zumba effectiveness

good evening welcome everyone, and thank you so much for being here tonight it's awesome to see such a great crowd we're excited, we put together a great presentation for you tonight and we're excited to have each and everyone of you here this evening for the 2016 state of the city address presented by mayor christian price and themed a view from above. and i promise, it will not disappoint my name is jennifer brown

i'm the assistant to the city manager and proud resident of the city of maricopa so, now i'd like to ask you all to go ahead and stand as our maricopa police honor guard and maricopa boy scouts troop 993 present the colors. they'll be led our by bagpiper terry oldfield and followed by the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem, sung by laura walsh. bag pipes playing the grand ol' flag (inaudible)

(boy scout) please join me in the pledge of alliance... (crowd reciting pledge of allegiance) (laura walsh sings national anthem) oh, say can you see by the dawns early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming? who's broad striped and bright stars through the perilous fight

o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rocket's red glare! the bombs bursting in air! gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free

and the home of the brave (applause) (jennifer brown) that was amazing you may all be seated now, there are some very special guests here this evening, who i'd like to take the time to introduce you all to first, our maricopa city councel vice mayor brown

council member peggy chapados council member bridger kimball council member vincent manfredi council member nancy smith and council member henry wade i'd also like to introduce to you city manager gregory rose and tonight, representing senator john mccane is jana pierce and i know state senator steve smith was on his way i'm not sure if he made it yet

okay... he'll be here soon state representative vince leach judge lyle riggs maricopa unified school district president patti coutre and maricopa unified school district board member tori anderson superintendent steve chesnut

maricopa flood control district president dan frank and former maricopa mayor and chairman of the state transportation board, kelly anderson we also have several members of our maricopa boards, committees and commissions here tonight if you are an appointed member to any of these advisory groups, please stand and be recognized

well, as many of you know for the 2nd year in a row, we have been honored to partner with the maricopa chamber of commerce, to gain sponsors to put on this annual tradition. i'd now like to invite sara troyer, president and ceo of the chamber of commerce to come up and thank our wonderful sponsors. (sara troyer) wow, this room is full!

good evening everybody, i'm so excited to be here tonight we're excited at the chamber of commerce to partner with the city on this event and get some of our wonderful business sponsors without them, this would not be possible we want to recognize a few of our gold sponsors tonight, they reached the highest level of sponsorship and if you are representing one of them, would you please stand when i call you.

we've got mike ritchy, from maricopa ace hardware we have jay shaver, with maricopa realestate company we have eps group...i'm not sure if they've got anybody in the room. over there! our silver level sponsors are, global water resources henry brown auto harrah's ak-chin and then we also have sponsoring associated asset managing, aam

electrical district #3 jay warren funeral services and we'd also like to give a special thanks to phoenix area skydive because they pulled off some great things for us tonight. so, a big round of applause for them. and with that, i'll hand it back to you. thanks sara well now i have the honor of introducing the man of the hour to you...

mayor christian price, as you know, is in his second term as mayor as a small business owner and a staunch believer in networking, building solid, long term regional relationships, mayor price is one of the of the community's strongest advocates and i know all of you see that each and every day you see him mayor price in his participation in regional and national coalitions is helping maricopa extend our reach and increase our regional recognition and influence he is an executive committee member and treasurer of the league of arizona cities & towns,

chairman of the greater phoenix economic council ambassadors group, a member of the maricopa association of governments economic development committee as well as a member of the community and economic development steering committee for for the national league of cities and thankfully for all of us, a regular attendee or outright "groupie" as he likes to say, of the very important 7 member arizona state transportation board. and truly, that's just to name a few as all of you know, he really never stops working. you definitely know, he never stops working.

so, mayor price is an enormous advocate of regional alliances - meeting new people and establishing relationships with citizens, stakeholders, regional partners, members of neighboring cities, state and federal agencies and other government officials. he strongly believes that good working relationships with these groups and individuals will help maricopa become a strong, well-rounded regional player and directly influence the quality of life of our citizens through an enhanced economic development climate. he is the husband of cindy, who is here with us tonight, whom he has been married to for 14 years and the father of 10 year-old cooper,

5 year-old cassidy, 4 year-old calais and 2 year-old cosette so, at this point in the evening, i would normally have you welcome him with a big round of applause, but unfortunately he is, running a little late tonight so....it's kind of a problem, but... he's really gotten into this theme. he's been working hard on it, um, all tonight but, never fear. they are cell phones around, so he was able to send us a video, to kinda show us, what he's been up to tonight

so, we'll go ahead and show that video and hopefully by the time it is over, um...he will be here for the 2016, state of the city address (mayor price) alright, we're getting ready for this skydive jump, uh, gonna see maricopa from above, hope i make it back in time before the state of the city, i think my rides here...let's go. (pilot) welcome aboard!

here we go! we're gonna give you a birds eye view from maricopa from above you ready to do this? (pilot) i'm ready! (mayor price) let's go! let's do it! okay maricopa here we go here's your view from above wooohooo!!

woa! this is awesome! it's amazing you should see it from up here! you can see the whole city it's incredible i wish you could see the view from above here! it's amazing! there's so much to our city! woo!

have a seat, have a seat so, i've got all my pieces of flare on, if you've ever seen the movie, office space and, you know, they make me do crazy things in this job. psh... jumpin' out of planes and... just wait 'till next year. i don't even know what that's gonna be like! so, my thought was, is because we're, all about doing crazy things,

the reality is, is would you be so kind to indulge me in maricopa's first, state of the city selfie? would you do that with me? c'mon here we go (crowd cheers) this side (crowd continues to cheer) excellent, excellent!

you know, we gotta do crazy things around here alright, lets see, hold on one second. i gotta get outa this gear (inaudible dialog) alright... well... that works for bond, i'm not so sure it works for me, but uh we'll see here. well, welcome! welcome...

to this years, state of the city address excuse me one moment. too much running, i guess. so... you know, you really do, get a birds eye view from the whole city when you're looking down, or falling as it were in my case as you see behind me here,

um, but, while not all of us get the opportunity to see everything from a 10,000 ft vista, like i had the luxury of doing in this video... if we can all pause for just a moment, take a step back and try and see the whole picture of what we are looking at when we look at our city: we can see what is being worked on, we can see what the vision is for the future. what we are accomplishing and what we're still working towards you know last year, if you attended my state of the city, i gave you an example of an iconic picture that i loved as a child,

it was titled: "building a rainbow." through out the speech, i changed it to "building a city'" and i tried to expound upon various pieces of what makes our city go round. while each segment may seem independent, seem as though they're independently operating, they are all spokes or parts of a giant wheel a wheel that helps our city roll forward without any one department or without working in sync we simply don't progress.

in addition to the individual spokes, there has to be an over-arching vision, or goal, or roadmap, a realization of what we are now... and what we're working towards, and what we can ultimately become. then we have to do the hard thing, we have to decide if we're willing to work hard enough to get it, and we have to roll up our sleeves and do it in my opinion, the annual state of the city is a time to provide you with a report on what we have been accomplishing and working towards though out the year.

as you can imagine it has been an extra ordinarily busy year! so much so, that it has been incredibly difficult for me to highlight just a few things in my address to you tonight. and those of you that know me, know that can be really hard for me, okay. if you get me takin' about maricopa...i'll keep you here all night long! but i'm not gonna do that to you tonight... you know, the famous humorous, mark twain, he said, "get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."

so tonight without further ado, please let me pull the curtain back, lay out some facts for you, and give you a little glimpse on what your city has been doing over the past year. you know if you ask me, i believe that maricopa is all about...big things. we have to be... we have to do what others say that we cannot do we have to believe in ourselves and we have to believe that anything is truly posible there are so many challenges here to overcome

that we must first get outside of ourselves, peer into the future and make that future, our reality you know, i found a quote that i really liked that says, "if you think big, dream big, believe big, and the results will be big." we have some very big challenges in this city. and i've never shied away from those challenges. in my first state of the city address, i laid some of these out to you,

and because they're big challenges, they don't always get fixed in day one. sometimes it takes months and years, and sometimes it takes longer than that. one of those challenges, as you so well know, is transportation: we have a construction on an overpass that we have been working towards for over 10 years now. ten years we're a 13 year old city. the reality is, it's probably been 13 years. construction projects of this magnitude take a long time

relationships have to be built, funding has to be acquired, feasibility determinations have to be reached, and that's only the beginning! by having accomplished these things, in these years, we are now at 30% design. now some of you may think, say "well, 30%, that's not very much," right? well, the reality is, 30% it takes us 10-13 years to get to thirty. it takes us only 1 to get from 30 to 100% we are anticipating, that should all continue to go as planned, we should expect to break ground next year, october 2017 on an overpass, that we have been working towards for 10 years.

now the 347 overpass isn't our only problem with the 347, now is it? i know you all have driven it before people say to me, all the time "well, why don't we just widen it?" that's easy, right? well, just like i told ya, not so simple. in fact, there are several things that we have to do first. we must continue to further relationships with our partners in this project: like adot, gila river indian community, maricopa association of governments,

pinal county and maricopa county, just to name a few of the key players that will make this happen in order to make this happen, we also need funding, and that funding comes from, what we call an rta. a regional transit authority but this is not going to be an easy lift. in fact, in order to do this, it has to be a ballot measure that come to you all. in order to do this though, before we can even bring this to you in the form of a ballot proposition, we have to have legislative fixes.

because those things aren't quite there yet. it is going to take the help of all of you, and it's going to take the help our state legislators in order to make this happen. if we are successful by doing this within this next session, then we could see a special ballot proposition on a ballot for you in 2017

which would start the ball rolling and put in motion the widening of 347, all the way to chandler other major issues, affecting maricopa, are our flood planes. okay. these are not new to us. anyone who's been here for a long time understands that these flood planes have been around for generations.

but, when we all moved here, we thought we were moving to a location where it was simple. and all we had to do was move into our house and that was the end. then you got those fema revision maps, didn't you? those little letters in the mail that say, surprise... guess what? you owe us $450 a month in you know, flood insurance which, nobody likes. so we have been diligently working towards fixing that. and how do you it? when you're talking about an issue that that magnitude

it cannot be simply the city. it has to take federal funding. now i told you about what it takes to get a bridge, imagine what it takes to get a flood plane fixed from tucson to here. that is a giant lift. now it can be done, and we are working towards it. there are numerous challenges that these flood planes present, to our businesses: both existing and new,

commercial and construction, actual construction, home construction renovations and that's not even mentioning all of us! before we go any further, let's listen to what council member wade has to say on the subject (funky music intro) from up here, it's easy to see there's so much room for growth and development the flood planes are one of our major challenges is that henry wade down there? wow! is that skydiver waving at me?

well i'm here at the north santa cruz wash, a wash then when improved, will allow fema to redraw their flood map. and remove potentially thousands of developmental home sites from almost one third of the cities area. right now, as you know, you can't build in a flood plane. the vekol wash, where fema expanded the flood plane map for our area in 2014 is another flood control challenge for our city. the new map added approximately 500-1000 existing homes of residents

who now have to pay for costly flood insurance this is an expensive and time consuming problem that is on the top of the mind of council and staff and we have a variety of creative solutions to begin to address the problem. copper sky park serves as a flood control basin that will eventually get many existing homes out of the flood plane. we've received grant funding, to make improvements at the northern edge of tortossa along the gila river alignment

and consistently look for incremental improvements in the heritage district and on the west side of the city to benefit our community and our neighboring communities all of this work will help lead the way for future growth and development so what do you do, when you have a major flood control challenge? you work on fixing it, right? you don't sit around and wait for it to happen on its own... for several years now we have been working closely with the us corp of engineers

and making incredible progress, with funding, federal funding, investigative studies and hydro-mapping of the areas affected, designation as a valid federal project, and as i have reported to you before, all of these things are starting to come together but about a year ago, i started working on a local idea that can help wth flood control that i am presenting in public to you for the very first time today. it's an idea that i thought might give us more local influence over our flood control challenges. you know, i looked around at our county the other day

and i noticed that we have about 6 flood control districts, aside from pinal county's flood control district and each is operating independently of one another. but when i looked at our neighbor to the north, what i noticed was, is that they are doing far more effectively and efficiently as one district and i wondered, why? why can we not have that? maricopa is taking a position throughout pinal county today

once again leading the way, to action and proposing throughout the county an idea and a possible creation of a single regional flood control agency, much like maricopa county enjoys. in short, this will make our county and cities more efficient. it will allow for a comprehensive countywide "strategic plans of attack" to address our most severe flooding problems more quickly and more efficiently. it will provide a single capital improvement budget that would allow for significant infrastructure building

and progress to be made in less time and with fewer bureaucracies. and here's the best part... honestly, water doesn't care about boundary lines or district lines what they care about, or excuse me one district to another, no matter where in the county a fix is concentrated, everybody downstream benefits! this crucial attention to detail and foundational infrastructure will help position the city of maricopa and all city residents throughout pinal county,

to be truly shovel ready and open for business when industry and people are ready to locate here. over the years i've learned that one of the biggest topics that people hope to see when they come to a state of the city address are some big announcements of new developments, right? i know that's why you're all here well, i'm not gonna give that to ya... no i'm just kidding, i'm gonna give you a little somethin' okay

so i'd like to talk to you tonight about the process of new development well... here's the thing, new development is what we call, economic development and i want to tell you how it actually works when you look at economic development, there are so many different ways in which people see it, and that's okay. but before we get into the details,

lets turn to our very own council member, vince manfredi and hear his perspective on the subject. wow, the landscape of our city sure has changed over the last year with all these new businesses! is that council member manfredi, in the empty lot next to the walmart? mayor price?! what is he doing up there? i'm just over here, checking out the new location for the big 5 sporting goods.

which is expected to open within the next year! this is just one of the many new businesses we hope will be coming to the city of maricopa to ensure we are recruiting the type of businesses that reflect the 2040 vision created by our residents our economic development is in the process of updating the strategic plan! the new plan will review current market conditions identify new target industries and asses the effectiveness of local entrepreneur support

in addition to the strategic plan, the mayor, council members and economic development staff attend conferences, like the international council of shopping center conventions, marketing maricopa as a destination for retail investment and as we can see by all the new businesses that have opened up at maricopa station in the last year, his work is paying off! so again, how does economic development actually work? well, as i said before, there is many philosophical ideas

of how economic development works, as there are in how politics works. make no mistake, this is a very difficult and complex subject and there are lots of moving pieces. in fact, the actual role that your city staff and the policy makers play, in bringing new businesses here is in truth is very, very small. but we as a city staff and as an elected council do not accept that minimalist role! in fact, it is crucial that you understand that we are constantly challenging the status quo

and we are doing all that we can to influence the decisions of various businesses to relocate to the city of maricopa and we do so, in a whole host of ways let me tell you about some of those here now. in the world of real estate, the buzz phrase is location, location, location... but in the world of city economic development our phrase is: entice, entice, entice. one of the many things we do each year,

is we attend large conferences or gatherings of clusters of businesses and they're called icsc or international conference of shopping centers we attend attend these conferences, regularly and multiple times of the year. during this time, we schedule meetings every 30 minutes throughout the entire day in order to spread the good word about the city of maricopa and with the maximum amount of people as possible we spend time selling our story, discussing our incredible business opportunities, showcasing the desires of our people, and pointing out

what business genre's are critically missing in our comminity we meet with anybody and everybody who will meet with us, and listen to us and sometimes, i think they probably would rather we go away... because we are relentless sometimes it feels a bit like speed dating on steroids! to meet with all those people everyday we do our absolute best, to make the most of the very few days we have each session we meet with as many companies both large and small. we meet with folks that

perhaps you wouldn't have thought, we would meet with we meet with developers, with site selectors, people with retail connections and basically anybody else so let me tell you a little bit about each of them. as i said, we meet with commercial developers folks, relationships with these developers are critical. they are crucial because they are the ones who help us attract the retail and the buildings by which that retail goes into.

as you know, there's a lot of dirt out there, isn't there? and if we want to see that change into a building, we have to be close and build relationships with these commercial developers so let me tell you a little story here, if you look up at the slide behind me here, i'm going to talk to you about that picture, right there now that pictures an interesting one. in all the years i've been attending icsc, we were able to work very closely with one of our developers and at this time, the developer called a special meeting.

and he went out there and he used all of his connections to bring in clusters of retail. and we had the opportunity to sit there and in about 45 minutes, explain to all of those retail folks sitting there why maricopa is where they needed to be located at. now i don't know about you, but if you go single handedly trying to find each one, that can be rather difficult. but if you are using the connections that you have fostered and developed, then you will be able to get further and make things happen faster then if you waited for them to happen organically.

site selectors: i don't know if many of you know what that term means, site selectors, but site selectors are the brokers that make recommendations for large commercial businesses to relocate to a given area they literally make the recommendation to the company that is looking to relocate, on which area they should go to. so if you're on that desk, with 5 other folks or 100 other folks you want to make sure that when they start pushing resumes into the trash can,

you're not one of them. that you're still on that list because that site selector, wants to be, in your city! so it's crucial, that you are making connections with them. retail businesses: of course they help improve our shopping experience and the quality of life here, but they too, are very discerning. hospitals: now, anyone want a hospital here?

i thought so, okay... i hear all the time, that "there's no hospital," "when is the hospital coming?" "hospital will never come," i've heard it all. i want you to know today, that we continue to work with dignity and banner health to help entice their corporate boards, because it's the corporate board who makes the decision to see the great need for these services here in maricopa and we are doing our best to convince them everyday, every month, every year

that they should build their hospital, in maricopa, sooner rather than later. hotels: over the past year and with the exciting news of the ak-chin new hotel and casino expansion, i've heard many rumblings that there actually isn't a need for a hotel in maricopa. let me tell you today, unequivocally - this is not true. let me tell you why... first off and foremost, we are more primed and ready for a hotel in this city now perhaps more now, than at any other time in our history. in fact, we have what is called a "hotel feasibility study"

now, a hotel feasibility study is used to verify and justify the existence and profitability of a 125 - 150 room hotel, right here in maricopa we of course share this with every hotel developer we meet, and this important document helps provide them the necessary business information to move them towards the internal corporate negotiating table, of actually building one. all of this has to be done while working closely with our partners at ak-chin and harrah's hotel, as well as casa grande and in chandler

i think it's also important to note, that we have this difference of opinion here where people say, "well with harra's, why do we need another one?" or "they wouldn't want this." well, robert livingston's here today, and he gave us a fabulous presentation the other day, and one of the things that he told us, is that they too, desire a hotel here. well, why is that? why do you think that is? doesn't it take away the competition?

well, the reason is, is that they too would like to book larger events than they can and if their hotel sells out, where does the overflow go? where does it go from here? it stops events, it stops economic development and it stops the big picture from happening. this helps all involved, it brings more people, more tourism, more dollars more sports teams, home buyers, , business owners. an overall dynamic lift to the entire region.

folks, this is what you call a win, win situation. and it's why we meet with hotel flags incessantly i'm going to explain another slide to you here... you see this little banner right here? anyone know that company? little company called marriott? heard of them before? so, the one i really want to explain is this slide, do you see that gentleman here? that's someone that henry wade and i met with,

i'm going to call him, which it's actually his real name but i've added a little twist to it, marriott scott so, good ol' marriott scott he is obviously an employee of marriott, and a very nice gentleman but we've been meeting with marriott scott for the last 2 years... and every time we meet with him, we talk about how do we advance this project? how does it move forward? funny things happen when you start to get to know people... as we got to know him a little bit more,

one of the things we found out, is that it turns out that that he just happens to be, the ecclesiastical leader of one of maricopa's former council members... interesting... and because of this relationship he just happens to have a special love in his heart for the city of maricopa huh...interesting... he is working diligently with us, his company and land owners, as well as developers to bring one of the many marriott banners, to maricopa.

so keep your fingers crossed, and we'll keep working towards it. well of this marching around at icsc and everything else may look like fun, well, i think it's fun anyways and maybe i'm just a little glutton for punishment, and that's okay... but this process of seeking after, if not even stalking these businesses to convince them to come to maricopa, is often far from easy. in reality, it's down right exhausting! often times we fly in the night before, after a full days work here. we prep for the upcoming meetings for the next few days.

we start early before the sun rises and we retire long after is sets. after many years of doing this several times a year, i thought i would keep track of one day's worth of walking so that you might have a slight indication into how hard we're working to attract businesses on your behalf so one day, in vegas, at icsc, in dress shoes, i walked almost 14 miles that's what you call, beating the pavement to try and get businesses. we are seeing many new businesses appear, after many years of hard work.

relationship building and mutual dedication and our efforts are paying off. we have seen several new businesses new buildings that have been built recently just in the last year, and i know that many of you have already frequented them if all goes well, we hope to see the construction break ground in this location, next to fry's called edison point, within the next few months

this location will house 12 new stores and restaurants. but i'm not telling you which stores... actually i learned a very valuable lesson, you don't actually reveal that until you're cutting the ribbon, 'cause, anything might happen in the mean time. so clearly we want people to come here, but at... the very same time, we have to prove that we're worth it. one of the things we are always trying do and preach is shopping local

and i know that gets hard. because there isn't everything that we want here. but one of the things we're always trying to do is find the understanding of what shopping local actually does for your economy. and i believe that, if you understand that, it will help you in your daily activities, that sure, you may not have an electronics store that you need to stop at, and so you stop in at chandler and but whatever you need there, and i get that but if you can buy your gas, or you can buy... you know, your food or whatever it might be

inside the city of maricopa, you help both pinal county, and you help the city of maricopa. because those taxes stay here. in fact most people don't know this, but the tax dollars that accompany your recent purchases stay here in your city and they go directly to paved roads. they pay for our police and fire departments folks, they upkeep our parks, they deliver the services you want to see in your city and in short, they directly improve your quality of life!

that's a pretty good reason to spend your money here. but if that's not it, when you spend your hard earned money at a local business within our city did you know that $68 of every $100 spent actually stays here? it doesn't go out, it doesn't leave. it says here in the community. it helps your neighbors and fellow citizens that have taken a great risk to open a business and provide a product or service to you;

it helps them in return, by making a living. it helps them put food on their tables, gas in their cars helps them send their kid to get braces and go to piano lessons. right? it helps them to go to the local dry cleaners. are you seeing the symbiotic relationship here, that takes when you shop local? did you know, that small businesses also create 2 out of every 3 jobs created in this country? and that they help to create more opportunities to local residents work in the community? now i don't know about you, but i've asked a lot of people, and they've said

if i could take a pay cut to stay and work in maricopa, i would do it in a heartbeat. finally, locally owned businesses contribute to more to charities and fundraisers than any other businesses. many people think that there is only one way to slay this "new business dragon" but actually there are many! your economic development department in this city understands this and uses multiple ways, to both help and attract new large businesses but simultaneously promotes and encourages the growth of small businesses.

one of these many efforts was in fact just recognized by the winning of the prestigious golden prospector award now you may never have heard of this award, but it's important that you understand that the city of maricopa won this award from the arizona association for economic development. and it won it in its multimedia promotion category for our video series, "business beat" now if you're a business owner, you may want to get on the phone after this, and call our economic development department and find our how do you become a part of it. but, it is a wonderful way for us to help promote our businesses.

our creative "business beat" videos are one of the year-round components of maricopa's shop local program. the golden prospector award recognizes excellence, innovation and creativity in economic development. another avenue in which our economic development department is working year round to improve the contact with, and the perception of our city, is through enhanced media exposure or basically a media blitz! make no mistake about it folks, advertising is darn expensive! it is so expensive. but this year our media exposure has been made possible in part,

through some of our many business partnerships. here on the slide behind me are just some of the mediums in which we were featured this year alone. i bet you didn't know that and this is quite deep when you start to dig into all these exposures our city works diligently to raise private dollars from maricopa's larger local businesses, by a margin of more 3 to 1, and sometimes 4 to 1.

this allows us to get more media exposure without spending more of your hard earned tax dollars meaning that your tax dollars go farther and you get more for your buck. but that's not all in the media outreach... we don't stop, we keep looking for everything we can get. we also do our best to earn positive media coverage through all these mediums by doing interviews, showcasing unique and creative events and highlighting the exceptional programs that we offer here, inside the city of maricopa.

in fact, just this morning in today's az republic, maricopa was featured in an article taking about the upcoming events that we have planned for our annual stagecoach days. everyone of these media exposures help move the needle towards attaining our economic development goals of bringing more job creating companies and quality of life enhancing retail to the maricopa marketplace. this is how it works folks. now, as i said earlier

creativity is key in assisting positive momentum, for our local businesses. so tonight i'd like to introduce another fun and imaginative way to encourage you to get out there and shop local! tonight i'd like to introduce you to a new game we're calling copa bingo on your way out tonight you will each be given a traditional bingo card by which you can play and have individual spaces signed off on as you go and shop at our local establishments starting tomorrow, as you shop and get your spaces marked, you can turn in your cards for

prizes, gift cards and giveaways. i think it's also important to note that most of these prizes are being provided by the local businesses themselves. there are also 2 grand prizes: the first is a $250 gift card and the second is a total blackout card. and it's a grand prize of, guess what, breakfast with me. lucky you... i'll tell you what right now,

if i'm buying, you're getting shave ice, that's all you're gettin' just kidding... you're getting shave ice, i'm getting a full breakfast just kidding, just kidding i know i've given you a lot on economic development today, this is but the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to what our city is striving for, and trying to accomplish we're trying to accomplish it with businesses both big and small. and we're not even close to being done.

we have so many more ideas on how to keep improving and assisting our communities business growth, and i hope to be able to report more on these innovative ideas to you next year. i also hope that you can start to see that there are so many various avenues and levels of business development that require simultaneous attention. you can't just focus on one and forget the other, or you loose time, time is of the essence. i hope that you've gotten a glimpse into the voluminous efforts that go into bringing businesses to maricopa but perhaps more than all that...

i hope that you'll be able to see, much of what starts new business development is often concentrated, in and around networking. and simply getting our message out beyond our local boarders. continuously beating the proverbial pavement and never giving up, despite the many, many rejections we receive every day, every month and every year. never taking no for a definitive answer and charging back in with hope and the optimism that just maybe, just maybe, this time they'll listen. i have found in this world of economic development, that it's very small.

you learn that everybody seems to know everybody. you learn that connections, relationships, positive messaging, a stellar reputation, an overall dedication to new business development coupled with a little creativity, lead more people to taking notice of our city than almost anything else! i have found that in this strange world of economic development that you never know who you're going to meet next. who's over that next hill? who are you going to find? you never know what game of who knows who you're going to unearth

you never know how many given people's connections and relationships will help you achieve the goals that you're setting out to achieve. and if there is one absolute truth that i have learned in our attempts to bring businesses and industries to the city of maricopa, it's the simple principle that you can never give up! i can assure you that tonight, we as a city council, will never give up and tonight, you have my commitment,

that as long as i am here as your mayor i will never give up striving to accelerate the timeframe of bettering our community through the creation of new jobs and enhanced economic development! now, i mentioned just a few moments ago about the need to be creative. when there is so much competition in the development world, how do we set ourselves apart how do we truly show a unique creativity and show yet empathy for these developers and builders in the "speed to market" dilemma, and they face it with so many cities across the country? so many builders, land owners, developers,

they get so frustrated when they have to deal with our cities. and they don't understand how to make it work, and there's differences between large and small businesses. well i believe that maricopa is, and has, figured that out. let me turn it over to you, to hear council member chapados, and see what she has to say on the subject... there's city hall, i think i see council member chapados headed into the office right now is that the mayor? he's always reaching higher,

being new and innovative. speaking of new and innovative, let me show you maricopa's newest innovation, -smart gov- not long ago, this was the "norm" this pile of paper was the plan review and permitting process now, thanks to smart gov, hours of travel and piles of paper have been reduced to a mouse and monitor. in 2015, the city of maricopa introduced smart gov

a totally electronic way to submit review and revise plans as well as schedule inspections and obtain permits. we're one of the only cities in the country to offer this. saving developers and builders valuable time and money smart gov has made reviewing plans more efficient, by up to 50% and permits are issues 50-70% faster customers can access smart gov anywhere with internet capability they can schedule inspections,

obtain and pay for permits, and track progress in real time customer satisfaction is high! and they are pleased with smart gov's efficiency and accountability other cities are calling maricopa, asking for advice on how to implement a similar program in there jurisdiction there are also resources that home owners and businesses can use thanks to smart gov, maricopa is more attractive to businesses looking to expand or develop here. to view the online portal and visit the smart gov tools

go to www.maricopa-az.gov and click on, "online services" on the right side of the screen when we announced this last year, we were very much in our infancy stages with the smart gov program and admittedly, we had a few bugs that we had to work through. i know some of you in the room that helped us figure this out that's good but this year, we have been hard at work, fixing those bugs

listening to critical feedback, and making changes to it so that we have finally begun to fully integrate this program into every aspect of our cities operations. we have implemented it in the following areas that we feel will help make your interactions with our city a more pleasant and efficient one. for example: through out the building department planning department the fire department, the engineering department, the code enforcement department

business licenses and also electronic plan review. smart gov has allowed us to do the following: create online portals for our customers, apply for permits online, customer contact portals, you can search parcel and property information, you can pay online, you can schedule inspections online, you can track your projects and inspections results in real time over the portal you can request information, you can report and track code violations and many, many other issues. notwithstanding all of this, people still look at me today and say: "well, what's it for?"

"what does it do?" "how does it help move maricopa forward?" i don't know... i do... in fact, since the implementation of the smart gov system, we have experienced a few key elements that i wanted to share with you tonight. did you know, that since we have implemented smart gov that we have seen an increase in new single family home permits increase by 36% 36%!

100% of all of our plans are now electronically reviewed instead of all that paper you saw before. 1000+ business licenses have been uploaded, and this will help automate the business license renewal process very shortly and if you have a license here in the city of maricopa, you know how challenging that has been up to this point it also allows for concurrent reviews between divisions and departments - this is huge! it's huge because, in other words, no more waiting for that piece of paper,

or set of plans to move from desk to desk - or from department to department all inspections are now done on site and are immediately uploaded so that our customers are notified in real time what the status of their inspection is and where they are in their permit process. perhaps most importantly we have decreased the average turn around time for permit issuance from 113 days, down to 6! 6! that's amazing... that right there folks, is worth the entire price of admission.

a few weeks back, a staff member, robert mathias, gave council a presentation on the smart gov system. and a few thing he said, stood out to me. i'd like to share those with you right now. so listen carefully to what he says... we actually gave a presentation last week to the arizona building officials organization. showing it off a little bit, and uh, people actually came up and gave us hugs (laughs) because the one question they had when we went in,

they said how is somebody able to do this, because nobody's been able to do this before and now the question has been answered...this is how you do it. exactly how you do it this is the type of ingenuity and creativity your city strives for, in order to be respectful and cognizant of your public mandate for efficiency. of course there are other big things that are worth mentioning that we have been working on this past year: in fact if you look right over there, there's 3 of them, right here, of course, it's our 3peat victory in battle of the burbs.

how can you forget that? that's pretty amazing, right! now, it's pretty impressive to win, because all of the community jumped on board. we also had to beat some pretty big cities but, the piece that you may not see is, that each and every year, we've held a concert here, because of that win. you know what, it takes a while to put together all the moving pieces of a concert and people don't often think about that... this last year, like the other years, our staff put a concert on, with less than 2 days planning and because of our peoples win, and our staffs hard work,

you know, that is what moves community spirit forward. we've also tried to institute new things that are really catching on this year maricopa will be offering different types of runs. runs have become all the rage and we have several that we will be doing in the coming months you probably recognize and maybe participated in, the mud run. it's nice and dirty so c'mon out, we're gonna be doing it again in a few weeks. we have a color run, also nice and dirty but, we're going to be introducing a new one this year, and that's our brand new santa run

that will be going on during our merry copa event! now i don't know about you, but nothing seems to fill a persons heart with the seasons sentiments than seeing 300 brightly colored santa claus' running right towards you! (crowd laughs) all fun, and running aside, i think it's important we look at our financial situation. while there are always financial challenges, how we manage our money is crucial

and how we report that is also, equally as important. i think it's important that you understand, that for the 5th year in a row we have won the gfoa financial excellence award, for our comprehensive annual financial report so you can see those are little round dots up on the screen behind me with the different years they go down the other side too, i hope that we'll keep doing this each and every year and fill that trophy up another part that you may not

take big notice of, but is really important is that we have this little thing called a maricopa justice court here. and a city court you may or may not know that we like to show fiscal prudence when it comes to this court system. and we operate what is called a co-located court we have an elected justice of the peace and we have a maricopa city judge that shares those courts in one location in our case, we have one person that does that.

thus the city and county share costs, reducing currently unnecessary and duplicative expenditures of your tax payer dollars. but guess what? in december of 2013, through a city led audit we discovered a problem in our local courts. this led to an entire revamping and re-staffing or our local court jurisdiction. and it was done under the control and the watchful eye of the arizona supreme court as well as pinal county superior judge, stephen mccarville, who is featured in that picture behind us, with the white hair i'm happy to report that after the election of mr. lyle riggs as the pinal county jp for this area,

he and his amazing staff set to work to bring our court back under local control as quickly as possible. they put in hours and hours and hours mostly unpaid work to dig themselves out of the mountains of problems in which their court found themselves. now i don't know about you, but it's never fun to walk onto a job and see piles and piles and piles of erroneous problems and say, here you go...fix it. as of july 2016, the az supreme court has released this local jurisdiction back to its own recognizance, under the control of judge lyle riggs. i would like to personally thank judge riggs for his leadership and patience.

now speaking of locations, 2016 has also been a busy year for new city buildings and so we're here to listen tonight to council member bridger kimball as he tells us a little more about them, how there existences in maricopa, will help you and your family from up here, i can see some of our new city buildings in fact, i think i see council member bridger kimball at the copper sky police sub-station mayor, always takin' it to the next level.

i just stopped by the new police sub-station that houses the maricopa police department communications center. here, all 911 calls in the city of maricopa are now answered as well as non-emergency police calls that's more than 6000 calls per month officers are also dispatched to the scenes from the communications center the property evidence unit, a community room, an emergency operations center are also located here. the site is approximately 5.6 acres

and the building is designed to be expanded in future phases also over the last year, the city of maricopa maintenance facility opened the maricopa fire department uses the facility to perform maintenance on vehicles and equipment the facility also serves as a dispatching center for the streets crew and is home to the city's fleet management office also constructed next to the facility is, a communications tower that provides the maricopa police and fire departments with a state of the art communications system. all this new construction will better meet the needs of our current population

and will support our continued growth now since the sub-stations opening in may of this year we have hired 9 new dispatchers and in the first month of operation alone they have handled over 6000+ phone calls! talk about hitting the ground running. now those of you that have come more than once to a state of the city that i've given know that i like to take a few moments to point out some of our "behind the scenes" groups that work really hard to help keep our city operating, but don't often get the recognition that they deserve.

you know it's a big job to keep all these city facilities open and operational the sidewalks cared for, the roads paved and our streets repaired, etc... so tonight i'd like to share with you a little about our hard working individual department in our public works these are the guys and gals that make it happen folks, i don't know if you know this, but this year alone they have installed new crosswalks added lots of ada ramps, they have helped clean up the city storm debris after our many monsoons, they work in all types of weather conditions from extreme heat to unbearable cold

and they often start very, very early in the morning. they help with our flooded areas that occur in the city occasionally, they put out the "welcome home" signs, that you have seen along our roads for our veterans. and they have done so over 150 times this year alone they pushed adot into getting the intersections of both 347 at both smith enke and edison, those roads re-paved. i'm sure you remember how bad those were, at those intersections. they're also in charge of maintaining 534 miles of paved roadways throughout the city of maricopa.

who knew that there were that many miles of paved road in our city? all the while, they have maintained all of our facility's maintenance costs at, or below last year's costs per square foot. now let me tell you a quick story; in march of this year we had a citizen of desert cedars call us to advise us of a pot hole that he had found while he was out, walking his dog. while he was still on the phone with the public works department, here at city hall, he literally saw the public works crews pull up, fix it before he even got off the phone with city hall!

now hows that for customer service? amazing now that's government that works for you right there, huh? i want you to be assured that our public works department strives to go above and beyond for each and every citizen of our city. they take great pride in what they do. and they constantly show their extreme dedication to each and every one of you, even if you don't know it. i believe they deserve our thanks for all their hard work!

lets give them a round of applause now... if by some strange miracle, it's escaped your attention, i have an announcement for you... it's election season folks, yes i know you didn't know, but it's in full swing and decision time is almost upon us.

so it's time to talk about voting. no...no, no, no, i'm not going to go into partisan politics here and tell you whom to vote for... w,w, wait a second...how did that get up there? alright, i admit it, i love mark twain, it's pretty funny, c'mon... i put it in there, what can i say? now that i've offended everyone in the room who's running for congress, i apologize & let's just move on. speaking of voting...people often confide in me that they think that their choices of whom elect or which issue they can support, is just too hard for them to bear.

to them i say...you are not alone... there is no choice, my only choice is not to vote at all! democracy is horrible, absolutely horrible! you're so right. democracy is the worst form of government there is... except for all of the others and that is exactly why you have to vote! (no) yes! (no!) yes! if you don't vote, you can't complain.

complaining is all that i have left. (crying out...) (banging head against voting machine) (sighs...) (sobs...) oh god!...i hope i did the right thing! that's a good one, isn't it? i know that none of you are going to have that problem during this election, right? okay... all joking aside,

in this seemingly omni-present election year there is something really important on your ballots, here in the city of maricopa. and no, i'm not talking about about your choice for president here. i'm talking about the city of maricopa's general plan, or prop415 did you know that arizona law states that no less than every 10 years the voters must approve the city's general plan? so here's vice mayor brown, to tell you a little bit more about it... you know from up here, it's amazing to see the layout of our full city it takes a lot of planning to get here

there's vice mayor brown now, next to the bike lane on honeycutt planning for a completely connected trail system is just one of the many details in the city of maricopa's general plan every 10 years, cities in arizona are required to adopt a general plan to guide the city's growth on november 8th, maricopa's registered voters will receive proposition 415 on their general election ballot this proposition is to ratify maricopa's updated, general plan planning maricopa and set the course for future growth and development of the city over the past 2 years, the city of maricopa has developed a general plan update

through broad citizen input and pubic engagement thank you for helping create this plan for the city. planning maricopa addresses the issues and desires expressed by residents today and will replace the inaugural of maricopa original plan adopted by voters in 2006 to learn more about proposition 415, planning maricopa, go to www.planningmaricopa.com please educate yourselves on this important guide to the city's future and cast your vote. just as the vice mayor said,

our general plan provides the city with a blueprint for an enhanced economy orderly growth and support of maricopa's neighborhoods and overall desired character for our community. the plan is intended to implement, and where necessary, expand on the planning goals and strategies of the citizen-driven 2040 vision the general plan is: an expression of the preferences of residents and property owners it's statement of the city's policy designed to achieve the citizen's vision it's a framework for future plans and decision making

a means of enhancing the quality of life of our citizens it's a legal requirement also, under arizona state law but let me caveat this, it is not additional approval of taxation or annexation so, despite the election year craziness, i highly encourage you to look down ballot find this proposition and make an educated decision if you have additional questions, please go to or visit or contact a member of our friendly staff. now when i thing of our city doing big things, here in maricopa,

i think of relationships and results that are developed over time: things such as the building of important partnerships. partnerships, are another outcropping of our vision for the city and another expression of economic development. sometimes they require "going out on a line" or "taking a risk" but they can and do play a big role in the way our city develops. so i wanted to tell you a brief story about one of these partnerships a few months ago, you may have seen this local inmaricopa magazine appear in your little mailbox. a local business owner here by the name of peter,

who happens to be here tonight... came to me with an idea that he absolutely wanted me to hear. the idea that he shared was that he had a lead on the movement of a professional soccer team from costa rica by the name of saprissa they were in the process of moving their us based training & game playing locations and were looking for a new home base of operations. like most, highly followed professional sports teams a lot can come with that. increased tourism, new development, youth camps,

and in general, and economic boon to the local and regional economy for example. despite our best efforts to make this seeming "match made in heaven" come to fruition, it was not to be. now, i can stand here all night and explain to you all the reasons of why it didn't work out not the least of which, maybe, that it was an idea before its time... maybe... what i'd like you to understand is that things like this pave the way for

and spurn other opportunities that simply wouldn't exist, if we hadn't attempted it at all. in fact, you hear me say it all the time, that if we do nothing, we get nothing! in this case, we gave it our best effort and it didn't pan out as we had hopped but since... we let the sports world know of our intentions, where we are located and that we are ready to have such possibilities on our beautiful city, we have started to gain national and international recognition!

we are getting on these sports team's radars. in fact, one extension of this effort is now evident in arizona's newest profesional soccer team called fc arizona. though they are located in mesa, they have rented out copper sky's fields for a few days during the month of december and they will be hosting professional development youth clinics and camps. now this may seem like a small step compared to the bigger picture of having a sports team call maricopa home but,

yet it is truly is a giant leap in the progression of attracting other professional teams to the area. this only happened because of our willingness to explore every opportunity that came along. and to take a risk on further developing our relationships. in recent discussions with peter, teams like saprissa and others are once again looking at maricopa with extreme interest... folks, this is only the beginning! now let's hear from council member smith regarding what other partnerships have helped our city

hey! there's copper sky, our awesome recreational facility it wouldn't be possible without the support of our residents and the ak-chin indian community in fact, that looks like council member nancy smith down there ha ha, that mayor of ours he is always up to something. you know, as a city, we're always looking for partnerships that will allow us to leverage our resources for the betterment of our residents and our surrounding communities copper sky and our relationship with the ak-chin indian community

is just one example of that. in 2013, the ak-chin generously pledged more than $7,000,000 over 5 years toward copper sky, supporting this beautiful facility, for all to enjoy. this past year the ak-chin brought the arizona rattlers to copper sky for their spring training camp. residents were able to watch practices and attend a scrimmage the rattlers became part of the community while they were here: reading to kids at the library and signing autographs at salsa festival because this went so well, the cleveland gladiators

arena football team, also came out to copper sky for a week in july to practice before a game against the rattlers. other groups are now considering maricopa as a venue to hold their events these partnerships will continue to put maricopa on the map and we will continue to pursue them! now when we talk about partnerships, they are broad and vast there are many of them, and you have to have many of them for many of the reasons i've already given you tonight.

but i would like to talk about some of the things that come because of them, just very briefly. when i look at the ak-chin indian community i consider them on of our greatest partners from copper sky, to the rattlers, the cleveland gladiators and in general advancing the whole success of the region they have been amazing partners with us in so many things, including transportation and other things. harras - ultrastarfrom advertising, entertainment, events

musdfrom field agreements and education u of a farmsif you've never been to u of a farms, they're having an upcoming farm days event they provide cutting edge research that helps put maricopa on the map the fbi funny to think that the city of maricopa would partner with the fbi but there's a little thing, when you share the same name as your big honking' neighbor to north, maricopa county you tend to find yourself the target of a lot of cyber crimes.

and that's what we have experienced this year, and it's because of our partnership with the fbi, that they have kind of, taken us under there wing and they look our for us. the gila river indian communitythrough grants and working together on the 347 challenges magwhich is the maricopa association of governments, a transportation planning organization, helps us with all things transportation pinal countyeverything from flood control to roadways central arizona collegeeducation, small business development, 4 year degree programs to university prep the arizona league of cities & townsnavigating the legislature and running legislation

the cabcwhich is the canada arizona business council by helping us with our canadian visitors, as well as helping us navigate the need to do business introduction and get through that gate keeper medathe maricopa economic development alliance through advertising, promotions and business roundtables finally adotthrough 347 expansion, the 347 overpass and the i-11 progression that is currently underway we could not do this job, to the extent in which we do without strong relationships, without strong partnerships

and this extends beyond these. it extends also into countless non-prophet groups. from girls & boy scouts, u of a & asu, who send their students here against abuse, casa, for our city, all of these are wonderful organizations that fill a niche in this city that we simply cannot do by ourselves i just wanted to mention to you, that when you look at those first 2, while i could elaborate on all of these tonight; i wanted to point out the girl scouts and boy scouts and our u of a and asu folks i want you to know that in this year alone, they have given over 1950 hours of volunteer work

to this city. that's impressive! these partnerships go many different directions and allow us to do many different things one of them is a partnership we just recently had with the secretary of state's office our library received a grant and grant funding for something called the occulus rift this is an educational virtual reality that helps in game development and coding. it helps our kids get some of the employable skills that are inspiring the next generation of job seekers.

and if you haven't done it, you just need to try it, because it's really cool at then end of the day, it's really cool. last but not least, lets not forget probably the most important thing, our residents. did you know that we have over 62 members that are, citizens that are members of our bcc's is what we like to call them. our boards commissions and committees we also have 100's...100's of volunteers that come and assist our police and fire departments our volunteers provide information, assistance and professional services that we would have to otherwise pay through taxation

if trying to do it without them, we would not be able to accomplish it in fact this actually translates into an estimated $380,000 in savings for you, the taxpayer. thanks to our volunteers now tonight, i hope that you have been metaphorically lifted up, to new heights to visually see a sweeping vista from above the myriad of efforts, the challenges, the accomplishments that we face as a city, every single da, just to make your city work. i also hope that you have been fortunate enough to comprehend the value of seeing the big picture, or the broad vision

and i hope that you have been able to capture the mindset of what it is to actually, truly be successful as i think about the last slide that i just showed you the picture with all our volunteers, and our staff on it, i'm reminded that, that's what it's all about, right there. it's about our citizens wonderful people believing that they can do incredible things and make all our lives, just a little bit better

finally, i recently had the opportunity to attend one of maricopa's very first poetry slams put on by our very own maricopa arts council. i have to say it was an amazing experience, if you've never been to one, you absolutely have to go to the next one that we host here. but let me conclude with you tonight and pay homage to them by reading to you, a poem from an anonymous writer titled:how do you think? if you think you are beaten, you are if you think you dare not, you don't!

if you'd like to win, but think you can't, it's almost certain you won't. if you think you'll loose, you're lost for out in the world we find success begins with a fellow's will it's all in the state of mind! if you think you're outclassed, you are you've got to think high to rise. you've got to be sure of yourself

before you'll ever win the prize life's battles don't always go to the stronger, or faster man but sooner or later then man who wins is the person who thinks he can! may we all continue to believe that maricopa can! i know i will thank you for coming this evening

thank you mayor, that was wonderful so many exciting things on the horizon for the city of maricopa! so before you leave tonight, i do want to let you know and put all your minds at ease that no mayors were hurt in the filming of tonights production so to prove it to you, we have a quick little last video to show you ...here we are at phoenix skydiving...uh...sorry ...okay maricopa, here we go... woohoo! woa...this is awesome

there's copper sky, our awesome recreational facility in fact, that looks like council member nancy smith we had a lot of fun this year so i would like to give a special thank you to phoenix area skydiving, for all there help in putting this presentation together they were fantastic to work with, unfortunately they were unable to make it tonight, but they are watching online. so if we could give them a big round of applause, that'd be great. and quickly before you leave tonight i do want to remind you that copa bingo officially begins tomorrow, as the mayor said, you'll be given your game piece as you leave. so please support our local businesses

get your stamps and win some wonderful prizes make sure you're in the know about proposition 415 by going to www.planningmaricopa.com also our mud run, as the mayor mentioned, is coming up on saturday october 22nd and there is still room to sign up and you can do that by going to maricopamudrun.com and finally as always to learn more about all the wonderful events and all the city news going on go to maricopa-az.gov and visit our facebook and twitter feed. with that, thank you so much for joining us this evening, drive home safely and have a wonderful rest of your week thank you!