I suspend our Town Council meeting and commence with our Rancho Cerrita Community Facilities District meeting.
Hereby call this meeting to order, and Madam Clerk may have a roll.
Board Member Braco.
Here.
Board Member Davis.
Here.
Board Member Hicks.
Here.
Board Member Luss.
Here.
Board Member Morales.
Here.
Vice Chairperson Egber.
Here.
Chairperson Murphy.
Here.
Quorum present.
Thank you.
The public is invited to address the District Board on any issue which tonight's consent agenda
or any issue which the District Board can lawfully act upon at a future meeting pursuant to Arizona Open Meeting Laws.
The District Board may not discuss items, but individual members of the District Board may respond to criticism
made by those who have addressed the District Board, may ask staff to review the matter,
and may ask the matter to be placed on a future agenda.
I don't have any call to the public cards for the Rancho Cerrita Community Facilities District.
If I'd like to address the Board, this would be the time.
Seeing no movement, I will close the call to the public and move to item number four,
which is the Consent Agenda and their chain of motion at this time.
So moved.
Second.
All those in favor signify by aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
Now we move to item number five.
Madam Clerk.
Discussion and possible action to direct staff to prepare a study of the feasibility
and benefits of issuing general obligation bonds to acquire public infrastructure.
Thank you.
Mr. Marriotti, our District Treasurer will present this,
and Mr. Rossi, on behalf of Rancho Cerrita, is here if you want to say a few words
or clarify any questions, but this time I'll turn it over to our District Treasurer.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board.
We recently received an application from the CFD developer that requested
that the district would issue general obligation bonds
in the amount of $18.158 million for the acquisition of public infrastructure.
The map's a little hard to see up on the screen there.
Your handouts are going to be a little bit easier for you,
but you'll notice that most of the infrastructure that we're talking about
and the $18 million issuance would pay for roadways as well as sewer lines,
and all of this is located within the CFD boundaries.
Most of this infrastructure that we're talking about
has already been contemplated within the development agreement.
We have nearly $51 million of bonding capacity that's available out of the original $60 million
that was authorized back in the 2014 bond election,
which took place in August of 2014.
But before bonds are issued, the state statutes require that the CFD board
cause a study of the feasibility and benefits of the project
to be studied and analyzed in a report to be produced
and presented in a public meeting.
And that's why we're here today to seek your authorization
to move forward with a feasibility report.
And if you approve, staff will retain the services of our financial team
and bond consultants to go ahead and put that study together for you,
and then we would plan to bring that back to you,
hopefully at our next meeting in January.
So with that, if you have any questions,
Mr. Orassi representing the developers here
to answer any questions you may have and may have a short presentation.
Yeah, I'll turn it over.
What's the color of the gift?
Rising to the occasion.
Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, Michael Orassi
appearing on behalf of the Rancher Solity to Development Company.
And very brief presentation tonight.
This is really just kicking off the feasibility study.
This is the third one of these you will have done
for the Rancher Solity to Community Facilities District.
The first bond issuance was approximately 5.5 million.
Last one we did.
March of 18 months ago was only 3.75 million,
much smaller right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
I remember being on the phone with your town council
and financial advisors and being asked,
are you guys sure you still want to go forward?
We said, yeah, we're going to go forward.
We'll take the risk.
Well, had we known, that issuance should have been double the size it was
because the market has just really taken off,
especially in the last six or eight months.
I had had a number of discussions with your staff
talking about the size of the last issuance, 3.7 million.
It's not very efficient.
There are a lot of fixed costs in doing these
that are the same if you do 3 million or 30 million almost.
And at that time, and this was a year ago,
I said, yeah, yeah, we'll be in with at least 6 or 8 million.
Well, the 6 turned to 12, turned to now 18.
And we almost came in at closer to 26,
but we couldn't get the engineering done for Region 8.
In fact, we were hoping to have this application into you four to six months ago,
but the engineers are so backed up,
the cost estimates and the other base information
your consultants have to have to do the study.
We couldn't get done, but we are here now.
This is all the remaining Region 7 and Region 9 infrastructure.
It's exactly like the prior two issuances.
It includes essentially the roads and sewers,
and we've already accelerated the construction
of part of Rancho Soliti to Boulevard.
So we bid and are moving to construction on a phase
that wasn't even in the last CFD.
That'll get reimbursed from this.
And we're just excited about it.
We haven't seen this level of builder interest, home sales and pricing
since before the Great Recession.
We have builders signed up, not closed,
but either a letter of intent on every portion of Region 7 and 9
all the way down to the southern end of the project.
So trying to move as quickly as we can.
The town staff has been outstanding to work with all of them
because we've had a lot of activity on the project,
and I really want to thank all of them.
I won't try to name everyone, but we've had a lot,
and it's been going great.
And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any.
Council, have any questions?
Yes, Mr. Mayor.
Yes.
Do your cost estimates and planning not to bring the future forward too much,
but do they account for the Sonoran Corridor,
which will be going through about 89 up there?
The cost estimates don't account for that.
We don't even know what's happened on that,
but it's certainly something we're paying a lot of attention to,
and I've been involved in the Tier 1 study.
Funding is being sought for the Tier 2 study now.
Hopefully, I'm not sure the infrastructure bill will be able to fund that project,
but progress is being made,
and we'll just, with respect to the Rancho project,
have to see what develops.
It's still many, many, many years down the road.
I sometimes wonder about that,
given the amount of money that's being printed.
The infrastructure could certainly come much more quickly,
especially since this is getting support at a regional level to a fair degree.
I'm not worried about A11.
That's for the grandchildren of our grandchildren to worry about.
But again, just so that you're in tune with it,
because obviously it's going to have a big impact
cutting through that property at some point with your sewers and other things.
In Gil, I just had a meeting, a PAG RTA meeting,
and we had a presentation on that particular project.
They think it'll probably be in three phases,
coming from the east to the west,
from I-10 to the airport,
airport down to Salvarita Road.
I'm using the airport, I'm saying that's exactly it.
And then the third phase would be what you're discussing,
and the cost estimate today is a billion dollars to do it.
Never mind, like you said, I-11, what that's going to cost,
but just the Sonoran Corridor portion in total is about a billion dollars.
I think it goes to your point on what's in there
and how much can one project get.
I think the airport's getting 300 million,
and that's a huge win to get 300 million,
but that's as far as we've been briefed.
No, I just like to make sure that we're contemplating
because that type of future obstruction going through a major development
can be rather upsetting. That's all.
And thank you.
Mr. Mayor.
Yes.
Council Member Lusk.
My firm is the lead lobbyists on getting money for that project,
so I am intimately familiar with it.
Did I state anything incorrectly?
You did not.
Okay, good.
Now I'm confident that it will be in Phase 3 in no time at all.
Mr. Mayor, everyone's question.
Yes.
I actually have it for staff.
Whenever I'm voting to-
I know we're not increasing anybody's taxes on this bond or whatever,
but we are extending the time that they will be paying for it.
What is the process-
can you remind me again,
it's allowing the residents to know that this is coming,
that this vote is going to occur?
Because I know this affects only a small portion of our residents currently.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board,
that action isn't what we're taking today.
Right now we're just looking for the authorization to move forward
with the feasibility report.
So the way the process would work is get the authorization today,
come back in January,
actually take a look at the results of the feasibility report,
which includes all the financing and what have you.
And then after that,
we had scheduled another meeting for a month later in February,
and that would be the one that would be the public hearing
and an opportunity for the public to come and give you feedback.
Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions?
I'll entertain the motion.
Council members, thank you very much.
Mr. Mayor. Yes.
I move to direct district staff to prepare a feasibility study
for the insurance issuance of general obligation bonds
to acquire public infrastructure.
Second.
Any further discussion?
All those in favor, signify by aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Aye.
Moving forward.
Thank you.
Having no more further business for the CFD,
we'll adjourn.