St. Johns promotes cleanup day, Moonshot event, and council meeting

St. Johns is asking residents to do two different jobs in the coming weeks: clear out what clutters their property on May 23 and bring business ideas to Moonshot on June 18. The city also kept its regular council meeting on the calendar for 6:30 p.m., a reminder that day-to-day government keeps moving while the town pushes cleanup and economic development at the same time.

Spring Clean Up 2026 is set for May 23 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. The one-day window gives households a chance to haul away junk, finish seasonal projects and improve the look of neighborhoods before summer settles in. In a city of 3,395 people spread across 25.9 square miles, that kind of organized cleanup can have an outsized effect on how St. Johns looks and functions.

Moonshot 2026 is scheduled for June 18 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is open to all residents and businesses in Apache County. To compete, participants must live in Apache County. The event is part of Moonshot’s 7th Annual Rural Arizona Pitch Competition and is focused on innovation, making it a direct invitation to people with new venture ideas, expansion plans or a product they want to test in a rural market.

The stakes are tangible. Moonshot says all competitors receive a membership valued at $5,500 annually. Local tour-stop winners advance to state finals in the Greater Phoenix area and compete for $10,000 for the state title and $5,000 for crowd favorite. For a county seat that serves as one of Apache County’s main civic hubs, that kind of exposure can matter as much as the prize money.

The city’s routine government calendar remains in place alongside those events. Regular City Council meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise posted. Mayor Spence Udall, Vice Mayor Jill Patterson and council members Tony Raykovitz, Nathan Wengert, Mandi Huth, Brad Jarvis and Joe Greene are listed on the city website.

The broader economic backdrop helps explain why Moonshot has become part of the local conversation. SRP has tied the competition to its Coal Communities Transition effort near Coronado Generating Station, where it plans to convert the coal-fired boilers to natural gas and end coal generation by the end of 2032. For Apache County, where the estimated population was 65,998 as of July 1, 2025, St. Johns is using its calendar to address both immediate household cleanup and the longer-term question of what local growth looks like next.