Regular Meeting - 10/22/2024 6:30:00 PM

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[Music]
welcome to town hall and thank you for
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[Music]
government good evening everyone I'll go
ahead and call to order our GBA Town
council meeting for October 22nd
2024 the first thing on our agenda is
our invocation inviting Pastor Brad
Myers of Central Christian Church to the
podium
please I think there's a note on the
button that you need to push to turn the
microphone on
Pastor there you go perfect thank you so
let us pray father God we ask for
guidance wisdom and support for the
leaders of this community we also ask
for the leaders to be moved to lead
justly govern well and make choices that
transfer transcend fear and
despair Lord may we know the presence of
the Holy Spirit here with us today may
we be open to your leadership sensitive
to your speaking and alert to your
calling dear God defend our cause
through this governing body tonight we
pray for wisdom strength and a courage
to do what is right and good for all
citizens may we put the interest of
others above our own and may we act with
love for the common good
amen thank you Pastor thank you for
joining us this evening appreciate the
invocation next we will have a pledge of
allegiance led by council member
Kowski please join me in the Pledge of
Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the
flag of the United States of America and
to the for stands
na andice for
now if our town clerk could please
conduct the roll call Mayor Bridget
Peterson here Scott oh sorry vice mayor
Scott Anderson here council member Chuck
B Giovani here council member Bobby
Buckley here council member young Kowski
here council member Kathy tilki here and
council member Jim torguson here aquarum
is present thank you cheli appreciate
that first on our presentations and
proclamations agenda this evening is a
clamation declaring November 2024 as
Alzheimer's and caregiver month council
members Bon Giovani and comproski will
present to Steve Adams Steve if you're
here please come down and join our
council members thank you
yeah everybody in the purple shirts come
on down oh even if you don't have a
purple shirt
on whereas Alzheimer and related
dementia have a significant impact on
the health and well-being of our
residents with more than 151 ,000
arizonans living with Alzheimer's and
whereas more than 292,000 arizonans
provide over 483 million hours in unpaid
care to their loved ones living with
Alzheimer's and related dementia and
whereas women are at the epicenter of
the Alzheimer's crisis with almost
2third of American seniors living with
Alzheimer's disease being women as well
as 70% of all unpaid Alzheimer's and
Dementia caregivers are women and
whereas in Arizona Alzheimer's is the
fourth leading chronic dis disease cause
of death and so arizonans are actively
engaged in disease education Continuum
Continuum of Care advocacy and improved
training and care of Alzheimer's and
Dementia related patients and whereas
the town of gilber is committed to
actions that address this Public Health
crisis and have applied for a dementia
friendly America municipality
designation which will connect the town
with Community stakeholders and provide
dementia friendly trainings for
Frontline team members local businesses
and community members and offer
education support and programs for those
affected by Alzheimer's and Dementia
related diseases and their caregivers
and now therefore I young Kowski and
council member Chuck Bon giavani um on
behalf of Mayor Bridget Peterson of the
town of Gilbert Arizona do hereby
Proclaim November 2024 as Alzheimer's
and caregiver month and encourage all of
our residents to learn more about
Alzheimer's and related dementia related
illnesses
okay hold hold this for one
second can you hold this for a second
yeah don't give me the mic I'll give you
the
mic all right first of all I would like
to thank the town of Gilbert for this
recognition it means a lot to me last
year there's a difference between last
year and this year my wife was here last
year and she's not this year I want to
share a letter that that was written on
November 5th 1994 I think it kind of
brings everything together my fellow
Americans I have recently been told that
I am one of the millions of Americans
who will be affected with Alzheimer's
disease upon learning this news Nancy
and I had to decide whether as private
citizens we would keep this as a private
matter or whether we would make this
news known in a public way in the past
Nancy suffered from breast cancer and I
had my cancer surgeries we found through
our open disclos closures we were able
to raise public awareness we were happy
that as a result many more people
underwent testing they were treated in
early stages and able to return to
normal healthy lives so now we feel it
is important to share it with you in
Opening Our
Hearts we hope that this might promote
greater awareness of this
condition perhaps it will encourage a
clearer understanding of the individuals
in and families who are affected by it
at the moment I feel just fine I intend
to live the remainder of my years of the
years God gives me on this Earth doing
the things I've always done I will enjoy
to share life's I will I will continue
to share life's journey with my beloved
Nancy and my family I plan to enjoy the
great outdoors and stay in touch with my
friends and supporters
unfortunately as Alzheimer's disease
progresses the family often Bears a
heavy burden I only wish there was some
way I could spare Nancy from this
painful
experience when the time comes I'm
confident that with your help she will
face it with faith and
courage in closing let me thank you the
American people for giving me the great
honor of allowing me to serve as your
president when the Lord calls me home
whenever that may be I will leave with
the greatest love for this country of
ours and eternal optimism for its future
I now begin the journey that will lead
me into the sunset of my life I know
that for America there will always be a
bright Dawn ahead thank you my friends
may God always bless you sincerely
Ronald Reagan I want to thank you all
and please continue to support this
cause thank you
[Applause]
would one of those ladies like to
explain the flowers because I just saw a
movie it was a Hallmark movie with the I
saw it yeah I watch every Hallmark movie
I I admit it um so can you please
explain the flowers I actually just sat
down um I lost my wife it'll be four
years in March after an 8-year uh battle
um she was a high school math teacher at
Chandler Unified School District and I
just said it's a punch in the gut every
year that I have to change for going
from a yellow which is a caregiver to
purple which means I've lost someone so
each flower represents a different uh
signification the yellow is a caregiver
the blue is someone that has Alzheimer's
the Orange is an ally and an advocate
and uh we're hoping for the white which
means the first Survivor of this disease
so we're making progress so and the walk
is November 2nd so we hope full of
Promise flowers yes we will so thank you
so yeah so the yellow is the one that um
Ashley Williams actually held on stage
and she was her mom's primary caregiver
when her mom had frontal de temporal
dementia with Alzheimer's so she said
that movie was her love letter to the
Alzheimer's Association and their
support of
her because this yellow flower is
hard let's take a picture thank for
being here tonight
thanks guys you see you soon
thank you next we will have a
proclamation for veterans week 2024 if I
could invite members of our veterans
Advisory Board to join
me and Monica dortenzio the staff
liaison I warned her I warned her ahead
of time this Hi how are you Charles hi
Pamela and Monica Monica is the staff
liaison to the veterans Advisory Board
and council member tilki and I serve as
Council Liaisons to the veterans
Advisory
Board veterans week 2024 whereas
annually we honor and celebrate
America's military veterans and
commemorate the end of World War I
hostilities that went into effect on the
11th Hour of the 11th day of the 11th
month on Veterans Day November 11th and
whereas annually Veterans Day honors
America's Veterans for their patriotism
love of country and willingness to serve
and their sacrifice for for the common
good and whereas just as our forefathers
imagined America has a ready and capable
new generation of military members
fighting with honor for justice while
safeguarding Freedom around the globe
and whereas 53 veterans banners
purchased by Gilbert residents are hung
in Gilbert's Heritage district for
Memorial Day Independence Day and
Veterans Day honoring veterans and now I
therefore Bridget Peterson mayor of the
town of Gilbert Arizona do hereby
Proclaim November 8th through 15th 2024
as veterans week 2024 and I encourage
Gilbert residents to honor the heroism
courage and sacrifice of our veterans by
attending Gilbert's 20th annual veteran
ceremony held on Town Hall front lawn at
50 East Civic Center Drive on Friday
November 8th 2024 beginning at 11:00
a.m. which will recognize and remember
those who have served and those who
whose ultimate sacrifice ensured our
freedoms remain in
place the these are members of our
veterans Advisory Board I'm going to let
them introduce themselves and let you
know what their position is on the board
Charles thank you and what what service
you know what
rank you know what I mean so my name is
chief warrn officer to retired Charles
Dy and I was in the United States
Marines I currently serve as the chair
of the veterans Advisory Board and I do
have one small ask if you know a veteran
could you please have them visit the
town site and visit the veteran
resources page there is a get involved
button on there we can't really be the
voice for our veterans in the town
unless we have veteran participation I
think that's our greatest shortfall
right now so if we could get ask your
help for that we would be much
appreciative hi I'm Pamela Rin Smith I'm
also a marine veteran and I am the
pillar lead for the USS
Arizona hi Les presic I'm past chairman
of the veterans Advisory Board I am not
a veteran other than of that diet and a
few other things and a lot of community
service and I saw the same Hallmark
movie that you were talking about and I
left a har Hallmark Christmas movie to
come
here anyway thank thank you mayor for
for the proclamation thank you counil
for all the support that you've given us
and and what we do for the veterans
thank
you thank you Charles great message that
is one of the places that we fall short
as being able to sign up as many
veterans as that we know live in Gilbert
and we'd love to see them get involved
or just come out for a coffee or
something if any veterans in the
audience will you please stand and be
recognized thank you for your service
thank you for attending this evening and
now I want to make one more comment I
would like to have council member tilki
come down for a group photo with us but
I also want to make a comment about
Monica d deeno one of our veterans
Advisory board members Dave Rosenfeld
couldn't be here and he's our former
chair just stepped on his chair Charles
stepped in as the new chair and Dave
sent us an email and asked that Monica
be recognized publicly and I'm taking
the opportunity to do that right now
even though she's going to kill me she's
gonna kill me she's the council aid for
us and like I said she is the liais on
to the veterans Advisory board but Dave
really wanted to make it known that
Monica has stood by this board from day
one it's about four years old since its
Inception as a board and um she has been
there for everything through thick and
thin for them she even purchased her own
Banner of her grandfather to be hung
last year with the banners in downtown
Gilbert and so I want to give her a
special Round of Applause
too had to take that Advantage I know um
now we're going to take a photo and if
you're looking for those veteran banners
this year they'll be put up at the end
of October leading into Veterans Day and
making sure that it covers November 8th
when we have the event going on here at
Town
Hall e
next we'll have a presentation on the FY
2024 Gilbert Benchmark Mark report by
Janice Hart manage management budget
analyst 2
good evening everyone so this will be
the 2024 Gilbert Benchmark
report so The Benchmark report
encompasses 75 different benchmarks
across eight major functional areas 24
of our departments and divisions we
Benchmark against 41 communities and
across 13 different
states and so as we start here for
context when we're looking at the
information anything that is going to be
below our average will be reflected in
the blue anything that is above the
average will be reflected in the orange
and then the average you'll see there in
the yellow so starting out with the FY
2024 full-time
employees per 1,000 residents we can see
here again that Gilbert comes in below
the average about
6.14 total FTE per 1,000 residents but
still an increase compared to our 2022
report as we look at uh maintaining a
high General obligation Bond rating we
can see here that um compared to 2022
Gilbert continues to maintain a TW a AAA
Bond rating for 2024 which again helps
to allow the town to show that we're
managing the finances well and put us in
a good position in case we do need to
borrow and receive lower interest rates
as we make those
obligations as we look at the hotel
occupancy average annual rate this is an
area where we saw significant
Improvement compared to the 22 report uh
Gilbert comes in strongly at 75.3% as
reflected in the data here compared to
the previous year uh report where we
were at 59% and this is significant
because this shows significant uh
bounceback postco as
well as we look at the vacancy rate of
all of our commercial property within
the community we can see here we've made
significant strides in 2024 report for
an improvement in this area coming in at
4.4% vacancy which is again below that
average of 6.9% but also showing again
significant decrease as far as a vacancy
compared to our previous report in
2022 when we're looking at the percent
of customers who receive their
statements electronically these are the
utility statements we can see overall
there was an increase across all
communities in this area so more folks
are utilizing electronic statements
Gilbert again comes in above average
showing at 43% here in the data so again
significant Improvement in getting
customers to utilize the electronic
statements as we look at the number of
sworn officers per 1,000 for the 22 24
report here again we're seeing we've
come in at 1.17 so again an increase
compared to our previous report in 22
with the officers per 1,000
residents and then as we're looking at
the average uh fire response times for
90% of calls coming in again below the
average here 6 minutes 39 seconds for
the town of Gilbert so again overall
doing very well in this
area and then as we look at our surface
versus groundwater usage again SE
significant Improvement compared to our
previous report report in 2022 still
some opportunities for growth and
Improvement overall in this sector but
we are making
strides and then as we look at the
average annual trash per household this
is an area where Gilbert continues to
lead the pack we do produce a
significant amount of trash but we are
bringing that number down slowly and
hope to continue on that
Trend any
questions any
questions seeing none great presentation
Janice thank you guys we app appreciate
it I appreciate two months in a row that
you got right and I love the Hallmark
movies too I just got to put it out
there I record them all I'm a sucker for
the Hallmark movies I
can't sto my husband says the stories
are all the same but whatever they're
still the best you can rewatch them a
million times thank you I appreciate you
and all you do and your team now we will
move into the public hearing portion of
our agenda items will be heard at one
public hearing at which time anyone
wishing to comment on a public hearing
item may do so we have I will open the
public hearing we have
um five items on our public hearing
agenda two liquor licenses two property
Acquisitions and our fees does anyone
want a separate presentation on the two
liquor licenses or the property
Acquisitions seeing none then I will
close the public hearing on items 5 six7
and 8 and I would entertain a motion on
those four items
I make a motion to
approve number six five six7 and eight
I'll second that I have a motion by
council member Buckley seconded by
council member ban Giovani please
vote motion passes 70 items 567 and 8
have passed unanimously moving on to
item number nine which is fees consider
adoption of ordinance number 29 2918 to
amend the town tax code to increase the
general sales tax rate from 1.5% to 2.0%
the use tax rate from 0% to 2.0% and the
bed tax rate from 2.8% to 5% and B
adoption of resolution number 4515
declaring the 2025 use tax amendments to
the tax code of the town of Gilbert as a
public document um if I could open the
public hearing on that item and ask I'm
assuming Kelly f
to come down for a
presentation and Patrick bager am I
seeing a team effort here yeah we've got
several members that we'll be presenting
tonight mayor thank you
Patrick I always go to Kelly for the
first because you know she's the budget
girl oh good oh down at the podium even
Patrick wow it's big
time
indeed all right if we want to go go
ahead and bring those up are you
controlling it from
there okay great so mayor members of the
council we have a short presentation for
you that you have seen before it past
Retreats but we wanted to cover that
again to give some context um on the
projects that will be funded through the
rate increases that you will have up for
consideration tonight we're going to run
through why it's important the
identified projects themselves the
funding options and sources how we Stack
Up region Ally before and after the next
steps in this process and then we're
happy to answer any questions you may
have go to the next
slide or is is this working okay great
so as we're all very much aware we will
be transitioning into buildout within
the next 5 to seven years depending on
some development decisions in our
community and the local economy but we
are nearing the end of what has been a
100-year history up to this point of
transitioning from a small agrarian time
Town into a major uh suburban American
city and at that point we will switch
our Focus from these final few
Investments to maintain our quality of
life to long-term maintenance of our
infrastructure uh and management of
those assets the 100-year journey as i'
mentioned has seen us transition from a
town of roughly 500 people the first 50
years of our existence to a community
that now is closing in on 290,000
residents and we will uh projected to go
as high as 330,000 residents depending
on some final decisions on land use that
makes us the 76th largest city in
America right now and there are over
19,000 cities in this country and at 72
square miles we are very large
geographically we are bigger than a lot
of major American cities such as Boston
DC Miami Minneapolis St Louis San
Francisco Seattle we don't have those
dense Urban business business districts
that those communities have but we do
serve uh a greater size by way of land
mass which means more miles of Roads
water lines sewer lines and we have a
very large infrastructure base to
maintain and care for and we built a
quality of life that our residents
greatly enjoy and it's become one of the
driving factors to our growth for
residents and businesses we regularly
receive accolades uh in various aspects
of this quality of life and we very much
have Keen focus on maintaining those
levels but we still have our challenges
and opportunities for improvement as we
all know these quality investment uh
quality of life Investments that we will
run for through for you tonight will
help the community meet our needs and
help set us up for long-term
sustainability of this quality of life
and up to this point we've employed uh a
lot of different measures to stretch our
dollars and do everything we can to be
good stores of the tax dollar such as
obtaining the Chandler Heights a park
and recreational easement on the
Chandler Heights detention Basin from
Maricopa County that allowed us to then
sell excess Park land and use those
funds to develop the first phases of
Gilbert Regional as well as desert sky
without issuing any additional debt to
do so we've also done things like build
our new and expand our Dispatch Center
as well as our Emergency Operations
Center within existing space in our
buildings and cash fund those projects
but we are at a point now with projects
and Investments that have to be made
that we've um exhausted all of their
options and now we need to look at
funding opportunities uh to move these
things forward so with that I'm going to
turn it over to Chief angstead he'll
walk you through the items in the police
department and we'll go from there thank
you good evening mayor and
councel um this first slide that we're
going to jump into if we can get to the
next one here uh with regard to the
police department there we go is our
Advocacy Center I know you've heard uh
some presentations on it but we are in
the final design phase right now uh for
those in our audience or online that
aren't familiar with what an Advocacy
Center is uh imagine being a victim of
an intimate violent crime uh likely you
were initially contacted by somebody
that looks like me in a uniform uh but
then what uh in in the mind of that
victim uh how and where will I be
interviewed how and where uh will
forensic evidence be collected from my
body how and where will I get medical
treatment how and where will I meet with
a counselor to pick up the pieces of my
life uh currently this process requires
the police to take victims to various
locations around the valley to
accomplish all of those tasks and the
effort here with this Advocacy Center is
to consolidate all of those different
elements into one location uh simply put
this Advocacy Center uh allows Gilbert
government to look out for Gilbert
citizens
next is a slide that speaks to a crime
lab or the future um idea of a crime lab
currently the Gilbert Police Department
doesn't have a crime lab we Contract
Services through the city of Mesa and
they provide great quality service now
uh our concern is growth in the future
the importance of a crime lab is
demonstrated on this
slide uh simply put there's a much
higher solvability rate for cases when
evidence is examined at a laboratory
as this slide demonstrates offenders are
21 times more likely to be charged in
homicide cases than involve forensic
evidence that's processed at a lab
there's also a much higher rate of
conviction for sexual assaults along
with a higher rate of robbery cases
being
resolved uh the
particular um relevance of this slide is
it it's talking about three different
crime types that are often uh serial
crimes meaning that offenders go out out
and
reoffend um in these
categories um the quicker that we can
identify a suspect ultimately the fewer
crimes are committed uh the benefit of
us uh someday down the road controlling
our own crime lab will be the speed at
which we can get results back and uh
hold offenders
accountable lastly here uh this this
slide speaks to the central and Santan
police
stations um I'll start with the Central
Station across the street uh when we
opened the building in 2003 I will tell
you I thought I died and went to heaven
uh it was a godsend across the street
and um I was and still I'm very thankful
to our Council for approving that
facility back then we served roughly
150,000 citizens and we strived to staff
130
officers um no expansion has ever been
conducted for that overall foot print
across the street we've moved some
things around as you know we've
remodeled our EOC we've remodeled our
dispatch but the the actual space has
not
changed um to relieve some of that
growth pressure the Santan substation at
Queen Creek and Greenfield open in 2007
at that time our population was around
207,000
citizens and as uh we discussed this
morning at a grand opening of uh the
first two-story Starbucks in the country
uh we're now staring down the barrel of
around 290,000
citizens and as nostalgic as I am about
both of our facilities existing
facilities if I'm being honest with
myself we're just playing out of space
uh We've converted work areas into
locker rooms and closets into offices
and uh we're busting at the
seams turn it over to chap duin
mayor council thank you for the
opportunity to review quickly uh the
three mer main areas of of projects for
for the fire department uh the first we
have here is a public safety large
apparatus maintenance facility uh
ensuring a reliable Fleet of apparatus
is a a vital component to maintaining
our service levels by minimizing our
response times the existing facility
we're utilizing now South area service
center was built over 20 years ago and
has insufficient needs for today let
alone our buildout um to the buildout in
2032 as you can see in the picture our
mechanics uh across the whole Fleet are
forced to work outside most of the year
we don't have enough base space for our
mechanics to work in climate controlled
environments thinking of the
record-breaking heat we have this summer
our mechanics had to endure extreme heat
for for over three months of the year in
this environment we have actually run
calls to our Mechanics for heat related
injuries in years past as a result to
some of the working conditions having to
be outside instead of in a climate
controlled environment uh by adding an
additional Public Safety large apparatus
maintenance facility that will allow the
primarily the fire Fleet and some of the
other large apparatus to move to a
separate building which would then allow
the remainder of the environmental Fleet
to occupy those spaces which we believe
will then allow our mechanics to work in
climate controlled spaces a majority of
the time instead of having to do the
extreme Heats they do
now this next slide talks a little bit
about how we maintain response times
maintaining low response times is the
number one request of our residents and
businesses every time we pull them no
matter what the survey is engagement
surveys in the community or general
performance reviews they always ask for
low response times maintaining or
improving those response times is a
pillar of our accreditation our
strategic plan over the next 5 years we
accomplish this by placing the right
unit in the right place and as I said
before they're reliable apparatus we use
data to help drive and determine where
our apparatus need to be this is just
one of the graphics we utilize that
represents response times and the
Diamonds you see there in the middle
which is green it's a 4minute response
time the second diamond yellow six
minutes and red 8 Minute response time
so we use this to tell how quickly can
our units get to a majority parts of the
town and then what types of calls are be
responding to we use this data again to
determine where the calls are recurring
and how it best to deploy assets to
reduce response times maximize our
Effectiveness uh what one of the the
main areas this graphic shows is our
Hazmat unit which is currently located
at station 5 down off at Germaine and
Higley by the data should be located at
station 4 Lindsay and Ray right around
the corner but unfortunately that is our
oldest Station built in 1999 it has
insufficient dorm space and Bay space to
accommodate the units the people and the
equipment we need to support a Hazmat
unit and also Transportation unit which
should also be at this location so this
shows an example of one of the graphs we
utilize to determine where our asset
should be placed uh as we look to the
other fire station projects to the right
it's got the fire station rebuild
located on there because we do have to
rebuild that station because it's
insufficient the remainder of the
stations 286 and five are prioritized
based on anticipated call volume in the
future we do our Predictive Analytics to
determine when we're going to need to
bring additional resources to these
stations with the goal again of
maintaining low response times as call
volume
increases last fire Administration we'll
take a page out of PD's ability to cram
people into storage spaces this shows a
picture right now of our current fire
marshall Tim Simon's work location is a
repurposed storage room in one of the
corners of the remaining spaces in the
public safety building the picture to
the right shows an awkward picture kind
of a uh door stop shaped remainder of
what's left of the original fire admin
our previous space was insufficient to
support the buildout needs of the
organization and because of the EOC
project which was a critical project for
the long-term sustainability and safety
of this town uh was needed to expand I
took up about half of the existing
square footage of a space that was
already insufficient but again as we
found out in the last few years the
criticality of having a well-
functioning EOC superseded the
short-term needs of fire admin we
temporarily and currently relocated the
public training facility the issues
we're having now is that we're limiting
the functionality of that building uh we
are utilizing spaces need to be filled
with fire and PD training staff as we're
preparing particularly on the fire side
for our retirement Cliff that's coming
we need those spaces filled with offices
and training staff they're going to be
able to train the next batch of
firefighters paramedics Engineers
captains Battalion Chiefs right now
we're limiting the ability to do that
because we're occupying those spaces and
PD has similar needs along the way that
we're cering the function of that to be
able to fully train our crews for the
buildout needs of our
future with that we're going to switch
over Robert Carmona from Parks and
W all right good evening uh mayor and
Council so the theme of the next few
slides for you is going to be uh really
in regards to Parks and Recreation the
overall concept is the highquality park
system continues to to thrive but we are
at Max Capacity with what we can handle
not only for the residents when it comes
to programming but also uh Park usage um
you know just a a few fun data facts you
know in 2022 alone when we ran our data
we were at 5.2 million uh people
utilizing our Parks and Recreation
system uh based on the increases we have
seen with continued Park programming and
park visits that numbers well above uh
5.6 million uh just about a year or two
later but as we go through it uh 20124
was a a big year in 2023 we really took
our time to engage with with the public
in the Parks and Recreation master plan
happy to say through that effort it was
the number one nationally recognized
Community engagement master plan uh
really across the country and and what
that equates to is uh the previous uh
record engagement number was about
30,000 uh we uh had an engagement number
of about 62,000 overall and that really
spanned from a series of events uh
throughout the entire Community uh
throughout all of Gilbert all all ages
all age ranges um to really understand
what the public needed from us moving
into the future but also part of that
Parks and Recreation master plan showed
us some interesting data as it went
through in just a few short years uh you
know parks recreation seen an increase
of about 63% in our Aquatics attendance
uh 45% in our special event attendance
55% increase in the recreation program
so that right there alone leads to some
of those larger capacities where if
people want to register for particular
programs or get a rental at a park uh
there's even parties that happen to make
sure that they register at midnight the
night that those classes uh come out cuz
if not that will be full uh the very
next day uh and a couple other pieces of
information that kind of helped show
that is even within the residents uh
through the master plan process about
28% cited not using our pro programs and
Parks simply because they were too full
to utilize and when we looked at that
data even more the national average for
that is only about 3% so Gilbert is well
above the national Norm of people not
being able to utilize the services just
for those being to full and on top of
that when you look at the customer
satisfaction of the people who are
utilizing the facilities the the
programs the events about 93% and when
we think about those you know 5 million
plus visitors um at a 93% customer
satisfaction rate of either good or
excellent shows that high quality
programming that our team Prides itself
in um but also we know that in that same
data that there's a lot of people were
not able to serve or get to because
those are simply too full to participate
in and with that um you know we love to
speak about the good numbers but there's
also a lot of opportunities for
improvement and I think the data also
showed some some areas in which we
weren't doing as well simply because
that system was at Max Capacity so if
you see where we rank up nationally um
you know not to mention the amount of
programs the satisfaction but overall
you know we're last among the top 100
you know Park systems in terms of
population with the amount of amenities
that are available uh to our citizens
you we know we have a high population of
of younger families
um in the nation we're second lowest per
capita for actually having enough
playgrounds to service um all of those
families and also looking at Just
Between the valley uh per 1,000
residents Janice had the the
presentation earlier um we're third
worst in terms of the valley for
developed Park acreage per thousand
residents that are that are available
for
Gilbert now when we take a look at what
that engagement process uh looked like
um that Community engagement with with
everybody in Gilbert counseled with the
the council workshops that we had with
the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board
taking a look at all the feedback from
the master plan engagement the community
impact and sort of the geographical
accessibility of where our all of our
current amenities are it spans from more
than just park development it's
everything from multi-use paths lighted
Trails um and that that Park development
system and when you see it the the
projected projects or the prioritized
list really spans all across Gilbert
it's not just serving you know one
specific region or one specific
population and to kind of show that
we're highlighting two of the projects
um even though there were there were a
couple more um but we'll start with
Gilbert Regional Park um obviously uh no
one's probably new to to Gilbert
Regional Park uh 50 acres were developed
in in 2019 and 2020 um it is uh in the
top five most visited parks in all of
Arizona just that that beginning 50
acres but there's still about 185 Acres
remaining uh left for development and
when we take a look at it it really
spans from all of the feedback we
received from the community and you're
going to see a grouping of amenities
that are really for everybody all ages
all abilities in Gilbert from those
multi-use Sports fields to skate parks
to bite parks to dog parks to those
Community areas and the desert a Royo
natural trails and Landscape areas
really speaking to all of Gilbert which
was a was a lot of uh the interest that
the public had during that engagement
process another good example uh desert
sky park in that Park development about
30 Acres were developed in 2019 um those
fields are consistently full and when we
know from our field needs assessment um
that we are very short on fields and the
fields that we do have um they're not
available for rent very often uh they're
usually full but we're also running them
to depletion so they're no longer going
to be able to be maintainable in the
future if we don't have additional
multi-use Fields not only for our
residents to use today but also to be
able to to uh move those fields around
for maintenance periods but it's more
than just multi-use Fields accessible
playgrounds Trail heads to the to the
trail connection system uh amongst a lot
of other
items and with that I'm going to hand it
over to
Kelly thank you mayor and Council uh as
you're aware there's a lot of
infrastructure that's needed and our
current funding sources are not able to
support the level of infrastructure that
is needed here and so as we talked about
uh in earlier conversations the revenue
streams that we have that might be able
to to support this level of
infrastructure would be property tax or
sales tax Gilbert does not have a
primary property tax uh instead we have
a secondary property tax which only pays
for bonds for things that voters approve
on a ballot uh if we went primary if we
went a property tax way uh only our
residents and businesses would help pay
for this infrastructure as opposed to
sales tax where residents uh businesses
and visitors would all help pay for the
infrastructure that was being used also
a secondary prop proper tax uh the
infrastructure has to be bonded for and
we have to pay it back with interest on
secondary property tax the town is able
to cash fund or bond fund uh and the
hope for this infrastructure would be a
to cash fund as much as possible and
then Bond only what's needed for cash
flow purposes because the infrastructure
is needed kind of upfront in the time
period um and so Council gave the
direction to go ahead and look at the
sales
tax tonight we're looking at a group of
sales tax use tax and bed tax sales tax
being what you typically think of and
and pay when you purchase items use tax
is paid by residents or businesses when
they purchase items online from vendors
that do less than $100,000 of sales in
Arizona if they do more than $100,000 of
sales it becomes by definition sales tax
and they pay the sales tax for that and
then bed tax is paid by uh people who
are visiting in hotels motels or
short-term rentals for a period of less
than 30 consecutive
days the sales tax rate that's being uh
requested is uh we're currently at 1.5%
we've been there for since 2000 it was
at 1% from 1973 to the year 2000 uh and
what it's anticipated is to move to 2%
that puts us in the middle of our
regional peers um of the larger cities
here in Maricopa
County if we look at where Gilbert would
put us in the whole state this is all of
the 91 cities and towns uh Gilbert's at
the 1.5% Chandler is the only other city
uh at 1.5 and they also have a primary
property tax which helps pay for their
infrastructure as we mentioned Gilbert
does
not um most of our infrastructure most
of our programs are paid with um sales
tax you can see most of the Cities
across the state are in 2 and 3% range
for their sales tax rate their retail
rate there are a few that are at four
and 5% for
contexted the use tax uh currently
Gilbert has a 0% rate all of our other
cities uh pure cities are charging a use
tax The Proposal is to go to 2% this is
in the middle of the range and would
match the sales tax rate as
well the bed tax rate is currently being
charged at 2.8% and the proposal would
be at 5% most of the other cities and
towns are charging the 5% rate so it
would be um comparable with
that we have uh been talking about the
infrastructure for a long number of
years and looking at what the town needs
we had a council Workshop in December
really honing in And discussing that had
uh a retreat in March talking about what
the finances could look like in August
there was a notice of intent to the
public to be able to talk about possibly
raising these rates tonight so tonight
is the public hearing for these rates if
approved they will go into effect uh on
January 1st
2025 the impact for most citizens uh on
the sales tax is about 50 cents when
they spend $100 at the store or or on
their receipt and in that we would get
the infrastructure that was described
tonight with the public safety police
fire and Parks and Recreation needed for
our
community there is more information
about all of these projects on our
website there's a QR code here or a
shorter link it is on uh our website you
can go through and read about all of
those different projects as well and
with that
Patrick thank you K Kelly mayor and
members of the council we now have
answer any questions you may have thanks
Patrick thanks Kelly thanks Chief dougen
thanks assistant chief angstead thank
you Robert appreciate the presentations
this evening any questions oh council
member torguson I thought we had decided
that the uh crime lab was something that
was going to go further down the line
and not part of what we're talking about
tonight and it was specifically
presented tonight and my understanding
is we took that off the the he and
now mayor Peterson council member Tason
we are in active discussions with
Chandler as we speak about potentially
partnering on a joint crime crime lab
between our two cities so we are uh
continuing to evaluate the possibilities
of that the direction that Council gave
us at the retreat was to explore that
opportunity and then come back to us uh
with the final results of what that
could look
like sounds that sounds about
right and a decision as to whether or
not to move forward if it was going to
be Gilbert only made the decision was
not Gilbert only to look at other
options yes thank you any other question
council member bani thank you mayor um
Kelly I just want to get my numbers
right here 5.3 million people come to
Gilbert every year
correct mayor council member Bon ganni
that is a number I would have to look at
Economic Development or somebody else
for not my area of expertise I'm sorry
mayor council member Bon gani I believe
that's just for our parks and
recreational amenities and programs
there are other visitors that come for
shopping uh and other activities and
venues okay and they would come to
Gilbert spend money and we will collect
a sales tax from them also correct yes
that's correct so in essence they're
helping to pay for our infrastructure
needs yes okay thank
you any other questions at this time or
I can go ahead and start the public
comment okay we'll go to public comment
I received um a sheet from the clerk's
office that we had seven comments online
one was in support of this item and six
were opposed we'll have that in the
record I also have two slips from um
residents not wishing to speak but are
against this Aon auro and Mark Thompson
for the record and then for public
hearing I will invite up James Ashley
James I believe you're with the Home
Builders Association nice to see you
thank you for joining us this evening
thank you very much good evening mayor
members of the council I am James Ashley
with the Home Builders Association of
central Arizona we represent the single
family residential construction industry
and all the related trades our members
employ tens of thousands of workers
throughout the state and our members
invest hundreds of millions of dollars
annually here in Gilbert thank you very
much for this opportunity to comment on
the town's proposed tax increase when we
became aware of the proposal the hbaca
submitted a letter to the town on
September 30th expressing our opposition
to the sales tax increase specifically
related to the construction tax this
proposal is also on the heels of a
significant increase in the development
impact fees an increase of 125% in North
Gilbert and 95% in South Gilbert however
aside from the previously approved
development impact fees the September
30th letter it raised legality of
increasing the construction tax
following the passage of proposition 126
and 2018 which generally prohibits a tax
increase on any service provided in the
state within the town's definitions of
construction contractor references to
construct alter or improve are all forms
of work labor done for another therefore
not a tax on the sale of goods or
tangible personal property and this is
out of Gilbert Municipal Code section
58-1 100 we noted our position that
construction and Contracting is a
service and therefore any increased tax
on construction or Contracting would be
uncons institutional therefore this
evening we reiterate these comments in
opposition to this increase and I'd like
to thank you very much for your time
this evening thank you James any
comments for James questions council
member torguson well was actually going
to be more for John I wanted to see what
your position on him saying that it's
uncons you know unconstitutional and uh
against code well the fact that we're
here indicates that we disagree with
that position um and if we want to you
know discuss it in executive session I'm
happy to step out with you should you
decide and that's what I was going to
recommend if there are legal questions
we could um move to an executive session
for a few minutes and handle that but
let's get through the public hearing
process first that's okay thank you
thanks James nice to see you Michael
Benson
next after Michael will be Brock Wilson
I forgot to do the on
Deck thank you for the opportunity to
speak um speaking in opposition to item
nine uh specifically the tax increase uh
for sales tax and use tax I think right
now in the current economic climate that
this should be further evaluated I think
it's going to have a negative impact on
all the residents here I think there
should be greater transparency and
accountability in terms of the spending
and I'm asking that the uh Town Council
to lay a vote on those two items and uh
take a further look into this and
perhaps uh build a
uh Community um group to discuss it
thank you very much thanks Michael thank
you for your email too next is Brock
Wilson and then Victor
Peterson all right thank you Council uh
I would like to address mainly the sales
tax I have two main points here uh
number one with the combined sales tax
that we already pay here in Arizona at
any Town anywhere in the state we pay
some of the highest sales tax in the
entire country uh the the other item is
that the fact that we have a lower
combined rate here in Gilbert is
actually a good thing because it makes
it more attractive for people who are
shopping making large purchases so I
think it's in our best interest to keep
these rates as low as possible uh thank
you I yield my time thanks Brock next is
Victor
Peterson thanks Victor
Victor I'm sorry we don't have any way
to show
um anything that youve sub would like to
submit or Show online if we don't have
the old Elmo from what you remembering
when you were on Council thanks for
joining us thank you back in my time we
were able to show some displays to
illustrate items uh thank you for the
time let me just start with the one
comment um thank you for your service uh
I know a lot of people don't do that um
obviously I'm here in opposition into
the proposal but I also know that a lot
of work goes into what you do um also
I'll just comment for uh personal
circumstances Beyond My Control have not
been able to be involved previously the
last time I was standing in front of the
council fighting a tax increase I had a
mob of people with me I don't have that
tonight although I wouldn't rule that
out for the
future um so I'm going to bring up an
uncomfortable example to start you'll
notice in that Benchmark survey which I
saw eight times cuz I sat on that dice
for for eight years uh we always bragged
about our lowest cost of service we can
no longer do that Chandler wins that
award and that's changed not only that
if you notice the Benchmark survey
Chandler's kicking butt in lots of areas
there they have lower response times
than we do I've done some research they
have more Parks than we do um
and they also will still have 1.5% after
tonight and we sounds like maybe we
won't and again I know I'm too little
too late but I couldn't uh rest without
at least making some comments I'm
disappointed with where We've Ended up
and um so I just want to point out we
have Americans already struggling with
inflation and the town's revenues over
the last four years have increased 50%
far outpacing citizens wages I wish I
could say that about my salary 50%
increase over the last four years now
some argue that population growth and
inflation justify higher taxes I can't
show you my rad chart I wish I could but
what it would show you is that we had a
history that we followed population and
inflation for a while and when the
council
departed they proposed a tax increase
years ago in 200 uh around 10 9 10 and
we defeated it and all those council
members were voted off the council and
in fact that was why I got on the
council cuz I was part of that
group um here's the problem I wish I
could show you the chart but what you'll
see is that our trajectory is the bigger
issue guys you're going to raise
revenues but your trajectory of
expenditures does not map anywhere in a
sustainable way it doesn't and you're
going to continue you're going to adjust
one time you're going to feel some
breathing room and it's going to be a
few years and we're going to be back
here again because our trajectory will
not map with the economics it will fall
apart so I don't mean any insult but
it's an easy way out to do this tax
increase there's hard work that needs to
be done and it's to live within your
means you can do it now or we can figure
it out later but we're going to be back
here again thank you thanks Victor nice
to see you this evening if you'd like to
give your charts to um the clerk's
office they'd be happy to share them
with us thank you thanks Victor um wait
yes T there was things that you and I
spoke about and I promis I'd get in
deeper and I'd like to make that
available to you I'm not allowed
toach know you though so we've known you
a long time um thank you for your
comments I will go ahead and bring this
discussion back to the council um we
still have a we still have public
hearing open vice mayor did you have a
comment I was just going to request that
I didn't hear a lot of comments about
the bed tax could we do this in the a
reverse order and talk about the bed tax
than the use and sales tax I think it'd
be great to separate them out um in into
separate motions and discussions even um
I'm going to ask the council though did
you want to go into an executive session
to talk legal items or are you
comfortable with where we are at and I'm
seeing no over this
end yes no I'm one has the slightest
question so I'm going to say let's move
forward okay um I think that our town
attorney Chris Payne I know John's
sitting over there right now our town
attorney Chris Payne sent us out an
email about that if you'd like to even
refer to that if possible and then I
will go ahead and close public hearing
and bring it back to the DI I didn't
want to do that until we were ready to
discuss we can discuss each item
individually would you like to start
with the bed talks vice
mayor well the only comment I'd have
about the bed tax is that we originally
had a higher tax that was cut a number
of years
ago and I'll tell you that we had a room
full of opposition by the hotel years
who did not want to cut that
tax and I think that the fact that this
this is being paid by the visitors that
come to the community it's it's an
important point to
remember Council May ran Giovani thank
you mayor from my from what I understand
also a percent of that uh that tax has
to be used for
tourism um which creates more visitation
more visitors which creates more
visitors spending money here which
creates more um tax allotment that
outside people pay right than the
Gilbert
residents counc member torguson most of
my comments were going to mirror that
but the fact that it it is something
that is used to create more Revenue for
this town and that no resident unless
they've got a station for some reason on
a Saturday somewhere there's not one
resident of this town that's going to
come out of pocket on that this is going
to be the tourists that come here and
there is no one that picks municipality
based on the bed tax and there's
seriously only like one or two that
would be below us anyhow uh and the bed
tax is far less than Los Angeles let me
tell you I was there a couple weeks ago
it was as much as the rent uh or the the
hotel stay
um it as a business proposition it does
nothing but make money for the residents
of this town it that you don't pay for
it and you get a benefit so I can't see
a loss on that until you turn the number
to something that would be repugnant to
a to a uh a visitor and I simply don't
think being at the lower end or at the
same level as most of the larger
municipalities would be uh deterrent for
anyone to come to Gilbert
I will point out
that um I'm going to agree with vice
mayor Anderson first there was a a
reduction in the bed tax several years
ago and the hotel years did come in and
oppose it because they said that it did
go towards specifically towards tourism
and at that point we had less hotels we
have more hotels today we had less
hotels at that point and they wanted
really any amount
of money going in into the coffers for
tourism at the time to bring people to
Gilbert which was very important but we
did vote to lower it at that point it
was a 5-2 vote um and you're correct
except I have stayed at a hotel in
Gilbert because I was remodeling my
house so that would be an opportunity
where the Gilbert resident would you
know possibly need to stay or you're
moving and you have to be out of one
house before you can get into another
house I did have the question that could
we have this so that Gilbert residents
wouldn't be affected by that and I don't
I know if anybody can answer that
question Kelly do you know that question
that Gilbert residence could be
um yeah just they didn't have to pay the
bed tax if they stayed at a Gilbert
Hotel you'd have to prove occupany
obviously I had a phone a friend of our
tax manager right next to me and she
gave a very definitive note it has to be
equal across all people paying it I had
a feeling that's what the answer was
going to be because we can't give gifts
away and things like that too so
everything with taxes has to be fair so
um would someone like to try a motion
for just the bed tax I think we should
split these out to make it clear and
easy for everybody to understand or any
other comments on the bud
tax don't everybody jump at once I'll
make the motion mayor yeah we have a
motion all in one on your agenda packet
so I think we better stick to that and
just finish discussion and then then
vote on them all at once we can't split
them out
separately if we're still going to cover
each item
individually John are you going to tell
me no yeah we've all got them they're
all written up into one ordinance okay
and we had a discussion on the bed tax
um would we like to move to the use tax
next who would like to start that
discussion
you know again looking at use tax I
don't know how many people here shop
online
uh trying to avoid a tax when every
municipality around us takes advantage
of that I I think it's great if you can
save a couple percent fantastic but uh
overall it's with the move away from
brick and mortar and more and more
that's being bought online I think that
we're doing harm to ourselves by
encouraging that behavior we're
encouraging it not maybe nobody shops
over 2% maybe nobody cares uh but it's
certainly if we continue to follow that
path and the less that we we get from
brick and mortar and if we don't pay
attention to creating more sales
creating more tourism uh we are harming
ourselves as a population we're harming
ourselves so I I am supportive of as as
much as it pains me and this is the most
painful meeting I've been part of since
I've been up here for me because it's
this is hard for me to to say but I
think that it's
necessary cheli I can't get my screen to
go back to the one that I can see
council members wanting to speak here I
believe if you push that green button it
should I did several times we'll get
someone over there to take a look thank
you sorry um I'll I'll just watch
everybody's mic microphones if you want
to speak please just flag me cuz I can't
use my monitor right now um any other
comments on the use
TX okay then we'll move on to the sales
tax
discussion council member kki council
member
thank you
um you know this is a difficult decision
that is our job to make we met um in
December of last year and in March at
our Spring financial Retreat and we
considered multiple options of finding
sources of revenue um for these projects
that were presented earlier Gilbert
residents expect an excellent and
quality of life we set a really high bar
but with growth comes challenges and the
project shown I don't think are ones
that we were willing to cut off the
table and that's why we're here on the
dis making this decision today I support
the improvements presented um because I
do want to focus on better parks and
trails for walking and biking in our
community that's why I got on Counsel
and I will continue to back our police
and fire departments on the resources
that they need and having space for them
to work in our like in the buildings um
and space for our apparatus to be worked
on I mean those are just basic
necessities so the proposed sales tax
increase from the 1 and a half% to 2%
will fund these key
projects and as we had talked about
earlier in the year we did consider
other options a combination of raising
property taxes we don't have a primary
property tax but that would be one
option um but I think we we all
discussed that the sales tax increase
would be more Equitable because it
spreads the cost across everyone who
spends money in Gilbert not just
homeowners and local businesses and it's
a way that we can enhance our community
without placing an extra burden on our
residents property taxes additionally
there's just equity in the fact that
people that have more to spend or choose
to spend more can then contribute more
um so overall I think that this proposed
sales tax increase is going to really
help create that safer more connected
Gilbert that we strive for and although
it's a very hard decision it's been 25
years since our last sales tax increase
this is a more volatile um Revenue
Source but I think it's the smart one at
this
point council member torguson I I also
wanted to point out some of the things
that people are unaware of uh and I I
say this with all condescension and in
intent
the big brains that the the the state
cut out rental tax most people in this
room were
opposing more apartments yet the
councils before us approved many
thousands of apartments starting this
year we will no longer be able to get a
rental tax that took takes about $9
million out of the budget the next year
and in of course of five years that
would be $19 million a year out of the
budget uh they went for food tax which
as an individual as somebody that's
extremely conservative
uh I don't like food tax I don't like it
because I feel that taxes if nothing
else a basic necessity and especially
the poor disproportionately I have been
the guy that's been in line at the
market and paid for somebody's milk
because she had a kid in there and she
couldn't afford 104 bucks or whatever
her thing came up to because a tax and I
paid for for a gallon of milk I threw
five bucks down and said hey I've got it
today uh I don't like it but when when
and if they take that that's probably
$20 million a year out of the current
budget and has been was moved on last
year and didn't move forward uh the way
that shared revenues have been done I
believe the hit was 24 million is what
they're saying the hit is per year
because the state in their saving money
saved it by not sharing it with
municipalities the way that they've done
this uh there's a huge portion of shared
Revenue not coming to municipalities so
there's a choke on the money that's
coming in that would go in to pay for
some of these things
and I want everybody in this room to
understand again I'm easily the most
conservative person up here when the
bond was up I was the sole guy pounding
against it publicly it almost didn't
pass uh and I don't like property tax I
despise property tax but the only way to
get away from that is we have we have to
a hopefully our legislature is done
trimming our budget for us and B to make
it something where at least in a
conservative thought it's a
transactional uh thing you're you're
participating in something you can
choose to buy a steak dinner for $100 or
not and that stake dinner will cost you
$100 .50 I understand but I would rather
have that than pay more property tax
every year and have senior citizens who
are extremely fixed and usually you
could be a a widow in in a million dooll
home and you're it's going up and it's
going up and you're getting a bond pass
because it's not paid for for out of
sales tax and you have no say you have
no recourse at that point uh it's much
more equable it's
fair it's sadly necessary at this point
and it pains me to support this but I
have to support at this point cu no one
that has challenged me and just said cut
20% from this cut this cut something
they've never come up with a project to
cut they've never come up with anything
except fire this person fire that person
well a I can't do that individually and
B what $100,000 out of a $2.3 billion
budget is not going to put us over the
edge we have to find specific things and
if we're willing to live with potholes
and not enough Parks so be it people
need to speak up and say I will put up
with fewer Parks I know I had Parks as a
kid but I don't want anybody else to
have those Parks I don't want
Landscaping median it's a waste of money
and I don't you know I don't want I
don't care about potholes and I don't
care about the time that the fire
department gets to me cuz we need to
build something new to keep it under 5
minutes I don't care if I get that or
not I don't want to spend a dime and if
somebody's that narcissistic I'm sorry I
can't support that I'm more than willing
to hear anything to try and shave money
off this to try and not spend this money
to try to be the best Steward of the
dollar that you spend or the dollar
you're taxed in some form in this town
but I haven't found any large things at
this point that I can take out of it and
this just pains me and I have done more
time than anyone trying to find a way
around it and I just can't find a way
around I will not put my personal
ideology ahead of of the people of this
town and what they expect because they
want everything for nothing and there's
only a couple levers to move and this
one unfortunately is going to have to
move unless we want to move down the
lever of what we expect as a town and
the quality that we expect from our town
and this may change but the biggest
elephant in the room is what this town
pays for is construction of Roads things
like that construction is
outpacing biomics which people anywhere
want to say a CPI of 2.6% to 133% over
the last four years cost of construction
is up an average of
88% not two not 6 not 13 88% and that's
what these taxes are going to go to pay
and this is just wrecking me to have to
say this I hate saying this it's I
despise saying this but I can't really
find a good way around this one and I'm
sorry but with the mess that we have for
the costs that are going
up we all have a choice not to repair a
hole in our roof but these seven people
up here don't have a choice in repairing
the roof for all of us if it's leaking
we need to fix it no matter the cost we
don't get to have a hole in the roof how
we fix it who we use we have some saying
and we need to really really be the best
stewards of of the money that we're
asking
for but on a whole I just can't put my
personal ideology ahead
of the quality that I moved here for
that everyone in this room that's a
resident moved here for and I'm sorry
I've let friends down I've had people
say things to me that are irritated me
brought me to the just an unbelievable
fever because they say the most
condescending things but I have to put
the residents ahead of my ideology on
this I'm sorry
council member Bon Giovani thank you
mayor you know they say don't follow
animals Bears or councilman torguson
because it's tough to
beat um I want everyone to think of a
city that you would never want to live
in don't say it out loud
place and think of one reason why
whether that be traffic crime schools
whatever your answer is it comes down to
quality of life that's what it comes
down to I've heard people all this week
talk to me about yeah we understand
police and fire but you know this wreck
thing is you know stupid why are we
spending money on this and comes down to
quality of life and and one person's
definition of quality of life is
different than someone else's definition
of quality life I've had people say to
me this week it's not the government's
responsibility to take care of quality
life I beg to differ on that because the
Declaration of Independence says that
every man I'm going to add woman and
child CU that's the kind of guy I am has
the right to pursue happiness what is
the pursuit of happiness it's quality of
life so as Government I think we have
the responsibility to create the minimal
amount of quality of life to put
everyone in a position to have a Pursuit
of Happiness and for someone that might
be a dog park for someone else that may
be a a splash pad for someone else that
may be
schools and if we get to the slippery
slope where we start saying to people
well I want to take this out and this
out and this out because isn't important
to me what happens when you know 60,000
citizens in Gilbert say I don't have the
kids in schools anymore so let's not pay
school taxes anymore or let's get even
more defined and say hey I only want to
pay for public schools I don't want to
pay for charter schools because they're
privately owned or whatever you know
that's why you have elected officials up
here to to take everything that we get
in from people uh and make those really
really hard decisions and this one
really is horrible I I I I don't like
raising taxes but I do like increasing
quality of life for people when we look
at our sales tax and we compare it with
others yeah Chandler at 1.5 they haven't
changed since 1994 I'm willing to bet
I'm not making any claims but I'm
willing to bet Chandler is looking at us
tonight saying what happens to Gilbert
tonight but we got to remember that
Chandler also has a primary and a
secondary sales tax property tax
Scottdale primary AR and secondary Tempe
primary secondary Pia primary secondary
Mesa has a secondary it's pretty high
Queen Creek has a very high primary tax
Phoenix primary secondary Glendale
primary secondary Glendale I'm sorry
Goodyear primary secondary you see what
they all have in common I think everyone
up here does not like the even thought
of having a primary property tax and
staff and Leadership and us have come up
with in ative ways so we don't have to
have that in our vocabulary right now
and I am very happy that a lot of this
tax won't be the burden of just Gilbert
taxpayers but reality is is I look at it
as we're we're six co-pilots up here and
we're flying a plane with 288,000 people
on our plane and we're not going to make
every one of them happy you know when
there's turbulence not everyone's happy
but I can guarantee you when that plain
land safely everyone's satisfied there's
a difference between being happy and
being satisfied I would rather have
people satisfied than always happy
because it's impossible to keep
everybody happy and I'm willing to bet
that that city that you have in your
mind that you won't live in I'm willing
to bet that that plane did not land
safely and that's our goal up here
tonight is to be co-pilots and vote on
something so we can believe this town
will will land safely and with quality
of life and that's why I'm I'm in
support of all three of these issues
tonight council member
Buckley well I don't know how to follow
these two I'll tell you that but I agree
with both of them on everything that
that they have stated and I really like
your comparisons to the other cities
what no one else has talked about very
much is how do how did we get to this
spot and I did a little bit of research
and for eight years in a row Gilbert did
not raise any taxes at all eight years
in a row a city or a town I I feel I
don't know how they can go that many
years and not raise taxes and not at
some point have it come to a head
because you need to prepare for that
which we have done and I know the prior
prior Council probably did the best they
could but I don't feel that they looked
that far into the future I've struggled
with this ever since this came up and
you know what do I do and what what have
uh you know what the residents expect
and what they expect and what they
elected us for is to make sure we and
our duty is is to balance the budget
make policy and make sure our
infrastructure in the town is
strong and we can't do that with the
amount of money that we have and just
like Jim and Chuck both
said this this neither of these tax
other than the sales tax is probably
going to affect us but I just feel that
when I yesterday when I went to bed it
was like okay I have no idea what to do
I am just not going to but you know I'd
rather not vote for it I'm sure
everybody up here would rather not want
to vote on this I think that it's a
necessary tax and that we have to do
this and for all the reasons that's been
stated up here you know I'm I'm in
support of these and I think it's the
best thing for the town and it's the
best thing that we can do to keep the
quality of life that we have and in the
future vice mayor Anderson just a couple
of real quick comments
um during Patrick's presentation
everybody saw um his slide that had to
do with the city of the future and I
would
encourage anyone who's not familiar with
that initiative in the town please go
find out from the staff look on our
website about city of future initiative
thep purpose of the city of the future
initiative is to prevent exactly what is
happening
unfortunately what's happening is and
what's ironic about this is what's
happening is Town facilities are
beginning to
Decay and the rest of the town will
follow suit if we don't keep up with
that the growth and that's the whole
purpose of the city of the future and
initiative and please go there there's
not a day that goes by that I don't get
a email from someone who has a complaint
about those exact things that we talked
about tonight that about the facilities
that are
woefully inadequate uh about um programs
that people can't get into because
they're too
crowded and we need to address those uh
and the best way to address those is
again to pay attention to that road map
to the Future and you're going to hear
that from me a lot more in the future
talking about the city of the future
initiative because it's extremely
important to this town and to the
quality of life that council member
banon was talking about and for that
reason I'll also be supporting these uh
initiatives
tonight council member tky thank you
mayor um I know we've had a lot of
conversation this evening and I think
for the public to understand that we had
a very very long list of priorities that
the staff brought to us and we had to
whittle that down to what you saw
tonight and that was a very hard process
and we had to do that first and then we
had to figure out how we were going to
pay for this
um I I hope that nobody feels that this
is like a flippant moment for anybody up
here it's a very hard decision
especially because we've had to make
other hard decisions and one thing that
I'm proud of this Council for is that
we're not kicking that can down the road
waiting for somebody else to have to
pick it up and figure out how to pay for
these um critical projects um you know
ever since I can remember Parks and
Recreation has been the last to be
funded and you can see by the
participation that we had from all ages
and all abilities looking at um what
their priorities are and it speaks a lot
to the maturity of Gilbert today we're
no longer this shiny new object the
fastest growing Community all of that
where we had all of this growth dollars
coming in to help us pay for all of the
things that we have um providing for
services and
Facilities um we really had to make a
choice um do we as was mentioned do we
reduce um times response times you know
what do we do with all of these
important issues and how can we fund it
um one option was to raise the property
tax and maybe a little sales tax why
don't we balance that why don't we make
sure we're lower in the sales tax
department compared to other
communities but the fact that it's tied
to your property taxes and your assess
valuation we just felt like we had
reached the ceiling for our community
and so we really didn't have any other
options again a lot of those projects
even the ones that you saw aren't going
to happen right away we're going to have
to have the money in place before they
happen but those are our top priorities
there's a whole list under that so what
I don't want any body the think is that
once we get done with those projects
we're done we're done in Gilbert there's
going to be a continual um impact on how
we're going to be that city of the
future we're not going to deteriorate
we're not going to be a community that
doesn't have quality of life quality
services and unfortunately that's not
free and we're going to continue to do
our best to keep at the lowest rate that
we can um and we have to be courageous
for all of our community and so with
that I'll be supporting these
changes thank you
um I I ran against Victor Peterson the
first time I ran for Council so it's
ironic that he's sitting here in front
of us and making comments tonight um my
goal was to beat you Victor I came in
third you came in fourth we served
together for four years um and I ran
because ideologically I didn't think
that we agreed on things and I thought I
was more logical than ideological and I
see you smiling down there uh I know you
appreciate this
and this year has really impacted me a
lot and I've been so proud of this
Council and I recently had this
conversation with another council member
that
hindsight looking back on the years that
I served with you Victor and with Jared
Taylor and it was a 5-2 vote
consistently right but you kept us even
Keel you didn't let us go one way or the
other because you were pushing back the
way that you did and coming out of this
10 years later I admire that and that's
where my hindsight comes in I've told
Jared the same thing
um this year has been a tough year for
galbert we have raised water
rates we have residents that are
suffering right now because of the
raised water rates and we've raised
garbage rates and we have residents that
are suffering because of that we have to
steal a term from ccil Member Tuson
biomics that are affecting all of us
right now and the economy and they just
said that inflation is up again and gas
prices went up again these past couple
days because I got an email from Sam's
Club that said that
um I struggle with all of the increases
that we've done in the town this year
and you know that I have voted against
some and coming into this evening I was
open to increasing the bed tax and I was
open to I was not sure about the use tax
because I really struggle with affecting
small businesses we just open the
Catalyst I'm afraid that we're going to
Target
small businesses that are startups that
are trying to get a place online because
we all know that online is where
business lives today and as far as the
sales tax goes I
really I I was struggling with whether
to support it or not I hear the needs
from the staff and I admire the staff
and all of the work that they do and I
have supported just about every single
thing that you have brought forward over
the past 10 years um with work and with
consistency
and the projects that I see on the list
I'm afraid that they aren't in
the order that I would want to tackle
them on Chief Dugen presented at our
Retreat that we're running calls on our
own staff at the Fleet Management at the
Fleet Center where they're working on
our large apparatus that shouldn't be
happening in this town we that should be
our number one priority prity is fixing
that Fleet Center let's make sure that
we're not running calls on our staff and
I said that at the retreat other things
that I just don't
think are a priority for me the crime
lab I know that we're talking with
Chandler and council member tus and
brought that up earlier we're talking
with Chandler and if Chandler can do it
that's one thing but if we have to do
that on our own I would be opposed to
that um the remodels of some of the fire
stations I'm all for rebuilding station
4 I've seen that happened with station 7
we had to take down the old station 7
build a new station 7 it increased
everything that was needed for that area
but there are just things that I don't
see that we are telling the story and
that the Ducks are lining up this year
for us for me to be voting to increase
our sales tax at this
time and I know that staff's going to be
surprised by that but if you've been
listening to me this year it shouldn't
shock you because I V voted against the
pay raises I asked to lower the travel
cost I've been working to try and keep
us in that range that I now respect
Jared and Victor for doing with us for
years and keeping this town at a level
that I know it can be I know the
projects have
been I think out of hand and and I've
said this to Patrick when we've met that
how do we get to over $1 billion in
projects all of a sudden I had a another
former council member saying to me and
the whole time he was on Council he made
like five really important decisions and
we make two really important decisions
every two months on
counil how is that happening all at one
time where has the planning gone for the
past six to eight years so you know
where I stand that's where I'm at I
would be happy to take a motion for a
and then a separate motion for B so that
we can vote on
this I'll move uh to approve the
adoption of ordinance number 2918 to
amend the tax Town tax code to increase
the general sales tax rate from 1.5 to
2.0 the use tax rate from 0 to 2.0 and
the bed tax rate from 2.8 to 5.0 I have
a motion by council member Capri second
second and by vice mayor Anderson please
vote motion passes 61 with myself being
the dissenting vote next
motion move to approve adoption of
resolution number 4515 declaring the
2025 use tax amendments to the tax code
of the town of Gilbert as a public
document I have a motion by council
member kosi I'll second that seconded by
council member Bon Giovani
motion passes
70 that ends our public hearing portion
of our agenda would anyone like to take
a five minute break yes I would thank
you we will take a five minute
recess
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do like a 30 second warning to get take
your seats please
go ahead and call this meeting back to
order um moving into our consent
calendar vice mayor passing to
you thank you
mayor uh we have several items we're
pulling
off look at those
items s
17 item
23 item 26
item 30 and item
31 that's
it yeah 30 and 31 23 and
26 with that I'll move approval of item
10 11 12
13 14 15
16 18 19
20 21 22 24
25 27
28
29
32 I'll second
that
33 I'll second that
motion by vice mayor seconded by Council
mayor ban Giovani please
vote motion passes
70 back to
17 item 17 council member
torguson I I just really wanted to part
of this was to say something positive
about it but I would love for someone
from the police department to come up or
fire department and speak about what
this actually is and why we have to vote
on it to accept it as a
donation mayor and Council uh Mike
instead from the police department uh
this particular item is a donation from
a uh citizen it involves two different
items it's uh uh Vegas nerve stimulator
and red light therap
uh two devices that our employees I can
tell you in the police department uh in
our Dispatch Center they'll handle
traumatic calls they go on a break they
use these devices it enables them to
clear their mind and we've had a lot of
uh positive feedback from our employees
on the
items mayor council uh Rob dougen fire
chief just want to follow up a little
additional context we we had previous
donation this almost 12 months ago uh
from the benefactor Rich Ganley from
positive impact Alliance uh that donated
this equipment and additional uh C tub
therapy and also uh saunas and we
conducted a six-month pilot pretty
comprehensive quantitative and
qualitative and I'm happy to report
after that 6 months there's been
significant reports of improvements on
both physical and emotional health as a
result of the pilot uh we were able to
track usage and employees that stuck
with the program noticed quite a bit of
decreased discomfort from inflammation
uh workout recovery and even emotional
uh General support and sleeping so it's
want to continue this extending uh
additionally to additional group of
employees uh particularly for the Vegas
nerve uh stimulator um and also the red
light panel for employees in the
Dispatch Center to have better access to
some of these modalities that we believe
will have a tremendous impact to their
their physical and emotional health and
Council has provided a lot of support
previously for the employees and members
in this space and look forward to
continued support uh from Council uh to
continue to bring forward modalities
that make it healthier for our employees
so just bringing forward another
opportunity to continue the trend
and I also wanted to point out the
generosity that Rich has has done this
because this being on consent agenda I
didn't think it should just go by with
not being noticed the man has been very
generous to this town and what he's
doing is going to be good for people and
I just I wanted there to be a
recognition of that rather than have it
just accepted and and no notice public
notice of be to be made of it he's he's
done well for us and he's a good man and
I just wanted to say
that thank you Chiefs yeah I completely
agree um thank you for not letting this
go by Rich Ganley is uh amazingly
generous with this community and these
um these options are really helping our
firefighters and police officers I've
spoken to so many that feel better
physically are sleeping better it really
is making quite a difference so anything
that we can do to give our employees
another opportunity is just fantastic I
might it after
tonight would you like to make a motion
council member
torguson I move to accept item 17 as
written I have a motion by council
member torgus and seconded by council
member Buckley please
vote there we
go Motion passes 70 big thanks to Rich
gley item 23 council member torguson
um I realize that there's a few levels
of this and uh I believe there's a
gentleman from uh that was in charge of
this for the CIP I wanted to see the
history of this since it was on a an
agenda six or eight weeks ago and it's
back uh do we have somebody uh from
there to to speak on this and to help me
guide through this as a heritage project
thing Heritage District thing
I found the right button this time uh
mayor council uh we have a present a
short presentation um tonight about uh
this agenda item number
23 um so just going back to the project
scope um this was the original 2020
scope that was put into the capap
program um just some of the uh
Redevelopment plan that was adopted in
2018 and the original description was to
enhance and beautify the raised medians
on Gilbert Road between Juniper Avenue
and
Elliot um which would include additional
landscaping foilage and lighting and
artwork and then at that time there were
some uh plans and guidelines that were
approved the Heritage District
guidelines Shaden Street master plan
Heritage District Place marking and way
finding guidelines and in addition to
the circulation study 2023 so this is
looking at the big picture of all the
different things were going on in the
Heritage District um at that time and in
between from current and
2020 um just some points of emphasis of
the project coordination there's a lot
of different projects going on in the
Heritage District right now and here's
some of the planning um we have the
Heritage North median improvements
that's going to be development driven
that we've been coordinating with a
developer um there on the east side of
Gilbert Road just south of juniper pr1
1328 and St 2122 will be coordinated
along with this project but those are
currently separate projects but they
will have the same um design consultant
um as this project um the medium project
in addition to that we have the Union
Pacific Railroad there's some
improvements that are required for us to
do some improvements um to the railroad
and in addition to that St 1320 Gilbert
and Elliot intersection which is slated
for FY 28 so all these play kind of a
role um from where we were and to where
we're at
currently um some of the immediate needs
um is the I'm not sure if that ski no um
is Heritage North development again
talking to the Developers this was part
of the original scope and last time we
brought this to council we did some more
coordination with the developer and the
developer will be doing their own half
Street improvements um adjacent to this
this lot in downtown Gilbert and then
also again the the UPR Crossing that is
uh still in this um scope of this
project moving
forward I think we were missing I'm not
sure what
happened all right I'm going to have to
go off a memory here um looks like we're
missing some slides on this um So
currently in the scope is we we took
some feedback from Council and uh we
decided to do a design concept report a
DCR within this area and what that DCR
will give us is the opportunity to be
able to take a step back and look at all
these different plans um and guidelines
that are currently in the Heritage
district and to be able to come up with
a better plan um currently how it works
is we have
a so I was on a roll there too
so okay so unfortunately you're not
going be able to see this but uh so our
current contract or the the contract
before that we took the council was just
over 400,000 and that include everything
from Elliot Road to um the Juniper
Avenue and so since then um actually let
me let me
go
forward so currently the contract is
999,000 so went from over 400,000 to
999,000 we're doing a DCR as I was
talking um part of the DCR is to be able
to again take that step back and be able
to holistically look at everything
that's going on in the Heritage District
what the function of this project truly
is um because when we start a design
phase without the the pre-design phase
we have to try to include everything
that's anticipated for this area but
this predesign phase the DCR will give
let us have that opportunity to be able
to look at everything if there if
there's anything needed from all these
different guidelines and circulation
plans and different things make sure
we're not missing anything as part of
this DCR in addition to that the
railroad is coming in and we have to uh
expedite some plan review for that um
and get some construction documents so
that'll take the medians on both the
North and South side of the UN Pacific
Rail Road and take that to 100% plan so
we can actually um install the medians
before the railroad gets there because
if we wait for the railroad to come in
they're going to have their own plan
with the Canever and all these different
lights things that we don't necessarily
want in the Heritage District um so this
will be ex part of this 999,000 will be
able to expedite that piece um of the
railroad we did remove the piece from
Elliot Road um to the railroad track and
that's going to be a future project for
Gilbert Road um because typically we're
doing um not get into the design of that
but we're that's going to affect about a
thousand feet in each Direction of the
Gilbert and Elliot intersection so
whatever we do now in that area will
basically be removed in the future so we
want to have any throwaways so we remove
that piece off of this as well um so
what you see here tonight 99,000 um that
is encompassing the entire project again
taking a step back and and um getting a
better approach to what is truly needed
um out here once we understand that then
we'll come back to council um which
maybe I have this one on my next
one um is the next step steps so tonight
is the approval of design concept report
and then the future steps um is we'll
come back to council and uh will'll go
from 15% design concept report to 100%
plan so that'll be a change order to the
original plans or I'm sorry the original
contract come back to council and take
this from a concept of 15% to 100% um
design plans so again just taking a
better approach at this taking a step
back and making sure we're crossing all
of our eyes and crossing the eyes and
dotting dotting yes sorry we know what
you meant
yes um then with that I think there any
questions you know is it and just
because of being the liais onto the
Heritage district and having history
with it would you say that Economic
Development was one of the champions of
this
particular yes absolutely 100% yes would
you mind if I ask Dan Henderson a few
questions no Dan may but I don't
that was a great line Thank you thank
you for the
levity Dan may but I
don't I don't think Dan will mind either
good evening mayor and Council I want
you know from your perspective and what
we've talked about over the last several
years at one point let's say eight weeks
ago I think we looked at this and it was
well over $3
million and now it's down at H 100,000
can you explain
our disc you know your memory of our
discussion and how we got here today
certainly mayor uh Council uh council
member Tuson um I think Ryan um captured
sort of that project history really
really well um just kind of backing up
you know when we look at sort of
foundational elements related to
Downtown Development things like
cleaning green and safe are um are
foundational for a vibrant downtown and
these foundations um draw additional
investment tourism as we've talked about
um and um in an area that has over 5
million visits a year um this
beautification project as as Ryan talked
about um for the medians gives us that
opportunity to bring um art um enhanced
landscape and other elements into into
the median and I think Ryan did a great
job of talking about where we were
previously with this particular item um
and where we are
today basically we've taken a step
several steps back to the initial point
the scope kind of creeped out of control
and it's back down to $100,000 is what
it sounds like right well if if I might
mayor council member Tuson um as it
relates to scope creep um I can't really
talk specific about that but certainly
um the needs in the Heritage District
have evolved and I think um Ryan when he
talked about um the developer
contributions in this particular area
certainly that that um is an element
that um that we're excited that um as
growth build you know sort of pays for
itself the opportunity for the developer
to step in and pay for their half Road
you know Improvement so to speak um I
wouldn't necessarily call it scope creep
per se but I would just say you know as
we really looked at um the programmatic
elements to this particular request of
council um I think we've evolved sort of
that that perspective come to understand
some things as Ryan talked about um and
um and this is where we're at today and
delighted that this contract is before
you at around
999,000 thank
you coun member
Kowski uh my understanding is that the
$3 million was the line item for the
construction costs and by doing a design
concept report at this stage this is
pre-design work that will then be able
to narrow down what is actually going to
be designed cuz typically when you're
just designing a typical Road there's
like a typical cross-section but this is
pretty unique in terms of there's
probably a lot more options that have to
be thought through and gone over um and
so will the design concept report also
include a revised cost estimate for some
of the elements that are then identified
through that process yeah mayor council
yeah absolutely so that's the the the
beauty I guess of a design concept
report is because then you can actually
get that actual cost of what that that
those improvements could be um that
three that three million that we're
talking about that could go up that
could go down it just depends on what
comes out of that design concept report
um so that's what we're we're looking
for within lighting the median the
Landscaping whatever that looks like
we're going to understand that more
fully so we can have a better
estimate will um will public involvement
or presentations to the Redevelopment
commission be part of the process the
design concept report uh mayor council I
believe there are some uh different um
meetings set up that will be part part
of that I I can get back with you on who
those groups are with but I believe
there was some involving that thank you
you're
welcome any other
questions so Ryan um explain to me why
we add medians to go Gilbert Road and
I'm going to tell you why it irks me
when we do the Gilbert Days parade that
we have medians down Gilbert Road and
I've probably said it every single time
I've participated in a parade which is
uh every year except
2020 um why do we add medians to Gilbert
Road part of the Heritage District plan
I know for Heritage North it's because
the driveways are not going to line up
between Heritage North and the
businesses across the street can you
speak to any of that um I can take a
Saab at it um so our standard on it a
minor AR yeah minor arterial is medians
along there and that's for safety
standpoint of keeping the um the the the
direction or the travel Direction safe
from traffic going one way and the other
um in addition to especially in the
Heritage District you don't want a lot
of crazy u-turns or different things
that could happen in there on a very
tight um stretch of a roadway so really
it's a it's a safety issue and a
standard from the town of gilber okay
again it irks me every time we do the
Gilbert days pray try and have a band
come down one side of Gilbert Road with
just saying um would anybody like any
other questions for Ryan at this
time would anyone like to take a shot at
a motion I'll move to approve item 23
I'll make a second so I have a motion by
council member Koski seconded by council
member torguson please
vote motion passes 70 thank you Ryan
thanks for being a good sport and
answering the questions and the levity
appreciate that next vice mayor item 26
council member forguson uh I actually
don't need a presentation I got my
answers not long
ago you want to make a motion motion
I'll make a motion to accept item 26 as
written we have a motion by council
member torus and seconded by council
member Buckley please vote
motion passes 70 next item
30 council member
torguson I'm going to do it again I just
want to hear someone take responsibility
here and say these things are a uh 30
and 31 that there are no clawback
strings attached and aderes to all the
policies we have in place regarding
taking
grants mayor council members Melanie
Dyer I'm the volunteering Community
Resources manager so the grant that
you're looking at is an opportunity for
us to receive funding from our tribal
Nations um each of these through the
state compact they allow um or actually
require that money is given back to
communities um from their revenues and
they have the opportunity to do that
individually through a 12% process many
um provide applications that you apply
for and we did that on behalf of our
Native American management internship
program as well as our Victim Advocacy
internship program and so we are
receiving funding directly for support
of those opportunities for students and
then we are also um taking in funds from
the tribe to support three outside
organizations because other nonprofits
do have to be sponsored by a
municipality in order to accept the
funds um so we actually then really just
literally are a pass through for those
funds so they will um if the council
approves the it tonight then I will send
it back to the tribe and then they will
actually cut a check give it to Gilbert
we get invoiced by the three outside
entities we deliver the check to them
and then that is the extent of Our
obligation um in our internal for
accepting the funds on behalf of our
programs uh we are required to submit a
midyear and an annual report to the
tribe just talking about our
accomplishments and how the funds were
used in support of the programs and that
we met our objectives and that is the
entirety of the program
I appreciate you taking your evening
just to say it and good job thank
you I'll make a motion to accept that if
nobody wants to speak second you want to
do 30 and 31 yeah 31 I want to hear all
separately he wants to hear separately
it's a different project okay so we have
a motion on 30 by council member tus and
seconded by council member tilki please
vote
motion passes 70 next
31 May Council Mike aad again from the
police department uh just commenting on
item number 31 here this is the Edward
burn Memorial Justice assistance grant
um there is no clawback on this
particular Grant it's actually named
after a police officer that was murdered
in 196 66 in New York uh they started up
this Grant and we've been receiving
these Grant funds for years basically
what happens is uh they're derived from
Washington DC but they arrive in the
state of Arizona based on a formula it
has to do with population and the amount
of crime that occurs in any given State
those funds sit with the state if we
want to accept them based on our
population and crime rate we may or we
may uh defer them in which case they
would go to neighboring jurisdictions
and they would get a bigger piece of the
pie but our only requirement in terms of
reporting is to let uh the federal
government know how many crimes occur
annually which is something that we've
done historically the entire time I've
been with the town it's something that's
industry standard among all police
departments right thank you you
understand my trepidation when I see
Department of Justice and things we've
seen out of it so I appreciate you
taking your time to explain what our
role in it is thank you yes sir
would you like to make a motion I make a
motion to accept 31 as written second I
have a motion by council member Tuson
seconded by vice mayor Anderson please
vote motion passes 70 that completes the
consent calendar mayor thank you moving
on to administrative items one item on
our administrative calendar discussion
and update from the community engagement
task force council member tilki thank
you mayor um our task force met last
night and received uh presentations from
Parks and wreck on opportunities for
teens so I'd just like to mention a few
of those for the public so that they
know that we are we have some programs
available today um we have a service
learning program which we have 44
participants in child and babysitting
safety training 115 participants sports
and recreation Arts crafts and
creativity
um our recreation centers at Freestone
and McQueen both have teen spaces in in
the their lobbies with pool tables fball
table tennis TVs and you don't have to
be a member to be able to go in and take
advantage of that um I believe they
tried in the past to have a private room
for teens and that didn't work out but
when they moved it out in the lobby we
seemed to have a lot more participants
coming in um we have a junior lifeguard
program 183 three participants swim
lessons Aqua size classes special events
like H2O Fest and Nerf wars those two
are pretty popular with the teens and
then we have different event volunteer
opportunities for those 14 and older in
the past we tried to do some Esports
egaming but
um we were dealing with an outside
vendor so the cost was a little more
than um I think some could afford so
we're looking at how we can make that
more accessible in the future um we also
had a a open gym at nights at or days at
Freestone Park um felt that maybe it was
a little too structured so they're
looking at ways to make that a little
more welcoming um I think even uh Robert
mentioned earlier that when we did all
of the Outreach in the community for
parks and rec uh youth was a big part of
that
and um one thing that we notice is if
you put food they will come so it's
something we might want to consider in
the future um a few things that we're
exploring is how do we meet teens where
they are and so um exploring Cross City
e-gaming tournaments drop in teen nights
like sports games video game tournaments
teen trips and pizza was added on that
list too um so uh those are some of the
things that we talked about we also um
explored what other communities are
doing and a lot of them I believe has
started new programs so we really don't
have a lot of data to see how successful
they are yet um and then as we were um
looking at all of these we acknowledged
that um there are a lot of faith
communities that have teen programs that
we probably need to learn a little bit
more about as well as school-based
programs um
we do have on our website gilbertaz.gov
uh teen resource programs on there so
we've added that page um we also heard
from the police youth um engagement
programs um so they they were uh
received a lot of the data that we've
received recently on some of the um
challenges and and data points um the
youth engagement programs have a new
tagline listen build and empower
um and so they learned similar to what
we heard last time about the Heritage
District parking security online
reporting systems and uh C curfew um
enforcements um youth engagement also
talked about some ongoing programs and
I'm really just mentioning this so the
public will understand we have all these
so I'm almost done um Aspire Academy
Gilbert Youth Leadership Academy Gilbert
PD Cadet program monthly Community
engagement events sensory awareness
family events and of course we have our
student government and the mea's youth
advisory Council um and then they
received a overview of Partnerships with
all of the outside agencies that we we
currently work with so uh I think that
that's going to conclude all of the
research that we were needing and our
next meeting is November fourth where
we're going to um focus on initiating
these recommendations that we're going
to be bringing back to Council in
December so that's our update thank you
for all that information I think that
well my daughter's 30 and she's used to
say the same thing there's nothing for
teens to do in Gilbert right I said
there you mentioned a lot of different
things that I think people just don't
know exist out there but a lot more can
be done too into the future and you're
right feed them and they will come right
council member Tuson did you have
something to add or is you just your mic
gone okay just checking just want to
make
sure then moving on to Communications
from citizens vice mayor thank you mayor
we value the participation of our
community members in the robust exchange
of ideas however it's essential that
this discourse remains respectable and
constructive reflecting the
professionalism expected in such
forums while we understand and
appreciate the passion our community
members bring to these sessions we must
remind everyone that clapping during the
meeting is not acceptable
also playing of music or showing videos
May subject the town to copyright
infringement it is not allowed as your
name is called please come up to the
podium state your name and your place of
residence your city of residence and
you'll have three minutes to speak at
the podium first up tonight is Susan
borea Susan will be followed by Dan
Reynolds mayor
I'm vice mayor and
Council my name is Susan boria I'm a
resident of Adora trails in Barry South
Gilbert um I'm relatively new to the
community I left my home state of New
Jersey in 2017 and moved into my Brandy
new home in door trails in 2018 so I
don't have all of the history or the
knowledge of what's transpired in the
Town
previously nor do I know how to garden
here and my beloved Tomatoes I can't
seem to grow them but um I've been to
enough meetings to know that very often
the council members receive criticism
from this Podium and quite frankly some
of it has appalled
me um an example being that at one
meeting um
someone said that there was blood on
your
hands um it just makes my heart sink
when I hear things like that um in
reference to that particular issue I
feel that if we had less soft parenting
and less kids will be kids more
consequences and um personal
responsibilities some of those issues we
wouldn't be dealing with but I wanted to
be um sure that you heard from this
Podium that there are residents in the
town of Gilbert who very much appreciate
all the time the effort the real
consideration of issues on our
behalf and um that's basically it I just
wanted to say thank you and I wanted to
say thank you before the end of the year
when the council
changes that's it thank you sir
Dan Reynolds Dan will be followed by
Bridget
Vega mayor councel Dan Reynolds a
citizen for long time 30 some
years um I'm hoping you guys miss me
I've been gone for a little bit but uh I
want to talk about a couple
things um I want to tell you a little
story about your current fire chief and
after I'm done with the story I'm going
to tell you the reason why I'm telling
the story but before that I don't know
how aware you guys are it's come to
light just recently with me but our
electric fire truck has been having some
problems and I don't know if you guys
know that I happen to be pretty aware of
it being a former employee of the fire
and Station 2 is my first due so it's
super important to me that that truck is
out of service
way too much the reason I bring this up
is um under the understanding that we're
going to be um ordering some more I have
nothing against electric fire trucks but
I think there should be some more uh
studies done or some time to make sure
that these are the trucks that we should
be having here and that could be 10 or
15 years just like
cars so I just want to make sure you
guys are aware of that if you want to
look into see how how long that thing or
how many uh what percent that is out of
service I think it's worth you guys to
look into it okay let tell you a little
story about Chief Rob Dugen
um 30 years ago he had a friend that was
on my
crew Rob worked in Cass Grand As A
Firefighter and wanted to work in
Gilbert so the guy on my crew said hey I
got a guy that wants to come ride with
us because he wants to be a firefighter
here I said sure So we had a ride alone
program we invited him he probably rode
with us I don't even know how many times
but a lot and we took him on calls and
we went to training and we did lots of
stuff and he stayed there for hours and
hours and hours sometimes all
day um at some point I started having
some people come up and say hey who's
this guy that's with you a lot riding
and and and whatnot so I told him who he
was told him where he worked and one of
the feedbacks I had was this guy's kind
of
arrogant um
and not really a big fan of him and I
said told me some more information I
said
okay so next time Rob
came I invited Rob into my office and
said you need to start shaking people's
hands you need to put a smile on your
face and need to introduce yourself
because people have a
bad um
kind of a they they don't like your
appearance they they think that you rub
the wrong way
so um he took that
information and he did something about
it now the reason I'm telling you this
story real
quick
um is
because and he'll tell you this story if
if if you think there's anything about
this that doesn't sound right please ask
him
um but the reason
I bring this up is because I'm still
getting a little bit of feedback that
you've got disgruntled employees here
that are saying stuff because they're
disgruntled I am far from
disgruntled when he'll tell you that
story and I've heard him repeat the
story he says I'm the guy responsible
for him getting a job here
so let that sink
in I appreciate your time let your
conscience be your guide thank you thank
you Dan
Bridget Bridget will be followed by
Jenny
Jones good evening mayor and counsel
Chief and Banger you don't get to
continually to look the other way on
this issue as we work with assistant
chief and the youth engagement officer
to try to bridge the gap by being
proactive to prevent this from happening
again your leadership specifically Chief
soberg and Chuck continued to perpetuate
this Behavior by in validating the
victim's community and the reality of
teen violence Chief you appointed Jim to
be the bridge to rebuild the trust by
much like throwing your Patrol under the
bus now you're dismantling the trust Jim
is trying so hard to build with the
community while you guys are focused on
categorizing break and breaking down the
data children are still getting
assaulted asants are walking the streets
free unbothered classifying violence for
data reporting and putting it into
categories is resourceful if you're
learning from mistakes implementing
policy change training material and
prevention awareness to ensure the
community is safe the continual
gaslighting and the dismissive comments
have to stop Chuck deflecting by saying
that the arson wasn't teen on teen
violence is exactly how and why the
goons FL flourished changing categories
doesn't make it different it just pulls
wool over the citizens
eyes again Chuck the teen boys lit a
barn on fire burned it down and thank
God the teens got out of that Barn
alive it has been nearly over a
year and it's time to take a clear stand
against violence otherwise this will
continue to
spiral it's time for transparency we
demand that Gilbert PD releases the
unredacted reports for Tristan kener and
Connor Jarnigan including the body cam
footage to the boy's
lawyers it has again nearly been a year
since Preston was murdered what is the
plans Gilbert for Halloween parties
enforcement on unruly Gatherings and
curfew this weekend according to Arizona
Central 95 asants have been counted
through video 18 have been arrested in
random attacks and only 14 have been
charged 12 pleaded guilty seven in
Preston's case all pleaded not guilty
what are the police in Town's plans on
holding the other asants accountable
including those in active gangs as many
fail to recognize that Gilbert has a
gang issue we have a duty to protect the
innocent and rise up for the
children thank you Jenny Jones Jenny it
will be followed by Carissa
Arnold Jenny Jones um I just wanted to
start off by saying that I don't believe
that Gilbert is safe um if you would
have asked me a year ago even six months
ago I would have said yeah absolutely I
believe all the hype that Gilbert's one
of the safest communities in the country
unfortunately we were targeted by the
teen violence
and my whole perspective on that has
changed I no longer feel safe in Gilbert
to the point where our family has
contemplating moving out of state
because of the um what's been done
What's led these children teens on the
tra trajectory that they have been on um
I feel like Gilbert has put on a facade
and too many people in the community
have believed that facade and nobody's
willing to look at the deeper issues and
make real changes to protect our
community to be the safest uh we need to
be holding these kids accountable and we
haven't for so long that uh one of the
Gilbert goons went on an interview and
told it um in the interview he discussed
how they mock the Gilbert Police that
they would see Gilbert police at the
In-N-Out and turn their heads and not do
anything those kids they laughed at them
they knew that they could get away with
it I believe that's the same case with
the boys involved in our rson and attack
our daughter was
threatened and they fulfilled that
threat by attacking our home and he's
probably going to get probation only
because it's his first offense and it's
only his first offense because of
mistakes made in the police department
and so and I've also had to um f
complaints against other
officers who have made mistakes like we
shouldn't be having this many mistakes
if we're touting that we're the safest
Community um it's also made me feel like
it's hard to trust you know people in
power over the community I don't know
any of you guys but it did really feel
like an attack when those comments were
made saying that the our attack was not
considered teen on teen violence when
the boys are being charged with four
counts of endangerment with the imminent
risk of death imminent risk of death
that
means very possible death right that's
violent to me so that it did feel very
personal I didn't feel like that was
appropriate to be said um also that
another article came out saying that um
we're having record number of teen
charged with aggravated assaults and
misconduct with weapons um in the
Maricopa County so there definitely is
this is a problem going on right now and
it uh a psychologist who's been
specializing in this said Behavior
doesn't just happen there's a pathway a
trajectory that leads towards behavior
and when the wool is being pulled over
every or when things are not being
happening and the children the teens are
mocking the police and not being held
accountability that we're seeing the
trajectory that happens because of that
so I'm just asking for some change in
accountability transparency
thank you Carissa thank you Carissa will
be followed by Steve
Laval thank you for your time this
evening as we've continued to come to
you month after month and ask you to
take teen violence seriously it
continues to be downplayed statements
from Mr Bon Giovani on Facebook made it
very clear when he said what happened
happened Chief made it clear when he
tried to downplay the teen violence
crimes and his his most recent media
interview this despite the recent
barnfire and despite a teen being lured
out of his home and swarmed in beaten
just three to four weeks ago he said
there had been no swarming with teen on
teen violence please tell me how that
happens how this statement is
accurate just last month the Arizona
state supreme court gathered officials
to have the discussion about teens
committing violent crimes 2024 set a
record in teens charged with aggravated
assaults kids are angry mental health
institutions are constantly at maximum
capacity and suicide Remains the leading
cause of death for kids here in
Arizona Rachel M Mitchell's office cited
a 350% increase in first-degree murder
and 100% 108% increase in aggravated
assaults among teenagers we have kids
hurting hurt people end up hurting
people this is an epidemic that must be
taken seriously or we will watch more
kids die
this town is fully aware that there are
multiple gangs operating in its presence
this town is aware that the number of
guns circulating among our youth sorry
is aware of the number of guns
circulating among our youth just look at
the videos at the recent car attacks the
kids were holding guns ready to shoot a
homeowner as they came out of their
home just a little over a decade ago
this town was not ashamed to admit that
there was a concern over gangs and in
fact Gilbert schools invited your
detectives to evaluate the challenges
they faced regarding gangs and drugs in
the school system the information
gathered showed approximately four to
six four to six gangs operating in this
town the difference between then and now
is that there was a clear open admission
to gangs being a problem teen drug use
and violence was a recognized issue
today this town wants to shove it under
the rug as though it doesn't exist we
live in the state with the highest
import of fentanyl in the country
country in the country with fentanyl and
drug use comes
violence kids are driving out to the out
from the West Valley to the East Valley
to come party because of the easy access
to drugs and alcohol and we've heard
this directly from
officers to think that this town would
be exempt from crime occurring and
neighboring the same crime that's
occurring in a neighboring cities is
foolish in fact you if you had figured
out a way to eradicate the crime Not
only would other cities be coming to you
for help but you would be shouting it
all over the
media the point is be real admit that
there is a problem and work to figure
out a way to resolve it and as this
young woman said over here we do need
accountability for our kids because
without accountability happening the
problem will only grow and get
worse thank you Steve of all Steve would
be followed by Jason tamura
good evening Council uh what can I say
uh I sent you an
email um only one of you actually
responded to me none of you answered any
of my questions but thank you council
member bonon for answering or for at
least
responding uh let's see you've raised my
water rates and now you've raised my
taxes but you can't answer my emails so
it's funny your uh fire chief he wants
to to do all this stuff with your your
your building of your buildings and all
that stuff and the $98 million and
you're raising me taxes and I'm telling
you he's building four of those stations
he's just changing bathrooms in them
because he has a transgender that's
using female restrooms and you guys
refuse to do anything about it but you
you cannot deny it anymore it's out
there it's in the
public
um he goes down to the uh gay pride
parade in Phoenix I wrote you guys about
that thank you for not letting him bring
a fire truck but he still drove his
pickup truck pickup trucks a asset he
used that town asset to go all the way
down to
Phoenix and uh I'm paying for that and I
know that won't cover the taxes you just
raised on me but why am I paying for
that as a taxpayer why is that asset
going all the way to Phoenix for a gay
pride parade and why is this government
trying to push
sexuality on the citizens you have no
business doing that that's not
government's role but you didn't want to
tell the government you didn't want to
tell the citizens excuse me you didn't
post it with your your award-winning
office of digital government you didn't
let the people know you were going down
there so let me read you when your
office of digital government did post
something about the pride parade let me
read the responses your engagement
numbers that Patrick likes to break
about children don't belong at Pride
events uh isn't this the same Department
that got upset uh about A Thin Blue Line
flag was being flown how much was spent
participating in this
event uh why is that young child holding
a backpack supporting testing for HIV
and a
why are we broadcasting this they
deleted that photo because they
obviously knew it was wrong that's a
response to the other one so they delete
the photo they know they're doing wrong
they put a photo up and then they remove
it h they're not fooling the
citizens uh if you want to celebrate the
people like you take home into your beds
leave children out of it and with that
do it on your own dime this is a tax
dollars and hardworking Americans let's
go on as an a a gay why the hell are my
public tax dollars paying for this
huh pride has no peace excuse me pride
has no place in a society now we
achieved full equality under the law and
this then sum in 2015 I'll be waiting to
see you participate in the Christian or
Mormon parade no hm why
not uh let's see oh this is this is
really a good one comment mment section
shows you you are doing the wrong thing
that's your comments the majority of
comments 90% of those comments on that
post are negative now you talked about
Courage the courage you guys had to
raise my taxes but you don't have the
courage to stop the wokeness that
Patrick Baner has done and I'll leave
you with this the reason why you have so
many projects and you're raising my
taxes is cuz he and his leadership team
are nothing but a bunch of yes people so
when he wants something they say yes
there's no challenges to your plans
thank
you thank you
Jason good evening mayor vice mayor
councel uh my name is Jason chura I live
at 3524 East Oakland Street in Lions
Gate um I'm here before you uh on behalf
of my community the uh construction firm
Tilson is overbuilding our neighborhood
and is doing a very poor job of managing
it um I come from the background of
doing this work as well and uh seeing
what's happened is uh really bad the
company that they've hired from out of
state uh lonar has uh hit gas lines that
were marked uh they have blown out uh
garbage in our yards and in addition to
that um there's questions to them
leaving potholes open overnight and uh
frankly our neighborhood looks really
bad and you know how large lion gate is
so um I we have tons of pictures I'll
send you all not very satisfied it took
uh so their response time is supposed to
be 48 hours from tulson it took me 5
days to get a response from them and in
addition to that uh when I talked to the
gentleman he stated that he is trying to
work with the contractor to make sure
things got taken care of well that's
that's not good enough right I know purr
and Patrick knows this too gigap power
has a license here in the city to
operate and to follow by the the city or
Town's uh uh guidance uh according to
that and I don't don't believe they're
doing the right things so I'm just
asking uh that that gets rectified
because it's not and we've we've taken a
big hit a big hit in our community so I
just wanted to share that with you all
and I expect tson to do better in our
city because here's the deal we talk
about the money we're
spending that's costing us a lot of
money right I mean Patrick and I know
your guys' teams are trying to manage
that we shouldn't be having to manage
people who want to come and bring us
service and not do a good job thank
you thank you I was going to suggest
Patrick that uh you have staff but it
sounds like you're already doing that
contacting
him thank you just a reminder to the
council something that uh the clerk's
office included at the conclusion of
communications from citizens the council
May respond to criticism asked staff to
review a matter or ask that a matter be
put on a future
agenda and council member banani thank
you mayor uh Jennifer I want to
apologize if you took my comment as
offensive I was
the I don't know if I was the only
council member but I called you today
after the fire to make sure that you and
your family was okay the last thing I've
ever wanted to do is upset you council
member Bon Giovani yes I'm sorry to
interrupt but we really and I know Chris
Payne's looking in our way you have to
keep your comments General okay not
specific to a person okay thank you TR
is that right thank you okay thank you
forget about that but don't forget about
what I said um I my comment was was
basically talking about
classification I I don't make the
classification rules I don't know if
it's the FBI or the police or the the
the statistics that that do that
um my comment was arson is arson it
wasn't teen fighting
teen and when you take a look at data if
you put the data in
wrong um it can have effects to how you
create programs around there we could
call everything teen
violence um and we won't be able to dive
down into the data this this town lives
on
data um so my my comment to anyone out
here uh was not in effect to you
personally in your situation I care
deeply about your situation and I hope
you could tell that from my phone call
um but we just have to document things
correctly so we can take a look at how
we can take that data and make decisions
from it I don't make the categorizations
I was just clarifying the claric the
categorization
that was mentioned that's it
thanks any other comments at this time
council member Tason uh one thing I
would love if staff could follow up and
give me a uh a service record of the
electric fir TR I would like that uh
there has been an inquiry as to the cost
of the pride parade which is seems to be
about
$865
uh and uh I wanted to say thank you to
anybody that said uh good things about
us from behind the dis for
once any other comments at this time
seeing none we will move on to our
agenda items future meetings two items
on future meetings Council Retreat item
related to status update I'm assuming
this topic will be on the retreat in
November thank you I tried to pull up
your email to double check that and I
just couldn't find it thanks Patrick and
then meet and conferred follow-up
discussion for 2025 moving on to
Communications report from the town
manager thank you mayor members of the
council give a second to pull up the
slides okay if we could advaned to the
next slide want to start with
congratulations to Tyler and car car
carmalita uh the household hazardous
materials Olympics event took place in
Austin Texas it's an obstacle course in
relay race that tested both skill and
safety awareness participants had to
unscrew Bolts from a 55 gallon drum push
the drum on a dolly get dressed in fold
PPE and roll a 55 gallon drum all while
ensuring safety points were deducted or
teams had to restart if tasks were done
improperly or safety measures weren't
observed and the results were Tyler
unsel team won first place and carmalita
Nichols team came in second place so
congratulations to them they do great
work for us and it's great to see them
recognized next slide October is
National Co Code Compliance month
National Code Compliance month shines a
light on the significance of adhering to
local laws and safety standards ensuring
communities are safe clean and thriving
local governments celebrate this month
to recognize the efforts of Code
Enforcement Officers and to raise
awareness about the role these
regulations play in maintaining public
health and safety it's a nod to the
silent Guardians who keep neighborhoods
and orderly orderly and livable we
certainly appreciate our code
enforcement team that works very hard in
this area for our community with that
that's all I have thank thank you mayor
thanks Patrick moving on to report from
the council council member B all right
so the F FRC Bo bash uh come show off
your costumes at freest Stone Recreation
boo bash engage in arts and crafts games
and flatables in a penan zoo
pre-registration is required and limited
to the first 300 registrants this event
will take place Friday October 25th from
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m sign up today the
snowvember popup party bundle up for
snow bundle up for snow much fun at the
M uh McQueen Park Activity Center on
Sunday November 9th at 10 AM you can get
Co you can get cozy building an edible
Snowman and sipping hot cocoa while we
make a few snoow inspired crafts get
ready to watch it snow with a with an
indoor uh snowball fight and to round
off the fun step inside step outside for
our grand finale foam snowstorm it's
snow wonder you you won't want to miss
out on this cool time sign up online
today I didn't write that by the way we
knew that um council member
cpri in just over two weeks um on Friday
November 8th the town will be SE having
their Veterans Day ceremony at the
Gilbert Regional Park um I believe
that's in the morning actually it's here
at Town Hall Sor Town Hall okay great uh
so here at Town Hall the Veterans Day
ceremony in the morning Friday November
8th that evening is the next Gilbert
Symphony concert and its theme is
Veterans Day theme as well it'll be
opening With The Star Spangled Banner
and also have a salute to Veterans um so
there are a couple of events there for
Veterans Day thank
you anyone else council member tilki
thank you mayor um I think I have a
couple slides
so I just wanted to make sure the public
knows that we have the general election
on November 5th and there's some
information there and if you go to the
next slide um I think it's really
important important that um everybody
understands that we do have a DropBox
here at the municipal um here we are
Town Hall we're going to call it um and
so if you have your mail and ballot you
can drop it off and then we have an
actual voting Center over at the North
Area service center on Juniper um you
can also scan the QR code to get other
locations including polling locations is
that correct y good all right and um
just a reminder that there are um three
items on the on your long ballot that
impact Gilbert uh
proposition uh 497 permanent base
adjustment proposition 498 capital
projects accumulation fund and then Cada
for one council member seat so we ask
you to get out and vote and there's more
information online thank
you anyone
else
no okay then it'll move to report for
mayor so I have also a couple of sides
we have Gilbert's domestic violence
awareness night that will be held this
coming Thursday October 24th at 5:00
p.m. right here at Gilbert town hall
right outside on the
lawn and following that I have my um
report that I've been offering which
shows what I've been doing this one's
four weeks long because we've haven't
met since 9:24 so this covers four weeks
of where I've been and what I've been
doing the meetings that I've been
tending and again it doesn't include any
of the meetings that I do internally
with staff or a couple meetings that
I've held outside or any of the reading
or um packet studies that I have to do
for the meeting that I attend do I have
another slide or is that it that's it
right um moving on to some reports from
that things that are going on council
member Kowski covered our veterans
Advisory Board having their veterans
annual event on Friday November 8th here
at Town Hall at 11:00 a.m. and um I want
to say congratulations to Robert Carmona
I don't know if Robert is still here oh
you are I wanted to say it earlier but I
didn't think it was appropriate timing
Gilbert's parks in Rex director has been
inducted as a fellow into the American
Academy for Park and Recreation
Administration one of the highest honors
in the field so congratulations Robert
for that over the past six years Robert
has been instrumental in shaping
Gilbert's Parks and Recreation landscape
overseeing the development of Gilbert
Regional Desert Sky and Cactus yards and
our transition at Cactus yards was um
very notable for us as a council so
congratulations on that Robert wanted to
share and to follow up a little on um
council member tilky with the election
it's very important that everybody
please turn your ballots in if you
haven't mailed them back last day of
mail back is the 29th officially but if
you would rather come and drop the
ballots off to a ballot box right here
in our lobby and at Juniper there's also
a Ballot Box besides being able to vote
in person this year I dropped mine in
The Ballot Box here at Town Hall um just
in case you don't trust the mail getting
it where it needs to be this box gets
emptied every day at 10:00 a.m. and will
be open and available able through 700
p.m. on Election Day to drop your
ballots that day and um um assistant
chief M gangstead shared with us last
night Maricopa County is over 9,000
square miles and there are 12 early
polling locations and one of them is
here in Gilbert so I just wanted to
share that for the East Valley and for
us in Gilbert where we have that
location available for you to get out
and vote before November 5th and if not
get in line on November 5th and make
sure you vote it's one of the most
important things that you can do do um
if you need help with your ballot please
reach out I'm happy to answer questions
um and it it's a very long ballot start
at the end and work your way back to the
beginning I think everybody wants to
vote for president but nobody wants to
get all the way to the end so I'm asking
it to go backwards on your ballot two
pages
long and that's all I have for the
evening so I will take a motion to
adjourn so moved we have a motion by
council member B B all in favor I
where
Jed we have birthday treats for Council
me for vice mayor Anderson I gave him
his card and