"Thomas Jefferson said a democracy is dependent on an informed citizenry. I don't care whether it sounds corny or not.  It's the truth." -Jim Lehrer

Carefree Truth
Issue #1009, April 17, 2022

The Administrative Services/Town Management has 5 full time employees (FTE) who oversee the daily management of the Town Departments and operational work plans.  The Town Administrator, Gary Neiss, negotiates and administers Town contracts.  He works with Jim Keen, the Town Accountant, to develop and administer the Town budget.  He conducts frequent meetings with Council members, citizens, development interests, and other regulatory and planning/development agencies.  He writes, reviews, and manages policies and regulations.  But this is a collective effort.  It involves Stacey Bridge-Denzak with Planning and Zoning, who does an amazing job.  Carefree has a General Plan update coming up in the near future.  Economic Development Director Steve Prokopek will be talking about updates to the revitalization and redevelopment plans.  Town Codes and Ordinances are impacted by what happens at the State level.
 
 
The Administrative employees assisted the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) to conduct public meetings and to generate a report for the community and the Council regarding the evolving circumstances associated with public safety.  They began a program to detail the costs associated with the possibility of joining the regional Automatic Aid partnership and the evaluation of the Town's financial capacity to help define options to ensure financially solvent solutions associated with any new and ongoing costs associated with changes to service levels.  Expert consultants have been hired to help make these determinations, and their findings will be presented at Council meetings and Open Houses in the future, probably in the fall, so the Town can make informed decisions.

 
 
The Town Gardens are a point of pride to Carefree.  This fiscal year (FY), the Administrative Services managed the clean-up of the Gardens with significant pruning of overgrown vegetation and replenished decomposed granite. The Town re-stuccoed and repainted the amphitheater and the rest rooms building with a ceramic paint product.  The budget for this next FY will be asking for funds to extend that to the walls of the Gardens.  The Town began the rusted pedestrian lights replacement, upgraded and expanded the WIFI system in the Gardens, and installed the new security camera system that is helping to curtail vandalism.  The cameras have caught acts of vandalism which are being investigated by MCSO.  Decommissioned fire hydrants, surrounded by turf will be installed this coming year in an effort to implement areas designated for dog "urine control".  This is being done in an effort to creatively balance peoples' enjoyment of the Gardens with their pets, and the safeguarding of the plants that are killed by dog urine.

 
 
They worked closely with and coordinated departments to implement approved work plans and compliance to State Statutes.  They coordinated with the legal representatives to address the best interests of the community and to mitigate risks.  They managed service contracts to ensure efficient and effective levels of service.  A Communications Manager was hired to strengthen communications and to engage residents and businesses in Town related issues, services, and programs.  They worked with the Town Engineer to manage, maintain, and/or replace aging infrastructure and assets, as well as to review projects and development to ensure regulatory compliance.
 
 
The Administrative employees workload includes working with the Communications Manager to further engage residents and stakeholders using multiple communications channels.  They work with consultants to develop and implement community and Council preferred public safety options.  They coordinate with staff and contracted consultant teams working on future initiatives such as the General Plan, special projects, and infrastructure.  They work with external agencies to represent the best interests of the town.  They continue to coordinate the execution and updates of the work plans of each department and inform new Council members on future work plans.

 
 
Kandace Contreras explained the duties of the Town Clerk/Treasurer/Accounting Department, which includes 2 FTE.  She noted that the jobs she and Jim Keen were doing 10 years ago are clearly not the jobs they are doing today.  There has been a significant increase in meetings and needs.  There has been a 170% increase in Public Records requests, which take up a substantial amount of time and resources.  She said others on the staff have been wonderful about trying to help with the voluminous amounts of those requests, but the time taken up with them makes completing other required tasks much more difficult.

 
 
Councilman Vince D'Aliesio asked how much the requests had increased.  Ms. Contreras said they went from 30 last year to 85 so far this year.  He asked how much time that takes.  She explained that if they involved emails regarding a certain subject, everyone on the emails must be contacted and the Town Attorney must be involved.  It can take several days to be looked through for attorney/client privilege.

 
 
Councilman Tony Geiger asked if frivolous requests could be weeded out to save time and resources.  Ms. Contreras replied that the courts lean in favor of the requester's right to know.  Mr. D'Aliesio asked if it was possible to charge for the information requests.  Ms. Contreras said it is only possible if they request the information on paper or a disc.  The cost is in the time consumed, but that can't be charged.  Mr. Keen explained that it's not only emails, it's all mediums.  Texts and tweets have to be discovered.

 
 
Mayor Les Peterson pointed out that most of the requests have come from the same person or the same few people.  Mr. D'Aliesio asked if limits could be placed on the number of requests that could be made by a single individual, and if other municipalities had attempted to do so.  Ms. Contreras said it would take a legal opinion to determine if there was an actual abuse involved.  In the meantime, staff must be diligent in answering any request until told otherwise.
 
 
Their department is responsible for the care, custody, and State mandated retention of all records, books, and papers for the Town, the Water Company/Utilities Community Facilities District (UCFD), and the cemetery.  The Election Official is responsible for all the duties required by State statute.  The department receives and safeguards all monies received, and keeps separate records and accounts for different funds.  They are responsible for computer hardware, network security, maintenance, and server administration, as well as for the oversight and compliance of the annual audits for the Town and the UCFD.  She coordinated with the chosen vendors to install the 8 camera security system in the Gardens.
 
 
 
Ms. Contreras has managed, prepared and noticed 58 public meetings/public hearings including Town Council, UCFD, PSAC, and Sky Ranch Community Relations Committee (SRCR) meetings.  She responded to a 170% increase in the number of Public Records requests.  She maintained and trained staff members on the new records management archival system and began the transfer of vital documents to a secure storage location.

 
 
She attended and graduated from the inaugural 9 month Desert Foothills Leadership Academy program.  She attended the 2021 State of Arizona Election Re-Certification program to maintain her certification as an Election Official.  She attended training to maintain her Arizona Municipal Clerk certification.  She maintained her paralegal/legal assisting certification with the National Association of Legal Assistants.  She will complete the application process to obtain a Masters Municipal Clerk (MMC) designation from the International Association of Municipal Clerks.
 
 
Councilman Tony Geiger felt it would be helpful if the minutes were transcribed verbatim, rather than providing a synopsis.  He asked if there is a program to do that.  Ms. Contreras explained that in order to do so, the recordings would have to be sent out to a company that would charge tens of thousands of dollars to do the transcriptions.  It's the same type of people who do it for the court systems.  Councilman Stephen Hatcher noted that it took 6 people 40 hours and cost $11,000 to do the transcription of one long school board meeting.  Ms. Contreras said she felt she must do her due diligence.
 
 
There have also been changes in the Town's legal requirements. She assisted the Town Attorney in collecting facts and materials, and responding to a false Complaint filed with the Arizona Ombudsman about a violation of the Open Meeting Law requirements, which used a substantial amount of their time.

 
 
She and Mr. Keen document and generate the reports and provide the detailed information required for the annual audit and budget.  Mr. Keen provides accounting and IT support to the staff and management on a daily and weekly basis.  Ms. Contreras said he is amazing at doing research to keep down the Town's cost, even going as far as searching eBay for good buys on equipment, but the accounting software needs to be updated in order to correctly perform in the coming FY.

 
 
Mr. D'Aliesio asked if the new system would be able to perform into the future, or would it need to be replaced frequently.  Mr. Keen replied that it would meet the needs for many years and would do so at a reasonable price, as opposed to the higher prices of many of the other programs.  The company has been around for 20 years, a lot of other cities and towns use them, and the program mates with the Town's other programs.  He felt it was a tried and true product that continues to provide enhancements.
 
 
The next FY goals include managing and overseeing the 2022 Primary and General Elections, including both the Town and the Maricopa County polling location in Carefree.  The AgendaQuick software program will be secured and implemented to streamline the agendas and minutes process, in addition to giving the Communications/Social Media department supportive meeting streaming capabilities using Open Media, which does not require the 1000 subscribers that YouTube does.  Ms. Contreras will coordinate with Mr. Keen to obtain and institute a new dynamic accounting program and the transfer of all data.
 
https://vimeo.com/699268890
 
 
Erica Shumaker, the Communications Manager, has only been with the Town for about 4 months, but Mr. Neiss said she's been doing a terrific job.  Ms. Shumaker noted that she was hired to centralize the Town's communications, be they verbal, written, social media, or YouTube videos, any way to connect with the community.  She has been updating the Town website.  www.carefree.org is the government section and www.visitcarefree.org is the tourism section.  She directly manages the government section, and works in partnership with Tech4Life to manage the tourism section.

 
 
Current social media channels include Facebook (FB), Instagram, and YouTube.  FB is the largest outreach at the moment, with 6-1/2 thousand followers.  Instagram has about 1800 subscribers and is gaining about 230 per month.  When she started, YouTube was bare bones.  It is now up from 5 to 32 subscribers.  Council meetings and events that are recorded are posted there and are always available.
 
 
838 residents subscribe to the new Town Newsletter and she is encouraging more to subscribe.  She created a HOA distribution list that goes out to HOA leaders with information that would be useful to their residents.  She is working with Steve Prokopek on a letter for local businesses to inform them about events and to encourage dialogue to capture their needs and help grow their businesses.  There are 342 subscribers to the business letter.
 
 
Other outreach includes news and press mentions, and she has opened a page on the Town website so people can see how many times Carefree has been mentioned in the media.  In 2021, there were 18 articles published that mentioned Carefreee.  This year, so far, there have been 31 media mentions and placements, and one where they did a feature on our fire station and fire fighters about being fire-wise.  She is also working with Mr. Prokopek on activities and events when people want to rent the Pavilion facilities for their events, and for the weekly classes held there.

 
 
She is excited about the new software programs and seeks better equipment to reach the residents in their homes via streaming.  Mr. D'Aliesio asked if the equipment being considered could permanently mount in the Council chambers and how it would look.  Ms. Shumaker said they are exploring that and getting prices.  It is a bit expensive to have a company come out to install it, but they are still looking for a better price.  Vice Mayor John Crane asked if the request for the new equipment is included in the budget for the upcoming FY.  Ms. Shumaker confirmed that it is.

 
 
The Vice Mayor noted that one attempt to encourage subscriptions to the Town Newsletter was done via a mailing, which is expensive.  He asked if there was a bump in subscriptions after the mailing.  Although it was done 6 months ago, she didn't have the numbers to show if it was effective, but she said she would look into it.  Vice Mayor Crane didn't feel it was a cost effective way to achieve results.
 
https://vimeo.com/699281475
 
 
Lyn Hitchon
 
 
Prepared by Carefree Truth
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