Thank you, everyone. Welcome to our Mesa City Council meeting for March 23rd, 2026. All of our council members are present and we appreciate them. We're gonna begin tonight's meeting by a invocation by Pastor Gregory Dansby from the Holy Temple Church of God in Christ. And after him will be followed by a Pledge of Allegiance led by Sergeant Arthur Stewart, a recipient of the Army Commendation Medal with Valor and two Purple Hearts while serving in the U.S. Army. So if you please stand for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance. Our Heavenly Father, the God who created the heavens and the earth, we come before you this afternoon thanking you for your goodness and for your grace towards us and for blessing us to see this day. A great day to honor you with praise and glory. I humbly approach this opportunity in sincerity to invoke your divine presence into this room. Let your presence be felt by all those who enter. God, I ask you to lead and guide our mayor and each council member that they have been elected as they carry out the affairs of the citizens of this great city. I ask that you lead and guide these leaders in the decisions they are tasked to make on the behalf of others. God, cover and protect this city and all who travel in and out of it. Let our city be a drawing force that attracts people and companies that will impact this city for the better. I thank you for inclining your ear to my prayer. Your word says that if I abide in your word and your word abide in me, I can ask what I will and it shall be given. Your word also declare that your eyes and your ears are in every place. And I bless you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thank you, Pastor. Arthur, come forward. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor, and thank you, Sergeant Stewart. You're both welcome to leave if you want and thank you for your service. I've known Sergeant Stewart since he was a very young man, so I appreciate your service. Mr. Christopher, time's yours. Good evening, Mayor and council members. These are the items on the consent agenda. All items listed with an asterisk will be considered as a group by the city council and will be enacted with one motion. There will be no separate discussion unless the council member or citizen requests in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered as a separate item. Item two, approval of minutes of previous meetings as written. Item three A, acting on liquor license application for Gin's Smoke Shop, 1927 North Gilbert Road. Item three B, acting on liquor license application for Paladino's Italian Eatery, 2711 South Alma School Road. Item three C, acting on liquor license application for La Tienda One Stop, 1620 West University Drive. Item three D, acting on liquor license application for Happy Food Mart, 406 North Country Club Drive. Item three E, acting on liquor license application for Mama's Soul Lounge, 1038 East Main Street. Item three F, acting on liquor license application for Salt, Sea and Land Tacos, 2853 South Sausman Road. Item four A has been removed from the consent agenda. Item four B, approving three-year term contract with two-year renewal options for street light painting services for the Transportation Department. Items four C and four D have been removed from the consent agenda. Item five A, approving resolution to enter into an option to lease and option to purchase agreement, a ground lease and a purchase and sale agreement between the City of Mesa and Helix Apartments to lease Nanford Development and Sale of City Owned Land southwest of the intersection of Center Street and University Drive. Items five B and five C have been removed from the consent agenda. Mayor and council members, these are the items on the consent agenda. Thank you, Mr. Christopher, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Mr. Reddy, and thank you, Vice Mayor. Please cast your vote. Mayor and council, Kevin, did you do six A and six B or did you say they were pulled off? They're not pulled off, according to my list. I don't think you read those, or did you read them? Christopher yeah Kevin. Okay, item six A is introduction of the ordinance. Zoning ordinance 25-774. This is for property at the northwest corner of Ray Road and South 71st Street. Major site plan modification, many conditions of approval of ordinance 5699 to allow for a 26,000 plus square foot industrial building. And item six B is introduction of the zoning ordinance 25-326 for acres. Property located east of the southeast corner of Warner Road and South Mousin Road. Rezoned with a bonus intensity zone overlay and site plan review to allow for development of a 15,344 plus square foot commercial building. And those are additional items for the consent agenda. Okay, do you want to remotion that, or are we good? No, I think we're good, I think the intent of that's the Read it back into the consent agenda? Yes. Okay. All right, so we've had a motion by Mr. Reddy, second by vice mayor, and two of us still need to vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everyone. Okay, mayor's discretion, I'm moving to item five C to the front of the agenda. And that's to item five C is to take action on the resolution modifying fees and charges for Falcon Field. Currently we have 29 speakers, and you're all welcome to speak. However, if you wish to combine your thoughts or have someone speak for you, just let me know and we'll move forward. So if you all want to speak, that's just fine. With that, I'm gonna turn to our city clerk. She will tell me who's up first. Mayor and council, if I could just read one statement again before, and I did this at our prior study session, but I'd like to just also for the public, I know council's aware of this. The proposed fees and charges for Falcon Field includes landing fees. Staff is proposing landing fees to make Falcon Field Airport as financially self-sustaining as possible. The fees are not being proposed to reduce noise or flight traffic, discriminate against a specific user, or favor one user over another similarly situated user. That is not allowed under the FAA rates and charges policy. Simply noise reduction and flight traffic is not part of our reason for the proposed fees and it's not part of its agenda. So I just ask that the members of the public be thoughtful as they make those comments in that regard. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Each one will have three minutes or less to speak on this topic. And so Ms. Mosley, you'll have to keep track of everyone for me. I will do that. Our first speaker tonight is Ellie Padgett. And next in line after Ellie is Dan Stroofer. Thank you, Ellie. And you have three minutes. Thank you so much for having me this evening, ladies and gentlemen of the City Council, as well as my neighbors and accomplices. So I'm Ellie Padgett. I'm here in opposition of the fees because I believe the policy is misaligned with how the airport generates value. The field that has been established since World War II, when my father served as a green beret, actually runs on operations like fuel sales, hanger leasing, and maintenance. If we lose general aviation and the importance of its small traffic training, as well as starting the landing fees on other well established folks who, like the EAA, for example, who average age 65, we lose a lot of our local economy. And I live at the end of Mesa at the Red Rock Reserve and a million dollar house, not to brag, but the point of the matter is that I appreciate the piece that comes from the smaller planes as opposed to the larger jets that are more powerful. We aren't fixing the airport's finances by charging people who are to use it. It would be better to charge people who are transient, out of state, or even increase the hanger fees on the larger aviation. Because if we do, what will happen is we will ruin the ecosystem that is currently surrounding it. And we can't get that type of environment back. We will become more like Scottsdale with larger jets and private aviation that will be louder and also more busy and destroy our small traditional ecosystem that has been existed for a very long time. Falcon Field works because of its accessibility to pilots like me and in its role in shaping pilots. Once you start discouraging, it's very hard to replicate. So I urge you to protect what makes this airport valuable and not dismantle it. Thank you. Thank you, Ellie. We'll move over to Dan, I believe. And who's after Dan, Holly? Yes, after Dan Strufert is James Maxey. Okay. Hi, I'm Dan Strufert. I've been based at Falcon Field for probably 15, 20 years. I've invested a half million dollars in a hanger there. So I'm pretty, you know, I'm a stakeholder. I'm tied in. I've got over 20 years in aviation. And to be clear, I'm probably not the kind of person that's gonna pay the landing fee because when I leave with my airplane, I'm out and I'm in and I'm not gonna exceed the five or 10 or whatever landings, you know, per month that I think is in the proposal. However, I am here because I've got a lot of aviation experience and I can tell you that these sort of fees are really not the way to go about it. The first thing is, I mean, if the airport truly needs additional money, and I think that's debatable because of, you know, you look at some of the spending that's been going on at the airport. And I always assumed that the airport must be flush with money because there's a lot of spending going on there. That really needs to be looked at with fine tooth comb before we do something like landing fees. This is gonna get attention from all over the country. And probably you're gonna get, you're gonna spend more on legal fees trying to defend this than you're gonna get in revenue from the fees. So that needs to be kept in mind. In fact, Gateway Airport from I've heard runs 1.5 million in the red, and Mesa doesn't mind supporting that. So not sure why we're applying a different standard here at Falcon. You know, the city of Stafford actually tried to do these landing fees and decided they weren't working and backed off of them. So you might wanna also take a look at that. In addition to there's legislation at the federal and state level to eliminate the use of ADS-B for collecting these fees. The, you know, there's a whole safety aspect to this in that there's a lot of people coming into Falcon Field, a lot of people that maybe don't like landing fees. If they turn off their transponders, two planes hitting each other and falling down in a house, so you're gonna have a lot more problems than just some shortfall. And I think the community members aren't gonna like that either. Clearly that's not legal, but you know, if money encourages people to be less safe, they might be less safe, not a good idea. You know, you're looking at, one other thing, one other point to make is that we're establishing a whole new method of revenue collection. And I'm gonna say something that's detrimental to myself is that instead of a landing fee where we have to pay a vendor, maybe a certain large percentage of this fee, why not just increase the fuel flowage tax or land lease rates? Because, you know, you can collect those fees with the system that's already in place rather than having to make a new system and pay an existing vendor. And also with the time left that I have, I would say that maybe also, if you're gonna impose fees, make it 10 per aircraft, not 10 per based aircraft per month, because that way it won't punish visitors who wanna come to Mesa. That's it. Thank you, Dan. Yep. Good timing. Jamie, is that correct? James Maxey. James. Followed by Mike Sperry. Hello, sir, you have three minutes. Good evening, council and mayor. I appreciate you having us here tonight and thanks for listening to all of us. The reason I am speaking about this is when the talk of landing fees came about back in November, I submitted a FOIA request to the airport on November 21st. I've submitted many FOIA requests to the city of Mesa over the years, to police department, to public works. And I've received timely responses to every single one of them. I've heard from administrative assistants within a few days normally and had those complied with shortly. I never heard anything from the city. I finally heard back on February 22nd from Jessica Alonzo at the airport who went and said, hey, your request is too broad. You need to rein that in, it's gonna take us too much time. So I replied and I narrowed it a little bit for her. But I said, hey, the courts in Arizona go and have reaffirmed multiple times that just because it's too broad doesn't mean you don't have to comply with it. So she sent me that on February 22nd. I responded on February 23rd. We're now at 122 days of non-compliance on that FOIA request. So I believe City Attorney Smith was actually incorrect earlier when he said what the airport was saying that these fees do and don't do because we have had no transparency from the airport and we actually don't know why they are, why they're implementing the fees. Secondly, I'm here on behalf of a nonprofit organization based at Falcon Field called Falcon Flying Club. Falcon Flying Club owns and operates two aircraft for a group called Aviation Explorers. Aviation Explorers, there's a group called Career Exploring and there's police explorers, there's fire explorers. It's where many police officers and firefighters have gotten their start. There's also a group called Aviation Explorers. And I don't know if anybody behind me wants to raise their hand if they've been involved in that program in the past. I was a product of that. There are many students that are product but what that group does is we have volunteer flight instructors, we have volunteer mechanics that all volunteer their time to be able to train junior high and high school students to fly aircraft as cheaply as possible and as safely as possible. We have many that are firetanker pilots right now, air force and Navy pilots, as well as general aviation pilots and commercial pilots. And if these landing fees go into effect, our program that's been around for I think about 30 years at Falcon Field Airport isn't gonna exist anymore because we can't afford to run it and allow students to learn how to fly. Thank you. Thank you. Next Holly. And Mayor, I was just notified. We have several of the requests to speak are people that are downstairs in the study session room. So I'm gonna read, I'm gonna give two names ahead of each one so they have time to start walking up. Very good. So the next person up is Mike Sperry and following Mike will be Dan Wheatle and Brent Crow. Good evening, Mayor and council members and thank you for inviting me. I'm a resident of Red Mountain. I'm not a pilot. And my wife and I have lived here for about five years. And when we first moved in, there were very few flights over our community. And as those flights have picked up pretty drastically over the last couple of years, I've read that the cost of the airport has gone up and that the airport's also running a deficit. So I'm really here representing a lot of my members in my community who are very concerned about how this cost will be taken care of. So I guess upfront, I would say we're asking you to vote yes for landing fees because we believe that the pilots that use the airport should be responsible for paying for the airport. And I kind of use an example in local golf courses, members who own their, pay for the membership, pay for their golf cart, pay monthly fees. Also, many of them pay a trail fee for the right to use the trail. So it's not the taxpayers that pay for it, it's the golfers. So when the airport runs a deficit, the question really becomes, how is that gap gonna be filled? And we think it's only fair that the people that use the airport pay for the airport. So I think that's it. We're just asking the council members and the mayor to please vote yes for the landing fees. And that's from a lot of feedback from our community. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Holly, who's next? Next, we have Mr. Dan Weitzel, followed by Brent Crow and Trent Heidke. My name is Dan Weitzel, and I wanna thank the mayor and city council members for giving me this opportunity to speak. I'm part of a leadership group that has been organized to represent the citizens of Los Indes, Red Mountain Ranch, Reserva Red Rock, The Groves, Alta Mesa, Apache Wells, Fountain Hills, Apache Junction, Summit, and Gold Canyon, as well as Mesa residents in general. In the past one to two years, residents of North Mesa and the surrounding communities have experienced a noticeable increase in repetitive flight activity. While the associated impacts are real, that's not why we're here tonight. Falcon Field is structured to operate as a self-sustaining enterprise. As it stands today, it is not meeting that goal, and if the proposed landing fees are not implemented, the burden will ultimately shift to Mesa taxpayers. It is not the responsibility of Mesa residents to subsidize the operational costs of an airport, especially when it is being used by private businesses as part of their operations. This is a matter of fairness and financial responsibility. Aligning costs with use is a reasonable and appropriate approach. I urge the city council to approve the proposed landing fees and to continue to ensure that Falcon Field moves toward a financially sustainable model in the long term. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, I believe it's Brian next. Brent Crow, followed by Trent Heidke, followed by Curtis Brunes, and I do apologize if I don't pronounce your names properly. Just state your name so we keep on track. Good evening, my name is Brent Crow. I live in District 6. I've been a certified flight instructor here in Arizona since 2005, and I want to thank you for giving me the chance to speak. I'm here because I'm generally worried about the unintended consequences that landing fees will have, not just on pilots and flight schools, but here on Falcon Field, our local economy and on the air aviation safety unit itself. Arizona is one of the few places in the world where pilot training thrives because of our weather and our freedom that our airspace infrastructure provides. That combination lets us train thousands of pilots safely, efficiently, and affordably. In fact, many countries send their pilots here specifically because we don't impose landing fees that make flight training more expensive, less accessible, and less safe. Introducing landing fees at Falcon Field puts that all at risk. First off, about 80% of Falcon Field's traffic is flight training, and most of those operators are based right here, and they simply cannot absorb this new cost. If the fee is implemented, those aircraft will have no choice but to move their flight training flights elsewhere. That means about 350,000 operations a year are pushed onto nearby airports that already have said they do not have the staffing or infrastructure to handle that burden. Second, the revenue at Falcon Field, the revenue that Falcon Field expects to collect won't materialize if the traffic leaves. Instead, the airport will lose federal funding because the grants that the airport receives depend on operation counts, and the remaining tenants will face even higher expenditures. Rather than strengthening Falcon Field, the fee would weaken it financially. Third and most importantly, this proposal, introduces serious safety risks. Other towered airports in the area cannot handle the, cannot accept the overflow, which will force students into flying further to smaller non-towered airports with limited infrastructure. That increases the chance of meter collisions, runway incursions, and pilot errors. And on top of that, students will then be forced to reduce their number of practice landings simply to avoid extra fees. Less practice means lower proficiency, and that affects every future pilot who trains out of the Phoenix metro area. I also want to address that the list of comparable airports found on the airport's website. The reality is that landing fees at general aviation airports like Falcon Field are rare, and when they do exist, based aircraft are usually almost always exempt, and rates are much lower for flight training aircraft under 2,600 pounds. The comparison simply does not reflect the typical industry practice. So in summary, this fee threatens our airport's health, our economic engine, our training pipeline, and the safety of flight operations in our region. I respectfully ask council to delay or reconsider the landing fee proposal until a full inclusive risk assessment and financial analysis can be completed. Let's take the time to get this right, not just for today, but for the generations of pilots who will rely on the decisions made here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Next, we have Trent Heidke, followed by Curtis Brunes and David Winstanley. Holly, when you announce it, we have some seats here in front, so those that are coming to speak, they can sit in these reserved seats here in the front, and then they don't have to stand in the back. I'm Trent Heidke, I've been a tenant for 35 years, seen a lot of things during the course of those 35 years, but I'm not gonna stand up here and give a speech. What I am gonna do is ask you guys some questions, because we've asked and we've asked and no one's answered. To a gentleman's point earlier, there's been a request for information, none of it has transpired. I don't know how you can sit up there and say you're making an informed decision when you haven't let the rest of us understand what the basis of those decisions are. So number one question is, taxpayer dollars are being used to fund Mesa Gateway to the tune of $1.5 million a year. You know that, I know that. $850 million a year is coming into the economy of Mesa Falcon, or Mesa, based on Falcon Field. You guys know that, look it up, those are not my numbers, those are ADOT numbers. If you're gonna fund Mesa Gateway, why are you not funding with taxpayer dollars, the same taxpayer dollars, why are you not funding Falcon Field? Filling in the gap that's there. Okay, so that's question number one. The other question is Mesa Gateway does have landing fees. They're $2.22 per thousand pounds based on aircraft under 6,000 pounds. That same aircraft at Falcon would get charged $24. So $13 in a Mesa airport versus $24 at a Mesa airport. How can you square the difference between two airports, same situation, Mesa Gateway also does not charge for based aircraft either. Falcon wants to charge 20 bucks a landing for based aircraft. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna give us 10 free landings, yeah. That's fine, but some of us don't just fly 10 times a month, okay? So that's the other question that I've got tonight. Another question is help me understand after 80 years in operations, since World War II, as was pointed out earlier, all of a sudden you wake up one day and figure out there needs to be landing fees. Who did not see this coming for the past 10 years, for the past 20 years, and all of a sudden now we've got an issue that requires landing fees that are quite frankly egregious based on the rest of the country, let alone your own Mesa airport that's right down the road. So I don't understand how you can sit there again and make claim to make an informed decision based on information that you've been given that we haven't been given, and that the incongruities just don't line up is the bottom line. Next is. You have five seconds, sir. Okay, I'm good. All right. Thank you, guys. All right, thank you, Tripp. I wrote some of your questions down. We'll get to those. Next person. Curtis is next and followed by David Winstanley and Carl Storkman. Hello, good evening. And thank you for the time. I'm a local resident. I'm an airplane owner. I'm a pilot. I'm a 30,000 hour pilot. Czech Airman at a major international airline. I'm a designated pilot examiner. Previously, I was the CEO of one of the biggest flight schools here in the Valley. I also started the United Aviate Academy. So I'm pretty familiar with the airspace with flying in the area. I'd like to speak a little bit about fees. Without a doubt, the airport has a right to seek self sustenance and no one really doubts that. Fees are acceptable. Landing fees are acceptable. What I'd like to point out is that landing fees on base aircraft are completely without precedent. So to base, to cause the base aircraft to have to suffer landing fees is essentially to try to deny them access to the airport. There are 5,000 airports in the United States and 4,999 of them don't tax based aircraft that are doing training missions. So to do that puts you in the league with LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, Chicago, Atlanta, right? You'd be taxing the flight training airport planes right off the airport. So we don't think, many of us don't think that is the right way to go about the fee generation. There are alternatives to generating fees. And I think it should recognize the fact that the number one producing nation for pilots in the world is the US. The number one region in the US for producing pilots is Phoenix. The number two airport in Phoenix is Falcon. This is an essential part of our aviation infrastructure and of our national interests. To do something that would be so contrary to the base businesses that are so vital to the national interests isn't in our best interest. So we have submitted, and I know the mayor and the council people are aware, we have submitted some ideas for different methods of revenue generation. And I'd like to advocate that you take the time to seriously consider those. Do the objective benchmarking that's necessary. And when you do that benchmarking, you're gonna find out that taxing the training businesses that are at the airport isn't the right way to do it. So fees are appropriate. Raising the fees is probably appropriate. Taxing training entities off the airport probably ought not to be appropriate. The modeling that has justified this isn't accurate. To think that the flight training activity or the activity of the airport would only go down by 10% is a fiction. It'll go down by a great deal more than that. So the actual construct doesn't work. It doesn't work. And if you were to adopt it, you'll find out that it doesn't work. So I'd like to be part of the solution. And I know a lot of other people here would too. Thank you. Thank you, cabinet. Mr. Winstanley. Followed by Carl Storkman and Todd Bristol. So Carl, if you'd like to come up and take a seat up front. Good evening, Mayor, council members and staff. My name is David Winstanley. I live in district six near Eastmark. I would like to speak in favor of the proposed fee increases at Falcon Field. In particular, I would like to support the concept that any city enterprise must be fully self-sufficient. Much like the capacity fee that was passed back in December, which was growth for growth, Falcon Field must pay for itself and not burden the general fund. And that is the rest of Mesa citizens being taxed. I recognize that some cities subsidize their airports because they believe them to be sufficiently valuable to spend citizen taxes to keep them open. But I would argue that with two Mesa city airports, we cannot afford to do this. The city budget is already taking a 2% cut given the current economic conditions, as we learned in the community budget meetings last week. Thank you for those, by the way. And the budget, and we cannot afford another burden. It was of considerable interest. And my reason for speaking is in the Southeast Valley, we had debates on this subject and you might say why. And the answer is that some people thought the landing fees were too large, but they did not understand, even my fellow conservatives, that without them, other taxes would have to be increases or other services cut in order to cover those costs. The history of Falcon Fields using funds from land sales to prop up its operations was not known to many of the residents in the Southeast area. And the result of the debate was that we should keep the Falcon Field being an enterprise and keep it self-sufficient. I urge you to pass this resolution and keep Falcon Field open and self-sufficient. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Winstanley. Carl, you're up. Who's next, Holly? After Carl is Todd Bristol and Chris Nugent. Hello. Thank you for having us speak tonight. My name is Carl Storkman. I am one of the business owners out of Falcon Field. I probably represent the smallest, yeah, probably the smallest flight school out of the field. We've got six employees, four total aircraft, and these landing fees would effectively cripple our ability to compete and keep our doors open. So, I think as you can all see, right, these landing fees, while they are not designed to specifically target flight schools, are definitely going to hurt us a lot, right? They are going to completely inhibit our ability to operate out of the airport, a $20.35 landing fee per landing. We get a lot out of Falcon Field, right? Falcon Field is an amazing airport. It's an amazing place to train out of. We get a lot of real-world experience dealing with controllers, other aircraft, separation, and you can't really find that anywhere else in the valley, right? Falcon Field, as an amazing place, needs to be able to remain a public airport with free access to airport operations. This doesn't just hurt flight schools, however. This is also going to wildly impact local businesses and the surrounding area, right? We are common patrons at The Fix, Vinencia's pizzas, Milano's, right? If we're forced to shut our doors, our students are going to leave. If the students leave, the local businesses are also going to lose revenue. The ramparts are going to lose revenue. The tower operators are going to lose revenue. Their entire pay scale is based on the amount of flights operating in a particular day, right? Those are some of the best tower controllers we have. They are rock stars. They are amazing, amazing controllers. And the way that we get good, the way that we get good as pilots is by practicing in these crazy, busy environments. A lot of my peers have moved on to 121 and 135 operations, and their success and command ability in an aircraft is largely linked to their experience in Falcon Field. Now, I know that this proposal is not specifically designed to target any particular operation. However, the proposed landing fees are significantly and almost directly would appear to be designed towards small fixed wing aircraft, right? Which are, as we all know, primarily operated by flight schools, right? So thank you again for listening to this matter. We urge you to vote no and at least reconsider. The flight schools at large are willing to work with you to help find a better, self-sustaining financial solution, right? There are other ways to do it. There are better ways to do it. We can model ourselves after Deer Valley. We can also just come together as a community to find a better way to do this. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Carl, for your time. Todd? After Todd, we have Chris Nugent and Thomas Noon. Thank you, Todd. Good evening, everybody. My name is Todd Bristol. I've been a pilot and a attendant at Falcon Field for about 20 years. And when the local and federal governments come up with these proposals, they do the best they can with the information they have, but sometimes they miss out on a little more depth and research and there are a lot of unintended consequences. I'm gonna play an audio clip from a video from Tom Costello on channel, on NBC, about the Potomac crash that happened. And there's a lesson to be learned from this, so please, please, please, please. A newly released NTSB video capturing the midair crash at Reagan National Airport one year ago this Thursday, an Army helicopter crashing into an American Airlines regional jet. All 67 people died. With family members in the room, NTSB investigators today identified a long list of contributing factors for the crash. There is no singular person to blame for this. These were systemic issues across multiple organizations. Investigators determined the chopper was flying 100 feet too high, relying on altimeters that the Army knew were inaccurate. The chopper also flying with its ADS-B precise location transmitter turned off. We should be angry because for years no one listened. This was preventable. So as you heard, she said it was preventable. We're talking about the ADS-B that you guys are gonna be using to actually tag these aircraft coming in. And one of the things is if you could hear from what they talked about, is a lot of the things they knew that could happen, that could bite them in the butt, but they decided to roll the dice and just say, you know what, we know that the altimeters were not working right. We knew that the ADS-B was turned off for the military planes, which they're allowed to do, but look what happened. So again, the highlights just cause, they talk about the things that contribute to the accident and the ADS-B didn't cause the accident, but it's one of the contributing factors. And in aviation, what you have is a lot of contributing factors called the error chain. And if we remove one link from that chain, the outcome is different. In this case, it would be life and death. I mentioned this because they specifically called out the ADS-B system to track the aircraft. And of course, you plan to collect the fees on that. It's a powerful tool when it's used for safety, but not for generating money. They meaning they had their ADS-B on during a flight, but it was off because the military is allowed to do that. My point is that you're planning to use the same ADS-B to collect fees from the aircraft that land at Falcon. In effect, you're taxing them. I have spoken to many pilots over the few months and I have heard some say they would just turn their ADS-B off and avoid landing fees altogether. Point is, humans are dumb. They do dumb stuff. And although using ADS-B to collect fees won't actually cause the accident, it will contribute to a factor that the attorney could use as a partial source of compensation for a claimant. Even worse, a pilot with their ADS-B in the off position could cause a misrepresentation of what controllers relay to pilots and contradict their perceived landing sequences. It's happened to me. Results in other incident and complaints about pilot staff like myself. I have already experienced a close call when other pilot miscalculated the number of targets in the pattern using ADS-B. Todd, your time's up. Okay, thank you, sir. Thank you. We know how you feel. Chris? After Chris, we have Thomas Noon and Gus Palmisano. Okay. Chris? Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Chris Nugent. I'm a Mesa District Five resident and I'm also the president of the Arizona Pilots Association. APA, as we're known, is a nonprofit organization that advocates for general aviation in Arizona. We run an aviation education program for students through our scholarship program and our members support community service organizations like Flying Samaritans and Angel Flight out of places like Falcon Field. First and foremost, I wanna acknowledge that this is a complex issue. It doesn't have an easy solution and it faces both the community and Falcon Field itself. I do wanna reiterate the recommendation from AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, APA and the Arizona Aviation Safety Advisory Group to defer this vote until following high level actions can be completed. Establishing a Falcon Field advisory board consisting of residents, airport users, businesses and the airport administration. Charter of the advisory board to complete a financial review of the current fee proposal including the methodology used to develop the landing fee schedule to ensure that they are fair and reasonable and to evaluate other revenue sources such as FAA minimum standard fee programs which some airports like Goodyear and Deer Valley use. Perhaps a changes to the Falcon Field transaction privilege tax and finally landing fees if required to make the airport financially self-sustaining. And finally charter a separate group under the advisory board to revisit the current Falcon Field fly friendly program to mitigate the noise impact congestion and the safety issues that are currently concerning the residents at Falcon. Again, we recognize this is a complex issue and our organization stand ready to support you in that endeavor. Thank you, sir. Thomas correct? Correct. Followed by Gus Palmisano and Steven Devine. Good evening. I'm the owner and operator of Leopard Aviation, second largest flight school at Falcon Field. I've got copies of what I'm gonna read to you tonight if anybody needs a record. This proposal will impose significant if not financially ruinous effects on our family and Leopard Aviation. We request the exempt tenants and subtenants of Falcon Field from this proposal. One of the reasons is because I signed three years ago before spending eight and a half million dollars improving the airport and buying airplanes in reliance on a 40 year lease. Section 9.2 of my 40 year lease says, landlord agrees during its ownership of the airport to operate and maintain the airport and its public airport facilities as a public airport consistent with and pursuant to the sponsor's assurances given by landlord to the United States government. Section 9.1, tenant is granted the non-exclusive right to use the airport necessary for ingress and egress to the promises including taxiways, runways, taxi lanes, aprons, and navigational aids for the purposes of operating aircraft. I was required to install minimum improvements. Tenants shall construct in the premises the improvements, the minimum improvements shown on the development plan which is attached to the exhibit D. I fulfilled my promise to spend two and a half million dollars upgrading the facility. I've got pictures of what we did to this thing. I was told by the airport director at the time, it's the nicest looking building and will encourage other people to do the same to Falcon Field. This landing fee proposal in effect takes the cost of the operate and maintain promise made by the city of Mesa, the landlord, and puts it back on Rancher Investments Family Loan Partnership, the tenant, and Leopard Aviation, the subtenant. In the lease, I was told that the land lease cost would be $600 a month plus annual CPI increases. The landing fee proposed turns the increase to approximately $65,000 a month. And I can tell you that'll take us from the black to the red and we'll stop flying airplanes at Falcon Field which is, I believe, the entire intention of this thing when it's that severe. We can put it all back on our students and I can tell you 95% of our students are very, very price sensitive. Our volume will go down a half if we do all of it, at least a half. We deal with this every day. 19 out of 20 students come in, they wanna take lessons, they wanna have a career as a pilot, they can't qualify. FICO scores are too low, they don't have enough money saved. 19 out of 20 go away. So it's a very price sensitive group. If we put this back on them, they're gonna stop taking lessons. Thank you, your time's up, appreciate it. Thank you, Thomas. Can we, can somebody hand these out? Yes, I want. You can hand it right here to your right. Holly, who's up? Next is Gus, I'm sorry, Gus. And then after Gus is Stephen Devine and Stephen Holt. Sir, you can sit here in this reserve seat over here. All right, go ahead, sir. Mayor, council members, thank you again for letting us have the opportunity to speak about this tonight. Spent the better part of the last half hour listening to everybody, and a simple question keeps going through my mind. We live in a country where our economy is built on you pay for what you use. Should the users of anything not pay for what they're using? The issue before the council this evening is really a very simple matter of dollars and cents and fiscal fairness. If I leave the meeting tonight and I take the light rail, I have to pay to use it. If I go to a gas station, I have to pay to use what I use. If I go to the grocery store and pick up a loaf of bread, I have to pay for that product. Likewise, those who use Falcon Field and especially those who use it in high frequency should contribute to the cost of the wear and tear on the runways and the facilities, resulting from the high level of flight operations annually, nearly as high as Sky Harbor Airport. Let me remind everybody of that. We're approaching 500,000 operations annually. This evening you have and will likely hear more concerns from flight school representatives and pilots that a $20 landing fee will be devastating to their businesses. I've operated several businesses in my lifetime and this nominal fee is simply part of doing business. It's no different than increases in rent or utilities or advertising that business owners face every day. It's the cost of doing business. As a taxpayer, I have no problem with my tax dollars going to freeways or schools or libraries and infrastructure that we all use. However, I do have a problem with my taxpayer dollars going to pay for the maintenance and repairs of runways and facilities that I have never used and will likely never use in the future, especially when those facilities are heavily used by commercial entities operating as part of the business for profit. As Mesa residents, we are respectfully asking you to vote yes on landing fees. We trust you to protect your constituents from the current and future costs associated with maintaining Falcon Field. Taxpayers should never be forced to fund business profits of any kind. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, did you say Gus is next? Yes, that was Gus, right? This is Stephen Devine followed by Stephen Holt followed by John Keith. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Stephen Devine and I am a small business owner at Falcon Field. I'm here tonight, not just for myself, but for the pilots, mechanics, instructors, students, veterans like myself, families and those whose lives depend on this airport. Falcon Field is not just pavement and hangars. It's a history, it's a sacrifice. It's a living piece of American aviation. This airport carries the legacy of heroes like Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson, men who helped define what courage means, what service and sacrifice to this nation means. To place burdens on Falcon Field, it's not just pad policy, it's a disservice to their legacy. These landing fees will not just change and hurt airport owners, they will punish opportunity and growth of future aviators. People to become pilots, this is an absolute burden and a hurdle to them. You're going to be killing businesses such as myself. I own three airplanes and I have 42 students. I've come from nothing and I've now made this into my positive business. Let's be honest, for many of us, this is not just a small change. This is a threat to our survival. Businesses will close, jobs will be lost, aviation activity will leave Mesa and once it's gone, you can't simply bring it back. Falcon Field has served this community for generations. It has brought jobs, education, commerce, tourism and pride to this city. Now the people who have invested their lives are being told to pay more just to stay here. As someone who grew up in a small general aviation family, I know what it means to serve my community and I know what it means to serve my country and what this board is deciding to do is going everything against what they stand for. This proposal also raises serious concerns with the FAA standardized use of ADS-B related tracking for fee enforcement. That is not what safety systems are meant for. You're going to be creating an absolute disastrous safety issue. And it sends the completely wrong message to the aviation community, which is built on a culture of safety and integrity. Please do not be the council that is remembered for putting a price on Falcon Field's history, legacy and community. You're gonna be known if this passes as a board of community and the council members that destroyed the legacy of this airport and destroyed Falcon Field. You're gonna be turning your back on thousands of individuals, thousands of your voters and constituents. If you do this, you will destroy the airport. You will absolutely wreck it. And again, I'm speaking boldly and loudly, but to everyone out here, we know what this is really about. This has nothing to do with the fees and that's why the FOIA requests have come out. It has nothing to do with you guys trying to generate revenue, we know. It has to deal with noise abatement. All I have to say is please, at the end of the day, look at the history of what Falcon has done, look at what it's done for its people and look at what it's done for the community. I thank you for your time and thank you for being here. Thank you, Stephen. Next speaker. Another Stephen Holt, then John Keith and then Emmanuel Lucero. My name is Stephen Holt. I'm here to talk about the Young Eagles program at Falcon Field. Before I do, I think I have enough time. Let me just put a couple things in context. One is I'm a new pilot. I got my pilot's license at 62 years old. I got about 200 landings before I got my license. So just to give you the idea that at 20 bucks a pop, that's four grand. I think I spent 17,000 on my pilot training and I got at Red Rock Flight School at Falcon Field. So it's a pretty big increase if you're gonna pass it on to the students, right? Percentage-wise, four grand. The other thing is 10 landings a month, that seems reasonable, but you get a day where the crosswinds are just good, like you might have a 10 knot crosswind. That's a great day to practice. So I might go out and do seven touch and goes to get that down because I don't ever wanna land in a crosswind, but sometimes I have no choice. And you have to practice on the days that you can. So just keep those in mind if you're thinking about 10s enough, not always. And it is a lot of money if you're a student. Okay, Young Eagles program. So the Young Eagles program, I organized that at Falcon Field. We give free flights to kids eight to 17. I get a volunteer pilot, takes the kid up, shows them how the plane works, takes them up on a flight, gives them a debrief, lots of pictures of smiling kids, it's very fun. The kids at the end of that, they get a membership to the Experimental Aircraft Association, or EAA. They get a magazine, and they also get a flight school, I'm sorry, a online ground school. So any kid who's usually 12 to 15, those kind of kids, they're interested in this stuff. They go onto that online school, and everything that they need to learn to get past the written FAA test is provided on that. And so you get a lot of kids who really get into the program. It costs the pilots about 75 to $150 to give a flight. And that's based on engine wear and fuel and oil. That's, planes are expensive. We don't collect any money, they're all free. We're not allowed to collect money because of FAA regulations. So, it's hard to get the pilots to give flights and now I'm gonna have to ask them to pay 20 bucks out of pocket. I really worry that this program's gonna go away and that we just won't have pilots that volunteer. I spend most of my time tracking them down. And I'll leave you with this. I got an email yesterday from a guy, his son, Tim O'Hara Hayworth, just got out of the Air Force flight training program, finished at near the top of his class. He's gonna start flying C-130s. When he was eight years old, he got a young eagle flight through the EAA and he got his pilot's license through the Explorer post here at Falcon Field. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next. Next, we have John Keith followed by Emmanuel Lucero and then Robert Graham. And for those of you waiting, there's a seat up front for those that will say on deck. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you guys for being here. We appreciate your time. Everybody behind me, including the pilots, instructors, we've all heard of the FAST FAA safety team. I'm one of the representatives. I was thankfully given that representative, the top representative accolade in 2024. Brent Crow also received it. We echo what Chris Dugent said from Arizona Pilots Association. We also echo what Arizona Safety Advisory Group is echoing. We are concerned with the volume that's gonna leave Falcon to an already busy, very unique situation. The airspace here is really good. So is the weather. That's why everybody trains here. It's a great place to train. Native, I've done it all here. This is concerning beyond just a basic concern. This is gonna get ugly real quick when these flight schools leave and go to other airports that are already taxed who also have controllers and airspace that's already completely saturated. If we add more planes and more volatility to that, it's only gonna make it unsafe. We can't speak on behalf of the FAA saying we want fees or we don't want fees. We're gonna be transparent about that. That's up to you guys to decide that. But we are letting you know some of the changes that will occur here in the state if you let these fees go. If you guys have any questions, I'll be sticking around afterward as a part of the FAA to answer any questions you guys may have. Thank you, sir. Next we have Emanuel, followed by Robert Graham, followed by Kerry McPherson. Hello, council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here. I'll be brief. I'm a newbie, so I- Just state your name first. My name's Emmanuel Lucero. Okay, thank you, sir. And there was another designated speaker who was more articulate and topic specific than I, but unfortunately he doesn't know, it's a time factor. So I just wanna comment that we're, or residents in Sky Mountain Estates. And I was aware of Falcom Field. I liked the museum there and whatnot, but I don't see it useful otherwise. And I grew up in LA, over by Los Angeles International Airport. Had friends that lived under the runway, and it was extremely loud, excruciatingly loud. You would pause in mid-sentence before a plane flew over and then you'd speak again. And we lived over by Jake's Ranch, which is by Gateway. And that takes commercial flights and whatnot. But there was no problem with low-flying aircraft. And over the years here, four years in residence, there were planes, it wasn't a problem. But now it's become a problem, increasingly so. I am retired, so I'm homebody. So I go outside and our kids are out of the house and take the dog out. And there are planes flying over constantly, much more so than our first years of residency. And so I just, I'm a taxpayer, like many of the people here. And I don't agree with taxpayer dollars being used to fund this. I think the airport should be self-sufficient in that regard. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you, Emanuel. Certainly, thank you for the opportunity. You bet. Next we have Robert Graham, followed by Kerry McPherson and Chris Goetz. Hi, my name's Robert Graham. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Mississippi Council. I'm a Mesa resident, I've lived here about 12 years. I've lived in Arizona my whole life, I'm being 49 now. I'm here tonight because I believe the current approach to funding Falcon Field is not sustainable long-term. Falcon Field is a very active airport with private jets, training operations, and other aviation use happening throughout the day. That level of activity creates real costs, runway wear, maintenance, staffing, and ongoing operational needs. While federal and state grants help fund major capital projects, they do not cover the full cost of operating and maintaining the airport. As activity continues to grow, these costs grow with it. At some point, the question becomes simple, who should pay? Should it be users of the airport or should it be the Mesa taxpayers? I believe in a straightforward principle, if you use a service, you should help pay for it. That's how we approach many other city services and should apply here as well. Being my daughter at Junior High, if I wanna use an auditorium at Shepherd Junior High, I'm expected to pay for that service, to be able to use it. I can't just be a citizen here, they can't expect me to go and be able to use an auditorium that takes electricity, takes staffers at the school to allow me to do that. So I expect I'm gonna have to pay something for it to use it. Landing fees are not unusual. Airports across the country use them as a standard tool to help remain financially self-sustaining and reduce reliance on general tax dollars. This isn't about restricting aviation or targeting any particular group, it's about fairness and responsible budgeting. Mesa is growing, airport activity is increasing, and the cost of maintaining the infrastructure will continue to rise. It is not realistic to expect taxpayers to absorb those costs indefinitely without asking users to contribute. I respectfully ask the council to move forward with implementing a fair and reasonable landing fee structure so that Falcon Field can remain sustainable without placing additional burden on Mesa residents. Mesa taxpayers should not be expected to subsidize airport operations now or in the future. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Next, we have Carey McPherson, followed by Chris Goats and James McCartney. Okay, thank you. State your name, please. Carey McPherson, and appreciate the chance to talk to the city council mayor and city council. A lot of things that, everybody got a letter from me. Hopefully you got to read it. I got responses from a couple. I won't go over those items. A lot of things have been said already on that, but there's a couple items, during the council study session that I saw that I wanted to kind of comment on. And it's been brought up a number of times about the FAA grant assurance 24, being that the airport with its fees has to be self-sustaining. But when you read the whole thing, it's self-sustaining as possible, you know, as close as you can. It doesn't mean it has to be 100%. There's nothing in there that says funding can't be provided from some other source besides just those fees. And that was stated that, oh, I don't know how these other cities get away with it. Well, they can because it's not, there isn't anything that prevents it, so to speak. Ideally, the fees should pay for everything. One of the items that I don't think has been really talked about a lot, but out of the Falcon Field Airport site, the ASU economic benefit analysis, the 2.2 million benefit daily, and 811 million, and this is annually, benefits the city because of Falcon Airport. So the fact that there's this benefit going to the city, it's not like the airport's taking away. If it needed a little bit of funding from the city, that shouldn't be an issue. There's a lot of these places, okay, yeah, you have to fund yourself. They're not looking at the services being provided also to the city and the benefit that all residents get because of that, not just the airport users. The landing fee that's being proposed is really excessive. When you do look around the country, I did a quick study of that. For majority of airports that have landing fees, if you're under 6,000 pounds, you're exempt. If you're based there, you're exempt. They're more designed for corporate, larger aircraft, that type of thing. Those individuals that can afford to push off additional costs and stuff, unlike myself as a general aviation pilot, I'm retired. I do a lot of volunteer flights for Angel Flight and for Blood Around Arizona. I'm paying for all my stuff. There's no way for me to get money to do any of that. It's just another burden on me. Yes, 10 flights are considered free, but again, depending on what's going on, I can burn through those. And it's just another cost on top of everything else I'm doing. I think this is all based, the landing fee thing is based on a false premise, is that you can fund these with landing fees. We're gonna lose tons. Well, first of all, anybody from out of the area, they're gonna go to Chandler, Deer Valley, Scottsdale. They're not gonna come to Falcon. I know what I do, what I go looking. And if there's a $20 landing fee and I can go over here and not pay a landing fee, I'm not gonna pay the landing fee because fuel and everything else is about the same. So I just wanna make sure that maybe postpone the thought. And I like the idea of doing some deep delve into what's actually gonna happen. But I think the impact on the city of Mesa, not just the airport, is gonna be pretty drastic. Thank you, Kerry. Thank you. Chris is next. Followed by James McCartney and Kevin Criddle. Well, council members and mayor, thank you for your time. My name is Chris Getz. I'm a private pilot out of Falcon Field. And I'm here to ask you to make the right decision for Mesa and Falcon Field and for the people who keep that airport alive. Because this proposal is not just about revenue. It's about whether the city will protect one of its greatest assets or start charging it into decline. Falcon Field is not a burden on Mesa, but rather a pillar. It is one of the region's most important general aviation airports with more than 800-based aircrafts, a long history of training, airport dating back to 1941, as others mentioned. And in economic footprint, the airport itself says exceeds 811 million, which rises to 6.8 billion when adjacent Boeing activities included. That is not something you weaken lightly. It is something you protect. And yet tonight, we are considering a policy that hits the very people who create that value every day, the flight schools, the instructors, the student pilots, the small operators, the aircraft owners, the local aviation businesses. These are not people draining Falcon Field. These are the people making Falcon Field matter. So let's be honest about what a landing fee means for Falcon Field. It's not just a fee on pavement. It's a fee on practice, training, and safety. And that is exactly why so many pilots and operators are alarmed by this. At a training airport, repeated landings are not abuse of the system. They are the system. That is how pilots are trained. That is how proficiency is built. That is how safety is reinforced. That is how accidents are prevented. The city's current proposal would charge most basic aircraft about $20 per landing after 10 free landings each month, with the city saying the goal is to generate at least $2.6 million annually to keep the airport financially self-sustaining. Pilots and flight schools have already warned publicly that the fees would raise training costs, hurt safety, and could force some schools or operators to relocate. And if that happens, the damage will not stop at the runway. When training activity leaves, jobs leave, maintenance work leaves, fuel sales leave, students leave, business momentum leaves. And once the aviation ecosystem is damaged, it does not come back easily. The airport has taken decades to build what it is today. And since 2023 alone, yearly operations at Falcon Field have increased by roughly 120,000, much of it tied to the kind of training activity that repeated landing fees will hit the hardest. So this council's not being asked to approve a harmless adjustment. You are being asked to approve a policy that can make Falcon Field less competitive, less accessible, and less useful to the people and businesses that really depend on it. And here's the part that should trouble every one of you. If fees reduce activity, and reduce activity hurts revenue, the answer cannot be to keep squeezing the remaining users harder. That is not sustainability, that is a spiral. A historic airport does not become stronger by punishing the very activity that gives it life. Council members, if you see Falcon Field matters to Mesa, then prove it. Protect the students who are trying to learn. Protect the instructors trying to teach. Protect the small businesses that are trying to survive. Protect the airport community that has made Falcon Field an economic engine, a training hub, and a point of pride for the city. Do not tax the repetition. Do not punish their growth. Do not make safety and opportunity more expensive. And tonight you have a choice. You can vote for a fee, or you can vote for Falcon Field. Please vote no for landing fees. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, council members, appreciate it. Next speaker. James McCartney, followed by Kevin Criddle and Stephen Lewis. Hello, thank you council members for the opportunity to speak. I wanted to start with a specific snapshot of what it's like to live near the airport today. On a recent Sunday afternoon, I was sitting on my back patio between 12.20 and 1.20 and counted 47 flights coming over my house. That's almost one per minute. And it didn't include those that veered away from the departure path and veered away. This level of repetitive training activity and constant touch and go operations has fundamentally changed the quality of life in our neighborhood. While we recognize that Falcon Field is a vital asset to Mesa, the sheer volume of this activity has reached a point where it is no longer a background hum. It's a constant disruption to the peace and wellbeing of taxpaying residents. However, the reason I'm standing here is not just about noise, it's about economic fairness. Falcon Field operates as an enterprise fund. By definition, that means it should be self-sustaining, supported by those who use the facility rather than relying on the general fund or the pockets of the Mesa taxpayers who may never set foot on that airfield. We are at a financial crossroads. Since 2006, the airport has relied on a one-time $4.6 million land sale to mask its operational deficit. That savings account is almost empty. Currently, airfield revenues are approximately $375,000 with airfield expenses of 2.4 to 2.6 million. As noted by the city, critical airport maintenance is being deferred to balance the budget. We can no longer use a band-aid approach to maintenance while expecting Mesa taxpayers to eventually foot the bill for a total runway reconstruction. Tell me, who should bridge that gap? We believe the most equitable answer is a user pay model. In almost every other public utility or industry, those who utilize the infrastructure the most and put most wear and tear on it contribute the most to its upkeep. I wanna be very clear. We're not asking for landing fees as a tool for noise abatement. We understand the FAA regulations and that federal funding prohibits using fees to restrict aviation activity based on noise concerns. Instead, we're advocating for landing fees as a tool for financial sustainability. Implementing a fair fee structure ensures that Falcon Field can maintain its own infrastructure and remain a premier aviation hub without being a perpetual financial burden on the city's residents. The current increase in repetitive flight training has strained the goodwill of the community. While we cannot legally use fees to stop the noise, the impact of our quality of life directly influences how we feel about subsidizing the operations with our tax dollars. We ask the council to pursue a path of balance. Let's make Falcon Field financially independent by ensuring that airport users contribute their fair share toward the facility they rely on. Thank you. Thank you, James. Kevin. After Kevin is Stephen Lewis and then Greg Hadley. Good evening, council. My name is Kevin Criddle. I live in district one, and I'm here on behalf of my family and a few of the neighbors who live in our area. And thanks for having all 20 something of us. You must be exhausted. I think everybody else in here is probably exhausted as well, but it's really nice of you guys to accommodate the whole group. So thanks for doing that. So I support Falcon Field and the aviation community, but I also believe that it needs to be done sustainably. It's a straightforward decision tonight. We've heard a lot of great speakers tonight on both sides of the issue. But really the concept is, are we going to ask Mesa taxpayers to subsidize the business owners that are flying flight schools out of Falcon Field? Falcon Field is one of the most active training airports in our region. And those high frequency flights are the driver of operational demand. And more importantly for council, it's the driver of long-term maintenance concerns. We've increased flights and we've increased the maintenance costs, the staffing costs. Every aspect of Falcon Field's cost structure increases based on the number of flights that are being flown. And just from a basic economic perspective, as you all understand, when usage drives cost, our pricing should also reflect that usage. We don't charge everyone the same for water or electricity. If I wanna fill a 40,000 gallon pool, I'm going to be charged accordingly. Other folks have made that point tonight very well. The same is true of electricity. We've recognized and I hope the council recognizes the drastic difference between Falcon Field, which is primarily a local general aviation airport, deriving a simpler set of economic benefits from Gateway, which is a much larger regional driver of growth. I think there is a massive contrast between Mesa Falcon Field and also Mesa Gateway. A usage-based structure is important for a place like Falcon Field with the density of flight training and also the different cost structure and the different way that those costs are paid for over time as compared to Mesa Gateway. It's also important to recognize that landing fees aren't that unusual, right? Like this has been a tool that's been used in similar communities for a long time. It's to address a very specific funding shortfall. It's to make and enhance Falcon Field as a long-term viable asset. If we let deferred maintenance become the tune of the day, we're not going to be a world-class aviation facility, pure and simple. The last point I'll make is, I think it should be intuitive to all of us that if we invite people from other cities, other states, and from around the world to come and enjoy the benefits of Falcon Field, those people from other cities, other states, and from around the world should be willing to bear the cost associated with Falcon Field. And if it costs $4,000 for students, let it be. They will be top 10 wage earners in this state. They will earn, as first officers and pilots, two, three, four, $500,000 eventually in their career. It's an extraordinary investment. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Stephen, is that correct? Yes, followed by Craig Hadley, then Mark Hunsocker. Greg, if you're here, you can come to the front, please. There's a chair for you. Stephen. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. I appreciate this opportunity to address this gust buddy on this very important subject. I have been in the aviation field for over 50 years and I'm a retired FAA air traffic controller, was also a first level supervisor and operations manager. Did 27 years with the FAA, and I'm a four year Navy veteran. I am a CFI and my wife and I own a single engine airplane and we fly out of Falcon Field. I stand in opposition to this proposal of the landing fees at Falcon Field. I do not command the language to tell you how strongly I oppose it. I did meet the airport director a couple of weeks ago. She's very hospitable and pleasant enough. But with all due respect, I believe the director has lost her way. There is no one on the current staff who is an active pilot. Consider that for a moment. There's no subject matter expert on staff to provide input for somebody who actually uses the facilities. I understand that the current director has been at her position for approximately 20 years and that makes her a career bureaucrat out of touch with the aviation community who she should be working in concert with. I believe this is time for the airport director to go. Director believes that she has a good relationship with those who have businesses at Falcon. She is fooling herself and by extension, she is fooling you. In my opinion, the problems have been created by the aviation department at Falcon. I am pro-business. I don't believe that the aviation department did anything to manage the growth over recent years. Instead, the aviation department had behind the FAA's requirements. And this is a classic example of government creating a problem and then stepping in to solve it ineffectively. I understand the airport management has over 25 stipulations for FAA funds. There should, in my opinion, have been a series of approved minimum requirements during business applications. It's a classic, like I said, it's a classic tale of government inaction causing a problem that now they are trying to solve. I'd ask you that you remember the heritage of Falcon Field as it started and honor its history for those World War II pilots who began their training there and served and sacrificed for freedom. For those who have come behind them and vote no for this horrific proposal, I thank you for your time, your attention, and your consideration. Have a good evening. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Next speaker. We have Greg next, followed by Mark Hunsaker and Jeff Whiteman after Mark. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. I am the owner of Simply Fly Flight School, which is one of the largest flight schools on the field. I echo a lot of the sentiment that has been mentioned this evening and particularly want to point out the detriment that this will be to my business, to my students, to my flight instructors, to my mechanics, to everybody that I employ here at Falcon Field. We do pay a lot of the expenses out there already in the rent and the fees that we already pay out there. I am also very concerned about the safety and the issues that this will cause as it forces us out into the other airports, particularly the uncontrolled airports and the amount of traffic that will be out there from all of the flight schools. I feel like this is gonna be detrimental to the airport as a whole and will not benefit the airport at all. In fact, I see business going down. And as has already been pointed out, the city generates, or the airport economic engine that the airport is for the city, it generates $811 million annually for the city of Mesa. So if business decreases by 50% at the airport, is the city of Mesa really ready to absorb that 50% cut in that $811 million? Just a thought. Also, with the growth of the airport, I find it hard to believe that there's gonna be that much of a deficit. I too echo some of the other things that have been said tonight, that the airport management is out of touch with the airport and that the airport has been mismanaged for years. And something needs to happen. I feel like this is trying to throw money into a pit that's not going to solve it. I would welcome the opportunity to be part of an advisory board to make the airport self-sufficient, to help make the residents of the area to find a solution for them as well for the noise that's going on that they're suffering with. I do feel for them. And I think there are some solutions, but I don't think this is the solution. So I'd encourage you to please vote no for this, and then let's find a better solution for all. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Mark Hunsaker, followed by Jeff Whiteman. And then Justin Durand after Jeff. Somebody left sunglasses? Okay. Thank you, Mayor and council members. Mark is behind you. He's coming for his glasses. There you go. Thanks. Got you covered. Thank you. Thank you for having us tonight. I know this is a long list of people that would like to speak on this matter. It's got some touchiness, I know, for occupants and tenants at the airport, but as well, I come as a constituent of the area. I've currently lived in my current home for 26 years, directly southwest of Falcon Field within a linear mile of the runway in the airport. So needless to say, over the last 26 years, I've been a witness personally to the changes in the airport. Seeing them personally, I can speak to them authoritatively, excuse me. Needless to say, in those 26 years, I will also say I'm an aviation fan. I love planes. I grew up flying a Cessna 210 and a 182 with my dad around Arizona as he went to different appointments, and so I love planes. And up till around five years ago, I would have never complained about the amount of flights and airplanes flying around Falcon Field because I enjoyed seeing them and watching them, and they never seemed to bother me. But that's changed over the last five years, and I can't say with any specificity of what that is exactly, but I know that the amount of flight school, training flights has increased dramatically. Somebody quoted to me earlier today that over 80% of the takeoff and landing at that airport are currently training flights. That's a lot for any airport, in my opinion. I think that's basically telling us that Falcon Field had become a training site, not a normal airport for the area. I have a concern about safety. I can think of just recently in the last few months, three specific accidents that have happened on the southwest corner or area of that airport, two of which were training flights and two of which crashed and landed within the thousand feet of my home. And so I naturally have some concern about the increasing amount of training flights in the area, and if we're talking about increasing that even more over the next few years, that becomes difficult. I just want to speak quickly about a couple comments that are made. If anybody's been paying attention to what's going on at Falcon Field, Falcon Field is booming. You can drive around Falcon Field and almost every square inch of Falcon Field is being developed as private hangars right now. There's buildings going up all over and there is plenty of business interest and opportunity for people to come in to supplant or replace perhaps some of the flight, repetition flights that we may lose by these increased fees. Again, landing fees are part of doing business and I think it's, I would vote for you. I would hope you guys would vote yes on this matter. I think it's something that is needed for this particular airport. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. We have Jeff Whiteman. Is that correct? Yes, Mayor. Followed by Justin Durand and Kay Hunsaker. Mr. Whiteman, the mic's yours. Okay, Mayor and Council, thank you for taking on such a passionate, emotionally charged issue as this. I've lived out in the Falcon Field area for over 36 years. I own a relatively large business in Mesa. I fly two aircraft out of Falcon Field and my family has been tenants of Falcon Field for over 60 years. But I also understand how neighbors do not want to pay for my flights or the maintenance of my flights. It's kind of like you move to a neighborhood or move into a golf course, you enjoy the golf course, you understand the golfers will play, you get a few balls in your yard, but then Topgolf takes over that hole and it's madness. So now we're asking the homeowner, hey, would you also subsidize the maintenance caused by Topgolf? So as a business owner, I understand, I'm trying to look at both sides of this and based on the aircraft we fly, after I use our 10 credits a month, I'm not aware of anybody that will pay more per landing than we will. But I still believe it's the right thing to do. And I know it's gonna upset people. I've heard it for, what, over an hour. But doing the right thing is not always doing the easy thing. So I commend you for doing this. I strongly encourage you to vote yes on this. The residents of Mesa should not shoulder the burden of maintaining Falcon Field. Those people that use Falcon Field should take care of that. And I know that will create some animosity with some of my neighbors out at the airport, but that's just how I see it. But thank you for standing strong. I have just another minute, so I'm gonna use it. I heard a lot of talk about how the airport is gonna crumble and that is not the case. One, I think the airport does a good job with the cards they are dealt. I believe that if there's any reduction in air traffic, that will be filled back in with business jets. There's a lot of people that want to use Falcon Field from the business jet community, but it is like flying into a beehive. We use contract pilots sometimes and we warn those contract pilots, you're going to fly into a level of intensity that you are not used to. It's okay, take a breath, it's gonna be okay, but it's a very crowded airspace. So I encourage you to do the right thing and create a self-sustaining airport and don't rely on the citizens of Mesa to do that. Those funds are needed somewhere else. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Whiteman. Who's after Mr. Whiteman? Justin, followed by Kay, followed by Art Jordan. Justin, Katie, there's a seat here if you'd like to use it. Thanks so much. My name is Justin Durand and I was born and raised in Mesa. I attended Salt, Falcon Hill, Red Mountain Ranch, Shepherd, graduated from Red Mountain High School and I now live in Los Angeles. I've always had fond memories of Falcon Field and my father even surprised me with a flight lesson on the morning of my 16th birthday. In spite of that, I still think users should pay their fair share. As we all know, Falcon Field Airport is running a significant deficit which taxpayers currently bear. As the city contemplates landing fees, we should note usage-based pricing is standard practice and widespread across city facilities, including $32 per hour to rent a soccer field, $22 for a park ramada, $4 for a lap swimmer at the aquatic center, $1 per printed color page at the public library and $4,722 to rent the Akita Theater at the Mesa Arts Center. As a city grows and Mesa has grown 30X since Falcon Field was founded, the status quo often needs to change. $20 per landing is a small fee, less than what it costs to rent a ramada in the park. Obviously, we are seeing a lot of airport users complain about the landing fees tonight, but there's no reason why taxpayers should continue to subsidize these users. It's like expecting taxpayers to cover the tab every time someone rents a soccer field, uses the pool or prints pages in the library. The people using the service may not like the fee, but that does not mean the general public should subsidize it. Usage-based landing fees ensure shared responsibility for Falcon Field's costs and protects taxpayers now and in the future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Justin and Katie, you're up. And then who's after Katie? After K is Art Jordan, then David Lee Beatty. Hi, my name is Kaye Hunsaker and I reside in Mesa. My husband just spoke a couple of speakers ago. We're about, like he said, a mile from the airport, but I'm gonna speak in regards to our family business that we own at 3825 East McKellips, which is a half a mile, just west of the corner of Greenfield and McKellips. The takeoffs landings go directly over our property. We've owned this property since the early 80s. So over 40 years, I've heard a lot of business owners, flight school owners tonight speak of the impact that this fees will have on their business, that their businesses may no longer be businesses because of them. Our business at 3825 East McKellips Road has changed due to the increase of airplanes going over our business. We have outdoor seating. We've done evening weddings and events, and the noise makes it very difficult, almost impossible. We grow citrus. I pack citrus, sort citrus every day. I'm outside two to four hours with the planes. I have customers that lately have said, how do you handle the noise? Because it is a lot, it is a lot lately, even more so. But it's really changed the environment of our business too. So I understand it's not only the businesses in the airport, but the surrounding businesses are affected by the noise and things. I know this tonight is about the fees and not the noise, but the noise does affect us. I am here to agree with the fees. I think if you play, you need to pay. A big concern that I've been kind of studying a little bit too is about the health impact of these flights. And I could be wrong in this, but I understand the fuel used in these small planes is still leaded fuel. I don't know the impact of that toxicity that's flying over continually. I would ask if the city has any studies on that, I would be interested in knowing that and the impacts of our communities. There's a school close by, parks close by, and businesses and residents, of course. The growth of Falcon Field has exploded. We've heard tonight a lot about World War II days. We're not there. My 90-year-old father-in-law learned to fly at Falcon Field, but it's not the same. And the amount of flights that increased, I read we've had almost 100,000 increased flights from 2023, or more than that, to 2024. Where's the ceiling? How many are we gonna allow to keep coming in? I appreciate your time tonight, and thank you for listening. Thank you, Katie. Next speaker, please come up, yeah. Right, who's up? Art, and then David, and then Connor Hilly. Art, and then David. I will try to make eye contact, but I also wanna be somewhat articulate, so I have a few notes. Art Jordan, 20 years in the lower reaches of Los Angeles, the previous 20 over in the Citrus Grove, so kind of two different sides of the whole thing. I believe that the issues have been well-framed and spoken about by all of the speakers tonight, so I'm not gonna try and repeat any of that, but I showed a modest amount of interest in this a year ago and called the airport director, and was told certain things that don't seem to be holding water at this point in terms of that the city of Mesa had no control over the issue. It is how the conversation went. The issues tonight have been well-framed, as I said. It's probably about flight schools operating at a price point that works for them. By Mesa providing the infrastructure for profit-making businesses, this misses a large portion of the issue, in my opinion. I encourage the council to make a balanced decision for all Mesa residents, not just operators of Falcon Field. The problem is I was told on that phone call a year ago that there were 140 flight school planes operating, blue and white airplanes, and when I'm out in my yard working in the lower reaches, the thing that has caught my attention, and I bring to you tonight, is their touch and goes. I mean, they're coming up into Los Angeles, circling, going back, and they're back within three minutes. It isn't about corporate jets bringing business to Mesa. It's about flight schools operating a public airport, in my opinion. Everybody's already talked about paying for what you use. We all have heard that in Maricopa County for 50 years with the ballpark and the libraries and everything. That's an old issue, and there's always differences of opinion on that. What is a public amenity? But I wanna go back to my notes for a second. I think this is my key point. If there truly are 140 planes right now, what is the council's goal for five years from now? Is it 200 planes? Is it 225 planes? And what was it five years ago when people weren't complaining? It might've been 80 planes or something like that. So I think we need to visit that issue in terms of capacity. I have no issues with airplanes being based at Falcon Field and all of that infrastructure. Again, repeating for the third time, it's touch and go. It's the repetitiveness on cool mornings, on Saturday and Sunday, the military planes occasionally come over at the low altitude also. The correct decision in my opinion is pilots should pay the real cost, including landing fees. Prices go up every year in most sectors of the economy. Customers adjust, and they make market decisions. Your time's up. Thank you, sir. David? After David, who have- After David, we're down to the last four. We have Connor Hilly, Kerry Davis, Darcy Whoish, and Jacob Abu-Cotter. David, the mic's yours. Good evening. I'm David Beatty. I live in district one. I'm native of Mesa. I took my first flight at Falcon in 1966. I worked at the airport in the seventies when I was going to high school. And I got my pilot's license at Falcon in 1979 when I was 18. I've been flying out there a long time. I like to fly my wife and children and grandchildren around the state. But I am not opposed to the airport being self-sufficient. What I am opposed is the way it's being proposed. My thoughts here are gonna stray a little bit from most everybody else, and it might not be popular. If the finances are a problem, I would say, maybe you should look at the airport staff. They're the ones spending the money. They need to be both fiscally and operationally responsible. We have one of the busiest airports in the country because of all the training. We only have staff there four days a week, with the exception of maybe the guys that are running around the field. To me, that doesn't make any sense. Again, if there's a deficit, I'd look to see how they're spending their money, what's necessary and what's frivolous. And to me, I see a lot of frivolous. One of the things that came up was recently, a lot of time and effort and money was spent on a driving program. Well, I would say, prove me wrong, but 90 some percent of the people out there have a pilot's license that says, we know what all that signage and marking is. Why do we have to spend all this money on a driving program? How much money was spent on that? Some of you know. The transparency is terrible. When I got on a list for a hangar, I was told I would be two years. It took me five years to get in the hangar, and I know people that got in hangars before me that got on the list after me. Some shenanigans going on in the staff. Casa Grande posts their wait list on the airport bulletin board. They're transparent on their list. I also want you to know I support an airport advisory committee, because as was said before, the staff are not pilots. They don't have the background or the training that we have had. I'll leave it at that. Thank you for your time. Thank you, David. Next speaker. Connor Hilly, followed by Kerry Davis, and then Darcy. Good evening. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. And I want to particularly thank everyone who's here who has one of the other important issues on the agenda. I appreciate your patience with us tonight. My name's Connor Hilly. I'm a district five resident. I'm a pilot. I'm a newly minted flight instructor just a few months ago. And I moved here. I moved to Mesa, Arizona from Georgia about two years ago. And the purpose of me speaking tonight is I want to emphasize the economic impact beyond just the flying that goes on at the airport. I know a few of my fellow citizens had mentioned the $811 million economic impact per year that has been projected from Balkan Field. But I just want to emphasize that a little more about the people who come here for the training. Like I said, I moved from Georgia. I rent here. I bought a car here. I go to small businesses all around the city of Mesa, right? I shop at the Fry's on Higley, and I pump my gas across the city. These things are often overlooked when we talk about an airport, right? It might not seem like the economic impacts are quite so wide, but everyone who comes here is pouring economic activity into the community. And in a time with rising gas prices and other things that are putting pressure on our local economy, I worry that the trade-off for getting the airport to self-sufficiency is going to cost a much broader economic impact than we realize. Now, some of us have also stated tonight that we want the airport to be self-sufficient, and I couldn't agree more. I'm happy to pay to keep the airport self-sufficient. I use it, and I don't think it's right that people pay that burden that otherwise don't use the airport. With that being said, though, I think a lot of aviation leaders have discussed here tonight that there are other ways to get the airport to self-sufficiency without risking the economic impact that we're talking about, and without driving people out of Falcon Field. Someone said, and I don't remember who, but they said that if you use, you should pay, right? And usage drives cost. The more people that use it, the more expensive the airport's gonna be. And that's certainly true, but the less people that use it, the less revenue the airport's gonna develop. And the concern is that we're going to start sort of a downward spiral here. We're gonna have this fee, and then now we're gonna get less pilots. I know they're projecting 10%, but like others, I think it's going to be substantially more. And that decrease is gonna create a bigger shortfall. And now we're gonna be back at square one with less traffic and less revenue for the airport. So I would encourage the proposal to be at least tabled to sort of investigate different ways to sort of prevent the shortfall, and ways that won't impact aviation, and like I said, the local economy so harshly. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Connor. You said Mr. Davis is next. Yes, Mr. Davis followed by Darcy Hewish and Jacob Aboukader. I'm sorry, who's after Mr. Davis? Darcy Hewish. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Kerry Davis, and as most of you know, I am opposed to rate increases. As the former mayor and as the mayor, I served as the president of the San Bernardino International Airport Authority. I do support you in putting forward this rate increase. It's not customary of most of my comments, but I do realize that there's deferred maintenance and you have to pay for it. And if you don't pay for it through those landing fees and the additional fees for the storage rent, then you're gonna be putting it on the taxpayers. And so I echo those sentiments that have been put forward by those who favor this rate increase and put forward my support in behalf of this rate increase. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis. And we have Darcy and Jacob. And who's following Darcy? Jacob. Jacob. Thank you so much. My name is Darcy Hewish. I appreciate your time to listen to us. I'm a resident here. I've been in Mesa, Arizona now for 26, 27 years. And I live one less than a mile from this airport. And I have memories of my girls sitting out on blankets and we would watch the airplanes go over and it was fun and it was beautiful. And it was the kind of an entertainment piece. And as we've heard tonight, the history of Falcon Field, we know going back to 1941 to 1945, it was a training for World War II, all of that, but it has not been a flight training school until the last maybe decade. It has just really the last six years. It has exploded. 80% of the flights going out of Falcon Field are training school flights. So what was once a beautiful place to live, I would never build my house where it is now, ever. We had neighbors that were wanting to build a million dollar home next to us would never do it because they asked me an honest question. How is the air traffic? And I said, it's miserable. I know that's not the point where to argue, but the fact that I'm paying tax dollars to support something that has robbed me of peace of life. I can't even take a Saturday or Sunday afternoon nap because this is what I listen to. Every 18 to 38 seconds, this is what I hear. And I'm gonna play it for you because I don't have any more important things and fancy things to say. Give me a minute. I'm also not tech savvy, but I'll use my time to find this. This is just today. I could go at any point any day, starting at 6.45 in the morning, typically. It wakes me up in the morning and I go to sleep with this at night. And if I sat here for another 18 to 38 seconds, you would hear the next one come by. It is unreasonable that the citizens of this area have been overlooked and it has progressively gotten worse. And as others have said, you cannot compare Mesa Gateway, which is a commercial airport where you have commercial flights going out to Falconfield. You just can't. When you look at the surrounding and how close the homes, the schools are, and the city is strong, it will make it without corroding the noise in the lifestyle and the tax dollars of the city. And we appreciate your time. And even considering this, it's a great honor. Thank you. Thank you, Darcy. Jacob is next. And is there anyone after Jacob? Mayor, Jacob is the last speaker for this item. He's the last one? Yes. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much for the time. I have unfortunate news for anyone who doesn't like the general aviation noise, swap that out for jets because that's inevitably what's going to happen. We've heard a lot of perspectives from business owners and from locals. I live at Higley and Brown. I live directly underneath the downwind. And I'd like to give you a student's perspective. So a lot of people don't know this about flight training, but student, it's not what you think of. It's not, you go to ASU, you get scholarships and that's how it works. You get financial aid. None of that applies to student pilots. So that's who's directly going to foot this cost. That's why the business owners are so concerned. It's because their students are already financially struggling to make it because aviation is notoriously and historically a difficult system to get into. And it should be difficult. It should be a struggle because you don't want pilots who are incompetent. You want pilots who are determined and who have grit and who can stick it out. And so in this sort of difficult and fundamentally broken system in other places, when you have a place as distinct and as unique as Falcon Field is, you're taking this opportunity to basically get rid of all of these systems that are in place for these local flight school business owners who are trying to do the best that they can with the resources that they have in order to keep their students there in training. If you raise these fees or the landing fees that you're talking about, you're not talking about a single one-time use fee. You're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that are ultimately gonna get footed to the students. Now, when the students can't pay that, five school doors are gonna close. That's what's gonna happen. So I understand that there's a certain aura here of flight training has boomed. So there's sort of, I've heard sort of an up and down tonight about how there's too much development, there's not enough development, there's too much noise, and then I don't understand. So you're gonna substitute that for flight, for jet noise. There's other ways to develop funding for the airport. It's a tight-knit community of locals, and the local business owners there are who need to be supported in this. So as developments arise and as new businesses come in who are corporate aviation, 135, 131 operations, then yeah, there's ways for revenue to come that's not gonna directly foot the bill to students and to businesses who can't afford it. So thank you for your time. Thank you, Jacob. All right, Ms. Mosley, that's our last speaker for this agenda item. Yes Mayor. Okay, Council and City Attorney and City Manager. City Manager. Mayor and Council, if I could, just for one second. Yeah. There were a few comments regarding noise and trafficking capacity, just a few, but I just wanna point out, and I know Council knows this, but just for the record and also for the public, those are not factors for consideration of the fee tonight. And the comments, those comments are not, and I know Council will not consider those comments that are not a basis for establishing this fee. So I just wanna make sure that the public is aware of that and just reiterate what I said at the beginning for what's the basis for the fees. Thank you, Mayor. You're welcome. So a lot of questions were asked. I know we have Jill, our outside attorney, so we have an outside Council here along with our City Attorney. We have our Airport Director here. And I made some, wrote some questions down. Number one, taxpayers supporting Gateway Airport. Can you respond to that, Mr. City Manager? Sure, Mayor, Council, I know there has been a lot of discussion tonight about the role of the city and whether the city should subsidize these operations. The distinction that we, Falcon Field operates as an enterprise fund of the city. And an enterprise fund is meant to function as a business and to be self-sustaining. There is a mechanism in place, and which is what we're discussing tonight, to allow that fund to be self-sustaining, to provide for that infrastructure that directly benefits the business operation that's occurring there at the airport. And so this is a way to ensure that we can maintain and sustain an airport that all users of the airport will be able to benefit from the infrastructure and the maintenance that we will conduct as a result of being able to make sure that this is a self-sustaining enterprise fund. And what about monies towards Mesa Gateway Airport? That question was asked, taxpayer dollars being used to fund Mesa Gateway Airport. Yeah, and again, that's not an apples to apples comparison because that is a separate legal body. That's a separate authority established under state statute that formed the Mesa Gateway Board. And they operate, we are one participant in that board, along with Queen Creek, Apache Junction, Gilbert and the Gila River Indian community that all serve as owners of the airport. We do pay a membership fee, which all owners do to be able to have a seat on the board of that airport authority. It is not an enterprise fund of the city and operates under separate jurisdiction and authority under state statute. Okay, thank you. Another question was asked about landing fees at Gateway. I sit on the Mesa Gateway Authority Board and there are no landing fees on aircraft under 12,500 pounds. So a 6,000 pound aircraft, there'll be no landing fee at Gateway Airport, only though that aircraft above 12,500. We talked about the economic impact. That was something that was discussed by a lot of different speakers tonight. And that is something that we have considered, but nothing that was driving our decision tonight, whether we approve or not approve this discussion. So with that, I'd like to move over to council for any discussion here. And if I may, on your last point that you were correct, there's no landing fee under 12,500. However, the Gateway Board at its last meeting approved the potential for that to happen based on the needs of that airport, because they've also documented that they are running at a revenue deficit on the aviation side. So that potential does exist. Okay, so you've given the authority to the executive director to make that the executive director has needed. Got it, okay. Council, you wanna start, Ms. Taylor, why don't you start first? Do you have any questions or comments? I'll start to my right and we'll finish to Mr. Adams here to the left. I really only had, well, I had a couple questions. I think most of them were answered, but I was curious to know, does Falcon Field have any type of bulletin board or any type of calendar booking system so that if you do want to sign up for a hangar or a tie down, you can put yourself in a waiting list? Oh, hi Cory. Mayor, Council Member Taylor, we have explored that possibility. There are some airports, as someone mentioned, that do have that, but the current system that we have in place, the database, would list the names and there are people that don't necessarily want their names to be published on that local bulletin board or whether it's online. We have tried and have looked into the possibility of perhaps assigning a number to someone when they get on the wait list, and then they can go and look on a list that would, again, probably be on our website that would say, okay, number, you know, 23, you're, you know, fifth on the list or whatever. But our current database system does not allow that type of scenario. So we are looking at the possibility of acquiring some additional new database system that would enable us to be able to do that so people can just look online and maybe see what their number is and see where they are on the list. But anybody is always welcome to call us or send us an email. We have a couple members of our team that are highly focused on that. So people regularly call in and just ask, where am I on the wait list? And we're happy to provide that information. Thank you. I think my only other question was really around the differences between the Mesa Gateway Airport and Falcon Field and the enterprise setup. So thanks for answering that. I just needed some clarification on it. All right. Vice Mayor, is that all right? Yes. Gentleman first. Corrine, could you give us a brief, because we had this in the study session before. Would you give us a brief overview of the different operational buckets, if you will, what has to pay for what and how we got to a revenue shortfall? Yes, Mayor, Vice Mayor Summers, I'd be happy to do that. We, a couple of years ago, we made the decision to restructure our approach to how we look at our finances and our accounting using and decided to use a system that is supported by the FAA, which is a cost center approach. We established three separate cost centers at the airport. The first one is the ground leases. The second one is the hangers and city owned hangers and tie downs. And then the third one is the airfield. And we decided that the first cost center that we would look at in terms of whether it's financially self-sustaining or not, it would be the hangers and the tie downs. So we looked at that over a year ago to, and ultimately came to discover that that cost center is not financially self-sustaining. So we put together a plan that we brought last year, initially to council to raise those rates on the hangers and the tie downs over a period of three to five years to make that area financially self-sustaining. And of course, council only approves fee increases on an annual basis, but council did approve that increase last year. And we're also requesting and recommending an increase this year as well. Then the second area, and we knew that this was gonna be the big one to tackle was the airfield cost center. And that cost center consists of, the primary parts of the airfield cost center are those areas of the airport that are non-exclusive, meaning they're not leased out to anybody. They're not necessarily used predominantly by, for example, the city-owned hangar tenants. So we're talking the runways, the taxiways, the airfield lighting, the perimeter. Everything on the movement area. Everything in the movement area, yes. And some things in the non-movement areas that are taxi lanes and so forth that are non-exclusive. And then of course, the third cost center is the ground leases. And those are just for the ground leases that we currently have in place. And then Scott, you talked about how there was a land sale a number of years ago, and then that was helping sustain the operations here and that money is run out. So we're at a point where we're going into deficit. Would that be accurate? That would be accurate if we don't change the trajectory of how we would finance these infrastructure projects. There was also a question that was asked, and I apologize, because I'm just taking these in kind of the order I heard them. Was there a full financial assessment conducted? And did we look at things like the fuel flowage tax and what other funding opportunities were done? I remember there was a slide on the fuel tax. Yes, Mayor, Vice-Member, Mayor Summers, we did look at a number of various options besides just the landing fees. We did look at the fuel flowage fees, which we are recommending a small increase in the fuel flowage fee. The challenge with the fuel flowage fee is that with the situation that we have at Falcon, right now we have one full service fixed base operator that is a fuel provider, and another one that provides jet fuel. The prices that you charge for your fuel and for your fuel flowage fees are going to, they are very price sensitive because the users of the airspace in the Phoenix area have lots of choices. And of course, if we raise the fuel flowage fees too high, of course, the fuel providers are gonna have to pass that along to the customers. And then at that point, at some point very quickly, the price of fuel at Falcon Field is so far above what is being offered at other airports that people will just not fuel at Falcon Field. Okay, so it's a balancing act. It's very much a balancing act, yes. Emergency services, angel flight, I heard somebody speak to that they do angel flights here. Are there exemptions for things such as that? Fire protection, I know. There are, I'm sorry, Mayor, Vice Mayor Summers, there are some exemptions that are included with the landing fee recommendation and medical flights are included within that exemption. Okay, so angel flights would be part of that. Yes. Very good. I heard somebody say that landing fees on based aircraft is completely without precedent. Is that true in your experience? Mayor, Vice Mayor Summers, when we did our research, we researched and surveyed numerous airports across the United States. The ones that we did ultimately include on our survey list that we provided not only to you, but on the website for everybody to see. We contacted all of those airports directly and spoke with them and verified with them, are you charging this fee for everybody? And they said, yes. I would also like to mention that, and this was after we had posted our information that on March 1st of this year, the city of Van Nuys or the Van Nuys Airport, which is part of the Los Angeles World Airport System approved landing fees at Van Nuys Airport, which is a general aviation airport that's part of the LAWA system. And their landing fees apply to all users of the airport. And that's just very recent. And I'll ask one more and then I'll let some others speak, but how did we get to this figure of 10% drop in economic activity where it would still be a sustainable model for the landing fees? I mean, we had one commenter suggest 50% drop. I don't know where that came from either. And that 80% of the activity is flight schools. So if 80% of the activity are flight schools, how did we get to a 10% number? Was there a study done on this or? Mayor, Vice Mayor Summers, the answer to that question is that no one knows at this point exactly what that number is going to be. And even if you talk to other airports, each airport has their own set of circumstances as far as what types of operations they have at their airports and what other airports might be nearby that people could go to. We were trying to be positive, think positive, because if we increase that, let's say we went up to a 30% reduction. At that point, we would have to increase the landing fees that we were recommending. So we were trying to keep the fee as low as we could, but also factor in some type of loss. Now, as we move forward, if council does approve the landing fees, obviously we are going to start collecting and seeing this data. So a year from now, when it's time for, or actually it would probably be sooner than that, in the next six months, we're going to begin looking at the fees and charges for next year. And we'll have a little better idea of what that loss number is, and we can adapt accordingly. So as a follow-up, did we ask other airports that have implemented a landing fee, what their reduction in activity was? Vice mayor of Summers, we did not specifically ask those airports, because again, it just depends upon that what that particular airport, what their makeup is, what the proximity is to other airports and so forth. So, and so we did not ask that question. Okay. Mayor and vice mayor, if I could add, there was an initial assessment with actually a higher percentage than 10%, and that results in a higher landing fee. And then the airport looked at what I'll call more conservative number and dropped or optimistic number, you might say, and dropped it to 10%. By doing that, the landing fee came down. And so the idea was is to keep that number percentage low to also help keep the landing fee lower. And so the initial estimate or guesstimate was as a higher percentage than that, but in order to make the fee lower, we were estimated that that number lower, but like Kareem pointed out, we'll probably be back in a year potentially to see how we need to adjust that if that's necessary. Thank you. Ms. Taylor, I saw you. I just wanted to clarify. So you were saying that we didn't do an apples to apples because that doesn't exist. Is that right? It's just not, it's not really plausible. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Taylor. In the industry, it's well known as if you see one airport, you've seen one airport because every airport is a little bit different. You know, we've seen discussions tonight about the fact that there are some airports that are subsidized or are given money from their municipalities and other airports like Falcon Field that are not. So it's very hard to really get an apples to apples because every airport is just unique. Yeah, and that's, I would say further evidence as to why we also can't compare Falcon Field to Mesa Gateway either. That's just not a realistic comparison. I would agree with that 100%. Okay. Ms. Duff. Yes, I have just a few questions here. I have some concerns and maybe we discussed it last week, but I'd like to review it again that the nonprofit entities I've heard tonight, Aviation Explorers and Young Eagles, and I'm sure there might be some others, the education part of taking youth up and exposing them to aviation as a career, those activities as a nonprofit would incur the landing fee. Is that correct? I know there's exemptions on that some nonprofits. I don't know. Mayor, council member Duff, that is correct. We tried to look at that initially to see if that would be a possibility, but we really had to narrow it down to what groups can you really tie back a service to the community that is basically an emergency type of service, such as the medical flights and so forth. And so there are a lot of absolutely wonderful groups, 501C3s that are performing wonderful things to get young people interested in aviation and the airport has always heartily supported the efforts of those groups. But because of the fact that we're gonna have to try to fine tune a system to determine if someone is actually conducting one of those flights, or if they're using it not to conduct one of those flights, but saying that they are, that's very, very hard to track. And I'm not saying that I don't mean to be disparaging in that regard. It's just that administratively, it's very hard to keep track of that. And mayor, council member Duff, can we just add that would be again, after the 10 flights that they would be, the 10 landings that they are given as part of this. So it would only be after that. I can understand that you have an owner of a plane who's doing it as a service to the community and to the youth, how to differentiate their flights versus the ones in which they're doing the education nonprofit work. I'm not that, this is a side question, I'm debating to ask it, I heard as far as being able to track the flights with the ADSB. So is that how it's gonna be tracked as far as evaluating the landing fees or calculating? Mayor, council member Duff, thank you for asking that question. The initial approach would be if council approves this to hire a third party vendor who would use the ADSB as is commonly used across the United States for tracking flights. However, there is a legislation, not only federally, but here within the state that is recommending that airports not be allowed to use that type of system to generate revenue. If that legislation were to pass, then we would work with our third party vendor to use the more traditional approach, which has been used for many, many years prior to the ADSB coming online. And that would be to set up and install a camera system that would be there to take photographs of the aircraft as they are landing. Okay, okay, I understand. And I know there was a bunch of stakeholder meetings, I assume you met with the flight schools as well in those meetings? No? Mayor, council member Duff, we as the airport, since December, we held 17 public meetings with folks, I should say 15 that were sponsored by the airport and then two of them that were actually, we were asked to participate in a meeting with them. But the airport itself, let's focus on the 15. We as the airport, we held 15 meetings since early December to first of all, let the tenants and the aeronautical users whether they're based at Falcon or if they live in Boston, everybody was welcome to participate and to be involved. The first few meetings were held more as an educational tool, but we did of course, give them the opportunity to ask questions if they had any or to follow up with us. And then the last set of meetings that we held most recently was strictly a question and answer. That was after we had posted everything that we posted on not only the airport's website, but on the city of Mesa website to show people what our methodology was, how we came up with this, how we got to where we are and so forth. So we, and we've held numerous meetings with individual tenants and users as well. Thank you for all your work. I know it's been extensive. In those discussions, was there any discussion about doing an advisory board for the airport? I've heard it several times through emails and some comments tonight. Mayor Council Member Duff, I've heard that being floated around, but in the meetings that, and yes, there were a few comments that were made during those meetings about the possibility of establishing an airport advisory board. Okay, but nothing has really been decided about that. It could. My understanding is that would be a council decision. Yeah, Mayor and Council, and I think the way that the city has viewed this is that you all, not an appointed person, the duly elected representatives of the city that stand before the voters and serve in the capacity that you do, serve as the ultimate decision maker and board of directors for the airport. And so there's no better way to get public input and feedback than the way you all receive it through many different forums, including tonight, but also the numerous emails and phone calls and correspondence that you receive. There's, having an appointed board that is not as accountable to the public as you are, that's something that could be entertained, but I don't know anyone more accountable than the seven of you towards the resonance of this community. Well, we can have discussions about that later, and I know it's not what we're evaluating right now, but I will say, having stakeholders, people in the industry and an advisory board, I think gives more expertise to evaluating how we're structuring things and how we go forward. So we have these proposed fees, we know we're upside down if we don't adopt them. And the position now that we could, I know we'll be voting shortly, but we adopt those fees, but take a hard look at how things are going, what's working, what's not, and being very efficient and accountable for how we're running the airport, and adjust, we have the freedom to adjust after a year, we're gonna learn a lot about what we're doing, and maybe consider that advisory board, I'll take the lead of council member go forth on that, since she's very ingrained into the community and has Falconfield in her district. But I think there's a hard analysis that we can do after a year and revise and adjust as we go forward to make sure that we have an airport that is financially sustainable and fair to all the users. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Adams. Well, thank you, Mayor. Just a few comments and maybe a question or two. One of the scariest things I've ever gone through in my own business is whenever I have to contemplate raising prices, nobody likes it, and the first thing you always think about is how many customers or how much business will I lose? It's a legitimate question, a legitimate concern, and we talked about that. I see this as a complicated issue, but I also see it as a simple issue in these terms. We have an airport enterprise that needs to be as self-sustaining as possible. We've heard that FAA guidelines. We've heard comments that are overall budgetary situation. We're trying to reduce costs. We're trying to get that picture to look much better than it has, and the simple part of this for me is I agree that users should pay the cost. There are many, many people in this city who will never set foot at Falcon, who will never use any of the facilities there and don't fly airplanes. There are a great number of businesses, though, that are tied to the economic impact. It's interesting, I looked real quickly here. We talked about $811 million, but if you really drill down into it, a lot of that's indirect, a lot of that's counted twice. It's not $811 million directly from Falcon. There's a broad effect there, at least according to chat GPT. If you let that do, and it does some pretty good research. So I hear that, but when we hear these numbers, we have to drill down into these numbers to really understand what they mean. One thing I do know for certain, and I don't doubt, is we have a lot of deferred maintenance at Falcon Field. And I ask a question of Ms. Nystrom at a study session, and I'll ask it again, Corinne, that deferred maintenance, is that starting to affect safety, in your opinion? Mayor, Council Member Adams, the answer to that is yes. Okay, thank you, and I agree with that. I think that from what I've heard and what I've learned, I think we've done a reasonable job of looking at comparable airports and comparable fees. They are not popular, understandably so. Listening to some comments earlier, it would lead one to believe that perhaps there weren't stakeholder meetings, that there wasn't input solicited and received, but it seems like there was. Maybe there were some folks who didn't get notice of those meetings or couldn't participate. But to my knowledge, we have reached out and gotten stakeholder participation. I heard a comment earlier, planes are expensive. Yes, they are. I think that there will be some who will be greatly affected by some of the proposed fees, and it'll be others, hobbyists, if you will, who may not ever reach that 10 threshold. I think that, I think our charge is to come up with a solution that's, it was said earlier, balanced for all. This is one of these issues where, is it fair to all concerned? Well, it depends on your perspective, and it depends on what your objectives are. No one's ever happy to accept a price that goes up. But I heard from a commercial user earlier who feels that his impact, his company, may be impacted at a greater rate than anybody else. And he made some comments that seem to me, we're very much in favor, understands the need for the airport to cover its costs. I would ask, Mr. Butler, do you feel that as a city that we have done our due diligence and we've drilled down and we've looked at these financial issues, we've looked at other airports, and that the recommendations before us are made in good faith with facts, in compliance with FAA regulations and so forth? Mayor and council member Adams, I do. I really want to credit to staff, to Corrine and her team at the airport, to Jim and his team and Jill, serving as our outside council on this. We have spent a lot of time meticulously looking at this, consulting FAA regulations, looking at the long-term stability of the airport. And I think as it's been evidenced, sometimes it's hard. Unfortunately, the seven of you on the dais have that hard time, whether we're talking about this or other fees, of having to keep track with inflationary costs, to keep track with setting fees that reflect what the deferred maintenance or the maintenance needs in the future of our facilities, whether it be an airport or another facility that we operate, to make sure that it's sustainable into the future. And I think that that is something we have to start doing that with Falcon, just like we are striving to do, as we talked about downstairs, about some of the other software that we're getting to track our other deferred maintenance and projects within the city and make sure that we're keeping track of that. And so this is a very reasonable solution for to allow this enterprise fund to be self-sustaining, to do it in a fiscally responsible manner, and to do it in a way that's fully compliant with FAA regulations and the charge of the FAA that these airports should be self-sustaining, or as nearly self-sustaining as possible. And so that means getting that reinvestment from the users of the airport to make sure that we have infrastructure that is safe and reliable and user-friendly for all airport tenants and guests that frequent to the airport. Well, I appreciate that. One of my biggest concerns is if we don't address this deferred maintenance issues soon and in the manner prescribed, and I have not heard a better solution presented that the ongoing effects will be mountingly deleterious to the city's interest. It will cost more exponentially as time goes on that these deferred repairs and maintenance are not addressed. And we have an obligation to make this enterprise self-sustaining. So I appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Goforth, before you start, I ask Ms. Goforth to, since Falcon is in her district, that she would be the lead elected official oversight on this topic, because I can tell you from years past, being on City Council, this is exactly why the Council before did not want to discuss landing fees at Falcon Field or any other increases, because it would cause angst among everyone. So I asked Ms. Goforth to set up her team, and so we're gonna hear from her. Thank you, Ms. Goforth. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate you indulging me and allowing me to go last here. I think most of the questions that have been raised or asked by members of the public have been answered, but I just have a couple of follow-up questions before I get into my comments. And I know we're all getting a little bit tired, but I do have some comments to make here at the end. There were a couple of questions and concerns of transparency that were raised. And so I would just like to ask either Mr. Smith or Ms. Owens, the FAA requires us to put out certain information, certain documentation, notices, and financial information. In your opinion, have we complied with those requirements by the FAA? Yes, Council Member Goforth and Council. When adopting new rates, the Department of Transportation through the FAA expects certain information to be made available to the aeronautical users in tandem with the consultations that were taking place. That information includes the historic financial information, cashflow, profit and loss, balance sheets, includes justification, traffic information, and planning and forecasting information. That is everything that was posted on the city website, and the city and the airport website made available in advance of the latter half of the consultations. Great, thank you. Jim, did you have anything to add? Mayor and Council, there's been a whole team that's been working on this to ensure that compliance with what you just asked. And so we also have an in-house attorney that's been looking at it along with Jill to ensure that we did comply with the financial disclosure requirements. Great, thank you. Corinne, if you could just confirm, it's been raised that there may be other fee structures that could or should be evaluated. Did we look at other fee structures? You went in in response to Vice Mayor's question about the cost centers, and you explained the different cost centers, and that we have increased fees in certain areas of the other cost centers with the hanger and the tie-down fees. So we have used some other of those fee suggestions, but can you just confirm that we've looked at multiple fee structures and that, and why we came to the conclusion that this one was the one that was best to ultimately use in this situation? Yes, thank you, Mayor, Council Member Goforth. We did look at several other options, and these were options that are being used at other airports. Again, you can't just identify one airport and say that it applies to everybody, but we did want to see what other airports were doing. Some of those other airports are charging a business fee that they would charge to every business on the airport on an annual basis. We have, we came across one airport that as far as the flight schools, just the flight schools, they are charging the flight school a flat dollar amount per flight hour that they are in the air, whether they are flying in the pattern or whether they are flying somewhere else. And the challenge with these other options, and then of course there's the fuel flowage fee and adjusting the fuel flowage fee accordingly. The challenge that we've run into is that because of the increase in costs of maintaining the airfield cost center, and the majority of that is directly related to maintaining the pavement. None of those other sources of revenue were going to get us where we need it to be, because it costs about, our numbers show that it costs about $2.4 million a year for us just to operate the airfield cost center. The fuel flowage fees and some of the other smaller fees that we collect right now, only bring in about $374,000 a year. So there's about a $2 million shortfall there. If you are charging businesses a business fee, it would have to be an exorbitant amount to get the $2 million that you need. And then what would happen is now you are charging your based tenants a fee, but none of the itinerants are being charged that fee. And so in an effort to try to create equity across the board as to whether you are an itinerant aeronautical user, or if you're based at the airport, really the only way that we could get to cover that $2 million shortfall was to look at a landing fee. Thank you. I mentioned and you mentioned the cost center structure, fee structure or financial structure for the airport. Is that something that the FAA supports? Is that something that they even address? Mayor, council member go forth. Yes, the FAA does support airports using the cost center approach. And there are a number of airports across the United States that use that approach. And it allows each, it allows each cost center to cover the costs of that particular area as you've done. Mayor, council member go forth, that is correct. Thank you. It was also raised how the landings apply and they, whether they apply to an individual, a pilot, a company, or a tail number or plane. Can you just reiterate or talk about that? How is it applied? Yes, mayor council member go forth. The agreement that we would ultimately have with a third party vendor would set up the system so that it would tie back directly to the N number of the aircraft. Okay. So it's by aircraft. No, it's the N number of the aircraft. So each, sorry. And who the owner of that aircraft is. Okay, so each N number, N number gets 10 credits towards the landing fee. Mayor, council member go forth. The answer to that is yes. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. But that's based aircraft. That is all aircraft. All aircraft, all aircraft. Yes. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate everybody's questions, everybody's comments tonight. And I wanna thank everyone who's taken the time to engage on this issue. Residents, pilots, airport tenants, aviation organizations, and staff. The level of participation shows how important Falcon Field is to our community. I wanna start by being very clear about what this decision is and what it is not. This is not about regulating flight schools or addressing noise through fees. This is about ensuring that Falcon Field can continue to operate safely and remain financially sustainable. For years, the airport has balanced its budget by relying on a one-time land sale and by deferring needed maintenance and capital improvements. That approach has run its course. We are now facing a structural gap, particularly in the airfield, which we've heard, where annual costs exceed dedicated revenues by more than $2 million. While this gap has developed over time, it accelerated after 2020 as inflation drove up costs, especially pavement, which is why in early 2024, the airport moved to a cost center approach, an approach as we've heard that the FAA supports. In fact, FAA grant assurances require airports like Falcon Field to be as financially self-sustaining as possible, which this proposal is intended to achieve. And while we do receive federal and state grants for certain airfield capital improvement projects, these funds do not cover ongoing maintenance. We are seeing the consequences of deferring investment. Pavement conditions are declining, and the longer we wait, the more expensive those repairs become. And to be clear, as we've heard, staff has already reduced projects and is currently taking a band-aid approach to maintenance just to stretch limited dollars. That's not a long-term solution. There has been discussion about why Falcon Field cannot be funded like other airports. It's important to understand, again, as we've heard, that Mesa Gateway is not owned solely or controlled by the city of Mesa. It is governed by the Mesa Gateway Airport Authority, a multi-jurisdictional authority that includes other cities and a tribal nation. Mesa does not have unilateral control to direct those funds. We have also heard the argument that the city should use the broader city tax revenue generated in the area indirectly attributed to Falcon Field to fund its operations. But that's not how we fund any city asset. Economic activity generated by an asset, whether it's Falcon or any other major facility, flows into the city's general revenues and supports citywide services like public safety, parks and infrastructure. We do not isolate and redirect those indirect revenues back to a single facility. There have also been claims that this proposal is not compliant with federal requirements or the city has not been transparent. I do not agree with that characterization. The city has followed FAA processes, provided required information and disclosures and engaged with aeronautical users and stakeholders. In fact, when this item was first brought forward in early February, the city made the decision to postpone action and bring it back on March 23rd, specifically to allow additional time for additional financial information to be compiled and for further input from aeronautical users and stakeholders. Since that time, staff have continued outreach conducting as we heard over 15 meetings with airport users and stakeholders, additional information has been posted publicly and adjustments have been made to the proposal. We have also heard concerns about fairness and safety. In response to feedback from aeronautical users and stakeholders, the proposal was adjusted to increase the number of free landings from five to 10 for Falcon Field based aircraft. As we heard, just so I can clarify, it is all aircraft landings. That is correct. Okay. At this point, we have had a thorough and deliberate process that included input from aeronautical users and stakeholders, and I do not believe additional delay will change the underlying facts or improve the outcome. And delaying action will not improve the situation. It will only increase costs and further decreed airport pavement and cut back on airport capital improvement projects. Falcon Field is a valuable economic asset and we want it to remain that way. But long-term requests, success requires a sustainable model where the costs of operating and maintaining the airport are fair and reasonable and shared by its users. I will not support any option where Mesa taxpayers broadly subsidize the airport. This is not an easy decision, but it is the responsible one. I appreciate the work of staff and the many aeronautical users and stakeholders who participated in this process. And for those reasons, I will be supporting this item. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Goforth. Any other questions from council? If not, I will entertain a motion. The agenda item is to approve modifying the fees and charges for Falcon Field 26-0280. Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you, Ms. Goforth. Please cast your vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Bridge. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, if you want to stay longer, you can. We're going to take a approximately 10 minute recess and we'll come back in a moment. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You Everyone we're going to get started here in just a minute or two please This one's yours though Okay, everyone welcome back we're going to skews Mr. Adams, he's leaving for a business trip at all times of the evening. All right with that Miss Mosley, I have item 4a 4c 4d 5b and 7c off consent Correct. Our first speaker on 4a is Reggie Braun Reggie. You come forward, please That's the use of cooperative contract for purchase of emergency communications for a nine-on-one system Okay, well, all right Let's go to 4c I was just gonna say if he left he's on several of these I don't know if you can vote on all of them at one time then because if there's no speakers No, let's vote on them. Let's just once you call them individually Individually okay Council I'll ask for a motion to approve item 4a which is 260266 use of co-operative contract for purchase of emergency communications and tech Thank you vice mayor second by mr. Reddy, please cast your vote. Oh I have to mark. I'm sorry. I didn't mark councilmember Adams. Let's leaving but we can call it. He's We have to call that he's absent for this vote I have to change him in the system for the next time around Unless you want to redo it Let's redo it let me fix councilmember Adams on that desk since he's left I Just have to mark him absent. That's all I mean No, he's not. All right Do you need a verbal fire no, you can go ahead and start your vote you can redo the motion and the vote please and then Motion still exists. Please cast your vote Motion passes unanimously with mr. Adams present. Let's move to item 4c Is there a motion to approve item 4c a three-year use three-year use of a co-operative term contract with seven-year one-year contract? Motion to approve item 4c a three-year use three-year use of a co-operative term contract with seven-year one-year renewal options 26-0 0 2 6 9. Thank you. Vice mayor. Mr. Reddy, please plaster cast your vote Motion passes with mr. Adams present next we'll move over to 4d Adams absent. What did I say? Oh, he wasn't present item 4d we have two speakers. I don't know if I'll say your name correctly. Lumar is a Beth Garza. All right, if you're here 4d is Our North Higley lift station Thomas Road sewer project Louis Marsabetti Garza homeless, but not hapless. I had to pull And I requested to pull 4d because it seems to be tied in with 7c And I'm wondering why one was put under the consent as 4d and 7c was not But my question is under you you're going to have The project service area of approximately 350 acres in size includes American Leadership Academy Sunshine Acres Amazon Long bow long bow golf golf club home to sweets long bow Marketplace ascend at long bow high point as well as industrial uses in undeveloped land and you need to increase capacity as well as address underserved areas and deteriorating infrastructure I'm wondering if any of this if you could answer between 4c and 7 or 4d and 7c What was going to be the water usage because it sounds to me like you've got the data center issue here And basically you're awarding 284,000 for Pre-construction services and does that tie in and in fact does that tie in with 7c? I? Do appreciate the three minutes because in Maricopa County it is a pitiful two Minutes and on top of that they interrupt the entire time Let me see what else we got Does this include that on 4d will it include recirculated water for the Residents to drink because we had to have that we had that problem in Maricopa County where we ended up calling it shit water But thank you if you could tie those in two together. I'd appreciate it. Thank you All right, you're welcome so Item 4d is consideration of a lift station for future growth in that area and Mr. City Manager you want to yeah, there is there is no connection between Item 4d and item 7c and we'll just note as was mentioned downstairs item 4d is paid for by capacity fees So it is an issue again of growth in that area paying for growth. Yeah And this is just the CMR CM a art for contraction Contractors that will come for the pre-construction services With that we have a second spokesperson Nathan Allen. Are you still here Nathan? Okay You have three minutes Nathan This this agenda item, you know kind of concerns me because over the past at least what three plus years on On one end through social media you're telling us to conserve water on the other end Between this and the water park on power road and Elliott among others the data centers the golf courses You're approving a lot of water intensive projects during a water crisis and yet you're asking the public at the same time out at the other side of your mouth to Conserve water you can't do both. You either have to have one or the other Okay, thank you. Well, I will say we can do both. That's why we're doing this. Do we have spokesperson engineering? Do we have engineering water department? Okay Lance and maybe Joe you can come up and help him answer a little bit of the engineering and water component Thank you So we Identify yourselves so he knows good evening mayor and council Lance Webb City engineer with the city of Mesa And Joe Judy's water resources director with city of Mesa So to touch on that question that was asked this project is specifically just for wastewater the collection of wastewater in an area north northeast Mesa The developments that are noted in there are just notable developments that currently are either served one way or another One that is not served in that area and others north of the freeway And others north of the freeway currently don't have an option and so this this is the ability to work with a contractor to engage And start that effort for construction And then on the water part of it, yeah related to water again, this is a particularly a sewer lift station project so this is Intended to be able to provide sewer capacity the ability to remove wastewater from any of the properties in this area It's both a Little bit to serve some undeveloped land and allow development to happen But also just to serve the capacity that already exists in that area. That's overwhelmed Are mostly parcels in that area on septic anyway, or are they some served by sewer today? Yes, so mayor there the number of developments and and areas just north of the 202 Accepting the ala school is currently served primarily by septic or anticipated that way And so notable when we collect the wastewater and treat it. What do we do with it joe? Yeah with the collected wastewater. We are treating that A lot of the effluent now with our new exchange with the hila river indian community We're delivering that to them so they can irrigate and in exchange they're giving us Water as a resource through the central arizona project that we're able to deliver to our water customers So nathan to your point, we're trading water for water We're collecting that water and giving it to the hila river in a community for their priority water so that we can meet our water demands in our city, okay All right, gentlemen, any question. I was just gonna say one thing if I could yes add on to what These gentlemen have said about the parcels north of the 202 are either on septic or are vacant and undeveloped and they're Undeveloped because there isn't the capacity for the wastewater and the sewer system so Yes, there's a few on septic, but there's quite a bit of greenfield land up there. Just waiting for this Infrastructure to go in thanks And I just wanted to say I just want to remind everyone and nathan this is for you, too We're not this is not using drinking water. This is just collecting wastewater. That's it's like a sump pump You know, we're just pulling it up and pushing it down downhill This is not us actually drilling out for more water out of our wells or our aquifers So just to be very clear, it's not using drinkable water that we're asking to do. We're just wastewater sewage water That's it collecting it and moving it down the line Okay, thank you gentlemen Council if there's nothing else, I'll entertain a motion to approve item 4d 26 actual dash zero two ninety three North Higley lift station. Thank you. Miss go for thank you. Mr. Reddy, please cast your vote Motion passes with mr. Adams absent Next is item 5b Reggie wrong is not here. So council entertain a motion to approve item 5b Thank you Thank you, mr. Reddy, thank you vice mayor, please cast your vote Motion passes with mr. Adams absent Next we'll move over I'm going to go to item 7c first It's off for consideration Miss Lumar's I beth Garza you're up again. This is a proving authorizing manner to a first amendment And a da with rns development group Louis more is a Betty Garza Homeless not hapless. Um again tying back to that 4d Was this an agreement? that I see That you have It's a first amendment. So you already have the agreement. You did not publish it online As to what the agreement? Um was all about and what is this first amendment that you're talking about and does it relate to 4d? Because it seems to have the same Names of the people involved With this first amendment development group agreement. Thank you You're welcome Mr. Smith Mayor and council, they're not those two items are not related Um, the the original agreement would have gone to council and would have been provided to you at that time um um This is an amendment as I remember this um, and I didn't do this particular agreement is to to to allow for um, I think this was the self-storage That allows them to to expand into another phase and that's what this is allowing them to do Is the applicant here for this item? Uh, mr. Anderson, wow Mayor good evening. Can you give some reflection on this? I'd be happy to reese anderson with pewland lake 1744 south alvista. Thank you for your time this evening Let me tell you quickly what this is and what it's not This is an existing rv and boat storage. This is approved years ago It had an existing development agreement for that Under that existing development agreement. We've actually pulled the permit to start phase one We've even paid the inloo sewer fees that will provide for when the sewer line comes through will connect to it Um, what happened here is that adot came and offered us and if you look at your presentations from the staff you can see a Very small trapezoidal piece at the bottom. It's four acres That got added to the existing 10 So this evening what's before you is simply adding the four acres That no one else can use to the existing 10 acres that's been approved and permitted And so the expansion of the council use permit the the master site plan changing the amendment to the da the minor gpa all those things are happening because We acquired four additional acres from adot and included in the site plan. Otherwise, it couldn't be used with anyone else So that's it in a nutshell. I'm happy to go into more detail answer more questions, mayor It's been a long evening. I don't think you want me to but i'm happy to okay Any question from council miss go for it. I do have a question. Um, and I for you or for mary My question is about your public outreach. So originally this was rezoned in 2021 And you did public outreach at that point. Did you go back and do any recently because the There's the area has changed. There's even a neighborhood that didn't exist in 2021. So, um, that's my question Was there additional public outreach? Uh for this new phase i'm happy to share some thoughts councillor unless mary wants to go Well, let mary answer this first. I just kind of a yes or no and then you can give me your thoughts. Thank you So mayor council member go forth There was no additional neighborhood meeting but there was notification sent to those properties within a thousand feet of the project site There were 41 properties within that Vicinity so they did receive notice about the project but there was not an additional neighborhood meeting at that point Um, just for clarification for the rest of the council the neighborhood meetings aren't necessarily in the zoning code They're more of a policy that we encourage our applicants to go out and meet with the neighbors and staff attend those meetings So that we can get that feedback from the applicant. So I just wanted to make that a that clarifying statement Okay Nothing to add other than at the very first meeting we had nobody showed up and we did send outers Haven't heard a peep from anybody. Well, as I said, there's there's a Neighborhood that didn't exist back then sure and you're are you talking about this recent notification? No, no, just to give you a give it. Yeah in totality because it's been raised by a resident to me that that they're that They're they didn't have the opportunity to see um any any new information and so Um, that that's my question. It should public outreach have been done again More so than just the notice so may your council member go forth as I as I mentioned It's not a code requirement to do the outreach We do encourage applicants to you know, do that outreach, especially when it hasn't been done for several years But there is no there is no requirement for that I guess in this case since there are residents that were not there in 2021. I would like to see them have the opportunity to see The plans and ask questions Can I ask that we take this off the agenda and put and and give them that time and put it back on for? I don't know. Mr. Butler the next council meeting Is this neighborhood within a thousand so I I don't know the answer to the question and I and i'll just let's assume that it is And let me just give you my best thought on why the time delay may not matter Okay If I could councilman go forth Which is again if you look at the picture and i'm going to draw on there with my hands I have a bad habit at that but remember that the project faces thomas road now Higley on its west side the expansion area is going to the south So with the utmost of respect even if the case tonight was denied and didn't go forward The project that's there Is vested and under construction now. I agree with you. What would be visible when not changed from anyone except for those coming off The off-ramp on the freeway, but there have been changes You all are making changes based on the extension and the the community members haven't had an opportunity to see those changes I agree with you those changes realistically are improvements to landscaping on the visible part, right? But as far as visible parts to the south, I just don't i'm happy. I mean you have the authority to do that and we respect that but I Substantively, I don't know that it would make a difference, but i'm always happy to talk to anybody anytime Anyway, okay. Great. I appreciate that that's what I would Ask if council to do if we could and mayor and council you could continue it to the state April 6 is the next council meeting for a date certain You would want to continue 7a 7b and 7c all three are are sort of a pack. You know, they go together So you need to continue all three Can I make do I make a motion? What do you anybody have any comments? I think We'll just have to do a continuance in So I don't need to make a motion. Yeah, you have to make a motion. Yes, please Okay, so I I move to continue 7a 7b and 7c to eight April 6th What's the date on it april 6th? With your permission there I don't have it. Let me get a second and then i'll have a discussion if there's a second out there Okay We have a second Uh vice mayor go ahead. Mr So i'm gonna argue against myself here council go forth. I just Wonder if april 6 is the right date and here's why it's i'm arguing against myself But in to follow the spirit of what you're asking us to do I need to be able to get the notices together which we can do in one or two days But then I need about two weeks to get it together So if I could quickly look at a calendar to see could I when can I hold a neighborhood meeting? Right and then get it back to mary So i'm i'm nervous that april 6 might be too quick and you're gonna be surprised to hear something that for me But I think that's the honest approach. I appreciate that and mayor and council member go forth I was gonna say the same thing. I think april 6 is probably too quick Okay, I know a client would love quicker, but honestly, I just want to be respectful to the process You're asking me to do thank you april 20th april 20th All right, so the motions for april 20th. Yes I'll take a seat now as the applicant. Are you okay with that? Well, i've expressed our preference there and we really would well i'd like to know why this rose up so fast I don't know either. I wasn't aware of until I walked in I was just made aware by a resident by one resident. Yes Yes I don't know how many they represent they've talked to but the one resident notified me Miss school No, you can make comment and I think you'd have to use the microphone mayor that nobody's motion has showed up on the screen yet either. Okay Anyway, I'll just speak loud Your microphone Your microphone, okay Well, it had it wasn't an option to speak Anyway, if you look at the map in the presentation It is locked in there. It has no exposure I think delaying it is only costing the applicant money to wait a month for someone To review it. I just don't know. I think it's costing money with Without a different outcome As I said though Mary you correct me, please confirm this the outer perimeter Has had some changes Mayor councilmember go for it. That's that's correct. There's some some improvements have been made with signage and landscaping and those types of things from the original plan And I think that's the major concern right is for what that outer perimeter What kind of improvements are on the outer perimeter? That's the zoning case, correct resident. Yes And those have been changed since the expansion so So are the improvements within the standards that we have in as a city So mayor if it's okay i'm going to ask evan to come up because he can speak to the details of those those Improvements that are being made on the site Thank you mayor councilmembers So yes, there have been some changes between phase one and phase two as everybody has pointed out phase one is on the North the thomas facing side Let me pull up an aerial real quick Okay So some of the there were a couple changes that that have happened Oh, that's no good Okay Does it show up I can talk you through it. So there have been a couple changes. Um Two two big ones there have been some increased landscaping included along thomas road And then the development agreement is is An amendment to the the first development agreement in this development agreement. We're actually restricting uses as well To better tailor any sort of future development to the site. So we're restricting A multifamily development restaurants with drive-throughs data centers There's a list of things in item 7c the development agreement that we are restricting So there hasn't been any functional changes on the site. It's always been boat and rv storage On the southern portion of the site They're picking up some additional stalls for boat and rv storage and they're enhancing the landscaping along thomas road is Is there screening for that, I mean is the landscape used for screening or is there some other additional And the mayor there are landscaping requirements in our code It's a certain number of trees and shrubs per every 100 feet So they are meeting the code requirements But they're also going above that and they're they're doing it in an enhanced manner that provides some additional interest along thomas road So they're going above what is required and they're doing it in a way to to better beautify the site Is there staff approval for this Staff is recommending approval and the planning and zoning board also recommended approval of five to zero Okay Well, we have six of us left We can see where we end i'm in favor of moving forward and combining seven a b and c that's my first impression if we have pnz approval Everything else staff approval I'm sorry that one person may not have gotten the information they needed I've heard from the applicant So there and and it seems like it's a a very a four acre piece that's pushed up into The uh, is that thomas road? Uh Pardon or or higley over to higley Do you want me to ask sure? So if um, if you're looking at the same picture on your screen that I am which is landscape plan The gray shaded area is phase one That's what's approved today and the construction permits have been issued the white area is phase two And that's actually pushed up against an adot drainage channel and the off ramp for higley road So it's not adjacent to any residential neighborhoods there Okay, so how far is the closest neighborhood? To the north and other and I think they're just the holdover homes that are in the rs 90 Otherwise, you've got to go all the way south across the freeway And so again, we'll defer to whatever the council decides um, but you know really Here that I mean the the I think evan said it best the landscaping that's there and approved today complies with code What we've done here by adding the four acres We've actually enhanced it and made it better including some monument and landscaping along the corner that wasn't there better in the previous case So in my opinion what you're getting today With this case is actually better than what's approved And I think those are positive things risa or mary is there enhanced landscaping on the west side as well? or enhance Along hagli council member go forth i'll ask evan to answer that question But I will say that the close that residential neighborhood is about 1300 feet away So I did want to clarify that and I think you did say reese the closest is south of the 202 It's not it's east on thomas. Yes east on It's about 1300 correcting me i'm in my mind's eye everything To the east is really empty or commercial. I'm trying to think of i'll look it up But I it's not that close though. I mean not to argue with you 1300 feet Sure, but that's more than the thousand that we would notify they they feel like it's pretty close Well, I respect everyone's thoughts on it. I'm just suggesting to everyone that The changes that are happening are actually positive I appreciate that Evan if you could just talk to the on the west side you mentioned the north side. Yes I think you may or council member go forth Um, so the this is a unique property though. The west side of the property line is is kind of right here Um, so they are asking for a deviation to reduce that to five feet. They're they're they're planting that area But in addition to this, they also need to plant the adjacent right of way all of this area between their property I'm sorry Oh sorry Pointing at things and we can see them. Um, so this area here is their property line There's five feet of landscaping which is a a pad deviation In addition to that, they also have to plant the right of way. This whole area is city of mesa right of way So as part of this project, they need to plant the the portions on thomas and then the portions on higley Adjacent to their property in in city right of way Appreciate it evan and and for everybody I I have worked with the applicant to to make these enhancements My point is just to give um the surrounding residents a little bit more Time to review it and ask questions Um, I don't know, you know, we can just go ahead and take a vote. That's how it works But I have a motion on or do we how do you want to do it jim? We're going to do a motion. You have a second. Did you record that? Was this the motion for continuance or for approval? Okay I heard council member go forth make a motion first. I didn't hear a second and nothing showed up on the screen The second spy vice mayor April 20 the same thing. So Pardon, what would you like? Well, you can tell me the original motion so we can write it down because we didn't it didn't show up So I don't know if the machine is tired Yeah But there was a second Okay, the vice mayor did the second but there was no vote for the first one there's been not a vote yet Okay, and then then april 20th was our first and a second. No, I have the first that's the ask. Yes That's the motion that's the motion currently for continuance till april 20th Okay, the machine should work. It looks like it's working if you want to make Your first and your second so this would council this would be a continuance till april 20th, correct? All right. All right. Perfect and now you Well, we have a tie here Um motion fails, right? Yes. Okay So with that we'll go back to the original which is is there a motion to approve item seven a b and c for a minor general plan amendment rezoning and site approval As specified so a motion by miss stuff second by mr. Reddy of police cast your vote Okay motion passes, thank you everyone All right Thank you miss go forth for your advocacy Well and well good. All right with that. I think we've covered all the items off Of the agenda Of consent. Okay with that we'll move over to items from citizen present. Mr. Braun is gone So I have a mr smithson jason smithson And following jason is a kevin tutu is that the right word Pardon Jason you have three minutes Mr. Mayor council members I'm here today to propose a proactive step for the city of mesa that addresses a real and severely under reported public safety issue, which is drink spiking This isn't a hypothetical problem It's difficult to detect and it is rarely reported. In fact 91 percent goes unreported A focus group was held at asu campus and out of 180 students 31 reported they have been a victim of drink spiking Tempe has already passed an ordinance, but as mesa looks at this issue, we have an opportunity not just to follow but to lead What i'm proposing is a drink spiking prevention and put Patron safety ordinance that focuses on three things tools awareness and accountability First let's look at tools This ordinance would require Establishments that serve alcohol late into the evening to carry drink spiking detection kits and make them available to patrons These kits are not perfect And we should be honest about that They don't detect every substance and they shouldn't be treated as a guarantee of safety, but they do provide an added layer They empower individuals and just as importantly they create a visible deterrent Second awareness the ordinance would require clear signage So patrons know these tools are available and understand how to report the concerns Because one of the biggest challenges with drink spiking isn't just prevention. It's that people do not come forward This also would include a good samaritan provision ensuring that someone who reports a suspected incident Especially someone underage is not punished for doing the right thing in that moment And finally accountability and this is where mesa can lead This proposal includes staff awareness requirements so that when a situation arises There is someone trained to respond appropriately because prevention doesn't just happen with a test strip It happens when someone recognizes a problem early and takes it seriously It also includes data data tracking and a one-year review if mesa is to implement something like this We should know whether it's working. We should measure it evaluate and adjust if needed Now I want to be clear about something this ordinance is not a solution but a step If we present it as an anything more we risk creating a false sense of security But if we treat it as part of a broader approach to safety It can make a real difference mesa has always taken pride in being a safe family oriented community If the plan is to eventually build downtown into more of a social scene Providing measurable steps of safety is vital This proposal is practical it's measured and it acknowledges both the urgency of the issue And the limits of the tools we're using to address it I'll be sending the council detailed information including statistics and I ask that you give this serious consideration. Thank you Thank you. Mr smithson. I kevin t2 Hope I said the last name fairly close Thank you kevin You have three minutes good evening mayor and council members My name is kevin t2 and i'm a resident of mesa for the last 25 years I'm an immigrant and i'm also a naturalized u.s citizen. I was born in canada And it took me 24 years to become an american citizen I went through the legal process. I filled out the paperwork. I waited I worried and like many immigrants I carried the stress and uncertainty That comes with trying to build a life in a country that you love but you're not yet fully part of So when I hear people say that immigrants should wait in line, I understand that perspective. I did wait in line But I also understand something else Not everyone has the same path Not everyone has the same circumstances and not everyone has the same luxury and clear pathway citizenship Recently, I heard someone stand up here and say that people who came here legally should simply go home And that their presence disrespects those who follow the rules I see it differently and that's why I oppose 287 g The people we're talking about are human beings They have families. They have children in our schools. They work jobs. They contribute to our communities And just like every immigrant before them they came here with one simple reason And that was for a better life The same dream that brought me here and the same dream that built this country It's easy to label people as criminals and it's easy to reduce people to Legal status, but most of the people that we're talking about are not criminals their neighbors their workers Their parents and their children And while immigration law is complicated and deserves thoughtful policy and discussions basic human dignity should never be complicated Because if we're being honest one of the very first lessons Most of us were ever taught long before policy or politics Was simple. It was to be kind It was to not bully and treat people with respect Yet today we're seeing families separated people held in detention for extended periods and conditions that many would not consider humane We're seeing fear in communities fear of being taken fear of being separated from their children and fear of simply living everyday life We can have disagreements about policy and we can debate enforcement But we should never lose sight of the fact that the people that that were affected by these policies are human beings And deserve to be treated with respect Mesa's a diverse city. It's a city built from people with different countries cultures and backgrounds And if there's one thing that makes our country stronger, it's not the fear or division It's empathy and understanding And it's remembering the basic lessons that our parents taught us as children lessons about kindness respect and others dignity And those were the right lessons then and the right lessons now and that's why I oppose 287 g Thank you for your time. Thank you kevin Will miss mostly do we have anything else any others? We have other blue cards for this item if you since reggie wasn't here. Do you want to call a third person or I have 11 You you do. Yes. All right, let's try one more, but I think david winstanley. I don't see him in the audience any longer Oh, there you are. He was next in line Okay, he'll be our last speaker I Won't keep you long three minutes Sorry, I couldn't resist it Good evening mayor council and staff. My name is david winstanley. You all know me My first rhetorical question since you can't answer is How many how much did each of you on the council pay? Toward building the east mark great park The answer with the exception of the vice mayor you paid zero nothing That is because the east mark great park was funded by a cfd community facility district In which the local property taxes are used for local construction Compare that to red mountain or dobson ranch which were paid for by all mason residents through citywide bonds I will be back later this year actually in a few months To talk to about the east mark cfd's on may 14th to ask you to stop buying any further bonds Details to be provided at that time, but tonight i'm trying to make a very different point I also want to remind you that back in november you approved another localized taxing district the so-called palo district Or palo district to redevelop the old fiesta mall And I understand there is a downtown taxing district, but I could not find details about it on the website Why am I talking to you about taxing districts? Because at a previous city council meeting there were significant parochial arguments between folks who wanted to urbanize west mesa and downtown And those who did not wish to pay for that I was one of the latter and parochially I live in suburban district six I understand that we all live in mesa and that we need to find some open and honest discussions about our differing visions for the future of mesa I am not aware of any reasonable economic study that purports that a city must grow to stay alive And if it is landlocked it must grow up that is vertically Foreign mayor giles repeated this hypothesis often, but I know of no supporting data for it What I am suggesting is that if folks in districts three and four want urban amenities such as 95 percent subsidized transit They pay for it themselves using such taxing districts By the way paying 95 percent of the transit With taxes whether prop 479 or mesa city taxes is not a subsidy. It's welfare Transit oriented development was removed from the agenda in january But perhaps we needed to have that discussion to come to a more common vision for our city I would like to continue this discussion in particular the concept of using local taxing districts with local representation To pay for very local amenities, but I do not know of a format or a venue to do so So I welcome your input individually at your convenience Thank you very much appreciate it Uh council, that's all we have i'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Is there a motion? Thank you. Miss taylor. Thank you vice mayor All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. We're done. Thank you. Have a great evening what's left of it