The Winslow City Council held their regular meeting last week during which the council voted unanimously to adopt the new tax rate for fiscal year 2026, which set the city’s primary property tax rate at $1.30 per $100 of assessed value. Staff explained that the total property tax levy for all properties in Winslow will rise from $479,000 last year to $490,000 this year, an increase of $11,000. They added that the new rate equates to 1.3% and is spread across all property owners. This new rate will be active from Aug. 4, 2025, to June 30, 2026.
Because property tax rates are tied to assessed value, council members asked staff to clarify how much the change would affect homeowners. David Coolidge explained, “On a $100,000 assessed value of your home last year you paid $129.63 so on $100,000 of assessed value this year you would pay $130.47.” This results in less than a dollar per $100,000 of property value.
However, taxes aren’t strictly on assessed value because for properties that change in value rapidly it can only have a max change in the taxable value. So, for people in the area who might have rapidly increasing property values Finance Director Daniel Hendrix said they should actually be paying a lower percentage of taxes on their home value despite increasing the total amount paid slightly.
The mayor said it was important to make sure the public understood the small impact of the change. “It’s not like a huge bump,” she said and staff agreed. All members of the council are required to take part in the vote so the agenda item was moved to the top of the meeting so that Councilmember Darcey McKee could go back to the conference she was attending, she attended the council meeting virtually.
Following the vote, the council heard a presentation from Arizona Public Service (APS) about the utility’s operations and how it plans for growth in Winslow and across the state. APS Senior Public Affairs Manager Janet Dean said the company serves 1.4 million customer accounts across 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties, with Winslow’s peak electric load at about 13 to 15 megawatts. She noted that the company’s service area includes both large metropolitan areas and rural communities and that it must be ready to serve customers at peak demand on the hottest day of the year. “We expect a 40% increase in how much power we need to generate and have available in the next eight years,” Dean said.
Dean reviewed how electricity is generated, transmitted and distributed to Winslow, which has one substation and two distribution feeders serving the city. She explained that APS plans for two kinds of growth: historic growth, which involves incremental increases in housing and businesses and large, single-user developments. For historic growth, Winslow already has enough infrastructure for about the next decade. “Growth pays for growth,” Dean said, explaining that when a large customer requires substantial new infrastructure, the company expects that customer to pay for those improvements.
Vice Mayor Jim MacLean asked Dean how quickly APS could supply electricity for a hypothetical 10-megawatt textile company project. Dean said the answer would depend on the project’s timeline and energy needs but major new capacity can take years to build. “We are probably three to five years out on any major new capacity,” she said. Dean told MacLean that it would also be dependent on how many houses are being built at that time and any other projects that might also have overlapping timelines. Dean said that Atlas Global Development, the developers who are currently trying to develop the I-40 Tradeport in Winslow, has had conversations with APS about requiring as much as 1,000 megawatts of power. For reference Dean also told the council that currently the City of Winslow uses about 13 megawatts total.
The mayor also asked Dean to clarify how power from local facilities like the Cholla Power Plant is used. Dean said that power from all APS facilities goes into the larger grid rather than staying in the local area. “Just because there’s a Cholla right next door… doesn’t mean your power is necessarily coming from Cholla,” she said.
During the portion of the meeting reserved for calling for future agenda items, MacLean asked the council to consider updating the city’s logo. “It’s an iconic logo but for me it’s terribly outdated,” he said. He suggested adding elements that reflect the city’s attractions, such as the railroad and Route 66, while retaining the current design’s recognizable features. “I think we ought to look at it and definitely not take anything away. We ought to look at maybe adding things that currently draw people to Winslow,” MacLean brought to the board agenda. He said any changes would need to avoid making the logo “too cluttered”.
In other business, the board:
* Authorized a liquor license application for Cajian, located at 122 E. Second St.
* Approved an amendment to the purchase and sale agreement with Atlas Global Development to extend the close of escrow from July 31, 2025 to Aug. 31, 2025, for 1,200 acres west of Highway 87 and south of Airport Road.
* Approved the sale of property located at 321 Jefferson Street to Thomas Curtis for $8,000.
