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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSPAC.2023.0322.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION March 22, 2023 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Garman called to order the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission at 4:01 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL Members Present: Chairman Patrick Garman; Vice Chairman Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Kevin Beck; Commissioner Mary Edman; Commissioner Jill Keefe; Commissioner Cynthia Magazine; Commissioner Geoff Yazzetta Staff Present: Town Manager Grady E. Miller; Executive Assistant Angela Padgett -Espiritu 3. CALL TO THE PUBLIC Pursuant to A.R.S. §38.431. 01(H), pudic comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i) must be within thejunsdition of the Council, and (ii) is subject to reasonable time, place. and manner restrictions. The Council will not discuss or lake legal action on matters raised during aside me Pudic unless the matters are propedy noticed for discussion end legal action. At the conclusion of the Can to the Public, individual councilmembers may dragoons/ to cihcism, (Mask staff to re ie a tta, (Hi) ask that the matter be placed on a future Coundl agenda. No one from the public spoke. 4. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the minutes of the Regular Meeting of January 25, 2023 MOVED BY Commissioner Jill Keefe to approve the minutes of February 22, 2023, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Vice Chair Bernie Hoenle. Vote: 7 — 0 passed — Unanimously 5. REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER 6. PRESENTAION: Maricopa County Sheriffs Office by Sgt. Philip Asiedu 7. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics 8. COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN 9. NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, April 26, 2023 10. ADJOURNMENT MOVED BY Commissioner Cynthia Magazine to adjourn the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting at 5:10 p.m., SECONDED BY Commissioner Geoff Yazzetta. Vote: 7 — 0 passed — Unanimously TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS v'\C e ar to \�� oe-�' \patrick Garman,Chairman Cr` ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: \Angela( dg iritu, Executive Assistant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 22nd day of March 2023. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present D • this 26 day of April 2023. ngela P u, Executive Assistant TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 1 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Post -Production File Town of Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes March 22, 2023 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Page 1 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 2 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES GARMAN: All right. So I'm going to call to order the Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, March 22, 2023 to order. That's the first on our agenda. We're going to go to number 2, which is -- Angela, could you please call roll for the Commission. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yes. Thank you, Chair. Chair Garman? GARMAN: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Vice Chair Hoenle? HOENLE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Beck? BECK: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Edman? EDMAN: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Keefe? KEEFE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Magazine? MAGAZINE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Yazzetta? YAZZETTA. Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Thank you. We have a quorum. GARMAN: Right. We have a quorum and 100 percent attendance today. Great. Thank you all for being here. So we'll move to Call to the Public. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: There is no one today. GARMAN: Nope. I don't see anybody in the audience -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Nope. GARMAN: -- except our presenter today. So there will be no Call to the Public. All right. So then were going to move to number 4, which is consideration and possible action, and we wanted to open it up for discussion on the possible approval of the minutes of the Regular Meeting from our February 22nd, 2023 meeting. Does anybody have any comments on the minutes? Page 2 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 3 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES I do. Hearing nobody else, I do. On page -- because they're transcribed now, I actually read through all the ums and ahs. MAGAZINE. Oh my god. GARMAN: But on page 30 -- let me make sure I wrote in it. Yeah, page 30. And this was me talking. I was trying to say that the Council had approved a standalone environmental plan from our strategic plan, and I think about three -fourths of the way down, I said our environmental plan and I meant to say our strategic plan. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Um -hum. GARMAN: So I don't know -- I imagine it's a verbatim transcript, right? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Um -hum. GARMAN: But Ijust wanted -- I didn't know if I could -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. GARMAN: -- make that that my intention was to say our, as in the town's strategic plan, not the town's -- and I show you exactly where that is, if -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: So okay, yeah. That would be fine. Absolutely. No problem. GARMAN: Yeah. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yep. GARMAN: It's just like -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Just let me know where it is. 1 think I know where it is. GARMAN: -- 40, 42 pages or something like that, so -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yep. Yeah, we were giving this one a try, just to see because we have other boards and commissions using this and it was suggested. So it looked pretty good. It was very easy for me, I must say. I did read through it myself, so I understand on the reading on it, and I had to change some of the names and we have some things that come across as -- where it doesn't understand, so I still have to listen through most of it, too. But yes, absolutely. If you have -- GARMAN: It's about halfway down on page 30, where it says -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Is it the second -- GARMAN: -- my statement that I make over and over again is that things that we put in the town's environmental plan that is approved by the Council tend to get done. I meant the town's strategic plan -- Page 3 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 0 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Okay. GARMAN: -- that is approved by the Council tend to get done. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Sure. I can make that correction. GARMAN: Thank you. Okay. Hearing no other comments, does anybody have a motion about the minutes from last month? KEEFE: Move to accept with the revision you called out. GARMAN: All right. Thank you. HOENLE: And I'll second it. GARMAN: You'll second? HOENLE: Second. GARMAN: Thanks. All right. Any more discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of approving the minutes from the Regular Meeting from February 22nd with the edits that I put forth, say aye. ALL: Aye. GARMAN: Those opposed, say nay. It's unanimous. The minutes are approved, Angela. Thank you very much, by the way. Okay. So now were going to move on to reports by Commissioners and the Town Manager. I thought we'll start all the way on the right. Grady, you weren't here last month and I am unsure if you'll be here next month, so I figured you could go first. MILLER: Thank you, Chair Garman. I wanted to let you know this is my last meeting and I really have enjoyed working with all of you. This has been a great process and I feel like this group has done a great job with the current strategic plan and then the update that was done a few years back as well. I think I'm really seeing some very positive things come out of this. You know, when we had the environmental plan recently taken to Council, that was one of the to-do items that was in the strategic plan. And it's really exciting to see a lot of the items that are actually -- goals and objectives that are actually being achieved, both by the Page 0 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 5 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Council and also by the staff members. The long end of it, this is goodbye. I will be here through the end of next week, but I really have enjoyed working with each and every one of you. And I've got great hopes for this Strategic Planning Advisory Commission to continue doing all the great things that you guys are doing because I think you, under the leadership that we have and each of you with your hard work and good deeds, I think were going to still continue to accomplish a great deal. So thank you. GARMAN: All right. Thanks, Grady. I appreciate the comments. Do you think that the Town Manager will continue to sit on the SPAC, or is that to be determined? MILLER: No, it's an assignment. So I understand -- I think that was one of the reasons why Rachael was at the last meeting, is that this was going on in the works to have her be the interim. She also wanted to be here because one of the boards that she oversees was giving a presentation. But no, we've talked and she intends to be attending these meetings starting next month. GARMAN: Awesome. Thanks, Grady. All right. Kevin? BECK: Well, I'm the first to say were really going to miss you and thank you for everything. MILLER: I appreciate it. BECK: It's really been only a couple of months to a year that I've known you, Grady, but in that time you've really personally helped me and given me a lot of insight, and thank you -- MILLER: Thank you. I appreciate it. BECK: -- for always being just tremendous. And for God's sakes, if you get bored, I think, in your new environment, which happens, always an ear here and I'd be happy to do anything. MILLER: I appreciate that, thanks. BECK: Yeah. Yeah. So if -- the only other thing that 1 would mention is with the Dark Sky committee. This Saturday we've got -- our board, I should say. This Saturday we've got the Dark Sky Page 5 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 6 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Festival. It starts at 4 o'clock, goes to about 7 and later, and well have some speakers. There'll be several telescopes out, so we hope it'll be a good sky, like 95 percent of them are, and not like last night or today. But anyway, we'll see how that goes. The Star Dudes will be there. We'll have a booth. I'll be there a little bit, some others will be. Great for kids. So if you get a chance to come out, please do. For the Discovery Center, I mentioned I would give an update periodically since I am on the board there. Not a whole lot. We're struggling with donations. I talked to Arizona Department of Revenue, some friends that I've had, about seeing what we could do to become a qualified charity organization so that it's easier for people to make donations. Tough on that one. Tough on that one. They changed rules last year, so it may be a stretch. We're still going to try to find a way to do it. But what that means is that people automatically can make a donation for a tax credit. They can do it now if they itemize, but right now it's a really hard time to get donations. I mean, the trend in the United States right now is everybody was going to try to get money and so much fraud. And people have told us that; is this real? And it's like, oh. So we're working through that. We are going to be meeting with ASU; Michael Crow, the president of ASU, and three deans of the business schools and biology and the earth and sky. And I forget what the other one is. Actually, the physics group, I think. I know them. And well be spending -- they've set up a half a day for us to just go through and talk about some synergy that we may need or have and what they do. And, of course, our hope is maybe they give us some guidelines on grants or how they get grants or even better, possibly strategic partnerships where they don't take over, but it becomes part of ASU, maybe, as a campus and possibly we can get some funding with them. They are looking for that. They do not have a dedicated telescope. They have 3,000 students that like that. Whereas Arizona with Mt. Lemmon does and GCU does not, but I think -- yeah, I think GCU does. Anyway, so I think it's a strong push, something they'd like to do, hopefully, and we'll know more by the next meeting and I can give an update how that goes. But that's it for me. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Good. That's a good update. Thank you. Page 6 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 7 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES BECK: Thanks. GARMAN: Yep. It was a great update. Thank you. BECK: Thanks. GARMAN: I appreciate that. Jill? KEEFE: A couple of quick updates. 1 had an opportunity to attend a Chamber -hosted meeting on the State of the School District and Dr. J, our superintendent, did a beautiful job giving an overview of his leadership philosophy, where he wants to take the district, and addressed specific plans around the school buildings. It was to a full house and I think pretty unilaterally people walked away from that feeling very encouraged. I know I did. The other thing I would add is that the Fountain Hills Leadership Academy is kicking off enrollment for class VII. We're looking for candidates to apply to that. And then finally, I would just say congratulations, Grady, on this next chapter of your life. MILLER: Thank you. KEEFE: And thank you so much for your service to the town. It's huge shoes to fill. MILLER: Thanks, Jill. KEEFE: Thank you. MILLER: I appreciate it. GARMAN: Thanks, Jill. We're going to mention the Fountain Hills Leadership Academy several times today, hopefully. KEEFE: Yeah, we will. GARMAN: Get the word out. Thanks. Bernie? HOENLE: Just a quick comment. It's been great working with you, Grady, on the last two plans. The one before, when we had the big Community Center meetings and the input and surveys from the public, and then this one as we evolved. So thank you very much. Page 7 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 8 or 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES MILLER: Thank you. GARMAN: All right. Mary? EDMAN: I also have to announce that I will be leaving the Commission. April will be my last meeting that I'll be attending. I am actually moving to Florida September 1st. I sold my home and I will be moving to a condo for the summer. In the fall, a few things changed and I had an opportunity to move there for family reasons and financial reasons. And it's really bittersweet, but I am looking forward to it. And I've really enjoyed working with all of you. This has been a wonderful experience and thank you, everyone. I loved meeting all of you. And Grady, it was wonderful working with you, too. MILLER: Thank you. EDMAN: I wish you all the best. MILLER: I wish you all the best. (Indiscernible) -- EDMAN: Thank you so much. MILLER: -- exciting for you. EDMAN: It is exciting. I'm very happy. GARMAN: Great. Thanks, Mary. MAGAZINE: I'm going to try not to cry. GARMAN: Okay, Cynthia. MAGAZINE: What, you want to see me cry? GARMAN: No, I said I want to see you try not to cry. MAGAZINE: Try not to cry? Okay. Grady, what can I say? You were the best for Fountain Hills. To have had you, I think it's eight years, after having gone through the turmoil of three or four town managers before you. You brought stability. You brought intelligence. You brought competence and stick-to-itiveness. You've been so responsive to the residents. I was shocked when I learned of your decision to retire. I bet you won't. Thank you for your guidance on SPAC. At every step of the way in developing the last plan, your input was very valuable. And that you validate this organization. You have talked a little bit in the past about its history, how it was formed, and why it's been Page 8 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 9 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES so important as not only a volunteer group, but in helping solidify and enunciate the plans for the town, to be submitted to the Council, of course, for review and approval, which they did with the last plan. 1 just wish you the best. I know the best is what will happen to you. Meantime, I was working with somebody else on finding volunteers for the festival and Kevin, I was so glad to hear you speak up about it. We have, give or take a few, about ninety people who volunteered to help with the festival. We had someone drop out today and so if anyone here is interested in working at the Information Table with me on the -- starting around 4 o'clock on Saturday, please let me know after the meeting and I can give you information. We also have a few other slots, but the Information Table is the most important. I think that's -- that's what's been keeping me busy, that's for sure. And it'll be really fun this weekend. No rain, yes. GARMAN: That's funny. Geoff? YAZZETTA: Thank you, Chairman. First, Grady, congratulations on the next step in your life and in your career. I feel like we're kindred spirits. I used to work on your side of the line. I know there's a lot that goes into running a municipality of any size and it's oftentimes a challenging job, but thank you for all the hard work you've done and it's been great serving on this Commission and working with you for about a year now. So congratulations and I hope I'll be seeing you at some point in the future and -- yeah. MILLER: Thanks, Geoff. YAZZETTA: Of course, yeah. MILLER: And thanks (indiscernible) thank you. YAZZETTA: Yeah. And to Mary, thank you as well for your service. It's been great serving here with you and also going through the Leadership Academy class VI last year. There's work still to be done. We've got applications to -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible). YAZZETTA: -- applications to collect and sessions to set up, so we'll be working closely Page 9 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 10 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES on that for the next few months. Other than that, not much else to report, other than that all the events in town are in full swing. I'm looking forward to the Dark Sky Festival this weekend. Went to Fountain Hills Day this previous weekend, as well as the Kite Festival. There's a lot to do in this little town. It's really wonderful. It really packs a punch. So that's my remarks. Thank you. GARMAN: That's great. Thank you to everybody and thanks, Geoff Okay, so I think we can move on into the next item on our agenda, which our presentation for today. So our guest today is from the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office. It's Sgt. Philip Ayzadoo (ph.). ASIEDU: Asiedu. GARMAN: Can you say it one more time? ASIEDU- Asiedu. GARMAN: Asiedu. Asiedu. I've said that like a thousand times and I always mess it up. But him and I have been talking over the last few months and I'm really thankful that he came in today to talk to us about the sheriffs office. He has some slides for us today he's going to go over and kind of talk about trends in Fountain Hills and trends off into the future. So an important topic at today's meeting. So thank you very much and the floor is yours. ASIEDU: Give me a second here while I set up. Thank you everyone for having me. My name is Philip Asiedu. I'm the administrative and detective sergeant for the Town of Fountain Hills. I've been a deputy here now going on about nine years. Eight years of -- sorry, I've been employed with the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office for about nine years, eight years of that as a deputy sheriff. I started my career iri the East Mesa area District I, which encompasses the cities of Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, Chandler, Sun Lakes, and the town of Guadalupe. 1 worked there for a number of years where eventually I went over to -- I moved to our detectives units as a detective in the vehicular homicide unit. From there, I promoted and I moved here to Fountain Hills. I've been working here for about a Page 10 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 11 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES year and a half now, most of the time as an administrative supervisor, detective sergeant, and I've noticed -- t read most of the reports that come into our office. I know the trends and the data points that come through our office as well and I'm here to present that to you today. If you have any questions, you're more than free to ask. I'll answer to the best of my ability and we can go from there. So t did send our presentation -- our PDF. Sorry, I didn't have a PowerPoint. For some reason, our firewall in the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office acts crazy when we start sending data in points outside of the agency, so I had to save it as a PDF and send it off that way. GARMAN: It's great when technology works. It's very nice. Sony, I just had to comment on that. ASIEDU: (Indiscernible) I'll just do it this way. GARMAN: That looks good. ASIEDU: So before I begin, I'd just like all of you to know that Fountain Hills is probably the safest town in Maricopa County. Not probably -- it is, as far as crimes are considered. Here are some of the stats that I pulled up for the town. We do answer -- obviously, as law enforcement, we don't just report the criminal elements, but we do answer to a lot of other things as well. If you look at these numbers up on the screen, the top lefthand comer is the top twenty calls for service. Now, calls for service is any call that comes into the sheriffs office. So you might call and say, there's a lost dog, there's noise at this location, there's a crime happening here, and we'll respond. If you look at all the numbers up there for our top twenty, it's not until you get to number 17 that you actually get to crimes, which is going to be criminal damage. So most of what we do here are not even criminal, which is a good testament to the town, saying that the crime is low and we can respond to a lot of these other things that happen as a result. I compared these numbers to a number of the major cities and it's almost unfair to compare to say Phoenix or Scottsdale or Gilbert, Mesa, any of those towns, for a couple Page 11 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 12 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES of reasons. One, they have a bigger population than we do, so it's expected that they would have a bigger number of crimes than we do. But also the median age level is different, income level is different, and there's a lot of other things that contribute to what crimes happen. As of the 2020 census, Fountain Hills had a population of about 26,500. The median age was about 57 and the median income for the town was about $86,000. The closest city that 1 could compare that to would be Paradise Valley, which had half the population, the median age was $54,000 [sic], and their median income was just over 90. But when you look at the crime levels all across the board, again, compared to other major cities, it's not even close. Paradise Valley was the closest as far as crimes are concerned and even with half the population, they had more crimes reported in that town than we do here. If you look at all of our calls for service, we have 3,361 calls in 2021, 3,580 in 2022, and so far this year, up until February we had 569 for 2023. The numbers are remaining relatively the same and in a lot of respects they're actually going down. Nationwide the crime levels are decreasing as well. 1 know it doesn't seem that way when we watch the news, but overall since 2018, crime levels reported have gone down about 19 percent and that is evident here as well in Fountain Hills. If you look at the first page, at the major crime indicators, you'll see some of the crimes that we actually do respond to, assaults, burglaries, vehicle thefts, robberies, sexual assault violations, and then thefts. The biggest indicator, the biggest thing that happens here is going to be thefts, which is a property crime, and that's nationwide. Property crimes account for about 75 percent of crimes that are reported to law enforcement and it's no different here. The biggest thing that we try to educate the community on is -- especially last year, there were a lot of vehicle burglaries. But most of those were for people that are leaving their vehicles unsecured. So most criminals are opportunistic criminals. They see an unlocked car, unsecured car, open the door and they grab whatever they can and they're gone in the midst -- and they're gone before, you know, the resident wakes up in the middle of the -- in the morning and then reports it to law enforcement, that my car has been rummaged Page 12 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 13 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES through. But it's hardly ever that you'll see somebody smash a window or steal a vehicle even. 1 know it says motor vehicle thefts on there and that number looks a little bit daunting, but in looking at the numbers that we ran, most of those were from a business where they rented out a vehicle and the rentee [sic] didn't return the vehicle in the appropriate amount of time. The statute gives them a 72-hour grace period; after 72 hours, they can report it stolen and that is what they did. But most of those were also returned after the report was taken. So again, these are very good numbers. It's better than any that I've seen in my career working here. Again, I used to work in the Mesa area and as you can imagine, Mesa's a very -- some good places, some not so great places. It's very turbulent. And the crime levels are a little bit higher than they are here. Also, on -view traffic has been increasing for the Maricopa County Sheriff s Office. We've been making a conservative push to get our deputies to be more proactive in the community, go out and do more traffic stops, go out and let neighbors know that their garage doors are open. Hey, your cars open, unsecured and running; you might want to lock that or take care of that before you become the next victim of a vehicle burglary. Go out and shake hands, kiss babies, things of that nature, and they've been doing a good job of facilitating that as well. Now, on the second page is going to be the calls for service for this year, up until February. And it's no different than the last page. Most of what we're seeing is exactly the same. This shows you the calls for service that we get throughout the week and our calls are pretty consistent throughout the week. As you can see, on Mondays we've gotten 277 calls for service, on Tuesdays about 150, on Saturdays it's 301. But it's not a big differential in when we get calls. People just call when they see things and that's a good thing as well because as we tell them, if you see something, say something, and it looks like that's what they're doing, regardless of what day it is. Here is the calls for service broken down by months and by times. Again, across the board, most of our calls come in, doesn't matter which month it is, the numbers are pretty consistent. As you see, in January 2021, we had 385 calls. In February, we've got Page 13 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 10 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 279. Oh, and as you're looking at these, the legend says the darker color on the left is going to be 2021 numbers, the red is going to be 2022 numbers, and everything in green is going to be 2023 so far. And then the service calls by the hours. As you can imagine, overnight most people are sleeping. They don't even notice what's going on. So we don't get too many calls overnight, but we do get some. Most of our calls come in between 6 o'clock to about -- 6 in the morning to about 9 p.m. time frame, when most people are awake, when most people are alert enough to see what's happening and that's when they're calling. We do also make an effort to patrol at nighttime, even though there's not as many people there, because we are confident in saying that most criminals are breaking into these cars at night. Residents wake up in the morning and see it, and then call us. That's what's happening. And as you look at this bottom chart -- if I figure out how to use this -- there it goes. As you look at this bottom chart, at the very bottom here, it tells you what days and then what times. This is what we use as a metric to guide our law enforcement actions. So if we know most calls are coming in on a Tuesday at 3 p.m., on Tuesday at 3 p.m. well have some more deputies here. We'll have some more targeted enforcement in locations that are more problematic in the town. And that is how we make a determination of where were going to go and how we're going to act, by using these statistics. And also who calls. You know, if you don't call, we don't know about it. We're not going to know to respond. The next page is going to be for our calls for service for assistant units. Now, an assistant unit is going to be a secondary deputy responding to a scene. Most calls in town here are primary units only. They're not so dangerous or so grave that you need a second deputy or a third or fourth to respond there. But this is what we're seeing as well for our assistant units. Again, if we do have a deputy respond, it is consistent across the board by month, by date, and the times are going to be usually between the 6 o'clock, 9 p.m. time frame when most people are awake. On -view traffic. Now, this is what I'm really excited to talk to you guys about because this is things that we can do outside of the calls that we get to try to affect some Page 10 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 15 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES of the problems here in town. If you look at the very top lefthand comer, right here, you'll see that our on -view traffic has been increasing every year and every month since 2021. In January 2021, we did 661 on -view incidents. In that same month in the following year, we did 727. And so far this year, as you can tell, we've done 1,140 for the month of January. KEEFE: I don't know what that term means, on -view. Can you explain that? ASIEDU: The on -view is anything that the deputy views as they're driving around. KEEFE: Okay. ASIEDU: So a traffic stop, or hey, your garage door is open. Or hey, there's a person walking across the street; that might be a little bit dangerous, maybe I need to stop and get out and help them across the street so they don't get hit by a car. There's a dangerous animal somewhere I need to stop. Or maybe there's a tire that fell off in the middle of the road; 1 need to get out and move that off the roadway, so it doesn't cause an accident. All those things are considered on -view. So anything that's not a call for service, anything that somebody doesn't call in but we view, that is something is something that we consider on -view. KEEFE: Thank you. ASIEDU: Any other questions? Okay. And as you can tell, the 2021 numbers are lower than the 2022 numbers, and so far for 2023, it is lower as well. So were making an effort to get our deputies out there in the community to see the things that they're seeing, to make an effort and to make a difference in our community outside of just waiting for a call to come in because we don't get that many of those, either. And then it breaks it down by the hours on the -- right here. Again, as you can see, overnight from about midnight to about 3 a.m., we do have some, but it's a little bit more subdued because of the amount of people that are out. But after 6 o'clock or so, it climbs up and then it dies down again as it gets later on in the day. And most of our stuff, most of our on -views start about 9 o'clock. Our shifts generally start between 6 and 7 o'clock -- and when the -- our shifts swap out and the new shift comes on. They start making observations after briefings and being advised of what's going on in town. They go out and start making observations, which accounts for these numbers. It's broken Page 15 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 16 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES down by days of the week as well, which is insignificant when you look at these stats because again, the days of the week do not really change how much we're doing. We're doing it regardless of the day, every day, because that is part of our job. MAGAZINE. May I ask a question? ASIEDU: Sure. MAGAZINE: Over here. There's a dramatic rise in February, both January and February. I'm looking at the on -view by month. ASIEDU: Okay. MAGAZINE: What accounts for that, as compared to the two previous years? ASIEDU: So we've been having a couple of accidents in town, especially on Saguaro, Palisades, and -- MAGAZINE: Okay. ASIEDU: -- Fountain Hills Boulevard and Shea. And we've advised the deputies that hey, you need to get out and make a difference in these because if you're not enforcing the traffic stops, then people are going to be running stop signs, people are going to be not stopping at the red lights, they're going to be making right turns when they're not supposed to on Palisades and Shea. It is a hard one to enforce, but -- so we try to get them out there to make traffic stops. And traffic stops is our biggest on -view determinator because they can see what's happening there and make that change. Other things like welfare checks, there are senior citizens here that get lost and start wandering. We advise our deputies drive around throughout the neighborhoods. If somebody looks like they don't know what's going on -- you know, they're kind of looking around at the sky or they don't have any clothes on or something like that, make sure you get that person back to their home or get them the help that they need and make sure they're -- so that is what we've been pushing and that is why those numbers have risen dramatically. Here is our numbers for traffic stops by years. We don't generally get too many arrests from traffic stops except for citations. The biggest one is going to be speeding and that is universal all throughout the Unites States, throughout Arizona and everywhere. Speeding is our -- it's a problem. It's the number one cause for accidents Page 16 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 17 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES and is the number one cause for fatal accidents as well, so we try to stamp down on that. The second one is going to be cell phone use, distracted drivers. A lot of people are on their cell phones. They're watching YouTube or listening to a podcast or whatever the case may be, and they're not paying to the road or to the vehicle in front of them and they end up running into the car in front of them. So I pulled up the stats for our traffic stops as well and as you can see, the green doesn't really tell you too much because we've only had two months in. In January -- these stats stop at February -- at the beginning of March, but if you look at the citations that we issued, we issued 1,173 citations in '21, a little over a hundred more in 2022, and so far this year 2023. But we do try to be equitable with our citizens as well. We don't want to just give out a bunch of tickets and a lot of times we just have to be educational. Like hey, it's a stop sign. You have to stop completely. Slowing down to five miles per hour is not stopping. You can still hurt somebody, you know, even at that speed. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Whoops. ASIEDU: Or hey, you made a right turn, but you made it wide and you cut off a couple of other vehicles while doing so. Make sure you turn to the closest lane to you. Things of that nature. So if you see our warning numbers, they're almost comparable to the amount of citations that we issue as well. Although we issued 1,173 citations in 2021, we also issued 926 warnings to the citizens. And in 2022, just over 1200 citations, but a little under 1900 wamings. And the same pattern trends down. Because we don't just want to penalize the citizens of -- we want to educate them, but we also want to issue a citation if need be to correct that action. Yes? KEEFE: I have a question. For 2023, it looks like we are well on our way to outpace the prior two years. This is two months' worth of data. 857 calls, that's what, a third of the -- we're a third of the way to the 2022 numbers with only two months in. So with that, my question is, are we being more proactive and issuing more citations, or are people speeding more? I know that kind of calls for some opinion, but I'd love your opinion. Page 17 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 18 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES ASIEDU: So you're asking if because we have the increased numbers of on -view traffic, if people are speeding more or if we're being more proactive? 1 think we're being more proactive. At least, that's what we've been pushing in the sheriffs office. We've been pushing for our deputies to be more proactive. The thought process prior to this year, 1 suppose, before -- and I don't want to misspeak because I don't know what my commander's been doing while I wasn't here. But before it was hey, don't start too much trouble. Don't cause -- if the citizens are not complaining, then we shouldn't be complaining, because we work for the citizens. However, this year because we've seen a slight increase in the traffic stops -- I'm sorry, traffic collisions, we're being more proactive to try and stop those things from happening. That's why you're seeing increased numbers. KEEFE: Thank you. ASIEDU: Any other questions? GARMAN: Well, 1 think were going to try to -- we have some time at the end for questions as well. ASIEDU: Oh, sorry. GARMAN: No problem sprinkling it in, but Ijust wanted you to know, too. We have time at -- hopefully, we have time at the end for some questions. ASIEDU: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No problem. And our traffic violations are broken up by the type of violation that it is. At the very top for every year is going to be speeding. As I said, it's the number one thing that causes collisions. Almost every accident has some type of speeding component to it. And there's going to be stop signs and red lights here in the Town of Fountain Hills. There's going to be expired registrations. People are not registering their vehicles with -- or the people that drive through the town are not registering their vehicle for whatever reason. And then we have a nonmoving other. A nonmoving other's going to be things like an expired insurance, or you don't have your seatbelt on, or you don't have a child restraint in the car if you have a baby driving with you. Those are nonmoving -- even if you weren't moving your vehicle, those would be violations. And then we have a moving other. A moving other is -- so a wide right turn or Page 18 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 19 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES following too close, or failing to signal while you're turning. Those are some of the things that we do enforce as well. Or those would be the biggest ones that I can think of off the top of my head. And then following that is going to be our suspended drivers that are driving without a valid driver's license. We also do have drivers that are driving without licenses. They've never been issued a license and they're driving. Either way, in that case, we would cite that driver. It's mandatory by state statute. Cite the driver and we seize their vehicle for 20 days until they get everything fixed. Then we have criminal speeds. There are some places in town and I'm sure if you guys read the newspaper you'll see it all the time. Shea and Arista's a big place where speeding occurs, mainly because it's a big hill and people are going down and fail to slow down. Palisades is another big place where we see a lot of speeding, and Saguaro right after coming off the 87 or Shea. They come off of Shea, they -- you know, they've been driving 75 miles per hour that entire time and they think they can follow it through to the town. So we try to stamp it out there, especially at Ledferd, but you'll see quite a bit, so it doesn't travel through town and cause a hazard to the citizens in the town. And the other numbers are insignificant, but we do have aggravated DUIs, vehicle inspections that -- we have one commercial vehicle inspector here. If these guys see any issues with the commercial vehicles, he can stop that vehicle and do a full -on inspection and make sure that driver's driving within the allotted amount of time. Commercial vehicle drivers are only supposed to drive for a certain amount of hours a day to avoid being tired, and if they do, you know, they're carrying hundreds and thousands of pounds of equipment in their vehicles, they could cause a lot of damage if they crash. So we stop them and conduct inspections to make sure that they're up to par on their -- they're following the rulebook pretty much. And then this is more about traffic stops. It breaks it down by the month and by the day of the week, as well as by the hours. All these stats are pretty much comparable to what I said in the beginning. Everything is Flowing according to -- for the things that we can control, as in things that are not criminal, things that are on -view, we try to enforce that a little bit more. At least try to give the residents some knowledge on what the law is and what a lot of people do Page 19 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 20 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES not know. For the crimes, though, they're also decreasing over time, at least throughout the past three years that I took a look. I did go back further and look back to 2018. It was a little bit harder for me to compare those numbers to the other cities in Maricopa County because not everybody has their numbers readily available for me to look at. So I did compare the years that I had for the town. And that is what we have for crimes in Fountain Hills and on -view traffic. I also did pull the information for the schools and there is one more other thing that I do want to discuss that is not a crime, but is of interest -- it might be of interest to you. So we do have a school resource officer here in Fountain Hills. She is the only one in Maricopa County Sheriffs Office. So a lot of things that she's doing is not new. We do confer with a lot of the other agencies that do have SROs and, in fact, there is a grant that you can apply for, for an SRO. However, this town doesn't qualify because you don't have the crime level to warrant it. But you'll see the numbers here and 2021 is in the gray, 2022's in the blue, and then 2023 thus far is in the yellow. You'll see a big spike in the blue in 2022, and that is because we switched over our SROs to our current one, who's been a lot more proactive. The crime levels are about the same, but the proactivity has changed quite a bit. She's doing a lot more school patrols. She's driving around. She's even at times been the crossing guard for the schools when -- because the schools are also strapped for staffing. She's conducting traffic. She does traffic stops, but her main areas of focus is going to be mainly around the schools. She doesn't do traffic anywhere else. We do have a dedicated traffic car for that. But she's been a lot more productive and I'm glad to have her on our side because she's making a -- we believe she's making a big difference in the schools. I can see that because I also am her supervisor and I do patrol the schools at times and the interaction that she has with the students, it's almost on a friend basis and not so much of a law enforcement basis. And that is what we want of our SRO. That is what we need our SRO to be. Although she is going to take criminal action if need be, we do want her to be that figure that the students trust and can go to if they have an issue. If they have a problem, or if they have something happening at home, they can go and tell her without Page 20 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 21 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES fear that they're going to get punished for providing that information. And again, if you look at the numbers at the very top, in 2021, we did have an SRO then as well. 1 guess the -- I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing the ideology at the time was you take crimes as they're reported to you. So if you look at the list at the top ten on -views, she did not do very many patrols. She did -- or he did not do. He did six in 2021 and then 2022 jumped up when we switched over, and 2023, they're on par to meet that number for 2022. Motorist assist, she does quite a bit of that. Again, broken-down cars or students that can't get to school because of whatever reason. She helps those students make it across the street or make it to the school so they can attend and not be truant for the school day or for the school (indiscernible). We do a lot of follow-ups on our students. For students that say, I'm having issues at home or I'm not getting along with the mother, we will go out to the house and talk to the parents and the student to try to figure out what's happening there and if there's something that we need to be involved in. If it's just something that they want to talk about or something that's more of a parental issue, well refer them to the school counselor, so they can talk to them and deal with it that ways without having to go through the law enforcement route. But those were the numbers for the Fountain Hills High School and these are the numbers for the Fountain Hills Middle School. And it's more of the same. She's being a lot more proactive in the middle school as well. She does patrol all of the schools. She's a lot less -- she's not around the elementary school as much and that's by design. We don't want to scare little kids that are growing up into thinking that were going to get them in trouble, or at least that's what a lot of them hear. So as they're children, you know, kindergarten, first, second grade, we do go there at times, just to check on the administration, make sure everything is going well. But if the administration is not calling for us at that school, we generally are not going to be around there. But we are around the middle schools and the high schools a lot more often. And these are the combined stats for both the high school and the middle school. It's just an accumulation of the two pages that you've seen prior to -- and as you can see, 80 percent of our calls are going to be our vacation and patrol watches, just patrolling the Page 21 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 22 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES school, making sure everything is safe. If we do see something suspicious, a student that's not attending that goes to the school, or I know recently, I want to say a couple of months ago, we had a homeless guy that was living around the schools. We just get them away and trespass them, tell them if you come back here you will be arrested, and that generally gets rid of that issue, so we don't have strangers around the children here in town. This last page talks about the amount of school days that we sec here in town as what -- this is going to be similar across all cities in Arizona. School is going to be for ten months out of the year with the vacations and the breaks and so on and so forth. So the amount of days that we patrol, 110 days in 2021 for the high school, 137 in 2022 for the middle school, and then -- I'm sorry, 83 for the middle school in 2021, for a total of 13l days that were around the schools. And again, these are the statistics and the numbers that we use to determine what our enforcement action will be. If we do see something spike up in either the middle school, the high school, or even an elementary school, then we will keep the SRO there or even have a patrol supplement her in that area to try to eradicate whatever the situation may be. And thank you, guys, that is my presentation for today. I do know that Mr. Garman wanted me to talk about statistics going forward and from these numbers that I've seen, you guys are in great shape. If you continue on like this, we'll make a great town even better. Thank you. GARMAN: Great. Thank you for the presentation. ASIEDU: Absolutely. GARMAN: Really in-depth, great numbers, and I'm saying thank you a lot, but I really appreciate you coming in and talking to us. It's a great thing for us. So I think I want to open it up for questions. I started on my right last time, so I was going to look to my left to see if there's any red lights and there is, so you okay to take some questions in the last two minutes, sir? ASIEDU: (Indiscernible). GARMAN: All right. Geoff? Page 22 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 23 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES YAZZETTA: Thank you, Sgt. Asiedu. This was very comprehensive. I really appreciate the level of community policing. I used to work for a councilman in Los Angeles, so we're close with LAPD, and it's good for the citizens to know that the police and sheriffs are an advocate and a partner in the community, not an adversary. I was one of the warnings in the 2022 column, might have been for a left turn. But that interaction was wonderful and I signal every time and I think you go away with more -- getting a warning like that and it's like hey, you know, make sure you do this, and it just changes your behavior for the better. And it leaves the citizen with just a much better view of the overall situation. I wanted to ask, is there a way to get these statistics ongoing, or is it just something that is done annually when you come to the Commission? ASIEDU: No. I do get these numbers on a month -to -month basis. YAZZETTA. Um -hum, ASIEDU: So for example, in April I'll get the stats for March, and so on and so forth. YAZZETTA: Got you. ASIEDU: So yes, we can get the stats to you guys, if you wanted them. YAZZETTA: Wonderful. Yeah, thank you. GARMAN: Cynthia? MAGAZINE: Okay. The first question I have, you're going to think this is stupid because by now, we should all know. The difference between burglary, robbery, and (heft? ASIEDU: Okay. So a theft is anytime I take something that doesn't belong to me. A burglary is also a theft, but a burglary is when I enter somebody's home or nonresidential structure. So a nonresidential structure would be something that you can secure, like a shed, a car, or something to that effect. If I steal something from a car or a shed, that becomes a burglary. It's a felony, as opposed to a misdemeanor, because it's that extra level of breaking into somebody's place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And then I forget what the last (indiscernible) you mentioned. MAGAZINE: And then robbery. ASIEDU: A robbery is a theft in which force was used. So if I steal something from Page 23 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 24 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES you, let's say 1 take your purse, and then 1 punch you in the commission of that theft -- MAGAZINE: Um -hum. ASIEDU: -- then I've committed a robbery, which is also a more serious felony. It's a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor theft. And a theft can also be a felony, depending on how much the -- what the value of the item that I take from you. So if I take your purse and it only has $25 in there, that's a misdemeanor. But if I take your purse and you had your life savings in there, that's a serious felony. MAGAZINE. Okay. Just one other question and that is, the policewoman -- sheriffs deputy who patrols the schools, is she in uniform? ASIEDU: Yes, for the most part, she's in uniform. There has been an exemption for the remainder of the school year for a reason that I can't really get into. It's a medical reason, which is why I can't disclose it. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's medical reasons. ASIEDU: Yeah. But yes, she's in uniform the entire time. Most of the time, except for this last week or so. MAGAZINE. And then, thank you very much -- ASIEDU: Absolutely. MAGAZINE: -- for the very interesting -- an awful lot of information to cover. ASIEDU: Yes, so it's a lot to go into and I wanted to make sure that you guys had the most comprehensive information to be able to make whatever decisions that you wanted to make. If need be, I could try and get some of that information from the other cities bordering you. But 1 do know comparing this to Scottsdale, for example, is not even -- it's not even close. Their population is much bigger and there's just more crime in that city than there is here. MAGAZINE: I just have a P.S. I remember at Council meetings back in 2022, I think, early -- maybe late '21, citizens coming and speaking about traffic and about monitoring traffic and the concern that the MCSO wasn't doing enough about traffic and enforcement, and the statistics show the result. The response was very clear. So thank you. GARMAN: Kevin? Page 24 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 25 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES BECK: Just very quickly. It's really a privilege for me as a resident here to personally say thank you and to the other sheriffs in place here in this venue. It's hard to do on the street and usually if you do, you're not really happy about it anyway. But anyway, thank you. And these numbers really are a tribute to you. 1 mean, it's long-term. Ifs one reason we moved here. It's one reason why I know all of my neighbors. We don't even talk about crime. We back up to, you know, the Indian land and 87. Periodically, well get someone walking through, you know, there's -- but you're right on it and it -- thank you for that, really. And for that, at one time, I know there was a fairly large campaign for donations for the Maricopa County Sheriff group. Do you still get that? Do you get a good response with that? Or is there anything that this committee -- I don't know what we could do, but is there anything that we can do to help you with that? And does that go to Fountain Hills as well or just -- ASIEDU: Donations do not go to us directly. It goes to our community liaison team who manages that. BECK: I see. ASIEDU: I can get you guys in contact with them. BECK: Uh-huh. ASIEDU: And they can -- I don't know how they distribute their funds. I don't want to speak out of tun. But 1 guess you can request that those donations be used specifically for Fountain Hills -- BECK: Um -hum. ASIEDU: -- and see what their answer is. But I can't -- I don't know -- BECK: Okay. ASIEDU: -- too much about donations. 1 do know this, though. Coming up in the next coming months, we do have a cadet program for the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office. We don't have any cadets in Fountain Hills, but there is now, as of three weeks ago, a push to get some cadets here in town. We're thinking about going to the Boys and Girls Club, talking to some of those students or -- yeah, some of those youth and seeing if they're willing to volunteer. They do community service. It's beneficial for them as well Page 25 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 26 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES because a lot of schools do have community service requirements and working with us would fulfill that requirement for them. And that is something that I'm working with our cadet leader as well to try to implement here in the town. GARMAN: Anything? Great. Okay. So I got a couple comments. Hopefully, you can wrap this together into one kind of answer. I look at -- again, I'm trying to look, you know, strategically at things that are going on outside of Fountain Hills and will they affect Fountain Hills over time. You know, us living close to the border, things coming over the border, does that threaten Fountain Hills or our school system with drugs and things like that? Are drugs easier to get in Southern Arizona than they are -- or is that just a, you know, a tale that's not exactly true? In other words, is that instability a threat to us in the future, or -- and roll that into, you know, are drugs becoming easier to get for our schoolchildren as well within Fountain Hills and around? ASIEDU: I would say no for the schoolchildren answer. We haven't had any instances of any major drugs being introduced into our school system. The biggest thing that we do see in our school system is going to be the vape pens and that is endemic throughout the United States and everywhere. Vape has -- some of them are nicotine, some of them are THC. That is the biggest thing that we see in our school system. But we don't see any hard drugs like Percocet, meth, heroin. In fact, I don't think since my time here that we've had any one instance of -- even one instance of a student getting access to those drugs. As far as drugs coming across the border, I'll explain it like this. Drugs are everywhere. As you guys saw with the narcotic epidemic that happened in the United States, it affected not just Arizona, not just Fountain Hills, but affected the entirety of the United States. It's a cat and mouse game. We'll keep chasing them and trying to get it off our streets, and they'll keep figuring out new ways to get it across the border. But I don't think it's going to be -- again, based on the statistics and based on the history, that it's going to affect Fountain Hills as much as it does everywhere else. GARMAN: And my last question, and maybe Grady can help with this because Cynthia Page 26 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 27 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES brought it up, is the increase in -- it's almost like the broken window program in New York City, you know, the on -view is what you're talking about. Did the town sign a new contract with Maricopa County Sheriffs Office or is that still being -- MILLER: Ifs still being worked on. I will tell you, though, and I didn't want to chime in, but I think it's related to your question. I can't help but think now that MCSO is fully staffed up that the numbers are partially reflective. Maybe the averages, if you just put the averages that per officer, now it's spread over more people. So that's probably generating some of the numbers to go up, but I didn't want to chime in when it was being discussed. 1 think there's a lot more emphasis on proactiveness, totally I agree with that, and I think that's been very much responsible for the numbers. But 1 also think some of it is, we started getting our staffing levels increased, was it last August or July or -- ASIEDU: Yes, something to that effect, yes. MILLER: So that's probably contributing somewhat to maybe the'23 numbers, maybe. ASIEDU: Yes. That's probably contributing to the 2023 numbers. I do know that part of our -- even with the increased staffing, we have set aside some of the staff that were brought into Fountain Hills to be our Community Action Squad and that is what they do, most of what they do. You'll see them riding around on bicycles. They bring horses into town sometimes. Just riding around, making sure that they patrol the communities. Not in a car because a car is (indiscernible) impersonable, but they're on bicycles. They can interact with our citizens a little bit more. I don't know where the staffing is going to be in a year from now, but our push is always to be a little bit more proactive in town and to make some changes where we can. GARMAN: Well, what's the time frame for the contract negotiations? Is there a -- MILLER: So we started unofficially last fall and then we started meeting in person in January, so I would anticipate that we'll have something to bring back to Council probably in May for their consideration in June. The big thing is there's going to be sticker shock and it's not anything against MCSO. It's that if you look at the Valley and across the country, with COVID and all the anti situation -- not anti, that's not a good way to put it. But the difficulty in trying to Page 27 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 28 of 31 MARCH 21, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES maintain the staffing in law enforcement, it's been very challenging and there's also -- there's been competition from other agencies competing for the same limited pool, so they've had to increase pay and give bonuses and things like that, and I would expect that we're going to see that be reflected in what we'll pay in our next contract. But those are actual numbers. It's based on what they paid last year and the prior year and it's just catching up to us. So it's -- and they've had to do that. They're actually -- MCSO, it's sad because MCSO is probably -- I would put them up against any of the other law enforcement in the state. I think that despite the really unfortunate press on the court orders and things like that, it's actually probably brought about reforms and we probably have, in my opinion, the very best law enforcement agency in the entire state. And I'm not just saying that. But the sad and unfortunate fact is, they're probably the most underpaid of the law enforcement, at least in the Valley. They're catching up and they're trying to do what they can to be competitive, but they're still a little bit behind the larger agencies in the Valley. GARMAN: Those are my two questions. Anybody else, any and final comments? So this was several months, many months in -- ASIEDU: Yeah. GARMAN: -- planning, but I really appreciate you spending the time with us this afternoon. ASIEDU: Sure. GARMAN: And by the way, if anything ever comes up that you think, you know, additional information you think we'd be -- would be an interest to us, please just let me know and we'll always welcome you back. ASIEDU: Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. I do have the formatting down for these statistics as well, so as you -- Mr. Yazzetta asked, if you guys want an update to the numbers and to see where were at going on in the future, I can either come here and present again or I can submit those stats to you guys for your review. Thank you. GARMAN: Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's great. Page 28 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 29 of 31 MARCH 21, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Okay. A couple minutes -- a few minutes over. So I apologize for that. Let's go on to 7, which is discussion and possible action. I'll open it up for discussion. I will say if -- just so you know, under advisement I did listen and make a list from last month. We had comments on the Streets Committee that Bemie's part of, the downtown plan, Shea corridor plan, demographic trends. 1 did listen and take notes and I'm working on those specifically. And just so you know, next week I'm doing my comments as well before I open it up next week. Next month, our chief of the fire department, fire and rescue, Chief Dave Ott, is going to come and brief us on the status of the fire department and the rescue as well. So that'll be a great -- it's been a changing year for them as well. So that'll be another really interesting presentation. And then we have tabled also on -- is the history of the SPAC. We still have that on the list. The town planning process and, of course, we'll get our legal brief as well this year. Okay. t want to open up -- does anybody want to discuss any other topics they had in their mind as far as possible action actions in the future? Yeah, Cynthia? MAGAZINE: It sounds to me like you've got the whole year filled up. No? GARMAN: No. MAGAZINE: Yes, you do. Especially if we're taking off to Hawaii. GARMAN: All right. I don't see any -- oh, I'm sorry, Jill. KEEFE: Could we get an update from Bart Shea on the development plans for Avenue of the Fountains, or could that be folded into the downtown topic? GARMAN: Yes. t say yes, but I don't know enough about it. But you had asked about the downtown -- downtown, people smile when I say downtown. But, you know -- KEEFE: Town center. GARMAN: Town center, thank you -- KEEFE: There you go. GARMAN: -- of Fountain Hills. So when I focus on that, and by the way, anybody that wants to help me on these topics, please just let me know. Cynthia's been helping me on Page 19 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 30 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES some of these at work as well. So you're welcome to help me a little bit as I reach out to folks. But yes, if we can get people to come and brief us on the downtown plan, the city center plan and whatever that entails, I'm open to wherever that goes. KEEFE: Great. GARMAN: Okay. So yes. All right. So that's 7. I'm going to move on to number 8, which is comments from me, but I went through everything else. The last thing I wanted to mention is I think, you know, the plan was approved last March and were looking forward now and we've done a year of this. I was thinking that -- and this is just if you want to say yes or no, or talk about. This is not for a vote or anything like that. But maybe this summer, maybe as early as June or August, we have more of a -- I would call it a working session. I've never done one of those with our Commission yet. But it's where we have a working session and we say, hey, these are all the presentations we got from last year. Where do we want to take it as a Commission for next year? And kind of make it as structured. You know, here's the four pillars from the last plan. What do we need a year from now, a year from this summer, maybe? Where do we want to be as far as preparations for the next plan? And I would think that that might be more of a work session, I would call it, where we sit down and spitball and write or type and things like that. So I was thinking about something like that maybe before we go on our July summer break, or just when we come back from the summer break, probably depending on how much time I have to help organize it. So I didn't know if anybody says that's a horrible idea or a decent idea, or want to add to it, you're more than welcome. I see Geoff has a comment. YAZZETTA: Just going to say I think it's a great idea. Yeah. MAGAZINE. Same here, but I would vote for August. GARMAN: August? MAGAZINE: Give us a breather in July and then we can ramp up. GARMAN: Noted. All right. Thanks. Page 30 of 31 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 31 of 31 MARCH 22, 2023 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES All right. That was my last comment. Good. And I think that's through all the different agenda items. We are down to the end of the meeting. Thoughts on the end of the meeting? Do I hear any motions? HOENLE: I've got a question, Chair Garman. GARMAN: Okay. Yeah, Bernie? HOENLE And that is, we had talked about inviting the staff to come back in to sec the progress that they made on the matrices of the matrix, from what they're doing according to the goals and everything. So we probably need to think about setting that up, too, so the staff can come back in either by one of the four main areas or internal to it, figure out how we want to address it to them, and have that to see if the plan is actually being accomplished and if there needs to be any changes. GARMAN: Yep. I totally agree. I think that could be part of our annual -- the working meeting. And there's been a little bit of churn as far as the leadership of the folks who would come in and brief us, anyways. So 1 was kind of letting that calm down over the next month and see what Rachael has to say about it, probably, and get back on the schedule. Because Grady had a great schedule going on and people coming in and talking to us. So I definitely want to continue with that, so -- short answer, yes, so -- Any motions on the floor? MAGAZINE: I move the meeting be adjourned. YAZZETTA: Second. GARMAN: All right. Any further discussions on the meeting today? All those in favor of adjourning the meeting today, say aye. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Aye. GARMAN: All opposed, say nay. All right, it's unanimous. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much. Page 31 of 31