By Richard Smith
Independent Newsmedia

The Surprise City Council is considering a general obligation bond election for the third straight year.

During Tuesday’s work session, the council will talk about this year’s proposal, but will not reach a formal resolution. The work session starts at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Read about the results of the meeting Thursday on testwp05.tecnavia.com/yourvalley/site.

City staff is recommending splitting the bond projects in to as many as three categories with a separate bond vote question for each. That comes in the wake of the narrow downfall of one $63 million bond vote supported by the institution of a secondary property tax in November.

If all projects are included and residents passed all three questions, the bond would cost $59.5 million. That is revised from the original proposal of $81.9 million last month, by cutting the pavement preservation from $22 million to $10 million, removing a Cactus Road improvement project and slicing $1 million off the price to purchase land for a future policed fires station and city park.

Questions would be in the categories of public safety, road improvements and pavement preservation with the recreation proposals from 2016 removed.

“Many of the residents from whom we received feedback expressed they did not want to bond for recreation projects and that safe, quality roads were important to them, as was keeping emergency response times low. They also wanted more choice, not a one question proposition. That is why we have proposed the three separate questions in the areas of Public Safety, Traffic Congestion Mitigation and Pavement Preservation. By removing the recreation projects from last year’s bond initiative, we were able to add other priority project needs, including the combined Public Safety Evidence & Readiness Center, Police Training Facility and Pavement Preservation,” stated city spokesperson Virginia Mungovan in an email.

Resident feedback in 2016 showed that many believe prioritizing pavement preservation in the bond discussion is important, stated Public Works Director Mike Gent stated in an email. This potential bond proposal would provide additional funds to complement the annual funds available for pavement preservation.

He stated that funds for fiscal year 2018 will allow for improvements to significant sections of Bell Road between SR303 and Litchfield Road, Litchfield Road between Bell and Sun Village Parkway, 163rd between Jomax Road and Dixileta Drive, Dysart Road between Greenway Road and Bell, Citrus Road between Cactus Road and Waddell Road, and Waddell between Dysart and Litchfield. Bond funds would accelerate pavement preservation work to virtually every area of the city and allow some of the more intensive and expensive rehabilitation treatment.

“If the City Council decides to include this question as a potential ballot measure and if voters were to then approve this bond, it would provide pavement preservation catch up funds that will also leverage and accelerate the city’s existing annual pavement preservation budget. Together these improvements will allow the city to maintain an average pavement condition on all city streets of good or excellent moving into the future at a much lower life cycle cost than would otherwise be necessary,” Mr. Gent stated.

The other key change from the 2016 bond proposal is the police property and evidence facility. Instead of adding on to the existing warehouse, the city proposes a joint Public Safety Evidence and Readiness Center to support additional space for police evidence and property storage and accommodate overall public safety tactical storage in one logistics center. It would be located on city-owned land at 134th and Foxfire drives.

The current Police Evidence and Property facility on Litchfield Road, north of Bell Road, is approaching storage capacity, Ms. Mungovan stated. The warehouse portion of the facility is at approximately 85 percent capacity; the walk-in refrigerator and freezer are at 90 percent capacity.

“Both Surprise Police and Fire-Medical departments are storing tactical gear at various city locations, thereby reducing efficiencies that translate to quick response,” Ms. Mungovan stated. “The overall facility will be 29,000 square feet and is designed to accommodate 30 years of growth. Cost efficiencies are gained through consolidation of two functions within one building, as it will require construction of one building with shared HVAC and water and wastewater connections.”

If this bond is sought by the council and approved by voters, Surprise would convert the existing Property and Evidence Facility into a training facility for Surprise Police.

The existing 8,500 square foot building will undergo an interior reconfiguration to accommodate a defensive tactics room, firearms simulation room, classroom, locker rooms and other support spaces. The building site would also be modified to accommodate simulated traffic incidents and other outdoor training activities.

If the council does not call for a bond election — as occurred in 2015 — the city would need to identify short term solutions for the most urgent of needs such as the storage capacity of the evidence facility, stated budget director Jared Askelson.

“The scopes of some projects may be revised to fit within the constraints of the forecasted sources. This would involve reducing the initial project sizes and phasing them in over time,” Mr. Askelson stated. “Most projects would have their scheduled completion dates pushed back outside of the five year window, and we would wait for funding to become available. These capital decisions would be revisited each year with the budget process and prioritized.”