City Council | Regular Meeting - November 19, 2024

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hello I call the November 19th 2024 city
council regular meeting and work study
session to order city clerk Ben Lane
please conduct the roll call thank you
mayor mayor David Ortega pres vice mayor
Barry Graham pres Council memb tamy
caputi here Tom Durham here Betty Janik
here Kathy
Littlefield here and Salange Whitehead
here city manager Jim Thompson here City
attorney Sher Scott here City Treasurer
Sonia Andrews here acting City auditor L
clof here and the clerk is present thank
you mayor well excellent um we have
Scottdale police Sergeant excuse me
mayor my phone just went or my headset
just turned on and I am here excuse me I
think we're hearing from councilwoman
Kathy Littlefield she's clarifying your
attendance yes thank you so she is here
U remotely um we do have Scottdale
police Sergeant sha Ryan and detectives
Dustin Patrick Dave ler and John
Maldonado as well as firefighter Mike
Orin if anyone requires their assistance
um let's stand now for the Pledge of
Allegiance led by councilman Betty Janes
at this time we draw attention to the
ongoing Wars in foreign countries as
they fight to protect democracy and
their freedom we also keep in mind our
military uh service members here and
abroad uh those who are deployed are in
crisis zones so we include them in our
thoughts and Reflections please join me
in a moment of Silent refle reflection
for these War torn
countries thank you
during tonight's meeting the council may
make a motion to recess into executive
session to obtain legal advice on any
applicable item on the agenda if
authorized by the council the executive
session will be held immediately and
will not be open to the public the
public meeting will then resume
following the executive
session also per our Council rules of
procedure citizens attending City
Council meetings shall observe the same
Rules of Order and decorum applicable to
members of the council and City staff
unauthorized remarks or demonstrations
from the audience such as Applause um
yells stomping a feat or other
demonstrations are not permitted um
violation of those rules could uh result
in removal from the meeting by security
staff also it'll just help our meeting
run a lot lot faster and smoother as you
know we have a full house and many
people want uh to share their U opinions
tonight additionally this the council
recently updated our Council rules
council members shall not send any
electronic communications expart or
outside of the public hearing so
therefore we have uh put away and
secured any communication devices other
than those provided by the city for City
business uh at this time we would begin
public comment public comment is a uh
Allowed by S uh state law where someone
could come forward and um on any non
agendized item so uh seeing that there's
no request for public comment on non-
agendized items therefore I will close
public comment next we will move on to
the approval of the minutes I would
request a motion to approve the regular
meeting minutes of October 27 2 2024 do
I have a motion so moved second we have
a motion and second please record your
vote and I will call on councilwoman
Littlefield councilwoman Littlefield we
are voting on the um motion to approve
minutes of October 22nd 2024
seeing no response I'll I'll follow up
with her at this point it's uh uh six
approving uh and
um no response from councilwoman
Littlefield remotely so we will try to
follow up with her make sure we're in
communication next we will go to um
consent agenda items one two and three
consent agenda items are fully um
recorded on file and have all the
substantiating uh material uh they are
grouped as a consent agenda item There's
an opportunity for the public to speak
uh or comment on any um consent agenda
item I see there is no request by the
public to speak on item uh consent
agenda item one two and three therefore
I will close public comment uh and we
have the opportunity for Council to
raise any question uh or clarification
seeing none I see councilwoman
whad mayor I move to uh approve items
consent agenda items one through
three second thank you we have a motion
and a second please record your
vote so we have six affirmative votes
and um
we're waiting to hear from councilwoman
Littlefield on that connection she is
remote so we at this point we'll move on
and try to secure that connection uh
with uh councilwoman
Littlefield again um per our rules as we
go now into the regular agenda uh
regular agenda is item number four the
axon minor General plan Amendment uh
again I would just uh remind people we
believe that there's um an overflow
crowd and uh in contact with the city
clerk I'll be U calling on um public
comment for item number four uh when
that time comes after the
presentations uh now we will proceed
with item number four acts on minor
General plan amendment number three GP
uh 2023 it's resoning uh case
13zn 2020 number two development
agreement and public infrastructure
reimbursement development agreement so
we have a staff prenter from uh
presentation by Carrie Kilgore who's the
economic development director Then
followed by uh Greg Bloomberg who's the
principal planner good to see you Terry
thank you mayor good evening mayor and
councel um this evening we'll be talking
about axon's requests to rezone their
property to enable the construction of a
world headquarter
you may remember this began as a
economic development project 5 years ago
in an effort to retain
axon tonight we're looking at a new
proposal but the goal is still the same
which is the retention of a major
employer plus the opportunity to
increase the number of high quality jobs
in our community given this is a
multi-dimensional issue we've broken the
presentation into a couple of Parts
first we'll talk about the context of
the project as well as the deal terms
that have been negotiated between the
city and axon and then we'll follow up
with uh quite a lot of depth on the land
use changes
themselves
oops uh so as background um this is for
a world headquarters and we don't say
that in a aspirational way this really
is a multinational company uh serving
over 100 countries uh the vision is to
create a modern technology campus that
includes the previously approved 250,000
ft headquarters and Manufacturing
facilities with the new addition of 435
hotel rooms 47,000 Square ft of retail
and restaurant as well as
1,965 residential units with 365 of
those being condos this represents over
a $1.3 billion Capital infusion to build
the full project between the land
buildings and
equipment so the project I think most
people are familiar with it uh it's been
before uh Comm misss previously but it's
located on the North 101 Corridor at the
intersection of 101 in North Hayden so
the total project site is is kind of all
the dirt to the east of Hayden Road um
but this evening the the rezoning is for
44.7 Acres of that uh the council
previously approved 35 acres for the
headquarters in manufacturing as well as
4.6 Acres which is sort of the empty
Square adjacent to Hayden Road for a
Civic use site on which um we are
currently constructing a fire station as
well as water
infrastructure this evening oops uh
there are five action steps before the
council um to amend the general plan and
Air Park character area plan to take
action on the zoning proposals declaring
acts on development plan to be a public
record as well as two Das in front of
you I'm sorry development agreement I'm
speaking in lingo uh the first is the
amended and restated public
infrastructure agreement between the the
city in axon the second is amending the
city's agreement with the Arizona state
land Department in a way that the
crossroads East um land would be enabl
to be used in this manner our request
this evening is that the council
consider all five items as a package
they are very
interconnected um and so um listening
hearing them as at one item and acting
on them in a single action would be
preferred this project uh aligns with
our Str strategic vision in several ways
first the general plan specifically
calls out of importance Community
prosperity and dedicates an entire
chapter to Innovation and prosperity
axon um with the number of jobs that
they are bringing obviously brings uh
employment opportunities and investment
to our community towards Community
prosperity and Innovation they are a
technology leader in their space the
goal of attracting and retaining high
quality jobs I would note that our
standard in Economic Development and as
a city is to bring in jobs that exceed
County median wages by
185% this project meets and even exceeds
that
goal uh we're speaking about uh both the
retention of a current employer which
currently has 850 jobs located here in
Scottsdale as well as bringing in at
least 650 new jobs at that higher wage
Economic Development partnered with
applied economics and the estimated
economic impact uh for the direct impact
this is not with multipliers and all of
those things the direct impact over 10
years would be $4.6
billion with 1.4 million accruing to the
city during that time in sales and
property tax
directly the other thing I would like to
highlight is that um axon checks two
boxes in the economic development
strategic plan that was previously
adopted by Council first corporate
headquarters I think that one's self
explanatory but also in technology and
uh we'll talk a little bit more about
Trends in technology but what we do know
is that technology tends to Cluster uh
you see that in Boston you see it in
Austin you see it in Seattle and so um
retaining axon uh helps B bolster
Scottsdale's reputation as a hub for
technology and
Innovation the other place that are uh
we align in our interests here is the is
in our mission uh Public Safety is
obviously important to our community and
axon's mission is to help bring
technology to bear in a way that keeps
both our community as well as our Public
Safety Officer safe um Chief Walthers is
here if you'd like to hear more about
the variety of Partnerships that uh
scottd PD has going with axon but what
it does is it brings uh Public Safety
leadership to Scottsdale and so those
are some of the best kinds of visitors
you can get here spending money in our
community they are also recognized as a
national security leader with
Partnerships and um contracts with the
Department of Defense and of Veterans
Affairs industry Trends and I apologize
these are both from California we can
provide you other examples from around
the country but in large uh technology
employers what we're seeing is a trend
towards campuses that build a more
holistic campus that includes
entertainment uh retail restaurant as
well as living and so in many ways this
trend is in line with what we see in
Facebook and Google in
Mountainville um as I mentioned Tech
does Trend to Cluster and so um we've
heard from our peers around the country
about the importance of having a
signature tech company in your community
and how that attracts additional tech
companies uh the other thing is that
we're hearing from all types of
employers that the work from home trend
is sort of moderating and that as they
look at new locations
um they are looking at room to expand
and they are including housing is an
important consideration in those site
selection
decisions so switching to the terms of
the agreement before you I would
highlight that this is a public
infrastructure reimbursement agreement
and what that means is that we are in
essence um agreeing to reimburse the the
applicant for public infrastructure that
they are building on the city's behalf
so this really what it does effectively
is accelerates the construction of
public infrastructure that benefits more
than just this parcel improvements that
benefit only the private development are
paid for by the applicant so this is
just for the public piece as part of
this agreement we've built terms that um
expect that the the customer excuse me
axon will complete several Milestones
before they are even eligible for
reimbursement and I would highlight that
this is definitely a reimbursement we do
not prepay pay them um they have to
incur the expense and document it um to
our satisfaction to be eligible for
repayment they have five years from the
confirmation date of this agreement by
which they must construct construct the
headquarters and Manufacturing space
that 250,000 sare fet we mentioned
earlier as well as achieve a payroll of
$130
million uh the other thing I would
highlight for you is that axon is
required to begin the phase one which is
the headquarters in manufacturing before
they can begin building the subsequent
facilities envisioned in Phase
2 the way the deal is structured um is
that they're eligible for up to 9.4
million in reimbursement which includes
improvements to Mayo Boulevard um and
Hayden Road I would note for you that
this amount was previously approved as
part of the 2020 action this is a
reaffirmation of that amount axon did
not request additional f funding which
is notable in that construction costs in
the period since then have doubled if
not tripled and so in some ways we are
getting infrastructure built at 2020
pricing not mentioned on our slide is
the fact that axon is bringing 3,000
acre feet of water as part of this
agreement uh for those of us that don't
speak in acre feet which is me um that's
about 950 million gallons of water to
our community shortly after the
execution of this agreement
in addition the Civic use site that I
mentioned earlier um is it was provided
by axon to the city and they are only
eligible for reimbursement for the cost
of that land at their purchase price
which is $3.1 million and it's only if
they complete their Milestones before
the end of the term of the
agreement so as we look at this project
um as Community benefits uh and what
acrs to the community we've we've talked
about dollars and cents but it's also
that ability to attack attract top tier
talent and the reputation in the field
um this really will be both a regional
National and even International draw as
Public Safety lead leaders are brought
in to train on the latest and greatest
technology and having axon in our
community allows our Police Department
to uh chime in and even beta test some
of those Technologies which allows us to
really be early adopters in this new
industry
with that I will turn the mic over to
Taylor Reynolds from our longrange
planning department and he will give us
the details on the the land use thank
you good evening mayor Ortega members of
council I'm Taylor Reynolds uh principal
planner with long-range planning and
here this evening to walk you
through uh the general plan Amendment
portion of this request from the
applicant so just 3gp P
2023 so in terms of the subject site as
Terry noted it's on the south side of
the Loop 101 East side of Hayden uh
generally 43 acres and from a general
plan land use standpoint the applicant
is requesting a change from the existing
employment light industrial office use
to mix use neighborhoods commencer it
with their uh zoning requests to include
residential retail and hotel use on that
portion of the axon site
with that the applicant is also
requesting a change at the air par
character area plan uh land use level of
a change from the existing employment or
EMP to Air Park mixed use residential or
am- r at the greater Air Park character
area plan land use
standpoint so in terms of uh General
plan Amendment uh criteria our general
plan has eight such criteria that uh we
review any land use chain against in
terms of the applicant's request the
request to amend 43 Acres from
employment to mixed use in this area of
the city exceeds the 15 acre threshold
uh for that Amendment criteria so
typically this would be a major
Amendment however the applicant has
requested and and has more thoroughly
defined in their narrative how they meet
criteria 8 or an exception to the
general plan Amendment criteria where if
it's found to be a regional use where
they've been determined to already be
plan use land uses these uh requests
will be processed as a minor
amendment in terms of the regional use
definition it's clear within the general
plan that these areas provide
flexibility for land uses where uh they
are land uses that serve the regional
market and in include but are not
limited to corporate office retail
medical educational Campus Community
Service facilities tourism and
destination attractions and when you
look at all the things that the
applicant is looking to include on their
overall axon corporate headquarters it
it meets a lot of these land uses that
are that are defined here within the
general plan um so with that I'd like to
again state that Regional uses within
this Regional use overlay are already
plan uses as per the general plan and
would be processed as a minor Amendment
as we see this
evening many factors are are looked at
in terms of how uh an application meets
these Regional uses and the application
meets a lot of these or checks a lot of
these boxes in terms of those factors so
in terms of a regional draw uh the
applicant uh having an integration of
supporting uses such as residential
retail and hotel use are as a means to
enhance axon's presence as a world
headquarters consolidating their
valleywide operations into a single
location the applicant has uh noted to
staff and to the community that they've
outgrown their current location and
instead of being dispersed amongst the
community valleywide they want to be at
One Singular location and this brings
them to that point and also a reminder
here that axon is the third largest
employer within the greater art park eth
within Scottdale and with with the
overall axon site uh would employ
upwards of 1500 employees on the site we
also look in terms of factors for
regional uses at Economic Development
policies for the community Scott sales
Economic Development f your strategic
plan um that Terry briefly went over
promotes growing existing Industries
attracting new investment and building
talent and again this meets a lot of
those uh those goals and and actually
brings the talent to the Val the
community in terms of regional National
and Inter International talent in that
um having this hotel use having
conference space would bring conferences
and Public Safety Training events to
this location as well it has the freeway
access along the Loop 101 and finally it
has established there is an established
character of the area in that it is part
of an approved development plan or Cross
Roads East that is inclusive of several
other Regional employers and in terms of
those other Regional employers uh staff
looked from a sensus standpoint at the
Air Park looking at the employment
inflow outflow uh for this area looking
at the commute for employees so and
looking at the Air Park 99% of those
that are employed in the Air Park live
outside of the air Park 14% of those
employees live within Scottdale so in
terms of the applicant's request to uh
increase or include residential use is
commensurate with uh what we would
expect from this area and that uh it
would allow for those that want to live
and work not only axon employees but
employees of other Regional users uh to
be located there as
well in terms of back to those General
plan Amendment exceptions that I
discussed on a previous SL slide uh the
general plan is legally amendable from a
state statute standpoint we it it must
be an amend amendable document and has
been since 2001 but we need to ensure
that this criteria is applied
consistently over
time and applying it consistently would
provide flexibility for Unique cases
such as this that align with Scott sales
Vision Values and goals and looking at
exceptions as they've been applied to
the general plan over time we've had 18
such requests all of which have been
approved except for one which was
withdrawn and another which is this
active case that you're seeing tonight
and all of those exceptions have as you
can see on the right side of the screen
have been applied broadly throughout the
community so with that I'll hand it over
to uh Greg Bloomberg principal planner
thank
you thank you Taylor
um mayor Ortega council members Greg
Bloomberg with current planning here to
go over the uh uh zoning map text
Amendment or not text zoning map
Amendment with you uh as you can see
from this graphic the current zoning on
the site is industrial Light industrial
plan Community Development i1
PCD if this request is approved the
zoning will change to plan Community
District planned Air Park Core which is
what PCP stands for air Park mixed
residential so a little background and a
summary of the request um the current
cases were originally submitted back in
August of
2023 and the first hearing occurred on
just last week November 13th so it's
been in the process for going on 15
months so there's been a lot of a lot of
work going on on this particular
case uh the general plan and the greater
Air Park her area plan amendments are
needed to allow residential on retail in
this area that's the primary reason for
it uh from a density perspective uh
using the PCP portion of the site only
the density CS out to about 44 dwelling
units per
acre uh in 2020 the applicant received
approval for a maximum height of 82 feet
which was for the axon building itself
only uh the remaining buildings on the
property which the whole property at the
time was i1 would have been limited to
52 feet uh those measurements are both
exclusive of rooftop apperances the
proposed maximum height for the PCP
portion of the property is 68 ft
exclusive of rooftop apperances and
there's as you know public quite a bit
of public comment in support and
opposition for this particular
case uh the plan Community District does
allow for amendments to the underlying
uh comparable zoning districts in this
case the
PCP there are two only two amendments
requested by the applicant the one is uh
the first one is related to the amount
of uh ground floor of the development
plan that can be residential floor area
uh the PCP currently limits that to 50%
of the ground floor of the development
plan the applicant is seeking to
increase that slightly to
58% and then the PCP presently requires
Building height to be inclusive of
rooftop apperances uh they wish to
consistent with their previous approval
uh make it exclusive rooftop apperances
and there's no bonus development
standards
proposed so a lots of changes from the
initial proposal uh the number of units
was reduced has been reduced from an
initial number of
2552 down to
1,965 which is a 23% reduction 365 of
those are condos and 1,600
Apartments uh in response to some
concerns from the neighborhood to the
South Exxon way would be realigned with
as part of this application I'll get
into that in just a
moment and the existing Mayo Boulevard
which is also known as Union Hills that
abuts the neighborhood to the South uh
would be preserved and improved uh to
maintain access it was originally
proposed to be
abandoned and the southernmost building
again in response to some neighborhood
feedback the southernmost building uh is
reduced from or was reduced from a
height of 68 feet to 47 feet and
stepping down even further to 40 feet uh
where it gets closest to the community
to the
South uh 300 foot setback is being
maintained from the southernmost
building to the South property line so
there's quite a buffer uh the hotel was
relocated to the northeast corner of the
site to put it as far away as possible
from the residential community and
there's enhanced connectivity between
the axon building and mixed use
buildings that further strengthens the
Camp campus concept that uh uh we're all
trying to stress on
this so this is the original site plan
that was submitted and you can see
follow my cursor here axon way was
originally uh approved and actually the
plat shows it presently in this
alignment uh it goes into a roundabout
and then goes south and then comes over
to 82nd Street where there was an
additional roundabout approved and then
over the perimeter so this was this is
the big thing to to key in on is this
axon
alignment so fast forward to now uh you
can see that axon way has now been
realigned to take it further away from
the residential to the South all those
uh roundabouts have been eliminated
except for the one at Perimeter
Drive uh
there's the the realignment of of axon
has provided an opportunity for enhanced
Landscaping to be provided along the uh
between the campus and the community to
the South uh that was kind of a hard a
hard task with the way this buau was
originally
aligned
um and then this connection here is
something I wanted to highlight is is
this is a an enhanced connection between
the axon headquarters and the
hotel let me back up just a second and
originally there was a connection but it
wasn't very evident and it was you know
it appeared as though the axon building
was kind of detached from the rest of
the of the uh campus and uh you know
stressing that this should be a campus
they've done some work to to improve
that
situation so this is just
a enlarged version of what this this uh
connection would look like like again it
connects directly from the hotel to the
axon uh building and it's a very large
connection you can see the crosssection
down here at the bottom of this slide
and there would be room in here there
would be seating elements room in here
for uh food trucks events so on and so
forth so it kind of enhances that whole
notion that this is supposed you know
this should be a campus and there should
be connectivity so that's a pretty
significant change that has occurred
and then just to give you this is kind
of hard to read but I I'll just go over
it real quick this shows you the
building Heights uh that are proposed
for the project this is the for the 40
foot portion of that southernmost
building that I told you about the rest
of the building would be 47 feet and
then all the buildings on the north side
of the of uh axon way furthest away from
the community would be a maximum of 68
feet or five stories
in terms of other commissions uh this
did go before the airport advisory
Commission on uh January 17th of
2024 uh the applicant received a
recommendation of denial by unanimous
vote of seven to nothing with the
commission citing uh the number of
proposed residential units and
incompatibility with airport
operations uh on January 24th of this
year they went to Planning Commission uh
the case was continued by the commission
to a date certain February 14th to allow
uh time for additional information to be
compiled that motion passed with a vote
of 6
to1 uh on before the 214 hearing uh the
applicant themselves requested an
additional continuance to a date to be
determined to allow for additional time
to address issues and concerns raised at
the January 24th hearing and that motion
passed with a vote of 5 to one and then
as I mentioned about a week ago uh this
case went to Planning Commission and
received a recommendation of approval
with a unanimous vote of 5 to
zero that concludes staff's presentation
um in addition myself uh Terry and
Taylor there are also staff here from
Transportation Water Resources to answer
any questions you may have uh I will now
turn it over to the applicant for their
presentation thank you we'll proceed to
the applicant's uh presentation Charles
humel and um Rick Smith is CEO of Exxon
Exon Mr Mayor members of the council um
good evening uh first thing I might ask
is if we could have a little more time I
know we normally get 10 minutes uh we
have a few other housekeeping matters
that we'd like to cover as well we'll
try to keep it tight good thank you
proceed thank you um I'm gonna turn this
over to Rick Smith our CEO and founder
in just a few minutes before I do i'
like you to notice there there a number
of folks here uh in in Black and Yellow
and those are are almost exclusively
people that work with us and they're
really excited to be here they're
looking forward to staying in Scottdale
you're also going to see a number of
people in blue and that's because our
customer base is really law enforcement
you'll hear from some of those people as
well U we we'll start with our comments
I'm going to turn over to Rick we'll
certainly certainly be prepared to
answer questions I know much of that
comes after public comment I'd like to
intervene for just a few minutes as we
do our presentation as well and talk
about some more technical
matters Mr
Smith thank you Mr Mayor members of the
council some of our new neighbors and
employees uh our business is frequently
working with police departments and city
council so we go to a lot of City
Council meetings but never one quite as
momentous as this one so it's really
exciting for me to be here
um let's see if I can move forward here
uh many of you know us we started out as
the taser company I had two friends who
were shot and killed here in Scottdale
in the early 1990s that led me to ask a
question of why we still shoot bullets
at people and we set out to bring
Captain Kirk's phaser to life and that
still at the core of our mission uh as
taser grew it became somewhat
controversial and those critiques and
criticisms came to us about answering
questions about how our customers are
using tasers and we concluded that
rather than arguing we could learn from
that criticism and we ultimately created
the body camera to record those
incidents so we could answer those
questions and that led us to create a
cloud software business uh and in fact
that feedback has now built a business
that has enabled us to grow from two
people in a garage to now thousands of
people uh an S&P 500 company
headquartered here in Scottsdale and we
do everything from incar cameras to
drones to uh virtual reality training I
think we're one of the largest VR
companies in the world now uh we
acquired company called fusus that
allows us to take camera feeds from any
Enterprise School Church city council
building and open it up in a crisis to
your Police Department in the realtime
crime Center in fact this is now leading
the fastest growing part of our business
now is in Enterprises where we've had
corporate leaders from some of the
largest retail and transport companies
in the country out to visit us and so as
we look at the types of visitors we
bring we look to move Beyond even just
Public Safety but to broader Enterprises
and then we also acquired a company
called dedrone that's the world leader
in counter drone tracking we saw this as
critical for cities we defend all the
NFL stadiums and we have hundreds of
installations across Ukraine so it's
really been uh just an exciting journey
to grow from a single Product Company
into this broad ecosystem and today the
last piece I'm layering on here whoops
we've been layer able to layer
Artificial Intelligence on Cross top
this entire network that's allowing us
to do things that feel somewhat magical
uh the first of which is writing the
first draft of a police report from a
body camera and that is just
transformative we have police officers
telling us it's making them love their
job again and prosecutors telling us
it's helping them make sense of these uh
innumerable police
reports that uh growth has now
catapulted us into a position where
we're now recruiting and trading Talent
with some of the biggest Tech names in
the world uh whether it's Amazon or
Microsoft or Google or Facebook um and
that's at one point it's exciting it's
also very challenging because we're
competing with some of the biggest names
in Tech and that's one of the reasons
over a decade ago we opened an office in
Seattle because 101 15 years ago trying
to get tech people to come to Arizona
was just hard Arizona was not seen as a
tech Hub I think that's changing and as
we plant this flag we're really excited
to Anchor a new tech Hub that we hope
rises and outshines Austin who did a
great job themselves Rising um and as
you see when we talk about the jobs
we'll bring uh compared to Arizona's
average uh take-home pay per job we're
already paying about two and a half
times the average here in Arizona but if
you look at those jobs we have in
Washington state average Target earning
is over $300,000 a year the take-home
pay is if you have young people in your
life tell them if they go to college
it's great if they want to study Greek
literature but please take some computer
science classes like these are the jobs
that are so critical and frankly so high
paying and those are the ones we want to
bring here to Arizona and I think this
project is going to help us do that um
there was a mention of you know what we
compete with uh it's very true uh and
you'll hear from some of our younger
employees here that they want to be able
to live and work they're very
environmentally focused and as we've
looked at you know the way this campus
is designed we think we can reduce
traffic improve quality of life and save
something like seven and a half thousand
tons of CO2 per year uh by giving people
a chance to walk to work rather than
drive so that inspired us to this campus
design with both our headquarters and a
live work play environment Charles there
some do you do it at the end okay
there's some more details I can't keep
track of that he'll apprise at the end
um we believe we'll bring in excess of
20,000 visitors per year uh we host
several large events ourselves our taser
con which is taser focused accelerate
which brings in police it and others I
think we'll be launching an accelerate
for Enterprises uh and we're expanding
into fire and Emergency Medical Services
and others uh as well as even now the
companies I think Josh we're over 4,000
employ employees and we bring those
people in from around the world as well
when we do our our annual company events
and we're really excited to build an
event center that's at the core of what
we're building in our headquarters uh to
bring these visitors out to spend time
here and as part of this we're also
really focused on creating a really
wonderful prominade uh with multiple
restaurants our goal is to get seven
restaurants you have simply enough
variety that uh there'll be enough for
everybody uh and again I'm really
excited hopefully that our neighbors as
well will will come to see some real
value that this will bring in a nice
walkable District now um I mentioned
earlier we took some critique with Taser
and that made us stronger and the same
thing happened here when we first
brought this project forth we got some
some feedback and um you know we've
tried to listen and I think it's made
the project better so if I look at our
neighbors in Stonebrook and then here's
our property one thing we heard was
already the amount of traffic that's
grown up around them was uh something
that they disliked and of course there
was a concern as we add this new area up
here and frankly our original design
would have exacerbated this with a bunch
of new traffic uh going on those streets
and so we went to work and said what can
we do when we work with City traffic
planners and others and we came up with
a plan where we said well look rather
than just adding more traffic to those
streets let's burm those off and
actually remove the existing industrial
traffic uh and create a a barrier
between our campus and the neighborhood
in a way that could preserve privacy and
actually shunt that traffic away from
the neighborhood uh and do it in a way
uh that you would sort of benefit
everybody and and be maybe better
neighbors um now if we look at the like
kind of Alternatives of how a
traditional industrial site which is how
it's been zoned to date um you know I
think one could imagine you could really
see a lot of traffic typically you don't
rebuild existing streets we think in
this case it's it's the right thing to
do it makes the campus better for
everyone
we've also really tried to push uh the
boundaries here of of how we lay things
out to be respectful and good neighbors
um and so we put this in football fields
because that kind of helps people really
grasp the distances uh and so our
headquarters is two and a half football
fields from the neighborhood and we've
pushed the closest condo buildings while
bringing the height down uh to 1.3
football fields and that includes end
zones so uh be a little less if we were
just doing 100 yards
and okay we moved axon way as we've
talked about uh We've increased the
setback we moved the hotel which
originally we had a little closer to the
neighborhood and and frankly like that
was yeah we probably went it closer to
our headquarters and we ended up uh
putting more sort of consistent
ownership with condos closer to the
neighborhood and we moved from
Apartments to Condominiums uh frankly
many of our employees who live out of
town are already expressing interest
they're excited uh at the opportunity to
get a condo near HQ and we also looked
at uh the sound issues and actually had
a sound engineer that that looked at
this and actually by laying out the
buildings the way we we have that
actually creates a barrier that could
reduce sound energy from the freeway uh
by about 50% and then we've added a a
trail that could be a running or walking
trail and a dog park um so again all of
which we think are are pretty big
upgrades um and again the the zoning
itself could be certainly much tighter
and so uh I think we believe this is one
of the bigger setbacks of its kind in
the city um we also built a mockup in 3D
of the entire campus and we had a
virtual reality experience but we've had
the opportunity uh and our neighbors
door is still open if you want to come
see it we can show you what it's like
standing at different points this is
standing at the corner of that
neighborhood of Stonebrook looking
towards our headquarters and things
we've been conscious of as paying
attention to the view angles to the
mountains uh I like you know views as
well and can appreciate
uh that and then you'll see you know our
our headquarters in the distance and
then we're planning uh to really do a
lot of foliage and burm along this uh
along this street which is currently
axon way I think it'll likely get
renamed um we're planning to do things
like chilling mosqu trees I'm big fans
of those but certainly welcome to input
from the neighbors and how we would
landscape that in a way that really
reduces noise and increases privacy
again just for comparison uh you know
without all of this an industrial site
would obviously feel much more
industrial and then one of the other big
upgrades uh and I'd like to thank you Mr
Mayor uh you know giving us uh the
advice that hey we need more shade in
Arizona it gets pretty hot that for that
connection to really work connecting the
campus uh was really something uh pretty
excited to see come together um of
course the restaurant prominade again uh
we're going for something here that's a
place we hope we all would like to spend
a lot of time um okay so uh we also you
know obviously invested in in having
third parties evaluate the economic
impact and I have to say like some of
this makes me blush I spent the first
seven years of this job figuring out how
we were going to make payroll at the end
of the month and now I get to stand up
here and with a straight face tell you
like we got a shot at at almost $40
billion of economic impact uh adding you
know approaching 20,000 jobs between our
direct hires uh and the suppliers and
and folks and Supporting Cast uh an
anticipation of $ 13 billion of Labor
income and 2.3 billion of tax revenues
again it's mind-blowing to me um or
looking specifically at the city uh the
current impact over a 10-year period is
about $21 million of tax revenue um and
we think we could grow that to 87
million dollars of tax revenue and so uh
when we named the company acts on
Enterprise uh it was kind of a hint to
the Future uh we don't call it acts on
Enterprises an Enterprises is a couple
things an Enterprise can be an adventure
we're going on an Enterprise to change
the world together and of course the
Starship Enterprise has a little place
in our heart as well and so tonight we
hope to be able to uh launch on our next
Enterprise to bring the axon Enterprise
uh to life and bringing thousands of
high-paying jobs to Arizona a vibrant
new community uh with local business
opportunities for restaurants and uh and
hotels and to bring our guests from out
of town with the walkable lifestyle uh
that we believe could lead to anywhere
between 500,000 less cars during Peak
traffic hours if we get people to walk
to work and again I was shocked uh to he
7 and a half thousand metric tons of
CO2 really
overall I love Scottsdale I've lived a
lot of different places I moved around
lot growing up and I tell everybody
proudly there's no place on Earth as
nice as Scottsdale Arizona and so I'm
excited to plant the flag here I've only
had one job so far in my life and uh I
look forward to this is a long-term
commitment as my Chief Financial Officer
pointed out there's not really a big
aftermarket if this didn't work for us
to resell a building like this she had
asked me to maybe consider building
something a little more vanilla that
would have another use and I said if
we're going to do that why build like we
can rent boring office space let's do
something remarkable and so that's what
we we hope to do and you know we we we
also uh you got the feedback about the
need to make sure that we're securing
water so we're bringing something like,
1500 Olympic pools worth of swimming
pools worth of water uh and deal with
the state to further improve the coffers
for the education budget and with that I
think you have a few more details we
could share I do I know we've extended
our time but I wanted to cover some
technical matters if I could um one of
the things we have uh learned we with
meeting with neighbors even as recently
as last night and there are a couple
things we'd like to to bring up that
we'd like to put on the record one of
them is that we're going to reduce if I
could use the Elmo I think I show a few
things sure you you would have uh 10
minutes after as a followup so you're
eating into that time and it's you're
welcome to continue you've got another
10 minutes it's a technical matter that
the City attorney has asked me to uh so
go ahead and and uh proceed no problem
okay then I'm going to move quickly you
you I think you have a memo in your in
your file uh we're reducing the number
of units by 70 we're also uh prepared to
enhance the Landscaping between uh old
Axon uh excuse me Old Mayo and axon way
and to work with the neighbors to do
some bming and we also um are willing to
spend up to $1,000 if the city will
grant us permits and the HOA will
provide us permission to do some sound
debat along four different spots along
Hayden Road and I'll address that more
specifically in questions if that's uh
to the council's
liking thank you so to clarify you are
submitting for the record reduction of
70 units and a uh count of
1895 at this point we will uh we we will
break for public comment and then you'll
be available to respond or uh augment
your presentation uh yes mayor is that
good or did you yeah I think that's the
best way to do it so at this point we
will open a public comment uh and by the
way we I've just learned that this room
uh does have the uh capacity for those
wish wishing to speak speak so there's
uh the Overflow was not necessary across
the street that means uh hopefully if
you signed up you'll hear my voice as we
call you forward um I would ask that uh
I'll call um five people at a time and
if you would just queue up and uh wait
in line that as one person uh completes
uh their testimony then you would uh
just come forward each um uh public
comment you just Begin by stating your
name in place of residents and then go
right into your um your statement uh
because of the number I think we're
approaching 50 people uh we would allow
uh two minutes and you'll see a timer
queing you at a countdown there uh also
uh I will point out that uh many of you
have submitted U comments by email those
are all part of the record and uh they
remain on the record forever as it say
uh but but that also means uh you don't
necessarily need to read it again we we
have it but we certainly want to hear uh
from you directly as you come forward so
at at this point I would just uh try to
remind everyone we uh just want to keep
uh uh decorum and and order so that uh
we can continue uh to manage this in a
expeditious way as we as we proceed so I
will call uh five names uh Jamie uh me
uh Chris kamacho then James H Davis Tim
black and Colonel hon silbert so uh
Jamie May and then uh Chris
kamacho James Davis Tim black and
Colonel hon
silbert and you could come forward as
you line up a little closer maybe just
so that you're you're ready to go so
thank you good to see you go ahead good
evening it's Jam may but it's okay um
good evening marota council members um I
work for the Arizona Commerce Authority
and I'm a member of their business
development team I've worked with axon
and the City of Scottsdale dilig
diligently on this project and we've
prepared the following statement the ACA
fully supports axon's new headquarter
project with the city of Scottdale axon
is an iconic Arizona company and we want
to make sure when they grow they
continue to grow here the project
represents thousands of New Quality jobs
and significant capital investment in
addition axon significantly impacts the
local supply chain with many businesses
benefiting from the company's continued
presence in Arizona axon has our full
support thank
you thank you very much Chris kamacho
James H Davis Tim black and Colonel hon
silbert good evening mayor and councel
Chris kamacho uh CEO of greater Phoenix
Economic Council I'm also a Scottdale
resident and want to thank uh you for
the consideration for this very
important decision tonight uh first and
foremost I had the chance to visit with
Rick several years ago uh on the
proposed uh project site and and design
and as one of the most important
companies uh in our state at technology
companies in our state uh I was
incredibly amazed at the thoughtfulness
of the delivery this evening most tech
companies as we know are continuously
fast growth they have uh tremendous
challenges of retaining Talent uh
attracting customers and I think the
thoughtful design and approach to build
a worldclass campus is what you're
seeing this evening it was referenced
both by Terry and the presentation by
Charles and Rick uh the commonality of
the new trend around site selection
these companies today are are amassing
sites that enable them to build and and
employ uh their employes at a central
system but they're also looking at
Workforce Solutions they're also uh
needing to incorporate in their site
design retail and Hospitality attributes
that enable events to occur on site so
the several different listings that you
saw across the United States that's a
very common theme in our ability to
attract and arguably retain one of the
most important technology companies uh
in our state the only thing I didn't
like about that as a as a Thunderbird
and working with the Waste Management
Phoenix Open it's taking more of our
parking uh to the north of our uh TPC
Scottdale um but goes without saying in
my last 30 seconds the incredible
commitment to Public Safety uh we hear
from uh the police force that I get to
interact with as a Thunderbird at the
open how important companies like axon
in this specific Partnership of having
this kind of leading Global employer
reside in our community it's
emphatically important so I want to
thank you for your consideration and I
would ask for your support for uh this
incredible project this evening thank
you James Davis
James Davis pardon me James Davis
representing Coalition of Greater
Scottdale uh I'm one of the board of
directors and
uh CG's mission is fair and uh
appropriate land use for those uh parts
of
Scottdale that we have uh development
undertaking uh I am also a resident
obviously of Scottdale
what as uh shortly before the uh meeting
this uh
weekend we co the cogs board distributed
the latest information that we had on
this project and requested resoning we
also pulled our members as to their
opinions on this
proposal and while the time was short we
had a fair
response and the 85 % of the response
was they are members are opposed to
these additional residential
units the original proposal for this
land was uh mixed was not mixed use it
was for commercial and Industrial use uh
axon knew this when they purchased the
land and now they're trying to rezone it
for residential use there are already
too many apartments in the area planned
and uh and zoned for residential use and
uh adding this these additional now uh
almost 1,00 units will add to the burden
of the high density residential units in
the
area so our our members are opposed to
this expansion of residential units uh
we we love to have Axon in the community
but we don't want these additional
Apartments the scotchdale future
infrastructure cost to support the
additional 1900 units residential units
will be an additional burden on the
Scottsdale taxpayers thank you sir
you're right at two minutes thank you
very okay sir so we respectfully request
city council not Grant the Z zoning
request okay we have Tim black U and
then the next five will be Isaiah Fields
Jan ducus Charles Moore uh delisia
leapor and Jennifer Carstens so proceed
Mr U Mr Black thank you Mr Mayor members
of the council I'd my name is Tim black
I'm currently a resident in Prescot but
if I ever decide to move back to the
valley I will certainly come to
Scottdale but I'm here today to speak on
behalf of taser I am a retired Phoenix
police officer I spent 30 years with the
Phoenix police off Phoenix Police
Department uh retired as an assistant
chief I'd like to talk to you a little I
only have two points to make and I know
you have limited time you have hundreds
and hundreds of businesses in Scottsdale
and they all provide some type of value
they they provide of course economic
value to to the city but they also
provide value to the citizens of
Scottsdale taser is unique and the re
reason I say that is because because
taser and I axon taser I'm sorry but
axon taser because axon taser exists
today literally thousands and thousands
of people are alive today because taser
was developed taser was developed right
here in the city of Scottdale they
didn't just show up one day it was
developed here it was invented here it
was marketed and tested here and I I
believe that taser is one of those
businesses unique to all of your other
businesses that Scottsdale would take
pride in it's one of those businesses
that contributes tremendous to so to
society in general and I would urge you
to support their continued staying in
the city of Scottdale thank you thank
you Colonel hon silbert then Isaiah
fields and Jan
ducus good evening Mr mayor council
members I'm Colonel hon silvert I'm the
former director of there on the
Department of Public Safety I've had the
honor of working for three of the
largest law enforcement agencies in the
state of Arizona and through that I've
gleaned quite a bit of
experience uh it's hard for me to
believe but it's it's spanned actually
five decades in that that 34 years um
axon I'll tell you a story briefly 2011
I was at a
conference and they said by 2020 every
law enforcement officer in the United
States will be wearing a body camera I
said unfathomable never
happen by 20 2020 almost every law
enforcement officer in the United States
was wearing a body
camera axon sees into the future and the
needs of our communities the needs of
this
country because of the inventions the
Ingenuity the creativity of this company
and the ability to see into the future
it's not just that lives are saved but
people understand what it is that we in
law enforcement do and they understand
why we do what we do it is allowed us
to both promote events and tell the
truth about events that we otherwise
were never able to
do as Chief black said the taser when it
was invented saved
lives I remember going up to present tax
on what we found when we did some
testing on the body
cameras and it was the CEO it was Mr
Smith who sat and listened to what we
told him and he responded to it
several years later I saw him listen to
community members as to what they needed
and what they wanted and he responded to
it and responded to it quickly axon is
not just about industry it is not just
about Ingenuity but it is about the
community and it is about the state
thank
you thank you Colonel Isaiah Fields Jan
ducus Charles Moore and DeLucia um
DeLucia leapor
go ahead thank you mayor Ortega members
of the council appreciate the time this
afternoon this evening um my name is
Isaiah Fields I'm a resident of Windgate
Ranch in Scottdale uh my wife is a small
business owner she has her own Medical
Practice our two daughters are educated
there the Planning Commission I forgot
where my younger daughter went to school
but I am proud to stand here before you
today and tell you it's Copper Ridge and
my older one is at Notre Dame
Prep um I'm also the chief legal officer
at axon I've been with the company for
14 years and I want to share a few
things that I've experienced uh during
that time that I think relate to this
case and I know this has been a hard
case it's been a hard case on both sides
um there were times where it probably
would have been easier for us to just go
in a different direction um but if I go
back 14 years ago when I started with a
company we had um a tsunami of
misinformation around taser weapons and
over 50 products liability cases pending
against the company and at times it felt
hopeless but we did the hard things to
get out and educate and to fight those
frivolous cases and now we stand here
today and and uh taser devices are
ubiquitous in public safety all around
the world and they're saving lives every
day um I think someone mentioned you
know 14 years ago we were being laughed
out of Public Safety trade shows at the
thought that body cams were going to be
on officers and now they're ubiquitous
because we did the hard things because
we had absolute conviction that this was
the future and the right thing to do
more recently we had a legal challenge
brought against us and we knew we hadn't
done anything wrong and we took that all
the way to the united state supreme
court and got a 90 ruling and that case
ended up terminating in our favor and so
as I stand here before you today uh I
want to let you know we have absolute
conviction that this campus is the right
thing not only for axon but for the city
of Scottsdale and so we will do the hard
things to make sure that this is great
for axon it's great for our employees
but also great for the citizens uh and
our neighbors thank
you thank you Jan duquez Charles Moore
uh DeLucia leapor and Jennifer
Carstens hi my name is Jan deasus I'm
councilwoman elect for the city of
Scottdale uh my address is on record
thank you mayor vice mayor and council
members thank you Mr Smith for bringing
your business to Scottdale we value axon
and we value what you bring to us um I
have spent time with with the police I
have seen your um your cameras I've seen
your tasers in action there's no doubt
that you bring great tremendous value to
the city but that doesn't change the
resident concern in my overwhelming
victory in July and then again an
overwhelming victory in November I
knocked on 4,000 doors I personally took
signatures from a thousand residents you
know the first thing they said to
me can you make the apartment
stop that's what residents want
residents want the apartments to stop
airport advisory 0 to7 I don't see those
concerns addressed here that's
concerning the airport is a valuable
member of our community too I'd like to
see you address those concerns that the
airport brought up but I'd also like to
say we have a lot of Apartments coming
in 12 to 15,000 by some estimates 3,000
in that area
so the residents are saying hey wait a
minute I live in DC Ranch I'm saying I
use Puma I use Hayden hey wait a minute
you're changing my area you're changing
my neighborhood this is Scottdale
everybody who lives here is really proud
they're really excited to live in
Scottdale Arizona they chose Scottdale
they invested in Scottdale we did not
invest in Austin we did not invest in
Seattle we did not in invest in Silicon
Valley Scottsdale's different and we
want to stay that way I urge you to vote
no thank
you thank you next we have Charles Moore
um DeLucia leore and Jennifer
Carston good evening more marota members
of the council thank you for the
opportunity to speak and thank you for
the availability of Apartments as I've
recently moved to
Scottdale when I accepted the job here
at axon last November I called my mom
immediately and told her that i' landed
my dream job and yet despite the joy of
the moment I still felt an anxiousness
about moving somewhere that I'd never
been before she reminded me however that
I had in fact been here when I was 8
months old in my parents brought me here
for spring training ending up in
Scottsdale has been a full circle moment
for me because ever since spring
training baseball has been my greatest
teacher in life it's taught me the value
of teamwork winning the right way and
being coachable all lessons that I use
every single day it acts on and it also
taught me that as players grow so do the
fields that they need my first little
league practice when I was 6 years old
was on the corner of a high school field
10 years later in high school I'd grown
to need the fullsize field just as kids
grow in need fields that are physically
reflective of the force with which they
can hit the baseball so too does axon
need a a space that physically reflects
the Force for good that it has grown
into when I look at these new
headquarters I see a community of people
who've joined together not only mentally
but physically as well to cut gun deaths
between the police and the public by 50%
over the next 10 years as such this
development is much like my high school
baseball diamond it affirms the city of
Scottsdale's commitment to provide axon
the space that its growth requires today
and as a recent college graduate it
demonstrates axon's commitment to
provide young professionals like myself
the room for growth that we strive for
is our careers develop in the
future I couldn't be more proud to come
to work every day at axon and I couldn't
be more proud to be a Scottsdale
resident now axon story is rooted in
Scottdale and I hope Council that these
new headquarters will be approved today
so that recent college graduates like
myself will have the proper resources
spaces that our growth alongside axons
in Scottdale requires thank
you thank you the next would include
Felix Ander KY Deanna canell Virginia an
uh
Bonino and Deborah black so at this time
um we have DeLucia please hi my name is
DeLucia laor I'm a Scottsdale resident
and an employee at axon when I moved to
Scottsdale a year and a half ago fresh
out of college I didn't know a single
person here it was a leap of faith I was
leaving the comfort of my hometown to
pursue my career at axon in Arizona
What drew me here wasn't just the job it
was the chance to be part of a company
that worked day in and day out to make a
difference I care about Building Systems
and products that actually mean
something and I'm truly very thankful
that I found a company that centers
every decision on the pursuit of that
end but building a career in a new city
isn't easy the funny thing is to this
day whenever I go back to New York
friends and family remind me how proud
they are of me after at first I found
this was really strange they had no idea
if I was doing well at work and uh they
had no idea how lonely it could be uh
but then I realized that their pride in
me came from the fact that I took a risk
that I left the comfort of my home that
I embraced a new environment and that I
was ready to build a life and truly fall
in love with Scottdale I wouldn't have
done this if I hadn't known that I had
found uh a new comfort in the community
that I had within my program at ax
on I've seen others join axon with the
same level of excitement and uncertainty
but who haven't necessarily been given
the opportunity to find this level of
community right away the proposed
headquarters would change that for my
generation it's not just about shorter
commutes though walking to work walking
to see my friends this is all things I
do want uh more so to me it's about
creating a vibrant Hub where I can get
together with my co-workers and my
friends to collaborate connect and build
meaningful
relationships this project isn't just a
step forward for axon it is an
investment in
people it's about making Scottsdale a
place where Talent comes to thrive and
where we can continue to attract and
retain the next generation of leaders
and
professionals please let's keep building
a city that welcomes and invests in
those who are ready to take risks and to
make a difference thank you thank you uh
Jennifer Carston's and then again the
next five are felix Ander KY Deanna
Cantrell Virginia an ber Bonino Deborah
black and Susan McCreary McGary excuse
me proceed good evening mayor May mayor
and council members my name is Jennifer
Carston I'm a Scottdale resident and
employee of axon thank you for the
ability to speak tonight and although I
hope to one day purchase a home in real
estate in Scottdale currently I am a
renter who pays an ungodly amount for
the 85255 zip code and I'm no expert uh
but supply and demand I wish we did have
more Supply because there certainly is
the demand I joined axon in the fall of
2022 earlier in that year I had received
some difficult news about my personal
health that left me re-evaluating what
am I doing with my life call it my mini
life crisis but as a lawyer especially
working in private practice it's hard to
feel like you're making an actual
difference in the world and I realized I
wasn't something needed to change so I
left my Scottdale Boutique law firm and
was lucky enough to join axon in
September of 2022 today I'm part of our
in-house legal team and support the
procurement side of the business I can
be more thankful to be a part of this
company to serve our mission and what we
stand for an axon we protect lives
that's our mission full stop now this
beautiful state of Arizona is home to
several incredible businesses and
increasingly so technology those jobs
are exactly what originally Drew my
family from Bay Area to Arizona two
decades ago but I challenge you to think
of a company in Arizona or anywhere else
that has that stands for something as
important as what we do like protecting
lives usually when I tell people I work
at axon I get the oh you work for that
company that makes the taser thingies or
more recently oh drones cool but what
I'm more what I usually get is oh I
didn't know you guys were in Arizona
that's awesome see I'm proud of our
mission but I'm also proud that this
company that's reach every corner of the
global most chooses to call Scottdale
its home and acts on joining pill
joining forces is one of our pillars by
us calling the city of Scottdale home
the city is part of our mission to
protect and here's the thing I think
that we like to hire pretty good people
you're going to meet a handful of us
today and the thing about the city is we
several of our employees call this home
where mothers fathers brothers sisters
members of the Scottsdale Community
myself included so I'd ask in your
support in joining I would ask for your
support in axon's World HQ it mean that
axon can continue to join forces thank
you very much uh Felix Ander KY again
please place your state your place of
residence then um Deanna canell Virginia
and Berton
Chino uh hi everybody I'm Fel Xander KY
and I live right down the road at 6835
East cback Road and uh I recently
graduated from Notre Dame and moved here
to Scottsdale after getting a job at
axon so what brought me out here and uh
I'm an East Coast kid so honestly it was
tough getting me out here getting me out
here in the desert and everything but
the mission that axon has I genuinely
believe in it and I feel like we all
truly believe in it and it makes Scott
still a better place and that was enough
to get me here so already in the short
amount of time that I've been here I've
seen axon's presence as a community
member and then the the impact that
having them here makes Scott still a
better place so I've I've lived in New
York City I've lived in Nashville I've
lived in DC and honestly I've never seen
a community as close with their police
department and I think honestly that's
because of axon's presence here because
I see how much axon and Scots LPD
interact already in the short amount of
time I've been here I've I've been on a
police slot Ride Along I've worked with
a couple members I've met the police
chief you know all these different
things the impact that axon has on the
community is really really special and
we work together all the time with the
Scots LPD to make sure that our mission
actually happens like this is an actual
thing that is very important and again
this was this I saw this firsthand over
the past week I was recruiting uh at
afrotech with uh a getting a couple
other students and just seeing like wow
wow like Scott like axon axon axon what
we're doing they genuinely believe in
the mission and I feel like if you if
like if we can't continue to grow here
then it's not going to be it's a key
part of Scott sale you know it's
something that's really a part of us so
I feel like just having axon here is
going to continue to make scotsville a
better place continue to help us grow
and I mean it's going to get more people
out here but cities have to grow places
have to grow it's just how things are
but um honestly I think that axon's
really great and everything that we're
doing here is going to make Scottsville
a better place so thank you for your
time thank you Deanna
canr Virginia and Jen uh go ahead good
evening Mr Mayor members of council my
name is Deana Cantrell I'm an axon
employee but I'm also a retired
assistant chief from Mesa Arizona and
I'm a retired police chief from
California I recently moved back to
Arizona for a variety of reasons one of
those was for increased Public Safety
axon has long been an essential partner
to the Scottdale Community as well as
public safety and policing throughout
the State of Arizona axon has
significantly contributed to Public
Safety Not only through their innovative
advancements uh but they've s oops axon
has significantly contributed to Public
Safety Not only through their Innovative
advancements that have helped save lives
which is part of their mission but also
through their role as a significant
employer and Community partner to
Scottdale by expanding their campus into
a mixed use facility axon aims to create
a space that supports policing and
Public Safety and also provides a
diverse range of activities and needs
fostering growth connection and economic
Vitality this project is designed to
benefit Scottdale in multiple ways by
integrating office space retail
residential units and public areas that
encourage engagement and accessibility
this development supports Scottsdale's
vision for smart sustainable growth
enhancing quality of life for residents
and fostering local business
opportunities it also keeps a worldwide
tech company local to Scot
secondly this expansion would solidify
Scottsdale's standing as a hub for
Innovation and economic resilience and
will booler local spending where
residents and professionals can Thrive
together axon has demonstrated its
commitment to responsible development by
proposing plans that prioritize
environmental sustainability and public
spaces these elements align with
Scottsdale's commitment to
sustainability through thoughtful urban
planning I urge the council to approve
axon's expansion plan which I do believe
will create lasting benefits for the
city and for its residents by supporting
this project you will be investing in a
future where Innovation Public Safety
community and economic Prosperity go
hand in hand thank you for your time and
your
consideration Virginia and Berton Chino
then Deborah
black mayor City Council
I'm Jenny Burton Cino and I live at
10,05 East Mission Lane in Scottdale
I've been a Scottdale homeowner for over
37 years I love axon back in the early
2000s I successfully bidded on a taser
at The 100 Club of Arizona meeting and
it was awesome it looked like a toy it
was clear it had all the wires in it so
that the bad guy goes oh look at the
lady with the old lady with the gun well
then Kabam and then back in 2014 in June
I attended the Scottdale Sunrise Rotary
Club meeting where your vice president
introduced the body cams and I was so
impressed that I bought your stock which
has gone crazy and I I love you for that
um I was very very impressed uh in fact
I purchased the stock and
then you guys do so many good things
you've really taken law enforcement to a
whole new level but I'm very
disappointed that you feel the need to
build a 15minute city within an already
overcrowded City where there are
literally thousands of Apartments
already approved by this Council that
haven't even been built yet where your
proposed project requires
resoning it's not even practical or fair
to the other businesses who have
complied with the current zoning laws
where its residents are being asked to
cut back on water usage while five
members of this Council have run wild
approving thousands of new apartments
that require additional water usage
where today our traffic and air
pollution are literally so bad that our
city streets and freeways have become
parking lots and residents with
breathing problems are asked to stay
indoors your multi-use project just is
not making sense for Scott state
we love the fact that you're
headquartered here but not the rest of
it we have too many apartments too much
congestion I urge you to vote no thank
you thank you um after uh Deborah black
we have Susan McCary she has an extra
minute U from donated by uh Sher
switzenberg um I'll call the next five
uh that would be Harry
Markley uh Jerry Grover uh Michael
schaer Gabrielle Hitchcock and McKenna
hardish go ahead please good evening
mayor and Council thank you for this
opportunity to speak my name is Deborah
black and I currently live in Prescot
Arizona I'm a 40-year retiree from law
enforcement with the Phoenix police
department Glendale Police Department
and presca police department the latter
two as police chief I'm here tonight to
speak on behalf of axon and the history
that that I have with the company which
began in the late 1990s to early 2000s
with the introduction of the of the
taser weapon and that transformed use of
force in law enforcement throughout the
world um as well as a lot of Civilian
applications as well military
applications as well they didn't stop
there that's not what axon does they
kept going the mission is very very
clear to preserve life and so when they
moved into camera systems and virtual
training opportunities and na Ai and
drones and on and on and on it speaks to
their commitment not only to the law
enforcement Community but to the people
that law enforcement officers serve to
create a safer environment for everybody
I am so proud that
axon is an Arizona company and a
Scottdale company that's been point of
Pride for me throughout my law
enforcement career I can speak to the
character of Rick Smith his senior staff
I think everybody in this room um with
their commitment and it would be such a
disappointment if if they were not to
continue to grow and innovate here in
the city of Scottdale I encourage your
support of this project thank you thank
you
Susan McCary has three
minutes good evening members of the city
council I'm Susan McGary I live at
8074 East Teresa Drive in a community
called scottd Stone Brook 2 I'm on the
board of the HOA and I'm here
representing uh we're an established
community of 174 homes so many of you
heard this already but I have to say it
every time and while sometimes
our land is identified as multif family
we are most certainly single family
development from the
90s our prevailing concern with this
proposal has always been the
density which did not change in the
resubmittal an 11th Hour negotiation
just noted um reduced the number of
units by 70 there's still 1,900 units
proposed however I will say that some
things in the resubmittal did change
that address many of our community's
concerns for example the roads that's
very significant to us removing the
roundabout and maintaining Mayo
Boulevard which our community uses
setbacks distances have increased
landscaping's been improved all of this
to help protect our privacy and the
height of the building nearest to us has
been reduced we really appreciate these
changes it's been a long haul for all of
us and we've had several people on the
council working on on our behalf and
negotiating
however we would like to see the height
of the building closest to us stipulated
in terms of feet high and not stories to
no more than 30 feet within the
additional setback already included I've
shown this is this
on can you see
that yeah okay thanks I've shown this
several times this is a three story with
whatever's on top there apartment
Development Across Hayden Road which is
I suppose six Lanes plus all that in
between our neighborhood and
them the people in those apartments can
see in the backyards of those people in
Scottdale stur right here in the front
this is what we've been trying to avoid
the whole time we just this has been our
whole argument please don't let this
happen to us um once it's done it's done
it can't be
undone um if you stand at the back wall
of the north side of our neighbor hood
and do a view cone out 450 ft which I
believe is the setback you're talking
about you would see about 20 feet of
that lowest building still and we did we
and if we can see that building which is
apartments or condos they can see us
they can see in Tory yards and our and
our living rooms and we please don't let
that
happen so that's what that two requests
um please reduce the building height of
that one closest to us
and second I know you're probably ready
for this we respectfully request that
the council require aent to
significantly reduce the Project's
overall density to a level more suitable
for its location next to a single family
neighborhood thank you for the
opportunity next we will have Jerry
Grover Michael schaer Gabrielle
Hitchcock mckenic cish and David
Roberts please
proceed oh I'm sorry uh yeah Harry Harry
Markley my name is Michael schaer Jerry
appears to be not present oh okay thank
you state your name and appreciate
Michael schaer um I'm a resident that
lives near the location I'm a Precinct
committeeman in
ld4 my uh Precinct is very close to this
area mayor City Council you asked us to
give a moment at the beginning to warn
toward
warn toward C countries in the beginning
I ask you to give time to praying about
our torn apart
Scottdale it's the city and big
government companies against the people
is what it feels like to us residents
who are tax players accepting axon axon
is a great company um but remember
Council you represent the people not big
companies
we the people are sick of big business
partnering with government and being
supported by
legislators who don't represent the
people Scott Steel's Torn Between The
People's
will and some on the city council you
know who you are did axon approach the
Indian Reservation there's a lot of land
there beyond that we have tons of Acres
of desert available to build on that
doesn't drop it right in the middle of a
high density
area high density apartment complexes
that we've been seeing over and over and
over again go against the residents and
taxpayers look around the room uh
councilman the people accepting axson
employees are here sending a clear
message no vote
no why would councilmen go against the
people is a question I have we the
people see this density destroying our
cities our favors being given ought
event investigations
occur we no longer trust our
government are from the school board to
the federal level and the past
presidency we don't trust you council
members in
part we need to do what's right for the
Scottdale residents move it to the
outskirts please see if the Indian
reservations interested but we the
people if you care about us don't want
it we ask you to vote no n o thank
you thank you I'm um please state your
name as you come forward thank
you so I am Harry Markley uh thank you
uh mayor and members of the council um
so I am a retired uh assistant chief
from the Phoenix Police Department and I
just recently retired from the federal
government uh during both of those
careers I had a very long partnership
with axon not an employee just a
partnership with axon over the years um
I was a part of the roll out of uh the
tasra to the Phoenix Police Department
in the probably late 90s early 2000s we
were the first major city to uh do a
full deployment of the the taser and
back then it was just the taser and so I
just want to talk a little bit about
technology and how it affects law
enforcement in in in across the United
States um Rick Smith founder of axon
wrote a book called the end of killing
and in that book he talks about
technology making killing a thing of the
past and he also proposes a lofty goal
of making a bullet obsolete right you
hear that and you think well that's
great
right well 20 plus years ago I had a
phone my very first mobile phone it was
a bag phone it had a car battery in it
and a phone that sat on top right and
then 16 years ago I got my very first
iPhone one looked a lot like this phone
it had about 12 apps on the phone and uh
it had a battery life of about two hours
um but I thought it was the most amazing
thing in the world because I put my my
fingers on a screen and make the
pictures smaller and larger 16 years
later just 16 years later I got the
iPhone 16 it's got one terabyte of
information on it now I can give it to
my my son and I can say find this
address in Angola and he could drive to
it I could pull up Google Maps and look
what the front door of my house and the
reason why I bring that up is because we
think about those lawfully goals of
making the bullet obsolete think back to
20 years ago when I had a phone in a bag
with a car battery underneath it um
taser went from making tasers to doing
body camers to doing to having drones to
the technology is amazing um where are
we going to be 16 years from now it
should be exciting for all of us to
think about that the other thing I'll
tell you is that City of Phoenix my my
previous employer we have a Manpower
crisis on our Police Department don't
have enough people to keep up and I'm
sure it's the same for the city of
Scottdale technology is a great
equalizer for us it saves lives saves
police officers lives saves citizens
lives holds everyone accountable so I
urge you to vote yes thank you thank you
um I'm going to repeat some names just
in case someone may not uh may have left
but just toh keep on track so we have
Gabrielle Hitchcock mckenic cardish
David Roberts and Dan dros uh
droski so please state your name and
we'll continue in in line here thank
you hello everyone I am McKenna CES I'm
not Gabrielle so want to make sure
that's on the record um so like a
similar story that you've heard from
some of my colleagues
I moved to Scottsdale pretty much sight
unseen to take a job at axon in our
leadership development program in 2015
I've been here nearly 10 years proud to
say I've lived in apartments I've bought
a house I've built a house and I'm here
to stay as long as possible with my
husband I also have really fallen in
love with the area I even convinced my
brother to come work for axon and to
move to Scottdale I've had a lot of
family come out and stay with us and I
it's it's been such a joy to show them
our beautiful
city I also do quite a lot of recruiting
for our leadership development program
and axon as a whole and the common theme
I'm hearing is that this younger
generation coming out of college is
truly craving connection coming out of
covid they want to live and work
together to form those connections with
their with their colleagues and so I
feel it is so critical for us to approve
our new campus to continue to recruit
this top tier talent to axon and it'll
make my job easier recruiting to axon to
really sell them on the vision of the
future of Scottdale so I implore you to
please vote yes and thank you for your
time I'm Gabrielle Hitchcock of resident
of of Scottdale um when I first moved to
Arizona in '95 the most astonishing part
was seeing the just just incredible
landscape the mount the Majestic
mountains it was like I was surrounded
by them and and I just loved every
minute of it um today however I see less
and less of them and it's because of
giant buildings and now an endless
supply of Apartments Builders don't care
about our limited resources our view our
quality of life they only care about the
money they can make off of it if they
cared they wouldn't have tried to push
it through a lame duck session the
citizens of Scottdale do care I've
knocked doors I've electioneered I have
kids and a dog so I talk to all
different types of
people they love Scottdale but they see
it slipping away we see some parts of
Scottdale are protected dog parks are
added in set of buildings in those same
Parts where many of you live that you
get to enjoy
we are asking for all of Scottsdale to
be
protected this Builder thinks our city
should look like Austin that was used to
be the cool city to live in but now has
been overrun by developers like a Exxon
now Austin is ranked fifth amongst us
cities where people are actually leaving
among the reasons being stifling
traffic some of you have been replaced
by those that we hope will listen to us
to care about what we care about
you would
have if you would have just listened to
us you'd still have a
job please don't leave office by hurting
us again please vote know and let the
next city council decide make the
developers actually listen to
us don't push this through in the
shadows but in the
light let's not pave paradise to put up
another apartment complex thank
you thank you we'll have uh David
Roberts uh d uh Drew uh noisy Joshua
Eisner uh kaou J vanney and Marcus
Woodard then Jason uh Mason Gates Mason
Gates uh my name is Dan jaski so I think
you mentioned David that's that's a
different person but uh good evening Mr
Mayor members of the council my name is
is Dan danowski and I live at
14771 North 97th place I have been a
Scott sale resident for 18 years and a
homeowner for 16 years I'm your neighbor
I'm also proud to say that I'm a product
manager at axon and support the new
campus pro project I love living in
Scottdale it's beautiful safe and clean
and I have a variety of extended family
members that are home owners here as
well I wouldn't want to live anywhere
else
six years ago however I found myself
growing disappointed with my previous
job and while working for a small tech
company in Phoenix I started looking for
opportunities and when I did find them I
quickly realized that they were all
located in California not a place that
I'm interested in relocating
to then a recruiter from axon called and
everything
changed here was a growing tech company
located right here in Scottsdale with an
awesome mission to protect and protect
truth they also had a really cool
looking headquarters uh photos of which
I showed to my friends and family what
really sets axon apart however are the
people these are some of the smartest
and hardest working people around some
of them are here they're also really
difficult to find to recruit and hire
over these past six years we've grown
from around 600 employees to over 4,000
and there's no end in sight we need
something to level the recruiting
playing field with the big tech
companies out of California we need a
campus we need a
landmark today we have a technology
Visionary and Scottdale resident who
wants to build a fantastic new
headquarters along with Community spaces
and campus
environment this will attract talented
people and boost our economy for decades
to come today let's make history our
history and create a future we can all
be proud of as well please join me in
supporting the axon headquarters campus
plan thanks for your time and
consideration hi Mr Mayor members of the
city council thank you very much for
having us tonight my name is Josh Isner
I'm the president of axon and I've been
a Scottsdale resident for 15 years I
live in North Scottsdale um I first met
Rick back in 2009 Rick was saying axon's
the only company he's ever worked for I
have that in common with Rick I've only
been at axon my entire career as well in
2009 I was uh being educated at an
institution I was once proud of uh that
was once prestigious maybe not So Much
Anymore over the last couple years but
uh Rick and I share that alma mater and
that's how I first came into contact
with him uh I was thinking about where I
would want to spend my career and the
safe bet would have been a big company
in Boston I'm from Boston there's a lot
of technology companies there but
instead the question I kept asking
myself is should I bet on Rick and I
decided to and two weeks after
graduating I drove across the country to
Scottsdale and I've spent the last 15
years here as an employee of axon
betting on Rick was the best decision
I've ever made in my life and I think
there are 4,000 people at axon who feel
that exact same way Rick's a unique
founder and that he's married to our
mission he could have ridden off into
the sunset years ago and instead he
moved his family back back to Scottdale
to pursue our next big adventure which
is this campus and turning Arizona into
a tech Hub it is I do a lot of
recruiting at axon as part of my job and
it is absolutely true that this campus
is needed to build a true tech company
here we Outsource jobs right now to
Seattle we don't want to do that we want
folks to come and join us on this
awesome new project in Scottsdale
Arizona so tonight you have the
opportunity to bet on Rick as well as
someone who's done that in the past I
would certainly encourage you to do so
and if you do Rick will make you proud
he'll make the city of Scottsdale proud
and he'll make the State of Arizona
proud thank you very
much thank you and I do want to commend
uh the speakers as you're observing the
Quorum and appreciate that we have 35
more to go so thank you so much and uh
um proceed
Kula good even members of the council
and mayor Orga um my name is k j vanani
and I live at 6835 East Camelback Road
now as I'm sure you can tell by now I'm
not from around here my decision to
relocate to Scottdale was driven by a
profound desire to leave the world
better than I found it which led me
obviously to
axon many of my peers chose not to chase
this opportunity purely out of fears of
the
relocation throughout my life I've moved
several times including a significant
move from South Africa to the United
States for college however relocating to
Scottdale pres represented a different
challenge I arrived about friends unsure
of where to live and felt the weight of
isolation in such an expansive city
building genuine connections here can be
difficult and while I've been fortunate
to meet wonderful people through axon's
leadership development program and at
the company I know that many others
don't have the same opportunity axon's
initiative to create a campus
environment is vital for newcom such as
myself moving to scotdale
currently navigating the residential
landscape often leads to long commutes
that separate us from Friends colleagues
and work a residential Community a short
walk away from work would bring back the
ability to create meaningful connections
save valuable time every week commuting
and significantly reduce our carbon
footprint axon's proposed uh development
represents more than just increased
convenience it signifies an enhanced
quality of life I have come to cherish
the beauty of Scottdale and regret that
many others face barriers rep uh
preventing them fully experiencing this
ultimately this development much like
axon is not about infrastructure it's
about people axon has become a family
for those of us far from our own and
this new community will extend that
sense of belonging to many more I urge
you to consider the profound impact this
development will have on individuals and
our community as a whole by supporting
axon's Vision you're helping to build a
supportive family for those who choose
to make the city their home axon should
not be a leap of faith but rather
continue to shine as a beacon of
opportunity thank you for your time of
consider your time and consideration and
I hope you will support axon with me in
continuing to Fuster a vibrant United
Community here in Scottdale have a great
night
you good evening Mr Mayor and council
members my name is Marcus Woodard I live
at
6895 uh East Camelback Road here in
scale Arizona at the Optimas saurin
village with the best roommate I've ever
had in my life my little cat
Mochi I first came to Scottsdale in the
summer of 2022 as an intern here at
axon and from the second I steep foot on
this campus there was nothing that I
wanted more than to join this family and
to push this Mission forward I was very
intentional with my words there the
members of the axon Community here are
more than just a community it is a
family a family that I am beyond blessed
to be a part
of I found myself back at axon during
the Spring of 2023 with my father when
we were looking at
apartments I'll never forget the pride
on his face when we came to Scottsdale
and looked at a variety of the different
beautiful buildings my father is a
retired military veteran of 35 years and
he spent much of the early part of his
career traveling all across the
world there was nothing that made him
more happy than seeing me start my life
establish Lish my career and find my
home away from home here in the
wonderful City of
Scottsdale I joined axon as a member of
the leadership development program where
I built an incredible network of
colleagues who were recent graduates and
allowed me to help Traverse this new
area I graduated from the University of
Notre Dame as one of the first people
within the last few years from that
University to come into the
company I was heavily involved in the
recruiting process for the following
year for the next cohort of
leaders for that following year we saw
three Notre Dame students come and join
axon as member of the leadership
development
program with absolute Pride I would like
to say that all three members of those
students at that University were able to
come to Scottsdale and begin their
career here I'd like to note that this
was the first year that leadership
development program members had the
opportunity to choose between our newly
built office in Boston and our
established headquarters in
Scottsdale unequivocally they had no
hesitation to decide to come here to
Scottsdale and begin their career I'd
like to think that a lot of that had to
do with the influence that I had shown
to them the experience the incredible
relationships that I've built here in
Scottsville in my year prior to them
coming on the company thank you sir
thank you um after Mason gase we will
have Alex Sanchez Brian
mhall uh Lauren kleene David Fulton
French Thompson and Jacob
WS good evening uh members of Scottsdale
city council and my fellow residents uh
my name is Mason Gates uh I reside here
in South scotdale this is where I
started my career this is where I intend
to end it um tonight I address you with
a very clear message the axon
development proposal in its current form
represents a turning point for our city
uh one that could certainly undermine
the very values that make Scottdale an
exceptional place to live so while I do
respect um you know your your investment
thus far in our community and your
commitment to Public Safety and the
overwhelming you know message of your
company um there's a good song called
You Can't Always Get What You Want by
The Rolling
Stones and so again while I do respect
the The Upfront investment
and you know the attempts at community
outreach over the last um you know 15
months at least um it has become
increasingly clear that my fellow
residents do not want this
Development I've said it before and I
I'll say it again this is Scout sale we
are not Phoenix uh we're not Buckeye and
we're not Mesa we we attract we don't
cater um and that is ultimately what
you're asking of the council and my
fellow residents um axon knowingly
purchased the land zoned industrial with
the sole intent of rezoning it um to
their liking and so while you've seen
numerous attempts tonight at ethos
unfortunately Scottdale does not make
empathy votes and I I've heard a lot
about you know wanting to mirror Austin
and Seattle I can't think of a single
redeeming trait about either of those
cities and in fact that that's a big
reason why I moved to Scott in the first
place is I didn't like the idea of
living in a large city like that where
they do have a lot of the issues that
have been expressed by um some of my
colleagues here tonight I've heard that
Scottdale is unaffordable and we lack
inventory when that's simply false we
have thousands of Apartments we have
thousands of houses uh there's a a ton
of inventory actually um available to
any prospective purchaser or renter um I
also heard that cities have to grow they
really don't they don't necessarily have
to grow at this Pace especially um it's
ultimately at the council's discretion
thank you sir thank you sir thank you
urge you to vote now next we have Alex
Sanchez Brian molho Lauren kleene David
Fulton and French
Thompson Alex Sanchez uh Brian MHO
Lauren Klein David I would like to yield
my time
did he say my time as well but IC we'll
give you three
minutes three minutes three minutes most
go ahead and get in yield all right
we're gonna go ahead and yield if I
might mayor we realize the evening is
going long I think you understand that
there are lots of Acts on employees who
are also residents so we're trying to
ask a few of them to maybe bypass our
speaking OPP unless unless the council
objects we thought that might you can
bypass if you if you've already sub some
information that would be of record as
well so at this point continue with your
uh two minutes unless it's it's given to
somebody else thank you go ahead uh my
name is Bri matino I'm a Scottsdale
resident also an axon employee uh I
encourage the council to vote Yes on
this proposal and be able to afford
other members of the community the same
opportunities that I was afforded by
axon many years ago so thank you thank
you Lauren Klein David Fulton French
Thompson Jacob warts I'd also like yield
my time um I'd encourage the council to
vote Yes on the proposed acts on campus
thank you so much
you mayor councel David Fulton um Scott
sale resident axon employee and uh I'd
like to urge you uh to vote in favor of
axon and I'd like to yield the rest of
my
time thank you French Thompson Jacob
WS good evening Mr Mayor and city
council
um you guys are not on point here
tonight you're forgetting the fact that
this is only about one particular
development you guys are a phenomenal
company really you're a phenomenal
company the accolades that your
employees have given I want to see what
that memo was that you guys sent around
and say hey everybody show up I mean
that must have been an awesome memo this
is the best turnout I have ever seen
literally I've been here many
times this isn't about your company in
any way shape or form it's about one
project it's about one development you
know you guys are a tech company it
sounds like you want to turn into a Land
Development company I think you guys do
a really really good job with your Tech
development I don't think you do a
really good job with your Land
Development I think this is too big I
don't think it fits in with the area I
think you guys can do
better when you do guys are doing Tech
stuff literally stuff doesn't work out
and you say well let's do it again you
guys have been doing again I think you
should go back and do it again for the
members of the city council are not
going to be back here next year they
weren't voted in again because the
citizens the majority don't want these
big up developments they don't want that
word
upzoning so this city council literally
shouldn't be voting on this because the
citizens the majority have said we don't
want any more UPS zoning I want your
company here Heck if I was younger I'd
probably go apply for it and take some
classes and learn how to work for your
company I mean this is awesome this is
this is the coolest thing that I've been
in in the city council so I don't want
you guys to think that there's anything
negative about it or your company it's
just this project I think you guys can
do better thank you okay next five we
have Jacob WS Iris Park PB pedman uh
zenita
Fortune hello uh jiga wz at 4215 northr
Water Boulevard um I strongly encourage
you to vote Yes and I yield my
time thank you Iris Park Bob pedman uh
zanadia Fortune Timothy
Thomas um hello good evening my name is
Iris I'm a mechanical engineer and I
just recently joined axon 3 months ago
and as someone who moved to a completely
new city straight out of college knowing
absolutely no one um I found a great
community in Scottsdale and I'm
confident that the work we do here and
the connections that we build will leave
a positive and lasting impact on
Scottdale and the community so um I hope
that the council um will vote yes thank
you thanks um Bob
pedman uh zanadia uh Fortune Timothy
Thomas Jim haxby Pam
Peterson good evening may take council
members name is Bob Pigman add addresses
on the record and look axon is a great
company I own the stock it's a great
product and the development is a good
development maybe if it was in a
different place and a different time so
this is not about axon this is about
certain council members here who made
certain promises in the
past and those promises now relate to
their vote tonight so I'm talking about
Solange I'm talking about Tom and I'm
talking about bety you guys ran in 2018
and 2020 and you made the promises to
save us from the evils of the Jim Lane
Council and what I mean by the evils is
the upzoning remember Betty stop the
upzoning
so here we are now
um if if I you know if I look at the the
jym lane Council
the largest development that they ever
approved was in entada entada is 700
Apartments it's a massive development
it's almost like a minic city to put
this in perspective axon this
development is almost three times that
just put that in perspective so if back
in
2018 and 2020 I told anybody that you
guys in a lame duck session after you
know the result of the last election and
after you know there 14,000 apartmentss
in the pipeline still vote to upzone
almost 2,000 units nobody would believe
me so what's the Legacy you're going to
leave behind are you going to be
remembered as the people who saved The
Preserve from the DDC but then went on
to urbanize Scottsdale and in essence
sell out its Soul people didn't elect
you to turn this place into a tech Hub
they elected you to protect the
character of Scottdale and you should
really remember what why you're here
thank
you Zen Fortune Timothy Thomas Jim haxby
Pam
Peterson I'm not Zen I'm Tim
okay okay she uh she's I'm not butting
in front of her here I I wasn't sure
where uh Miss Fortune is but we'll go
ahead with uh with you sir thank you
okay Timothy
Thomas Mayorga uh council members thank
you for this opportunity my name is Tim
Thomas I'm currently a resident in
Phoenix and I am the President of the
Phoenix police
foundation for those of us who work in
public safety axon's Innovative
Technologies play a critical role in
insuring ensuring transparency
accountability and safety in law
enforcement these advancements are not
only vital for protecting officers and
community members but also for fostering
trust between law enforcement and in the
communities that they serve I believe
there's a strong value in having axon as
a local partner Beyond its contributions
to Public Safety acts on as a key driver
of Arizona's economic Vitality by
maintaining its headquarters in
Scottdale and employing a significant
number of arizonans axon generates high
quality jobs strengthens our state's
Workforce and bolsters local and state
revenues the economic impact extends
Beyond its immediate Workforce
influencing suppliers contractors and
other local
businesses I urge stakeholders to
recognize the importance of axon's
presence in continued innovation in
Arizona their contributions benefit not
only Public Safety but also the economic
prosperity and overall well-being of our
state thank you for your
time thank you Jim haxby Pam Peterson
ebony key and Amo van
hft H excuse me can I get the Elmo sure
Sandy it's Jim haxby Jim haxby 30-year
resident of Scottdale I live at 7336
East Sunnyside
Drive uh as a career pilot I question
whether having 1900
units residential units in the influence
area of the airport if we've got a noise
abatement agreement in
place but the other thing we've got
thousands of and thousands and thousands
and thousands of Apartments already in
the pipeline
approved uh numerous number of those are
within miles or less than a mile from
this
project and uh next week we're going to
discuss a sustainability plan for the
Scottdale or we're worried about water
we're worried about how we get rid of
the
Refuge all those scenes and it's when's
it going to be time to stop and say
what's the effect of all that we've
already approved and done traffic's got
to be a
nightmare uh it's costing all the
residents of Scottdale something if we
want a plumber
electrician a
handyman uh our pool service landscaper
whatever their rates have got to go up
because they're stuck in traffic half
the day to do that it's costing us all
something our rates are going up because
it's it took me 10 minutes to get on to
Cactus Road today from 73rd you sit
there idling wasting
gas our our insurance rates are going up
because of this scene uh you know it's
costing every
resident of Scottdale money and that's
why they're irate you know you guys put
all these uh great promises out there to
protect
us but we're not following
through and that's upsetting to the
residents of Scottsdale I mean that's
what the last election told us thanks
thank you Mr axby uh next Pam Peterson
Ebony and meril Van H
H good evening thank you for the
opportunity my name is Pam Peter
I have served the great state of Arizona
as its Chief assistant us attorney and
in that rall fought crime and prosecuted
crime for the safety of our communities
and our families and when I transitioned
from that role back into private
practice I doubted that I would ever
find another legal position that would
provide me with such purpose and pride
as that one until
axon I joined axon's in-house legal team
12 years ago in
2012 and that was no coincidence that I
made my transition at that point in time
because you see that year local law
enforcement because they were equipped
with technology saving life-saving taser
technology saved the life of my
daughter and so when I say that the
mission I'm very proud and pass
passionate about it it's an
understatement in terms of working at
axon and continuing that mission and
those of us who work there live and
breathe this Miss mission to protect
life and not only with the products that
were most famous for taser weapons and
perhaps body warn cameras with a whole
Suite of products that provide law
enforcement with amazing opportunities
to help bridge the gap with our local
communities that provide transparency
and accountability
and really help us to work together and
that's why I really hope that this board
will not only vote to keep axon in
Scottsdale but would be proud to host
our national headquarters our world
headquarters thank
you thank
you hi there ebony kizy um I'm G to
limit my time but I just want to just
let you know you have Trust of axon's
leadership to not Overlook the voices of
the community in Scottdale um and I'm
just going to leave you with a quote let
us not fear the future but embrace it
with confidence and courage knowing the
progress begins with bold
decisions thank you we have um Merill
van hey but afterwards Peter de sheeper
lesie lman Christine Albert and Lee
maruchi thank you hello hi my name is
Maro van Hefty I work at axon and I also
own a home in the stoneberg community um
four years ago when I was looking for a
new place to work I knew that having a
short commute was really important to me
I'm a working mom of two little girls
and being able to spend more time with
them is my top priority with axon being
so close I get the valuable family time
back and I know a lot of people in the
younger generation feel the same
minimizing commute time to maintain
better work life balance as a neighbor
to axon I have seen how much axon has
put into being a good neighbor they
genuinely listened to the community and
made real changes based on our feedback
it's clear they want to work together
with us which isn't something every
company would do one last thing I wanted
to share wh while I know I know there
are some who may have concerns about
this development I think it's important
to highlight that many families in my
community are genuinely excited about
the idea of having a beautiful campus
right here in our neighborhood thank you
for your time thank you um Peter de
shefer lesie lman Christine Albert and
Lee maruchi good evening council members
my name's Peter the sheeper I'm a
mechanical engineer at axon um wherever
axon builds its next campus I'll be
there but my hope my sincere hope is
that it's right here in Scottdale thank
you I yield the rest of my time
hello mayor city council
people my name is lesie lurman my
husband and I own a property in
Stonebrook at 8149 East Michelle Drive
we've owned that property for 22 years
and now our daughter and her husband
lived there because she trained at
trains at is a doctor at
Mayo before I share my concerns about
this rezoning request I want you to
understand that I support axon and its
growth I have drunk the koola I have
listened to such enthusiasm about the
company I love it I just love it I'm not
against having it right next to our
neighborhood and I want you to vote Yes
to approve the
development I'm just concerned about the
density I think 1900 apartments or 1870
whatever it is right now is just too
much for the
area despite the concessions that axon
has
made there are just too many apartments
I do want to thank city councilwoman
Whitehead and janic for negotiating the
improvements to Aon plan on behalf of
our neighborhood and I want to
congratulate Rick and his team the plan
sincerely I say this honestly is so
improved D over what it
was I know that it would be very cool to
have a campus where you could walk to
work I wish I'd had the opportunity to
do that in my career so I'm in favor of
this
development but if you had just drop the
number of residential units to 1500
you'd have my 100% support thank you
hi I'm Christine I go by Chrissy I've
been at axon for almost three years I'm
a software engineer and I am so proud to
work at axon and make software that
helps police officers do their jobs more
effectively and save their
time our family has always moved to
where the job is we've lived in New York
in Pittsburgh and in Denver and I am so
proud that we are in Arizona now and
that I can work for ax on I really want
you to vote Yes for this because I want
the new talent coming in everyone out of
college to be able to walk to work I
want them to be um able to do this so
that we're reducing the cars on the road
and that they have a great community and
that our company in scotsville grows
thank
you thank you after Lee maruchi we have
Katherine delay Tamara golden Patricia
badok Rich Barber and Jason
Alexander proceed thank you uh my name's
Lee maruchi I'm a resident of Scottdale
I live in Stone Brook to the
neighborhood that been discussed here um
I have to say to Rick and his team it's
it's a very impressive uh growth that
you've had the company does great things
I love your mission um and and I'm
really I think
Scottdale uh needs you guys here wants
you guys here the problem is the density
so I just looked up uh Facebook which we
compared here Facebook is 250 Acres this
is 47 Acres Facebook has
1729 units you're looking at
1895 that's about six times the density
of Facebook it's also about four times
the density of the other apartment
complexes that are nearby uh the the San
Artis complex and it's about 11 times
our little community of single family
homes 174 so I got no Pro I want I want
axon here I want Scottdale to be proud
of having axon here I just don't think
this is the right location and the right
project for this space thank
you good good
evening my name is Katherine Daly and
thank you to the mayor and council
members for allowing me to speak um
before you this evening about this
proposal I am a resident of Scott stom b
2 neighborhood as well I um axon is a
wonderful company I love everything that
I've heard and things that I already
knew about axon and it's it's just been
made even more clear but this is not
about axon this is about Land
Development and it's about the proper
management of
density um axon has
not satisfied the mandatory Criterion of
establishing Beyond reasonable doubt
that the proposed residential and hotel
development are in harmony with the
character of the surrounding area the
surrounding area consists of 174 single
family units on 38 acres a multif family
development with
550 apartments on 30 acres and offices
in light industrial businesses in the
Perimeter Center area contrast that with
axon's request to build now which is
19900 approximately dwelling units plus
a
425 Key hotel on only approximately 37
Acres the mandatory C CR Criterion
Beyond Reasonable Doubt requires showing
that the evidence supporting their
proposal is so convincing that a
reasonable pable reasonable person would
not reject it by virtue of the mer the
multiple revisions submitted throughout
this application process including the
present proposal axon itself is
demonstrating that they have not and
cannot satisfy the mandatory Criterion
of
establishing Beyond reasonable doubt
that the residential Hotel developments
are in harmony with the character of the
surrounding area this is not to say that
the headquarters are not in character
they are it's the residential and the
hotel development that is
not so based on the Mandate of the
citizens of
Scottdale in the most recent election to
responsibly manage thank you m delay
you've used the two minutes sorry your
time is expired I urge you to vote
against this proposal and you'll see a a
timer on that monitor there in front of
you in the F for other other speakers um
continuing Tamara golden P Patricia
badok Rich Barber and Jason Alexander
then Mark Margaret
Schulz hi thank you I am Tamara golden
I'm a homeowner in the Stone Brook and
my question is really related to maybe
your Chief legal counsel and to Rick
you've been publicly you've publicly
stated that axon will leave Arizona if
the city council does not approve your
project is it fair to suggest that this
threat to relocate is more of a
negotiation tactic than a reflection of
regulatory or logistical
challenges and if the project is
approved your employees aren't going to
move in next week so my question is what
policies are in place to protect
employees from retaliation or
discrimination If they raise concerns
about housing conditions
if the apartments are primarily designed
for young single professionals how will
axon address the potential mismatch
between this housing model and the needs
of Aging or family oriented
Workforce how do you reconcile a
long-term investment in employee housing
with the reality that employee turnover
and evolving life stages May reduce the
appeal of this housing option last week
you mentioned
Austin and in today Austin has a
reputation for being a tech Hub with a v
vibrant music and cultural scene do you
believe Scottdale has comparable
infrastructure demographics or cultural
Foundation to support that Vision
Scottdale is known for its luxury
tourism golf courses and quieter
Suburban atmosphere how do you reconcile
these differences with Austin's
reputation as a bustling Urban and Tech
Hub thank you and I urge you to vote no
good evening mayor and councel Patty bad
knck 40-year
resident it is a wellknown
overused tactic used by developers to
maintain their upzoned
Notions to brainstorm build in favors
addressing probable complaints that
would still allow for their profit
margin while ignoring the already
approved density projects close by this
is another attempt to appease these
Rising issues of traffic by insisting
that their live work play conglomerate
will address
overpopulation this approval will
further drive us into mass transit
compromising residents who live here to
who who live here to give up they're
going to now have to give up more of
their freedoms to drive park and shop
Citywide the residents have no say it is
n of your business if you don't live
close by
wrong the infrastructure costs the use
of water electricity the roads we drive
Etc applies to all of us axon is a
continued example for more of the same
approvals to jack up height and density
in all fairness to the majority of those
who vote voted in the last election this
magnitude of development needs to be
determined by the new Council leadership
the citizens at
large voted in to replace any further
density developments should no longer be
Standalone items but how it affects the
city at large what we wish to maintain
and keep needs to be determined by our
newly elected Council thank you
Thank you Rich Barber then Jason
Alexander Margaret Schulz and Nick Van
height mayor council appreciate the
chance this evening um it's Rich Barber
2944 North 44 Street um I just wanted to
say congratulations to axon um the city
staff and really elected officials on um
the planning Vision to put together a
live
work play environment like this that
will be iconic on a location that is
frankly a dirt parking loot with Porto
John's so I think the the vision that
you guys have all displayed is just
amazing and vote vote yes
please hello Jason Alexander my address
is on record I am a 14-year resident a
father a small business owner and as
most of you know from prior comments
I've made I've spent almost 25 years as
a programmer and technologist here in
the valley most of it in
Scottsdale but I'm here tonight to
advocate in favor of our children and
our future Generations so I'd like to
give you little bit of information about
the world they're growing up in we are
short nationally 4 million housing units
18% of the US population is over AG 65
increasingly being supported by a
shrinking population our population
growth is only at 4% in the United
States Social Security is currently
risen to 5% of gross domestic product
with an increasingly smaller population
bearing that burden this is the world
that our children are being grown into
and the burden that they must bear I'd
like you to look around at this audience
tonight because in all of my time coming
to council I have never seen so many
younger people in the audience here if
you are under 40 years old please raise
your hands raise your hands if you are
under 40 years
old thank you
Barry so for our children Barry for your
children for Salange your young adult
children Tammy your younger adult
children and Tom and Betty for your
grandchildren I want us all to think
about what the future of our city looks
like our generation myself almost 55 did
not have the benefit of some of the
older Generations who are blessed to
grow up in decades of unparalleled
economic dominance by the United States
to grow up with cheap land cheap college
cheap fuel let's do something to support
the future of Scottdale and all the
young people and young technologists out
here thank you very
much good evening council members and
mayor Ortega my name is Margaret Schultz
I live in Phoenix Arizona
um I'm here representing worker power
Institute a nonpartisan nonprofit that
focuses on making sure developers and
local government are responsive to
community needs and input we are
concerned with the $9.4 million in
proposed infrastructure reimbursements
included in the amended public
infrastructure agreement we don't
believe taxpayer money should go to a
corporation with expected revenue of
over $2 billion this fiscal year
back in 2020 the agreement between axon
and Scottdale stipulated axon needed to
reach certain benchmarks within 5 years
to be eligible for the money at the time
council member Tom Durham then candidate
asked why are we giving them 9 million
when so many Scottdale businesses are
suffering and we have a lot of
businesses that are closed and
shuttering their doors while that was in
reference to businesses struggling
during the pandemic I think the question
still stands if a large company deserves
the the kind of handout over small
businesses we don't believe there should
be an extension of this
deadline council member then candidate
Benny janick has also raised concerns
about the infrastructure reimbursements
pointing out how libraries and Senior
Center services are already impacted by
a tight budget residents have also named
many concerns from the size of the
project to traffic and water use we ask
that you listen to the concerns of those
most impacted and vote no thank
you after Nick Van height we will have
uh the final
five they are Joseph Kostner Matthew
Richards Stephen uh Stefan Tuttle Jason
light and then Mike
Kooker thank you excuse me thank you
mayor Orga and city council uh my name
is Nick Van Hefty the third time is the
charm as they say um so I live at 8088
East Maria Drive in the Scottsdale Stone
Brook 2 neighborhood nine years ago I
moved here from the city of Chicago and
I had one non-negotiable I had to live
close to every amenity that I needed so
I moved right next door to the padium
and it was fantastic we had a great time
a couple years later my wife pulled me
out of that neighborhood Kicking and
Screaming to North Scottsdale and that's
where we live today
um while I respect and appreciate the
concerns of my neighbors um I firmly
support the axon development as it's
designed
today as mentioned last week things
didn't start off great between axon in
Scottsdale Stonebrook to the
collaboration wasn't there the
communication wasn't great but axon's
reaction since then has been wonderful
they listened to us they changed their
plans they brought us into their office
to show us what the development looks
like
firsthand they brought studies last week
that showed that our property values
will absolutely increase despite what
some of my neighbors will think they
shared traffic studies that sh that
showed that the traffic at Hayden in 101
will actually get better and while you
know it'll go from an F to a d as they
say D's pass and we'll take it right
um I I'm truly not sure what else axon
can do to support us in that
neighborhood I think there's a handful
of folks that no matter what changes are
still never going to be happy with
development and I understand that but I
think it's important that we look at the
overall bigger picture and how this
development will support the future of
axon and increase the quality of life in
myself and my neighbors in our in our
neighborhood with that I ask that you
vote in favor of the development as it
stands today thank you very much for
your
time thank you uh repeating Joseph Coter
Matthew uh Richards Stefan Tuttle Jason
light and Mike Kooker please come
forward good evening mayor good evening
council members thank you for your time
tonight my name is Joe ker I'm a
resident of Mesa uh Marine Corps veteran
and four-year axon employee if you know
a marine you know we're a skeptical
Bunch um Rick Smith the entire
leadership team has earned my trust in
the mission and partnering in good faith
with our customers especially I urge you
very humbly to vote Yes for this axon's
home for me Scot sale's home for axon
thank you
good evening mayor and council members
uh my name is Matt Richards I'm a
long-term resident of Scottdale I'll be
brief since it seems like my opinions
been echoed by many but first I wanted
to start off with echoing them what
everybody else has said here tonight on
both sides that we all respect and
admire axon for their mission for who
they are for what they've done for the
the world and Es and especially here in
Scottdale um I have a tremendous amount
of respect for axon for their mission
and I'm happy to support this campus as
well and I'd ask ask for you to support
it I think this is the right development
for the right time for the right site um
I can't imagine I drive past this site
to work every day uh as I come down
Hayden and on the 101 and I can't
imagine a better youth uh the fact that
they've not just made it a home for
themselves but a home for others they've
brought amenities for retail for housing
for Hospitality things that all of us uh
citizens can use I think they've
responded really well to the uh comments
that they've received moving mov acts on
way lowering Heights uh moving the hotel
and so I just would encourage like the
previous speaker said that uh you know
they've done their part and I would urge
you and ask you to support this
project okay let's get the next speaker
up uh I think that was Stephen little so
we're on Jason light
thanks good evening
Jason light 20-year resident of city of
Scottdale
um I'd like to express my support for uh
the rezoning uh for the axon development
project uh this project represents a
significant opportunity for our
community to enhance the cordor along
the
101 um it provides modern high-tech
office um with multif family apartments
and the hotel accommodations in that
area
contrasting um the commercial zoning we
would typically have over there um I
think that's a major Improvement for the
community for the residential uh the
residential areas adjacent to it as a
buffer and what they've offered as part
of this uh development um in contrast I
mean we could be looking at industrial
big box developments in that area um
that are are less desirable from a a
residential standpoint um it also
impacts our view of the quarter of the
McDow mountains um by by having those
big boxes there I feel like it devalues
the the views that we have in that area
so in in summary I I I support this
development and I hope the council
supports it also thank
you mayor city council I'm Steve Tuttle
in 1994 I joined the startup team of
Five Guys for axon from that first day
we proceeded to lose money for the next
eight years years in our quest to
develop the Holy Grail in law
enforcement an intermediate use of force
tool that would safely cause true
incapacitation many of you grew up with
a term the American dream for some it's
instant financial success with very
little effort you might recall the pet
rock the Pocket Fisherman or the Chia
Pet these were instant Financial
successes but sadly had no positive
societal implications and no
longevity however the real American
dream is to find solutions to
challenging problems that are extremely
hard to solve it can take months if not
years to overcome it involves Blood
Sweat and Tears you may teed to run
bankruptcy like we did numerous times
but that challenge can create
life-saving Tech that law enforcement so
desperately needs
worldwide fortunately we experienced the
American dream and we moved to Stone
Brook area in 2005 and we've been good
neighbors every year we bring thousands
of clients from all the world to the our
head headqu quarters and show off this
beautiful city and the desert to the
many people that come here this is great
exposure for Scottdale and these
visitors make a tremendous economic
impact upon the city now I know that not
everyone is pleased about this project
however there should be a great sense
and pride in knowing that this is not
some facel faceless conglomerate it is a
homegrown scottsdale-based American
Dream startup that made the word taser a
household word and created body cameras
it's a company involved in the community
full of entrepreneurs with passionate
employees who want to build and create
revolutionary technology our products
save lives protect people on both sides
of the badge and has historical roots
with the city of Scottdale for the past
31 years which takes us to today we need
to expand and attract High talent to
save more lives the access to hotels and
condos will provide a highly competitive
worldclass headquarters I also want to
remind everyone that the Air Park is a
tech and startup incubator we are a
model tech company that grew up here and
we've made some concessions thank you
sir imagine the opportunities that
scusta will lose if this isn't approved
thank you sir I also want to imagine
what will be gained by supporting it the
American dream time is concluded thank
you um next we go to uh Jason light and
Mike Jason already went okay so we're uh
up to Mike uh kroer
I couldn't help but uh see how the
support for the accon is how many people
here from Maxon raise your hand ton of
people here okay how many PE so right
now it'd be great if
um they've been talking about how great
is to work for an ACC how great their
company is and it is great I used to
carry taser myself all right so um I
have no problem with that but we're not
talking about their business right now
and BAS basically everyone coming up
here wer they going to say their
business stinks you know no the
company's bad no I think 1,400
Apartments we have we come up here with
250 apartments and we're and we're
screaming about it the and we're not
getting we've had basically no support
from city council for four years and I'm
not being mean but that's why there was
an overwhelming Clean Sweep in this last
election and part of it is you didn't
follow your oath or you'd still be
sitting up there
okay I probably I would have voted for
you all right so tonight you have a
chance to do something do something the
right way all right so one question I
have for axon it's they want to set a
campus and I've been listening to this
it got me off the couch tonight at 45
minutes ago I was watching this at home
I go I had to come in and at least
support my colleagues here and support
the city all right so they have 1900
Apartments does this mean that with
their campus that all 1900 Apartments is
for their employees only yes or no could
anyone answer it's no so basically what
we've done is we got a great company
okay and they have a lot of people
coming in build the hotel too all for it
we do not need 1,900 more apartments in
this city we have way too many right now
in the valley down here and all right to
be honest with you we have none up in
the DC Ranch area because you start at
Saran deser which is outstanding but we
like to start the shade Corridor act and
have the same the same opportunities and
vote for what we want want all right why
don't you do this and put this up in
that those areas and so we don't have as
much congestion in this area so um I
really don't see
how you can carry the water for the
developers and the business people you
sir and not um help the citizens of the
city out thank thank you very much for
for uh coming here okay at this point uh
we have concluded the list of uh uh
speakers on item number four
and um by our process the U applicant
will come back and probably fill in some
uh some uh information and um we will
then U uh go to the next phase of our
deliberation thank you Mr Mayor uh it's
been it's been a long four years it's
been a long two years since we've been
in this process it's been a long evening
so I don't I don't think I want to spend
a long time rebutting I think you've
heard from almost everybody here before
um I I do want to make one point uh
strongly and and that is really
appreciate all the kind words about axon
and we're really proud of of what we do
and I think that that shows uh
throughout the speaking um from the
people that work for us and the people
that
don't they're proud of us because we
have the best technology in the
world and we have the best technology in
the world because we have the best
people in the world and at the end of
the day it comes down to people all the
other things things that you heard are
relevant but they all boil down to the
fact that we know what it takes to bring
the best people to make the best
technology and we want to do that here
in Scottdale but we also know to do it
we need to build the campus and we've
been talking to each and every one of
you and everyone in the city for years
about that so I think I'll move to
questions unless uh you have something
particular you'd like to hear from me
well um I do want to um just bring one
another witness up here and the reason I
say that because there was discussion uh
several law enforcement representatives
were here and I'd like to ask uh our
police chief Walters to come forward and
I think that's great and discuss some of
that aspect uh as relationship to our
our local um U thank you bades thank you
Chief thank you mayor members of council
thanks for calling me up if I can if you
want me to make a statement I can and
talk about relationships with uh with
axon that we have or I can answer
questions which you prefer i' I'd just
prefer that you'd outline the
relationship uh how our uh our active U
crime uh Center works and other
collaborative efforts uh again from
directly from uh relationship with our
city absolutely thank you for the
opportunity um I love the Civic
engagement to see everybody here and I
think a number of other uh speakers
echoed that Civic responsibility in that
engagement so I appreciate all of you as
well and I know that it's not an easy
decision for
you I have multiple responsibilities but
I have one job and that job is to keep
Scottdale safe and having axon in my
backyard literally for the 30 years that
I've been with the Scottdale Police
Department um I have watched them grow
from this city uh from a from a garage
company uh to the to a global leader in
law enforcement technology and to have
that in your back guard um is a seismic
event in nature and so that relationship
uh with the Scottdale police department
and I and I certainly appreciated a
number of my retired peers who had the
opportunity to speak up here as well and
the connectivity that they had with axon
in their respective agencies but I
promise you the connectivity that we
have here in Scottsdale with axon is
different than either any of them could
have explained as well the difference is
is that in Scottdale uh Scottdale is
safer with axon in our backyard and
that's huge and the re and I've heard
people talk about safety or the
deployment of different Technologies in
the law enforcement scene and around not
just around Scottsdale uh Arizona the
the country but around the globe is
because axon is in our backyard and axon
is about relationships in fact I look at
a number uh of folks that that are
connected to axon Rick and Josh and
Steve in the back and Charles um I could
go on and on about that relationship
because the relationship in Scottdale
matters and it matters to safety because
you have people will say well how's it
POS Chief if if axon were to be in
Florida you would still have the
opportunity to have those that that
technology true and not true and here's
why the relationship that we have here
in Scottsdale with a homegrown company I
think that's important to point out one
other speaker pointed out that Scott
still is not or Acts is not uh some
giant conglomerate some business that
came in here and wants to buy land and
and and build a complex they grew up
here two people started with two people
the reason that it adds to the safety of
Scottdale and it makes Scottsdale a
safer place which is what everybody
wants and everybody has talked about is
because the relationship that we have we
wind up being a a what I call what I
refer to it's probably the wrong term as
a beta test site uh for a lot of of
different technologies that axon is
rolling out and so when I say that we're
safer because of that that's because
we're testing technology in a law
enforcement space that we will get here
in Scottdale on Scottdale PD 12 months
18 months 24 months ahead of other
agencies because we've tested it out
we've tried it we've worked
collaboratively together I think it was
a young man um from axon who spoke
earlier he said I've met officers I've
gone on rideal alongs I've worked on
their products they've been here at axon
HQ to work out the bugs of products in a
real world environment I will tell you
that when we when it comes to technology
and I I'll use the taser 10 and i' I've
talked with Rick about this in the past
and Josh because to me the taser 10 that
my officers who are in this audience
today protecting this venue are carrying
a taser 10 we beta tested 10 of those
taser tens I know a lot of tens um and I
will I'm happy to tell you that in the
testing of that uh and since we've gone
to full deployment I'm happy to tell you
and tell axon that we went to full
deployment and completed our full
deployment last week every Scottsdale
police officer is carrying a taser 10
and we've saved three
lives three lives uh that would have
been officer involved shootings because
of the technology that we have early
that we rolled out early that we tested
here
early it's not just the taser I grew up
in when when in a time when axon was
called taser and it was it was a
conducted energy weapon but when we talk
about body warn cameras my folks are
also wearing the body War the the on
body four it's technology that continues
to advance we can talk about um AI
technology that we're bringing to Baron
mayor uh and and almost all of you now
have been into the real-time crime
Center and seen the leader in technology
that the Scottsdale Police Department is
in the realtime crime Center space
that is hugely important and we have
multiple vendor Partners in our
real-time crime Center but axon is one
of the most important ones when you look
at how we deploy and the equipment that
our folks are carrying on the street
today that they're using in the offices
that my records unit is using to do
public records request redactions and
the AI tools we have related to that uh
the beta testing we're doing right now
in police report writing because if you
look at when we're talking about
efficiencies and I know on Council we
we're always looking for efficiencies in
the city the the draft one component AI
uh report writing software that we are
testing right now has been an
overwhelming success and we it we expect
that to reduce report writing time by
the individual officer by 30 to 40%
that's what we're seeing that's more
time that our officers on the street
that that enables as much safer
Scottdale I'll finish mayor with with
one other thought process and we can
talk about realtime crime centers uh
Rick and I and Charles two weeks ago
talked about an opportunity to expand
that realtime crime Center uh footprint
to to Really address all of our major
special events here Tech we must bring
technology to Bear early and immediately
in a comprehensive way with all of our
major special events we're bringing 12
million visitors to this city every year
and when it's Super Bowl time and thank
God Super Bowl it was in 2023 hopefully
we won't see another one till 20
30 uh but in
2023 we leveraged an incredible
relationship with axon for tethered
drones over major events for uh for
command posts uh because we ran out of
mobile command posts with scottdel PD
and it was axon that stepped up to
assist in that endeavor not because
they're a global Community or not
because they're a global company but
because they're part of our community
there's a difference when developers
come into this city with the idea of
developing and making money um you know
in different areas of the city axon is a
is a Community member a lot of young
people in here raised their hand and
said I I live in those apartments I want
to live in those apartments I love Scott
said I love that opportunity we must
bring those resources to Bear early here
and that's that's what's going on here
in Scottsdale and the potential I I'm
always incredibly honest with you I tell
Jim that all the time when he brought me
back at as the chief your Chief four
years ago is that I'm never going to
lead you astray I'm always going to tell
you and be transparent about what we
need in this city to keep this vibrant
City safe and I am sitting up here
quaking in my boots to the idea that I
might lose that uh that relationship and
that early adoption of Technology law
enforcement technology that is this very
moment keeping our citizens safe I could
go on about the global component of that
and the opportunity to speak as a as a
police chief in the in the country and
around the world about AI technology law
enforcement technology and how it saves
lives but I'll I'll wrap put that put a
bow on that and and I'll I'm happy to
answer any questions you have thank you
Chief we will move on to our Council
deliberations please stand by uh at this
point I see councilwoman Janik and
council member Durham wishing to speak
okay thank you mayor I know I won't be
as dramatic As You Are
Chief I'm the nuts and bolts and the
facts um I listen to all of the input
from all of you I totally respect and
appreciate every single one of you who
has sent me one of the 600 emails that I
looked at that you have spoken and we
have sat through what an hour and a half
two hours of testimony we are a great
City because all of you are engaged you
care about the city you've been very
respectful so I do appreciate that quite
a bit next I want to say that I
appreciate our staff I don't think
anybody here knows the pressure they
have been under to review deliver
re-review redeliver and as of a couple
hours ago change a few more things so
thank you I really do appreciate all you
do and you keep us a great City now this
is a boring part but I do want to cover
it I listened to some of the speakers
and um they had some question questions
I did Speaker number three James Davis
I've known him for a long time he's
really a great guy his concern was that
the taxpayer was going to be on on have
to pay for some of the expenses for
axon I have the you'll be surprised what
I have I have the brochure shaping
Scottdale Exxon economic Footprints the
data is in writing I'm happy to share
this and if we could even maybe posted
online but just to dispel Jim's concerns
page 16 figure six projected fiscal
impact on the city of Scottdale revenues
11,537 per year expenditures 1,
325,000
net revenue
10,188 3 $ those are nice numbers
especially since we're going to a flat
tax and we're going to be losing about1
10 to20 million of income and we're also
losing the income from the rental tax so
anybody that wants to see this it was
passed out you're welcome to it because
it's in writing I trust it okay the next
thing um janab boscus who will be taking
over for us good luck Jan um she had
concerns about the airport vote that was
07 it is and I trust me I was very
concerned about that too it is my
understanding that those concerns have
been addressed can either you Rick or
Charles address what you have done to
alleviate them and if you've heard back
from the
airport we uh thank you council member
we've done um a number of things to
address those concerns uh since that
time we have moved uh the use um excuse
me not the use but the the building that
is closest to the airport the building
on the south side of axon way has been
moved further to the north we have moved
the roadway in certain locations we also
then reduced the five-story building to
four stories and three stories and yes
uh your airport director who I thought I
saw earlier in fact I just saw him again
uh he he's always around almost like air
traffic control uh we've had a number of
conversations about about specifically
doing those things in part to improve
things for the airport but I'll let him
speak for
himself good afternoon mayor members of
the council um just to help respond to
the question about the airport advisory
commission and their position um
obviously it did not go back to the
airport advisory commission for a second
uh look see or a vote which they were
not required to do however in speaking
with the chair and several members of
the commission most of the concerns have
been addressed so I'll give you a couple
examples the original proposal would
have caused about five or six
obstruction lighting due to the Heights
and the location of being closer to the
airport um it has changed and based on
our analysis with a consultant it was
reduced down to approximately one
obstruction light basically facing the
axon headquarters so that was a positive
thing because that was a concern to the
airport advisory
commission um obviously the reduction in
the residential component is always a
plus we are always concerned as an
airport for any residential uh
encroachment on an airport cuz that
cause cause concerns um the condo
situation is a little bit of concern for
the commission as well however there are
stipulations that are required by the
zoning code that make the operator or
the applicant responsible for a
navigation easement which is a covenant
not to sue the city or the airport for
overflights as well as a disclosure
notice that must be provided to us prior
to final plans approval that disclosure
notice must be in their ccnr as well as
any other contracts assign that
basically says you're by an airport or
over the flight path so that should
respond to the concerns of the airport
commission for the most
part thank you okay um moving along I
know that uh someone else had concerns
about airport the airport we've address
those in water um I'll talk about that
in a minute I have some information on
that um another speaker Tamila gulen um
she's very concerned about rules for
employees in these apartments she also
attended the Planning Commission meeting
She also asked about this then and she
also sent me an email thank you very
much um what I want to say is the rules
for anybody renting an apartment it
doesn't matter if it's a short-term
rental a long-term rental or on a on the
rules are the
same they don't vary so don't look for
anything special extra or not as good
they are the same and they are enforced
for everybody okay the next thing that I
wanted to bring up I think that's pretty
much the boring stuff um I did read most
of the emails uh boring life
anyways one comment that I wanted to
make uh from emails that I have received
and this is from a fellow I was lucky
enough to meet today very neat guy he's
got two young children children ages 5
and one he and his wife and his two kids
are going to be moving here from Seattle
Washington he sent a very nice email and
I'm just going to read a little bit of
it like me many talented professionals
are eager to integrate into and
contribute to the vibrant Scottdale
Community exxon's new headquarters will
serve as a Cornerstone for this offering
a steady theart environment for
Innovation collaboration and community
building we are committed to being a
respons POS and engaged partner in
Scottsdale's growth and success and I
look forward to these people and to all
of you working for stem education
working in robotics with their high
school kids and maybe even coaching
soccer that would be really nice okay
and then this is from a longtime
resident who has been involved in many
of our commissions I worked with him on
the the initial short-term rental
commission and um he's also on our
development review board
I encourage you to approve axon's
high-tech campus and I'll abbreviate it
yes it is big it is a big project but
any project built in the this location
will be big water yes water will not be
an issue Aon plans to deliver 3,000 acre
feet of water to the city an amount that
is significantly more than the planned
water requirement for the site and I do
believe it's my understanding that they
have to be begin to bring the water in
earlier than they will need the water am
I correct that's correct which means we
will be able to store it for you so that
is a pretty good protection as far as
water goes um and then jobs yes Exon
expansion in scottow will create jobs
directly and indirectly indirectly and
have a big economic impact now this is
something that I don't think we've
discussed yet um yes it has merits the
merits are high at campus with housing
is a win and clearly are superior to the
current zoned industrial use options
which include light manufacturing office
wholesale warehousing and distribution
and then I have a story to tell you that
our uh city manager shared with me um I
think we all know the intersection of um
scottd still and the 101 we know on the
Phoenix side there are luxury car
dealerships generating a lot of money
and a lot of nice tax dollars and guess
what we have on the left side on the
east side we're going to have five
eight-story tall buildings called Optima
and if you've seen them it's like
whoa we could have had the luxury car
dealerships but the people that live in
the area said no they are too noisy they
are too disruptive well guess what now
we've got 1,320 Apartments instead be
careful what you wish for it's all I
have to say on that one now with that in
mind what I would like to do is make a
motion if I can find it okay I move to
adopt resolution number
13277 ordinance number
4657 is revised to reflect a reduction
in apartment and condo units to a
maximum number of
1,895 and further including the enhanced
landscaping and berm stipulation shown
and discussed in the hearing tonight and
resolutions number
13273
13275
13274 with the development plan also
being amended to reflect the new maximum
number of units of
1,895
second okay we have a motion in a second
I have a cue with council member Durham
wishing to speak um and also the City
attorney wanted to clarify let's let the
City attorney clarify something for us I
I just want to make sure sure that the
motion um councilwoman janic was to
adopt ordinance number
4658 I think you stumbled on those
numbers and I wanted the record to be
clear on that okay thank you um
ordinance number
4658 is revised thank you wonderful and
and just to clarify that that's good for
the second as well
second okay we're moving on now to
council member Durham then Council woman
Whitehead councilwoman
caputi thank you mayor um I wanted to
speak first and probably ask Miss
Kilgore to confirm this uh there were we
received a lot of copy and paste emails
about the $9 million in infrastructure
improvements which I I think I probably
criticized four years ago and that was
uh I know a lot more now than I did then
and I I think those $9 million in
infrastructure improvements as I
understand it are for improvements that
are the city's
responsibility um I didn't pay for the
road in front of my house I I didn't pay
for the other infrastructure in front of
my house and no one else did either and
I think the way this works is the city
uh pays absor SS the costs for
infrastructure uh that includes the
roads and so forth and so on and and so
there's nothing UNT at all about the
city paying the $9 million for this
infrastructure cost and I just wanted to
confirm that um my understanding is
correct council member Durham that's
absolutely correct um these are for
public improvements and the city is
simply reimbursing acts on um sort of
the Hidden benefit of that to the city
is that we don't have to mobilize
construction teams um and and bid these
out and so we get some economies of
scale and as I mentioned in my
presentation um we should see some
benefit um given that this is not being
increased to reflect increasing
construction rate so it is just for the
portion of infrastructure being built
that is public in nature that is correct
so that's a great deal for us because
we're
we're buying that infrastructure at 2020
prices but um axon I'm sure is going to
pay 2025 prices uh when they do it so
thank you for that
clarification uh we've all spent a lot
of time thinking about this project I
thank everyone for their participation
and join um council member janic and
thanking everyone for their um for good
behavior tonight it's been very helpful
uh when I've thought about this project
and I've thought about it a lot I always
think of the Mac project which is close
by um like this spot Mac the Mac project
which is located at Pima and the 101 was
zoned for industrial use and a a
warehouse is going up there as we speak
I I drive by it almost almost every day
um I thought that this was a bad use for
that property um I still think it's a
bad use um and I got many emails asking
me to change the zoning on this location
and I wrote back many of these emails
and told them uh there's nothing the
council can do about it uh this is zoned
as an industrial use um the purchaser of
that land has the right to build an
industrial use on it it won't come
before the council and some people said
we'll change the zoning anyway and I
told them we'll get sued if we do and uh
we would lose that lawsuit and that
would cost you the taxpayers a lot of
money so we have a similar situation
here um this property is zoned for an
industrial use and at the Planning
Commission a gentleman asked uh why
should we change the
zoning and um as as was Illustrated
tonight we we can change the
zoning um and we probably should Jo
change the zoning when we think it's in
the public interest um and also it has
to be in the public interest it also has
to comply with our general
plan and um our general plan explicitly
calls
for uh Apartments to be located near
employment centers and I feel an
obligation uh to follow that General
plan it was passed by the citizens
approved after a two-year process and
approved in a public vote and that's
what our general plan
provides um so the real issue here
is what is going to go in this spot uh
is it going to be a warehouse as in the
Mac case uh if if someone wanted to
build a warehouse here we can't stop
them or is it going to be the axon
project and I'm convinced that axon is
the better
choice uh like Mr Alexander I was struck
by all of the young people here uh this
is about Scottsdale's future it's it's
not about the scotchdale that um I live
in for us old guys uh it's about the
future it's about jobs it's about
prosperity and um so I I I think that's
why I'm in favor of this project uh my
biggest concern is the Stone Brook 2
area we have worked very hard in this
Council to protect
neighborhoods um the apartments that we
have produced that we have voted for uh
none of which have been built yet uh so
when people talk about that 15,000
pipeline uh none of them are under
construction many of them will never be
under
construction um so I I think that this
is a good choice for the future uh I
think it's better for the people of
Stonebrook
also uh much better than industrial use
I don't think the people in Stone Brook
want
semis going up and down Hayden Road and
uh Driving In and Out 24 hours a day I
don't think that that's a good use for
people in
Stonebrook um axon has made many many
improvements to protect the people of
Stonebrook and a warehouse and
Industrial use wouldn't have to make any
of those improvements uh we'd have no
power uh up here to Force those
improvements um axon's an excellent
company a Visionary company I think one
of the first Speaker said they can see
into the future and I I I think they do
they're a world leader here and as Chief
Walther made clear um their presence
here makes everybody here safer so I I
think it has fantastic benefits for
Scottdale in that respect so I wanted to
address some of the complaints I've
heard uh water is a big one uh we are
getting a billion gallons of water I I
can't even Envision what that what that
would be that's a lot of water and
apartments use water much more
efficiently than single family homes do
so this this project is going to be an
efficient user of water especially
because it's new it's going to comply
with our Green Building codes and be
very efficient in the use of water
um some people complained
about uh building in the desert and we
need to leave the desert space and I
sort of laugh when I hear that because
we have the biggest desert preserve Park
in the United States certainly and
probably the world which is 10 minutes
away uh from this project so
we're very very good at preserving
desert and open space and taking care of
it um so that space is not going away
um why did I um on traffic it's a very
big concern for everyone uh there's no
better way to control traffic than to
build in an apartment next to where you
live um you you don't drive you don't go
on the 101 you don't go on highways you
can literally walk to work so it's an
excellent solution uh I think some of
the worst traffic in Scottdale is south
of the Shay uh whenever I drive down
here uh the 101 is very crowded I think
it's probably uh some of that traffic is
acts on people driving home to Tempe or
Mesa I'm sure of it um I I heard at
least one from Mesa and if if you live
across the if you live not even across
the street but right by your employment
you're not going to be in a car so
there's no better solution to traffic
than putting people to live where they
work and that's why our general plan
requires that
um the the project I I will agree with
many people it's bigger than I would
like um I wish it were a little smaller
but one of the biggest frustrations of
this job is we don't get to make those
decisions uh we get to make choices on
what's presented to us and um I have no
doubt that uh the pros of this project
outweigh the benefits and so that's why
I'll be supporting it thank
you on councilwoman Whitehead
councilwoman caputi and then we'll go to
uh councilwoman Littlefield
proceed okay thank you mayor uh I I also
want to call on some staff members first
before I make remarks um let's start
with uh we'll start with city manager
Thompson um there there is a lot of
information misinformation out there
about this being a tax subsidy I will
say that the city of scotdale does not
subsidize development can you speak to
that uh
Jim uh Mr Mayor members Council council
member Whitehead um yeah specifically
this is not a sub subsidized project we
do not do those in Scottdale many of our
neighbors do uh they offer incentives
and other things to attract businesses
what we do is a reimbursement of public
improvements that you would see with the
Nationwide situation if you recall and
that one as well there was 21 million
worth of um improvements that we
reimburse them for the the large uh
drainage improvements which cost them
over 40 million to do which only a very
very small portion of that was that
project likewise with the sewer and the
water and the various other things so
it's the portions I think it was touched
on earlier this evening it's a portions
that the public benefits from not the
developer the developer pays for 100% in
this case they're paying for more than
100% again because of the 2020 numbers
vers the 2025 numbers and that the value
that could change over the term of the
project which could last last many years
into the future so um much of the
infrastructure is build up front because
you got to get water and sewer lines to
the entire project to serve that project
and in the meantime other residents are
benefiting from but this um this is not
one where we're reimbursing them for
benefits that they receive but the
greater to the system no different than
um agreements we also do with property
owners when somebody maybe had an old
septic that was within 500 ft and gets
aand and they run a sewer line their
neighborhood needs to hook to it they
have a latecomers agreement which then
they participate in that cost of that
line and pay back to the system so
similar here in that scenario so it's
consistent throughout all our areas
thank you um Mr worth you want to come
on down um obviously there were a lot of
questions about traffic so I I'd like to
have um our Public Works director answer
some questions on that
topic and I will I appreciated that our
airport director Gary mcara answered the
questions it shows that the system works
when the airport commission voted
07 we made changes so that's how City
governments work um
so Mr worth um this is a large parcel on
a freeway and that will be developed can
you speak to the changes that were made
for this project and also speculate
perhaps that the traffic is is this
going to impact traffic more than any
other allowable development there you go
ahead uh mayor councilman Whitehead um
we had the developer perform a traffic
impact mitigation analysis standard for
developments uh to take a look at what
their additional traffic would would do
to the surrounding Road Network um that
analysis looked at traffic internal to
the site and external to the site
external they looked at two freeway
interchanges the 101 and Hayden the 101
and Puma princess and they looked at
seven separate intersections the
intersections are the key when when
we're looking at at the additional
demand put on the network uh they looked
at seven different intersections on
Hayden Road princess and perimeter um
and the analysis and and what what we do
what the analysis does it looks at what
we call level of service um it uh
basically puts a a number or a letter
from a through F on each intersection
our goal is to have it better than F uh
and that's based on the amount of uh
time that uh you're delayed when you're
sitting at the intersection um and based
on their analysis and they looked U six
years into the future we we had them
looked not just at the year after they
open but at 2030 to take a look at more
long-term impacts
we had them look at uh the existing
traffic plus what they were going to add
uh but we also had them look at the
existing traffic plus whatever growth we
expect to have in traffic if they're not
doing anything plus the growth in
traffic from five other developments to
include their own phase one so we had
them account for everything we know
that's future development in that area
and look at all the traffic that are uh
going to be contributed by all those
developments on on those streets that I
mentioned uh and they ran models we
verified the data we agreed with the
data they used uh they they determined
what the uh uh the level of service was
going to be for each of those
intersections uh and in uh two cases
where we had level of service that
didn't meet our standards they proposed
mitigation they proposed improvements
which are now
stipulated uh the improvements that they
propos are primarily on Hayden Road uh
we're going to have them build um an
additional northbound lane on Hayden
from axon way from the entrance to their
development up to the freeway uh we're
going to have them well they're
proposing uh a second left turn lane
onto the westbound um 101 ramps on
Hayden uh we're still analyzing that
with ad out we got to get ad out to
agree with whatever we do uh we may take
a slightly different approach but
they're going to have to build it
whichever way we go um and they're
proposing um a two left turn entrance
southbound from the freeway into their
uh development at at axon Road those are
a major improvements and when you take
those improvements into
consideration um instead of having a u
level of service of F at uh the Hayden
interchange it's a d and we do it for
peak hour in the morning peak hour in
the evening so it improves it meets our
standard makes it acceptable every other
intersection is either as good as or
better than if they didn't build the
development U per the analysis so so
okay so I just want to jump in because
everybody gets startled by the D because
if you get a D in college as Mr worth
told me you get in trouble so Mr worth
can you tell us about a D in
transportation engineering is it common
and what does it mean it's very common
so uh the level of service as I mention
is based on the amount of time that
you're delayed in an intersection
because of the the traffic control the
signals and F which we're trying to
avoid is an 80c delay most of the
signals have a 12 second uh cycle so
from the time the light turns green in
front of you uh through that Green Cycle
through all the red cycle and and the
time that it turns green again it's 120
seconds so level service f with an 80c
delay you're still not going to wait for
two cycles you're going to get through
on the first green light uh now level of
service F could be a lot worse than that
but level of service D you're definitely
getting through on the first green light
uh you're waiting at a level of service
D between 35 and 55 seconds uh on the
average okay thank you that was fa
helpful when I was speaking Mr worth
explained this to me and then I was able
to communicate that with the other
residents so it is not the same as in
college um
so I really appreciate like my
colleagues I'm going to try not to
repeat what all of what my both of my
colleagues have said so far and I
certainly agree with everything that
they said I've been here since 1996 so
when I moved here there was no DC Ranch
there was no 101 there was no Sky song
you know there's but I knew that while
there was a whole lot of land I knew was
going to be developed because it's
private so the city council while um we
wish we had more power we don't we do
not have the power to stop development
we only have the power to make it
better um or we can offer as we've done
in the past for our voters to approve a
tax to buy and preserve it so thank
goodness um I stand on the shoulders of
people who were here before me and did
that so the development that has
happened since I moved here has been
tremendous in in terms of
um so many homes so many apartments so
many businesses but I'm grateful that in
fact we not only did we keep but we
increased we raised the bar for
development so that DC Ranch that got
built where I used to have desert is
beautiful and I still use the multi-use
paths that go through it because those
were required by the a city council
before me so here we are today with this
proposal again this is some of the most
desirable land left probably in the
state we know there are other entities
that want this
land the zoning change isn't um assault
on our residents it's our superpower the
zoning change is what gives us the
ability to negotiate with axon that
could other wise build whatever they
want and maybe they care but maybe they
wouldn't know what our residents want so
the zoning is our friend and if in fact
we um you know as we've heard multiple
times we can uh an Amazon or um other
entity can come in with a distribution
center and they will share that
neighborhood road which is now Mayo with
the residents of Stonebrook this city
council won't have any say in that and
we also know it's it's just it it's
common sense you have a distribution
center next to you that doesn't increase
your property value it doesn't increase
the value of our city it doesn't bring
economic um robustness to our city so
the choice we have before us is do we do
a
rezoning or not and many of I think all
the speakers I think we all like acts on
you guys are you know you're the global
leader in saving lives in the police in
the police Universe absolutely so
everybody spoke in favor of axon but
asked that they not build the apartments
but the reality is and we're seeing this
as a trend Nationwide and globally in
Canada as well that these that companies
like axon are building
campuses and axon is going to build a
campus and I can tell you that city is
vying for companies like axon and
they're paying including our neighbor
right next door they give huge tax
incentives to lure in companies like
axon because they are economic
powerhouses but not Scottdale we don't
do that axon wants us so that's pretty
cool so how did we become Scottsdale
well I think we saw some of that tonight
tonight we have a very engaged resident
population very very engaged I can tell
you development would be a lot easier if
everybody was less engaged but we
wouldn't be
Scottdale because it's our residents
that really have made us the exceptional
City the world class leader in
everything um we get so many accolades I
it gets kind of boring like some of the
recent accolades are best city to retire
but also best city to start a company a
little bit of conflict there but that's
those are the types of accolades we also
are one of the healthiest cities that
was an Accolade we recently got and 10th
safest city in the country I don't know
any Resident who wants to change that
and we just heard from the police chief
that one of the most important things
that we do as a city is have a
partnership with the global leader in
public
safety so we don't have a choice of not
having development because everybody
talked about traffic everybody talked
about water everybody talked about the
loss of views or the loss of open space
but that's happening that happens no
matter what we do so on this land um and
then they people want axon but they
don't want the apartments we don't have
that option either this isn't some
threat this is a business decision and
it's a needed business decision so what
do we do we use our superpower of zoning
and our incredibly energetic um
colleagues up here and we talk with
residents and we've done with every
project yeah there's apartments that
have been built but let me tell you
something the 2010s and the last four
years have nothing in common we have
changed the building codes we have
required open space we have made those
bu building codes so that there's lower
heat less heat coming out of new
construction whether it's a house or an
apartment and 30% less water from
apartment complexes we have taken
apartment um applications that want to
be um in areas they don't belong and
said no we've we've rejected those and
we've negotiated the good ones that are
in the right locations to great and
that's what we've done here so I'm going
to focus on Stonebrook because while we
take input from everyone we take impact
from the people who are most most impact
acted and I'll tell you who's most
impacted all the people who spoke who
have jobs and don't want to lose their
jobs and don't want to have to move so
these are people too you know every
everybody up here represents the city of
Scottdale the residents of the city of
Scottdale every one of us the problem I
have is I can't get 240,000 of you to
agree so we have hundreds of emails but
they are not all know and they are not
all acts on employees there are a lot of
people people who oppos this project
passionately as we saw the one speaker
support the project passionately and
wanted some changes so we take into
account our e economy because we have to
remain prosperous we take into account
um the stakeholders and we take into we
really focus in on those who are
impacted most so we do have this a
lovely neighborhood of Stone Brook with
wonderful residents and us I will just
call out councilwoman Janik and I in
particular have spent a lot of time and
really enjoyed getting to know the stone
brick residence and there were four
things that I was they wanted no
development everybody wants no
development stoneberg is no different
from anybody else okay and I've had this
happen in my neighborhood too but they
gave me four concerns that they wanted
addressed they wanted traffic addressed
they wanted privacy who doesn't want
privacy they
wanted added value to their own um
properties and they didn't want to be
next to Apartments they wanted to have a
diversity they wanted to have ownership
product so let's just go over um they
only had two minutes so they didn't get
to cover all the wins that we won for
them because they provided the input and
axon um was very accommodating so for
the traffic we have New
Road axon has to there was a there was a
shared Road any other entity that goes
into that land they're going to share a
road with that neighborhood but what we
have done is we have separated the
neighborhood from the axon campus and
that is not an inexpensive change so all
acts on construction all acts on
employees all acts on visitors and all
apartment um and condo residents will
use a separate road than what is used by
the neighborhood and we made
improvements at Hayden to make it so
that when residents do come in and come
out they're
safer
um
the um on the Privacy issue there's a
lot to say I might have to put my
glasses
on this is land that could have been
much higher in height so and the setback
requirements are 30t that's just what
they are so what we're getting now is
setbacks of
295 ft from the back wall of any home to
the closest condo up to 420 ft
setback heck of a lot of land that could
be developed so that is a huge setback
not only that the residents didn't want
the hotel near the neighborhood so the
hotel was relocated and away from the
neighborhood and we've reduce the
building Heights we have a three-story
and they wanted to know the exact height
40 foot Max height that is the roughly
300 feet from the residence and then it
steps up to 47 ft only four flights and
then the closest five-story building is
841 ft away and not only that it's
separated by the new road axon so the
neighborhood is going to be adjacent to
condominiums that are very reasonable in
height and also there'll be a burm and
an extremely this is one of my
specialties is to negotiate Landscaping
but an extremely robust Landscaping plan
with trees what these residents will see
is a beautiful parklike setting that you
see in high-tech campuses it's going to
be beautiful I would not approve
something that I thought was hurting
that I knew
or even thought might hurt that
neighborhood because when we approve
development we always look for the
benefit for the city of the whole and
also to limit any detriment to the
existing residents and we've done that
here let's talk about
value
again this the not only is this
neighborhood suddenly walkable right now
it's next to a large dirt expanse of
vacant land with a big question mark on
it and in real estate uncertainty is bad
for
Value it was also next to a freeway
which causes
noise and I've heard that from many of
the residents this campus is going to
will provide so much buffer so the noise
goes down the value goes up people want
to live near campuses like this
including the employees and remember
folks this intersection is kind of fun
right now but it's it's all slated for
development and so this community will
it's going to develop but this
development is far lower in terms of
impact because of all the uh benefits of
the open space and the setbacks but it
also makes the value of the properties
higher and that's been shown in
data but that's not all because we kind
of like to ask for more so I envisioned
um or all of us we I think and and I
think axon too I think we all thought
walkability walk Walking scores increase
property values so axon came up with the
idea of putting a walking path on the
whole circumference of this new
campus that imagine the green belt let's
take away the green belt from all the
people who live next to the green belt
nobody's going to be okay with that
adding this multi-use Trail is huge in
value and dog parks let me tell you we
spent a boatload building a Bo a a dog
park up there on Thompson Peak so we're
going to have a dog park also walking to
restaurants and businesses I heard
coffee shop that was my interest but we
we don't know that's you know that's
private sector we don't tell businesses
what to do but we know we will have
retail and it'll be walk walkable for
those residents so in fact we are adding
value to their um homes and finally was
the issue of axon wanted to maintain the
whole campus as axon property but that
isn't What the residents wanted they
wanted ownership and so axon is seaing
ownership of that lower Southern parcel
to turn it into Condominiums and so
these are Big concessions that we were
able to get because they had to come to
us and ask for zoning changes so I just
think it's you know really important to
remember that there is no choice here in
not having development not having
traffic not having water usage not
having views obstructed there's no
choice but there is a choice on
developing in a way that we make
Scottdale more valuable and I just want
to point out that we're up here all the
time making decisions but we don't
usually hear from two Governors one
congressman and host of other people but
we sure as heck did on this project this
project matters it makes Scottdale safer
it makes Scottdale more economically
viable and it makes the state more
economically viable and safer too this
company matters so I am in support of
the project thank you councilwoman
caputi then we will go remote to
councilwoman
Littlefield I've been trying for four
years to hit that little request to
speak button so I could get like one or
two spot and my colleagues always seem
to um Jump Ahead somehow I don't know
what the trick is but so I I kind of
want to just say you know I'll seed my
time I'm just in approval but um I
really do have some things that I'd like
to say and so please bear with me it's
been a really long night and even I
don't know that I want to spend the
energy right now but I think it's
important as councilwoman Whitehead said
this is a super important project so of
course thank you to everyone who showed
up tonight and emailed us we read them
all it's important that you share your
thoughts and your opinions um this is
how we make projects better I also want
to thank I haven't heard yet tonight I
do want to thank axon for doing business
in Scottdale and for considering such a
large and impactful additional
investment in the future of our
city I also want to take just one moment
to address this notion that I keep
hearing that this Council shouldn't be
voting on this project tonight there is
no one more qualified to hear this case
than those of us on this dis who've been
working on the project from the start I
know that my for myself I've been
involved in this project for over four
years if you count my time on Council
and my service on our development review
board it would be an abdication of our
duty to hand it off to an inexperienced
Council who doesn't have that
history so not all projects get approved
in fact we've only approved a small
handful of exceptional projects on this
Council and not all of them move forward
to get built as has been already
mentioned only one of them that we've
approved has moved forward but all
projects can be improved through our
vigorous process that is our job and
we've done it exceptionally well here
axon has worked incredibly hard with our
city staff with the neighbors with
Council to find solutions for the issues
that have been raised that you've heard
tonight these improvements have been
made through years of negotiations we
certainly did not rush
anything uh to list just a couple of the
more important ones they are building
their headquarters first they've
decreased the number of Apartments
they're changing a handful to owner
condos as was requested they are moving
axon way traffic inside the property
building a burm and dense Landscaping to
Shield The Neighbors From from the Cars
lowering the southern building Heights
to three stories increasing setbacks
hundreds of feet from the existing
residential axon is bringing 3,000 acre
feet of water to the city that cannot be
underscored uh improving Mayo Boulevard
and Hayden and compensating the state
land department for the zoning change
four of us on this counil took office in
2020 nothing made a clearer case for how
dangerous it is to rely on tourism for
Revenue than a global
pandemic to continue being an
aspirational worldclass City we need a
diverse economy Scottdale has 18,000
businesses 200,000 employees we're
number one for startups and we have the
second largest number of corporate
headquarters seconded only to Phoenix
Scottdale runs on business activity we
are not a bedroom community Axon is one
of our largest employers companies like
axon are why we're able to deliver to
our residents the best amenities and
services and provide the greatest amount
of open space at one of the lowest tax
rates in the valley this is our
Scottdale winning formula this is the
definition of Resident
friendly yes this is a lot of Apartments
but this is not an an apartment project
this is a master plan this is a vision
this is a high-tech corporate Campus of
a world renowned company that is going
to locate their Global headquarters here
in Scottsdale providing thousands of
high-paying jobs cuttingedge Public
Safety technology Workforce housing
restaurants Hotel open space and a ton
of other public amenities for the
neighbors and residents of
Scottdale it is located in an industrial
park along the 101 freeway at least 500
feet away and buffered from the existing
residents this is a brand and an
opportunity that most cities would be
begging to have axon is a homegrown
success story and having them here put
Scottdale on the map for technology and
Innovation not just warm
weather it cannot be repeated enough
times this site is zoned Industrial if
we lose this opportunity for a live work
acts on campus alternative industrial
projects built here will have negative
impacts on this neighborhood including
lowering their property values and far
greater traffic that is not a resident
friendly
outcome there's also tremendous Public
Safety advantages to having axon located
here in Scottdale that is literally
translating to saving lives as our
police chief uh gave us the description
of I don't know what could be more
beneficial to the residents of Scottdale
than keeping them safe having a vibrant
economy and maintaining our brand as a
worldclass destination to live work and
visit it's very easy to grab headlines
saying that you're against
everything leadership means making the
important decisions today that secure
the long-term success of our city I am
in full support of this amazing project
and I'm happy to hear that several of my
colleagues are as well thank you thank
you let's uh go to councilwoman
Littlefield who's
remote thank you mayor um can you hear
me now yes I think they fixed the
problem good good currently Exon is a
large major business in
Scottdale Everyone likes and admires it
I do myself they make a tremendous
project and one that unfortunately is
needed here this would be axon's World
Headquarters and one of our City's
largest employers not all of their
employees probably will want to live on
site and I assume that this would be a
choice not a
requirement when added to other future
developments in this area there are that
are currently being planned however the
traffic levels could well become unex
acceptable more than PL more than the
planned roads can handle and that is
something that we would have to keep a
close eye on going
forward I like that you were downsizing
the heights as you near the community
neighborhood I also like that you closed
the street off from the neighborhood I
understand that the neighborhood
association still believes that this is
a highly dense business project and
still too tall and for the record I do
agree with them but you have made
tremendous
strides you mentioned phasing at the
Planning
Commission what percent of these units
will be rented and how many will be
privately owned will there be any guest
parking or additional parking for them
other than was shown here tonight I I
cons I'm concerned about that my
information however um is mostly
concerned about and my speech is mostly
concerned about the aviation commission
and I received from the chairman of the
aviation commission just a day or two
ago some very different
information um I called and spoke with
them at some length and my major concern
is that the airport commission
unanimously said no to this project due
to the airport
concerns this apartment complex is in
the airport space and is actually in one
of the major flight plans paths excuse
me when the planes fly in and out of an
airport they fly at specific Heights and
in specific directions Compass
directions which are low at first when
taking off and low when uh positioning
to come back and land it is dangerous to
have apartments right under the flight
path next to the airport accidents
happen especially when you make them
easy for them to occur and that is why
this is not an approved or an
appropriate land usage for this area
one of the major reasons Municipal
airports are often forced to close is
that residential neighborhoods are built
too close to the flight path this is
history and it's
factual residents continually complain
about the noise this is a major concern
for while you do contribute to the the
city's economic success so does our
airport a lot it is the busiest single
Runway airport in the country and it is
used constantly whenever one of our
major events take place and your
property is directly under one of its
flight
paths the flight paths by the way cannot
be changed by us most closed Municipal
airports have been forced to close
because of airport noise over
residential areas this is factual it is
one of the main reasons that we do not
like residential units near the airport
or or under its flight paths and it is
why we do not allow Zoning for that as
as it currently stands your property is
directly under one of those flight paths
and will even require a red light on the
building to assist all airplanes along
their trajectories noise will be
constant and tremendous especially
during our many major events at
Westworld many more noise complaints can
be expected even if you move the
buildings a little bit the noise will
still be heard and you will hear it and
we will hear it all of the complaints
that will be coming in our airport is a
major attraction and income source for
the city where whenever we hold major
events large bizjets come and go noise
to tail all day and most of the night
they are loud they are very loud and
they will fly low over these buildings
to get to the runway quickly and to get
away from the runway quickly so that the
next plane can take off or land the
noise is pretty constant there have been
accidents in the airport space before
but none due to the city allowing
residential sites to be built too close
to it I cannot vote to put our city or
our airport in danger due to allowing
residential uses too close to the
airport Airways our Aviation commission
agreed and unanimously voted no that has
not changed this is a danger to people
both people on the ground and people in
the air as previously stated this is the
major reason Municipal airports are
forced to close and that would be
catastrophic to Scottsdale and to our
important tourism industry if that were
to happen here our Aviation commission
is correct this is a real constant and
present danger it has happened elsewhere
and it can happen here we have had ples
crash where people died and if it could
be proven in court that we were
responsible we would be sued all over
the place this is not where Apartments
should be built I don't object to the
apartments per se I object to the
location and finally if we pass this
tonight once again we are not listening
to Citizens pretty much 100% of our
emails that we all received in our email
boxes from citizens on this
project and that did not come from Exon
employees begged us to say no they
reminded us that this is not a
residential area and was never meant to
be one it is meant to be a commercial
industrial area and that is what this
area is designed for this vote tonight
tonight will show with utmost Clarity
who of us up here listens to Citizens
and truly represents them and it will
also tell you who of us up up here are
willing to say no to a zoning change
that is not wanted by the vast majority
of our citizens by whom we were elected
to represent thank you very much
mayor thank you vice mayor Graham and
then myself we'll conclude thank you
Mayor Gary mcaro is he still here few
questions on the
airport oh
he's having a slice of pizza in the Next
Room
thanks Kathy one person um while while
he's while we're getting him I I'll
switch over I had a couple water
questions and these are just I just want
to get these on the record Gretchen oh
hey
Gary you probably heard some of what
Kathy was council member Littlefield was
saying about the airport her airport
concerns um Mr chair um M Mr Mr Mayor
members of the council uh vice mayor
Graham I did hear Kathy sorry we're on
like a 5c delay in there so I heard my
name I was running as quick okay sorry
could did you ask what questions oh no I
I just you heard her concerns and I was
going to ask a couple questions um when
did the when did this go to the airport
commission the axon back in January or
February that that is correct okay would
you say that they've made material
changes to the
application after that meeting um um yes
I would say that that they have so why
did it not go back to the commission if
they made so many substantial changes um
uh vice mayor Graham I'm not sure I
think they elected not to choose to go
back to the commission and it's my
understanding that they weren't required
to by the code okay um because you put
on the record tonight that you thought
or you speculated that Commissioners had
changed their position and that they now
approve it right um um vice mayor I
wouldn't say that they have made that
position
I would assume that they have changed
their thoughts because those were the
concerns was the higher density and the
obstruction issues with the lightings
they did reduce those but again I can't
speak on behalf of the commission well
since it's since it's been about 10 or
11 months do you think there was enough
time to um bring it back to the airport
Commission because you thought some of
their uh positions had changed uh vice
mayor again I can't speculate on if it
was the right or wrong thing to do bring
it back to the airport advisory
commission that would be a choice of the
applicant if they wanted to Cho choose
to do so thanks Gary uh Gretchen are you
available hi Gretchen this um I I'm
actually just kind of curious on this
one
um this this rezoning it would use more
water than the existing zoning is that
correct that is correct so do you have
like a projection of what kind of you
would estimate the existing zoning might
use of uh water
demands so um I'm going to answer that
in so the way we project water demands
is based on the design um manual
practice and manual and those are um
those are set in
place over a wide variety of of reasons
and a lot of times they're they're
conservative for for good reason right
um for infrastructure uh for for levels
of of risk and so when we look at that
um it is over the the industrial it's
okay so and they're they're bringing
3,000 AC that's a lot of water right
that is a lot of water is that more
based on your projections I'm just
curious is that more water does that
compensate for the increased water than
what you projected it would have been
under
industrial so we when we do do the
calculations and we do those same
calculations for other development in
the area for Optima and ASM and we have
the same procedures when it comes to
look at what the actual zoning
originally was and what the the current
design is for the water usage and so we
ask them to use bring approximately 10
years of water with the differential
between the zoning in our Water Resource
master plan and what their projected
uses are okay so this would cover 10
years of what you estimated would be the
the Delta correct okay thank you
Gretchen uh Jeff bar or who do I want to
talk to next you
sir I'm blanking on his
name Greg thank you Greg
um reduction we got we maybe you're not
the person to ask about this but we
received today um they're going to
reduce the unit count by 70 units is
that
correct mayor Ortega members of Council
on councilman ground that's correct um
the the application with 1965 units had
300 for own for ownership
condos is that correct
mayor Ortega and councilman Graham
that's correct that's been offered up by
the applicant okay is that is that
number going to remain with the 70c
count
reduction I would defer to the applicant
to answer that
question is that a Charles is that a
does that is that
question
clear sometimes your questions lack
Clarity but I don't know if this is the
time to raise it in this case I
understand it um we don't really have an
answer at this point in time that came
up today is as a reduction okay thank
you thank you uh and then Greg just for
sequence of events is the corporate
campus um supposed to be developed
before the housing component
actually Council vice mayor uh Graham if
I can chime in it's specified in the
development agreement that the phase one
headquarters and Manufacturing site has
to be um under substantial progress
before phase two can begin I just want
to make sure that's in writing it's not
encouraged but it's required it's in the
development agre what's the uh sequence
for the hotel compared to the
residential um it is part of phase two
and we do not specifies in specify in
phase two in what order things are built
okay it's just that phase two can't
begin okay so residential can come
before Hotel it
could and then uh back to Greg um this
is this is about a 44
acre uh 44 units per acre
density and uh what's the what's the
density I'm just curious of like the
next door Stony Brook Community do you
happen to know
that hang on just one moment there anoun
ground I'm just kind of curious about
you know we talk about contextualizing
I'm just curious what the density of
Stony Brook and maybe San Ares just the
abing neighbors what their density
is councilman Graham Stonebrook is about
four and a half dwelling units per acre
and the Mark Taylor project is about 23
dwelling units per acre thank
you uh those
are most of my
questions um
I do think the um applicant has made a
lot of adjustments that are
significant I I like the road
reconfiguration um reduced Heights I
like the setbacks uh increased setbacks
I like the campus design how they remove
the division of the road so you have
more of a campus feel uh increased
buffering I like that I like the bmms I
like the
Landscaping uh it's pretty enhanced
um so there have this project has come a
long way um and you know everybody said
it we we think very highly of axon and
they are their mission their people
everything about them we have a very
high opinion about them um but regarding
this this application on its um in its
totality after studying this
application my concerns with density
traffic and even precedent to the area
among others remains and so those are my
comments and questions and I appreciate
the staff's time and the applicant thank
you thank you um everyone has spoken I'm
the last one to speak and uh appreciate
again the uh participation of everyone
in this room and uh one thing that I'd
like to start with is what we agree on
100%
and there were 57 people who uh
requested to speak and uh two didn't uh
show up but 57 people agreed and had
high praise for Aon and I think that's
what we can agree upon when you have a
homegrown quality
company that is based in Scottsdale
really the origin uh of that drive
that uh helped them to um and nurtured
that company to grow in the space or the
environment of Scottsdale is pretty
amazing um the in in in many ways um I
would call them a a dream corporate
citizen okay if you had a choice to ask
for what kind of a a plant or uh a
business to come here whether you know
it was a steel plant or some other
manufacturer uh here we have something
that it was created uh here and has
grown here and has a right to to expand
here and fortunately um I have seen um
results in the community I went to the
robotics International robotics uh Expo
it was at chapparel high school by the
way and there were companies from uh uh
six different countries uh they and
right in the middle of it was the Saro
team by the way robot the team from Saro
led by a young guy who was actually
interning at at axon as we speak now he
was a 16-year-old walking me through
this and of course uh we saw a Common
Language pretty interesting uh I had
some translators there was a group from
from Latin America but there were some
translators from uh Taiwan here in
Europe here and it was a a kind of a
universal language they had their pep
squads and they had the people in the
pit uh the ones that operated the uh
robotics but the other guys were in the
back pit that put it all together or
made sure that it was operating right
and they were a team it was very
interesting to see that uh the U the the
challenges and the
enthusiasm uh of uh in Scottdale was
amazing uh when I look at that uh it's
important to note that Scottdale has
over I believe it's
2300 Technology based companies in
Scottdale all right you can look at the
big ones like General Dynamics and I've
said this before uh you know when uh
when the president of the United States
said we're going to land on the moon uh
that was uh
JFK uh Motorola here in Scottdale had a
big piece of that the Command Module and
the and the the communications were
built here in Scottdale so that
technology base fortified uh the
engineers and generations that also
built uh built a a strong Foundation
that spun off many small companies in in
technology uh what we're looking at uh
today is um a result of um a u a dream
company that is very real and visible
every time uh there's a 911 distress uh
someone showing up there to record it uh
actually to uh show that their training
is paying off that they're treating the
public or the uh the victim and um you
know uh providing Chase and endangering
their lives uh on our behalf there are
some things that uh the private sector
doesn't do and law enforcement is one
thing that we take it that is is a
tremendous obligation um when we look at
the uh the the aspect of I have to cover
this as well by saying that I believe
that this project has met all the
criteria for as stated in our ordinance
uh for you know economic act viability
as well as transportation and questions
right now um in one one of the the The
Guiding posts that that I have worked on
is to put development where it belongs
right if you in in many ways several of
us said overdevelopment was occurring in
Oldtown where the heights were changed
to you know 160 ft plus and it would
scrape a lot of the uh the character
that we had in Old Town this Council
worked to change that we slap those
entitlements by about 35
40% why because they had to be Unwound
the previous administration had allowed
that when I say that it's not it's
because I believe development should be
where it belongs it should be at the
101 uh where you have transportation
available and coincidentally it's closer
to our water and sewer department so
when we retrieve water water this
property has one of the shortest
routes routes to recycle water get it to
our waste treatment uh plant than any
project of course uh you know in in the
vicinity of sheay we we pump Wastewater
for treatment uphill to do the job can
you imagine that pumping at eight miles
to get up up to where our our plant is
so it's ideally positioned to save
energy to keep our costs low for all
taxpayers and rate payers in our city um
the other criteria and demand for any
developer that comes through the door is
bring water bring water why because we
can no longer rely on The Good Old
Colorado River and the capap uh is doing
the best they can to deliver but those
allocations are
dwindling um we have to go to the basics
in this case that is that
every property in Scottdale has an
allocation of water this building has an
allocation of water we're in an SRP Zone
here but basically everything north of
McCormack Ranch relies on either
groundwater some recycle that we
recharge or capap water capap water 76
well 75% of our water imagine that and
they're talking about you know we were
right at the precipice of the of the
drought condition so they have performed
they' they brought water uh they're
close to the infrastructure and it's
true that they're also developing the
the Hayden and the 101 off-ramps because
that's vacant land um we've we've also
her testimony that they're bringing
talent and that's really what Scottsdale
is about Scottdale is the intersection
of talent and
investment and uh we are a beautiful
city we're a clean City we're a safe
city as the chief said and axon has
contributed to that but we're also about
wellness and wellness has been defined
more and more at the
workplace at the school ground at the uh
place of employment in your neighborhood
how well are we how how well are we as a
community and we take that very
seriously and part of this obligation
that we have is
we've talked about residents and how uh
important it is to listen you've seen
all the changes and improvements the
reduction of about uh almost 600 units
from their initial request that was
reviewed back by the by the U over
2500 uh apartments at that point that
was reduced down but the wellness
of corporate residents okay acts on is a
resident they're a corporate resident
with 4,000 faces right living breathing
people that work at at Aon and that's an
amazing thing they are a corporate
resident with a plan that came to us and
uh that is deserves as much respect as
any other citizen who would say gee um
you know my I have a business on Main
Street uh uh you you're a voter if you
live here but you're also a business on
Main Street and we we respect that and
that's very vital uh for
our uh best uh performance as a city um
I will cover the other issue uh in that
uh again I was on City Council in 2000
uh when we did a
reclassification with the state of
Arizona the Arizona preserve initiative
allowed um uh conservation worthy land
to be
classified by the state land trust that
provides money for
Education that permitted us to define a
preserve area and that preserve was
about 57 square miles of North
Scottsdale with that then the city
council in in 2000 I was on Council we
reclassified we down
zoned over 50 square miles uh but we
could not take the value of that
property from the school children and
from the state trest land so what we did
is we transferred density the density
was transferred it went downhill further
down and it surrounded of course the 101
and you see more of that buildout okay
so when someone moves here four years
ago or even 10 years ago and says gee
it's so beautiful here we've got this
preserve it's right in my backyard I
love it of course you love it we spend a
billion dollars for that land at a
discount if it had if we had to buy it
as it was zoned we would have paid four
times more for the land and we'd have to
go through condemnation and all that
stuff so the result is that
overdevelopment can occur in Oldtown
because there if they're scraping um you
know our heritage and so forth we've
stopped
that and development at the 101 is not
overdevelopment it's development where
it was planned it's also part of the
portfolio of the state land trust okay
so in 2002 when this case went through
the state land
Department we had a zero uh uh resident
occupancy for 55 square miles and other
things were offset and this property in
2002 got zoned as industrial potential
that was a guess that was made 22 years
ago and the reason I'm covering this is
because it also had a water allocation
and it had some so many other things as
a city for us it's so much better to
serve 50 square miles that don't have
houses in it than to have have to
provide city services to all those 50
you know over all sorts of terrain
that's full of Wildlife and you know has
all sorts of of assets to it that we
have preserved it's is it a tradeoff yes
but you cannot cheat the state land
trust the state land trust has to be
made whole part of this uh the action
that we're taking and which uh
councilwoman Janik uh of course is is in
her motion is to um um make good with a
third party which is a state land trust
we were uh there was a uh three-way
agreement uh the state land trust our
zoning and this purchaser of the
property and the state land trust said
hey we're changing what we thought 22
years ago you've come up up with a plan
that we couldn't even imagine at the
time and they have made good with the
state Lantra so they have made whole
it's adjusted it's adjusted locally by
us that's our job I love it I love that
you know looking and asking the
questions that's a good those are uh
those fortify and make the end design
even better by the time you put a burm
between this
property and the uh 174 houses and you
plant a 30-ft tree and you put a 10-ft
BM that that tree is 40 foot tall now
right and that's a good thing and um the
beauty of this is that having a uh a
single excuse me a build a suit a build
to suit single user that's looking for
what they want a a beautiful campus they
want a clean they want it safe and they
want it for the wellness of their
employees to be able to attract more to
that location and where where where are
we we're in Scottdale so I I think we
have a fulfillment here and any other
rhetoric that would uh that would pull
that away is um uh this is the right
place for for axon this is the right
place it's got the V visibility access
and the huge investment that uh is going
to support us uh nationally
internationally
I like the aspect of bringing 20,000 uh
they have
180 um countries with their law
enforcement coming from Brazil to train
here to get up to speed from all over
the world and uh that's why the hotel
component so important but I can bet you
they all want to come down and enjoy the
rest of you know Scotsdale and what we
have to offer so that's the bonus with
it um and then finally it's this is all
about connection okay having um social
strong social Connection in a world
where people are kind of being pulled
apart and being very diametrically
opposed no we want to we want to say
what can we agree
on this campus will have a stronger
connection because you will be
volunteering in our community I
guarantee you employees when you own it
and feel it's part of you um and you can
ride your trip rail bike from this
campus all the way up through our
preserve because it's connected or the
other side of the uh of the subdivision
there's soccer fields Galore oh my gosh
that's wonderful that's a great
environment all of that is a is a
wonderful um uh piece of the puzzle that
U I'm proud to support with that we will
uh move on to our vote and uh please
record your
vote no
okay the motion carries 5-2 with vice
mayor Graham des senting and
councilwoman Littlefield dissenting as
well with that we are concluded uh we
will allow a little time for you all to
um uhart and uh also um for those of us
who would like to get a photo we would
like to uh step forward While others are
shuffling up if and why not let's do
that
mayor
[Applause]
[Music]
oh ESP
ridiculous
okay
a
excellent
[Music]
[Music]
okay we are going to continue our
meeting so if you could
uh we have one more item on our
agenda what yeah that's it
oh yes um yes is she
on all right sorry about that okay we
are resuming our meeting and we have we
will uh go into the work study um item
on our agenda I hoping that uh
councilwoman Littlefield is still
online and I'm let's see if we've
contacted her again please be seated
we're going to be we're going to be
starting uh re resuming our meeting
um okay
um councilwoman Littlefield are you
still on remotely
please yes I am I am still on okay I do
not I do not
have oh good councilwoman Littlefield I
just want to confirm that um there was a
communic ation break but um that you do
um How would how would you vote on the
uh minutes uh which was uh on our agenda
for I believe the 22nd was it the uh
22nd of October what is your vote
councilwoman yes thank you and what is
your vote on the consent agenda items
one two and three
please yes thank you with that then uh
we have concluded the U that portion uh
I'm going to move on to the U um public
comment there's a second opportunity
seeing none I will therefore close the
second session for public comment
there's an opportunity on citizen
petitions item number five uh there were
none therefore I close that matter as
well next we will um move on to our work
study uh we have a work study s session
uh to provide a less formal setting for
the mayor and Council to discuss
specific topics with each other and the
city staff and provide staff an
opportunity to receive direction from
the council at this time we will have uh
we will also have an opportunity for
public comment uh on a work study item
being none therefore I will close uh
public comment uh the work study will
continue at this point uh the uh
agendized item is a quarterly financial
and capital Improvement plan that is the
CIP updates we have our Treasurer Sonia
Andrews as well as Allison timu the city
engineer so please proceed thank you
thank you mayor this is the uh quarterly
Financial update next
Slide the general fund is our largest
operating fund so our quartly financial
update primarily focuses on the general
fund highlighting the general fund
results to date which is mainly our
revenues collected and budget to actual
variances before I dive into the uh uh
first quarter update I'd like to spend a
couple of slides talking about our
budget to actual variances because those
have been larger than normal over the
last few years due to the unprecedented
changes we have seen since the pandemic
next
slide so this chart shows you the actual
year-over-year growth in our sales tax
revenues on the left hand side you'll
see that before the pandemic our sales
tax grew at an average rate of
4.7% over 10 years and 4.2% over 5 years
before the pandemic that was our normal
trend line starting in 2021 with the
pandemic spending and the high inflation
which was really unprecedented our sales
tax grew by
11% and continued to grow by another
21.3% in 2022 and
99.7% in
2023 then in fiscal year 24 which is the
fiscal year that just ended in June we
saw a decrease in our year-over-year
growth as we had expected we budget
based on historical averages as well as
economic forecasts and any known events
When actuals de deviate significantly
from our historical averages our normal
trend lines or even economic forecasts
that is when we see larger than normal
budget to actual variances which is what
we have experienced over the last few
years until we get back to a normal
trend line we will continue to see
variances in our budget to actual
differences aside from the last four
years not looking anything like our
historical averages economic forecast of
the US economy has also been quite off
as well next
slide most economists over the last few
years have been predicting economic
retraction and slow down in consumer
spending we take that into account and
adjust our Revenue budgets accordingly
however as this chart shows the US
economy has actually done much better
than economic forecast which also
contributes to our larger than normal
budget to actual
variances so next
slide so for the first quarter of this
year our general fund revenues are 9%
above budget due mainly to stronger than
expected retail sales onetime sales tax
audit payments of 2.1 million now this
is really important the audit payments
that we received in the first quarter of
2.1 million is higher than normal
because we historically received 2 to
three million in audit payments every
year not just in the first quarter but
this first quarter we received what
would be equal to a full Year's worth of
audit
payments and since this the first
quarter there's a lot of timing
differences in our budget versus actual
so timing of receipts also affect our
budget to actual
differences on the expenditure side
we're within budget uh with a 5%
positive variance mainly due to again
savings from salary and vacancy savings
and timing of expenditures next slide
so this slide shows you all the detail
categories of sales tax that we track so
for the first quarter in total the sales
tax collections in the general funds
totaled 50.4 million and again um the
budget was 45.1 Million so the variance
was 5.2 million and again mostly due to
that one-time audit payment of 2.1
million and timing differences so
without the 2.1 million of audit
payments the variance would only be 3
something million next
slide um the 12- month rolling totals
for our sales tax revenue shows that our
revenues are steady for the first
quarter of this year we have a lot to be
thankful for it's not declining it's
holding steady at that high level that
we have achieved next
slide aside from sales tax general fund
also has other Revenue sources like
State shared revenues charges for
services and other revenues like
property taxes and in total our general
fund revenues totaled 108.1 million for
the first quarter of this fiscal year
which is 9.2 million above budget and 9%
above budget looking at the charges for
services it shows a 2.6 million positive
variance and a 77% positive variance
that is because there were quite a few
um Revenue receipts that we projected to
come in in the second quarter but we
received it in the first quarter and
that's why it looks so
large next
slide and this slide shows you our
expenditures our uses of personnel costs
Commodities contracts transfers out and
we are just about 5% positive to the
budget and next slide and this last
slide is the same expenditures Broken
Out by division and most of the uh
variances are related to timing
differences in uh some savings that
we've
achieved and that concludes my portion
of the presentation and I can uh answer
any questions before I turn her over to
Allison thank you let's uh proceed with
the CIP portion
thank you good evening um we have a
video again this evening for the CIP
quarterly update and based on your
feedback at the last quarterly update we
have included um the financials both
within the uh video text and then as
well as a summary at the end so thank
you our Scottsdale quarterly recap
highlighting projects from Scottsdale's
Capital Improvement program by training
facility First Responders in Scottsdale
will have new facilities to train at
thanks to two Bond projects that will
replace modernize and expand the fire
and police training buildings the first
to be complete is the new fire training
facility which will replace outdated
buildings and structures that did not
meet fire department's current needs or
National Training standards the new
complex includes a 30,000 ft building
that will allow Scottdale to host and
participate in Regional training events
a five-story Class A burn training
which was built using converted storage
containers and has ventilation and for
entry props an outside skills Evolution
area includes training apparatus for
hazardous materials technical rescue
aircraft rescue and firefighting the
project budget was $33.3 million and was
funded by Bond 2019 Scottsdale's general
fund and proceeds from a land sale the
new fire training facility will host its
first Scottdale fire academy in January
of 2025 training 30 six new Scottsdale
firefighters for 15 weeks old town
lighting
improvements Scottdale has replaced
street lights and added feston lighting
throughout historic Oldtown new street
lights have been installed along
Scottsdale Road and new street lights
and feston lighting have been added to
Buckboard Trail First Avenue Brown
Avenue Main Street and First Street work
was done from 2:00 a.m. to noon during
the week to have the least impact on
businesses and visitors in Oldtown the
project was funded by the transportation
point 2% sales tax and tourism funds
most importantly the project was
completed under budget and ahead of
schedule Pima Road Happy Valley Road
Miller Road and Bridge Rain Tree Drive
Extension this fall the city completed
several large Transportation projects
that will add new travel Lanes expand
roadway capacity and make safety
improvements to Scottsdale streets
projects on Puma Road Happy Valley Road
Miller Road and rry drive have added an
additional eight miles of travel Lanes
in four round abouts to help improve
safety and reduce traffic congestion the
50.2 million Puma Road Project increased
the operational efficiency of this busy
travel Corridor which is now three lanes
in each Direction the $37.4 million Hoy
Valley Road Project expanded roadway
capacity and increase safety by adding
travel lanes and roundabouts curbs
gutters catch basins and box coverts
along puma and Happy Valley roads will
improve drainage and reduce flooding to
provide dry Crossings for motorists
during storm season a new bridge over
the Rawhide wash closes a gap in Miller
Road providing another north south
option for travel in this area of the
city in addition to the new bridge the
20.4 million project provides two lanes
of travel in each Direction bike lanes
and detached sidewalks with landscape
buffers on either side of the street the
$4.5 million rainf free Drive Extension
will provide a direct connection between
the state Loop 101 freeway and Scottdale
Road by simplifying the route and
expanding roadway capacity from Hayden
Road to Scottdale Road the project will
will help relieve some of the traffic
congestion currently experienced on
Frank ly Wright Boulevard Transportation
projects take several years to plan and
Implement and are part of Scottsdale's
Transportation action plan these
projects were predominantly funded by
the transportation 0.1 and 2% sales
taxes the alcp regional sales tax storm
water MPC bonds an IGA with the flood
control district and storm water utility
fees repair lakes and irrigation in
Indian Bend wash most of the amenities
in Scottsdale's Indian Bend Wash Park
system were built in the early 1970s
this $ 34.6 million project will make
much needed upgrades and repairs to the
lakes and irrigation system in the park
and is funded by Bond 2019 and
Scottsdale's general fund work is taking
place now in Eldorado Park and includes
the replacement of the lining of
Eldorado Pond conversion of some Turf
areas to zeroscape Landscaping upgrades
to concrete Pathways the replacement of
irrigation and the Reconstruction of the
existing Pump Station work will take
place in phases over several years to
ensure Park amenities and the Indian
Bend wash are open during construction
mccor McMan Railroad Park improvements
construction is underway on several
improvements to mccor McMan Railroad
Park to boost attendance during the
summer months when Park attendance
declines a new 10,000 ft building The
Roundhouse will have a focus on train
themed play the building will include an
indoor play structure in the shape of a
locomotive engine and a multi-purpose
room a new 5,000 ft splash pad play area
will be built next to the roundhouse a
new entry Plaza next to Stillman station
will include a seating area landscape
plantings and public art the projects
were funded by Bond 2019 Scottsdale's
general fund mccormic Stillman Railroad
Park fund and tourism funds the combined
projects represent a $ 13.1 million
investment in the railroad park and will
be complete in the summer of
2025 and that concludes the latest
highlights of capital projects in our
community thanks for watching
in thank you let me know if you have any
questions sure and as you had mentioned
U several of the funding for instance
for uh Pima Road and the the latest
project for Scottdale Road um is uh 70
over over 70% funded by the federal
government or Pima I think has a
combination of these mp uh bonds and
drainage funds so uh we're really
leveraging our own local funds
considerably council member
Durham thank you mayor uh quick question
because the mayor just mentioned the
federal funds and this has come up
before what happens if we say to the
federal government you know we don't
don't want that $31 million I think that
was the amount on Scottdale road so if
we write them a letter saying thank you
but no thanks we don't want that um what
happens to that
money um council member Durham so I
believe with the fhwa funds if we were
to turn them down then they go into Aid
out closeout funds and other um uh
cities are able to apply for those
closeout funds
thank
you I see no other uh requests to speak
um I uh really appreciate this update
and as you know we're monitoring things
uh uh quarterly and I like the format as
well that you've provided so uh with
that we were we are concluded with the
work study um agenda item um is there
any other comment seeing none um I would
like a motion to
adjourn second please record your
vote mayor and Kathy May I'm sorry yeah
councilwoman Littlefield wanted to speak
oh okay excuse me councilwoman
Littlefield I should have called on you
there uh we have not uh go ahead go
ahead Kathy hi I just wanted to
apologize to everyone for not being
there tonight uh a dog and I had a
different opinion of where we should be
in the dog park a couple of days ago and
I uh sprained my knees and so I'm not
moving very well so I apologize for not
being there and uh thank you very much
everybody for helping me out on this
yeah heal up Council
Littlefield I will I will it was just a
very young and friendly
dog came it behind me thank you we have
a motion in a second to adjourn please
record your
vote Yes so we are unanimous we are
adjourned thank you good evening