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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024.0507.TCRM.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL MAY 7, 2024 A Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 5:33 p.m. Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Brenda J. Kalivianakis; Councilmember Gerry Friedel; Councilmember Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Sharron Grzybowski; Councilmember Hannah Toth; Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town Clerk Linda Mendenhall Audience: Approximately fifty-four members of the public were present. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Post -Production File Town of Fountain Hills Town Council Meeting Minutes May 7, 2024 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Page 1 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: So now, we will call to order our regular meeting, just a couple minutes late. There we go. Could we please stand for the pledge? And if you choose, please remain standing. ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you so much. Today we have Carrie Schneider. Are you here? Come on up. SCHNEIDER: Hello. Let's pray. Dear God, I come before you today on behalf of all who are gathered in this meeting tonight. With a grateful heart I praise you, Lord, for your creation, the beautiful desert mountains and terrain that make Fountain Hills so special. Thank you for life itself and for the health we need to do the work that you've called us to do. Lord, give all the elected leaders here today the wisdom to govern wisely, putting the welfare of the people that they serve first. May the work they do tonight please you and those who live and work in Fountain Hills. God, please give the mayor and councilmembers the ability to listen and respect a wide variety of viewpoints and help them to work together in unity even if there's honest disagreement. May these leaders value truth, honesty, integrity, and moral judgment that comes from you as they make decisions within their legal authority, so that Fountain Hills can be a safe, prosperous, joyful place where families can raise children and its citizens can live in peace. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Our third and final roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Here. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Here. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? Page 2 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MCMAHON: Here. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Here. MENDENHALL: Anyone wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the agenda or under call the public should fill out a request to comment card located in the back of the council chambers and hand it to the town clerk prior to consideration of that agenda item. When your name is called, please approach the podium, speak into the microphone, and state your name for the public record. Please limit your comments to three minutes. It is the policy of the mayor and council to not comment on items brought forth under call to the public; however, staff can be directed to report back to the council at a future date or to schedule items raised for a future council agenda. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Linda. So there's a lot of recognitions and activities in the month of May, as you're going to soon see when we do our reports. But I do want to mention that I just found out that its 55th annual Professional Municipal Clerks Week. So I wanted to tell our clerk that while we have this little thing, clerks -- don't look surprised -- clerks provide the professional link between the citizens, the local governing bodies, and agencies of governments and other levels, and impartially render equal service to all. And we appreciate you, Linda, so I want to make sure I mention that before we got started with our reports. Thank you. So we'll start with our town manager for activities. It's been three weeks since we met, so we probably have some stuff. GOODWIN: It has been. It seems like it's been a long time. Welcome back, everybody. I'm going to do a quick update. Things that have gone on over the past -- there's too Page 3 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES many to name, but one of the big ones I would like recognize is the grand opening of our fitness park at Desert Vista Park. A number of you were there, so thanks for coming out to join us. Special thanks to the vice mayor for presiding over that ribbon -cutting for us. It's been a great amenity. It's been well used already, so we're excited for that addition. I'd also like to thank ADOG as well as their donors for a number of new benches that were recently installed in the dog park. So we're going to be doing a ribbon -cutting for that, I believe, next week. I think it was just kind of identified today. I think that's the plan, so we'll get that on calendars. But we did want to say thank you to them. That's a great addition to the dog park as well. Looking forward, on Saturday we have our Movie in the Park over at Four Peaks Park. It's one of our last sort of outdoor activities before the heat really gets going. And then next Wednesday, on May 15th, we have our downtown strategy open house. That's welcome to everyone in the community to come give feedback about the development or redevelopment of our downtown. And that's at the community center from 6 to 8. That's what I have. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. GOODWIN: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? TOTH: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted really quickly to congratulate the school on the ribbon -cutting of the planetarium. I've heard a lot of the buzz around it, and people seem really excited. I was so sad I was not able to attend the ribbon -cutting because I was at work. But I've heard a lot about it and I'm very happy for them. GRZYBOWSKI: After, what was it? Five weeks of getting together every single week, it does seem like forever since we saw each other. So I had to go back through my calendar to make sure I didn't miss anything. We had an ambassador event for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council on the growth of the bioscience industry, obviously, in this general area. I think we had two Arizona League of Cities and Towns calls, and the Phoenix East Valley Partnership Critical Transportation and Infrastructure met and discussed the upcoming November Prop 479 Page 4 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Transportation election and its importance to Maricopa's transportation infrastructure and the business growth of our community, and we'll all be hearing much more about that in the near future. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilman? FRIEDEL: Thank you, Mayor. So I did get to attend the strategic planning commission's open house that they had on April 20th here at the community center in town. And they gathered a lot of data and ranked priorities for the town from the residents that attended. So it was interesting to see how those stacked up. I'm sure they'll share that with us at some point. I also attended the Desert Vista ribbon -cutting. It was great because that whole structure is a combination of the American Legion Post donating the shade structure to the town and then we have a nice covering now for our exercise area, so that worked out really well. So I was glad to be a part of that. And then I attended a talk by Dirk van Leenen, a Holocaust survivor here at the community center that was really a well -attended event, and this man was a survivor and told some real -life stories about how they survived and what they had to do to make it through that whole war and the issues that they faced. So it was really a good event. And then on May 4th, I attended -- the Elks Lodge had their -- one of their big fundraisers; they had a golf outing. And why that's important to the town is that tomorrow night, at the community center, the Elks Lodge from Fountain Hills is going to be presenting four $2,000 scholarships to graduating seniors. So that's going to be really kind of nice to be a part of that. And along with that, Katie Hobbs also had a proclamation that she did for Elks Youth Week. So that runs from May 1st to May 7th, which is today. So I thought that was really nice, and it recognized our Elks Lodge as well as the others across the state. So it's good to see that the Elks really do a lot for our community. And this Elks Lodge in town has returned just over a $1 million since its Page 5 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES inception in this town to various communities and events that they hold for veterans and children in our area. I also did attend the middle school planetarium. That was really kind of a -- really a cool thing, and I see that as a feeder to the International Dark Sky Discovery Center. So they'll go hand in hand, and I think it's a great thing to have here in our town. And then Christ's Church this past weekend celebrated 40 years. It was a packed event, and kudos to them for making it 40 years in our town. So we wanted to recognize that as well. And then May 11th kicks off National Police Week in our town, and we're going to be turning our fountain blue that night. That's a Saturday night, I believe. MAYOR DICKEY: I think it's the 15th. FRIEDEL: Oh, 15th? I'm sorry. 15th. So that's in the middle of the week. That's Wednesday. MAYOR DICKEY: Yes. FRIEDEL: Yes. So it runs from the 12th to the 15th. So to recognize our police heroes, we will be turning our fountain blue that night. So that's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. MCMAHON: Good evening, everybody. I also have been busy over the past few weeks. I attended a Valley Metro board meeting, and we're talking about support of the proposition, so more information will be available for that in the future. I also was fortunate enough to be able to attend the ribbon -cutting for our Vista Park and the gym equipment that's out there. Thank you. I think it's pretty awesome that we keep improving our parks so that they meet our community's needs and services. In addition, we are a recognized dementia -friendly town, and on April 27th, the dementia -friendly committee taskforce put together our inaugural summit on taking care of the caregivers who take care of those people with cognitive impairments. And I have to say that that event absolutely exceeded our expectations. We had four amazing, dynamic speakers. We had 16 or so local vendors, and also we had the vendor from the Sky Harbor Airport to talk about how dementia -friendly the airport is and Page 6 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES traveling with somebody with cognitive impairment. The energy and synergy in those rooms was just amazing. The collaboration between the vendor for the services that they provide for our residents in this town who have cognitive impairments are just amazing. I mean, there were -- we had to have about 40, 45 in attendance. One man even drove down from Payson to get information and support as a caregiver. We had a separate respite room to take care of those people with cognitive impairment while their caregivers were able to attend the program. And it was so successful; we are still receiving emails and kudos. In fact, today I received a really nice thank you card from one of the vendors for including them. And as a demonstration of what a difference our community makes in the inclusivity of our community, one woman came up to me after -- and she was an older woman -- and she said, I just want to let you know I've learned so much; I really appreciate that. And she was almost apologizing because she left the program meeting for a couple of times. But she said, I left because I wanted to go check on my husband, who was in the respite care room. And I looked in the window. I saw that he was laughing; I saw that he was participating and singing. And she looked at me and she goes, you know what? After all these years of taking care of him, that's the first time I've ever left him. So if we can walk -- so for me to walk away from such a summit and have that be such an amazing compliment and fulfill the purpose of it, we should be proud of that as town because it's our town that put that on: the community services, our volunteers. It was an amazing event. So I am proud to say that we put us on the map for that. So thank you, everybody, for all of your help. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. MCMAHON: Also, I attended with Brenda the ribbon -cutting for the remodel of the Sonesta Hotel at the Mayo campus, also the elementary school's planetarium; thank you, Dr. Kane (ph.), for your innovation in bringing that to our young kids here and all the people who donated to make that happen. It's an amazing, amazing planetarium. It's really cute. And also I attended the Arizona League of Cities and Towns committee meeting on elections, and I want to recognize that over the weekend the fountain was Page 7 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES turned red in support of fallen firefighters, which I think is amazing. So thank you all. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Vice Mayor? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. And hi, everybody, and welcome to another town council meeting. It does seem like it's been quite while since we've been here. Greetings to everybody on YouTube Iivestreaming and on Cox Channel 11. Just a reminder to all of our speakers tonight, I get a lot of feedback from people saying, could you please tell the people to speak into the microphone, because even though we can hear you in this room, there's a lot of times they can't hear you either on TV or on YouTube livestreaming. It keeps coming up. They say we can't hear what's going on, and so could you please let people know. So please, when you do address the council, please speak into the microphone; it's really important. But again thanks for attending. And informed and engaged citizenry is the key to good governance. What we do, with your help, is we identify problems, we respectfully debate ideas. and we implement solutions. That's what we do. It's interactive between you and between us. Tonight agenda item 9.A -- we'll be discussing that later, but that is the culmination of this very process of community input and then discussion and then doing something about it. So we'll be discussing that later tonight. As far as -- there's been a lot of ribbon -cuttings since the last time we met. And so the first one was with Keith Gilbert and HealthMarkets. That was at the chamber, and he's quite a great guy. And then we had the State 48 Roofing, and they promise you sexy roof status. So you can call them to explain that. And then, of course, the Sonesta Select Mayo Campus, which Peggy did attend with me, is as well. Again, what a lot of the people talked to you tonight about was this very special ribbon -cutting at the Desert Vista Park, the grand opening of the first fitness park in Fountain Hills. I was joined by our town manager, Rachael, Gerry, Peggy, and Kevin from the parks department; we all did the ribbon -cutting. That park is -- I think it's got to be one of the best parks in the state now, and it's a culmination with the American Legion, with the ADOG, with the Page 8 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES town, the skate park, and now the shaded exercise area. It's just an amazing thing if you haven't gone there. It's something that we can all be proud of, and it's right here in Fountain Hills, naturally. Speaking of church, we had the National Day of Prayer on May 2nd, and there was a ceremony down by the lake, and then many of the congregations in town had special prayers that night. And also, like Gerry mentioned, I was with him at the Christ's Church of Fountain Hills, where they celebrated 40 years serving our faith -based community. Pastor Keith and Dee Pavia are pastors, are accomplishing great things at the Christ's Church. That's the 40-year milestone. We also recently attended, a couple of months ago, the 50th anniversary of Cornerstone Church with Pastor Pierce. And so those are two really significant milestones -- a 50- year and a 40-year -- in a town this young. And so that's something we can congratulate them for being such integral part of our community. We recently had the Art on the Avenue event, our weekly music on the Avenue. Of course, lunch and music at the community center and movies at the park. So if you live in Fountain Hills, there's always something to do. I want to tonight, just to kind of let everybody know, if you're wondering how do I find out all the stuff that's going on, because there's so much stuff going on in Fountain Hills, there's desertvibe.com, which will lead you to all the activities going here; experiencefountainhills.org -- not com -- which, again, recounts all the activities in our town; our own website, fountainhillsarizona.com; the community center -- where you can link to that from our website. And every single day from, like, 9 in the morning till 8 o'clock at night they've got Mahjong and bingo and seminars on pain management and allergies and so it's always packed. Really good things going on at the community center. Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce also has a listing of all the things going on in our town, which is worthwhile too. And of course, our local hometown newspaper, the Arizona Fountain Hills Independent Times, always covers our town events very w3ell. So if anybody wants to write me, it would be kalivianakis@fountainhillsaz.gov. I can email you all these links; otherwise, you can look on YouTube later. Page 9 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES And then, just lastly, a reminder that this Saturday at noon at that same community center, the Desert Valley Winds will be performing a concert at which I'll playing saxophone, and I invite you all to come out. It's free to the public, and it will be a good time for all. So thank you very much. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. There's pros and cons to being last. One, everybody steals the thunder. But I can also be the person who's short and sweet. So we live in a wonderful, wonderful town. Thank you very much, everybody. MAYOR DICKEY: I feel what you're saying. Yeah. I was able to go to a couple of things. Most of everything I've done in the last three weeks has been online because I had my second and final back surgery, I'm sure; I was hoping I'd be another two inches taller, but it didn't work out. MAG Regional Council, our legislative calls, of course, Greater Phoenix Economic Council mayors and supervisors meeting, which is very interesting. My big outing to the MacDowell Mountain Elementary School planetarium, which was really cool. Mayor education roundtable, which I'm honored to be a part of. They talked about something called the Arizona Education Workforce visualization, which is a tool that communicates how our economy is evolving and what that means for Arizona workers and learners, delivering information directly into the hands of decision -makers to better plan for the future. And I do meet with other superintendent quarterly, and I also send them items, and it was very, very relevant to the high school. As far as the month of May, I'm not doing proclamations for everything, but it is Asian American Pacific Islander Month. It's observed during May. It recognizes contributions and influence of Asian Americans -- I'm a little partial to that -- native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander Americans to the history, cultural, and achievements of the U.S. Today is Teacher Appreciation Day, May 7th, 2024, so thank you, teachers. The international recognized date for Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising this year 2024, that was yesterday on May Page 10 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 6th. National Peace Officers, the Police Week, and also it was National Peace Officers' Memorial Day, which is May 15th, so that's why the fountain will be blue on that day. National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend, which just passed, that's a national tribute to the firefighters who have died in the line of duty during the previous year, and they call that the Night for Fallen Firefighters, and the fountain was red, as has been noted on May 4th. So I do have some proclamations. I wanted to ask first if Cheryl (ph.) is here for National Therapy Animal Day. Did Cheryl come? So I'm probably going to do that from here; I'll read that. And then I'll come down. We'll do Economic Development Week for Amanda. We'll do International Firefighters Day, which is different from what I mentioned, and we'll have Dave come up for that. And then we're going to give Jill Keefe a certificate of appreciation. So I will -- let me do the National Therapy Day from up here, and then I'll make my way down there. So we were asked to do this: Whereas Pet Partners has designated April 30 as National Therapy Animal Day and scientific research shows that interacting with therapy animals can reduce stress, relieve depression, slow heartrate, lower blood pressure, and strengthen the immune system; and whereas therapy animal teams in the Town of Fountain Hills play an essential role in improving human health and well-being through the animal -human bond; and whereas therapy animal teams interact with a variety of people in our community, including veterans, seniors, patients, students, and those approaching end of life; and whereas these exceptional therapy animals partner with their human companions, they bring comfort and healing to those in need, and we encourage more pet owners to consider becoming pet partners, volunteering to help our community by creating greater access to meaningful therapy animal visits. So be it resolved that I, Mayor Ginny Dickey, on behalf of the Town of Fountain Hills do proclaim -- this is in the past because we haven't met -- April 30th as National Therapy Animal Day and encourage our citizens to celebrate our therapy animals and their human handlers all year long and salute the service of therapy animal teams in our Page 11 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES community and in communities across the nation. So we do have a proclamation, and we will make sure that Cheryl gets that. Now, I'll start with economic development, and we'll have Dave, and we'll have everybody come one by one -- Jill. And I'll meet you down there. Thank you. We're starting with Amanda. JACOBS: The Chief's asking me (indiscernible) once a week. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Let's see. Let me find yours. This is yours, so you hold that up, and I'll read it for you. And then you say whatever you would like. So whereas more than 100,000 economic development or related professionals worldwide are committed to creating, retaining, and expanding top tier opportunities that facilitate long-term community growth; and whereas the economic development profession cultivates thriving neighborhoods, champions sustainability and resiliency, boosts economic prosperity, enhances the quality of life, and builds robust tax bases; and whereas economic development professionals operate throughout the diverse economic environments, including rural, suburban, and urban settings, local state and national governments, public -private partnerships, chambers of commerce, institutions of higher education, and many similar organizations -- except I think we hit them all; whereas economic development professionals serve as stewards being connections between stakeholders such as residents, business leaders, elected officials, industry executives, and educational administrations and collaborate in promoting job creation, community investment, infrastructure advancements, and an optimistic future -- you can't beat that -- and since 1926 the International Economic Development Council has been a leader and a driving force in educating -- and I'm sorry -- in advancing economic development initiatives with a steadfast commitment to fostering growth and prosperity in communities of all sizes worldwide and economic developers contribute to the betterment and progress of Fountain Hills. So therefore, be it resolved that I, Mayor Ginny Dickey, on behalf of the Town of Fountain Hills, recognize the week of May 6th through May 10th as Economic Development Week and remind individuals of the importance of this community Page 12 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES celebration, which supports expanding opportunities, bettering lives, and moving society forward. Wow, that's really something. What are you going to say about that? JACOBS: I just -- I don't like being up here in this way. But thank you to the Mayor and council for your support of economic development, the community. And then, as the Mayor said, this is a team sport, and so what you can do is shop our local business, like Jill's here with Good Living Greens. So we don't have a primary property tax, so remember sales tax dollars matter. When you go to Scottsdale, we don't get that money. You're providing leakage. So shop local. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I didn't know we were providing leakage. So next we're going to have Dave Ott, our chief, come up and accept this for International Firefighters Day. This one's right here. I'll make you talk too. There you go. All right. Whereas the brave men and women of the firefighting community exemplify valor, dedication, and selflessness in the face of danger, serving as the frontline defenders of our community safety and well-being; and whereas May 4th was commemorated as International Firefighters Day, a day of recognition and gratitude for sacrifice and efforts of firefighters worldwide; and whereas the resilience, courage, and compassion demonstrated by firefighters resonate within our community, inspiring us to express our appreciation and support for your invaluable work; and whereas the Town of Fountain Hills proudly stands alongside our firefighting heroes, honoring their unwavering commitment to protecting lives, property, and the environment; whereas, members of the Fountain Hills Fire Department deserve recognition for their dedication to public safety; so now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Mayor Ginny Dickey, on behalf of the Town of Fountain Hills do hereby proclaim that May 4th, 2024, was International Firefighters Day in the town and urge all residents to join us in honoring and celebrating the dedication and bravery of our firefighters and recognize their contributions to the safety and prosperity of our community. OTT: Thank you. And this day actually revolves around the National Firefighters Page 13 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Memorial Weekend that's held in Emmitsburg, Maryland every year. This year they added 266 names to the wall there, 2 of them from Arizona. So thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you so much. We appreciate that. I saw that number, and I guess I didn't actually believe it. But wow, that's a lot for one year. Thanks, Dave. All right. Now it's time -- Jill, come on up. We want to express our appreciation for all your good, hard work on behalf of the town. So you hold on to that, and then I guess you can say something too. KEEFE: Oh, my goodness. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So we would like to express our sincere gratitude to Jill Keefe, who has served with distinction on the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission since her appointment by the town council in November of 2022. Throughout her tenure, Jill has demonstrated exceptional commitment and expertise, making invaluable contributions to the commission. Both the town council and her fellow commissioners deeply appreciate her dedicated efforts for the constructive influence you have had on the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission. Wow, there you go. Thank you. KEEFE: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Give you a hand there. KEEFE: Wow. Thank you so much, Mayor and town council, for the opportunity to serve in this way. I've learned a tremendous amount about the town and how it runs, and to be able to contribute to the long-term horizon of the town means a lot to me. And I'm stepping back for a little bit just to take care of my family. But I want to continue to support the town in any way I can, and I appreciate the opportunity. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks so much. KEEFE: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: That's what it's all about. Thank you. Picture? Thank you, guys. Thank you so much, Jill. All right. Thank you, everyone, so much. It's important that we do these recognitions, and thank Page 14 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES you all for being here. We have some presentations, and I saw some of the teachers there from the Mayor's Youth Council, so I believe you're first up. Come on up. Guys, thanks for coming. I know it's a busy time of year. HEINSMA: Yes. Mayor and Council, my name is Steven Heinsma, and myself and Skylar Thomas, were privileged enough to work with this great group of teens. They made a large impact on my time here so far. And as advisors on the Mayor's Youth Council, we got to see all they accomplished, and they're going to be sharing that with you in just a moment. We have several of them here tonight. So without further ado, I'd like to invite Kevin, our chair for this year, to say a few words and introduce their presentation. KEVIN: Hello, Mayor. Hello, Council. As Steven just said, I am the -- or I had the privilege of being president for the Mayor's Youth Council for this year. Just to introduce our presentation, I'm super proud of this entire group. While we didn't accomplish absolutely everything we wanted to this year, it was still a great year. We got a lot done. And I especially want to thank the new members that joined this year. We had people from all around. We had people from bases, people from ASU prep, obviously people from Fountain Hills as well. And one thing I want to thank these people for is they were not afraid to speak up during our meetings and introduce new ideas. And I'm super happy they're here, and I'm excited to see where they take the club next year. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. [VIDEO] MAYOR DICKEY: Anybody have any questions or comments for these fine people? Obviously, we're very grateful for everything you did. I know that we had Fountain Hills Cares events; we had other -- Make a Difference Day like you just had up there where we always saw you there. We're always so grateful that you did that. I just signed your volunteer certificates, and I just couldn't believe those hours. So you guys are really making a difference, and you know that. I want to congratulate the seniors, who are ready to do their next wonderful adventure. And again, I can't express my appreciation Page 15 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES for you and your advisors and really look forward to next year as well. Anybody else? MCMAHON: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks for making us all happy tonight. We have another presentation, which is going to be a Public Works Project update from Justin. WELDY: Madam Mayor, councilmembers. First, thank you for the opportunity. I have the privilege of not only updating the mayor and council but also an opportunity to thank the staff that often are not seen standing at this podium. They're oftentimes seen in the building, on the streets, or in the facilities. The staff that I'm talking about is in the umbrella of the public works department. Under direction from the town manager and support from the mayor and council, the public works department has the Facilities Department, which is relatively small, about actually three and a half persons. The half person has been taking care of the library museum for a little bit more than 20 years. The street department is also a relatively small division of five down there. Also the engineering division, which is technically two, but we also include the civil engineering inspector in that group. But it's also important to note that we share an executive assistant with development services, and we also share the CAD GIS guru with the entire town department and all of their staff and the mayor and council. So on behalf of all of them, I'm just a spokesperson. The stuff you're going to see tonight is an end result of, again, the support from the town manager and the mayor and council and the hard word of those individuals. This year we are going to accomplish just under nine lane miles of paving. Keep in mind, there is still a small portion of this that's underway on Panorama, but it will be completed before June 30th of this year. There have been several times during the past year that we've had discussions in regards to pavement maintenance and the funding scenarios. I have some extremely good news in regards to some minor change of scope related to some of the projects that we did. We anticipated the worst, planned for the best. That said, the outcome is a benefit. There is approximately going to be $700,000 Page 16 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES that was budgeted for paving this year that will remain in the streets budget and be available for the outlying years as a result of these cost savings. That's pretty substantial. Included in this year's pavement markings, based on a pilot program that the mayor and council approved for El Lago between Fountain Hills Boulevard and Palisades, we've begun to stripe all of our wider boulevards in that manner, which includes an eight -foot shoulder, a five-foot bike lane, two travel lanes, and a two-way left turn lane. The end result of this is the Town of Fountain Hills was able to add ten additional bike lane miles without constructing any new roadways. And all of these bike lane miles are five feet wide, which is a pretty substantial amount and also an adequate width and is in compliance with not only the federal, but state and county recommendations for the width of a bike lane. It should be noted that, as I stated earlier, the portion along Panorama Drive will be restriped after that is paved, and all of it completed before June 30th of this year. Oftentimes, as we're out walking, as not only staff but elected members of the council and the residents, we get notification about uneven surfaces. The photo, the second one on the bottom right there, are actually two of the town street apartment staff, utilizing a state of the art device that allows us to grind multiple types of surface to eliminate that uneven and/or oftentimes referred to as a trip hazard. As you can see from this, there are several locations identified here. We intentionally use this exhibit, although there are several other locations in town, because prior to special events that are going to impact the downtown, we spread out in all of those areas the entire public works staff and look for areas that may or may not create challenges for those that are going to be walking after the sun sets or even when sun is up, just to ensure their safety. We oftentimes discuss big sidewalk projects, and we're proud to be showing some of those tonight. This is another example. So the process in regards to uneven walking surfaces is that we identify them, we take the necessary action to make them less challenging, and then we put them on a list for eventual replacement. This particular Page 17 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES case there are 25 locations that we replaced in and around the downtown area as part of this year and several other ones out on Palisades, some on Golden Eagle Boulevard. But these are the primary ones right here in the downtown. Please note you can ask any questions or share any comments you have as I'm moving forward. Golden Eagle Boulevard and Sierra Madre. This is a relatively big project. This is a project that we discussed with the town manager after having received a request from a resident, and then several others chimed in. And then we took the proposal to the pedestrian and traffic safety committee. The proposal was to install a marked crosswalk at Golden Eagle and Sierra Madre. This project also included revisions to the curb ramps and the approach to each one of those ramps to make them compliant with the DOJ standards. This is a very exciting one that is multiple years in the works. The town was able to complete with MAG and the Arizona Department of Transportation, guidance from the mayor and council, town manager, the safe routes to school assessment. Those assessments had been shared with the mayor and council in the past. The next step for these is we will begin to work with the school to implement some of the onsite and offsite changes. For this activity grant, we have $14,000 in funds available that we're working with the school and each of the schools' principals, to identify areas where they may be able to utilize that funding. But it's important to note that these books are the roadmap for the future for the youth and the schools in Fountain Hills because they will allow us the opportunity with backup documentation to apply for grants, to take action, and correct the deficiencies that are noted and shown in these books. Here are a few capital improvement projects that we completed this year. This was the one down on Grande that connected a concrete channel to Rosita. As you'll note, the home shown on the right here as oftentimes flooded prior to this work. This is the project down on Deuce Court. The home, again, on the right-hand side was oftentimes flooded. This is additional photos of that work, same location. This is one of our bridge repairs. Going to get a little bit technical here. But first, every Page 18 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES five years the Arizona Department of Transportation, at no cost to the Town of Fountain Hills, inspects all of the bridges that we own and/or we are responsible for. And we have a lot more than you would imagine. We'II pick out a couple of examples that you may not know. Golden Eagle Boulevard at Desert Canyon, that's a bridge that crosses under Golden Eagle there in the form of concrete box culverts. All of the entries into the Target Center, except for the one on Saguaro, you have to cross a bridge. Having said that, this right here was a strong recommendation and a high priority in regards to that inspection. The photo on the left is some overgrown brush, and just outside of that photo is the outfall turn -down wall that was being exposed by erosion and a lot of water. What it's referred to is head cutting. Head cutting is when water flows over a spillway and/or a bridge, and it begins to erode the soil, and the soil begins to work backwards towards the bridge. It could undermine it. This project right here was to address that headcutting. This is one that we're really excited about. This is a sidewalk infill project. The photos on the top left show before and, obviously, on the bottom left shows after the curb opening ramp at Indian Wells. But the big photo on the right-hand side shows that with the funding approved by the mayor and council and under the direction of the town manager, we were able to eliminate another gap in the Fountain Hills neighborhood adjacent to this. This gets us much, much closer to having a completed system that ties directly into Desert Vista on one side of the road. This is another one of our drainage projects. Last year we worked on the west side of Saguaro at Kingstree. This year we were able to complete the east side. You might recall that in an earlier presentation related to capital projects, I described a home south and east of this location that was inundated with flood water as a result of this intersection not able to dewater itself due to outdated or missing drainage components. Everyone should be familiar with this. This was the old patio section of the community center. It's still a patio section that is open and available for the public. We're working on getting some furniture out there, but more importantly, it has added badly needed storage to the community center and is part of our ongoing effort to keep water away Page 19 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES from the building and dewater it. This is the downtown parking management plan. It was identified in the strategic plan, also in the general plan. The town engineer and I just received their draft recommendation today, and we need to go over that and make any corrections or any suggestions that won't impact the outcome and then share that with the town manager. Once it's finalized, we'll bring it before the mayor and council and have a little discussion related to it. I should note, and this is important, that there have been numerous stakeholder meetings related to this parking management plan that the vendor has had and town staff has attended. And in fact, there was one more today, and there the town engineer and I have a separate meeting related to this with a Plat 208 board of directors later on this month to hear some of their concerns and/or recommendations related to the areas that are in bright red, yellow, and green on this exhibit. This is the Ashbrook wash slope stabilization project. This is in Ashbrook wash between Fountain Hills Boulevard and Hampstead on the north side. You'll recall just a short three years ago we had a couple of storm events. The end result of some of that runoff was lateral migration that cut the bank to within one foot of an occupied dwelling. All of the material that you see here -- and it's kind of hard to visualize -- a rough math on this is about 5.5 million cubic yards of donated material that were placed by local vendors. Spend a little time on that. These are people that are not only working for the town on their projects, but commercial development and residential development. By allowing them to place material in locations like this, we substantially reduce the cost of town projects, but we also reduce the cost to the homeowner and/or the business owner, and we also minimize the number of trips necessary to export that material out of this community, either into landfills or facilities along the 202 Red Mountain that accept those type of materials. So this is a wide-ranging beneficial project. These are some of the environmental programs that we are responsible for. I'm going to give you some numbers. Related to our residential recycling, Republic Services deposited 2,500 tons that were recycled this year up to date. For the electronics Page 20 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES recycling event, we had 6.7 tons of electronics that will be recycled through reclamation and reuse. And lastly, the household hazardous waste recycling event, 12.8 tons. There is one other one in which we are a partner with the Friends of the Maricopa County Library, the paper shredding that we just had two weekends ago. It was a very, very big event, and we do not have the data for that event. But at probably 40 minutes after the opening, there were about 78 vehicles in queue on Hampstead that stretched from the driveway all the way up to Carmel. And it was that way for quite a little while there. My hat's off to that group of volunteers and all of the youngsters from the high school that showed up to help them. I was impressed with that group. They really worked hard. That was it. Lots of good news. Any questions? I'll do my best to answer them. You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of times it's really easy to not realize everything that goes into what you have to do. I mean, we think about our houses, and we got this project or that project, and just look at the entire town and you're responsible for that. And we really appreciate it and saved us $700,000 somehow along the way. So I'm sure we'll be able to -- pardon me? MCMAHON: Spend it. MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, spend it. That's what she said. I wasn't going to be that blatant, but yeah, we'll find a way. Something to do with streets. But yeah, we we appreciate how thorough and how you're always there for us to ask questions and to help us understand all that you do. WELDY: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. MAYOR DICKEY: So our next item is a call to the public. Do we have any speaker cards? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. We have a total of three. We'll start with Cody Ream (ph.). On deck is Lori Troller, and last is Ed Stizza. Cody has decided not to speak. So now we'll go with Lori. You ready, Lori? TROLLER: Sure. MENDENHALL: And then Ed. Page 21 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES TROLLER: Mayor, Council. Lori Troller, resident. I recently had conversations with folks in Fountain Hills on the topic of small wireless facilities. And so for those of you who don't know what that is, it's an antenna. And as we all know, antennas need to be up in the air about 20, 30 feet. So nobody realized the first ten feet of their yard was an ROW, the right-of-way. So although residents own this and maintain it, the town can allow for a 20-, 30-foot tower to be built on it. So everybody thought they could go back and talk to somebody about it and pass that, maybe get a lawyer and fight the town or the telecoms. But nobody looks up the rules until they have to. And in this case, it's too late because in this case, you have exactly 30 days to sue from the date of when the construction begins. So we all know the amount of snowbird population, and 30 days isn't nearly long enough for them or for regular residents to get a lawyer together for a case. So this is why I'm here, making sure the ordinance we do write protects our properties to the fullest legal extent possible. But for some reason, this process is like pulling teeth, hair, and nails for two years now. We were even told at the beginning of this we couldn't change the law, and that was 100 percent wrong. This is why -- or sorry. So we are just asking that the law that we write fully protects our properties. Thank you. MENDENHALL: Ed Stizza. STIZZA: How close? Is that good? So good evening, Madam Mayor, town council, staff, Aaron, and I hope everybody's well. And I rushed down here from up north to be here tonight and cut my vacation short. So this is near and dear to my heart, what I'm going to say. And really tried to get on board with what's happening over at the Centennial Circle. And I even tried to find some good, which I've been accused of not doing, in our shade structure. Well, after what I've seen over this past week -- and my father passed away, it's been close to 12 years now. So we purchased a plaque and a bench down at Centennial Circle that was abruptly, without any notice, without any concern whatsoever, pulled out of the Centennial Circle and thrown into a pile. Now, my family holds that plaque very dear, and we had absolutely no information on that whatsoever. Page 22 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES I even asked when, if we were going to disrupt any of the Centennial Circle, when it came to the benches and everything else -- we all know about the five C's. And we also all know what we spent fairly recently on the rest of the pavers that seemed to be absolutely no plywood down. Everybody just seemed to run over stuff. So it just doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? So I'm no longer on board with the circus tent, so. And that's exactly what I'm going to call it. It's already been purchased. The design is going to conflict with a $25 million beautiful Dark Sky Center, and nobody upon nobody took the time to look at other options to make that Centennial Circle the best it could be. And now we've got an open palette, and we're going to put this tent in there. Let's see how long it gets -- how many times you guys actually rent that. We can barely rent out the facility behind the community center. So going back to the actual plaques and total disrespect, my dad's plaque was put into a pile, and I did not go grab it. I should have, but there was a camera down there, and my family was not alerted, nor were any of the other families. And I'll tell you what, I hold some things very, very dear to my heart, and one of them is my family. And I am absolutely disgusted at what happened and your guys' lack of concern on it. Thank you. GOODWIN: Mayor, if I may? I just wanted to thank Ed for his comments and his feedback. We've actually been in touch with a number of folks over there, including your mom, to make sure that we were able to make those plaques available. So I just wanted to let you know. MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor. We have two more, Steve Baggio and on deck Rachel Hope. BAGGIO: Mayor Dickey, Vice Mayor Brenda Kalivianakis -- hopefully I said it right -- and council. Excuse me. I wasn't going to speak today, but I noticed a disturbing sight that's been happening. About a month ago, the Town of Fountain Hills website on Facebook run by the town had posted about the circus tent that was going up that Mr. Stizza just talked about. And I had commented politely. I had asked -- well, because they were asking for donations for it. I said, well, why are we not enjoying our natural environment and putting in trees? I'm all about nature and loving nature and all this trees. And what's this fascination with putting shade structures when there's one Page 23 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES directly 20 feet behind it, all over the town, for $250,000 and a half a million at the park? How many trees can we put up? How much greenery can we help the environment with? My comment on the Town of Fountain Hills and somebody else's was taken off, as well as on a private site that is not affiliated with the Town of Fountain Hills but seems to be. Now, to me that smelled something funny. I'd reposted a comment again on that private site. It was deleted. Then I posted again a couple hours later on Town of Fountain Hills; it was left up. On the private site, I was not only having my comments deleted, other people's comments were deleted, and I was kicked off and banned from that site. To me, that spells collusion when you have two people operating like that. And then today and yesterday, on the Town of Fountain Hills, it had posted about the meeting for people wanting to talk about that downtown area. Okay, great. The comments were -- there was no comments you could post. This is a town website, and it's not letting the public speak up for what they believe in, in a professional and respectful way. Also last week, I looked up on the Town of Fountain Hills, the firefighter, which was great. We had the firefighter being read. There was no comments allowed. I'm wondering why the Town of Fountain Hills' public site, run by the town, is not letting the public use free speech and talk about their opinions. The town seems to be wanting to do all these surveys about peoples' opinions. Well, I'm trying to figure out now, does it really care about the opinions or only opinions that please them and certain members of the community? And I believe that this town really needs to listen to the people. It's fine to disagree with people, but don't listen to the opinions that only you want to and only opinions that certain people in certain groups do. That's not what this country is all about, and it's not what this town is all about. It's about accepting others, accepting other's viewpoints. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron? ARNSON: Sure. Mayor and council, I'm happy to address at least that last comment. Staff has had some discussions recently about comments and what's required and what isn't with respect to social media pages. As the council is well aware from past Page 24 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES conversations and other things, First Amendment and the Supreme Court precedent says that if you allow one, you allow them all. So it's an all -or -nothing proposition, right? And so in order to ensure that we're having dialogue or -- excuse me -- being able to put comments out there without having to parse through comments and avoiding that situation for these posts, the town has adopted a practice of not allowing comments. The town does not have to allow comments. There's no legal obligation to do so. But again, if you allow one comment, you allow all the comments. And so that's the basis for that direction that my office provided. MENDENHALL: That's it for public comment. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. You had one other. Right? MENDENHALL: He declined. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, our next item is our consent agenda. Can I get a motion, please? SKILLICORN: Motion to approve. GRZYBOWSKI: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. Page 25 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. Our first regular agenda item is our public hearing, which I will start. Consideration of possible action for an ordinance modifying our zoning ordinance. So I'll open the public hearing. We'II hear from staff. We'll take cards after that. Then we'll close the hearing, and then we can talk. But you're going to ask questions, if you want, on the way. WESLEY: Good evening, Mayor and council. Yes, this is a public hearing to consider an amendment to the zoning ordinance specifically dealing with community residences. A little background, council asked staff to look into the possibility of making some modifications to this section of the zoning ordinance, particularly as it pertains to providing for some additional inspections of these homes. The current regulations were approved approximately two years ago in May of 2022. The goal is to provide some increased oversight into the operation of these homes. The proposed ordinance was reviewed at two planning and zoning commission meetings. Just a little bit more background -- I know you can't read this, but the ordinance does provide a definition of what a community residence is. And basically it is a home for individuals who have some type of disability to live together as a housekeeping unit. They may have some staff as a part of that to help provide some of their habilitative or rehabilitative needs. Beyond that, we have two subcategories or refinements of that. One is for a family community residence, and these would be for people of up to eight residents in the home. In a family residence, we typically expect residency to be a little bit longer than you might have in the other type, which is the transitional residence, which is usually a shorter -term residence. So think just generally the family residence is more likely going to be senior -type living arrangement or along that line. A transitional community residence is going to be what we often call a sober living home or others that are moving through a little faster in some type of program like that. So with regard to the ordinance itself, again, we're talking about section 5.13 of the Page 26 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES zoning ordinance. It has the six sections listed there as part of the overall section of the code. Just a few sections, though, within that that we are going to look at for modification. So first is in item 2 where we talk about -- under registration, where we talk about what is required with registration. This is the main change that we're making in response to the request from council to provide for increased level of inspections of these particular homes. And so the change is to allow the unannounced follow-up inspections to be conducted upon reasonable belief of noncompliance. Mayor, I don't know if you want to talk about each of these as we go, if you have any questions, if you want to go all the way through it. Either way I'm fine with. Just keep keep going. MAYOR DICKEY: Anyone? WESLEY: Okay. So then another place where we do have some reference to inspections currently in the code is with the annual reregistration; that is required. And so that was a little bit limited in the current ordinance, really, just to the life safety standards. So I've expanded that to include then the occupancy limits and clarifying on the policies and procedures. As we reviewed these text amendments with the P&Z Commission, they noted a couple other things that they thought ought to be modified a little bit. One has to do with clarification on the business license. The "if applicable" in there they found to be a little bit confusing about when it would apply, and so clarifying that owner and/or operator must have a business license, and the business license is always applicable from one of those two. And then finally another item that we noted one of the final provisions in the overall code has to do with waivers that can be applied for, primarily having to do with the separation requirements or the maximum number of residents. As we reviewed this, the commission thought it would be helpful to make it a little bit more clear when we talk about a waiver; waiver of what? So it's a waiver for reasonable accommodation that's often found in other codes. So putting that in. And then in particular what Page 27 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES brought this up is down in the section under Item B -- I can go through the history here a little bit. But it currently states a maximum of ten is when you need the consideration of a waiver. That was some language that got lost when we made the change in the other part of the code, which made the maximum eight, and we missed reducing this down. So it was consistent with other parts of the code. So that's what this does now is make it consistent with those two definitions for the family and the transitional residences. If you want more than either one of those numbers, then you could apply for this waiver. So those are the proposed changes, Mayor and council. Any questions about? MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Why don't we take speaker cards, and then council can discuss and ask questions. MENDENHALL: Okay. First, in your electronic comment card packet you have 13 comments that are for it. And then we had one in person who just wants to comment in writing that they're for it. So a total of 14 people for it and so far nobody against it. And then we have two comment cards. First is Barry Wolborsky, and on deck is Crystal Cavanaugh. WOLBORKSY: Barry Wolborsky, Fountain Hills resident. I'm just getting up here to say how much I support this. We've all read in the papers and seen on the news the horrors that have happened in these houses where people's lives have been lost. And I don't think we cannot do our due diligence and supervise them as closely as possible. I think that the more supervision we do, the better. The supervision will not hurt the people in those houses. The supervision will help the people in those houses. And so I think it behooves us all to support this. CAVANAUGH: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. This will be one of the shortest comments I've ever made, probably. This is actually an issue that I was actively involved in over the past two -plus years, and I was really happy when it was finally approved to lower the occupancy. And I do just want to be sure that when you say eight and you say six, that includes staff. That's how it was before, so I just wanted to make sure it was that way, because I wholeheartedly support planning and zoning Page 28 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES recommendations and the staff recommendations to add these extra protections for the residential areas and for the clients in those homes. Thanks. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I'm going to close the hearing, and then council can discuss. Questions or comments? Vice Mayor? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Director Wesley, if I may just ask one or two, just quick questions. When you talk about reasonable grounds for inspections, would those grounds include just neighborhood complaints or concerns that they're not in compliance? WESLEY: Mayor, Vice mayor, that would often be the way that we would first learn of any concerns. Code officers aren't driving by, studying these on a regular basis. So it probably would stem from a neighborhood complaint or question being raised. From there, depending upon the nature of what the complaint might be, the code staff may approach them immediately or may do their own investigation and observe what's going on for a period of time before they determine there's enough concern to actually -- that warrants an inspection inside the home. KALIVIANAKIS: Would one complaint be sufficient, or would it require numerous people to make a complaint on the same situation? WESLEY: Mayor, Vice Mayor, because we're talking about things -- for this purpose, unannounced inspections, that's for something inside the home. And it is somebody's place where they're living. We would probably be a little bit sensitive to what it is and want maybe a little bit more, either our own investigation or more than one person reporting something, before we would proceed with an interior inspection. But again, it depends upon the nature and what we're learning through even that one complaint. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thank you. And then when you talk about the waivers, that's another question I have. I guess when somebody requests a waiver, there's five criteria. And I guess the board would be yourself, the chairman of planning and zoning, and who would be the third member of the board? MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor, it's the chair of the board of adjustment. Page 29 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES KALIVIANAKIS: The board of adjustment? WESLEY: Yes. KALIVIANAKIS: So it would be you three? MENDENHALL: Yes. KALIVIANAKIS: And then, I guess, one of my concerns that I want to share tonight is that it's my understanding that if two people agree, you can receive a waiver on a two -to - one vote; is that correct? WESLEY: Vice Mayor, let me maybe pull that up real quick if I can. I'm not sure that the code is actually clear on that, in that it says that three make up the committee. Let me read that again real quick. Mayor, hold on just a second. MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron, you know that? ARNSON: While John looks that up, I mean, I would envision that the committee would ultimately have to come to a conclusion and that we'd follow a majority rule process. So to the extent that it's not written down that that's what the process would be, I think it would have to be the consensus of the group. Right? KALIVIANAKIS: Because, I guess, my concern is that if we have three people and they all seem to be appropriate stakeholders, one of which would have a real heartfelt concern, it seems like we might want to require a unanimous decision of an approval of this sort of a waiver. If one of the members has a good cause that they bring up -- I think that maybe to grant a waiver, and this is just something that maybe staff can consider, that we require unanimous of the three board members to agree to the waiver. That seems kind of reasonable. I know it usually is just a two -out -of -three democracy kind of a thing. But I don't think we should grant waivers easily. We do have the code set up and it's all codified, and I'm just a little -- I think the burden should be on the person wanting the waiver. And I think there should be consensus among the board members that the waiver should be granted. So I'll just throw that out there as maybe something to look into and consider. ARNSON: Noted. I don't know that I have an immediate response for it. But noted. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Not needed. Just something to consider. Yeah. Thank you, Page 30 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Director. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman? MCMAHON: Thank you very much. I looked at this, thought about it, had some conversation. And Aaron, my biggest concern about this proposed amendment is registration section number 2, where it says, "Unannounced follow-up inspections may be conducted upon reasonable belief of noncompliance". It's my understanding that you cannot legally do unannounced inspections like that. Could you please weigh in on that? ARNSON: Well -- and John, I'll turn to you in part -- if there's a concern for, you know, immediate health, life, safety issues -- I mean, there are those exigent circumstance exceptions. The other situation where we can do unannounced is if you obtain consent when you walk up to the person's door. MCMAHON: Right. Okay. ARNSON: Yeah. MCMAHON: But that is a really, really blanket comment with no parameters et cetera in it. And that really concerns me because I think that staff needs guidance on this. And so I am not comfortable with leaving that particular sentence in like that. And I would like to modify that and provide some guidance for staff and possibly have it say follow-up inspections may be conducted upon a reasonable belief of noncompliance as determined based on objective evidence and totality of the facts and circumstances. I think that is reasonable. I think it does provide guidance, and it's just not unfettered for any reason whatsoever, that you can show up and do an inspection. I understand that within our ordinances, that we're fitting this in with our code enforcement -- normal code enforcement, in the course of doing business and looking at registration to make sure that these homes are in compliance with the requirements as set forth in this ordinance. So I would like to submit that we change that language to the language that I suggested in section number -- under registration C.2. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Page 31 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Director Wesley, I think you nodded your head in answer to this question, but there was a question about the occupancy, if it includes staff. Could you just say for the record what that answer was? WESLEY: Oh, yes. Mayor, Councilmember, the definition is right here, and as you read through those, it does say including resident staff. SKILLICORN: Great. Thank you so much. And Madam Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve as written. FRIEDEL: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: We have a motion and a second. Further discussion, Councilwoman? TOTH: I just had a question. The motion was for as written, not for the proposed amendment. Okay. Then I'm good. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah, just as far as further discussion on this subject. Just to me, when I look at this, in a perfect world, I think our neighborhoods would be better off without any business in there whatsoever, whether it be Airbnb's, sober living, any of those uses. I think that our neighborhood should be enjoyed to raise families and to retire and to be left at peace. Due to land use, and we do live in America, and I bought a property, and so we do allow for businesses to be conducted in homes, unfortunately. This has been something that this council has been addressing, I think, since we were seated. And when you do go back to May of 2022, when we did toughen up the sober living ordinances in this town, I thought it was a step in the right direction. I was wholeheartedly for that. Around six weeks ago or so we revisited the in -home business regulations, and you gave us a presentation. Or again, we try to tighten up who can be there, who can live there, who can park there, and I think those are all really good regulations, really good. And I think this council has listened to the people and we've Page 32 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES listened to the complaints of people in neighborhoods that they did not like the inconvenience of party houses. As a matter of fact, just this week -- I was going to turn that over to you, John, another one of the Airbnb's that we discussed months ago. They cleaned it up after you sent a compliance officer, and it's right back to garbage and overturned cans and loud noise. And so when I looked at this coming up on our agenda tonight, where we're reasonably taking a look at the ordinances we passed, and then we're adding on to them and adding reasonable, unannounced inspections. I think this is -- again, this is a step in the right direction. When the police come to do a search for a home for drugs, they don't announce we're going to be there in four hours to search your house for drugs. They show up, they say we have a warrant, and they search. This is the same thing. If we announced we're going to come next week to do about a head count on how many people are living here, of course they're going to have six people and one staffer or five people and a staffer. So I think the fact that -- I like the unannounced. I like the fact that we're giving our town compliance officers some teeth to regulate these homes so we can have better care for the people that are in the homes and better, more peaceful neighborhoods for people that have the inconvenience of having these homes. And so you know, when I saw this, I think it's a step in the right direction. And when I first spoke -- when I gave my report, I said, you know, that this 9.A would be coming up. And this -- again, this was from the community. We heard that they wanted this, which we did. Some of the councilmembers here took it seriously, and we did get this back on the agenda. So again, that's that relationship that I was talking about between the people of the town and the council doing the people's business. And so I'm wholeheartedly in favor of this as written. MAYOR DICKEY: So staff recognizes that there's a little extra responsibility there, and they are recommending this change. So that was one of the things we talked about was, like, it's another responsibility for code enforcement or for something. And you guys already recognize that. But am I correct that -- I did ask you a question because I was asking a little bit about these different definitions of these now community residents. Page 33 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES And we've had a lot of complications of which is what kind of house. And one of the things you said to me is that at this time, this would currently apply to only two homes. Is that is that still the case? WESLEY: Yes, Mayor. That is correct. MAYOR DICKEY: So there are two homes like this in the entire town of Fountain Hills. And so I guess -- WESLEY: Mayor, if I may clarify? There are -- MAYOR DICKEY: Four. WESLEY: -- four, but only two that have come in since these regulations. The two that were preexisting are still they -- MAYOR DICKEY: They have to stay under the -- WESLEY: Right. MAYOR DICKEY: Right. But it's still the six because we had done that before, the five and the one. So I think recognizing that you are recommending approval of this ordinance, then I think it's something that we can do. Thanks. Any other comments or questions? We do have a motion on the table and a second. So if there's nothing else, a roll call? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. Page34of56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you very much. Our next item is approval of a preliminary plat on Palisades and La Montana. Hi. TAVASSOLI: Hi. Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. Just give me a minute here. Okay. So what I'm presenting to you is a proposal for a preliminary plat for a approximately three -acre property -- many of you are very familiar with it-- at the northeast corner of Palisades and La Montana Drive. It is currently the home of the new HonorHealth facility as well as Dutch Bros, yes, and the Southwest Decor retail store. As I mentioned, it's about a three -acre property. It's consisting currently of three commercial parcels. It is zoned C-2 or intermediate commercial. I mentioned some of the tenants in there. There is one vacant unit next door to the Southwest, or I should say Sonoran Designs Decor store, it is the former Asian Fang establishment. And there's one undeveloped pad on the far northeast side of the site. As I mentioned, the applicant is proposing a preliminary plat. So as I mentioned, it's currently three parcels. The applicant is wanting to subdivide it further into a total of four. And the layout is before you here on this slide. Really the only stark difference here, as you can see in this comparison, is a new property line separating the building here to the north, as well as lot 4, which currently is contained by the Dutch Bros. Lot 3 is that vacant pad; that will be expanded slightly. So the lot 3 will be slightly larger than what you currently see here. There are two ingress -egress points of access on La Montana and also two on Palisades Boulevard. Incidentally, there is a new parking aisle here. This used to connect the HonorHealth building with this building right here; that has since been demolished. And as I mentioned, that is now additional parking. Again, this is a preliminary plat. A final plat, granted that this is approved, will come before you directly to council. It wouldn't need to go before the planning and zoning commission. And prior to presenting that to you, we will require from the applicant a shared parking and maintenance agreement so a patron to any one of these establishments can use any of these parking stalls available. Page 35 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So staff supports approval of the preliminary plat, as it was recommended for approval by the commission about a month ago. And as I mentioned, a shared parking agreement will be required prior to final plat approval. With that, I'll end my presentation and I'll open it up to questions. MAYOR DICKEY: Do we have any speaker cards on this item? MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Questions from council? Councilwoman? GRZYBOWSKI: My only question reviewing this was the parking. It has been an agreement, or it will be an agreement, that they will share parking. It's not going to be nickel and diming, correct? TAVASSOLI: Correct. We're expecting to get that agreement before the final plat approval, and that will validate the shared parking. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. So very important to me would be that that agreement come into play because businesses have a tendency -- when we don't have these kinds of things, there's a little you -know -what contest between the businesses. And I don't want that to happen. So if we if we nip it in the bud on the front end and make sure that we get that before we allow the breaking of it, I don't have a problem with this at all. I think it's a great idea. I don't know that I understand why they wanted to bring it to us regarding the overall character of the downtown corridor. I don't see that we're increasing the building envelope, so I'm not sure I understand that question that planning and zoning had that they wanted to present to us. I'd be ready to move to approve as written. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Can we get a roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? Page 36 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. TAVASSOLI: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks for all the info. KALIVIANAKIS: I just hope (indiscernible) parking agreement for our business address. MAYOR DICKEY: Oh. Oh, Brenda. Our next item is about the budget. Hello, Paul. SOLDINGER: All right. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, and councilmembers. Thank you for another opportunity to be in front of the council. Tonight, we will be discussing the potential adoption of the fiscal year 2025 tentative budget, which would set the maximum amount of budget expenditures for the town next fiscal year. The tentative budget is almost the same or mostly the same as the proposed budget we discussed at the last work session, other than some few key changes that we'll discuss during the presentation today. Please note that the staff reports in your packets noted the tentative budget amount set at 46.2 million, but the actual figure is 45.2 million. That will be in the presentation. So we'll start by discussing the third quarter revenues that have been coming into the town, so through the first nine months of the fiscal year that we're currently in. As I kind of hinted or implied -- not implied -- I actually stated during our last work session, our local sales tax revenues have been coming in fairly strong, about 35 percent higher than projections. On your screen, you'll see that we've collected about $15.2 million over the first nine months of local sales taxes, compared to 11.3 million budgeted. And I Page 37 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES also mentioned the construction sales tax that are more one-time in nature. Construction sales taxes have been coming in strong. There seems to be a lot of construction activity in the town. We've collected about $2.4 million of those tax revenues, about 240 percent compared to our budgeted revenues. And remember, for that category, we split half of those revenues in the general fund and half in the capital projects fund, just for your information. Utilities and communications also higher than expected at $1.3 million. Wholesale and retail, about on par with projections at 7.9 million. And real estate at $1 million higher than projections. However, this is the category with the Tong -term residential rental taxes. That tax will be going away in January of 2025. And through the first nine months, we've actually collected about 607,000 of that $1 million specifically for that purpose. Restaurants and bars, a little bit above projections at $1 million collected. That's always a good indicator of the economy. It's basically a source of discretionary income spending. And so right now we're a little bit above par on that. And services, which also includes our short-term residential rentals such as Airbnbs and hotel stays and the bed tax, we've collected $1.4 million, about 153 percent of the budget to date. So actually, so far through this fiscal year, we're about two percent Tess than last fiscal year. But keep in mind, last fiscal year was actually skewed a bit because we had a large audit collection in March of last year of $450,000. Okay. So just really briefly on state shared revenues. All of our state shared revenues have been coming in about on par with what's expected. Our state shared sales tax has come in at about $2.8 million, about 78 percent of the budget. Our HURF monies have come in about 1.3 million, about 70 percent of the budget. Urban revenue sharing, that's a consistent amount every month. It's been coming in consistently at $5.3 million. And vehicle license taxes, we've collected about $1 million thus far, about 83 percent of our annual budget. Any questions on revenues before we move on to key changes? Page 38 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Okay. All right. So I'm just going to briefly go over some of the key changes from the proposed budget we discussed last month to the tentative budget that we're discussing today. So at council's direction, we added $250,000 for the wayfinding signs project. And we actually also carried over $50,000 from the current year to be able to complete the splash pad ongoing project in early next fiscal year. This is really only a just -in -case kind of item because there may be vendor delays in delivering some of the products that we've ordered. We removed $150,000 for the roundabout project at Palisades and La Montana, and that's really because we did not obtain council consensus on that project. So that was taken out and considered a red light project for the budget. And actually, through our reviews and discussions with departments, we removed a $15,000 line item from the economic development operational budget. That's just because that was in place in prior years, because of a community contract we had at one point, but we no longer have it. It was not being used, and therefore we took it out of the budget because it was unnecessary. MAYOR DICKEY: I just want to mention the roundabout thing. The $150,000 was for the design. Obviously, the reason that staff came up with that proposal was because we had a study done of that intersection, and the indication was that that would be the safest and best solution for that particular intersection. This $150,000 was for the design so that we would be able to try to get grant funding for the actual big amount, which would probably be like $1 million. But I was told that we will do other -- there won't be in the capital project, but we will do other things to try and make that a little bit of a little safer of an intersection. And that one of those things that we -- because the MUTCD rule for the left turn -- we're not going to change that stop sign, though, right? GOODWIN: Correct. Based on the feedback we had from Director Weldy as well as the conversation at the pedestrian traffic safety committee discussion, we'll be doing some additional signage. We'll be doing some relining -- we call the piano keys or the continental markings so that the crosswalk is highlighted and more reflective. So again, Page 39 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES it will be some safety measures. But you're correct; the relocation of the stop sign is not recommended based on MUTCD standards. If I may, I was going to add one other thing that Paul mentioned about the splash pad project, which is a $50,000 carryover. I wanted to just clarify that that is not an additional or on top of what is already approved for that project. It's just reallocating it from this year to potentially be spent next year. So it's not in addition to; it's just it may not be spent this year, and so we needed to budget for it next year. Is that -- that's accurate? SOLDINGER: Exactly. GOODWIN: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: It's executive session (indiscernible). MCMAHON: Can we talk about the money saved that we discussed in executive session? ARNSON: Oh, right. So specifically with regard to legal advice received regarding restrooms and the discussion that transpired -- so this is the opportunity to discuss the budget and any anticipated direction and changes. So Paul, I don't want to step on your toes, but if they're going to -- if we're going to make changes, this is the opportunity to discuss those changes. MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you. ARNSON: I would urge you to do so as much as you want. MCMAHON: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I'm also disappointed that this intersection has been removed from the budget. It is a safety and a street repair issue. And it is also a major gateway to our town. To me, that four-way stop is so aged and outdated, to me it doesn't fit in our town. It doesn't complement it. Again it's a safety traffic issue and a street repair. So based on our discussion we have, what, 475 more thousand dollars in the budget available, and I would like to use part of that money to put the La Montana change back into the budget. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? TOTH: I don't see those two things as related. I think that the decision that was made Page 40 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES previously on the Palisades and La Montana intersection was in order to, as I keep saying, tighten our belts. The amount of money that we would save by stalling or waiting on the bathroom issue, that was something that can go to downtown fund. That's something that can go to the projects that we're working on that truly bring value to our town. I do not see how a roundabout brings value, and I would rather see that money go to improve our quality of life than a roundabout. MAYOR DICKEY: Go ahead. MCMAHON: It is related. It's related to our downtown improvements. It's related to our quality of life because it has to do with pedestrian traffic safety. It also is in concert with street improvements. And that money isn't particularly slotted for anything in particular. So I do see how it does relate to budget discussions and use of money in our funds. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor? KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I think there's a little confusion here. I mean, we were talking about capital improvement projects earlier and funding them. And tonight we're just talking about the budget. And I don't think this is a time for us to be voting up or down on roundabouts and other capital improvement projects. So I'm just not sure that I'm following where you're going tonight here with that. SOLDINGER: May I? MAYOR DICKEY: Go ahead. SOLDINGER: So Mayor, councilmembers, so later in the presentation we are specifically talking about the capital projects and kind of reiterating some of the decisions that have been made, including council consensus projects, green light, yellow light projects. And if we're discussing the downtown restroom -- and so I'm hearing from you, is that if we're not moving forward on the downtown restroom project -- currently, this budget does include $475,000 allocated for that purpose. So there could be an opportunity to discuss reallocating those monies, either to other projects or to create a additional contingency monies in the capital projects fund for future potential needs. Page 41 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MCMAHON: Thank you for that clarification. [CLERKS NOTE: CM Sharron Grzybowski left the dais at 7:29 P.M. and returned at 7:31] SOLDINGER: All right. So every year we have to compare our proposed budget to the expenditure limitation, so we conduct an analysis. And after we did this analysis, we identified a need to reduce our budgeted expenditures by about $2 million. So. Therefore, we made several modifications that I'll discuss to reduce the total proposed budgeted expenditures from $47.1 million that we discussed at the budget session to $45.2 million that we're discussing tonight. First, we move some CIP ongoing projects to operational budgets for fiscal year '25. These projects were either multiyear, ongoing maintenance projects or a one-time maintenance project below $50,000. Moving these projects into operational budgets reduced expenditures in the capital projects fund and ate into the general fund contingency amount. Therefore, it reduced the total budget amount, and it gave us a little bit more wiggle room under the expenditure limitation. That's why we took some of these measures. So that screens out -- so if I look over here, in the community services department, we moved the sidewalk replacement budgeted line item -- that's the multiyear kind of project -- into the community services operational budget, as well as $35,000 out of the $235,000 allocated for the Avenue Linear Park improvements, and that was specific to the tree barrier root installation that would take place, because that was kind of different than the overall project. It was more of a one-off. So we include that in the operational budget. Also in public works, the bridge repair project, which is more of a ongoing maintenance and repair line item. We moved that to the operational budget as well. We also reduced some budgets to some CIP projects. We had some discussions with Justin and Kevin. We reduced the community services Pleasantville Park budget by $100,000 from 800,000 to 700,000. And during those discussions, we still felt that was enough budget capacity to be able to complete that project. And in public works, the community center renovations, phase 3, we reduced that budget amount from 750,000 to 500,000. After reviewing the environmental fund budget, we reduced the budget to be able to Page 42 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES spend down the remaining fund balances, which allowed us to reduce the overall budget by about 223,000. And this next one's a little bit complicated. But we delayed the Shea Boulevard widening project to wait until after the first quarter of next fiscal year so we can evaluate our local sales taxes coming in. And so if our revenues are coming in as projected and we do have that additional contingency in the general fund that we're budgeting for, that $1.8 million, we'll take a look at that and we'll transfer 1 million of that $1.8 million into the capital projects fund to fully fund the Shea Boulevard widening project. So it's just a little bit of a delay and then a transfer of the general fund contingency for that purpose. So that reduced our overall budget by about $1 million. And also, we included the 4.5 percent pay increase, effective July 1st, that was recommended by council at the budget work session. So as we've kind of discussed ad nauseam, there's an expenditure limitation in the state. The town -specific fiscal year '25 expenditure limitation is set at $35.66 million. And so we have to go through a process where we evaluate the different types of exclusions and project how much we will end up underneath the expenditure limitation each year, which is actually a somewhat convoluted process. So we start with the $45.2 million tentative budget amount, and we have several types of exclusions, such as grants, HURF revenues, payments of state, other exclusions, and expected carryovers. And as you can see, we're projecting that our budget will be below the expenditure limitation. All right. So general fund. Just to briefly go over general fund past performance. We feel like it's a kind of a good illustration to present to council each year. As you can see from the past three fiscal years, from 2021 to 2023, we've seen about 2 to $3 million of actual revenues above our projected revenues each year. And as we've already discussed, we are currently seeing stronger revenues coming in for local sales tax in the general fund this fiscal year. Also, our budget expenditures come in well below our budget each of the past three fiscal years, as you can see on your screen. This is just a reminder and illustration that our revenue forecasts remain conservative, while our budget expenditures are the Page 43 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES maximum amount that we can spend in the general fund. And as you can see, we do not spend that full amount each year. Here are just some simple reminders and characteristics about the town's general fund budget that we have discussed in prior work sessions. The general fund budget is required to be balanced. That's why you'll see that $25.8 million is the projected revenue amount, as well as the budget expenditure amount in the general fund. The budget process will begin with forecasting revenues earlier in the year. And our conservative revenue estimate for the general fund is that $25.8 million for next fiscal year. The tentative budget includes $24 million, if you exclude the contingency, and $1.8 million for the contingency. When you have that kind of out of balance or extra monies there, you kind of have two options: number one, reducing revenues, or number two, increasing expenditures. And because we have conservative projections, we typically select option two and increase expenditures with the contingency amount. That gives us money to work with in the case of emergencies or unforeseen circumstances. So on your screen are just our projected general fund revenues for next fiscal year. You'll see that we are projecting a 12.6 percent increase for taxes, and that's really just because of the trends we've been discussing with taxes coming in stronger than projections. What we also have discussed is our intergovernmental revenues going down by that 15.4 percent, and that's really mostly due to the urban revenue sharing amount, where that amount is projected to decrease by about $1.3 million next year. And also council direction to move the full amount of the vehicle license taxes from the general fund into the streets fund starting next fiscal year. And that was an impact of about $390,000 to the general fund. Lastly, in the general fund our investment earnings have been coming in strong in our investments, so we increased our projections for investment earnings up to $100,000 for next fiscal year. Regarding expenditures, our general government expenditures has gone down by about five percent. That's really primarily due to the decrease in the contingency from the Page 44 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES prior year. Development services has gone up by about 20 percent, and that's really almost entirely due to the increase in supplements related to the senior building inspector and the vehicle related to that new hire. Public safety has actually gone down. And that's really related to a decrease in the MCSO contract next year due to credits received by the town through the MCSO annual review process. And public works and culture and recreation both went up slightly due to supplements and some of the budget changes that we have discussed, including some of those changes in the capital projects to turn them into operational budget line items. So just a brief breakdown on the supplements and we've kind of also discussed these quite a bit. But just a reminder, $147,000 of ongoing personnel, including the supplemental process, a chunk of that is the senior building inspector. One-time expenditure is 108,000. About 40,000 of that is related to the vehicle for the senior building inspector and ongoing nonpersonnel items. About half of that is related to economic development -type initiatives of $267,000. And including projected offsets, this had a total budget impact of $387,000 to the budget for next fiscal year, which is less than one percent of our overall budget. All right. Streets funds. As we discussed at the last budget workshop, streets revenues are increasing, and expenditures are staying relatively consistent. But one more thing we want to note, and we'll talk about the very end of the presentation, town staff will be recommending a $2 million transfer from the general fund into the streets fund at fiscal year-end, which we will discuss at the end of the presentation. Including this proposed transfer, we project that the Streets Fund will have a bit more than $10 million -- about $10.5 million of fund balance at fiscal year-end for future streets pavement purposes. This proposed transfer is a direct result of town staff listening to council feedback during these work sessions. All right. And just briefly to go over the streets fund revenues. As we've discussed, tax revenues are trending up. So you'll see an increase in the taxes of 13.9 percent in our projections. And our intergovernmental revenues are going up, and that's primarily due to the the Page 45 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES modification for the vehicle license taxes fully going into the streets fund. Streets fund expenditures. They're relatively consistent. Nothing really to specifically note here. Although Justin kind of alluded to it in his presentation, but our recent internal reviews of year to date budget reports show that we have spent a majority of that $7.048 million on the left-hand side for the fiscal year 2024 adopted budget. We spent over 90 percent of those allocated monies for this fiscal year, just to give you an idea and give you a number to kind of align with the presentation for the streets paving purposes. All right. Capital projects fund. This is a little bit confusing, but here's a breakdown of the proposed capital projects as they exist in the current tentative budget. This includes about $6 million from the capital projects fund, $475,000 for the downtown restroom. It sounds like we'll be discussing $950,000 for two parks projects from parks development fees and $1.6 million from grants funding. Now, I just wanted to bring it to your attention because in the last few work sessions, we've talked about $10.3 million of proposed capital projects. So kind of what's the difference there? Majority of it is that $1 million of contingency. So we reduced that Shea widening project by a million right off the top. But we'll be able to replenish that as long as our revenues are coming in strong. And just a few of the other modifications we've made, such as reducing some of the capital projects and moving them to operational budgets that we've discussed as well. So that's why you're going from 10.3 to 8.9. But, really, it's more like 9.9 in the end is what we're planning to do next fiscal year. All right. So I know the downtown restroom is on one of these slides, so we'll get to it, but I'd like to start this part of the presentation by just restating or reiterating the town staff's understanding of what we consider green light versus yellow Tight projects throughout this budget process and what ends up in the final adopted budget that will present to council next month. Green Tight projects indicate that council has approved these projects to move forward to completion and will only require coming back to council if the project substantially changes in scope or cost. Page 46 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Yellow Tight projects indicate that council has approved the project to move forward on tasks such as planning and bidding but should be brought back to council to approve contracts and costs. A quick break. All right. So we'll just briefly go over the green light projects in the community services department. As you can see, the Four Peaks pickleball courts and Golden Eagle playground replacement stay intact in the budget. The sidewalk replacement is just moving from the capital projects fund into the operational budget. It's still there, but just in a different bucket. The Avenue Linear Park improvements stay in the capital projects fund budget for 200,000, and we moved $35,000 into the operational budget for that one-time maintenance cost for the tree barrier -- I don't know why I keep forgetting that wording -- but tree root barrier lining, and the splash pad carryover. As the town manager mentioned, this is not a new budget item. This is really what we have in this current fiscal year, but because the vendor might not be able to fulfill their obligations, we're just putting it in the next year's budget just in case. Also the Pleasantville Park, we reduced that project from 800,000 down to 700,000. Now greenlight projects. What we consider greenlight projects in public works, same thing that we've discussed for the bridge repair that was moved into the operational budget for public works for an ongoing need, as needed to complete those repairs. We removed the the roundabout at Palisades and La Montana, and we consider that a red light project not to move forward on at this point, other than some of the modifications that the mayor and town manager mentioned. We added $250,000 for the wayfinding signs project at council direction based on the direction or feedback we received at the -- I believe it was the budget workshop. So that's now in the budget. And now moving on to yellow light projects. So these are the ones that we consider yellow light projects where we can move forward but bring forth back the contracts and costs to council for further consideration. For the community center renovations phase 3, we reduced that budget after discussing the project with the public works director, from 750,000 to $500,000, so a $250,000 reduction. And here we are, the public restroom facility; that is included in the budget for $475,000. So this would be the time Page 47 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES to have some sort of discussion or find some consensus on what we want to do with that. Some potential options I could offer to council is to reallocate those monies to other projects, or maybe set aside additional contingency monies in the capital projects fund in case something comes up throughout the year just to keep that budget authority. But otherwise I turn it back over to council for your consideration. MAYOR DICKEY: Can we keep the budget authority and keep it in the downtown fund? SOLDINGER: Mayor, good question. So that specific project, it's -- the way we budget is we budget for it in the capital projects fund, but the monies would be replenished through a transfer. So it would take monies from the downtown fund and into the capital projects fund. So if we maintain that monies -- or that $475,000 as a contingency line item in the capital projects fund, we could do something like that because we do have existing fund balance or monies in the downtown fund. We have about $630,000 in that fund right now. So if there's something that you want to do that was more of a capital project in nature and use it for -- use the downtown monies for that purpose, we could certainly take that approach if we keep that as a contingency line item. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. SOLDINGER: Yes. MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, Vice Mayor. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you. And if instead of going to the downtown, since it's a capital improvement funding, it doesn't necessarily have to go to the downtown fund. Could this be directed to streets? SOLDINGER: Mayor, Vice Mayor, that would be a council decision. If you want to redirect it to streets, there is existing fund balance in the streets fund to be able to -- as I mentioned, we have $10.5 million projected to be in the streets fund. KALIVIANAKIS: And I'm assuming with that $10.5 million, would that fund the streets for budget year '25 and '26 to $10 million, like we've been doing for '24? SOLDINGER: Mayor, Vice Mayor, excellent question. So let me take a step back. Let me try to fully explain this from my perspective. We have about $7 million budgeted in the streets fund, and we're projecting -- and the projections on this are pretty -- most of the Page 48 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES monies going to that fund are pretty predictable. So we're predicting about 4.3, 4.4 million going that fund. So therein lies a deficit of about $2.6 million. So what we have budgeted, you'd only spend -- if you spent all the monies in the budget, you'd spend down that $10.5 million by 2.6. You could add to -- you could redirect that to the streets fund if that was a council direction, and we could try to -- but the public works director is not currently here to answer if we could find additional vendor contracts and capacity from a contract authority perspective to complete those projects. So that might be something we'd have to revisit. But so -- if you leave it in contingency, we could redirect it by coming back to council at another time. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. I appreciate that because that's something I think -- before we just redirect it to downtown, I think that needs more conversation. I just had a conversation today with a constituent that said our streets look like Baghdad after the war. And I think that might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it just seems to be an issue that's on everybody's mind, and it's certainly worth discussion. MAYOR DICKEY: Well, if we're putting $10 million into our streets next year, and we've been putting millions and millions into them year after year and doing what we can, I think that by putting this in the capital fund, contingency fund, it sounds like a safe place to put it. And that way it can be used for other things. We shouldn't be deciding probably right now how to spend $475,000. GOODWIN: I was just going to echo both -- pretty much what you both shared is that we don't have to decide today. We can sort of piggybank it in the contingency, which gives it the most flexibility available, whether that is eventually into a streets allocation or whether it's into something unexpected that we hadn't budgeted for. It gives us the most flexibility to do the best with that budget. So leaving it in the contingency gives us that flexibility. SOLDINGER: So as I've already explained, our yellow Tight projects, we consider any grant -funded project to be a yellow light project because it is contingent on obtaining that grant funding. And as I've mentioned, that that Shea Boulevard widening project, it shows up as $2.5 million, but right now, currently as constructed in the tentative Page 49 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES budget, it's a $1.5 million plan capital project. But we will transfer the contingency from the general fund if our sales tax revenues are coming in as projected. FRIEDEL: Can I ask him something? MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, sure. FRIEDEL: Can I ask you another question about the 475? Could we add some of that to the wayfinding signs? SOLDINGER: Mayor, Councilmember, yes. If that was council consensus and council directed, you could redirect those monies to other projects. FRIEDEL: So if we needed to do the wayfinding signs, that might be an opportunity right there? MAYOR DICKEY: Because it's in the contingency, it (indiscernible). FRIEDEL: Yeah. But that's a thought, though, for going forward, I mean. SOLDINGER: All right. Almost done. FRIEDEL: I'm sorry. Instead of breaking it up over two years, then we get the project done. SOLDINGER: Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember. Actually, that's a good point, because I know they're going to begin the bidding process at some point. So once we get the bids, we'll be able to better evaluate the total cost and be able to make a determination with council direction at that point. All right. Last item to talk about. Just some proposed substantial transfers. We've already talked about the first one, related to $2 million of transfers from the general fund to the facilities reserve fund. $1 million of that would be earmarked for the future lake liner project, which would leave us with about $5 million total earmarked for that project, and another $1 million that town staff can use throughout the budget process to be able to spend on facility repairs as needed. As I've already stated that other $2 million transfer that we're recommending is from the general fund to the streets fund for future pavement needs, leaving about 10, $10.5 million in the streets fund at fiscal year-end. And a $350,000 we're recommending from the economic development fund to the tourism fund to cover fiscal year '25 operations Page 50 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES and any decreased grant revenues. And so that completes my presentation. Any questions from council? MAYOR DICKEY: Do we have any comment cards? MENDENHALL: Mayor, we just have comment cards in your electronic packet. Six people commented in favor of the budget, and nobody has voted against it. MAYOR DICKEY: Great. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Can I get a motion? GRZYBOWSKI: Move to approve as written. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. KALIVIANAKIS: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks. We have a motion and a second. Roll call, please? SKILLICORN: Can I ask a couple questions before we do that? MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Finance Director, just a couple -- I mean, obviously, all this motion is, is going to be set that our maximum expenditure limit, which is by -- it's actually in the Constitution, I believe, because it was a voter -approved thing, 30, 40 years ago. I'm curious, though. I would prefer a situation where we have more guardrails, and I would love to spend less, and we have had a consistency. We've spent less. And even one of your slides showed that we kind of are actually banking on probably spending less than that, but I would prefer to have more guardrails there. So I would love to propose that we do, like, a three percent reduction on that. And we can spend that money on roads, or we can just save that money. Three percent is only just over $1.3 million. I don't know if anyone would be interested in that at all. MAYOR DICKEY: (Indiscernible)? SKILLICORN: So I don't hear any jumping to have it, but what about, like, one percent? one percent would be only $451,000. SOLDINGER: Mayor, Councilmember Skillicorn, so the tentative budget that we're discussing today sets the maximum. So based on council direction, we can reduce that amount. Really, it's the council decision at that point, and I'd be happy to hear your Page 51 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES feedback. SKILLICORN: Yeah. Thank you. And Madam Mayor, Director, the only reason I say that is we would have an opportunity to amend this to something lower. Even though there is a motion and a second on the table, we could make a motion to amend it. And it could be $1 lower, so. MAYOR DICKEY: I think -- SKILLICORN: Well, I'll make a motion to amend. It will be $1 lower. So we change it to $45,151,632. Is there a second? TOTH: Second. Sure. SKILLICORN: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: We have a motion and a second to amend the original motion and reducing the budget amount by $1. Is there any further discussion? KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. I actually have a little further discussion, and I'm not sure why this would be necessary. Again, this simply setting a statutory cap that's required under state laws. And of course, we could spend $1 less; we could spend $1.3 million less or $454,000 less. This isn't a requirement that we spend all the money. This is simply setting the statutory maximum. And so I'm not sure what the sense of lowering it by $1 or even more because we don't have to spend the money. So I would be against the amendment. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any further? Can we please have a roll call on the amendment, on the amended motion? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. 1 MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: No. Page 52 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: No. Thank you. That was like exercising something. I don't know what. Can we get a roll call on the original motion, please? MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: No. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you, Paul. Thank you very much. SOLDINGER: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Our next item is just related to any legislative items that you want to talk about. Just a quick summary. 1,762 bills were introduced, 244 passed, and 178 were signed. Of course, they're still in session. We did a lot of bills. They have been meeting on Wednesdays only, but the House is not meeting tomorrow; they're not meeting until the 15th. They're planning for a state shortfall of 1.2 billion. The budget meetings are slow. Could delay road projects and other things like that. They're looking Page 53 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES at fund sweeps, and she's going to agencies, the governor, and asking them what a four percent cut might look like for them to try and take a bite out of that expected shortfall. There's only, like, three bills that are really still there that are important to us, the ones about ADUs and putting as many as you want in a lot. And there's just a lot of things like that going on. But since they haven't really done anything about any of those and they meet tomorrow, but the house doesn't, so I'm not sure whether we'll get any answers on any of those, but we're still following them, of course. Any other comments about any of the bills or anything legislatively? Nope? All right. Well, our next item, then, is our discussion direction to the town manager. I think we had some speakers. We addressed that we don't comment. I guess our Facebook is more like a website, so it's not for comments, and so -- because you have to do all or nothing. About the benches, maybe we can follow up on what happened with the benches at the Centennial and that kind of thing. Did anybody else say anything that -- GRZYBOWSKI: Actually, the town manager did speak about what happened with the benches and the plaque, that they made contact with people, including one individual directly related to the comment that was made. So I don't know, is further -- MAYOR DICKEY: I thought I -- maybe I misunderstood. I thought maybe we got the plaques and are offering them to the family now, but it wasn't clear that we had any previous contact. GOODWIN: We did. But what I'll do is I'll work with our community services director to get an update out to council to let them know what we've done and what we'll be doing moving forward. MAYOR DICKEY: Perfect. FRIEDEL: Rachael, do you think it would be something we could consider on our posts that we turn off the comments on if you have a comment directed to somebody in the town? GOODWIN: That's exactly what we've been working towards. Thank you. I appreciate you bringing that up because it is not intended to be a one-way conversation. Page 54 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FRIEDEL: Right. GOODWIN: But it is difficult when it comes to documenting and archiving. And to be fair, sometimes comments go in unexpected directions and whatnot, and we aren't always able to answer questions that come up or sometimes they're unrelated to whatever the content is. So yes, absolutely. There's always the opportunity that says, if you have more questions about this specific item, contact -- you can always contact Bo (phonetic) through our PIO office. There's always the option for direct messaging. And so there's lots of different outlets. But yes, we will be certainly pushing alternate ways to get more information. FRIEDEL: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Very good to your point that there's plenty of ways to communicate. All right. Future agenda items. Anything for the 21st or beyond? Vice Mayor? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah, I do have one item I'd like to ask to be placed in the future agenda, and that would be I would like to modify our code to ban council members from using a telephone or computer to communicate with anyone either on the dais or outside of this dais during council meetings. This would exclude devices used to relate to meeting documents or similar tasks for us to do our job. MAYOR DICKEY: Is there support for that? GRZYBOWSKI: Absolutely. I wholeheartedly support it. I mentioned it to you before. I think it was Scottsdale that just passed the same thing. MAYOR DICKEY: They did. GRZYBOWSKI: Or something similar, anyway. MAYOR DICKEY: Well, we can discuss it. KALIVIANAKIS: Do we need a third? MAYOR DICKEY: Pardon me? KALIVIANAKIS: Do we need a third or are we good? MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, no. We're good. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks. All right. Thank you. If there's nothing else, thank you very Page 55 of 56 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 7, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES much for everybody for being here. And we're adjourned. Page 56 of S6 Having no further business, Mayor Ginny Dickey adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on May 7, 2024, at 7:46 p.m. ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: Linda G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS / Gin i� Dickey, 11JMayor CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 7th day of May 2024. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED this 18th Day of June 2024. inda G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk