04 08 25 City Council Meeting Minutes
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1 TOLLESON CITY COUNCIL MEETING ACTION MINUTES TOLLESON CIVIC CENTER 9055 WEST VAN BUREN STREET, TOLLESON, AZ 85353 ZOOM WEBINAR ID: 840 6967 9194 TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2025 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/w/84069679194) with a computer or cell phone. A. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Rodriguez called the Tolleson City Council Meeting to order at 6:00 PM. B. INVOCATION/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE The Invocation was delivered by City Attorney Pierce, and the Pledge of Allegiance was led by Council Member Chavira. C. ROLL CALL Department Directors: City Manager Reyes Medrano Jr., Deputy City Manager/Employee Resources Director Wendy Jackson, Deputy City Manager/Chief Government Affairs Officer Pilar Sinawi, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Artz, Chief Preparedness Officer/Human Services Director George Good, Chief Technical Officer Steve Holliday, 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 Justin Pierce 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 9055 W. Van Buren St., Tolleson, AZ 85353 • (623) 936-7111 • TTY users, dial 711 for Relay • www.tolleson.az.gov 2 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 2025 as Fair Housing Month in the City of Tolleson to ensure equal opportunities in housing, urging all citizens of this community to comply with the letter and spirit of the Fair Housing Law. – Noel Schaus, Housing Revitalization Manager Mayor Rodriguez proclaimed April 2025 as Fair Housing Month in the City of Tolleson. 2. Introduction of New Employees: Fire Department – Joseph Palacio, Firefighter Human Services Department – Lourdes Valenzuela, Assistant Cook 3. Recognition of K-9 Sem’s Retirement – Rudy Mendoza, Police Chief G. BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR – PUBLIC HEARINGS AND ACTION ITEMS 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 25, 2025. (City Clerk Department) 2. Approve Claims and Bills Report for the period of March 19, 2025 to April 1, 2025. (Finance Department) 3 3. Approve First Amendment to the Cooperative Purchasing Agreement between the City of Tolleson and Matlick Enterprises, dba United Fire Company, for solutions for emergency response, firefighting and safety equipment and supplies, and authorize the City Manager to execute and deliver said Agreement. The City desires to amend the existing Agreement to increase the annual aggregate amount from $100,000 to $250,000 for equipment and supplies. (Fire Department) 4. Amend the City of Tolleson Employee Handbook, Section 617, by adopting a Smoking and Tobacco Use Policy prohibiting smoking and the use of tobacco and nicotine products by employees, contractors, and volunteers during working hours on all City- owned, leased, or controlled property, effective July 1, 2025. (Employee Resources Department) Council Member Laborin moved to approve Consent Agenda items 1. through 4.; the motion was seconded by Council Member Gámez. The motion carried 7 to 0. Mayor Rodriguez – Aye Vice Mayor Davis – Aye Council Member Chavira – Aye Council Member Erives – Aye Council Member Gámez – Aye Council Member Laborin – Aye Council Member Mendoza – Aye I. REGULAR AGENDA – ACTION ITEMS 1. Adopt/Deny Ordinance No. 618 N.S. of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Tolleson, Arizona, amending the Code of Tolleson, Arizona, by amending Chapter 2 - Administration by adding a new Article 2-10 - Regulation of Smoking and Use of Tobacco Products at or near City Facilities; providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances; providing authorization; providing for severability; providing for penalties; and setting an effective date of July 1, 2025. (Emergency Preparedness Department) Vice Mayor Davis moved to adopt Ordinance No. 618 N.S.; the motion was seconded by Council Member Erives. The motion carried 7 to 0. Mayor Rodriguez – Aye Vice Mayor Davis – Aye Council Member Chavira – Aye Council Member Erives – Aye Council Member Gámez – Aye Council Member Laborin – Aye Council Member Mendoza – Aye 2. Adopt/Deny Resolution No. 2599 of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Tolleson, Arizona, authorizing the negotiation of and the acquisition of real property located at 9258 West Van Buren Street, Tolleson, AZ, Maricopa County Parcel No. 102-49-031, 4 for public purposes; authorizing and directing the Mayor, City Manager, City Engineer, and City Attorney to negotiate and acquire title to certain parcels of real property on behalf of the City by donation, eminent domain, or purchase for an amount not to exceed $2,025,000, plus acquisition and closing costs; and authorizing the use of contingency funds for said acquisition. (Development Services Department) Council Member Gámez moved to adopt Resolution No. 2599; the motion was seconded by Council Member Laborin. The motion carried 7 to 0. Mayor Rodriguez – Aye Vice Mayor Davis – Aye Council Member Chavira – Aye Council Member Erives – Aye Council Member Gámez – Aye Council Member Laborin – Aye Council Member Mendoza – Aye J. WORK STUDY AND PRESENTATIONS – FOR DISCUSSION 1. FY 2026 Second Budget Work Study – Kevin Artz, Chief Financial Officer 2. Discussion on Mayoral Term Limits – Requested by Mayor Juan F. Rodriguez | Presented by Justin Pierce, City Attorney K. MAYOR AND CITY MANAGER’S REPORT OF CURRENT EVENTS – FOR DISCUSSION 1. Community Events Update – Randy Babchuk, Field Operations/Parks & Recreation Director L. ADJOURNMENT Council Member Gámez moved to adjourn the Regular City Council Meeting; the motion was seconded by Council Member Laborin. The motion carried 7 to 0. Mayor Rodriguez – Aye Vice Mayor Davis – Aye Council Member Chavira – Aye Council Member Erives – Aye Council Member Gámez – Aye Council Member Laborin – Aye Council Member Mendoza – Aye The meeting was adjourned at 8:44 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 5 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. 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 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 FELIX CONSTRUCTION COMPANY $44,882.93 184087 03/27/2025 AZ PUBLIC SAFETY PERSONNEL RETIREMENT SYSTEM $39,973.90 100412 03/26/2025 AZ PUBLIC SAFETY RETIREMENT, POLICE $31,167.65 100413 03/26/2025 ARIZONA RESTAURANT SUPPLY, INC. $29,758.00 184075 03/27/2025 ADVANCED ENVIRO CURE LLC $25,650.00 100406 03/26/2025 CORE & MAIN LP $19,049.92 184081 03/27/2025 CORE & MAIN LP $18,917.58 184081 03/27/2025 CORE & MAIN LP $15,309.47 184081 03/27/2025 METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE $14,971.94 184035 03/20/2025 JACOBS ENGINEERING GROUP INC $11,770.00 100418 03/26/2025 CITY OF TOLLESON-MEDICAL $10,788.58 100393 03/21/2025 City of Tolleson Checks Recorded Check Dates: March 19, 2025 to April 1, 2025 PAYMENTS OVER $10,000 CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 1 of 63 Post-Production File City of Tolleson City Council Meeting Minutes April 8, 2025 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 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 2 of 63 MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Party started? Good evening, everybody. I Mayor Juan Rodriguez and today is April 8. And I would like to call the City Council meeting to order. We would like to begin today by wishing our very own Council Member, Adolfo Gamez, happy birthday. I'm just going to lead us on a birthday -- happy birthday song. ALL: Happy birthday to you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So I had to break his heart and tell him that this bone is not for him, but I did give him a bowl of mints. And he's a very charitable kind of guy, so I'm going to take one of them. Happy birthday. GÁMEZ: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: In addition to that, I know we embarrassed Randy pretty much at Whoopee Daze by climbing the stage and singing happy birthday in front of the entire Tolleson community. But Randy, happy birthday. ALL: Happy birthday. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All right. Okay. And if I -- I won't forget if I don't do it now, but I know we have a lot of public safety officers in the back. Everybody welcome. And we also have our Teen Council here. So you guys are very, very safe tonight. Okay. Okay. Okay. So this -- let's rock and roll. Leading us in the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance -- our City Attorney, Justin Pierce, leading us in the invocation, and then we're going to ask a Council Member Chavira to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. PIERCE: Our beloved Father who art in heaven, we are grateful to be able to meet together this evening once again to exercise the freedoms that we do not take for granted, that we know do not exist in all of the world. We're grateful that we can be here and for this Council that has been elected to care for the needs of the people of the great City of Tolleson and we pray for thy greatest blessings to be upon this wonderful city, all who work here, all who live here, all who come into this area that they will be blessed. Please bless those, especially so many that are with us here tonight, that protect us and keep us safe and keep our freedoms safe as well. We pray CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 3 of 63 for them that they will be able to return home each day to their families and we pray that the decisions today will be made in accordance with thy will and in the best interests of those that are interested and we pray for these favors and blessings and do so in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. ALL: Amen. CHAVIRA: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All right. Thank you both. Next we're going to move on to roll call. City Clerk, let the record reflect that all Council Members are present. Okay. We're going to move on to D, final call to submit speaker request forms. All speakers will be limited to three minutes for comments only. Actions taken as a result of public comments will be limited to 1, responding to criticisms; 2, directly staff review the matter; or 3, asking that a matter be put on a future agenda. City Clerk, do we have any submission for speaker request? ZAMORA: We do not, Mayor. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Call to the public. This is for non-agenda item. So City Clerk, do we have any request for call to the public non-agenda item? ZAMORA: We do not. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All right. Moving on to item F. I see three items. So let's start with number 1, which is a proclamation declaring April 2025 as Fair Housing Month in the City of Tolleson to ensure equal opportunities in housing, urging all citizens of this community to comply with the with the letter and spirit of the Fair Housing Law. We have Noel Schaus. SCHAUS: Schaus, correct. Thank you, Mayor. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: You have the floor. She's our Housing Director. She's going to give us some background on why public housing is very important. SCHAUS: Mayor, Vice Mayor and members of Council, this April and every April, we CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 4 of 63 recognize Fair Housing Month to commemorate the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. This landmark legislation is important today for the same reason it was 57 years ago. It honors the principle that the United States of America -- in the United States of America, no one should be denied housing because of who they are. Fair Housing Month is a time to renew our commitment to combating discrimination and protecting people's right to equal housing opportunities. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Thank you very much. So with that now, therefore, I, Mayor Juan Rodriguez, do hereby proclaim April 2025 as Fair Housing Month of the City of Tolleson. Be it proclaimed. Thanks again, Noel. We're going to move on to item number 2, which is introduction of new employees. And I'm going to take it over to City Manager, Reyes Medrano. MEDRANO: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. It's always an honor to welcome new teammates to our community because as you know, there's one prerequisite to working with the city of Tolleson and being bestowed the blessing of being able to serve its people is that we love people and the people that we find all hold that in common. And everyone in the room that's wearing a uniform, our Teen Council, all share that attribute. There's nothing more important to this community than the people we serve. So to that end, I've heard so much about our first new teammate. He was just described to me as a stud lateral from Los Angeles Fire Department. But they've been saying that about you for quite some time now. So it's an absolute joy to meet you, Mr. Joseph Palacio, our new firefighter. Thank you for choosing Tolleson. PALACIO: Thank you. MEDRANO: Secondly, in the Human Services Division that is now being overseen by George Good, and I can't thank George enough publicly, privately, every chance I see him for taking on this new role and for doing it with such zeal and joy for his service for Tolleson now over 20 years. It's beautiful to see his interaction with -- with our seniors and everybody else that serve in the Human Services Division, specifically in the CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 5 of 63 Tolleson Social Club. I'd like to welcome another new teammate, Lourdes Valenzuela, our assistant cook. I don't know if she's here or she's not. Thank you for choosing Tolleson as well. Welcome to both of you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Everybody knows this is the first time that I've heard Reyes describe a fellow city employee as a stud. MEDRANO: It is. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Walker. Yeah. Okay. And so with that, everybody, we're going to move on to item number 3, which is recognition of K-9 Sems. I think that's name -- Sems. MENDOZA: Sem. Yep. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: He's retiring. MENDOZA: Right on. I can have Ofc. Brand, K-9 Sem. Can we start the PowerPoint? I have a quick three-slide PowerPoint just to go over some stats and stuff with Sem's career. And as soon as we get that loaded up, I'll get started. There we go. So Mayor and Council, good evening. This is a bittersweet moment. And K-9 Sem and his handler Ofc. Jack Brand are here. And about 90 days ago, we started the clock for Sem's last 90 days and he's served us very well. And we're very happy to see him move on to the second phase of his life, which is being retired K-9. There we go. So a little bit about K-9 Sem. He's -- whoops. That went forward. There we go. He is a Belgian Malinois. He's originally from the Netherlands. His languages are Dutch and German, his commands and I think Ofc. Brand put in there he speaks some English. So he's a -- he's eight years old in 10 months. Ofc. Brand and I were actually in California in 2019 for the selection of Sem. He's a dual-purpose K-9, which means he does apprehension of our, I guess, our bad guys and -- or we call it patrol work and also does drug detection. He trains about eight hours a week and currently our training is with the Avondale and Buckeye K-9 units. And that training takes place throughout the valley. So sometimes you'll see a Ofc. Brand. It'll be check off at checked off at Luke Air Force Base in the east valley. They're -- they're all around doing their training. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 6 of 63 So K-9 Sem has been deployed about 141 times since 2019. That's probably a low estimate. That doesn't count for all of this kind of things that -- where Ofc. Brand hasn't actually been called out or, or Sem hasn't been called out but is just actively out there on patrol. We don't -- we're not counting for those times. He's having to deal with a lot of building searches, narcotic searches, area searches. That's like open yards and fields. That's what an area search would be. An article search would be a search for like guns, clothing, shoes, that type of stuff. He's a fight or flight deterrence for suspects. I can't tell you how many times Sem has had someone just surrender to the police department just from barking or -- or his mere presence. And -- and we've also used him for public demonstrations, so Ofc. Brand and Sem had been out there in the public. You know, one that comes to mind is we used to have a Halloween event and I know Ofc. Brand had Sem out there doing demos and -- and the line was huge. He was like -- all the people we hired in the popcorn stand and it didn't match the line for the kids that want to be around Sem. Some major incidents -- and this is just a few. Ofc. Brand sent me a -- a huge list. And so there was a lot to choose from, but I just wanted to hit these ones. So in 2019, he assisted Buckeye PD with apprehending a homicide suspect. So Sem was actually working at night and called out and responded to Buckeye and actually located the homicide suspect. He also assisted with the apprehension of a sexual assault/kidnapping suspect, assisted with the apprehension of a violent armed robbery suspect, assisted DEA was seizing packages of fentanyl at a post office. He assisted Homeland Security was seizing eight kilos of fentanyl powder and assisted ATF on a search warrant for cocaine possession, automatic firearm parts. So what the ATF located were the actual parts that people can convert a semi-auto handguns into full auto handguns. So I did pick these because I wanted to show that, you know, not just for the city of Tolleson helping us out, but you can see like regionally and other law enforcement partners where Sem has actually helped them out with their cases. Sem's last day of service is going to be April 30th. Sem will retire and continue to live with Ofc. Jack Brand and his family. K-9 Sem has been a true partner, a loyal friend, and CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 7 of 63 now it's time to relax, enjoy the good life. I just want to take this time to thank Ofc. Brand also. K-9 is a huge, huge responsibility and I just want to publicly say that he's done a great job and it is a lot of extra work, and so this is a Batman and Robin kind of association, and so you have to have both. You have to have a great handler and you have to have a great dog. And we were fortunate to have both in this run. So with that being said, just want to say thank you to Sem and a happy retirement. I did have some other final pictures, but I'm not going to be able to back it up, I don't think. So with that Ofc. Brand would just like to say something really quick, so I'll give it over to him. BRAND: Mayor Rodriguez, members of the Council and city leaders, I just want to say thank you very much for the support. These last five and a half years have been absolutely amazing to me. Not only is he a colleague and a partner with my brothers and sisters behind me, but he's also another family member at my house. I've had to put him in some risky situations where it didn't feel good, but at the same time, knowing that he prevented people from acting in violence towards our officers or the public to me, I know I could go home and sleep at night. I also want to thank Chief Mendoza, Chief Grow, the rest of our administration, both lieutenants -- Lt. Garrett and Lt. Winks. And like I said, my biggest support standing behind me. This dog has been such an asset for our department and just from his bark, like Chief Mendoza was saying, a lot of people just -- they give up. Some people aren't afraid of tasers. They're not afraid of any other -- any other tools that we have on our belt. The moment they hear him bark, it's -- it's just such a good feeling too, knowing that we have the jaws of justice behind us. So thank you again for all that. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: That's it? Well, before, before we get a picture, we do have a gift for you. We have an award. So before we take a picture, I do want to first of all, congratulate Sem's Ofc. Brand on your hard work. We're wishing you the best retirement on behalf of the Council, but we do have a gift for him, so go have some stuff to chew on. He's got a face mask. Yeah. BRAND: Yeah. He can clear over that easy. No problem. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 8 of 63 MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yes. SINAWI: Okay. All right. Sit down. Awesome. Cheese. K-9. Okay. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Perfect. SINAWI: Nice to meet you. Welcome. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Thank you guys. Thanks for being here. SINAWI: Thanks guys. Have a good night. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Appreciate it. SINAWI: Congratulations. Welcome. MENDOZA: Yeah. So mayor and Council, just to answer a question about the -- the future of the K-9 program. Currently we're -- we're -- we're trying to fill vacancies. So -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I don't want to -- MENDOZA: No, no, no. It's -- it's fine. And he knows that we would like to continue the program. We're going to put a time out, let Jack catch his breath and let us catch up with some of our hiring. So there are some other units that we're trying to prioritize right now, which is our traffic unit to get it out there. We did have two of our recruits that just graduated. They were just here. They're about to start their FTO. And as soon as they come off of FTO, we'll be able to have that traffic. Our CAT team's already in action. And I'd like to get our traffic unit up and running. And then once those are up and running, we start to get the squads fully staffed, we're going to circle back to K-9. So it's not a program that's going to be going away. We're just kind of putting a pause on it for right now. Yeah. He put in his retirement paperwork. We'll see if he wants to wear another hat. Mayor and Council, thank you. SINAWI: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All right. Item G is business from the floor, public hearings and actions. We don't have any, so we're going to move on to H, which is consent, agenda, action items. I see items 1 through 4. Council, I'll see you. GÁMEZ: Move for approval. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 9 of 63 MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I have a motion from Councilwoman Laborin. I have a second from Council Member Gámez. Okay. All those in favor of approving items 1 through 4, please signify by saying aye. ALL: Aye. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All those opposed? Not hearing any. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to I, regular agenda, action items. I don't know. We have two items under regular agenda. Item number 1 is to adopt or deny ordinance number 618 new series of the Mayor and City Council for the City of Tolleson, Arizona, amending the Code of Tolleson, Arizona by amending Chapter 2 administration by adding a new article 2-10, regulation of smoking and use of tobacco products at or near city facilities, providing for repeal of physical ordinances, writing of authorization, providing for severity, servility of providing for penalties and setting an effective date of July 1st, 2025. Emergency preparedness department is the Chief Preparedness Officer Good. You have the floor, sir. GOOD: Thank you, mayor. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. This item we have before you this evening, we've discussed in our briefings, but so that everyone else gets to hear and the public and those watching at home, this is an ordinance which would restrict or eliminate in both cases -- two different cases -- the use of tobacco and tobacco products at all city operated and owned properties. And that includes our city park. There is a carve out for the businesses that our economic development director may contract with, and they would be exempt from this ordinance, but it prohibits the use. There's a -- it ties in nicely actually with item 4 on the consent agenda, which establishes a policy which is being crafted by Wendy Jackson and the Employee Resources Department for providing for training and education and cessation of programs for those who are currently using tobacco products. So we're asking for your approval. There's a lot of specifics. I'd be happy to answer any questions regarding this, but the effective date would be July 1st of this year. That would give our Public Affairs Team time to notify the public and also our CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 10 of 63 employees to kind of get used to not using tobacco if that's a decision that they would make, so we want to provide some time for them. So even though normally ordinances take effect 30 days after they're adopted by you, this would be an effective date of July 1st. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I have a question. If Council doesn't -- does Council have any other questions or any questions at all? Yeah, go ahead, Jimmy. DAVIS: Well, one, I just want to comment that that's a good time for employees to be able to do it. Hopefully they'll be able to quit. So I was thinking about like the park, for instance; so this could include the park, right? That way the park people couldn't smoke at the park. GOOD: Mayor and Vice Mayor, yes; that's correct. Chewing tobacco, cigars, any kind of tobacco; snuffs is another term I learned recently in the development of this project. And just to clarify, Mayor and Vice Mayor, now the City Manager is actually authorized to create designated smoking or tobacco use areas at events at his own discretion. So if he'd like to do that, he can do that. So we could put people way off in the corner or whatever, so secondhand smoke would not in that particular case be an issue and bother other people as we know how bad it is for us. The other reason that we want to have a July 1 phase-in or effective date is that Randy will be getting signage up throughout the entire city. As you talk about signage, we'll make sure that the public is really informed. And again, our social media professionals will be getting the word out through social media and networking and the internet and so forth and all their normal channels so that we can do as much education regarding this issue ahead of time as we can. Our goal is not to burden the Police Department or anybody else with this. We just want to make it a healthier community. And hopefully if someone is using tobacco, we can just say, hey, this is a non-smoking area. You may not be aware, but this is now how we do this in the City of Tolleson. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: When I saw this last week, I thought to myself, I'm going to do like a little self-evaluation, right? At Whoopee Daze. And honestly, I don't see too many CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 11 of 63 people, if any, smoking out there. I think people in general understand that when you smoke around others, it's a public nuisance. And instead of having to deal with bad looks, I wish they would smoke over there, little whispers here and there, they'd rather just not do it in public places. So I think we're in the right track. So I don't think it's going to be that big of an issue. And I'm excited that, in a sense, it means I can stop it or announce that this is where we're going. But we're going to start to institute officially July 1st. So by the time we get to July 1st, it's not new news. You know, people know, our employees know, everybody's on the same page and we can move forward with uniformity and implementation. And I think everybody will be on board with it. So I did notice Randy was raising his hand. Do you have some comments, Randy? BABCHUK: Mayor, members of the Council, yes. Part of that with the signage is we're going to give outlets to people where they can look at hotlines. The Ash Line will be on there to, you know, get those people help, not just saying you can't smoke here, but getting those people the help that they need to try to stop smoking. So that's part of the efforts of us pushing no smoking in any facility or parks. ERIVES: I have a couple of questions. So as I'm reading it, parks and belongs to the City. So Whoopee Daze was great cause we know that's a city park, but then would the manager also have the -- I'm thinking of Luces, right? Cause that's not a City park. That's just our downtown. And we kind of like create a venue space for Lucis. We kind of create like a mini mobile park, you could say. How could we enforce that? Is a city event and therefore there's no smoking or smoking is prohibited in that area? Okay. BABCHUK: Thank you, mayor, Council Member Erives, yes. So we would do either designated areas for smoking, but we would have no smoking signs that are portable. And we'd have them posted up throughout the street, Luces de Navidad and then have a designated area kind of like our beer garden. And we would have just a designated area for them to smoke and not have to worry about people giving them the dirty looks and things like that. ERIVES: Okay. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Councilwoman Erives? CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 12 of 63 ERIVES: No, no. Okay. So this is totally different. So now we're in July 2nd, July 3rd, July 4th, 4th of July, I'm at Whoopee Daze. And I'm not a smoker, it's just the scenario. So I'm smoking on 4th of July and we're all sitting right there by the dance floor, right? I'm smoking. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: A cigar? ERIVES: What's -- a cigar or a pipe, right? They go like this. If I had it, I'd be like, yeah. So what would happen to me first, right? Like what would be -- an officer comes up and reminds me that this is a no smoking area. Do I get a ticket? Am I going to get a citation? Am I going to get just a warning? If I keep smoking and blowing, you know, like what, what's going to happen on that July 4th? Cause 4th of July is coming around. Yes, sir. GOOD: The repercussions are that there could be a $25 fine if you refused to follow the ordinance. So again -- and successive infractions could result in a $50 fine per infraction. So again, our goal is not to have anything happen, Mayor and Council. When -- if that happens, hopefully it won't, but again, it's a soft enforcement. It's like, hey, listen, we're just trying to make our community safer and healthier. We have no interest in fining you. We don't want your money. We just want everyone to be healthier, so that's it. It's a pretty low-key thing, but we've just never done it. In the conversations we had with many of you during Council briefings and before, several of you indicated that you thought we already had this because it's so common now, you don't see so many people smoking anymore as they used to back in the day. But so we're just going to proceed and formalize this with your approval. LABORIN: They get a fine with the police then? GOOD: Mayor, Council Member Laborin, they would not normally be fined if they're not on the city property. Technically the city streets and sidewalks are our city property. However, we're kind of going to consider those as open areas so that it's not -- you're not in an area with a lot of people around them. You may be around other people, but again, that's probably not something we're going to really go after. We don't really want to go after anybody on this. We're not considering that that would be a CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 13 of 63 violation in general terms. And Mayor, if I could just one last thing, it was commented about the phase-in period. And that was the recommendation of our Deputy City Manager, Wendy Jackson, who said, you know, let's give people some time to get to this. There were a few of us -- I was kind of leading the charge saying, let's get it right now because I don't like -- you know, a lot of us don't care for this. And she was more prudent in her thinking and said, you know what, we should give people time. And so that is why it's an effective date. And that was Wendy's idea. And that was -- as we thought more about it, we thought that really makes a lot of sense. So thank you to Wendy for that suggestion. DAVIS: It's all tobacco products, right? Even like vapes, chew, any of that kind of stuff? GOOD: Mayor and Vice Mayor, yes, it does include vapes. I didn't mention that before. So vapes, chew, cigarettes, cigars. There's different people and snuffs. And I would have to turn to Chief Mendoza for the definition of that, if anyone's interested in it. I can't even remember what it is, but some sort of tobacco product. Recreational marijuana is not permitted in public spaces. Yeah. So with that, we would ask for Council to approve this ordinance. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. I will entertain a motion to either approve or deny this. We have a motion by the Vice Mayor to approve. ERIVES: Second. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We have a motion to approve by the Vice Mayor. We have a second by Council Member Erivez. All those in favor of adopting this, please signify by saying aye. ALL: Aye. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All those opposed, say no more smoking. ERIVES: No more smoking. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So is that a no vote? ERIVES: No, no, I made the motion, so I'm good. I mean, second. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. So motion passes unanimously. Okay. thank you very much, folks. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 14 of 63 GOOD: Thank you, Mayor and Council. ERIVES: Thank you, George. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. I just want to mention, it's also aligned with what we're doing to push longevity of life policy. So I think it's good. ERIVES: The Blue Zone, yep. GOOD: You're right, sir. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Thought that might be it. ERIVES: Oh. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: What are we calling it now? ERIVES: Green zone. MEDRANO: Aging in place. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Aging in place. That's what we're calling it, so – MEDRANO: Aging longer in place. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: There you go. All right. Item number 2. ERIVES: ALP? Okay. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Adopt resolution number 2599 of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Tolleson, Arizona, authorizing the negotiation of and the acquisition of real property located at 9215 West Van Buren Street, Tolleson, Arizona, Maricopa County, parcel number 102-49-031 for public purposes, authorizing -- as you get older, the hardest part of this job is for your eyes to continue to see the words without you leaving. Authorizing and directing the Mayor, City Manager, City Engineer, and the City Attorney to negotiate and acquire title to certain parcels of real property on behalf of the city by donation, eminent domain, or purchase for an amount not to exceed $2,025,000 plus acquisition and closing costs, and authorizing the use of contingency funds for said acquisition. So I'm going to call up Development Services Director, Jason Earp to give us the background. EARP: Thank you. Is this on? Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. This is the property we discussed at the last meeting, talking to the property owner for the last CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 15 of 63 couple of weeks. And with the -- what we got from the appraisal, we think this is a fair price for the property, $2,025,000 plus any closing costs. Hopefully if it's approved tonight -- staff is recommending approval -- we can get a 30 to 45 day closing, which the owner wants a fast closing so he can recoup his costs, what he's put into the building and purchase a property and then look forward to moving either -- he didn't say Tolleson, but looking for another place to do what he wanted to do. So with that, I'll answer any questions you may have. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Oh, but the reality is when you look at the history of that property, bus stop that was falling apart. So we've gone a long way from where we were, which is great, but we're not out of the woods. I think acquiring this property, which is located in central Tolleson, right across the street from the bus stop, would be key. And then we can talk about specific uses that we want out of it in the future, whether it's to get a haul and baby showers and so on and so forth, or some kind of a public use. I'm glad to hear that the owner is open to selling. I think when we buy it outright, we can do both. We can use it for public good. And if an opportunity comes up to develop it in a different way, we always have that in front of us, but we can cross that bridge when we get there. At this point, do we have any questions, comments for Jason or city management? I see -- you don't? CHAVIRA: No, I haven't. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. Anybody else have any comments or questions at this time? You guys all know the building that we're talking about. ALL: Yes, absolutely. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. Good. Well, with that, I will entertain a motion to approve or deny. GÁMEZ: So moved to adopt resolution number 2599. Okay. We have a motion to adopt by Council Member Gamez. We have a second by Council Member Erives. All right. Both of which are to approve. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 16 of 63 ALL: Aye. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: All those opposed? All right. Keep us up to date, Jason. Okay. We're going to move on to J, work study and presentation for discussion. Fiscal year 2026, second budget work study Chief Financial Officer Artz. You have the floor, sir. ARTZ: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. We are here tonight to go over the second budget work session. At the last meeting, we went over the revenues. Tonight, we're going to focus on the General Fund and all of the expenditure requests in the General Fund. The first slide is showing each of our different funds that we have and what we're estimating the beginning fund balance to be, revenues, expenditures, transfers in and transfers out, and then our ending fund balance. So for the General Fund, we're projecting or estimating beginning fund balance to be almost $80 million, projecting $49 million of revenues. You've got a budget request in front of you tonight for $71 million of expenditures and $13 million of transfers out. So that leaves us a total ending fund balance of $44 million, which is still very healthy and above our policy for fund balance. Our policy is that we should maintain a fund balance of 20 to 40 percent of expenditures -- of budgeted expenditures, so I would include transfers out in there also. So looking at approximately $80 million of expenditures and transfers out, so that would be between $16 and $32 million would be policy for our fund balance. And we feel that we have been very conservative in our estimates in the beginning fund balance. So I'm confident that that ending number will exceed the $45 million or the fund balance policy. Just to break down the General Fund by function. Function is the way we categorize our expenditures in the financial statements. So General Government, which is City Manager's office, Mayor, Council, Finance, IT, Employee Resources, all of those general type functions. Our total budget's about $15.1 million or about 21 percent of our General Fund expenditures. Public Safety is a little over $15 million or 21 percent. Now, CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 17 of 63 this doesn't include the Public Safety Fund tax portion of it, so this is just the General Fund portion of our public safety. Highways and Streets is $1.7 million, about 3 percent of our total budget. Culture and Recreation is almost $8 million, approximately 11 percent of our total budget. Economic Development is 1.6 million and then Capital Outlay is almost $30 million. And so you'll see that there's a large increase on our capital this year, so this is just showing our current year budget versus what we're asking you to consider tonight. So if you look down there on the bottom, the capital budget's going from $12 million to $29 million, so $17 million increase is on the capital side. The biggest piece of that is for Economic Development Opportunity Fund for the property that's located at the North corner here of 91st and Van Buren. So there's nothing that's imminent or coming right away, but we wanted to give Council the flexibility, so we budgeted for it in this year. So if that project does move forward, that we have the budget flexibility to move forward on that and not have to wait for one more year to move forward on that. So that's where the majority of our increases are coming is in the capital side of the budget. We also programmed in salary increases, so for the 12 months ending February, 2025, the consumer price index increased by 2.8 percent, so that's a measure of inflation. So for the non-public safety positions, the salary range is being adjusted by 5 percent. And then we're proposing a 3 percent cost of living adjustment. So that's approximately what that consumer price index increase is. The merit components are broken down into a leading category and a performing category. So it's similar to, like, a meets expectations and exceeds expectations. And so for the leading category, the merits range from 2 percent to 5 percent, depending on where you fall in the quadrant. And for the performing category, it would be a 1 to 4 percent adjustment for merit. When we look at the public safety employees and what we're considering the public safety in this situation for police is sergeants and below, and in fire, it's the captains and below. So the police range adjustment is 8 percent and we're budgeting a 4 percent cost of living adjustment. For fire, the salary range is 5 percent and budgeting a 4 percent cost of living adjustment. So 1 percent CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 18 of 63 higher on the cost of living adjustment for the public safety employees. The range adjustments are based on a study that was done by Employee Resources. They did a mini study and determined that the range for the police staff had fallen a little bit below market more than the others, so that's why we're proposing an 8 percent increase in the range on police. DAVIS: I understand the range adjustment higher for public safety, but we're a very competitive country. This should be a small city, but I would also agree the cost of living adjustment is 4 percent. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: They do really good work in a professional manner. And if we're going to get public safety 4 percent, which I'm not arguing that they don't deserve, I'm just arguing that General Funded employees also deserve 4 percent. ARTZ: Right. And what we can do, Mayor, is I can bring those numbers back to show the actual cost difference of doing that so that Council has that information. So we can plan on bringing that back at the next meeting so that you have the actual dollars to make a decision on that, but we'll present that to you at the next meeting. So for public safety, it's the same on the merits. The merits are the same as the non- public safety, the 2 to 5 percent and 1 to 4 percent for performing. The only other thing that's increasing or the differences is paramedic pay or increase or proposing to increase that from $2.58 an hour to $3.10 an hour. So that would just be for the paramedics. Correct. So going from $2.58 to $3.10, so about a 50 cent per hour increase. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: And I'm assuming that's a direct increase from the vendor. ARTZ: Mayor, it's not from the vendor; it's just based on the market study. We looked at where other communities that are in our market are paying the paramedics, and so that's what we're proposing to -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: When you say paramedics, you're talking about the ambulatory service that we contract out? ARTZ: No, so these are our fire staff that are certified as paramedics. They get an additional paramedic pay on top of their base salary. And currently it's the $2.58 proposing to go to $3.10. Yes, that's just for the paramedic certification. Yes. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 19 of 63 Sorry about that. So the cost of the salary increases, the cost of living for the General Fund is $628,000 total for all funds, about $750,000. The merits $650 and $785. So total adjustments are coming in about $1.28 million for the General Fund and $1.53 million for all funds, which would include Utilities and the Public Safety funds. So when we come back at the next meeting, I'll update these numbers so that you can see what the increase to the General Fund would be by doing a 4 percent cost of living adjustment or adjusting if you're wanting to see it both ways. Okay. Okay. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I would go with 4 percent for everybody because you're tying it to cost of living. And so I understand that a police officer may get paid more than -- let's say in Phoenix or in Avondale or Goodyear, and they want to incentivize them to leave our organization to go somewhere else. We have to remain competitive because we have a public safety mandate from our residents that we have to provide the right level of public safety. So I think that makes sense from a salary standpoint, but from a cost of living standpoint, everybody's affected by the same way by living adjustments. So why would we pay some departments 4 percent and other departments only 3 percent? I would argue that it would be appropriate by the numbers to go 4 percent across the board and make everybody whole. It doesn't do you good to make more money if you're spending more money because of the cost of living. You know, I think we want to stay competitive in every job description, not just public safety. GÁMEZ: Yes. I agree with that premise that 4 percent across the board for public safety; it's good and it's fair. That's the way it should -- I agree. DAVIS: I also would agree with that. I think that's a good point. I think it's time to do it right now in terms of incentive. I think that's something that we can do. CHAVIRA: Of course. Yeah. ERIVES: I did ask Mr. Artz earlier in the day about our budget because we also have to pay attention to our budget, right? But we have a very healthy budget. We're very fortunate that we've been very prudent. You all have been very prudent. Mr. Art does a great job. And so we have the ability to make some of these decisions, and I think all CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 20 of 63 employees are important for sure. Well, let's see the numbers. I would like to see the numbers, but I agree that all employees should be treated fairly and the same. And that's what makes Tolleson great, right? We take care of our family. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Heard the word fair a couple of times and I can't echo that enough. I think that would be the most fairest thing that we do when it comes to Tolleson. Other comments on this one? ERIVES: No, I'm good. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: No? ERIVES: I agree, yes. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Is that enough direction or -- ARTZ: I believe it is. I just want to clarify, we're moving forward with the 4 percent or would you like to see 4 versus 3 across the board? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I'm okay with just 4, but if people want to see the numbers, I mean, it's just a couple more buttons that you have to push and put on the PowerPoint. ERIVES: Mayor, I'd like to see the numbers, just how does it impact us? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, so this is the number that -- ARTZ: Got it. So yes, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. ERIVES: Right. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Just so you guys know, the most important thing that you can do as a Council Member and the Mayor is approve the budget, so it's important that you ask questions and you have that opportunity. Because once you adopt it, that's cool. That's what we're spending. And it's just as important to do that, your job as a Council Member and a Mayor as it is to hire the right people to do the job. And we have all stars. Mr. Artz is the best of the best. And we are very lucky to have him, his staff, and the rest of city management that makes our job that much easier. So thank you, Mr. Artz. ARTZ: Thank you, sir. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So we're done? CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 21 of 63 ARTZ: 60 more slides to go. Okay. So in the budget that's before you, there are some new position requests, a total of five FTEs. So there's two part-time recreation aids that are being requested. There's two part-time positions in the Social Club and two full-time positions in the Social Club. So that's the extended hours of what we used to call the Senior Center. And now, yes. So the grant was for one year; it was a $500,000 grant that we got for one year. And so if we want to continue with the extended hours, we have to come up with the local funding to pay for those positions and the programming. So this would add the two full-time and the two part-time positions so that we could continue with that programming. ARTZ: Mayor and Vice Mayor, I would say that the numbers have been outstanding. Let me tell you, for those of you who haven't been there, but the programming has been exceptional. Our staff have put together outstanding programs. You see people in there at 3 o'clock, they're turning the key, they have all kinds of activities, they're going to the horse track, they're doing all kinds of fun things. They'll have a lot of fun. So this has been our current grant cycle, but following of that cycle, we would like to continue that program. Something that we're all focused on, that matters, and I think that's the focus of that. So it does cost for us to have staff there to make sure that we're doing okay and it's a very well-programmed program. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: What I would add is, I can only use my parents as an example. They come to the senior program; they have a blast. And in the past, they would sit there, drink a cup of Citro, have some breakfast, and just watch TV. And just sitting there all day, it's not good for your health. And, you know, and so now we get to come to the senior program, hang out with some of the colleagues that they used to work with, or people that they know from the community, socialize, get a meal, then they get to go home. And those that maybe don't have the ability or the income, or you fill in the blanks, can now have an option to come have dinner with us, spend time in the evening here at the senior center, and we maximize the use of our senior center. So I think it's a win-win for everybody. So yeah, I think it's awesome to continue. And I hope it CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 22 of 63 continues to grow and the popularity continues to grow as well. ARTZ: Mayor, if I could add, what's the takeaways that we did want to, increase the hours, and so that we can help people and help us here in the Valley, and help us here in the community, and therefore, they're not only using their own air conditioning, but when they have air conditioning, it healthier for them to build their own set of doors. And then one of the just heartbreaking things that we saw during the pandemic was the social aspect of the next slide. We had Pilar and others suggest that the focus on the Social Club in the Hispanic community. And in Spanish, it was sociales. Because what we saw was the diminishment of their social interactions. For a lot of people who go there every day, that's the most important part of their day. Even in the spring, during the pandemic, they were cooped up, alone in their house, with their families, or whatever. You couldn't be around people because they had COVID and it was just a horrible time, but it really does a whole lot for seniors. And so we wanted to focus on the socialization aspect, but also on the continuity of the project to deal with that and to make it better for them. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So I'm glad you shared that. Yeah. No, I think it's a continuation of the same thing. A lot of our senior citizens suffer because of lack of interaction with other human beings. And so to have this extend like this, I think it's just another opportunity to improve the quality of life that much better in the community. And so I'm 100 percent behind it. I don't know if anybody else has any other opinion on the matter. GÁMEZ: I just have a comment in terms of -- you mentioned the AC unit, maybe. I know we had the program that people that need the AC unit during the summer, and it's hot in the summers. Are we going to -- is there a plan to buy more? Because they're in good use. I don't know how many we have, but it's something to consider because we need to deal with that. And that's the reality. Not everybody has an AC unit at the house. And if you have a -- what is it, evaporative, how are you going to cut it? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Even if they do, if it breaks down for the next couple of days before they get it repaired. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 23 of 63 GÁMEZ: So I just want to know what the plan is if we're going to continue to do that and add some more to it. ARTZ: I've been involved in it. Mayor was on it, yes. He had a great program last year. He was the floor planner for the student movement program. He left out approximately 50 units, some of which still have them, some of which have turned them up, which is wonderful. And as for how we can organize and get these new projects on two fronts, in the preparedness front and in the Human Services Department for the work of the school to lead. We also have a very elaborate repair program for students (indiscernible), and we have a 24-hour on-call system that we can get someone out to repair it because we are so sensitive; we've saw more deaths in the Maricopa County community than ever before last year. We've seen the impact and the change in how we're dealing with this to ensure the safety of our senior citizens. Thank you. GÁMEZ: Thank you, sir. Do we have any information in our website in terms of the phone number for assistance? ARTZ: Mayor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I believe that we do have that information out there. I mean, we just put out the phone number and we're starting to talk about it. SINAWI: Mayor, Council Member Gamez, we have sent out some information that we could give you -- a kind of a graphic to see if you can forward it and see if you can ensure that how people that need that will contact the department for support. So we did do a door-to-door response. GÁMEZ: Okay. SINAWI: So we give you that to make sure that they're looking and trying to make sure that the community is aware of the service. And then, you know, some of the things that the government is looking at with the department that we have to give them support are residents not only providing them with treatment, but then also getting them in contact with someone that actually is helping. GÁMEZ: Thank you so much. SINAWI: I'm sorry. You know. GÁMEZ: Thank you. Sorry to cut into your time there. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 24 of 63 MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We have all night. What else was there? I don't want to ask her to pause if she's done with the presentation. ARTZ: And then the final position is a full-time engineer in utilities. And we'll go into a little bit more detail on that one when we go over the utility budget. Just wanted to touch briefly on our retirement system funding levels. We're at almost 92 percent on the fire and 97.5 percent on police, so this budget does include an additional $2 million payment. And we're hopeful that next year's budget will be the last one that we have to do that until we're fully funded or at least be a reduction from the $2 million. We may not need to spend the full $2 million after next year. DAVIS: Perspective on this from somebody who works with a lot of cities and towns? ARTZ: I think I do. DAVIS: You're so far ahead of where most are. Like this is pretty incredible. ARTZ: Yeah. DAVIS: Like those numbers are incredible. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I thought we were going to start to look at reducing or eliminating 2 million from having to invest in this manner because our percentage is so high. But what would you say the average city is at? DAVIS: If you're looking at -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. DAVIS: I mean, the market's been good and has helped in a lot of ways, but that's -- I'm seeing a lot of -- yeah, 60s, 70s. I haven't really seen anything in the 80s that I can remember. And I've seen a lot of budget presentations. So, yeah. There's -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: And I will add that this was something that Council years ago when this whole unfunded liability issue came up, considered to be a major priority for Tolleson. We wanted to make sure that our fire and police officers that took their life on the line every day were taken care of. And so we purposely started to budget specific amounts of money to send just to the unfunded liability because we wanted to make sure that we were doing right by our fire and police officers. Keep the -- CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 25 of 63 ARTZ: You made a lot of comments about the fact that you were kind of following that whole thing and you were able to see that it was almost 100 percent of your support in getting that unfunded liability to where it is now. So I'm seeing that. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Awesome. So it's a win-win. This is really good. And thanks for pointing out that other cities are nowhere near what we're at. So, anytime you do that, you do that, it's a good thing. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is a -- ARTZ: Yeah, thanks. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So when will we get those updated numbers? ARTZ: Mayor, we will get the updated numbers in December of this year. So when we get those numbers, if we are 100 percent funded, we wouldn't have to spend the $2 million the next year. We just want the, again, the flexibility and we've got it in the budget. But once we get the numbers in December, we'll know exactly where we are. And if we have to spend that $2 million or some amount that's less than that. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Is that in a year? Let's get there. ARTZ: So Mayor, that was kind of a high level what we've done with the budget. Next, I've got each department listed and then the changes in each department's budget, so this is just a table. The next three slides are just tables of what the current year budget is, what the next year budget is, the dollar change, and a percentage change, so just looking at the first column there. So Mayor and Council is going from an $882,000 budget to $914, a $31,000 increase or about 3.5 percent. And so that's -- we've got each of the departments and orgs listed here. I won't go over the information here because in the future slides, I go into more detail on all of these items. So for Mayor and Council, a $31,000 increase, 3.5 percent. What this is, is last year when the City Attorney sent us a revised contract and it included a contract amount and then an administrative amount. And I missed that when I put the budget together last year, so I only included the one number in there, so that was my error. And what this is -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Sorry, we're good. ARTZ: And so what this is doing is getting the budget in the Mayor and Council CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 26 of 63 budget, which is where Legal Services are paid from the $30,000 for the admin portion of the bill, so it's not an increase in the contract. It's just that it didn't get budgeted last year or in the current fiscal year. In the City Manager department, the budget increased by $28,000. All of that is just wages and benefits, so we did budget for all departments, an increase in benefits of 10 percent. So health insurance, dental insurance, all of those types of benefits. We've just projected a 10 percent increase until we get those bids back in. Public Affairs Administration, the budget increased by $266,000; $97,000 of that's in wages and benefits. We are also requesting a transfer of a position, so an FTE being transferred from streets into Public Affairs Administration. So that's an increase in this budget of $130,000. When we get to Streets, you'll see that there's a decrease in it. Not the exact same dollar amount, but there is a corresponding decrease. And then there's furniture of a one-time basis for the waiting area upstairs, just to get some furniture in that area that's open now. It's a position that was in streets that the Development Services Director determined that they didn't need to fill. And so instead of it going away, requesting in the budget that it be transferred to this department. And if there's any more details then -- ERIVES: (Indiscernible). MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: That department is growing significantly and it's continuing to grow. So I think at a certain point, I mean, we're only the size that we are. MEDRANO: Just to -- you're right, sir. It has -- it's congruent with Council's level of activity. It's a very exciting time to have this Council as involved as you all are. And we're trying to match that intensity. ARTZ: Mayor, I should have mentioned when I started the departmental sections, if there are specific questions you have that each of the departments are represented here that can answer the specific questions better than I can, I'll just hit the detail or that higher level. In Housing Services, the budget's decreasing by $98,000. And what we did there is we decreased the lot acquisition. There was a budgeted line item in there for lot CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 27 of 63 acquisition for $100,000 -- determined that we hadn't spent that in several years. So we're taking that out of the budget and decreasing that line item by $100,000. In the City Clerk department, there's a one-time request to basically digitize a lot of our records. And so there's a request for $100,000 for a contract to have a vendor come in and get a lot of our records into a digital format. And so this is -- you know, citywide would help all of the departments that have paper copies of documents and then try to get them all in a digital format. Employee Resources, $150,000 increase; $43,000 of that's wages and benefits. The other piece of it is a subscription for a new payroll system. And so we're in the process of implementing a new payroll system, but for that next year, we're basically going to have to have both payroll systems open for a certain time to do the W-2s because it's going to be coming out of two different payroll systems, unfortunately. So this isn't the ongoing cost. This is the cost to basically have two systems, but then the next year we'll be able to eliminate the subscription cost for the one that we're currently on and then just move forward with the new payroll system. JACKSON: Good evening, Mayor and Council. The reason why it's a subscription is because most products right now, software products are in a cloud space. So we pay a subscription cost; we pay per check fee for each employee. It's nothing that's new; it's the standard now. Oh -- the UKG product -- I don't know if I can say the vendor on open meeting -- but the UKG product is what we're moving to. They can calculate our benefits and our compensation better than the current product that we're in right now. The only reason why we moved from UKG before -- we was in an older product and they did have a cyber issue with that older product, but now we're moving on to a new platform and this new product can calculate all of our payrolls more accurately than our current system. So right now it is posing a lot more legwork for our Finance Department to proof over all the payrolls. This product would ensure that it can calculate more effectively for both HR and Finance. It's a more robust system. ARTZ: City Magistrate's increasing by $27,000. The majority of that's in wages and benefits increase. Court Admin actually decreasing by $13,000. So it's a combination of CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 28 of 63 an increase in wage and benefits, but then the public defender costs is being moved out to a different org, so the judge requested that the public defender not be part of his budget because he didn't want to oversee that function. And so we're moving it out of Court Administration into a different org. And where it's moving is into what we call the City Prosecutor. So it'll basically be called the City Legal Services budget, and that'll have the contract for the prosecutor in there and then the contract for the public defender. So this increase -- it's going up by $80,000 for the public defender contract. And we're moving $40,000 of that from the court. So it is a $40,000 total increase in the public defender costs for the city. And we just went -- I don't -- did we go out to bid? But I know we just entered into a new contract with the public defender and it was for the little over $80,000. In Finance, $142,000 increase. Wages and benefits, $38,000 of that. Insurance premiums are $38,000. So if you recall, a couple of years ago, we consolidated all of our insurance budget into one budget into Finance. And so that's the total increase citywide that we're seeing as an increase to our insurance premiums through the risk pool. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: (Indiscernible). ARTZ: Going backwards. JACKSON: Yes, Mr. Mayor and members of Council, we did have a competitive RFQ process and we did have someone submit. We did do interviews and we went with a particular vendor that did put in for it. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Oh, that we're just not handpicking people, that we have a full process. And anyone who is interested in doing work with the City of Tolleson as a public defender or any other public process, they're more than welcome to come to our webpage and submit their bid. And we're going to go with the most responsible and most appropriate financial vendor that can provide the services to the City of Tolleson. JACKSON: Thank you. ARTZ: And then the final item for Finance was subscription costs for the new financial system, so we've implemented the financial part of the system, but we're still using the CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 29 of 63 legacy system for our water billing. And so the water billing is going to be converted to the new financial system, hopefully July 1st, but we'll have some payments that are occurring again. Same thing, we're going to have to keep the existing system that we're in for a little bit and the new system, so we're paying for both systems until we get fully implemented on the new system. But this is just for the water billing portion of it. Information Technology, a budget increase of $291,000, $56,000 in wage and benefit increase. Subscription increase here as well, and that's for the Office 365. So we just recently converted to Office 365 and this is the ongoing cost that we need in the future budget years to pay for those; used to be licenses, but now it's a subscription-based product. $30,000 increase in professional services. And then phone services is going up 16,000. That's similar to the insurance premiums. Last year, we moved all of the phone services into one line item into IT, and so we're requesting a $16,000 increase in the budget for phones. Police Admin. The $142,000 increase in their budget. Wages and benefits is $152,000 of that. We're actually reducing electricity in their budget by $20,000. And then they also added $5,000 for increase to the Police Explorers Program. Support Services or dispatch. We're seeing an increase of $142,000. Most of that coming in wages and benefits. Electricity. We were allocating all of the electricity to Support Services or dispatch, and then that was getting billed out to our partners. So we've moved some of the electricity to other departments so that our partners aren't paying for the entire electric bill at the police facility, so that was just a minor reallocation between different budgets. And then a training increase of $9,000. Field Operations, increase of the budget of $480,000. Wages makes up $377,000 of that. Professional services, a $60,000 increase. And that's for the in-car cameras that the department has implemented. And then an increase in fuel of $20,000. ERIVES: I have a question, sorry. ARTZ: Yes. ERIVES: I'm sorry. I'm not sure like where it falls under, but what about like the electric vehicles and the creating a station where they can charge? I see used minus electricity, CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 30 of 63 minus electricity, but I know that's not what you're mentioning, but it reminded me of our electric vehicles. Is that like on a different slide? ARTZ: Yeah. Mayor and Council, the capital side of that -- so constructing the charging facilities will be in the capital. ERIVES: Okay. Okay. Sorry. ARTZ: You have funds in for that also. ERIVES: Thank you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Randy? You have your hand up? BALCHUL: Yes, Mayor, members of the Council, Council Member Erives. We have installed charging stations already for their police vehicles. The other side of it is the front side of it will be the next step is providing charging stations for people who are coming through our town or residents who have electric cars as well. So I think we did eight chargers already for the police station for their police cars. ERIVES: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. ARTZ: Thank you. In the Library Department, an increase of $191,000. Wages and benefits is $171,000 of that. And then internet service, a $20,000 increase for internet service in the library. Fire Administration. The budget's actually decreasing by $63,000. There's a decrease in the wage and benefits that has to do with some of the turnover that we've had in administration, and also the previous chief was in the public safety retirement system, so we were able to decrease the budget for that. So it's just some of the turnover that we've had there. We were able to decrease the budget. And then there was a training increase of $7,500 and then an increase of apparel for $5,000. So those netted out to the $63,000 decrease in fire admin. Fire Operations. Budget increase of $326,000. Wages and benefits, $247,000 of that. Professional service increase of $50,000. This is -- I think it's a new program you said for cancer screenings. And I'll let the Chief talk about that. MENDOZA: Yes, Mayor and members of Council. (Indiscernible). We now provide early cancer screening. Firefighters, the mayor may not CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 31 of 63 know, firefighters tend to get cancer at a higher rate than what the public does. And so there's a deal with the Fire Department that's been put by us, but that fits different types of cancers earlier than if they were to get screened. So like one of the examples is lung cancer. Scott's Cancer Center of firefighters is recommending that general public not to test cancer for lung cancer, but you have to be tested for the age of 55 or right now. This will help us provide access, means they also provide access for female firefighters that other places cannot. It's once a year, part of their yearly fiscal. ARTZ: Emergency Preparedness is the next department. We're seeing a decrease of $153,000 here. Wages and benefits are decreasing by $200,000. And then there's a sister city program -- an increase in sister cities of $10,000 and contractual services for physical vehicle barriers at some of our special events and that type of activities for $50,000. And so the wage and benefit decrease is that we transferred the Director that was in that department and his salary is now being charged to the Housing Services, Human Services area and is partially reimbursed by some of the grants. So we were able to eliminate the FTE or the cost of the FTE in the Emergency Preparedness Department and move him into the vacant position that we had in human services. Aquatic Center. So this budget has not changed. As you recall, we budgeted for the Aquatic Center in the current year, just to make sure that we had the money to operate it. So, you know, that money's already in the budget. The only thing that we're asking is we will request two FTEs for the Aquatic Center so that they can hire a couple of staff once we get closer to it being completed and so that we have some of the staffing in place before construction is completed. So no increase to the cost, but there will be two additional FTEs, but those funds are already budgeted and we have $1.5 million budgeted for Aquatic Center -- for operating the Aquatic Center. Field Operation Vehicles. Budget increase of $34,000. It's wages and benefits, $21,000; some small increases, tools and supplies for $4,000 and $5,000. Field Operation Grounds, increase of $16,000. Wages and benefits and professional service increase. In Building, an increase of $83,000. Again, most of it in the wage and benefits and CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 32 of 63 $2,000 in apparel. Building and Inspection, $73,000 increase. All of that was as a result of the wage and benefit increases. Streets, we're seeing a decrease of $91,000. And again, this is the elimination of the position in the Streets Department, so it's going down by $91,000 and that position being transferred to Public Affairs. Transportation, just a small increase of $7,500 for marketing. So just some additional marketing funds or actually -- they didn't -- I don't believe they had any marketing funds previously. So this will give them $7,500 to market and promote the transportation system. Human Services. So a budget increase of $450,000, 41 percent. The majority of this is in the extended hours for the Social Club. So that's a $300,000 of the increase for the two part-time, two full-time positions, any programming that we would have. And then wages and benefits for the existing employees of $102,000. And then there was also a request for homeless placement services for $50,000. And I don't know, George, if you want to give a little bit more detail on that one. GOOD: Thank you, Kevin. Mayor, members of the Council. This is part of the discussion that we held a couple of weeks ago was talking about the urban camping. What can we do with the folks who find that it's hard to find a house that they can afford and care for their children? (Indiscernible). We have a contract we could use with a number of different cases of survival services for those people that need help, hopefully, 24 hours a day, check on people. We did estimate that cost at $50,000. We'll talk more about that in our study, but we'll be able to do something about that cost. DAVIS: What would that have to do with that help? GOOD: Mayor and Vice Mayor, you have to absolutely be able to do the job with the full-time program for hotels, for staff, for community bridges, for a number of different supportive states to provide those services. ARTZ: Non-profit donations, no change in the budget there. Recreation, a $400,000 increase. Two part-time recreation aids at a cost of $70,000. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 33 of 63 Wages and benefit increase of $78,000. And then we've also got a couple of other items, contractual service for $40,000, tentative preschool funding of $200,000. So this is something that's in discussion at this time, so nothing's been finalized, but again, giving us the ability to do it if it does move forward, requesting an additional $200,000 for the preschool funding. And then a $19,000 increase in promotions. This was for a stage and some additional entertainment. I don't know, Randy, if you wanted to add anything on that. BABCHUK: Yes, Mayor, members of the Council. So Luces, we want to do something different and add a second stage down on 91st Avenue in Van Buren and host the car show down on that and have additional entertainment and a stage down on that end of the event. So that's going to have an additional cost with the sound stage and then the entertainment. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: How about 94th Avenue? BABCHUK: 91st. Correct, on the east side of the event where the rides used to be. So we're looking on changing where the rides are, being closer to where the parents would be. And then Sunday having a separate stage with separate entertainment, so people have a choice whether they want to listen to a different type of genre, which we won't have the two same genres going on at the same time. It'd be offsetting in two different types of music. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. ARTZ: Teen Council. A small decrease in their overall budget of $3,500. City Promotion, an increase of $38,000. So $35,000 in city promotion, $2,000 in food and meals. CHAVIRA: I'm sorry. Going back to Teen Council, does the budget include the funds that would be needed for the Teen Council to accompany this Council on the annual trip to D.C. if that's available? ARTZ: I didn't put in an additional request for it, but is -- SINAWI: Mayor, Council. Yeah, see, now this one works. Mayor, Council Member Chavita, members of Council. So what we used this year is the special project related CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 34 of 63 fund from the Council since it was a desire of the entire Council to have the teens participate, so we were able to use that fund. So we didn't allocate additional funding. We do have that fund available of $15,000 for them to be able to go to D.C. again. CHAVIRA: Great. Thank you very much. DAVIS: (Indiscernible). CHAVIRA: Either. SINAWI: Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of Council, I think in order to be able to accommodate that, I think we would probably need a total of $40,000 for that. So we currently have $15,000 in the Special Related Project fund. The reason I'm saying 40 is I know the Teen Council -- like I know, like, because of, like, just the short notice, we had some connecting flights. We definitely want them to have a better flight experience, you know, to ensure we get some direct flights. And I think $20,000 per each trip would, you know, accommodate them to be able to travel to both conferences because what we had in D.C. was that all of the elected officials in the Teen Council were able to attend and then in addition with their chaperone, so it covered that. So I think a total of 40 would be able to cover those costs, at least based in DC. I mean, after their first year, then we can kind of just take a look at the budget. So we would -- that would require an increase of another $25,000 to be able to accommodate that. But I'm not sure if that's, you know, what the entire Council would want to do. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: (Indiscernible) talking to teens to go to. But yeah, no. I think if we budget 40 or 50 and we use what we need to use to attend both, and then we can adjust for future years. CHAVIRA: Yes, I agree. DAVIS: Yeah, we all survived. GÁMEZ: Any time you can send students to learn about government, it's a good thing. But at the same time, let me ask you a question. You guys have fundraisers for yourselves? Very good. And that money can be used towards the events as well. You guys have a little skin in the game but you got to work for it, earn it. And I think CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 35 of 63 that that's fantastic. Thank you. BABCHUK: Thank you, Mayor, Members of the Council. So they do fundraising at every one of our events. And usually those fundraising monies go towards their leadership conference in the summer where we take anywhere between 25 and 50 students, whether it's out of state. I know this year, they're looking at Greer. We take them out of their environment just so they can get a clear head. And what they do is they come back with a project -- a community service project for our community. And that's kind of where their monies go. So it all depends on how hard they want to work and how much they want to fundraise. They typically get their trips for free. That's how they sell it. It's that you can get your funding for free if you go out there and you fundraise and work hard. Like at Whoopee Daze, they cleared over $3,000 out of their fundraising, so a lot of that funding goes to those and then they do the Cities and Towns Conference as well through that. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I don't know. For the record, I've been buying Teen Council tickets for the last 10 years and I have yet to win one. BABCHUK: Because you're the mayor and we throw yours away. I'm just kidding. ERIVES: Donation. DAVIS: You mentioned work for the community service projects. BABCHUK: Yes, the community service projects. Every year, COVID happened and they're really starting to get back to it. Their first conference was this past year and they've come up with a project that they've been working throughout since they've been back. Absolutely. Absolutely. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Local level. So it's good to have Washington D.C., right? But in my opinion, I think it's more important to govern locally in your own backyard. So yes, Councilwoman. ERIVES: I had just a couple of things. So I know y'all went and you had a fantastic time. So I like that follow-up of -- like, a report, what some takeaways, some aha moments that you had, that would be fun. But I also remember, as you're mentioning, Vice Mayor, the conference is also like an opportunity for them to present or be part of the CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 36 of 63 conference themselves. And they might be like a discount on how the funding for that, right? Like if they're actual presenters, so I'm just giving that challenge that, yes, you went to your first conference, but how about next time be one of the presenters or hold a forum for that youth conference? Maybe you get a discount, maybe you'd put some great experience and showcase all the things that you currently do within Teen Council on a national level. That would be awesome. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Show that you guys got the moves. ERIVES: Yeah. Right, yeah. That might be a way to pay for it too. SINAWI: I'm sorry, Mayor, members of Council. So I'm like -- I heard 40, I heard 50. I feel like I'll be an auctioneer. I'm not sure what you're -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I think it's easy. We just do 50 and we use what we use. And then we're going to adjust in future years. SINAWI: Okay. So then it would be to increase this project. ERIVES: I agree. SINAWI: So then it would be to increase the Special Related Project Fund from $15,000 to $50,000, and then to use that for the teens to be able to travel to these conferences? Okay. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Director Artz directs you guys to do so. We're just saying 50. ZAMORA: Okay. Thank you. ARTZ: For Economic Development, the budget's decreasing by $189,000. This is an economic development rebate that we had in previous years that's been paid off, so we're decreasing the budget for that. And then a $10,000 increase in wages and benefits. Planning and Engineering, a $38,000 increase. That's all in wages and benefits. Employee Development, this is the tuition reimbursement, so no changes or no request of an increase in this budget. And then we get into our Capital Funds. So in our General Fund, we have the $1 million private donation going to the Aquatic Center, so that's included in this year's budget. And we've received those funds already, so we have that money available. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 37 of 63 We still have a little bit of money in the Civic Center fund, so we're requesting to carry over $175,000 of that. I know that there's been some discussions on what that could be used for. And so I think that'll be something that will come forward soon on that carry over and that funding that's available. In Engineering, we've got $7.2 million of capital requests. The big one being the Tolleson pedestrian bridge. That's a carry over, so we have it in the current year but requesting to carry that over. A couple of other carry overs there -- the computer system, that's the Building Department, so that's their new software, which will be the same as the Finance software. So those will interact and talk to each other. But if there's any questions on any of these specific projects. (Indiscernible). BABCHUK: Council, that's the parking lot where the old gas station used to be, across the street from -- or right next to the public restrooms. (Indiscernible). BABCHUK: We have, but we think that's going to last a couple of years. We hadn't decided at the time. Tonight you approved the purchase of that property. We thought about maybe possibly building that here, so maybe we'll probably push that until next budget year, because that will last at least another year for sure. MEDRANO: Currently, Mr. Mayor, members of Council, currently city vehicles and city employees park there to leave room for patrons that come in. Oh yeah. Right. GÁMEZ: Parking lot upgrade. What parking lot? BABCHUK: The -- GÁMEZ: Across the street? BABCHUK: Yeah, the one where the old -- no, where the old gas station was next to the public restrooms. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Awesome talks. And we had a couple of Council Members there. Apparently Pickleball is on the raise in Tolleson. And we had one particular member of the community that was extremely vocal, and he was basically saying that Pickleball at the rec center is mad house. We've outgrown the facility and we would love to see CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 38 of 63 some Pickleball courts built in Tolleson. My idea was we have property behind Veterans Park, and I know we tossed it around, but I don't see a problem with it other than finance, of course, building some courts to include basketball, volleyball and Pickleball behind Veterans Park. I just think of a couple of acres, develop that. And so not only do we fill the need of Pickleball users, but we also have basketball users and we also have sand or concrete volleyball users that can use the sand volleyball courts. And that would be a capital project, but I don't think in the grand scheme of things, it would be a bad expense. As a matter of fact, I think it would make Veterans Park that much better -- a wider offering to our community. So with that, I'm throwing that out there. Christine? CHAVIRA: Mayor, just to add onto that, there was also some community members that were asking about like the Community Garden Park area and some shade structures for those. They were also mentioning over -- I call it McNeel park -- is that 95th? Again, about lighting. And there was just some different -- so I don't know if we just consider that considered parks, like in the tab of parks that need to be. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So let's just go back and go one by one. When it came to the park on -- what was it? The one where your family's across the street. CHAVIRA: Garden -- the community garden. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, community garden. They were asking for a shade structure on top of the playground because it gets pretty hot. Even though it's not that big of a playground, it's still hot pipes, and just some general improvements. But I actually -- I've already seen staff at community garden doing some work at it, so that was good. Yeah, there's plans there. But the other thing that came up was McNeel park, 95th Avenue park. They were asking for enhanced lighting. CHAVIRA: The lighting. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: And I didn't know if it was a controller issue where lights turn off at a certain time, or we can upgrade the lighting to where certain parts of the light turn off at a certain time and provide good lighting for the cost of lighting the entire neighborhood all night. I just -- I asked staff to follow up with that, but I don't know CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 39 of 63 where we're at. MEDRANO: Mr. Mayor, members of Council, many of these opportunities could come to fruition this year once we get a better idea of how much cash we're going to need to finish the Aquatic Center. Once we get a better handle on that, we can probably address some of these things and we'll bring that back to you. And we'll also conduct obviously the community visioning sessions through the general plan process, through the project with the ASU and give us a better idea on some other project as well. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: So I just thought it was really good feedback. And I actually agree that, I mean, it's probably a pretty good opportunity if we have the money to do some of these projects. So I'll go with -- we'll revisit as soon as we find out how much the Aquatic Center is going to cost us. Yeah, Randy. BABCHUK: Mayor, members of the Council, so we also have -- currently right now we have solar powered lights at McNeel Park. We can look at adding a couple more, but that's currently -- you don't have electricity to that park yet. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: That's up to you guys. Me personally, I don't do solar lights. They don't meet standards that we build parks to for security lighting. BABCHUK: Right. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: But every city has their own standards. They don't meet our standard. And when you go out to a park that has solar power lights, it's dark and just it's just dark down there. So switching to an electric version, if that's the way we would improve it, that's fine. Increasing the amount of solar lights. That's up to you guys. I'm just saying that the concern came in from residents that it's pretty dark out there. CHAVIRA: Basketball. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Basketball, playground, and pretty soon 25 more trees. CHAVIRA: Arbor Day. GÁMEZ: Okay, sir. CHAVIRA: I'm sorry. I don't know, because like you said, is this like when we like mentioned? So when you hear, like at Whoopee Daze, like all these things, oh, this is so CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 40 of 63 much fun, so great. But then they also come back with like, oh, you need to fix, right? There's a couple of things that people say. Traffic. I heard that a lot. The traffic, I can't even get to work. And I live in Tolleson, you know, from here was point A to point B. So I'm not sure if there's something like lighting, like the lights to be timed different. I'm not sure if there needs to be -- I don't know, technology that could help us, but the traffic flow just needs to -- people get upset. Remember we were talking about this as well? People get upset when they can't get to somewhere, so then they start to turn around and they go down Pierce instead of, you know, down the road and they get upset. I'm just throwing it out there. I heard Chief Mendoza had mentioned something about traffic units and different, you know, different things like that. So I wasn't sure if that's already being addressed, but maybe. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Let's start with Director Earp. CHAVIRA: Okay. EARP: Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council. So I think it's May 27th. We'll be coming to you. Kimley-Horn is doing a traffic study, safety study throughout the entire city. And so they will give a presentation on what they find as far as safety for traffic. Now, as far as just the number of traffic, obviously Phoenix keeps building to the south of us and they're going to come through our neighborhood, but at least we'll have an idea of how -- if we can better the flow of traffic, whether that's through -- and I'm -- I have not talked to them, seen anything. I'm just saying that whatever ideas they may have, they'll present that night. And then we'll figure out if there's a cost associated with it and deal with that in the next budget year. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: The other part too is we need to continue to advocate as public officials for SR 30. SR 30 right now is designed -- in a design stage to be built south of Tolleson. So a lot of that Phoenix traffic can take SR 30 to access the 202 and go on further into Phoenix and not take 91st Avenue or 99th, which jams up or Van Buren for that matter, that jams up our roads during rush hour. But Jimmy, you had your hand up? DAVIS: I was just going to mention that for that, that that's pretty important. We'll see CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 41 of 63 that because I think that'll help the traffic as far as people not having to wait for the system to process for you. So I think that'll help the flow of traffic to Van Buren. EARP: Yeah, thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of Council. We have a conceptual design that we'll be bringing forward to you here pretty soon and hopefully get started on that. I don't want to give a date, but very soon. It approximately -- the last time I talked to anyone, it may be about eight months, but I'll double check. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: It'll have some stuff on it. It's not just a basic bridge, just maybe something that's going to be proud of the parks. Council Member Gamez, you have the floor. GÁMEZ: Thank you. Yes, Mayor. Y'all know I live on the corner of 91st Avenue too. And traffic, obviously, I'm going to tell you, it's an issue. In the mornings, you have people practically racing up and down 91st Avenue. And what I think we need is those lights that Avenue has, they take pictures, tell you to slow down, get ticketed. Something to slow down traffic. It is going, it's getting crazy. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Get people's attention. GÁMEZ: And yep, absolutely. And I'm telling you, I stand out there and there'll be times when people get out their cars and I think they're going to come to blows. And one of these days, something's going to happen even worse. I hate to say it, but it's going to happen. We need to come up with a plan. And again, if they're going to come out and do a survey or do what they have to do to find answers, then fine. But we need to do it quickly because it's getting worse. And I'm telling you, I know we all live here, but I'm right there. I'm right there, and I see it every day, and it's getting worse. And not only that, you have people having to inhale the exhaust of the cars. And then you tap that with Fabuloso from the laundry mat. And then all that together, that's a hell of a conference. It's nice. You go out there and oh, that's beautiful. It's not; it sucks, but it happens. So we have to address it because the quality of life from right here on Van Buren North to a freeway on both sides of 91st Avenue is not very good. It's not; it's terrible. So we have to address it and it is serious and it's getting worse. Thank you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: And we also have our police department that's going to be hiring CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 42 of 63 some patrol officers. So hopefully that'll help out as well. It is a good idea, the police department. Director Artz, you have the floor. CHAVIRA: Sorry. ARTZ: So in the Economic Development CIP, a total of $15.6 million requests. 15 million of that is new for this economic development fund to help give Council flexibility for an economic development project that may come forward. And then there's also $500,000 for land acquisition and improvements and $100,000 of building improvements. So $15.6 million total in the economic development CIP. Finance. We have the carryover of our financial system, so that should be fully implemented by next budget year. Information Technology. They have a request in for audio/visual refresh throughout the city, so updating our EV equipment and then also a vehicle, a pickup truck for them, as they're driving throughout the city and taking some of the equipment around. They've asked for a pickup truck. Field Operations CIP. So we've got a total of $478,000 requested here for AC replacements, police and fire building maintenance, converting Veterans Park to LED lights. So that's in for $100,000. Charging stations. I believe -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: (Indiscernible). ARTZ: I don't know, Randy, if you know what was in that 200, which vehicles were included. BABCHUK: Thank you, mayor and members of the Council. We can look into it. The issue we run into with electric vehicles is they can't tow as much, so we're using these vehicles to tow our trailers and our mowers and things like that. So if we can get something comparable that can pull that equipment around, we definitely can look into that and start purchasing those. ARTZ: For the Senior Center, these are all carryover items that were in the current year budget. I think possibly the steamer has been purchased this year. So we can reduce that out, but these are all carryover items for the senior center. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 43 of 63 Parks and Rec facility. So there is a request in for $282,000 for generator wiring, so we actually purchased a generator. I think it was its current fiscal year, we purchased the generator and then determined that there was some wiring upgrades that needed to be done at the building in order to have that emergency generator. Yeah, so emergency generator. And then more for AC units and then some other items for the Parks and Recs Department. And then the final thing is Contingency. So typically we've budgeted $2 million in the Contingency Fund. We're requesting an increase to $4 million. And the reason we're doing this is really the Aquatic Center. So we've got a budget of $32 million now in for the Aquatic Center, but we wanted just -- we didn't want to put it in the Aquatic Center budget. We wanted it in the contingency, but just some extra funding there for the Aquatic Center. And then as the City Manager mentioned, if we don't have to spend this on the Aquatic Center, then that would be flexibility for doing the shade structures or pickleball courts. So that's where we have some additional funding this year. So if we do need to request additional funding for the Aquatic Center, Contingency requires Council approval to spend this, so we would have to come back to Council if the budget for the Aquatic Center goes over the $32 million. Then that way you would have the ability to see what we're getting for those additional funds and whether you want to prioritize that or some of these other items that you've talked about tonight. But there is some additional $2 million of funding in the budget for some additional capital items. And I think that's the end of my presentation for tonight. So we have the work study sessions tonight. And then in two weeks, we'll go over the rest of the funds. May 13th, we'll request Council to adopt the tentative budget. June 10th, we'll do the final budget and property tax hearings. And then on June 24th, Council would actually adopt the property tax levy. So that's where we're going from here. And if you have any other questions on any of the details tonight or any additional information that you would like to see at the next budget meeting. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, and Council, you don't have -- oh, I'm sorry. We have a hand up. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 44 of 63 LABORIN: I just want to compliment you on your style of being proactive. I think it's so important. And every little thing you said, I put in extra money just in case we need it. I think that's excellent. I compliment you on it. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Anybody else? ARTZ: Uh-oh. CHAVIRA: I don't know, I missed it. I'm like trying to read it. I have just one more thing. And then I'll leave this alone. Van Buren maintenance. I know it wasn't in this, but maybe in the next one, I want to make sure that we're allowing ourselves money to maintain some of those things that are looking pretty bad on Van Buren Street and specifically the tables and chairs that are there. They're in bad shape. We've either got to change them or fix them or do something. I want it to be Paseo de Luces that you can walk and see that it's beautiful and that it's clean and maintained, and right now it needs some love. And it gets beat up by people that walk certain parts of Van Buren, so I don't know. Maybe we have to try some other kind of -- they're tearing up the tiles, so maybe we do something else, but -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We put it -- we invested over $10 million. CHAVIRA: We did. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: And so we need to budget some money to make sure that it's maintained to the level or it's not even better than before. Jason, you had to add up? EARP: Yes, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member Chavira. We do have a plan. We have a plan moving forward. We have a plan for this year with less budget and hopefully -- because there's a lot of things going on, right? So hopefully next year will be better, but we're going to start off with that parking lot. So with that parking lot in front of it, there's three right-of-way areas in front of that parking lot that we're going to kind of change out from the wrapping around the trees, do some up lighting because the trees sag, they tear, people unplug it to plug in their phone; all kinds of different things go on there. The bushes that are there, the leaves fall in, it's hard to get out. So we're going to do something different and use that as a showcase, hopefully. And if CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 45 of 63 Council thinks that -- and the community thinks that it's a good look, we will try to mimic that throughout the -- our downtown for the future years. But we're going to use that as an example of what it can look like. And we think it would clean it up and make it look that much nicer. CHAVIRA: Thank you. It was a big investment. I mean, we need to maintain it. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Vice Mayor. DAVIS: We also had approved with the West Valley Arts Council, the Gallery 37 project, to put some more artwork up and down back there. So there will be some that way as well. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yes, Councilwoman. CHAVIRA: Just to follow up on your Art Council. As we're getting close, because I know it's a little while, but the 100th anniversary is coming up. And so if we could start thinking about maybe an art structure, like something to go with that area that you're mentioning, something to memorialize this hundredth year of Tolleson. It doesn't really like just magically -- you've got to think about it, get some artists to get involved with it. How would that look? How would it -- not just for our 100th past, but what will a hundred years look like from now? What does our future going to look like to make it -- we're not just stuck here; we're continuing to thrive. So I'd like to see something with our 100th anniversary and make sure that it looks -- we plan for it. So yeah. Thank you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Well, I heard from this side. Hear from this side and then we have Randy. BABCHUK: Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. We're also doing a study on the vegetation downtown. What lasts, what kind of takes the beating and will last, so we should be seeing that soon. We're also in the works of making the Tolleson sign at the splash pad as well. I think they're in final design, so you guys should be seeing that soon as well. So we do have a few things coming up to beautify the downtown area as well. ARTZ: That's it. That's it from staff perspective on this. CHAVIRA: Thank you. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Babchuk, he's -- CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 46 of 63 CHAVIRA: He's like Cory Booker, right? He stood there for 25 hours. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. We're going to take five minute recess and then we'll be right back. ERIVES: Okay. (Recess) MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. We're back in session. This is Mayor Juan Rodriguez. We're going to move on to work study and presentations for discussion. Item number 2, discussion on mayoral term limits. We're going to call up our attorney, but basically this is something that I've been throwing out there. Something that I ran on, something that I got a lot of feedback on. And it says discussion on mayoral term limits, but really it was mayoral and Council. But at the end of the day, that's what the discussion is for, to have the general discussion and to see what wants to be included or not be included or whatever the case may be. So at this point, I'll turn it over to our attorney. PIERCE: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I sure know how to clear a room. Nobody wanted to hang out for this one. As you know, and we'll make this quick. I'm not going to go through the whole history other than to share with you that for a long time -- and there was a case that went up, a municipality tried to enact term limits. It was challenged because there was no enabling statutory provision that would allow a city or town to do that, even to send it to the ballot a couple of years ago. That was fixed in the legislature, which now allows a city or town to enact term limits, but it does have to be a voter -- an initiative or sent to the ballot from the Council. And so your options are -- we evaluated the statute on this question for the Mayor wanted to know, what options you can send. You could -- well, one, you could do nothing. Two, you could send to the ballot a question for the citizens to determine whether they want term limits on the Mayor only, term limits on the Council only, not Mayor, or term limits on everybody. Or again, you could do nothing. I mean, this isn't something you're required to do, so those are your options. And I know that -- well, I guess we'll -- I guess, Mayor, those are your options. And I CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 47 of 63 know you wanted to talk about it. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yes, I want to talk about it because I really do think that new ideas and an opportunity to serve is key to what we do as elected officials. Some folks want to run for a very long time; great. We have other boards; they can serve here; they can serve in other places, but I'm the school of thought that if you can't do it in eight, buddy, you aren't going to do it. And that's the end of it. Get off of the chair and let somebody else that wants to do it, to do something, come in and do it. And in the last eight years in particular, we've had some additions. We've got Cruzita, we've got Chavira, and we have Jimmy Davis. We also had Councilwoman -- not here, the one that resigned. GÁMEZ: Bandin. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Councilwoman Bandin. And I thought they all brought in a new sense of life and purpose and background and made our Council richer because of it. And so, again, it says mayoral, but I think it's just a discussion on term limits. I would be okay if it was just the Mayor, because in my mind, if the Mayor's position is limited, then the likely ascendant to the position is probably going to be a Councilman, which would be a Council position, opening up an opportunity for somebody else to serve. And I do believe it was a -- I don't know if it was -- I don't think it was framed this way, but we had our Council here, our Teen Council. And I want to make sure that as we develop our youth and we prepare them for leadership opportunities, we also provide the opportunity for them to step up and be able to serve their community. I think that would be a great thing. And so it's not a call out on anybody in particular or my desires in particular. I mean, I've already been very clear of this. I'm serving two terms. That's cool. I'm done after this, and I'm completely okay with it. It's been a great ride and a dream accomplished. I'll just leave it that way. So really, I do think that to put something procedurally -- not procedurally -- but structurally in place that will allow new ideas and new folks to run and to induce their ideas onto this Council, some form of term limits would be something that I would advocate for. And I did ask our City Manager and our City Attorney to bring it up for CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 48 of 63 discussion because my hope is that we put something on the ballot that the people from the community can respond to. And most cities right now, I believe -- correct me if I'm wrong, Justin -- they typically do two terms for Mayor or your term and three terms for Council. And I would be okay with four terms for Council, three terms for Mayor -- a combination of something that puts in place the opportunity for fresh ideas and new people to be able to join this governing board. And in a sense, that's my two cents worth. Yes? GÁMEZ: Just for information of the Council, Juan, you served for 18 years on this Council. Clorinda, you've been here for 16 years. Linda has been here for 24 years. And I'm the veteran -- I've been here for 40 years, 40 years. And I'll tell you what -- and there was a time that we had talked about this, this is way back in the day. But I think that the purpose for us continuing without term limits was to establish a very balanced environment by which business would come to the community because they would see that there was no conflicts in Council. And so that would be great for them to come and coupled with the labor force that we had, the transportation that we have in terms of rail, and we had the freeway -- everything was a positive -- the water flow. But the main thing was that they saw that there was balance and there was a pro-growth of attitude on Council. And so those individuals around Council, that was one of them. That was the purpose. Term limits, no term limits, my program, just get the work done. I think Glendale has no term limits. Maybe they do; the Mayor has been there forever. I mean, that's all there is to it. So it all depends on what works. Just because other cities have term limits doesn't mean that we have. I think that if it's been working and it's good, be it the Mayor, be it the Council, fine. But let the people decide if that's what they want to do. I was the first Mayor elected by the people. It was always the Mayor or the Vice Mayor of being appointed by Council. Then we went out and we had an election. I was the first one voted by the community, so it has happened. History is there, it's happened. But not to do away with the premise that I started this talk about, it was consistency in terms of what was here for business to come to this community. And we CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 49 of 63 push that theme every time we go out and try to get people to come here. Reyes, me, Jason, everybody. A lot of times we missed; a lot of times we didn't miss, but they came. And it got to the point that the businesses that did come here were our biggest advocates for other businesses to come here because of how we treated people and how we were consistent. So that has a lot to do with the success of this community. And I'm telling you that because I did it as Mayor for 22 years. I know; I've seen it. I know what it feels like. I know what it looks like. Reyes was there. Crystal. But there were other people that were there. We did it. It was because we were consistent. But if you guys want to go a different direction and have people come out, like we always have in numbers, you have to fight for people to come out. It's tough. Maybe it's going to get better; that's the end. But all I'm saying is that term limits can be good. They can be bad. It all depends on where you come from. I think I'm good with no term limits. If people want you out, they'll get you out. Simple as that. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. I mean, we've had new people come out on Council and I can tell you, there hasn't been much of a conflict. And I think we all kind of agree that if you're going to run for the Tolleson City Council that you want the best of the town. And I think there's a lot of people that feel that way and just don't have the opportunity to serve. So this, I think, will give us a mechanism for us to be able to put something in place that will kind of guarantee that there's new ideas and new blood flowing into the Council. And, you know, I don't have any personal conflicts or vendettas with anybody I served with in the past. I think that's a lie. I do with one of you, but we won't have to talk about that tonight. Have people who have an opportunity to actually serve the community. And, you know, I don't want to be a Mayor that touts that I want to prepare the next generation of leadership for our community, but I'm never going to leave, so you can't serve here; go serve somewhere else. No, if we're asking you to be on a Teen Council and we're taking you to D.C. and teaching you leadership opportunities and opportunities to expand your horizons and encouraging you to go to college, we're also encouraging you to come back and be a part of the Tolleson dream moving forward. Eventually we need to move on and allow these youngsters to come CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 50 of 63 in and continue to mark the path forward. And this is really what it's all about. I want them to be able to do that and move forward, and unfortunately we're losing a lot of our kids. And so last time we had a vacancy, we had 12 candidates. That was a huge eye-opening experience to me. I had never interviewed that many people that applied to be on Council. There's a thirst out there. And I think putting this mechanism in place will help us quench that thirst. And we'll get people that want to serve, will be here, Tollesonians, and future leaders for our community. Other comments? Yes? MENDOZA: Okay. The second time that there was a vacancy, what happened to those people? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We had a recruitment and they didn't come back and apply. MENDOZA: Did they know that there was an opening? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We had a recruitment, yeah. MENDOZA: I'm talking about the second one. SINAWI: Mayor, members of Council, when we've had vacancies on the Council, we have done door-to-door communications and also notices that have gone out for that. So -- oh, that would have been different. So her -- she retired, and then there was an opportunity for people to apply to run for the position. ZAMORA: So that seat was taken by Chavira, I believe. MENDOZA: But that's what I mean. What happened to the other people? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: But she was appointed because she was elected. ZAMORA: Yes, she was appointed; she had ran in the election and also ran unopposed. MENDOZA: I'm talking about when she came on board. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. Yeah, we'd have to ask other people. I don't know. We just decided to appoint her at that point because she had already been elected, so there was no point in -- MENDOZA: No, no, no. ZAMORA: But nobody ran against her in the election. She ran unopposed. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 51 of 63 MENDOZA: So where was -- so my thing is, okay. If you want a term, like, say, two terms, and that's it, what if there's no one that put in their name to run for the Mayor's position? Then are you going to not run the third term? I mean, if we can't get people to -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I think we can get people to run. MENDOZA: So what happened when that other position was appointed? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: They didn't run. ZAMORA: They didn't choose to run in the election. That's her point, yes. GÁMEZ: They're there, but they're not there. CHAVIRA: Right. MENDOZA: So my thing is, if you put a limit and there's nobody there to be able to take over your third term, what's the difference there? Are you going to -- is that person going to run again because there's nobody else running when you run unopposed? I don't know. That's -- I don't know if you guys are getting what I'm -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: No, I'm listening. I got it. MENDOZA: You can't force them. DAVIS: So on the surface, I think when I was thinking about this, I thought a lot about this the last couple of weeks because we think about the federal level -- and I'm not saying anything bad about any particular elected official or anything like that -- but we haven't had representation at the federal level for more than a year because our elected was not able to fulfill the role of the duty. And that's very common at the federal level for -- whether it be a justice or a Congress person or a Senate person remain in their seat till they die. And they're not able to do their job for years at a time. So, I've often thought term limits would be a great answer to that. But as I've thought more about Tolleson, I started thinking about electors. Adolfo, how many times did you run unopposed? GÁMEZ: Five. DAVIS: You ran unopposed the last two -- both times for Mayor. I haven't had that luck; every time I ran -- CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 52 of 63 MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: You had seven on the first. DAVIS: But what I'm saying is -- and I think this was Cruzita's point -- we're not seeing a slate of people that are running for office every time. And we have trouble filling our Council and our Planning and Zoning Commission and things like that. And I worry that if we do enact term limits, you know, our population is not growing. We don't have housing. I don't even have really somewhere that I want to live. Now, I moved back to Tolleson and that's the only reason that I ended up running for office. And I live with my grandparents and I truthfully cannot afford to buy a house in our community. And when they pop up, they're gone faster than I can believe. And I don't make over a million dollars to buy a house in Tolleson at this point. So, we'll see what my options are in the long term, but that's just me. And also, I'm -- no offense -- but by far, I'm the youngest person here by quite a few years. He just said he's been in office for 40 years. He's been an office longer than I've been alive. GÁMEZ: I used to be -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: You're still kicking, baby. GÁMEZ: I know. I know. I know. It's on the record. ERIVES: He's been in an office longer than I have been alive. And it's his birthday. Yeah, it's his birthday. It is his birthday. But we're an aging population. We're not growing. I'm afraid that we're going to run out of office. We don't have to this pool from -- like bigger cities do. And then, there's also outsiders who are not from our community who starts running for office. We just have to look next door. There were three along their Council in Avondale and they turned out -- now they're making national news and for not the right reason. So that's another fear. So I don't know if this is something that I can support. And initially I was really, like, on board with this, but the more I thought about it, the more it just worries me. It's just, those are my concerns that we are not going to have people to fill the void or qualified people to fill the void or people with the right mentality and heart. And I think as long as you are physically able if you want to continue serving, then it's fantastic. GÁMEZ: And if the people say, yeah, we want you, then vote for you. If you don't, CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 53 of 63 adios, simple as that. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Anybody else? Well, it's up to you guys. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm pro-term limits. I think it's important that we have something structurally that allows for new opportunities. And I was you Jimmy; I was in my early 20s, my mid 20s when I got on here. And for the longest time, I was the only new blood. And it was kind of like, okay. And so I think allowing for new people to join and be a part of it is key. DAVIS: Well, you know, one of the other things that we might want to look at is making this more attractive. Is this -- so how much do Council Members make? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Oh, I'm sorry. I think it's 21 and 15 or something like that. $12,600 per Council Member. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: You know where that would be. CHAVIRA: It's 14.4, Vice Mayor. 14.4. DAVIS: I'm a very busy Council Member. I know not -- I realize not every Council Member is as busy as I am, but you know, I have a full-time job now and I've already exhausted more than half of my vacation time for the year, which means I'm going to have to take an unpaid vacation in the summertime, because I'm going to and I don't care. I value my time more than anything else. But I know when I first got in Council, there was a salary study that was done for the Council and it was a significant increase to what it is now. We shot it down because of COVID and we didn't feel it was the right time. But maybe that's also something that we need to look at, you know, and our discretionary funds as well. While I'm at it, you know, I also, as a very active Council Member, I'm on national committees and I don't know how I'm going to be able to afford with my current budget, how to represent our city at the level that I'm trying to represent it. ERIVES: There's a second budget for that. There's a second budget for that. There's funding for that, Jimmy. DAVIS: But I have to come to the Council and there's a whole song and dance that I'm going to have to do in order to do that; it'd be a lot easier the other way. ERIVES: I don't remember that. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 54 of 63 MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, go ahead. MEDOZA: Mayor, members of the Council, that's the budget. Now we've taken that away, right? Right. That $50,000 of the special funding is now available to the Council. DAVIS: We don't have a budget for that. SINAWI: Don't, right? I'm not saying that that can't change, but that's something just to keep in mind as well. DAVIS: I think we do, you know, in order to get a better representative Council, just multi-generational, you know, this is a really easy thing for a retired person to do, but a person who works, who has a family, there's no way I can. You know, I can take the financial hit here and there, or whatever, fine; I'm a single person. But we need to really look at what the position looks like, what it entails. I probably put in on a Council week more than 30 hours a week, which is because of my other commitments with Metro and Council meetings and other meetings, other projects that I'm doing. Maybe on an off week, probably 18 and half of that, but it's a lot of hours that I'm personally putting in and we want to encourage more of that. And if we want to do something, definitely need to make this more attractive -- not very attractive for a working person. MEDRANO: I just wanted to offer that the last time we raised Councils per diems -- or not per diems -- stipends, discretionary funds, but also the stipends, the annual stipends, we did see an increase in interest at the Council level. And that was part of the motivation is to get more people involved. And we saw more people run for Council. CHAVIRA: Didn't we also do that for Planning and Zoning? That was like a small, tiny, tiny, I mean, it's not – MEDRANO: Planning and Zoning is a hundred dollars. CHAVIRA: But I'm just saying, incentivizing those types of – MEDRANO: We did do that. CHAVIRA: Yeah, yeah, it works, it does. ERIVES: A hundred dollar meeting. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 55 of 63 MEDRANO: No, a month -- a month. MENDOZA: Each – MEDRANO: A month. But we don't have a lot of meetings. CHAVIRA: I'm of the -- I'm so sorry. I'm of that split decision as well, when I think, well, the president can only be for four years or two terms of four years each, that why would -- why do we not have term limits, right? Like, I see that; I can see that. That makes sense. And then I'm like, but we're not the president. Their system is different than our system. What works for us doesn't always work for everyone. And we're not Litchfield; we're not Avondale; we're not Glendale; we're not that. We're Tolleson. And you had mentioned something, Council Member Gamez, let the people decide, right? So the people are the ones who come to vote. And I would even just like for us to get people to come to vote, because that sometimes even -- even getting our own community members involved in elections. I think there's some things that we could do -- and just, I'm just like thinking, right, just thinking -- that we could do prior to making some term limits. You're saying making it more incentivized to come and be on Council, having teens who come in, maybe a mentorship program. Someone might want to see, but they don't know what it all means. What does this mean to be a Council? How much work do I have to? I am a mom and I do have this, and can I do it? Well, no, I can't. Maybe we need to kind of showcase, what does a Council look like? What is a Council Member's job? What does some of the things that they do? Could you see yourself being this in the future? Could you see yourself, Tolleson's almost here a hundred years. Could you see yourself one day being a representative of Tolleson? But I almost think like we have to teach people what this is before they can say, oh, I'm willing, or it's kind of intimidating. I know for one, they say public speaking, right? People don't want to speak in public. Well, it's really -- we're not so scary, right? Once you get to do this, this is not so scary. We have a wonderful support staff that is here to help us, right? Within us as a group, we're here to help one another, because all we want is the betterment for our community. But it can be a little intimidating to say like, oh, I had someone ask me, what would I have to do to run? And I said, oh, well, let CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 56 of 63 me tell you, you would need to do this and do, oh, that's it? That's all I have to do? Oh, yeah, you could do, oh. So I know, but I think it's just the education of what does the Council -- what does the Mayor do? Like, what is his job? What do I have to do as the Mayor? One day I want to be the Mayor, but what would I have to do? And have these future, right? These Teen Councils that you're mentioning. But I don't know if term limits would be the only solution of getting people actively engaged. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Understood. Yeah. I've had people come to me and they actively wanted to run for Council. I said, okay. And it's been a good number of them. But to me, I want to bring this Council so that nobody could ever say, well, you guys didn't run it. No, we did. We run the Council. The Council says no, the Council says no. At the end of the day, I've had many people tell me I would be very interested to run Council, okay? And a lot of times that's how the conversation started. And so, yeah, so maybe the answer is run. CHAVIRA: Run. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: But if you think, yeah, go ahead. MENDOZA: Okay. If they're that interested, do they come to the meeting? You know, that's part of training, coming to a meeting, being involved. And another thing is -- the true test I feel is going to be when Clori and Linda run. Let's see how many people will be on the ballot. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I can think of five already. DAVIS: If I'm on the ballot, that means a lot of people will run. CHAVIRA: No, it's only Linda and Clori. ERIVES: No, and Jimmy. MENDOZA: Jimmy? MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, we're a full Council. We got three and three. Three and four. MENDOZA: Oh, I didn't know Jimmy was on. ERIVES: I mean, as the newest person, I'm also on the fence. I'm not quite sure. I think in a lot of ways, change is good and you need new ideas and you need fresh eyes. But at CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 57 of 63 the same time, there's a lot to be said for stability. And so both are important. But I can only speak for myself as the newest person, right? So during COVID, I started watching your City Council meetings online. And so I just kind of got interested in that. I'd always had worked for the City, but that's a very different thing on the other side. So that kind of sparked my interest. And then I applied for a couple boards, but the Mayor chose heads instead of tails, so I didn't get it. Just kidding. But I think people always have the opportunity to run. There's -- you know, if you want to run, you can. It's not a very difficult process, really. You know, you fill out some paperwork, you've got to get signatures, but you can run. So people have the opportunity to run if they want to. I don't know. DAVIS: Yeah. The other thing, you know, I don't know if I said this already, but I think there's a lot to be said about continuity and leadership as well. You know, like I think that, like the business community of Tolleson is very attractive because we are stable. We're not one of these crazy Councils, like next door -- we don't have a MAGA person in here, you know, making disparaging comments on Twitter or anything like that. I just say that off the record for the record, you know. So just -- I think the stability of Tolleson and the fact that we, you know, we're just one family. We're one family and we've always been that way. We're united. And I think that says a lot about us as a community and it's reflected in our community. I think that's one of the most important things. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Okay. So I'm hearing James say no term limits. He said no term limits. Yes, Wendy. Wendy. JACKSON: Mayor and Council, I just pulled up the data from that wage study that we conducted in the fall of 2020. And in terms of the Council Member seat and the mayor seat, the Council Member seat was 40 percent off in terms of the data that was received and the mayor seat was 42 percent off. So I just wanted to give you that data. It was lower than the average of the nine cities that we collected data from, so just to give you that insight. CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 58 of 63 GÁMEZ: Nine cities from this area or state, from where? JACKSON: This particular study, our nine comparators were from the West Valley cities. DAVIS: How do we address that? How do we fix it? MEDRANO: Mr. Mayor, members of Council, we just -- I'm going to make -- Justin check my math -- but you explained a lot, go ahead. EARP: Well, just that you're talking about a change in -- so if you adopt a pay raise, it can't be for the current Council. If you adopt it with this Council, it will go into effect at the turnover of the next Council at the next election. So '26. BABCHUK: Right, essentially can't give yourself a raise. So when the next Council takes the seat in '26, the raise goes into effect. So we have it. We can do another one. JACKSON: Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor and members of Council, we are scheduled to do another full study this FY 26. So that's when we'll get another study done. And in terms of the comparator cities at the time, it was Avondale, Buckeye, Chandler, El Mirage, Glendale, Goodyear, Peoria, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Surprise and Tempe. So they got the information from them. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: I think we should do that. MEDRANO: That's typically who we lose people to. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Council Member Gamez. GÁMEZ: We just don't want to lose business to them. That's another thing. CHAVIRA: Or employees who go to them, because we've invested in their employees. GÁMEZ: All right. I think we're done here. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Well, with that, we have committee events update. CHAVIRA: Yes. BABCHUK: Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. Onto some happy notes. And we had a great time, great turnout, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Nothing but positive feedback from the community. They loved the variety of music and just the difference of people showing up and having fun in our community. I think we had a few people from Tucson come up just to listen to the bands for Saturday and Sunday. So really, really liked that part. And just everything -- the event itself, what we had going CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 59 of 63 on, the kickball tournament, heard nothing about -- good things about Council Member Davis's team. He didn't get slaughtered this time. He actually competed, good job. Next year, you might even take it. That's what I'm hearing. So -- MEDRANO: My kids want to be on your team next year. I told them, Jimmy was looking for players because they were complaining. I told Sierra just better start working out. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: That's on Sunday. I don't know how we ended up working on Saturday because that's a Saturday band, but it worked out. I mean, the place was packed. BABCHUK: Absolutely. I think that's the direction we've been leaning towards now too. So I think -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We had a good turnout Saturday too. BABCHUK: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Little League did a phenomenal job at the beer booth. We raised over $14,000 for their nonprofit, so it was a really good turnout. This -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: There were a couple of hiccups, but it's nothing that isn't solvable. BABCHUK: Right. They did run out of beer Sunday. So -- and again, I was ensuring Little League that we're not in the business of selling beers. We're in the business of making an event for our community. So yeah, absolutely. So the data we had to order was from 2023 and that's all we had. So we ended up taking it over and it ended up being a really good turnout. CHAVIRA: But like you -- sorry, Mayor. But like you had mentioned, you created a Sunday event that usually is a Saturday event, so we have never had that before. So how could you predict the sales, right? BABCHUK: Right. CHAVIRA: Like you didn't know, so it was fantastic. If you sold out, to me, that was a great success, because otherwise you'd be left over with so much left over. Now what are you going to do with it, right? Like, to me, it was a good problem that y'all ran out. And then especially on Sunday, go home guys, go home. You know, you got to go to work. So good thing y'all sold out. BABCHUK: They didn't sell as much as we did in 2023. So that was kind of what we CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 60 of 63 gauged it by. So we do have our Easter event with VFW and our Show and Shine this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. We're working on that. We'll have Easter baskets for everyone in attendance -- all the kids in attendance. They'll be doing it by age. And then we do have a Arbor Day event on April 19th with Trees Matter. They started marking out the trees and we'll work on -- once we get them planted that Saturday, we'll have a plan to put some irrigation into place. So that'll be one of our Arbor Day Tree City USA requirements. So we'll have that up and going as well. ERIVES: I don't know. I'm just asking, just asking. Can people buy a tree or like sponsor a tree like in this park that's here that they have these, what, 25 trees are growing? And it sounds like a placard. Like I'm committing, I don't know, $100 a month for the something, right? For this tree. I know you're not going to give it just to the tree, but in that name of, I'm also thinking like the Aquatic Center. Can I buy a tile that says my name, Erives family, 2025, something, where they, as you're building up, there's like this area where people can -- I think of the Phoenix Zoo when they did their bridge and their walkways. Not just in my -- I want to like purchase something that stamps my name there, right? And so just fundraiser ideas. But I was thinking about that with those trees. Cause like, you know, you can walk around the park and then you see these placards. Maybe I could do one in memoriam of my mom. You know, I could put a little placard and it's funds that could go back to the park just to help and make sure it looks cute. But just ways for a community, because you were talking about involvement. How can I get involved? How can I do stuff that would be -- MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: That's all you need. BABCHUK: Yeah, thank you. ERIVES: Especially the Aquatic Center, because right, that's coming up. That's new. That's going to be our baby. BABCHUK: We definitely can look into that. I know Tree Matters is going to do a community outreach because they want to actually start giving away trees to residents who want trees in their yards, backyards. And they'll actually donate those trees for free and plant them for free as well, so I know they're working on that as well. They CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 61 of 63 want to do -- just grow the tree equity in Tolleson. ERIVES: I've seen where they've named trees within like your school campus and they'll name the tree. It just gives you that, oh, there's a tree, Harry. That tree is this. And it just gives the kids their ownership of -- oh, we're going to take care of the tree instead of pulling on the branches and stuff like that, right? You're just continuing to show love to that. So it was just amazing. BABCHUK: Thank you. Definitely, we'll look into that. Say that again. Yep, 24 inch box trees. Yeah. Yeah. CHAVIRA: Oh, and it's so hot. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: It's going to do a lot of damage to trees. BABCHUK: Yep. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Anything else? Yes, we'll have those. Thank you. ARTZ: We started a very aggressive mask campaign and later with the help of our great partners in Maricopa county, we started to get tonight on Senate floor to take on some of the problems of ours. Well, we were the first city in Maricopa county to provide vaccines to the residents that had been done through various clinics and different forms of tape on the tables. We were the first city that did that and ran that out to five various states. We couldn't have done it without a lot of great partners. Unfortunately, we found out by March of 2018, that the county no longer had funds for vaccines. So we had vaccines in today. That was the last one. We need more funds for that. We want to make sure that we have some more coming in. But we wanted to make sure that you guys were aware of that. We found out. We found out today. So I just wanted to say that. Yeah. DAVIS: Does that mean it's like a federal plan? ARTZ: Well, ultimately we believe that the money comes from the federal money comes through the county. And then it goes to the county throughout. We're in the south of the region and Maricopa county has helped our partners by aiding on the south side. But that's what we're here to do. A MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: ll right. Well, it is what it is. I mean, if there's a need down the CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 62 of 63 road, then we'll have to figure out how we're going to deal with need for the time being that the funding is out. And luckily the pandemic -- I don't want to say it's behind us because I know there's some cases that are coming up here and there. And there's other kinds of vaccination that we have to talk to. So if you guys want to get together and figure out what we need to be moving forward, we're in the middle of putting together a budget, so this is the time to present it for you to draw attention. But hopefully the federal government gets their act together. Some folks will respond and hopefully be accountable. And we have some of the money that was appropriated by the Senate and the House of Representatives. And a lot of our cities came together to support us again. So in the interim, we're stuck where we are. But thank you for bringing it to our attention. Anybody else for the good of the order? No? No? All right. I will entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. LABORIN: So moved. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: We got a motion Council Member Gamez. Second Councilwoman Laborin. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. ALL: Aye. MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Opposed? We stand adjourned. APPROVED: ____________________________________ JUAN F. RODRIGUEZ, MAYOR ATTEST: ____________________________________ CRYSTAL ZAMORA, CITY CLERK CITY OF TOLLESON APRIL 8, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 63 of 63 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 8, 2025. I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT THE MEETING WAS DULY CALLED AND HELD, AND THAT A QUORUM WAS PRESENT. ____________________________________ CRYSTAL ZAMORA, CITY CLERK