04 15 26 City Council Meeting Minutes

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TOLLESON CITY COUNCIL MEETING ACTION MINUTES 
TOLLESON CIVIC CENTER 
9055 WEST VAN BUREN STREET, TOLLESON, AZ 85353 
ZOOM WEBINAR ID: 840 6967 9194 
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2026 
6:00 PM 
Doors open to Council Chambers at 5:45 PM for public seating. The public may be asked to 
temporarily relocate if an executive session occurs. The public will be invited back into Council 
Chambers when the Council returns from executive session.  
 
Members of the public may also participate in the meeting via Zoom Webinar 
(https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84069679194) with a computer or cell phone. 
 
A. 
CALL TO ORDER 
 
Mayor Rodriguez called the Tolleson City Council Meeting to order at 6:02 PM. 
B. 
INVOCATION/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
The Invocation was delivered by Development Services Director Earp, and the Pledge of 
Allegiance was led by Council Member Erives.  
C. 
ROLL CALL 
 
City Council: Mayor Juan Rodriguez, Vice Mayor Jimmy Davis, Council Member Christine 
Chavira, and Council Member Clorinda Erives. 
 
Not Present: Council Member Adolfo Gámez, Council Member Linda Laborin, and Council 
Member Cruzita Mendoza. 
 
Department Directors: City Manager Reyes Medrano Jr., Deputy City Manager/Chief 
Government Affairs Officer Pilar Sinawi, Deputy City Manager/Employee Resources 
Director Wendy Jackson, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Artz, Chief of Social Impact George 
Good, City Clerk Crystal Zamora, Development Services Director Jason Earp, Field 
Operations/Parks & Recreation Director Randy Babchuk, Fire Chief Michael Young, 
Library Director Mandy Carrico, Public Safety Director/Police Chief Rudy Mendoza, and 
Utilities Director Jamie McCracken.  
 
City Representative: City Attorney Jon Paladini

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D. 
FINAL CALL TO SUBMIT SPEAKER REQUESTS 
 
All citizens and interested parties wishing to speak before the Council regarding non-
agenda items or during a public hearing shall fully complete a Speaker Request Form and 
submit the form(s) to the City Clerk prior to the meeting being convened. Citizens must 
complete one form for each item they want to address. Speaker Request Forms are located 
at the entrance of the Council Chambers. For Zoom participants, click the chat button, and 
enter your name and the item you would like to address. Submissions should be made no 
later than the Mayor announcing the “Final Call to Submit Speaker Requests”. All speakers 
will be limited to 3 minutes unless otherwise noted by the Mayor. Speakers are not 
required to disclose their identities or personal information. You may also submit an online 
speaker request form at https://www.tolleson.az.gov/speakerrequest at least one hour 
prior to the meeting. 
E. 
CALL TO THE PUBLIC (NON-AGENDA ITEMS) 
 
This is the time for the public to comment on non-agenda items. Members of the Council 
may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Therefore, 
pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.01.H, action taken as a result of public comment will be limited 
to (1) responding to criticism; (2) directing staff to review the matter; or (3) asking that a 
matter be put on a future agenda. 
F. 
SCHEDULED PUBLIC APPEARANCES AND PROCLAMATIONS – FOR DISCUSSION 
 
1. 
Proclamation declaring April 2026 as Autism Acceptance Month in the City of Tolleson, 
promoting understanding, inclusion, and acceptance of individuals on the autism 
spectrum, encouraging community awareness, education, and support for individuals 
and their families, and recognizing the contributions, strengths, and talents of 
individuals with autism, as well as the efforts of families, educators, service providers, 
and community partners dedicated to fostering an inclusive and supportive 
community. – Wendy Jackson, Deputy City Manager/Employee Resources Director 
 
Mayor Rodriguez proclaimed April 2026 as Autism Acceptance Month in the City of 
Tolleson. 
 
2. 
Proclamation declaring April 2026 as Water Safety Month in the City of Tolleson, 
promoting water safety awareness, encouraging education and prevention efforts to 
reduce drownings and water-related injuries, and recognizing the importance of safe 
aquatic practices for residents of all ages, as well as the contributions of organizations, 
professionals, and community partners dedicated to water safety and public health. – 
Michael Young, Fire Chief 
 
Mayor Rodriguez proclaimed April 2026 as Water Safety Month in the City of 
Tolleson. 
G. 
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR – PUBLIC HEARINGS AND ACTION ITEMS

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H. 
CONSENT AGENDA – ACTION ITEMS 
 
Items on the Consent Agenda are of a routine nature and are intended to be acted upon in 
one motion. Council Members may pull items from Consent if they would like them 
considered separately.  
 
1. 
Approve Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of March 24, 2026. (City Clerk 
Department) 
 
2. 
Approve Claims and Bills Report for the period of March 18, 2026 to April 7, 2026. 
(Finance Department) 
 
3. 
Approve Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control Liquor License 
Application No. 384829, Series 12 – Restaurant, as submitted by Mario Santoyo 
Guerrero for El Rey de los Mariscos y Sushi located at 189 North 99th Avenue #106, 
Tolleson, AZ 85353. This non-transferable, on-sale retail privileges liquor license allows 
the holder of a restaurant license to sell and serve all types of spirituous liquor solely 
for consumption on the premises of an establishment which derives at least 40% of its 
gross revenue from the sale of food. Failure to meet the 40% food requirement may 
result in revocation of the license. (City Clerk Department) Public hearing will be 
opened for public comment, if any. 
 
4. 
Adopt Resolution No. 2636 of the Mayor and Council of the City of Tolleson, Arizona, 
approving the Amendment to the Intergovernmental Agreement between the City of 
Tolleson and the State of Arizona, on behalf of the Superior Court of Arizona in and for 
the County of Maricopa, for jury services, and authorize the City Manager to execute 
and deliver said Amendment. This Amendment renews the Agreement for an 
additional two-year term through June 30, 2028, and updates certain cost provisions, 
including VPN services and jury summons fees. (City Court) 
 
5. 
Adopt Resolution 2637 of the Mayor and Council of the City of Tolleson, Arizona, 
approving the Second Amendment of the Intergovernmental Agreement between the 
City of Tolleson and Tolleson Elementary School District No. 17 for the funding and 
operation of the District's preschool program and the City's use of the District's 
facilities for after-school programs, youth sports, and special events, and authorizing 
the City Manager to execute said Agreement. This Amendment renews the Agreement 
for an additional two-year term through June 30, 2028. (City Management 
Department) 
 
6. 
Approve amendments to Section 610.13 (Holiday Leave) of the City of Tolleson 
Employee Handbook to rename the March holiday designation to “El Día del 
Campesino/a – Farmworkers Day” and revise its observance to the last Monday of 
March. (Employee Resources Department) 
 
Vice Mayor Davis moved to approve Consent Agenda items 1. through 6.; the motion 
was seconded by Council Member Erives. The motion carried 4 to 0.

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Mayor Rodriguez – Aye  
 
Vice Mayor Davis – Aye   
Council Member Chavira – Aye 
Council Member Erives – Aye  
I. 
REGULAR AGENDA – ACTION ITEMS 
 
1. 
Adopt/Deny Resolution No. 2635 of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Tolleson, 
Arizona, pursuant to Article 9, Section 20, Subsection 6 of the Arizona Constitution, 
proposing a permanent adjustment to the 1979-80 Base Expenditure Limitation of the 
City of Tolleson on the November 3, 2026 General Election ballot. (Finance 
Department) 
 
Vice Mayor Davis moved to adopt Resolution No. 2635; the motion was seconded 
by Council Member Chavira. The motion carried 4 to 0. 
Mayor Rodriguez – Aye  
 
Vice Mayor Davis – Aye   
Council Member Chavira – Aye 
Council Member Erives – Aye  
 
2. 
Approve the Amendment and Change Order to the Construction Manager at Risk 
(CM@R) Agreement between the City of Tolleson and Chasse Building Team, Inc., to 
add the design and construction of a retail building to the project scope, and authorize 
the City Manager to execute and deliver said Amendment. The total cost of this 
Amendment shall not exceed $3,000,000. (Development Services Department) 
 
Vice Mayor Davis moved to approve the Amendment and Change Order to the 
Construction Manager at Risk (CM@R) Agreement; the motion was seconded by 
Council Member Erives. The motion carried 4 to 0. 
Mayor Rodriguez – Aye  
 
Vice Mayor Davis – Aye   
Council Member Chavira – Aye 
Council Member Erives – Aye  
J. 
WORK STUDY AND PRESENTATIONS – FOR DISCUSSION 
 
1. 
FY 2027 Second Budget Work Study – Kevin Artz, Chief Financial Officer 
K. 
MAYOR AND CITY MANAGER’S REPORT OF CURRENT EVENTS – FOR DISCUSSION 
 
1. 
Community Events Update – Randy Babchuk, Field Operations/Parks & Recreation 
Director 
L. 
CONVENE INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION 
 
1. 
Motion to go into executive session.

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Vice Mayor Davis moved to convene into executive session at 8:49 PM; the motion 
was seconded by Council Member Erives. The motion carried 4 to 0. 
Mayor Rodriguez – Aye  
 
Vice Mayor Davis – Aye   
Council Member Chavira – Aye 
Council Member Erives – Aye  
 
2. 
Convene into an executive session pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.03(A)(3) and (A)(7) for 
discussion or consultation for legal advice with the City Attorney and for discussion or 
consultation with designated representatives of the City to consider its position and 
instruct its representatives regarding the possible acquisition of real property from 
other government entities.  
M. RECONVENE INTO PUBLIC MEETING 
N. ADJOURNMENT 
 
The meeting was adjourned at 9:13 PM. 
  
Pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.01 and A.R.S. § 38-431.02, notice is hereby given to the members of 
the Tolleson City Council and to the general public that the Council of the City of Tolleson will 
hold a meeting open to the public. Council Members of the City of Tolleson will attend by 
telephone/video conference call.  
 
Note: The City Council of the City of Tolleson, by a duly passed motion, may vote in public session 
to adjourn to executive session on any agenda item in conformation with A.R.S. § 38.431.03 for 
legal advice from the City Attorney.  
 
Arizona law prohibits any City resource, including staff time, equipment, and anything of value 
to influence an election. This prohibition applies to Call to the Public at the Council Meeting. You 
may discuss a City issue but do not “advocate” for a specific candidate or ballot measure. 
Additionally, soliciting petition signatures or campaign contributions or distributing campaign 
materials is prohibited on City property. The City appreciates your efforts to help the City comply 
with state law and avoid using taxpayer monies to influence an election.  
 
Zoom’s live transcription feature can provide automatic captioning by clicking on the Closed 
Caption (CC) button during the meeting.  
 
THE CITY OF TOLLESON ENDEAVORS TO MAKE ALL PUBLIC MEETINGS ACCESSIBLE TO 
INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES. With at least two business days advance notice, 
accommodations can be provided at this meeting for individuals with vision, hearing and/or 
speech disabilities, including a transcriber, large print, an interpreter, an assistive listening 
device, etc. Please call the City Clerk at (623) 936-7111, or TTY users may dial 711 for Arizona

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Relay Service (AZRS), to request an accommodation to participate in this public meeting. The 
City will try its best to accommodate any last minute requests.  
 
LA CIUDAD DE TOLLESON SE ESFUERZA PARA HACER TODAS LAS REUNIONES PÚBLICAS 
ACCESIBLE PARA INDIVIDUOS CON DISCAPACIDADES. Con al menos dos días laborables de previo 
aviso, se pueden proporcionar adaptaciones en esta reunión para personas con discapacidades 
visuales, auditivas o del habla, incluido un transcriptor, letra grande, un intérprete, un 
dispositivo de asistencia auditiva, etc. Llame a la Secretaría Municipal al (623) 936-7111, o los 
usuarios de TTY pueden marcar 711 para el Servicio de Retransmisión de Arizona (AZRS), para 
solicitar un alojamiento para participar en esta reunión pública. La Ciudad hará todo lo posible 
para satisfacer cualquier solicitud de último minuto.

VENDOR NAME
AMOUNT
CHECK NUMBER
CHECK DATE
KIMLEY-HORN AND ASSOCIATES INC
98,748.25
102268
04/03/2026
SAN TAN FORD AUTO PARTNERS LLC
82,752.36
187243
03/25/2026
GRAND CANYON UNIVERSITY
78,750.00
187207
03/19/2026
KIMLEY-HORN AND ASSOCIATES INC
50,540.00
102268
04/03/2026
ASR CONSTRUCTION GROUP LLC
48,717.43
187328
04/06/2026
LYFT, INC.
39,932.21
102231
03/26/2026
TIM ROCKHOLT
39,671.35
187267
03/26/2026
MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE
39,128.78
187311
04/02/2026
KIMLEY-HORN AND ASSOCIATES INC
36,040.00
102268
04/03/2026
KIMLEY-HORN AND ASSOCIATES INC
32,077.27
102268
04/03/2026
AZ PUBLIC SAFETY PERSONNEL RETIREMENT SYSTEM
31,753.15
102213
03/23/2026
MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS INC
25,554.66
102235
03/26/2026
AZ PUBLIC SAFETY RETIREMENT, POLICE
24,774.79
102214
03/23/2026
GHD INC
20,858.27
102283
04/07/2026
WASTE CONNECTIONS OF ARIZONA
20,089.50
187250
03/25/2026
CDW-GOVERNMENT INC
18,950.90
102205
03/20/2026
CIVICPLUS LLC
17,680.93
102222
03/26/2026
TOLLESON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DIST.#17
13,250.00
187295
04/02/2026
CITY OF TOLLESON-MEDICAL
13,224.20
102207
03/20/2026
CORE & MAIN LP
12,939.28
187298
04/02/2026
VERIZON WIRELESS SERVICES LLC
12,902.00
187325
04/02/2026
MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS INC
12,237.99
102235
03/26/2026
ENTELLUS INC
11,625.44
187301
04/02/2026
KIMLEY-HORN AND ASSOCIATES INC
11,505.73
102268
04/03/2026
CDW-GOVERNMENT INC
11,393.66
102280
04/07/2026
FORWARD TILT LLC
10,128.53
102225
03/26/2026
FORWARD TILT LLC
10,128.51
102225
03/26/2026
City of Tolleson
Checks Recorded
Check Dates: March 18, 2026 to April 7, 2026
PAYMENTS OVER $10,000

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
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Post-Production File 
 
 
 
 
City of Tolleson 
City Council Meeting Minutes 
April 15, 2026 
 
 
 
Transcription Provided By: 
eScribers, LLC 
 
*  *  *  *  * 
 
Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not 
be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.  
 
*  *  *  *  *

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
Page 2 of 65 
 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  All right.  Good evening, everyone.  I am Mayor Juan L. Rodriguez.  
Today is April 15th, and I would like to call the City Council meeting to order.  
Let's begin with our invocation, our pledge of allegiance.  I'm going to ask Development 
Services Director Jason Earp to please lead us in the invocation.  And Council Member 
Gámez is not here to lead us in the pledge.  So would any council member like to step -- 
okay.  We have Council Member Erives is going to help us with the pledge of allegiance.  
Please stand. 
ERIVES:  Father, Heavenly Spirit, the Son. 
EARP:  Heavenly Father, we come before you today, thankful for the opportunity to 
meet and discuss the matters before us.  We ask for Your wisdom and guidance as we 
navigate through our business.  Grant us clarity of thought and purpose, allowing us to 
make decisions that contribute to the greater good.  We ask You to bless everyone here 
tonight and the entire community.  In Jesus name we pray.  Amen.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  Thank you both.   
ERIVES:  Thank you. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  City Clerk, please let the record reflect that all council members 
are present, with the exception of Council Member Laborin, Council Member Mendoza, 
and Council Member Gámez.  (Indiscernible)  so our prayers are with him. 
ZAMORA:  Thank you.  Mayor.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Moving on to item D, final call to submit speaker request forms. 
City Clerk, all people will be limited (indiscernible) all speaking will be limited to either 
one, responding to criticism, two, directing staff to review the matter, or three, asking 
that a matter be put on a future agenda. 
City Clerk, do we have any speaker request forms at this time?  
ZAMORA:  We do not, Mayor. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible). 
ZAMORA:  We do not. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  All right.  (Indiscernible) Tolleson, promoting understanding, 
inclusion, and acceptance of individuals on the autism spectrum, encouraging

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
Page 3 of 65 
 
community awareness, education, and support for individuals and their families, and 
recognizing the contribution, strengths, and talents of individuals with autism, as well as 
the efforts of families, educators, service providers, and community partners dedicated 
to fostering an inclusive and supportive community. 
I'm going to turn this over to Deputy City Manager Wendy Jackson.  
JACKSON:  Thank you, Mr. Mayor.  And members of council.  This proclamation reminds 
us of our responsibility to create an inclusive and accessible community for all.  It 
reinforces our commitment to identifying and removing barriers that may prevent both 
the public and our employees from fully accessing services, programs, and 
opportunities. 
We recognize that inclusion requires intentional action.  Our intentional efforts include 
having over 96 percent of our employees recertifying through IBCCES and maintaining 
Tolleson's designation as a certified Autism Center.  We remain dedicated to fostering 
an environment where individuals on an autism spectrum are respected, supported, and 
valued, ensuring equitable access and meaningful participation for all.  Thank you so 
much.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Thank you.  Around the world, but we want to make sure that we 
do whatever we can to support the cause of acceptance and inclusion for people with all 
kinds of needs, including those with autism.  And so with that, as mayor, do hereby 
proclaim April 2026 as Autism Acceptance Month in the City of Tolleson, here 
proclaimed.  I do have a proclamation.  And for the record, that's why we're wearing 
blue.  Blue represents Autism Month.  So if you guys, Wendy, whoever wants to take a 
picture.  We have a representative.  Even members of our audience that probably wore 
blue because you like the color. 
ERIVES:  Especially Dodger blue. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  It's a very important time.  You get to hold this in the middle. 
ERIVES:  (Indiscernible) gets to hold the proclamation.  Love it. 
[CROSS TALK] 
ERIVES:  Beautiful.

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
Page 4 of 65 
 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I like it, I like it. 
[CROSS TALK] 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Some people go on top. 
[CROSS TALK] 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Well, that's why I'm coming back here alone.  Thank you.  
Marty has blue on. 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Cheryl (ph.).  Cheryl.  You qualify as blue, Cheryl.  Cheryl.  Come on 
up.  There you go. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  There's not enough room. 
[LAUGHTER] 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Don't stand on the chairs.  
[CROSS TALK] 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Oh, look, we're all there.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah.  Looks good.  
Good eye, Alia (ph.).  That's why you're the digital (indiscernible). 
[LAUGHTER]  
Yay. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Awesome.  Thank you, everybody. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Get it?  Good.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible) you folks don't go too far. 
So item number two is another proclamation.  This proclamation -- oh.  You're good.  It's 
Chief Good again.  [LAUGHTER] 
Okay.  Now that Chief Good has sat down, a proclamation declaring April 2026 as Water 
Safety Month in the City of Tolleson, promoting water safety awareness, encouraging 
education and preventing efforts to reduce drowning and water related injuries, and 
recognizing the importance of safe, aquatic practices for residents of all ages, as well as 
the contributions of organizations, professionalism, and community partners dedicated

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
Page 5 of 65 
 
to water safety and public health.  I'm going to turn this one over to our fire chief, 
Michael Young.  
YOUNG:  April is drowning prevention month here in Tolleson.  As we approach the 
warmer months, it's important to understand that these are the peak times for child 
drownings in Arizona.  What makes drowning so dangerous is that they're often silent 
and fast, and that's why drowning remains one of the leading causes of injury related 
deaths for young children, especially children ages one to four. 
April is also, as we just heard, Autism Acceptance Month, and it's important to recognize 
that the children on the autism spectrum are at an increased risk of drowning, often due 
to a tendency to wander and a natural attraction to water.  This makes awareness and 
prevention even more critical for the families in our community.  So tonight, we want to 
encourage everyone in our community to follow the ABCs of Water Safety.  A is for adult 
supervision at all times.  B, is for barriers like pool fences and self-latching gates to limit 
access, and C is for classes.  We want to encourage adults to learn CPR and for our 
children to get swim lessons at the appropriate age. 
So furthermore, drowning prevention is also a shared responsibility.  Through strong 
community partnerships, continued public education preparedness, we can significantly 
reduce these tragedies.  Thank you.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  We're very lucky here in Tolleson.  We have Chief Young, who is 
our current chief of the fire department.  Him and our firefighters do an amazing job.  
How you guys doing back there?  I see you, but we also have our former fire chief here, 
which is Chief Good.  And for those of you that don't know Chief Good, he is a very good 
person.  He helps us out with the Human Services Department, but what he also does is 
he does episodes on Spanish speaking television channels.  I believe he did one on 
Univision.  He's commonly known as El Bombero Guero or Bombero Bueno.  You take 
your pick.  He does.  He goes by both fully bilingual in Spanish, and he did a segment on 
Univision, I believe, this last week that talked specifically about water safety. 
So not only is it important to get the word out here locally amongst our community, but 
it's also important to get the word out globally amongst our media partners so that the

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
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message gets out there and to all kinds of people that speak Spanish and English.  And 
we prevent drownings in every opportunity that we can.  So with that -- yes, sir.  Go 
ahead, Chief Good. 
GOOD:  Hi, Mayor and council.  I would also like to recognize our other partners from 
Banner (ph.) who are here, and they were also part of the Univision segment.  So they 
do great work with our fire department and with our city.  And it would be remiss of us 
not to recognize them as well.  Thank you.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Their community, amongst many others, are right down the 
street.  And so we're very thankful for their partnership and helping our community stay 
safe and healthy when they do have medical emergencies.  So now, therefore, I, Mayor 
Juan Rodriguez, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as Water Safety Month in the City of 
Tolleson.  Be it proclaimed. 
And for those in the audience, yes, we're going to take another picture.  So here's a 
proclamation. 
ERIVES:  But this one with blue, right?  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  This one doesn't include.  So anybody who would like to be in it 
(indiscernible).  Okay. 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  If it's blue also, we could have just taken two pictures of us. 
[LAUGHTER] 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  And you can hand it to whoever you want.  
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Oh, thank you folks for coming out, by the way. 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Absolutely.  It's an honor. 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  So now we're going to move on to G, business from the 
floor.  We have none in that category, so moving on to (indiscernible) H, action items.  In

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
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review of the agenda prior to the meeting, I notice we have six consent agenda action 
items.  How say you council? 
DAVIS:  Motion to approve.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  We have a motion to approve by Vice Mayor Jimmy Davis.  We 
have a second by Councilwoman Clorinda Erives.  All those in favor, please signify by 
saying aye. 
ALL:  Aye.   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Those opposed?  Not hearing any.  
Bless you. 
ERIVES:  Bless you.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Motion passes unanimously, and we're going on to regular agenda 
action items.  We're going to start with item number 1.  It's either to adopt or deny 
Resolution Number 2635 of the Mayor City Council, City of Tolleson, Arizona, pursuant 
to article 9, section 20, subsection 6 of the Arizona Constitution, proposing a permanent 
adjustment to the 1979, '80 base expenditure limitation of the City of Tucson.  On the 
November 3rd, 2026, general election ballot finance Department.  I'm glad we're finally 
doing this.  Don't know too much about it, so I'm going to turn it over to our expert, our 
CFO, Mr. Artz. 
You have the floor, sir.  
ARTZ:  Thank you, Mayor and council.  Before you tonight is Resolution 2635.  It is the 
first step in moving forward with the permanent base adjustment.  There is a frequently 
asked questions in your packet.  So that document has been completed and is available 
for the public.  And then also at the last meeting.  I believe it might have been the vice 
mayor asked about how many other communities were on home rule versus permanent 
base adjustment.  And so there's 92 communities in Arizona.  Eight of them are on their 
base expenditure, meaning they have no alternative expenditure limit.  37 are on home 
rule.  We're one of those 37 currently, and then 46 have done a permanent base 
adjustment.  So over 90 percent of the communities have done either a permanent base 
adjustment or a home rule adjustment.  So just wanted to give that background

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information to you. 
Do we have the PowerPoint available? 
I'll just start here before the PowerPoint comes up but just give you some background 
information.  So the Arizona Constitution and Arizona Revised Statutes impose an 
expenditure limitation on cities and towns, counties.  It's based on an expenditure limit 
back from 1979, 1980.  That limit gets adjusted each year based on population growth 
and inflation.  So for Tolleson, our expenditures back in 1979, '80 were $966,494. 
Go to the next one, if you would, for me.  There we go. 
So Tolleson expenditures back in 1979, '80 were $966,000.  Our population was 4,190.  
It's grown to 8,689.  So our population has gone up by 207 percent.  That's the factor 
there.  The inflation factor since '79, '80 is 386 percent.  So when you take that $966,000 
times the population factor and times the inflation factor, that gives us a current 
expenditure limitation of $7.7 million.  Last year we spent over $80 million.  Our budget 
was $200 million.  So obviously that expenditure limitation doesn't work for Tolleson.  
And if we were on our base expenditure, we would be looking at a budget or 
expenditures that are 90 percent less than what we're currently spending.  So that's why 
we have to have one of the alternative expenditure limitations. 
So fortunately there are some alternatives.  We'll focus on the permanent base 
adjustment tonight.  And so that's what we're focusing on and what we'll talk about. 
Next slide. 
So just a few reasons why the state imposed limitation doesn't work for Tolleson.  Again, 
it assumes that that '79, '80 budget provided sufficient service levels.  Back then we had 
a volunteer fire department.  Now we have a paid fire department, so that's not 
factored in at all to that base number.  We have a regional wastewater treatment plant 
that we didn't have back then.  So we're providing services to other entities now, and 
we weren't doing that back in '79, '80.  And then we have the senior center, library, 
aquatic center, all of these new services that the residents are wanting and expecting 
obviously weren't in that base number.  So there's no adjustment for that, so those are 
some of the reasons why.

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It doesn't also account for any new revenue sources that we have, all those wastewater 
revenues that we get from the other partners, the revenue we get from our dispatch 
partners, just the increases we've had in our sales tax rates.  The city has done an 
amazing job of growing our sales tax base and enhancing our revenues so that we can 
provide additional services to the residents.  So we have to have an expenditure 
limitation that's high enough so that we can provide those services to the residents.   
Crystal? 
So again, it adjusts the base expenditures from '79, '80, and what we're proposing in this 
resolution is that we increase that number to $40 million.  So instead of that $966,000, 
we're increasing it to $40 million.  When you multiply that times the factors, that would 
give us a current permanent base adjustment of $320 million.  That number will 
continue to grow as the inflation factors increase and as our population increases.  So 
that number, that 320 million, will continue to escalate over time also. 
Last year we spent $80 million, so this is four times what our current expenditure levels 
are.  So I'm very confident that this adjustment to $320 million will provide us adequate 
capacity under our expenditure limitation. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  So and then on top of it -- so if we got a $50 million grant from the federal 
government that is not a local revenue, so that would be excluded from our 
expenditures for the expenditure limitation purpose.  So staff is very comfortable that 
this number will provide sufficient coverage. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Questions?  Yes.  
CHAVIRA:  Are there annual adjustments for inflation?  How long does this last?  Do we 
at some point have to go back and do this again?  Or is this just one and done? 
ARTZ:  Mayor and council member (indiscernible), there are annual adjustments for 
inflation.  So every year they give us a new inflation number that then we calculate what 
our expenditure limitation will be.  So increasing it to 40 million is a one-time thing.  But 
as the population inflation grows, we'll continue to see that 320 million increase over 
time.

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MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  If we ever get close to that, we can go back to the voters and ask 
(indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  Correct.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Other questions (indiscernible). 
DAVIS:  If I could.  I think part of our confidence; I know our part of our confidence that 
this should suffice for the foreseeable future is that we're landlocked.  And yeah, our 
population will continue to grow.  But that's never been a priority of council is to grow it 
astronomically or to grow it at the same capacity as other cities do, just simply because 
we don't have the room.  We're growing our population in concert or to support our 
ability to generate retail revenue.  So I don't know if our population will ever get close to 
20,000 people, but that would still be adjusted along with that formula that Mr. Artz 
showed you.  So that's why we think we're confident that this this should do it. 
ARTZ:  So we have to put together some information for the Auditor General's office.  
We present that to them.  We get the ballot language.  Those election in November, so 
if it does not pass the November election, then we would continue to be on home rule 
through 2028.  So we would have two more years of home rule.  Then, in 2028, we 
would have a decision to make whether we wanted to try a permanent base adjustment 
again or a home rule. 
If it didn't pass, I would recommend that we go back out for a home rule again at that 
point, just because that has successfully passed for 40 plus years.  If it does pass this 
election, then the permanent base would be in effect for fiscal year 2028, and then we 
wouldn't have to do any more home rule elections. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible).  It passed.  And the message really is 
(indiscernible).  They see that big number, and (indiscernible).  And so sometimes 
electorates don't understand that.  So we as a council need to do the job that this is 
basically giving us the right to spend the money that we have earned (indiscernible).  
And you're right.  In 40 years, there's only been one time that we've had an issue that in 
the past one time, and that was it.  And again, that was a message.  I don't think the 
council (indiscernible).  And so this is my call to action to all of you myself, that in order

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for this to be successful, we verify what we're trying to do.  (Indiscernible) $220 million, 
if we ever get to that, that's going to be the council that's going to have to decide if they 
want to expand it (indiscernible) at that time.  But for today, as far as this council, I 
would say this is definitely (indiscernible). 
Vice Mayor. 
DAVIS:  I'd like to motion to adopt Resolution Number 2635. 
CHAVIRA:  Second.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  We have a motion by Vice Mayor Jimmy Davis.  We have a 
second by Councilwoman Christine Chavira.  All those in favor, please signify by saying 
Aye. 
ALL:  Aye.   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Those opposed?  Not hearing any, congratulations (indiscernible) 
going forward on this.  Motion passes unanimously.  And let's get it back. 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  All right, we're going to item number 2.  Somewhat exciting.  
Approve the amendment and change order to the construction manager at Risk 
(indiscernible) between the City of Tolleson and Chasse Building Team, Inc. to add the 
design and construction of a retail building to the project scope and authorize the city 
manager to execute and deliver said amendment.  The total cost of this amendment 
shall not exceed $3,000,000 (indiscernible). 
EARP:  Thank you.  Mayor, Vice Mayor,  Members of council.  Yeah.  So this was part of 
the original plan, and we were going to wait off to build it later because we were 
focused on the aquatic center.  And then we started thinking because of economies of 
scale.  And we already have the actual construction company out there, the architect for 
that.  And we're going to match the building, so it only made sense just to move forward 
now and use today's dollars rather than later dollars.  So we're just recommending 
approval.  They moved their trailer over because it's going to go along.  Van Buren.  It's 
going to be about four suites, with the end cap being a drive through.  And the word's 
already gotten out, so we have someone already interested in the drive through, so it's

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pretty exciting. 
This is just kind of preliminary view of it.  That's the drive through which will be closest 
to PD.  And then the round area, it'll be closer to the aquatic center side.  And then 
that's the frontage of the suites.  Grace, correct, correct.  So it's there to match our 
aquatic center.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible).  Now I'm hearing that president might consider 
redoing the tariffs this summer, closer to July, under another legal challenge or 
whatever.  So that's only going to increase the cost of materials, too, so it's good that 
we're doing it now.  We have the -- we have the company that's building the aquatic 
facility already on site, so there's no extra staging costs.  It can all be done in one shot, 
and we can share the parking lot.  So when we're at full operation, we can maximize the 
use of both buildings and kind of bounce off the success of both.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Right.  And you're correct, Mayor.  The individual that's looking 
or the company that's looking to go into the drive-through, their sole reason is because 
the aquatic center.  So it's already paying dividends.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Correct.  (Indiscernible) a question.  Yes, Vice Mayor. 
[CROSS TALK] 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I would try to hang it, since I would argue that the blockwork is 
partially part of the art. 
ERIVES:  Yeah.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  To make sure it's matching, but there's different ways to mount 
up on the block (indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  It's our building, so we could look at options.  Yes.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  Well, I'll entertain a motion.  Vice Mayor?  We have first.  
Second we have Councilwoman Erives.  (Indiscernible).  Awesome.  All those in favor, 
please signify by saying aye. 
ALL:  Aye.   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  All those opposed?   Oh, I did have one question.  First of all, that 
already passed.  Nobody said no to it.  My question was are we out of bond money, or

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are we using general fund for this? 
Go ahead. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Go ahead. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  You go ahead. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah, general fund.  Yeah. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  We use general fund? 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah.  Yep.   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  No, that's fine.  Because I know we have only (indiscernible) 
for so much. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yep.   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yep. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Cool.  Thank you very much, sir. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mayor.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Work study and presentation A, we're expecting (indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  Thank you, Mayor.  Thank you.  So we are back tonight to have the second work 
session on our budget.  We are focusing on the general fund and general fund 
departments tonight.  At our next meeting in April, we will focus on all the other funds, 
and departments, and utility funds. 
But tonight, we're just going to get through the general fund.  If you have questions on 
that, we'll have some time at the end.  Also included in your packet was a detailed line 
item list, so every line item in every department is included in the packet.  So if you 
want to dive into the details, that information is there for you.  What I'll be going over 
tonight is more of a high level summary on what's changed in the department and a 
little bit of overall summary on what's changing in the general fund. 
So with that, just want to start at the highest level, so this is the trial balance.  And it 
shows what we're estimating our beginning fund balance will be in July, which is three 
months from now so trying to estimate how much money we'll have available in the 
general fund.  So we're estimating about $111 million available, $56 million in revenue is

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what we've projected coming in.  We've got $89 million of expenditures and $8.9 million 
of transfers out, leaving us an ending fund balance for June of 2027 of approximately 
$68 million. 
So still adequate fund balance to cover any emergencies that we have, and I do believe 
that we'll actually end up higher than that because our revenues have historically come 
in stronger than what we've budgeted.  Expenditures come in less, so I think we'll be 
above that $68 million.  But on a budget basis, that's what we're budgeting right now to 
have $68 million. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  Correct. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  Yes.  So looking at the general fund, the expenditures by function, these are just 
the financial statement functions that we classify things in.  You can see that the largest 
piece of the pie is capital, so we're spending $42 million, or about 47 percent of the 
general fund is on capital items this year.  So again, what's important with the capital is 
those are one-time expenditures.  They're not ongoing.  Once we construct whatever it 
is that's in the budget, then that money isn't an ongoing expense.  So we do have an $89 
million general fund budget.  17 million of that is coming out of general fund or general 
government.  16 million is public safety.  2.5 million is highways and streets.  8.4 million 
is culture and recreation.  Almost 1.6 is economic development.  And then the $42 
million of capital projects, and we'll go through the capital projects in detail, what that 
42 million is, a little bit later in the presentation. 
Here's just another way of looking at it, and kind of the change from 2026 to 2027.  So 
again, looking at that capital where we've increased the capital budget this year by $13 
million, and we have a lot of capital items.  And one of them is the building that you just 
approved for the $3 million.  That's budgeted in next year, so that we can construct that.   
We have budgeted for some salary increases.  The consumer price index last week, 
when I put the presentation together, was at 2.4 percent for a 12-month period.  That 
was for February.  The new numbers came out for March, and it jumped up to 3.3

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percent.  So there was a 0.9 percent increase just in one month on the inflation side.  So 
we have budgeted for range adjustments of 4 percent and a cost of living of 4 percent.  
So that's what's been included in the budget, and that's coming closer or mirroring the 
3.3 percent that we're seeing now as our consumer price index increases. 
And then on the merit side, the leading category, which is the highest basically 
exceeding expectations, would be a 4 percent increase.  And then meeting expectations 
or performing would be a 3 percent increase on the merit side.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible) index, is that a federal index, or is that an index 
that that compares us economically to neighboring cities? 
ARTZ:  It's a federal index for the southwest United States.  So it is regionalized for 
Arizona and New Mexico. 
So those were all the percentages on it.  What does it mean as far as dollars.  The cost of 
living adjustment for all funds would be about $935,000.  That does include the utility 
funds, also, not just the general fund.  The merit adjustments would be $845,000.  We 
are seeing an increase in our health insurance costs this year of 15 percent, so that's 
$830,000. 
What's been included in the budget is to not pass any of that along to the employees, so 
that's the City picking up that full 15 percent.  And so that's what we've included in the 
budget for this year.  And then no increase for dental or life insurance. 
Another thing that is a priority in this budget is we're extending some hours of 
operation for certain departments, so the library, for next fiscal year, would be open 
Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and then on Saturday, they'd be open 
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
Human services is also extending hours, so they would be open from 7:30 to 7 and then 
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.  And then the finance department would actually be open 
on Fridays.  Currently, we're open Monday through Thursday, so we would be open 
Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 6, so the front counter staff would be there 
Monday through Friday.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible) especially on Friday for the finance.  I mean, I can't

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tell you how many times I get a phone call, I can't pay my water bill.  The city hall's 
closed.  Well, you can pay it.  I mean, there's other ways of doing it, but obviously this 
will be a more personable, face-to-face kind of a interaction. 
I have a question.  If the library and human services are open that long, is public safety 
also going to provide personnel on site to make sure that we have somebody here in 
case there's an emergency or -- 
ARTZ:  We've had those discussions with the police chief.  Currently, we have a security 
company that's here for some of those extended hours, so we're going through the 
process of determining whether we want to extend those hours with the security 
company or look at other options, but definitely going to have security available for 
these extended hours. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Just have access to be able to call dispatch, and if there is a 
emergency beyond their scope.  Awesome.  All right.  Thank you.  I didn't say it was a 
dumb question, but oh, okay.  But I think it's -- I want to make sure that if we do have 
people here, that they're working in a safe environment and that they know that they 
have somebody that is a professional to address those kinds of issues. 
MEDRANO:  I apologize for just blurting it out, but I think it's important, and I know what 
you meant.  It was just an expression, but we want to make sure our people know how 
seriously we take their safety.  And we've had issues and been dealt with, and I mean, I 
can't speak highly enough about PD.  But it's PD's facilitation of including everybody to 
make sure that we're all safe and we all protect each other. 
So I'm glad you raised that, sir.  Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council.  We have 
also had discussions about a payment kiosk that would be open more often.  Yeah.  
Thank you.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Have been able to pay our water bills through the internet also, so 
there's been some additions to that.  But yeah, anything that we can do to make that 
process convenient for our customers would be awesome.  So yeah.  Good point.  
Councilmember?  
CHAVIRA:  What about maintenance?  Are there maintenance staff on call, or is there

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just in case of that kind of emergency, or is there someone here in those after hours?  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor, Councilmember Chavira, yes.  There's always someone 
on call.  That's been historic with us, but if we do need to add staff to parallel these 
hours, we would.  But we're comfortable with our current staffing, and if there's any 
emergency.  Every day there's somebody.  Like, right now we're after hours, there's 
someone on call right now that they get called out to deal with any issue like that.  
Thank you.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yes.  So you know, when the City is doing good, I believe that we 
all should be doing good.  And there's a significant increase there in health insurance, 15 
percent, cost of living.  Those are big numbers, but if our employees are happy.  And 
they're doing good work for our residents, and the City is going in the right direction, 
then they should continue to be happy.  And we should look at that as a sign of not 
necessarily meeting halfway, but sharing in the greatness of our community, because 
the reality is they put in 99 percent of the effort to make it a great city.  They're here 
every single day working hard. 
So even though these numbers are big don't forget that we began this presentation with 
operating budget of a lot of money, and we would still have 70 grand left over.  If all we 
did was stick to the plan, we would still have $70 million left over at the end of 2027, so 
these are big numbers, but $70 million is a much bigger number.  And I just want to 
make that point, because sometimes, I know when I was more of a junior council 
member, I would look at these numbers.  I'd be like, man, that's a lot of money.  But 
when you take it in the grand scheme of what the budget is, it's proportional.  And 
especially when you consider the effort, the return on investment from our employees.  
They come in happy with a smile.  They put their best foot forward and everything that 
they do, regardless of which department they work for, and our residents are the 
beneficiaries of that great work.  So I just wanted to add that to it. 
But Chavira, Councilwoman? 
CHAVIRA:  I saw that this weekend because Whoopee Daze was an amazing success.  
And that's a thank you to all of you, because it didn't matter how old you were, you

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could have a good time.  I saw families, young families with young children in the food 
area, which was separated this year.  That was a great success.  You could still hear the 
music, but you were safe.  It's fenced in.  It was always clean.  The police were out there 
although we didn't need them, I don't think.  Even better.  Everyone just had a great 
time. 
But the staff's out there.  They're working the sound systems.  They're picking up trash.  
They're making sure everything's working, and I appreciate that.  And to your point, 
these are people that don't just work 8 to 5, Monday through Friday.  It's a big job and 
all the time.  And they're always happy, and I'm grateful.  And so yes, it looks like big 
numbers, but something that's missing in today's world that we actually appreciate our 
employees, and they love our community.  And so it's reciprocated and thank you to you 
all.  You did a great job. 
DAVIS:  I was going to kind of say the same thing.   Whoopee Daze was a really busy 
weekend.  Staff was out there working hard. 
CHAVIRA:  Yeah. 
DAVIS:  I was exhausted afterward, and we had a ribbon cutting on Monday.  And so 
many of them were -- 
CHAVIRA:  Yeah. 
DAVIS:  They still (indiscernible) on Monday even after all of that.  I was really shocked 
that I saw Randy.  I'm like (indiscernible) if I was Randy.  He was there.  He was up, made 
it to my council update.  He came to the first thing in the morning.   
CHAVIRA:  Yeah.   
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible) 9 a.m. and then he was there.  (Indiscernible). 
CHAVIRA:  Yeah.  Yeah.   
DAVIS:  So just kudos to -- 
CHAVIRA:  All of you. 
DAVIS:  -- all of our staff across the board.  You guys work really, really hard for our 
organizations and we really do appreciate it.  
CHAVIRA:  Yes.

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DAVIS:  (Indiscernible). 
CHAVIRA:  Yes. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I just want to make that point on this slide.  Even though we're 
going to be talking about parks and recreation community events at the next agenda 
item.  So just let you guys know, so let's finish off on this and then we'll jump into the 
great weekend that we just experienced. 
ARTZ:  There are 31 and a half FTE, which is full time equivalent positions being 
requested in this budget.  And that is a large number, larger than we've added in the 
past couple of years.  But the biggest thing is opening the aquatic center.  So we've got 
21 new FTEs for the aquatic center.  That's part time lifeguards, lifeguard twos, 
coordinators basically all of the positions that we'll need to operate the aquatic center, 
so 21 positions there.  We're also asking -- 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Break down 21 full time equivalents.  How many of those are part 
time?  How many of those are full time?  That's a lot of positions for an aquatic facility.  I 
mean, considering it's going to be closed.  Well, this is going to be a year round 
operation too, so something to consider.  I would like to see a breakdown of -- 
ARTZ:  And we have that, Mayor, so we can provide that to you.  
ERIVES:  Follow up on that.  The aquatic center will be open year round.  It's not just 
summertime, correct?  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah, it's a heat (indiscernible). 
ERIVES:  It's a heat -- 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor, members of the council, yes.  So our competition pool 
will be heated, so at least half of the year during the wintertime our competition pool 
will be open. 
ERIVES:  I wanted to rent out the Ramada or something to have an event,  I could, right? 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yes, we have rooms in there that you can rent and reserve for 
birthday parties. 
CHAVIRA:  I think of it as like a park, not an aquatic center, but there's like just a --  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah.  (Indiscernible) pool manager.  Okay.  That typically is a full

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time position, (indiscernible) social club position, which I think goes to what you're 
talking about.  But I want to know what the rest of those are.  And that's, I think a -- 
ARTZ:  The majority of them are part time lifeguards.  Out of that 21, it's probably 15 or 
16 of the FTEs are part time.  So we'd have 30 plus lifeguards on a part time basis.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah, Mayor and members of the council, we're looking at 
about 43 part time staff.  The way we did it for summer, we would need 43 lifeguards on 
staff just to staff it for the hours that we have programmed for the aquatic center.  
That's including competition side and rec side, plus everything else going on. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Do we have somebody that's going to be assigned to do adult 
classes and stuff like that?  Okay.  Good.  This is awesome. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah.  Yes, Mayor.  We have the lifeguard twos, which will be 
our aquatic teachers, they'll be teaching adult and youth classes. 
ARTZ:  There's a request to take two part-time positions and create a full-time position 
in the social club, and a lot of that is based just on the extended hours that are being 
proposed.  And then they're also asking for one new full time position.  So there is an 
increase there of one full-time position. 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Asking for two full time positions for social for basically the senior 
program. 
ARTZ:  So taking two part-time positions into a full-time, and then adding one full-time 
position. 
The next item is five FTE and dispatch, so the police department has been working with 
a potential new partner that we would be able to dispatch for, and that's being 
Maricopa Community College District.  So they've been working with them.  They're 
trying to get an agreement finalized on their side, and then it'll come back to you for 
approval.  But basically, if that contract moves forward, we would add four new 
dispatchers and one supervisor at their cost.  So it's about $550,000 of cost, but the 
revenue structure that we've proposed is $1,050,000.  So we would be generating over 
a half $1 million in revenue above the cost of providing those services. 
And so we structured that so that we're recouping some of our administrative costs, so

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dispatchers are typically one of the positions that have a high turnover.  And so our 
employee resource department is constantly recruiting for them, so we're charging the 
college district part of the cost of employee resources, part of finances, time for 
preparing paychecks for the individuals, and so just recouping some of those costs.  And 
it benefits the City by the tune of about a half $1 million.  And that'll possibly come back 
in May or June to council for your consideration.  
CHAVIRA:  I haven't been inside the police department dispatch area.  If we're adding 
four additional dispatchers, is there enough space?  I don't know how that works.  I'm 
sure there's multiple computers and trying to figure out -- 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor and council, the simple answer is yes, but we are also 
looking to expand it, make it a little bit bigger.  So that would be something down the 
road.  I know we put in for some federal money to even look at expanding the dispatch 
center.  But yes, currently, as we are built out right now, we have space to do this.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I know some of the community colleges do trainings for the 
firefighters and do training for not so much police officers because they go to a police 
academy.  But would this be something that we could consider as a training mechanism 
for some students that want to have full time employment as a dispatcher, whether it's 
in Tolleson or other municipalities where students can actually come in and get hands 
on training, on how to How to dispatch? 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor and council.  I don't think there's a formal process right 
now for what you're talking about.  I know Wes Mack (ph.) tried to get something off 
the ground, which was teaching students dispatch skills, and then they can come into 
the workforce.  I've lost track of if Wes Mack is still doing that.  But yeah, there's not any 
language in this agreement with the community colleges that's going to create the 
program that you're talking about, so -- 
So we're meeting with the chief, actually, I think next week to work out some of the 
records management system, CAD situations, so I'll run this by him, and then he can 
work that through his chain over there at the community college.  
ARTZ:  Requesting one FTE in the library and that's again for the extended hours and

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being able to cover those hours, a half a position in finance to cover the hours there in 
finance so that we always have two people available there to cover the front counter 
Anytime we have cash and those types of things, we want to make sure that we have 
two people available.  So we'd need a half a position to cover those extra hours. 
Then there's a FTE in it for desktop support, and then one FTE and utilities that was 
funded.  So the total of those come up to 31.5.  That gets us to I think about 306 total 
FTEs citywide.  So about a ten percent increase this year but a lot of it being from the 
aquatic center and the new dispatchers.  
Just touch on the retirement system funding levels.  This is a big liability that's out there 
for the city, so we've got good news here.  The Tolleson fire department is 99.6 percent 
funded for our tier 1 and tier 2, and the police department is at 101 percent funded.  So 
we've hit our goals basically.  
ERIVES:  Yeah.  
CHAVIRA:  Yeah.  That is amazing.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  That is awesome.  
ARTZ:  I'm sorry.  We've typically budgeted $2 million for those additional payments.  
We've decreased that.  We still have a million and a half in for the additional payments, 
but we probably won't even make those full payments now that we're funded.  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible). 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Hear how many cities are actually at 100 percent or close to it.  I'd 
be surprised to hear 90 percent.  I think we might be one of the few cities through 
general fund that has responsibly, in my opinion, funded the pension system for public 
safety officers.  I mean, I don't know, off the top of my head, but yes, Councilwoman? 
ERIVES:  Can you tell me when was our target date to reach this goal?  
ARTZ:  2036. 
[CROSS TALK] 
ERIVES:  Yeah.  Yes.  
CHAVIRA:  Promoted.  That is incredible.  
DAVIS:  Ridiculous to me that more communities are funding this.  It's important.  I

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mean, these people gave so much of their lives to -- 
CHAVIRA:  Continue to give.  Yes, yes. 
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible). 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  My biggest thing is when they took on the job, it was a set of 
rules, a contract of sorts, not of sorts, of legality, which they say, I will work for you for X 
amount of years in this profession, which I recognize to be extremely dangerous.  And in 
exchange, there will be a pension, that you will be taken care of after that.  And other 
cities are treating it as if it's optional like it's only a contract in spirit.  But yet, the service 
they render every day is not a spirit, it's delivered 100 percent with no question.  And so 
it does bother me, but I'm not the -- I'm not the governor, I'm not anybody beyond the 
Mayor of Tolleson. 
And I can say that for our organization, with your help and the help of staff, you guys 
have done an amazing job of budgeting and putting us in a position where we can be 
very proud of that.  And our firefighters and police officers both know that we've always 
had their back.  This is not by accident.  This is not something that just happened 
overnight.  It took years and years of contributions at a much higher rate to make sure 
that we got here. 
The only thing I would ask is, let's not wait until we go back to in the low 70s or 60s.  As 
soon as we see an issue, let's talk about it.  
Yes, sir. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor, part of the reason we found that the Arizona cities 
found themselves in that situation had to do with the investment returns that were 
reported.  That's the only reason, so we'll never get back.  It'll never go down because 
that issue has been remedied.  Am I right, Kevin? 
ARTZ:  Well, the investment returns do play a large part in it, and if there is a recession 
in the future and their investments decrease, we could see our percentage go below the 
hundred percent, but we would have the flexibility then to make some additional 
contributions at that point to basically make up what they lost in the dividend income.  
It's much easier to do when you're at 100 percent versus being at 60 percent, trying to

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make up the 60 percent.  And then you have a loss in dividend income, and you're 
always treading water.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Let's not get to 60 ever, ever.  When it starts to -- when you see 
troubled waters in the horizon, let's have the discussion then, so we can do what we 
need to do at a much smaller amount to keep us where we need to be for both of those 
departments.  
ARTZ:  And the real benefit to the City of this is our contribution rate on an ongoing 
basis goes down.  So three or four years ago, we were paying upwards of 25 percent of 
an officer's or a firefighter's salary into the pension system.  Now that we're at 100 
percent funded, that's down to about 15 to 18 percent.  So we're not having to pay as 
much through the payroll to cover their pensions anymore because we have it 100 
percent funded, so it is saving the City money also.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I honestly would like to know how many cities are not there. 
ARTZ:  Yeah, we can do some research and provide some of that information. 
So next I have all the department budget presentations, so to start is just kind of the 
table.  I won't go through this because I'll go through each department individually, but 
if you're wanting to just see a quick view of what a department is doing.  For example, 
council is going from 970,000 to 1.2 million, a $235,000 increase, 24 percent.  But I have 
a slide just for council that will go over the details of that.  So all of the departments are 
listed here on these tables, but we'll just pass through these and then get on to the 
departments. 
So Mayor and council, so there are some things happening in the budget this year where 
we're moving some positions around.  So one department may be going up, but another 
department will be going down.  So Mayor and council is one of those departments.  So 
the budget is increasing by 235,000, but the majority of that is because we're 
transferring a position from public affairs to the city council budget for the council 
assistant.  So it's not a new position.  It's just moving it from one department to another, 
so it is increasing Mayor and council budget, but there's a corresponding decrease in 
another budget.

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So the table down below then are requests that staff has made in each department so 
the increase in audit fees we had a contract with our auditors.  That contract ended this 
year, and so we're going out for bid for a new auditor or audit services.  And based on 
the numbers that we're getting back.  Our audit fee is going to go, likely, from $30,000 a 
year, upwards of 50, $55,000 a year.  So that's why it's a request to increase our audit 
fees.  It's in the counsel budget because, technically, the auditors are working for 
council, and we try to keep some independence and separation there, so we put it in the 
City council budget, so -- 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible) 
ARTZ:  (Indiscernible) auditor that basically does our -- our -- our financial audit, yes.  
And we're seeing an increase in their fees.  And then the second requested increase in 
mayor and council was an increase for the Tolleson Initiative for the Arts.  We did 
include $10,000 in there.    
RODRIGUEZ:  An increase for TIA, what?   
DAVIS:  That's not what I'm going to request in a minute, so.  
ERIVES:  So since it says mayor and council, this is where we could make requests; this 
would be the time.  So I hear him, which would be TIA right, already making a request.  
So I'm going to jump in right before.  Just -- and I -- and I completely think that TIA has 
been just fantastic.  TIA, again, is the Tolleson Initiative for the Arts.  And we've had 
those Third Fridays with music, and dancing, and food, and all that.  It's been really, 
really fun.   
I would love to add to the art -- so he'd already looked down like, oh my gosh, 
increasing  funding.  To include with -- with art, right, so I think of music, I think of 
fashion, I think of painting, and drawing, and such.  But I also think of, like, poetry, 
singing, rapping, all the things that go with.  So almost like a literacy component.  So 
working on the TIA initiative to add to that would maybe be something like Viva TIA, and 
working with staff on this one, because it's fantastic.  It would be, if considered -- TIA 
would be for Vision Inspiration Voices and Amplification.  So again, in a literacy 
component with maybe some poetry, maybe some books, literacy to go with it, so that

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we can hear our stories, the stories that are told within Tolleson. 
Maybe they be in a poem, maybe they be in a song, maybe they be in artistry, 
maybe in wardrobe.  Right?  All those kind of different components.  So with that said, 
making a request, hey, you said no for 10,000, how about 30,000?  Would you feel 
comfortable with 30,000 for adding to the literacy -- adding a literacy component to that 
arts?  We haven't really done any -- too, too much with it, with -- with literacy.  I'm 
thinking early childhood.  I'm also thinking bilingualism, where you might have it in both 
languages.  I'm thinking lots of things, and documenting our stories within Tolleson.  
RODRIGUEZ:  So really quick, (indiscernible).  
ERIVES:  Yep.  She wants to add on.  
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Mayor, members of council.  Also, the 
$30,000 amount, that is what we've started all initiatives with.  So if we're looking back 
at TIA, and then now, you know, formerly (indiscernible), now (indiscernible),each of 
those initiatives started at the $30,000 mark.  
ERIVES:  So VIVA -- TIA VIVA Tolleson, VIVA would be, again, Vision Inspiration Voices 
and Amplification.  We're -- we're -- we have our story, but sometimes we don't share 
our story out as much as we need to.  For example, that retirement, right?  Like, how do 
we share that information that our city invests within our own employees, again, 
because it's important.  And how we --   
DAVIS:  I love the idea (indiscernible) of what you all are (indiscernible).  (Indiscernible).  
talking about.  One of the things (indiscernible) focus on (indiscernible), like something 
like that.  So I just think (indiscernible).   
RODRIGUEZ:  So we have a request.  (Indiscernible) 
RODRIGUEZ:  So we have a request.  (Indiscernible). 
ERIVES:  I -- I love the idea of documenting our stories.  Because as time goes on, we lose 
elders in our community, and they know stories.  And I -- I talk to people, and they tell 
me things I never knew, or I never heard of.  And I think it's important to document our 
own story for our own families in our community.  So I love that part of it.  Maybe we 
could incorporate and use that in -- in -- in the form of art or in the form of -- but

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however we do that, but I -- I do like that idea.  
DAVIS:  They've already started working a little bit on that, documenting some of our 
stories. 
ERIVES:  I love it. 
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible)  some of our (indiscernible). 
ERIVES:  Yeah. 
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible).   
RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah, I think it's pretty simple.  If it's going to push literacy, if it's going to 
promote language, I think, briefly, I've heard a lot of ideas over here.  I heard some ideas 
over here.  Really, I think, what you do is say, yeah, I think it's a good thing.  Let's get 
with staff, and figure out how it -- how it manifest itself.  Right now I'm hearing a 
concept, with no teeth.  I would love to see the teeth.  And then -- and then, you know, 
we can -- we -- I think we can look at 30,000 as a starting point.  It may not take 30,000.  
It may take less.  
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER:  Right. 
RODRIGUEZ:  It may take some more.  We can revisit that down the road.  But yeah, it 
promotes literacy and  
RODRIGUEZ:  It may take some more.   We can revisit that down the road.  But yeah, if it 
promotes literacy, and quality of life, and (indiscernible), it'd be great.   
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible) there might a request, then?  Can you bring up my presentation?  
(Indiscernible).  
ERIVES:  Yes.   
DAVIS:  To be honest, I totally forgot I wanted to do this, and I felt like a college student 
last minute doing it, but -- so I just want to talk a little bit about the Tolleson Initiative 
for the Arts and (indiscernible).  As we continue building the Tolleson Initiative for the 
Arts, I want to take a moment to reflect on how far we've come in a relatively short 
period of time.  We started -- what started as a vision has turned into real, vital 
progress.  So we have our Third Fridays now.  We have our Tolleson art gallery.  And we

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created consistent, meaningful activation in our (indiscernible).  This is just some of the 
stuff that you see.   
We have our Gallery 37 project.  We just added a new sculpture which is out 
there.  We've got our murals on the civic center.  We have utility box wrapping; I don't 
have any of that.   There's Third Fridays, you know, that are happening pretty regularly, 
so we're really activating it.  So it looks like community engagement, public art, family 
gatherings.  And we're no longer talking about what could be; we're actively 
demonstrating what is possible in Tolleson.  
So -- and because of that progress, I'm here tonight to request a strategic 
increase in TIA budget for the fiscal year (indiscernible).  The next phase is about scaling 
what's already working.  So I'd like to propose investment in a Tolleson alley mural 
festival, and activation of the former doctor's office building through a full artistic 
encapsulation.  So let's talk about the (indiscernible) first.  So have any of you been to 
the Oak Street alleys, by chance, in Phoenix?   No.  No.  Okay.  So they basically do a 
yearly mural festival.  And they took this really, like, dilapidated alley that had a lot of 
walking through it, and every year they do a festival.  People can submit their proposals 
to paint different murals on the walls that are there.  And the artists that are selected 
get paid about $200, which is a really small amount for -- for a mural, and the art 
changes every year.   
So there's graffiti art, there's murals, there's a variety of different things.  And we 
can decide what it looks like when we get there.  And so we have a bunch of alleys 
behind our businesses, like Tolleson market, (indiscernible),  that it's not that.  Behind 
Tamales Guadalajara, next door to that doctor -- the former doctor's office property, 
there's also a ton of just blank walls, and that's right in the center of by our -- The 
P.L.A.C.E., which stands for -- what is The P.L.A.C.E.?  
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible), Art --  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible), Art, Center for Entertainment?  Yeah. 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
DAVIS:  So did I.  So that's where our -- you know, our Third Fridays are happening, and

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it's kind of just become the art center of our community.  So if we can activate the area 
by beautifying.  Which, I mean, this kind of looks not the greatest, right?  But we can 
make it, kind of, a destination.  And this is the building that I'm talking about.  I didn't 
take a picture of it in front of it.  I realized (indiscernible) together.  But there's huge, 
blank walls all over this building, and it is right in front of the place.  
ERIVES:  Oh, that's -- that's ours, right?  
DAVIS:  Yes. 
ERIVES:  Yeah, city property.  
DAVIS:  So -- so here's a proven model for, kind of, the direction that I'm pointing, kind 
of, pointing us in here, and that's in the Wynwood village in Miami.  And it started out as 
industrial community, much like we are, with lots of unused warehouses.  We don't 
have that problem anymore.  But they -- in the matter of a decade, they've become an 
international arts destination.  They have murals everywhere.  They have lots of 
restaurants and dining opportunities, and it's just really come to life because of the 
artwork.  So we have a real opportunity here.  We're already -- we're already on that 
path.  We're on the same path.  We're kind of where they started, right?  So we have 
the programing, we have partnerships, community engagement, and now we just need 
investment at (indiscernible).    
So why does this matter?  The arts are not just about culture.  They're economic 
drivers.  You know, a lot of these art destinations people go to take photos with them, 
to look at the art, and then what do they do?  They eat at your restaurant, and support 
your local businesses.  Spend money in your community, get gas at QT; we've got 30 of 
them, so (indiscernible).  The investment also supports broader priorities.  It strengthens 
community pride, preserving and telling the stories of Tolleson, what we were just 
talking about, which our murals do a great job of doing already (indiscernible), this 
building in particular.  It supports our aging and police initiative that we're talking about.   
It complements efforts like (indiscernible), our substance abuse initiative.  
Because at the end of the day, the arts deal, and access to them.  So my vision for 
Tolleson is to become the arts destination of the West Valley.  It's not the entire valley,

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right?  We can be the Wynwood Village of Miami.  
ERIVES:  Miami.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah. 
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible) be that.  We're already on -- on that track.  So now you want to 
know number.  $3.5 million (indiscernible).  So the (indiscernible) bring it down.  My -- 
my request is 90,000, (indiscernible).  Okay?  So currently in the budget, we have 
30,000, and that's already -- because we have agreed to create the other two of the 
three Gallery 37 year olds.   
ERIVES:  Yeah.   
DAVIS:  So that's that was already allocated.  And so to for program extension,  the alley 
mural (indiscernible) around 15,000.  I think it could possibly be tied together with Third 
Friday, somehow.  Capital activation (indiscernible).  probably would run about 20,000 
to put a mural on there.  Community and public art growth, (indiscernible) small murals, 
and rotating projects, 20,000.  Contingency maintenance and emergency (indiscernible).  
And that's the last line.   This is a balanced, strategic investment.  I think that if we build 
the foundation -- we built the foundation, and now it's time to scale it.  (Indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:  Well, I think that's a great presentation.  You definitely did your 
homework.  I like the vision.  I think you're right, we've done some really good things 
here in our community.  And -- and I got to tell you, when we're in D.C. I shared this -- I 
think it was Reyes, but there's a lot of cities that are mirroring what we're doing here.  
And they're sending out these emails on Facebook, and it's like, oh, this sounds just like 
TIA program.  Oh, this sounds just like this, or this sounds just like that.   
And so we're becoming the model to follow, I would say in the West Valley.  I 
would say in the entire valley, to be honest with you.  You know, I'm not opposed to -- 
we have the extra money, but I would say -- I would -- I would rather budget it, and then 
spend as opportunities arise.  And -- and then, it's just there.  And if we don't use it, 
then it goes back to the general fund.  But -- but I think combining these two, and just 
saying 90,000 would be probably digestible versus 30 plus ninety.  Let's just put 90, you 
know, there, and -- and just -- let's let it rock and roll, and let's -- let's get staff to start 
moving those initiatives, with you guys' input.  And -- and I'm kind of a disadvantage,

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because I can't be on my comments I can't add anything to the arts because I'm the 
least artistic person that you'll ever meet.  But I do recognize the importance of the arts.   
And so to sit here and say, no, let's not do this because it's got a dollar sign after 
it would be ignorant.  I think arts has to be part of our community.  Just because I'm not 
an artistic person doesn't mean that we don't have a lot of kids, adults, and members of 
our community that aren't.  I'm sure we do.  I mean, I have one or two sitting next to me 
that absolutely are artists in their own right.  And so I think we need to embrace it.  And 
we just need these programs to manifest themselves into quality programs as the Third 
Fridays have, as the murals have.   
And I got to say, a lot of that leadership and direction that's come from our staff.  
And -- and so I'm ready for the next chapter.  I would say $90,000 is a fair budget to 
encapsulate both these programs, and let's start moving in that direction.  If we spend 
60, then we have 30 extra we can put back in the general budget.  It's not going to go to 
waste.  We use it for another service.  But -- but I'd be okay with -- with looking at it at, 
90,000. 
Reyes, what are your thoughts on this?  
REYES:  (Indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:   Okay.  Council members?  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  Councilmember Chavira?   Councilmember Chavira? 
CHAVIRA:  Well, you know I'm crazy about clean, right?  I like things to be clean.  I like 
things to look nice.  And I mean, what's not -- you know, it's beautiful to look at art, and 
to even have art in our alleyways.  I think that's a beautiful thing.  But I -- I just want to 
note that in our council advancement, we identified -- we purchased that medical 
building, and we talked about turning it into lots of things, part of our discussion.  But -- 
so hopefully part of this -- there's the budget that we talked about.  We didn't give a 
number of what it's going to cost, though, to turn that medical building into what we 
see its potential as being, and so art absolutely part of that.   
But I guess my point is that I don't know which pots of money.  I don't know if it

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helps to put that in -- in the pot with the building construction, or whatever has to go 
on; or does it even matter?  But it'd be nice to have that whole package, absolutely.  
RODRIGUEZ:  You'll need something.  Capsulation, or something.  I thought that you 
meant turn that building into, like, an art studio for students from colleges and 
universities that want to come here and do art with their kids.  That's what I was 
thinking you were going at.  But if what we're talking about is -- I mean, it's -- it's pretty 
straightforward.  If it's a mural -- like, paint a mural around the building, that makes it a 
heck of a lot simpler.  Not that I'm opposed to the other idea, because we're still trying 
to figure out what we're going to do with the building, but this may be an initiative in 
that direction.  So I'd be okay with $90,000, if you guys are okay with it.  
DAVIS:  Yeah, I think that building in particular, because it's right in the center.  
RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah, centrally -- 
CHAVIRA:  Absolutely.  
DAVIS:  We can completely just wrap artwork.  The type of mural that goes all the way 
around it.  As we're approaching our 100-year anniversary, right, that's also something 
telling our story, and preserving that.  You know, maybe that mural on that building tells 
the story of Tolleson, just all the way around where we started.  I think that would be 
beautiful.  Yeah, there's so many walls blank behind it, and it does kind of look junky.   
ERIVES:  Yeah. 
DAVIS:  And it's right in the center of our community.   
ERIVES:  Yeah.   
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible) if we can activate it with some artwork that's going to bring -- and 
bring people in who want to see art for photo ops.  But we think about like, well, they've 
been killing it (indiscernible).  You know, if we can get local media presence there, I 
think it will really help all of that.  
RODRIGUEZ:  So I'll say it for a third time, because I don't think you're going to get 
anybody to say no.  Quite frankly, I think we're all on board with ideas, both of the ideas 
I'm suggesting we start with $90,000, see how far that gets us.  If we need to revisit, we 
can revisit throughout the year.  We can make adjustments as needed, but ultimately,

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we want to start off with a good position.  Are you guys okay with saying, let's start with 
90,000 and see where it gets us?  I'm hearing yes? 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  I prefer the (indiscernible).  
ERIVES:  Yeah,  I would -- I'm not sure, because I don't know because we haven't started 
it, so -- but I'm thinking your art and creating that West Valley destination -- I remember 
this -- with Reyes, one time there was a bulletin board, discover Tolleson.  And I 
remember asking you, well, what's to discover?  So if we're saying discover Tolleson, but 
it would be the murals around the town, and maybe there's a booklet that tells you, you 
know, the to go to the different murals.   
Maybe there's like a QR code, you can click on it, and now it tells you the story of 
what's behind this mural, and who made it.  There's a lot of things that we can add to 
that.  But then we're discovering Tolleson.  Now there's a reason to come -- a reason 
to -- you know, oh, we're on the map with that.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Just to allay council's concerns, $120,000 is not a problem for 
us.   So there is currently 40,000 in the budget.  So if we go to the 120, then it would be 
an 80,000 increase to get to the 120.  Okay.  
RODRIGUEZ:  That -- that -- that is the direction of the council.  Thank you.  Thank you all 
for your input.  No.  Thank you for the presentation, and for the IDEA.  We do have to 
have some years in the alley where people can just go and stand next to and pose, like 
the really nice butterfly wings, stuff like that.  
DAVIS:  Yeah, people submit their -- their proposal for (indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:  I guess I'm saying is, let's try to make them interactive in some way.   
DAVIS:  Yeah, I agree. 
RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah. 
DAVIS:  I agree.  
ERIVES:  We may have some walls around that parking lot to service (indiscernible) , and 
other businesses in the area, and we can use --  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible). 
ERIVES:  Oh.  Okay.

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DAVIS:  Yeah. 
ERIVES:  I like it.   
RODRIGUEZ:  But if we're going to be inviting people to walk down our alleys, I would 
suggest that we pave it with asphalt, at least the alley that we're looking to target; or at 
least provide some kind of a sidewalk for people that they can go and look at the 
murals, for ADA.  I prefer just to pave it evenly, and that way it's an ADA surface.  The 
rain won't affect it, dirt won't affect the murals because it's paved.  But that would be 
for the one road that we -- the one alleyway that we're looking to do.  But again, that 
might be a different department with a different budget.   
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  And solar lighting, so that sun (indiscernible).   
RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah, some lighting.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  You can see. 
RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah.   Okay. 
ERIVES:  (indiscernible) QR code, if it could be painted on, and you could scan it and 
know who was the artist, what was the meaning of it.  I think that would be really cool.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Bilingual, trilingual.  Oh, there's so many things.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  You can proceed, sir. 
ARTZ:  Next department is city manager's office.  There is an increase of $181,000.  But 
again, the majority of this is a position that was transferred from IT to (indiscernible) 
office, to cover Mario (phonetic being transferred from public affairs to city council.  So 
this is just, again, a, a movement of positions.  And then, there was also request for an 
increase in professional services of $28,000, and an increase in employee development 
of $11,000, so total request above their base budget of $39,000.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible).  Mayor, members of council, the additional 
28,000, I believe it was to cover all of the expenses -- is it for the internship programs 
that we have right now?  Like, with the Marvin Andrews, and with -- it's to cover all 
those expenses.  And then, for the employee development, it's just for the sessions that 
follow up after -- like, the council advances, we also then work with the facilitator, then 
write to help  the -- the council's vision to fruition.

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RODRIGUEZ:  I know we have one now.  Is it going to be ongoing, or how's that going to 
work?  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  We're in the middle of a two-year program, and then we'll 
reassess after the second year.  It's a two-year commitment with Marvin Andrews 
and -- I  mean, Melissa  (phonetic) is outstanding.  We all are depressed because we're 
coming up to the end of her year with us.  But then we'll have another person coming in 
for the second year, and we're -- and we're in a pilot program with Paradise Valley.  
We're the only two cities doing this.  And we'll see how -- I mean, in terms of -- they do, 
but they don't do the split two-year term thing.  So -- 
RODRIGUEZ:  Under the -- the Marvin Andrews program is through Arizona State? 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  I had -- didn't pay attention to that part.  Marvin Andrews is 
city manager, City of Phoenix.  I know that.   It's a great thing.  
ERIVES:  He was the City of Phoenix city manager, and award winning, many years ago.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yes, mayor, members of council, that is from ASU.  
RODRIGUEZ:  Great.  In that case, we know it's going to be successful.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  We don't really about.  
RODRIGUEZ:  Proceed. 
ARTZ:  Department is public affairs.  Budget increased by $67,000, or 5.6 percent.  Again, 
we transferred the position out of here that decreased their budget.  But then we've got 
some requests in here.  So purchase of furniture for the upstairs admin area, $50,000.  
And then an increase in subscriptions for $10,000, and increase in employee 
development for $3,000.  So the net of taking a position away, and then adding those is 
an increase of the $67,000, plus any wage and benefit increases in the department.   
Housing services their budget is increasing by $518,000, 66 percent.  But that is 
as a result of the $500,000 for the loan program for that affordable housing that came 
to council a couple of months ago, and we received the direction to move forward.  So 
we've included that $500,000 loan into their budget for this year.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:  I see return on investments.  I mean, when we look at federal

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appropriations that we've been able to land, managing certain projects that we're doing 
with -- right now, ADOT, and we're doing with the -- we're going to be doing with MAG 
(phonetic)m and all those things, there's been a good return on investment.  And so I 
want -- for me, at least, I want to see that continuation of accomplishments coming out 
of that area.   
We haven't, luckily -- I think it's because we have a democratic governor, and a 
primarily republican senate and house, we haven't seen too much legislation issues, at 
least brought to us.  But from a different perspective, when the funds get here, and 
we're -- we're making those funds work for Tolleson, then it makes sense.  And so 
it's  one of -- I -- I need to state that, because, you know, when -- when departments are 
ballooning, there has to be a purpose behind it.  And I think you put out something, it 
was, like, 9 point something.  I thought we were close to $11 million in federal 
appropriations.  That's significant.  That's significant, and we can't ignore that.  So -- and 
so if you go back -- what was that increase?  
ARTZ:  Five percent.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  That's the 25 for the freeway, and we go down the list.  25 million.  And it's more 
of a reorganization.  We're kind of going back to the way it used to be when we had one 
person supporting some -- me and some other directors, and then one supporting 
mayor and council, we reverted back to that model.  That's why Mario is now reporting 
to council.  And it's also a also direct reflection on what -- how active this council is.  It's 
the most active council we've ever served.  It's not even -- it's not even comparable.  
DAVIS:  On that note, I do want to .  He's been amazing.  It's really nice having that 
dedicated staff member, and he -- he keeps me on track, because I'm --  I got my hands 
in, like, 13 cookie jars right now, so I got to, like -- which cookie jar am I supposed to be 
visiting today, right?  So he's -- he's been exceptional.  So I'm really, really happy to have 
him.  
RODRIGUEZ:  He's done an amazing job across the board.  He is from (indiscernible).  
(Indiscernible) my family is from.  He is a sun devil.  And he's the son of (indiscernible),

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my mom's maiden name, so you know.   
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:  I don't know about that.  But you know, we're glad to have him.  Go back 
when you  said that twenty-five the housing.  Yeah, 500 -- the 500,000 is the money that 
we had to put in, in order to get the loan program for the housing projects that we have 
(indiscernible).   Awesome.   
ARTZ:  Okay.  City clerk, a budget increase of 15,000.  (Indiscernible)  16,000 was the 
wages that (indiscernible) increased, so additional request.    Employee resources 
budget is increasing by $184,000, 15.7 percent.  We are, again, transferring a position.  
So we're transferring a position from development services to employee resources, so a 
movement of that position.  And then, a request for an increase of furniture of $25,000.  
RODRIGUEZ:  Is that employee going to be in a higher position; is that why the 25,000?  
Lower, but there's an increase of $25,000.  
ARTZ:  Increase of 25,000 is for furniture, so it's a furniture request.   
RODRIGUEZ:  Okay. 
ARTZ:  So the -- the position that's being transferred from Development Services is a 
vacant position, but it's going down in range.  So it's saving the City, probably, 40 to 
$50,000.  It became vacant within the past month or so, so -- but.  City magistrate 
increase of about 15,000; all of that's in in wages and benefits.  Court admin, actually, 
the -- the budget's decreasing by $60,000.  We actually cut a court clerk position last 
year.  So we cut that FTE last year, but we didn't take it out of the budget because it was 
done kind of late.  So now we're actually taking the money out of the budget for that 
position that's no longer there.   
City prosecutor no change in the budget.  Finance, there's a $378,000 increase, 
or about 19 percent, part of it being wages and benefits.  About $40,000 is the part time 
position that's being requested for the extended hours.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible) foot note, you know, then nobody 
(indiscernible).   
ARTZ:  And then there are two requests for $290,000.  And the first one is an increase in

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professional service, that's for bank fees.  So just to give you a little bit of background.  
Right now, when we keep a certain balance in our operating bank account, we don't 
have to pay any fees.  So as long as we keep $25 million in there, we don't pay any fees, 
but we also don't earn any interest on it.  So what I would like to do is take a portion of 
that $25 million, invest it in our outside investments, earn probably 400 to $450,000, 
but then we'll have to start paying bank fees.  But those bank fees would be $65,000.   
So we'd be able to net an increase anywhere of, probably, about $400,000 of 
additional revenue by -- by taking that money out of our operating account and moving 
it into our investments.  But then we have to start paying the bank every month.  But it's 
definitely less than what we'll be earning.  And if it ever gets back to the point where 
our investments aren't earning as much as they are currently, then at some point we 
may move back, and then we wouldn't have to pay the bank fees anymore.  So it's -- 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  And there's some options there, where we could potentially invest in, even, like a 
CD with the bank, and get some --  some better return than we are currently, so I'll leave 
that to you.  We can definitely increase our revenue by --  by managing that $25 million 
that's in the bank account.   
And then the second one is an increase in the liability insurance premiums.  
We're seeing the -- the southwest risk pool is looking at 15 to 18 percent increases in 
our premium costs for our insurance.  And then the other thing is that we're adding the 
aquatic center.  So we're not currently paying insurance on that.  It's a little bit of a high 
liability type service that we're providing.  So we're anticipating a fairly substantial 
increase to cover the aquatic center.  Just the fact that we have a new $38 million 
building will increase it, but just the activities that go on there also.  So we're needing an 
increase in insurance premiums.  And all of those insurance premiums were 
consolidated into finance a couple of years ago, instead of having it out in the 
departments, just so that we could manage it better.   
Information technology, $491,000 increase.  There was a position transferred 
out of IT, into the city manager's office.  But then there's also these requests to hire a

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desktop support tech position, so that's 116,000, an increase in professional services for 
215,000, an increase in supplies of 170,000, and then an increase for furniture for 
50,000, so total request of $554,000 in IT.  And if you have any specific questions on 
that, Wendy would be able to answer those.  
ERIVES:  Increased supplies, would some of those be reflective of computer systems that 
we need for dispatchers and police; or is this separate?  
ARTZ:  This would be separate from the dispatch.  So we would be passing those costs 
along to -- to any of the partners.  But this would be separate from -- from that.  
ERIVES:  Are supplies reflective, then, of, like, computer -- physical computers and -- 
ARTZ:  Yes.  So part of what it is, is we had some of the budget in our capital, our IT 
capital budget, and we're moving that to the operating budget just so it's easier for 
them to manage.  So when we get to the IT capital you'll see a decrease on that side.  
But I don't know, Wendy, if you want to add anything else on IT.  
JACKSON:  Mr. Mayor, members of council, some of the supply costs will be for AV 
service -- AV equipment.  We had an assessment done on every building on their 
meeting spaces, and some of the buildings are aging out to the point where that the 
technology does need to be upgraded.  We're still working with the -- the council 
chambers, of course, too, so we added in some costs there.   
In addition to that, as Kevin has indicated, some of the money will be transferred 
out of our capital expenditure account and put into the operating budget.  We do have 
some one-time large projects.  The door management system is a large project.  It's 
about $120,000 to get the all the buildings on the same system as what the aquatics 
would be, so it'll be easier for our staff to manage.  
ERIVES:  Thank you.  
JACKSON:  Professional services are all the vendors that we contract with, whether it's 
purchasing a lot of equipment.  We -- we utilize one particular company to secure all of 
the different technology supplies.  It could be anything from -- we have AV management 
company now that comes out to fine tune our equipment when needed.  Door access 
control; we do have a company that manages our door access.  Even though we have an

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internal information technology department, each person is not -- does not have that 
background or skill base to do that type of work, so that's what we utilize that for.  And 
then we have to think about, like, tariffs.  Equipment costs have -- has increased over 
time.  So anytime we do make those purchases, there is a slight increase in that.  Plus 
we have software services.  Yes.  
ARTZ:  Police administration, and we're seeing a $530,000 increase, or 43 percent 
increase here.  This, again, is -- is a result of some movement of positions.  So we have 
the public safety tax fund.  And what we're doing is, we're actually -- in the past, we've 
never charged the individual officers or firefighters in that fund.  We've done transfers 
back and forth, and it -- it gets confusing and it gets challenging for the two departments 
to manage their budget because we budget for it in one place, and we charge it in 
another.  So we're trying to clean that up this year.   
And so what we've done is we've removed a transfer out of police administration 
to the public safety fund, so we're not going to make that transfer anymore.  So that's 
making their budget look like it's increasing more than it is, because we're moving that 
transfer.  Then when we get to the police field operations, we're transferring more 
money out of there.  So when you look at police combined, it's nowhere near a 43 
percent increase, it's just some of these transfers.  And I apologize, but it -- it'll make it 
much easier for the departments to manage their budgets going forward.  It just -- it 
creates a little bit of confusion here on why one department looks like it's going up so 
much.  But in total, when you look at them, it's not that large of an increase.   
The next one is support services which is dispatch, so an increase of $693,000.  
That's based on the wage and benefit increase, and then the new dispatch partners.  So 
the new dispatch cost would be $559,000, but the agreement has $1.05 million in 
revenue coming in.  So we would be netting just under $500,000 over our cost to 
provide those services.  And then here's the -- the field operations budget.  It's only 
going up three percent.  And we're transferring some additional funds out of this org 
into the public safety, so that's where that $400,000 is at here.  Library, we have a 
budget increase of $61,000, or about three percent, and that's primarily the -- the new

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full-time position for the extended hours, and then any wage and benefit increases in 
the department.   
Fire administration, the admin side again going up 589,000; that's because we've 
moved -- removed the transfer into the public safety fund here of $400,000.  So when 
you look at the fire operation side, it's actually decreasing.  And so when you net those 
two together, it's a -- it's a fairly small increase overall for fire.  Emergency 
preparedness, no changes in the budget there.  Aquatic center, so we did budget for the 
aquatic center in the current year, so we have a little over $1.5 million budgeted.  So as 
we add those new positions, we -- we already have that amount of money in the 
budget.   
So we're not having to add anything in the current year because we -- we 
budgeted for that in the prior years.  And so this is where we can add the part-time 
lifeguards, lifeguard 2, coordinator positions.  And again, there's -- there's no cost to 
that because we already have that in the current budget.  Field operations vehicles, the 
budget's actually decreasing there.  We had a couple of fairly tenured staff retired, and 
then we're replacing them with less seasoned employees.  And so it's -- it's showing a 
savings in the salary line items there.  In field operations grounds, the budget increase 
to 167,000.  That's -- was a reallocation of a position from recreation, from recreation 
into field operation grounds.  And then, I think it's ultimately going to end up in the 
aquatic center is where that budget will end.   
Building, the budget increased $95,000, or five percent.  That's all primarily the 
wage and benefit increase.  Building inspection decreased by $78,000.  That's moving 
the GIS position out of building and into development services.  So it's just a reduction 
here, but we'll see an increase in development services.  Streets Department budget 
increase $173,000, that's the wage and benefit increase.  But then they also asked for an 
increase in the maintenance for streets for $75,000.  So that's a increase of the 
maintenance budget for our streets department for 75.  Yeah, that would be on 
contracts, or --  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah.  Sorry.  Mayor, Vice Mayor, council.  Yeah, contract

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services, and other services that we do in-house.  Again, kind of like what Wendy said, 
with the cost of -- of increase in supplies and stuff, so we feel comfortable.  It's a small 
increase, but we think we can -- that's enough for the for the next year, but it's just for 
both.  
ARTZ:  Transportation, there is a fairly substantial increase here in -- in the 
transportation fund.  So $650,000 increase, or 142 percent, and there's a couple of 
reasons.  The fixed Route 3 and 17.  We've gotten some preliminary information that 
the State may not be funding that, and so that we may have to pick up the cost for that, 
so that would be an increase of 450,000.  And then we've also seen the microtransit 
program has been very popular, and we're looking like we're going to exceed our budget 
in the current year, so we're just asking for $200,000 more to cover the -- the cost of the 
microtransit program.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Accessible to -- to Tollesonians.  17 runs along -- because it 
runs through Van Buren.  So 3 runs all the way through the region, down -- all the way 
to downtown.  17 runs to the northern boundary, around McDowell.  So we believe 
fewer people from Tolleson use 17.  So once we get an update -- currently there's 
a -- there's a working group at MAG trying to figure out the formula funding, and what's 
going on there, because I guess the total went from -- was it 47.5 to 5 million.  So we're 
trying to identify opportunities to increase the formula funding.   
But once we get a better idea of how that's going to work, we'll be able to make 
a recommendation to council whether or not we keep 17.  We'll probably keep Route 3, 
because it is part of, like, a major artery for us.  And it's -- it augments the -- the 
rideshare program, our microtransit program, but 17 is the one that we're, we're 
eyeballing for now.  We put this in the budget just in the event that we don't get our 
allocation.  Is that accurate?  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible).  The current funding will cover (indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  MAG figured out a way to get us to this year, so we could 
figure it out.

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DAVIS:  (Indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  No, it doesn't.   
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible).  I know a lot of people use (indiscernible). 
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible).   
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible), or the southwest valley, for that matter.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Absolutely right, Vice Mayor, members of council, Mayor.  We 
are definitely, it seems like, migrating that way.  We keep saying, what if -- what if all the 
cities figure this out, and see how effective our program is; what happens then?  But 
there's a lot of uncertainty, like the vice mayor said.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible).   
RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible) is not, then -- then we need to look at other options.  
DAVIS:  I think as a region, I think the Southwest Valley needs to -- you need to kind of 
get to get the -- the West Valley, needs to kind of get together and kind of figure out 
what we're going to do, because all of the infrastructure is in the East Valley, and in 
central Phoenix.  Phoenix just changed the plan for moving the light rail extension down 
the I-10 corridor, which would essentially -- potentially give us the opportunity to 
connect to it, to Indian School, which will totally miss us now.  So there's -- there's a lot 
of questions about how we are the fastest growing region in the country, and we don't 
have adequate public transportation.   
So luckily for us, we're small enough that we can do this microtransit system.  
But I think it is important that we don't just think about us, but we think about the 
region as a whole, because we want our -- just like we want people to be able to come 
to work in Tolleson, and we want our residents to be able to go to work wherever they 
need to get to work.  
RODRIGUEZ:  And I guess that's why I want to know what our user -- user makeup is in 
percentage.  If it's worth the investment, then let's consider.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  The whole -- and everyone -- everything that's been said is -- is

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accurate, is that the -- the -- the original intent, and it remains the primary intent of the 
microtransit program is to help our residents plug into the bigger grid.  That's been the 
case since the start root and then always the zoom route, and now our microtransit, 
which is far more effective, obviously, at doing that.  So Roue 3 three will always help to 
augment the microtransit 17.   
We could plug into it, but you could -- you could take our Uber, Lyft to -- to the 
mall, and go anywhere from there.  So Route 3 is the one that would go last, I guess, if 
we get to that point.  Hopefully, we don't.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  That's just the maintenance yard for the buses.   
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible) I'm just saying the numbers with the old route, 
and the new route has a drop off point (indiscernible), maybe (indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  It does exactly that, yes.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  15.  15.   
RODRIGUEZ:  Five minute recess.  I'll be back.  And if anybody else needs to do what 
they got to do.   
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible) .  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Not 50.   
ARTZ:  Human Services, budget increase of $392,000.  $200,000 of that is in the -- the 
request to increase the staffing levels to cover the extended hours.  Then $100,000 to 
increase program services.  So in the current year, we had a grant that covered three 
months of the extended hours that we did last year for the service center, and so we're 
having to -- to pick up that $100,000 for -- for next year as our full cost.  And then the 
rest of it was in the current year budget.  And then,  continuing the Thanksgiving meal 
program, $80,000, so that's $388,000 of the increase in human services.  
RODRIGUEZ:  I'm just going to say, until we see some change, I think we need to budget 
for the continued Thanksgiving meal program.  And then, if there's ever change down 
the road, we'll cross that bridge.  But until then, we can't have that question mark over

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our heads.  We need to have some certainty that the people of Tolleson are going to be 
able to have support when it comes to our Thanksgiving meal, and their families.  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible) amazing.  
RODRIGUEZ:  yeah. 
DAVIS:  It was an amazing experience.  I think our community really appreciated it, so.  
RODRIGUEZ:  Agreed.  
ARTZ:  No change in the nonprofit donations budget.  A recreation increase of $147,000, 
five-and-a-half percent.  That's primarily just a wage and benefit changes for all the 
employees.  Teen counsel a $1,300 increase there.  City promotions, no change in the 
budget for city promotions.  This one, we did have some discussions after I put the slides 
together.  So I -- there may be a change in this, but if there is, when we come back in 
two weeks, we'll talk about it at that time.  But there -- there may be a, an inflationary 
increase in city promotions.  It's just something that we haven't had a chance to 
completely discuss yet, but -- but will.   Development services.  Increase of $170,000.  
There was a position transfer.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible). 
ARTZ:  Travel for the GIS technician of about $2,300 there.  And that's the position that 
was transferred from building into development services, is the GIS technician.  Planning 
and engineering, a decrease of $205,000.  Again, this is the position that was transferred 
from planning and engineering to employee resources, so a net decrease of about 
$50,000 in total, in the budget, between the two.  Employee development relations, this 
is tuition reimbursement program for the city, not requesting a change there.   
And then we get into the capital.  So all of that was the operating departments, 
or operating accounts.  And so from here on, we have the general fund capital request.  
And so this first one is some money that we've had in the civic center budget that's 
basically been carried over for a couple of years, and looking at doing some covered 
parking out in the -- the parking lot with this funding.  So this is -- 175 probably isn't 
going to be enough.  We'll have to find some additional funding for that, but -- 
RODRIGUEZ:  Solar panels.

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EARP:  Right now, the -- the way we're going, it will not include any solar panels.  Is that 
correct?  I mean, yeah, we're still exploring.  We -- there's different options we're going 
with.  But I guess I should say may or may not include solar panels.  
RODRIGUEZ:  We -- we would like to see -- I would like to see it.  I mean, I know SRP has 
different programs.   
EARP:  (Indiscernible). 
RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah.  So let's -- let's continue to explore, and see what it actually would 
look like.  Yeah.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yeah.  Thank you, Mayor, members of council, and Jason, for 
that.  I think one of the things that -- and we'll bring forward additional information, but 
I think one of the things is that we were looking at is, like, SRP used to offer incentives, 
like, you know, to help build out the solar panels.  They no longer do -- do that, and 
there's conversations about, really, how much power do they actually generate in the 
benefits.  But we'll bring something forward to council.  So that's the only reason it 
wasn't just an automatic yes.  Because originally that was an automatic yes on the solar 
panels, but that's some of the stuff that we're coming to find out.  But we'll bring 
additional information forward to council. 
RODRIGUEZ:  A similar thought; has there been any discussions about finishing the 
parking lot to the apartments?  Okay.  Good.  
ARTZ:  And then, before we get into engineering, I forgot to insert the slide for library.  
There is a capital request for library, and it's $175,000 for furniture refresh in the library.  
The -- you know, with the amount of traffic they get in there, and the number of people, 
the furniture is -- is looking a little bit dated.  So there is a -- a library request for 
$175,000, to -- to refresh the furniture there.  
DAVIS:  How many people do we service in the library every day, every week, every 
month?  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor, members of council, we are up to about 400 a day, 
according to our counters.  Yes.  
ARTZ:  For engineering department, we've got a total of $15.6 million in capital requests.

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I'll focus on some of the larger ones, and won't go through everyone individually.  But if 
you have questions on any of them, let us know and we'll answer them, but -- so we've 
got $1 million in for landscaping upgrades for 91st Avenue to Latham, so that's $1 
million.  We also have a thousand in for Paseo de Luces landscaping revisions.  So, you 
know, that was feedback that we heard from Council and wanting to -- to improve the 
look of that area.  So trying to get some enhanced landscaping there on those two 
corridors.   
Then we have the 91st Avenue and Van Buren retention basin relocation.  This is part of 
the economic development project right across the street where we have that large 
retention basin, you know, trying to come up with a solution where we can take that 
retention so it's not being included in the cost of development of that property.  So this 
one is 91st and Van Buren.  So right across the street here -- the big retention basin back 
at the corner of it.   
Yeah.  So, I mean, there's been a lot of different discussions, but potentially trying to, 
you know, get -- right now that retention basin is taking some stormwater flow off from 
91st Avenue, which isn't even on the property.  And so trying to potentially get some of 
that flow into a storm drain.  So it's not just a simply another retention basin and that's 
why the cost is so much, trying to see if we can tie it in with some of the storm drains.  
But it will help us market and make the property across the street more financially 
feasible, if we can take care of that and not put that on the developer as a cost of 
handling that retention.  
Thank you, members of Council.  We were we were going to do this regardless if the 
when the grocer comes in.  
MEDRANO:  So we're going to pipe it into the big retention basin?  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  That's a possibility.  We're still exploring that.  Engineering is 
still exploring the best option.   
No, you'll have to approve the project.  So we will do that.  That hole next to 
Councilmember Gamez's house in his backyard, that's a result of us tiling the 91st 
Avenue canal, because that was a natural retention basin, for lack of a better

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description.  Once that went away, so did that retention effect.  So that's why we had to 
do that.  
MEDRANO:  I'm okay.  I think it's -- 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Fix it, yeah.  
ERIVES:  It might be on there, like, small, but I don't -- I can't read them all, but bike 
lanes.  I see that you see some sidewalks, but there are some bike lanes that go down 
from 91st to 99th, but there's not a bike lane that goes to 83rd.  I'm not sure if that's 
been thought about with regards to trafficking and such.   
But I had a person that takes her bike to work, and she says, I can go all this way.  I can 
take my child to, you know, bike, bike, bike, but I can't go this way.  And she wasn't sure 
if there was -- and I didn't have an answer with regards to we don't have bike lanes 
going this way, because maybe we're building the aquatic center and it's still under 
construction, they haven't figured it out, you know.  I'm not sure.  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Do you want to address that? 
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Yes.  Thank you, Mayor.  Council Member, Erives.  We'll 
definitely -- I know it's been talked about, so I'll get with our Streets Department and 
look at the possibility.  If it hasn't.  I don't think it's complete, but we'll definitely need to 
get a third-party study on that.  Everything from safety and cost.  But we'll definitely get 
that and bring that back to you guys.  
ARTZ:  Aquatic Center commercial building that came before you tonight, we've got $3 
million in the budget next year to get that.  And we can probably --we can start on it 
before, but we'll need that $3 million budget next year to finish the project.   
Then we have 1.1 million in for 99th Avenue and Pierce a traffic signal.  And the other 
big one is the one on the bottom there, the Tolleson pedestrian bridge.  This is the one 
that has the grant.  So we have a $3.5 million grant, but we're needing a $2 million 
contribution of local funds.  So the total project is more in the $5.5 million range, three 
and a half coming from the grant and then $2 million coming from city funds.  
SINAWI:  Mayor, Vice Mayor, Members of Council.  So Randy has provided the artwork 
of the letters.  He been working -- I believe it was with J2.

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And then so one of the things, though, before bringing it forward is I ended up sharing it 
with an artist that is -- because we've never -- I don't think we've done this really in the 
past, like, to have an artist also provide input on this type of feature, right, where we 
haven't had this kind of feature.  So he provided some artistic feedback.  So I think that 
might delay it a little bit better, but I think -- longer -- but I think it makes it better.  Like 
this artist was recommending that maybe we infuse, you know, some of the papel 
picado that we see and celebrate Tolleson and that can make our Tolleson sign stand 
out.  So he just shared the feedback, I think it was, yesterday.   
And then so if we do move forward with it -- with the, you know, the papel picado.  And 
then he even mentioned, like, that we could even add lighting inside.  So then it makes 
our signs stand out from all the other ones.   
So, yes, originally, yes.  But if we do move forward with this consideration, it might just 
take a little longer if we do move forward with papel picado element.   
Yes.  Mm-hmm.  Yeah.   
And then Randy already has all of the conceptual designs.  It was just that additional 
piece, like, okay, what would an artist -- what would an artist give feedback on to make 
it better.   
Mm-hmm.  Yeah.  Yeah.  That's -- yeah.  Because he was just saying, like, how do we 
make it stand out from all the -- any of the other ones that have been created anywhere 
else.  
BABCHUK:  And it -- Mayor, Members of the Council, it'd be a night piece, as well.  So 
once during the day it goes out, and then lights would come on and still be a destination 
for night, so.  
ERIVES:  I had one -- and I'm not sure, again, if this would fall under this, but there was 
a -- we had a Tolleson Talks where one of our -- I think -- oh, god -- her name is Renee 
Painter (ph.) ,  if I'm not mistaken.  She had asked regarding there's a playground that 
doesn't have a shade structure.  And we drove by yesterday and, again, it still doesn't 
have a shade structure and it's getting warmer, right?  So as we're -- wasn't sure.  
BABCHUK:  Thank you.  Mayor, Council Member Erives, yeah, we had put it out for bid,

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and it's about 28,000 right now.  So we're looking in the budget to see if we have it this 
year.  If not, we did put in the CIP.   
Thank you, Mayor and Members of the Council.  We did share with Renee Painter the 
conceptual of different colors and everything else at one of your mayor talks.  So we did 
provide a poster that for her and let her know what -- where we were in the process of 
it as well.  
ARTZ:  IP -- we've had the land and acquisition improvements.  This is just kind of a 
budget in case some land comes up for sale that we hadn't planned on.  Just gives 
Council some flexibility that if we want to purchase some land that we have some 
available budget for that.   
And then the ED project that's a project that's in the current year for $15 million.  We're 
just carrying those funds over.  Again, this just gives flexibility to Council that if we can't 
develop the project -- ED the project in a, you know, a more traditional way where the 
developer builds and does all of the costs, that we have some flexibility that we can be 
creative and potentially do it a different way to make a deal work.  So I think the hope is 
that we don't have to spend this, but it's there to provide flexibility for Council.   
In finance, we have a $300,000 of our financial system that's -- the project's basically 
done.  We just need to get some of the data out of the previous system into a database, 
so that we have access to that information so that we can go back a couple of years if 
Council or anyone in management wants to know something that happened past three 
years ago when we implemented the new system.   
Information technology, $80,000 for network equipment, field operations.  We've got -- 
this is where the other pedestrian walkway is, and this one is all funded with local funds.  
So we've got $5.7 million of local funds in for the construction of that.   
And then just some smaller items there, if you have any questions on any of those.   
In Parks and Rec, just some maintenance for AC units.  And then this is where we have 
this -- the shade structure for the community park.   
Sorry.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I got a couple Tesla's out there.  I know -- I had met somebody

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mentioned some Ford pickup trucks, lightnings that we might be getting on?  
MENDOZA:  Yes, Mayor and Council, we have -- I believe it's four Ford F-150 lightning, 
full electric pickup trucks and two -- three Tesla's.  They're working out well for us.  I 
think the size of our city -- well, we felt when we were exploring this project, we felt like 
the size of our city was perfect because, you know, the limited battery capacity is 
compared to gas.  And we've worked out a system with officers that have these vehicles 
assigned have worked out a system where they're able to come back, do some 
paperwork, charge, and then get back out on the road.  So it's going well.  We did -- our 
last vehicles that we did purchase were hybrid vehicles.  So we're having a mixed fleet, 
but we're trying to, you know, reduce our emissions as much as possible and our fuel 
costs.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  There is literally a 24/7 operation when it comes to vehicles.  We 
should be able to see it in other departments like Public Works, and Streets, and stuff 
like that too.  
MENDOZA:  A lot of outside agencies and chiefs thought we were crazy for going with 
the electric vehicle, but I can tell you that it's been nothing but successful.  And there 
was some pushback from our officers because they felt like this was not going to work, 
and they're going to be stranded out in the middle of an intersection with no battery.  
But now, you know, all those things have been proven to be not correct.  And in fact, 
they're fighting over them.  So everybody wants a Tesla.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I will say during the 5K, I saw some police officers that were on, 
what I would probably say, some pretty scary little devices.  And I like it.  I like the idea 
of being able to be mobile like that.  I know they start off with Segways at one time, and 
then I showed you a picture of a little mini car in -- in Guadalajara.  And now we saw 
these this week, and I think all of us saw them.  Very practical.  Does the job right.  Kind 
of fearful.  They get up to like 45  miles an hour -- 60 miles an hour.  Yeah.  So, you 
know, but I understand if you're chasing somebody, I guess you need the speed.  I don't 
know, but taking a little fall off of that sucker at 40, 50, 60 miles an hour, it's going to 
hurt a bit.  Yeah.

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MENDOZA:  So Mayor and Council, you're talking about the trikes that we were 
demoing.   
Those are mostly at -- our -- from our perspective, yes, they can go that fast.  We don't 
intend on using them for those types of applications, like chasing people down or 
anything.  They're more of visibility.  Like the officer is at a higher level than the crowd 
now, so they're looking down onto the crowd.  And also, people can identify the officers 
quicker.  So you're seeing these at, like -- yeah.  And you can see these there at the 
casino right now.  I think Tucson Airport just put a bunch of them over there.  There's a 
lot of places that are where there's crowd areas where these definitely make sense.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  But we didn't learn from it because through Tucson, right?  We 
learned on our own?  
Okay.  I think it's a great tool.  I just know that if we do go that route, which I kind of 
hope we -- that we do, you're right.  There's certain applications to use for it.  And I 
would say part of the training would be reduced speed.  It's pretty scary, you know?  
CHAVIRA:  Yes.  The EV chargers, are they going to be available to the public or are those 
specific to maybe police for our vehicles?  
BABCHUK:  Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Chavira.  It'll all be in forward facing 
departments.  So police would get one.  We have one slated for downtown by Paseo de 
Luces and then the park.  So it'll all be for the community.  
ARTZ:  Where the shade structure is in at $28,000.  So as Randy mentioned, if we can do 
it in the current year, we'll find the money and do that.  But --  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  My personal goal is -- 
When do the Tolleson Talks start again?  When's our next Tolleson Talks?  
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Mayor, yes, it'll be in the fall.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah.  My goal is to hopefully get that in by before the first 
Tolleson Talks, because we've been kind of talking about how we took input from the 
community, Tolleson Talks, and now it's manifesting itself into a benefit to our 
community.  So I want to next time we have Tolleson Talks, I'd like to go in and say, hey, 
you know, goal achieved.

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BABCHUK:  Absolutely, Mayor.  We'll have, again, another poster just to let them know 
their input, you know, provided to us, and we'll show them the results of, what they had 
for us that day.  
ARTZ:  Four million in contingency.  So in the current year, we increased it to four 
million.  So we're just leaving it at that amount.  Again, it's -- contingency just provides 
flexibility to Council so that if an opportunity comes up Council would be able to direct 
staff to spend the contingency on that.   
ARTZ:  So as far as the proposed timeline, we'll come back on April 28th and do the next 
budget work session --  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  It's okay if it is.  I think we all agree that you are by far top 
presenter.  We enjoy presenting information for us.  
ARTZ:  May 12th, we'll come back and ask City Council to adopt the tentative budget.  
Then on June 9th, we'll do the final budget and the property tax hearing.  And then have 
the property tax levy done on June 23rd.   
Just a quick reminder, we talked about it last meeting at the revenue.  We're proposing 
no increase in the property tax rate, so that's staying flat and would not be an increase.   
But with that, staff is available if you have any other questions or if there's anything else 
that you want us to address at the next meeting.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I personally want to thank you for all your hard work.  It's a lot of 
information.  There's a lot of, you know, conversations with our department heads and 
really figuring out the nuts and bolts.   
It's a significant, I think, increase from past budgets, but we are building an aquatic 
facility and a couple other things.  We just bought a building that we have to outfit.  So 
there's certain expenses that are in line with what we need to be doing.   
But in general, I think we're in very good footings as far as our revenues.  I agree with 
you, I think our revenues are going to be higher next year than they were this year.  So 
we're going to be in better than expected, which is going to be north of $70 million.   
So if we have some extra expenditures, I think this is the time for us to consider them.  I 
think one was thrown out there.  And so, I think we're in a good place, but it all starts

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with all the work that you guys do as department heads, as our fiscal folks, and of 
course, your team putting great things together.  So thank you very much.  You've done 
an amazing job.   
I saw some hands.  Was that you, Jimmy?  You already asked for money, dude.  
DAVIS:  No.  I just wanted to know if, like, where we're at with movement on finishing 
the park -- the veteran's park.  Is there any discussions to do any of that anytime soon?  
The next couple of years?   
And I -- if I get asked about pickleball courts one more time, I don't know.  I don't know 
what I'm going to do.  
BABCHUK:  Mayor, Members of the Council, Vice Mayor Davis, once the Aquatic Center 
was built out, we're going to take a look at using some general funds to work on the 
park.   
Yeah.  
MEDRANO:  Thank you.  That's a good point, (indiscernible).   
The general plan process is going to be a great opportunity for us to solicit community 
input regarding that project and several others.  The Aquatic Center still remains -- and 
we're getting closer.  We're going to have our first full year pretty soon of knowing how 
much it's going to cost to operate.  I mean, you can see we were just talking about it this 
morning -- what was it?  What was our bond authority?  22 million?  And now the 
building itself is already up to, like, 38 million.  And that -- above 22 mil, that's general 
fund dollars.  So until we know, like, the actual cost to construct, I think we'll feel more 
comfortable moving in that direction for the park.  But if Council wants us to look at that 
sooner, we certainly can do that.  That's what we -- that was our thinking going forward.  
But the general plan is for this year -- so that we can use that process to -- when we did 
the first park -- the first phase of the park, we put together a citizen input committee.  
The general plan will offer us an opportunity to solicit a wider scope of the community 
to be able to get them.  Like anything else, this building, Paseo de Luces, everything 
we've done, we engage the community to help design it.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Basically, the design side of it and then down the road after we

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get part -- or after we get done with some of our big goals, like, the Aquatic Facility, 
then we can look into construction, and contracting, and, you know, manager at risk and 
all that stuff.  But I certainly think the public process and the draft part of it to come up 
with a viable rendering that we can say this is what it's going to include, this is what it's 
going to look like, we can definitely start moving in that direction.   
What do you guys think?  Yeah.  
CHAVIRA:  I don't think the public will -- I think they will understand if we say we've got 
to finish this Aquatic Center.  Yeah, but give us your -- give us your input, tell us what 
you'd like to see, and when we finish this project, it's something that we'll work on.  But 
at least they see movement and response.  Yeah.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  We're not quite ready to go yet.   
CHAVIRA:  Yeah.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  (Indiscernible).  We want to build.  So we're ready to go.  We've 
got the design.   
CHAVIRA:  Yeah.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Any other questions or comments?  
CHAVIRA:  No, I'm good.  
Thank you, Kevin.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Okay.  So Mayor and City Manager's Report Item K, I think we've 
already had a little bit of that.  I do want to say before we get started, thank you to 
Jimmy and those that attended the Rally's Grand opening, I think happened Monday.  
Yeah.  And according to the folks that I talked to, the burgers are great and the chicken 
tenders are -- strips are amazing also.  I haven't had the pleasure, but tonight might be 
the night if we get out of here soon.  I don't know what time they close, but I'm always 
down for a late-night snack.  
DAVIS:  You can order on their app and pick up (indiscernible).   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Nice.  
DAVIS:  (Indiscernible) two window.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  No, I know.  So maybe I'll get a chance to eat, right?

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And another thing, I mean, now, if you want to have comments about Whoopee Daze, 
this would be it.   
I'll start it off since some folks already indulge some really good comments on that.  
Sometimes, you know, when you get lemons, you make lemonade, right?  So, you know, 
we had a little incident.  Randy tried to blame it on me.  He said that I stepped on the 
microphone cord and messed up the breakers.   
And then I thought about it, like, you know what, I probably did.  And then I realized it 
was a cordless mic.  Randy's good.  He made me feel guilty.  I know I didn't do it.  
But anyways, make a long story short, the breakers or the fuses went out, we had 
Sammy Arriaga, a young musician, a Cuban Texan, who said, you know what, let's go 
downstairs, let's get off of the stage.  Took his violinist, and I think the conga player -- or 
the musicians, and they went acoustic.   
And I'll be honest with you, I had never heard of the guy, you know, and it's my fault.  I 
should have at least YouTube-ed him, right?   But it was very obvious to me that there 
were two populations in our audience, those that were very big fans of this individual 
and his band, and those that were just generalists.  I was in the generalist in the back. 
But as soon as he came downstage, I mean, the whole front just came around him.  And 
very respectfully, they formed a nice circle around him, and he just started stringing that 
guitar and singing his voice, no microphone, no amplified music, just good old-fashioned 
acoustic country music.  And I think people that were here to see him, maybe a lot of 
them from out of town, responded very well to it.   
And I saw it on Facebook.  I saw it on his page.  I saw it on our page.  They created an 
opportunity for us to highlight the greatness of the weekend.  And so even when you 
get lemons, our staff found a way, and the presenter found a way to make lemonade 
out of it, and I think everybody really enjoyed it.  Then the power came back on, and he 
still did his full show, which was amazing.   
So now I'm a Facebook fan.  So I know a lot more about Mr. Arriaga than I did before.  
But I think in short order, a lot of folks are going to know about him because he's an 
amazing talent, and he did a really good job for us.

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But that's just one small little nugget, right?  I mean, it was mentioned about the food 
area.  I think that was an amazing move, the fact that it's fenced in.  So if you are 
drinking alcohol, you can take it in there and it doesn't have to -- it doesn't create 
another process of, okay, how are we going to get that area approved?  It's already 
approved because it's fenced in.  We have security guards in the right locations to make 
sure nobody leaves with alcohol on their hand, but it allows to get more food trucks.  
The only complaint that I did get, and I think this is a tossing complaint, is that there was 
nowhere to get what we would consider traditional Mexican fare, like, green chili 
burritos, red chili.   
I told him, there's Indian tacos, you know.  
And they're, like, it's not the same thing.  A popover is not the same thing as a green 
chili burrito.  
MEDRANO:  I beg to differ.  Sorry.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah.  It's okay.  Maybe some menudo, you know, something to 
that effect.   So maybe I think there's got to be food trucks out there that serve more 
traditional fare.  But I had the barbecue.  I had some pizza.  I did have a popover.  And 
the food was excellent.  It's just, you know, where we're at, you know.   So maybe next 
year we include that portion of it also.  So it created a central focal point for people that 
were foodies, like myself, to go and eat and really put some money in the vendor's 
pockets as they provided us with good service and good food.  So I thought that was an 
amazing idea.   
All the entertainers in general, I think were great.  The audience Sunday night was 
amazing.  You know,  I've heard of Ozomatli, and I -- but I can't tell you that I've ever sat 
down and said, I'm going to listen to Ozomatli tonight.  I'm going to rock out with 
Ozomatli.  Never occurred to me.   
But Ozomatli had their own following.  And I got to say, this is probably one of the most 
populated (indiscernible) that I've seen in a very, very long time.  They had an amazing 
crowd, and they got to jumping, and partying, and it was amazing.   
I can say it was a tiring weekend.  Some of us did the 5K run -- or in my case, the 5K

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walk.  And then you turn around and, you know, you then you're on the parade and, you 
know, you're sitting there throwing candy.  My arm was sore and I was sunburn.  And 
then, you know, you got to be back on stage by 6:00.  So you go home, and you eat 
something, you know, and then you go out there, and it's like, okay, hey, you know.   
So Saturday night, I was ready to crash out, and  I slept like a baby, you know?  So every 
night was just a new opportunity, a new adventure.  So it worked out really good.   
But I'm going to be quiet because I want some other folks to have an opportunity.   
Yes, Council Member -- Vice Mayor?  
DAVIS:  I just want to, you know, great work -- great work, putting it all together.   
Your team did a fantastic job, Randy.   
The music choices were exceptional.  There was something for everybody.  If you were 
young, if you were old, everything in between, there was something for everyone on 
that lineup.  And I think that was amazing.   
I will say just a personal point the Tolleson's Got Talent was probably my favorite thing 
of the whole weekend.  Getting to emcee that and just seeing the amazing young talent 
that we have from this community.  Yeah.  Especially Gabe (ph.) son.  He was rocking 
out on the accordion.  So it was amazing to see a young person doing some of that more 
traditional music, right?  So kind of keeping that tradition alive.   
So just all in all, just a wonderful event.  I know I was a little bummed that there was no 
kickball tournament.  But actually, I probably couldn't even have done kickball because I 
thought it was a good idea to run during the 5K.  I don't being thin and in shape are two 
different things, I realize that.  But yeah.   
But no great event, everyone.  Fantastic job, everyone.  It's amazing.  Good work.  You 
all should be very proud of you.  
CHAVIRA:  I already, you know, said you guys did a great job.  I enjoyed myself all 
weekend.  I thought the music was outstanding as well.  I follow Arriaga on Facebook, so 
I was excited to see him.   
I had never heard of Ozomatli.  I'm sorry to say that.  I Googled them.  Pleasantly 
surprised.  They were really good.  So truly enjoyed myself.  I enjoyed also the Tolleson's

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Got Talent.  I thought that was a great addition.   
So thank you.  You guys did a great job.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I didn't know Jimmy actually emceed the Tolleson's Got Talent 
portion, so thank you for doing that, getting on stage and getting those kids to do some 
excellent performances.   
Erives, do you have anything else?  
ERIVES:  Everything y'all said.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  Fantastic music.   
So I think I just would like to dovetail on the -- on Sammy.  Like, I know you all said that 
that performance and how he comes down, but I think that also is a test to who you're 
selecting as musicians to come to Tolleson.  So you're looking at the caliber of musicians.  
And then he showcased how amazing he is.  He could have went back.  So this would be 
this -- Sammy, the sound system goes off, he could have gone back to, you know, the 
VIP tent, and just waited till somebody told him what to do or, you know.  But again, 
he's professional.  So he came down the stage, and then he kind of casually just, like, 
okay, y'all ready for me, you know.  And again, testament to his musicianship, he 
didn't  -- the entire dance floor was filled with people just singing along with him.  Who 
you're bringing to Tolleson is also important.  So that was beautiful to see.   
And then y'all were running in the background because y'all are professional as well.  
And you're, like, how do we problem solve this?  How do we figure this out?  And then 
you're in the back and within, I think it took three songs, and it was back up and ready 
for Sammy to perform.   
And then Sammy says, thank you for your -- for your patience, you know, to the entire 
crowd.  So he's even -- but he said that that moment was special.   
So again, a testament to the quality of musicians that you're bringing on for Whoopee 
Daze.  It was fantastic.   
The food, I got the barbecue as well.  And so the lady, I'm not even sure her name.  She 
goes, you're having a Juneteenth event?  We would like to be involved as well.  So here, 
not just they want to serve their food.  They want to get involved within Tolleson.   
And oh -- those teens that are over there selling.  They were so nice.  So again, our teens

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are showcasing their wonderful spirit of community.  And so it was a moment for 
shining, that Tolleson was just right.   
The people that talked to me was, like, I didn't know you guys did this event.  I think 
they were here for also Motley (ph.).  Oh, when did you guys do Whoopee?  What is 
Whoopee?  When I gave her a shirt, oh, my God, I got a Whoopee Daze shirt.  She was 
just so excited.  That it was an exciting opportunity for people to come experience 
Tolleson.  Remember, discover Tolleson.  They did.  It was fantastic.   
And your hard work from the entire team.  There was a trash can that was a little stinky.  
One of the workers comes over, and he cleans it out.  It was instant.  They were just 
constantly moving to make the place -- the festivities a wonderful experience.   
So thank you.  Thank you.  And I know you all are exhausted.  It's amazing.   
But I bet you guys are already saying, what are we going to do next year?  I can imagine 
that you all are already having that conversation.  So great job.  Thank you.  Thank you.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah, that experience was amazing.   
I'm just going to say one of (indiscernible), because some of you guys are looking, like, I 
want to go home.  But this will be quick.   
I was sitting there and, you know, from time to time I invite people to come out.  And 
there was one coworker from my main job that came out, finally.  Took him five years to 
get out here.  But he's sitting there and we're just talking.  We're just going back and 
forth, and the music is playing.  And there's a member of our senior program who is 
getting up there in age.  And, you know, I'm not going to say his name, but he's a little 
sickly.  And he was walking really slow.  And as he was walking, strangers were coming 
up and moving the chairs out of the way, opening up a path so that him and his wife can 
walk safely to the back, and then escorting him down to the side to make sure he got on 
a level sidewalk.   
And he looks over at me, and he goes, you know what, dude?  That's beautiful.  Now I 
see why you love Tolleson so much.  Because our people are those kinds of people.   
You know, we attend events all the time and, oh, you're sick, you're old, you're slow, 
figure it out.  But no, our people care that much to where they stopped whatever they

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were doing and made sure that they were taken care of.  That's beautiful.  That's 
Tolleson.   
So anyways, thank you all for your input.   
Randy, you guys did an amazing job.  
BABCHUK:  Thank you, Mayor and Members of the Council.  
And I, you know, think that this is a way that we can tell our story and how times are 
changing.  And it's a beautiful time and place to be in Tolleson.  And I think everyone 
there would agree that they just had an amazing time.   
There was a lady from Chicago who came down just to see Sammy.  She was in line with 
him, and she just loved the experience that, again, him coming down, and not skipping a 
beat, and just being there for the community and, you know, celebrating with us.   
So and I think, you know, with the new times and younger generations coming out with 
new music and things like that, and I think we're trying to just show our diversity in 
music and how we're meeting our public and residents, you know.  And it's just a 
testament to leadership and you guys giving us, you know, the freedom to go out and 
find those acts, again, that are professional, that aren't going to run to the back and, you 
know, say call me when the sounds back on, but they're going to take those extra steps 
to, you know, get on with our community.   
So thank you guys a lot.  Thank you to every department.  There's literally every 
department had their hand in Whoopee Daze.  It's not just Parks and Rec but from 
Finance to, you know, Police, Public Safety.  Fire was out there making sure -- there was 
only one kid who lost their parents, so that was positive.  So the parents got lost.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  It was pretty awesome that it came up on the board, lost child, 
you know, this is their name.  I mean, it was a quick response from the moment that the 
kid came up here.  Here's a sign, so everybody knows.  Announcements were made.  
People were told where to go.  I mean, it was very well planned out.  If this situation 
happens, what are we going to do?  You saw it right there.  Yeah. 
BABCHUK:  Absolutely.  Just like you said, you know, with any hiccup, you know, we kind 
of cringe at it and we can't predict everything.  But it was best case scenario.  So, you

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know.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  I live for these moments.  Who would have thought?  Yeah.  You 
know, I'd be playing acoustic here, and people would love it.  I live for these moments.  
What a great opportunity.  So he was a great guy.  
DAVIS:  One other thing is that no one got hit in the face by a (indiscernible) 
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Yes.  Yes.  I stressed it and stressed it.  And look, I think it's 
because we were all on the floor throwing candy, so we're kind of sore.  So, you know, 
we couldn't really throw that hard.  But we threw out probably the better part of 90 
shirts, and they were caught, and people enjoyed them.  And it's I think it's become a 
new tradition.  
BABCHUK:  Very much a lot of positive feedback about the change in the 5K run route.  
They -- everyone loved that route, from the people who coordinated it to the people 
who were running it.  They loved being just in that downtown area.  And then they got 
to, you know, enjoy the parade afterwards.  So usually, they stay at the park, and they 
don't see the parade.  It used to come down to the park, but now it turns off to Tolleson 
Steel.  But they love the fact that they got to be part of that parade as well.   
So, you know, streets guys did an amazing job closing the street down -- streets down, 
coordinating all that.   
And library helped out with Dia de Los Ninos.  Thank you, Mandy, for your staff.  I mean, 
they were staffed on Saturday here and then had to go down to the park.   
So, I mean, it's just big help from everybody, not just, you know, Parks and Rec, but 
definitely shout out to Frances (ph.) and Abby (ph.).  They did an amazing job.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  What do we have coming down the road? 
BABCHUK:  We have 4th of July that will be celebrating on the 3rd.  So we're gearing up 
for that.  It'll be a hot one.  So we're working on that.   
Oh, we do have a beam signing event at the Aquatics, Wednesday the 22nd at 10 a.m.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  And you were asking?  
DAVIS:  Do we have a June -- anything for Juneteenth that we're doing this year?  
BABCHUK:  We'll look into that and see.  We'll get with Mandy.  I know they did one at

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the -- it was a week-long kind of event where we celebrated all week versus just on one 
day.  So we had a bunch of different events happening throughout the week.  
CARRICO:  Mayor, Members of Council, thank you very much.  That is Cynthia (ph.), our 
outreach specialist, who puts that together and she does an amazing job.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  All right.  Reyes, anything?   
MEDRANO:  Yes, just one thing.  I'd be remiss if I didn't commend Council for the 
approval of the IGA with the Tolleson Elementary School District to ensure that our 
preschool age children continue to enjoy the fruits of Tolleson investment in their 
future.  Because their future is our future.  So I wanted to reassure Council, even though 
it was on consent, it will be appropriately displayed on every media we have access to.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  And a couple things that we can put on media.  I really like the 
public safety part one.  I mean, I think it's --  
MEDRANO:  Oh.  Yeah, we're blowing that up.  We said the same thing when Kevin 
showed us a slide earlier.  It's huge.  And regardless of how it came about.  We made 
that commitment years ago and said we're going to be way ahead -- way ahead of the 
2030 deadline.  And we technically have been for a while, but to see the actual numbers 
hit the 100 percent range is astounding.  You should be very proud of that.  I know you 
are, but.  
BABCHUK:  No.   
This is a letter that I just want to recognize.  We are one of 27 cities in Arizona who are 
recognized as a Tree City USA city.  
MEDRANO:  Yes, that's a big one.  
BABCHUK:  That's huge.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  That's huge.  Shade is critical in the hottest state in the union.  
And, you know, I think our city is very walkable.  A lot of that has to do with the design 
of major trees down beautiful corridors like our Van Buren, Paseo de Luces.  I mean, I 
see people walking their dogs and just walking out there all the time, and it's a beautiful 
thing.  They can sit in a chair, you know, and be in shade.  And a lot of cities can't say 
that.  It takes an initiative and it takes a true intention to be able to be a walkable city.

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So being a Tree City USA is a huge thing.  I think we should celebrate that too.   
So all right.  That's enough of all that fun stuff.  Let's move on to Al.   
Now is the time for council to convene into executive session.  We are asking members 
of the public and those that are not involved in the executive session to please exit the 
meeting at this time.  The only action item after the executive session will be to adjourn 
today's meeting.   
Do we have a motion to go into executive session? 
DAVIS:  So moved. 
ERIVES:  So moved.  
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  Vice Mayor Jimmy Davis and Council Member Davis seconded.   
All those in favor signify by saying eye.   
ALL:  Aye.   
MAYOR RODRIGUEZ:  We are now in executive session.  
 
APPROVED: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
____________________________________ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUAN F. RODRIGUEZ, MAYOR 
 
ATTEST: 
____________________________________ 
CRYSTAL ZAMORA, CITY CLERK 
 
 
 
CERTIFICATION 
 
I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING MINUTES ARE A TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF 
THE MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TOLLESON, 
ARIZONA, HELD ON APRIL 15, 2026. I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT THE MEETING WAS DULY 
CALLED AND HELD, AND THAT A QUORUM WAS PRESENT. 
 
 
____________________________________ 
CRYSTAL ZAMORA, CITY CLERK

CITY OF TOLLESON 
 
APRIL 15, 2026 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 
 
 
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