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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSPAC.2024.0327.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION March 27, 2024 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Patrick Garman called to order the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission at 4:00 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL Members Present: Chairman Patrick Garman; Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta; Commissioner Randy Crader; Commissioner Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Jill Keefe; Commissioner Joseph Reyes; Commissioner Phil Sveum (arrived at 4:02, post roll call) Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Fire Chief Dave Ott; Executive Assistant Angela Padgett -Espiritu 3. CALL TO THE PUBLIC Pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.01(H), public comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i) must be within the jurisdiction of the Council, and (ii) is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The Council will not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. At the conclusion of the Call to the Public, individual councilmembers may (i) respond to criticism, (ii) ask staff to review a matter, or (iii) ask that the matter be placed on a future Council agenda. No one from the public was present. 4. REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Commissioner Reyers: o Spent 2 weeks in neighboring Tempe, which was an interesting experience to see differences across communities. o Caught up on activities in Fountain Hills after being away and viewed the last exhibits. Commissioner Sveum: o No report. Vice Chair Yazzetta: o Announced the annual Dark Sky Festival on April 6th from 4-9pm at Centennial Circle with telescopes, speakers, auction, and activities. o Announced the groundbreaking ceremony for the International Dark Sky Discovery Center on April 8th, coinciding with the solar eclipse. Free Dark Sky glasses will be provided. Commissioner Hoenle: o Toured Cul-de-sac Tempe, a car -free apartment complex near ASU with shops, electric bikes, and light rail access. o Thought it was a neat concept and encouraged others to check it out. Commissioner Keefe: o Congratulated Geoff Yazzetta for being nominated as Volunteer of the Year o Participated in a town session to update the downtown strategy, providing business owner perspectives. o Announced she will not renew her post on the commission after April to focus on family health issues. Commissioner Crader: o No report. Town Manager Goodwin: o Mentioned a public workshop on the downtown strategy plan on May 15th to get community input. o Provided update on the budget process, with the proposed budget being rolled out on April 9th. o Clarified that the downtown strategy is updating an existing plan with more specific actions for the downtown area. 5. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of February 28, 2024. MOVED BY Vice Chair Yazzetta to APPROVE the Minutes of February 28, 2024, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Crader. Vote: 7 — 0 passed — Unanimously 6. UPDATE: Fountain Hills Fire Department by Chief Dave Ott Chief Dave Ott: o Provided 90-day update on transition to Fountain Hills Fire Department since Jan 1. o Transitioned to Mesa Regional Dispatch Center about 100 days ago. o Held meeting with Rio Verde, Fort McDowell to discuss dispatch coordination. o Utilizing 3-in-1 response with engine/ladder truck from FHFD plus neighboring engines. o Closest unit dispatched regardless of jurisdiction - unofficial auto -aid. o Gilbert Rd closure impacting Salt River response, working on solutions. o Signed IGA with Scottsdale for mutual aid despite prior termination with Rural Metro. o Scottsdale handling transport/ALS for their residents to stop FHFD's clock. o On track with projected budget, some overages in equipment like toughbooks/iPads. o One-time costs for initial equipment setup. o Signed IGAs for training at Glendale, Mesa, and future Scottsdale facilities. o Participating in East Valley regional training opportunities. o 31 firefighters currently, 20 are paramedics which is high ratio. o Receiving grant to send 2 more to paramedic school by January. o Invited to present call data, numbers to council next week. Chair Garman: o Appreciated authentic off-the-cuff update style. o Invited continued input for Strategic Plan public safety/wellbeing initiatives. 7. UPDATE: Commission Workgroups. Vice Chair Yazzetta: o Presented slides outlining the community outreach workshop on April 20th. o Will have stations for different topics (safety, infrastructure, etc.) for attendees to provide written feedback. o Plans to compile feedback into prioritization ranking and word cloud. o Asked commissioners about availability to help staff at the event. o Will coordinate posting of quorum notice with town staff. Commissioner Keefe: o Elaborated on capturing qualitative feedback and using force -ranking exercise. o Emphasized letting attendees share openly about vision for town's future. o Suggested having current strategic plan available for reference. Commissioner Hoenle: o Asked about pre -event communications to prepare attendees. o Questioned how to address road maintenance as expected major topic. Commissioner Crader: o Suggested having current strategic plan printed to spur ideas. o Recommended examples of big and small ideas from plan Commissioner Sveum: o Asked if event details had been sent out yet. o Suggested including link to current strategic plan in communications. Chair Garman: o Asked about advertising plan (emails, social media, newspaper) o Raised concern about compiling handwritten feedback later. o Inquired about posting quorum notice since all commissioners will attend. Commissioner Reyes: o Recommended providing full details on current plan and accomplishments. o Offered to help staff stations once roles are assigned. Town Manager Goodwin: o Advised using online request portal/QR code for citizen requests at event. o Clarified posting requirements as notice of possible quorum, not a meeting. Assistant Padgett -Espiritu: o Confirmed will post notice of possible quorum for the workshop. 8. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. Next month's (April) meeting will include: o A Blue Zone presentation led by Julie Ewald and her group (Jill made the connection) o Strategic Plan implementation updates from town staff. 9. COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN Chair Garman: o Next month (April) will have a quick review of the community workshop. o In May, will look at any new commissioner terms and vote on positions for the following year. o In May, will have more in-depth review of data from workshop and nonprofit presentations. o Proposing a work session in June to distill data and draft strategic priorities/pillars for the next plan. o The goal is to have draft priorities ready by the end of June to prepare for further work in August. o Acknowledged Bernie's caution about potential impact of upcoming elections. o Emphasized wanting to stay above political changes and focus on Tong -term horizon. Commissioner Hoenle: o Suggested relying on Town Manager Goodwin for insight into council trends, as previous town manager provided. Town Manager Goodwin: o Noted she will not be in attendance for the currently scheduled June date. o Offered to look at an alternate date if her presence is critical, or town staff can cover. Assistant Padgett -Espiritu: o Confirmed commissioner voting typically happens in May. 10. NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 2024. 11. ADJOURNMENT MOVED BY Commissioner Keefe to ADJOURN the meeting of the March 27, 2024, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Reyes. Vote: 7 — 0 passed — Unanimously Chairman Garman adjourned the regular meeting at 5:19 p.m. UNTAIN ILLS t trick Garman, Chairman Angela Padgett -Espiritu, Executive Assistant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 27'h day of March 2024. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED, th % - of April 2024. ___------ Angela Padgett -Espiritu, Executive Assistant TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Post -Production File Town of Fountain Hills Regular Meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission March 27, 2024 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Page 1 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION GARMAN: All right. So I'm going to call to order the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission meeting March 27th, 2024, for Town of Fountain Hills. We're going to start off with roll call. Angela, can you call roll for us, please? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yes. Chair Garman? GARMAN: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Vice Chair Yazzetta? YAllETTA: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Crader? CRADER: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Hoenle? HOENLE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Keefe? KEEFE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Reyes? REYES: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Sveum? We have a quorum. GARMAN: And you said his name correctly today. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: And he's not here to hear it. GARMAN: That was great. He's not here to correct it -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: It figures. GARMAN: -- this time. So we have a quorum. Thank you very much. Angela, do we have anything? A call from the public or any notes submitted? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: No, we do not. GARMAN: Nothing today? Okay. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Nothing today. GARMAN: That was the first three on the agenda item very quickly. We're off to a great start. So we're going to start now with the reports by commissioners and town manager. So let's start all the way on my left today. Joe? Page 2 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION There he is. SVEUM: Sorry. GARMAN: Joe, can you go ahead and start things off, if you have any reports for us. REYES: Well, I was actually blanked out for two weeks at a roading site to the neighboring town -- neighboring Tempe. And that was quite an experience, I got to tell you. I'd done this here and a couple of other places but it's interesting to see how much changes there are in different communities. Then I tried to catch up on all the activities going on here, and it left me just a few within my time constraints but I did get to view the last exhibits this last weekend. And that's pretty much about it. Now that I've gotten that thing out of my way, I can now focus on all the good activities here. So that's my report. Thank you. GARMAN: All right. Phil, you got anything for the -- SVEUM: I apologize for being late but I have no report. GARMAN: No report? Okay. Geoff? YAZZETTA: Two quick things from me, both Dark Sky related. This Saturday is the annual Dark Sky Festival taking place from 4 to 9 Centennial Circle. Hopefully, weather cooperates with us but there is plenty to do. There is going to be a lot of telescopes, we've got a few great keynote speakers, there's a silent auction, activities for kids and adults alike. So if you're free, feel free to come on out. It's a great event. And then, Monday, April 8th coinciding with the solar eclipse is the groundbreaking ceremony for the International Dark Sky Discovery Center. We'll be passing out these Dark Sky glasses, so if you join us you can watch the eclipse with these on. But this will kick off the construction phase of our project. So two really exciting Dark Sky items here in the not too distant future. So thank you. GARMAN: All right. Thanks Geoff. I know the travel industry is pretty crowded on the 8th. People are flying into the path to go to different towns all across the United States. YAZZETTA: Hotels in Texas and Oklahoma are off the charts right now. GARMAN: It's going right over, like Indianapolis and other big -- yeah. It's amazing. Thanks for that. Bernie? Page 3 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION HOENLE: Well, this morning I took a tour of Culdesac Tempe and we had a speaker in previously that talked about it. And that's an environment not too far from ASU and it's right off the light rail -- walk across the street and you get on it. And the key thing about that whole complex is the people don't have vehicles; don't have cars, don't have motorcycles or anything. They can use electric bikes. They have bike racks at each of the apartments. They've got, I believe it's like about a 100 apartments that are occupied and they're starting phase 2 of the build out. So McKenna White (ph.) gave us a tour of one of the apartments, and she's real happy and energetic about everything going on there. They've got a couple of shops in place already. They've got giant bikes of course, so they can load them on the light rail or go wherever they need to go. One -bedrooms are on the first floor and then on the second floor they have two- and three-story places. So the shops that they have in place: coffee shop with pastry, giant bikes, e-bike racks all over the place, and a couple of really nice restaurants. So it was neat to learn. If you get a chance to go down there and take a walk around, they're happy to see you. And everybody that walked by said hi. I guess they thought we're going to be new residents or something. It was really a neat place, a neat concept. GARMAN: Thanks, Bernie. Jill? KEEFE: A couple of things. Congratulations again, Geoff, for being nominated as volunteer of the year. So if you have an opportunity to vote for the Chamber of Commerce's annual awards, please recognize our fellow commissioner. YAZZETTA: Thank you. SVEUM: I voted twice. I think I voted twice or three times for you. KEEFE: And just keep voting. Mail them in. The second update is that I got an opportunity -- I was invited to participate in a session held by the town. Amanda, the economic development director, as well as John Wesley, planning and zoning, who are preparing to update their downtown strategy and they were seeking the voice of businesspeople that are located in and affected by the downtown plan. And it wasn't terribly well attended. There were just a few business owners which is surprising to me because it's such an incredible opportunity to have voice. But it was beautifully Page 4 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION facilitated. It was thoughtfully done. There was a lot of genuine curiosity and probing questions around what would further the vision of the downtown area. And I was very grateful -- I just want to say thank you, Rachael. I was very grateful to participate in that. GOODWIN: I'm glad you liked it. KEEFE: The staff did a beautiful job. So that was the second update. The third update is: I communicated with Angela, I'm not going to be seeking to renew my post here on this commission and I wanted to share with you guys why that was happening. I shared before incidental health issues with my daughter. They've gone from incidental to chronic and I'm finding that outside of keeping my business running and focusing on her, that's a full plate and I'm just choosing to be very sparing with what my extracurriculars are. And that's not forever but it's for the time being, and so I believe that my last meeting will be the end of April. Is that true, Angela? Yeah. And I want to stay involved to the end, I want to continue with our workshop. But after that point, you'll be looking for a new seat replacement. So yeah, I'm begrudgingly giving this up because I'm really enjoying this experience. But it's the right thing for my family. Yeah. Thank you. GARMAN: All right. Thanks, Jill. Randy? Nothing to report at this time? Nothing, right? Rachael? GOODWIN: I'll just hit two quick highlights. Jill just mentioned that she had done the workshop with Amanda and it's the downtown strategy. They're working on, again, stakeholder input from different industry groups. But May 15 is when they have identified sort of the first public all -access sort of input, so mark your calendars; there'll be more information coming out about that. But timewise that's when they're hoping to get that out to the public, so that by the fall they can come back at the council level and bring back the findings and the recommendations, et cetera, sort of ahead of our budget process next fall. Speaking of budget process, we're in the throes of it right now. Last night was our capital improvement project introduction. Last night was the night where we reviewed Page 5 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION what's going on currently as well as the projects that are proposed for next year. The ask to the council last night was to tell us if there was any projects they did not want to move forward with or they wanted to postpone. Ultimately, all projects will be moving forward at this time in the budget. It does not mean that they will ultimately be approved, they can still pull them. But it gives us direction as to how to integrate them into the overall budget that will be proposed in two weeks. So April 9th is when we're rolling out the budget. So all that is to say it obviously coincides with the strategic plans making progress on the vision and the future of what Fountain Hills will be. So if you have questions or you want to know more about that, let me know. GARMAN: So can you -- what was the downtown project again? The workshop you were talking about? GOODWIN: Sure. It's SEDS (ph.) for short, which is the -- I can't remember. It's the downtown strategy. It's the economic development's downtown strategy plan. So effectively it encompasses -- it asks the question, what is downtown? What is downtown? Obviously, for some people the definition is well, the Avenue. We know the downtown is much larger than just our Avenue. What does that look like? What should it look like? What could we do to make it more cohesive, more engaging? And so it's a broad -stroke idea of how to make our downtown more effective and a core of economic development. GARMAN: Is it updating the current plan or is it -- GOODWIN: It is. GARMAN: Right? Because there's a current. GOODWIN: So the current plan is more -- I'm going to call it high-level, it's a little bit more broad -stroke. This zeroes in specifically to the downtown and what I'll say are actually to-dos, a very specific list of -- you know, we want to see two dozen more trees planted: this type of tree, this location; we'd like to see more benches. So it gets really into the granular level of what we can be doing in the downtown. And I will say it's really a neat concept and it's a very interesting feedback that we're getting. And it Page 6 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION won't be an overnight process by any means. Some of the dreams are very big, which is great, but it's definitely going to be a Tong -term endeavor. GARMAN: And just because his name is escaping me, but was Plat 206 -- GOODWIN: Plat 208. GARMAN: --208? Sorry. 208. I got the -- they came and briefed us and then I got to go to their meeting as well. GOODWIN: Yes. And they're a big part of that conversation. So you are on the pulse of that right now. Yeah. GARMAN: Thanks. Thought I'd bring that up because they were nice enough to brief us. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's move on then to agenda item number 5, which is consideration and possible action. So has everybody had chance to look at the minutes of the regular meeting for February 28th? I got a head nod. Does anybody have a motion with respect to the minutes? YAZZETTA: Move to approve. GARMAN: Is there a second? CRADER: Second. GARMAN: All right. So this is the part where there's a discussion. So my part of the discussion is that, Angela, the minutes that you provided, that you typed out, were excellent. I thought they were great. I read through the whole thing and it was -- so I want to say thank you. And then, of course, the transcript was terrible. And I don't know how much money we waste on that, Rachael. But, like, the minutes that Angela did were great. Okay. All right. So we have a motion on the table to approve the minutes from February 28th meeting. All in favor say aye. ALL: Aye. GARMAN: Any opposed? Unanimously approved. Thank you very much, Angela. Okay. So we're going to move on to agenda item 6 now, which is our update for today. Our guest Chief Dave Ott, with the Fountain Hills Fire Department, is here to give us an Page 7 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION update on, I think, the progress in the kind of a transition phase since the last time you talked to us, right, Chief? OTT: Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here. To all the Commissioners and both my bosses. And we are just about 90 days in to the Fountain Hills Fire Department from the transition that occurred January 1st. If you go a little bit further than that, we transitioned to dispatch by Mesa Regional Dispatch almost a 100 days ago. And that's -- maybe a 110 days. But that was the big hurdle. The first, kind of, step in that going to the Mesa department. We had a meeting with them on Tuesday afternoon -- I had to think of where we're at in this week here. But Tuesday afternoon with Rio Verde, Fort McDowell, and ourselves, and that's kind of our slice that's in the Mesa Regional Dispatch here to look at how things were going, what were the things that needed to be improved on our side, what are the things that Mesa Regional Dispatch had concerns with. Really, what came out of it was, it's all worked well. We had one fire in the north end of town that ended up, thankfully, being a small fire. It was a exhaust fan in a home that was being renovated. But the system worked the way that it should and what we were looking for would be a three -in -one component and that would be three engines and a ladder truck. We have two engines and a ladder truck, but we can't respond to all three of those at the same time. So the way that the system was dispatched automatically was one of our engines, our ladder truck, a engine from Fort McDowell, and an engine from Rio Verde. And that's kind of how we've set it up, is that things going north -- really north of Palisades -- Palisades and Fountain Hills Boulevard, Rio Verde would be dispatched on that call. If we're south of that and east of -- and as I said that would be the third engine -- or the third component of that. And if we use Fountain Hills Boulevard as a dividing line and we look to the east and south -- well, I'll back up a little bit. Really anything in town, we're going to get Fort McDowell just automatically because we're kind of worked into an unofficial automatic aid closest unit dispatch. You may see Fort McDowell engines responding to calls in Fountain Hills and you may see Fountain Hills units responding to calls out in Fort McDowell. But that's kind of how we've worked a little bit. It was clunky because we had two different Page 8 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION dispatch systems. They went live with Mesa the same day that we did and it's pretty much been a seamless move on that part. So Fort McDowell ends up getting included in a lot of our calls. Our other third engine, if we're looking at Fountain Hills Boulevard east, would be coming from Salt River. They're not dispatched by Mesa but it's a phone call and it's a little bit cleaner than what our old dispatch systems had been. And they're fully working towards trying to be a partner in this whole thing with Gilbert Road being still blocked and probably -- the opening date kind of keeps floating in and out. I think that we won't see it before October of this year and I heard somebody at Salt River the other day said, well, it might be October '25. So don't hold me to that. That's just kind of their thought and I think at this point they think it's never going to be finished. But what we've done is with that -- and Salt River has a station that's over in Lehi, which is off of Gilbert Road, they would at times be a closer engine to calls that they might have on the Beeline. And we've worked that out that between Fort McDowell, Salt River, and us, any call on the Beeline that's north of mile marker 184, which is just about the Arizona canal, we would all, with a phone call, be dispatched on that. We'll help out with that side of it. So that's a huge plus to us as well. Anything that is west of Fountain Hills Boulevard would be a call to Scottsdale, and Scottsdale would come and be that third component in that three -in -one for an engine. So that's been really huge on us for being able to keep a high level here that we didn't have before. We've got trucks now closer than the closest Rural Metro truck would have been. So it's worked out well. We've had our IGA with the City of Scottsdale was recently signed. That was a little bit sticky in that Scottsdale had severed the IGA with Rural Metro, although we had a -- kind of a backroom handshake deal with the fire chief in Scottsdale that if we needed their help that they would still come and help us regardless of the IGA being in place. And we've worked through that since the January 1st transition. There are a couple of areas of Scottsdale that are not accessible from Scottsdale and our dispatch into that area has been pretty seamless as well. So they still will respond an Page 9 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION engine up there. They've got a whole continuum of care that they're working with and being able to provide ALS care for their residents in Scottsdale, and that really just means that they're going to end up putting a paramedic in an ambulance when they transport a patient on their side of it, so. And that's worked out well, the delay on their response. We get there, we kind of stop that clock that we look at in the EMS world that we have responses and units on scene in four minutes, we kind of help them stop that clock until they can get there to take over what they feel their responsibility is. So all of that's worked out well. I am working on a presentation for council next week and I'll have a little bit more of the numbers for that, and I'll be glad to have Angela kind of float those numbers to you when we get the calls; number of calls, types of calls, and how that's all transitioned since the December 12th inception of the Mesa Regional Dispatch. Our budget is kind of right on track for what we projected it would be moving into it. And again, it was a little bit of a moving target. We had a pretty good idea. We had some things that have gone over a little bit, we needed a few more Panasonic TOUGHBOOKS to kind of help with the dispatch side of things. We added a few more iPads that are part of our patient care reporting. It seemed to be a little bit better to have two instead of one iPad on each unit and that helps us track the electronic patient care reporting a little bit better. We can start those charts. If we have multiple patients, we can handle that at the same time as well. So there's been a little bit of overages in one area, but in the overall bottom line of the budget, we've made up for the rest. So we're pretty happy about that. Some of the one-time cost won't be there moving forward and we were able to secure all the equipment that we needed. At this point there's a couple of things, like, from the time that a few of the guys get sized for pants, maybe, they needed a larger size kind of moving forward. I don't think we ought to go down in sizes on many of them. But they're all healthy, maybe just a little rounder than they had been when we did all the sizing in October. So we're kind of enjoying that and there's some good-natured ribbing going on on the people that needed a little bit bigger uniform or turnout pant. But all of Page 10 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION that's kind of in the works. We had the IGA with the City of Scottsdale signed. We have an IGA with the Glendale Regional Training Consortium, which we refer to as GRPSTC. That would give us the ability to go out to Glendale and train with Glendale fire in the municipalities on the west side. That also has an opportunity for us that if we had the need to send a recruit through a regional academy, which we don't see in the -- anytime within this budget year and probably the next budget year -- but that gives us the ability to put people through regional training academies in Glendale. We're in, I think, the second meeting in April, we should have an IGA with Mesa for the same kind of setup with their training facility, and ideally that would be our preferred facility to use. It's closer. We're marrying a lot of things that we're doing with the Mesa system. Scottsdale is also in the process of revamping their training facility, and I think they're hoping for that early of 2025. That will be another resource for us to be able to send recruits through regional training, as well as doing our general regional training at that facility. We've been able to work into the East Valley Training Consortium that pretty much takes up everybody that's in the Mesa Regional Dispatch system. We've done some -- taken the ladder down to the Gilbert training facility. We've been able to do a lot of good ventilation training, things that were not really available to us prior to our transition as a municipal department and that's been received well. We've also done some engine company training. Salt River hosted a training at Gilbert as well. We were part of that. We've sent our captains to an East Valley Command training over in Tempe. They're wrapping that up this week, and that those are all opportunities that even though it might seem like we're in the same business when we were a contracted service, it wasn't really available to us just because of the 75 years of, I guess, disparity in the fire system between who we were and where we are now. So that's been one of the biggest pluses all the way around, is that we've been accepted into the Valley system in a number of different groups and we're holding our own. It's not like we're the guys that never trained with them, and we've not missed a step in what our training Page 11 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION was previously. So that makes me feel pretty good that even though we didn't have as many opportunities, our people were still well -trained and were fitting right into the systems. With that, I will take any questions. GARMAN: Thanks, Chief. It's always great to hear you come in and speak off the cuff, which is very authentic. So we very much appreciate that. Questions, comments? I look to my left first. So Phil? SVEUM: How many full-time firefighters do you have? OTT: We have 31 and two chiefs, and I won't consider myself or Chief Winters a full- time firefighter anymore, although, we kind of still think we are. Our guys won't let us touch hoses or get in the way. SVEUM: You have 31 firefighters? OTT: We have 30 -- SVEUM: Full-time? OTT: Full-time, yes. One of them is a training captain as his primary job. We have six captains, six engineers, and whatever that works out to -- 18 firefighters. Of those we have -- of the 31, 20 at this point are paramedics, which is kind of an unreal ratio. And we are a little bit of the envy of the area departments because of the ratio of paramedics that we have. So we do have the opportunity that came up, a grant that will pretty much allow us to send two additional BLS firefighters to paramedic school, and that's through the Mesa program. And it's a kind of a consolidated, compressed schedule and they would actually start in July and be paramedics by January. Normally that's about a 13-month process, but they've kind of worked it to where they can get all their training and get their field work in, and that will be a huge plus to us as well. SVEUM: I think I kind of understand the shared services arrangement you've got, but how many -- I mean, are the numbers comparable to what it was before, when it was contracted rather than a city fire department? OTT: The contract was for eight firefighters a day, and then Chief Winters and myself. There were two additional firefighters that were part of -- they were on the fire rescue. A fire rescue is just an ambulance that's got firefighters on it, opposed to an ambulance Page 12 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION that has civilians on it. So firefighter -wise, the number has stayed the same. We increased by one with bringing John Krajnak on as our training captain. So Mike and I were filling the chief spots, John's our training captain, and then we had 30 firefighters, which was a number that was up here, just not the contracted number. If that makes sense? SVEUM: So when you do your presentation to the council, you'll have a breakdown of where these locations are that were the -- you responded to either structure fires or car fires or car accidents, et cetera? OTT: Yes. The numbers will be there a little bit better. And I like your suggestion. So yeah, I'll add that to my council presentation. SVEUM: And is then, the town responsible for the entire budget, or is it a shared budget as well, because of the shared services around, or -- if 31 firefighters on staff in the Town of Fountain Hills, are all of those paid for by the town? OTT: Correct. And if Fort McDowell runs over here, the agreements that we have, the IGAs that are in place, if Fort McDowell runs over and provides service for us, that's that's a no -charge type arrangement. If we run over to Fort McDowell, that's also a no - charge. We're in the mutual aid setting at this point, which is a little bit different than the automatic aid which the majority of the Valley is in. But that's also another -- we're pretty much doing that with Fort McDowell, as the closest unit would respond regardless of boundaries. But there's typically no money exchanged for those services. SVEUM: And I guess one last question. I know during this rezoning issue there was talk about can your ladder truck service a four-story apartment building, and it sounded like it was affirmative? OTT: Yes. And as I explained of a former firefighter from Washington State that comes to most of the council meetings, it all depends on how close we get to the building. But for all practical purposes, what we would design would be a apparatus platform, which would be an area close to the building that would allow us to get the ladder in there that would put us on -- typically we try to get two of the four corners accessible. When we look at the overall design on a new project and how we can get the ladder truck in Page 13 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION there. But our current ladder truck would be able to service the proposed project off of Shea. SVEUM: So that's part of your input when plans are put in front of you and if it's -- you determine where these platforms should be, so those plans are incorporated into the construction plans? OTT: Correct. That's part of the plan review process that Chief Winters will do. SVEUM: Okay. OTT: As well as requiring it to be a sprinkled building and any of the other fire safety aspects that would need to go with that. GARMAN: Thank you. Any other questions? Geoff? YAZZETTA: Thanks. Chief, how long is the response time from some of the neighboring districts like Fort McDowell or Rio Verde? OTT: We've had pretty good response from Fort McDowell because they don't have any grocery stores, and they typically end up showing up. And on the computer system that we had, it will show that unit being closer even if it's not, because they're mobile, than our engine at station 1. If they go to Safeway or -- YAllETTA: I've seen them at Safeway before. Yeah. OTT: -- Bashas'. So they get dumped on all those calls. So it's a little bit quicker. But for a seconding engine or if we're tied up and they're coming in, Fort McDowell is pretty quick. Rio Verde is -- their farthest station is still almost 16 miles. Scottsdale's closest station is up at the Mayo Clinic -- just west of the Mayo Clinic. They're pretty quick. We'II get to their calls in about four minutes, and they usually end up being about two minutes behind in that pocket that we service for them. So it's pretty quick. Salt River, if we need their fire rescue's, their closest one they typically send from Station 294, which is on Indian School and Center. And that's about, again, probably close to a 20- minute response, which would be what their engine comes in. But as we look at what the breakdown is and the number of engines that we get, the number of people there, that all kind of falls in within the National Fire Protection Agency standards for responses to structure fires. Page 14 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION YAZZETTA: And how often are mutual aid calls responded to here in Fountain Hills? OTT: I think, I will have a better answer number -wise when I get my report finished for Tuesday. But I think that the number calls the Fort McDowell runs for us is -- probably, since December 12th, has probably been 30 out of -- and I'm just taking an average here. I think that we have probably run over 900 calls. I know that one of the topics when we had the meeting with Rio Verde, Fort McDowell, and us with MRDC, Fort McDowell or -- excuse me -- Rio Verde was requested 25 times and respond -- actually responded 17 times. We were able to cancel them on the other eight calls. But that's about a 70 percent response on that. And most of that was for ambulance service. YAZZETTA: Thank you. OTT: You bet. GARMAN: All right. Bernie? HOENLE: Two things. First is a thank you and the kids at McDowell Elementary were happy when the crew stopped by and they gave them their thank you notes and the two bags of pancake flour. And they wanted to make the pancakes but I think you're better off getting the flour. The second part of it is, could you touch on a little bit your working involvement with the Coalition and NARCAN and things like that and what's going on? OTT: Yes. And I think our guys were probably as happy as the kids were. That's kind of like the highlight of the stuff that we do and to be able to go out and do that is just huge. One of the things that you brought up, the NARCAN. There's a state Department of Health Services sponsored program that's called a Leave Behind Program. And what that's designed to do is they'll furnish a kit. It's a zippered kit that has two doses of NARCAN in it. And if you're not familiar with NARCAN, it will counteract an opioid overdose. It's been proven that it has been a huge benefit in emergency responses and in the ability for the public to be able to help somebody that's experienced either an intentional or accidental opioid overdose. And with the -- I don't have the exact numbers -- but since they've started making NARCAN a little bit more available to the general public, the opioid overdoses in Maricopa County have dropped significantly. So it's been a proven program. It works well. And we've been able to -- I think we have -- Page 15 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION we had to have 50 percent of our department trained through the DHS website. And I think we're down to -- we're over 50 percent. I think we've got two more people that just need to complete their training. So we've exceeded what they've required. We should be starting to get those Leave Behind packets here pretty soon. And it's got the two doses of NARCAN, it's got an instruction card in it, it's also got or contains a magnet that you can put on your refrigerator. Although, a lot of refrigerators these days are really nonmagnetic. And that's designed that if we run on someone that has experienced an overdose, whether they might be by themselves or if they've got family members there or friends there, we've been instructed by the Department of Health Services to go ahead and leave those kits there with them. Prior to that, Mark Scharnow was able to secure quite a bit of NARCAN through a couple of different avenues that we've dispensed through the fire station. If you come up, we kind of joke about it being -- we're a safe baby haven, if you wanted to leave a baby, we would gladly take care of it. No questions asked. It's the same with the NARCAN. If you come and you would like to have a couple of boxes of NARCAN -- we've limited it just based on our supply -- but we would give you two if you came up. But it's kind of a leave behind or a safe baby haven; you can leave the baby. And it's a safe baby haven or a safe NARCAN haven. We don't ask the questions. Some of the things that have changed, also at the State level, is that if you report an opioid overdose, it's not being looked at as being a crime at that point. So I think that's gotten some of the resistance from people thinking that, hey, I'm not going to call because we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing and we're going to go to jail, while their friend lays there dying. So I think that's helped quite a bit as well. But the Coalition's been a big supporter of that. And I go to different meetings as part of the opioid settlement, maybe by default on some times, but happy to go. And the Coalition's great and I take great pride in sitting with people from Scottsdale and Carefree and Cave Creek and kind of promoting the Coalition because it is a great deal. So we're lucky to have it. GARMAN: Good. Anybody? All right. So the strategic plan that we helped put together for Fountain Hills, it's a ten-year plan, ten-year horizon, and we open it back up Page 16 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION and edit it about every five years. So now that you're a town employee and you have, what is it? 33 town employees with you, one of our strategic pillars is public health, well-being, and safety of our town, which I think fits you pretty well. OTT: Right? GARMAN: So I don't want to put you on the spot so much today, unless you have something on the top of your mind to discuss. But also an invitation if you ever want to come back again, things that you think now can help the town from a safety perspective in what you're doing over the next five to ten years, are things that we can help with. And I kind of wanted to get your opinion on things that maybe you think, and maybe you thought when you were a contractor and now that you maybe have more access to us as a town employee, things that we might be able to put into the next plan to help the town be a safer place five to ten years from now than it is now. OTT: I am always happy to come to this group, and things didn't change. It's kind of funny because I'll go to Ace and run into people and I say, well, how's your new job? And I'll have to tell them, well, it's a lot like my old job. I just have one less boss and two bosses that I really like. So that really hadn't changed. And even though we weren't really specifically included in the plan, our overall plan -- we were really, probably, more town employees than contracted employees, and at least, from Chief Winters' and my standpoint, because of the interaction that we have and the way that the town included us and built us into the town system. And that goes back to, I believe, Fire District days, where there was a lot of collaboration between the District which contracted with Rural Metro and then after the dissolution of the District, how Rural Metro kind of transitioned through, and Scott LaGreca and his work. And we have always had that as a goal on what we can do to promote safety and and keep things going. One of the biggest things that helped us was the fire sprinkler ordinance that was enacted back in 2000 and for us as a fire service, there's a lot of value in both residential and commercial fire sprinklers. And that was a huge step. And there's still areas across the country that have not been able to do that. And most of the fire chiefs that 1 talk to really wish that they had some sort of setup like that or an arrangement, and they don't. Page 17 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION So we're kind the envy of them on that as well. And I think moving forward, we're more than happy to be involved with anything. And some of the things that we had done previously were -- and with the help of the town, we have a vehicle replacement fund as part of our budget. And the budget was worked out so that the fire chief took care of the entire budget, which had the Rural Metro contract as part of it. So there were already a lot of built-in town aspects to that, so that really hasn't changed. And just an example of that would be that we plan for apparatus replacement, and one of that was looking at the ladder truck that we had that was 20 years old, and we replaced it with a newer truck. And one of the things that we looked at was -- there was a truck that had a little bit shorter ladder on it, which may have been a little bit -- had a little better access to 100 percent of the town. But for the same price we got a truck that had a lot more capability and might have a few areas where some of the inclines or some of the turns going into either cul de sacs or complexes might be a little bit tight, but we've kind of worked through that, we know how to work around that. And those are things that we looked at saying that that would give us the best safety factor moving forward. That would give us the most opportunity to be able to do things like an apartment that might be four or five stories. Adero Canyon when they -- Adero Scottsdale -- excuse me. When they built that, we can access the roof of that with the ladder truck that we have. Had we not bought that truck, we would be about a floor and a half short of being able to reach the top. So although it's not specifically designed in the plan, those are things that we looked at moving forward on. How can we do things to keep the town safe? GARMAN: That's great. Thanks. So always have an open invitation to come back if something comes up that you want to brief us on. OTT: I appreciate that, and I'm glad I was here for you last night. Or next to last night. GARMAN: Thanks, Chief. OTT: Okay. I brought -- GARMAN: Oh, cool. KEEFE: Is it chocolate? GARMAN: Is it chocolate? Page 18 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION YAZZETTA: Coming from the help. OTT: Whatever makes you happy, y'all. I wish you all a good day. GARMAN: Okay. Moving on. On the agenda. So that was 6. So we're going to move on to agenda item number 7, which is the update on our two work groups for the commission. So I think I'm going to start things off because I asked Geoff and his group, his squad, to give us a little more in-depth description of the workshop that's going to happen on April 20th, right? Saturday. And so he made up a couple of slides to brief us on. So over to you, Geoff. YAZZETTA: Can you pull this up or instruct me on how to do this? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Absolutely. Do you want to present down there? Do you want to be up here? YAllETTA: Up here is fine. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Up here? YAZZETTA: Yeah. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: If you would like to be up here, if you'll notice, there's a second tab on your computers next to the agenda. YAZZETTA: No. On your screen. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: It's on everyone's. YAllETTA: I see that. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yeah. If everyone just want to click on that. YAZZETTA: There you go. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yeah. And also have it on the main computer too. That I can bring up down here for you as well. YAZZETTA: It's only three slides. So I can just, you know. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: You sure? YAZZETTA: Walk them through it. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Okay. YAZZETTA: Yeah. Does everyone have it up? So as Patrick mentioned our community outreach workshop is going to be taking place on Saturday, April 20th from 10 to noon. Page 19 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION So there will be a two-hour window to garner feedback from the community. The first slide -- and by the way, I want to point out that Jill made these slides, I did not. She is a PowerPoint wizard. And despite being a millennial, I am not as tech forward or inclined as others. So we have reserved one of the ballrooms at the community center. So this first slide is a layout of what to expect when a member of the community enters. So they're going to come in, we're going to have a welcome station just to greet them and give them a quick overview of what to expect. We're going to have a Tight refreshment table of water, maybe some juice, some small snacks, maybe granola bars, something of that nature. And then you'll see there are three -- I don't want to call them stations because there's going to be multiple things in each of these areas. But what we try to do is take a variety of topics, and we are going to introduce each topic to the community members and say: safety, town vision and identity, infrastructure, local economy, town center, commercial and residential development, educational resources, government and community service, recreation, things to do. Give them that prompt and tell them to think five to ten years in the future. And what we want them to do is just kind of like stream of consciousness, pen to paper, jot down what they think of each of those topics and attach it to that board. Either it'll be like a sticky note or a note card that we can, like file away. The goal is to get people thinking long-term and think bigger. We anticipate that we're going to get a fair amount of, hey, well, there's this street that needs to be repaved, and it's like, here's something that's right in front of them that they see on a daily basis. But what we can do is zoom out when we're debriefing and going through the feedback, we can zoom out from that comment, say, okay, well, what are they saying here? Okay. Well, infrastructure, the road network is a priority. And then we can kind of extrapolate what the, the longer term planning vision is from that individual comment. We anticipate that people will spend anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes here. It depends on how much they have to say. We would encourage them to spend more time than less because the more feedback we can gather here, the better for the structuring of the pillars for our next strategic plan. On the way out, we'll just kind of have a catch all Page 20 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION station. Like, was there anything that you thought we missed? Is there anything else you'd like to share? And yeah, then they're welcome to leave. But that is a general layout of what that ballroom is going to look like. And before we switch slides, does anyone have any comments or do any of my colleagues want to add anything? KEEFE: I'll add something. Yeah. I mean, Geoff, you covered it very well. But our intention through this is to really listen deeply and get people to open up and share. And in that example where there, you know, I need the pothole on my road fixed, to give them a place to unload that message, park it, and then zoom back out to take the more strategic view. So we will be doing that intentionally, not just taking a list of grievances. And then, there are eight kind of pillar categories, but the ninth one is included in that first station there, the town identity and vision. Where just -- that's kind of the warm up act. This is the mission statement. This is our brand. This is our life. And I don't mean logo brand, but all that is Arizona. Here is our mission statement. Is that what you want to see of your town in five and ten years? And just warm them up with that. And then we'll get specific with the particular category prompts. GARMAN: Thank you, Jill. Yeah, Bernie. HOENLE: Yeah, Geoff. What are you planning on doing for pre -entry information? I'm not going to say education. But to get people ready so they come through the door so they know what's expected of them, so they can at least think about it before they show up. YAZZETTA: Yeah. Bo Larson has put together a flier that is inviting people just to share what they think the town's priorities should be. And he's also put together, I think, a paragraph or like, a short description of what this is going to be that's going to go out in the town's newsletter. And I believe it's going to be a standalone email that goes out. And then we can also share that same statement when posting on Facebook or doing individual emails; just doing our own personal outreach. But I think that would frame up what to expect. CRADER: I think mine follows a similar thread than of Bernie's asking, is there a way to Page 21 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION have the current plan printed out, or some sort of information for people to look at, to get the types of ideas, to spur ideas, when they're sitting at the table or something? I just assume a lot of people probably haven't read the current plan and seen the progress that's been made. Is there a way to help prod that so that they can come with ideas when they do sit down at the table? YAZZETTA: That's a good idea. And I can chat with Bo about that. Because I think what we could do is include the 2022 strategic plan. And in the two years that have passed since that plan was approved, we could have just some short bullet points saying, hey, here are the different tasks, priorities, or task strategies that we have worked on. That way there is some context. CRADER: Yeah, I think it's helpful. I mean, there's big ideas, there's small ideas, and that plan has both, right? And so I don't want people to think that, hey, my idea is too big and I don't want him to think, hey, it's too small. YAZZETTA: Sure. CRADER: So like some examples just to get people, even if they stand off to the side at the refreshments and look over it, I think it could at least nudge them. YAllETTA: Yeah. We should probably print out a few copies of the plan just to have for people that they can flip through it, if they'd like to, on site if they didn't review it as a PDF prior to the meeting. So great idea. Thank you. SVEUM: Is it already done? YAZZETTA: Yes. Yeah. SVEUM: Has it been sent out? YAZZETTA: I haven't seen it sent out, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been sent. I just -- SVEUM: I just would include the link to that on the city or the town's website. YAZZETTA: I'll touch base with Bo tomorrow. Yeah. GARMAN: I saw the article or a post on it on the Times, in the Fountain Hills Times. I don't know that the plan was included, so maybe we can get them to update it even there too. YAZZETTA: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, they can update the website. Page 22 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION GARMAN: Yeah, yeah. YAllETTA: The Fountain Hills Times, easily. KEEFE: I was just going to add though, I don't want to steer people's reaction too much. We want to create an experience where they're talking about their town, not -- I didn't understand this statement on page 4, pillar number 5. Don't worry about editing what is, talk to us about the town you want to live in. And so we really did go back and forth on how much of that should we cause people to look at before they're walking into the experience. I do think it's a great idea to make the links available in the communications about the event, so that if people are inclined, they can go, oh, it's right here. That's what they're talking about. GARMAN: Sure. Thank you. Joe? REYES: Mine is a combination. I think we should do all of that. And I don't think we should do a cut down version of what we have out there and what has been accomplished thus far. I think it's a good thing for people. The more they know, I think, the more prepared they'll come to take that either further or differently. And so I suggest we keep all of these things out there, as much as we can get out there, I think the better. That's just my thought. GARMAN: Are they writing this down? Like, are you going to give them a piece of paper or a three by five card or something they're going to write on? YAllETTA: Yeah, I think a three by five card would probably -- some of these details are still being hammered out. We've got the broad vision. But I think three by five card would be appropriate because that gives them plenty of space where they can jot down one or multiple ideas as it relates to these different interest areas. And then, that would be filed with that specific topic. GARMAN: Yeah. That's great. I was down at the -- kind of the grass level where it's hard to read people's handwriting sometimes. I mean, like simple things if you think about -- YAZZETTA: Yeah. GARMAN: -- sometimes people scribble down and they write, and you have no idea Page 23 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION what that says. So I think that's why you probably have helper people around at each station to write -- YAZZETTA: Yeah. GARMAN: -- what they say. What did you mean by whatever this says, something like that? YAZZETTA: Yeah. And we can ask for clarity; just glance at the statement that they've put down and say -- just, if we feel that we need additional or if we feel we need to translate the scribbled note, we can ask them what it was. So absolutely. GARMAN: Because you're going to have to compile that afterwards, right? YAZZETTA: Yes. GARMAN: So yeah, I was looking at the bottom line for -- YAZZETTA: Data compilation will follow the event. GARMAN: Yeah. okay. YAllETTA: Okay. Let's go ahead and switch on to the next slide. Sorry, you may need to zoom in a little bit for this one. So what this is, is it takes all those different categories and then that's on the vertical axis, on the horizontal axis. Then there's priority low to high. So what we're going to do is we're going to take the information and we're going to group it based on how many people shared the same sentiment. So obviously, roads are a big topic, and I know I keep using that as as kind of an easy example. But we anticipate there's going to be a lot of feedback. So that's probably going to end up at the highest priority level, just based on the total number of feedback. But we're also going to receive a smaller group of feedback about some other topic. It doesn't mean it is not a potential priority, it's just going to be a lower ranking priority. And then, this is just going to help us I guess, visually see, kind of like a heat map so to speak, where we're going to see, like, hey, this is where a lot of the feedback came in or this is where we got some, but not as much and just be able to then further process the data and group it. Jill, I know you did this for a profession prior, so I'm going to see if you want to elaborate any further on this. KEEFE: Sure. I mean, their exit ticket out of the experience as they've walked through Page 24 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION the different stations, besides any parting comments you have, any comment cards you want to turn in, is we're going to essentially give them eight votes and ask them to force rank these eight categories. Force ranking is brutally hard because they're all important. There is no least important of these things, but the act of force ranking over a large population of people will create a pattern. So if you have two most important, two second most important, two third, and two least most important, we will walk out of the event with a pattern and a trend line. That will be kind of the synthesis priority view, the comment card. So we're collecting feedback, collecting comment cards, and listening, and making our own notes. That qualitative information, this prioritization rubric, just gives a way to put some pattern and some weight to what we're hearing and will be one of the artifacts that we turn in at the end of the event. GARMAN: Is that, like, free online? This -- KEEFE: The Wordle? GARMAN: What did you call it? KEEFE: It's a Wordle. GARMAN: Word cloud? KEEFE: Yes. Yeah. A word cloud. GARMAN: Yeah. KEEFE: Yeah. GARMAN: Is that something you can just -- is it an app or something? KEEFE: Yeah. Yeah. There are websites that will do that. You can -- and beautiful Al. You can shove a lot of raw content into it and it will generate a word cloud for you. Yeah. GARMAN: That's great. Thanks. I just have a lot of these papers from all my presentations this winter. I might be good. KEEFE: You can word cloud that. YAZZETTA: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And just by way of reference, we did one of these forced comparisons during last year's Leadership Academy planning, which Jill and I were a part of. We took -- it was -- what was it? Like, three dozen individual topics and Page 25 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION narrowed it down to, I think it was eight. And there were about 12 of us on that planning committee. And it was a really powerful exercise because we took all these different topics and figured out, hey, here's what we think is best to present to the next cohort of the Leadership Academy. So I just want to share that we've had a positive experience with this. And I imagine it will work with this as well. And we're going to get far more feedback just because we're going to have a lot more people involved with this one. So yeah, we can then take that. And the third and final slide is that word cloud which -- just is a really interesting and powerful illustration because the size of the words tells you how much of a priority it is, but then you kind of get this almost like a collage or like, a picture of what our Town of Fountain Hills, what our community feels are our priorities and what we will then use to structure the next iteration of the plan. So yeah, that is an overview of the event which is taking place next month. And any other questions or anyone want to add anything? GARMAN: Go ahead. REYES: So when are you going to fill in the blanks and let us know which station we're at? YAZZETTA: That is probably going to take place in the next week or so. But I did want to ask, is everyone available on Saturday, April 20, Commissioners? SVEUM: Yeah. I'II just find out. YAZZETTA: Okay. Awesome. Thank you. KEEFE: I am all over this and I'm so invested in it. But I do want to say there's always a variable with -- YAllETTA: Of course. KEEFE: -- health stuff. YAllETTA: Family first. KEEFE: My intention is to be there. Yeah. YAZZETTA: One other question that I do -- this is for Rachael. We're going to get a lot of constituent requests. Do you guys have, like, a sheet or a form? Or say someone comes Page 26 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION in with a tree trimming or pothole request, we obviously, as commissioners of the town, we want to take that and make sure it gets directed to the right individual. GOODWIN: The best tool for that really is our online portal, because it allows -- it goes directly to our code enforcement, allows us to track it, allows us to disseminate to whoever it needs to go to. So when you contact Bo and it sounds like you're going to talk with him tomorrow, he can put you -- he can give you that. And it will be whether it's a QR code or somewhere where somebody can say, hey, yep, not a problem. Best way to do that is scan this, enter your information, and it will get to the right department. YAZZETTA: Okay. Excellent. Yeah. I just want to make sure we're able to shepherd those requests in the right direction. GOODWIN: Absolutely. YAllETTA: The QR code is what I had in mind as soon as you mentioned the portal. GOODWIN: Perfect. YAZZETTA: So that'll be great. Yeah. HOENLE: I was thinking we just give them your business card. GOODWIN: Great idea. HOENLE: That's no good? Okay. GOODWIN: I'm not very good with potholes. HOENLE: When Jerry did his presentation about the streets last month, we talked about the financial impact of this. And obviously, it's going to be a topic of conversation here. We don't really have anything to provide anybody, at least, to even speak about it at all, frankly. GOODWIN: Not really. There hasn't been any specific direction yet from the mayor and council. But I think you're on the right track to let them know, hey, it's a topic. It's been discussed. It will continue to make the concerns known. If you have a direct -- if you do have a pothole in your street, let the town know because we are actively working on those. But obviously that is just a Band-Aid to the bigger conversation. HOENLE: It's a bigger conversation I'm referring to because of the number. Page 27 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION GOODWIN: Absolutely. Unfortunately, yeah. There's not a lot to that -- HOENLE: It's not ready yet. GOODWIN: -- that can offer at this point. Yeah. HOENLE: Okay. Thanks, Rachael. Can I get your cards? GARMAN: So how -- advertising? Is there going to be a blitz between now and the 20th? YAZZETTA: Yes. Yeah. GARMAN: And what does that entail? YAZZETTA: Bo is going to be sending out emails through the town's channel. There are several thousand -- Rachael, do you know how many is on that email distribution? GOODWIN: It's -- YAllETTA: It's well into the thousands. GOODWIN: It is. It's well into the thousands. And it's pretty active. But I'm sure he'll use our social media channels and other things. YAllETTA: Yeah. He's going to post on social media as well, which we can then reflect on our personal pages. And then I would also ask that just individually, the people that are in your networks, I would request that you do some personal outreach. Hey, we're hosting this event. Here's the purpose of it. Are you available to come by for 20/30? and again, a home run, in my estimation, is getting at least 100 people out to this event and I'm confident that we'll be able to do that, just, through all these different -- GARMAN: And follow-up in the newspaper, town website, anything else? YAllETTA: I don't think it will be featured on the town website, but the emails reach a lot of people. But yeah, we can look at the newspaper as well. GARMAN: Yeah. Maybe the online version is pretty quick sometimes. YAllETTA: Yeah. Absolutely. GARMAN: And then I know you kind of breezed by it, but I think there was an ask in there for help from us, and I think everybody -- YAllETTA: Yes. GARMAN: -- kind of gave you a head nod, but I'm hearing that you're going to be Page 28 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION reaching out and getting an official list of us? YAllETTA: Yes. GARMAN: All right. So that we can come and help. And then you know what we're going to do? YAllETTA: Yeah. We need -- GARMAN: I mean, we need you on station too. YAllETTA: Yeah. We are going to have one more -- GARMAN: While we are serving lemonade? YAZZETTA: No. One more planning session just to figure out the different roles and responsibilities. But that'll be pretty easy to button down. And then I will reach out and give assignments and -- GARMAN: And you probably -- and if we need to be there at 9:30 or whatever, it's important to you to brief us on what -- not only what we can say, but what we really shouldn't say. Right? YAZZETTA: Yeah. GARMAN: If we're going to be sitting in these little islands. YAZZETTA: Yeah. GARMAN: They're asking us about the roads, and Phil says, let me tell you about the roads. YAZZETTA: Yeah. Again, our role -- yeah. Our role in this event is to remind people. Because again, we're going to hear a lot about the, hey, here's the issue that I see day- to-day. And that issue is important. And we'll direct them to the QR code or hand out the business card, maybe both. But we're going to remind them, hey, think five to ten years in the future. So we're just constantly going to be reframing the people that attend this event and participate because they're going to be thinking, oh, well, hey, this is on my mind today. But think about that in the longer term. So we won't be steering them in any one direction. Again, it's here is this -- it's almost like a word associate. Like I say something and like, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Like we want them just to go stream of consciousness to the paper and give just, like, some pure and Page 29 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION honest feedback about what they think the different priorities should be. GARMAN: The last -- but yeah, that's going to be important for us, I think. YAZZETTA: Yeah. GARMAN: Is -- YAZZETTA: I'II have a full description of what to expect for one, yeah. GARMAN: Last comment I have because it's great, because right before the witness takes off. It's chocolate, Joe. YAZZETTA: Has the meeting been that long? Mr. Goodbar? Haven't had this in a while. HOENLE: I have one more question, but Mr. Goodbars are my favorite. GARMAN: Okay. So -- YAllETTA: Start passing that down. We're good? GARMAN: We're good. I have one more question though for Geoff is, since we're all going to be enlisted to help, it is going to be -- we're going to have a quorum. We're going to have an official meeting. How -- let's review one more time with Angela. How's that going to -- YAZZETTA: We're going to coordinate that with you, Angela? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yes. Yes, please. Yeah, I was making notes too, as you were speaking on that. GARMAN: So this is basically going to be a meeting for us now, right? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Um -hum. GARMAN: Okay. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yeah. And we'll make sure -- I'll make sure that a quorum is posted also. So possible quorum. GARMAN: Do you have to post -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: For the (indiscernible). GARMAN: You have to post an agenda, right? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: No, I don't have to post an agenda for this. This is just -- I'm just going to put the name of it and we'll post it outside saying a possible quorum, work -- strategic plan workshop. Page 30 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION GARMAN: Yeah. Even though we're all going to be at this event, it's not an agendized -- it's like the town holiday party, right? Or any other -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Correct. GARMAN: -- major event where a quorum will be present, but -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yes. GARMAN: -- we're not meeting to conduct -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Or like, when we have the Leadership Academy, we post that as well, saying there could be a possible quorum -- GARMAN: Sure. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: -- for certain groups and stuff. Yep. GARMAN: Okay. I'm interested because this is part of our -- this workshop is part of our commission, so it's not just a party where we're -- this is -- YAllETTA: No, I was just using the holiday party -- GARMAN: Yeah. Yeah. YAZZETTA: -- as a reference, where you're going to have the seven elected officials that are all in the same room at the same time. But it's not like we're talking about. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Right. YAllETTA: Yeah. But yeah, we're not talking about business. GARMAN: Yeah. I know. But we are going to be talking about issues having to do with this commission. YAZZETTA: Yeah. GARMAN: But there's no agenda. We're just gathering feedback. SVEUM: That's the agenda. YAllETTA: Rachael or Angela if you have any feedback -- GARMAN: I just think it's explains -- YAZZETTA: This is -- we just post the notice and -- GOODWIN: It is. And what it is is, it's a notice of quorum or a possible notice of quorum. And just like I'll use the Fountain Hills Cares event that happened a week or two ago. We posted that there may be a quorum of council, but there's no business Page 31 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION being discussed. There's no decisions being made, there's no voting, there's no action. That's what this is. So while this is a workshop and it is certainly not a holiday party, and that it is part of the commission's duties and roles, there is not business being conducted so much as that there's going to be discussions had and decisions made, so to speak. GARMAN: True. No actions -- GOODWIN: Correct. No actions being taken. GARMAN: -- no votes. But definitely discussions. GOODWIN: Not amongst the seven of you where you're going to say, well, we heard that this was the priority. If you're going to have that, that would be a meeting. So my -- that's the difference. GARMAN: It's the first I'm glad we're working through this this year. Yeah, I don't have any -- okay. I just wanted to bring that up and discuss that we're making sure that we list that. And we might even need to have a -- the agenda item is the workshop or something like that. I don't think we need to do. It's -- YAZZETTA: We don't need to have an agenda? GARMAN: Yeah. Rachael? KEEFE: And I don't -- and I think we've had these in the past before. Bernie, you might be able to -- do you recall when they were working years ago, when you were on the plan that we had some workshops, I believe, when John Kraft was on it as well, that were similar to this one and were -- HOENLE: And a 100 of were -- KEEFE: Yes. HOENLE: -- sequestered in the community center? KEEFE: Yes. That's right. So we just did a notice of a quorum then. But to be sure, that's a great point. I will bring that up to our town clerk. She'll be able to advise us, but I think we're fine just by doing the notice of possible quorum instead of just a full meeting. But -- GARMAN: Thanks. Page 32 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION ANEW KEEFE: Yep. GARMAN: That's actually what I was thinking of a few years ago when they did that. KEEFE: Yeah. GARMAN: Community center. All right. Sorry for monopolizing all your time. YAllETTA: No worries. No, it's important to iron these things out just to make sure we don't run against the -- GARMAN: Up a -- YAZZETTA: Yeah. Run against the provisions. So with that, I don't have anything else unless there's any other comments or questions. GARMAN: Thank you very much, Geoff. YAZZETTA: Thank you. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to seeing everybody outside of the meeting chambers. GARMAN: Commission also -- the commission updates. Another work group or the nonprofit presentations and service organizations just want to tell you what happened last month is I had one scheduled with the Four Peaks Rotary at 7 o'clock and I was all ready to go, I had my notes and everything. And I was shaving at about five after seven in the morning, and I got a phone call saying, where are you? And I was like -- I was pretty sure it was 7 p.m. who has meetings at 7 in the morning? But it was 7 in the morning. So I did miss that one. And we've rescheduled it for April 25th. So probably the final meeting for us, as far as the nonprofits go is in the morning at 7 a.m. on the 25th of April. And that will be my last one, I think, of this cycle. So I just want everybody to note that. And like I said, I have a stack of paperwork, and that's going to go into another agenda item when we get to it. But that was my quick update as far as that goes. Okay. Thanks. We're going to move on then to agenda item 8, which is discussion and possible actions for future agenda topics. Before we kick that off, I want to let everybody know that next month, April meeting, we are going to have a blue zone presentation. I know the lead for that was Julie Ewald (ph.). Did I pronounce it right? And her group, which Jill put me in contact with. So they're going to come in. They're Page33of36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION looking forward to that at our April meeting, as well as hopefully an implement -- a strategic plan implementation update from somebody else on the town staff as well. GOODWIN: I think you're going to like it. GARMAN: That's beautiful. Okay. Does anybody else have any ideas? I know we're heading quickly into the summer. But does anybody have any other ideas, something current that they wanted to bring up as a possible topic for our commission? All right. Hearing none, we can close that agenda item then. And move on to comments from the Chair. I provided the majority of my comments just now. I told you what's going to happen next month, which is April. We'll probably do a quick review, really quick, of how the workshop went, but nothing too in-depth. So that's April. During these comments, I wanted to bring up kind of the remainder of the year topically. So don't worry, it's not going to be a long, long time. But May we're going to look at any new terms for commissioners. That's usually when we do that, in May. We also look at voting on the positions. Right? In the May time frame for the following year. 5o that'll be coming up at the May meeting. We also, generally -- I don't think we've done it yet -- look at the calendar for the next year. Right? Angela, I think we do that in the May meeting. Or did we already do that? No? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: We already did that. Yeah, I think we are -- I think we did that at the November or October meeting for the -- because we usually look at that and vote on it for -- and then -- I think it was either -- maybe in October. I'll double-check. GARMAN: But we'll look at that too. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yes. GARMAN: We want to make sure we're taking everything into account for the following year. And then in May, the plan is to have a more in-depth review of the data that we've accrued -- that Geoff and I have accrued from the workshop and from the nonprofit and the service organization presentations. So looking at May being, whatever time we have left from the -- kind of the commission required kind of agenda items, to review, to set up for the June meeting. So it'll be kind of an overview, a discussion, where we're headed, and results from the workshops -- from both work Page 34 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION groups -- sorry. And then I'm going to posit a request in June. I'd like to have us come together and have kind of a work session. And so I'm looking at Rachael, maybe you all know what that means a little better than me, but I'm thinking that in June we're actually going to get up and not, like, sit right here and have a work session, maybe a whiteboard and stuff like that, and kind of work a little bit on the data that we received during the year and kind of distill that down. And Geoff and I will have a little work on providing kind of the main points from the data that we've accrued, so that you all can look at that. And the goal is when we leave on June to have a draft of the strategic priorities for the next plan. So I emphasize draft, but to have what we think are the fill in the blank number of strategic priorities or pillars for the next plan, so that when we meet again in the new year, when I say the new year, August, we're going to have those draft pillars identified, and then we can spend the next year looking at the next level down. I mean, the previous plan that's called the strategic signature strategies, next level down and work on those next year. So you see the outcome that I'm trying to go for for the June meeting. I'm making sure I said everything that I had written in my notes. So excuse me for one second. Okay. Does anybody have any comments on what I just said or what I left out? Does it make sense to a certain extent? Okay. I know we went after, but I want to make sure I'm getting head nods from people so that -- we're moving into June, and June, we'll be all set up and we'll have that piece of paper or a slide with the draft strategic priorities for the next plan when we start off in August. Okay. Yes, Bernie? HOENLE: The only bit of a caution I would put on there so that we don't get too far in front of our headlights is this is an election year, and some of the emphasis from the council and direction could change, and it does impact what we're doing. So the previous town manager would run a lot of interference for the group plus get feedback and trends going on from the counsel. So we'd be looking for Rachael to do something like that too. So I agree it's good to start collecting that together, but we sure don't lock things in ahead of some other work. GARMAN: Thanks, Bernie. That's why I always emphasize the draft and but we've got Page 35 of 36 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 27, 2024 REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION to have some kind of guide going forward, and we'll have other elections before the actual plan is shopped to the council next time anyways. So Rachael? GOODWIN: That's okay. Actually I was going to say, Bernie, that's a valuable insight that you shared there. And I wasn't actually going to say anything. I was going to actually email you offline. But since we're talking about it, I currently won't be in attendance on the June date that we currently have. I don't know how critical that is. I certainly -- Dave Trimble's (ph.) usually very willing to stand in for me. And again, that doesn't always -- my participation does not prevent what you guys do. You guys do obviously, the heavy lifting of this commission, I'm just a sounding board for questions and things like that. But if there's interest -- if you'd like me to be there, maybe we can talk about a possible alternate date if that works. If it's not a big deal and it's not a critical factor, and you want to move forward with the date as scheduled, totally fine too. I just wanted to make sure you knew. GARMAN: Okay. Thanks. Thanks. Elections, right? Elections have consequences. I know doing the strategic planning, I tend to try to think -- you look at the horizon and it doesn't move that much. Right? That's the goal over there. If you look down into the weeds, into the forest, things are moving around all the time, up and down and politics go up and down. So hopefully we can stay above it as best we can. That's the goal anyways. All right. So that was a lot of talking by me. Does anybody have any comments or anything about the next few months, next few meetings? No? Okay. Okay. So the next meeting is going to be April 24th, 2024. Those are all my comments. Anybody else have anything else to say before? Okay. Can I have a motion as far as the end of the meeting today? KEEFE: Move to adjourn. YAZZETTA: Second. GARMAN: All right. Any discussion? All in favor of adjournment, say aye. IN UNISON: Aye. GARMAN: Any opposed? Nope. Unanimous. We'II see everybody at the April meeting. Thank you. Page 36 of 36