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Home My WebLink AboutAGENDApacket__05-06-25_0239_697 NOTICE OF MEETING REGULAR MEETING FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL Mayor Gerry M. Friedel Vice Mayor Hannah Larrabee Councilmember Gayle Earle Councilmember Brenda Kalivianakis Councilmember Rick Watts Councilmember Peggy McMahon Councilmember Allen Skillicorn TIME:5:30 P.M. – REGULAR MEETING WHEN:TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2025 WHERE: FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL CHAMBERS 16705 E. AVENUE OF THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ Councilmembers of the Town of Fountain Hills will attend either in person or by telephone conference call; a quorum of the Town’s various Commission, Committee or Board members may be in attendance at the Council 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 Town Council 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 a 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 Instructions The public is welcome to participate in Council meetings. TO SPEAK TO A CONSENT OR REGULAR AGENDA ITEM, complete a Request to Comment card and hand it to the Town Clerk prior to discussion of that item. Include the agenda item NUMBER on which you wish to comment. A separate submission is required for each agenda item. Request to Comment cards will not be accepted once the Council deliberations begin. Submit a Request to Comment card prior to a public hearing agenda item. TO COMMENT ON A CONSENT OR REGULAR AGENDA ITEM IN WRITING ONLY, complete a Request to Comment card, indicating that it is a written comment, check the box on whether you are FOR or AGAINST a consent or regular agenda item, and hand it to the Town Clerk prior to discussion on that item. A separate submission is required for each agenda item. TO SPEAK TO CALL TO THE PUBLIC, complete a Request to Comment card and hand it to the Town Clerk. Speakers will be allowed three contiguous minutes to address the Council. Verbal comments should be directed through the Presiding Officer and not to individual Councilmembers. TO COMMENT IN WRITING ONLINE: Visit https://www.fountainhillsaz.gov/publiccomment and submit a Request to Comment card by 3:00 PM on the day of the meeting. These comments are shared with the Town Council. This Request to Comment card, and any information you write on it, is a public record subject to public disclosure. NOTICE OF OPTION TO RECESS INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION Pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.02, notice is hereby given to the members of the Town Council, and to the general public, that at this meeting, the Town Council may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public, for legal advice and discussion with the Town's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda, pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.03(A)(3). 1.CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE – Mayor Friedel 2.INVOCATION - Vicky Derksen 3.ROLL CALL – Mayor Friedel 4.STATEMENT OF PARTICIPATION 5.REPORTS BY MAYOR, COUNCILMEMBERS AND TOWN MANAGER A.RECOGNITION: Outgoing Planning and Zoning Commissioner Patrick Dapaah, for his service. B.PROCLAMATION: Designation of May 4 - 10, 2025, as Professional Municipal Clerks Week. 6.PRESENTATIONS A.The Community Services Department & Public Works Department will update the Town Council with a third quarter update on the FY25 Capital Improvement Projects. 7.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. 8.CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS Town Council Regular Meeting of May 6, 2025 2 8.CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS All items listed on the Consent Agenda are considered to be routine, noncontroversial matters and will be enacted by one motion of the Council. All motions and subsequent approvals of consent items will include all recommended staff stipulations unless otherwise stated. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a councilmember or member of the public so requests. If a councilmember or member of the public wishes to discuss an item on the Consent Agenda, he/she may request so prior to the motion to accept the Consent Agenda or with notification to the Town Manager or Mayor prior to the date of the meeting for which the item was scheduled. The items will be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda. A.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approving the Minutes for the Town Council CIP Work Session of March 25, 2025, and for the Town Council Rules of Procedure Work Session of March 25, 2025. 9.REGULAR AGENDA A.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approve the recommended Community Services Advisory Commission reappointments. B.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Adopting Resolution 2025-16, to Amend Resolution 2000-03 to Adopt a Comprehensive Fee Schedule For The Court. C.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Resolution 2025-18, increasing a stipend up to $750 per month for Council members and increasing a stipend up to $1,100 per month for the Mayor. D.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Adopting Resolution 2025-10 setting forth the Tentative Budget and establishing the maximum budget amount for the Town of Fountain Hills for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026. E.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Relating to any item included in the League of Arizona Cities and Towns' weekly Legislative Bulletin(s), or relating to any action proposed or pending before the State Legislature. 10.COUNCIL DISCUSSION/DIRECTION to the TOWN MANAGER Item(s) listed below are related only to the propriety of (i) placing such item(s) on a future agenda for action, or (ii) directing staff to conduct further research and report back to the Council. 11.FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS Town Council Regular Meeting of May 6, 2025 3 12.ADJOURNMENT Dated this 1st Day of May 2025. /s/Bevelyn J. Bender, Town Clerk The Town of Fountain Hills endeavors to make all public meetings accessible to persons with disabilities. Please call 480-816-5100 (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 Council with this agenda are available for review in the Clerk's Office. On the day of the Council Meeting, the Council Chamber doors open at 5:15 p.m. for public seating. Town Council Regular Meeting of May 6, 2025 4 ITEM 5. A. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Reports Submitting Department: Development Services Prepared by: Paula Woodward, Executive Assistant Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): RECOGNITION: Outgoing Planning and Zoning Commissioner Patrick Dapaah, for his service. Staff Summary (Background) Mayor Friedel will recognize outgoing member for their service on the Town's Boards, Commissions, and Committees. Planning and Zoning Commission: Patrick Dapaah Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle N/A Risk Analysis N/A Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) N/A Staff Recommendation(s) N/A SUGGESTED MOTION N/A ITEM 5. B. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Reports Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): PROCLAMATION: Designation of May 4 - 10, 2025, as Professional Municipal Clerks Week. Staff Summary (Background) Mayor Friedel will designate the week of May 4 through 10, 2025, as Professional Municipal Clerks Week. Attachments PROCLAMATION: Designation of May 4 - 10, 2025, as Professional Municipal Clerks Week. ITEM 6. A. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Presentations Submitting Department: Public Works Prepared by: Justin Weldy, Public Works Director Staff Contact Information: Justin Weldy, Public Works Director Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): The Community Services Department & Public Works Department will update the Town Council with a third quarter update on the FY25 Capital Improvement Projects. Staff Summary (Background) This report will provide the Town Council with a third quarter update on the FY25 Capital Improvement Projects. Staff will summarize the progress made to date, review current project timelines and budgets, highlight any unexpected challenges, and report expenditures for each project. Community Services Department At Avenue Linear Park (Project P3059), the installation of a shade structure, root barrier, and event receptacles is progressing as planned. As of the third quarter, $174,520.05 of the $200,000 budget has been spent, leaving a remaining balance of $25,479.95. The root barrier installation and event receptacle installation is scheduled for early May, and the shade structure is expected to begin installation in late May, early June. At Fountain Park (Project P3056), This budget was to complete a project from last year’s budget. The carryover amount was $50,000, with $10,323.26 expended to date, leaving $39,676.74. This project is complete. Four Peaks Park (Project P3058) experienced a budget overrun in the development of its new pickleball courts. The original budget was $180,000, but actual expenditures totaled $221,524.23, resulting in an overage of $41,524.23. Construction is now complete, and the courts are open to the public. The overage was due to increased cost of construction from budget estimates to project completion. This project is complete At Golden Eagle Park (Project P3061), the playground renovation project has been ordered with expected installation in June. The project had a budget of $150,000 and final expenditures were $152,554.62, resulting in a small overage of $2,554.62. Panorama Park (Project P3057) has a total budget of $250,000, with $146,848.92 spent to date, leaving $103,151.08 in available funds. The project is completed and remains significantly under leaving $103,151.08 in available funds. The project is completed and remains significantly under budget. Pleasantville Park (Project P3060) is a new park development effort with a budget of $700,000. As of the third quarter, $136,288.46 has been spent, leaving a balance of $563,711.54 for construction. Preliminary design is underway. Construction has been shifted to FY26. In summary, the majority of projects are progressing well, with several already completed and others on track for Q4 milestones. A few projects exceeded their original budgets due to unforeseen construction issues, but most remain within budget and on schedule. Staff will continue to monitor each project closely and will provide final updates at the end of the fiscal year. Public Works Capital Improvement Projects Shea Boulevard Widening (Palisades to Fountain Hills Boulevard) Due to geotechnical concerns, construction has been deferred to FY26. The project is currently at 90% design. An Invitation for Bids (IFB) will be issued in early FY26, pending funding approval from the Town Council and the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG). Budgeted $1,500,000 Transfer Out* $394,775 Expenditure $99,891 Under Budget $1,005,334 *$394,775 of budget was moved for streets paving needs during FY25; Road construction delayed until FY2026 Sidewalk Gap Infill – Palisades and Saguaro Boulevards This federally funded project added 4,124 linear feet of new sidewalk along Saguaro and Palisades Boulevards. Construction was completed in March 2025. Budgeted $200,000 Expected Expenditure $187,154 Under Budget $12,846 Sidewalk Infill and Design – Multiple Locations This multi phase project addresses sidewalk gaps in key pedestrian areas: Tioga Drive: 550 linear feet Eagle Mountain Parkway: 230 linear feet, including a mid-block crosswalk La Montana Drive (Palisades to Avenue of the Fountains): 800 linear feet (to be completed using remaining FY25 funds) The final phase is scheduled to begin in June 2025 and conclude by August 2025, with supplemental funding in FY26. Budgeted $300,000 Expected Expenditure $300,000 Under Budget$0 Town-Wide Guardrail Replacement This project involves the replacement or repair of 1,309 linear feet of guardrail along McDowell Mountain Road. Construction Timeline: June 2025 – August 2026 Budgeted $85,000 Expected Expenditure $85,000 Under Budget $0 Pedestrian Marked Crosswalks – New Installations Five new crosswalks were installed at the following intersections: Saguaro & Kingstree Saguaro & Gunsight Saguaro & Paul Nordin Saguaro & Parkview Palisades & Verde River Budgeted $150,000 Expected Expenditure $150,000 Under Budget $0 Town-Wide Stormwater Infrastructure Rehabilitation This project involves ongoing repairs and replacements of aging or damaged stormwater systems at various locations. Budgeted $150,000 Expected Expenditure $150,000 Under Budget $0 Courtside Villas Stormwater Improvements This project is currently out for bids. Construction is scheduled to begin in FY25. Budgeted $150,000 Expected Expenditure $150,000 Under Budget $ 0 Wayfinding Signs Installation is currently underway and on track for completion by June 30, 2025. Budgeted $297,000 Expected Expenditure $297,000 Under Budget $0 Golden Eagle Impoundment Area Improvements The project is in progress and is expected to be completed by June 30, 2025. Budgeted $2,882,000 Budgeted $2,882,000 Expected Expenditure $2,882,000 Additional funding request forthcoming Community Center Renovations – Phase III This phase included an updated engineering assessment and key facility upgrades, approved by Council on April 1, 2025: Budgeted (Comm. Center) $500,000 Assessment Expenditure $90,900 Remaining Expenditures $428,473 Presented under Community Services Fiscal Impact Fiscal Impact:N/A Budget Reference:FY 25 Funding Source:Capital Projects Fund If Multiple Funds utilized, list here:N/A Budgeted: if No, attach Budget Adjustment Form:N/A Attachments Presentation Presented by Kevin Snipes, Community Services Director Justin T. Weldy, Public Works Director CIP Council Meeting May 6, 2025 FY25 Capital Projects Update Today’s presentation will cover the following: •FY2025 Community Services Capital Projects •FY2025 Public Works Capital Projects 2 Community Services FY 2025 Capital Projects Golden Eagle Park Playground Replacement In Process and On Schedule 4 Budgeted $150,000 Expended $152,555 Over Budget $ -2,555 Avenue Linear Park Improvements (Multi-Year 2 of 3) In Process and On Schedule Budgeted $200,000 Expended $174,520 Under Budget $ 25,480 Four Peaks Park Pickleball Courts Complete Budgeted $180,000 Expended $221,524 Over Budget $-41,524 Panorama Park Complete •SE Corner of Panorama Dr & El Lago Blvd Development Fees Budgeted $250,000 Expended $146,849 Under Budget $103,151 Pleasantville Park P3060 (Multi-Year) In Design Development Fees Budgeted $700,000* Expenditure $136,288 Under Budget $563,712 *$382,000 of budget was moved for streets paving needs during FY25; Park construction delayed until FY2026 Carryover Budget $50,000Expended $10,323Under Budget $39,677 Fountain Park Splash Pad ShadeComplete Community Center Improvements - Ceiling Fans $49,100 - Motorized roller blinds $46,500 - light fixtures in the lobby TBD - Divider walls in the ballrooms $332,873 Total to Date $428,473 Total cost not to exceed $550,000 Public Works FY 2025 Capital Projects Shea Boulevard Widening South Side Between Palisades Blvd & FHBLVD State Funding (Prop 400) Budgeted $1,500,000 Transfer Out* $ 394,775 Expenditure $ 99,891 Under Budget $1,005,334 *$394,775 of budget was moved for streets paving needs during FY25; Road construction delayed until FY2026 (Carry Over to FY26) Sidewalk Gap Infill, Palisades and Saguaro Budget $200,000 (Construction Contingency) Budgeted $200,000 Expected Expenditure $187,154 Under Budget $ 12,846 Sidewalk Infill and Design Budget $300,000 Tioga Dr SW- Complete Eagle Mountain Pkwy SW & Mid-Block Crosswalk – Complete La Montana SW at Basha’s – Construction to begin June 2025 Budgeted $300,000 Expected Expenditure $300,000 Under Budget $ 0 Town wide Guardrail replacement Budget $85,000 Materials for Project to be ordered in FY25 Budgeted $85,000 Expected Expenditure $85,000 Under Budget $ 0 Pedestrian Marked Crosswalks – Town -Wide Budget $150,000 Concrete flatwork complete Striping underway Budgeted $150,000 Expected Expenditure $148,687 Under Budget $ 1,313 Town Wide Storm Water Infrastructure Rehabilitation Budget $150,000 Budgeted $150,000 Expected Expenditure $150,000 Under Budget $ 0 Courtside Villas Storm Water Improvements $150,000 (Anticipated SPAP Grant Funding)FY25 – Construction $150k FCDMC Share - $112,500 Town Share - $37,500 Design Complete Soliciting for Construction Bids Grant application submitted Budgeted $150,000 Expected Expenditure $150,000 Under Budget $ 0 Wayfinding Signs – Budget $297,000 Installation Underway Budgeted $297,000 Expected Expenditure $297,000 Under Budget $ 0 Golden Eagle Impoundment Area ImprovementsBudget $2,882,000 Construction Underway (80% Complete) Budgeted $2,882,000 Additional funding will be required to complete the project. Staff will return to Council at a later date to request additional funding. Community Center Assessment Budgeted (Comm. Center) $500,000 Assessment Expenditure $ 90,900 Remaining Expenditures Presented under Community Services Chiller Replacement Budgeted $300,000 Chiller replacement estimated $245,500 Refrigerant monitor panel $ 41,800 Under Budget $ 12,700 Questions ITEM 8. A. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Consent Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approving the Minutes for the Town Council CIP Work Session of March 25, 2025, and for the Town Council Rules of Procedure Work Session of March 25, 2025. 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. Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle N/A Risk Analysis N/A Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) N/A Staff Recommendation(s) Staff recommends approving the Minutes for the Town Council CIP Work Session of March 25, 2025, and for the Town Council Rules of Procedure Work Session of March 25, 2025. SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to approve the Minutes for the Town Council CIP Work Session of March 25, 2025, and for the Town Council Rules of Procedure Work Session of March 25, 2025. as presented. Attachments 2025.0325.CIP.Minutes 2025.0325.ROP.Minutes TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL MEETING (CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS) OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 25, 2025 A Special Work Session Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 1:00 p.m. Members Present: Mayor Gerry M. Friedel; Vice Mayor Hannah Toth; Councilmember Gayle Earle; Councilmember Brenda Kalivianakis; Councilmember Rick Watts; Councilmember Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town Clerk Bevelyn Bender TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 1 of 55 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Special Meeting: Capital Improvement Projects March 25, 2025 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 MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 2 of 55 MAYOR FRIEDEL: Call this session to order. Yeah. We're going to need to do another roll call, please, Town Clerk. BENDER: Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Present. BENDER: Vice Mayor Toth. TOTH: Present. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Here. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Here. BENDER: And we're waiting on Councilmember Kalivianakis and Councilmember Watts. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Rachael. GOODWIN: All right. Just to kind of kick us off and get the ball rolling here. We're going to have Paul sort of introduce the CIP, how it works, some of the funding mechanisms. And then really, you're going to hear both from Director Snipes and Director Weldy on the proposed projects. Just a couple of reminders. I sent them out last night, but just for the good of the discussion. We kind of adopted a red light, yellow light, green light process last year that really helped staff understand what the priorities were and where they could get going, and then those that the Council would like to see back. So really, as we move through these projects, I'd like to get a sense of projects that are green lit, where everybody -- where we agree that they need to get done and staff has the authority to move forward. Projects that are yellow are projects that you may still see value in, but have questions or want a little more clarification and would like to see them brought back, but they will be included in the budget. Any projects that we will not move forward with today will be considered red lights, and we will pull them out of the budget, and they will not be on the table when we come back April 8th. But that's kind of what we're looking for today. This is the best opportunity to let us know if there TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 3 of 55 are projects that are in here that you want to see or do not want to see. We're not adding more projects. This is kind of the final list. This is where we're looking for that final direction. Any questions or anything else before we get rolling? Okay. Paul, I'm going to turn it over to you. SOLDINGER: All right. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Before we begin today's work session, we felt that it was important to give you an idea of our funding sources for these projects within our various buckets. So on your screen are estimated fund balances for Fiscal Year 26 at the beginning of the year. Today we have over $10 million in the Capital Projects Fund, but we project to have about $8.5 million to begin next fiscal year after projects are completed. We will also transfer Fiscal Year 25 General Fund Excess Reserves into the Capital Projects Fund as required by policy. Our Streets Fund has about $11 million and our Development Impact Fee Funds have about $2.5 million. On this screen you'll kind of see within the $11.7 million of proposed capital projects where those funding sources are. So you'll see that we're planning for $5.4 million of Streets Funding, $2.5 million of Capital Projects Funding, and $2.3 million of Grant Reimbursements. We also have $800,000 and $700,000 of Development Impact Fee Funding. So as Rachael mentioned, for green light projects, that indicates that Council has fully authorized town staff to move forward on these projects, including procurement, contracts, and beginning construction. Yellow light projects indicate that Council has approved the project to move forward, but we'll bring it back to Council to discuss construction costs. And red light projects we'll remove from the budget. So with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin. SNIPES: All right. Here we go. One more round of Capital Improvements, Mayor and Council. There's a lot that's going on and a lot that continues to go on, so we'll kind of roll through where we're at now and where we're looking at being over the next five TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 4 of 55 years for capital. The things that we know are coming down the pike we have listed in here as well. Our first one's the Centennial Pavilion Shade Lighting Project. This is a $50,000 project, and we're looking to help bring some illumination to the area, of course, making sure that we're conscious of the dark sky area. This is just for the lighting underneath the shade structure that currently has none. We've been working with a group that has both state and national dark sky experience in doing lighting, and we think we've come up with a way to do that that will not stand out as being lighting during the day, but provide adequate lighting during the evening hours when we have a lot of scheduled groups to come in, as well as what we anticipate will be even more so as the Dark Sky Discovery Center gets completed. Do we want to hit each one and kind of talk about each one as we go through, or do you want to go to the end and do it as we get to that final page? MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a question from a Councilmember. MCMAHON: As you guys go through these, I know that we've talked about so many different things with these and grant money, et cetera. So would you please say if there's any grant money involved that we're using for that if we go forward or whatever, because I remember there was something about lighting and some -- you know -- so I think for clarification purposes and for us to make a decision on it, we'd need that information. Thank you. SNIPES: So currently there is no grant funding for this project. There is a grant that we're looking into, but what we'd like to do is go through and get Capital Improvement, and as you all know, we'll continue to search for grants on anything that we think is viable to get grants for. And if we get those, we'll bring those back to you so that you'll know that we're going for something as well to help cover the cost. So back to question one. GOODWIN: So yes -- to chime in on that, just to kind of piggyback on what you just said, I believe there's actually a grant on the agenda next Tuesday specifically for this project, but again, it's just the application. It doesn't mean that we would actually receive those TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 5 of 55 funds, so there's still a lot of steps to be completed. That being said, perhaps it makes sense to go through all of the projects and answer questions so everyone is familiar with them. At the end of your -- yeah. There's a summary page, and that's where we can kind of go through and indicate red, yellow, or green. SNIPES: Perfect. GOODWIN: Okay. Great. SNIPES: Sounds good. Our next project is our multi-year project that we've been working on on The Avenue. We have -- the shade structure is ordered. It will -- this is going to be right around -- we're hoping -- that June to July timeframe of going to install. We also have been working on getting the event receptacles. This is the one that we've actually selected. It will be in bronze in color to kind of go with the rustic nature of everything that's on The Avenue. It has a door that closes, locks so that we'll only be using this as an event receptacle when there's an event to help minimize the damage or usage or misusage of power outlets all the way down The Avenue. It'll have a small ring, as you can see there, of an illuminary light. We're going to be getting -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Is this one included in the $200,000 that was on the first page? SNIPES: Yes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. SNIPES: So this is all part of The Avenue improvements. Actually, we'll have the east half done this fiscal, and we'll do the west half next fiscal with that exact same project. So some of these are -- because this is a multi-year project, we did our best to balance that money however we could to get the best deals and get the most done. With the lighting of the fountains, that is going to be on next fiscal to where that we can do some more vetting. I think we have some things lined up, and then I just need to get some things figured out to finalize that part of the project. We're waiting on some numbers to come back in to see exactly what that'll be, but that is intended to be done next fiscal as well. WATTS: Kevin, in that light, how is this integrated into the Streets Plan with all the iterations that we heard last week? I mean, is it affected in any way? Is it -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 6 of 55 SNIPES: What part of it? All of it, in general? WATTS: All of it. I mean, it depends on what we end up with as a Streets Program, if anything. SNIPES: So nothing that we're doing in the center of The Avenue has anything to do with the edges other than we all know what the options are. WATTS: Right. SNIPES: Everything that we're doing right now definitely will not need to be changed, modified, or any other way for that. We're still treating the park as being the park, and the streetscapes as being the streetscapes. So there's not an overlay between the two of them. WATTS: Okay. Thanks. SNIPES: The next one here is the protection and putting a building over the irrigation pump system and the electrical that you see there hanging on a plywood wall. Probably not the most ideal way for our electrical to be hung, but that's the way it's been. So what we'd like to do is bring all that into a building and separate our pump controls from the pump. If you remember, we talked previously about how last year we had a leak inside the pump room. It was a small enough leak that we didn't see it right away, and a big enough leak that it sprayed right into the electrical of the pump controls. So that being said, that meant that we ended up having to replace pretty much everything that's in that small structure that's out there now. Excuse me. The other thing we'd like to do is start doing fertigation systems where we can do some additives into our irrigation. That's what we're doing currently at both Golden Eagle Park and Fountain Park, and they've been extremely successful. If you see the turf that we're growing now, it is definitely a lot better than the turf we've been growing in years past. We've been doing it for several years at both Golden Eagle and Fountain Park, but we can't do it currently with this setup at Desert Vista Park, and so we're confident that this would definitely increase our turf ability -- our ability to grow good, strong turf there. It's turning around. It's just not where we want it to be, and this would definitely help that. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 7 of 55 GOODWIN: Kevin, that includes the dog park portion of the park, too, right? SNIPES: Absolutely, yeah. GOODWIN: Okay. So the turf improvements would be not only up on the soccer area, but also down there. SNIPES: Yeah. GOODWIN: Okay. SNIPES: This would help all turf at Desert Vista Park. It's not separate in any way. The next one is a $50,000 for doing some improvements and doing tree removal, sodding some high traffic areas, working on some areas that have caused notorious flooding from the splash pad area of the dog park. This was one that was brought to staff by both the ADOG group and Councilmembers, and so that's why this is in here. And we think that these improvements go a long way towards making some improvements that are there. The tree that you see there is a pine that's been there for the length of the life that's typical for that type of pine, and so we've seen several of those go down over the last couple of years, and we have several more that are in there that are distressed, and so going to a better shade-type tree I think will go a long way to making it a better dog park area as well. EARLE: Director Snipes, can I ask? SNIPES: Yes. EARLE: The previous screen you had that was going to include taking care of the dog park, was that just the fertilizing part? SNIPES: No. This is just the building enclosure around the irrigation is what this one's for, so this $300,000 that's here is for that. EARLE: But I thought you said it would include fertilizing -- SNIPES: Yes. EARLE: Being able to fertilize the dog park. SNIPES: Yes, that's a park-wide scenario. EARLE: Okay. So that -- SNIPES: There would be no way to separate that. It's all -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 8 of 55 EARLE: Right, yeah. Right. But I'm saying with the $50,000 here, part of that was improving the sod somewhere? I don't see that. SNIPES: Yeah. Yeah, so creating new sod in areas that are worn down to the dirt and have been abused, used. EARLE: Okay. SNIPES: Look at that over the years, and so if we can come in and get some new turf in, then the quality -- then we can get that to maintain. EARLE: Okay. Okay. But so essentially we're actually spending a little more than $50,000 on the dog park. SNIPES: Yes. EARLE: It's all together but -- so that should make them happy. We should tell them that, more than 50. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Kevin, when do you anticipate those improvements at the dog park? When will they start? SNIPES: As far as the dog park itself, it'll be right after the fiscal starts. We'll start doing some things, yeah. GOODWIN: Mayor, if I may, that's really where we need -- when we get to it, if it's a green light project, they start July 1 with a new fiscal year. And that's kind of why we have that process, because in the past, we've waited to come back to Council in their first meeting back, which isn't until September, and we've lost the better part of the first quarter of the fiscal year. So having that authority to get going July 1 is very, very helpful to us. SNIPES: To be fair, the ones that we've heard positive things from, we start running on already. We're getting with our contractors and trying to get all of our eggs in a row, because we know what the best time of year is for us to do certain things, and so it's this red light, green light. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. You have to get a commitment out of them and get your timetable set up. SNIPES: Absolutely, yeah. But getting the scheduling where we want it to be is TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 9 of 55 extremely important in that. WATTS: So in the spirit of clarity, you've already started this one? SNIPES: We have come up with designs that we want to do for the splash pad. We know what trees we want to bring in, and we know the areas that we want to get the sod in, so absolutely. WATTS: But no physical activity? SNIPES: Absolutely not, no. It's never physical. Ahead of the go-ahead and the budget being there, that's not possible. WATTS: Yeah. SNIPES: But what we do is get everything in a row and make sure that everybody's ready to where we can be as least intrusive on the environment as possible when we go in to do it. Any other questions? Next one here is the new shade structure over at the splash pad. It does not currently have lighting underneath it. We are looking at doing some area-type lighting around there to help add some light to the area. I know this has Economic Development support as well. We heard from some of the business owners as well as some promoters around town that do other events, that they would like to use this space, but they would like to use it in the evenings, and it's tougher to do that right now with there not being lights. It would involve bringing in light trailers, so that's where this one kind of came from. We did set it up for electrical in the future. When we did it, we added conduits underneath the sidewalks so that we could get there. So this one would definitely make it so that the usage of the area could increase. EARLE: Do we rent that out? SNIPES: It is rentable. EARLE: So we do for now. SNIPES: So the way we have it set up is you can't rent out little pieces of it; it's all or nothing. EARLE: Okay. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 10 of 55 SNIPES: And that was deliberate to where that it would have to be a large group to be able to come in and use it to where they -- you don't have a family of four using it and all the other tables are there. We wanted to discourage that usage. EARLE: What is the rental fee for that? SNIPES: We treat it the same as we do the Amphitheater area or the Centennial Circle area. I don't know that number off the top of my head, but it's around $900? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I think, too, so yeah. There's definitely ability there. We've had conversations around doing some concerts in that area as well to help promote business. We started looking into it this year and decided to put it on hold until next year, so. Next one here is the Fountain Park Ramadas. They're at 22 years right now, and the saltiness of the water combined with some of the design and infrastructure that was put in has created a lot of issues. The roofs of these ramadas have an insulation layer in them, so as soon as moisture got in, the insulation held onto the moisture, and the moisture did its thing to the metal. And now we have rusted holes as well as we're seeing structural issues on the block, as you can see in those pictures. I've been monitoring those for several years now, and they are getting worse, so this is something where we feel that we do need to move on. I don't think there's a safety issue today, but it's definitely showing signs that there is a safety issue coming. We'd rather be out in front of that, and I spent a couple years trying to get a vendor to come in and just do the roofs, thinking that would be cheaper, and fix the structural component. But just doing the roof was coming in at $100,000 per ramada, and I couldn't wrap my head around it, so I tried someone else. Same numbers came in, couldn't wrap it, tried it again. So we're now to the point where we said, if it's $100,000 a piece, then we can rebuild these and put in new ones that are manufactured, so if we need a piece or a part, we can actually get those, because that was the other thing. They use all unique type of roofing, unique, you know, it's way over-engineered for what it is. It has a unique look, for sure, but what we'd like to do is go to something that we can get parts for as we TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 11 of 55 need to if there's something that were to occur. During our Irish Fest this year, I saw three kids jumping up and down on this exact structure with their dad watching. I went from panic to anger to panic. Somewhere in there I stayed, and when I got over there, the dad was definitely not caring that his kids were up on the roof, but I was. So just when I think we need to get it taken care of, and we could do it over the years and do them slowly, and we're planning on a two-year program here, but it just is something that I think is -- that raised my level of alertness to the fact that kids are actually climbing up on top of it is bad enough in itself, but even worse knowing that there's a hole up there. The next one's one that we didn't get to last fiscal. It was approved at that time. It was when I was back where I am now of having two different jobs since, unfortunately, Brandon Putman, our Park Superintendent, has taken another job, so I'll be holding both hats here for a little bit again, hopefully a shorter period of time. But part of the reason for waiting as well was the Sanitary District lowered a manhole that was at the top of the hill, and that's enabling us to cut that hill and make this a cheaper project than what we originally had anticipated. We'd like to get the bollards. You can see in that picture on the left that the bollards code through about where that lady is walking, and they don't continue on back through there. Originally, when the park was redone, this was supposed to have a pony wall, and lights were supposed to be on that, and they took that out of the project, or it didn't get done -- I'm not sure which -- and so there's not any lighting that goes through this section, and it is a complaint that we get that it gets pretty dark when you walk along that back side of this hill. So we'd like to correct two problems with one. Any questions on that one? WATTS: My assumption is that when you take all of that miscellaneous-sized rock out of there, you're going to put back in something larger, riprap of some sort? SNIPES: Absolutely, yeah. WATTS: Okay. Thanks. SNIPES: Yeah. That was the immediate knee-jerk when we didn't have any funding to do anything my first year here. That was flooding out every single time down onto the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 12 of 55 sidewalk and putting about an inch to two inches of mud on the sidewalk. Joe really got tired of shoveling mud, so we had lots of rock at the time, and so he started putting some in to slow it down, and it kind of grew into something not as pretty as what it should be, but we'd like to get that corrected. The next one here is the Four Peaks Electrical Room. As you can see, it's a very small building that's housing a lot of electrical components, both for sports field lighting, court lighting, the irrigation system, and it's too tight of an area for what all is in there. We'd like to get that expanded out, and there's a pad that's already there that we would like to use -- the concrete pad that's there -- to where that we can also add some storage into a building that we add there and have room for future growth as needed. That one is $50,000 this year for design, and then $200,000 for the install. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Question. SNIPES: Sorry, go ahead. Sure. EARLE: That's not the name. That's just a reference because it's a star viewing park. If it doesn't go, maybe we'll have a contest for people to name it if it happens. Okay. SNIPES: So the next one is one that was approved for this year. We ended up pulling the -- what's my term? Is it a cap? We took money from -- it wasn't money taken from this. It was just to keep us under the expenditure cap that we took money from this, right? Yeah. That's why this money got pulled for this year's doing for Golden Eagle. SOLDINGER: No. It was a budget transfer. We took monies transferred over -- SNIPES: Yeah. So the Development Fee funding didn't get affected at all. What we took was the expenditure allowance and moved it to other projects that needed it. One was Golden Eagle Park, and one, I believe, was Fountain Hills Boulevard, is that right? It was early on that we made this change, and so we are in the design phase right now. We've selected J2 to work with, so we'll be working on the design right now, and we'll be ready to start breaking ground this summer and fall. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Kevin, and these are funds we have to use by a certain time period, or they go back. SNIPES: So the Development Fees, we have a 10-year life cycle on them, or we've got to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 13 of 55 give them back to the developers. EARLE: Okay. Thank you. SNIPES: So this does not come out of the Capital Improvement. This is the one oddity in here. The next one -- so we're working to get this one done this year. This is on this year's budget. I've asked to have $50,000 carried over just in case this one goes into next year a little bit. We're in the process of getting the order right now, and so it's going to be a tight window. They're confident that they can do it. I'm never that confident, so -- but we're hoping to get this in. This is at Golden Eagle Park for the playground replacement that's under the shade structure. I think this is going to be a really cool addition to what's already there. It's going to link directly to the dome that's already there. These are both the same structure, just different angles to look at it. So for that, this is just a carryover, just wanting to let you know that we are asking to carry over $50,000, if needed, to next year. All right. That brings us to our breakdown page for Community Services. Do we want to go through these now? So red light, green light, yellow light, Centennial Pavilion Shade Lighting. GOODWIN: Okay. I think we'll just move right down the list if everybody's okay with that. Yes, ma'am. MCMAHON: Do we have any other funds or -- GOODWIN: We do. So everything that's presented here today fits within our available funds and our available expenditure limitations. MCMAHON: Okay. So we can do them all? SNIPES: Yes. GOODWIN: Yes. Arguably, yes, you could do them all. MCMAHON: Because we've seen them a lot. They seem to keep coming back, and it seems to be like what staff would like to really see happen -- GOODWIN: Yeah. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 14 of 55 MCMAHON: -- given the improvements that are needed for the electrical and things like that. SOLDINGER: Yeah. Let me just add to that real quick. We haven't done our final analysis against the expenditure limitation, but because of some of the things we've discussed in other Council meetings about our strategy with our exclusions and our carry forward, we feel pretty confident. I'm just stipulating because we haven't done our final analysis yet. SNIPES: Oh, come on. GOODWIN: That's Paul being cautious. SNIPES: Rushing next year. EARLE: What was the amount on the splash pad shade structure? I missed that. Oh, is it up here? SNIPES: There it is. 50,000 there, it's about halfway down. EARLE: 50,000? Is there a grant for that one? SNIPES: No, there's not. MCMAHON: Can I ask a question, please? It looks to me like most of these are needs, for the most part, versus wants, right? And do you -- if we agree to them, is there an order of preference that you would like to see them done? Or is it going to be per the money and per the fiscal year, et cetera, like you talked about the dog park? Because, like, jumping on the roof of the Ramada, those kids and stuff, to me that's something that may not even be a question whether we authorize that or not. SNIPES: Yeah. To me, obviously there's some that I'd like to get moving in on sooner than others, but they also may be ones that take longer to get the product for, so it's a juggling act; it always has been. And so it's a matter of figuring out which ones we can get the vendors to be able to get out to do them. A lot of times there's multiple different vendors that are involved in doing it, so it's a juggling act between them and wanting to have the least amount of downtime for any spot that we're at. So once I get one group in there, I want that to stay moving until it gets done. I don't like to go in and do demo and then have nothing there for six months because that doesn't sell well TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 15 of 55 either, and we've done a really good job of it over the years, but it's not easy for sure. But yeah -- and I know that the roof can handle three kids jumping up and down on it, that much has been proven, so we have done that. But yeah, definitely safety always comes first as far as what we'll try and tackle first. KALIVIANAKIS: Kevin, I think last year I questioned you on this too. The Fountain Park erosion control project for $75,000. You know, that number kind of bothered me last year. It still does. Can you kind of deep dive into that a little more, because are they going to build a half wall with, like, the bollard lighting like you mentioned to Councilmember Watts? Or could you just tell us a little more about that project? SNIPES: Yeah. What we're looking to do is we're going to cut that slope so it's not so steep. We're going to move it back as far as we can. We may need to move a disc golf tee that's right at the top of that hill to accomplish that, and then it's bringing in new electrical to run for the bollards, and they're over a grand each when you start dealing with those, so your prices jump pretty quick with those. They're almost two grand I think now, actually. They were a grand when we first started getting going on it. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. SNIPES: So -- and again, if we come in and we're under budget, we'll do that. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. SNIPES: I can speak to right now the Panorama Park project that we're doing, we're going to come back with about $100,000 to put back in because we didn't need it all. But what I don't want to do is have to come back to you and go, I need 20 more grand. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. SNIPES: I don't ever function that way. I always try and come to you with a number that I think is where we need to be plus a little for protection, and then if I can give it back to you, I'm more than happy to do that. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Yeah. And so it's going to be not only erosion control, but beautification of the park too? SNIPES: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We'll be planting plants and there'll be several things that'll happen on that hillside. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 16 of 55 KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Great. Thank you. EARLE: I have a question on the receptacles -- electric receptacle -- I'm sorry -- on The Avenue. So that's for events. Are they -- is there some way that we're getting reimbursed? SNIPES: Yeah. We get paid every time they use it. EARLE: And that's -- some of that going towards the receptacle there. SNIPES: Yes. EARLE: And right now, how did they get electric? Do you have -- SNIPES: Spider -- those yellow spider boxes that were out there for the Christmas holiday season -- EARLE: Okay. SNIPES: -- that were sitting out there that I can't stand and are a trip hazard and have a giant cord attached to them, I want to get rid of all that. EARLE: Okay. Okay. SNIPES: That would be ideal for me. EARLE: Thank you. WATTS: Did you want to take the Four Peaks Electrical Building and use that down at the Desert Vista to cover the pump enclosure? That would save you 50 grand. SNIPES: Oh, take the Panorama apart? WATTS: No, take the one from Four Peaks -- the building -- the electrical building that's too small. Would that fit down at Desert Vista? SNIPES: You're not helping. You thought it was small before, now it's really small. WATTS: So, Kevin, I see that, first off, it's good to know that these will fit in our budget, at least at this point in time. But there is a slight degree of specific use, specific users. The structure shade behind the splash pad favors the businesses more than anything else. The dog park has been an ongoing issue. It's very specific in its usage. So some of these, if they're benefits to the town and all of the population, it makes some sense. But the ones that are more specific to time, place, particular individuals, organizations, don't make as much sense to me. So I think the splash pad electrical I'm TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 17 of 55 not hugely in favor of. The dog park I'm not in favor of, although I can see the need for doing a dog park renovation one time and then turning it over to ADOG. It's their dogs that tear it up, and we're saddled with having to take care of things. The Centennial Pavilion shade, I think if there's an opportunity for that T-Mobile grant, that we should pursue that as well, and I think that's a given. But there are some things here that seem to have -- I'm not quite sure of the word -- but it's favoritism towards specific groups or specific locations so -- SNIPES: At the same time, that's what we do for everything we do. Basketball courts, tennis courts, baseball fields, soccer fields, playgrounds, splash pads. Everything is for specific groups. What we try and do is hit all the groups, and that's the difficult thing is we want all of our facilities to be great for all people that are in the town. And so to do that, we have to hit all the groups, and we try and multipurpose as many things as we can. But anything that's community services-oriented is geared towards specific people within the community, and the idea is for us to hit as many people as we can every time we can. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And I -- excuse me, Councilman Skillicorn, and I know you're next -- but I just want to throw in. I think there's opportunity there for sales tax revenue from people that visit the town, and they rent out that shade structure behind those businesses there. So every time they wine and dine in town, we're a beneficiary of that as well. Councilman Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. One quick question on that Desert Vista pump enclosure. It sounds awfully expensive to me. I mean, even if it was a complete enclosure with a new panel, that's probably less than what I see that number there, but I also do wonder why that one is so much more than the one over at Four Peaks. SNIPES: It has to do with that electrical panel that's on the plywood and having to get engineering involved to move those versus the other ones that are already there. We're going to build a building around those, so that makes it a lot easier and a lot cheaper. SNIPES: Okay, because coming from that industry, that sounds like an awfully TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 18 of 55 expensive -- SNIPES: I hope it is. I hope it's far less. SKILLICORN: Okay. SNIPES: And like I said, I came to you last year when we did Panorama, and you said, I hope you come in under. SKILLICORN: Yeah. SNIPES: We're coming in $100,000 under of our $250,000. SKILLICORN: Okay. SNIPES: So we'll do that, but I need to have the money there to figure out what it takes to move that stuff, because that is going to have to be moved, not just built around and put in. SKILLICORN: Okay. SNIPES: So that's why. SKILLICORN: And I don't know if it's really appropriate for CIP or budget discussion, but I kind of wonder, even like a block grant to the dog park, you know, the ADOG. You know? I know that we can use staff resources and such, but I kind of wonder, like, here's a $50,000 budget. How do you guys want to spend it? And we kind of hands off. And it lets them have the freedom. Now if they need to use some of our resources, that's fine. But I kind of wonder, maybe just looking at it that way. SNIPES: To me, I'd much rather have the knowledge that our staff carry, that know what works and what doesn't. I've heard the ideas that have come from there, and I've turned down a lot of those ideas. Even if they were from professionals, it doesn't always line up, and so when you do that, then we're ultimately responsible, even if they go in and do something that shouldn't have been done. So that's my opinion on that. Anything else? GOODWIN: All right, on that note, as opposed to going to each one, I guess there's a question as to -- are there any that anyone would like to see removed completely, red- lighted, pulled from this list? Are there any that you would like to be yellow-lighted and come back, and that we will budget for them? Okay. So I'm seeing everyone that we TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 19 of 55 are going to give a green light. Oh, I see. TOTH: I'm sorry. The only yellow that I want to provide are for the splash pad -- and I think that's actually it. My only note on Centennial Pavilion is I want to do it if we get the grant, so that's a greenish-yellow light. WATTS: And I similarly have a yellow light on Centennial Pavilion lighting, contingent on the grant. And the dog park, to me, is still too specific in its use as opposed to -- and I don't know whether -- do we get liability releases from those people that use the dog park? That's the way parks are in general. WATTS: Okay. SNIPES: Is when you're in a free, public park. WATTS: So they break their leg and it's their problem? SNIPES: Yeah. WATTS: And, again, with the park splash pad for the lighting, that's a yellow for me. And I think that's it right now. Thanks. GOODWIN: All right. So I have two yellows, and I have five that are okay with moving forward with everything. Okay. All right. Noted. Any other questions for Kevin? EARLE: I want to thank you, Kevin, for the beautiful green grass at the fountain park. GOODWIN: You thought you were done, but you're not. SNIPES: I just thought I'd have one more slide. It's your fault. So this is our five-year look of things that we want to start keeping an eye on. One, you'll notice, that has large numbers that I hope continues to move, as it has over the last few years, for the lake liner. But we want to make everyone aware that we are very conscious of that and are paying attention to it, so this is kind of our plan to start getting some funding in for that. And the other long-term one that you see on there is the Golden Eagle Park, and it is our next park that is in need of multi-year improvements, kind of like we're doing right now on The Avenue, like we did at Four Peaks and Desert Vista. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 20 of 55 Any questions on those? MCMAHON: Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate it. Is there any way with the lake liner -- I mean, that's not going to be a major, major expense, but it's pretty important. Is there any way we could try and put at least $1 million a year in that fund? And maybe -- oh, here he comes. SOLDINGER: It's a really relevant question, Councilwoman McMahon. So the Town Manager and I have talked about that a little bit recently. Well, you know I've been here over a year now. We're starting to look at our policies and what we can bring back to Council to consider as far as financial policy. That's one of the things we talked about, requiring certain revenues to automatically go into our Facilities Reserve Fund that we use for facility improvements as well as saving for the lake liner. But definitely that's a priority for staff. This year is challenging because, like I've been reporting to the Council, our revenues are flattening, so it's a stark difference from even last year where we had a lot of reserves. So we have to kind of see how the rest of the year goes out. Right now, just a rough projection, we're projecting like $4 to $5 million of excess reserves at year end. But if things change, that can change quickly, so we actually don't have a really good idea of that number until June, July. And really, once the audit's done is when we can start having those conversations, which is closer to October. But we can certainly budget for what we think is a reasonable amount in the final adopted budget of a transfer from the General Fund for that purpose, so stay tuned, but definitely something we're considering. I think it's just important to note, actually, Kevin and Rachael and I talked about that a little bit more. You know, it's something we'd like to not have to do for a long time, but I think it's just prudent for us to start planning for it. We've already started saving for it. And fiscal year 28 seemed like a good time to at least start getting the ball rolling, to have a plan starting to formulate, so that's why we have it there. We're hoping it doesn't come to that. We're hoping we can -- we still feel good and we can push things back a little bit more. But it's important to plan, so that's why it's there, so -- SNIPES: And just to add to that, it's something that I am pushing for. I plan on being TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 21 of 55 here for a long time, but just in case I'm not, I've done a lot of the research along with our engineering firms and things that we've worked with, so if I were to not be here and they were to start this project of doing -- figuring out how we can actually do the lake liner replacement, I think it would be a disservice to the town. And so that's one of the reasons that I'd like to get us, for lack of a better term, a three-ring binder together that says, we've planned it. It's now leaking. Take this book and go do it. And I think that's the most important part of this is not going, oh no, the sky is falling -- in this case, the lake's leaking -- and so we need to get moving ASAP. And now we're two years down the road getting the plan together to how to do it, and then another year to get it done. I'd much rather have us be ahead of that and go, regardless, if it's leaking, we have to drain it, we have to put in a new liner, and how do we do it? So to me, we won't gain anything by waiting longer to do it unless something magically comes along that sucks the water out and makes it evaporate immediately and then you can just put in the lake liner. We don't have to haul 100 million gallons of water out. But I don't think that's coming anytime soon, so to me, I think it would be smart for us to get moving on that sooner than later. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And we've talked a lot about that, Rachael, you and I have. This Council is very serious about planning for that event and also saving money toward it. We don't want to ever be in the position of going to the residents of this town saying we have not planned for this event, so -- GOODWIN: I'm sorry, Councilmember. I was just going to chime in on the same topic. It doesn't mean that we aren't monitoring it, though. We still do the dive inspections every couple of years. We do the evap tests with things like that to make sure that we are monitoring the health of the lake and the liner. And we don't have any indicators that it is leaking, but we know in FY30 that that is the lifespan of -- the expected lifespan of the current liner. So to Kevin's point, we'll continue to monitor it. It doesn't mean we actually have to start the work in FY29 or 30, but getting a plan in place ready to go so that when we do have to get the work done, it's ready to roll and we can get moving. WATTS: Maybe I misunderstood. What year was the lake liner installed? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 22 of 55 GOODWIN: The lake liner was installed in 2000-2001. WATTS: Okay, so I thought it had a 20-year life. GOODWIN: It had a 20-year warranty and has a 30-year life. WATTS: 30-year life. Okay. That's good to know. Has anybody started conversations with the Sanitary District about their participation? GOODWIN: They're aware. WATTS: And how anxious are they to participate? GOODWIN: They're aware of it. It probably warrants, as we move along, having a joint session with them and their board. But from operation to operation, yes, they're aware and that we have been talking about it, and we'll have to include them in the planning process because obviously it affects them greatly just as much as us. So they're aware, but there's definitely more conversation to be had. SKILLICORN: I don't want to spend lots of time on the lake liner, you know, because it's years off. I don't want to spend a year talking about it. But is there any legal liability if it's leaking some? I mean, we could just become the Garden of Eden if it leaks a little bit, but I don't know if there's legal liability for -- or if it's our legal liability. It might be the Sanitary District's legal liability because I believe some of that is not allowed to turn back into groundwater. But I am also curious what we would do with it temporarily. Do we have a plan to store that water, or is that just we're hoping that someone gives us, you know, a giant retention pond for that time? SNIPES: Yeah. So my understanding is last time when it got replaced, there was legal ramifications for not doing it. Once they found it was leaking, then it was discovered that they were finding it in the ground, in the soils on Sovereign Nation, and that's what prompted the "we've got to do it now". That's my understanding of it. You want to stand up again? GOODWIN: This time I think you're done. I think you're actually done this time. All right. Director Weldy is going to walk us through the Public Works projects. I figure we'll take a similar approach, ask questions, familiarize yourselves with the projects, and then we'll take a look at them collectively at the end. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 23 of 55 WELDY: Thank you. GOODWIN: Director. WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, Councilmembers, first of all, thank you for the lunch. We do appreciate the fact that you fed us on this day. As we go through this, and the next few words and statements are not intended to discount anybody's wants or needs, but in Public Works, everything that we have on this list is a need. We just don't have any wants because our focus is on safety, and that envelope is relatively large because of all the different types of transportation needs and drainage and other safety issues we relate to. There is a caveat to that. Palomino is a direct select that is changed to a CIP by the Mayor and Council. We will follow the direction and the instruction provided by the Mayor and Council on that road as we discuss it. The balance of the projects in here are vetted and discussed over a considerable amount of time, and we consider a need. Any questions on the opening statement? The first one is Palomino. We've had a considerable amount of discussion related to this roadway. In fact, the Town Engineer and myself and the Assistant Town Engineer have all been out to this location numerous times to take a look and see what we have as it has become clear to us that the Council intends to move forward and follow through with their commitment to build this road. I think it's important to note with a project of this magnitude and complexities related to it, there is a lot of moving parts here that have to be addressed. One of those is we have one whole half of the road -- and these are the lovely folks living on the south side of the road -- that are historically up on a hill overlooking. A large percentage of the ones on the north side are below grade. When the town comes in and does work in this type of terrain with this type of geometry, during the next storm event, it is likely there will be water overtopping curbs and entering driveways at that time, and justifiably so, the residents become angry. Whether or not past rain events caused flooding or water to flow through their property is no longer relevant. What becomes relevant is the work that was recently done and how that may or may not have impacted the quantities of water that TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 24 of 55 overtopped curbs or entered driveways. The reason I'm talking about this in a little bit more detail is we had originally proposed pulling the curbs in five feet on either side to prepare for the eventual placement of sidewalk when and if funding becomes available. We have since changed our direction on that. Based on the geometry and the road prism in this area, it's a must that we pull these curbs in for several reasons. One of them, we need to take control of some of these flows of water, the majority of them heading east from just east of Palisades. This includes all the surface water from the roadway and a good percentage of the hillside water for all the homes on the south side and a couple of the tributary side roads that have steep slopes that lead down into it. The second reason is up against the steep slopes and even some of the flatter slopes, we have an incredible amount of mature landscaping that is in any -- several different types, including larger river rocks, smaller rock, but mature trees, plants, and shrubs. When we go in to remove the existing width of the road, we are going to have to dig into some of this landscaping -- in some cases, about two feet or so, and this is going to drive the cost of construction substantially higher. Having said that, and I was asked this question most recently, can we just redo the road without addressing the curbs? The answer is no. The curb that is in there for the majority is a pre-incorporation curb that is approximately four to six inches thick and sits on top of the pavement. A structural curb section is about 18 inches thick and actually holds the pavement in place -- two different types of structures. With that said, I will let you know the steps that we've taken as we've worked with the Town Manager. The first step is we have developed a clear scope of work that will be published and released to our on-call engineering firms for survey services. Surveying of this length of road is an absolute necessity. Then we have that datum, and that allows us to be able to determine when and where we may or may not need to change the elevation of the road to allow waters to flow one direction or the other. It's also critical that we have that survey so we can determine the offset, the lateral and the horizontal location for every single foot of the curb that needs to be replaced. The original TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 25 of 55 estimate for this is about $5.4 million. For today's purpose, we have no reason to increase or decrease that amount because it's based on conversations we've had with more than two professionals in this business that are familiar with this type of work and provide pretty good estimates based on unit pricing. Lots of information there. We'll pause here briefly and take any questions or try to address any concerns you may have. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I just want to mention that I've been out on this road with the Public Works Director -- I think a couple of times we've been out there now -- so I've seen firsthand what he's talking about. And there's -- what -- 130 driveways on this street? WELDY: 132, Mayor. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. So there's a lot to take into consideration, so I appreciate your due diligence on this. WELDY: Thank you. WATTS: So Director Welty, the existing curbs, are they a poured-in-place curb, or are they just -- WELDY: Councilmember, they are cast-in-place. WATTS: Cast-in-place. WELDY: Yes. It was the equivalent of a 1970 slip form. WATTS: Got you. So I'm surprised that there's no increase in cost to do a formed that's 18 inches as opposed to that 6 inches. Are you comfortable with that number? WELDY: The estimate that we provided to the Mayor and Council is to replace it with roll curb, not the wedge curb, so our $5.4 includes a new curb, because as part of the planning, we knew the curbing would have to be replaced. The cost to replace wedge curb is slightly lower, but we don't replace it in kind. The Town Engineers sealed the document that is the same outside shapes. However, it is at a structural depth and about a foot deep for the wedge curb if and when we replace it in shorter sections. WATTS: Understood. Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. Oh, let's look at the pictures. I got focused on talking. So -- and here are some of the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 26 of 55 roadway conditions that we had discussed earlier. This is what we're proposing for the finished product. And now we'll move on to Golden Eagle impoundment. It's important to note that the monies that we are asking for next year are partially to cover any unpaid invoices for this year -- ends on June 30th -- but primarily for next year, which is phase two, which includes some work on the face of the dam, the drainage channel in front of it, and the trash racks and/or the structures that prevent large debris from entering the dam. It's important to note -- and the Town Manager and I have had this conversation -- when we applied for this grant five years ago, the estimate for this work was the approximate $90,000 that you're seeing. We will know more about that number when we go to bid when those plans are finished. It's also important to note that the ADWR and the Maricopa County Flood Control District have had the plans for phase two at 60 percent design for the last six months, and we've not yet heard any comment back from them -- not uncommon. Likely it'll be 12 to 18 months. So we're in the design, planning, and construction stage for phase two of next year, and we will share more information about that phase when we return to Mayor and Council to codify and/or revise the grant from the Flood Control District, which is a 75/25 percent split, I think this one is. Any questions related to the asking of money to finish this year and start phase two? MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. I turned my light on a minute or two ago because I'd like to talk about Palomino, and I hit right at the end of that, and I didn't know we were going to Golden Eagle, so if we can go back. My question here is, I thought originally this was going to be just a CIP-funded project, and then now it's going to be reimbursed by the Streets Fund. So this might be a Paul question, but what effect is this going to have to encumber our Streets Fund in outlying years? SOLDINGER: Okay. Councilwoman, so because of what we've discussed, with the expansion limitation and us saving of HEERF funds and our investment earnings in that fund, those are exclusionary against the expansion limitation. So number one, HEERF, that's one of the exclusions. When you spend that money, it doesn't count. It's one of TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 27 of 55 the biggest ones that we have typically every year. Grants and investment earnings, other things like bond proceeds and things like that don't count as well. So in one of the presentations, we discussed how we've been saving up our HEERF funds in the Streets Fund. So yes, we have a fund balance, but a lot of that in our fund balance now is about -- I'm thinking of the numbers right now. We have about $14 million; by the year end, we'll have about $11 million. Let's look at our $14 million today that we have in the Streets Fund. About $7 million of that is either HEERF money or investment earnings. About $6 million of that is HEERF money. So basically, this is the approach that we decided to take to allow us to be able to increase our budget because we have those carry forwards that don't count towards the expansion limitation. So it's a very complicated answer, but basically we have to do it this way to be able to increase our budget so much this year to be able to take on this additional project because last year, fiscal year 25 that we're in now, we adopted a budget of $45.2 million. This year's budget's going to be right around $51 million, and our expansion limitation only went up by $1 million. So you see, we're kind of increasing our budget to take on an additional large project like this, but we're able to do that because of that strategy. That doesn't mean we're going to use all those HEERF monies in those transfers. We could be transferring over some of our local sales taxes. We're only transferring over whatever we need to be able to get under the expansion limitation. So that's what I tried to explain at the last time -- at whichever meeting it was that we discussed this process -- but that's a specific strategy that Finance has entailed, and we worked with it alongside the Town Manager and the Public Works Director to be able to increase our capital budget to this extent to be able to do a large-scale project like this. KALIVIANAKIS: So you're saying this is going to come out of previously collected funds from HEERF and sales tax, or is this going to affect HEERF funds going forward and how many years would we be encumbering those sources of revenue that would be put into other streets being repaired other than Palomino? SOLDINGER: Yes. So all the money that's in the Streets Fund now is made up of those monies. As we work on this project next year, there's a lot of variables with this project, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 28 of 55 so let me make that clear. It might not be $5.4 million next year. It might take two years. It might take three years depending on how long the project goes. But -- KALIVIANAKIS: Three years of borrowing funds to fund this? SOLDINGER: Not necessarily borrowing funds, really. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. I'm just trying to follow it. SOLDINGER: Right. It's just -- it's the way we do things here. If we pay for it out of the Capital Projects Fund up front, we can include it in our Capital Improvement Plan and track it that way easier. It would be easier, really, if we were just paying for it out of the Streets Fund, but that's just how we do it. It's just being reimbursed through a transfer every time we're making a payment. So say we're paying the vendor for some of the construction work, we're just paying it out of the Capital Projects Fund and doing a reimbursement to transfer the funds. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. And so future funds we collect will be going to future projects for the roads? SOLDINGER: Yes. Yes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. SOLDINGER: It'll be going to the Streets Fund and fund the normal street paving program as well as other programs that are coming out of the Streets Fund. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We're not taking future dollars to do this. It's coming out of what we have right now. SOLDINGER: Yeah. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So we're not encumbering any future road work by doing this. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. That was precisely my question. Thank you. SOLDINGER: Okay. WATTS: So Paul, before you run away, so what we've done is we've found a way to exceed the $42 million that we had last year plus the $1 million we've got this year, $43. We found a way to be able to accelerate that to $50 million, but the expectation is that it's a one-time event. It's going to go back to the $42, $43 million, whatever the state thresholds are going forward. Is that fair? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 29 of 55 SOLDINGER: It's mostly fair. We have to evaluate year to year, Councilmember, so it just depends. WATTS: Right. SOLDINGER: Like this year, we're going to have to evaluate how much of our exclusions and our carry forward we'll have to use. This year, I don't anticipate we'll use a lot, but next year we will. So when you look at our expansion limitation report after it's complete, after you get next year's operations, we're going to come in $1 under the expansion limitation because we're just going to use the exclusions that we need to be able to do that, and all of this, and all of this discussion is part of that strategy -- yes, to be able to increase our budget to take on additional projects that we may not have been able to otherwise fit under the expansion limitation. WATTS: But especially considering revenue streams going forward in the upcoming years, they may be significantly lower, so I would hate the expectation to be that all of a sudden we went from $43 to $51, and now we're going to stay at $51 because I think the reality is probably we're going to be back down to that $43, if not less. SOLDINGER: Yeah. That's a good point. It's highly likely that if we are, hypothetically, if we're able to finish Palomino, and it does cost about $5 million to do next year, hypothetically, we probably will reduce our budget the following year below that $51 million that we're including in the proposed budget at this point. It's very likely. WATTS: Thank you. GOODWIN: Councilman, to that point, just to kind of, I think, close the loop, is that the exclusions that we're using are one-time, in that you use them, you don't get to use them again. So we're using them to -- we're expending $5 million worth of them on this project to get it done, and then we will revert back to our standard rate, our standard maximum. WELDY: We were discussing the Golden Eagle impoundment. Any questions or concerns related to this project before we move on? WATTS: Is the Contingency Fund last year's change orders or unforeseen challenges that you ran into? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 30 of 55 WELDY: Councilmember, it's just planning. Currently, we are within budget, and I don't anticipate any challenges, but we need the ability to pay in next year after substantial completion is reached. WATTS: So we're just protecting from what we can't see, unknowns at this point? WELDY: Correct. WATTS: Okay. WELDY: This is a multi-year project. If you've had an opportunity to get out to see the ones previously approved by the Council in the downtown area, some of them are currently being marked, the ones that do not cross Saguaro. The ones on Saguaro will be marked as soon as we get out there and do the sealer on Saguaro when the $4 million project is finished. These are the locations based on feedback we have heard from the Mayor and Council, the Town Manager, and the residents of the next locations where they would like to see this. Any questions related to the marked crosswalks or comments related to the ones that were finished in this year? WATTS: Can we put fencing to prohibit pedestrians from crossing other than the crosswalks? They're all over the place. WELDY: Under the direction of the majority, we can visit any option, sir. WATTS: Nice answer. Thank you. WELDY: This is, again, another multi-year project. Please note for this year, the work will be primarily on McDowell Mountain Road at Milepost 2. The Maricopa County Department of Transportation is doing a complete reconstruct and adding shoulders to McDowell Mountain Road from Milepost 2 to Forest Road later on this calendar year. Our intent is to take an opportunity and redo our guardrail and bring it up to AASHTO standards in that location at this time. The primary reason, in anticipation of us not meeting that code, the county has designed a section of guardrail that actually goes down and meets ours. Any questions related to this multi-year? This is the Shea Boulevard widening project. This is the section between Palisades and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 31 of 55 Fountain Hills Boulevard. We have discussed this over the last several years. In this particular case, we are anticipating to come to Council prior to the summer break and asking them to award a bid to start construction on this project. There are a lot of different funding factors involved here, including but not limited to the state shared portion, the development fees we've collected, and a smaller portion from CIP. Any questions related to this one? The Community Center renovations. This is a placeholder for next year simply because we are going to be returning to the Council here very, very shortly with a contract amendment for Allana Buick & Bers for them to start design on the roof -- not only for this building but the other three buildings -- but we also have some ongoing work in the Community Center related to badly needed improvements, and so we want to make sure that we have adequate funding in there next year to cover those improvements. Awfully quiet. Any questions related to this one? As I just discussed on the last slide, you got a presentation most recently from Allana Buick & Bers related to the Town Hall campus building roofs. I think it's important to note that we referenced the three large primary roofs, Town Hall, Community Center, Library Museum. There is a fourth building that we don't talk about as much, and that is the Physical Plant. That is the one that houses our HVAC system and/or our chiller systems and the mechanical that operates the Town Hall campus. It will also be included. Like I said, we will be in front of Council very, very shortly asking for an amendment to their contract to start the design to repair the roofs for all four of those buildings. Any questions related to this one? KALIVIANAKIS: I have just one. I know this is for the design. Do you have any estimated ballpark on what the actual repairs are going to cost? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, we do not have an engineer's estimate at this time. There is an incredible amount of work in front of us, but as part of that design, when we come back to Council, at most likely around the 90 percent, we will have some concepts and a little bit clearer scope of what is necessary and the engineer's estimates TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 32 of 55 at that time. It's important to note -- and I don't want to frighten anyone sitting up there right now -- most recently there was a comparison done of projects that were estimated and the actual bid and the lion's share of them for state contracts were 100 percent over the engineer's estimate. So when we prepare an engineer's estimate, it's based on that individual's opinion and their expertise in that at the time. It could be a little bit, a year or two later, before we come to a reality, so I just want to prepare everybody for that. An engineer's estimate is just that. The true number is in the bid that we would ask the Council to award. KALIVIANAKIS: And so when do you anticipate the design will be finished and we'll go on to that engineering report? WELDY: We anticipate that the design will take most of next fiscal year to ensure that we have everything adequately covered. And there is a considerable amount of time included in the process. Because it is our building -- we treat ourselves as though we would treat anybody else -- and the architect and/or engineers will be required to submit that through the TOPPS system for review. And that takes time, because there are several departments, and most of them, either included or sitting in this room or will be soon, are going to be doing that review process and then obviously the eventual permitting of that. So because of all of that, it takes a little longer, and we may want to get some additional facts and/or information from professionals that are typically involved in the actual work as part of the design. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. Any other questions related to this one? WATTS: Director Welty, going back to the Community Center. I understand you don't have hard numbers at this point, but do you have a percentage? You said there were some repairs and the roof. Is it 90/10, 75/25? Can you give me some guesstimation? WELDY: And let me do some corrections. So we're asking for the roof separately. The $300,000 that we're asking for here is a placeholder for not only the fans that are in this year in anticipation that we may not be able to complete them before the end of the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 33 of 55 year, but also the very large doors that divide up all of the ballrooms. There is a considerable amount of work underway right now to determine whether or not the structure is suitable for the newer, more modern, slightly heavier in some cases that are auto, slightly lighter in some cases for the manual. So we're looking at our options there, and this is a placeholder to ensure that we can accomplish those goals. WATTS: So I misunderstood. It has nothing to do with roofing, then? WELDY: You're correct. I'm the one that made a mistake, sir. WATTS: Oh, that's okay. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. Thank you. WELDY: This is the multi-year sidewalk infill program. Just as a reminder, this does not include the sidewalk that was constructed as part of the federal funding grant for Saguaro and Palisades, which I will briefly note is in the wind-down stages, and they're just about finished. All the traffic control will be picked up. The last few things will be private property issues that will be dealt with. Now, moving on to this one. We've discussed this numerous times. For this year, we are going to be constructing the sidewalk in front of Bashas', from Palisades to just south of Bashas'. We are going to get started on that in June, and then we're going to finish it in next fiscal year because of a project of that size, and to minimize the impact to the driveways and access to the businesses, we're going to split that up over some time, and we're going to utilize some of this year's money that we saved to get that started. And I should also note that as part of the amendment that the Council approved to the Active Transportation Plan -- and we need to get that posted -- we identified the five-year horizon. So in about two more years, or as part of planning for next year's budget, for the 27 year, we will likely come back and do an additional amendment or ask the Council for some direction on where they would go -- like to go -- on the five-year horizon for the Active Transportation Plan. Any questions related to sidewalks? KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Rick, I think you were first. Oh, okay. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 34 of 55 Yeah. I do, Justin. I've been on record to say that I think sidewalks are very expensive, and you don't get a lot of bang for your buck. We typically get grant funding, and that's why there's so many sidewalks around Fountain Hills right now being worked on, because primarily it all came out of grant funding. I'd really hate to pay for sidewalks out of Capital Improvements. Is there any chance that this project can go to a grant funding and come back later? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, the grant process is a little bit more challenging than that. So the grant that you are currently referencing for the $4 million, that process started almost six years ago. So when you apply for a federal grant -- and some of our federal grant applications are going to be a little bit more challenging going forward, because one of the questions in there are going to be, have you completed your Master Transportation Plan? So there's going to be a series of questions that will make it less likely that we're going to be able to get those larger grants from the federal government unless they change their policies. With that said, grants are historically released every two years. Currently, we did not meet that criteria, but we did get a closeout funding design assistance, which will only help us up to 15 percent of the design or design concept report. Can we apply for grants for sidewalk gap elimination? Absolutely. When one comes available, will we ask the Mayor and Council for guidance on it? Absolutely. In the interim, we would like to be able to continue the path that we've taken. It's relatively affordable by the unit prices, and we've made pretty good progress over the last several years, and I would be hard-pressed to identify a street -- gated or not -- in this community where I've not seen people walking amongst themselves with younger children or their favorite pet. So it's clearly sidewalks are needed for those that walk in the streets. KALIVIANAKIS: In our current grant-funded sidewalk infill program, how many feet, yards, miles have we completed, and how many will we complete at the closure of that project? WELDY: Approximately just under 5,000 linear feet. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. And so for 60-61 here, for this amount of money, how many feet TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 35 of 55 would this provide? WELDY: I don't have that in front of me. I know that to do in front of Bashas' is about $200,000, and I don't have that measurement. So measuring it by the linear foot or square foot is a little bit challenging because rarely can we just put sidewalk on flat ground. It requires us to either pull the curbs in or cut into slopes and build walls. KALIVIANAKIS: Right. Yeah. I've notice. Thank you. WELDY: Any additional questions related to walkable surfaces? This, again, is a multi-year project that has aided the town staff in updating or making necessary corrections to the aging infrastructure. This year, we're going to be -- we're still looking at two different projects -- a little bit delayed on it while we were determining whether or not we were going to be eligible for a grant on a project that we're doing at Courtside Villas. Any questions related to this? This is a new project that is going to become a multi-year project. We have a large number of dams that we are responsible for managing, maintaining within the town limits. Over the years, because of limited funding that was provided across the board for all the departments and divisions, dams were kind of set aside. I'll use Golden Eagle Dam as an extreme. That funding was primarily used, the limited funding, for other things to meet the needs and the necessities of the community. We now know the end result of that is all the sediment there, and all of the brush and the growth in the washes resulted in a staggering amount of damage from backwatering and outflow. As we've been inspecting the dams, the Town Engineer and I have decided there is an incredible amount of sediment, and this picture that you see really doesn't do any justice. But that structure you see there in the center right of this photo is the inlet that allows water to go through the dam. And while it appears as though you may be looking down into a grate, in fact, that structure is intended to have water flow through it, not into it. And so as you can see, the sediment at this location is probably eight feet above the inlet. And the channel that you can see -- and I know there's a pointer right here. Let me do a little bit better job of -- there it is. Let's go back. This channel right here, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 36 of 55 nature has cut with water flows. In this area here, this nature-cut channel is about six or eight feet deep where it enters here, but up here it gets shallower. But this area is the entire wash, and historically that water would come down through here and enter into this inlet. But as you can see, the sediment has sat so long that it's actually grown a semi-forest. Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So explain, if you will, your reuse of that soil and that sediment, because I think it saved the town a lot of money in certain areas. You and I were out looking at a wash recently where they were repurposing some of this sediment. Is that true? WELDY: That is correct, Mr. Mayor. For the suitable materials that are removed from our washes or any local town project, be it Fountain Park or any other park, and in some cases for development, we allow them to place that material in locations along Shea for many, many years, which reduces the overall cost of building roadways. And also we are currently working on a slope stabilization project, an Ashbrook Wash between Hampstead and Fountain Hills Boulevard, where the materials have been donated, placed, and graded by local contractors and/or contractors working for the town of Fountain Hills. For those of you that have not had an opportunity, Ashbrook wash in this section is just north of Palisades. You can enter on Fountain Hills Boulevard or Hampstead. There is a gate there that blocks vehicles. However, there is a pedestrian gate that allows any Fountain Hills resident -- and in this case a gentleman and his child -- they ride their bicycle through there or walk nearly every afternoon. We encourage you to take a look at that. The eventual goal at this time is once we've received as much of the free material in its place as possible, to apply for a grant with the Maricopa County Flood Control District to then wrap those slopes in wire and stabilize them for future or to minimize or reduce lateral migration in those areas. One question, ten minutes of talking. Anything else related to the sediment removal? Awfully quiet. Now, this is a project with an incredible amount of discussion as of recent. We have a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 37 of 55 couple of experts in the audience, staff, that are willing to address some of the most recent comments. Amanda, would you like to join us? JACOBS: Mayor, Council, good afternoon. So to provide a little bit of background -- although I feel like we've been talking about this for two years, but again, if there's somebody new in the audience or new watching from home -- so since 2009, the town has had some form of downtown strategy with the focus being on The Avenue of the Fountains. A couple of years ago, we, after ten years, updated our community Economic Development strategy, and as part of our business attraction focus area, the community wanted to see us update the downtown strategy, so we did that last year. We had six meetings with focus groups. We had four electronic surveys and an open house, which then has led us to implementing, which we're showing option one, the path moving forward of the streetscapes, and then beginning with design of east half of The Avenue. So this is, again, based off of an almost year-long process. We met in December and felt like we were getting a positive reaction from Council. We had a meeting in February, still seeing some positive results, and then we were asked -- so Councilmember Kalivianakis checked in with a couple of our newer Councilmembers to say "Are we good with this? It's going to cost over $10 million". And then Councilmember Watts asked for another public meeting, and our Town Manager, Manager Goodwin, said let's try to get her done, which was a task, but we got it done before this meeting. So we had a meeting last week. There were lots of new faces. I'll say lots of new residents, a handful of businesses. What came out of it is there's still support for the downtown. I think there's always that question of where do we start? Do we continue and we finish, air quotes, The Avenue, or do we move to Verde River and Parkview? I'll remind most of this Council, we attempted this two years ago around March. I see Vice Mayor smiling over there. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a consensus from Council of where to start, so we ended up for two years, if we think about it, did nothing, which is unfortunate to improve our downtown, but acknowledging too that TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 38 of 55 staff decided to take a step back and we decided to remove it from Council consideration and said let's go ahead and do this almost one-year process, which again was last year. So feedback we received was let's start with Verde River, then Parkview, which is now showing this option. I will share with you -- so again, majority of you were there last week -- and I feel like it's all of our jobs, but a big heavy lift on staff is to identify where was some of the feedback and was it in emotion or fear? And so I did follow up with a couple of the businesses and let them know what staff heard and a couple of Councilmembers where we had to have a conversation was we don't want an entertainment district. We want office, which traditionally office closes at 5 p.m. And sometimes we're labeled as a sleepy town. This is what we're hearing. We don't want to have a reaction, so I'm checking in. We don't want to meet that reaction with another reaction. Is this what I heard? Now I know because I've been doing this for three years. They're like that's absolutely not what we're saying. And so I'm like that's what was heard, so you all need to quickly get together and have a statement made. And we need to understand, right? There's residents, there's businesses, so we're looking at doing something for the betterment of Fountain Hills, regardless of the downtown boundary. And then we also have the stakeholder group, The Avenue Merchant Association, which is referred to as TAMA. The mayor was present back in November when he was wearing his Councilmember hat when we had a meeting and they said we love it. Thank you so much for coming to us. There are some people that have changed their minds as staff and I think to deliver to Council, we have a right to change our mind, but is that a representation of TAMA or is it as an individual business owner? So again, a lot to consider here, which is also to the point why I recommend we keep The Avenue at least as part of this until we get more information. Option three we're throwing out, and in talking with Paul, we could make it work within the Capital Fund, is to attempt to do the design of Verde River and Parkview all at once. I'll tell you, I've been talking with my teammates to just make sure, can we really do this? They think so. That's not a lot of confidence, and so again, just being transparent TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 39 of 55 and honest. And so if we receive some direction, so we're wanting to know which options Council is currently sitting at, but I will say with option three, I would really like the staff to sit down and really map out our procurement process, which sometimes takes a couple of months, doing public input because again, those designs are concepts, which again, a lot of people were taking those concepts as reality. I know we have to show something, but people get so locked in, and so an example was the lighting that was shown. My dark sky friends were like, Amanda, those are not dark sky compliant. Like, you're an advocate of us. I'm like, I know, it's a concept, but do we want to spend thousands of dollars to show that it's dark sky compliant? But then what we're hoping is to have construction documents because hearing the business community, if we're going to do this, they would like us to do it in the slower months, which would be July. So I just want to make sure we can really deliver on this. So with that, we're happy to answer any questions, and again, what we would like to hear in preparation for April and May in the tentative budget adoption, where Council is leaning as far as options or any other direction. TOTH: I just wanted to go right out of the gate and say that I would lean option two only because with option three, it is one, it's more money right off the bat on this next budget, but then on top of that, I notice it doesn't really change the timeline toward the end there. So to me, I just lean toward a little bit less in 26, and then still the same for 28, 29, 30, but I mean, I guess I'm saying I'd go with either way. If majority wants option three, I'm not going to fight about it. Yeah. JACOBS: And Mayor and Vice Mayor, since we're talking option two, is there additional support before we start maybe throwing in option one? No. No, I think this is good. You're kind of setting the tone, so is there support? MCMAHON: Thank you. JACOBS: Before I do that, Councilmember, I think the Mayor called on somebody. EARLE: Thank you. JACOBS: You're welcome. EARLE: Have we in here taken out doing the expanding the sidewalks on The Avenue TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 40 of 55 Park? Oh my God. The Main Avenue. The Avenue of the Fountains. Thank you. I actually went -- because some people were talking to me about it. I went and drove it. You're right, the only place that it's narrow is in front of Sephora -- whatever -- Frida's, not Sephora. It's Sofrita's. Why would we be expanding all those other sidewalks that are plenty wide? So I kind of think that's something. I wonder if we didn't do that part, this could reduce the expense of this along the way. JACOBS: So Mayor, Councilmember Earle, we have kept in widening the sidewalks and several of the businesses on The Avenue and that are part of TAMA have asked me to do my best to still keep it in there. So if we're wanting to -- so simultaneously we're working on an overlay district to have entertainment like uses. So if you think of restaurants, if you think of bars, if you think of theaters and outside patios, in order to do that -- so we showed Sofrita's, again, people focused on that. They thought we did this because of Sofrita's. No. It's again, it was an example to show if we add more of those uses, specifically along The Avenue, so you don't have these same things along Verde River and Parkview, you have to expand the sidewalks. Otherwise, we're going to repeat -- I won't say what I was about to say -- Sofritas. EARLE: Okay. JACOBS: So you have that narrowing. And then if I'm not doing a beautiful job, I will look to our Town Engineer if he needs to step up. But that's why we're doing that. Go ahead. EARLE: On OCA, where you can sit outside, it was just because it was developed that way from the beginning. JACOBS: Correct, it is wider and allows that. And so talking to some of the businesses on, we'll say the Park Place side, we're wanting to do a little bit of work. EARLE: Yeah. JACOBS: One, they've asked, okay, what if you continue some sections of The Avenue, but you leave ours out? So we as staff need to look at that. They again want to do due diligence that they're not just speaking on themselves, that they're talking to other people in that corridor. But now they have said -- they're like, okay, is that the worst? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 41 of 55 They've now sort of shifted, right? There is a little bit of that emotion, but they've shifted of, okay, we look at it that the town is trying to invest to make an enhancement. EARLE: And so is Parkview just sidewalks? Are we just doing sidewalks? JACOBS: No. So again, back a couple months ago when I talked about the whole enchilada, it's expanding the sidewalks, it's adding light. So again, if we try to go down Parkview at 8:00 o'clock at night or wanting to walk, is it very safe? I personally as a resident and professionally don't find it safe. It's very dark. I think go away. So it's adding lights, it's the landscaping, it's site furnishings, adding areas to sit and creating that sense of place. Right now, it's again, to be perfectly honest -- and some of you agreed with that -- it's really not a sense of place. You think what has happened here? What's happened here is it's been neglected. I'm checking with John over there. Was there anything else you wanted to add? Or Councilmember Earle, was that good? EARLE: Because I was at that meeting and I was hearing very different things than I've heard before. Thank you. JACOBS: Yes, and Councilmember, I agree, I said that. I'm like, okay, you guys are new faces. But also just peeling back with some of the businesses of there was some emotion. And what was nice is some residents following up and I spent 90 minutes with the business yesterday and said, sometimes I wish it could be one-on-one. And she admitted, I heard close, and as soon as I heard close, I took it as the town is closing my business and how am I supposed to survive? And then so we were able to talk through that and she appreciated it. And she's like, okay, if you can try to tell Council not to completely remove The Avenue, but again, if they want to move towards option two, there's support there. There's valid reasons. And again, two years ago, we made the attempt. Mayor, I think Councilmember McMahon. Nope. Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I think you're next, Allen. SKILLICORN: So going by those options, I'm thinking two or three. If three is doable, staff thinks, that's fine with me. And I would argue against one because I believe timing matters. And the other streets have simply been neglected and I won't call them TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 42 of 55 blighted, but there's definitely that component there. Whereas The Avenue of Fountains has had a lot of attention on it and plenty of funding over the years where the others have not, so I think that the timing matters. So I really argue for either two or three. And frankly, I still have a vision for a culinary district down there. And I believe that this gets us closer to that vision and let the people out there know, let entrepreneurs know, let other investors know in the Valley that this is an opportunity to invest in Fountain Hills Culinary District and Fountain Hills is going to be on your side and is going to make your business viable. It doesn't necessarily have to be on The Avenue of Fountains. It can be on Verde. It can be on the other street there. So, yes. JACOBS: Mr. Mayor, the Councilmembers kind of have some branding in other districts for us. Here comes John over. WESLEY: Mayor and Council, good afternoon. So I just wanted to add one thing regarding timing that Councilmember Skillicorn had just mentioned. By deferring The Avenue improvements until the final two years, that kind of gives us a little more of a leeway, a little more of a breathing room to really take a look and see exactly how wide we want to go with those sidewalks. We certainly want to make sure we try to have minimal impact to the fares, loading areas on the south side, along the park. So that will certainly give us some leeway, breathing room. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Gerry. Yeah. I've gone to every workshop. I've monitored social media. I've read Letters to the Editor. I've engaged with so much of the public on this because it's a huge price tag. And last week when we had the work session, I counted; there were 60 people there, and that's not a fair representative of 25,000 or 24,000 people. It was 60 people, and a few of them mentioned the sidewalks on Verde and Parkview. But again, I don't think that's a fair sampling of what the average person wants. I think when it comes to sidewalks, I've already said not a lot of bang for the buck. I've heard everyone clamoring about fixing the roads and the streets and the streets and the roads. I haven't had anybody come up to me and say, you know, what we need is more sidewalks in downtown. Matter of fact, I've heard just the opposite. People love the downtown. I'm there all the time. They walk their TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 43 of 55 dogs. They're going up and down The Avenue. I think we can have what Councilmember Skillicorn mentioned, a culinary district, without even spending a dollar. You know, maybe doing an overlay which we don't have to spend any money on. You know? And when we had the meeting last week, I know Bart Shea was there, and he said they tried this in Glenview, and they spent $20 million on their downtown, and it's still dead. And this has been tried in a number of towns, and I think that the people come first, the sidewalks come next, because if you don't have the traffic, then just building the sidewalks, people aren't going to walk around. If that culinary district does get built and we start getting a lot of people parking and walking, I think that's the time to do this. You know? For the three improvements, widening the sidewalks and The Avenue, I'm not for sidewalks at this point, for Verde River and Parkview, not for -- on the other hand, this project in a mini form, like maybe a million and a half, new trees -- don't cut down the existing ones, though, because people don't like that -- streetlights, pedestrian lights, aesthetics, I think that would be wonderful, and that would be a really good first phase to see if we can get more people down there. Maybe, again, with the overlay district, maybe restrict to restaurants, bars, taverns, comedy clubs, and see if we can pull those people, but in a town with 24,000 people -- and Gilbert, they have the population to do it, and then they've got a ton of kitschy restaurants and bars and things. You know? I go to downtown Gilbert, Hale Theater, then you go out for dinner. It's great, but for people -- I don't think we're going to get thousands of people driving to Fountain Hills because we prettied up our downtown area, so I'd be for this in a mini version to be expanded in future years. At least, that's just my take. WESLEY: Mayor, Councilmember Kalivianakis, thank you for that. I think the vision is what was really driving the -- winding the sidewalks, thinking about if we had something like Sofrita's all up and down The Avenue. That was what was kind of driving that. And even if it's not patio dining, it could be garment racks for the clothiers or things of that nature; just having people gathering outside in the area that doesn't -- that won't be intrusive to the passersby. So that was what was really driving that. So by deferring that, that will give us a little more leeway to take a look and see what we're doing, I TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 44 of 55 guess, and what are we going to do there. TOTH: I wanted to kind of add to that, like, culinary district vision, because I do love that. Building that sense of place is a part of allowing that to occur. So just telling people "Oh, this is a culinary district" and not making any changes, there's not an incentive, there's not that vision of, oh, yeah; people will want to come and hang out and stay and eat and then go try the ice cream shop next door. This building a sense of place is important in the, if you build it, they will come kind of attitude, but you can see examples of this. If you go to Phoenix, there's obviously downtown Phoenix and all the restaurants there, but there's little pockets throughout Phoenix that are like -- I don't know -- the apartment building next door made a really cute area or I'm trying to think of the restaurant name and it's not coming to me at the moment, but there's little pockets in Phoenix where the place was built and you could see that, oh, there's a restaurant opening over here. Oh, people come and hang out in this area that as you're driving through it, it's like -- I mean, Phoenix is kind of extremely, because you'll be going through and it's like industrial area, and then you're like, oh, this is such a cute little park. You know? What I'm trying to get at, though, is that building that sense of place does work. It does matter. I mean, you can see it in other cities and towns as well. If you look at Gilbert, you'll notice they have really wide sidewalks. Scottsdale's the same way. I can understand the argument of the restaurant came first and then the sidewalk, but that's actually not true. In a lot of cases, it's that the city built an area that -- or the city or a developer built an area that these restaurants moved into, and that's why people are there. JACOBS: Mr. Mayor, so again, I've heard -- I'm thinking from the Vice Mayor, Councilmember Skillicorn, Councilmember Earle. I believe option two, Councilmember Skillicorn said if we could do option three, again, want to do a little bit more due diligence. And then Councilmember Watts, need you to weigh in. WATTS: Patience. So I think it's a great plan if it had been the original plan of the developers of the town. I think we've developed our own somewhat eclectic Avenue of TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 45 of 55 the Fountains, and I think it's kind of quaint. I do think that Verde and Parkview need some attention, but I'm in favor of leaving The Avenue of the Fountain itself alone, seeing what benefit we get from the improvements that Parks and Rec has recommended, the shade structure, the replacement trees, and see what the bang for the buck is that you get there before tackling something as grand as The Avenue of the Fountain. I still am very concerned about listening to some of the businesses. I really don't think they're prepared for the impact on their businesses, so I'd really like to kind of put my toe in the water with the two adjacent streets as opposed to jumping into the water with The Avenue of the Fountain. JACOBS: And so, Councilmember Watts, would that be option two or two or three? WATTS: I don't think it's either. EARLE: Do we have them? WATTS: I guess two, because two addresses Parkview and Verde first without tackling The Avenue, and I think you can see if you're getting a return, if it actually improves anything or not. GOODWIN: I think three. Well, so the difference being that option two puts Verde River design only, and then we would construct Verde River and begin the design of Parkview. Option three designs them both next year. JACOBS: Potentially. EARLE: How's the money for that, Paul? I'm sorry, Director Soldinger. SOLDINGER: I think we could make it work. We are planning to have -- we were originally planning to have a larger Contingency this year because we have so many projects. We were going to put about $1 million in the Contingency in the Capital Projects Fund. So basically what I was thinking is we could reduce that by $300,000 and add it to this budget instead. So again, it's all stipulated by the fact that we still need to do our final expansion limitation analysis, but I think it is doable from a budgetary standpoint. EARLE: I would go for three if that's feasible. JACOBS: Mayor Council and Manager Goodwin, I want again to -- I'm hearing a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 46 of 55 consensus on two and three, a stronger one with option two, but with option three, I want us to immediately as staff sit down and really map out our process. Again, we have procurement policies. That doesn't take a week or two. We have to put things out publicly. Again, the design, there's more public input because we, again, hearing from the business community, they're wanting us to do it during the slower time if we can. So I just want to make sure, are we really going to have the documents to pull the trigger by July 1 of next year? So just again, as staff was having conversations, and again, the meeting that happened last week was Wednesday night, and we had a couple of days to pull this together. And then Mayor, just two to add. Again, Council is giving us direction on fiscal year 26, obviously. It's showing the outer years, but again, want to do a little bit more outreach to TAMA and the businesses on The Avenue before we come back and say, let's pull it completely or taking away certain tabs. Because again, it was a real nice sit down yesterday with one of the businesses. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Rick. Thanks, Gerry. I just want to just once again just recommit to my problem I have with this process. You know? We can get a Corvette, a Ferrari, a Porsche, take your pick. You know, how about the bus? How about a Ford Maverick? You know? Again, Bart Shea is a major developer. You know? He never even heard of this project, and he had serious concerns about this project, as well as I do. This is a lot of money, and this Council is being told, well, you're going to spend the money. It's just which years are the out years and what's coming first. You know? I haven't seen the groundswell of support for this in our community. As a matter of fact, I've seen a lot of people that question this Council approving this and saying, well, why would you do that? There's other priorities. This is a heck of a lot of money that's going to be just located in one section of our town, hoping that we'll be a cool town someday. You know? I agree with Councilmember Watt and his concerns for five years' worth of construction and hurting the very businesses we're trying to help. And so I'm concerned about this process. You know? You're going to do one of them. Take your poison. I don't know why it's got to be like that. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 47 of 55 JACOBS: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Kalivianakis, I apologize if it's coming that way, but we've been taking as staff direction from Council. And I feel like I'm seeing some heads nodding that you've given us the direction, so these are the options. And then I'll always state here, there's an option like two years ago to do nothing. And are all the businesses coming in some of these areas? No. Mr. Mayor, I think Councilmember Watt had his light on. WATTS: Thank you. MCMAHON: Thank you. I appreciate it. This has been a long-term project, and it has been before Council numerous times. Numerous public workshops on it, input. I believe that we've had a great input on it. There's a lot of people that want it. They want Plot 2-8 done. They want those streets so that we can walkable, so that we don't have those lots, blank lots down there, empty lots. So I just feel like we've talked about this so much that we really do need to move forward. And this is the initial design phase, so right now businesses won't be affected by it. But I would hope that as you move forward and having done streets, et cetera, before, that it will be planned accordingly. So to have minimal -- if that's an acceptable word here -- business interference, et cetera, when and if this -- when this project does get off and start the ground and start renovating it. So I feel I'm for three. I think that if staff can handle that, that while we're in the design phase, we might as well do the design phase of both of them. Thank you. WATTS: So I -- thank you -- brought up three. I think three is a more conservative approach to see what the effect of Verde and Park View are going to be. And it doesn't strap us. And in light of the projected -- the potential for reduced revenues, I think I'd err on the side of caution. If I had to do the original, I would have voted against it entirely. Like I said, I kind of like the eclectic look of the town. And you know what you're getting into there, and there's a quaintness so -- but having a -- not necessarily a gun to my head, but the lesser of the three, I would say three is the most appropriate one because it's more conservative in nature. It benefits those that are not being served well now. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 48 of 55 MAYOR FRIEDEL: And I -- I'll weigh in now. I think three as well. And again, I understand Councilwoman's point about affecting The Avenue. However, this won't affect The Avenue. It might just do more to draw more into The Avenue for those businesses, so there won't be any construction happening on The Avenue if we look at three. And if we do three, we do the design of Park View and Verde River, then we see what brings more into the heart of the town. So I think that's probably the option that I would weigh in on. Vice Mayor? TOTH: If I may, just before we move on, I agree. I'll change my vote to option three. I hadn't considered it how it had been explained earlier, so thank you to my fellow Councilmembers for that. Something that I want to keep in mind is that the construction -- it's not five straight years of the whole downtown being shut down. We're doing piece -- well, one, it's four years; two, it's piecemeal. We have construction of Verde River while we design Park View. We have construction of Park View while we design east half of The Avenue. We have construction of the east half of The Avenue while we design the west half, and so it's quadrants at a time. We're doing this in a way that still allows people to enjoy our downtown and be a part of it as much as humanly possible while we're doing these updates. So I just wanted to make that note that it's going to sound really scary if people are going around and saying, it's five years of construction on The Avenue. It's not five years of construction on The Avenue. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I would also add that you've got other enhancements that are going to be happening on The Avenue at the same time. So we're not just totally neglecting The Avenue either at the same point. So there'll be a lot of stuff going on that I think it'll be all positive. WATTS: And even though it's quadrants, it's what happens to the traffic and the activity on the quadrant that's not being serviced at a particular point in time goes to the other quadrant. So you increase the flow, you increase traffic, et cetera. And the difficult part for me is that when I look at a project Vice Mayor Toth was saying, build it and they will come. And the Roosevelt District is a great example of that. The Roosevelt District has TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 49 of 55 done a phenomenal job of revitalizing and rejuvenating themselves and it's worked, but they have a bigger draw. Their population is different down there. They don't have the same constraints that we have here. So I think again, back to the quaintness of our town and the eclectic nature of The Avenue as it is, the impact on businesses in particular, I'm sticking with three. JACOBS: I hear option three. Thank you. Oh. I'm like, who's saying hey? It's the guy behind you. WELDY: First, I'd like to thank all the guest speakers and appreciate their hard work on this. In closing, in regards to discussing the downtown, the Town Engineer and I -- and under direction of the Town Manager -- are working to leverage our $95,000 grant from MAG for the design of Parkview and kind of integrate it all into one. So that reduces our cost overall by $95,000. But most importantly, it allows us to get some of the very technical legwork done up front, which is the survey, the concepts, and the utility clearances. We'll know more about that in the coming days and weeks and come before Council in regards to that and ask for an agreement with MAG to proceed. Now then, we've had an incredible amount of conversation. Again, thank you to all of you for your lunch and your generous contribution towards us. We've heard from some guest speakers. We discussed up front that everything on this list is a need based on mission statements and priorities for safety. And now we'd like to hear from you in regards to the color-coded coordination, which I refer to as a traffic signal. GOODWIN: All right. So once again, we have the opportunity to identify any yellow light projects or red light projects or green lights. So is there anything that jumps out to anybody here? EARLE: Do we have all the money for this one too? GOODWIN: We have built this budget based on what we believe will be available, yes. And so I'm going to caveat that because Paul doesn't feel comfortable until he knows all the formal numbers and all the officialness coming up. But yes, this was all built with the faith that based on all of our estimates, this all fits. EARLE: If they all are, then I would go for green. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 50 of 55 GOODWIN: Any other thoughts, comments? Okay. At this point, we will take them all as green as well as the community services projects and move forward like that SOLDINGER: So I don't want to make things any more difficult for staff than they need to be, but I do think it's appropriate for Golden Eagle impoundment to be yellow just because it involves contingency and grant funding. So I think it would be appropriate for us to come back to Council to explain anything that needs to be done for that one. That's just my stipulation on that one, my suggestion. GOODWIN: I'll second that. And I will actually add one other one that I think potentially, which is the Community Center improvements because we don't know what they're for yet. It's just simply a placeholder. I think it makes sense for us to come back and talk to you guys about what we recommend for that money when we're ready to use it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Some of these other projects will come back to us anyway. GOODWIN: If they're green lit, not really. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I mean, the yellow ones, right? GOODWIN: Correct. Right now, I only have two that are identified as yellow or that we are recommending as yellow, which is the Community Center and Golden Eagle impoundment. EARLE: I would go with that then. GOODWIN: Okay. No, no, no, that's fine. I appreciate Paul kind of sounding in and kind of making sure we have that check and balance built in. KALIVIANAKIS: And I'd like to throw a yellow on the infill, sidewalk infill with Bashas'. GOODWIN: Is anybody else? WATTS: Can you go back to the list again, please? GOODWIN: I will say that one is -- for lack of a better way to say this -- it's either a red or a green. Only because Justin is planning to begin work in June and if we are going to do the project, we need to have the funding available into July and roll over into that next fiscal. If we don't want to do that project this year, if the Bashas' sidewalk is not what we want to do, it would be difficult to get it done. Ideally, we're trying to get it TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 51 of 55 done in the summertime. So it's kind of one of those, a consideration there. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Then I'll change to red. And again, just simply because my constituents don't tell me the sidewalks are a priority; it's the roads. GOODWIN: Is there anybody else that wants to pull that project? Okay. MCMAHON: I do. I think that given what -- the excellent work that you guys have done on the sidewalks and Palisades, et cetera, especially in front of the Fire Department and all, I mean, I think it's amazing. I think it really adds a lot to our town and walkability. And being on the Pedestrian Safety Committee, that's one of the things that, you know, for the last couple years we've been planning to have done. Unless -- and we're not going to be doing anything with the downtown project on Montana. And I think that people shop there so much and you can connect it to the apartments at the end of the street there. I think that it would be great to have a sidewalk there for more walkability. It is a shopping center and you want to invite people in there to spend money. So how did they get there? Sidewalk. So I think we should keep it. GOODWIN: I can go down individually or, I mean, I'm looking for a majority here one way or the other. TOTH: I also wanted to voice my disagreement. I like the sidewalk. I'm good with it. I'm a green light on it. I just wanted to say it out loud. GOODWIN: All right. So I have green, green, green. EARLE: Green light. GOODWIN: You're a green light as well. WATTS: Are you talking about just the sidewalk infill in front of Bashas'? GOODWIN: Yes. Correct. WATTS: Yeah. I'm okay with that. GOODWIN: Okay. All right. So we're going to continue and move forward on that one. So I have currently a yellow on the Community Center. We have the yellow on the Golden Eagle impoundment. WATTS: Pedestrian crosswalks, there's got to be a way to encourage pedestrians out there. Can we hire a school guard crossing or something? They don't use it. You know? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 52 of 55 They just don't use them. That's the problem. So $150,000 for something that isn't used or have you had requests, numerous requests? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, so human behavior is one of the most difficult things to predict or change. I will say this, and we're going to start with the one that has generated a considerable amount of criticism for myself and the former Community Services Director, and that is the Desert Vista Crossing. There was a considerable amount of criticism about that being constructed. However, it is used, and for anyone that is here during the cross-country event the high school holds at Fountain Park, if you come around Paul Norton and you see the number of grandparents with picnic lunches, backpacks, and water bottles heading over there to support their family and friends that use that curb opening and no longer have to climb up and over, that's a testament. There are a few other locations, including but not limited to the people that elect to walk to the gym instead of drive there and park in front of the building that cross at gun sight. I see a positive impact here. However, I'm not able to change the behavior of some of the residents, also known as your neighbors. WATTS: I really need your get-out-of-jail-free card. WELDY: There was one other item. Are we finished here, and are we okay with this list? So the Chief Financial Officer would like to make a couple of comments about the next one in regards to Shea. Did you have a comment about that, Paul? You mentioned Shea -- no? SOLDINGER: No. I think -- WELDY: Good talk. His questions have been cleared up. SOLDINGER: I was just thinking, with such a high-visibility project, I shouldn't be up here. That was my mistake for mentioning it, but I was thinking maybe it should be a yellow-light project, the Shea Boulevard widening, because it is such a high-vis project. It relates to Grand Plain, but because of our timeline that we've discussed internally, it wouldn't make sense because we're trying to operationalize that during the summer break and get it going. So again, that was probably a mistake on my part. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 53 of 55 MAYOR FRIEDEL: It's been on our list for, what, 10 years? GOODWIN: It has, and it needs to get done. It is a high priority this year. But I will note that that kind of tees up the idea that, you know, we talked about, a lot of these won't come back. If they're green-lit, we're going to get going. But that doesn't mean you won't hear about progress. We've been shooting to do quarterly updates so that you understand where we are with things, what the progress is, timelines, et cetera. So at least you are, you know, having these touch points with the projects that you just don't ever -- you know -- you just never see them again. We want you to know what's going on with them and have that awareness. So I did want to point that out. WATTS: Justin, what is the timeline from beginning to end on Shea? WELDY: The intent is to come before the Mayor and Council before they go on summer break and ask for a notice of award. We're realistically looking at probably 15 months for that project because of the length of it. Also, we have to take into consideration the constraints we have related to the eastbound traffic flows. For anybody that comments that there's not much traffic on Shea, think about the limited number of times we've had to close a lane east of Palisades, the traffic is backed up all the way to 142nd Street. So there are constraints there that we need to address and minimize, but realistically, 15 months. GOODWIN: Thank you, Director. I appreciate it. I think we have our direction. You'll see these projects come back in the budget when we return. So that is my final question for this group is that our budget review is scheduled for April 8th, which is a couple Tuesdays from now. I'd like to find out from the group -- I know we've talked about times, when these meetings are or when they're not, what works best for some, does not work best for others. I'd like to get a direction as to what time those meetings should be. TOTH: Hi. I have a wedding and a honeymoon coming up. So selfishly, I'm out of PTO days -- you guys -- and I would really like to get paid on that Tuesday. If we could please do that in the evening, I would be so appreciative of everybody, or just 3 o'clock, so that I only have to leave a little early. But these all-day things, I don't have any PTO days left. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 54 of 55 It's a real bummer. Thank you. GOODWIN: Councilmember asked how long that meeting can be. I said, it can be as long or short as you guys make it. But it is the deep dive. It is the deep dive of the budget. You will get budget books beforehand, so you'll have plenty of time to review them, and it's not just a ta-da, roll it out that day, but it is our chance to sort of talk about the budget and make any final adjustments before we begin the adoption process. SOLDINGER: I'll add some of that too. I just feel like talking. We plan to have the budget books printed for your review by this Thursday or Monday. So I'll send an email out letting you know. So we will, for the public that's watching, we'll publish our proposed budget book for the public's consumption. We'll print out the books for Mayor and Council, and that's good timing with a Council meeting next Tuesday. You can pick it up when you're here if you'd like to review it, and that will give you over a week to review and ask any questions ahead of time if you'd like. Otherwise, we'll have the proposed budget session in two weeks from today. MAYOR FRIEDEL: That's actually encouraged. Ask the questions ahead of time, and the meeting goes a lot faster. So I figure, what, at least a couple hours for that meeting, probably. SOLDINGER: I think it was almost three hours last year. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. Yeah, so if we get questions ahead of time, it could be shorter meeting. WATTS: Okay. So I'm the slow person on the dice. If we have all of this money that we just went through and had very, very few red lights, if any, and a couple of yellow lights, what are we discussing if the budget will already support it? SOLDINGER: So the Proposed Budget Work Session is the entire budget as a whole. WATTS: You mean things you haven't told us? SOLDINGER: No, we've talked about everything, but it's just presenting, you know, by fund, this is how much we're budgeting. Really, what you can expect to see is the supplements we've discussed. We'll go over the supplements, the ones that are TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 25, 2025 SPECIAL MEETING: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS Page 55 of 55 included in the budget as a whole. This is how much is in the General Fund, which we've already kind of talked about. The other funds as well. Some of the changes across the budget, things such as benefit rate increases, insurance increases. And other than that, we've already talked about the Capital Projects. You know? We might get into some of the departmental budgets a little bit, but otherwise, it's just giving you the whole picture of what we've just discussed. So if it goes quick, it goes quick, and that'll probably be better for all of us. You know? We'll see, but definitely we'll be open to any questions you have ahead of time or during the work session. WATTS: Thanks. EARLE: Okay. So I'm most awake in the morning. I do best in the morning, but as a wedding gift to Hannah, Hannah, I would be willing to come at 3 o'clock for you. TOTH: Thank you. GOODWIN: That's perfectly fine. We will calendar that at 3 o'clock on the 8th to kind of capitalize and sort of bookend what you shared, Councilman Watts. Nothing should be a surprise when we get there. So with that being said, I think we're done for today. Oh, Paul. SOLDINGER: I just got one sidebar. One key component of the Proposed Budget for those that aren't familiar with our Proposed Budget Work Sessions is we discuss cost of living adjustments for staff, and that's where we present the data like we did last year. This is the data we've compiled, what other municipalities are doing for their staff, you know, CPI measures and things like that. So that is one key component that we will discuss and we'll take your direction on. So the Proposed Budget you get, that's not going to include any cost of living adjustment for staff. We add that into the tentative budget that we bring back in May. And that's it. That's all I have. Yeah, I think. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Rachael, is that it for you? Adjourned. Having no further business, Mayor Gerry M. Friedel adjourned the Special Work Session (Capital Improvements Project) Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on March 25, 2025, at 3:13 p.m. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS _______________________ Gerry M. Friedel, Mayor ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: __________________________________ Bevelyn Bender, Town Clerk CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Special Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 25th day of March 2025. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED 6th day of May 2025. _________________________________ Bevelyn Bender, Town Clerk TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL MEETING (RULES OF PROCEDURE) OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 25, 2025 A Special Work Session Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 11:00 a.m. Members Present: Mayor Gerry M. Friedel; Vice Mayor Hannah Toth; Councilmember Gayle Earle; Councilmember Brenda Kalivianakis; Councilmember Rick Watts; Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Members Present by Telephone: Councilmember Peggy McMahon Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town Clerk Bevelyn Bender Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 1 of 47 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills City Council Meeting Minutes March 25, 2025 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 MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 2 of 47 MAYOR FRIEDEL: Call this meeting to order. Town clerk, can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Present. BENDER: Vice Mayor Toth. TOTH: Present. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Here. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Here. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Rachael? GOODWIN: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming out. As you know, this is the first of two work sessions for today. First up is a work-study session for the rules of procedure. I just wanted to kind of share a couple of details. Yesterday, we shared out a very, very working draft. I've had a couple people ask about, is this a final? Is this -- how did this come to -- as I said, these are just some suggestions that have come via staff, that have come via some discussion with different council members, but it is by no means done. It still is very much an active working document that I hope we can engage in today with some clarifications, directions of what you like, what you don't like, what you want to add to it, what you want to take out of it. All of it's on the table. So that is what this body is for today is to discuss this, give direction to staff of what you would like to see, and then we will take it and create another updated version to version to be shared out for further direction and/or once it's done, once we get to a point where everyone feels like it represents this, then it will come back for council adoption. But I want to make sure that everybody knows it's still very much a working opportunity. That's what today Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 3 of 47 is for. We've budgeted about an hour to an hour and a half most. Hour and a half is kind of drop-dead, only because we'll pause. That way, everybody can grab a bite, and then we'll get going at the 1 o'clock for the CIP. So I'll give a little heads up, maybe, you know, between 11:30, 11:45, just to kind of remind everyone. In the meantime, everyone should have a copy of the version. You'll note that there are edits made in blue, and there are edits made in red. The blue is just to indicate that these kind of originated from staff, so that Bev or I can kind of chime in on what the theory or thought process was behind them. Those that are in red have come in through different council members or different conversations just to kind of again, give some context. Do we want to just start from page 1 and kind of work through? Does that sound okay with everybody? Anybody have any questions or anything before we get going? Okay. All right. Bev and I are going to be frantically taking notes, so give us a little leeway there, if possible. All right. So hopping off right at the bottom, so 1.5. We just wanted to formalize the -- the role of the mayor and the seating. We've done it in practice for a long time, but it's not necessarily documented anywhere, so we just felt like it made sense to do that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts? GOODWIN: I didn't even make it through one. WATTS: I know, sorry. Just for clarification, let me go back up to 1.4, where it says three-quarters vote. That becomes something other than either a five or a six. Which is it? MAYOR FRIEDEL: You have to -- you have to round up in the event that there's -- so if -- if five doesn't pass the threshold, then you go up to six. WATTS: So it is six, then. I mean, when you -- when you take three-quarters of seven -- ARNSON: Yep. It would be six. WATTS: You have to have six people. ARNSON: Mayor, Councilmember, that's correct. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 4 of 47 WATTS: Can't we just make it clear that it's six? ARNSON: Yes. WATTS: Not five? ARNSON: We could. WATTS: Okay. Then I'd like to see it be definitive as opposed to we got to figure it out. GOODWIN: We're still having to do the math. ARNSON: I guess the only -- I guess the only drawback to that would be if you don't have seven councilmembers present and you're trying to take a vote. So for example, if there's only five of you, right, because two are absent and you're still trying to suspend strict adherence to the rules, and you can't possibly get six, right, because no one would be there. So -- WATTS: Fair enough. Okay. I'm good. Thank you. BENDER: Mayor, I heard -- I heard the phone. I'm not sure if Councilmember McMahon is with us now. Councilmember McMahon? MCMAHON: Yes. BENDER: Thank you. MCMAHON: Can you hear me? BENDER: Yes. Thank you. MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you. What -- may I please ask what -- thank you, and I apologize for being late, everybody. Can I please ask what section we were just talking about in the code? GOODWIN: Sure. No problem. I'm glad you were able to join us. We -- Councilmember Watts was just talking about 1.4, so we just kicked off the conversation, so we were just talking about 1.4 and then 1.5, which is the seating of the council, so. MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you. GOODWIN: You got it. 1.6, again, kind of highlights the rotation of the vice mayor role based on the formula that we use for that process. This has been -- again, it's been sort of documented offline, but it's not necessarily in the rules of procedure; is that right, Bev? Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 5 of 47 BENDER: Correct. GOODWIN: Okay. BENDER: Correct. MCMAHON: I have a question. GOODWIN: Yes, ma'am. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Go ahead. MCMAHON: I have -- it says here that the rotation of the vice mayor is based on the order of the highest number, so I understand that when you first get elected, you know, if this is going to be determined at every single two year election, but the existing members will still be in their same rotation, correct? BENDER: Correct. MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate the clarity. GOODWIN: Do I just talk, or do I wait to be recognized? Mayor, would you like me to recognize or would you like to still use -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: That would be fine. Go ahead. GOODWIN: I mean, and -- and so I think it's -- I think, Allen, you're next. And then, Gayle. SKILLICORN: One flaw with this change I see is that if someone is elected in the primary election, and let's say there's two people who don't make it through in the general election, they will receive more votes than the person that won in the -- the primary. So this -- I would be -- I would prefer the old language because this would put that person who has more overwhelming support at a disadvantage. GOODWIN: I'm not sure there is old language, but I'm not going to swear to that and say we don't have it down. SKILLICORN: Well, I -- I think officially, I mean, it was up to the mayor. It was at their discretion, so it may not -- because it was -- it was vague. It was up to the mayor's discretion. GOODWIN: Gotcha. EARLE: Can you reword it? Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 6 of 47 GOODWIN: That's what I was going to say. Maybe we can look at how to potentially reword that to make it more consistent. EARLE: Okay. And then it doesn't say that the -- the length of time. Right now, I think we're doing eight months, are we? Is it eight months? GOODWIN: I think it's like -- yeah, I think it's like eight or nine months. EARLE: Should we have that in there? GOODWIN: Yeah, we can add that. MCMAHON: Seven months. EARLE: Oh, seven months? MCMAHON: I think the rotation is seven months. GOODWIN: Okay. MCMAHON: I thought the rotation was seven months. GOODWIN: We'll double check with our -- because we have it all documented of when the rotations occur, so we'll -- we'll confirm whether it's seven or eight and make sure that that's reflected. EARLE: If you did 8 months, that's equal to the 24. GOODWIN: You're asking me to do math. [LAUGHTER] GOODWIN: Any other thoughts? Okay to move on? There's some -- you'll note in here, there's some cleanup items that we put in here where there's reference to, you know, things being submitted 48 hours or 72 hours in advance. Those timelines were actually relevant when we had Thursday council meetings, and I don't know if some of you may remember those days. Way back in the day, we used to have meetings on Thursdays, so having something do 48 hours in advance meant Tuesday. No big deal. Well, now, because we have meetings on Tuesdays, putting things in 48 hours in advance means Sunday. So that doesn't make a lot of sense operationally, so we've tried to amend those to either reflect the Thursday before the meeting or an appropriate amount of time so that it doesn't fall on a weekend, so that's what you see in 2.1. Moving down to 2.3, we just Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 7 of 47 put a little language cleanup in there. That's all. Okay. Moving on. So these are the definitions, and I think there was a question about whether we should remove newspaper. It's just a definition of what it is, but we can certainly do that if you'd prefer. MCMAHON: Well, question. GOODWIN: Go ahead, Peggy. MCMAHON: Thank you. I mean, I can't see you guys, so I appreciate your patience. GOODWIN: Sure. No problem. MCMAHON: I think the legislature, in looking at this and possibly changing how we're going to be able to post notices, et cetera, and some may still be in newspapers. So maybe we should leave this right now and then come back to it if the legislature changes that. KALIVIANAKIS: I think this is just the definition of newspaper. I don't think it has anything to do with the ordinance. MCMAHON: Oh, okay. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. These are just definitions. MCMAHON: I know, but if the ordinance keeps newspaper, we may need to change it to their description. GOODWIN: I'm going to do my best and say I think you're up, Allen, say based on (indiscernible). SKILLICORN: Based on the semantics, I don't know. I'd have to actually look at what the statute, if anyone has it memorized what the the definition for public posting is? You know, I believe it is -- I think they say newspaper, but -- but I just want to make sure it's exactly, because I don't know -- I mean, is it -- I mean, is this the actual definition in the -- in the statute, a weekly -- or daily or weekly paid publication, you know, et cetera, et cetera; is that the actual language from the statute? GOODWIN: I don't know, but we can probably look real quick. ARNSON: The easiest change to suggest is just going to be whatever the statute ends up being, we make that amendment. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 8 of 47 SKILLICORN: Yeah, that's -- yeah. That's it, but -- and then politically, it's unlikely they're going to change. GOODWIN: Yes. Councilman Watts? WATTS: Just a suggestion, but I think going back up to 2.5, I want to make sure that the rules of procedures are the same date that we're talking about. So 9/6/23, that we don't either proceed or digress on which rules we're referencing. ARNSON: To my knowledge, that's the most recent update. WATTS: Right. And the other thing is that I want to make sure that it's clear that general circulation of a newspaper can include something like The Arizona Republic or the Mesa Tribune, any -- any paper that is circulated within the town. It is not exclusive to the independent. GOODWIN: Correct. WATTS: Gotcha. Thank you. GOODWIN: Vice Mayor? Sorry. TOTH: You're good. GOODWIN: I'm not good at this. I don't run these meetings. TOTH: I just wanted to voice that I would prefer for the definition to be removed, and it's coming from a stance that the -- okay, so our newspaper or any other town newspaper, as an example, those subscriptions are really low, lately. Newspapers are kind of becoming a secondary way that people receive their information. As technology increases and as people look to their phone for their morning news, I think it would be more helpful for us to move away from the -- from -- I'm -- I'm trying to say from having it in our code. It's not saying that we wouldn't put it in a newspaper. It's saying that we're not binding ourselves to that is what I'm trying to get at. GOODWIN: Sure, sure, and I think they're -- SKILLICORN: And I think the statute -- we have to comply to the statute if it's in our rules or not. That's what she's saying, which is interesting point. TOTH: Speaking of statute, however, in the Arizona state law, I don't see anything that requires you to put it in a in a newspaper. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 9 of 47 GOODWIN: So that's actually -- as we move through, you'll find especially where it talks about commissions and committees and where we advertise for openings. Currently, it says we will put it in the newspaper, but there's nothing that says we have to. You're right. You're absolutely right. TOTH: Okay. GOODWIN: So if we want to pull that process out, we certainly can. If we want to leave the definition, we can. If we don't, that's fine, too. It's -- like I said, this isn't really a directional element. This is just the definition, so. TOTH: Got it, and I did -- to Councilmember Skillicorn's point, I did pull up the Arizona statute, and it's -- for anyone who wanted to look it up, it's 38-431.02, notice of meetings. There's nothing that says, like, you have to put it in a newspaper, so yep. GOODWIN: There you go. EARLE: I just want to concur that I'd like it taken out as well. GOODWIN: Okay. EARLE: Unless we're told we have to have it in by the State. GOODWIN: Sure. We can do that. All right. Any other thoughts? Movin on. Notice. We just -- we just articulated when the calendar would be adopted. Again, it's been practiced that we traditionally do it in December, but we just wanted to make sure that it was out there and noted. I don't have any other changes noted on here until we get to lots of meetings. Anything that anybody else wants to stop and look at? All right. All right. Bev, I might have you talk about this one a little bit, but the -- there's a couple cleanup, again, just a few distinctions where we talk about verbatim minutes, because that is what we do. We don't do a summary any longer, and then this is where we've talked about our comment cards and how we handle those. Do you want to talk about that, Bev, real quick? BENDER: Currently, I believe -- currently, I believe that the comment cards are submitted electronically, and we note whether they're for or against and we give the mayor the count, you know, as to what that is, and then we'll announce it, and those comment cards are not read. They're just strictly -- it's a summary of how many we Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 10 of 47 received and what that actual count was. WATTS: Is there a -- is there a reason that we don't identify, along with their position, who they are, much like we do when somebody comes to the podium? GOODWIN: There is an efficiency question there. Sometimes, we have upwards of 50 or 60 of them, if not more, and to be quite fair, sometimes they do not have accurate information. I.E., I believe we've received comment cards from Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, et cetera. WATTS: And they voted how? [LAUGHTER] WATTS: Thank you. EARLE: May I speak? GOODWIN: Yes. Yes, ma'am. EARLE: So my request is that we eliminate these online comment cards altogether. People can email us their questions, and it would save time for the staff. They don't have to pull it all together, and people could come and in person, have their comments. My understanding is this came into effect during COVID, and COVID is over. MCMAHON: Comment? GOODWIN: Councilmember Skillicorn? MCMAHON: It -- GOODWIN: Hang on just one second, councilmember. SKILLICORN: I'm curious of how much time it takes to make that little PDF. I mean, is it -- is it time-consuming, or is it more automated? BENDER: It's time-consuming. It depends on how many we receive, and then I believe there was a case where we had duplications from people that submitted them, and sometimes it's the same person who decides they need to send in another comment multiple times. SKILLICORN: Okay. BENDER: And so it does take some time. I would say maybe an hour and a half to 2 hours. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 11 of 47 SKILLICORN: So I like seeing the -- the comments that come in. I think it's helpful. If we're trying to speed up meetings, I don't know if we need to announce, you know, we've got six four, or five against. You know, I don't know if we need that if our intention to speed up meetings, which I've heard that people want our meetings to end earlier. That is an interesting point, though. If we're wasting staff time -- I don't want to say wasting. It's the wrong word. If we're using a lot of staff time, I wonder if -- I don't see Mike. You might be in the back. If there's a way to automate that. If there's just a simpler way to automate that, or if we use, you know, a different way to capture that, you know, like, I don't want to say a certain web search engines form, but something -- if we have a form that automatically puts them together, maybe that's an easier way of doing it, and I like -- I do like seeing them. I like to -- you know, I do read through them every meeting. It's important, but I don't know if, you know, we need to be talking about them or announcing that, especially spending, you know, that's -- you know, that's three hours, you know, a month compiling that stuff. I guess it could add up, so. GOODWIN: Well, and to kind of add one more layer to that point, if we're going to continue to take them, you'll see in here where we suggest moving the deadline up so that there's more time to allow for the collation of that and getting them to you with enough time for you to actually review them. You know, right now, the cutoff is at 3 o'clock, and that's just not enough time to turn around for a 5:30 meeting. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I like the idea of just having the people email the councilmembers. MCMAHON: I want to make a comment, please. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Comment cards are extremely important. Many people send them in. There are a lot of people that are unable to attend the meeting, but they want to make a public comment, so they send in a card. It is easy for them. It's easily accessible, and everybody gets the cards. I -- I know that people sometimes individually send emails, but we don't all get those, so I prefer to keep the system in place so that all the people that rely on it, that medical reason or otherwise, they can't come to the meeting, they get to make a Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 12 of 47 comment. It's uniform. It's not -- it's -- it's done by, you know, neutrally, by the town clerk, and then we see them. This is our our residents' voices about things on the agenda that they get to comment on, and we should -- we should hear them and it should be neutral, because I'm concerned if it's, like, just going to an email, it's not going to go to all our emails and that happens all the time. TOTH: So -- MCMAHON: And it's going to be a violation of open meeting laws if it does. I don't know. TOTH: What? GOODWIN: Yeah, as long as it's a one way communication, it's okay, but -- TOTH: Sorry. We do have our mayor and council at FH. That's an email that goes to the mayor and the entire council, and I will note that many of the people who fill out comment cards already utilize, that where they'll send their comment card to us in an email, and then it's also at the meeting. So I do believe that this is what Councilmember Earle suggests is the more efficient way of doing this. People who can't attend the meeting, if they're out of town, if they have a medical concern, they can still send their email, make sure their voice is heard. This does encourage -- I will say this doesn't necessarily save time in the council meeting. It would -- because we'd be encouraging people that can to come in person and have their voice heard. However, this saves staff time, and I also agree. I mean, COVID's over. I think just kind of on accident, there's actually lots of municipalities and organizations who have kind of accidentally kept their COVID policies, and I think it's good to go back and clean that up because it will -- unfortunately, the comment cards are very inefficient in that we get our email and then we also get the comment card, and then we have our Daffy Duck, and then we have the people who said, send this as a comment card, and everybody copy and pasted the same paragraph. It's -- you see it a lot in the State legislature, too. If anyone's done the request to speak thing, you'll see, like, 100 comments that are just the exact same two sentences over Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 13 of 47 and over again, so it's just inefficient. This is a way to make sure people's voices are heard and that it's also like, actually their voice that we're hearing. MCMAHON: I have a comment. Please. GOODWIN: Just one second. MCMAHON: Comment. GOODWIN: Just one second, Councilmember. We have one more speaker. EARLE: Oh, where did he go? Is Allen still here? Oh. He's hiding. Okay. No, Allen, I was just saying the talk about having it sent to our emails is -- sounds like it would -- would fulfill what you were talking about, electronically getting to everyone so it wouldn't have to have the staff have extra work if we do the mayor council at fountainhillsaz.gov. SKILLICORN: I was hoping not to get into a 45 minute debate on one item. EARLE: Okay. I'll stop. SKILLICORN: But -- but -- but frankly, if -- if, -- if this -- let's say there is 50 comment cards or comment -- comments on five different items for one evening, right? And if that means we're getting 50 emails, I'd much rather look at them in a form or that PDF that we currently are using than 50 individual emails. That would be my only preference on that. I just think it'd be easier for us to see it in some sort of summary. Again, I think there might be a form that we could do and have it in a very readable way and things like that, and then also we can save some staff time. MCMAHON: I agree. Surprise, Allen, I agree. I like the -- the format it's in. I think it's easy. We all get the very same thing, and even though, yes, there's a mayor council email, some people may choose not to use that, and send in a separate email, and we won't see that, and in addition, COVID really -- since COVID, you know, this has been -- COVID's not even in this picture, and this has been something that has been for years, and it's worked really good, regardless of it was a result of COVID or not. I don't want the word "COVID" tainting this because it serves a completely different purpose. It is a forum for our residents and people to make online comments. I like its uniformity, I like how it's presented, and I like that we all get the exact same thing, and Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 14 of 47 we're not compiling each 50 different emails, stacking them up, and bringing them in into the council meeting, because that's just going to add for more paperwork and confusion. So I would appreciate it if we would please include -- keep this in 3.8. Thank you. GOODWIN: Thank you. I'll say -- I'll say -- Brenda's got her light on, and then, yeah, we'll just take a take a quick consensus. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you. Yeah. My take on this is if -- if they fill out the comment card and it comes directly to mayor and council, I'd have no problem with that if it would save staff time. The -- the PDF version is very efficient because they're all in front of you, and so either or, it sounds okay with me, but just to get rid of the comment cards, I would definitely be against because it's a bright-line rule. I'm for less regulations in our town, and I am for more participation from the general population, and so this would just take away one avenue of people that -- that's been a tradition. I mean, for -- for some of the more controversial projects like (indiscernible), we've literally had hundreds of people, and that's how they know how to weigh in. So if we just eliminate that, a lot of people are going to be disgruntled, and they're going to be like, why -- why don't you want to hear from the public? I think it just makes the council look bad. GOODWIN: Councilman Watts? WATTS: Well, I thought councilmember -- so Mike's not going to like this, but fundamentally, that form is a PDF fillable form, and you could very easily tabulate the yes or nos, for or against in the form, so you could total those, make it easier on staff to make a summary, to do a summary, and still send the -- the results of all of that by each individual submission to the council. So I think if we looked at a way to -- to automate it and make it easier, it would make sense. GOODWIN: All right. With that in mind, it sounds like there is a body of four that would like to keep it. The -- taking that and assuming that, and that's -- and that's based on my count here, unless I'm wrong. I believe I heard councilmember Kalivianakis, Watts, Skillicorn, and McMahon would prefer to keep it. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 15 of 47 SKILLICORN: (Indiscernible) change to implement a summary change. GOODWIN: Correct. No, I don't think so. I think the only rule change I would actually ask for is right now the deadline again is 3 o'clock. I would like to look at moving that to give more staff time and -- and also more time for you guys to review them. If you got 50 documents in your email at 4 o'clock before a 5:30 meeting, that's probably not enough time for you guys to effectively review them. So the question we've thrown out is noon. Does noon make sense? Does close of business on Monday or the close of business the day before the meeting make sense, but we would like to encourage that if we're going to keep the process. MCMAHON: Probably noon, would you think? KALIVIANAKIS: I guess I should ask, Bev. Would noon be preferable? BENDER: The day before would be better. So if they had a deadline of the day before, end of business day. MCMAHON: Well, that Sunday is not a business day. BENDER: Monday. GOODWIN: Monday. BENDER: The meetings are on Tuesday, so that the end of Monday, they'd have to have them submitted. MCMAHON: Okay. Yeah. Okay. GOODWIN: Okay. Okay. WATTS: Yes. End of end of day, Monday. GOODWIN: All right. WATTS: With the caveat that we look at automating that process. GOODWIN: Yes. All right. Moving on. Okay. Moving on. Stop me if there's other things that you wanted to notice. Again, there's some cleanup in there about just some definitions and some different cleanup. We moved something from 24 hours to the Thursday prior for agenda preparation so that there's clarity there. So under 4.2, moving on. EARLE: That's the one. I'd like a little clarification on that. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 16 of 47 GOODWIN: All right. So we're moving to 4.2(b), (1) and (2). I think you wanted to talk about (b)(2); is that right? EARLE: So -- oh, sorry. Basically, additional councilmembers may direct the town. For the future agenda items. So you're changing this to that we have to know that before the meeting, if I'm -- I'm trying to understand. It's a lot -- GOODWIN: The way it's written, yeah. So Bev and I were talking about the process of future agenda items and how they -- we're probably not agendaizing them in the correct process. Do you want to cover that? Okay. BENDER: You guys are utilizing this space on the agenda to just take and give direction to staff at the meeting. The public has no notification of what you're going to be asking. This agenda item has been used differently in the past. We had the same issues where councilmembers were proposing ideas and getting their support, but then we would agendize them so that the public could see who was proposing it, who was the support, what the item was, and then they would be discussing that item at that meeting to see whether or not there was support from the entire council, if there should be more staff time involved in whatever the matter might be. It's just for discussion. GOODWIN: Councilmember McMahon, go ahead. MCMAHON: I guess I'm not understanding why we need to have councilmembers names in the agenda item. I mean, we're in the process -- is this at the end of the meeting where we're making suggestions for the next agenda? I'm trying to understand where this is in the process. BENDER: Yes, it is at that agenda item at the end of the meeting. MCMAHON: Okay. And so the -- the information is taken down by the town manager that this is the agenda item that's going to be suggested, et cetera, but I guess I'm missing why councilmembers' names as well as the -- needs to be on that. Is that going to come back to us in some way, or am I totally missing it? EARLE: I like keeping it the way it was. KALIVIANAKIS: If I -- if I may, I think Gayle asked a salient question. Is this going to change the timing of when we request a future agenda item? Would that be yes or no? Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 17 of 47 GOODWIN: Yes. So essentially, what we're doing is we're kind of skipping over the opportunity for you -- for the rest of the body to say, no, I don't want to talk about this, or -- and I'm going to just use an example that we've had recently. We had the sign code brought back, right? We brought the sign code back, and ideally, it would have been agendized that says, Councilmember Earle, with the support of councilmember A and B, requested further discussion and -- on the sign code process. And if we bring it back and you guys say, you know what, this is -- this is not something we want the staff focusing on right now, then we move on. There is a question of whether we should be taking each item and coming back, and either agendizing it so that the public can know that we're going to talk about it, and then giving, and then if we say yes, then we can agendize it for further direction. It does -- so it adds another process -- another layer. KALIVIANAKIS: So would she have to make the request before the council meeting that day? GOODWIN: No, it would still happen at the council, at the meeting. KALIVIANAKIS: At the future business? GOODWIN: Yes. EARLE: But then everybody has to vote on it, not just three of us agreeing that we want it on there? GOODWIN: At the following meeting. EARLE: So then it takes that much longer? GOODWIN: Exactly. EARLE: I don't like it. WATTS: Slightly different take. On the second line, where it says councilmembers may direct. I think that should be, shall direct. GOODWIN: Okay. MCMAHON: I think it should be may because we can't -- we may or may not. We don't have to. Some of us make those -- some recommendations and some don't. May. GOODWIN: Let me add one other layer -- actually, unless, Vice Mayor, you had Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 18 of 47 something you wanted to add to the conversation? TOTH: I'll let you go first. GOODWIN: Okay. You'll note in here that there was a suggestion to remove available, next available meeting, and staff suggest leaving it. I know there's a little bit of contention there as to why. Essentially, from an operational perspective, if you request something on Tuesday night for the next meeting, which is literally two weeks from that day, there's not enough time to get it done, usually. If there's any type of staff involvement on that item, we basically drop everything and focus on that because it has to go into -- out to the mayor for review the following Tuesday, so we basically have three days to get that item prepared, which is usually why it's not on the directly next agenda. It's typically the one -- we skip the next one, then we get it on to the following one or the or the most -- the available one, and generally that can be -- it can be difficult based on the staff time involved, depending on the item. MCMAHON: I have a comment. GOODWIN: Just a second, Councilmember. Go ahead, Councilman Watts. MCMAHON: Thank you. WATTS: I understand. I still like the shell, but I understand the available component. It makes sense that you don't get jammed up, but there has to be some definitive time within the next two to three meetings. Something has to give somewhere, so shell and something more specific to available. GOODWIN: Okay. WATTS: Would make some sense to me. GOODWIN: Sure. We can look at that. MCMAHON: Am I on? GOODWIN: Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. MCMAHON: Rachael, I agree with available because you don't- - another component of this is mayor and staff have a lot of things waiting to be put on an agenda, and it -- it may not fit on the next agenda or even the next one, so I think giving staff and mayor the leeway to figure out what the agendas are, and not having to absolutely put this Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 19 of 47 particular item or suggestion on the next agenda, gives them a lot more leeway in balancing out the agenda as well. So I'm for leaving the word "available" in there. WATTS: Then leave available in there, but say, no later than. GOODWIN: Right. Yeah. We can kind of quantify it within the next three regularly scheduled meetings or something of that nature. WATTS: Right. GOODWIN: I think that that's reasonable. Vice Mayor? TOTH: I would agree with that. It -- it was me. I was the one that wanted to kill "available." It's mostly because I want that time line tightened up because a previous administration, I'll say, there were a couple items that just never happened, still, and this was after we changed it to next available, and so if we're able to do something that tightens it up, that says, no, it's going to be on an agenda, there's no getting around it. There's not -- I just feel like for the sake of future councils, we got to tighten that up, so that's -- that's why I wanted to do that. As for the paragraph, I also am not a huge fan of it. I understand where the concern lies, though. In previous meetings, when we've had someone suggest something for an agenda item and it becomes a huge discussion, it really can't be that, but I don't necessarily that -- think that that comes from a change in the rules of procedure. I think it just needs to come from enforcement that this isn't discussion. This is I suggest -- I suggest my thing for the agenda or someone else does, we get at least two people to nod their head, and then it would start the process where it needs to get on the next -- or next available agenda. I don't think a code change is needed for enforcing that. GOODWIN: Okay. Any other thoughts? We'll move on. Okay. Moving on. (c)(2). Well, (c)(1) has been changed to eight calendar days because of the just the dates, and then (c)(2) , the agenda item shall be submitted. It's for all -- all types of meetings, whether this calls out specifically work sessions, but it's all for all meetings, so it's kind of kind of redundant. All right. Next page. Again, these are just sort of -- MCMAHON: No, wait. I -- I have a comment, please. GOODWIN: Yes, ma'am? Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 20 of 47 MCMAHON: Are we on E, agenda packets, and timing? GOODWIN: Nope, not there yet. MCMAHON: Okay. Thanks. GOODWIN: Let's see. Actually, we're just making our way there, so we had a couple little cleanup items on there. MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you. GOODWIN: And then what are your thoughts on E, Councilmember? MCMAHON: So I see E, agenda packets here, and all meetings, and they get submitted to council the day before, and packets may be supplemented later under special circumstances. I'm wondering because I'm concerned about documents being submitted late or at -- at the time of the council meeting, which we do have a rule against that. I'm wondering if we should say something that, for transparency purposes and to avoid surprises or other things, so -- so and publication of notice of agenda, and so the public might be able to speak on it, that we can't produce documents or photos or other materials during a council meeting. And maybe that's not where this one belongs, but it -- you know, under supplements or whatever, I think we need to address that, and if this isn't the proper place for that, then we'll pick a proper place for it. TOTH: Councilmember, if -- if I may -- MCMAHON: I just -- TOTH: -- I believe what you're referring to would be under 4.4. MCMAHON: Okay. Probably. Okay. Thank you. GOODWIN: Okay. Why don't we move -- unless anybody has anything, why don't we move to 4.4, then, to stay on that topic. So again, this is where we talk about things being needed 24 hours prior to the council meeting. Documents and handouts must be presented to the town clerk no later than 24 hours prior. MCMAHON: Right. GOODWIN: Handouts submitted after that will not be disseminated. This often -- this actually was really intended for some of our presenters and other people that like to Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 21 of 47 bring and share information and documents and things like that, that kind of show up and start handing stuff out. We'll continue to put digital copies of them on the screen like we've done in the past so that you guys have those available for review. MCMAHON: Okay. But you know how a couple times, unfortunately, it's interrupted the meeting where, all of a sudden, a paper is produced or something. All councilmembers haven't had the opportunity. The public don't know about it and haven't had the opportunity to weigh in if it's significant. So I just want to not -- you know, not be able to have something in here that we're not able to just hand it out at council again, and I'm not diminishing that, and also when removal of items from the agenda. When do we get notice of that, when something is all of a sudden removed? And I know sometimes you can't help that because I know Mayor announced a removal at the last meeting of an agenda item, but if something is removed before then, are we going to get notice, or how is that going to work? GOODWIN: Yes. If anything is removed that we need to amend the agenda and repost it, then we would reshare that and let folks -- you know, let the council have the updated, amended version. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And we've done that on a couple of occasions where we've removed something and reposted -- reposted the agenda. GOODWIN: We have, yeah. And sometimes, it's just because there's an error or a time has changed or something of that nature. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Or there could be a bill that was decided, and we have an agenda item, so we want to remove it. GOODWIN: Correct. But that being said, yes, sometimes, it does happen at the 11th hour, and it's announced at the beginning of the meeting. MCMAHON: Right, right. That -- I guess as an example, for the last meeting, there was an agenda item removed, and I don't know why it was removed. So I'm saying as far as letting council know that it's being removed, I mean, why is it being removed? GOODWIN: Again, that's up to the chair, yeah. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 22 of 47 KALIVIANAKIS: We're not in the right section of the code for that either. This is just for handouts. It's not relevant to the conversation. GOODWIN: Councilman -- Councilwoman Earle? EARLE: Thank you. So if I understand correctly, it's already on the agenda, which the agenda is already out to the people, and if a councilmember wants to even get something electronic, and I guess we can talk about when I submitted stuff for the signs. I -- I would prefer to say it's at 12, noon that day, as opposed to the day prior, because you're not changing the agenda or anything. It's just if somebody wanted to have a handout, we let you know by noon that day. GOODWIN: Okay. Councilwoman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you. And I'm not sure if this needs to be codified, but just for a rule of thumb here, this only applies to materials and handouts. This would not apply to motions to amend. I just want to make sure that's clear to everybody in the public. A complicated motion to amend can -- can be submitted at the -- even at the time of council meeting. Okay. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Well, I like the 24 hours because the town clerk's got to deal with all that stuff, so I want to give her time to do her job effectively as well. So unless anybody else has a complaint about that, I think the 24 hours is -- is good. EARLE: When you're given something electronically, does that -- what is it you're saying? Like, you would have to -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Any -- any documents that are going to be handed out need to be given to the town clerk. EARLE: If they're handed out? MAYOR FRIEDEL: 24 hours before the meeting. GOODWIN: I say, do we want to get a consensus on which one you guys prefer? MCMAHON: The 24 hours is okay with me. GOODWIN: Okay. The -- moving on. So the -- it used to be that we would put hard copies on your desk, and its digital copies are probably just as or just a little more efficient. That's all. No problem, no problem. Then, we have the order of business. We Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 23 of 47 move into 5. Again, there's kind of some cleanup language in there. MCMAHON: I have a question. GOODWIN: Yes, ma'am? MCMAHON: Yes. I don't know if Aaron's there or not? GOODWIN: He is. MCMAHON: But -- okay, the order of business -- and maybe, again, this is not the right place to discuss this, but the order of business shall be contained in the agenda. My concern is, and I'm going to use an example, is that at one of the meetings, we were talking about 5G, and -- and then -- and then a motion or not even really a motion was made to add in waiver of attorney client privilege. Now, that was added in, and I made my comments at that meeting because it wasn't agendized. It wasn't noticed to the public and it wasn't contained in the agenda. So I have concerns moving forward that that's going to happen again, because that's a pretty significant agenda item that really wasn't thoroughly discussed and it wasn't contained in the agenda, and I think that we need to have some language that we can't just add an agenda item like that, and -- that's not properly noticed, or the subject matter of the agenda item being discussed. TOTH: Respectfully, that motion had to do with the agenda. MCMAHON: I'm asking, Aaron. TOTH: Thank you. MCMAHON: I'm asking, Aaron, please. TOTH: Thank you. Respectfully, so that motion had to do with the agenda item at hand. So just like with any other motion, if you were to say -- MCMAHON: I'm asking -- I'm asking Aaron the question. TOTH: Respectfully, this session is for discussion, and what I am getting at is that your comment -- MCMAHON: Excuse me, I address my question to Aaron. MAYOR FRIEDEL: One at a time, please. TOTH: Thank you. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 24 of 47 MCMAHON: I address my question to Aaron, please. TOTH: Your comment is not germane to the work session. We have a limited amount of time, and I would like to respectfully request that we move on to what's actually in the rules of procedure. If we're to discuss things that are not on the agenda, that would be a violation of the same thing that you seem to be concerned about, about a prior meeting. MCMAHON: Aaron? WATTS: I think it's the same issue of any motion that is on the table. You have the ability to make an amendment to the motion just like any -- whether it's a building issue, whether it's a code issue, anything, so we're always able to make motions and amendments. ARNSON: That's the thing, is that what -- what we're talking about right now is what we're talking -- we're talking about the order that things appear on the agenda, not the substance of any item of the agenda. So we're strictly talking about order. MCMAHON: Okay. So I -- ARNSON: If there's substance -- hold on. If there's substance that we need to discuss, then that's something that you talk about with respect to each agenda item that's on the agenda. If it's related to the item on the agenda, you can always change a motion or amend a motion. If it's something that's not reasonably related to what's on the agenda, we shouldn't be making a motion, and so I think we do need to be careful about that in the future. That being said, do I think that there was a major legal issue with what happened last time? No. So that's -- that's it. They're welcome. GOODWIN: I'm noting the time right now is 11:50, so we've -- I wanted to see how we'd like to continue, if you want to keep going sort of page by page, or if we want to jump to some of the more substantial elements of this, some of the bigger changes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I think we jump to the substantial elements. GOODWIN: Okay. We can do that, too. Well, and I'll say, if there's something of note that you noted when you reviewed this that you want to talk about, let me know, but otherwise, I think it would be -- behoove us to move to I'm going to say item C, which is Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 25 of 47 the summary, and it indicates a limiting comments from the mayor and councilmembers to one minute. That was the suggestion that was put in there. I wanted to make sure that everybody was comfortable with that. EARLE: Can we made it -- make it two minutes, or is that too much, people? KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah, I thought Gerry -- I thought Gerry did a ruling on that, and we decided two minutes. TOTH: So these are suggestions by councilmembers of changes to the rules, and one of those suggestions is to limit it to one minute because respectfully, the -- the two minutes isn't being enforced, and this is a significant time spender in our meetings. Very often, we're repeating all the same things that -- if everybody went to the art festival and each one of us talks about the art festival, we're now 15 minutes into a council meeting that has issues that we need to deal with, and so respectfully, I think the summary reports are being, for lack of a better word, abused, and I would like to clean that up. KALIVIANAKIS: No. MCMAHON: Comment, Mayor? GOODWIN: Just one moment, Councilwoman. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. No, I just think that this might -- again, might be a solution in search of a problem. I don't think we've had any problems with council reports. Matter of fact, the people that I speak to, they appreciate our council reports and want to know what we've been doing, and I think that the mayor's solution to cut it from three to two was -- was very reasonable. I -- I told him at that time I thought it was reasonable, and I think we should just move on. MAYOR FRIEDEL: If -- if you'll promise to be short in the future and stay to two minutes? KALIVIANAKIS: I always do, Gerry. TOTH: Can I get head nods on who's okay with one minute? MCMAHON: And I can make a comment, please, Mayor? GOODWIN: So one second. So go ahead, Councilwoman. MCMAHON: Thank you very much. It's our -- it's a part of our -- it's part of a, for lack of Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 26 of 47 a better word, kind of fun part or informative part of what we're doing outside of council, and sometimes, we have -- there's a lot of events and things that we -- we attend that may take more than a minute or so just to even casually talk about and even in a hurry, and then there are other times, like me, where I don't even say anything. So I would really appreciate having the leeway of having up to two minutes, whether I use it or not, you know, I think it would be my preference, but I would like to leave it there because I don't want the audience or the public to think we're just racing through these things as if they're not of any import, so I would appreciate leaving it at two minutes. Thank you. GOODWIN: Thank you. So for one minute, I have Hannah. I know you support that. Anybody else support the idea of one minute? Two minutes sounds like a reasonable -- okay. All right. EARLE: Okay. I do request -- Gerry, I request that you do gavel at the two minutes. Boom. GOODWIN: Yes. Once again, in the interest of time, I think it would make sense if we jump to chapter 8, which is the code of ethics. I know this is where there's been a lot of sort of different points of view and some pain points there. So I'd like to turn to that section and begin that discussion because I think that's going to take probably the rest of our meeting. WATTS: It will, but the prelude to that is 7.8. 7.8 sets the stage for 8, 9, and 10, by saying that we will be in accordance with state law. GOODWIN: Okay. All right. Who would like to kick off discussion on that? Vice Mayor? TOTH: All righty. So section 8, I -- as we all are very well aware, the past few years on all the political sides, there's been a significant amount of ethics complaints. One of the issues that I've identified is that, frankly, the code of ethics, if you really think about it, isn't very clear. It's very easy for anyone to say anyone was not -- not ethical under these standards. Okay. So an example. Recognize that the chief function of local government is at all times to serve the best interests of all the people. Of course, it is. We all agree with that. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 27 of 47 How do I prove that you're not recognizing that? If -- if I want to complain about someone, I can say that anyone's not recognizing that. They made a vote that I disagreed with, so it's not in the interest of all the people. I'm the people, and so that's just one example, but on a broader perspective, we -- we've accidentally dug ourselves a hole, and I'm not pointing to anybody. It's both sides. We've dug ourselves a hole where anybody can say anybody violated the code of ethics, and meanwhile, we're spending a significant amount of money on these complaints. Actually, shout out to Paul for the assist. Fiscal year '24, we spent $10,554 on the process -- processes of these complaints, and that's money that could have gone to streets. That's money that could have, you know, helped with our -- our staff. We do, you know, cost of living adjustments with each budget. At some point, we got to care about these kind of smaller dollar amounts, and on top of that, these complaints take up a significant amount of staff time. Staff stress, because councilmembers get passionate, and you know, somewhat understandably so, passionate about the issue, and -- and they feel the need to come talk to staff while it's still in the in the process, and I find that very inappropriate. So any of these suggestions that you're seeing on the three pages, it -- it's coming from the stance of trying to tighten this up while still allowing the public to hold us accountable, because that is so important, and when we go into -- if it's okay, I'm going to skip ahead because it is all connected. If we go into 10.4, you'll note that what's in red, it would be keeping our same process. Now, it's come to my attention that this process is opening us up to this ability to councilmembers involving themselves in the process, whether it's intentional or not, and in order to clean that up, I really strongly suggest, actually, that we change how these complaints are handled almost entirely. When a member of the public has an issue and believes that the ethics code has been violated, and I believe with trimming it down as I did in section 8, that it's going to make it a little less broad of a window where it's really -- you're doing something unethical as a councilmember. If a member of the public submits that complaint, I would actually suggest that we -- and Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 28 of 47 maybe this becomes a separate agenda item. We can pass what we talked about today, but maybe as a separate one, I think we need to look at language to mirror partially what Gilbert did in 2021. Now, nobody panic, because I'm going to explain the full thing. In 2021, Gilbert was having a similar issue as we were. They passed that the complaint, if not supported by a majority of councilmembers, would be dismissed. I don't like that. That would then depend on who the majority is. I don't think that that would be ethical. Ironic. Instead of that, I would suggest that instead of making our staff be in the middle of this, when someone submits an ethics complaint, it's presented to the council. If two councilmembers put their name to it, we send it on to that other attorney. MCMAHON: No. TOTH: It's two councilmembers putting their name to, I believe this has grounds. I believe this has teeth. I want us to hear more. At that point, that's when we send it off. Because I'm sorry, but my heart's breaking for Aaron here because he's been kind of put into the middle of a big political battle. MCMAHON: May I speak? GOODWIN: Just one moment. After Councilman Watts. WATTS: I think that I'm going to throw a big rock into a small pond, and I really think that we've got a couple of options. Well, I agree with Vice Mayor Toth. In general, Section 8 is kind of a real nice to have, and it kind of gives a general direction for guiding light. 9 has a couple of incidentals. 10 has the meat and potatoes of what we really need to do, and the ambiguity in 10 is disturbing because there are no definitive -- if you do this, this is the punishment. This is the sanction, whether it's a slap on the wrist, whether it's, you know, you're incarcerated for a year, whatever it may be, there's nothing definitive. So my suggestion really is one of a couple. We either eliminate section 10 sin total and then let whomever wants to file the effect -- effectively an ethics complaint, let them sue us. That's one. We can refer to the state's attorney general for their adjudication and looking at it to see whether or not it has merit or not. We can follow a similar Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 29 of 47 process to what the State Congress does with the Senate and the House does, which is we can refer it to an ethics committee. That may be a little bit of a loaded question, or hang on, Aaron, here it comes. We can give it to Pierce Coleman and say, you design and make recommendations for here are the violations and here are the sanctions that are applicable so there's no ambiguity in what we want, what -- what happens if we do something that is perceived to being an ethical -- ethics violation. So those are kind of four solutions to what is a set up between 8 and 9 a little bit, and I think if we move forward with one of those, I'd really like to see Pierce Coleman do it. I'd really like to see, here's -- here's very clearly what the ethics violations are, and it -- and it can't be ticky tack stuff about calling people names and that, you know, sticks and stones. I'm tired of that. So it's really, did you really have an ethics violation? Did -- did we have a committee of sorts that reviewed it, but Pierce Coleman has to step up and say, here's what we're going to do first and foremost, saying, here's the violation, here's the sanctions. ARNSON: Can I respond to that? WATTS: Absolutely. ARNSON: Theoretically -- so you presented four options. One, there's no cause of action anyways for violation of an ethics code, so even if we eliminated the whole thing, someone can file a lawsuit. It'll get tossed immediately because there's no -- there's no statutory cause of action for that or a common law cause of action for that. Secondly, I don't know that the attorney general's office would even process anything like this, so that's -- WATTS: Same thing. ARNSON: Same thing. They're going to pitch it and say, I don't care. It's your local ethics code, right? Deal. The third option that you proposed was an ethics committee. Eh. Maybe. Depends on how you compose your committee. WATTS: Right. ARNSON: Depends on who's sitting. Depends on where allegiances and alliances are, right? So that could be a little bit loaded like you suggested. The fourth option of Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 30 of 47 having the town attorney's office do it is a viable option, but if that's the option that you go with, I have rules that I need to put into place for how this is going to look, so I'm fine exploring that, but once I -- once we make recommendations with what the council will adopt, right, about what examples of things, because these are all aspirational like you suggested, Councilman. You can't pick every example of what could potentially violate the code of ethics. If we put in language that say, not -- in the determination of the town attorney, nonserious or you know, minimal violations, you know, aren't going to be referred out, here are illustrative examples of the things that will be referred out. Then, if everyone agrees to abide by that, I don't have a problem with it. The problem, historically, to be real frank with you all, is that not everyone's okay with abiding -- with abiding by what Pierce Coleman's determination is, right? And so if you and your constituents can be okay with that, then that's certainly what we're willing to do, and we will do as the council's directed. Up to this point, we have encountered serious issues with it, so I would need a commitment. That's what I'm trying to say. WATTS: I think that my biggest concern is that verbiage-like spirit. That is so -- who knows what that means? ARNSON: Right. Yeah. WATTS: You know, if I'm in church, it means one thing. And if I'm on the street, it means something else. ARNSON: Yep. WATTS: So it's all taken away, all that ambiguity to me, and all I'm suggesting is that Pierce Coleman take the first step, first strike, and say, here's what we suggest, and now, let's tweak it. Let's see what we can live with as a reasonable council and say, here's the -- here's the infractions, but they have corresponding sanctions. You can't just say that because somebody called you a name, that you get to sanction them for a year. You can't do that. That's ridiculous. ARNSON: Sure. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 31 of 47 WATTS: So those types of things, and I think you taking the first stab at it, Pierce Coleman taking the first stab at it, would serve us all well. In understanding 8 and 9, there are some things in there we should adjust a little bit. ARNSON: And in response to mayor and councilman in response to that, that's something that we can absolutely do, and that explains a little bit better for my -- for my understanding, that you're trying to put some -- effectively put a framework up there that says, you know, for violations of this nature, this could -- this would be something that's within the realm of an appropriate consequence or an appropriate sanction. Am I understanding that correctly? WATTS: That's correct. ARNSON: That's fine. Ultimately, that's, of course, your call. You have to pick the level of proportionality, right, as the -- as the legislative body. WATTS: Right. I find it hard to find an argument for not doing something like that because of that ambiguity that's in 10. It's just -- it's pervasive in there. It's just -- it's everywhere, so -- and the other nice part is that if we agreed on that, we could eat lunch. ARNSON: Thank you. MCMAHON: I have a comment, please. GOODWIN: Just one second, Councilwoman. I have the vice mayor, I have Councilman Earle, and then our mayor lined up. TOTH: Okay. I just wanted to voice that I agree with councilmember Watts on that. I think that for section 8 and 10, I would like to refer that out. The one request I would have on sanctions for when Pierce Coleman is doing this -- I -- I want to clarify. I really want to impose any other sanction in accordance with state law to be removed because that any other sanction means that anything that the state legislature hasn't thought of us doing to each other yet, we can technically do, and -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: But that's why they do a draft, and then we negotiate the draft. TOTH: That was just my one note, that I -- I do want it to be very clear of what the sanction is for each thing, so I can understand the temptation to include, like, or any Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 32 of 47 other such sanction, but just don't put that language in, please. Thank you. EARLE: Okay. So I'm going to take the rock out of the pond and drain it. I would like to eliminate having these ethics violations or sanctions stuff here altogether and just have in there that if anybody has a complaint, they can either email us, they can do a recall, they can come to a call to the public. That will save us any extra money. It will also save time of the staff and the attorney's office. That's my take on it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I don't disagree with that. And so my question for Rick was, are you talking about eliminating 10 and just doing it through Pierce Coleman? WATTS: No, I think there has to be some guidelines. I think -- I think the public deserves some guidelines as to what is an ethics violation and what is not, so I think keeping 10 but having more specificity to it makes a lot of sense to me, so that's -- no, I want to keep 10, but I want to keep it more factual rather than emotional. GOODWIN: Hang on just a second, Vice Mayor. Let me have the councilwoman chime in. Go ahead, Councilwoman McMahon. MCMAHON: This is an interesting topic, I think, for all of us, because I think we're all feeling the dissension and there's been a lot of complaints filed, et cetera, and it's pretty it's been pretty much Interrupting how the council comes together and how we do our job and how staff does their job, and it's been really, really unfortunate, you know, and seeing some of the complaints, like Aaron said, some of them are just, you know, they don't even -- it puts him and even the town manager in a very difficult place to process them or call and say it really doesn't really have any merit, et cetera, because people are mad at the town attorney or they're mad at the town manager. It's been difficult, and we're all feeling it. I know that Chandler does not allow ethics complaints, and they don't allow them for that reason, and they don't allow them for staff time, and they don't allow them because it's just too costly for them to process them, and I think there's a couple other towns that don't have them either, so that's a consideration. If that's not on the table, and it would blow the whole community apart, and I'm for, you know, being part of this process lately with Aaron and talking to him, et cetera. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 33 of 47 I think that having him -- since it's coming to him and he is trying to sort out all these allegations, and what do you do with them? Where do you go with them? Which one do I send out? Which one do I don't? I think for him and for all of us, if we keep ethics complaints in our rules of procedure, then I'd like to see Aaron provide the outline for that and give himself and his firm guidance as well as council as to how are we are we going to handle this? Bring it back. Let's all discuss it and talk about it, and hopefully, we can come to a resolution that's fair and amicable for everybody. And still, the question to not have these, given what's going on in the town and what's -- what the result, then, you know, that's another -- that might be another discussion. I'm not sure, but going back to section 8, I would like to keep section 8 in. I think that's fundamental to our rules. I think it provides guidelines. It's ethics. It's what we do and it's what we've taken our oath for, and it also gives our community a touchstone on what -- how we're supposed to comport and conduct ourselves, so thank you for listening. GOODWIN: Thank you, Councilwoman. Just for clarification, it is still on the table to potentially, you know, remove the ethics altogether, based on what I heard from Councilman Earle and the mayor. Is that your first preference, is to remove it and then, if not, work with Pierce Coleman? MCMAHON: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I -- I'm -- I'm -- you know, I feel funny saying it because there's an ethics complaint against me, so I don't -- I'm -- I don't -- and there's ethics complaints out there. So then those would have to be deal with -- dealt with, excuse me, if it's decided we're not we're no longer going to continue them. I mean, maybe we just need to sit down -- I mean, I know we're having a conversation now, but maybe we ought to take some time to think about that and then have the conversation. Maybe after lunch or at the time. I don't know GOODWIN: Okay. I have -- let's see. I have a lot of lights on. We have the -- we have the vice mayor, followed by Councilman Watts and then councilmember Kalivianakis. TOTH: It's my turn with the rock. I agree, actually, that removing this process is -- it would be a completely valid thing to do. There's nothing -- as you know, Aaron, you Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 34 of 47 mentioned there's not actual legal teeth to, like, an ethics code or a violation. We kind of created that on our own. I do, however, believe in the public's ability to hold us accountable, and I believe that that's important. That might just come from shifting the mindset of what that accountability means. We have the call to the public. We have our email. We have -- you know, if we really mess up, you can sue us, but -- or you know, we have current state law, you know, but my point is, you can do a recall. You can -- at the -- at the end of the day, the best way for the people to show accountability is at the ballot box, and not necessarily by recall, but at the next election. That's what most municipalities honor, so I'm for that. If we have four that are interested in that, I would therefore I guess rescind my suggestions for 8 and 10, and we can leave 8 in as a reminder of how we need to be behaving, and I think it is important to have us all sign that, but. ARNSON: Well, and Mayor -- sorry to interrupt the two councilmembers that are waiting to speak, but it's really no different from, like, an attorney code of ethics. There are some things that are binding and that you must abide by. You can't have conflicts of interest. You can't dual represent without a client's consent, right, but there are other things that are -- we call them aspirational, right? You shall aspire to serve -- to serve the community at large. You shall aspire to do these things, and the state bar is never going to come after me, for, in their view, either not doing well enough or doing too much or one way or another, right, with respect to that. So I view this very similarly. There's -- there may not be grounds for a complaint process for it, but is there accountability at the end of the day if you choose not to abide by those things? Sure, right? For an attorney. I lose clients if I choose not to abide by those things. If it's a councilmember, you lose a council seat if it's -- if you choose not to abide by those things in the public's view. So ultimately, I potentially agree with that, that maybe accountability just looks different, right? MCMAHON: If somebody's in line, can -- tell me when I can speak when it's my turn. Thanks. GOODWIN: Okay. Just a second. Councilman? Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 35 of 47 WATTS: That's a lot of food for thought. It really is because I can see going both ways, either having something that is more definitive or having something -- having nothing, and then deferring to the -- to the State. But I also want to want to remind everybody that we're using Pierce Coleman by name, by Aaron. We're looking to Aaron's cohorts, their staff, you know, and those people have the objective expertise that we're looking for, that if we can come up with definitions and we can come up with specific sanctions, then we don't negate the voice of the public. MCMAHON: Right. WATTS: And I think my bigger -- my bigger concern is the impression that we give to the public and saying, you no longer have a voice, an easy voice for you to express your concern, either a complaint or an email or so on. So I just ask that we consider that because I'd love to get rid of it, but the optics there are somewhat bothersome for sure. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I concur with the vice mayor and with Gayle, and kind of going with the Chandler model, which is just the elimination of these sections. I really appreciate their respect for staff, their respect for what's been going on lately in the town, and it's gotten -- gotten out of hand. Like Aaron pointed out, there are -- there are remedies for self-enrichment. We can find ourselves in court for egregious violations of just decorum. You know, we could be recalled. There could be letter-writing campaigns. There are self-correcting mechanisms that are at play other than just filing 15 ethics complaints in two years, and so I concur with both of them, and I think, Gerry, I think I heard you say the same thing. I think this is an excellent conversation, a reasonable conversation, and one that I think it's -- it's tough, with all due respect to councilmember Watts on the optics of people not having a conduit, but it's kind of -- I think we're at the point where enough's enough, and let's just fix it and move on. WATTS: I'm going to pick on councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Uh oh. WATTS: The egregiousness. The term. What is it? How how blatant is it? How much in your face is it, and I think that's the problem by -- if you're going to get rid of it, then Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 36 of 47 fine, but if you keep it, you need to put some teeth around whatever those terms are, those definitions are, or they're going to be pointless. We're going to be back in the same conundrum we're in right now. So I -- I'm going to continue to hammer about optics, what the public has gotten used to. I don't really want to lose that. I don't think the public wants to, but I think we have to find a way to streamline that process, look and see what's frivolous and what's no, and we can do that by identifying those and then saying, does it meet the criteria, and if not, they still come back to council, they still come back and we still talk about them. We still have a vote, and we don't just disrupt the the optics to the population. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I -- I don't disagree with you, Rick, but we have town business to -- to -- to run, and I think we really need to get back to that. There's been a big distraction with this stuff, and that conduit or that drain, whatever you want to call it, it's pretty plugged up right now, and I think we need to clean it out. MCMAHON: Comment? Can I just comment? GOODWIN: Yes, ma'am. MCMAHON: Okay. You know, I think this is a great conversation we're all having, and I think we all have really good points, and I'm going to probably present this to Aaron and everybody, but you know, I haven't given a lot of thought to not having ethics complaints, so to speak, you know, and I'd like some time to think about that, and I would also if -- if that's possible, I mean, we're not voting on this now. We're providing direction, but at the same time, I agree with Rick Watts. There's so many people out here that pay attention and to all of our conduct and want to have a say so in that. So maybe, and we can have Aaron provide an outline of what it would be if this was kept, or maybe even if it's not kept. And we get a letter from somebody complaining about something or whatever, and you know, hand it over to Aaron or whatever and whatever, see if it matters or needs a vote or something. I'm not making sense, but I just think -- I'd like to have the options in front of me to see if we consolidate it down to a smaller level, for lack of a better word and more concise, or if we just decide to do away with it. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 37 of 47 WATTS: One more comment about -- about Pierce Coleman, and I think that if we move forward with saying, here are sanctionable events, then you have to be -- Pierce Coleman has to be the determinant. You have to make the decision. MCMAHON: Right. WATTS: And even if we stay with a email, you have to make that determination, and if you determine that it has some viability, then it comes to council, but as much as you don't want to be in the middle, you're right smack there. ARNSON: No, of course, and that's the way -- that's -- I recognize that entirely. I think that what I'm hearing right now is that the best option for us to move forward, because there's no sense in doing work on narrowing or providing a framework or anything like that if the goal of the council at the end of the day is going to be, we eliminate the ethics complaint process in the first place. So I think when this comes back for adoption, the options are, here's all the changes. You can choose to adopt what you want to adopt with respect to section 10. Council give direction, eliminate in its entirety, or direct Pierce Coleman to put a framework together where we provide structure for sanctions like Councilman Watts suggested. If you choose to eliminate it on April 15th, then so be it. You don't need to spend any more money on having me do stuff. If you choose to move forward with the framework, then I move forward with providing council additional direction. That's my -- that would be my suggestion. WATTS: And what happens to the existing complaints that are in process? They -- they are suspended? They are -- ARNSON: It's up to you. WATTS: Okay, because there is some angst there. ARNSON: Yep. WATTS: And a lot of this is, you know, in my -- and I know this is client privilege stuff, but it's like when my -- when I was interviewed, some of it was really ticky tack, and it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me, and if you haven't got thick enough skin to put up with some of the things that you're -- then it gets kind of silly, and the silliness Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 38 of 47 has got to stop. You know, if you've got something that is legitimate, that's different. Now, define legitimate, and I'll -- I'll say the same thing. Legitimate versus egregiousness. It's the same lack of definition, so I -- I'm good with either way. I just want to make sure that either way, we do what's in the best interest of the public. MCMAHON: Yeah. Can I comment, please? GOODWIN: Well, just one moment. We're at 12:20, so we -- I'd like to move towards wrapping up by 12:30, just again, for everybody to have a break. We have another meeting starting promptly. So if there's any final discussion on this or any other direction based on any other changes, and then -- MCMAHON: Yeah, yeah. GOODWIN: -- I would like to find out if you'd like to have another work session to review this again at a more cleaned up process, or if you're ready for it to be agendized for further discussion at a council meeting. MCMAHON: Excuse me. If -- I -- I need clarification, and I need people to think about this because it's important moving forward for existing complaints. If this is wiped out, do they get -- do they get wiped out or what? I think that's important, especially for the people that have complaints against them. ARNSON: You tell me. It's your process. MCMAHON: Well, I know that, but it has to be discussed. ARNSON: Go for it. KALIVIANAKIS: As -- as far as I'm concerned, I don't think we need another work session. I think, Aaron, you just hit it right in the head. Just give us those two options of doing it internally through Pierce or just eliminating it, and then we can decide at a future council meeting, and I think we've talked about it enough. And as far as just being up to this council, how we go forward, I'd be, you know, willing to say that let's just clean sweep and just start anew, and you know, from what -- from what Rick said and from the ethics complaints that are out there right now, you know, if you guys want to start all over again, that's that's fine with me with the new rules in order. ARNSON: Well, and I will -- and I will say, I'll add that -- let -- let's talk about the Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 39 of 47 elephant in the room. There are three councilmembers right now that have ethics complaints pending against them from both sides of the political aisle, so if you choose to do a clean sweep, it will be a clean sweep for everybody, and so no side benefits over the other. If you choose to leave them in place, we're leaving them in place for everybody. That would be my council to you, or direction -- or not direction, recommendation to you as your town attorney. You can't be selective, right? KALIVIANAKIS: Right. WATTS: So in that light, I'm going to -- I'm going to agree. Let's wipe it out. Let's wipe out the existing sanctions. Let's all grow up and address these things as they are brought to us, but let's move on from here so we can actually get something done. ARNSON: Okay. WATTS: And I don't know if that's a motion or not, but it sounded like it to me. [LAUGHTER] ARNSON: It's certainly -- it's certainly direction that I will take. EARLE: Being that we've -- we do have a bill to the attorney that's working on two of them right now, I would like to know the outcome of those. ARNSON: Sure EARLE: We've already spent that. GOODWIN: Yes, those that have already left will -- will complete the process. Those -- EARLE: Yes, but the ones that didn't go out yet, if we decide to wipe it, then we wipe them. GOODWIN: Okay. ARNSON: Is that what we're saying? KALIVIANAKIS: That's not what I heard we were saying at all. A clean sweep is a clean sweep. You eliminate them all, or you hear them all. I think that's what you said. ARNSON: Well, my -- GOODWIN: That's up to you guys. ARNSON: That's -- KALIVIANAKIS: That would be the only fair way to do it, is the clean sweep is you Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 40 of 47 eliminate them all, or we process the current ones that are in the queue, and then we start anew with the new council recommendations. ARNSON: Yeah. There -- there are two that are in process that some or most of you have been interviewed about already, right, and those are the ones, Gayle, that you're -- that you're talking about. There are others, one penny against the mayor and one penny -- and a couple penny against councilmember Kalivianakis that are paused, that have been administratively paused. How you direct us to proceed is entirely up to you. I will call -- upon direction, I will call the investigator today and tell her to stop work, don't bother putting a report together for any of the existing ones. If you decide that the ones that are in process are going to continue, I will not take any further action with the -- with the investigator, and I'll let the reports come out, but if you choose to do a clean sweep, I would recommend that it be a clean sweep. WATTS: Would it be reasonable to look at the ones that have been paused? If we took -- if we wiped out ten in -- in total, but the ones that have been paused, if Pierce Coleman could make a determination based upon and support it in some manner, is it possible? ARNSON: I made my determination. I sent them out. WATTS: Oh, you did? ARNSON: Yes. WATTS: Oh, I wasn't sure what -- but they're paused? ARNSON: But they're right paused now. Yeah. WATTS: Okay. ARNSON: So that -- that's what I'm saying. If you choose to sweep -- if you choose to sweep the ones that are paused, my recommendation is you sweep them all, including the Including the ones that she started investigating, because if we're really going to grow up and put it behind us, they all need to go, because if we're talking about ticky tackness, I'm looking at every single one of those and seeing the same thing. GOODWIN: All right. On that note, it is 12:26. I think we have a lot of direction. If there are any other comments or thoughts about the other edits that are in this that we Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 41 of 47 did not cover, please reach out to me directly. ARNSON: Yes, so what am I doing? GOODWIN: Yes. Well, and I say, I thought we were going to bring it back to -- it sounds like we're ready to bring it back to council. At least, that was what I heard from you, Brenda, is are we -- are we ready to do that, to bring back a version and then at that meeting -- KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah, I think there's -- there's two issues, existing complaints, and then going forward with either another work session -- GOODWIN: Okay. KALIVIANAKIS: -- either another work session or not. I think so right now, there's two issues that are pending. WATTS: I see two issues being one, is it going to be a complete wipeout of 10, and then what do we do with the -- or not, and then what do we do with specific sanctions, specific violations (indiscernible) sanctions, and then the pending (indiscernible). ARNSON: By the way, it sounds like we don't need another work session. It sounds like we're ready to come back. Okay. So that's taken care of. GOODWIN: All right. So shall we just do -- ARNSON: Let's roll. GOODWIN: -- a quick rundown? All right. Councilman Watts, do you mind if I start with you? WATTS: Oh, sure. At the beginning of this, I thought it would be easier to do the violations and sanctions, and now, I'm not so sure, so I think I would go for wiping it out and following up with the residents saying, this is what you got to do when you complain, you got to go to the individual councilmembers. So I mean, I'm in support of wiping it out, and in conjunction with that, I'm in support of wiping out the sanctions as well, all existing sanctions. ARNSON: And existing complaints? WATTS: Existing complaints and sanctions, right. ARNSON: Okay. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 42 of 47 WATTS: And by that, to be clear, I know it's coming up on the next agenda, but Skillicorn sanctions are going to go away, too, because if it all goes, it all goes, not just the existing ones. TOTH: I agree with that --oh, I'm sorry. You were -- GOODWIN: That's okay. Well, I started with Councilman Watts. I don't mind if you want to -- do you want to put your two cents in? TOTH: Is it okay? GOODWIN: Sure. TOTH: Thank you. I agree with what Councilman Watts said, and here's why. My original suggestions that I put in already made it so that even if anybody had come back and it was not guilty, but it was a violation, the punishments -- the punishments? The sanctions in there would have, at most, gone up to the next meeting. It would have been the worst thing we can do is keep you from going to the next meeting. What happened a year ago was a wish list of things that were completely unprecedented. I'm all for a clean slate, but I agree we need to put our money where our mouth is. If we want a clean slate, let's make it a clean slate. I'm -- I'm all for calling the investigator and saying, hey, we're done. We're stopping. We'll pay you for the labor you put in, but we're -- we're not doing this anymore, but I want a commitment that we're actually putting this behind us. KALIVIANAKIS: I'm for operation clean sweep, okay, and I -- and I think Rick was, too. As far as the Skillicorn sanctions, it's the utmost of ridiculousness to say that that's going to affect sanctions that were done a year ago, because, in other words, we're going to be eliminating every ethics complaint in the history of this town by going back to his -- well, then how about Allen Magazines (ph.), and how about any other councilmember that served that did get jammed up with sanctions? So it's -- this is really an apples and oranges situation. Allen was found guilty. The sanctions were imposed. So going forward, it's on pending sanctions, not somebody who's already been found guilty of ethics violations, so that should be another -- that should be another meeting. It's already been slated to be in the agenda. I suspect that his sanctions will be lifted at Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 43 of 47 that time, but I do want a roll call vote at that time to determine who -- who is for lifting his sanctions and who is not for lifting the sanctions, and so this body will -- will have a vote, and it's probably going to be at the next council meeting, and so I think it's kind of unreasonable. EARLE: Well, thank you, Councilwoman Kalivianakis, because you just made me change my vote. I think we should go forward with those that are in the queue and deal with them, and going after that, then it should be a clean sweep. GOODWIN: And in terms of you're for removing the chapter? EARLE: The -- I'm 100 percent for removing chapter 10. GOODWIN: Okay, thank you. TOTH: Out of the, you know, history of the town of Fountain Hills ethics violations, how many have sanctions that still exist? I assume people out of office don't, right? GOODWIN: As far as I know. TOTH: Okay. Has anyone in the history of our town had sanctions that lasted over a year? GOODWIN: Not that I'm aware of. TOTH: Would we say that a flood of ethics violations occurred, beginning with what happened with Skillicorn? You don't have to answer that, Rachael. I'm not going to make you answer that. [LAUGHTER] TOTH: But I'm letting people think about it. The goal of this is to put something behind us, and I'm all for it. And I'm reaching out my, you know, olive branch, and I would just like the public to take note of who's politically slapping it away. GOODWIN: All right. So I've had -- I've heard from you three. I've heard from the vice mayor. Allen, do you have any input on which version of this you'd like to see move forward? SKILLICORN: Probably could eliminate 10. One thing that is interesting to take a look at is look up the rules in the United States Congress and legislative immunity. Read that section, and it's quite telling that the freedom of speech is more important than Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 44 of 47 people's feelings. GOODWIN: All right. And then councilmember McMahon, did you have any -- ARNSON: She's off. She dropped off. GOODWIN: Okay. And then Mayor, you're the final. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'm for eliminating, but as far as the vote on my outstanding ethics complaint, I don't know if I should weigh in on that, because I don't know what that would appear to the public. So I think the others have spoken loud and clear, so you have the direction, and I would support that direction. GOODWIN: Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: But, however, I won't have a -- I won't have a say in it. ARNSON: My interpretation of that direction is that I'm going to contact the investigator, like, right after lunch and tell her to stop work and don't produce any reports that were done. That's my interpretation of the council's direction; is that correct? EARLE: My understanding with that interpretation is that then we also drop Allen Skillicorn sanctions. TOTH: And therefore remove it from the upcoming agenda; is that correct? GOODWIN: If we had that direction today, yes, we would remove it from the agenda. TOTH: That's my direction. ARNSON: Done. Okay. GOODWIN: All right. With that, it is 12:34. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Let's eat. KALIVIANAKIS: Are we dropping the Skillicorn sanctions? GOODWIN: That's what I just heard. KALIVIANAKIS: (Indiscernible). GOODWIN: So I didn't hear any objections, yeah. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah, no, I object. GOODWIN: Okay. So you're objecting? KALIVIANAKIS: I think that the next meeting, we should discuss the Allen Skillicorn Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 45 of 47 sanctions because, like, it's been agendized, and it's put on future business. GOODWIN: Okay. I need I need final direction, guys, on what we're going to do. TOTH: What do you want to do, Rick? WATTS: I want to make a motion. EARLE: Yeah. He said that he wanted to go vote. WATTS: Okay, so I said, yes, you can get rid of all sanctions, including the ones that are (indiscernible). GOODWIN: So this is specific to wiping all and removing any other sanctions that are in place, period, regardless of who they're against. WATTS: The only one that it's affecting is Councilman Skillicorn. GOODWIN: So I have two that want to do that. Brenda, you've been -- you've opposed. Oh, three -- TOTH: Three with Watts. GOODWIN: Okay. I want to make sure I heard you. Mayor, do you want to chime in? I'm going to need a tiebreaker. I need a -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: I would not be opposed to dropping his sanctions, and Brenda, the difference is he's still serving on the council. Allen Magazine isn't, so there is a big difference there, and you know what? He's had these sanctions for over a year. I think that's time served. KALIVIANAKIS: Well, I -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: And if we're going to move on, we really need to move on. KALIVIANAKIS: Well, I don't think sanctions are forever, and if Allen Magazine were to run again for council or for mayor, he -- it would -- it would say -- he -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: No, no. KALIVIANAKIS: -- ethically compromised -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: He had -- he had ethics violations against him, and he ran again and was still elected. KALIVIANAKIS: So he was still elected, but -- but but he was still guilty of ethics violations. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 46 of 47 TOTH: Respectfully, I -- I think there's been a misunderstanding. The sanction is the punishment for the violation. The violation still occurred, so referring to councilmember Magazine, his sanction was an apology I never received, so I guess, technically, you could say it's still active because I'm still waiting on it, but -- ARNSON: Here's the deal. We're not going to need to do anything. If you eliminate section 10, which was the basis for the sanctions, they all go away by de facto. All right. They're all going away, then. That's the direction. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Lunch? GOODWIN: All right. Please join us for lunch. It's in the back. See you in 25. Town of Fountain Hills MARCH 25, 2025 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 47 of 47 APPROVED: ____________________________________ GERRY FRIEDEL, MAYOR ATTEST: ____________________________________ BEVELYN BENDER, TOWN CLERK CERTIFICATION I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING MINUTES ARE A TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF THE MINUTES OF THE REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, HELD ON MARCH 25, 2025. I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT THE MEETING WAS DULY CALLED AND HELD AND THAT A QUORUM WAS PRESENT. ________________________________ BEVELYN BENDER, TOWN CLERK Having no further business, Mayor Gerry M. Friedel adjourned the Special Work Session (Rules of Procedure) Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on March 25, 2025, at 12:36 p.m. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS _______________________ Gerry M. Friedel, Mayor ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: __________________________________ Bevelyn Bender, Town Clerk CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Special Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 25th day of March 2025. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED 6th day of May 2025. _________________________________ Bevelyn Bender, Town Clerk ITEM 9. A. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Regular Agenda Submitting Department: Community Services Prepared by: Patti Lopuszanski, Executive Assistant Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approve the recommended Community Services Advisory Commission reappointments. Staff Summary (Background) The Council Subcommittees for the Town’s Boards, Commissions, and Committees oversee the appointment process for new members based on term expiration, vacancies due to resignations, or changes in membership eligibility. Appointments are generally made biannually in April and October. Two commissioners' terms are set to expire on April 30, 2025, on the Community Services Advisory Commission. To fill this vacancy, Town staff conducted a recruitment process and forwarded the applications to the Council Subcommittee for the Boards, Commissions, and Committees. On _____________, 2025, the Subcommittee _________________ to: Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle Chapter 2A of the Town Code. Risk Analysis N/A Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) Recommendations to the Mayor have been made by the Council Subcommittee. Staff Recommendation(s) Approve the Council Subcommittee’s recommendations for appointments to the Community Services Advisory Commission, as follows: Reappointment of ______________________ to a full term from May 1, 2025, to April 30, 2028. Reappointment of ______________________ to a full term from May 1, 2025, to April 30, 2028. SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to approve the Council Subcommittees' recommendations to re-appoint current members for an additional term to the Community Services Advisory Commission as presented. ITEM 9. B. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Regular Agenda Submitting Department: Court Prepared by: Joanna Elliott, Court Administrator Staff Contact Information: Joanna Elliott, Court Administrator Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Adopting Resolution 2025-16, to Amend Resolution 2000-03 to Adopt a Comprehensive Fee Schedule For The Court. Staff Summary (background) The Town of Fountain Hills adopted Resolution 2000-03 in January 2000, establishing both Court Fees and the Court Enhancement Fund. Court Fees are added to the defendant's case(s) at the time of sentencing in addition to fines and surcharges (Exhibit A). The Court Enhancement Fund is used to offset the costs of technology, equipment, security, and operational supplies needed to increase the effectiveness of Court case management. ARS 22-404 in conjunction with Attorney General Opinion I95-018, both allow for Council to establish local fees, that the Courts will then impose. Resolution 2025-16 proposes an update to the Town’s Court Fee Schedule. These rates have not been adjusted since 2000, and the proposed changes reflect an increase consistent with overall cost escalations over the past two decades. The updated fees remain aligned with those of surrounding municipal courts (see Exhibit A for comparison). Additionally, the resolution introduces two new fees to the schedule: A Contract Administrative Fee of $10.00 per contract initiated or modified, intended to offset processing and administrative costs. A Deferred Entry of Judgment Fee of $75.00 per case, applicable in situations where a deferred judgment agreement is approved by the Court. The proposed adjustments ensure continued fiscal responsibility and alignment with regional practices while supporting the operational needs of the Court. Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle RESOLUTION 2000-03 A.R.S. 22-404 A.G.O. I95-018 Risk Analysis NONE Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) N/A Staff Recommendation(s) N/A SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to adopt Resolution 2025-16, adopting a comprehensive fee schedule for the Court. Attachments RESOLUTION 2025-16 Presentation RESOLUTION 2025-16 A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND COMMON COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA AMENDING MUNICIPAL COURT FEES AND COSTS. WHEREAS, The Town of Fountain Hills Municipal Court administers programs and services within the Municipal Court; and WHEREAS, the cost of administering such programs and services is a substantial burden on the Court; and WHEREAS, the Town of Fountain Hills is authorized to establish and assess fees for the court programs and services pursuant to A.R.S. §22-404. WHEREAS, Additional Municipal Court costs and fees are hereby established: NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, BY THE MAYOR AND COMMON COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA, AS FOLLOWS: Section 1.Contract Administration fee. The Municipal Court shall assess a contract administration fee on: i.Each case where a payment contract is established at time of final adjudication, and ii.Any subsequent modifications to a payment contract resulting from defendant's non-compliance, or request to modify a court ordered penalty, fine, assessment or sanction, including parking penalties and restitution. This contract administration fee is in addition to any time payment fees established by the Arizona Revised Statutes, court or administrative rule. Section 2.Deferred Entry of Judgment fee: The Municipal Court shall assess a deferred entry of judgment fee in all cases where the town prosecutor enters a deferral entry of judgment plea. Section 3.Diversion Program Rescheduling fee: In cases where a diversion fee has been assessed, the Municipal Court shall assess a diversion program rescheduling fee for each modification or reissuance of the diversion program order: i.Resulting from a defendant's non-compliance with the initial order, or ii.Requested by a defendant. Section 4. Jail Reimbursement fee: As part of the Municipal Court Fees for the reimbursement of jail costs, in addition to any reimbursement of jail costs authorized by law, statute or ordinance, any person who has been convicted of a misdemeanor criminal offense in the Municipal Court and sentenced to a term of incarceration in the county jail, or any other detention facility authorized by law, as part of sentencing, shall be required to reimburse the Town for all, or any part of, the actual expense the Town has, or will, incur to the county or other authorized detention authority by reason of the incarceration. Any person who has been arrested on a misdemeanor criminal offense or on a warrant issued by the Municipal Court may be required to reimburse the Town for all, or any part of, the actual expense the Town has, or will, incur to the county or other authorized detention authority. Section 5. Order modification fee. The Municipal Court shall assess an order modification fee for each modification to a confinement, screening or treatment program order: i.Resulting from a defendant's non-compliance with the initial order, or ii.Requested by a defendant. Section 6. Order to Show Cause Fee: The Municipal Court shall assess an Order to Show Cause fee for each order to show cause issued by the Court. Section 7.Probation fee: unsupervised fee. The Municipal Court shall assess a probation fee for each twelve-month period, or portion thereof, that a defendant is placed on unsupervised probation. Section 8. The amount of each Municipal Court cost or fee is set forth in Exhibit A attached hereto and incorporated herein by this reference. The Municipal Court Costs and Fees may be adjusted annually by the Town Council as adopted in its Town Fee Schedule without a further resolution. Section 9. Monies from the Court Enhancement fund shall supplement funds already provided to the Municipal Court. Section 10.The Town Magistrate may waive or suspend all or part of any fee, costs or reimbursement identified in this resolution, however denominated. Section 11. This Resolution supersedes Resolution 2000-03. Section 12. This Resolution shall become effective at 12:01 a.m. on May 7, 2025 PASSED AND ADOPTED by the Mayor and Council of the Fountain Hills, Maricopa County, Arizona this 6th day of May 2025 FOR THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS: ATTESTED TO: ___________________________________ ______________________________ Mayor Town Clerk REVIEWED BY: APPROVED AS TO FORM: ___________________________________ ______________________________ Town Manager Town Attorney RESOLUTION 2025-16 EXHIBIT A MUNICIPAL COURT COSTS AND FEES EXHIBIT A TYPE OF FEE AMOUNT FUND Court Enhancement Fee $50.00 per case Count Enhancement Fund Warrant Fee $65.00 per warrant issued General Fund Civil Traffic Default Fee $50.00 per charge defaulted General Fund Contract Administrative Fee $10.00 per payment contract or modification thereof Court Enhancement Fund Court User Fee $10.00 per charge as part of fine General Fund Deferred Entry of Judgment Fee $75.00 per case General Fund Diversion Fee $150.00 for each case referred to diversion by Town Prosecutor pursuant to A.R.S. § 9-500.22. General Fund Diversion Program Rescheduling Fee $25.00 for each rescheduling General Fund Jail Reimbursement Fee Actual cost incurred General Fund Jury cost (assessed if jury trial is cancelled within five (5) days of trial) Actual cost incurred General Fund Non-Sufficient Funds Fee (NSF) for checks returned to Court $29.00, or actual cost, per check General Fund Order Modification Fee $25.00 for each modification or reissuance of a court order General Fund Order to Show Cause Fee $30.00 for each Order to Show Cause set by the court. General Fund Probation Fee – supervised Actual cost General Fund Probation Fee - unsupervised $150.00 for each twelve- month period, or portion thereof, for unsupervised probation. General Fund Public Defender Fee Actual cost incurred for appointed attorney General Fund Public Records Search $17.00 per name General Fund MUNICIPAL COURT FEES RESOLUTION 2025-16 Current Fees vs. Proposed New Fees TYPE OF FEE CURRENT NEW COURT ENHANCEMENT FEE $30.00 $50.00 WARRANT FEE $50.00 $65.00 DEFAULT FEE $50.00 $50.00 CONTRACT ADMIN FEE -$10.00 COURT USER FEE $10.00 $10.00 DEFERRED ENTRY OF JUDGMENT -$75.00 PER CASE DIVERSION FEE $25.00-$100.00 $150.00 EACH CASE REFERRED DIVERSION RESCHEDULING FEE $25.00 $25.00 EACH RESCHEDULING JAIL REIMBURSEMENT ACTUAL COST INCURRED ACTUAL COST INCURRED JURY COST ACTUAL COST INCURRED ACTUAL COST INCURRED NSF FEE (NON-SUFFICIENT FUNDS)$29.00 $29.00 ORDER MODIFICATION FEE $25.00 $25.00 PROBATION-SUPERVISED ACTUAL COST ACTUAL COST PROBATION-UNSUPERVISED -$150.00 PER 12 MONTH PERIOD PUBLIC DEFENDER FEE ACTUAL COST ACTUAL COST PUBLIC RECORDS SEARCH $17.00 PER NAME $17.00 PER NAME/$17.00 CERTIFIED Benchmarking Against Peer Jurisdictions Court Court Enhancement Warrant Default Diversion Probation Fountain Hills (Proposed)$50 $65 $50 $150 $150 Carefree -$200 $25 $150 - Maricopa -$75 $25 $100 Up to $150 Paradise Valley $10 $100 $50 $125 - Scottsdale $10 $65 $65 $150 $150 Tolleson -$50 $50 -$30 Yuma -$50 $25+$100 - Justification for Fee Increases Cost Recovery Adjusting for Inflation and administrative costs Service Improvements Help fund improvements and services (security) Benchmarking Aligning with similar jurisdictions Questions? ITEM 9. C. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Regular Agenda Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Paul Soldinger, Chief Financial Officer Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Resolution 2025-18, increasing a stipend up to $750 per month for Council members and increasing a stipend up to $1,100 per month for the Mayor. Staff Summary (Background) The Town of Fountain Hills Council adopted Resolution 1992-10 in April 1992, first establishing compensation of $300 per month for Council Members and $400 per month for the Mayor. Eight years later, in 2000, the Council adopted Resolution 2000-28, which increased these amounts to $400 per month for Council Members and $600 per month for the Mayor. Town Code, Section 2-1-5 and ARS 9-232.01 allow for the Council to adopt increased monthly stipend amounts by resolution. Further, the Council discussed possible increases to monthly stipend amounts at the April 8, 2025 proposed budget workshop meeting. Resolution 2025-18 would increase Council Member stipends from $400 per month to $750 per month, and increase the Mayor's stipend from $600 per month to $1,100 per month, beginning in January 2026. These stipends are in lieu of any other salary or wages; reimbursements or allowances for cellular devices and services; reimbursements or allowances for use of personal vehicles within Maricopa County; and other incidental expenses. Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle Town Code, Section 2-1-5 ARS 9-232.01 Risk Analysis N/A Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) Staff Recommendation(s) N/A SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to adopt Resolution 2025-18, proposing increased monthly stipends for the Mayor and Council Members OR MOVE to deny Resolution 2025-18, proposing increased monthly stipends for the Mayor and Council Members Fiscal Impact Fiscal Impact:$15,600 Budget Reference:FY2026 Funding Source:General Fund If Multiple Funds utilized, list here: Budgeted: if No, attach Budget Adjustment Form: Fiscal Impact:$31,200 Budget Reference:FY2027 ongoing Funding Source:General Fund If Multiple Funds utilized, list here: Budgeted: if No, attach Budget Adjustment Form: Attachments Resolution 2025-18 RESOLUTION 2025-18 A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA, PURSUANT TO ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES SECTION 9-232.01 AND TOWN CODE 2-1-5 INCREASING A STIPEND UP TO $750 PER MONTH FOR COUNCIL MEMBERS AND INCREASING A STIPEND UP TO $1,100 PER MONTH FOR THE MAYOR NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, as follows: SECTION 1. That on July 6, 2000, the Town Council of the Town of Fountain Hills passed Resolution 2000-28 establishing the current stipends for members of the Council. SECTION 2. That Section 2-1-5 of the Fountain Hills Town Code provides that the stipends paid to the Mayor and Council for service in office shall be fixed from time to time by resolution of the Council. SECTION 3. Pursuant to the authority under both state law and the Town Code, the following stipends are hereby established commencing with the first regular Town Council meeting in January 2026: A. Each Council Member shall receive a stipend of $750 per month, or proportionate portion thereof, served. B. The Mayor shall receive a stipend of $1,100 per month, or proportionate portion thereof, served. The stipends established in this section are in lieu of any other salary or wages; reimbursements or allowances for cellular devices and services; reimbursements or allowances for use of personal vehicles within Maricopa County; and other incidental expenses. PASSED AND ADOPTED BY the Mayor and Council of the Town of Fountain Hills, Arizona, this 6th day of May 2025. FOR THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS: ATTESTED TO: Gerry M. Friedel, Mayor Bevelyn J. Bender, Town Clerk REVIEWED BY: APPROVED AS TO FORM: Rachael Goodwin, Town Manager Town Attorney ITEM 9. D. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Regular Agenda Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Paul Soldinger, Chief Financial Officer Staff Contact Information: Paul Soldinger, Chief Financial Officer Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Adopting Resolution 2025-10 setting forth the Tentative Budget and establishing the maximum budget amount for the Town of Fountain Hills for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026. Staff Summary (background) The proposed Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget was presented to the Town Council at the budget workshop on April 8, 2025. The total expenditures in the tentative budget for all funds is $53.4 million. Resolution 2025-10 establishes $53.4 million as the maximum amount of expenditures for Fiscal Year 2025-26. After approval of this Resolution, changes to the budget can be made within line items, but the total amount cannot exceed this established amount. The Tentative Budget includes $1.07M in contingency expenditure authority for the General Fund. This contingency provides the Town with flexibility in the case of unforeseen events, such as emergency infrastructure repairs and protects the Town from potential revenue shortfalls. Thus, this contingency can only be used if there are adequate financial resources available. Quarterly budget updates, including revenue collections, will be provided to the Town Council at the end of each quarter. Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle A.R.S. 42-17102 Risk Analysis If not approved, the Town will not be in compliance with state statute. Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) N/A Staff Recommendation(s) Staff recommends adoption of Resolution 2025-10. Staff recommends adoption of Resolution 2025-10. SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to adopt Resolution 2025-10. Attachments Resolution 2025-10 Exhibit A Exhibit B Presentation RESOLUTION 2025-10 A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA, SETTING FORTH THE TENTATIVE BUDGET AND ESTABLISHING THE MAXIMUM BUDGET AMOUNT FOR THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR BEGINNING JULY 1, 2025, AND ENDING JUNE 30, 2026 RECITALS: WHEREAS, pursuant to the provisions of the laws of the State of Arizona, the Mayor and Council of the Town of Fountain Hills (the “Town Council”) are required to adopt a budget for each fiscal year; and WHEREAS, in accordance with ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 42-17102, the Town Manager has prepared, and filed with the Town Council, the Town Manager’s budget estimates for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026. ENACTMENTS: NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, as follows: SECTION 1. The recitals above are hereby incorporated as if fully set forth herein. SECTION 2. The statements and schedules attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated herein by reference are hereby adopted as the Town’s official tentative budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026, including the establishment of the maximum budget amount for such fiscal year in the amount of $53,396,398. SECTION 3. Upon approval of the Town Council, the Town Manager or designee shall publish in the official Town newspaper once a week for two consecutive weeks (i) the official tentative budget summary (Schedule A) and (ii) a notice, in the form attached as Exhibit B and incorporated herein by reference, of the public hearing of the Town Council to hear taxpayers and make tax levies at designated times and places. The notice shall include the physical addresses of the Fountain Hills Town Hall, the Fountain Hills branch of the Maricopa County Library and the Town website where the tentative budget may be found. SECTION 4. The Town Manager or designee shall, no later than seven business days after the date of this Resolution, (i) make available at the Fountain Hills Town Hall and the Fountain Hills branch of the Maricopa County Library a complete copy of the tentative budget, and (ii) post the tentative budget in a prominent location on the Town’s website. SECTION 5. The Mayor, the Town Manager, the Town Clerk, and the Town Attorney are hereby authorized and directed to take all steps necessary to carry out the purpose and intent of this Resolution. PASSED AND ADOPTED BY the Mayor and Council of the Town of Fountain Hills, Arizona, this 6th day of May 2025. FOR THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS: ATTESTED TO: Gerry M. Friedel, Mayor Bevelyn J. Bender, Town Clerk REVIEWED BY: APPROVED AS TO FORM: Rachael Goodwin, Town Manager Town Attorney EXHIBIT A TO RESOLUTION 2025-10 [Tentative Budget] See following pages. Official Budget Forms Town of Fountain Hills Fiscal year 2026 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Official City/Town Budget Forms Schedule G—Full-time employees and personnel compensation Schedule C—Revenues other than property taxes Schedule D—Other financing sources/(uses) and interfund transfers Schedule E—Expenditures/expenses by fund Schedule F—Expenditures/expenses by department (as applicable) Town of Fountain Hills Table of Contents Fiscal year 2026 Schedule A—Summary Schedule of estimated revenues and expenditures/expenses Schedule B—Tax levy and tax rate information 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Official City/Town Budget Forms Fiscal year General Fund Special Revenue Fund Debt Service Fund Capital Projects Fund Permanent Fund Enterprise Funds Available Internal Service Funds Total all funds 2025 Adopted/adjusted budgeted expenditures/expenses* E 1 25,707,788 10,325,460 20,360 8,498,025 0 0 600,000 45,151,633 2025 Actual expenditures/expenses** E 2 23,062,984 9,342,673 10 4,770,440 0 0 525,404 37,701,511 2026 Beginning fund balance/(deficit) or net position/(deficit) at July 1*** 3 14,195,144 12,970,079 40,436 11,244,650 0 0 10,343,422 48,793,731 2026 Primary property tax levy B 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2026 Secondary property tax levy B 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2026 Estimated revenues other than property taxes C 6 26,051,539 10,376,350 700 4,089,383 0 0 622,900 41,140,872 2026 Other financing sources D 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2026 Other financing (uses) D 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2026 Interfund transfers in D 9 0 150,000 0 6,900,000 0 0 0 7,050,000 2026 Interfund Transfers (out) D 10 0 5,550,000 0 1,500,000 0 0 0 7,050,000 2026 Line 11: Reduction for fund balance reserved for future budget year expenditures Maintained for future debt retirement 0 Maintained for future capital projects 4,176,040 5,400,000 9,576,040 Maintained for future financial stability 10,019,104 10,019,104 Maintained for future retirement contributions 0 0 2026 Total financial resources available 12 26,051,539 17,946,429 41,136 20,734,033 0 0 5,566,322 70,339,459 2026 Budgeted expenditures/expenses E 13 26,051,539 13,037,949 1,060 12,776,750 0 0 1,529,100 53,396,398 Expenditure limitation comparison 2025 2026 1 Budgeted expenditures/expenses 45,151,633$ 53,396,398$ 2 Add/subtract: estimated net reconciling items (119,359) (82,309) 3 Budgeted expenditures/expenses adjusted for reconciling items 45,032,274 53,314,089 4 Less: estimated exclusions 9,449,491 16,732,213 5 Amount subject to the expenditure limitation 35,582,783$ 36,581,876$ 6 EEC expenditure limitation or voter-approved alternative expenditure limitation 35,588,003$ 36,581,877$ * ** ***Amounts on this line represent beginning fund balance/(deficit) or net position/(deficit) amounts except for nonspendable amounts (e.g., prepaids and inventories) or amounts legally or contractually required to be maintained intact (e.g., principal of a permanent fund). See the Instructions tab, cell C17 for more information about the amounts that should and should not be included on this line. S c h Funds Includes expenditure/expense adjustments approved in the current year from Schedule E. The city/town does not levy property taxes and does not have special assessment districts for which property taxes are levied. Therefore, Schedule B has been omitted. 11 Town of Fountain Hills Summary Schedule of estimated revenues and expenditures/expenses Fiscal year 2026 Includes actual amounts as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, adjusted for estimated activity for the remainder of the fiscal year. 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule A Official City/Town Budget Forms 2025 2026 1. $ $ 2. $ 3.Property tax levy amounts A. Primary property taxes $$ B. Secondary property taxes C.Total property tax levy amounts $$ 4.Property taxes collected* A. Primary property taxes (1) Current year's levy $ (2) Prior years’ levies (3) Total primary property taxes $ B. Secondary property taxes (1) Current year's levy $ (2) Prior years’ levies (3) Total secondary property taxes $ C. Total property taxes collected $ 5.Property tax rates A. City/Town tax rate (1) Primary property tax rate (2) Secondary property tax rate (3) Total city/town tax rate B. Special assessment district tax rates Secondary property tax rates—As of the date the proposed budget was prepared, the two (2)special assessment districts for which secondary property taxes are levied. For information pertaining to these special assessment districts and their tax rates, please contact the city/town. * city/town was operating Includes actual property taxes collected as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated property tax collections for the remainder of the fiscal year. Amount received from primary property taxation in the current year in excess of the sum of that year's maximum allowable primary property tax levy. A.R.S. §42-17102(A)(18) Town of Fountain Hills Tax levy and tax rate information Fiscal year 2026 Maximum allowable primary property tax levy. A.R.S. §42-17051(A) Property tax judgment Property tax judgment Property tax judgment Property tax judgment 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule B Official City/Town Budget Forms Estimated revenues Actual revenues* Estimated revenues 2025 2025 2026 General Fund Local taxes Local Sales Tax $14,858,589 $16,345,623 $14,962,027 Franchise Tax 390,000 324,800 350,000 Licenses and permits Business License Fees 117,785 93,967 114,094 Residential Rental License 50,000 31,588 28,523 Liquor License Fees 500 3,192 2,000 Building Permit Fees 400,000 455,001 450,000 Sign Permits 3,350 4,316 3,350 Landscape Permit Fees 3,780 2,993 3,780 Subdivision Fees 36,000 42,301 40,000 Special Event Permits 8,500 34,274 18,100 Engineering Fees 5,550 7,727 5,550 Third Party Revenues Planning & Zoning Fees 20,060 13,524 20,060 Plan Review Fees 56,750 42,227 50,000 Intergovernmental State Sales Tax 3,628,998 3,568,035 3,639,515 Fire Insurance Premium Tax 48,516 48,516 75,000 Shared Income Tax 5,108,090 5,010,162 4,698,139 Charges for services Parks & Rec User Fees 255,265 298,779 260,000 Encroachment Fees 50,000 22,260 100,000 Variances 2,600 9,084 5,000 Inspection Fees 29,000 42,235 35,000 Leases & Rents 289,278 403,695 379,914 Fines and forfeits Court Fines 200,000 212,184 210,000 Interest on investments Interest on Investments 100,000 588,304 348,507 In-lieu property taxes Contributions Voluntary contributions 71,400 47,587 60,000 Miscellaneous Miscellaneous 90,805 319,576 192,980 Total General Fund $25,824,816 $27,971,948 $26,051,539 * Town of Fountain Hills Revenues other than property taxes Fiscal Year 2026 Includes actual revenues recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year. Source of revenues 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule C Official City/Town Budget Forms Estimated revenues Actual revenues* Estimated revenues 2025 2025 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Revenues other than property taxes Fiscal Year 2026 Source of revenues Special revenue funds Highway User Revenue Fund Highway User Tax 1,823,078 $1,837,437 $1,890,627 Vehicle License Tax 1,215,914 1,190,579 1,277,830 Local Sales Tax 1,212,573 1,355,899 1,242,326 In-Lieu Fees 100,000 80 100,000 Recycle Proceeds 1,000 325 1,000 Interest 10,000 564,256 191,193 Miscellaneous 30,000 30,000 $4,392,565 $4,948,576 $4,732,976 Downtown Strategy Fund Sales-Excise Tax 121,257 $135,590 $124,233 Interest 600 32,696 13,830 $121,857 $168,286 $138,063 Economic Development Fund Sales-Excise Tax 485,029 $542,360 $496,930 Miscellaneous 1,449 Interest 240 27,547 10,766 $485,269 $571,356 $507,696 Tourism Fund Grants 84,000 $164,992 $150,000 Interest 180 13,496 3,000 Miscellaneous 1,431 $84,180 $179,919 $153,000 Special Revenue Fund - Grants Intergovernmental-State $1,190,000 $365,368 $1,690,000 Intergovernmental-Federal 250,000 3,000,000 Interest 4,824 $1,190,000 $620,192 $4,690,000 Public Art In-Lieu Fees $100,000 $68,574 $100,000 Interest 240 1,541 820 $100,240 $70,115 $100,820 Court Enhancement Fund Court Enhancement/JCEF Revenue $33,000 $29,955 $33,000 Interest 300 12,029 8,789 $33,300 $41,984 $41,789 Environmental Fund Environmental Fee $1,772 Interest 2,400 11,680 $2,400 $13,452 $ Cottonwoods Maintenance District Assessments $9,768 $9,509 $11,606 Interest Income 72 749 400 $9,840 $10,258 $12,006 Total special revenue funds $6,419,651 $6,624,136 $10,376,350 *Includes actual revenues recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year. 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule C Official City/Town Budget Forms Estimated revenues Actual revenues* Estimated revenues 2025 2025 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Revenues other than property taxes Fiscal Year 2026 Source of revenues Debt service funds General Obligation Debt Service Interest Income $600 $2,037 $500 $600 $2,037 $500 Eagle Mountain CFD Assessments $$$ Interest Income 100 253 $100 $253 $ Municipal Property Corp Interest Income $300 $483 $200 $300 $483 $200 Total debt service funds $1,000 $2,773 $700 Capital projects funds Capital Projects Fund Sales Tax-Local $904,856 $1,281,065 $1,188,207 Grants 2,652,500 98,926 2,190,750 Interest 10,000 468,188 170,000 $3,567,356 $1,848,179 $3,548,957 Fire Development Fee Fund Development Fees $12,780 $9,169 $17,228 Interest Income 1,000 8,955 4,102 $13,780 $18,123 $21,330 Streets Development Fee Fund Development Fees $200,740 $125,471 $266,141 Interest Income 1,000 34,244 15,227 $201,740 $159,715 $281,368 Parks & Recreation Development Fee Fund Development Fees $166,030 $126,673 $224,096 Interest Income 1,000 60,383 13,632 $167,030 $187,056 $237,728 Total capital projects funds $3,949,906 $2,213,074 $4,089,383 *Includes actual revenues recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year. 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule C Official City/Town Budget Forms Estimated revenues Actual revenues* Estimated revenues 2025 2025 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Revenues other than property taxes Fiscal Year 2026 Source of revenues Permanent funds N/A $$$ $$$ Total permanent funds $$$ Enterprise funds N/A $$$ $$$ Total enterprise funds $$$ *Includes actual revenues recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year. 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule C Official City/Town Budget Forms Estimated revenues Actual revenues* Estimated revenues 2025 2025 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Revenues other than property taxes Fiscal Year 2026 Source of revenues Internal service funds Facilities Reserve Fund Miscellaneous $$$ Interest Income 1,000 357,989 140,000 $1,000 $357,989 $140,000 Technology Replacement Fund Internal Service Charges $$62,002 $65,511 Interest Income 8,452 $$62,002 $65,511 Vehicle Replacement Fund Vehicle Replacement Charges $$356,027 $368,337 Interest Income 1,000 109,694 49,052 $1,000 $465,721 $417,389 Total internal service funds $2,000 $885,712 $622,900 Total all funds $36,197,373 $37,697,643 $41,140,872 *Includes actual revenues recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year. 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule C Official City/Town Budget Forms Fund Sources (Uses)In (Out) General Fund General Fund $$$$ Total General Fund $$$$ Special revenue funds Streets Fund $$$$5,400,000 Downtown Strategy Fund Economic Dev Fund 150,000 Tourism Fund 150,000 Environmental Fund Total special revenue funds $$$150,000 $5,550,000 Debt service funds N/A $$$$ Total debt service funds $$$$ Capital projects funds Capital Projects Fund $$$6,900,000 $ Parks & Rec Development Fee Fund 700,000 Streets Development Fee Fund 800,000 Total capital projects funds $$$6,900,000 $1,500,000 Permanent funds N/A $$$$ Total permanent funds $$$$ Enterprise funds N/A $$$$ Total enterprise funds $$$$ Internal service funds Facilities Reserve Fund $$$$ Technology Replacement Fund Vehicle Replacement Fund Total Internal Service Funds $$$$ Total all funds $ $ $ 7,050,000 $ 7,050,000 2026 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Other financing sources/(uses) and interfund transfers Fiscal year 2026 Other financing Interfund transfers 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule D Official City/Town Budget Forms Adopted budgeted expenditures/ expenses Expenditure/ expense adjustments approved Actual expenditures/ expenses* Budgeted expenditures/ expenses Fund/Department 2025 2025 2025 2026 General Fund Mayor & Town Council $73,040 $$63,929 $92,076 Administration 3,270,412 (1,500)3,111,847 3,252,618 General Government 2,532,053 (265,028)768,467 1,849,434 Municipal Court 526,374 524,379 548,969 Public Works 1,702,310 140,000 1,611,865 2,488,886 Development Services 1,578,897 1,448,030 1,532,513 Community Services 4,202,955 9,500 3,984,710 4,459,454 Fire & Emergency Medical 5,694,859 5,305,841 5,966,584 Law Enforcement 6,243,916 6,243,916 5,861,005 Total General Fund $25,824,816 $(117,028)$23,062,984 $26,051,539 Special revenue funds Streets Fund $7,087,540 $594,775 $7,365,654 $7,244,627 Downtown Strategy Fund 90,200 100,000 167,029 165,200 Economic Development Fund 315,293 264,320 471,378 Tourism Fund 417,378 17,028 356,335 333,425 Special Revenue Fund 1,190,000 769,477 4,690,000 Public Art Fund 41,761 31,129 40,214 Court Enhancement Fund 52,500 14,792 77,500 Environmental Fund 404,804 366,057 Cottonwoods Maint District 14,181 7,881 15,605 Total special revenue funds $9,613,657 $711,803 $9,342,673 $13,037,949 Debt service funds General Obligation Bonds $350 $$$350 Eagle Mountain CFD 19,500 200 Municipal Property Corp 510 10 510 Total debt service funds $20,360 $$10 $1,060 Capital projects funds Capital Projects $9,092,800 $(594,775)$4,770,440 $12,712,800 Fire/Emergency Dev Fee 1,964 Streets Dev Fee 31,146 Park/Rec Dev Fee 30,840 Total capital projects funds $9,092,800 $(594,775)$4,770,440 $12,776,750 Permanent funds N/A $$$$ Total permanent funds $$$$ Enterprise funds N/A $$$$ Total enterprise funds $$$$ Internal service funds Facilities Reserve Fund $550,000 $$488,708 $1,000,000 Technology Replacement Fund 50,000 36,696 50,000 Vehicle Replacement Fund 479,100 Total internal service funds $600,000 $$525,404 $1,529,100 Total all funds $ 45,151,633 $ $ 37,701,511 $ 53,396,398 * Expenditures/expenses by fund Fiscal year 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Includes actual expenditures/expenses recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated expenditures/expenses for the remainder of the fiscal year. 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule E Official City/Town Budget Forms Adopted budgeted expenditures/ expenses Expenditure/ expense adjustments approved Actual expenditures/ expenses* Budgeted expenditures/ expenses 2025 2025 2025 2026 Mayor & Council General Fund $ 73,040 $ $ 63,929 $ 92,076 Department total $73,040 $$63,929 $92,076 Administration General Fund $ 3,270,412 $ (1,500) $ 3,111,847 $ 3,252,618 Downtown Strategy Fund 90,200 100,000 167,029 165,200 Economic Development Fund 315,293 264,320 471,378 Tourism Fund 417,378 17,028 356,335 333,425 Special Revenue Fund 1,190,000 (701,049) 202,308 4,690,000 General Obligation Debt 350 350 Eagle Mountain CFD 19,500 200 Municipal Property Corp 510 10 510 Cottonwoods Maint District 14,181 7,881 15,605 Capital Projects 677,800 (400,000) 117 1,167,800 Department total $5,995,624 $(985,521)$4,109,846 $10,097,086 General Government General Fund $ 2,532,053 $ (265,028) $ 768,467 $ 1,849,434 Technology Replacement 50,000 36,696 50,000 Vehicle Replacement 415,000 Department total $2,582,053 $(265,028)$805,163 $2,314,434 Municipal Court General Fund $ 526,374 $ $ 524,379 $ 548,969 Court Enhancement Fund 52,500 14,792 77,500 Department total $578,874 $$539,171 $626,469 Public Works General Fund $ 1,702,310 $ 140,000 $ 1,611,865 $ 2,488,886 Streets Fund 7,087,540 594,775 7,365,654 7,244,627 Special Revenue Fund 168,049 26,113 Environmental Fund 404,804 366,057 Capital Projects 6,885,000 134,225 3,928,292 9,950,000 Facilities Replacement Fund 550,000 488,708 1,000,000 Vehicle Replacement 64,100 Streets Development Fees 31,146 Department total $16,629,654 $1,037,049 $13,786,689 $20,778,759 Development Services General Fund $ 1,578,897 $ $ 1,448,030 $ 1,532,513 Department total $1,578,897 $$1,448,030 $1,532,513 Community Services General Fund $ 4,202,955 $ 9,500 $ 3,984,710 $ 4,459,454 Special Revenue Fund 533,000 541,056 Public Art Fund 41,761 31,129 40,214 Capital Projects 1,530,000 (329,000) 842,032 1,595,000 Parks/Rec Development Fees 30,840 Department total $5,774,716 $213,500 $5,398,926 $6,125,508 Fire & Emergency Medical General Fund $ 5,694,859 $ $ 5,305,841 $ 5,966,584 Fire/EMS Development Fees 1,964 Department total $5,694,859 $$5,305,841 $5,968,548 Law Enforcement General Fund $ 6,243,916 $ $ 6,243,916 $ 5,861,005 Department total $6,243,916 $$6,243,916 $5,861,005 * Expenditures/expenses by department Fiscal year 2026 Town of Fountain Hills Includes actual expenditures/expenses recognized on the modified accrual or accrual basis as of the date the proposed budget was prepared, plus estimated expenditures/expenses for the remainder of the fiscal year. Department/Fund 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule F Official City/Town Budget Forms Full-time equivalent (FTE) Employee salaries and hourly costs Retirement costs Healthcare costs Other benefit costs Total estimated personnel compensation 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 104.45 $ 9,203,593 $ 944,332 $ 745,728 $ 875,025 $ 11,768,678 Streets Fund 7.05 $ 601,922 $ 66,460 $ 91,642 $ 56,465 $ 816,489 Economic Development Fund 2.00 246,687 27,327 17,156 7,838 299,008 Total special revenue funds 9.05 $ 848,609 $ 93,787 $ 108,798 $ 64,303 $ 1,115,497 $ $ $ $ $ Total debt service funds $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ Total capital projects funds $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ Total permanent funds $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ Total enterprise funds $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ Total internal service fund $ $ $ $ $ Total all funds 113.50 $ 10,052,202 $ 1,038,119 $ 854,526 $ 939,328 $ 12,884,175 Internal service funds Special revenue funds Debt service funds Capital projects funds Permanent funds Enterprise funds Fund Town of Fountain HillsFull-time employees and personnel compensation Fiscal year 2026 General Fund 6/23 Arizona Auditor General Schedule G Official City/Towns Budget Forms EXHIBIT B TO RESOLUTION 2025-10 [Notice] See following page. Town of Fountain Hills Notice of Public Hearing Final Budget Adoption and Tax Levy On June 3, 2025, beginning at 5:20 p.m. in the Town Hall Council Chambers, 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills, Arizona 85268, public hearings will be held to allow members of the public to appear and testify or make inquiries regarding Fiscal Year 2025-26 Budgets for (i) the Town of Fountain Hills, (ii) the Eagle Mountain Community Facilities District Board, and (iii) the Cottonwoods Maintenance District Board. On June 17, 2025, beginning at 5:25 p.m. in the Town Hall Council Chambers, 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills, Arizona 85268, the Cottonwoods Maintenance District Board will adopt its property tax levy for the Fiscal Year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026. A complete copy of each of the budgets for the Fiscal Year 2025-26 may be viewed at: 1. Fountain Hills Town Hall (2nd floor), 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills, Arizona 85268 2. Fountain Hills Maricopa County Branch Library, 12901 La Montana Drive, Fountain Hills, Arizona 85268 3. The Town of Fountain Hills website at: www.fountainhillsaz.gov/budget Anyone wishing to respond may do so in person at the meetings or in writing prior to the date of the June 3, 2025, and June 17, 2025, meetings by delivering the written comments to the Town Clerk’s office, 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268. FY2026 Tentative Budget Paul Soldinger, Chief Financial Officer May 6, 2025 Key Updates from Proposed Budget Key Updates from Proposed Budget •Added 2.5% COLA for Town staff (recommended by Council during April 8 work session) •Budget increase About $270K •Re-calculated Fire Department for revised command structure to begin on January 1, 2026 •Budget decrease About $111K •Council stipends increasing January 1, 2026 •Budget increase About $18K Key Updates from Proposed Budget •Added $50K Wayfinding Signs carryover budget in Capital Projects Fund, and decreased contingency •Budget impact No increase •Utility increases added •Budget increase About $5K •Corrected error in Fire Department uniforms budget •Budget decrease About $30K Key Updates from Proposed Budget •Accounted for new Fire Department vehicle in vehicle replacement charges •Budget increase About $6K •Increased Special Revenue Fund to account for possible pass-through federal grant to the IDSDC •Budget increase $3M (contingent on receiving grant) FY2026 Tentative Budget Comparison - Revenues IDSDC grant Fire Dept vehicle charges FY2026 FY2026 Changes Proposed Budget Tentative Budget from Proposed Revenues by Fund General Fund $26,051,539 $26,051,539 $0 Streets Fund 4,732,976 4,732,976 0 Capital Projects Fund 3,548,957 3,548,957 0 Facilities Reserve Fund 140,000 140,000 0 Special Revenue Fund 1,690,000 4,690,000 3,000,000 Economic Dev Funds 798,759 798,759 0 All 11 Nonmajor Funds 1,172,171 1,178,641 6,470 Total Expenditures: $38,134,402 $41,140,872 $3,006,470 Major Fund Groups FY2026 Tentative Budget Comparison - Expenditures COLA adjustments IDSDC grant All GF impacts General Fund “Wiggle Room” FY2026 FY2026 Changes Proposed Budget Tentative Budget from Proposed Expenditures by Fund General Fund $26,051,539 $26,051,539 $0 Streets Fund 7,226,020 7,244,627 18,607 Capital Projects Fund 12,712,800 12,712,800 0 Facilities Reserve Fund 1,000,000 1,000,000 0 Special Revenue Fund 1,690,000 4,690,000 3,000,000 Economic Dev Funds 963,214 970,003 6,789 All 11 Nonmajor Funds 727,429 727,429 0 Total Expenditures: $50,371,002 $53,396,398 $3,025,396 FY2026 FY2026 Changes Proposed Budget Tentative Budget from Proposed General Gov Contingency $1,228,772 $1,070,733 -$158,039 Major Fund Groups General Fund Contingency Balanced GF, decreasedcontingency Expenditure Limitation FY2026 – Tentative Budget FY26 Expenditure Limit $36,581,877 FY26 Tentative Budget $53,396,398 Less Grants (7,260,050) Less HURF (1,890,627) Less Investment Income (967,130) Less Other Exclusions (625,176) Less Using Prior Years’ Carryforward (6,071,539) FY26 Expenditures Subject to Limit $36,581,876 $1 FY26 - $10.74M exclusions $1 under the FY26 expenditure limitation General Fund General Fund Past Performance $22.7 $24.8 $25.6 $14.1 $15.7 $21.7 $- $5.00 $10.00 $15.00 $20.00 $25.00 $30.00 FY22 FY23 FY24 Mi l l i o n s Expenditures* Budgeted Expenditures Actual Expenditures $22.7 $24.8 $25.6$24.6 $28.1 $30.8 $- $5.00 $10.00 $15.00 $20.00 $25.00 $30.00 FY22 FY23 FY24 Mi l l i o n s Revenues Budgeted Revenue Actual Revenue *FY22 and FY23 Expenditures do not include about $4.2 million each year of ARPA grants that paid for Public Safety out of another fund Without those grants, the General Fund expenditures would have been about $18.3 million in FY22 and $19.9 million in FY23 General Fund - Expenditures *Administration Department includes Town Manager, Information Technology, Town Clerk, Administrative Services, Finance, Public Information, Legal Services and Purchasing divisions ** Includes MCSO Patrol/Jail costs, and animal control services FY2025 FY2026 FY2026 Changes % Change Adopted Budget Proposed Budget Tentative Budget from Proposed from FY2025 Adopted Budget Expenditures by Department Mayor and Council $73,040 $73,455 $92,076 $18,621 26.1% Municipal Court 526,374 525,443 548,969 23,526 4.3% Development Services 1,578,897 1,504,836 1,532,513 27,677 -2.9% Law Enforcement**6,243,916 5,861,005 5,861,005 0 -6.1% Administration*3,270,412 3,203,652 3,252,618 48,966 -0.5% General Government 2,532,053 2,005,985 1,849,434 -156,551 -27.0% Public Works 1,702,310 2,468,888 2,488,886 19,998 46.2% Community Services 4,202,955 4,409,009 4,459,454 50,445 6.1% Fire & Emergency Med 5,694,859 5,999,266 5,966,584 -32,682 4.8% Total Expenditures: $25,824,816 $26,051,539 $26,051,539 $0 0.9% General Fund All Other Funds Major Funds - Expenditures FY2025 FY2026 FY2026 Changes % Change Adopted Budget Proposed Budget Tentative Budget from Proposed from FY2025 Adopted Budget Funds other than General Fund Streets Fund $7,087,540 $7,226,020 $7,244,627 $18,607 2.2% Capital Projects Fund 9,092,800 12,712,800 12,712,800 0 39.8% Facilities Reserve Fund 550,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 0 81.8% Special Revenue Fund 1,190,000 1,690,000 4,690,000 3,000,000 294.1% Economic Development Funds 822,871 963,214 970,003 6,789 17.9% All Nonmajor Funds 583,606 727,429 727,429 0 24.6% Total Expenditures: $19,326,817 $24,319,463 $27,344,859 $3,025,396 41.5% Total Budgeted Expenditures:$45,151,633 $50,371,002 $53,396,398 Major Fund Groups Proposed Transfers Proposed Transfers* •$150,000 from Economic Development Fund to Tourism Fund to cover FY26 operations •Up to $5,400,000 from Streets Fund to Capital Projects Fund (matched to actual Palomino reconstruction project costs, as planned and discussed with Council) •Up to $1,500,000 ($700K Parks & $800K Streets) from Development Impact Fee funds to Capital Projects Fund for Pleasantville Park and Shea Blvd Widening capital projects (reimbursements from impact fee funds, as planned and discussed with Council) *Funding transfers of General Fund excess reserves will be presented to Council in Fall 2025, after the financial audit is completed. This will allow the General Fund to leverage existing fund balance for higher investment earning performance Council Questions? ITEM 9. E. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT Meeting Date: 05/06/2025 Meeting Type: Town Council Regular Meeting Agenda Type: Regular Agenda Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Request to Town Council Regular Meeting (Agenda Language): CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Relating to any item included in the League of Arizona Cities and Towns' weekly Legislative Bulletin(s), or relating to any action proposed or pending before the State Legislature. Staff Summary (Background) This is a regularly recurring agenda item on the Town Council agenda during the legislative session. This agenda item aims to obtain consensus from the Mayor and Council on legislative bills and provide direction, if any, to staff to communicate the town's position on the bills. For every Council meeting, the Legislative Bulletin will be attached to the Town Council agenda, including legislative analysis of the bills and their impacts on municipalities. The Mayor and Council will have an opportunity to review the bills that are under consideration in the Arizona State Legislature and provide direction on supporting or opposing the bills. The Mayor and Council may also bring up other bills of interest to the Town of Fountain Hills for discussion that are not listed in the Legislative Bulletin. Related Ordinance, Policy or Guiding Principle N/A Risk Analysis N/A Recommendation(s) by Board(s) or Commission(s) N/A Staff Recommendation(s) N/A SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to provide staff direction on one or more bills being considered by the State Legislature.