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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAGENDApacket__05-28-25_0556_707       NOTICE OF MEETING REGULAR MEETING STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION      Chairman Patrick Garman  Vice Chairman Geoff Yazzetta Commissioner Randy Crader Commissioner Bernie Hoenle Commissioner Polly Bonnett Commissioner Joseph Reyes Commissioner Paul Smith    TIME:4:00 P.M. – REGULAR MEETING WHEN:WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 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 May 28, 2025 1 of 2            1.CALL TO ORDER – Chairman Garman   2.ROLL CALL – Chairman Garman   3.CALL TO THE PUBLIC Pursuant to A.R.S. §38-431.01(H), public comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i) must be within the jurisdiction of the Commission, and (ii) is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The Commission will not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. At the conclusion of the Call to the Public, individual commissioners may (i) respond to criticism, (ii) ask staff to review a matter, or (iii) ask that the matter be placed on a future Commission agenda.   4.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Appoint a Commission Chairman.   5.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Appoint a Commission Vice Chairman.   6.REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER   7.CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of April 23, 2025.   8.DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Infrastructure Pillar Strategy of Future Strategic Plan with Justin Weldy, Public Works Director.   9.UPDATE: Commission Workgroups   10.DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics.  11.COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN   12.NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, June 25, 2025.  13.ADJOURNMENT     Dated this 14 day of May, 2025. /s/ Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant The Town of Fountain Hills endeavors to make all public meetings accessible to persons with disabilities. Please call 480-816-5100 (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 Commission with this agenda are available for review in the Town Manager's Office. Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting of May 28, 2025 2 of 2   ITEM 4. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Appoint a Commission Chairman.  Staff Summary (Background) Section 2A-1-2 Officers Members of each board and commission shall elect a chair and vice chair from among its own members. Each chair and vice chair shall serve for one year and until such time as a successor is elected. The chair shall preside at all meetings and exercise all the usual rights, duties and prerogatives of the head of any similar organization. The vice chair shall perform the duties of the chair in the chair’s absence or disability. Vacancies created by any cause shall be filled for the unexpired term by a new election. (19-15, Added, 09/03/2019) ITEM 5. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Appoint a Commission Vice Chairman.  Staff Summary (Background) Section 2A-1-2 Officers Members of each board and commission shall elect a chair and vice chair from among its own members. Each chair and vice chair shall serve for one year and until such time as a successor is elected. The chair shall preside at all meetings and exercise all the usual rights, duties and prerogatives of the head of any similar organization. The vice chair shall perform the duties of the chair in the chair’s absence or disability. Vacancies created by any cause shall be filled for the unexpired term by a new election. (19-15, Added, 09/03/2019) ITEM 6. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Staff Summary (Background) ITEM 7. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of April 23, 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 April 23, 2025. SUGGESTED MOTION MOVE to approve the minutes of the regular meeting on April 23, 2025. Attachments SUMMARY MINUTES AND VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT  TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION April 23, 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 Polly Bonnett; Commissioner Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Paul Smith; Commissioner Randy Crader Members Absent: Commission Joseph Reyes Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Clerk Bevelyn Bender; Community Services Director Kevin Snipes TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION April 23, 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 Polly Bonnett; Commissioner Randy Crader; Commissioner Bernie Hoenle; Commissioner Paul Smith Members Absent: Commissioner Joseph Reyes Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Clerk Beverlyn Bender; Community Services Director Kevin Snipes 3. CALL TO THE PUBLIC No one from the public spoke. 4. REPORTS BY COMMISSIONERS AND TOWN MANAGER Chair Garman • Welcomed New Commissioner Polly Bonnett to the Strategic Planning Commission Commissioner Bonnett • Expressed excitement about joining the Commission • Shared her background: nearly 20 years with City of Mesa, oversees library department • Longtime Fountain Hills resident (30+ years, on and off) • Still employed by the City of Mesa • Thanked everyone for the welcome Vice Chair Yazzetta • No report Commissioner Hoenle • Suggested holding a future community input workshop at the Learning Center • Proposed engaging teachers, parents, and school community • Received support from school board and audience • Clarified intent to replicate previous Community Center workshops at the Learning Center Commissioner Smith • No report • Supported Commissioner Hoenle’s idea Commissioner Crader • No report Town Manager Goodwin • Reported limited updates due to busy budget season • Noted success of the recent car show despite weather challenges 5. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of March 26, 2025. MOVED BY Commissioner Randy Crader APPROVE the Minutes of February 19, 2025, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Vice Chair Geoff Yazzetta Vote: 6–0 | motion passed unanimously 6. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Health Welfare and Safety Pillar Strategy of Future Strategic Plan with Community Services Director Kevin Snipes. • Reviewed Strategic Pillar #4: Health, Welfare, and Safety as part of the town’s ongoing multi-phase strategic plan, with a focus on identifying priorities and community impacts. • Presented detailed updates on park improvements at Fountain Park, Four Peaks, Desert Vista, and Golden Eagle, including additions like shade structures, splash pads, musical and fitness playgrounds, and skatepark expansions. • Emphasized efforts to improve connectivity between parks through sidewalk projects and potential trail links, while acknowledging challenges using washes due to property disputes and community pushback. • Discussed future park development on town-owned land, including potential parks north of Golden Eagle and in state trust areas, noting the need for public support to overcome resistance and misinformation. • Identified that Fountain Hills has about 4 park acres per 1,000 residents, well below the national average of 10.6 acres, prompting a push for more open space and recreational access. • Explored health and wellness strategies, such as outdoor fitness equipment, yoga in parks, and walkable shaded environments to encourage physical activity and preventive health behaviors. • Highlighted gaps in healthy food availability, with a desire for more organic and specialty grocery options like Trader Joe’s or Sprouts, alongside continued support for food insecurity programs like the local food pantry. • Reviewed the status of public safety services, confirming the successful transition to a town-operated fire department and discussing ongoing sheriff contract management, emergency response costs, and pedestrian safety enhancements. • Acknowledged increasing demand for senior services and dementia care, including resources for caregivers and community programming at the Community Center. • Called for the Strategic Plan to formally prioritize park expansion, walkability, and access, to support quality of life and public health across Fountain Hills. 7. UPDATE: Commission Workgroups Vice Chair Yazzetta stated there wasn’t much new to share beyond gathering feedback for the June Work Session. He agreed with Commissioner Hoenle’s suggestion of holding an event at the school but noted limited availability to lead it. He offered to attend and support if someone else could take the lead on planning. 8. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. Chair Garman outlined the upcoming schedule, noting that May's meeting will cover the final strategic pillar, Infrastructure. 9. COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN In June, the commission will hold a workshop to review progress since January and develop strategic action items under each pillar. There will be no meeting in July, with regular sessions resuming in August to continue strategic planning. The goal is to finalize the full strategic plan by summer 2026, with the intent to present it to the Town Council for approval during the 2026–2027 timeframe. Garman requested feedback on the timeline but received no comments and concluded with no additional remarks as Chair. 10. NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, May 28, 2025. 11. ADJOURNMENT Chairman Patrick Garman adjourned the meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission at 5:32 PM MOVED BY Vice Chair Geoff Yazzetta to ADJOURN the Meeting of April 23, 2025, Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Meeting, SECONDED BY Commissioner Paul Smith TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 1 of 44 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Regular Meeting Minutes April 23, 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 APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 2 of 44 GARMAN: Good afternoon. I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Fountain Hills Strategic Planning Advisory Commission for April 23rd, 2025. First order of business is our roll call. Bev, could you do roll call for us? BENDER: Chair Garman? GARMAN: Here. BENDER: Vice Chair Yazzetta? YAZZETTA: Here. BENDER: Commissioner Crader? CRADER: Here. BENDER: Commissioner Smith? SMITH: Here. BENDER: Commissioner Hoenle? HOENLE: Here. BENDER: Commissioner Reyes is not present at this time. And Commissioner Bonnett? BONNETT: Here. BENDER: We have six commissioners present. GARMAN: Sounds like we have a quorum. Thank you very much. Okay. Moving down to number 3 on the agenda is call to the public. Do we have anything from the public? Did anybody submit anything? I see -- BENDER: No, Chairman. GARMAN: All right. Thanks. All right. So we're going to move to agenda item 4, which is reports by commissioners and the town manager. I'm going to start this off with our newest member, Polly Bonnett. So Polly, I wondered if you could take a little bit of time and introduce yourself? BONNETT: Sure. Happy to be here. I'm looking forward to getting started. I'm usually on the other side of the table. I've worked in the City of Mesa for almost 20 years. I'm a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 3 of 44 member of their executive team, and I oversee our library department in Mesa. So I am a local government career person most of that time in Mesa, some in California, and I've been a resident of Fountain Hills for off and on over 30 years. So I'm happy to be serving my own town now. I look forward to it. GARMAN: So you're still working for Mesa? BONNETT: Yes. GARMAN: Oh, okay. BONNETT: Yes. GARMAN: Awesome. All right. Thanks. Welcome to our Strategic Planning Commission. I'll hand it over to you, Geoff. YAZZETTA: Nothing to report. Polly, welcome aboard. BONNETT: Thank you. GARMAN: Good. All right. Bernie? HOENLE: Well, after the last community input session that we had at the Community Center -- I bounced the idea off of Geoff -- maybe we can invite the group from the Learning Center over at the schools to get teachers and parents and those folks involved, and I got a head nod from the entire school board and from the audience. So hopefully, we can set something like that up soon. GARMAN: Okay. You can give me the specifics. No problem. SMITH: Do you have any (indiscernible)? GARMAN: Are you talking about the folks from the school come over here, or we go over there where it's educational? HOENLE: No. Just like you did at the Community Center, hold it in the Learning Center for the audience to be there. Like, they'll, you know, sit in there. GARMAN: You mean use their facility? HOENLE: Right. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 4 of 44 GARMAN: For one of our meetings or for a workshop or for -- HOENLE: For the workshop. GARMAN: Okay. HOENLE: For all the ones just like the two that we had in the Community Center -- GARMAN: Roger. HOENLE: -- carbon copy it in the Learning Center -- GARMAN: In the Learning Center. HOENLE: -- and we'll get a different group of attendees. GARMAN: Got it. Thanks for explaining it to me. SMITH: That's a good idea, Bernie. It really is. GARMAN: All right. Paul? SMITH: I have nothing to report. Other than that, then, welcome, Polly. BONNETT: Thank you. GARMAN: Randy? CRADER: Same, nothing to report. Welcome, Polly. GARMAN: Rachael? GOODWIN: I'll echo one more time, welcome, Polly. We're glad to have you. I don't have much a report. I'm here to assist with whatever details are needed for today for Kevin's presentation. As we talked about earlier, it's budget season. It's sort of everything season. It's hodgepodge season. So if you have any questions or anything I can update you on, let me know. SMITH: You had a good car show. GOODWIN: It was a good car show despite Mother Nature's best efforts. GARMAN: Yeah, it was. It was great weather. Just amazing, isn't it? It was just -- okay. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to move down to agenda item 5 now, which is consideration for possible action. It's the consideration of the minutes from our regular meeting last month, which was March 26th. I did get to read the minutes. I hope everybody else got TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 5 of 44 a chance to read them too. And again, I appreciate Angela synthesizing them down, the readable part at the beginning as well as going into it. So before we move onto a vote, does anybody have any comments about the minutes or anything they wanted to talk about as far as last month? Okay. As we go through these topics, there's a lot that we got to talk about. There was a lot in there last month. Okay. So nobody has any comments? I'm looking. Is there a motion on the table to approve the minutes? YAZZETTA: Move to approve. GARMAN: Can I get -- CRADER: Second. GARMAN: -- a second? All right. So discussion on the minutes? Hearing none. I will tell you all that I do look through those and read them, and I looked back while I was doing it back in February. And so these meetings that we're having right now on these big topics, there's a great record that we can all go back and look at, and we're going to need to do that as we head into the summer and into next year, so -- okay. Comments on the minutes. All right. All in favor of approving the minutes from the March 26th meeting say I. ALL: I. GARMAN: Any opposed? BENDER: Chairman, 6-0. GARMAN: All right. BENDER: 6-0. GARMAN: Unanimous. Minutes are approved. Thanks, Bev. I guess I can sign this now, right? All right. So the main attraction for today -- just to recenter everybody while we're here, hopefully we have a wide-ranging discussion, as you know, and verbatim, all of our comments are being transcribed so that we can go back and look at them. If you remember our strategic plan, we have five strategic pillars. We're reviewing those in detail one per month this spring. We're on our strategic pillar number 4, which is TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 6 of 44 health, welfare, and safety, and we're talking about, maybe, some main initiatives that would go underneath that. If you remember, our strategic plan has three levels. We completed the first level last year. We're working on the second level, the middle level, this year as we finish up next month, which will be infrastructure, and then head into June, which will be our workshop to talk about what we've done over the last six months to move into the next year, which will be a specific initiatives with responsibilities and timelines and all of that attached to it. So today, pretty big. If you remember from last year, we couldn't really decide if we wanted to split out safety from health and welfare, so we kind of put those together going forward, so health, welfare, and safety, so it's a pretty big pillar. But I appreciate Kevin being here today, and I think you had a couple slides to get us going, right? And the way this has gone the last few months -- so I apologize ahead of time, but if folks have comments as you get going, there will probably be a give and take. There's nobody here, so we can have a discussion, and we can talk about kind of the ideas that come forth. And nothing is really off limits. So thanks, everyone. Okay. Over to you, Kevin. SNIPES: All right. Thank you. Appreciate it, Patrick. So I was here a little while ago, and I think we had 30 minutes, of which I needed about three hours, so that's a problem that I have of going long. GOODWIN: I do too. SNIPES: But today, I just kind of wanted to go through and kind of show some of the -- last time, we went through a lot of the parks -- or a lot of the Recreation and the Community Services side of what we do, and so I thought I would kind of walk you through each one of the parks and show the things that we've been doing, where we're at now, and where we're going that will contribute to the health, welfare, and safety of all of our residents. As you can see here, we have a staff of six parks personnel, and they're responsible for 135 acres of land. So it's not an easy task to pull that off. We do get some help with contractors, but a vast majority of the work is done in house. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 7 of 44 Fountain Park's gotten to see a lot of changes here over the last several years. Most recently, we added the large shade structure that's next to the Splash Pad. It's very rare that I go over there now and don't have someone sitting under there. That's been all winter long, and coming into our first full season with the Splash Pad open, it's definitely a great congregating area for people to sit at. With the 17 tables underneath it, it provides a lot of room, plenty of shade to help keep you out of the sun. We're getting ready to bring in some new front porch style swings that'll have some artwork in them to sit out closer to the fountain and be able to see along the edge of the fountain. It's going to go in right there at the edge of the great lawn area right up next to the lakeshore. We also added a couple more ramadas next to the Splash Pad. We just can't have enough shade around it. Parents don't mind letting the kids run, but they like to have a spot to sit and a homebase, so to speak, for all the kids. We've relandscaped the amphitheater. We've started bringing in some mulch applications into several of our planting areas to help our trees get a little more nutrients through the years of the breaking down of the mulch, and that's been going very successfully. The Splash Pad certainly gives us plenty of space for the kids to run around at. It's about a 4,000-square-foot area, and it's been a huge success and been packed every day that we have it open. We just opened a few weeks ago, and so that's been going really good. We added lights to the playground two years ago. Not being able to have anybody out there after 5 p.m. in the winter is a little early, so now we have lights on all of our poles over there to brighten up the area and make it safe for the kids to be able to be out there a little bit later in the evening. Our musical playground is probably the most interesting piece that we have over there in that it attracts everyone from 2 years old to 100 years old and probably 101 and 102 if you were at that age, and they love to go and just play on the musical instruments. And it's been fun to watch. That's the first one that I've been involved with, and it's been really neat to see how the people have used it. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 8 of 44 The disc golf course is obviously -- it's a championship golf course that gets used a lot. We have a lot of different groups that are out there using it. I skipped over the picnic ramadas. We're getting ready to replace all of those. That's part of our capital improvement for our -- we're doing that on facility replacement, I think. Coming through this year, we're going to try to get three of them done. They've been rusting out and the tops have been failing on them, so we want to make sure that those are safe. And doing a remodel of the ones that are existing turned out to be more expensive than tearing down the ones that are there and building new ones, so we're going that route. Veteran's Memorial, we've planted a bunch of new plants over there over the last couple of years, and we get a lot of compliments on that area as well. And if you want, we'll just roll through these one park at a time, and if you have questions on it, I'd be happy to answer anything that you have. CRADER: Does the Fountain Park generate any income for the city? SNIPES: Absolutely, yeah. Any specialty parks that we have out there, it's paid rentals. We get a lot of ramada reservations. We're hoping that -- with the new big shade structure, we're allowing it to be rented out as a single spot. It has been rented a couple times so far, but we're hoping to push that further. I know the businesses are excited about it. They would like to see some lights go in around it so that they can do an extension of premises, which is one of the things that we were thinking of when we built it, so we're excited to see that move forward as well. CRADER: Okay. Thanks. SNIPES: Uh-huh. Any other questions on Fountain Park? GARMAN: Geoff? YAZZETTA: Yeah. This could be applied to any park, but are there any designs to put in parkour equipment and get people exercising around Fountain Park? Because there's a lot of people walking. SNIPES: Yeah. So it's been talked about several times over the years. Fountain Park becomes a catchall, kind of, that every -- it could go to Fountain Park, it could go to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 9 of 44 Fountain Park, but you also don't want it to have everything at Fountain Park. You know, you want to kind of have it where -- we just did a fitness park, and you'll be seeing that in a little bit, over at Desert Vista, and it's a state-of-art equipment area. It runs off your phone. I mean, it's really nice. And so that's what we ended up doing, was moving over there instead of at Fountain Park. Fountain Park has so many issues of the water quality, and so you'd have to really protect the equipment. And it just becomes tough when you start losing space when we have such big events that we're hosting that are all the way around the entire park, and so it creates its own problems the more things that you add into it as well. YAZZETTA: Understood. Thank you. SNIPES: Uh-huh. SMITH: You know, I think that the -- excuse me. I'm tired. I've been -- SNIPES: That's okay. SMITH: I've been at the market all day. SNIPES: Uh-huh. SMITH: But anyway, the equipment that's in Desert Vista Park, I see more -- I spent a lot of time there with my dog when she was alive. But more and more, people are using that, and that is state of the art. And I would like to see that expanded someday to some of the other parks because Desert Vista is kind of out in a way, except for the dog park and that kind of thing, but after being here 30 years, I will say, the change is remarkably well. SNIPES: Thank you. SMITH: Yeah. SNIPES: Anything else? All right. Our next park here is Four Peaks Park. This is a park, when I got here nine years ago, didn't have any sidewalks on the lower section there of that middle picture. It was foreign to me. I'd never seen a park without sidewalks, and finding out that it was donated by the school, all of a sudden, everything started to make sense. However, it's now a park. So we started slow and did a lot of construction over there. Almost TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 10 of 44 everything you see has been added in the last nine years or totally redone. The tennis courts were redone in 2016, and that was the only amenity that was there outside of the two ballfields, and the two ballfields were redone during the renovation as well. We got grants to pay for the basketball court, the tennis court's being redone, and we got half-off discounts on both of the playgrounds that were there when we built them. We recently have just added three more pickleball courts over there. Pickleball is a hot, hot item. Our waitlist is bigger than our playlist, and so we're constantly having that battle. The new restroom we just added next to the playground has been received extremely well. And this is a park where when I got here, they were closing the restrooms down because they were getting vandalized at night, and so they were closing them at 5 o'clock in the evening. And that's not the way that I think that should be solved. So what we tried to do is activate the park and get it so that there's so many people there, if you do damage, someone's going to find it, and that's worked extremely well. It's now one of our busiest parks used. It's certainly our neighborhoods with the most parents and kids running around, and it's not uncommon -- you know, midday, I've gone over several times in the last few months and seeing 15 or 20 cars there with kids playing and pickleball going on and tennis going on is not unusual. As this is a park that had a -- when I got here had a 7 -- a little over $7 million renovation plan that had been put in -- a master plan for it put in place, and everything that we've done at that park has been done in about 1.2 mil, and everything that was on the list and then some has been put back into this park. So I'm really proud of what all we did. We did it without architects. We did all the design in the field myself and grabbing our staff and looking through how we can do things cheaper, better, and more manageable. And we have great vendors here that are more than willing to work with us. I challenge them a lot, and they often comment on how difficult I make things, not in a bad way, but in a way that they have to think about what they're going to do before we do it, and they came up with some great ideas to where we can make it so it does work. This is by far my favorite neighborhood park, and I've been in this industry forever now. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 11 of 44 And the amenities that are at this, you just don't get at a neighborhood park. It's a really great place. Having the walking loop -- anytime you put in a walking loop, this town comes out in droves to walk around the loop, and as soon as we got this loop completed, all of a sudden, it was activated. We put in a fourth entrance on the south side, and -- or I mean on the bottom end of this picture here where the pickleball courts are. And there's people that came in right after we got it open and said, I've lived there for 30 years, we walk around the neighborhoods all the time, but we've never walked in the park because we have to walk halfway around the park to get in the park, and that's too far for us to then walk in the park and then have to walk back out of the park and get back over. And now they walk it every day, and we see them every day. So it's just a great way for the community to become more oriented with each other, uh-huh. GARMAN: In our last strategic plan, we mentioned connecting parks -- SNIPES: Uh-huh. GARMAN: -- and I know we're doing a lot in the city with sidewalks and completing that and with grants, it's amazing. SNIPES: Uh-huh. GARMAN: You know it's working when somebody complained about it the other day, why are we spending money on sidewalks? I'm like, the strategic plan, that's why. Anyways, is there a plan to connect the parks if people want to ride a bike or walk from one park to another, or at least this park to like Fountian Park or whatever? I think there is, right? SNIPES: That's a good question. So there's some connectivity that's been done through like the FIT trails and things like that that occur on the sidewalks are not really trails. We've talked many times about trying to do connectivity through the washes. We've ran into some roadblocks with some of that, and we're still working our way through that. I would certainly like to see it done. GARMAN: So do you think it's possible, or is it a bridge too far or -- SNIPES: A little bit of both. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 12 of 44 GARMAN: Both? SNIPES: I think it's a stretch, but it's certainly -- it's not something I would shy away from, but it will take some work and some -- some leg work on the front end to get it done. GARMAN: Good to know. All right. SNIPES: Uh-huh. GARMAN: Thanks. GOODWIN: Patrick, do you mind if I add two cents? GARMAN: Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't see -- GOODWIN: I was going to say -- nope. That's all right. I was just going to ask, of the body up here, how many of you are familiar with this park before and after the renovations that they are today? It is a tremendous change in this park. Kevin does not overexaggerate by any means. The question I was going to say, your question about the connectivity is a good one, and it has been explored to Kevin's point. The challenge with the washes is that it's a community one, and it's going to take a community request to make that happen. In that there's a lot of users that use the washes like their own little private trail system, and people do it all the time, and then there are people that live on the washes that say, that's not public -- you know, that's not access -- that there's no public access back there and you shouldn't be in the washes. So in order to navigate that, it's going to take a community request and a community champion to develop that. We've looked at it. It can be done in a sense of logistically. It's a matter of can it be done and can it be embraced by the community, to be quite honest. SNIPES: All right. Any other questions for Four Peaks? BONNETT: I have a question. GARMAN: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. You've already learned. You turn a light on, I see it, and then I call you. BONNETT: Okay. GARMAN: That's how it works. So yeah, Polly. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 13 of 44 BONNETT: Thank you. This is great. I love the amenities that have been added to Four Peaks, and I was curious if you've considered StoryWalks in some of the parks? That's one other feature that might draw in families or walkers. SNIPES: Yeah. We've had some conversations. We started down the path with the library of trying to figure out how to do it, where to do it, where it can both be successful and not get vandalized, and survive in the Arizona heat, and we started down a path of trying to find a way to do it. And then it dissolved away, and we have not done it. But it's something that we have looked into, uh-huh. All right. Our next one here is Desert Vista. There's a little video of the fitness park over here being used one day, and you can see it's got plenty of activity over there. The cool thing with being able -- so each of the bike pieces that are on there, the electrical and the bicycle, they connect to your phone on an app, and then you can control how much resistance there is and change it as you're riding. And as long as you're pedaling, it generates the energy required to run the Bluetooth connection. It also has -- it's also identifiable on a map that will walk you through an exercise program, and you can tell it what type you want to do, whether it's for strength or endurance or what you're looking to do, and it'll design a plan with the pieces that we have out there. There's a chest press out there that goes up to 300 pounds, and it's a good test of your strength. The ability to do multiple different things in different ways, it's amazing how many different exercises that you can do within this area. This comes from a company called KOMPAN that also does a lot of our playgrounds. They engineer some amazing quality parks. And I've been watching their fitness stuff grow and given them several pieces of feedback over the years of the things I didn't like, and they finally got all of those squared away where I do like them. And so our timing was good to make a purchase and do this. The shade canopy that's overhead there was donated by The American Legion. And so we took that, had it stripped all the way down, repowder-coated, put a new top on it, so we got about 30 grand invested in about a $80,000 shade cover. So big thank you to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 14 of 44 them for thinking of us when they were doing their closed-in patio area. You can see there on the bottom left the skatepark that we added onto. It was about 10,000 square feet; now it's about 30,000 square feet including the pump track. So we're not only -- we're trying to hit every wheel device out there, and I've seen everyone out there from -- like, I've seen a guy out there on a ten-speed riding around on the pump track. I thought that was interesting. Kids on scooters doing backflips in the bowl, and they're starting to get much better at what they do and getting a little bit more risky at it, but it's entertaining. Go ahead. CRADER: I'm more like a broken record. Is that a -- does that generate any income for the town? SNIPES: So -- CRADER: And I always reference back to say, so you know where I'm coming from, you know the ballfields over there? It's great -- SNIPES: Golden Eagle? CRADER: Yeah, Golden Eagle. And I know that that's fairly lucrative and -- SNIPES: Yeah. CRADER: -- people love coming out here. This seems like something that could be along those lines, but I'm not 100 percent sure. SNIPES: So we're starting to lean closer into doing things like that. We've been contacted by a couple of promoters that are looking at doing skate competitions in our skate park. It's a very unique combination out there. Again, it was something that we did while we were in the field. There was supposed to be a divider between the pump track and the skatepark, and my 18 year old, 17, 16 year old self said, I would want to be able to go back and forth between the two. And so when we did that, it changes the whole dynamic of that whole area, and probably the biggest compliment that we've gotten since we opened it is that this place allows you to do anything anywhere and back and forth between the two. And that's one of the fun things in our competitions that we hold. We host several competitions. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 15 of 44 We're going to start trying to do them twice a year now because they've been so successful in bringing out a lot of spectators and fans and people from across the valley and from out of state. We have professionals that come in that join the competition as well, and so it's been a really big success. It's very active over there for sure. But as far as, has it done it yet, no, it has not. We're also working on getting the soccer fields up into a higher quality level where we can host some soccer events as well, and we're getting -- it's much better than it was, but we're still working on getting it to where we're willing to promote. Last thing I want to do is start promoting it and then having someone come out and go, they suck, you know? That's -- GARMAN: Is it going to -- SNIPES: -- not the way to sell it. GARMAN: Are you planning on keeping it grass for the soccer fields -- SNIPES: Yes. GARMAN: -- and just making the grass -- okay. SNIPES: Yup. GARMAN: All right. Thanks. SNIPES: Any other questions here? GARMAN: Dog park. I don't know how many of you all here -- SNIPES: The dog park area is that middle picture on the lefthand side there. It's a three- acre dog park. There's two acres for the large dogs and one acre for the small dogs. It is extremely active. We get tons of comments on it, some good, some bad. We tend to go through spells where there's somebody that brings a dog that nobody likes, and that may include the dogs, it may not. And so we've had a pretty good run here lately where we haven't had a lot of fighting over there, but you just never know. But it is a fantastic location. We work a lot with ADOG. They've donated a lot of the things that are within the park, some through some agreements that we've had and others through them wanting to add things, and so as long as it fits with the safety and the guidelines of the park, then we worked with them on doing that as well. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 16 of 44 There is a mini pitch there, the blue surfaced area there in the middle. That's like a -- it's called futsal. It's a lot like soccer, but it's a little bit smaller ball, little bit heavier that you use in it. And that entire piece was donated by Musco. They did the install and everything. It was about $100,000 equivalent that they donated to the town. And the reason they wanted to do it, they wanted to work with a gold medal team, and they wanted to advertise something that they had that was new and choosing a gold medal platform group to work with, they felt, was a great idea, and I couldn't have agreed with them more. It was fantastic. So we put in the surface, and they did everything else. All right. Anything else on Desert Vista? Our next park here is Golden Eagle. We're currently in the process of adding to half of the 5 to 12 year old playground, the new structures there at the top. All of that will be underneath the shade canopy of the playground, if you're familiar with that playground. We did the exterior of the shaded area in 2018, and so the other piece had been in since the late '90s. So it's well past it's useful life, and we're excited to get that swapped out and have this in. There's a lot of ropes work in that park, and so we kind of stuck with that theme, again, building a lot of strength and character of the kids that use it. I've been accused many times -- well, every time that I build a playground of trying to kill the children. I assure you I am not. I just want them to be stronger and be able to overcome those fears. And there's nothing like watching a kid overcome a fear of heights or spatial awareness or anything -- spinning, all the things that they do, and we certainly have plenty of challenges for them. And the biggest reason we do that is in the early 2000s, everybody went to trying to bubble wrap the entire playground and make it as simple and easy as possible. And what they found was there was actually more deaths, more critical injuries than ever before, and that includes when we were kids and playing on asphalt on a merry-go-round that was designed to kill you, I'm sure, and it just failed and missed me by that much. But by making it tougher within the playground, it gives them that challenge and the reason to come back instead of climbing on the outsides of the structures and getting to heights where you really do get hurt. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 17 of 44 We're in the process of redoing all the washes around there. We had the big flood out there in 2018 at Golden Eagle where we had six foot of water on the ballfields. It was my worst career day of entire career where we hauled off 200 tons of materials off of just the ballfields. Since then, we've come a long way. We've made a lot of changes. There's been a lot of corrections to the irrigation systems, and our quality of turf has drastically improved. Nine years ago, we were hosting 2 tournaments a year, and this year, we'll be hosting 35. Revenue is right in the $80 to 90,000 a year that we're bringing in over there. And we just recently started working with the Elks Club. They are running the concession stand over there, so now we have a weekly rental that they're doing, and they agreed to be there for every one of our tournaments, as well as when the Little League is there. And carrying on the donations back to Little League to match what they had previously been making in the concessions, we offered Little League the chance to run the concession during the other events, and they just couldn't come up with the volunteers to do it. So the Elks came to us and said, we'd love to do it. We wrote up a contract with them, and they've been wildly successful. And they're very happy about the funding that's starting to come in, and that money will be going back to youth sports here within Fountain Hills. So that's a really big plus. Recently, we added the Musco lighting, LED lights, to the ballfields, which if you've never seen the quality of what Musco does, their light cut off is from day to night within a ten-foot span. And so when you walk off the ballfields, it goes from being perfectly daylight to as soon as you're out of it, it's dark as can be. Best example I can give of that, when we first put in the lights, I got a call from a guy that was not happy. He said, I can't believe these lights are this bright. I thought you said it was going to be better. And I said, well, wait a minute. Let's figure out what's going on. I said, I'll go out there at night, and we'll make some adjustments. So we went out with a bucket truck, and I called him. And he said that it's way too bright in this section, and I said, okay. And so we went up. We made a three-degree adjustment on the light, and he goes, well, you just shut it off. I said, nope, it's still on. He goes, no, it's off. And I TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 18 of 44 said, no, it's still on. I go, are there any other ones that you can see? He goes, wait a minute, you're saying that that light's still on? Yeah, it's still on. And he was just blown away, and he goes, well, I can still see this one a little bit, but it's okay. I go, no, it's not. Let's fix it. So we went over, and we did that one and we did one other one. And he goes, it's as dark as can be up here. He goes, it's never been this dark at my house. So it was a really big compliment to Musco and how good their lighting system is. We also have -- the tennis courts over there got redone in 2016 as well on a grant at the same time we did Four Peaks, so they're getting to be about the age that we need to start looking at resurfacing, which is where we're at now, is starting to plan that out. We're trying to get a grant to cover that, but if it doesn't, we're just going to have to start going through them one at a time, getting those resurfaced. The sand volleyball courts, we went in and put in all new sand. We worked with the school on that because they use it for their sand volleyball teams, and they've been state champions at least four, five times over the last eight years. So they certainly have some quality players that come through the school, and so that was a really good partnership to get the right sand in there. The town had originally put playground sand in there, and playground sand has a tendency to pack a little more than what volleyball sand does. And so we did a lot of research in figuring out what was the best choice for Arizona and brought it in, and they've been extremely happy with what we did with that. With that, I'll take any questions that you got on Golden Eagle. I was out there today, and they're saying they'll be done by June 1st. And hold your breath, but June 1st is what they're hoping, but they're moving right along. I think the biggest hold up right now is getting the irrigation stuff taken care of, realigning it, and running some lines, but they've come a long way. A lot of the sidewalks are already poured and in. The group that's out there is -- I mean, it's starting to come into shape. You can certainly see a lot of what they got going. We put in ribbons in the wash so that we can tell exactly how deep and how wide it was TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 19 of 44 originally, which was one of the things that I fought for. It costed us some money, but I questioned whether or not, over the decades, if that channel was anywhere close to what it was originally, and no one has any idea. And so I wanted to have markers every so often to where that we could see that we were keeping that channel the same width. You know, if you lose four inches, no one notices, then you lose four more, and then you look, now you've lost five feet. All of a sudden, you don't have the capacity to handle the water. And so that was always my question, is how does anybody know what we've done and if we're doing it right if we don't have something up through there to mark it? So we now have that as well as we got some depth markers that'll tell us how deep water is so that we'll know what we're getting into when we get out there. Any other questions for Golden Eagle? GARMAN: How many more slides do you have? SNIPES: A couple I have in here. GARMAN: I think we got to move on because -- SNIPES: (Indiscernible). GARMAN: -- we've got to do beyond parks. SNIPES: Yup. GARMAN: And one thing that, you know, you could probably -- within the next ten years, where do you see the park system? What do you think is a big lift that you might need over the next five to ten years you might need some help with this commission from? SNIPES: This slide right here is where I need the most help. GARMAN: Thanks. SNIPES: We have some future parks that are coming in. One is up north of Golden Eagle. That's right here, and -- GARMAN: Woah, that's -- I thought that was private property. That's 25 acres that belongs to -- SNIPES: It's 22 acres of -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 20 of 44 GARMAN: Guy wanted to put houses on it. SNIPES: No. It's 22 acres of town-owned land -- GARMAN: Really? SNIPES: -- is what that is. Uh-huh. GOODWIN: (Indiscernible). SNIPES: And the school owns the property up north of that. GARMAN: I'm talking about north of it, yeah. SNIPES: Yeah. So up in here, this is where the school owns the property -- GARMAN: Really? SNIPES: -- and then we own right around the dam and down below the dam. That'll be a -- that's a big park. And this shows all the walkability of our parks as well. That's critical to our national averages, and we're far below the amount of acres and the walkability that we have. And so you know, adding this park, and there's another spot that's down here, would really start to fill in a lot of those areas. We recently tried to work with this little Sunridge area here, and that didn't go over well. So we pulled back from that. But I think the two bigger parks -- having two bigger community parks would be great, and if the state trust land goes in, then we have another future park up in that area as well. Questions on any of that? GARMAN: Did you say there was an ask in this map or something you needed help with or -- SNIPES: What we're going to need -- GARMAN: -- something -- SNIPES: -- help with -- GARMAN: -- for future -- SNIPES: -- is getting people behind building parks because, like, what we noticed with Sunridge is the people that are closest to it may not want it, but it's for a betterment of the entire community, is what we're trying to do. And there's a lot of fear when you build a park that, and we heard it all, you know, the gangs were going to come in TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 21 of 44 because we were going to build a park, we heard drugs, we heard alcohol, we heard theft, you know, and everything that was being said is proven to not be factual. The property values around parks are always higher than what they are when you don't have parks, and just in general, you're living within that area, your quality of life goes up. GOODWIN: Given that the pillar of this is health, welfare, and safety, I mean, a health indicator is how close you are to a park -- SNIPES: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- and how much accessibility you have to that park and can you get there within a ten-minute walk. That's what Kevin's showcasing here now. Our community loves their parks. They love Fountain Park. They love the Avenue. I mean, we were just talking about how you were out there all day today. They love their parks, but there's also a fear aspect of change. So they kind of go hand in hand. In order to develop more parks and create these beloved amenities that are proven to impact the quality of life, change has to come with that, so there is a -- it's sort of a two-headed monster there. So I think that's the ask. The ask is to identify in the strategic plan that parks are a priority, that public spaces are a priority, and the access to them, which goes back to the connections, the sidewalks, the ability to get there without necessarily having to get into a car to get there and do it. YAZZETTA: Yeah, she was first. GARMAN: Polly? BONNETT: Thank you. I just have a question about one of the future parks. If I'm reading it correctly, above the current Golden Eagle that's to the, I guess, west off of Golden Eagle -- SNIPES: Uh-huh. BONNETT: -- what are the crossroads there? SNIPES: Sierra Madre and Golden Eagle Boulevard would be your two majors. BONNETT: And extending, maybe, up to Aspen or near? SNIPES: Yes. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 22 of 44 BONNETT: Okay. I live on Aspen, so I'm curious. That's great. GARMAN: Sorry. Geoff? YAZZETTA: Yes. Do we have any park advisory boards in Fountain Hills? SNIPES: Yeah. We have our Community Services Advisory Commission. YAZZETTA: Got it. SNIPES: Uh-huh. YAZZETTA: Would it be possible to create an advisory board for exploring, like, Sunridge Park? So that way, the community has an active hand in developing what would be, you know, the proposal for the park, maybe to help the community get more on board with -- SNIPES: Are you saying for the Sierra Madre -- YAZZETTA: The -- SNIPES: -- Park? YAZZETTA: -- Sunridge Park that the community said, we don't want this, not in my backyard. SNIPES: Oh -- YAZZETTA: Yeah. SNIPES: -- okay. We had several meetings -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- with the community. We had communities with the Sunridge HOA. YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: We did all that on the front end, and there were so many stories that were made up that the facts of what we were really planning on doing -- I mean, they were telling us we were going to put in pickleball courts and that we were lying that we weren't, and so you know, it's hard to overcome that kind of negative thought process. And we were showing them it was going to be an extremely passive park -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- handful of parking spots, you know? And we went through the entire conversation with them, and they were vocal enough that the council didn't feel TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 23 of 44 comfortable moving forward. YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you. So that one, the community pushed back; you guys pulled back on that one. The other listed future parks, not including the state trust land because that's -- SNIPES: Uh-huh. YAZZETTA: -- tethered to the development, what's the timeline for those, and what does that look like? SNIPES: If, like, best laid plans, I would say it would be probably ten years out -- YAZZETTA: Okay. SNIPES: -- is probably a realistic run. Rachael, I'll defer to you, if you think -- Like, I would start it next year. That would be great. GOODWIN: I mean, what we've done is sort of a half measure, right? So these are pretty large parcels that are identified -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- on here. I mean, we're talking 20-plus acres. So they're large parks. We've taken what I'll call scraps, these leftover portions of land that are sort of unused or it's kind of one of those, we don't know what else to do, so we've used them to create pocket parks, which we should update our map with those parks once they've come online. And so we've taken these little initiatives when and how we can, and I think some of you guys have probably -- And Geoff, I'm looking at you. But one of them is just north of Golden Eagle where we're developing hopefully a space that is conducive to stargazing because that's one of the asks -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- of the community. Really, what has to happen for these parks to come online and get momentum is the community ask. I think one of the fatal flaws in the Sunridge conversation was that we had the funding, we had the property, we had the know-how, the drive, the initiative, all of the things, but the community said, eh, that's TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 24 of 44 great, but we don't want it. It has to go the other way around. YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: The community needs to come forward and say, we're ready, we want this -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- we want this park, we want these amenities, we want these features. How can we get there? And then we can meet them and move forward. The difficulty is, again, getting that momentum and that community support behind some of these. If we were to walk into Sunridge -- or not Sunridge -- Sierra Madre tomorrow and go, okay, here we go, I can only imagine the pushback that we would get, not because people necessarily don't want the park, but it's because, well, you didn't ask me, I didn't get a say in this. And I understand that, right? It is a -- that is part of this community input process. So if we could do it all over again, I think there would be definitely lessons learned, but it really has to start with a community desire and support level. YAZZETTA: Thank you. What would the intermediate step be? If we're looking ten years out for the development of these parks, how can we implement or include something in the next iteration of this strategic plan that will help bridge the gap? Because we're looking at five-year strategic plan, so what should we aim to put in so that we can get the wheels moving on these larger ones? SNIPES: I think it has a lot to do with having a town-wide initiative to have more park space per person -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- because we're definitely well below the national average on that. YAZZETTA: Really? SNIPES: The other thing is the desire of communities to have their -- is the show of having enough acreage per person and the walkability. So that combination of those two are the two things that we're the furthest behind on a national average. YAZZETTA: Interesting. What is the national -- because we have -- what was it, 132, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 25 of 44 135 -- SNIPES: Uh-huh. YAZZETTA: -- acres? We're about 25,000 residents. What's -- SNIPES: I can't remember off the top of my head. GOODWIN: Let me see if I have that here for you. YAZZETTA: Sorry to put you on the spot. SNIPES: It's all right. Yeah, we -- YAZZETTA: I guess living so close to the Fountain, I feel like, you know, there's parks -- SNIPES: There's plenty. YAZZETTA: Yeah, there's plenty. SNIPES: Yeah. And to me, that's the bigger picture, is we should be setting an example of what it should be for the entire town, and that's what will drive people to come here, to stay here, to live here. Having a few naysayers doesn't mean that it's wrong -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- because you're going to have that. YAZZETTA: Sure. SNIPES: And so having it where we go, yeah, just because you don't want it -- we can hear, and we hear what you're saying. And we can try and work our way around, you know, different types of issues in trying to get through those -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- but we got to look at the bigger picture of what's best for the town. YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: And if the best thing for the town is we should put in more parks, which I think it is, then we need to say in our strategic plan -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- we think that we need more park acreage per person. YAZZETTA: Sure. GOODWIN: There you go. SNIPES: Yes. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 26 of 44 GOODWIN: All right. So acres of park land per 1,000 residents, the national average is 10.6. We are somewhere in like 4.-something, I think. CRADER: So we would need 200 acres? GOODWIN: Uh-huh. CRADER: 20,000? SNIPES: Yeah, it's substantial. GARMAN: So what -- I'm sorry. YAZZETTA: I got one more. GARMAN: Yeah. Keep going. YAZZETTA: I'm sorry. I'm going to bridge back to one of the other pillars, which is the finance pillar. As the total acreage of parks increases, how does that impact the long- term budgeting for the town as far as maintenance and cap backs? SNIPES: Yeah. You don't get one without the other. I mean -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- obviously, all of that is going to go up, and so it's a matter of it needs to be the desire of the -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- residents of the town -- YAZZETTA: Yeah. SNIPES: -- to have that kind of quality of life -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- and we've proven that they do. Every time we build something new, we get more and more people that are coming out and using them -- YAZZETTA: Sure. SNIPES: -- and then it's a matter of getting that trigger to switch and go, yeah, I need to call out for this. I need to -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: You know, I have a group that's trying to donate some stuff right now to a park, and the hardest part is I don't have the space to do it. And so we're turning down TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 27 of 44 opportunities as well because we don't have free space because -- YAZZETTA: Uh-huh. SNIPES: -- we have planned it out really well where fitting all those puzzle pieces together becomes a challenge as well. YAZZETTA: Got it. Thank you so much. SNIPES: Uh-huh. GARMAN: Bernie? HOENLE: So one of follow-ups to this might be a town map that has specified what the town owns, what the school owns, what developers have, where the state trust land is, take a look at that whole picture, and then take a look at current facilities, and going back to other comments about how do you connect them, and can you connect them off of using main roads, whether you use washes or alleys or other means, and connection to the trail system? Because that's another thing that people want to do, be able to walk home or walk up a trail and be there. So there's lots of things, and a couple of overlays on a map might be helpful. GARMAN: So what I would ask for -- I'm a big believer in not telling experts how to make the sausage, but you know -- and so I think what we would need as far as where we are in the strategic plan is, you know, towns of this size is recognized to have this amount of park space as far as health and other reasons, and you know, we're below that by so many percent. That's where we are, like, right now. So this year, we would be going into next year saying, we need to -- this is just an example -- we need to increase our park space, or we need to connect different parcels so people can get from one -- I mean, that's where we are now. Maybe next year, we're looking at more specifics -- SNIPES: Uh-huh. GARMAN: -- but this year, we would need like the top level. Maybe our town doesn't have enough park space. That's a good thing, I think, for this year. I haven't heard that all the way yet. SNIPES: Uh-huh. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 28 of 44 GARMAN: That starts the conversation, and you get it in a plan. And then that starts to, like you said, start the conversation that the town doesn't have enough park space, then people start thinking, well, maybe we need some more parks. And then they start looking, and then they start asking. I know it's a long way from one side to the other, one point to the other, but you got to start that somewhere, and a commission like this can say, we need more park space. SNIPES: Yeah. Recognizing that it's a call and then answering it becomes the next step. Yeah. GARMAN: And you know, a couple years ago I -- who's the -- is the commission lead for the park and -- GOODWIN: Natalie? GARMAN: What? GOODWIN: Natalie? GARMAN: Natalie, yeah. So I met with her, and I went to her commission and briefed what we do because they have a strategic plan there too, and I was talking about their strategic plan fitting under our strategic plan. And I invited her, and she never came to address us, but I addressed hers. So just to let you know that if you see Natalie, tell her we're still waiting. [LAUGHTER] GARMAN: She'll know what you're talking about. Okay. Any other questions about parks? We're going to move onto -- I do want to, like, at least touch base on maybe health and welfare and some other topics before we get out of here. SNIPES: Thanks. GARMAN: Thanks. It's always great. I mean, you guys do such a great job. You know, in the last strategic plan, we were talking about grading -- for those of you that might want to look back at our last strategic plan, the one that's active right now, we talked about the grading systems, national grading systems for parks and stuff, and you guys were all over that. And it just reaffirmed to everybody the quality of what you guys do TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 29 of 44 in our park system. So thank you for that. SNIPES: I appreciate it. GARMAN: That was good. Yeah. SNIPES: Everybody, thank you. GARMAN: So that was a great topic. So I know we don't have a lot of time left. Does anybody have to leave in four minutes absolutely? Paul, you're good. You've been here all day. SMITH: Five minutes. GARMAN: Five minutes? [LAUGHTER] GARMAN: But I wanted to get some -- SMITH: (Indiscernible). GARMAN: I wanted to get some talking points and some comments on some of the other areas as well. So health, you know, I always have notes, and I did research and stuff, but I wanted comments. Remember where we are in the strategic plan. We're not like we need a health clinic on the corner of this and that, but we're in the middle. Like, how are we doing as far as the health of the folks in Fountain Hills, and are there ideas you have, you know, big ideas as far as the healthfulness of the citizens or healthfulness of our town in general? Does anybody want to kick that off? Just a simple question. HOENLE: (Indiscernible) answer? GARMAN: Well -- Paul? SMITH: I think, you know, we've added a few health facilities with HonorHealth and the -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. SMITH: -- emergency center out on Shea. And they are getting a lot of play, and that's adding to the -- but we also have an aging community, and we'd like to stop that and get some younger people in. But I'm speaking for myself, I guess. But anyway, I think we're TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 30 of 44 going the right direction. I'm just not sure -- and we've got one of the top, really, in the nation, facilities at Mountain View as far as -- GARMAN: Memory care. SMITH: -- yeah, memory care and stuff like that. I mean, they really -- I'm not sure where we have -- where we could add to that myself. We're doing a pretty good job there, I think. GARMAN: So I was thinking that the -- I read a few comments this week. You know, you can of pick two. You can look at things that your town is lacking and try to bang your head against a wall -- you know, we do that at Economic Development when it was manufacturing businesses -- or you can look at things that your town is doing well and try to build off those. That might be a little easier sometimes. In our last strategic plan, we talked a little bit more about preventative medicine, I would call it. I don't think it's called cosmetic -- they probably don't like to call it cosmetic surgery as much, or cosmetic, you know, all the stuff that -- what's it -- you know, I don't want to say everything on this transcript, but the, you know, youthfulness. Let's put it that way. And that some of those have -- I'm being polite. Some of those have opened in our town, and we have those and spas and things like that. So you know, we have a hospital that opened. It's got an urgent care connected to it. On our house, we have urgent care, primary care, we have specialty care in our town. But when you look at our population, I mean, do we need more -- do we want to talk about more high-end healthcare? Do you know what I mean? Precision healthcare, I think -- nobody's thinking with me. I'm just trying to stimulate some ideas. Here's another one: Blue Zone. Do you guys remember Blue Zone, Bernie? HOENLE: Yeah. I got it right here. GARMAN: Okay. HOENLE: I was reading my notes again. GARMAN: What was that? HOENLE: At Blue Zone, you can do yoga in the park. Let me turn this on. So there has TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 31 of 44 been a lot going on with Blue Zone, and even with Jill, when she left there, she publishes a lot on Facebook about healthy eating, so more places like that, juice places, little boutique places along the Avenue for when tourists come in and they get thirsty. Shade is a big issue, and having shade around is one of the number one things that they do for health and wellbeing, getting out and being able to have people be mobile to walk between locations. The other thing that came up that was mentioned that Kevin said was on parkours. We were just talking about parkours this morning, like, at the high school because they don't have an outdoor activity on their school grounds, but I didn't think about it in the park, so that's something else we can take a look at. But the whole idea of most is preventive care and it's getting people outside their house, out into nature. So trails are really pretty hard unless you're ambulatory, but we've got wide spaces that can be improved for paths and walks and things for people to transport themselves around town. Individual mobility is the other aspect of it -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. HOENLE: -- and micromobility right now for individuals has switched. I just went to a meeting where ASU was talking about what's happening on campus. Scooters are the number one mode of transportation between classes now, and scooters are starting to show up a little bit more here. The difference between scooters and bikes, the damage you get from falling off a scooter is greater than falling off a bike because they're going so darn fast, and you think they're low to the ground. Well, for kids, they are, but for us, they're not. And they act differently, and they turn differently. We're not really a scooter-friendly town yet with ramps up and off the curbs and that sort of thing, but it's to take a look at different technology and transportation to get people around. And going back to the old story about multimodal transportation, part of that is helping people get outside. They can pedal a trike bike. They can go to the grocery store if they've got a basket on the bike. We don't have bike racks or bike parking places. So if you want to get people out and mobile, you have to design things around the mobility that you're looking for. Is TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 32 of 44 it walking? Is it two wheel or three wheel or four wheel riding? Is it electrical, or is it person-powered? And that goes with up and down the hills around here. So there's lots of different aspects that we could probably start looking at, how do you want the people to be mobile and outside? GARMAN: Yeah. We're doing a good thing with connecting more sidewalks so people can -- HOENLE: Absolutely. GARMAN: -- remain on a sidewalk. So let me ask a question. When we talk about health, I want to talk about our food choices. Do you guys have an opinion on two sides, one, maybe higher-end food choices, you know, there's some niche -- and we're talking about groceries, by the way, not restaurants -- groceries where people can buy kind of, quote, healthy food, or even more expensive type healthy food mixed with -- do we have a food pantry in our town? GOODWIN: Uh-huh. GARMAN: So I'm wondering, to try to balance the two, do we need more of one, more of another? Do we need either one? Do we have enough for people who are in need, and do we have enough for people who have really expensive taste? Discuss. SMITH: I think the answer is no. you know, we have one -- I wish I could remember the name of it. Green -- something Greens, little grocery store type thing. That is very successful for them. They started off in the farmer's market type environment, but they have grown and grown. So there is very much a need for, you know, that type of environment you're talking about. A healthier way of life, there is a need for that, but I don't -- you know, again, that all goes back into somebody wanting to start a business or bring in a business for that, and that's another issue, you know? GARMAN: What do you think, Randy? Do you shop here in town, groceries? CRADER: I think we probably do for some stuff, but we're constantly on Shea going up to Sprouts or up to Whole Foods in North Scottsdale, so you know, family who's trying to be healthy, there definitely is an opportunity there. But to Paul's point, I see it's the chicken and the egg situation of do we have the environment where another grocery TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 33 of 44 store could actually succeed here? We have three within, you know, just a few miles of each other and have pretty much everything you could need except for that expensive organic or whatever it may be. So I just don't know the sustainability of something like that even if people did want it beyond, you know, our friends over just behind the farmer's market. GARMAN: Yeah. I don't know if you've seen the groceries they have in North Scottsdale or Scottsdale, but they're really small. And I forget the name of it. But they're groceries, but they're high-end. You go in, stuff is very expensive, and it's the healthy food, organic type food, but it's pretty small. So it's not like a big Bashas' or -- CRADER: Yeah. GARMAN: -- Safeway or something like that. Yeah. BONNETT: Is it Trader Joe's? No? Okay. That's what I would plug for. GARMAN: Yeah. BONNETT: I think one of the -- if I may, I thought about this a lot because I have to travel into Scottsdale if I want to go to Sprouts or Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, and I have reached out to our Economic Development director about Trader Joe's. I know it's not as easy as saying, will you please come here? You have to have the population to support it, and we do have other options. But a place like that would attract people to maybe relocate to an area where another big box grocery store might not -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. BONNETT: -- so I know we might not realistically be able to support it, but I would love to see more smaller options like that too. GARMAN: AJ's Fine Foods -- CRADER: Yeah. GARMAN: -- that's the little grocery store I was talking about, yeah. Okay. I just know we have a combination, right? We do have folks who -- what's the term -- they're not secure in getting food, you know, food pantries, food delivery options, we definitely need that in town. But then there's other folks who, you know, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 34 of 44 have higher-end taste, and they definitely would shop at maybe a smaller place as well. Just a thought. Rachael, I'm going to throw you under the bus here and ask you, when we're talking about parks and see Kevin, are there any areas or opportunities for folks in Fountain Hills who want to like do desert recreation with ATV vehicles that are closer to town or anything that's on town property or anything like that? GOODWIN: At this time, no. I mean, the town is not that big, and the portion that we do have is -- I mean, the Preserve is probably the only area that is of the right terrain that we're talking about. The reality is that the best places are generally up either into McDowell Mountain Regional Park or other places that have built out for that. The Preserve -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- itself doesn't allow, currently, for motorized access. That includes e-bikes and other things too. And that's by design and intention because we don't have the maintenance capacity to maintain trails if they're used at that level. They're just not. So we made that choice a while back when e-bikes kind of hit, you know, their stride, so to speak, but it has to do with the maintenance side of it. Obviously, we're very accessible to other ATV outlets or outdoor recreation, whether that's through the regional park, or whether that's through the -- you know, through over by -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- like, Saguaro Lake and all through, you know, the different areas out that way. GARMAN: Yeah. GOODWIN: So but not within town. GARMAN: Not within town. Okay. Okay. So we talked a little bit about health. Does anybody want to talk about safety? That's a big topic. I know we're past time. We've done a little bit about safety over the last few years. I mean, we have a fire department now. I don't exactly know where the renegotiation with the sheriff contract is, you know, but the emergency services, traffic TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 35 of 44 safety, I know we continue to work on that. So I don't know if anybody had thoughts about the safety aspect. CRADER: I think we should continue striving to be a very safe town that attracts people to live here. I don't really know how much more we can improve on it. This is probably going to fall in the infrastructure pillar, but I think we need rapid flashing beacons at some of the new crosswalks. I know those are kind of pricey, but it just calls attention to them along Saguaro where people are moving along at a high rate of speed sometimes. And maybe that tethers with the safety where maybe a little bit more traffic enforcement might help, but just a couple thoughts. GARMAN: How successful -- that's a loaded question. Now that we converted the fire department from a contract to owned by the town -- GOODWIN: Uh-huh. GARMAN: -- do you think that's been a successful model? Is it a wash? Is it something that we're -- and I don't know this, so are we looking at investigating from the sheriff side, the police side, something similar, or -- GOODWIN: Couple questions in there. The integration of our fire department has been very successful, and that's due, in part, to Chief Ott and his leadership and whatnot, and the fact that Rural Metro was pretty imbedded with us. So they were sort of able to take a model, come in with it, plan for it, and staff up. The reality, though, is that it's still expensive to operate. Whether we are contracting for the service or we're directly managing that service, it is a -- it is an expensive element. Safety between both the fire and our contract with MCSO takes up about 50 percent of our operating budget, which is normal. It's very normal to have your largest expense go to public safety. But it certainly isn't getting cheaper. Let's just say that. Maintenance, vehicles, protective gear, all of the things, radio equipment, obviously there's always changing technology and upgrades and whatnot, so that all comes with a price tag. So successful, yes, in that it has been seamless, there has been zero problem, and we really embrace the fact that they are ours, right? They're our guys. They come to our employee luncheons. They come to our events. They are part of us as the staff TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 36 of 44 and the town. When you talk about if it's -- if success is measured in financials, it's a wash. It costs us what it costs to either contract out the service or operate it ourselves. The MCSO model, actually, the contract did go down this year. If you haven't read about that in the paper, it did go down about six percent which is -- frankly, that's pretty unheard of, and it's a great win and we will take it. But the difference is that, no, we would not probably work toward a model of bringing them in house, and the primary difference is that we owned all of the infrastructure for the fire department. We owned the firetrucks, we owned the firehouses, we owned all of the logistical pieces. We don't own any of that when it comes to police, other than this building where we have their substation, we don't own -- but we don't have a jail, we don't have a -- we don't own the cars, we don't own -- we don't have all of that support. So the capital requirement that would be required for that type of investment is probably outside of our reach. Does that answer your question? GARMAN: Yeah. GOODWIN: Okay. Good. GARMAN: Any comments on that, Randy? CRADER: Not on that. But do we have a sense of -- Maybe, Rachael, you're the best for this. But do we have a sense of the health and safety issues that are the largest issues for our population? I know we do, you know, preventing falls and stuff in the community, but are there other areas where we're seeing high risk or high issue -- GOODWIN: Uh-huh. CRADER: -- that we should think about in this plan? GOODWIN: That's a good question. You know, there's a couple of things, and of course, you know, health and safety and wellness, I mean, is such a broad stroke and so much can fall under that. But the things that come to mind when you ask that question are a couple of things: One is fire safety and prevention, particularly with the wash maintenance and the things that happened in California. You know, that has been a hot topic -- for the community. It has been a priority for the council. They have allocated TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 37 of 44 more funding than they ever have previously in the next budget to continue to address that, and then trying to educate homeowners and property owners about what they can do to make themselves more ready for that type of a situation or how to Firewise their own space. I mean, and sometimes it's really simple things, things that you don't necessarily think about. One of the ones I see a lot, particularly in my own home, is -- you know, I was talking to Chief Ott, and he's like, wherever the wind blows the leaves or the debris and it kind of collects, maybe it's in your driveway or maybe it's in the corner of your front porch or something like that, he's like, that's your biggest threat. You keep that area clean. I go, why? He goes, because that's where the embers are going to blow if there was a fire. They're going to follow the same path. I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense. So it's educating the public on that. Sort of in the same line, one of the biggest things we have come to focus on is memory care and support for -- as a dementia-friendly community that has come front and center for a lot. Our Community Center is used extensively. Obviously, a lot of people associate it as a senior center. It's not simply that. It does serve that purpose a lot, but it has so many other functions. But the need and the ask and the evolving process of, you know, mental capacity, the idea of not only is it the person that's going through it, but it's also their caretaker, and how do we take care of the caretakers? How do we help them have the resources that they need to support their loved one and manage this process? Because it's very isolating, and it's a growing need because of the population of Arizona. If you look at the statistics, the number of people that will be challenged with some type of, you know, loss in that way is staggering, and it's going up; it's not going down. So how do we prepare for that and help our community because we do skew in that age bracket? So those are the two things that come to mind in terms of awareness and hot topics. But wellness and safety are always, you know, they're always an issue. I think there's a lot infrastructure wise, Geoff, that you mentioned that can be continued to do. You know, we've done -- crosswalks have been a hot -- you know, a very active TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 38 of 44 thing. They get met with some resistance by the community because a lot of people feel like they -- well, nobody's going to use them or I don't know anybody that uses them, and yet I do hear them -- you know, but at the same time, when I drive down, I stop at the crosswalk pretty regularly to let people pass, so -- YAZZETTA: I was going to say I see them used quite often. GOODWIN: Exactly. So it's sort of this, you know, loggerheads a little bit about that. So that can be a challenge too. SMITH: Has the fire department -- do they do -- I just don't know the answer at all. But do they do things in the community that will get the community together and tell them about all these safety units? And you know, I think about -- you're talking about the leaves blowing in and that, and I'm thinking about -- it seems to be like we're getting more winds than we have, and we got a lot of people that -- we got a lot of property that's empty, you know? Are they being educated enough to say, keep your property up even though you're not here, have somebody come by and keep it clean? GOODWIN: Yeah. I think, like many things, it's a constant message. It's the constant effort to -- yeah. It's never a one and done. Yes, we did have a -- we had a public session back in February with Department of Forestry Management who came and talked about Firewising, who came and talked about those things. But yeah, it's an ever- going effort. And to sort of capitalize on that, Chief Ott has no problem going out and making presentations and talking to people and you know, utilizing -- whether it's clubs or you know, civic groups or church groups or even HOAs, they will absolutely go out and be part of that, and so it's just a matter of trying to capitalize on that. SMITH: One last comment from me. You brought up a subject that was dear to my heart, and that's taking care of the caregivers. Without getting into a lot of stuff, years ago, I was involved in putting together a caregiver program in California, and it was amazing how much need there is for that. People don't realize that you see a lady out here with a disabled child, she's never had her hair done because she can never go and do that. Little things like that, and that's the mental part of taking care of caregivers also, so it's something that we could talk about a lot. How do we get that information TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 39 of 44 out and how do we take care of that kind of thing? HOENLE: A couple of things. The first one, I mentioned an issue in micromobility and scooters. They're a big fire hazard, and those batteries do catch fire. And so one of their big fire safety issues was getting them out of the dorms, so now they have locking facilities outside of dorms for the scooters. So that just triggered that one. I went to presentations that have started this week for the end of the year internship program at the high school. So as seniors, they have to have 40 hours with some industry, company, HOA, nonprofit, whatever around town and work with them and learn a little bit about the job. And two of the things that came out -- they have a bunch of goals and criteria that they have to meet when they're doing this -- were two of the groups were working with therapy organizations, physical therapy, and so the question came up, what's the age of your clientele? And so they walked through it, and then he looked at me and says, and most of them are your age. So it made me feel really good. [LAUGHTER] HOENLE: And then the other part of it was a student that was part of Home Instead. So they want to have care in home instead of going someplace else, and that is a big growing business in town right here. So her learning experience was really good. She was in marketing, and she got to go out and meet people and get sponsors and that sort of thing. She didn't go into the homes or anything. And they do have care providers that actually do the care, and they contract that out. But that's another industry that's growing which I wasn't that much aware of, but hearing her talk about it, it was like, man, I didn't know what Home Instead meant. So -- GOODWIN: Yeah. HOENLE: -- now I do. GOODWIN: My favorite thing about Home Instead, just as a little anecdote, is that the holiday time, you know how there's those angel trees that go out and you can buy presents and whatnot? Home Instead does a wreath over at the Community Center where you can take a senior or one of their patients and do gifts for them as well. So I just love that they capitalize on that idea and that it's part of our community. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 40 of 44 GARMAN: All right. It's a long meeting today. I apologize. I blame Kevin, so -- and he's not here. [LAUGHTER] GARMAN: As you're all going, I have one more topic that I wanted to bring up, and just remember, you're going to see these again. We're going to -- you know, when we come back for our workshop in June, we're going to sit here and a lot of things we're talking about, we're going to bring back up again and try to synthesize them into those main points for this topic. So I have one more thing that I was thinking about. You know, last year -- gosh, time goes so fast, but not just this last winter, the winter before I had gone out and talked to a lot of our nonprofits, and I know you did our workshops too to hear from the community. One thing that came up several times -- and remember this is things that I think that our community are good at, and I'm trying to look at things that are good for the age and demographic that we have in our town right now -- performing arts, theater, choirs, playing music, that type of thing, you know, some place to play French horn in Fountain Hills. French horn? SMITH: Trumpet. GARMAN: Trumpet, not a French horn? I thought it was -- SMITH: I can. GARMAN: That's okay. Okay. You know, so they have to travel into Tempe, right, to be part of an orchestra, and I know they have one in Fountain Hills as well. So thoughts on -- and we can talk about infrastructure too. You know, I was reading up on how you could make that a reality without building a big great big, you know, performing music hall. You know, we do have arts, and remember I'm saying performing arts, so it's not so much painting and stuff like that, but more theater and choirs and orchestras. You know, a performing arts district where over time -- not right away, but over time, we can center, kind of, those activities in one area that's in a walking distance from TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 41 of 44 downtown and the Dark Sky and things like that or a shared facility where we can put things like that together. I didn't know if you guys have comments on that or if there's things brewing in that direction, but when we're starting to put, like, the downtown plan and other things and we're starting to work towards that over time, I just think comments that were made to me over many of the organizations that I talked to is places for people who are creative and have talent can go and either perform or see people who perform within Fountain Hills. That's the background. Does anybody have any comments on that? I get that a lot of times they want the town to build a performing arts center like the Community -- you know, because our Community Center is so successful and nice. I don't know if that's in the cards, but anything that we could apply that our councilmembers could put their names on, you know, or school board members. So does anybody have any comments in that area as far as the town goes? I mean, we've talked about healthy food, we've talked about safety, we have a downtown plan, we have a Shea plan. Has anybody thought about what we could do to kind of collect kind of in the performing arts area? GOODWIN: Patrick, I'll throw one thing out. GARMAN: It's that uncomfortable silence -- GOODWIN: I know. I was like I'll -- GARMAN: -- until somebody talks. GOODWIN: -- jump in. And it really is -- it's more of an adjacent conversation -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: -- but if any of you have followed what is happening at the Planning and Zoning discussions recently, the last couple of P and Z meetings, they are being asked to consider an entertainment district overlay specific to the downtown so that we can begin to sort of cultivate that space for restaurants, dining, and other, you know, uses under that entertainment idea. I would think that performing arts would fit nicely in that as part of that overlay priority. I will tell you it's being met with some hesitation and some pushback, so if there is support for that concept, particularly from this body, it may make sense to at least either attend or offer that support via John Wesley and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 42 of 44 Amanda so that they can at least say, you know, that the effort aligns with some of this back concepts. And maybe that's too soon, maybe it's a little premature for that, but there is a conversation going on about that that seems to align with what you were just saying, Patrick. GARMAN: And remember, these are long-term plans. This isn't like next week. This is, you know, go watch the theater, go watch a play that we have in town, and then be able to walk, you know, park, go to the play, and then walk to somewhere to eat, or vice versa. Right now, it's down Saguaro, you know, but those kind of things to make it easier to get around and make it more accessible in town over time. SMITH: Well, you know, we, to some degree, have talked about that. I think a couple meetings ago I brought up the fact, how much space does the town actually have in this section that you're talking about of the overlay? It's all private land, private property. How do we get beyond that? GARMAN: Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. I'll let you guys think about it and simmer on that. It will come up again. I'll bring it up again. So I know it's been an hour and a half. I apologize. There was a lot to get to today. I'm going to move on, then. We're going to move on away from the health and welfare and safety pillar strategy discussion that we had today and move onto agenda item 7. I don't know. Commission work groups, Geoff, we didn't really have time for you to expand on your work group last time. YAZZETTA: I don't think there's that much more to share on it. We, you know, just gathered the feedback that we'll unpack in our June -- GARMAN: Uh-huh. YAZZETTA: -- work session. But to Bernie's point, during our updates earlier, I think having an event at the school is a good idea. I will share that my bandwidth is a little crunched right now, so if someone else wants to take up the lead on that and plan it, that would be awesome. I'm happy to attend and help though. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 43 of 44 GARMAN: Yeah. I would think that would be on the calendar for our next cycle. YAZZETTA: Okay. Sure. GARMAN: Right? Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Okay. So we're going to move onto agenda item 8, which is discussion and possible action. This is future agenda topics. This one's pretty straightforward. I don't know if we need to spend much time on this. But May infrastructure, are we good? Okay. That's the last, then, of the five months that we've spent on the strategic pillars, so that'll be another robust discussion for infrastructure and that's fit in a lot of different areas. June, then, our June meeting, we're going to have a workshop like we did last year where we'll sit down here, and we'll talk about what we've done basically since January and try to fashion some strategic items underneath our pillars that we formulated last year. So that'll be our June meeting. We will not have a meeting, then, in July, and then we'll be back at it in August for the last year, kind of, on our calendar to complete the strategic plan. So at the end of -- let's see. It's '25 -- summer '26, we would like to try to put everything together into a plan, get it edited, and then start shopping it to the town council. '26, '27 is the time frame for getting that approved. Okay. Any comments about that time frame? Nope. What we're doing the rest of this year? Okay. Those were my comments, so that's agenda 9. I've made all my comments during the meeting as far as comments from the chair. Moving on to number 10, which is our next meeting, which is Wednesday, May 28th. That's after Memorial Day, right? Is that the -- SMITH: Memorial Day is (indiscernible). GARMAN: Yeah. I believe that's the Wednesday after Memorial Day. Yeah. GOODWIN: Yeah, you'll have David for that day. GARMAN: Well, that's why I wanted to make sure and call everybody. That's the Wednesday after Memorial Day. Hopefully, we have -- who will be here, do you think, to talk about infrastructure, then? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS APRIL 23, 2025 STRATEGIC PLANNING ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Page 44 of 44 GOODWIN: It will either be Justin Weldy or David Janover, one of the two. GARMAN: Okay. All right. I don't see anybody with any questions about that, so I'll entertain any motions to adjourn the meeting. YAZZETTA: Move to adjourn. GARMAN: Do I hear a second? SMITH: Second. GARMAN: Okay. So we covered a lot of territory today, the motion on the table to adjourn, and see everybody again on May 28th, Wednesday. All in favor of adjourning the meeting today say I. ALL: I. GARMAN: Any opposed? Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Having no further business, Chairman Patrick Garman adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission held on April 23, 2025, at 5:32 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 23 day of April 2025. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED 28 day of May 2025. ____________________________________ Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant ITEM 8. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Infrastructure Pillar Strategy of Future Strategic Plan with Justin Weldy, Public Works Director. Staff Summary (Background) ITEM 9. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  UPDATE: Commission Workgroups Staff Summary (Background) ITEM 10. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Future Agenda Topics. Staff Summary (Background) ITEM 11. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   Submitting Department: Administration Prepared by: Angela Padgett-Espiritu, Executive Assistant, TM/M/TC Staff Contact Information: Request to Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN Staff Summary (Background) ITEM 12. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS STAFF REPORT    Meeting Date: 05/28/2025 Meeting Type: Strategic Planning Advisory Commission Agenda Type:                   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 Strategic Planning Advisory Commission (Agenda Language):  NEXT MEETING DATE: Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Staff Summary (Background)