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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAGENDApacket__02-19-25_1232_689       NOTICE OF MEETING REGULAR MEETING STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION      Chairman Patrick Garman  Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta Commissioner Randy Crader Commissioner Bernie Hoenle Commissioner Joseph Reyes Commissioner Paul Smith VACANT      TIME:4:00 P.M. – REGULAR MEETING WHEN:WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2025 WHERE:FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL CHAMBERS 16705 E. AVENUE OF THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ Commissioners of the Town of Fountain Hills will attend either in person or by telephone conference call; a quorum of the Town’s Council,  various Commission, Committee or Board members may be in attendance at the Commission meeting. Notice is hereby given that pursuant to A.R.S. §1-602.A.9, subject to certain specified statutory exceptions, parents have a right to consent before the State or any of its political subdivisions make a video or audio recording of a minor child. Meetings of the Commission are audio and/or video recorded and, as a result, proceedings in which children are present may be subject to such recording. Parents, in order to exercise their rights may either file written consent with the Town Clerk to such recording, or take personal action to ensure that their child or children are not present when a recording may be made. If a child is present at the time a recording is made, the Town will assume that the rights afforded parents pursuant to A.R.S. §1-602.A.9 have been waived.  REQUEST TO COMMENT The public is welcome to participate in Commission meetings. TO SPEAK TO AN AGENDA ITEM, please complete a Request to Comment card, located in the back of the Council Chambers, and hand it to the Executive Assistant prior to discussion of that item, if possible. Include the agenda item on which you wish to comment. Speakers will be allowed three contiguous minutes to address the Commission. Verbal comments should be directed through the Presiding Officer and not to individual Commissioners. TO COMMENT ON AN AGENDA ITEM IN WRITING ONLY, please complete a Request to Comment card, indicating it is a written comment, and check the box on whether you are FOR or AGAINST and agenda item, and hand it to the Executive Assistant prior to discussion, if possible.   Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting of February 19, 2025 1 of 3            1.CALL TO ORDER – Chairman Garman     2.ROLL CALL – Chairman Garman     3.CALL TO THE PUBLIC Pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.01(H), public comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i) must be within the jurisdiction of the Commission, and (ii) is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The Commission will not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. At the conclusion of the Call to the Public, individual commissioners may (i) respond to criticism, (ii) ask staff to review a matter, or (iii) ask that the matter be placed on a future Commission agenda.     4.REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER     5.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of January 15, 2025.     6.DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Economic Pillar Strategy of Future Strategic Plan with Amanda Jacobs, Economic Development Director.     7.UPDATE: Commission Workgroups     8.DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics.    9.COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN     10.NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, March 26, 2025.    11.ADJOURNMENT   Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting of February 19, 2025 2 of 3         Dated this ______day of February, 2025. _____________________________________________  Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant   The Town of Fountain Hills endeavors to make all public meetings accessible to persons with disabilities. Please call 480-816-5199 (voice) or 1-800-367-8939 (TDD) 48 hours prior to the meeting to request a reasonable accommodation to participate in the meeting or to obtain agenda information in large print format. Supporting documentation and staff reports furnished the Commission with this agenda are available for review in the Town Manager's Office. Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting of February 19, 2025 3 of 3   ITEM 4. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025  ITEM 5. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of January 15, 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.   Staff Recommendation(s) Staff recommends approving the minutes of the regular meeting on January 15, 2025. SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to approve the minutes of the regular meeting on January 15, 2025. Attachments SUMMARY MINUTES AND VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT  Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025  TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION January 15, 2025 A Regular Meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in an open and public session at 4:00 PM Members Present: Chairman Patrick Garman; Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta; Commissioner Joseph Reyes; Commission Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Paul Smith; Commissioner Randy Crader Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Executive Administrative Assistant Angela Padgett-Espiritu TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION January 15, 2025 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Patrick Garman called to order the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission at 4:00 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL Members Present: Chairman Patrick Garman; Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta; Commissioner Randy Crader; Commissioner Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Joseph Reyes; Commissioner Paul Smith Members Absent: none Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Executive Assistant Angela Padgett- Espiritu 3. CALL TO THE PUBLIC No one from the public was present. 4. REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Commissioner Reyes: • Attended numerous events in December. Vice Chair Yazzetta: • Provided an update on the Discovery Center planetarium dome placement. • Expected construction completion later in the year. Commissioner Hoenle: • School district received high ratings; celebrations held. • School property sale expected in February. • Pickleball courts nearing completion. • Upcoming events: Concours (Feb 15) & softball championships. • Public facility improvements and mixed-use developments progressing. • Praised long-term planning efforts Commissioner Smith: • Engaged in the Farmer’s Market. • Raised restroom availability issues for downtown events. • Advocated for future infrastructure discussions. Commissioner Crader: • No new updates. Town Manager Goodwin: • Budget season underway; council retreat on Feb 25 for final decisions. • Discovery Center’s revenue model adjusted due to tax-exempt status. • Pickleball courts are nearly complete; indoor facility at Four Peaks suggested. • Restroom availability on the avenue remains unresolved. Chair Garman: • Missed dome placement due to attending the Rose Bowl. 5. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of November 20, 2024. MOVED BY Commissioner Paul Smith APPROVE the Minutes of November 20, 2024, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Joseph Reyes. Vote: 6–0 | motion passed unanimously 6. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Financial Stability Pillar of Future Strategic Plan with Chief Financial Officer, Paul Soldinger. In the absence of Chief Financial Officer Paul Soldinger, Town Manager Goodwin provide an update. Below are the Key Takeaways from the discussion: 1. Transparency & Communication o Improve the finance webpage with project timelines and spending updates. o Offer varied methods of engagement (online reports, videos, open houses). o Provide simplified financial reports to increase accessibility. 2. AI & Technology in Finance o Explore AI-driven financial tools for reporting and decision-making. o Consider automation to streamline financial operations. 3. Federal & Grant Funding o Assess how much of the town’s budget depends on federal funding. o Identify opportunities to improve grant management. 4. Soft Assets & IT Budgeting o Evaluate cloud-based financial tools and cost efficiencies. o Ensure data security and ownership. 5. Long-Term Budget Planning o Revisit biennial budgeting for efficiency. o Explore financial strategies that create value for the town, not just reporting. 7. UPDATE: Commission Workgroups • Two workshops will be held in March or April to gather community input for strategic planning. • One session will be on a weekend and the other on a weeknight. • Yazzetta is forming a subcommittee, with Randy Crader and Joe Reyes volunteering to assist. • The goal is to finalize dates soon, ensuring the data is ready for the May meeting and accommodating seasonal residents before they leave early April. • All commissioners will help during the events. 8. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. • The commission will choose between safety or land use for next month’s agenda, depending on speaker availability. • Chairman Garman encouraged members to research and bring discussion points. 9. COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN Chairman Garman noted that an update on the commission’s work will likely be presented to the Town Council in June. 10. ADJOURNMENT Chairman Patrick Garman adjourned the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission at 5:06 PM MOVED BY Vice Chair Geoff Yazzetta to ADJOURN the Meeting of January 15, 2025, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Joseph Reyes. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 1 of 31 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission January 15, 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 JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 2 of 31 CHAIRMAN GARMAN: All right. I'm going to call to order the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission for the Town of Fountain Hills. Today, Wednesday, January 15th, 2025. Angela, could you do the roll for us, please? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Sure. Thank you and welcome back, everyone. Chair Garman. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Vice Chair Yazzetta. YAZZETTA: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Crader. CRADER: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Hoenle. HOENLE: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Commissioner Reyes. REYES: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: And Commissioner Smith. SMITH: Here. PADGETT-ESPIRITU: We have a quorum. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't see anybody, or any submitted questions to the website or anything, Angela? PADGETT-ESPIRITU: Correct. There is none. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: There's none? Okay. All right. Moving quickly. We're down to Agenda Item Number 4, for those that are following along. So we're going to do reports by Commissioners and the Town Manager. I guess we can start all the way on my left. Joe, if you want -- if you have anything to report. REYES: It would take me too long because there was so many things in December, saw many of you in those. So I'll just pass from there because I'm sure you're going to get most of them ones. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Geoff. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 3 of 31 YAZZETTA: Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome back. The only large update that I have is we placed the dome at the top of the planetarium at the Discovery Center a few weeks ago. I was actually out of town for the holidays, so unfortunately, I missed it, but I got to see the video. Great progress at that project. So we are looking forward to completing construction and opening later on this year. And I'll keep you guys apprised of what's going on on that front in the months to come. That's all I got. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Okay. Thanks. Bernie? HOENLE: Well, Geoff, I did make it on the 23rd of December. It was a nice crowd. Little chilly. But it was great seeing that Hummer lifted up and set down real slow and gently. Yes. Couple of things, the schools received their letter grade, and I think that ties into everything else that we've been talking about. For the community and the background, it's gotten an A for the high school and A for the middle school. And the first time for that middle school since it's been a middle school, period. So that was outstanding for them. And then McDowell Elementary, this is the first time they got a letter grade from anybody because it's the first time they're back into a K through 5 posture, so they got a letter B, and they're going to be working on getting to that A. The good thing was, now that I'm on the school board, I got invited to the -- some of their celebrations. So I got to go to the outstanding middle school and the gymnasium celebration. And then of course, the ice cream social at the high school. That was even better. What the -- that was good. Okay. So mentioning the board, one of the items that's up there that we've talked about in the past is the sale of the property. So we expect an agent to be recommended to the board, probably sometime in February, middle-to-late February. So once that happens, I know I've talked with John Wesley before about things to look for and what to talk to developers about. So I'm sure whoever the agent's going to be for the school district, we'll get in touch with him also. The other thing that came up, which is interesting because it's come up here before a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 4 of 31 couple of times, is pickleball. So pickleball came up at the first meeting to extend the agreement with the pickleball club, but they're also talking about there's some courts that are planned for the town that they're going to put in. Is that right? GOODWIN: They're almost done. HOENLE: They're almost done? GOODWIN: Um-hum. HOENLE: So that seems to be something that's still growing in the recreational area in the town and every place else. GOODWIN: Bernie, what was the outcome of that decision to (indiscernible)? HOENLE: It was just information. GOODWIN: Okay. HOENLE: Next thing that we'll plan on doing is looking at their term. They want to extend the term. And then, they had a couple of other things that were in it as far as fees and use of the courts, and that sort of thing. So. Okay. The next thing was the facilities have been getting a lot attention lately in the news, and that's really good on Facebook and the newspaper for things that are happening in the town. Of course, the Concours is coming up the 15th of February. But there's a big tournament going on -- it's softball in Scottsdale -- but the championship games are going to played at Eagle -- GOODWIN: Golden Eagle. HOENLE: Golden Eagle Park. Which is really neat. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. HOENLE: Especially because our grandnieces are playing in it. And then, so that goes kudos to Rachael (ph.), Kevin (ph.), and Ryan (ph.) for the pavilion. The shade, the opportunity to have a nice, sheltered event outside. It's been really neat. Ever since Oktoberfest, Flutter At The Fountain is now going to be under there. And the setting of the dome was a neat place to get the crowd together and see the whole event happening. So that's turning out to be a really neat area for public gatherings. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 5 of 31 And then, other publicity. One of the things we talked about in planning early on was taking a look with economic development and mixed-use facilities. So some of those are starting to be produced. Starting to be built up there. So it's a bit long of what I've seen, and it's a happy new year, but the whole idea is it's really neat to be on this commission and actually see some things happen that we've planned two or three cycles ago. So hopefully the new members on here get to see that sort of thing developing, and I'm glad to be here, and I'm pretty confident that Patrick and Geoff are continuing to charter the right path. And let's all have a good year. Thanks. SMITH: How do I follow that? As some of you know, I'm very involved with the Farmer's Market. And we had that on Wednesday, so if I'm breathing hard, it's -- it's -- we close at 3, we tear down, and I got to be here at 4. So it's a quick -- quick turnaround on Wednesday, which is great. Anyway, one of the areas that we had discussed a lot was inner structure. And one of the things that affect all the activities that are downtown and growing are restrooms. And I don't know if there's anything that we can talk to the town about or see anything, but it is a big problem; as a group grows, it is -- it's getting to be more. It's nice to say, well, there's four blocks down you've got a restroom, but you can't tell a five-year-old that. When he's ready to go, he's ready to go or an eight-five-year-old that. It goes in both ways. But anyway, that's -- that's just kind of an area I hope we can maybe address during some of our opportunities here. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah. I know -- need to brief the downtown plan to the council. GOODWIN: (Indiscernible). CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. GOODWIN: Go for it. I'm keeping a little list of things to (indiscernible). CRADER: Nothing new from me. I did a lot of the same experiences with my three-year- old daughter, and they were all great. Happy New Year, and I'm glad to be back. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Thank you. Rachael. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 6 of 31 GOODWIN: Just to comment on -- well, I'll give two new things, and then I'll comment quickly on two things that were brought up. I know we're going to talk about finance today, but just a reminder that we are in the depths of budget season right now. I have been in budget meetings all week. It has been a lot. So the budget process is well underway. And February 25th is the budget retreat for council to begin making those decisions, and I will share that there will be some hard decisions this year about what they want to take on and what the priorities are going to be. So those will be -- the final direction will be given to us on February 25th, and then we'll be reviewing the capital improvements in March, and then budget adoption begins in April. So we are in -- we're in the depths of things right now. To follow up on a couple quick things, Geoff, I missed the dome placing; I also was already gone for the holidays. But I did get -- I get to see quite a few pictures and the staff feedback and whatnot. I did want to share for the good of this group, again, because we're going to be talking about financing tonight, that there was a bit of a lightbulb moment for some of the staff and some of the council members with Dark Skies. Recognizing that it is a 501(c)(3); therefore, there will no be no tax revenue generated. So when the merchandise and other things like that are sold, the original model for Dark Skies in terms of the financials factored that in, and we actually had to go back to the contractor and say, it's a non-profit (c)(3); it -- they -- it -- there are no tax -- taxes incurred. So the revenue model actually had to be readjusted. So I don't know if Amanda (ph.) shared that with you, but if not, I can certainly do that. But I think that was a little bit of a, again, a lightbulb for some of the -- particularly, the newer council who may not be familiar with the plans behind the Dark Sky Discovery Center. To follow up on two things, the pickleball is a big deal. Pickleball is still very, very active. The difference between what you're talking about Bernie, and I'm sure you already know this and I'm sure it was brought up, is that the courts that are on the school property are privately operated by the local club. The courts that are at Four Peaks Park, which there was three, there's three more being added. They're -- they should be TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 7 of 31 open by the end of the month, beginning of February. So they're in -- they're almost done. So there'll be six total over there. Those are operated publicly. We do take -- do lessons and things like that, but they're available for drop-in at any time. There's a lot of confusion about that in the community about what, you know, how that works and things like that. But yes, pickleball is still a very hot topic. And I still would love to see Four Peaks turn into an indoor pickleball facility. Just going to throw that out there. And then, the restrooms on the avenue are a very, very hot topic as well. They've been addressed by council multiple times. Council has actually set aside money to begin the project, and we continue to come to a stalemate in that discussion because there's nowhere to put them, i.e. the town doesn't own any more property along the avenue other than in the -- in the median itself, which is not big enough to facilitate. Or the discussion was restrooms just outside of this building, sort of, on the other side of the -- in the parking lot, if you want to call it that. Which also doesn't really serve the purpose for what you're talking about, right? Can't make it that far. And if you can make it that far, you can make it another hundred feet into this building. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There you go. There you go. GOODWIN: So you know, barring some sort of acquisition of private property along the avenue, we continue to kind of come up to a dead end on that conversation. So it is -- it's well aware; it's just a difficult conversation to navigate. So just to fill those in. Otherwise, that's all I've got, Patrick. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: That's a lot to start things off. It's a new year. I'm sad I missed the dome as well; I was in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Watching Ohio State beat Oregon. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Should have stopped by and say hi. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: It was before that. Okay. Thank you all very much for your comments. We're going to move on to Agenda Item 5, Consideration and Possible Action. This is the approval of the minutes of our regular meeting, all the way back on November 20th, 2024. I was able to look through the minutes, especially the hearing TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 8 of 31 lunch for the summary. And Joe, the summary is awesome by the way. So I don't know if anybody has any comments from the -- back from the meeting and the minutes back in November? I don't see none. Is there any motions on the floor as far as the approval of the minutes? HOENLE: I make a motion that we approve the minutes. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Is there a second? Joe, (indiscernible). REYES: I second. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Thanks. Joe will second. So the motion on the floor is to approve the minutes of the regular meeting from November 20th. Any comments on this, on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we're going to move on to a vote then. All those in favor of approving the minutes from November say, "Aye". Aye. ALL: Aye. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Any opposed? Hearing none, minutes are approved Angela, thank you. All right. Let's move on to Agenda Item 6 then, which is the main topic for today, Discussion and Possible Action. I'm going to set the stage, hopefully you saw my short little note that Angela was able to forward to you all with the minutes from last month and the agenda for today. Which is, I started doing the math of the timeline we have, the months, you know, in the year or the meeting times we have and what we need to accomplish in our five-year period. And you know, we started last June with the -- getting the major pillars, and now that has really set the table for what we need to do going forward. So they're very concrete steps that we need to take, and when I went back and looked at the timeframe, we needed to get started. So that's why today and the -- all of the meetings, this winter and spring, are going to be about our pillars, our strategic priorities that we identified back in our workshop in June. At each meeting is going to have one of those as the topic, the main point of the meeting. And then we're going to work on the signature strategies that are underneath TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 9 of 31 each of those; we call them pillars, you know, that are holding up the plan. If you remember, there's three levels to our plan, just to review what we've heard before, major, you know, kind of, pillars. Strategic priorities, signature strategies in the middle, and then, actual, you know, tasks, identifiable tasks with timelines and responsibilities underneath that. So we're in the middle portion right now. So I was able to meet with Rachael over the holidays, and we kind of mapped out what we thought would be good for each meeting. And I thought easing into it, finance is pretty straightforward. It's not the sexiest topic in the world. So I thought that we would ease into it today and be able to have a discussion on important aspects of finance for the town that we could discuss today in an orderly fashion and kind of move forward. Just remember, these are not individual tasks; that's what we're going to do later, maybe in the fall. Right now, our topics underneath the moniker of finance for the town. So Rachael, this was when the point where I was going to look at -- I forget his -- GOODWIN: Paul. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Paul. And Paul was going to talk for a little bit, and then we were going to go from there. I definitely have discussion topics; I don't know if other commissioners got discussion topics. Is there -- I don't want to put you on the spot, so you don't have to, but would you like to take his spot and kind of kick things off broadly as far as the town is goes, talking about the umbrella of finance? GOODWIN: Yes. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Thanks. GOODWIN: And I would be happy to do that. I'll do my best to summarize quickly. So as I mentioned, Paul is out sick today, but he and I did have an opportunity to talk through a lot of this concept and what this means. So finance, like, you know, like the Chairman said, it's an easy topic, but it's actually a little bit hard in that we do our very best to follow best practices day in and day out. So developing strategic priorities under the finance umbrella can be a little bit hard to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 10 of 31 define, because I'll use -- I -- and I actually have a couple of different examples and we pulled some different reports just to try to kickstart some thoughts. You know, it's, you know, develop a balanced budget. Well, yeah, duh. I mean, we're charged with that anyway. We are required to do that as a municipality anyway. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. GOODWIN: And we are governed by the, you know, by laws of the state that says it has to be balanced, right. We can't pass something that is out of balance. So putting that in the strategic plan isn't really driving progress. We're doing that anyway. So trying to think about ways to -- that would enhance progress, that would help drive forward thinking priorities is the hard part in this conversation. One of the best examples I can give of our current strategic plan was increasing transparency. That's been a hallmark for a lot of things, and people want to know, we want to know, we want to know, and Patrick and I had a chance to talk about that. And it's funny because you hear this, and yet, and we -- we've tried to answer the call, and people don't actually show up. So but that being said, I don't think that that was bad, and I think we are actually making progress in that front in that the more we do it, the more people become familiar with it, the more people feel like it's an approachable topic. And I think that actually has a lot to do with Paul. Some of our previous finance directors were real finance guys; they like to talk the numbers and the jargon, and it was a little dry. Now that we have Paul, we've kind of taken a little bit more of a community approach to understanding the budget. In broad strokes, understanding that we're here to answer questions; were not here to be, you know, drown you in numbers and language and graphs and charts. We're here to help you understand what we're trying to do and how we can do it. What the constraints are, what our opportunities are, and where we're going. The most recent meeting, open house that was held, we had quite a few people. We had probably the biggest crowd I've seen. By saying that, I'm talking 15 or 20 people. But that's really, really good for a finance open house. So in that regard, I think that's TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 11 of 31 been successful, and I think that that should be continued and, you know, develop maybe new ways to do that, to help the community understand the budget and things like that because there's a lot of misinformation. So driving that, we do have some ideas of, you know, thoughts. I'd like to hear what you guys think, what you think is important as we move forward. I'll be happy to chime in from -- through the staff lens to make sure that, you know, what we -- what we come up with is attainable, it's feasible, and it's valuable. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: From that open house, when people mean transparency to -- what is -- what is the general thematics of what -- what does that mean? Because that might be something that we can think about in our strategies of how to speak to some of those things that you heard, or you are hearing from what transparency means to the general public. GOODWIN: I think that's a great question because that does mean different things to different people. And meeting -- meeting the community where they're at, right. Some people have no problem coming in here and listening to a presentation; other people would prefer to watch it online at their leisure. Other people would rather have -- other people are intimated by it and would rather read, you know, through maybe a strategic -- a report of some sort, or a bulleted version. What we're hearing most of the time is wanting to understand projects or programs that either impact them or their neighborhood, right. What are you doing at Golden Eagle, why is it all tore up, what does that mean? Where other people go, I don't even know where Golden Eagle Park is. And I cannot tell you how many times I've heard I don't know where Desert Vista is, I don't know where the skate park is, I don't know where Four Peaks Park is. I've lived here 17 years and I don't know where that is, I've never seen it. I'm surprised at those things. So that tells me that they are interested in things that obviously impact their street, their neighborhood, their backyard, whatever. So a lot of times they -- or they've heard reference to -- or these blanket statements of streets first, we don't have enough money, we, you know, I -- the lake liner needs to be TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 12 of 31 replaced. Well, what does that mean, how much is that really? You know what are you doing about that? Or the flip side of it is you're doing this project, and I had no idea that you're doing it. Well, we talked about it two years ago; this is the fruition of two years ago conversation. Kind of what, Bernie, you were talking about, seeing things come to, you know, come to fruition that have been years in the making. Sidewalks are a good example. The sidewalks that are going in, some people love them, some people don't, and they're going, well, where did this money come from? I go, this was money allocated through a grant that was applied for multiple years ago; you're just now seeing the fruits of the labor. So people are interested and they want to understand. What we would like to help do is become that resource for that understanding. Don't go onto Facebook, don't go to your neighbor and ask, you know, what they heard at church on Sunday, right. We want to be that resource for accuracy and engagement. And then understanding if you're for sidewalks and you want to see more sidewalks, we want you to be engaged. So not only is it the transparency level, but then hopefully motivating to the next step of engagement so that they are advocating and sharing the priorities that they like to see. Council takes that very seriously when someone shows up at a meeting and says, I would like to see, you know, a new streetlight, I would like to see a stop sign, I would like to see this. They hear that and they take that very personally. Silence is often met with, you know, a feeling of well, nobody cares or there's no -- there's no -- there's no preference. Well, that's not true, but getting engaged with the process is important. So I don't know that I answered your question. Hopefully. But transparency does mean different things and I think there's more ways to push to gain that, whether that's through social media, whether that's through more open houses at different times and different dates and, you know, creating different opportunities so that it's not just 5 o'clock on a Tuesday. REYES: You know, I think the real challenge that you have with that is, if it doesn't affect TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 13 of 31 me, then you shouldn't spend any money on it. I mean, that is -- I don't want to even want to understand it, because it doesn't affect my neighborhood, and therefore, why are you spending money on this. That should -- I mean, that's the probably more the challenge that anything that you have. GOODWIN: I would tend to agree, and I would probably take that to a second layer that says, and if I can't see what you're doing, if it -- it's not a priority. We talk about, you know, well, if we have to replace a roof, it's expensive. But nobody can see the new roof. If you have to replace a pump, nobody can see your pump, but they sure know if the grass is brown or not. So it's -- those, you know, behind the scene things too that can be a challenge. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So finance is pretty broad; it can be -- so when we're talking about it, we don't -- we got to try to avoid devolving into how much it costs for this and how much did it cost for that. It's more like how are you handling the town's resources. As an example, how transparency came from. Last time we had a pillar, finance. One of the signature strategies under finance was transparency. And underneath transparency was some tasks to increase transparency for the t own. And one of those was -- what do we call them? Open houses. That was once a year, I think, twice a year now if I'm not mistaken. It was in the -- for the town to have an open house where people would come in and the actual folks like Paul, who was in charge of finances, would sit down, would talk about the town's finances. A way to increase transparency. So just where that came from. One thing to piggyback on that -- as something that's demonstrable under transparency. You know, we have the open house, what about -- do we have a dedicated website? I looked through the website. Do we have a finance website that says, hey, as of the end of December, ch, ch, ch, ch, here's where the finances are going. GOODWIN: We don't have a website, but we definitely have a webpage -- CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Page, I'm sorry, (indiscernible). GOODWIN: -- with -- yeah, within the town. Yes, we absolutely do. Now that being TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 14 of 31 said, the town website is kind of a monster. There's a lot of content, and it can be difficult to navigate. So perhaps, streamlining that or making it a little bit more user- friendly may be in order. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So I wrote down transparency again if you all, you know, might think of something other, maybe tasks that go under transparency. But I put that as a potential as well. Geoff. YAZZETTA: I just have this idea, and I think this goes all the way down to the task, and I know that's not what we're here for, but I want to put in the record just the same. Rachael, is it feasible for projects over a specific dollar amount to have, like, a webpage on Fountainhills.gov that says here -- kind of like a timeline. Here was the genesis, so they had the idea, like, the sidewalks for example. That was probably discussed during a capital improvement project meeting a few years ago. The town pursued funding, a variety of different buckets where that's coming from that we can point residents to. Oh, you have a question about this project, it's taking place today, but we've been working on this for four, five years, and here's the timeline that brought us to where we are today with shovels in the ground. I just think that might help, kind of, demystify some of these things and where the money's coming from. I don't know how much load that puts on staff, but maybe it's projects over, you know, a certain dollar amount that, you know -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sure. YAZZETTA: -- we could focus on. REYES: Plus, it was identified and linked and spelled out in pretty good detail on the active transportation plan for the town. So a lot of these projects that are coming up now were spelled out at that time for mobility of people. For walking, for paths, for bicycles, for pedestrians, for putting in the sidewalks. So. HOENLE: So maybe what we need to combine -- is to combine those things under -- within the context of the webpage or somewhere else where you maybe have, like, I don't know, the top 10 or the top 15, or the more important, or the ones that are at a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 15 of 31 certain phase, you know, breaking ground. And you give maybe even a little photo. It might not be -- it could be sketch, it could be a representative photo, rooftop, whatever. And then in a very brief discussion on projects due to start or started on and is targeted for completion, whatever. Then, anyone can go in there and at any point look and see, well, what are the issues and where are they. And even if they're not in my backyard per se, I might be motivated to run over there and look around and see what it looks like and then what they're talking about. I see too many of these things in these offshoot media things, HOA things, and conversations and why do we have -- what's going on over there; they're sandblasting the walkways and the crosswalks, and what are they going to do now? I laugh at these things, but people really get all of sudden a following on -- if that catches their interest, then so too, I would think, would putting some very real information out there to keep them focused, shall we say, on where the community is and what we're doing as a Town and the interactions that we're all involved with. Just a thought. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Um-hum. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Okay. I've got a list too, Randy, you're up. Do you have a comment about what we were just talking about or do you want (indiscernible)? CRADER: Yeah, I was actually -- I had the exact same thought as Geoff had. But I was going to say, is also current but future so people could see the next things that are on the horizon so either they could come to an open house and ask more questions what it would be or just have an idea of saying, oh, can -- this budget expenditure is actually going this direction, I understand. So that was my comment on that follow up. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Okay. I have a list. You guys going to make -- the way this works too, feel free, you know, when you hit your button, your light comes on, it catches my attention, I call on you and you can say what you want to say. I'm going to talk about finance and hear something and we can all discuss this. So this is kind of what I'm -- what I'm seeing when we talk about the pillars and then tasks underneath, what's in the middle. Okay. Ready? I'm going to knock your socks off, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 16 of 31 Bernie. Ready? HOENLE: I'm ready. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: The use of AI for the town's finances. Did you write that down? HOENLE: No, I didn't. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: I said it first. HOENLE: I got it right here. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So, you know, I use AI a lot, and it's coming around in a lot of different -- different areas. But I'm not telling -- I would not tell the town, at least not this year, how to use AI. I would -- we would put that in as a general AI underneath finance, because there are ways that -- there's lots of ways that AI is benefitting finance, not only in government but private uses. So that's a topic that I think deserves more discussion. I don't know. Bernie, I see your lights on; did you want to follow up on that? HOENLE: Yeah, and I -- I don't think it's really AI as well as the connections that AI is making, and then it turns it into plain English. And it can go into pros, it can go into lots of different things. But it's the way they've sophisticated some of the computer systems that are out there to gather data and then put it back into human speak. So and it's funny that that comes up first. I wasn't even going to talk that this came from AI. But AI has an overview of how do you fund smalltown strategies. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Did you ask AI how to -- (indiscernible) for finance? HOENLE: No, I just put in -- I just Googled it, and then Google runs on AI now. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Sorry. Go ahead. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible). HOENLE: But it comes back with a pretty nice summary, and I usually don't do this, but I'll just read it to you. Except it says, "To secure funding for smalltown, strategies can include actively seeking grants from government agencies and foundations". We know these things and they're going to list them out. And each one of them, they're not brand new. This isn't magic. "Leveraging local tax basis through initiatives like tax increment financing. Partnering with businesses for sponsorships. Developing TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 17 of 31 community-driven fundraising events. Exploring opportunities for public-private partnerships to fund key infrastructure and develop projects". And it goes through a whole list of these things. And I've got -- I mean, there's a lot of lists out there that you can look at, but it's going to come down to persistence and drive and setting your goals. What are you trying to accomplish. This other one starts off pretty good by said, use what you have control of. Don't go after something that you don't control yet; capture something that you already know and you can get arms around. So some of it's, what are your priorities, what are your big ticket items, what are your demographics, what can you control and influence and start there. And I can go on, but I'll just settle for that. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Remember as we comment, we're in finance. So it's how it works with finance. Any other comments on AI? No thoughts. I thought that was going to be earth shaking. I thought everybody is going to say, yeah, this Patrick, you're a genius. No, go -- Rachael. GOODWIN: I'll say that. Patrick, you're a genius. [Laughter] GOODWIN: Actually, I will just say that it echoed one of the -- one of the items that I had sort of starred on my little list of things when we were brainstorming inhouse. It's a little more generic in that it's implement technology solutions to reduce staff time and operational costs. So I think that goes hand-in-hand with exactly what you just said. Now what that means and how we do it comes later. But I think the goal of using technology to its -- you know, for its highest purpose to help, you know, to help staff to help get the best we can do kind of echoes where you were going. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: All right. Randy? CRADER: Yeah, I was actually going to say, could we even put the umbrella of technology and leveraging technology? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yep. CRADER: Just speaking, I had a permit pulled, right, for something at my house. And it TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 18 of 31 was all online and it took 24 hours for the person to come out and do my final review. It was super, super smooth and easy. And I'm just curious if there was opportunities across the government to use (indiscernible) to find leverage of the technology to find solutions for things like that outside of just the permitting process. REYES: You know, I think as we move further into our environment with AI, I think one of the things that we will gain from that will be the organization that it will give us. In other words, we have ideas, and we want to put them to -- into practice. But I'm really not quite sure, seems like the responses I've seen from AI on different things, it has a way of listing and putting things in proper order. Then you have a format to work with. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah, AI can take a financial report and if you -- and reduce it to pictures or charts or change it to a 12th-grade reading level or 11th-grade reading level or, you know, you can just ask it to do that across the board on all their financial tools that you have. Any other -- okay, I'm going to move on from AI. I did write down leveraging technology as well. Transparency is another one I've written down. Any others before I kick any -- kick any others off? Demystifying compliance with federal grants. So what I found with a little bit of research is that states, like about 25 percent of each state's budget -- this is states now, not towns or cities -- is federal grants. And I know we talked about grants last time. The last planning when we talked about grants, we were talking about, you know, if it would be advantageous to hire a position within the town to just do grants, generic grants. But I didn't know if -- I mean, we talked about the grants from the -- now, I forgot the -- what was the post-pandemic bill that was passed just a couple years ago that -- you know, it came -- there was a couple bills that were passed after the pandemic, and the money came down to the states, and then it came down to the towns. We actually got some of that here at Fountain Hills. So you know as a -- again, not being in the specifics, but, you know, how important in our town is federal funds flowing down to our level and what type of expertise do we have in Fountain Hills to maneuver those funds? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 19 of 31 REYES: Well, I take a stab and just answering part of the questions there. I can tell you that a big chunk of money that we spend is supported --- are supported by federal funding and then down to state and then down to regional when it gets to our infrastructure with respects to streets, lights, roadways, and all those things related to that. And we have -- I can't tell you how many projects have -- are linked to that. For a lot of the work that's being done has at least some little spattering of money that comes from that, and then we have our portion that we kick in there. I think that unfortunately the model is good because you eventually take some of that money that's up here and it gets it down to the real-world level that we like to see in our backyard so to speak, or front yard. But I think that there are more opportunities for, and/or will be, for that -- to make more monies available as structures might be changing within the federal system itself. I've read a few things of recent that give some indication that there's going to be more of a drive to cut loose that money to the states instead of having the federal government do all that with a price tag and a lot of control. But I think that's a good move; I hope to see it. But regardless, I know that is an area that consistently within any entity, a governmental entity, accounts to a fair amount of share of monies that you bring in off of grants. I'm sure there are others too; I mean, you get into the big threes, health, education, and welfare. We kind of split off education, but yeah, I think if we started looking at it from that standpoint, we'd find there's quite a bit of bucks that we don't have so much attended funding. Anyway, that's my thought. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Go ahead, Bernie. HOENLE: It has been a topic in discussion as far as the capabilities to research and manage grants. And you really do need a resource, shared resource, a contracted, any -- whatever mechanism you want to use to be able to manage a program. And yeah, there's federal, state, and local grants; there's casino money available, there's every special area, blue zone, Heritage Foundation for parks and recs. There's all kinds of associations that have grant capability, they give out money. Some of that goes and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 20 of 31 doesn't get spent and it sits out there because people don't know about it. They don't go out and find it. ADOT has all kinds of safety grants for pedestrian safety and for widening roads and public transportation, things like that. So there's -- there are monies available; it takes resources and time to go research them, to find them. And then it was mentioned what do you have to do to be compliant with using the grant and reporting mechanisms; you have to report back. So all that needs to be considered when you go out -- but that is another source. Grants are a good source of funding. Finding them, locating them, managing them is the next piece of the action. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So how much of our town's budget comes from federal funds? Is it -- I mean, is it departmentalized such that we don't -- we can't see what the total is or is there certain? GOODWIN: We can probably get you more information about that. I need to get with the finance to kind of break it down because we do -- they are departmentalized so. And Bernie hit on the number of different grants that we use. Joe, you kind of tapped in the couple of different things. So understanding, we do go after grants. But they are time consuming. And we use local, state, and federal. One of the -- one of the biggest funnels for federal dollars is actually MAG, which is the Maricopa Association of Governments. They are the mechanism for a lot of federal funding that then gets dispersed throughout the county. So a lot of the street stuff that you hear about, the upcoming Shae Boulevard widening, the shoulder projects that we've done along Fountain Hills Boulevard. So a lot of that monies comes from MAG, which is the conduit for the federal money. They're also the administrator the Prop 400, now known as Prop 479, which is the -- it's not the gas tax, but it's the rental car tax. It's the, you know, reauthorization of that. We get HURF money, which is the gas tax which comes from the state. So we do get a number of shared things. However, we often go after -- we will go after grants individually. I mentioned earlier, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 21 of 31 the sidewalks. All the sidewalks that you see along Shea Boulevard or Saguaro Boulevard and a little bit -- Palisades. That's about $4 million worth of grant funding through ADOT, federally funded. So when we see the opportunities, we work to go after them. But I won't -- it is a -- it is a challenge to make sure that it's worth the effort, i.e., it's got to be a grant of a significant size and scope that we can -- we believe that we have the means to manage and implement. Oftentimes, the requirements are more than we can manage. Whether it's the reporting side of it, sometimes there are timelines that we can't meet. Sometimes there's a match that we can't always accommodate. I will say a lot of times there's funding and it's tied to demographics or economics that we don't always meet. So there's lots of variables in that conversation. That being said, we like grants, we like money. We want to go after those things and leverage our dollars as far as we can. And we've been successful on a number of things. You mentioned the Heritage grant. If you haven't been over, the Four Peaks Park just opened a $500,000 new bathroom that we paid roughly five percent on. It was a huge add to our park space, but it was almost four years in the making to get there. It was not an easy task, and it does take a lot of maintenance and tenacity to stay with it to try to make that happen. So grants can be a lot of work on top of a standard workload. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So is that a fertile ground though to discuss federal -- yeah. Not just going out and getting new grants, or, you know, but to understand the federal monies that come into our town, how they're utilized underneath the finance umbrella. GOODWIN: I mean, it's certainly worth exploring, I think. I'd like to get -- I'd like to get Paul's take on some of it. I think you mentioned the ARPA grant is what you were talking about earlier, some of the COVID monies that came in. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: The Inflation Reduction Act. GOODWIN: So. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: That's what I -- that's what I was trying to -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 22 of 31 GOODWIN: You know, and, you know, those were dispersed into a couple of different ways and how we managed that. Those days have come to end. No more money from that perspective. So, you know, how did we use as -- what -- does that go back to transparency and showing this is what we did with it and why we did these things, and this is what we're allowed to do with it. I think that there's always that component that gets overlooked that says, well, we should just do this with it. Well, you can't. It says you have to do it this way or you have to use this vendor, or you have to maintain this. So there are some things there that are -- that can complicate the process. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Thanks. Paul? SMITH: I wanted to ask as we're talking about all the hoops that you have to run, and I understand that -- for the federal grants. Are some of the worthwhile private grants equally as difficult? GOODWIN: Not generally. When there's a private, you know, they -- there's different reporting mechanisms. Generally, there's an assumed amount of reporting and transparency in whether cost sharing or reimbursement process or what not. So those are -- they can be a little easier. When you get into some of the private ones, there can be more -- sometimes it's more about showing need; sometimes it's, you know, often about showing deservedness. You know, show us why you need this money for this project. And you have to kind of make your case versus some of the other ones where you just apply. Put your project in; if there's enough money to go around you get it. So it can be a little bit of a different competition. Sometimes you're also relying on their boards. Going back to the Heritage Fund, which isn't necessarily private, but it isn't federal either. We waited multiple times for their board to meet to discuss, and then they would table it and then they would come back and talk about it again. So you're sort of beholding to their timeline and their capabilities as well. Where sometimes with the federal side or even state, they've got mandates to get it out the door. So they're working to make it happen. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: All right. I have more to put out; does anybody else want to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 23 of 31 jump in? Because I'll keep driving if not. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You're on a roll. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Cool. Okay. Here's one. And this has to do with technology support, probably AI as well. But have we done, you know, an evaluation or a review of soft assets that the town owns or pays for? And what I -- what I mean by "soft assets" is not a street or a building, but a server in somebody's building in another state that we pay to keep data or do something for us. Like a soft asset. I'm call that a, like, a cloud- based IT. You know, someone else's server, someone else's software, and we pay them for our service. But that's how I was defining a soft asset. And I don't know if our town does that, utilizes that, to what extent, are there guidelines, guardrails. But is that something that we do here instead of doing it on our own? GOODWIN: Yes, to an extent, I guess. And maybe I'm not -- I might need a little more clarification when I -- when I think about what you just said; a lot of models for our programs, our software, our resources, are based on a SaaS process, Software as a service. So we, truly, were just talking about budget earlier and we were going through the IT budget for next year and how Windows is moving away from selling licensing to they're a subscription process now. You don't really have much a choice; that is sort of the way the world is trending. So we balance ideally what it means to buy something and own an asset versus lease it, rent it, subscribe for it. But for the most part, I would say particularly for soft assets, like you were just talking about, most of them are subscription based or are outsourced versus internal. And that's really -- I hate to say it, that's kind of the trend, but that seems to be the way things are moving. But if you have more thoughts on that, I'm open to more discussion. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: I mean, is it significant enough to review? Remember, I'm not dialing in the actual specifics right now. I'm just talking about in general -- general idea. I know that we do that. I know that, like you said, that's the way moving forward to put stuff -- people just say "in the cloud" like they say "AI" and don't actually know what that means. Probably me included. But we still own the data that goes into that. That's TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 24 of 31 the town's data. So there is something there beyond just a subscription, right? GOODWIN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: I didn't know how much, again, under finances, our finances. How much are we spending on that, are we going to spend, are we going to spend less, is it advantageous to us? You know, we're not going to have a room with our own servers in it anytime soon, right. But we still pay for that data to be utilized. Just a thought. Anybody else smarter than me on that? No. Bernie, your light's on. HOENLE: Well, it's generally being called software as a service. And as you mentioned, whether you call it a subscription or not, it's -- you tell them what you want and they run it and yes, you're supposed to have access to your data; it's supposed to be secured it's supposed to be private. You have modeling agreements that usually you talk to whatever the agency is that's doing the work for you. And then, the biggest thing you have going on now is issues with security. Especially in any IT environment, including software as a service. So that is a major consideration of anytime that you go out to outsource or even if you do it in-house, you're going to be connected. You're going to be connected to the internet, you're going to be connected to something else, so you have access issues. So yes, it's a nice concept. And the second part of it is you have to be able to manage and have your own means of monitoring security. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Okay. It's just -- it's a different concept if you all go in and read about it a little bit. It, you know -- towns used to own something, and you can go look at it and you can feel it and you can touch it. But, you know, just because we're sending that data, it's almost like contracting out. If you remember it's like -- if it's -- you know, is contracting out this to -- is it cheaper than hiring somebody to do it in-house? Same kind of thing when we're talking about soft assets. I don't know, it was just something that came up, made me wonder, made me ask the question as far as our town goes. Anybody else have anything? You keep looking at me, you got nothing. I guess, I sent you guys a note that said I wanted -- I'm going to do it again next month. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 25 of 31 We got like another minute before we got to get into the rest of the agenda. So what about the specifics -- this is where we needed Paul as well. Like, if I was to mention, like, three things underneath finance, like, you know, the term I use was unbundling financial reporting. And then there's making financial reporting of our town easier to consume, easier to understand. And I was going to ask Paul how we do, you know, our annual reporting. Are they big reports that are rolled up and sent out somewhere? And are they -- is it something that we can unbundle nowadays? It used to be bundling, now it's unbundling to make the consumption of that financial information kind of easier for the folks in our town, for citizens in our town. I don't -- I didn't -- I wasn't asking if you have a question -- or an answer to that, but. GOODWIN: Actually, well, I think State Farm disagrees with you. Bundling is a big deal. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: (Indiscernible). GOODWIN: Actually, it kind of actually goes along with one of the other concepts that I had sort of highlighted on a longer list, which was to develop educational materials to explain how municipal finances work and the constraints. So I think where you're going with that is, again, make it understandable. Put it in normal speak, right. Take out the jargon, take out the complications. I think we might be at a better point now to sort of tackle some of that to help understand the nuances, you know; nobody's going to understand to the level that Paul does. They just aren't. Nor do they want to. But getting the big, broad strokes, getting the concepts, understanding the basics, it's probably something we should work to tackle a little bit better so that it's a little more consumable. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Right. Yeah, another way I phrased it was personalization of financial reporting. Like, I think you said earlier, getting people where they're at or -- GOODWIN: Yeah. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: -- giving them information. Yeah, Bernie. HOENLE: It's somewhat tied to, what's the issue, what are you trying to fix. And this -- if you're looking long range, how far does the town actually see the budget. Usually, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 26 of 31 you're talking about a actual budget a year and a fiscal year out. And if you go beyond that, what are you using to plan that you're funding for? And what are the trends in the community that you're living in? Is it -- well, I'll just leave it at that. What are the trends that are ongoing, can you identify them, and will that go into the future. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah, and just to throw this out here for you all from the first -- from the plan that I helped with a few years ago doing the budgeting process every other year instead of every year. Some states do that. You know, Nevada does that. That was all the rage, I don't know, 10 or 20 years ago. It helped reduce budgeting. It helped make it so you don't spend such a sizeable portion of every year on the budget. People were elected, they didn't initially come right in and they're jump -- they're put right into the budget. Where if it's every other year; the newer folks have time to get involved and understand what's going on before they get in the budgeting process. We put that in, it got yanked out right away by the council at that time. Just so you know. What about finance, finance as a way to create value for the town? Not just a way to report after the fact what's going on, but a way to actually create operational or capital value for the town through financial techniques. That's actually a thing. I didn't make that up. I actually researched that. So that the finance entity can actually, you know, create value for the town. All right. I'm going on and on. Anybody else have anything before we go on to the next agenda item? Just so you know. You know, take notes on all of this. Angela is taking notes too. We're going to put these together. We're going to go through topics month by month, and you will see these again, probably in June at our workshop, where we'll say, like we did last June where we identified the pillars, this June we'll get together and say, hey, here's the pillars, here's a lot of the things we talked about under each pillars. Which one of these, you know, which one to five of these topic areas do you want to flush out more, include in plan and assign some specific tasks to you in the following year. So you will see these again. That's the plan anyways from our work today. Okay. I'm going to move on to the next. I know you guys are so excited. I may bring coffee TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 27 of 31 next time to this. Who knew that finance was boring? Maybe everybody, right? Okay. We're going to move on to Agenda Item 7. Commission work groups. I wanted to turn it over specifically to Geoff to talk about his workshops this winter and this spring. YAZZETTA: Yes. So we will be hosting two workshops similar to what we did last spring. And the two commissioners that I worked with last year are no longer on the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission, so I will look to ask for two people to join me. We don't need to settle that now, just email me offline. But I would like to have kind of a subcommittee to take the reins. We will be hosting these in the community center. We'll have a series of whiteboards, and we'll be kind of going through the same exercises as last time to develop the signature strategies based on community input. Last year we held the event on a Saturday. I think it would be good if we're doing two of these, to do one on the weekend and one on a weeknight to try and capture a larger audience. But yeah, we'll be looking to gear up for those and lock in some dates and the community center and just kind of figure out best to garner feedback from the community. That's the, you know, 40,000-foot perspective; does anyone have any questions on this right now? It's still, you know, very much in the idea phase. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah, go ahead, Joe. REYES: (Indiscernible). You mentioned it, but I missed it or forgot it. What's our target for hosting those events, timeframe? YAZZETTA: Timeline or attendance? REYES: No, the -- YAZZETTA: Time. REYES: Yeah, around what season or month? YAZZETTA: Probably late winter, early spring. REYES: Yeah. YAZZETTA: Patrick, do you have any feedback on when? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 28 of 31 CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Well, if we got to have two -- YAZZETTA: Yeah. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: -- right, and we want to have the data back, like last year, we wanted to review it at the May meeting. YAZZETTA: Okay. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So that really narrows it down, right. YAZZETTA: Yes, it does. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: March and April. YAZZETTA: We can do it. Yeah. Absolutely. REYES: So yeah. See that brings the -- that brings it from thinking about it later to pulling it up front here. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Um-hum. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I wasn't going to let -- I was going to ask for volunteers before we get out of here so you know who to start working with already. CRADER: I'm good to help, Geoff. YAZZETTA: Thank you, Randy. GOODWIN: If -- REYES: Yeah, I'll take a stab at that. I like (indiscernible) activity. YAZZETTA: Okay. There we go. Thank you both. I will email you this evening. GOODWIN: I'll just throw out there -- and I know you already know this, Geoff -- YAZZETTA: I just got done with (indiscernible). GOODWIN: This is a hint. No. YAZZETTA: Yeah. It's like (indiscernible) -- GOODWIN: Geoff, I already know you know to talk with Jen (ph.) about availability. YAZZETTA: Yes, of course. GOODWIN: And yeah, that -- but where I was going actually was that the later it gets into the spring, the more we lose our snowbird population. So there is some value to trying to get it done before they exit the community for the season. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 29 of 31 YAZZETTA: Sure. Sure. That usually coincides with, what, early April I feel like. GOODWIN: Yeah, I feel like -- YAZZETTA: Yeah, it seems like baseball, you know, opening day that's when most of the snowbirds are heading back to their home states. GOODWIN: Exactly. Yes. YAZZETTA: So yeah. Cool. Well, I will work with Joe and Randy, and we will get some dates set up here. Yeah. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah. And you can, you know, ask -- all of us can help. We all help. Most of us helped last year. YAZZETTA: Well, we had a subcommittee last year. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) and you missed it. YAZZETTA: Yeah, we had a subcommittee last year that did all the planning, and then for actual events we had all the commissioners, all hands on deck. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Um-hum. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. YAZZETTA: To help out. So yeah, we'll do all the leg work and give you guys a date and time, and we'll rock and roll. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: All right. So we got a core and we got three folks, thank you very much. And around March or April. But yeah, it's up to you guys to decide if you want (indiscernible) -- YAZZETTA: Sure. I was planning early -- yeah, this wouldn't, you know, drag on well into the spring. So. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Okay. That is awesome. YAZZETTA: Cool. Thank you. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Good? YAZZETTA: Yes. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Thanks, Geoff. Agenda Item 8 is Discussion and Possible Action is Future Agenda Topics. I wanted to get your guys' opinion. I could just assign this, but I TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 30 of 31 wanted to ask if the topic for next month, it's going to be like this one, only instead of finance it's going to be either economic development, infrastructure, land use, development, quality of life, safety. Does any of those that you all would just want to make sure we do next month? YAZZETTA: Are we going to have a speaker? GOODWIN: Ideally, yes. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Usually from the town, whoever's in -- hopefully is well and responsible for that area -- YAZZETTA: Sure. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: -- of the town. Yes. YAZZETTA: Okay. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: I think we should defer to Rachael on who's available to speak if that's at all -- I mean, if you guys are in the thick of budget season, that's -- I'm just -- GOODWIN: We are. If you noted the -- our next back meeting actually falls the day after our budget retreat. So I'm trying to think who may be the freshest off of that topic. So I think economic development is going to be -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Amanda. GOODWIN: -- a interest at that meeting. So at that point, it might be wise to talk safety. I think potentially Chief Ott and Captain Kratzer might be a good fit for that one. Let me check their availability. I believe Kevin Snipes is going to be out of town because he's going to a training somewhere at the end of February, beginning of March. And then, like, land use might be another good one; that's a John Wesley. So that one might be a good -- another good option. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah, both those would be great. GOODWIN: Okay. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: So all right, quality of life, safety or land use. GOODWIN: Let me see if he's available. Okay. You got it. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Okay. Any other future topics? Like I said, we're right in the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JANUARY 15, 2025 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION Page 31 of 31 thick of working through these -- this winter and spring. Okay. Thanks. So we'll pick from one of those two for next month. We'll try to get a little better as similar to this meeting, but hopefully, you know, we get some more guidance on how we move through, bring up topics. Please, you all do some work on your own and, you know, when you learn what the topic is, can kind of bring information with you and things that you also wanted to talk about. All right. So I'm going to move to Agenda Item 9. I've already done a lot of comments, so we talked about next month. Oh, the town council brief. Probably going to update town council, do we think June, is that what we thought? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible). CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Yeah. So when we get to June, either before or around our workshop time, I'll probably be updating the council, you know, on a public forum on our work over the last couple years. So more to follow on that; I just wanted to let you all know we'll be in front of the town council. We talked about workshops. That is it. Okay. So next meeting -- next meeting is going to be Wednesday, February 26th, so 2025. So put that on your calendar at 4 o'clock, right here. Town councils. All right. Thank you all. Sorry we ran over a little bit today. Does anybody -- maybe put a motion on the floor as far as adjournment for today goes. Can I get a motion? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Move to adjourn. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Can I get a second? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Second. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Second. Thank you. Anything to talk about from today that we missed, anybody want put anything forth? Looking left. Looking right. Not seeing any. Okay. All in favor of ending the meeting and adjourning today say "Aye". Aye. ALL: Aye. CHAIRMAN GARMAN: Any opposed? All right. Meeting's over. Thank you all very much. Having no further business, Chairman Patrick Garman adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission held on January 15, 2025, at 5:06 p.m. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS _______________________ Patrick Garman, Chairman ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: ____________________________________ Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 15 day of January 2025. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED 19 day of February 2025. ____________________________________ Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant ITEM 6. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Economic Pillar Strategy of Future Strategic Plan with Amanda Jacobs, Economic Development Director. Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025  ITEM 7. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  UPDATE: Commission Workgroups Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025  ITEM 8. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025  ITEM 9. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025  ITEM 10. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 02/19/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Town Clerk Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, March 26, 2025. Staff Summary (Background) Form Review Form Started By: Angela Padgett-Espiritu Started On: 02/04/2025 02:29 PM Final Approval Date: 02/04/2025