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  • A. Information/Discussion regarding a Gila County Rural Drinking Water Program. (Michael O'Driscoll/Glenn Mantel)
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  • B. Information/Discussion regarding whether the Gila County Tommie Cline Martin Complex is a viable new location for the construction and installation of the Rally Around the Flags Project. (Michael O'Driscoll)
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  • C. Information/Discussion regarding an update on Discover Gila County, the County's tourism and marketing initiative. (Cameron Davis/James Menlove)
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  • 3. CALL TO THE PUBLIC:  A call to the public is held for public benefit to allow individuals to address the Board of Supervisors on any issue within the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors. Board members may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Therefore, pursuant to Arizona Revised Statute §-431.01(H), at the conclusion of an open call to the public, individual members of the Board of Supervisors may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the Board, may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda for further discussion and decision at a future date.
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  • 4. At any time during this meeting pursuant to A.R.S. §-431.02(K), members of the Board of Supervisors and the County Manager may present a brief summary of current events.  No action may be taken on the information presented. IF SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONS ARE NEEDED, PLEASE CONTACT THE RECEPTIONIST AT (928)5-3231 AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE TO ARRANGE THE ACCOMMODATIONS. FOR TTY, PLEASE DIAL1-1 TO REACH THE ARIZONA RELAY SERVICE AND ASK THE OPERATOR TO CONNECT YOU TO (928)5-3231. THE BOARD MAY VOTE TO HOLD AN EXECUTIVE SESSION FOR THE PURPOSE OF OBTAINING LEGAL ADVICE FROM THE BOARD’S ATTORNEY ON ANY MATTER LISTED ON THE AGENDA PURSUANT TO A.R.S. §38-431.03(A)(3). THE ORDER OR DELETION OF ANY ITEM ON THIS AGENDA IS SUBJECT TO MODIFICATION AT THE MEETING.
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Event transcript
OK. 00:00:05
And Samantha, you're all ready to go, OK. 00:00:06
Let's see. 00:00:10
Well then, why don't we call this meeting to order? It's one minute before 10:00, October 29th. 00:00:12
Here in Globe at the Board of Supervisors meeting and. 00:00:19
I'd like to call it to order and I've asked Mr. JJ Decola to lead us in the pledge. 00:00:24
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to stand one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and 00:00:33
justice for all. Liberty and justice. 00:00:39
Thank you. 00:00:48
Thank you, J. 00:00:51
Appreciate that JJ is a Korean War veteran. What's that? 00:00:54
You're a Korean War veteran? Yes, Sir. 00:00:58
And he's very proud of that. He's also very proud that he's 90 some years old. 00:01:02
9090 even 90. OK, we're glad to have you this morning. So today we're having a work session and those present are a supervisor 00:01:09
Christensen and Klein. Supervisor Humphrey has another obligation first thing this morning, but we do have a quorum. 00:01:18
So item 2A will be the first item that we talk about information discussion regarding Ahila County rural drinking water program. 00:01:28
And Michael, would you like to introduce us on that? 00:01:34
Thank you, Chairman. Supervisor Klein. What I'd like to do is turn this presentation over to Mr. Cowen Goddard, who's with Source 00:01:45
Global. And this presentation will will at least give some information to the Board as well as some of the residents as far as 00:01:52
some opportunities out there for the rural counties in Arizona. 00:01:59
To obtain, you know, clean drinking water during times of emergencies and talk about the partnerships. 00:02:07
That the residents have in order to possibly qualify for grants to get these water systems onto their property. So I'd like to 00:02:14
introduce Mr. Colin Goddard. 00:02:19
Good morning, Colin. 00:02:26
Thank you, Supervisor Christensen, Supervisor Klein for an opportunity to speak. Michael, thank you again and those staff and the 00:02:28
public for giving me a few minutes of your time. I have a short presentation that helps share some visuals. If that's able to be 00:02:34
shown wonderful. That can be helped explain kind of what we do when the conversations and partnerships we try to have. But to 00:02:40
introduce myself, my name is Colin Goddard. I'm a vice president of project and business development for Source Global. We are a 00:02:46
Scottsdale based. 00:02:52
Water technology company that was founded out of research done at Arizona State University in the early 2010. I cover our work 00:02:58
here in Arizona and New Mexico and we have kind of teams working throughout the US, SW as well as countries all around the world. 00:03:06
We are a public benefit corporation. 00:03:15
So a for profit company, but you know, we're in our mission and bylaws to do public good and we have 1 mission at this at this 00:03:18
organization to help make clean drinking water and unlimited and renewable resource. Good thing I have this presentation somewhat 00:03:24
memorized. All right, there we go. Wonderful, there we go. Now I understand this is not working today, but that's new and we're, 00:03:30
we're going to have it working soon, I think. OK. 00:03:36
Wonderful. Great. So this is a little bit overview of who we are. 00:03:43
And we exist because drinking water access in Arizona and much of the US SW is getting harder, right? There are long term droughts 00:03:48
in the eridification of this region. There are naturally occurring and man made things that get into our supply that make it hard 00:03:55
to drink, right? And particularly for rural communities, small communities with low density, right, the economics and the 00:04:02
technical skills for centralized water infrastructure can be really hard. 00:04:09
Energy generation and make drinking water wherever it's needed. And the way that they do that is with a core strategy called solar 00:04:47
atmosphere water harvesting. So it's tapping into the abundant amount of solar energy available in Arizona with how much sunlight 00:04:54
the state gets, and accessing the drinking water that's actually stored in water molecules in the air and creating that and 00:05:00
turning that water vapor into liquid drinking water using nothing but renewable resources. 00:05:07
And the way that our company does this is with a hydro panel, which is what we make and manufacture here in Arizona and deploy 00:05:14
around the world. So it kind of looks like a solar panel, but instead of making electricity. 00:05:19
From the sun like a solar panel does, it makes water from the air using the solar energy, it creates water, it stores the water 00:05:24
inside, it keeps the water clean, and then it dispenses it to drink in a fully off grid system to make, store and dispense clean 00:05:29
drinking water. 00:05:35
Like I said, these are off grid systems, so they don't need power connections, they don't need water connections. You can quite 00:05:44
literally put these on the ground, point them towards the sun, and make your own drinking water supply straight out of the air. 00:05:49
We have operational sites all around the world today. We use this technology to provide drinking water to small scale and 00:05:57
everything from an individual home to kind of a medium sized system at a school or a Community Center or a large scale system. We 00:06:03
can fit about about 900 of these in an acre of space and make about an acre foot of water per year in that acre space. And we do 00:06:09
everything kind of in in between. 00:06:15
Here's a map of our of our operational sites in the US SW as of today, you have nearly 2500, I'm sorry over 2500 homes that have 00:06:23
source hydro panels equipped at their residence to provide them a drinking water supply. And when we do a residential installation 00:06:29
on a home, it's there to provide a high quality drinking water right for cooking, for drinking purposes. It's not there to do 00:06:35
toilets and showers in the whole whole supply, but be that supplemental part that you need to have drinking and cooking water 00:06:40
that. 00:06:46
Conveniently inside the home for for easy access. So some case studies to cover briefly. First is our project in Central Valley, 00:08:22
CA you know a heavily agricultural community that here's one example of a small community of Allensworth very small community 00:08:28
that's really struggled to get the economies of scale for centralized treatment plant to deal with their local arsenic problems 00:08:35
within their water supply. And so families have relied on bottled water for decades. 00:08:42
And so through a philanthropic grant, we were able to obtain the state we've equipped now nearly 2/3 of those homes with their own 00:08:50
individual hydropanel drinking water systems. 00:08:54
To eliminate the needs of those families to have to go by a lot of water and increase the clean availability of clean drinking 00:08:59
water conveniently inside their home. To make people have easier access to drink, drink something. 00:09:05
Healthy and safe. 00:09:12
So it's a good example of kind of when there when there is water, but you know, it's not great quality and people rely on bottled 00:09:14
water, a way to eliminate that need for bottled water and harvest it right where you need it. 00:09:18
Over 500 homes in rural parts of their nation with their own individual residential drinking water systems, so those families had 00:09:54
a clean drinking water supply available in their house. 00:09:58
It was really a great partnership and just this year they used part of their CARES Act appropriation to to fund that project. And 00:10:04
just this year we signed our phase two agreement with Navajo Nations Department of Water Resources and we'll be equipping another 00:10:11
about 600 homes over the course of next year with the same kind of residential systems at those individual rural households. 00:10:18
So great, a great partnership and we're hopeful that we by the end of next year and we have about 1000 systems on that one nation 00:10:26
alone, which you know, I think should be somewhere close to 50% of that whole population up there that doesn't have a supply. So I 00:10:31
think making a great, great positive impact that there. We did a survey of the families who participated in our Phase 1. You know, 00:10:35
the vast majority of families did rely on bottled water for their drinking and their cooking and their coffee and all that, all 00:10:40
that basic stuff. 00:10:45
And some families had truck water services, those big 5 gallon jugs where they had a cistern system that come got filled, but they 00:10:50
didn't really drink it that much. 00:10:54
Some people have kind of makes their own makeshift well, but we were really trying to talk, you know, target the population that 00:10:57
wasn't connected to a water system, you know, that had ability to upgrade infrastructure and provide services. Really trying to 00:11:02
find those folks off grid, so to speak. 00:11:06
And oh, so that will people really like the taste, right? We make a really high quality water for human consumption purposes, 00:11:11
right? It really encourages people to drink water. It's you know, and so people really like it as opposed to the taste of, you 00:11:17
know, bottled water. 00:11:22
And, you know, some great testimonials from people, I think who really benefited from a capability like this. 00:11:30
Members, you know, elderly families that have trouble hauling water or carrying cases back and forth, people with physical 00:11:37
limitations that have, you know, hard time to go and get going to fetch water all the time really appreciated having a nice easy 00:11:42
community supply available inside inside their home. 00:11:47
And so we are working with Arizona counties and kind of going to every single county and trying to understand dynamics within 00:11:54
those communities. Understand, are there other kind of rural areas where there's a challenging water supply in those communities 00:12:00
that don't have something clean, safe to drink? And how can we partner together to ensure those rural residents always have clean, 00:12:06
safe drinking water in their home for every single day and also during emergencies? 00:12:12
That helps save, you know, improve their quality of life, helps people save money because they don't have to buy plastic bottled 00:12:19
water, and helps reduce plastic waste. 00:12:22
And so there are various grant programs, some through the WITHA organization, the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority, 00:12:27
available for county governments now to apply for up to a $2,000,000 grant or $3,000,000 loan or a combination of the two to 00:12:32
develop drinking water supplies for rural communities. You know, we realize that many counties, you know, aren't involved in the 00:12:38
water business and, and really don't want to be and understand that. And, you know, we also understand that the kind of tools 00:12:43
available to county officials and staff. 00:12:49
For the most part require them to get involved. 00:12:55
To those rural households that are hard to reach with those traditional water lines. 00:13:28
And so, you know, we've been trying to do some analysis based on the data that's publicly available about Gila County specifically 00:13:33
to have a little bit more informed conversation today. You know, so we've created a map here that shows the county and the the big 00:13:40
light blue areas and are places considered not economically disadvantaged. The the kind of tan orange areas are considered 00:13:48
economically disadvantaged. The dark blue areas are areas where public water systems have their service. 00:13:55
Going on in those communities, maybe the staff here at the county or the supervisor heard about to understand, you know, they 00:14:33
could be good, good beneficiaries for a potential program in the future if the county chooses to do so to help improve access to 00:14:40
drinking water for in those part of the county. So that was hopefully a short but succinct, thorough overview of our work in 00:14:48
technology. And again, we are we are seeking a partnership opportunity with the county to apply for grant. 00:14:55
And to help some of the underserved members of the community improve their access to clean drinking water here in Gila County. So 00:15:03
thank you all very much for an opportunity. I know I said a lot, but happy to answer questions there. Thank you. Mr. Goddard. 00:15:09
Supervisor Klein. Yeah, Colin, thank you. That's. 00:15:14
So. 00:15:20
Kathy's in the back. Usually she refreshes my memory, but here two or three years ago we we didn't do it. I believe his resolution 00:15:22
along with White Mountain Apaches put one of these systems in Crestle Creek. Or is it your systems? Okay. And that was a big help 00:15:29
to those folks right there. 00:15:35
Yes, Sir. And are you still active in that area and and putting more in there? Yes, Sir. You can see those show you back here. 00:15:42
You'll see them on our map. 00:15:47
Water projects to provide more water resources for their community. So there's not a specific project with them at this time, but 00:16:53
we have started talking with the Hopi Nation through them as well as we did a project with the same calls, Apache Tribe. You see 00:16:59
some of the other dogs around there about it was also with philanthropic funds, did about 100 homes or so with their own 00:17:04
residential systems. I'll be meeting with them actually later today and I'll talk about how that's been going, been about two 00:17:09
years or so since we started that project. 00:17:15
Yeah, cool. 00:17:21
And Michael, you've got all the information that we need for grants or anything like that. 00:17:23
Yes, Sir. So on these days like we have today where it's just a little bit overcast, will they still produce those units still 00:17:28
produce water? Yes, Sir. On days of overcast, they'll they will still produce water. They'll produce less water. But we model out 00:17:34
kind of how much, you know, every single location you can, you can use weather information and say, what does it look like in this 00:17:39
part of the country? And then therefore, you know, the systems need to be bigger or smaller depending on what kind of volume you 00:17:44
want to support. 00:17:50
Over home for a kind of average family of four, you put two hydro panels on each house and that you know the data for Arizona that 00:17:56
we have is those 22 panel systems produces approximately. 00:18:01
So when you when you mentioned earlier about the taste of the water, do you guys have a way of, of changing that? I mean, to me it 00:18:36
seems like you would collect whatever water out of the atmosphere you're going to collect and that's it unless you put something 00:18:41
in it. 00:18:46
To improve it or change it or whatever. What is that? Yes, Sir, great question. So I'll give you a little bit more about how it 00:18:52
works here I have an appendix slide that will go over that. So how it works is the sun power stands that pulls in the air around 00:18:59
to inside the hydrogen and then that air gets. 00:19:06
Put in here, you're putting it in India, you're putting it in Phoenix, doesn't matter at all. Tastes the same, same high level 00:20:15
quality that is is our kind of blend, so to speak for really good tasting. And then how often do you have to go around and and 00:20:21
maintain it or redo it? 00:20:26
Do something that can just just access that tap and drink it and then you know, we either have a program to either cover that 00:21:02
maintenance cost for some period of time on those families or. 00:21:08
They can pay us to keep you in that service for them. In some cases, we can mail them the supplies and they can do it if they want 00:21:15
to have different options. So big question then is how much does one of these units cost? Yes, Sir. Great question. Sorry I didn't 00:21:19
cover that. 00:21:24
Let's see, oh, here's some of the other components, but I'll stick here. Each hydro panel is currently $2400. So when we put two 00:21:30
on a house, you're about, you know, just under $5000 with hardware. And then you need to add in shipping installation cost to get 00:21:37
everything set up and water flowing. You're about 7, seven and a half, $1000 per household all in. So that can be a lot for some 00:21:44
families. But if you take that water in the 80 bucks a year, the maintenance over the 15 years of its operating life. 00:21:52
You know, maintenance bill, service bill with us. OK, Colin, thank you. Good information. Yeah, it's really interesting. It is. 00:22:29
And this is made in Arizona? Yes, Sir. We have a manufacturing facility here. We do the IP here. We also have one in Southeast 00:22:41
Asia. We do a lot of working in Australia. Now is your company then is this proprietary or is it so you have like the patent on 00:22:47
this? Yes, Sir. How long will you have that? 00:22:53
Well, actually we're going to ask that question. We have a slew of patents on the technology in various aspects of it. So no one 00:22:59
else is doing this technology, not the hydropanel, no, There are a few others in the air water systems. But if you look at those, 00:23:05
those all require power connection and they're more like your dehumidifier and your air conditioner that uses the coolant 00:23:11
technology. And they don't really, they don't really work well in low humidity environments. The way we do it allows it to make 00:23:17
water when it's 10% or five. 00:23:23
Relative humidity outside, it makes less, but we can still make water in those really dry environments where those other 00:23:29
capabilities cannot. So that's why we're unique in that way. Yeah. And other than the fact that it wears out, there's really no 00:23:36
cost involved at producing the water, correct? I mean, the sun powers it, the water moves on its own, right? And and then you just 00:23:42
have a, a maintenance thing once a year and you feel about 15 years before the the unit needs to be. 00:23:49
More thoroughly serviced, there's the components will go longer than 15 years. 00:23:57
Certainly the solar panel in the middle will for 15 years is what we say before more thorough servicing. 00:24:01
We know a lot of people that have well water. You know that that can be very hard. 00:24:32
And so drinking that. 00:24:37
Can be a struggle. So yeah, I drink. That's what I drink. I quit drinking at a tap a long time ago because it tastes so bad. And 00:24:39
so yeah. 00:24:45
You have more, I just going to say that these units help those folks increase. They'll create a lot because that water increase. 00:24:52
So Creek is as black as this desk up here and is nasty. And so I know they got a lot of lot of good use out of that. So we're 00:24:58
proud of that one, Sir. And that's what we're trying to find just there's a lot more communities like that that we are trying to 00:25:03
learn about so. 00:25:09
That's why we want a partnership with counties. Counties typically have the best understanding of kind of rural communities in 00:25:15
their district, you know, and just be able to form a partnership. Usually we work with community services or health or housing 00:25:21
departments, not really kind of public works or water to identify those communities and then find ways that we can find, you know, 00:25:27
funding resources and structure projects to enroll for eligible families and provide the equipment to that. 00:25:33
So, Michael, I guess in the, you know, going forward, you can stay in touch with Colin and 'cause I know District 2 has some 00:25:40
places it has water issues too, right here in the globe. Absolutely. And now, and I'll make sure that, you know, the Public Health 00:25:47
Director and Community Services Director, Josh Back reaches out to Cowen. And we do have an ACT department, a good handle on what 00:25:54
communities would probably benefit the most in this type of system. Colin, wonderful. 00:26:00
Thank you. 00:26:08
Thank you, Colin. Yeah, thanks. Now on the on the taste of magnesium and the and all that you add in is that. 00:26:10
And all that's done with solar power, all that's done with solar power, a small battery on board that's designed for for system 00:26:48
production doesn't it doesn't make energy for other uses. You can't plug your phone and charge your phone or turn on a light with 00:26:53
that. We get that question a lot. Everything that it makes is designed for water provision. 00:26:58
Yeah, I I didn't even know this technology existed. So it's encouraging to think that we might be able to help people in Gila 00:27:05
County. 00:27:09
And that's so great. I appreciate very much the presentation. Do you have anything else? 00:27:15
Great questions and again, appreciate opportunity just to talk to staff. We want to come talk to the board 1st and let you know 00:27:21
kind of what we do and answer your questions. You know, and then work with your, with your teams to really understand and, and 00:27:26
getting where, where are their challenges and you know, what are their resources available and how could we form partnerships. 00:27:32
Help make something happen for folks. OK. Colin, did you bring any business cards or you start having in my back? OK, I can 00:27:38
provide you to him at the end of meeting. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah. And if you need to take off, just go ahead and 00:27:44
bring them up. Whatever works. OK. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for your questions. Thank you so much for your 00:27:49
time. Thank you. Why don't you go ahead and grab your cards now? That'd be great. 00:27:55
I think I need to get one of those. 00:28:06
So Michael, we're going to do item 2B next. 00:28:12
Information discussion regarding whether the Healer County Tommy Klein Martin Complex is a viable new location for the 00:28:17
construction and installation of the Rally Around the Flags project. Great, thank you, chairman and Supervisor Klein. So this is 00:28:24
truly going to be a joint presentation. 00:28:30
So. 00:28:39
We have representatives here from the Elks Club, Moose Lodge, Supervisor Christensen. So I'm going to go back to February of this 00:28:40
past year where the Board of Supervisors did approve an economic development grant for a project called Rally Around the Flags. So 00:28:48
the Rally Around the Flags project is a branch of Military per Flag. 00:28:56
And, and it was set up so it was a partnership between the Elks club. 00:29:05
The Patient Elks Club as well as the Board of Supervisors and each Board of Supervisor at that time with the Economic development 00:29:10
grant agreed to give $5000 to the project once the not-for-profit raised a certain amount of money. So the total price in the 00:29:18
economic development grant was, if I'm not mistaken $80,000. So the not-for-profit was going to collect 65,000. The Board of 00:29:25
Supervisors was going to kick in 15,000 for the $80,000. 00:29:32
So that was that was the original plan. That plan has sort of shifted the location of the construction of the rally around the 00:29:40
flagged project in the original economic development grant was going to be the tunnel Apache property. So that fell through. And 00:29:49
so the newest location that Supervisor Christensen and the group have been working on is. 00:29:58
Tommy Klein, Martin Complex. 00:30:08
Which is a county owned facility. So we're here today because that sort of changes the scope of the entire project where it was on 00:30:10
non healer county property and not a new location is going to be on that county property. So that's why I'm here in the work 00:30:18
session with Supervisor Christensen and everybody here to sort of present this project in a different way. 00:30:26
Than it was with the economic development grant project. The economic development grant is going to be terminated. 00:30:35
Umm, basically because it's no longer valid. So we're going to sort of back up a little bit, start from scratch, give a complete 00:30:43
overview of what the project is and the meaning behind it, and, and hear your feedback. So before I go to the next stage of this 00:30:50
presentation, are there any questions? Supervisor Klein? 00:30:57
I wanted to say, though, that Kathy Melvin and Supervisor Klein began this journey, and so we've been working together, sort of. 00:31:05
That is just it's not me. It's not my project, but it was brought to me as it was also brought to supervisor Klein. So the this 00:31:18
project is a is a good project. It's cool project and it started back quite a while back up there at your place, Jerry. And so it 00:31:27
and so it's it's where it is today. I do have questions. I do have some ideas. 00:31:36
Other than the the office building there. 00:31:46
But. 00:31:48
So I you know, and as far as economic grant stuff goes and what it started out to be, yeah, that's no problem. We can turn on, 00:31:50
just renew whatever we need to and keep going. So that's not an issue. But, and I don't know if if you want to hear my thoughts on 00:31:58
this or not, but right now or if you guys want to talk some more about it. Or how about I talk a little bit more about the 00:32:05
supervisor and then introduce Jerry Dicola and she has some words to say on this project. 00:32:12
Absolutely happy to answer any question after that. You bet, you know so. So yeah, the reason why we're starting from scratch on 00:32:19
this project is if put this project on the county property, then we'd have to involve facilities in this project because it's a 00:32:26
construction project. So it goes through our entire procurement process, which is different than the economic development grant, 00:32:33
which was just us giving. 00:32:39
A funding to the not-for-profit to assist them. 00:32:47
Project so that's one of the reasons why we're backing up and starting again. But as far as the meaning behind this as far as the 00:32:51
the work behind this, what I'd like to do is introduce Jerry Dicola and have her say a few words on this project and then she were 00:32:56
at after that. 00:33:02
So, Jerry. 00:33:08
Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. And your husband J Nicola is with you as well as Art and Karen share and you and Art are on the 00:33:11
Pleasant Valley Board of directors. And at one time you were the prestigious tribal chairwoman of the Tunnel Apache Tribe. That's 00:33:20
right. So thanks for being here today. Right now, I'm the the cultural. 00:33:29
Department person and I'm teaching the Apache language to the kids there. 00:33:38
Yeah. So I thought a big task to uphold, but thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate the time. 00:33:44
I appreciate the time that you're allowing us to present our project to you today. We're very appreciative and we are here to 00:33:54
respectfully ask Healy County to consider our request to build the Rally around the Flag project at the Healer County facility, I 00:34:02
guess, which is named the Tommy Martin Complex property that's located at Hwy. 87 and Main St. 00:34:10
Our project started over two years ago and has garnered enormous support from the patient community and citizens of Healer County. 00:34:19
So far, we have collected $33,085 in donations from local businesses, community organizations, schools, veterans, and everyday 00:34:27
citizens. 00:34:35
Plus, there's an additional $10,000 that was pledged by the Tahoe Catchy Tribe for the project. 00:34:43
And we have an in kind contribution for concrete from George Randall of Payson Concrete. I have to admit that collecting the 00:34:50
donations was not easy. 00:34:56
Art and my husband JJ spent weekends, several weekends in front of Walmart in the hot sun and canvas dozens of groups and 00:35:03
presented to numerous organizations. But once the people heard about our projects and our vision for the flags. 00:35:12
They were very enthusiastically on board. 1 instance in fundraising that stands out right now is that the when Payson Elementary 00:35:22
School first graders heard about our project, they were very excited about it because many of them had veterans or family who were 00:35:30
veterans and and they wanted to. 00:35:38
Raise money towards the project. Unbeknownst to us, they went on their own. 00:35:47
And because they were so excited, they raised $1100 for the project all on their own. They called us to come to the school and 00:35:52
they proudly presented the check to to Art on behalf of rally on behalf of the school for Rally Around the Flag. 00:36:02
And it was very heartwarming. The students, the staff, school Superintendent Linda Gibson, Vice Mayor Barbara Underwood and School 00:36:11
Board member Susan Ward were there along with the school to give the presentation. There was a nice write up in the paper about 00:36:20
the event that was held and when we were there. 00:36:28
The the kids presented us with this booklet which has. 00:36:36
The kindness deliver a surprise to call them the Ninja Warriors. Here's a copy of the check that they presented and they also had. 00:36:42
Wrote cards to the veterans like they were saying thank you veterans. 00:36:54
And. 00:36:59
One was a particular. 00:37:01
One one of them wrote, I love where I live because I have freedom. I can go to the park, I can go to the pool. All of this is 00:37:05
because of you, the veterans. Thank you. And there are many others that are that have wrote. If you would like to take a look at 00:37:11
it, I'll be glad to leave it with you. 00:37:17
But anyway, continue on with what I have to say. So much support is behind the project because it will serve as an honor and 00:37:25
tribute to roughly the 7000 veterans living in Gila County. 00:37:32
It will also serve as an educational tool for our students and citizens for decades to come to know that Healer County honors what 00:37:38
our veterans have fought for, our freedom, our freedom to be free to express ourselves and our opinions, and freedom to live in a 00:37:46
great country. Payson is the flag capital of Arizona and this along with the Pleasant Valley Veterans Retreat that the county 00:37:53
worked so hard to establish in Young. 00:38:01
Will serve as an additional honor and tribute to our veterans. The Healer County property in Payson is a significant location and 00:38:08
will become visible, a visible landmark for many generations to come and for many to visit. It would also be an educational tool. 00:38:18
For our our youth to know about what the flag represents and how our veterans fought hard to give us again the freedom that we 00:38:28
have. 00:38:34
And today we come to you to respectfully request and ask that you kindly consider the project that I just presented to you. Thank 00:38:40
you for your time, supervisors, and to Mr. O'Driscoll for for giving us the time and the opportunity. God bless. Have a great day. 00:38:51
Thank you, Jerry. Very well stated. 00:39:03
OK, Michael, let's dig into the details. 00:39:06
Absolutely, Chairman. So the details are if the board. 00:39:10
I would like staff to consider this location a process. I'd like to go over the process of how this would work and that would be 00:39:16
there are some challenges to this location. It's close to the Beeline Highway and so we have a dot right aways, we have a dot set 00:39:23
back distances. We would have to and we have already looked into some of this, but we would have to since it is a construction 00:39:30
project, we would have to. 00:39:37
Get it designed and engineered. 00:39:45
Walking paths and there's lights so so we do have to clear a lot of this with a dot as far as how close to the Beeline Hwy. they 00:39:47
would allow us to have the lights and the flags next to the highway. So but once we get the design and engineer, then we go out 00:39:55
for we look at in kind help. I understand that there's some local contractors willing to put their resources towards this project. 00:40:02
So we'd have to we'd have to coordinate. 00:40:10
All of that with our community development department, our facilities department and all the contractors. So there are some 00:40:17
challenges, but that's sort of the process. It would probably be about an 8 to 10 month process. 00:40:24
If we get to go ahead, because we still need to get all the permits through a dot and everything else like that. So I hope, I hope 00:40:32
that explains the process and how this would work, Sir. 00:40:38
OK. 00:40:45
So I'm not sure we have walking paths as part of it, but we can certainly include that as part of it. And the lights, of course in 00:40:47
the A dot, all of that, right. So that's just some of the hurdles we got to get through. 00:40:54
I understand that the $15,000 that we committed. 00:41:02
For the project that we need to rewrite, we need to redo all that, but that 15,000 won't affect this fiscal year's. 00:41:08
Constituent funds it's. 00:41:18
As I talked to Marin, she said it would still be pulled from last year's. I will address our finance director, Sir. Yeah, OK. All 00:41:21
right. 00:41:25
Supervisor Klein. 00:41:33
So. 00:41:36
This is this is a project that I do wanna see through. I wanna see us be able to do this. This is a really good project and these 00:41:38
folks have put in a ton of time on it. It'd be good for Payson and everybody else that visits Payson. It goes through there and we 00:41:44
talked about this site there and if that was to be the site and so be it, but I wanted to throw out an option to look out for 00:41:51
another site. 00:41:57
You know, I'm not saying that it's the one or whatever, but another option. 00:42:04
We have 22 plus acres right along Hwy. 260. 00:42:08
That we're not doing anything with. 00:42:14
And that would give us all the room in the world to put whatever we wanted with the flags, right? 00:42:17
To turn it into memorial plus the flags or, or however we wanted to look at that gives a lot of room. The other thing that I want 00:42:24
to say too is I've checked this site out before driving through Payson. You know when this started up there at JJ and Jerry's 00:42:30
place is up on the hill. So when you come down through Payson, you're looking at it the whole way, which was really cool in my 00:42:37
mind. That's that was really cool. 00:42:43
But one of the problems I have with it here. 00:42:50
Is right there where our office is in the courthouse, Chamber of Commerce, the intersection at the jail, the post office is a busy 00:42:54
St. that's a busy part of 87 right there. And when I've I've, I've tried to do this in my mind going down through there is to be 00:43:01
able to look over and see those flags and still keep an eye on the traffic right there and the people that's turning out, turning 00:43:08
whatever. And it's not really easy to do. 00:43:16
It's not, you know, it sets back just a little ways towards just a little bit out of your vision without really craning your head 00:43:23
to look at it. 00:43:27
Something I've I just did myself to check. 00:43:34
So I wanted to throw out another another option if staff would look at it and just see if there's something doable there. I mean, 00:43:38
I know at the office it would be nice, but I also know we're really cramped for. 00:43:44
There's not a lot of space and everything as well. So if we're looking to want some space, want it to where a lot of people's 00:43:51
going to still see it. I mean, the majority of the traffic through Payson goes right out to 60 and comes right back in. And we 00:43:58
have the visual perspective there. When you go down to 60, you can see it for a long ways, right? 00:44:05
So I just wanted to throw that out. 00:44:14
It's not a deal breaker if we don't put it there. As far as I'm concerned. I want to see this project finished and and put 00:44:17
together because I think it's a really cool project. I just would throw it out there to look at, look at that acreage on 260. 00:44:24
If the group is agreeable to that, I could always have our facility department myself meet up with you at that property and just 00:44:34
just walk it and get your input on that. Yes, we'd like to see the option #2 where the location is perfect. It sounds, it sounds 00:44:41
like, you know, it would be very easy to do that. 00:44:48
Certainly we can do that. 00:44:55
I think from a project standpoint it would probably be pretty easy there. Infrastructure should all be right there close that we 00:44:59
would need. 00:45:04
Room, I mean, we could put whatever size to it. We, we want to, you know, really right there when we put up the flags, that's it. 00:45:10
There's no more room, you know, somewhere else you could put up the flags, have any kind of memorials in, in around the flags that 00:45:17
you wanted or space or, or whatever we want to do with it. It's just an idea I wanted to throw out there to everybody and I'd 00:45:23
really like to see your guys's input on it to see what you think about it. 00:45:30
Yeah. 00:45:37
That's really all I had. 00:45:41
Thank you, Sir. Yeah, we'll certainly take a look at that property and then I'll, I'll come back and present to the board. 00:45:47
OK, umm. 00:45:54
Yeah. And that's, that's not a bad thought. The the location that we were considering or that they were considering for the TCM 00:45:55
would be kind of in an unbuildable place on that property. That is correct. So. 00:46:03
We wouldn't be. 00:46:14
If we did the project at TCM, it wouldn't necessarily be in the way of future growth. 00:46:15
Most likely not Sir, because of this set back that a dot requires from the highway. What about expansion of the parking or 00:46:25
anything? Would that be affected? 00:46:30
No, Sir. OK. 00:46:35
Umm, the size of the flags. 00:46:38
I don't think I have that. But anyway, they're going to be proposed to be fairly large, right? They were 5 by 8 feet, I think, and 00:46:45
then the American flag would have been larger. I had AI had another drawing of that. 00:46:54
It and then it would be taller. And so I don't know. That's kind of my rendition. I wouldn't call myself an artist. 00:47:05
But that's a heck of a lot better than I could do. 00:47:16
That's just kind of a concept and so. 00:47:19
There is a tree over on the right side that probably will not be in the way. 00:47:24
And yeah, I think there's I'm not mistaken. 00:47:30
Chairman, there's a couple trees, but one of them that we're only talking about the one. 00:47:35
Closest to the project that there's one right behind that bench that you see that's a scraggly old mass that probably we could 00:47:41
probably sacrifice that one. I didn't put it in the drawing because it is kind of struggling to survive at the moment. So I hate 00:47:49
to cut down trees, but that one there pretty small even. 00:47:57
By the way, have you seen what the elk are doing to the trees along the north edge there of the property? Yeah, they're doing that 00:48:06
to quite a few trees in the town of Pace and yeah. 00:48:11
Anyway, thank goodness their antlers are cleaned off though. 00:48:17
So given the fact that we might have then available for this project already funded would be 40, three, $58,000 or so that's 00:48:22
already kind of planned for it plus donations. So it's, it's, it shouldn't be a strain on the budget. 00:48:34
I would hope we don't really know what it's going to cost. 00:48:47
No, we don't, Sir. And so I know the original estimate was about 80,000, but that was on the tunnel Apache location. We're not 00:48:50
mistaken. Some of that cost was to run electricity, some of the infrastructure up there, which would be less of a cost on Atomic 00:48:57
client Martin property and possibly the 260 property that we own as well. Well, they do have solar lights available that we may 00:49:03
not need to hook up electricity. 00:49:10
And so anyway, there's there's a lot of options there, but it's if the county does do this on whichever piece of property. 00:49:18
It's going to have to go through the regular procurement out to bid kind of stuff. 00:49:25
Right. OK, so there is a specific supplier for the flags that they want to use. 00:49:32
And I'm, I'm pretty sure George Randall did of I'll provide the concrete is not going to be outbid. But anyway, we do get into 00:49:40
that situation with the polls, the installation, all of it. And we don't really know what that's going to cost. That's true, Sir. 00:49:50
And this will be very similar to the project we worked on with the statute where we had some local contractors donate time donate. 00:49:59
Sources. So this is going to be very similar on the resources that we're going to need to bring in from the outside that are not 00:50:08
donated. Those will have to go through the procurement process and we'll have to work with the local contractors on what they can 00:50:15
actually provide to the county for this project and that won't be part of the procurement process. So it's sort of there's two 00:50:22
different ways to go on this project depending on. 00:50:28
Local contractors, what they're going to donate, but. 00:50:36
Either case, it worked very well with the statue. So that's the same process we'll use with this flag project if it if it moves 00:50:38
forward. OK, thank you, Michael. Supervisor, I was just going to say one way or another, we need to move forward, you know, but 00:50:45
you know, we get all of our options on the table and take a look at it and listen to what your staff have to say and and then we 00:50:52
can make it happen. The one thing I was thinking too on I don't know about. 00:50:59
That the office building but something like on 260. 00:51:06
Can it be done in stages of something to look at as well, you know? 00:51:09
First stage, maybe getting the flags up and whatnot and the lights on the flags. Second stage, doing something as far as asphalt 00:51:15
or concrete around them or walkways. I don't know, I'm just thinking the way of breaking it up to make it easier to afford and 00:51:20
whatever else so. 00:51:25
That's a great point, Sir. And and the good news is our facility director Joseph who's in the audience today, typically when we go 00:51:31
out for procurement process, we will, we will get the bids back and and Joseph and his team will break it out by line item. So 00:51:39
we're able to determine in certain cases if we don't have the funding for the complete project, but we have it for certain parts 00:51:46
of it, we'll be able to know exactly what each part costs and we could break it down by that. 00:51:54
Determine if we have the full cost at the time, then it's best to move forward and complete the project all in one fell swoop, so 00:52:01
to speak. But if we don't have the complete funding then then we could break it up in stages and see if that will work as well. 00:52:08
Good deal. 00:52:16
It's a good project. It's a great project. So yeah, I agree. I would love to see it happen, so. 00:52:17
The dynamics of the project or what they presented and so that's what we're trying to accommodate is what they would like to see 00:52:25
happen. And so my preference I think is the TCM property, but. 00:52:32
What he brought up a good point that we do, we can explore another option and see whether or not that's going to be better, more 00:52:41
accessible or is better for the growth or whether or not that complicates the sale of that property later or anything. 00:52:48
Like that. And so like Jerry was saying, educational purposes and all of that. I think this monument can grow over time with 00:52:57
plaques and different things that accommodate people. So we want to get the project done. We just don't know the details yet. And 00:53:04
no, JJ, you can't talk. 00:53:11
I want to say just one thing. 00:53:20
OK. 00:53:23
OK, JJ is going to say one thing we all know Bobby Davis, the American star. 00:53:25
He promised me that we would get national. 00:53:30
No. 00:53:37
Recognition patriotic town in the United States because of patient being the flag capital of Arizona along with this monument. 00:53:41
This was all done because I want this was a dream I put together. I helped them and you know all we're doing is promote patriotism 00:53:50
and but these kids in school they they made me cry. They were hugging me in earnings and all I want to say is this. 00:54:00
Wonderful thing for the country as we need it so bad right now. Patreon is the word we need to throw. I think we all agree on 00:54:09
that. Thank you. Thank you JJ. OK, supervisor anymore? 00:54:16
Do you have any direction there? I have plenty of direction. OK, good. All right, all right, good. So it's been a process to get 00:54:25
to the point where it becomes like, OK, let's introduce this project now. Everybody out there in that. Now we're on a roll. OK, 00:54:30
good. All right. Thank you, Michael. 00:54:35
And thank you supervisor for. 00:54:43
Get all the options out. Yes, get all the options out. We'll come to a good solution. I know. 00:54:45
OK, we're gonna move on to our last item, item 2C, which is information discussion regarding an update on Discover Healer County, 00:54:51
the county's tourism and marketing initiative. And we have Cameron and Chaz with us today. And we want to make sure that Chaz gets 00:55:00
credit. You know, he, he's kind of sitting in the back, but you know, he's an integral part. 00:55:09
Very integral part of this process, so. 00:55:18
Thank you, Chaz. Good morning. Thank you, Supervisor Christensen and Supervisor Klein. We're really excited to be here today. 00:55:21
We've got some some good stuff to share with you that this has been a banner year for Discovery County. And the way I kind of put 00:55:28
this presentation together today is this is our fifth anniversary. We're going into our 6th year, if you can believe that. We've 00:55:35
already hit five years of doing this project. 00:55:41
And So what I'm going to share with you today is more. 00:55:49
What has happened over the last five years rather than just this last year? Because I think, I think you'll be. 00:55:52
Informed once you hear a lot of this information, so let me. 00:56:01
So. 00:56:09
I know that you were aware of the two one of the things that the board decided the Gila County. 00:56:13
We have. 00:56:19
Let me wait until she has the presentation up here. 00:56:22
Real. 00:56:25
Yeah, I have to go in and I have to download another thing here. 00:56:59
There we go. You'll probably know slide show. 00:57:36
All right. So one of the big initiatives that we received from the board discovered Healer County Board was because it was the end 00:57:47
of the fifth year, they asked us to go back to our stakeholder groups and hold 2 meetings. 00:57:54
I think both of you actually came to those meetings in early February. If you remember back, we had one in Payson and one in 00:58:02
Globe. And so go, go to the next. 00:58:08
Oops. 00:58:15
Let's see. 00:58:18
All right, so, um. 00:58:23
The focus was to return and report basically to the original stakeholder group that we had and re engage with those stakeholder 00:58:26
groups. 00:58:31
We found that there were actually a bunch of new stakeholders that had had come online basically over the last five years. And so 00:58:36
we invited a lot of people. 00:58:41
We did a new SWOT analysis. Basically that will be the the foundation for the new marketing plan that we're getting ready to write 00:58:48
for the next five years. I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. But the people that were represented there were state 00:58:53
parks, Forest Service, Arizona Game and Fish County leadership, municipal leadership, local tourism businesses, event promoters, 00:58:59
museums. 00:59:04
And other 501C3 organizations, there was a total of over 80 people that came to those. 00:59:10
Two meetings that we had in early February. 00:59:17
So then this is kind of leading up here? 00:59:22
We are getting ready because it is the end of the fifth year. We're going to do a brand new relaunch of Discover Healer County and 00:59:26
engage a lot more of the new stakeholders and people that are that are now have new businesses or whatnot. Those are going to 00:59:32
happen one in Globe, which is the Hollis at the Hollis Cinema 4 on November 12th and that will actually happen from 11:30 to 1:00 00:59:39
PM and then in Payson on November 14th from 11:30 to 1:00. 00:59:46
And both of you and obviously a supervisor, Humphrey, are invited to come to those as well as everybody that can hear my voice 00:59:54
here today is invited to those. 00:59:58
The purpose in those meetings is actually to return a report to the public. 01:00:03
To showcase and debut the new website that Charles is going to talk about here in just a minute. 01:00:09
He's going to give you a kind of a Birds Eye view of what the new site looks like. 01:00:15
Showcase our award-winning videos, which I'm going to talk about here in a minute and then build excitement and involvement for 01:00:20
the next 5 years. We we hope that the public will come out and and join us in those two relaunches So as you go around, please 01:00:26
invite people to comment and see what. 01:00:32
OK, so the next thing here is. 01:00:42
With any technology five years is a long time. And so we have been using the same website that we built five years ago and it's 01:00:46
it's just time now to update it and actually put it on a platform that allows us to grow. And so we are we built a brand new 01:00:54
website and it focuses more, we built it more from mobile delivery than desktop delivery, if that makes sense. 01:01:03
So much that over 80% of our traffic that comes to Discovery County is looking at it on their phone. 01:01:12
So we need to make sure that it is good on a mobile device. 01:01:19
It needs to be light and have fast load times and that was something that kind of plugged us a little bit with the old one. 01:01:23
But don't get me wrong, the old site did very well. It won tons of awards and had really been a great vehicle for getting us to 01:01:31
where we are today. 01:01:35
The new site actually has user friendly search features that allow people to find stuff quicker and faster than they have were 01:01:41
able to before. 01:01:45
It also gives us top tier SEO tools that will allow us to localize our advertising and marketing initiatives better to showcase 01:01:49
all the things that discovered Hayley County does. 01:01:55
The local eat and stay search is completely different and it's very much, if you've ever gone on Zillow and you've searched for a 01:02:02
property on Zillow, it's very similar to that kind of functionality, which is really nice. It has a map and Chaz is going to show 01:02:07
you that here in the unit. 01:02:13
Our local job board, which has been very successful, was recently updated to match the new site as well. And then our history 01:02:19
videos and family stories section of the site is growing. We actually have a section of the site that has the Arizona Memory 01:02:27
Project. If you're familiar with that project, we were actually able to grab all of the recorded family histories for Hilo County 01:02:34
and put them on the site, which is really, really. 01:02:42
So at this time, I'm gonna have Chaz come up. 01:02:51
I'll finish here in a minute, but he's going to show you. 01:02:55
The new site. 01:02:58
Hey, supervisor client Supervisor Christensen, thanks for for having us. So the biggest thing with this new website was we wanted 01:03:01
it to get to a point where it was so easy for people to find what they were looking for. You've probably heard the number 100 01:03:07
times about how there's 500 pages and all this contact and photos. And that's really cool. What we needed to get people where they 01:03:13
were going faster. It's so funny because some of the biggest. 01:03:20
Pages. Most visited pages on our websites are things like Roosevelt Lake, but then like the Black River. 01:03:27
And some of these things that many of us wouldn't even really know about, like right now, obviously the hunting pages are just off 01:03:33
the charts. But when you go onto this new site design, if you scroll up a little bit. 01:03:39
Some of our main buckets like live, you know, eat and stay, adventure, some of those things which you'd still see here on the 01:04:17
mobile view. 01:04:21
But if we close that real quick, so when they first come to the website or to the homepage, what happened when on the old side is 01:04:26
we showcase some of our biggest attractions like Roosevelt Lake or Vespa Gawa or Canal Mountains. But now as I Scroll down this 01:04:33
page a little bit, you'll see how we allowed everybody almost on this first page to get to something they want to do from things 01:04:39
to do, places to stay, Hila County history, which is a huge page on the website. 01:04:46
As well as some of these subsidiaries like work in Hilo County. 01:04:54
Community special events, the best way to showcase the area that we found, and it will kind of stop on this real quick. 01:04:57
Is some of these video assets that we've created over the years. So just click on the one, right? Yeah, that's fine. 01:05:05
So people can just get a real quick visual of some of the things that they can do in the county and you can close off of that real 01:05:12
quick. There's stuff from the bridge, obviously the Lake Mogee on Rim, the wine country that we have here in Hula County, and if 01:05:18
you keep scrolling. 01:05:23
We still are able to highlight these big attractions that people typically come to like the Tonal national bridge and some of 01:05:31
these other ones. But if you keep scrolling so you'll start to see here on the home page how they can really get to just about any 01:05:37
of these major attractions very quickly. We have full new imagery on if you'll pause just here we've we've taken time to take full 01:05:43
new photographs that discover Hewlett County homes to really showcase the area high quality photographs when we first started the 01:05:49
project. 01:05:55
Lot of it was through local photographers that bought into the general idea of Discovery County. Now Discover Healer County owns a 01:06:01
lot of these photographs that you see, which are a lot more high quality. They're clear, they're crisp, and it's a little bit more 01:06:07
visually appealing as you continue to Scroll down. This is one of the parts of the site that we're the most excited about. 01:06:13
And I wish you could see this on the larger screen, but what we've done is we've pretty much put anything, if you want to stay, 01:06:20
here's here's 8 places you can go. Stay in Majestic Mountain Inn, Cherry Creek Lodge, some of the big heavy hitters, Cold Ranch. 01:06:26
But then if you want things to do or if you want to find a community, if you hit on the communities tab, you have pacing and globe 01:06:33
and pine and young and all the different areas showcase really quickly on the site. 01:06:40
This whole new design is going to get people where they're going a little bit faster. 01:06:47
So if you scroll up, I'll just kind of show you there's more here to the home page. And like like Cameron likes to mention, there 01:06:51
is a lot of pages. So you have to go view this probably on your own time and take an afternoon. But if you go to things to do or 01:06:57
go to attractions actually and Scroll down and just click on Roosevelt Lake there that button. 01:07:03
So this is one of the subsidiary pages, so just new look and feel with all of the same information. And if you keep scrolling, we 01:07:10
really used a lot of more visually appealing stuff. A lot of this if you've been to the website before, a lot of it was text. 01:07:16
There was a lot of text. This is a little bit more visually appealing with a lot of the text. So that SEO structure, if you were 01:07:23
to search Roosevelt Lake, we are #1 on when you search it into Google. 01:07:29
That's never going to leave with this new website. We've already built that over the five or six years. 01:07:36
Now we're just putting a little bit more visually appealing assets to it. One of the very cool things that Cameron was talking 01:07:41
about, if you click on that on the hamburger icon in the right hand corner. 01:07:46
Is the eat and stay functionality of the website. So before it was really hard to find a place to eat or stay in the areas the way 01:07:53
that we had a program before. But if I Scroll down here and click on places to stay. 01:08:00
You'll see that we've created this search functionality like Cameron talked about. So it's right there in front of you. It's very 01:08:08
Zillow S if I went to the map and I zoomed in on, let's say zoom in on young there. 01:08:14
Yeah. 01:08:23
The map changes on that side. So very, very, like Cameron said, like Zillow or some of these other hoteliers. So when I zoom in on 01:08:26
young, it's gonna show me the young properties that I can go stay in. So just making more things on the website user friendly that 01:08:32
it becomes more of a resource to them that they want to come back over and over and over to use this as they're planning their 01:08:38
trip to Eli County, which is really important. Similar, very similar to way the way that we program the places to eat as well in 01:08:43
the area. 01:08:49
What's the last thing here? 01:08:58
So just a lot of a lot of different assets there that we've created to just make it so easy for people to go. 01:09:01
Want to come back here so? 01:09:06
And I would I would recommend going going home and checking it out. Let us know if the if you see certain things that. 01:09:09
We'd like to change, but we're going to, we're going to launch this site actually officially at those two meetings on the 12th and 01:09:17
14th. So I hope you'll come and see that. 01:09:22
So let's go. Remember I'm responsible for this. 01:09:29
Okay. 01:09:35
All right. So a couple of things I just want to point out numbers wise so that you guys can see the actual numbers behind why it's 01:09:42
been so successful. 01:09:47
But over 4,345,790 pages have been seen on Discover Healer County since it was live OK Visitors spend almost 7 minutes per 01:09:54
session. And that puts the Silverhill County in the top 86% of tourism websites in North America, which is actually really cool. 01:10:06
In 2023, eighty 1% of our traffic came from Google. 01:10:20
That's the Holy Grail now that you don't have to pay for that and obviously pay you guys pay us to do that. And the great thing 01:10:25
about it is we're delivering that. And so getting to the top, like Chaz said, that's not easy to do, but we've been able to do it 01:10:30
with this website very efficiently. 01:10:36
That is 91% higher than other sites like this Overhill accounting in in the in our industry. 01:10:42
Our site has 293 pages that rank in the top five spots on Google. 01:10:51
And that that's over or let's see the rink and the top five spots on the first page and over 73% of the keyword terms. 01:10:58
So that means when you do a search for something that we've programmed it for, we're going to come up usually in the top five 01:11:08
spots on that search on that page. 01:11:13
Give me a give me a quick couple. What's more. 01:11:18
Pioneers don't know we're number one Young Arizona. Any you know, Moby on brand globally? We're #1. 01:11:21
No, so we get we get asked this a lot, how many people come to this or how many people have been to discover the county? Over 01:11:29
600,000 people have visited in the last five years. 01:11:35
So that's that's pretty amazing. That's almost 120 per year. First year was about 50,000 last year was 250,000. So it is growing 01:11:42
every single year. 01:11:48
To the social media side, almost a little over 11 and a half million people have seen our stuff on social media. So it's just mind 01:11:55
boggling that we were reaching that kind of an audience. We have 21,000 followers on Facebook right now and our Instagram feed 01:12:04
continues to grow. We have it's up 84% in 2024 at 13,900 Bulwars. 01:12:13
Our YouTube channel is increasing as well. People have spent 56 hours watching our videos since January 2024, which is up 71%. 01:12:23
So those are just some stats. This is the big. 01:12:35
This is a big one and I was talking to both of you the other night. I don't think Tim and her supervisor Humphrey has seen this 01:12:39
yet, but this is really where the rubber meets the road for me. OK, does this have a pointer? 01:12:46
OK, And I can't really walk over there, but you see the the green bar there on the graph? 01:12:55
So when we started in 2019, when this program kicked off. 01:13:03
The Arizona Office of Tourism reported that Gila County had direct spending totaling two $296.5 million. OK. 01:13:10
So now I'm going to switch to this one. 01:13:22
So direct spending in 2023, which is what we have the latest data on from AOT. 01:13:27
Is that it's increased to 380.1 million. 01:13:34
Now, if you do the quick math, that's $83.6 million or a 29% increase. 01:13:39
OK. 01:13:46
Does this program equate for all of that? Probably not, to be very honest with you, but it definitely has a a purpose in getting a 01:13:48
lot, a lot of that money to come this way. 01:13:54
So if you look at the graph there, you'll see this will actually probably make it easier. 01:14:01
I go back, you see the green and then you see 2020, which we all know what happened in 2020, but every year since 2020 it's gone 01:14:09
up. There's been a record setting years as far as direct spending goes in Hilo County, so that's pretty impressive. 01:14:17
And I think it has a lot to do with what I'm going to talk to, obviously the website. 01:14:30
Did a huge thing. You've heard me talk a couple of times about our our video series Channel 3, Channel 5. 01:14:35
Well, these numbers are almost staggering, actually. 01:14:44
This last year we shot 3 tourist attractions and Roosevelt Lake, the Muggy on Rim and Gila County Wine country. Those were the 01:14:51
three videos that we used. We did a fast version which you guys saw earlier in the year. We also did a story version that we that 01:14:58
we put out there. So there were a total of 6 videos that went out. 01:15:06
On Channel 3 and five, they're streaming network from February, March and April. We targeted the NCAA Tournament, Barrett Jackson, 01:15:15
WMI Open, and the Arabian Horse Show. Okay. 01:15:22
45% of the people that saw that have come up watched it through the completion. 01:15:30
It equated to 17,000 website visits on that one campaign. OK. 01:15:36
In in fall. In the fall we actually did a test with 12 news on their premium network. 01:15:43
We used all the same 6 videos. 01:15:52
Umm. Because of that, our Roosevelt Lake page has become the number one page on the website people are visiting, which is pretty 01:15:56
cool. 01:15:59
Early indicators show that from that campaign, 97.8% of the audience that watch the videos watched it through the completion. 01:16:05
Almost 100% of the people that saw that that ad come up watched it. 01:16:15
That's totaled 19108 hours of our videos being watched during this one campaign. So kind of a cool little story here. You all know 01:16:20
Clipper perch, professional fisherman. So he called me the other day when as this campaign was rolling out. 01:16:30
He says hey I've gotten 3 phone calls from my buddies that are that are down in Scottsdale and they were watching the MLB Network 01:16:40
which is Major League Baseball network. And he said we saw you driving in your boat and fishing and they said why are you giving 01:16:46
out all the great secrets about our best fishing hole? So that was pretty cool. Proof positive that these videos are getting out 01:16:52
there. 01:16:59
And that people are seeing them. 01:17:06
Part of the 12 news package that we got was a interview that we were actually able to do on Arizona Midday. 01:17:09
And I'm just going to show you this because you guys normally don't get to see this kind of stuff. 01:17:19
How do I make that video? 01:17:25
See if it'll play it all right. 01:17:31
Explore the wild. Well, you'll definitely want to visit county right here and. 01:17:41
It's not clear. 01:17:49
OK, that's OK. 01:17:53
That's all right. So you can see that if you go to our Facebook page, you can actually see the video that we did. Chaz and I both 01:17:55
did an interview with one of their their folks. News anchors there talked all about Hayley County. It was about 5 minutes long and 01:18:01
just some really good details that got out. There was about 50,000 people that were watching that morning. So there's some there's 01:18:07
some really. 01:18:13
Optimizing and getting the water people involved. 01:18:20
Oops, sorry. 01:18:25
So this next slide here. 01:18:28
As you go around and you talk about the very good things that you're doing for the county, and I truly do believe this, this group 01:18:31
of supervisors done a fantastic job, and I'm not just saying that. 01:18:36
But this is actually really cool when you look at this slide. And I just, I want to bring it up because this is our fifth 01:18:41
anniversary and I want you to realize what we've accomplished in a short time. 01:18:46
In 2019, when we launched the site, we received the website of the year from AED, which is the Arizona Association of Economic 01:18:52
Development. We also received their Social Media Program Merit Award. 01:18:58
In 2021, we received the Arizona Game of Fish Partner of the Year Award. 01:19:05
We also received from the Azima Organization, the Arizona Innovation Marketing Association, the nonprofit government agency 01:19:11
website of the year. 01:19:16
Also in 2021, the Arizona Association of Economic Development, we received their Golden Prospector Award for best marketing 01:19:23
website. That's the highest award that they they provide. 01:19:28
AED also gave us their Social media program of the year that year. 01:19:35
The Arizona Association of Counties gave us the Summit Award in Community and Economic Development and that was presented to 01:19:40
Healer County for the Discover Healer County marketing program. 01:19:47
We also received the Arizona Association of Counties Partnership of the Year award. 01:19:54
I know you were there. I don't remember where you, I think Supervisor Humphrey, you might have been at that one. We were totally 01:20:00
surprised by that. They they awarded Discovery Lake County that award on their own. 01:20:07
One of the biggest awards we received so far is the Arizona Office of Tourism Best Marketing Campaign Award, which is probably the 01:20:14
most prestigious award you can get for a marketing program for what we do 2023. 01:20:20
We received an achievement award from the National Association of Counties for best Marketing program. 01:20:28
And that's actually sitting on the wall right over there, which is really, I was glad to see that up. 01:20:35
The Arizona Innovation Marketing Association this year in 2024. 01:20:40
And this really speaks these next two words really because of chance. So he talked about his skill set. This is because of what 01:20:45
he's been able to do for Discovery County. But the awarded us the mastery for search engine optimization strategy of the year. 01:20:54
And you two were there. You saw it. There was about 7 that paraded up there and got what was called the Excellence Award. We 01:21:03
received the Mastery award, which is the highest level you can get. So pretty cool. 01:21:10
Then the last Arizona Association of Economic Development recognized the Discover Healer County with its best or with the best 01:21:17
multimedia video program that I just told you about. So it's not just the website anymore, It's a full program that is really 01:21:24
showcasing in a lot of different ways. 01:21:30
So almost done here. 01:21:39
So these are the new things that we're working on for next year now that we have the new site and it's live. 01:21:42
We are going to shoot 3 new destinations. They will be Paradigm, Mesa, Pine, Strawberry and now Mountains. Those are going to be 01:21:49
our three focuses this this year. 01:21:55
We're hoping to be able to talk Brady Elson, who's a silver medalist in the Olympics this last year, from Healer County into doing 01:22:02
some kind of video this year that we can also use and also maybe a clip, of course, video that you can put out just to showcase 01:22:08
some of our local celebrities. 01:22:13
The last thing that I'll tell you is we're getting ready to look at the next five years and what what we can accomplish with that. 01:22:20
And in order to do that, we need to go through and do a market readjustment and study and plan. So that's on the list for this 01:22:27
next year. We want to take that user stakeholder data that we received in those meetings in February and really put those to work 01:22:34
and they'll ask they create a way to start to monetize the traffic that we're seeing from the website. So. 01:22:41
At the end here, I wanted to add in one thing that we, I think we left off the presentation. So in the last couple weeks we've had 01:22:50
the opportunity from local business owners in Pine and Strawberry and in Roosevelt Lake area invite us up to their homes and 01:22:57
businesses and ask what else they could do to get involved with Yuba County. It was so fun. We sat with about 15 to 20 business 01:23:05
owners in the Pine Strawberry area for a couple hours to just brainstorm what else we could be doing inside the county and how. 01:23:12
Use discover Hewlett county as the medium to promote it, which is so exciting and similar themes in Roosevelt Lake that they're 01:23:20
the people in these communities are like man get on get on this train and so that's been really exciting for us the last couple 01:23:27
years to just see how that's starting to come together and I I think I said this the other night I feel like we're just barely 01:23:35
touching the top of the mountain top right now I mean there there's so many other things that we can do with this program that's. 01:23:42
The meeting he's talking about, they, they wanted to be a part of this program and I think we're going to see that with more, more 01:23:50
and more. 01:23:54
Of the businesses, local businesses and groups throughout. So I hope all three of you can come to either the November 12th or the 01:24:00
November 14th kickoff meeting, relaunch meetings that we're going to have that. 01:24:06
Is the end of my presentation today? Any questions? 01:24:13
Thank you very much. Cameron and Chaz welcome. Supervisor Hilford, do you have anything you'd like to? Thank you. 01:24:17
No, I apologize for being late. I was on a website for blight, for the heat of counter and it was people from statewide were 01:24:25
trying to get our legislature involved in some of our blighted properties with some of their property laws. And so anyway, that's 01:24:32
why I chose to be there. And so I apologize, but no, I. 01:24:39
You know, I was with this before it was born with the industrial development authority of heal accounting. We we tried to start 01:24:47
working at years ago. And so it's great that we as a Board of Supervisors have have been behind it and and what you've done has 01:24:55
been fantastic and it it's done a lot of great things for Gila County and like I say during. 01:25:03
The you know, when we had COVID, all the people from the cities were coming up here because of this. 01:25:12
I live at Roosevelt and when you go to Schoolhouse Point, there's not a slip to park in. It's working, you know, discover Helen 01:25:19
County. They found us and so appreciate it very much. And and you know, as going forward and you meet with the other businesses 01:25:26
and things, you know, in the five year plan and going forward. You know, just my question. I don't expect you to answer today, but 01:25:33
it's a conversation of of perhaps maybe we're reaching so many people, some advertisement to to be able to help. 01:25:41
On some of the expenses of how well you're doing and where you want to go. And so that's that's all I have, Mr. Chair. 01:25:48
Thank you, Supervisor Klein. 01:25:59
Thank you. So you guys have done an awesome job it. 01:26:02
You've come a long way. It's really been cool. There's a couple things. One is I'm really glad to see that direct spending those 01:26:07
numbers on that Cameron, because I don't know if you remember, but that was a big fight we had getting, getting started. You know, 01:26:14
we wanted to put money into this. We as a board knew there'd be a return and a benefit to the county, but we had no way of proving 01:26:20
that. It's just common sense. 01:26:27
And so right now, today, you can really see that. 01:26:33
You know, the direct spending eventually percentage of that works back into the county, so. 01:26:37
So that's been awesome. 01:26:45
What I was thinking, maybe this next year you put jazz on one of those rafts coming down Salt River with a video camera. I think 01:26:47
that'd be a really cool deal. 01:26:52
Can you can swim, can't you? 01:26:58
If we can do that and then get our flags up and put all that in in the Discovery Helic County, oh, yeah. But you guys are doing an 01:27:01
awesome job. I really want to thank you and I'm glad I'm here to help support you guys. However, we need to thank you very much. 01:27:09
Yeah, the, the hash knife, the Arrow fair, the and the rodeo down here. There's so much rodeo pace and there's so much. Yeah, and 01:27:17
you are, you're just scratching the surface. And yet you guys are taken away award after award. It just cost. The benefit is just 01:27:24
so enormous. 01:27:30
And I think you guys are. 01:27:38
Not 100% responsible, but the growth of that $83 million is. 01:27:41
Very attributable to the website and what you're providing. People just did not know what Healer County had and now they do. And 01:27:49
so we really appreciate both, both of you guys and everything that you do. 01:27:57
We have Mr. Archer. What? Please come up to the podium. You'd like to say something? Yeah. I I I just had to say this. 01:28:07
Cameron and the son have not really said what he has done for the veterans. And we represent almost 7000 vets in Gila County. And 01:28:17
I want to tell you we'll be together on veteran's day, what he has done for the veterans and how they appreciate and they talk 01:28:24
about them. We'll be with a movie theater this year. It would I would be remiss and I wasn't going to say a word if I didn't tell 01:28:31
you what he's doing for the veteran community. 01:28:37
Here in Hilah County. So thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, Art. OK. Anything else? 01:28:45
No. All right. Well, good. Thank you, Cameron and guys really appreciate it. 01:28:53
OK, so moving on to item number three, call to the public. Is there anyone here in Globe that wishes to speak to the board at this 01:28:59
time? No. And Cassie, do you have anybody? No. And Lisa, you look like you're all alone. OK. All right then moving on to item 4, 01:29:07
which is our reports and I'll turn it over to Manager O'Driscoll. 01:29:15
Thank you, Chairman. I see County Manager Menlov in the audience. So yes, by he has an update, he's more than welcome to. 01:29:25
Come up and get it. But I do not have one. OK, Thank you, Mr. Minlove. 01:29:34
People say one thing that on. 01:29:39
Thursday over my 8th 8th year anniversary with Gila County. 01:29:43
And I want to say that. 01:29:49
It's been a privilege to work with you and for American boards of supervisors. 01:29:53
Across the board, the things that you have accomplished, the things that you have done, the forward thinking, the forward moving 01:29:59
of investing in the county has really changed the dynamic. I just want to thank you for all that you've done to further and 01:30:05
enhance and improve the quality of life for the citizens of Huda County. It's been quite a ride and I appreciate the opportunity. 01:30:11
Thank you. 01:30:17
Thank you. And you say that's the October 31st will be your anniversary? 01:30:24
OK, you should celebrate dress up. 01:30:30
I think I'll dress as a county administrator. There you go, Supervisor Humphrey. No, not a whole lot. I'll be on KIKO radio 01:30:34
tomorrow at, I think about 83840 and other than that, not a whole lot. 01:30:42
It's kind of get through to get ready for the holidays and those kind of things so. 01:30:52
The meeting life and things kind of slow down around the holidays so, but anyway, that's all I have. Thank you, Miss. Thank you, 01:31:00
Supervisor Klein. 01:31:03
Thank you, Chair. 01:31:07
On October 19th is a Saturday me and Kathy attended. 01:31:10
Gay Ladera and superior to the Arboretum. It was their 100 year anniversary and also we were presented an award for the copper 01:31:15
corridor blight blast Busters program. And the reason we're there is because we're the fiscal agent for that nonprofit group and 01:31:23
so they're doing an outstanding job getting a lot done they've got. 01:31:31
Got some really good projects lined up and a really good group of people working on that as well, so we were there for that. 01:31:39
And then on Thursday, October 24th, I was with you and we were down there in Tempe with Cameron to receive the Arizona Initiative 01:31:48
Marketing Awards, Tim Awards. So it was really good to be there and see that and good to be a part of it. Those guys are doing an 01:31:56
outstanding job. So I don't know if that's it. OK. Thank you. Yeah, that that award was was great. 01:32:05
They have like, I don't know how much business is right in that one spot and not enough parking for anybody. 01:32:16
So anyway, it was kind of funny. 01:32:23
But that was a great award, just another award. 01:32:26
One right after the other. So very. 01:32:31
Very pleasing to see that. So last Saturday I attended part of a mock rescue for the Tunnel Rim Search and rescue out at Second 01:32:34
Crossing. They do that regularly, invited me to come out. 01:32:40
And after that I went to the Aerofair on that same Saturday. It was a great thing at the Payson Airport. And on that same day I 01:32:48
went to the Iron Horse Rally, which is put on to get money together for the veterans and for scholarships. And on that same day I 01:32:57
also went to the Highline Bike Rally, which is in Christopher Creek. So I was invited to all those. 01:33:06
The Highline Bike Rally raises money to try and improve the Highline. 01:33:15
And so, and that's a great thing, I believe northern HeLa County is going to become really a, a mountain biking Mecca with all the 01:33:19
trails and everything that everyone is doing. So just brings more economy and that's all great, I think. So Kmogi was on Kmogi 01:33:29
last Monday, I guess it was, and that went well. And so that's just a few things I've been doing. 01:33:38
There's plenty of other stuff on it that I won't mention to everything. 01:33:48
So that's all I really have. Is there anything else from anybody? 01:33:53
OK. So we got away good. 11:30 So I will adjourn the meeting. Thank you. 01:33:58