Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024.0604.TCRM.Minutes TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL JUNE 4, 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 5:26 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 forty-five members of the public were present. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 1 of 62 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Town Council Regular Meeting June 4, 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. * * * * * TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 2 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Calling meeting to order. Welcome everyone. Please stand for the pledge and remain standing if you choose. 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: Thanks very much. We have Pastor Dr. Cathy Northrup from the Community Church of the Verdes. NORTHRUP: Please bow your heads with me. Almighty God, we know that You are present everywhere, but we pause to invoke a special measure of Your presence at this meeting today. May Your spirit descend upon us now. May it calm any anxiety within us, quell any frustration we feel, and still in each of us any voice but Your own. May we be slow to speak and quick to listen. May we discern wisely and well. May we each be blessed by this time together and may You be glorified. Hear this, our prayer, in Jesus' name. Amen. ALL: Amen. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Our final roll call for the night. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Here. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Still here. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Here. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Present. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Here. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 3 of 62 MENDENHALL: Anyone wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the agenda or under "Call to the Public" should fill out a request to comment card located in the back of the council chambers and hand it to the town clerk prior to consideration of that agenda item. If 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 meeting. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. As always, we start with our reports. I just also want to mention that as far as the agenda order, we're going to take 9E and put that right up in front of 9C. So we'll do the budget, then we'll do the Valley Metro, and then we'll go on with the rest of it. So thank you. Our town manager, do you have anything to report? GOODWIN: Thanks, Mayor. I have a couple of quick updates. Thanks everyone for joining us tonight. I wanted to give a quick thank you to our VFW and our American Legion and all those that were part of our Memorial Day ceremony. It was quite warm out there but a lovely program. So thank you for putting that together. Being that it's quite warm out there, it's bound to get warmer. Actually, as of tomorrow, we are under an "excessive heat" warning. So it's just a reminder to our community about taking necessary precautions and being smart when you're outdoors, whether it's on our trails or exercising your pets. And just remembering to check on your neighbors; it's always a good practice. We want everyone to stay safe. And then lastly, as it's getting warm, that means a lot of our programs and activities move into evening hours and this Saturday is the kickoff to our first summer event which is Party In The Park. Saturdays from 6 to 9 at Four Peaks Park. It will have inflatables, crafts. We'll have Batchelor's Pad there as well as Swette Ice Cream and then it closes with a star party in the Park as well. So it's open to all families. It's free. So come on out and join us. So those are my updates for you. Looking forward to a good event this weekend. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 4 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. TOTH: I have no report this week, Mayor. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Sharron? GRZYBOWSKI: It was kind of a light couple of weeks. I guess, people are getting ready to hit the summer and trying to catch up on other things. We had a regular GPEC, Greater Phoenix Economic Council board meeting and we had one Arizona League of Cities and Towns meeting the past couple of weeks, just because the State's Legislature is starting to take time off for the summer. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? FRIEDEL: Thank you, Mayor. We had a couple of really nice ribbon-cuttings this past couple of weeks. Mindful Barbell down in -- just off the Avenue; Jon has a great location there. If you haven't been in there, stop and say hi to him. And then, we had a really nice one at Divine Microblading. Andrea Martinez has got quite a nice setup there. Very nice. And I want to mention that the Rotary and some volunteers got together on Memorial Day and put flags all around the Fountain Park. We were there at 6 a.m. to put them up and we were there at 6 p.m. to take them down. So that was quite an event and it's always a nice tradition for the town to be able to see that. Also on Memorial Day, as Rachael mentioned, the Veteran's Memorial Ceremony was held and I want to give a shoutout to the Legion Post 58, the VFW, and the Marine Corps League who were all involved in the celebration -- the memorial; it's not a celebration. In the memorial. And then this past Saturday started the sweet corn market down at Tractor Supply from 8 to 11:30 for the next several weeks down there. So that's all. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. MCMAHON: Good evening, everybody. Anyway -- a couple of things I did like, Sharron, I attended a couple of community meetings with Arizona League of Cities and Towns and also I got up really early and put flags around the lake. And it was really fun, but our TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 5 of 62 group was a little bit slow because the battery-operated drills that you put holes in the ground to put the flagpoles in; well, they ran out of juice. So we had to wait a while to get them back up and working. Also, I attended the East Valley Partnership board meeting and had invited Joe Bill of our Dark Sky Discovery Center to present. And he did and it was really well received. And everybody at that meeting was just really, really amazed and impressed how Fountain Hills is going to be put on the map with that. And they are really looking forward to being kept with the updates and, hopefully, attending the grand opening. So that was good. And also, we had a high school graduation. And congratulations to all the high school students and the seniors. I hope they have a great summer and get off to college fine. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Again, thank you for being here tonight everybody. Thank you for watching live streaming and YouTube and on Cox Channel 11, we really appreciate your participation. Participation by the local residents in their government is critical to good governance and that's never been a problem in our town. So thank you for being here tonight. It has been a kind of a light week, and I did take like six days off; took a little vacation and I got to do something on my bucket list. I got to visit Brenda, Arizona. And it was great. I got to take some pictures and it was really fun to go to Brenda. I did attend the Public Safety Military Courts (sic), the PSMAC meeting. Just a further update on that. If you don't know exactly what that is, it's kind of the conveyor belt that starts the legislative process or the administrative process to get good things done in our state government. There's an amendment to A.R.S. 12.820. It was a statute that talks about the immunity of a public entity against losses arriving from public employees against criminal felonies. It's kind of in the weeds, so I know it's a bit difficult to follow. But before they -- when a public official did a felony or a bad act, it was an affirmative defense, and you'd have to litigate the case and then -- at a great cost to the town and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 6 of 62 the municipality. This new legislation, what we're proposing right now, is this comes up early on, so it gets kicked out right from the beginning that this is an immunity case, so it doesn't have to go to court, and it doesn't have to use an affirmative defense. So that's really good stuff. It will save towns and cities millions, possibly, billions of dollars. And so that's really good stuff. The June 13th meeting we're going to be talking about on our police aides to help the police departments: filing out repots and doing other things because as we all know there's a deficit in the police forces right now. They're working at minimum staffing levels. And also witness name redactions to try to protect people that are witnesses from being doxed or putting them out there. And so that's really good stuff. As part of that committee I'm on the Council on Foreign Relations. We had a webinar on the avian flu outbreak and prevention, and post-COVID it's really important right now that we keep track of these type of pandemics and things that are affecting our country. The avian flu is currently affecting America's poultry and dairy farm businesses. The risk of what they call zoonotic transfers posed to animal to humans. So the avian flu that is in cows, chickens, that kind of thing, could jump to humans. And so they're on top of that. The most affected groups are below 5 and over 65. But, again, post-COVID we really have to make sure that we're taking care of that. Lastly, it was my honor to be a part of the Gilbert celebration -- well, not celebration, but memorial of Memorial Day and I was there as part of the Desert Valley Winds Band. They recognized me as being there as part of the Fountain Hills Town Council and that was very wonderful. We got to perform for them. It was a very beautiful organization and a very beautiful day. I missed the morning event that we had here but later that afternoon we did Taps Across America at 3 o'clock, again, with the VFW hall, Bo James and there was around 12 musicians and a narrator, and we had a very beautiful remembrance on Memorial Day. And so I just want to mention that. Lastly, I would really be remiss if I didn't mention that right now 22 veterans a day are dying due to suicide. I know that Memorial Day is to the fallen, but we are continuing to have the fallen, because 22 people a day are committing suicide that were former vets. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 7 of 62 This is simply inexcusable. There is a veteran suicide hotline. All you have to do is dial 988, press 1, and you'll get immediate help. This is not only for vets, but this is for families of people that determine the symptoms. This is a free service. If you notice a vet is depressed, have heavy alcohol use, a loss of interest in their family, hobbies, self-destructive behavior, risky use of weapons; these are all the signs that they might need to get help. And so we have to save our veterans that are in distress. They came back but they're still fighting a war that they fought many years ago. And so those resources are available if somebody didn't get to ask for more information, just send me an email; it will be kalivianakis@fountainhillsaz.gov and I can get you that information. Thank you very much. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, everyone. We had such a great event back on Memorial Day. We had obviously, a lot of volunteers. Lots of familiar faces, even here in the crowd, were putting up flags early in the morning. The lake looked spectacular with all the flags. That 9 a.m. Event was great. Unfortunately, we did have a couple of people that were exposed to a little too much heat and I got to see our firefighters in action. Those guys really jump to it and are a real asset to our town. And also thinking of fires, if there's anything we can do, anything that we can remember to do, a trailer chains, cigarette butts, things like that, they do cause fires. It seems like there's been a lot of fires up and down Highway 87 in the last couple of weeks. I mean, just a couple of weeks ago we had one that everyone's talking about and then, now, even just over the weekend there's been three or four fires. So that's' something we need to be aware of. If we see something then we should say something. And even if it's just correcting our own behavior, again, like trailer chains sparking and things like that. And also, another councilmember mentioned the Chamber of Commerce ribbon- cuttings. There's more on the calendar. These are open to the public, feel free to join the Chamber and our businesses. Again, it proves that Fountain Hills is open for TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 8 of 62 business. Thanks. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you all very much. There was a MAG Regional Council as usual. Fountain Hills High School graduation, which was a beautiful night. I think it was the 31st, and I think I've almost been to everyone of them. So I love that event. Memorial Day Remembrance was a very special morning. The Pumphouse Panel art dedication was Thursday? What? Wait, when was that? Anyway. It was -- yeah, just the other day. And that was really nice. And one of the panels was a self-portrait which we didn't realize, and the artist came, and she was right there so everybody took pictures, and it was really nice. Peggy was there. And so I really read a little bit of a letter that I got from the new mayor of Zamosc, Mayor Zwolak, because we had sent them some letters. I had sent him a letter of congratulations. So he said, "Thank you sincerely for your congratulations and kind words. The partner we have of the Town of Fountain Hills has for years been connected and not only by symbolic ties but also by concrete initiatives aimed at deepening our cooperation. Your openness is a great support and inspiration for us." And I have it in Polish too, but I don't think I will try to attempt that one. So that was very nice to get that note. Our next item is going to be a proclamation. It's going to be a proclamation in honor of our first mayor, John Cutillo. I hope you've had the chance to look at Channel 11 where Cassie had this wonderful video that she told us about and so it's been running, I think it's from 1998. It was a wonderful day to honor John Cutillo. And speaking of Cassie. Former Councilwoman Cassie Hanson is here. She served as the town clerk and as a close friend of the Cutillo family, so she will be accepting the proclamation. So if you'll come on up, we'll do that. I'll read this to you first. You hold onto this, and then you can say whatever -- HANSEN: Tell me what to do, Ginny. MAYOR DICKEY: I will. There you go. While you're holding, lead the way. That's for TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 9 of 62 sure. All right. So whereas, born in Mansfield, Massachusetts, John Cutillo, a distinguished resident of Fountain Hill since 1977, played an instrumental role in shaping the town's history and development. And whereas, John Cutillo led this successful effort to incorporate Fountain Hills, resulting in its official establishment as a town on December 5th, 1989, and John Cutillo was appointed to the interim town council by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and was elected by his peers to serve as the first mayor of Fountain Hills, subsequently being elected by the residents in the town's first election on March 12th, 1990, and serving until 1996. And whereas, during his tenure as mayor, John Cutillo oversaw the creation of an administrative structure, the transfer of county services to local jurisdiction and the paving of roads, building of parks, and the establishment of numerous public services and amenities. And whereas, John Cutillo negotiated a master agreement with MCO properties that significantly benefited the town of Fountain Hills, including the transfer of ownership of Fountain Park and the lake, initial acreage for the McDowell Mountain Preserve and the land which appropriately became Cutillo Civic Plaza. And whereas, Mayor Cutillo's leadership and commitment to public service, as evidenced by his long-time membership in the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce, the Noon Rotary Club, the Civic Association, which is now FHCCA, and his induction into the Lower Verde River Valley Hall of Fame in 2004 -- one of the first -- earned him the admiration and respect of his colleagues and the community. And whereas, John Cutillo passed away on May 8th, 2024, leaving behind a legacy of integrity, vision, and unwavering commitment to the betterment of Fountain Hills. So therefore, be it resolved that I, Mayor Ginny Dickey, along with the town council, do hereby proclaim December 5th, from this day forward as John Cutillo Day, to honor and remember John for his exceptional service, his dedication, and leadership as the first mayor of Fountain Hills. We express our deepest gratitude for his unwavering TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 10 of 62 commitment to our community and extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife of 68 years, Joan, his daughter Debbie, his son John, and all of the family. We will always be grateful to you, John. Thank you. HANSEN: I promised. I told Ginny I would be brief. And she pretty much covered everything anyway, so. But thank you, Mayor, for honoring John with this proclamation. Making the anniversary of the successful incorporation election is certainly a fitting way to remember John and that momentous day. I'm honored to accept it on behalf of his wife Joan, daughter Debbie, and son John. After Joan called to tell me of John's passing, I reached out to five of his closest associates and friends from those early days. Mike Minarsich's first words were: "I thought John would live forever", and I realized I felt the same way. There were some things that made John just seem larger than life. And perhaps it's because he always seemed to know the right thing to do, even though little in his life experience had prepared him how to successfully incorporate a town, much less be the first mayor of that town, leading other dedicated and committed individuals to build a firm foundation for the town we have today. John was one of a kind and the antithesis of a politician. He didn't play games, and you always knew exactly where he stood. He was a good listener and respected all opinions, even when he disagreed. His demeanor was calm and measured, bringing a stable influence to town hall and the feeling that he was always approachable and very sincere. His focus was crystal clear, and it's what set the tone of those early years. He wanted to do the best possible job for the residents of Fountain Hills, and make sure that the campaign promises of incorporation were promises kept. The interim and first elected councils joined John in that early commitment to making the vision of local government and actually controlling our fate a reality. Since John did not want a service; he didn't want any to-do made it his passing, I contacted Ginny and asked if the town would air the tape on Channel 11. That was made at the "Thank You, John" recognition event we had when John left office in 1996; TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 11 of 62 she graciously agreed. So my next call was to Mike "I-can-make-anything-work" Ciccarone. Keep in mind that this almost thirty-year-old video was in VHS format. Some people don't even know what VHS format is, but Mike digitized it and had it on Channel 11 within days. So in addition to the mayor and council, I'd like to give a special thanks to Mike -- our nickname for him was Sparky -- for making the video available for residents to view. In many ways, the 28-year-old tribute to John was even better than a service because he was part of it, as well as so many of his peers through personal experiences or appearances, letters, and photos taken during that period of our town's history. When Joan expressed concern that John might not be happy with all the attention, I told her it was bigger than John. It was about the history of our community's incorporation, of building the foundation of a new municipality and of the individuals involved in that once-in-a-lifetime adventure. I would invite and encourage any residents interested in learning more about John and our town's history to view the video on Channel 11 at noon every day. Mayor Dickey even makes an appearance, although she was wearing a very different hat back that day. And her hair was all different colors too, I mean. But once again, thanks to the mayor, the council, staff, and Mike for making John's recognition possible. And lastly, thank you, John. Thanks for the memories. Thank you all. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. She's so reluctant. HANSEN: I enjoy behind the camera. Better watch out with that thanks for the memories because I was going to make you sing it. She does an awesome job. Thank you, Cassie. Thanks so much. Our next item is our call to the public. Do we have speaker cards? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. In your comment card tab, there is a message about stored materials. And then we do have four comment cards. First will be Kim Bartman, and on deck will be Beth Culp. BARTMAN: Hello. Kim Bartman, Fountain Hills resident, long-time since 2001. Just wanted you to see here. I received some fliers under my garage door. And they are for: TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 12 of 62 "A beautiful place, Fountain Hills, to live, work and play. Common sense conservatives Gerry Friedel, Gayle Earl, Matthew Corrigan, Rick Watts". And then a separate flier for Matthew Corrigan. I know that some of the town council candidates were at a forum here, right in this very chamber, where they were told not to leave stuff on people's doors or in their garage -- I mean, in the driveway. And we know that this is also a hazard for criminals; they can actually see who is not home. So I would hope that these folks would follow the rules and not leave stuff in people's yards. Also, as far as the ROT signs that are around town, I hope all of you would condemn them as they're not a good look for Fountain Hills. They're divisive. They're an eyesore. They're not a positive thing for our community. And I would hope that you would all condemn those because especially Mayor Candidate Friedel says Fountain Hills first. Fountain Hills first, I think, would be more becoming of getting along with everyone and not having ugly signs out there. Back when -- back in the day, there was Mayor Schlum and Councilmember Dickey and a bunch of other great folks on the council, and there was a Fountain Hills -- what I'd call a Fountain Hills First proposal was to have a single trash hauler. We used to have seven or eight trash trucks, and I used to be pushing around my baby around the neighborhood, and it was really hard to negotiate around all the trash cans and all the trash trucks that were just hauling around dangerously through our streets, not only just destroying the streets. But during that time Mayor Schlum and Ginny Dickey and a lot of other -- the council people all came together, and we had Sheriff Joe and Senator Kavanagh coming here trying to scare people that the single trash hauler would lead to privacy concerns. And with the passage of the single trash hauler now our streets, I see little babies, parents walking their babies in the neighborhood, and they only have one trash can to get around one trash truck. And it's amazing how we didn't even know where people stood back then, what their partisan politics were. So I just encourage everyone to do the best for Fountain Hills, not for your party. Thank you. CULP: Good evening. My name is Beth Culp, and I am a Fountain Hills resident and have been for seven years. Two weeks ago, in one of many social media posts, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 13 of 62 Councilmember Skillicorn stated that, "There is a crime spree of corruption at the Fountain Hills town hall". Mr. Skillicorn has made the same claim dozens of times in interviews, press releases, at his press conference, and at a recent meeting before the Fountain Hills Republican Club. He claims that in his lawsuit, he is going to expose the corruption by naming names, and he's going to identify the criminals. Sadly, most people won't take the time to investigate or even follow up. They just hear the headlines. This is a town councilman representing our town that says it is corrupt and that there is a crime spree. Words matter. The meaning of "crime spree" means a crime. That means a prosecutable offense. That's crimes committed in quick succession. You can read through this complaint. Not a single crime. Nothing. No mention of a crime. And then there's the word "corruption". Corruption means a dishonest act usually involving bribery. You can read through this complaint. Not a single allegation of bribery or corruption. Now, there's there's the word "corrupt", which has a slightly different meaning. It means having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. And I suggest to this council that there is corruption or a corrupt person in town hall, but it's the one who is dishonestly acting and has done so for 18 months, starting when he falsely accused one of our residents of making a death threat against him and filed out a criminal complaint. Because in a letter to the editor, she used the the phrase, "ready, aim, fire". He did that. And now here he is alleging in a complaint filed in federal court that there's a crime spree and corruption. I say there is a corrupt influence in town hall, but it isn't this council. MENDENHALL: Next we have Maria Wodynski. Hopefully, I said your name correctly. And then after Maria is Ed Stizza. WODYNSKI: Good evening. My name is Maria Wodynski. I'm a resident since 1985. I'm a 35-year business owner in town. Hank & Co., Fine Jewels on The Avenue of the Fountains. My landlord passed away recently, and the new owner of the building wouldn't honor my lease, so I'd been evicted. I'm here to tell you that I was so shocked when I took my bimonthly trip to the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 14 of 62 Centennial Center to my husband's bench, and it wasn't there. What happened to it? Did someone steal it? And then I looked around and realized all the benches were gone. Why was this done? These benches were in a consecrated area. And my husband's bench was blessed. I was not asked about it. I was not notified. I was told by Kevin Snipes that phone numbers weren't readily available, but they were. Rachael has my number. The town secretary has my number. Why was this done? Such bad karma. God is not happy with this. I want my husband's bench and the others returned. These people that had lived and worked in this town and made the town what it is today; they all contributed. And someone comes along who doesn't live in town, who's worked here a short time, and makes a decision so big. What you sow, so shall you reap. So very bad karma and those that are associated with it. Why were the benches removed? They were not in disrepair. I know that for a fact because when I went biweekly, I walked all around the park. I want my husband's bench. I want it back. Where it belongs. It overlooked the Four Peaks; you could see the fountain and you could see my store. That's why I chose it. I'm sure most of you know the name Hank Wodynski, even if you weren't a customer in my store. Hank's been gone since 2012, and having that bench was a great comfort to me because he's in a mausoleum in New Jersey and I can't go there when I feel the need, but I can go to the bench. It's a place of solitude. People go there for the peace. They go there to commune with nature. They go there to look at the beautiful vistas we have. I don't know what your -- is that a signal for me to stop talking? MAYOR DICKEY: You can wrap it up. WODYNSKI: Okay. I said what I had to say. Can anyone tell me if they're going to put those benches back? Because if they're not, I want my bench brought to my house where it will have a place of honor. This is very, very serious. MAYOR DICKEY: I think -- WODYNSKI: Anything to comment about it, Rachael? GOODWIN: I believe you've had some conversations with a number of staff about the options that are available. But to clarify, there are benches being replaced. That all the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 15 of 62 benches were removed due to their conditions. WODYNSKI: Did you actually see them? GOODWIN: Absolutely. WODYNSKI: Well, Kevin Snipes didn't. He told me he only saw photographs of them. ARNSON: Mayor and Council, I'm going to jump in and suggest that the conversation transpire offline, since we can't have conversations about things raised during call to the public. WODYNSKI: Could you say that a little louder? I didn't hear you. ARNSON: Yeah, we can't have conversations raised about matters raised during call to the public. So I know that we'll be happy to connect after the meeting, offline. WODYNSKI: Thank you very much. God rest John's soul. STIZZA: Good evening, Madam Mayor, town council, staff, Aaron. There's a lot to be said about several issues. I'm going to request six minutes here. Can I get them? You, just to go back, you had -- you had awarded somebody to do that, a resident, several meetings back. Yes, you did. They were allowed to speak twice in call of the public, so they took it. MAYOR DICKEY: I just want to make sure we are treating everyone equally. And I believe that that's what we're doing here. So three minutes please, Ed. STIZZA: Okay. So I'll try to get through this as quickly as possible. We need a change, and we need one desperately. And we need a change in leadership. And I'm sorry it's going to be offensive to some people. But after what happened at the Centennial Circle, I am absolutely disgusted at the way the town does business. We've got to change. We have to change the way we do business. The disrespect level -- you just heard it from a resident and there was nothing that was said before any of that happened at the Centennial Circle. Everything that was said was after the fact. My mother called here, who is sitting in this room right now and asked about the benches, okay? She called. She initiated those call -- that call and initiated the conversation. Not the town. The town should have reached out. There are two people sitting in this room, and God only knows how many more that are associated with the plaques and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 16 of 62 the families. They could have been contacted. You did nothing to do that. So the other thing is that that whole Centennial Circle is being displaced for an 80-foot circus tent, and that circus tent is going to be an eyesore. It's going to absolutely not blend in with that whole area. And what you think it's going to do, it is not. So I want to see you guys rent that out. So especially in 110 degrees. The other thing, the reason I wanted to request for six minutes was that I wanted to say thank you to all of our firefighters and all of our emergency response. We've had a rough couple of weeks. And with all the fires that have been going on, it's it's pretty amazing. I've been out of town watching them and it's horrifying. So I just want to thank every one of them. And that's not an easy thing to be doing out in that heat. So thank you. The other thing that I wanted to talk about was the economics of the town. I think we're going about it completely wrong. As far as there are so many possibilities that could take place, and I was asked quite a bit, what's there to do in Fountain Hills over Memorial Weekend? You know, I scratch my head other than the basics. So Dark Sky Discovery Center is going to be beautiful. It's going to be super fantastic. It would look better without the circus tent, and a better organized effort at some ideas. But we can't stop that now, can we? Which is disgusting. So that thing shouldn't be going up until the Dark Sky Discovery Center is built, so. But we need some facilities in town. So just like nobody's going to be playing underneath the circus tent in the Centennial Circle. We need some indoor facilities. You guys want to attract younger people here, we need to come up with some better ideas as far as facilities are concerned. So yeah, one of those could be over at Four Peaks and an aquatic center there, and then rebuild the theater and make that into something that is a multiuse facility. We've got such a great venue there; expand on it. Those are just two ideas. You know, if we had a bigger and better forum or more forums, we could all sit down and with some civility and come up with some good ideas instead of just a few people in this town making decisions for everybody else. Thank you. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 17 of 62 MENDENHALL: And we have one final speaker, and that's Crystal Cavanaugh. CAVANAUGH: Good evening. Fountain Hills resident wasn't really planning to speak. But people can't keep the word ROT out of their mouths whenever they're trying to diminish or discredit something. ROT, for those who don't know, Reclaim Our Town is an issues PAC. Almost, some might say it's the people's PAC. We generally are taking up issues that many, many residents in this town agree with. And I thoroughly enjoy every time they try to say Reclaim Our Town has endorsed candidates as though to make those candidates look bad. I'm here to say since we're an issues PAC, we are not endorsing candidates. We don't work hand-in-hand with candidates. Any message we put out is straight from Reclaim Our Town with no input from a candidate. And believe it or not, we have very few signs. But the power you people in the audience or sitting at home or on the dais give us is crazy. We have two messages: "Leftists Ruin Towns" and "The Mayor's Agenda is not Your Agenda". That's our agenda. To try to get people to look at that. A lot of people agree with that message in this town. So all I'm saying is quit assigning things to Reclaim Our Town that aren't true. Like you looked for parking agreements because of Reclaim Our Town. Other people have said we've endorsed a number of candidates that we're not endorsing at all. And even my own personal endorsements don't include some that I've read online. So I'm just -- and oh, by the way, for those of you who think Reclaim Our Town had anything to do with the the golden ticket at the last election cycle, we did not. So I'm using this time to set the record straight and quit trying to silence a message you don't agree with by telling people to either take down the signs or change the message. Thank you. MENDENHALL: That's it, Mayor. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. We'll follow up on some of these things that we're hearing about. And if this council want to respond to anything. Thank you. All right. Next is our consent agenda. Could I get a motion, please? FRIEDEL: So moved. TOTH: Second. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 18 of 62 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? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. So now, we have our once-a-year exercise in a meeting within a meeting. So I'm going to open up a public hearing for the budget. And I will also recess our regular meeting and open our special meeting, which will we'll hear from our staff. We'll see if we have any cards. And then we'll close the public hearing, and we'll be able to discuss and vote, and then we'll go back into the regular meeting. How's that? Paul? SOLDINGER: Great. Sounds good. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Councilmembers, tonight we'll be discussing the final budget for fiscal year 2025 for council consideration. The final budget presented today will hopefully be a briefer presentation than prior presentations that we've been discussing over the last several months, and it will include one substantive change from the tentative budget which is just the modification of the downtown restroom project into a contingency amount. So over the past several months, since February of this year, we've been having work sessions, open houses, a council retreat, as well as the tentative budget adoption last TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 19 of 62 month. And today is the finale of that process where we'll be presenting the final budget, considering all the modifications and changes that we've discussed over the last several months. The tentative budget was adopted last month on May 7th of 2024, which set the maximum fiscal year 2025 budget amount at $45.15 million. As I mentioned, council moved one project, which was the downtown restroom project, from the budget and modified that to a capital projects contingency amount. So that change was made and included in this final budget. With the final budget, we have about $1.8 million in general fund contingencies. We have $5 million specifically for pavement maintenance in the streets fund, out of a total budget of $7.1 million in the streets fund. And our general fund budgeted expenditures increased, excluding the contingency amount, by about four percent. We just wanted to illustrate the final projected revenues by fund type. For your consideration, in the final budget, the general fund has projected revenues about $25.8 million. The streets fund has projected revenues of about $4.4 million for next fiscal year. Capital projects fund has about $3.6 million of projected revenues. And all the other funds in the town have projected revenues of 2.4 million. And just to note for those revenue amounts, that does not include the transfers or existing fund balances that we've discussed throughout the work sessions and the tentative budget process. So the total town's projected revenues for next fiscal year are $36.2 million. Also, we want to illustrate the final budget expenditures by fund type or bucket. The general fund $25.8 million of final budget expenditures, as noted earlier, 24 million for operational purposes, $1.8 million of contingencies within that amount. The streets fund has $7.1 million budgeted. Capital projects fund has 9.1 million, and all other funds include about $3.2 million of budget expenditures. And that just totals total town budgeted expenditures of 45.15 or 0.2 million, rounded up. On this slide, we're just illustrating in total, the changes from the current fiscal year 2024 to next fiscal year's final budget. The projected revenues did decrease slightly, and that's really just because of the modifications we've talked about, such as the urban TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 20 of 62 revenue sharing that decreased with our projections, as well as the loss of the long-term residential rental local sales tax that will be going away in January. So there is a slight decrease there. Budgeted expenditures have gone up by about $2 million, primarily due to an increase of proposed capital projects within the budget. ELR expenditure limitation exclusions actually increased by about ten percent, and that's primarily due to increased investment earnings the town has been receiving. And the expenditure limitation increased by about 3.6 percent, or $1.3 million, and that is set at $35.6 million for next fiscal year. On this slide, we're just illustrating what we did -- and we did this last year as well -- we're just comparing all the local East Valley municipality and comparing the current -- so this is based on the current year budget, fiscal year '24, because this is all the information that was available and basing it on the population of each municipality, just showing that we have a conservative budget, and we have the lowest expenditures per capita of all East Valley municipalities. So for capital projects, we've discussed capital projects at length. We had a capital projects work session. So essentially the town's planned or proposed capital projects included in the fiscal year 2025 budget is exactly the same as the tentative budget, other than the modification I discussed regarding the downtown restroom modification. For the 13 green light projects totaling $5.2 million, town staff will work to move forward on those projects to completion, unless substantial modifications require further council approval. For the six yellow light projects totaling $4.3 million, including a planned $1 million budget transfer from the general fund contingency, town staff will seek council approval on vendor contracts and project costs, including accepting any grant funding that the town may receive. And with that, that's the final budget for your consideration. Are there any council member questions I can answer? MAYOR DICKEY: I'm going to ask if we have any cards first from the public. MENDENHALL: We just have comments in your packet. We have nine people in favor of the budget and zero opposed, but no public comment. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 21 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to close the hearing and then we can ask questions. Anybody have any questions or comments? Councilwoman? TOTH: I'll just take the opportunity to give us sincere thank you to the staff for all of the work that it takes to put together this budget. We have a lot of meetings on it, things change, you have to go back to the drawing board, you might kind of want to [sound] us sometimes, but thank you so much for all of your work in putting this together. SOLDINGER: I appreciate that. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Councilwoman. The motion is on -- if anybody's ready to make a motion, it's on -- MCMAHON: I will. MAYOR DICKEY: Oh. Go ahead. Sorry. MCMAHON: I can make a motion. Thank you. Move to adopt resolution 2024-17, approving the final budget for fiscal year '25. Adopt resolution 2024-18, approving the budget implementation policy, organizational charts, pay plans, schedule of authorized positions, update employee job descriptions, and comprehensive fee schedule for the fiscal year 2025, and reconvene into the regular meeting. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks for that. Is there a second? GRZYBOWSKI: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. One thing that I will just quickly comment on is when I talk to residents, I get a lot of concerns on we should be spending more money on streets and fixing our roads. What I don't hear from them is that we need to spend more money on our general fund. And I would really urge this council to cut from the general fund and fully fund our streets and with the budget or revenue of over $30 million, there's plenty of money to do that. And there's quite a few things that we can cut from the general fund to actually fully fund our streets and do that for a number of years and have a town that we can drive where we want and where we're going to be proud of. So that's my only comment on that. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 22 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? GRZYBOWSKI: I'd like to know, what are you interested in cutting out of the general fund? Let's not just say a general statement. You said there's quite a few items, so let's talk about those items. MAYOR DICKEY: You can discuss. SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, Councilwoman, I did lay out specific cuts last year. I didn't bother doing that this year because it was really kind of taken with a deaf ear. But we're funding staff increases, we're buying vehicles, we have capital projects that -- we have people that are not happy about the Centennial Plaza here. There's quite a few things that we could reprioritize. And it -- really, it's not a question of cuts, it's a question of priorities. And there's things that can wait a year. There's things that can wait a couple of years. And frankly, if we did prioritize that in a short period of time, we would be there. And again, I laid out very specific cuts last year. I documented on my website. I wrote letters to the editor. They didn't go anywhere. So this is not something that I can approve. And you know, we really do need to focus on fixing the roads. And that is the primary concern I get from the people. Not general spending -- not general fund spending, not more vehicles. You know, not this idea of having -- I still have not heard of a single person who wanted a dogcatcher role, yet that -- I know we're not approving that, but that was a concern we had during the retreat. And I just think that that misses the mark, that's all. GRZYBOWSKI: I think bringing up something that we all talked about and decided we didn't need to do is not something that needs to happen here. I'm going through my notes. I took very detailed notes as we had conversations during the past -- I don't know, it feels like 1,200 meetings -- and not once did you say on any of these items that you were against it for any reason or suggested cutting an individual item. I don't think it's fair to staff, I don't think it's fair to council, I don't think it's fair to the public that now, all of a sudden, you're naming things specifically that you'd like to dismiss. We're at budget approval time, and I already gave you crap at one meeting about not speaking up. I appreciate that you did finally speak up, but I feel like at this point, we have beat TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 23 of 62 this horse. I just, I'm gobsmacked that you now, all of a sudden, have things you're ready to cut. But I appreciate that you finally brought something to the table. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. And yeah, I'd just like to address this concept of fully funding the roads. It's an interesting concept. Fully funding the roads, if you look at the streets committee, that might be up to $80 million. So the only reason we could -- the only way we could do that is write a bad check. So then you have to look at -- you have to look at what does fully funding the roads mean. We allocated $5 million last year, we allocated $5 million this year. And with the savings that Director Weldy said that we're going to be incurring, we'll probably have $5 million for the next year -- for fiscal year 2026. When I asked Director Weldy specifically if we gave you any more money, could you actually spend the money? And Director Weldy, specifically said, no, we are fully funded. We've got projects for many years and the projects require a lot of analysis. You can't just take -- tear a road apart and then rebuild it. You have to talk to the utility companies, the municipal companies, sanitation district, Cox running cables underneath the roads. So it seems to me that what we're -- for the next couple of years, this council has actually fully funded the roads, which I think is quite an accomplishment. And we've also come up with other creative ways to put more money into the fund. Councilmember Friedel had some creative solutions to try to allocate more money into that. And I think we've all kicked around trying to get more money into those funds. On the other hand, if the alternative is to close down the community center and shut down the lake, don't put the liner and do nothing, then we'll have the best roads and the worst public services in the state, and we certainly don't want that. And so this whole thing is a balancing act. They have hired us to make tough decisions. The people do not want to see a reduction in their services. That's one thing I can assure you, they don't. And so we spend the money on the roads that we can. We save money on the roads, which our wonderful staff has done. And so again, let's just determine what do we mean by fully funding roads. We are funding the roads for the next several years to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 24 of 62 the tune that we can't do anymore. And so as far as I'm concerned -- again, I think I think they're kind of empty words. They sound good, but the rhetoric is hollow. MAYOR DICKEY: Just real quick to mentioning how much money we spend in our -- or how much our revenue and our spending of a budget of about 32, 35 million, whatever, 45 percent of it is public safety. So it's really not like we have $35 million. It's really more like half of that. The other thing is to Brenda's point, the ability to plan for the next couple of years will give us the ability to do some projects that we can have our regular $5 million, which has never been that this much for two years in a row. And obviously, a lot of that had to do with the CARES funding and being able to allocate that, which has given us this breather, which I've talked about a million times. But when we meet on the 18th, we will be talking about streets. And that's what's going to help us know that if we say a Palomino or a Kingstree or whatever, we will plan for that. And that can be a project in addition to what we will do to eventually catch up. But again, to look at one item, there's wayfinding signs or something, that doesn't solve a $4 million issue year after year that we have to do for several years in a row. So again, I would agree that this budget is well thought out, well spoken about for months now. And we have a motion on the table and a second, I believe. So if we could have a roll call unless there's any other comments. Thank you. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: No. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 25 of 62 FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much. SOLDINGER: You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: Close this and we will -- and part of your motion was to get us back into our regular meeting. So we'll just say we're there. And we'll go to our first item, which is -- I mean, our next item, which is now going to be our discussion about our RTPA Valley Metro, which I think we have Dave Trimble will come up. I don't know if there's any introduction on our part. And I think we do have someone from RPTA here. Thank you. TRIMBLE: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, and Council. And you're right, we have, as we get going here, we have Carol Ketcherside here from Valley Metro. Excellent longtime resource. She doesn't have a formal speaking part today, but she'll be here if I get stumped, if and when and if you have any questions. So let's see here. Okay. So again, I'll try to be brief tonight. I have a total of seven slides of content, not counting my little introduction screens here. This can be a really complicated topic. So there was a lot of stuff in the report -- nine or ten pages of really dense detail. So I'm going to try to just hopefully distill that down a little bit and just give an overview of where we are, why we're here. And I would say there's a lot of little caveats throughout. It's not an exact science. We don't know what ridership is going to be. We don't -- there's a lot of different moving things right now too with Prop 479; that's on the November ballot. And the interpretation of how that funding can be used is still fluid, and we're hopeful that we may be able to use it. But most of what you'll see today is a really cautious type of projection and estimations that I'm going to use tonight. So with that. Another little overview screen here. So again why we're here? Each fiscal year, the town and Valley Metro enter into an IGA or an intergovernmental agreement. Most TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 26 of 62 years it's pretty routine, we move on, we put it on the consent agenda, and we move forward from there. But this year is a little bit different. There's, again, a lot of moving parts, and we are at a place where we are getting closer to using up our balance that's kind of kept both of our programs alive, that we'll talk a little bit more about as we go along here. But just as a reminder no general fund monies are currently spent on these programs; it's all the regionally available funding. And we'll go over that in just a minute. This year, again, like it says up there, the anticipated budget deficit is a year closer. And ridership has remained low for the 515 express bus service. So we wanted to bring some options to the council before it becomes potentially a general fund impact or an impact to those services. And the reason we have this balance that's built up is, back in 2018, 2019 and so forth, we weren't using the money that was coming in at that point. RideChoice was -- the ridership was really low, and then that program changed, and that ridership has increased over the years. So that has caused some of those deficits that we'll talk about. Again, the two current transit programs that the town has, the 515 bus service -- there's two pickups and two drop-offs over by the library for that program. And then the other one is the RideChoice program. That's the Uber/Lyft service. You have to be age 65 and/or disabled to use that program. The riders generally cost $3 each way; is their cost. The actual cost of the program per riders is about $42, so that varies with ridership. The town has seen pretty robust ridership, and that's increased steadily over the years. We have projected about 1,500 or so riders for that program. And again, the 515 bus has had really low ridership. We've had a couple of months in 2024 where nobody rode it. So we're talking in the single digits for that one. As far as the funding sources, there's PTF and that's the Prop 400 monies. In upcoming -- in November, there will be a vote for Prop 479, and if that continues and the voters approve that, what we've learned is that that can't be used for the RideChoice program going forward. So that just dialed our numbers down a little bit as TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 27 of 62 we projected forward. An example. In the coming year, expenses are projected to be approximately $48,000 more than the money coming in. So we're slowly digging into this balance, and pretty soon that balance is going to be up. And like I said, the last bullet point there, we have projected that to be depleted in fiscal year 2027. So we got to do something. So we wanted to bring forth some options. So we thought three different ways to go. Again, you can do -- we can go -- we can get by one more year without doing anything if we want to just let this ride. But at this time next year, we won't really have a choice. We'll have to -- we'll have to cut something, or we'll have to designate general fund monies, which I don't think anybody really wants to do for this. So that's one option. I'm calling it "Status Quo". The next one I'm calling "Simple Change". Just discontinue the bus. Low low ridership on that. So if we just discontinued that and keep the RideChoice program in its current form that could be an option for us. And that would extend out the the length of the program before we eventually run into trouble. But that's far down the road, as we'll see on another slide. So option number 3 is to do an expansion of RideChoice, which would be an attempt to kind of replace the bus service in a way, only it would be on a per-usage basis. Whereas now we have this high fixed cost for bus service. If we change to what we're calling a "Dial-a-Ride Bus Service", not to be not to be construed with the actual Dial-a-Ride Paratransit service. It's just a creative name that that someone came up with. So don't read too much into that. But basically, it would work like RideChoice, except for it would be limited. It would just take people from the bus stop and down to where the bus goes now. So again, none of these options truly solve the sort of structural problem that I can project. But two of them do extend out the length of time before things start happening. MAYOR DICKEY: I have a question. TRIMBLE: Oh. I'm sorry. TOTH: Just before we move on. For expanded RideChoice, can you explain to me what TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 28 of 62 RideChoice is in its current form? TRIMBLE: Yeah. So sure. That is a on-demand service where if you're a rider, you simply call for a ride. It's almost like -- the contractors are actually Uber, Lyft, and then some Valley Metro contractors. So they're calling for a ride. They get their ride. They get a really deep discount, and it costs $3 each way. So that cost would be the same. So if you -- a lot of people go to the Mayo Clinic, it cost them $3 one way and then $3 back. There's a lot more to it. But that's in its simplest form, three bucks each way. You ride it and you're there. So that would be the same cost for this expansion, only it would be very limited. Whereas the current RideChoice takes you from your house to kind of anywhere you want to go. This you would still have to get to the bus stop, which is what they do now when they're riding the bus, they still have to get to the library, and then it would just simply connect to where the bus connects them to now. So it would be a lot more limited and locked down. TOTH: Without expanding it, I'm about to ask a question that sounds like I'm being a snot, but I promise I'm not. If I were to call RideChoice and ask to go to a bus stop, would they take me? TRIMBLE: And if you were 65 or older. TOTH: Right. Right. Not me. Sorry. If I were someone who qualified for RideChoice and I asked to go to a bus stop, could I? TRIMBLE: Yes. TOTH: Okay. Thank you. TRIMBLE: Yeah. Yes. TOTH: Obviously, not me. I'm sorry. TRIMBLE: Yeah. That's under the current system. You would have to hit one of those two categories. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? MCMAHON: Thank you for your presentation, I appreciate it. It's very popular in town. The statistics have shown that RideChoice has gone from, in 2021, 214 riders and it is now at 1,457. And it is going to be including. It is a very, very popular choice. And it, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 29 of 62 like you said, it's only $3 per mile going each way. And if you -- it's limited to, I think eight miles each way in town, which a lot of people use it to go to the store, run errands, go to local doctors, et cetera. And then if you go over that, it is only $2 per mile after that. So this is really a convenient and very cost-effective way to provide transportation to our people over 65 and who have disabilities. The other choices in town are more expensive if they're not under this program. And I know that we have volunteers who drive people to their medical appointments, et cetera, but I'm -- this works in conjunction with that because -- I don't know for sure -- I tried to get the statistics on that, I don't know -- Rachael, to put you on the spot if you know that -- but this 1,457 ridership is in addition to our volunteer program. So that is a definite need that I believe needs to remain in our community. And I think -- and as a board member I foresee this and I don't have a crystal ball, but I do perceive this just from discussions that the bus service is going to go away. It is not cost effective for Valley Metro to continue to have that bus out here. In addition, David, I don't know if you mentioned there's only two times a year where we can make these changes. I believe it's April and October, so that is another reason why it's coming before us now, so that we can work with Valley Metro. Let them know in advance what changes we're going to make and what service we're going to retain. So I think it's a great idea to keep RideChoice. It gives us an additional great relationship with a major stakeholder in town, Valley Metro, as well. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. And Director Trimble, thank you so much for the presentation. And it is in our packet, so I know all of the council has taken a look at it, and so the public can see that directly. They can get it from our website. Just a few comments. I have had opportunity to ride the bus and I can echo that it's always empty or very nearly empty, and really public transportation only works in dense cities. If you go to New York City, public transportation works great there. The Valley here has really been developed after World War II. It's been car-dependent. The roads are wide. It's a perfect grid layout, unlike many other big cities around the world. It's something that is TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 30 of 62 really questionable, and I really -- even the upcoming Prop, I mean, there's so much money going to public transit and not in roads, it's really unfortunate. I'm kind of glad that we're going to be able to get rid of the bus service. And frankly a bus that's empty is horrible for the environment. A bus that has one person in it. It's still horrible to the environment and the cost per rider is so high, we could buy a brand new Prius for everyone that rides it. And that's just -- and frankly, maybe buy one every year because the cost is so high. So I would actually like to make a motion that we do option number 2 which would be to eliminate the 505 -- 515. Sorry, and then go status quo with the RideChoice. TOTH: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: I feel like it's a no-brainer that we need to get rid of the 515 bus. The disadvantage of the RideChoice status quo is that it's only for the disabled and 65 and over. That, if, for example, Councilwoman Toth picked up the phone, she would get a solid no. Sorry. I kind of like the idea of option 3, with the expanded ride choice. If we did that, do we keep plain RideChoice and get expanded RideChoice? So our 65 and older and the disability can still get the pickup at home. Then, if we did the expanded RideChoice, then Hannah and I can meet at the library and take the bus from there. Okay. TRIMBLE: Correct. GRZYBOWSKI: That was one of my concerns. I think I just missed that because there was a whole lot of paperwork that you gave us here. I think I prefer option number 3. That way we still accommodate the people that are used to that and that qualify for the RideChoice. But then we leave it open, and if nobody takes advantage of it, that's fine. We still have the ALF monies that will hold out longer for the RideChoice people. MAYOR DICKEY: Let me hear your answer because I know it involves money. TRIMBLE: Yeah. I'm gonna speed forward to my final slide. And here's the only thing about these. And I think the important thing to look at is the dates that we run out of money, so to speak, under the current plan or under each plan. So wrong thing. So TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 31 of 62 right here, if we do nothing, as we mentioned, we need to be notifying Valley Metro at this time next year that we're making big changes. If we stick with this one, which is just delete the bus, keep everything else the same, it gets us through -- I think this, again, this is cautious. I think we could probably get through another year, but we would by 2029, we would notify Valley Metro that we need to do something different, or we need to. The middle column is if we wanted to put some general fund money toward it, here's the price to keep these going as is. Again, a lot of moving parts. We don't know how the Prop 479 negotiations are going to -- are going to go. I mean, maybe there will be more. We can hope that maybe there's more regional money somehow, but I don't think so and so we want to be cautious. So getting to option number -- I keep hitting the wrong button -- this one, the bottom one, the only downside is it doesn't go quite as long. So it gets us through or to 2028, but we would have to notify Valley Metro in -- what's that? Three years. So that's the only thing is there's a cost to that extra expanded RideChoice or what we're calling Dial-a-Ride bus. But it's a decision for the council. It can be tonight. It can be something else too. These are just three options that we came up with, because it's that time of year when we typically sign the next IGA. So with that, that's really it. TOTH: Thank you. Thank you for your point. I would submit that since it's just bus stop to a bus stop, it's kind of similar to just having the bus. And considering we have a single rider, I'm not trying to call him out, but do we know if the single rider is under 65? TRIMBLE: I don't know that, but I think so. TOTH: Okay. TRIMBLE: I'm pretty sure. TOTH: I think a $33,000 difference -- well, two years sooner, so kind of a $66,000 difference, sort of. I'll just give you a ride rather than the 66,000. But I do understand the point. If we had more riders, I'd absolutely agree that number 3 could be a good option, but we just we don't have the riders. So if it is truly an emergency and there is no other option, just give me a call. I'll give you a ride. I'm not paying 66,000. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 32 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah, I'd be willing to second Allen's motion. But I would like to just point out that we've all seen the empty busses and it grates us all the wrong way. And I do have to make a special accommodation to our town manager, who has listened to our constant feedback on this problem. And thank you for bringing this to this council and for addressing it. And I also want to just do a special recognition to this entire council. I think there's a lot of other cities and towns that would have been like, well, the busses aren't costing us any money at all, so let's just keep running them. And I think it's a really -- it's a good statement on the fiscal responsibility of everyone in this council to say, you know what? No. This is costing even if it is funds from the lottery and from other sources, no. We're going to stop it. We're going to save that money. They can allocate that someplace else and not just waste the money. And I think we all have the same commitment here that no, we're not going to be for wasteful tax spending, even if it might benefit two or three riders a year. And so I just want to commend this council for its prudence for putting this on our agenda and for acting in a responsible way. And I think the second option, I think it accomplishes what we need to do without the extra money, the $33,000. And again, I'd just like to say job well done. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I have a question about the timing. Maybe, Carol, are you -- is there any mechanism for us to do it before October 2025 at all? TRIMBLE: It's April, right? MAYOR DICKEY: Hi. KETCHERSIDE: Mayor Dickey, members of the council. We can at this point, the soonest I believe we could pull that off would be April of 2025. Because the cycle for that service change will start in October. We have -- and the reason it takes so long is because there is a public participation process. And we go through and there's board approval, our PTA board approval process as part of it and all of that, just the time just stacks up. But if we were to find out. No, I mean, even by end of summer, early fall, we could pull this off, and by April of 2025. Yes, ma'am. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 33 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. And I think maybe your chart had it going off in October, so it may save us a little bit of money if we can do it in April instead of October. KETCHERSIDE: '25? MAYOR DICKEY: 2025, yeah. KETCHERSIDE: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: So it might extend that 2030 little bit. KETCHERSIDE: Yeah. MAYOR DICKEY: All right. TRIMBLE: The cost is estimates either way. So if that's -- if that's true, I apologize for the wrong date. October is when we need to -- the final date that they need to be truly notified. But I know that we just don't typically talk about it but once a year. So that's where I came up with that. And then the change is effective in that next April. So -- KETCHERSIDE: I think your October date was when you're going to run out of money, and you have to do something. But you can do it sooner, yeah. TRIMBLE: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, did I hear correctly that this will be an empty bus for another ten months? Is that what I'm hearing? TRIMBLE: Yes. SKILLICORN: Myself and the people are very displeased to hear that. MAYOR DICKEY: There's a motion on the table and a second. Do you want to do a roll call? WOLBORSKY: How about taking cards? MAYOR DICKEY: I'm sorry? MENDENHALL: We have public -- MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, I'm sorry about that. Yes, please. MENDENHALL: Okay. First we have Barry Wolborsky, and on deck Kim Wolborsky. And that's the only comment cards we have. B. WOLBORSKY: Thank you, I think. I'm strongly recommending discontinuing the 515 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 34 of 62 bus service to Fountain Hills. I'm amazed that the council has not discontinued it before now. Ridership numbers for the -- now, I'm your statistics guy, as you may recall. Ridership numbers for the service actually are less than one quarter rider per trip. Not one rider, less than one quarter rider per trip. That quarter person may go with you, Hannah, I don't know, whatever. Actually, for February and March, there were zero riders on any of the four bus trips a day. Fiscally, ecologically, sensibly, this is ridiculous. Shut it down. Conversely, I strongly support the RideChoice program that makes affordable transportation available for the elderly and handicapped citizens of our town. And is used on an average of 30 rides a week. That's another statistic. And its use is increasing. I don't believe there's any reason for the town to support any other expanded and very costly options because there's a problem. I don't think that quarter rider needs an expanded ride share, number one. And it's almost impossible to get rid of an entitlement once you set it. If you do an expanded ride share, it's yours forever, no matter what the costs go up to. I strongly support option 2 of the staff recommendations. Keep the RideChoice program and discontinue the bus service. We have funding for this program for at least six years, and who knows what will happen during the six years. We can get grants. We can find other funding. Things can happen. I don't agree with expanding the service because, as Brenda said, that's going to add a lot of money to it. And once you add it, you can't take it away. I feel really bad about this because what I'm saying really agrees with Councilman McMahon, and it's disturbing. I'm going to have to talk to my councilor about that tomorrow. Thank you. K. WOLBORSKY: I am Kim Wolborsky, a resident of Fountain Hills. And thank you, everyone. So I thought I would come up and share my experience, strength, and hope, because I was a bus rider; I commuted by bus for almost 40 years. But I don't think you need it, because I think everyone knows, and the council has pretty much agreed that we don't need the 515 bus. Busses that only run in the morning and at night, or just something everyone I knew tried to avoid because you couldn't get home if you needed TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 35 of 62 to, even with a guaranteed ride home, it just didn't -- wasn't convenient. But I'd also like to speak for the simple solution. I don't think -- you know, when I was taking that bus, I was taking it to -- I worked for a large company, and I worked in accounts payable, treasury things, to do with money, and I'm not comfortable with the idea that we don't know what this is going to cost. We don't have a benefit. As far as we know, we only have maybe one or two people who would use it for a big program. And but the thing is, if we don't vote it in now, if you find later that there is some need for it, it can always be added. But as Barry mentioned, it's really hard to take things away, so I hope you'll go with the simple solution. Thank you all. And I too agree with Councilwoman McMahon, and I think that's just fine. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So we have a motion and a second on the table. Is there any further discussion? Good. Can we get a roll call? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. Thanks for coming, Carol. Thank you, Dave. Our next item is consideration of waiving attorney-client privilege for limited purpose of releasing draft wireless facilities ordinance. I think we will start with Aaron. ARNSON: Sure. Mayor and Council, thank you. My introduction to this item will be TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 36 of 62 brief. I've previously advised the council several times in an executive setting, including in a privileged setting, including in an executive session. The subject at hand today has to do with a draft wireless facilities ordinance that was drafted by and provided to the town by one of its retained outside council, Andrew Campanelli, in June of 2023. He prepared that draft and provided it in July, and we provided comments in August. And after reviewing some legal concerns with the council, the council directed staff to create what was effectively going to be a staff-driven hybrid ordinance that took pieces of that ordinance along with some other things, to create an ordinance that we believed met the council's goals and was legally sound. Planning and Zoning Commission recently has asked for a copy of the ordinance, and Councilwoman Toth, seconded by Councilmember Skillicorn, asked that consideration of waiver of the privilege of that document be granted for the purpose of sharing it with Planning and Zoning Commission. I've previously advised the council in an executive session, and you have the staff report before you. Although staff's recommendation is against waiver of privilege in this instance, it is a council policy decision, and I submit that to the council for discussion. MAYOR DICKEY: Do we have any speaker cards on this item? MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. We have, first of all, in your packet, you have written comments, one in favor and eight opposed. And then we had one who wanted to just comment in writing. And they are for -- are in favor. And then we have two people in person who would like to speak. And first will be Lori Troller and then Ed Stizza. TROLLER: Mayor, Council, Lori Troller, a resident. Transparency: it's a really important word, and for those of us who are parents of toddlers and teens, we all know that they're up to something when they're hiding what they're doing. It could be good, or it could be bad, but if we feel it has adverse effects we're going to find out what they're up to. Same goes for anyone hiding something. That's all it takes to lose confidence in people and create a poor reputation. It's a fast race to the bottom. The word "transparency" is a very important place in this meeting room. Government is always to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 37 of 62 act in full transparency of the people. That means discussions the council has are done in public and not in secret of executive session. Of course, there's discussions of personnel, employment, lawsuits, litigation of contracts, negotiations with tribe, county, and state, real estate sales, school safety, building safety, those are done in private. But never the development of laws. I've stated before, it's my opinion, this government has abused the use of executive session by discussing topics not privileged with protection of executive session. Residents realize you're keeping this from us with this strategy. This isn't the first time the town government of Fountain Hills has been told to be transparent. The entire town filled out a survey telling you to knock it off. You told Planning and Zoning to update the ordinance, but John's working on the wrong chapter. Please correct that in the next agenda item. You even hired Campanelli to work on the right chapter. But our attorney tried to hide that in the fact -- or tried to hide that fact in a recent FOIA. Holding draft working documents from Planning and Zoning is the ultimate insult, not only to the public but your Planning and Zoning commissioners. Act in transparency. The state ombudsman confirmed these documents belong to the public. The legislative lawyers also confirm these documents belong to the public. There is no legal private protection for these documents. Share the July and August date-stamped versions of these documents. Holding them is in complete lack of transparency. Thank you. STIZZA: Ed Stizza, resident Fountain Hills. Good evening again. So pretty simple. Let P&Z have the document. Pretty simple. So why in God's name would somebody be holding this back? It is not -- It is not -- it should just be given to P&Z. If you don't want to display it to the public, great. But your own -- the P&Z should be running everything that we're doing as far as any legalities and ordinances and zoning and everything else. And this goes -- this was one of the things I was going to talk about on business. The way the town conducts business, I have -- I just can't believe it. We have done this with developers -- I don't want to get off subject -- we've done it with projects. We've done it with issues. We've done it with everything. This has been going on for two years, the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 38 of 62 5G, and it's constantly getting thrown under the rug and stalemated and everything else. Why? Why don't you guys answer that question? Because I tell you, the public is asking that. It's pretty simple. Give up this document. I mean, that's it. Give it to P&Z. There is no reason, legally, this should be held. None. So let's answer that question. Thank you. MENDENHALL: That's it, Mayor. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilman. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, on this topic, I still think about the people of the town, they paid $8,500 for this work product. I really believe it is the property of the people of the town. And frankly, you listen to the public comments. I trust Planning and Zoning. Planning and Zoning Commission has done a great job. They've weighed through this issue. I think that there's still answers they have. And frankly, they're going to come up with a even better work product once they see what's been done already. So I'm going to side with transparency here, and I'm going to make a motion to approve this as drafted. TOTH: I'll second that motion. But I do have some comments as well. The reason that I motioned to put this onto an agenda is because it is a draft ordinance. This was not legal advice regarding something that would endanger this council if it were public. Planning and Zoning, extremely capable people on that commission. I have had the privilege of being able to speak with them in-depth about different topics as I've been learning some of the issues that are on the council or back when I was running. My point being that at least a couple of the people on the Planning and Zoning, I can honestly say, are the smartest people in any room they walk into, and that's including if I'm there. Jokes aside, this is something that they should be able to consider when making the decision of a very, very complicated issue that has taken two years and frankly, might take more than that. But I think for good reason, because it is such an important and complicated issue that many of us do not have experience in. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? GRZYBOWSKI: Staff has been getting a lot of crap social media, here at call to public TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 39 of 62 about hiding things. Staff, including Aaron -- I'm considering him staff as well. They are not. They received direction from the council, and they are doing what the council told them to do. That's all staff ever does. So giving staff crap for hiding or not being transparent is not fair to our staff. If you want to say that to council, whatever. But that's not fair to staff at all. They all receive direction from council and all they do is what we direct them to do. Generally speaking, a draft document is not shared. Thus the creation of the draft watermark. If you work for a corporation, if you're writing an email and you put it in your draft folder because you're pissed off and you need to sleep over it before you hit it to submit; generally speaking, draft documents are just not shared. And it is not the practice of this town to share draft documents. And this ordinance -- not template, this ordinance is indeed a draft document. So our staff did what we directed them to do and gave P&Z instructions that we had hoped P&Z would be able to follow through. That they would respect the council enough to be able to complete the task that was given to them, with the documentation that was given to them. Thank you. FRIEDEL: Thank you, Mayor. There's no question this is a complex issue, and the ordinance itself is going to be complex. I like the experience of our Planning and Zoning Commission. There's people on there that know a lot more about it than most of us up here. Whether it's a template or draft, call it whatever you want. I think it's a working document that Planning and Zoning needs to have access to to complete their task. So I would be for changing our direction and allowing them access to that document. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I just think from -- if you look at from the very beginning of this thing this council has tried have been very responsive to the public. When they've requested that we did hire an outside attorney, we did. That attorney wrote us the draft document. A lot of what has been discussed has been in executive sessions and has been attorney-client privilege. So I'm not at liberty at this point to tell you all the communications that we've had. I've heard this thing about this circle of trust being being broken, that we don't trust the Planning and Zoning. I just TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 40 of 62 think that's not true. And I think that's unfortunate that it's gone in that direction. The circle of trust goes in two different directions. We have to trust them, and they have to trust us. The Planning and Zoning Commission are not made of telecommunications experts that are hired to do complicated motions like this. They are farmers, they are butchers, they are people of the town, just like we are, to put a fresh set of eyes on -- in their case -- planning and zoning issues, and in our case, other town issues. I think that they've done a good job. They've continued to do a good job. The fact that they don't have all the information that we discussed with Mr. Campanelli with the process that we've endured for two years now, it's just been amazing. So we do have a draft document. We do actually have experts, John Wesley, and his department that took -- and I think Aaron referred to it as a hybrid. We took what we directed Attorney Campanelli to do for us, and we said, there's a lot of this is very usable. There's a lot of this that he just missed the mark. And so are we going to go off on a wild goose chase and pursuing things that he thought were important that we didn't think is important? I don't think so. Because after all, we're the ones who are directing him to draft the ordinance. There's been a lot of confusion on this, and I know, I talked to residents, and they said, well, he presented us with a template that was supposed to be addressed later. And I don't think any of this is executive session because this is things I've talked about to the general public -- and we were never explained this template. We were never explained this whole process. We were just trying to get him to help us write a better ordinance. That's what I thought we were doing. Now we're at a point tonight that our staff is on it, our attorney has given us direction, John Wesley has worked very diligently. Now, if we open this thing up and we said, okay, why don't you look at the crap that we don't even like? Why don't we waste another couple of years on it? And why don't we take John Wesley's time and our staff time and draft an ordinance that we don't even want, and then two years from now, we can vote it down? And then they'll say, we've worked on this for two years, how come you're voting this down? That's what would probably -- that's what will happen. Okay. We're going to take the good parts of what was TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 41 of 62 submitted to us, we are going to incorporate that with our existing code, and we are going to go with the very best ordinance we can. Now, we will discuss this in the next agenda item. But the Planning and Zoning Commission are tasked with certain responsibilities. And in this case, they're exceeding the boundaries of their jurisdiction. Okay. They don't set the legal policies. They don't set what Mr. Stizza said, that is not true. Okay. They are tasked with what we task them to do. Would you take a look at this and make it the best it can be? John spent a lot of time, our attorney spent a lot of time, Campanelli spent a lot of time, so let's draft the best ordinance that we can in the most timely, expedited basis. Now, one of the things I've heard was this taken too long. Well, do you want it to take it a couple more years? Is this something that we're just going to keep pursuing forever and ever until we get it perfect? Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. Let's do a good ordinance that we can address. The other thing that we're going to talk about later too, is this Chapter 17 versus Chapter 16. Chapter 16, which Planning and Zoning wants to open itself up to, we don't have -- we don't have any jurisdiction there at all. This is all covered by Arizona State statutes. I've got the statute here. It's, "The right-of-way is not subject to the zoning review. Right-of-way, not subject to zoning review. Not subject to zoning review." We don't even have the authority to delve into these zoning issues. And so even if we wrote the very best thing that we could, it's not legal and we have to take that into account. And the last thing I'd like to say is our staff and our attorney has asked us to maintain the attorney-client privilege, which I am inclined to do. And this very council, a couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about the Skillicorn sanctions, some of the councilmembers here said on the advice of council I am going to not weigh in on the sanctions for Mr. Skillicorn because I'm going to listen to my lawyer. Well, tonight, I'm going to listen to my lawyer, and I am not going to vote to waive the attorney-client privilege. I think we should keep it intact. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? TOTH: Thank you. I would like to provide a rebuttal. Number one, I am not aware of TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 42 of 62 any farmers or butchers on the Planning and Zoning Commission. Number two, although none of us on this council are telecommunications experts and neither is John -- he is an expert in his field, but the field is not telecommunications. That's exactly why I would like more eyes on this document. I think this is an issue that is extremely complicated without revealing more than I'm supposed to. The ordinance that we were provided was very long. It was complicated. It needs more eyes on it. And we did give Planning and Zoning the directions that we would like to have them work on a hybrid ordinance and make it the best that they could. In order to make a good hybrid, you need to know what you're hybriding (sic). I don't know the proper word for that, but you understand what I'm trying to say. You need to know what you're basing your work off of. As far as the legality goes, that's what we do have an expert on. Aaron, and he will ensure that if anything were to sneak past Planning and Zoning that is illegal, he'll be the first one to let us know. I see no reason to keep this draft ordinance secret. I do not see the logic behind this. MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron? ARNSON: Mayor, thank you. This is procedural and a question for Councilmember Skillicorn for his motion that was seconded by Councilwoman Toth. Councilmember Skillicorn said he wants to approve as written. For clarification of the record, there are two options. Which of those options are you moving to approve? SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, Attorney Arnson. And this is in D, not -- I'm sorry, C not D. Because I know D has two options or multiple options here. MAYOR DICKEY: Go to page 220. See how it has 1 and 2? SKILLICORN: I actually don't see the page numbers, so I'm just kind of scrolling through. Bear with me a moment here. VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: It's 9C. SKILLICORN: Yeah. That part I know. Yeah. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: And the writing's small. VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: I think what you're talking about is right down there. SKILLICORN: So the clarification would be for both. Does that -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 43 of 62 ARNSON: So option 2? SKILLICORN: Yeah. Option 2. ARNSON: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? FRIEDEL: Thank you, Mayor. Brenda, if you had butchers and farmers writing an ordinance, wouldn't you want them to have access to a document from an expert like Campanelli? I would think so, first of all. And secondly, when I got my attorney advice, it was on a legal matter. This is a little bit different. And I don't think we're comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges with this document. Aaron did give us advice, but I don't see the legality being the same as me not weighing in on sanctions, which is totally a legal issue. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Part of this has been been already kind of covered. But, frankly, we did hire an expert in telecommunications. I'd love our very capable Planning and Zoning to be able to take a look at that, the work product was that -- it was given to us. And the second thing is, I know some of this was compared to a corporation and draft documents. Well, we aren't a corporation. And when I took the oath of office, it was the oath to follow the United States Constitution, which begins with, "We the People". And I think the people are just as important as we are. I think the people are just important as Planning and Zoning. And I got to go with transparency on this one. MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Had I known my analogies on Planning and Zoning careers was so pressing and important, I would have done more research. So maybe I didn't do my research on that. But if I was in a court, I think I would ask the judge to take judicial notice that the Planning and Zoning Commission was not composed of experts, but just people from the general labor field. And so even though I might have got their occupations wrong, I think the point is a fair point. And regarding Gerry's point, this is an attorney-client privilege that we're asked to be TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 44 of 62 waived, so this is clearly a legal issue that would require an attorney's advice. Just like when we were talking about the Skillicorn sanctions and your advice from your attorney, it's actually apples and apples. Both of them require legal advice for us to do the right thing going forward. FRIEDEL: I don't agree. This ordinance is totally different. It's a draft, first of all. So it's not anything legal. It hasn't been written or approved or voted on or anything. MAYOR DICKEY: And so some of this is obviously so hard to talk about because we are in that line. So are we allowed to say what our legal advice was on this item? ARNSON: Well, Mayor, I think that -- MAYOR DICKEY: Can I ask you what your legal advice is on this? ARNSON: Sure. The legal advice is in -- the conclusion is in the staff report. And the legal advice is to not waive attorney-client privilege with respect to the ordinance. The rationale underlying that, I would hesitate -- I would hesitate to say publicly. MAYOR DICKEY: Right. We don't want to go into too much of that, but the fact is that we're talking a lot about experts knowing things about certain items. And when it comes to something being legal or not, you are the person that we're asking and relying on. And as Hannah mentioned, we would be relying on you later to tell us if something was awry. When we -- okay. And you're going to have to stop me, but I guess I would say I'm opposed to releasing a draft document, a product, a work product that was created under attorney-client privilege, a document that moved us in e-session to have conversations that caused us to cancel or terminate a contract. So everybody knows that we did that. Everybody knows that we all talked about the same thing and we all came to the same conclusion. So I'm allowed to say that. So that's why I don't think that it's for public discussion. Because we, as a body, determined that that draft work product led us to terminating the contract with the person who created it. This entire being did that. So I don't think we should be releasing that document at this time. Yes, sir. FRIEDEL: I guess the issue that I'm having with this is how can a document that's paid for by taxpayer funds be considered attorney-client privilege? Now, maybe some of the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 45 of 62 background information and discussion could be, I see that but not this document. It's paid for by every resident in this town. MAYOR DICKEY: So is every -- FRIEDEL: That's right. MAYOR DICKEY: So is every contract that we give to a town manager or when we're doing that would that -- those things aren't out there until they're out there and we can't -- I mean, we're all being sued right now for stuff. And believe me, that's not public, but taxpayers are paying for it. Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. And this is actually a really good discussion to have out in the open. I'm kind of curious and, obviously, I know there's a motion on the floor and all that, but we can keep discussing. What can we do? I mean, if this vote -- if this vote doesn't go towards releasing this or having the -- waiving attorney-client privilege, right? If the vote doesn't go that direction, what can we do as a council to help Planning and Zoning and staff, I mean, they are working together on this, create an ordinance that the residents of town will be happy with? MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman, do you want to go first? TOTH: Sure. I'll keep it short and sweet. Because I do, I am interested in the councilmember's question. My personal recommendation would be that we go ahead and vote. My last comment on this, however, is that the -- what we are trying to give Planning and Zoning to be able to make a decision on is not legal advice regarding a lawsuit. It is not a personnel decision. That contract was actually completed. So that was -- that individual was not fired. I won't share what the legal advice today was, but I will share what it wasn't and that we were not informed that it was illegal for us to do this or that we were at any risk of lawsuit or anything to that extent. This information, in my opinion, should be public or should be available to the Planning and Zoning Commission at the very least. MAYOR DICKEY: I don't know. Aaron, can you address the contract aspect? I mean, this was not a finished product. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say that. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 46 of 62 ARNSON: Yeah, well, we received iterations of that product. And then in the middle of that, I think it's fair to say that the council, in executive session, both with me and with Mr. Campanelli, received advice and council regarding the legality of some key underpinnings of the draft ordinance. The council, ultimately, had concerns about that. And pursuant to A3 and A4 of the executive session provisions, did direct me to terminate the contract. So I don't know that I can say he was fired, but the council did direct me to terminate the contract. But that doesn't touch necessarily on the ordinance itself. I don't know if that answers the question. TOTH: Am I -- you know what? I'm going to ask the question and you tell me if you can answer it? For that contract, is it or is it not accurate that the full amount of money agreed upon in that contract had already been paid, meaning that we would have needed to revise the contract or write a new one if we had decided to continue utilizing this individual? ARNSON: Mayor and Councilmember, I have no idea. I don't independently know that information at all. TOTH: Okay. ARNSON: Yep. MAYOR DICKEY: I don't think it -- I don't know that it would matter so much because we made a decision to not go forward with -- we would have had to go forward with them, so whether we paid them or not, I get your point. But I think we all made a decision to not continue down this road. So I don't -- so that's it. ARNSON: And Mayor to -- as a point of clarification, Mr. Campanelli, never -- or anyone, never told me that we would or wouldn't have to pay any more money. So that's why I'm saying I don't know. TOTH: Okay. ARNSON: Yeah. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. So we do have a motion for number 2 there, and a second. So could we have a roll call, please? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 47 of 62 MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Nay. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Nay. Can we get a wrap-up of that, please? MENDENHALL: Yes. It fails, four to three. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Our next item is similar, and I don't know -- Aaron, do you want to -- oh. I'm sorry. Go ahead. TOTH: I'm sorry. I have a question. If the motion was to approve and it failed, this item is therefore not complete; is that correct? ARNSON: If the item failed -- TOTH: The motion to approve failed, meaning we now need to either make a motion to deny or a motion for option 1; would that not be correct? ARNSON: No. In the staff report I wrote -- I mean, the council can choose to do what it wants. But I said if you don't want to waive attorney-client privilege, you don't need to do anything, we maintain the status quo. MAYOR DICKEY: It's right at the bottom. TOTH: I see. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 48 of 62 ARNSON: Yeah. TOTH: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: See it? TOTH: Um-hum. MAYOR DICKEY: So our next item is -- I don't know, Aaron, are you going to take it or Rachael or John? ARNSON: I think -- who's up? I think John. WESLEY: Mayor and Council, I'm going to give a brief presentation here to kind of set the stage for the discussion, and we can go from there. So this is discussing whether or not we should move forward with combining Section or Article 16-2 of the Town Code, which is a small cell in the right-of-way code with Chapter 17 of the Zoning Ordinance as P&Z has been considered and was directed for consideration. So just a couple of quick background pieces. 2017 the State legislature adopted HB 2365, which allowed small cell wireless facilities in the right-of-way as a directive across the state. The town then had to look at our ordinances and procedures and determine how we wanted to implement that within the town. As a result, in 2018, we adopted the current ordinance again, Town Code Article 16-2 with terms and conditions, development agreements or lease agreement, and guidelines to go with that which were adopted outside of the ordinance itself. But I have those documents here if there's any need to look at those. But that was the method that was -- the town adopted to move forward with this. Since that time, we've had two applications for small cell in the right-of-way. Neither of which proceeded to fruition because there were too cost prohibitive. So what is in Article 16.2 of the Town Code? It's very simple and straightforward. There's a purpose statement. There is a definition section that simply references the Arizona State Statute definitions. There's Section 16-2-3, which lists the various requirements for review and approval of small cell facilities, and then a section on the rates and fees. In 16-2-3, basically it says for any of these facilities, it starts with a pre-application TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 49 of 62 conference, then an application needs to be submitted and approved by the town. And part of that article again references the terms and conditions and the design guidelines that need to be met as part of getting that approval. All other applicable codes are to be met. And then again, we need the signed license agreement and encroachment agreement. So in terms of substantive, in terms of really any regulations of the towers themselves, there's really nothing in the ordinance itself. Anything along that line that we do have that's allowable by the State is in the terms and conditions and the design guidelines. Chapter 17, on the other hand, of the Zoning Ordinance regulates all other towers and wireless communication facilities in town, regardless of what they may be for. The only exception to that, again, are the small cell in the right-of-way. That chapter sets forth application requirements, the basic processing requirements, whether something is done administratively or needs to come to town council, it sets forth various development standards -- things such as esthetics, lighting, and those types of things. Sets forth setbacks, separation requirements and talks about co-location, again, a few other minor things, but it lays out all the rules that we need to follow in order to approve and maintain and monitor any other wireless communication tower or antenna. So why are the ordinances in separate places? As has been discussed briefly before, Title 9 in the Arizona Statute basically says we have to approve these things, especially exempts any local zoning controls for cell towers placed in the right-of-way. In order to help navigate that particular provision and to avoid any conflicts or concerns about -- or implementing a zoning regulation, it appears -- again, I wasn't here when these were done, so some of this is a little bit of speculation looking at the record, where they're at. But by placing the regulations in the Town Code under streets versus in the Zoning Ordinance, it makes it clear we're not trying to enforce any type of zoning regulations with our rules and our guidelines. And also by putting the standards within the terms and conditions rather than in the ordinance, it gives us, again, that little bit of separation from an ordinance regulation versus a standard operating procedure type of way of TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 50 of 62 handling these cell towers, just like we would anything else going in the town right-of- way. And then, also because there are a lot of things that happen in our streets and our right- of-ways with regard to other utilities that are in that area behind the curb or under the street -- we've got sidewalks in those areas, we've got drainage improvements, other type of signage for traffic control -- all those things need to work together. And so by having the regulations for small cell wireless facilities in that same chapter, keeps it all in that realm of our public works department and town engineer to be able to look at and make sure all those things are coordinated. So those are the types of reasons that we believe that, that the town separated them in to those two locations within the code. If we were to combine -- decide we're going to take the few regulations that are in Chapter 16 and move them over into Chapter 17, that could be done. Most of it are still regulated back over to the Public Works Department as it is today, but still need to have the same terms and conditions and lease agreements and those things where the bulk of the regulations are. One of the proposals we have in the draft modification of Chapter 17 is to clearly point out that if you're looking for the rules with regard to small cell wireless, that those are in 16-2 of the town code. So that gets over the hurdle of trying to have everything in one place and make it easily identifiable for anybody looking for that information or where to go. And again, we would still need the terms and conditions and design guidelines, which aren't actually in the ordinance themselves, to be maintained as part of that. So with all that said, staff still feels like the best way to maintain the integrity and maintenance of our town right-of-way is to keep things as our ordinances separated. Questions? MAYOR DICKEY: I'm going to ask if we have any speaker cards first, please? MENDENHALL: Yes, we do. We have two cards. One was submitted after the item started. Are you okay with that going? Okay. We have Ed Stizza, and on deck Lori Troller. And that's it for comment. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 51 of 62 MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. STIZZA: Evening. I'm not sure how to not combine this with the last agenda item. So -- but again, the way this business especially on this and the timing and how long it's taken to get to this point and -- is atrocious. I mean, if the public wouldn't have brought all of the 5G broadband to -- basically, out into the public and presented it to you guys, you wouldn't have been at this point. And I think that's sickening. You know, so the way we -- again, I didn't get a chance to say enough at the last. But we have got to change the way we do business in this town. And I don't know what that's going to take. So hopefully you guys can answer that as you answer all the stuff for 5G. So in broadband, and protecting our residents, because that's all everybody's trying to do out here is protect this town that we all love. So where that's getting sidestepped by a select few in this -- in these four walls, I have no idea. Boy, I wish somebody could explain it to me. So please, you know, take a look at doing the best you can for Fountain Hills, please. TROLLER: Lori Troller, resident. Let me tell you 16-2 right now, if we don't touch that, you guys put a 40-foot tower in my ROW and that falls and hits my driveway, or my kids are playing basketball, pins my kid under one of those towers, and it catches fire like they do when they fall, I'm suing the people who built it, I'm suing the people who own it, and I'm suing the town that allowed it. You guys don't have insurance for that. There is no such insurance. If you don't update 16.2, that is what you're doing to every homeowner in this community. You are also lowering their property value. Enough said on that. The environment, when this law came into place, the federal government told every community, call a state of emergency, you're going to write an ordinance, you're going to slam this in there, you're going to slam it in there so much, it's not even an ordinance it's a resident -- it's a resolution, and just get it in there. We want towers everywhere. They were doing this as fast as they can. So in -- in the government in how you slam laws in like that, that's how you do that. They were told -- they then said, hey, we know this is above all your heads. We're going to give you a template -- a template ordinance, which is what we have. The ordinance TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 52 of 62 we have right now is something the federal government gave us not to protect our homes, but to flood the entire communities with towers, so broadband's everywhere, they were going underground. There's so many grant programs to do it underground. It's happening too slow. So no, let's do it faster. Let's ruin everybody's property values and expose people in the process. That was the environment of our first law when it came in. When Marissa (ph.) presented that, she came up here, this very place, and said, no, please help me when I'm wrong. I don't know what I'm doing. Nobody on the council know what they were doing. Mr. Magazine was against it. People were calling it lemon laws. That's our law right now. That's what you're not updating when you don't update 16-2. The federal government told them --- told every community, roll that out separately. Roll it out into 17 and 16; that's what they told our community. Put it in ROW. The reason is, it's easier to get it through as is to cover things it does -- to cover things with towers. It doesn't protect us. We can protect us. We have the ability to do this. The government said, okay, here it is. If you know how to do it, go ahead and do it. But you don't. So take our template and do it this way. So this fact that it's in this Code or that Code that was done on purpose. Please change it. Please protect us. Please. MAYOR DICKEY: I have a just a couple questions about the state statute. I don't know, John, so you -- the 40-foot thing got my attention, but I know that these things are spelled out in state statute, and I don't see anything that we can do. I mean, not subject to zoning review and approval. New small wireless facilities are not subject to zoning review and approval. This isn't in our code. This is state statute. An authority shall approve an application unless they find its -- oh, and it has to have, like, where if it fell down, it wouldn't hit anything and that kind of thing. And it does give us those sort of options. Design option, public safety, we do have underground requirements already. So anyway, I don't know if you have any answers to any of that. But Aaron? ARNSON: Well, the one thing that I -- there are a couple things that I want to clarify. Chapter 16 only has to do with small cell wireless facilities in the right-of-way. It doesn't talk about towers. It doesn't talk about -- that's what we're talking about in other TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 53 of 62 chapters that Planning and Zoning is dealing with right now. So expanding the scope of review doesn't help with that. I mean, just open Section 16-2 and that's about small wireless facilities. With respect to -- I know we've had conversations about fall zones and, John, maybe you can give a little bit more detail. But in terms of the actual structures themselves, I mean, we can require those things for towers. But it's not the act of changing an ordinance itself, doesn't get to structural integrity, I guess. So those were two clarifying points that I wanted to make. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Vice Mayor? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I'd like to do, like, a 30,000-foot view, and then I'll go into more of what we're discussing here. And the 30,000-foot view, I think there's a lot of merit to what Lori and a lot of people say. There's an adage in law, if you're going to look for justice, don't go to the courts. Okay. What does that mean? It's kind of provocative. If the law school that I want to, SIU School of Law, the Lesar Law Building, on the front of that building is said, "We are a nation of laws, not of men". And I looked at that and it was kind of a foreign concept. What do you mean we're a nation of laws, not of men. Well, if Lori brought her 40-foot tower that was going to be built in front of her mailbox and brought that to the mayor and said, Ms. Mayor, I don't want you to build that 40-foot tower in front of my house. Here's a picture of it. Here's my family. The mayor might say, yeah, you're right. Let's not build that one. That would be a nation of men. We, the mayor, would make on a case-by- case basis, the laws. But that's not the system that we're in. We're in a system of law, and the law is what the law is. If you look at the Chapter 17 of our Zoning Ordinance that provides the rules and regulations regarding the wireless telecommunications towers and antennas, if you go down to 16-2, that's the regulation of small cell facilities. And they're codified in 16-2. When you look at the duties of the commission, the duties of the Planning and Zoning Commission do not include reviewing or making recommendations to other portions of the town code. They are tasked with what the town gives them to look at, and so they can't work outside of their jurisdiction. They TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 54 of 62 have to -- they have to deal with what we give them. If you look -- and, again, this is what -- this is what the mayor said at A.R.S. 9-591, small wireless facility. It gives the whole thing A.R.S. 9-572 new, replaced, modified utility poles associated with the collection of small wireless facilities. This is not subject to zoning review by local municipalities. If you look at J, new small wireless facilities located on the utility pole or wireless support structure, they are not subject to zoning review and approval. This whole thing is replete with prohibitions of what we can do. And we have to follow the law. We can't just say, I don't think this is fair, I don't like it, it doesn't make sense to me. We follow the law. And so that is exactly what we're doing here. It does give us the authority under Section E, to adopt reasonable requirements regarding appearance and concealment of cell facilities, including those relating to materials for screening, landscaping, that sort of thing, and also with setbacks. And we're doing that. And when these applications come in, I'm sure Director Wesley would always be keeping those things in mind. So we have the best looking, nicest looking town that we can have. It -- MAYOR DICKEY: Brenda, can I interrupt you a minute? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Of course. MAYOR DICKEY: Because when you say adopt setback, it says adopt setback or fall zone requirements that are substantially similar to setback or fall zone requirements that are imposed on other types of commercial structures of a similar height. So it does -- I just want to make sure I said the fall zone part. VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Good. Good. Yeah. And so I guess what I'm saying is, this combining of 16 and 17 would be combining something that we have absolutely no jurisdiction of, as compared to 17, which -- there is some room to maneuver there. So I know it sounds upsetting that we just can't sit here and do what we want to do, but we are bound by state law and we're doing the best that we can. This was one of the things that when we first got together, we were just trying to protect the homeowners. But the more and more we reached into this, we realized that a lot of this is regulated by the federal law and more onerously by the state law. And so when Ed says, I don't TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 55 of 62 know what we're going to do, we need to change. Well, you've got to go to the state, you've got to go to your state legislature, you got to go to your senators, and you got to go to your state representatives because we're taking their directive. We're not making this up. So thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman. TOTH: The first thing I want to say is I want to make it extraordinarily clear there is not a single person in this room asking us to break the law, or who wants us to break the law. Secondly, Article 16-2 was originally in the scope of this project. The original thing that got me talking about this issue were the small cell units. That is the very first thing I learned about. It only makes sense for that to be a part of this project. Considering Article 16-2 and Chapter 17 were the original scope of this project, I want this to be a part of what Planning and Zoning is looking at. If they then come to the conclusion that they don't have updates for that, okay. But the project itself included these two. The article of the Town Code and the Chapter 17 of our zoning ordinance. With that, I move that -- I move that we move forward with option 3, which would be leaving things as they are, but direct the Commission to review and provide recommendations to both Chapter 17 of the Zoning Ordinance and Article 16-2 of the Town Code, along with the associated documents. Thank you. FRIEDEL: Second. MCMAHON: I'd like to discuss, please. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. MCMAHON: Can I make a comment, please? MAYOR DICKEY: You may. MCMAHON: Thank you. I listened to everything they say, and I agree with Brenda and her legal research. And in addition, if you look at Article 2-A-5, which is about the Planning and Zoning Commission, the main word that it uses is "recommends". It serves at the behest of the council. It is strictly an advisory commission, not a policy setter. In fact, G prohibits the merging of these two ordinances because it states that the commission member shall not interfere with or participate in the administrative duties TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 56 of 62 of the town's Developmental Services Department. The actions that we're talking about for the town to make decisions about the right-of-way, et cetera, about the town's property is policymaking, which is the council's responsibility. And in addition, it is part of the director's job and administrative duties to handle that matter. It is not up to P&Z, so I am not for merging these two together. There is a distinct difference between the two, and not only does state law prohibit it, but our very Planning and Zoning Articles prohibit it as well. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? TOTH: It's clear to me that once again, the writing's on the wall for this. So I suppose we should just go ahead and vote. But what I will add is that my fellow councilwoman, Ms. McMahon, is absolutely correct. The Planning and Zoning Commission is an advisory commission. These two items on the agenda tonight were to allow them to give us the full advice for this issue. I hope that my fellow councilmembers make the correct decision, but I think I know where this is going. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? FRIEDEL: And I think number 3 clearly says leave it the way it is. We're not combining the two of them. Says leave things as they are but direct the Commission to review and provide recommendations to both Chapter 17 and 16-2. It doesn't say anything about combining. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just kind of let the conversation go, and -- but I will renew, where -- what tools can we give Planning and Zoning to help us craft a better ordinance? I'm kind of curious to hear an input on that. MAYOR DICKEY: I mean, I'm not going to -- I don't want to step out of turn or whatever, but I think the clear direction was to take certain things that we have learned in and out of executive session, staff, including John, and who's helping him out with this, to create something that would then go to Planning and Zoning. That's the tool. That's what we told them to do. And they go to Planning and Zoning. Planning and Zoning can you know, make amendments and motions, and do everything like we can. Then what they TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 57 of 62 come up with comes to us. That's the -- and then we can change it, accept it, just like anything else. I don't know -- I don't believe that this is any different than anything that we ever do with them. So I think that is the tool. The tool is what we decided together as a council, and that was the clear direction, and that's what we're waiting for. To get back the ordinance and the language, the hybrid, whatever we want to call it, that John and staff have put together and give it to Planning and Zoning for their consideration. And then we'll get that back, we will consider it as well. That's the tool. That's what we do. Brenda? Vice Mayor? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. And yeah, to just finish your thought. I have gone to all the Planning and Zoning sessions and Director John, he's done a marvelous job with this hybrid ordinance, presenting it to Planning and Zoning and to try to get them to flesh out the very best ordinance that they could do with the hybrid, with the Campanelli verbiage, with our town verbiage, and he's given it to them to mold into a better ordinance. Unfortunately, though, every time I've witnessed the Planning and Zoning, the either want to hire more experts or they want to delve into different sections of the Zoning Ordinance, which, if they didn't do that, if they again, if they stuck with what they were tasked with doing and working with Director Weldy to make the best of what they can with the remnants of the Campanella ordinance and our town ordinance, I think that that's the direction they should be taking. Instead of, like what Councilwoman McMahon said, trying to form policy, hire experts, and kind of do our job. MAYOR DICKEY: There's a motion and a second on the table. Is there any further discussion? Can we get a roll call, please? Oh. Do you want, Councilwoman? MCMAHON: Yeah, I want clarification. So what the motion you made is to agree for for number 3 and to -- which includes allowing the Commission to review and provide recommendations for 17 and for 16-2, that's what's on the table? ARNSON: That's my understanding. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 58 of 62 MCMAHON: Thank you. I just want to make sure that I understand and vote in the correct way. MAYOR DICKEY: Can I get a roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Nay. MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Kalivianakis? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: No. Aaron, do we have to do anything else? ARNSON: No, Mayor, you really don't. We put options in there, but it's kind of like the last one. If you want to maintain the status quo, don't do anything different. There's no further action needed. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Sounds good. Appreciate everybody's passion. Understand that this is not an easy topic. Our next item is approval of a purchasing agreement. I'm sure that's Justin. And there you are. Thank you. WELDY: Madam Mayor, councilmembers. The process of securing or replacing outdated or equipment that was not replaced as part of our capitalization project started really in earnest in 2015 and '16. Working with the council and management, we were able to save monies not purchasing additional vehicles because we no longer TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 59 of 62 had the staff or the need. It took several years, roughly five to seven years, and we were able to secure some of the equipment we needed to address the sediment that occurs as part of any flood water movement. As water moves, it carries sediment, and oftentimes it deposits those sediments in our low flow crossing areas on our roads. But more importantly, it deposits them in all of our pipes and culverts that under cross the roads. Tonight, we're here to discuss a specialized piece of equipment. It's more often than not referred to by a name brand that is popular, which is Bobcat, but the technical term is skid steer. This small piece of equipment, which is specialized in nature, is utilized to remove materials and or move materials in confined spaces. Including but not limited to, larger diameter pipes and box culverts. It can be used for many other things that require the confined space or smaller statue of this type of equipment to get into the area, whether it's a wash or something necessary in a park. As we were planning for that for a considerable amount of time. This item has been placed on the budget consideration for a town manager for approximately five years. As that budget process played through, due to budget constraints and other concerns, the item never made it into a budget. This particular year, we got really, really close to making it into a budget until the tandem CFOs discovered that the fund that we would be using to purchase the equipment, the environmental fund, a strong recommendation was to utilize that funding for its intended purpose, and then close that down, because there was not a dedicated funding source. The town manager suggested and asked for an opinion related to whether or not we could buy it this year to follow the direction in regards to the fund and secure this badly needed piece of equipment. As part of this planning, and it's been a little bit frustrating for me over the years, it has become increasingly difficult due to the incredible amount of growth in this valley, to secure a simple piece of equipment in a timely manner when you need it. One of the questions that we received above my pay grade was, can you secure one in advance when you know there's bad weather coming? We certainly can if it's available. More often than not, it's not available, which puts additional pressure on the staff to perform the duties that are necessary. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 60 of 62 In closing I'm asking for your permission for this consideration, this piece of equipment will be strongly utilized, but not primarily for flood mitigation and cleanup measures and other duties related to that. Lastly, and directly tied to this, we have a tractor that is going to be surplus'ed out. It has reached its life expectancy, and it is now beginning to cost more to maintain it and operate it than its value. There is some discussion in regards to what the best need for that surplus tractor would be. Either sell it at auction at a relatively low fee, or possibly work with the school district on a trade because they could utilize this because they would not need it as often. So there is a little bit of an offset one direction or another. We could either sell the surplus piece of equipment. The amount that it would sell for would be unknown, or we could provide support to the local school for something they need. That's the discussion that the town manager will have as we move forward in this process. With that, included in this purchase, but not in tonight's agreement, is the trailer that is necessary to move this small piece of equipment around. It's a smaller dollar threshold in the amount of just under $20,000. So while we're purchasing this small piece of equipment, with your permission, we're purchasing the trailer to move it with the town manager's permission and in her authority. And I wanted to put that in there simply because we need the trailer to move it around, it's not something that you would drive down the street. With that, if there are any questions, I will certainly do my best to answer them. SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, of course, I'd yield to any questions or comments or anything, but I'd make a motion to approve the skid steer purchase and accompanying attachments components. TOTH: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards? MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Further discussion on this item? Okay. We have a motion in a second. Could we have a roll call? MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 61 of 62 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? VICE MAYOR KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. Thanks a lot. TRIMBLE: You're welcome. MAYOR DICKEY: Appreciate it. Our next item is a legislative bulletin, and something might have happened today, but I don't really know, I think. No? Okay. Because I know they did something. I don't have -- unless I check my phone while I still kind of have my phone. But -- does anybody have any discussion? Because we didn't have any calls, really, I don't think. Did we, Sharron? GRZYBOWSKI: I heard nothing. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. And then I think we will probably want to talk about the benches a little bit more, either within us or to try to figure out exactly what happened with that. GOODWIN: I think that's a good idea. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you. Yes. FRIEDEL: Is it possible you could have that video shared to the council? The one that they did on the mayor? GOODWIN: The one down the (indiscernible)? FRIEDEL: Yeah. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 4, 2024 TOWN COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 62 of 62 GOODWIN: Yeah. Sure. FRIEDEL: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, yeah. That's good. I think I actually have that on YouTube. Do we have any future agenda items? We only have one more meeting. All right. Thank you all very much. Appreciate your time. Good night.