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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAGENDApacket__03-27-24_1229_590       NOTICE OF MEETING REGULAR MEETING STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION   Chairman Patrick Garman  Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta Commissioner Randy Crader Commissioner Bernie Hoenle Commissioner Jill Keefe Commissioner Joseph Reyes Commissioner Phil Sveum    TIME:4:00 P.M. – REGULAR MEETING WHEN:WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2024 WHERE:FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL CHAMBERS 16705 E. AVENUE OF THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ Commissioners of the Town of Fountain Hills will attend either in person or by telephone conference call; a quorum of the Town’s Council,  various Commission, Committee or Board members may be in attendance at the Commission meeting. Notice is hereby given that pursuant to A.R.S. §1-602.A.9, subject to certain specified statutory exceptions, parents have a right to consent before the State or any of its political subdivisions make a video or audio recording of a minor child. Meetings of the Commission are audio and/or video recorded and, as a result, proceedings in which children are present may be subject to such recording. Parents, in order to exercise their rights may either file written consent with the Town Clerk to such recording, or take personal action to ensure that their child or children are not present when a recording may be made. If a child is present at the time a recording is made, the Town will assume that the rights afforded parents pursuant to A.R.S. §1-602.A.9 have been waived.        REQUEST TO COMMENT   The public is welcome to participate in Commission meetings. TO SPEAK TO AN AGENDA ITEM, please complete a Request to Comment card, located in the back of the Council Chambers, and hand it to the Executive Assistant prior to discussion of that item, if possible. Include the agenda item on which you wish to comment. Speakers will be allowed three contiguous minutes to address the Commission. Verbal comments should be directed through the Presiding Officer and not to individual Commissioners. TO COMMENT ON AN AGENDA ITEM IN WRITING ONLY, please complete a Request to Comment card, indicating it is a written comment, and check the box on whether you are FOR or AGAINST and agenda item, and hand it to the Executive Assistant prior to discussion, if possible.             Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting of March 27, 2024 1 of 2 1.CALL TO ORDER – Chairman Garman     2.ROLL CALL – Chairman Garman     3.CALL TO THE PUBLIC Pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.01(H), public comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i) must be within the jurisdiction of the Commission, and (ii) is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The Commission will not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. At the conclusion of the Call to the Public, individual commissioners may (i) respond to criticism, (ii) ask staff to review a matter, or (iii) ask that the matter be placed on a future Commission agenda.     4.REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER     5.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of February 28, 2024.     6.UPDATE: Fountain Hills Fire Department by Chief Dave Ott     7.UPDATE: Commission Workgroups     8.DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics.    9.COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN     10.NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 2024.    11.ADJOURNMENT     CERTIFICATE OF POSTING OF NOTICE The undersigned hereby certifies that a copy of the foregoing notice was duly posted in accordance with the statement filed by the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission with the Town Clerk. Dated this  21st day of  March, 2024. _____________________________________________  Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant The Town of Fountain Hills endeavors to make all public meetings accessible to persons with disabilities. Please call 480-816-5199 (voice) or 1-800-367-8939 (TDD) 48 hours prior to the meeting to request a reasonable accommodation to participate in the meeting or to obtain agenda information in large print format. Supporting documentation and staff reports furnished the Commission with this agenda are available for review in the Town Manager's Office.    Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting of March 27, 2024 2 of 2 ITEM 4. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:03 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024  ITEM 5. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of February 28, 2024. Staff Summary (Background) The intent of approving meeting minutes is to ensure an accurate account of the discussion and action that took place at the meeting for archival purposes. Approved minutes are placed on the town's website and maintained as permanent records in compliance with state law.   Staff Recommendation(s) Staff recommends approving the minutes of the regular meeting on February 28, 2024. SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to approve the minutes of the regular meeting on February 28, 2024. Attachments SUMMARY MINUTES AND VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT  Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:03 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024  TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION February 28, 2024 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Patrick Garman called to order the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission at 4:01 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL Members Present: Chairman Patrick Garman; Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta; Commissioner Randy Crader; Commissioner Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Joseph Reyes; Commissioner Phil Sveum Members Absent: Commissioner Jill Keefe Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Executive Assistant Angela Padgett- Espiritu 3. CALL TO THE PUBLIC Pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.01(H), public comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i) must be within the jurisdiction of the Council, and (ii) is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The Council will not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. At the conclusion of the Call to the Public, individual councilmembers may (i) respond to criticism, (ii) ask staff to review a matter, or (iii) ask that the matter be placed on a future Council agenda. No one from the public spoke. 4. UPDATE: New Commissioner New Commissioner Randy Crader moved to Fountain Hills with his wife and daughter to escape the cold weather and improve their lives. The community's beauty and caring nature attracted him and his family. 5. REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Commissioner Crader: o No report. Commissioner Hoenle: o No report. Vice Chair Yazzetta: o No report. Commissioner Reyes: o The town has experienced numerous events, including the concourse, art festival, and council meetings, which have been highlights for the past 30 days. Commissioner Sveum: o No report. Executive Assistant Padgett-Espiritu: o No report. Town Manager Goodwin: o Strategic plan update: Focusing on public orientation and transparency in budgeting. o Budget open house held two Wednesdays ago (Valentine's Day), but no public attendance. o Budget retreat with the council recently completed. o CIP Council Workshop to be hosted at the end of March. o Introduced a fall budget workshop last November. Chair Garman: o The Fair held last weekend was great. 6. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of January 24, 2024. MOVED BY Commissioner Randy Crader to APPROVE the Minutes of January 24, 2024, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Bernie Hoenle. Vote: 6 – 0 passed – Unanimously 7. PRESENTATION: Citizen Advisory Street Committee, by Jerry Butler Jerry Butler: o Presented on behalf of the Citizen's Advisory Streets Committee o Streets affect all 4 strategic priorities - economic development, long-term financial sustainability, public health/safety, and maintaining infrastructure. o The committee assessed condition of all 1,500 street sections using laser technology in 2022. o Overall pavement condition index (PCI) is 69, but many residential streets are below that. o Estimated $40 million needed to get all streets above PCI 70 "threshold" to allow sustainable maintenance. o Bonds may be the only viable option to fund repairs, past bond/tax measures failed. o Broken down into $5M for arterials, $9M for collectors, $25M for local/alleys, $10M for intersections/signals. Chair Garman: o Questioned pace of spending $40M and ability of town staff to handle work. o Asked about separating maintenance vs. reconstruction costs for potential bonding. o Questioned how gas tax revenues factor into street funding. Commissioner Hoenle: o Emphasized complexity of assessing and planning street repairs o The noted $5M annual "windfall" revenue will end soon, creating budget gap. o Cited 2021 survey showing 60% would support bonds for streets. Vice Chair Yazzetta: o Requested making detailed report/maps publicly available to inform citizens. o Suggested using visual street condition maps color-coded by grade. Commissioner Sveum: o Questioned accounting for inflation in $40M estimate. o Asked if bonds require public vote (they do) o Emphasized need to estimate cost per homeowner to gain public support. Commissioner Reyes: o Noted gas tax revenue gets divided for other transit purposes before reaching municipalities. Town Manager Goodwin: o Explained budget implications of changes to state shared revenues. o Differentiated using bonds for reconstruction vs. pay-as-you-go for maintenance 8. UPDATE: Commission Workgroups. Vice Chair Yazzetta: o The workshop is scheduled for Saturday, April 20th. o They will start marketing the event in March through social media, local newspapers, and flyers around the community. o Their goal is to get 100 participants. o A more robust update will be provided in the March meeting before the open house in April. o Will notify Angela about the potential quorum at the workshop. Chair Garman: o Excited about the format of the workshop, where participants move through different stations and provide their opinions. o Conducting organizational outreach:  Briefed the Chamber of Commerce board on February 14th.  Addressed the Lions Club on February 6th.  Presented to and interacted with Plat 208, a local group.  Tried to contact the Avenue Merchants Association but did not receive a response.  Plans to reach out to the VFW, American Legion, Four Peaks Rotaries, and Sunset Kiwanis in the future. o Estimates they have addressed over 100 people through organizational outreach so far. o Will present the information collected from workshops, organizational outreach, and meetings to identify strategic priorities in the May and June meetings. 9. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. Commissioner Hoenle: o The topic of the "Blue Zone"- group in Fountain Hills interested in pursuing the Blue Zone agenda. o Suggested finding out who the leadership is in Fountain Hills for this and having them come address incentives and steps they are taking. Chair Garman: o Confirmed being in contact with the “Blue Zone” group in Fountain Hills - to come give a briefing. o Suggested revisiting implementation of the current strategic plan and asked Town Manager Goodwin to work on having department heads brief on how they are implementing items from the strategic plan. Town Manager Goodwin: o Asked if Chair Garman prefers having department heads present individually or present by topic area from the strategic plan. o Asked if Garman wants this started as soon as the next meeting in March. Chair Garman: o Confirmed preference for individual department head presentations. o Said yes to starting strategic plan implementation updates in March if possible. 10. COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN Chair Garman: o Plans to hold a workshop in April and present data on strategic planning at the April meeting. o Aims to identify strategic pillars (main topics) by June. o Emphasizes the need for clear communication and avoiding speculation. o Asked for comments from the commission. Commissioner Sveum: o Requests a discussion on the financial implications of the street project at the March meeting to prepare for the April workshop. o Believes commission members need to be informed about potential costs before engaging with citizens. Town Manager Goodwin: o Suggests sharing existing presentations on the street project to provide more details. o Acknowledges the importance of addressing resident concerns about costs and timelines. o Offers to share cost estimates and other information to help commission members communicate effectively. 11. NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 2024. 12. ADJOURNMENT MOVED BY Vice Chairman Yazzetta to ADJOURN the meeting of the February 28, 2024, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Reyes. Vote: 6 – 0 passed – Unanimously Chairman Garman adjourned the regular meeting at 5:35 p.m. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 1 of 42 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes February 28, 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 FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 2 of 42 GARMAN: All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to call to order this Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission, on Wednesday, February 28th, 2024. So welcome everyone. So going to move on to agenda item number 2, which is a roll call. So Angela, can you help us out with that? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Sure. Chair Garman. GARMAN: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Vice Chair Yazzetta. YAZZETTA: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Crader. CRADER: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Hoenle. HOENLE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Reyes. REYES: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner -- SVEUM: Sveum. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: -- Sveum. SVEUM: Yes. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Thank you. And Commissioner Keefe will not be with us today. GARMAN: That's right. So we're just missing Jill today. Okay. But we do have a quorum for the transcript, right? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Correct. GARMAN: Yeah. Okay. Moving on now to call to the public. I don't know if we have anybody in person that wanted to make a comment before we start, or anybody submit any comments to you, Angela, beforehand? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: No, they have not. GARMAN: Okay. One of these days we're going to get some. I've been outreach, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 3 of 42 talking to organizations. I give them all our email address for the Town, so hopefully -- do you -- you monitor that email address, right? It's -- PADGETT-ESPIRITU: I do. GARMAN: -- backed up. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: I do. I do. Haven't received anything -- GARMAN: Okay. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: -- yet though, unfortunately. GARMAN: Thank you. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Okay. GARMAN: All right. So we're going to move down to agenda item 4, and that is introductions for our newest commissioner. So Craig (ph.), this is the opportunity for you to give us a little short introduction of yourself -- CRADER: Sure. GARMAN: -- to the Commission. CRADER: Yep. My name is Randy Crader. I moved here about a year ago with my wife and daughter from Chicago, and a tour of pretty much every state in the Midwest, with the goal of wanting to escaping some of the cold weather but also trying to deliver something a little bit of a better life for her. A little bit of space in a community that cared, and we found that in Fountain Hills. It's a beautiful place. Obviously very special, but it's a community where people care, and that's really what drew us in, and what drew me to serve on this Commission itself is helping to guide the future of it to ensure that more families feel like I did and that we can all grow together. So that's me. GARMAN: All right. Thank you very much. So our next agenda item is when our commissioners usually have reports or comments that they would like to relay to the rest of the commissioners here. And I know you just did introductions, and we just said hello to you, but I didn't know if there's anything you wanted on the record as far as a report, or anything you've noticed in your short time here? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 4 of 42 CRADER: Not at this time. GARMAN: I thought I'd give you the opportunity. Thanks. CRADER: Thank you though. Thank you. GARMAN: All right. Bernie? HOENLE: Nothing new this time. GARMAN: Nothing, okay. Geoff? YAZZETTA: Nothing from me. REYES: Except for all the -- GARMAN: Joe? REYES: -- wonderful things that have happened in the town, from the concourse to -- what was that? Oh, the art festival, how could you miss that? And council meetings, that's pretty much my highlights for the last 30 days. Thank you. SVEUM: Nothing to report. GARMAN: Sorry. SVEUM: Nothing to report. GARMAN: Yeah, Phil. Angela, you usually don't. Do you have anything you wanted to put out? No? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: No. Nothing to report. Thank you. GARMAN: Rachel? GOODWIN: Just real quick for the update of the -- a little bit of the strategic plan, one of the initiatives indicates that we're going to be working to be more public oriented and transparent with our budgeting process. So the budget open house was last Wednesday -- no, two Wednesdays ago. Valentine's Day. It was on Valentine's Day. We had a grand total of zero people from the public join us, unfortunately. I think that was a little bit on our side in that it was not only Valentine's Day but also Ash Wednesday. We need to do a little better job of forecasting that next time we host that. So we'll take that as a learning -- a learning moment. GARMAN: Yeah. Okay. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 5 of 42 GOODWIN: We also hosted our budget retreat yesterday with the council, so that is, again, a big, sort of, milestone as we move through the budget year. So that was yesterday. Later, at the end of March, we'll be hosting the CIP, and we'll be continuing through the spring with the budget process. GARMAN: Is there a -- is this their loan -- what did you call it? Workshop for the council? Usually they have a day or two, right? GOODWIN: They do. So what we -- it is at the mayor's discretion. She wanted to do it all in one day. Sometimes we do break it up. This year we introduced a fall workshop which was held in November. And that was, sort of, to try something new. Again, from the staff perspective, everything comes at us real fast in the -- in the early spring, sort of February, March, April, to get the budget together. And when you present it, and the council says, well, what about this? Could you look into that? We have about a six- week window to pivot hard if they come in with something. So I'd rather get a feeling of what that might be, maybe in November, so that we have enough lead time to present it, do some research, find out if it's got traction, and then come in with, you know, suggestions and ideas. So we had our November retreat. We had our February retreat. And then we'll be talking budget, kind of -- there's the CIP workshop is, again, the March 26th. There's the actual budget workshop which is in early April. And then they begin the adoption process at the end of April through May into June. So it is their big chance to talk about things, but it's not their only chance, by all means. GARMAN: Bernie, I see your light on. Oh, you changed your mind. SVEUM: Can I ask you a question? GOODWIN: Oh, all right. GARMAN: Yeah, Phil. SVEUM: Rachael, what's the schedule for the referendum on the target plan? Was that -- will that be in the -- which election will that be in? GOODWIN: Well, there's an update as of this afternoon that a notice was published to the petitioners, as well as the council, as well as a public statement, that the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 6 of 42 referendum effort was actually disqualified and deemed invalid. SVEUM: Oh. GOODWIN: So that is somewhat breaking news. SVEUM: Sorry, I didn't mean to -- GOODWIN: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] SVEUM: I honestly -- GOODWIN: Very timely. No, it's -- but it is -- it is news -- SVEUM: Oh. GOODWIN: -- and there will be a press release, it's out, actually, now. So as of -- as of this afternoon, maybe an hour ago, so super timely. But yes. So to answer your question, that referendum effort won't be on a ballot. SVEUM: Can I ask why? [LAUGHTER] GOODWIN: You can. The -- SVEUM: Is that a leading question? GOODWIN: The -- so ARS statutes guide what we have to do, right? It's -- there's -- it is very strict, and there's no wiggle room so to speak. It is -- it is maximum compliance; it is what it is. It is black and white. We follow the steps; the steps are the steps. One of the requirements is that they all be properly labeled with the correct referendum number on both the front and back, and they were not. Thus they were disqualified. Each page -- each submission, each sheet, basically, has to have it. Each sheet was checked; unfortunately, it looks like all sheets were inaccurate, and therefore, they're disqualified. SVEUM: So they didn't follow the rules. GOODWIN: They did not follow the procedures. Correct. Um-hum. SVEUM: Wow. Thank you. GOODWIN: Absolutely. If you'd like a copy of the press release forwarded, we can certainly send that out to (indiscernible) if you'd like. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 7 of 42 GARMAN: Yeah. This is breathing and not talking. That's what I'm doing. Okay. I did have one comment earlier, Angela, when, Phil, you went, and I didn't call you, just because on the notes, I just -- I guess this might be from the minutes, but the -- you still have Cynthia Magazine (ph.) on here as a commissioner. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Oh my gosh. GARMAN: On the front page. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: I know. GARMAN: I was -- I was reading through those, and I got to Phil, and I was like, it is Cynthia; that's why. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Joe brought that to my attention -- GARMAN: Okay. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: -- and I was like, you are absolutely correct. I am so sorry. I made the correction. GARMAN: Okay. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: So it's correct on what you see, and it's correct on what we have in the back. That's just the template we use in our system. Unfortunately, it doesn't integrate with any changes I make in there, so we have to manually make those, and that is something I just -- it slipped by me. So I apologize. But it's corrected now, so it's fixed. But thank you. GARMAN: Okay. Thank you all for the discussion. I did want to bring up for the minutes as well, and I know I'll have this more at the end, but this is something someone else brought up. The fair, you know, last weekend, what a great -- that was great. I know probably most of us here volunteered in some fashion for the -- for the fair. So I thought that was really successful, and the weather was great. So you know, for however the Town did, and I know the -- I know the chambers supported that as well, right -- supports that. So awesome. Awesome experience at Fountain Hills. Okay. So we're going to move on to the next, which is consideration of possible action. And this is for our minutes for the last meeting, which is January 24th. Open it up, does anybody have any comments or discussion points, potential edits, for TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 8 of 42 the minutes? All right. Hearing none, do we have a motion as far as a consideration or approval of the minutes? CRADER: Move to approve. GARMAN: Can I have a second? HOENLE: Second. GARMAN: Thanks, Bernie. All right. So again, I'm going to open up for discussion. The motion on the table is to approve the minutes from the January 24th, 2024 meeting. Any discussion points to my left? To my right? All right. We'll go on to a vote. All in favor of approving minutes, say "Aye". CRADER: Aye. ALL: Aye. GARMAN: Any opposed? It is unanimous. Thank you very much for doing the minutes, Angela. As always, very much appreciate it. Okay. So now we're going to go to our main presentation today. Today we're going to have -- come on up, Jerry -- a presentation. Those of you know, and please help me, Bernie or Rachael, describe this, but there is the issue of the streets in Fountain Hills, and the different conditions, and the funding to review those streets. So I think the Town orchestrated a volunteer committee, right? A committee of volunteer citizens, concerned citizens, to get together, meet, and come up, maybe, with some course of action, do a background, and provide some course of action, some information to the council. I know your committee has briefed the council, a while ago, and I know some of our commissioners wanted to be able to, you know, hear that report and ask some questions, have a discussion. And Jerry volunteered his time to come and give us the presentation today, and we very much appreciate it. So thank you very much. From the -- the current SPAC to a former generation SPAC member, thank you very much for addressing our Commission today. BUTLER: Well, thank you, Patrick, for inviting us, the committee here. I have one other TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 9 of 42 member with me besides Bernie. Out here in the audience is Mark Graham (ph.). Mark also served on the committee. A little bit of my background is I'm a retired civil engineer, so streets have been an integral part of my life over the years. And as an engineer, we live and die with numbers, and I decided because this is planning, strategic planning, I would not bore you with too many numbers, and I would not try to bore you with a lot of details unless you want to dig into them. And Randy, having come from Chicago, you probably think our streets are fine. CRADER: I do. [LAUGHTER] CRADER: I think they're actually immaculate, comparably. BUTLER: And therein is going to be part of the problem facing strategic planning and streets. Because everyone -- most everyone that's here in our community came from another community where streets were a lot worse. And what we call potholes, no, no, no. You can't fish in our potholes, but they could in theirs. So Patrick asked me to come and give an overview of streets, and I decided, in putting this presentation together, I would try to relate it to what's in your strategic plan. I set up there on the dias 18 years ago, on the first strategic planning Commission. So it's come a long ways, I've seen the transition, and to be able to get your primary initiatives down to four is remarkable from where we started. So with that, here are your four strategic priorities that were established and approved by the council in 2022. And I think if you get int each one of them, into the details, you'll find out that streets affect all of the four. Yes, it impacts our economic development, because if we don't have good streets, who wants to come here? Long-term financial sustainability is a problem that we have with our streets today. Public health or safety is probably another issue that you could say that the streets impacts. But the one that I decided to focus on was your fourth one, which was maintained the current infrastructure. And out of -- in that document that you have now, I pulled out two components that TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 10 of 42 you make a statement that infrastructure plays a vital role in the quality of life, which I concur and I'm going to come back to this at the end of the presentation, and a key one here is we must continue to maintain and prepare the infrastructure for the future. And therein is the bulk of the problem; how do we do that? Within your supporting infrastructure task, you say develop a detailed condition report with a scoring mechanism to evaluate the streets and the upkeep necessary. And I underlined those three because I think those become the critical components as to how streets and strategic planning fit together. In June of last year, the citizens' advisory streets committee did provide a condition report. We went and assessed all of the streets in Fountain Hills, which there are 1,500 different sections of streets that have been analyzed. We looked at funding options and recommendations. And there's a 17-page report that we did file. I chose not to include it and dig into the details of it here for this presentation, but it's readily available on the Town's website if you care to get into the weeds. The scoring mechanism that you spoke of is we used laser technology on every street in town. And on the four lane streets we went both ways, up one way and down the other. And this has now been done three times. The first time was in 2008, ten years later in 2018, and then last year, actually the tests were performed in 2022, but the report was filed in '23. And the reason we did that is the committee first started out trying to use the information from 2018 to take a look at our streets. And what we finally concluded is no two streets are alike. And how one may be deteriorating faster than another, others are not. So to bring it back into perspective, we ask the town council to carry out another study so that we had up to date information. And I'm glad that we did it because it revealed a lot of different things. Now, there's 4.2 million square yards of pavement in our community. The Town's responsible for three and a half. The other 15 percent are in gated communities for which the Town does not have a responsibility, but residents who live there do, in fact. And while I say there's 166 miles, that's center-line miles. Lane miles are over 400. So to give you a perspective, if you were to drive from here to Flagstaff, you would have TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 11 of 42 driven every center-line mile that's in Fountain Hills. So they're all out there, it's a complex network, and the streets are very complex in themselves. As far as scoring, Patrick asked me a question, well, what did we come up with? Well, the thing that the laser technology does is it looks at all of the cracks in the -- on the streets, they look at the ride comfort structural ability, and they assign what's called pavement condition index numbers. A hundred at the top is the best street that you can find. The chances are it doesn't exist; it's theoretical. And the lowest is zero. Most streets never get to zero. And if you were to get into the details of street deterioration as a whole, it's basically an S-curve. At the beginning, starting out at a hundred, a new street, it deteriorates ever so slightly for a number of years until it reaches a 70 number. And generally speaking, at around 70, streets then go into a steep decline. The degradation increases rapidly, and cracks develop quickly. And then, after you pass down below about 40, it tends to flatten out again. So that's the reason for this particular slide here, is to say that if you were to look at streets, chances are everything above 70 most people are going to say they're fine. Randy's probably going to say everything above about a 55 is good. So it's a matter of where you're from, what you're driving on, as to whether you want to say it's marginal or fair or poor. Generally speaking, industry wide, anything below 40 is poor. And there's some -- a term that's used out there that I won't dwell on, it's called backlog. Most streets below 40 are called backlog. The key element that I want to focus on here is the word threshold that I drew at the 70 line. I'm going to come back to that because it's important as we talk about the streets in the future. Now, one of the things that the -- that the committee did is that it did look at everything that's been tried in the past. We went back to the year 2000 to see how the streets have been worked on, repaired, held together, and we decided that we couldn't go back and do what has been done in the past, because the past has not worked. So we wanted to take a whole new approach to looking at the streets and how we present it to our residents. And you can read from Henry Ford had to say years ago, and that's back, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 12 of 42 probably, at the Model T era. We took a different approach. In the past there was always -- they tried to come up with an average PCI, meaning that let's try to get all of the arterial streets, like Shea, let's try to get all of those arterials up to, say, 60. Well, that was fine. The problem is there's always going to be half of those streets below 60. Some are going to be much better than 60, some below 60. Someone is always going to be complaining about a street. Randy won't. So we decided, going forward, let's adopt a threshold PCI approach. Let's get all streets up to that threshold so that above -- the streets, once they reach 70, we can continue to maintain them with sustainable revenues. Right now the sustainable revenues, and I use that term loosely, that we have for our streets has to not only be used for maintenance, it has to be used to repair the streets. And history has shown that doesn't work. That's how we've gone -- got behind since the year 2000. There's another thing that differs us from the consultant who did the study in '23, is they put a lot of emphasis on the pre-incorporated streets, because many of the pre- incorporated streets were built to developer standards before the Town had standards that they had to apply to. The thought was that those streets may need to be reconstructed. And they went into a program this past year, and they're finding out that, no, really, those streets are holding up much better than we expected. So in the consultant's report they had $48 million in there as an estimated cost to replace the pre-incorporated streets. We, as a committee, included $7 million in our report knowing, yes, there are going to be some streets out there that probably need to be totally reconstructed but not to the fullest extent that the consultant had said in their report. HOENLE: Sure. Okay, Jerry's really keeping this at an executive high level. There is a great deal of detail behind it that we went over. We looked at all reports; he personally went through all the data files. There was a change of contractors at the time so things weren't meshing up. There was a lot to support the conclusion that we're coming to in a minute, which takes the dollars to fix the problem. I can add more, but that's enough. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 13 of 42 It's -- there was a lot to this. BUTLER: My wife has joked with friends that said my epitaph is going to say, but he had one more spreadsheet to do. Okay. What we concluded, Bernie, everyone on the committee concluded that without significant additional revenues, we're going to have streets that are going to continue to fail, and maybe to the extent that we won't be able to ever recover, and that's a pretty dire statement. So that's part of your upkeep, and yes, I focused on a lot of that because here's the sustainable revenues that we now have to invest in our streets. They're called state- shared funds, or HURF, if you may have heard of H-U-R-F. And the Town, for the last eight years, has added sales tax, a portion, I think it's .2 percent of sales tax revenues from Town sales taxes now goes into streets. And then matched about $2.12 million that actually makes it to the streets themselves, or is available to go -- to go onto the streets. The citizens' committee concluded that we needed $40 million to reach this threshold level of 70. And that's to ensure that we can upkeep the streets with sustainable revenues after that. GARMAN: Jerry, would you like us to hold questions until the end, or -- BUTLER: No, you -- GARMAN: -- do you want to have a discussion during it? BUTLER: I'm fine, if you want to -- if you have a question, fire away. GARMAN: So is the 2.125 yearly -- BUTLER: Yes. GARMAN: -- revenue? And the $40 million is a total, that's not yearly, right? BUTLER: That's total. GARMAN: All right. BUTLER: In other words, if we had $40 million and magically could fix the streets next year, then we believe that for the next -- for a number of the years following that, we could maintain our streets with $2.125 million. Part of the problem is with bonding, and I'll get into that in a little bit, is bonds are TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 14 of 42 normally associated with reconstruction not maintenance, not ongoing maintenance. And I heard the Public Works director, yesterday, say that bonds can't be used for maintenance. I think they can, but they come at a higher price tag. Is that true? Okay. Thank you. GARMAN: So if the community -- if tomorrow, I don't know, $40 million showed up in the budget for this use solely, how long would it take to actually spend that $40 million on the streets? Like how long to actually, you know, get the man power and the equipment, and get out there and cover all of those miles of streets with that $40 million? BUTLER: Patrick, that becomes a little -- that's a -- GARMAN: A bigger spreadsheet? BUTLER: That's a good question. [LAUGHTER] BUTLER: That's a lot of complex answers. GARMAN: All right. I'm sorry. BUTLER: No, but it's important because if the council decides to go to a bond referendum, these are the kind of questions that are going to be asked by the voters, by the residents. So they're good questions, and we'll have to have answers for them. Personally, I think it could be done in five years. Can the staff handle it? No. Our staff is not big enough to handle it, which might mean that we have to spend a little bit more and hire a consultant or a -- or an employee that comes in for a five year period that takes over or picks up the gap that our staff can't handle. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Like a retired engineer? BUTLER: I'm not looking for a job, I promise you. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible). [LAUGHTER] BUTLER: But is it doable? Sure, anything's doable with a price tag. Can our staff do it? No. They're stretched too thin now. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can I ask a question? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 15 of 42 BUTLER: Sure. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Jerry, what -- how do you define reconstruction versus maintenance when you look at the roles? All of the roles. Was there a percentage that needs to be reconstructed and a percentage that needs -- that would only qualify for maintenance if you were looking at the bond plan? BUTLER: Normally, maintenance is associated with filling cracks in the streets, and in sealing them. If you -- if you were here last year or the year before, Shea is a good example of what happened. All cracks were sealed, and then there was a -- or filled. And then the street was sealed. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The street was sealed. Was (indiscernible). BUTLER: That's maintenance. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. BUTLER: Once you get into milling off some of the pavement and replacing it, called a mill and overlay, now that's reconstruction, repair. And that qualifies for a bond. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So out of the $40 million of projected costs, how -- BUTLER: This is all repairs. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's all maintenance? BUTLER: It's all repairs. What we proposed was what needs to be done in maintenance can still be done but with the two and a half -- or the $2.125 million that the Town has. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. I'm losing you between the repairs and reconstruction then. So -- BUTLER: It's very -- it's very important that we stay on the same track, so -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. BUTLER: -- I'm glad you raised the question. If we fill -- only need to go out and fill cracks and seal the pavement, that's maintenance. If we have to do anything more to it than that, it's repair and we can fix it with -- we'd need bond money to repair the streets. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. So repair and reconstruction are the same? BUTLER: Repair, reconstruction, okay, I can buy it. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 16 of 42 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's kind of where I was wondering -- BUTLER: Yeah. Maintenance. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Totally separate. BUTLER: Totally separate. And we normally think of that above that 70 -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. BUTLER: -- line. GARMAN: If I may, I think if just classifying as reconstruction, that gives the visual of, hey, we're going in, gutting the street, you know, milling the top layer, and reconstructing it. Repairs and maintenance often go together, like in the same bucket so that's why I think some people have trouble separating the two. Whereas a repair is like a thin, like, slurry seal, and then -- I'm sorry, maintenance would be a thin slurry seal, and then repair would be reconstruction, right? So we're all on the same page. BUTLER: Who was here when Saguaro was reconstructed? Okay, little background there. Saguaro was -- all of the asphalt was removed down to the subgrade, and even some of the subgrade was removed and recompacted, and they basically rebuilt the street. That's reconstruction. Repairs are when you take off a part of it and put something back. And there's different depths of repair. You could either take off an inch and put an inch back, or maybe -- hey, guys, a lot of our residential streets are only two inches thick. If we take off all two inches and start over, some people would call that reconstruction. We don't have much to play with here in the way of streets. In Chicago, I'm sure Randy drove on asphalt streets up there that were 10 or 12 inches thick, and they still had potholes. GARMAN: What's the overall PCI grid of the network of roads? BUTLER: It's about 69. GARMAN: Okay. BUTLER: But see, a street like Shea, that is extremely wide, we'll call it six lanes or three lanes in both directions, not quite. That's a lot of square yards. And it's rated very, very high. Well, that pulls that average up, and it's misleading because there are a lot of residential streets that are well below any 69. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 17 of 42 GARMAN: And the current pavement management plan, yeah over year, that 69 will drop to 67, to 65 -- BUTLER: If you don't put more money into the streets and repair them, there's -- that's the only thing that can happen is that average PCI number is going to continue to drop. GARMAN: And how is that pavement management plan -- this might be a question for you, Rachael. How is that broken down? How much money is allocated to maintenance versus repairs and reconstruction? GOODWIN: This is a question that I don't have notes in front of me for. GARMAN: Sorry. GOODWIN: So I'm going to go off of my best memory. And we did talk about this yesterday, and we have talked about this a lot, so -- GARMAN: I haven't had a chance -- GOODWIN: -- Jerry -- GARMAN: -- to get through the video yet. GOODWIN: That's okay. GARMAN: I'll work on that tonight. GOODWIN: Jerry, feel free to jump in here and help me out. But from -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So here's my monthly comment, if this wasn't a verbatim transcript, we would -- you would be able to speak freely, and we would paraphrase. With the transcript, we have to be careful. GOODWIN: Exactly. I still might say it wrong. In -- in a nutshell, we -- we have a little over $2 million that we put towards the roads. Keep in mind that a lot of that is for potholes and repairs. Correct, maintenance. And what I would say is maybe use the idea that are you keeping the road usable, or are you improving its overall rating? If you were to move -- if you were doing enough to it that you were moving that number, you're moving that needle, that would be over and above a repair and maintenance. That would be -- if you're just kind of keeping, holding status quo that would probably be more of a maintenance level. That being said, not all of this, not all 2.125 go towards -- a chunk of that is used for TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 18 of 42 curbing, gutters, drains, some other things that are road related. But most of it goes towards potholes, goes towards repairs, if there's -- you know, if there was a leak or something we had to cut through to get to something underneath. Generally speaking, though, what we have found through all of this is that a little over 2 is not keeping us status quo; we're continuing to sort of have this slow degrade. If we wanted to just hold the status quo at where we are today, I want to say it was closer to 3-1/2 million that we needed each year. Does that sound right? And that -- again, that does nothing to improve us; that just holds the line. In order for us to start making strides, it's closer to 5 million annually to kind of make -- but we're never going to get there. It's going to be, like, 5 million for the next 30 years, 50 years, in order to finally dig ourselves out, and we'll never hit the life cycle till where we're ever done. We'll always continue to be digging out. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sure. Well, that's the nature of infrastructure. You're always -- GOODWIN: Exactly. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- fixing something. GOODWIN: Exactly. So to the point Bernie made, and I know I'm interrupting, but these guys have done an enorminent [sic] amount -- they've done so much work and an immense amount of number crunching, and when he says if you want to get into the weeds and look at that report, it's a lot of weeds. I mean, it's a jungle full of weeds. But it speaks at the level of complexity for this, because you're right, no road is the same. And what you think it is and when you get out there and actually drill, and you go, oh, it's not as bad as you thought, or oh, this is way worse than we thought, or oh, a road like Palomino has been paved eight different sections at eight different times across 20 years. So this section looks great but this section's terrible, but it's all Palomino. So how do you then navigate that? So it's very, very complex. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you. HOENLE: Yeah, question, if I could. GARMAN: Last -- last question. Last question, and then we'll let Jerry continue. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 19 of 42 HOENLE: Okay. So you mentioned you were having some capital improvement plan discussions with the council -- GOODWIN: Uh-huh. HOENLE: -- and how important was this issue in looking at a big number like that? GOODWIN: It is very important. And obviously we -- this is not the first time they've discussed it. They have -- they've had the presentation from the committee, I want to say it was probably early fall that we talked about it. We talked about it again late fall, they talked about it in January at a council meeting. We talked about it yesterday. So it's a -- it's a continual conversation, and I think each time they talk about it, it's, what are we going to do; I'm not sure. What do you think we should do? Well, can you look at this? And so sometimes we get sent back to look at more details, can you answer a few more questions. So it's sort of a bites at the apple, if you will. Yesterday's conversation was really around the idea of funding. Are we going to try to find the money in the existing budget? We used the euphemism of tightening your belt. Are you going to tighten your belt to find some of this? If you are, what does that look like, how do you do that, what are you willing to do without, can you use year-end surplus, can you -- you know, anything that we didn't get done, if there's extras at the end of the year, do you just put that towards it. If you do, understand that's a very elastic thing. If our economy changes, if we go through a dip, you know, all of those things -- it's a very volatile thing. Do we -- do we forego some programs or some services in order to create savings. And again, you're still looking at a number that no matter how much belt tightening you do, it's a -- it's a number that's hard to get to. So then, of course, we talk about the idea, well, then does that require a bond? If we do a bond, it requires a council approval, and then you have to decide how much you're going to ask for, and what does that look like. So I think there was some -- some consensus yesterday that everyone on the dias kind of commented that a bond will probably be necessary to some capacity. It's the question of what number? How much is the Town -- how much can we put in as the Town, from our budget? And then what do we need to close the gap? How much -- and what is the tolerance there from our TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 20 of 42 community. Does that sound right, Jerry? You heard that conversation. BUTLER: I heard it. GOODWIN: So that's what they -- that's what they continue to talk about. They have not landed on a final direction to kind of sum that up. HOENLE: And from my point of view, in working on the committee and listening to the council debates, is that there's a bit of a understatement when it comes to the funding because of operating with the $5 million that, in my terms, it's like a windfall, but it's added that we get in the budget because of the pandemic and everything else that came up. So we're really operating above and beyond where we planned to be because of the extra money added. That runs out here real soon, and all of this is going to hit at once. GARMAN: Jerry, we're going to let you continue. That was a good discussion. BUTLER: Okay. Let's look back at the past. Since 2008 we've had three different consultants analyze our streets with the same technology, and they've all three come up with the same result. More funds are needed. In 2008 was probably the first time that a major -- a property tax was brought up to help also fund the streets. It did some other things, but in it was the streets, and it failed. Then in 2011, a $29 million bond issue was proposed, and it failed. And the detail -- what all was included in that $29 million bond issue was extensive. Something very similar to what we're talking about today at $40 million. Maybe what caused that bond to fail back then is it was a ten year repair program. And the attitude of voters was I won't be here in ten years, let someone else pay for those streets. Tell me what you need to do now? And so they did, they came back in 2013 with an $8 million bond to totally reconstruct Saguaro. If you -- I've got pictures, not with me, but the pictures of Saguaro back then, they would have resembled some streets in Chicago. And I think people could see it for themselves, they could feel it as they drove across the street or down the street, and so therefore it passed, and we did fix that street. And it was done in a two-year program, and the bonds were paid off in five. So people could see that for the investment that they TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 21 of 42 made, they could see the return on that investment. They could drive on that street right now. Whereas before, in the 2011 issue, they might not have been here to drive on that street out there ten years from now. Also in 2018 we had another attempt for a primary property tax that it specifically included $4 million for streets. The problem is, with a property tax, all that money goes into the general fund. The council that's sitting up there today could say, we're going to spend X number of dollars on streets. Two years from now, another council's up there and they're saying, no, I don't want to spend X dollars are on streets, I want to cut it in half, or I don't want to spend any, I want to spend it someplace else. And therein lies the problem with the public probably supporting a property tax is it can't be committed for streets, at least not for the long term. Now, this is something that we -- Rachael probably just talked on a little bit, and I'm not going to go into too much detail of it. But it -- I tried to outline some pros and cons because as we get into talking to the public down the road, they're going to pick on these. You know, with bonds, there's money paid out for interest to retire the bonds. That money doesn't make it to streets. With the property tax, as I said, yeah, there's no interest, but the council, it can't be guaranteed that that money is going to make it to streets. Local sales taxes, yes. Those could be done, but I've already run the numbers on if we were to fund $40 million with just an increase of sales taxes, chances are we'll bring this economy and town to a close, because the sales tax rate would be exorbitant. So I think that's the reason, maybe, the council at the retreat was leaning towards supporting a bond. It may be the only viable solution. Now, I'm going to go into the details. Where's the $40 million? Well, we determined that $5 million of it was in the arterial streets, the major streets in town. Shea, Saguaro, Palisades, Fountain Hills Boulevard to name a few. The collectors, which are the streets that primarily pick up a lot of the residential streets and bring out to the arterials, we estimated a $9 million improvement for that. Most of the serious repairs have to do with Fountain Hills Boulevard north of Safeway, to the town limit -- or actually, to the middle school. And then part of Palisades from about the high school down to Saguaro. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 22 of 42 That's primarily where the biggest problem areas are with collectors. Then there's the locals and the alleys. People say alleys. Yes, we do have some alleys that really, in this town, serve for those people as their primary street. So we just kind of lump them together. Alleys make up, I think, one percent of the network, so it's not a big number. But these are the streets that most people live along. They're the ones that are important to them. I go back to the gated communities. 25 percent, I said 15 percent of the entire network, square yardage in the network is behind gated communities. Those are all local streets. If you put those in the local streets that the town has to maintain, there's -- 25 percent of local streets are in gated communities. So those people are already paying for their streets. The dilemma is, would they pay for your street if you're not in a gated community. And that's the reason we looked -- we broke this out to say, do we need to give voters an opportunity to select which ones are most important to them? Would it be arterials, would it be collectors, or would they support alleys or local streets? One of the thoughts that the committee came up with is maybe to get the gated communities to vote for a total of $40 million program that include locals, is there something that the town has that they could make available to the gated communities, like contract prices that the Town is able to get based on the volume of work that they do, can that be passed along to the gated communities where they may be paying a higher unit price. So there's a little incentive in there for them to say, hey, there's something in it for us too. What this committee did is it went beyond what all of the consultants before had done and said that there's more to streets. There are major intersection, traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, bicycles that need to be thought of. And so we just looked at some of the major intersections in town that we expect probably will need traffic signals sometime in the next 10 or 15 years and came up with a $10 million figure. So that's how we jump from 40- to $50 million is we included a component that the consultants had not, because it will be an expense for the community at some time. Now, I'm back to your first two statements that I lifted from the strategic plan. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 23 of 42 Infrastructure plays a vital role in the quality of life. But what I've learned over the years is, each one of you -- if I was to ask each one of you, you will come up with a different definition of quality of life. One thing that's important to you may not be to the guy sitting on -- to your left or right. I just listed some here, but property values may be the one that we need to zero in on to be able to say that curb appeal, when it comes to the value of your property, is important. If there's five homes on the market, all of the same type, same size, and one's not on a street that looks very good, will it be able to compete with the other four houses? So somehow or another, maybe as we go forward in trying to convince the public to give this streets some serious consideration is the impact that it could have on property values. So I'm going to start the formal questions by saying if we must continue to maintain our infrastructure, our streets for the future, will voters agree, because they're in control. GARMAN: Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. It was good. That's a lot of -- a lot of things to think about. So now we're going to -- if we have follow-on questions. I know we had a good discussion in the middle. Does anybody else have any discussion points? Phil, I see you reaching for the mic. SVEUM: Excellent presentation. A lot of work, obviously. What type of price increase did you consider in knowing that this is not all going to be spent in year 1? Did you put some inflation in? BUTLER: Five percent each year. SVEUM: And does the bond have to be voted on by the public? BUTLER: Yes. SVEUM: Required. Is that over a certain amount, or is it just any borrowing? BUTLER: Any bond has to be approved by voters. A bond referendum. SVEUM: Well, you've been here a lot longer than most -- most all of us, so what's your sense? BUTLER: Bonds are the only viable option. If we can get other besides -- we'll have to exclude Randy. If we can get everyone else to agree that our streets are not in good TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 24 of 42 condition, and believe us, who looked into it, that yes, what you see today, five years from now is going to be a lot worse. So trust us that it's coming. And that's going to be the biggest problem is do you really believe that the streets are going to continue to deteriorate? It's just like your house; it's just like your automobile. SVEUM: Okay. BUTLER: The answer is, yes, a big number. SVEUM: And I think that's -- that argument about one's home, about ongoing maintenance of your home, whether it's the roof, or driveway, or whatever it might be, we all know about it, we all have to take care of that. And that's -- and streets everybody kind of takes for granted, don't they? I mean they just, oh, it'll be fine; I'll be able to drive my car down there. But I would imagine it's just a big number. It's a lot of zeros that is a hard -- hard sell. But -- BUTLER: And Rachael talked about it a little bit from the retreat yesterday. I think there are some on the council that hope that we can cut $50,000 here and $50,000 there and make it work. The answer is, it won't. Yeah, okay, I'll cut the $40 million to $39,950,000. I know they have to go through that mental exercise because we've all -- we did it on the -- on the streets committee. What are our other options? And we finally concluded there are none. Bonds are the answer. GARMAN: Bernie. I do have a question too when you're done, Bernie. HOENLE: Okay. Well, Jerry sort of highlighted what I was thinking before he said it, and that's looking at the funding options, looking at some of the things coming to the town in the future, the discovery center should be bringing in additional traffic and people and visitors. We've got other things going on with developments, with apartments in town to finish out on the Avenue of the Fountains, and other places around if they continue to be planned. So there's a lot going on. The building out on Modero Canyon, I didn't think people really thought what was going to be happening there with all the homes going in the canyon out there. So there is a growth happening whether we see it or not, or believe it or not, for the economic development, but they're using the roads. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 25 of 42 Construction trucks are using the roads. Other things are still driving through the town to get up to Rio Verde. So there's a lot going on, and it's just something that's not going to go away. And the degradation that was mentioned earlier is a lot faster once you get the cracks. Now, some of the things that they've done along the way, if you look at -- let's see, what's the one they just did going across -- and narrowed the street, put bike lanes on it, it was -- and resurfaced? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: They did El Lago last year. HOENLE: Yeah, El Lago. El Lago's a perfect example because the streets were built very wide, which requires a lot of maintenance. And the edges crack up faster. I know riding a bike you're going to hit more cracks out there because it's not compressed and driven on. So some of the original design is catching up to where the Town is right now and creating or adding to the problem. So as it's been mentioned a couple of times, there are a lot of different pieces to the whole environment. GARMAN: So Geoff, go ahead. YAZZETTA: Jerry, this was very informative. Thank you so much. I moved from L.A. a little over two years ago, and I heard the complaints about the roads and I was thinking, what is wrong with the roads here? I worked for a councilman in L.A., and some of the roads in our district looked like an artillery range, so you can pick on me from L.A. too, not just -- not just Randy. BUTLER: Got L.A. and Chicago now. YAZZETTA: Yeah. No, this was a really helpful primer on the overall situation. And you know, at the end of the day, it's -- you know, we need to spend money to have nice things. And if we're, you know, trying to pinch pennies here and there, and the quality of the roads continues to degrade that's going to impact property values, it's going to just impact people's view as they're coming in to visit the Discovery Center when it's completed and opened here in a couple of years, and other things too. So this, you know, I feel like is going to be a challenge, you know, for the community and the voters TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 26 of 42 to wrap their heads around, but you know, it's something that really requires, you know, thorough consideration. Has the report been sent out through the Town's channels, like that deep dive report that you said is on the Town's website? I feel like there's a lot of opinions that are out in the community, but not much, you know, research into the actual facts that underpin, you know, the discussion itself. So I just wanted to know if that's been, you know, broadly marketed at all? BUTLER: The answer is, no, it's not really been marketed, and that's part of what was discussed at the retreat yesterday. If the council moves forward and supports the bond referendum, the target may be November of 2025. So between now and then is the time you get out and convey your messages to the public. You've got -- and I remember years ago when we got into a program similar to this, we unfortunately used the word educate the public. No, that offends the public, the word educate. We're all educated people that live here. But we do need to inform them as to what is the condition of the streets and what's happening with the streets. They -- because they will eventually have to make the decision. So we have between now and November of 2025, if the council goes that way, to inform the public of all of the background that we've been through, all of the details that the citizens committee has researched. What we finally concluded, we've got that period of time to inform them. Now, part of that information -- or informing them, I'm going to -- you said the challenge was, I'm going to put this back in your lap as a SPAC. We started out with the four strategic objectives or priorities of the strategic plan. Streets are an integral part of all of them. The citizens committee needs more champions to help inform the public about the importance of streets in our community. YAZZETTA: Absolutely. One other question for you. The three maps, 2008, I don't remember the other year, and then 2022/23. Do you have those maps, because every year at the council office in L.A. I would get a map that showed the letter grades of the streets. It was color coded. It was very powerful, and that went back to well into the '90s, and you could see the pavement condition degrading year over year. And that, you TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 27 of 42 know, helped council and stuff kind of kick into gear and start addressing the problem. I think that would be a very powerful visual to help show the community, here's what's happening. You know, every five years our streets continue to decline; this is where we're headed. BUTLER: In each one of these three years, these three study years, the maps have been provided. YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. BUTLER: The first consultant in 2008 was Stantec. In 2018 it was IMS, and I'm trying to think, Infrastructure Management Services, I believe, was the name of the firm. And then in 2023 it was RAS, which is Roadway Asset Services. In each of those reports, there are detailed maps, in color, showing where the streets are for each one of the PCI levels that I -- that I mentioned. YAZZETTA: The orange and red really stands out -- BUTLER: Oh, yeah. YAZZETTA: -- in those. Yeah. BUTLER: Now, fortunately, and Bernie brought this up, is we were fortunate as a community, as part of the Cares Program, which is a COVID relief program that the federal government passed around to communities, that the council took that $8 million that we didn't expect and had invested it all in streets. And that's the reason that this $40 million number is not $48 million. YAZZETTA: Understood. BUTLER: I've already taken that into consideration that that is money that will be spent on the streets. So when you look at these maps, these maps will change in color from red as being, let's say, really, really bad streets, to the greens that are saying, hey, smooth sailing. The colors change because, yes, we've made investments in many of the streets. So it's hard to take the maps of '08 and compare them with the maps of 2023, because yes, we've made a lot of investments along the way. YAZZETTA: Got it. Thank you so much, Jerry. BUTLER: But I would take -- the maps in 2023 are today, a snapshot of today. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 28 of 42 GARMAN: I see Phil. Hey, Phil. SVEUM: Of course, the big question is going to be, how much is it going to cost me as a homeowner. And I'm not sure how that's -- how you drill that down from the Town's perspective that -- and I have been involved in municipal referendum as a resident volunteer. And that was always the way to help sell it, or make people feel comfortable, okay, my home is worth X dollars on average, and this is what it's going to cost me per year for this many years. Because it does come down a budget number for everybody. All the way from the council to an individual property owner. So how does that -- is that -- I don't see anything here, and I'm sure that wasn't your job, it would become the job of the Town to evaluate that and come up with some numbers. BUTLER: It's an excellent question, and I've already raised it because I think, when you get right down to it, what I've learned is -- well, if you go back to a 2021 community survey, it was made of the community, there were street questions raised in there. And it's easy to answer those questions, yes, yes, yes, streets are bad, bad, bad, bad. And then when you turn around and say, but it's going to cost you, what do you mean it's going to cost me? Well, they're not -- they're not that bad. The attitude of a person changes once they know what you're asking about is how much is it going to cost me? And so one of the things that I'm going to suggest going forward is, yes, the Town needs to come up with -- they know what the total evaluation of the community is. It's easy to go in and say if we have a $10 million bond, and we retired over five years, it's going to cost each home X number of dollars per hundred. It's easy to do. But I think we need to get there because what I believe is necessary is we need to find that line of demarcation with the public. That the public is saying, yeah, we'll spend -- I'm just -- a $150 a year on bonds. Well, those -- that's money is going to get you this much street improvements. GARMAN: So I've got a couple of questions, but I see Bernie over there. HOENLE: Yeah, one thing we did do when we were doing the study, we looked at the bond rates, and looked at what dollar amount, and then what it would cost for assessed evaluation of property. So we did look through those charts, and Jerry's right on target. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 29 of 42 That's one of the things that will have to be determined, what will be the number and then what is the cost per individual property. SVEUM: Yes. We're having our workshops, and this is part of our quality of life. And I think that if it's a topic of conversation with people that attend, at least the one we're going to have in March or April, I can't remember. But -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: April 20th. SVEUM: April. I think we should be prepared with some ranges of what it could cost if the entire project was approved. So we get some feedback for the council that they can make, at least have some indication of what the public thinks. HOENLE: Phil, I just happen to see a note that I have here from the 2021 survey, 60 percent of those that responded said, yes, they would support bonds. But there was no numbers associated with the bonds. GARMAN: A couple of things that I have for you. First of all, you know that our strategic plan looks at the horizon, so it's a five- to ten-year, you know -- it's a ten-year strategic plan that we update every five years. And the next update then is, hopefully, in 2027. So that's what we're working towards right now. So in other words -- HOENLE: It should be 2025, Patrick, to get back on the ten- and the five-year sequence. GARMAN: Somewhere somebody let us down in the past, right? But what -- and you know, the reason I hemmed and hawed there a little bit is because, you know, the last part of the plan is taking it to the council and working through that. Sometimes that can take a year, sometimes it takes a year and a half, sometimes it takes a little more. So -- HOENLE: The last time it took two years; that's the reason it's a 2022 plan. GARMAN: Okay. So a question I have is I was always under the impression that either at the federal, state, local level, that part of our gas tax went into maintaining our roads. In other words, the people who drive cars, use gas, people who drive electric cars also pay either, I think, through their registration, a fee -- a user's fee, if you want to call it that, a tax for roads. I know there's federal, I think there's state, is there -- I saw where you had -- you know, you had sales tax and things like that, but is there a state gas tax TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 30 of 42 that goes to communities, goes to counties? BUTLER: The answer is yes. It's normally referred to as HURF funds. H-U-R-F, which is the Highway User Revenue Fund. It's shared with all of the communities in Arizona. And I think right now, a little over $1 million that's going into our -- the funds that we have available, that comes from our sales taxes from the community. So I guess you'd say that the other 1.125 million is coming from the highway user revenue funds, year in and year out, which also includes car registrations, vehicle license tax, the fuel revenues, et cetera, et cetera. But it's all shared on a population basis throughout Arizona. GARMAN: All right. BUTLER: And as our committee -- as the state grows, and our community doesn't keep up that pace, we're probably not going to end up with the same percentage that we had in the past, because it's all based on population. BUTLER: So one other -- you were talking about gated communities. And you know, gated communities aren't the only ones with HOAs that look after their areas. Is there any precedent for HOAs to join the party, and support the infrastructure in their neighborhoods whether they're gated or not? BUTLER: But does your HOA pay for the street? GARMAN: Mine does, yes. BUTLER: And it's not gated? GARMAN: Mine is gated. Yes. BUTLER: Okay. And there's usually -- I know of one area here close to where I live, and I live in a small gated area, we got 46 units, that's very, very tiny. But there's another unit -- or area close by that you would normally think of as being an HOA, but there's no gates and all those streets are public. Now, for those that own apartment buildings, big apartment complexes, their parking lot or their streets leading up to the front door of those units, those are all paid for by whoever owns the apartment complex. So there's a lot of paving of roadways or accesses that are not the responsibility of the Town, but yet we're going to be looking to all of those people to help pay the bill. And therein is the big problem, in my opinion. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 31 of 42 GARMAN: Those were really all the questions I had. Oh, Joe, yeah. REYES: I want to go back just to the issue of the question of the amount of gas tax that is -- and where that money goes, how it gets from us paying it and how much actually gets a portion to streets and highways. Because I'm under the impression that of that dollar, a big chunk of that already is a portion for other transit, for example, and many other things other than just street and highways. So when you look at the amount that is being taken and the actual amount that is then allotted, I think many people are under the misconception that every dollar that I pay for gas is -- it's going to all our streets and highways, or the majority of it. And while it's true that, yes, it is the majority, even when you get to the streets and highways you have that hierarchy that so much goes for freeways and the arterial, and so on down to our level at each municipality; isn't that correct? BUTLER: That's correct. REYES: So we're constantly in competition, even for the revenues, the amount of money, which is why these organizations are put in place for them to apportion that money among the towns and cities and municipalities. BUTLER: And at this point I go and I refer you back to your second bullet point here. Long term financial sustainability, it's not even guaranteed with streets. REYES: It becomes a moving target then, or it is, it's always a moving target. BUTLER: It is. And I think, was it not at the retreat, they talked about maybe state shared revenues are going to be less coming back to the town, not just for streets, but less coming back next year then they were this year? GOODWIN: That's correct. So not just -- we get HURF money, obviously, and the HURF money is earmarked specifically for streets. Can't use it for anything else. We get other state shared revenue. Most notably income tax, right? And so the way the income tax works, we -- it operates two years behind. So for instance, we get our disbursement, this is 2024, we'll get the disbursement from 2022. But they are leveraging a flat tax from here on out. So instead of it being -- elastic weight will be a flat tax, and so that TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 32 of 42 will reduce our overall income there. There are also -- they have eliminated the long-term rental tax as well -- long-term rental fees, which it equates -- which we collect roughly $600,000 annually with that, and that will be sunsetting in January of 2025. So again, that was -- that's not state shared, but that is another impact that we are going to be seeing in terms of our -- you know, our portion. The way you describe the HURF, the idea of -- all state-shared revenue is that way. It's based on population. As the population grows, the pie gets bigger, which is great. Except our population doesn't generally move as much, therefore our piece of pie gets bigger, our piece does not. Our piece continues to get smaller. So that is what, you know, we're kind of contending with right now. BUTLER: Well, Patrick, on behalf of the committee that was made up of 12 members, collectively we represented 250 years of experience in the street management category, blah, blah, blah. So it wasn't done without knowing where we were going, what we needed to be looking at. But we do need help going forward. We need some more champions for this cause. GARMAN: Well, you definitely have an open invitation to come back here if you'd like to update us. And be watching your email for invitations to come back again, probably, next year as we continue to build a plan going forward. So you know, my last comment was what really kind of resonated with me is when you mentioned how they did with Saguaro, and being able to have that tangible, this is what we're going to do with the money, this is how long it's going to take, and -- you know what I mean? Like you said -- you broke it down to arterials and collect -- you could even make it more specific. I think that that's a good course of action to pursue. I think we need to probably look into that. Anyways -- BUTLER: When Patrick invited me, he said a 15-minute presentation. [LAUGHTER] GARMAN: I did. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 33 of 42 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, it's a quarter after. GARMAN: I did. BUTLER: I apologize. GARMAN: By the way, I tell all of our speakers that, and then it's -- so thank you very much. Like I said, you have an open invitation. Thank you, and thank you, Mark, for coming and supporting Bernie for all the work you guys did on the committee. And again, I reserve the right to ask you, please, very please, to come back again in the future. All right. Thank you. All right. So the next agenda item we have is our two Commission workgroups that we're going to cover today. So I'm going to pass it over to Geoff to talk about how we're doing with the workshop in April. YAZZETTA: Yeah, we're scheduled for Saturday, April 20th. Don't have much new items to report from last month, but we're going to start marketing the event here coming up in March. So we will be spreading the word far and wide, social media, Fountain Hills Times Independence, probably get some flyers posted out and about in the community. Again, our goal is if we can get a hundred participants, I think that's a homerun for us. But expect a more robust update from us in the March meeting that will proceed the open house in April. So thank you. GARMAN: Make sure you have it on your list, on a to-do list, to let Angela know, a certain time beforehand, that while it's not a meeting, but you know, with an agenda, but a gathering of commissioners that we might have a quorum there, and -- just so it's publicized, right? YAZZETTA: The quorum notice is on my to-do list. GARMAN: That's what I'm kind of worried about. YAZZETTA: Yeah. Thank you. GARMAN: I have been talking to people about it. Hopefully we get good publicity because I think the format that you all have developed is cool and interesting. And if we can get people in there so that they know they're just -- it's not just sitting there listening to a lecture; it's actually matriculating through the course that you guys set up TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 34 of 42 for them and giving their opinion and then moving on. I think that's a great idea. So I have high hopes for that. YAZZETTA: Thank you. GARMAN: Yeah, so. Okay. So my part is organizational outreach that we've been undergoing. I have my notes on that right here. Over -- since our last meeting, I attended and briefed the Chamber of Commerce board on the 14th of February. I addressed the Lions Club, we have a Lions Club here in town. Very small but growing organization. That was on the 6th of February. I also had a great -- well, it was a great presentation and interaction with Plat 208, you know Zach Brooks (ph.) had come and briefed us, and then he had invited me and I went over to their group which met. So I did get to meet everybody, you know, and you know how that conversation went last month. So I was able to go and brief them as well. I got some really good feedback from them. I took some really good notes. So I'm looking forward to putting those together and showing to all of you when we get to the -- by the way, that's one of my talking points the May and June meetings where we're taking the information we've collected this year from the workshops, and the organization outreach, and the different meetings we've had, and start trying to put them together to ID some strategic priorities as we head into the next year. So Plat 208 -- sorry for the non-sec order there. And then Avenue of the Merchants Association, right? Avenue Merchants Association? YAZZETTA: The Avenue Merchants Association. GARMAN: The -- you got to put the "the" in there, right? You think I would know that coming from Ohio and Ohio State. They didn't return my emails. I emailed them once, they got back to me, and then radio silence. So I was just letting you know that, Geoff, you're my in there. YAZZETTA: (Indiscernible) get your response. GARMAN: And the future is VFW and the American Legion. Four Peaks Rotaries is on my future -- in the future, and Sunset Kiwanis, those are some of the those that are in the future that I'll try to get ahold of over the next month or two. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 35 of 42 Over a hundred so far, counting, that's just a rough estimate, folks, that we have addressed so far in organizational outreach. So good notes that I have to put together and collate for everybody. So does anybody have any questions about either the workshop or the organizational outreach that we're undergoing? Or comments. Hearing none, seeing none. It's almost like we're over an hour. Okay. So that's -- we're going to move on then from agenda item 8 to agenda item 9, which discussion and possible action of future agenda topics. So before I hit on this, does anybody have any ideas or anything that they wanted to cover about future topics that we might want to look into as far as presentations to our Commission? Bernie? HOENLE: There was a health fair that was conducted at the elementary school last weekend. And it was pretty well attended. And they had a lot of businesses from around Fountain Hills that are focused on health improvement, living in a healthier environment, eating, exercising, and all that sort of good stuff. And the topic of the blue zone came up. And there is a group trying to get together, it's a little loose right now, but there's interest in, basically, having a healthier lifestyle. And they're attending a meeting that has started in Scottsdale because they do have an active group now starting to pursue that agenda. So it might be something of interest to find out who's the leadership within Fountain Hills, trying to make some things work to come in and address some of the incentives, and some of the steps that they're taking to move in that direction. GARMAN: Yep. We mentioned that before. That's on my list. Thank you for bringing it up again. I am in contact with the loose group here from Fountain Hills, trying to find a place on the agenda to fit them in. Because you can see, they've been pretty -- January was pretty full, this one's pretty full. I have some comments about what we might be doing next month as well. But they have said that they would come in and brief us, and that's going to happen. I just can't tell you exactly when yet as far as it fits into our agenda. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 36 of 42 So anybody else have any comments on any future topics? No. Okay, I do. So looking to our right, and I -- so one of the things that we haven't done in a little while, because we've been so busy building kind of the foundation of our strategic plan, is looking at the implementation of the current strategic plan. So I'm going to ask Rachael, and I was going to follow it up with an email to Angela, to consider to work with us, maybe over the next few months, to see if there might items in the current plan that have moved forward, that somebody might -- the leaders from the Town could brief us on. GOODWIN: Sure. Just a question, would you prefer, and I know you've done it this way in the past, but it doesn't mean we have to do it this way moving forward, do you prefer having sort of department heads come in and talk about what they have done in their specific area, or would you like to take it by topic within the strategic plan? So if it's a long-term financial stability, you know, obviously, that's a lot of through our finance department, but you know we have other contributing departments that help out in those areas too. So do you prefer to go be initiative, or do you prefer to go by, sort of, department, and hear what each department is doing and how they're checking boxes throughout the strategic plan? GARMAN: It's been easier for the logistics to have the -- the first one. GOODWIN: Okay. GARMAN: The department heads. GOODWIN: I agree. GARMAN: Yeah. GOODWIN: I agree. So -- GARMAN: And that's been really successful GOODWIN: Uh-huh. GARMAN: And their names are on the different -- GOODWIN: They are. GARMAN: Right? They're tagged. GOODWIN: And I think this is a good opportunity to see where some of those -- either TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 37 of 42 the names have changed, or they have broadened and have done a lot of cross- collaborating. So you know where we thought it would be really an initiative led by, you know, economic development, but all of a sudden it's pulled in more from this area and this area, so it shows how -- again, how much cross-collaboration there is, that there's no silos, and that we work -- as a small town, we work as a team across disciplines. So I think that's a great way to do that. So sure, I can certainly start working with our different department heads to see who's available and how we can start getting them back in here to give updates and things like that. Do you want to see that as early as next meeting in March? GARMAN: Yeah, we've been successful in the past. As long as I know it's coming -- GOODWIN: Uh-huh. GARMAN: -- to actually have two presentations during the meeting, and still get out of here at a decent hour. GOODWIN: Sure. GARMAN: So yeah, it's definitely doable. GOODWIN: Okay. Let me start seeing who's available and how we can get that lined up. GARMAN: Okay. Thank you. GOODWIN: You got it. GARMAN: Thanks. All right. Okay, any other comments about future topics? I'm going to move on from that agenda item, then. And the next one is basic comments from the chair. I know you've been listening to me talk a lot today. But I think I've covered everything. I'm looking at my list. All right. Oh, the last thing, I wanted to give you an overview of how I see things going out the rest of this year. You know our years tend to -- we're taking off July this year, so we kind of go August to June. I see us holding the workshop in April, and me kind of wrapping up the organizational outreach in March, April time frame. Presenting that data, so a quick turnaround for you, but presenting some data at the April meeting. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 38 of 42 Probably heavy from me because I'll have a little more time, to show you the results and all the ideas, probably in the April-ish meeting. And then, you know, May and June we've got to do a little work, because the goal is that we have identified some, you know in our current plan, strategic pillars, the big things, the one, two, three, four, five, six, you know, big underlying topics, strategic ideas that we want to pursue for the Town so that we have a good idea of what those are. Even as far as, like, kind of narrowing it down and maybe even taking a vote or raising our hand with them in June. So that when we come back in August, now we're going to start working at the next level down, and say, hey, we identified these, and I don't want to throw out a number and jinx whatever number it is. Hey, here's the big ideas that we identified, the big, strategic pillars. This year, so 2024 or '25, we're going to the next level down and decide what type of insert pillar name here we're going to look at underneath that and do the work next year on that. Okay. Anybody have any comment on that? Yeah, Phil. SVEUM: Not specifically on that, but back maybe on the topics. We talked about a very important issue tonight, a very expensive issue. We're going to be having this workshop. I think it would be really important for us to have some time spent at the next meeting regarding the financials of what -- how we could, at least, start a conversation about a very large capital improvement for the Town, and what -- how the cost could be projected for a property owner. In general sense, not specific, because it would depend upon how we decide to borrow, if we decide to borrow in sequential years or whatever. But just so we have something that's maybe educational. I mean we want to advocate -- I think we want to advocate for this. At least I would, as an individual. I'm not speaking for anybody else. But if that's -- we're going to have that conversation at this workshop on April 20th, I don't want to wait three days before that just to look at and discuss this. I think we could spend some time at our March meeting in doing that. And if the committee could even help Rachael and the finance department maybe come up with some ideas or parameters, or schedules, and so we TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 39 of 42 can talk about it further. Unless I'm out of bounds. But I think it would be real helpful if we're going to have this workshop. This is something that is -- GARMAN: Is that -- I mean you want us to be educated on that before the workshop so that you can be informed when you go to the workshop -- SVEUM: Yeah. GARMAN: -- and talk to citizens. SVEUM: At least in a general sense, yeah. GARMAN: And -- okay. Because what -- when you were looking at Rachael, you know, in our current plan, you know, produce and publish a five-year financial plan with revenue and expenditure forecasts. So that's in the plan. That's David, he works on that. Update the current facilities reserve study to identify lifecycle replacement, and a repair of facilities and infrastructure. That's David as well? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's a big job. GARMAN: Right. So we could probably fit those in at some point with the Town. But you want something -- maybe we should talk -- well, no, we can't really talk offline. So give me a little more specifics. You want us to be educated -- because you know, what is next month? March. The end of March, and then you'll have a few weeks, and then it'll be the workshop. SVEUM: Yeah. GARMAN: So what -- you want to use the meeting in April -- excuse me, in March, to help prepare for the workshop, to a certain extent? SVEUM: From the streets perspective. GARMAN: From the streets perspective. SVEUM: Yeah, I don't -- I don't want to spend the whole meeting on it, but at least if we could have some -- 15 minutes of discussion about it, I think it would be valuable. I mean, I want to -- I want feel like I'm at least somewhat educated on it beyond the schedule that -- you know, the actual construction schedule that you've done. And so if we have an idea of what kind of money we would be talking about, and not to present it as a main topic but at least in general terms, be able to talk intelligently about this TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 40 of 42 schedule of streets and the $40 million. GARMAN: So one thing before you talk about the workshop is, we just need to make sure too, because I know some of this just -- maybe I'm conflating what just happened. Yeah -- no. But some of this is ongoing, evolving, I guess, would be the term, right? And so when we talk about it, it becomes real, you know, if we have somebody come in and brief us about it. So whatever the Town would talk to us about. They have to be careful that they're just pontificating about something in the future, it has to be something that, you know, they -- they're working on, the council is working on. Do you know what I'm describing this? You can't just tell us something that is subjective and in the future, and the council hasn't worked on it, or -- because that's going to be in the minutes, and people, you know, can report on that, and it might not ever come to fruition. GOODWIN: Sure. And I think -- Patrick, I think you touched on something very valid there. Phil, to your point, maybe what we can do is share a couple of the -- some of the more in-depth presentations that have been done by our streets group. And I think it may have more meat in there that you're looking for. To the extent of, you know, how much would it cost each homeowner, it is -- that is a very variable number. It depends on what they go out at, it depends on what the interest rates are. There's a lot to that number. But I think you asked the right question. People want to know, how does it affect me? When does my street get done, and how much do I have to pay? And I think that -- so again, there's a big question that says, are we going to go for bond. That still remains to be seen. If that is a yes, then we'll start drilling down into some of these layers. But I think, maybe, if we can share out some of the details that have been talked about, some of the different mappings, some of the different cost estimates, that may help you feel a little more prepared. But I think, yeah, it's a theoretical do people support the idea of a bond in order to do our streets, and then go from there. Does that seem reasonable? SVEUM: Yes, I don't pretend to be an expert on what all of the work these guys have done. It's just that if we're out in the community -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 41 of 42 GOODWIN: Sure. SVEUM: -- and having a workshop on the quality of life here, and the sustainability of the infrastructure, we need to have some, at least, basic idea of what the finances are. GOODWIN: Absolutely. And I think if we can give you some of that, I think there may be some breakdowns that will help you tell the story without having to, kind of, over commit. And again it's a do you like this, do you not, would you be comfortable with it. If so, you know, what does that look like. So absolutely, we can provide some of that, I think. SVEUM: Okay. GARMAN: Geoff, did you still have any comments? YAZZETTA: No. GARMAN: You're good? YAZZETTA: We're good. GARMAN: Okay. All right. So back -- recalling where we're going to be the next few months. Everybody's good with that? And just remember, that folds into next year, is the intermediate goals that we have, the strategic plans. What are we -- I'm forgetting the terminology underneath of it. The -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible). GARMAN: The signature strategies, thank you. So next year would be to develop the signature strategies under the priorities. And then the year after that we start looking at tasks. You know identifiable, measurable tasks. But that's really, you know, a year and a half, two years away, so. Okay. Before I adjourn -- ask for a motion to adjourn, is there any other discussion topics that any of the commissioners have? All right. Could I ask to entertain a motion for adjournment today? YAZZETTA: Adjourned. GARMAN: Do we have a second? REYES: Second. GARMAN: Second. Hearing second, any discussion on adjournment? Any other issues, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 28, 2024 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Page 42 of 42 topics? No discussion heard. All in favor of adjourning today's meeting say "Aye". ALL: Aye. GARMAN: Any opposed? The ayes have it. We'll see you next month on March 27th. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS __________________________ Patrick Garman, Chairman ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: ___________________________________ Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 28th day of February 2024. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED this 27th Day of March 2024. ___________________________________ Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant ITEM 6. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  UPDATE: Fountain Hills Fire Department by Chief Dave Ott Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:10 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024  ITEM 7. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  UPDATE: Commission Workgroups Staff Summary (Background) Attachments SPAC Workshop  Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:03 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024  Strategic Plan Update - Community Outreach Workshop – Layout Schematic Town of Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Welcome Station Li g h t R e f r e s h m e n t s T a b l e Safety Government and Community Services Infrastructure Recreation/ Things To Do Town Identity and Vision Thank You Station •What else? •Prioritization exercise •Return supplies Local Economy Educational Resources Town Center Commercial and Residential Development Strategic Plan Update - Community Outreach Workshop – Prioritization Activity Town of Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Goal: Obtain subjective stakeholder input on the relative importance of strategic pillars. This will aid town decision makers in aligning their actions and votes toward the highest and best impact for the Town.Lowest Mid- Low Mid-High Highest Comments Categories A Safety Visitors will force-rank pillars from highest to lowest. Will be prompted with what's missing, what's important to them about this, B Infrastructure C Commercial and Residential Development D Local Economy E Town Center F Educational Resources G Recreation / Things to Do H Government and Community Services Outcome: a forced rank list that leaders can use to consider decisions on town direction / investment Each participant will get two #1s, two #2s, two #3's and two #4spoints -4, 3, 2, 1ex: Topic A had these tallies: 1 * 12 = 122 * 35 = 703 * 22 = 664 * 31 = 124 SUM: 262 - score for pillar a. The higher the score, the higher the priority. Strategic Plan Update - Community Outreach Workshop – Word Cloud A word cloud is a visual representation (image) of word data. In other words, it is a collection, or cluster, of words depicted in different sizes. The bigger and bolder the word appears, the more often it's mentioned within a given text and the more important it is. Below is a sample: ITEM 8. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:03 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024  ITEM 9. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:03 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024  ITEM 10. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 03/27/2024 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant to Manager, Mayor/Council Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/29/2024 08:03 AM Final Approval Date: 02/29/2024