for December 1st, 2025. Council members Duff and Heredia are unable to attend and are excused from this meeting. Other all other council members are present. With that, we'll begin our meeting with an invocation by Pastor Corey Moore from the Holy Trinity Community AM Church, followed by a pledge of allegiance. Would you please stand, pastor? Come forward. Would you join me in a moment of silence? Thank you. Thank you. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. We have some youth here to do that. from the mayor's youth committee. Thank you, ladies. Start us off. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, ladies. [clears throat] >> Item one is the consent agenda. Mr. Christopher, if you'd like to come forward with the consent agenda and I know 7 A and 7B, >> 9 A and 10 A. Is that what you have so far? >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Good evening, mayor and council members. These are the items on the consent agenda. All items listed with an asterisk will be considered as a group by the city council and it'll be removed or be enacted with one motion. There will be no separate discussion unless a council member or citizen request in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as a separate item. Item two, approval of minutes of previous meetings as written. Item 3 A, approving three-year term contract with two-year renewal options for legal processing services for the Mesa Police Department. Item 3B, approving 10-month use of a cooperative term contract with renewals for heavy duty fleet, construction, and agricultural industrial parts, service, and accessories for the fleet services and Mesa Fire and Medical Departments. Item 3 C, approving use of a cooperative contract for the purchase of one asphalt paper for the fleet services and transportation departments. Item 3D, approving 5-year term use of a cooperative contract for the purchase of library equipment, maintenance, and support for the library services department. Item 3E, approving two-year use of a cooperative term contract with renewal options and dollar limit increase for HVAC services for citywide facilities for the facilities management department. Item 4A, approving resolution to execute a waiver of ADOT's four-year notice provision for ride-of-way abandonment as required by state law. This will allow ADOT to proceed with the abandonment and transfer to the city of previously identified traffic interchanges along the Superstition Freeway between Krisman Road and Signalute Road. Item 4B, approving resolution to execute a project agreement with me for the Mountain Road State Route 24 to Pacos Road project and related reimbursement. The city's eligible for reimbursement of 70% of the project cost. Item 4 C, approving resolution designating the authorized applicant agent and alternate agent for filing applications with the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs for Disaster Relief Funding. Item 4 D, approving resolution to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the FBI to participate in the Central Arizona Safe Trails Task Force. Item 4E, approving resolution to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the Panal County Sheriff's Office for cooperative law enforcement training. Items 5A through 5S involve resolutions and ordinances pertaining to the 2024 additions of technical codes international family of codes and amendments to those codes and introduction of ordinances pertaining to Mesa City Code Title 4 for building regulations. 5A is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 1 Mesa administrative code. 5B is approving resolution declaring 2024 International Building Code and certain dependencies to be a public record. 5C is introduction of an ordinance amending chapter 2 Mesa Building Code. 5D is approving resolution declaring 2024 International Residential Code and certain dependencies to be a public record. 5E is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 3 Mesa Residential Code. 5F is approving resolution declaring amendments to the 2023 National Electric Code to be a public record. 5G is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 4 Mesa Lighting and Electric Code. 5H is approving resolution declaring 2024 International Plumbing Code and certain dependencies to be a public record. 5 is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 5 Mesa plumbing code. 5J is approving resolution declaring amendments to the 2024 international mechanical code to be a public record. 5K is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 6 Mesa mechanical code. 5L is approving resolution declaring the 2024 international fuel gas code and certain dependencies to be a public record. 5M is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 7 Mesa fuel gas code. 5N is approving resolution declaring amendments to the 2024 international existing building code to be a public record. 5 O is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 8 Mesa existing building code. 5P is approving resolution declaring 2024 international energy conservation code and its appendix to be a public record. 5Q is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 9 Mesa Energy Conservation Code. 5R is approving resolution declaring amendments to the 2024 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code to be a public record. 5S is introduction of ordinance amending chapter 10 Mesa Swimming Pool and Spa Code. Item 6 A is a resolution declaring the 2024 International Fire Code and certain appendencies to be a public record. Item 6B is introduction to ordinance amending Mesa City Code Title 7 fire regulations pertaining to adoption of the 2024 International Fire Code and its amendments. Items 7 A, 7 B, 7 C, and 7 D have been removed from the consent agenda. Item 8 A, introduction of ordinance proposing amendments to chapters 5, 8, 31, 32, 86, and 87 of the Mesa City Code pertaining to middle housing. Mayor and Council members, these are the items on the consent agenda. >> Thank you, Mr. Christopher. Uh, Mr. Smith, I want to make sure that we got all the items off the consent agenda that were requested. I have 7 A through D as well as 9A, 10 A and or 10 and I think that's it through the TEDs. >> Mayor, um all those items and I'll just point out all all of item 10 is off consent. So even if they hadn't even if you didn't list them, they're all of 10 is off. >> Great. Thank you. All right, we'll entertain a motion for the consent agenda. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Miss Goforth. Please cast your vote. Okay, motion passes with Miss Duff and Mr. Ready absent. With that, we'll move over to item 7A, which is the U battery energy storage system. We have some people that wish to speak. is a resolution declaring the document title 11-3137 uh battery energy storage system known as BES option one to be a public record uh with the city clerk. So with that we're going to first hear from Mary Mayino. Mary if you want to come up. Thank you. And then following Mary will be uh Jeff Crockett. Mayor, do you want to >> Mayor do you want to take these combined 7 A, 7B, then 7 C and 7D as one item? Is that all right? >> So, mayor and council, yeah, you can take all A, B, C, and D as one item and then you can decide whether or not you want to vote on them as one item for introduction or 7 A and B go together and 7 C and D go together. Yeah. >> Um, they're really there's really sort of there's four items, but it's really sort of two options. um because it's adoption by reference. Um there's a resolution on 7A and 7 C um and then the corresponding uh ordinances that go with the A and the um C resolution. So um but you can call all of them for discussion purposes and then we can figure out how you want >> and since A and B go together and C and D if there's no objection I think we just take each one of those as an item. So it' be two items 7 A 7B 1 7 C 7D2 and then anybody here to speak on AMD can speak on it. >> I think it might be best that let's hear from the blue cards and then we'll decide on the council whether we want to move forward with combine them all together. Uh decide we have two council members that are not here and I we'd like to invite them for the conversation. So Mary go ahead. Thank you. So I can speak on two different ones at different times. Correct. >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> We're going to do item 7A right now. >> All right. >> Okay. >> Right. Councilman, mayor, and councilmen. This is regarding the proposed resolution relating to battery energy storage systems or best as it's called. This proposal it passed is opening up a can of worms. First the resolution, then the amendments. This plan gives the outline and wishes to establish best as a principal or accessory use. So everyone here understands this. The principal use would be for general industrial and heavy industrial districts in which battery capacity is greater than or equal to 5,000 kilowatts. This would have to be this would have to have the approval of a planned area development or P A pad and must comply with all of Bess and Bess's facility standards. The second use is an accessory use would be permitted in agricultural residential commercial employment in downtown districts for a storage capacity of less than or equal to 5,000 kilowatts and it does not have to comply with best and best facility standards. So if it stores 4,900 kW of energy that could be coming next to your friendly neighborhood. And by the way, the Mesa Planning and Zoning Committee recommended only 400 ft from a residential area. This is the general overview of where these things would go, and I'll be speaking afterwards on an amendment. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Mary. Mr. Crockett, >> following Mr. Crockco be Autumn Johnson. >> Mayor Freeman, members of the council, my name is Jeff Crockett. My business address is 40 North Center Street, Mesa, Arizona, 85201 across the street. Um, I'm a resident of the city of Mesa in District 1. I'm an attorney and I regularly represent u companies that plan, build, and operate renewable energy systems, including battery battery energy storage systems. Um, renewable energy projects have become an indispensable part of the energy portfolios of our Arizona utilities and battery energy storage systems are critical in making those systems and the electric grid operate um more efficiently and at a lower cost to those who pay electric rates. So, I'm here today to urge you to set these items for consideration uh and a vote at the December 8th council meeting. I recognize there is not an agreement at this point on the separation requirement, but I would urge you to set all of the uh item seven uh resolutions for discussion and vote at the December 8th meeting so that we can have a wholesome uh discussion on the the separation requirements. Uh and for the record, I support uh 7 C and 7D. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Crockett. Uh, Miss Johnson. [clears throat] >> Good evening, mayor and council members. I'm also to speak to C and D. Would you like to hear my comments now or later? >> Uh, you want to speak on C and D? >> Correct. >> I have you speaking on 7A. >> I just put down seven. I'm happy to do them now if that's fine. >> He says 78. If you want to speak on C and D, I'll call you back up. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Let's do that. All right. Nicole's uh is it Conan or Connell? Miss Mr. Connell. Looks like Court Rich to me. >> Mayor, council members, I'm sitting next to Mr. McConnell and he said I don't need to speak on this but sent me up uh for him. I do have a blue card in there if it's okay. I I'd be happy to address you now or I can sit down until you call my name. >> No, you can go now. It just says that he wished to speak as well. So, >> appreciate it. Um Mr. Mayor, members of the council, my name is Court Rich uh with the Rose Law Group. I head up our energy department there uh and work on behalf of IPA Power and others. Uh IPA is a developer of a battery energy storage project in the city of Mesa. And I'm I'm just here today to frankly to thank you all, thank your staff. We've worked very closely with them on this ordinance. Um we've worked closely with your fire department. Uh we feel like I will admit um this is a rather strict ordinance when you look at it across the country and and would I rather you um be more permissive and and less restrictive? Yes. But I'm not here to ask you to do that. I think that you've you've done a good job and I'm here just to encourage you all to move forward with with this ordinance uh and approve it. I think as a highlight, you do retain the use the ability for all future projects. They all have to come in here to get a PAD approved. Nothing can happen without your consent. Um, and your your fire department has been uh very very engaged um and up todate on the latest in this business and that's reflected in the ordinance. So again, I'm here to ask that you approve these and I appreciate it. Thank you. And and I'm happy to also be a resource if you all have any questions. Um, I'm happy to answer those or call on some experts that we have here too as well. >> Thank you, Mr. Rich. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> Next, we'll hear from I'm sorry if I mispronounced Sependent Alza. And you can correct me when you come to the Thank you, sir. >> All right. Thank you very much, Mayor. Um, I'm here to comment on 7 C and 7 D. So, I could also come back. I know I put seven, but uh I could also come back if that's okay when we uh get to 7 C and 7D. >> We'll do that. >> Okay. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, members of council. >> Next, uh Lindia Patrick Hayes. Lydia, >> pardon. You didn't wish to speak. Okay, thank you. That's what it says right here. Thank you. Uh 7B. Uh we'll move over. Is there any discussion on 7A? council. >> If not, I'll just wrap them all together, go through all all the different and we'll do it that way. Okay. 7B. Uh Mary, I have you back up here for 7B [clears throat] as well as uh Linda Patrick is opposed and but does not wish to speak. I got it right that time. Thank you. >> Okay, mayor and council members. Um I'm Mary Maybenel. I forgot to say I live off of Recker and Round Road and um this covers these amendments. This covers the amendments related to BES. I understand there's upsides to best. Obviously, the upside is it stores excess solar energy, but there are also downsides and I'd like to enumerate some of those. Number one, they have unique fire hazards. They say these newer lithium batteries are lower risk, but if they do catch fire, they are extremely difficult to put out. So difficult, in fact, generally they let it burn itself out. The link attached to this says containing a fire is the best way to protect first responders and communities because reignitement may occur hours or days later. And that containment best protects against explosives which releases harmful gases. But if an explosion does occur, what's the blast radius? Who knows? I don't think anybody knows. says in the link, "Successful," and now this is says in the link, quote, "Successful suppression of a fire does not guarantee an underlying thermal runaway event has been terminated." Well, that sounds like a scary thought. Okay. Number two, our n our noise considerations. Best says it will do a noise study because these units do create a constant humming noise. Neighbors in East Mark already complain and still complain over the constant hum of data centers which I assume did a noise study also. Number three, don't know how many environmentally friendly all this is in the long run because the batteries that have to be disposed of are still ignitable and classified as hazardous waste. So my question is well my question is would any one of you want to live 400 ft or even a thousand feet away from a rather ugly development even if a fence is built around it? It's not visually appealing. One that has a risk of uncontrollable fire and possible air pollution hazards and it has noise pollution all the time. You know, I would think that I I do know that there are some upsides to this low same thing I have with data centers. Locate them well away from residential areas and that way you solve a lot of these problems. Neighbors don't want to be near this stuff. It's dangerous and um potentially um devastating. So that's what I would recommend. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Uh ne [clears throat] excuse me. Next we'll hear from Cipen Ala. >> Mayor, members of council, uh, thank you all very much. My name is Sepand Alazada and I'm a government relations specialist with the Arizona Technology Council, 2800 North Central Avenue, Sweet 1530. and I'm here today to speak about the proposed separation requirements in the text amendments impacting battery energy storage systems or best facilities in the city of Mesa's updated zoning ordinance. Before I begin, sorry, before I begin, I need to thank the city of Mesa staff, including those in the development services and the city attorney's office for the tremendous amount of work devoted to updating this code. Thank you for adjusting the size threshold to 5 megaww watts within principal usage. Also, I want to thank each one of you and your district administrators for acknowledging receipt of letters on this matter from the Arizona Technology Council submitted in late November. I rewatched the video of the October 22nd, 2025 planning and zoning board meeting over the Thanksgiving weekend. We not only heard from residents, but we heard from renewable energy industry leaders such as battery energy developers utilities organization heads, attorneys, a former Arizona Corporation Commissioner, and others who advocate for best facilities of all sizes daily, stating that the proposed separation requirement of 1,000 ft of best facilities from residences should be re-examined and reduced. I learned two key things. First, Mesa has a great track record of embracing renewable energy technologies, and the city doesn't want to jeopardize future projects. Second, Mason needs the energy and the jobs that come with it, as utilities must double or even triple the energy that they are going to need over the next 10 years. What stood out to me most, however, were the astute comments provided by the city of Mesa's fire marshal, Shaun Alexander. Fire Marshall Alexander spent time discussing in painstaking detail how safety protocols have evolved for battery energy storage systems in Mesa thanks to the code development process. He also clarified that the city's own fire and building services departments are updating their plan review standards to include hazardous mitigation analyses, decommissioning requirements, and fire and explosion testing reviews. Simply put, the permitting process for battery energy storage systems is extremely rigorous and exacting to ensure resident safety. Emergencies are occurring less frequently and Mesa is well positioned to mitigate the risk of emergencies thanks to technological advancements, extensive permitting requirements, and stringent code implementation by the Mesa Fire and Medical Departments. So, I urge all of you not to move forward with an excessive 1,000 ft separation requirement in the name of safety. Let us move forward with a change that is more reasonable, what the NFPA 855 recommends, and that's a standard that's been developed with help of engineers, architects, insurance professionals, and others. By doing so, we'll ensure that Mesa remains a hub for renewable energy innovation and has the energies it needs for decades to come. Thank you all for your service. >> Thank Thank you. >> Next, we'll hear from uh Miss Johnson, Autumn Johnson, followed by Matt Quinn. >> Good evening again, mayor and council members. Autumn Johnson on behalf of the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association or ARISA. I'd like to just highlight the fact that the original draft ordinance that called for comments um was 400 ft and all or the majority of the written comments at that time before planning and zoning were an objection to the 400 ft and felt that it should be smaller. When the matter was considered before the planning and zoning commission, it was then moved to 1,000 ft. This was a significant topic of conversation at the planning and zoning meeting as Mr. um I'm also going to mispronounce his name Sepand um said [clears throat] uh so they recommended it go back to the 400 ft as opposed to a th00and we submitted comments on this last week. We believe that the 400 we still believe that the 400t is too big. It would be the largest passed ordinance for best setback in the state if you move forward with even the 400 let alone the 10,00 which would be an extreme outlier. We recommend that you move forward with something more aligned to national standards. So according to the American Planning Association, 50 to 100 foot 150 ft setback is the national average. As you just heard, the NFPA8 uh 855 recommends 100 ft. Maricopa County just uh moved their ordinance through planning and zoning and they didn't include either of those. that we recommend that you either approach it as Maricopa County did where they rely on the fire code or you use the NFPA 855 standard or we recommend that you move forward with the standard like Buckeye has adopted which is 150 ft. We believe that the city's proposal of 1,000 ft is arbitrary and not supported by any national standards and will impede energy development within the city which in aggregate will impact grid reliability and affordability for everyone including the residents of Mesa. I agree with the comments that you previously heard that the matter should be taken up in full uh next week and that the 400 foot setback specifically should not be removed today and we recommend you not move forward with only the 1000 foot option. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. Mr. Quinn, Matt Quinn, after Mr. Quinn, uh Mary, perhaps you can give us an overview and staff's perspective. Good evening. My name is Matt Quinn. I'm a fire protection consultant. I'm here with Fire Risk Alliance. I'm working with uh IPA Power and Mr. Rich who spoke earlier. Um I just wanted to offer my area of expertise is in battery energy storage, fire safety, and emergency response. My own experience is in chemical engineering and in fire service. I'm a career firefighter. I just wanted to kind of echo what the last two speakers had to say regarding the the clearance requirements. I train fire departments throughout the country and internationally and the thousand feet there's no u justification for a clearance of that of that size. What we teach as as we go around we train firefighters for even containers that are involved in fire. It's 100 feet that we teach as a standoff distance and we would I would offer encouragement to adhere to the 855 standards. They're rigorous and they're they're well informed by by experts throughout the field. Um with the rest of the people I'm here with, I'm definitely available to offer any any other insight I can. >> Thank you, sir. Okay, that completes all the blue cards that we have. Mary, can you give us an overview? staff's perspective and how the PNZ board moved forward and all throughout the process. >> Sure. The air council. Uh thank you. Um I'll start with the principal use versus the accessory use and how we got to the five megawatts as a principal use. Really what we're looking at in this ordinance is to regulate utility scale best. So we want to allow an office building, we want to allow a multi multif family residential project to maybe have battery storage if they have solar on site to collect that energy and use it on their project. And when we did some additional research on that, what we were finding was the one megawatt that staff had originally recommended to the planning and zoning board was probably low, which is how we got up to the five megawatts. It's important to realize that as an accessory use, they're still required to follow all of the requirements of the zoning code in that base zone. So, it's not that they're unregulated, it's just they have a different set of development standards and and regulations that they have to follow. Um, as it relates to the setback, I know the the the separation um requirement, we had started with an ordinance that was 400 um feet from any uh residential district or any uh what we call sensitive receptor. So, a church, a park, a school, those those types of uses. And then after we have stakeholder engagement, we had heard from several different stakeholders um and some of the leaders that maybe 400 feet wasn't enough. So we went to planning and zoning board with the 1,000 ft separation from residential only. The sensitive receptors are still at that 400 ft. So the schools, the churches, the parks, those things are still at 400 ft. The 1,00 foot separation is from the perimeter wall around the battery storage to the either a residential district or a residential use. So that thousand ft was what we took to planning and zoning board. Planning and zoning board came back and recommended that we go back to the 400 which is why you have two different resolutions and two different ordinances in front of you today. I want to talk a little bit about the battery disposal and the the um how that would take place. So, they are required through the fire code and I'm going to ask Sean at some point to come up and talk about two two of the items that were also brought up if that's okay, mayor. But the battery disposal will be addressed through the decommissioning plan which is going going to be a requirement. So, anytime a best facility is put in place, they will have to develop a decommissioning plan and they will have to submit that as part of their requirements to the fire um to the fire marshall. We also I I'll talk a little bit about the noise. We are looking at um noise from a perspective of there is noise in every neighborhood. So what the best would have to do is at the property line of the residential use for the sensitive receptor, they would have to identify what the ambient noise level is. And what the requirement of the code is doing is saying you can't increase that noise level. So if you're putting in a battery system that's going to create noise at the battery system, you will have to identify mitigating measures to make sure that the ambient level at that residential property or at that sensitive receptor is maintained to the level it is today. so we're not increasing that noise. Um, and then I think the last thing is I'll ask Sean if he could come up and talk about the unique fire hazards and the thermal runaway events if that's okay. Mayor, >> yes. Our fire marshall, Mr. Chief Alexander, >> good morning, Mayor and C or good evening, mayor and councel. Um, as to the disposal of uh these uh incidents once they're done, our fire department trains on managing incidents from the start of the incident through the termination of the emergency and then we work collaboratively with the business owner to make sure that um any hazards are properly disposed of. given this um for these particular premises that would likely involve a hazardous waste company, but um the fire department handles those emergencies today. We handle we are used to dealing with thermal runaway events. Uh granted, we have not had a utility scale project of this size to this point, but we um h have had dozens um and dozens of um battery involved fires uh in the last several years. We've seen this increasing um as batteries become more popular. Um we are we have several facilities in the in the valley here that can actually take a damaged cell and uh dispose of it, grind it and turn it back into its component parts so that there is no longer a hazard. But u once these batteries do go into thermal runaway, there is a potential and we have seen it. Although um the technology is changing and it's uh this newer technology batteries are less likely to go into extended thermal runaway like we've seen in the past, but we have had extended um multi-day events involving these battery fires that um and we're used to dealing with them and disposing of them appropriately. >> And mayor, if I could, there's just one more thing I wanted to add um about the separation from those residential uses. Back in October, we did receive a draft of the surprise um zoning code amendment and it did have 1500 feet. I don't know if they've adopted that yet, but I just wanted to say that in Arizona, there are other people looking um beyond just that 100 ft. The challenge that we have is there is no standard there. Well, there is the NFPA standard, but beyond that, in terms of the separation from those sensitive users uses, it really is kind of all over the place, which is how we've come to the 400 and the thousand. Chief, I haven't heard the NFPA 855. What What is the Is there a separation standard for best systems? >> There is, mayor. That is uh part of uh one of the items that was just introduced on the consent agenda as part of our upgraded uh fire and building code uh ordinances that that have been proposed. Um along with those code adoptions would include adopting the latest standard of NFP855. That is where we got the 100 ft of uh setback from the property line to the first battery and uh that is been put into the standard to address not only the fire hazard but also the explosion hazard. A comment was made earlier. Uh we don't know how far these go. um we don't know but we have seen in past incidents and it's my understanding that the 100 feet setback requirement was largely due to fire and explosion testing that has been done on these uh types of facilities and and products. So that that's where the 100 foot setback from the property line into the premise from the first battery. That's where that requirement lives. >> Okay. >> And that's different from the 400 and the 10,000 foot setbacks that are being discussed tonight. >> Okay. Council, any questions? Sir, >> uh, Chief, you just to clarify your statement, you you weren't making a statement on the decision on 400 versus 1,000 ft. You were just saying that your department is prepared to handle the emergencies from the incipient stage all the way through decommissioning. >> That is correct, sir. My comments tonight have nothing to do with the uh 400 or 1,000 foot uh issue that is before council right now. >> Okay. And is it fair to say then NFPA standard is a minimum standard? >> It is, sir. >> Yeah. Thank you, >> Mr. Adams. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, and I just want to be clear, chief, that when you speak of the uh building codes we've just uh acted on, that 100 ft is from the I'm going to use layman's terms, the the containment fence to the equipment inside the facility. Correct. >> Has nothing to do with distance from the fence to anything adjoining that that facility. >> Is that my understanding is correct? >> I'm I'm sorry. Would would you please repeat the second part of your question? >> So the 100 ft is from the the actual best equipment to the fence that encloses the best facility. >> Yes sir. >> Has nothing to do with the distance from the fence to residential schools or anything else. >> No sir. Those are two separate items. >> The 100 foot setback requirement that I was referring to was on the consent agenda as part of the fire and building code. the 400 versus 1,000 foot uh separation distance, which uh Rachel put up on the screen here, um kind of demonstrates that the the item I was discussing is what's labeled on the screen as the setback distance. That's from the the property line to the nearest battery. The issue that is currently being discussed is the separation distance from that property line to the uh other land uses. >> Okay, Chief Alexander, thank you for that clarification. Mayor, council member Adams, if I can just clarify, the separation distance is from the perimeter wall, not the property line. So, it's the perimeter line to the residential property line. Just for clarification, >> I think I just got confused. Let's let's let's back up a minute. We have a fence around this facility. The 100 ft is from the equipment to the surrounding fence inside the best facility. Correct. The other issue entirely separate the 400 the thousand whatever is from the fence to either the school the residential. Okay. Thank you chief for clarifying that. I think we're >> No. Um I'm I'm sorry. >> If I if I could correct and and on the screen we have a diagram. So the the fire code that's set back the 100 ft it's from the battery equipment to the property line and then the separation requirement is from the external sight screen wall to the property line of the residential zoning district or use. >> Thank you. Thank you Rachel. So but but theoretically the fence could sit on the property line. Maybe um maybe not >> it there if it was only three and a half ft tall but considering this is going to have to screen the equipment there's has to meet setback so it would be at least 15 ft from the property line in that case >> okay >> but it could be greater depending on um the classification of the road >> okay thank you for displaying this this diagram and for clarifying that I do have one additional question and this this may not be for you Chief Alexander um it might be a Jim Smith question. City attorney question. We talk about decommissioning and in some of our conversations prior to this meeting, I've raised the issue of requiring a decommissioning bond. Is that part of anything we're talking about here? Because, you know, the theory being maybe the company that establishes the best facility is long out of business 15 years from now and it's time to decommission. So, are we going to require decommissioning bond or is that a conversation for a later time? >> Uh, mayor and council, I I think that's ultimately going to be a conversation for a later time. We have started to look into it. Um, I'll say this, we we could not find they're not sort of readily available. At least we we are not familiar with those markets. Um, and so the the fire code um and Sean can correct there there is um they're allowed to add requirements for for the decommissioning. And so what those requirements are are dependent on sort of the the the fire marshall and sort of those requirements. Whether that bond sort of in light of potential cost or availability is reasonable under the circumstances. You know, I just can't answer that question because we don't even know. We don't have a sense of the the availability of that type of bond. >> Okay. But it is something that could come back to the table for further discussion and consideration. >> Yes, definitely. >> Uh that's all I have for now, Mayor. Okay, Miss Taylor, [clears throat] >> thank you. I Mary, I just had one question that maybe you can answer. So, I know that we're talking about the distance being 400 ft or 1,000 ft from the best to a property line, [clears throat] but you mentioned they're sensitive like church locations, parks. I guess I'm a little confused as to why we have a proposal for a thousand foot setback from a best system to a residential property line where humans are residing, but we don't have that same option for those sensitive areas because a church would have people in it, a park would have people in it. I mean, can you help me understand that one a little bit? >> Sure. U Mayor, Council Member Taylor, one of the things we were looking at is from a residential perspective, this is where people spend a lot of time. They're in their home day after day. it's something that they're going to be exposed to on a on a consistent basis where if you're in a church, you're at a park, you're at a school, it's a more intermittent type of use. So, we still wanted to get that separation to to be able to make sure that noise level things like that were considered, but it's that quality of life for people as they're say using their backyard on a day-to-day basis, which is why the original 1,00 ft went in um as a as a recommendation. So then could we still potentially propose to have a thousand foot setback from those sensitive areas as well? Because I'm thinking in a school that's 5 days a week on average. You've got children there, teachers. I'm just thinking of it from a safety perspective as well. Not sure if that was supposed to be directed to you or Jim. >> No, I appreciate that. I'm going to ask Jim about the,000 ft because right now it's 400 ft to the sensitive receptors in both ordinances. So, mayor and council, if you wanted to, we could we'd have to introduce yet another version, right? And so, we'd have to go back um and introduce that. Um we were prepared to try to read into the record if you went from 400 to 500 on on locations, but realize it's, you know, it's actually it's almost a page of me reading for me to make that that simple amendment. So, to do this tonight, um it would be amending one of the two options and knocking that one out. So realize someone would have to say we're not going to we're not we don't want to uh introduce one of them tonight and you want me to try to quickly write down the the the motion that would take me a few minutes to read into the record to change it to 1,000 ft on the sensitive sites. I would recommend if we're going to do that we introduce these two and we can introduce another one next council meeting. Right. And so, um, and you can see if either of these two pass at the next council meeting. If they don't, then this third option could come in would come in January. [clears throat] >> Let me know your thoughts. >> Vice Mayor, I'll share mine. Just a minute. >> Uh, >> can we get clarification? What What is it that you're asking for, Brian? [clears throat] That which setback? I'm wondering if we can make equal the thousand foot setback from residential to also include those sensitive areas particularly schools. I'm thinking of the safety of people at schools where you have a battery storage center. But >> okay, >> I don't want to. >> So here here's my perspective on that and and why I'm not as bothered with 400 ft from sensitive uses versus the residential uses. The sensitive uses, schools, churches, some of the others typically are daytime use. Folks are awake. They're alert. As a firefighter myself, now [clears throat] retired, I've had the opportunity, unfortunately, to have to do evacuations of various buildings, to evacuate a church, to evacuate a school. While not something you want to do while people are awake, they can get them on buses. They can move them away from the hazard a lot faster than trying to evacuate a neighborhood, which takes a very long time and a lot of personnel to do it. Um, in addition, I feel that when it the difference between a house is something that we all invest in, it's arguably the largest investment that a person makes in their life up until they they retire. That's where most of their money is. And to have that exposed unnecessarily to toxins and chemicals, I I think is a different level of risk. And you may not agree with me on that, but if we just took it from a public safety perspective, evacuating some of these other facilities, much easier to do than trying to get people out of their homes in a neighborhood, particularly 2 in the morning. 2 in the morning, there's no school, there's no church, right? Those things aren't going to happen. >> Thank you, >> Miss Go for >> Mary. I am curious about existing neighborhoods that would be affected by either the 400 or a thousand. Are there potential zoning districts where a best development could take place under the 400? Under the thousand but not the the 400 or under the 400 but not the thousand, sorry. Meaning there's an existing residential neighborhood. there's homes already built and if it's 400 the best system can't be built. I mean can be built but if it's a thousand it can't because I guess I guess what I'm getting at a little bit is if if the system is there before right if the system is there prior to the neighborhood what I'm trying to avoid is existing neighborhoods that now we put a best system next to you when you you're already inhabiting your home. Uh thank you council member Go forth mayor council. Um so as you're aware we have one existing best that's been built on signal but it is um with it it's near a residential project. I believe it's um at least 400 ft away. There is another one proposed on an on a lot that is um near that that the th00and ft likely could be met. the 400 foot for the um sensitive receptor because there's a church in that area will be probably more of a challenge for that site. The second site where a best is being considered, there is a multif family residential zoning district within 400 ft of that site. It would not meet the,000 ft and would probably be more challenging for development of that best. >> But again, it's not built, right? Correct. It's just zoned. That's correct. >> Resident multif family. >> That's correct. But but a zoning district, it would that separation distance is from a zoning residential zoning district or use. >> Okay. And that's the only one, right? >> Yes, that's correct. >> Okay. >> So, Miss Taylor, I'm going to ask answer your question. So, tag it on to the vice mayor. As a retired firefighter, there's some options we have when we respond to an incident. Number one is an evacuation zone. So typically the emergency emergency response guide our evacuation is 330 ft from any incident. So we'll monitor the air, monitor the water, do all the components associated with that. The other component is shelter in place. So we can shelter the individuals until the incident subsides or as vice mayor said we can transport them out of the area. So those are typically, you know, nursing homes, uh, that we would either, uh, shelter in place or evacuate them out. As far as school, uh, a lot of people there, we would probably just, uh, shelter them in place until the in the wind may change. We don't know all the all the dynamics there. So, uh, I I'm supportive of just how the ordinance is written right now, and if we need to make some changes in the future, we can. But I just just to remind everybody, you know, there there's a standard that uh public safety personnel, this is nationwide, 330 ft of emergency response and um sheltering in place or evacuation to for incidents. So, uh, with that, uh, Miss Go forth. >> Well, I guess may I suggest I mean, this is all introduction, and since we're we have we have no consensus right now, should could I could we move to just introduce all of seven? >> Well, I would I would like to entertain a motion to do all four of them and then we have the other council members in place because we don't know where a best system may go in each of our districts. And so, you know, I'll entertain a motion to move forward um 7A and 7D and we'll see where the motion goes. If we have a motion, a first and a second, uh make that motion and do you have a comment? >> Yeah, I I'll make a comment and again, let's let's stress this. This is just an introduction. >> It is an introduction. >> I will not support 400 ft. I've listened to the industry. I've read your letters. I haven't seen a darn thing that would suggest 400 ft. NFPA standard is a minimum standard. We can establish through any zoning whatever distance we feel is necessary for the safety and the health of my community and all three of these are in my community. So, I'm standing up for them. Who in this room has fought a fire on the scale of a best system with that many batteries? Yeah, that's what I thought. I've seen these things. I've fought these fires. I know the toxins that they put through. To tell me that 400 ft is too long because an NFPA committee said it should be 100 ft. Well, I could pull up any number of cities and states and counties that have it from 100 ft to a mile in separation. Everyone's different. I can pull up at least half a dozen communities that have put a prohibition on these in their communities. It's up to the community what they want to accept. Now, I think 1,000 ft is reasonable distance from somebody's home. I think that battery operated systems, you're right, we need the power. This is a stop gap measure until this state can figure out how to generate more energy because we're seeing tremendous and positive growth in economic development. And we need the energy for that. But I don't want to put these up against somebody's fence. I I just don't. So, and I also want to stress one more thing. The NFPA stand I hats off to the NFPA. I've done some work for them. I've been on one of these committees. I've seen that process. It is sausage making. It's not technology. It's not math. There are there were about 45 or 46 members of the NFPA 855 committee. Of those, a baker baker's dozen represented the industry. they were solar, they were batteries, or they were power systems. Where do their allegiances lie? Is to make sure that more of these can get in. And again, there's a balance. What is that proper balance? So, you heard me. I will support 400 ft away from the sensitive uses because I think we can manage that. But I believe that 1,000 ft from houses is the right thing to do. And if we find out that there's been more studies, more tests, safer batteries, we can always bring that back down. But once we say it's 400 ft, we've just given them the right to do 400 ft. Period. Can't change it. Can't go back. Oops, made a mistake. Let's make it 1,000. Let's make it 1500. Their rights are in that property. So, if we're going to take these 7 A to 7D as one motion, I will oppose all four. Uh, however, I will support 7 A and 7B right alone because those are 1,000 ft. So, if we took them at two separate motions, I'm open to that. But again, whatever council decides this is only introduction, we can have another argument uh next week >> and a week. Mhm. So, I've asked for a motion to move all four forward if there's someone to make a motion. If not, we'll move differently. Thank you, Miss Go forth. I'll second the motion. I'll call for a vote. Please cast your vote. Okay. Motion does not pass. All right. Is there another motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve 7 A and 7B for introduction. >> Is that right? Okay. There's a motion to 7 A and 7B. Thank you, Mr. Summers. Miss Taylor, please cast your vote. The eyes have it. Thank you. All right, we'll move forward with that. >> Mayor and council, do you want to do a vote of 7 C and 7D or do you not want to to do that? You don't have to. >> Would someone like to make a motion for seven uh C and D? I think we've had uh a conversation on it. So, I think >> we don't have to. >> Okay. All right. Thank you for your votes. Uh next, we'll move forward to item 9A. Uh, we have a blue card here. Um, Noah James, you want to come forward and speak? You have three minutes, Noah. God, that was a lengthy conversation. Mesa, you guys complain a lot here. Aloha, mayor, and to the rest of the city council. I would like to talk about 9A and 10A. Can I do that now? It's okay right? >> Let's do 9A. >> But what if I want to do both? >> Why don't you talk on 9A because we're going to make a have to vote on it. >> Okay. Middle house scene is desperately needed in Mesa. So, you guys need to build more here because I can hear a lot of this complaining right now here in Mesa. >> I I'm sorry. Is are we talking about 9A or 8A? We're off. We're off the item. >> No, a 9A is adoption of the title capacity fee for wastewater water and wastewater. >> Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, >> is that what you wish to speak on? >> The water utility, right? Is that the one? >> It's a water and wastewater capacity fee. >> Yes. Yes, I got it. Um, yeah, I would like to talk about the water and how the drought does affect Arizona and people that don't think we have a lot of water or Yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't know what you guys are looking at. Um, because we don't have a lot of water. Um, but we need to do better if we think that God is real. Um because Arizona just we we have to wait for God to come back to save us. Um because there's going to be no more water here. So um yeah, mahalo and thank you for listening to me tonight. >> All right. Thank you, Noah. >> Talk about the other thing or not yet. >> Okay. >> Say that again. Do I talk about 9A or 10A? Whatever it is, >> I'll call you back up for that. Thank you. >> All right, council. Is there a motion to approve item 9A? >> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Go forth. Second. Mr. Summers, please cast your vote. Motion passes. Thank you. Uh, next is item 10 and we've got quite a few blue blue cars on our utilities. But, uh, before we do, we'll have uh, Brian Ritzel. Brian, you want to come up and give us an overview of our utility rate increases, why we are making the recommendations? Good evening, Mayor and Council. Brian Ritchell, director of office of management and budget for the city. Here, I'd like to do a pre a brief presentation on the main focuses uh that were discussed throughout this rate uh setting process. So there are four of them. One, the first one is equity between residential and non-residential rates. So previously discussed as we uh discussed is that with between the residential rates and the commercial rates that revenues being brought into the utility fund were higher throughout the residential than the commercial, but the commercial was using is consuming more of the water. And so what we want to do is bring that equity into focus. Also, as we discussed, growth pays for growth. So, the council just passed the capacity fee, but also we wanted to take a look at um the rates for commercial and also residential with that in uh in focus because with the growth pays for growth, what that does is it takes some of the uh it takes the burden of capital projects off of residential and puts it onto the commercial side. And then also what we focus on was conservation of discretionary water use. And the fourth one was smooth rates adjustments throughout the forecast. So what I wanted to show here was back in August uh staff presented to the audit and finance committee and the impact to the typical customer that we presented was a 5.5% uh increase to the typical customer for residential. when we went to the audit and finance and then multi-unit was 8 and a half% or 8.6% with commercial 7.7 and then landscape was 12.1. The audit and finance committee recommended that we move uh the equity up a little bit but then also low uh adjust some of the other rates. So when we came back to council with the capacity fee also what we recommend was a 4.2% 2% increase for the typical customer. And then also the multi-unit was 8.7 slightly above, but we're trying to get the multi-unit equal to the residential. And then also general uh the commercial general and then general landscape uh was a little bit lower due to the capacity fee um on those rates, but we were also focusing on the commercial landscape. So with that discussion, council asked if we could lower the residential and put more burden on the commercial. And so what we did is we came back with the residential and multi-unit with a 2.5%. And so with that lowered uh also putting the burden on the commercial and what we're trying to do is what I mentioned before is get that equity in line a little bit sooner. Council asked that we can move it from I believe it was fiscal year 2728 up to 2627. So move it up a year. So with that we're able to do that with these with these rates. And as you see it's about a so a typical customer for water is about just over a dollar uh per month. So that's about $12 per year for residential and then a$13 dollar three for the multi-unit. With that, what I wanted to show here is that with those rates, uh, we the utility fund is projected for 2526, the year we're in, still has a negative net sources and uses projected about almost $29 million. So what that means is that the revenue annualized revenue that these rates will be bringing in is still less than the expenses that the utility fund is uh is having for the increased costs of chemicals, water and operations and maintenance of the system. Here what I wanted to show you is one of our principles is smooth rates uh throughout the forecast. And as you see Mesa up on top, uh, with the water, we're consistently three, four, and then two and a half. We lowered it to two and a half, but we're trying to do every year incremental increases to be able to sustain our system. As you see, why we do that is some of the our neighboring municipalities, for instance, Chandler and Gilbert, what they would do is one year they would do a 7%, for instance, in Chandler, they wouldn't have to do one, but then they came back and did a 15%. And that is because you lose that compounding of the growth and the revenue coming in from those increases to sustain that. So what happens is now you have to increase it even more that following year to catch up. And same with Gilbert, they went from 48% then 25 and 25 because the previous 10 years they didn't do a rate increase at all. And then same with over on wastewater. Uh Gilbert they did zeros but then they had to do a 55% and then they're doing a zero. So the following year they may have to do another significant increase. And same with Chandler, they had an 8% then a zero, but now they're back up to 15% to be able to catch up and be able to do their uh maintenance on their systems. So moving to solid ways similar. We try to do a forecast a smooth forecast as you see some of the other ones. Gilbert did a 44% did a zero but then they decided they had to do another 2% to catch up. And then with Mesa, with the natural gas and electric, we benchmark ourselves to the private companies. So, Southwest Gas, um, we tried to keep ours consistent throughout. They did a zero, now a 8.9, but then a zero. So, the following year, uh, they may need to do another increase to be able to catch up. Also, same with electric. Uh, with SRP and APS, uh, they are able, they did a a significant increase of 8%. We're sitting at 2.1 for 23 24 1.9 for 2425 and then 1.7 where the private companies are eights and 14%. So with that I just want to give uh um our next steps. So, should council um adopt or approve these rate adjustments, the next steps for December 8th, would council would take action on a notice of intent for the additional increases that were above the notice of intent uh that were adopted. So, for for instance, with the commercial, the notice of intent had the 13% however throughout this process uh it was raised up to 20%. So that 7% would be coming back on December 8th for notice with an introduction on January 26th. Uh council would take action on the water rates on February 9th and a implementation date of April 1st for the non-residential rates. >> Thank you, Brian. >> All right, council. Any questions for Brian while he's here? If not, I will go to the blue cards. Items 10A through 10E involve fees and charges for electric, natural gas, water, wastewater, and solid waste utility services. I will call first call the public hearing on all these items, and then we can vote on the items individually. Uh first, uh Linda Patrick Hayes uh is opposed, but she wishes not to speak. Uh next up is Mr. Carrie Davis, followed by Noah James. Mr. Davis. Welcome. >> Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Carrie Davis. I'm here to oppose the rate increases. On page four of the council report, it reads, "Review of the general fund contribution. The utility fund contribution to the general fund is calculated based off of 30% of each utility gross operating revenues. The amount of the transfer throughout the forecast period is adjusted based on the gross operating revenue forecast. The adjustment for fiscal year 2025 through 2026 is projected to increase uh to an increase of 9.4 million increasing from 137.8 million to 147.2 million. My oppos opposition to the rate increase is because of that 9.4 million. I would recommend that the city uh adopt a rate increase that would exclude that 9.4 million and leave the transfer from the utility funds to the general fund at the prior year of 137.8 million. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Davis. Uh Noah James. Now he can speak on 10A. uh after that is one but um yeah I mean this is a good topic we're talking about and um yeah I mean we need more electricity um here in Arizona especially Mesa um and yeah God is watching us so thank you >> thank you Noah Mark Kimble and after Mr. Kimble is Reed Gachuk. >> Welcome, Mark. Mayor Freeman, city council. My name is Mark Kimell, uh lifelong resident of Mesa. I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly this evening and I would also like to speak against the utility increases. Um Mr. Davis is extremely um talented with numbers and I don't pretend to speak to the details as he does but I can share a couple of things. I remember boy how time flies was just about a year ago we were here talking about the same thing utility rate increases for those that were there it was in the old chambers and it was a packed house and uh this is a dull meeting compared to that one I'm like well where's [clears throat] all the ones that showed up then that aren't here now could it be because h it won't do any good we got shut out. I don't know. But I do know that there are people as was expressed in that meeting that just one after another 10 many many people speaking how uh we're barely making as it is you know this is where do we find another 20 $30 to uh make this you know this increase. So, it's very important. I would like to congratulate Dorian Taylor uh as part of the council now. And I'll tie this together. There were some that thought that the recall was a bad thing for Mesa. In fact, [clears throat] Councilman Adams expressed that concern. Uh my belief is the system works. We saw a display of political correctness in action and it was a grassroots effort and sure it's a difficult thing but I can tell you that it restored faith in a lot of people residents of Mesa that you know what we have a say and I'm tying that into the utility increases they want to know they have a say and here's the problem you have an elected official that starts thinking that they know better for the people than the people do for themselves. That's where you have a a concern. And that's what happened. And so I just I hope that our uh council can really listen to their constituents and their basic needs from that standpoint. We appreciate the efforts you make. There's a lot of work that goes into it. I acknowledge that. But um we really uh on the last meeting I'm referring to a year ago, there was urging, hey, can we delay this vote? Just delay it to see if there's options that can lower this utility increase. And the decision was no, we're we're not going to delay. We're not going to even try from that standpoint. I would urge this decision be delayed >> to see if there's any possible options. >> Listen to what Carrie Davis said. I highly recommend that. And so we hope that you know the residents of Mesa can look and go, "Hey, this city council, they they're listening. They care." So appreciate you. And uh I'll end my comments. >> Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Uh Reed, if you'll come up Reed, and then followed that is uh Mark Hunaker. >> Uh good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Reed Gotchock, and I've been a resident of Mesa for a little over 5 years. I'm here today to respectfully voice my opposition to the proposed utility rate increases under agenda item 10A. When my family and I moved to Mesa, one of the biggest draws was that the cost of living and especially our utility rates were reasonable, predictable, and within the realm of common sense. In just a few short years, that reality has changed dramatically. What used to be manageable is now becoming truly difficult for working families to absorb. And for many of us, it feels like these increases are happening faster than anyone can adjust. My wife and I are raising two young children, one and four years old. And like many parents in Mesa, we're doing everything we can to set them up for a better future than we had. Mesa should remain a place where young families can afford to build a life, not a place where utility bills increasingly threaten their ability to stay afloat. I'm not opposed to infrastructure investment or necessary improvements. But before asking residents to pay more, we deserve full transparency about where these additional dollars are going. Sorry, I lost my place. Um how they will be used and what measurable benefit rate payers will receive in return. Right now, we haven't seen that level of clarity. Until we do, I believe our rates should remain exactly where they are. A rate increase of any size, large or small, may seem incremental from the outside, but for families budgeting down to the dollar each month, it is real money that impacts groceries, childare, transportation, and basic quality of life. These decisions compound over time, and they should shape whether Mesa remains the family-friendly, affordable community that attracted so many of us in the first place. I respectfully urge the council to vote no on agenda item 10A or at least at the very least postpone approval until the public receives transparent detailed justifications for for every cent of this proposed increase. Thank you for your time and for your service to our city. >> Thank you Reed. Uh Mr. Huner uh followed by Nathan Scott is on deck. Martin. >> Thank you, mayor and council people here uh for the chance to speak to you tonight briefly. Uh apologize this a little impromptu. So I asked for a little leaning on the lack of polish of my comments. I won't be speaking much in the details of numbers or anything like that tonight but more in the broad scope of a end user of many years of a citizen of Mesa. Uh my wife and I um have lived in Mesa for over 30 years. My wife's a longtime multi-generational resident of Mesa as well. Um we've always loved Mesa. We've we've appreciated Mesa and wouldn't trade it for anything. Um, but what I do see and what I want to comment on tonight is the the trend um that I see in dealing with Mesa, the city of Mesa and different departments um as an end user um of your services. Um, one of the perspectives I wanted to talk about tonight is just the fact of the the title on the screen. I can't see it, so I tried to type it in really quickly, but it talks about the adoption of U. Let me see if I can find it here real quickly. Uh terms, rates, fees, and charges. Uh I thought this was just about the rates for the utilities that we're talking about here. Um but as with our utilities um and other services, as I said for Mesa, I've seen trends of additives, additions of different uh fees and charges um that are added on to that. And I see that as a lack of planning, a lack of true management of our our facilities and our services and our programs. Um I think as if anything we've seen over the last year um or so uh citizens of different uh municipalities, the state, the the federal government u are wanting more accountability, more transparency in the money that is spent and where our tax dollars go. Um we see bloated um governments um unvetted spending irresponsible spending at times many times and I think um as we've seen uh in our federal government and as uh one of the other speakers talked about just recently a recall of one of the council members for what we saw as not being um representative of its constituency. So, um, I would ask, you know, that to the city council look a little bit further, um, at whether these are all necessary. U, I know they'll be recommended as necessary. That's just the typical. Um, but I've never seen a government department not recommend needing more money. I've never very rarely, if at all, ever see one say, "Look, we can reduce our budget this year. We don't need any increases." Um, but I would ask uh maybe a continuence or something that perhaps a little bit deeper study under these rates to see if they're absolutely necessary. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Mark. Uh, next, Nathan Scott, after which uh Nancy Thompson. >> Thank you, Nathan. >> Hi. Thank you, council members, for your time. And um I came from Michigan. Uh I've been living here in Arizona for three years now. And I live right off of East Brown Road in North uh North Mesa Drive. And I came here uh being promised that Mesa would be the most affordable area in Arizona. And unfortunately it's turning out not to be uh like that. Um housing about as expensive as Tempe now and the utilities there's doesn't seem to be any end in sight as far as these utility rate increases. Um, and I'm blessed in that I work uh within financial services, but I know a number of people my age who are just living paycheck to paycheck and they are not doing well. Um I mean on one hand I am thankful that city of Mesa the utilities is kept public because there has been a record uh profit from utility rate increases in the first half of 2025 alone by over $29 billion. And the utility increases on average have been twice that of the inflation rate. Um, but the problem I'm encountering is that I'm having friends who have to move out of Mesa and have to move out of Arizona altogether because they unfortunately cannot afford all this increased cost of living. Um, and furthermore, uh, from a small business perspective, increasing the cost of utilities will increase the end cost to the customer. And I would argue that this will stifle economic growth. Um, now the other thing too is there's people, you know, there's young families and sadly they a lot of them aren't even able to afford a house and then there are a good number that they're just struggling to make it, you know. Um, and I would argue that increased transparency and at the minimum a delay of rate increases and perhaps looking into restructuring and streamlining the city of Mesa's utilities. I would argue that streamlining and perhaps restructuring in such a way as to uh mitigate the amount of people required may help delay any need for increases. Thank you. >> Thank you, Nathan. Uh Miss Thompson, followed by Lesie Wilson. You've been on the front row all night. Yep. So, no one had to wait until I walked up here. I'm in uh Washington Escamido neighborhood just to the north and we've been Macy utility uh customers about 25 years and I learned about public input from our quality of life plan. So, I'm just adding my two cents. I'm not saying it's correct or complete. I'm not sure. This is just, you know, what I think. But um like to start off, I like that um the extra I didn't know this before this year, but the extra money goes to that um general operating fund because I think in public utilities it goes to some person's pocket to make them very wealthy. So I really like that part kind of if that's how it works. But um I kind of am a little worried because West M is the main area of of the utilities which is I think historically lower income and like our older homes we need to we need to put like an AC on, you know, a new AC for older homes. So we're doing things like that that take money in order to use the utilities. So, I'm not sure if it's fair that I'm not just paying for utilities, but I'm paying for like the whole rest of Mesa, too, to have services. Although, you know, so it's like good and bad. That's just what I just want. I think it's good for you to know that. I'm thinking what I'm thinking. So, maybe it's like a information issue of wrapping your head around all that. And um hold on. Now I my page is gone. Okay. So, okay. And then um as far as like the past vote because I watched the video on the website where it was voted that people didn't want the um um you know the property tax. They wanted to keep it the money that goes into the fund from the utility company. But it's like are we not outnumbered? Because if we if that vote there's so many other people that are not on me utilities, yeah, no, we don't want personal property tax. We want it to come from there. Well, that's like we're like the small people. We would be outnumbered to voting to say no, it's more fair if we have the property tax. We'd never win like on that vote. I feel like the voting would be like a stacked vote on that. But um so I think I had one more point. Um and then since most of West Mesa is also like the older population, would that be considered like a form of gentrification to raise you know that we are carrying that burden? But I do appreciate the man who showed this that you reduced the percentage to like 5% down to 2%. Like I'm impressed with that. I'm really happy about that. And um the the main thing is is the um money not just based on utility need but on that general operating fund that we're contributing to even though it's better than making someone wealthy. I'd rather help my neighbors. That was like the main thing. and then leave it open to maybe in the future maybe we'll find another way to have revenue like take all the dead palm leaves and make bamboo flooring but palm leaf floor like I don't know but that's part of how it is you know keep keep doing that and we'll find another way too to get more revenue >> well thank you for sharing your comments uh Lesie Wilson followed by Bradley Bettton Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. Um, my name is Lesie Wilson and I'm a Mesa resident as well as a precinct committeeman. I'm here this evening to represent not only my own household but also those in my precinct. Um, we're asking all you council members to please vote no on this rate hike. Um last year our rates were raised under the guise that the infrastructure and facilities needed repair and updating. Um several people have mentioned that there were a lot of us here begging you to please vote no and it was a unanimous vote yes. Um, so after the $31 million in additional revenue that was raised, you moved 16 million of it, um, our money over to the general fund to then pay for the Chicago Cubs locker room and batting cage. Um, so here we are again and this is becoming an annual event it seems. Um, in the past, uh, public comment has felt like nothing more than process, especially for those of us in district 2. Um, our former representative would sit up front, seeming to not care that the will of her residents was a resounding no for increases. And honestly, we're fed up with the disregard. We're fed up with the good old boys club and the backdoor deals. We made that loud and clear by replacing our representative with Mrs. Taylor. Um, we do not want this rate hike, which is truly nothing more than a new tax. So, this evening, please vote no. Thank you. >> Thank you, Lesie. Uh, Bradley, and then followed by Mary Maybino. >> Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Brad Benton Court. I'm currently the president of Dobson Ranch in District Three. We have several members of the board here tonight, and I made it known to our residents that the board would be here for this important discussion. I'd like to start by thanking the city of Mesa for our more than 50-year relationship and also thank Mayor Freeman and city councilman Eradia, who's not here tonight, for what I believe has been a positive relationship so far. Well, I may have marked no on my card that I oppose this. I'm going to go about this a little bit differently. I'm not here to say you can never raise rates. However, I would like to be sure that the city of Mesa is spending our money efficiently and has its priorities in the right place, especially when raising our rates. There are some expenses that I've questioned in the past. For example, in District 3, there was a $16 million trolley car study done recently. I understand that was not a unanimous vote, and I'm not going to dive into who voted which way. However, I do hope that projects focused on things like necessary infrastructure and overall public safety do not fall by the wayside while the focus is on projects that are less critical. I will also notate that increasing commercial rates does hit the residents of HOAs as an increase in assessments. So raising commercial rates instead of residential rates doesn't necessarily protect protect our residential homeowners from those increases. I'm in favor of our money being spent efficiently to uplift our communities, but I'm against rate hikes if that money is not prioritized correctly. As I said previously, I believe we've had a positive relationship up to this point and I hope that continues. Rest assured that our board of directors will stay well informed of the goings on in district three and will send news about it to our residents when necessary. Our association has a population approximately the size of PAC, Arizona. And our residents are just an email or social media post away when we need to deliver news to them, whether that's good news or bad news. Thank you for the time. >> Thank you, Bradley. Uh, Mary, >> good evening again. Mary Mayo, I live in district 5. 250 years ago in America, there were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, and no payroll taxes. The Revolutionary War started because the 13 American colonies felt that the tea tax of five, excuse me, felt that the tea tax of three pennies per pound of tea was the last straw on top of their other grievances. Today, we are taxed on our payroll, things we buy, property taxes, fed, state, and city taxes, and pay everinccreasing utility rates. more and more people are unable to meet higher and higher expenses with their homes. The reason I say this is obviously we're not going to start a revolutionary war. But after last year when you completely disregarded all of Mesa's residents who spoke against the utility rate increase at that time, you awakened a sleeping giant. Prior to the prior to last year, very few people attended city council meetings. We are now respectfully talking, thinking, and debating at the local level. You represent us, and we elect you to represent we the people, not we the business. We see how some of you overspend, how you have continuously raised utility rates to balance a bloated budget. And we see how some of you seem basically incapable of trimming spending. and so putting more and more burden on your residents. Mesa is becoming less and less affordable. I would suggest you could begin by starting with an independent operational audit to see where cuts could be made in the budget. I do want to give a shout out to Councilman Adams who actually dared at a study session to suggest lowering the residential utility increase to zero or 2 and a.5%. And this 2 and a half% was much lower than the staff proposal. Not the best, but better than the original proposal. I still encourage a no vote and encourage keeping the current fund transfer at its current level with no increase. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mary. Uh that's all the blue cards I have tonight. Uh Miss Mosley or do you have anything else? >> I have the cards for this item, Mayor. >> Okay. All right. Next is council members. Uh I I'm sure we all have something to address uh our utility rate increases. Who would like to start first? Mr. Adams. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, well, I have a I have a few things I'd like to comment on. Um, I would start by by saying that for this council member, the safe vote would be no. Seriously considered it. Still thinking about it. But as the last speaker mentioned at a study session a couple weeks ago now, I think I I decided to propose zero increase to the residential payer. And you know, personally, I I get it. 15, 20, $25, that's a tank of gas to a lot of people. I get that. I appreciate it. I understand it. um what what that discussion and I'm not going to take sole credit for that discussion because other council members chimed in but what that discussion resulted in was not just the staff proposal but the two and a half to residential and that that pushed that increase down to commercial users and they're not happy about that either. Nobody nobody wants to pay more. I get that. I don't. But there's there's a little more at play here, I think. So, what we have now at 2 and a half to residential payers, I I'm going to call that a compromise. Other good discussions have come out of that, like why do we consider the utility rate separate of the general budget? Where does that 30% come from? Um, that's a good discussion to have and personally this council member feels like I can't make an intelligent decision on 30%. Is it 30? Should it be 28.2? What should it be unless it's considered in the overall global budget? And I think there's movement among some to consider that you don't you don't turn a battleship on a dime. These are procedures and policies and and means and ways that have been in place for a long time. And I think the conversation has begun to take a look at these things. Um I think it's a positive move. It's two and a half. It's not what was proposed. Is it perfect? No. But it's better. Um, so then I I find myself, how do I propose a how do I propose a compromise and then not support it? Where does that take us? It's it's it's a it's a confusing. I do want to address something that I heard a little while ago and and and there have been some comments made about irresponsible spending. Let's talk about that Cubs $16 million. That was a contractual obligation of this city done by councils ago. I asked Mr. Smith, the city attorney, what would happen if we just said we're not going to pay it? Well, they'd have sued us. We would have been in breach of contract. That wasn't some capriccious, let's spend 16 million bucks on a new facility for the for the Cubs. We had to pay it. We were obligated under contract to pay it. If id have had the opportunity, I'd have voted no. But but let's be clear on that. That wasn't some capriccious deal that we just decided to throw the Chicago Cubs $16 million of your money. We had to pay that. Um yeah, personally, I think I think this is a move in the right direction. You don't change things overnight. Um I I think we should talk about the revenue transfer. Let's look at it in the global sense of the budget. um the capacity fee, huge help here. That's another move in the right direction. So, you know, as I as I sit here weighing this, the the the safe easy vote is no. I reason the reason I brought up the compromise that's on the table right now is in my estimation the proposal of higher rate that would have passed. So, what I throw away a no vote. I didn't change anything. At least we have something better. That that's that's my personal view on this. Um I think we are moving the right direction. I hear you. I think everybody up here hears you. But but things need to be done in a reasonable order considering all of the all of the implications of of what do we what would we decide that 30% should be based on? What? I like to I like to do business based on facts, figures, and uh let's look at what is essential and what is not. So, um that's u I just want to be really clear on how we got to where we are with this two and a half. I asked for zero. We got two and a half instead of what five something. So, anyway, those are those are my comments. Mayor, thank you very much. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Adams. Miss Taylor, would you like to weigh in? Does anyone else want to weigh in first? I'll wait to go last if they do. >> You have the microphone. >> Okay. So, obviously this is my origin story. Um I wasn't available to weigh in as much in the water discussion because I wasn't an elected council woman. And uh I would agree with some of what Rich has said and I'm grateful that you proposed um that compromise, Rich. But originally when we were discussing this and I was listening in the study sessions, I still can't disagree with the fact that we have a traditional method and I think our traditional method is something that other cities look at and they say, "Hey, you're doing a really good job by slowly increasing the rates so that you're smoothing it over." That was what I kept hearing, smoothing it over. And that's great, but traditional methods are not always the best methods. And when you have uncomfortable change, it leaves areas of opportunity that you may not have recognized to be there. So, for example, I was at a city council meeting and what was proposed was taking the fluoride out of the water. So, I did a little bit of math and I was like, how much does fluoride cost? And I don't have an exact cost per person for the city of Mesa, but the average was around 37 to 40 cents per person in a city. So, I just took 520,000 people and I added 40 cents per person and that gave me approximately $280,000. So, does that mean that if we removed just fluoride from our water, we could potentially save $280,000 and reallocate that towards our water rates so that we're leveraging that? I I don't know. It's just something I thought of. Um, Rich, you actually proposed more creative ideas like looking outside of the scope of just cutting specific programs, but looking at the budget holistically and saying where can we leverage better so that we offset the cost to the residents and to the businesses because I would agree we keep seeing our utility rates go up and that is very expensive for certain people. I was told it was going to be $541. It was not $541. My household water went up about 54 bucks a month. Yeah. We watched our me. We turned off our water. We watched the meter. We tried to make sure that we didn't have any leaks. And we cut back our sprinklers. Mind you, I have irrigation in my backyard. And it was I mean we we got it down to around like $47 a month. That was my increase. And so I started to think I bet you other people had way more than $541. Sure enough, I had neighbors. their bill went up a $100 a month. That's $1,200 a year that that family now has to budget in to pay for just water. I'm an absolute no on this vote. I'm going to stick with my origin story. I'm going to stick with the idea that we can be more creative. I think that I have a lot of um research to do in the budget around this and those are meetings that I need to hold. But I'm staying true to my residents. They asked I'm their voice and I'm going to vote on their behalf because I'm also one of them. And um I appreciate the support. Thank you to everybody who came who continues to come out here and support me. Thank you. [applause] And uh just to let you know I hear you. I see you and I will continue to represent you because that's my job. So thank you. >> Thank you Miss Taylor, Miss Goforth, Vice Mayor. >> I appreciate that. That's that's kind of crazy. I I have a family of four. Ours went up $12 a month. So that that seems that that's significant for sure for two people. Um I appreciate uh Rich um proposing the zero because as he said, it sparked a conversation um and it sparked a compromise. And I think that's what we're all looking for. None of us want higher uh utility rates. None of us on the council, I think I can speak for everybody in saying that we want to find ways to um negatively uh impact our residents as much as possible. And so I think it's important to say we started at 6% and we we found ways to get down to two and a half for residential. and and and um that's important to note. Um I I have some more remarks here um so bear with me. I believe in Mesa's philosophy of smooth incremental adjustments to avoid the kind of sudden painful spikes that other cities are now facing. I remain extremely sensitive to financial pressures our residents and small businesses already feel and I take seriously any decision that impacts monthly bills. But to maintain reliable and financially stable utility systems, we cannot ignore the cost realities and the growth impacts in front of us. Gradual adjustments help us avoid unnecessary burdens while still allowing us to make smart, responsible, and frankly very hard choices that secure Mesa's long-term water future. Since fiscal year 2017 2018, CPI has cumulatively increased more than 30%. And during that same time period, our Mesa typical residential water rate adjustment have increased less than 17. We've absorbed some of these rising costs. Chemicals have doubled. The cost of Colorado River water has doubled now at 350 acre $50 per acre foot. And we are paying approximately $20 million for raw water alone before any treatment or distribution. This water serves more than half of our city. Electricity personnel and the operating cost of the Val Vista plant and the plant we share with Phoenix have all increased. At the same time, we are funding major long-term investments that secure Mesa's water future. These include the central Mesa reuse pipeline which expands our capacity and most importantly allows us to cha exchange our affluent water for reliable Colorado River water rights from the Hill River Indian community at a significantly less cost. We will pay $85 an acref foot instead of $350 an acref foot which is what we're doing now for the water we we receive through this exchange. That project alone positions us far better than most cities as river shortages continue. We're also expanding our signal but water treatment plant to meet growth and deploying smart modders smart meters, excuse me, that help all of our customers catch leaks early. Before proposing any rate adjustments, we worked as we talked about aggressively to control costs. We negotiated better pricing for natural gas. We adjusted our debt payment policies to smooth payments. We've deferred $180 million in water capital projects, including waterline replacements, new well drilling and rehabilitation work at our Northwest Water Reclamation Plant. And we reinforced the principle that growth should pay for growth, proposing a capacity fee for new water users to the system. We have prioritized tightening our belt before asking the public for anything. A key part of this proposal is fairness and long-term equity. And right now, residential customers pay a larger share of total revenue. Even though they use less water than commercial users, that imbalance is not sustainable. This propo proposal moves us toward a structure where the share of water used more closely matches the share of revenue contributed. I want to be clear that the increase for commercial users is significant and I do not take that lightly. But most of our small businesses use less than six kg gals of water and the service charge alone gives them the first three kg gals. That means the majority of our small businesses will not see dramatic impacts. Adjusting commercial rates more quickly allows us to reduce the residential increase and move to par within a quicker time period. These decisions are never easy, but they are measured, responsible, and necessary to maintain the highquality, reliable utility systems our residents depend on. We've done everything possible to reduce internal costs, protect our rateayers, and keep increases modest. This proposal supports fairness today while safeguarding Mesa's wildwater water future. And as as as we heard we heard you all that these are are impacting you. We went from 6% to 2 and a.5%. And um for these reasons um I'm going to I I support this this um the water uh adjustments. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Go forth. Vice [clears throat] Mayor You you all heard earlier how I can pontificate, so I'm going to try to keep this a little bit >> piffy. Yeah, thank you for that. >> Um, first of all, thank you. I Mr. Butler, I think what you heard with a a couple of the questions that were brought up. Where did this 15 million come from? Where did this 7 million come from? I think that makes clear that what some folks have been asking for to become even, you know, more transparent is absolutely essential. So the the the Cub Stadium money as an example, not not only was that money contractual, that contract was part put in front of the voters back in 2010 11 somewhere in that. Now, you can't possibly know every little detail of what's what you're voting for, but it was in front of the voters and then it became a contract. In addition, roughly 7 and a half million of that money came from sales taxes generated on our tourism industry and the remaining amount of that money came from monies we set aside in a general fund for that very specific purpose. So, there is a funding source of that. PE people need to know this. Um I voted against the transit uh study but that was also that was federal. So that was federal monies that came or regional >> federal dollars >> federal dollars that that came in. So now we can have that argument too. federal dollars are still tax dollars and that's true but it it didn't come from revenue transferred in from this fund when when this is 70 years I believe that that this odd model of funding a city has happened and in that time we've seen a lot of changes and that's because all of you who have shown up today and others before you have shown up to these council meetings and say we we need to look at this again we need something different it used to be that the revenue fund funded the government period with no questions. Whatever the council and city management wanted that that's what it came to. It wasn't that long ago in the last maybe five or so years that they capped it at 30%. Not I don't think well I don't think most of us if any of us were part of that conversation but having that conversation again is that the right number makes sense. I've asked about maybe capping that number, not unlike what was was offered, maybe cap it at last year. I did this a couple years ago, and say, can we use that money to bolster the the reserve fund? And there were questions about that. So, continuing to answer these questions and have this conversation, particularly what was said, it's hard to have this conversation without talking about the budget because that 30% 25 of the 30% goes to public safety. And then 5% goes to the administration of those types of things. So personnel, that type of thing. If we want to hold harmless our public safety office, then this becomes a budget question. If we're not going to take it from public safety, if we're going to hold them harmless using our our other revenue streams, then the budget question is where are we going to make the cuts elsewhere and what are the impacts of that? So I was recently at the National League of Cities. So much for Pathy, by the way. I'm sorry. I'm just going to pontificate. We were recently at the at the National League of Cities and I I ran into a vendor there and I I think it was absolutely outstanding. It was using AI to look at your community's priorities and apply that to the budget to say what's necessary, what's not. And I've already had a conversation with the city manager about the potential for applying this here as as moving forward about how we fund the city, what are the priorities of the community and cutting the waste that way. So this conversation today, this might just be setting a utility rate, but the budget conversation that comes forward probably starting in March, this is this has to be part of that. So that's my two minutes of fame stretched into 10. >> You got it. >> Council's spoken about all the things that we've done. And I want to compliment our chair, our audit and finance chairman, Miss Go forth. Mr. Summer sits on there, vice mayor, Mr. Herdia. And when staff, as you heard, made presentations, it was almost 6% for we're just discussing a residential uh utility rate increase. And as we looked at some of the components that drives, we could drive it down. One of them was the capacity growth fee. We felt it was extremely necessary. And and I want you to know industry really pushed back on us developers about why you why you dinging development in the city of Mesa? Well, we know that we have over $400 million of infrastructure development over the next 10 years, and this capacity growth fee will allow us to recoup about $40 million per year over the next 10 years. That alleviates the tax burden or bonds for us as residents in our community. And so I want to commend our audit and finance committee for doing that because they took it down to 3 and a half%. And then Mr. Adams throws a grenade on the floor and says, "Hey, let's do 0%." Thank you, Mr. Adams. So then, you know, how do we compensate for that? You know, unfortunately, the city of Mesa is a utility business. And I've said this in the beginning, we're a fullervice city. We provide every part of utility except electric in some parts. And I want you to know we're the third lowest city as far as if you're living in the city Mesa, you we're the third lowest city out of all the rankings in the community. We have a chart for that. The the other part was transparency. We we had a council meeting where we talked about the Cubs. Mr. Hersburg came up and talked about the Cubs and the funding of that. And so just to help everybody understand that this was contractually done over 10 years ago, we had no input in that. However, we believe in the Cubs and the Oakland A's that they provide an economic impact to our city and very few cities have two professional teams in our city. Someone uh I think Mr. Mr. Huner talked about rates, rates, fees, and charges and and how that operates. We have four different utilities. They have different rates. They have different charges and fees. If you get solid waste pickup, well, there's a fee to that and you know, for blue barrel. So, with all that said, we are very conscious of what we are doing. In fact, if you've if you listen that right now we are putting in $28,9500,000 to offset any utility rate increase in our utilities. That's how committed we are. Yeah, we have a reserve fund. And so we're taking that reserve fund and we're leveraging that money and over the course of the next not only this year but the following two years that we can get up to into the black and all of our utilities. So please bear with us. It's a conversation that we'll have but we have the monies to offset these increases. We've done due diligence and all that we can do and and I feel it's important that we move forward with a smooth rate increase. Uh, I talked to a neighboring mayor and he said to me, "I wish we were doing what Mesa was doing, a smooth increase, because we have a significant increase that's going to impact our residential, commercial, and industrial users. And uh, it would have been a higher increase. However, he didn't want to impact his industrial user very high." Uh, with that, that's all the comments that I have. Uh, council members, is there any other issues you want to address? If not, I will declare the public hearing closed. Okay, with that, I'm going to take each uh ordinance uh individually. Council, is there a motion and second to approve item 10A related to electric utility fees? Push your button, sir. Thank you. Motion by Vice Mayor, second by Mr. Adams. Please cast your vote. Uh passes. Thank you. Um is there a council motion and a second to approve item 10B related to natural gas utility fees? Thank [clears throat] you, Miss Goforth. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Please cast your vote. Mr. Adams. All right. Motion passes. Thank you, councel. Council, is there a motion, a second to approve item 10 C related to water utility fees? Please make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Please cast your vote. Okay, motion passes. Council, is there a motion, a second to approve item 10D related to wastewater utility fees? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Adams, please cast your vote. Thank you. Motion passes. And council, is there a motion a second to approve item 10E related to solid waste utility fees? Thank you, Miss Go forth. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Please cast your vote. Okay, those motions pass. I want to thank everyone who made comments uh this evening. It's very important. Uh with that, we're going to move over to item 11 and that's from citizens present, we allow up to three speakers and three minutes to speak. And because the topics speakers raised are not on our agenda, uh generally prevents council from responding to the speaker. However, oftent times we will get more information to respond back with you. With that, our first speaker is Reggie Braun. Is Reggie still here? Thank you, Reggie. Please [clears throat] come forward. And after Reggie is Elizabeth Lee. >> Hi. >> Thank you Reggie. >> Hi. Thanks for hold on. This is going to go quick. All this information is available at QR code and all the bibliographies available. Professional work involves statistical analysis. I look for systemic risks in large organizations. I've analyzed the proposed 287g compared the cost of liability against the ROI and I find that this is a toxic asset to the city of Mesa. To be clear, this is for the people who are still considering the task force as a viable option. It offers zero revenue, unlimited liability, and operational sabotage. Now, Mesa PD is currently meeting elite standards. Over the past year, Mesa PD documented 1.3 million dispatch events. They are working harder and smarter than ever before. A priority one response time for life-threatening emergencies averages 4.5 minutes, and Mesa invested 36 million in new funding to protect that speed. ICE turn would turn a 20-minute traffic stop into a 2hour federal detention process. Every hour an officer spends processing I247s is an hour they are not patrolling our streets or monitoring the real-time crime center. Cannot mon we cannot maintain a 4 minute response time if our patrol officers are tied up doing secretarial work for the federal government. The irony is that we don't need this help. Mesa is winning the fight against crime. Look at our trends. Homicides are down 55% year to date. Robberies are down 25%. An agreement disrupts that momentum. It introduces federal inefficiency into a local system that is already reducing crime at record rates. Some people here are saying ICE makes them more safe. Nothing could be further from the truth. While ICE is increasing the volume of civil arrests, the actual criminal convictions is proportionately lower. More enforcement actions with more liability and fewer convictions. Poor ROI. ICE's mission is to detain and deport, not police crimes. They do not patrol streets looking for general crime, speeding, theft, assault. ICE profiles specific individuals and ignores the rest. Unlike Mesa, ICE agents do not have the authority to enforce state laws like Arizona's sexual assault statutes. Their jurisdiction is federal and focused on detaining and deporting. Regarding crimes, their p their powers are literally a citizen's arrest or acting good Samaritan principles until police arrived. 27 G is a distraction and resource malocation misallocation. Criminals would be emboldened to commit more crimes knowing that Mesopedia is occupied with ICE distractions. Now, unfortunately, according to 2024 data, Mesa's clearance rate for sexual assault is approximately 12%. That means nearly 90% of sexual assaults go unsolved. Statistically, sexual assault victims are overwhelmingly females of all ages. Officers should be testing rape kits and solving violent crimes, not doing secretarial government paperwork. Prioritizing 287G over unsolved sexual assault is a failure of our duty to the women of Mesa. Everyone here is talking about budgets. Currently, Mesa has $760 million in unfunded pension liabilities. We already in a hole. This is a president from This is a president from ACLE found in 2019. MCSO was booted from the 287G program and fined $314 million. Taxpayers still bear that $314 million burden. 99% of municipalities have rejected task force models because these liabilities risk erosion of public trust and of course taxpayers. Calculate unit cost for wrongful detainer lawsuits is $145,000. Taken recent LA lawsuits and proportionally applying them. Expected ICE operations give an average of 10 tainments. The projected liability $14 million to Mesa. >> Reggie, will you summarize your comments please? >> Yes, sir. Taxpayer burdens, as we're all speaking of right now, costs are high. Bringing an unregulated, limitless liability to Mesa is not only fiscally inappropriate, but a danger to our community. Please be clear about what I said last time. We're your flock. You are shepherds. Please protect your flock. >> Thank you, Elizabeth. Following that will be uh Elizabeth Noah James. >> Tonight for Elizabeth, mayor of [clears throat] council members, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you. My name is Elizabeth Lee. I've been a longtime resident uh and nurse here in the East Valley. Um and while I do reside in Gilbert, I'm running for public office of which the district includes part of Mesa. And so after some extensive conversations and concern from citizens, I wanted to make our collective voice heard on 287G. And I certainly can't speak with the professionalism of the gentleman behind me, so I'll speak to it from a higher level. in practice um [clears throat] what especially under now what seems to be a disregard for federal at the federal level for immigration law we have created with this 287g agreement which is really only a part of the bigger problem but we've created a situation where especially on top of the remains of 1070 that require our officers to screen folks that have a reasonable suspicion of being undocumented that unfortunately is so often tied to appearance, to language, to neighborhoods. Um, and because statutes are forcing information sharing with ICE, even when the underlying issue is a traffic stop or a civil civil matter, um, the data here shows the consequences. So, since October 1st, 73% of people detained by ICE from our community have no criminal conviction. and the specific Mesa specific data that that you guys publish shows that a small fraction of the arrests are truly 287G arrests. So, I agree uh that unconditionally that 287 ending that is necessary. But on top of that, when you combine the remnants of SB1070 um the federal information sharing rules, um families are quickly learning that it's not safe to call Mesa PD for help because they don't feel that they will be kept safe even if when they have no criminal conduct. So, you guys obviously can't change federal law tonight, but what you can commit to is something I've heard you all talk about quite a bit tonight. It's been very impressive, and that is transparency, right? So, let's publish the stop data. Let's publish the ICE referrals. Let's publish detainer outcomes. Right? The question here seems pretty simple. Does Mesa police do we want Mesa police to be feared as an extension of ICE and to be a distraction from our good Mesa PD's good policing efforts to keep our neighborhoods safe? Um, or do we want to back local policies that are going to keep those profiling incidents alive? So, thank you for the opportunity to share with you the community's concerns. >> Thank you, Elizabeth. Noah, would you come up? This is your third time, Noah. >> That's a record. >> Yeah, you did pretty well on the agenda. [laughter] >> Yeah, I'm enjoying my time up here today. Aloha, mayor, and to the rest of the city council. Once again, I love being up here. Um, and congratulations to the new city council member. I don't agree with a lot of things you say. um because you're a mega base and you didn't follow the rules to this um during the process. So um yeah, I'm I don't like that. But so let's look at this. How much confusion here in Mesa right here in the center city council? There's a huge Mormon temple and more Mormon churches about 28 and 29 is included including the Mormon temple. So, it's 443,000 to 450 members here in Arizona. And did you know that the Book of Mormon is not real and it's not in the Bible? So, let's stop building these churches. That's one confusion. And the other is this. What is crazy? They have about estimated 2.4 million Catholics in Arizona. And did you know that a small percentage back in the day there was a group with the Catholics that liked Hitler and followed him? So we can't have any more of this in Mesa, Arizona either. So I ask that Mesa PD gets rid of ICE agreement here in Mesa. And also I will agree on this. The Fiesta Mall is a good pro a good project that we're bringing here. And yes, we should bring the MLS here. Yes, because we need it because there's a lot of people complaining and No, no, no. We need more entertainment here. And about Tempe, I know I heard something about Tempe. Don't come to Tempe if you're going to complain about it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Noah. With that, Miss Mosley, is there anything I've missed this evening? >> Nothing else, mayor. >> Okay, so moved. >> Well, council, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Miss Go forth. All in favor say I. >> I. I >> I we're journed. Thank you everyone. Have a good evening. [music]