welcome again to the Mesa city council meeting for November the 18th I'll note for the record that all of our Council are present we will begin this meeting with an invocation offered by Reverend Mindy Tucker with unity of Mesa followed by the Pledge of Allegiance so please stand for the prayer and remain standing for the [Music] pledge thank you mayor Giles thank you city council thank you to everyone who is in this room for together we acknowledge that there's only one presence and one power active in the universe and in our lives a presence and power we call God God the good omnipotence it is sourcing our wisdom from this deep well it is sourcing our peace from this deep well of good it is sourcing our spiritual intelligence from this deep well of good knowing that every mind and heart that is present in this room and in this meeting has come with an as open a mind as possible with as open a heart as possible knowing that every word every thought every idea we share we share coming from the highest and best for the people of the city of Mesa in gratitude for this wisdom for Spiritual intelligence for our ability to speak Our Truth in gratitude for the presence of our future in this room the young people who are in our program who are open to curiosity and discovery of ways they too in the future will lead and provide for the highest and best of the people of the city of Mesa in gratitude for all these things and more we say thank you God and amen amen thank you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge aliance to the pl 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 the um oh I want before we begin I want to acknowledge that we have on the front row our mayor's youth committee guys would you mind standing just so we can get a feel for who you are thank you these are students from all of mesa's high schools that participate in a year-long pro uh Pro program learning about the city and at the end they thank you you can be seated uh they give us some really great recommendations so uh thank you to these young people for being here and for participating in that program PL for them okay um first item on our agenda is to consider the consent agenda we'll invite Miss uh Miss King to please come forward and read the consent agenda Lily mayor and council members these are the items on the consent agenda all items listed within asterisk will be considered as a group by the city council and will be enacted on with one one motion there will be no separate discussion unless a council member or citizen requests in which event the item will be removed from the Cent agenda and considered as a separate item item two approval of minutes from previous meetings as written item 3A Acton liquor license application for a mascor taco shop 2706 East University Drive item 3B act on liquor license application for PayWay Asian Kitchen 1902 South Valvista Drive item 3 C act on liquor license application for Harkin Theater 6950 East supersti Springs B Ard item 4A approving one-year term contract of excess Workers Compensation Insurance and workers compensation self-insurance shy Bond item 4B approving one-year term contract for DNA crime lab supplies for the Mesa Police Department item 4C approving three-year term contract with the renewal options for drone and first responder technology for the Mesa Police Department this is funded from the public safety sales tax funds item 4D approving the use of corporate contract for command response Vehicle Systems upgrade for the Mesa fire and medical Department item 4E approving the use of Cooperative contract for on Call manhole rehab rehabilitation services for the Water Resources Department item 4f approving three-year term contract with two-year renewal options for heavyduty Cab in chassis parts for the Fleet Services Department item 4G approving term contract for heavyduty truck brake pads and wheel parts for the Fleet Services Department item 5 approving resolution to enter into intergovernmental agreement with the Mesa United school district number four for the Cooperative use and purchase purchase of it and related services to reduce operations and capital costs item 5B approving resolutions for zoning case 23- 935 for property west of Mesa Drive in south of Southern Avenue major site modification major site plan modification to allow for a limited service restaurant with a drive-through facility item 6A introduction of ordinance amending title 6 chapter 10 of the mesa city Co code entitled public park regulations including proposed changes to Camping restrictions item 6B introduction of ordinance amending title 6 chapter 1 of the mesa city code to add new section 23 entitled urban camping related to camping on certain certain city property item 6C introduction of ordinance for zoning case 23- 771 for property generally located west of Recker Road and North of Main Street rezone with a planned area development overlay and site plan review to allow for a multiple residence development item 6D introduction of ordinance for zoning case 23- 994 for a property generally located north of Southern Avenue and east of Greenfield Road rezone with planned area development overlay Council use permit a major site plan modification to allow for expansion of a mini storage facility item 6E introduction of ordinance for zoning case 24- 602 for property located west of Country Club Drive on the north side of Main stre reone with a planned area development overlay Council use permit and site plan review to allow for multiple resident development item 6f introduction of ordinance for zoning case zoning case 24- 649 for property located south of Elliot Road on the east side of Power Road rezone with a bonus intensity Zone overlay and major site plan modification to allow for a modification to a group of commercial center items 7A through 7n have been pulled from the Cass item 8 a approving ordinance for proposed amendments to title four chapters 3 and N of the mesa city code pertaining to electric vehicle charging standards for new construction and item 8B approving ordinance for proposed amendments to section 11- 43-7 of Title 11 of the mesa city code pertaining to freeway Landmark Signs so mayor council members use are Ence on the extended J do we have any requests to speak on an item that's on the consent agenda no request mayor all right thank you Mr or council member Freeman has made a motion seconded by council member spelsbury for approval of the consent agenda please vote thank you that passes unanimously uh first item off of our agenda is uh introducing uh ordinances uh and resolutions related to utility rates and setting December the 2nd of this year as the date for the public hearing on these ordinances so just to to tell you what that is we've previously given notice of potential utility rate increases tonight we will uh introduce that ordinance and then the next city council meeting is when we come back and have a public hearing and vote on the merits of that uh prop those proposed ordinances and resolutions but we're happy to to have a discussion tonight on that topic as well so uh we will begin with I I'll invite a staff presentation to come up and give us an overview of agenda items 7 a through 7n Brian so good evening good evening mayor and Council my name is Brian Rell I'm the deputy of the Office of Management and budget so as the mayor indicated I'll go over the presentation for the utility rate recommendations Assistance programs and homeowner comparison so as I'll briefly go through some of these as um has been described before the utility operations uh each utility is operated in a separate Business Center and treated as One Fund uh The Reserve balance provides a safety net for unforeseen conditions then also The Reserve balance is used to smooth rate adjustments year after year and the city has this has been the philosophy of the city for many years of just a smoothing of the utility rates here are the five principles that the uh Utility Fund we abide by for uh our principles we also have Financial policies but here is the we look to do a balanced net sources and uses um we try to keep the uh Reserve fund balance 20% or higher and that helps with our credit rating agencies and bond issuance rate adjustments that are predictable and smooth throughout the forecast Equitable between residential and non-residential rates and then also affordability of the utility rates themselves so the next section that I'd like to briefly talk about is a homeowner comparison overview and what is included in the homeowner comparison is a basket of of expenses for a homeowner living in either the city of Mesa and then any comparable cities that we do throughout the valley and what's included in there is the primary property tax tax and secondary property tax also a city sales tax water uh waste water and also solid waste so those categories there those five categories is what encompasses what a homeowner would expect to spend in owning a home so with that included in here the next slide is the homeowner comparison itself and this is on an annual basis so the numbers you see so for instance for the city of Mesa the homeowner is $2,191 that's an annual and what's included in there is down at the bottom you'll see that we've got the primary property tax the secondary property tax the city sales tax the solid waste water and waste water those categories that I indicated before so we take that as a whole an annual and then compare them to the other cities so if a a resident in Mesa went to go to either Gilbert or Chandler or Scottdale they can see if they they use the same amount of water or buy the same amount of goods things like that and they go to this city that's how much they would look to spend on an annual basis so as you see Mesa is right in the middle there like one step below we're tied with um the City of Tempe at 2191 and then there's a few things that are different In Here Also as you know city of Mesa does not have a primary property tax others do also the city of Mesa does not tax food for home so when you go to the grocery store and buy food to consume at home you are not taxed in the city of Mesa but you are taxed in other cities so as you notice on for the town of Gilbert they used to be below us however now estimated for April of 2025 they will be above us that is because they are increasing their sales tax from 1.5% to 2% also they are implementing a second phase of their water increase another 25% so that is included in there to show how the uh um they would compare a homeowner would compare from going from Mesa to Gilbert so the next topic we wanted to kind of talk about was the big the big projects that the city is doing to invest in their water waste water um facilities one is key is the Central Mesa reuse pipeline so that one is about $210 million what that does for the city is we'll receive we'll take our waste water and then we will pump it down the Recycled water down to the hila River Indian Community what we do is in an exchange we will get $200 per acre foot cheaper than the city rate so right now the city pays a significant amount more what that does is we're able to use that to buy cheaper water off the central Arizona project where we buy half our water so also with that we also receive the hila River Indian communities higher priority water than what the city's allocated so for instance what we've all been hearing about is the uh the Colorado River and pulling back on some of their water and so what would that do the city with these rights would be at the top of those seniority rights of being able to utilize that water While others may have to cut back the city would be guaranteed those rights from the heila IND hila Indian uh Community also is the signal but water treatment expansion that's about $200 million what this is helping is increasing the million gallons per day to serve the city uh through buildout this this helps out the southeast portion of Mesa and all the um commercial and residential growth that is happening down there and then the other one is the Ami which is the advanced metering infrastructure and what this is is all of those uh meters being changed out so residents can then go online through a portal and see what their usage is and either either 15 minutes an hour but they what would happen is they would be able to see if they can detect a leak sooner than waiting to get a bill which maybe 15 30 days later trying to figure it out where they can be able to go see it and almost real time and be able to check to see if they have a leak which would help save water for them help lower their bill but then also will help save water for the city as a whole so with those projects I just want to briefly go over the expense pressures for the water utility uh The Debt Service payments so as you see with the blue line the blue line is our current forecast and the orange line is our prior forecast with a lot of the projects that are going on and some of these significant ones we see that utility debt pressure from those projects and then same with the Wastewater we have some Wastewater projects that we that we are performing right now and as you notice that that debt service to be able to pay for those projects uh is going to be coming on the uh financials within the next few years the next slide is the expense pressures for operating costs as we all know inflation has uh went up significantly it has cooled down however prices have not come down and so we are still seeing significant pressures for operating cost for instance the we have $1.2 million ongoing for the Valvista Water Treatment Plant operating costs then also water commodity cost of 1.1 that's and then Solid Waste is in a uh they just did some agreements for landfill charges that is increasing by $3 million and then also some of their Fleet is aging and their Fleet costs maintenance are going up about $3 million so those are the operating cost pressures of the utility this next slide what I wanted to show was the Water customer profile so we took the latest data we have which is June 2023 through May 2024 and showed on one pie chart what the water consumption in kagal is and then also a percentage so the one on the left is in Orange is non-residential consumption and then in blue is residential consumption so what you see is the non-residential is now passing and is more consuming more water than the residential where previously maybe 3 four years ago residential was the bigger portion of the consumption but now it's shifted to non-residential on the other chart the other pie chart what I wanted to show you was how small the non-residential is it is 11% of our accounts in residential is 89% so a smaller portion of the accounts is using a maj majority of the water so the next slide what I want to show you here is a water customers by tier so what this shows is on the left is usage by uh residential tier so when we say tier zero that is 0 to 3 kgal so 3,000 gallons and that first 3,000 gallons is actually included in the service charge that is put on the bill so if a customer uh just uses two maybe 3,000 gallons they will not jump into the tier one twos or threes they will just it's part of their service charge that they they receive so with that the tier one tier zero in tier one what you see is the First Column is January we took data from January of 2024 in the winter time and then we took the next column is July of 2024 in the summertime and as you notice the usage is different as we all know this in the winter time we usually don't use as much in the summer time we use a little bit more depending on if you have outdoor grass or irrigation things like that so but what I want to show you is 2/3 of customers are in tier zero or tier one during the winter time but then once you get to the summertime that moves up because those customers move up to either the zero goes up to tier one or tier one goes up to tier two and tier three because of the summertime grass over uh the seating and everything else so what I want to show you is that that during that winter time about 2third of our customers are within the tier zero or tier one and what we look as a typical customer is 6,000 gallons and that is right at the tier one so the revised typical customer residential this one is so when we came to Council in September the staff was proposing a 5 1 12% increase so what that would have done was with the service charge usage the effective increase would have been 5.5% for a small which we considered tier zero a small customer would have been about a dollar a170 and then on the residential uh typical so about 6,000 gallons the service charge was 52 same with the usage in the effective increase was about 52 that was about $228 increase however Council recommended that we try to lower that service charge so in the right hand side for the proposed the service charge now dropped to 4% so the usage charge went up a little however the effective increase still um reduced to the 4% for the small typical and then for the residential for the typical residential that uses about 6,000 gallons the effective increase still decreased to 4.48% Brian while you're there just real quickly you mentioned a comparison with another city Gilbert that 20 what percent did you say their rates went it by so they are looking to do 25% previous year last year they did a 50% so would that be related to this 4% yes that would so I just kind of get a context of what we're proposing is only 4% for the lowest users and 4.48% and Brian just noted that 2third of our community would be doing less than 5% where joining communities are doing over 20% thank you Brian so to put that in dollars so for a total bill of most residents that receive Water waste water and solid waste to put that into to uh dollars total bill for a small so this is still tier zero the small the increase would go from $85. 76 to about $945 so about a $469 per month so what that increas is is about a 5.5% increase on a total bill so and then with the residential monthly bill the typical this is about 6,000 gallons the total increase for their total bill would be about $560 which is about 5.6% increase for their total bill if they receive those three yes Mr Summers just looking at go back to the last is this the same slide very good NOP next one y perfect so Water waste water or solid waste those are the three services that all of us receive in the city correct yes okay so whether you're resident or not but there are services that the gas for example is a little different than the city of Mesa doesn't follow the city of Mesa correct correct we do not provide that service to every president okay so so for my district what I'm looking at this top one represents my wife and I right so we we moved our kids have moved out of the house right so it's just the two of us we look at uh we we ended up moving into a different house it's is a little bit bigger house but it's it's a smaller yard we don't have a pool anymore we don't have Landscaping we don't have grass we use zeroscape so what we've found to your point was during the winter typically this is what we fit into 3,000 gallons does it for us uh with water waste water the same solid waste the same and we will move up a little bit in the summer because we do have the the trees that we do have are going to take a little bit more so we're up just slightly more but the thing that's missing in here is is gas right so I know where Mr Brady lives he's serviced by uh Mesa gas and and his rates are going to go up a little bit more because gas isn't reported on this but I live in East Mark and that's Southwest Gas and I was sitting out by my gas fire pit this morning thinking this is really wonderful but I wonder how much I'm buring up so how much more of the gas rates gone up to add to this Southwest Gas versus Mesa gas um remember off top of your head or my head i' have to get back to you on that one what's that I'd have to get back to give us some time we'll get it we'll get it for you I know I know we have it so we'll get it we'll get that answer to you and and the reason I bring this up is one you the rates are going to go up a little bit more maybe for me because Southwest Gas has increased their rates twice in the last two years to cover cost so for me I know when the gas went up I think their gas went up uh far more uh two years ago than what was anticipated their profit margin and the number that sticks in my head's like 51 million over what they anticipated Rising then they still had another gas rise this year so I I know that those prices have gone up for us but I Mesa is tied to that S gas rate Southwest Gas rate and I believe it's lower so I'd like to know what those comparisons are so mayor council member Summers the service charge is recommended for a zero Z increase for the service charge however some of the usage May uh increase a little bit but the service charge itself service charge for gas stay in the same for residential you're making me wish I stayed in where I was all right so and then the service gas area also extends well beyond our boundaries right there's another area that yes from outside the city in the sanan area okay and that's magma correct magma service area so what happens with the those folks will see the same rates as the city of Mesa residents within the Serv there's a specific rate for them we have a specific rate there's a specific City rate and a specific magma rate and there's a transfer of Revenue that happens for all these accounts that goes into our general fund for Public Safety is that applied to those rates as well for magma that are outside City Mesa yes it does all operating revenue for the gas all right so I just wanted to bring that up because and then there's an electric company too that's 5 square miles correct and that's not in my district so if you're in my district that's that doesn't apply all right so mayor council so the next one would we're going to talk about is the Utility Fund contribution to the general fund and so back in around mid1 1940s I believe it's 1945 the city decided to eliminate the primary property tax and then have a contribution from the Utility Fund into the general fund to support the general fund and do away the primary property tax primary property tax has been uh put on the ballot a few times the last within the last I think 20 years and has um been voted down however in March of 2020 Council decided to do an ordinance approve an ordinance that required 30% of the Utility Fund operating revenues be transferred to the general fund and what this does is also what council approved was 25% of that 30% would go directly to Public Safety and then 5% would go to General operating uh um departments but also that does include the support for Public Safety so in the in the next slide what I wanted to detail was just how that 25% and 5% allocated out so the whole 25% goes towards police fire and municipal court so about aund so the budgeted amount is 136 million so 113 million would go to support police fire in the municipal court and then that other 5% which is about 22 million there's still about 11 almost $12 million that will go towards Public Safety support and then the rest of it other services courtz Parks libraries is about $1 million so the total 136 there's about $1 125.4 million of that transfer that goes to support Public Safety so the next one I will go to is utility assistance programs that's um been a topic coming up so just to give um Council an update the there we do offer assistance with our utilities one is the limited income senior discount rate so just over 900 customers about get a 30% discount if they apply and and get it on their water service charge so what this is is that 30% on the Water Service charge equates to almost just under $10 a month so that's about $120 a year discount that a senior uh could get off of their water bill another one is a summer electric assistance program so approximately 260 customers in 2024 this is also income qualified for City Electric customers that eliminate the electric service charge during the summer another one is the Mesa uh Community Action Network the city provides about 200 $100,000 on annual support this also includes uh assistance programs for utility payments and then another one is what we just finished up was $20 million in electric utility assistance from the arpa funding that we received from the federal government so this provided to Residents and commercial electric customers what this helped out was the pass through so what was discussed downstairs is that there's a electric cost factor that is calculated and really what it is is the cost of the commodity that cost gets directly passed through to the customers what this arpa funding did was during those last two years when the uh electric cost were uh increased significantly due to events in Texas and California the uh we were able to use that arpa funding to be able to Benchmark to srp's rate because they were able to keep their low rate so we were able to fund and Benchmark it to SRP the average customer over those two years for residential the savings that arpa helped was about $700 and the average uh commercial customer uh funding was about $3,200 over those two years for with arpa funding to be able to keep those rates low for them in comparison to SRP another one is the Mr summer touch touch on what happened with SRP because most most of us in room or in SRP not city of Mesa so how did SRP handle it and so mayor council member Summers the way SRP handled is they are they are much bigger electric companies so they were able to absorb that cost however they absorbed it and were able to now they are I want to say paying the price because they were able to absorb it but go below and run at a negative for a little bit but now what they are doing is now they are increasing their cost factor a little bit more than normal to be able to recoup those costs they're just defer they deferred the cost and eventually are catching up with it okay and how many customers do they have do we know I don't Mr help find out what's it can we get a help line from Mr Freeman 1,50,000 and Mesa has how many 17 about 17 17,000 so it's it's the ability the large corporate entity to be able to absorb those costs for a longer time than the city of Mesa which would have been hit with only 17 ,000 customers that's correct so the next utility assistance really is the water conservation I'll just briefly go over this this is the zero uh zeroscape um Gras a zeroscape that the City offers there is a a website down below that you can go and apply and work with the uh our environmental sustainability group that if you want to change from grass to zeroscape they can walk you through the process and they're great to do that so the next slide here is the Utility Fund forecast that with the proposed rates that are recommended would show so the key here is the net sources and uses line so the net sources and uses are negative going all the way out until about we get to 2829 so even with these proposed rates the Utility Fund is still drawing down on the fund balance that is a strategic plan that we've been doing with these with the projects being able to fund these projects however then um with these rates we're able to make up that throughout the year and as as we as I mentioned before we have smooth the adjustments out of the rate adjustments to be able to get back to a positive net sources and uses the other thing I wanted to point out was down about in the middle The Debt Service transfer this is those lines that I was previously uh showed you is that with those projects what we do is we take out Debt Service bonds to be able to pay for those and then pay over a 20-year period for those um and what that increased is so for instance in fiscal year 2324 the estimate was about 113 million however with all those projects once we go out to 2930 we're about $181 million of Debt Service sets putting pressure on this to be able to fund a lot of those projects not just the not just what we call the big three but also other projects that are going on water doing quarter sections and electric doing a few things and so waste water doing a bunch of projects so that helps out with this Brian I think we need to make that point one more time so mayor and Council the net sources and uses uh beginning last 23 24 all the way through 2728 so you have 5 years where the proposed rate utility rate increase is still not sufficient to cover all the cost in that year for the Utility Fund we saw this coming we knew that the debt service so we built up the reserves in order to absorb this we've also planned to make sure that we were not creating if we had to try to make up the $2 million in any one year the rates would be significantly higher than we're proposing to you today so we've tried to figure out a way to smooth those rates out over a longer period of time so the rate impact didn't happen in one year you are seeing that in other communities where they've delayed the opportunity to make that decision so instead they're spiking their rates in one year of 20% what we've tried to do is tried a way to help M manage the impact to our rate payers by spreading that rate increase over a period of time even though it's not sufficient each year for five five years to cover all our cost we built up the reserves enough to absorb it and even though we are in a very diff ult situation 27 is 2728 is an unacceptable financial position by the rating agencies for us to be below 10% so we have some work to do trying to cut costs be more efficient but this shows that the rates that are being proposed today and even for the next four years are still not sufficient to cover the current cost of the utility we build up the reserves to absorb this and what we're hoping is by the time we get to 2728 we've been able to manage growth into the system and selling more of the utilities getting more efficient where we can grow out of that net spend deficit uh and then begin building the reserve back up again in the future but this is um a difficult position to be in to come to you with a a a fund a Utility Fund that is self-sufficient and not rely upon any property taxes sales taxes it doesn't get any funding from the general fund and yet we're spending more than we're receiving for at least 5 years so that's where we talk about the smoothing and trying to get back on track so mayor council to the city manager point this next slide just isolates one year this current year that we are proposing rate adjustments so the annualized revenue increase of these recommended rate adjustments is about $29.6 million however the operating costs of the Utility Fund over what we're projecting from fiscal year 2425 5 to next fiscal year 25 26 we are looking at an increase of operating cost of $ 34.1 million so that is just over a about a $4 million uh loss so revenues are less than the expenses so but that is part of that draw down uh and just to show to on just one year that we are still drawing down on on those fiscal years and then here's just a quick schedule today the introduction of the rate ordinances on December 2nd city council will take action on the utility uh adjustments and then if approved the uh effective date will be February 1 all right thank you very much Brian uh we'll now proceed we have many requests to speak from the audience tonight so we'll now move to that I have uh I'll note that we I have I think currently 15 cards but we received well over you know a couple of thousand cards from people who wanted to expr Express their opinion but did not ask to speak so uh we will be going home sometime tonight uh but so we'll just start with these 15 cards and each speaker we invite you to come to the microphone please give us uh your name uh we have your addresses on the card and you have three minutes to speak uh so we will begin with and I apologize in advance for struggling with some of the pronunciations of your names uh Mary Mayo welcome Mary there'll be a clock uh hopefully up on the screen to help you get budget your time okay uh thank you my name is Mary mayo and I live in Mesa District 5 off Brown and recer Roads whether you were glad or sad Trump won pundits agree that the economy was perhaps the main reason he won the High Cost of Living people are grappling with is a real concern for res residents living month to-on who can barely make ends meet some are even on the verge of being homeless or being eved I know some of you voted yes to purchase the Grand Hotel because you felt compassion for the homeless please consider some compassion now for residents that will be so negatively affected by these rate hikes and that may not qualify for assistance programs now I know mayor child is a big proponent of the trees or cool initiative which wants 1 million trees planted by 2050 now I like trees too but even five gallon desert adapted trees require a certain amount of water to become establish and have a deeper root system when people see their utilities become much higher will they want to plant trees it isn't hard to go from one tier to the next to the next tier when your tree needs watering now about these smart utility meters the city of Mesa has unwisely mandated we all have these smart meters emit radio frequency radiation rfr which is electromagnetic radiation they communicate with other smart meters in the utility company to create a mesh meesh which increases the overall density of the rfr radiation indoors and throughout a neighborhood they continuously emit mrr um MFR in multisecond blast that can be powerful animals such as bees plants people especially children are sensitive to electromagnetic frequencies even at low levels cancer headaches memory sleep problems are just a few adverse effects water Smart Meters allow your water to be a conduit for radiation into your home an electrical smart meters allow your electricity to become a conduit if you are if you have the city of Mesa Electric you get two Smart Meters even SRP is gracious enough to have an opt out option for these smart meters of which I have taken advantage of the Federal Communication Commission does not regulate or offer guidelines non-thermal guidelines on the additive or or exponential effects of EMF radiation coming from 5G Towers smart meters and all other W Wireless technology um they also you're out of time if you could wrap it up please yes I will wrap it up um also privacy concerns they can be targeted by hackers to see if you're home or on vacation I strongly urge a no vote on the tax Heist and um I strongly urge an opt out option for Smart Meters too thank you Mary I'm sorry thank you I I know we've got some strong feelings here and we've got some enthusiasm and Mary did a great job and Mary deserved a round of applause I agree with you but we're not going to do Applause tonight because we don't want to intimidate people we don't we want to make this a friendly atmosphere for everyone that's here to speak all right next is John wigton welcome John you have three minutes thank you my name is John wigton and my okay um the utility rate increases I'm an engineer I like looking at the numbers and justification and until your few slides tonight I haven't seen anything justifying your actions you know you haven't made available to us or even notified people through say notes on the bills that this is coming and here's why here's numbers that are verifiable they need to be verifiable um the increase you know notify us well in advance um perhaps even in the bill a link to where the data is so that we can examine it maybe it would make us more amable to it but right now it looks like you guys like the council just decided that it they're going to do this and that's it you'd haven't looked for our buyin the city council is supposed to be a stewardship and should never appear to be rulers governing their domain and power you should work for us if you're going to be take more of our money do it in the light of day not in the closed council chambers I oppose taking money for this without suitable explanation thank you thank you John okay folks it's just it's just gonna please uh don't applaud we understand I mean if you want to do jazzz hands something like that but we we don't want to we've got a lot of folks to speak tonight Alex branich welcome Alex okay thank you thank you mayor Giles council members and mayor-elect Freeman congratulations on being our next mayor I'm fairly new to Mesa my family escaped California about four years ago to a much safer cleaner and lower cost Arizona and now our new home the city of Mesa before that 39 years ago my family escaped communism in Europe I hope they're teaching you guys about communism it makes you run away I mention this because my life experience brings a certain level of concern for the direction that we are being led in the proposed utility rate increases which the city expects to generate about $30 million from your own uh estimates in my opinion should be reconsidered for several reasons first and foremost this will harm the lowest income households and retired citizens who are on a fixed income as if the cost of living wasn't high enough the proposed rates are not just under 6% but depending on where someone lives and how much they use the rates can be up to 30% the city two the city of Mesa has been outspending our two neighbors I'm glad you mentioned Gilbert but let's combin Chandler as well by $200 million and Gilbert and Chandler combined they have two of everything they have two police Chiefs they have two police um Fire Chiefs and yes they have two City Mayors managers I'm sorry the city of Mesa last year reported over 12 million in Surplus we're still waiting to hear what this year's Surplus is going to be but let's just assume it's going to be similarish in addition to the Surplus the city of Mesa just announced a 14.9 million roughly 5 15 million I'm sorry project to install 48 new vehicle charging stations that's about 3 0,000 per charging station mayor Giles you were appointed a national electric vehicle to the National Electric Vehicle working group how is the city of Mesa going to pay for the 15 million that it's going to cost how will they be M maintained and how will they the cables be replaced once they're stolen by thieves that cut them and use them to recycle the precious metals the surplus of 12 million and the 15 million charging stations gets us to about 27 million if it were we're talking about 30 million measly increases in the utilities I'm sure you can find some room within your expenditures to make some cuts for example the current maintenance program for the vehicles by the way they're all done by the computer system it tells you to change the tires change the oil whenever the computer says not dependent on when the vehicle needs it so if the vehicle hasn't even been driven the computer says change the tires or brand new tires you got to change the tires how about another way to reduce some uh spending the furniture you're out of time could you wrap it up please yes sir the new Administration we're expecting utility cost and energy to go down I urge you to reconsider send this back for the number crunchers and I ask you not to pass this forward and I ask you to vote no on utility increases thank you thank you Patrick thank you I appreci I appreciate the hands again you're you're breaking the rules when you clap and let's set a good example for the young people that are here of a of a civil meeting shall we uh next Linda Patrick Hayes next will be Kevin medima Kevin you're after uh your you're not next I'm sorry we got just so you can kind of ceue up we'll do Linda and then Kevin will follow Linda he's on deck welcome Linda good evening Mr Mayor and council members uh Linda Patrick Hayes uh District Two and I'm so happy to have followed U Alex because I have to tell you that when I heard these following figures I was stunned that our two neighbors Gilbert and Chandler combined are larger than Mesa and manage with 25% fewer employees because they operate more efficiently Gilbert and Chandler combined spend annually approximately $200 million less than Mesa on General governmental expenses we know the average income in Mesa is approximately $55,000 a year please listen to your citizens give them a break in this High inflationary period of Our Lives vote no on the proposal in fact entertain the idea of cutting the utility rates and encourage the city manager to eliminate government waste the city of Mesa has no Revenue problems it has a spending problem thank you so much thank you Linda Kevin after Kevin we'll have Mark Kimble was more thank you mayor council members Mr um Mr Brady I'll take those for you uh I have here a representative of from our petition it's an online petition um each page is one person that has signed the petition and I just wanted to um give a visual not necessarily for you but anybody watching uh we have currently 2,000 people who have signed the petition and if you want to go online and sign it you can I don't mind um I was going to start off I was hoping to start off this evening to kind of give an overview of what you were going to hear tonight um I've kind of brought this group together kind of teaching them a little bit how to present uh to the council um being in leadership myself with City in the past now Maricopa County um and it's inspiring to see that that they actually showed up because I've been coming for the last four or five months and as you know it's it's hardly hardly anybody in it so it's kind of nice to see that but the most the the point that I want you to get is to listen to the the residents and it was a great uh presentation that Brian gave and i' I'd love to get that from you Brian later but there's always the the the other side and and that's we have citizens that are hurting financially um the city shoots for that 20% Reserve well you know a lot of residents won't have that in themselves so um please consider voting no uh on this as it's written um we want to offer also our assistance if anything we can help is not just complain we want to provide help provide Solutions so please vote no my name is Kevin Mida and I vote no thank you thank you Kevin they're I got to work on them thank you Kevin would you mind taking those with her thank you thank you following Mr Kimble we'll hear from Logan cavman Mr mayor council members uh before my comments I wanted to welcome uh mayor jales back from the Democratic Convention um it's uh it's it's worth repeating the the statistics that you've heard tonight regarding our neighboring cities um think about what you heard two of everything operating 200 million less budget same size maybe larger 25% fewer employees so I've learned some things tonight uh specifically the 30% if I'm getting it right that goes to the general fund out of the utilities and the comment was made well the utilities aren't subsidized by the general fund well the general fund is being subsidized by utilities it's in a way taxation without representation to be fair so maybe the answer is how do we reduce the general fund and rethink the 30% loophole an example of the danger of this loophole happened a few years ago not far from here is an ASU Campus you may remember that that went up to a vote to city of Mesa residence that vote was defeated and yet standing not far from us is a 60 million plus dollar investment by the city of Mesa how did that happen it happened by an end around using the loophole and the utilities I know it's a tough job but I would encourage there's got to be ways maybe we need an Elon Musk type thinker to come in and take a look at some of the things how we can improve and so I would encourage some new thinking and possibly and I'm going to cut my comment short to leave for others but there's got to be ways we can do better and rethink this because everybody's filling the crunch it all adds up I'm looking at my utility bill and I'm going how is it more than twice my SRP bill I like uh councilman Summers my kids are gone we put artificial grass in the front yard we got rid of one of the garbage cans um and yet I'm going wow uh okay okay I'm going to cut my shower now by 15 minutes so anyways I I really encourage we have the talent and but our Citizens need to be listened to and represented fairly and don't be the politicians that think they know better than the citizen than the ones that voted him in in in office I look forward hopefully new mayor uh congratulations Kim can you wrap Freeman okay thank you thank you very much thank [Applause] you uh Logan cavman followed by David winstanley welcome Logan uh good evening uh mayor and council members my name is uh Logan cavman I'm from District 5 I'm here to address the proposed utility rate hike and its impact on my generation gen Z my generation is already facing a High Cost of Living because we spent a larger percentage of our income on rent and housing than previous generations this proposed tax increase will only add to the burden we are already facing it's important to note that this is not the time to raise taxes especially when people have been dealing with inflation and increased demand for necessi is due to mass illegal immigration over the past 4 years people including my generation are already struggling with Rising rents food prices and medical costs because of the state of our economy and this proposed utility increase will only exacerbate these struggles instead of increasing the burden on Mesa residents focus on using the tax revenue you already have efficiently Mesa already has one of the highest utility rates in the valley as from as people have discussed previously and make sure this revenue is used efficiently instead of allowing these revenues to be used for other uh projects in the general fund as you you uh spoke about there was that 30% going to the general fund um you represent us and should do what is in the best interest of all Mesa residents increasing taxes on people who are already struggling is a slap in the face to everyone here please consider the consequences of this proposal this proposal will have on young adults trying to find stability in our current economy we need policies that help us not hurt us thank you thank [Applause] you folks I'll say it again um We Don't Clap so when when you clap you're breaking the rules so please don't do that David wi Stanley followed by Melanie forano uh good evening Mr Mayor esteemed council members and City staff my name is David winstanley I live in southeast Mesa near East Mark uh and uh councilman Summers District thank you for letting me speak um I recognize that tonight's vote on this subject is intended to be a simple move forward uh in order to have a public forum on December 5th um but that move forward includes specific recommendations and I would like to request that several of those be reconsidered the first uh is the risk Reserve um I learned tonight that our uh credit rating is affected by that I was going to say as a former director of engineering at Honeywell Aerospace we know how to do risk management so do you you can calculate what the risks are and calculate the amount why are we playing with that number that seems like a risky thing to do plus which we're incurring future costs on our um credit rating for for future borrowing uh I'd like to ask you to reconsider that especially since we're going below 10% in the last 3 years of the projected plan the second thing I learned tonight was there's a 30% SE charge on our utilities to pay for uh the you the general operation of the city I did not know that until tonight uh so I'm going to change my remark slightly $10 million of the increase is the result of that uh 30% You' you've done a a percent on a percent so anytime there's an increase you get more money to do other things in the general area and I would like to suggest that maybe you Rec consider that 30% as a fixed rate that's a budget discussion that's not a utility rate discussion so uh with those things I would ask you to reconsider moving forward and ask the staff to reconsider the two items I've mentioned uh and um thank you for your time thank you David next is Mel Melanie for Masano followed by Carrie Davis welcome Melanie hi hi my name is Melanie forano and I'm concerned resident of Mesa I'm speaking regarding the proposed increase in utility rates I ask that you vote against this rate increase as I believe it places an undue burden on mesa's residents and lacks the transparency and fairness that we deserve while I understand the city faces budget challenges I feel that relying on utility rates to fill that Gap is not the best approach as we all know Mesa does not have a primary property tax and this absence has led to Mesa inflating utility rat rates to make up the difference so to put things into perspective a primary property tax would generate about $45 million to the annual budget this year the city transferred 126 million from the Utility Fund and next year's proposal is to increase that amount to 136 million that's more than three times what we would receive from a primary property tax and it's being done in a way that hides the true costs from the residents utility rate should reflect the actual cost providing services not be used as a tool to balance the budget when such a large portion of the Utility Fund is transferred to the general fund Mesa is asking residents to cover costs that should be paid for through General taxes not hidden in our utility bills it feels less transparent and feels unfair to the people who are already facing increased Cost of Living Mesa residents already significantly pay more for their utilities than other neighboring cities a further rate incre will only add more strain to families who are already stretched thin for many it will become even harder to make ends meet and force many to choose between basic necessities like food housing healthare or their utility bills rather than relying on a utility rate increase to address the budget gaps I ask you please explore alternative Solutions please revisit the budget identify and reduce wasteful spending focus on cost-saving measures to improve efficiency without placing additional burdens on residents I also encourage you to consider an approach that maintains a more Equitable and transparent system if funds need to be transferred from the Utility Fund I believe it would be more appropriate to limit those transfers to the amount equivalent to what we would have collected from a primary property tax I hope and trust that you will consider the impact of this rate increase to misa's Residents and make a decision that puts the well-being of our community first thank you thank you Melanie Carri Davis followed uh following Mr Davis we'll have Martin devold good evening mayor city council and congratulations to Mayor elect Freeman I oppos that utility rate increases for agenda items 7A and 7n residents are struggling to make ends meet with the inflationary pressures we have experienced over the past four years the city's current year budget is 2.69 billion 130 million more than the prior year the city would only need to reduce spending by approximately 1% to absorb the anticipated additional utility costs to offset the proposed rate increases for 2023 the city's General governmental activities reported approximately $12 million surplus and business type utility reported $127 million surplus yet transferred nearly 120 million to the general fund it is projected that the city's 2024 annual comprehensive financial report will also Report surpluses with the election of more conservative fa more conservative government leaders we can expect that energy prices will come down and this will have a favorable cost reduction impact on the city's budget the city manager is now in a position to revise the budget with estimated Energy savings and reduce the utility transfer to the general fund the combined population of our two neighboring cities Gilbert and Chandler approximately 20,000 more than mesa's according to the 2023 annual comprehensive financial report Mesa has 21 fire stations Gilbert and Chandler combined have 22 fire stations Gilbert and Chandler together have about 1,800 pave Street miles Mesa has about 1,600 pave Street miles Gilbert and Chandler combined have approximately the same number of developed Park Acres as Mesa since 2001 through 2023 Gilbert and chanders combined General governmental activities reported revenues of 2 b459 million Mesa reported 2,533 million a difference of only 3% yet for the same period of time Gilbert and Chandler's expenditures were 2 B18 million Mesa were 2 b635 million 670 million or 30% more white do Mesa spend on average 200 million more annually than our two neighbors combin I believe it's because mesa's top heavy and Bloated they operate with 25% fewer employe employees yet they are larger than Mesa we clearly voted to restore more conservative spending policies with the election of Mayor Le Freeman and Rich Adams it's time as it's been mentioned earlier to for the city to recognize it has a spending problem not a revenue problem I urge you to vote no on agenda items 7A and 7n thank you thank you Mr D Martin devold followed by Curtis Strunk Mr Mayor city council thank you I'm going to defer you've heard everything I would have to say uh I don't want to duplicate that um so Curtis Strunk is next thank you Mr Strunk Mr Mayor city council thank you very much for allowing us the opportunity um I serve as a pastor in the community and our small Church uh tries to do our very best to help those who are in need and the number of those who are in need have skyrocketed over the recent years um one of those families I'm going to call her by an alias her name I'm going to call her Jamie um she's a mother of two and her husband is dealing with Incredible Health complications that are not going to allow him to return to work Jamie reached out to us a number of months ago um for assistance and we don't have an assistance program per se but we just said we want to be a help if we can so in attempting to help Jaime's family we help kept them in their home for a number of months by the grace of God um and this is happening with up to 20 families per year for us as a small Church of 120 um that is also just by the grace of God we always want to give credit to Jesus he is the author and perfector of our faith and he is the one who um provides for us to be able to do these things um and so by faith we've been practicing this for some time and Jaime's family having reached the end of the resources that they had and our inability to continue to keep them in their home they ended up having to move away to where they have some family in Texas um but this is actually becoming a very common story for us if 30% of what we pay goes to the general fund um as far as our utilities are concerned than increasing the costs for Citizens while increasing the city budget by 130 million is a great way to make the citizen more dependent on the government in my opinion and um over the course of time and this is also a creative way to tax um tax exempt entities as well so because funds are of those utilities are swept in I would just um add my voice to those around me who are asking for your grace in this m matter and your care for your citizens thank you so much for considering a no vote against this thank you uh so I'm sorry you're you're Curtis right yes sir okay thank you very much Curtis appreciate it next we from Savannah Williams followed by Leslie Wilson hello John Mayor John Giles and Council City members um my name is Savannah this is Bo and I have been a citizen of Mesa for my entire life in fact I used to sit right behind me I used to be on mayor's youth Committee just six years ago I grew up here and would love to raise my children here these proposals to raise utility rates are very disturbing to me the fact that Mesa alone outspends Gilbert and Chandler combined by $200 million is absurd now I'm no accountant and I've only taken One Financial class but it seems to me that with that margin of spending we could look into other budget options before we put the consequences of frivolous spending on the people I'm not necessarily condemning this department for frivolous spending because of your presentation it looks like you have thought this all through um but you are supported by the people and have a duty to serve the people not the government's Wallet not your fiscal supporters or other personal agendas you are not a business you are our representatives and as the people you rep you are representing we are telling you that we do not want this inflation over the past four years has had a devastating effect on us all for my family to function my husband has to work full-time and as a mother which is already a full-time job I have two part-time jobs we don't qualify for government health help and we don't want it we what we want what I want is for you to please consider what this proposal would do to people like me and families like me if it moves forward I'm only one of many people who affect by this decision thank you so much for your time and I hope that you vote no on this proposition thank you savan uh Leslie Wilson followed by Dorene Taylor hi my name is lesie Wilson and I'm a Mesa resident like the rest of us um I just wanted to well I'm going to cut it really short everyone else has done a beautiful job saying what I had planned on saying as well uh but I also wanted to share um from a realtor's perspective I have the pleasure of working with renters and it is heartbreaking to um to listen to many of their stories and the increases um just in life that that were all bearing it really comes down uh heavily on them as well and um um with a utility increase it it's just one more addition that that they're going to have to um be concerned with we have people who are obviously um they have roommates they strangers who are their roommates now um just to survive I I have friends who um as well as as renters who have decided that they're going to have to leave Mesa they love Mesa very much but they're they're going to have to move because they can't afford to live in this Valley anymore um so my I represent my family but um not only that I represent my sister's family who was not able to attend tonight uh because of the time of this meeting um and so for the two households we oppose this um this increase and we hope that you folks will vote no um when the time comes thank you thank you Leslie Doren Taylor thank you so much councilmen and women and congratulations Mark so I'm here to say no please vote no but I'm also here to remind you that you are our employees we elected you as our leaders and it is your duty and your stewardship responsibility to hear us tell you as the ma the vast majority of us already have that we are not interested in a utility great hike we can see that you have done your jobs well to a point but now you're being forced with a decision that does not make sense to any of your citizens I moved to Mesa in 2008 I have lived in this city since I moved here I've never lived in another city I like Mesa I love Mesa we have a lot of great attributes but one thing I can tell you is that when the cost of living becomes unaffordable the love for the city dies down and therefore the love for my elected leaders also dies down very quickly I want to like the people that I have elected I want to say I'm proud of the people I have elected but to see them fiscally irresponsible and put an undue burden on not only myself but your other constituents that have all come here this evening to show support for their own voices and for you actually is an embarrassment to the city I don't want to be embarrassed by my own City so I have a couple things that I looked up I'm very confused about why we are being asked to pay an increase in our utilities when if Mesa is expanding at the rate at which we believe it is and we have new homes going up Far Far East in the valley we have new developments over by Mesa Gateway we have the Canon beach park that is supposed to be developed here that's going to use an enormous amount of water by the way there should be a lot of property taxes and sales taxes that you're also going to see an increase in why are those funds not helping to pay for these municipalities and parks and streets and sidewalks and why on Earth did we see the municipalities being funded twice by the Overflow from our Utility Fund into our general fund I saw no difference between the police and the firefighters one amount showing for them a secondary amount showing for them I love supporting my municipalities but I don't believe that I should have to pay an increase in my my city water in order to cover that especially when there are two other cities next door to us that spend $200 million less listen you guys if you cannot handle the projects under the budget that you currently have then stop building slow down be conservative ative as we have called you to be I want to be able to reelect people in good conscience and I cannot do that if you do not show me that you have a good faith for the citizens who have elected you and Mrs spillsbury I am in your district and I would really appreciate it if you would stop telling your neighbors to take down their Trump signs and if you would please consider that you say you are a Republican and yet you walk by my house and you look at my signs and you move to the other side of the street that is so interesting to me I had good faith in you but I have unfortunately lost that so I will not be Miss Taylor you're out of time and you're also off the topic but you're out of time can you please wrap it up thank you thank you very much uh thank you for uh being here tonight Mr Brady but we'll now open it up I think it'd be appropriate to have some response from U from uh City staff uh first of all let me just preface it by saying again thank you for being here I think this is a great example of democracy and we appreciate you being here and and sharing your thoughts with [Music] us this is not open mic night folks thank you but we you're we're done hearing from the public is there are anybody else here that would like to speak all right all right sir then come up and fill out a card please I did oh I'm sorry what's your name my name is Don come on up Don I did not get your card you have three minutes Don thank you but when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object convinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism it is their right it is their duty to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security such as the patient sufferance of the residents of Mesa Arizona and such is now the necessity Which con strange them to alter their former system of government the history of the present mayor of Mesa Arizona is a history of repeated injuries and user Pati all having direct object it the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the residents of Mesa Arizona to prove this let facts be admitted to a candid world for nothing is secret that shall not be made made manifest neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad you get to leave the legacy of having the most corrupt city in Maricopa County Arizona and Maricopa County gets the uh the elite Legacy of being the most corrupt County when it comes to election fraud in the United States of America and I remember when I bought my H I live in a County Island and so and all I got to do is pay your little stupid tax for my water cuz I got Southwest Gas but I remember in 2003 when I bought my house I paid about $10 a month for water for for the city of Mesa and now I pay about $45 a month that's about a$ 450% increase in 21 years thank you I'm sorry sir can I get your name one more time just so I make sure I Don Adam Don Adams okay Don I had you under you're under the next agenda item so I apologize that's where we we had you all right so um again thank you for being here tonight we're again just to remind you what the process is tonight we're voting on setting a public hearing and a vote on the rate increases and that would be two weeks from tonight uh so invite you back assuming that the vote goes to to continue this discussion uh there were some some great questions that were raised tonight and I'd like City staff to respond to some of them Mr Brady I saw you taking some notes any anything you'd like to share sure thank you mayor and thanks everyone for showing up I appreciate um the opportunity to be informed about facts uh we've been in this dialogue with Council for several months um so you can certainly go on our website you can find all the information all the presentations that we've given to council uh for the last 6 months hopefully I think that'll provide you some details about um how the rates are developed what grow what how we the process we go through in identifying um all the present all the budgets and what's included in the budgets I you can get into the details if you look in those presentations each of the Departments made presentations to the council uh back in the spring about what was happening in their area whether it was on the operational cost with chemicals Commodities we have to pay utilities too when SRP increases their electric rate we have to pay for that uh when water goes up from the Colorado uh River uh color Authority we have to pay for that when they start cutting back our water our rates go up significantly and because it's a utility it's an Enterprise fund and know there's been a lot of conversation trying to mix the two between our tax supported fund and our rate supported fund they are separately they are enterpris separately um legally they're separated and even how they are um financed or separately rates are driven by users um so we try to be very careful not to to uh mix the two um one of the things unique about Mesa in 1945 you heard this this is not a new formula a new template certainly for me having been in the profession for over 30 years Mesa does have a unique approach to financing its um local government but it's been that way since 1945 1945 the city eliminated the primary property tax and instead came up with this theory that a broader base of user rates across utility was a more Equitable way to fund the city's uh general fund and so that from that time forward there's always been a contribution from the utilities and back then it was an electric utility to help support a portion of the general fund the council most recently has passed an ordinance establishing their strict use of those funds and as you heard today the majority of those funds go to fund Public Safety and one of the things I will say you can bring up Gilbert Chandler Scottdale Phoenix and I'll put on my police and fire department up against every one of those from a response and professionalism you are getting premium Public Safety Services and if you've ever had a call them you know that the Utility Fund allows for us to collect that Revenue to support Public Safety from everyone whether you're a t a property taxpayer or you're a business or you're a educational facility you all pay into that because everyone benefits from Public Safety uh we did give you a chart that showed that on the annual average cost comparison Mesa Falls at the just below kind of right in the mid middle or average right what it costs an average homeowner to pay for all those bills whether it's uh their your property tax what you pay in sales tax what you pay and we use that that is kind of our test to make sure we're being reasonable we're very sensitive to make sure we're not overburdening um our community whether it's and we look at all those basket of goods and right now today even with these proposed rates we're right in the middle so we consider that pretty good that's a pretty reasonable rate when you compare us with other communities I ask you one to consider the quality of our Public Safety and the fact that mes is unique we have two commercial airports that we support we have an electric utility we have a gas utility so that makes us unique the other thing makes us unique we just briefed the council about this we receive $105 million from the federal government to invest in Mesa those other communties didn't get that amount of money but that all adds up into that all adds up into why you when you look at those comparisons and the total budget numbers mace is a very big city where one of the largest cities in the country we do get several uh entitlements from the federal government to support a lot of our projects that go to those most in need that's different than some of those communities you're comparing us to so there's a lot of things we could look at but I will say that big differen is if you want to compare go compare Public Safety go compare response times go compare the quality of service you get in Mesa on public safety and that is where we've designated the funds just like they did in 1945 today to support Public Safety it does come from the utilities and we're able to do that and as you can see the average homeowner still pays about is right in the middle of all the comparison cities so it's not a premium you're not paying a lot more than anybody else you're paying a little bit more than some but you're paying a lot less than others so so we're trying to hit that middle that's kind of where Mesa is we're trying to hit right down the middle of making sure we're being reasonable and I think we've been able to do that and mayor council if there's any other specific questions I'll be glad to answer them thank you uh I I well going to open it up for Council discussion but before I do that I just want to point out that that uh I don't need to tell everyone in this room that inflation is a very real thing we all experience it every time we walk into the grocery store or put gas in our cars that is a reality that is being experienced across our country and across our state and another Stark reality is that the price of water is going up tremendously in the state of Arizona there's cutbacks the wholesale price of water is going up dramatically so I and and I understand the frustration that we all feel with with seeing price increases I would just again repeat something that you've heard several times tonight the this proposed water rate increase of less than 5% in Mesa is dramatically less than you seen in every other community cities around the valley are in increasing water 25% talking about increasing Wastewater charges 95% we're not doing anything remotely like that in the city of Mesa so if you're upset about the increasing price of water I I'm with you but if you want to vent those feelings uh probably every other City Council in the in the state would be a more appropriate place to do that because the the the increases are less than what's being you're seeing in other cities and I I I I think the reason that you're here tonight is because in large part you've received some in correct information we have been trying we have been trying the the the staff presentation that you saw at the beginning of the meeting I would encourage you to please take a look at that and we'll take the questions that were raised tonight and we'll we'll discuss them again next week but uh if you're going to be upset be upset about real facts okay don't let someone tell you something no you're not you're you're you got to listen you got to listen and learn and then let's come and talk about it okay so having said that um we we have a model for financing the city of Mesa that is somewhat unique it goes back to 1945 back then the city was making a lot of money when it came to sales tax and property tax and the city fathers said you know what we don't need this much to operate our city we're going to cancel our city property tax and we're going to double down on utilities we're if someone's going to make money on the sale of Utilities in our city we want it to be a modest write up that's going to be applied and go back into the City coffers and that's the model that we have followed it's rather unique model but that's the model that we have followed since 1945 that's why the city of Mesa is heavily involved in utilities that's why when you compare the city of mesa's budget to cities like Tempe and Gilbert and Chandler who are not in the utility business of the same extent that we are we are financing hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure so that we can be in that utility business and provide those services so that this model works that's it's not an apples to oranges comparison so that's something that again I'm I'm encourag you to to take a look at I'm going to open up the the the uh the open it up to the rest of the council but and again I would encourage you to continue to ask great questions uh and we've got answers for you but I would ask you that that when you hear something please uh you know apply that to the to what you've been told because a lot of the things that you've been told are incorrect all right thank you uh council do we have discussion on this item all right all right again the vote that we're that we're making tonight ladies and gentlemen is to set a hearing to come back in two weeks on NE two weeks from tonight and uh to that that's when we will have a vote on the merits of The Proposal we'll take the questions that have been raised here and we'll we'll flesh those out I think that there again there are some a lot of charts were shared with you ma'am we're not taking additional comments thank you though uh a lot of the a lot of the uh the the questions have been you you we tried to put some information out but there's more qu more information that we're going to put out the cost of living in the city of Mesa at at our next meeting I think we're going to M that the the amount of money the Mesa particip or contributes to government as compared to what citizens of other communities we're going to we're going to share that with you and I think you're going to be very favorably impressed uh the amount of the amount of spending that the city of Mesa makes on on on Government Services compared to other cities I think that's again what goes to the heart of the concern that you're bringing to us but again you have to be a little careful there's not an apples apples comparison because the city of Mesa has a different model we use it is our model to say we're going to use utilities to help subsidize city services now if you don't like that model and I understand it if you don't like that model that the the answer is not to come to the city of Mesa and say uh we don't want you to raise utilities because that's that's denying the reality of math that's denying that when water when water and chemicals and all of the the expenses associated with utilities are going up then we're going to lose and lose more money so if you're upset by that the answer to that to that predicament is to walk into the city clerk's office and file an initiative to initiate a property tax in the city of Mesa or a tax on on food tax if you want to have a serious conversation about this then you can't just say that because if you don't do that what your proposal is you're saying I want to dramatically cut spending on Public Safety in the city of Mesa so that's the that's what you're asking us to do all right all right we will now if is there any additional Council discussion if not I'll call for the question is there a motion to proceed mayor I think we all should make a comment okay yes i' welcome that I'll go counc member done and I appreciate that you know that you give me this moment we've listened we all want we're listening to you and we also want to convey what we have been setting and going through and contemplating so appreciate the two-way list we respectful dialogue um and be respectful to one another so we have been going through presentations you can find them on the website since sept September on this specific thing of utility rates there's multiple presentations and you can find it on YouTube you can find it on our social and there's a utility rate increases comparisons on the website there's a a massive amount of information that has been provided and we have gone through and if you need any of the links to that if you want to know where if there you want a deeper dive on that we we are available to a couple of things on this comparison of other cities like the city manager mentioned we have two airports and we do have utilities so so yes we have more employees um regarding the additional expenditures in our budget we did receive $105 million there was just a presentation at study session just before we came here of5 million we've also received numerous grants including the grant for Ev which was a you know a different the grant for their electric vehicle charging was a grant to pay for that so all the grants and and federal monies that we have received to pay for the homeless Hotel the Ami project it are from Grants that have very specific criteria and how we can use them and we have applied them to help our city in the long term the and that process has been ongoing since Co um I mean we we have been taking I've been on Council almost six years and all except one year we have been taking these incremental increases 3 to 5% on our utilities it is the fact of inflation and the cost of everything I'm sure if you look at so many of your bills I know rents have gone up like 40% the cost of housing the cost of eggs the cost of gas is just remarkable the it's just unbelievable the inflation that has occurred and I wish we could be irresponsible and continue to overspend our Utility Fund as you can see we're dipping into our Reserve fund our savings just trying to smooth this out but we can't dip below a certain amount a 20% insurance is a good Bond rating for the work that we do that we canot pay more interest than we need to 10% is um a minimum that we have in the city that we'd like to see if you look at the long-term we're getting below that so I know we want to be fiscally responsibil responsible but be going below to increase to keep on using our savings to pay for our costs is is it doesn't work either the cost of all the chemicals have doubled the cost of construction has doubled the cost of so many things that we have in our utilities has doubled we're asking for a rate increase for the average for water solid waste and solid and um waste water is $5 a month $5 a month is what this is about cons considering the cost of an inflation of everything that's going on it's pretty reasonable our costs are through the roof and we're trying to be as responsible as possible to smooth that out not to have any radical increases like I've seen some of our neighboring cities Gilbert has 50% in the last two years Phoenix 26% Tempe 15% Poria 9 % APS increased their rates this year 8% SRP increased their rates last year 8% and this year be 3% it goes on and on for us to have the three to 6% depending where you look $5 a month this is just a reflection of what is going on we're not exempt from the inflation costs and we're doing our best because we have chose this model of having a utility business a business in which we take the monies from our business and pay primarily for our Public Safety now we could get rid of our utility business we could just let other but then you will be paying comparable rates and we will have to have something that the profit will then go to these providers it won't go to us and we will have to have a primary uh property tax or some sales we have if then if you don't want to do that let's talk about how safe of a city you want to have how many police officers do you want to reduce when 2third of our budget is Public Safety think about how safe of a city do we want to live in we so anyway this all I I talked longer than I expected thank you all for listening I really appreciate you thank you council member Duff Council any additional discussion mayor I want to make a Mr fr comment here and I want to thank everybody for being here this is so important you know it really pains us to even have a utility rate increase and I remember several years ago that we absorbed a utility rate increase as a council and that really set us back back in the time when I think Mr Brady you can comment on that but it did give us uh says back a little bit on our Reserve funds and we had to make it up over the next couple years yeah we had to come back with 7 and a half% increases yeah and we came back with a a larger increase the following year because of absorbing this utility rate increase and we could do that today if that's the council wishes we could do that but I think in the future just listening to it um and you seen the forecast and I'm sorry you didn't get the information that you needed to help you know have I mean we've had a productive discussion I mean this is one of the best turnouts I've ever seen at a council meeting and it doesn't have to take utility rate increases to have you here and we want you here because we represent you and it's so important so the thing that I always have done is I've always voted in favor of moving this forward for public input and I've done that consistently throughout my term as a council member and I find that very important that everyone have a continued discussion about this so we can fine-tune maybe we found some things that we can do better based on your input and we hope that that's I hope that that's the case because what I really pushed back was on the 52% increase that was originally suggested to residential users you got to remember 66% of our water users are residential they're you and I and so it was at a 5 a half% I know we brought it down to one uh 4% which doesn't sound like a lot but overall it does mean that the commercial industrial users use the uh what 89% of our water and the residential users used the other 11% so um in contrast I just want you to know that I listen to you and I continue to take your input and I think it's so important I think that the uh one of the things about you know moving the money from the Utility Fund over to the general fund there there's angst in that and I understand that but it takes those monies now to pay for a public safety personnel as a retired Mesa firefighter we've got a retired Phoenix firefighter over here which he doesn't count for no a whole lot but no we we like Scott even though he worked for for Phoenix fire you know we have choices out there and we want to listen to you and I've been doing that I I don't want to bring politics in here but I've listened to you for the last year and a half and I understand The Angst out there and the utilities the inflationary costs out there are really great and so we can either spend monies out a reserve fund and bring it down even further that affects the bonds that we set in the future that we go to sell so it's it's got this ripple effect in there and so I just want to explain to you why I do move this forward and understand and so I appreciate you so December 2nd I think is when our next uh uh Council date when we will be listening to some more and then we will vote at that time so thank you mayor thank you Mr Summers thank you so first of all folks thanks again uh I'm going to I'm going to give you some numbers and then if you would like to see the numbers I have for you I I would like you to email me at district 6 I have a letter that puts a lot of this stuff together and a few of you have received it but not everybody and then I got your question ma'am so I'm going to address that a little bit for you or were you just stretching am I something no no the mayor shut down that but I do have your question so let me take care I'll take care of it okay no you're not being up invited up to speak I I hope no I thought she was leaving it looks oh I'm sorry if you were walking up to the microphone I wanted to know we're done with public comment oh no I okay I'm sorry okay thank I I'll take I got it I have your question so let me take care of that and then I'm going to after I give you some of these things okay you well it's going to come at the end I'm sorry but then I'm going to have some questions for staff that I would like to have answered on the second okay because we're going to have this one more time so some of the numbers you've heard with our our utility costs and none of this should really come as a surprise but when eggs have gone from 99 Cents for a dozen to $3 or more a dozen it's not a surprise that costs have gone up because every time my wife comes home from shopping and she loves couponing she just goes crazy about you know how much this box of candy cost for freaking Halloween and it's just been absolutely incredible the cost of housing has gone up a lot because of the cost of Commodities and let me give you some of these numbers just so you know that what we're facing so since fiscal year 1920 so that's the year we all went nuts and shut the whole D World down for covid 20 1920 fiscal year I'm sorry fiscal year 1920 so how much of 2020 2019 to 2020 is what he's saying 2019 to 20202 sorry a retired firefighter what can I tell you so just to be clear fiscal year 2019 to 2020 sorry about that so Fleet Maintenance cost so the just the cost to maintain your vehicle our vehicles is up 41.2% part of that because remember the pictures of all those vehicles in China because they didn't have any parts we couldn't get cars we couldn't get trucks we couldn't get we're still very short on garbage trucks because we were waiting on computer chips to come out because we we couldn't get any of these parts and all of us felt that anybody that tried to buy a vehicle at that time was feeling the same thing so the parts so the fleet Mains has gone up because now our aging Fleet has to be maintained with with new parts 63% increase in our landfill and recycling costs 75.6 just to buy water which shouldn't be a surprise with the capap reductions and water that just is a commodity water treatment chemicals who owns a pool have you ever tried did you try to get chlorine in the last year it's a pain isn't it 106 6.4% so basically the same chlorine and chemicals that everybody that owns a pools trying to get that's all that is not only are we dealing with the scarcity but that's how much that went up so we're facing some real infl inflationary pressures but it's not just that it's just let me give you a couple numbers here just year overy year so last year compared to this year what have some of those numbers been they still continue to climb landfill cost up 50.5% every time we collect your garbage we have to bring it somewhere to dump it those folk there's only so many places you can go they've increased the cost over 50% just in the last year the purchase of water as a commodity is up 15.1 and chemicals are still up 22% so that's the cost pressure that's what we're dealing with with a cost and we can have a discussion later about how we might be able to address that but these are real because you're feeling the same thing that we're feeling and it's going up more than the price of eggs it's going up fairly considerably but we've done a lot of things to try to reduce the cost uh mayor elect Freeman can we say that unofficially official help reduce from instead of 5.5% we reduced the base rate to 4% we're starting to take a look at who uses the water because this is mostly about water and and even sewer right so in my district those who came from my district there's a lot of industrial growth going on down in the South and the concern is well who's paying for that because the pipe in my street to my fire hydrant into my house is only about yay big but the pipe that has to go to large water users feet wide I don't want to pay for that you shouldn't have to pay for that we need to think about how it impacts the community right what impacts are you having on the system sorry I do get winded I know so it's been a very long meeting I will try to cut it short so I apologize but what we're starting to do now is try to transfer those costs so the more you use the more you pay the bigger the requirement for the infrastructure because of the type of Industry we're not going to put that on the taxpayer anymore we should pay our fair share so should industry so we made some of those changes as well we've done a number of other things too but what we're talking about today ultimately is how we Finance this city and what kind of city do you want to be and we talk about this considerably we just had an election two bonds and and two other questions on top of that it passed for the past 24 years all the way back to 2000 bonds have passed except for one and that was the anybody from Red Mountain you'll remember the soccer fields up there the voters said we do not want the city to be in the business of running soccer fields as a business and so those don't get built but police stations fire stations we've we've this community as a whole has increased uh the the the sales tax a quarter per specifically for police and fire another small percentage I think 3/10 of a cent sound right for road maintenance because roads are important that's what we see and a little bit for quality of life the pools and the parks that we have been approving over the years the question is how do we maintain those and operate those it's one thing to build it it's a whole another thing to operate it so how we finance a city is important and this is not the first time we've had this exact conversation it's a matter of fact in 2005 there was a financing the future committee you can get this at the library that went through how how the city was financed and what the shortages were and you know what it said this and this is pretty interesting that there's a decline in sales tax revenue is that sound familiar yeah who's who's the lady she might have left but the the lady that stood up and said why aren't we having sales tax do you know that Mesa is dead dang last per capita for sales tax revenue we don't shop here anymore there's nowhere to go it's all warehous no it's all warehouses yeah we've we've not focused to this point to this point we have not focused on a retail initiative until just recently which is going to take a long time look at Scottdale we talk about Chandler Gilbert cost Scottdale is a city half our size has about 18 19 fire stations fewer fire stations than we do and when you look at the costs in that Community they're comparable but but but they spend so much more per capita in their general fund budget than the city of Mesa does why they're retail it's it's hotels it's retail it's it's money it's free money coming in from all over the world because people want to visit there we need an economic development strategy you talk about how can we finance a city better we need an economic development strategy moving forward that focuses on those things because if we could bring other people's money to this community then that's less that has to come out of our pocket for some of this spending we need to hire somebody yeah it talks about here you know there are several other issues that were brought up that are kind of hiden here the the fact that the use of utility revenue funds you know there's a believe that it lacks sufficient transparency am I right that's kind of the concern yes because unlike unlike when we when you look at the numbers that are on our account you could say primary property tax zero this is your sales tax this is what you're paying in a secondary tax sales tax all those are listed but as we discussed earlier one of the concerns is that well how much exactly is going to the general fund and why some of that was cleared up a little bit in past Council that said 30% is all it's going to be and you saw in the present ation today where that money goes and and how much so one of my questions to staff or one of my directions to staff is I would like us to see that number again so that you know where this transfer is going to because I think we need to be absolutely clear on that pardon me as I go through my notes uh so let's get to just some questions because I know everybody it's been a long day and I appreciate app most of us hanging in there and for the ones who had to go I understand so there's been a lot of concern about what are we doing for the folks who who can least afford this and bless everybody's heart for bringing that up I mean one of the things by the way one of the things all of us can do on our bill there's a little check box and I think it's $5 so if you have the means you could check this box it goes to Mesa can and that $5 is used for uh for those folks who can't can't afford the utilities but I would like staff to review on the second what we are doing to help folks that are most in need um again what does the 25% transfer go to we talk about that in the presentation but I want to add a question because I think I've heard it here and I've heard it I've read it in some of the online comments can can we not transfer the 25% on this increase and put that back into utilities and specifically can we maybe put it into keeping our Reserve up because I've heard concerns about what that Reserve is going to be so the question would be again for the second can we not transfer that now there's a cost to that right and that cost is this is a this is a public safety transfer but maybe sending it back into the utilities might be more palatable um there were some questions that came in that said can we just not raise the utility this year right it's a 0% and I've heard it a a couple of times um so my question would be what would 0% increase in utility rates this year look like using the existing forecast for spending what is that going to look like for both the need for rate adjustments going forward and the general uh um The Reserve balance so if we could maybe get some slides put together on that um Jim there's really quick question Jim maybe you can answer now we're going to we're going to vote to move this forward we can we still make changes to it if we decide to we can't go higher can we go lower can would we have to reintroduce that what would we do mayor and council member we'd have to reintroduce on that particular item um and so but I mean there's obviously a number of rates here and if we're talking just water we' have to pull that item and then we' have to reintroduce that one item but you could move forward on the other ones okay so we would just have to reinduce and then that would be picked up at the the next meeting the next council meeting which is well if it was lower it wouldn't be subject to the 60 days that's what the but um we're also just running out of Council meetings but we could set a special council meeting for for okay so there's there's options there's options yeah um there was a comment that a 1% budget reduction would cover the cost of the increase could we look at that and see what that if that's accurate or if that's off it was one of the comments that came in kind of about 2third of the way through and then finally the the poor lady left she she had a a comment in a question and it talked about can you find cre other creative ways to you know save some cost and there was a question in here that went back to I thought was pretty good and forgive me I'm going to try to find it quickly so this one said kind of the same thing this was an online comment that we received so this one said they wanted to find creative ways uh and their idea was bringing more green energy the city installing solar panels City own buildings yeah I know resistance so well they tie together right so I guess my question is going to be what creative ways have we found to try to keep our utility rates low and our costs low and I know just from a general fund perspective we've done a lot of creativity and and that's really been styed um one of my favorite programs speaking of the fire department was it was a it a public private partnership we did Mountain Vista Medical Center where we had Community paramedics who would go out into the field they'd be proactive it was cheaper to respond uh and it was a cost recovery because we were working with u Medicare to be able to recover the cost of that I mean imagine that uh not having to send a firet truck on something on a medical call and being proactive and engaged in the community and then they shut that program down they wouldn't pay for it anymore so we're back to the old model that's inefficient and ineffective which is sending a truck sending an ambulance picking them up putting them in the ambulance send them to the hospital because the only way we get money is if we take take them to the hospital in an ambulance and the only way the hospital gets money is if they come into the emergency room and that is the most inefficient and most costly a way of accessing Healthcare and and it's a shame to see programs like that break down uh but we have done some Innovative programs and I think you need to hear what some of the latest ones are to know what it is that we're working on and then the last question is this we've heard a lot of the combinations of Chandler and Gilbert and what that City looks like and I would like to see what those numbers actually look like when you start com combining those two cities and I know that's going to take a little work from our budget Department um but I've done some back of the napkin and yeah they are it would be cheaper but I don't think it's quite as inexpensive as uh I think people think so I'm done speaking all right M go for yeah I I I think most um of everything has been said on both ends um I appreciate everyone showing up tonight your feedback and input is obviously critical um and tonight let's just remember I know we've been been asked not to vote to move this forward but tonight's vote is simply to an introduction it is not a final vote on the utility rate adjustments it's just a vote on whether we want to move forward and vote in two weeks um I guess I would say we can all agree on the fact on the fact that and I'm going to keep this very brief but that that um costs have gone up I mean we're we're talking about the cost we're justifying the cost the I guess the question is how do we handle it um and what we're hearing from you is cut cut cost um and I think what you didn't hear tonight is that we have done some of that cuz we ask the same question and we have deferred several projects um that were on the table to be done in the next several years because of cost so that is one measure that we did take that you didn't hear tonight that we are trying to do to reduce that cost to reduce that F future burden I happen to think that our financial pH philosophy of smooth and incremental increases to cover inflationary pressures as well as growth is financially prudent and it allows our rate payers to uh uh predictably budget their households so at three in the last five years we've got we've done 2% we've done 0% we've done 1 and a half 2 and a half 2.75 3% and now 4% and we and and and actually I you know I have posted this on my social media I know not everybody follows it I posted our our 3% last year I didn't get one phone call about it not one phone call last year at 3% so this this and and and I'm a bit confused by that I guess I would say and would love to have conversations offline from tonight as to why um I got I didn't get any feedback last year and we've gotten a lot of feedback this year um anyway the issue is how to handle the cost increase we're not going to over we're not going to argue that there are increases there are but how are we going to handle it at the city we've decided that smooth incremental increases are the way to handle uh cost increases due to growth and inflation we're we're still growing um we have to forecast for that growth we have to um we don't we don't operate in a vacuum as we've all said we've mentioned it uh 10 times up here all the all the price increases that affect you also affect us as a city so um tonight we're just uh voting to to put it forward this is not the final vote but I will be supporting to put it forward to vote in two weeks got you all right thank you any additional Council comment all right we have a motion uh for uh approval by council member Duff seconded by vice mayor Heredia please vote thank you the motion is passes unanimously so December the 2nd two weeks from tonight we'll reconvene and this item will be on the agenda for vote on the merits thank you for being here next item on our agenda is items from citizens present item nine I we had three cards one of the gentlemen already came up so we have two cards left uh it's Alex Banky CH I'm sorry cheich he's gone okay no he's not all right is that you sir please step up to the microphone you have three minutes thank you mayor Giles council members mayor elect Freeman uh very challenging very difficult it seems like a us against you guys um me personally don't want it to be contentious like this because we all have to live here we have to make this work somehow um I don't want to be seen personally as an adversary uh because now that I live here here this is home I'm hoping to be more involved this is why we didn't communicate oh I'm in District 5 uh this is why we didn't communicate last year the longer we live here the more we learn about the city of Mesa um mayor as you're heading out one thing that I would uh hope that you would leave a good Legacy behind and for those of you that aren't for re-election in in two years uh please consider uh how you're going to be exiting for those of you that are up for two for election in two years also please consider the temperature of the community not to have a primary would be nice um out here we're having to manage our finances in a certain way that if things are too expensive we have to make Cuts these numbers were great the presentation's Fantastic may I come back and give you my presentation it might be look might look a little bit differently the reason why I say that is yes there's one side that's presenting and the other is countering we've been accused of having Miss uh misinformation the numbers are coming from the city's budget these are your numbers that that people have used here um we're not dumb and we're not trying to come across uh as uh just bullies we want you to know that we do care we have looked at the numbers please please consider looking a little bit inward try to be a little bit creative because for us with families we also have to consider finances and making sure that our numbers line up we just ask as Representatives that you do the same with the uh the plat forms that you have and the responsibilities that you have for the community we don't like being in debt we don't like paying for somebody that caus us to be in debt so thank you very much thank you Alex Michael pton I'm sorry payrun hello and good evening uh city mayor City councils mayor-elect my name is Michael parin I work for Green Farm dispensaries located north of power and Highway 60 in district 6 I'm speaking today in regards to ordinance 5601 passed by the city council in 2020 and I'm here to urge the city council and staff to create a text Amendment for reasons I'll quickly explain um ordinance 5601 created chapter 26 named marijuana Prohibition in the city Mesa code under title 6 police regulations as well as modifi the existing marijuana zoning ordinance under Title 11 chapter 31 sub section 34 of the marijuana facilities excuse me guys and a crazy meeting so far I'm happy that this isn't about the same topic but it might actually help a little bit um this kind of might help with your guys' revenues um the whole point of the conversation is originally in 2018 uh a text Amendment passed with the city council in this chamber I believe it was the mayor I recognized a couple faces I was there at that council member that allowed for medical marijuana deliveries to happen in the city um because other cities are going to deliver into the City and like you guys mentioned lower your guys' retail revenues um you're going to miss out on taxes as well as the marijuana excise tax which adds to your guys' county revenues the community colleges police as well as schools um this Prohibition in 2018 was removed when it was just simply asked why would the city operators not be allowed to deliver as well the St recommendation in 2018 was 6 to Z and again city council did adopt that yet in 2020 the marijuana Prohibition in ordinance 56 was created and passed I was at that meeting and spoke against it as well for the exact same reason of delivery revenues I've reached out to my city council member in district 6 as well as a city manager I've not yet received a response from either I do know now why you've been so busy so it's okay um I reach out uh as well to um planning and zoning and spoke with them but they did reiterate the only way a text amendment can happen in the city of Mesa is through city council or through staff I myself have helped with the cocono county uh text Amendment for the zoning uh increase the hours of operation from 8:00 p.m. to 10: p.m. matching the city Flag Staff zoning ordinance that as well was a unanimous one um I know it's not a topic on the agenda so you guys can't really ask me too many questions but I am happy to answer any that you may have come back when this is on the agenda or assist with staff thank thank you thank you Michael that concludes Mr Summers when did you send the all I want to know is when did you send the email uh I want to say it was last Thursday or two Thursdays ago I was out of town so we I'll get back to you staff had already reached out to pnz and come down asking questions from your I just wanted to get the date I can't I can't have any of the discussion but I think it's okay to ask uh when when you send it so I'll look it up thank you thank you thank you Council that concludes our agenda for this meeting is there a motion to adjourn thank you Mr Summers and Mr Freeman all in favor please say I I any oppose thank you we are adjourned [Music]