REMOTE ZOOM Mesa City Council Study Session Thu 01.21.2021 @ 07:30 a.m.

The Final Agenda was printed yesterday 01.19.2021 (there's no longer a time-stamp for what time-of-the-day that was) effectively allowing only two days ahead of the early morning session that starts at 07:30 a.m. streamed from The Lower Chambers where salaried city officials are seated with masks before they talk while "Mr.Mayor" John Giles and the six Council District reps get live-streamed from their remote locations.

All citizens are permitted and encouraged to speak on agenda items including and preceding “Items from citizens present."

 

This is one of two "study sessions" scheduled before the regular City Council Meeting for next Monday 01.25.2021 - the Tentative Agenda [first printed on 01.14.2021] for that was printed again yesterday 01.19.2021 - you can access, view and open the documents > https://mesa.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx 

 

> There are nine contract awards to take action on in Item *4 on the Consent Agenda.

   3 Water Services

   ? Mesa Police Department

  

> There are four resolutions to take action on in Item *5 on the Consent Agenda

> Not on the Consent Agenda is Item 6

Items from citizens present (Maximum of three speakers for three minutes per speaker)

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CONTRACT AWARDS

Item *4- was added to the previously released Tentative Agenda

21-0116 PD Main Sanitary Sewer and Landscape Improvements Project (District 4)
The Police Department Headquarters Building (PD Main) has iron sewer pipes from the original construction in 1979.  The pipes need to be replaced with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes to reduce maintenance problems. 

The replacement of pipes scope of work will include the improvement of security and landscape issues at the same time. 

Staff recommends awarding the contract to the lowest, responsible bidder, Britt Pipeline, LLC, in the amount of $254,055.87.  This project is funded by the Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities Department operating budget

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CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION THU 01.21.2021 Power-Point Slide Presentation

Hear and discuss an Update on the Central Mesa Reuse Pipeline Project

Item 2-a

File #:

21-0109

Type:

Presentation

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council Study Session

On agenda:

1/21/2021

Title:

Hear a presentation and discuss an update on the Central Mesa Reuse Pipeline project.

Attachments:

1. Presentation

City of Mesa and Gila River Community Reclaimed Water Exchange
 99-Year Agreement – Up to a Maximum of 24,000 Acre-Feet
 City began delivering water to the Community in 2008
Mesa and the Community shall exchange Mesa Reclaimed Water and Community CAP Exchange Water at the ratio of one (1) acre-foot of Mesa Reclaimed Water for each eight-tenths (0.8) acre-foot of Community CAP Exchange Water

Goals and Objectives of the Agreement
> Meet the conditions of the agreement
> Gain additional water supplies

Provides an economical and stable option for long term water supply while still providing a great return on investment
The Gila River Community prefers to maintain delivery of water through the existing delivery system

PROJECT OVERVIEW
Goal: Deliver Reclaimed Water from City’s Northwest Wastewater Reclamation Plant to the Gila River Community to Maximize Water Exchange
> Utilize Existing Infrastructure
> Connect City’s Reclaimed Waterline from North Central Mesa to the City’s Southeast Wastewater Reclamation Plant

 

 

 

COMPLETION OF ALIGNMENT STUDY
Alternatives Evaluated 

Numerous potential ROW alignment options 

Consideration of adjacent canal systems and channels 

Hybrid options evaluated as well
Considerations Used to Evaluate Alternatives 

Autonomy/Control of Water Delivery 

Operations 

Risk 

Cost Per Acre-Foot of Delivery 

Construction Impacts

 

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Negotiating contracts with selected consultants for design efforts 

Coordinating with the Town of Gilbert 

Finalizing model recommendations to the overall system 

Evaluating existing infrastructure conditions 

Considerations of delivery method for construction 

Evaluating options for a pump station near the intersection of Thomas and Val Vista
THANK YOU
QUESTIONS AND FEEDBACK

RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG

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November 27, 2012

Thinking about water
by Jon Talton

"The Arizona Republic's Shaun McKinnon did a fine job of using the breach in the CAP canal to provide a primer on the system and some of its challenges (here, here and here). This blog has written extensively on water and Arizona, but while a few people are paying attention, let me make a few essential points:

• The Colorado River is over-subscribed. There are, as the water geeks say, too many straws sucking from the river. . .

• Arizona lacks an honest audit of its water resources, trustworthy regulation or curiosity about the effects of climate change. The Real Estate Industrial Complex wishes it thus.

This way, the Ponzi scheme can be kept going a little longer, or so they think. An entire edifice of "experts" exists to reassure and explain away. A darker legion ensures that subdivisions, even giant ones, are moved along the permitting process even if they lack water . . . Much of the techno-magic thrown around is sheer hokum. The reality is that the architects of the 100-year-supply chimera just assumed they would be dead before the bill came due.

> The bottom line is that sprawled, single-family house subdivision urban Arizona is not sustainable, much less one adding a million people or doubling in size or whatever the latest boosterish nonsense is peddled. The business model of population growth won't work. Even before the consequences of climate change came roaring at us, the United Nations warned of the destabilizing effects of water shortages in the 21st century. . . " 

Link > https://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/2012/11/thinking-about-water.html 

The Most Precious Commodity: Water > Gammage & Turning-Points To Make His Pitch

Time-Out. Now that The Feds are wading into water rights here in Arizona after politicos in the Arizona State House failed to meet a mandated deadline, the Game is On again for Grady Gammage Jr., who said he never wanted to be appointed "Water Czar. Murky questions remain about water rights as this historic pact faces choppy waters - where politics and real estate intersect with land-use planning and millions of taxpayer-dollars poured into water and wastewater treatment plants to spur more suburban sprawl over once were vast agricultural lands that are now more lucrative for other uses and ripe for new fortunes of the Real Estate Industrial Complex where Gammage is plugged in real good..

'Water Czar' or not, Arizona native Gammage knows that water is the most precious commodity here in The Valley.  His law practice has focused on the political aspects of real estate, development and public policy. As a zoning lawyer, he has represented dozens of major commercial real estate and urban development  projects in Maricopa County, including deals with such public-private projects as the Tempe Town Lake and - let's just put a spin on it - "Arizona’s unique approach to redevelopment incentives."

He has also represented cities and towns in revising their development and land use ordinances, and has litigated land use and election issues related to development.

Given the current flood of so much hanging in the precarious balance of public understanding of all the issues, . .

 

 

 

What is the appropriate density for cities in the desert? How will autonomous vehicles affect development patterns?  . . .

We are already doing a lot of these things. Besides moving on the drought contingency plan, the Arizona Department of Water Resources, Salt River Project and Central Arizona Project have been aggressively pursuing new water management techniques and the acquisition of additional resources. 

We cannot allow others to call us, as Andrew Ross did in his 2011 book Bird on Fire, “the world’s least sustainable place 

We have always marketed our climate. 

We just need to adjust the pitch. 

 

This is already happening with the increasing relocations of financial service and insurance business and call centers to Arizona . . . CAN WE FIND OUR SWAGGER?

Arizona has always used the power of government – collective action – to manage water supplies in a challenging and arid place. 

Our past was all about managing water to make this place possible. Now our future must be all about managing climate to make it sustainable. In that activity may we find quiet confidence, and maybe a bit of a swagger.

Link > AZ Repub Op-Ed Opinion Piece 01 Jan 2019

[Image credit: Grady Gammage Jr. outside Gammage Auditorium in Tempe on December 20, 2018. (Photo: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)

19 March 2018

Background,Comments, Outlays Re: Item 5-e [Toxic Waste] Mesa City Council Meeting Mon 19 March 2018

 

^^^ HEADS UP ^^^Without the question raised at the Thu 16 March 2018 Study Session about Item 5e by District 1 Councilmember Mark Freeman, your MesaZona blogger may have taken less notice of this pending Ordinance - it made sense to pay more attention when a city official was in-place and ready to explain Freeman's inquiry on an item in District 6 with an immediate response on camera.
The City is investing over $150 million to construct the Signal Butte Water Treatment Plant, which will add an additional 24 million gallons per day (MGD) of pumping capacity to the area by Summer 2018.
In addition, a $200 million expansion of the existing Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant will also enhance wastewater capacity in the area by 14 MGD, bringing the total plant capacity to 30 MGD.
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Blogger Note: Please see farther on in this post for related content, including a report from the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

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However, with all the public face-time staged in front of Mesa Channel 11's cameras coverage of city council meetings last week and during weeks for the extensive review of next year's FY19/20 Budget, some of the information is hard-to-swallow while at the same time it's good-to-know that the BIG ISSUE of an impending 18-Year Drought is now getting some attention simultaneously with more build-out of residential, manufacturing and industrial facilities, like data centers that consume huge amounts of both water and electricity in East Mesa.
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How cities bank on future water supply underground  
"Valley cities rely mostly on dams and reservoirs for their water needs, but the snowpack feeding those reservoirs was near record low this year. That means managers are looking to future water supplies underground. . . Even after Even 35 years of managing the Salt and Verde rivers for the Salt River Project [SRP], Charlie Ester has dealt with more dry years than flood events as the Valley marches into another year of drought. He said this is the 21st year of the drought; other experts say it’s the 18th.
Read more >> AZ Big Media Reprint of story from Cronkite News
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At the same time stories in the media showing coyotes and bears invading neighborhoods and wild Salt River horses having to get rescued out of canals by the police have a message that doesn't get through - there's a drought no matter what Governor Ducey wants to say about it. Just as well, there are other stories in the media about a bribery case involving schemes about water utilities and dirty politics.

Here in what's now named "The Valley of The Sun" - could it by accident be for the promise of renewable solar energy? - All the dirty politics have risen to the surface before, most recently in a number of articles by Rogue Columnist Jon Talton that dive into some troubled waters across time:

Rogue Columnist: Phoenix 101: Canals

Jun 2, 2018

"Beneath all the concrete, asphalt, and gravel of today's metropolitan Phoenix is some of the richest soil on earth. No wonder early settlers called it the Nile River Valley of the United States, or, with more aching pathos given what's happened, American Eden. Add water and anything will grow here. Getting the water from the Salt River was the challenge — one solved with canals.

The Hohokam (750-1450 AD) built at least 500 miles of canals in the Salt River Valley. The mileage might have been in the thousands. They created the most advanced irrigation civilization in the pre-Columbian Americas. . .
The genius of Jack Swilling — Confederate deserter, Indian fighter, prospector, drunk, opium addict, brawler, first town postmaster and justice of the peace, adoptive father of an Apache boy, cherished friend of many — was that he understood the significance of the Hohokam canals, which laid dormant for more than 400 years. They were not mere prehistoric curiosities. They were the means of building a modern empire, . . 
Talton's story continues > http://www.roguecolumnist.com 

 

For the big deal to spend $200,000,000 of Mesa taxpayers' money in a Field of Schemes to finance Sloan Park,  a stadium here in Mesa for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family, owners of the Chicago Cub's sport franchise, City Manager Chris Brady held up a defiant fist when questioned over the terms of pay-off of the public debt obligations. He was joined by former mayor Scott Smith . . . city assets would be sold-off:
Water-Rights on 11,444 acres of land.
Brady justified that by stating that the city had 'plenty of water' in August 2019

 

Now the story has changed

Let's crack open this latter-day charade

City envisions a $66M pipe as a lifeline to SE Mesa 

Jim Walsh's Story/East Valley Tribune

DUH? Hard to believe city officials are using that same old play-book

"This is just an illustration. We have no idea where the alignment is,’’

----- Jake West, Mesa’s water resources director, said

“We’re just in the beginning of an alignment study to make it as successful and economically done as possible.’’

 

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NOTE THIS: A Closed-Door Executive Session ( the second closed-door this year)

No Meeting Details provided except for this: Item 5-a

5 Convene an Executive Session. ES-002-21

Discussion or consultation for legal advice with the City Attorney. (A.R.S. §38-431.03A (3))

Discussion or consultation with the City Attorney in order to consider the City’s position and instruct the City Attorney regarding the City’s position regarding pending or contemplated litigation or in settlement discussions conducted in order to avoid or resolve litigation. (A.R.S. §38-431.03A(4))
1. Smith v. City of Mesa, Maricopa County Superior Court, Case # CV2020-091802

 

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