City Council | Regular Meeting - May 20, 2025

Good afternoon. Thank you for your
patience as we come out of our executive
session and uh we'll move right along. I
would like to call the May 20th, 2025
city council regular meeting to order.
City clerk Ben Lane, may I have a roll
call. Uh thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa
Barowski, present. Vice Mayor Jan
Damascus here. Council members Barry
Graham here. Adam Quasman
here. Kathy Littlefield here. Maryann
McAllen present. And Solange Whitehead
here. City Manager Greg Kaitton here.
City attorney Sher Scott here. City
Treasurer Sonia Andrews here. Acting
city auditor Lcloff here. And the clerk
is present. Thank you, mayor. Thank you,
Mr. Lane. Uh, we have tonight we have
the Scottsdale Police Clint Matthysse
and Ray Wilburn as well as firefighter
Joe Andrea. If anyone requires their
assistance, please notify me member of
our staff. I'd like to ask Councilwoman
Whitehead to lead us in the pledges
pledge of
allegiance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the for it
stands one
nation indivisible with liberty and
justice for all.
Thank you. And for tonight's invocation,
I turn it over to Councilwoman
Littlefield.
Thank you, Mayor. I would like to ask
all of you for a moment of silence to
clear your minds, your hearts, and think
of what is the best for Scottsdale, for
the people who live here, and for all of
our futures as we join together to make
it better. Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor. Thank you,
Councilwoman Littlefield. Uh, as and for
the mayor's report, I want to talk about
some outstanding young members of our
community. I had the pleasure to uh
address a group of fifth graders uh
earlier, last week, I guess it was. Then
I uh met with the mayor's youth council
and they're here this evening. Um
they're just a wonderful addition to our
community. They have an actual mayor and
full counsel in their group and they all
received their certificates and award of
participation. now that they're
graduating seniors. So, I know we'll
hear from you in a little bit on another
topic, one of their initiatives. So, I'm
excited about that. Uh, and
congratulations to you
all. Turning now to the first public
comment announcement. Public comment,
this public comment period is reserved
for Scottsdale citizens, business
owners, and property owners to comment
on non-aggendaized items that are within
the council's jurisdiction. No official
action can be taken on these items and
the speakers are limited to three
minutes to address the council. If you
wish to speak on a non-aggendaized item
or an agendaized topic, please see city
clerk Ben
Lane. I have 10 speakers on
non-aggendaized public comment and I'm
going to take those all uh right now um
one at a time of course. First Dan
Isaac, followed by Justine
Kund, Sedan
Gupta, Angelo
Giovani, Dan Isaac, address on the
record. Mayor, I'm here to once again
speak about the actions and behaviors of
council members. Anyone who watched the
last regular meeting would know that
much of it can be summarized as ambush
and grandstanding. Before I get into
specifics, I have some unfinished
business with Adam. Regarding your
apology, Adam, save it. I do not want
nor do I need an apology. What I and the
city needs is for you to change your
behavior. But as far as apologies are
concerned, you conditioned it using the
word if. There is no question about what
French Thompson said or that you did
nothing to stop at either time. An
apology with a conditional if is not an
apology. It is cheap and insincere.
And lastly, making a comment about my
attire or my body is shockingly
inappropriate. Just because you believe
my lifestyle is an abomination, I think
that's the literal translation from
Hebrew and Leviticus, doesn't mean you
get to mock it at a council
meeting. As for the even more troubling
parts of the meeting, I will start with
Jan.
First, she decided there wasn't enough
specificity around $392,000 for the arts
in our billion-doll budget and asked for
it to be moved into contingency. No
doubt she has other ideas for the money,
perhaps a book banning party. It's
interesting that she persisted despite
our treasurer, who does a phenomenal
job, by the way, providing all of the
detail. Contrast this with the $41
million in the budget for roads, even
though staff had not provided a list of
roads, a prioritization, or what
procedures or materials would be
used. More audacious was her
grandstanding about a development review
board project that when presented, she
as the chair said nothing. She didn't
express any concerns there, which is the
appropriate place to work with the owner
to resolve concerns. Instead, she asked
the council to take it up. Why? so she
could make a big splash about saving the
character of Scottsdale. She could have
accomplished this at the DRB, but she
wouldn't have been able to publicize it
as well. Council member Whitehead was
correct to call her out, but Barry
played the knight in shining armor,
defending her and attacking Council
Member
Whitehead. He didn't mention the waste
of taxpayer dollars for this to be done
at a council meeting instead of the DRB,
or their lack of respect for the owner,
or the waste of time of city staff, the
DRB, and residents. But why ruin theater
with facts? Barry and Adam also made
quite a show regarding the conditional
use permit for poor decisions. I urge
all residents to watch the video to see
their thuggish threats to the business
owner with the right to repeal the
approval for virtually any
transgression, real or imagined. Is this
how the city council is going to treat
small businesses? This business owner
has the support of virtually all
neighbor nearby businesses and the
landlord praised him as a tenant. What
more do Barry and Adam want? Campaign
contributions. I left Chicago to get
away from grift. But the grand prize
goes to Adam who even though for two
meetings has complained about the lack
of respect and decorum over title use
decided to attack council member
Whitehead and worse ambush our mayor by
removing her staff. Adam, do you think
calling her madame mayor makes up for
stabbing her in the back? I don't.
Wouldn't it have been more respectful to
discuss it with the entire council and
provide some rationale besides marking
your territory and pounding your chest?
It's shameful behavior once again.
Thank you. Justine
Kund is Justine
here. We'll move right on to Sedant
Gupta. Am I saying your name right? I
know you've Yeah. Okay. Sorry.
Thanks. Saddans Gupta. Address on file.
Hello Scottsdale City Council members.
My name is Sid and I go to Desert
Mountain High School. I'm here today on
behalf of the Scottsdale Youth Substance
Abuse Coalition and the Scottsdale
Mayor's Youth Council. This evening, I'm
proud to present to you a petition that
would revised the city's smoke-free
ordinance to include the prohibition of
ecigarette use in public places and
places of employment. This proposal
simply updates the definition of smoking
in Scottdale City Code to include the
use of ecigarettes and the definition of
smoking devices to also include
ecigarettes. Ecigarettes are a largely
unregulated product and there has been a
noticeable uptake of these products by
youth. I witnessed this firsthand at my
school and that is what brought this to
the attention of SCIAC and that is why
we are here tonight. If I could please
get the members of SCIAC who are able to
attend tonight and who are in support of
this proposal to quickly raise their
hands. That would be
great. We appreciate you. Um, so we are
here to request you to amend the
Scottsdale smoke-free ordinance and I
look forward to working together with
you and the rest of Scottdale city staff
on this. If there are no questions or
remarks, I would like to hand this off
to the next public comment, Angelo.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor.
Oh, question. Councilman Graham Sedant,
curious from your perspective, what I I
never tried uh ecigarettes or vapes.
What what what's the appeal from uh your
youth group would you suppose? Um so I
think among the youth there's like a
taboo with smoking right we see it as
like uncool but vaping has been
advertised specifically towards the
youth audience as a safer alternative.
Originally they had the flavors um which
has since been banned but those flavors
would market to children. They still use
like the animated like logos and other
stuff to make it seem harmful. They put
it in like they make it look like
highlighters or pens so that you can
easily distract it and the nicotine is
especially um problematic with young
developing minds and it makes them more
addicted at a young age. Would you say
the uh advertising has been
manipulative? Yeah, very very much so.
Um and then you would say that these
were sort of put as sort of a panacea to
smoking and then it actually
overcorrected and became an even worse
problem. Yeah, because a lot of the
ecigarettes are unregulated, so we don't
know um what their exact contents are.
So, a lot of the times they're even more
harmful than cigarettes or other
smoking. You don't ever see people do it
discreetly like in the hallways at
school, do you? A lot a lot of time at
the school. My first time at Desert
Mountain went into the bathroom, first
thing I saw was a guy using a vape and
he goes, "Hey, do you want one?" I'm
like, "Please no." Would you would you
consider yourself popular with that
crowd? No, not at all. Thank you for uh
your leadership on this. Thank you so
much. Appreciate it. And just to be
clear, you've submitted your uh the
mayor's youth council's uh petition to
the clerk, right? Yep. I think you guys
should have it on your We We do. I just
wanted to let the audience know that
there's there's a conclusion coming and
we'll be uh taking that up later on this
evening. Thank you very much. Thank you
so much. Uh, Angelo Gioani and there are
two names after that. There is Do you
have four names? Angelo. All right. I
like that. Giovani Okani Leonardi. You
need to come again. Oh, should I say it
again? Okay. Yeah. Angelo Giovani Ko
Okalani Leonardi. Wow. Long name. Well,
there you go. Thank you. Go ahead. My
name is Angela Leonardi. Address is on
file. Uh, I'm a 17-year-old high school
senior and I represent the Scottsdale
Youth Substance Abuse Coalition or CISAC
as well as the Scottsdale Mayor's Youth
Council. I'm here to voice my support
for my fellow member Sid Gupta as he
proposes an amendment to strengthen the
city's smokefree ordinance. I love the
city, especially places like Chapperel
Park, where I spend time playing soccer.
But one day, while I was practicing, I
noticed people vaping nearby. At first,
I didn't think much of it since vaping
isn't banned under the current
ordinance. But soon after, I started
having trouble breathing and found it
harder to enjoy playing. All because of
the secondhand vape smoke. This set mo
this moment set me on a mission to join
my friend Sid in advocating for
meaningful and necessary change. I see
this not as just a proposal, but as a
unique opportunity for the Scottsdale
City Council to lead by example and make
our public spaces cleaner, healthier,
and safer for everyone. Supporting this
amendment allows the council to take a
proactive step towards protecting the
community well-being. and that's why I
stand in full support of the amendment.
Along with this testimony, I'd like to
share a letter from Daniela, a junior at
Arcadia High School, who while attending
a SCIAC event as a member of the Barker
Branch Boys and Girls Club in
Scottsdale, she wrote this letter to
council expressing her support for our
proposed ordinance. She wrote, "Dear
Scottdale City Council, I'm writing to
you in hopes of banning any smoking in
public areas. It is as it is harmful to
the environment and to the surrounding
people. Not only that, but this can
influence many people negatively as
well. In addition, those who have health
problems can be affected by coming into
contact with or being around people who
use these pro products. Please consider
this. Daniela, Daniela, Sid, and I all
believe it's time to stren it's time to
strengthen the existing smokefree
ordinance. We are more than just three
teen voices. We represent many concerned
youth in our city and urge you as the
Scottsdale City Council to amend the
existing ordinance. Together, we can
protect our health and the future of
Scottsdale. Thank you. Thank you,
Angelo. John Lee.
Hello. Uh, my name is John Lee. I'm a
Scottsdale resident and I serve as a
volunteer leader of the American Cancer
Society Cancer Action Network. And um as
you've already heard, ecigarettes are
largely unregulated product in the
United States and almost all of them
contain nicotine, an incredibly
addictive substance. Um, so we encourage
you to um act on this petition and add
ecigarettes to the Scottsdale uh
smoke-free ordinance and we offer uh ACS
can staff's expertise on this uh and
assist and we want to assist you in
preparing this ordinance. Thank you very
much. Thank you very much, Mr. Lee. Mr.
Lee, uh Councilman Graham,
since we keep talking about this, uh
thank you for presenting. Um, it sounds
like you have some subject matter
expertise in this. Uh, not as much.
Sorry. I was just curious. I Okay, it
see it seemed like you did. I mean, um,
how much more addictive would you say
these ecigarettes are than traditional
cigarettes?
Um, actually, I don't know. I'll have to
look it up. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you
very much. Thomas
Crarampton. Thomas
here. Uh, Molly
Omelia.
Nope. Michael
Fernandez. Followed by Susan Wood, who
is donating her time to Michael
Hernandez. So, how about four minutes?
What do you think you need? Well, you
can tell me when you get up there. 10.
10. Oh,
I have to petition. Here, you can step
up to the microphone. Uh, I had some
extra petitions. I don't know where to.
Uh, you can give those to the clerk
after you're done. Okay. And how about
is four minutes sufficient or do you
want No, four four. I think four is
good. Okay. Terrific. And then we'll
finish off with Madison Kendall. Um, I
got I haven't been here in a long time.
Okay, I'm Michael Fernandez. Address on
record. I own Pottery Paradise, a
business that has been in Scottsdale
since
1951. Having been extremely active in
Scottsdale politics and elections for
three decades, I took a short respit
only to get re-engaged earlier this year
when I heard the city council was going
to build a three-story concrete parking
garage that will ruin the appeal of
historic Oldtown, desecrate the old
adobe mission, displace the farmers
market, and decimate area businesses
like the Mission Restaurant, Karstens,
Bootleggers, and many others.
I'm here tonight to submit our petition
to ask you to actually put citizens
first and vote to agendaize the future
meeting so you can hear from residents
about their concerns and for you to
reconsider building the parking garage
in the middle of historic
Oldtown. The mission along with
Cavaliers blacksmith shop anchors the
historic district. This council is
ignoring its own design guidelines in
the city's historic overlay and
expanding the garage directly across
from the mission and blacksmith shop.
The city conducted no public outreach or
notification about this plan in the last
5 years. Business owners and the mission
were blindsided by this decision to
build this garage and they opposed and
they are opposed to this plan. The
mission has a special place in the
hearts of not only the Hispanic
community, but those who now attend Our
Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Parish.
The old Adobe mission was built by hand
by the Hispanic families who moved here
in the early 1900s. They organized in
1911 to raise the funds to build this
mission. The mission was completed in
the fall of 1933. In 1949, it became Our
Lady of Perpetual Health Catholic Parish
and it served the community until 1956
when the parish outgrew the old the
building and OP moved into a larger
church at Miller Road and Second Street.
As a Catholic, I'm heartbroken to think
city council could be blindly falling in
line with the unspoken war on
Catholicism. It's surprising that
Councilwoman Duboscus and a Hispanic
woman condones such disrespect for the
Hispanic families who built the who
built the mission. I can assure you that
if the mission were a historic
synagogue, Councilman Quasman would be
taking a different stand. In a
fundraising plea earlier this year,
Councilman Graham, he claimed to be the
real leader of a coalition of council
members who are working hard to get the
city back on track by undoing harmful
decisions. Let me repeat myself, undoing
harmful decisions.
Councilman, you can start putting
residents first by making the motion to
agendaize a council meeting for a
full-blown public hearing to reconsider
building the garage on this site. No one
other than Bob Peachman, a gallery owner
on Main Street on the other side of
Scottsdale Road, wants the garage built
in the heart of the Oldtown historic
Oldtown District. On a side note, I
realize campaigns can be expensive
unless you are self-funding your own
campaign. You need donations from
individuals such as Mr. Peachman to make
it over the finish line. But to all of
you, never let donations to your
campaign blur your eyes to the will of
the majority and lose common sense. The
majority of Scottsdale residents don't
want the garage at that location. As you
can see in this stack of petitions,
signatures that that we gathered over
the past two months, the business owners
in the neighborhood as well as the
farmers market, Oldtown customers, and
tourists adamantly oppose this site. The
residents of Scottsdale expect more from
their city government. We are asking you
to schedule a public hearing so our
concerns can be addressed. The way I see
it, either you you will vote to schedule
a future council meeting to allow voices
to be heard or deny the petition you
will be proving your claim to put
residents first is just BS. And you will
pay that the next election. Whether
you're a big fish in a little pond or a
little fish in a big pond, people want
to believe their elected officials can
be fair and open-minded and most
importantly have their backs.
Thank you. And you can turn you can turn
those signatures in to the clerk and
then we'll be taking that up later in
the meeting. Thank you very much. Um
Madison Kendall, did anyone have a
question here? All right. Madison
Kendall. Hello. My name is Madison
Kendall, address on file. and I am here
representing the Mission restaurant in
opposition of the proposed parking
structure on Brown Avenue. In the 17
years that the Mission has been
operational, neither our guests nor our
employees have struggled with parking.
We have a 90,000 foot parking structure
located directly behind us, access to
Civic Center parking garage, street
parking, the existing multi-level
parking structure located directly in
front of us, and the Honor Health Dirt
Lot, which I'm of the understanding is
leased for at least another year for
additional parking. As a Scottsdale
native myself, I want nothing more than
the old nothing more than for the
Oldtown area to flourish and continue to
celebrate Scottsdale's beautiful
culture. However, that can't be at the
detriment of small businesses who
contribute directly to this culture. The
lengthy, noisy, and cumbersome
construction of this parking garage
would cause street closures and severely
compromise our business, all to solve a
problem that we don't have.
Unfortunately, we know firsthand how
destructive this type of construction
can be to our location as the mission is
actually subleasased from the original
Leie who sadly went out of business
during the first iteration of this
parking
structure. In less than a week, we were
able to collect over 1500 signatures
from Scottsdale residents and visitors
who are just as passionate about
preserving the charm and the heart that
beats through the Oldtown area. The
mission along with several other local
businesses and dozens of small business
vendors that operate out of the Oldtown
Farmers Market ask that the city please
understand where we're coming from and
consider reszoning this project to a
more appropriate area that does in fact
need the parking. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
That concludes the public comment on the
non-aggendaized items. And
uh I'm going to move I'm going to move
item number 25 up. We still we still
need to approve the minutes, but I'm
going to go ahead and move the two
citizens petitions up for consideration
by the
council present.
So we we are we need to approve the
regular meeting minutes of April 8th,
2025. Can I get a motion to do that? So
moved. Second. Thank you. All those in
favor indicate by registering. Yes.
Councilman Quasman, can I get your vote
on on possibly approving the meeting
minutes? I. Thank you.
Next, we'll take the receipt of uh
citizens petitions. And as you heard, we
have two of those this evening. One by
the mayor's youth council for the vaping
ordinance. Uh so we can either direct
the city manager to agendaize the
petition for further discussion, direct
the city manager to investigate the
matter and report back to us, or take no
action. And I would like to move that we
agendaize the petition for further
discussion. Point of point of order,
mayor. I normally uh the city clerk
displays the three options just for the
for the edi edification of the audience
members in the council. There you go.
Thank you. Thanks for noticing that,
Councilman Graham. Second. But
what was Could you repeat the motion? I
didn't. I missed it. The motion is to
take the vaping uh initiative and
proposed discussion by the council uh
and put that on a future agenda.
We have a second. All those in favor,
please indicate. May I speak to myself?
Oh, yeah, of course. Quickly. Thank you,
mayor. Uh, just I I just want to
comment. I just want to thank all the
students and other adults involved in in
bringing this forward. You know,
Scottsdale has always been driven by
resident ideas. And so, yeah, this is
another one. But I do want to explain
the process. When you're a city
government, you're limited by state and
federal laws. So be patient with us as
we explore this because we all obviously
have to do um take steps that meet all
these other additional government laws.
But I am thrilled. I I loved watching
the debate when um when the mayor's
youth council was here. It's it's just
been a wonderful experience. Thank you.
Any other comments? Just a quick comment
to follow up on Councilwoman's
Whitehead. I had the same concerns. I
like the the effort. I just compliance
with federal and state laws and just
making sure we do our due diligence,
which will be the point of that meeting
that we that we schedule. Yes. And to
that point, we actually discussed this
yesterday and I've encouraged you to go
to the state legislature with us um next
session. So, I think that's on your
radar. Uh nonetheless, we have a motion
and a second and if that's the answer,
we'll get that back to you and we'll
discuss that at the agenda time if this
passes. All those in favor, please
indicate.
Come on.
It's not working.
There you get it. All right. All right.
That's We need Councilman Minquasman. He
just said yes. Oh, okay. That does pass.
And so you'll get notice of when that's
agendaized. Thank you very much. Um,
moving on to
the Brown and Second Street uh garage
petition. Uh, anyone have any discussion
on that? Councilwoman Oh, Councilman
Graham. Oh, thank you, mayor. Um, I'd
move to direct city manager to
investigate the matter and prepare a
written response to
council. Thank you.
Second.
I have an alternate motion I'd like to
propose that we agendaize this matter
given all the public outcry that we've
heard about this topic. Uh I think that
the citizens need an opportunity to be
heard and uh that has not happened and
so I would I would urge uh my colleagues
to uh provide that opportunity through
an agenda
uh item on a future meeting. So motion
uh alternate motion is to agendaize for
a future meeting.
Uh Councilman Councilwoman Whitehead. So
once again, I do want to explain the
process and I so appreciate the mayor
bringing this garage forward. It was a
tough decision last year. we weren't
satisfied and we um the old saying
measure twice cut once applies here. Uh
there are a lot of moving parts right
now having to do with the farmers market
and the farmers market wanting to expand
having some possible limitations on the
uh lot that we all had hoped to use
which is owned by honor health. So
respectfully, I'm going to uh support
first running this through the city
manager so we have a more indepth report
to give to the residents and then at
that point we can have a more productive
conversation.
But I have as I've and I want to thank
the mayor and my colleague uh
Councilwoman McAllen for uh pre
preemptively meeting with the farmers
market months ago to make sure that we
do protect the farmers market um and our
historic downtown. And I also want to
thank former mayor David Ortega who uh
is an architect. And whatever result we
have, we want to make sure a we have a
farmers market, b we have a beautiful
historic downtown, and c we have
sufficient parking. So with that, I'm
going to respectfully um support the uh
Councilman Graham's motion, but stay
tuned. and it is I don't think there has
ever been a petition that has garnered
more cit more signatures and I so
respect that. So, thank
you Councilwoman
Mckllen. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I too
would like to echo what Councilwoman
Whitehead said in the matter of all the
moving parts. I know that I reached out
to staff this week asking um Judy Doyle
and Rachel Smatana how the negotiations
were working with the farmers market and
and the farmers market does want to
grow. I I really urge you to understand
they need more space.
Um, that being said, I am actually going
to uh support Councilman Graham's uh
motion to have this sent to the city
manager because there's still a lot of
moving parts and we need to figure out
where we're at legally.
Councilwoman Littlefield.
Thank you, Mayor. Uh, yeah, I'd just
like to ditto what the others have said
here. Major decisions have not been made
on this. We're in a discussion mode
right now and we're looking at all the
possibilities, all the moving parts, all
the swinging balls and trying to figure
out what we can do to make the very best
solution come to be. And that includes
the farmers market. Nobody up here that
I know of wants to harm them in any way.
In fact, we want them to be able to
grow. So, I will support the motion. I
think we need to have a deeper look, a
deeper dive into this and see what we
can come up with to make it a better
solution for everyone. Thank you. Thank
you, Councilwoman Littlefield and uh
Councilman Graham. Thank you, Mayor. I I
guess we're all giving brief remarks
here and and um so I appreciate my
colleagues
deliberation. Um this is um this is a
very delicate topic. We want to make
sure that all parties are respected and
we want to be sensitive to everyone's
sensitivities. Council was uh told by
voters in 2019, 70% of voters that to
build more parking structures in
Oldtown. And we looked exhaustively and
we outreached constantly. And so it's
like some of my colleagues said, it's
premature
um when we don't have all the
information to disrupt or dislocate some
of that process. We have a design
outreach. Everyone is encouraged to
attend the design outreach which is I
believe is Thursday at 5:30. Pete 8:30.
8:30. Thank you. I don't want to give
any false information. um 8:30 and um I
tell you that this is in studying this
and a lot of my colleagues mentioned it
respecting the farmers market and they
tell us we talked to them they want to
grow and the city's working closely with
them to find um a better space um if the
design which we're paying premium
dollars for uh doesn't
respect protect and preserve Oldtown's
architectural standards s we won't
support
it if the construction isn't mitigated.
We're not we're not digging. There's not
going to be a bunch of dirt that we're
hauling and it's just a pop-up tilt up
couple stories. If the construction
isn't mitigated, that's going to be a
problem. So, we've got to be very
sensitive to those sensitivities. Um
while remembering that we are a car
first city, we want to be able we want
we want to remain a car first city. We
don't want to have the incentive, the
pressures of bringing mass transit. We
want to make sure that when you get in
your car and when tourists get in their
car and they want to visit our brick and
mortars and they want to visit the
farmers market, they can get in their
car freely and find a parking space. We
want the success of all this. We want we
just supercharged the civic center with
a 30,000 uh seat amphitheater and we're
having events more and more. So, we want
to make sure that in a car first city,
people can find a a place to park their
car. So, thank you, Mayor. Thank you,
Vice Mayor DBosquez.
I had a conversation with the gentleman
that owns the mission this morning, and
one of the things that he was very
concerned about was the construction
process. So, city manager Kaitton, I
would just ask that in your memo, if you
could outline the expectation for
construction um and any ways that the
city can help mitigate and reduce um
that so that and and plan it quickly and
smartly. maybe we do a bunch over the
summer um and uh so that we we impact
the businesses as little as possible.
I'd appreciate if you could include an
analysis on that. Thank you.
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. And I
just want to explain a little bit
further because the petition actually is
asking the city council to reconsider
its decision opposing my
uh desire and uh request to take
additional time to find an alternate
location. So, uh, while there's been
comments made that nothing's happening
yet, this was an approved location and
the garage is approved and the contract
is moving forward. So, this petition
specifically asks for additional time
for the city to work on finding an
alternate location. This is not a final
decision and that's what I've asked to
have agendaized that opportunity to put
a pause on this and find a better
location and also I think it's critical
that we hear from the citizens on this
our residents. We need to hear from our
residents on this and we have not yet
done that. So I have a motion on the
table. Is there a second? Oh,
Councilwoman McAllen. Thank you, Mayor.
Um, we've received hundreds of emails.
Maybe we don't receive them all from the
same people. This week there
was, I would say, more for the parking
garage than against the parking garage.
Yes.
Okay. Just be just because you yell at
me doesn't change the truth.
So, that being said, if we can keep the
comments down, we have a really long
meeting. Everyone's very passionate
about this. What's important for you to
know
is last council is who decided that this
would be the
site. We agreed on building it. You all
have input to see what it'll look like.
That being
said, I have a hard time
reconciling that citizens would want
another area in Oldtown to have another
parking garage when we're just looking
to build on a site that already is a
parking garage. That will only enhance
the look. Um, that's my two cents. Thank
you.
I mean, do you have a anything, Council
Councilwoman Whitehead? So, I'll just
say it is a contract and it is moving
forward and so I supported the pause and
we didn't we did not get the pause and
so it is an active contract. It doesn't
mean that what we're supporting and what
we will be putting pressure on uh on the
city manager to do is to make sure that
we've identified every other possible
location, but that we will still achieve
what the voters wanted. So, it we had an
opportunity to pause to give this mayor
the couple months and I'm sorry that
that we didn't have a majority to
support that, but um so I don't think a
pause it this is an active contract, but
it's up to us to work hard with the city
manager and get some of these variables
um figured out and find the best path
forward. And I will say, you know,
there's always um there's never a
perfect solution to anything we vote on
up here. That's the hardest part. We're
never 100% yes or 100% no. So, we'll be
working really hard with the mayor and
with all of you to find the best
solution.
Thank you. Uh having no second, my
motion to for additional time to find an
alternate location dies and we'll take
up uh Councilman Graham's motion to
direct city staff to investigate the
matter and prepare a written response to
the council with a copy to the
petitioner. Councilman Clausman, can I
get your vote on the motion to uh have
the manager write a report on this
matter? I Thank you. Thank you very
much. That concludes the non-aggendaized
uh items, comments, and uh now the
citizens petition petitions. Tonight we
have a presentation on the city's
participation in the Arizona Public
Service Peak Solutions Rebate Program.
And presenting on this topic is Kevin
Rose, uh, Timothy Hwitt, and Matt Pool.
Kevin. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and
Council. And what we're going to present
tonight is a program that Scott
Stillwater has been part of since 2010.
And this is part of our emergency
preparedness that we work with APS and
it's a volunteer program where during
the summertime on peak demand on the uh
electrical grid system we will actually
reduce our electrical usage uh without
any impact to our customers. Now it is a
voluntary program and for the past 15
years we've been part of this and every
time we uh participate in their drills
or if this is actually instituted
participate in the emergency where will
we reduce our electrical usage for about
4 hours typically during peak demand 4
400 p.m. to 9 uh p.m. And this past
summer we actually saved $91,000 in
rebates that we received from APS. And
since we've been part of the program,
we've actually received rebates of a
little under 1.8 million. So with that,
I'd like to present this check and
mayor. Historically, we had the mayor
come down and do a quick photo op uh
with Timothy, Matt, and myself with this
check and then we'll be done.
I'd be happy to. I don't get many checks
that look like that. So,
[Applause]
I'll take it.
Thanks.
Okay. Was that the conclusion of Is
Timothy Hewitt gonna speak? Oh, that was
you. Oh, that's
you. Nice to meet you, Timothy. And Matt
Pool. I take it you were the Metapool.
All right, there we go. Uh, let's see.
Meeting minutes approval. We already did
those, so I'm one step ahead for once.
Consent agenda items. Next, we have uh
on the consent agenda uh items 1 through
20A. Do does anyone have any um any
comments or questions on the consent
agenda items? Councilwoman Whitehead, I
motion to approve consent agenda items 1
through 28. Second. All those in favor,
please indicate.
Moving right along. Councilman Quasman,
can I get your vote on the consent
agenda?
I thank you.
All right. Regular agenda items. Turning
now to item 21. This is a public hearing
as required by state statute to solicit
and receive public comment on report
number 254, which is the city of
Scottsdale's bienial certified audit of
land use assumptions, infrastructure
improvements plan and development fees
designated for the city's water and
wastewater utilities. Presenting this
evening on uh the topic is Lei Kluff,
acting city auditor, and Kevin Bernett,
principal consultant.
Uh, Will Dan Financial Services. Did I
get that right? Yeah. Yep. I now open
the public hearing.
Thank you, Mayor and City Council.
Before we get started with uh Kevin's
presentation, I'd like to briefly give
some general background about this
agenda item. Um, and if you'll move to
the next slide, please.
Thank you. In 2011, state legislature
placed several requirements on
development impact fees, including when
they can be charged, what fees can be
used for, and what the process is for
adopting those fees. Mayor, Mayor, point
of order. Yes. Lei, can you just speak
up just a little louder for the
audience? Sorry to interrupt. I'm so
sorry to interrupt you. No problem. Oh,
I think I just needed to be closer. Is
that better? Okay. Yes. Thank you. So,
I'll start over in on this slide. In
2011, state legislature placed several
requirements on development impact fees.
Um, these include what when they can be
charged, what fees can be used for, and
the process for adopting those fees. The
development impact fees apply to
Scottsdale water and wastewater
utilities. The state law also requires
the city to either appoint an
infrastructure improvement advisory
committee or provide for a certified
audit of its land use assumptions,
infrastructure improvement plan and
development fees every two years or by
annually. Scott Scotsa water like many
other valley cities opted for the
bianual certified audit. Next slide
please. The statute also requires that
the certified audit be conducted by a
qualified professional as defined in the
statute. Wen Financial Services meets
these qualifications and our office has
contracted them to perform this
evaluation. Next slide,
please. Lastly, before I hand it over to
Kevin to go over the results, the report
has been posted on the city website and
this public hearing was scheduled within
the statutoily required time frame um to
communicate the results of to the public
and allow for feedback and public
comment. With that, I will hand it over
to Kevin Bernett with Wilden Financial
Services to go over the results. Thank
you.
Good evening. I'm Kevin Bernett with
Wilden Financial Services. Um I was the
one that conducted um the bianial audit
with the assistance of my colleague
Tiffany Sturms who's sitting in the
front row with us here. Um so we've done
this before, so it might be a little bit
familiar to some of you. Um so as was
described as part of the state statutes,
Arizona Revised Statute
946305. Um if you have development
impact fees, they have to be audited
every two years. Um so we did that. We
were the the firm that was selected to
do this. Um so development impact fees
are used to offset the cost of providing
services to new development that comes
within the city. Um so in the city of
Scottsdale's case, this applies to water
and
sewer. Um so a little bit of background
um on the study. Um we were the auditor
for this project. Um the land use
assumptions was prepared by Corollo back
in July of 2021. Um the infrastructure
improvement plan was um prepared by
Corollo also in July 2021. And then the
development impact fee report that laid
out what the fees would be um was
prepared by Corollo and was adopted
ultimately by council in October of
2021. Um so the development impact fee
revenues and expenditures that were part
of this audit process um covered the
period of July 1, 2022 through June
30th, 2023 and then July 1, 2023 through
um June 30th, 2024. And we completed
this audit in working with the city
staff earlier this
year. Um so there are some different
audit objectives. Um, while this is
called an audit for purposes of the
state statute, it's more of a check-in
to see how you're doing in your
development fee process and how you're
progressing through the reports that
were adopted by council. Um, so the
first piece is looking at the land use
assumptions. Um, so this is making sure
that the projected development is still
on track, what you assumed you were
going to be building in terms of new
single family homes, multif family,
retail development, etc. that you're on
track with that. um the infrastructure
improvement program or infrastructure
improvement plan. So that's the capital
that was identified as needed to to
serve new development. So making sure
that you're on track with that. Um the
expenditures, making sure that you're
expending your revenues on appropriate
services um and facilities. And then the
level of service, making sure that
you're not increasing the level of
service on the backs of development so
that um they're fair, they're paying an
unfair burden um as part of the
development process. And then the fifth
piece there is a permit sampling which
isn't required by um the state statute
but it's something that we like to do
just to check in and make sure um that
everybody's being chose charged the
appropriate permits. Um so with that
looking at our results um so we did
review the land use assumptions and
there were differences between what was
projected to occur and what actually
occurred during that 2-year period
bearing in mind that this report was the
land use assumptions were adopted in
July of 2021. It was adopted based on
the best available information at the
time and it looked at a 10-year horizon
of what development would be over 10
years. We're looking at a two-year
snapshot. So, the fact that you didn't
completely align with what was um
projected back in 2021. That's not a
concern for us. It's not a great
variance. Um and it's supposed to be
looking at the 10 years as a whole as
opposed to individual
years. Um the same thing with the the
infrastructure improvement program. Um,
so there were different capital items
that were identified that needed to
occur over the 10-year period. In some
cases, the projects were accelerated for
different reasons or projects were
slowed down for different reasons. But
the the point is that number three, all
of the expenditures were on appropriate
projects. So the projects that the money
was expended on were identified in the
IIP. You didn't collect water revenues
and build a new park with it. You didn't
collect sewer revenues and build a new
road with it. You didn't use it on
operating expenses. it was all on impact
fee eligible
projects. Um the level of service
review, so this is primarily more on the
non-utility side of things where if you
add a new park, then you're increasing
the park's level of service. Um on the
utility side, if you're extending a
water line to serve a new development,
that does not impact anybody else in
terms of what their level of service is.
So we did not identify any issues with
the with the level of service review. Um
and then the fifth piece here, um the
permit sampling. That's where we looked
at, um 30 different random samples of
developments for each of the two years.
So 60 60 uh permits total just to make
sure that if your development called for
a 3/4inch meter, you were charged the
3/4inch meter fee. You didn't get
somebody didn't key it in wrong and
charge a 3-in meter fee for a 3/4 in or
they didn't hit the two instead of the
one and charge a 2in fee instead of a
1in fee. Um there were some exceptions
within um the state statutes if a
development is already under process
when the new fees are adopted. They're
quote unquote grandfathered in under the
old um the old rate. So there were some
instances of that, but we did not
discover any instances where the wrong
permit fee was was charged alto
together. So we didn't find any
inequities in the in the permit sampling
that we did.
Um so with that it is our opinion that
um your development impact fee program
is consistent with and in compliance
with Arizona revised statutes for this
process.
Thank
you. Does that conclude that concludes?
Yes. All right. Anyone have any
questions? No. All right. I now close
the public hearing. We didn't have any I
should note we didn't have any uh
comments public comments. Councilman
Graham.
Thank you, Mayor. I was going to move to
Excuse me.
Thanks,
Councilman Graham. There's There's no
nothing to move on this item. Thank you
for guiding me, Mr. Clerk. Thank you,
Mayor. Thank you. Moving on to item 22.
This is a public hearing to accept
citizen comments regarding proposed
changes to water and wastewater
development fees. Presenting uh this
evening on this topic is Kevin Rose,
interim water resources executive
director. And I now open the public
hearing. Thank you, mayor, vice mayor,
and council. Tonight, I'll be presenting
just for public hearing, not looking for
council action. Development fees for
water and wastewater.
So, some of this has been redundant and
you've seen before um but it's part of
the public hearing that development fees
are onetime fees charged to offset costs
associated with providing u necessary
public services to all the new
developments. Uh must be a result for a
beneficial use to the development and
historically Scottsdale has adopted only
water and wastewater development fees.
Um it follows our general plan the
element of cost development where as
permitted by state law requires the uh
the new development going in to pay for
its fair
share. Um we do follow Arizona revised
state statute uh
9-46463-05 where recently on April 8th
our land use assumption and
infrastructure improvement plan was
adopted uh by this
council. And here's the timeline that we
have to go through. Again, today's uh
tonight's just a public hearing. June
24th, uh we'll come back for to request
for council to adopt the development
fees. Um then on September 15th, the new
development fees will become
effective. So, the land use uh use
assumption that was adopted covers a
10-year period um must be updated at
least every 5 years and it shows
projections based on things as
densities, intensity, and population for
the service area for the 10 years.
Also, the infrastructure improvement
plan that was adopted uh by council on
April 8th uh defines existing and future
level of service. So, we're required to
define uh the equivalent demand unit of
one detached single family dwell
dwelling unit um and estimate the cost
for future and system expansion based on
the land use assumptions and essentially
the IIP and the LUA are on the same
timeline. So we are also required to
um uh defined
uh sorry did I bounce back there? State
law requires an EDU uh to be defined
water edu is equal to one detached
single family dwelling unit and also
same for the wastewater side where the
edu is equal to one detached single
family dwelling unit
also. So we're also required our level
of service. Now this is a little bit
different. The water level of service is
defined as a systems ability to meet the
peak demand per the EDU. Wastewater
level of service is defined as a systems
ability to meet the average annual
demand per the
.edu. And this is just a quick process
flow of how we do it. We start with the
LUA, the land use assumption to come up
with our IIP to um come up with the
development fees.
So for the next 10 years, uh this is the
projected um estimates uh for the total
IIP based on water and wastewater. Um
you'll see a portion of it is funded
with rates and that's for the existing
capacity. Then the majority of it would
be funded by development fees for both
water and wastewater.
So, we're proposing
um for uh the water development fee per
edu to be a little under $9,000 and the
wastewater development uh fee per edu to
be a little over 6,000 for a total of
14,864. Now, this is based on a 1- in
meter and this will be a total cost
increase of 93% for both water and
wastewater. and kind of give you a
comparison. You could see uh second to
the um um left there next to Tempee,
that's our current uh development fee
for 1 inch meter. And we're going to go
from essentially
$7,700 almost to $15,000 for um our new
fees. And this just breaks it down even
further of the different meters that we
have. uh what the current development
fees where you can see where they were
and what we're going to be proposing uh
for adoption on June
24th. So tonight, no action is required.
It's a public hearing and we'll be
coming back for development fee adoption
scheduled for June 24th at a regular
council meeting.
Thank you very much. Do I have any
questions? Nope. I that closes I will
close the public hearing. Thank you very
much. Okay, moving on to item 23. This
is a public hearing and adoption. Oh,
wait. Don't we have is it 22? Are we at
23 already? Wow. Cruising right along.
Uh item 23 is a public hearing on the
adoption of fiscal year
202526 rates and fees
requests. Presenting this evening on
this topic is Scott Seldon, budget
department director. I now open this
public hearing. Thank you.
Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of
the council. Uh for the record, Scott
Selene, budget director. Um before we
get started talking about the proposed
rate and fee changes, uh I believe we
have city staff here in the audience
that could answer any potential specific
questions you might have about any of
these proposed uh rate and fee
increases.
This is the timeline for the uh the
proposed rate and fee changes. Um on
March on March 4th, we presented the
proposed rate and fee changes in detail.
We were then subject to a 60-day posting
compliance period. And we are tonight at
the public hearing and potential
adoption of the proposed rate and fee
changes.
This slide starts to show a summary of
the um major fee changes in the proposed
rate and fee changes this year. Starting
first with water and water reclamation,
there's an overall water fee increase of
4.5% and you'll see the revenue impact
in yellow following um the percentage
change.
We have a proposed uh sewer fee increase
of 6% and then some miscellaneous
service charges. Um some adjustments to
those that'll generate another $100,000
roughly in additional
revenue. Moving on to solid waste, um
there is a proposed residential rate
increase of 5%. And on the commercial
rate side, there are various um rate
changes that are proposed um that will
generate approximately $200,000 in
additional revenue.
This chart was shown on at the March 4th
presentation and it shows how our
proposed rate and fee changes for water
and sewer um have us stacking up against
our peer cities. You'll see that right
now our adopted rates have a second
lowest amongst our peer cities. And
that's for some assumed uses that are
listed there at the top of the graph for
a 1 in meter with water use of 16,000
gallons and sewer use of 11,000 gallons.
My understanding is that this
approximates the use of a typical um
customer.
Our proposed rate increases would result
in a
$5.91 increase for a customer that meets
these assumptions. Um, of course, the
actual increase that will be seen by an
individual customer depends on their
usage. And one more thing I would add is
that this chart has not yet been updated
for other cities that might be adjusting
their rates and fees. We anticipate that
once all of the rates and fees are
adjusted by our peer cities that we will
return to being the second lowest on
this chart.
Human Services is proposing a new senior
excursion fee of about $20, which will
generate about 9,000 in additional
revenue. And they're also proposing to
eliminate the drop in fee for table
tennis. I think they charge a $2 um drop
in fee for table tennis at the senior
centers. Planning and development has an
average 5.2% increase in rates and fees.
Parks and Recreation is proposing to
increase rental fees for um the entire
complex for three complexes, Scottsdale
Sports Complex, Bell 94, and the Riotta
Sports
Complexes. There's a proposed fee
increase to formalize the first base
pilot fee at Scottsdale Stadium, which
generates an estimated $17,000 in
revenue annually. And for fire
department, there is a proposal to
increase the after hours inspection
fees, the special event event plan rush
rate and compliance engine
fees. Uh this slide, there's a lot of
lot of text on this slide. It's
um just meant to provide language of
what we are requesting that the council
entertain
tonight. And um this takes me to my last
slide. We did include the slides from
the March 4th meeting um in case there
are specific questions about any
particular rate or fee increases um just
as a resource. I'm not going to go
through them unless there are specific
questions. And with that, I'd be happy
to um entertain any questions.
Thank you, Scott. Uh Councilwoman M
Whitehead. Yeah, thank you so much,
Mayor Scott. Yeah, I'm glad they got rid
of the $2 table tennis fee and the other
fees are just deal with the reality of
what a city has to pay. We have to pass
on. So, thank you,
Council Councilwoman Mckllen. Thank you,
Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you to
uh Scott and to um all of your staff uh
for being so responsive when I asked
questions about the rates and um for
redirecting me, Sonia, to make sure I
understood the process. I just I know
how much in how busy this time of year
is, but making this special opportunity
to explain to me the process, I greatly
appreciate and um just wanted to say
thank you. Thank you. Happy to do so.
Thank you. I don't see any other
questions and there are no public
speakers on this matter. So, at this
time, I will entertain a motion.
Uh, I'll make the motion to adopt uh
resolution
13395. Do we need to do them one by one,
Sherry, or can we do them all in one
fell swoop? Fell swoop.
Mayor and Councilwoman Dascus, you could
do them all in one fell swoop unless
somebody Would you like me to name the
resolutions and ordinances or do you
just want to say item number 23 on the
agenda?
question.
Gee, I hate to have you name all those
numbers, but it would be better for the
record if you will do. Um, I make a
motion to adopt resolution number 13395,
ordinance number
4665, ordinance number
4666. Uh, resolution number
13391, resolution number
13387, resolution number
13409, resolution number 13408,
resolution number
13388, resolution number 13404 and
resolution number 13406. Second.
Thank you. Did you want to speak to your
second? All right. Uh, all those in
favor of the motion to approve, please
indicate your vote.
Councilman Quasman, can I get your vote
on the rates and fees item?
I
Thank you. Thank you. Uh, that concludes
item number
23. Moving on
to get this cleared. Item 24. This is a
public hearing on the adoption of
proposed fiscal year
20202526 tenative budget and five-year
capital improvement plan. Presenting
this evening is Sonia an Andrews, our
city treasurer. And uh I see Scott's up
there. Are you gonna
Thank you, mayor. Actually, I'm going to
have Scott present it. Thank you.
Terrific. Thank you very much. Please
proceed. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members
of the council. Again, for the record,
Scott Selen, budget director. Um, very
happy to be here this evening to discuss
with you the tenative budget, FY2526 and
5-year capital improvement plan. Uh,
before I start, I neglected to do this
last time. I'd just like to thank the
budget staff that uh worked very hard on
this budget and all um city employees
that had a hand in the development of
this budget, including the budget review
commission who offered us some valuable
feedback. This is where we stand in the
adoption timeline. We're at the May 20th
tenative budget adoption. After tonight,
the next step would be on June 10th, the
final budget
adoption. This slide just provides a
reminder that the tenative budget
provides the maximum level of
expenditures that um after the tenative
budget is adopted, any changes to the
budget cannot increase the total overall
expenditures per statute.
This slide shows the changes from the
proposed budget to the tenative budget
and they're split up into operating
capital and contingency and reserves. Um
I'll go over the individual changes in a
little bit more detail in the upcoming
slides. Just call your attention to the
net change line that shows that there is
a $4.2 million decrease in the tenative
budget compared to the proposed budget.
So, we'll first start by talking about
any uh the changes in the operating
budget. At the May 4th meeting where the
proposed budget was presented, there was
a motion to move the increase to
Scottsdale Arts from the operating
budget to the contingency, which uh
reflects the decrease of $400,000 that
you see on the slide. Um, two FTE were
relocated from the to the city clerk,
from the mayor and council, and five FTE
from the enterprise operations and
communications were relocated to the
city manager's office just due to a
general restructuring of the
city. This slide shows the changes in
the capital budget.
Starting with the wildlife crossing,
there was
$250,000 moved into the FY2526 capital
budget uh to conduct a feasibility study
for the wildlife
crossing. The bond 2019 project to build
two 200 space parking lot off 75th
Street to serve the court and the
stadium was moved from next year's
capital budget in 2526 to the next year
FY2627. So that reflects a decrease of $
1.5 million in next year's capital
budget. There was a project added to
obtain a grant-f funed firet truck for
1.4 million. And then finally, there
were seven projects that were closed out
that resulted in savings of 4.4 million
in next year's capital
budget. Moving on to reserves and
contingencies, we discussed the
Scottsdale Arts increase uh previously.
There is a corresponding increase of
$400,000 approximately to offset the
reduction in the operating budget that
occurred. We wanted to give you a brief
uh summary of what the changes were in
the five-year CIP as well. The proposed
5year CIP was $2
bill237 million. And we have the changes
to the five-year CIP listed just below.
The first bullet, which is the bond 2019
project to build a new swimming pool and
replace buildings at the Cactus Park. Uh
the funding for that project was moved
outside of the 5-year CIP. Um that was a
recommendation that was entertained by
the budget review commission and
discussed um discussed with the BRC. Um
pending the re the results of a
feasibility study that will occur next
year. Um that 31 million could be looked
at again. And then the next two items on
the five-year CIP changes, I've already
discussed the completed projects and the
new firetruck. So that gives us a
tentative 5year CIP budget of 2 bill23
million. So now that we've gone over the
detailed changes, this is what the
tenative budget looks like. Total
tenative budget of 2 bill3.6
6 million 885 million operating budget
almost a 948 million capital improvement
budget and then 370.7 million in
contingencies and
reserves. We showed this table at the
May 4th meeting. We've updated it to
show the tenative budget and how it
compares to the adopted budgets from the
last two years. I just call your
attention to the bottom line. The total
budget line shows $2 bill204 million
which is a $91 million decrease compared
to last year's adopted budget and the
percentage change is now 4%. Previously
for the proposed budget it was a 3.6%
reduction. I believe this is my last
slide. Um just shows the uh requested
council motion in order to adopt the
tenative budget. And I think with that,
I'd be happy to take any questions.
Councilwoman Whitehead.
Um, thank you. Well, um, there's a lot
about this budget that follows basically
last council priorities and the council
before that. So, I think city uh city um
priorities have stayed pretty much the
same. I'm glad that uh the police pay uh
remains a priority for all the members.
We started adjusting police pay back in
2021 and now we're continuing to do
that. I also want to point out that last
year we uh you know police are only one
part of the city government. We for the
first time in 18 years adjusted pay and
did a comp study for all employees and
that included raising uh pay for fire.
Um, I we're continuing to spruce up
Oldtown using tourism dollars. I do have
some questions about the
the the priorities for
transportation. Uh, we it looks like
Thompson Peak uh that bridge expansion,
I'm not sure if this is for you, uh,
city manager Kaitton is going to be
delayed. And what is the reason for that
delay?
Uh, Madame Mayor and uh, Councilwoman
Whitehead, I can start off and certainly
look to my colleagues to support uh, any
comments, but we had received uh,
comments from community members about
moving that item. It was initially
projected for construction to begin in
2526. Uh, due to consultants and design
work being completed and still being
worked on, we anticipate that being
completed in the summer of 2026. We had
initially anticipated construction of
the project in 2027 2028. We believe
given the timeline of completion of the
design in the summer of 2026, we could
initiate construction of the project,
move it up one year from what you had
seen in the previously proposed to
construction beginning 2026, 2027,
therefore beginning in the fall of 2026.
So the funding funding wasn't the issue.
The issue was design challenges that
Madame Mayor and uh Councilwoman
Whitehead, it is a matter of timing of
the the finishing up the design and
moving into construction and had moved
it out probably further than we needed
to. And then based upon uh feedback from
community members and relooking at it,
we believe we can keep it on track uh
with design being completed in 2026 as
indicated and then finish in the summer
and then start construction shortly
thereafter. So it was a timing issue due
to design uh not of any funding related
matter. Okay. So the other item uh which
you explained at the last meeting and
for the public paying attention now we
go through this quite a few times is
sweeping the uh dollars intended for
Thomas road which I think you called a
failed road. Um I'm going to forever be
uncomfortable with that decision. I just
want to point out to the public that
failed roads aren't free. Failed roads
you still have to fix potholes so they
don't get so bad and so dangerous. But
um I understand that's the priority
here. Can you give me and give the
public an update on how we're going to
find funding to sooner rather than later
make a road that is used by thousands of
people every day? Uh bring it up to our
standards. U Madame Mayor and
Councilwoman Whitehead, I uh everything
you said of my uh statements is
accurate. I I believe for the public
maybe I'll put a little definition into
the terminology of failed. When I've
used that terminology, it's of the
structural base. It's the foundation of
the pavement has failed. And the
argument that I proposed that uh has yet
to be challenged quite frankly by
consultants is that it has failed today
as far as the degragation of the
structure of that road and will be
failed a year from now. So nothing
changes quite frankly other than
inflationary pressures where it would go
up I would say we've seen as it relates
to road improvements uh not
significantly improved over increased
over the coming years. However
reallocating those dollars, it was
initially uh estimated to be $19 million
for this roadway because of cash flow
for next next year. was actually $15
million that we were able to reallocate.
So, not all of the funds because of the
construction was going to take several
years. So, the argument was to
reallocate the $15 million to put it
towards pavement preservation because if
we don't in a year's time frame, we will
have a number of roads that could
currently receive what I would refer to
as somewhat of a less aggressive
treatment and in a year they'll be
failed. So set another way, if we're
able to spend this $15 million on
pavement preservation, it could save us
304 $50 million in future uh treatments
to roadways that have been failed. So we
have that was the argument. The
consultants agreed with that and had
said furthermore the lighter treatments
they call that a global treatment for
most communities is in the sense of
roads that have in the low 70s. Our
pavement condition index our PCI is so
low that we're treating roads uh in the
low 60s with this lighter treatment just
trying to catch up. So, long story short
to all of that, the reallocation of the
$15 million to get us for
42.9 will go a long ways in catching up
on the pavement condition index
throughout this city. Furthermore, we've
just completed a draft report and we'll
be finalizing that report for city
council's review and direction and
approval as we develop a five-year plan
moving forward. I will tell you early
estimates are uh higher than 200 million
in this area of where we need to catch
up and that did not include a number of
associated costs such as mobilization
such as ADA improvements as you do that
was just purely the roadways uh city
manager's estimate which is nothing like
a a PE's estimate but have been fairly
accurate in recent years is probably in
the upward stage of 300 million uh
dollars that we will have to prioritize
over the next 5 to 10 years depending
upon council's direction on the pavement
condition condition index that we're
trying to achieve. Thank you, Madame
Mayor. No, thank you so much for that um
a good explanation, good long
explanation. I you know, I agree. I
support it. I mean, getting old isn't
for the faint of heart. Whether it's a
person, a car, or a city, it takes more
money to stay functional, and that's
what the city of Scottsdale is facing. I
mean, yes, the road condition, the point
is it'll be a failed road next year as
well as this year. I just want to point
out that having it in such bad condition
does is
is makes it less safe for our residents,
but um I am looking forward to getting
the details. We definitely in the past
there was a bond for paving and I think
at that point we had a staff member who
who prioritized prettier versus longer
uh longer term solution. So um as I
threatened last meeting, we're all going
to know a whole lot more about paving by
the end of this and I've already delved
in and it's somewhat interesting. Okay.
So yeah, thank you for that explanation
and I'll support that. Thank you. Thank
you. And uh I overlooked the public
switching gears to the public comment.
So I'd like to do that now. Scott, if we
can turn over the mic to Harold back and
then Robert Heligan, Dan Serbelick, and
finally uh Raul
Zubia. Good evening, Madame Mayor, city
councilors.
At the risk of speaking
prematurely, on behalf of the 68th
Street Sidewalk Association, we'd like
to thank you all for your support and
your commitment and the time that you
all spent with us over the last several
weeks as we dealt with threading the
needle on the 68th Street sidewalk
project. We're most grateful for the
accessibility for and access to all of
you and for your willingness to talk
with us and are grateful to the staff of
the city for ensuring that it's in the
budget and that it will get done and
will get funded. So, thank you very
much. Build a sidewalk, save a life.
Thank you. Thank you, Robert Halligan.
Good evening, madame mayor, council
members. My name is Robert Hallagan. I'm
a member of the preserve commission and
I'm also here to say thank you tonight
and that's for supporting the
feasibility study for the Rio Wildlife
Crossing at the last regular meeting and
in a few minutes here tonight. Uh just
to recap, the idea of a study was
developed in the BRC. Uh it was fleshed
out by the preserve commission and we
unanimously forwarded that to you for
your consideration and approval. Uh the
long-standing requirement itself in the
preserve plan for a crossing was also re
reendorsed
uh this month in a citizens petition
signed by over
2,800 Scottsdale
residents. And as was pointed out at the
last council meeting, when the elements
necessary for an important decision like
this are outside our own personal
knowledge or expertise, the right thing
to do is consult with the experts. Uh in
this instance, we're not hiring
lawyers, okay? But wildlife scientists
and civil engineers. And I'm confident
that when you approve the budget in next
year's budget cycle,
uh, the crossing will be based on sound
wildlife science and good engineering
judgment. Thank you.
Thank you, Dan Cerilik.
Good evening, honorable mayor Barowski
and members of the city council. My name
is Dan Serbalik, address on file. I'm a
sergeant with the Scottsdale Police
Department. I'm speaking tonight as the
president of the police officers of
Scottsdale Association or POSA. I
represent nearly 300 members of the
Police Department, including civilians,
officers, and supervisors.
On behalf of POSA membership, I'd like
to share our appreciation for the work
you've done and continue to do for
police
employees. The city motto of simply
better service for a worldclass
community is a promise. It is a promise
the citizens of Scottsdale expect all
city employees to
uphold. It is the driver in how
departments around the city conduct
their business. And it is why Scottsdale
is a world-renowned destination for
visitors and residents alike.
The citizens of Scottsdale do not expect
average. They expect the best. They
expect and deserve simply
better. Our police department hires
simply better candidates. We hold them
to simply higher standards. And many
citizens I've spoken with have been
appalled to learn where we've
historically fallen short is maintaining
even average compensation for our police
employees.
This has caused Scottsdale to recruit,
hire, train, then lose civilians and
officers to other agencies. When I
brought this to your attention in the
forms of numerous meetings, phone calls,
emails, charts, and survey results from
POSA members, you took the concern
seriously.
three incumbent council members, a
mayor, and three council members whose
terms began in January. A city manager,
assistant city manager, and police
chief, all appointed in April, have
heard POSA's concerns and are taking on
the task of fixing problems that have
been created over the past 15 years.
On behalf of POSA, I thank you for
taking the first steps toward providing
simply better total compensation for our
police
employees. My commitment to you is that
POSA will continue to bring the
information forward to keep us at the
top of market for total
compensation. As we work through fixing
and maintaining total police
compensation, POSA members will continue
to provide the simply better service our
worldclass community expects and
deserves. Thank you. Thank you, Dan.
Sorry about the misprononunciation.
Zerbalik
Zer
Zubia. Good evening, Madame Mayor,
members of council.
My name is my name is Raul Zubia and uh
address is on file and I am here to
remind you that a wildlife overpass in
the preserve just makes sense not only
for the animals but for those who live
nearby. The preserve as you know is open
is is home to over a thousand species of
plants and animals and as our city grows
and more roads cut through those natural
areas animals get pushed into smaller
spaces or end up trying to cross the
highways. That's not safe for them and
it's definitely not safe for the
drivers. We've already seen how an
effective how effective these crossings
can be. So, for example, in Tucson, the
Oracle Road overpass has recorded more
than 40,000 animal crossings since
2016. The deer, havalina, bobcats, and
even the desert tortoise use it
regularly. And in areas that have built
similar crossings, wildlife vehicle
collisions have dropped by as much as
90%. So for a preserve that draws a
million visitors a year, borders this
growing city, a wildlife overpass is not
just a nice idea. It is the smart,
proven way to protect the land, the
animals, the people of Scottsdale, and
the visitors. So the Riovery crossing
feasibility study is the right step for
to gathering the data we need to move
forward and I hope you will support
keeping it in the budget. Thank you.
Thank you. And that concludes the
speakers on this uh item and uh I'd like
to Oh, I'm sorry. Did you Oh, bless you.
Uh turning back to council discussion, I
would like to uh commend staff Sonia,
our treasurer, great job and Scott,
great job on on putting this together.
And uh some of the concerns I had. I've
talked to Sonia about and um first I
just want to commend you especially for
working so well with the budget uh
review commission. I had um every member
tell me how wonderful it was to work
with you and how how impressed they were
by your skills and um you know the
adeptness at which you uh shepherded
them through the process. So thank you
for that. That's no easy task. And uh on
top of that it was two I think they got
appointed or impanled three months
before this date. Uh, so it was it was a
real rush to baptism by fire and I think
they did a wonderful job and for any of
them that are listening here, I really
applaud their work and I know that that
will continue to get more and more in
depth as we move forward. A couple of
the items that I pointed out of concern
in the budget were was the uh the
vacancies, the allocation of funds in in
the budget, the operating budget, $22
million total, which represents
vacancies. Uh and I and I, as I
understand it, there are vacancies that
have remained unfilled for 6 months or
more. And uh based on our discussions,
the $11 million offset
um reduction to the operating budget is
indicated as uh either positions that
aren't expected to be full or attrition
or you know maybe they'll be eliminated.
So, uh, looking forward to that. And as
I understand it from our discussions,
um, our city manager, Greg Kaitton, will
be working on fine-tuning, uh, since
he's, you know, getting his his feet
deeper and deeper into our structure,
um, you know, weeding through those
unfilled vacancies, uh, to the extent
that we can ultimately eliminate them.
So, I applaud that effort. Uh the other
source of concern for me was the capital
improvement projects which had you know
had we've had a recent history of going
over budget and I also understand that
there's going going to be significant
efforts uh taken you know to make sure
we resolve that moving into the future
and I have a motion to uh
approve the budget uh but I won't do
that just yet because Councilman Graham
has indicated his questions.
Thank Thank you, mayor. I was just going
to make some remarks, but you if you
want to make a motion and I can second
it, I'm happy to uh No, please go ahead.
It's okay. Okay. Um probably at the
conclusion of my remarks, I'll I'll move
to accept it if uh if you're okay with
that. Well, I have a motion that I'm
going to make. So, do you want to do you
have any questions of staff? Okay. Well,
here I go then. Um thank you for the
presentation and um let me find my notes
here. Pardon me.
Scott, nice
presentation. I'm not going to make you
come back up to answer questions. I know
you're already settled, you know,
nestled safely back there. So,
um, we've talked about it ad nauseium,
not a perfect budget. This budget is a
vast improvement from prior years. Um, I
see this budget is going into the major
direction away from ideology and more
towards the things that residents value.
a resident
focus. The
um some few a few things about the
budget I want to remark on.
Um
the we are doing a lot of good for our
police
officers, making their pay more
competitive.
the uh we're increasing officer
headcount which is going to be really
good for reducing overtime
burden. Um and we know that when you get
too much overtime you get less of a you
get less of an employee. So we're
bringing in more we're bringing in
reinforcements. Um we've seen the police
pension frankly left out to
dry very low funding status. Are we
going to put $50 million all $50 million
in it this year? We'll see. But we're
going to put we're going to make massive
payments. We're going to rescue the uh
the pension uh the pension funding uh
funding
status. We have
seen in our previous six
budgets a
collapse in our pavement in the
condition of our roads.
The PCI, the pavement condition
index, has collapsed before your eyes.
We hear feedback from residents all the
time about potholes, which are not only
unsightly and unwelcoming to visitors,
but they're actually dangerous for your
car and they lead to more road
repairs. We don't know what our exact
target is for our PCI, but we know we
want it, what are we at right now? 60,
low 60s, right? It's just not
acceptable. So, we're bring we're
bringing this back to focus on
potholes. Um, so public safety,
potholes, and parks, parks, especially
in the south, have been
neglected, and this brings in uh fresh
resources to our parks.
uh the council before you has not had a
full year, has not had a full runway to
um get the best possible budget. That's
why this this budget is much improved
from prior years and we are very uh
excited and looking forward to next
year's budget. We uh like the mayor
mentioned, we established the
reestablished I should say the budget
review commission and they have uh
drilled in and studied and given us very
good
recommendations and my prediction for
them is uh in the coming year it's going
to be um even more probing and the
results from their work is going to be
even more beneficial to all taxpayers um
in Scottsdale. So, I'm very excited
about that and um we will um keep moving
looking forward. Uh final remarks is
just to thank our new city manager, Greg
Kaitton. Um the council before you, like
I said, hasn't had a full runway. Um
they most of them took their seats just
a few short months ago and the same
applies actually uh even more of a
deficit uh handicapped to the city
manager. Um the prior city manager who
was the second longest serving city
manager retired at the end of the
calendar year and uh city manager Greg
Kaitton who was brought in to succeed
him was made city manager uh but not
with a full runway to analyze and
prepare and um prepare and present this
budget to you. I believe that I believe
in um our city manager when he has a
full year before him and the kind of
kind of uh objectives and achievements
he's going to be able to realize and
it's something to really look forward to
and as the mayor mentioned city
treasurer Sony Andrews the um the amount
of probably mind numbing uh painstaking
labor that you've put in with the budget
review commission because you had to you
know first you had to teach them to talk
before you before you they can start
running, right? And uh they um I
attended a lot of those budget review
commission meetings and I'm excited.
When do those when do those boot back
up? She doesn't know. She's telling me,
but she but I I trust you're excited for
the for the restart. Okay.
Um, credit needs to go to the city
treasurer for what she's been able to do
to shine light on our budget, shine
light on our capital projects, shine
light on the
overruns, and um, we've also made
accounting adjustments. We've made
accounting adjustments. We moved some
things out of capital and into the
operating budget that didn't belong in
the capital budget. And that may seem
trivial, but I call that um, better
accounting, better recordkeeping. And
when you get better recordkeeping, you
get better financial reporting, you get
better
transparency. And so that is going to be
a prospective change. I think it's a
good change. And uh so we see this
before us, a less ideological budget,
moving away from ideology and to public
safety, potholes, and parks to serve
you, the city of Scottsdale. So with
that remarks, I will move Excuse me. Uh,
Councilwoman Whitehead has she I do have
a few remarks after this point of order.
I'm I'm I'm allowed to make a motion if
I may. I'm allowed to make a motion. Not
all the council members have talked on
this issue. If you can hold your motion
and as I indicated, I am making a
motion. So, okay, I will honor that.
Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I do have
some responses here. So, I'm so glad
that Councilman Graham's excited about
this budget, and I think it's pretty
darn good, too. And I think Councilman
Quasman coined the uh let's see, police,
parks, and potholes as the priorities.
And let me tell you, those have been the
priorities of this city for 50 years.
And I'm glad they're still the
priorities today. It's one thing to have
good priorities. It's another thing to
have the money to pay to deliver on
those priorities. And that's where the
last council comes in. In fact, the last
10 years of councils come in. And I
think it's important to review it just
to make some corrections. Um, in my six
years, and there was plenty of progress
before that, we paid down the police
pension $60
million. Okay. So, that's where we are.
And we built up a reserve of $120
million. So, buckaroos we have today.
Yeah, you can thank the last couple
councils for that as well. how we were
able to reduce tax rates. So, let's talk
about those priorities. Um, I am very
pleased that we have such good um
support for our police community and
police and council have always been
aligned. We began the process in
2021 of getting the police pay up to the
second and third position and we're
continuing and we're setting up a policy
so that we we don't fall behind again.
That's something that was done by the
last council as well as this council.
So, I'm glad we're consistent on that.
Um, then on top of that, as I mentioned,
it's not just police. If we have the
greatest police, but we don't have
transportation engineers, it's not going
to be a very good city. So, last year,
for the first time, we also did the um
comp study and made sure that all of our
staff members um were paid fairly.
Um, I also want to point out that let's
talk about not just the personnel
issues. Let's talk about the equipment
that our police and fire and other staff
members have. Let's talk about the
infrastructure like mayor the mayor just
uh spoke at the first graduating class
of our fire training facility. Well,
where the heck did that fire training
facility come from? Let me tell you, it
came from the
2019 bond approvals, voter approved
bonds. First time in 19 years that
voters approved um all the bond
questions. Councilwoman Kathy
Littlefield and myself, we were very
involved in developing those bond
questions. Mayor Lane was the mayor and
we had 70% approval by the residents.
So, um, that's where we're getting a lot
of the infrastructure and that includes
solar panels that are now over the
parking structure at our police facility
on V Linda, which protects not only is
it more pleasant for our police
officers, but it protects the money, the
the uh tax dollars that we spend on
police cars and all the expensive
equipment in those cars. So these bonds
are very extensive in in making us more
efficient with your dollars today. What
about parks? Because that is certainly a
priority of of my own. So we've had
again 50 years of residents going to the
ballot box voting to raise taxes not
only to protect parks but open space
generally. And that's how we ended up
with a 30,000 acre uh McDall sonor and
preserve. But most
recently last year, in fact, this budget
would not be possible without the
efforts of four co four three of my
colleagues to make sure that our voters
had the opportunity to keep our parks to
the highest level possible and to add
police officers in our parks and to
protect our Mcdal Sonoran preserve from
wildfires. So where did that funding
come from? It came from four members of
the council, myself, Mayor um Mayor
Ortega, council members uh Tom Durham,
and Councilwoman Betty Janick. So, we
we've spent two years working with our
community to put Prop 490, Prop 491 on
the ballot. And I got good news. Despite
a misinformation campaign, the voters
approved those two propositions in every
single precinct. So this budget this
year is very good. It would not be
possible without the efforts of last
year's council and the voters who sided
with them. So um I and I want to talk
about potholes, too. Okay. What's
missing in this budget? Well, $31
million of federal guaranteed dollars.
We went ahead and forfeited that. But I
credit our um I credit our charter
officers for making the best of that. We
will likely get some of that back, but
every federal dollar that we forfeit and
then have to substitute with a local
dollar, that's a pothole that doesn't
get filled.
So, because we're in such good financial
shape and because we I do think our
staff has the ability to apply and get
additional grant money. We're not going
to cover the cost of that 31 million.
We're just not. But I think we will get
our roads up to standard. And my biggest
concern is that the problem this falling
off of a cliff of um of our road
pavement condition that happened in
2016.
decisions were made long before any of
us were on the council to use a thinner
uh product on our roads to put pretty
over public safety and put pretty over
longlasting taxsaving
uh treatments. And so I'll be darn
careful to not let that happen again. We
are dealing with road conditions that
were worsened by decisions made in 2016,
but we're going to get it right this
time. So, I do I am excited about this
budget, too. It has a lot of things like
that sidewalk. Thank you for your
efforts on that sidewalk. I am
supporting the budget, but city
governments are team sports. We can only
be as good as the councils that preceded
us. and I'm glad to be on this one and I
was glad to be on the last one. Thank
you. Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead.
And uh one thing we didn't cover before
I make a motion, I'd like to ask another
question. What is the status of
Scottsdale Arts? I know uh that was
moved to the contingency. Have we
resolved our our questions about that?
Madame Mayor, uh my understanding and
the treasurer can confirm is it's still
moved into that contingency category as
we move forward. Okay. And there was no
one here to speak on that.
All right. Uh I'd like to make a motion.
At the last uh meeting, at the last
minute, um there was a a motion that was
made to remove uh two employees from the
mayor's office, which had been present
in the mayor's office for 18 years uh
preceding my um my position here as
mayor. And those employees are critical
to uh the the mayor's office and uh the
communication that I am obligated to
that the city is obligated to
um provide to our residents and I take
that job very very seriously. And the
basis of the motion uh was to um because
the council, the six council members who
had who have one full-time employee
needed additional staff support, which I
completely support because their
obligations to our residents to
communicate and be responsive and
thoroughly informed and thoroughly
researched and thoroughly prepared are
just as critical as mine are as the
mayor. And uh given as we talked about
we there's a $22 million allocation for
vacancies which have existed in the city
for uh 6 months or more in in the last
fiscal year. Um certainly there's uh we
have a a very large budget that is
dedicated to staff and I don't believe
that my council colleague should be cut
short uh with that those needs and I
certainly don't believe that the mayor's
office whether I'm in it or not should
be uh cut significantly short either.
So, I'm very proud of this budget and
I'm proud to make a motion to approve
the tenative budget and uh with one
adjustment, one modification amendment,
if you will, that uh those two employees
that were moved to the clerk's office
and earmarked for use by the council, as
uh I understand uh city clerk Ben Lane
pointed out, the council will have
access to those, not necessarily the
mayor, But we don't want to cut any of
us short. So, the adjustment I'd like to
make, the amendment I'd like to make is
to uh place two FTEEs that were um that
was the executive assistant that has
been in the mayor's office for at least
18 years and uh the a man the management
analyst or a like kind position with the
same range, the same uh essential duties
and the same
classification. So, that would just be
adding two full-time employees to back
to the mayor's office, but keeping the
two uh positions that were reclassified
for the council. And that is my motion,
and I would love a second. I
enthusiastically second it, and I'd like
to speak to my second. Oh, Councilwoman
Littlefield. Sorry, no problem. Okay.
Thank you. I'll second that motion.
Thank you, Kathy. Would excuse me,
Councilwoman Littlefield, would you like
to speak to it?
No, I think it's an appropriate movement
of personnel between uh the mayor's
office and the city uh council. It gives
us each the personnel that we need in
order to do a better job to represent
our citizens and to get the information
at hand for each meeting. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman Graham.
Thank you, Mayor.
Um, if I can if I may make an alternate
motion to adopt ordinance 4668 and 4669
as presented.
Second.
All those in favor of the alternate
motion, please indicate your vote.
Councilman Quasman, um can I get your
vote on the alternate motion, which is
uh essentially to approve uh the item as
presented in the agenda?
Yes. Sorry, can you hear me? Uh yes.
Yep.
Um, in this in this time I'm going to be
voting with the majority in a no vote.
Thank
you. And so the motion uh fails and this
is uh back to my motion which has been
seconded. All those in favor of that
motion, please indicate your vote.
for
Councilman Quasman, how do you vote on
Mayor Barski's motion? Okay, thank you.
I
Thank you. That motion passes. Thank you
to my colleagues for that vote. And uh
that does in fact conclude Oh, we did
the public comment. Yes, we did. That
concludes this agenda item and closes
the public hearing. And I will entertain
a motion to adjourn, I believe. Yes,
member. We have board and commission
nominations.
So, don't adjourn. Do the board board
and commissions. Okay, got it. Thank you
everyone for joining us tonight.
So, for the boards and commissions, I
will turn the meeting. Madam, Madame
Mayor, I'm so sorry. Can I just before
you go to the po boards and commissions,
can I just quickly speak um just
regarding um I have to leave the council
meeting because of my grandfather uh has
passed away and I'm trying to make
arrangements uh for his funeral um
dealing with different different members
of the family. Um now that we got the
budget uh done, I'm going to I'm going
to be leaving the council meeting. No
problem. Uh our condolences, Councilman
Quasman, and best of luck to you and
your family. Thank you.
Okay, this now brings us to uh item
number 26, mayor and council items,
boards, commissions, and task force
nominations.
Uh which I will at this point turn the
meeting over to Vice Mayor Dascus to
handle this.
Thank you, Mayor. This evening, the city
council will be nominating Scottsdale
residents interest in serving on citizen
advisory boards, commissions, and
committees. The Scottsdale City Council
is responsible for establishing city
policies and enacting laws in support of
those policies. The council relies on
volunteer citizen-based boards and
commissions to research issues and make
recommendations in support of the
council's mission and goals. The
information and recommendations provided
by council appointment appointed
advisory boards is a valuable tool in
helping council members in their
deliberations. Appointments for these
positions will be made at a special city
council meeting on June 24th. As we
begin our process this evening, I'd like
to note to my colleagues that an
applicant only needs to receive one
nomination in order to advance to
interview before the council. When I
call on you, if your chosen applicant or
applicants have already been nominated
by a council member, please state no
additional and we'll move on in the
process. Thank you. Now, let's get
started.
Board of Adjustments. There's one
opening. The Board of Adjustment is a
quasi judicial body that hears variance
requests, appeals of the zoning
administrators interpretations,
decisions, and decides on administrative
decisions or zoning requirements which
create unnecessary hardships in the
development of property because of
exceptional or extraordinary conditions.
Gary Don Ho's term has expired and is
ineligible for reappoint. There is one
vacancy and four applicants. The
applicants are Kenneth Erler, Michael
Gonzalez, Randall Polland, and Martha
West. I will now entertain nominations
for the board of adjustments. Each
council member can nominate one
applicant. Councilwoman McCallen.
Um Martha West. Councilwoman Whitehead.
No additional. Randy Pollen.
Councilwoman Littlefield.
Michael Gonzalez.
Councilman Graham. No additional. I have
no
additional. Michael Gonzalez, Randall
Polland, and Martha West have been
nominated.
The the uh building advisory board of
appeals. There is currently one opening
and uh unfortunately we did not receive
any applicants for consideration. This
opening will be included in the next
cycle of board and commission
appointments. As such, we'll move on to
the next
commission. Historic Preservation
Commission one opening. The Historic
Preservation Commission oversees the
development and management of
Scottsdale's historic preservation
program. Special qualifications as
outlined in the City of Scottsdale code.
Each member shall have demonstrated
special interest, knowledge, or
experience in at least one of the
following: building construction,
history, architectural history, real
estate, historic preservation law, or
other historic preservation related
field. Bin Sharon's term has expired.
She is eligible for reappointment and
has submitted an application for
consideration. There is one vacancy and
three applicants. The applicants are Cat
Javorovic, Victor Mata, and Bin Sharon.
I'll now entertain nominations for the
Historic Preservation Commission. Each
council member can nominate one
applicant. Councilwoman Whitehead, Brenn
Sharon. Mayor Bowski,
nothing. No additional. Councilwoman
Littlefield, no additional. Councilman
Graham. Um, Cat Zordovic. And I have no
additional. So, Bin Sharon and Cat
Jorvik have been
nominated. Human Services Advisory
Commission. There are three openings.
The Human Services Advisory Commission
provides advisory recommendations to
staff and the city council on human
services priorities and programs and
funding allocations for Scottsdale
Cares, Community Development Block
Grants, home, human services, emergency,
and general funds. Terms for Pat Dods,
Mary Jung, and Stuart Turgil have
expired and they are eligible for
reappoint. However, only Mary Jung has
submitted an application for
consideration. There are three vacancies
and eight applicants. The applicants are
Gary Blatnik, Pamela Hallows, Cynthia
Hill, Mary Jung, James Co, Sheila Row,
Cindy Schoff, and Kiana Stassy. I'll now
entertain nominations for the Human
Services Advisory Commission. Each
council member can nominate three
applications. Mary Bowski, Cindy Hill,
Councilwoman Littlefield, you want you
want other? Sorry, I need three. Sheila
Row, thank you. And Pamela
Hallows. Councilwoman Littlefield.
Thank you, Agary Blatnik. Pamela
Hallows. Cindy Hill. Councilman Graham,
I was making making sure that Yeah. No
additional Councilwoman McCallen.
Um, Mary Jung,
no additional. Oh, sorry, my other ones.
So, sorry. Uh, Pamela Hollows, and Cindy
Schnap.
No additional. And I have no
additional. Uh Gary Blatnik, Pamela
Hallows, Cynthia Hill, Mary Jung, Sheila
Row, and Sydney Shop have been
nominated. The Industrial Development
Authority, there is one
opening. The Industrial Development
Authority's main function is to issue
taxexempt bonds for certain types of
private developments for the purpose of
attracting new economic activity to the
community. Special qualifications. There
are no formal requirements, but given
the nature of the work of the IDA that
the IDA conducts, it is suggested
members be comfortable working with
detailed financial proforma, feasibility
studies, and financial projections. Eloy
Yingven's term has expired and did not
submit an application for consideration.
There is one vacancy and one applicant.
The applicant is Edgar Alvarado. I'll
now entertain a nomination for the
Industrial Development Authority.
Councilwoman Littlefield. Oh
gee. Uh, Edgar Alvarado.
Thank you. Edgar Alvarado has been
nominated. Lost Trust Fund Board. We
have one opening. The Lost Trust Fund
Board is responsible for recommendations
to the city council regarding the
administration of the Lost Trust Fund.
Special qualifications. As specified in
the Scottsdale City Code, the city
council shall appoint five joint
trustees, of whom no more than one shall
be a member of the city council, and no
more than one trustee may be a city
employee. Mark Stevens term on the board
ended in January as he was appointed to
the budget review commission. There is
one vacancy and one applicant. The
applicant is Tammy Smith. I will now
entertain a nomination for the lost
trust fund board. Councilman Graham.
Miss Smith.
Miss Smith has been
nominated. McDall Sonorin Preserve
Commission. There is one opening. The
McDall sonor and Preserve Commission
provides citizen overvite oversight for
acquisition, preservation, management,
and stewardship of the Mcdow mountain
and related sonoran desert for the
benefit of this and future generations.
Savannah Enkling's term expired and is
eligible for reappoint and has submitted
an application for consideration. There
is one vacancy in five applicants. The
applicants are Courtney Clifford,
Savannah Enker
Clling, Mario Mediati, Jeff Varta, and
John Veish. I will now entertain
nominations for the Mcdal Sonorin
Preserve Commission. Each council member
can nominate one applicant.
Councilwoman Macallen, Savannah Engling.
Okay. No additional.
No additional. No additional. Same.
Uh, no
additional. Savannah Enking has been
nominated.
Planning Commission. There are two
openings. The planning commission holds
public meetings and makes
recommendations to the city council on
all matters relating to the creation of
zoning districts, the enforcement of
zoning regulations, amendments to all
zoning ordinances, and any other
planning and zoning issue. Renee Hig's
term has expired and is ineligible for
reappoint. Diana Kaminsk's term has
expired and is eligible for reappoint.
However, she did not submit an
application for consideration. There are
two vacancies and 12 applicants. The
applicants are Maryanne Bison, Douglas
Brown, Douglas Drake, Katie Kefir,
Thomas
Leblonde, Kent LL, Chris Lang, Dusty
McMahon, David Reid, Jay Row, Keith
Stanton, and David Sophransky. I'll now
entertain nominations for the planning
commission. Each council member can
nominate two applicants. Councilwoman
Whitehead,
Maryanne Bazan, Katie Kefir, Kent Law,
two,
uh, Maryanne Bazan and Katie Kefir, Mary
Browski,
Douglas Drake, and Tom Leblond,
Councilwoman Littlefield,
Maryanne, and um, David
Reed. Maryanne, Councilman Graham, no,
no additional
Counciloman McCallen. No additional. And
I have no
additional. Maryanne Bison, Douglas
Drake, Katie Kefir, Thomas Leblonde, and
David Reid have been
nominated. Tourism Development
Commission. There is one opening. The
Tourism Development Commission advises
the city council on matters concerning
the expenditure of revenues from the
transaction privilege tax on transient
lodging, the bed tax designated for
tourism development as specified in the
Scottsdale city code. The tourism
development commission shall consist of
representatives of the tourism industry
in Scottsdale, including a minimum of
four Scottsdale hotelers, one member of
the Scottsdale Convention and Visitors
Bureau, and a balance from elements of
the tourism industry. Gan Alpa's term
has expired and is ineligible for
reappointment. There is one industry
representative position vacancy and four
applicants. The applicants are Darianne
Nuin, Joseph
Shernesovich, Prescat Smith, and French
Thompson. I will now entertain
nominations for the Tourism Development
Commission. Each council member can
nominate one applicant. Mayor Browski,
Joseph Sharenovich.
Councilman Littlefield, French Thompson,
Councilman Graham, no additional.
Councilwoman McCallen,
uh Darien Naen Naun,
no additional and I have no additional.
So Darian Wen, Joseph Shervenovich, and
French Thompson have been
nominated. This concludes our nomination
process this evening. Congratulations to
each nominee. The individuals will be
nominated by contacting uh will be
contacted by city staff with additional
information. I'd like to take this
opportunity to sincerely thank all who
applied to serve on a citizen advisory
board or commission even if you were not
nominated. Your application will remain
on file for one year for consideration
at a future date if there are additional
vacancies. Madame Mayor, thank you very
much. That concludes tonight's business.
And with that, I'll move to adjourn. So
second.
Thank you.