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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022.0920.TCRM.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL
SEPTEMBER 20, 2022
1. CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mayor Dickey called the Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on
September 20, 2022, to order at 5:30 p.m. and led the Council and audience in the
Pledge of Allegiance.
2. MOMENT OF SILENCE
A moment of silence was held.
3. ROLL CALL
Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Gerry Friedel; Councilmember
David Spelich; Councilmember Sharron Grzybowski; Councilmember Alan Magazine;
Councilmember Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Mike Scharnow
Members Absent: None
Staff Present Town Manager Grady E. Miller; Town Attorney Aaron D. Amson; Town
Clerk Linda Mendenhall
Audience: Thirty-eight members of the public were present.
4. REPORTS BY MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, AND TOWN MANAGER
A. RECOGNITION: Stellar Students of the Month for September
Mayor Dickey recognized the following students who were in attendance for their
achievements.
Pablo Michel McDowell Mountain Elementary School
Natalie Guerrette Fountain Hills Middle School
Jacob Lanoner, Fountain Hills Middle School
Matthew D'Anna Fountain Hills High School
B. PROCLAMATION: September 17 - 23, 2022, as Constitution Week.
Mayor Dickey issued a proclamation on Constitution Week.
Viree Byrne Regent, Four Peaks Chapter of NSDAR accepted the proclamation and
expressed her appreciation.
Clerk's Note: during the reports by Mayor, Council members, and the Town
Manager item, Councilmember Magazine stepped away from the dais at 5:47
p.m. and returned at 5:50 p.m.
5. SCHEDULED PUBLIC APPEARANCES/PRESENTATIONS
A. PRESENTATION: Water Issues Update. Presented by Doug Dunham
Chad Guzman, Director of Government Relations for EPCOR introduced the
speakers for the water issues update.
Frank Metzler, Director of Operations for EPCOR provided an update on the
water system infrastructure for Fountain Hills and answered the council's
questions.
Doug Dunham, Water Resources Manager for EPCOR provided an update on
water resources the drought, and the possible impacts on water service delivery
in Arizona and Fountain Hills and answered the council's questions.
B. PRESENTATION: Monthly Report by Captain Kratzer of the Maricopa County
Sheriffs Office.
Captain Kratzer of the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office provided an update on
law enforcement services and answered the council's questions.
6. CALL TO THE PUBLIC
Pursuant to A.RS. §38-091. 01(H), public comment is permitted (not required) on matters NOT listed on the agenda. Any such comment (i)
must be within the junsdictioo of the council, and (ii) Is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The Council will not
discuss or take legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal
action. At conclusion of the call to the Pudic. individual cooncilmembers may (i) respond to cnncrsm, (i) ask stanm review a matter, or
(iii) ask that the matter be placed on a future Council agenda.
The Following residents addressed the council under the Call to the Public.
Linda Salavitch a Fountain Hills resident, addressed the council regarding
homelessness and asked for a call to action on this issue.
Rick Watts a Fountain Hills resident, addressed the council regarding the community
center and the report prepared by the Allana Buick and Bers Company.
Larry Meyers a Fountain Hills resident, addressed the council regarding the community
center and expressed his concern over the organic material identified in the June 14th
report by Allana Buick and Bers Company.
7. CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS
All items listed on the Consent Agenda are considered to be raurne, noncontroversial matters and will be enacted by one motion of the
Council. An motions and subsequent approvals of consent trams win include all recommended staff stipulations unless otherwise stated
There will be no separate discussion of these Items unless a councilmember or member of the public so requests. If a ccuncilmember or
member o/the public wishes to discuss an item an the Consent Agenda, he/she may request so prior fo the motion to accept the Consent
Agenda or with notification to the Town Manager or Mayor prod to the date of the meeting for which the item was scheduled. The items will
be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda.
Mayor Dickey removed #7D from the consent agenda for separate consideration and
approval. MOVED BY Sharron Grzybowski to approve the Consent Agenda without item
#7D, SECONDED BY Vice Mayor Gerry Friedel.
Vote: 7 — 0 passed — Unanimously
Councilmember Grzybowski Aye
Councilmember Magazine Aye
Councilmember McMahon Aye
Councilmember Scharnow Aye
Councilmember Spelich Aye
Vice Mayor Friedel Aye
Mayor Dickey Aye
A. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the minutes for the
Special Meeting of August 22, 2022, and Work Session of August 22, 2022.
8. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of a Special Event Liquor
License application for the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce to serve alcohol
at the Dance and Glow Party on October 22, 2022.
C. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of Liquor License
Application for Bone Haus Brewing, location 14825 E. Shea, Fountain Hills,
Arizona, for an Extension of Premises/Patio Permit to create a cellaring room for
the brewery.
THE FOLLOWING ITEM WAS PULLED FROM THE CONSENT
AGENDA TO BE VOTED ON SEPARATELY:
D. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of budget transfers for
the Capital Project Fund, Vehicle Replacement Fund, and Facilities Reserve
Fund, Special Revenue Fund, and General Fund.
David Pock, Finance Director, presented the budget transfers listed in the staff
report.
MOVED BY Councilmember Mike Scharnow to approve the budget transfers as
requested, SECONDED BY Councilmember Alan Magazine.
Vote: 7 — 0 Passed — unanimously
Councilmember Grzybowski Aye
Councilmember Magazine Aye
Councilmember McMahon Aye
Councilmember Scharnow Aye
Councilmember Spelich Aye
Vice Mayor Friedel Aye
Mayor Dickey Aye
8. REGULAR AGENDA
A. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: A request for a Special Use Permit
to allow up to four dwelling units in the C-C (Common Commercial) zoning district
on an 8,000 square -foot lot located at the northwest corner of El Pueblo
Boulevard and Ivory Drive (Case #SUP22-000001).
Mayor Dickey opened the item up for public comment. The following residents
addressed the council.
John Gurczak, a Fountain Hills resident and the builder and developer of the
property, provided additional input on the parking for this location and answered
the council's questions.
Betsy LaVoie a Fountain Hills resident, addressed the council, stating the need
for more housing in Fountain Hills and mentioning the council's past approvals
for special use permits.
Don Prescott a Fountain Hills resident, addressed the council regarding the
special use permit, mentioning that he welcomes commercial and residential
neighbors.
MOVED BY Vice Mayor Gerry Friedel to approve the Special Use Permit to 22-
000001 to allow up to four dwelling units and require the parking spaces in
the building to be designated for tenant or owner use, as approved through site
plan review, SECONDED BY Councilmember Alan Magazine.
Vote: 7 — 0 Passed — unanimously
Councilmember Grzybowski Aye
Councilmember Magazine Aye
Councilmember McMahon Aye
Councilmember Scharnow Aye
Councilmember Spelich Aye
Vice Mayor Friedel Aye
Mayor Dickey Aye
9. COUNCIL DISCUSSION/DIRECTION to the TOWN MANAGER
Item(s) listed below are related only to the propriety of (1) placing such item(s)on a future agenda for action, or (II)
directing staff to conduct further research and report back to the Council.
10 ADJOURNMENT
MOVED BY Mayor Ginny Dickey to adjourn, SECONDED BY Councilmember Alan
Magazine.
Vote: 7 — 0 Passed — Unanimously
The Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on September 20, 2022,
adjourned at 7:35 p.m.
A . ST AND PREPARED BY:
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
1Ckty
Gin Dickey,
CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of
the Regular Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council
Chambers on the 20th day of September 2022. I further certify that the meeting was duly
called and that a quorum was present.
DAT .J this 18th •a of October 2022.
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 1 of 50
SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Post -Production File
Town of Fountain Hills
September 20, 2022 City Council Meeting
Transcription Provided By:
eScribers, LLC
i i i i
Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not
be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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SEPTEMBER 20. 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
MAYOR DICKEY: Good evening, everyone. Please, stand for the Pledge and remain
standing.
ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Please remain standing for a moment of silence.
Thank you, all.
Okay. Roll call, please.
MENDENHALL- Thank you, Mayor.
Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Here.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Friedel?
FRIEDEL• Present.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember McMahon?
MCMAHON: Here.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Schamow?
SCHARNOW: Here.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Magazine?
MAGAZINE: Here.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Spelich?
SPELICH: Present.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Present.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. We will start with our reports. Grady, do you have a
report today?
MILLER: Yes, I've got some exciting news. Kind of giving this a little bit away, but I'll
share it with the public.
You probably recall at the last council meeting we had a great presentation from our
deputy town manager and community services director, Rachael Goodwin, about the
national gold medal award from her professional organization, the National Parks and
Recreation Association. Well, today, the conference awarded the town of Fountain Hills
Community Services Department the national gold medal award. This is a huge honor
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
for the town and really could not have been done without the leadership of Rachael and
her team to get to where we are.
This is the second year that we were nominated and made it to the finals. Last year, as
you recall, we were one of the three finalists but this year we actually won the award.
We'll actually have the award at some point, and we'll keep that in a public display area
so that the whole public can see it. So really big deal.
I also want to remind the Council and the public that our annual report for fiscal year
'21/'22 is online now and it's available for you to review. This covers the time period of
fiscal year'21/'22.
Also, our most recent issue of the Fountain Hills Insider, which is our community
newsletter, hit the mailboxes starting last week. It has a lot of -- if you look at the
backside of it, it's chockfull of events, pretty much between now and the end of the
calendar year.
That's all I have, Mayor.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilmember.
MCMAHON: Good evening. I have a couple of things if you don't mind. Ballet Under
the Stars was really a great turnout and it was a wonderful event, everybody enjoyed it.
Last week the Maricopa County Association of Governments called a special meeting for
the economic committee to talk about the fact that Governor Ducey vetoed Prop 400,
which is the half a cent tax that funds our infrastructure and transit systems throughout
the Valley. This is going to have a severe impact, by the billions of dollars, on the future
growth of Maricopa County and other surrounding counties. And we really all need to be
educated about and pay attention so that if it comes back up on the ballot, we all
understand it. So I think Grady's working with MAG to have them come out and do a
presentation to the Council and to the citizens, so we'd better understand the consequence
of that veto.
Also, I attended East Valley Partnership Annual Stateman's luncheon where it was
discussing a little bit about the division of politics in the nation and locally and that was
interesting.
I also attended Teen Court. We have a Teen Court here that I found really, really
interesting. It's a diversion program and when teens commit misdemeanors, instead of
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
going through the full court system or to jail, they agree to go through Teen Court. And
what Teen Court is, it's held in the courtroom here and ajury of their peers, they're high
school students, come in and it's just like a courtroom run. He's talked about what
happened to himself. He goes out. The jury of his peers deliberates. Then they come
back in, and they all agree on what community service or whatever he's going to do. And
he has to do it through the Maricopa County Probate Department, or his record isn't
exonerated. So it was really interesting to watch these teenagers think, deliberate, and
ask some pretty hefty questions of one of their fellow students.
And also, the Leadership Academy had an opening ceremony last week and Class 6 is
now having sessions over the next few weeks and on Thursday, we're going to be hosting
the class for Know Your Town. And then that's about it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Vice Mayor?
FRIEDEL• Thank you, Mayor.
fd like to congratulate the town and Rachael and her department on the gold medal
award. it's well, well due.
I also attended the Leadership Academy dedication and there's a lot of really dedicated
people in the town that attended that night. So congratulations to Class 6. I'm sure you'll
do really well.
And a little reminder that we have our homecoming game for our Fountain Hill Falcons
on Friday night. So if anybody's around, they can get out to that game and support our
home team.
And I also attended several ribbon cuttings for the Chamber during the last week and a
half. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
GRZYBOWSKI: First, I'd like to mention the gold medal that our community services
folks won as well. I don't know if you guys remember but last year when we came in as
one of the four finalists, that's how we got hooked up with our skatepark lights and the
fast mini pitch, dang nabbit, I just don't understand why it's called that, so it just doesn't
stick in my head.
Anyway, it's super exciting. Hopefully we'll get some fun stuff Definitely recognition if
nothing else, out of being the winner this year.
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SEPTEMBER 20. 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
The one meeting I want to talk about is, as a guest of the Phoenix East Valley Critical
Infrastructure and Transportation Committee, I attended the Chandler Chamber meeting
regarding next steps after Governor Ducey vetoed an approved ballot measure that would
have allowed Maricopa voters to extend a sales tax to fund transportation projects. This
dedicated half cent sales tax was developed by the Maricopa mayors in the'80s because
the state wasn't able to get a plan together for highway spending.
In 2004, the mayors realized that it was still needed, so they worked together again to
make it happen. Both times -- wow, I'm so exciting, I turn the lights off.
Both times this was approved by the Maricopa voters. That half cent sales tax represents
over 50 percent of the county's overall portfolio. Without this continued investment,
much of our growth is at risk. Roadways arc one of our biggest attractions to new
businesses. We'll also see our assets decay without this funding.
The representative from Maricopa Association of Government says that the devastation
from losing this dedicated half cent sales tax cannot be understated. The group is
working on an impact study to make sure that the governor, state legislators, and
candidates for those positions, understand how important this is for Maricopa roadways,
which also impacts the traffic through out state.
Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks very much. So glad that you both were able to hear that
firsthand, the kind of stuff that Grady and 1, and probably Mike too with RPTA have
heard so much over the last several months. And also congratulations to Rachael and
because what is reflected in that is that she's serving and we are serving our community
with wonderful parks and with activities and we look forward to more, including
Oktoberfest which is also on Friday and Saturday.
I met with a potential connection for a program that will be about schools for our possible
spring Fountain Hills Cares event, but right now the one that's coming up on October
20th will be for veterans. So we look forward to that. I think we put some information
out about that today.
I attended our East Valley meeting, quarterly meeting. The Greater Phoenix Economic
Council had our Mayor Supervisors meeting, it's the 29th session for the legislative
director for GPEC, whose name is Rob Dalager, but 1 knew him as the chief of staff at the
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SEPTEMBER 20. 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
senate when I worked there in 1998. So he's been at this for a long time and really doing
his best for economic development in the State of Arizona.
At that time we had a 15/15 split in the senate, so it was a unique time of bipartisanship
and things worked out really well.
At GPEC we've been having similar conversations and about Prop 400 of course, but as
we are with MAG and the Teague about cities and towns having local decision -making
sort of being eroded year after year, including our zoning, which we really are keeping an
eye on this year. GPEC has been very successful at attracting businesses and activity in
the Valley and we expect water to be an issue and well hear more about that today. But
also the power grid has now started to become an issue, so he finds himself discussing
that, trying to remain competitive here in Arizona, which so far, we have been. We had a
sister city planning meeting for possible international visitors here; hopefully more to
come on that.
Speaking of that, we had community relations director, Bo Larsen, our economic
development director, Amanda Jacobs and 1 met with the delegation from Israel which
was coordinated by the Global Ties Arizona which is the implementing organization for
the State Department. They have an international visitor leadership program. They had
lunch here in town. They met with sister cities reps and they were some policy advisor
for Knessett very high up. They were informative and lively and left me wanting to look
more up about their country.
We met with our branding team, which we're in the process of that right now with
Councilmember Magazine and Director Goodwin, and town manager, and Bo and there's
more to come on that too.
Leadership Academy, that was awesome. And that's it for activities. 1 forgot to mention
that Item 70, the consentage item, will be the first item on the regular agenda. We had a
request to do that. So that takes care of that.
Our next good part of the meeting is our stellar students. So the way we do this with the
students, I read your name and what your friends and teachers said about you and the
Angela gives you the certificate and then we'll take a picture with the paper when we're
done. And while I'm down there though, I'll be calling on the Four Peaks Chapter of the
DAR to come up and we'll do a proclamation for Constitution Week.
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
So we'll get started with the kids first.
Well, McDowell Mountain, we'll begin with the elementary school. Emmalin Anaiya
(ph.)? Is she here? Emmalin? No? Well, well read all the good stuff about her from her
teachers and her principal. Emmalin has demonstrated all four of the Falcon pillars:
respectful, responsible, safe, and kind. She always has a smile on her face and is willing
to help whenever she can. So well make sure Emmalin gets their certificate.
Next from McDowell, we have Pablo Michel. Is Pablo here? Yay. Come on up to see
Angela. Pablo, he also has demonstrated all four of the Falcon pillars, being respectful,
responsible, safe, and kind. He helps others all the time, and he gives maximum effort.
That's Pablo.
Next, we go to the middle school, and we have Natalie Guerrette. Is Natalie here? All
right. I hope I said that right. So Natalie -- oh, Natalie is a force of nature. She's
confident, creative, very bright, and a well-spoken young lady with a streak of blue hair.
She's quick and -- where did you get that from? She's quick with her smile, always
willing to answer questions. We see how she helps her classmates and her teachers
frequently without even being asked. She's very kind to others, honest, and direct. That's
Natalie.
Also from the middle school is Jacob Langner. Is Jacob here? Jacob gets out of his car
every day with a smile. He's ajoy to have in classes. He participates in discussions, asks
questions, and he always does his best work. Jacob is very kind, friendly, thoughtful and
works well with anyone he's sitting with. You guys are with him right now. Thank you,
Jacob.
Now, we go to the high school. I know that Ketterick (ph.) isn't here, but Ketterick
Garmin (ph.) from the high school is a joy to have in class. He's a very bright student
with a bright future. He has A -plus in honor's English class and is a varsity athlete as a
sophomore. So let's give it for Ketterick.
And the last, but not least from the high school, is Matthew D'Anna. Is Matthew here?
Matthew, he's very polite and respectful. Has a A in English 10. Matthew is a very
bright student with a very bright future. Thank you, Matthew.
All right.
Look at the camera. All right.
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Okay. Now, were going to do a proclamation for Constitution Week.
Thank you. Welcome. We're so happy to have you, Four Peaks Chapter of the DAR. So
I'll give you this to hold and then I'll read it to you on a paper that I can actually see.
Come on up, that's great.
Constitution Week. Whereas the constitution of the United States of America, the
guardian of our liberties and bodies, the principals of limited government in a republic,
dedicated to rule by law.
And whereas, September 17th, 2022 marks the 235th anniversary of the framing of the
constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention.
And whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent
document and its memorable anniversary, and to the patriotic celebrations which will
commemorate it.
And whereas Public Law 915, guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the
President of the United States of America, designating September 17th through the 23rd
as Constitution Week, so therefore I, Ginny Dickey, by virtue of the authority vested in
me, mayor of Town of Fountain Hills, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th
through the 23rd, as Constitution Week and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals of the
framers of the constitution that they had in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms
guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties.
Thank you so much for bringing this to us and if you'd like to say a few words, we'd love
to hear from you.
BYRNE: I would just like to thank you, Mayor Dickey, very much for helping us to
commemorate Constitution Week and this most important document.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Thanks so much for coming.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, everyone. Thanks for coming.
Our next item is a presentation regarding water issues which has been a lot of interest
recently. Grady?
MILLER: Yes. Thank you, Mayor, and Council.
As a number of you have been hearing from your constituents, there's been a lot of
concern in the news media lately about the water reservoirs, Lake Mead and some of the
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
other major water reservoirs are way down from where they have been historically and
the drought that we're in.
We're delighted to have tonight, Doug Dunham, who is the manager of water resources
for EPCOR. He's got a really great reputation. Previously, he had a career, a long career,
over at Arizona Department of Water Resources. And we have, along with him, we also
have the great team of EPCOR that has been very helpful to us and troubleshooting a lot
of our customer issues relating to water. We have Frank Metzler, the director of
operations. If you could just raise your hand. And Chad Guzman who is up here. He's
about to introduce Mr. Dunham. He's our government relations manager and he's been
very helpful when we've had matters or issues that need to get resolved. He's always
right there.
So I'll turn it over to Mr. Guzman before we kick off the presentation.
GUZMAN: Thank you, Mayor Dickey, Councilmembers. For the record my name is
Chad Guzman. Pm our director of government relations for EPCOR Water. First of all,
just thank you so much for time on your busy agenda to come and talk about a very
important topic, as Mr. Miller just outlined.
Mayor Dickey, and everyone, thank you so much for your continued leadership on these
important issues. Thank you so much to Bo Larsen, who is instrumental in helping us
coordinate this presentation. He's been fantastic to work with and special thanks to town
manager Miller who does a great job of keeping us informed about what's happening in
the town and vice versa. Really appreciate the spirit of collaboration that we enjoy with
the Town of Fountain Hills.
So tonight, we are here to address water supply, water planning that EPCOR has engaged
in for decades to prepare for this moment. In a time of drought, where we all read the
headlines every day and with a new shortage declaration on the Colorado River by the
federal government, we want to come here and instill confidence in you that EPCOR has
been very well prepared for this moment, in the decades of planning that have gone into
it.
So tonight, I'm honored to introduce two of the senior mangers on our leadership team at
EPCOR. First, our director of operations, Frank Metzler, who oversees this water system
for the town of Fountain Hills. There is nobody that knows the nuts and bolts of this
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water system better than Frank. He's going to give a kind of a system -specific overview
of what we have here, infrastructure -wise for the town.
And second, Doug Dunham, our manager of water resources, has decades of experience
before coming to EPCOR, at the Department of Water Resources. Really one of the
foremost experts in the field to talk from a more statewide higher -level perspective on
water resource management for the State of Arizona.
So with that, happy to introduce Frank Metzler. Thank you.
METZLER: Good evening. Let's see here. Hey, I did it right.
So as Chad said, my name is Frank Metzler. I'm the director of operations for the eastern
division of EPCOR Water Arizona. And I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to
you about the work that we do to take care of the customers here in Fountain Hills and
make sure that everybody has water. In these times where there are a lot of concerns
about the drought and a lot of discussions in the media, it's important for everybody to
know that there are a lot of people working hard to make sure that there's water for
everyone and that we're doing everything in our power to make sure that were prepared
for the future.
So the good news is that I just have one slide. And I'll talk very briefly about what we're
doing from an operations perspective to be prepared for any type of cutback on the
central Arizona project. And then with that, I'll hand it to Doug and Doug can get into
much more detail about where we are with the Colorado River and the reservoirs in the
central Arizona project.
So last year, right about this time, we came and gave a presentation, and I looked back at
my slides the other day and I realized that I threw a whole bunch of numbers on the
screen, and I talked about a whole bunch of math. And I realized that I think the message
got lost in the math. So this time, I'm going to try to keep it a little simpler and then I'm
happy to answer any questions that you might have if you want additional information.
So in a nutshell, if you live in the town of Fountain Hills, your potable water when you
turn on the tap, comes from one of two sources. It either comes from one of two
groundwater wells that we have right here in town, or it comes from the Central Arizona
Project.
The water from the Central Arizona Project is surface water. It comes up Shea Boulevard
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to our Shea surface water treatment plant where we clean it, remove turbidity, and
chlorinate it, and then push it out into the system. Now, when we talk about the drought,
I've received a lot of phone calls and people ask me, well, what if there is no water in the
Central Arizona Project and where would the water come from, and all that sort of thing.
The first thing I want you to understand is the two wells that we currently have in
production here in Fountain Hills are very good wells. And for about four months out of
the year, roughly from December through March, those two wells alone could meet all of
the water demand in Fountain Hills if required. We'd have to make some adjustments to
one of the wells to treat for arsenic, but that's a very straightforward process. We've done
that at many other wells. We know how to do it and we can do that if we need to.
In the months of April through November, there are typically periods where the demand
in the system from our customers, exceeds the ability of those two wells to produce
enough water to take care of all our customers. And if you add up all of that demand
between April and November, that volume of water represents about 167 million gallons
of Central Arizona Project water. If you convert that into acre feet, that's 512 acre feet.
Now, to put that in perspective, 512 acre feet, that might sound like a lot of water.
The Town of Fountain Hills Central Arizona Project annual entitlement, the volume of
water that you're entitled to from the Central Arizona Project, is 8,909 acre feet. So in
other words, the volume of water that exceeds the ability of our current two wells to take
care of customers, represents about six percent of Fountain Hills' total CAP entitlement.
If you flip that around on its head, what that means is unless there's a cutback on the
Central Arizona Project of roughly 90 percent of the total volume, everything's all right.
Okay?
The bottom line here is that Fountain Hills can sustain a significant CAP reduction and
we will still be able to meet system demand for all of our customers without requiring
any type of mandatory cutbacks or reductions.
So hopefully, that's a little more clear than I was last year. I'm happy to answer any
questions or more than happy to hand it over to Doug.
FRIEDEL. I think last time you were out, you mentioned that we did have a third well, if
we needed to use that, we always had that as a backup as well, right?
METZLER: So there are two other wells, and after my presentation last week, I had a
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chat with the Fountain Hills sanitary district. And what I teamed is that in the years
before me, which goes back a long time, those two wells were essentially taken offline
because of the recharge of reclaimed water that occurs at the lake there where the
fountain is. So those two wells, we can't really use those wells in the future, unless we
came to some sort of agreement with the Fountain Hills sanitary district. And I'm fairly
certain that those two wells would have to be treated for nitrates and arsenic.
So if we get into a situation where we need additional wells, we'll certainly take a look at
those and have a discussion with the sanitary district, but it's really up to them whether or
not that would be an opportunity for us.
MCMAHON: I have a question. The numbers look great here, however, I'd like to know
for what length of time do those figures apply to? 100 years, 50 years? I mean it sounds
really good but what length of time are we able to provide for ourselves in Fountain Hills
without having to go elsewhere?
METZLER: Now, that's a fantastic question. And the reality is, when you have wells,
every well is different. But when you pump wells for an extended period of time, they
experience what's called a cone of depression and so you gradually draw the water down
around the well. You essentially lower the water table. So we've never run those wells
for an extended period of time, over years, at full volume.
I wish I could answer your question directly with how much pumping they could sustain.
The reality is, and Doug will talk much more about this. If we were ever to get into a
situation where the Central Arizona Project experienced an extended cutback of a very
high volume, we would drill additional wells. There's enough groundwater out there to
sustain the demands of Fountain Hills, but we would have to drill additional wells and
you'd want them not immediately adjacent to one another, so that they don't draw from
the aquifer right next to each other; if that makes sense.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, Councilmember?
MAGAZINE: I'm a little puzzled. Do you know why there'd be any question as to
whether or not the sanitary district would allow use of Wells 3 and 4? And you said
something about drilling more wells if necessary. How do those two relate?
METZLER: So my understanding from my time at the Department of Water Resources
in Arizona DEQ, is that when you have a facility that recharges reclaimed water back into
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the water table, it's important to not try to draw potable water from immediately adjacent
to those types of facilities, because there are nitrates, there are nutrients in there, and
there are other constituents of concern. You prefer to take your water from the aquifer
farther away from where reclaimed water is being recharged.
And I'm not sure I understood your second question, sir.
MAGAZINE: Well, I was just comparing the two. You said if we had to drill two more
wells and I'm saying there are two more wells. Why? You just answered the question.
MELTZER: Okay.
MAYOR DICKEY: I think we have larger picture probably questions that will be
answered on the next segment, because I think we all have the knowledge that Fountain
Hills itself is doing good, but we also see everything that's happening around us. So
there's messages from all over the place about how low the water is in the lakes and Lake
Mead and all this. So I think there is a desire out there to help in any way and a more
broad way. So I think well talk later, after you're all through, with Grady about some of
the things that maybe we could do.
Yes, sir.
SCHARNOW: A quick question. On the annual CAP entitlement, the 8,909 acre feet,
how much of that are you using now in terms of the mix of wells and CAP water?
MELTZER: So that was on the slide last year. We typically through the year, right now,
are running a Wend of about 60 percent CAP water and 40 percent groundwater and there
are various reasons for that. The water that we don't take directly and put into the
system; we don't lose that water. We recharge that water in other parts of the valley. So
the city's not losing credit for the water that it's entitled to -- the town, I'm sorry. Thank
you.
DUNHAM: Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is Doug Dunham, I'm
water resources manager for EPCOR. I'm a Phoenix native, but more importantly I'm a
27-year veteran resident of the Town of Fountain Hills. So I put my stakes down here a
long time ago and raising kids and here I am. So happy to be with you.
I have a history of every time I go out and give a water resources drought speech that it
rains, and true to form it rained at my house this morning. So I just need to do this every
day and we'll be fine, right.
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So just real quick. EPCOR, who we are. We have water systems across Arizona and
New Mexico and Texas, as you can see up and down the river. In Mojave County as well
as the west valley and down in the southeast valley in San Tan, along with our Rio Verde
and Chaparral systems right here.
So one of the things I'd like to point out every opportunity I can, is that Arizona's done a
really good job at managing our long-tenn water supplies. It doesn't really always get out
in the press. All the detailed work that has gone into making sure the state is well
positioned with water supplies.
So one of the things that I like to point out is that in 1980 the Groundwater Management
Act was passed that created the Arizona Department of Water Resources and put in the
legal frame that we have to manage Arizona's water supply under these really strict state
laws. One of that key components to that is that the code requires us to have mandatory
conservation requirements for every single water -use sector. So whether you're a
municipal provider like EPCOR, or you're a farmer, or you're an industrial user, you all
have conservation requirements you have to meet. And so when I get asked how much
water do we have and how many people can we support here, I always say I don't know,
because we have done such a good job of putting in place conservation programs, we use
much less water today than we used to. In fact, our peak water use was in 1980 and our
current water use today is actually less than what we used in 1957. And that accounts for
increased population as well as our increased economic output. So on the graph we have
here the blue water drops is our demand across state-wide. The orange people graph line
is the population increase and then you can see our economic output and how much that
we have grown. So you can do good water management, increase conservation, and still
support people and a strong economy.
I did it now, all right. I need all the help I can get.
All right. So one of the programs I think Frank alluded to it too, that happens on a state-
wide basis and EPCOR participates in that, is the underground storage and recovery
program. So what we do is we store renewable water supplies underground and then that
water is available, it's tracked, it's protected, and then it's available to recover later when
you need it. So to date, we have stored across the state over three trillion gallons of
water. That equates to the annual demand for the City of Phoenix for 30 years. What we
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store is a combination of CAP water, reclaimed water and then, on an annual basis, we
restore and recover various surface water.
Also, there is a state agency out there that is housed with the Department of Water
Resources, called the Arizona Water Banking Authority. They were established in 1996
and their entire mission is to obtain renewable water supplies, store those underground as
a backup supply for municipal and industrial users like EPCOR for firming and they also
provide some of the backup supplies for some of the travel settlements. To date, they
have stored over 3.76 million acre feet of water underground and that water is going to be
available, if there are deep cuts on the Central Arizona Project system, that water is
available to the MAF contractors as a backup to keep them whole.
Part of the effort that goes into this is not just putting it in the ground but how you're
going to get it back out. So for the past five years, EPCOR has been a key participant in
the RPAG group and that is all the water providers in the valley along with the Central
Arizona Project Department of Water Resources and the Water Bank to lay out exactly
how much water each water provider is going to get, how much do they need, how do
they cover that, and where is that recovery going to happen. And that gets down to
system -specific requirements. So for a water system that is based primarily on
groundwater, but that uses the credits indirectly, like some of our West Valley systems,
the Water Bank simply will provide us underground storage credits to keep the
accounting square for those systems. But systems like here in Fountain Hills, where we
actually rely on wet water deliveries to our surface water treatment plant, we will be
getting wet water deliveries that we recovered, or we may exchange recovered credits for
wet deliveries from some other water provider, say for the City of Phoenix for example.
So we'll make sure that moving forward, if there are deep cuts on the CAP system, not
only will we get credits, but we will be able to have wet water deliveries to our water
treatment plant to keep that functioning.
So in addition, the Department of Water Resources also has several requirements in place
under state law to mandate that water providers like EPCOR do have a drought plan, are
able to respond to these types of conditions as they arise. So we have a water system
plan that we have to update every five years. Those specifically include analyses on our
water supply, our drought preparedness, and then what our water conservations programs
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are and how successful we are at meeting those. On an annual basis we have reports that
we have to file with the Department as well, and the designations of assured water supply
providers out there, like our system here in Fountain Hills, we also have to project out in
a five -to -ten-year increments on our ability to support additional growth versus our
supply.
And then, we also have an annual conservation report that we submit to DWR in addition
to the Arizona Corporation Commission.
So overall, our water portfolio for EPCOR here in the state is really robust. It's varied
with multiple sources of water. So as you can see the majority of our water supply is
groundwater, but we do have CAP water which makes up about 13 percent. We have
stored water, so that's those other renewable supplies that we've stored for future use. We
have other surface water allocations within the state and then we reclaim, recycle all of
the wastewater in our wastewater systems and we store and recover that as well for future
use.
So within EPCOR, we have a constant internal review process that we go through. We
are constantly looking at our growth versus demand, versus supply portfolio and then this
gets down to also the detailed engineering work that Frank and some of his group does as
well, to make sure that we have the appropriate pumps, the right pipe size, those kinds of
things in place to support any new growth and the maintenance that goes along with that.
We are constantly exploring new water resources and forming regional partnerships and
then our conservation programs, interior within our system, make sure that the systems
themselves are as efficient as possible. Examples of that are like our valve exercise
programs, metering upgrades to make sure that we're controlling and making sure we're
not losing water and it's as efficient as possible.
Also, we have what we call our consumer facing conservation program. So were really
starting to ramp this up because of the renewed concern of the conditions on the river.
We're getting a lot more interest on customers wanting to know how they themselves can
save water. So we're really pushing out a lot of new information through on our monthly
bills. For those of you who signed up for your text messaging program, we send that out
through text as well. And we're pushing out a lot of new information on our website. So
available for free of charge from us, are self -audit kits. So it helps you determine if
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you've got leaks within your house. We have interior low flow retrofit kits so that's new
modern showerheads, those kinds of things that can reduce your water use. Guides on
landscaped watering, guides on desert landscaping and how to plant and we provide leak
detection assistance. We have a entire customer service switchboard set up. One of their
main jobs is to walk through with customers to help determine if they have a leak, where
they are and how to try to address those. I've seen those customer service represents
spend 45 minutes to an hour on the phone with a customer and trying to help people out.
We're rolling out a new enhanced billing system, where you can sign up and if there's a
big spike in your water use, on a daily or a weekly basis, you'll get a notification that
there's something going on. So if you do have a leak that you don't see, you don't have to
wait a month to find out that you've got this increase in your bill. It will alert you right
away.
And then lastly, were producing a series of really good detail online tutorials that show
customers how they can do some of these maintenance issues on their own. You know,
instructions on how to replace a toilet valve, flapper, how to look for other leaks around
the house, those kinds of things. And so there's really good how-to videos right there,
online.
So Frank kind of gave you the daily or annual use numbers. I want to give you the long-
term use numbers that's available to Chaparral City. So as Frank mentioned, our CAP
allocation is 8,909 acre feet a year. We have demonstrated to the Arizona Department of
Water Resources through the assured water supply program, based on a 100-year shared
water spike designation, that there is over 8,695 acre feet of groundwater available to us
for a 100-year period in this subbasin. Our total designation right now is 9,317 acre feet
a year for 100 years. We have, currently, little over -- almost 4,000 acre feet of long-term
storage credits that we have stored underground that will be available for us for later
recovery. And so our total supply is given together in any one year, is over 21,000 acre
feet over that 100-year period.
In 2020, our total demand was a little over 6,000 acre feet per year for the entire year.
That represents about 28 percent of the total supplies that would be available to us. In
2034 is when our designation expires, that's when well have to go back to the
Department of Water Resources and get it renewed, and the demand that we projected,
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based on growth projections for that year was a little over 9,000 acre feet.
So all together, whether you're looking at a short-term or long-term 100-year-plus time
frames, we've got a robust redundant water supply here in Fountain Hills.
And with that I'll take any questions you may have.
MAYOR DICKEY: I'm guessing we have some. Mike?
SCHARNOW: Yeah, real quick. Good to see you again, Doug.
DUNHAM: Nice to see you.
SCHARNOW: And that supply you just rattled off, that includes the state trust land that
we annexed a while back, doesn't it? In terms of --
DUNHAM: Yes. So the state trust land doesn't actually have an allocation in and of
itself. The state land department has a CAP allocation, but they've never coughed it up
with any land. So this is strictly within our allocation that we have right now.
MAYOR DICKEY: Alan?
MAGAZINE- Thank you. Did 1 hear correctly that we're using about the same amount
of water as in 1957?
DUNHAM: We're actually using less water --
MAGAZINE: Less?
DUNHAM: -- than we were in 1957.
MAGAZINE: And there's enough water for Phoenix for 30 years?
DUNHAM: Yes. So the total supplies that had been stored in the underground storage,
in recovery program, would equal the annual demands for the City of Phoenix for 30
years.
MAGAZINE: I must be missing something, because I'm pretty puzzled. Every week,
just about every week in the Republic, I read a story about a potential water shortage
crisis. What am I missing?
DUNHAM: Well, headline writers like to get your attention, so you read the article. So
that's part of it. The other thing is depending on your community, you're going to be in
different situations. Some communities have multiple sources that they're going to be
able to switch to if there is a severe cutback in the CAP. Other communities are really
very dependent on the CAP and they don't have that flexibility. The cutbacks that we've
seen already have severely impacted a lot of the agricultural community. So the farmers
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in Pinal have already lost all their CAP allocations. So they're scrambling to try to go
back to groundwater, to use that.
So it's going to be a balance of who has what in their portfolio and how do we deal with
that. So it is very concerning, the conditions on the river. It is not something that is just
going to go away on its own. It's going to take a lot of work from a lot of corners of the
water management world, between the seven basin states and Mexico and the period of
reclamation to try to solve this.
There are also going to be some trickle -down impacts. So even though we may not be
directly impacted on our ability to serve CAP here, with the amount of cutbacks that are
happening, we're going to see our costs increase. The cost to maintain the canal,
maintain all those pumps, remain the same but there's less units of water, less participants
in that, to share those costs to maintain that canal. So our direct costs are going to go up
because of that.
We're going to see potential impacts if the lake levels continue to drop. That's going to
impact their ability to generate electricity. That's going to have impact on power markets
across the west. So while the doom and gloom, were going to dry up and blow away, 1
do not believe that that is going to happen in the immediate future or in the near future,
but there's going to be other impacts that we're going to see.
MAGAZINE: I think I may have asked this question the last time you were here. Do
you have a public affairs department?
DUNHAM: We do.
MAGAZINE: Is there any way to get the truth out there? To get the facts out there? We
got one reporter in particular who has steeped herself in the Republic on this issue and 1
have a feeling that based upon what I read, they don't know all the facts and they're not
reporting the facts. And I understand that press sometimes wants to report doom and
gloom, but they should have the ability to balance it with the facts and let people know
where we stand. I don't know if your public affairs department has considered doing
something like that, but I think it's really necessary.
DUNHAM: Well, were trying to balance our messaging. One, let's not panic. We're
not, you know, the sky is not falling. We're not all going to have to pack up the U-Hauls
and move back east of the Mississippi. But at the same time, it is an issue. It is a
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growing issue and we need to do all we can as individuals and as a community to
enhance conservation as much as possible. So it's a fine line that were trying to walk
between don't worry about it and oh, my God. There is a balance in there.
MAGAZINE: I don't want to sound at all critical, but to me it sounds like on the one
hand, but on the other hand. That's what Harry Truman said about economists. It's hard
for me to digest what you're saying and figure out how to convey to the public what
really is going on. We got plenty of water. You said that. 30 years just for Phoenix. So
it's plenty of water and so I understand there are other tertiary issues and seems to me
therapy could be explained. But the amount of water that we have and have available to
us, I really think should be explained to the public.
MAYOR DICKEY: What you had, I think a couple of slides ago, would address I think
what Councilman was talking about as far as having a public affairs office because you
said that you have all that information available. The idea of the state versus where we
get our water from, I don't think there's any untruth to it, it's just it's a different story.
Here in Fountain Hills we have wells, we have certain population. These numbers just
for us in our little enclave are great, right? But what can we do, especially since hardly
any of our water's coming from CAP, but can we help with some of the things that you
said you have listed and maybe some of the things that are a little bit more personalized
to us? Like, I know a lady had written me and I think she had a comment for today, like
some of our monuments or monument signs that have grass in front of them. I mean is it
a drop in the bucket, is it worth it? Is it a good -- I think it's a good thing to do to show us
an example. You know, if you know it's going to rain, don't water at your house. But
and Grady and I spoke earlier about putting something together to not only show some of
the things we can do, but to also demonstrate some of the things we have done. Which
we have low water landscape in place. We use a lot of recycled water thanks to the
sanitary district in our golf courses and the parks and all kinds of our watering is done
that way. I think Grady, maybe you can explain a little bit about how little we actually
use potable water for irrigation. But we would like to get together some kind of an
information that shows not only what's really happening, like you're saying. What steps
we could take, what steps we already have taken, but granted we have -- there is a lot of
water, like you just said. But it's like having a lot in your savings account, but no salary.
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We have a lot but we have to address the fact that it's not getting replenished the way it
was and that's the lakes and that's the stories that we're hearing. So it is a little bit of
both. Grady?
MILLER: Yeah. In fact, we don't really irrigate our grass in our parks, with the
exception of Fountain Park and Linear Park here in the wintertime. And winter use of
water that's a peak time we don't want to really do that if we can avoid it. And were so
fortunate that the sanitary district here also has these wells that they have so that during
off times they can basically -- they use the storage and then when there's peak times, they
draw down that water for the golf courses and the parks and things like that.
So I think were very fortunate because we do get credit for the sanitary district with what
they do, because under the Groundwater Replenishment Act, when you do pull water out
of the aquifer, you're supposed to put water back in or you pay money, like almost like a
fee to the state. So even though we have two separate entities, they are kind of working
in harmony with each other and we're benefitting as a community as a whole.
I thought your presentation was really right on. This is the third one I've been to. CAP
was doom and gloom because all their water supply is just coming from the Colorado
River, the upper and the lower basin. So that was a totally different type of presentation.
Another one I had was from the Department of Water Resources which looks at the entire
water portfolio of the state and it was much more balanced, just like yours was here today
as well. So it's very good that you're doing this because I know our residents have been
very concerned about this and I do think we may want to work with you and your
company to maybe do some messaging for our residents even in our own publications on
maybe conservation methods and all that.
Again, were very fortunate because we don't have residents that have a lot of grass in
their yards. We're probably one of the few that I can think of that's mostly all desert
landscaping you see.
But thank you. You've really hit home some really good points. I did have a question
though. Two things that you have on your slide right before this. You're talking about
the 100-year designation. So my understanding is when you have any kind of
development, like let's say you have a large masterplan development like a largescale
subdivision that's going to come in. I understand they are required to bring in a 100-year
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water supply, correct?
DUNHAM: Yeah. That is correct. The assured water supply program is applicable
within all five of the state's active management areas. So we are in the Phoenix AMA
here. And so it's based on the definition subdivision from the Department of Real Estate
which is six or more lots. You have to show that there's a 100-year water supply,
renewable water supply for that subdivision before the plan can be approved and
recorded or any building or any lot sales happen. To meet that requirement, EPCOR has
obtained a designation for our entire system and so we account for -- under that
designation every bit of demand that we have within our system here. So whether it's not
just a house, it is the schools, the businesses, the grocery stores, the gas station, and all of
the houses. And so yes, we demonstrate that that 100-year renewable supply is in place
and one of the things we do under that requirement is, as Frank mentioned, we do use
some groundwater but we have to replenish that under the state requirements.
So a portion of that CAP allocation that we don't directly deliver to customers, that has a
payback to the aquifer to recharge, to account for the groundwater demand to try to
maintain the balance in the aquifer that we have here.
MILLER: And one last question. On your slide you're talking about the 2034 year
designation expires. So what is involved in getting that renewed or what does that really
mean?
DUNHAM: So what we'll do is, well take a look at exactly what our demands are at that
point in time and then we'll take a look at what growth potential that we still have within
the system, within our CC&R. And then we project that out over a 100-year period.
How many more customers are we going to add. How much more demand are we going
to grow. And then we have to the Department of Water Resources and say this is our
portfolio and these are our projected demands. And right now we have the combination
of the two main sources, which would be the CAP allocation as well as the groundwater.
And believe it or not, the Fountain Hills subbasin here on this side of the McDowell's is
actually a really deep fat well -producing aquifer. So we're doubly blessed with not only
the CAP allocation but we're sitting on a really nice aquifer that will be able to supply a
robust water source for many, many years.
FRIEDEL: Is EPCOR looking to make any significant investment in desalination or any
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or other partners?
DUNHAM: Yes, we are. One of the -- one of the bills that was passed this last
legislative session is kind of a renewed enhanced WIFA, so that's the Water
Infrastructure Finance Authority. And that had over a billion dollars set aside for projects
within the State of Arizona. Particularly targeted at infrastructure and new water supply
enhancement. So we have been talking with several entities including making sure that
the governor's office and our legislative leaders know that we're to help. And we have
some expertise in this. We have very large pipelines that we currently run in the State of
Texas and one of those pipelines is actually a longer distance than it would take to pipe
desalinated water up from the Sea of Cortes into the Phoenix metro area.
So the technology is there. The expertise is there. And we're going to need to import
water into the state. So that's definitely one of the items on the menu that we're going to
be pursuing.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Supervisor Galvin had put on a message, 1 guess they --
I think they voted down a Duid for the Rio Verde and in that newsletter, it said that
EPCOR would likely be or already did maybe have a proposal to help those folks out.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
DUNHAM: Certainly. So the Arizona Corporation Commission which regulates us as a
private utility, has opened a docket to explore the possibility of having a private utility
provide the standpipe service that City of Scottsdale has said that they're going to
withdraw. We submitted a letter at the request of the commission to express whether we
would be interested in that or not. We are interested. We did point out a couple of
questions that we would have for the commission to consider. The commission has asked
for public comment, public input on that and they've been receiving comments, both
written comments and they were going to schedule an open hearing to discuss that.
We would be looking for additional water supplies to help support that effort. But we are
interested and the decision whether to not to move forward is really going to be up to the
corporation commission.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. That just sounds like it would -- oh, I'm sorry. Go
ahead. Sony Sharron.
GRZYBOWSKI: Well, Mayor you took my question. But I do want to make a comment
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that I was playing on our website. I was totally listening to you, I swear. But I was
playing on the town website just to see how we are informing our people to Councilman's
Magazines point. It is an important message to make sure we get out. And I do see
we've got under the public works section; Bo has been working really hard to try to help
people get as informed as possible. We do have a water conservation and an EPCOR
water management tab. But you have to know it's under the public works.
One, you can update the slide presentation with this one, because this was way more user
friendly and intuitive than the other one from last year. Two, I would love to see a link
from the main page, the resident's page. I think that would be great. A water
conservation or actual facts about your water kind of thing. And totally not a question for
you, Ijust needed to tell Bo before I forgot. Thank you.
DUNHAM: And if I may follow-up with that. The leadership program that you guys
just launched, one of my partners at EPCOR is going to be teaching a class on
specifically centering on water conservation at the home and how we can enhance that.
So that will be part of that program. And then we also do constant outreach here in town
and this last year we've had a couple of sessions with the community garden to help teach
about managing your water use, your plantings and et cetera. And fun fact, about --
industry standard is 60 to 70 percent of household water use is actually outdoor landscape
watering. So that's really a place we can concentrate on reducing water demand.
MAYOR DICKEY: That's huge. The leadership also, they're go to the sanitary district
and learn a lot about their operations and also the sanitary district has a subcommittee
with the town working on sodium in the water. So we're all kind of going in the same
direction here.
Any other questions? Any other questions or comments? Again, we did have people
from the community ask questions about whether we can look at some of our grass areas.
So we will do that.
Thank you so much. We appreciate it very much.
DUNHAM: Thank you, Mayor.
MAYOR DICKEY: Bye-bye.
Our next item is our monthly report by Captain Kratzer of MCSO. Get that all set for
you. Thank you.
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KRATZER: Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. As always, it's
good to be here for the monthly presentation. I'm going to hit on a few items this month.
One of them being school safety. So with the start of the school year, we met with the
new Fountain Hills superintendent who was the prior Fountain Hills high school principal
a couple of years ago, so Dr. J. We've worked with him for years and he's really great to
work with and he has a very strong interest in school safety, including his background
and his doctorate in that field.
So we met with him, our leadership team here in Fountain Hills met with the school
superintendent. We talked about some of the rules of the SRO and some of the things
that maybe we could expand on with the SRO in the school to maybe help promote
school safety. And again, just reminding members of the community that the Town of
Fountain Hills contracts with MSCO4 that SRO position and we think that's great. So
were glad to have that position and with some of the staffing shortages that we've had in
the last couple of years, that's one position that we've always made sure we staffed just
because of the importance of it.
But when we met with Dr. J, we talked about some of the concerns he had with school
safety and we brought with us, two of our detectives from our counterterrorism unit
that -- they handle school threats and school vulnerability assessments. And Dr. J was
interested in what they had to say or maybe some of the ways, the advice that they had.
And they talked to him about the Alice Training and that's a FBI standard or MSCO and
some of the other government entities push for schools and it's a strategy for them for any
kind of active shooter that may occur. It's training for staff and it's a protocol for maybe
how to approach those situations. And they were interested in having that training.
So our detectives from our counterterrorism unit will work with the school superintendent
and the school staff to push that training out for them and that will include another
vulnerability assessment for the school.
Another important thing that -- after some of the recent events Uvalde and the response to
that and some of the failures in that response, it was important for the sheriffs office to
ensure that our deputies had recent training on response to that. So our SWAT team has
worked with some of the other schools and put on some training. In this last weekend
half of our staff attended that active shooter training at a school and some scenarios for
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
those sort of incidents and how that response would look like. Just to ensure if something
like that were to happen in the county or in any of the areas, we're responsible for, there's
no question as to what that response would look like or what would be expected of the
deputy.
The other half of our staff should attend that training in the next month or two. Just
depending on availability for our SWAT team. But I think that's important and it's great
that the school superintendent is interested in making sure that they're shored up in that
area.
So next I'm going to move to talking about some governor of highway safety, aggressive
driver grant money that we were able to utilize here in Fountain Hills. Our Lake Patrol
Division is kind of the distributor of that grant money. They mostly utilize that grant
money, but if some of the districts request some of those hours, we can get it. So we
were pretty aggressive in trying to get some of that grant funding and we were able to get
180 hours of grant money over the last two months. And we utilized that for -- you have
to use it for, obviously, traffic enforcement. Any of those violations that you can chalk
up just about anything to aggressive driving: speed, stop sign violations, turning
violations. So we were able to get 180 of those hours. So that cost no money to the
town. That was money that was all grant funded, so there was no cost to the town, none
of our personnel hours were lost to this. It was added hours that were given to us. So in
that two months that resulted in over 300 traffic stops, in those hours of grant money that
we used and over 200 citations. And an area, we put some concentration on some area
that's been an issue for a long time. Palisades and Shea, the no right turn on red. And we
had 60 stops over the last two months there for that. And so we've talked about some of
the challenges with the enforcement there. But the deputies who worked there, we used
consistent deputies who found some strategies that worked. Yeah, it worked out pretty
well. So we're trying to stay committed to that to decrease the violations there and get
some of those violators and education hopefully will curb that over the long haul.
And then finally, I want to talk about increase in the staffing to the district here. So
Fountain Hills District 7 is what we call it for MCSO. Last time, at the council meeting, I
didn't introduce him, but my executive chief was in the room and listened to the study.
He's only been my executive chief probably for the last, I want to say three months. The
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prior one retired. And since he's been over patrol east, he's over patrol east and west, he's
the executive patrol chief, he's really taken a focus on making sure that we're meeting our
contract and trying to get to the level of meeting that.
So I had five additional deputies assigned that started yesterday. And so we're up to --
we were at 13 over that study we saw and we're up to 18 now. So we're getting there, one
more to meet that completely. But that gave us the opportunity to go back to our old
staffing model where, because of short staffing we had to adjust that staffing model and
now were back to our five -squad model. It gives me the opportunity again to have a
community action squad who can deal with issues that are unique to the town whether it's
speeding, direct patrols on speeding, you know, concerns by neighbors, you know, other
issues if we've got party house issues, short term rental issues on a Friday night, Saturday
night, especially as the weather starts getting nice, they can get special training in that
area and go out and address those needs. And just anything that's unique to the town,
that's their main function is to address some of those issues. And we haven't had that for
a couple of years. So it will be good to have that resource.
And especially with having the detectives for the district now centralized. All three of
the deputies that are assigned to that squad are also detective certified. So they can work
some mid -level cases and help us in that area to make sure some of these cases that are
important to the town or time critical for us, that it gets the attention that they deserve.
So that's my update. I'm sure there may be questions or comments and will be happy to
take those.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Captain.
MAGAZINE: Captain, just thank you, because I've seen a real difference in traffic
enforcement and particularly on Sorrell. And I've been seeing more and more police
cruisers sort of stationing themselves so they could watch the traffic and go after people.
So it's really worked.
KRATZER: Thank you. And just to add to that. We did really try over the last six
months to really emphasize and get more production out of our patrol staff in terms of
traffic enforcement. It's been important since I've been here but just trying to get more
and more out of them and we've had 120 percent increase in our traffic stops over the last
six months. And that's not even counting the grant work. So the deputies are stepping up
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and doing the enforcement and trying to be more proactive. And with the addition of the
deputies that we had, five more, I would imagine wed continue to see an increase there.
So slow down if you're driving through town.
MAYOR DICKEY: Are there questions or comments, anyone?
I'm just going to bring this up. When you mentioned the new or the additional folks, and
that they may be able to do things that are all the more localized, you know that we had a
person that was upset about, you know, someone that has a sign that have things that are,
you know, they're not pleasant to read and we had that a while ago with a car that drives
around that has a swearword on it and such. And I don't think that the freedom of speech
laws have changed too much, but one of the things that we did ask about was, you know,
is there a way to tell or any options to let people know that if the police aren't the avenue
to do something about that, because they're not technically breaking the law. Would
maybe some of these folks be -- get some more, get some knowledge that would say, but
here's an option or here's something you could do? I mean the thing with the signs and
the swearing, I always wonder about that, because when they talk about, you'll know it
when you see it. And some of that seems really offensive and I don't know if there's a
line and Aaron I know you're looking at me like -- yeah, 1 mean.
The line is it doesn't --
MAGAZINE: I wish I knew too.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- exist, I guess. And you know, freedom of speech. It's obvious
and freedom to exist on a public street is your freedom to do so. So I don't know, I guess
I'm wondering if there are any other social options or other entities to direct people to,
where they might find some relief or at least get answers that satisfy thcm to know that
were doing, the police are doing everything that they can, but they just can't really do
some of those things that people would like.
KRATZER: Yeah. I appreciate the question and 1 understand the frustration that exists
with residents. We've had several calls regarding the gentleman you're speaking about
with the signs that are in very bad taste and we've talked about some of the challenges
with first amendment and freedom of speech and crossing that line. Some of the things,
I've reached out to the town prosecutor recently, we're waiting to get together and just
talk about maybe some avenues. You know, it gets very touchy and it is very difficult for
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law enforcement to take action on something that may be offensive to some people. But
there are statutes on the books about public nuisance and trying to make that fit or does it
fit, is the question. And trying to find. So we talked about the gentleman with these
signs. And we've gotten calls on him. Deputies at times will contact these individuals.
Sometimes people, it's how they phrase it. You know, I'm worried about, you know, if
the person has water, if they're okay. And deputies will often times, when the call is
phrased in a way, that way we're, you know, if it's just hey, this guy has signs that are
offensive and I don't think that's okay, deputies then don't, aren't able to contact him
because there's no law that's being violated.
And we talked about some of the challenges too with some of these folks who don't want
contact from law enforcement. When we try to contact them, it's either been a belligerent
response or they've walked away saying I didn't do anything wrong and I don't want a
contact with you. But there are some things. You know, one of the things that police try
to do when we do have contact with some folks who appear to be homeless and maybe
have some mental health illnesses are try to offer them some services and sec if there's
some shelters that they'd be interested in going to. We always try to give them water and
start the conversation that way and be approachable. But the minute they don't want that
contact anymore, the potential contact, that ends our involvement with them.
We'll look into some options. Maybe discuss a little bit more. I know we had talked just
briefly about that yesterday and seen if there is something out there. I'm not aware of any
social services that someone could call. Messaging might be good in terms of peoples'
rights. I don't think it alleviates the frustration that some folks have, because I mean the
emails that we saw about having to have those conversations with your children when
there is something on those signs, it is very challenging and it's hard to say well, it is
what it is. You just have to deal with it, and he can do that.
Also we're working with some of the businesses that if these folks are on their property
that they have that right to not have them there and we can come and let the person know,
hey, you can't be on this property. And if they refuse, it's trespassing. A lot of times
they're on public right of way which makes it very challenging. I think that's where you
got the look from Aaron on that one.
MAYOR DICKEY: Well, and you know, and on a public side of it, we've taken some
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actions when it comes to washes and what comes to parks.
KRATZER: Right.
MAYOR DICKEY: As much as we can without infringing on the enjoyment of these
things from our residents.
KRATZER: Sure.
MAYOR DICKEY: So --
KRATZER: So it's a work in progress and with our Squad 5 deputies who have a little
bit more time to be proactive in the community, we'll see if maybe we can find
something, a messaging, or something that --
MAYOR DICKEY: If there's any or if there's some other municipality that found
something that works.
KRATZER: Sure.
MAYOR DICKEY: You know, you never know.
KRATZER: Okay.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
KRATZER: You're welcome.
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, sir.
SPELICH: Thank you, Mayor. It didn't go unnoticed that when you said swearing you
looked at me. So I would completely lose my ability to communicate if we didn't swear.
So just put a sign on the door closed. So Cap, thanks for the update. Would you please,
get with Bo and Bob Burns and I think it would be very important for those numbers to
be communicated to the public because I think that would deter a lot of people if they
know that's a really good number. That's a high number. 1 had personally called you and
told you about the people turning red.
KRATZER: Right.
SPELICH: I mean it's crazy. So and I knew that being able to set up on that position in
order to catch somebody doing it, normally when you see a police officer's car, you make
a stop. A complete stop. But when you don't see anybody and the vehicle that you guys
are using is a phenomenal vehicle, I had no idea. It was an unmarked, until I got up close
enough and then noticed the lights hidden. So I picked up on it right away. But the
average citizen will not pick up on it.
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KRATZER: You made the right turn.
SPELICH: And I immediately hit the brakes. So but anyways, I think it would be very
beneficial if you were to publish these numbers because they're very high and I think
people would get the message, especially on, 1 don't know, Facebook or whatever stuff.
KRATZER: Yeah. Will do. And we're going to continue to get some of that grant
funding so that we can continue that added enforcement as well. So that will hopefully
continue for a while. I mean there's so much that's allotted to the SCO but Lake Patrols
been great at giving it to us, especially because we're a contract town and they know the
importance of it.
SPELICH And also in the future when, if you have one of your supervisors from
headquarters in the meeting, if you could let me know that they're sitting in the meeting
because I talked about them like a dirty dog. So I would appreciate a heads -up in the
future. Not that I probably would alter what I was saying anyways, but I'm sure the chief
left the room and wondered, you know, what exactly, what's with this guy.
KRATZER: Maybe the raw feedback was good.
SPELICH: But I'm glad that we're --
KRATZER: We got five more deputies.
SPELICH: Listen the whole time, and as 1 always said, it wasn't anything against the
men and women or you, but we need to fulfill the obligation. That's 50 percent of our
budget and if we're paying for a service, we should get what we pay for.
KRATZER: Understood. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: All right. Good way to wrap it up there.
Thank you. Next we have our call to the public. Do we have any speaker cards?
MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. First up is Linda Salavitch.
MAYOR DICKEY: Hi. Please say just -- not your address, but if you live in Fountain
Hills?
SALAVITCH: Yes, I am a resident of Fountain Hills. I've lived here for about a year.
And I would like to thank the mayor and the council for hearing my concerns this
evening, first and foremost. The purpose of this discussion is to make the town council
aware that the residents are concerned about the perceived inaction with the town
regarding the homelessness concerns in the town. We are concerned that this could grow
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into a major problem if left alone. Recent examples of aggression at the gas station,
Circle K, and for lack of better terms, some craziness at Kiwanis Park, convince us that
proaction versus reaction is the best solution. Please, consider this as a call to action to
address the situation so that it does not become a problem as experienced here and
elsewhere for this town.
We can further discuss public safety, loss of revenue, image, and the pleasure of walks in
our beautiful park and elsewhere would be impacted by lack of action on this issue.
Thank you for considering this as a fundamental issue of concern for the residents of this
town. We hope that this concern is foremost on the minds all elected members and we
look forward to positive action from the town on this matter.
Thank you very much.
MENDENHALL: The next -- well, first of all, I just want to let everyone know that the
timer is not working. I've pressed it millions of times, so I'll take minute, I'll let you all
know when it's time, you know, your time's up. Okay?
All right. Next we have Rick Watts.
WATTS: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Councilmembers. My name is Rick
Watts. I've been a resident of Fountain Hills for over 33 years. My curiosity was piqued
when I got the report or read the report on the community center. I've been a contractor
for 40 years and facility maintenance as well. And I've experienced exactly the same
thing. So a couple of things that I noted and I think that Altana Buick and Bers did a
good job in what they presented to you. The water testing and all of the information that
they provided, very good. But they were clear on what they've included and implied
things that weren't included. So I wanted to make sure that we were going to talk about
things that were addition so we didn't have to go back and refit, redo, refinish surface
areas. Some of those things are things like biological growth going further than just the
areas that they opened. Until we get their dry patent wall surfaces as measured by a
moisture meter.
Corrosion where we might have structural integrity issues and so we want to make sure
that we do some nondestructive testing so again, we don't have to go back in and open
those walls. Fortunately, or coincidentally with EPCOR being here tonight, EPCOR has
done a great job of helping identity underground leaks and in this case underground slabs
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that were implied again. Not specific but there was an implication either through this
contract or someone else, and I don't recall where that there could be underground lakes
as well as exfiltration from the sewer system. And EPCOR can do a good job with
helping to identify those and then we can get a contractor that can pinpoint the exact
location. So that was -- hopefully it's a good omen that they showed up tonight.
The other area that is really of concern and again, I've experienced this firsthand, is the
roof drains. The roof drains being fouled and not draining properly, you have a structural
issue. And on average there's about 5.2 pounds per square foot and when you extrapolate
that over the 25,000 square feet, the amount of weight that is in addition -- and our roofs
out here are not designed for slow loads or heavy rain loads, but we get them. So it's
imperative that we get good drainage off of the system. So in that light I would ask that
we review our internal procedures to make sure that we address, because it's maintenance
issue. That our staff addresses making sure those roof drains are clear.
And finally, in an effort to possibly recover some of the cost that when we finally do put
this to bid including some of these --
MENDENHALL: Three minutes.
WATTS: -- issues that I address that we look possibly to performance bonds. Arizona
mentions insurance on engineers and architects who had been here before, maybe didn't
oversee, the implication of the silpans or skill cans; it depends on what part of the country
you're from, may have been some oversight and maybe we have a possibility of recourse
from either a performance bond or from a architects Arizona missions.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
WATTS: -- and I think that does it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, sorry.
WATTS: I'm out. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks.
MENDENHALL- Our next speaker is Larry Meyers.
MEYERS: Council, Mayor, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Watts, actually Rick Watts,
since he was speaking to you as an individual pretty much is an expert on this. I read this
as well as I do have some expertise on it. It troubled me. It looks expensive. I too would
like to see some, at least an exploration of performance bonds for the people that over the
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years, obviously, there's no one sitting on the dais and probably no one even on the staff
when this thing was built. Well, Mike was here -- Mike was around. But 1 mean in terms
of being involved with the construction and everything. So the thing that troubles me is
there's organic material, this was written on June the 14th and we've already waited three
months to even start talking about it. And organic material grows. Also the roof
condition when that roof coating starts to blister, the foam starts to deteriorate underneath
and your problem grows exponentially more expensive. So I think last week, while we
were discussing what to spend our money on, Councilmember Spelich said we should
start looking at things that we have to spend where we absolutely need to spend. This
looks like it's going to be a pretty substantial need. I think that any of the things that are
maybe wants should be postponed indefinitely and I think you'll probably come to the
same conclusion.
So thanks for the time.
MENDENHALL- That's it for public comment.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you very much. Our next item is our consent agenda item
which is everything except 7D. Can 1 get a motion, please?
GRZYBOWSKI: Move to approve.
FRIEDEL: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. All in favor, please say aye.
ALL: Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks very much. So when we do this, then the item becomes the
first item that were looking at, which is a budget transfer and I believe David Pock will
be presenting.
POCK: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Christmas came early for me. I got to talk
about budget one more time before the retiring members leave. All right. Yeah, put me
on three minutes.
All right. So I'm not sure if you'd like me just to go through each individual item. If
there's questions about specific ones. I do have just a couple of notes in general to say,
just to make sure everybody --
MAYOR DICKEY: Just maybe overall, why we do them. They're fairly routine but in
this case we have the CARES money coming in.
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POCK: Right. Okay. So just a note that none of these transfers move money. It moves
the budget authority or the permissions to spend the money that's already in those funds.
We're not increasing budget authority; we're just moving it. And then I'll also point out
that I'm always open for questions from residents, phone calls, emails, all of my contact
information's on the website in the finance page. So if somebody has questions they can
definitely reach out.
As far as these, we actually have two different sets or two different transfers that are
taking place. We have two items for fiscal year '22, which ended June 30th. As we go
through the audit process, as we go through closing out the fiscal year records, there are
things that come up, invoices that get maybe received in July or August that go back to
the prior year that puts certain line items over budget. So we need to go back and make
transfers, even those out and that's happened in two cases.
The first was in CIP fund for the splash pad. There were some changes required by
Maricopa County on surfacing of the splash pad that actually increased the cost by
$19,000. So we need to move 19,000 into that project. That is actually probably a little
more safe on my part.
Since that specific transfer is going from the CIP contingency into a CIP project
technically under our implementation policy, we could move that administratively.
However, since it is a CIP project, we wanted to make sure that everybody saw it, the
council saw it. That that project did increase by that amount.
The second one there is 6,000 from our general fund into the vehicle replacement fund
for $6,000. That is for increased cost of outfitting the new fire pickup. So that
equipment cost went up $6,000. So that's what that ones for.
Are there any questions on those fiscal year '22 items? Okay.
So fiscal year'23. As you know we do our budget, it's pretty much -- we have a pretty
good idea of what the budget's going to be in March and April. However, we don't
always get everything exactly right. We did have an engineer's estimate for the panorama
phase 2 project. Two weeks ago Council approved the contract for that project and again,
this is something just a little bit more transparency on our part. As part of that motion
that approved that contract it did authorize the budget transfers that are needed for that,
because that contract actually came in slightly more expensive than what we had
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budgeted based on the estimate. Just to keep everything all together, we put it in here as
well, just so that everybody would see it at the same time.
The next two are what you alluded to Mayor, and that's the ARPA money, the American
Rescue Plan Act. Last year, fiscal year '22, where you see 4.2 million. This year, fiscal
year '23, we were scheduled to receive another 4.2.
When we decided back in March and April I didn't want to absolutely say that we were
going to get that money. So the entire public safety budget was put in the general fund.
Now, that we do have or we did receive that deposit at the beginning of July, we need to
move that budget authority from general fund to our special revenue fund. In addition to
that, at the September 7th meeting or 2021, that was when Council authorized us to apply
and receive the ARPA funds in that motion. It actually delineated then that it would be
spent exactly for those items. So it's kind of has been done before but we just wanted to
make it a little more public.
All right. The last two items. We had 500,000 from general fund to our facilities reserve
fund. If you remember, Council authorized $500,000 for facilities reserve in addition to a
one million for facilities reserve for the Fountain Park. We matched that 500,000 with
our expected budget for that fund for the year. Based on fund balance left over from
fiscal year '22, we have about 500,000 in addition to that that could be used for ongoing
maintenance and repairs. So that's what this 500,000 would do. It's basically projects
that didn't happen last year, that we can do in '23.
And then finally, 25,000 general fund to parks administration. Originally the Sunridge
Park project was in the CIP fund, but since there's some question as far as when that
project, when or if that project's going to be done, I decided it's better to avoid those
accounting problems by leaving it in CIP and just expensing those items in fiscal year
'23. So that's what that is.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
MAGAZINE: The last one, the $25,000, are we still working on that or where are we at
with that process? And is it a local party that's doing that work for us?
MILLER: It is a landscape architect firm that is trying to work with us and then we'll be
working with the neighbors on having what they would like to see in that location.
MAGAZINE: Okay. I just want to make sure that, because this has come up before that
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were not jumping the gun on this. The neighbors are definitely all on board with this?
MILLER: We have a public outreach. We met last week with some select neighbors that
have expressed either interest or concern. And show them what we had initially looked at
and they were somewhat pleased with it. We're going to be trying to get a facilitator in to
help us with civic engagement process with the neighbors that live in Sunridge, so that I
believe is -- when are you thinking that is?
LARSEN: End of October, early November.
MILLER: So yeah, so the money is appropriated and it is needed for paying the firm to
do the work that they've done.
MAGAZINE- And that firm, is it a local Fountain Hills firm? Now, the reason I'm
asking that question and I know this isn't on the agenda but, you know, were doing the
branding program and a couple of residents reached out to me and said that a local
Fountain Hills business had applied for that and for some reason we sent that business
down to Tucson. I think, and I've heard Councilman Spelich sit up here and rail about
this from time after time, we have to do everything we can to use our local businesses
here and if it's a policy that needs to be changed, where we give a little bit more credit for
a local business, I want to sec something happen along those lines to make sure that were
doing everything we can to support our local businesses here in this town. 1 think it's just
important and I think it's just good business.
So I don't know where we are on that.
MILLER: I think you've probably have noticed that we have done a lot to reach out to
our local businesses. We've actually had a forum here where we invited them. We have
done a lot more, I think, outreach to try to inform them of opportunities for bidding. A
lot of times we don't get the bids even from our local vendors.
As far as this particular one, no, they were not Fountain Hills based, I will tell you that,
the landscape firm. As far as the branding project, I think I'll just leave that for the
economic development director to give you a memo that explains the process that was
engaged with that.
MAGAZINE: Okay.
MAYOR DICKEY: It's not on the agenda.
MILLER: It's not on the agenda, you're right.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, sir.
MAGAZINE: I was just going to say, if I can't speak to this, just tell me. But, I
understand what the Councilman's saying, but when we go out to bid, we put out criteria,
we look at their background. There's a real careful analysis before we select someone
and often times I even interview the principals. So I mean I understand what you're
saying, but I don't think it's a haphazard process.
FRIEDEL• And that was not my intent. I didn't say it was haphazard. I just think that
we -- and we have done a lot of outreach, Grady, there's no question. I believe that. But
I think if we have a local business we should give them some extra credit I think too. It's
our policy, look a little harder at it maybe. 1 don't know.
MAYOR DICKEY: Why don't we -- I don't we're supposed to be having this particular
conversation right now, Aaron because this isn't on the agenda. I think we can go further,
taking this later?
ARNSON: Well, I think I agree, number one, with the prospect that -- the Council, it is
within our purview to adopt those types of policies, and I also agree Mayor, that we
should probably leave that for either Council retreat or an executive session to provide
legal advice on what the contours of that are.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Do we have a speaker card on this item, Linda?
MENDENHALL: We had an email from Crystal Cavanaugh. Do you wish to speak?
CAVANAUGII: No.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. So that would be if there were any specific questions about
any of this. I had no questions. Anybody else? Can I get a motion please?
SCHARNOW: I'll move to approve the attached budget transfers as requested.
MAGAZINE: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. All in favor, please say aye?
ALL• Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Thank you, David.
Our item 8A is about the special use permit that we had looked at earlier on Ivory and
John is going to present. Thank you.
WESLEY: Oh, were already to the next line, we're going to go right through this in a
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hurry. Just some quick background again, just to make sure we all know what we're
talking about. We have this area up here at Fountain Hills Boulevard and El Pueblo that
is plot 106 and the request is for a special use permit for the lot in the southeast corner to
allow residential use as part of that development. Here is a aerial image of the same site.
A little closer up again, we're talking about this lot in the southeast corner. This
particular development has the common parking area to go with the various lots in the
subdivision. So here again is a little closer look at the proposed development with the
floor area for the office on the first floor, 2,000 square feet and then the rest is some
tenant storage and extra garage space. Four units on the upper level require parking.
Overall for this development is 17 interior parking spaces, the others are immediately
adjacent to it. They're approximately 20 spaces immediately available for development.
One of the questions last time was wanting to see the actual tloorplan for the upper level
apartment, so that's been provided now and it's the four units. Each of those are two -
bedroom apartments. This is again still somewhat conceptual plan, although it's getting a
lot more specific as we go along, but they will have a follow up site plan review process
that well go through before they get to a building permit.
These are the elevations that we saw before. They've only changed slightly to
accommodate the fact that there are the four units instead of the five units in the upper
level.
Just because that's been one of the issues and thoughts is that architecture is something
that we ought to encourage some modifications to as it comes through the site plan
review process. Just some quick images for surrounding. You have the residential single
family or duplex developments to the west and to the south, that do have a typical
residential character within the commercial area. You have some variety in what's in the
center. The two across the top are the ones right along El Pueblo on the west side, we
have a little bit of a adobe Spanish kind of look to them. There's another building to the
north that looks pretty different from the other two and there's also -- we also put in the
one across the street that was a charter school, just giving some image of what's in the
area. So as we continue to work with the applicant on that possible modifications to the
facades, we'll look at what can kind of help with that transition from a residential
neighborhood to the west to this commercial center to the east. And fit that character best
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we can.
So again, coming back, one of the other issues has been the parking and how much
parking is or isn't available or will be available for this. Again, you can see the overall
site and the parking area that's there. They are proposing to have again the interior
parking spaces as well as in those spaces immediately adjacent to it, we feel will
adequately meet all their parking requirements so the rest of the parking lot remains
available for the other commercial uses in the center. And discussions with the POA for
this area, they don't have any significant concerns for the proposed use and its impact on
the parking. Long-term they do see the potential if the lots were to develop out to the
maximum capacity, there could be issues with the parking lot. If the residents were using
the spaces in the parking lot versus the one inside the garage, they could happen to have
to park a little further away. There are some potential long-term concerns, but currently
they have no particular issues with this. I think I just covered all the things on this slide
in those comments.
One of the other things that came up at the last council meeting was concern for future
uses and some things that could happen in these buildings if it's not used as proposed by
the applicant. One of those being the community resident uses for that type of use to
happen in the zoning district would require a different special use permit to be applied for
an approved. This one that's applied for wouldn't allow those uses, so that would come
back to the P&Z and council process with public hearing, public notice before that could
occur. Another seems to be any concerns with the drug and detox. Another topic that's
currently being worked on with the planning and zoning commission. While we don't
specifically provide for those uses today in our zoning code, we are moving forward with
that text amendment and what's being looked at the P&Z level is that the uses would go
in a C2 and C3 zone, not the CC zone and rezoning would likely have to be done first
before any of those types of uses could happen at this location. So again, they're not
likely to occur.
So staff in planning commission have recommend approval with a maximum of four
dwelling units, the dedicated parking in the building for the residents, and P&Z also
included dedicated parking next to the building for this use, but the CC&R's for the
facility or for this development don't allow for designation of parking spaces. So we
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won't be able to do that one quite exactly. That is sort of the intent.
That's my presentation. Questions?
MAYOR DICKEY: Any questions?
MCMAHON: I have a question, hopefully it's not too stupid. But what do you mean by
inside parking, designated? You mean covered parking specifically marked for the
tenants?
WESLEY: So the -- if I can get the mouse back. So these spaces are inside the building.
MCMAHON: Right.
WESLEY: Will be first for the tenants.
MCMAHON: So that will just be parking?
WESLEY: Yes.
MCMAHON: Okay.
WESLEY: So there's six spaces there and four units. So you could -- the ordinance is
two spaces per unit, so you then actually have eight spaces, eight people with cars, eight
cars for those four units. A couple of them would have to park outside but otherwise the
residents are parking inside.
MCMAHON: Okay. So is there adequate parking? The bottom line is there adequate
parking for this building, considering it's going to be commercial and there'll he
designated parking for the owners, tenants, whatever you want to say?
WESLEY: Yes.
MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: You have a question?
SPELICH: Thank you, Mayor.
So John, how will the owner, what is the owner's plans on ensuring that residents use the
spots that are four the project? Because what I'm concerned about and I didn't hear
exactly the positive glowing recommendation of that POA about this project that you're
saying they're onboard with. So Pm hearing a little bit -- stuff differently. So how is the
owner going to ensure that if this is approved by us that those spots will be utilized by his
residents and not taken away from the businesses in the area?
WESLEY: And Mayor and Councilman, that's probably a better question for the
applicant. He is here.
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SPELICH: Bring him up.
WESLEY: I had plans to do that. Any other questions for me?
FRIEDEL. I have one.
WESLEY: Yes.
FRIEDEL: I'm sorry. Thank you mayor. You said you're going to work with him on the
character of the building for the surrounding area?
WESLEY: Yes.
FRIEDEL What exactly does that mean?
WESLEY: Well, as we look at the final site plan and the architecture that's proposed for
the building right now is a very modern looking building, it's an attractive looking
building but I'm not sure it quite fits. I'm not an architect to propose any specific designs.
But that will be my pushback on him is what can we do to tweak the design a little bit, to
introduce a little more residential feel to the building to help better transition between the
two.
SPELICH: And is he open to working with us on that?
WESLEY: He has been -- again, it might be a better question for him to answer. He's
been generally open to working a lot but not to any significant degree. He's not going to
come in and totally redesign the exterior, I don't believe. So it will be, I think, minor
adjustments.
SPELICH: Would the color play into that a little?
WESLEY: Color. I think color is probably an easy thing.
SPELICH: Okay.
MAGAZINE. I think that's what we said about some other building. Do I need to tell
you?
MAYOR DICKEY: No.
MAGAZINE. Okay.
MAYOR DICKEY: Before the applicant comes up, if this was just strictly commercial,
it would require more parking, correct?
WESLEY: Yes.
MAYOR DICKEY: And it would not be under cover, necessarily?
WESLEY: Correct.
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MAYOR DICKEY: So I'm just as baffled by it as I was the first time. The thing that
we're being asked for is to have some residential mixture with this commercial building,
which if it was just commercial, it would be -- could be two story and it would require
more parking and it would not have any necessarily inside parking. And whatever other
tenants' parking needs are, why would they be more important than the needs of this
applicants? Why wouldn't they have to worry about whether he's parking was -- I don't'
really understand this argument at all. But you answered my question about the
commercial. So yes, sir.
SCHARNOW: Another question. The building upper left, didn't we approve a SUP for
that for residential?
WESLEY: There was the one -- let's see, let me get back to the -- other way. There it is.
This building right -- where's my mouse again.
SCHARNOW: The middle one.
MAYOR DICKEY: The middle?
SCHARNOW: Yes. Just the second one to the north from El Largo.
So I don't think there were any objections brought up at that time. It probably passed
unanimous.
WESLEY: I believe so. But there's one unit, if that makes a difference versus four, but
yes it did.
MAGAZINE: There's a big difference. Councilman Schamow brings up the fact that
there was no pushback. That was one family living in that unit. Not four units. Not
additional parking. One family in that unit. So and I did bring that up at the time.
MAYOR DICKEY: Sharron?
GRZYBOWSKI: If we look at this as -- go back to where we were. Yeah. Stop. So that
footprint there, the way it's approved now, it could be a two -- this is a question, not a
statement. So put a question mark at the end. I'm under the impression it could be a two-
story building in this exact footprint which includes the six spaces that we have that are
parking in there. So we could have, instead of parking and what appears to be maybe two
commercial spots or one commercial spot and storage for the people upstairs, we could
have two full floors of commercial that requires parking outside of the building, correct?
JOHN: Correct, Councilmember. This is an approximately 8,000 square foot lot. So
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
two floors, 16,000 square feet. One space per 250 square feet, whatever that math turns
out to be, could be what would be going on.
GRZYBOWSKI: Then my next comment is it's zoned such that I cannot find in my
notes, but I think the hours of operation are like 7 a.m. to 1 I p.m.
WESLEY: Right.
GRZYBOWSKI: And it's zoned so that it's heavy use kind of zoning. I don't know, I
made a list somewhere, but correct? So we're actually doing ourselves a favor by cutting
back on the commercial occupancy is the way I see it?
WESLEY: Madam Councilmember, in terms of the amount of parking and some of the
activities that could go on, yes. The tradeoff is you've got residents there now parking,
potentially 24/7 and not moving as much as a commercial customer might.
GRZYBOWSKI: Or I also see it as balancing whether they work downstairs and live
upstairs, or maybe they live there and work elsewhere. So they're swopping out spaces
for the commercial people park in the day and then the residential people park in the
night. We get complaints every day of the week about what a waste the commercial
space is that we have. And I think this is the best use of that kind of space, especially
he's putting parking in there. So we're even cutting down on what could be residences.
So yeah, if we talk to him about the color, I think it will kind of blend in better if you go
with the tans or the browns or whatever you guys go with. But I'm in favor of it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilman?
MAGAZINE: I want to make sure I understand. By right, without a special use permit,
you put two floors of commercial; is that correct?
WESLEY: That's correct.
MAGAZINE: And how many parking spaces?
WESLEY: So again, at the extreme 16,000 square feet and one space for every 250
square feet, so that's four per 1,000. So 16 times four, about 64 spaces.
MAGAZINE: It's a lot of spaces.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah, no kidding.
MAGAZINE. And tell me again, I'm sorry. How many spaces are we talking about now
under the special use permit?
WESLEY: So now with what's being proposed, in terms of the combination of uses on
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here, he's required 17 and there are 20 between what's in the building and those
immediately adjacent to him.
MAGAZINE: Yeah. I think I agree with the Councilwoman, that this sounds to me like
the best alternative.
MAYOR DICKEY: So parking, the other part we talked about was the design. And if
this was a totally commercial building how much input would be required of us for the
design? Whether it's modern or whatever? I mean if this as by right, how much would
you kind of weigh in on that?
WESLEY: Mayor, it would come through just the staff level in terms of that site plan
and elevation review and we would take a similar approach. If indeed the council agrees
and as they discuss the SUP. That gives us a little more weight in terms of working with
the architect on that final design.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Again, this whole thing is very baffling to me. Does
anybody have questions that they'd like to ask the applicant?
MAGAZINE: Yes.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Please, come up sir and then well see if there's any cards.
Thank you.
GURCZAK: John Gurczak, the developer and Fountain Hills resident. So basically the
commercial majority of it will be used by myself You know, the other area I'm not sure
if we're going to need it or rent it out or something like that. But the majority of the
bottom right, that's all going to be personally used. And you know, really the -- what the
square footage of the lot, compare, if you count all of the parking space on the other
parking lot too, that's part of this plot, I think by right I estimate about 26 is designated
for this lot just on the outside. So you know, this is actually even much less because
you're only l I parking spots are going to be outside. So as far as like the overall project,
you know, it's really a down zoning of what could be built by right. And you know, the
actual building itself, the same exact building could be built as a two-story like this. And
there would be pretty much no input on architecture from staff or anything.
MAGAZINE: Mayor'?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, sir.
MAGAZINE: Sir, when would you anticipate breaking ground if this is approved?
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GURCZAK: Probably sometime in the first quarter. I'm probably the fastest builder in
town as far as all that and I get plans done pretty fast.
MAGAZINE- The reason I'm asking is that we've had, as you might expect, a lot of
request for special use permits.
GURCZAK: Yeah.
MAGAZINE: And they take a lot of staff time and council time to go over them,
deliberate, and so on, and a number of them never come to fruition.
GURCZAK: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have five private under construction in town right
now and probably another five that are starting the next 12 months too.
MAGAZINE. You're not going to waste our time?
GURCZAK: No. No. 1 don't like to waste time, plus it's already been about six months
we're in this process so --
MAYOR DICKEY: Any other questions for this gentleman?
GURCZAK: And you know, if we're able to get approval on this then 1 would definitely
be looking at other lots in that area and that whole center to kind of, try to redevelop over
the years and that.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any other questions?
Do you have cards on this? Thank you.
MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. We have two. Betsy LaVoie. Hopefully I said
your name right.
LAVOIE: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, staff. I am a Fountain Hills
resident, as you know, since 1978 and I represent the Fountain Hills Chamber of
Commerce. Mayor, I'm also baffled. We need housing in Fountain Hills and I, from the
Chamber of Commerce, am recommending a mix use taking away commercial. So that
tells you how badly we need housing in Fountain Hills. In the past 13 months,
Councilmember Magazine, you mentioned the many special use permit projects that have
been presented to this council. You've had three in 13 months and similar to the one
presented here today and all three were approved, all three were similar to this project.
So I also don't understand.
This project was questioned for architectural design, although many similar designs in
Fountain Hills were approved, for example the gun site apartments were approved and
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
look lovely. You might not agree, but I think they look lovely and it's a similar design.
The project was also suggested for approval by planning and zoning given the final
drawings brought the dwellings to four, which it has. So it has accepted that challenge
and met with it. Parking was also and continues to be raised, which is interesting because
it was also addressed multiple times in a much better fashion than if it were commercial.
Not only do the town parking regulations and ordinances, not only does it fit within that
but it also fits in with the president of the association for plot 106 for the mixed and
shared uses.
I am a part of the board of directors for Plot 208, so I know and am very familiar with
parking issues and there's plenty of parking in this area, as the president of the association
has stated.
Additionally, I know you are all very well aware that if this owner -builder -developer
decided to change uses of this project or if he sold the property and that new owner
decided to change uses, they would have to go through the proper channels, through the
Town of Fountain Hills in order to have that zoning or those new uses accepted. So I
know a month ago, when this was postponed, it was brought up for a group home, but
that is of no consequence for today's decision for a special use permit for a mixed use,
because that is not what is before you today.
That, if that was ever before you, that would be a decision to be made at that time. But
were focusing on a special use permit, very much like the other three in 13 months that
you approved. And this area of town has not been built on or developed in almost 20
years. Multiple sections of our approved general plan quite literally support the approval
of this mixed project. And I can share those with you if you'd like, but I'm sure I don't
have time. And as a voice of the business community, I do strongly recommend approval
today of this special use permit. Our town needs it. Not for the commercial, but for the
residential. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
MAGAZINE: Mayor. Betsy.
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, I guess we have a question here.
MAGAZINE: Just to clarify. You said you didn't understand my comment. It might
have been three in the last 13 months, but I've been on this council for eight years, and
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 CITY COUNCIL MEETING
there are any number of them that were approved and were never built. And I know
there's a six month -- I think it's a six-month time limit, is that correct? Before the timer
runs out, but I just want to be sure that he's going to build it, that's all.
LAVOIE: Absolutely.
MAGAZINE: I'm in favor of it. Ijust want him to build it.
LAVOIE: Right. Absolutely. And it's not quite fair though to ask this new developer
and compare him to previous projects that he's unrelated to that have asked for extensions
when there's huge staff and building material shortages. It's no wonder. I have all the
dates and all your six-month extensions, and I know the data and 1 know that you've had
people asking for extensions which is typical and normal in the building world today.
MAGAZINE: Yes, it is. But we did not have shortages, five, six, seven, eight years ago.
LAVOIE: Correct.
MAGAZINE: This is fairly recent.
LAVOIE: Which is not his --
MAGAZINE: I understand that.
LAVOIE: Right.
MAGAZINE: I'm not disagreeing with you. Take a win. Take a win.
LAVOIE: No. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Any other questions? No?
MENDENHALL: Next is Don Prescott.
MAYOR DICKEY: Hi.
PRESCOTT: Hi. I'm Don Prescott. I'm a certified financial planner. I'm one of the
people who got a special use permit and built a residence. So I live at the building in-
between the Sylvester's Wine Bistro and the church and you know, we're happy to have
residential neighbors and commercial neighbors to see some life. I run a financial
planning office on the first floor. So we're happy to breathe some life. So as a residence
it's happy to hear that if any change in use, that means that a potential owner has to come
back to the drawing board and come back to the council. Obviously, I'm not a CC&R
expert, but my understanding of the CC&R's 4106 will never allow or have dedicated
parking spots. That's just what I've gathered, so I just want to make sure the council
understands that. Nobody gets a dedicated parking spot there.
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So yeah, we're happy to be part of this town and happy to have my business here and to
be a resident. So thanks.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you so much. Any other cards?
MENDENHALL• No more cards, Mayor.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes, sir.
SPELICH: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not
against development, regardless of what Ms. LaVoie might say to others that get back to
me that I am ant -development. I am not anti -development. And there seems to be some
pushback up here like we delayed this project. It is my job as an elected official to
represent the residents of Fountain Hills. If, in my job duties that I ask for more
information or request more things, it's not because I'm trying to put up roadblocks or
anything, I'm trying to make an informed decision and make my vote worth something.
So this general like, oh, well, you've had other people come up here and get special use
permits and everything. That's all well and good. Each thing is taken separately. So the
tone up here of this is a no-brainer, why are we delaying this, this shouldn't -- I will never
apologize to you, Mayor -- I'm so pissed right now, or anybody else on this council if I
ask questions about a project and I want the plans and I want to see what I'm voting on
before I make a decision.
So if 1 made anybody up here mad, too bad.
MAYOR DICKEY: Any other comments or questions? Can I get a motion, please?
SCHARNOW: Yes, ma'am.
FRIEDEL: Move to.
SCHARNOW: Oh, move to approve SUP22-000001 to allow up to four dwelling units
and requiring the parking spaces in the building to be designated for tenant or owner use
as approved through the site plan.
MAGAZINE: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. All in favor please say aye.
ALL Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Any opposed? Thanks very much.
1 think -- do we have any discussion or direction to the town manager'?
MAGAZINE: No.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Going to adjourn this and we'll take 10 minutes, and then well start
with the work study; is that okay.
MAGAZINE: Sounds good.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay, motion to adjourn?
MAGAZINE: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. All in favor?
ALL: Aye.
(Recess)
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