HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023.0620.TCRM.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL
June 20, 2023
A Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E.
Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 5:27 p.m.
Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Peggy McMahon;
Councilmember Gerry Friedel; Councilmember Sharron Grzybowski;
Councilmember Brenda J. Kalivianakis; Councilmember Hannah Toth
Attended Telephonically: Councilmember Allen Skillicorn
Staff Present: Interim Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Aaron D.
Arnson; Town Clerk Linda Mendenhall
Audience: Approximately forty members of the public were present.
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Post -Production File
Town of Fountain Hills
Town Council Regular Meeting
June 20, 2023
Transcription Provided By:
eScribers, LLC
Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not
be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Now, we'll start a couple of minutes early, our regular meeting.
Welcome everyone.
Please stand for the pledge. If you'd like, remain standing for the invocation.
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 so much.
We have Steve Gay from the Fountain Hills Democratic Club and former airline pilot to
do our invocation tonight.
Welcome.
GAY: Good evening.
Through the millennia, we, as a society, have learned that the best way to govern the
people is for the people to govern themselves. In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville, author of
Democracy in America remarked in amazement on this tendency of Americans to
participate in local government. He wrote, "How does it happen that everyone takes as
zealous an interest in the affairs of his township, his county, and the whole state as if
they were his own? It is because everyone in his own sphere takes an active part in the
government of society".
It's been almost 200 years and we; the people, have not let Tocqueville down when it
comes to our passion for self -governance at every level. Today, in this tradition, we
travel from our homes and businesses across the city to participate in this vibrant and
animated laboratory of democracy. Citizens, staff, and elected officials converge on this
chamber to work as one community, united and indivisible by nearly every measure.
Each of us arrives as individuals with unique ideas and experiences and we all have a
desire, in the spirit of goodwill, to accommodate the needs of others. Citizens request
assistance and offer their concerns. We are ever grateful for their interest and for their
trust in the process. Our staff provides expert advice in their particular field and we
truly appreciate their continued service. Elected officials listen, debate, and choose the
path forward for all of us out of a sincere desire to serve and honor the people of
Fountain Hills, all while shaping its future.
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We offer our thanks to these public servants in that often thankless task.
When we leave this chamber tonight, let us carry with us this same spirit of service and
goodwill tomorrow and every day that follows. This is how we assemble to serve and to
govern ourselves.
Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Roll call, please.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Here.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: Here.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: Present.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Present.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Present.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: Here.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Present.
MENDENHALL: Anyone wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the
agenda or under call to the public, should fill out a request to comment card, located in
the back of the council chambers and hand it to the town clerk, prior to consideration of
that agenda item. When your name is called, please approach the podium, speak into
the microphone and state your name for the public record. Please limit your comments
to three minutes.
It is the policy of the mayor and council to not comment on items brought forth under
call to the public. However, staff can be directed to report back to the council at a
future date or to schedule items raised for future council agenda.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Linda.
We'II start with our reports by the town manager and councilmembers.
Town manager?
GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor.
Tonight I have two updates and they both are recommendations and kudos to our staff.
Our first goes to our planning staff. By state statute we have to do an update on our
general plan and its status. And that's part of our consent items tonight. It's not
something we're going to talk about, but I do want to commend staff on doing a
fantastic job on that report. And recommend, if anyone is interested, it is in our packet
so you can find it online. Again, it's a report that talks about the progress and the
implementation of our general plan. Its a ten-year plan. It's easy to, sort of, put a plan
on the shelf. That is not what we do with this and staffs done a great job putting that
together. So I commend them.
I also want to pause. I know we're going to talk about parks and recreation month a
little bit. But I wanted to commend our community services staff on a number of
successful programs this summer. We get told that there's not a lot to do here in the
summer, it gets quiet. And both our rec staff as well as our community center staff put
together a lot of programs to fill up that void to make sure that we have a lot of
activities. So we just had our pizza party. We're getting ready to have our ice cream
social over at our community center. And then Saturday night we just hosted our party
in the park, where we had almost 200 residents out at our parks, enjoying some games
and activities and stargazing. And then we have a number of programs, including our
wacky wet Wednesday and our splashpad summer series.
So if you're not familiar with those or if you're looking for something to do this summer,
I highly suggest hopping online and checking those out. They're really fun.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
GOODWIN: Thank you.
TOTH: I have no report this week, Mayor. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay.
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GRZYBOWSKI: I attended the Arizona Alliance for Livable Communities meeting. They
define themselves as a group of volunteers that work at the intersection of planning and
public health. They just won the 2023 Trails for Health award from American Trails in
the advancing trails awards program. So that was kind of cool; it's also a mouthful if you
have to write it down.
We had the Arizona League budget finance and economic development committee
meeting where we discussed resolutions that we think makes sense to follow and hope
that our state legislators take a hold of. And I think we've got a couple of good ones
that are coming before your committee at the league conference this year.
Also, I had an opportunity to meet with Jen from Cox Communications, where we talked
about some of the things that Cox is working on, including their grant program and any
upcoming system upgrades. And that was my past however many weeks that was.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilmember.
FRIEDEL: Thanks, Mayor.
Just a couple of updates from around town. I've been out to Golden Eagle Park a couple
of times this week and watching them replace the lights out there. So it's kind of
exciting to see that project progressing. So good job on that, Rachael, and your parks
people.
And also had the opportunity to go by the skate park again, which isn't officially open.
However, it's been very busy down there. And also, just a little reminder that our grand
opening is this Saturday night, right? 6:30 at the skate park. So the town did a great job
of renovating that and it looks great and it's going to be an exciting night out there. So if
you're not doing anything, pop on by.
Also, staff and I met out at Adero Canyon. We received -- well, I received several
comments from people about parking out there at Adero Canyon, at the trailhead. So I
met with staff out there and we went over a couple of different options out there and
the staff is, right now, gathering some data and will come back with some options as to
addressing that issue out that. So I appreciate the staff's time and patience with me out
there.
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So that's all I have Mayor.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thanks everybody for coming out this afternoon
to support your Cottonwoods maintenance district and your town council. We really
appreciate this. Fountain Hills is blessed to have such an engaged citizenry. And I also
would like to thank everybody in Cox Channel 11 in livestreaming it on YouTube, for
attending our meeting tonight; very important.
Two weeks ago I attended the League of Arizona Cities and Towns public safety military
affairs and courts policymaking committee. This committee is to revive an opportunity
for the city and town officials to form across the state to provide expertise and direction
on the policy issues that come before the league.
This week we discovered body scanning machines. They're currently prohibited by state
law from being in jails, even though it's in prisons and other forms of coverage, and so
we voted unanimously to include body scanning machines in jails for the protection of
the corrections officers and the intake staff. And so that will go -- that will wend its way
through the system now.
I also was fortunate enough to attend the state of the chamber breakfast this past week
with our CEO and president Betsy LaVoie. It was a very good event. She described the
state of the chamber for the past year and what's coming up in the future. It was a very
interesting, very fascinating presentation.
I also had a chance to meet with Attorney General Kris Mayes, the Attorney General of
Arizona, a very fascinating woman, and I had very good conversation with her. She's
very interesting.
I also had a chance to go to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's 91st birthday last week. And no matter
what you think of Sheriff Joe, I think we all aspire to get to be 91 years old. So
congratulations, Sheriff, on that. And apparently, in the Fountain Hills Times today they
had a report on a racehorse that was named after Sheriff Joe. So I'll have to track that
progress and maybe place a wager or two to see how his racehorse does.
So anyway, that's all I have for you this week. Thank you very much.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Councilman Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: No report at this time.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
There was a behavioral health fraud meeting with the governor's office on the phone
with AHCCS also. It was very informative as was the Chamber breakfast. Kris Mayes
talked about that and the crackdown on that. And then also fentanyl, border, and
senior fraud, and Al issues. So there was a lot going on.
I'll get to be part of what they call an, "experts within presentation" representing the
Town of Fountain Hills, to visitors at our Dark Sky's nationally recognized exhibit at the
Smithsonian in D.C. next month. I'm going to be bringing brochures and t-shirts. And
Beau (ph.) has been getting a lot of town stuff together, for me to bring. I'll have like a
kiosk and so I'll be pushing for Fountain Hills and our dark skies.
While we're there, we'll go to the National Museum of African American History. I want
to mention, Abraham Lincoln gave the emancipation proclamation on January 1st, 1863,
which freed the slaves under Union control. But slavery remained in Confederate states
until the Union troops arrived. So on June 19th, 1865, they went to Texas which was the
westernmost state and on that day, 250,000 enslaved people were freed by executive
decree and that's the celebration that became known as Juneteenth, and that was
yesterday.
So I have three proclamations. I'll point them out and then I'll come down one by one.
The first one is the parks and rec month proclamation. And I think I'll be giving that to
Kevin Snipes and some other folks from the department that I see and Sruti Peddi, who
is on our community services advisory commission.
Next, I would be giving one for professional engineer's day proclamation and I have to
say the language, when I got it sent to me was on an email with graph paper stationery.
So I'm wondering who sent that to me, David. It's a very, very -- well, it was nice.
The last proclamation is going to be the Coast Guard Auxiliary. I'll be presenting that to
some folks, Division Commander John Dootson, and I'm going to ask Councilman Brenda
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Kalivianakis to come down and join us for that one because she is a member on the
Auxiliary, so.
Parks and rec, come on up.
I'll read it; you hold it.
With the big writing here. 5o come on, come on, guys. Very nice.
All right. Whereas parks and recreation is an integral part of communities throughout
the country, including the Town of Fountain Hills, and whereas parks and rec promotes
health and wellness, improving the physical and mental health of people who live near
parks, and whereas parks and rec promotes time spent in nature, which positively
impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance -- really? And well-being,
alleviating illnesses such as depression, attention deficit disorders and Alzheimers; and
parks and rec encourages physical activities by providing space for popular sports, hiking
trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyles
and ensures the ecological beauty of our community. Providing a place for children and
adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors.
And whereas parks and rec is a leading provider of healthy meals, nutrition services and
education and parks and rec programing and education activities, such as out -of -school
time programing, youth sports and environmental education are critical to childhood
development.
And whereas parks and recreation increases a community's economic prosperity
through increased property values, expansion of that local tax base, increased tourism,
the attraction and retention of businesses and crime reduction -- it's quality of life,
right?
And parks and rec is fundamental to environmental well-being of our community and to
the essential and adaptable infrastructure that makes our community resilient in the
face of natural disasters and climate change. And whereas the U.S. House of
Representative designated July as Parks and Rec Month, therefore let it be resolved that
the Town of Fountain Hills council, July is recognized as Park and Recreation month,
recognizing the benefits derived from parks and recreational resources.
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There you go.
SNIPES: Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Well you have to say something.
SNIPES: Well, this is just some of our staff that's here tonight, but I wanted to bring
them up. And I can't tell you how hard all these people work to provide the fantastic
parks, rec, community center, senior services, volunteers; they do it all. So its definitely
a team effort. We're a small group but we do a lot for the town. As Rachael was saying
earlier, there's a lot to do. You just have to take a look on our website and you'll see
that there's plenty to do all summer long. Come on out and join us.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. You have a picture?
Next, I think we'll have David come up and yes. Andy? All righty. You can do the honors
there.
Whereas licensed professional engineers have impacted our world in extraordinary
ways from the clean water we drink, to the roads we travel, the energy we use, the food
we eat, the clean air we breathe, and the cars we drive. And whereas, Arizona licensed
professional engineers have made significant contributions to our town, our state, and
our nation; and whereas the economy has grown, in part, because licensed professional
engineers have been and continue to be instrumental to our community through
application of their engineering knowledge and skills. And whereas August 2nd, 2023,
has been declared Professional Engineer's Day by the national society of professional
engineers, an organization of 35,000 that represents the interest of licensed
professional engineers in all 50 states and three territories. And since 1949 the Arizona
Society of professional engineers has actively promoted and advanced the interests of
licensed professional engineers for the betterment of public health, safety, and welfare
through ethical conduct and professionalism.
So now therefore, I, Ginny, Mayor of the Town of Fountain Hills, proclaim August 2nd,
2023, as Professional Engineers Day in Fountain Hills and call upon citizens, parents,
public and private agencies, businesses, hospitals, and schools in the town to join with
the Society of Professional Engineers in supporting efforts to increase public awareness
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of the valuable service that licensed professional engineers provide to our community
for the betterment of public health, safety, and welfare for all.
Thank you. You have to say a few words.
JANOVER: Thank you. Thank you.
On behalf of the National Society of Professional Engineers, the Arizona Society of
Professional Engineers, and all licensed professional engineers, thank you for this
recognition. Personally, it has been a privilege to serve our citizens, the Mayor, and
council with our prime responsibility to keep the Town of Fountain Hills safe,
operational, and beautiful. I, along with our director of public works, Justin Weldy,
assistant town engineer, Andy Whistler, PE, our street superintendent and street crew,
our facilities manager and our engineering inspector, value the opportunities to
collaborate with the town manager, other town departments, and professional
engineering consultants to design and oversee town projects that not only enhance the
Fountain Hills experience for our citizens and visitors, but most importantly, protect the
health, safety and welfare of the public.
As a licensed professional engineer, I have a solemn obligation to do so, which I proudly
submit to. So I thank you for your trust in us and the continued opportunity to utilize
our experience, knowledge, and skill in discharging the duties as your town engineer
and assistant town engineer. And for the recognition of Professional Engineers Day.
So thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: All right.
And thank you.
JANOVER: Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, guys, so much.
All right. Now, National Guard folks, come on up. Coast Guard. All right. I'm sorry
about that. There you go.
So Mr. Dootson, correct?
DOOTSON: Yes. That's right.
MAYOR DICKEY: All right. Come on up here.
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DOOTSON: Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: You're the division commander, correct?
DOOTSON: Division commander. This is Penny Goode, she's our flotilla commander.
MAYOR DICKEY: Welcome. I'll read this now.
Whereas, on June 23rd, 1939, the United States congress authorized the formation of
the coast guard's volunteer reserve and whereas the Coast Guard Auxiliary has --
You're supposed to come down here.
KALIVIANAKIS: Oh.
MAYOR DICKEY: I said the word "auxiliary" and it reminded me.
Coast Guard Auxiliary has grown and evolved remarkably over the last eight decades as
an organization of enthusiastic volunteers dedicated to the promotion of recreational
boating safety throughout the United States and its territories. The men and women
who serve in the auxiliary have selflessly devoted time, skills, and expertise across an
increasingly diverse array of roles and missions to assist the coast guard and to preserve
and protect our nation's maritime interests. And whereas the Coast Guard Auxiliary and
its 127 members throughout Arizona dedicated in 2022, in excess of 18,600 volunteer
hours, performed over 400 vessel safety checks, and assisted in distributing over 800 life
jackets. And whereas the Coast Guard Auxiliary's service and strength are defined by its
core values: honor, respect, and devotion to duty and their motto is semper paratus.
DOOTSON: Always ready.
MAYOR DICKEY: Always ready. And whereas the Coast Guard Auxiliary part of Team
Coast Guard, actively patrols Arizona waterways, along with performing shoreside public
affairs and recreational boating safety missions in the interest of recreational boating
safety.
So therefore, I, Ginny, recognize Friday, June 23rd, 2023, the 84th birthday of the U.S.
Coast Guard Auxiliary as Coast Guard Auxiliary Day in the Town of Fountain Hills and call
the observance to the attention of our citizens.
Thank you. We're going to clap and then you say something.
DOOTSON: I want to give big thanks to Fountain Hills resident Jack Pauly who is the
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immediate past vice division commander for organizing this and doing the first -- this
will be on Friday. The 23rd will be the first time that we've celebrated a Coast Guard
Auxiliary Day. About two years ago we did Coast Guard Day, which was August 4th, the
birthday of the Coast Guard. But this is the birthday of the Coast Guard Auxiliary and it
started 1939 as boaters helping boaters. And a lot of people think, what is the Coast
Guard doing in Arizona? Everyone always asks who do you fly for? No, we're not pilots,
we're the Coast Guard Auxiliary. So there's three branches, or three legs of the Coast
Guard. One's the active duty folks, one's the reserve, that you're familiar with. And
then we're the civilian component, non -uniformed component; we help out.
There's only five active duty Coast Guard people in the entire State of Arizona.
So we go ahead and we do the things like the boating safety patrols and give our life
jackets and whatnot. But one of the neat things we do is I'll have Ms. Goode talk about
it. She's the head of the band flotilla and we're going to have a performance on Friday.
GOODE: Thank you, Commander.
Yes, I'm Jenny Goode and I'm the flotilla commander of 10-03. We are the Arizona band
flotilla, and we perform throughout the Valley and even in places like California. We
serve our veterans and we perform at patriotic events; and we're proud to do so.
So --
DOOTSON: So come out this Friday.
GOODE: Yes.
DOOTSON: 8 o'clock.
GOODE: Yep. You'll see us there.
MAYOR DICKEY: Anything you want to say, Brenda?
KALIVIANAKIS: Just thank you, Ms. Mayor, for your participation in this beautiful
ceremony. We really appreciate it. And for the 21,000 Coast Guard Auxiliaries out
there, we give you our thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Vice Mayor will be at that event. I'm going to be away. So looking forward to hearing
about it.
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All right. Our next -- we have no presentations.
Next is call to the public. Do we have any speaker cards?
MENDENHALL: Yes, we do, Mayor. We have three speaker cards at this moment.
First up is Crystal Cavanaugh. And on deck is Matthew Corrigan.
CAVANAUGH: Good evening, Mayor Dickey, Vice Mayor McMahon, Councilmen Friedel,
and Skillicorn on the phone. Councilmember Kalivianakis and Toth, and of course, our
sis, Councilwoman Grzybowski.
Thanks to those of you who did put residents first, whether you really wanted to or not,
by voting to oppose the mountainside rezone. Although, a biased, inaccurate article in
AZ Becks (ph.) followed, which mischaracterized our town as antidevelopment by the
developer, his attorney, our own councilwoman who spoke of fixing it with a revote, and
from our own chamber leadership who used the word "stagnant" to describe Fountain
Hills. When I last looked, there were several ongoing projects and developments here.
And no problem selling our beautiful homes to newcomers here in Fountain Hills for a
nice price.
Maybe we just like selective development for our unique topography and scenic views,
instead of towering urban studio apartments that diminish our neighborhoods. So on
this topic, regarding the Sendero's property, the town needs to stick to its existing
regulations without waiving any requirements or making special deals. I certainly wish
Mr. Wesley would have been more concerned with the impact on residents in my
neighborhood before approving the rooftop pergola monstrosity on Catclaw, that sits at
least 30 feet into the air in Sunridge Canyon.
I expected that a request to rezone the Fountain Area hotel into apartments would be
on the agenda tonight when I left last month's P&Z meeting along with a request to
expand the number of people in a neighborhood community residence.
The operators there want an SUP to allow 16 people plus staff. This would actually
double what our current ordinance allows. This simply lines the pockets of the
operators with excess money but would not improve the care of the current ten elderly
residents in this residential neighborhood home. At ten, they were already
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grandfathered in from the current code. Hopefully, when either issue comes before
you, you will again put residents first.
With regards to any hotel rezone, look down the road at the consequence of getting rid
of the only downtown hotel, while at the same time bringing in a Dark Sky observatory
tourist destination all while striving to accrue economic development. Stand strong
against any developer that threatens the hotel could be used to house illegals or the
homeless if apartments aren't approved. We do, indeed, need to monitor that issue
though, because hotel vouchers for the homeless was already a topic by our state
government. The governor actually vetoed a house bill that tried to protect our tourism
industry from these vouchers.
Please continue to consider our residents and unique community first. Just because
other places allow things to happen does not mean it's right for Fountain Hills. We do
not need to unnecessarily bring the insanity of other locations here.
Thank you very much.
CORRIGAN: Madam Mayor, Councilmembers, Matthew Corrigan, home owner of
Fountain Hills. Really two subjects or topics tonight, and one is, rezoning or zoning. And
let me start with the first. So later tonight the council will hear from a rezoning
applicant who wants to expand a single-family residence, which I applaud. But they do
so wanting the council to set a precedent by changing open space to single family
housing for the purpose of enlarging the property. Does this then open the door to
others who expect similar rezoning preference for home additions? Just a question.
Second topic, number two. The council plans to discuss the problem of vagrancy under
the misnomer of homelessness. I would caution the council from aligning with MAG
human resources program and their new director and former Phoenix city manager, Ed
Zuercher. I do not know and have not met Ed Zuercher, but I do know the failed history
of Phoenix lawless, crime -ridden, massive city government approved, slum encampment
known as The Zone in Phoenix. This increased under the watch of Ed Zuercher.
Please align and support organizations that have success with substance abuse and
mental illness. Phoenix Rescue Mission, for example, might be one that comes to mind.
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They are a 501(03) crisis center charity with a 91 percent charity star rating.
Government solutions offer a carrot without a stick. In other words, all participants are
rewarded for failure to change, rather than rewarded for success. That's a problem.
This is all done at taxpayer's expense. MAG human services' goal, according to their
website, is "support progress in creating an equitable human services delivery system
for marginalized populations, incorporating perspectives of people with lived experience
as well as perspective reflecting diversity and inclusion of race, ethnicity, religion, sex,
disability, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation".
I have noticed a consistency with government program solutions on any issue. Number
one, success is measured by the number of participants in the program. Number two, if
the government program fails, more taxpayer money is poured into it. Number three,
government programs never get smaller or go away, they only grow and create more
bureaucracy. Four, government officers in bureaucracies are not elected and not
accountable, really, to anyone.
I've also noticed that cities and towns that create ordinances to discourage vagrancy
and then enforce these ordinances, have less vagrancy, panhandling, loitering, and
illegal camping.
Thank you.
MENDENHALL: Next we have Lori Troller.
TROLLER: Hello. Mayor, council, Rachael, Aaron. Rachael, you mentioned general plan.
I just want to bring this up real quick. There is a state requirement that
telecommunication -type ordinances comply with our general plan. And our general
plan has zippo in it for telecommunications. Doesn't mention towers, anything. There's
nothing in there. So it's not in the seven strategic plans either. So those need to be
updated.
The other item is: can we get an update on the actions taken from the interview, the
lawyer interviews for the broadband stuff? I know I'm not going to get an answer, I'm
just putting the question out there.
Thank you.
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MAYOR DICKEY: We will be --
GOODWIN: I think a press release just went out.
MAYOR DICKEY: A press release?
GOODWIN: Um -hum.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. It already was put out?
GOODWIN: Um -hum.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. That it?
MENDENHALL: Ves. That is it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
So Lori, there was a press release put out. Okay, thank you.
All right. Our next is our consent agenda. Can I get a motion, please?
MCMAHON: Move to approve the consent agenda.
FRIEDEL: Second.
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Allen?
SKILLICORN: Ves. Madam Mayor, there is an item that I would like to take off of it, to
discuss. It's the one about transit.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. So we can approve the consent agenda, items A, B, and C. And
we have a second. All those -- roll call, please.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Aye.
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MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aye.
Thank you. So as per our rules, the first item will then be -- what was the previous
consent agenda, Item D, which is about approving our IGA with our PTA, Valley Metro.
Rachael?
GOODWIN: Thanks, Mayor. I'm actually going to ask David Trimble to join us. He kind
of is our liaison for our Valley Metro relationship and I think he can probably outline this
pretty quickly for us.
MAYOR DICKEY: And Allen, step in if you have any, like, specific questions, please.
TRIMBLE: Sure. Yes. This is to kind of continue with the status quo from what we've
been doing since approximately 2014/2015. And really, we updated the bus service in
2021, kind of as a pilot program. So the town has their two essential transportation
services. One's the express bus service. It travels in the morning, twice; and then brings
folks back in the afternoon. And then the other program that the town has is the
RideChoice program. That's the on -demand service where folks with either disabilities
or over 65 can request a ride through either Uber or Lyft or the contractors that Valley
Metro has.
Currently, these programs are funded through PTF monies and that's the Prop 400
monies, and then through the Arizona Lottery Fund. So there's no general fund monies
that are outgoing at this time. Down the road, if the RideChoice program continues to
increase, we may want to look at that because it will potentially outstrip the monies
that are coming in from those sources.
I project that would be about, maybe, four years from now. But that assumes
everything stays the same. If more people play the lottery, maybe we'll get more
income. But -- that was a joke. I don't think there'll be that many people playing the
lottery. Yeah, as status quo, probably, we'd want to look at things in three years to see
what, if anything, we want to do differently there. That's kind of the background in a
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nutshell.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman, did you have a specific question about this item?
SKILLICORN: Well, I think Director Trimble, he did answer one of the questions. But I
just want to confirm, especially based on our previous town manager saying like lottery
funds fund these. And I'm a big fan of the RideChoice. I think it provides a good service.
But the bus line, I have not seen a whole lot of use of it. I personally have tried it three
times and I've been the only person on there. Frankly, I think those busses sit there and
idle for a couple of hours every morning. But I see here that it was estimated that there
was 36 people that were going to ride it and it turns out there might be one.
So the question I have is -- and this might just be an accounting -- how this was
accounted for. But under the headline of the PTF it mentions the town amount is
approximately $82,000 a year. Now, is that just a passthrough from the PTF funding or
what is that?
TRIMBLE: Mayor, Councilmember, the town does receive a total -- again, it can vary.
But year-to-year it's been approximately 82,000. 65,000 or so, is allocated to the 515
bus service. And then the balance of that goes toward the RideChoice program for that
total of approximately 82,000 that's coming in. 5o that can be used for both of the two
sources or the two programs.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman, when we--
SKILLICORN: So just to clarify --
MAYOR DICKEY: Go ahead. Go ahead.
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, Director Trimble, just to clarify that. $82,000 total and it's
all PTF. And the bus amount of that is 65,000; is that correct?
TRIMBLE: Yes. That's correct.
SKILLICORN: And Madam Mayor, Director Trimble, can we use that $65,000 to anything
else?
TRIMBLE: It gets a little complicated. I would ask Valley Metro -- we might want to
contact them. I reached out via email. It does sound like we can potentially redirect
that towards, potentially, the RideChoice program. As long as the RideChoice program
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continues to have the ridership that it does or the usage that it does. So I think-- and it
gets a little murky with the different funding sources. But I believe that that could be
done.
MAYOR DICKEY: I wanted to mention, Allen, that when we first had this -- well, for years
the route was going into Scottsdale over by the library. But then, we tried this not that
long ago, to try to have it go to the Park -and -Ride, hoping that that would increase some
of the ridership. I think some of it is that people don't know about it and obviously, it's
one of chicken and egg things too, when you only have the couple of trips in and out.
But it's something that we should take a look at. I think that we can do that.
TRIMBLE: And we also -- if I may. We implemented it -- I think we started it during
COVID. And I think a lot of the transportation, public transit stuff, ridership decreased
during that time frame. So probably a combination of things. I don't know but that
could be a contributor too.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
MCMAHON: Thank you very much. Being on Valley Metro board we have a brand-new
CEO, Jessica Mefford-Miller. She has been really, really proactive with Valley Metro.
Getting it out there and getting more advertising, letting communities know what
services they have, what's available in their community, allocating funds, et cetera. So I
think that there's going to be a lot more information out there and a lot more of our
community will become aware of the public transportation services that we provide.
Plus, as a growing community, I think that the bus ridership will change based on that
too. And also, I know that the ridesha re program is really, really appreciated and I have
to say that I'm impressed because Jessica rides the bus transit into work whenever she
can and that's -- she does it almost every day. So she walks the walk and talks the talk.
So it's good.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
GRZYBOWSKI: Councilman Skillicorn, can I ask -- can I ask Councilman Skillicorn a
question? When you tested your bus did you test from -- where did you start? Did you
start from here in the morning and travel out? How did you travel?
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SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, Councilwoman Grzybowski, I went twice from the library
to the Mesa Park -and -Ride and once, in the evening, took the Mesa park and ride back
north to the library.
GRZYBOWSKI: My fear is that's against traffic. Before we make a decision to pull this
kind of thing, I think we need to talk to our local businesses because our local retail
workers and restaurant staff cannot afford to live here. Remember that time I stalked
my neighborhood and watched the cars and the people come and go. There are two
people that I know took the bus, that walked into my neighborhood in the mornings and
out of my neighborhood in the afternoons because they had to go catch their bus. So I
kind of feel like that's against traffic. That maybe it's more people coming into town in
the morning and going out of town in the afternoon, is my guess; just based off of my
very brief surveys in the heat of the day stalking my neighbors.
So I do feel like we should talk to our local businesses to see how their staff commute in
and out before we make this kind of decision. Not that we're planning on doing it now.
I'm just saying we need to keep that in the back of our mind because I do know of two
people that live in my little, tiny hood that use it regularly.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman? Vice Mayor?
MCMAHON: Isn't there a time frame in order to change anything? Like a year or
something like that? It takes a while to make a change, correct?
TRIMBLE: I asked that question of Valley Metro and have experience when we changed
the route last time. They say a six to eight -month time frame. They do the changes --
implement changes twice a year: April and then October. And you really kind of have to
have it set up more or less a year in advance. You kind of want to have those decisions
made around a year in advance. So it's a topic, maybe we can bring back at another
time or maybe at the retreat or whatnot, to get some more information on that if we
want to look at that.
KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor.
Thank you very much for your presentation. My question is brief. I'm a little hesitant to
rely on anecdotal evidence as far as ridership is concerned because I think you can
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pretty much prove anything you want to prove with anecdotal evidence. Do we have
any hard data on ridership for both programs? And particularly in light of the fact that
we could be on the hook financially in say, four years from now, that we could actually
track this data and find out who's riding it, how many are riding it, what are the costs
going to be eventually to our community?
TRIMBLE: Yeah. The bus is a fixed cost for the community. So it doesn't matter how
many, obviously, ride that one. The RideChoice varies per ride. It's what the town pays
a portion of. And Valley Metro, to answer your question, does have those numbers.
Again, the bus ride is very -- the bus ridership is very low. It was averaging one person
riding that. RideChoice, on the other hand, seems to be increasing. Five-year average
on that has been about 750 rides, that's one-way rides. Now this past year, it's doubled,
it's 1,500. So people are learning about that program. It's affordable. They changed
the terms on the RideChoice program over the past few years and now it's more or less
$3 each way, limited to, I think, 50 miles. So for $6 you can go to, say, a medical facility
on 90th and Shea or even, we have people that go over to Mayo off the 101.
5o they can do that now for $6. Whereas the program before, that would have cost 30
or $40. So I think people are catching onto that.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
TOTH: If you could just clarify. Those numbers were not specifically for our Fountain
Hills stop; is that correct?
TRIMBLE: That is the numbers that I --
TOTH: That is for Fountain Hills?
TRIMBLE: Yeah.
TOTH: Okay. I'll have to keep a better eye, because that number surprised me. Thank
you.
MAYOR DICKEY: It's not the bus. You saw --
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor--
TRIMBLE: I'm sorry. Did you mean the bus?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah, I think so.
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TOTH: You know what I did? Something I --
TRIMBLE: Okay.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, Councilman Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Thank you.
I just want to -- before we go ahead and make a motion here. I just want to point out
that if it's one person, it's $65,000. We can buy that person a Tesla and it will be
cheaper. And if it's just two out of Havenly, we could buy each one of them a Prius and
save money. So we just want to make sure that point is taken. I think in the future we
really want to go to that RideChoice, it's such a better program. It helps people get to
doctors' appointments and things like that. I think it's a very useful. And the days of
mass transit, it's just not very popular. People don't like it and it's failing all over the
country. And really only works in really high density areas and we don't live in a high
density area. So I would like to make a motion to approve these.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Can I get a second, please?
FRIEDEL: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: I just want to make sure. Is the motion to approve?
FRIEDEL: Yeah.
MENDENHALL: Yes.
GRZYBOWSKI: Aye.
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MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: I still want to know what the motion is for, exactly, please?
MAYOR DICKEY: Move to adopt resolution 2023-24, correct?
MCMAHON: As it is right now?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes.
MCMAHON: Aye. Thank you for clarification.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aye.
Thank you all very much.
Okay. Our next item is approving the fourth amendment to a purchasing agreement
with Tanner.
Justin?
WELDY: Madam Mayor, Councilmembers, I put together a short presentation for
tonight, just as a refresher about the level of investment in the town's streets and
infrastructure over the last eight years leading up to and asking for your consideration
about approving this amendment to this contract. It should be noted that with little to
no exception the M. R. Tanner companies have been involved in the payment
management program for the last eight years. And have worked with the town's staff,
manager, and council to reduce the overall cost. And I think that part right there is very,
very important. Earlier this evening, you heard two reports: one paid for, that provided
an assessment and a group of dedicated volunteers that provided some
recommendations and their findings.
It should be noted that during that process, and I'll single myself out at this time; at
least, one or more of them were angry at me because when they asked for pricing I gave
them the unit prices per the contract. And they argued that we were not paying
anywhere near that amount of money for the services we were receiving, and it was
misleading. My argument to those individuals was that at any time, the individual at M.
R. Tanner's that is extending this price to the town, for less than the unit price in which
they were the low bidder for a multi -million dollar contract, could be gone and we will
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be paying unit prices. And I was concerned about any reflection that was not accurate
with the unit.
The numbers that you saw tonight were a happy medium between unit prices and what
we've actually been invoiced for and guidance from the town manager in those
numbers.
With that said, going back eight years to '15-'16, this is what was allotted and spent.
You've seen some of these images before. This is for'16-'17. As a reminder, all of those
little red dots in there were the intersections where the pavement was in such poor
condition there was nothing that could be done for it except to remove it and replace it.
This is '17-'18. You were here earlier tonight. One of the presenters noted that the
northeast corner of town had a lot of green lines in it. This is some of the reason why.
This is '18-'19. This is'19-'20. '19-'20 has two slides. One of them was primarily the
town center and the rest of them was residential.
This is '20-'21. You'll note that some of the downtown is shown in this. The reason for
that is we intentionally waited until a roundabout was done to pave the streets leading
up to it or the primary access to the roundabout, so it will all be one new, big project.
This is the remainder of '21-'22. Again, two slides.
This is what we are doing this year. Earlier tonight you saw a lot of green from past
decisions that were good in regards to pavement management and maintenance. All of
that investment needs the right treatment at the right time. We are at the five- to
seven-year mark, some cases a little over; closer to eight. We are doing the first
treatment, which is crack filling and preservative seal to protect that investment that
was made nearly eight years ago.
This is a really big number right here over the past eight years. I think it's important,
and I did not include these numbers to avoid confusing anyone. During the past eight
years, SE million was spent, about 8.6, to totally reconstruct Saguaro. That was a bond
initiative that was paid off in five years. Also back a little bit, to eight years and a little
bit more, the intersection of Saguaro and Shea was completed.
Just for boundary references, that is Saguaro just south of the Senor Taco and it was on
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Shea from Technology to the State Route 87 right of way. 52.7 million that was Prop
400 money.
Also during this time frame, Shea was repaved from Technology to the Scottsdale
border for a little over a $1 million. That was also Prop 400 money. I didn't include
those last three, and they're really big numbers because I don't want people to get
confused with the money that we use for pavement management and maintenance
that's allotted by this council through the budget that's available and other funding
sources that pay for those other types.
Tonight we are asking you to consider approving an amendment to a contract that
we've been using for several years to spend, primarily, federal government monies on
the streets that are listed up here. With little to no exception, the majority of these are
pre -incorporation roads that are in that backlog that you saw that are primarily
unsavable by any other treatment besides full -depth reconstruction or a minimum of
two-inch mill and overlay reconstruction. It's a lot of money. It doesn't look like very
much surface until you get down deep and dig deep into that map. But it's a
considerable amount of work.
Any questions in regards to the exhibits that I just showed you? I'll do my best to
answer them.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Did we have any speaker cards on this item?
MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Any questions, comments?
FRIEDEL: Go to motion.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay.
FRIEDEL: Move to approve the fourth amendment to the cooperative purchasing
agreement, C2020-065 with M. R. Tanner, in the amount of $5 million and any required
budget transfers?
MCMAHON: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call, please.
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MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?:
FRIEDEL: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aye.
Thank you. Thanks, Justin.
WELDY: You're welcome.
MAYOR DICKEY: A night for roads and streets.
Our next item is our discussion on issues surrounding homelessness. And this is for
discussion only and to learn a lot. A lot is going on. I'll ask Rachael to please kick it off, if
that's okay?
GOODWIN: Sure. Happy to.
Yes, this is a lot. It's a big conversation. Staff has worked for a number of weeks now,
trying to get our arms around how to guide this conversation. So we have two
presentations tonight. They're not light, and they are not easy, but I imagine there will
be a lot of questions and a lot of conversations. So I want to encourage the council to
ask those questions. We may not have answers, but we do have a number of
stakeholders in the room with us tonight.
First it's going to be Amy St. Peter with MAG. She's going to talk about homelessness in
the context of the regional discussion. And then following her we will have Capt. Kratzer
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talk about some of the peripheral things and the secondary things associated with our
community here.
So with that, Amy?
ST. PETER: Excellent. Thank you very much.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Welcome.
ST. PETER: Rachael, Madam Chair and Mayor and members of the council, thank you
very much for having me here tonight. I've been here before. We deeply appreciate
our partnership with you.
It is critical, as we strengthen the regional response to homelessness, that we work very
closely with communities. Homelessness looks different in different communities. It
manifests differently. It's to a different scale. And as such, any kind of solutions around
homelessness really need to be very closely and intentionally aligned with the priorities,
the preferences, the attributes, the capacity of each and every community. So solutions
inherently have to be customized. They have to be different for each community.
So we really appreciate the leadership that you've shown in this space. The opportunity
to work with you in a really collaborative way.
My purpose here tonight is to share with you some data about homelessness
throughout the region and to be able to share with you some of those regional efforts.
And then to highlight some of the local activities underway as well. But we stand here
in partnership with you. We are eager to help you in this conversation. It is multi-
faceted. It is very complex. But we know that by communicating really constructively
and closely on an ongoing basis with each other, we'll have a better response, we'll have
a better outcome. So thank you very much for that partnership and I do invite your
direction, your questions, your feedback, your ideas, throughout this presentation and
as we move forward.
So with that, I did want to call to your attention, a lot of the data that I'll be sharing
tonight is from the homelessness management information system. We are mining this
data, particularly on a quarterly basis, to be able to very transparent and to hold
ourselves accountable, to be able to share their progress that's being made, and if
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progress is not being made, then we use this data to help us to realign our actions and
to make any mid -course adjustments as needed. All of this data is available to you on
the MAG website. It's available to your residents and to the residents throughout the
region. So I encourage folks to go to the MAG website and there you can see the
quarterly report, showing the trends in this homelessness data. And if you have
questions about that data, please don't hesitate to reach out to us and let us know and
we'd be happy to walk through that with you.
So in terms of the data that we've polled from the report for your information for your
discussion tonight. When we talk about how many people are experiencing
homelessness right now, in our region we have just over 8,000 people. Those are
people who staying in shelters, as well as those who are not in shelter but who,
otherwise, don't have a place to call home. So it may be on the streets, or in the
riverbeds or in their cars. Many of them are working. They're working full-time jobs
and they simply are not earning enough money to be able to afford a rent or a
mortgage.
And so this is how it's broken out right now. You'll see that the total number of
households, again, in individuals, it's over 8,000 people. But in terms of households it's
just over 6,000. We have about 5,000 people who are single and on their own
experiencing homelessness. And then we have families that are down at the bottom.
We do want to share two -- we ask people what is contributing to their homelessness?
Because the solutions to ending homelessness or addressing homelessness, reducing it,
really have to be intentionally formed around the reasons why people are experiencing
homelessness.
Very often it's a multitude of different reasons. It's not always any one single thing. A
lot of times it's because they don't have that support system. So if you or I were to lose
our jobs, we likely would be okay. We'd land on our feet. We would be able to recover
from that. When people don't have a support system, they aren't able to recover as
well. And so we see the economic factors are the number one reason cited. And this
data is from the Phoenix Rescue Mission. They're a very good partner in this base. We
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work with them very closely. They worked on this gaps analysis and they interviewed
more than 700 — nearly S00 different people experiencing homelessness. So that's
where this data is from, before you today.
So when somebody loses their job, they don't have -- they're underemployed. They
might be working part-time, when they really need to be working at least full-time but
they simply can't find that job. So finances, money, they just don't have enough of it for
various reasons.
Health issues: substance use addiction is an issue, absolutely. As well as mental health
issues, medical issues, disability. When people aren't able to work for a variety of
reasons, they simply aren't able to maintain their housing. Also we find that there are
family issues involved. We see, unfortunately, all too often, particularly among youth
who are on their own. So minors who are experiencing homelessness on their own,
most often is because they've been kicked out by their families. And very often they've
been abused or neglected and then they were kicked out. So they've experienced a very
hard time, while they still had a home. And they're experiencing an even harder time
now that they do not have a home.
Lack of affordable housing, lack of affordable rents or mortgages. This is absolutely
critical. We find that, for example, older adults are disproportionately impacted by this
as well. We find that there has been a 34 percent increase in older adults, people 65
and plus. If they're renting, they are living on a limited and fixed income and they
cannot afford the significant increases in rent that we're seeing across the region in a
very significant way.
Other responses: people have been evicted because of landlord issues, the legal system.
We do have some people who report losing their homes as a result of COVID. Often
that's because they lost their job. We lost a number of lower paying jobs during the
pandemic and we have not recovered those jobs yet.
Also, again, if there's a disaster, an accident, we call it sometimes a flat tire syndrome.
You get that flat tire, they get into a car accident, they incur those bills, they lose their
job, they lose their housing, and then they're in this very fast spiral downward into
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homelessness, that's very difficult to recover from and to pull themselves out.
I'm asked a lot, actually, well, what about the people who choose to experience
homelessness? And four percent actually cited that as their reason. They said, yes, I'm
choosing to experience homelessness. I'd like to offer that as a very temporary choice.
Sometimes they aren't able to enter shelter, say for example, with their significant other
and they don't want to split up. Other times, they don't fit the demographics of people
who are being screened into that program. So it's a temporary choice, but some people
do say, yes, I want to homelessness, basically.
So we're finding that there is an increase in the number of people entering the system
who are new to the system. They've never needed help before but they're needing help
now. 34 percent of people entering the system right now are experiencing
homelessness for the first time. So they don't know where to turn and they are new to
this whole situation. And they're struggling. They're struggling to get back on their feet.
They're struggling to access health care, and they're struggling to be able to obtain the
housing and the stability that comes along with that housing.
I would like to point out too, that when we're looking at homelessness, we find that if
were looking at that from a per capita basis, that for every 25,000 people we have in
the region, about 27 are experiencing homelessness. So that gives you an idea in terms
of the scale and the scope that we're looking at right now.
And this is really important to look at too. Our inflow is greater than our outflow. We
cannot build enough shelter, or for that matter, housing, to be able to end
homelessness right now in our region. So to bring this down into more of a bite -sized
piece, for every 21 people that we have entering the system -- now, keep in mind if
there's 21 entering the system, about seven of them are new to the system. They don't
know where to go, they don't know where to turn. We only have ten percent leaving in
a positive exit, and a positive exit is that they're going into housing. So if you think of
like a funnel, we have all these people coming into homelessness, we aren't helping
enough people to leave the system in a really positive way. And so they're recycling
back into homelessness. They're staying in shelters for an extended period of time.
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They're leaving on their own but they're not leaving for housing. And so that's very
much an issue and something that we're tracking pretty significantly right now.
When we look at where are people experiencing homelessness, it really is all throughout
the region. It is in varying degrees. We see greater densities in some parts of the
region, such as in some communities. We see very little visible homelessness in other
parts of the region, but as you can see, throughout just about the whole region, there is
some level of people experiencing homelessness.
Now those blue dots are people who are experiencing homelessness on a chronic basis.
That means that they've been experiencing homelessness for a long time. They
generally also do have some kind of qualifying disability. So they're physically or
mentally not able to hold down a job and they're not able to access housing because of
that. The blue dots are people who are perhaps coming into homelessness for the first
time or they've been experiencing homelessness for a very short time period.
Now, I do want to point out that all of these interactions are from the outreach teams.
So if there's not an outreach team serving a particular area, we don't have data on that
particular area. So it is really critical to partner with outreach teams. Not only do they
give us better data in terms of where are people experiencing homelessness, but they
also build those relationships that can help move people into housing. Sometimes we'll
hear from folks that they get very frustrated because they'll say, well, this person was
offered housing and they said no. But they might not say yes the first time round
because of the trust issues and because of the severe trauma they have likely
experienced as they've experienced homelessness. And so maybe they say no the first
time, but maybe they'll say yes a fifth or the sixth time. And in order to have that level
of communication and engagement you have to have outreach teams. And so outreach
teams are really critical to addressing homelessness and bringing them in to housing and
helping them to maintain that stability.
I do want to make sure that you're aware of all of the great data analytics that we have
online on the MAG website. We have a lot of data about homelessness but also about
housing. Because when we're talking about homelessness we have to be talking about
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housing. Shelters are wonderful. They're an important part of the solution. They're not
the end goal though. If we put somebody in shelter, they can start to stabilize, we're
not ending their homelessness though. So housing is a really critical factor on the back
end as people are leaving homelessness. It's also critical to look at housing on the front
end to try and prevent someone from experiencing homelessness as a result.
So I'd like to offer some data that's a little bit more local in nature. So when we look at
housing, across the entire region, not specific at all to Fountain Hills. We know that
we've experienced a serious decline in affordable rents and mortgages for people. And
that is not always, but can very much be, a precursor to them experiencing
homelessness. Keeping in mind that if they're severely cost burdened, if they're paying
more than say 50 percent of their income every single month just on housing; if
something happens, an unexpected medical bill, an unexpected car repair bill, for
example, someone loses their job and it takes them a while to find another job, they're
more likely to experience homelessness.
And so when you look at home sales that are for $300,000 or less, you've lost about half
of that since 2011. The picture, though, gets more stark when you look at rents. So
when we look at rents under $1,000 a month, that used to be the majority of your
market back in 2010. You haven't seen rents under $1,000 a month for the past few
years now, to any significant degree. We are seeing rents that are $2,000 or more per
month. And when people are spending that much every single month, just on housing,
it puts them in a precarious financial situation and makes them more vulnerable.
And you can see what happens. Renters are the most cost burdened and they're cost
burdened throughout the entire region. So that red color, that's more than 45 percent
of the households living in that area, are cost burdened. It means that they're spending
more than 30 percent of their income every single month just on housing.
There's almost 300,000 people across the region spending more than 30 percent of their
income every single month just on their housing.
When we look at severely cost burdened households, they're spending more than 50
percent. And we have almost 150,000 renter households spending more than 50
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percent of their income every single month just on housing. That leaves very little
money for anything else, including food and medical care. And some populations, for
example, older adults, we often see the older adults are choosing between: do I pay for
my rent or do I pay for medication? I need my medication to live. I can't pay my rent
this month, and then they're experiencing homelessness as a result.
So for all these reasons and more, we started to strengthen the regional response to
homelessness back in 2020. We worked very, very closely with you, with our other local
and tribal governments throughout the entire region, to develop a regional
homelessness action plan specific to local and tribal governments.
In May of 2021, we had 14 strategies that were adopted that were broader in nature
and very inclusive of a number of different sectors. In December of 2021, our regional
council unanimously approved Pathways Home. Thank you very much for your support
with that.
We're excited to highlight that was a unanimous vote because that meant that every
single community throughout the region was part of this process and they supported
this plan. And they continue to support the plan in terms of its implementation moving
forward. These are the three main areas of activity that are highlighted in this plan.
Committing to work regionally, we recognize that we can do better and more together
than we can do on our own. Homelessness is truly a regional issue. It's not up to any
one sector and it's not up to any one community. And so it's being able, for example, to
share data, to share resources, and we're doing that more now than we have before
because of all of our local and tribal governments coming together.
We can't stop homelessness without housing and so we have a goal of increasing safe
housing options that includes temporary housing, such as shelter and rapid rehousing,
as well as permanent supportive housing.
We track our housing targets each month. The number of housing units needed to
address the current need changes every month. And so we're updating that. We're
working very closely without stakeholders. I do want to point out something concerning
about the housing options right now. For temporary housing we've just about doubled
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out shelter beds since the pandemic. So that's good news because more people now
are able to access shelter and they're able to start putting their lives back together.
What's concerning is that many of those beds, the majority of those beds, are funded
with COVID federal dollars which means that that funding will be eliminated in about
two years. So we only have two years to come up with alternative funding or solutions
to house people who are in those shelter beds right now and who will be in those
shelter beds over the next two years.
5o we're working very closely with a variety of funding partners: public, private,
nonprofit to try and make sure that we have a good plan in place so that we can
continue to meet the needs that only continue, unfortunately, to increase.
This work inherently involves multisectors and so we're working with very diverse
partnerships to address homelessness. That includes health care, the criminal justice
system, just a variety of different stakeholders, because again, it takes everybody
working together to make progress in this space.
And so communities across the region are responding. Some of them are enhancing the
work that they've had maybe underway for a number of years. We have a lot of
communities though, stepping into this space for the first time and trying new things.
And we're seeing some really good progress there.
We have some communities who are working very closely with our nonprofit partners,
for example, to provide really critical shelter housing and services to people. Sometimes
the local or tribal government is very directly involved, other times they might, for
example, give the funding to another partner who can then contract with nonprofit
agencies to provide those services.
What's showing particularly good progress right now is that flexible funding to help
people avoid eviction and to be able to acquire prevention resources. So sometimes
people don't necessarily need support with housing but they might need help, for
example, with daycare for a month until they can get their first paychecks and set up
really good care. And then they're able to proceed on their own. So sometimes if
people can just get a little bit of help at the right moment, its enough to keep them
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from entering the system in the first place.
And I do want to thank you in regard for your support, particularly for that last bullet
point: home is where it all starts. That is our new public education campaign. You
helped to provide funding to support those regional media buys.
Homeiswhereitallstarts.org is a website where you can go to access the information.
We do have a toolkit available. We encourage people across all sectors to go to that
website, to download the toolkit, and then really to use that. You can use that with
social media, with your website, in your communications. We need to reshape the
narrative around affordable housing; instead referring to affordable rents and
mortgages, homes within reach, homes that meet our needs. Because we need to be
able to have this conversation about homelessness, about housing; and we can do that
if we develop a shared language that is more inclusive and really brings more people
into that conversation.
I do want to highlight a current program that's underway right now that's lifesaving.
Our regional heat relief network is activated. That always starts with the first day that it
hits 100 degrees. None of us are happy when it gets that hot and when people are
experiencing homelessness, it's even less so, because they're very much exposed to the
elements and many people lose their lives each summer, whether they're experiencing
homelessness or they're working outdoors. Or sometimes, for example, they're living
on a fixed income, they have a home but they don't have enough money to turn on
those utilities and they die because they get so hot in their homes.
So thank you very much for participating in the regional heat relief network. We are
tracking who's able to offer water and to collect. So both to give water out to people
who need it as well as to collect water donations and to be able to disburse that to
agencies who can provide that support.
Also the cooling centers, the refuge locations, those are really critical. Sometimes
people just need to be able to come in out of the heat during the day and then they can
make it through the summer. But this is a critical program that's only possible because
of the support that's received from local and tribal governments like Fountain Hills as
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well as from nonprofit agencies and faith -based partners throughout the region.
That is my contact information. That is my direct line. That is my email address. I
encourage anyone to reach out to me if you have questions, ideas, comments, feedback.
Would love to be able to continue this conversation with you and I would encourage
you to go to the MAG website, check out the data that we have on this work through
our homelessness team, as well as our data analytics, that are available thanks to our
regional analytics division at MAG.
That concludes my presentation. I'd be happy for any questions or feedback that you
might have.
Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Amy, so much for coming. Do we have any comments or
questions at this time from council? I'm going to wait on the other presentations
because I think we have some more presentations, correct? And then we'll go with the
cards.
Yes. Councilwoman?
TOTH: I did just have one question for you. Earlier in your presentation you had
mentioned that many of them are actually working full-time jobs. I was wondering if
you had the exact number in Arizona of how many are working full-time jobs but still
homeless?
ST. PETER: Right. Absolutely. So I can give you one example. The area surrounding the
human service campus in downtown Phoenix, it's known as The Zone, 40 percent of the
people who are living in The Zone have jobs. And that statistic surprises people because
it's -- you know, sometimes it's hard enough to get up and go to work but even harder
when you've been living in a tent in a situation that's really not ideal for folks.
TOTH: So just to get a grasp on that. When you say have jobs, you mean full-time jobs
for 40 percent?
ST. PETER: They have a range of employment. It's at least part-time if not full-time.
TOTH: Okay. And do you know what the number that correlates to that 40 percent is?
ST. PETER: So in The Zone last time I heard, there were about 1,000 people, so it would
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be 40 percent of that number have jobs.
TOTH: Okay. Thank you.
ST. PETER: Thank you very much.
MAYOR DICKEY: I wanted to -- I just was reading about Maricopa County getting $2
million in funding for homelessness services and they are directing some of that to A
New Leaf which is fairly close to here, it's only 12 miles or so, and they're for shelter.
And then the Community Bridges, U Mom, a bunch of others. Do you know about -- I
know we have continuum of care, but something that's more like a -- we called it, I
think, at one of our meetings, a one -stop shop where there's -- and I think San Antonio
has that sort of a model, where -- and you kind of touched on it with the childcare, but
they do resumes and haircuts and all kinds of things that is not just here's a place for
you to stay for one night, but it's more of an overall area for services. Do we have
anything like that in Phoenix or in our region?
ST. PETER: Madam Mayor and members of the council, thank you very much for that
question. The human services campus is one example of that. That's where you have a
number of different nonprofit agencies with different areas of expertise who are co -
located in one area. And that model was designed so that we could treat people's
needs in a very holistic and more effective way. Also we'll find that there are smaller
centers like that. So for example, there's one located within the city of Glendale. Often
other nonprofits will offer either-- they'll offer those services directly or their case
managers are able to refer out for those services. Case management is a really critical
component of being able to offer those wraparound services. So we're moving more
and more to that and most often, if someone is providing any kind of housing, whether
it's shelter or permanent housing, they're also providing those wraparound services.
MAYOR DICKEY: So probably you would expect that might have a better success rate
than when you were talking about how more is kind of coming in rather than going out.
And going out in a way that's sort of a permanent solution or some success there. So
would you think that, I mean, they haven't been in existence enough to know if that
would have a better outcome?
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ST. PETER: Madam Mayor and members of the council, absolutely. When people
receive case management, they are more likely to be able to stabilize and to retain that
stability.
MAYOR DICKEY: And one last thing. So we have -- there are different levels and I know
we're going to talk about different ordinances and such that have to do with law
enforcement or code enforcement or those kind of things. Is there a contact that -- so
say, somebody's not doing anything along those lines, but just to offer -- and I know we
have cards from New Leaf and other things like that. Is there somebody even from MAG
that would be a good contact. I know you are, but to say -- and none of these situations
are the same, so say somebody's here. They can't go to New Leaf because it's after
hours or such. Is there something that might be available even, no matter what time it
is for us to get that information that might be helpful and maybe the law enforcement
isn't always have to be the one that is dealing with it. Maybe it's some other group or
some other folks or organizations?
ST. PETER: Absolutely. Madam Mayor and members of the council, there are a number
of resources available and sometimes, particularly with so many new people coming
into the system, they don't know where to go. And so we're working really hard to
make sure that people have access to the information 24/7. So for example, one tool
that's available to you as a local government, is called HANDUP. It's Homelessness And
Needs Data For Unified Planning. It's an interactive online tool. We'd be happy to
provide that password to you and with that tool you can see where the need is in terms
of people experiencing homelessness according to the outreach teams. But then also
where are the resources that can be used to address the needs of people. And those
resources cover a variety of different topics. Everything from food boxes to medical
care to legal assistance, clothing, employment assistance, mental health treatment,
substance use treatment. So that resource is available to you.
Also being able to call or to go onto a website for 211, community information referral.
They're a great resource and they have information, again, across a whole variety of
different kinds of needs. Also if you ever did want to contact me, and I can also put you
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in touch with our human services staff at MAG. We can help you to connect with the
outreach team who's serving that particular area. Because the outreach teams they can
help to meet very immediate needs, but they can also, again, build up that relationship
that's often so critical to people accepting services, that will result in them obtaining
housing.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you very much. And before you go, I wanted to just touch on
MAG a little bit. MAG is a metropolitan planning organization and the NPO for this
region. And it's, I don't know, about 25 cities, towns, tribes, and other organizations
that are part of it. And a metropolitan planning organization is federally mandated, that
is the only way to get the federal funds that we get for, well, these kind of programs.
And I wanted to also mention that a typical council will address regional and municipal
planning, economic -- I wrote it down. Community development, pollution control,
transit administration, transportation planning, streets, human services, workforce
development and water use. They also play a huge role in regional hazard mitigation
emergency planning and as you can see, with all of the information you have, collection
analysis, distribution of demographic and GIS data. You had a huge role in the census.
And then, just from a Fountain Hills point of view, we pay, I don't know, 3 to -- I think it
might be $5,000 dues to say, to join and to be part of this thoroughly mandated
organization. In the last five years, our public works and for various projects, we've
taken in more than $8 million just for the Town of Fountain Hills.
So I just wanted to get a little bit of an overview because sometimes we say these
acronyms and people don't always know what MAG is or NPO's or anything like that.
And again, I want to thank you very much for coming tonight and if you can possibly
stay, though. I'm sure we might end up with some questions.
Thank you.
ST. PETER: Thank you.
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes. Councilman?
SKILLICORN: Yeah, Madam Mayor I just have a question. I had heard about the cooling
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centers. Where is the closest cooling center in Fountain Hills?
ST. PETER: Madam Mayor, Councilmember Skillicorn and members of the council, I
don't know offhand but I'd be happy to get that information for you and follow up. If
you go to our website you can access the map and that includes it as well. But I'd be
happy to follow up with you directly.
SKILLICORN: And Madam Mayor, is this the same for the other care items? You know,
you mentioned a little bit about -- in terms of from the helping create resumes and
things like that. Where are these located in geographic terms to Fountain Hills?
MAYOR DICKEY: One of them, at least the one that I was talking about was A New Leaf
and you know a lot about that, and that's just right at the -- well, it's close. Yeah. I don't
know whether you can say where these places are but that one is close. The other-- it's
not the Bridges. There's on with the word bridge in it though, that we can use that they
can --
ST. PETER: New Bridges, Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. I think that any time of day you can use that one. I think A New
Leaf -- and A New Leaf has other services also but they do have hours. I know that vice
mayor knows a lot more about that. And then we just got -- and I know Capt. Kratzer
will be up here. And we have a good information sheet from MCSO about that, Allen.
So maybe we can get more of that information and the actual locations to you. But
they're in the proximity.
ST. PETER: Madam Mayor and members of the council, I'd be happy to provide the
information for HANDUP, for that interactive tool and then you can go into very specific
geographies on the map. And you can see all of the resources that are right around you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Very good. Very good. That will be helpful. Thank you.
Anything else?
Thank you very much.
ST. PETER: You're welcome.
MAYOR DICKEY: Rachael?
GOODWIN: All right. That brings up our next presenter, which is Capt. Kratzer. I'm
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going to -- in advance, he put a -- there was a lot of time and effort pulling data and
putting together quote a bit of comparative analysis. So I know there's going to be a lot
of graphs and a lot of information in this. So I want to encourage, if there's questions
about it, what we're looking at and understanding it. This took a lot of time so I expect
it will be very informational, but also it's a lot of information in and of itself.
So in advance, Thanks, Captain.
KRATZER: You're welcome. Let me get this open and then I will — Rachael, I know you
said you were going to spoon-feed this to me. There's two PowerPoints open at the
bottom and neither of them are mine.
GRZYBOWSKI: Madam Mayor, while he does that. I'm playing around on what I think is
what Amy was referring to, the 2023 heat relief network. If I understand this correctly it
looks like the library is considered a cooling center and that's all we have in Fountain
Hills. Anyway, the library is considered one in Fountain Hills.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Thank you, Captain. And again, I want to confirm what Rachale said. To thank you for
putting all this information together for us.
KRATZER: You're welcome.
Good evening Madam Mayor, vice mayor, members of the council. I first want to give
credit where credit is due. Our criminal research analysis unit put this together for the
town and for me, at my request, based on the upcoming conversation. So I can't say
that I spent a lot of time behind the computer doing this because I don't' really have the
knowledge or ability to do that. And so with that being said, as we go through this
presentation, if there are questions that are more technical in nature of where the data
came from, specifically, and I'm not able to provide the answer, I will definitely get that
back to you after speaking to the analyst who created the crime report.
So I want to start off by saying thank you for having MCSO as part of the discussion. We
are definitely a part of the issue and the topic here and I just want to reiterate that we
are a part and not the solution. And I know a lot of times there's some frustration when
people call MCSO about an individual who might be homeless who they think might be
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trespassing or loitering and there are times where we are not able to take action due to
a laundry list of things. But one of the big problems is, is some of the requirements in
the law is that we have a victim and that victim has to be willing to head the
prosecution. So if someone's on private property, there's some hurdles there. That
person, that business, that establishment, the property owner has to be willing to, and
want that person removed. So one of the things, some of our efforts that we did do and
when some of this discussion was coming up a year or two ago, was meet with a handful
of the local businesses around town, some of the local churches, where we knew some
of the problems were a little more persistent and we discussed with them some of the
things that they had the ability to do. That they could call MCSO if they had a subject
there that they didn't want on the property, or that were bothering patrons. And we
just ensured that they had the knowledge and understood what their rights were or
what they could do. Because I think some businesses or some people were not aware of
what they could or couldn't do.
So anyways, let's get into this. And some of this information is a little technical, so if
there's some of the things -- some of the things in here we won't spend a lot oof time on
but if there are questions I'm happy to answer. 5o we're going to cover the uniform
crime report comparisons. And so uniform crime reporting, that's an FBI program
where police agencies share data of their crimes committed in their areas. And that's
how this report was used to compare Fountain Hills to some of the other jurisdictions in
the Valley. Because a lot of those jurisdictions share crime report data to the FBI.
We'll talk about some policing activities and then some police contacts.
So the first slide we have here, this is a three-year lookback of crime, 2020, 2021, and
2022. We're comparing Fountain Hills to Scottsdale and what you'll see is population
across the years for the Fountain Hills to the city that's being compared, so Scottsdale,
in this slide. And then you'll see violent crime. That's the first column after population.
You'll see that violent crime is made up of homicide, sexual assaults, robbery, and
aggravated assault. Per the uniform crime reporting, that is what makes up violent
crime and then the next category is property crime. And that is made up of burglary,
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thefts, auto thefts, and arson.
So again, you'll see the three years for Fountain Hills. You'II then see the three years for
Scottsdale. You'll see the total number of incidents, homicides, sexual assaults, robbery,
aggravated assaults, and so on. And then, at the bottom to make it more of a
comparison of apples to apples, where it's not -- when we're comparing Fountain Hills'
population of under 25,000 to a city like Scottsdale, with a population of about 240,000
it's not easy to compare what that looks like unless you do some other form of analysis.
So that's what our analyst did. She broke it down. Thank you very much.
She broke it down by rate per 1,000. So these crimes occurring per 1,000 residents.
And that's the number you see there.
So you'll see the three-year breakdown again and then you'll see the three-year average
in the yellowish column below.
5o looking at Scottsdale compared to Fountain Hills you'll see that the homicide per
1,000 in Fountain Hills, fortunately we had zero homicides in the three-year period from
2020 to 2022, whereas Scottsdale had 17. When you look at that breakdown below it
looks a little bit, it doesn't make a lot of sense, because it's showing zero for Scottsdale,
zero for Fountain Hills. Again that's a rate. That's because the mathematical equation
and the way that works out when you divide it. It goes to the 100's mark and you can't
put a one there or even a ten spot.
When you look at sexual assaults, you'll see Fountain Hills compared to Scottsdale,
pretty much it's the same being -- not broke down into its full decimal. Robberies, .1 in
Fountain Hills, compared to .3, Scottsdale. Aggravated assault, we look at .7 in Fountain
Hills per 1,000 and 1.1 for Scottsdale.
And then when we get to property crimes, total 12.1 in Fountain Hills, compared to 21.3
in Scottsdale. And then your breakdown of burglaries, theft, auto theft, and arson as
you can see on the slide.
The next one we look at: this is just a graph that makes it a little bit easier to visualize.
Comparing each of the crimes and the rate. You'II see, it's hard to see from the slide but
under homicide, even though it shows zero for both, there is a tiny bit of shade under
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Scottsdale in the orange column for homicide, just to indicate it's not one, but it's less
than. So that just gives the visual.
We're going to do the same now with Gilbert. Same exact model here. We look at the
three-year crime stat comparisons. We were quite a bit closer with Gilbert. And a lot of
this talk came from some of the safe city discussion we have and the safe zip codes.
And we're unable to do a comparison of safe cities, safe zip codes, other than this, the
data collection. There are some private industries out there, real estate companies,
who will do some level of analysis and come up with some sort of statements of this is
the safest zip code or the third safest zip code. It's not something that law enforcement
does.
But comparing Fountain Hills to Gilbert, you could see where we compare against them
in terms of looking at the bottom reports per 1,000 people, violent crime overall in the
three-year average is a 1.2 to a 1.2 to Gilbert. Same thing with homicides. We had zero.
They had 17. Sexual assaults, we're at a .4, they're at a .3. robbery, .1, .1, equal.
Aggravated assaults we're slightly under them with a .7. They're a .8 per 1,000.
Property crime, we're a little bit above Gilbert, 12.1 per 1,000 compared to 10.5. and
then there's the breakdown associated with that.
If there's any questions as we go, feel free. This isn't going to all be numbers like this.
We'II start getting into a little bit of different topics. This is just giving a snapshot.
Here's the graph that shows just the more -- it's easier to visualize in this area.
And then we did some additional analysis with some westside agencies, cities. We
didn't put those in here just for the sake of -- we have the data, if council is interested in
seeing the raw numbers. This just kind of cuts it to the graph part where he can see the
visualization there. So here's the comparison from Fountain Hills to Peoria on crimes for
1,000 people. You could see we're quite a bit lower in most categories than Peoria per
1,000.
The same for Glendale. This is Glendale. You could see how Fountain Hills compares to
Glendale in the uniform crime reporting stats. And then, Anthem is a area that MCSO
covers. So this incorporate -- they're an unincorporated town but this compares crime
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stats to them as well. And then we'll move to police activity.
Was there any questions on any of those? I know it was a lot real quick. But if there's
any questions on that comparative data, I'll be happy to answer, else I'll just continue
on.
MAYOR DICKEY: I just want to thank you because I know that we did talk about this and
there are those things you see online about they want people to move to the top safest
communities and whatever in whatever states and they are mostly, like you said, they're
private. They're maybe even trying to get you to move somewhere or not move
somewhere. So I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate that. And also that at least, to
me, it doesn't look like there's too much of -- nothing really stood out with any of that
except the status quo.
KRATZER: Yeah. I agree. I think the three-year crime stat picture of Fountain Hills,
especially when you compare it to other cities and towns, places like Gilbert, Scottsdale,
I know, Fountain Hills is oftentimes compared to Scottsdale for a bunch of different
reasons or categories, we felt like that would be an important one to kind of show what
that picture looks like per 1,000.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. Appreciate that.
KRATZER: Okay. We're moving to policing activities.
This is just over the same three-year period, calls for service versus deputy -initiated
calls. So this is just a graph that shows -- in the green you'll see the calls for service. So
those are the calls that people actually initiate to our, either 911 system or our non -
emergency number. Year over year, not too much of a change in calls for service. And
then the blue is the on -view activity by deputies. 5o that's during their downtime, the
things that they're initiating themselves. You could see over the three years what those
numbers look like. It went from 7,132 events, dropped down to 6,660 in 2021, and
then, in 2022, last year it went up to 7,508. The analyst says basically, from no
significant increases occurred in calls but there was an increase in initiated deputy
activity.
Then we move over to total reports by call for service. So the difference here is calls for
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service that we receive or that deputies initiate that result in a report. 5o we go on
plenty of calls where there is no crime committed or there was no reason for a report to
be generated. Our policy dictates what reports will be written; basically, it's any
allegation of a crime being committed. We'll take a report and deputies will sometimes
err on the side of caution and take an informational report for other things. So the
three-year picture of that, you can see how the reports for calls for service went. It
dropped by about 300 over 2021, compared to 2020, and a little under that for 2022.
However, deputy -initiated activity; the reports for those calls increased. And those
would be like the deputy did a traffic stop and the driver had a suspended license or a
warrant, then that would initiate a report on -view activity. Or if a deputy was driving
through a business complex, saw a broken window, stopped and investigated and
determined there was a burglary; that would then initiate a report.
MAYOR DICKEY: I wanted to point out that -- and we always had this conversation when
we get our monthly reports about cases and such, that these that are deputy initiated
actually reflect maybe a different -- more stepped up one way or the other. So like, we
saw this huge -- and I don't think you do reports for speeding tickets, necessarily. But
we did see like this huge jump in that. But that was a reflection of what we had asked to
go out and be more active when it comes to that. So it's always hard to interpret when
you see numbers go up whether that's good because you're actually finding more and
taking action on them, rather than increased activity. It's almost like, more of an
outcome -- of a good outcome.
KRATZER: That's a good point because I just kind of assumed that people would have
understood that it was initiated by request for additional enforcement or when we did
the study and we saw the amount of downtime that was being reported deputies and
the push for okay, we've got increase our downtime on -view activity. So those are in
direct correlation with that. I wouldn't necessarily say it was in correlation to increased
crime or anything. I don't' have that official breakdown to say that for certain but it was
definitely responsive to the request of increased enforcement.
We're moving on to -- these are the top ten report types. So these are calls for service
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that have resulted in a report. These are the top ten calls that resulted in a report over
a three-year period combined.
So our number one call for service that resulted in a report over the last three years is
vehicle crash with no injuries. You see how high that kind of compares to everything
else. Next, followed by criminal damage. You'll see that the criminal damage is in
yellow and then a couple for the other ones are in yellow. We'II delve into those just a
little bit more because those ones had an increase over the three-year period than the
other ones did.
Found property, theft, fraud, or a con game, assault, identity theft, attempted suicide,
traffic violation, and then burglary from vehicle. So it says a comparison of 2022's top
ten report types from previous years, noted an increase in 2022 in the area of criminal
damage, attempted suicide, and burglary from vehicle reports.
So this is a criminal damage yearly report count that was one we saw an increase over
the three years, criminal damage. You'll see that the peak of that was in July 2022, with
20 incidents. And then, so green is 2022; orange is 2021; blue is 2020. It might be hard
for the audience to see that. One of the notes that the analyst made was criminal
damage reports peaked in June and July of 2022. A review of these reports did not find
that specific criminal pattern or trend. The event types were a mixed result of
residential property damage, vehicle damage, graffiti, and political sign damage. Over
across all years, graffiti and criminal damage calls were greatest in July of 2022.
All right. We next move to a map of incidents, of graffiti and criminal damage -- criminal
damage graffiti reports. So it broke it down more into graffiti calls. 29 reports from
2020 to 2022. The frequencies of these incidents appear nearest to parks, Fou Peaks
Park, businesses along east Avenue of the Fountains. I think Rachael, in her time as the
park and recs director, can attest to the damage that occurs at the parks and the graffiti
calls. Kevin as well. July peaks, possibly related to summer break with students being
out and there's been a lot of those graffiti -damaged things at the park tend to be done
by juveniles.
Then, they break down the increase in the attempted suicides. So from 2020 to 2022,
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attempted suicide reports increased. So you can see that increase on the first column
on the left there. Green being 2020, blue being 2021, and then, the orange being 2022.
And we had 54 reports of attempted suicide compared to 33 and 34 the years prior.
When you break it down to -- so a suicide attempt is just that. It's not a successful. It's
an attempt. It could be someone ingesting pills or other means. But then the actual
suicides, you can see the increase there as well. Three, then five, and then eight in
2022.
The next slide shows the total attempted suicide report on a graph. It says spring and
holiday seasons have increased reports for attempted suicide. The good news is the
current 2023 preliminary report shows a decrease in both: suicide attempts and
suicides. 5o we're on a trend where that's coming down for the year of 2023.
Then it breaks down vehicle burglaries and this shows, kind of, the hotspots. Burglary
from vehicle reports did not have any significant change by month in 2022. From 2020
through March 31st of 2023, burglary from vehicle reports were mapped. Frequency of
the activities occurred most at business districts as well as apartments and along the
main outlet roads. And that's consistent with what we know and see and try to share
with the public. And then one of the notes the analyst made was that nationally
catalytic converter thefts were still an ongoing problem and we continue to see an
increase across the country.
And then, on this one, it just shows the breakdown of how they're mapped. And that
one to three incidents are in the smaller circle, four to five, and then it goes up to eight
to nine; which shows you where those incidents are occurring at.
What we're going to move into now is probably more in line with the topic of
conversation we're having tonight. MCSO, and as far I know, no other agency in the
Valley, tracks crimes by transient or homelessness individuals. It's just not something
we do as an agency. It's not anything I'm aware that other agencies do. The best we
could do in trying to find some data that might correlate to crimes that might be more
often occurring by those who are homelessness, the way our analyst was able to search
this, she looked at the three-year period, 2020 to 2022, just like the rest of the data.
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And she listed it as arrested persons who listed a residence -- so we call them a resident,
94.6 percent, compared to arrested persons who listed no residence, by 4.3.
So what that's saying in a nutshell is that people who provided an address when they
were arrested, this is the total arrests over three years where they were formally
booked into jail or charged with a crime; whether it was through citation or a long form
submittal. 94 percent of those people provided an address. And so we assume with
that that they were not transient, not homelessness. 4.3 percent of the people who are
arrested out of those total arrests, didn't provide an address.
Now the disclaimer to that is, that could be that the person decided just to not give the
deputy an address or it could be that they were transient or homelessness. The data
included anything in the report that did say transient and/or no address provided or
refused. And so we make some assumptions there. And it's not uncommon, at times,
for someone to refuse to provide an address when they get arrested. They don't have
to provide that. There might be some ramifications down the road in terms of being
released by a judge on your own recognizance or your bond; but people do have the
right to refuse that. So that's the closest we could come to an analysis.
We're going to move to -- this is going to probably really challenging to see for the
audience, but this breaks down the arrest over those three-year periods and it breaks it
down by the address provided versus no address provided. And what you could see is
the green are -- when it's coded green over the years, so 2020, 2021, 2022, and then she
did go into 2023, the current date; what percentage. So again, our percentage that we
found over all arrests for the three years was a 96 percent for those that had a
residential address provided and only 4 percent for those that didn't. So we tried to see
was there any kind of correlation between crimes that were being committed by, you
could say, transient folks or homelessness individuals. And you could see in the red --
that's indicated by red -- there were some crimes in here that warrant arrest in 2023.
27 percent of those arrests were by folks who didn't provide an address, whether that
meant they were transient or not, 27 percent was the number for that year compared
to what the norm was, was 4 percent. So there was an increase in that.
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Assaults in 2022, there was an increase compared to the norm of 4 percent, up to 13.
We saw criminal damage in 2022 be a little disproportionate to the number, and so on.
And then the ones that are in green, excessive speeding, those were 100 percent across
the board throughout the three years, plus 2023, of those who provided an address. So
there was no four percent of individuals committing those crimes. And that happens in
a couple of other areas. Driving with a license suspended or revoked, it's close on drug
violations for them being people -- three out of the four years of people who have an
address, that you're presuming aren't transient.
So this is just a breakdown and you can delve into those a little bit more as you look
across. And the threshold that she provided was, there had to be more than four
arrests in those three-year periods for those crimes for it to be analyzed and be included
in this. So there were some crimes that had less than that, that weren't included in the
breakdown. And even four is pretty non -- it's a small number, so it's hard to say.
And you can see how small some of these numbers are where we provided breakdowns.
I mean, we're talking 11 arrests on the warrant arrests, and there's some that are even
fewer in there.
So I don't know how helpful that is to this conversation, but it was the analysis that we
could provide that looked at overall crime data for three years, where we tried to give a
breakdown of maybe some of those crimes that were being committed by folks that you
could deduct from this that, potentially, may be homeless.
So if there are questions on this, I'd be happy to take them and then I would like, after
this, to just bring up our behavioral health co -responder. It's a new program MCSO is
doing. Tarryn Mingey (ph.) is here tonight and she's the head of that program. And she
can just talk for just a couple of minutes. And I think she could answer some of the
questions that some of the council had or even talk on some of the things that that
program does and provides to deputies and the community, but also resources that
deputies can use.
5o one of the things we always talk about is like, homelessness alone is not a crime. So
there's not anything that law enforcement can do if someone's just homelessness. We
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get calls that there's a homeless person on the sidewalk with a sign. And if they're not
on private property and they're on public property, there's not much we can do. A lot of
times we will still go out and talk to those individuals, if someone has a concern or
depending on what the call says. And there's times where they want resources and
there are times where they don't want resources and there's times where they don't
even want contact from law enforcement.
So those are all kind of the challenges we deal with when dealing. But I think when I'm
done and you guys have the opportunity to ask some questions, I could bring Tarryn up
here and she might be able to just talk for a minute and introduce herself and answer a
few more questions.
MCMAHON: Thank you very much for the report. It's a lot of information. But given
your knowledge about the homeless in town, et cetera, you really can't pinpoint that
homeless people are criminals or automatically look at them as criminals, et cetera. Or
that there're like a lot of criminal activity going on in town due to homelessness, right?
KRATZER: Yeah. I don't know that. I don't think that I'm qualified to say that. I don't
know that the data show that that's the case. I mean, again, it's the data that was
collected and we were able to run it, not completely thorough and adequate but with
the way we're able to run it we were looking to see if there was any trends for this
conversation, because of some of the talk and the discussion and belief that maybe
there are some crimes that are occurring more frequently by that population. We were
trying to see if the data supported that or not. And I think in that four-year picture, it's
three and a half, because this year is not fully over. That breakdown, I think, was kind of
telling in that. And again, just to be fair on the topic, there could be individuals who did
commit some crimes that provided an address and we wouldn't know whether they
were homeless or not. So it's not a foolproof way of vetting out that system, but in the
data and the way we were able to look at it and review it, that's not what jumps out at
me.
MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you. Because if somebody's staying with a friend or a relative
or something, for some reason they get arrested, they may not want to give that
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information out, et cetera. So it's not necessarily that they're homeless. But as you can
see, and take from your report, it's not an exact science. It's very complicated. So thank
you very much. I appreciate it.
KRATZER: You're welcome.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
TOTH: Do you currently have explanations for the increase? So while I understand that
that four percent back in the day also didn't necessarily include homeless people but
that increase from 4 percent to 27 percent is a lot.
KRATZER: So--
TOTH: You had mentioned earlier, when we were looking at that larger graph, so that
slide right there.
KRATZER: Yes.
TOTH: You had mentioned that the previous number of no address provided compared
to the new number was a 27 percent as opposed to 4 percent.
KRATZER: Councilwoman Toth, while I think I succeeded at thoroughly confusing,
probably, a lot of people; I was specifically talking about in the year 2023 where it's
talking about warrant arrests. The standard -- what we found in total arrests was 96
percent of arrests, total arrests for that whole three-year period, that was -- the 96
percent were by those who provided an address. Four percent were those who didn't
provide an address or were listed as transient. In this one, specifically, warrant arrests
for 2023, year-to-date of all warrant arrests, 27 percent of those arrests have been by
folks who don't have an address.
So is that what you're speaking to?
TOTH: Yes. And let me actually clarify that question. So if you have a warrant but they
didn't provide an address once arrested, how did you find them in the first place?
KRATZER: Well, that could be for-- I mean, if we get a call for service and we go and we
have contact with an individual, we run that individual to see if they have a warrant. If
they come back with a valid arrest warrant, then we take them down and book them.
We then have to provide all of that information in the new booking: their name, their
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date of birth, any address that they're willing to list. So that would be new information
provided during that arrest; does that make sense? Am I --
TOTH: Yeah. Absolutely. So the increase that I originally asked about. In 2022, we have
95.2 percent versus 4.8 percent.
KRATZER: Okay.
TOTH: And 2023, we have 72.7 percent, versus 27.3 percent. That 4.8 to 27.3, in one
year's time, seems like quite the increase.
KRATZER: Yeah. And it's hard for me to speak to that just because of all the nuances
that are in the data, in terms of MCSO not collecting tracking data for homeless versus
transient versus nontransient individuals, with all the flawed data. I mean, this is just a
snapshot. I can't explain that increase. I don't know how to answer that. I don't know if
truly there are more individuals out there who are currently homeless, who have more
warrants than the year before. Or if it's some of the other nuances where the person is
like, well, I'm not going to give you my address.
Or one of the other things, that when we talked about this, one of the things I had
written down was, if a deputy failed to put that in the booking paperwork, the address
for a person. That probably wouldn't happen in 2023, because we've corrected those
issues where deputies maybe failed to put down a listed address. So it probably
wouldn't be what would happen in 2023. Now, if you're looking back at 2020, that's
possible, where quality control maybe wasn't as focused on.
TOTH: Okay. Well, thank you, Captain. If you don't mind, I have one other question.
Captain, as you know, we are here today to figure out a possible update to our town
ordinances. Something you mentioned in the very beginning of your presentation was
that a lot of times there's not necessarily a victim. In which case, in some cases, is
because the town doesn't have an ordinance that would allow you to act. Specifically
speaking, what are some things that maybe you've seen in other communities or ideas
that you've come up with that you would suggest to empower you to be able to act
more often? And I understand that still wouldn't affect when private property is the
case.
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KRATZER: Councilmember Toth, we've talked to some other local law enforcement
agencies about how they're addressing some of the homelessness issues and
enforcement within the communities. And I know, Aaron has talked about an
aggressive panhandler ordinance that, I think, Glendale has. I can't remember what city
has that. But I mean, it depends on the verbiage that is put in the ordinance and what
the ordinance addresses. There's plenty of laws right now that we utilize when dealing
with certain crimes, like littering, loitering, criminal trespass. There's a town ordinance
for criminal trespass. Most deputies usually use the state revised statute for criminal
trespass. But we have those tools there.
I don't know of specific ordinances. We haven't had a lot of conversation, yet, about
what an ordinance might look like by the town if they were to create one. Are we
talking about panhandling? Are we talking about -- I don't know of an ordinance or a
law you could pass that just says someone -- that deals with homeless individuals. I
don't know what that might look like in terms of outside of the typical violations you
might have of someone being on property that they shouldn't be on or don't have
permission to be on. Someone littering or loitering. I think in the past we've talked
about individuals being in the median with signs, panhandling, and whether or not the
town could adopt an ordinance that would allow us to not let them be in the median
and if they are, then we could move them along.
But there's plenty of case law on public property where I don't know if the town has the
ability to prevent folks from being on public property and public places.
MAYOR DICKEY: I think Aaron might have something to say.
KRATZER: Yeah. And I'll try not to step on Aaron's toes too much. But we enforce the
ordinances. We don't come up with the ordinances. So we can assist in that process, if
asked. But we don't sit back and write the ordinance and say, hey, pass this so we can
go enforce it. If that's decided by the town, and it's determined to be applicable and
constitutional by the agency and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, we'll enforce
that ordinance for the town.
TOTH: Thank you, Captain.
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KRATZER: You're welcome.
MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron.
ARNSON: Thank you, Mayor and Councilwoman. To your question, I think Capt. Kratzer
said it right. You're not going to find in any other municipality an ordinance that deals
with homelessness specifically, and that's kind of because of what Capt. Kratzer said at
the beginning. That status crimes, like the regulating someone based on their sheltered
or unsheltered status, don't exist in the United States. What you'll typically see in the
vast majority of cities and towns, including here, are ordinances that apply, sort of
neutrally, to all individuals. But that may he crimes or may be civil citations that you
commonly find in the unsheltered context like, for example, obstructing the right of way
or overnight camping prohibitions within the right of way or on public property.
You might find loitering ordinances. You might find public urination ordinances. Those
types of things that whether citable under state or local law, do typically bleed into the
homelessness space.
So when we're looking at those kind of ordinances, there won't be and cannot be
anything that specifically says homelessness is not allowed in this space. Because that's
not how we regulate homelessness in the U.S.; we regulate it based on a person's
conduct as opposed to their status of existing. So I don't know if that was helpful as a
follow up.
TOTH: Right. Thank you, Aaron. Just to clarify, I mean, in cases where there's a call and
there's an issue, when -- if we can explore ways to ensure that that conduct is being
properly --
ARNSON: Yes. And if I can add, and Larry, you've certainly -- Capt. Kratzer, you're
certainly able to respond to that as well, of course. This is something that we hear, and
I'm sure MCSO hears across the board, of the tools all being there but sometimes the
difficulty being once MCSO, or once the law enforcement agency respond, who's there
and who was a witness to it, and is the person even still on site and present, and is
someone willing to serve as a complainant, you know what I mean? So you do deal with
those enforcement issues on the backend and that is not unique to Fountain Hills. That
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is going to be universal throughout whatever community you're in. It's a challenge. But
we can work on those ordinances that get us to a spot where it gives us greater tools to
respond. Whether we can actually get all the pieces to line up at the end of the day is a
different story. But we can work toward that end. Yeah.
KRATZER: And Councilmember Toth, if you don't mind me responding? I think that a lot
of times when we go to calls where we are dealing with homeless individuals and
someone has called, whether it's a criminal trespass or littering. Some of the challenges
we have are kind of what Aaron talked about, about having someone who has standing
on that property, who doesn't want that person there or it being private property.
We had a recent incident where there was a subject in a wash. We got a call. Deputies
went out. They talked to the subject. Deputies are aware of the town ordinances about
the use of the town washes. We have a map now from Justin Weldy with the town.
And that's almost like mathematical equation trying to figure out which washes are
privately owned, which washes are town owned. And we did cite that individual for
being in the town wash, only to find out that he was on a private wash and we had go to
back and resend that citation because we had that wrong.
And so those are just some of the challenges. And basically, what I'm getting to is I
don't know of a situation we've ran into where if there was an ordinance that was
written in a certain way it would have given us the ability to charge that person with
something because the state law wasn't comprehensive enough or there wasn't
something that was there in toolbag that allowed us to take a different approach.
Specifically, I can't think of a scenario that would happen with, other than maybe, if
there was something that was passable for the median. Someone being in the median
and blocking that. Because we do have if someone's going into the roadway, stopping
cars and getting money, we could enforce that. There's a state law for that.
The number of times that's happened, we've had reports of that but actually getting
there, having the person say, hey, I've seen them. We talked to the person. They said,
yeah, I did stop traffic and I did go -- I mean, that's a perfect scenario that really never
happens unless a deputy witnesses it. So just all those points.
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And then, just in this conversation. Bringing the court into it and the town prosecutor,
because they do have some challenges as well. And that's no to say we wouldn't look at
it or the town shouldn't look at passing an ordinance that the council gives them
direction to, but they have to be onboard, especially for a town ordinance and the
prosecutor being onboard to say, okay, MCSO is good at enforcing this. We are good at
charging this or going to trial on it if we need to, with all of those parties involved. And I
know that this discussion is getting to the point to see if there's any ordinances that the
town can pass or desires to pass that is then workable for everyone and makes sense.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I wanted to jump in on the numbers thing and then I think
Ms. St. Peters had something to add.
The 27 percent, that's three people. So what kind of a -- this chart has percentages but
then it has actual instances. So it's not the easiest thing to follow because you could
have one warrant one year and two the next year, and that's a 100 percent jump. 5o I
think we have to keep that in mind.
There's 11 total warrants and three of them were people that didn't give their address.
So not only do we not know does that mean that they're transient but it's three people.
So I don't think we need to overreact or-- I don't mean that you did. But all of these
percentages are a little bit difficult when you look one over at the number. So you got a
100 percent are with an address provided, okay. So the drug violation 100 percent, but
its one person. So I think when we're dealing with Fountain Hills and the number of
actual incidences, then they get skewed, almost like the roads did, by using percentages.
So we almost have two different ways of measuring here and one chart.
Also, if you look down there's a lot of black, and so it's a little bit hard to know what that
means. There's some red, there's some green, but there's a lot of black. So on the top,
like, say, for example, the drug violation, 100 percent. I mean, I'm sorry. Aggravated
assault, 100 percent, in black, two people. But that should be in green, I think.
So I think that maybe this particular chart, we could do some more analysis of it. But I
don't' want to overreact to what this chart is saying percentagewise. Same goes with all
those zeroes. If you add all those zeroes up, you're not going to get that 8.7 percent
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number there at the bottom. So this is the kind of thing that -- what we're trying to do
is not easy to do, which is drill down on what we're reading, what we're hearing and say
no, this is the reality. There's one incident or two incidents. And I think we have to try
and figure that out in a way that is exact, and we can't.
I wanted to ask Amy to come up because she had given me — I think, it had to do with
what Hannah had asked about and then, go ahead after that, Gerry.
ST. PETER: Mayor and council, thank you very much for the opportunity. I was going to
point out too -- and it's tough with looking at the data to look at big percentages
increases, but then it's going from one person to three people. So yes, it's important to
really dive a little bit more deeply into those numbers.
I did also want to comment though. We've had some really good and seen some really,
really good progress being made with law enforcement, particularly when they're paired
with nonprofit agencies. Because for law enforcement, they weren't hired to be social
workers. Right? They're here to keep us safe and they do a very, very good job of doing
just that. And so sometimes they're often the first point of contact with someone
experiencing homelessness, which means that that's our first opportunity maybe to
engage with them and to bring them into really lifechanging services and housing. But
that doesn't mean that they have to be social workers in that process. And so we've
seen some really good successes when we're pairing law enforcement, say with
Community Bridges. We had talked about them before. It's a nonprofit. They have
great services. They also have peer support. So it's people who have experienced
homelessness themselves, and then, their employed to help other people experiencing
homelessness, they can kind of speak their language, they can relate to them, they're
very approachable, and they're very, very good at building that trust and building that
rapport. And so Community Bridges is just one agency, it's one option. Phoenix Rescue
Mission also has very, very good outreach teams. But when we compare law
enforcement with nonprofit agencies who specialize and who are the social workers,
then law enforcement can do what they need to be doing and the nonprofits can step in
with the expertise and they provide that connection. And so that's a really, really good
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strategy.
Another strategy that we're seeing too, more so on a kind of, that carrot and stick. Is
that sometimes when people experiencing homelessness have been charged with an
offense, we have a regional community court system. And so, again, sometimes it can
be tough to get people to engage in services. And so the community court can say, well,
if you enter this say, treatment program or if you enter this shelter, then we'll drop
these other charges. And it's kind of that extra leverage sometimes that's needed and
that's very useful in getting people to engage. And also in helping them too, because
the social service system is much more cost effective. It's much more affordable than
the criminal justice system, for very good and valid reasons. We have to invest in public
safety.
But it gives us another avenue, another option to be able to work with people that isn't
always available otherwise. And so we do have that regional community court system.
Some communities have partnered with neighboring communities to set up a
community court just for their participating communities. So there are a number of
different options for that. As part of Pathways Home, our regional homelessness
section plan for local and tribal governments, we did develop a toolkit for communities
who are interested in that community court model. And we'd be happy to help provide
any technical assistance around that. And we find that often, training is really critical to
helping people to fully leverage all available options that could be at their disposal.
And so any help that we can provide in connecting you with those resources and those
training opportunities we'd be happy to do.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Thank you.
Gerry?
FRIEDEL: A couple of points on your information, Larry. One, Fountain Hills doesn't
really compare with Scottsdale and Gilbert. And two, a lot of these categories don't
apply to a homeless person, like, auto issues and traffic violations, traffic citations,
speeding, that kind of thing. So we could probably drill that down a lot more.
But I do have a question. And this is dealing with performance metrics from these
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agencies that we help support. Do you know, have we had any social worker from New
Leaf or from Community Bridges or MAG come out and actually talk to the people that
are in our town?
KRATZER: Councilmember Friedel, I am understanding your points on some of the
statistics there and that is the challenge with kind of coming up with some statistical
comparisons with other towns. There's not a lot of towns that we can run comparable
data to to say, okay, well, this town also has 24,000 people and looks like Fountain Hills
or has the same dynamics. So that was probably the best crack at trying to find
something that made sense.
In terms of Community Bridges or some of the other nonprofits coming out, they
haven't come out that I know of and rode with us or met with people. I do know, and I
think this will lead perfectly into Tarryn corning up and just talking briefly. I don't want
to take up too much time on the agenda with the other topics that need to be talked
about. But we have taken individuals to Community Bridges. We have taken -- I don't
know that we've taken anyone yet since the town has partnered with New Leaf. We've
talked about some challenges with that that are different things. But Tarryn and our
behavioral health co -responder program, since that's come onboard, and I want to say
in around April; she can correct me if I'm wrong when she comes up. She's already
outlined a bunch of resources, additional ones that we have. And I don't know that
they're direct ones that the town has partnered with or pays money to. I don't know
otherwise that works.
But there are resources available to us that a lot of deputies didn't know that I didn't
know that we can now call her in that program and they'll help us when we're out with
somebody, find resources. So I do know we have taken people to Community Bridges.
New Leaf, not so much. We visited New Leaf. My two lieutenants went there to see
how that program could help with potential homeless issue in town and they met with
some of the staff and sat down with them for a while and they learned a lot about what
they offer, could offer. Some of the hurdles in just bringing something there or
dropping them off, whether it was or wasn't an option.
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FRIEDEL: And then I have two other questions -- this might be for staff. Do we have a
littering fine or ordinance, right now? And what I'm thinking about is Denny's, Wells
Fargo, and the medical center are three areas where there's an awful lot of littering;
because you brought that up. I don't know if we've addressed that. Now, that's
probably private property, but do we fine those businesses for that stuff sitting there?
It's an eyesore to the town and it doesn't look good at all. And then the other question
that I had is, does our current ordinance address camping in our parks?
ARNSON: With respect to littering, we do have a litter ordinance in place. Certainly, no
property owner can maintain a property in a condition that causes a nuisance, which is
what were looking at. So yes, those are on the books and those are readily enforceable.
Councilman, your second question, I apologize, was? Oh, camping --
FRIEDEL: Camping in our parks.
ARNSON: Yes. We do have that prohibition on the books in Chapter, I believe, 9 of our
code.
FRIEDEL: Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Well, thank you. Any other questions?
Yeah, we'll have her come up and then we'll ask for --
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, yes. Allen? Yes, Councilman?
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor? There we go.
Yeah. I just had a question and both the Captain and our attorney might be able to
comment on this. I've been asking by email, the last couple of days, about that situation
where we have a town -owned park that's leased out. It sounds like, as of yesterday,
attorney was saying that that is enforceable for the town but I still think there's a little
bit of confusion there. What is the answer to that question? Can we enforce that or do
we need the complainant to be the --
MAYOR DICKEY: Got it. Aaron's going to answer.
ARNSON: Mayor and Councilman, I remember your question. And for a little bit of
elaboration. The question had to do with a property that's town -owned property that's
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leased to Kiwanis. Rachael, is that correct? Okay.
5o the answer that I gave yesterday was under the assumption that it was a town park
and I've since been corrected by the interim town manager that it's not a park. So we're
not dealing with prohibitions on overnight camping or sleeping in a park.
Regardless, to the extent an individual is on the property that's leased by a private
organization, we would need the individual to actually complain about that. That's the
type of situation where if someone's trespassing on property that they're leasing and
they want to remove that individual from the property, we need Kiwanis to do that.
So I think that's the answer to the question.
Rachael, do you have anything to add or Capt. Kratzer, do you have anything to add?
Clerk's Note: Mayor Dickey left the Dais at 7:46 p.m. and returned at 7:48 p.m.
KRATZER: Thank you, Aaron. I did see the emails. I did respond to some of them. We
view it as though it would be no different than a residence that someone owns and is
leasing out or renting out to someone. That person would -- the homeowner would not
be able to say I don't like who that tenant is bringing by, I want to trespass that person.
It would be the person who is renting the home from them, who would have to make
the decision that they didn't want this person on their property.
So that's how we viewed it. And then some of the conversation, through email, that's
what I took from it. And that was the last response. And Councilman Skillicorn, I do see
how that was confusing because it was a little confusing for us as well. But I think in the
end, it sounds like we've got some dear understanding of that and maybe we can -- I'll
let the town manager decide how to communicate that back to you. But I think we have
an answer now.
SKILLICORN: And Madam Mayor, as a follow up, can we amend the lease to include an
anticamping provision?
ARNSON: Councilmember, the Mayor actually stepped out for a second. But in
response to your question, I'll go ahead and look at that lease and see what it says. I
don't have the lease handy in front of me.
But can you amend a lease to say that you will prohibit camping? Not that I'm
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independently aware of. I mean, I'm thinking about if I lease a property and decide to
allow somebody, whether it's me or a family member or somebody, to stay on the
property, I mean, unless they agreed to that in the terms of the lease then sure. But
that would be really uncommon.
WELDY: Madam Mayor, in regards to the particular property in question, by default I'm
the town's landlord and I have read the lease in great detail. I have also reached out the
lessee's representative, which is Sunset Kiwanis and I have left him a voicemail and
asked that he contact me so we can discuss this in more depth.
I will certainly report back to the town manger the results of that meeting after it takes
place.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you very much.
Anything else, Allen?
SKILLICORN: I think I'll wait for the attorney's presentation for any questions. But thank
you so much.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
All right. We're ready.
KRATZER: All right.
MINGEY: Hi.
MAYOR DICKEY: Hi.
MINGEY: My name is Tarryn. Thank you so much, council, for having me. And for Capt.
Kratzer for bringing me over.
So I can speak a little bit about what MCSO is doing to kind of work towards meeting the
members of your town about how, if they're in crisis, we're working on getting them
connected to resources.
So I am a licensed professional counselor. I've been working with Maricopa County
Sheriffs Office in the jails and now on the patrol side. So we're working on getting
deputies up to speed on what local resources are available to them when they're
encountering individuals in crisis. With the goal of diverting people into mental health
care, into substance use care, into housing services, rather than incarceration.
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So what my role is, is to be kind of the expert in the field so that I can connect the
deputies when, say, they encounter someone that is experiencing homelessness. What
shelters are available, what's that's process like. What are the -- even though there are
a lot of challenges with getting someone into housing, we want to be able to meet those
requirements where they're at.
So say someone's in crisis and they need mental health care, the deputies have lists of
all the inpatient facilities that are available to them. They have lists of all the homeless
shelters that available in Maricopa County, and we've also developed resources local to
Fountain Hills for district 7 so that they know what foodbanks, what homeless shelters,
what psychiatric emergency centers are available. So I think you guys have copies of
those.
Basically, deputies also have access to a resource line so they can call and receive
consultation about any crisis that they're experiencing with members. And this is the
goal, is to incorporate more of that mental health care and more of a trauma -informed
approach when they're interacting with members of the public. So as Amy was saying,
law enforcement is often encountering people in crisis but we are looking at
incorporating for all of MCSO ways to connect people to services rather than
incarcerate.
MAYOR DICKEY: Any questions? Comments? No.
So why don't we go to the cards?
Thank you so much. There may be more questions coming.
MENDENHALL: Okay. First well do the one written comment. It's at your station and
Dianne E. Price is against it. But you probably should read her comment and what she
means by that.
And then we have our in -person comments. We have four speaker cards. The first up is
Crystal Cavanaugh. And on deck is Liz Gildersleeve.
CAVANAUGH: Well, let me just start by saying I'm going to be a little less warm and
fuzzy with my words. And I think we have a quality life here and I'd like to just keep it
that way. So I'm thinking a tight ordinance with consequences is needed to prevent
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Fountain Hills from having zones with littering, loitering, and panhandling.
If we actually designated littering as a crime, because I'm not really sure what it's
designated as now, like some cities have, it could be useful. A stiff penalty of 5500 for
the first offense. A second offense, perhaps 2,000 or even 180 days in jail.
Now, this might actually solve a few other problems. Whether you like it or not, being
incarcerated can achieve effective rehabilitation results from addiction, even if just for a
while. The person's no longer homeless. He gets meals, a place to sleep and hopefully,
restricted from drugs. In those six months services can be set up to help the individual
back on track. Just something to think about.
In some locations, businesses and all private property owners get fined if they don't turn
in the litterbugs on their property or if they don't clean it up themselves. Sounds harsh,
right? But does it help the right this ship? As noted by many in Fountain Hills, the
homeless issue definitely creates litter. Citizens can turn in the litterbugs. This provides
a pathway to getting law enforcement involved. Same with loitering. Stiff fines for
loitering are needed and businesses must discourage it too. If it is against the law then
law enforcement can be involved and businesses have a place to turn.
Right now, I think, some businesses feel they have no options. Still panhandling fines
should be implemented for violations if that person does not have a business permit to
operate.
Not 550 permits, either. How about $250 permits to panhandle in Fountain Hills?
Violators can then be given 5500 fines for panhandling without a permit. Even though
the U.S. Supreme Court previously ruled that panhandling is protected under free
speech and it can't be outlawed outright, local municipalities should be able to set up
their own ordinance listing specific guidelines: not being on medians for safety
concerns, or on sidewalks, or too close to the curb near traffic, or within so many feet
from specific locations. Those hanging out on the streets may need to be transported to
existing services elsewhere for drug abuse or mental health issues. Fountain Hills, like
we said, already contributes financially to some of these programs.
Or some on the streets are actually fully capable humans that panhandle instead of
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going to work each day, because it can be pretty lucrative in some areas and tax free.
So next time any people around here, who feel like being compassionate, just don't do
it. The cash you give that individual may go to buy a bottle of booze, cigarettes, lottery
tickets, or drugs. Or consider, you may be getting scammed by an able-bodied person
using sad signs, children, or pets. But you get to feel better about yourself for being a
giver. Either way --
MAYOR DICKEY: Your time is up.
CAVANAUGH: -- a tight ordinance will help Fountain Hills.
MAYOR DICKEY: Time's up.
CAVANAUGH: Okay. Thank you.
Clerk's Note: Vice Mayor McMahon left the Dais at 7:52 p.m. and returned at 7:55
p.m.
GILDERSLEEVE: Good evening, everybody. Liz Gildersleeve, Fountain Hills resident.
Thank you, all of you, for addressing Fountain Hills' need for a stronger ordinances
tonight. My questions and comments center mostly though, around A New Leaf. Our
town has done some promotion regarding A New Leaf to which Fountain Hills taxpayers
have extended financial support of around $50,000. But it should be noted that there
are many other agencies that also deal with homelessness, addiction counseling, job
training, and housing. Agencies like Cast, East Valley Men's Shelter, Phoenix Rescue
Mission, Thrive, Homeless Haven, Phoenix Dream Center, and New Mom; not to
mention churches like St. Mary's and St. Vincent de Paul as well as countless
governmental departments and agencies whose sole focus is supposed to be to help
guide the vulnerable.
So how is it that we have A New Leaf? Who chose A New Leaf for Fountain Hills?
Because A New Leaf appears to be forming a quasi -partnership with Fountain Hills, I'm
curious as to how the vulnerable in Fountain Hills, needing their services find out about
them? Do counselor from A New Leaf proactively make contact with some of the
individuals we see regularly at Shea and Saguaro, outside the Safeway, outside the
Target, under picnic ramadas at the parks, even the makeshift homeless encampment
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behind the middle school that occasionally pops up.
Are they offered transport to the Mesa facility? How is A New Leaf being held
accountable for the taxpayer dollars that they've received from Fountain Hills?
I do believe that a strong ordinance, based on conduct is necessary and certainly not
heartless. In fact, a strong ordinance would benefit the vulnerable as much as it would
benefit residents and business owners. People experiencing crisis should be made
aware of the many services and I'm actually quite pleased tonight, to learn from Capt.
Kratzer that there's the woman -- the behavior health woman who does now assist
MCSO.
It appears, however, that A New Leaf is the answer, I'm guessing, simply because we've
provided financial support to them. However, if anyone in crisis chooses to not avail
themselves of services, they should not be enabled by being allowed to aggressively
panhandle or erect makeshift housing that is in fact, the pressure point where I see this
new ordinance or ordinances, as being proactive and a necessary tool to protect the
town.
Thank you.
MENDENHALL: Next we have Barry Wolborsky and on deck, Kim Wolborsky.
WOLBORSKY: That's wrong. She should go first.
MENDENHALL: Your card was submitted first.
B. WOLBORSKY: I'm Barry Wolborsky. I live here in Fountain Hills. And I just wanted to
talk -- for 40 years I was a psychologist, licensed psychologist, PhD from the University of
Washington. And my specialty was chemical dependency. And I noticed, when that
chart was presented up there that less than 21 percent of those people were addicts
and alcoholics. And I think that's really wonderful because that's about the same
percentage in the population. so I guess, no more than that, huh?
I would like to talk about statistics a little bit because I spent two years at the university
teaching statistics. I would like to be your statistical evangelist if I could. Because I think
that the Town of Fountain Hills is the statistical anti -Christ.
Number one, thank you, Mayor, for pointing out that the difference was three people.
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Small number statistics are meaningless. Okay? They mean nothing. They're just
random events.
Number two, the work that was done to determine that those less than 21 percent were
alcoholics and addicts was self -report. This city loves to do self -report surveys. They're
meaningless. There are psychometric tests that can be given to tell whether somebody
is an alcoholic or an addict or not. They're pretty reliable, in the high 90 percent. Self -
report is pretty unreliable. Somebody comes up to somebody on the street that's
loaded out of their minds and say, are you an addict? No, of course not. They're not
going to admit that.
I would like to know how they got the numbers on how many of those people were
employed? Was that self -report also? Self -repot statistics are meaningless. Okay?
What I see is people crafting things to make things look a certain way with statistics.
There was prime minister of England named Benjamin Disraeli, and some of you might
know what I'm going to say. He stood before the House of Commons and the House of
Lords and he said there's three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. We're getting
a lot of statistics here to try to prove a point but are meaningless.
That's all I've got to say.
K. WOLBORSKY: Hello, Madam Mayor, council, and Linda, and everyone else. I'm Kim
Wolborsky and I'm a resident of Fountain Hills and I'm eternally grateful for that. I love
this town. I'm so glad to have been welcomed here.
1 also take issue with Ms. St. Peters' statistics on the number of alcoholics that are in the
homeless population. One of the main --1 have personal experience in my family with
alcoholism and mental illness. I live a very comfortable, happy life now. 1 have a lot of
information. I got a lot of information about that. 1 personally don't live in that disease,
but I have seen it. I have experience with it. I have experience with not being wealthy.
And I know what it's like to be on the edge of homelessness. It's not pretty. And I
would like to commend you for the work that you're doing with the elderly and with
single parents. I think that's important. 1 think some people do become homeless
because of issues with medical and that kind of thing. But one of the main symptoms of
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alcoholism, both in the alcoholic and in the family is denial. People don't think that
they're alcoholics. They don't think that's the problem. They could be at death's door.
They could be losing their liver and they don't think they're that bad. They think it's all
these other things that were listed on the list.
And I think -- so the words that came to mind were well-meaning and enabling. And I
think in Fountain Hills we have to be really careful not to be enabling people who are
addicts and alcoholics. My husband is a specialist in this field. He has two things he says
that I love. Well, don't love, but I think are very accurate.
He talks about people enabling people into the grave. Parents enabling their children
into the grave. He also says, how do you know that addict is lying? His lips are moving.
So that's all 1 have. And again, thank you for your time.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
MENDENHALL: That's it for public comment.
MAYOR DICKEY: So further discussion with council? Or staff? Or anything to add?
No?
1 think --
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, Councilman, go ahead.
SKILLICORN: Did the attorney have some sample language for us to consider passing?
ARNSON: We do. I would be -- not here tonight. I know that based on the council's
discussion, and some of the input we've received from the public, I think what we can
do is take some of what's been done in some of our other municipalities, even one
where MCSO is the law enforcement agency, and try to bring back a number of potential
options for the council to adopt. Some of those may include prohibitions on blocking or
loitering right of way. They may include expanding areas within which tents and
structures can be located. There may be another couple of options that are included
there and I think that will help the council to have a little bit of a firmer grasp on the
types of ordinances we're dealing with. But that's what you'd be seeing, coming back
to.
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SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, may I ask the attorney, in some emails that went out to
council about both the Queen Creek ordinance and the Glendale ordinance --
ARNSON: I'm going to --
SKILLICORN: -- what's the difference in those.
ARNSON: Sorry. Go ahead and finish. I don't want to intrude on anything that's
privileged. That's' my only caution.
SKILLICORN: Well, I am curious of what the difference is between the Queen Creek and
Glendale ordinances?
ARNSON: You mean the Queen Creek and Glendale ordinances that both regulate
aggressive panhandling? Are those the two ordinances that you're referring to
councilmem ber?
SKILLICORN: Yes, that is correct.
ARNSON: Sure. So Mayor and councilmember, I'm happy to pull them both up about
the ordinances are fairly similar in nature, to my recollection. They both prohibit
panhandling and try to regulate aggressive panhandling within certain locations, at bus
stops, within a certain number of feet of ATM's. There are a number of other locations
where they do that. Glendale's was a little bit more aggressive in that it was adopted
around Superbowl time so I think they drew a bigger zone around the stadium and other
areas in their downtown entertainment district. Sot that's probably the primary
difference. Otherwise, they draw on the same language.
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, if I just -- my one comment on this is -- and I thank you for
bringing in speakers, very informative. But I just have to say and I think this is what the
people of our town are trying to say, is that these soft on crime policies, like Portland,
and Seattle, Phoenix, California have, just have not worked. Taxpayers spent millions
and millions, and probably millions more, and these issues have only gotten worse. Of
the money you spend have not made things better. With all this money that we spent;
we could have bought homes for these people.
You know, a moment ago, I said that these policies haven't worked. No, I misspoke.
These soft -on -crime policies have been a colossal failure. If we had a housefire, the first
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thing we would do is put it out. Then we would research why. And today, we need to
put out this fire.
So I have two motions that I want to make. The first one is going to be an ordinance
banning standing in one place or sitting on the median. Actually, I should restate that.
Ban on standing in one place or sitting on any median for any road with a speed limit
higher than 35 miles -- or 35 miles an hour or higher.
MAYOR DICKEY: So Allen, we're not -- you can make that for future consideration but
this isn't an action item tonight. So --
SKILLICORN: Well, Madam Mayor, this is on the agenda. It is agendized. I believe it is
completely in order to make a motion to propose a specific language for an ordinance.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Hold on a second.
Aaron?
ARNSON: Yeah. So Mayor and councilmember, it's not agendized for action. That said,
the whole idea is to take direction from the council just not in a formal motion fashion.
So if there's a collective direction from the council to pursue those types of ordinances
which would be included in that list of what I discussed earlier, we're happy to bring
that forward.
SKILLICORN: So kind of a point of order here, is that council has specifically changed
roles so items like this could be put on the agenda. And this motion was made months
ago. Why wouldn't this be an actual action order? It actually seems like this is a
violation of council rules to have it as something that we cannot make a motion and
actually pass an ordinance on.
MAYOR DICKEY: Well, we often have items that we don't take action on but if you want
to make a motion and Aaron says it's okay that you do, then it's okay with me.
ARNSON: Yeah.
MAYOR DICKEY: I mean, it says suggested motion here, motion to direct staff to take
steps. So --
ARNSON: Oh, okay. If it has --
MAYOR DICKEY: If you want to direct --
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ARNSON: -- language for a suggested motion, great. Let me scroll down and find it.
"Move to direct staff to take appropriate steps as identified". Good. Okay. Sorry. I
thought this was a discussion only. If you want to move to direct staff to do X, Y, and Z,
it's agendized that way, that's great.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah.
SKILLICORN: So Madam Mayor, I would love —
MAYOR DICKEY: Would you restate --
SKILLICORN: Yeah. Absolutely. I would love to make a motion to direct staff to draft an
ordinance -- actually, two ordinances. The first one would be on standing in one place
or sitting on any median for any road with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour or higher.
That would be my first motion.
MAYOR DICKEY: Is there a second?
TOTH: Second.
FRIEDEL: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. So there's a motion and second. That says that no person at all
whatever their status, cannot be on the median of a street that has a 35 mile an hour
speed limit and they can't be on the curb? Was that correct?
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, I think, the intent of this is that someone is not loitering in
one place. So if a town employee was doing landscaping or a contractor or something,
that's fine. They're doing something that they need to be there for. But if someone is
literally just loitering on a median on a higher speed road, that would be a safety hazard.
That's a different situation. And if they're not supposed to be doing something there,
they could definitely be a safety issue and that's what the intent would be.
MAYOR DICKEY: So Saguaro Boulevard is a 35 mile and we have one crosswalk that's
not in an intersection. So whatever we decide to pass applies to every single person.
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, in response to that, I think the intent is not someone that
is going across the crosswalk but again, someone that is stationary or sitting. They're -- I
mean, if someone is taking the crosswalk and waiting for a car, I don't think that would
be considered loitering, and that wouldn't be the intent of what I'm asking for either.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Vice Mayor?
MCMAHON: It sounds to me like you're trying to target homeless people. I think that,
while I appreciate what you're; saying, it's so broad I don't even know how it would be
enforceable. I just don't think it would be enforceable. It's way too broad. How can
even put that in an ordinance?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aaron?
ARNSON: Mayor and councilmember, let's direct staff to do what we need to do and
we'll bring something back. See what happens.
TOTH: So my understanding of the motion is for someone loitering in a median for an
extended period of time, not just trying to cross the street or something. And the
reason that I seconded this motion is because this is a safety issue I've actually brought
up in the past in medians with Rachael or with Grady before. This is a safety issue. If we
have individuals that are loitering in the median, there's a very high potential for them
to be interfering with traffic and that could be injury to them. That could opening up to
collisions. That is something that I have spoken about in the past and I think is a valid
concern. This isn't something that's attacking someone based off status. In some ways,
it's actually looking out for their safety as well.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
GRZYBOWSKI: I feel like this deserves more thought. So I'm trying to place myself in
those situations where I would be standing on the median or what have you. A lot of
conversation happens when you're walking down the street, down the sidewalk. What
happens on parade day? What happens: the developer can't put a sign out on the side
of Shea, so he usually hires somebody to stand and spin the sign or whatever. So I
understand the concept, but I'm a little concerned that this is so blatant against one
particular kind of person that I don't like something that is not -- it's too subjective.
Oh, we won't worry about the sign guy because he's holding the sign and he's helping
our developer make money. How is -- I just -- I have a problem with that. I just see
issues. I mean, I'm going to have to rely on Aaron for that.
ARNSON: Well, I think you raise a decent point. We have to make it facially neutral and
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apply it neutrally and that's the best we can do with that type of an ordinance, right?
And that's the best answer that I could give, right now.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Although I find myself in some agreement with
time, place, and manner restrictions, I think that the ordinance that Allen's proposing
doesn't pass constitutional muster. I think we have to protect our town, first and
foremost from lawsuits. There's a gentleman that's in our town right now and he has
very offensive signs that he holds up. And he goes all over the town. I think we're all
familiar with people that live here. He may be the smartest person in Fountain Hills,
because I think he's trolling, okay, for an illegal arrest where he'll be richer than Bart
Shea, eventually. We have to watch out for that.
I've clone a great deal of legal research on what we're discussing tonight and we have to
proceed with great caution. And I don't think that coming up with an ordinance in a
quick fashion, that hasn't been really reasoned out with our legal team is not going to
bode well for us.
So I would not be for this ordinance tonight.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman?
TOTH: Thank you, Mayor. This will be my last comment on the topic. First of all, once
again, this is a safety concern. I wholeheartedly disagree with the comments of my
fellow councilwomen. However, I do understand the concerns that were brought up by
Councilwoman Grzybowski. When we talk about special events, like that Thanksgiving
Day parade, maybe staff can say except for special events days where it's kind of
obvious people are going to be hanging out in the median.
I'm sure that staff is fully capable of organizing this in a way that is facially neutral. That
understands that there's going to be the Thanksgiving Day parade or other things where
the majority of the town is out on a median.
Aside from special event circumstances, I personally am not aware of an instance that I
have just hung out in a street median. However, I can understand maybe a concern of
well, this is going to apply to people that are potentially well-meaning. But that's where
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we talk about that wonderful part of law enforcement where there's human
consideration there. I'm not saying that someone standing in a median needs to be
thrown in jail. I'm just saying, hey, this is against a town ordinance. This is potentially a
safety risk for you. Get out of the median. And then, if they don't, then we have a
conversation about punishment. But from there, there's other issues.
So at risk of rambling on this topic too much, I want to very clearly clarify that this is
primarily a safety concern and then, secondarily, trying to prevent other issues from
arising from that point.
FRIEDEL: I think we all need to remember we're just --
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Hold on, Allen. I mean, yeah. Gerry's going to speak first, thanks.
FRIEDEL: I think we all need to remember that we're just here tonight to give direction
to the staff. They'll bring something back and then we can chew on it. So we're not
passing an ordinance tonight. We're just giving staff direction. So I think they've got it.
I think they've got the safety issue and that should be addressed when they bring it
back.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I agree with that. The idea of whatever can be across the
board and safety median wise.
Allen, you said you had another — well, you had something to say and then you had
another suggestion?
SKILLICORN: Yeah. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Yeah, my only comment on that is that I specifically said median and not the right of
way. I know that there are some issues. I think, legally you probably can stand on the
right of way and that is legal. There's some places that say that it's not because the
right of way is usually moving, not just kind of blocking or loitering. But I specifically
used the word median, because that is not the part of the right of way. That's not some
place that is normally someplace you're traveling or walking and such. And that's why it
is a safety issue. And you are right there next to traffic.
So thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't know if we need to have a vote for this or this is
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just a direction for staff?
MAYOR DICKEY: I think that would be great, Allen, because I think we can come up with
something that would absolutely address median safety. Right? Okay.
Did you have another separate item, though, Allen?
SKILLICORN: Yes, Madam Mayor. And actually, I wanted to direct staff to give us an
opportunity to vote on word for word Glendale's ordinance. If we want to amend that
during the meeting, or with discussion, that's fine. But I want to have an opportunity to
actually vote on and discuss the Glendale aggressive panhandling ordinance.
MAYOR DICKEY: So I know that we had a confidential memo on that. And I would not
want to do that right now. I'm not prepared to go line by line with the Glendale
ordinance, because there are issues with that. But I think it's along the same lines of
giving direction to where we want to go. Where some of us might want to go. Because
there were definitely parts of that that did not pass legal muster. But I don't feel
prepared to go line by line now and determine that ourselves.
Brenda?
KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. As far as guidance is concerned, Aaron, I know
it's been held by the Supreme Court that panhandling for charity is protected speech. If
we went down the road of commerce, being that these people are -- it's like job. It's
like a paycheck, could we regulate this as commerce? So the First Amendment
protections wouldn't be so stringent?
ARNSON: Mayor and Councilwoman, there are cases that deal with that. The results
from those cases are mixed. I think you have a more reasonable chance of success with
that type of a regulation. So if that's the path that council's going to go down
collectively, I would encourage exploring an avenue like that as opposed to a strict
panhandling prohibition. Which, frankly, has not -- there has not been a single
panhandling ordinance that survived constitutional muster since -- constitutional
scrutiny rather since Reed v. Town of Gilbert. They don't pass constitutional smell test
anymore. So if we went down that direction, I would encourage the council to go the
direction that Councilwoman Kalivianakis is suggesting.
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KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Aaron. And I've discussed with Councilman Friedel,
possibly getting a permit. And this was Gerry's idea. Or some kind of medallion that
they could establish, they could apply for a permit. They could take a training video.
Maybe wear a safety vest and then, since it is going to be commerce, again, time, place,
and manner regulations, I think, would kick in. And then we could control something
that otherwise we couldn't if we just -- again, and Hannah's concern about safety is
paramount. We're doing it because we want to keep everybody safe. And I also think it
would not be a bad idea for us to have some kind of a ad hoc committee to study the
safety implications of our ordinance. I think that that would be reasonable. So it's just
less of what we think and we could point to a study or we could point to people that
have researched this and how this is going to make Fountain Hills a safer place to live.
ARNSON: Mayor and council, without getting too deep into to prolong the discussion,
the cases where those loitering or standing in the median ordinances have survived
have relied on the data and not on the more nebulous ideas of what places are safe and
what aren't. So I would also encourage the council to go that direction. But ultimately,
we've received -- we'll take whatever direction we're given tonight.
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, Allen?
SKILLICORN: Thank you for the time. One item that I'd like to address is that Reed v.
Gilbert, that decision was made in 2015. And the makeup of the Supreme Court is quite
different now. We could probably expect a very different ruling. Now, I'm not
suggesting that we want our town to be a test case and go all the way to the Supreme
Court, even though I'm sure Aaron would love to argue in front of the Supreme Court on
our behalf. But that's not my intention. I don't think that that's necessary.
But I do think we should realize that, is that the nature of the Supreme Court has
changed the -- what is constitutional, what is not. Even though it will (indiscernible)
ruling would be binding until another court says otherwise. I think it is not unfair to say
that we can have something that will protect our town from a situation. And also we
take the legal advice for granted, but it is the council's job to actually craft the policy.
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That's why I would argue for this type of ordinance. I'd like to -- I think we go with what
Glendale has word for word and then we can make some changes here and there to fit
our town. But I think we want to have a strong solution to this problem. Because again,
our house is on fire right now and we need to put out the fire.
GRZYBOWSKI: I'm sorry. I don't understand, "our house is on fire". I don't get that. I
don't think it's a great analogy. I think it's very short-sighted. I -- yes, we have homeless
people. When you leave Fountain Hills, there's a hell of a lot more. If you look at the --
sorry, statistics. As a country, we average 18 homeless per 10,000 people. Arizona as a
whole is at 18.42 percent, and that's according to USAFacts.org.
I just I don't see that our house is on fire. I don't understand that analogy. I'm sorry. I
just had to say something.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. And I also -- it's not a sudden thing at all. We talked about
Kiwanis earlier. Talked about the state trust land. These things have been status quo
for a couple of years. I don't understand all of a sudden, now, it's like this house on fire
situation. The people at Sunset Kiwanis, if they're not pursuing it, it's because it's
been -- like I say, this is not new. And yes, we want people safe. Yes, we want most
people to get what they need to get back on their feet. But we're getting both stories
here. Let's put them in jail, I mean, that will help them get out of drugs. But we don't
want to put them in New Leaf or any other place. 5o we don't want to pay for that. But
we certainly don't want them here. So okay.
This is just a very complex situation that a lot of cities are going through. We have that
much of it here. We're trying to address it. Tonight was to move forward so that we
come back with something legal, reasonable, safe, respectful of everybody. And that's
the intention of this tonight. Not to tell people to go to jail or that we wish they were
having their interactions with law enforcement.
I mean, if they are a bigger percentage that are on drugs or alcohol, then that needs to
be addressed on that level. And it sounds to me like Capt. Kratzer and -- I'm sorry,
Tarryn, are on the right track there. I mean these generalizations that none of these
things are working, that MAG's been doing that, all these mayors have all -- of all parties
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and all feelings about this issue, come together and realize that it's not black and white.
It's not easy to fix.
So I'm not in favor of going for Glendale after we have memos telling us exactly how
that's not going to work. I don't want to be in the public eye as the town that took the
stand and went to the Supreme Court. We have Reed v. Town of Gilbert. That's what
we have right now. That's what exists. Anything that we enact is for everybody in this
town, as it should be.
Yes, ma'am?
MCMAHON: We sit here in the public talking about this. We're talking about
homelessness and now we're talking about an ordinance based on safety. Which it's
obvious to me, that you're targeting homeless people. We may have a couple of
homeless people in town. I think one of the statistics that Amy said today is per 25,000
people there's 27. I think we might have three or four, et cetera. I don't' think it's out
of hand. I don't appreciate what I'm going to say. I think it's the mob mentality reaction
to this. I think if we really want to look at our ordinances about washes, et cetera, that's
more realistic than sitting here pretending like we're not talking about homelessness
and then enacting an ordinance to prevent them from being in Fountain Hills.
There's no gate to the city here. Anybody can come in and out of our town. And I don't
know how, realistically, we're going to sit here and stop people who might be
unsheltered from coming into our town. I think it's unrealistic.
GOODWIN: Mayor, if I can -- there's been a lot of discussion and I just want to make
sure. I've been taking a lot of notes. But at this point --
FRIEDEL: Vast amounts. Copious.
GOODWIN: Copious amounts, indeed. And l do want to try to bookend where-- and
realize this conversation has sort of meandered. But staff is willing to take a start of
drafting something. Again, it is a draft so that it is reviewable. It is editable. It is a draft
so that the council can use it as a starting point. It can be word smithed from there. It
can be, again, addressed but well use, as our guiding tools is the idea of safety and a
commerce oriented, as I heard you say, commerce oriented approach. And then if we
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can work towards, if an ad hoc committee is the right tool to use to create that data
point. I also think we need to include MCSO in this conversation and what they've had
success implementing in terms of enforcement and things like that. Because ultimately,
whatever we do draft and adopt, they're going to be that enforcement arm for us, so
they need to be part of that conversation too.
So what I'm hearing is the direction to staff to start on this process. We'll be bringing it
back again as a draft for future consideration. Does that sound accurate to everyone?
Okay. Great.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Any other comments?
Our next item is a consideration of reviewing and possible direction to the staff on sign
code ordinance.
John, thank you.
WESLEY: Just a second here, Mayor.
MCMAHON: Thank you, Amy, for coming.
WESLEY: Okay. Mayor and council, good to see you this evening. Just a very quick
background here. February 9th, the council reinstated the sign ordinance. During
discussion of that there was also discussion about relaxed enforcement of the sign
regulations with regard to temporary signs. Based on the discussion and the motion at
the council meeting, the staff initially did not enforce any rules with regard to
temporary signs but over time we had started to pick up some of the enforcement. First
of all, with some of the sign types that really weren't allowed in the ordinance. And
then, based on some issues that came up with regard to certain yard signs, sometimes
to abandoned signs, we started more enforcement there. But because we can't really
single out one sign versus another based on message, it really turned into all yard signs
and directional signs.
The motion that was made at the council meeting was not entirely clear and so we're
back this evening seeking, kind of, further direction now that we've had several months
of trying not to enforce it or enforce it on a more limited basis. Just also as a note, the
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P&Z commission is still reviewing an update to the sign ordinance. We had a good
discussion at their meeting this month. They gave me several things to work on, given
some of the vacations and such that the commission members are taking we weren't
really going to have another full commission meeting until September. So there won't
be any further action by the P&Z commission until September. So it will be several
months past that before we can get it to council. 5o given that's the reason we're back
here this evening to make sure we're enforcing the regulations as the council would
really like.
So we've listed here some options, from one end to the other end of extremes.
So one would be to clearly direct the enforcement of the type that you want to have
starting with basically, no enforcement. So make it clear you really don't want us to
enforce any sign regulations. And then from there there's some steps in-between
where we could have limited enforcement based on some of the characteristics, the
type of sign, the location of signs, or material of signs. But again we can't really regulate
based on message.
Or we could go back to full enforcement of the sign ordinance with regard to temporary
signs.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards on this item?
MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman?
TOTH: John, if you could clarify for me? Your first slide mentioned that the council's
motion was unclear. I remember the motion being extremely clear that temporary signs
were not to be enforced. We were then kind of announced to that there'd be some
enforcement. And I think that's where there's been some confusion and I have to be
honest, I predicted -- part of the reason I voted against reinstating in the first place was
because I knew this would end up on an agenda soon. So frankly, I'm a little insulted
that we're trying to just put the sign ordinance back in as it is without something ready
to put in as the changes that we suggested.
I'm a no vote on any of this. But I just want to ask you, specifically, John -- I apologize
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for getting ahead of myself. But specifically, what was the confusion with the council's
motion on temporary signs?
WESLEY: Mayor, Councilmember, I went back and rel istened to the full meeting to
make sure I understood what we were to enforce or not. There's a lot of debate back
and forth about what the motion meant and what was really covered in the motion.
And I couldn't get, really 100 percent clear, understanding of what the council really
meant with the motion. And again, so we started with the idea, okay, then we really
aren't enforcing anything with regard to any temporary signs. But again, from then, as
some situations have occurred, we've been asked to enforce some pieces of it.
TOTH: Thank you, John. I have a follow up to that. The kind of announcement that we
received that there would be some enforcement on temporary signs after the motion
and vote to not enforce temporary signs, how did that come about and why was that
not required to be a vote? The email was pretty much just letting us know that that
would happen.
GOODWIN: I'm happy to chime in on that one. At this point, we're getting challenged
as to -- we have an ordinance. Why are we not enforcing it? And that leaves staff in a
very grey area of, if we have an ordinance we have a responsibility to enforce it. So in
conversation the area that were getting the most complaints about at the temporary
signs are about signage. And to John's point, and to the confusion of the last meeting,
there was lot of discussion about not just the type of sign but the material the sign was
being use -- or the material that was being used and what was considered durable and
what was considered not. And are cardboard yard sale signs okay? Yes, they are; no,
they're not. Well, I don't think they should be. There is a lot of discussion in there and it
definitely leaves staff in a no -win situation in that regard.
So we took the most common complaint that we're having. We just said, let's start
talking about how we can use this. And at the end of the day, were going into a
summer break where we need to have some clarity if were going to enforce everything,
if we're going to enforce nothing, or if were going to enforce something in-between.
We'd like to make sure that we are on that same page with you guys.
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TOTH: Sure. So -- sorry. One more time. That meeting where we had plenty of
discussion, that was regarding the new sign ordinance; is that correct? The changes that
we're going to make. Because the last time that we voted on this current ordinance,
there was a vote where we said no enforcement of temporary signs but we'll bring it
back.
And then, from there, we discussed changes for a new ordinance. So is that where the
confusion is? Is the discussion for the new ordinance, rather than how we're enforcing
this current one?
WESLEY: Mayor, Councilmember Toth. No. It's with the discussion that happened on
February the 9th, to reinstate the ordinance.
TOTH: Okay.
WESLEY: There was lots of discussion there that left the motion unclear in my mind.
TOTH: okay. Thank you, John.
So in that case I would suggest that we go off of the vote that occurred. There was a
majority vote for bringing the ordinance back but with no enforcement of temporary
signage, so.
MAYOR DICKEY: The suggestion of -- well, when we repealed it and then we realized
that was not something we should have done, was not a legal action. So we reinstated
it in February and there was some discussion about what the signs could be made out of
and such, because we realized that by not enforcing anything, we left ourselves open.
And it was a little hard to figure out what we -- where we landed on that. As far as the
rest of that decision, the original decision to repeal it, was with an understanding that
we were going to get this reformulated sign ordinance back in like a month. So we were
like, okay, when's planning and zoning meeting? We have to have 15 days of a hearing.
So this whole time frame was very, very short.
So then we reinstated it and said okay, we're going to get this thing back right away.
Well, they've discussed it a few times. And I don't blame them. I mean, I watched a
little bit of the last meeting and Commissioner was there and I appreciated your
comments and such, to know that they weren't going to get anywhere as far as like
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coming forward that night. Besides it was on the 12th, so it was too late for us anyway.
So now that it's going to be September, we find ourselves in the position of tether signs,
box signs, signs on boxes, and election is going to be in -- we have center district and a
bond election. We have for rent signs with no vacancy strapped across them. We have
sidewalks being blocked. We have multiple signs in a row. So it's proliferating.
You just sent us this memorandum from last December, so you can pretty much say it
wasn't an election anymore. You had 88 sign activities. Whether they were removed or
returned. And now we have zero, of course, or we started to pick up a little bit because
of the decision to do a little bit. So 88 much more before that, but that was an election,
so I want to be fair and not use that. But this is the road we're on and we've got June,
July, August, September. So by the time we get one back here, we're going to have a lot
of months of no enforcement of temporary signs. And so it's not an insult to bring it
back. It wasn't meant to be an insult to bring it back. What it was, was to clarify where
are we right now and when these signs start coming for November, what are going to
be? We're going to start seeing them on Shea again. We're going to start seeing them
in medians again, which we already have; and all these other violations. And I don't
think we want to look at that for the next six months.
Councilwoman?
KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. --
SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor?
MAYOR DICKEY: Hold on. Brenda's going first.
KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thank you, Allen. I'll be brief.
Yeah, I do recall that. I think our message was fairly clear to staff at the time. And so I
do concur with Hannah. On the other hand, since then, and speaking with our town
manager and with town staff, I'm convinced in good faith that there was a lack of
guidance that, at least, they received. And so I think it's tricky. We thought that the
message was conveyed properly, and I don't think at this point, it was. Because I've
heard too many complaints from staff to say we don't have any guidance on this.
I live here and I've noticed a proliferation of a lot of signs that we originally thought
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about the proliferation of, and it was distressing. And so I specifically remember what
the Mayor said that this is going to take a month or two, it will go through planning and
zoning, it's going to get bumped up here. We're going to have a new sign ordinance.
And now it's languishing. It's going to be in September now before it's done. I've sat in
on the planning and zoning or watched them on VouTube and it's a very slow, tedious
process, of them trying to cobble together our new sign ordinance. I'm okay with
instructing the staff to resume the full sign ordinance enforcement as of tonight. With
the only adjustment or amendment to that would be, I would like for it to be to a time
certain. A shot clock, if you will, that we would reinstate the sign ordinance until
probably, maybe November? On the second meeting of November. That would give
planning and zoning a chance to take a look at it in September, possibly kick it back to
council and then we can have a vote on it at that time.
If we need additional time, we could also just bump it to January and do a second
extension. So what I would like to do is move to instruct staff to resume the full sign
code enforcement up until a date certain, that date to be determined tonight by council.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I would -- I mean, do I have a second?
GRZYBOWSKI: I second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Councilman Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I distinctly remember that February meeting is
that there was a compromise made. And who knew that signs would be so
controversial. But that compromise that was made was to allow us to have an
ordinance but not have enforcement. And I still think that was clear. So I have a
contrary motion is to table this until we have something from planning and zoning that
we can work on.
MAYOR DICKEY: I know we have a motion and a second on the floor.
ARNSON: I'm checking.
MAYOR DICKEY: We're checking.
ARNSON: Okay. Thanks for your patience, Mayor and council. I was making sure we
handle this correctly. 5o I'm looking at Rule 6.6(c)(2) of our council rules of procedure
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which govern precedence of motions. We have a motion and a second on the table.
Under Section (c)(c)2, motions to table are postponed to a certain date and time take
precedence over the main motion. Did we get a second on the motion to table though?
That's the question. Okay.
FRIEDEL: I'll second that.
ARNSON: So then that would -- so then we would vote on the motion to table first. And
so if you want to table, vote yes. If you don't want to table, vote no. And then, if that
motion fails, we will proceed to vote on Councilwoman Kalivianakis' motion.
That make sense?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes.
ARNSON: We're voting on the motion to table.
MAYOR DICKEY: There's a motion to table on the floor. Roll call, please?
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: No.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: Yes.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: No.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Yes, to table.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Yes.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: No.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: No.
MENDENHALL: It fails. Four to three.
MAYOR DICKEY: So we have a motion on the table to enforce the ordinance -- full
enforcement of ordinance on temporary signs until our second --
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KALIVIANAKIS: Second meeting in November.
MAYOR DICKEY: How about --
FRIEDEL: Its too long.
MAYOR DICKEY: How about the first meeting in November?
FRIEDEL: That would be better.
MAYOR DICKEY: Because I'm not sure about our second meeting because of
Thanksgiving things.
FRIEDEL: I still think that's too long. Why can't we do it in October?
GRZYBOWSKI: Well, I think the key is, John, is that going to give planning and zoning
enough time? I mean, that's the key. We need them before we can do our job.
WESLEY: Mayor and council, we'll be back to P&Z in September with revisions to the
ordinance as they've been looking at it. If they would approve it that night, then we
could have it at your second meeting in October. If they're still not ready to approve it,
then we go to your next meeting in October and keep going till they're ready to take
action.
MAYOR DICKEY: I think we're fine with what you said.
KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I think that if planning and zoning bumped it up
in September and then we were to vote on it in October, it would replace that one that
we're resuming tonight. It would, by necessity, it would obviate the need for this old
sign ordinance to be applied. The new sign ordinance would then go into effect.
MAYOR DICKEY: So in other words, if she still keeps it on the first meeting in November,
if we got it sooner, we can always do it.
KALIVIANAKIS: Right.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah.
There's a motion on the floor.
MCMAHON: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: And a second for full enforcement of the ordinance of temporary signs
until our first meeting in November. We have a motion and a second. Can we have a
roll call, please?
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MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Madam Mayor, may I explain my vote?
MAYOR DICKEY: Sure.
TOTH: Thank you. I'll be brief. I ran on changing the sign ordinance. I understand that
its taking longer than necessary. But as Councilman Skillicorn pointed out, we had
made an agreement in that last meeting and I voted against that because I predicted
this exact moment. And I have a couple of Councilmen that are aware of that as well. I
knew this would happen. My vote is no.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: No.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: No.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you all.
MENDENHALL: It passes.
MAYOR DICKEY: Motion passes.
Our next item is a public hearing. I shall open the public hearing and talk about a zoning
change.
Hi.
TAVASSOLI: Madam Mayor, just give me just a second.
Madam Mayor, members of the council, what you have before you is a rezone request
for little over eight -tenths of an acre, dual -zone property in the Firerock subdivision.
The proposal is to rezone it from R1-35H, which is a single family residential and OSR to
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a uniform R1-35H, uniformly zoned property. So the property which I'll just go ahead
and show you here on the next slide is a little over 37,000 square feet. It's one parcel. It
was actually replatted late last year. The vast majority of it about 20,000 acres or so is --
I beg your pardon. More like 30,000 acres -- or square feet, pardon me. It's a little late.
Is zoned R1-35H and about 7,700 acres is zoned OSR, or open space reserve. So what
the applicant again, is proposing a uniform zoning, R1-35H. Now you may ask what is
the purpose of this rezoning? The applicant wishes to make an addition to the existing
primary residence that's on the property. However, with the previous lot configuration
those additions would have bust the 20 percent lot coverage limit. So what the
applicant did with the agreement from the Firerock HOA, is to basically transfer a
portion of the Firerock Country Club's property to the owner of the lot, so that basically
it was an expansion of the lot at 37,000 square feet.
So the recommendation before you from staff as well as the planning and zoning
commission is to approve the zone change request to create a uniformly zoned R1-35H
zone parcel, which would allow the applicant to make additions without exceeding the
lot coverage limit.
And with that, I'll open it up to questions. The applicant is here, waiting patiently, I
might add. And I'll turn it back to you.
FRIEDEL: Question for you. Did Firerock just give him that land?
TAVASSOLI: Madam Mayor, Councilmember Friedel, I'm not sure exactly what the
arrangement was but I don't think it was just a simply --
FRIEDEL: It wasn't just a donation?
TAVASSOLI: Yeah.
FRIEDEL: Okay.
MAYOR DICKEY: Do we have any speaker cards? I'm sorry.
MCMAHON: This is just for a private residence, correct?
TAVASSOLI: Correct.
MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you.
MENDENHALL: No, Mayor. We don't.
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MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Okay. Any other comments or questions?
GRZYBOWSKI: I'd like to make a motion.
MAYOR DICKEY: I want to close the hearing.
GRZYBOWSKI: Oh, sorry.
MAYOR DICKEY: I remembered this time.
Now, make a motion.
GRZYBOWSKI: Move to adopt ordinance 2308?
TOTH: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call, please?
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Kalivianakis?
TOTH: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
SKILLICORN: Yes.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you.
Our next item is to change the name of the -- how should I say it? The Historic and
Cultural Advisory Commission. Who's doing this one? Rachael?
GOODWIN: Yep. I can take this one.
The commission was founded, I want to say the first of the year, give or take. And at the
inception of the commission a number of the commissioners wanted to reevaluate the
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name because it is in a resolution, it does require council direction and approval to do
so. Again, I think they take exception with the -- creating a grammatically correct
commission title. And actually, I think what they would prefer, and I could be wrong,
and I believe we have a comment card on it. Is they would prefer the Historic and
Culture commission?
MCMAHON: No, history.
MAYOR DICKEY: No, history.
GOODWIN: History and culture.
GRZYBOWSKI: History and Culture.
GOODWIN: See that's why you shouldn't ask me this, why I should read something.
GRZYBOWSKI: History and Culture.
GOODWIN: History and Culture Advisory Commission. So it still keeps the same initials,
it's just a semantics tweak.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Do we have any speaker cards?
MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. But they're -- it's just written comments and you
have one from Dianne Price. She's for the name change, but she's the one who points
out that it should be History and Culture. And then Rory Wilson is for the name change.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Any further discussion? Can I get a motion?
TOTH: Not discussion. Just a motion. Everybody can let out their breath.
In that case, I move to change the name of the commission to the History and Culture
Commission as per Ms. Price's comment.
FRIEDEL: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Roll call, please?
MENDENHALL: Okay. Councilmember Kalivianakis?
KALIVIANAKIS: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Skillicorn?
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SKILLICORN: Yes.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Toth?
TOTH: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Grzybowski?
GRZYBOWSKI: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Councilmember Friedel?
FRIEDEL: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon?
MCMAHON: Aye.
MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey?
MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you.
So our last regular item is relating to the legislative -- the Leagues Legislative Bulletin. I
want to thank everybody for reporting from their policy committees. I look forward to
see what moves forward. I do have some things to say.
So there are 162 bills that have been signed into law. They adjourned last Monday and
will reconvene July 31st. they were off for about five weeks earlier until June 12th. And
I know people have been asking this and they do get paid their per diem. And the bills
will not become law now in a timely manner because the effective date for legislation is
90 days post sine die. And they won't be back until July 31st. Last week, two league
resolutions did pass the legislature with strong bipartisan majority. So what you're
doing now is formulating that for next year.
Lawmakers debated the 1246, which is the election for the transportation tax. And the
governor's announced her intention to veto it. It was the one that was negotiated by
mayors and such, but the bill was a lot different from that. So I don't know if she
actually did or not, because I wrote this yesterday.
1131, which was the residential leases municipal tax exemption, was approved. The
Governor had vetoed a similar measure earlier this year and again would have an
estimated impact of $230 million to the 75 cities and towns that levy this tax. In
Fountain Hills it would be about $500,000, a little bit more, every year, in revenue.
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All three of the zoning preemption bills, they did not get voted on. They all failed to
move. And then, yesterday, the Governor signed Senate Bill 1432 which sets up the
Standpipe district that will enter into an agreement with the City of Scottsdale to allow
Rio Verde Foothills community members on wild water to draw from the standpipe.
And I asked Aaron earlier, and this bill will have no impact on the Town of Fountain Hills.
So that's good. And hopefully, they will get that solution up and running.
Anything else on that?
KALIVIANAKIS: 1 just very quickly.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, ma'am.
KALIVIANAKIS: Is that going to offer the Rio Verde a temporary solution in addition to a
permanent solution? I mean, are they going to get water this summer; from what your
understanding is? I'm trying to figure that out.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that might take a while is to form the
group there that's going to be the layer of government for it. But once they do that it
will be temporary, leading to permanent. So it shouldn't be that much different from
what they were getting as far as getting the water and they're trying to do it as quickly
as they can,.
KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: You're welcome.
Gerry, did you have any more news about that?
FRIEDEL: No.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Any other direction to the town manager or future agenda items
for August 22nd?
KALIVIANAKIS: I don't think so.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Did someone say we have no future?
GRZYBOWSKI: I said, way future. Way future.
MAYOR DICKEY: So again we're at the skate park on Saturday. Thank you, Vice Mayor
will be there on my behalf. And I'm sure you guys will be there.
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Fourth of July, music starts at 7:30, fireworks at 9. Have a fun, safe, summer.
We're here though. We're not going anywhere. You can always reach us and again,
have a great summer.
Thank you.
TOTH: Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: We're adjourned.
[MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:02 P.M.]
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Having no further business, Mayor Ginny Dickey adjourned the Regular Meeting
of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on June 20, 2023, at 9:02 p.m.
ATTE T AND PRE ARED BY:
Linda G. Mendenhall, Town
CERTIFICATION
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
Gin S Dicke^, Mayor
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 June 2023. I further certify that
the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present
DATED this 22n0 Day of August 2023.
Linda G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk
that i. my: