It's really the only time that a resident has the ability to go out and vote for a specific project for a specific thing and say yes or no, I want that.
And welcome into the Growing Goodyear podcast, from the city of Goodyear I'm Jordan Byrd. And we have a special guest on this edition of the Growing Goodyear podcast, Digital Communications Deputy Director, Corinne Holliday. Corinne, thank you so much for joining us and being a part of this bond election podcast.
Thanks, Jordan. It's a pleasure to join you today.
Yeah, and one of the reasons why we had you on is you are one of the city staff members, who are really working to help educate and get the word out about this bond election, which I think it's one of those topics that it definitely has an impact on your city that you live in. But you may not be fully aware of what it is, or you may have heard bits and pieces of it. And you're just not entirely sure what a bond election is, and specific to this year and Goodyear, what those bond election questions are.
And that's true, Jordan, and it's been a long time since the city of Goodyear has had a bond election. So it's really important that all of our residents are aware that the elections coming and what it means for them.
So we're gonna get into all of that on this episode of the Growing Goodyear podcast. First, we're going to talk with Goodyear Finance Director Doug Sandstrom about what actually is a bond election, and why it should matter to you the residence of Goodyear.
Then we'll break down each bond election question to give you a better idea on what you are voting on and what it can mean for the future of Goodyear.
But first, it's time to talk with Goodyear Finance Director Doug Sandstrom. Doug, thank you so much for joining us here on the Growing Goodyear podcast.
Glad to be here.
The bond election is coming up. And I know that there might be a lot of questions out there for residents about what is a bond election? Why is it important? So let's start there. First, what is a bond election?
A bond election is anytime the city is going to issue any kind of general obligation debt, General Obligation debt is backed by property taxes. And if we're going to issue debt backed by property taxes, we have to get the permission basically of our residents through an election. And that's what we're off to do this time right now. The election itself is where the residents grant us the authority to issue debt. We're not actually issuing debt, but they're giving us the authority to do it kind of like getting a letter of credit in advance. So then when the actual needs come up, when it's actually the right timing to do it, that's when we will go out and issue the actual debt. On the election itself. There's several questions on their three questions. Each one of those is a separate area. And it's like a separate letter of credit, separate authorization and the three areas we're looking at our transportation, public safety training center, fire Resource Center. And then finally, the Parks and Rec, which would be an extension of our Bullard wash.
Why now is Goodyear having a bond election?
The city recently used the last of its existing bond authorization, the bonds that we just issued, were actually issued from elections that occurred in 1988, 2000 and 2004. So bond elections can happen, the authorization can happen, the debt itself might not be issued for quite a long time after that. So in 2022, when we did issue our last GEO bonds, the last of our existing authorization was used up so we no longer have that authorization, yet we have a large plan of projects that are needed within the community. And council wanted us to look at it now so that they always had that option available to them when needed.
It's always important to get people to vote, we want to have the residents voices heard, but especially with the bond election, why is it important that residents vote and why should they care?
The way I look at it, there's two main reasons that I think the average resident should care about the bond election. The first one is it's really the only time that a resident has the ability to go out and vote for a specific project for a specific thing and say yes or no, I want that. And the second piece of it is, it's their city, and it's their property tax. So that is a direct ability of the resident to say, yes, I want my property taxes spent on this specific item.
You mentioned earlier that the last bond election in Goodyear was 2004. Is there anything from that 2004 bond election that you could highlight to residents that they may actually use or they may actually drive on, practical things that actually came out of the last bond election here in Goodyear.
I think the two most apparent ones for residents would be the Goodyear Recreation Center, which was partially funded through general obligation bonds. The other really noticeable one is the Goodyear City Hall, the Civic Square in front of it, all the roads leading up to it were funded using general obligation bonds. Some of the other ones that are extremely important but probably less visual to the residents would be Firestation 181. The police operations expansion so the new headquarters of our police department was paid for general obligation bonds and then an upcoming one that people will start to see when you mentioned driving on Camelback Road improvements. We've currently got improvements to Camelback Road under design. Once that design is done. That's how we are going to be funding it with existing general obligation bond money.
There will be three questions on the ballot. Where did those questions come from?
The questions themselves came from our general obligation bond exploratory committee, that is a council appointed committee of 13 residents. Council, as soon as they realized that our bond authorization was gone, said they wanted to appoint a citizen committee to look at geo bonds to give them a recommendation as to one do we need to have a bond election? And two, if we do have a bond election? What items should be in that bond election? And what should the questions be that we asked the voters for? That second part is pretty important, too, because the questions are what defines what we can and can't spend the money on in the bond committee spent a lot of time looking at the language that looking at what projects we're going to be in that that bond committee itself, we actually met with them for a four month period where they learned about bonds, they learned about debt impact fees, which is how growth pays for itself in the city of Goodyear, what the city's master plans were, what some of our project plans were. And then what our growth projections were.
Where does that money come from? Where do those funds come from that people are seeing that dollar figure attached to each of the bond questions?
Bonds are issued through the municipal bond market, many people will have investments where they have invested in munis, which is a really safe place for people to invest a solid interest rate. And it's in that Muni market, that we get the actual funding to build the projects. And then when we pay our dead, that interest goes back to those bondholders who have invested in the muni market. The debt itself is what the individual resident within the city would be paying for in would be seeing so we'll go out and issue debt or construction of a new road. That debt service that we pay on it then will be paid directly from the secondary property tax. In the city of Goodyear in the state of Arizona, there's two types of property tax, there's the primary and the secondary, primary property taxes, which is about half of what your tax rate is for the city of Goodyear goes for general operations, police fire, that type of things for the daily operations. The second half is the secondary rate. That secondary rate is 100%, dedicated to General Obligation debt. And the city can only issue and levy a secondary rate when we have the bond authorization to issue debt in when that debt exists. So it's the property tax from our residents, from our commercial businesses, from our industrial businesses, that property tax generates enough money to pay for the debt service.
Can voters pick and choose which bond questions to support Doug or is it a simple yes or no for all three questions?
Voters are able to say yes or no to each question individually. And that's something when the city council set up the geo bond exploratory committee, they said to them that if you do recommend we go forward with a bond question. We want to make sure that you separate it into different categories so that the resident does have the ability to say yes or no to each one of the specific categories. They do not want anybody to be backed into a corner that says, Yes, I support roads, but I'm not quite sure about that one. But I'm gonna go ahead and vote for it because of roads, they wanted to make sure it was distinct, and that the answer we got back was actually reflective of what the community did desire.
Doug, thank you so much for taking the time. And joining us here on the Growing Goodyear podcast in explaining a little bit about the process and just the overall functions of the bond election. We really appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Well that was a very insightful conversation with Doug, Corinne. And I think one of the things that I took away is that this bond election could have a hand in things that happen in the city for years, if not decades to come.
So true. I mean, we're benefiting today from bonds that were passed years ago. And a lot of times there's amenities that we have in the city that we don't really think about how they were funded. And today we are reaping the benefits from some of those bonds that were voted on years ago.
So let's get a little bit more information on the three bond election questions that are on the ballot this year. The first one, question number one would authorize $135 million for streets and transportation improvements. With more on that bond election question, here is Goodyear Deputy Director of Engineering, Chris Bridges.
So funds from the bond election would go towards street and transportation improvements across the city, we'll be utilizing the transportation master plan that we're wrapping up here in December as a guide to help invest in what the highest priorities are, that can be safety related. It could be traffic signal related, it could be capacity, where we're adding additional lanes to the roadway. And all of those things are a potential there. So there are a variety of projects that we've looked at throughout the city, but we will be looking largely at capacity from the get go. So you'll see more lanes, eliminating scalloped streets and having a complete six lane or four lane arterial so that it's consistent, and drivers can expect what that's going to do and we know how it's going to perform.
Question number two would authorize $80 million for public safety projects. With more on what that could look like for the city of Goodyear, Here is Goodyear Fire Chief Paul Luizzi.
So currently, we have a lot of equipment, we have a lot of assets under our care. And we need to have a building a resource building to store a lot of these equipments. So whether it's a backup fire engine, a backup ambulance, or just even simple backup equipment for our firefighters to keep them safe. Those all have to be in a certain space. So a resource building would be greatly beneficial to our city and in ensuring that we're able to provide the equipment in a safe and convenient location for our firefighters. We want them to be the best we want them to provide the best service for our citizens. That's what Mayor and council demand. That's what our citizens demand from us is that we provide the highest level of service to our community. And in order to do that we need to continually train so that when they do see that on a real call, they're able to react with a much quicker and a much more efficient manner. There's a need for both police and fire training center. This isn't something that we're doing separately, one for police one fire. This is a combined training center. It gives us the opportunity to be able to train not only our firefighters and our police officers, but also train them together. Because they do operate on a number of different incidents together, we have a great relationship. And a lot of those great relationships are strengthened through training, having our own training site is going to be very beneficial not only for our firefighters and police officers, but also for our citizens.
With more on question number two here is Goodyear Police Chief Santiago Rodriguez.
It's important for our officers to be trained in the most leading practices for one not only for their safety, but also for the safety of our citizens when they're responding to the calls for service throughout an officer's career. They will have to continually train each and every year is important for us here to have a public safety facility where officers can continually trained in the most leading practices in the industry, but this will also keep them safe while out there protecting our public.
Bond election question number three would authorize $17 million for Parks and Recreation improvements. With more on this bond election question, here is Goodyear Parks and Recreations Director Nathan Torres.
The bond will actually provide funding necessary to expand the Bullard Wash trail where it currently terminates at McDowell in 150th Avenue. The bond will provide funding to extend the Bullard Wash trail south to the Goodyear Ballpark. Our primary purpose is to enhance the quality of life and build a sense of community for the residents of Goodyear. And we do this by providing the highest quality facilities services, parks, trails, and library services. Question Three will invest into the parks and recreation system expansion of the trail will provide community wide access to the trail system, specifically connecting residents to key points of interest within the city. Civic Square, the library, local businesses as well as the Goodyear Ballpark, the trail expansion provides numerous benefits to the community. It allows people to get out and be active and partake in activities to improve their health and social wellbeing for all ages, all abilities and all interests whether your preference is to run, jog or bike. So there are also transportation benefits to this trail expansion as it will provide multimodal transportation opportunities for residents to get to key places where they want to go.
So now that we have a little more information about the specific bond election questions, what about the election itself Corinne? What do people need to know in terms of important dates as it pertains to the election?
Yeah, Jordan, it's really important that people understand this is a mail-in ballot election only. So there will not be any in person polling locations. Your last day to mail your ballot is October 31. So make sure to mail your ballot before that deadline. If for some reason you missed that deadline, don't worry. All ballots can be received by 7pm on November 7, by using a drop box.
And for any residents out there that still may have some questions about the bond election, you can find all the information you need at good year az.gov/bond election. So Corinne, thank you so much for taking the time and joining us on this special edition of the Growing Goodyear podcast. I think this is a lot of good information for residents. So thank you again for joining us and being our pinch hitter, co host of this episode of Growing Goodyear.
Any time, Jordan. Anytime.
That's going to do it. For myself, Jordan Byrd, for Deputy Director of Digital Communications Corinne Holliday, we say thank you for listening. And don't forget ballots must be returned by 7pm on November 7 for the Goodyear bond election. So until the next episode of the Growing Goodyear podcast. Remember, it's a great time to be in Goodyear.
That concludes this episode of Growing Goodyear. Make sure to leave us a review and subscribe on your favorite streaming or podcast player app. If you have any questions or comments, email us at communications at Goodyear az.gov And don't forget to follow us on the city of good years social media pages.
