HomeMy WebLinkAboutSPAC.2024.0424.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION
April 24, 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 Phil Sveum
Members Absent: Commissioner Joseph Reyes
Staff Present: Chief Financial Officer Paul Soldinger; Chief Financial Officer David Pock;
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.
Seventeen members of the public were present. No one requested to speak.
4. REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER
Commissioner Keefe:
- Grateful for the opportunity to be on the commission.
Pleased to see friends, neighbors, and customers in the audience showing
passion for the Blue Zones topic.
- Thanked everyone for their engagement and attendance.
Commissioner Hoenle:
- Highlighted involvement with the Arizona Alliance for Livable Communities
and the Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists.
Mentioned discussions on Blue Zones over the past year and shared
experiences from south Phoenix and Scottsdale.
- Discussed efforts to promote healthier living conditions through various
initiatives including diet, stress relief, and multimodal transportation.
- Described a recent bike ride event from a conference to a car -free housing
development in Tempe.
Thanked the audience for being present.
Vice Chair Yazzetta:
- Greeted everyone and acknowledged colleagues' help with a recent event.
- Mentioned a great turnout and meaningful feedback received, which will be
used to update the strategic plan.
- Noted the large turnout for the Blue Zones discussion and expressed
appreciation.
- Shared previous involvement with a Leadership Academy project on Blue
Zones.
Looked forward to learning more about Blue Zones from the audience.
5. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular
Meeting of March 27, 2024.
MOVED BY Vice Chair Yazzetta to APPROVE the Minutes of March 27, 2024, Strategic
Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Keefe.
Vote: 6 — 0 passed — Unanimously
6. PRESENTATION: Blue Zone by Julie Ewald and Debbie Romano
• Julie Ewald from Four Peaks Rotary Club and Debbie Romano from Fountain Hills
Healthy Heartbeats presented on the Blue Zones Project.
• The Blue Zones Project aims to create environments that make healthy choices
easier by following principles from communities with high life expectancy.
• To become a certified Blue Zone community, there is a process involving an
assessment, blueprint, planning, transformation, and certification phases.
• The initial assessment/feasibility phase would cost around $75,000 which they
aim to fundraise privately without asking the town.
• Benefits of becoming a Blue Zone community include improved health metrics,
increased tourism, and community unification around wellness.
• They see many existing elements in Fountain Hills that align with Blue Zone
principles and strategic plan goals around health/wellbeing.
It was suggested they review how the Blue Zones concepts could integrate with
the Town's General Plan and Strategic Plan.
• They were invited to provide updates as the process moves forward, as SPAC
works on implementation of the current strategic plan and develops the next
one.
7. UPDATE: Fountain Hills 2022 Strategic Plan Implementation
David Pock, Chief Financial Officer
Paul Soldinger, Chief Financial Officer
Director Pock (Outgoing CFO):
Introduced Paul Soldinger as the incoming CFO starting in June when Pock
moves out of state.
Director Soldinger (Incoming CFO):
Provided personal background - born/raised in West Phoenix, went to
University of Arizona, has wife and two young daughters.
- Updated on progress implementing Strategic Plan priorities for the Finance
Department.
Strategic Priority: Promoting Tong -term financial stability of town
infrastructure, environmental and social resources.
Signature Strategy 1: Maintain transparency by communicating town
finances.
• Hold public finance meetings twice a year (done in Nov 2022 and Feb
2023)
• Conduct community survey to track satisfaction (last one in Dec 2021
at $18k cost, may consider another for FY26)
- Signature Strategy 2: Promote long-term financial health/stability.
Publish 5-year operating revenue/expenditure forecasts (now doing for
general fund)
- Update facilities reserve study identifying lifecycle replacement/repair needs
(on hold, need to update capital asset policy first)
Utilize grant researcher/writer services (not done yet but pursuing
infrastructure grants - $3.8M this FY, $2.7M next FY)
Recently applied for $380k fire dept grant to replace outdated equipment.
- No dedicated grant writer position historically, has been more opportunistic.
Chair Garman:
Explained goal of regularly occurring survey was to gauge if town is making
progress over time.
- Noted facilities reserve study goal had projected 2025 completion
timeframe.
- Clarified intent behind task was to have skilled grant research/writing
services, even contracted.
Provided context that most towns have this Position which often pays for
itself.
Commissioner Sveum:
- Questioned approach of updating policy before assessing actual facility
conditions for reserve study
- Asked if federal grants pursued have strings attached, using fire dept
example.
Commissioner Crader:
- Inquired if town had a dedicated grant writer position previously before
staffing was reduced.
Commissioner Keefe:
Commented that supporting task C about engaging an external grant writer
was too narrowly prescribed.
Appreciated they are still pursuing grant funding as a financial strategy.
Vice Chair Yazzetta:
- Welcomed Soldinger to Fountain Hills
- Thanked Pock for his service to Fountain Hills before his upcoming move.
8. UPDATE: Commission Workgroups.
Chair Garman provided an update on his SPAC outreach sessions:
- Missed one session with Four Peaks Rotary due to a time mix-up but was
rescheduled for the next day.
- After the Rotary session, he will compile all the outreach feedback for the
May SPAC meeting.
Vice Chair Yazzetta provided an update on the recent SPAC community workshop:
Had a record attendance of around 40 people.
Received 101 note cards with feedback categorized into 9 areas of interest.
- Will have a deeper analysis and presentation ready for the May meeting.
Plans to host more community events like this during the strategic plan
development process.
Commissioner Keefe commented on the pairwise comparison prioritization exercise:
Safety and infrastructure were the top two priorities voiced.
Safety was either ranked highest or lowest depending on perception of
current safety levels.
- Forcing prioritization of 8 important items caused people to really think
through tradeoffs.
- The conversations around prioritization were very valuable.
9. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics.
For the May SPAC meeting, there will be an in-depth review of the results from
the community outreach efforts and workgroup initiatives conducted over the
past year. The goal is to bring focus to all the feedback received.
• No outside presentations are scheduled for the May and June meetings.
• In June, the SPAC will analyze everything they've done over the past year - all the
topics heard, results from outreach and workgroups - and aim to draft the
strategic pillars that will form the foundation of the new strategic plan.
• The intent is to have the strategic pillars drafted by the end of June before
SPAC's summer break, regardless of how brief or lengthy the discussions need to
be to accomplish this goal.
• After establishing the pillars in June, the SPAC can start building out the full
strategic plan details (strategies, tasks, etc.) when they return from summer
break.
10. COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN
• Commissioner Keefe was thanked and recognized for her strong contributions as
a member of the commission and in the Fountain Hills community during her
tenure.
• Chair Garman expressed appreciation for Commissioner Keefe's active
participation, which helped make the commission better, and invited her to
continue being involved in the town in the future.
• Commissioner Keefe expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be involved in
the community and stated that she would continue to be involved in a different
way due to family priorities.
• Chair Garman apologized for the length of the meeting and explained that he
typically provides time limits to presenters beforehand but did not want to
interrupt the passionate presentation by the Blue Zone folks, who had been
preparing for a while.
11. NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 2024.
12. ADJOURNMENT
MOVED BY Commissioner Keefe to ADJOURN the meeting of the April 24, 2024,
Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Vice Chair Yazzetta
Vote: 6 — 0 passed — Unanimously
Chairman Garman adjourned the regular meeting at 5:45 p.m.
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
Post -Production File
Town of Fountain Hills
Strategic Planning Advisory Committee Meeting
April 24, 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.
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KEEFE: (Starts mid -sentence) it was really rewarding to see that there were distinct
themes that came out that we're going to be able to really make meaning out of. So
that was a very rewarding part of being on this commission, and I am glad for the
opportunity.
I'm also really glad to see friends and neighbors and customers in the audience. I see
that there's a lot of passion for the Blue Zone's topic, and it's just -- it's very nice to see
you engaged in this. Thank you so much for coming.
CHAIR GARMAN: Awesome. Thanks, Jill. Bernie?
HOENLE: Just a couple of points. I'm a member of the Arizona Alliance for Livable
Communities, and Blue Zone has been one of the topics we've talked about for over a
year now. And we talked about some of the experiences in south Phoenix and in
Scottsdale -- and I know I've met a couple of people at the health fair at the elementary
school -- of some of the things that we're trying to start up here. The Coalition -- also a
board member of the Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists, and we had our summit last month
in Mesa. And the whole afternoon was about the total environment system for
healthier living conditions, including not just diet, some stress relief, other health
related things, and of course, multimodal transportation using bikes, e-bikes, scooters.
Getting around out and physical, getting people moving around. And at the end of the
conference, they had a bike ride from there to the Tempe Culdesac, which is the housing
development where the owners of the apartments or the renters of the apartments
don't have motor vehicles. They got a light metro stop, and with each apartment they
get an e-bike. So lots of different things going on in this environmental area. So thank
you for being here.
CHAIR GARMAN: Thanks, Bernie. Moving to my left, Geoff?
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Good afternoon, everyone. First, I want to recognize my
colleagues on the commission for all of their help in Saturday's event. We had a great
turnout. We'll do a deeper dive of this later on in the meeting. But as Jill mentioned,
we got quite a bit of meaningful feedback about a wide range of topics. So I've been
going through and putting together a spreadsheet, and we're going to sift through that
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data and figure out how to use it to craft the next iteration of the strategic plan.
Blue Zones. This is the largest turnout we've ever had for a strategic planning advisory
commission, so bravo. It's nice to see some faces in the audience. We received a
presentation. I was on the planning team for last year's Leadership Academy, and one
of the groups did their project on Blue Zones and making Fountain Hills a Blue Zone
certified community. So I have a loose understanding of what this means, but I'm
looking forward to learning more from you all here today. Thank you.
CHAIR GARMAN: All right. Thanks, Geoff. Phil?
SVEUM: I don't have any comments.
CHAIR GARMAN: No comments today? All right. Okay. So we're going to move on to
agenda item number 5 which is consideration and possible action which is the possible
approval of the minutes from the regular meeting of the March 27th, 2024, SPAC
meeting. Does anybody have any comments on the meeting minutes?
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Move to approve.
CHAIR GARMAN: You beat the gun. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I have one job. We can
do it in order. So I heard a motion from Geoff. Was your motion to approve?
VICE CHAIR YAllETTA: Yes.
CHAIR GARMAN: Is that what I heard? Okay. Thank you. Okay. So any discussion
about the minutes now? We have a motion to approve. Of course. My comments are,
Angela, your minutes were great. Everything you wrote in there was excellent. You hit
all the high notes. The transcription had something to be desired. We could probably
do without that. Okay.
And we have -- I know we had a second as well. So that was the discussion piece. So all
in favor of approving the minutes from our monthly meeting in March say aye.
ALL: Aye.
CHAIR GARMAN: Any opposed? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. Thanks,
Angela.
Okay. Quickly, today we move on to agenda item 6, which is our presentations for the
day. So our first presentation is going to be the Blue Zone presentation. We're going to
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get you up and going right away Julie. So Julie, I don't have your full bio in front of me.
So if you and Deb can tell us a little bit about yourselves before you start. But I think
everybody here is pretty familiar. We've been talking about having you come here and
talk for the last few months, so we're glad you're here. And you talk a little bit and then
we can either ask questions, like, during, if you have a time to stop or at the end. We
can hold our questions to the end.
EWALD: Typically, if you could hold through the end and then -- but feel free to raise
your hand, jump in, stop me. You have two talkers right here. So feel free. Thank you,
Chair, feel free. Yes.
CHAIR GARMAN: For sure.
EWALD: Wonderful to be here. Thank you, first and foremost to Commissioner Jill
Keefe over here for bringing us to this platform here to talk about the Blue Zone.
Patrick Garman, happy, Chair, to be here. Vice Chair, all the chairmen.
So I am -- might have a time for an introduction -- but current Four Peaks rotary
president. As I move forward through the presentation, I'll give you a little bit more
information about me.
But this is a project from the Four Peaks Rotary Club that I've kind of created during my
time of presidency. Here we have the chair of our Four Peaks Rotary well-being
committee here, Mr. Art Tolis as well. He supported this project as when this was
brought to our board, can I move forward?
So we're going to be talking about the Blue Zone project. So good to hear that
everybody -- a little bit -- knows something about it. So the goal here today, we'll
provide our introductions -- Debbie and I. Primary goal, we'll share what my primary
goal was. Debbie came on board as a primary goal as well. Why here in Fountain Hills?
Why is it necessary? Why is it a need? Why is it a must? And then Debbie is going to do
her expert food and nutrition on the Blue Zone's overview and the impact. During this
time we both will be tag teaming as well. I will provide you, if we moved forward with
this, the different phases. You have that information in front of you as well, the three
phases of how this rolls out. But I'll give you the price of the first phase and we'll go
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through that. And then time for Q&A.
So this is our squad. The two of us, and Debbie will explain how we met. But I am with
Four Peaks Rotary. Debbie Romano, go ahead.
ROMANO: Thank you for having me today and I really, really appreciate the kindness
and welcoming today on this platform. I'm Debbie Romano and I am founder of
Fountain Hills Healthy Heartbeats here in town. I have a business here in town, I live
here in town, and I love my town of Fountain Hills. I am a nutrition and wellness
consultant and I have a certification in plant -based nutrition from Cornell. My story of --
I was corporate America for a long time before Fountain Hills, and due to a personal and
my husband's health was turned around through plant -based nutrition, the
environment that Commissioner Bernie brought up. And I just -- it just is strong with my
heart, my passion that you will hear today. And I will do my best to bring this passion to
you, to the planning commission, so you understand how important, as Julie said, the
need is here in Fountain Hills. So thank you.
EWALD: And do you want to explain how you spent on the --
ROMANO: You know that --
EWALD: -- how you founded Blue Zone --
ROMANO: -- as I said, we could talk for hours. And I will say, two years ago I was a
speaker at the health fair. Debbie Clason organized that, and the wonderful Four Peaks
Rotary Club was there, and I was able to meet Julie. Last summer I received an email
from Julie saying, what do you think about this Blue Zone Project they're having in
Scottsdale? Would you like to join us? Because I am involved with the Fountain Hills
Community Garden. I think the environment, our blue skies, the committee, everything
in this town, our environment, and I said I would absolutely love to go to Scottsdale and
learn more. I love learning, but most of all, I want to bring that knowledge and bring
those questions back to my town, bring that back to Fountain Hills and move forward
with that.
So Julie and I did that last summer. We went to the focus group. I had many questions.
I've always known about the Blue Zones through the last ten years with my business,
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because I teach wellness through nature, through the foods we eat, the movements,
and we will talk about the principles of the Blue Zones. But when we were in Scottsdale
and we were together at these focus groups, every time we would come back and say,
do you see Fountain Hills? Do you see Fountain Hills? So this is what I'm hoping you will
hear today. The passion that we have for our town and how we see it more coming to
fruition. And that is our goal here today.
EWALD: Perfect. Yeah. And as far as Four Peaks Rotary, I've been a Rotarian for over
43 years now. Back in Chicago, Illinois, born and raised in Illinois, came to Fountain Hills
back in 1981 on a summer trip with my sister. I graduated high school. She graduated
college. What better to do is go visit our grandparents, get in a car, and take off. So as
we were finding the rounds and we did all the whole sightseeing, we were coming to
Lake Saguaro. Lake Saguaro, on the way up, we see tallest fountain. And I said, let's go
see that tallest fountain. Pulled in. Saw the tallest fountain. And in 1981, barely 18
years old, I says, I will live here. Met my husband in college. Fast forward. You want to
marry me? I want to live here. We got married in 1985. Finally got him out here in
2001. 2001 we were very prominent with the Rotary group, still not me as a member.
But in Rotary -- I'm going to fast forward another topic. Lunch or breakfast with all of
you would be great.
Rotary has seven causes that we focus on. Those seven causes is the environment,
economic development, disease prevention, maternal mothers, and saving lives of
children, amongst a few others as well, but local economies and building those local
economies. As president coming in, I looked at that and says, what can I do to support
this town that I do so love as well? And have been coming here for a long time. Have
my board in place, I started shooting off a bunch of different ideas, met with Rachael,
met with Kevin. As you know, Four Peaks Rotary is responsible for the splash park that
is at the fountain. Four Peaks Rotary is responsible for that musical instrument as well,
that's down there -- the musical instruments. As you all know the last, under Todd
Harris -- does that name sound familiar? He did the community project at the high
school, the painting project. Big shoes to fill after Todd Harris. So what can I do? Shoot
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for the stars, shoot for the moon, shoot for the universe. I'm looking at this all in
conglomeration of Debbie Clason, Blue Zones health fair. I said we need to be a Blue
Zone community.
That was the primary goal. That was the start of all of this happening right here today.
When we look at those icons on your screen, it says a certified Blue Zone community.
What did that mean a year ago? No idea. But I did my research. Started to bring in
stakeholders around. Went to the expert in town, of course, do you know anything
about this Blue Zone? And she provided that.
What it takes to be approved is a process. As I learned going through Scottsdale and
talking to the Blue Zone's vice president of development. You can certify a work site, a
school, a restaurant, and if we don't get to that certification, at least we can be a
participating site. So I reached out.
The Blue Zones started in Minnesota. You're going to give your overview about Nick
Buettner. But they were Rotarians as well. So there are Rotary Clubs around the world
that have adopted these Blue Zone principles. Next step for Julie as incoming president,
what's happening in our town? Strategic plan, you guys, very important. All of you. I
read that strategic plan, looked through it. What can I do? Our honorable Mayor Ginny
Dickey, focused on thriving this community and importance of building partnerships and
relationships. What was your focus when this came together? To improve public areas,
including the infrastructure, town facilities, public safety, the overall quality of life and
to promote economic development. Amanda Jacobs comes on board. I think she's
doing a bang up job, so kudos to her.
When I look at public safety, for my purposes, I'm thinking of pedestrian safety. What
are our pedestrians doing? Especially when we have somebody getting -- whatever.
Okay. So pedestrian safety, let's move forward. As you know, your four strategic
priorities of the plan for the purpose of our audience, collaborative. The four of them
were collaborative economic development, environmental and social resources,
continue to improve the public health and the well-being, and number four, emerging
trends that increase public safety, pedestrian safety, and the quality of life.
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Again, Blue Zones comes to mind. What is the targeted -- so I'm only going to cover the
three of those four. I mean the two of those four. The first one, the economic
development. The strategic priority focuses on the need of ongoing collaboration. That
means no silos. That means coming together. As I worked at Mayo Clinic for over 12
years, stuck behind a desk, my husband was out more in the forefront. He knew what
was happening in this town from top to bottom. His name, Jeff Pointer, if anybody can
recall. I am not a voice. I don't have a voice that would be well-known. But again, the
need for ongoing collaboration. I immediately started to network with all the leaders
within the community.
The biggest one here was to continue to improve public health, well-being, and safety of
our town. You divided that up into signature strategies, provided the rationale, and a
supporting task to go with each of those. The first one -- I only picked out a couple
here -- was to promote the natural and built environment of Fountain Hills to improve
the public health, well-being, and safety of this community.
If I look at the task, it says incorporate public health, well-being, and safety in Fountain
Hills' policies when relevant. I have looked at some of the policies, FYI. My background
is in health care administration and that's what I did at Mayo Clinic, was policies
accreditation, for them under the graduate medical education department.
The other signature strategy promote Fountain Hills as a community focused on public
health, well-being, and safety. And let's get that recognized. A, the supporting task,
support the expansion of preventative health and wellness access within the
community. Awesome. Sounds great.
Number four signature strategy was utilize services provided by other government
agencies and outside entities, private companies, nonprofit organizations, and volunteer
groups in evaluating and supporting the health of our town. That is what the Blue Zones
Project will do.
ROMANO: What are the Blue Zones? I stand before you today and pledge that I will be
a voice for the town, the community. That's my job, to be a voice, but I also have to
explain what the Blue Zones are. Who is this Dan Buettner? The Blue Zones are to
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create a lifestyle and an environment that makes it easy for healthy choices. We need
to create that environment for an easy choice. The Blue Zones created a documentary,
"Live to 100 years". I would suggest everyone watch this documentary and it will make
you smile.
In 2004, Dan Buettner teamed with the National Geographic, the National Institute on
Aging, and the world's best longevity researchers to identify pockets around the world
where people live measurably better and longer. He looked for answers not in a test
tube, not in a petri dish, which I so agree with. But he looked among populations that
had achieved what we want, long, healthy lives and sharp brains till the end. This idea
pulled together a grant from the National Institute of Aging and a National Geographic
assignment.
A Blue Zone community. A Blue Zone community is a region where lifestyle and the
environment promote a longer and healthier life for its residents. These communities
are characterized by a high concentration of individuals who lived exceptionally old age
while maintaining good physical mental health. The Blue Zone projects that
incorporates Buettner's findings and works with cities to implement the policies and
programs that will move a community towards optimal health and well-being. It's a
community led well-being improvement initiative designed to make healthy choices
easier. It's going to create that environment where everyone wants to be involved to
become healthier, but an easy way.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the principles of the Blue Zones. And there are nine
principles, but I also want to tell you the five original Blue Zones in the world. And those
five Blue Zones are: Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica;
and Loma Linda, California. I'm going to tell you a little story about Loma Linda,
California. That's an original Blue Zone where I assumed when I had my ribbon cutting
five years ago in Fountain Hills, one of the things I said was, I cannot wait to help
transform Fountain Hills into the next Loma Linda. Crickets. And I remember that to
this day because I assumed everybody knew what I knew. And it's my pleasure to share
the information that I want to bring to Fountain Hills, that environment. And I will be
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that voice, and I will help any way I can. And that star right there is the Blue Zones that I
would love to see someday.
I want to talk a little bit more of the nine principles. Those five original Blue Zones, do
they all eat the same? No. Do they all move the same? No. Do they all drink the same?
No. But there were commonalities and similarities that made them -- every Blue Zone,
there was the commonality that made them who they are and the longevity that all the
communities enjoyed.
I'd like everyone right now in this room to close those eyes for one minute, and I will let
you know when to open. Everyone in this room close your eyes, and I want you to think
of the most joyful place in Fountain Hills that you can imagine in your mind. Mine is on
top of the Overlook. It's a hiking trail in Fountain Hills, and I am sitting there. Where is
yours? Is it in your back yard, looking at the beautiful mountains? Is it at your favorite
church or any faith -based community? Is it with your neighbors? Is it with any place in
town that you can bring joy? So have that in your mind, and now I want you to open
your eyes. Okay. So as we move forward and Julie and I talk about the nine principles, I
want you to have that vision in your mind. Imagine Fountain Hills.
The first principle is moving natural. That's one of the most important. We have to
move. We have to get up. And if we can create an environment where we can walk to
the grocery store, we can walk to work, we can walk to our neighbor's house, and we
can walk all over, which we do. Fountain Hills is right there. I mean, this is a beautiful,
beautiful town where we all have these nine principles in place. We're just going to
make that environment easier.
The next is a right outlook. So the second is purpose. Why do we wake up in the
morning and what's our why? What is our purpose? It's key to happy living and quality
living. What is your purpose? Do you still have that vision in your head of the happy
place in Fountain Hills? I do, and I thank and I'm so grateful every time I'm on top of
that hike. I have the physical capability of health to get up to the top of the Overlook
and be grateful.
The third principle is downshift. What is a downshift? Less stress. How do you
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destress? Everybody's different. I like to exercise. There's so many fitness centers in
this town and it's amazing. We need to take advantage of that. There's places where
you can go meditate. Whatever you do that you enjoy, go do it. Our community
garden, putting hands in the dirt. Wherever you are, there's a purpose. There's less
stress.
The 80-percent rule, that is the fourth principle. And the Okinawans practice hara hachi
bu. Has anybody ever heard of that? That is eating until you feel 80 percent full. And
when you feel 80 percent full, put the fork down and then wait a little bit, have a
conversation with your loved ones. And then if you're still hungry, go ahead. But really,
if you sit down and you're 80 percent full, you're satisfied. So we're not going to add
those extra calories. We're not going to add any of that. We can bring weight down
naturally. And that's what I want really to stress, the more natural health that we can
get.
And the fifth principle is plant slant. And that, my friends, is where I come in. That is my
passion for this town. I know that when we eat from the earth -- and those original five
Blue Zones, they did not eat the same, but the commonality was eating from the earth.
So the beans, the garden vegetables, those are the cornerstones of the health and the
food that the centenarians eat. And it's a great way to bring into Fountain Hills. We
need to see that in our restaurants. We can bring that into more community gardens,
the schools teaching our children; they are our future. And that's a great way to show
them.
Wine @ five, most of the Blue Zones, the original Blue Zones, they do drink, they'll have
a glass of wine and -- moderately. But they do it with friends, they do it with family, and
they don't do it in excess. We actually have a wine bar here in Fountain Hills that has
the wine from Sardinia, Italy.
Belonging is the seventh principle. This is a really, really deep principle that I think we
could all adhere to. The majority of the centenarians belong to some faith -based
community. There is not a certain denomination that we have to, but it's just -- it
doesn't seem to matter. This, to me, is another sense of purpose, and this to me is
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another positive.
The eighth is loved ones first. So that principle, the successful centenarians put their
family first. Their family and friends first. And when we do that, there's no isolation.
There's helpfulness, there's being part of a community. That is where we see the
principle of an environment that makes it easy.
And the ninth is the right tribe. The world's longest lived people choose or were born
into social circles that support healthy behaviors. So when you feel healthy and when
you surround yourself with healthy behaviors, we all tend to smile more. We all tend to
be in an environment then, where we want to help each other, we want a healthy
community.
EWALD: Do you want to talk about this too?
ROMANO: The life radius. I can talk about the people and the places, and I will leave
the policy to talk about to Julie. So on this brochure here, when you open it up and on
the far right, it's the life radius. What is the life radius? Almost all Americans spend 90
percent of their lives within 20 miles of home. This is the life radius. We were talking
about in the environment, riding our bikes, walking trails, moving. We have to move.
And this is where they focus on evidence based lessons of longevity from the Blue Zones
called the Power of 9, which we just went through. So if you read that, that's so
important. We have moais and that is purpose. We have a purpose in this community.
We bring happiness. We have volunteers all over our community that bring such joy to
so many people. The places, our work sites, our schools, our restaurants. The
restaurants, we don't want to change anything. We just want to give healthier options.
And they're going to do that. And that's a beautiful thing because then it helps the
community. We want our community to support each other. We want to stay in
Fountain Hills. The grocery stores. So important to practice and support our grocery
stores. And also in the last thing, our faith -based organizations here in Fountain Hills,
and there are so many. And that is really, truly a great purpose for so many people.
You have the floor.
EWALD: Yeah. To thrive. Correct? To thrive. So when we talk about policy
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commissioners, Chair, Vice Chair, you know all about policy, so I don't have to go into
the deep conversation. But the policies of looking at what we have here in Fountain
Hills to build that environment, to look at the food policies that we have in place, to
have that to tobacco policies that we have in place, as well as the alcohol policies. What
are we doing? What are we promoting as a town? What are we doing at the P&Z?
What are we doing at the environment side? What are we doing with community
projects? What are we showing popping up in our town to build that economic
development? Do we want to be a town full of vape shops and tobacco shops? Do we
want to be a place full of bars and reckless going down the avenue of the fountains? Or
do we want it to be a place that is going to strive? Are we going to build this community
so we can be all together, as we were back when I was in 1981, a thriving community, a
small community? As we become that melting pot of people around the world moving
in here, we're adopting those behaviors. Do we want to continue that way, or is there
something that we all can do about it as a community?
And Patrick Garman, thank you for doing the outreach and coming to the Rotary Clubs
to get what we have and the strategic plan. The thing that you had Saturday, the
workshop -- fabulous. So thank you. Listen to the voices of the community and what
they want.
When I brought this Blue Zone, you don't have this book, but I needed to pitch it to our
club. This is the Blue Zone 30-day challenge. I took this challenge. I provided it to all
our Rotarians during the month of November. Which is what? Food time, family time. I
asked them to read this book, look at it, take practices from it, come back, maybe in
January. We'll talk about it. What kind of project can we do? As my meetings
progressed, I had the wine from Grapeables and was raffling that off just to keep it in
their mind. Some of the members participated. Some of the members quietly
participated, but here we are today.
So this started the movement of getting Blue Zone principles out and about, going into
Jill Keefe's door, saying Blue Zones because I need to be plant -based, because I need to
eat better. I need to live better. So let's look at this.
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The legend here is United States Blue Zones have now been developed to deploy to 6.5
million lives in over 90 community projects across 17 states over the course of the last
13 years to improve health and well-being. If we focus in on Arizona, the legend, you'll
see the community transformations that's already taken place, the Blue worksite
campus transformation. Bernie, you were able to explain some of what's been
happening, and what you've been seeing. Recently, ASU has collaborated with
Scottsdale, and they've created a -- they started a module -- $250 -- for anybody to take
this online course. So ASU is a partner with the Blue Zones.
Then we get to the orange, which is in development, which is Scottsdale. They are in
the kickoff phase they had in February, and they are working it. How the Blue Zones
works, it's also by zip code. So all of Scottsdale is not necessarily participating. It's going
by the Blue Zones. Hence why you see in California, if you look at that, that's amazing.
But anyway, imagine.
So data, I know you're all data driven. I'm data driven. Prove it to me. Show me. Don't
tell me, show me. So Dan Buettner has been collecting data since the start of this
project, as he was a National Geographic researcher. And that's how he started to gain
all this information. He's put it into practice, and the studies have been coming out now
since 2000, I believe he started. But if we look at the communities here that are listed,
we have Alberta Lee, which is a smaller community, beach cities, California mid -size,
Fort Worth large size, and the NCH Healthcare System, which is a larger employer. We
do have a large employer in this town, which is the Town of Fountain Hills. Of course,
we know if we can get them to to adopt these practices, how wonderful we will help
shape the mental well-being of those children to get them on the right track, instead of
thinking about the drugs that are happening in town. But getting to get those practices
of moving naturally.
As Art Tolis has been participating with the Inspiration Academy with a Wellness
Wednesday and that is exceptional. So that's kudos to him. Anyway, what has the data
shown? 49 percent decrease in medical claims; 2.9 years added to one's life; 48 percent
increase in tourism. Amanda Jacobs -- take a look at this. I have reached out to Amanda
-
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to be here today. She had a conflict, but I will be meeting with her, hopefully, within the
next couple of weeks. If you look at the beach cities, 50 percent reduction in childhood
obesity, 15 percent drop in overweight obese adults, 10 percent more increase in
exercise. A big one right here that I am full onboard, 17 percent drop in smoking. If you
look at the other smoking area, Fort Worth, 31 percent decrease in smoking. Nine point
increase in the residents who exercise at least 30 thirty minutes a day. And the largest
employer, 4.9 point increase in overall well-being amongst their employees.
Third -party recognition of Blue Zones. They're listed here. I won't read all of them, but
what they have been doing is certifying the U.S. Surgeon General's, the Association of
State, and the Territorial Health Officials as a groundbreaking approach to population
health. The governor's task force of Alzheimer's prevention and preparedness to
encourage cities and regions with grant funding to use Blue Zones model to build more
dementia friendly communities. The U.S. conference of mayors passed a resolution
encouraging cities to adopt a proactive system approach to health based on a proven
Blue Zone model. The AHA, American Hospital Association awarded Fort Worth the
award winning. Also for the National Council, I don't know who these people are, Foster
McGaw, but prize winning excellence in community service. The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation awarded Blue Zones in Oregon. You see, I like to talk. For placing a
priority -- a prestigious award for placing that priority health and creating a powerful
partnership and deep commitments that enabled everyone, especially those focusing,
facing the greatest barriers to good health and the opportunity to live well.
With all that being said that brings us, how do we transform this town? How do we
become Blue Zone community? In my own thoughtful, rightful mind, we are a Blue
Zone community right now with all that has been happening within this town. But to be
a Blue Zone certified, you must go through their process. Which, the first process is an
assessment of our town. It's a readiness and feasibility report that they put together.
Then they create this blueprint. From that blueprint, they'll have foundation, planning,
transformation, and the certification and sustainability of how that will take place. You
have all of that information that I gave to you and the pamphlet as well as -- here, that
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expounds more on those phases.
Scope of work. So let's just stay with phase one -- pre -planning phase. I call them up.
Hey, Blue Zones, we're going to go forward with this. Pre -planning, they're going to
come out. Look at this. Give us some online education and engagement. Stakeholder
engagement. They're going to bring in all the leadership from all the large groups, small
groups. Places, they're going to go visit all of our places, one-on-one meetings, focus
groups, group events all led by the Blue Zones team.
Policy. They're going to look at our policies. They're going to come to one-on-one and
meet with us, focus groups, and see what we have and the focus municipalities building
our environment for transportation, food, environment, tobacco, and alcohol.
The cross -sector analysis is what will also continue with the Blue Zone. Experts will
process and evaluate and design a unique approach for us to follow. They're going to
take a look at the happiness, well-being policy if we have one, which I don't believe we
do. But the prioritization that is the book that I'm leaving you with today. And they
have also partnered with this Happiness World Health Organization. They are partners
in putting that together. And you have the executive summary as well that I printed the
report. It's just hot off the press in late March, I believe.
So the Well -Being and Blue Zones impact analysis is what they're going to create for us
using a Gallup Well -Being index, as well as other data sets, and provide that preliminary
well-being analysis for us.
And looking at the trends again, what trends do we have? What opportunities can we
build upon? And they're going to provide that report. Let us know if you're ready and
evaluation and bring in the key sectors, talk in front of whoever they need to talk to and
give us that value brief. What is that value brief? These are the deliverables that will
come to us, the timeline, milestones, governance, scope of work, array of services,
resource intensity, value metrics, fees to move forward to a phase two and to go for
phase three and then a return on investment analysis.
I've been quoted from the Blue Zones and Blue Zones quotes their prices on population.
So the population that I provided, and they looked at as well, came up to be 24,987. Is
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that a correct number? Close? So our fee would be $75,000 to move forward to get
this report. That $75,000 is not an ask out of the town. It's not an ask out of strategic
planning. It is an ask from volunteer organizations such as a Four Peaks Rotary Club,
such as anybody else invested within this town that wants to be healthier, Tess stressed,
and live longer. I don't think we'll have an issue collecting 75,000. Just Four Peaks
Rotary collected 10,000 in a matter of four days to support the Maui wildfires. So now
this is something at home and dear, I think we can run this project and get that 75,000
to at least get a phase one out of this report to see where we are.
If we go ahead and say, yeah, go ahead and do it. This is a eight -month example
timeline because that's what they're quoting. Eight months it takes to put this all
together. Planning and research phase in March or May. They'll come on out, do some
press releases. Again, they do all of it. They are the behind the scenes with
newspapers, all of that's included in that fee. In June, if we look at this and move
forward community leadership kickoff, as well as lead presentations where the Blue
Zone experts come in and speak. I will not be that voice. Debbie will not be that voice.
But it is the experts of the Blue Zones. June/July analysis findings. After they do all
those meetings, they'll produce that report with the proposal for us. At that time, then
we will look at that, review it, and say, yes, we need to present this. Who do we present
it to? Everybody and anyone is my -- the proposal is presented, then we have more
focused one-on-one meetings through that September, which is the sponsor outreach.
Now, if we have a go to after what they come back and say, it's going to take you $1
million to get certified because you need to do X, Y, Z, and this is how you're going to
have to sustain it. Then that's the million dollars where we would have to go and do
that fundraising or have pledges from the community. And that's exactly where
Scottsdale is right now, having pledges.
The big sponsors out of Scottsdale: HonorHealth, Cigna Insurance and Goodwill. I've
spoken to people at HonorHealth, they are willing to come on board and support the
neighboring city here with the move forward with the Blue Zone project. I said, hold up,
we're only at this step -- because I have to be cognitive to Mayo Clinic as well as the
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health care -- Fountain Hills Medical Center. But I already have that pledge. We also
have pledges -- who else did I get a pledge from? I don't know, but I have pledges. So
Tina Duffy, our fundraiser. I brought her in. She somehow found us. I still don't quite
know how. Through Jill? Yes, through Jill. Thank you. And she's been very involved
with this community for 20 years. Tina, are you on the line?
She hung up.
DUFFY: Yes, I'm here.
EWALD: Oh. Can you give a brief overview of how you're connected to the town?
DUFFY: Yeah. Well, hi everyone. I am connected to Fountain Hills for many years. I
was on the board for 11 years of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale. I was
their vice chair my last year there. I was also in Rotary. I was in Kiwanis in town. I was
part of the mentor program. I was in Four Peaks Women's group. I'm now not involved
in any charitable events in town. When I was involved in the Boys and Girls Club, I
raised over $750,000 in my 11 years in that organization, and that was from educating
people in our town to become involved in our local Boys and Girls Club. I have pulled
back from fundraising. We did host many events, as I'm sure people in that room may
know. For the Boys and Girls Club, I pulled out of all charitable stuff. I guess probably
about three years ago after I left the Boys and Girls Club, I was also on the board of
Children's Cancer Network, which I got originally involved in through Four Peaks
Women's Group. I still help a little bit with Child Crisis in Arizona, that organization. But
I started after going to college many, many, many moons ago, I went back to a yearlong
program based out of New York City called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I am a
health and wellness coach as of now, for the last four years, where I coach clients all
over the world virtually, in health and wellness. And I've been involved with the Blue
Zones, specifically, for four years, but involved in knowing about the Blue Zones and
participating in the Blue Zones for 20 years now.
So I have a huge passion for this. I coach all my clients in the Blue Zones, and I am
very -- feel very fortunate to have met Julie and Deb and very excited to help in any way
I can in the Town of Fountain Hills. I live there, I love it. I've lived there for 20 years, so
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thank you --
EWALD: Thank you, Tina.
DUFFY: -- for having me today.
EWALD: Thank you so much for participating.
DUFFY: Thank you.
EWALD: So that's really about it when we look at this picture here. Do you want to take
this? This here is the Blue Zone team that was from Beach Cities, California. That was
their project team. So imagine, when we go back to imagine, who in this community will
support that. We talked about the Leadership Academy and doing that project. I know
the two people. One is a fellow toastmaster with me as well. She's on board with this
project and has been participating not only through the challenge, but she's going to list
that as Leadership Academy as another project to build upon what we've already
started.
The Health Services Stakeholders Network from the Chamber, they have been at the
groundbreaking stages for the last two years working hard. I've now partnered with
them to help create their mission, their purpose, and the vision of why are they here in
this town. I'm hoping that once they see this a little bit more on paper, that they can
read it and start to adhere to how we can make this town more healthy with the health
services that are provided to them in this town. As well as talking to Ms. Betsy LaVoie
and partnering with her as she does -- as her term is stop the leakage of people going
out of town to keep them here in town.
That is the Vivek Murthy, Dr. Murthy. He is the U.S. Surgeon General. He was part of
that Blue Zone project at the Beach cities. And that was his quote: "In an age when poor
health seems to be intractable, you've taken this community from a place of resignation
to a place of hope." Imagine that. Dan Buettner, if you look at that little light blue
bubble, the tall guy with his arm around that lady, that is Dan Buettner. That is the
founder of the Blue Zones. He is very active with any Blue Zone project as he comes on
sites and meets with others.
ROMANO: The secret to longevity. Dan Buettner, as he sees it, has less to do with diet
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or even exercise, and more to do with the environment in which a person lives, social,
and physically. What I want to say today is Fountain Hills is the town that can and does
have the environment. That we create an easy way to be healthy and happiness,
number one.
EWALD: Yeah. And to bring recognition to this town as the awards, as I was looking up,
what kind of awards has Fountain Hills received in the last ten years? We were very
active with awards throughout. I don't have them quoted in my head right now, but you
can go to the website. 2010 Living Well Awards people on public policy. The mayor all
had an award. We have not received an award since 2022. I don't know if that 2023 has
left us already, so I don't know when they would present for 2023 or '24. But imagine
pulling into Fountain Hills and showing this for Amanda Jacobs as well as others, how
we're committed to the health and well-being of this community, health and well-being
of the children, the elderly -- the middle age as I call them because I think I'm going to
live to 150 -- I don't know.
But anyway, you know, a healthy you is the best caregiver. This is something for all of us
to take note of. How do we want to live longer? What do we want to do? What can we
do? Follow those nine principles. It works. It's proven. The data is there. Thank you.
ROMANO: Thank you. Can I just say one more thing? If I ask everyone in this room
right now if Fountain Hills can be the next Loma Linda, I'm not going to get crickets.
Thank you.
EWALD: Any questions that you may have that you would like to ask us now or later?
CHAIR GARMAN: So Julie and Deb, thank you very much for the presentation. We all
very much appreciate it. So I'm going to look and see if any -- oh, Jill's got a question.
She's got her light on really quickly. Jill?
KEEFE: Thank you so much for coming and sharing your obvious passion for this topic. I
think it's -- of those nine principles, there's something that all of us can connect with.
But in terms of the process and getting Blue Zones certified, if I'm understanding it
correctly, Blue Zones were first observed places around the planet that seemed to have
something going right and which caused there to be a disproportionate amount of
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people living over 100 and living well, indeed. So to be Blue Zone certified isn't that
Fountain Hills would be observed. This organization would come in and step us through
a certification process. So two questions with that. First is, have they shared with you
objective criteria that need to be achieved to get this certification? And -- okay. And I'll
hit you with the second okay.
EWALD: No, no.
KEEFE: Yeah. You can ponder on the second. And then the the second question is any
city or town stepped through this process and failed to be certified?
EWALD: Great question. The second one was great. Yes, they do have criteria and that
is what that feasibility assessment will show. They have their list and list and saying do
we have this? Do we have this? When they provide their report on their
recommendations, they'll say in order to be certified you really need to have more
bicycle lanes, you really need to have more walking; we don't have that problem. As
talking with Martha Brown, she is the VP of development of the Blue Zones. I've already
talked to her a few times and told her what we have. She has been doing a little bit of
research on her own, as well as -- because she speaks to the Scottsdale group. We are
right there. And she feels that this would be very easy. The work that we've already put
in, Debbie and myself, as well as the Four Peaks Rotary Club and the community garden.
And that lady right there, she doesn't know it, but yeah, we're right there.
The second piece, yes, there are some places that were not go through that next step.
The next phase is phase two and three. If they're still stuck in a phase two and a phase
three due to money or what have it, they do have some grants that they give away to
award communities to get over that hurdle. I don't think we'll have that problem, but
it's --
KEEFE: Is it just failure to do the needful things in the plan?
EWALD: Correct. And it always comes down to money. Where do they have the money
to build that infrastructure within their town plan or their general plan?
KEEFE: And have any cities -- have they come in and said, looks like you got it?
EWALD: Yes.
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KEEFE: Really?
EWALD: And that depends on the years, right? How long is it going to take to do that?
Is it going to take one year, two year, three year, four years? The Scottsdale Blue Zone
project, they told me, was a four-year project before they get certified. And that was
last June. So that's already coming up one year. So they have three more years unless
they're fast tracking and being able to move forward quicker. There is the sustainability
piece of that which they keep a good eye on that, the Blue Zones. They have another
team that looks at that and we have lost certifications. Do you want to talk about the
Toss certification in Okinawa? Okinawa.
ROMANO: And they do. And they keep track of the original Blue Zones. And Okinawa is
now at a point where the fast food chains are in and they're not practicing an
environment of health. And they are showing a decline in their health and that they will
take that certification away.
KEEFE: Wow.
EWALD: Yeah, and that's all due to us Americans bringing all that bad stuff to those
countries and not making them move naturally, giving that accessibility of a drive thru
restaurant, of a drive thru grocery store. Now you can order your food on an app. Go
and sit in a lane while you're absolutely doing nothing and not getting in that store and
walking up and down the aisles. People don't realize at least you're getting your steps
in. There's been so many studies, as we all know, 10,000 steps, but the goal should be
15,000 steps. Right now, we're just decreasing that by having those fancy accessibility
to make it easier for our life. And if you dive deep into that, why? Why is that
happening? Right? Why is there two people working in a household? Why are our
children failing? And then now you can talk a whole another subject, mental health, and
wellbeing, which is my passion. But anyway, did I answer your question?
KEEFE: You certainly did.
EWALD: Sorry.
KEEFE: I'll throw another one at you. Which is what --
EWALD: Yes. Everybody's (indiscernible).
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KEEFE: Let me throw another one at you. What support do you two need to create the
momentum necessary for the next steps? What does help look like for you?
EWALD: Support out of like, today strategic planning, you know. Yes, we would support
you all doing this project, Four Peaks Rotary. I can bring that to them. I would partner
with the other rotary clubs within our vicinity, that 20-mile radius, which is the Fountain
Hills Club, which is the afternoon club, as well as the recent Rio Verde Club Rotary that's
up there that we sponsored them.
So we have those three clubs within those three clubs, similar to as we did the
community outreach for that painting project or the beautification day that we have
going on this weekend, we would make that call out as well and say, hey, will you
support us? And given us that letter. As, like I said, HonorHealth is already in full
support. I don't have it in writing. I have a meeting to be scheduled with him and I said,
hold off and let me get through this day.
ROMANO: And I just want to add to that support of our town. So then we can bring in
the Blue Zones that have the data that will lead us and guide us to the place where we
want. We want that environment of health to be easy, and that when we get the
approval from our town, from all those steps, and then the Blue Zone professionals
come in and outline what we need to do, I see the smooth sailing.
KEEFE: And did I read that National Geographic will come in and take photos --
EWALD: Sure. We'll get them to do anything.
KEEFE: -- of our town? I think I saw that and --
EWALD: Yeah.
ROMANO: Sure, he will.
EWALD: Yes. That is true. No, it's true. I will get him here. I tried to get him here to do
a talk at our presentation.
ROMANO: Yes, you did.
EWALD: At least one of one of the brothers. So one of the brothers, Nick Buettner, is
the one that's holding up the Scottsdale. And when I met him, I says, I need you to
come talk up to us here at the Rotary Club and bring this to us. He goes anytime, just
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give me a call. Of course, Scottsdale said, no, no, he's mine right now. So a year later,
maybe I can maybe engage him to come up and speak at a Rotary meeting and then as
well invite the community.
KEEFE: I'll add one final comment. That's not a question, just in support of what you're
doing. Nationally and in Fountain Hills, it's that this is a tense time and there are seeds
of division and I believe it's true that the journey is as valuable as the destination. And if
out of this assessment came a set of achievable goals and doable projects for us to
improve the community, I just -- part of your imagine is, imagine us all being too busy
doing good things to argue on Facebook. Yes.
EWALD: Looking forwards to that.
KEEFE: I think Angela's got it. But --
EWALD: Happiness is the goal, right?
KEEFE: Happiness is the goal.
EWALD: And it's by one candle leads to another candle. I light your candle, and it just
goes through. And people in my club, as well as this community go, why are you always
smiling? Why are you always happy? Well, that's a strange question. Why are you not
happy? Let's go deeper here and find out why. That's right, you know, I'm spreading
that --
CHAIR GARMAN: Julie, we got one other question to my left. We'II keep going. You can
continue.
EWALD: Sorry. I told you I was --
CHAIR GARMAN: I want to make sure that we get to the questions.
EWALD: You jump in.
CHAIR GARMAN: Go ahead, Phil.
SVEUM: Debbie, tell me that ice cream is a plant? I'm asking that question for a lot of
people in this room.
ROMANO: I know.
KEEFE: Debbie, you know where to send them
ROMANO: My answer is, I have an option for you --
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SVEUM: Okay.
ROMANO: -- that tastes just as good. And if you come and see me teach a class at the
community garden, you're going to agree.
SVEUM: You got it.
KEEFE: Is it avocado?
SVEUM: Okay. Just a couple other questions on -- any of the cities have gone, actually,
have reached kind of the peak of this and have been awarded the --
EWALD: Yeah, the map that was on my --
SVEUM: I saw a lot of the dots, but I couldn't tell which.
EWALD: Sure. So the legend. I think it is the gold, that says that they have --
SVEUM: Okay.
EWALD: -- transformation and that's what they call it.
SVEUM: Okay. So you mentioned data, and what I would want to see is how has it
impacted these cities that have reached that pinnacle and how has it impacted their
economic development? How is Betsy to be able to promote this, and what's the
impact going to be for the Chamber to promote that designation?
EWALD: Exactly.
SVEUM: And I think whenever you're raising money, it's going to be really important to
say, okay, this is what -- this is what the impact is going to be for the community by
spending this money, whether you're raising it privately or you're asking the town for
money.
EWALD: Yeah. And that's when we bring in the commissioner. Thank you. That is
when we bring in the Blue Zone experts so they can outline all of that and answer all of
those questions that they've been working with.
SVEUM: Well, even if it's data from those cities that you can contact directly and say,
tell us how it's working for you. What is it done from --
EWALD: And again --
SVEUM: -- before and after type of thing?
EWALD: -- yeah. In that one slide I rolled out four cities for you, a smaller community, a
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medium sized, larger, and then the organization.
SVEUM: Right. I remember those percentages, but I'm talking about revenue
generating for the community.
EWALD: Sure.
SVEUM: Okay.
EWALD: I can get you that.
SVEUM: All the qualitative information is really important.
EWALD: Yeah. Absolutely.
SVEUM: And then is there an emphasis -- just one other question, Patrick.
CHAIR GARMAN: Sure.
SVEUM: Is there an emphasis on promoting with the children rather than working us
adults over? I mean, I think that it's -- you need to start young with this rather than at
this point in our lives -- or younger people that are here -- in their lives because you
have to learn to eat right and to find your happiness, because so much of that
unhappiness is in the younger generations right now, because everything that's going
on. So is there emphasis on starting at a lower or younger ages than focusing on us old
people?
EWALD: Absolutely. You're not old. Yes. And that's the purpose, right? Changing the
environment, changing the culture, changing of what has been done in the past to live
better, to do things better. And that's up to us to be the mentors, to be the educators,
to bring that to the young folks. Right? Not give them a seat and hand them a phone
and say, play on that for 24 hours and their minds getting manipulated. Right. That's
for us to do that education. So to pass it down to a mentor.
SVEUM: They may have a lot of influence on their parents as well.
EWALD: Absolutely.
ROMANO: Absolutely. And as far as the children, they are our future. I was giving a
tour of the community garden four years ago. Love it, love it, love it. And I had a little --
I'm from Chicago, so my hands are in the dirt all the time. I had a little guy come up to
me and he said, Ms. Debbie, what -- and I'm talking about a corn stalk. And you know, I
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grew up with that. And he goes, that's not corn. Corn is what my mom gets out of the
freezer at the grocery store. So education is key. And once we start with the kids and
maybe bring in more of those gardens and education with that, it's going to become just
natural. Easy. We got to make it easy.
EWALD: Yeah. And that book, this Blue Zone Challenge, kind of sets you up. For four
weeks you go through a challenge and it kind of guides you as to what you can do. You
have little tests here, vitality tests along the way. You go through the four weeks. What
has it done for you? I did the four week challenge last year. And I'll tell you, I started at
one age, and I gained seven years of my life. And I took it as a test maybe about five
weeks ago and I'm still at that mark. Can I do better? Absolutely. So as a matter of
right up, down, up, down, Julie, stress, stress, stress, you know, being happier but doing
what you love, finding that purpose, educating the kids to do what they love, educating
our older folks, our middle aged. Are you doing what you love? There's so many people
on different committees and working so hard in this community, but if we have 24,000
people, where are those people? Why are we seeing the same people everywhere I go?
SVEUM: Well, they're back in Minnesota and Wisconsin and --
EWALD: Yeah. I know (indiscernible) in a Blue Zone anyway.
SVEUM: That's what they (indiscernible) right?
CHAIR GARMAN: All right. Got a question from Bernie as well.
HOENLE: Yeah. One of the main tools that they use during assessment is a walkabout.
So when they do that, give me a call I'll join in.
EWALD: Okay. Awesome.
HOENLE: And the second thing, I have to leave in about five minutes to go to my happy
place. I'm playing in a concert down in Tempe, so.
EWALD: Well, thank you. We're here to answer any questions any time.
ROMANO: Thank you.
CHAIR GARMAN: Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. We've got -- Randy's next in the line.
EWALD: Oh. I didn't see that.
CRADER: Thank you for the presentation. I was just curious if either from Scottsdale or
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some of the other communities, any examples of some of the community projects that
we might anticipate needing to do here to get us to where we want to be with the Blue
Zones? Just even small, just to bring it to life a little bit.
ROMANO: Children and gardens, that's what I -- that's what I love. And I saw that, and
they are starting to do that within the schools, and that's key. And to make it easy for
young families to eat healthy because all I hear is I can't eat healthy, it's too expensive.
And I want that to come into Fountain Hills where, yes, we can.
EWALD: And then that's all of us participating with imagining. If you have Netflix, I
encourage you to watch that movie on Netflix. It's a four part series, takes about two
hours. When you get to the fourth part, imagine Fountain Hills and you're going to say,
oh my God, we are right there. Our community center bangs it out of the park with all
kinds of activities for all ages. Our community volunteers in town knock it out of the
park with running all different types of events. So we're right there. I think we're on the
cusp. As far as what can we do more? I always think of pedestrian safety and that fits
with your strategic plan, public safety.
CRADER: Yeah, there's concrete costs that come about from this though. I mean,
interconnecting sidewalks. There's infrastructure that comes along with it as well.
EWALD: Absolutely, 100 percent. And that's when you say, okay, here's a project, but
what project, Amanda Jacobs, are we going to look at? What are we going to tackle?
What's moving forward in the strategic plan that you're going to be working on?
Correct. So we're here today. What are we doing now? But what is the next three
years? Five years? What focus do you want to that you can bring to Four Peaks Rotary
or any of these other clubs, to say, hey, can we work on this as a community project?
Because this is a community, I say all in, and we're a smaller community that can thrive,
as Mayor Dickey does say.
CHAIR GARMAN: Geoff?
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Julie, Debbie, thank you for your passion. In a previous life, I ran
a CrossFit gym, and it wasn't so much about the workouts and the eating right. It was
fostering a community where people wanted to do those things. So this is a very
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interesting proposition, and I'm looking forward to reading more about this. I feel like
this is right up there with the Dark Sky designation that we have. It's just another X
factor for Fountain Hills, for Betsy, the Chamber, our realtors to attract people to the
community. And all the other questions have been answered. But the $75,000, the
initial fee, that's just the phase one. That's like a feasibility study that can be privately
funded. It sounds like you have some corporate sponsors that want to hop in on that.
And then from that, that gives us a foundation to then say to the town, hey, we need X,
Y, and Z as far as infrastructure goes. Because I'm sure you're aware that is --
EWALD: Correct.
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: -- you know a challenging topic right now, budget speaking, you
should probably stick around for the next presentation here. But I'm just curious to
know, like, how much heavy lifting there could be in the future?
EWALD: The Blue Zones guarantees that it's nothing for a strategic planning advisory
commission, nothing for the town, so this is community based. They will give us the
leads with different types of grants that we can solicit to help support that economic
development plan.
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Got it. Thank you. And to Jill's point, I think we really could use
something to unify our community, so what better topic than health?
EWALD: Exactly. Well-being --
VICE CHAIR YAllETTA: Appreciate you both.
EWALD: -- mental health well-being. Yes.
VICE CHAIR YAllETTA: Thank you so much.
ROMANO: Thank you.
EWALD: Thank you.
CHAIR GARMAN: And SPAC is doing its part, right?
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: We are.
CHAIR GARMAN: It's unifying the town. One second. So my question is -- not my
question -- but. So our strategic plan for the town, you know, we have two guiding
documents. We have a general plan for the town and our strategic plan. Our strategic
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plan is a ten-year plan that we open up and edit every five years just to make sure it's
going in the right direction. Just so I would ask you to think about how this -- the goals
of this might fit into that horizon that we deal with here at the SPAC. I would also ask
you; I know you've read our strategic plan, but I would ask you to constructively look at
it and see what's in it to see if any of the things that are in it already lend themselves to
meeting this certification. I think you'll find that there is, in other words, after the
assessment, they might come back and say some of the same things that are already in
our strategic plan. So when you talk to people from outside of Fountain Hills, you can
say, well, this town's already dedicated to some of the goals that are likely to be
established for the town to be a Blue Zone.
EWALD: That is 100 percent, Chair. I told them how to negotiate that 75,000 because I
said when they come in and do that feasibility study, they're going to see immediately
all the things that we have accomplished here that won't need to go into that study.
And the answer was no. But I didn't -- I can negotiate more.
ROMANO: But that's a great question and point too. When I was at the focus group in
Scottsdale, you know, when I went to every single one and in my mind, we've got that
already in Fountain Hills, we've got -- this is already happening in our town.
CHAIR GARMAN: Or we're working toward it.
ROMANO: Absolutely. Yeah.
CHAIR GARMAN: And then I would, the last thing before we move on is, so now you've
addressed the commission so you can be a regular, which means you're welcome back
whenever you would like to come back and address us, you just let me know. Let
Angela know if you have updates along the way because we're putting together the next
strategic plan, the one we're undergoing now is 2022. Right? We're going to talk about
implementation. The next one will be around 2027, when we'll put that in front of the
counsel and let them discuss and vote on it. So that's the time frame we're working on.
So as things move forward you have a welcome mat to come back.
ROMANO: Awesome. Thank you.
EWALD: Happy to do so. Yes.
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CHAIR GARMAN: All right. Thank you very much.
EWALD: Thank you, again.
CHAIR GARMAN: Hey, David, while you're setting up. This is off script, but hey, Julie,
where's the Rotary Club?
EWALD: Community center, tomorrow, 6:45 a.m. Over there.
CHAIR GARMAN: He's leaving. So I just wanted to bring that up. Okay. There you go,
Bernie. Thank you.
All right. So we're going to move on to the next agenda item which is -- wrong piece of
paper in front of me. Agenda item number 7, if you're following along. So we're going
to have an update today on the implementation of the current 2022 Fountain Hills
strategic plan. I'd like to welcome David Pock. Thank you very much for coming back.
Thank you for your patience. And I'll let you introduce Paul if you'd like to. It's the first
time, I think, seeing Paul here. So welcome.
POCK: Sounds like a plan. Good evening, Chair. Good evening, commissioners. My
name is David Pock, the current chief financial officer for the town. I just wanted to
introduce Paul, Paul Soldinger. He's going to be the incoming CFO in June when I move
out of state. So I'll let him introduce himself a little bit more, and then I'll stick around
for any questions after he presents information.
CHAIR GARMAN: So Paul, your first introduction to Fountain Hills is a common
appearance, which is once finance starts talking everybody walked out. And --
SOLDINGER: Yes.
CHAIR GARMAN: Thanks, Betsy. But I mean, Dave does have open forums throughout
the month that some of us attend to look at the finances. So the finances are
transparent. But sometimes you don't have the audience, I think, required. But
anyways, over to you.
SOLDINGER: Yeah. Chairman Garman, I've seen that already in my three months, brief
three months with the town. But it is important. Finance is important. So everyone still
watching, we're here to provide a brief update to the commission. So let me introduce
myself real quick since this is my first time in front of the commission. My name is Paul
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Soldinger. I've been working alongside David for the past three months. After about a
14-and-a-half-year career with the Arizona Auditor General's office. I'm a West Phoenix
born and raised individual. Went down to Tucson to go to the University of Arizona.
Bear down. Go, Cats. Yes, yes. I know we're having some budget issues, but we'll get
through that. But not the town. The town, we're having some great -- we're working
through our budget for the town. Beautiful wife and two wonderful children -- two
daughters at home. Seven -- I can't even remember their age -- seven and five. And I'm
just really grateful to be here today and thank you for the opportunity.
So my presentation isn't going to be nearly as interesting, I think, as the last one. That
was a really good, interesting presentation. I mean, wow, some of the information was
really helpful, even for myself. I'm going to try to take that 80 percent rule home and
try it tonight. See how that works out for me because that was pretty cool.
But yeah, I'm just here to provide a brief update on our progress in the finance
department on the strategic plan of the town. And so I'll be talking about one strategic
priority, on your screen, promoting the long-term financial stability of town
infrastructure, environmental, and social resources. And I'll be going over two signature
strategies as well as several supporting tasks and what we've done. And just feel free to
jump in with any questions as we go along each slide. There's only five slides in the
presentation.
So for the first strategic priority signature strategy one, maintain transparency by
communicating the town's finances to the public. So under supporting task A, we're
required to hold public meetings twice a year, separate from council meetings, to
present the town's finances. So past November, David presented a public outreach
presentation to the public, just basically reviewing the past fiscal year's finances,
revenues, expenditures compared to our projections, and ending fund balances after
the audit of the town was complete.
And then this past February, when we were kind of kicking off our budget process, we
also did another public outreach session open to the public, just talking about the
budget and what's going to be coming in the next few months. So for the same
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signature strategy, one supporting task B requires us to conduct a regularly occurring
community survey in order to track satisfaction levels with town services. So about
three years ago, a survey was completed in December of 2021. This cost the town
about $18,000 at this time, and I'm not too familiar with that survey. So if you have any
questions, David would be happy to answer them. But at this time we do not have plans
to conduct another survey, although we will consider that in the next year's budget
process for fiscal year '26.
CHAIR GARMAN: So regarding that, it was really -- the goal of that was to get a regular
occurring survey or pulse on issues from the town, just to see when you have a
comparison is the question, is the town making progress? Is things getting better or
things getting worse? That was why there was the verbiage in there about a regularly
occurring type of survey. So just so you know whether it's a survey or something else or
an expensive one or inexpensive one, it was really just so you have a comparison over
time to see if things are getting better or worse or staying the same.
SOLDINGER: Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Chair, I appreciate that. Commission, I appreciate
that information. That's helpful for me to understand going forward. I know, thinking
about other departments, I know we are going through a downtown strategy kind of
outreach process now. So I know, previously mentioned, our economic development
director, Amanda Jacobs is going through that process. So that might somewhat meet
this criteria. But definitely from a finance perspective, that's something that we'll keep
in mind going forward. All right.
So moving on to signature strategy number two, promoting the long-term financial
health and stability of the town. And supporting task A was requiring us to produce and
publish a five-year financial plan with revenue and expenditure forecasts. We do that
internally already, but starting with this current year's, fiscal year '24 budget that was
published last year, we did begin publishing on our website our budget portion of our
website, the five-year operating revenue expenditure forecast for the general fund --
our general operating fund. And I'm not sure if any of you had the opportunity to watch
some of our work sessions for the budget. But we regularly talk about future fiscal years
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Tong -term impacts, as well as our multi -year capital project plan. I think one good
example of that is we have been talking a lot about the future Lake liner project,
because that will be a large fiscal expenditure in coming years. Beginning with about
three fiscal years from now, we're planning on spending about $16 million over a three-
year period to be able to take care of that large capital project in the future. Okay.
Under the same second signature strategy, supporting task B requires us to update the
current facilities reserve study to identify life cycle replacement and repair of facilities
and infrastructure. So that study began but was put on hold. Working with the
consultant, we kind of -- and this was before my time, but my understanding of it is, is
that our capital asset policy really needs an update first, because it doesn't really
address how we use the facilities reserve fund and outline how we use it specifically. So
once we go through that process, and that is on my to-do list on things to do here,
coming shortly, looking at our policies and how we can make those necessary updates,
we'll revisit that with with the consultant to be able to move forward on that study.
CHAIR GARMAN: So you don't have any idea, the time frame on that?
SOLDINGER: Chair, Commission, definitely, it's a high priority. It's something, you know,
me being newer to the town, there's so much to learn, so many things to get through,
especially the budget, which is our busiest time of year. But certainly it's something that
I'm looking at starting to begin here shortly. Probably going to start looking at it more in
June and hopefully start considering updates in the July to August time frame. We
would have to bring updates to town policies to council, which, they begin their sessions
again in August. So I think that's definitely the timeline I'd really like to shoot for to start
considering some of those updates. And really with the facilities reserve, there's not too
much there as far as policy perspective to update. It's just on -- the way I could explain
it is outlining some policies on how that fund can be used, and when is it necessary to
first go to the town manager for approvals, and then go to town council for approvals on
repairs and maintenance of, for example, town hall or the community center, and using
the monies in that fund.
CHAIR GARMAN: No, it sounds great. And the reason I bring that out is because there
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was, you know, there's a projected completion date on all these goals that are, you
know. And this one was like three years. So it's a 2025 time frame.
SOLDINGER: Okay. So noted I appreciate that. I will definitely make that a priority.
CHAIR GARMAN: It's a goal not a directive.
SOLDINGER: Okay. Good to know. Appreciate that.
CHAIR GARMAN: All right. Thanks.
SOLDINGER: But yeah, definitely a priority and something we'll be looking at in the
finance department soon.
SVEUM: Patrick?
CHAIR GARMAN: Yeah, Phil.
SVEUM: Aren't you working with a reserve study expert on these buildings? I mean,
what's your role in doing that?
SOLDINGER: Chair, Commissioner, David might be better to answer that one, since he's
been involved with the consultant already.
POCK: Yeah. So Chair and Commissioner, we did contract with Willdan Financial and
Pat Walker Consulting to conduct the reserve study and kind of work that through. One
of the first things they did was looked at our current plan that was set up in 2015. They
requested our capital asset policy. It was very shortly after that that they read through
it and said, well, your capital asset policy doesn't even mention the facility's reserve
fund and how it's to be used. So they suggested that before they went any further,
because it would all depend on how the policy is written, to get the policy updated and
then call them back in.
SVEUM: Well, maybe I'm missing something here, but don't you have to start with the
condition of the assets first, and then develop your policy and expenditures around
what the condition of the assets are?
POCK: Well, we already have -- we already have a value in our accounting software for
the value of our capital assets and their depreciated value.
SVEUM: Right.
POCK: So yeah. That's there. That information and that gets updated each year. But as
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far as how the facility reserve fund would be used and for what purposes and for what
amounts, who would approve it, that all needs to be incorporated into the policy, the
capital assets.
SVEUM: Life cycle replacement in accounting doesn't always reflect life cycle in reality.
POCK: True.
SVEUM: Okay.
POCK: Very true.
SVEUM: So the water's coming in.
POCK: Right.
SVEUM: Well, it doesn't say that here.
POCK: Okay. No, and life does happen.
SVEUM: That's fine. I was just curious about how you set that all up.
POCK: Right.
SVEUM: I'm good.
POCK: That's definitely where the study would be headed towards the end. So as far as
once we have those policies in place.
SOLDINGER: Thank you for the question. It was really helpful. All right. Okay.
And then for the same signature strategy too, supporting task C would require us to
utilize the services of an experienced grant researcher and writer. The town has not
taken this step yet. However, we have applied for grants primarily for infrastructure
projects. So for the current fiscal year, I know the previous presenters they were talking
about more sidewalks in town and things like that. I remember that was mentioned.
Right now, during this current fiscal year, it was just now in the Fountain Hills times, I
believe, this morning, we're about to start a large sidewalk project around the
downtown area, and a lot of that grant funding on the screen -- the $3.8 million is going
towards that project. So it's mostly covered by federal grant monies.
And also for fiscal year '25, we have projected and budgeted for about $2.7 million in
grant funding for the next year as well.
And just lastly, real quick, because of the fire department becoming an in-house fire
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department, we may have more opportunities for grant funding going forward. We
recently, actually, just applied for our first grant in collaboration with the fire
department, the Assistance to Firefighters Grant. We we applied for $380,000 to
replace outdated equipment for the fire department. So we'll hopefully hear about a
decision shortly and hopefully be able to take advantage of those types of opportunities
going forward.
SVEUM: Question?
CHAIR GARMAN: Yeah. Jill, first and then Geoff.
SVEUM: Go on, Jill.
KEEFE: Yeah, just a comment actually. I think supporting task Cis weirdly specific about
engaging an external grant writer. I think the spirit of the task you've illustrated, which
is we're pursuing grant funding as a financial strategy. And I'm not sure what's behind
that comments, that task calling for an external -- spending money on a grant writer to
go get money. But I really appreciate that you've illustrated that there's still action
happening.
CHAIR GARMAN: All right. Phil?
SVEUM: Are there typically -- are these federal funds that you're from the grant?
SOLDINGER: Chair, Commissioner, a majority of them are. There are some state
funding grants mixed in there, but a majority -- for example, a 3.8 million in grant
funding for this current year, a lot of that is related to the sidewalk project. It's, I want
to say it's around three, three and a half million of that is just for that one project. And
we're getting federal grant monies being paid through the Arizona Department of
Transportation.
SVEUM: And are there strings attached to these grants? For example, the fire
department, I mean, are they going to have to change how they are structured or is it
other meaningful strings?
SOLDINGER: So Commissioner, good question. So I can speak about the firefighter
grant because I helped apply for it. So basically, it's -- you just have to be able to
demonstrate and what we did was demonstrate a financial need, and a really a need to
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update really outdated equipment. So it's more based on the risks and the safety of
your firefighters. So in that case, the specific equipment that we're trying to replace is
very expensive. I always forget the SCBAs, like scuba. Self-contained breathing
apparatus for firefighters to go into a home firefight. Going into a home that's on fire,
they need to be able to wear these apparatuses so they can breathe. Right? So that
costs about $400,000 to replace it for all 33 firefighters for our department. And the
ones that we have are very outdated. So when you read the grant criteria, it basically
says this is a high priority item, we need to -- they're willing to provide grant funding for
these types of opportunities. And this would be a considered a high risk replacement.
So in that case, there's not really strings attached other than the compliance
requirements that really every federal dollar is going to have some sort of requirements.
And they're relatively simple. You need to use the monies within a year of receiving it,
you need to use it for the priorities you've outlined in your application and provide
evidence such as invoices on what you spent the money on, things like that. But
relatively straightforward compliance requirements.
SVEUM: Thank you.
CRADER: Has the town at any point had a grant writer position? It might be a question
for David.
SOLDINGER: Might be a better question for David, but I'm not familiar with us ever
having a grant writer position. I know it's been mentioned in council meetings as as
being desired, but we haven't historically had a lot of grants with the size of our town.
CRADER: Sure.
SOLDINGER: So I'm not sure that there's been the full need for that.
CRADER: Yeah. I was just curious if it was -- because I know the total staff size was
reduced following the great financial crisis, and it's slowly been crawling back up to
where it was, but just.
POCK: Right. So Chair, Commissioner, there's never been a paid staff member, but I do
remember hearing about some volunteers and some working with the community
services department, but that's the only one.
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APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
SOLDINGER: To that point real quick, Chair, Vice Chair, so I did help apply for the
firefighter one and it is -- I will say it is time consuming. So just something to consider.
We'll see if we get that grant. But it was very time consuming because you have to work
with the department that knows more about their needs and being able to explain some
of the questions on the application process. And you also have to be careful about
writing the application in a way that aligns with the guidance, because they put out a lot
of guidance on what they're looking for and what they want to be able to evaluate
through their peer review process.
CRADER: Thank you.
CHAIR GARMAN: So the history of that, I think you guys have all like explained and
really have to to summarize, grants for this town, doesn't have a history of seeking
grants. It's been kind of haphazard, unfocused, opportunity -based done by a team or a
group of people in different areas. Most towns have some type of a skilled grant writer,
which pays for itself many times, even with just a simple -- you can see how much these
grants are worth. A skilled grant writer that can go out and research and find them from
across the country, whether it's federal, state, local, and it doesn't take much to pay for
their salary. So that was put in there on purpose by the last group. I think it was
softened a little bit at the end from hiring a actual position on town. I mean, looking at
the exact verbiage which basically says utilize, which gave the opportunity to contract or
use some other services. But it was definitely the focus to try to have the town have the
services of a more skilled grant finder and writer. So and that's why -- what's it say?
Two years. So was definitely part of the plan. So I know this is not under the financial
guise, but writ large, that was the intent.
SOLDINGER: Well, thank you, Chair. That's really valuable information. Definitely
consider that going forward.
CHAIR GARMAN: Yeah, yeah.
SOLDINGER: And that's all we have today. Any other questions from the commission?
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Paul. Welcome aboard. And David, thank you for your service
to Fountain Hills and good luck on your next adventure. Tennessee, right? Thank you.
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SOLDINGER: Thank you.
CHAIR GARMAN: Any final questions? I'm looking to the right and just -- thank you very
much for addressing us, by the way, today. We really appreciate it. We look forward to
hearing you in the future. And again, if anything comes up, the welcome mat is out for
you to come back in and address this in the future, so.
SOLDINGER: Absolutely. I appreciate the welcome mat and thank you so much.
CHAIR GARMAN: All right. Thanks.
Okay. Let's move on, I think. So we're going to go down to agenda item 8 right now,
which is an update on our two commission work groups. Mine is really quick, before I
turn it over to you, Geoff. Which is nearing the end of, kind of, the outreach sessions
that we've had. I think they mentioned, I don't know if I told everybody -- I think I told
some of you I was scheduled to talk. We were scheduled to talk at the Four Peaks
Rotary and -- not Julie, but another gentleman told me it was at 7 o'clock. Right? And
be there at 6:45. Which sounded great for me, I was prepped and ready to go, and I was
brushing my teeth in the morning, getting ready for work. And I got a text that said,
where are you? It was like 7:05. And I was like, who's this? And what do you mean? It
was at 7 in the morning, and I had no idea that it was 7 in the morning. So I missed it
the first time. So they were nice enough to reschedule me. So tomorrow at 06:45, I'll
be at the community center to preach the gospel on the SPAC for the Rotary Club. And
then that's the last one that I have on the schedule for this year. So that we I'll be able
to take all that information, put it together for our meeting in May. So -- okay. Over to
you, Geoff, for the workshop.
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Sure. Just in the essence of time, I think in addition to having
record attendance, this is also the longest SPAC meeting that we've had, at least while
I've been sitting in this chair. So I want to again, thank my colleagues just for all the
work that was put in last Saturday. We had a great event. We had an attendance -- I
want to say it was about 40. And that seems to be, I think, par for the course. I know
Amanda Jacobs had a similar forum a year and a half, maybe two years ago, I think 35 to
40 people showed up for that. We got from the 40 or so people that showed up, we
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TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
received 101 note cards that had a variety of thoughts, topics, just different things,
things you'd expect, things from out of the blue. It was a lot of good feedback. We
categorized things across nine areas of interest. And I'll have a deeper dive on this for
our meeting in May. But it was a very helpful exercise just to hear the community out.
And this will be the first of several that we host -- several events like this that we host
while we craft the pillars and then the strategies and then the tasks. But yeah, right
now just kind of sifting through and refining the data and I'll come up with some dialed
in spreadsheets and a full presentation for everyone to review in May.
And before I sign off here, I want to ask if Jill has -- anything you want to say about the
pairwise comparison just because that's your area of expertise?
KEEFE: Oh. Thank you. So I spent a little time last night adding some comments to our
spreadsheet that were -- the patterns that I saw or what the key takeaways were in the
prioritization exercise. And so those notes are listed there. But but a couple notable
things is the safety and infrastructure were the top two priorities, pretty loudly voiced.
There were -- what was interesting about safety, though, is it was either considered the
highest or the lowest priority. And the commentary, the voices that went along with
that were already really safe, therefore, it's not a priority. Or others would say, we're
really safe, we need to stay really safe. We got to continue to have this be a priority.
And so you know, it came down to your perspective. And we're going to -- as we're
sifting through those comments, we're going to have to think a little bit about the lens
that those pairwise comparisons were made.
There was -- when you force rank eight very important things, it's an exercise in causing
people to tease out their thinking. And I'll tell you, besides some of the findings that
you guys can go over in depth, the act of being at that station and causing people to
make those trade-offs and saying, no, you got to choose, you got to choose was -- the
conversation around it was just as valuable. There was a lot of people feeling like they
really wanted to make sure something was done with downtown, but they still feel that
safety is number one. Yeah. So it was purposefully difficult for people. And it caused
them, I think, to add a little more dimension and a little more comments to -- than just
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APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
their voices, just their votes. That's all I'd say.
CHAIR GARMAN: Yeah. Thank you. Come on in. Well, I'll get into it. Well, we can go to
the next one as well because we're going to talk about -- anybody -- comments, by the
way, before I move on to the next agenda item. No? So the next one is agenda item 9,
discussion of possible action. Those are future agenda topics. I'll give you the draft and
you guys can bring something up if you want me to change something or add
something. But you know, we're looking at the wrapping up the end of this year, I
guess, as far as the SPAC goes and our work. And the way we're going to do that is
we've pretty much stayed to the calendar that I put forth last fall, which is amazing and
great, both together. So the meeting in May, we're going to do more of an in-depth
review of the work group results and our community outreach results. So kind of a wide
ranging of those two initiatives that we've done this year to try to bring focus to them.
And we're going to come back in June with no presentations, by the way. I was
purposely not scheduling any presentations in May or June so we could do some work.
So some analysis bringing to the table in May. And then in June again, take a look at
everything we've done for the year, all the topics that we've heard, all the results we've
gotten from our two work groups and outreach and actually put together a draft
strategic pillars going into the summer. However many those are. What they are is to
be determined. But you know, if it takes us several hours, like today or if it takes us 15
minutes, I want to make sure that when we leave for our summer break, we have the
pillars that are going to hold up our plan as we start into the next year.
So that's why you'll see for the next two meetings. I don't have any -- I mean, I can
always schedule some, but right now, I was not going to schedule any outside or town
related presentations, so that we can make sure and get out here in the summer with a
good conscience that we actually put pen to paper. Okay?
Okay any comments on that? Nobody wants to comment.
VICE CHAIR YAllETTA: Sounds good.
CHAIR GARMAN: Elegantly. Elegantly stated. Huh? Hardly. All right. Okay. So now
we're going to move down. So that's next two months. Agenda item 10, which is
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APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
comments from me, finalize the meeting. Before I say my comments again, I want to
look to my left and my right. Anything else today? We've already jumped the shark.
We're already way over an hour, so it's okay. All right. Nothing.
So here's how I wanted to leave today before I ask for a motion on adjournment. Jill.?
KEEFE: Yes, sir.
CHAIR GARMAN: You know, I'm a person of few words, so allow me to say that you
know your time here -- when I think about your time on our commission, I think you've
been a very strong member of our commission. You're a very strong member of the
Fountain Hills Leadership Academy. You have a strong family and you're a strong,
strong mother, from what I've seen. I think you are a strong citizen in Fountain Hills, for
sure. You're definitely a strong business owner that you bring to our town. Right? So
the word that keeps coming to me when I think about you is, is strength.
KEEFE: I don't feel very strong right now. Thank you.
CHAIR GARMAN: So thank you for your time on our commission. You've made the
commission better through your strength. And I very much appreciate that because you
helped. You just didn't sit and soak up stuff, you actually helped and participated and
made our commission better. So as a commissioner, you will be missed.
But I want to thank you for your service to our town, and you're always welcome back.
Whether you want to apply again or you want to come and participate out there with
the public, you are always welcome. So I think we'll probably have a recognition
through the town. That's not that's not letting anything out of the box, is it, Angela?
We'll have --
PADGETT-ESPIRITU: No, no.
CHAIR GARMAN: So go ahead, Angela.
PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Yeah, it is. It's May 7th, your recognition. Yeah.
CHAIR GARMAN: So thank you very much. And I didn't know if there's anything you
wanted to say before we.
KEEFE: I have so appreciated the opportunity to be hands on involved with this and with
just such a confident and cool group of people. Yeah, it broadened my understanding of
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APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
the town, but I hope took away a couple of friends out of the process, too. This is what I
wanted to do when I left corporate life. I wanted to be able to be more involved in the
community. And yeah, this is just stepping back a little bit to focus on some family
priorities, but yeah, no, I've got town fever now. Y'all are stuck with me. It just is going
to just show up in a different way, when the time makes a little more sense. And I've
been so grateful for your leadership. I can't tell you how much I value a well -run
meeting. It just -- you respect and respect our time, respect the speaker's time, and
keep it clear and orderly, and that just makes for a better commission. So thank you for
that very much.
CHAIR GARMAN: Thanks, Jill. You took my thunder because I was going to apologize for
the length of the meeting today. But the reason is, I mean, I think you saw the Blue
Zone folks have been wanting to come and address us for a while. They've been
practicing putting their things together. So they were very motivated, very passionate,
and I just did not want to interrupt them because if you saw they brought a lot of their
friends with them, the group, and they felt like -- which we do care, and we showed that
we cared. So I apologize for that. I did work with them beforehand. I told them they
had 15 minutes. I looked at their slides. I reiterated that they had 15 minutes. I do that
to everybody, just so you know.
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: It would not have done it justice.
CHAIR GARMAN: So --
KEEFE: It needed to be what it was.
VICE CHAIR YAllETTA: Okay. It was good.
CHAIR GARMAN: Yeah. It was good. Thank you for that. All right. So any other further
comments before we -- okay. I can entertain any motions on the floor as far as
adjourn --
KEEFE: Oh, let me do this one.
CHAIR GARMAN: Adjournment?
KEEFE: I move to adjourn.
VICE CHAIR YAZZETTA: Second.
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TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
APRIL 24, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
CHAIR GARMAN: We have a second. Any discussion? All those approving the motion
say aye.
ALL: Aye.
CHAIR GARMAN: Any opposed? Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all
very much.
Page 45 of 45
TAIN HILLS
Patrick Garman, Chairman
BY:
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 24th day
of April 2024. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum
was present.
DAT)111000..•
gett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant