A year ago, the Chandler City Council approved a new parks and recreation fee schedule just before the start of 2025.
This time around, Council has more of a structured timeline approach toward increasing fees for parks and recreation — and it’s incorporating more fee changes into a broader fee discussion that involves four city departments.
Council met in a Dec. 11 work session to go over proposed fee changes for Community Services division services, which includes parks and recreation, as well as fees for the Cultural Development, Chandler Police and Public Works and Utilities departments.
Council addressed procedure for raising fees as well as the dollar amounts.
“I really don’t want our (boards and) commissions making decisions when it comes to costs,” Council member O.D. Harris said during the work session. “I’m not comfortable with commissions setting policy in that way. I don’t know how we got there. I’d like the city manager to look into that.”
Budget Director Matt Dunbar led the discussion during the work session. He said the intent is to bring back the fees again for a February work session, with Council after published proposed new fees have been published online for at least 60 days ahead of any action.
Proposed fees were analyzed, summarized and discussed with City Manager John Pombier over several months through November, a staff report states. The report also states the city will need to publish an intent to raise fees in a newspaper ahead of a proposed March 1 effective date of the new schedule.
Dunbar ran through a long list of proposed fee increases, by department, intended to recoup rising costs of city labor and materials. Department leaders were at the work session to take council questions about the increases.
One of the discussions about parks and recreation fees had to do with pickleball. The city proposes two new sets of tournament rental fees for both its archery range and the new 18-court outdoor pickleball complex at Tumbleweed Park, which opened in September.
The only proposed Chandler Public Library fee increases are the per-page rates for black-and-white and color copies.
Cultural Development, in its effort to encourage organizers needing temporary sales and promotional events applications processed to plan well in advance, wants to add expediting fees. Those would start at $50 for applications submitted 46-59 days before a proposed event day and would be $200 for applications submitted 20-30 days before an event.
Probably the most significant proposed Chandler Police Department fee changes are the addition of a “public records requests — other” fee of $25.
The department also wants to increase police report copies from $5 to $10 for the first 35 pages and change video recording copies processing fee from $25 to $46 for the first hour of video and “$46 prorated per hour” per copy of video.
The most significant Public Works and Utilities change is to solid waste. The city wants to raise its rate for both residential use of the Recycling Solid Waste Collection Center, in 20-pound increments, and its city services fee, from $50 to $70 per ton.
Most of the proposed increases and many current fees can be viewed by clicking here.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
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