Study Session - 8/26/2025 4:30:00 PM

Okay. I'd like to um call to order a
study session
for the uh council on August 26, 2025.
Uh we'll start with a roll call.
Mayor Scott Anderson
here.
Vice Mayor Bobby Buckley
here.
Council member Chuck Bon Giovani
here. Council member Kenny Buckland
here.
Council member Young Kapowski.
Council member Monty Lions,
I'm here.
Council member Jim Torus
here.
A quorum is present.
Thank you. Our first item tonight is a
presentation and discussion on ebikes
and bike helmets.
Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm
Mike Angststead with the police
department.
Just take us a second here to get the
presentation up.
Council, I know you've got a a packed
agenda today, so if you don't mind, I'll
just start talking through the slides
that would normally be up on the
presentation. So, I'm here today to talk
about um bikes hel bike hel bike bike
safety and potentially an ordinance
having to do with bike helmets. There we
go.
Um kind of an overview as many of you
have probably noticed as you drive
around Gilbert. Uh if we were to go out
on the roads today, you'd see the use of
ebikes has really surged in recent
years. Uh they're popular alternative
mode of transportation and we have a
concern or vested interest in these
these bikes of all kind. um in terms of
enforcing the laws and and regulations
and making sure that people are safe as
they operate on our roadways and
sidewalks. Um I raised two high school,
you know, teenage boys. Uh they're grown
now, but there was a time where we
wanted to get them out of the house and
off of Xbox and, you know, go breathe
fresh air and ride bikes. And uh that's
happened, but a lot of them ride not
only just regular bikes, but nowadays
ebikes. Um these ebikes in Gilbert uh
have become, you know, kind of a rising
challenge for us in terms of safety and
uh we're committed to uh solving the
issue with mayor and council. It's
really not something we can solve
overnight and really the the town has
taken a strategy over many decades to
try and uh use a combination of
engineering, uh education, trying to
promote uh bicycle safety, the use of
helmets, and then uh lastly enforcement.
But any one of those components um if we
don't have all of them working in in
conjunction together uh we we're
relatively ineffective. So it's a
multiaceted strategy.
The agenda for tonight is to kind of
talk about community feedback. We do a
lot of surveys and gather a lot of data
from the community in terms of what they
were interested in regarding bike
safety. And then uh second point we're
going to get into a series of slides
that talk about bike safety efforts in
Gilbert. not only uh from an engineering
perspective, but also from an
educational perspective. We'll get into
crash and injury data. And then last,
there will be some ordinance options,
and they're not exclusive really. It's
it's if you all feel like an ordinance
in any way is uh a good idea, then
that's great. I try to stay in my lane
being in the executive branch of
government and you being in the
legislative, um I won't make a
necessarily persuasive argument to you.
rather than, you know, rather I'll just
leave it in your hands in terms of an
option.
So, first off, community feedback. Um,
the number one takeaway from our 2022
transportation master plan when we asked
the community what they wanted, uh,
overall it was improving safety for all
users. Number two was reducing travel
congestion on roads. I think we can all
get behind number one and two. 70% of
our population wanted more separation
between bikes and cars. 67% were more
likely to bike with uh more green bike
lanes, which we're going to get to later
in this presentation. 51% wanted safer
and easier crossings. And 48% wanted
more connections to bikes and trails.
And lastly, 45% of our folks wanted more
bike lanes, trails, and paths.
In terms of our current bike safety
efforts,
um, you know, I think we we listened to
the public. Um, not only did we do a lot
of engineering
uh changes and efforts that we're going
to get into, but one of the education uh
efforts we did is this know your ride
campaign the police department launched
uh this month. And some of it is just to
educate parents on these different
devices and the impact that they have in
our community. Um, as a parent, uh,
reading state law can be kind of
cumbersome. You read through it and you
kind of think you know what you're what
it's talking about in terms of bikes and
ebikes. But, um, if I was to take all
the different variations of ebikes and
bring them in here right now, uh, we
would all have a really hard time
telling one device from the other, and I
would have a hard time. And this is what
I do for a living. Um, the challenge is
that when you look at this matrix, it
talks about a bicycle like an old Schwin
or Huffy. And then next to it, it talks
about an ebike class one, class 2, and
class 3. All of these are born as
bicycles. If there's if the battery
isn't charged on them, you can ride
them. You can pedal them like a normal
bike. Uh, the difference being, if a
parent was to ask me, well, what what's
the difference between all of them? The
class one bike is a bike that you can
sit on and when you hit the throttle for
the electrical part, uh it won't do
anything unless you start to pedal and
then it kicks in and it assists the
rider going down the roadway. Uh you can
go up to 20 mph on that device. A class
2 ebike is different. When you sit on it
and you hit the throttle, it takes off.
Uh kind of like a scooter, maybe like a
bird scooter kind of thing. You don't
have to pedal. You can sit there and
just keep the pedals level and just use
the motor the entire time. It also goes
20 mph max and then it shuts off. Class
3 ebike is very similar to the class one
in that you have to pedal the pedals to
make it go and then the motor kicks in
and it it'll go up to 28 mph. Um the
other difference is a class 3 ebike
because it goes 28 miles an hour, you
have to be at least 16 years old to uh
to ride the the device.
The last uh column there is for electric
motorcycles and um completely different
category than what we're talking about
tonight. And I say that because there
not only are those considered a motor
vehicle, so they fall into a completely
different part of law, but it's already
um against the law to operate a a
motorcycle of any kind and not wear a
helmet under the age of 18. And again,
you have to be 16 years old to legally
ride a motorcycle.
Speaking of motorcycles, uh another one
of the pieces of information that we try
to get out to parents is that uh when
you see this type of device on the
screen featured here, it looks a lot
like a class one, two, or three ebike,
like an electrical electric bicycle, but
it's not. It doesn't have pedals. You
can't ride it like a bike. It actually
doesn't do anything if it's not charged
up. But it in terms of the law, it's
exactly like buying your kid a
Harley-Davidson, whether it's gas
powered or electric. Harley makes an
electric motorcycle as well. Uh you
can't operate this without all of the
things that you would need if you were
operating a motor vehicle. This slide
talks about these being modified to go
up to 70 mph. A lot of them go a lot
faster than that. Certainly the
Harley-Davidson electric motorcycles go
faster than 70. And it does sort of uh
imply on this slide that you can go get
this uh registered and have insurance
and license and operate it legally. The
truth of the matter is the bike that's
featured here that you see a lot on our
sidewalks. Um they can't even be
registered. They're not department of
transportation compliant. They're often
made exclusively overseas. Um, and so
it's tempting for parents to buy them
because they're cheap and they're kind
of like an ebike, but they're for most
part completely illegal to operate in
Gilbert.
In terms of uh additional education
efforts, um, our police department and
the town at large, the parks and uh,
other departments participate in the
global village festival. We'll have a
booth out there where we hand out
helmets. Um, police department bike
safety events, uh, mainly we hold those
downtown in Heritage. our safe sensory
awareness event that we hold every year
and then the community uh bike ride and
heritage district that we did last April
and I believe we plan on doing it again
this year. It was uh very well received
by the community and thanks to council
member Kapowski always for supporting us
with the bike helmets. We've gotten a
lot of helmets out to a lot of kids. Um
I don't think in terms of this
presentation I don't go into a lot of
depth about the effectiveness of helmets
because I think the council would all be
unanimous. you know, wearing a helmet.
There's no downside to wearing a helmet.
Certainly, we encourage people to do it.
Um, it is the the safer route to go,
especially if you're riding on roadways.
Um, so it's just sort of implied that
it's safer to wear them. The question
will be down the road, uh, is it the
place of the government to require that
infrastructure improvements. This is
another key piece. So, I know we're
talking about helmets today and we're
going to talk about crash data and we're
going to talk about wanting to lower the
um the frequency of severe injuries on
bicycles. I think that's kind of what
this discussion is about. But really
what we'd love to do is get the bicycle
collisions down to zero if we could. And
a lot of those efforts um are really
come down to engineering. Like a lot of
efforts, a lot of uh investment that our
community has made. I think we're making
strides in trying in reducing the amount
of collisions. um in this area. So, as
discussed before on those surveys with
the public, there was sort of this
discussion of wanting more space between
bicycles and cars. So, the town um
updated their engineering standards with
regard to bike lanes, increasing the
width from 5 1/2 ft to 6 feet on
roadways. on the right side of the
screen where it talks about the green
bike lane program the bottom kind of pie
chart in the green area is um when
people were asked would you like to see
more green bike lanes in Gilbert 82.3%
of our respondents wanted uh more green
bike lanes and those have been installed
um off the top of my head uh Gilbert
Warner right out here Valve Vista and
Warner we're making progress on
installing more of these green bike
lanes and those seem to be um well
received by the public.
In terms of safety improvement projects,
um the theme of all of these projects,
without going over every single one of
them, because I know the council's
familiar with many of them as you've
you've reviewed them and approved them,
but the goal of these projects was safer
canal path crossings along major Gilbert
roadways. Um, if you think about riding
a canal path, it's nice and safe whether
you're running or you're biking and
you're kind of in a zone and you feel
really safe because there's no cars
around and then you hit one of those
crossings and that's the point where,
you know, it does become pretty
hazardous sometimes crossing six lanes
of vehicle travel when the cars are
going 45 miles an hour. So the town has
made an an considerable effort to make
these crossings safer by either
installing um traffic signals or um what
they call hawk systems where the lights
uh flash stop the cars just for the
pedestrians to cross. Uh they've also
made separated or protected bike and
pedestrian infrastructure from vehicles,
new traffic signal installation, safer
routes to school. One of the schools
that um the town has been working with
is Rice Elementary. It's a new one over
there at Lindsay and um
Okato. And whenever a new school pops
in, we want to make sure there are safe
routes for kids to ride their bikes to
school. And then trail connectivity for
pedestrians and cyclists.
So, in in terms of a total number, the
investment in these projects that were
on the slide before, I think there were
um 11 or 12 of them, you know, it's $215
million to enhance the safety for
cyclists and pedestrians. Again, with
the goal of lowering the number of
overall collisions between bicycles and
vehicles. And you know, in a utopia,
you'd be able to ride around the whole
town and never even come close to a
vehicle and just ride your bike safely
around the the entire uh perimeter of
the town. We're not there yet, but we're
getting close.
Crash and injury data.
So, unfortunately, when we do mix
vehicles and uh bicycles, we end up with
uh some crash and injury data. We also
have some collisions that we're going to
talk about here where they weren't
collisions with vehicles. Somebody just
wiped out on their bike and the and the
fire department responded. In terms of
this first slide, so this is from the
police department. This is our Gilbert
bicycle crash data. And these are
vehicular related bike collisions by
year. Um, and it's important to note
when I talked about uh the different
classifications of bicycles, regular
bikes, class one, class two, class
three, because they're all bicycles when
the battery is dead, it has a chain, it
has pedals. The state captures and the
police department by virtue of being
part of the state um captures this data
all the same. So if you crash on any of
those devices, you crashed on a bike and
that's the data that we that we capture.
We don't separately have data for each
classification of different uh bicycle
but I will say overall what this graph
tells me when I looked historically back
uh five plus years we always had this
trend where the yellow line the adults
uh were having uh more collisions than
juveniles with vehicles. That trend's
been going on for a very very long time.
And it stands to reason there's more
adults in Gilbert than there are
juveniles. 70% adults and 30% kids. Um
so for the first year uh in 2024 we saw
the shift and again I think this is
attributed to there's more kids out
there on bikes which is you know we
always we all thought that would be a
good thing. Get them off the computers,
get them off the Xbox, get them out
outside but the proliferation of these
ebikes has changed things. You could
only ride so fast on a on a traditional
bike, right? And you can only crash so
bad. um which um Council Member Buckley
and I have both done on bike patrol. Um
you can only do so much injury to
yourself, but now that these ebikes
where you're going 28 m hour, um life
comes at you pretty quick. So that's one
of the trends that I wanted to just make
sure that we pointed out to council. We
are seeing u an overall decline in the
total number of crashes, which I
attribute to a lot of the engineering
improvements that the council has
approved. Um but unfortunately we're
seeing the the number of juveniles uh
juvenile crashes dwarf the adults for
the first time.
Similarly, this slide is is from the
fire department. It's talking about
Gilbert bike crash data for nonvehicular
bicycle crashes where EMS responded. So
these are calls that don't involve a
vehicle at all. These are people that um
were riding along and wiped out for some
reason. They hit a curb and went over
the handlebars and had to call the fire
department. In those instances, we're
still seeing that the number of adult
crashes total are higher than the
juveniles. Again, 70% of our population
is adult. Um, but we are seeing, if you
look at just the juvenile numbers, went
from one in FY23 to 8 in FY24 to 12 in
FY25. So, we're seeing a rise in the um,
you know, bicycle wipeouts, I guess
you'd say. And then the total number of
EMS response from 23 24 to 25, you know,
it almost doubled between uh FY24 and
FY25. So that's just another trend to be
aware of uh to consider.
In terms of our data, when we collect
data on people wearing helmets, about
23% of our patients were verified to
have been uh wearing a helmet and uh
that means the other 77% were not. That
number could be a little bit higher. we
have to rely on the fact that we can
verify you were actually wearing a
helmet, not sort of um anecdotal data
from a third party that wasn't there at
the time, but we're taking their word.
So, we could verify that 23% were
wearing them. So, for major
vehicle-reated bike collisions in in
2024, uh only one in six riders in
Gilbert were wearing a helmet. And
that's adult and juvenile.
In terms of our major vehicle related
bike collisions in Gilbert, these are
the ones where we call out our uh
accident reconstruction team or
collision reconstruction team. In 2022,
we had four adults uh that that were
were patients or were pedal cyclists
that were hit by cars and two of them
resulted in fatalities and two were
serious injuries, but all adults. In
2023, we had two adult fatalities on
bicycles. And in 2024, we had one adult
fatality and five juvenile uh calls or
major cases. And they all were serious
injuries. I can tell you in 2024, out of
those six cases, only one person was
wearing a helmet.
this um this slide actually this
material um I have to give credit to
Carter Carmichael uh Gilbert resident he
had some thoughts on uh on this topic
and he shared them via this information
and um you know he's um right on right
on point here saying that bike these
electric bikes are emerging as a public
health hazard. Um, ebikes are faster
with minimal effort, uh, reduced
reaction time, certainly, easier loss of
control, and then the faster speeds
result in deadlier collisions. And this
is bicycle and ebike crashes in San
Diego County that's on this um graph to
the right, and it's showing just the
dramatic climb in ebike crashes that
they're tracking over in San Diego.
This is also Carter's information. E um
is is discussing just in injury
reduction. So, in terms of um bicycle
helmets, like I had kind of mentioned
before, you know, they're they're
thoroughly proven to reduce injuries. Um
you can see the statistics there. Um
reducing head injuries by 48%, reducing
serious head injuries by 60%. I can
attest to the fact I was on our bike
patrol for several years. We absolutely
as police officers can't operate our
bikes within policy by we have to wear a
helmet all the time. And the reason for
that is, you know, you learn pretty
quick in bike school when you crash that
a couple things. One is it doesn't take
much to to crack your your egg up here,
you know, crack your head. Uh that can
kill you. Um just falling over the front
of your handlebars, you also learn that
as safe as you can be, you know, when
you're riding, especially down a public
uh a crowded roadway, you glance over
your left shoulder all night long to
make sure nobody is driving next to you
and you can safely make lane changes. It
only takes one time for you to glance
over your left shoulder and think it's
clear and the next thing you know you're
just getting chewed up by a car. I've
done that before. I've weaved into a
lane thinking it's clear and thank
goodness the person wasn't on their
phone. They honked and alerted me. But
it happens. In fact, we had uh an
elderly driver hit an elderly bicyclist
last night uh with severe injuries. It
just down at Valve Vista and uh Chandler
Heights. It happens when when we have
bicycles out there on the roadway. So to
wear a helmet um to Carter's point is uh
often a lifesaver.
Helmet use by children. So the police
department relies on data from the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration or Nitsa. Nitsa published
um material that's that's available on
their website openly right now and they
published this survey conducted by the
CDC and what they did is they asked
parents um in two different locations
how often their children wear helmets.
So in communities where there's no
helmet law at all, they found around 40%
of uh the kids responded that they wear
helmets and about 35% said they they're
certain their kids don't. And then when
they went to locations where there are
helmet laws in place, they found um much
better numbers or or you know about 10%
higher about 50% of the parents um in
this survey indicated that their their
children do wear helmets and only 20%
never do. So it does seem to influence I
looking at the literature there's sort
of three things that influence it. one
is, you know, potentially a helmet law,
right, as covered by this data. But they
also talk about the fact that just
passing the the ordinance doesn't really
doesn't really take it to the finish
line. There has to be an enforcement an
actual enforcement element, and there
has to be a pretty heavy education
element, too. If you get all three of
those together, you're going to move the
percentage. It won't ever be 100%, but
you're going to move, you know,
hopefully the needle like they did, uh,
as in the survey data here.
So, in terms of ordinance options, um
this is just kind of a matrix of all the
different um the different ordinances
around the county here in in at least in
the East Valley on this first slide. So,
as you can see, Gilbert did have a um an
ordinance for a short period of time. It
was repealed in 2001. So, there's not
currently an an ordinance in place, but
there is some data from the previous uh
ordinance that was in effect. Um,
Scottsdale, as you can see, uh, if
you're under 18, you do have to wear a
helmet if you're on a motorized
skateboard or motorized play vehicle.
Very similar for Mesa and in terms of
the motorized skateboard. Chandler also
very similar um to the other cities.
Tempee is a little bit more um, they've
got a little bit more in their ordinance
because it actually requires anybody
under 18 to wear a helmet on a a good
oldfashioned bicycle, you know, a
humanpowered bicycle.
And then looking a little bit more
broad, um you see the city of Poria
there is kind of like the rest of the
East Valley, but when you look at
Tucson, um operators and passengers
under 18 for a motorized bicycle. So
those class one, twos, and threes, uh
they do require a helmet if you're under
18. Puma County uh is one of the is one
with a um pretty stringent ordinance. Uh
but it's clear and it's easy to follow.
If you're under 18, if you're riding a
bicycle or if you're being towed by a
bicycle, anything like that countywide
and you're under 18, you do have to wear
a helmet. And just as a reminder, in
terms of state law, really the only
thing state law touches in terms of
helmets is motorcycles or motor-driven
cycles or anything that falls in that
category. If you're under 18, you do
have to wear a helmet.
So, these are some options for council
to consider and they're not uh exclusive
uh or exhaustive really. You saw there's
a litany of different decision, you
know, different uh ordinances out there
in this state. But, um the ones that I
just kind of throw out there, I guess,
for consideration, one is to keep the
existing status quo. It's always an
option. Anytime I come up with one of
these ordinance presentations, you know,
it's always an option. Option two is
requiring all persons, regardless of
age, to wear a helmet when operating any
form of bicycle on public property. That
would be sort of more extensive than
anybody else in the state, but it's
certainly an option. Option three is
requiring those riders under 18 years of
age to wear a helmet when operating any
form of bicycle on public property. It's
very similar to Tempe or Pima County.
They're kind of in that realm. Option
four would be to require those riders
under 18 years of age to wear a helmet
when operating any electric bicycle
class one, two, or three. And there were
um previously on that other slide
agencies that have adopted that. They
feel like the ebikes kind of um you know
present an even bigger challenge. You
can only hurt yourself on a traditional
bicycle so much unless a vehicle is
involved. And maybe there's some wisdom
in uh choosing the class one, two, or
three. But all of those are certainly
options or anything else that the
council um decides on
in terms of future exploration because I
didn't want to uh just lay out those
ordinances and not mention um many of
you probably seen in the news that the
city of Scottsdale outside of the
requirements or not to wear a helmet,
they're also addressing and I think
creatively so uh some other issues
having to do with um ebikes. So, they
approved an ordinance in July that um it
intends to enhance safety for ebike
users under 16 and provide additional
education guidelines for those
purchasing ebikes. Their code 17-77.1
basically says that the ordinance is
really long, but if you if you cut that
out and and um kind of paraphrase it, no
children under 16 are allowed to ride a
class 3 electronic bike or similar
machines on city property, including
electric motorcycles that can reach
speeds of at least 21 miles per hour.
Also, e- motorcycles must be titled and
registered. Um, and you may be telling,
you may be asking yourself, well, isn't
that already what state law says? And
that is, that is what state law says. I
think if I had to guess, um, their city
council felt like we're going to just
reaffirm as a council what state law
says, but I think it also built on the
second part of their ordinance. And this
one is aimed more with the distributors
of the class, the different classes of
of bicycles. So, revised code 17-77.2
requires businesses that sell class 3
ebikes or electric motorcycles to post a
written notice in their stores stating
that anyone under the age of 16 is
prohibited from using them in their
city. Sellers must also give purchasers
uh city of Scottsdale produce
educational materials at the time of the
sale. So, this is so parents, guardians,
and other buyers have the correct
information on the legal use of the
devices before and after buying them.
and then it's a petty offense is the
outcome. But um if you look at that
yellow slide, it requires sellers to
affix a permanent sticker in a prominent
location to class 3 ebikes for easy
identification. It also makes it illegal
for the sticker to be removed. And
again, it has uh the offenses and the
fines. So, something creative and I
don't know if other municipalities are
going to follow suit, but it was worth
mentioning because I know um I get
emails sometimes from the community and
they'll ask about what Scottsdale's
doing and I figured uh discussing it at
least would be beneficial.
Any questions?
Thank you, Mike. Questions? Council
to Mayor Bonjivani.
Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to um
point out thank you to Carter. Um,
rarely do we get emails from young
adults that say, "Hey, I want to I want
to help. I want to do something." So, I
got this email from Carter. He wanted uh
to help with this ebike thing. And I
said, "We'll come up with some stats for
us." And I think the next day I had them
on in my email. So, we forward them over
to Chief and I appreciate your help with
this, Carter. Um, couple of questions.
Um, one is maybe I I saw it wrong, but
isn't there an option five, which is all
forms of bikes and the ebikes?
Yes. Uh, Mayor Anderson, Council Member
Bon Giovani, that's certainly Yes, I
think that was sort of trying to imply
that. Yeah, it would be bikes and ebikes
like Tempe has right now currently.
Okay. Because I saw option four or
option three was just all forms of bike
and then four specifically said ebikes.
So, I thought maybe option five is
together,
right?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Um, and can I don't know if you could
answer this, um, but can someone give us
the history of the bike helmet
ordinances in Gilbert?
Probably as good a person as any since I
was here in 2001. Um, yeah, I I know
this was briefly the um ordinance was
briefly approved. There was a
discussion, if I understand correctly,
uh, from information from the clerk's
office, the little bit of research that
was done back then was that the council
at the time felt like um, they didn't
want to legislate that issue. They
wanted to leave it up to parents and
ultimately they agreed to, you know,
vote on it and it was repealed. I don't
believe it was in effect for a very, I
think it was really, really short period
of time.
Okay. Mayor, Council Member Mjivani, if
I could just add, I did some research on
this a while back, and if I remember
right, um, Chief Angst, that's correct.
It was approved by council. That
ordinance was approved by council, if I
recall, either in May or June of 20 or
2001.
And back then, councils were elected and
seated effective July 1st because the
elections were in the spring. So, a new
council came in and it was immediately
repealed within, I think, their first
council action. So, the prior council
approved it. A month later, it was
repealed under a new council with
several new council members. Okay.
Great. And I also want to um thank
Council Member Kapowski and all the work
that she's done with uh bike helmets
over the last year, year and a half. But
thanks, Chief.
Vice Mayor.
Uh I I I have a question. I I've
personally liked the bike helmets under
age 18,
but the big question is what about
enforcement
and and what does the department plan on
doing
to to chase these kids because they
can't catch them. So, I think that
should be um a a big thought in here is
how and what you're going to do to
enforce them.
Mayor Anderson and Council Member Bley,
great question and my apologies for not
bringing that up during this
presentation. Our goal if council was
inclined to pass an ordinance would be
to start off with a pretty heavy
education component. Um trying to get
the word out that we have a new
ordinance, it's coming. Let's get the
bike helmets on. Um and then we would
carry that forward out in the field when
our officers go to enforce make a stop.
You know, the first contact is kind of
educational. Hey, just so you know, we
have a bike law. Need to take it home.
Let's call the parents, have them picked
up. But after, as we've learned with new
ordinances, um eventually we have to
actually enforce it. Um what I've seen
when we look at some of the ordinances
here in the valley, most of them are set
up for civil traffic fines for these
violations. So, you get a ticket and
it's a fine. Um it's not for most
people, it's not the end of the world,
but it's enough to kind of change
behavior. And a lot of it is um in
looking at the studies, if parents are
aware of the law and they're modeling
wearing a helmet, their kids tend to as
well. And you just kind of change
culture over time. But in terms of
enforcement, there will come a point
where we will have to actually write
citations because if we don't, what we
found is it becomes purely symbolic and
the behavior doesn't change.
Yeah, that that was my concern that you
know the kids
there's could you guys get calls but by
the time you get there they're gone or
you may have to chase them and you know
it's that's not ideal either because
then that just puts danger for the kids
you know going faster than they should
even should. Um okay well I I think that
is it for me. Have you did and and I
apologize for this cuz I know you had
some numbers up earlier.
What were the statistics for um
that came in that the parents or whoever
answered the survey that actually want
to have an ordinance for bike helmets?
Uh Council Member Buckley, that's a
great question. We when we did the
transportation master plan in 2022 and
we did a survey, we didn't ask the
community that specific question. We did
uh ask a lot of questions related to
bike safety and certainly they they
heavily support any efforts to make
biking safer in Gilbert, but that
specific question about helmets was not
part of that um master plan. So
that's yeah that's that's interesting
because I I would have thought they
would have wanted to to to say
something.
Um
well I guess that's it for me then.
Thank you
member Miovani.
Thank you mayor. I do to answer Vice
Mayor's question. I did see uh a video
on social media recently of the Gilbert
PD using some drones to get these kids
off the bikes and that was pretty
impressive. I um I you know kids were
thought thinking they were getting away
with it all. Then they turned around and
another police car pulled right in front
of them and the drone just went down and
took off. So I was uh very happy to hear
that. I my guess it was in the Morrison
Ranch area. I'm not sure but um there
are there are ways to um to slowly
change some of this behavior.
Ultimate Torus.
I'm looking at this and when I was a
kid, nobody had a helmet. We literally
would jump cars. We were menaces. Uh cuz
they they're menaces in a different way.
They're going down sidewalks on ebikes
and that's a big bigger problem I think
than anything. But what I'm seeing if
we're talking safety, these numbers are
much higher than I would have
anticipated. It's much higher than let's
say when I grew up. uh what is the role
of cars in this as oppo the helmet's not
going to stop an accident certainly it
helps from somebody being injured and
certainly I would hope somebody's
parents had you know would encourage
that but the other side of this is that
cars more responsible for an accidents
at these point at this point what why do
we see such a rise in accidents because
safety is the the end goal if nobody's
is getting hit. Nobody's really caring
about a helmet. So, that's not going to
happen. But what is contributing to this
that brings this to an issue for us to
even discuss?
Yeah, Mayor Anderson and Council Member
Torus, great question. Um, when we look
at the data, especially for the serious
uh collisions, we find all kinds of
different answers. Some of them are
related to crossings like I had spoken
out about before where you're having
people cross a path uh from one path to
another, but they have to cross a major
roadway. We found that that's kind of
one of those pinch points where if we
can design it, engineer it correctly, it
lowers the it makes it easier for the
cars quite frankly because oftent times
you can't see if people are about to
cross. Um so we've made great headway in
that in that area. Um, we've also worked
on a lot of our intersections to try and
make them as safe as we can. I think the
green bike lanes, a lot of those efforts
have helped. But anytime as as evidence
of the collision last night, we had a
rider that's, you know, riding along the
roadway, like I had explained, oftent
times they glance over their left
shoulder to because they want to
maneuver and make a left-hand turn. Um,
they don't see a car. Amazingly enough,
sometimes, you know, your brain just
kind of blocks it out. You don't see it.
you just wonder how did I miss that? But
inevitably until we um can engineer
keeping bicycles completely away from
vehicles, I think we're always going to
kind of have collisions. That's the
unfortunate part. So when you bring up
will a helmet stop,
always advocate to wear a helmet, but as
we both know, if you get hit by a train,
it doesn't matter if you're wearing a
helmet, right? I think that's kind of
the point that we're both we agree on
that. Just wondering, not to sit there
and cast blame on whether it's a kid or
a driver or whatever, but what is
driving the accidents to increase? It's
not the helmet or lack of helmet. What
is driving increase in accidents?
So, we'll just go back real quick to the
accidents, and I just want to make sure
that I'm clear on it. Um, so in 2022 we
had 50 uh vehicle bicycle collisions.
Uh, in 2023 we had 65 and this year I
believe we're down to 48 if my math is
correct. So they're actually down the
the vehicle and and um bicycle
collisions and I think a lot of that is
attributed to all of these engineering
efforts, the $250 million investment
that the citizens made. But to I but I
can't ignore the fact that with regard
to these collisions, although they're
going down, the juvenile ones are now
outpacing the adult ones. And I think
that's just that's probably the more
disturbing thing. And I would attribute
those although we don't track them
separately. I would attribute a lot of
that to the proliferation of the ebikes
in the last couple years. You know, they
just go a little faster than you would
normally pedal. And you, as you can see,
the kids are a little more reckless on
them than they are on regular bicycles.
So,
you are,
Council Member Bonjivan.
Thanks, Mayor. I I might be able to give
some insight to this. Um, I ride about
75 miles a week and me and my GoPro
pretty much figure out I have actually
six near misses a week pretty much. I
think that has to do with with
drivers
being preoccupied, getting ready to go
to work, you know, need to get past that
red light, and it's just it's driver
behavior. But on top of that, with the
kids with these ebikes who don't even
have a driver's license yet and don't
know the rules themselves, I mean, I've
been in intersections where I'm having
to star down with the with the driver
trying to figure out, am I right or are
you right, you know, do I go straight or
do you turn in on me? But I mean, I've
had I've had numerous vehicles um I'm in
the I'm in the bike lane and I'm equal
with them and they pull in front of me
to do a right-hand turn. I don't know
what's going through their minds. Uh
hopefully it isn't my body next time,
but um it's it's it's just a matter of
us paying attention and having enough
consideration for each other. Now, that
may not have anything to do with the
bike helmet, but
you know, if if I have a, you know,
young child and and and a a motorist
doesn't see him or is too worried about
getting to work on time, I'm going to
want that kid wearing a helmet. And I
think that's my responsibility as a
parent, saying, you know, I told my
kids, if I see you without your helmet,
your bike is mine, and you're not going
to get it back for quite a long time.
So, thanks for the work you guys are
doing. Thank you, sir.
It's a member Buckland.
Thank you, Mayor. So, there's a couple
things that we're not talking about in
terms of um behavior.
Any given day you drive through Morrison
Ranch, you will see lots and lots of
ebikes and electric motorcycles.
Um some are right at that 20 mph
threshold, but some are keeping pace and
exceeding speed limit. And what worries
me is we have some very talented um
wheelie riders through this town, but at
these speeds, you know, like Council
Member Tor said, we were all reckless
when we're young. We're dumb, right? We
think that we're unbreakable. And I'd
ride a wheelie every chance I could get,
but I'm also doing it at like 5 miles an
hour, 8 miles an hour cuz trying to
pedal while I do it. Now, like just
yesterday, I watched three kids taking
up the entire westbound lane of Morrison
Ranch Parkway, slowing traffic down,
stacking them up so that they could
boost into a wheelie at a at a high
speed. And um that's dangerous.
Personally, I've witnessed a group of 10
to 12 riding wheelies uh going down uh
going northbound on Higgley in front of
Morrison Ranch doing like 40 miles an
hour and cars behind them. And I had a
good citizen um email me uh video of
kids doing the same thing. So, a
different incident. How are you handling
these types of behaviors? Because the
the speeds are way different now, which
creates way more risk. And then one last
thing before you answer. I I think
drivers are conditioned
until the last year or so.
Bicycles coming. I'm about to pull out.
There's plenty of distance. I can make
it. But all of a sudden now these
things, they're boosting. And all of a
sudden, you don't have the time distance
you once had. and and you know there's
there's risk there because we're not
conditioned to we recognize slower speed
bicycle I can go and all of a sudden
bam. Can you speak to all of that
please?
Yes. So Mayor Anderson, Council Member
Buckland, on the first point you're
absolutely right. We've had uh takeovers
where we get a lot of ebike and electric
motorcycle
uh kids together and they'll take over
the whole street and they'll ride right
down Higgley Road. very tough for for us
from an enforcement standpoint because
what we don't want to do is chase them
and create you know somebody ends up
getting killed you know our officer or
somebody else. So um we have started to
institute some tactics where um we have
a right now we are piloting a drone as a
first responder program. We have
individual drones that are used by
officers but we have a kind of a mother
drone that takes off the the roof of our
building that works really really well.
We can't we know we can't catch them
all, but if we can track a couple of
them back home and we go knock on mom
and dad's door and we have the take the
opportunity to educate impound the
device um and try to try to send the
message. That's been pretty effective
because um what these kids don't like
getting as tickets. What they really
don't like is when we take their $3,000
ebike away.
That's what I was what you were going to
say.
Yes, sir.
And on the second point, uh, Council
Member Buckley, you're you're 100%
correct, too, on the judging distances.
Um, we all judge when we make a
left-hand turn or we're pulling into a
driveway, we all sort of our brain knows
how quickly something normally moves and
we sort of make our our movements based
on that. But unfortunately, what
happens, especially with these ebikes,
and even more so with the e- motorcycles
that go 70, 80 miles an hour, um you see
that little light and you you figure out
it's probably a bicycle and you have no
idea it's coming at you at 80 miles an
hour. And that's what's causing some of
the major collisions. Um and in those
cases,
uh we deal with them appropriately. If
you're on a an e motorcycle specifically
and you're operating a motor vehicle,
you are fair game in terms we it whether
you're driving a Chevy Tahoe or you're
riding a uh an an electric motorcycle
that was made overseas that has no place
on our public streets, you're getting
every bit of the law that you deserve.
So,
thank you.
Other questions? Council member Ski, do
you have
Yes, I have some comments. Thank you for
the presentation today and for the data
that was shared. I think that was really
important and it's unfortunate to see
such a rapid rise in juveniles being
involved in these crashes. Um,
you know, and these serious injury
crashes are resulting in these juveniles
being in ICU and having long-term um
disabilities.
I guess just for a like a little bit
more perspective, um my family has
regular bikes. Me and my children can
ride at the fastest maybe 10 to 12 miles
per hour on a regular bike. My husband
can maybe get up to 15 uh on a road like
in the road on a road bike. Um, but
these e- scooters, ebikes going over 20
miles per hour, over 30 miles per hour,
I think the speed seems to be a really
big issue. They're riding on our
sidewalks with people walking. They're
riding on our shared use paths.
Is there any kind of um speed limit that
is applicable to our sidewalks or shared
use paths? Mayor Anderson and council
member Kapowski. Great question. We
don't have any um ordinances currently
that would govern speed on a multi-use
path. There's nothing keeping the
council from adopting speed limit on a
given path. It would have to be
obviously enumerated in law. Um some of
the difficulties we have on on
particularly on um multi-use paths is we
often don't as I understand it. I'm not
from the engineering or development
section, but when we discussed these in
the past, a lot of them we don't fully
own. Some of them are partially owned by
SRP, be a private owner for a couple
feet, and that's the only um only
complicated part of it. But certainly
any on town property, um we can govern
speeds. That would have to be a decision
by council. And it's my understanding
that facilities like sidewalks and
shared use paths aren't even designed
based on a speed limit because
ebikes and these devices didn't even
exist before. And so this is kind of a
new issue that we're entering into. Um
and I would absolutely support an
ordinance that would um
require helmets for juveniles under 18
on ebikes. I think that the speed is a
big issue. I'd like to get maybe your
thoughts and further study on
differentiation between the class one,
class two, class three because I see
that a lot of what's been happening is
around the class three but I think that
there's even an issue necess like with
class one and class two with the speeds
up to 20 miles per hour. And what else
could we consider in terms of the
education seems to be a big piece as
well because bicyclists are supposed to
follow the rules of the road like
drivers yet they get zero education and
there's zero requirements or barriers to
entry for these devices. Um, do you
think we can work with our schools to
get ebike or bike safety or training
courses um, incorporated into these
programs? Like it seems like we need a
multiaceted approach and what are your
thoughts on that? Council member Proski,
I couldn't agree with you more and I
know um Shane McCord is retiring soon,
but I know Shane has expressed an
interest in partnering with us and just
being really in terms of education and
potentially even the schools looking at
um not allowing those devices on their
property either. Um a lot of kids do use
these devices to get to schools. Um and
some of them are just, you know, quite
frankly outright illegal for them to
ride, especially with the e-
motorcycles. Um, so I think some of
those partnerships, we have
opportunities for partnerships and
education. I think, um, with regard to
the retailers that sell these, um, you
know, Scottdale took the approach of
requiring them to hand out educational
materials at the time of sale. Um, that
might be something that's worthwhile for
the town, but I certainly um, concur
with all of your all the points you
made.
and some memorories.
I think we have to look at the speed a
little differently. Like I just
confirmed something because I'm
listening at 20 miles an hour and
we exceeded that far on a onus BMX bike
on a town a city street. We're going 40
miles an hour. I looked it up and it's
like, yeah, I don't misre I don't
misremember this. I was passing cars as
like a 14-y old kid, 12 year old kid. So
20 miles an hour is nothing. I mean, if
on a normal bike, a regular, not a
10speed, not a race bike, BMX bike,
which is all my friends and I had, we're
going over 40 miles an hour. So I'm not
I'm not understand why we're even having
a discussion about 20.
It's because these things have to be
going in excess of that. they have to be
going in excess of that.
U Mayor Anderson and Council Member
Toruson, that that could be the case. I
know some of these devices, the class
3es can go up to 28, and I've been told
uh by a lot of the kids that uh you can
modify them to make them go even faster.
I've ridden I've driven next to uh kids
on these type of devices that are going
at least 40. Yeah. So, we see it from
time to time. Um, but even to Council
Member Kaprosky's point, if you're going
20 on an ebike and you're a little kid
and you go into a wall, it's it's, you
know, I'm sure we would all agree it's
it's going to sting. So, um, we have
kids that do wipe out on paths and drive
into canals and all kinds of stuff cuz
they're kids and some of the injuries
are pretty gruesome.
Other comments, questions?
Now, we used to call these mopeds. I
used to ride a moped.
Gotten into plenty of accidents with it.
Um, I personally am supportive of the
suggestions that council member Kapowski
made. I think that's we ought to look
into it a little bit more about helmets,
maybe speed on the bike on the pass, the
multi-use pass.
Council member or Bonjivani.
Thank you, Mayor. Um I I fully believe
in in more parenting and less government
unless the kids don't listen and the
parents don't parent and you know when a
parent feels that their right of freedom
to choose whether their kid should wear
a helmet or not overseeds the safety of
their kid I think we have a
problemselves with the society we're in.
But I'm I'm supportive of um having us
have further discussions on um helmets
not just for ebikes but for kids too
because you gota you know you're going
to start them when they're three or four
years old on a bike not just wait for
them to you know an ebike because we
want that to be a a behavior kind of
thing that they take when they're young.
And I'm also supportive looking at some
of the things that Scottsdale is doing
with some of the retailers especially of
these um the motorcycle ones. And I
mean, if I'm a parent and I go in and I
see this cool little motorcycle thing, I
might be like, "Hey, maybe my kid might
like that." But if I knew that they
legally should have a license and
registration and insurance, um, that
that would stop me from making that
purchase. So, they don't can't really
blame too much if they don't know that
that's there. I kind of like what
Scottsdale did and I'm open to listen to
all the options on the dis um in a
future date.
Does that give you a little bit of
direction?
It does, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, Mike.
Our second item is the presentation on
utility bills, water consumption,
revenue collections, and updates on key
water related projects.
Evening, mayor, members of council. I'm
Rebecca Hamill. I'm the water manager
for the town of Gilbert, and I
appreciate the opportunity to be here
tonight and talking to you about water
revenue rates updates, uh, as well as a
number of other topics.
Um, we have quite a number uh quite a
list of topics to cover tonight. Um, if
there are questions during the pres
presentation, I'd appreciate just
holding them to the end because I
believe I may address some of your um
your talking points during the course of
this presentation.
So starting off by um focusing on
recognizing the importance of water and
the services that we provide to our
residents and our businesses in Gilbert.
Water is one of the foundational public
services that provide the quality of
life we have all come to know and love
in Gilbert. It's our water team's top
priority to provide clean, safe drinking
water and uninterrupted service to all
of the residents and businesses in
Gilbert.
When we set water rates and when we
balance the annual budget, we do so with
three main goals in mind. The first is
to cover the operating costs of the
division to keep the water flowing, to
keep the treatment plants running, to
keep the pressure up and customers
having uninterrupted service. The second
is to fund projects that match our
critical priorities, things like water
treatment, things like water resources.
Uh and the third is to plan for the
future and set up the fund to start
executing on repair and replacement
projects that have been deferred.
Talking a little bit more about our
first goal, covering operating costs. Um
as all of you are aware, Arizona and
Gilbert are facing uncertainty in water
resources and providing a secure supply
of secure water supply is a top priority
for our department. We have a diverse
and resilient water resource portfolio
consisting of surface water, reclaimed
water, and groundwater.
Since June of 2022, Gilbert's been in
stage one of our local reduction
management plan, which aims to raise
community awareness around water due to
the declining conditions on the Colorado
River system. We're dedicated to our
water resilience res resiliency efforts
uh and do so by employing a
multi-pronged strategy to address the
Colorado River reductions through
resilience measures, sustainable
long-term
long-term water portfolio management and
enhancing water conservation activities.
One of the main impacts on the budget is
these increasing uh water resources
costs. And we have seen since 20120 a
73% increase in the per Oh, I'm sorry I
didn't advance the slide.
Apologies. This is the slide I'm
speaking to now. uh we've seen since
2020 a 73% increase in the per acref
foot cost of cap water and we continue
to see an increase in the uh percentage
of the water resources as a component of
the overall water budget.
We also see volatility in the markets
that lead to increased chemical and
electrical costs to the tune of $600,000
this fiscal year. Those are due to uh
general price pressures, inflation,
local competition with other large re
large and regional projects. Uh ongoing
supply chain delays particularly when it
comes to electrical equipment. Uh we see
limited manufacturing for certain
materials and um treatment chemicals. We
see
tariff and trade uncertainty with
international markets. All which lead to
volatility and increased costs. And
although these have stabilized since the
CO9 pandemic, they continue to be a
factor.
So moving on to goal two, funding our
critical priorities. Uh we can see here
on this slide, I have listed uh in white
the the types of projects and the type
of expenditures that are within the
5-year budget and that are outside of
the 5-year budget. In orange, I want to
highlight a few changes that have
occurred since the previous fiscal
year's budget. We now have moved far
enough in our well drilling program
where we're able to determine water
quality for our well sites and have
found that four of the seven wells
either require on-site treatment or
transmission or blending. And that comes
at an increased cost. And so to um to
soften the impact of that on the fund
and to balance the 5-year budget, we
have had to defer pipeline replacements
not associated with streets projects and
some of the system connectivity projects
um recommended by the integrated water
resources master plan to the tune of
$151 million. that have been deferred
outside of the five-year plan. These are
still necessary projects. They're just
not our critical priorities right now.
One of our critical priorities is the
Northwater treatment plant
reconstruction project. And so I'd like
to give a few updates on this project um
and the milestones that we've met so
far.
When this project is completed, the
North Water Treatment Plant will supply
70% of Gilbert's water supply. It's
estimated to last more than 50 years,
serving Gilbert for generations to come.
It'll serve 250,000 residents and be
able to provide the system with 60
million gallons per day of production
capacity.
Some really exciting milestones on the
project include the 50% construction
completion milestone. We have a
celebration coming in October to uh
recognize the efforts of the project
team and this tremendous milestone. We
also have less than 300 days until the
startup of the new treatment complex and
less than 500 days before primary
treatment transitions over to the new
facility and the old facility comes
offline.
One of the other main priorities of the
water fund right now is the well
program. So, we have seven wells within
the program and one well which was in
progress outside of the program which
are being drilled in um central and
southern Gilbert in order to um in in
order to improve our water resiliency
and be able to access our stored
groundwater credits. Now that we've
drilled these wells, we're able to
determine the water quality and we know
that four of them require treatment or
blending.
Here's a timeline for these projects.
because we now understand that some of
them need additional infrastructure. We
have a phased timeline for them. And so
with the green check marks, we can see
the completion of those sites. And we'll
be celebrating the first completion of
site 34 in the first quarter of 2026.
We'll see two more sites coming online
in the second quarter of 26, two more
sites coming online in the third quarter
of 26, and then the remaining two sites
coming on in quarter 4 of 2026, and
quarter 1 of 2027.
Now that we've covered the critical
priorities for the water fund, I want to
talk a little bit about the financial
update.
And so here I'd like to speak to what
goes into a utility bill. We can see the
breakdown on this slide of an average
8,000galon per month utility bill. The
bill is typically made up of rates and
fees for four lines of service,
including water, sewer, solid waste,
recycling, and environmental compliance.
We refer to each of these four lines of
service as enterprise funds, which means
that each fund operates as a
self-sustaining business entity within
the town. Revenue collected for each
service is only used to fund that
service.
And this is written into Gilbert's
fiscal policy in the town code that each
enterprise fund must operate
independently and fund its own
activities. User fees for these these
enterprises funds are set to a level to
recover the cost of operations,
overhead, debt service, repair, and
replacement.
And so to summarize what your water
rates do and do not pay for, your water
rates do pay for the resource cost, the
treatment cost, water system
maintenance, water system repair and
replacement. They do not pay for new
developments. We collect system
development fees which cover the cost
for additional water resources or
additional water res uh infrastructure
in order to supply those resources to
those new developments. Water rates do
not pay for streets projects. They do
not pay for quality of life projects and
they do not pay for any other town
services.
And so this may be a familiar slide for
you all, but I wanted to go back briefly
and speak to the history of water rates.
Um, and so we see here that we went
eight years from a period of 2010 to
2017 without a water rate increase. Um,
and we are now in the cycle of
evaluating each line of service rate
every two years alternating. So we do
two lines of service each year. Uh and
this year we are in the cycle of
evaluating the water rate and the solid
waste recycling rate
and this aligns us with industry best
practice to review rates every two
years.
Looking back now at the history of the
water rates adjustments. I'm showing
here a graph of the actual water user
fees for an 8,000galon per month user
shown in blue compared to a whatif
scenario of a utility bill with that
same consump with the same consumption
that experienced a 5% annual increase
over the same time period. 5% is less
than the average 6% annual justice we
see adjustment we see in other
utilities. Uh but we'll use it for this
scenario. Looking first at the actual
water rate. So, the blue line, we start
with a water bill of 1471 and finish
with a water bill of 59.25, collecting
$6,149
over the 20-year time period.
If we compare this to the simulation,
the what if scenario,
which experienced smaller consistent
increases over the same time period, the
orange graph starts with the same water
bill of 1471 a month and finishes with a
water bill of 39.25, 25 having collected
$6,339
over the same period. So what we can
learn from these two examples that that
is that smaller consistent increases
generated more revenue for the fund and
ended with a lower final bill at the end
of 20 years. This also means that
rateayers have more money in their
pocket today than they would have had
over time. But we need to catch up on
the missed funding.
At the time, we didn't know about
unprecedented unprecedented shortages
that were now facing on the Colorado
River or record-breing breaking
inflation following the CO9 pandemic
that are now impacting the fund. What we
do know is that we've put off rate
increases for as long as possible and
continuing continuing with the planned
increase is essential for funding the
operation of the water department and
paying for critical priorities in the
water system.
And so here's a reminder that in
February of 2024, council adopted the
cash bond gradual option. This was a
three-year implementation where council
adopted the first two years of the
implementation with an understanding we
would come back and reevaluate for the
third year. So we experienced a 50% rate
increase on April of 2024, 25% rate
increase of April of 25, and the council
was presented with an anticipated rate
increase of 25% April of 2026. This is
where we are now. We are working with
our rate consultant to determine that
that 25% is the proper number for the
fund. This option provided the fund with
sufficient uh revenue for critical
capital projects, ongoing $5 million
capacity in the operating fund, and
ongoing $66 million capacity in the
repair and replacement fund starting in
fiscal year 29.
This is a summary of the next steps that
we'll be looking forward to in the rate
setting process. So, we presented this
first to council in February of 2025 at
the financial retreat. We're here in the
summer of 2025 undergoing the rate study
and we'll be reaching out to HOAs
regarding potential rate increases once
we understand a little bit more from our
rate consultant. In the fall, we'll be
giving presentations to the public works
advisory board and presenting the
options to council at the fall retreat,
followed by asking for a notice of
intent for council and publishing the
final rate study. In the winter, we will
focus on community outreach, holding two
open houses, and bring the rates back to
council in February of 2026 for
consideration to be implemented April of
2026.
A couple of additional things I want to
highlight that are different this year
that we're asking of our rate
consultant. The first of which is uh a
water resource recovery rate or water
resource recovery fee. We're asking our
consultant to take a look at the the
properties the homeowners and residents
in Gilbert that receive Gilbert water
but do not participate in Gilbert sewer
because we do not receive any flows back
from them to be treated recharged and
later used for groundwater storage
credits.
The other thing that is different from
this rate cycle is we're we're uh
bringing a solid waste and recycling
community survey to the uh the public to
evaluate our service offerings.
Next, I'd like to talk a little bit more
about um the water fund and how prior
increases to the revenue compared to
what we predicted in the 2023 rate study
and the 2026 budget. So the key takeaway
from this table on the upper right shows
that the current plan in the 5-year
budget is matching the 2023 rate study.
We've balanced the budget with 50 25 as
was originally brought before council.
On this lower table, we're taking a look
at actual revenues that are in um actual
revenues as compared to the 2023 rate
study. And we can see that in 2024,
we're within 4%. That may seem like a
lot, but it's within the amount of
variability we would expect in these
numbers and accounts for different
customer behaviors or different weather
weather patterns over the year. Moving
on to 2025, we can see that we are
within 1.6% of our 5-year plan from
2026, which has been updated uh with the
new numbers and is more current than the
2023 rate study. And we're seeing that
as we move through the five years, as we
reach fiscal year 28, those two models
are aligning very closely.
So we expect a certain amount of
variability in these numbers. Um but on
the whole, we are right on target for
the end of fiscal year 28.
Next, I want to talk about the
replacement fund. Uh the graph here is
showing the projected inflow, outflow,
and ending balance of the repair and
replacement fund. This cash bond gradual
option increased the contribution to the
repair and replacement fund starting in
2030. Uh which puts us in a really
strong position to begin tackling that
backlog of projects that have been
deferred outside of the 5-year window.
With this plan, we can stay ahead of the
curve when it comes to our aging
critical infrastructure in the water
system.
Next, I'm going to transition and talk a
little bit about how our community uses
their water.
So on this slide we can see water
consumption by customer class. We have
our single family residential,
commercial, multif family, school and
municipal users. And we can see that
single family residential is by far the
largest user of water in Gilbert.
Looking a little bit more closely at the
residential water water use. Here we're
showing uh monthly water use per acre
for different densities. So moving from
the left lowest density to the right
highest density
uh you can see that the density as the
density of development increases the
water use per acre also increases
indicating a higher intensity of water
use for multif family and cluster home
developments. This water use is four
times higher per acre for the highest
density density versus the lowest
density. And we see a lower water use
per acre in the very lowest density
because often there's a single home on
multiple acres in that zoning category.
On the other side of the coin, we're
looking at indoor and outdoor
residential water use for those same
different zoning scenarios. What we can
tell from this information is that
there's 20 times more water used per
dwelling unit. So, not per acre anymore,
but per dwelling unit in the lowest
density versus the highest density. And
we also see the largest outdoor use in
those highest densities. On average,
Gilbert is using between 50 and 70% of
their water use outdoors. And that's
important to us because all of the water
that is recovered is treated and then
either used directly or recharged into
the aquafer for groundwater storage
credits.
And that's an important part of our
water portfolio. So even though we see
the highest intensity per acre for large
or for uh high density, we see the the
most percent recovery uh when it comes
to indoor versus outdoor water use.
Okay. On this graph, we're looking at
the percentage of residential user users
in each tier of water use. So we have
tiers 0 to 8,000 gallons, 9 to 20,000
gallons, 21 to 30,000 gallons, 31 to
50,000 gallons, and above 50,000
gallons. and we see the percentage of
residential accounts and then their
corresponding percent of the water used
both in the residential portion of that
pie chart and for the total pie chart.
And so the majority of our customers,
57% of our residential water users are
using between 0 and 8,000 gallons per
month. And that makes up 23% of the
residential supply or 15% of the total
water supply to Gilbert.
Our water rates followed a tiered rate
structure, meaning that in higher the
higher tiers costs more than water in
the lower tiers. And this is done for
two reasons. The first is to keep water
use for essential living, things like
drinking and bathing and cooking
affordable for all residents. And the
second is to encourage water
conservation and minimize outdoor water
use. Looking at the other end of the
graph, we see we have 1% of the
residential users, less than a thousand
homes using more than 50,000 gallons per
month. And that makes up 11% of the
residential water supply or 7% of the
total water supply to the town.
Now, I've talked a lot about the
residential water use and the main focus
of our water conservation efforts is on
outdoor water use. So, we have on this
slide some examples uh available to the
community and some of the policies put
in place for water resiliency focusing
on outdoor water use. We offer water
efficiency checkups, high and continuous
consumption alerts, school education,
water conservation rebates for smart
irrigation controllers, residential
grass removal and non-residential grass
removal, and then adult workshops.
We can see the impact of those efforts
in 2024. The team has provided 183 grass
removal rebates, 297 smart irrigation
controller rebates. They've completed
646 water efficiency checkups and have
saved 52 million gallons of water by
alerting customers on their continuous
consumption.
Now, we realize that many customers are
still struggling with increases to their
utility bill. And it's important to us
that Gilbert's water services remain
affordable. Recently, the ASU Kyle
Center for Water Policy released a
fantastic report on top water
affordability. In this report, the study
evaluates the household burden of water
services in communities in Arizona and
nationwide. The report calculates a
household burden as the percentage of
monthly income of the 20th percentile in
a community and a value less than 2% is
considered affordable. So, we can see on
the table here that Arizona's average is
1.42% of the monthly income. The
national average is 1.44% of the monthly
income of that 20th percentile. and
Gilbert is sitting at 087 for the
household burden.
Looking at the impacts of our water
bills regionally, we can see the average
June bill by zip codes uh with average
water bills ranging from 870 or 8107 per
month in 85234 to 7231 per month in
85296.
This is the water portion only of the
bill.
Even though Gilbert's water meets the
definition of affordability, we realize
many customers in Gilbert are still
struggling to keep up with rising costs.
And so we offer a utility bill
assistance program for residents making
up to 120% of the area median income,
which falls in at 7,9140 for a single
person income or any residents receiving
assistance from other programs are
automatically eligible. The discount
covers $30 per month towards the utility
bill. And to date, we have 408 clients
enrolled and have issued over $32,000 in
discounts. As we evaluate utility rate
increases, we will continue to monitor
and adjust this program to provide
assistance to those residents who need
it most.
I realize that was a lot of information.
Thank you all for the opportunity to
speak and I'd be more than happy to take
any questions.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't advance the
slide.
Council member Bonjivani. Thank you,
mayor. Uh, Rebecca, I have two master's
degrees and this was written like it was
PhD level. So, pretend I'm fifth grader.
Absolutely.
Why is our water bill
so much higher than Queen Creek and
Chandler? In one sentence, fifth grade.
Tell me why. Our water bill funds the
costs required to operate the water
utility and to maintain our
infrastructure and Gilberts takes a
proactive approach towards our
infrastructure
because we are building a water
treatment plant. Correct.
Yes, we are reconstructing the north
water treatment plant
and we are also saving money for future
repairs. Correct. which if I'm correct
in that many years of nothingness that
happened where your scenario was what if
it really was what didn't
if we would have raised the rates a
small percentage throughout that white
period of time where nothing happened
we' be in the situation we are in now
based on let me find this slide based on
the math in this slide we ran a what if
scenario if we did a 5% adjustment every
over the same period as the actual water
rates. And so we start at the same
place, 1471 per month for the water
portion of the bill, and we finish with
a higher water bill for our actual water
rates, um, with more revenue collected
for the whatif scenario, the 5% annual
increase.
Thank you. Now, I don't want to put you
on the spot, but if you don't know this,
you you can phone a friend. I'm just
answering questions that I'm getting
over and over and over and over again.
Sure. residents are saying, "Why am I
paying for that new apartment complex?
Can you tell me how much developers pay
for the water uh maybe an assistant
development fee
per house and per apartment? Does
someone have that information?"
I'm going to have to phone a friend.
You can phone a couple of friends if you
need to.
Kelly will know.
Bring Kelly up.
Mayor, Council Member Von Giovani, I
don't have it off the top of my head,
but we can look it up and provide that
to you. It's just not one of the numbers
I keep handy.
Okay. While everyone else is talking, I
think I have that number, so I can I can
look that up. Um,
I I'll have more. Let's move it on.
Thank you,
Council Member Torus.
I as we're looking at the whole bill,
just not water. We have sewer uh waste
etc.
This there have been people that are not
receiving what we would have considered
when we discussed it $29.72
a month on a sewer. All of a sudden with
another water increase and the sewer
increase that that's applying to 3/4
inch uh mains and they're tying this to
sewer and it's $60 or something for one
inch. I don't remember the recall the
number.
Some people are seeing some extremely
high increases.
Not $30 a month, not $30 plus 7, you
know, 20% of the water, but they're
seeing large numbers.
How is this occurring? Because when we
looked at the average, what the average
person was using, we were very cognizant
of what we were doing. But we are seeing
some things whether you want to call
them unintended consequences or
unanticipated.
But those people
they're hurting. They're getting some
large bills. What is it that we can do
to
deal with that to be able to just to
deal with the people that are getting
unduly
hit really hard?
You may council member Torres, thank you
for the question. Um, I would advise
those resident residents to reach out to
us and utilize our water conservation
programs. Our team is more than happy to
come out and do water efficiency
checkups, set up a landscape budget, and
help them get their outdoor water use
under control. Keep in mind, we are in
the summer months. Water use tends to be
higher in the summer months, and so we
would expect to see a little bit more of
an increase in those higher water tiers,
those higher water users. Um, but we are
more than happy to take a look at those
individual situations and see what
assistance we can provide to customers.
Council member Lions.
U Rebecca, you may not have the answer
to this, but um and Leah, you may have
to help with this. There were two zip
codes that we looked at the other day
that I didn't see in your presentation
that had an average water bill increase
of like um they were Yeah, they're not
on here, but their bills were $1,100 and
$1,200. Was that right?
298. Was it 298?
I thought there was another one.
Oh, there was another one. Yeah.
Yeah.
30 people in it.
Yeah, it had 30 people in it. Um and the
average rate increase was like 1,100 or
1,200 bucks.
I think Hawkins coming up. Um mayor,
council member Lions,
we have this is specific to single
family residential consumption and um
water bills. data that we shared
previously in the meeting we had with
you was the average water bill for all
customer classes
um and included some areas that were um
that then didn't end up having any
residential customers in it and Cochan
has some breakdown on that.
Okay.
Yes, I do. Um, so those are again some
of those areas on the edges of Gilbert
that have just due to water distribution
needs. There are people right on the
borders that might be in a different zip
code than these traditional ones and
they're very small. I did look more
closely at the one that we looked at and
it was essentially a large multifamily
complex was the the key driver in that
one in that one zip code.
All right. because I know I got two
emails today from folks that were
telling me their water bill is now more
expensive than their electric bill and
we're in the summertime and I I was
surprised because I didn't and they sent
me the numbers they were looking at one
one bill was 400 and some change and the
other one was over 600 so and I don't
see anything like that in here and I
know the the breakdown we saw the other
day did show averageages
that would indicate where the high usage
was coming from.
Yeah. And I think what Rebecca showed
also got to that 1% of our customers are
using a a lot of water. And when you
start looking at the that volume of
water, there are additional costs that
go with that. And so as as those tiers
are set and and as Rebecca can can
articulate more, there are additional
capital needs, the water resource leases
that are tens of millions of dollars uh
in order to acquire enough resources to
provide the water for different levels
of water use. The pipe size has to be
different in certain areas when demand
is so much higher than what we see in
some other areas. And so, yes, those
tiers have the things that that that
Rebecca mentioned, they also get to the
true cost of delivering that volume of
water. And so, we do have some residents
and customers that have experienced
larger increases. They are also using
multiples of what our average home in
Gilbert is using and have additional
demands on the system for that.
So, let me ask you this because these
numbers that I'm seeing here are not the
numbers you guys showed us the other
day. So that surprised me. And the other
thing that I know that's in here, I saw
it, but wasn't as clear was the fact
that we had like 12% of the residents
using 40% of the town's consumption. I
didn't I saw it in here, but it was not
as clear and we blew through that. It
did. Am I correct in that number?
Correct. Yes, Mayor. Council member
Lions. numbers that are broken out here
by zip code now are specifically single
family residential numbers that we
shared with you last week that were the
$200 range per zip code were all
customer classes. So that included and
averaged out the multif family users,
the large commercial users and the
single family residential. That was the
average bill across the entire zip code
of all customers including schools and
and users. This is just family
residential. So, this would be
reflective of um your your average
neighbor that would be if they had a
$400 water bill, their their average
neighborhood bill is somewhere in the
$70 to $80 range.
But if I'm understanding you correctly,
then like the neighborhood near me,
which is similar to White Fence Farms,
but they can have a cow. They got like
an acre of land, they got a cow, they
may flood irrigate or whatever. That's
excluded from these numbers you gave us.
Is that what I'm understanding?
Correct. The flood irrigation would be
excluded. Correct. But we don't have a
complete picture in this slide that you
showed us what the rates are per usage
cuz all I'm seeing is single family
residential.
Correct.
Okay. Um
this is the um usage graph that we
showed. We had we broke it out into just
absolute highest tier. That was one that
was requested as well. 50,000 gallons is
not actually a tier that we have. It was
just a request. You know how many people
are using more than 50,000 gallons of
water a month. So, this is the one where
you say we say 89% of our residents are
using less than 20,000 gallons a month.
Um, and then the other 11% of our
customers are using more than 20,000
gallons a month and are using what is
that 40% of our residential water
consumption.
Okay. Um,
the other thing that we we did discuss
and I and if you can go to the slide
that shows the rate increases over the
last 20 years, I think it was 20 years
in there.
All right. Right there. Go back. Okay.
So, if I understand this correctly, and
I do want to point this out, out of over
a 15-year period from 2010 to 25, we've
had three rate increases over that
period of time. Correct.
From which time period again? I
from 2010 to 25. So the last 15 years
we've only had three rate increases. Is
that correct?
In water, we've had four. Had one in
2018, 22, 23, and 24 or 24, and 25.
We've had four. Okay. But the one chart
you showed
illustrated if we had had a gradual
increase over time, it would have we've
been in a lot better position. Now my
question is was there
was there water delivery cost increases
during these years we didn't do rate
increases
what's kind of going on um council
member lines there were okay
um and that's where you see the cost for
water becoming a larger percentage of
our total water operating um budget is
we saw those increases and then we were
offsetting that by not doing other
things in order to artificially keep the
rates lower than they really should have
been.
Right. So, if we had if we had pegged
the the rate of delivering water to the
actually the cost of delivering the
water, we wouldn't be where we're at
right now. Is that fair to say?
Definitely would have helped make up the
difference.
Is that what's illustrated in that slide
you showed that if it had been increased
5% per year, is that what that's trying
to illustrate?
Yes. What's that what that slide was
trying to show is that if we had just
increased 5% per year, our current water
bill would be lower, but we would have
collected more revenue over the last 15
years than where we're at right now.
Okay,
that's all I got for now.
Council member Toruson,
one thing to note is that we've got
we've had some failures that are
unanticipated,
you know, pipe failures, uh, problems
with the northwater treatment plant that
even with this, there may be other
issues to deal with. So granted, there
should have been an increase,
a cost of living per se increase uh, for
years rather than off-putting
maintenance and off-putting uh,
construction. But we had councils that
uh wanted to save that 5% rather than
preserve our infrastructure. One of the
questions I have though is we have HOAs
are taking a pounding. I'm looking at
the fees for my HOA. They're double what
they were 5 years ago. It's incredible.
We don't have a pool. We don't have a
rec center. We have some grassy areas.
And I feel we're using uh potable water
and that seems to be a problem with a
lot of the areas. The uh was it Trilogy
uses 45 million gallons of water a year
for for that I believe is the number
as we try. We're dialing a friend.
I think we're both wanting a friend.
I'm I'm I'm saying that because I'm
really sure it's 45 million gallons of
water.
What can we do to help these HOAs
offset because they're using water at a
higher rate than if they were using
treated water? I mean, how can we get to
the point? Because that's affecting
people also. They're not just paying it
here on their own bill. They're paying
it on their HOA bill. And some of these
HOAs didn't weren't smart about the way
they were built. How do how do we get to
help them? How do we encourage that? Is
there something to do to turn that
using a recycled water?
You went you went a different direction
than I than I anticipated at the very
end there. Let me let me make this point
and then I'll uh speak to the recycled
water uh topic. So HOAs the they have
resources available to them just like
our single family residential customers.
are always willing to have our water
conservation team provide education um
for landscape water use, provide water
budgets for HOAs, and we've expanded the
non-residential grass removal rebate
program um to have a a larger financial
impact and make it more appealing to
HOAs to remove non-functional turf. Uh
as far as the water the reclaimed water
question, that would be a conversation.
[Laughter]
Oh, there's Lauren. Great. We're gonna
phone a friend here. Thank you.
Good evening and mayor and council. Um,
so I don't have the numbers for Trilogy
right in front of me, but um, the
conversation about switching from
portable to reclaimed. Um, switching
sources doesn't really help us from a
water resources scenario because it's
all one water. We're using that water
that's not going to HOAs right now or to
businesses to recharge at our riparian
preserve south recharge site. So, um
although conversion would offset what's
going there and allow more water from
the portable side, in total we're not
gaining water, right? The net the same.
Um the other consideration is when an
HOA
desires to use reclaimed water, they
have to build all the infrastructure to
get that reclaimed water to the
neighborhood. There's a large capital
investment that's needed to um bring
that water supply to the neighborhood.
Also, our reclaim system is a lower
pressure system than our potable system.
So, it can't be just connected directly
to irrigation system and sprinklers. you
have to install um storage. So much like
Morrison Ranch has um lakes that are for
storage because they're on reclaimed
water and how they were initially built.
Um and the developer paid for all of
that, right, to get that to the
neighborhood. But now, um if a
neighborhood's already established, you
have to build that pipeline, build the
storage, build the pump station. A HOA
has to manage that now and pay yes
reclaimed water rates but also pay for
the infrastructure maintain on top of
that. So although the water rate will be
less because the reclaimed water is less
there's also the maintenance of the
infrastructure going forward and the ROI
on doing all that investment is probably
15 to 20 years. So although they may um
eventually see a benefit in making a
switch, that's going to be a very large
capital investment the HOA is going to
have to make um and charge fees for to
coup those costs. So um there's a lot of
different factors at play when it comes
to switching sources and possible. We've
had one community switch, but they had
the pipeline right in front of the
neighborhood. Um, so the cost was a lot
less. Um, so there's just a lot going on
when it comes to considering what source
you use for for landscape irrigation. So
I know I probably said way too many
details. Hopefully that's helpful, but
um, essentially we just recommend really
looking at the outdoor water use. Try to
participate in our water conservation
programs, our landscape water budget
program. Make sure you're watering to
budget for the HOAs just much like we uh
recommend to the residents.
And um if that's not enough, we also
have our uh grass removal rebate um
which you can uh look into to remove
specifically nonfunctional turf grass
that's not being used for play in the
community to consider um as well to
reduce water use that the HOA is using.
So lot of details there. Hopefully that
was helpful.
It was. But hopefully hopefully there's
a few more people along that supply
other than just one that came to you and
and did it. But there's we have any way
to reach out to some of these HOAs. If
you've ever been involved in an HOA,
trust me, most of the time you're
dealing with an ego. You're not dealing
with a business person.
uh we reach out some people and uh as a
town we're going to have to redo our
standards because we require a certain
amount of grass, require a certain
amount of bushes, require a certain
amount of trees. And if we're asking
people to reduce that, we got to give
them a break somehow. We're going to
have to take a look at what the
standards are that we're trying to
enforce and what those agreements are.
Is there any intent on doing that?
Can it be done or is it done from your
department or is it done from up here
where we start talking about looking at
how to save people money because this is
an awful lot of money that some people
are paying and it's not your fault. You
didn't write it that way. You know,
saying you're just telling me the ugly
truth. But I do want to try and get it
so we can kind of it's contained more
that we don't have unrealistic
expectations of certain areas.
and
if we can help that we're reaching out
to these HOAs and saying not just
waiting for them to come to us but going
to them and saying hey we're seeing this
much usage we're going to try and help
take the bill down let's look at this
and see if we can proactively get to
that rather than reactively get to it or
get to it through us because we get the
dozens of calls of my bills up and my
baby can't eat today. So, do is there
something proactive we can do now?
Yes, Mayor and Council Member Toruson.
Um, our count our conservation team is
doing outreach constantly. Um, and we've
been doing more outreach to our HOAs and
making them know we're available to come
out to speak at board uh meetings. I
don't how many we've done this year, but
we've seen an uptick in how many have
requested a presentation on our
programs. And we've also had many new
neighborhoods uh join our landscape
water budget program or water wise
Gilbert. So we're seeing more engagement
on that front. Um that's more on your
point of helping them manage what they
already have in place. Um, and then as
far as from our conservation code, back
in 2021, we did update the code so that
even if you're using reclaimed water,
um, you're not allowed to have as many
high water use plants if you're on
reclaimed water. Um, historically, we've
always limited how many how much
basically put a cap on how much of
percentage of your landscape could be
high water use plants and grass. Um, and
so that incentivizes the installation of
low water use plants and those that are
on the ADWR low water use plant list,
but we can always investigate um more
conservation code updates to further
restrict that and have more desert
landscaping. So, if that's something you
would like us to look into, we're happy
to.
Thank you, Council Member Bonjivani.
Thank you, Mayor. Okay, I think I have
some numbers, but I may be wrong. They
might be before we raised system
development fees. So, Kelly, if I sound
way wrong, save me. Okay. Um, and this
goes back to the question that I get
from residents all the time. Are are we
paying for new neighborhoods? Why are we
paying for apartments? And I just for
the record, and help me make an official
record if you could. Um developers are
paying between water and wastewater
$14,000
per home that they build and $148 per
square foot per apartment. If that's
close, I just want to bring out the
point that they're paying these fees
prior to anyone moving in and prior to
the resident moving in or the resident
moving into the apartment pays their
first water bill. Am I correct?
The developers do pay those bees fees
before they move in so we can create the
infrastructure. And you're right, it's
uh $14,100. That's just the water and
water resources portion. It doesn't even
include the wastewater. Okay.
That's for inch.
Yeah.
So, is it safe to assume that
developers are paying their fair share?
Is how the system development fee is
designed and it's strictly uh highly
regulated under state statutes. they pay
their fair share.
Okay. So, I had a meeting with my
neighborhood and um it's in the 85298
and probably 16 of the people that were
there
um are paying
I'm I'm basing this off of total utility
bills because we in our meeting my n my
zip code was $198 average and my
neighbors are paying
$1,100 $1,200 $100
uh per month for utilities, mainly
water. Um I'm not paying anywhere near
that. I have a huge pool and a huge
pond. Um can you tell me what some of
the things that my neighbors and other
people who are paying more than their
zip code average that's showing here?
I'm hearing $400 a month, 500, 600. What
can they do um before I mean what can
they do to help lower that bill
um that the town can help them with?
Mayor, council member Bonivani, thank
you for the question. Um there are two
things that go into the water portion of
the utility bill. It's your meter base
fee increases with size of the meter. As
you have a larger meter, that base fee
goes up because it costs more to
operate. They can't they can't control
they can't control what meter size. What
can they do?
What what I'm getting into is the then
it's the consumption and that is the
part that have more control over. And so
to me $1,200 a month is an incredibly
high water user. I would make sure they
didn't have any leaks and that they were
watering appropriately.
Okay. So help me here. So my my I had a
water bill one month of 850 bucks. I
freaked out.
I called the town. They came down and
they came down not just because I'm a
council member, but they came down
because I called them. And um they said
I had some leaks going on. So I called a
professional and found out that I had
leaks. And I didn't have an ego enough
to say, "No, I don't have leaks. I had
plenty of leaks." And got the bill down
to $250 a month from $850 a month.
So what I'm trying to get at is that we
have if if 12% of this town is using 40%
of the water, they're not growing crops
in their backyard, right?
I would assume not.
Yeah, I haven't. And my backyard is a
freaking jungle. I don't know if you
ever seen it. It's a It's a jungle.
There are things that we can do rather
than just get on social media and
complain about our water bill. And I I
hope that everyone
goes through these things that we that
they can do. They can call the town, see
if there's leaks. See if there's leaks
going on. Fix those leaks. Get to a
point where the water bill is
manageable. Because when I see
10 times use of the average person,
average water in my in my zip code or
any of these zip codes up here. Um
that's a problem that we have to handle.
It's our responsibility as as homeowners
to figure out why it's that that wide
that high. Um I I had leaks to a point I
think it was um gosh I think it was
likeif 15 gallons a minute or something
like that. It was huge. Surprised I
didn't have a sinkhole, right? But
there's things that all of us can do to
conserve water.
And I've had questions about the tiered
water fees. Why is it so expensive for
people using more water per thousand
gallons than it is for people using less
water? And maybe I'm wrong, but that's
to me that's called responsibility.
And if we wanted to because they said to
me, why don't we just charge one fee for
per gallon so everyone pays the same
amount. That isn't fair to the people
who are conserving water, those people
who are doing it right, those people
that aren't using 80,000 gallons a
month. Um, I don't mean to go off right
now, but this has just been something
that we all have heard every single day
for the last year and a half. And
personally, I want to see more self, you
know, responsibility. And I tell people
all the time, find out if you have
leaks, adjust your water to the to the
town's recommended water for your for
your grass and for your plants. And if
your water bill is still high after you
do all that, give us a call. But I think
we need to take some responsibility.
um
we're paying for something that that
basically was ignored for many years and
that's a shame. And my hope is that
after the five years when this thing is
uh completed,
if any of us are up here still, my hope
is that water bill goes down. I can tell
that's one thing I'm going to definitely
do if I'm still sitting here. But I want
to make sure that
residents know that there's things that
they can do rather than just going on
social media and attacking the water
bill. And I think I've had enough. So,
sorry. If
I may add one thing, uh, part of the
transition to our new utility billing
system is to provide customers with more
data and more access than ever to their
water usage so they are empowered to
make those changes and see what their
water use is so they can understand how
to fix it. Thank you,
Council Member Torres.
First, Coke or Mountain Dew.
Coke.
Okay, that answered that. The uh one
thing that would probably be great if
you guys could do is outreach some of
the higher water users. Uh and what he
had said about calling the town, it's
again not because I was a council
person. Guy came out and started looking
trying to figure out, oh, you have a
leak. Well, no, you don't have a leak.
He starts going through it. My house had
been vandalized and it was a $1360 bill.
And because the town came out and took
the time, I ended up being one of the
people that bought the smart irrigation
system, installed it, the whole bit, and
it took it way down. I'm I'm afraid to
look at my bill because it I'm one of
the people that had a hard time
accessing, and I've got to basically
hold my breath when I log in tomorrow.
But I know my bill is not $1,360 because
the town does come out and if you if you
can reach out to some of the you see
them you see these high users. What can
we do to help? Do we we will come out
and check to see if you leak. We'll give
you advice on this. We'll show you these
programs. Can we be more proactive so
that we can start the people that are
most affected?
Not the guy that's affected $30 a month.
The guy that's affected 300 a month. Can
we do something to to start an outreach
program to phone calls? Anything? Can we
do something?
Patrick, did you have something?
Uh, Mayor, she would like to answer that
first and then I had a comment to make.
Oh, sure. I was just going to say
certainly we do outreach for continuous
consumption, but we can also do outreach
for high water users.
Okay. Um, mayor, members of the council,
I just wanted to one thank the staff for
putting this information together. It is
a very complicated issue. That was a
very, as council member Bonjiovani
pointed out, you may need a PhD to
really understand
all of the different elements that come
into this. Water is a complicated issue
in our state and it's a complicated
issue in our community and there's a lot
of factors that go into it. Um, I I
would like to add on to Council Member
Bonjiovani's comments in regards to
where we we stand today. We've had some
singular issues around infrastructure
with a water treatment plant, the single
largest capital project in the town's
history by a considerable amount and
something of tremendous importance for
the quality of our water, having enough
treatment capacity um to treat all the
water that we do receive as well as the
wells that we've had to do. We had nine
wells that we planned on doing on over a
decade. We are in the middle of a
historic prolonged drought in this
region and we had to accelerate the
construction of those wells to make sure
depending on what happens on the
Colorado River which is anticipated
potentially as soon as January of 2027
that we can still meet the demand for
this community depending on the impacts
and the cuts we take from that water and
those are a singular point in time. We
always have repair and maintenance
needs. We will always have
infrastructure sometimes that doesn't
last as long as it's projected life uh
anticipates it to um but they are
singular points and and they will once
we pay off those projects they will fall
off. But what to your point about why
customers asking why can't we have one
flat rate across the board? If if it was
not a a scarce resource if we had an
unlimited supply of water we could
certainly do something like that. It is
a scarce resource. With that being said,
this town has been a very good steward
in managing our water supply and in
building an assured portfolio. We've got
almost 10 years of credit stored in the
aquafers below this community. So, we've
we've done everything that can be done
to secure our water supply and make sure
it's there to meet our needs. But that
being said, it's a scarce resource.
We're in the middle of a historic
drought and when it comes to it's a it's
a consumptive cost and if you use more
then you're going to have to pay more
because we only have so much of it to go
around and I think one of the things and
this is not will not be unique to us but
one of the things we may have to come to
terms and grapple with in this state and
in the southwestern United States and
any state that finds itself in a similar
position. We have a very affluent
community on the whole and just because
you can afford to pay for it doesn't
mean that we shouldn't necessarily allow
water to be consumed at unusually large
amounts um depending on what the usage
is. We still want to have a robust
economy and have employers that create
meaningful jobs for our residents, but
we're going to have to really challenge
ourselves as we move forward through
this. What can we do to use water more
wisely, to manage water we have more
wisely? Um, and what does that mean for
people in their lives?
Council member Lions,
just one point of clarity. It's my
understanding that we get charged as a
town a tiered rate depending on how much
water we bring in. Is that correct?
Mayor, council member Lines, I'm not
sure I understand the question. Are you
talking about Gilbert as a
Gilbert as a as a user?
Does it cost us more to bring more water
in?
I'm gonna phone a friend.
Cap cap charges.
Council member Lions. Um, if I
understand correctly, so the water that
we bought or the water rights that we
have when the town started growing was
considerably less expensive than the
next bucket of water that we have to go
get for either resiliency projects when
we have shortages or for that growth.
and the growth will pay for its for its
own water coming in. But anytime we have
to go out and get more water, even just
to to to shore up our existing resources
for our existing customers, it costs
considerably more now than it did 20, 30
years ago when we were looking at it um
purchasing it the first time, if that's
what you mean.
Okay.
we have to remember is it it costs and
it's it's going to cost more over time
to purchase the water, to transport the
water, to treat the water, and to
distribute the water. It's going to cost
more all the time. Uh and we can't lose
sight of that. Conservation is the key
that we have to to work on. Um
especially
and I echo what Patrick was saying that
we know what's going to be happening.
Unfortunately, I think the general
public does not understand what's
happening on the Colorado River. And and
that's going to hit us right in the face
by 2027. And we we they need to
understand, as he said, is a scarce
resource. It costs more. And when I hear
the number of 12% using 40% of the
water,
there's a reality check that needs to
happen there. And um but thank you for
the presentation.
Any other comments?
Thank you, Rebecca.
Thank you very much.
I'll entertain a motion to adjourn our
study session.
So moved.
Second.
Moved and seconded. All in favor say I.
I.
We have about five minutes or so before
we start the next meeting.
Yeah, I should.