The Holbrook City Council convened for a regular meeting last Wednesday, during which the council passed multiple ordinances that were introduced the previous meeting. Councilmember Robert Black was absent.
The council passed an ordinance authorizing the lease of certain municipal real property to Daniel Hutchens. For the first two years Hutchens will pay an annual base rent of $1,000 per year and will increase to $3,500 for third and fourth extensions. The property, located west of the Navajo County Public Works Complex on Highway 377, will be used to develop motocross track.
An ordinance was passed authorizing the lease of certain municipal real property to Northland Pioneer College (NPC) as well. NPC will pay $9,100 for the two parcels, both of which will be used by the construction trades department to allow students to build spec houses.
Councilmember Tim Dixon commented that the council should maintain holding a bid process when leasing property, even if it’s not necessarily required. Mayor Kathleen Smith stated she understood his point, “I feel like we should move forward with this one, but I do think we should maybe readdress our policies moving forward before any other assets come available.” The ordinance passed with Mayor Smith, Vice Mayor Michael Nilsson, and Councilmembers Arcenia Pacheco, Teri Tafoya and Karina Pack voting in favor, and Dixon voting against.
The city’s provided cell phone policy and employee acknowledgement form was also approved for a second reading. Nilsson asked how many staff members would be affected by the policy and what the overall savings would be. City Manager Sharon Jakubowski-Wolz replied that it was 26 employees, adding that it was included in a message sent out to all members of the council, along with more detailed information on the topic. Mayor Smith clarified that this is not to approve the purchase of anything but simply the policy, and the numbers could change. “This is strictly for things like, does this policy make sense for our employees? So, we can ask those questions and things like that. However, that shouldn’t bear any weight on our vote on the policy.”
New city employees Isiah Aguilera and Christian Thompson from the Streets Department and Paul Saiz from the Wastewater Department were introduced to the council.
During summary of current events, Mayor Smith noted that there will be a candlelight ceremony at Gillespie Park on Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. She also mentioned a workforce expo held from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., on the same day at Holbrook High School’s Munoz gym. “Grow Arizona Workforce Network is hosting an interactive workforce expo, and that is open to the public. It’s mostly for high school students and college students, but there’ll be different industry leaders and companies on hand, showing the different jobs available in this area.”
Vice Mayor Nilsson stated that the food bank will host a fundraiser for their Christmas box giveaway at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26, at the Holbrook Senior Citizens Center, located at 216 Joy Nevin Ave. “We’re anticipating spending $2,000 more because of inflation and because of the increase of people that have come to the food bank.”
City Manager Jakubowski Wolz mentioned that there has been discussion of bringing a drag race venue to Holbrook and conducted a quick study to see if the noise would affect residents. “We had a sound check on Monday to see how loud that those vehicles would be for the residents. And there was really no sound that came in.” This site for the proposed drag races would be west of the location approved earlier in the meeting for the motocross site.
