and ask you for a road this is about a trail a very short piece of Trail and in thinking about this a little bit more I want to I want to extend an invitation to all of the residents on the east side they these new modern Trails they have this Innovation now they go both directions did you know that they can actually come over and have access to the Cave Creek Regional Park which is spectacular I'm gonna have to talk faster they have access to the Maricopa Trail and by the way I love Trails the Maricopa Trail wraps around two sides of my property and the happiest moment in my day is when I look out and I see people on Horseback wearing cowboy hats and think I don't have to worry about wars or inflation rates or pandemics or anything else because that didn't change and the last thing I want to touch on the that's flashing red at me we really need to think about this town as as a town not a good side of the tracks and bad side of the tracks and so I just ask you to remember all of you you represent everyone in Cave Creek thank you thank you Terry Smith mayor council Terry Smith 39825 North 26 Street bill has said a lot of it and what I hope each one of you and especially people that haven't been around for a long time on councel in this town we on the West Side have been what' you call us deplorables I think R ugly you know the the ugly stepchild um I've got my notes here I'll try to stay on target with it Bill kind of got me off because he hit a lot of the points um I was on Council back when we were putting in spur cross I ran on Council and I didn't want to go on councel um but I ran for one reason because they were going to call this park that they're putting in up there spur across Conservation Area conservation meant to me that we are the ones that going to use it and we're going to keep everybody out and we are on the west side so I ran on Council under one thing and I got more votes than anybody that year and I ran on on it just for trails and that got us a trail on the south side of spur cross so we actually would have access if I wouldn't have went on councel everybody up here in North Cave Creek would have said we're going to have one Trail one way going in so we can get in there but we I got that through and that was my major accomplishment when I was on Council and I've been here well I moved out to Cave Creek here in 88 or 89 and that area so I've been here a long time I've seen it the other thing is I understand people are objecting to this Trail and apparently there was a whole bunch of people objecting what I've heard you know they saying all kinds of things like it's going to be opening use it for a road it's a trail is it designated for non-vehicular trail for bicycles people walking and horses just like in the park it's not a trail for motorcycles or side by sides or anything like that it is a trail it the sin is it goes across Cave Creek wash and my God we cannot let like Bill said the people from the West Side get over here and the reason why these people are so much up in arms about this Trail is they have 30 miles of trails in Cave Creek if you look at the map you'll see trails up spur cross you'll see trails on Schoolhouse you'll see trails everywhere we have no Cave Creek Trails West of Cave Creek wash this town spends approximately $100,000 a year on trails that means let's say take five years that's $500,000 a half million dollars on Trails how much was spent west side of cap Greek wash zero like bill says your council members we are part of this town and we have been put down left out there's no no Road can ever be built acrossed up here because of the annexation agreement that was put in when they annexed up there so we can't drive to town people in North Cave Creek can drive to town right from their house we have to go down to Carefree Highway and come across years ago there was New River Road but the Vance the May at that time when it fled at one time said we're going to close it off so we can't even come across New River Road anymore it's been closed off so we've been shut off in the town looked down upon and been deprived of any improvements really everything is North Cave Creek so I plead with you when this comes up take a look and represent all of Cave Creek not just the people that are yelling because they're afraid that I might ride my horse through their neighborhood okay and besides that that trail is much benefit for North Cave Creek because then you'd be able to go into spur cross come down out of spur cross come back into North Cave Creek it's up here in the North Area so it's for everybody not just us but at least for us we're going to have a little piece of a trail after all these years what else was I GNA compl um we proba to wrap it up Terry really yeah you got the red light blinking at you there I don't know what that means well we're that other guy got wrong let's see what else here I don't know I just we're pleading with you it is uh it is important to us it's important to this town but most of all it's important that we can have something makes us feel like we're part of this town and actually want it thank you thank you no additional cards okay we have uh we have one uh written comment that that uh came in on time and um this is from Star Thornton she asked that we read this uh mayor Morris vice mayor Royer councilman bunch and Council McGuire thank thank you for allowing me to set the record straight for the record the information in my comments are facts obtained from public documents at the last council meeting Mr Arland made many false statements regarding the Morning Star Road Trail alignment the following comments are my rebuttal Mr Arland said the town was sued and lost the the comment is not true per the court case cv-1 17- 0115 DPR in fact the town won and has the right to put the trail through without the approval of the residents in addition to losing the case the plaintiff had to pay court costs it is important to understand that the trail easement does not follow the existing Road the trail easement does not follow the 1969 Road easement either Mr Freeman illegally improved the road without a permit the trail easement is only 10 feet which is too narrow for a road and is not motorized as Mr Arland said the trails for hikers bikers and horses in addition the actual Trail itself will be between four and six feet wide another important point is that to put a road through goes against the general plan in addition kava Springs would have to wide morning sants per cross to allow for increased traffic in order to obtain permission to W to widen those roads the developer would have to pay 100% agreement from each would have to have 100% agreement from each homeowner along those roads I live on spur cross and certainly would not be in favor of widening the road in What alternative Universe would 100% of the creek creers agree on anything Mr Arland insinuated that Mr sta kava Springs received something from the town for the gift of the Eastman Mr sta received nothing for the gift Mr arand further insinuated that the Town Council and staff are less than honest about the gift of the easement these both false these both these are both false statements I added the verb in there transactions must be disclosed it is the law to even suggest that our Council and staff are not honest could be construed as slander he has no facts to show us only his opinion opinion is only hot air without facts to back it up Miss uh WEA I'm sure I mispronounced that should be made aware that the trail does not touch her property she has been made a victim of the false narrative spread by Mr arand councilman augeron is anti-trail as evidenced by his voting and his speaking in the past Mr rhs owns horses it surprises me that he would be against more trails to ride I walked part of the trail the other day it will be a lovely addition to our town in closing please do not sign a petition based on bias bullying and fearmongering I strongly urge you to get the information for yourself as I did um I just say that one of the things about call to the public the council cannot respond to call the public except if there is a personal attack um and if M councilman augen or councilman rhs feels that way you're welcome to uh rejoin hear I have Mr Mayor please proceed okay let okay uh that concludes call to the public town manager report thank you mayor council um in light of the comments from tonight regarding the Morning Star Trail and and what we've heard from the um the comments that you just read and also from um the last council meeting I think it's really important for um me to put some factual public information out um effective tomorrow that addresses both um some of the concerns that have been raised and but with factual information um because there's some misinformation we've been reading about and hearing about and So the plan is to do that um tomorrow and we will um address a number of the points have been brought up not only tonight but also um at the last council meeting so we'll do that tomorrow um I do have some announcements I also wanted to share with um the council and the public our brush drive-thru and drop off um is going to be coming up on uh this Saturday uh the first one is March 9th the second one will be April 13th it'll be at The Cave Creek Water Ranch at 4300 East Carefree Highway so this is is really designed as a program for people to clear um a lot of the brush that they have on their properties um to try to make their property safer and um avoid um having some issues with fire also um as the vice mayor mentioned uh last week we did have the stateof the town and I want to let the public know that the video of that is available on our website and YouTube um not only the video of actually the presentation made by mayor Morris but also the short video clip is a separate clip that's available for viewing and also we had a um meanix interconnect openhouse meeting last week uh last Thursday night about 16 people uh showed up for it um and I thought that utilities director Cruz Weisner did a great job in addressing uh concerns and um as well as the Consultants who were there um that is also we did a um uh live stream of that and so for those residents that may not have been able to view it we did record that so that's also available on our website those are all the reports I have tonight mayor and councel thank you first item on the general agenda is uh reschedule the Monday March 18 2024 regular Town council meeting to Monday March 25th 2024 presented by the deputy manager John clerk mayor and Council um I'm requesting to move the March 18th meeting to March 25th so that we don't have to uh worry about interfering with the elections that are on March 19th the council chambers will be used for um the it's the presidential preference election um on March 19th so uh the only other room we have available to us would be in our conference room which is awfully small uh so if we so do choose we would move the meeting to March 25th and may if I may just one other item too so we were made aware by the utilities director that if we do not go this month we lose our pricing on the guaranteed maximum price for the Phoenix interconnect project so we're talking about really another advantage of this is clearly saving money so I would highly recommend that we move the meeting to March 25th I'm not sure understand what why the so the the pricing that we have is is good through the end of March oh through the end of March I yes okay and so if we don't do it then then we lose that okay uh questions from Council uh I see no public comments so we're ready for a motion then does someone have a motion I'll do that motion to reschedule the Monday or Monday Yeah March 18th 2024 regular Town council meeting to Monday March 25th 2024 s having having seen the chaos in this room two years ago or when we almost had a meeting with all the stuff set up in here it would this is a really good idea to change it thank you Ernie makes sense other comments from Council seeing none we are ready for a Voice vote all those in favor this motion say I I I opposed motion passes 70 second item on the agenda is the second public hearing on the proposed extension of an alternative expenditure limitation home rule option and Council discussion approval of resolution r202 24- 03 a resolution of the mayor and Town Council of the town of Cave Creek Maricopa County Arizona proposing an alternative expenditure limitation and this is presented by the interim Finance director who has approached the podium thank you mayor and Council um so so Elias Joan our uh interim Finance director will be doing the presentation this time around with that I'll turn it over to the finance director turn M please mayor and Council good evening um this action item is about uh the uh holding a public hearing as per Arizona Revis statute um before the home rule extension goes to the B on the ballot if the resolution is approved tonight um before you tonight there's a resolution to put on a ballot the home rule extension as uh mentioned at the first uh presentation last month for the first public hearing uh this is this is about I think the sixth time this uh initiative goes on the ballot and it gets voted for uh since 1999 uh the Arizona revised Statute imposed uh an expenditure limitation it goes back to 1980 using the base limit of expenditure as the Baseline back in 1980 and uh and then it goes up every year by uh the uh uh CPI inflation index and the population but uh back in 1990 of course they didn't realize the uh the fast growth in the communities and uh and and so the expenditure limitation was was not adequate for uh home U for towns and cities in Arizona so uh they imposed these two options home rule and and uh the other one is the um permanent uh extension adjustment um the state imposed limitation on expenditure is $6.2 million with the home rule option uh the town is allowed to spend up to the total revenues and that is 56.5 million dollar um having this u in place allows the town to continue spending on their projects uh Capital Improvements mainly of course salaries and benefits and operating expenses uh if this doesn't pass tonight then it will be Draconian uh Cuts as mentioned at the last month uh public hearing uh and basically this is not about raising taxes the town is not asking the voters to raise taxes they're simply uh looking at extending this option four more years per Arizona revised Statute so uh with that I turn it over to Mayor and Council if you have any questions but again this would be the sixth time it goes before the voters for approval and it's been approved every time since 1999 poon from Council council member mcgar home rule um the imposition possible imposition is disruptive at best has there been uh action by the league of cities or others to try to negate this particular um difficulty for the town there just doesn't seem to be any practical reason for point I'll I'll take that yes thank you great thanks uh council member so it's a very good question um as the interim Finance director mentioned there are two options one is the um home rule option which as you're familiar with is every four years the other one is called permanent base adjustment and there are um a handful there's not quite as many cities and towns that have that but I would expect a a town our size once we stabilize on our Capital Improvement budgets um and expending um even though those are also exceptions but once we kind of can forcast into the future probably beyond the next five to 10 years I would really move and try to get us to go to the permanent base adjustment um there there's uh quite a bit that goes into the forecasting to get the numbers where they need to be but um a number of large cities um in Arizona have done that and so they've been able to do that successfully and they take it to the voters you still have to get voter approval for that so that would be I mean my opinion is those are really the two options um otherwise it takes a constitutional change and that would be a really big hardship to try to get the league to try to take on that that issue because the legislature I can't imagine this legislature would want to make any changes like that but the permanent base adjustment is really I think for us the way to go in the future probably we probably have one more election like this um for home rule and then we'll likely want to maybe look at doing in permanent base the next go around so is the permanent base uh possibility something that the voters would pass once and then we would be free of we be free of having go back every four years that's I'm sorry didn't make that clear but that's a good point other questions BR does the time to do something something in the publicity pamphlet explaining this to the voters absolutely um and we're likely going to have some public information sessions on it as well um I think it's really important for people to understand um that without their approval of this um this is going to be causing some dire situation for the provision of services in town um our utilities are not even really set up as uh Standalone Enterprise funds and so those would be likely affected by this as well so we really need um the public to understand that um that this is very important for them to consider and and possibly approve but we will um we will hold public information uh sessions um like public uh open houses um but we will also have information on our website and other ways of trying to communicate to Residents but we cannot Advocate you know at a staff level however all of you as elected officials can Advocate both in your role as elected official here as well as in the public but staff cannot spend staff resources or money or anything to Advocate um because it's considered a political issue question do we and know offhand what the voting result was in 2020 for home rule I believe it was pretty big in favor I don't know the number but we can look up and let the council know I think it was 8020 something like that so I think our community understands I I have not heard of this not passing in other cities um after a while that they've done it um people tend to trust and understand but part of that is the public information you really got to make sure that people understand that the base level of services that they've come to expect would not be able to be provided um business as usual without um being able to expend the money agree I was okay uh there's a public hearing on this and so I open the public hearing I have no one wishing to speak there are no speakers the public hearing is now closed and we are looking for a motion to approve the resolution thank you Mr Mayor coun motion to approve the resolution R22 24- 03 a resolution of the mayor and Town Council to the town of Cave Creek Maricopa County Arizona proposing an alternative expenditure limitation second uh this does this ises this a Voice vote counselor uh yes sir okay we'll have a Voice vote on this all those uh person all comments the motion second anyone else I just not passing this is actually uh Financial Municipal suicide and I hope the voters understand that as well when it gets to them okay so we'll have the vote now The Voice vote all those in favor of of this motion signify by saying I I I I all those opposed hearing none motion task is 7 Z thank item number three is thank you asking welcome to town that's your first appearance before us you did great pleasure to be here thank Council consideration of ordinance number o 202 24-02 in ordinance of the mayor and Council the town of Cave Creek Maricopa County Arizona amending the town code title 3 Administration Chapter 30 Town Council by amending section 30.02 entitled term of office to provide for a voter approved four-year term for mayor and a four-year staggered terms for Council Members commencing with the terms of office commencing after the general election of November 2024 and two consecutive four-year term limits is presented by the town attorney and the deputy Town manager town clerk Mr Mayor members of the council members of the council this is a second read the statutes allow you to ask the voters to extend to four-year terms that's what this does the third paragraph that you see is the one that says if the voters approve the extension of the four-year terms and staggered then the ordinance you'd pass tonight includes term limits to two successive four-year term limits that would not be effective in fact the ordinance would be rescinded if indeed the voters do not approve the staggered foure terms nothing to add unless have questions okay uh any questions by Council of or the council I have a question uh do either one of you know how many other towns have fouryear standard terms is it the majority of um towns in Arizona cities in towns I'm the town attorney for eight and all have that you you were the you're the outlier other questions okay uh there is public comment on this Julie goldammer hi Julie goldammer um 3422 North 52nd Street thank you mayor Morris um vice mayor Royer and council members this is a hard thing to comment on but I feel like I need to be true to myself um a couple of these things are just going to be observations obviously this is a second reading I have gotten up before and spoken about this I guess some of this would be questions um why wasn't this done before people pulled packets um I feel like you know I I understand the continuity I am in agreement with continuity I understand that other uh towns do have forear terms and they are staggered it's just I think we could have had a little bit more foresight if this was a concern we knew the election was coming up and I would ask that you consider delaying this for another round I know that doesn't help all of us that have been out there and I was out there again today um getting signatures I don't want this to come across that I in no way would not want to serve for four years but I do want to put out a little observation just because I think the four-year term I understand are going to be distributed based on the number of votes and I think that is a way that you're trying to keep this not be arbitrary however Mr Terry who spoke before said he ran for the council and he got the most votes on the trail vote uh so somebody new could conceivably come in and be one of those top vote Getters and that's not continuity in my opinion um but I think there's just a better way than the top vote Getters to do it um because I I just feel like I I don't know where those numbers come from I'll give you another example the statute for us to go get signatures says 5% of the vote last time but not more than 10% and one would question why is it not more than 10% I I would think the more signatures we got the better our nomination to the ballot would be so I think the top three vote Getters is a bit of um an illogical way of choosing it I think once the votes happen I think people should have the option including the top three vote Getters to opt in for the four years because what if somebody there just can't make that commitment because of personal reasons or otherwise thank you for the opportunity to explain myself thank you hanova before we start Mr Senator Kavanaugh said he would extend his remaining time to mine he'll yield that being said mayor vice mayor council members Ron Sova cave Greek Town core resident I believe that having staggered terms and term limits make sense I I'm for that however the last item at your last council meeting comments from the council supporting a four-year term were that a four-year term would be better for the following reasons uh it would provide greater stability and continuity for the town it would also enable more time for council members to better learn and understand the issues of the Town such as the budgeting The Cave Creek and the Carefree Water Systems the Wastewater Plant the fire station and the Phoenix water interconnect just to name a few was also stated that a four-year term would allow the candidates to spend less money campaigning every four years versus every two years and require resident petition signatures uh every two years versus the four years uh by going door too it's every time consuming and ruing it would also limit the installation of campaign signs to every four years years instead of every two years within our town rideways with that said campaigning is very time consuming costly and challenging all done to win a seat on the council to serve the town's residents and oversee the business of the town all of this on your own time and expense and without receiving any compensation whatsoever good governance was was never meant to be easy it was stated that the last few councils have served and worked hard to improve the water companies the Wastewater facility establishing a fire department and providing better budgeting all this was done while council members were serving two-year terms and running for reelection our town is changing with growth pressures coming from our South that will require constant action to preserve and protect our unique town our population is growing with an influx of new residents from varied backgrounds having unique experiences a two-year term would allow more residents to get involved and serve which would allow for a newer and fresher ideas and a more timely basis to better address these unknown challenges that lie ahead running for office is no easy task I know that firsthand and that I ran four campaigns winning twice I served as a council member and as former vice mayor longer terms could create too much and the key word is could not would create too much Independence for council members and cause losing sight of the residents current concerns interests and priorities our US House of represent atives the people's house have had two-year terms for over 235 years and our town has maintained two-year terms for over 38 years Our Town Council is the people's house I therefore ask that you consider retaining the two-year term as our founding fathers had envisioned in 1789 which provide for a more responsive dialogue with our residents and provides a continual influx of new candidates providing new And Timely ideas and priorities thank Youk thank you no additional speakers okay um so there is uh there is public comment on this oh that well that's a public comment okay yeah I guess we pass that so at at this point then we're looking for a motion I'll make it motion to approve second reading of ordinance o 202 24-02 ad ordinance of the mayor and Council of the town of Cave Creek Maricopa County Arizona amending the town code title three Administration Chapter 30 Town Council by amending section 30.02 entitled term of office to provide for a voter approved four-year term for mayor and four-year staggered terms for Council Members commencing with the terms of office commencing after the general election of 2024 and two consecutive four-year term limits second I had the uh the motion so I will make the comment um we mentioned the towns uh our Council mentioned that he he all the towns he represents are on four-year terms I also did a a private survey of the towns around us that are neighboring towns um what they're doing and on four-year terms and I didn't find any that run two-year terms so it'd be Scottdale Chandler Phoenix Peoria Gilbert Glendale Mesa and Fountain Hills and that's those are the ones that I checked um I know of no towns that are on two-year terms um and the real reason is to improve government I don't think our town can claim that our government has uh been in the upper tier of uh managing the fairs of the Town historically during this time we've had twoyear terms um and so I I I don't think there's a case to be made that that government is better under two-year terms the reasons to submit this to the voters my judgment from my 11 years including on councils and and U on the water advisory committee and then as mayor is it will improve our government through a more experienced Council and mayor it will induce more potential candidates to serve when I talk to people about serving on Town Council uh many who are very qualified decide not to serve because of the honorous nature everyone's heard here it's a volunteer you have this the elections every two years the signs the petitions the campaign the financial reports Etc it does reduce the personal burden by reducing expenses paperwork and the time spent campaigning and it removes the campaign signs from our streets so I I do support this I think our town government will be better than there's no reason there's no reason it shouldn't be more responsive uh we have a uh the most liberal rules that I'm aware of in governments like this for public input and we're GNA we're going to probably be doing even more of that in the future so so I do support this you had the second yeah I think Carefree just had a vote and and they decided to go to the four-year terms but I'm pleased to send this to the voters Ernie may remember that this came up as a possibility a number of years ago the town chose to keep us on a short leash but surely this is something that the voters I hope the voters understand the issues as to the advantages that uh two-year or four-year terms are but I certainly support it going to the public and that's what this is all about other comments D do you want go I think I've said it in the last meeting I oppose fouryear terms I think if you can't go out and get a couple hundred signatures to get on the ballot every two years we've got bigger problems than than uh you know sitting around for four years as far as getting to know the budget and everything else um you get out of it what you put into it and I I made sure at least that I went and put a lot of time in the budget when we first did it now we have different terminology in Arizona so that caught me a little bit by surprise but I think for the three new council members we wouldn't had three new council members uh and the voters would have chosen to continue on if we didn't have those two-year terms but they brought three new council members on to get a fresh opinion on things so I I think it's good to have two-year terms and I applaud Mr SOA because he's absolutely correct the con the Continental Congress took six months to determine that they wanted two-year terms for the people's house because they wanted more input and they wanted them they wanted to force those legislators to go back to their constituents every two years to face the music that's it for me I believe they also thought that two years was plenty time for someone to give up for the government and they could go back to their normal way of life at that time thus uh believing in the in a form of of term limits uh having said up here on this Das for a very long time um I kind of have mixed emotions about this I I've seen I've seen councils come and go uh I've seen uh two years you know first of all we're we are a constitutional republic and that's how we should be handling this up here as well uh not a not a democracy where one person decides that uh or two two wolves decide that they're going to eat the one sheep um I see see this a four-year term as le as as people possibly be able to make a better decision based on the facts before them and not worry so much you know for the whole Community as opposed to worrying about what people in the audience are thinking uh I I will vote for this I will likely likely vote for it if it if it does come to the ballot um I support this um I I empathize with the people who are just deciding to run for this office and uh I see that there's five of you here and I'm not sure if it's appropriate uh but since one spoke uh her opinion on on this subject I'm wondering if we could hear from any of the others are they able to come to the Das and speak can we take it out of order we well we've already gone through that public comment you you as the council could wave that if you wish if they wish to speak but right now your code says your code says they've already had the opportunity to come but you could you could decide to wave it if you is there any objection to waving that no good no then good then um if any of you are willing uh unexpectedly to come to the podium and tell us your thoughts our our were two years of of what you wanted is a four-year commitment too much to ask Tom sure if you want me sure come on up yes all right see if I get this right you can hear me okay yes okay uh Tom SE cor I live in Rancho Manana and I thought I was going to be talking about the cleanup committee that um one of my neighbors talked about but anyway we'll meet with you later on um to be blunt haven't really dove into the two versus four piece um but off the top I would probably find myself pulling for more of a four-year term than a two-year term um getting up to speed and uh should I be elected I'm going to dive in I'm kind of an all-in guy anyway um so I think I can get up to speed pretty quickly um but having to get signatures which getting a couple hundred signatures it sure sounds easy um it's proven maybe a little more difficult than what I thought it would be but I'll get there um but yeah I think a fouryear term kind of lets you get into the office um I I guess the other the other way I would think about it too is I don't want Grady to leave in two years you know I'd like him to stick around for four eight 15 um you know I think you just get some continuity and then lastly I would just say the time that I've been here in Cave Creek um there's a lot of folks that have you know come from different ideologies and that sort of thing but the one thing that's been constant is love for this town and so I just think that in a nonpartisan position that you all hold right now um I don't there's going to be uh some uh disagreement and whatnot but I think we could all agree on what we're going to do is what's best for the town so yeah I would probably find myself right now on a four-year Lane um but also leave the right to change my mind all right thanks anybody else out there [Music] Cynthia mayor vice mayor and council members Cynthia Driscoll um also running for town Council um I would uh not be opposed to a 4-year term um I anticipated a 2-year term my Planning Commission assignment is a three-year term all of it indicates that you have a willingness to learn and serve and cover some new territory so that to me is the important part um I think the best thing about this resolution is it strictly goes to the voters the voters get to decide if this is a good idea um so again I would accept either one but I would uh I would support the council moving this forward so that the voters can have a say thanks thank you s Alex like to approach mayor vice mayor council members Alex nison currently running for Town Council um I haven't had a lot of time to look into it obviously um however I think there's two things there's the fact that most of the other municipalities are following the fouryear sure so to me that evidence indicates the majority it works for the majority versus the two-year there is a lot of time spent you know Gathering signatures running all of that if you do it every two years but also my personal experience as businessman owner executive what I've seen is it always takes one year of a cycle for somebody to get into the groove to learn how things work there's a lot of time and I'm not questioning anybody's time commitment it takes a lot of time to learn that and once you do that I feel you become much more productive and I feel like if you're doing that if somebody's coming in every two years you're not really getting the benefit of that individual in year one so I would I I if I was to make a decision based on the information I have today I would side with the fouryear term limit because of that experience of mine thank you thanks Al lastly Jim if you don't want to you don't have to no pressure I'm not sure I have anything else actually as well very good thank you all okay we'll continue down here with the I want to speak to the idea of bringing in new individuals every two years I I see a balance of uh what's happening uh between what's happening in the Senate where you have six-year terms and in the House of Representatives you have two-year terms with the staggered terms truly every two years you are bringing in new people and new ideas Co what I like is that we're having a good conversation about this and um and it is going to come to the people we serve to make that decision with us um continuity I believe is important I have gone through that learning curve um and I feel like I'm still on that curve um it's also um it's also important I I really believe that new voices uh on this dis are are reflective of what the town people have asked for and so [Music] um I I probably will vote for this I'm still I'm still conflicted about that but um I'm I'm really glad we're going to send it out and um with the assurances that we will do a good job of explaining what we're what we're trying to do here thanks okay com that's even thank you okay um so at this point uh we are um we're ready for a vote and so it'll be a roll call please council member Maguire yes council member rhs no council member augeron no council member Bunch yes council member ala yes bcan Royer yes mayor Morris yes motion passes 52 if I counted correctly next on the agenda and so uh what that means is this will be submitted to the voters so the voters decide uh number four is Council discussion approval of second reading of ordinance o22 24-1 in ordinance of the mayor and Town Council the town of Cave Creek Maricopa County Arizona pertaining to the National flood insurance program adopting the reference revised flood insurance study and flood insurance rate maps and flood plane management regulations providing for repeal of conflicting conflicting ordinances providing for severability and providing penalties presented by the town engineer good sound a fun job you've got there Al oh yes good evening mayor vice mayor and Council uh we had the first reading um at the last meeting we have had no changes uh this is just to update the ordinances so they reflect the current uh flood insurance rate maps and the current uh rules and regulations of the state there were no changes and again this was drafted by uh in conjunction with the Water Resources uh State Department of Water Resources and play control district maruba county with that I'll answer any questions questions seeing none there is uh there is public comment on this I have no one wish to speak okay uh looking for a motion anybody like floods I'll do that if you like motion approve second reading ordinance 020241 an ordinance to the mayor and Town Council of the town of Cave Creek Maricopa County Arizona pertaining to the National flood insurance program adopting the reference revised flood insurance study and flood insurance rate maps and flood plane management regulations providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances providing for severability and providing penalties second uh This is Voice vote so um any comments first comments okay well let's put Voice vote all those in favor say I I oppose motion passes 7 z uh the last the fifth and last item on the agenda tonight is a council consideration possible Direction regarding including including public involvement in the site plan approval process presented by the town manager yes uh thank you mayor council um you'll recall that um I think it was my first council meeting we had a um site plan that came before Council for its consideration um and it was ultimately approved but as part of that discussion there appeared to be um some concerns that there had not been really enough or sufficient public discussion um on this particular site plan um as it turned out um this particular item because under state law uh site plans so long as they meet all the zoning uh requirements and all the other Town regulations they're more or less considered administrative in nature therefore um there's really not a whole lot um that could be done um there there can be some um suggestions but the applicant is not necessarily obligated to um to make the changes um with that so So based on um hearing what we heard from the citizens that night and also from the council it appeared that there was a little bit of um a room for opportunity to improve how this process works and so one of the things I'm suggesting is that we before we even have a site plan go before Planning and Zoning commission and then Council ultimately that we add a step and that step is to have a public open house at the public open house we would have the applicant and staff um be there and the public obviously would be um made aware of this open house and staff would start off by explaining that how that process works under state law that um that the applicant is here to kind of give an overview of their project and that um staff has reviewed it and this is what their findings are and then provide the opportunity for um the public to uh informally interact with both the applicant and the staff and for staff to answer questions um of the public so what I have before you is that kind of the process outlined in the staff report tonight and um I believe that this would really help address what was probably missing in this process to begin with and that it more or less mirrors how we handle a lot of land use types of cases um and I highly recommend Council to discuss this figure if this is what they want to do um the other thing I do want to point out that some of our larger cities in the valley um also have this be truly purely an administrative process where it's ad um site plans or so long as the the zoning and regulations are all met it's done at the staff level um but I've also worked in small communities where this is still a legislative process that basically provides the oversight of this and make sure that um there's you know all the eyes are dotted and the t's are crossed so um my my recommendation is to keep the process as is but just add the step that I've mentioned with that I'd be happy to answer any questions the council may have Grady do you think this is a great burden to the staff to conduct such an open house and all the followup that's required you know um if we were doing a lot of site plans I would say yes um but it it's only going to be um a few of these that would happen probably a year um so um you're basing that on what uh discussion with the director how many cases are coming forward I I asked how many that we've had of these types of cases and there's only been a couple on average a year so I I'm not thinking that this is going going to be burdensome don't get me wrong I think that anything anytime we we place mandates or other recommendations like this on staff um with a very lean and limited Staffing um and and no support um it does fall on the professionals to actually carry this out um but I do think it's all better for um improved Communications and with the public and also trying to explain on the front end before it gets to planning and zon and also the council level um how the process works so that people go into it being more informed and not um taking it out or beating up on um the the Commissioners at the Planning and Zoning commission or the council um so I think if we do all that we can on the front end I think it actually ends up being a better process um all around what about from the perspective of the applicant do you think they would be willing to go through this I I think if the applicant goes through it I think that um I can see some positive coming out of it and the reason why I say that is I can see an applicant um as an example and I'll just use this I I might have heard this when this had come up before but like a trash enclosure you know there might be residents that live near the site and may have a concern about you know like um beer cans and bottles being dumped into a trash enclosure that might be near you know like within a a couple hundred feet of their home or their their unit and so that kind of noise might be disruptive but just them hearing that firsthand from the residents they may come up with a better solution than what's actually what because they may not have taken that into consideration they may have been taking parking and other things into consideration and not the neighbors so I I think it's positive for the the applicant as well last question uh have you done this in previous positions and in other CI that you've worked at not specifically for this but for other types of um we had a um when I was in found Hills we had a a Civic engagement or um citizen engagement process that we adopted which I've been thinking about doing here which basically um takes a look at all of our public processes and looks at ways of improving uh ways of engaging with our residents um we found that it was very useful once we put it into place for for um greater Trust of of town officials and um you know when we would go to the ballot to ask people questions or have them vote on things they had a a better thrust that we weren't trying to pull something over them because we actually invited them to meetings and tried to get their input on things before we just told them what we were going to do so I I do think that's the direction I like to basically go probably a little bit longer term in another year or so get something like that in place sounds good thank you for sure questions down here I'm trying to figure out what the question is you don't um no I do appreciate you taking and listening to toh What the residents were saying and I I I do think this is um in your experience is better dialogue between the staff and the community helpful it is because I think sometimes um the the residents um they might view staff as being um like overly close to the applicant and I think it's good for them to to get like honest answers from the staff and um see them in an informal setting rather than like in an office or I I think it's just a good way of interacting um at an informal level thank you Mr Sims you knew I'd come to you didn't you um obviously above and beyond is not required of any applicant uh above and beyond our ordinances and zoning and and and regulations um however it would appear that Community acceptance could actually benefit a project that someone bring him forward is there any exposure you I know you hate that word with the town running this would would would informal between a developer and and uh the neighbors be a more appropriate approach well this is are you saying without Town involved in in the in the get together to begin with well as I look at the jurisdictions the smaller the community Community the more your counterparts want to stay involved and so what they do is and so smaller the community what what this does is this invites dialogue run where I thought you were going Ernie if I'm the applicant I actually do want to sit down and talk to the neighbors and talk to to to staff because it's staff is going to be making the decision Grady said it well this is not legislation this is ad Administration and when when staff makes the decision they're applying objective criteria and then that comes before you you then can ask questions and just see to staff how did you come up to these answers now I must warn you to the extent any of you want to disagree publicly with the applicant that's probably something we should talk about before the meeting because that does create exposure because but but but the the goal here is simply dialogue and you already have a community involvement on zoning but that's where you have absolute discretion that's that's legislation and what zoning has done zoning requires a community meeting and it requires staff to do it all Grady has done here is he listened to that meeting and he and he and he applied the community meeting standard to site plan but that doesn't change the limits on your discretion where where I thought you were going uh I don't know that it's good to just send the applicant off and talk to the neighbors I think it's probably better because you want your staff involved in that discussion so they can learn and it may be that and more importantly it communic because I heard many people in your community agitated about we don't want staff running a muck this is one way that staff can listen to the community but more importantly in this meeting communicate to the community why he or she believes this is an appropriate answer so I recommend this yeah I I I can remember back uh when when we approved the McDonald's 12 13 years ago and place the Hitching Post which is only the second one and maybe in the country that's got a place to Hitch horses when you go to the McDonald's uh where we were actually asking for something Above and Beyond at that point in time and and did get it uh because it because the community it was it was a benefit to the community down there I think that example I mean that's exactly the the product of having a discussion with the applicant the staff uh uh and and the neighbors to have that very I I can't believe you got McDonald to put in Hitching posts I mean that shows you the benefit of open dialogue it was steuart Jean oh yeah H okay I so so basically what we're saying guys if I understand this correctly and lady that um we we would do that process and then then would would uh the Planning Commission have to get beat up by residence as well and and we we going to continue or that would that process cement in place what the applicant was willing to do in the very beginning this all started when you were there was a proposal from the commission about trying to follow the lead of the larger cities and delegate some of that discretion out from you down to the staff and you all rejected that that's my comment about the size of the community you want to stay involved um your code requires the commission to make a recommendation so they aren't this doesn't replace the commission this just has a community involvement step before they get to the commission very similar to the neighborhood meetings you have on zoning and all this is doing is inviting dialogue okay yeah I I I spoke to Mr breckner about this the head of the Planning Commission and it was a very cumbersome process because communication is very important but it put the Planning Commission in a situation where they are asked to make a decision on the basis of the codes and yet the public wanted this to be a part of communication and I think communication will help the public to understand you know particularly the issue of property rights property rights are very important and it's very important that people understand where the limitations of property rights and why they exist and this can happen if there is discussion it can be a learning process for both sides I believe that a picture is worth a thousand words and um and for example our uh the loss of our tumble weed Hotel um the there was a part of the community that was just a gas at that that action and and the reason they were they had a a questions was because they had no clue about what was going to happen or who was going to do it or what it might look like or is there going to be a chapel on the street and is it going to be next to the bar and I mean the there's aund questions that go with that and they're legitimate questions Main Street is our living room it's what we drive through it's what we see it's why we moved here each one of you in this room made a choice to live here for a reason and um those reasons are near and dear to us at the cost of whatever we paid for our house so uh I believe anytime we can have a a structured conversation that allows people to share what they're thinking ask questions float suggestions and understand that we do have ordinances and the ordinances govern how we act as a town as people together in a community my friend Bob over here has told me that this job is not to run an encounter group he likes to tell me that well I get that I understand that but I also know and love Cave Creek and and when I look around at your faces you have questions about whether there's mistletoe in the tree or whether there's the right color here or there and some of those questions just need to be floated but responsible development also allows the person investing money in in our town in this community to make good decisions about being a great neighbor and we want that opportunity to rise up so we know that it's there thank you council member Aon I support this um yeah that that's uh see I moved to direct staff to draft an ordinance I think that's where we are right public comment tell first yeah Julie gold hi um Julie goldammer 3422 North 52nd Street um thank you for everything you've said I agree wholeheartedly I do want to um say I really support this idea I want to thank everyone that came up with the idea um um Mr Miller and um everyone else who supported it um I did attend the Phoenix interconnect open house and I wanted to use that as just a beautiful example um the utilities director was super helpful obviously there were neighbors there that were um that had questions and that's really all we want to be able to do is ask questions um I know the statute is very clear and I think most people in the public when you explain that to them they understand what they can and cannot do but as you've mentioned it's really important to be able to interact with those developers I'll give two examples since I've moved here um when the hospital folks came in um that developer that um I think his name was Justin or Jason I can't remember but he would call Mike and I directly and he would ask how are you guys doing I haven't heard from you because we're on 52nd Street and we were going to be impacted but I'm quite a few uh houses down and he wanted to know specifically what else they could do to make this better for us and yes they had meetings because that was a rezone so that wasn't entirely an administrative process and I do understand the difference but it was such a beautiful thing because we talked more and more and it came up from some of the um pnz meetings that the ambulance entrance and all of the traffic and the way the flow would go with the cars went from being on 52nd Street originally that's where the ambulance was going to come in which we really didn't want and it went over to 53rd Street which was a great thing and then recently with the Desert Hills Brewery folks um this had nothing to do with the ordinances but they were really great at talking with us afterwards um we just asked if we could have you know Pets Come by could we have dogs on the patio and things like that so we could support them I mean silly little things but so important so thank you for you all um for what you said I totally think this is an awesome idea and thank you for all your efforts to put this together thank you Rona so excited here I feel like I may want to pull a packet uh mayor vice mayor council members Ron Sova Cave Creek Town Corps resident I'm basically in agreement with the town manager and I am for total transparency when it comes to a Development coming into town providing residents with useful information is what it's going to be what it's going to look like but I think I have a better solution picking up on the town manager suggestions I'm a retired developer Builder and consultant with over 40 years experience I've had hundreds and hundreds of subdivisions uh throughout my career and I'd like to think I did a few things right along the way if you have a plan that is not asking for any variances changes nothing changing in the zoning it's 100% compliant with our town I see no reason that can't be approved administratively uh this might be a weak argument but we have million dooll houses going up on acreage with horses barns uh carals uh Landscaping it's all done admin administratively and I don't see a reason that we still can't do this administratively but I would also strongly suggest that the neighborhood be involved and the best way to do that is the way I used to do it and it works the applicant working with the town after the town sends out you know their letters I believe it's within a half a mile limit okay uh with with the signage on the site with Publications printed in the newspaper as well as the town website notifying what's going on that's not enough it's not enough instead of having people come here and talk about something where no changes are going to be allowed I think it should be incumbent on the applicant working with town planning to have a applicant meeting not in town hall either just some place at someone's house and the key reason for that is that everybody is relaxed it's more informal uh the applicant could have his engineer there his land planner so on and so forth and I'd recommend uh somebody from the town planning department be there to you know take down notes and answer questions key reason is when you come here for public hearing you're limited to three minutes that's not enough when you're trying to get answers and the fact that you on the council in a public hearing can't respond back to what an applicant or somebody at the Das has to say in an informal meeting you can you can get a lot more done find out what's going to happen what the good points are what the bad points are working with staff who can convey that to you the Town Council for the final decision but uh again I I think less government is good and and to have to go through a public hearing for something that nothing can be changed uh I don't see the sense of it now if you're changing something if you're asking for resoning or a variance different story fully support that so I think I'm in line with the town manager somewhat having but making it better and putting the owners on the applicant town planning department to deal with the residents in a more informal environment get better comments and then report back to you thank you thank you no additional speakers Grady this isn't a public hearing we're not suggesting a public hearing no um it was a public open house which is very informal were people limited to three minutes at the house in fact usually yeah so no not at all in fact um what I Envision is that you would have a room set up with easel and have the site plans and have schematics there and have people just kind of informally walk up um but at the very beginning um the staff would make a a brief little um you know introduction introduction welcome an introduction and explain the purpose of the meeting and what um they're trying to do and what they're trying to accomplish and just kind of mentioned what um they're hoping to gain from this meeting um and then allow um the applicant maybe to say some words and then uh you know go back to the easel and let people ask questions one-on-one or in a group setting and keep it as informal as possible that's that was the impression that I received I'm I'm kind of the culprit on this one so when we get to the motion I'll be happy to to do it um I guess in work Comas okay so we have gotten the uh the comments and we are ready for the motion go ahead I move to direct staff to draft an ordinance for Council consideration and adoption that includes a public involvement process prior to the site plan approvals second okay you had the uh motion so I spent a long time in the Marine Corps I got involuntarily activated for every dust up the Marine Corps had I've been in combat multiple times the one thing that drives me crazy is when we don't let people speak it's just a personal pet peeve of mine and it drives me crazy and I want to thank you very much for taking the time to figure out a a way that we can get more public involvement I think the more we speak to each other the more we find out there's things we have in common rather than the things that separate us and I think I think the more public involvement the more public discussion particularly early in the process just makes everything a much better way of doing business so I you know I'll leave it to your own devices to figure out what that right process is I'm sure you'll come back to us but I applaud you for for taking this on nice mayor I agree the communication is you know kind of my thing and you know this is a a great step forward in the planning process and uh I I'm sorry that it will um mean some more work for the staff but it will be worth it I think it will make the whole process go smoother and so that's what we're here to do is improve the way that we do business and I think that this will be a great step forward in that regard I think back to the history of the town when the rist poool folks sent us a letter saying you guys knock it off and messing with people's property rights or we're going to cut your insurance would have put us in a really bad place so my concern is at this point I mean I I want I'm I'm I'm going to support this because I want to see what what Grady brings forward but I want to I want to caution that when it gets in front of an official body being the Planning Commission or the counsel and if if enough of us get stupid and try to force our will on something that's above and beyond the only question is how big a check we have to write the the the developer and whether or not the RIS pool will cover us I've seen and been involved in situations where open dialogue has been helpful and when an applicant comes in we understand the community generally more than the applicant does and I think when changes are made it can be of benefit to the applicant in understanding how to adapt to the community I've seen that happen and I applaud this idea because I think it gives the applicant an opportunity to to uh adjust to what the people want and to make the project uh more acceptable to the citizens I I see a win-win I see a win-win too and I agree with what Ernie said um because there are rules that govern our living here together but um in Cave Creek people are sweet with the idea of being able to voice their opinion and this is that opportunity thank you I'm in support um yeah I I too am in support of this I I I've seen every single case that comes around uh they they have a lot of uncertainty issues all over these things uh all the site plans and other things we do too I I really applaud having the interconnect project uh you know people have those questions we need to get them answered if you don't answer them it creates uncertainty and and suspicion and it's time that we we acted to to take that away so I'm I'm going to support this too on that note we are ready for a vote so all those in favor of this uh direct direction to the to the town staff signify by saying I I those opposed motion carry 70 and I promised that was the last uh but I ended I missed the LA number six se yeah uh we're GNA take a f minute break Sean yeah okay we'll Begin Again Johan you have the floor thank you mayor and Council Brian you want to put the slideshows up mayor vice mayor council members it's going to give you uh overview of how the utilities are doing this is the um uh the corly report so it ended in December so a little a little behind but um gives you a good idea of where we left last year with um just overall water demands last year was a long hot summer so you can see red is actually the solid red line is the water demands uh we had uh uh October was a high demand untypical what we uh atypical what we typically see we expect at the beginning of the year that our water demands would drop because a large portion of the Carefree customer base the biggest portion of it was actually disconnected you can see that drop in March but because of the long hot summer we did see demand stay um higher than we expected during the summer and then because of how hot October was we did see a marked increase in our water consumption total for the Year we're not we're actually we did see a decrease um uh but we're you know this is just something we have to react to which is environmental Sean does how is uh the loss of Carefree customers accounted here um you can see it uh in in March you can see the dip in the red line that's actually when Carefree disconnected I think it was 280 customers at Cave Creek Road and Carefree Highway that was the largest single disconnect that we had during the course of the project and you can see there's a marked decrease in March okay so the these are just straight historical there's been no correction cor okay yeah it's hard for us to pull out the Carefree numbers I guess we could but this is actually just total demands from the system then we do to uh this is a reflection of Cave Creek Water and this is the delivery of of central Arizona project water um this is what we call a revenue versus non-revenue that's the water that we deliver up the C canal versus what we actually send out out and build to our customers this is something that we track something that we report to Arizona Department or Water Resources um so the uh the um the green line is what uh let's see here that's the total amount of water that we delivered and the stack grass are actually what we build and it's the components The Cave Creek customers the red is orang is the Cave Creek customers build to meters uh red is the interconnect with um Desert Hills which we consider a customer to cap Creek Water and then we have the ranch deliveries um and then we have the total cap water uh highlight the fact that this looks kind of odd that you'll see Ranch Manana actually has some zero numbers it's because in those months we weren't delivering them raw cap water we were still delivering them effluent and backwash water um but you can see the total uh non-revenue water is below 133% I think when I started a few years ago it was actually above 15% so we have dropped this down by state mandate we're trying to get that down to less than 10% and I think we're on track part of the reason we've dropped this year is because uh with the interconnect we never accounted for the system losses both treatment or system losses with our transfer to Carefree with the um as of this year we actually starting to do that with the um uh the new uh rates that are in place we actually charge them a 5% water accounting loss so it actually is Distributing the losses in the systems between the two systems we think appropriately this next grass is our Desert Hill system and again it's our water is meter to the customers and then the total cap water is the green line at the top it's the capap water as well as well water because Desert Hills we still have three operating Wells um because we did start uh in February transferring that 5% or adding that 5% to the transfer theirs has gone up a little bit we're still below 10% for non-revenue water out in Desert Hills uh we do anticipate that um it's always Desert Hill has always been better partly because they weren't getting TR they weren't getting build for the loss system l losses and the treatment losses um but since their metering system is newer uh we do anticipate as we start with the metering repair re um replacement program in Cave Creek Water that that'll be the next big significant drop that we see in the Cave Creek numbers to really tighten up the difference between what we've uh brought into the system to what we've build out to customers uh this is a graph that's been frustrating for me this is the uh we're looking at the U deliveries of water up the cap pipeline to where we actually meter it where we send it in the system so this is not taken into account um the metering this is actually just the accounting of water so we are thought we're making good Headway last year uh we were looking at the uh filter the the um the metering at the westtech filters uh so in the summer we actually changed from the there's a combined meter Upstream which we think is is fairly inaccurate to actually the individual meters at in front of each one then we got stamy because someone finally looked at our ska system and realized that someone had calibrated the individual meters for the westtech filters to the inaccurate one up front so there's actually an error code that was built into uh the metering ska system so we actually had to correct that but it took us a couple of months to figure that out so that was kind of frustrating uh we're tracking much better and actually we made an improvement just in the last couple of weeks to the plant we knew that we have a Aon tryment issue in the cap pipeline um every night when we actually turn the pipeline off we actually the air is introduced back into the system it has to be blown off the air actually impacts the meters at the plant so we've actually added um in the last few weeks new Air Relief valves at the treatment plant which have been um tightening up uh better so the meters can function better at the plant so the next time I report on this I can hopefully show you some uh much better improvements than we're seeing right now it's been this one's been a frustration for me because every time we think we're making a Headway we seem to get uh styed and push back a little bit but we're still committed to doing this uh when we do do the City of Phoenix interconnect uh Cil is where one of the issue one of the things we're going to add to that project is the relocation of the Cat 4 booster Pump Station we'll be adding a new magnetic flow meter with that project so we'll get better metering overall eventually we still need to go down and change out the meter that's actually at the cat booster Pump Station this Central ear project wants us a meter as close to the outtake as possible once the interconnects done and that cat 4 booster Pump Station Works been done then we can take the pipeline out of service it's going to take a few days to actually cut in that new meter we just can't take that risk right now with the pipeline uh we always try to account for and get better reporting on our distribution losses in the system and I'll give credit to the staff they've been doing a a great job of getting on leaks early and quickly as and doing repairs uh to try and minimize the amount of leaking uh in July uh we actually had a 6inch water line so we have two lines actually one's on Carefree Highway so three Crossings of Cave Creek wash one's across the bridge at Carefree Highway one's on New River Cloud Road alignment 8 in line and there's also a 6in line that goes north um basically due north and Crosses um into the uh Royal EST area um that line cracked so since I've been here it's cracked twice um we can't see that one that cracks actually the 8 in line is more noticeable for uh people because people walk the trail the 6in line people don't walk in that area the wash so uh we believe I'm looking back at records that we uh lost potentially 4 million gallons of water when that line cracked because we did not notice it for a while we actually found out because we were working with the um town of Carefree with one of the disconnects and when we shut off the systems we were having areas of the system that were losing pressure we didn't know why we believe it was because of this break in the line so credit to the staff for sticking this one out trying to find it uh we are now actually using um the um the side by side Gator unit that we bought for the wastewater treatment plan is now thanks to Teresa's help we actually have a a road license for that staff are using that to drive the alignments so we can look for issues but in the case of the 6in line it's about 15 ft deep or acrosses Cave Creek wash and because of the Sandy soils when it does break we don't notice for a while so we're looking at other options to try and do it including um putting some online monitoring at the fire hydrant which at the North End if we see start seeing a drop in pressure that might be an indication that we need to go back in in the capital program we've uh accelerated a repair project on this 6inch line because we've actually had it break a couple of times with significant water loss um switching over to the Wastewater side um our flows are the solid red line is showing our 2023 year end numbers for the calendar year uh we're trending about the same you'll see that green bump that we have on there that's our covid bump so as as Co started and people didn't leave we actually saw an increase in our Wastewater but that's not typical um we are on track to actually see the typical flows that uh we we're seeing there's been a little little bit of growth in the system overall but not much not significant we're fairly flat and stable with our Wastewater flows right now sry went too uh we always talk about our deliveries to The Ranch minana Golf Course uh except for our deliveries to Desert Hills this is actually our largest water system customer um and this one is a graph again we're trying to work on some of this the green solid line is showing the Billings to to them which is based on the contractual obligation what contract says and then the stack bars are what we send to them so the orange at the bottom is the effluent that we send from the treatment plant because right now we only have uh the delivery to their Lake system is the only outfall to that uh treatment plant system um the red line is showing the uh reclaim water and the the capap divert water capap divert water is coming from the Paul filters so as the Paul filters try to modulate we actually have to have a blowoff valve that's actually something we're hoping to correct with the relocation of the Cat 4 booster pump Pump Station will better able to modulate the flow of the pipeline to meet the needs of the Paw filters we can run them more efficiently um and the backwash Waters again as you treat water you actually generate waste so we send that waste stream instead of us sending it and treating at the at the um wastewater treatment plant we actually send it directly to the golf course so it actually is cost efficient for us to do it that way it's just not overall efficient and really this is driving to the fact that the town really needs to find a second um uh use for the town's effluent water and that's coming out of our master plan we got to find another beneficial use to put this water so if the golf course is not needing it we actually have somewhere else to put it to the town's benefit um so again this one jumps around a lot you'll see October the green line jumps up that's when they're starting to do their over seating so um but typically you know in September must have had a little bit of rain um because they didn't use that much water but uh you know we again right now the only we have to send all the refl to them because we don't have anywhere to place it we still are generating um waste water backwash water from the treatment process and then you there's certain months that we have to send them BR cap water again you can look at September looks odd because I think there was actually a storm that came through in September so we sent them Rock half water and all a sudden the rainstorm comes their Lakes get filled up and they stop irrigating so we can't react quick enough with our systems right now it's really what this is telling us and then we actually go back into losses on that system so it's really this this slide bothers me but it is what it is um at this point we about 125 acre feet of the water that we deliver to Ranch minana is not able to be build per contract or is is loss through their systems uh those losses are the um the evaporation of the Lakes they do have the Three Lakes up there the Overflow of the lake system because again we can't um uh match their their need for irrigation water because we have nowhere else to put our backwash water or effent and then what we assume the third is a calculated value which is taken up to Al which is assumed the what the lake liners are losing themselves so about over 50% of the water that we waste in that that system to that customer is actually what we can't control in the pond overflow so it's been a few years since we've been metering that we still want to continue conversations with them but I think the real takeway for the town is we they can make their system more efficient but until we have a place to put that water to benefit the town uh we'll never truly get this number um in check jumping over to the regular atory side we have our backflow program that's the program that helps us uh where there's backflow preventers required in the system uh to protect the town's water system in case of something happens a depressurization in the system or breaking the water that we don't want the water from the customer getting drawn back into the system we require people to have wells on their uh their property because potential for interconnect between a well system and a poble water system we have to protect it so um it's running very good you know it looks like there's there's failed inspections but effectively people if in backflow fails actually have time to correct that so I think overall the there's no major issues with the backflow program for the system the pre-treatment I've talked about that for a while we have done the switch to the new online app uh form and it seems to be working well so we have an outside Consulting help us do some of the inspections and management through the online online portal system that we have Swift comply um the vendors are actually uploading their information um there's been some training we're still in the sort of the in uh early stages but overall I think it's gone very well it's actually helped reduce the staff time it's got us into a tracking system that instead of having a spreadsheet before we now actually have an online database and people are uploading what we call the Manifest so when someone leaves the site and they've done the pumping that gets uploaded to us we have a copy of that and if we go out and do field inspections we can take photos so they're attached to the actual pre-treatment devices that we have so I think we have just under 50 uh uh pre-treatment devices and that's uh grease interceptors um but it's also sand oil inter ctors we actually have some businesses that have sand oil interceptors um anything that's detrimental to the Wastewater collection system that they we want to keep out of them is part of this program with the Carefree disconnects that's a project that's been going on for a number of years I think was 2021 was we did the final settlement with Carefree um overall so area C starting at the top is fully converted um area B is the area that we actually have about 20 to 25 um residential homes still on the system we're waiting for carefree to upgrade one of their booster uh pump stations I was just notified today that they're looking at doing a um they've got a design together and they're going to be bidding a uh Improvement to their booster Pump Station once that work is done obviously they have to go through the bid process receive the bids and actually do the construction um then that will take that off and that actually allows us to look at lowering some system pressures on the the towns East core of our Galloway booster sites we're we're interest on that but my gut feel is that's probably about a year away before those 25 customers are removed off the system in area a that's actually where the most of the customers were and that was the big disconnect that actually happened last um spring March April uh The Last Remnant of that disconnect is actually the um commercial area uh west of Cave Creek Road so the uh Lowe's the old CVS and the stor West um that is actually going to be disconnected as of March 18th so the evening of March 18th which is a Saturday night they are planning asked us to do a shutdown of the 8 inch line which we can do in our system and allow them to take those Services over so Carefree will'll take over domestic and fire service more so they were waiting for the improvements of their new Reservoir site on Tom Darlington in the boulders area that is now done in the booster station associated with that so now they can provide fire protection so they'll be taking those accounts over water resources this is I think I like talking about this slide so um the depressing part is that we've lost some of our our uh it finally happened the subcontract um and the transfer of the municipal and Industrial water so we're not 2,66 acre feet we're now 2228 acre feet of Municipal industrial Water Supplies but for the last two years while the transfers been occurring and while we've been waiting for the subcontract uh to change uh we've got the benefit of actually being able to start to recharge or to recharge that water we actually worked in agreement with Carefree uh we were paying for that water both the capital and delivery cost and we we were sending it to the recharge facility so we got ahead on our recharge it's going to slow down now because we don't have that buffer especially this last year when they did a lot of those conversions and we got the benefit of last year being able to do a lot of recharge with the water because they had already taken the customers and were using their allocation not ours um uh so this past year though we were able to put about a th000 acre feet in recharge so total we have um just under 1,800 um acre feet of long-term storage credits in place it's all going into the hieroglyphics facility on the central Arizona project uh through capap so that's a great um Advantage for the town now uh you know our we're back to our our full allocations of Municipal and Industrial water which is the more secure of the water supplies and then we still have the non-indian agricultural water of um available to Desert Hills although just after we got that we were asked to do a a 25% cut we anticipate another 25% cut last year or next year um that's at 386 acre feet in the allocation and this past year we were only able to order 290 we expected to Alaska to cut back again this next year that's the less secure Water Supplies but that was purchased for um to get a um groundwater or sorry a surface water allocation for Desert Hills so Desert Hills customers are paying for that water sadly you know we're in this unknown with the drought that's going on in the state but it is still a benefit overall to our water portfolio to have that water let's see there's been a lot of activity in this last quarter um one thing that was kind of unique we were talking about um the the after last year's outage we had on the cap station 4 I asked staff are we okay and we know how to isolate all the other uh vaults and it came up that we actually know we were missing an isolation valve uh the one south of the cap 2 booster pump station near Joe Max road so we went in there with a VOR truck and we actually found it so um that's been buried and talking with staff historic staff um it's been over 20 plus years that that Val's been buried and no one knew where it was so we we now located it and we've actually brought it up so we can actually operate it so we can actually isolate the cap 2 booster Pump Station uh there's one other inline valve between the cap 4 and the and the and the treatment plant I'll probably work with staff we think we have a good idea where that one might be so um that plan sheet is marked plary not for construction but the air relief valve that's on that plan sheet is within 10 ft of where it was shown so we might go and do the same thing to try and find that valve uh the other thing we noticed when we were in there and it's it's another hardship is that we found the connection to the um ACP uh asphalt cement pipe to the air relief valve that's just Downstream of this booster Pump Station and then they they had directly tapped a galvanized uh 3-in gate valve into the line and they epoxied it in so as we've been looking ahead to trying to do repairs on the Air Relief vs each one of them is is uh giving us problems because this is going to require shutdown and we're actually have to get to do something we're proba to um you know cut that out put a wrap on it we're not sure what damage we're going to do try and actually remove that gate Val from the pipe so but now we are knowing more about what we have and it's a challenge so see um staff you can see your new uh distribution supervisor Andy there smileing in the middle so our staff are all hardworking and the supervisors get involved again an 8 inch line at on um 10 Street in Desert Hills we go in and do the repairs we try to get on to it um we've been uh lucky to have the equipment we have the the V trail that we originally purchased we're having some issues with so we've been still renting one and you'll see one moving forward in next year's capital budget to buy another um V trailers we have two uh it's a critical piece of equipment so I think it's allowed us to actually be more responsive to to issues like this because when you're starting to dig around it you think well let just get the backone dig down there but a lot of times we don't know exactly where the pipe is get and having to wait to bring a back truck out because we don't own one uh can can slow this down so by having the right equipment and our staff are uh able to get in there and do these repairs much more quickly which has actually helped reduce our water losses on the system we still all the issue of the the pipe material that was used uh the whiter pipe is actually a thinner wall pipe uh and a lot of times they just they didn't beted it properly so we still still will'll have that challenge long going but being more responsive be able to get into repair it means we're we're at least not losing water in the system um done some maintenance projects at the water treatment plant we actually had to uh um the year before we actually had to replace the compressor and this is the compressor that actually helps feeds the westtech filters um we had a cracked piston in that compressor which I'd never seen before so we replaced the the top component uh now this past year the uh seam on the compressor tanks split open on us so uh we're finding that um uh equipment that we're receiving now we're questioning the quality is not the same as it used to be so it makes it a challenge for us but in this case the staff were able to do that but it was something we weren't anticipating I I understand it really shocked the operator was actually not too far away when that seam split open on this compressor tank so um you we're continuing to do things like install pumps and motors as much as we can so we're not bringing in contractors so we're being being much more efficient with it it actually helps us get more done because we're not having we're using uh staff uh to get this this type of work done and Wastewater Plant we always I you I give kudos to these guys in the divers but actually in this case they're not driving into our spr treatment basement they're actually in the chlorine contact Basin so there's um there's three channels to that basins and they were actually set up so that they have Gates that go up and down that allows us to isolate them the gates have been broken as long as I've been here and it sounds like they were broken not too long after they're put into service so initially back in 2010 so we had uh as a last resort before we go and start replacing we had the divers come out and to see if they could do some work underwater to actually free these gates up freeing them up allows us to isolate the channels and actually clean them out separately so right now we have to actually isolate the entire chlorine contact Basin which has not been too bad but long term is we'd want to get these Gates put back into service so we brought our divers back out and they were able to look at this and find out that um their little tricks did not work so that's something we're going to have to look to do in the capital program to get those Bas those Gates replaced on the Wastewater side continuing um I think it was the last quarter report we we talked about a lot of the work that we were doing actually in uh Cape Creek Road um by Mountain View Pub and actually in the line work inside Cas coach Village so this is the final result we sort of bridge the two we added two new man holes inside of the 6in line that goes through Stage Coach Village um that's also because that line extends across um Galloway um and we'll pick up the new apartment complex uh so we actually had two sewer cleanouts which didn't give us ability to access and clean that line so we dropped into manholes and we actually also replaced the section of pipe that was broken the same time the contractor was actually in Cave Creek Road and he did um a rehabilitation on three of the manholes just down on G freak Road just down from Mountain View Pub so you can see what a fully Cod manhole should look like um we have a lot of manholes that don't look like that so we're still working on that program to continue to work on the collection system so Sean will that will that improve the odor down in that area sadly someone just came by and told me that we had had another odor complaint so we need to actually continue to work one of the customers out in cap Creek Road is um we have a long it's about 350 foot long service lateral for Sansui um they've been keep up with their intersector what we found is we while we were doing the work in Cape Creek Road we found that we actually were able to get into their Interceptor their their lateral sorry and found that there's some some dip section so I think we need to work with them the problem is that their laterals actually in cap Creek Road uh so there's no practical way for them to get in clean it so it's something that we might just take on as a maintenance task so we're actually overdue we want to get a contractor in to jet that out and keep that clean they're the top end of it and then you know we obviously have Mountain View Pub discharging at that so there's not much flow but there's actually a large concentration of of it's highly concentrated flow at that point but um we know with the Sansui lateral there's a couple of dip sections so there's some holding up of material in there so we think we we need to work with them just to keep it clean so so our goal is to keep that down in the past they were doing things like putting charcoal o odor canisters inside the um manholes that was really just masking the problem we're trying to actually find out what the root causes and actually address it in the case where we have a business that has a large lateral that that again run runs in one of our major roads it requires a lane closure just to get in to maintain it because there's no safe way to do it without doing a full lane closure on Cave Creek Road um it makes sense for us to work with that that property owner to make sure that that's that that keeps odors down because that's just not good for our customers and our residents or anybody Sean are there really 290s in that section uh no 245s is what we found 45 but we found three dip sections within the 350 ft yeah the the 245s are where the contractor that put it in originally didn't realize where the RightWay was and that's why they moved it laterally like that with the 245s yeah we went into it and actually cut in some cleanouts too we expected when we put a camera up it that we'd find some cleanouts but we didn't so we actually added some so now we can service it more easily it's good for slowing it down um the ranch Manion list station uh continues to cause us trouble not on a pumping capacity at this point but um we are getting a a big problem with disposable wipes and Rags being placed in the collection system we are do not put disposable wipes in this s system please I encourage you it's actually you know the staff have to take this out it's not we actually have all our floats and our other devices in there we actually physically have to pull up and cut these things off of them it's it's terrible we've gone to the point where every two weeks we bring in a contractor to remove this material we're not seeing the problem as badly at the stage coach or the ranch minana or the um St yeah stage coach and chiper Roa list stations it's being concentrated at the ranch minana LIF station so it's gotten to the point I know in the capital program we do want to rebuild this site we would like to put some sort of screening up up stream to help remove this but we're actually looking at other Alternatives that we can do maybe in the next few years because the rebuilding of this site is is a few million dollars and that's a big hit on the Wastewater CIP we think we actually have a solution that will uh we can do a new manhole just up of the lift station they do a little um uh system that actually consolidates and gets the rags and pushes it up and we actually would keep it inside the manholes we just come in and use the V truck and actually VOR this unit out we just got to make sure it can work powerwise and it's probably going to be about 150 to2 200,000 but problem with this ragging is it actually does get on the instrumentation we've actually seen it when it does get into the Force main it actually gets we last time we opened up the Force main the check valves that actually isolate the the site were actually completely clogged with this m material too so it gets bound up the pumps will actually grind this up so it's not actually impacting the pumps as much but it's impacting everything associated with the wet well and associated with a force main too so again I B people to please do not throw anything down the sewer system you besides toilet paper uh some other general maintenance stuff that we do this is uh you know our staff again we've got a really good crew and we're going out and doing as much projects as we can this has as uh we did um some piping work at both the 14th Street in cloud and Third Avenue Joy Ranch which are both two sites out in Desert Hills and then we also this last quarter we actually added new flow meters um out in Desert Hills to the well sites we want to eventually add them to the booster pump stations out in Desert Hills but there was existing meters at the well sites um that had they weren't uh accurately reading and there was some issues where they weren't reporting correctly through our skada system so we've actually upgraded all those to help enhance our ability to report on our well consumption or well production out in Desert Hills so again we had a contract consultant help us uh with the final tweaking of them and setting it up but it's largely our staff that put them in so I give c credit to our staff and again another another uh pump that we were able to at uh at seven Street booster in Desert Hills North of tre Ranch we had a filled pump so we were able to have we have our our two crane trucks now um and we're actually able to get in and remove stuff and not rely on consultants and contractors we also did work on the last quarter on the generators so we have a total of five generators the water treatment plant wastewater treatment plant the ner booster The Ranch manist station Stage Coach so we had um we actually had a new vendor come in uh we do the service on them so those generators again we want to make sure that they're available and emergency so we have to replace things like batteries and make sure that they are running uh we're having you know the next component we have have to make sure it's all working at all the sites is actually the automatic transfer switches so um again we have that's one case where we do need to bring BR vendors and to help us keep them up um lot of lot of texts on this one but this is the meter replacement program we're close to getting the final awarded contract uh from the Bureau of Reclamation for the grant so we've been on hold uh waiting for some stuff but then the grant administrator sent us a really good email the other week it's just been on my plate to finish off um which will allow us to um get the final contract from them and actually get the $500,000 from the Bureau of Reclamation wat smart grant that allows us then to start um doing large purchasing of the meters and getting uh contractors involved and and also setting up the uh the um the sites that will actually collect the the metering data we have one site right now we're using as a pilot we've installed we had to use operational dollars because the grant wasn't available the vendor had one available so right now we have uh a collector site up at our Carriage 2 booster station and we actually can get hourly data from about 380 meters in the system right now we have not pushed that out to customers we're actually that's our next step is we're going to work with the vendor on their web interface that they can do um but since there's only limited number of customers of the 2500 2400 we have in capek water only 38 can get it we want to get some now once we get the grant we can actually go very quickly to get the rest of the sites up and then we can start going out and starting to get the Outreach done and then start changing meters out so we'll help the overall accounting of our system and do what is effectively a leap in technology from a driveby radio system to an automatic re Ami automatic metering infrastructure which will give people including ourselves but also customers the ability to see their water usage more accurately and hopefully find things like you know uh a leaks more quickly they're not waiting for us to tell them about a leak or we can observe a leak more quickly The Meters will tell us if there's continuous loose usage I.E a toilet is continuous running we'll see that through the meters we see it now but we don't see it until we've gone by and read it now we'll actually we can set parameters in the system and the customer can set parameters in the system so I think that's the next big Improvement in the town's um overall Water Resources is actually getting our metering tiing tiing down and providing that information to our customers so very excited about that one and then we can look at doing the next upgrade which would be adding a similar system out in Desert Hills about half the meters in Desert Hills are compatible and half art so that's something we've put built into the capital program to allow us at least put the basic infrastructure up and again provide as much information as we can to our customers and then I didn't talk about you know we got multiple CIP projects in the works uh the City of Phoenix interconnect project is set um again we've asked with the the meeting get moved this month is April May is when the contractor mgc is looking to mobilize on the site and actually start doing site work start seeing some activity um another challenge for the town utilities has been Staffing so we've been short a couple staff positions I give credit to our staff um new deputy director uh Nick he's actually be able to get we actually have um three offers out and accepted so we actually have in the next couple of weeks new three new staff people starting to help us out uh it's been a challenge we've had several people um come through us and and and and leave which has been a challenge um the people we're bringing on board are actually not quite certified the level but we're at the point where we're bringing people in and hopefully we're going to train them and build them ourselves and Hope they'll stay with us a little bit longer too but just in the industry and in the valley it's been a challenge getting operators and having operators stay so that's something we're still seeing so you know knock on wood uh we're looking good right now but I I don't take that for granted and another thing that you haven't really heard too much about is we actually have a lead and copper service um uh inventory going on Statewide at this point is actually a federal mandate that we um the issue is that um the lead and and in the saw are used in some copper service lines uh that we have to go through and do an inventory to get to the state um then they will help identify if we need to uh there's funds available but more so it's the inventory phase to show where we might have this this is an issue it's both not only our service connection to the meter but it's actually there the Mandate goes further it's actually the service connection to the house so we're working through and we're actually cataloging we've it's forced us to go through our inventory of our GIS system our mapping system we're putting in inventories uh in install dates for lines after a certain date I think it was 1977 um the use of lead in in um copper solder was actually outlawed so if we can show we which lines might be below that or that threshold that actually has been helpful so if we show that the water line wasn't installed till after that point or we did a replacement project after that point we can get that out of the inventory so but it's something it's taking a lot of Staff time just to to work through but it's actually something that's being done Statewide actually right now so there's a lot of lot of Staff Time by every utility being spent on this project right now and we're one of them so with that any any questions by Council I know we're doing a lot and I go through it very quickly you did thank you for excellent comprehensive report thank you Bob people can actually hear what I'm saying that's dangerous um it truly was an excellent report and very comprehensive um do we do all of our waste water is going to Rancho Manana correct correct correct okay I it seems to me there's nothing we can really do about the outflow that's coming out of Rancho Manana I don't think we really have a good aquafer we we storing water in our local rock it seems to me from my experience in geology uh that's really problematic but there are times when I think we're losing water in the summer because of the lining in The Lakes is that still a major loss issue it is and we are actually able to calculate that um from the standpoint that we do have a meter physically on the Overflow from the the the the West larger Lake so we can we staff go by month or weekly sorry and read that that value and then uh we actually can measure and pretty accurately the evaporation off the Lakes you wouldn't think we be able to do that but but based off the surface area of the Lakes um we know and there's actually the mopa county reports on an evaporation pan that they have at Lake Pleasant uh which we think is very similar to what we have here and they actually do daily data which tells you how much of operation so we one of my staff members Ryan Hill actually correlates that back and we actually calculate how much of operation so taking those two out then we do believe there's still I think it was about 20 acre feet of the the 125 acre feet which is liner losses that we believe that their liners are leaking is there a strong reason for the Mr alrod the uh and and rancha Manana people to replace that line it seems to me that it's our loss in what does it help them in order to replace the lining so yeah we actually had a conversation with them last year and it's just been it's and I apologize it's on me is that we need to re-engage with them we had a consultant come out um and did an evaluation of their Lakes last year was it year before might have been um the lake level was down we weren't keeping up with their demand so the consultant was actually in the valley and did a fairly comprehensive report because he could see um in the the the West Lake where the the majority of death is we were down about 10 or 12 feet so he could see a lot of the liner and came back and said there's a lot of damage and a lot of repairs that need to be done to that liner we've shared that with ranch minana um staff I actually do want to sit down with him again and and talk to him about I think one of the things and um we've I think I've talked to cancel about is that maybe we engage with that consultant to come up with the next level report which which would them come with a repair recommendations and a estimate of of how how you would do it because one of the things is we're delivering water to the east lake and I'm sorry I don't have a Graphic it flows to the Middle lake and then it flows into the West Lake is how do we get if we're having to drain one of those Lakes how do we continue to get water to the Brewster Pump Station so the consultant said that they could help us map that out and then we could hand that to Ranch Minato and then they'd actually be able to develop a capital program to do that repair also um it is a loss in the system we've had the conversation saying why do you have to have the Three Lakes you know um the upper Two Lakes are really shallow um and you know if we can eliminate those then you could actually eliminate potentially about a third of the evaporation um you know we calcul we estimated about 36 acre feet last year was evaporated out of the lake so if we eliminate a third of that that's that's over 10 acre feet of water that we could get savings up the real Crux of the problem is we can do all this stuff and work with them and they're they're actually been respect reective we have the town right now do has has nowhere else to put that water we actually had Clear Creek come in uh Clear Creek is Soviet Associates do a hydrologic study and they said that down by with the water ranches is actually a good uh location to recharge the problem is that we won't be able to recover um because as soon as we introduce that water down to the uh C Greek wash at that point it's going to go Downstream so we can't get into it we can generate some storage credits but it's paper water I can't do anything with so we really need to get a beneficial use and we've actually had a conversation with the city of Phoenix we've had it twice now about can we send water um across Carefree Highway down to the Gulf course which is south of us which is currently on the city of Phoenix's reuse system um so instead of them pumping water 12 miles north to to meet that customer can we install the pipeline that allows us to send some water to them so we can meet both needs so if we know that ranch Manana is not using the water we can send some other water and let Phoenix know hey you realize we're going to be sending some water to the other lakes and that other Golf Course their Lakes are two to three times the size of ranch minata so I think it can absorb a lot more water so I think that's I've come to conclusion in the master plan is going to point to this that that's probably our best option we need another place to put that water and then we can work on a water exchange with Phoenix and since we already have an IG with Phoenix to treat and deliver we're basically generating a water account for them to treat and deliver water to us through the poil system so it seems like a wi to us there is a capital cost to it you know I was very hopeful that we'd be able to recharge and get recovery but yeah what cler Creek said is that it's just not practical to recharge we it'll basically it's going to be so as soon as you put it in the ground it's going to be sou the Carefree Highway and we can't draw it back out so we're not going to be able to do unless we do an injection well we're constantly injecting and withdrawing it all the time which is is an option but it's fairly expensive one doing one of those injection Wells they call them ARS Wells and I think that water ultimately is going into a super fund site down there so it is but we actually spoken to mirac County who manages that fund um you're talking about the Cave Creek um damp dump site um they've been doing remediation for more than 15 years now I think it's close to 20 years now so we actually reached out to them and told them the volume of water we have and they are not concerned about us recharging Upstream of them anymore because they've removed so much I think it's tce is the what's in the water that they've been removing because they've been very aggressive about the remediation of that site so thank you could could you add a a blurb every time status of the wells in Cave Creek I know you said we had several of them and were working on them I I don't need a update or anything now but just when you do the quarterly report if you can put a blurb B to say here's the well status okay we'll do yeah I think I mentioned it that we're trying to get back to council um to get authorization so we can uh use a consultant to um we pulled some pumps out of of some cases we did some prary investigations but we need to clean them and then do some pump pump draw down test to verify so other questions okay thank and and is there a way that we can communic Comm unicate with people effectively about these wipes that are going into our I mean it says you know these are recyclable well not really but see if you look at the back could find out you know this is a problem yeah if you look at the back of the packaging they all have the out it's it's actually an industry problem right now they all say you know it's up to the jurisdiction whether or not these are flushable they leave it up to us and we're pretty much saying no um so we're actually looking to do um since we only have 900 waste Mar customers we've we've been working with the um our internal graphic staff to actually come up with a package and do direct mailers to the people on the on the sewer system and just say you know separate from the water bills and which includes the super component and just do a separate mailer just to them and we believe you know between the the residential and the the commercial users on the system just to let them know it's yeah it there's just a yuck factor you know you you realize the staff have to go in and physically the tangles around equipment they're actually in there with their hand the glove glove tan but having to rip cut these things off of of equipment every couple of weeks maybe you could ask for volunteers in the [Music] community thank you Sean very much appreciate it nice work Sean yeah keep it up okay uh motion to adjourn