The City of Maricopa held a work session on March 25 to discuss a potential strategic framework for community partnerships, with specific focus on youth soccer programs, senior center operations, and recreational offerings. The session represented a brainstorming opportunity rather than policy implementation, as city officials examine ways to balance quality services while ensuring fiscal responsibility. Recreation Superintendent David McLeish and Community Enrichment Director Quinn Konold presented ideas for partnerships with organizations like CCV, AYSO, FC Arizona, Paladin Sports, and Optum to potentially take over or enhance certain city services.
Strategic Framework Guidelines
Recreation Superintendent David McLeish presented slides detailing a strategic framework with specific guidelines for how the city should approach community programming:
- The City finds value in an abundance and variety of recreation, arts, events, music, and educational offerings in the city.
- The City has a top priority of fostering economic growth and activity in the private/nonprofit sectors.
- The City emphasizes a narrow, but exceptional, scope of services, including roads and infrastructure, parks, library, public safety, city planning, and building safety, while creatively fostering nonprofit/private sector opportunities to provide activities and services associated with recreation, arts, events, music, education, and other offerings.
- The City should only be involved in activities that benefit a significant portion of the community directly that are typically not offered by private/nonprofit entities, including parks and open spaces, trails, playgrounds, dog parks, libraries, play courts, etc. Little to no fees should be charged for these activities.
- If it is determined that the city desires a certain activity, program, or offering (outside of activities listed in point 4), the first priority will be to analyze how it could first be offered by the nonprofit and private sectors. If it cannot feasibly be done by the private sector at a quality deemed acceptable, the City will price the activity at a market rate.
- If any recreation, art, event, music, or educational offerings that are done by the City, can feasibly be done by the private/nonprofit sector at a sufficient quality and reasonable cost, the City has a responsibility to stop their offering, or transfer the offering over to the private/nonprofit sector in order to protect taxpayer dollars.
- The City may partner with private/nonprofit entities in certain instances where an item would benefit a significant portion of the community but is not viable without City partnership.
McLeish explained that this framework attempts to balance being both “thriving and durable,” emphasizing that “being premier cannot be at the expense of durability, a city has a responsibility to be thriving for every future generation.”
Examples of Successful Community-Led Programs
McLeish’s slides highlighted several successful community events already happening independently from the city:
- Community Garden
- Veterans Day Parade
- Food Truck Friday
- Farmers Market
- Turkey Run
- Province Spring Arts and Crafts Fair
- Our Lady of Grace Festival
He featured a Facebook post about a recently established community garden initiative started entirely by residents without city involvement. The garden offers educational events, a local seed library, community access raised beds, premium organic soil, and “an incredibly convenient location.”
Targeted Partnership Priorities
Quinn Konold, Director of Community Enrichment, shared slides identifying three priority areas for targeted partnerships:
Senior Services: “Partnerships aimed at providing programs and services to support seniors, addressing their specific needs in the community.”
Community Art Projects: “Collaborative efforts that enhance cultural enrichment, public beautification, and promote the arts.”
Teen-Focused Services and Programs: “Partnerships designed to create programs, activities, or services that support the youth of Maricopa.”
According to Konold’s presentation, “The City of Maricopa seeks to increase quality of life and promote sustainable growth through targeted partnerships” in these three priority areas. His slides specifically noted that “Through these targeted partnerships, we aim to create collaborations that contribute to the city’s sustainability, economic vitality, and community well-being.” The purpose of this approach is to maximize community benefits while ensuring long-term fiscal responsibility, allowing the city to direct its limited resources strategically while still expanding service offerings to residents.
Potential Partnership Examples
McLeish’s presentation detailed several specific partnership opportunities the city is exploring:
- Youth Soccer Programs:
- Potential partners: CCV, AYSO, FC Arizona, and Paladin Sports
- Expected benefits: “Quality service, staff bandwidth savings, reduce cost to city”
- Senior Center Operations:
- Potential partner: Optum
- Expected benefits: “Increase services, free to public, reduce cost for city”
- Examples of Existing Partnerships:
- Boys and Girls Club – Youth Camps
- Personal Training – Copper Sky
- CCV – Movies in the Pool
- Boat Rentals of America – Peddle Boats on the Lake
Partnership Requirements and Evaluation
Konold’s presentation emphasized that all partnerships would include:
- “An evaluation of what the partnering organization is bringing to the table.”
- “A clear end date, or a business model that leads to their full self-sufficiency.”
City Manager Benjamin Bitter clarified that all partnerships would follow the city’s procurement code: “Everything that happens would occur under our procurement code so if we’re going to get a new vendor to do x y or z that’s going to have to follow our procurement code.”
Regarding evaluation criteria, Konold explained during the meeting that when assessing potential partners, the city would consider multiple factors. He stated that “depending on what specifically you’re talking about…usually where city resources are considered, the city looks to offer that opportunity to any [who] might be interested.”
He further explained that when evaluating partnerships through the request for procurement process, “it’s taken into consideration what kind of experience they have, have we worked with them in the past, [what were] the successes and failures there, are they able to achieve what we are specifically asking for, are they proposing something different, what are the pros and cons of that.” This assessment would typically involve conversations with various staff members and often be “elevated to include senior leadership as well and oftentimes council members.”
The cost structure would also be evaluated, with Konold noting they would consider questions like: “If the city is making an investment, a subsidy to a sport…of thirty thousand dollars and a private group says we’re going to come in and we’re going to charge because we need to make a profit…maybe we want to pay ten thousand to subsidize it and lower the cost for the participant.”
Questions to be Resolved
Council members raised several significant concerns that will need addressing before the framework can be finalized:
Council Oversight and Decision-Making Process: Councilmember AnnaMarie Knorr expressed serious concerns about how council would be involved in partnership decisions. “I love that you say that the council will be involved in that, but how? Because we don’t consider these things in council meetings and that’s kind of a day-to-day business activity that council is not involved in,” Knorr stated. She emphasized the need for clear mechanisms for council to provide input on major program changes, particularly since these decisions could significantly impact residents.
Framework vs. Policy Distinction: Mayor Nancy Smith questioned whether the document should be considered a binding policy or a guiding framework, stating, “A policy is something that you use to follow in terms of your processes, whereas a framework is, in my mind, more of a guiding ideology.” This distinction remains unresolved and will affect how strictly city staff must adhere to these guidelines.
Impact on Popular Programs: Knorr highlighted concerns about how privatization could affect access to popular programs. Using youth soccer as an example, she noted: “Seven-eight year old boy soccer for the city sold out in four hours this season… What does that mean when we go to privatize it? Does it mean more kids are going to be able to do it and it won’t sell out? Does it mean it’s going to sell out faster? Does it mean it’s going to be more expensive so less kids can do it?” These questions about program capacity, affordability, and accessibility remain unanswered.
Pricing Terminology and Structure: Council members disagreed with using “market rate” language in the framework. Knorr suggested alternative wording such as “at a rate comparable to other cities,” but no final determination was made on how program pricing would be structured for partnerships.
Ensuring Program Affordability: Councilmember Eric Goettl raised important concerns about potential cost increases for participants if programs move to private providers: “I want to make sure that we protect the cost to the participant as well in ways that are appropriate.” He suggested exploring scholarship options for those with financial need, but no concrete affordability safeguards have been established yet.
Moving Forward
The work session concluded with a shared understanding that significant refinement is needed before the framework can be implemented. Staff must also develop a clearer mechanism to keep council informed about partnership decisions, with Mayor Smith emphasizing, “This is so big and so new that I don’t want to hear things on the street that happened. I would like to have an awareness.”
Konold acknowledged the council’s concerns, stating: “This is why we’re here, this is the work session to say…what that assurance of before we approve, what does that look like.” The council and staff agreed that regular progress reports would be valuable, with Mayor Smith suggesting perhaps “twice a year to start with” to evaluate how partnerships are functioning.
The pricing models for partnerships will need further development, and the city plans to incorporate feedback from various committee structures into partnership decisions. Quinn noted that the framework is “a living breathing thing that’s going to grow and evolve with the city,” as Councilmember Marsh described it.
The council will continue exploring these ideas in future work sessions before any formal policy recommendations come forward for approval. In the meantime, community organizations with existing programs might want to consider how their offerings could align with the city’s partnership priorities in senior services, community art projects, and teen-focused programs.
