[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] I'd like to call the city of Apache Junction City Council meeting to order for July 16, 2024 to order and ask everyone to put their cell phones on silent. The invocation will be head by led, excuse me, by Councilman HECK and the pledged by Vice Mayor Schroeder.
[0:30] Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege and freedom we have of being able to gather together this evening to discuss city business.
[0:39] We ask that you give the stamp and council wisdom and clarity in their decision. Keep us mindful that we serve the residents of the city.
[0:49] We ask you to watch over the men and women who serve in our military the world over. Keep them safe in these troubling and turbulent times.
[0:57] We ask also for your blessing on our first respondent, including our police and part of apartments, along with our EMS personnel.
[1:05] Please keep these brave men and women safe in their duties to protect and care for their residents of this city.
[1:12] And we pray now for Brian and need a solar and the family in this time after the death of their daughter. Please give them comfort during this time of great grief.
[1:24] We thank you for the honor and privilege we have to serve the residents of the city.
[1:28] These things we ask in your name.
[1:34] The United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation around in the visible liberty and justice are all.
[1:51] Mayor Wilson.
[1:53] Here.
[1:54] Vice Mayor Schroeder.
[1:55] Present.
[1:56] Councilmember Cross.
[1:57] Here.
[1:58] Councilmember Heck.
[1:59] Here.
[2:00] Councilmember Johnson.
[2:01] Here.
[2:02] Councilmember Nessor.
[2:03] Present.
[2:04] Councilmember Solar.
[2:05] Here.
[2:06] You have a corner.
[2:08] Okay.
[2:09] The consent agenda.
[2:11] As a reminder, all items in the consent agenda will be approved with one motion.
[2:16] If a councilmember wishes to remove an item for further discussion, the request must be made prior to approving the consent agenda and will be moved to new business.
[2:27] Do I have a motion for the agenda?
[2:29] Your honor.
[2:30] Yes.
[2:31] I move that the consent agenda be accepted and approved as presented and to include authorization be granted to the city manager or his designation.
[2:41] Design contracts for item number three on the consent agenda.
[2:46] Second.
[2:47] Moved in seconded.
[2:48] Roll call.
[2:51] Councilmember Heck.
[2:52] Yes.
[2:53] Councilmember Cross.
[2:54] Yes.
[2:55] Vice Mayor Schroeder.
[2:56] Yes.
[2:57] Councilmember Nessor.
[2:58] Yes.
[2:59] Councilmember Johnson.
[3:00] Yes.
[3:01] Councilmember Solar.
[3:02] Yes.
[3:03] Mayor Wilson.
[3:05] Yes.
[3:06] Motion passes unanimously.
[3:07] Thank you.
[3:08] Regional intergovernment meetings from council.
[3:12] Anyone have anything to say?
[3:15] Right.
[3:18] No, sir.
[3:22] Okay.
[3:23] All right.
[3:24] Oh, that was fast.
[3:26] City managers report.
[3:28] Thank you.
[3:29] You're on a bright pal.
[3:30] City manager for my report tonight.
[3:32] We have representatives from Republic waste services.
[3:35] Charlotte Thomas and Emma Reyes.
[3:37] Who are here to present?
[3:38] They're typically having come in every four or five months and they have a little presentation.
[3:43] And we'll turn it to you, Charlotte.
[3:45] Good evening.
[3:46] Mayor and council.
[3:47] Thank you for for having us again.
[3:49] Speak right into the mic a little bit.
[3:51] Please.
[3:52] Is that better?
[3:53] Yeah.
[3:54] There we go.
[3:55] Good evening.
[3:56] Mayor and council.
[3:57] Thank you for having us again.
[3:59] Just to reintroduce myself.
[4:00] Charlotte Thomas.
[4:01] The general manager for Republic services.
[4:04] East Phoenix.
[4:05] Business unit.
[4:06] And I'm here with Emma Reyes.
[4:08] Our municipal manager.
[4:11] Thank you.
[4:12] I'm going to say we come every quarter to give you an update on the work that we're doing in a patchy
[4:14] junction.
[4:15] We're about halfway through the year.
[4:18] We're continually learning and improving our operations.
[4:21] To best serve your community in the safest way that we can.
[4:25] Both on our hauling side and our landfill operation side.
[4:29] We're into quarter three now and we have our 3rd quarter free down.
[4:35] coming up in a couple weeks. Emma is going to give some more information about how our free
[4:40] dump week went in quarter two, as well as answering some questions frequently asked questions
[4:45] around bulk pick up and our holiday schedule. So I'm going to pass it over to Emma to go through our
[4:50] presentation.
[4:55] Alrighty. Can everyone hear me?
[4:57] Mm-hmm. Good evening, Mayor. Council.
[5:01] Also, just a reminder on the holiday schedule. So, you know, these are the only holidays that we
[5:10] have a one day delay on. So, any other, I guess like we have Labor Day coming up,
[5:17] there won't be any holiday delays for that. So just a reminder, the only no collection
[5:23] services days are Thanksgiving. So this year, obviously November 28th, Christmas, and New Year's Day.
[5:33] So just a reminder that those are the only three holidays that we don't have a collection on
[5:39] and it will be a one day delay. And then for free dump week, the next ones that we have coming up is August
[5:48] 5th through the 10th and then November 4th and 9th. So we already had two. And the results from those
[5:57] for Q1 this year was 5.51 tons. And then we had 97 tickets or 97 people take advantage of free dump week.
[6:08] And they had an average ton per haul of 0.53 tons. And then for Q2,
[6:16] there was 87.73 tons, 93 tickets, 93 people showed up for free dump week. And the average ton was
[6:25] about 0.94 tons per haul in their pickup trucks or trailers. So just as a reminder, bulk service,
[6:35] you know, we really want to keep the bulk pile to about 6 feet, by 6 feet, by 6 feet, and we've been
[6:44] seeing quite large bulk service piles out in the streets. And we just want to make a reminder
[6:52] of, you know, any to be 6 feet in depth altogether.
[7:02] Just as a reminder, again, so lose grass, leaves, weeds and twigs, you know, we're trying to really
[7:10] achieve, you know, less than about 10 minutes to pick up the total bulk pile. So if residents can
[7:18] please keep their bulk piles to about that long, that would be awesome for our drivers and our
[7:24] helpers out there. But I wanted to open it up for any questions for anything that we presented on tonight.
[7:40] I'm on the board of the Apache Junction Community Development Corporation. And I wanted to thank
[7:46] you and the public services for donating the roll-off dumpsters that you do helps us tremendously when we
[7:53] have our make a difference day. And a couple other times, you guys have been very generous in doing that.
[7:59] And I want to make sure that everybody knows that you've here, you do that. That's free to us and yet
[8:07] you help us substantially in that particular moment make a difference day. So I thank you very,
[8:13] very much for that. Yeah, absolutely. Pretty cool. Yeah. I got you here. I got to put you
[8:22] piece of the fire a little bit. We occasionally get complaints about the service and I'm
[8:28] imagining you guys do too. We get them. I'm quite sure they came to you also. Have these things
[8:35] are these easily resolved or are you taking measures to kind of fix the particular type of
[8:41] complaints that you might get? Yeah, I'm happy to take this. Yes, we do get a lot of the complaints and
[8:48] we work very well with the city manager's office to get a head of complaints that we might have.
[8:55] There's always room to improve our process. We have a process when there's a mispick up or maybe
[9:02] contaminated load of recycling or bulky item that does not comply with what we need. For example,
[9:10] unbound tree clippings and our process is very rigorous and sometimes there's human error. Sometimes
[9:21] the driver doesn't take a picture. Sometimes a customer service representative does not
[9:27] properly track a mispick up. That's just an opportunity for us to coach and train. We have
[9:34] continuous coaching conversations with our drivers whether it's a missed bulk picture or can falls
[9:41] in a hopper. How they need to properly notate that and get it to our supervisors as quickly as possible.
[9:47] Again, we have that same coaching feedback loop with our customer service reps. I said, we're always
[9:55] taking that feedback and improving where we can. Are you guys getting up to speed on your drivers?
[10:00] While back, there was an issue with drivers. Yes, we are fully staffed with our drivers. Our residential
[10:06] team is actually, I believe, at a plus, plus one, which is great, because that means we can train
[10:12] our drivers. We have a handful of drivers who've been with us for quite a long time who are thinking
[10:16] about retirement that next phase of their life and their careers. We're really building our Ben's
[10:23] strengths and getting these younger drivers trained on the specifics of what that route looks like.
[10:29] Okay, so at the end, I think you guys are a great partner with Matthew Junction. I think you guys are
[10:33] in a fantastic job. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. We've had some discussions and it'd be nice to
[10:42] hear from you guys. Some of our constituents seem to see or think that the trash truck is coming down
[10:52] on a Monday and picking up the regular waste and the very next day the exact same truck is coming
[10:59] through and using the same truck and picking up the recycles. How is that done and where does the
[11:07] recycles go and where does the trash go? That's a great question. Thank you for that. So we do sometimes
[11:14] use our trucks for different lines. Sometimes it's bulk. Sometimes it's MSW. Sometimes it's recycled.
[11:23] All of those loads go to the correct place. So all of the MSW from Apache Junction goes to the Apache
[11:29] Junction landfill and all of the recycling volume goes to our river recycling facility
[11:34] right over in the salt river Indian reservation. Sometimes it looks like the same. It might be the same
[11:40] truck on a different day but the loads are completely separated. Sure. Thank you. One other thing. I
[11:49] asked this I believe the last time. What is the possibility of starting some plant growth on the
[11:58] slopes of landfill to help get it blending in with the desert environment? Yep and another and thank you
[12:04] for that question again. We'll start talking about what the long-term plan is for the landfill as we get
[12:12] closer to the plant closure date and how we want to move forward from there. We'll continue our
[12:18] conversations with city managers office and with the elected officials as well about what that long-term
[12:25] plan is. Okay thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the update. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming in
[12:37] and thanks. We now have the opportunity to hear from Eli a few years back we used to present a similar
[12:43] presentation regarding volunteers in the city and we're very happy now to be able to bring this
[12:49] annual report back to the city council to the community to talk a little bit about something exciting
[12:55] related to all the volunteers that help make it happen here. Good evening mayor city council. I'll just
[13:05] jump right into some of the numbers that we have prepared for you. So during fiscal year 2023,
[13:13] 2024, our city recorded nearly 18,000 hours of volunteer service to get a sense of how this translates into
[13:20] fiscal impact. We use the Arizona standard volunteer value rate, which is $32 per hour. This rate is
[13:28] published by the nonprofit group independent sector. It includes considerations for wages, benefits,
[13:35] and other employment or contract related expenses. So taking this all into consideration,
[13:39] our estimate is that the city or that city volunteer contributions exceeded half a million dollars
[13:45] in value to our community over the last fiscal year. Here you can see the four departments who engage
[13:52] volunteers sorted by the total number of hours contributed. We want to talk a little bit about how
[14:05] the value of, sorry, the value of civic volunteers and extends beyond just savings to the city
[14:11] and the value we get. Fiscally, volunteers are essential and keeping a patchy junction vibrant and
[14:18] engage their contributions, contributions range from supporting law enforcement as auxiliary officers and
[14:25] cadets, mentoring youth, running engaging library programs, coaching youth sports,
[14:35] bolstering special events, cleaning our desert and taking care of animals at our shelter.
[14:43] Our volunteers bridge service gaps, strengthen social cohesion and are the drivers behind a patchy
[14:50] junction strong sense of community spirit. I just want to close by saying any of the volunteer
[14:57] roles highlighted tonight have interested anyone watching.
[15:00] I'm feeling free to reach out to our office, city manager's office and we can help you get connected.
[15:06] You can also visit our jobs portal at governmentjobs.com, forward slash careers, forward slash Apache Junction AZ to see where we're putting out
[15:17] to get help. I look forward to coming back next year and delivering a similar report on our volunteer contributions and open out to any questions.
[15:28] Questions? Yes, I do.
[15:32] So we like just a quick question and this is, it's a personal, so I'll admit that going in.
[15:40] With the H.A. Mountain Rangers, we volunteer a lot for city events. Is that, are those hours logged into the parks and wrecked you know?
[15:50] I have to go into the, we have less.
[15:54] They are, okay, just want to make sure that they, we, that those hours are credited as volunteers.
[15:59] Okay, let's thank you, Liz. Thank you. Okay.
[16:05] Anyone else?
[16:08] Thank you. Thanks, Eli, and thank you to all our volunteers. We cannot get as much as we can accomplished in partnership with our community.
[16:18] Yeah, it's a lot of hours.
[16:21] I'll thank all of you for coming and helping out and giving them support as well and helping them, you know, connect and, again, we're always looking for volunteers and some of you have done many, many hours and many, many years.
[16:33] Those are our reports tonight, Your Honor. Thank you. Thank you. I think we're really blessed to have that.
[16:38] Yeah, as a community, they're really, really blessed to have that.
[16:42] Yeah, absolutely correct.
[16:44] Anything from current, current events?
[16:46] We have nothing tonight on the current events.
[16:48] It's just a matter of, yeah.
[16:49] All right. All business.
[16:53] Continued discussion of possible consideration, the word of contract for sport, field, lighting, retrofit projects.
[17:08] Good evening, Mayor City Council, Liz Lingabod, Parks and Recreation Director.
[17:13] I'm just here, again, I think we had presented on July 2nd.
[17:18] All of this specifics about our prospector parks, sports lighting and the Vergy contract.
[17:23] As we had shared with you at that meeting, we, because everybody was pretty much fine with everything that was in there that the only reason we would come and take it off of consent and bring it to a business item is if we had any changes.
[17:37] I just wanted to make them really quick minor changes. We do have our presentation up if there's anything you need me to go back to.
[17:44] The mainly we're just here to share with you a few of the changes in the contract.
[17:49] Much of it was just some minor formatting things, but we also added in the possibility of in addition to our befinding,
[17:56] potentially being able to use CDBG funding.
[17:59] And so we just wanted that to be listed there in the event that we are eligible and we do receive some of the different grants that we're putting out there.
[18:07] It does have a cause that says such as so that if we were to receive a state parks grant or some other grant that we found.
[18:13] Remember that those second or the third and the second and the third projects though prospector park soccer fields and the superstition shadows ball field because could then be gone after if we were to receive that money.
[18:28] So just as a quick reminder, like I said, I'm not going to go through the whole presentation, but it's here we had some photos of our first two fields fields one and two.
[18:40] But this project in particular is for fields 3 and 4 that is what we budgeted for this year out of the general fund.
[18:48] And then this contract gives us the ability that if we were to find additional grant funding to be able to do the prospector park multi purpose fields and the superstition shadows park ball field, which would then.
[19:01] Get us ahead of the game on our CIP on our capital improvement plan and then be able to make it so that all of our sports fields were dark sky friendly certified sports field.
[19:13] We anticipate starting this project if you were to approve the contract in October whenever we go and are overseeing time frame.
[19:22] And the only other notable change in the contract was that the vendor wanted us to specifically spell out that if we were to do the superstition shadows park ball field that we are removes though the reason why that that one is so expensive is because we do have to remove old poles that will need to be replaced and that is specifically outlined in the scope for project 3.
[19:49] So with that if you have any other questions tonight we are here to approve it once we've answered questions and if you are ready to do so.
[19:55] I'm just very happy that you were able to get the other language in there because of the last time we spoke so that we have the best opportunity to get more money and more of these fields.
[20:14] Thank you so much.
[20:15] One quick question.
[20:16] No problem.
[20:17] Back down I was reading through the contracts and everything and I think there was saying in there that we were placing the wiring also in the aspect on it with new.
[20:29] I call it piping but anyway it's the conduit for.
[20:34] Yes so they spelled out for each of the projects the ones where we needed to replace wiring and a lot of the wiring is also so that everything can be on the same controls.
[20:42] It will be in the musco system so that way everything is programmable from a computer from the park rangers phone app.
[20:50] And and off site and then is also read for maintenance purposes at the musco offices so that when things need to be changed they will be but yes that is included in.
[21:00] Okay.
[21:01] This is a turn key is the terminology that they use.
[21:05] That everything from start to finish is included in this project there's no hidden hidden costs or extra fees for any of the project.
[21:14] Okay.
[21:15] I have a motion.
[21:17] One quick question.
[21:18] So Liz or what length of time does this is this pricing locked in.
[21:24] So we did this contract for the full fiscal year.
[21:29] So that way we would have the opportunity throughout the whole year as soon as long as we.
[21:34] Are able to start that agreement we can always come back and do an amendment but it allows us to for the life of this fiscal year be able to.
[21:44] Have that pricing they were comfortable with that and I felt very I think that's very fortunate to get anybody to guarantee a price for 12 months I think is.
[21:54] And there is contingency some I mean if there's some things that we're unforeseen that we agreed.
[21:59] We're not already planned for there is the opportunity for that but yeah this is locked in through June 30 you anticipate that.
[22:08] Any grants for which you'd be seeking funding you could accomplish that within this year then to find out whether that's.
[22:15] Yeah so the project is easily doable this year all three projects.
[22:21] There's readily available materials all of those things can can happen pretty quickly.
[22:27] We are exploring we have explored ARPA funding see the CDDG funding that is for park improvements is something that we've looked at there are different stipulations for all of those though so.
[22:38] We we are still working on that and some of those are competitive grants so we don't even know if we would get them and so we just wanted to make sure that it states states that we could.
[22:48] But there's other grants so there's several state park grants that we are looking at for multiple projects and you know as a city we would determine you know if this is one of those if this is something we could move ahead.
[23:00] With but we would have to find that extra funding the funding beyond what we budgeted for in order to be able to do that.
[23:07] We also considered some of the Indian grants too.
[23:11] Yeah so we would have applied for those ones so there might be some that come available to apply for during the year more than likely that funding would not come in to fruition so we would have.
[23:23] More than likely have had to apply for that in order for that money to come through this fiscal year but we I think we're in the middle of hiring a new grants administrator and so that person will definitely be actively seeking even more.
[23:38] Even more grant possibilities.
[23:48] Do I have a motion.
[23:53] Yes.
[23:54] I move with the award of contract with Vergy for sports field lighting retrofit projects within the city parks and then amount not to exceed.
[24:03] 1,784,427,575 cents which includes a 5% contingency fee approved second.
[24:14] Who've been seconded roll call.
[24:16] Council member cross.
[24:18] Yes.
[24:19] Council member heck.
[24:20] Yes.
[24:21] Council member Johnson.
[24:22] Yes.
[24:23] Vice Mayor Schroeder.
[24:24] Yes.
[24:25] Council member.
[24:26] Yes.
[24:27] Council member.
[24:28] Yes.
[24:30] Mayor Wilson.
[24:31] Yes.
[24:32] Motion passes unanimously.
[24:33] Thank you.
[24:34] New business.
[24:37] Presentation.
[24:38] Presentation.
[24:39] Discruption.
[24:40] Public works.
[24:41] fiscal year.
[24:42] 24 dash.
[24:43] 20.
[24:44] 25.
[24:45] Capital.
[24:46] Improvement.
[24:47] Treat.
[24:48] Treat.
[24:49] Maintenance.
[24:50] Change.
[24:51] Good evening.
[24:54] Mayor.
[24:55] Council member.
[24:56] Shane.
[24:57] So you're.
[24:58] Pull the worst manager.
[24:59] So I'm excited to hear to talk tonight about this fiscal year.
[25:02] We just began with our.
[25:04] Capital Improvement plans.
[25:05] Which includes what we call our street maintenance capital projects as well.
[25:09] So this is opportunity to have staff present.
[25:13] But then also any questions that you might have.
[25:15] Get to me.
[25:16] Public works.
[25:17] What are some of our main projects like this are for.
[25:20] For for this fiscal year.
[25:24] Right.
[25:25] Into the controls moving forward.
[25:30] So starting out with capital improvement.
[25:32] Of course capital improvements.
[25:33] First capital improvements.
[25:34] Very important aspect of that is maintenance.
[25:37] Of course it's nice to take on new projects by new thing or get new things in.
[25:41] But it's very important that you maintain it.
[25:43] And in our street facilities out there.
[25:45] But is the largest investment of the city.
[25:47] Thus wanting a lot when it comes to our maintenance.
[25:49] So we'll go through a quick overview on how we rate our inventory of streets.
[25:54] Those.
[25:55] Keep a formance indicators that we look for when it comes to the performance.
[25:58] Conditions of our streets.
[26:00] And then also move then into what are some of those newer projects.
[26:04] Including some of the designs that we're looking at in this fiscal fiscal year.
[26:08] And with those projects we'll talk about some of those timeframes.
[26:11] Two ideas of when these projects will occur.
[26:15] I usually always give my famous disclaimer that these are just public works plans.
[26:20] There's a lot of on for scenes that happen.
[26:23] So oftentimes some of these couple of these projects each year.
[26:26] Sometimes get pushed beyond those timeframes or from one fiscal year.
[26:29] From one fiscal year to the next depending on what those on for scenes.
[26:32] Those conflicts are with these projects.
[26:34] So I usually just say that.
[26:35] So if you're talking with residents.
[26:38] Again, these are plans.
[26:39] So sometimes need to be flexible and in those aspects.
[26:43] So when we talk about streets.
[26:45] We use a remaining service life.
[26:48] Numbering system and numbers from zero to 20.
[26:51] I gave a little exhibit illustration with those photographs there.
[26:54] This is a picture of lost touch.
[26:56] I've been looking towards our green and superstition mountain in the background.
[27:00] Over last several years we've been doing multiple phases for the reconstruction of lost of lost touch.
[27:06] So the picture on the left there you can see is RSL is zero.
[27:10] So essentially if a street has a rating of zero it is.
[27:13] It's life is gone.
[27:14] Usually it could be a 340 year old street.
[27:17] It's needing the reconstruction of a pavement.
[27:20] And then also the base.
[27:22] If a street is rated as an RSL of 20.
[27:25] That means it's usually brand speaking new.
[27:28] So you can see there after we paved lost touchman there.
[27:31] This within the last year or two.
[27:33] You can see we added those bike lanes.
[27:36] That now is RSL of 20.
[27:39] And maintenance becomes very important.
[27:42] And to help measure that maintenance.
[27:45] We usually have an RSL average that we do for a total inventory.
[27:49] And in yellow there 12.8.
[27:51] We've gone up from last year and last year we actually gone up.
[27:55] So this is one of those rare times that we've had three years where.
[27:59] Overall condition or health.
[28:01] Of our inventory of streets is increased.
[28:04] This was anticipated just because we know we did a lot of preservation.
[28:09] Projects projects that when comes to the cost of square yard is.
[28:14] Less so we were able to touch more pavement and that's very important.
[28:18] Usually want to touch about 30% of your pavement because if you're not touching 30% of your pavement.
[28:23] Each year you aren't doing enough for maintenance and if you do not do enough for maintenance your life of your roads.
[28:28] Do not last as long in your pain twice as much even more than twice as much for roads when it comes to the longer term.
[28:35] So financial management maintenance is very important.
[28:39] So that is a indicator and.
[28:42] Staff we predict that condition that keep performance indicator to go down and we'll explain a little bit more about that going down and next.
[28:50] Next a couple years for some of the projects that we have coming up.
[28:54] The next.
[28:55] Keep performance indicator less than 5% of the inventory in bad condition or poor condition.
[29:03] That number has gone from last year that's good we tried to keep that segment of the inventory very small because if it's large.
[29:11] Those are the roads that are need of reconstruction and you do not want to have too many roads need of reconstruction because we're talking about 60.
[29:21] Dollars a square yard versus two three dollars a square yard if you're maintaining them and getting them the last two or three times longer.
[29:28] So if you get too far behind the eight ball he cannot catch up when it comes to pavement falling into that reconstruction category.
[29:35] Last bullet point is very important.
[29:38] We have a need to try to keep to that close to that.
[29:42] 14 average RSL of about 2.5 million a year.
[29:48] So currently we're at around 2 million so we're almost there when it comes to amount of money that we have for maintain and this is very important.
[29:56] Everybody knows that Pinal County is renewing their sales tax.
[30:00] This November, that is about a third of the money that we currently have to do this maintenance that we're talking here about tonight. So that is a huge for us.
[30:10] All saw our street sales tax too that I think is coming up in the next year or two, ready to sunset and ready for a new renewal. Again, that adds about another 1.8 million to a lot of the preservation maintenance projects that we do, which is very important to to our roads.
[30:28] Like I said, keeping this maintenance up for the inventory of streets that we do have.
[30:34] I gave you all a larger hard copy map of this, so I know you can't read this on the slides and the hard copy can if you're interested in those streets.
[30:44] The main thing I want to point out with this map is it's colorful.
[30:48] As I mentioned earlier in presentation, it's important to hit about 30% of our total inventory of square yards for streets.
[30:54] So we are doing that and we're planning to do that this next year, which is a good sign.
[30:58] So I kidded with some of you and I was handing that map out. I like maps, especially in a colorful and I mean that, it's colorful.
[31:04] It's showing that we're, again, I get these projects done and we're hitting the asphalt, the pavements that we need to get done.
[31:11] Also on there, it's not just some little street projects when we start taking a look at those projects, some of those circles that you see on there.
[31:19] That'll be some of those drainage projects to that we're looking to get done in this next fiscal year or two along with a lot of the street projects that we have identified for the year.
[31:31] All right, just diving into some of the specific projects, street maintenance are one of our biggest categories and probably most important categories of preservation maintenance.
[31:41] This is where you oftentimes hear a lot of public works, street folks say, and keep in the good roads good.
[31:47] A lot of residents don't understand, hey, why you spend so much money, that road was a good play, good shape.
[31:52] There's other roads in our lot worse condition than that. Well, this is where we're really matters.
[31:58] Is doing the right treatments at the right time and oftentimes that is when good roads are in that in that good shape yet that could benefit from like a slurry seal or a fog seal to keep them going.
[32:10] Because when you do the right treatment at the right time, again, you extend the double the life of a road that you need to do those interventions, those treatments at preservation treatments at those times.
[32:23] So we do have a healthy outlook for performing cracks ceiling again, this fall this winter that's often done majority by our in house staff, however, we do cracks do contract out some of the cracks seal.
[32:37] Also, we do have some fog seal that we're going to try to target this fall to do and a lot of those on our arterial roads that we've had have paved within the last year or two.
[32:47] Also, we have a good healthy mix of slurry seal the next spring 2025 and that's going to be a mix of residential and arterial roads as well.
[32:57] And then chip seal another project that we've often done time done in house with our in house staff and we do have some more of those rural roads that we save for our chip seal in the spring 2025.
[33:09] Our next category, the second of three, when it comes to street maintenance rehabilitation, that's often times overlay or inlay where you actually put a layer of new asphalt over existing asphalt meaning usually it's the asphalt that's distressed not necessarily.
[33:26] Not necessarily any base problems.
[33:29] We do have a lot of rehabilitation overlays in lays plans for the next three or four years.
[33:37] We have a small subdivision patchy hole subdivision, which is just east east of south of the patchy trail north of Broadway.
[33:52] I'm free at another side street.
[33:57] You can see it on the map, you'll see it on my map in the middle of the sheet there and it should be in blue but a patchy hole is a small area there just south of the trail north of Broadway.
[34:07] One thing is I want to highlight Broadway Avenue, that's a multi lane five lane road.
[34:14] You can see Broadway right now if you drive it it's getting to be a tough shape.
[34:19] And as many of the interventions as we can with slurry seals, fog seals over the years, we're getting to the point and needs rehabilitation.
[34:26] So Broadway is just the first of our larger major arterials that we have.
[34:33] So this will be extending from Radiant to Idaho, a portion of north iron woods.
[34:38] If you look at your map too, you have a portion of north iron wood.
[34:41] Next year we're looking to do the same thing for superstition Boulevard.
[34:45] And when we're talking about five lanes, two miles, that's about two million dollars.
[34:49] So as I just said SST brings in one point eight, just one of these projects itself takes a lot of the money that we have.
[34:56] So in the next few years we'll be doing probably less preservation maintenance, less reconstruction, focusing on rehabilitation.
[35:04] The cost for square yard is quite a bit more than preservation maintenance, so we're going to be hitting less pavement than we do.
[35:10] Like I said, the key number is 30% of the pavement, we'll be hitting less of that.
[35:14] So we do possibly anticipate our condition of our pavement going down, but not far enough down where we get complaints.
[35:21] Our golden number for our our our pavements is to keep the average RSL above that 11 mark.
[35:29] When we get to 11, I get we get a lot of complaints.
[35:33] You guys get a lot of complaints of pavement, so we try to keep our average above that RSL of 11 and right now we're sitting pretty good at that 12 point eightish number.
[35:45] All right, last category of when it comes to street maintenance reconstruction, we have one more phase for the lost Dutchman and that's from Ironwood to Meridian out there.
[35:53] And then we do have a portion of southern portion of Haven Hollow, which is a subdivision just west of Delaware, south of the superstition north.
[36:01] A patchy trail, Haven Hollow, those roads have been under construction and phases here for last half a dozen years, so this will be the last phase finally for those residents have been patient with us for that Haven Hollow area to get their roads re-constructed.
[36:20] All right, moving into the new new construction, we have a pretty good healthy list, you could see a lot of CIP projects lining up for late 2024.
[36:30] Public works is going to be I think very busy here this next year with a lot of our CIP and street maintenance CIP projects that we have going on.
[36:39] You could see and I know we've had other staff talking to you about some of these projects in the past with some of the IGA's that we need to have in place with a dot related to some of these projects that are grant funded related so that is Winchester Stormdream extension.
[36:55] So that would be from southern to 29th Avenue, hopefully it will be taking care of that ditch to that's been a maintenance challenge deal with, so this will have a lot of great benefits with safety undergrounding those flows but then also with maintenance when it comes to maintaining open channels currently this long Winchester.
[37:16] And we have Delaware Drive Improvement and this is another big one we have that big open channel called the Delaware ditch we call it.
[37:22] So this project is an effort to underground that channel again add some widening also add some multi model lanes additional lanes or traffic but then also other pedestrian bicycle travel areas as well along that long that stretch.
[37:40] So excited about about that because I will have significant impact to for our maintenance and those costs related to that and we have the south iron would drive shoulder widening that's a big safety and that was a grant related to safety that we got through.
[37:56] So everybody knows we have a lot of stuff going on down in ironwood but this project will be on that northern portion south of baseline that it's not part of the master plan community that could still benefit by widening those shoulders so we have some areas where on travelers if they have problems issues have areas to safely turn off the side of the road.
[38:18] And we have the old west highway sidewalks this has been a challenge because it's gone out to bid I think several times and.
[38:25] But we've had we're keeping optimistic and hopeful but right now it's looking like yes possibility here later 24 early 25 so hopefully that will go through and we could actually add some sidewalks along the west highway on the south side to have some of those interconnect.
[38:42] The activity to some of those new developments that have occurred in the last few years along long west highway.
[38:49] And we have some palm wash improvements.
[38:52] We've been really good with flooding and everything but we still have a lot of areas identified that we tried to improve upon so when we do get those monsoon rains when they finally will come that not a matter of if they will they will come.
[39:06] So we do have a project that we're looking at at palm wash which is crosses 16th Avenue west of ironwood over there.
[39:16] So that it scope of work includes some channel lining which will be the slopes as well as the bottom floor of that wash because we have such significant scouring right now.
[39:28] Some safety concerns with some of the kids to attend a charter school there with crossing that wash going to the play fields over on the west side.
[39:38] And also just the scouring that causes erosion to the landscaping that currently exist along along.
[39:46] That wash there self is 16th Avenue and then we have a last phase phase five of the patchy trail median curves and other projects that's been going on for quite a few years.
[39:56] So this will be the last phase of installing curb on the meetings that do not have curbs again a huge safety benefit when it comes to air vehicles.
[40:04] Tire is going off the edge of pavement and you know vehicles operators losing control vehicles get off the edge of pavement.
[40:11] Let alone the great aesthetics improvements that the curb then gives for the opportunity of landscaping to go in to to make those median areas along the patchy trail.
[40:22] Also we're extending looking at extending culverts which help with some of the drain facilitates some of the drainage as well as some of the turn lanes that with our traffic seem to be too short.
[40:32] So we're also expanding creating more huge space for traffic and those turn lanes, especially those median areas on the patchy trail.
[40:43] And then we're looking at early 2025 and that's usually been about the time we've done each of those phases sometime in the winter time when things are cooler, we're doing the concrete work is more optimal during those cooler times of the year.
[40:56] And then the same thing, these Palm Springs subdivision this is subdivision that we've done improvements public works going back almost 20 years ago doing some curb improvements got our improvements in that subdivision and this one specifically will be some of the streets that we're not hit back.
[41:14] 15, 20 years ago east of Royal Palm north of southern, there's a few streets in there including cactus, a stretch of cactus that never got those curves in the try to finish up that subdivision with the curb curb and go.
[41:31] All right quickly just finishing things up here some of the design studies so again a lot of our work is not just project management or you know facilitating these projects as they're going but when it comes to design and implementation and all the coordination there are when it comes to making these projects happen so some of these design studies we're looking at doing this next fiscal year.
[41:54] You can see one of those in the middle there traffic signal at Delaware and southern a lot of people will be very happy to see that happening.
[42:02] I am excited to about a fiber optic master plan that will continue and maybe grow the current existing plans that we do we have with our fiber optic system that the Doug has really taken charge of and ran with here very fast here in the last couple years got us a long way in a very short period of time so with this study will just.
[42:26] extended even further when it comes to connecting with a lot of our public works facilities and that's why I'm excited about it because this is the opportunity to get a lot of our signals connected.
[42:38] Open up a lot of doors when it comes to other smart technologies for example with our street lights some of that which Liz talked about.
[42:45] It comes to interconnecting lighting and having remote controls of self diagnostic if things are going get alerts if things are going wrong instead of waiting for somebody to complain we will get the alert before those complaints happen so excited about that project also last bullet point to public works.
[43:06] A lot of you probably been down to public works if you haven't we're one of the oldest buildings so we're definitely excited because we are growing we've added a lot of lean miles of streets just within the last.
[43:16] A couple years with a master plan community so it's just inevitable that we're going to expand and expand staff you have to expand space so definitely looking forward to make some headway and start with our public works expansion myself.
[43:32] All right, I talked a lot there and reached through a lot to open it up for any questions and I appreciate thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak to you tonight about these projects and plans yes.
[43:43] I don't have so much of a question for you because this you've done such a great job on giving us this information but I do have a question for a city manager.
[43:54] Okay, and that is because this is such in depth and regardless of how pretty this is in color even with the magnifying glasses is really tough when we get such good presentations like this I would really like to get this in an email where I can blow it up and look at it because I'm not going to be able to remember where those different areas are going to start.
[44:19] And and our citizens are going to ask and I'd like to have something to reference back to for those dates and times you're easy ask I concur with that big time.
[44:30] Yeah, and just remember I remember the disclaimer that I said.
[44:35] I've been challenged in the past giving information that ended up oh you said it was going to get done in it dense so again these are plans sometimes changes and usually my practice has always been we try to usually supply.
[44:48] City manager's office for a weekly report so some of these projects are delayed or delayed to another fiscal year we try to communicate that so I'm pretty sure that anybody on the council would have a disclaimer when they.
[45:00] Passed that along to our citizens as well. We just want to have a better ballpark and have this in our back pocket because we can't carry you with us.
[45:09] I'll be happy to join you whenever I can.
[45:13] I remember one year we had washed out road and one of the questions was, why isn't the city out there right now fixing the road?
[45:23] And I said, well, we don't have the equipment. Well, why, what do you mean you don't have the equipment?
[45:28] But we don't have that heavy equipment in that aspect to be able to turn around and remove that section that's been washed out, to repair it and then everything.
[45:37] And I said, well, why didn't the city buy him? And I said, so you want me to buy equipment and let it set or maybe using some time in a year or two years or three years.
[45:49] All of a sudden he says, oh, you don't use it every day. No, we don't.
[45:55] So sometimes we have to go out and I understand it in the aspects on it and just sometimes we have to be a little proactive in our responses back to the public as well.
[46:09] Yes. So on the old west highway sidewalk improvement south side, will there be at least three feet of flat dirt to the south of the sidewalk where our equine friends can traverse up and down because we do have a several horse properties on the south side of old west highway.
[46:33] It'd be nice that they have a decent path that they can utilize.
[46:37] Yep. That's a good question. Thank you for that question and the right way along old west highway is huge.
[46:43] And this is going to be a detached sidewalk sort of trail. So I think there's going to be plenty of that dirt space from the edge of payment to the sidewalk and even on that south side of that sidewalk. Thank you. Good to hear.
[46:59] Right. Do you have a question?
[47:05] No, sir. Okay. You're on. Yes.
[47:09] Can you go back to the lost Dutchman road?
[47:13] The pitchers. That's the beginning of the presentation.
[47:17] There we go.
[47:20] So 20 is new. Zero is we need to tear it up. We're doing.
[47:26] And you're saying that you're what your baseline is is you want 10 or 11 or 12 and then address it.
[47:34] So it doesn't start to complete any further.
[47:37] That's correct.
[47:38] When I talked about the average or the inventory. So that's average of the whole inventory of RSL.
[47:44] So usually our key performance indicator is level of service is 14.
[47:49] So we try to get that whole inventory as average of 14.
[47:55] However, do we ever achieve 14? No, sometimes goals are good.
[47:59] We try to achieve them and close as we can.
[48:02] And we're doing good. We're at that, like I said, 12.8 for a total inventory.
[48:07] If your question is when do we usually start hitting the pavement with maintenance?
[48:12] Yes, you're correct. When we get to that part about that RSL of 14 or 12.
[48:17] That's some of the main preservation treatment that usually starts at that time.
[48:22] Well, that's a great answer.
[48:27] It wasn't my question. I was going to ask it. So this road right here.
[48:32] I've dried on this road and you know, you look at this road and you look at the horizon.
[48:37] It's the priceless view and people coming through our town heading east. They get on that road.
[48:42] It also leads to the rodeo grounds.
[48:45] Now this is just an opinion.
[48:48] I would like to see that road, not even fall below a 15.
[48:53] I'll always keep that pristine that particular road because it's more than just a road in a way because it's it's literally you drive down as an experience when you drive down that road because you've got that mountain coming right up on you
[49:06] You end up at the you've got the park right there. You've got the rodeo grounds right there.
[49:09] So if there's any way and again, this is just my personal opinion that you take that road in particular and say, let's not let that thing get 115.
[49:21] And your personal preference is usually our practice because if you look at our spending most of our majority of our spending goes towards the arterials because we recognize those arterials or
[49:31] like Bryant likes to.
[49:34] There are actually developed drivers.
[49:37] There are a city that doesn't have a property tax.
[49:40] It's absolutely essential that our arterials are given the, you know, most priority.
[49:46] And I'll also tackle this with the other realities out there that we're facing as a county.
[49:51] So if we look at the entire her fund.
[49:54] It's about 8.5 million a year to help us do this.
[49:57] Some years we spend less some years we spend more.
[50:00] Recognizing in November the county and cities are voting for or have an opportunity to vote on a proposition called Proposition 46 of that 8.5 million chain.
[50:11] It's about 3.8 million.
[50:14] Yeah.
[50:15] 3 million over 3 million of that comes from up and out.
[50:19] I want to make the connection between how we're able to do this in the major scope because of 8.5 million.
[50:26] You lose 3.8 million a year for 20 years.
[50:29] It's going to be very difficult for staff.
[50:31] It's awesome.
[50:33] But if he loses 3.8 million a year.
[50:37] I want the community to know.
[50:40] It's going to be difficult.
[50:41] In addition.
[50:43] The point 2% that we'll be talking about.
[50:46] The sun setting isn't about 1.8 million.
[50:49] When you add the revenue of 1.8 million and 3.8 million.
[50:52] And I get you to 5.6 million.
[50:54] That represents 65% of their budget.
[50:57] So some very important discussion needs to keep happening amongst the leadership in this community about.
[51:03] Because I agree.
[51:04] It is an experience.
[51:05] I've done it.
[51:06] And it is an experience of all across our city.
[51:08] And so I don't know how you feel any comments on that chain.
[51:11] What how important this next year is for street and roads.
[51:13] Yes.
[51:14] So it's going to be very important.
[51:15] Yeah.
[51:16] For example, if we just lose the street sales tax just at 1.8 million.
[51:21] You know.
[51:22] That number that we said that 12.8.
[51:25] I could easily do the math.
[51:28] We would be going down almost 2 points a year.
[51:33] And what was that critical number I said 11.
[51:36] When we get to 11.
[51:37] I get a lot of complaints.
[51:38] You guys will get a lot of complaints.
[51:41] It's good to be proactive.
[51:43] It would be happening.
[51:44] But I feel like this community.
[51:46] They're going to pass this.
[51:48] You guys aren't going to lose that money.
[51:51] Because everybody knows how important this is.
[51:54] They know it's just not your eight typical.
[51:56] You know, we're going to throw a tax on you for the fun of it.
[51:58] This is something that has been in place for a very long time.
[52:01] And you're getting results from this tax.
[52:04] And I feel like the people of the city realize that.
[52:07] And I really do feel like you're going to get your money.
[52:11] Thank you.
[52:12] And if you remember right when we passed that.
[52:14] That point 2% one of the things that I had said that I wanted us to do our monthly report.
[52:21] Annual report.
[52:22] The what we've done in the aspect on it.
[52:25] And that's really shows the community what.
[52:29] What we've accomplished.
[52:31] Yeah.
[52:32] In the aspects.
[52:33] Yeah, it's a huge help as it has been to help.
[52:35] And my members like 18 million dollars.
[52:36] And I know we still have a chunk to go.
[52:38] But it's really helped.
[52:39] It's really helped.
[52:41] Thank you.
[52:42] Thank you.
[52:43] Thank you.
[52:44] Thank you.
[52:45] Thank you.
[52:46] Okay.
[52:47] Okay.
[52:48] Okay.
[52:49] My notes here.
[52:58] Presentation, discussion, possible consideration.
[53:01] Require for agreement with the school resource officers.
[53:06] Hello Mayor City Council.
[53:22] Cindy your commander here at the Police Department overseeing our CID area and SRO program.
[53:30] As promised, I'm back to Secure Approval or another SRO position at Imagine Prep superstition.
[53:35] LLC that's been funded by the Department of Education for 139,000 for benefits and salary for another officer.
[53:46] Right now we've got five SROs in the city.
[53:50] This will add a six SRO position to imagine prep, which is a high school between six and 12th grade, approximately 430 students.
[53:59] So one of the first things when I got here.
[54:02] Back in November was to start the SRO program.
[54:05] And imagine prep was one of the very first schools that we visited that was really interested in having a officer station there.
[54:12] So right now we have officer Monique Rihalva who's willing to go to that school.
[54:17] She's currently a softball coach with them already.
[54:20] So she's already familiar with the administration and the school and the students that go there.
[54:25] And that primary response is going to be to limit threats any threats that come on campus.
[54:30] We'll have an officer that's already there and also provide law-related education.
[54:35] Some minor enforcement but also relationship building and also working with the school on, you know, some issues that they have there.
[54:44] With it being a six through 12th grade right now it's a school that does have calls for service that we are working through.
[54:51] So I think having this extra body over there automatically provides that immediate response that they'll have a relationship with this officer.
[54:58] So this service agreement is for five years.
[55:02] Every year will come up and we will decide to renew it or or not renew it but it is a five year agreement.
[55:08] So we're seeking approval for your support on that.
[55:16] Cindy first I want to applaud you for your efforts to increase number of SROs.
[55:22] I, I, some of my worst nightmares are incidents occurring in our school campuses.
[55:29] So thank you for that.
[55:31] You have a question looking at the agreement it talks about.
[55:37] Imagine prepping eligible meeting some eligibility criteria.
[55:43] Do you know what that, what that is, how do you, how do you define that criteria.
[55:50] So the way that the grant funding works is that the school specifically applies for the grant.
[55:55] And then while they're in the process of that grant response, we work in collaboration to ensure that we have the commitment between our department and theirs to actually put a body.
[56:05] We put a body in that school before they apply for that grant.
[56:08] So when it comes to eligibility because it's a charter school is not a government, which is why it's a service agreement and not an IGA, which, you know, I think the city attorney for working through some of that with me.
[56:19] Just to educational portion that it is a little bit different because it's not another governmental agency.
[56:24] But it will work the same as far as the requirements of the officer.
[56:28] We will bill the school and the school reimburses us on a monthly basis for the costs of that officer being there.
[56:35] So with this over time, it is possible for all of our campuses to apply for that.
[56:43] Absolutely and they and they give preference to the higher schools as far as high schools middle schools.
[56:49] We do have the two elementary schools that we got the funding for this year.
[56:53] It's very thankful for that because there's a lot of cities that don't have SROs in the elementary schools.
[56:58] Our work doesn't stop here though.
[57:00] We have a couple other schools that I would like to get an SRO in as as time progresses and as we move forward with the program.
[57:07] But I'm really excited that we have an SRO that's going to be in one of our schools that isn't a patchy junction unified school district that it expands our collaboration with different schools.
[57:19] We have a youth program just last week we had at 68 students that were in the youth program that is put on by our SRO.
[57:26] So they don't just get the summer off like teachers do unfortunately.
[57:29] They're also working to also support our students during the school year and a lot of those students were from imagine prep as well.
[57:35] So we're getting cadets out of the program.
[57:37] So it's it's year round.
[57:39] It's not just during the school year but those efforts last the entire 12 months.
[57:44] One last question and this is a little off the path here a little.
[57:51] I've been a made aware of that on some of our campus and I think this is global probably issues of bullying.
[58:00] Would an SRO be what would one of their responsibilities be to intervene if that if they were made aware of that circumstance?
[58:10] Yeah I think that's going to be dependent on the school administration and the SRO as far as which the best path or avenue to take.
[58:18] Some of it is you know education or support of the student both on the what the be with the victim side and the person that's doing it because I don't think.
[58:28] There comes just bullying just happens right so we have to kind of address and see what the problem is having the conversations with the parents.
[58:35] And a lot of our SROs when the administration brings parents in are part of that conversation on navigating to keep them out of the criminal justice system.
[58:44] It's not just about holding them accountable on a criminal side.
[58:48] It's more of the education piece and the relationship building so that if there is something going on that they have that person that they can just go straight in and ask for help.
[58:57] I'm a lot of the schools don't have the therapist and stuff like that now and I think our SROs unfortunately kind of get roped into a little bit of that support anyway.
[59:07] That's good here.
[59:12] Right.
[59:13] Some say.
[59:16] Make a motion whenever you're ready.
[59:18] You're on or if I may have a correction to the motion.
[59:23] I'm looking at the contract and it would be retroactive to June 13th.
[59:28] Whereas the motion I believe says July 15th.
[59:31] So the contract currently says June 13th.
[59:34] Well, we'll make comment before I ask for a motion and the aspect on it.
[59:38] I attended several.
[59:39] I'm going to say school events where we've had the.
[59:44] Resource officer there.
[59:47] And you can see the communication between the kids and the resource officer.
[59:51] The fact is something that they wanted to do signatures.
[59:56] And chief pulley was there.
[1:00:00] And the resource officer who are busy. And I think I had one kid walk up to me. Out of the whole crowd and said, I want to be your signature. Everyone else was involved with the resource officer and chief police.
[1:00:16] You know, I have a one little short thing to say for anybody who may have any comment question concerns about why the city is would be providing an SRO at a charter school.
[1:00:32] You know, it may be a charter school. It might not be part of our unified school district, but there's still our kids.
[1:00:41] Okay. Can I have a motion?
[1:00:45] Right. A mayor? Yes. I moved at the agreement. I'll make a motion that I moved at the agreement between the Apache Junction.
[1:00:53] See, Apache Junction in Imagine Prep Superposition Inc. for a grant funded school resource officer in a mod of 139,671 dollars and 79 cents for retroactive contract terms of June 13, 2024 through June 30, 2029 be approved.
[1:01:17] We moved in seconded, roll call.
[1:01:20] Vice Mayor Schroeder. Yes.
[1:01:23] Councilmember Nesser. Yes. Councilmember Hatt. Yes. Councilmember Soler. Yes. Councilmember Johnson. Yes. Councilmember Cross. Yes. Mayor Wilson. Yes.
[1:01:35] Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Council direction to staff.
[1:01:41] Presentation discussion. The possible direction to staff.
[1:01:44] An an an ending principle court. Be schedule.
[1:01:50] Even mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, council members.
[1:01:53] An judge will sort of from the municipal court.
[1:01:57] This is to to amend two particular provisions of four dashes to the municipal code.
[1:02:04] The first one is for public defend her fees, which apparently have not been changed for a long time.
[1:02:08] We've been sitting at $125 per defendant.
[1:02:14] Our recommendation is to increase that from the match.
[1:02:18] What PM accounting justice court does, which is 275 to 375.
[1:02:22] I provided council members at the last session.
[1:02:25] You know, the church showing based on incomes and number of family members.
[1:02:29] How those fees get determined.
[1:02:33] The court still would have the power.
[1:02:36] And some cases to wave all are part of the fees based on indigents.
[1:02:40] Financial hardship and interest of justice, such as the fact that I'm seriously mentally old people that we have in mental health court.
[1:02:47] We don't charge them any public defend your fees to be in there.
[1:02:50] Because we want them spending their money on medicine as opposed to spending it on public defend her fees.
[1:02:55] Other people that can't afford it for whatever reason they're allowed to do community service to pay off their public defend her fees as well.
[1:03:03] But I think it's time to upgrade and take into account the cost of inflation over the years and what our public defend her services are.
[1:03:10] Increases to the 275 to 375 range with still having the power under this subsection L to not impose it order reduced fees in appropriate cases.
[1:03:24] Our public defend her fees right now cover maybe half of what the public defender at a pocket is.
[1:03:30] And I think this would help us at least hopefully break even on what the costs are because the city shouldn't be having to pay for all of these costs when defendants who are involved in committing the offenses should be involved in helping pay for the cost of their representation.
[1:03:46] The other little minor changes.
[1:03:49] Originally the diversion fee was $15. It says per per charge per case and that's never been was been implemented at the court since before I've been there.
[1:04:00] That extra language of per charge needs to get deleted so it can be per case so it treats all defendants equally that there's $150.
[1:04:10] The diversion fee to go along with other fees, I guess, assessed in a version cases in order to keep equality and keep people getting treated fairly on those type of cases.
[1:04:21] Anybody has any questions? I'd be happy to answer them.
[1:04:24] Yes.
[1:04:26] Judge, why did you choose PM accounting as your comparison and can you provide us with other accounting comparisons and or city comparisons?
[1:04:38] Are they based on the median income of those areas? Because as you know, we are lower in type of community.
[1:04:46] Right. Just based on a chart, which I gave you guys the last time, what's goes from lower income to higher income.
[1:04:51] And it also takes into account how many family members are at different income levels and that type of thing to see who qualifies as well.
[1:04:59] So your first question, the reason why we chose to use PM accounting justice court is our former management consultant.
[1:05:07] She's now our management analyst. She was the director of the PM accounting justice courts for a number of years down there and that's one of the biggest municipal court systems in the state.
[1:05:18] So she followed through and she recommended that we follow what PM accounting justice court does.
[1:05:25] And that's she obtained the information in the charts from them, which we've modified over to the users recommended one for us.
[1:05:35] Okay. I guess that is not mandatory that it has to be 275 to 375 each case because we look into people's income if they have an extraordinary hardships and that type of thing.
[1:05:44] So we can go down as low as zero, but this allows us to go up into that 275 to 375 range on cases where it's appropriate to charge those kind of fees.
[1:05:54] You know, off the top of your head, do you know what other counties are charging?
[1:06:00] It's understanding this in a in a proxy way, this range and some of them have it to where, you know, they just the court can decide whatever it is.
[1:06:08] And they can take a no count the number of hours or spend at the end of a case and there can be much higher, much higher fees.
[1:06:15] Some of them have it to where it's like a no more than $500.
[1:06:18] And there's different ones and different courts throughout the states. You're going to see a white mix of anything throughout the state.
[1:06:25] But we looked at what Pima County did and that takes into account.
[1:06:29] People's incomes and number of family members and that type of thing.
[1:06:33] And, you know, as a practical matter, you know, 2 to 75 to 375, that's that's the cost of one hour of an attorney's time on most of these attorneys nowadays on what they charge for criminal cases to come into these courts.
[1:06:46] You know, a lot of them are charging 400, 450 an hour on things.
[1:06:50] So, you know, the 275 to 375 is basically what it was in an hour.
[1:06:55] If they hired a private attorney and then I could be able to get an attorney for one hour to handle their cases.
[1:07:00] You know, they get charged thousands of dollars to handle their cases.
[1:07:04] So, this is more than fair to defendants as well.
[1:07:07] Okay.
[1:07:08] Thank you.
[1:07:11] Okay.
[1:07:13] I do agree. I think we need to adjust those fees.
[1:07:17] Certainly. That makes sense.
[1:07:18] I do have a question.
[1:07:20] So, if a defendant claims financial hardship,
[1:07:23] how does a court go about substantiating that the defendant doesn't have a financial hardship or their indigent.
[1:07:30] I mean, how do I just say, I can't afford that?
[1:07:33] Well, there's an application that we have that asked them to fill out.
[1:07:37] And it's a statewide form that we follow, which ask them to put down what their job is,
[1:07:43] what kind of income they make, you know, what kind of money they have and their savings,
[1:07:47] you know, what they have in a way of vehicles that ask a number of different questions.
[1:07:51] They're able to look at and review it, did you hear my whether or not theirs?
[1:07:56] You know, any factors that come into play?
[1:07:59] That would warrant deviation from, you know, this 275 to 375 range.
[1:08:06] Have you found that people are generally, on a list about what they put.
[1:08:13] Seemingly, I mean, as much as you can look at somebody and guess what they do for living and what kind of income they may have based on their clothing and their dress and
[1:08:21] and that type of thing.
[1:08:23] You know, the option, the other option, for that would be as you'd have to start asking for past two, three years tax returns on people.
[1:08:31] The extra money you'd have to spend for an extra court clerk to have to keep up with that would more than cost.
[1:08:37] The extra money that we've been making off of this.
[1:08:39] So you have to rely on people to be honest, it is a notarized.
[1:08:42] It is a half a day, but under oath, theoretically, if a public defender gets information indicating that they make a much higher level than the person's claiming.
[1:08:52] They have a duty at the plea to make a request to the court to have the appointment of public defender set aside.
[1:09:00] If they think the person's been dishonest with the court or if they have much higher income than what they're claiming that they do.
[1:09:08] And different courts throughout the state do different things.
[1:09:11] I remember in the days when I was a public defender, you know, in my early 20s, you know, there was a case that I got appointed on when I was in a public defender's office where the person claimed that they had a million dollars of assets.
[1:09:21] But they claimed they had a million dollars in debts and superior court says, well, since it's even, then you have to appoint a public defender.
[1:09:29] And you can't give them jail time if you don't want to appoint a public defender.
[1:09:33] So, you know, as a pastor, about or two, in effect, if there's any doubt, if there's any possibility of jail time, which is what these cases get appointed on, where there's a state's asking for jail time.
[1:09:44] We're better off hearing on the side of appointing to make sure that the person can have representation as opposed to not appointing.
[1:09:52] And then they appeal and then they convince some of some of pellet court to say, oh, they should have had a public defender.
[1:09:58] We're going to set aside the conviction and you guys are going to have to do this all over again.
[1:10:03] And, you know, I think if we do this kind of a fee structure, we'll be able to get to where we can, you know, at least break even on what these fees are.
[1:10:10] And we're not doing this to try to make a profit. We're trying to do it to keep the city from going out of pocket on these type of cases.
[1:10:16] And I think that's the best way to do it.
[1:10:18] Thank you.
[1:10:20] Thank you.
[1:10:21] Any other questions?
[1:10:24] Thank you.
[1:10:25] Do I have a motion for this side?
[1:10:32] Mayor.
[1:10:34] Yes.
[1:10:36] Right.
[1:10:37] Mayor.
[1:10:38] I'll make a motion that I move that direction to give in to staff to begin the process of updating a municipal court fee schedule and bring the proposed ordinance to the future city council meeting be approved.
[1:10:53] Okay.
[1:10:54] Moved in second.
[1:10:56] Vice Mayor Schroeder.
[1:10:59] Yes.
[1:11:00] Councilmember Nesser.
[1:11:01] Yes.
[1:11:02] Councilmember Hack.
[1:11:03] Yes.
[1:11:04] Councilmember Soler.
[1:11:06] Yes.
[1:11:08] Councilmember Johnson.
[1:11:09] Yes.
[1:11:10] Councilmember Cross.
[1:11:11] Yes.
[1:11:12] Mayor Wilson.
[1:11:13] Yes.
[1:11:14] Motion passes unanimously.
[1:11:15] Thank you.
[1:11:16] Anyone have a good week.
[1:11:18] Okay.
[1:11:19] Call to public.
[1:11:20] I would like to remind everyone that a call of public is a courtesy and not required by law.
[1:11:25] It's a time for the public to express request communication comments and suggestions.
[1:11:31] Request to speak forms must have been completed and handed to the city clerk.
[1:11:36] Before the end of the city manager's report, all issues show presented in a professional matter without personal attacks.
[1:11:43] Under the open meeting law, the council cannot engage in a discussion on an issue presented.
[1:11:50] It may respond to criticism, may direct staff to follow up with the speaker directly.
[1:11:55] The places matter on the future agenda for council discussion.
[1:11:59] There's a three minute time limit for each speaker and I have three.
[1:12:05] Very walker.
[1:12:14] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[1:12:15] City Council.
[1:12:17] And all my dear friends here.
[1:12:20] Thank you for allowing me to make the comment that I need to have a medical condition that requires me to have a full rescue facility in my office space.
[1:12:33] The Veterans Administration is paying 100% of the cost of it and all I need is permission for a modification and city ordinance that will allow.
[1:12:44] I need to have that facility in that particular building.
[1:12:52] Oh, I really wanted to say council member Schroeder asked me to come here and speak to you at night about it.
[1:12:59] And so here I am.
[1:13:02] You need to be more address as well.
[1:13:05] Oh, yes.
[1:13:06] My address.
[1:13:07] I resided.
[1:13:09] 1829 West 14th Avenue.
[1:13:12] You're in the city.
[1:13:14] Thank you.
[1:13:17] Donna Carr.
[1:13:18] I got a couple of things I want to say is one is that I heard during the debate that we're still moving forward with the whole water thing and I'm still opposed to.
[1:13:43] I'm using reclaimed water until we have the technology to get rid of the chemicals forever chemicals, the medications and the diseases and also I'm bringing up the fact that.
[1:14:01] When I brought up about the case cause an agents over on Meridian and Guadalupe, if you ever informed the our horn, so he could inform people when they buy a house over in that area.
[1:14:11] That the case cause an agents to 3% of BVPA standards.
[1:14:16] One of the other things I'm bringing up is.
[1:14:19] I feel that.
[1:14:21] The city should not be making strikes for moves when it comes to the citizens of Apache Junction.
[1:14:28] I think that.
[1:14:31] One of benefits.
[1:14:33] You guys then it's okay.
[1:14:36] But I don't think it's right.
[1:14:39] And if you need to talk to me after the meeting I'll be more than happy to talk to you because I'm not allowed to bring up names.
[1:14:45] Thanks.
[1:14:50] Andre.
[1:15:00] What do you mean, under a meeting? 1527, South Bell Air, here in AJ, Mr. Mayor, council. Number one, I want to thank
[1:15:10] the participants of the meeting greet that we had last week for people that are running for office
[1:15:19] for council here in mayor. Glad to hear what they had to say. Glad that they came out, you know,
[1:15:26] a couple glaring emissions of the people that should have been there that were very vocal elsewhere,
[1:15:33] but didn't show up for what should have been where they should have been there to voices,
[1:15:42] stands that they have. Also, on the SROs, glad to hear that you're adding one,
[1:15:52] for imagine, you know, my belief is that every school just has one period and they opt out if they
[1:16:00] don't want one. And because, you know, kids safety, there's nobody, they can protect them.
[1:16:07] You know, unless you have an officer there because no one else is allowed to be equipped on campus anywhere,
[1:16:16] that could, you know, stop a bad situation. And I'm just glad to see it, but I'd really like to
[1:16:25] see it grow from there. And that's about it. Thank you. Okay, council, have anything to say? You're on
[1:16:37] just a few things I want to discuss real quick and ask a while back about possibly having the retreat
[1:16:49] this year. I would like to know if we could have one. It's in the workshop where we're working on. I know,
[1:16:57] okay, not only agenda, so you can't really bring it up. Can't bring that up. It's in the work,
[1:17:03] say can we bring that up to have it put on a future agenda as what I'm asking.
[1:17:10] You're addressing the quality of the project. We have it on the agenda to do. But we can bring it up to.
[1:17:18] Gressing the quality of the public, so what we're doing right now. Okay, you are.
[1:17:22] Can we have, we're regarding the first Jerry Walker, he had tried to explain that to me in the
[1:17:30] beginning and I didn't, he didn't seem to cover as much as I thought. And we maybe have Rudy reach out to him.
[1:17:39] Yes, they've had been working with him. And I think the reason he's here is because it hasn't been able
[1:17:44] to come to resolution. We can give you a summary of what we've been working through with Mr. Walker. Okay,
[1:17:50] all right. Thank you. Mayor. Yes. That would be my question to city manager too.
[1:18:00] Ask Mr. Walker to come to the council meeting so we can give direction to the city staff to work with him.
[1:18:15] Yeah, I do. I do before we close out the meeting. I just want to express our deepest condolences to
[1:18:24] council member solar and we all love you here and we all are 100% supporting anything you may need.
[1:18:34] Hey, man. Thank you. Mayor, personal privilege. I just want to thank everybody for the
[1:18:43] thoughts, prayers and support during these very trying times for me and my family. And I just want to say thank you
[1:18:51] very much to everybody. I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.