Maricopa wants to prevent residents located inside the flood plain from paying for mandatory flood insurance or inflated prices.

The Maricopa City Council unanimously voted to approve an intergovernmental agreement with Pinal County to allow the city to adjust its flood plain by using Copper Sky Regional Park instead of local neighborhoods.

“We are actually adding a good part of Copper Sky to the flood plain,” Public Works Director Bill Fay said. “It’s called offline storage, and if you think about the athletic fields, they’re dipped down. The idea is that if some day a big flood happens, they’ll flood first. The practical effect of that is we are eliminating the flood plain elsewhere in the city.”

Typically, a home can’t be built inside a flood plain. The Federal Emergency Management Agency adjusted the map for the flood plain last year, and existing homes were placed inside the flood zone. This change required residents inside parts of the Alterra subdivision to purchase flood insurance.

“FEMA, about a year and a half ago, redrew the flood plain maps,” Fay said. “This had the practical effect of adding a lot of houses to the flood plain. It made a lot of citizens of Maricopa have to start buying flood insurance. So we looked at things we can do and are still looking at things we can do to help the citizens of Maricopa.”

Residents in the area will be notified when their homes are no longer located in the flood plain.

Another item that sparked debate among council members was a plan to provide $5,161 to the Age-Friendly Maricopa Committee for the 2016 Senior Expo and Health Fair. Council members Vincent Manfredi and Nancy Smith were concerned about the amount being donated from the city’s contingency fund.

“The budget is something that concerns me,” Manfredi said. “I’d like to see that ($5,161) a lot lower. Maybe we can see if we can go out and get some sponsorship from the community.”

The issue came to a resolution when council member Peggy Chapados stated she would provide $1,000 from her personal contingency fund. Smith then pledged $500 and council member Henry Wade pledged $300.

The council asked the Rev. Arnold Jackson to continue to cut the funding figure, but moved forward with the new request of nearly $2,900 from the city’s contingency fund.

“We will definitely work to lower the budget we have here,” Rev. Jackson said. “We understand the financial constraints the city is in, so we will definitely work to get this as low as possible.”

The council also approved a contract with Eagle LIFT Inc. in an amount not to exceed $74,502 for street maintenance materials and services, a request for preliminary plat approval to subdivide a 164-acre parcel of land into 467 lots for the new Red Valley Ranch subdivision, the Arizona Department of Liquor License and Control license application submitted by Bead and Berry, and a contract with Visus Engineering Construction, Inc., for construction-related improvements on Lexington and Roosevelt in an amount not to exceed $232,000 in the consent agenda. The council also approved amending their existing contract with Sunland Asphalt to add an amount not to exceed $341,663 for repairs to the asphalt on White & Parker Road between City Hall and Honeycutt Road.

“It’s pretty close to a ripping it up and starting from scratch [project],” Bill Fay said.

Fay explained the sub grade below the asphalt will not be changed, but the rest of the asphalt will be removed and replaced.

Aside from agenda items, the Maricopa Mayor Christian Price also proclaimed the week of Nov. 1-7 to be “National Veterans’ Small Business Week” in the city of Maricopa.

“I urge the citizens of Maricopa to pause to honor every service member who has ever worn one of our nation’s uniforms,” Price said.

The Maricopa City Council will reconvene on Nov. 17 at 7 p.m.