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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMMPC.2018.0228.Minutes O��AIN�j TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS ' - MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION • FEBRUARY 28f 2018 rnat is Atvti AGENDA ITEM#1: CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE A public meeting of the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission was convened and called to order by Chair Bill Myers at 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 28, 2018 in the Council Chambers at Town Hall, located at 16705 East Avenue of the Fountains, Fountain Hills, Arizona. AGENDA ITEM#2: ROLL CALL Present at roll call were Chair Bill Myers, Vice-Chair Tom Barberic, Commissioners Tom Aiello, Bill Craig, Stan Ruden, Klaus Schadle and Ken Thornton.. Staff members present were Community Services Advisory Director Rachael Goodwin and Executive Assistant Jennifer Lyons. 41116., AGENDA ITEM#3: CALL TO THE PUBLIC No one from the public wished to speak. AGENDA ITEM #4: CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING THE JANUARY 23, 2018 MEETING MINUTES Chair Myers commented on the following items from the minutes: • Blucor's timeline has been received. The Town receives detailed three week window timelines as well as an overall timeline. Completion is expected in July to early August. • Emergency Markers and Signage: Commissioner Craig is working on some emergency marker locations and suggests that he, Commissioner Aiello and Chair Myers set a time to meet with Ken Valverde (GIS Technician/Cad Operator) to discuss. Chair Myers added that Parks Supervisor Kevin Snipes should also attend since he would like to make the distance (between signs) is consistent. • Trail Counters have been repaired and Commissioner Craig confirmed they are in working order. • Grant for Town Fit Trails: Director Goodwin stated she did not know yet but the Town was to be notified by the end of today (February 28th). This is federal funding through the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) through their engineering board where Town Engineer Randy Harrel is a member. It is a project to alleviate traffic on roadways and to help facilitate more pedestrian transportation. Town Engineer Harrel is the point person for this grant due to how it is being administered. This trail would essentially connect the middle school to the high school. Grants if available can be applied for as long as they adhere to our Town's Grant Policy. • The both development agreements and a preliminary plat for Adero Canyon were both passed at the February 6th Council Meeting. McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission Page 1 of 4 G:Commission MMPCIAgenda&MinuteslMinutes120/8/022818M 411) • The water and sewer line extension agreement is currently being worked on for the Trailhead. • The cost for Fit Trails has been right around $65,000, which was to complete three of the trails and included plans for all of the Fit Trails. The remaining trails have quite of infrastructure left to be done. Commissioner Aiello made a motion to accept the minutes of the January 23, 2018 meeting, Commissioner Ruden seconded and the motion passed by unanimous vote. **Item#5 and#6 were addressed together** AGENDA ITEM #5: CONSIDERATION OF MOVING THE MARCH 27, 2018 MEETING TO MARCH 28, 2018 AGENDA ITEM #6: CONSIDERATION OF MOVING THE APRIL 24, 2018 MEETING TO APRIL 25, 2018 Vice-Chair Barberic made a motion to move the March 27, 2018 meeting to March 28, 2108 at 4:30 p.m., and moving the April 24, 2018 to April 25, 2018 at 5:00 p.m. and Commissioner Thornton seconded and the motion passed by unanimous vote. AGENDA ITEM#7: UPDATE ON THE TOWN FAIR • 1,350 people were talked to at the booth, which is up from 1,300 from last year. • Video is hard to be seen due to glare and video is too long. • 18 Volunteers manned the booth. AGENDA ITEM#8: UPDATE ON THE 2018 MMPC OBJECTIVES • Grand Opening of the Trailhead: should be a collaborative effort between the Conservancy, the MMPC and the Town. • Budget: It has been forwarded to Council with Town Manager Miller's recommendations, but it has not yet been reviewed with Council. A number of things that were put in for this year were one time purchases and will not roll over, so if there has been a purchase that has been identified for this fiscal year we make that purchase because it is not intended to be rolled over into the next budget. Nothing so far has been cut out of the budget that was submitted, but the signs were earmarked because there is a budget for signs in this year's budget and the "Golden Eagle Trailhead"was flagged as a potential item for discussion. • Firewising: The Town and homeowners associations seem to be doing a good job. There seems to be more and more fire potential that is being cut down. • 911 Test: The final test is coming up on Friday with Assistant Fire Chief Jason Payne. When we did just a cell phone test, we had three groups of two go out into the Preserve to make cell phone calls from several vendors (service providers) and that all worked fine. With the Trailhead under construction we only have the room for two groups of two; one will go out on the Lower Sonoran Trail that is in our Preserve and the other one will go the Sonoran Trail which is in Maricopa County Park. We don't expect any difficulty since the 911 signal is stronger than the average carrier. • Golden Eagle Trail Entry Sign: Director Goodwin confirmed that we would need to see if there McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission Page 2 of 4 G.Commission MMPCIAgenda&MinuteslMinutes12018/022818M were funds budgeted in this fiscal year for this project. Signage for this fiscal year was budgeted at $2,000. Chair Myers stated that the estimate for this sign is $6,000, so the Commission will need to do rethinking about that. • Sonoran Conservancy: The trail (hiking) schedule is going very well. Today there was an eight mile hike to the Preserve and back with 24 people. The 5'x 3' metal sign that was purchased by the Conservancy was installed this past week at the Botanical Garden. The Trailblazers have been given the "Legacy Award" by the Lower River Verde Valley Hall of Fame associated with the River of Time Museum and the dinner is March 28th. The maintenance of the upper loop of the Sonoran Trail is two-thirds done and will be finished this season. • Joint Meetings with Council: Council has been tapped to the point where they cannot manage any additional meetings. They have had several joint meetings as well as meetings for the tax vote, so at this point for the rest of the spring all Commission level joint meetings have been postponed. The ten minute update to Council has been confirmed for the March 6th agenda. • Expansion of the road by the Botanical Gardens: No parking spaces will be lost and that has been confirmed with Town Engineer Randy Harrel. • Adero Trail Site Visit: The bus will leave promptly at 10:30 a.m. next Thursday, March 8th from the Community Center. AGENDA ITEM#9: UPDATE ON THE SONORAN CONSERVANCY *This item was discussed under item#8* AGENDA ITEM#10: DISCUSSION ON QR CODES AND SIGNS There are no updates at this time. It is the IT Department's agenda and we are looking to have an update for the next meeting. AGENDA ITEM#11: DISCUSSION ON THE 2018-2019 MMPC BUDGET *This item was discussed under item#8* AGENDA ITEM #12: UPDATE ON THE ADERO CANYON TRAILHEAD CONSTRUCTION PROJECT • Project is on track for a late July early August completion. • We had to fast track a few things there that did not get picked up during the review process with Epcor and SRP. One of them is a line extension agreement. Our plans took us to the edge of the cul-de-sac but the main is in the middle of the cul-de-sac, so that extra 20 feet needed to be worked out as to who is responsible for it and who owns it and we have been working with Epcor to finalize that. SRP there has been discussion of who owns it and where does it go, so we had to expand the size of the easement. • Retaining walls and gabion baskets are in. The area has been roughed out for the ramada and they are getting approvals for the slab for the restroom facility. • Blucor has been able to salvage quite a bit of the natural landscape such as rock outcroppings, Lar. quite a few cacti and replant them so they fall into some natural locations as opposed to clear cutting everything. They were able to salvage quite a bit of the rock face wall to minimize a lot of McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission Page 3 of 4 G:Commission MMPCIAgenda&MinuteslMinutesl20/8/022818M vt) the scarring. Blucor has also begun to discuss access to the Overlook Trail as how to maintain and keep that access as open as possible. • The bulk of the dirt moving is complete with the drainage and all of the underlying utilities been dug out. • Commissioner Craig commented that the trails that presently lead into the Trailhead (The Overlook Trail and the bike trail) they (Blucor) doesn't need to necessarily preserve where they are presently fitting in, as the access can be moved and rebuilt. As for the question of access to the Promenade Trail to the Trailhead, since there is a gate across there now. Director Goodwin will check into and get back to the Commission. AGENDA ITEM#13: CONSIDERATION OF ADJOURNMENT Commissioner Schadle made a motion to adjourn at 5:45 p.m., Vice-Chair Barberic seconded and the motion passed by unanimous vote. McDow 11 untain Preservation Commission By: Bill ers, Chair Reviewed by: Rachael Goodwin,erect of Community Services Prepared by: Jenni24/t../ yons, ecutive A stant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission Meeting held on February 28, 2018. I further certify that the meeting as duly called and that a quorum was present. By: Je ' er Lyo , xecutiv Assistant Dated this 12th day of March 2018 McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission Page 4 of 4 G.Commission MMPCIAgenda&Minutes1Minuter12 01 8/02 2 8 1 8M