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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023.0822.TCRM.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL August 22, 2023 A Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 5:30 p.m. Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Sharron Grzybowski; Councilmember Gerry Friedel; Councilmember Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Brenda J. Kalivianakis; Councilmember Hannah Toth; Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Staff Present: Interim Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town Clerk Linda Mendenhall Audience: Approximately sixty-one members of the public were present TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Post -Production File Town of Fountain Hills Town Council Meeting Minutes August 22, 2023 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC r * a Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Page 1 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Good evening, everyone. Welcome back after the summer. If you would like, please stand for the pledge. And if you'd like to remain standing for the invocation. ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Pastor Clayton Wilfer from JOY Christian Community Church. Hi. WILFER: Hi. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for yesterday's rain which has watered and renewed the earth. We ask for your presence here to renew the council as you have renewed the land. Give them strength and fortitude, give them discernment and wisdom, grace, and compassion as they lead this town. Guide their minds and hearts in making decisions that benefit the residents of Fountain Hills. And in all of this, we seek your spirit and your blessing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. ALL: Amen. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Here. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Here. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Here. Page 2 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Here. MENDENHALL: Councilmember skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Here. MENDENHALL: Anyone wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the agenda or under call to the public, should fill out a request to comment card located in the back of the council chambers and hand it to the town clerk prior to consideration of that agenda item. When your name is called, please approach the podium, speak into the microphone, and state your name for the public record. Please limit your comments to three minutes. It is the policy of the mayor and council to not comment on items brought forth under call to the public. However, staff can be directed to report back to the council at a future date or to schedule items raised for a future council agenda. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Linda. Again, welcome everyone. I'm glad to see you here tonight. We will start, as always, with our reports from mayor and councilmembers and our town management. Rachael? GOODWIN: All right. Welcome back, Mayor and council. It's good to see you. Good to see everybody here tonight. It's been a very busy summer. I'm not going to go through the laundry list of things that have been going on. I just thought I'd cover a few highlights that happened over the summer. First, I wanted to congratulate and welcome our new fire chief. Chief Ott was officially brought onboard as a town staffer in July. So we're very excited. In conjunction with that, that means our process of bringing the fire department in- house is on track. We have been accepted into the Mesa dispatch service. So that was a really big hurdle for us. 5o we're really excited about that. And we are on track, again, to begin that process and in-house that process on the 1st of the year. We have a Page 3 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES number of staff hires in the works as well. We have a number of commitments there. So everything's a go. So that's great. I also wanted to pause and thank our Rotary here in town. They did a partner project with us. You might have noticed a new banner holder in front of our community center, as well as down at the park, at the end of the Avenue; it's both functional and beautiful. It's a piece of art that actually is designed to hold our seasonal banners when we have events and programs and things going on. So we really appreciate their partnership and support. I wanted to give a shoutout to our community services department. They're at the Arizona Parks and Recreation Association conference this week. Actually, this evening they're going to be accepting two awards for our Spooky Blast event as well as the new playground down at Fountain Park. So both of those were recognized as best program and best facility in the state this year. So that's pretty exciting. Lastly, I wanted to give an update on our MCSO contract. As many of you know, we have been in negotiations with MCSO since the beginning of the year, since January. Those negotiations stalled out around budget season. We were not able to come to that conclusion there. So we do have a temporary contract in place till the end of the year. Knowing that we have a ticking clock, staff was pretty anxious to get the issues and disparities addressed. So we've been reaching out and working with a number of their staff at MCSO. And we've been moving up the ranks, until we actually met with the sheriff, at the sheriff's request. He asked to meet in person so that we could discuss some of the finer points of the contract. And at this point, the ball is in their court. We are waiting on an updated draft that reflects the changes that we have requested. So we're waiting on that but we're hopeful that we can get that here and before council for discussion later this fall. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. GOODWIN: Those are my updates. MAYOR DICKEY: All right. Page 4 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Councilmember? TOTH: So I'll take the same approach. It was a long summer and I am so glad to be back. So I won't bore you with every single detail. But what I will just give a shoutout for is that I had the privilege of attending a few business retention meetings over the summer, which were fantastic. I think that program or that initiative that Amanda's taken to rotate councilmembers to speak with business owners has been a really fantastic way to learn about the needs here in town. On top of that, I was able to attend a policy retreat by the Morrison Institute about two weeks ago. And that was a very interesting event, several topics covered. I feel as though I learned quite a bit from other local leaders in the area. And I will let everyone else fill you in on the rest of the summer. GRZYBOWSKI: Ditto what they said. Keep it short. It was a long two months. We got a lot done. But what's really important for me to talk about today is Make a Difference Day is coming up on Saturday, October 21st. If you know someone that can benefit from the help on Make a Difference Day, we do still have a few slots available. The deadline for the residential projects is Thursday, August 31st. They can contact Kim Wickland in our community services department, but I suggest that they not contact her in the next day or so because she's probably -- yeah, wait until next week. But we are still accepting applications. They can, of course, shoot her an email and let her know that they're interested. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilmember? FRIEDEL: Mayor, I'd like to request a personal point of privilege. I have several questions and comments related to the MCSO contract in this town. First of all, I don't know who set that meeting up. 1 want to know why I wasn't there as a senior councilmember on this dais, also involved with pushing for the review of that contract and the Matrix Consultation (sic) on that contract. I think I should have had a seat at that table for any negotiations going on with that contract for this town and the Page 5 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES residents. We are extensions of every resident in this town. We are here to represent these residents fairly in any contract negotiation with any agency that we have a contract with. All I can say is, I'm going to start on my list of things. The communications with MCSO -- and I want to make sure that I'm clear on this point. I am not disparaging any local deputies or command staff that represent and work in our town. This has nothing to do with them; this has to do with the staff down in Phoenix and it comes from the top down. And I'm not here to negotiate this contract today, but I have several items I want to bring up so that everybody's aware what's going on here. The communication with that agency has been -- I would grade that an F at best. We have been struggling with them through the audit, our review, Matrix Consulting had trouble getting information from them. We've had trouble with this town, we're on a month -to -month contract since January of this year. That's bad. We're not getting things in a timely fashion from them. We got nothing we needed in this proposed contract. And I would go as far to say that if any council member sitting up here approves this contract in its present form, we're not doing our job for our residents. We are still District 7, which encompasses Rio Verde and Tonto Verde. How long are we going to be on the hook for those towns with police coverage? They're growing up there. They're going to have more need and more calls. There's going to be more incidents, accidents, and reporting and for them to take staff from our -- MAYOR DICKEY: Can I ask Aaron a question, please? And sorry to interrupt. But are we -- is this in order to do this? Because we are in the middle of these negotiations and nothing has been settled. And I don't know that we should be having this discussion -- FRIEDEL: You know what? MAYOR DICKEY: -- because people don't know that we're going to -- FRIEDEL: This is my personal point of privilege and I remember you giving Alan Magazine time to sit up here and bluster about George Soros and being attacked by the Page 6 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN MILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES right-wing left or right wing -- MAYOR DICKEY: Excuse me. FRIEDEL: -- as well. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. That was when we were talking about the Holocaust and something else. You're talking about something that -- FRIEDEL: I'm talking about something that's related to this town, Mayor. And it's important for people in this town to know what's going on here. MAYOR DICKEY: But this is just your opinion of what's going on here. FRIEDEL: No. It's the facts. MAYOR DICKEY: You can continue. But I think this is out of order. FRIEDEL: From what I understand, we will have no detectives in this town. Why is that? For their biggest contract. MCMAHON: I object. FRIEDEL: Nobody's asking you for your opinion. MCMAHON: You're sitting here (indiscernible). This is not on the agenda. He doesn't have a right to -- TOTH: You are not recognized. FRIEDEL: You are not recognized, Councilwoman. Will you please let me finish? MCMAHON: This isn't working, Mayor. FRIEDEL: We have no --there'll be no detectives in Fountain Hills. Why is that? We're their biggest contract. MAYOR DICKEY: Could you please -- FRIEDEL: Why won't we have a detective warehoused here in Fountain Hills? What about the results of that audit and the dollars that are owed to this town? They increased the cost of this contract. This is all public information, Ginny. MAYOR DICKEY: I just don't know that this is okay to be doing right now. I am relying right now on Aaron to let me know. FRIEDEL: They increased the cost of this contract by 19 percent but they give us a credit. We're paying for our own credit on this contract. It doesn't -- Page 7 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: That's not -- FRIEDEL: -- make sense and it doesn't fairly represent what these citizens in this town need to have here. MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron, please? ARNSON: Mayor and council, I can appreciate that there are strong feelings, clearly, on both sides. And I think I can speak both hand -in -hand with Interim Manager Goodwin, that we're at a spot where we are continuing to negotiate the terms of the contract. In terms of what Councilman Friedel said, I don't think we're actively negotiating in here today. FRIEDEL: We're not. ARNSON: You've referenced that yourself. Your points are well taken. To the extent we're able to continue to communicate those, staff works to be able to do so. My recommendation, in terms of this council meeting, would be, Councilman, if you're nearing the end, to wrap that and then the mayor, as the chair, can respond to the point of personal privilege. FRIEDEL: I have a couple more points. We spent hundreds of hours in staff time with the audit or review and the Matrix Consulting report. We had former Councilmember David Spelich spend a lot of time coming up with suggestions for this contract, which make perfect sense for this town and representing this town. The cost of that contract review and the Matrix advice was close to $100,000. Are we just going to walk away from that? We've got a lot of money and time and staff time invested in this contract and I think it's important that we go to the table -- and in fact, there were two councilwomen sitting up here on this dais that made a promise to Councilman Spelich that they would see this through to the end. Was that just lip service? I'm done. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks. I'm not doing my activities quite yet. But I just want to mention that nobody has seen a contract yet for this year. That's why we're in an Page 8 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES extension of last year's until we get to the -- maybe sooner, but the end of the year. I have many meetings that many people don't attend. Including, I've had private meetings with several of the things that we're involved with. In this case, I did ask the vice mayor to come and I asked Councilwoman Kalivianakis to come because she had also had familiarity with it, just as you did. And she did. And we had a lot of conversation. And when we bring back what, hopefully, will be what they bring back to us, that will be for the entire council to see and to look at and to approve and disapprove. But the things that you're saying now, I'll just caution. They're not to be taken as things that are happening right now or will be in the future contract. And I have every right to meet, and I do, like I say, all the time with mayors, with the Governor's office, Secretary of State, and with the sheriff. And I'll continue to do that and invite who I think is effective to be there with me at the time. And that's what I did. FRIEDEL: Mayor -- Brenda, no offense to you, Councilwoman Brenda. She's been on the job seven months. I've been here over two and a half years. This just seems -- and it kind of stinks of political partisanship. And I don't like it. The town's got to be fairly represented. And I'll leave it at that. MCMAHON: Good evening, everyone. And welcome back to celebrating our summer. I had a great summer. I hope you did too. I wanted to update everybody on our dementia -friendly initiatives. They're moving along really well. Our Memory Cafe is really a success. We're providing great support and education for our community suffering from dementia and also their caregivers. Also, I attended a board meeting for Valley Metro and we are really, really excited that Governor Hobbs signed the Proposition 400, so that is going to be put before the voters next year in the election. And what Proposition 400 is, it is merely an extension of prior Prop 400s that have been in effect since 1985, I think it is, for a half a cent tax. There's not any change or anything, and it's going to -- and it is for our streets and infrastructure and it is going to bring in billions of dollars a year and help businesses and new businesses in Phoenix and all round. Page 9 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Also, this Friday evening there's a ribbon cutting for the new high school Falcon Football field, and I hope to see everybody there. And next week, I think a lot of us are going to be attending the Arizona League of Cities and Towns' annual conference which we're really looking forward to and any updates that are important to bring before you, we will. And thank you very much for your time. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Hi, everybody. It's really nice to see everybody again after the six -week break that we had this summer. I want to thank everybody for corning tonight. I thank everybody that's watching livestreaming and on Cox Channel 11. As I always say, an informed public is a good public to keep an eye on their public officials and what's going on in our town. I hope you all had a great summer. Like you've heard many people speak here tonight, I'll keep it somewhat brief because we've done so much and I don't want to bore everybody. But there were many ribbon cuttings, many constituent meetings, and many things we did over the summer. I didn't take a break. I worked every single day. A meeting that we did recently was Fountain Hills Cares. As you guys probably are aware, in the past we've done alcoholism and drug addiction for teenagers, bullying, cyberbullying, depression. This next one is going to be a little bit towards an older audience, even though everybody is welcome to come. It's going to be more towards seniors and that's going to be addressing frauds, scams, and phishing. And I'm not talking about fishing with a pole. I'm talking about the phishing that we actually get here all the time in our emails. A lot of the elderly people are a little more vulnerable to these kind of attacks. They get something from their bank that says we're going to close your account unless you hit this hyperlink. It's terrible. Some people lose their life savings over it. So most people consider their town government is -- or just government in general, that's who regulates us and that's who taxes us, and I think the Fountain Hills Cares is Page 10 of 9g TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES wonderful because the mayor and Peggy and myself, Bo Larsen, Capt. Kratzer, we get together, we talk about this and we try to educate the people on how to protect themselves. And so it's government plus it's very interactive with the people. And really, I'm proud to be on that. I did go to the Maricopa County Sheriff's meeting with the mayor and with Blue and Rachael, and I was honored to go. I don't view that as a partisan thing. I think it was a pretty fair representation of the council. And also, I'm not sure about the reference to seven months. When a doctor gets a job at a hospital, you don't wait for seven months to do your first operation. When I was in the state's attorney's office, I was having jury trials and bench trials in my second week. And so I think I was prepared for that meeting and I think I represented the Town of Fountain Hills very well at that meeting, particularly with my educational background. We did meet with the Sheriff Penzone. We met with the chief CFO and other high- ranking officials. Many of the things that Gerry discussed, we discussed: overbilling, understaffing, the contract, proactive versus reactive law enforcement, Rio Verde, Tonto Verde, the Matrix contract. Which the Matrix report, which I had in my hand and I read off of, and so I do think I represented the town fair. Having a face-to-face meeting with the sheriff allowed us to get a lot more done than you can in emails and the phone. It was a very frank meeting. It was a tough meeting. It was terse at many times. It was scheduled for one hour; it went for 90 minutes and we covered a lot of material. And I think a lot of good is going to come out of that. And so I'm glad I was there for that and I'm proud to have been there. Lastly, this Saturday, at the community center, there's going to be a band called the Desert Valley Winds and I play the saxophone for that band. And I would invite all the council, the mayor, vice mayor, and the population, and the town staff to join me, to play a little music and have a little fun, okay? It will be just one hour. Like I said, Saturday at the community center and I would appreciate it if everyone could come out and say hi. Page 11 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So thank you very much. That's -- MAYOR DICKEY: Councilmember? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. And as someone who loves brevity, I will be pretty brief. So I did take some time off. Did some traveling. Literally, the day I came back, had an opportunity to attend the Maricopa Association of Governments' regional council. It was eye-opening to see what a bigger world and universe that we have in Maricopa County. And some of the things that we should really be refocusing and kind of centering on in that agenda there. So we did that. We had a bunch of -- the Chamber of Commerce and a few ribbon cuttings and such, which was very productive. And we are right back into business here. Congratulations to the Falcons Football Team winning their first game on Friday. That was an away -game. And coming back home this Friday. So were looking forward to getting a lot done. Also looking forward to the conference corning next week, also. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Yeah, I think we're all going this time. So it's National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day. It's established in remembrance of those lost to fentanyl poisoning and to acknowledge the devastation this drug has brought to hundreds of thousands of affected family members. The national day was actually observed yesterday, August 21st and I want to thank Councilwoman Kalivianakis for requesting that I mention this important issue. As part of the regional display of unity, the fountain will be lit in blue and yellow, Ukraine's national colors, on Thursday, the 24th, in honor of Ukraine Independence Day 2023. The town is honored to be able to lend a hand with the community center for the fundraiser for the Maui/Lahaina from Four Peaks Rotary. All that information is on their website. That will be Saturday the 9th of September at the community center at 5 Page 12 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES o'clock. We, obviously, had a lot of things going on over the summer. One of the things I was able to do was go to the Scottsdale Area Association of Realtors, they had a forum; mayor legislative forum. They pointed out that they, as a group, are in favor, even though it's Scottsdale, of Fountain Hills Unified School District bond. And there were a lot of mayors there, a lot of realtors there. Some of our local people were there and it was very nice to be able to speak to them about our futures. We had a lighthearted exchange for a couple of days last weekend with Channel 5, Good Morning, Arizona. For some reason the fountain wasn't on when they first started. So they started emailing us, Paul Horton and Bo was such a great help. And Kevin went out there and made sure. So the next day, they turned the TV on, they put it on. David Caltabiano, their family, played basketball with my kids. He's their anchor. And while he was up there, he gave a shoutout to a couple of the restaurants here in town and so there's a lot of buzz. And then they did it again the next day. So it was really cool. Again, I think Amanda knew about that. So this is the ways that we keep ourselves out there. I was able to do that Smithsonian thing for the Dark Skies and had the International Dark Sky Discovery Center information there, so a lot of people took it. So again, Fountain Hills is on the map. Last, I want to thank, councilwoman now, Peggy McMahon, for serving as vice mayor since December and taking on projects, attending a lot of things with me and for me. And the transition actually took place last month. And so I look forward to continuing our work with Vice Mayor Sharron Grzybowski for the good of our entire community. So thank you all. Next, were going to move to presentations and we're starting, I believe, with our director of economic development, Amanda Jacobs, who's going to give us an update, fourth quarter update. Hi. JACOBS: Hello. Page 13 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council, members of the audience. Welcome back. Our residents sometimes often ask, doesn't it slowdown in the summer? I'll tell you, no. It never slows down. It's been busy. As the mayor mentioned, I'll be providing my fourth quarter update. So that was from April to June, but as always, if something recent came about I will let you guys know. We will start with what we always get questions about, business attraction. So happy to report, we have some new storefront openings. So filling up some of those vacancies. Arizona Stone and Crystal Company has opened. They're off of Parkview. And so as it says, Stone and Crystal, so think of too natural healing. That is located off of Parkview. Alpha Financial Nordic, again, it's in its name. So financial services off of northeast corner of Verde River and the Avenue of the Fountains. Motor Vault we've been hearing about, is opened. And their website says they're completely sold out of their vehicle storage. And then snowee Ice Cream just recently opened on the Avenue. So this is really under business attraction and retention and expansion. So the same owners of Oka Sushi have invested into another building along the Avenue. So excited to see that. Coming soon, we, of course, have the coffee roasters, Dutch Bros, that we've talked about. But something new is Above Board Charcuterie will also be under a franchise name of Graze Craze. That will be opening up too on Park Place on the Avenue. And over the last couple of months, and, really, the last couple of weeks, Mr. Wesley and I have been meeting with their broker. And so people are very excited. So hopefully, we'll be able to report something real exciting and interesting the next quarter. And then, of course, Phoenix Cannabis. So while not a new building, it is a new owner and also some retention expansion there. So they will be adding recreational marijuana and they're expanding their dispensary. And so that is off of Enterprise. Our business retention and expansion. So Councilwoman Toth mentioned this and then we also did some site visits with Councilmember Kalivianakis. So we're able to continue Page 14 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES our partnership with the Chamber in trying to visit our businesses. And so what has been a common theme in every site visit is workforce and lack thereof, specifically local to Fountain Hills. And so the challenge to retain employees when they're having to travel from Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler; those are the cities that we're hearing from our businesses. And so it ties into, I'll talk about it briefly, but we'll talk more in September with the proposed economic development strategy. But if you look at all of our major employers, they're service based. If you think of the school. If you think of the town. If you think of our grocery stores. And the annual salary of a service -based worker is less than 40K. So there's some issues and imbalance. And so hopefully, we'll be working on that over the next year, couple of years, to modify that. And then we were able to partner, again, with the Chamber on our eight -week shop local ad campaign. So some of our businesses last year when I met with them, they're like, we need the town's support. And so I started to ask what does support look like. And so they're like, help us in the summer and really push the message of shopping local. And so reminding our residents we do not have local primary property tax, and so we rely heavily on sales tax. So we hope you are doing us proud, seeing that sales tax, but again, also retaining our businesses. Who, again, they have opportunities to choose anywhere, but they decided to choose Fountain Hills. Our apartment occupancy rate remains the same. So really in the high 90 percentile. Again, I always point out Four Peaks Vista Condos. So that's not 100 percent rentable. Some of those condos are for sale. So that number will always be a bit lower. But again, really, what this graph illustrates is a supply/demand issue. So if someone was looking for multifamily, you just can't find it. It's hard to come by. Next, our vacancy rates looking at office, industrial, and retail. And so just a reminder or if anyone -- if we have a new resident or someone new wanting to participate in our council meetings. That first vacancy rate column comes from CoStar, which is a commercial software company, that, through our partnership with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, they cover that expense for us. So you'll see that rate. Page 15 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES The one next to it, as I have shared with you, but again if you're new, we have some brokers and property owners who are not actively listing their property. So it's passive. And so that requires your staff to go out and drive around and try to figure things out. The good news I will share with you, in beginning next quarter we're going to add another column to sort of show the difference, if we're seeing an increase or a decrease. But you may recall sort of the almost alarming number under office the last quarter. It was 49.5 percent, so nearly 50 percent. So that has gone down to 37.9, which is exciting. Again, that high rate is not a Fountain Hills issue. This is something, again, we're seeing nationally. Thank you COVID, again, pushing people home. Those are some of those ramifications. And then to just remind too, our residents, that sometimes you may see a vacant building or you're not seeing a lot of activity, but we're knowing there's some movement. People are buying, people are contemplating what to do. So sometimes things may remain a little bit vacant until businesses decide what they're going to do, get the appropriate financing, et cetera. Our economic development strategy, just to give an update. So again, we had a community leaders' workshop back, January 12th. We had a workshop open to the public on April 12th. And then I want to thank the councilmembers, so you guys were busy with me over the summer, doing some one-on-one meetings. Again, I felt the importance of that was to be really, really high-level, just to make sure you guys were comfortable and I did not shock you once the draft was finalized. So that will go before SPAC, our strategic planning advisory commission tomorrow, to get feedback. And were tentatively scheduled to come and bring that back to council on September 6th, hopefully for some action and positive action and positive vibes off there. And so our Arizona Office of Tourism Prop 302 grant. Just wanted to let you guys know we were able to close out the fiscal year with over $85,000. And again, as a reminder, the previous year's AOT was estimating very, very, very conservatively because of COVID. And so they allowed us, the last year, to have rollover funds. And so this year Page 16 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES we needed to commit all of that. And so that 85,000 grant money, there is no match to it. And so again, was able to assist us with our newly branded, experience website. We've been able to get new photography. We've been able to work with vendors to help with our SCO and some of the things we needed to fix behind the scenes. We were able to do a tourism video with local business owner Andrew Day, with DayLite Films. And then we started a blog feature under the website that Clason Communications, so Debbie Clason, again, a local business owner is assisting. So estimates this year, again, can fluctuate month by month, is over 69,000. Our partnerships, I will not get into all of them. I've mentioned a few but do want to give a shoutout to the Fountain Hills Dark Sky Association. So Vicky Derksen and John Craft, have spent a little bit of time with me. We almost saw each other weekly, I think, in the month of May or June. But as we're starting to plan, we are the destination organization. So we want to look at all of our community members of how we can move the needle. And then also, I was able to call upon Vicky Derksen. So the Arizona Office of Tourism was in a partnership with ASU and the Young Leaders of Americas. And so they had a student, formerly from Haiti, and is now studying in Toronto. And so if you think of Haiti, they don't have electricity and so there's a lot of things that that evokes, that darkness. And so Vicky was able to bring into light the positive with the Dark Skies and stargazing. So a big thank you to Vicky and AOT and ASU for thinking of Fountain Hills. I think we have two more slides. So tourism, again, the hotel occupancy remains below 70 percent. Our social media, specifically to our Instagram, increased by 44 percent. So again, economic development and community relations are putting together plans and forward thinking of trying to get exposure for Fountain Hills. We have not brought this up, but I thought this was exciting. So we have of course our Earth -Cam that's located on the Experience Fountain Hills website. And so just for the fiscal year, there are 1.3 million views. So people are looking at us. And then our website too, again, just want to thank economic development specialist slash management analyst John Perez for all of his work, as well as Bo Larsen. Page 17 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES And really updating the website, you can see a drastic change; there was a 35 percent increase. Our top five cities sort of remain the same with Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, LA, Chandler. And then last, you'll remember last quarter, we were able to invest, again through the AOT, Visit Arizona initiative marketing grant. Say that three times. Into a tourism and event impact study. So of course, corning in as the new gal I had my thoughts on what tourism was for Fountain Hills. But sometimes it's good to get an outside expert. And so one thing we had them look at too is, there's lots of messaging around half the population leaves. And I was able to share some stories with those that met one-on- one. That when some people just hear that, they may not do the research, it's believable. And so we had a few businesses say, hey, I can't survive in Fountain Hills because I heard half your population's leaving. So looking at our census, looking at the number of households, the number of households that could be seasonal, some are occupied. The estimated winter visitors that are leaving is 11.8 percent. And so again, as we start to look at our strategy, we'll ask everyone to help with our messaging. Because we only want positive messaging. We want people to know that they can survive here. As far as our events, there is 32.7 percent that are local, coming to our events. 43.8 percent is regional. So think again local is Fountain Hills, regional is somewhat outside. This was specific to Maricopa. And our out of state is 23.5. And so some opportunities here is looking at our hotels. Yes, we have four hotels, but there's only ever 300 rooms that are available. So there are opportunities to attract new resorts. There are opportunities to get conventions. Again, some of our local hotels have decided to get rid of some of their meeting rooms. Thinking, again, just the aftermath of COVID, that people aren't gathering as much. There's the Zoom capabilities. I don't know about you, but I like to be in person, that's just me. And then there's opportunities of doing multiday events. If we think about some or our local events, they're one day. It's four or six hours and were not giving them a reason to stay. And so I planted a seed with some of you that we may need to ask for some Page 18 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES money to get a rnultiday and hopefully have support for that. Maybe we get some third -party promoters coming in. We have seen some interest on that end. And again, this year we'll be able to continue our work with our national PR company to look to beyond the region, but looking nationally to help just the extension of the multiple departments, get our name out there, look at pictures. And with that, any questions? You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: Questions or comments? Well, I do. JACOBS: They are making it easy. MAYOR DICKEY: Well, sorry. No, I'm not going to say anything. But I know that at 1.3 million views off the web, oh my gosh. Of the Earth -Cam. I was probably a few of those myself. But we did talk about that at the Smithsonian. So there's a lot of people -- I'm glad you brought Vicky up. There's people walking around with our pamphlets about our dark skies and about the Discovery Center. And with our fountain pins. 5o there's people in Chili and in Germany and all over who have fountain pins now. So that was a good way to talk about tourism, because these folks were tourists. Thank you for meeting with Rachael and I, with Glen Williamson and Holly Mechsner from the Canada Arizona Business Council and creating your report about that, because that really falls into what you were talking about with the winter visitors and such and bigtime tourism. And we talk about astrotourism with the dark skies and we talked about medical tourism. So there are a lot of possibilities and potential for us. And last, I know you're going to be bringing us the economic development plan next meeting. And you're going to be presenting it tomorrow. Were you able to get input from all the council members on that? JACOBS: Madam Mayor, I was able to meet with six out of seven of the councilmembers. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you. Page 19 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES JACOBS: And so there's still that opportunity. But again, respected that you guys were traveling and taking downtime. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. Well, you gave us the opportunity to meet with you, so we appreciate that very much. Anything else? GRZYBOWSKI: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you for all your work and we look forward to the report next time. JACOBS: All right. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Our next item is a presentation by our public works director, Justin Weldy, about our construction storage site. Hi. WELDY: Madam Mayor, vice mayor, councilmembers, welcome back. Since just after incorporation the newly formed town, it's newly, at that time, appointed body and very limited staff began to look towards the future. There was an incredible amount of growth in this community's future and at that time, they were a little bit strapped for cash. The largest developer in this community, at that time, offered to work with the newly appointed body and the mayor and council -- or excuse me, and the staff on some projects that they had going, and asked the town if they would be interested in any of the dirt and rocks which are a very valuable commodity, not only in this town but across this valley. After that time, the town staff began to look at the five- and ten-year horizon corning forward and especially when it comes to road building. From, basically, the beginning the town staff has worked with developers and single home builders or single lots to receive and/or accept their excessive material. There's a couple of benefits to this. One of them is it reduces the cost to either the developer and/or the single home and it also reduces the cost for the town for future projects, and it eliminates an incredible amount of truck traffic, not only through the town but also down the SR87 and back there. In case you're not aware, there's not a lot of places nearby. Page 20 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES This is the first example of an area -- and this is on Bainbridge and Golden Eagle Boulevard. This material was donated from a single lot in Eagles Nest. The town's estimated cost for this material, which is currently being used and will be used on several projects, is approximately $480,000. We did not spend a dime to get it there. The custom home builder has indicated that it's considerably more than that in savings for their customer and also, again, the reduction of all of the truck traffic. This material's not only used for temporary storage, which, in this case, this material has been used for the Panorama project. It will also be used for the Golden Eagle project. But more often than not, this site right here is our staging area for pavement management in the northwest section and/or the northern sections of town. This next one, right here, is a series of boulders and the majority of this material came from the area of Palisades and Shea. There is approximately $700,000 worth of boulders here. This rock is currently being used on three of our projects and will be used primarily in the Golden Eagle area. But we always have kept material in this area as part of our preparedness plan for wash maintenance. After storm events we have a considerable amount of erosion and/or migration -- materials moving. We need to shore that up, especially closer to homes and properties. So while this rock here is temporary in nature and will eventually be moved, there will be more material coming into this. And this slide right here is important for a couple of reasons. One, it shows a valuable asset that was donated to the town. Two, it shows one of our access roads to one of our dams. And that access road is plated with our old asphalt. Which is an allowable use for that under ADEQ. So there's a couple of items we address here. One, we were able to utilize some of our milled -up asphalt. And two, we were able to meet the PM10 demands for keeping the dust and particulate matter down for the maintenance road to the wash in Sycamore -- or the dam in Sycamore. This location right here is on the eastern boundary of town, near Desert Vista Park. This area here is actually fenced off. What we have here is very expensive dirt and granite that was donated by local contractors. It was excess. Some of the stuff right here is Page 21 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES literally a few hundred dollars a ton. For obvious reasons, we keep it back here and we utilize it for our town projects. And again, relatively expensive material is what we keep back here. We're going to start talking about some relatively long-range programs and some really big numbers here. For each of our fill sites that we're going to discuss, this is a typical site plan that is prepared and sealed by an engineer. This shows the location of the work, the size and depth and other important aspects including, but not limited to, any drainage that is necessary for it. This is what it looks like during the planning process. This is what it looks like when it's finished. This area here, from right here at the entry, all the way back to here is a little bit more than a 1,000 feet. At its widest point right here, it's about 100 feet. At the deepest location it's about 65 feet. This entire fill right here was built from construction in Firerock. It's important to note that right here, just out of sight, and you can't see it very well, there is a 96-inch pipe that crosses Shea. When the casinos at Firerock were built, the water came through that pipe and began to erode and scour the area near these retaining walls. And there's three retaining walls in this area. We worked on that one relatively quickly. And the town staff actually purchased that 96-inch pipe, and a local contractor and his son installed it at no cost in exchange for being allowed to place the material there. Let's discuss that just briefly. For each of the locations, each of these contractors are required to secure a permit from the town. There are conditions attached to that permit. For this particular one right here on Shea, where it requires traffic control, they are required to comply with any temporary traffic control regulations that we have and they are required to pay a permit fee for that, and also the cost for that. This one right here is about $3.5 million. This is in the next phase of eastbound widening for Shea. Not the one that we're currently working on, but the next one. You might recognize this young man here. This is the town engineer, Mr. Janover. We appreciate Bo taking this photo and saving it for us. Page 22 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES This material right here was donated from a project that was, just this afternoon, or evening, discussed by the economic development director, the Motor Vault. They donated this material -- are low in cost and all of our numbers are very, very conservative. This is about $160,000 worth of soil. And it reduced their cost substantially because it was right down the road and it's clean material. This is what it looked like when there were questions, and understandably so. People driving by, seeing this pile of dirt in this area, have questions and we did our best to answer them. This photo right here, there are actually three of them here. The one on the top right is what this area of Panorama looked like prior to phase 2 of the Panorama storm drain project. The one on the bottom right, obviously, is a high -altitude aerial. But most importantly, the one on the left demonstrates where all of that material went. But you'll see right up here -- let's push another button this time. This rock right here, came from that storage out at Bainbridge and Golden Eagle Park. It should be noted that this material was placed by the contractor that was doing the Panorama project, at no additional cost. That project, in fact, came in under budget. I will say that we paid our local landscaper at Verde Valley Nursery to place the rock. This is another fill site. This fill site right here actually starts at this location and comes down to here. This one here is right around $1.5 million and this one is actually included in the Shea widening now. This one right here is separate. This is a very long one and it's just across from Palatial Estates. It starts here, runs down here. A little bit more than 1,000 feet long. All of that material was placed there by the Fountain Hills Sanitary District's contractor that was the low bidder for one of their four main jobs, right here in town. All of that was placed out there at no cost to the town. And it also shored up some areas in there where we had bad erosion. That one right there, different estimates on that, but the closest one we have is about 2.5 to $3.1 million. For those of you that have been here for a while, you might recognize this location. This is on Shea, right near Balera. This is the former effluent evaporation ponds, prior to the sanitary district putting in their advanced water treatment plants and their advanced Page 23 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES treatment systems, that allow this water to be pushed to their customers. This is what it looks like after it was filled with donated material from a nearby development. Again, not only the town but the sanitary district benefits from some of these materials. This right here is in Ashbrook Wash between Hampstead and Fountain Hills Boulevard. There was an incredible storm just a couple of years ago that created what is referred to as a lateral migration. That lateral migration created this -- I'm going to learn how to use these buttons. There it is. It's about a six-foot cut and it is approximately one foot from that home and the water was running at this level here. So about five feet high. From several of the areas that you saw here tonight, and others that have not been disclosed, the town staff worked with their on -call contractors, brought in two, three, and four foot in diameter boulders and dirt, and were able to create the fill to shore up this private property and create this gentle one and a half to one slope, two to one slope, out to the original flowline. This material here was stockpiled in three different places. One of the places that we retrieved those large boulders was from the area of Sycamore Wash. And then we have another area in Ashbrook Wash, upstream, where we also have large boulders stored. This is in Ashbrook Wash, in the background is Hampstead. This is material donated recently from a project south of Shea on Saguaro for a storage unit. I had asked this local contractor for a rough estimate about this material and he was working on that. But I will tell you it's a large sum of money. I didn't want to put a guess on it but I will tell you that the cost savings was shared with the developer, it's a local builder. The benefit of this is this is phase 1 of the Ashbrook Wash slop stabilization. This is what we intend to show the Maricopa County flood control district when we apply for grants for this area. Oh, wrong button. The lateral migration that I showed you earlier, is just downstream from where this material is at. So what we're doing is we're working on shoring up the north side of Ashbrook Wash, which is where we're facing some challenges. But we also have some on the south side. This, in my opinion, and I may be wrong, will prove as an excellent Page 24 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES example of how the town utilizes donated materials to offset costs for these projects and benefit the community and also support end documentation for the flood control district for that grant. There's actually several grants. Getting close to the end here. This is Four Peak Park. This is the last portion of a multiyear renovation to that park. There are approximately 30 boulders, plus or minus, in view that were donated locally from a big development. They're roughly between 1,000 and 1,500 apiece. We have a total of about 48 at Four Peaks Park. Originally, they were placed at the direction of then -community services director as a physical barrier to stop some of the vandalism that was taking place at this park. As part of each of the phase, those boulders then became part of the fabric of that park and now blend in as they were intended to be there all along. A couple of quick ones here. This is on La Montana. This is south of town hall at Segundo. This project here allowed town to put in a right turn pocket and extend the sidewalk in this area. So we can at least get people to Segundo. The pipe was purchased by the town, installed by a local contractor at no cost. And by allowing them to install that pipe, and again they paid the fees. You used to come out to about right here and it was a pretty steep drop-off in that area. This is another one of those locations on Fountain Hills Boulevard where we were able to utilize local fill and again the contractor that placed it installed this pipe at no cost to the town. This one here is actually pretty important. This entire area was filled by the same contractor that did the work across the street and the pipes extended. What it allowed was for the town to utilize grant funding from the Safe Routes to School to install that sidewalk between Oxford and Glenbrook. At the time, this sidewalk led to the middle school, which is now McDowell Mountain Elementary. This is just another one down on Indian Wells where we were able to extend it and create a shoulder. Now, we're at the end. What I'm trying to demonstrate here is that the town staff, not just myself but others, works diligently to help offset and reduce the cost of future Page 25 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES projects. It's no secret that for some of these capital projects, especially the ones on the 5, 10, 15, and 20-year range for widening Shea and Fountain Hills Boulevard, we are cash strapped to get some of that done. And these materials, which I've just showed you a fraction of what's been placed, are valuable for this community. Any questions? I'll certainly do my best to answer them. FRIEDEL: Justin, how many piles of material would you say you have? How many storage areas in town? WELDV: 12. FRIEDEL: And are we at capacity in most of those or-- WELDY: With one exception. The one on Bainbridge and Golden Eagle, we are currently moving that material, Councilmember, out to other projects because very shortly that will be used as a staging for our paving. But all of the other locations where they are stored, which is on town property, in washes. And I think this is important to point out. Where this material is stored is in previously disturbed areas. We do not disturb or do any clearing to place this material. That is a violation of our own ordinance for the washes. So all the material is stored on previously disturbed property. We do not disturb any new property to create for storage. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Director Weldy, I do thank you for outside -the -box thinking in some of these solutions. It is appreciated and I know you drove me around a couple of these and it was good seeing these and seeing some of those photos first-hand. There have been a couple of emails about the Sycamore Wash, I don't know if you want to comment on that. But I think there's like -- I can think of three locations which either are very close or adjacent to residential areas. And we're obviously concerned about how it looks, and then we also don't know how long it's been stored. I mean, if it's just a temporary thing, if it's going to be for two months and then it's going to be gone, I think people are reasonable and they can deal with that. But if it's going to be longer than that -- give us an update on that. How we plan on that? And I don't know if you've seen a couple of the emails that we received from the Sycamore Wash residents? Page 26 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES WELDY: Madam Mayor, Councilmember, we are certainly aware of the concerns and we understand that. I think it's important to note that this area has been used for storage since 1990. The material changes colors. This just happens to be a little bit brighter color. I would certainly work with you and the town manager and these other proposed locations, and we will take a look at them and see if they are actually available on town property and if we could access them without any additional disturbance. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thank you very much. One of the reasons I always tell people to make sure they come to town council meetings, to watch it on TV, watch it livestreaming, come to the meetings, because this doesn't seem like it's a very sexy or big deal, but it is. What you and the town staff have done since 1990 has literally saved this town millions of dollars and how do you replace that? How do you do it? Do you take these materials and just tell the developers just, you take them out of Fountain Hills and then we pay a company to bring these infill materials back in? If the decision was, well, we're going to have 12 spots that we put this infill material, or we won't, and then we're going to have to pass a primary property tax to repay the millions of dollars it would cost to do these improvements; I think it would but almost universal that people would say well, we don't want to have a huge tax. But this is the nitty-gritty work of the town. And what you guys are doing is stellar work. And the Sycamore Wash, Councilmember Friedel and I, we did go to speak with some of the residents that had concerns. And we listened carefully. We listened to their concerns. We came to the town, we talked to Rachael and we set up a meeting with you. We worked on a mitigation plan to maybe knock down the height, to remove some of the debris, which we have done since then. And then we had a plan to do, like, camouflage nets to mitigate the damage. Not damage, to mitigate what they call an eyesore. And so that's proactive. It's a great thing that we're doing. And if the people understood the consequences of not doing what you're doing, it speaks for itself. Page 27 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So all I can say is, thank you. Great work. And keep it up. MAYOR DICKEY: Any other -- no applause, please. Any other comments or questions? I know we had some written comments, correct? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. We have several written comments. The first one is from Jill Hill. She has her written comment. She's against the storing. Well, at least -- and we'll see if they still are. And then, Steve Hill. He's against the storing. And then we had one, Jennifer actually has two papers because she's needing more room. So Jennifer Brown is against it. And then we have Dr. Andrew Holycross. These are all in your packet. He's against it as well. And that's it for the written comments. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Thank you, Justin. And again, since 1990 that's what the town's been doing and it's one year out of incorporation. So I think they were thinking way back then and continuing to do that now. And we appreciate you working with the neighbors who are concerned about the views and doing what we can do. But this is obviously a good practice for our town. Thank you. Our next item is our call to the public. And do we have speaker cards, Linda? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. You have one in your packet because they submitted there's online. So well start out with Pam Cap. And on deck is Larry Meyers. CAP: Good evening, Madam Mayor, councilmembers, my fellow neighbors from Fountain Hills. My name is Pam Cap. My family and I have lived here for seven years now. Road conditions have been a problem in Fountain Hills for a very long time now. Recently, Councilmember Skillicorn posted two videos on his Alan Skillicorn for Fountain Hills social media page. One was on Golden Eagle. He went into detail about why the street Page 28 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES deteriorates and what is used to patch them. Unfortunately, Councilmember Skillicorn doesn't seem to understand how our streets are actually chosen to be fixed. We have a citizen street committee that works directly with a firm that assesses which streets go first, like Glenbrook. That was just done and it looks great. The second video is Councilmember Skillicorn complaining about the park's three parking lots being repaved instead of Golden Eagle. Since he didn't bother to do his job and ask the park; I did. The parking lot repavement program was planned and approved in 2016. As his video points out, it's in need of repair. That's called planning ahead, being proactive. The Sillicorn (sic) Roads First program failed horrifically, not even a second. So his response was to attack staff. As a council member, working with staff is imperative. So implying wrongdoing or failure to complete a required task because of political allegiance is just another way of saying he didn't get his way. Councilmember Skillicorn accused staff of delaying copies of town check registers, when he could have requested the same information from the Department of Revenue on his own. Considering the reduced workweek, he could have eliminated some of the work by doing it himself instead of putting more work on the staff. Councilmember Skillicorn needs to understand that this isn't Illinois anymore. This isn't Washington D.C., and we are not at the border. This is the Town of Fountain Hills and we need council members that focus on making the Town of Fountain Hills better for every resident and every business owner in Fountain Hills. Finally, this fixation with the trans and LGBTQ community is getting old. Some councilmembers don't seem to realize Fountain Hills includes many members, business owners, of the LGBTQ community. Every time Councilmember Skillicorn, Toth, and Friedel post anti -trans and LGBTQ rhetoric, they're saying they don't represent us. Or at the very least, you're saying we don't deserve to be represented. It's very obvious they only wish to represent a select group of residents, that's why they censor their councilmember social media sites by blocking people and turning off comments. They Page 29 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES reject other's opinions and knowledge by shutting the door and blocking out their constituents. Thank you. MEVERS: Mayor, council, staff. Larry Meyers, now 42 contiguous years in Fountain Hills. Did you miss me? I missed you. And what would a council meeting be without one of its frequent flyers getting up and speaking? So I have something that's been bothering me since 2018, and no, I didn't coordinate this with Councilmember Friedel. David Spelich, Gerry Friedel, and Marcus von Dennewitz ran on and visited my house in a meet -and -greet. And David, particularly, ran on fixing the MCSO contracts and overcharging. Even back then the figure mentioned was $1 million. 2018, $1 million. I don't know what it is now. Marcus didn't win. Councilmember Friedel sits here today. David Spelich is gone. So my question, after five years of knowing this overcharging has been going on under Penzone, why hadn't the previous council collected, or tried to collect, and we're just now getting around to this? And so my next question is, since the town can certainly use the money, we're down a half a million or better from the long-term rental tax that we're not going to get anymore, when does this council actually intend to collect the money that's been known about since 2018? That's it, on that. I want to shift gears a little. Out at the McDowell Middle School, which is now the elementary school, there was an incident where a little person charged out of the school and needed to be tackled in the middle of the street. And it was in the 35-mile-an-hour zone, not the 15 in the crosswalk. So I would like to ask, and I did talk to Justin about this. There's no sidewalk on either side of the frontage of that school and now there's little people out there. So if we put sidewalks in, maybe not transfer the sidewalk that we're going to put in somewhere else from our sidewalk projects and put them on both sides, we could move the crosswalk, thus the 15-mile-an-hour zone and the little people Page 30 at 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES will be crossing the street closer to the school. Because they're crossing further down -- I forget the road that runs there to the left, as you're heading out towards Rio Verde. Anyway. That would be my request. And Justin's reply was, is the school pays for that. Can we just shift some of our sidewalk money and put the sidewalks in all the way along the frontage? Thank you. MENDENHALL: Next we have Robert Brown. And then on deck is Barry Wolborsky. BROWN: Madam Mayor, councilors, thank you for hearing me tonight. What was presented to you by Director Weldy was a false choice. We don't have to destroy neighborhoods just so we can store materials. And I'm about to tell you the things that are wrong with the way the storage is going. No one is against saving the town money. Everyone wants to do that. But that doesn't mean that our neighborhoods have to be destroyed. I live adjacent to the Sycamore Wash. I have an acre there that goes down to the wash. I've lived there -- I've owned that property since 2009. Invested into this town when there was a recession going on and lots of people didn't invest in it. I spent thousands of dollars renovating the home to live there and have been a full-time resident since 2015. The problem is that these are piles of asphalt that have dust on them that blows through that wash when it's dry, and blows up onto my patio and other peoples' patios. Piles of dirt, where it blows up there all the time, when there's a storm. The wash is wide and so the wind doesn't blow over the top of it. It blows through it and it lifts it up. There's no coverage of that storage. Your own town ordinance says if you have outside storage, you are to have it covered. So there's piles of that and its surrounding Saguaros. It's a beautiful Saguaro wash. Now, you have an ordinance, a town zoning ordinance. It says our neighborhood is R-1, single family only. Not storage facility. You can get a special permit if you want to do something different by the zoning department, but nobody's got a special permit and probably because it would be too awkward. Because then that would require some kind Page 31 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES of environmental study or notice to the residents before you dump this into the wash. The town land -use map describes that area as a park. A park. That's what it is on a color -coded town use map; it's a park. Just like Fountain Park. Now you're not going to dump anything in Fountain Park, are you? Nobody would suggest that that's worth doing. Yet, you can dump it in the park in the middle of a residential neighborhood. There's a sign posted there that says no dumping, isn't that odd? A sign that says no dumping. And who's dumping? The town's dumping. And that no -dumping sign says it's illegal to do that. That that's illegal. But it's being done anyway. Now, what's the purpose of that sign and what kind of message is that to the community that we'll put a no -dumping sign there, and then we'll dump there? Isn't that a great idea? No, it's not. So then there was -- MAYOR DICKEY: Your time is up, sir. BROWN: I -- MAYOR DICKEY: Your three minutes, the buzzer just went off. BROWN: Okay. Well, I'm almost done. I want to talk about the town environmental plan which was passed by the voters. MAYOR DICKEY: Your time is up, sir. I'm sorry. BROWN: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. BROWN: All right. Thank you for your time. WOLBORSKY: I am Barry Wolborsky still. I haven't changed. I still live here. I'm going to talk about a couple of different things today. And first I'd like to say that I thinkJustin Weldy deserves a raise. Okay? He's great. Now, I'm going to attack him. In terms of the presentation, I want to talk about the area on Bainbridge and Golden Eagle. I disagree that it wasn't -- it was natural three years ago. It's certainly not natural anymore today. Oh, I'm sorry. And it's a terrible eyesore. It's right at the northeast corner there. And worse than storing the materials there, they're now staging heavy, dirty, big, ugly, heavy Page 32 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES equipment there. That area gets a lot of traffic up Golden Eagle. It's a terrible eyesore. It's right across the street from two churches and a preschool. There's a lot of traffic on the sidewalk across the street from it. I understand that there's limited place to store things and equipment, that's fine. I think the town is saving so much money on all of this fill, why not spend a little to put a fence up there, to put some landscaping in, and make it not an eyesore anymore? You can still use it for whatever you want to use it for. But let's make it not awful. And if you've never been up there, take a drive up just past Golden Eagle Park and take a look at it. It's pretty awful. The other item I wanted to talk to is about the flagpole at Golden Eagle Park. This is our award -winning park. This is our premier park in the area. We just spent $300,000 putting in brand-new parking lots that are -- and we were just out there today. The one that's done is beautiful. My wife and I frequently walk in that park and last February the flagpole came down in the storm. We used to enjoy seeing the flag flying there. It reminded us of what this community is. It was nice. And it's right out past Field 3, and so when all the baseball events come, they can look up and see the flag flying on top of the flagpole. That flagpole's been down for six months. I want to ask this council, and I want to ask the staff, why? What's it take to put a flagpole back up so the flag can fly again over our park? That's all I got. MENDENHALL: Okay. Next we have Glen Wollenberg. And then on deck is Mathew Corrigan. Glen also sent in a video that I emailed to each one of you. You may not have had an opportunity to look at it yet. WOLLENBERG: Thank you, everybody, for allowing us this opportunity to address the group. My wife and I moved here only 11 months ago. And both of our daughters live in Scottsdale area, that's why we moved here from a suburb of Chicago. We ended up moving in a beautiful home on Cholla. And the views, we had one and a half acres back in Illinois. We have one and a half acres here, in this community. We Page 33 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES look out over these beautiful mountains, but when we go back to the end of our swimming pool, unfortunately, we look at a rock pile. And I hope you guys have viewed the video that I put out there. If you haven't, can you do it at some point tonight or tomorrow? Because I think it speaks volumes about what we're up against with the Seguaro rockpile. Back in Illinois we don't call them rockpiles, we call them dumps. And basically, that's what this thing is. I mean, it's got huge boulders, smaller boulders, but at the end of the day, it's got black top just sitting there; these millings that sit there. So when you look off our property there is a section that must be 70 yards long of rockpile that is anywhere from three to seven feet high. And I can tell you, we did not move into that area to look at those things. It doesn't seem right to me that they can take a residential area, that was approved as a park, and just dump materials there to save money for the village. There's got to be other opportunities, other places in industrial areas to put those rocks and that equipment. So thank you for hearing me out. I appreciate it. And I hope you review the video. CORRIGAN: Madam Mayor, councilmembers. I'm Mathew Corrigan, home owner and resident of Fountain Hills. Homelessness. That term, homelessness, is best identified in an article from Epoch Times dated 6/21/23 by Wesley 1. Smith, entitled, "What the Homeless Owe Us". I quote the following: "The homelessness crisis has many individual causes: untreated mental illness, drug addiction, domestic violence, hard economic times. But bad public policies, particularly a misguided approach to helping the homeless known as 'Housing First,' must take a large share of the blame. "Housing First has a nice -sounding name". After all, who and what do people need most? A roof over their heads. That's the foremost thing. "Alas, Housing First should be renamed Housing Only as it was designed in a way that almost guarantees to make the crisis worse instead of better". "Housing First requires nothing in return from the people who are being helped. Worse, thanks to federal rule changes by President Barack Obama in 2013, any homelessness Page 34 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES assistance program that receives federal money can only apply the Housing First formula that forbids requiring any conditions in return for housing assistance. Recipients of such aid, for example, cannot be required to attend drug counseling and rehabilitation programs, look for work, or even take their mental health medicines as directed by a doctor. "Supporters of Housing First promised that the program would solve homelessness by 2023. In other words, right now." But obviously, it failed. Supporters of Housing First promised this, and then according to a story in the Los Angeles Times last year, revealed that L.A. showed each housing unit -- homeless housing units to cost $870,000 apiece for a one -bedroom apartment. That's not a solution. End quote. In his Heritage Foundation Report, dated August 4th, 2020, Chris Ruffo, who has studied homelessness for over 20 years of research, concludes his report with three major takeaways: policymakers must rethink the federal government's housing policy first; treatment first programs address the substance abuse and mental health behind much of homelessness and provide the most effective pathway to self-sufficiency. Three, policymakers should redirect housing funds to programs with proven records helping the homeless to overcome addiction, finding employment, and achieve independence. In conclusion, I would say and urge you leaders of Fountain Hills to abandon the housing first policy and go for the cure; help these people and vote for 2313. Thank you. MENDENHALL: And next we have Christopher Enos. ENOS: Hey, folks. I'm Chris Enos and thank you for coming close to the pronunciation. I, first of all, want to thank each and every council person up here. I did a similar job a long time ago. It's a thankless job. You try. You're not being paid big bucks, and I really appreciate everything you do up here. You are the policymakers for the town. And basically, what -- my ears perked up when I heard contract, because I'm a lawyer. And you got another lawyer over here. And contracts are very important. They require enforcement abilities, give and take. Page 35 of 913 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES In this case, the town has a contract apparently that didn't work out so well. I respectfully submit, and I don't know how this is undertaken so far, but if it's been going on since January, it's been too long. The policyma kers should not be the ones who are negotiating the contract, with all due respect. And I've done this before. And what you need are attorneys who are also negotiators. You also want some expertise in police work to determine whether or not calls for service are being adequately addressed, response time, and so forth. And you want, from a contract approach, rights of recourse in the event of nonperformance. I'm unaware completely of how much of that's been done so far. I would hope though, that you don't run, as it has been suggested, up until the llth hour and then are presented a document and then say, well, this was the best you could do. I would hope that your attorney, I'm sure you've been involved in this contract, correct? ARNSON: Yeah. ENOS: Okay. Good. I would hope that you listen to him and that he incorporates the safeguards that will address the apparent deficiencies that occurred before. And that, basically, you can then as policyma kers, decide whether or not it's in the best interests of the town to approve or disapprove of this contract. If it's not there, if the safeguards aren't there, this is too much money involved and you've got to remember one thing. The first duty of any town, as any government, is to protect its citizens. If you have to start investigating other ways, if working with the sheriff is a one-way street, it's not helping you, then you might investigate other and further means to further enforce your local ordinances that some of what you're considering tonight. We had a noise ordinance a while back and the sheriff just didn't want to enforce it. So those all should be on the table and you should have the ability to interact in that contract that your very able town attorney's going to negotiate for you. So that you have that ability to retain a good amount of local control. Don't try to do the job yourself, just judge the contract. MENDENHALL: That's it for public comment. Page 36 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you very much. Our next item is our consent agenda. Could I get a motion, please? MCMAHON: I move to approve the consent agenda. GRZYBOWSKI: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. All in favor? I mean, roll call, please. Sorry. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. Yes? TOTH: Madam Mayor, thank you. Just very quickly because I was personally named in the call to the public, I have like a 20 second shpiel. I am a fierce supporter of the constitution. Every single American was granted those rights by God, not by the government, and I do not take my commitment to those ideals lightly. I will not ever again address or entertain accusations that imply I believe otherwise about any people group. Page 37 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES However, whatever your interpretation of any of my statements on nuanced issues may be, I'm not personally aware of any time that Councilmember Friedel has commented on that issue whatsoever. So I'd like for it to be very clear that the inclusion of his name was very clearly politically motivated. I am disappointed by your comments. It is very clear whenever I speak on any issue what my nuanced opinion might be, I will not entertain accusations that there's hate in my heart toward anyone. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. When people address council, council is allowed to respond. So that's why she did that. Thank you. Okay. We have our first regular agenda item, which is a possible consideration of a pedestrian in roadway ordinance. Is that you, Aaron? ARNSON: I'm guessing so. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. GOODWIN: Mayor and council, before you tonight are a series of ordinances. The first of which is ordinance 2023-11. It's nicknamed pedestrians in the roadway. My summary is in the council report. We've discussed this in a privileged setting. The sum and substance of the ordinance is that it would amend the code to prohibit individuals from standing or stopping in the roadway, medians, or areas adjacent to roadways where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or greater, subject to limited exceptions. Those are generally defined to be emergencies, roadwork, landscaping work that happens on the side of roads, et cetera. This type of an ordinance was requested at the council's June 20th meeting. And so it's here for your consideration, discussion, and possible action this evening. I, and staff, are happy to entertain any questions. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Ever since we redid our booklet we take comments from the audience first. MENDENHALL: In your packet you have several written comments. The first one is from Page 38 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Jennifer Brown and she is for this ordinance. Rory Wilson is against the ordinance. Liz Gildersleeve is for the ordinance. Patrick Green is against the ordinance. And some of them made their comments so you'll want to read those. And then, in person we have two people who would like to speak. Mathew Corrigan and on deck is Kim Wolborsky. CORRIGAN: Good evening, again, Madam Mayor, councilmembers. Mathew Corrigan, Fountain Hills. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -- by the way, I support 23-11. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report said in 2021 7 388 pedestrians were killed nationally. Representing a 13 percent increase over 2020. Not only that, but there were a total of 60,000 injuries involving pedestrians nationally. I observed jaywalking alone has increased noticeably in the last few years and this is now confirmed by these government agency's statistics. Admit it, you probably have seen it too. Pedestrians cross against the traffic and pedestrian lights. It seems almost like a form of rebellion of some sort or a contest. Rather than using the crosswalk, they jog randomly across heavily trafficked areas, five or ten feet from the crosswalk. I don't know if it's a new foolishly devised game where points go to the most extremely dangerous new maneuver in a street dance, or if drugs, alcohol, mental illness come into play. But the game is deadly serious. And I do mean deadly. Whatever the case, safety must be the concern for the city. Other cities and towns have already proactively responded, passing ordinances to keep pedestrians and drivers safe. Glendale, in October of last year, passed an ordinance. Tempe passed an ordinance, 02016.21. prohibiting standing, laying, sitting in walkways, sidewalks, crosswalks, et cetera. These are the norm for cities concerned about safety. And that's the issue, safety. So for those who are violating that norm, we need ordinances. It's plain and simple. We have a problem. It's a national problem. It's a local problem. So again, I support 23.11. It's good law. It's a great ordinance. And please vote for it. Thank you. Page 39 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES WOLBORSKY: Madam Mayor, and our new vice mayor, congratulations. And the council. Thank you. I'd like to just start by coming up and saying thank you. I brought my Kleenex in case I started to cry again about this. Thank you. I want to thank the staff for getting these ordinances together and I want to thank the council for putting this on the first meeting of the season. I really appreciate it because I think this is a big potential issue for our town. And as some of you know, my husband and I moved here from the Seattle area almost four years ago. And thanks for having this beautiful town for us to come to. We love it. I lived in the suburbs and I worked in downtown Seattle and I took the bus part of the time but I had to drive to work part of the time. And I'm sure you've seen videos of Seattle. There are people living on the sides of the roads, pretty much everywhere. And when you stopped your car sometimes people come out and walk on the street. And it's very dangerous and sometimes people are walking on the street and the entrance to the freeways and other places and it's very scary because you don't know when someone is going to come and there's just a concern, am I going to run over someone? You know? Is this person on drugs? Is this person mentally unstable? Am I in danger? But I think the biggest safety concern is am I going to hurt someone? And no one wants that. No one. And I really didn't want it. So I'm very excited about this ordinance and the others. 5o thank you. And I am a resident of Fountain Hills. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you very much. Okay. So I think that's it for the cards. So council? Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to very quickly thank staff for putting this together. I mean, you took the intent of this and literally put it on the paper. And I really thank, and I'm not sure who drafted it, or the team, but it was great. And I also want to thank how prompt this was. I mean, the first meeting back from break, it was on the agenda. I really appreciate that and that really means something to me that this was taken seriously. Because we talked Page 40 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES about this — I was in Alaska, in Dead Horse, Alaska. And we had talked about this on Zoom and all of a sudden, next meeting, it's on our agenda. So I very much appreciate that. I say thank you very much. And really the only point that I wanted to say was that there's a whole bunch of roads in this town that are 35 miles per hour and they're marked "safety zone". They have the big sign, safety zone. It just seems common sense that people are not straying across the road there, on the median, in these safety zones and other 35 mile an hour and above roads. So I thank you very much again. And I encourage everyone to be an eye on this. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? TOTH: Thank you, Mayor. As we know from our last meeting, which feels like a year ago, but it wasn't. I promise. This was an issue that is very forefront in my mind. It's something that I brought up the last time that I discussed a similar topic. Having people going into the roadway, it is a safety issue. It's a safety issue for the driver. We don't know if that person is at risk of hurting themselves or others. I just, again, would like to echo the comments of Councilmember Skillicorn to thank staff for working on this very diligently and I look forward to passing it, hopefully. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice mayor? GRZVBOWSKI: Do we have local accident and traffic data related to this particular issue? GOODWIN: Vice mayor, we did -- actually, we pulled a number of traffic data -- a bit of traffic data. Obviously, we're a small town. It is not necessarily a high volume, but we did identify -- with Justin's help we were able to look at that and identify that the two primary intersections in our town that see the highest -- not surprisingly, both the highest volume of traffic, as well as relationally, the highest incident rate are Shea and Palisades and Shea and Saguaro. So those are our two highest intersections-- or two highest incident intersections in town, when you look at the data. ARNSON: Are those -- sorry. GOODWIN: It's okay. Page 41 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES ARNSON: I was just going to follow up with a question. Those are either 35 mile an hour or higher streets, right? GOODWIN: Correct. Okay. GRZYBOWSKI: My follow-up concern is, I think I read it in the staff report that the MCSO hasn't received word from their legal counsel regarding the enforcement of the proposed ordinance. Have we heard from them to know how we're going to make this happen? MAYOR DICKEY: I don't think so. ARNSON: We have not. I don't know if Larry's heard anything otherwise. KRATZER: No update yet. ARNSON: No update. GRZYBOWSKI: No update. I kind of have a problem putting something into place that we don't have a way to be able to enforce it. I also wanted to talk about -- now, the traffic data that you mentioned was specifically Shea and Palisades and Shea and Saguaro. Mentioned was speed limits of 35-plus. We don't have enough crosswalks in town. So jaywalking happens way more often than not, and there have been two council people that I know of, on the dais right now, that have admitted that they have crossed -- that they have jaywalked. Because we just don't have enough crosswalks. And to say that there's one five feet away in most areas of our town is inaccurate. That's why we put the new one in last year or was it the year before? GOODWIN: It's been (indiscernible). GRZYBOWSKI: Colony Drive-ish? Tower Drive? Somewhere over there. GOODWIN: (Indiscernible). GRZYBOWSKI: And that closest crosswalk was over a half a mile, if I remember correctly. So I'm kind of having a problem with that. And that's all I have to say right now. I've got notes for later if we go further. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? FRIEDEL: Aaron, is this our ordinance or is it MCSO's ordinance? Why do we need to get their permission to have an ordinance in our town? If we have an ordinance, aren't they Page 42 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES supposed to enforce it? ARNSON: Mayor, and councilmember, this is our ordinance. We're contracted with MC50 to enforce our ordinances. But this is the town's ordinance. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman Toth? FRIEDEL: Thank you. TOTH: Aaron, correct me if I'm wrong. But the ordinance appears to say that this is regarding stopping or remaining in any portion of the roadway, not necessarily increasing enforcement on jaywalking? ARNSON: Mayor, and councilmember, the text of the proposed amendment says that it will be -- if passed, it would be unlawful for any pedestrian to stop or remain in the portion of any roadway designed for vehicular use, et cetera, et cetera. Does that answer the question? TOTH: It does. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? MCMAHON: I have a couple of issues. A difficult time looking at this as basically content neutral, and not having a consideration for panhandlers involved in this without actually saying so. Last June, when we sat here at council and talked about it, the conversations about the medians, panhandling, and homeless issue all came under the guise of a homeless. It didn't start with safety. And that's on public record. So I have a difficulty separating this out from not trying to stop panhandlers from being in medians as part of this, versus wholly, 100 percent for safety purposes. I also haven't seen any of the traffic studies from the town or from MSCO (sic) supporting something like this ordinance would be in order. And the particular proposed ordinance specifically states that the council has studied the issue, considered traffic and accident data, and determined that prohibiting stopping and remaining, et cetera. Well, we haven't done that. I think this is indirectly targeting panhandlers. I think we have to be very, very careful about that because they are a vulnerable, protected class and we have to make all of Page 43 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES our ordinances that directly or indirectly affect them constitutional. And in addition, back on the last page, criminalization of somebody standing in the median is, to me, you're not really-- you're criminalizing an act that really isn't criminal contact. And I say that because it's saying that a misdemeanor in the first degree would be applicable to someone violating this particular ordinance. A misdemeanor in the first degree is a pretty hefty misdemeanor, $2,500 fine, up to six months in jail, et cetera. So given the conduct and the act, I just have to ask is this excessive fines or excessive in light of what conduct we're talking about? Because I think that under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution this type of punishment for the act is cruel and unusual punishment and will not pass the muster constitutionally. And in addition, prior council we took a -- it's my understanding, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Aaron. We took a look at the statutes and the penalties for things that are civil in nature, they're not criminal in nature. And so therefore this is already in violation of what we have already decided in our town for civil penalties versus criminal penalties. Did I misstate that or I didn't say it correctly or whatever? So on its face and along with what Sharryn said, I would like to move that we discuss this further, that we take time to look and analyze the traffic data. I'm not questioning what you're saying, but I would like to see it because I don't want to put anything that is questionable or perhaps might be unconstitutional in any way, especially about punishing people for a simple act of standing in the median. ARNSON: So mayor and councilmember, with respect to the last point about penalties. I think it was about a year and a half or two ago that council took action to modify the penalty scheme in our code. To have the default, unless otherwise stated be civil penalties for violations instead of criminal penalties, for the simple reason that it's extremely difficult for staff to try to consistently try to enforce criminal laws, which involve a whole different set of due process standards. Much easier to cite people civilly. So if there's a desire to look at that provision of it, I think staff would certainly be open to it. 1 have -- not looking at anyone in particular, but I haven't heard any objection one Page 44 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES way or another to that. You can deviate from the civil scheme if you want to, in a particular ordinance. But if we wanted to call this for a first offense it's a civil penalty and follow our standard format, we can do that. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah, when I saw these three items on the agenda tonight, I thought that this one might be fairly simple. It seems like we're -- this should be called the codifying common-sense ordinance, okay? This is a no-brainer. The U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration points out that pedestrian crashes account for 17 percent of all traffic -- you know. ARNSON: Fatalities. KALIVIANAKIS: Fatalities. And 74 percent of these occur at non -intersection locations. It's important to note that our ordinance does not single out any group but is for the general safety of all the Fountain Hills' pedestrians. Our language that staff wrote says, and I quote, "Safety concerns inherent with the individual stopping". Not the homeless people. Not the panhandlers. Individuals. That means everybody. There's no Eighth Amendment. There's no singling people out here. And there's certainly not cruel and unusual punishment. It's just, we're looking out for people. That's what we should be doing, looking out for the folks. Particularly, in high -traffic, high -volume streets and thoroughfares. That's the language. It does not single out homeless. It does not single out panhandlers. This ordinance is akin to a warning label, okay? It is to protect by providing direction about potential risks associated with loitering or walking in nondesignated walking paths. Also this ordinance can make a significant difference in determining whether Fountain Hills can be held liable for injuries caused by foreseeable accidents that will undoubtedly occur by violators. You may ask at this point, aren't people smart enough to know where to walk safely? Well, yes but maybe, no. Because if you look at some of the Page 45 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES warning labels that we put on our products, I note on the chainsaw label, "Do not hold the wrong end of the chainsaw". On a snowmobile label, it says, "Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level". There was a label on an iron that says, "Do not iron while wearing shirt". There's a warning on cans of pepper spray. "This item might irritate eyes". And so, I think, all we're doing here is codifying something that is common sense and I would certainly be in favor of supporting this ordinance. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I'm very enthusiastic about keep people safe and protecting our town. So I'd like to make a motion to approve this as drafted. TOTH: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: I have some comments, please. The idea of this -- I know we all had legal advice on the ups and downs of this. If we were to look at it as strictly for safety, I would rather see it narrowed a bit. First of all, the civil penalty part of it, I'd rather that's not in it, right? Even though you said that's default. But the way it's written right now it wouldn't be the default. So I don't know if people would be amenable to that. ARNSON: Could I clarify -- MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, please. ARNSON: -- my statement on that, mayor? So the reason that we have the reference to section 182, which is the criminal and civil traffic penalty provisions of our code. That's what we're referencing that to. If we wanted to switch that in reference to the civil penalty provision of the code, section 183, we could do that. So I should probably -- I needed to clarify a little bit. MAYOR DICKEY: That's one of the things, obviously, that I think would be helpful. As far as the intersections in areas with crash data, Shea and Palisade, Shea and Saguaro, I think when we looked at the turning -- looking at the turning lane at Fountain Page 46 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Hills Boulevard and Palisades, we talked about that being particularly active intersection. So I don't like the whole 35 mile an hour general like that, because I think we should concentrate on where we've seen evidence of this being more of a problem; of people being in areas where it's more dangerous. Getting back to the common-sense thing, and I know I've talked Aaron about this because I think that when we put the sign safety corridor up, we have done things in the past without warrants and such. So I think we made some decisions on safety based on common sense. So when it comes to Shea and Saguaro, even a sign spinner in a median, I don't think that would -- I think it's a distraction. Carwash, so there's a light. The light could be saying turn left, turn right, go straight. There's somebody standing there, there's a crosswalk. I think that is worth discussing that that is a distraction as well. I don't know if it -- I would never want it to be a criminal distraction, but I think that it is logical that having somebody in a intersection like that is potentially something that creates a situation that indeed has to do with safety. And one other thing that I thought about a little bit, was when you do cross an intersection that has a median, and it has a crosswalk -- a light, sorry. It will tell you -- it gives you enough time to get from one side to the other. Not to stop in the middle at the median. So I think, that's a little bit of a intuitive message that they think it's not safe to stop in the middle. So I've said this before, I do have a problem because the agenda item is on homelessness. And we are to make this about safety for everyone. I don't know how you make that leap. And I think it's probably risky, but some of these more narrow effects would be something I would ask you to discuss and look at. Perhaps get brought back to us without the criminal -- perhaps not every street that's 35 miles an hour. But where we know we've seen issues of safety, where there's a lot of activity. And again, I think on this level there are legitimate safety concerns that we can talk about. But if you don't agree with anything, except the criminal part of that -- well, I won't be able to accept this as is. So if you're willing to change it at all for any of the things that I Page 47 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES said -- Councilman, you have something to say? MCMAHON: Yes. I don't know if I made a motion earlier to move this off and for further discussion. But maybe I didn't. But again, I can't approve it. I can't agree with this. Because it stipulates that we have studied and seen safety issues on this and we haven't. So again, I think it's premature given how this is written and also for cruel and unusual punishment. We're criminalizing and act of standing in the median. And if you think about that, if it were you standing in the median for whatever reason, and you went beyond a certain time or whatever, and all of a sudden, you're criminally charged with standing there. I mean to me it's just -- it doesn't match. It's not criminal conduct. And for those reasons, the reasons stated by the mayor, I would really appreciate it if we would take some more time to have the sheriffs department, to have our staff, study traffic issues, et cetera, and come back based on safety concerns versus indirectly using this to eliminate panhandling or other excessive conduct. So I would appreciate more time on this before we create this particular ordinance. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: We do have a motion and a second on the table. Would anybody like to have any further discussion? Yes. GRZYBOWSKI: If I could just say that if we removed the criminal, I think -- not remove a criminal, but the criminal section, I think that I could see standing behind it. Another part of my concern is this subject was brought up when we started discussion on homeless. Homeless was mentioned in one of, I believe, the written call to publics. And jaywalking was mentioned, which is why I brought it up and brought up the lack of crosswalks that we have in our town. So we do need to, in my layperson's eyes, make a distinction that this is not about homelessness. This is not about jaywalking. That this is a 100 percent about safety. And again, if we could remove the criminal and go from the one town code to the other town code that our counselor mentioned over there; then I could see approving it. Page 48 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Any further discussion? We have a motion and a second on the table. Could we get a roll call vote, please? MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Motion to table? FRIEDEL: No. This is-- GRZYBOWSKI: Approve as written. MAYOR DICKEY: Approve as written. KALIVIANAKIS: Oh. 1 thought this was a motion to table? FRIEDEL: Na. TOTH: No. This is Allen's -- FRIEDEL: This is Allen's motion and seconded by you, correct? KALIVIANAKIS: Oh, I thought the motion is to table? [CROSS TALK] FRIEDEL: No. There wasn't a motion. TOTH: And l seconded. KALIVIANAKIS: Then it's easy. Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, permission to explain my vote? I just want to make a point that as the person that asked for this, as the person who initially made a motion for it, the record should reflect this is about public safety. This is about keeping people safe, motorists safe, pedestrians safe. It has nothing to do with any class of people or any individuals. It's about keeping people safe. And my vote is aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?: TOTH: Aye. Page 49 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: No. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. We can move onto the next one, which is the prohibited solicitation. Aaron? ARNSON: Round two. Mayor, members, and council. As the mayor stated this is agenda item 9-B. Ordinance 23-12, prohibited solicitation. At the June 20th council meeting, the town council discussed a variety of options to alleviate the negative effects of homelessness both for unsheltered individuals living on the streets and for business owners and residents nearby. The council is well aware and can appreciate that this is an issue that faces jurisdictions not only county -wide, but state-wide, nation-wide. We are not alone in the issues that we deal with with respect to unsheltered persons living on the street. At that June 20th meeting, the council directed staff to bring for council consideration and adoption, an ordinance that is identical to the ordinance recently approved by the City of Glendale in October 2022. The ordinance that we brought forward in connection with that council direction is identical except that it replaces the word "city" with "town" and "Glendale" with "Fountain Hills". It is here for the council's consideration, as with the last agenda item. We've discussed this in a privileged setting as to the possible benefits and concerns of the ordinance. We're ready for the council's direction as to how to proceed. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. First, we have written comments that are in your packet. Jennifer Brown is for this ordinance. Rory Wilson is against the ordinance. Liz Gildersleeve is for the ordinance. Page 50 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES And Patrick Green is against the ordinance. And Patrick wrote some notes on here. So read those. And then we have one person in person who would like to speak on this issue and it's Mathew Corrigan. CORRIGAN: Hello, again, Madam Mayor, councilmembers. I know you're tired of me but here I am. I applaud the courage and direction the council majority has taken to protect the residents and visitors of Fountain Hills from aggressive panhandling and soliciting. Since October 12th, 2022, the City of Glendale has shown the correct path to protect the community from aggressive panhandling by passing a similar ordinance. Thank you for taking action on this public nuisance. Until this year, the city has taken an apology position for eliciting and soliciting by defending the beggar -aggressor as victims of homelessness and reminding the residents and visitors with signs asking the law-abiding citizens to be the enforcement arm against the aggressor by reminding them it's okay to say no to panhandlers. Give instead to organizations that help those in need. Great idea. That's not the way to take care of the problem. Panhandlers use the sign as shade in the afternoon sun. Thank goodness we have a new majority with the courage to lead and create reasonable ordinances to protect residents and visitors and allow law enforcement to enforce the law to protect the citizens instead of the aggressors. But let safety be the first concern. Protecting all, both the law-abiding and the aggressor -offender. Please do the right thing and vote, yes, on ordinance 23-12. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Discussion, please. Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. So again, thank you staff for drafting this and getting it out to us. And sometimes I like to go right to the ordinance and read what's there. The details there really matter. And really go to the intent about this. Page 51 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So the public commented a couple of things and maybe that isn't quite correct what the intent really is. So let's go right to the ordinance here. And it talks about aggressive solicitation. It talks about the loss of access or enjoyment to our public places. It also talks about the sense of fear and intimidation. Those are all items that, as a council, we have to really protect the people of our town and we have to protect the visitor of our town. And that's why we're really here. And I'm going to go on. And so it specifically says, sometimes individuals will solicit money near banks, near automatic teller machines, near places where other people are going to be confined environments. That's where some of the solicitation takes place. And literally, the ordinance says right there, and in the ordinance it says, it is our desire to protect the citizens from fear and intimidation. That's exactly what we're doing here. This has nothing to do with a protected class. It has nothing to do with homelessness. It has nothing to do with panhandling. It's about protecting our town, and we want to protect the people and the residents and the people visiting us from fear and intimidation, from aggressive solicitations. So I'm going to urge an aye vote on this. MCMAHON: Aaron, in your memos to us you strongly suggested this not be passed, because it's literally certain to fail. The Glendale statute is really still very broad and sweeping. And that is, it's not nearly tailored as required under the Constitution. And I understand that the ACLU has sent a letter to Glendale suggesting that they change the statute -- I mean, actually eliminate the statute. Because they are contemplating filing a lawsuit, not only against Glendale but possibly other towns and cities that might enact such a broad and sweeping statute. And as for being aggressive, that's also pretty suggestive and an assumption of assumed conduct by somebody that's merely being in a particular place and time. And I think that could be challenged as well. Because what the court does look at is, they look at this as freedom of speech under the First Amendment being paramount. Because, oftentimes, panhandlers either voice or have a sign and therefore, and in other cases that I've read and looked at, that the courts have weighed in favor of First Amendment Page 52 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES rights versus banning somebody standing -- banning something like this. And I know I'm not explaining this very well, and I'm sorry. But I think that this -- I don't think this is going to stand up to the Constitution. I really think that the ACLU is really, really closely looking at cities and towns and what they're doing and that they will probably file suit. And again, I'm going to look at the Eighth Amendment for cruel and unusual punishment. It's a petty offense. It's not a misdemeanor in the first degree offense. And I think other statutes -- or the other statute I think we talked about, I wasn't sure if 113.219 is in force or not. ARNSON: Yes. MCMAHON: Did you look at that? ARNSON: It is. MCMAHON: And it's a violation of this section is a petty offense. And that has to do with aggressive. So I think, once again, here we are we're criminalizing an act that given the act, that the criminal penalty is excessive and I think the fine is excessive. And once again, we have civil penalty on our books. So I completely disagree with this. I think that it's too broad and unconstitutional, and therefore I am absolutely not for it. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? Vice mayor? GRZYBOWSKI: No? Okay. Just make sure that Aaron didn't want to speak. I don't see Director Wesley here. Oh, I'm sorry. You are back there. This is probably a question for you. When we have a peddler or a solicitor that comes to town hall to get a license, tell me about that. Do they have to fill it out and tell you what it -- or this is a Pock thing? I'm sorry. It was nice to see you, though. Is -- SKILLICORN: Is he hiding out? GRZYBOWSKI: He was hiding in the back. How is the form filled out? Because panhandling, which is a form of soliciting; so how do we handle a peddler or a solicitor that comes to us? Does the form ask what their intentions are? What blocks they'll be going on? That kind of thing? POCK: I do not believe it makes them specify which blocks. It just means that they're Page 53 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES going to be approaching houses in residential districts and that sort of thing. It is an application. We do require background checks for peddler's licenses. There's a $250 application fee for that. So it's not something that just anybody would come in and retrieve. GRZYBOWSKI: And that's kind of and that's kind of where I'm going with this conversation. If you look up the definition of panhandling, it tells you it is a form of solicitation. So is there any way that we can treat it as solicitation? I realize that the intent is different but if we treat it as solicitation, which runs a background check and charges a fee, automatically if I'm aggressively approached by someone, I'm calling my friend Larry. I just kind of feel like with -- what was it? Read v. The Town of Gilbert and the issues that I've read there, yes, protect; safety of people is important. But trying to protect the town from litigation is also kind of important here. So where do you think about requesting a solicitation license or whatever it's called. ARNSON: A couple of thoughts come to mind. And again, not having had but just now to think about it and the conversations that I've previously had with at least one other councilmember today. 1 think that the way that we could -- so first of all, if that's the direction of council for us to evaluate can we require of all solicitors, right? Solicitations for donations or charitable donations to obtain -- what did you say, a permit or a license or something like that? Certainly that's something we would explore. I think there are probably a couple -- there's at least one potential legal issue, is are we still carving out a certain category of speech, right? Solicitation on the whole from the rest of speech. But then practically, even if we're not running into that legal issue, Rachael and I were talking about something earlier today. That you then start to get into the issue of if we really want to regulate all solicitation in town, that means we really are going to regulate all solicitation in town. I mean, if the panhandling has to fall under solicitation, then the bellringing at Christmastime has to fall under solicitation. And I don't know if the Girl Scouts have to fall under solicitation or -- I don't know. So I'm worried about how far that expands if we get into that category where we make it all inclusive. Page 54 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Those are my initial impressions. And I would certainly want to look at it further if that's the direction that council wants us to go. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. ARNSON: Sorry. Was that more than -- GRZYBOWSKI: Such a lawyer answer. I'm sorry. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. There is one point that I did want to follow up on that was brought up about the First Amendment and, again, let's go right back to the text of the ordinance. "Town council does not intend to limit a person from exercising constitutional right", on here. It's right in the text that's covered. And our intent is not to take away First Amendment rights, we want to protect them. Again, we're just trying to protect people from fear and intimidation. And I don't know -- I would like to motion to approve it as drafted. TOTH: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. MCMAHON: You can't put -- it's not going to work. People have fundamental rights to the First Amendment, to free speech. And just because you put a sentence in a particular ordinance, it doesn't wipe out that person's rights. And you've seen this time and time again in cases. And especially, you see it in panhandling. They have a fundamental First Amendment right to free speech, which even includes if they're panhandling. We can't make it unconstitutional and we can't criminalize it. And again, I'm going to ask, Aaron, in your memos you strongly suggest that we not -- ARNSON: I'm sorry. I have to put-- I have to stop. MCMAHON: Okay. ARNSON: I have to stop. I can't recommend that we, absent the direction of the entire council, that we disclose contents of attorney/client privilege communications. I'm sorry. MCMAHON: I'm sorry. I didn't intend to -- Page 55 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Well, that -- it's up to the client to decide if they want to. ARNSON: It's up to the council to decide whether to waive attorney/client privilege. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. ARNSON: The council collectively, is the client. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Councilwoman Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah. This is kind of a tough one, kind of isn't. 23-12, the prohibited solicitation is fixable. And it's something I recommend we bring up at a future council meeting. But in its current state it's clearly unconstitutional. I think we all read the same cases, the Read v. Town of Gilbert. Unlike the previous ordinance that it just talked about individuals crossing streets and where it was very neutral as to its application. If you look at this ordinance that we're going to pass, whereas pedestrians, repeated solicitations, this is clearly designated for panhandling. All the courts have held that this kind of an ordinance -- and people have tried it for years and they used to accept this and this used to be okay until the Supreme Court came down and struck them all down. And now there is absolutely no chance constitutionally this thing passes muster, unfortunately. I don't want to be the bad guy, but I've got to look out for this town, that's my number one duty. I don't see solicitation as an issue that is compelling right now, that we have panhandlers all in our streets and we have to deal with this today. But we can deal with this a month from now and we can get it done correctly and wisely, and that's what we should do. In my research, okay, these type of cases, if we lose, and trust me the ACLU will be on this case and this will probably make the Arizona Republic, because we'll be now the third municipality to pass an onerous anti -panhandling statute. This will make news statewide, possibility national, and we just can't hide behind oh, technically this or practically that. No. We're going after panhandlers. It's very obvious to me. So we can fix it. And importantly, and in the cases that have been litigated, the plaintiff's attorneys Page 56 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES collect their attorney fees from the towns and the municipalities. So when we get sued, were paying the bill for the person suing us, who would be the plaintiff. Is that what we want to do? Knowing that we don't have a chance in court, but we're just going to risk it? And then get sued, and then what we'll probably end up doing is strike down the ordinance, drop the charges, and walk away looking foolish, like we didn't know what we were doing and we weren't aware of the law. And as a lawyer, I can't afford that. It's not right. It's in violation of my oath of office. So I think what we should do is, I would respectfully look at you, Aaron, I don't know if you'd just like us just to table or approach this at a future date; with the instructions to staff to clean it up and to make this more neutral? Like we discussed, like you discussed earlier, Sharron, and you should have been a lawyer because your analysis was very good. GRZYBOWSKI: I may quote you -- KALIVIANAKIS: We would have to -- GRZYBOWSKI: -- with that later on. KALIVIANAKIS: We would have to tighten it up to include all solicitation. Because right now we're saying link somebody out and we don't do that. And so our town staff could rewrite this so we're not targeting anybody and make it more neutral in nature. And then we could pass it and then we could do what we want to do. MAYOR DICKEY: Could I ask you not to make a motion to table, so I can have a chance to speak on this? KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. I wasn't. I just was asking him what he would think and then, Ms. Mayor, I would defer to you, what do you think. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I have one -- KALIVIANAKIS: If you understand my analysis. What you would like to do. MAYOR DICKEY: I think when I look at what this is trying to do, it's talking about aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior is never okay. Feeling threatened or touched or harassed or impeded is never okay. So take out the language about solicitations and take out the language about locations, and we have the law that already exists. I don't Page 57 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES really see why we need to do this, unless you want to look at making aggressive behavior, in general, higher fines, more penalties, or whatever. And we've seen a lot of aggressive behavior on all kinds of levels that don't have anything to do with solicitation. So if we want to look at that law, that already exists, against somebody harassing you or bothering you, then I'm all for that. But you're 100 percent right. Take solicitation out and take the locations out because otherwise, you're trying to tell someone what they can't say and that's impossible. FRIEDEL: Allen are you okay amending your motion to do that? SKILLICORN: I want to vote. MAYOR DICKEY: We have a motion and a second on the table to pass this as is. Roll call, please. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: No. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: No. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: No. MENDENHALL: It fails. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Our last item on this topic is about urban camping. Aaron? ARNSON: Mayor and council, the item before you is ordinance 2023-13, regarding Page 58 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES urban camping. Staff has prepared this ordinance with having had some extensive experience researching these and advising cities and towns on enforcing urban camping ordinances. There are a couple of finer points that I want to put on this ordinance. First, staff does recommend adoption of this ordinance. Urban camping ordinances are permissible, acceptable even on their face in courts of law. The caveat to that is that since 2018 or 2019, the Ninth Circuit has put some pretty significant constitutional limitations on urban camping ordinances. The bottom line from those cases is that a municipality can enforce them -- the municipality can enforce these ordinances but cannot do so if there's no public place or available shelter reasonably available to an unsheltered person. So in other words, to enforce it you have to first conduct an individualized assessment to see is this person in fact involuntarily homeless, does the person have somewhere to go whether by means of a public place where they can go or a shelter where they can go. In my view, speaking frankly, it's an unfortunate evolution of case law. It's an unfortunate development that cities and towns across the Ninth Circuit are universally dealing with, including the City of Phoenix. Nevertheless, that's the space that we're dealing in. So I would suggest to the council that in connection with this adopting this ordinance, if the council chooses to move forward with adoption, that we also explore ordinances for ensuring that, with our facilities in adjacent jurisdictions that we explore options for making sure that shelter space is available so that we can allow for consistent enforcement of the ordinances. 5o those are my recommendations. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. First in your packet are written comments, one from Jennifer Brown, and she is for the ordinance. One is from Rory Wilson, who is against the ordinance. One from Liz Gildersleeve, who is for the ordinance. And Patrick Green who is against, and he also writes a statement. So you'll want to read that. And then one in -person public comment from Matthew Corrigan. Page 59 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES CORRIGAN: Madam Mayor, Councilmembers, hello again. Urban camping has become a national problem and appears to be increasing. Cities and towns across the country are taking proactive action using ordinances to protect property owners and residents from this new blatant scourge to, especially, our desirable community and neighborhood. We've seen the dangers of allowing urban camping to be supported and sustained by a city, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and numerous other American cities have become havens for crime, addiction, lawlessness, disease, and filth. In short, city created slums. The zone in Phoenix was a prime example of this with 2,000 vagrant residents living in deplorable conditions until a judge wisely ordered the city to vacate and shut down the area and award all the area businesses or most of them, and residents, some of them, with financial compensation for damages and reparations. I support ordinance 23-13, because it wisely protects the integrity of Fountain Hills as a highly desirable town, attracting new home owners, businesses, and visitors. We hear a lot of talk about keeping Fountain Hills attractive, desirable, beautiful; we want to protect what we love. It's a natural instinct. We want to protect it; we want to defend it. This is one way we can do that, and yes, the Ninth Circuit has had an impact across the west where they make these decisions. Not good decisions. The ACLU, in my opinion, makes lousy decisions and files lawsuits against just about everybody. But that's the way it is. There are avenues, as I understand it from my limited research, for cities to work around those by offering alternate venues for those impacted by the need, supposedly, for urban camping. And that would include offering an alternative -- not in Fountain Hills, where we have no such development but other cities. And I don't know how you, as leaders, are going to handle that or compensate it. But referrals are one way. We have close by towns that offer Christian communities that their whole calling is to help solve these problems by helping those people solve their own problems. And through faith or other means, you know, and I'm talking about non-Christian groups, those community efforts are successful. And again, just to repeat myself, the Page 60 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES other alternative is almost never successful. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Again, thank you staff for putting this together. A couple of things that I just want to point out is, just the other day I was at the Maricopa government center, I happened to drop by the recorder's office there. And if you're not familiar with what's going on there, we've got the sheriffs building there, we have the recorder, we have got the clerk, we have a big complex of buildings. And just two block west of that complex we have hundreds of people that are living on the right-of-way. Literally, these are not just tents. These are structures. People are like building shanties on these structures and they're living there. Now, they don't own this property. It's technically right-of-way. But think about if you own the property there. If you own that parcel, what can you do with it? You've got, maybe, a dozen people living in front of your property there. If the town or the city isn't going to act and isn't going to ask those people to leave or convince them to leave or motivate them to leave, you have a property that's worth zero. You cannot develop it, you can't do anything with it, and it's a shame. And I don't want that to happen here in Fountain Hills. Now, there is a bit of irony, is that if someone would put a political sign, code enforcement will come and pick that sign up right away. Literally, there's people that are watching this video right now, who will call or email code enforcement within seconds of seeing a political sign up. Yet, if I steal a shopping cart and I put a lewd message on that shopping cart, I can park it at any right-of-way in town, no one will stop me. No one will stop me. So ladies and gentlemen, we do need to act on that. There is a double standard here and that double standard is that we're letting certain people allow our town to become blighted. And that's something that I will not allow. And that's why I make a motion to approve this as drafted. Page 61 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Any further comments? MCMAHON: We're not talking about political signs here. We're talking about human beings and we're talking about urban camping. We just can't arrest ourselves out of the situation. Across the United States there is a homeless issue. It's bigger than all of us. This isn't a solution. Criminalizing camping is not a solution. It's making it worse. And also, any law regulating the act as sitting, sleeping, lying down, or keeping warm and dry outside on public property, must be objectively reasonable based on the totality of the circumstances as applied to all stakeholders, including persons experiencing homelessness. They're a protected class of people. So as we can't seem to be looking like, in our ordinance, we are targeting homelessness. How many homeless people do we have in town? I think through the point in time survey by MAG and I think even Capt. Kratzer mentioned, we have four or five. I personally, have not seen them camping. The one incident we had was on state regulated property and they handled the situation. We don't even have jurisdiction over that property. There's two cases, is my understanding, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Aaron. There's the Grants Pass case and there is the Martin and Idaho case before it. And coupled together they state, the government cannot criminalize indigent homeless people for sleeping outdoors on public places on the premise that they had a choice in the matter. That happens when they have no access to shelters or adequate alternative shelters in the town or cities in the jurisdiction for those people to go. And basically, the Grants Pass case found that to be tantamount to involuntarily homelessness, which is not a criminal act. For Martin the government cannot prosecute homeless people for sleeping in public if there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction, the town, than the number of available shelter places. And as a follow-up, Grant Pass found that there were more individuals within their jurisdiction than there were available shelter beds. Page 62 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So I think that urban camping, I don't think we're just talking about Boy Scouts going out to the lake to camp, et cetera. We're talking about unsheltered people sleeping and camping in our town. Which I have yet to see. Maybe other people have, I haven't seen it. And again, we're criminalizing a human act and the Grants Pass found that it was in violation of the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment for a mere act of sleeping on public property, et cetera. I think we need to find a solution first rather than criminalize people sleeping out on public property that they occasionally do here. I have spoken with one or two people today from MAG and other cities and towns and they are not criminalizing this act. They are providing shelter, and if they can't provide shelter then they are providing access to other shelters and/or they are contracting or agreeing with hotels in and out of their area that if the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department encounter somebody that happens to be unsheltered and might be sleeping on the sidewalk or whatever, then they can work together. Versus automatically criminalizing that person for sleeping on the sidewalk and putting them in jail or fining them $2,500. They help find a solution for it and they refer them out. The men's shelter out here, I know that the sheriffs department has referred them out, however, they have a strict intake. They can only intake people in the morning. Also CAS and other areas have lengthy intake processes, for two or three days. They can't immediately take that person. So therefore that person remains unsheltered and a protected class. So I would like to work with a solution versus criminalizing this and bring it back later on. I'd like to work with the town manager and the mayor to consider and think about possibility agreeing and providing some type of access to alternate shelter in our town, as Grant's Pass provides, so that this type of an ordinance, if we eventually pass it, will stand up to constitutional scrutiny. Because others have failed because they haven't done that. And this is a serious, and I'm not little of the situation. It is a serious problem. It's a human problem. It's not a criminal problem. And I would like, like Mesa and other Page 63 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES towns and even Scottsdale, to work together to provide a solution versus automatic arrest of a person for sleeping on the sidewalk. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron, can you address some of that, please? ARNSON: Yes. I think so. MAYOR DICKEY: Specifically why you feel comfortable recommending that we pass this? ARNSON: Well, and I'll note that by the way when -- there was a second, just for the record, there was a second from Councilmember Toth, at least I think there was. Is that right? MAYOR DICKEY: There was. TOTH: Yeah, there was. ARNSON: Okay. So just so that's clear for the record. The reason I'm comfortable with adopting an urban camping ordinance, is that no case has ever said that an urban camping ordinance is unconstitutional. It can be unconstitutional as applied when you fail to do the individualized assessment to say is the person here involuntarily and is shelter reasonably available to that person. If there is shelter reasonably available to that person, whether that's going to a family member's home, whether that's going to another public place to sleep, whether that's going to an actual shelter space, it is acceptable to cite and enforce under proposed 23-13. I will note that -- and the other reason that I'm more comfortable with this and I don't want to put words in Larry's mouth, I just know how it has worked in other jurisdictions that we represent. We typically start with the work with the individual approach. The idea behind these ordinances is very rarely to arrest the person in the first instance. At least with the jurisdictions I've worked with, including with MCSO and other jurisdictions, arrest is last resort, not the first resort. 5o the idea is to try to connect the person with services. And if necessary, and the person refuses to move along from the space where he or she is located, then civil citation or arrest becomes on the table. But it's more of a last resort than what you lead out with. And I think that's just typical in police work, and I'm getting a nod from Larry in the back. I'm not a police officer but Page 64 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES I've worked with them enough to know that. MAYOR DICKEY: You said civil, so is this different than the others? ARNSON: So this is civil. It's a civil penalty, punishable in accordance with our code except that criminal sanctions can apply for habitual offenders. So if you get a repeat offender coming back, we can escalate it. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. council -- vice mayor? GRZYBOWSKI: Actually you had your light on first. MAYOR DICKEY: I just have them all here, so I don't know. TOTH: Well, thank you vice mayor and therefore, Mayor. Thank you, Aaron as well. And just to also talk about those points. My understanding is we already give a not insignificant amount of money to A New Leaf; is that correct? GOODWIN: I'm really glad you asked, because part of this conversation tonight is exactly what Aaron just articulated. Is that if the ordinance passes, we need to have a shelter space or an alternate location or some sort of reasonable place that they can relocate to, otherwise the ordinance is not enforceable. That being said, we have not committed this year's budget allocation to any particular space. TOTH: Isee. GOODWIN: So the New Leaf that you just mentioned, was where we put it last year, we have not moved forward with any dedicated space for that yet. So what I was going to say, and I appreciate you bringing it up was, if this passes tonight, I will assume that that is something we'll probably need to investigate and potentially look at using that funds for that purpose. TOTH: Okay. Thank you, Rachael, for that clarification. And in that case, yes, my understanding would be that we have the certain amount of money allocated in our budget for somebody, whoever that might be. But as long as we're under the understanding that we'll be looking into that and that, again, as Aaron mentioned, it's not an automatic arrest. We're not trying to ruin lives here. We're just trying to provide the correct avenues for people to be able to help themselves and for us to be able to Page 65 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES help them. When we talk about urban camping there are safety issues there. We are well aware of a recent complaint that we all on this dais, received photos of that was very close to a school. That's not something that I take lightly and I imagine that my fellow councilmen feel the same. We don't know, that's why we pass ordinances like this. I don't know if someone is homeless. I don't know if they're just urban camping. I don't know if they're there for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, and I really don't want to fail on the end of them being there for the wrong reason. That is a very short version of a very convoluted and nuanced issue. But with that, I'm done commenting. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice mayor? GRZYBOWSKI: This probably won't be very popular, but I wanted to let you guys know that I do know of two unhomed people in town that sleep on private property with the permission of the owner. I do know of two of those. So we discussed that the question is, is shelter reasonably available? Do we have real- time data showing where beds are available and how are we going to get them there? ARNSON: So two-part answer to your two-part question, Councilmember. The first question was do we have real-time data? The answer is no. There isn't a centralized database of available shelter beds that shows you in real-time who has what available. There are a lot of reasons for that. Some of the reasons are different shelters serve different populations. There are shelters for men, shelters for women, shelters for families, shelters for domestic violence victims. All sorts of things. So it's not like they're all collaborating to say what's what we have and here's what another space has. The way that it typically works, and maybe this is where I'll ask Larry to maybe address some of your additional concerns. The way that it typically works is, you connect with a provider, either in Mesa or in Phoenix or in a neighboring jurisdiction, where the city or town has an agreement with that provider to say in exchange for X you will give us Y number of guaranteed beds. Whether it's one or more, right? And so we know that when we make that call, the person on the other end can say, yes, Page 66 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES we are aware, we are aware of the contractual agreement that we have with you, and there is a shelter space available. So for a smaller jurisdiction like ours, where you're not dealing with this on a day in and day out basis, that's how it works. You make the phone call, they answer, yeah, we've got a space available, come on down. In the larger jurisdictions, in your Phoenix and Mesas and other places, it's a much more complicated process that we don't need to get into tonight. But for our purposes, it's a matter of calling our contracted provider. That's what it would be. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. I kind of feel like it's -- putting my business hat on. I cannot guarantee you two beds as the Town of Fountain Hills because you may go for three weeks and not need them. Well, I've got these two empty beds here that I can fill. And I realize that it's a business owner, it's a completely different conversation. But to say we have guaranteed beds, I feel like that's difficult for these kinds of facilities, because it's just not fair to them that there are two empty beds and then there's two people in Mesa that could fill those beds. ARNSON: Yeah. So to respond to your question, now we're treading into an area that I know less about in terms of like how they coordinate with each other. But I do know that in some instances, at least I can recall one, where if there's not -- because in fairness, they have shelter beds available, they want to fill them. They're a shelter, they're there for that purpose. If it's full, I've known a situation where they've called a neighboring shelter and said, do you have another space available where you could accommodate this person. Or where we could transition another individual to another location. So that cooperation does exist; I don't know to what degree between any two particular providers. But that level of cooperation exists to where they can share information if it's oh, shoot, we gave away the bed that we had guaranteed to Fountain Hills or to Scottsdale or to whoever it is. That they'll come back and say, there might be one available somewhere else, let's figure it out. GRZYBOWSKI: 5o how are we going to get them there? ARNSON: Rachael? Page 67 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES GOODWIN: At this point, we've been working with MCSO. If they have a unhoused person who is willing and agrees to head to a shelter or to seek services, MCSO has worked with us to get them there. They've been willing to provide that. However, because it hasn't been often. It's not something that we're doing on a nightly basis or multiple times throughout the day or whatnot. So through MCSO's support we've been able to do it that way. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. That is good to hear and I know we've got Tarryn working with the MCSO. I don't remember what her job is. But hopefully there's somebody available 24 hours a day that can help coordinate that kind of stuff and they can work with the other facilities. I was having a conversation with somebody about homeless specifically, and they're all criminals was basically -- no, that's exactly what she said to me. And I want to remind everybody that being unhomed is not illegal. Everybody is one paycheck away from being homeless. There are horror stories just in the Phoenix valley area, especially during COVID, where people got put into the hospital and kicked out of their apartment and didn't have family to help them and they get out of the hospital and have no house. So I do firmly believe we're all one paycheck away from it happening. That being said, you can't assume they're all criminals either. You don't know who your neighbor is. If you look at the sex offender list, as of June 16th we had six total registered to the 85268 ZIP code. Four are level 2, which is moderate risk of reoffending and two are level 3, which is a high risk of another sex crime. If you look at the warrants, again as of June 16th, we had 60 people with warrants who used the Fountain Hills ZIP code as their last known address. And I'm not accusing everybody of calling these people criminals. I'm just reminding you that you don't know who your neighbor is, just like you don't know who the unhomed person is that's on the street. That being said, I truly appreciate that you came knowing how we're going to get them there and that we have the ability to send them somewhere and that this is the kind of thing that's defensible. Page 68 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES I feel like, as much as I don't want to do this, I feel like we have heard from enough people. The only thing that really turns me off is the whole remain in a sitting position. I kind of have a problem with -- so they go use the park, what is going to indicate that they're homeless? The fact that the guy brings his cart or he looks like a criminal? That, I really have a problem with, otherwise I think I can see going with this because that seems to where people want to go. Thank you. FRIEDEL: Finally. Aaron, thanks for clearing up a couple of things because I had also wanted to mention that we don't look to put people in jail on a first contact with people. We try to work with them. And I have twice now -- this is the third time, I said that we should have performance metrics tied to any donations or contributions that we make to these shelters so that we know that they're available to help the people that need help in our town. So I still think that that's something that we need to follow up on and make that part of our process as well. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: I think Allen's first. MAYOR DICKEY: Oh. Whatever you want. KALIVIANAKIS: You want to speak? SKILLICORN: There was just a couple of follow-ups that I had and one of them -- so I have personally toured and investigated a few of these shelters and there are nights that those shelters fill up, but that's not every night. So there is some availability and this is not a -- Fountain Hills is still a very moderate problem. It's not pervasive. This is not going to be a phone call we make every night. And because of the fact it doesn't fill every single night the odds are that there's going to be some availability on those nights. Now, one of the shelters that I investigated personally will pick people up. There's also another organization that will transport people to a shelter. So that's two options for transporting people. But there's something else that we can actually get into that Ninth District ruling is that Page 69 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES I've had conversations with some of the people and they flat out refuse to go to shelter. They flat out refuse. They would rather live in a certain situation that they have than go to a shelter. Well, that's not defensible. That's not something that violates that ruling. If they refuse to go to shelter, that's a completely different situation. And every single person I've asked that question to has refused. So that tells me something that it's not -- we're not imposing something that is over the top here. This is reasonable, and I don't think any business owner in Fountain Hills wants access to their business blocked by a shanty, by a tent, by people -- even if they're just in a tent hanging out, it's intimidating for customers. That right of way is designed for the public to use. It's not designed for building structures. And this is what this is about. The idea of criminalize someone sleeping on a bench is not true and it's inherently dishonest to claim that it is. This is about people manipulating the system and taking advantage of the right of way and taking it from us, the people. That's what this is about. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. ARNSON: The only thing I was going to follow up as to say, with respect to someone declining shelter when shelter space is available, I agree that doesn't run afoul of any Ninth Circuit precedent. If there is shelter space available and they decline, they're not involuntarily homeless anymore. They're voluntarily there and we do have the ability to cite pursuant to whatever ordinance we adopt. I agree. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Again, number 3, the urban camping. You know my test, is it constitutional, is it going to pass muster or not? That's my test. I know that some of what we're passing tonight, some people might think are tough ordinances and some probably don't think they're tough enough. But I would tend to be more for the tougher ordinances but they're on this side of the constitutional line. It's unfortunate that the last prohibited solicitation we didn't follow Gerry's advice and just tweak that a little bit and we could have had that one passed tonight. So that's unfortunate. But that's old business. Let's move on to urban camping. Page 70 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Unlike the previous ordinance, this does apply to individuals, okay. It does not call out or pertain specifically to panhandlers or homeless or anything. It's neutral in its origin. It's neutral in this ordinance. The Municipal Research Services Organization, MRSO, has issued a letter saying that what we're proposing tonight is constitutional. If you look at Tempe's urban camping ordinance which was passed in 1997, updated in 2018, it's still in working order. If you look at Phoenix's, even though for what it is, they do have an ordinance against urban camping and right now they're trying to address that. Fountain Hills has shown good faith and the fact that we have been funding the New Leaf center to the tune of approximately 40, $50,000. So we're in the spirit of the law where we can relocate these people. That's very good. This urban camping, I mean, we had a homeless person that went to state trust land, paid the permit, and was up there, and when the sheriff's office came up there, showed them the permit and he says I'm here legally. And so we're not trying to do anything untoward. We just don't want them camping here unlawfully. But if they want to go outside our jurisdiction, go ahead, or if they want to pay the permit, go ahead. So it's not like they don't have any options. They don't have job probably; they can just walk over there and walk back into town the next day. So I did like Allen, and Allen made a good point about other facilities that are available to bridge that gap and there are services that will pick them up. If you Google homeless shelters, the list is voluminous: Central AZZ Shelter, Cas Family Shelter, Homeless Haven, New Mom New Day, Phoenix Rescue Mission, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Lodestar, Cat's Men Shelter, Bridge to Hope, it goes on and on. There's many, many. So it's not like we're just going to throw the people out on the street. There's plenty of places to take them and I do agree with Allen too, that a lot of these people, they simply like the lifestyle and they don't want to live under four walls and with somebody else's rules. And so that is their option but it's not going to be their option to pitch a tent in our park and to tell us to go to hell. And so I think this passes the constitutional muster test. It's neutral. And so I would be for adopting or approving the ordinance 2023, urban camping and I would like to make Page 71 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES a motion to do so. FRIEDEL: There's already one on. MAYOR DICKEY: Veah, I think one already. KALIVIANAKIS: Oh, we do? Okay. Good. GRZYBOWSKI: Just one comment about the people refusing to go to the shelters. Help should not come with a catch. Whether it be a religion, or treatment, it should not be a requirement. So a lot of times you're going to find that the homeless refuse it because many of the shelters come with a catch. I think that should be part of our issue, our shelter should be catch -free, and I realize that that's hard to explain to the people that this is where you're going, there isn't a catch, there is no expected treatment. The goal of the shelter should be get them into shelter, get them showered. Now, what do you need? Watch my stuff while I go apply for a job kind of thing. The whole problem of you have to go through treatment or you have to learn to pray the way I want you to pray, that's what is the turn-off to many of these people. ARNSON: So you raised actually a couple of very good points, councilmember. The first is that in Martin v. City of Boise, it's specifically says that if someone doesn't want to go to a religiously affiliated shelter, a municipality can't compel them to do that. So that's just necessarily a part of it. A lot of the shelters around the valley, some have pretty strong restrictions. Some are low- to no -barrier shelters. In other words, some are -- they come, they stay, and the idea is to transition them out of the low- to no -barrier shelter, to get them into a more full-blown service model. So that's certainly something that I think we can look at, and I don't know that we'd actually struggle to find a low- to no -barrier shelter option. We may, but I don't know that we will. Yeah. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you very much. Veah, there just seems to be a little of a bit of wanting it both ways. Because we got criticized for the 40,000 to A New Leaf which was a good option and an alternative. But at the time we found out there were some shortcomings and that's why this year we're looking elsewhere. I believe we understand that by giving a gift to one of these shelters is not the same as Page 72 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES having a contract, so we may have to look at having a contract where, yes, and if you don't have a -- if that particular one doesn't have a bed, then they have to find one for you. But again, this is a very rare occurrence here in town. But we'll probably end up looking at something like that with a different shelter. Because that one did have some issues about when they could go in and such. The other thing, well, to kind of just wording things. I think like Sharron said, so remaining in a sitting position. I don't get that one. So you're sitting on the curb waiting to get picked up by your mother or something and you're wearing whatever teenagers might wear or whatever somebody might wear who's out running and needs to be picked up. That seems like an odd one to me, sitting position -- remaining in a sitting position. And the other one is about Aaron or Rachael, like as far as sleeping in a park during the day. So I bring in a blanket like we see and such, and how do you deal with that aspect of it? And so those are kind of more mundane things. But so the sitting part, what to do about parks. I think we're good with the shelter as far as what we'll look for. But along with what Sharron was talking about, vice mayor, the idea that somebody is bad or evil or whatever because they're in situation and dangerous, and they were -- and generally that they were, councilwoman, that they were by the school. I think they were by the school for years and there was no intent there or record. I think the arrest ended up being because of something that happened several years ago. Like using a restroom or something. So 1 just want to kind of bring that discussion back on what we're talking about. I agree, nobody wants the urban camping and the such, and we don't want to ruin the property values of businesses, that people can't get into their business. So those are all legitimate. But we must just be careful not to categorize things in a way that, like, Sharron said, you don't know -- we don't know anybody that might be living by a school or anywhere else. And then Mr. Corrigan mentioned faith -based help but then said, but not here. So that was just kind of -- well, you originally said, well, they needed shelter but not in Fountain Page 73 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Hills. And it was kind of, I think a lot of people think like that. But we have a lot of churches and such here, and it's possible that a church may want to help out and do the things and get the services and have a full-fledged way to get out of this way of life. So I don't think we should act like our churches shouldn't do that or our churches are somehow above doing what other churches are doing in other places. This is the whole reason we got involved with MAG, is because it's a regional issue. I think we have something that we can agree to pass here, but some of the conversation I think need to take a look at ourselves a little bit. Anway, and if that's funny, I'm sorry. But we have churches here and they could serve people. So anyway, I think we have a motion and a second. I don't -- I'm still not sure about the sitting part on curb, and the sleeping part in a park. ARNSON: I mean, motion and second on the floor. If someone wants to make a motion to amend to eliminate that language, I don't have any objection to it. lust follow the amendment procedure to get a motion and a second, and vote on that to see if it passes. MAYOR DICKEY: I think the sitting part is the -- the sleeping part might take of itself because the parks close at 11. So that might be okay. But if anybody would be willing to entertain taking out the sitting -- what is it? Remaining in sitting position part. I think that might help some situations. SKILLICORN: Point of order. Doesn't the originating motion take precedence? ARNSON: No. So according to Roberts rules and our rules of procedure, if there ever is an amendment on the floor, you vote on whether you're going to take up that amendment. If it fails, take up the main motion. If it passes, the main motion is amended to include the amendment. MAYOR DICKEY: Well, first you vote on the amendment and then, if that passes, you vote again on the main motion? ARNSON: Correct. GRZYBOWSKI: So yes. I would like to make an amendment to remove the remain in a Page 70 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES sitting position clause. ARNSON: Fair enough. We need a second. MAYOR DICKEY: I mean, I suppose I could second it, but I can see where its going. I'll second it. ARNSON: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: I've never made a motion or seconded anything. But I guess I will. ARNSON: That's fine. 5o now we just vote on the amendment and if it fails, we proceed with voting on the main motion. If it passes, the main motion will be amended. MAYOR DICKEY: Yes. And we can discuss the amendment which is to just remove the phrase, remaining in a sitting position on a public street, alley, lane, parkway, or other right of way, whether such right of way has been dedicated to the public (indiscernible) easement. So if we pass it without the amendment, then sitting in any of those places will be a civil offense. Please roll call vote on the amendment. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: No. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: No. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Yes. MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, I like sitting on curbs. But it fails. Page 75 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: So we will vote on the main motion unless there's any more discussion? Okay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. MENDENHALL: It passes. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you very much. Okay. Our next item is about a parking analysis. Justin? GOODWIN: Mayor, if I may? I just wanted to bring a reminder of this item, that it's a -- actually, what Justin's going to be talking about is a result of the 2020 general plan which was approved by our voters. Keeping in mind that it is a plan. There are a number of action items in there but we are not beholden to them. They're goals and objectives that help direct staff and council. So tonight's discussion is related to goal 4 in that general plan, which indicates an effort to assess our required parking capacity in our parking facilities downtown and make recommendations based on best practices. Page 76 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So I think Justin's going to get into the details for us. WELDY: Thank you. Imagine, if you would, that about every seven and a half to eight years, a discussion comes about the general plan amendment. There are a large number of volunteers that put forth effort towards the general plan. Whenever its finally agreed to it goes to the voters. A spinoff from the general plan that directly impacts the staff is the strategic plan. In this particular case the strategic plan assigns this responsibility to the public works director and the development services director. What the voters decided primarily, based on special events and other activities where there's limited parking, is that the town should spend a little money to see what, if anything, could be done primarily in the town center. That is this side of Panorama, including but not limited to Fountain Park. From El Lago north to Palisades and La Montana. So that general area there referred to as the town center. During any well attended special event, we are all aware of the challenges that we face. If approved, and this goes forward, the assessment will identify what we may or not be able to do in partnering with business owners and private parking lot owners, which by default are businesses and/or plat owners or NPOA, or neighborhood business associations. It's challenging, especially for a couple of marque events that the town actually puts on. Which is the Turkey Trot; very, very popular. Basically down to zero parking, including but not limited to all of the private parking. The other one that is immensely popular is the Fourth of July. This is going to take all that into consideration. I think it's important to note that this is part of the 2020 general plan. We discussed it with the town manager numerous times at several meetings, nearly every month. And each time I was asked, you made any progress? No, sir, I have not. Most recently it has turned to ma'am. The reason is it took two and a half years to get anybody that would be willing to look at it because it's relatively low dollar threshold in a location that is not readily available and accessible to most. And on that point, I would like to point out this is within the Page 77 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES town manager's authority to approve this contract and move forward. I was uncomfortable with that, so I brought it to the pedestrian and traffic safety committee some months ago and explained my concerns about that. Primarily, around transparency, and it's still an expenditure from the town budget. That body opted to come forward to the mayor and council based on recommendations from the town manager and myself. That's why we're here tonight. We want to know your opinion on how you would like to proceed with this expenditure and obviously the outcome, which is a parking assessment and the direction that comes from that written document is likely to include future funding. And it could be a multiyear horizon, depending on the ambitions and recommendations. With that, I'll do my best to answer any questions I can. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards on this? MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilmember? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you, Director, on this. And one thing -- there's going to be actually three points I'm going to have. So the first one is 361 days a year we have abundance of parking spots in this town. And in my experience, I don't drastically change our plans or we make special nuances for such a small percentage of the time. It is an issue on four days a year, but only on four days a year. So I don't see it as a huge need, and so I'm concerned about that. So the next thing. If I was going to ask staff to print out every study we've done in the past decade, we would have papers stacked to the ceiling, filling this entire room. We're not just talking dozens, probably hundreds of studies. Millions of dollars spent on studies. And the majority of those studies, unused, unapproved, it was just money that was spent. I see this as yet another one that we're going to spend money on this and it really isn't going to affect us. And even if it did affect us, four days a year. But here, really, I think is Page 78 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES what just absolutely kills this with me and why I'm going to be an absolutely no vote. So I do a little research on this company that's doing this study or proposing to do the study. And sure enough, on their website, I find that they promote road diets. Literally, they have a road diet plan on their website and they talk about a road diet is a reconfiguration to reduce motor vehicle travel. This is the company that we want to give us a roadmap for what we want to do in our town. I just don't see that. Frankly, these guys are more interested in their DEI score than serving the needs of Fountain Hills residents. And for that reason, I'm going to be a no. And just a moment ago, I saw a staff member make a face. How inappropriate and I will remember that. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? TOTH: The first thing that I want to address here is, thank you, Justin, for choosing to be especially transparent. This being something that you didn't technically have to put before us. And same goes to Rachael. Thank you for that. The second thing I want to address is that I fully disagree with the four days a year statement that my fellow councilman just gave. Off the top of my head, the Fountain Festival is six days a year, eight if we count setup, which we should count setup, as town staff is probably well aware. Concourse in the Hills, I believe that's two days, Octoberfest that every other year now, but that is two days when it does happen. We've got Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, what else do we have? Ballet Under the Stars, had a pretty good crowd this year, and music fest. This is all just off of the top of my head and I'm already well past four. And with this town, I see a lot of passion and a lot of pride in this community where we're probably going to only grow on annual events, from our nonprofits, from -- we're talking about the reality of what this Dark Sky Discovery Center is going to hold for the town and that's going to need parking. The one note I'll have is that I would -- if the conversation has not already happened, if I'm already saying something that's occurred, go ahead and ignore me, Justin. But if the conversation hasn't already happened, to bring up the Dark Sky Discovery Center with them when they are studying off of your experience how many people might this bring Page 79 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES to town and what can we do to accommodate parking for that area. That is also part of town center. I know it's the plat 2084 squares that we're probably focusing on, but my point being is, our town center area we do need to talk about parking. We have tons of events in this town and parking becomes the number one complaint. I absolutely loved Concourse in the Hills. It was an incredible event. I so look forward to the next one. Driving around town while Concourse in the Hills was happening, not fun. I'm just going to say it. I'm not that good of a driver. It was kind of scary. My point being is -- yeah. Thank you. I will leave the parking lot first. Besides that little joke, my point in all of this is that the less parking on the street, the better. Let's find ways to solve our parking issues even if it is only 20 days a year or so. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. WELDY: Madam Mayor, councilmember, if I may address one of her questions. In fact, not only the International Dark Sky Discovery Center but a five- to ten-year horizon will be looked at based on where we're at and where we're moving, not only in the general plan or the strategic plan. And also for those looking at undeveloped parcels or the potential for those parcels. TOTH: Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. MCMAHON: Thank you, Justin, for your presentation. I appreciate it. And I agree with Councilmember Toth, we have a parking problem. It's going to get worse with the Dark Sky Center. I think this is appropriate. It's beyond just looking at the parking problem. It's looking at the downtown, parking on the street, the whole nine yards. The fact of the matter is, Fountain Hills is growing. Our businesses are growing. There's development and redevelopments going on. There's going to constantly be a need for more parking. Also, as for the comment that Councilmember Skillicorn made about the waste of studies and we have stacks and stacks of them that are valueless. I have to disagree with that. Listening to you and the other town members over the past couple of years about the warrants and about the studies that are required by different governmental Page 80 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES entities to get funding, et cetera, I don't believe that they're a waste. In addition, I think we have contracted with this Kim Lee and Horn before on matters, or no? WELDY: Madam Mayor, councilmember, that is correct. It's a different division which kind of muddies the water. This group is out of Ohio. MCMAHON: Correct. And we're not the only town or city that contracts with them, they're a reputable business. So I disagree with some of those negative comments. And I think this is a really good idea. It's in concert with the plan and I think that we need to have it done. And thank you very much, appreciate it. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah. This first came to my attention because I am on the streets and safety commission. And when this first came up, I thought, I'm probably a no on this. That's a lot of money. But I'm glad I had the heads up, because it gave me a chance to think about it. And actually, I talked to stakeholders and business people in the community and I asked them about parking issues. And believe it or not, even though I kind of see Allen's point that we only have a number of big events a year, parking is a concern to the business owners and to people. We are a tourist town and we hope to expand that tourism. The Dark Sky Discovery Center, it turns a page on parking. And so yeah, I'm kind of leaning with Councilwoman Toth and Councilwoman McMahon. Initial blush, I was against it. But upon reflection I think it's a good thing. And also, I'd just like to thank our town manager for taking a project that was under $50,000 but just wanting to get the council's input on that. I think that's really good governance and I appreciate you bringing that before council tonight. But I would be a yes. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilmember? FRIEDEL: Justin, the review here says a review of current and past relevant studies. When was the last parking study done? Page 81 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES WELDY: Mayor, councilmember, I've not been able to find one. There have been traffic studies or assessments that were part of developments and some of those touch slightly on parking, but they're primarily focused on the applicant and/or the development itself. And so they will certainly take that into account. I don't want to single out any development nearby in the town center, but there are several of them that are squeezed for space, if we can say that without offending anyone, to the best of my ability this late at night. FRIEDEL: I guess I see the need for some analysis, but I sure don't like that price tag. You're already telling me that we have a squeezed for space thing going on in town. Do we need them to tell us that too? WELDY: We're not asking them to tell us that. We're asking them to use their professional opinion to show us or provide to us the direction of how we could possibly alleviate it or work out a long-term multiple phase solution to implement it. So again, they're going to provide some guidance and options. And then those will come back to the elected body after staff has a chance to review. FRIEDEL: So we don't have any staff that's qualified to do that, like our town engineer or other people that could do that for us? WELDY: If it was just a single person, councilmember, or maybe one and a half, I would agree. This is probably a half dozen people and hours and hours, and I have an incredible amount of confidence in the limited staff we have. I'm just not sure that we could accomplish this goal in a timely manner. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice mayor? GRZYBOWSKI: I have heard for years complaints about parking and that we need to build a parking garage. Unless we have a study that's looking at new apartments that are going in, and that's looking at Dark Sky that is coming in, and is looking at other things that we have the ability, the space to still build downtown, I don't think you can answer to these people. That being said, isn't this also necessary to be in line with our general plan, to have a study? Page 82 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES GOODWIN: It is. That's where this originated. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. So I'm actually ready to move to approve as written, so that we can meet our general plan. TOTH: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Could I speak, please? FRIEDEL: I have one more thing. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Go ahead. FRIEDEL: We've got a big parking lot sitting down at Target that we could use with a shuttle for any event that we have in town too. I don't think we've ever done that; have we? Does anybody know? GRZYBOWSKI: Not that I'm aware of. FRIEDEL: Not that I know of either. So I don't know. I'm having a hard time digesting the 48,000 for this one. We have a parking lot that's down there that's 80 percent empty all the time. And it's very easy to get a little shuttle and then you give people a tour of the town too. WELDY: Madam Mayor and councilmember, and I don't want to disrupt your proceeding here. We will certainly discuss this in the event that it moves forward tonight. Keep in mind that that area has multiple different owners and each of those owners would need to be willing to enter into an agreement and my experience has shown that very few property owners are willing to donate something they consider of value. So there most likely would be a fee. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. It's private property. So that kind of goes hand in hand with some of the other discussions we've had. Councilman Skillicorn, I think, I don't want to be wrong, but I think you said 99 percent of the studies we've done have not been used. I've lived here 40 years and believe me, the planning that goes into not only our own town but what MAG does, who I know that you don't have high esteem for, we wouldn't have a 202, we wouldn't have a 101, we wouldn't have extra lanes on the 10. These are forward -thinking people with degrees in that, engineers, whatever and that's what they do. They plan areas, municipalities, Page 83 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES that's what they learn, and unless that is meaningless and you think we can sit up here and decide these things ourselves, on every study, on every traffic study, on every park, it just doesn't make sense. We talk about staff, that's part of being in a small town. We don't have the staff to do the traffic studies that we want. We want the developers to come in but we don't have the staff to take care of this. So this is how you look forward. And it is in the general plan that was discussed for a long time with a lot of different groups and then voted on and approved by our community. The Kim Lee Horn thing, they've being doing stuff with us. Maybe it's a different division, I don't know. But we've been doing a ton with them for years and years and years, and if we're going to look at the websites of everything, of everybody, that we do business with to see if they say Black Lives Matter or something, we're going to be in trouble. We use them for what they do for their clients. And if a client wants a skinnier road or more sidewalks or bicycles, that's what they're going to do for them. They're going to do for us what we are hiring them to do. 5o I'm 100 percent for this. I think we have a motion and a second, and unless you have anything to say about that, which is fine, we're can be ready to vote. It's up to you. All right. Can we have roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Nay. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. Page 84 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. MENDENHALL: It passes. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Our next item is kind of along the same lines. It's a traffic signal that's been planned for for a long time. Is that -- yeah. Thank you, Justin. WELDY: Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is actually -- staff is coming back to you to ask you to approve a final design. This originally came before the mayor and council in the fall of 2019/2020. At that time, an assessment of the intersection of Palisades and Eagle Ridge was requested. And I think it's important to note this right now. The town staff did not go out to Eagle Ridge and Palisades. The assessment of that intersection was based on feedback received by the mayor and council and staff. And was part of a collaborative discussion that went on for a considerable amount of time about the best approach. At that time, staff brought forward an agreement to do an assessment of that intersection. That resulted in a warrant analysis, we know for a fact, after having discussed this several times. We met several of those warrants and I met with a gentleman just yesterday, to discuss this over a glass of tea. And he just cannot believe that there's a 1,000 vehicles a day in that intersection. I want to note that the equipment and technology used for vehicle counting is up to date and state of the art. We are not the only ones that solicit this service, not only from this company, but several others. But also MAG uses this equipment for their regional counts. I have absolute faith in the data, that the information that was provided to us by Kim Lee Horn is accurate. I would also like to note this is another one of those items that the town manager and I have been having a considerable amount of discussion about. This is currently in the budget that was adopted for this year. There is currently a valid contract for this. Simply could have sent a notice to proceed and moved forward. It's a small dollar threshold. Again, we have budget and contract authority. We think it's best, she and I, to bring this Page 85 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES forward because of the discussions that have been had in the past and comments that we've heard not only from the residents but from the elected body. Here's an opportunity for each of you to share your opinions and provide direction to staff related to this intersection which again, is just a final design, not approval for construction. With that, I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have. MAYOR DICKEY: Do we have any speaker cards? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. In your packet you have one written comment -- well, no comment, just that they're against it and that's from Liz Gildersleeve. And then we do have one in -person comment. And that's from Barry Wolborsky. WOLBORSKY: Yes. I'm Barry Wolborsky still, and I'm double dipping tonight. I'm opposed to spending the funds to finish the engineering study for a traffic signal that we don't need on Palisades and Eagle Ridge. That we will not build and it poses a huge danger to the citizens of this town. And I'm going to give you my reasoning. The staff summary that Justin talked about and the warrants that he talked about have to be met if you may have a signal. Not that you should have a signal. That you may have a signal. So once the warrants are met, then you're allowed to have a signal. The first is 75 vehicles per hour. That's about one and a quarter vehicles a minute. I think Phil's Restaurant probably has more than that on an average lunchtime. The second warrant is that there has to be 400 cars an hour for four hours. I have a great deal of problems with this. I've spoken about statistics to this council before, you may remember or you may not. I would be very interested to see when these -- I agree with them, I think the equipment is wonderful. I think it's accurate, and I think it's people that run the equipment. And I would really be interested to see when these figures were taken. Were they taken in August or were they taken in January, are they taken on the Day of the Concourse, were they taken some other day? I have a real hard time believing that 1,600 cars go through that intersection in a four-hour period. And the reason I have a hard time with that is because I'm a statistics guy and that tells me that ten percent of Page 86 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES all the people in Fountain Hills went through that intersection in a four-hour period. I don't think so. Now for legal issues. A.R.S. 12.820.03 gives municipalities immunity from road design if the road met acceptable standards when built with the exception that if the road has become obsolete, warning signs are there. We have signs. They're called stop signs and I don't think it's obsolete anyway. So I don't think we can get sued for anything that happened. I did some research on it; I wasn't able to find anybody that got sued for not having a stoplight. So I think that's not an issue. However, if the study is completed and says that we should have a stoplight, I don't know if that applies anymore. Lastly, but most importantly, is safety. I've never seen a vehicle go through that four- way stop at full speed. But with a green light, they're all going to be going through that intersection at full speed and the poor guy turning south out of that intersecting street is going to get creamed and it's not going to be fender -benders, it's going to be fatalities. That's all I got, thanks. MAYOR DICKEY: Any more? MENDENHALL: No. That's it. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman? MCMAHON: Justin, we've talked about the warrants before, et cetera, that are saying that a stoplight is needed here now and with the growth of Adero Canyon, the growth of our town, et cetera and in the future. This is for-- we've already spent a lot of money on the design. This the balance of that to complete the design. It's not to put a traffic light in there, it's basically to have a design for one because we know one is needed now and will be needed in the future, correct? And it is in the budget, right? WELDY: Madam Mayor, councilmember, that is correct. It's also important to note that while it's a little bit over the original estimate for design, it was discussed back with the original developer a little bit more than 25 years ago. They did deposit $50,000 in the Page 87 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES town's account for the eventual design and construction of course. And to be fair, in those days a traffic signal was less than a half million dollars. Nowadays, a traffic signal, realistically at that location, is Si million. But the answer to your question is we have met the warrants, so we're completing the design. The manual on uniform traffic control devices, MUTCD, and the federal highway administration provides guidance on what a municipal county, state, or federal government should do when the warrants have been met and the previous speaker is correct, the word shall is not in that direction. It's should. So the word shall build a traffic signal isn't in there. It also doesn't discuss the time frame. It just simply states, you've now met these warrants and you are aware of the fact that you need a traffic signal. You need to put forth a plan to design and eventually construct that. And the reason there's not any time constraints is, obviously, it's -- we're multiple years into this one in discussion and design. MCMAHON: Thank you. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Some of what I'm going to ask you, I think we've already discussed many, many months ago. But just to refresh our memories. On the final design, would this be valid -- say if we put off this project for three to five years, would this design still be good or would the come up with another obstruction? Like, the emergency vehicles problem that we had? I'm just wondering if we spend the money, we finish the study, but if we don't build the light for five years, are we going to have to do another study? WELDY: Madam Mayor, councilmember, an additional assessment will not be required. So the sealed plans are basically the life of a traffic signal, even if it's not constructed. The only thing that is likely to change is the technology and, with all due respect to those in my industry, not very quickly. The biggest change we've had is going to digital controllers and also conflict monitors, and a few years back, finally getting away from incandescent and going to LED. So once we pay for this, it is ours and basically stays that way until we build it and the only time that we would need that engineer of record to come back is if we wanted to make a modification to say the traffic signal at Saguaro and Palisades, to put in a protected left. That same engineer of record from that time Page 88 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES would look at that intersection and say, okay, I agree or disagree or here's a new direction. So the plans are the plans. Once they're approved, they're ours and they remain valid for the life of the signal. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thank you for that. And then, also in the packet it mentions grant funding, and again, this is a $1 million project. What are the likely prospects of getting grant funding for his project, at least partial grant funding? WELDY: For the ones that are currently being released, we're not seeing much of an opportunity there. It's very difficult to predict what the future will bring. Neighboring agencies have been able to apply and receive grant funding in numbers that would really make us excited to come back and tell you we got, but it includes walk signals, traffic signals, and crossing primarily. Most of what is being focused on now is pedestrian safety. And so they're willing to pay for those types of signals and the modifications to the roadway to accomplish that. KALIVIANAKIS: Are there many pedestrians in that intersection? WELDY: We did not count the pedestrians as part of this. I will say that Fountain Hills is one of the most active smaller communities around. One only need to be out in the early morning during -- KALIVIANAKIS: But at that location? WELDY: There are people that walk there but I wouldn't know. But when I'm referencing the grants that are available, the grants that we looked at so far, that we didn't qualify for, actually went to municipal governments that were putting in different types of traffic signals, primarily for pedestrians. In the future, we will continue to look for every grant opportunity -- KALIVIANAKIS: Of course. WELDY: -- to either offset or cover the majority of the cost for something like this. KALIVIANAKIS: Of course. Thank you. And then my last inquiry would be what Barry talked about. The difference between shall we know, should we know. When they say the warrants indicate that we should, Page 89 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES would you explain? Just drill down on that a little bit? WELDY: I'm going to drill down on it without getting into an incredible amount of detail on the record. Basically, we are aware of the fact that we are not meeting a level of service and we were just a tiny bit short of not meeting one of the warrants, which is the crash data. Had it not been for a recent pandemic we most likely would have met that. Once that is established, there are specialized firms out there whose clients may or may not crash in our intersection, and they're going to come to a jury and/or a settlement and state the reason my client was injured was because the town did not build a traffic signal. So that they're trying to give us a little guidance in regards to that. You know, that it's warranted and, you know, the reasons why. Put together a plan to build it. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice mayor? GRZYBOWSKI: So I want to point out that this is 90 percent paid for. The project design is 90 percent paid for. This is just to get that last 10 percent. Or I guess, 90 percent done. WELDY: Engineering. GRZYBOWSKI: Five percent. It's just that last five percent. 5o that being said, the money was approved by a previous council to do it, and there was an issue and we needed to expand it a little bit. I feel like if we don't do it now and wait until we're actually in the need for a traffic light, 50, $1000,000 just to finish the drawings, and that's assuming that we actually can get these people to finish it or get the drawings from them that are half done or 95 percent done. So I totally feel like we need to do this and just buck it up. However we messed up our count before, it happened. We need to get it done. That way we've got it when we're ready to talk about it. The designs are in our hands and then -- because we're got, Adero Canyon's looking to expand at some point too. So I feel like we're going to need it sooner rather than later. So I would move to approve as written. Page 90 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES WELDY: Madam Mayor, if I may make one more important comment about this? This was not finished in the year it was budgeted which is -- it wasn't even last year. It's taken that long to get it backup here. The reason it wasn't is because the intersection sits at the top of a vertical curve and each of the north and southbound legs are on a horizontal curve. So most traffic signals, the exception of those that belong to the Arizona Department of Transportation have emergency vehicle detection devices. The intent for that or the purpose is that as the fire truck or the ambulance is approaching, it calls that signal with a flashing light. And depending on the programing, either turns it all red or turns the direction of travel green. Ours are green. In this particular case we did not have enough distance. So it's taking additional measures to one, pick up the light further away from the traffic signal prior to them getting to the curve. Once it reaches that, send it up the hill to the traffic signal. That took a considerable amount of time because we actually did real-time testing using our preemption devices. Not only in the chief's truck but the assistant chief's truck. And it just so happens the public works director has one of the devices as well. But trying to get those little things which are about two inches in diameter at just the right angle and the right location proved to be challenging. The good news is that we were able to accomplish that and not only myself but the engineering team and the town engineer are comfortable that that detection will work in the future when it's constructed. That's the primary reason we're this late. Is because of that safety issue, which is critical. GRZYBOWSKI: Thank you. FRIEDEL: I think everybody up here knows that I'm not in favor of this. Last November, December, and January of this year, I went through that intersection eight times a day, eight times a day and have documented the traffic flow: rush hour, non -rush hour, rush hour in the afternoon, and saw no more than six cars at any one point in time and no pedestrians ever. And that's almost three months solid. Now it's not a very professional traffic study, 1 know that. However, it's a big indication to me that this is a waste of money to finish this. We're not going to build it now, and if Adero Canyon is going to expand, tell them to bring a checkbook to the table, please. Page 91 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Was there a second on that motion? MCMAHON: I second it. But I'd also like to make a comment. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. MCMAHON: Two weeks ago I was on that road and I stopped at the stop sign. I was the seventh car back in both lanes. And there were eight trying to make a lefthand turn. And that was at 6:30 at night. Not even the busiest time. I have also seen a lot of people hiking and walking along Palisades Boulevard from Shea past the stop sign there. So I know there are pedestrian traffic. Pedestrian people walking and using that particular crosswalk, I've seen it. While I haven't sat there for six hours for three days or three months, I understand that these particular warrants that have been done have said that it's a safety issue and we should put a traffic light up there. So I'm going to second this and approve it because I think as a town we're being proactive and realizing that area is already busy, it's only going to get busier with the hundreds of people that are going to move into Adero Canyon once all those homes are complete. And in addition, on weekends we have a ton of hikers going up there. So I'm for it. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: This is not a study, it's a design, right? WELDY: Correct. MAYOR DICKEY: It's the completion of a design that we will own after this? WELDY: Correct. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Can we get a roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis? Page 92 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Nay. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickie? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you, Justin -- WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: -- for all your work and for tonight. Our last item says possible action but probably isn't. Is talking about the new laws that passed in the legislature. Some of them do affect us, of course. And while we're talking about it, I also want to -- there's a copy of the resolutions that are the legislative agenda that was adopted by the various committees that many of you are on and I appreciate that. So I was going to read through them but I won't because you have them and I'm sure that the only -- there were a couple that I wondered about which was a temporary property reclassification for redevelopment projects. So I just ask you to please look at them. They're all explained on the League website and if you have any issues with any of them to please let me know because I'll be voting on this on the 29th at the League at the resolutions committee. The other thing is as far as the laws that passed, we -- you talked about Prop 400, so thanks for that. We are facing that rental tax repeal which is over $650,000 per year, every year, to our town which could get higher based on rents and such. So we did meet with the governor, the League and we're talking with the legislature to try to figure out if there's going to be a way, because that is a -- for us it's like 3.2 percent of all of our TPT, a little less than 3 percent of our whole general fund, not including capital. So hopefully there'll be some options and things discussed to try and help with that. Page 93 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Because for same cities it was a big chunk of their actual budgets. One law that passed that I may have to ask staff and Aaron to get help, is called zoning ordinances, property rights cost. It requires a municipal governing body to consider a housing impact statement prior to adopting any zoning ordinance or amendment. 5o it sounds like it might be a lot, but we'll hear about that. There's also one about consumer fireworks. There's a whole bunch of them, but that one is going to be something that I think is permissible for us to allow fireworks on, let's see. Right now they're allowed between December 24th and January 3rd and this would make it December 26th and January 4th. So I think there's a story behind it that I don't remember. I know there was another thing in there that we might not want to do. So just take a look at that. And then also, there's an article in here about the Prop 400 for you to take a look at. Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Just a couple of quick ones. That HB2485 about ambushing police sensing enhancements. Just two additional years, I think that's too little. And also the exception is for the earned early release credits. I think those two years, if it is going to be a minimum of two years, they should be hard time two years. They shouldn't get early release on those additional two years, that's a shame. SB1068, police dogs, emergency treatment, requiring an ambulance to take a wounded dog that was wounded in the field to a veterinary hospital, I think that's really excellent. They're heroes. And then lastly, as a best friend of mine who happens to be a former 911 dispatch operator, HB2717, trauma counseling. 911 dispatch operators expands a traumatic event counseling program available to public safety employees, peace officers, firefights, to include 911 dispatchers. 911 dispatchers literally sit for eight hours a day and live through the peoples' worst days of their life. The stories are horrific. It's not for everybody. It's a terrifying job. And so I'm glad they're going to be qualified for counseling services. Page 94 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Any discussion on anything? Okay. So council discussion, direction. I just kind of wanted to ask about that flagpole? So if you can kind of look into that, I'd appreciate that. Is there anything else mentioned that anybody would like to have follow up on? Any future agenda items? SKILLICORN: Well, I've got something for the manager and I do have a couple of general items. I did email Rachael about the flagpole. But considering all the tragedy in Hawaii, I would love to have a presentation on where we are with emergency services. So what is the policy for using the sirens? What is the plan if there's a power outage? What is the plan if there's a water pressure issue? Things like that. So everything that went wrong in Maui, I'd love to have a plan and a solution so that we don't ever have to have that kind of conversations. And I know that might take a little time, and I understand. MAYOR DICKEY: Would that be along the line of the emergency response that we have? The booklet that I know we can't talk about a lot of that in public, but you can get it. But is that -- SKILLICORN: Well, the public should know the policy for -- MAYOR DICKEY: Some of those, yes. SKILLICORN: -- if the power goes out, right? Or when do the alarm -- what criteria has to be met for those alarms? Do we have an emergency robocall feature? And text message and stuff like that? Like, when are those used? Because that's a policy decision. Maybe we want it to be in other situations too. GOODWIN: What we can do is, we'll put together a presentation that kind of covers some of that. Some of it is confidential in terms of emergency planning, in terms of what will we do if there was an active shooter, what would we do if there was other things like that. Those tend to be more confidential in nature, but we can certainly put together something in the public interest to present. SKILLICORN: Great. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilmember? Page 95 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FRIEDEL: Along with the Hawaii issue. I was talking with Justin probably two weeks ago. I think we need to take a look at adding on some footage to properties, especially like up in Eagle's Nest where they're doing a lot of building right now. I think we go five feet. We need to extend that to what the county does, which is ten feet. There's been three fires up there already. All we need is one more. There's a lot of construction. Sparks are flying from iron workers up there and from landscapers and other things. So I see that as a big risk to the town. So I'd like to know if we could take a look at amending our code to involve that. And then an add -on for a future agenda item. I think we need to revisit detox home inspections. I think the State of Arizona now allows for local municipalities to do some type of inspections. And I think Phoenix is doing it and also Glendale. Can we look into that? And then I want to know if we can bring back the prohibited solicitation with the amendments that were talked about here tonight as another future agenda item? ARNSON: Absent any objection I don't have an issue. Rachael? GOODWIN: I don't (indiscernible) do we need to redo it or (indiscernible)? ARNSON: Well, my view is that we heard a lot of discussion and direction, at least on the solicitation issue tonight. It sounds like there's an appetite to entertain that again. But ultimately, Mayor, if you're okay with those appearing, if we have to have three, what's the pleasure? MAYOR DICKEY: I don't mind. I mean, I'm okay with looking at them. Of course, I'm not sure how we can change that solicitation one, but this is what -- if it ends up coming back, it still has the same issues that it did before. But yeah. And then were you talking about setbacks? FRIEDEL: Yeah. Well, yeah. Setbacks for property lines. And also the homes that are under construction. You know that fence that goes around there. They can only give five feet to clear vegetation. There's been a tremendous amount of growth and vegetation up there. The county right now is ten feet, why can't we match what the county does? Page 96 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES GOODWIN: Sure. Yeah, we can look into that and make sure we have some parity there. Regarding the detox, if I recall, I think, when I took a quick glance through the League's sessions, I think there is one on detox. So there may be some updates there and then we can reconvene and see if there's more steps we can take. SKILLICORN: And if need be, I would second the solicitation ordinance, the changes. So if we need two seconds, I'll be one of them. TOTH: He said no problem. SKILLICORN: And then I've got two here. One, since the state has changed the law on the regressive rental tax, we do need to change the ordinance. I mean, it doesn't apply for a couple of years. But I would like to put that on an agenda and have a vote on that. I don't know if we need seconds for that or not, but that's something we need to change anyways. And then the other one, is that for the group homes I do want to make a motion, and I don't know if I need seconds or not, to add liability insurance for group homes. ARNSON: I'll look into it. SKILLICORN: I've got language. ARNSON: Okay. SKILLICORN: So it's real, real simple. MAYOR DICKEY: The one about the -- wait, what was the first one just said? The one before the -- SKILLICORN: To repeal the rental tax. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. That one is just a natural thing that we do when we get a new state law. Right? FRIEDEL: Yeah. MAYOR DICKEY: So I don't think we -- I mean, when it comes through, we can build on it, but we have to comply with the state law. ARNSON: Yeah, we just make routine changes. They do changes to the model city tax code and so it happens through the normal process. Page 97 of 98 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS AUGUST 22, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. And so we'll get that. And then does everybody want -- do two other people want to talk about the insurance thing with group homes? KALIVIANAKIS: Veah, I would. TOTH: Yep. I'll be number three. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. KALIVIANAKIS: No, I'd like to know -- I'd actually like to discuss it. The insurance requirement for group homes was already brought up and dealt with in executive session. Do you recall? ARNSON: Do I recall? I don't remember if I recall. Yes, I do recall that we had that discussion. KALIVIANAKIS: Yes. ARNSON: yes. MAYOR DICKEY: So you want to have him talk about it again? KALIVIANAKIS: No. MAYOR DICKEY: Oh. KALIVIANAKIS: It's been resolved. MCMAHON: Yeah, we've already talked about that and we can't force them to have insurance, is what I thought the conclusion was, and we've already discussed it. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. ARNSON: Let me just go ahead and take a look at what we've actually put into our code and then go ahead and circle back. Because I understand the desire of three members is to at least -- MAYOR DICKEY: It's only two right now. ARNSON: Oh, it's only two right now. Okay. FRIEDEL: Veah. Go ahead. Look at it. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. We're going to talk about that again. All right. Are we done? Anything else? We're adjourned. Thank you. Page 98 of 98 Having no further business, Mayor Ginny Dickey adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on August 22, 2023, at 9:24 p.m. ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS iVX Gin Dickey, Mayor.J H da G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 22n0 day of August 2023. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present DATED this 19th Day of September 2023. Linda G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk