HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022.0621.TCRM.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL
JUNE 21, 2022
1. CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mayor Dickey called the Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on
June 21, 2022, to order at 5:29 p.m. and led the Council and audience in the Pledge of
Allegiance.
2. MOMENT OF SILENCE
A moment of silence was held.
3. ROLL CALL
Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Gerry Friedel; Councilmember
David Spelich; Councilmember Sharron Grzybowski
Members Absent: Councilmember Alan Magazine; Councilmember Peggy McMahon;
Councilmember Mike Scharnow
Staff Present: Town Manager Grady E. Miller; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town
Clerk Linda Mendenhall
4. REPORTS BY MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, AND TOWN MANAGER
A. PROCLAMATION: July as Park and Recreation Month.
Mayor Dickey and the Town Council presented a proclamation recognizing July as
Park and Recreation Month.
5. SCHEDULED PUBLIC APPEARANCESIPRESENTATIONS
A. PRESENTATION: Monthly Report by Captain Kratzer with Maricopa County
Sheriff's Office.
Captain Kratzer provided an update and answered questions regarding crime
statistics for the Town of Fountain Hills.
6. CALL TO THE PUBLIC
Pursuant to AR..S §38-431. 01(H) public comment Is permitted (no( required) on matters NOT listed on 0e agenda. Any such comment (IJ
rnust be within the judsdiction of the Council, and egos subject to reasonable Fme, place, and manner restrictions The Council will not
discuss Of lake legal action on matters raised during Call to the Public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal
action. At the conclusion of the Cali to the Public. Individual councilmembers may (1 respond to cnliclsm, 00 ask staff to review a matter, or
(in) ask that the matter be placed on a future Council agenda.
7. CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS
All items listed on the Consent Agenda are considered to be routine, noncontroversial matters and will be enacted by one
motion of the Council. All motions and subsequent approvals of consent items will include all recommended staff
stipulations unless otherwise stated. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a councilmember or
member of the public so requests. If a councilmember or member of (he public wishes to discuss an item on the Consent
Agenda, he/she may request so prior to the motion to accept the Consent Agenda or with notification to the Town
Manager or Mayor prior to the date of the meeting for which the item was scheduled. The items will be removed from the
Consent Agenda and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda.
Councilmember Spelich requested item #7B be removed for separate consideration and
approval. MOVED BY Councilmember Grzybowski to approve the Consent Agenda
Items minus item #7B, SECONDED BY Councilmember Spelich.
Vote: 4 — 0 passed — Unanimously
A. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of the minutes of the
Regular Meeting of June 7, 2022.
B. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of a six-month extension
to the approved Special Use Permit to allow 17 residential units on a 1.62-acre
property generally located north of the northeast corner of N. Saguaro Boulevard
and E. Shea Boulevard (AKA 9647 N. saguaro boulevard; APN#176-10-805) on
the C-1 (Neighborhood Commercial) zoning district.
This item was pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion; the
item is listed below in more detail.
C. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Resolution 2022-33, approving
Intergovernmental Agreement amendments with the Regional Public Transit
Authority relating to the RideChoice Transportation Services program and for bus
services on Route 515 in Fountain Hills.
D. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Request to apply and take receipt
of Prop 202 Grant Funding from Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.
THE FOLLOWING ITEM WAS PULLED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA TO
BE VOTED ON SEPARATELY:
7B. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Approval of a six-month
extension to the approved Special Use Permit to allow 17 residential units on a
1.62-acre property generally located north of the northeast corner of N. Saguaro
Boulevard and E. Shea Boulevard (AKA 9647 N. saguaro boulevard; APN#176-
10-805) on the C-1 (Neighborhood Commercial) zoning district.
MOVED BY Councilmember Grzybowski to approve a six-month extension to the
special use permit, to allow residential uses at 9637 North Saguaro Boulevard,
for a maximum of 17 dwelling units, subject to the stipulations approved by
council on December 7, 2021, SECONDED BY Vice Mayor Friedel.
Vote: 3 —1 Passed
NAY: Councilmember Spelich
8. REGULAR AGENDA
A. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Resolution 2022-32 Repealing
Resolution 2022-02 Adopting a New Fountain Lighting Policy.
MOVED BY Councilmember Grzybowski to approve Resolution 2022-32 as
presented, SECONDED BY Vice Mayor Friedel.
Vote: 4 — 0 Passed — unanimously
B. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE DIRECTION: Relating to any item included in the
League of Arizona Cities and Towns' weekly Legislative bulletin(s) or relating to
any action proposed or pending before the State Legislature.
9. COUNCIL DISCUSSION/DIRECTION to the TOWN MANAGER
Items) listed below are related only to the propriety of (p placing such item(s) on a future agenda for action, or(ip
directing staff to conduct further research and report back to the Council.
10. ADJOURNMENT
MOVED BY Councilmember Spelich, SECONDED BY Councilmember Grzybowski to
adjourn.
Vote: 4 — 0 Passed — Unanimously
The Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on June 21, 2022,
adjourned at 6:49 p.m.
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
Gi
Mayor
ATTESI AND PREPARED BY:
G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk
CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of
the Regular Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council
Chambers on the 21 s' day of June 2022. I further certify that the meeting was duly called
and that a quorum was present.
DATED this 21 s' Day of June, 2022.
L nda G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 1 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Post -Production File
Town of Fountain Hills
June 21, 2022 Town Council Meeting
Transcription Provided By:
eScribers, LLC
Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not
he a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
.. , s...�.,.....,..�..A.mmPage 1 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 2 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
MAYOR DICKEY: Good evening. We're going to start off our meeting with the
Cottonwoods Maintenance District. Roll call, please.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey.
MAYOR DICKEY: Here.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor Friedel.
VICE MAYOR FRIEDEL: Present.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Council member McMahon. Council member
Schamow. Council member Magazine. Council member Spelich.
SPELICH: Present.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Council member Grzybowski.
GRZYBOWSKI: Present.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
First item is the approval of the minutes from the meeting of June 7th. Can I get a
motion, please?
SPELICH: (Indiscernible).
GRZYBOWSKI: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: All in favor, say ayc.
ALL: Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Next, Grady.
MILLER: Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, and Council and for the public who are here
tonight. We have before you the Cottonwoods Maintenance District tax levy. And our
finance director will be giving you an overview of this and recommending approval.
With that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Pock.
POCK: All right. Good evening. I guess, Madam Chair, board members. June 7th, the
final budget was adopted for Cottonwoods Maintenance District. This tonight is to
approve the tax levy to go to the Assessor and the Treasurer's office for collection of
property taxes for the Cottonwoods Maintenance District.
Total levy is $8,669. That's a $149.46 over 58 parcels. That includes items for
landscaping, the wall maintenance reserve, that we build up each year. We just finished
painting that this year. Also the postage and advertising costs.
xiNkerw
Page 2 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 3 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Those cumulative costs, this is the first year that we started charging the ten percent
administration fee. And that is ten percent of those three items that Ijust mentioned, so if
there are any questions.
MILLER: I just had a question. So the Vice Mayor had asked previously about a couple
different things about the district. One would be, you know, what would be involved in
the possible dissolution of that. Also he had some good comments about, cost recovery.
And so 1 distributed a memo to the council last week on this very topic. And if the
council -- I realize this is probably not the appropriate time, since we're really talking
about the levy, but if the council is interested in this, when we do our budget process for
the next year, we will present to the council some different options on both partial and
full cost recovery.
We are limited as to how much we can collect to, not to exceed 18 percent of the total
value of the parcel that we're currently maintaining. But if the council is interested, we
can certainly do that through the next budget process, if we're wanting to get more of a --
closer to full cost recovery.
VICE MAYOR FRIEDEL: Also that was a lot of information and thank you for getting
that to us so that we can make a good decision on that so, I appreciate that.
MAYOR DICKEY: Do we have any speaker cards on this item?
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Any other questions or comments? All right.
I'm trying to see where the motion is. Anybody want to -- it's on page 3, I think, yep.
Oh, sorry. No, it's not. I'm losing it. I haven't seen it. Where's the motion?
MILLER: Mayor, I think it's page 5.
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, page five. Oh, there we go. Can I get a motion, please?
GRZYBOWSKI: Move to adopt resolution CMD2022-03.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
GRZYBOWSKI: Did I make it to the right page?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah.
GRZYBOWSKI: Okay.
SPELICH: Second.
Page 3 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 4 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
All in favor, please say, aye.
ALL• Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks, so much. 1 will adjourn that meeting. And we'll start our
regular meeting. Please stand for the pledge and remain standing.
ALL: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the
Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all.
MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Please remain standing for a moment of silence.
Thank you. All right. Roll call, please.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey.
MAYOR DICKEY: Here.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL• Vice Mayor Friedel.
VICE MAYOR FRIEDEL. Present.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Council member McMahon. Council member
Schamow. Council member Magazine. Council member Spelich.
SPELICH: Present.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Council member Grzybowski.
GRZYBOWSKI: Present.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, so much.
As always, we start with our activities and reports.
Town manager, do you have anything?
MILLER: Mayor and council, I do not have anything to report at this meeting, thank
you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Vice Mayor, I know you have a couple things.
FRIEDEL: I do. Mayor, I'd like to request a point of privilege, if I may take a couple
minutes of the council's time and if that's all right.
MAYOR DICKEY: Sure.
FRIEDEL. Thank you. So at the last council meeting, there was some discussion at the
end of the meeting, dealing with the recent raise given to our town employees. And I
Page 4 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 5 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
think it will -- left us a little bit unsettled because a lot of people -- I got a lot of
comments and emails from residents in town saying, how come there was no discussion
on this. So what I'd like to do going forward is, make sure that with the raise that they
got, was 4 percent. And in the last year and a half, it's about ten percent. And were
adding about $200,000 in round figures, to our current salary base, here in the town.
Over the years, that's going to add up to be a lot of money.
So I'd like to know if we can make sure, in the future, that there's some kind of a line
item, or some kind of discussion, whenever there's a raise proposed. Because I think
probably going forward now, salaries are one of our biggest expenses in this town and I
think the public might like to weigh in on it. And I know the council might like to have
some discussion on it. So if that's something that we can consider doing in the future, I
think it would be important for both the residents and the council.
MILLER: Yes, and we're all for doing that. We did have some slides but perhaps that
got lost in that. So well try to be a little bit more open and make sure that that seems to
he a lot more clear to the council going forward. Thank you, well take that under
advisement.
FRIEDEL: Thank you.
So I do have a couple of other items. Last week, I attended the Chambers foundation
ribbon cutting. So it's a new venture for the Chamber of Commerce in town. And it's
exciting for them and for us. So if you get a chance, you can check that out on the
Chamber's website. There were a lot of businesses and a lot of people in attendance.
And also on June l4th, I attended the Global Ties Arizona; the town hosted a luncheon
with Mayors from Argentina, Botswana, Gambia, Italy, Kosovo, and South Africa.
And these people were so impressed with this town. And above all, our fountain and our
parks. They wanted to know a lot about our water reclamation and how we deal with our
waste water and that kind of thing.
So it was a good exchange of ideas and thoughts and we gave them a lot of information
about our town. And they were very impressed with the fact that here we are in the
middle of the desert, and we have a fountain that -- one of the highest fountains in the
world. So it was a good exchange. So it was a good thing to be able to attend.
And then two Saturdays ago, I had the pleasure of attending Operation Screen Reduction.
Page 5 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 6 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
And you may be wondering what that's all about The owners of Pearl Nutrition, on
Saturday, June 11 th, in conjunction with a couple of businesses in town, held what we
call Operation Screen Reduction. It's to get youth in our town, off of screens, whether it's
an iPhone, iPad, monitor, TVs, that type of thing.
So in attendance were council candidates Brenda (ph.), Allen Skilletcorn (ph.), Hannah
Toth (ph.), Sherriff Joe (ph.), Councilman David Spelich, and Orlando Brown (ph.) did a
lot of the videoing for the event. And the goal again, was to raise money for the Boy
Scouts in our local town, to help send them off to camp, and get them out of the house,
and off the screens.
So I'm pleased to report that we raised over S3700. And every single scout in this town
will be attending camp. So it was very successful and Scout Troop 343 raised all the
funds necessary to be able to accomplish that goal. So it was really great to see the town
come together and support the youth in this town. So it was well needed and well
attended. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. (Indiscernible).
SPELICH: Wrong button. I too attended as Gerry just said, and 1 think we had 60 or 70
residents show up and write checks and hand cash to the Scout Master. So 1 think it was
a great event. And they had a slide show going on during the event and showed all the
events that the kids that go to this camp, participate in. There was horse riding and
shooting archery, a bunch of things. So I was really glad to go to it and show them
support. And I was even more excited that 60 or 70 residents showed up and donated.
So thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilman?
GRZYBOWSKI: This week I attended the one and only legislative update call that we've
had in easily a month, if not six weeks. Also, I went to the GPEC ambassador event, the
Arizona's craft beer industry. I was really bummed 1 couldn't go to the onsite meeting,
because rumor has it there was a taste test. Unfortunately, I had a meeting beforehand so
I couldn't make it work.
According to the Arizona Craft Brewer's Guild, we've got about 94 brewing companies in
Arizona, with about 120 brewing locations. In 2021, they estimated an economic impact,
just of this industry, of $ l billon. So yeah, it was a very interesting meeting. And you
Page 6 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Page 7of50
know me, I'll talk beer. It was super fun.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilwoman.
Well, I really appreciate that you were able to go to that lunch. Obviously, I was out of
town. We have a lot of people out of town, abroad, and such. So yeah, I got to go to my
granddaughter's graduation, so that was very nice, in New York.
The only thing is tomorrow we have a MAG regional council, passing of the gavel, from
Mesa Mayor Giles to Avondale Mayor Weise. I'm looking forward to that.
Our next item is a proclamation, which is saying that July is Park and Recreation months.
So I think we might have a couple of commissioners here. And if you want to come up
with Rachel (ph.), I will present.
All right. You can hold it. How's that? 1 will present. I read it, the writing that I can
see. All right. There we go. Ready?
Whereas, Parks and Recreation is an integral part of communities throughout the country,
including the town of Fountain Hills, and promotes health and wellness, improving the
physical and mental health of people who live near parks.
And whereas Parks and Recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively
impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being, and
alleviating illnesses, such as depression, attention deficit disorders, and Alzheimer's.
And whereas Parks and Recreation encourages physical activities by providing space for
popular sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities.
And whereas Parks and Recreation is a leading provider of healthy meals, nutrition
services, and education activities, such as out of school -time programming, youth sports,
and environmental education. which are critical to childhood development.
And whereas Parks and Rec. increases a community's economic prosperity through
increased property values, tourism, attraction and retention of businesses, and crime
reduction.
And whereas Parks and Rec. is fundamental to the environmental well-being of our
community, and ensures the ecological beauty of our community and provides a place for
children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors.
And whereas the town of Fountain Hills recognizes the benefits derived from Parks and
Rec. resources, so therefore I, Ginny Dickey, Mayor of Fountain Hills. do proclaim July
Page 7 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 8 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
to be recognized as Park and Recreation month, this 21 st day of June, 2022.
Congratulations.
Okay. Anybody have anything they want to say?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: All right.
FRIEDEL: Mayor, I will say something on your way -- while you're walking back up.
Congratulations to our gold star parks department. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: All right. Oh, got a shock. Thank you, so much.
Our scheduled public appearances, we are going to have our presentation by Captain
Kratzer from MCSO. Welcome, Captain.
KRATZER: Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the Council. Get this going
here. Well, that didn't take long to have technical difficulties. 1 just need the home
screen. It's on the home screen, here. There we go. Thank you.
Okay. I know tonight is the last council meeting before summer break, so I promised
Justin Weldy (ph.), I'd keep this to an hour and a half
All right. So I usually try to do a stat presentation that covers the crime stats for the last
couple of years, around February, not long after the end of the year closes, so we have
two to three years that we could show what the year prior looked like. Well, I wasn't able
to do that. I had some unexpected time out of the office. So what I decided to do, that I
think would be a little bit more relevant, was go back for two years. Looking at kind of a
modified fiscal year, in a way. So the stat comparison that I'm going to do will look at
two years. And as I go through, I'll explain what those two years' timcframes will look
like.
So we'll look at June 2020 through May of 2021. It will be a 12-month time period. And
I'll just reference that as year 2021.
And then we'll look at June 2021 through May 2022, another 12-month period. And that
will just be referenced as year 2022.
And what the stat comparison will review for those two years will be the top 20 calls for
service. 1 think that's relevant because it shows what residents of town are calling in to
the sheriff's office for, for what those incidents are. They're not always crimes. You'll
see as we go through those.
Page 8 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Page 9 of 50
Then I'll look at the top 20 on -view activities by deputies. So -- and I'll have definitions
of all this, as we go, they'll be brief But that's just when a deputy has down time, and
they're conducting on -view activities, things that they observe.
And then we'll look at the top 20 calls for service that resulted in an incident report. And
that's a little different than the call for service, because a call for service with an incident
report, means that there was either a crime, and that's why a report's written. or something
significant enough that a report should be authored. So those change a little bit then, just
the top 20 calls for service.
And then we'll look at major crime indicators. That's probably what most people are the
most interested in knowing. But we'll get there, and it won't take that long, I promise.
Okay, so a call for service, that's a call generated by a member of the public or another
agency, or any external source to MCSO. So it's not anything a deputy is doing. It would
be something that a deputy is called for the MCSO is called for. So we'll get into our top
20 calls for service right away.
So you can see welfare checks are the most, the top 20. And that's the number one thing
we get calls for. And that's usually someone can't get a hold of somebody and they
would like a deputy to go check on somebody. Those numbers always remain really
high.
A False burglar alarm, you can see how high those are.
Citizen motorist assist, and I don't know how well you guys can see those numbers.
Hopefully, they're clear enough for the members of the audience and those at home. I
believe that this is going to be posted online, on the wcbsite, so people can go back and
look at this.
Follow-up, that's when somebody calls and is just asking for additional follow-up on
something. They may have another bit of information they want to add on a previous
call.
I highlighted some of the ones that there were noticeable changes on, that in my opinion,
are a little bit more relevant. So I just want to let you know, if you have any questions
during this, or you want to stop me and you want to ask any questions, sometimes what I
think is relevant, may be different than what you guys see. Or something may jump out
at you guys, that you have a question on.
Page 9 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 10 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
But loud neighbors disturbing, we saw a drop in that, which I was a little surprised to see
because we've had a lot more calls for service for some of our short-term rentals, we call
them party houses. We've experienced an increase in those calls but 1 think across the
board, maybe other noise disturbances, where someone just has a neighbor who's playing
some loud music. maybe that's dropped a little bit.
Vehicle crash with no injuries, and again, remember these are just the calls for service
that the public makes. So sometimes when a deputy gets there, the call may change, and
it may not necessarily be what the call came in as. Vehicle crash with no injuries, we saw
an increase there from 2021 of 116 to 163. In my next slide, I'm going to cover some of
the significant things that we're seeing here.
Going through, suspicious persons; traffic hazards; civil actions; suspicious persons in
vehicles; attempts to locate, a lot of times those are for drivers that are driving
aggressively. Audible burglar alarms; civil matters; and standbys. You can see thefts
that that dropped a little bit from the year prior. Assists to other agencies, that's at Fort
McDowell, or Scottsdale, or another agency calls us for anything. Found property;
animal noise problems, we saw an increase there. Criminal damage over two years,
remained the same, for calls that we received. And then injured sick persons.
So takeaways from that. what I noticed in that, and 1 use these to analyze kind of our
personnel and maybe shifts and where we put personnel or if we see a significant call for
service peak, we try to put more personnel there.
Suspicious activity calls and suspicious person in vehicle calls, over the last two years,
that just shows us that people are remaining diligent. We constantly ask people to be
diligent in what you see. If you see something suspicious, please call it in. even if you
think it may he nothing, but you've got a hunch, we'll go check it out, and maybe it's
nothing and we'll clear it. Or sometimes, maybe it's someone looking to commit a
burglary or some other crime.
The loud neighbors disturbing calls have decreased by nearly 11 percent. The other thing
to keep in mind on some of these, the percentage number that's associated to it looks
really large. Not necessarily here but in some of the other stats, but kind of like with any
numbers and data, when you have a small sample size, that percentage, a few calls or
things can change it pretty drastically.
atl
Page 10 of50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 11 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Vehicle crash with no injury calls have increased by 40 percent. So we went from 116 to
163.
Theft calls decreased by 19 percent.
SPELICH: Captain?
KRATZER: Yes.
SPELICH: 1 have a quick question on that increase of 40 percent.
KRATZER: Sure.
SPELICH: Do you know, is any of that due to being impaired?
KRATZER: Not many are due to impairment. We obviously have some vehicle crashes,
even minor vehicle accidents, no injuries, that result in DUI's. That number has remained
pretty consistent over the last two years.
Animal noise problems, calls have increased by nearly 37 percent. And criminal damage
calls have remained the exact same over the two-year comparison, at 57. And again,
these are calls for service from the public. Sometimes a deputy may get there on a
criminal damage and it may be you know, someone wrote on the driveway with chalk.
And even though it came in as a call that way. it's not really a crime. It's not a criminal
damage. So that number could change from the end, with a report.
So next we'll look briefly at the on -view activity of a deputy. And that's self -initiated
activity by a deputy and not a call for service from dispatch. On -view activity is
generally conducted by a deputy, when the deputy is not responding to a call for service,
as calls for service take priority.
So in our top 20, over the two-year comparison, I'll highlight some of the ones that we
saw significant changes or important changes. Patrol vacation watches, those are always
high. We saw an increase in deputies doing those. I think a lot of people are starting to
get out of town again, now that maybe Covid's starting to wane a little bit.
School programs, we saw a pretty hefty increase in that. Again, a lot of things are
COVID related here, now that we're starting to get out of some of those restrictions.
Welfare checks, we saw a pretty big increase on deputies doing those. Speeders, that one
is just when a deputy, based on maybe an area he knows is problematic, or she knows is
problematic. or there's a call from a resident, of hey, we're getting speeders on our street,
can you park in the area? So that's the amount of times deputies went out in those areas,
Page 11 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 12 of SO
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
looking for speed enforcement.
Community policing, we saw a large increase in that. Again, were able to get out now
and have more contact with individuals. We're starting to pick that up. But you can see
some of the other -- the traffic violations, I didn't cover at the top, but that remained
pretty consistent over that two-year period that we looked at, with just one and a half
percent decrease.
And so I kind of covered all this already, the traffic violations have remained mostly
consistent. Patrol, vacation watches, school programs, community policing efforts have
all increased substantially, due to COVID restrictions relaxing. Welfare checks have
increased by 135 percent. You can chalk that up to the same. And deputies patrolling for
speeders have increased. And some of that is based on some of the emphasis over the last
year, with the corridors and all that.
Calls for service with an incident report. So that's what we're looking at next. So these
are the calls that public made, where the deputy took a report. So our policy requires our
deputy to take a report if there's an allegation of a crime that's made and they can
determine that it does appear a crime was made or did occur.
But not only crimes, also for vehicle crashes. So vehicle crash with no injuries, we saw
100 in the year 2021; modified year 2021. And then an increase to 143. Deaths we saw a
decrease from 64 to 48. Criminal damages, we saw a slight decrease. Identify thefts, we
saw a decrease. Trespassing, we saw a decrease. Frauds and con games, we saw a
decrease; minimal, but a decrease. Disorderly conduct, we saw a pretty good size
decrease there from 40 to 21.
Vehicle crash with injuries, we saw an increase from 25 to 35. Hit and run, no injuries,
we saw an increase from 24 to 31. Now hit and run with no injuries, that could be
something as minor as, and not to downplay this, but a car parked at a grocery store
parking lot, and someone comes out and finds damage on their vehicle. The other driver
didn't leave their information behind. That's a hit and run with no injuries. But a hit and
run with no injuries could also occur on the roadway, minor fender bender, and a car
takes off. So it's kind of all encompassing.
Assaults we saw an increase on that from 18 to 31. Shoplifting, we saw an increase from
18 to 29. And then assaults, domestic violence, we saw a slight decrease.
Page 12 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 13 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
So just some of the takeaways, we saw vehicle crash with no injuries reports, those
increased by 43 percent. Theft reports decreased by 25 percent in that two-year
comparison. Criminal damages saw a minor decrease. Identity thefts decreased by 24
percent. Trespassing decreased by 16. Fraud and con games decreased by 3 calls, so not
a very significant amount. Disorderly conduct by 47 and a half decrease. And then we
did see a 40 percent increase with vehicle crashes with injuries. Hit and runs, we saw a
29 percent increase. In assaults, that increase from the 18 to 31 was a 72 percent
increase. And then a shoplifting increase by 61 percent.
Now, I can't answer for all of those. We do look when we see a significant increases.
We try to go back to see if there's any correlation we can make, or things that we could
do to try to bring that number down, or put attention to those things; or understand why
they went up.
So like, the shopliftings, Target is very good with their loss prevention, at reporting
shoplifting thefts. And they get hit pretty good because they're a large department store
with a lot of electronics. So they'll usually report when they get them, they might have
two or three when they do report it, at one time. And a lot of times they turn it over to us
when they find. So some of that we did see some increase with Target retail shop thefts,
with electronic devices over the last year.
And then we'll move over to major crime indicators. And so these are crime stats that
include arson, assaults, burglaries, homicides, motor vehicle thefts, robberies, sex
violations, and thefts.
So I think it's important here to kind of let you know what you know, each of these entail.
Because some of them, even for me, it didn't make sense what some of them do until like
a burglary. But arson, that one's pretty self-explanatory, includes any intentional or
suspicious cause of fire for residential or businesses; or the attempt. So that's the key in
this. This also includes attempts for any of these crimes.
Assaults will include any simple assault; any aggravated assault; this will also include
any domestic violence assaults; any stabbings, shootings, or attempts of these crimes.
Burglaries include business and residential, as well as any attempts. Motor vehicle thefts
include stolen vehicles and stolen vehicle attempts. Robberies include armed robberies;
strong-arm robberies; car-jackings; and attempts of these crimes. And then theft is
Page 13 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Page 14 of 50
probably the biggest one because it encompasses so much. It includes thefts from
vehicles; thefts from residential and businesses; shopliftings; any attempts.
So some of this numbers, the data, we all know how data can sometimes be used. And
it's not necessarily used in an attempt to make it look bad or make it look good. But
sometimes human error can play in there. Not even human error, but deputies a lot of
times, the way this data is being collected is how a deputy clears a call for service.
So if a deputy has a package. He gets a report of a package that was stolen off of a porch
of a property, that in theory, is a burglary. Someone entered a residential property to
commit a crime. But some deputies may call that a theft, from a theft and not a burglary.
So you can see how maybe it could be reported different; a burglary, rather than a theft.
And we work hard to make sure that the deputies understand those things but it happens.
All right, so the major crime indicators for two years, the two-year comparison, we see
thefts in 2021, 199; in 2022, 175. And again, that includes all those things that theft
incorporates, the theft from vehicles, the theft from residential and businesses,
shopliftings, and attempts. So and that also includes the -- we saw a pretty significant
rise in, and not just Fountain Hills, but the valley; of -- lost my train of thought there. Of
the thefts from the vehicles; the -- I don't know why my mind is slipping on that one.
The exhaust piece, 1 can't think of -- catalytic convertor. I don't know why I couldn't
think of that Yeah, so we saw a significant increase across the state, not even just the
state, across the United States in those. So that played some role in there. But the
numbers were still down for 2022.
Assaults were pretty even, 98, 99. Burglaries, that's where we saw an increase from 50 to
77. And then motor vehicle thefts, pretty close, so a small decrease. Sexual violations, a
little bit of a drop-off there. Robberies, those numbers were the same, two and two, very
low numbers. And thankfully, homicide and arsons, we saw zero.
So that chart at the bottom just kind of shows that, and the bar graph, it's not super crisp
to see, but it just gives you kind of a visual.
What I will say, and then this gives major crime indicators by month. So this tells you
major crime indicators include, tells you all those things that it includes, and it shows you
a combined total month -to -month, of how many of those we had. There's really not a
pattern there. It kind of goes up, comes down. There's no significant pattem there.
RIR
Page 14 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 15 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
And then major crime indicator takeaways, thefts have decreased by 12 percent; assaults
have remained consistent; burglaries have increased by 54 percent. Again, that number --
that percent sounds large, and 1 mean, it is the change but it's 50 to 77. And motor
vehicle thefts have remained consistent from 31 to 29.
So there were some things and not being able to address some of the -- I've had my
presentation for a couple of months, we've had a couple of busy agendas here. There
have been some topics of conversations that have come up that have if I would have been
doing the monthly presentations. maybe we would have addressed. And looking at the
stats, you know, you don't always see the things that maybe people have reached out to
MCSO on or the council.
But one of the things that I -- when I was looking through these, we did look at you
know, there was a large topic of conversations of the group homes, or the rehabilitation
homes. And we had a lot of emails from residents. And there was a lot of
communication of just you know, have you guys seen an increase in calls for service for
those? And I just thought with doing this, and I know we've already kind of moved
forward from that. But when we looked at that, from law enforcement data, in calls for
service that we had, we didn't sec any significant increase in numbers. In fact, we didn't
really have any calls for service that were identifiable to the properties that were shown.
Now that's not to say that there were things that happened that weren't reported to law
enforcement, that's just speaking on statistical data that we had for that. So I just wanted
to bring that up if there were any questions on any of the things that I talked about today,
or any crime statistics, or things that maybe I didn't hit, that you had interest in, please
ask.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes.
SPELICH: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Thanks, Cap., as always. Do we track aggravated batteries of police officers?
KRATZER: I could get that data. We do track it. It's usually low enough in Fountain
Hills, that it doesn't hit on the radar of top 20 calls or -- it would be included in that
assault major crime indicator. But I don't have that number readily available for Fountain
Hills, what it would look like for the last two years. I know we've had a couple.
SPELICH: Just interested.
Page 15 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 16 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
KRATZER: Yeah.
SPELICH: Something that 1 would like to be addressed by you in the future, after the
break, is if you could touch upon how many registered sex offenders live in Fountain
Hills. If you could also touch on the policy of MCSO of checking for address checks of
the residents of sex offenders. How many arrests we make of people that are in non-
compliance, who are registered sex offenders. So I'm kind of surprised at the number,
just doing some peripheral research that -- of sex offenders that we have in town. So if
you could maybe put a report together, 1 think it would be something that the residents
might be interested in knowing. 1 think everybody should look and see where they live
and see who's living by them. So if you could look into that?
KRATZER: Yes.
SPELICH: And kind of give us an idea. I know in Chicago, we would do resident
checks every six months, to make sure people are in compliance. 1 don't know what it is
here. And we also would make arrests.
KRATZER: Yeah. That's something we could do. I can work with the town manager on
maybe how to maybe get that to the council or you know, timeframe. I will tell you that
at the district level, we don't have a lot of direct involvement. We have a unit that
handles that. And I'm sure I can get that information from them. And I'm sure they have
resources that can tell them by zip code and area, where they are. And then, also
answering how many times that they do the address checks or the registration update
checks.
SPELICH: Great. Appreciate it. What 1 wanted to address to is, 1 waited for this to talk
to you personally. I received a couple emails bashing me for running down law
enforcement. So I don't know if the people before they sat down at their computer
partaked (sic) in smoking some of the devil's lettuce, because anybody that knows me,
knows that 1 am a huge supporter of law enforcement. So where they got this from, they
thought that I called into question, because I asked for an audit of the MCSO contract,
and what services you're providing the town, what were paying for, and making sure
we're getting what we paid for.
So let me clarify, which I don't think 1 need to clarify to you, or to the men and women
that are assigned to Fountain Hills, I'm not negative law enforcement. By me requesting
Page 16 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 17 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
that we check, because it's 50 percent of our budget. So I would think that when we're
spending that much money on law enforcement, that the residents would want to know,
we're getting what we're paying -- what we get paid for. So I hope you didn't take my
comments and thought that I was running down MCSO.
It's important to note that the men and women that serve, as well as you, don't have
anything to do with the contract and the servicing of the contract. That's done by
command staff, down in Phoenix, and the sheriff himself.
So I want to make it perfectly clear that 1 respect, I love, and I support everybody in law
enforcement. And especially, the people that work here in Fountain Hills. So I didn't
want my message to be taken out of context or spun. The problem that I have is I believe
that we're paying a lot of money and spending a lot of our tax dollars, and I want to make
sure we're getting what we paid for.
KRATZER: Council member Spelich, that's completely understandable. 1 think the men
and women of law enforcement feel very supported by you and the council, as a whole
here. And as far as I know, we've not had any feelings of the opposite of that And
regardless, you know, questioning the contract, or the due diligence with this core
responsibility, the deputies totally understand where that comes from. It's out of their
reach and their control. And I don't think it slows them down one bit. So thank you for
that.
SPELICH: Yep.
MAYOR DICKEY: Questions?
FRIEDEL: I have a question.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes.
FRIEDEL: Thanks for the report, Captain. It was very enlightening. Can you comment
on the increase in burglaries? Is that more crime of opportunity or what are your
thoughts on that?
KRATZER: Yeah, so we looked at that just to see because there was a noticeable
increase there. And that's essentially what it looks like. There was no trend or pattern of
you know, time of day, or day of the week that it was occurring on. It was pretty
sporadic. And most of them did appear to be crime of opportunities. We didn't have any
you know, major residential burglaries that resulted in high value -- 1 don't want to say
Page 17 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Page 18 of 50
we didn't have any, but these weren't those. These were more of, you know. and I can't
speak -- generally speaking on all of them, because I'm going to put them all into one
shape that they don't lit in. But yeah, they did appear to be more crime of opportunities
and not necessarily, any trend or pattern of this is the place, come in.
And what I will say is, 1 don't know how you guys took this report, but if I was a resident
of Fountain Hills, I'd be very pleased to live here. I think the crime stats are extremely
low. Especially, when you compare Fountain Hills to the rest of the valley. I mean, it --
1'd feel lucky to live here and live in a place that had such low crime stats. Especially,
violent crime slats. And you know, 1 know the property crime stats are unsettling, but
even those, when you put them in you know, relative -- they're pretty low per population.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Any other questions or comments?
KRATZER: And I'm sorry, Mayor. I did have one --
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh.
KRATZER: -- additional thing that 1 needed to advise you on, that was separate from
this. And it'll just take a couple minutes. You may have some questions on it. But I
think it's important to let the council know logistically, with MCSO, I'm afraid to say this
now, with Council member Spelich -- no. But this is something that the council should
know. There has been some logistical changes within MCSO and that's regarding the
detectives that were at every patrol district.
So each patrol district, we have seven of them. We are called District 7, Fountain Hills
Rio Verde. We have six other ones. District I in Mesa, District 2 in Phoenix, District 3
in Sun City. You know, we have seven of those. We each had our own unit of detectives
at our district. And those detectives were responsible for the investigations of any crimes
in that district that were beyond the scope of a patrol deputy. So something that may take
a little bit more work to investigate. And they were also responsible for being called out
after hours and investigate any serious crimes.
So those detectives were housed here. We had three. The town pays for three full-time
detectives. The agency made a move. It was supposed to -- I think it was -- the goal was
this fiscal year, so July. They made the move a little bit early. All of our detectives from
the patrol districts have now been centralized and housed in the downtown Phoenix area.
Page 18 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 19 of50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
They're under now one unit, called the General Crimes Division. And that division is
now responsible for east and westside. And all of the detectives are now housed there.
So if we have a crime here that would be sent to a detective, typically before our patrol
district detectives, it will now be investigated by them, there in Phoenix. And then, if
there's a response that's needed, they would respond. The eastside crew would respond
here for persons crimes; fraud crimes; basically, they're broke down by persons and
property crimes.
So you know, I'm not trying to sell you all the bad parts of this because what the glaring
effect of this is, is that we lose the three deputies that were housed here, that we were able
to sometimes utilize if there was a bigger call for service, or an incident that occurred,
they were here. They could respond.
What we gain from this new centralized unit is more expertise that's more in -line with
what the standard is in law enforcement, in some of the major, valley cities. Now we
differ quite a bit from the other city agencies because we service a bunch of different
areas in Maricopa County. We're not just you know, the city of Mesa, or the city of
Phoenix.
But one of the areas and one of the selling points of this is that those detectives are
getting a lot more individual training for their area of expertise. So now they don't have
to be good at investigating three or four different types of crime. They focus on the
persons crime or the property crime.
And one of the things were seeing and one of the reasons they went to that, was the
identity theft cases that we're seeing a spike in and the specialized investigations that
come with that. So they have a whole unit down there for identity thefts. A lot of times
those were ones where the district detectives, it was a little bit out of their realm of
understanding.
Anyways, so I'll -- I just wanted to let the council know that move was made. That the
agency did go to that. And so you know, that'll be something that if there's further
discussion we need, whether you know, it's off the record, or with the town manager, we
can have.
MILLER: Well, I would add this to the top of the list of something we want in the new
IGA, to have it back. Because I do think, as a small community, having those bodies
Page 19 of50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 20 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
here, they're bodies that can be reallocated for other uses. I get the idea thinking from a
centralized standpoint, it might create the synergy and efficiencies. But I can see from
our standpoint, as a small community, I think it would be -- were losing three bodies. So
I think that's something we should consider trying to get back.
SPELICH: 1 sure wish you would have said that before 1 went into my -- my -- it doesn't
change my opinion of MCSO. I know that decision wasn't made by you. I'm sure it was
made by a big Koss, who has no idea what he's doing, and has never spent any time being
a detective.
So now here's what I'm concerned about, I'm concerned about what our clearance rate is
going to be. So for people and residents who don't know when a detective is assigned a
case, to see that case all the way through, either to an arrest or the case is closed, that's
called a clearance rate. So what I would be concerned about is because of that
happening, the clearance rate plummeting. I don't know what the clearance rate is right
now. I think you told me a while back what it was. So I would be very interested to find
out, since this move has happened, when we had three detectives assigned to us, what
was their clearance rate? And how we can track it?
I think 1 -- boy. why weren't we consulted since we have a contract? You're not going to
know the answer to that I don't even know why I asked. Like 1 said, when you have
these people in the ivory tower making decisions like that, that affect a small community
like us, it doesn't make any sense to me.
KRATZER: And if 1 could, Council member Spelich --
SPELICH: Yeah.
KRATZER: -- that was probably one of my biggest concerns, was the -- maybe the
responsiveness of -- and the service that maybe a resident here in Fountain Hills gets with
a detective when they were here, and they were housed here. It was easy for me to he
over that case, or get a call from a resident and look into it with my detective. And that
can still happen, 1 just -- you know, I want to ensure, and we can definitely track case
clearance, and ensure that. I think they're going to need a little bit of time, because it's
been about a month and a half, two months. There's probably not been a whole lot of
clearances of cases, I would say, yet. So maybe we give it six months, when we start
doing a comparison.
Page 20 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 21 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
But what I was going to say is, just also that responsiveness. Ensure that that's still there.
That people can reach out to the detectives and have that same level of ownership of the
investigation by a detective who you know, doesn't work here. There was something to
be said about a detective working here, being assigned here, with ownership of a case.
And I'm just hoping we don't lose that in the transition.
But to the town manager's point, I know that there's some negotiations going on and that
might be the time to broach that topic with executive command.
SPELICH: So are the three detectives that we lost, even though they went into the --
would you call that the general assignment pool?
KRATZER: Yeah, general crimes unit, yeah.
SPELICH: Okay. Those three detectives that we lost, that are now downtown, do —
those three detectives still going to handle things even though they're downtown specific
to Fountain Hills?
KRATZER: No, it's going to be -- it'll be whatever detective is assigned on that unit,
who gets the case from here, would be. So those three detectives would no longer have
just ownership to Fountain Hills. They would be for the east side if they're assigned to
the cast side. So District 1, Lake Patrol, and Fountain Hills. So it would be whoever gets
it. Whoever's on call and whoever is the case agent, and it could be different, quite a bit.
SPELICH: I hate to say it, but I think this is, this is not going to be -- not going to be
good.
MAYOR DICKEY: I don't know that this is the place to have this kind of a
conversation. This is obviously, technical and you know, perhaps getting a detective
who's an expert on the particular crime or whatever investigation is happening here, so I
think this is something, since we are in this transition, looking at the audit, looking at new
negotiations, that that is obviously, something that we will look at going forward. But
trying to get to the ins and outs right now of this, and make judgments on it, may be --
I'm not comfortable doing that right now.
Obviously. it's a change, and it's something that I'm glad that we know about going
forward. And we'll make sure that as always, we are well served by MCSO. Again, we
haven't had this type of a study in the last maybe two years, but we were the safest zip
code in the valley. And we were getting that for the least per capita, and the least per
Page 21 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 22 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
square mile of any city or municipality town, in Maricopa County. So I think that these
are all items that we will look at going forward. I want to thank you so much because I
know recently, there were a missing person and some other things going on in town. It's
so reassuring to see all of you there in the neighborhood and you know in town. And
solving that and others that I'm aware of So I really appreciate all your attention.
And does anybody have any other questions or comments?
Thank you so much, Captain. Take care.
KRATZER: Thank you. And Justin (ph.), I'll yield the rest of my time.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Next is our call to the public. Do we have any speaker cards?
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Yes, Mayor, we do. First we have one written
comment, from Jennifer Nelson that you received at your stations. And then we have
eight who are here, who put in a request to speak card.
First, is Jacquelyn Underwood.
UNDERWOOD: Hi. Thank you. Actually, my name is Jacquelyn Schlum Underwood
(ph.). I've been a resident of this town for 45 years. It's breaking my heart to be here
right now. I am so disappointed in this. My husband retired after 32 years of being a
Phoenix police officer. He started spending more time at home and he said we'll take on
a project. Welt expand our back yard. January 28th, I wrote a letter to the town, saying I
have -- oh, I'm sorry, I got a survey done and I found I had a bunch of easements.
January 28th, I wrote a letter to the town and said, how do I get rid of these easements?
Time went by. March 9th, I called again, how do I get rid of these easements? And
Farhad answered the phone. And I said, I wrote you an email on January 28th. He
confirmed, yes, I have it. Sorry 1 have never called you back or replied.
He sent me the instructions on how to remove the easements; not an easy task. I had to
write eight letters to eight different utilities; pay each of them a fine or a fee of usually
$50 to $100. I complied all this, got my survey done, paid to have my own survey.
Wrote a couple questions to Farhad, no answer. So I stopped in one day. I said, I'll just
ask him. I walked upstairs. There was a woman standing at the desk, no greeting. I had
my stack of papers. I said, I think I need to turn these in. Her response to me was, we
don't take those here. So rude. I said, okay. Can I speak to Farhad'? I want to make sure
Nix
Page 22 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 23 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL. MEETING
I have everything. She said, you need to submit this online. Okay, I'll do that. Can I
speak to Farhad. She went and got him, brought him back. And he said -- he was very
nice, he went through all my documents. He said, I had everything in sight. Ijust need
to submit online. Oh, and don't forget to pay the $750 fee to remove the easements that
nobody wants on my property. So I went home, took care of that, paid the fee, submitted
everything.
What do you think I've heard from the town? Crickets. Nothing. This town deserves
better service, not only from the town employees, but from you guys. These mass
meetings were embarrassing. They were so unprofessional. 45 years I've sat here. I've
never had to do this. And I thought, there was a time when we didn't have to do this,
2003. John Bideler (ph.). You want to know what happened to him? He was recalled.
Shape up. We need a new change, now.
MAYOR DICKEY: Next?
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Next is Liz Gildersleeve.
GILDERSLEEVE: Good evening. I wanted to congratulate you on the legacy you'll be
leaving for Fountain Hills. Thanks to your passage of the recently watered-down version
of the sober home ordinance, that you voted on and passed in May. Perhaps you are
already aware that local realtors, such as the one who's marketing a new construction
build on Fountain Hills Boulevard, are already touting the possibility of a sober home to
prospective buyers. So congrats.
The word must be getting out now, just as we warned you it would, that Fountain Hills, is
officially a sober home destination, an easy mark, thanks to your weak ordinance. I'm
sure the families that live near the Fountain Hills Boulevard new build location, will be
thrilled with the news.
You could have been bold. You could have been brave. But you chose to side with the
sober home and detox industry. You told us, in part, it was because you feared lawsuits.
But apparently the recent $67 million lawsuit, filed last week, against the town, from the
Park Place developers in Maricopa County Superior Court, is now big deal.
Regardless of the outcome -- and I hope it works out; but regardless of the outcome,
where was that same boldness and tenacity that I watched you all display in the face of
the Park Place developers, during the sober home discussion? We would have cheered to
Page 23 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 24 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
see you defend your fellow residents and adopt the planning and zoning, reasonable
ordinance recommendation.
Instead. moments alter the sober home vote in May, residents watched Mr. Magazine --
unfortunately, he's not here, go down into the audience and shake the hands of the
Fountain Hills Recovery owners.
Did anyone seek out Ron and Maryann Sampson (ph.) after your May vote? You might
remember the homeowner who during her call to public, tearfully, and genuinely
described what it was like living next to a sober home. Instead, Mayor Dickey,
incredibly, you equated the Sampson situation to living next door to a barking dog. The
lack of empathy was stunning. Again, well done.
Our town can only hope the upcoming election will bring much needed change to this
room, and a new council that will fix the problems you've thrust on our community,
starting immediately, with amending the sober home ordinance. Thank you.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Next is Bart Shea.
SHEA: Ironically, the developer she was referencing. So eight years ago, I came to
town, there was a patch of dirt in the middle of it. And I got talked into developing the
entire patch of dirt. Nine different development agreements were scratched over that
piece of dirt. Not one of them ever came to fruition. Nine different development
agreements were agreed to by the town. We could never get financing on. They could
never build anything on. They couldn't do anything on.
So after two years, we negotiated a development agreement; got a little bit backed up on
some stuff, couldn't get the thing done in time. Actually, we could've achieved a permit
and not been timed out.
Ironically, I was informed this morning, during a court case, that the town has elected to
determine the development agreement has expired. And they're going to have no further
review of the plans, which means it's a complete do -over on the thing, if it goes through.
So the town could have issued an at -risk rating permit, like they did for the past two
projects; they didn't. That would've kept it from getting timed out.
The town granted approval in both phases, to complete the grading prior to the building
plans. This was a staff decision, or a council decision. Either way, it was the cause of
this delay on it.
Page 24 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 25 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
These are part of the agreements the town delayed through staff, imposing unneeded
conditions. In other words, staff decided the development agreement was not relevant
and that we needed to follow the 2020 vision plan, which was created in the development
agreement. In evidence by the council asking, which one was governing this parcel? The
town was walking away from a lot of little things.
So the town is literally walking away from 2.6 million dollars' worth of infrastructure,
that I was providing, paying for, on town property. That being the completion of the
Avenue. which at this point, is going to stay just like it looks, right on the street. Even if
I build the project at this point, without the development agreement, I'm under no
condition to go improve that. I don't have to. That was a gift.
The Linear park, from the Centennial Circle, which was the final connection to make the
circle for downtown, that's no longer a requirement. That was only a requirement inside
the development agreement. This council has decided that that no longer needs to be
there. So even if I go build the product on there -- without the development agreement,
you don't get the Linear Park. You weren't paying for it, I was.
The town parking lot, the extra parking, that doesn't go either. All the arguments over
how many spaces are going to be there. And John's (ph.) confusing concept of how it has
to go, that's no longer there either.
Again, it's $2.6 million. If the town wants to complete, they have to come up with it in
budget. They're already $60 million in the hole for street repairs. But you're going to
come up with 2.6 to finish downtown?
Now the town's walking away from parking stalls. Your uscs of the avenue will only be
accessible will only be accessible from the avenue. So if we don't build the product that
was designed, implemented, and put in for permits on and approved by the town council,
from this point forward, the avenue, the fountain. can't be closed. In other words, no
more fare, no more great fare, no more clothes and swarro [sic] on the avenue.
DICKEY: Your time is up.
SHEA: Thank you.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL• Next we have Bridget Muellner. Hopefully, I said
your name correctly.
MUELLNER: I was interested in your -- all the people that you had -- that you met with,
Page 25 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 26 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Botswana, and all -- I just want to know where you had lunch.
FRIEDEL: Up at Adcro Canyon.
MUELLNER : Of course. I can't even imagine how you ended up picking all that. But
anyway, the reason I'm here and good evening. everybody. I understand the council took
out liability insurance for sober living homes. But didn't include the responsibility of the
house manager on the premises. 1 wanted to know why that decision was made? Why
not have the responsibility of the house manager on the premises? I wanted to know
about that. That's one of my questions. Don't want to put you on the spot.
1 also wanted to have clarification of the number of people allowed in sober living
facilities in Fountain Hills. How many people are allowed in these facilities? I imagine
that depends on how big that is. But is there a cap on these houses in this town? I mean,
how many are we going to allow here?
MILLER: If you don't mind, because you're asking a lot of questions, this item, under
state law, is not agendasized [sic] for full discussion.
MUELLNER: Oh.
MILLER: So what I will do, we do have the department director in the back. I don't
know if he brought business cards, but he can certainly answer all your questions that
you've asked at the podium. So if you don't mind, he will get your information written
down. Shawn (ph.) do you need a tablet? I have that if you need it.
MUELLNER: Okay. I do have couple more points, if that's okay. Can I continue? I
also wanted to know if parking of the residents, stafT, and visitors. has ever been
addressed, at these assisted or sober living houses? Next door to me, at -- I don't know if
I can say the address. Is that all right? Maybe not? Okay. On Fountain Hills Boulevard,
next door to me is -- at the new build, on the description, there was a assisted living put
on the description, which they've since taken off. But they were going to have an assisted
living there I guess, at some point. But I guess, apparently, because of the footage, 1200
foot, they're no longer going to be able to do that.
But I just wondered, because it's a boulevard and parking would have been an issue on
the boulevard. And I just wondered what made them think they could go and do that?
Time is up.
MAYOR DICKEY: We'll get back to you. There's answers for probably all of that and
Page 26 al50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 27 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
more, so thank you.
MUELLNER: All right. Thank you.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Next we have Dominic Cirone. Hopefully, 1 said
your name correctly.
CIRONE: Very good. I kind of feel a little like a fish out of water, because I've got
nothing bad to say tonight. Good evening. my name is Dominic Cirone and I'm here
tonight to pass on my thanks. I'd like to recognize the staff at the community center for
the overwhelming success of Joe Arpaio's 90th birthday celebration. From start to finish,
Jennifer Lyons and her staff excelled in preparing and executing the event. With more
than 250 people in attendance, with many VIP's, the staff performed remarkably well.
From the setup, to the patriotic decorations, the electricity generated by the event will
certainly circulate through Fountain Hills, and the surrounding communities. Joe's
birthday celebration will help Fountain Hills and the community center, to be in the spot
light for other spectacular events. We have a gem of a facility and the staff that can help
bring other meetings to our town.
Fountain Hills has everything right here for what it takes to become a leader in the event
planning marketplace. I've been coming here for 20 years and I couldn't be more proud
of the community center and the city council for helping to showcase this event. Thank
you for all those involved, in making this happen. Joe Arpaio's 90th birthday party is one
that most people won't soon forget. Thank you.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Next we have Lori Troller.
TROLLER (ph.): Good evening, Mayor, Councilman Grady. I'm Lori Troller, resident.
SG is my topic and hopefully, you guys had a chance to read the I8-page article I left in
your mailboxes. And I literally tried to email that for ten hours, didn't go through. Sony.
But that's where I'm going to start, with the assumption you guys now know exactly how
dangerous and the death and disease that this type of radiation causes.
And so the public knows, I'm happy to email anybody would like that information. Or
you can contact Bob Burns in the back. He has a copy of the same letter and he can
publish that. I'm sure he's happy to.
And 1 also promise, it's written very simply, if you are scared of the technology and what
it is, it's very simply written, you'll understand.
Page 27 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 18 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
So Mayor Dickey, we all understand safety is your utmost concern, so I'm hoping you
can look at it in this light, because this is a little different. And I'm asking for a special
session to be scheduled during your vacation -- sorry -- to get this ordinance done and in
place, because the timing is critical.
5G is -- the 5G rollout is well underway. And we need to get this in place before we have
towers starting to pop up in our yards. They've already converted a few of the towers that
they do own in the town, the churches, and in the school. And I know everybody's seen
the one at Palisades and Shae.
We are about to be drenched in this 5G radiation. So looking across Arizona, Fountain
Hills is one of only a handful of places that don't have what's it called? It's called a small
cell ordinance in place. And without one, first of all, the aesthetics of this town is going
to be dictated by the telecommunication companies. The reason for that is, it takes over a
100,000 5G antennas to cover the area of Fountain Hills. So just imagine driving up
Golden Eagle, and seeing a straight line of fake cactuses in every third yard. It's not
right.
And second, the importance of not living in 5G radiation. So your proclamation you just
made, for the parks, so health and wellness, improves physical and mental health,
cognitive performance, well-being, alleviating illness, depression, and increased property
values: 5G radiation's going to destroy all of it.
So April's about to present the legality of what we can include in our ordinance. So
please take her information and let's put this in, in the next two weeks. Thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Grady?
MILLER: Just a point of correction, Lori. So I did send you -- we did have a small cell
wireless ordinance in a couple of resolutions that were passed in 2018. And it was based
on the Leagues model ordinance that all the other cities pretty much followed. So we do
have it in place and 1 did send you an email, just before this meeting.
TROLLER: Oh.
MILLER: With the copies of that, so that you can take a look at it. But we do have
regulations following state law. Because in 2017, I believe it was --
TROLLER: Uh-huh.
MILLER: House bill 23.65 passed, Govemor signed it into law, and it pretty much
Page 28.050
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 29 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
requires cities and towns to not put up any obstacles to 5G coming into their
communities. So but we do have regulations that we were allowed to adopt. And so we
do have some in place.
TROLLER: Okay.
MILLER: But nothing that would prohibit it from coming into town.
TROLLER: Yeah, well, there's -- April will get on to that. We can do something about
schools, sorry. And there are some towns that have done in the residential area, but she'll
get into that. But thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: Next we have April McCormick.
MCCORMICK: Hi. Good evening, all. So I have dealt with this extensively for years.
Everywhere 1 have lived. And that's been California and Hawaii. I'm now here. I'm
renting from North Carolina. I've been a planning commissioner for a 500-square-mile
county. And I know way more about this than most people do.
I know that the House 23.65 was based on the FCC's Federal order of2018. And the
fast -track order, you know, really limiting what you can do. However, multiple
municipalities all over the country have taken a little bit of what they still can do, and
crafted that into a masterfully restrictive ordinance, to protect residential property values
and the aesthetics of their community.
What the FCC order still allows you to do, is to control the aesthetics of your town. And
while we're talking about aesthetics with the antennas, what that means is, the location,
the height, the setbacks, and one other thing. I can't remember it off the top of my head.
Yeah, the density, right -- the spacing between them.
So when these restrictive small cell ordinances are passed. basically, a location is laid
out, per zoning district. So the first time 1 became aware of a unbelievably awesome 5G
ordinance, was Mill Valley, California. And as soon as they adopted that, I called the
planning director; I called the attorneys; interviewed absolutely everyone that I brought to
the city of Oakland, California. We did a massive citizen education program, massive
email campaign, petitions with hundreds of thousands of residents. And it was to the
point where we just couldn't do nothing anymore.
And so Mill Valley broke it down into most desired district. You know, heavy industrial,
Page 29 of %
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 30 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
light industrial, commercial, mixed -use. Residential was off the list. And when House
bill 23.65 was introduced, Yuma pitched a fit and became exempt. And Fountain Hills,
having no street lights whatsoever, and being a dark sky community, could have done the
same thing, I believe. I'd like you guys to go back and try to think about doing that.
But while it's in place now, what you can do is you can do an urgency ordinance, which
gives you 45 days, to look over three different ordinances that I've supplied to you today,
that do just what I explained.
1500 feet apart; they can go in every other zoning classification besides residential; and
you're doing that because aesthetically, it'll change the town forever.
Let me tell you why you don't think you have a problem yet. When a carrier comes in to
do a application, they're getting what's called a batch permit application. That goes to
public works, not to you. And that's 25 antennas, per single application. At that point,
it's too late, you've lost all control and they're never coming down. Even when you adopt
an ordinance, they don't ask permission, they ask forgiveness.
In Oakland, we had them prohibited in the historic district. Well, one night, at 3 o'clock
in the morning, people out in the historic district, we're awakened -- were woken up out
of a dead sleep because 5Gs were going on the utility pole outside of their home. The
next day, myself and the council members amassed, called the number on the box, and
some third party won't even tell you what carrier that was for. It's impossible to get them
down once they're up.
And you completely, by doing nothing, you are the lowest hanging fruit, with a complete
carte blanche. The ordinance is the most permissive thing I've ever seen, and it can be
modified. Mill Valley's ordinance is 108 pages. I gave that to you today. Multiple
municipalities, all over the country are just copying it verbatim. It has stood up to
challenge. And I would ask that you please put this on the agenda, to discuss an urgency
ordinance. And if you view the three different ordinances I gave you today.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, ma'am.
MCCORMICK: Thank you, so much.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL. Our last speaker is Dori Wittrig
WITTRIG: Mayor and council, my name is Dori Wittrig. And this evening 1 just wanted
Page 30 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Page 31 of 50
to mention a few things about the Park Place and development, which is now a lawsuit
development, 1 understand.
But it's been an interesting period of time, to see how this whole process has unraveled.
And I won't pretend to know all of the details, I don't. It depends on whether you're a not
in my backyard kind of person, or one who believes in progress and quality growth, as to
which side you might be on. And there are a lot of in between.
I've been selling Fountain Hills since 1985. And always the completion of the downtown
has been a very big bone of contention for our community. It's even more so for those
who come here and see a lot of vacant land and weeds.
It's easy to forget that in 2022, how ugly this downtown was, prior to the Phase 1 of Park
Place. It's even easier to forget the immense amount of risk, and effort, and capital that it
took for Bart Shea to get Phase I off the ground. But he did it, and completely
transformed our downtown and our community.
Some like to quibble about building colors. But in the grand scheme of things, Bart
brought hundreds of people to our downtown, which supported our businesses, which in
turns supports the rest of our community. Our downtown is now a place of pride and
enjoyment.
It's easy to throw darts at most developers. And Bart Shea is no exception. He's a very
bold personality who doesn't hold back his considerable opinion. You have to be bold to
take the risks he has taken. But no one seems to give him credit for the many other,
many, many, thousands of dollars he has donated to this community for items like the
musical instrument park, the community garden, the community theatre, and many,
many. other efforts, that he just writes a check For. Currently, he's ready to donate
S30,000 to the fountain of light sculpture, to build the base, because he cares.
I've been embarrassed at times, for our town council, for the way you have talked down
to someone who has made such a dramatic difference to our community. None of you
sitting here, or very few others ever, have made such a large contribution or impact in our
community. I feel you have been no less than professional and have not taken into
consideration the mountain of challenges there are to the development process in 2020,
and '21, and '22. It has been horrendously difficult the last couple of years. And you've
also made that process more difficult for him.
Page 31 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 32 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
And now you risk losing the Linear Park, the walkway, which would be the completion
of the avenue of the fountains. and the final stretch of the sidewalk and the landscaping,
and the parking building that would give us 70 other public parking spaces. And all
because you don't like the personality before you. And I realize that there are other
technical issues, but from the outside looking in, the way you have behaved, you've really
taken a personal vendetta against him.
I encourage you to reconsider and work this out. And you will also he walking away
from $500,000 in TPT taxes, and $6 million in bed and sales taxes, over the next seven
years, which would have done much to improve our roads. Please let's work this out.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
Any more cards?
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL- No Mayor, that's it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, so much.
SPELICH: Grady, can we ask John (ph.) to meet with Ms. Schlum at the back of the
room?
MILLER: That was going to be at the top of my agenda in the morning, because we do
have her contact information. So thank you.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, David.
Next we have our consent agenda. Unless you'd like to take something off, I can take a
motion, please.
SPELICH: Madam Mayor, if I could ask to be the consideration for the approval of the
six-month's extension. If it could be removed and voted on separately?
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, sure. Let's see. So what do 1 do, just say that we have all those
items except that one?
ARNSON: Yeah. Seek approval -- move for approval of the consent agenda except for
item B.
MAYOR DICKEY: Move for approval, okay. And then that will be the first item.
Okay, motion please?
GRZYBOWSKI: Which one are we not approving right now? B as in boy?
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes.
GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. Move to approve all of the consent, minus B.
Page 32 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 33 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
SPELICH: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks. All in favor, please say, aye.
ALL: Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So this will become our first item, item B -- six-month
extension for Saguaro and Shea.
Grady?
MILLER: I'm going to have Farhad go ahead and speak on this.
TAVASSOLI: Yes, Madam Mayor, members of the council, hello. As you see before
you, the agenda, the applicant is requesting a six-month extension. 1 have asked the
applicant to attend, to provide the reasoning for that extension request. But if you have
any questions for me, before 1 ask him to assist, please do.
FRIEDEL• Correct me if I'm wrong, was this subject to a traffic study of some sort?
And where are we on that?
MILLER: My understanding is, it is subject to a traffic study. particularly the council at
the time, expressed concerns about ingress, egress, at that location. And however, the
way it was left, is that it would be subject to approval by the town engineer, who would
typically do these types of evaluations for traffic study. So it'd be administrative, at that
level.
TAVASSOLI: And if I may add, Mayor, that is to come with the site plan submittal,
when and if that does come in.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. David?
SPELICH: Madam Mayor, I didn't mean to cause any confusion with this. It just would
be hypocritical of me to approve an extension when 1 didn't approve the project to begin
with. So that's why I wanted it separated out, I'm not for the extension. I'm not for the
project. So that's why I didn't want it included in the agenda. I didn't mean staff to get
thrown for a loop or anything. I just want to be consistent in my voting.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
So can I get a motion please on this? It's on page 119.
GRZYBOWSKI: Move to approve a six-month extension to the special use permit, to
allow residential uses at 9637 North Saguaro Boulevard, for a maximum of 17 dwelling
Page 33 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 34 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
units, subject to the stipulations approved by council on December 7, 2021.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Is there a second?
SPELICH: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please
say, aye.
ALL• Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Opposed?
SPELICH: Nay.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So, I think that means, we don't have four. Or is that a
majority of those who are here? Oh, okay. Thank you.
ARNSON: Yes, Mayor. Majority of the council -- quorum of the council present,
correct.
MAYOR DICKEY: Oh, okay. Quorum is present, all right.
MILLER: Yep. Urn -hum.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks, David. Appreciate it though. I understand.
Our first item and only, or our regular agenda item is item 8A, repealing our resolution
about a new fountain lighting policy. Rachel (ph.)?
GOODWIN: Good evening, Mayor and council. I do have a presentation but in the
interest of time, I know we have a lengthy secondary meeting. The -- if you may recall
earlier this year, we presented a lighting policy regarding the requests for lights in the
fountain. We had allocated a opportunity for the public to request that.
However, since that time, there has been case law through our Supreme Court and at the
recommendation of our town attorney, he is recommending an amendment to that to
remove the public opportunity to request colored lighting.
So the motion before you tonight is to modify our policy to remove that option.
Essentially, what it would do is that public requests for the fountain lighting would not be
accepted. And that all lighting would be at the authorization of the town manager or the
direction of council.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards for this?
TOWN CLERK MENDENHALL: No, Mayor, we do not.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So everybody understand? Grady?
Page 34 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 35 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
MILLER: Yeah, Ijust wanted to remind the council. 1 think about half the council was
kind of leaning this way in the first place.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah.
MILLER: So it shouldn't sound as a surprise. And we've already kind of been following
that. We've had council members provide direction to staff For instance, we lit up in the
colors of Ukraine, their flag colors on the fountain. And we've done things like domestic
violence month and things like that. So I think ifs going to be business as usual.
The only thing is, is that we will be just removing the public component. And they --
certainly the public could always request something through a council member, then.
And the council could then give us direction. But we're really saying that the policy as
we know it before does not exist.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Don't let anybody know that we like a mandate. But
here's one that were going along with. So can I get a motion, please?
GRZYBOWSKL Move to approve resolution 2022-32 as presented.
SPELICH: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. All in fawn, please say aye.
ALL: Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: Any opposed? Thanks Rachel, very much.
Our next item is legislative items and normally, you know, we've been kind of rushing
through these.
Sharon. did you have anything that you wanted to say about it?
There -- well, you know, we had a conference call with our consultant today. The
budget, they got like eight days left. We had -- it's still up in the air, obviously.
Senate bill 11.16 which is removes residential rental tax, which has a $500,000 hit on
town of Fountain Hills. We're hoping that there was some language in the Wayfair bill,
that's going to stop that from happening. But we just have to keep watching that short-
term rental bill, not really what we wanted to see. Still a lot of back and forth on that.
But if they come through with the budget, that bills probably out the window. But we
will do our own. We will work on our own ordinance. We're going to move ahead.
We're going to look at (indiscemible). We're going to look at parking, which has other
ramifications. So look forward to that on a future agenda.
.ryPage 35 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 36 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
And then we had the medical marijuana one, which threatens to kind of undo what we
did, when it passed. But again, that seems like maybe something that won't work because
it goes against the voter protection act. So we will see how all those things come out.
But I wanted to make sure that we mentioned them all.
Any other conversation? Thank you.
So we will adjourn this meeting. If I can get a motion for that.
SPELICH: So be it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
All in favor, say aye.
ALL: Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: And were going to get going with our joint meeting with our
wonderful school board. Thank you, so much for corning. And well do some
rearranging up here and we'll get you up here. And we'll have some good talk.
[PAUSE]
MAYOR DICKEY: All right. and we're going to get going here. So well call to order,
and were going to start with -- I will ask President Jenkins to introduce her members,
please.
PRESIDENT JENKINS: Thank you, Mayor Dickey. This evening from the school
board, we have Dr. Wendy Barnard, Mrs. Jill Reed. I'm Nadya Jenkins. On this side, we
have Mrs. Judith Rutkowski, and then Mr. Dana Saar. I would also like to recognize
down below we have our current interim superintendent, Dr. Patrick Sweeney, and then
our incoming superintendent, Dr. Cain Jagodzinski.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible).
PRESIDENT JENKINS: And we also have our executive board secretary, Christa Andre
(ph) in the audience.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you so much. Welcome, everyone. We're happy to have you
here, and I apologize, but we had some major travel plans with a couple of our council
members, but believe me, they're very interested and be happy to share with them
everything that we talk about here. So of course, we have Councilwoman Gryzbowski,
Sharon. We have Councilman Spelich, Mayor Dickey, and we have Vice Mayor Gerry
Friedel, and so the other folks -- we'll catch them up on what we talk about. So our first
Page 36 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 37 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
item -- so yes, we're only here to discuss. We're not voting on anything. We just want to
get together, you know, COVID -- I don't know when the time limit's going to run where
we can't keep blaming COVID for things, but we have been planning for quite a while,
trying to get together, and I know now your school year's over and this is a good time for
us to talk. So I'm going to turn it over to Grady and he will have our staff do
presentations and such. Grady, our town manager.
MILLER: Yes. So were delighted, if you look at the agenda under A and then the first
bullet, we have an item called Safe Routes to Schools. This was a collaborative effort
between the Fountain Hills Unified School District and the Town of Fountain Hills. We
were able to apply successfully and receive some grant funding from the Maricopa
Association of Governments, and I'm going to turn it over to Public Works Director
Justin Weldy, who's going to just give you a little bit of an outline as to what the grant
awards consist of and what we're going to he doing with that funding. With that, I'll turn
it over to Mr. Weldy.
WELDY: Thank you. Madam Mayor, Madam President, Council Members, Board
Members, thank you for the opportunity to share this exciting information. The first
section that we are going to be discussing is the Safe Routes to School grants. I would
like to note that in the agenda that is published, it says opportunities. We took advantage
of those opportunities some years back because these are every two to four years,
depending on the type of grant, worked with the school district in getting letters of
support and applied for and received two. Please note that each time these opportunities
come, we will again work with the school and the school board to apply for the grants
that are applicable to this. The first one is a safety assessment grant. This is a relatively
large one. This is primarily funded through MAG, 94 percent of it comes from MAG.
The matching funds for that come from the town of Fountain Hill, relatively small dollar
amount for what we're receiving. This one is a noninfrastructure assessment to determine
how to make routes to school safer for the Fountain Hills elementary and middle school.
The assessment will look at routes, traffic calming, signage, and other items related to
those safe routes to enhance the safety for K through H children. Any questions on that
one before we move forward? Fair enough. That one that I just mentioned, it actually
becomes available in July of this year. We will collaborate with the school in regards to
Page 37 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 38 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
that process and the selection for the engineering firm that well do that is actually done
through MAG. We will keep the school updated on that process as we move forward.
MILLER: We're also aware that there may be some school decisions that are going to be
made in the future about maybe the school district and school location, so if there arc
some changes, we will definitely make sure that the study and analysis incorporates that,
so that if there are any changes that might affect the school locations, then we will
certainly have that be part of the analysis.
WELDY: Thank you for that additional information. Indeed, as we collaborate with the
school, all of the information moving forward, we will share with the engineering firm as
they work towards this assessment. The next one, which will become available in FY24
is a considerable amount of funding, and this one again, is a 94 percent with the town
matching the other, which is again, a small amount of money at $882. This one right here
is actually noninfrastructure to support activities that will educate and implement safe
routes to school. This will support the first grant. This may include wages for a school
safe route coordinator. safety gear, helmets, vests, et cetera. and incentive prizes for the
students as they participate. It will also provide funding for school crossing guard
training, which is very, very important and critical. We certainly want our marked
crossings to be safe, and in order to accomplish that, we will collaborate with the school
on the training for the individuals they have selected. Are there any questions about this
grant? Fair enough.
DR. BARNARD: (Indiscernible) this is great. Thank you.
WELDY: You're welcome. The next one is actually a new one that we have
collaborated with the school on. We worked closely with the interim superintendent, Dr.
Sweeney, and the transportation director, John Flynn. This is something that has been
discussed between the school and the town for a number of years. This is actually
permanently installed flashing school zone signs. On this particular project right here,
with support from the town manager and the mayor in council, the town is going to fund
this which is also a strong recommendation in the ADOT manual that is published related
to this. It's important to note that this process is moving relatively quickly. This was an
in-house design by our staff, our town engineer, and our assistant engineer. We just this
week -- you may or may not, if you go into that area of Fountain Hills Boulevard, have
Page 38 0150
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 39 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
•
seen some pink paint on the pavement. That is the survey, and before I get too much
further, for those that may not be aware. this up here is the Fountain Hills Middle School.
It's on North Fountain Hills Boulevard just before you enter McDowell Mountain Road,
with this being towards the north. As we worked to do this design. we recognized that
southbound traffic on McDowell Mountain Road entering Fountain Hills Boulevard
adjacent to this school, we are going to need to warn them in advance, so we have added
an advanced sign on that corner that alerts them, and it'll he flashing, to make them fully
aware that they are entering a school zone in advance time so they will have time to slow
down. The second flashing fifteen -mile -an -hour sign will be just north of the crosswalk.
Here's the sign location. It'll be flashing. Here is the marked yellow crosswalk. When
were going northbound, because we have an adequate sight distance, there will not be
and advanced flashing light. There will just be the traditional, reduced speed limit sign
ahead, and then there will be the flashing fifteen -mile -an -hour once again, just before the
crosswalk. These are the two types of structures that will be used on the projects. Each
of these structures are solar powered and communicate with each other via radio. The
timing coordination will be through myself and the transportation director, John Flynn, so
we will have the school calendar built into it. We will obviously monitor it with support
and collaboration from the school. We think this one will be a well -deserved, long-
awaited improvement in this area. Any questions related to this one?
DR. BARNARD: Thank you. I have driven to that school countless times over many,
many years and these are very, very needed. I think people get very confused coming
from Rio Verde, coming very fast with the tum, not realizing that there's a school there,
and then also people getting confused about the actual -- where it starts and where it stops
based on the sign in the middle of the road right now, so this is going to do great things
for the teachers who have duty at that crosswalk and also our students and the families so
that we keep that road safe before and after school, so. And I'm so happy to see they're
solar panel. This is great, thank you. This is very needed, appreciated.
VICE MAYOR FRIEDEL: Justin, I have a question; when will that be done?
WELDY: Madam Mayor, Council Member, this will be done before the children return
in August.
REED: That's amazing. That's a nice addition. I agree with Dr. Barnard that -- sorry,
Page 39 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 40 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
sorry. We're not that technologically advanced. So the coming in from Rio Verde, I'm
glad to see that there will be a sign that gives some warning because folks do come in
pretty quickly on that road and anything to get them to slow down before they approach
our students and crosswalk guards would he great. That's a nice addition, so thank you
very much for everything you're putting in to keeping our kids safe.
WELDY: You're welcome. Madam Mayor, Madam President, any questions?
MAYOR DICKEY: Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) make a comment.
MAYOR DICKEY: Well.
VICE PRESIDENT RUTKOWSKI: My daughter's (Indiscernible) course was in Rio
Verde, so I'd drive there quite a bit. I was already there this morning.
DR. BARNARD: Well. don't speed.
MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman.
SPELICH: Thank you. Madam Mayor. Justin, I'm assuming that you're going to loop in
with Captain Kratzer and possibly at times have that enforced by traffic control by radar?
WELDY: Madam Mayor, Council Member, yes. While I can't speak for him, I will let
you know that this area is patrolled nearly every school day during peak flow times.
Whether or not you see a marked vehicle there, it is being patrolled.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
REED: I will comment on that. The -- I have not gotten a ticket but, --
REED: -- have a lot of experience.
REED: -- I have a lot of experience in the district, and so the Sheriffs Department does a
really good job of patrolling our school zones, especially the one on Fountain Hills
Boulevard. You know, the one that goes past McDowell Mountain is more of a
residential street, so people tend to drive slower there, but Fountain Hills Boulevard, as
we all know, can become a speedway, so the Sheriffs Department has done a really great
job. Sometimes, you know, they're parked right in the middle of the road. Sometimes
they're parked in a little bit more obscure location. Same with at the high school, you
know, sometimes they're visible and sometimes they're not, and we've seen a lot of
speeders get pulled over coming right out of that school zone. So 1 appreciate everything
the Sheriffs Department does for that.
Page 40 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 41 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Board Member. That kind of goes in with the statistic
that we saw between speeding from last year and speeding from this year that we've
really picked that up. So this next item, I just wanted to mention that I'd had some folks
reach out to me about this, about the rules of the road, you know, which side do you ride
your bike on, which side do you walk on and such, and you know, it's kind of a big deal
and it made me remember when the kids were at McDowell Mountain School and you
know, they'd go and they'd get the handbook right away and it was all about that. So I
thought maybe there was a way for us to kind of partner on this, and so -- is Bo going to
speak to this, or Grady?
MILLER: Bo is. In fact, our community relations director will go ahead and kind of
explain what his plans are related to this.
LARSEN: Well, thank you, Mayor, and Madam President, and Council, and the School
Board. My name is Bo Larson. I'm the director of community relations. We have had
some discussions about this and I've been doing some research on what other
communities have done and I, too. remember, you know, those brochures of what side to
ride on and how to properly cross the street, and who to respect as you go along, and so
there's a lot of information out there from MAG, the City of Scottsdale, the US
Department of Transportation as well the Arizona Department of Transportation for us to
glean upon, and so what 1'd like to do is work with the school board or your assigned to
figure out what do we need and in what order do we need them because there's a variety
of, you know, timings I'm sure you're going to have. But one of the things that the Mayor
and Town Manager have kind of donated me for is to develop the collateral, do social
media, provide the intemet resources that are needed so that we can share on multiple
platforms as well as our Cox Channel I I just to help get the momentum of
communications out there, and so I think there's a great opportunity to really raise the
level of awareness of the importance of not only the children understanding how to do
things, but the adults remembering how to do things so that way we can -- if there is a stat
that we want to lower, I hope we will lower it.
MAYOR DICKEY: Questions or comments about that?
DR. BARNARD: Are there any plans to do anything at the high school and the flashing
lights or any -- I should've asked that before. Sony.
Page 41 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 42 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
LARSEN: I will not speak on his behalf, but -- .
DR. BARNARD: Okay, yeah. And even some outreach, I do think that that is another
area that people don't -- educating it when it's people when it's -- kids push the button to
make it flash to cross the street and people will still drive through it, and that's more of an
older -- educating residents that, when it's flashing, you must -- what is the rule? You
have to stop, you know all of that.
MAYOR DICKEY: To answer your question, the high school is not zoned a school
zone. That's a pedestrian crosswalk, so that's actually town mandated. It's not a school
zone, so because it's a high school, I believe, Dr. Sweeney, we can not put a school zone
there. Is that correct, Grady?
MILLER: That's my understanding. With the regulations goveming schools, that's on a
major arterial, so that would not be the same as an interior -- and it's also the age of the
kids that are going there, so you are correct.
REED: But as Dr. Barnard said, some education that, even though that's a pedestrian
crosswalk not necessarily associated with the high school, if the button's pushed and
those lights are flashing, it would be nice if people stopped because that's the law, but the
other thing that I notice is a lot of people don't understand how to maneuver through a
school zone. Like, do they stop before the light, you know, slow down before, do they,
like, go all the way through and continue past the other signs, so some education on how
to drive through a school zone, so.
LARSEN: Thank you.
PRESIDENT JENKINS: I will just comment and say as an avid walker in our
community who often sees people walking on the incorrect side of the road and who has
quite adamantly taught my children how to properly walk on the road, I would appreciate
anything for both our students as well as our more tenured citizens to know how to be
safe on the roadways.
LARSEN: Thank you. And Madam Mayor and Madam President, those are things that I
want to make sure that, working with you, that were at the proper level for the
communications, because one size definitely doesn't fit all for the population were
talking about, so I'll look forward to working with you. Good.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks very much. Next it just says other concerns or issues about
Page 42 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 43 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
this, like, school safety. So is there anything? I know your superintendent got your PhD
on school safety and such, and so 1 wondered if there was anything you'd want to
communicate with us or anything we can help with when it comes to that, you know,
given recent histories or anything that you'd like to convey? Yes, ma'am?
PRESIDENT JENKINS: I personally don't have an item other than to say that as Dr.
Jagodzinski comes in, the School Board will be having a retreat so that we can
collectively synchronize as a new body with our superintendent, and one of the priorities
will definitely be school safety. It's an annual priority. We arc due for another review
with -- I say due. It's not something that's mandated. We as a district know that we
haven't been reviewed by Homeland Security to reassess the safety and security of our
buildings for a couple of years, in part because of COVID, so that's something that we
definitely want to revisit and prioritize and then certainly, based off that assessment, we
can then itemize what actions we need to take and what budgetary dollars we can put
towards that.
MAYOR DICKEY: Perfect. Dana?
SAAR: Yeah, and you mentioned the budget issue, obviously, and that's an important
aspect of what we're going to talk about later on when it come to our facilities. Right
now with three facilities, we have to make sure that all three of those are safe. and wove
done a lot of investment to keep them a lot safer than they were back in my day early and
(indiscernible) as well. However, we may be down to two, which means we'll save some
of that funding that we've been applying to McDowell Mountain potentially, and we can
apply that somewhere else, but safety is by far and away our most important aspect of
what we do. Obviously, student success might be number one, but that doesn't work if
you don't have safe school environment, so everything that's been talked about so far in
terms of safety is so important.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any other comments?
D: Dr. J, do you have anything else off the top of your head that you'd like to bring up to
the council?
MAYOR DICKEY: Put him on the spot. I was going to do the same thing.
DR. JAGODZINSKI: No, I mean, school safety is a huge issue, and I spent a lot of time
researching it and I was (indiscernible) Dr. Sweeney, the last improvements to
Page 43 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 44 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
(indiscernible) a lot of ideas that I want to share and work collaboratively with the town,
and all of our school leaders to be as (indiscernible).
DR. SWEENEY: I'd just like to thank the town for your ongoing support of the SRO.
You know. we have a long history of having great SRO's in that position, excellent
relationship with the Sheriffs Office, and SRO after SRO after SRO is -- they have good
relationships with the kids. They provide, you know, that presence and immediate
response and reaction when needed, and I know that's a commitment the town has taken
on through the years, and I really, really appreciate it and hope that that continues.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you for mentioning that. We really appreciate that.
Anything else on this -- safety items or anything traffic? Thank you. Next, I think
Grady's going to talk to us about our transportation IGA or proposal?
MILLER: Yes. So something related to this was brought up probably about three or four
years ago between that the town and the school district at one of these joint meetings, and
since that time. the administration under Dr. Sweeney and then Rob when he was
superintendent, began to allow us to utilize, like, the vans that are there. But what were
thinking is it's probably time to formalize something into some sort of intergovernmental
agreement. One of the things wed like to do, for instance, the vans are great and they've
been very much appreciated by the staff, but one of the things that we're looking at is
perhaps, in the summertime when there's off peak use by the school district, we might be
able to take advantage of the school buses and perhaps the bus drivers, and the town can
maybe pay some hourly rate for the bus drivers and maybe for the use of the buses for,
say, a summer recreation program or our senior programs, something like that. So that's
what were really basically talking about, but thanks to Dr. Sweeney initially when we
had this on a previous agenda, he allowed us to follow up and start using the vehicles. So
it's probably time now. We haven't taken advantage of it except for maybe the last couple
years and it's been very sporadic, but it's probably time for us to actually formalize it into
an IGA, and bringing it back to both of the governing body of the school district and also
our council.
MAYOR DICKEY: Any questions or comments on that? Yes, Sharon?
GRZYBOWSKI: It's been a number of years, but I remember there was some sort of
communication break down at some point. I know that it's been a couple of employees
Page 44 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 45 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
ago, but somebody actually was stranded. I think they were stranded here and the bus or
the van or whatever name never came and picked them up. I don't remember who it is, I
just vaguely remember this because this seemed so long ago, so I feel like part of my
concern is when we do this, we need to ensure that our local folks -- 1 mean, usually these
things happen on Saturdays for us or after regular school hours, so our local folks need to
have the phone number of the driver so that they can contact them. Was it an
emergency? Did they just forget? I don't want a group of 30 kids stranded, depressed
because community services planned this really super fim trip and now they don't have a
ride to it.
MILLER: Very good point, and something, you know, when you do put these together,
sometimes you don't include all those types of contingencies in the actual
intergovernmental agreement, but from an operational standpoint, you certainly want to
make sure that we have that kind of information available, and it's a very good thing to
bring up, so I appreciate that, Council Member.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, not stranding kids is a good idea. We have other IGA's to talk
about, Grady. I think these are our existing ones relating to communications and other
things, so I don't know if you want to take them all in a big lump, or how you want to --
MILLER: I just thought I'd just bring these up. We just bring these up just more or less
just to show the breadth and extension of our relationships and how they extend. So
clearly, through Cox Communications, the town of Fountain Hills makes available the
education channel for our use by the school district. Also, we have the intergovernmental
agreement that covers any type of construction activity. We do not charge building
permit fees or inspection fees, things related to that. So in exchange for joint use of the
school district facilities, then we're not extending cost to you for basically those services.
And then finally, we have an intergovernmental agreement related to shared use of
district and town facilities. As an example, you know, every year we have a graduation
held at the amphitheater at Fountain Park. The town has also utilized, you know, not as
much anymore, but we have in the past, like the gyms at the high school, and also the
school district has also utilized, on occasion, the community center. So this has just been,
as a small town and a small school district, we really benefit from having a very good
working relationship, and it doesn't really make sense. I mean, it is a true partnership in
Page 45 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 46 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
the spirit of what a partnership is. So hopefully, by this next time we have a meeting like
this, we'll have the intergovernmental agreement will also be something that will be
already approved and on that list. I'd be happy to answer, if you have any questions
about those items, but they're just there just to remind us the relationship that we have
and our partnerships that we already utilize.
REED: Thank you, Grady, and I just want to say that the IGA for the shared use has
become really popular with the school district with the community center. In the
previous years, many moons ago when I was on the PTO, we always held the Gay Love,
which is our large fundraiser for the year, at different resorts, sometimes close,
sometimes not close, but the PTO has partnered now with using the community centers
so it keeps our folks here local. They're using local vendors, our sports teams are now
using the community center a lot for team dinners as opposed to having it at someone's
home which again, kind of keeps it local, keeps our kids in a space that isn't at someone's
home. It's a little more safe, not that our parents aren't safe, but it's just a little more
formal, so we really appreciate that the town offers us that ability to have the community
center to use for those banquets, so.
MAYOR DICKEY: Great.
DR. BARNARD: Yeah, I second what Jill said. I think it's a great reciprocal
relationship, and I don't know -- I remember at one point, not everybody knows that we
have this agreement that we share facilities. We encourage the use of facilities from the
town and the school so I mean, I would say, 1 think making this more known to different
groups from, you know, our athletics to everything else and then also the town
certainly -- I remember my children going to some of those really awesome summer
camps at the middle school gym, and so I think that we should revisit this. I think it's the
15th anniversary of this. Looking at it at 2007, it's actually photocopied with three-ring
binder. I am like, yeah, so I think revisiting it, even if the language stays the same with
the new signatures and all of that keeps it fresh and a living document that people know
about and use.
MILLER: Good point, and I'll work with staff on maybe doing some updates. There's
probably some also some maybe things related to risk management and insurance and
things like that that probably have changed since this probably originally went in, so
Page 46 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 47 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
thank you. Thanks for the comment.
GRZYBOWSKI: Okay, I'm going to be a big old pin in your balloon. We just had a lot
of heartache and got a lot of emails and really got beat up about the community center
and all of the new rules and the new pricing that we just put into place. I'm not saying we
should charge. I'm just tossing that out there that we're going to get hit from a lot of
people that it's not fair you're charging insert whatever your favorite music or acting or
whatever so expect to hear that. So we might should be prepared. I don't know where
we're going to stand on this.
MAYOR DICKEY: Well, I don't -- do you want to say something? Dana and I have
been like here so long going back and forth with this so yes, sir?
SAAR: And that's true. I'm just older than you. So we had a wonderful arrangement
between the school district and the town for many years. We transferred land easily. We
transferred the operation of the parks and other things back in the day to where we — I
think, if you remember, we won an award from the State for having this relationship
between the two governments, so the fact that it's been a while since we've reviewed
these, its probably a good idea, but I think, as we go forward, there's probably going to
be some good reasons to have more of these. I hope, anyway.
MAYOR DICKEY: And to your point, Sharon, the -- and I remember as a school board
member traipsing down to town council meetings and this was about the SRO, but it's the
same constituency. So I understand what you're saying about clubs and entertainment
and such, but the school district is, you know, paid for by the same exact tax payers as we
are. It is a very natural partnership, and I think we talked about the gyms or doing some
of those things. I think we -- you know, basketball or whatever. Things that we lack are
absolutely the perfect solution for all of the kids that live in this town because they go to
the school and their parents pay the same taxes such as they are for both of our entities,
so it's a really natural partnership, and I really appreciate that you're going to revisit it
because 1 agree that there's probably some stuff that needs to be updated, but Sharon, I do
appreciate what you're saying because we did just go through that whole exercise, but I
definitely see this different, and we have IGA's with the sanitary district as well, so we
keep that big picture in mind whenever we can.
VICE MAYOR FRIEDEL: Ginny?
NTS
Page 47 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 48 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, sir, Vice Mayor?
VICE MAYOR FRIEDEL: Sharon, maybe the FHCCA will contact the school district
and maybe work out some arrangements directly.
MAYOR DICKEY: Let's move on. Thank you, Gerry. So Dana, do you want to take
the next one or do you have other staff that's going to introduce?
SAAR: I'm delegated because I've been the one probably talking most about this. As I
said earlier, were looking at enrollment projections that take us below a thousand
students. Currently, we could put all of our students that are enrolled this fall into one
facility at the high school and have room left over. So we know we've got excess
resources that we are dealing with and we're paying for. McDowell Mountain is going to
be utilized again this coming year, but were close to make a decision on what to do with
that in going forward. Four Peaks has been closed for our purposes for quite some time.
You know, we're not in the landlord business, and it is probably -- it is the oldest facility
in the district and whether it's feasible to reimage it for some other use or it should be
tom down as discussions that were going to have, and the same thing can be said about
McDowell Mountain. 1 was living here and down the road from there when it was being
built, and fd been in construction most of my life, and it was not designed to be a
century -old facility. It's pretty much outlived its usefulness, not just from a physical
standpoint but quite frankly, from an academic standpoint. We don't know what 50 years
from now will require from us in terms of facilities. Maybe nothing at all, quite frankly,
but that's so far down the line that to project our needs for maybe a change in the
demographics in Fountain Hills, maybe not. But we don't want to necessarily give up the
ability to do something with those two properties 50 years from now. We just don't know
what our needs will be. So one of the thoughts that we've had among many is that we
work out an agreement with the town to reuse the land itself. We know -- when I was on
a committee here, we realized that we were short park space based on our population and
so forth, and you know, were landlocked, so we don't have a lot of extra space to develop
parklands, but with the lack of need for those two parcels for educational purposes,
there's quite Frankly, a possibility that they could be made into park -- first scene that
comes up in my mind, because I have neighbors that have dogs is a dog park. But that's
just one of a hundred ideas that could be utilized in those areas. McDowell Mountain has
Page 48 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 49 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
a wash that runs through it. On the south side of that wash, we worked with the town
many years ago to develop a passive park at that location with the bridge over the wash.
The same thing was being developed at the high school campus on one side of the wash
that is now desert into a passive park which would've helped our park mmnbers a little bit.
So I think no decision is ready to be made at this point yet, and we've only briefly talked
about it as a board, but I do think that, going forward, that discussion needs to take place,
and that between our administrators and our two entities, we need to come up with a
solution that meets the needs of the entire community. As we've said already, even
though we have a few more residents than the town does because of some annexations
that took place years and years ago, and in the last ten years, actually. For the most part,
we share the same people. So no matter who owns them, you or us, the same resource is
available to the same people. So I look forward to these discussions going forward on
what we can do with those two parcels that we may or may not actually use.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any discussion, questions, or comments about this?
No? Well, Ijust, you know, obviously I think in terms of what the legal uses are and
what can possibly happen, and also the educational plans that you have to maybe, you
know -- we always want to have more families. You like to have a intergenerational
group here, you know, again living in the past, but when we all moved here, it was a lot
of young kids, a lot of young families. So seeing how that develops, seeing how the, you
know, what you think -- you mentioned the demographics, and even way back then, you
were always kind of on top of that, kind of looking at what could be expected as far as
income levels and such, and so I look forward to that conversation, and with the facts,
with what can we accomplish together, and I think it's always about that, and I really
appreciate it very much. Any other questions or comments about this issue or any other
issue, actually? Yes, ma'am?
VICE PRESIDENT RUTKOWSKI: I think that we as a board are still going to be
talking about this.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes, 1 can imagine you will be. Any other items for the good of the
order? Staff, you guys have anything? No? Everybody's good? All right, well, I guess I
could take -- do I get a motion to adjourn here, I don't even know. I suppose, yes.
Motion to adjourn?
Page 49 of 50
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 50 of 50
JUNE 21, 2022 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
SPELICH: So moved.
MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you.
GRZYBOWSKI: Second.
MAYOR DICKEY: Everybody's in favor, I'm thinking? All in favor --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Aye.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- aye. Thank you so much. We appreciate it so much.
Page 50 of 50