By L. Parsons Last Tuesday, the Winslow City Council hosted a work session attended by city department leaders, the city attorney and council members. The agenda for the session was extensive and included presentations from each department and the city attorney. Each presentation was focused on the city motto, “Discover Winslow, A City in Motion.” During Winslow City Manager John Barkley’s overview of community development, Vice Mayor Samantha Crisp interjected. “There are programs available such as micro loans and micro grants that are available to small businesses. I would like to look into bringing information about those types of programs here.” City Clerk Suzy Wetzel was instructed to add an informational item to an upcoming city council agenda pertaining to the micro loan program. Mark Woodson, the City’s engineer, presented information on infrastructure and capital needs. He began with a Power Point that illustrated projects Woodson Engineering has been involved in over the last few years. Some of those projects include installation of well flow meters on the city water supply wells, paving the Hubbell Building parking lot, adding a bypass sewer line under the ‘Apache Bypass and Parallel’ title, road improvements and lighting at the Eagle Pavilion. Woodson also spoke about projects that are in the works and upcoming within Winslow. “We have a 24-inch sewer main replacement project. Over the years we have rebuilt several segments of it and we have three segments left to get complete new piping. We also have a water master plan in the works that includes water, wastewater, reclaimed water and storm water. We are going to look at all the water and from those plans, we will create an upcoming capital improvements list and how to fund them.” For the future, Woodson explained, “Streetlights that will be located in the median along Mike’s Pike Blvd. as well as curbs, gutters and sidewalks along that route are on the agenda for the next year. We will be working on plans for a subdivision off of Hipkoe Drive and improvements throughout the city.” Winslow Police Chief Ken Arend let the council and staff know that the department has six patrol officer vacancies at the moment. “We have 28 sworn officers and 20 civilian employees. We are responsible for the overall safety of the service population of about 25,000 people (including tourists). It is a big responsibility and our guys on the street manage that very well.” Mayor Birdie Cano asked Arend if the department was offering incentives to lateral officers who may be interested in transferring to Winslow. Following a brief discussion, it was revealed that there is not, in fact, a hiring incentive in place. Arend said, “The problem with contracts like that is enforceability. Winslow is right now not experiencing the national problems with policing, so that is a wonderful thing, but it is still difficult to find officers to fill these positions. Right now, it is hard for law enforcement everywhere to fill spots, and for us, the background checks are what holds us up on a lot of candidates. Ideally, we would like lateral officers but that isn’t always as easy as it sounds.” Public Works Director Tim Westover oversees more than 30 full time employees. His scope of work includes the recreation, parks, water, sanitation, streets, facilities, wastewater and fleet departments. In his presentation, Westover gave credit to lead workers in each of the sub departments. He gave special attention to facilities department employee Ben Foster. “He is a licensed electrician and HVAC technician. A lot of the stuff he does we used to have to contract out and having him has saved the city a lot of money.” The parks department, according to Westover has five full time employees and oversees over 100 acres of park land throughout the city. They are also responsible for maintaining the cemetery as well as preparing the grounds for burials. The parks department also maintains McHood Park and the restrooms and other facilities in each of the park locations in Winslow. “Last year we had over a thousand visitors per day so you can imagine the trash that is left behind.” The absence of inmate labor due to the pandemic has affected the efficiency of the public works department, Westover said. “They really help the city with man power and cost saving. Hopefully in the near future, we will be able to partner with them again.” Bob Hall, the Visitor’s Center Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Winslow Chamber of Commerce also spoke during the session. Hall read the Chamber’s mission statement, “The Winslow Chamber of Commerce is organized to advance the general welfare of the Winslow area. Attention shall be given to economic, civic, commercial, cultural, industrial and educational interests of the area.” He looks forward to COVID-19 numbers decreasing in a significant way so that tourism can resume. “Because of pandemic, our budget did take a hit. People weren’t staying in hotels so we weren’t collecting that bed tax so we had to reign in what we could spend on promotion of Winslow. I found other ways to get the word out about our town. This year will be better and the next will be even better.” City attorney Trish Stuhan outlined open meeting laws, conflicts of interest and public records and how they pertain to council members. She also illustrated the council-manager form of government and its chain of command. She made the point that a quorum for the Winslow City Council consists of four people and warned the council against creating a quorum through email or text message conversations. The work session adjourned after nearly five hours of conversation. Not all agenda items were discussed in the interest of time, however, administrative services, city clerk job duties and the finance and fire departments were touched on. The entire five-hour session is available online for public consumption at the city’s website at www.winslowaz.gov.
