Cave Creek Council Greenlights Kahava Springs Development, Phoenix Water Interconnect Nears Activation, and Addresses Wastewater System Crisis

welcome everybody on what is almost a typical weather day. We've had a great May. I always uh May's are always have a special place in my heart on council because of May 2020 when we had COVID and we had two fires, two big fires. What a month. But uh we haven't had any weather like that yet this year. So, and we've done well so far.

Um, we have some distinguished visitors, one of whom is the former mayor, Ernie Bunch, who's here on rodeo business, and he has agreed to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Ernie, take over. public announcements. Anything from council mayor Morris, this is Cynthia. Um, yes. Uh, Cynthia Cynthia is on online. She's uh out of pocket and uh so she's going to she has an announcement. Go ahead, Cynthia. Uh thank you very much.

I just wanted to share with council and uh the attendees today that the foothills Caring Corps is pleased to announce their purchase of a new home and headquarters in Cave Creek at 670 East Cave Creek Road right next to Lazy Lizard uh across the street from local johnics. So this space uh accommodates the growth the caring core is experiencing in providing essential services to seniors.

It'll be an increased dedicated space for volunteers, for uh training new staff, and for expanding the mobility loan closet. So, the town of Cave Creek and the surrounding service area that the caring core uh uh supports uh will have continued improvement in services and new programs to meet the needs of our senior population. So, we should welcome them heartily to Cave Creek. We do welcome that. That takes care of number one on my announcements. I had the same. Good. Good job. Thank you.

Uh we had a uh quite an article in the CAP currents, which is a magazine that the Central Arizona Project puts out about water issues in Arizona. And there was a huge issue in there on our interconnect project and the benefits it's going to bring. uh we'll have the capacity to bring in uh completely cover our wintertime needs and have a uh significant amount of water even for for our summertime needs.

As you as you probably heard me say before, uh our uh in the summer and July, we use 75% more water than we do in January, even though there are more people here and more businesses and more activity in January. So, uh if you get a chance, uh be sure and read that. Um, I might just if I can find my u Yeah, here's one paragraph out of there. The new site will begin operating before August of 2026. It is the conclusion of more than seven years of cooperative work between the agencies.

Phoenix is completing pipeline and booster improvements to its distribution system to ensure it can reliably provide the town with up to 1,000 gallons per minute or 1.4 4 million gallons per day of treated water, meeting about half the town's peak summer demand. During the winter months, the town can run the water system off the interconnect site, allowing for major maintenance repairs to be completed on the cap pipeline and treatment plant, something the town could not do before.

So, you probably heard that before, but it's nice to see we're getting a lot of coverage and um our work with with the city of Phoenix uh is being mentioned everywhere. I think it is uh unique in my experience to see the kind of cooperation uh they're they've just treated us wonderfully and we're working on a number of things with them even as we speak in addition to what we've just talked about here. Um so that is it for public announcements town manager report. Mayor and council.

Um the only announcement I have is that there will be a um open house meeting uh next Wednesday at 4:00 here in the council chambers. Um it's regarding the uh proposed expansion of parking at Desert Awareness Park. There were some concerns by um uh neighbors that are to the north of the wash about potential impacts. So, um, as you recall, this came up during our budget, uh, discussion. So, we will be having a, um, meeting at 4:00, um, and to solicit feedback and and input from residents.

Also, um, earlier that morning, there will also be an on-site visit for the mayor and council to actually see the site and see what impact, if any, will be um, occurring there. So, that's all I have tonight. Okay. Thank you. Call to the public. Carol Perry. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. Um, what I'm about to say is going to sound hokey. I can't help it. It has to be said.

I recently attended the forum that most of you participated in for the candidates running for council for the next session. Something struck me over and over during that time that I just thought had to be said here. Most importantly, I was reminded I wrote this down so I don't screw this up. I was reminded of and honestly I was deeply moved by the fact that I realized how inordinate the sacrifices are that you all make on our behalf all the time. You do so much for us.

Now I'm off script to give all of us who live here the benefit of your time, experience, and knowledge. All of you, with no compensation. Gosh. I've lived in Cave Creek for over 30 years. I've been involved in a number of major town issues and projects, the film and art festival, um, uh, Spur Cross. Um, I helped when we needed to pass a general plan that was in question. I even got involved in the controversial Walmart need to give us a viable steady revenue stream.

Um I also served on the very first fire commission task force clear back in 2010. But the amount of time and work that you all put into your position on count as council members is a nearly endless commitment which most of us I think can barely imagine and for which I think you are very seldom thanked or recognized by those of us who benefit the most.

So really this is just me saying that I realize what you are doing for all of us, your contributions, your accomplishments, and what I know you will continue to accomplish in the future assuming you're all reelected. and I intend to see that you are Bob. Thank you for your excellent leadership and know that while I wish you well going forward, you will be missed very much. And a huge thank you to Katherine who, how did I put this?

Knowing all too well what will be expected of you as mayor, and you're still willing to do it. I know you'll be the best mayor we could possibly ask for given our challenges, particularly water and land preservation. As we move forward, your commitment to finding the resources necessary to asssure the safety and well-being of our incredible staff also is to be commended.

So my heartfelt thanks to each of you, Joe, Katherine, Tom, Tom, Cynthia, Bob for all that your willingness to continue to pride provide us with your experience, your skills, and most importantly, your passion for keeping Cave Creek the place we love so much and keeping it safe, keeping it perfect. So I for one am deeply grateful to each of you. Thank you. Thanks. No additional speakers. Okay. Um, now we have a return visit by a former mayor, Ernie Bunch.

Uh, presentation by the Cave Creek Rodeo Days board. I suppose y'all want me to come up here and talk in my Would you like to sit down? You can sit down there, Ernie. Great. Or down here. Well, it's your choice. She can sit there. Pel, just remember Ernie's three minutes. I was looking for the threeminut thing over here for sure. Okay. So, basically, we're here to talk about the Creek Rodeo and let y'all know how we did this year.

If you see your screens, I'm sure right in front of you, you're looking at the same thing I'm looking at here, which says celebrating our western heritage and community spirit. Cape Creek rodeo days. Second slide would Oh, there we go. There's a number two. That's our thing. I got one of those on my shirt right here. You can see that. So, this year we had uh a royalty pageant which happened on Saturday, January 31st at Holland Center. 70 plus people there.

Uh team queen was Brillan Strait Queen Jaye Mnoff and junior queen was Brooke Jones and they had a good time. They u rode their horses around at the rodeo and you see them carrying flags and all that good stuff. We're doing the part now. We'll get to the part that I'm really the parade. Everybody loves the parade in town.

Uh, one of the wonderful our grand mar Grand Marshall Marshall this year, Grand Marshall Marshall Stein who didn't actually ride in the parade because he was running around making sure we were all safe but he did a wonderful job. We had 74 entries,21 participants, 209 horses and five donkeys and we won't talk who about who the donkeys were but they were there. Uh, mutton busting happened on Sunday March 22nd. Uh, Kowanas was the sponsor for that. We had 80 riders ages four to seven.

If you're not familiar what mutton busting is, it's where the little kids get on sheep and try to hang on. It's really funny. This year we had woolly sheep, which is much easier on the kids than the ones when they're freshly shorn. That's not a lot of really fair for them. Uh 500 plus attendees, which was the most we've ever had to date on that thing. We're going to go through this quick. Cornhole tournament, Saturday, March 21st at Harold's Corell. Had 28 teams, 200 plus attendees.

We sold uh raffle tickets. had a wonderful uh wonderful turnout for that. Another one of the things that we uh that we do uh uh to support local businesses have have stuff at at Harolds. Now, let's get down to the stuff that uh what we're really here about um in my opinion anyway is is u the rodeo itself. All bulls night. We had 169 1698 total uh participants. Um lot of bulls. Nobody went to the hospital this year. That's a good thing. Friday, March 27th, we were sold out.

Had 258 people in attendance. Uh just incredible um participation. Uh we had more seats. We'd probably put more people in them. That'd be a really good thing. Uh Saturday sold out 2496. Although, you know, we were more sold out on Friday than we were on Saturday. Uh Sunday we had 2492, which is pretty good because a little bit warm and a little bit windy. Um, wonderful thing. Now, let's get to get to this other stuff.

We had 200 plus different volunteers, 9270 total tickets sold, 112 different vendors, 62 sponsors, 557 contestants with a payout of $134,937. And that $3 ticket sir charge came to the came to the town based on the changes we made years ago on the council uh for a total of $22,311 which is the most that we've ever paid the town for uh on the on the ticket seats. Uh and uh future we will bring you a very large check. You've actually already seen the check. It's in your account already.

But that's okay. We're going to do the thing so we can put it on our uh on our website. Charitable giving. This the charitable giving. This number is from last year. Um that was $233,113 given to local charities and u um since we have became Kreek Rodeia Days from turning from Fiesta Days or or Kreak Pro ROI, whatever it was called before we almost had a disaster. This year will be anotherund another $35,000 going one assuming we have board approval. We certainly have the money to do that.

um arena improvements. Uh for y'all y'all that were out there this year, you saw on the south end of the arena, there's a brand new one that was um uh put up just prior to the rodeo this year. And uh let you know that um uh that was done by um um oh for crying out loud. I've been up since 2 o'clock this morning. Mary Hart. Mary Hart. Thank you. Mary Hart. Uh the Hart family. Uh she was a little bit short in Cape Creek rodeo days.

pitched in a little bit of money uh to to help that project along to the tune of $100,000. Um it's in our bylaws that we support and improvements at the rodeo grounds in case y'all forgot that little part. We'll save the day for next year. March 20th with parade, cornhole tournament and a dance. March 20th mutton busting. March 25th all bulls all night. 26th 28th we're celebrating 50 years.

And I guess uh the mayor's asked me to uh uh let y'all know who the um people sitting behind me in matching shirts are. We'll start on that end. John Drummond, Neil Ness. Oh um um um TK Tyler Carris, Diane Kennedy. Oh golly, uh Kyle Kyle somebody bloomer I think. And then me David back there, huh? Oh, Dave David's back there. And I get and I guess we gonna gonna got something to give y'all that David came in with. So, let's go ahead and do that.

I'm gonna let him carry it because I'm Well, we don't want to talk about it. It weighs more than 10 pounds. So, I'm in trouble. Come down here and get this thing. Anybody got a camera? Yeah. from my face is I know you took my took my spot. Oh, I did behind you. Oh, behind there. Okay, thank you. Okay, let everybody see that if you just run around the room anybody. Yeah, David run around the room with that. And here, show it to council if you would too, please, David. Look at that bull.

Thank you, David. Thanks for all your You've been a volunteer ever since I remember. And mayor, last last want to say thank you to the town for being a great partner for this thing. We we love having the event at Cape Creek Rodeo Grounds and uh appreciate the fact that y'all uh let us uh have a little latitude out there and appreciate what you've done for us. Well, I'm going to ask we give the rodeo committee a round of applause. Take that man's hand and give us Thank you.

Thanks for all your hard work. In addition to all the work they do during the year to get ready for the rodeo, they basically live out there for at least a week. Um it it is it's like hell week frankly for them. So we we're just glad we have people like that around to uh put on events like this for the town. Next is a presentation on requests for information regarding a recent town council approved budget transfer for the water ranch capital improvement project. Okay.

So, um, at the, uh, last council meeting, I did the, um, quarterly finance report and the quarterly budget transfers. And so, um, we were asked to come back with some information on the transfers that were needed for the, um, water ranch um, office uh, improvements. And so, one of the things that we ended up discovering was that there was a coding error in actually the previous fiscal year.

So the total project for the multi-year actually did not go over budget but it the transfers are necessary for the current fiscal year for fiscal year 26 because the amount of the carryovers into um fiscal year 26 were um more was needed than what was estimated at that point in time. So, um, if you have any questions about any of that, I can help answer those. Question from council.

I don't have any questions, but I have uh the issue is not not so much the overrun, it's the fact that it came on a consent agenda. I'd like to see anything that comes to council that is over budget u be an actual item. And it also come with um improvement items. Uh we want to set a cycle of continuous improvement where if we have a mistake, it we're not going to cut anybody's head off. At least I'm not.

But what we'd like to do is when we make a mistake, make it not where it's so um a judicial process. We're just interested in improving what we do. And so we come up with best practices and bring our projects in. Sometimes projects you can't bring them in. So that's expected. But when it's something that we do that we can improve the process of managing projects, I'd like to see that happen.

And I' I really think that when we're over budget on a project, it deserves attention as to why it happened. Maybe a very good reason. It may be we can find an improvement item. But uh in the future, I'd like to see that happen where we bring those as a regular item rather than as a consent agenda item. Thank you, mayor. Mayor and council so noted and we'll work with staff on doing that in the future. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. No consent agenda tonight.

On the general agenda, we have council discussion, possible appointment of three directors to serve on the Kahava Springs Revitalization District Board. Mayor and Council, the item before you is, as you read, um the appointment of three directors to serve on the Kahava Springs Revitalization District Board. Um the team is here tonight. Um and if we can have them come up and introduce themselves, they're delighted to be here.

Um and um I think Bill will also kind of explain a little bit about the U revitalization district and how that process is going to work. There's been some uh questions that we've heard from people um concerned potentially about impacts on the town potentially and so um but we'll go ahead and do the introductions and then Bill can kind of explain those details. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Mr. Manager, councelor.

Um we are Cave Creek Equities and we are delighted to be here this afternoon. Um, as you know, the Kava Springs project has been out there for quite some time. These are my partners, Dan Duffus and Darren Granger. My name is Buzz Silverman. Welcome. And um we are Arizona um residents and we also as of a couple weeks ago own property in Cave Creek which is a requirement for members for board members to be on the revitalization board. It's not the easiest thing to say.

So um we have a deep background in the real estate development business. Uh we're very excited to be involved in this project. As I said, it's uh been a long time coming and um by going on to this revitalization board, it emphasizes our commitment to the project and enables us to handle the responsibilities necessary for the water campus and um and all of the related activities for the subdivision. um my partner Dan and talk a little more about the water campus and where we're at today.

I think you guys will be pleased. And we also brought some graphics if if you want to be bored with some some pictures and stuff. We we're happy to show them, Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. Um how do we do this? Did Oh, did we Does Brian have them? Okay. And I do want to say thank you so much for all of the things you guys have done to make Cave Creek such a great place. I mean, for for us to be standing here tonight, we we look at a lot of things and we we choose very carefully.

You guys have created a great community. So, thanks for all of that effort. Um, okay. So, this is the plat of Kahava Springs, just to give you a feel for the 230 home sites. There's 44 lots that are already improved. Um, the town has worked with us on testing the water man that's been sitting for quite a while and the tests came out pretty good, surprisingly. And um and then the other three phases are average 2acre lots with the large lots in the bottom approximately 20 acres each.

10 10 lots down down in phase five. The sort of the pinkish color down to the bottom. If you'll go to the next slide. Okay. Well, so um do you want to talk about the water campus? You want me to? Okay. All right. So, big topic getting the water campus built. Um, two things about us and I'll try to be modest, but we do have between us almost a hundred years of real estate development experience and we actually have the money to do this.

So, um, so the first thing we did was engage an engineering firm called NCS, who's also worked for the town of Cape Creek, great engineering firm.

And we issu we executed a contract um for half a million dollars to get an early start on getting the engineering done to build the water campus because without the water campus and the booster pumps and the tanks and all of the generators and transforms, all that stuff, the water service isn't available for these 230 lots or the additional residents who I'm sure are keenly interested in our progress.

The uh status of the of the engineering is that um Dan just executed a contract to purchase the electrical parts because they're the longest lead items. Some of them are as much as 20 weeks, 26 weeks. And so we decided we would go ahead and put the money out to get the order done for them now so that later this summer uh or early fall we'll be able to get in the ground with the water campus. It's expected it'll take somewhere between 8 to 10 months to build.

Um, uh, I I would like to take just one minute and thank all of the staff from the town of Cape Creek that have helped us at this point because it's it's been an absolute pleasure to get involved with your town and with your staff. So, special thanks to uh, Marshall Stein, uh, Adam, Randa, Michelle, Bill, that's you. Thank you. is Sean. Um Sean Sean's been just great for the utility information that we've needed. Um Luke, where we are? Thank you, Luke. And um obviously Grady.

So, uh we also have brought a proof of our ownership of the property, which we're going to leave with Bill. And I just want to make a general statement for the record. on the record. There's a parcel of property off to the east of this and there was some talk um earlier on about potentially connecting Kahava Springs to the town of Cave Creek to the east of Kahava Springs. We are not doing anything like that. We have no interest in doing anything like that.

And for the record that that whole conversation is moot. It's over. So that's the end of that. Okay, we're here. There's also a conversation about the track at the very northwest. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's the one. Yeah, that's the one. So, um, with that said, cover everything. I mean, we're here to answer any questions. Okay. Uh, Cynthia, I'll recognize you first since you're uh remote. Do you have any questions? Uh, no.

I I think the graphic that was included in our packet was clear on that corner parcel and the potential discussion of connection uh to other parts of Cave Creek. So, I appreciate that clarification. Others on council, anything either questions or or comments? I have a question. Um Joe, let's start there and Okay. Well, let Tom start.

Um I understand I don't know if it it in involved you gentlemen but when this was set up there was open space set aside Apache Spring and we're grateful that you have added to the open space of the community. So that's a wonderful addition that comes along with this development. Yes sir. Unfortunately there's doesn't seem to be much water over in Apache Spring but it's it's a a great asset. Joe, this question is for Mr. Silverman, Michigan or Michigan State? Be careful how you answer.

Go green, go white, or go blue. I love them both. I didn't go to either. I went to Arizona. Oh, well, can we still back out of this deal? I'm still I'm still standing. Good question. Thank you. So, you mentioned uh 230 home sites, correct? Do we have a timeline when we might break ground on any of those? What the future looks like? Yeah. Um, good question.

So, we're we're in the um we're in the process of setting a meeting up with some of your staff to talk about beginning model home construction while the water campus is being built. So we would like to think uh model home construction would start for a couple models.

Um, obviously with life safety in place and any temporary requirements necessary for this to happen and all those barricades will be able to disappear in we're going to do this punch list that we've got uh from the town somewhere around what do you think fall end of the year? That's when construction start probably the end of the year depending on the you know the approval process. Wow. Yeah, that's very aggressive.

We we Well, we're covering, you know, costs and interest carry and things like that. So, we'd love to also add to the residents of the town of Cave Creek as early as possible. Um, get some great people living in the homes up here. And, um, so we've had really good feedback from our builders. So, we are we are land developers. We are not homebuilders.

Um at one time I was actually a home builder and these guys have been home builders and um and we um enjoyed that very much but uh have moved into land development. So we are working with local builders and um names that you would be familiar with. Can you name them? Who are they? I can give you a few names but not specifically. We're we're not under contract with anyone. We're talking to uh generally we're talking to nationally publiclyowned homebuilders.

I personally sold my home building company to Toll Brothers to Bob Tol of Blessed Memory. So, um I kind of like them. Pretty great builders. Um David Weekley's out there. Uh Richmond America's out there. Um could a potential buyer bring their own builder? Could a potential home buyer bring their own builder? Possibly. I I we we haven't like locked everything down yet. Okay. But if you know somebody, um I I'll leave a couple extra business cards around. Thanks. Um any other questions, Mr. Mayor?

Bill's time. Cynthy, anything else? All good. Okay. Well, uh I'm sure that the town is very eager. I mean, what is it? 20 How many years have we been doing this low? uh more than 20. More than 20. Yeah. I did I posted the public hearing notice for the final plat as an intern 20 years ago. So, they were at final flat preliminary plat. So, 25 years is a safe bet. Well, we're very eager to see that be a success up there. It's it's been a long time coming. So, welcome to Cave Creek.

We're glad your land owner is here and we hope to see good things from you. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. May, if I could put this in context. You you're I'm sorry. You have public comment. You have a call. Well, go ahead and give me what you're doing tonight. Six when this when this development was started, your predecessors created and authorized the creation of a revitalization district. The legislature authorizes these district districts.

So you the government aren't directly responsible and and in effect don't incur some of the losses frankly that the prior developer incurred. Uh by creating an invi revitalization district you allow for the construction of improvements that aren't a burden on the entire community. They will be assessments against property owners in the district. So this is a way that you can make available to the developer public financing but in a manner that doesn't expose you to liability.

In fact, I had one of your counselors ask me and the resolution that approves it says the town is absolutely not not liable at all. But then it allows the developer to undertake all the actions to accomplish the development. You asked about time. The term of the agreement is 7 days after the recording of the agreement. Seven seven days, seven years.

Um then there's 18 months to get after permits are issued for the water facilities which I think is is the water park or water what you call it the water campus. So, one thing we learned from the prior development is that there was not hard dates. We have hard dates and and I I couldn't speak more highly about how contrast to prior occasions, this developer and your staff are working quite well to make everything work.

I mean, one of the we had we were there were threats of lawsuits 101 15 years ago where pe people pointing fingers. There's no pointing fingers here. They're all trying to work together and it's and they they then take the lead. They then incur the debt. They then not across the entire town can impose assessments. This board that they're a part of now that you've you're authorizing uh will then authorize the assessments. Okay. Thank you. Any questions for Bill?

No, I I would have one general comment. it might be worthwhile for the town to uh uh let the folks who live up in that area know what's going on. And uh there is a great concern over that uh eastern uh outlet and uh if there's any attempt to do that, it would start World War II one more time. Mr. Council, could I could I respond? I would like to put put put some framework about what the what the I read your I read your thing. I think it was very good.

I'm I'm just saying just as a proactive measure somehow or other the town or you three gentlemen should get something to the residents up in that area to assure them. Um I mean I live up in that area. I hear it all the time. Um, and this is a significant hot button issue. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Rhodess, that's exactly why they said tonight on the plat that is approved and recorded contemplates access to the east, they're going to delete the word access. Perfect. But I'm But you're right.

I think it's worthwhile to go and talk to the neighbors. I mean, that's kind of how we work here in K Creek. So, I mean, I think this is a good thing for you guys and I think it's a good thing for those folks who live in that area to assure them that, you know, you're not going to be poking them in the eye like the previous developer did. Very, very good point and well taken and we will definitely do that.

In fact, um we'll also put it in our um our prospector publication as well um and make that very clear because I do not want to get people all riled up over no reason. Thank you. Okay, there's public comment on this. Billur, Mr. Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, members of the council, thank you again for showing up. My name is Bill Bassour. I'm a Cave Creek resident. Tonight, I'm actually addressing you in a capacity you haven't heard for a long time.

I am the liaison between West Cave Creek Water LLC and the town. You may recall we negotiated the hold water agreement. We have an existing agreement that provides us with 45 acre feet of water and we are extremely interested in this. Now I thought I might start this by mentioning all the promises that we've been made in the past 20 years about water in the west side but only have three minutes. So I won't make all those uh promises known again. We are extremely enthusiastic about this.

We have seen what failure looks like and it's not good and there are very big concerns from that neighborhood about how this will progress. As you may recall, in the absence of a active developer, it turned into an attractive nuisance and we had to erect those barriers. And fortunately, we didn't all burn down for the third time because of that. We are literally praying for the success of this group.

The main thing that I'm asking you is to make sure that West Cave Creek Water and the Westside residents are included in this conversation. We have a symbiotic relationship between the developers, the town, and the residents there. They need us on this water line as quickly as possible because that water in that multiple mile long pipeline will be stale. It will generate trihalomethanes. We are familiar with that problem.

We know that the way you fix that is to dump water in the desert if you can't strip those. No one today in Cave Creek wants to see the water company dumping water in the desert. If we can come online quickly and actually be there to help move water through that line, we can be of service to the developer, to the water company, to the town, and we can avoid the waste of a lot of water.

So, please, as you are able, accelerate the process so that we can begin forming our DWID to build our infrastructure to connect to this to benefit all three of us. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Uh, Bill Sims, uh, at what point is when's the right point to actually uh, start the formation of the DWID as far as the next step? It's it's already it's already created, but there has to be an election. They haven't created it. No, we they we could not create it until we could identify a source of water.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. And so, we have a agreement. I apologize. You're right. You're right. The the trigger is when the town accepts the line. Yeah. And then and you have a duty. No, we we have we have agreements with all of your neighbors that they have to join the Dwid. Yes, that's what we have. We have a commitment once the water's there, then I apologize, the Dwid will be created. Yeah. Technically, and I'm sorry to No, you're right. He's right.

The what the what the residents could agree to was that they had a desire to participate in the DWID, but because we couldn't give them any definitive information, we couldn't lock them in to participation. But frankly, when you're hauling water and and dealing with that, you're very highly motivated. So I don't think we'll have trouble with wid formation.

There were bill got a new number of property owners to sign the commitment to join the Dwid and and the condition will be bringing water up to the area and once that occurs that will be the trigger essentially all is is is there still going to be an election or not to join? Do they or on his we wouldn't they would do that. Yes, they would do that and yeah and and then they'll form a self-t taxing district to pay for their share of the improvements. So we won't maybe assessments.

I don't think it's tax assess assessment. It'll be on the tax bill, won't it? May I? Sure. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. Um the DWID does not have to be contiguous. So there can be donut holes in the DWID. So if there was a particular property that did not want to participate, they would not be forced. If we get to 50% at that point, the DWID does have the ability to force everyone into the DWID. It does exist under the law to do that.

But at the time, and thank God we didn't tell people what the DWID was going to cost 15 years ago when we started talking about it or 10 years when we really got serious about it because all those numbers would be very bad today. But they are the residents are aware and it is their intent to tax themselves specifically.

And as as was said before, for the record, we do not want other Cave Creek water customers paying for our system and we don't want to create a sense that us coming on board is going to increase their cost. In fact, we hope to, you know, by signing say 90 users over there to offset a little bit of the loss of the 200 users in Carefree. So this is part of that symbiotic relationship. Okay. And so the next trigger is the is acceptance of the line. Is that is that am I accurate there?

As I I think the trigger is when water gets to your boundary, there's a deadline then to create the duid as I remember. At that point we can create it because we have now an identifiable source of water. But that shows you how the mutuality of the parties here. We have a developer stepping in to complete what our prior developer started. We have staff working with the developer to make sure it's done right. And we have Bill and his group standing at the ready.

They've signed documents to agree to create the Dwid which which requires them to fund their own their own bid for all the reasons Bill described so that they they can in effect provide water to their community water that is also going up to up to the developers. Okay. This question would be for Sean then. When when were we going to accept that line? You have any kind of projection on that? Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Um, so at this point, we've done a a pressure test on it to to prove the integrity of the line, but we're actually not going to accept it until the booster station's live and we can actually uh run and disinfect the lines. That's the requirement. So, okay, we really need the booster station on to actually pressurize it and more so disinfect it. That water has been sitting there for a number of years. We do believe it's non-pottable at this point.

Uh, it's isolated from our distribution system, but we have to get that water that line flushed out. So what we did with the developers is hydrotatic test it to verify that nothing had dried out because some piece of this this pipeline been sitting in the ground for 20 years and then then passed the tests very very successfully with no no damages. So we do need to flush it out to make it a potable water line. Okay.

So so you're um at that point they would have to have the water their water campus built and in in operation before that happens. Yeah. Actually there's three facilities. So there's the first inline booster station at Joy Ranch Road uh that actually will also then that can be expanded to serve the DWIB area. The second one is actually partway up the property which then just boosts it up to the property which is the on-site reservoir.

So effectively there's three components to get to the top of the hill. The first one gets you up to the Dwid area and but sounds like they're trying to build them concurrently. There's cost savings. Okay. So we're a year or so away from the next milestone where we have to take action or some action is is triggered. Yeah. But yeah, we have to get the line flushed out to make it a potable water line. It's not currently functioning as a potable water line. Okay. Thank you, Sean.

Um, other questions or comments from council before we make the motion and Okay, Tom, you've agreed to make the motion. So I have uh this is a motion to appoint the three directors to serve on the Hava Springs Revitalization District Board as specified in the uh agenda. Second. Any comments? Cynthia. Oops. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, go Cynthia. Cynthia, go. Any comments? Cynthia. Uh no additional comments. Thank you.

I I think I'm the person that asked uh the town manager and our lawyer about uh the liability for the town and and they they assured me this is a structural matter. It's not an investment and that the town has no exposure. It's uh simply that uh and I'll read what it says.

Whereas the town is in no way be liable for the payment of any costs of the infrastructure improvements described in the general plan or of any debt or obligations occurred by the district except to the extent if any expressly authorized by a separate agreement. So as I say this this is not this is structural. It's not an investment on the part of the town. Okay. Other any other comments who had a second.

So, um, it's been a long time, obviously, like Luke said, like 25 years, and it's finally coming to a head, and it's going to be a great development. These gentlemen here are pros. Um, and I'd also like to say that the West Side is finally going to get their water. Okay. Um, all those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed? The motion carries 70. Good. Gentlemen, you're on the board. Congratulations.

Next on the agenda tonight is the council discussion possible approval of second reading of ordinance number 2026-01 amending the town code title 5 public works chapter 50 sewers chapter 52 water chapter 53 capacity charges related to utility billing updates and other miscellaneous revisions for clarity and consistency. Sherry, great. Thank you, Mayor. So, um, we went through this presentation at the last meeting with the first reading of the ordinance. Um, there's no changes, um, proposed.

Um, so it's the same as the last one. So, if there's something you would like me to get into in more depth, let me know. Otherwise, I was going to try to breeze through this um fairly quickly. So, um we looked at um three chapters. Um chapter 50 for sewers, chapter 52 for water, 52 for capacity charges from the perspective of utility building related. Um there were some things that u were also just miscellaneous clarity and consistency items um that included through this.

Um Sean has talked about some operational aspects that he wants to update um but those will be at some point in the future when he's ready to to bring those forward um within the chapter 50 for the sewers. Um so there's some of the things that we were making consistent with current practice as far as um what the finance department and um finance director authority is. Um there are some things in some of the chapters this one and in water related to um who is actually responsible for the bill.

So um with the state statute there it prohibits when it's um four or fewer units of residential property that we cannot require property owner to be responsible for a tenant or some other responsible party's bill. Um, that's actually something that was put in place several years ago by the the state legislature. Um, and then we also deleted some things that were no longer applicable. Um, the customer deposits, we'll talk about when we get to the water chapter, but we made that consistent.

um the due dates um we made that consistent with current practice and added um uh change definition with the non-b businessiness days um particularly related to US banking holidays instead of legal holiday um because whether or not a transaction gets processed by a bank is more critical. Um we updated information to address paperless billing processes.

um the we've been doing paperless billing for um quite a few years long before I came and um I don't think that that had been updated in the code previously. Um and then some modernization of um electronic rejected payment types. It talked about NSF checks, but um we have electronic payments that we receive and also changing the section on leans from um shell lean in to a mailing. Sometimes um leaning process really isn't worthwhile.

You'll incur more costs associated with putting the lean in place than what the amount owed is. Moving on to water. Um so for some of the clarity in the definition section added definitions for finance department and finance director. Um eliminated the part about carefree since all of those accounts have been um transferred and updated the utilities manager um title to the utilities director consistent throughout all of these.

And there was some other consistency language uh just to make them consistent in the way that they were worded. um added some clarity about the roles between um the utility department and the finance department um throughout all of this um basically with the utility billing focus in mind and um with the uh miscellaneous waiverss um that the town code in in practice it's really in finance um that we're handling it.

So, um those miscellaneous waiverss related to deposits and um late fees and essentially the the penalty type um charges um change that to say that it's with under the control of the finance director instead of the town manager on um a regular practice that's um not really usually worth his time.

We're talking small dollar amounts and um we typically do that in cases where there was some sort of hardship and the customer has always been um current in the past and um we'll wave it and let them know we'll do it this one time on waving the the late fee. Um added the authority for the town manager to wave collection of um utility service rates, fees or charges. Um don't expect that to happen um very often.

Um we do have the um water adjustment policy that council has adopted related to um leaks. Um the utilities director authority um clarified that that it's um can't be things that needs to be um decided by council like establishing rates and um the authority for the finance director to decide any utility billing question that might arise. Um, and then the fees that were the dollar amounts that were in the code. Um, eliminating those and just doing a reference to adopted fee schedules.

Could I ask a question before? Yes. Um, we did have a letter from a resident about the first item on this page. I think that was actually the next item and I was going to to refer to that. I think it was the same language. Okay. Yeah. So, I I I am planning to address that in the next item. Not sure what page we were on. Um, so as Ryan's bringing that up, the um processes for um activation, transfer, and resumption of account kind of clarified all of those.

Um whereas activation is really activating a brand new account that has not been connected previously. Transfers is when a property sells and being transferred from one owner to the other or um a new tenant um from one tenant to another. Um and then the resumption of service is is the same customer um resuming service at that that location. Um some of these things are the similar to what was in the sewer section. um did add language related to um payment plans and um I think you went too far.

Um did I skip a page? Maybe I skipped a page. Okay, I guess I skipped a section when I was trying to find where we were at. Um, so um the um language about stopping other town services when a a customer um account is delinquent. Um made that similar to what's in the sewer section. Um there was some discussions of refunds that really um the better language is reimbursements for um developers or applicants for costs that are part of the town.

Um and then um the fees for service connections um would be actual cost. The um procedure making it consistent with current practice for meter testing. um we do not charge the fee until after um the uh meter has been tested and if it's within plus or minus the 3% then we we charge the customer a fee.

Um the deposit section um so we made that more consistent with what current practice has been um and it's based off of two times the average monthly bill uh for previous months and it's only on rental customers and non residential customers. Um so let's see uh the payment plans added some some language there for payment plans.

We do um allow um those who have had some struggles and let them make a payment plan where they pay their current bill plus a portion of the past due amount over a set number of months. Um and um clarifying the responsibility of the charges for any party that's furnished water but not not build. Um sometimes um a property will change hands and someone does not come in and fill out the application, give us their information, but they are still responsible for those amounts.

and um added that we would send any notice violations, certified return receipt um and uh provisions if the if it's returned undeliverable. And then on the capacity charges, um, uh, basically one of the things that we changed here was, um, having the appeals heard by a civil hearing officer, similar to what other sections in the town code do, um, instead of having to, um, bring that to the town council.

So, um, this is the second reading and then the 30 days would make this effective, um, July 2nd. So this is addresses um fiscal sustainability um with efficiencies in the process, safe and vibrant community um with the updates for policies and reviewing um town code chapters. So I went through that fairly quickly. We went through it in a lot more detail in the last meeting and I didn't didn't think you'd want to hear the whole thing all over again the same.

You ready for the vice mayor's question or that that's the next item. Oh, okay. Okay. Questions from council? No. Yep. Thank you. Do we need a Oh, you ready for a motion? Yeah. Okay.

Move to approve ordinance number 2026-01 amending the town code title 5 public works chapter 50 sewers chapter 52 water and chapter 53 capacity charges second rusty your comment it needs to be updated and I appreciate you doing it right lots of work and thank you for all that tremendous amount of work that's really built a lot of stuff's built up over the years and I congratulate you for taking on this nasty task of updating all this stuff. So, thank you others.

Okay, all those in uh Cynthia, I'm sorry I I've missed you. Anything to add? No, it's fine. No comment. Thank you. Okay, all those in favor say I. I Motion carries 70 to the restroom. Okay, we're on the next one. Uh, read that one. Council discussion possible approval of second reading of ordinance number 2026-02 amending the town code title 3 administration chapter 31 town officers subchapter officers section 31.25 manager with proposed changes. Great. Thank you, mayor.

Um so this is um a very simple I did not do the um PowerPoint presentation on this one. This is adding to the section of the duties of the manager. And I'll read this to you. It's adding wave the collection of any rates, fees or charges under extenduating circumstances when not prohibited by town code or state or federal laws. Um, we did receive a comment from a citizen um, essentially um, asking about the feeling like this was um, rather open-ended is essentially what the comment was.

Um, I don't know if um, the citizen had um, I don't know that the citizen was here at the last meeting and heard some of the conversation that had happened or watched it online, but there were some things that were discussed in the last meeting as far as some oversight. Um, one of the things that the mayor requested is that um, in the quarterly reports that I would bring to council any of the fees that had been waved um, as a result of this.

So that would be um, one of the things that would be um, oversight plus there, as I had read when it's prohibited by town code or state or federal laws um, then a waiver would not be allowed. So there are some things like um the capacity fees and we no longer have development impact fees, but if at some point we decided that we wanted to have those again, those are um statutory type things that we would not be able to wave.

Um there was um specific items in the staff report that I had listed that's in town code that either um expressly allows waiver or or expressly disallows waiver. So all of those would be um complied with as well. Um I would expect um from this and and the reporting that it really would not be very often at all. Um it's not something that would happen on a regular basis.

Um it does say that it would be extenduating circumstances and to define extenuating circumstances we that would be fairly difficult to do to make sure that we captured everything. That's what extenduating circumstances is supposed to encompass those things that are unusual situations. So, um, but that oversight of the reporting, um, to council, um, and, you know, making sure that those abuses are are are not happening, um, essentially. Sounds good. So, there are parameters around Yes. policy.

Very good. Is there any other adjective we can add to extenduating uh, that would tighten that somewhat? Do you have any thoughts, Bill? Well, you're you're referencing the code and state and federal statutes.

Where I see this happening is there are fairly rigorous requirements regarding the imposition of rates, and you might throw one up and you have the you you have the demunition of of property value statute, which gives the the property owner significant claims against you and attorney's fees. And that's then that statute expressly says you can wave. So the point being I think it is the exception. It's probably going to occur when we do something wrong and we correct it by that way.

Now I I think there could be there could be a compassionate one as well. I agree that that would allow that that if someone has experienced difficulties and they come to the manager. I think the manager has to decide. You will then receive you may Mr. Mayor you asked for a report and I think that's what you're going to do. Correct. Yeah. So, but right now you give him 100 grand authority.

I mean, so he's already got pretty broad authority and so I don't see w I don't see waving these fees getting close to 100 grand. And I think it does give flexibility particularly when we have some liability as a town or thinking of good citizenship if truly one of your constituents has a has a significant problem and needs a waiver and maybe the mayor the manager could say, "Well, wave, but can you recoup it somehow down the line? All of which will be reported. Other questions?

Um, we have good visibility on this with the quarterly report. So, you'll be able to track the total effect of it. Um, other organizations I've been in have all had extensive tables of responsibility and limits and things like that. Um and it it is very broad. Um so I think the real question in my mind is does the after the fact reporting which also save money by the way because you're not coming to council or doing other things to get these things done um outweigh uh any potential fraud?

Uh and I think that's one of the things I'm going to give my brother-in-law a break and not charge him for his water. I think we'd see that in the in the in the report. So, um I'm I think I'm happy with the way this is with the reporting. Other comments or questions from council? Cynthia's not looking at us, so I guess she's no question. Uh public comment on this. I have none. Okay. Um I will make the motion if I can find it.

Oh, move to approve ordinance number 2026-02 amending the town code title 3 administration chapter 31 town officers sub chapter subchapter officers section 31.25 25 manager second. Okay. I have no further comments, Dusty. I have no comment. Others comments? No, I'm grateful that our residents read this material uh pretty thoroughly for them to catch that. And um it's important for all of us to be concerned about accountability. And so we trust the staff.

We hope to see any reports that you give us that might include this kind of information. Um, but I'm I'm comfortable going forward with this recommendation. Okay. Any others? All those in favor say I. I. Say no. Motion carries. 70. Thank you, Sher, for all the hard work. You've made a real improvement there and some of the junk in our town code and cleaned it up. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Council discussion possible approval of revisions to the town of Cave Creek employee leave policies, including the implementation of separate vacation leave and sick leave actuarial banks effective July 1, 2026 and the continuation of paid time off PTO for employees with 10 or more years of continuous service. Mayor, council, um before you tonight is a request to um to approve a change in our employee uh leave policies.

Um Carla Reese, our administrative services director, will be presenting um a um PowerPoint presentation that has the details that's before you tonight. With that, I'll turn it over to Miss Ree. Good evening, Mayor and Council. See if I can get my slides moving. We'll move along here shortly. Or not. Hold on. There's always a little bit of a situation moving between computers here. So, okay, there's a lag in the system. We found it.

So, um, as you may recall, uh, couple of years ago, you guys endured a market study for our compensation plan. With that, the consultant had asked that we look at benefits. So about a year and a half ago, we enhanced the health, dental, vision benefits, employee assistance program, short-term disability, joined the trust, came at a savings to both the town and the employees for premiums. Next step is to look at look at our leave categories.

So in evaluating our current PTO structure, we have a single bank of leave that employees acrew that are to be used for vacation andor sick leave. So, what we wanted to do is evaluate the long-term sustainability and consistency of employee leave benefits. Looking at our market cities, we're an outlier in the PTO realm. Uh we also want to improve alignment with the Arizona paid sick leave tracking and recordkeeping requirements.

Provide a clearer distinction between vacation leave and protected sick leave usage where FML and other other alphabet soup is concerned. But again, we also wanted to support workforce wellness. Our PTO program did not allow for an employee who had to have a surgery, for example, to cover their entire 12-week FML period. With pay, they would be at least four weeks without pay.

Operational continuity, we wanted to take a peek at and transparent leave administration, being able to differentiate what types of leave are being used by the employees and again improving alignment with our neighboring jurisdictions. So the proposed leave structure does separate vacation leave and sick leave into two distinct leave banks. Uh vacation leave intended for that planned personal time, work life balance, sick leave for the medical related.

It can be an appointment can be scheduled for family care, illness and other protected leave purposes. And then the new structure if council were to approve it would be effective with the new fiscal year. However, we do have a PTO provision that allows those with 10 years or more to remain in the PTO program just to avoid a little bit of a a impact to those who may be closer to retirement so that they have a choice, but the uh provisions for them would not fully take effect until January 1st.

There was a slight change to the PTO program and employees in the past have been allowed to accumulate over the 320 hour cap as long as they used it prior to December. The new PTO minor revision will be that once they reach that 320 hour cap, they will no longer acrewue leave. So what was happening is we'd have employees who would retire in December and be able to retire with 4 or 500 hours of PTO even though our cap was 320.

though that doesn't seem congruent with what the original intention of the program was. And then any employees hired after the implementation would automatically move into the vacation and sick leave program. The current PTO program is just this gives you an overview of what the acral is based on tenure and then again the maximum balance is 320 hours. So you can see at the 15 plus year mark uh employees are acrewing 336 hours per year but the cap is 320.

So they obviously are a little bit stuck in that little continuum. Not a bad place to be when you're accumulating PTO. Um but that's where the provision for the 10 years and above came into play. We wanted to take that into account. But the vacation leave acrals are incremental and again lower than the PTO. But then with combined sick leave there's an advantage. The maximum balance would then be two times their annual acrual.

So those with 15, 20 or 25 years do have the opportunity to acrew a higher cap of vacation leave if they don't use it. And then looking at the sick leave program, the acrual rate is 4 hours per pay period, 104 hours annually. So it's about 2 and 1/2 weeks. So a brand new employee would acrew 3 weeks of vacation, about 2 and 1/2 weeks of sick leave. Currently, uh they do get four weeks of PTO, but combined they'll have five and a half weeks of leave.

We do have several occasions with employees who um were fortunate enough to bring a new family member, have a child, but they could not take their entire 12week parental leave, at least not in a paid status because they didn't even have the opportunity to acrew that much leave. So, the maximum sick leave balance is a 10-year balance of 140 hours. However, sick leave is only payable if the employee retires with at least 5 years of service and uh meeting all the ASRS retirement requirements.

They would be eligible for a 50% payout of their unused sick leave at separation. If they leave for any other reason, there's no payout of sick leave, just the vacation bank. And then there has been some concern expressed that with a separate sick leave bank that employees might abuse the sick leave so to speak. There are still attendance management practices.

We can track unscheduled leave versus scheduled leave especially in the sick leave category because we also have to monitor that for FML compliance and a few other other issues. But we also want to support accountability maintaining compliance with our applicable laws and policies. So this is the comparison. The first two columns show the PTO annual acrual versus the PTO maximum cap. The next columns show the vacation leave, sick leave, the combined leave and where the caps may be placed.

Again, vacation leave would be payable much like PTO 100%. The sick leave cap is only on retirement and 50%. So again, I mentioned the option for longerterm employees who may not wish to change what they've endured their or enjoyed their whole career. Um, these employees are be given a one-time irrevocable decision. They can choose whether to opt into the new vacation sick leave or remain in the slightly modified PTO system with that cap at 320 hours.

And then some considerations for the employees. We do have an employee here who I'll see if he wants to address counsel. Um we did talk to the employees in a couple of different employee meetings. I've talked individually with employees. There's always concern with change. So employees currently using PTO. I have one who came to me um not here at this meeting, but he mentioned he uses all of his PTO every year for vacation purposes.

But then that leaves him short if anything ever were to happen to him or a family member. And I tried to point that out. Um he thinks he's indestructible, which you know, many of us used to think that when we were younger. Um but they may need to adjust their leave planning habits. So there is a little bit of an adapt, you know, adaptation that has to happen. uh the PTO option, we did offer that to reduce the impact any long-term employees who may be concerned about that transition.

Uh the vacation leave balances continue to be payable upon separation, like I mentioned, subject to the policy limits. And the sick leave, I believe, promotes long-term health protection, not just for the individual employee, but by people not coming to work sick in order to save their entire PTO balance for the fun stuff.

Um we have had instances with employees who came to work ill then later tested positive for COVID and had to go home and then the rest of us are like oh no are we sick too and this is even the postcoid world so there's still those concerns that happen and even just the general flu can you know wipe out half your workforce if you're not careful and then town leadership we do uh we will continue to provide education FAQs transition guidance especially to supervisors who may have concerns on leave usage age.

So, some of the operation and fiscal considerations, we're looking at a potential reduction in future payout liabilities associated with combined PTO banks. Like I mentioned, people were over the maximum and cashing out in December before the transition to the January where your time drops off. Separately, banks may improve scheduling and workforce planning. We can hope.

Um, time will only tell on that one, but the transition will require some payroll work, HRIS and policy implementation updates. U clear communication, supervisor training will be essential, and then the policies remain subject to future review and legal compliance updates, not written in stone.

The potential benefits again is improved compliance and tracking for Arizona paid sick leave requirements, encouraging the employees to preserve sick leave for legitimate health related related needs, provide clear financial forecasting of leave liabilities, um are closely aligned with leave practices commonly used by Arizona public agencies. Again, we like I said, we're an outlier with the PTO. Kasa Grande was the only other PTO.

There are a couple of communities that offer like a small PTO bank in combination with vacation and sick leave. Those were also an anomaly. I'm not sure if that was a legacy piece that carried forward for them. And then this is also to support the consens consistency between full-time and part-time employee leave administration. So again, Arizona paid sick leave does require sick leave for even your part-time employees.

And right now we had no quote sick leave to offer them, but then we didn't necessarily want to give them a PTO bank that they could use for any purpose either. So this way we could remain compliant with Arizona Paid Sick Leave Act and have consistent treatment of all the employees. This does line up with a couple of our performance measures. Uh retention rate of regular full-time employees in the initial probationary period, we're hopeful. uh we've been losing quite a few employees lately.

So those stats are coming at a future meeting. We also want to maintain turnover at or below the national average for state and local government. And we do have a couple of strategic priorities related to innovative and high performing organizations that are related including all these updates to human resource policies and procedures. So next steps are your review and policy discussion and then we can move on from there. questions. Questions? We have a comment. Sure.

I think um should we Oh, all right. You want to make the motion? Sure, I'll make the motion. Can I just see if Tucker wanted to address counsel? Um, is there any public comment on this one? No, I do not have any public comment. No, doesn't look like we have any in the audience either. Okay. Just wanted to make sure I give them an opportunity. Okay. Staff. Oh, that's a staff recommendation. Move to approve separate vacation leave and sick leave policies effective July 1, 2026.

The continuation of paid time off PTO for eligible employees with 10 or more years of continuous service. Second. Wait, I'm not done. Seven. Sorry, the long one. Subject to a one-time irrevocable election, revised acrruel caps and administrative administration provisions outlined in the policies and authorization for town administration to implement the new policies and related administrative procedures necessary to carry out the approved policies. Now, a second, Tom. Is that your second? Yes.

Okay.

I think I just wanted to say how fortunate we all are um to have an exceptional high performing staff and that it's been a long time since we've had professional policies that correlate with that and I appreciate the work that you've done on this and at the same time I also have to say that I think our staff is lucky because these are great benefits for a small town and we're we're fortunate that we can provide them and be comparable and competitive with other cities that try to recruit the same people.

Yeah, I echo what the vice mayor had to say and uh you know, in the years that I've been here, working with the staff has been one of the most pleasurable things that I could do. You know, we we sit up here and we make the decisions, but uh you guys make sure we made good decisions and we truly appreciate. Thank you, Mayor Council.

I did want to mention that when we went out to evaluate policies, we went across the whole state of Arizona, all of the public sector, we looked at counties, we looked at school districts, we looked at cities and towns across the area. We looked at even the state of Arizona. Um, some of the employees who came from the private sector have differing opinions on some things, but at least I wanted to be consistent with other governmental bodies and just try to try to be fair to our employees.

and we we did the best we could in bringing this policy to you. Other comments, mayor, I have a comment. Sure. Go ahead, Cynthia. Uh thank you. No, I just think it's a good improvement uh to better define the lead policy and to have that bridge to short-term disability for uh instances where that may be necessary for staff members. and having the choice for the um staff with seniority of greater than 10 years uh shows the town's respect uh for their service and giving them that option.

So on the whole to me it looks like a favorable policy to move forward. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor we can do it after a quick question. I'm sorry. U do we still provide life insurance employees? We do at two times their annual salary. And it's is there a probationary period? Is it when they're hired? It's when they're hired. Something may increase. We did. Okay. Is there any? Okay. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries 70. Thank you, mayor and counsel. Thank you.

Thank you, Carla. Okay. Next on the next and last on the agenda is presentation of utility department quarterly reporting mayor and council. It's been a while since we've actually done a utility report when we look back at the data set. So we're overdue. Apologize for that considering first several years I was here we us in front of you quite often about this stuff. So going to get you caught up what we're doing with utilities.

Um just showing the performance measures that we've uh been set and we've talked about things like the wash cost of production um of our water and our wastewater services are things we're looking at at also looking at just the average consumption of our users and then things like water losses. So, we're just going to go through these performance measures in the subsequent slides and I'll give you some highlights of some of the projects that we've got ongoing.

Um, so, uh, for water production, we we've been doing it on a fiscal year basis because it's really hard to do it in between, although we're close to the end of this fiscal year. We can actually give you the 26 numbers once this year is closed out, but we did see a small decrease in the cost of um, running services on the water side. Uh, we attribute that to the staff just being more efficient with running the plant. Uh, we've got a lot of good professional staff there.

We've had some staff turnover, but the staff that are there are actually looking after that plant very well. Uh we did see a drop also in the cost of the uh w treated water for the um desert hill system. That's because last year we were able to actually run the wells more efficiently and ran them more um often. Well water is the cheapest water for desert uh for the desert hill system. Uh the cave creek uh transfer of water um is very expensive.

So uh we were able to lower that cost um because we were able to run the wells more. We actually benefited us on the water resource side. uh cost of wastewater did jump up. Um that was because of staffing. We did add a staff in fiscal year 2025 to the to the uh group u the supervisor and three employees where previously we only had two uh which has grown since I started when we only had two employees in wastewater. So that's really to help maintain the system.

Although it's not a large system, it does take staff resources to manage that system. Um this one um it's good and bad. Um this is the average consumption by customers. You can see we do a three we're showing you three years worth of data. We we dropped off the 22 data set. There was a slight um decrease in the um Cave Creek water customer accounts. The average customer total water consumption annual consumption went down from 124,000 to 121,000.

We believe that was partly to do with the the metering upgrade project that occurred. And then when we got people onto the new my 360, we didn't see a similar corresponding drop in Desert Hills for the residential customers because we haven't been able to offer them the same uh AMI hourly reading data set that we have through the Cave Creek customers. We are going to be looking to add some collector sites out there um that we do believe we'll be able to offer that extend that system out to them.

You can see some uh the non-residential that's that's commercial, restaurants, everything that's that's uh um uh lumped all together and that has jumped around a little bit. And if you look back a couple of years in Desert Hills, you can see some fairly large numbers. We actually looked at that uh if council remembers, we had an issue uh back in uh um the end of calendar year 23 and into 24 with the polo field along Carefree Highway.

That's about the time frame they were starting to grow a 3acre polo field from grass seed with our water system. So, we were able to get them off of our system and actually tie them off it um not to use our system anymore. Uh there's also some work that was done with the Desert Mountain Middle School to uh lower their water usage. Uh one thing I'll bring forward is we're actually trying to work with a a group called Mattos Water Management.

Um so, one of the things trying to get these numbers down is we're trying to look at that and that group is going to be looking at uh especially our building data sets. we look they think they can help us with our our AMI metering data and help us review and evaluate and develop high impact water conservation strategies moving forward which is going to be so critical as as we start dealing with these shortages. um water losses very quickly.

Um Cape Creek water is always a struggle for us because the way it gets counted for is we call it as our revenue versus non-revenue and we always have a large non-revenue portion of the water that goes to the Ranch Minana golf course that adds into this number uh specifically and we're always struggling with that. So when you see that green line at the top the total cap water that's actually the total of the um the raw cap water and the backwash water that uh we do get delivered to the town.

we have to look at and that's it's in accordance to how Arizona Department of Water Resources looks at the numbers. Um, but it's really the uh the transfers and the inefficiencies of the golf course lakes are one things it does. We list at the bottom there leaks and other things in system flushing, but I'll show you in subsequent slides.

It's not really a significant amount and we struggle with that in Cave Creek just because the way the distribution system is laid out, there's a lot of long dead-end lines. So, we have to continually flush it to keep the water in compliance with water regulations. It's a struggle. But on total um in the last uh um 12 months, we've only had to flush one point less than 1.5% of the of the water that we produce. So, it's not a large amount.

We're still looking for ways to improve that, but I just want to highlight that it's not a lot. Um the bar graphs you'll see below, the red is the flushing operations that we have to do, and that's to flush the system to keep it in compliance. The orange on the bottom is actually the losses associated with leaks. Again, our staff go out when they address a leak, they they have to make an estimate.

Um, but we're we they're pretty proactive about keeping up with that and you can see the bar is fairly low and if I showed you uh charts from years before it was actually a lot higher. Uh we our staff are really good and we've given them the tools to go out and be proactive about addressing leaks more efficiently and quickly. You'll see that little bump up in October last year.

That's when we actually had that pressure zone spike um um along Carefree Highway and we actually had three main breaks occurred in the same night. So that's what happened to that that sort of jump up there. looking at losses in Desert Hills. We've always been better in Desert Hills um because the meters got changed out earlier and it's a simpler system from the standpoint that it's really there's um the few wells that bring water into it.

There's the interconnect site with with Cave Creek and then they have good uh um um billing data sets there. There's a little anomaly in April where again typically we do not see the um the total of the water uh production which is the Cape Creek water and the wellwater below the um um the amount of water build. So, we actually have to look into there in the April numbers and why that happened.

That's sort of an anomaly we we caught in the data set and we're questioning that, but we haven't had time to to dive into it quicker, more detail with you. And Desert Hills by losses, you'll see this bar chart, and again, there's more orange on this, but less red. But in total, this is only represents 2 of the water production in uh our water that's sent to Desert Hills. We have to do some flushing in Desert Hills, a lot less in Cave Creek because it's actually a more looped system in reality.

Um and we have some more leaks. In total, it's actually not that different. Um from a leak standpoint, we have a little more frequency out there. Um but these graphs look very different um just because of the volume. On the Cave Creek graph, you notice we're actually going up to over a million gallons. This is a much tighter uh data set. But overall, less than 2 of the p uh percent of our water that goes into the Desert Hills is used for flushing or with brakes.

So again, we're trying to be very proactive when breaks happen. and our staff get on things like service line leaks, especially mainline leaks as quick as we can. One things uh council's asked us to look at is just um septic um systems and and what you're seeing here is a a graphic that shows the green is actually our active collection system and some of the um inactive lines and we're trying to look at uh where we got the the red dots are new septic our septic repair request.

So, when someone's come and had a septic system, they've come to us, they've asked to get a septic um uh uh go to Maroba County to get their sept septic system repaired. They have to actually get a letter from us uh before the county will issue that saying that they're not required to make a connection. Uh and the blue is actually new construction. So, we we mapped this to look to see if there's any clustering.

There was a thought that maybe there's a clustering around where we have the dry sewer areas. There's a little bit down there, but I don't think enough to really um uh show a um definitive pattern um that you know we're seeing some failures down in the system. So, you are getting a few more repairs around the the clustering. This is a 12-month running average. Um does that warrant us uh uh the moving forward with that project?

It is in the capital program to actually energize those sewers and get them uh connected so that they're active. And if they're active, then when someone comes in for a septic repair, we'd have to say, "No, we have an active line within 300 ft of our property line. and you'd have to connect to the sewer system. So, it does feed itself together, but it is a very costly project to energize those uh and connect those dry sewer areas.

I think the master plan estimated to get all of them in um would be about 78 $8 million worth of work. So, it's going to be hard for us to digest that. But I think and overall since we only have 940 wast customers, that would be a good thing for the town to do. It's just when can we afford to do it? This next question, talk about some larger capital projects. So, the city of Phoenix interconnect um got mentioned earlier in the in the council meeting tonight. We are very close to completing.

I was trying to get you some good photos to put on the slides. These are actually hot off the press just today, but the site is a busy beehive of activity. So, uh every time I turned around, there was someone working, so I had to sort of sneak around and try and take some photos. Um we're getting very close. Understanding is City of Phoenix has started the functional testing on their booster station, which will feed to ours. They're doing a 30-day period, and that actually has started.

So they're in their functional testing phase. We're getting very close to being able to do functional testing on this site and test it out. So we'll be testing out all the instrumentations on the bottom right hand side. That is actually the PLC, the program logic controller. That's where all the the um individual devices all come together and that's what we have the computer that we control through our SCADA system. It's all going to come together.

So we're going to be doing the functional testing on that and then putting the program so we can control remotely. The middle slide is the hydromatic tanks. That's actually a nice feature can be added to the system that will actually balance any surges that happen in the system. And then on the bottom um left is the uh the booster pumps. So we have six booster pumps feeding two different pressure zones. Um three that go into pressure zone one which is along Carefree Highway.

Um those are 600galon minute pumps. And then we have uh three that feed zone four which is from Stage Coach Pass north into the town core. Uh and we have uh three pumps there. So this is a unique site in that once we bring that city of Phoenix water into that reservoir we can distribute it to uh two directly into two pressure zones and the interconnect site connection at the water treatment plant has now been completed.

So we actually we can send that water into through the treatment plant and fill the near site in case we have to take the pipeline out of service or um uh uh uh do work on the on the water treatment plant. So again a major huge improvement in the reliability of the town's overall water system.

I think it's I I what put on here is the biggest change to the town's water system since the town bought the system and then did all the projects that were completed in 2008 and that's when the town expanded the water treatment plant, rebuilt the near site, uh rebuilt the Carol Heights site and rebuilt the Rockway site.

Uh this is, you know, we're and with staff we're trying to figure out, you know, how best to manage this, but it is a huge and it's a it's a huge improvement in reliability and I I I can breathe a big cyber relief when this is done. John, yes. Is there a um a semih hard time period that you um think that we're going to actually turn the water on and start filling this thing up for real? I've been asked to get that date to everybody.

I think right now with the functional testing occurring with Phoenix and Phoenix actually has a couple of disconnects that they need to along Carefree Highway. So, we're trying to coordinate that. I think it's going to happen in July at this point. Uh it'll probably take us a little bit more than 30 days at this point to get through our functional testing and get ready to accept that water into the site. And we also have to get Phoenix ready.

And then there's a valve currently closed on Cave Creek Road just south of Carefree Highway connect between the two water systems before they're ready to open that up to us. Um this month you'll see some activity in front of the site. Uh the site fence is going on. We actually have to go into Cave Creek Road to actually break our 16inch line. Um and actually bring it in and out of the site. We're currently just bypasses the site. So that's a big project to get done this week.

So it'll be in July, hopefully early July. Well, that's very positive. Yeah. Yeah. Um, some other projects we got, we've been talking about bringing on the the wells back online, a few of the town's wells. So, we actually are working on that. Um, you're seeing there on the photo is actually the new well line that we brought underneath the site wall. The the right well is on the treatment plant. It's behind the site wall. Uh, we extended a new line.

Um, and we're still continuing uh to work on getting the well line tested out. Staff have been testing it and it's been breaking on us. So, we've gone and done a couple repairs on that line. So, as we try to figure out the extents and limits, there's never been any a complete set of drawings in that pipeline, which makes it a little frustrating, but we've been potholeing finding things.

But now, uh, as the line hasn't been activated active since, uh, 2016, um, and there was a section in front of the, uh, Linda Well site, um, where it was galvanized. So, uh, while it was working back in 2016, now that we're trying to pressurize it, it keeps breaking on us. So, we're trying to figure out how we can isolate that. But, that was one well we thought we could bring online, but we're still continue to work on that.

We do have Black & Beach helping us get the um the information together because when you're you're specifying a pump uh and well motor, you want to know where you're pushing that water. So, we've got some recommendations from Black & Beach which allows us put a package out and get some start getting some bids on these.

I really want to get at least the right well equipped as soon as we can and get that because they're actually already is a power circuit for it and we have a pipe pipe connecting to it and get that online. Right now, our attempt is because and I'll talk at the end of the project. We're trying to get we're still dealing with Maropa County on the operational permit for the water plant.

So, our thought is that especially the right well, we think we might be able to tie into the water plant, but we want to get through this first permit modification with the county before we go back and start talking about introducing a new water source. But, that will be our eventual goal. Um, and then bring those wells online. We can help support our irrigation demand needs and then um if we can bring them into the plant itself as a supplement.

Um we've talked about pressure zone one and four to one improvements. Um in effect we're reversing the flow in pressure zone 4 and one. Uh uh most of our water comes through our near site in the town core that gets boosted to pressure zone 7. It is immediately cut through a pressure reducing valve at that site feed pressure zone 4 that gets cut to uh by other pressure reducing valves at feed one. We're going to be actually feeding it in pressure zone one and be able to boost that up.

So, we're looking at the connectivity of the distribution system to that 16-inch main uh to make sure that we can feed into the distribution system the best. We've got some areas that along the boundary that we want to actually adjust some properties to actually bring them into pressure zone 4 with give to raise their pressures up a little bit. Um, so we got several projects we're moving ahead with all at the same time, including the pressure reducing valve in the street.

We actually want to actually put a mission system onto it so we can monitor flows between the system. So, a lot of stuff's in the capital program and we're just trying to get it all wrapped up. It'll probably run into the startup of the plant and then uh the new site and then uh the other systems we need to do. We do have other uh two booster site um improvements that we're trying to get ready to get bid. The packages are already the 38th Street booster station.

We're upgrading that cuz it's right now a single booster. Um so, we're upgrading that to a dual booster site and uh the ability to expand it add fire protection. and the zone 9 booster station, which is actually the one that's tied and we actually have uh escrow money in place from a developer to actually help us provide fire protection to our pressure zone 9. So, those are ready. There's on my desk.

I just got to get the uh the package done uh and get them actually advertised so we can get the bids in on those. Uh we did have a project for the in Desert Hills on the Third Avenue Joy Ranch Reservoir site. Um the package is ready to go. Um because of the ongoing uh invitation for bidder process, I'm sort of hesitant to release that right now.

Um but we can we'll have to make a decision here soon because by the time we get a bid we sort of have to give a window a time frame for the contractor to get in and actually take that site offline that is going into that reservoir doing work doing some site work. So that site will probably be offline for about two months. Best to do that during the winter time. So we're sort of closing in on a window to actually get that bid or whether we defer one more year and start that process.

Um wastewater we actually did a which is I think we have three listations. So we actually now completed work just last week on our Chiparosa list station. That's one that feeds the Ranch Minana subdivision. Um like our other two sites, we've now have a bypass pump connection which we never had at that site. So if those there's a catastrophic failure, we can actually bypass the site.

And you can see in the lower uh left picture, those were the bypass pumps that were used um during the construction. We actually did the bypass in the fall, which gave us the ability to put the pumps out there and actually bypass that to allow us to get into the wet well itself and do all the work. We recoded the wet well. That's the um dates back to the original sewer system, so the 1970s. So, it had some pretty good uh concrete deterioration.

We had to go in there and clean it all off and put an epoxy coating on it. It doesn't look nice and smooth because the surface was not nice and smooth. They had to do a lot of mortar uh back into that, but it's it's very well protected. Did not have a not did not have an epoxy coating into it. And one thing we did do is the valving inside that site was very tricky for the staff because the isolation valves and the check valves were actually inside the wet well on the vertical legs of the pump.

So those are now moved outside and is the lower right photo you'll see that second vault behind it. That's actually where all our valving is. So it's similar to actually our other two lift stations the um stage coach and ranch ranch lift station where they we isolate those functions. So sa staff if they need to isolate a pump they can go in above ground and not have to do an entry. So, it's added a lot to the st um safety of that site and just overall reliability of that site.

And there is a porta potty in the back of the picture. That's because the contractor had it during construction. So, that is not part of our our site there. So, bring that part of your system. No, it's not part of the system. It's construction. Getting off the press. Uh waste water. We've been doing some stuff with sport force maning. Um now, we did something unique where um we had an issue last year with the ranch man force man where we were fighting two issues at the same time.

um a pump performance degragation and then we noted that there was actually a blockage in the force bane. Uh we were able to clear some of it out with uh just doing water flushing. Um that got us into thinking about pigging of the line, mechanical pigging. We were very concerned about a mechanical pig getting stuck in that line. So we actually uh selected to use ice pigging. It's uh you create an ice slurry. Um and in the bottom bottom middle picture, you see the device that's there.

They actually uh they work over 24 hours create a nice slurry and then they can actually they said they can make it as thick as you want. Think of a a slushie but you know one um and you can see the material on the bottom right there that comes out of it. So they set the the consistency they want. They eject that into our force man and then we push it with our pumps through the system. Um what we saw was actually a pretty sign significant improvement in the ranch minana force man.

Uh pressure dropped and flows uh uh jumped up on the force on the on the um the pumps. So very successful. We did it all through all all three force manses. We had an issue with the stage coach force man. We didn't know it at the time because we actually did an inspection a few years ago on that force man. Um um and something seemed really odd. Uh not too many weeks after we did this cleaning, we had a complete blockage of that force man.

Uh we were lucky in that we found that what it was is someone had crossed and we're we actually have to expose it. So I've got a contractor working on that. Um, another utility has crossed the force vein and pinched it and caused an obstruction. Um, at the bottom right picture you'll see there, that's the rock that we actually pulled out of the We didn't pull it out. It actually popped out the force mane. So, there was a rock in that force man. It's a 4-in diameter.

This rock was almost 4 in in diameter and it got lodged sideways. Staff were able to through a series of flushing of the line got that rock to turn itself and get pushed out. We didn't even know it was there because we couldn't get into the line because it's blocked. This is three feet from the end of the force main that the the impediment is.

And what we were also trying to do at the same time is we were trying to do and I think I mentioned in the council the um inspection balls and right right next to that rock is actually an inch and a half diameter little a smart inspection ball that we could drop in the force man. We were trying to get data about the force manses to come back bends pressures where air pockets are. We put them into the stage coach lift station. They didn't come out the other end.

We were wondering what happened to them. They were stuck behind the rock. So until the rock moved out, then all a sudden the two inspection balls came out. We were able to get one of them out. The other one went into our back system. Do we know the utility did this? No. Um we're hopeful in the next week or two I'll have it exposed. Um we've called for a blue stake. No one's claimed it and we're going to have to dig down and expose it and then figure out what it is.

They actually crossed it top and bottom. So they pinched the 4-in force man top and bottom. So we were lucky that this rock came out. We're lucky it was so close to the end because you're accumulating your expenses so our lawyers have some work to do. Yeah. Yeah. Very disconcerning because we were in that line not too many years ago and actually did cleaned out the last 300 ft. It looked perfectly new. So it's been in the last 3 years that someone crossed it. It looks like a directional bore.

We're just not sure why cuz it's going transverse across uh Carefree Road at that point and there's no evidence of anybody being up there. So we got to expose it and figure out what it is. and I'll be in there with my sawsaw cutting it off and gladly taking it out. But um the test balls worked out very well. Uh we got when they when the one ball came out, it had been sitting in there. Actually, they were able to get data off of it and we actually got a report on that.

So they actually pointed out a few things that for us to watch for the the overall force man's in good health. There's some air pockets that we didn't know about. So things that we can watch on. We also tried running the inspection ball in the ranch force mane and um it finally after 2 months now finally came out at the headworks. So, so it got stuck somehow in the force man. We couldn't figure out.

We think it might have been stuck in one of the cleanouts and finally um there was a little bit of uh the seal broke on it and it's it dropped out enough that it came out the bottom end. So, the staff found it on the bar screens at the head works um just last two days ago. So, they handed it to me today. So, I got I'm not sure if I should thank my staff for handing me that to me. But, so that's unsuccessful. But, we do think we can get the Chiparosa one uh done.

Now we're actually feeling better about triposa because our first thought was what happened with stage coach. So a lot of going on the wastewater. Um other things in waste waters we have manhole rehabilitation. So I'll apologize in advance. We're going to be working on the manholes in cave carefree highway um east or west of Cape Creek Road starting at the intersection. The first two manholes at the intersection. We did some work when the sewer collapsed a couple years ago.

We're working our way from that point going uh west towards the plant. So there's a total of 17 manholes to work on. Uh we're going to start and go as far as we can. The contractor is going to work fairly quickly, including some night work because uh some of the some of the manholes are at intersections that we have to do might work on, but we're largely in the curb lane, but you'll see traffic control along the curb lane.

It won't look like much activity because there'll be someone in a manhole doing some work. So, we actually have to repair the concrete, the epoxy linings in the in the base channels, and there's going to be some new concrete adjustment collars being placed along our way. But our hope is to get get through this in the next uh through the summer uh through the fall uh to get those done.

Um when the um food bank construction was going on, they had their closure in Carefree Highway, we took advantage of that. Actually got three manholes repaired there, including the one in front of the plant rebuilt while they were doing that. So now we're just completing the gap. So while those were only putting built in 2010, we're seeing some significant deterioration. And while they were epoxy lined, the epoxy lining is peeling off. So we're going back in to get these repaired.

So, it's just ongoing maintenance of our our collection system. Um, the collection repairs itself, we actually are working with a contractor, Hunter Construction. They have a job order contract. We've identified three locations. We're trying to um they're going to do some cleaning and and we're really going to focus this on getting a few things done, including just some uh what's called CIP, cured and placed liners um to put in some areas. Stage coach passes states.

about a third of that development is ductal iron lined pipe or ductal iron um sewer lines and the interior coatings are starting to come apart. So we actually need to line through those. Uh so that that work will be ongoing here. That'll be less invasive for everybody. And then another project switching over to wide is actually our annual fire hydrant maintenance. That's not part of our capital program.

We pay for that with our annual um operating budgets split between Desert Hills and Cave Creek. So we have 562 hydrants in our system. we identified uh 76 with uh needed repairs. The repairs could be as minor as um they sometimes recommend that we do a 66 6 in adjustment on the hydrant. So they'll note that, but then sometimes we can just go around and clear the dirt around it. Um there's supposed to be enough clearance so that the fire department can put on their wrench and spin it freely.

So sometimes it's just clearing the area. So our work we're working through that that contractor should be starting um they might have time to get going this week if not uh next Monday on 17 of the most critical hydrants that are marked out of service. I'm surprised no one's mentioned it to me, but there's the one hydrant by our fire station on the uh west side of the road that we got a bag on it that's out of service.

So, that will be repaired and we'll get those back in service and continue to work on the the maintaining our system, making sure those critical um assets are repaired and functional. Um development projects, uh we got a lot that we're working on. It still takes a lot of our time to get involved with it. And then a lot of our time is actually just trying to figure out when someone comes to us is, you know, what is what is the utility system?

I used the analogy, I think I mentioned it before, there's the the new buildings going across from town uh on the uh across from um town hall on the east side of Kate Creek Road. We couldn't find the line until we got it dug up. So um and it was a 6-in line where all the mapping dating back through the 70s showed it as an 8 in line. So some of the unknowns that we have to deal with in the system still.

So it takes a lot of time to to sort through this and we try to be as proactive as we can knowing that there's issues out there. So if we can find the stuff early on in the in the development phase we can comm community that communicate that clearly to developers and we can get stuff built. Casper barrel is a good good idea that that development was five lots but we're actually having them as part of their improvements actually complete a water uh line gap on Hidden Rock Road.

So that'll actually create a nice loop in our water system where currently we have two dead end lines. They'll also be bringing a sewer down the hill that will actually across the adjacent property too. Um, Cava Springs was mentioned tonight. We've been working with them. Uh, the development agreement's been sorted out. Um, and now we're working on their, uh, their design of their booster pump stations. A neat one, uh, just coming to our attention. Uh, we're dealing with a Desert Hills Brewery.

Well, it's under construction. It's in the tractor supply development southwest. Should be named Cave Creek Brewery, but this Desert Hills Brewery. Um, and uh, um, they're actually trying to work with their pre-treatment device down there. So brewing actually has an issue that the wart in the brewing actually has a lot of um biological demand, a lot of sugars. It doesn't get caught in in in typical grease interceptor. Plus they can have some a large uh pH adjustments.

That facility is so close to our plant. We're very concerned about it. So they came forward with a design and now they want to deal with us or a question with us and and work with us make sure that what they build is actually what we need to protect our sewer system. So it's very proactive. I appreciate that. So, we I don't see anything about the um other bar over here by local Johnny's and the old gas company mineshaft building. Where are we at with that? Um well, we we we've worked with them.

Um they've come forward with it. Um they're re-equipping that building um uh from water standpoint, they already had a meter, so they kept that meter active. And then from a sewer system, they're initially going to not design it with a kitchen. So, I've talked to them about it. And then when they come in later, so they're actually going to put a a um sewer manhole inspection manhole on that so we can monitor that.

I've already talked to the owner, so when he equips it, he's supposed to be bringing in a modular kitchen, what we're told. So, day one is just going to be, I believe, a wine bar uh with just some some some nibblies or something is what he said. But then the second phase is you'll add a kitchen to it. So, yeah, they're renovating that and we've we've talked to him. That's probably we haven't talked to them for probably about nine months.

I know they're in the demo phase right now, reconstruction phase. I actually um got a tour of that building last Sunday and they told me they're going to do food trucks and no food. That's exactly what they said. Yeah. Initially um we questioned that because we saw that and we were concerned that you know and any any food preparation is potential for uh leading into uh grease and fats oils and grease getting into the clutch system. We're very concerned about that.

But they came forward the owner was honest with me and said no we don't intend to prep it. Our second phase is they bring in a modular kitchen. We'll we'll work with them at that phase. So um water resources something we've been watching for a long time and very closely. Um, so we expect uh to hear about um the water reductions to the to the Colorado River. We still we call it post 2027 uh um uh January 2027. We should there should be new new rules on how the river is distributed.

We still don't know what those numbers are. Um we're still waiting for the Bureau of Reclamation to announce those. We've been planning around a 20 to 25% cut. I know there's some some numbers that went out as high as 70% that were thrown out. Um we believe some of that came from the um the environmental assessment report that the Bureau of Reclamation had done. Um everybody we've talked to says, you know, including the Central As Project is saying plan for more 20 25%.

So we're hopeful for that. We're playing for the worst case scenario if it goes higher than that, but that's what our planning numbers are right now. We've been developing short, mid, and long-term strategies at the same time. Um one of the main ones is a bridge solution to get us access to our water storage credits. the town was lucky enough um to uh start recharging and have about 3,000 acre feet in stored credits.

Um the problem is that they're in recharge facilities that we don't have access to. So we're actually working with some agencies to get access to it and hopefully in the next two weeks you'll be actually seeing the first of those two agreements come forward for you to uh execute and that will give us access to our some of our credits to help us bridge. So what effectively those agencies who have uh who can recover that water for us will actually use their wells to recover our storage credits.

We'll pay them to operate their whale fields and they'll allow a portional a proportional share of their cap water to come by not take it off the canal and allow it to come to our our structure that we can take it out and either have Phoenix or ourselves treat it. So, we do think that's a a great thing for us to do uh to get us through the next few years while we figure out what the next long-term solution is.

Seeing if we can bring the wells online, we're going to have to to do something with those wells, either help me meet our irrigation demands or or see if we can get them into the treatment plant. as we work on long-term solutions. You know, we are still part of the Bartlett Dam project. Um, uh, that's the raising of the Bartlett Dam on the Verdie River, which is part of the Salt River project. Um, that project is just slowly working its way through its environmental impact assessment.

It probably won't see anything out of that till towards the end of next year. So, we're just it's in a holding pattern right now while it goes through that process. Um, sadly, the costs continue to rise, but, you know, sort of have parked everything at this point. Um, and and we're just in a hold. Uh we did do in the spring an evaluation of the Harkahala Valley water. The town looked to purchase 500 acre feet of water from the u one of the projects out in Harkahala Valley.

Um and we did that evaluation and at the time we elected not our recommendation to staff staff was not to move forward just because there's a lot of uncertainties including when that water would be available. But um you'll hear more about that because there's other projects in that basin that are moving forward with so it's something for us to still consider consider. And then when we did that evaluation, we we recommended that the town should watch that one.

So, we are continuing to watch that one. Now, bringing forward that on the 17th, we're going to have a water forum. Um it's been a while since January that um Brad Hill and I uh discussed something, but we're actually have a water forum to uh help answer questions. It seems like when there's a lot of confusion out there, we don't have all the answers. We're still waiting for the Bureau of Reclamation to actually make their determination. So, we don't know what what we're trying to cut to.

I believe we're going to have uh someone from the Central Arizona Project there to talk. I believe uh we were trying to get someone from Arizona Department of Water Resources. So, we may still be able to get someone. So, we're trying to make it into a good information forum knowing that the Bureau of Reclamation by the time of that forum will not have made their announcement, but we want to let uh citizens know what we are doing and make sure that's out there.

Sean, has has anyone dropped out of the Bartlett Dam project since the last update? not the Bartlett Dam per se, but there's there's been a lot of talk because at this point everybody's just participating at uh the uh design level. So, it's fairly uh not that costly to build in.

What's going to happen is when when the the environmental impact assessment is completed and they go to the federal government and go to funding, that's when it's the next phase will be now you have to come up with the construction dollars and that's when it's there's a lot more zeros associated with it. anticipate that from what I'm hearing um there's a lot of people are very concerned about the cost and can they afford it and the reliability of it. What what is the cost for us?

Our cost was going to be um it was going to be uh I know you caught me spot. I think I calculated the last number I got was about $40,000 per reliable acre foot of water. So it's about 268 um acre is going to cost about $40,000 per acre foot. 40,000 versus Harkqua Hale was 225. Yeah, but with Harkah Halo, we didn't know the ongoing costs and when did that water be available. So, yeah, it's looking backwards, it's it's I wish we could afford it all, but we can't.

That's some of the decisions I'm hearing other agencies are having to make. Where do you where do you place your dollars? You agree? I heard the other day that the skiff project has lost some people. Yeah, the skiff project is the interconnect um uh between the central Arizona project and SRP. So, currently um you can only do one direction. So you can get um um uh uh uh cap water can be delivered to the the uh SRP canal system. It does not go the other direction.

So the skiff project was to do the reverse. I understand I heard that Scott still had dropped out of it. They didn't see the benefit of that and then was actually talking to Carefree Nick was over there and he's thinking they might drop out of it too because they get most of their supplies through uh delivered through Carefree or through Scottsdale.

So there are that as the projects uh pan out and and people have to realize you know in the skiff project the benefit to those agencies all you would have to do is you have to make an exchange agreement with someone downstream of that to to do to do exchange get benefit of it.

The town looked at it that project and we thought that because of our relationship with Phoenix and we had a conversation with Phoenix saying if we get are able to get Salt River project water um would they allow would they treat and deliver it to us similar to how they treat and deliver the CAP supplies and they said they would. So it didn't make sense for us to participate in another project and have additional costs.

So we do have an out which is very good with our relationship with Phoenix to leverage that to to get them to treat while they're treating our CIP supplies. They they're willing to extend that to SRP if we can get SRP water which is a nice bonus for us. Including my professional career, I don't think I've ever seen two organizations or one organization help another as much as Phoenix has helped us. It's absolutely off the chart. Um, yeah, I can't say enough. Wonderful.

Yeah, great great people, great relationship, and the fact that they're willing to work with us is just amazing for the town. So, again, uh, June 17th water form. So, um, metering, the AMI system is doing great. The, u U, you know, we're getting really great information. I'm hopeful we can keep accelerating that and get more customers onto that system as we put more collector sites up. Um, uh, we've got 443 customers as of today.

sadly just under 10% but we're still getting the everybody who gets into that. I've heard nothing about glowing information and and uh um what we can get from it. So again, if you're listening tonight, if if the my 360 is your application that allows you to get access to your metering data, even if you don't have a an advanced meter that gives you hourly data, you'll still get your your um day or your um data quicker than we can get it out on our bills to you.

So, I think it's still worth everybody signing up and as we can update the meters and and pick them up with collector sites, you'll actually get more data from that. So, I'd recommend everybody um in the town, all all 4,500 of our customers actually sign up for that system. So, that system doesn't do any good if with only 443. We've got to get that number higher. It's that has got to be a priority. I don't know how I mean incentives, disincentives.

uh we I mean you can't spend that much money and have 400 have only 25% of your customers on it. Although on typical that the data set has actually been very useful for us as staff um to actually to to find leaks very quickly and be able to notify customers.

We do it basically weekly and that's we're going to bring another outside consultant in to help us really look at how we can look at that data set and there's is there some stuff like some So you're using it to watch other the customers and but the customers aren't using these 443 these are customers who are not using it who are using it same thing. Yeah. Yeah. And it comes down to you know um it's information fatigue too.

If someone sets up and sets their alarms are they really going to be watching it you know we're hopeful they do. Um, and there's some some really good people and I'll give credit to Ryan Hill who's done a great job of every time he gets someone into the system and gets them educated in how to use the system. I'm not sure um, Council Member McGuire if you got your set up on the system yet. I know we had some issues with it.

So, yeah, I'd like to get more roll out, but when I've talked to other agencies, there's there's there's um there's the participation rate isn't always the best. Um, so we're hopeful 10% is not too bad. I actually want to get some numbers from um, Scottsdale has an AMI system and so does um, Surprise. I want to get get their final numbers and where they're at. how many people are participating with their systems and actually using the data set.

You get a lot of people that get signed up and they get they set their parameters but they don't get alerts or they they sort of get numb to them too. So we got to be cough careful of that. But the data that we're getting overall and and the um information that we're getting about our customers and being able to to work with our customers and identify leaks more quickly is is just immense. We not go backwards to uh from an AMI system.

So we are working uh and I mentioned this for a while and it's coming fruition. We understand that information all the data will over here um uh the Mount Gillan site which we have an IG in place with the city of Phoenix that radio tower site at 7th Avenue at the base of the mountain there or on top of the mountain um in their park. We have an IG to place our collector site up there. So the vendor should have the um all the equipment to us next week. So we're working with them.

I actually just spoke to Phoenix about getting access to the site and what we have to do to get up there. So um we talked about compliance and we're trying to stay in compliance. So, one of the things we've been working on for a while now is our lead service line inventory. Um, so, uh, going through the data set and a lot of agencies have struggled with this trying to figure it out.

We were able to call it down to, we had to do physical investigations, 488 customers in Cave Creek Water and 31 in Desert Hills. Desert Hills, our staff took uh, took um, took that on. What it was is actually going out to those meters and checking the customer side service. Um, that's what the mandate is.

Even though the customer side is is considered we considered a private service line um per this CB EPA mandate to look at lead service lines they put the burden on the utility providers to verify there was not lead in those service lines. So uh uh right now in Desert Hills it looks like everything's uh good of the 488 in Cave Creek. Um we're looking at the final data set.

It looks like there might be five that have an unknown material that we might have to investigate and maybe invest in replacing ourselves from the meter to the property and be done with it. There's a lot of agencies who are spending a lot more money and doing a lot more service lines, private service line connections, but right now it looks like we might only have to do five. Do we do we pay for that or does the as a customer? Uh per the EPA, we pay for it as a provider. Yeah, I love that.

Um but, uh we're we're a lot better off in a lot of jurisdictions. So, um I'll I'll take that as a win. Um the water treatment plant permit, I mentioned that. So when the town purchased the Paul membrane units um they and integrated those into the uh plan process and back in the end of 2019 it was considered a pilot study uh that permit expired and we've been going back and forth with Maropa County. Um we're now on our third manager uh overseeing the water and wastewater treatment section.

The application is in with them. Um they've sent some comments back to us. So we're trying to wrap this one up. You know the the Paul membranes are providing the best quality uh treated water for the town system. we want to utilize those and continue to utilize them. The argument seems to be over, you know, they're in trailer units, so they're more modular um and what improvements we need to make to the site. So, we're hopeful we'll get some clarification on that.

We do have money in the capital program to do some piping modifications and consolidation of things like chemical storage at the site. We just don't want to know we want to know what they want as parameters and and set as to so we can continue to reduce that and make that part of the plant. the plant doesn't with especially with the city of Phoenix interconnect.

We really don't need to expand that plant for a while if it really looks at how long will those trailers last and when we need to do the next upgrade to that plant overall and hopefully we can defer that out as far as we can because it's going to be a big cost to the town. We're making uh conversation last week was actually pretty good because they were asking uh technical questions of us which means they're reviewing our application.

Um we do uh on the wastewater side we actually have uh we're doing new testing standards on our wastewater system. So, we're being required to do 12 months uh study. Um the the wastewater system has what's called an aquifer protection permit. Um so that you know we don't pollute the aquifer. Um so we're actually we're started a 12-month process to do some new constituents that we have to monitor for that.

Then once they see our results, they will actually come back and then set new parameters for our permit needs to be. So we're just in that process right now. So we're we're starting to gather the information and take the tests that we need. So, we think by next year we'll have to get a pro probably get a modification of our aquifer protection permit. I don't think it'll modify the plant process at all. Um, but you know, that's my best guess at this point.

Um, we also have to do a EPA mandated risk and resilience assessment for the water systems. It's actually required every 5 years. So, we're doing an update. Um, and uh that report is due the end of uh June. Um, so we have the draft report for we had broad and outside consultants on that. So, they're they looked at where we could potentially have threats to the system. We actually did site tours.

They looked at all our water sites and then they came back with recommendations on between physical access um um process um threats and then even things like cyber security wrapped into that report. So it'll give us a good checklist of things that we should be working towards to improve but it's required by the EPA. So we have you know less than 30 days to wrap this up but we we have some good draft reports. So with that I can answer any questions.

I know it's I'm looking over side eye to Grady because I keep saying hold this to 15 minutes, but there's so much stuff that we're doing here. So, I apologize for that and I'll give kudos to my staff and we had had some staff changeovers. Um um but um we've got I I'll give credit to so much work that my staff does. So, answer any questions you have. Questions? Mayor, I have a question. Okay, go ahead, Cynthia. Thank you. Um Sean, just a question about the uh fire hydrant uh review. Are we flush?

Do we have enough uh fire hydrants uh distributed throughout the system for protection for the community? How do I answer that? Um in our fire hydrant is we're maintain the devices we have, not to add and do infill hydrants. There's been discussion about adding that into it.

Um, right now what I'm talking about is the maintenance of the the units that are in the system that either um the Creek water system put in and a lot of those hydrants were actually put in by private developers as they develop the system and we just want to make sure that they what the ones that are in are maintained properly. Um, we've done a a couple of infill hydrants like a good example is the one on the top of Spur Cross Road where we have our 12-in water line.

um that allowed us a little enhance the flushing up there and actually gave access to that um for in fire season that they could actually um run to that fire hydrant and and use tanker trucks and fill up for wildfire up there. But we haven't been that um progressive in doing infill fire hydrants. It's just it takes a lot to to maintain the hydrants that we do have.

Um and we have been talking about doing something especially in the town core, the commercial core of looking at where we might need to place some fire hydrants to better uh um allow for fire protection services. But right now, the program I talked about was just really the maintaining of the existing units that we do have. Thank you. Okay. Public comment. Well, I don't think we have any. So, okay. Uh, any other last questions? Last chance. Let us know if you need anything for the water forum.

Looking forward to that. Okay. Getting information from our speakers. I thought that they both been coordinating a lot of that. I know we've got one one speaker conference and she um they called the CP person called me yesterday so I got to call her back. Okay, good. Good. So, well, thank you, Sean. There's just a heck of a lot going on. It's just a when I see all these the county and EPA and uh lead checks and all the uh hassles with this and uh you're bouncing a lot of balls.

You want to I want to say I I appreciate and I hope I can speak for the whole council. I think I and the whole town. Absolutely. in in recognizing your service and what you've done for the water company. And thank you very much and and the people in your department, too. In fact, you mentioned at a at a public meeting last week by Kathleen's husband, Abraham, uh because he attended the utility advisory committee meeting and he could not believe how brilliant you were.

Essentially, it's what he said. that we could never must been an off we could never survive without you is essentially what he said and uh we agreed. Yeah. No, I'll give credit to staff. We've got a really great staff here that are really committed and are you know making sure everything. So I appreciate the comments. I take them and but yeah I will pass them along to my staff too because they're the ones out the field doing the work. So and making sure the system runs properly for everybody.

Thank you Sean. That completes our agenda. Is there any objection to journing? So moved. Seeing none, we adjourned by Cynthia.