City Council | Regular Meeting and Work Study - April 22, 2025

At this time, as we mosey to the
dis, I'm going to talk really slow.
I'd like to call the April 22nd, 2025
city council regular meeting and work
study session to order. Clerk Ben Lane,
can I have a roll call, please?
Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Barowski,
present. Vice Mayor Jan Debbie Bosquez
here. Council members Barry Graham here.
Adam Quasman,
Kathy Littlefield here. Maryanne McAllen
here. and Solange Whitehead here. City
Manager Greg Kaitton here. City Attorney
Sher Scott here. City Treasurer Sony
Andrews here. And the clerk is present.
Thank you, mayor. Thank you. We have uh
this evening we have police officer Ray
Wilburn and Sergeant Scott Williamson as
well as firefighter Ryan Larson. If
anyone requires their assistance, please
let a member of the staff know. And I
will lead us now in the pledge of
allegiance.
I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
For the invocation, uh, Councilwoman
Maryanne Mckllen, would you like to take
the stage? Yes. Thank you so much. I'll
let Councilman Clausman have a seat.
Thank you.
Um before I proceed, I just want to
remind everyone and wish everyone happy
Earth Day. Today is Earth Day. Um in
case you didn't remember that. Um but I
would like to take a moment of silence
and just um ask you
to respect others in this moment of
silence.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman McCallen. Uh, as
in for the mayor's report, I would like
to read um we have I've issued a
proclamation for volunteer appreciation
week. And I know our city is full of
amazing volunteers. It's what makes us
so strong and so successful. and
honoring them. Uh whereas Scottsdale
volunteers play a critical role
assisting the city of Scottsdale to
execute the mission of simply better
service for a worldclass community. And
whereas in fiscal year 2024, more than
4500 citizen volunteers contributed over
121,000 hours of services, contributing
a value of work that equates to more
than 3.8 8 million in savings to our
community. And whereas National
Volunteer Week has been celebrated each
year in the United States of America
since 1974 by presidential
proclamation. It is therefore my honor,
Lisa Barowski, Mayor of the City of
Scottsdale, to hereby proclaim April
20th through 26th, 2025 as Volunteer
Appreciation Week in Scottsdale. and I
encourage our citizens to join me in
celebrating the kindness and generosity
of the citizens who volunteer to serve
our community. Thank you very much to
all of you that are here. I know a lot
of you
are. I don't think we have anyone to
receive this, but I would like to
ask anyone on boards and commissions
that are
volunteering. Is there anyone here on a
board and commission? Why don't you come
up and we can we can have a picture with
volunteers and I can present this to
you.
[Applause]
Budget commission that includes you
budget budget commissioners.
Budget commissioners. I would budget
commissioners should go up.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Thank you for participating. I
appreciate
it. Okay, moving on to our first public
comment. Uh, public comment is reserved
for Scottsdale citizens, business
owners, and/or property owners to
comment on non-aggendaized items that
are within the council's jurisdiction.
No official council action can be taken
on these items, and speakers are limited
to three minutes to address the council.
If you wish to speak on a
non-aggendaized or an agenda topic,
please see Clerk Ben Lane. Tonight we
have six uh requests to speak on
non-aggendaized items. So I'll start
with Steve Sutton. Are you here,
Steve? I didn't see him. So if he does
show up, we'll let him speak toward the
end. Uh Deborah Wallace followed by Joe
Junker,
Harold Back, Daniel
Isek, and there's one more.
Mayor, the additional speaker is Deborah
Castro. Okay. Thank
you. Hi, Mayor and City Council. Thank
you for letting me take the time to
address you today. My name is Debbie
Wallace and I live in I've lived in
Scottsdale for 34 years. I am an
international certified arborist, but
more importantly, I am a concerned
citizen. I'm here today on Earth Day to
express my concerns about your decision
to repeal the sustainability plan that
was adopted in December of last year. As
you know, the plan was the result of
three years of research and thousands
and hours of council staff, consultants,
volunteers, and citizens. The plan had
several important strategies in it for
addressing energy, water, beyond waste,
air control, and extreme heat. Today,
I'm focusing on how important extreme
heat strategies are in that plan. The
extreme summer heat not only affects the
residents but it also is increasing the
stress on the health of our desert flora
landscaping and desert plants like the
sororos we are lose are losing their
ability to survive here as an example
seen in the quartz trail on our
beautiful preserve. Taking care of our
environment is key to maintaining our
quality of life here. Each city must do
its part to help mitigate the effects of
climate change. Common sense overall
general strategies in the plan are
expand the heat relief communication and
education. HT2 protect people from the
health effects of extreme heat. HT3
identify urban design improvements and
including structural shade and built
environment. And HT4 plant more trees
and implement other nature-based
solutions. This plan was put in place to
protect our future. It is our it is your
responsibility to protect our future. I
ask this council to reconsider your
earlier decision and reinstate the
sustainability plan. Thank you. Thank
you very much, Joseph Junk Junker.
Mayor Baroski, Vice Mayor Dascus, and
council. Thank you again for allowing us
a moment to comment. My name is Joe
Junker. I'm a resident of Scottsdale
over 30 years. Can't believe it.
Addresses on record. Um first allow me
to thank you all for stepping up. Every
every one of you running for council and
being willing to serve the residents
hope to delegate to you, trusting your
words and responsibilities governing the
city. As a citizen, friend of the
council, and supporter, I choose to
speak to you face to face, mainly
because I'd be violating open meeting
laws if I tried to get you all together.
Um, and encourage you to focus your
efforts away from self arandizing and
instead work toward the benefit of all
residents. Good
judgment. Power plays on the council are
a detriment to the city. One maxim you
all might be familiar with is there is
no I in team. Councilman Graham and
Mayor Dascus, it's my observation there
are too many eyes being used in your
language and messaging. Vice Mayor's
March 26th presentation of the Arizona
legislature. I listened to it 16 times
in two minutes. I and
me. I've seen too many social media
posts, many from an anonymous sources
that appear to be driven by
self-promotion and political
positioning, hinting that others at the
city are not contributing toward the
resident's goals. None appear to me as
true efforts to work with the mayor,
other members of the council, city
employees, boards, and commissions.
Councilman Graham, I've written you in
the past to to try to remain 100% honest
with residents and not become
overzealous through impatience. Apply
your business sense, good judgment, and
patience to make good financial and
strategic decisions for the city, not
technical virtue signaling moves. The
residents will understand news related
to writing the ship will be challenging
in short term and efforts demanding but
respect cohesion and honesty will
overcome the challenges. The residents
will remain
supportive if informed and represented
even-handedly and fiduciary wisdom and
honesty along with professional respect
for the mayor, your peers and all the
team at the city are practiced. Thank
you very much for the the moment to be
honest and express myself. I hope that
maybe I represented a number of our our
residents with with that voicing. Thank
you. Thank you very
much. Harold back followed by followed
by Daniel Isac and Deborah Castro.
There you go.
Good evening, Madame Mayor, city
councilors. There's no right way to do a
wrong
thing. As this city council reviews the
2526 capital improvement plan, we want
to raise your awareness and your
consciousness about that little bit of
street along 68th Street between
Camelback Road and Indian School Road.
It is a dangerous step. It is a
dangerous piece of road. Dangerous for
pedestrians, cyclists, and most
importantly, it is very, very dangerous
for people with any disability,
including myself.
Today, in an effort to underscore the
importance of that, the 68th Street
Sidewalk Association filed a complaint
with the United States Department of
Justice under the ADA to ensure that
this council does not ignore the urgent
need and importance of doing this, not
next year, not 5 years from now, but
right now in this budget cycle to give
it the appropriate due that it deserves.
For those of you who have not yet taken
the opportunity to go and observe this
area that is in question, I hope that
you do. Take your kids, take your
partners, take your family, and go and
see the jeopardy that you're putting
other citizens in. And if you then
decide that you do not want to support
this project, please tell us why. Tell
us how you see this being worked out so
that everyone can be safe traversing
this critical
area. We thank you for your support.
and we hope and pray that you will do
the right thing and make sure that you
remember there's no right way to do the
wrong thing. Thank you for your support.
Thank
you, Harold Back.
Oh, sorry. Sorry, Harold. Uh, Daniel
Isaac. I don't see Dan Isaac. So, uh,
Deborah Castro, and I did see Steve
Sutton walk in, so we'll have him follow
her. Hello everyone. My name is Deborah
Ancastro with the Zion Outreach
Ministries. I came here to make um a
comment and let everybody know that I've
been here about a year. I also got uh
part-time employment, but I'm here to uh
spread the news and have a lot of the
community be aware of um not only um
what we're uh upon uh what's coming
against uh the homeless and and a lot of
the things with the programs,
organizations, but I came here to
apologize
uh in behalf of the churches and
religious because In Isaiah 58, it tells
us that God ordained the churches and uh
and the people of faith, his people that
believe in um him to take care of the
orphans, take care of the
the you know the
widows, the naked to clothe them and
also to feed them, take them in and to
break the yolks and counsel them, pray
for them, deliver them. But I'm here to
let you know that my church at that time
when I came from a broken home, I came
from a divorced uh my parents and uh
what it uh the church failed me and when
I went into um many many uh elements and
uh situations in my life or I became um
traumatized but in the long run through
the programs that we uh was put together
in the 60s and 70s. I'm a the youngest
of the baby boomers and uh by the
programs uh was which was in liberty uh
freedom and justice for all but I can't
say that today. I could only said that
it's called a system. It's not to
benefit any of the uh residents or any
of these people that I spoke of the
churches are were supposed to uh
regulate and uh help and assist the
homeless in in all this but the
government has taken over which is
called the system now. So I I call out
the churches and the religious to take
part of the not only uh what's within
among us but the orphans, the widows,
the homeless. Because right now I have
to tell you that I've become one of
those that went through recovery but the
system tells you that there is no
recovery because it keeps the people in
the system keeps them bound up and uh
deceived. And I'm telling you, I'm
evidence of a recover uh a human being
that has went through a deliverance, a
recovery. So I call out the churches and
the religious, those that believe in
God. I am a a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ and he's called us to freedom and
to assist and help those. Thank you very
much, Steve Sutton.
Steve Sutton, 6637 North 81st Street.
Good evening, Mayor Barowski and council
members. Sorry I'm
late. I have good news to share with
you. Since last Wednesday, multiple
steps have been taken toward improving
safety at Chapel Dog Park. Today, the
large dog park etiquette signs were
installed. These are the be proactive,
not reactive signs and the watch your
dog, not your phone
sign. At last Wednesday's Parks and
Recreation Commission meeting, I met
Assistant Police Chief Rich Slavven. The
chief gave me a few minutes of his time
to talk about dog park safety.
Yesterday, I was very happy to hear from
the chief that he has arranged for when
time permits a park safety officer to
walk through the dog park during peak
use in morning and evening. This is
intended just to let the dog park users
know the city is paying attention to
activities at the
park. The response to this news among
people at the dog park that I've spoken
to is very positive.
Coincidentally, last Wednesday at
approximately the same time I was
speaking with Chief Slavven, a serious
incident
occurred on the active side of the dog
park. A person's dog escaped through the
double gate system on to Hayden
Road. This was due to an error of
another
individual. The consequence was multiple
people chasing this dog along McDonald
Drive and Hayden Road during rush hour.
An additional consequence was an angry
and threatening
confrontation. Many people at the dog
park consider dogs family, even as
children, and someone endangering their
dog without immediately apologizing and
giving assistance often provokes angry
and threatening responses.
Fortunately, Director Nick Molineri and
Supervisor Sunny Nakagawa have acted to
reduce the probability of this type of
incident
reoccurring. At many dog parks
throughout the country, there is signage
addressing safe use of a double gate
system. Today, Supervisor Sunny Nakagawa
installed temporary laminated paper
signage of this type next to the handles
on the exterior and interior of the
gates. The size of these signs is
approximately 11 and 12 in by 8 and a
half inches. You cannot look at the gate
handles without seeing the signs. And if
you could turn this on.
Okay. That's an example. That's an
example of one. Upside down.
There you go.
This is pretty common type language at
many dog parks. Something like
this. Now, signs can only do so much.
And too many signs often result in
nothing much desirable being done. So,
please don't think I'm on a campaign to
fill the dog park full of signs. I'm
not. Director Nick Moliner and I have
spoken about this very thing and the
need when remodeling the park occurs for
research to revise signage to make it
more concise and more
effective. I want to thank you for your
consideration of my comments.
Thank you, Steve Sutton. And that uh
concludes the public comment. Moving on
to the meeting minute approvals. Me
meeting minutes approvals. Uh we have
the approval of the minutes from special
meeting March 18th, 2025. Do I have a
motion to approve those? So moved.
Second. All those in favor, please
register your
vote. Thank you.
Consent agenda items. We have uh items 1
through 12 with the exception of number
five that was pulled by city staff due
to a public notice error. Item number
five will be considered by the city
council at the May 6th council meetings
council meeting, excuse me. Do members
any members of the city council have any
questions? Uh Vice Mayor Dasquez.
Thank you, Madame Mayor. I just wanted
to point out item number 10. Um, one of
the big issues if you pull residents in
the city of Scottsdale is traffic.
They'll consistently say our number one
issue is traffic. So, it's a real
pleasure to work with the city staff on
this ordinance. And what it does is um
provides fines for every day that
traffic barriers are blocking the road
and no work is being done. And so, this
is similar to ordinances that are in
Chandler and Mesa where magically they
have fewer traffic barriers blocking
traffic and traffic flows more easily.
So, it's very exciting um that we may be
able to make a simple solution improve
our road conditions. So, thank you.
Thank
you. Seeing no other comments, do I have
a motion to approve the consent agenda
items 1 through 12 with the exception of
number five. So moved. Second.
All those in favor, please indicate your
vote. Thank you. Moving on to the
regular agenda, item number 13 is a
public hearing on the community
development block grant program 5-year
consolidated plan for fiscal years 2025
through fiscal year 2029. The hearing
also includes action action plans for
fiscal year 2025 and 26 annual action
plan and the allocation of CDBG and home
investment partnership funds. Presenting
this evening on the topic is Mary Wit
Kovski, Housing and Community Assistance
Assistance Manager. Thank you.
Good evening, mayor, members of the
council. Um, my name is Mary and I'm
your housing and community assistance
manager here in Scottsdale. What that
means is that I oversee our federal
funding that we receive through the
Department of Housing and Urban
Development for Housing Choice Voucher,
formerly known as Section 8, Community
Development Block Grants, and our home
investment partnerships. Tonight, I come
before you to give you a presentation
regarding our five-year consolidated
action plan as well as our first year
annual action plan for fiscal year
2526. Um it is 164page document. I'm
sure you've read every inch of that
document attached um this evening. So,
we'll get
started. So, what is a consolidated
action plan? Let's start there.
A consolidated action plan addresses our
needs. It's a required community
planning tool by housing and urban
development. When a city receives
entitlement funds through community
development, there are several items
that are required as part of this
consolidated action plan, which includes
citizen participation, which I will be
talking about this evening later on in
the presentation, public hearings, as
well as developing proposed activities
and goals. what's inside the
consolidated action plan. We have our
executive summary that summarizes all of
our goals. We have a needs assessment
that I'll be going through giving a
highlight overview, the housing market
analysis, and then our strategic plan,
also referred to our annual action
plan. Um before I begin, the data that
is used to create this plan um is
generally comes from the census. It
comes from longitudinal studies. It's
come from city of Scottsdale studies
such as our commuter shed analysis, our
housing needs assessment, and data from
Maricopa County. So, what does the
timeline look? The timeline takes about
18 months for this consolidated action
plan with procurement and purchasing in
that process. We kicked off this plan in
June of 2026 or June 26 of 2024. We're
not quite in 2026 yet. Um, we held a
community meeting at the Civic Center
Library where we had our contractor,
Civotas, who helped complete this plan,
present some preliminary data to the
community as well as kicking off our
community survey. We are required to
hold two public hearings. The first
public hearing was held in front of the
Human Services Advisory Commission
during our planning phase in February of
this year. This evening is our second
public hearing. We are also required to
open a public comment period. Our public
comment period began on March 3rd um
once the draft was made. It was
available on our website. It's also
available on SpeakUp Scottsdale. And
I'll be talking about some of those
public comments and feedback that we
received throughout this
presentation. The consolidated action
plan.
Sorry. Like I stated previously, the
first element is our needs assessment.
And this is a highlevel overview of that
164 page document focusing in on some
some strategic areas that will impact
our goals going forward. Addressing some
of our housing challenges, it's
important to note that the elderly in
our community are number one priority.
Uh we have approximately 80,000
residents who are aged 62 and older.
that is the federal definition of
elderly. Um approximately 6.8% of the
elderly are currently living below
poverty level here in the city of
Scottsdale facing putting them in
financial strain and their inability to
afford the increasing rents here in the
city. We also have focused on children
and let's start when we focus on
children we are talking specifically
about the Steuart B. McKenna Vento Act
which is a federal another federal
definition for homelessness in which
children and families lack regular fixed
um residence in the evening. This could
mean that a they are living on the
streets, they are bunking up with
friends and family um or living on the
cars. The Steuart B. McKini Aventto Act
um provides services through the
Scottsdale Unified School District um in
terms of transportation and free and
free and reduced breakfast and
lunch. When children have a lax lack
fixed regular place to stay, it does
cause some traum trauma um especially if
it's surrounded with economic hardship,
any types of domestic violence that they
may expose to and it disrupts their
education system.
And lastly, as part of our needs
assessment, the Scottsdale Housing
Agency does have the Housing Choice
Voucher um program. We have
approximately 544 families who are
currently receiving assistance. We have
780 vouchers. 100% of our voucher
holders at admission were either
homeless, elderly, or disabled. 47% of
those currently on our voucher are 62
and older.
Let's move on to the next section of our
consolidated action plan, which is our
housing market analysis. And I know
these graphs um are a little bit
daunting to look at. Um but before we
begin this section of it, I do need to
tell you that the housing market
analysis doesn't just cover um the
housing stock in Mar in Maricopa in
Scottsdale. I apologize for that slip. I
used to work for a different
municipality. Um it it talks about
demographics and demand, housing supply
and affordability, infrastructure and
connectivity, as well as any hazard
mitigation that we need to take a look
at with regards to our housing. Based on
data available, the city's population
has grown by 9.4% over the last 10
years. The number of households has
increased at even higher rate of
15.8% while the medium income has risen
44%.
mirroring the national increase of about
41%. This adjusting for inflation, the
actual purchasing power in the city of
Scottsdale has grown only about six by
16%. This through though incomes are
increasing, they are doing so at a much
slower rate than the increasing house
housing costs here in the city.
Scottsdale's housing market faces
significant challenges, including a
shortage of available affordable housing
and aging infrastructure. About 32% of
owner occupied units and 27% of rental
units were constructed before 1980.
These older homes are yet at risk for
leadbased paint and may need extra
assistance to create safe living
environments, especially for children.
This totals over 35,000, the majority of
which are owner occupied. So looking at
the slide up on the screen, there's
different we have on the top cost burden
by homeowners and their income range and
the bottom is cost burden by renters and
income range. When you're looking at
this severe cost burden as defined by
housing and urban development is someone
whose housing expenses are greater than
50% of their income. Not burdened would
be they're paying 30% or less of their
income for housing costs. So, we look at
homeowners and we're looking at the
severe cost burdened. Homeowners who
make less than 20,000 a year are
severely costburdened. They are also
severely costburdened between 20,000 and
34,000. And you can start to see as the
income goes up, they are not as
costburdened. But when we look at that
lower income range, we're also focusing
in on our elderly residents, our
disabled residents, and those residents
who are often working in our tourism
industry, which is the the heart of our
economic stability here in the city of
Scottsdale. Looking at our cost burdened
by renters and our income range, you
will see our renters who are less than
20% are severely costburdened. They are
also cost burdened between 20 and
35,000.
So, as part of our consolidated action
plan, we are required to um have citizen
participation and public comments and
priorities. So, we did have a community
survey that was kicked off in June of
2024. We received 196 responses from
Scottsdale residents and stakeholders.
Those top four priorities that were
addressed through that initial community
survey were affordable housing, public
improvements, public services, and home
ownership. When we broke that down,
looking through housing, the number one
part of affordable housing came back as
making major repairs on people's homes
with their AC, their and then senior
housing scored the highest.
Others very close were affordable
housing um new construction of
affordable housing as one of the highest
needs. Those were the top three in
regards to affordable housing. In terms
of public services, the top five
identified or four identified were
addressing homelessness, domestic
violence shelters, senior services, and
neglected and abused children and mental
health. public
improvements. Top priorities were our
community centers and parks and
recreation. After we received those and
we were able to categorize those in the
top five, four primordia priorities when
the consolidated action plan was
completed, we presented that to SpeakUp
Scottsdale put out the priorities and
let the community um provide us
responses on what their top needs were
based on the initial community survey.
We did receive 33 written comments from
Scottsdale residents, both positive and
negative, with regards to the
consolidated action plan. And out of
those, the
proced ranked for um housing was rental
assistance, senior housing, and housing
repairs. For public services, it was
homelessness, neglected children, and
mental health.
So after we went through the last year,
we consolidated those goals. Um, and
based on citizen input, our top goals
for the next five years for the use of
our federal funding is to improve and
expand public
infrastructure, improve access to public
facilities,
uh, public services for low and moderate
income and special needs, housing
rehabilitation, affordable housing, and
then effective program administration,
which is tied directly to housing and
urban development.
So tonight's fiscal year 2526
recommendations for our annual action
plan as part of the overall consolidated
plan. We are anticipating receiving $1.8
million. This does include a
reallocation of $425
thou,000 dedicating
$119,000 to family promise community
house and TCA homeless emergency lodging
which are all homeless supportive
services on a regional approach.
We designated $1 million to our housing
rehabilitation program, specifically our
major rehabilitation program in
emergency and roof repairs. On average,
we are able to rehabilitate
approximately 50 homes a year, 58 homes
a
year. We are also um setting aside
$166,000 for improvements um at the our
current food bank. And then we also are
receiving funds from our home investment
partnership as a member of the Maricopa
County Home Consortium receiving
approximately
$287,000 there. the funding through the
home investment partnership. We did a
pilot project called tenant-based rental
assistance where we provide rental
subsidy for two years to seniors 62 and
older who are 30% or below the area
median income and are cost burdened more
than 50% with their housing and
currently have 12 seniors enrolled with
the ability to go up to 15. Once they
receive or complete their two years,
they are required to have case
management and self-sufficiency as part
of their ongoing services. They bridge
to our housing choice voucher for
permanent
stability. So with that and then our
program administration at its 20% cap at
$227,000 for a total of 1.8
million. So the action tonight requested
is that to adopt resolution 13350 and to
approve the 2025 2029 consolidated
action plan and the fiscal year 202526
annual action plan as written in the
council agenda this evening. That
concludes my presentation if you have
any specific questions. Thank you very
much. I
don't I don't see any public comment.
Oh, there are two.
Oh, excuse me. Okay, so Roger Luri
followed by Neil
Sher. Oh.
Uh, okay. We'll wait on that.
Okay. Uh, good afternoon, Mayor Barasi
and members of the city council. My name
is Roger Lurri and I'm here to speak to
you as chair of the human services
advisory commission. We've heard these
presentations from Mary Mary Whit Kovsky
and uh are very much in support of the
proposal she has presented. I'd like to
drill in and speak
specifically to the
119,360 dedicated for public services
and these are funds to assist in
addressing homeless support services and
shelters. Let me highlight how this
investment will make a difference.
Community House provides homeless day
relief to about 350 individuals with
compassion. In collaboration with
Phoenix Rescue Mission Navigators, 40%
find a positive exit from homelessness.
60% of these are engaged in case
management, receive workforce
development and h health care resources.
Family Promise provides 2100 bed nights
to 51 families with children under the
age of 18. These families receive
shelter, food, clothing, and consistent
case management. Their 60-day program
focuses on stability, helping parents
secure secure work, build savings, and
move into independent housing. Their
success rate is 70%.
Last, Tempee Community Action Agency
supports interfaith emergency housing in
Tempee, but also serves individuals from
Scottsdale. Program will shelter 40
adults and seniors from Scottsdale, most
of whom are working or elderly and
remain in shelter due to housing costs.
Consider this. Average rent for a
one-bedroom apartment in Scottsdale is
1,669, while average social security
check is
$1,586. Over 80,000 residents, as shown
in Mary's presentation, are over the age
of 62. Nearly a third of our population,
and of them,
6.8% live below the poverty line. Our
responsibility is to ensure these funds
are used where they will do the most
good. The programs I've shared today are
proven, datadriven, and human. Thank you
very much. Thank you, Neil
Sharer. Good evening, your honor,
members of the council. I'm Neil Shear,
longtime Scottsdale resident and uh I'm
privileged to serve on the human
services commission and also the housing
board for the city of Scottsdale. I'm
also here to speak in support of the
resolution this evening and just um Mary
went through a lot of statistics and I
want to speak to sort of the human side
of some of those numbers. Um the bulk of
our CDBG dollars about a million dollars
is going to housing rehab. Now, think
about that. Um, Mary talked about over
50 a year. We've been doing this for 30
years. So, we have rehabbed, and this is
home ownership. These are homes in older
neighborhoods whose owners uh do not
have the funds to replace an air
conditioner in the summer, who have a
leaky roof that need to be repaired, who
may have a water heater go out in
December, who need modifications for um
disabilities in their household. And so
I just wanted to kind of bring to light
that this program really helps
homeowners in our older neighborhoods.
It stabilizes our housing stock. It
stabilizes our neighbors uh
neighborhoods and it really helps to
um allow our homes to be livable.
Another program she mentioned was the
home funding. Uh the home funding is
going to our tenant-based rental
assistance program. These are people in
many cases that are 62 and older, some
disabled, who may show up at our senior
center because they've been given an
increase in their rent. They're on fixed
income and they can't afford it. So,
they're at wits end. They come to our
senior center. They don't have any other
recourse. Our tenant-based rental
assistance will allow them up to one
year to receive support so they can stay
in their home. Many of these
seniors have lived in those
neighborhoods for years. So the thought
of being uprooted when you're in your
60s or 70s is horribly distressing for
these folks. So that is an amazing
program that then can hopefully tie
people from one year into a housing
choice voucher in the following
years. Let me turn the page back a year
ago. I stood before the council and I
warned the city council that we are
seeing a decline in federal funding for
these programs and I said there may come
a time where the city's going to have to
put more local dollars into supporting
basic human needs. that time is on our
doorstep because as you've read um there
are significant uh and dramatic
reductions in HUD funding that will and
could affect the 500 plus housing choice
voucher home um um rent rental um
tenants that are in our community. And
so it's really critical that we plan
ahead. And I was very grateful for the
budget commission's recommendation that
we do a threat analysis, a threat
assessment because that's going to be
essential so that we plan ahead because
next year when I come before you, um the
funding situation may not be uh so
favorable. So thank you very much for
your consideration and I appreciate
everything that you do for our
community. Thank you very much,
Councilwoman uh Whitehead. Um thank you,
Mayor. Uh Mayor, you mentioned that um
there's 780 vouchers, but right now
we're only utilizing
550. Is it was that Did I get that
correctly? Mayor Baroski, members of the
council, that is correct. Yeah. And so
is the lack of uh housing for the
balance of those vouchers, is that the
problem within Scottsdale? Excellent
question, Mayor Bowski, members of the
council. That is not the case currently.
We do lack sufficient housing. However,
currently um funding is our dilemma. We
are currently spending at 110% of our
budgetary authority. So, while the
increases in rent go up, we have to
spend more. And when we spend more, we
can't house more because we have to make
sure we don't go into shortfall. Right?
Isn't that interesting? It's interesting
how we have, you know, government has so
many um
safety mechanisms, but that that's
interesting that that's the issue
because in the past the issue was simply
not having enough landlords willing to
take the vouchers. Okay. So, we need to
rectify that. You know, I just want to
also point out that about a year ago,
year and a half ago, there was uh we had
a speaker that talked about a state
program that funded retrofitting of
houses for energy efficiency because not
only is rent hurting our seniors and
other low-income populations, but so are
the utility bills. Just so in the
future, um if we could follow up and see
if that state program is still intact
and still funding, I'd love an update on
that. But with that, I um wholeheartedly
Yeah, I'll I'll go ahead and make a
motion and then if other speakers want
to speak, I'll just um go ahead and
motion to uh adopt item number 13 um and
solicit public testimony regarding the
five-year uh consolidated plan for
fiscal years 25 through 29, fiscal years
2526 annual action plan for the use of
the 1,564100
66 in CDBGA funds and
$287299 in home funds. And number two,
adopt
resolution 13350 to approve the fiscal
years 25 through
295year consolidated plan fiscal year
2526 annual action plan.
Second.
Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman.
Yes. Um, speaking to my second, first of
all, thank you Mary for the report and I
also want to thank um Neil Sher and
Roger Lori for taking the time. Um,
they've spent years on our human
services commission. Um, Neil is also
the former human services director for
the city of Scottsdale. His experience
um is valued and we're lucky to have him
on the commission. Um this morning I had
the pleasure of attending a fair housing
symposium in which another one of our
commissioners, Lee Culie, invited me to
and the lack of affordable housing in
Scottsdale is real and it is severe and
these funds that we're bringing forward
to help um those in need is very
warranted in our city and I'm grateful
for all your work. Um, with that, um, I
second the motion.
Thank you. I don't see any other Oh,
Councilman Graham.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mary, thank you
for the presentation and the speakers
for presenting to us the tenant based
rental assistance. That's a that's a
pilot program, Mary. It is a two-year
pilot program. Mayor Bowski, members of
the council, is this the first year or
the second year of the pilot? We are in
the second year. Okay. How many
participants in the currently? U mayor,
members of the council, we have 12 who
are currently enrolled. Um, everybody's
a Scottsdale resident who participates.
It is a mandatory requirement to be a
Scottsdale resident and to provide proof
of residency within the last six months.
Council member, okay, so there's a
trailing six months residency
requirement. Mayor Bowski, members of
the council, that is correct. They do
have to provide proof of residency
within the last six months and or
discuss homelessness. They have to show
that they have been here in the city for
the last six months working with a
provider. So, Scottsdale residency is
mandatory.
Very good. And then the um community
house community house day relief center.
Where where is that? I can you share the
location or the participate or is that
still to be decided? Mayor Bowski,
members of the council, it is still
currently at a Southern Baptist Church
um over on Hayden. That is the current
location at this point.
You know the crossroads Hayden and what
I can't think of a Southern Baptist
church. It's not as far up as Indian
school. So it's you'll turn left
Osborne. Os Hayden and Osborne. Thank
you everyone.
Is that a Is that a Southern Baptist or
I thought it was Presbyterian Church or
something like that. I didn't think it
was Southern Baptist.
Sublet. It's two churches in one. Is
it very good?
Is that it? Are you I think those are my
questions for the time being. Thank you,
mayor. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. I
don't see any other questions. Uh and
there's no public comment. So, at this
time, I'd like to close the public
hearing. And uh I will entertain a
motion on this agenda item. Oh, you
already Motion and second. Sorry, I
haven't eaten all
day. All those in favor um indicate your
vote.
Thank
you. Next, moving on to item 14,
discussion and consideration for of
amending the rules of council procedure
section section five uh rule 5.4 and 5.7
related to council meeting council
meetings, meeting times, dates, and
locations. Uh, Councilman Quasman, you h
asked to have this added. Would you like
to I see we don't have a presentation,
but would you like to take the floor?
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, with and I
would like to thank um the mayor. I'd
like to thank other members of the
council um in discussing this and also
with uh the city attorney uh Miss Scott.
Um this will be the beginning of a long
um conversation of updating our rules of
of procedure here. But for the purposes
of tonight's meeting, I would um I would
request that we remove this from the
agenda and table it as we continue a
long uh long-term conversation of a rule
update. I'll second that motion.
Thank you. Uh, Councilman Clausman, I
concur that the rules overall warrant um
review and updating. So, with that, uh,
if you are in favor of the motion to
table this item, uh, indicate your
vote. All right.
All right, moving on to there's got one
missing there.
Okay. Uh now I'd like to invite uh Dan
Isac to come up and speak at this is now
the uh second public comment on
non-aggendaized items. and Dan Isaac.
Apologies. I should have read the agenda
closer, more
closely. Dan Isaac address on
record. At the last meeting, Barry
Graham took an exception with my public
comment. He accused it of being filled
with
inaccuracy, yet provided no details as
to what was inaccurate.
I propose that he and I sit down so that
he can lift my veil of ignorance as to
what inaccuracies were. I suggest we do
so in the presence of the media, perhaps
from the Independent, as it seems they
are the most objective in its
reporting. We could even borrow a
polygraph from Scottsdale PD. Just let
me know when you'd like to do that,
Barry.
But as far as inaccuracies are
inaccuracies are concerned, Barry Graham
doesn't seem concerned with his own. I
will highlight two important ones from
the last
meeting. With regard to the elimination
of the roundabout, he said, quote, "An
overwhelming majority of nearby
residents are opposed to it." He had no
basis for that statement. There was no
survey done. Emails from residents per
Ms.
Dubasquez herself a roundabout denier
were evenly split. This was also
supported by the mayor. Council member
McAllen said that twothirds of the
emails she received were in support of
the
roundabout. Further published comments
in the council packet did not
demonstrate a majority, let alone an
overwhelming majority, nor did they
necessarily identify where people lived.
In other words, Barry made up the
statement to support his vote. In more
simple terms, he
lied. What's even more important is that
road decisions cannot be based just on
the immediate area. Rather, road
decisions should be based on those who
use or will use the road. If the city
and state made decisions based on the
immediate area, Sheay would still be two
lanes and the 101 would not be there.
But probably the biggest inaccuracy of
the last meeting was when Barry said
that Oral Valley and Scottsdale were
similar. I refer you to this table which
is from the US Census data, the city's
respective budget documents and city web
pages. Could I have the overhead please?
Every key statistic, population,
geography, economics, and budget show
that Scottdale is at least four times
and as much as 20 times Oral Valley.
Now, I know that as an actuary,
accountants like Barry point out that we
estimate and project numbers, but
accountants are supposed to be a bit
more exact. If one of your audit clients
misrepresented a number by a factor of
five or 10 or 20, would you sign off and
say that they were similar? I doubt it.
So once again, Barry Graham has proven
that in his official capacity, he will
misrepresent reality to justify his
votes. My parents taught me not to lie,
and my religion reinforced that. It's a
shame that it isn't universal.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. May I just make
Thank you. I guess uh Councilman
Clausman, I see your indication. Yeah,
Madame Mayor, thank you. I just want to
make a quick point of order just to just
Madame Mayor, is it not true that we
have to make sure that we when
discussing even in a a um a period of a
public comment that we address through
the chair and address council members by
their title. This is a this is a public
hearing. This decorum should be
respected. Even even though one might
refer to an individual council member
for what they did or did not do, I want
to make sure that we treat each other
with the respect that we all deserve and
speak through the chair and utilize um
individuals uh titles and last names.
Thank you, Councilman
Clausman. Okay. Uh that concludes public
comment on non-aggendaized items. And I
don't see that we have any citizen
petitions. So we are going to uh close
on the regular agenda and move on to the
work study
session which includes our budget
commission pres presentation.
Item number one uh is the only item on
the work session agenda this evening and
that is a presentation discussion and
possible direction to staff regarding
the results of the budget review
commission commission's work and
recommendations to council for their
consideration related to the proposed
fiscal year
202526 operating budget capital
improvement plan and budget go governing
policies. Presenting this evening uh
from the budget review commission is
Chair David Smith, Vice Chair Daniel
Schwiker and Commissioner Mark Stevens
along with other members of the budget
review commission. And I would just
really like to thank all of you for
being here this evening and for all of
your hard work. I know you've you've
spent a lot of time on this, so we're
looking forward to hearing from you.
Please uh approach
Thank you, Mayor Barasi.
And vice mayor, who's vice mayor now?
Vice Mayor Ross and other members of the
council.
Um, on behalf of all the commissioners,
we uh express our appreciation for your
appointment uh of us to this position,
but more importantly your evidence of
trust uh that we will uh ex look at the
budget and make meaningful
recommendations.
Uh we also want to take a moment to
express our appreciation to the staff
behind us here who have really given
heart and soul to supporting our
mission. Their patience, their
forbearance is uh
appreciated and it certainly made us a
whole lot smarter and them a whole lot
more tired, I'm sure.
And we also express uh appreciation to
the public for their willingness to come
and hear some of the deliberations and
perhaps watch some of them from uh from
home. We hope that they have been more
educated and more importantly we hope
they have seen the transparency in the
process, the openness with which items
have been asked and answered by staff.
Um, so that's why we're here. You know
why we're here. Um, because you
appointed us. And if I can get somebody
to start the slideshow, we'll see how
quickly we can move through this for
you. And moving to the next slide, it
introduces us uh the members that you
appointed. myself as the chair, Dan
Schwiker serving as vice chair, the
other members, Carla Brad Newman, Jim
Ransco, who was appointed to replace an
earlier appointee who resigned, Sharon
Sites, and Commissioner Mark Stevens to
my right. Um, this was uh we were
formed, if you will, as a committee on
January 14 of this year. And moving to
the next slide, uh we will describe
probably what you already know, which is
the ordinance that created this
commission. Um our purpose is to make
recommendations on the proposed budget
and then each fiscal year before the
adoption of the tenative budget, which
turns out to be tonight's meeting before
the tenative budget a few days or weeks
from now for the council. We're to give
you our uh recommendations regarding the
operating budget, the capital budget,
the major revenue forecast, taxes, fees
and budget governing
policies and that is a lot to have done
in a very short period of time. We had
eight
meetings and at the conclusion of those
meetings, we solicited from all the
members
their recommendations that they had
gleaned from um those eight meetings and
there were 80 or more recommendations
that came from the various members of
items that they would like to bring to
your
attention. Some of them were
duplicative.
Um some of them were not unanimously
supported but nevertheless we came
forward and are coming forward tonight
with 15 or 20
topics and we have uh grouped them into
six uh categories.
um specific capital expenditure projects
that were reviewed and we we think
either you ought to look at that project
or there may be a lesson to be
learned. More generally, capital
expenditure management and processes
that a couple of our members spent
additional time besides the eight
meetings with staff to understand some
of the processes and how they might be
improved.
major budget
revenues. We didn't spend a lot of time
talking about revenues because those had
already gone to you for approval by the
time we uh began our
work. Um operating department budgets
again there wasn't a lot of time to
spend on individual operating budgets.
We tried to hit some of the bigger ones
and understand the cost drivers and
we'll share our our
thoughts. another category of fund
balances and we'll explain more why that
was
uh treated as its own topic
tonight. And then uh Commissioner
Stevens will review at the end of this a
number of uh topics that we think are
gerine for this group to study but just
didn't have the time in the past eight
meetings to do so. And so they are um we
call them placeholders or future
items and obviously
we are would be pleased to take
assignments from the council of things
that you might think that we should be
looking at in the future as
well. It's important to say as an
outside as at the outset that these
are these are topics for your
consideration. Um they're not hard
recommendations. We're not trying to box
you into the corner uh on any particular
item, but on every one of these topics,
we're saying we offer this for your
consideration and study before you
approve the budget. Um and many of them
are longer term items, longer than just
this budget. Um and will hopefully
provide future
benefits. The next slide talks about the
limitations that we have operated under.
most importantly a very compressed time
limit but we hope we still have some
substantive comments to offer from that.
Um the uh in our reviews we b had a bias
toward looking toward capital
improvement projects that are either
large in amount or large changes or
amounts. Um, in the operating funds, we
uh looked at some of the individual
operating funds, but there wasn't time
to look at them all. The enterprise
funds, we purposely excluded. We deemed
those to be less of a risk than some of
the operating
funds. And the goals are important.
First of all, for our group of
seven, a lot of it was education. We
needed to understand the budget.
hopefully as well as you and uh that's a
chore to do in a short period of time.
We did place an emphasis on the capital
program knowing that that was an area of
concern for many of you and um we had
obviously a selective review of the
larger departments and larger funds and
some of the major cost drivers. As I
mentioned before, we had besides the
eight public meetings, we had some sub
meetings where members individually with
this of this group met with staff and uh
I can't say too much about how generous
the staff was in their time.
I'm going to go review the next slide
which is kind of a financial overview of
what we're looking at and obviously what
you'll be looking at when you see the
proposed budget come to you for your
acceptance on May the
6th. This is the budget we saw.
Um it does not show revenues although we
did review the
revenues as you have done I believe in
an earlier meeting and revenues are
largely
flat. Um some of the major revenues the
three major revenues for the general
fund our local sales tax
1.7% state shared sales and income tax
and property tax. Those three items
account for half of all the money that
you have to spend in the general
fund. And those three
items, one year to the
next, are uh up about $3
million, basically flat.
And we did not get into the
uncertainties that we face, that every
community faces, that the country faces
right now, which imposes on this
forecast a a good deal of
uncertainty. But with revenues
flat, we had this for the spending
program, the numbers that you see on the
screen, and I think you've seen a public
display of the number in the lower right
hand corner.
which says that the budget for the city
is going to be down by 3.8% from where
it was in the last adopted
budget. That's a true statement. It's a
mathematically true statement, but our
focus uh for this
commission was more focused on the first
line, the operating
budget, going from an adopted budget
last year of 762 million to a proposed
budget of $811 million or an increase of
$49 million.
And some of you may find
that troubling or counterintuitive or
worthy of further
investigation because against a flat
revenue
base expenditures perhaps in your mind
should not be going up $49
million.
And so we dug a little deeper and
obviously some of the $49 million is
arising because of the proposition that
was passed last year, the tax, the 0.15
parks and preserve
tax that had embedded in it a lot of
personnel and operating expenses
associated with bringing the parks back
to
um the status they should be.
So in that $49 million, probably $10
million is for new full-time equivalent
employees being hired for police and
fire and in the parks and
preserve. A second large component is
$12.5
million for a variety of salary
adjustments throughout the
organizations. This is uh commonly
referred to as as COLA increases for
inflation.
uh perhaps merit
increases, perhaps what's called class
and comp to make sure that some of the
jobs are competitive with other
communities in the
valley. But the point is the total for
uh employees is $12.5 million in
that insurance cost is going up $7.4
million. Again, most of that health
insurance for
employees. And then of the 49 million,
19 million is for everything else.
So, as you look at the revenues flat and
look at the expenses up $49 million and
look at some of these
components, it may give you
consideration for further questions or
uh inquiries of
staff as we try to face whatever
uncertainties next year poses.
It raises in our
minds and did raise several times a
discussion of whether this budget is
sustainable. We know it's balanced.
Budgets have to be balanced. That's not
necessarily you give a round of applause
for the process is you start you figure
out how much income are you going to
have next year. Then you figure out how
to spend it all. And when you've done
that, you have a balanced budget.
But the more important thing for our
community will always be is it a
sustainable
budget? Is it providing on a consistent
and future basis the services that we
expect that our citizens expect and that
our tourists expect? And so a lot of our
discussion with the staff was the
sustainability. Are we providing for the
needs of the city and the needs of the
tourists on an ongoing predictable
way? And I would say by way of
reference, we all know that the city has
not in the past
sustainably met its needs. Otherwise, we
wouldn't have had to go to the voters
and ask for money last year to take care
of parks which have been
neglected. You also know if you drove
here tonight and hit the multiple
potholes in the road that the streets
have been neglected.
And so we'll talk about both of those
later on, but we will emphasize
throughout the evening the difference
between a balanced budget and a
sustainable
budget. At that point, you've heard
enough from me. I want to have the guys
talk uh that did some work on the uh
capital program. Mark Stevens is here.
I'm going to have Brad uh Newman,
Commissioner Newman, join us uh at the
table here because these two guys uh did
most of the offline work on capital
projects. But Mark, why don't you start
off? Uh let me um let's just stay Can
you hear me? Okay. Okay. Let me just
stay in the slide for a second because I
I was not in the majority on the
comments that chairman just made. And
sorry we didn't have more time to talk
this over, but when it comes to the
sustainability, uh, I was the dissending
vote on the one recommendation that's in
here that said that you all should have
regular reporting on
sustainability. And while I'm still
trying to learn your budget, I spent a
lot of time going through it and meeting
with staff. And I uh while there's a lot
of moving parts to it and a lot of
complexities to it, my gut feel tells me
that uh it is um looked at from a very
responsible standpoint when it comes to
being structurally balanced. So that's
something if we would have had more
time, David and I maybe could have
gotten to the same point on where it's
at, but my gut tells me it's not quite
as bleak as maybe uh you were you were
just told. uh and it's really complex
when it comes to your budget because
there's so many different transfers in
there's amounts that are contributed
from excess funds that can go in from uh
general fund to other funds and then I
have seen this in cities where you're
focusing on a chart like this that your
budget everyone talks about the budget
and expenses let me just ask you all
right now what if I just told you Amazon
just released their financial results
and expenses went up a hundred
million what would that tell
That wouldn't tell you anything because
you really don't know if they had added
services in there or if they had extra
lines of business that had revenue. Now,
I know all cities tend to do this. They
tend to focus on the operating budget
and they don't spend much time on
revenues, but I really think it's
important to look at those and from what
I saw, I think you're you're pretty
structurally balanced and you look at
that. However, expenses did go up and
it's definitely something to watch. So,
I do I do concur with that. So I I just
uh Okay, that's my soapbox part and now
I can go on to the we can go on to the
next slide. So I'll cover what I'm
supposed to cover now. Uh the next slide
has to do with some of the capital
projects and um I just want to touch on
a couple of them. One of the things I
guess I'd like to thank staff for is um
uh vice chair uh Schwiker and I uh
actually decided we wanted to look into
some of the things that were happening
capital-wise. And what we did is we
said, "Hey, let's take a look at the
things that are over threshold of $1
million and 10% and let's try to
understand what happened there just as a
framework for the kind of things we
should be looking for in future
projects." So, we actually had a great
meeting with wow almost 15 I blew me
away almost 15 of the staff people
showed up and with both of us and we we
uh were given a lot of information on
what happened on several of the projects
and some of the findings are going to be
what worked into some of the comments
that you'll you'll see in here. So, we
learned a lot from that and uh and a
couple of examples I guess I'll share
with you. the uh one on advanced water
for purification. Uh on that particular
project, one of the things that came to
our attention is that we were told that
the change went from 17 million to 67
million. So there's a $50 million
increase to that. I believe that's
coming uh through the budget. And my
understanding when I asked that
question, I was told that the change was
primarily because regulations had
expired, new regulations were in place
and the cost to do it had increased by
that much because of regulatory reasons.
I asked whether there was any increase
in uh capacity or production and I
believe the answer was no. And I tried
to get a follow-up on that but uh I
didn't didn't get a clear follow-up on
that in time for the meeting. But my
comment to you all would be more and if
you want us to look at it, let us look
at it for you if you'd or I'll look at
it for you if you'd like. Whatever you
want. Uh it went up by 50 million. It
sounds like a really interesting project
because I think if I understand this
right, right now you've got uh excess
water coming out being treated so it can
be used as a fluent and this is to take
it to the next level that would actually
make it drinkable. And so it's a really
intriguing project. I just don't know
right now exactly what you're getting
for the 67 million. And while I think it
could be a lotable project, you maybe
ought to understand what you're actually
going to get and then uh what uh and
whether that's what you want to move
forward with and if the production
capacity is okay. So I I wish I knew
more on that. I I don't. Uh did you know
something? No. Okay. I thought you said
I thought you said something. Oh no. Oh
no. Okay. Okay. Uh, and then the second
one was the cactus park poles. And that
was an example we went through and that
one was um uh I think that was a what
was that? A 30 $ 31 million project. And
when we we initially met with uh
everyone, it was all in the category of
we're going to get uh it was all in next
year's category. So I asked a question
about the uh type of contract that was
being led on that. And it turns out that
that wasn't even close to the design
phase yet because there's some problems
with that. So after we explored that uh
the city did move it from the next year
column into the one after that and then
when we were presented that again later
uh and dug into it a little bit more it
sounded like there's some very complex
uh challenges with respect to fixing the
buildings and a lot of the drainage
areas there and now I believe the city
has moved it into the outside of the
five-year while they evaluate what
they're going to do. So the
recommendation here is uh uh try to get
a good cost estimate on what's really
going on there. It's a beautiful
facility. Uh I you know potentially it's
a great facility, very very usable, but
it might be something you need to
uh move a little slower, do more
advanced work to get your arms around
what it's really going to cost. And then
uh the third item there was the Bartlett
Dam. We didn't get into that very much.
It sounds like you participate with some
other entities. I think it's a less than
10% piece to it, but a pretty big
number. It was a um I think $48 million
number sitting in there out in the
future. And don't really know what what
that's all about. So maybe that's
something next year. We'll find out a
little bit more uh uh with respect to
that. And so at this point now, I'm
going to turn it over to uh Brad who has
uh the next few points. It's okay.
Councilman Graham has a question. Oh
yeah. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Is it okay
if we just periodically ask questions as
we go? Of course. I'd like to make it
interactive if that's okay with you. Is
that okay if we make this a little more
dialogical? Long as you give us the
option of not answering.
What if we just want to, you know,
pontificate and give a sermon up here.
Will you listen? Very good.
Um, the cactus pool is I don't want to
belabor this, but the cactus pool is a
bond 2019 project. Those were sold on we
got rid of all the nice to haves wiped
out and we just left with must ha must
have can't live withouts and so what I
hear you saying is
that that's a good project but you think
the budget may be you know in danger of
of overrun and so we got to look at
that. I'm not I'm not um I'm not wild
about pushing it out too far because
it's it's an important project. Voters
demanded we do it. They gave us money
and they gave us bond bonding authority
to go build it, but we may need to look
at value engineering that or doing
something because you know strike
striking some sort of balance. Um so
those are some comments on that. Thank
you Mr. Stevens by the way for the
presentation. If I can just expand on
that that part of it us learning the
mechanics of how you do things. You do
here's the things we're going to do next
year. Here's the things for the next
four and then here's something beyond
that. And because there was so much
uncertainty on this, our recommendation
was, let's only do a little bit next
year to really get our arms around it.
Whether it goes out five years, maybe
that's not the right answer and maybe
you need it out in a nearer period. But
we didn't feel comfortable with the
dollar amount. And this one just smelled
really bad to me. It Yeah, because it's
it's an old budget. um you know at this
we're running five six years old down
and it's you know it's pre- pandemic and
um it's um it's something that we need
to go back and rebudget. We have been
able to fill in these gaps. We've had a
lot of cost overruns over the last
trailing two three years. We've only
been able to fill those gaps because
we've had we've been we've had a surge a
flurry of revenue from collections and
all that. We've been able to plug some
of those holes. We've just been
fortunate. Um, but it's I don't want you
I think your point is don't start this
whatever the project budget may be 31
million or is it is it 16 or 31? No,
this was 31 million. 31 million. Don't
start a 31 million dollar project that
we know is going to end up 60. Well, and
I got the impression talking to people,
we're not sure exactly all the problems
we need to deal with with the flooding,
decay of buildings, etc. So, I guess our
recommendation was really spend some
time to get your arms around it as
quickly as possible, then come up with
better numbers because that $31 million
number doesn't smell good to me from
some of the things that I saw. Totally
agree. And, you know, if we if we if we
burrow in and rattle hole on every
project, we're going to be here all
night. I I kind of gave into that
temptation. I just for the emphasis of
just explaining the you know,
underlining the importance of delivering
on bond 2019 projects because those
aren't discretionary from the from the
the council. that was, you know, voters
demanded that and we sold that to them
that these are must have, can't live
withouts. And so I want to do that. I
valued that because of that it, you
know, you know, classificatorily it's in
that bucket and um but I don't want to
brat hole on or burrow on every project
tonight because like I said, we'll be
here all night. But thank you,
Commissioner Stevens. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. Mayor Baraski, members
of the council, um we'll talk a little
bit about the um next one, which is
expanding the Grant Reef Senior Center,
and it's not a big project. It's $3
million, but it does present what the
council should wrestle with as a policy
question. And earlier there was a
presentation in terms of the social
safety net that Scottsdale offers. And
these projects start small. They start
exploratory. Okay, couple million
dollars here, three million, three
million, in this case, $3 million there.
Not denying there's a need in any way,
but there are other state and federal
programs that in play and it was even
mentioned in our presentations that um
there that there other municipalities
have wrestled with this and had some
programs to implement. So we ought to go
learn from them first before we start
spending a lot of money on these things.
So not saying don't do the project but I
think we ought to ask the question what
is our policy around social safety net
because we are a a mun local
municipality not a larger state or
federal entity and so we really have to
dig into that and and you know because
when you these all start but the next
thing is that it's 5x 10x and other
budget things come through. So you need
to know where you're going and that
could be something that that you know as
a as a commission or other other other
groups work on but we probably need to
define that before we start doing a lot
of work in that area um on this. So not
denying the need but certainly need to
look at that. Um on the next project um
this is one that I was invited by
Commissioner Carla and Steve Kuchio uh
in and uh regarding the uh wildlife
crossing u and it's uh there's obviously
a lot of uh interest in the project and
have had uh various discussions with
with folks and so it right now it's in
the it appeared in the budget this year
as a $35 million project which is
obviously something that gets people's
attention and when I was asked to take a
look or actually discussing support.
I've talked so much with Carla and
Steve. So, um, but they're a part of
this as well. Um, there was some
justification questions. There was
scope, cost, schedule questions, and
this is really what we ought to be
asking about any of our capital
projects, especially the larger dollar
items.
Um, in the case of in the case of the of
this project, it was put in there, and
we didn't really understand the numbers
until we till we started digging into
the details around this. First of all,
the the the the assumption that drives a
$35 million project is a 200 foot wide
wildlife crossing on Rio Varity Drive.
Now, that's large. And when we started
to dig into the details of that, it
would be the largest, widest one ever
built. Um, by comparison, there's a
jetway at at Sky Harbor Airport that is
195 ft wide and it goes across as you
drive into terminal terminal 4. It goes
drive in there. It's 195 ft wide and
would support a 787 Dreamlininer. I
don't think that anybody imagines a
wildlife crossing that big and immense.
So, um obviously we have to have to
compare that. And if we compare that to
um like the the wildlife bridge on I7
that's going to be there um be put up or
the one in B. A lot of people um are
very familiar with the in B Canada there
was a large wildlife bridge put in
place. um those are much smaller, not as
big as this, but they're also have a
situation where it's a wildlife area,
there's big horn sheep, there are there
are elk that come across a six-lane
interstate highway. Obviously, there's
an accident um situation there that
you're trying to prevent. Rio Drive has
5,000 cars a day. It's not something
where we have that. So, the data is just
not there. Not denying that there might
be a need at some point in the future
and we've discussed that but I think we
need to really elucidate that more and
understand exactly what is the
justification. The last study that was
done was in 2012 it showed 99% of the
animals that were killed in that area
that they count the number of you know
animals and all of them 99% of them were
smaller than a rabbit. So we're not
seeing that data and then that doesn't
mean that there aren't deer and other
larger animals there. What that means is
is that the interaction with traffic and
the size of the animals that are in the
area isn't such that it creates that in
the future there will be a widening of
road Rio Verity Drive to from two lanes
to four lanes. Now you have to at the
Frasfield trail head you have to think
about the you have to think about hikers
and horseback riders and a safety issue
there. Animals may come free. So what we
decided to do in that was to say let's
propose a feasibility study to look at
there's a there's a large number of
people that want something now. There's
a large number of people that say hey we
ought to we ought to look at how we're
spending taxpayer dollars and what's the
most efficient way to do that. And the
feasibility study would give us the pros
and cons justification scope cost
schedule and then define it to something
that makes sense because $35 million is
not the number uh and 200 feet wide is
not the size. So, let's have staff work
on that and come back with an answer and
then go forward with the project. And
maybe that becomes a model for other
large projects. Some are very obvious.
If you say, "Hey, the substation at the
water plant's going to go out." I can
tell you as a fellow electrical
engineers here, if that goes out, we're
down for a year at the water plant or
more. I don't know. But it's a
substantial shutdown. So, those things
have to go. And there's not much
justification for a lot of projects for
like that, but they have to go. Um, but
other projects have a little more
discretion to them, like when we do
certain projects that are non-critical
to the city, but wanted and needed.
Okay.
The um, excuse me, the other item before
we uh, we have a couple of questions.
So, Councilwoman Mckllen, thank you,
Mayor. Um, commissioners, thank you so
much. Um, I appreciate and I also echo
what Councilman Graham said, some of
these projects, you know, one being a
bond along with the the wildlife
overpass that was promised to the voters
when they voted for the funds for the
preserve. So, these are really important
projects that our citizens are waiting
for, but like you said, when they were
projected, it was at a lower time. you
know, the pandemic, things have changed,
cost um estimates have changed, and we
really need to know, like what
Commissioner Stevens said, exactly what
goes into it. Looking at these massive
projects, it is worth it to take the
time to do a feasibility study on some
of these massive projects to see, I'm
going to say it, did we make a mistake
with the way we looked at Cactus Park at
the time and the flood plane? And I
mean, there's a lot that goes into it.
We need input from the um game and fish,
you know, so they can look at and we can
look at their studies and what they say
about the traveling of the animals
across the wildlife bridge. Does it need
to be 200? No, maybe it only needs to be
100. Can we save money there? So, I
appreciate you emphasizing the need for
us to articulate by using a feasibility
study. Thank you. And taxpayers have
said that they want these things, but
they also expect us to spend money um
thoughtfully.
Councilman Clausman. Thank you, Madame
Mayor. I want to reiterate what council
um council member uh Macallen just said.
You know, when it comes to the program
itself of a wildlife bridge, carrying
capacity is everything. This is
something I take a lot of pride to learn
about on a personal level, and I can't
reiterate enough how important that Game
and Fish has to take the lead here. With
all due respect to the city of
Scottsdale, it neither has the resources
nor the time that Arizona Game and Fish
Department has dedicated to ensuring
that uh carrying capacity for species,
not individual members being run over,
but carrying capacity so that so that
habitats are preserved and that entire
um and that in the entire environment is
taken care of as a holistic concept
larger than the city of Scottsdale for
the very species that are living in the
region.
And that and that any type of sustain of
of um any type of study, feasibility
study, um not withstanding the honesty
that we have to have with our own
residents and saying that this might
have not been the best idea even though
we sold it to you and being honest about
it. Um we have we just have to and maybe
it is a great idea. We have to be just
honest and open. I I applaud this
commission for making sure that you're
you're being that this is the beginning
of of real real transparency for the
long run for Scottsdale.
Thank you.
Before we leave this uh slide, the last
item down there is uh it's called
gateway improvements. That's really a
misnomer. It was uh a few projects were
presented under the caption of trail
head improvements.
uh they are structures that would be
built um shade structures for the
purpose of um holding classes or that
sort of thing. Um and again the
commission is not expressing an opinion
on the merits of those uh those
particular items but really all we had a
lot of discussion about all these
preserve items in terms of uh the the
I'll call it the legality of spending on
them. Um, uh, Council Member McCllen is
right. The voters at at some point in
the past were, uh, promised perhaps a
land bridge, uh, by some
definition. But you all may remember in
2018 the voters were asked again to
define what preserve funds would be used
for and they were fairly explicit in
what they said preserve funds would be
used for and it is
lands purchase of
lands the payment of
debt and the uh completion of uh trails
that um and you It's it's for you all to
decide whether a land bridge is a trail,
but more importantly, some of the other
uh proposed structures that they want to
build in the
preserve may be admirable in their own
right, but they may not comply with the
most recent definition by the voters of
what's allowed. and we talked about
what's actually uh incorporated in the
city charter
uh section
8 and or article 8 section
13 that is uh is fairly explicit in what
the uses can be. So all of these
projects on this page are while they're
individual projects, they highlighted
what for us was the need
for projects that have some
implications, I'll call it, to be
brought to the council's attention
specifically, you know, what really is
our exposure on Bartlett Dam, which
might be a $3 billion uh
project, and what is the legal exposure
on preserve project. So that's why all
and what is the uh long-term
implications of taking on a
new a new center of activity for adult
care uh as was proposed for the Granite
Reef Senior Center. Some of these are
relatively minor, some are major, but
all of them have policy
implications that should be brought to
the council's attention for
consideration.
flip to the next uh slide and why don't
Brad why don't you lead off on the first
item of the next slide as soon as it
comes up.
I spent a little bit of time going
through capital plan prioritization and
also speaking with uh Treasurer Andrews
about kind of we have what we have is a
large role every year on capital
projects that are there's a there's a
backlog and it's just previous tax
dollars that have been collected and
they were devoted to projects. But now
we have a very large capital plan but
it's about half that is actually being
spent less than half of that is being
actually being spent each year. Some of
that is overhang from the from the uh
Brad, why don't you tell them they were
on the wrong slide? Back it up one. Oh,
I didn't even see that.
Okay. And so some of that is overhang
from the pandemic and we're playing
catch-up. And so I'll get into a little
just a I'll touch up on that. But as we
look through the the capital plan, we
have a whole bunch of work going on
right now. And if you I went through and
prioritized every single one of them,
gave them a rating system personally and
just kind of went through that. We have
so much work in progress right now.
That's really all we can do is get that
done. That's that there's bandwidth that
the city has this for city staff, our
contractors. It's it's not quite cut
that easy to say that, but it depends on
the project. But we have to focus on the
top things. And what you'll see in the
themes of what what we heard and what we
came back with is road resurfacing is a
priority. If you go to Queen Creek, I
happened to be there last fall and
noticed the roads and came back to
Scottsdale and now I noticed the roads
here more. So obviously that's something
as a priority. Water facilities, there
was a lot of talk that now know that's a
fee driven um but facility renewal, we
have a substation that needs to be
replaced. If that goes out, as I said,
could be a big problem. And then public
safety has a lot of aging equipment and
uh um part of their facilities and and
we also have new facilities. So, we
spent a lot of time building new
facilities, but we haven't devoted
enough money to taking care of what we
have. And that can that can sink us in
from a from a sustainability standpoint.
So, we so the priority has to be getting
the projects done that we have because
they're already going. It doesn't make
sense to stop and say, "Let's go do
something else because we need to go
after taking care of the infrastructure
we have, but we have to do that." If you
look at the if you look at the capital
spend over time, I went back to 2017 and
looked at what was the capital role
every year. It's now a huge number. It's
$500 million role out of a billion
dollar plan and $440 million of projects
have come in to the project. So, so it's
kind of a pig in the python as a as a as
an analogy that we have to digest that.
Then we can start doing other projects
like whatever else everybody wants.
Everybody's got priorities, but the
uninteresting stuff is to maintain
roads, maintain sewers, maintain all the
underlying infrastructure. Uh maybe even
maybe even spruce this up in here today
a little bit.
in terms of the the city hall, you know,
so those are things that have to be
taken care of um as part of the as part
of the project. So, uh the
recommendation is is to prioritize the
work in progress and for and get those
critical projects done and then beyond
that you have there are critical
projects that if something fails, we
have a big problem in the city. Those
have to be top priority projects. And
the only ones, the only new things we
ought to approve are critical for city
operational success or critical for
tourism and community needs that have
been deemed really important. Um, and in
terms because we have parks that are
decaying, all of that, but there are
also, as we talked about a little bit,
the social some of the social needs.
Some there's side I heard about
sidewalks and things like that. Certain
things have to be taken care of. So, we
have to prioritize those. And if we want
if tourism is a big part of our revenue,
nice roads, nice sidewalks, nice all
those things have to be a priority in
that. And then in terms of internal
prioritization, it's apparent that when
we talk about feasibility and looking
having a good justification, scope,
cost, and schedule for every project,
there's probably a greater use of some
of our inter revising some of our
internal process. And we've talked with
staff about that and they're looking at
that. but to revise some of those things
so that priority and timing of projects
float to the top. So the things that
come to you for approval are the most
important and we've already done that
process. We don't have to do it here um
on the dis but we can do that back in
the office and have that priority there
um there because collectively we all
want things but that doesn't necessarily
prioritize things well um as a as a
community. So that's all. Thank you.
Councilwoman Littlefield has a question.
Uh not so much a question as just a
comment. Um several years ago under an
older council, Suzanne Clap and I uh
spent a day, we went traveling with um
several of our uh city employees into
Phoenix looking at retirement homes, uh
senior centers and things like that. and
what the different things were that were
being done in Phoenix that were not
being done in Scottsdale as as possible
add-on activities, for example, lunches
and and things that were not done here
but were done there that the people were
using um to their advantage. uh some of
that kind of thing and and one of the
things we looked at was uh the pool,
cactus pool, and compared it to the
chaparel pool and which is a a swimming
pool for for tournament swim and a
national uh competition and that's the
only pool we have that's big enough in
Scottsdale to do that. And what one of
the comments that we made at the time
was well if we're going to uh renew uh
chaparel pool we could make it big
enough to also be a competitive team uh
in the nation for swim meets because we
have a lot of swimmers here and it's a
good good uh temper temperature for
swimming competitions for a good part of
the year. And so I I just wanted to make
the comment that as you go through and
look at all of these different
programs, consider do we want to add and
do these things on at the same time
where maybe some of that extra cost
could be absorbed in the original plan
of of renewal and so that we don't have
to go back in two, three years and say,
"Oh, we're going to tear up what we did
here so that we can do it now and and
put it all together." So the total
overall cost is lower and we come up
with with progre program programs and
projects that over the past few years
the city has looked at and said we would
like to be in these. We would like to do
this and maybe it could be incorporated
at that time for a lower overall cost
than if we had to go back and tear it up
again and make it fit for a new new
season. So that was just a comment. uh
look ahead a little bit more and see
where we want to go into the future and
do that when we go to each of these
individual projects and see if there's
anything in that project that would fit
to make that a better possibility for a
lower cost. Thanks. Thank you. And to
your point, uh, Commissioner Neman, I
love where you're going with that. I
mean, it's definitely focus on needs
versus wants. That's a big issue and I
do think that we have um you know just
as a citizen I've observed I think we
have a lot of infrastructure that you
know maybe has been overlooked as we're
going for the big projects. So how could
this commission be um take a deep dive
in those types of issues? Do you see
that being um something that you would
your commission would look at and
I didn't bring back recommendations?
Excuse me. Yes. I think it's a pro right
now it's a project by project um look
and you can give them a criticality in
terms of these have to be done or if you
assume that ongoing projects are
non-discretionary. We have to just
finish them. Then you get into critical
projects. Then you get into
discretionary projects and then you get
into true wants that might be nice to
have but not necessary. And that's where
you have to make some decisions around
that, especially there is a limited
amount of of money there. I think the
other piece of this and and we don't
really understand this well, but there's
been a tremendous amount of development
in the city. The fees that are coming in
for development aren't necessarily
funding the longer term this element of
renewal of of older infrastructure. So
the development element of that uh is
going to drive some of the capital costs
that are needed to to maintain uh what
we have. So it's going to be that but I
think as to your question how do we do
that that could be a subgroup that could
be you know a deeper dive I've done a
little bit of it u myself on on a
spreadsheet you know but certainly work
with staff to to do that and and
incorporate that as a part of process if
that's something that we all want to do.
Yes, I think that sounds like a great
idea. And so I'm sure as this
progresses, not tonight necessarily, but
you know, seeing what work you've done
and what your recommendations are um
moving forward, how could you be the
most effective? I think that's a really
great discussion and maybe we can close
with that today or come back another
time on that. Uh, Vice Mayor Dasquez,
actually, I was going to echo a lot of
what you were just mentioning, Mayor, is
that I think that um putting these
recommendations specifically into action
um probably with the city manager's
office um and taking a look at our cost
analysis process and and taking a deeper
dive. We have had significant cost
overruns, which is something that's been
concerning, and so we need to solve for
that. um and then present numbers to the
community that we have confidence in
that we will not overrun those numbers.
So um I whatever form that takes, city
manager, do you have thoughts on is it a
subcommittee or is your team already
working on these things?
Um madame mayor and vice mayor, thank
you for that opportunity. I was just uh
doing the labor hours of seven uh new
FTEEs of our volunteers here and I can
count that we have approximately 14,000
hours of staff person if we tap into
them on an annual basis. Uh but in all
seriousness uh I think with combination
of some fresh eyes on this and your
excellent treasurer then coming in with
my uh new eyes and what I bring to the
organization a different viewpoint. I
think the collaborative partnership and
the opportunity that we have going
forward, I would call it off season this
summer and then really leading into the
capital development which you're really
highlighting in most recent part of your
discussion and the staff doesn't know
this yet because we haven't even adopted
this budget but uh certainly starting
that capital project uh capital
improvement plan process early and I
think they've identified a key uh step
that we will implement for next year is
really solid evaluations of the costs
before they even enter into the budget
process even in the evaluation stage. So
that's just one element that's a great
takeaway from the excellent work that
they've done and there are numerous uh
that really align uh with Miss Andrews
view and my view as well and so look
forward to implementing those in the
future.
Thank you. Just one other question. Uh,
Commissioner Carla, I just wanted to
confirm, are you happy with the
feasibility study? Um, Mr. Commissioner
Newman talked about it, but I didn't
hear from you because you worked with
him on that.
Thank you for asking that question. Um,
I think that we have found a reasonable
path forward and I really want to thank
Commissioner Newman and Preserve
Commission Chair Kuchio for helping with
this because once we got into it, we
realized the data wasn't set and while
the desire was there and the public
desire for this is clearly there, we
need to get on the same page with the
need and the numbers. And the best way
to do that is an immediate feasibility
study and to involve the appropriate
experts, drainage, transportation, and
especially Arizona Game and Fish
Department because they're the ones who
study Arizona's wildlife. And when we do
that, you know, I sincerely just hope
every one of you will support moving
forward with those recommendations
because that's the only way for us all
to get on the same page. So, yes, very
much support that. Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Go ahead. Uh, mayor and vice
mayor, your comments are all very good.
When we were looking at a lot of these
projects, we purposely stayed out of
anything that's policy related. Is that
working? Okay. We purposely stayed out
of anything that's policy related
because that's rightfully your purview.
Uh what Mark and I really looked at when
we were meeting with the staff was how's
the process? How do we build
transparency? How do we get staff
working together, especially on these
large projects? So, um Kathy, your Cong
Councilwoman Littlefield, uh kind of
goes to what you were talking about
about making projects that you then
don't have to go back and do a change
order on. So we were we've spent a lot
of time looking at process and in future
years I think that's where really our
benefit can come from on that because as
we all know those change orders where
the contractors make their money and
where we get the short end of the deal.
So your points are very very very well
taken.
Commissioner Stevens did a lot of work
on this next topic which is the project
cost
estimation, project execution and I
think he is the head tiger on the team.
Yeah. Right. That that a lot of people
ask me about tiger team that actually is
a defined word for for what the the
comment suggest and in a way I want to
thank you all for already covering about
half of this because everything you were
just talking about really covers a lot
of what's here. And this is one of the
comments I was uh fairly passionate
about because I think there's a lot of
benefit here. But something in fairness
to staff you want to know is we came
together pretty quickly with a lot of
this, but I have not had a chance to
really talk with the city manager about
plans he may have already have. So, I'm
going to tell you I'm very passionate
about this comment. I hope that you all
embrace it. I hope he embraces it. But
as far as I know, he's already got a lot
of this planned. So, please don't think
that maybe he and the treasurer haven't
already thought about some of the needs
here because they sat sat through some
of the meetings that vice chair Schwiker
and I were in and heard some of the
things. So, I think those wheels are
already turning. Having said that, I I
still hope you do look at this
particular thing because uh the key
things are and I'm not going to go
through it all, but I think if you look
at your cost estimates and say how are
we quantifying them, how are we coming
up with the details because there's a
lot of diversity in the way it's done
for different types of projects. So,
what's the documents behind it? We
didn't get into that. I'd love to get
into that next year. Who reviews it and
what level of critical review takes
place and does it vary? based upon the
risk in the project or the dollar amount
of the project and then finally how much
uh effort is going into the timing of it
because of the timing. I I think there's
a big focus on next year and after. I'm
not sure how much focus goes in the
timing, but it's timing and and amounts
that probably needs some attention
because some of these projects I I do
have some stale numbers. I think one of
one of uh council members indicated that
some of the numbers kind of been rolled
forward for a while and haven't been
updated. So, and again, Vice Chair
Schwiker, you may have more to add on
this. I'm not going to go through all
the details other than there's a
shopping list of things we think are
worth considering. And I guess I asked
the city manager to consider whether he
needs a crossf functional team to go
ahead and look at how are we going to
attack all these projects? Do I have the
right resources? Do I have the right
level of review taking place? And how do
I minimize surprises by changing some of
the policies and controls are in there?
And uh vice chair, did you want to add
anything because a lot of this came out
of our meeting that we had. Yeah. Know I
think you summed up everything very well
and a lot of it just has to do with the
process, the transparency, getting
people to work together. Um so I I think
in the future we'd really like to look
at this in much more detail.
Great. I would certainly support that.
And I think Commissioner Newman, you may
have talked some about this last topic
there, advanced project scoping and if
you but if it's a different take it
away. Yeah, for well we've kind of
already talked about this as far as
feasibility studies and using that
mechanism and and already city manager
Kaitton has has started to think in that
direction and work in that direction. So
I think right now if you go back to 2017
there were 250 projects in the plan. Now
there's 400 projects in the plan. So,
it's just a lot there. And and to come
to to come and ask for a whole bunch of
money and then say, "Well, we'll scope
it later." That probably doesn't work
very well. We probably ought to use the
feasibility and then build it process to
to make better decisions going forward.
And that that will take time to for
those projects to work their way through
the system. But that that's really what
advanced scoping is all about.
And before we leave this slide, we um we
used to have a topic on here. For some
reason, we dropped it off, but um it had
to do with the road conditions and
improving our streets, uh getting back
to a reasonable PCI number. Um I'm going
to let Vice Chair Schwiker talk about
that because he's he lived with that for
a few years over in the Paradise Valley
community.
Well, you know, one of the things you've
heard from all of us is the word tourist
because, you know, we think that's what
good for what's good for tourism is
what's good for our residents. Not only
do they come in and spend money and it
keeps our taxes lower, but if we have a
place that tourists love to come to, we
love to live here. And one of the things
that we've noticed is that um as I think
you were coming a minute ago when you
drive back from Gilbert back to
Scottsdale are I don't think our roads
are where they were a few years ago and
um you know I spent 12 years in the
Paradise Valley Town Council. Roads were
a big deal for us when our PCI index got
from uh 77 down to 75. Now they have a
new city manager that's actively
working. that's one of their top
priorities is to get it back up to where
it should be. So, uh, staff is very very
on top of this. Uh, it was great to have
conversations with them, but we really
strongly support setting a goal of PCI
of somewhere between like 75 and 80. Uh,
we learned fascinating things about how
they figure out road conditions. Um it
it's really interesting the the way you
can figure that out, but it's really one
of those things that's very important
and it kind of goes to show uh because I
know that in a few years you're going to
be faced with rebuilding a big section
of Thomas Road because it was not
properly maintained. So this is kind of
like the old oil changes. You know, you
can pay me now or pay me later. And my
numbers may be a little bit off, but as
I recall in conversations, like to
maintain all the roads in Scottsdale was
about a $21 million a year project and
it was funded for many years at about 14
million. So then you have to play
catchup. And what you discover is like
when you're looking at that Thomas Road
project in a few years, when you let it
go far enough where you have to rebuild
the road, that is exponentially more
expensive than taking care of it. Uh and
some of this has to do with something
else that we touched on um in our
conversations, which is like even crack
seal in Scottsdale. You don't have
anybody that can do that. All that is
contracted out. Well, when you're
contracting out, you know, we're paying
somebody else's profit margin. So, some
of those things, it's it's worth looking
at to see if you get could get more
roads maintained inhouse than out of
house for the exact same money. So,
those are the kind of things that we
were looking at. And uh I I think the
common refrain that you hear from a lot
of us on the commission is that
Scottsdale is such a special place. We
want to do everything we can to be, you
know, good stewards of the money, but
make sure that Scottsdale remains a
great place to live because we have a
lot more competition around the valley
than we used to, and we want people to
keep coming here because it's such a
great place to to eat, to dine, to shop.
Um, but we need to make investments to
keep it that way. So, these are things
we would also welcome looking at more in
the future.
Councilman Clausman. Thank you, Madame
Mayor. Um, thank you, Commissioner
Schwer. I really appreciate um you
speaking about the PCI. I have to I have
to give a public shout out to the vice
mayor on this issue. This is something
that she really caught the eye of of the
residents and and something that really
was her baby and took took it to heart
and and took to task current and former
staff members that were um that were of
the city of Scottsdale that were not
being truthful. I want everybody to know
this. They were not being truthful about
the nature and extent of the roads. They
told us one thing, the PCI was very
different when we found out a little bit
later and asked a second time. Do you
have anything to say to that? Did you
have you were you able to speak with
with uh with staff regarding that issue?
You know, we we didn't go that far down,
but we do know that the PCI is not where
it should be. And um you know, we're
confident that you have a plan that the
city manager has a plan to put together
to get it back to where it should be.
Uh, one of the little tidbits I learned
actually from meeting with the uh,
Paradise Valley town manager a few weeks
ago on something totally different was
that, you know, sometimes you have to
hire these trucks to drive around and
they they map all the roads and give you
your PCI. Well, all new Volkswagens have
sensors in them that when they drive
around, that's how they adjust their
shock absorbers and springs is they
measure the road as you're driving over
it. That's open source information.
cities can tap into that and figure out
what what condition their roads are in.
So, it's kind of a thing that you can
almost do real time anymore. So, we just
think it's important to keep those roads
smooth. You know, one of my pet peeves
is when they and I've seen it happen a
couple times in my neighborhood where
they'll resurface a road and then they
cut it up for a gas line or a water line
or something like two weeks later. Um,
in PV when we would do projects, we
would always go to the streets and in
all the major businesses, which in our
case were resorts, and just say, "Hey,
we're going to redo this. If you have
anything that's going to tear up the
pavement, you need to do it now because
then we're going to do it." So, I think
a little planning and just communicating
with people, I think, can go a long way
towards keeping those roads because,
Vice Mayor, I agree with you. Those
roads are the first thing people notice
when they come into town. And thank you,
Commissioner. one last just thing and
and just I I'm I'm a unique individual
here who has the privilege to have lived
in a in a city before managed by um our
city manager and Tucson failed in this
very very specific way and we could
always say that we know when we entered
into the borders of Oro Valley because
the uh the roads all of a sudden went
from the thunk the thunk the thunk to
smooth.
Councilman Graham
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, PCI road
pavement index is is critical and um we
um we we all agree. I didn't know that
about that open source by the way. Did
you plug that into AI or chat GPT and
get some information from that? No,
actually the town manager of Paradise
Valley told me about I have not had a
chance to check it out yet, but it
sounds interesting. Now, um, when you
were in Paradise Valley and you were on
the PV Town Council, um, the you guys
had a policy to talk to stakeholders,
um, before you ripped up roads to see if
you could, you know, economize work,
right? Yeah. But remember, we had our
businesses were eight resorts and about
seven churches, so it was a little bit
easier. I are I know it's it's different
and I and they're very different but um
are you making a recommendation to the
city to explore a policy like that where
we talk to stakeholders? I mean yeah
it's true that we have a lot fewer we
have a lot more businesses here but
there's only so many entities utilities
that rip roads up. So Sure. Yeah. I I I
am making that at least personally as a
recommendation. I think would be a good
idea because then you you know because
there's no way you can go back and
especially on any roads that have a
rubberized asphalt. Yeah. You know, you
cannot patch that to the condition it
was in before it was done. Yeah. I mean,
this is um we've all seen it where they
redo a road and they rip it up, you
know, shortly after and we all just
shake our heads. And so I don't know,
city manager, not putting you on the
spot if we have a a policy or a, you
know, some sort of mechanism, but if if
we don't, maybe they'll recommend it or
something. So that would be interesting.
Um, I think it was Commissioner Newman.
Oh, would you like to say something? Uh,
city manager? Yeah, mayor and council
member, I didn't know if that was
rhetorical, but happy to jump into the
PSI discussion because staff, we've
certainly um been spending a fair amount
of time in this and as recent as later
earlier today, we had a discussion with
our consultant in regards to the recent
study that was done. But to directly
answer your comment, I think there are
two opportunities. One is I'd call it a
utility coordination meeting and
meetings. I'm very familiar with that
process where you start to lay out your
capital improvement plan and then the
utilities uh go in advance of that and
so that the coordination and
collaboration uh that can certainly
occur and and we can enhance that uh
communication. The second piece I'll
cautious to use the the word moratorum
but I I'll use it for lack of better
term of a moratorum period after you put
in a new roadway for some period of time
where you don't have those cuts because
that's where you really start to
deteriorate uh the facility that the
asphalt is when you start to cut into
it. So um trying to one on the front end
uh increase the communication but then
on the back end have that safety net if
you will. Um, every time you hire an NFL
coach, the coach was an offensive coach
or a defensive coach. Greg was a streets
coach or whatever the analogy would be.
That's who we
So, he knows his streets and Adam or
Councilman Quasman got to experience
those. the um yeah before we leave this
um before we leave the subject of PCI if
you're done talking about that I had a
few more comments about PCI chair Smith
but please oh if you I just wanted to
say part of the uh or to give a shout
out to the staff to the city manager the
budget you're going to see on May the
6th will have a greater allowance for
road repairs to improve the PCI in the
city um maybe that's in part from
discussions questions that we had with
him. Uh but it is an issue that's going
to be acknowledged, addressed, and um
they're aware of the problem and they
will not be giving uh council member
Quasman the wrong answer the next time.
Council member Quasman is correct about
that. There was some mistruths and um
the uh our PCI right now is
63. Our PCI has collapsed over the past
six, seven years. Our PCI used to be in
the
80s. Our PCI should be in the
mid70s. You know, it was at one point
in, you know, in in in fiscal 18 it was
it was
80. Um, Commissioner Newman talked about
Queen Creek. Queen Creek has a PCI right
now of
84.
84. Um, Mesa has a much better PCI than
Scottsdale. Goodyear has a much better
PCI than Scottsdale. Gilbert and
Aenddale have better PCIs. I mean,
that's that's a wakeup
call. And so when I look at this budget
this year, I think my colleagues, many
of my colleagues might agree with this
statement that I'm looking at everything
almost to the prism of like trade-offs
between how can I get how can I fill the
potholes? What can what do I have to
trade is this budget I mean every
budget's ultimately about trade-offs.
you have, you know, you have to deal
with scarcity. And so it's it's I'm
looking at it through the prism of how
do we get our roads to a in much better
shape. We've heard all the, you know,
we've heard all the sayings. We're a
tourism city. Like we we're an
impression city like the way people have
impressions of our city and then share
that. Um that really is important. Um
our PCI degraded from 80 78 uh in fiscal
19 fiscal 2071 and then just the bottom
fell out and we hit the 60s in fiscal 20
um in fiscal
2122 um it's very important I think that
uh I think that uh city manager Kaitton
has some ideas or has some plans for
that but I'm going to be looking at the
budget this year and probably the next
couple years trade-offs scarcity how do
we get our roads um
into better condition and you know We we
kind of all talked about it. I don't
need to belabor it, but it's when you
defer it, the cost to deferral is much
higher than the savings. You know, you
talk about cost or weighted average or
cost of capital or weighted average cost
of capital. The or you talk about, you
know, time value of money, the the when
we don't spend it, the savings we get
from that are always exceeded by the
increase in cost. And so when you get
cracks in your roads, water gets in it.
Water is very destructive and you get a
big bill for that. So, um, looking at
some things what we can do internally,
maybe we could do some of that because
vice vice chair Schwiker says that
believes that we have to, you know, farm
that out every time we want to fill a
crack. So, I don't know what we can do
about that. I don't know the answer, but
I'm very excited to get our PCI index
back to a better place. And that's going
to be a big value budget priority of
mine. I think many of my colleagues.
Thank you, mayor.
Thank you.
I think the only um uh the only thing
I'll add and I know Commissioner Newman
has a comment too, but on the PCI, we've
made a number of recommendations to the
city manager that
um we you shouldn't just be looking at
one PCI number. Um there's obviously a
third of our roads that are brand new
and probably at 100. There's another
third of them that are in terrible
condition. And then there's the middle
third that might be an average of PCI 60
70 80 whatever. But um it should be a
focus
of this council just to it's it's an
example of budgets that have been passed
that were balanced but not sustainable
because this problem was kicked down the
road. Um Commissioner Newman and to that
point I just want to underscore the
whole PCI score is not a one-year we
talk about a one-year budget. This is a
five and 10 year. It has to become
almost policy of focus because if we
fall below the 63, if you get below 60,
you start replacing roads, the
transportation people will they they can
go much deeper into that, but the costs
will become astronomical if we have
hundreds of miles of roads that have to
be replaced because we haven't
maintained them.
So, so that was a relatively brief
presentation on an item that wasn't even
on the on the uh screen. Uh flipping to
the next
slide. As I told you, we didn't look a
lot at the revenue projections for next
year, but we did look at a couple of uh
specific topics within the revenue
arena.
Um and these are uh some of these are
controversial. We we urged the council
to consider the suspension of the
grocery tax, I'll call it. Uh this was
not a an item that received uniform
approval from our commission. The vote
was 5
to2 and uh I would I think it is worth
considering um for several reasons.
Number one is it entire it is entirely
within your prerogative to make that tax
whatever you want. It's not a voter
issue. The voters say that no tax shall
be greater than 1.7%.
But you can as a group of uh as a
council in unanimous uh voter even four
or seven can make that 1.7 anything you
want all the way down to zero which most
communities have it at zero. But even if
you wanted to take a baby step and
reduce it and say, "Let's just not
collect tax on groceries, that's going
to go into the preserve fund or to the
parks and uh recre the parks and
preserve temporary tax that we passed
last year. Uh you could just decide that
you only want to charge 1.1% and have it
go to the general fund. You can make it
anything you want, but to make it at the
highest level
um seems unfair, but it's also
inevitable that the state legislature is
going to deal with this at some point in
the future. And I I think the feeling
was of some of us that uh if the council
gave consideration to this, you could be
a hero rather than being told what to do
by the state legislature.
Um the second item is uh was equally
controversial to talk about and it's
it's referring to a suspension of the
2004 preserve tax.
Um and the consideration that you should
give is is not to just consider stopping
that tax for the heck of it but when we
have repaid the debt or provided for
repayment of the debt which is I think
probably already we're at that point and
when we have met all future liabilities
that we know of and maybe we have some
and maybe we'll provide for them but at
some point
um this tax should be stopped so that
citizens are not putting money into a a
bucket that cannot be spent for anything
other than as I said before perhaps the
limited laundry list of things that is
in um our city charter um payment of
debt land and trails. Um, so this money
should not be allowed. We should not be
taxing the citizens to trap the money
and you can also explore legally whether
you have the authority to do this in
your own right or whether you have to go
to voters. The voters in 2004 authorized
the council to impose the tax and you
can evaluate whether you can be still
authorized to not impose it.
The these may seem counterintuitive
since they're not uh increasing revenues
and they're not uh cutting expenses, but
they're nevertheless items in the budget
that should be given consideration
to.
The last item on here, uh the fiscal
sustainability reporting to council.
Again, this was a split vote, but um the
intent was just to have a more robust
reporting mechanism where you as the
council are informed of what is the
sustainability impact of what you're
being asked to do so that you're not
caught catching up on park maintenance
or catching up on road maintenance. Um
so the discussion was around the
reporting mechanisms. maybe every
council agenda item says, you know, is
this
sustainable and is this what's the
impact going to be on tourism to the
point that Dan was talking about
earlier. Um, so that's something that
we'll leave to to staff to figure out
what reporting is necessary, but we
leave in your hands the thought that you
should be insisting on knowing what is
the sustainable impact of the programs
you're being asked to approve.
flip the slide and I'll let Dan talk
about the uh some of the other operating
issues. And while we don't
focus Oops. Next slide, please. There we
go. Um why we didn't focus a lot on
revenue, we're just aware of certain
things going on that, you know, that the
city, I'm sure, is aware of, but needs
to keep, you know, at the top of their
mind. uh because there are threats to
your revenue. You know, the legislature,
as much as we elect them and they
represent us, you know, legislators have
never been great friends of cities when
it comes to revenue. Uh they spend as
way more time taking revenue away from
you than they do in adding revenue to
you. And it's just one of those things
that you really need to be aware of. Uh
we all know that there's threats from
Washington on what's going to happen. Um
there are there are you know economic
clouds out there. You know especially
when you look at sales tax from food and
dining. You know when people get a
little bit concerned about their
economic security the first thing they
do is they quit going out to dinner
Friday night. I spent 40 years in the
hospitality supply industry. We were
always kind of the canary in the coal
mine. As soon as people were worried
about their money they quit going out.
as soon as they felt better about the
economy, they started going out more.
And when I talk to my friends in the
restaurant industry, there is some
softening out there right now. So, it's
one of those things that, you know, you
adopt a budget, you're comfortable with
it. You know, unfortunately, you
sometimes have to come in and make
mid-game adjustments to your plan. So,
it's one of those things that we just
want to make sure that everybody's aware
of.
Um, one of the other things and and we
spent a lot of time in the commission
talking about this are our full-time
equivalents. You know, are are there are
there jobs been open for a year or so
that are never going to be filled and
they're just
placeholders? You know, maybe either
those jobs don't need to be done anymore
or maybe there are things that can be
merged in with another job. Uh the flip
side of that and I think somebody
mentioned earlier, are there services
for residents that aren't being done
because there's no funding or employees
for it? So, it's just one of those
things we really need to look at. Um it
also goes along with what we're talking
about contracting. Maybe sometimes it's
it's better to do contracting in-house
than than out of house. So, it's one of
those things and and I think Mark was
very good in looking at this like if you
have a a job unless it's a very
specialized job that you
need and it's open for over a year,
maybe it really shouldn't be around
anymore as a budget item. You know, the
the the openings that are like six
months or less, you know, that's kind of
the normal flow and eb and flow of
people getting jobs and moving on.
There's always some of that. And I know
and we heard from the fire department,
police department, there are some
specialized jobs that are very, very
hard to recruit for and those may take
over a year to do. But for the most
part, you know, just I think it's a
rationalization of those empty FTE
positions and what to do about them.
Maybe some of them need to go away,
maybe new ones need to be created, but I
think it's something and and your city
manager seems to have a very good grasp
in the city treasure on this. Um, so I
think you'll get good recommendations
coming from them, but we spent a lot of
time talking about
that. One of the other items we spent a
lot of time talking about is overtime.
And you know, overtime is one of those
things that unfortunately newspapers
love it. It makes a great headline and
it doesn't always cast the city in a
favorable light. So there, you know, and
and some of it, some of it is necessary.
You'll probably never get rid of all
your overtime, but you need to look at
it. Uh we were encouraged to hear that
there are some software programs out
there now that kind of help balance that
overtime to make sure it's being used
most efficiently. But it's one of the
things where I think you want to make
sure that, you know, is there a certain
overhead point where it makes sense to
convert some of that into FTE positions
so you're not paying overtime? Um, so
those are the policy things that you get
to look at and it's something else that
we'd be uh if you want us to, you know,
over the next year we'd be willing to
dive in more on that.
Uh, Vice Mayor Dascus.
Um, Vice Chair Schwer, um, this is an
issue that has come to my attention
related to the fire department that we
we do have a number of overtime hours
just simply because of the work hours
needed. And so I do think it's something
that we need to take a closer look at.
Uh have you did you guys look at that
specifically? Have any recommendations
or
you know there was only so much we could
do in the short time period we had?
Sure. Um and I have I have to give this
commission a lot of credit because you
know some of us knew government
accounting and government um budgeting
and everything. For a lot of people it
was you know brand new and having to
learn all that. So we couldn't get that
deep into these things. But it's
something that um we would like to look
at further uh maybe in the fall
supportive of that. Thank you. Let me
let me add to that. Uh Fire Chief Tom
Shannon specifically addressed this
question in his presentation to us
because he knows it's a it's a large
cost in his department. Um but he has a
unique manning uh requirement in his
department uh for the odd hours that the
firemen work, you know, three continuous
shifts and whatever.
Um and it's a fairly rigorous schedule
that he goes through and allocating
overtime hours and determining is it
better to give somebody five hours of
overtime or hire a new employee, train
them and whatever.
Um he I think gave us a comfortable
feeling that that it's number one not
being abused and number two he's on top
of it along with the city manager as
well. Um but both he and the fire chief
uh did respond to this question and at
least made us comfortable that it's not
a rampid problem in the city but there
will be anecdotal situations that rise
to the headlines for sure.
Councilman Graham,
this is Yeah, this is an important issue
because you know the thing about
overtime, I guess we we budget Mr. uh
Mr. Kaitton for some overtime, right,
Madame Mayor, Council Member? Yes,
certainly. Um the thing about overtime
is that it's just beyond what you know
you somebody's regular time that they
expect to work. The
um uh not picking on our cops, but
that's where a lot of this overtime is
concentrated. We love our cops. Um I
think in this budget we are actually
hiring more cops because I think maybe
we're concerned about not concerned,
it's the wrong word, but um distributing
some of those hours, getting those into
a sort of a full-time employee there at
their straight
time. Um the a lot of the police, it
should be noted that a lot of the police
overtime is reimbursed for special
events. I don't how much I don't know
exactly. Maybe we can look at that at
some point. Um that we can tag that, we
can flag that or account for that in
some particular way. That way we know
how much the taxpayers out of pocket
versus, you know, what we're recouping.
Um when we get reimbursement for our
police officers from special events, do
they pay for the overtime or is it just
the straight time and then we're paying
the delta? I don't know. Um but we do
know that overtime you get risk of
overtime employee burnout. Mhm. You get
diminished um you get diminished uh
performance. You get um inequitable work
distribution. You get um you do get a
service quality decline and you do get
um there is you know some perceptions of
public uh trust. Um so it's um it's um
you know that's kind of where that's
kind of where the issue is. And and the
funny thing is that the vast majority of
our police officers aren't really doing
much overtime. it's kind of concentrated
in a few, which is good because we have
people that step up and want to take
those hours, but then you kind of risk,
you know, the the diminished work
quality or diminished performance. So,
I'm excited about
um this budget and we're going to be
hiring some of our increasing some of
our headcount for that. I'd like to
monitor that. Maybe we can do some
introduce some ways to, you know, for
manager approval. I know we'd have a lot
of mechanisms already. I see the police
chief nodding. Uh congratulations as
police chief by the way. We didn't get
to say that in our in our meeting but um
um you know ways to because this is also
this is also affects taxpayers from a
pension standpoint. It has pension
effects um residuals across over time
and so
um and also is it a big I I it it is a
budget strain because there is probably
more overtime used than we budget for
every year. you're going to have an
overage, you're going to have a it's
going to be over. Um, how does the
problem compare to other cities? You
know, I think that our cops are probably
asked to work a lot more because we have
a lot more special events in a lot of
cities. So, I'm really excited about how
you can dig into this on a go forward
basis, the things you can think about
and come back and recommend to us. Um,
this is a budgeting thing. This is a
performance uh delivery of performance
uh matter and um and I know that you're
looking at I know it's something you
really care about. Thank you, Mayor.
Councilwoman Whitehead. Thank you,
Mayor. Yeah, it's it's easy for us to
track fire and police because these are
employees that qualify for overtime pay.
Um, I think it's very important and we
haven't done it. And by the way, a
couple years ago we did raise how much
uh we charge our special events for the
use of our public safety personnel. So,
it would be good to know if we're if
we're um need to look at that again. Uh,
I'm very interested in tracking the
employees that are working overtime that
don't qualify for overtime pay and
burnout is a real thing. And so that's
something that's going to be difficult
to do, but that's going to be a priority
of mine because what we want if we're
going to remain the simply better
service uh for a worldclass community,
we have to take care of those who take
care of us, too. And that includes the
uh all the employees that may be working
overtime. Thanks.
And Mayor Bowski and and council person
Graham and Whitehead. Yeah, those are
all very good points. Um, I do believe
that we heard in our presentations that
um, if the police and fire are working
overtime at special events that that the
city is reimbursed at the overtime rate.
So I so I think they're already doing
that. The city manager can correct me if
I'm wrong about that, but I believe we
did hear that and
um, we we we have some points in here
for you to look at, but yeah, we're very
aware of that and we're very aware of
burnout. One of the things we did here,
and it's kind of a culture or a
generational thing, was in some of the
departments with a lot of overhead, it's
the older employees, they're taking the
the overtime because the younger people
are more interested in that work life
balance. So, you know, that's something
to to be aware of. Are you saying
they're lazy? No, I'm not saying they're
lazy.
I to me they're
more it's more that European attitude of
you know you you uh you work to live
rather than our American live to work.
You know I I used to love working those
80 and 100 hour times when I was
building my business. When I look back
now I
say why did I do that? So, you know, I
some think some of these people have
learned from us and just have different
priorities, but it is something that we
would very much welcome looking into
more.
Let me just add a couple more things
because overtime was one of my hot
buttons. We we got into a little bit,
but not a lot. Uh what um Vice Chair
Swiker said is true. We did specifically
ask, "Are you charging for overtime?"
You were not charging for overtime
necessarily on special events, but I was
told that's in the plan now and you're
beginning to do that. So, I believe
that's been that's been fixed. Uh, the
other comment on overtime is u with the
uh I'm a little bit concerned kind of
narrow maybe because I'm an accountant.
Uh, my concern was I kind of want you to
watch whether the people close to
retirement are really spiking up the
overtime because what that does is that
gets them pension payments higher than
were actuarially estimated which will
cause your pension fund to be
underfunded uh beyond what you think
you're planning for. So, that's kind of
a little nuance that we ought to be
looking for. And um and you'll see
there's some suggestions in here about
what you might want to be looking at uh
on an ongoing basis.
Did you finish your slide? I did finish
my slide.
Um, I think I was going to have you talk
to the next topic on the next slide as
well, which is the uh fund balance
utilization and
reporting and the developer
obligations. Yeah. So, so we think that,
you know, there's a lot of big fund
balances out there. It's a very very
important thing for you to
um keep your eyes on. Uh, one of our
recommendations is is that there should
be a regular um, uh, update to the
council. I think it was suggested by our
commission, a monthly update on fund
balances and which ones are going up and
which ones are going down just so you
have your eyes on it and can see if
there are things going on early that you
need to be aware of. So, we just think
it's more flow of information to you. um
you know, we're not trying to come up
with things that really overburden the
staff to do too much, but when you're
looking at some of these really big
items, it's important for you to have
your eye on them. Um so, so we think on
those fund balances, that's definitely
something you should be doing. Uh I
think that, um David, I think you wanted
to talk about the uh PSRP part of the
fund balance.
I can skip down to the third item there
on that list of the question of
supplemental pension funding and as a
council you have dealt with this from
recommendations from staff and I think
you'll see a budget coming forward that
prescribes that you or recommends that
you uh pay $50 million extra to the uh
PSPs fund uh to reduce this liability.
um our concern, our discussions about
this and our I guess our recommendations
for your
consideration. This pension liability is
just another liability of the city very
much like any debt obligation.
Um, if you choose to take cash and pay
down some of that liability, hoping you
can chase it to a lower number,
um, it's you're not you're not meeting
an actuarial
obligation. You're doing it voluntarily.
And by taking the cash that you have
otherwise invested, really, all you're
accomplishing is interest arbitrage.
Maybe you can pay down what they're
charging you 7% for and what you would
otherwise make 4% on on the market. Um,
but I think it should not prepaying the
debt in our opinion should not be
something you do based on achieving an
interest rate arbitrage advantage. Um,
you should understand why are you paying
it down. And I think the
um if you look at it as a liability,
it's it's often characterized in your
financial reporting as x% of the police
department payroll or x% of the fire
department
payroll. It's not a police or fire
department. It's not their fault. Some
council in the past awarded these
benefits which created a liability for
the city not for the police department
and for the city not the fire
department. And so it's a city liability
and should be viewed as any other
liability. It is encumbering the city.
It has to be serviced. You have
actuaries that tell you what the service
number is. But um I think reporting it
as a percent of salaries for either
police or fire
uh distorts the the reality of the
liability and comparing to what other
cities have. You know, somebody's at 80%
funded and we're only at 60 and that
sort of thing. I'm I'm this is myself
talking personally. I'm never terribly
persuaded about what other cities are
doing. uh I'm not competing with other
cities, but I think our urge to you here
is just look critically at what you're
being asked to do and understand
uh why are you doing this instead of
some alternative use uh for those funds.
And that leads me really to the next
slide which is something that
Commissioner Swiker referred to before
and that is
the if as soon as it comes up if it
comes up um there it is. It's a a look
at the general fund reserves and the
fund balances in last year's adopted
budget and proposed for this year's
adopted budget. The one you will see on
May 6.
Um, and the biggest change in there is
in the money that had been set aside for
some advanced payment to the public
safety retirement system, the PSPRS line
three
there, and monies had been accumulated
to the extent of $116
million to try to pay that liability
down. The reserve now will be 26.6 for
two reasons.
Uh if you adopt the budget as proposed,
it will pay $50
million toward reducing the
liability. Um and then another $40
million will be reallocated from that
116 into other buckets. And a couple of
the other buckets you see highlighted
here, $10 million will be set aside in
the um reserves for facility repair and
replacement.
[Music]
and 15
million as a reserve for anticipated
potential revenue loss. The revenue loss
item addresses the concern that we all
have that we don't know what the future
holds for us. Um these are uncertain
times and we should have a budget that
tries to prepare for that uncertainty.
That's what this $15 million is for. And
the $10 million is um in a sense to
address some of the issues that we've
raised on
sustainability. Are we in fact repairing
and replacing the city's
assets as fast as they are wearing out?
Uh an issue that all of us were
concerned
about. The next slide
is talking about what we call parking
lot issues.
Um, some of them are tax reform, some of
them are operating items, but they're
all things
that left to our own imagination as a
commission we might look into at a more
exhaustive level. I'm going to have Mark
talk about this because he kind of
authored the accumulation of these
items, but this is in a sense our list.
And um if you have a list that tickles
your fancy more, by all means, give us
the
assignment. Mark, uh yeah, and I need I
need to Councilman Graham. I'm sorry.
Sorry. Excuse me. Thank you, Mayor. I
just did you finish the the the pension
funding section.
I will. You're doing finished unless you
want to keep going. No, I don't. But
Commissioner Steven, I had I had two
items I was passionate about. One was
the Tiger team and the other was
pension. And I uh I agree with chairman
that it is an arbitrage decision. But
what I really want is I would love it if
you all just a little just clearly
understood the economic dynamics around
the 50 million zero or 100 million
decision. In that regard, uh you're
going to I I didn't this is going to be
like I blindsided someone. I had Sonia
put a slide together that came together
as I was driving down here and I'd like
her to put have them put that up there,
the PSRS slide. What it does is it'll
show you the calculation using the
actuarial numbers. I I'm the person that
read the entire actuarial report so I
kind of know what's in there and I
wanted to check the math on that. So can
you put up that slide that uh Sonia did
that would see be the PSRS slide. Okay.
What you have uh on the top that is
taken directly out of the actuary
report. Not a big thing. But what I want
you to know is that the actuaries in the
report said, "By the way, if you do
advanced funding at the zero to 100 uh
100 mill million dollar level, there's
the percent funded status you would
have." And the more important thing is
the contribution rate. Contribution
rates just math. That's the payroll
times the rate. That's how much you uh
have to fund. So what that shows you is
if you go from not making the 50 million
to making the 50 it goes down 12%. And
if you went to 100 it goes down another
12%. The most important thing is
probably what's underneath because those
are real real math numbers. The part
underneath says for the T1 T2 which is
what this relates to the economic
savings uh with respect to annual
pension payments end up being the
numbers you see at the bottom at a $50
million payown level. So that's the
reduced expense in the budget at 50.
That'll be starting next year. If you do
this 50 right now, if you did a 100, it
would double. Okay? And the reason that
happens, here's what you give up. For
the 50 million you give up, you're going
to now not get a million and a half to
two million of interest income that
would go to capital improvements. You're
going to lose that million and a half to
two million for capital, but then you're
going to pick up a reduction of four
million of expense in your operating
budget. So, I wanted you to just
understand that that piece of it. And
then um the other uh uh the other
important thing I guess I I kind of
wanted out of this and I and I don't
necessarily have a recommendation for
you because what I don't know is how
important that money is to roads or to
something else. But well, the one window
you have is this money you have in fund
balance has been accumulated and it's
free for you to use in any fashion you
want. If you can't borrow money to pay
down pension debt, if you do, it's
taxable. You can't get a low rate.
However, you can borrow money, and I'm
not saying you should borrow money, but
you can borrow money at an awful cheap
rate because you're a municipality. And
so, one of the things I I would
challenge you, maybe have staff do
proform calculations for you. Hey, tell
me what it would be like if I took 50,
0, 50, or 100, and I paid down the
pension liability. What would that do to
my budget? And what if I borrowed 50
million to do something on roads and I
had to pay that back? What would that do
to the budget? So, you may want to
consider doing some pro-formas to try to
get your a better handle on that. And
while my gut tells me you probably ought
to do the 50, I I'm not telling you you
should. I just want you to understand
the economics. If you do the 50, you
lose a million and a half to two million
of capital availability, but you're
always giving operating fund to the
capital capital anyway. But you would
pick up a a real four million increasing
dollar amount. And the reason that is is
because the assumed rate of return in
the pension calculations is 7.2%. So
you're giving up 3 to 4% money that
you're earning right now and the pension
actuaries are going to be crediting you
at 7.2% because that's what the expected
earnings are of investments going over
time. So those are just kind of a couple
of the key things. That's helpful. Uh
Councilman Graham. Thank you, Mayor. Uh
Mr. Commissioner Stevens, I that was
that was probably the clearest way
anybody could ever explain that.
Yeah. Yeah. And and I'm and I actually
kind of mean that. Um this is you just
underscored the challenge of this
budget, right? Because it's t it's time
value money and it's it's it's you know
it's what its values, right? It's
priorities. Um I want to go over I was
kind of making some notes here thinking
about you know what's the be so let me
first ask is our pension right now for
the police at 70.9% Sonia
okay so we probably okay do you want to
speak to that a little bit just briefly
yes it is and um you know I wanted to
kind of give you some history on the
PSPs liability in 201617 the uh PSPs
system went through massive changes is
um new actuaries were put in place, new
investment advisor were put in place,
massive corrections to the actuarial
assumptions that resulted in a
significant unfunded liability that was
put on the books for our uh not just
Scottsdale but all the cities and all
the districts and that's what the city
has been accumulating those PSPRS
reserves to address is to pay down those
liability. We have paid we started with
um in 2017 the police contribution rate
was 36% of payroll and it had risen to
63% of payroll in 2023 because of the
massive corrections and the unfunded
liability that was put onto the city.
And so that's what we've been addressing
since then. And the city has uh made
additional contributions of about 65 or
64 million to date between the primarily
to police. There's a little bit to fire.
And so with the additional contributions
we've made to date, we've been able to
raise the funded status from about 52%
to what is now 70 um 1%. And I think um
our goal from the prior council was to
pay pay it off as quickly as possible
and try to raise the funded status as
much as possible. So that is the reason
why we're proposing the 50 million that
would raise it to 80% funded and allow
us to uh reduce as commissioner Stevens
says reduce our general fund expenses by
4 million a year and that helps us uh
maintain a structurally balanced uh
general fund moving forward. And that is
primarily um what we have in the
proposed budget is the savings of 4
million and the 50 million of additional
payown. It's that is a little that's a
little bit um I agree with everything
you just said. Um I I we go and write a
$50 million check and then $4 million
we're saving seven you know
7.2%. But we can't be too aggressive
that you know we're not patching
potholes and then you have those costs
go up. We this is a multi- you know
faceted approach. When we paid 63% of
payroll was that the required payment or
was that requirement plus additional
payouts? That was the required payment.
What are we at now? We're at 52.55%.
Okay. And then what I mean what's a what
what what what's a healthy percentage?
The healthy what we consider would be
the funded status. I think we believe
that 80% would be a funded healthy
funded status. I was more asking I was
more asking the contribution rate. What
would you know what would be and if we
got it up then we can get it down to the
40s and maybe the 30s.
Um, so that's kind of what I'm asking.
The I would like to get it up. So if I
can just the commission's not giving us
a recommendation for how much how much
of a check to write this year, right?
Okay. I I think that's correct. And also
to be fair, two people in the meeting we
had said don't make any payment. Yeah.
Don't make any payment. Don't make two
people said don't make any payment. we
settled on this comment that said
understand the economics and decide if
it should be 0, 50 or 100 or what. So
there I think there is a very compelling
reason to make extra payment. I mean for
starters we we've had the cash in our
general fund. We couldn't spend it
literally because we had an expenditure
limit that we were that we were bursting
out against. Um you know when you have a
healthier when you have a healthier
funded funded status on your pension
that gives peace of mind to retirees.
that gives peace of mind to our
employees. That's a retention and not
not only that, that's a recruitment
factor. You know, do you as a if you're
a police officer, do you want to go work
for the uh you know, the bozos with 30%
funded, you know, rate or do you want to
work for the company with for the uh
municipality with an 80% or 75%.
Um, and then you know we talk about this
arbitrage and the arbitrage is real
because you take that percentage and you
multiply it by a number you get a big
number. We can save $4 million. But
there this is not it's not
onedimensional because we also we can
spend that money and we can avoid I mean
you're talking about deferred
maintenance now. We can spend that money
and we can avoid deferred maintenance.
Our borrowing our our cost to borrow is
very low. So we get the most bang for
our buck if we take this and we pay it
down and we get 7.2%. 2% $4 million is
the number I guess we're looking at for
next year, whatever it might be. So, I'm
really excited about this
conversation and I really hope that we
do make extra payments this year. $50
million I think is aggressive. Maybe we
do make that, you know, maybe maybe
maybe that can be done. Maybe 25 maybe
we start with 25 million. Who knows what
what it'll be kind of what the
collective council maybe, you know,
decides. But um getting it to a
7075 that is a that is a recruitment and
that is peace of mind for a lot of
people and it's a better it's better for
taxpayer burden. So very good very good
discussion. Thank you for explaining
that to us Commissioner Stevens. Madame
Mayor, let me uh if I can respond to a
couple of things. It is true we're not
making a recommendation to the council.
Our recommendation is eyes wide open.
understand what you're being asked to
do. Um, and that's why we emphasize the
fact that
uh it it is a city obligation. I'm not
sure I would agree that it would give a
retiree peace of mind to know that the
fund was uh that the balance was funded
to 80% or whatever because they know if
it's a 20% if it goes if it tanks it's a
city obligation just like any other
liability. I doubt that it uh really
helps in recruitment. Maybe it does, but
I urge you to think of it as a city
liability and uh and not base it on
things like what percent it is of
payroll because it really doesn't matter
what percent it is of payroll. It's a
city liability of whatever magnitude. So
talk about it as a dollar amount of
liability.
um look at the actuarial requirements,
fund certainly the minimums and and make
sure you have a rational reason for
going anything above that. That's our
only
recommendation. with that
uh unplanned diversion. Uh let's go back
to the report we had on the
screen. And uh and I I'll go over these,
but the last slide you saw in fund
balance I thought was a very important
one too because that's one that really
does show your discretion that you have
in certain funds. There's a number on
top there that you kind of need to keep
for bond rating purposes, but the rest
of it really is the discretion of the
people sitting up there as to how you
want to allocate it. So, it's your rainy
day funds and how you want to allocate
it. Uh then this these items,
what's that?
Sure. Um these are the items that we
have in appendix A for you. These are
some of the things that we're thinking
of looking at uh next year and we have
not really gotten together to get our
approach for next year. But some of them
include cost recovery uh just to make
sure there's equity and what's happening
there. There was talk of impact in
structure uh fees whether should be that
should be looked into. Some talk of
water rates and whether or not there's
some considerations of the aging
structure and whether water rates need
to include uh more amounts for uh
enhancements there. uh looking at some
of the growth and revenue historical
information,
uh possible long range SWAT analysis
about what could be happening on
legislative actions and the impact that
it might have on city revenues. Uh some
discussion of some postpreserve
five-year improvement plan information
on capital projects, possibly looking at
uh some of the way contracts are bid and
whether there should be specific markup
percentages um included in some of the
contracts. I think you do that to some
degree, but we wanted to look into that
more. Uh maybe some of the terms on
design, build, uh construction manager
type contracts and uh some of the terms
and selection processes there. And then
also, uh potential uses of uh the
lowcost funding uh funds availability
that the city has. And then on the
operating budget side, we really didn't
look at enterprise funds. So we might
want to look at some of the larger
enterprise fund elements there. And then
contract services we like, although city
managers made it clear that that's a key
item for for him to look at. Uh we'll
continue to look at sustainability.
There's a lot of talk on park
maintenance and whether the there's some
deferred maintenance there. The funding
adequacy is okay there. Um and there was
a uh let's see, I actually inputs. Oh,
and another one small item I I may want
to look into. You've got a you're
overfunded by a million and a half in
the uh PSRS health plan. And I don't
know if that's something you can legally
settle like some companies do and buy uh
annuity contracts and then have the
extra funds available for something
else. Don't don't know. We didn't look
into that. Just as one question and then
um uh uh potential uses of debt and
treasury might look at the treasury
function. So really it's a shopping list
of things but uh uh like the chairman
said earlier if you have any direction
for us that would be uh helpful for next
year and we'll have more than two
months.
I think some of the items that we want
to emphasize that uh this commission
could be helpful on is I'll call it
overall look at tax reform. Uh we talked
about a couple of tax items that might
be candidates for elimination or
suspension or whatever.
Um but we also as a a
commission can address the question of
is our tax structure frankly sufficient
to sustain the services of the city. Uh
you all know that we have the lowest
sales tax rate of any city in the entire
state along with uh some of the most
aggressive service levels and is that
sustainable?
um and if not um what kind of reform
would be necessary to achieve
sustainability. So there's a lot of
things on here but um obviously the last
one is other as assigned by council. So
if there's uh items that you want to
assign to this commission or
uh now or later uh speak or forever hold
your peace. I also um want to give some
of the council or some of the commission
members um who have not participated in
the discussion an opportunity to uh talk
if they wish to.
Um Commissioner uh Rensco was not able
to be with us tonight. He is, believe it
or not, driving from Hong Kong to
Paris. We don't know why. We hope we
hear from him.
Um but
um the others are welcome to come here.
Commissioner Sites and Commissioner
Carla and this is unplanned so we'll
just let them uh say whatever they
want. I just want to say thank you and
I'm not close enough.
uh to the staff particularly for all the
support they've given us to my fellow
commissioners who have contributed so
much and I really look forward to the
next year when we have a chance to uh
review a lot of what we've just
scratched on the surface right now.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your
service. Great job.
Um, first off, I want to thank you all
for the opportunity to serve and I want
to thank my fellow
commissioners for
their willingness to share knowledge and
to also to learn. Um, I think we all did
a lot of that. And I especially want to
thank Commissioner Stevens for all of
the extra work he did to write our full
report. He brought it all together and
spent Lord knows how many hours. Um,
from the report I would like to hit a
couple of points again, just things that
really think could help our city. And
first is changing the process by which
capital projects are budgeted. I mean,
it's it's something that really needs to
be done. and I'm sure the city manager
has already got immense plans for that.
The second is advanced project scoping
especially in areas with aging
infrastructure because both of those
things could save a lot of surprises and
repeated coming back for cost increases.
A third is that we didn't talk about
very much was inappropriate departments
transition from the increasingly
expensive contract services to in-house
you know and maybe you do have to add
some more FTEES but in the long run you
save money so those things I think it
would be very important to start as soon
as possible. Um, again, like I said
before, regarding the preserves
overpass, I think we have a reasonable
path forward and I hope we can get
started as soon as feasible. Um, there
are a couple of concerns in the report.
Um, it was brought up earlier about the
preserve funding and could we use the
money after the 2018 Prop 420. Now, I
know the council all got this, but I
want the public to hear this, too, that
you all received a very lengthy,
in-depth letter from Howard Meyers, who
was the author of Prop 420. And he says
very clearly that the money can be spent
on these trail head improvements and
they can be spent on building whatever
the Riovery crossing becomes after we go
through the feasibility study and
everybody approves and reaches consensus
but that the funds can very clearly be
spent for that and um that his group
protect our preserve if there's a
differing legal opinion that they will
challenge that. So I think it's very
important that the public hears and
knows that um because after all he was
the author. The other thing I wanted to
bring up and this is
maybe it's the the as one of the two
commissioners who voted against making a
recommendation for considering
suspending the grocery tax. I want to
stress that our group did not discuss
that in depth. We did not run numbers to
see how big of a hole that would leave
in our budget, nor how we would deal
with that revenue reduction. And as we
all know from our household budgets,
when you lose revenue, it can have
serious implications. So I just want you
all to understand that those numbers
were not run and if you're going to
consider it, there will have to be a lot
more discussion in in depth. But our
city has an excellent finance staff and
I hope that you follow their directions
so that we can stay on the path of
financial security. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead. Um
well, do we have public speakers?
Maybe. Well, okay. I I'll just say my
piece. I have been so impressed and I
know I've communicated with some of you
but it has been wonderful actually to be
um you know in in the comfortable chair
with the iced tea watching your long
meetings and I just want to thank all of
you and tell you even this is my seventh
budget but how much I'm learning how how
how you've broadened my outlook on ways
to look at things. So huge thank you.
It's been wonderful to watch and I can't
I'm looking forward to continuing this
relationship. Councilman Graham. Thank
you, Mayor. Um, one of the things that I
was hoping that this because this is
more
qualitative, maybe consider some ratios
when you come back and talk to us that
you may might be um illustrative to us.
Some of the things that come to mind um
and by the way, the capital pro the
capital project budgets, Carlo, did you
mention that? That's key.
Um, I'm interested in, you know, part of
our financial health is comparing across
history and comparing with our peers.
And I'm not trying to give Sonia and her
staff a bunch of extra work, but just
looking for
ratios. Yeah, Kathy says I am looking
for ratios that might be illustrative to
where we are that measure our financial
health. Um some ones that I kind of
wrote down and came to mind and we do
track debt coverage. Um repairs and
maintenance as a percentage of property
and equipment. You know that that to me
how much are we investing in our
infrastructure and you know that's how
we that that's kind of or maybe some
other way to measure are we deferring
maintenance or are we ahead of
maintenance. Um that to me is you know
one of the first things that goes uh
that go that gets um that gets ignored
when especially when um governments um
hit constraints with their revenue. Um
personnel cost as a percentage of total
operating expenditures. Overtime as a
percentage of total payroll. Um there's
ratios you can look at for our reserves
and how healthy we are.
Um it'd also be interesting to know like
you know expenditures per capita and and
so these are just we don't have to do
any of these or we can do all of them or
we can do none of them but it's just
looking for ratios that kind of tell a
story both over time and um comparing
with our peers in the valley. Um I I
think that is just um you can learn a
lot and it can be really instructive and
insightful because something can stand
out and we say wow we're really missing
the ball
on maintaining our roads which we know
we are but you know there's a ratio I
guarantee or there's a number or some
calculation that would actually prove
that or flesh that out um so we don't
have to wait before it smacks us across
the face. Um so again like I said do all
of them do none of them find different
ones but it's just something to think
about. Thank you. Thank you mayor. Thank
you. Uh I just want to touch on a uh
several things actually that you talked
about tonight and um I would love to see
go further which is uh FTE vacancies
that uh are per perpetual um capital
projects. Obviously we've we've all uh
chimed in on that. I think that's a
really big deal. Um a more competitive
bidding process. I I think you touched
on that a little bit. I think that's
that's an important goal for the city.
Uh over time, the software that you
discussed, I think that'd be great to
hear more about. Um getting our PCI up
to where Paradise Valley is or close to.
That sounds like a great goal. Um and
then the monthly the monthly re
reporting of fund balances. I thought
that was uh that was a great
recommendation that I'd like to see us
take advantage of or get in the habit
of. So, I don't see any other uh
speakers. Oh, Councilman Clausman.
Yeah, Madame Mayor, I just want to thank
you for bringing this to the council,
back to the council. I think that um
this has been such a a wonderful and
thoughtful discussion. You're seeing
great cooperation throughout the just
throughout the council and the spectrum.
I mean I mean I think everybody who's
listening to this and everybody at home
who's listening to this is should be
extremely optimistic about the
short-term fiscal future of Scottsdale,
the long-term fiscal future of of
Scottsdale and how and how this council
is really coming together to really make
sure that everybody is placed on a path
to prosperity. So with that, thank you.
Thank you. I I concur with that
observation uh very much so and look
forward to to working with you all as we
proceed into next year's preparation. Uh
I should have also
um mentioned thank you all for doing
this. The hours that you've spent is
just they it's been incredible and
really a tribute to you know how well
the system works. Uh I do think we have
a lot of um a lot of room to really
improve the process with more time and
and do deep dives if you as you've
touched on. Uh you you think getting
your nose under the camel's tent here um
that there's a lot of opportunity to do
that. And I know we're not taking any
action tonight, but one item that did
come up when I was talking to our city
treasurer is we may need to tweak this
ordinance so that it allows more of a,
you know, a deep dive, if you will, into
departments and bigger topics rather
than just a check the work of the city
treasurer uh analysis. So, I would
completely support that. I'd ask uh
staff to you know start discussions
about that and Sher Scott if we need to
look at revisions to the ordinance to
match the work that they're doing with
the language in in the ordinance. So,
uh, with that, I'm going to open it up
to the public comments, uh, excuse me,
public speakers, starting with Stephen
Kuchio, and then John Zakius, Sonni
Kurtley, and
Cynthia Winstrom.
Thank you, Mayor Barowski, Vice Mayor
Dascus, Council members. I have a
feeling that we're the only things that
stands between you and your first drink
or dinner or your kids. So, thank you
for the opportunity. Uh, in my name is
Steve Kuchio. I've lived in I have lived
in Scottsdale for 22 years and I am the
chair of the McDall Snor and Preserve
Commission.
In 2004, Scottsdale voters approved a
0.15% preserve tax to fund land
acquisition and improvements such as a
wildlife overpass for Riovery
Drive. The number one management
objective in chapter 21 of the city
charter, which governs the preserve,
directs the city to maintain the
biological diversity and long-term
sustainability of the area's ecology.
Arizona Game and Fish, the universally
recognized experts on wildlife in the
state, conducted the 2012 Maricopa
County connectivity assessment and
identified a connection between the
Mcdow Mountains and Tanto National
Forest as a as a necessary linkage.
The report goes on to state that
wildlife crossings are an effective way
to maintain the habitat
connectivity and the preserves
2016
ecological resource plan made it clear
that the gooseeneck
area serves as an important
corridor for north south wildlife
movement. The gooseeneck was purchased
specifically for this
purpose, but the 2017 deer collar study
showed that the road has become an
impediment to wildlife movement.
Shifting gears a little, in a study on
wildlife road mortality, game and fish
wrote that the wildlife that wildlife
vehicle collisions account for hundreds
of millions of dollars in damage and
kill 200 motorists annually in this
country. By the way, there was a mu deer
killed on the road this past week. I
worry about the time when a motorcyclist
comes down one evening and hits a mu
deer. what the consequences would
be. We should also be concerned about
the hikers, bikers, and equestrians who
must dodge the traffic every time they
cross the road on the current gooseeneck
trail. For the reasons stated, the
McDall andor Preserve Commission
supports the plan for an overpass and
unanimously recommended it to the city
council in March.
The preserve commission understands that
the taxpayers's money must be spent as
wisely as possible, but we also
understand that the city has a
responsibility to maintain the health of
the preserve's
fauna as well as the safety of motorists
and preserve users. One more sentence.
The budget review commission's
recommended study to better define the
scope, design, estimated cost, and other
elements of the overpass is a logical
and prudent step forward at this time.
Thank you. Thank
you, John Zakius.
Oh, my presentation
is good evening, Mayor Barski, Vice
Mayor uh Dubankas. Uh my name is John
Zikius. My address is on file. I'm also
representing the stewards of the McDow
Sonorin Conservancy. Um I'm here to
speak with you and provide more
information about conducting a
feasibility study for the Lambridge over
Rio
Drive, the wildlife overpass. um is
important because at 128th Street, as
Steve mentioned, is the Goose Neck
Trail, which crosses Reovery Drive
today. Um that is a major trail today.
Hikers, bikers, and equestrian must
navigate a busy street. And with the
planned expansion of that road
eventually to four lanes, it could be
even more dangerous. So, from a safety
standpoint, it's critical that this
study be conducted.
One of the things to keep in mind is
that the Scottsdale is a destination for
visitors. And as we speak about public
safety, but also talk
about the animals in the preserve and
the importance
of the economic value of the preserve.
In a recent study, 92% of voters
responded that healthy parks and
preserve make Scottsdale a great place
to live, work, visits, which supports
our community in many ways.
Without the wildlife crossing, the
preserve will not have a healthy
ecosystem. Will, and I have a question,
two questions for you. Will the preserve
still be an attractive destination for
many of our visitors? And also, would it
still be worth the nearly $1 billion the
taxpayers paid for the preserve? One key
factor really sets hiking and enjoying
the preserve apart from other hiking and
outdoor activities in the valley. It's a
potential for visitors to see wildlife
in the preserve.
One of the other things that's
critically important is the ecosystem
and the regional connectedness is
critical to the preserve's long-term
health, allowing for the movement of
species to forge for food, water, and
mating. And when you look at the overall
land, it's not not just the
30,580 acres of the preserve. It's also
the 3 million total acres with the Tanto
National Forest, McDow Mountain Regional
Park, and Fountain Hills. Without this
access, biodiversity in the preserve
will greatly decline.
There's been talk about Arizona Game and
Fish and the Mcdow Conservancy conducted
a biodiversity collar deer tracking
study back in 2016 through 2018. The
results of the study indicated that the
deer population due to Riovery Drive
separated the deer population in and
around the preserve into two separate
subgroups. As you can see in the blue
circle, that's Rioie Drive and Dynamite
Road. And you can see the deer collar
study showed the deer movement above and
below the road but very little crossing
of the road. This is not healthy for the
deer population long term as it limits
genetic mixing and grazing opportunities
due to different topography and flora
which can vary from the northern part of
the preserve to the southern part of the
preserve. These are some of the the fawn
in the preserve today. We have deer,
jack rabbits, skunks, ringtails and many
others. What's important is What's
important is a wildlife land bridge will
provide the following benefits. Help
ensure the viability and health of the
fawn in the preserve, ensuring the
connectedness of the preserve with
adjacent open space and provide a safe
crossing for hikers, bikers, and
equestrians. And of course, I have an
owl for questions. Thank you. Thank you
very much. That's cute. Uh Dr. Sonnie
Curtley. Elmo,
please. There's our
logo. Greetings to the council and happy
Earth, by the way. April 22nd all over
the world we hope. My name is Sonni
Curtley. I'm on the board for COGS
Coalition of Greater
Scottsdale. A COGS board member mwah sat
through 45 hours with this wonderful
group, productive group uh with the
budget review commission. While the
commissioners focused on the exciting
topics, critical issues, city finance,
capital projects, department staff
reports, there's one issue that deeply
resonates with Scottsdale residents, and
that's the longterm protection of our
preserve and the stewardship of our
preserve. That includes safeguarding the
wildlife, the native vegetation, the
trail system, and the irreplaceable
experience of simply being there. I've
lived here 56 years, and being there, if
you haven't, you've got to go. In our
April 14th letter to the city council
that you received last week and of
course you read COGS joined the many
federal, state, and local agencies that
have supported the effort since
1997. We strongly recommend the
inclusion of the Rio Verie Drive
wildlife overpass. It should be in this
fiscal year
2526 budget. Please get it in there.
Why? Four reasons. One, responsible
planning starts with a feasibility
study, just as they've told you. It's a
proposal that is a very large scale, a
feasibility study first. Number two, an
estimated
$250,000 in preserve tax funding is
already there. It's already available.
Number three, the Riovery Drive widening
is still years away in planning and
construction and the animals are there
now. Number four, my final one. This
overpass has been envisioned for two
decades. It takes time to get to the
first step. Your time is right now. Take
that first step. approve the feasibility
study in this budget. Thank you. And
I'll be coming back.
Thank you, Cynthia Wenstrom. Can I say
something?
I I I just wanted to comment to Sonnie.
I mean, what So, I watch these meetings
and you know, Sony's like the security
blanket. She's always
there. So, thank you for attending all
those meetings and always your
thoughtful remarks.
Good evening, Mayor Bowski, Vice Mayor
Dasquez, and council members. I am
Cynthia Wenstrom, address on file with
our city clerk's office. I've served six
years on the McDall Snorm Preserve as
vice chair and chair and most recently
chaired the protect and preserve task
force, which led to the Proposition 490
on last year's budget or last year's
ballot. It was very concerning to me to
hear that this council may be interested
may not be interested in using funds
voted on years ago and approved by the
citizens of Scottsdale for the long
proposed wildlife overpass that instead
of spending 30 million plus or minus
whatever it ends up being already
earmarked for wildlife overpass allowing
safe passage and genetic exchange for
healthy wildlife Scottsdale's $1 billion
asset known as McDow Sonorum Preserve
may be allowed to
vanish. Conducting your due diligence
about this topic, did you look at our
neighbors Phoenix specifically, only to
discover that their preserve is
dead? Their animals are gone, save for
the omnivores, meaning the
coyotes. If you are aware of this, then
why would you choose to follow failure?
Their wildlife was cut off by roads the
same as ours. Dynamite, Puma, and
others, not to mention Rio Verde,
Fountain Hills, which is to the east.
Homes that are built almost to the edge
of the preserve on many of the
boundaries. And as you've heard
previously, 128th Street that goes right
down the center of the gooseeneck, which
is that corridor between the south and
the north and into the Tonto National
Forest.
Time and again, polling Scottsdale
voters has shown residents support, vote
for, and choose to fund McDow Sonorin
Preserve because of the wildlife. Not
the cactus, not the beautiful blooming
wild flowers. It's the wildlife. It
gives us a sense of nature and the
natural world. And my gosh, don't we
need that now more than ever? It's not a
zoo and it certainly is not a park. It
is a nature preserve where wildlife live
naturally and flourish in their natural
surroundings. Wildlife overpasses are
successful in
Arizona, in our country, and globally
with the largest world world uh largest
in the world currently under
construction in California. It is 10
lanes wide because of the urban
interface with wildlife. Scottsdale's
preserve is onethird of our land mass.
Home to species of undullet, big cats,
small mammals, tortoises, and birds, not
to mention, of course, the flora. A
wildlife overpass over dynamite and Rio
is not a matter of if you build it, they
will come. No, it is a matter
[Music]
of when you build this overpass, they
will survive and they will thrive.
That's what this is. Please don't kill
our animals. Don't kill our wildlife.
Don't kill our McDall Snorm Preserve. Do
the right thing for Scottsdale. Thank
you so much. Thank you. I have an
indication. Dan Isaac, you are the last
speaker. Dan Isaac, address on record.
Um we actually found a topic that
appeared to have unonymity on the
council and that is we want to make sure
that our roads are in better condition.
Um one thing our roads are actually
above the national average but could
they be better? Yes. There are a couple
stretches of road that are are pretty
bad. Um, so if the council agrees that
we need to spend more money on fixing
roads, then I don't understand why we
gave up $31.5 million of federal funds,
which may or may not be
recouped eight months from now. If we
want money to improve our roads, we
shouldn't have gotten rid of the
roundabout. We should have taken the
31.5 million. The budget review
commission appropriately pointed out a
future risk of the city is federal
funding. So I don't understand why all
of you sit up there and say you want to
improve our roads, but you gave away
$31.5 million that could have been used
on our roads. Thank you.
Thank you. I don't have any more uh
speakers and if you have any closing
comments. Um, but before you do that,
uh, Chairman Smith was kind enough to
provide me with this information, little
tidbit that our, uh, Scottsdale
historian, Joan Fedulla, um, was able to
to, uh, research and get this
information. Back on June 23rd, 1951,
uh our operating budget was our revenues
were
$24,26312 in Scottsdale and our expenses
pad uh in comparison
$19,228. I mean, that's not that long
ago. That's that's a big difference. Uh,
so they they were in the in the uh
black, if you will.
$5,240.84 whopping overage. So, thank
you for that, David.
Well, and the only closing comments we
have is we're still looking to help find
a budget that generates uh whatever that
is, 20% of revenues as a surplus. Mhm.
Um but we may not be there for a while.
I have faith.
I think that concludes our work study
session. And uh with that, I'll
entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved.
Second.
Done. Thank you everybody.