Fountain Hills Approves Restrictive Wireless Ordinance 5-2 While Council Fractures on Sharia Law Proposal and Automated Surveillance

The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary.

The City council meeting Arizona Proprietary The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. The City council meeting, Arizona. Proprietary. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Would you please rise? Please for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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. Thank you. And if you choose to remain standing, is Pastor Keith Pavia here tonight? I don't see him in the crowd, so what we'll do is we'll take a moment of silence. Silence. Thank you. Town clerk, could I get a roll call, please? Mayor Fidel. Present. Vice Mayor Earl. Present. Council member Kalabianakis.

Council member Watts. Council member Larrabee. Council member McMahon. Council member Skillicorn. All is present. We have a quorum. Thank you. We'll move on to the summary of our current events by the town manager. Rachel.

Vice Mayor thank you Given that this is our last meeting until November 17th we won be meeting on Election Day I have quite a few updates that kind of covers that timeframe so bear with me All right Starting off first I want to take a moment to recognize Council Member Rick Watts on your appointment I think you look surprised On your appointment as our next vice mayor as of November 1 Congratulations We appreciate your willingness to take on this additional leadership role and look forward to working with you in this capacity And a special thank you also to our outgoing vice mayor Gail Earl for your service over the last 10 months Absolutely If you have not already been notified I want to make sure that we share an important weather reminder The National Weather Service is forecasting potentially significant storms in our The area beginning tomorrow and continuing into Thursday.

I've seen different reports. There's different models out there, but it is expected to have periods of heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, and possible hail with a potential flash with potential for flash flooding strong winds. And there is a flood watch currently in effect from Wednesday through Thursday evening. We encourage everyone to keep an eye on the weather, secure any loose outdoor items, and use extra caution when traveling.

As always, please never attempt to drive through flooded roadways or washes. This past weekend we celebrated and contributed to our annual Make a Difference Day, so I want to thank everyone who participated. I know several members of our council were there, so thank you. It's always wonderful to see so many residents, community organizations, and volunteers come together to make a positive impact on Fountain Hills.

A special thank you to our community services team for coordinating the effort and to everyone who gave their time to help make our community a better place. Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 21st, we'll be hosting another open house regarding a transition of our new solid waste provider universal waste systems. We had one last Saturday, I believe, and this will be the second. The meeting will take place from 4 to 6 at the community center.

Residents are encouraged to stop by, ask questions, and learn more about what to expect when the new service begins on February 1st. On Friday, as long as we don't get washed away, we will have Spooky Blast this Saturday, October 24th at Four Peaks Park. It's always a fun opportunity for families to celebrate Halloween right here in Fountain Hills with games, candy, inflatables, entertainment, and a costume contest. We encourage everyone to come out and enjoy the festivities.

Personally speaking, what's up? I believe it starts at 6. I should double check that for you. It is dark at 6. It may start as early as 5. Let me double check for you, Mayor. But it is a very, very busy event. It is a very well attended event. It is a fantastic time. So I encourage you to come out at any point during the evening.

Also happening this Saturday is the DEA's National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day from 10 to 2, It's a great opportunity for residents to safely dispose of unused, unwanted, or expired prescription medications. It's a simple way to help prevent accidental poisonings and to keep potentially dangerous medications out of the wrong hands. The program is free and anonymous and residents can drop items here. But please note that no creams, liquids, needles, or sharps are accepted.

If you need more information, you can hop online to the DEA Take Back website. Election information. I'm sure Bev and Angela would like me to make sure I have you share this. It's a quick reminder that the ballot drop box is here at Town Hall and is available Monday through Thursday from 8 to 5 through Monday, November 2nd. It is upstairs on our second floor. On Election Day, Tuesday, November 3rd, the Town Hall ballot drop will be available from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Town Hall is a ballot drop-off location only, not an in-person voting location. In-person voting at Fountain Hills United Methodist Church begins this Friday, October 23rd, from 9 to 5, and additional voting dates and hours leading up to Election Day. The community center will also serve as an in-person voting and ballot drop-off on Monday, November 2nd, from 9 to 5, and Election Day, from 6 to 7. Residents can find complete schedule voting location and hours on the town's website.

All right, rolling right along into November. The hiking challenge kicks off November 1st. It runs through the end of the month. Participants can complete six designated hikes or log a total of 35 miles. It's a great opportunity to get outside, enjoy our beautiful trails, and take advantage of the cooler weather. And you get a commemorative t-shirt. The Farmer's Market and Arts on the Avenue New Fountain Hills also returns on Wednesday, November 4th.

That is an exciting day because I know many, many people are excited for the different foods and products that come with that. The market runs from 10 to 2 and will continue Wednesdays through the season into April. Movie in the park. An update. Our last movie in the park was rained out, so unfortunately, but it was changed. So Toy Story 5 will be rescheduled for Friday, November 6th at Four Peaks Park. We hope families will join us for a fun out evening outdoors.

And then one final reminder as we look ahead to Veterans Day on Wednesday November 11.

Fountain Hills has a wonderful tradition of coming together at the Veterans Memorial in Fountain Park at 9 a to recognize and honor the men and women who have served our country We encourage residents to join us and take time that day to honor our veterans We have a lot going on in our town Thank you Now we'll move on to proclamations, awards, and recognitions, and I will start out the evening with the Mayor's Business Spotlight.

So I have a lot to share on this Mayor's Business Spotlight because this restaurant, Phil's Filling Station, has been with us a long time, so let me give you some details. I'm delighted to recognize Phil Radakis, owner of Phil's Filling Station Grill, as part of the Mayor's Business Spotlight. For nearly three decades, Phil's Filling Station has become a cornerstone gathering place in Fountain Hills.

Since purchasing the business in 1997 and later establishing it as Phil's Filling Station, Phil has created a place where residents, visitors, families, and friends can come together over good food and good conversation.

With its distinctive nostalgic atmosphere, extensive Coca-Cola collection, anybody that hasn't been there, you need to stop by there, and welcoming patio near the Fountain Hills fountain, Phil's has become one of the community's most recognizable and beloved gathering places in our town. What makes Phil's history story unique is his journey behind the business.

Phil grew up around the restaurant industry, learning firsthand from his grandfather's diner in the Bronx, and later working in his uncle's restaurant and bar. He began his own career as a line cook and worked his way into the restaurant management, gaining the experience and knowledge that would eventually help him fulfill his dream of opening his own restaurant right here in Fountain Hills. In 1994, Phil moved to Fountain Hills with his family.

Just three years later, he purchased what was then Jimmy's filling station. By 1999, the restaurant had become a Phil's filling and over the years it has grown into a true Fountain Hills institution. Phil's has become known for bringing people together outside the dining room. Cruising at Phil's has created a popular gathering place for classic car enthusiasts, residents, and visitors, bringing people together to enjoy beautiful automobiles, food, and fellowship.

Events like these add to the character of our community and give people another opportunity to connect with their neighbors and the community. The legacy Phil has built is more than just the restaurant. It's also reflected in his dedication to the community he calls home. Over the years Phil and his business have supported local organizations, charitable events, community events, and fundraisers. And I know this firsthand because whenever Phil is asked he's always there.

When business owners invest in Fountain Hills they become part of the community, the community's story, and help make our town a stronger and more connected place. Phil's is also a family business in the truest sense. Phil's children, Johnny and Alyssa, have been involved in the restaurant over the years, continuing a tradition that began when Phil himself learned the business from family members of his own family.

That sense of family is something customers can feel when they walk through the doors. Through nearly three decades of service, Phil has built a business that holds a special place in the Fountain Hills community. The place where neighbors meet, families celebrate milestones, visitors discover a little piece of Fountain Hills, and long-time residents return again and again.

On behalf of the Town of Fountain Hills, congratulations to you and thank you Phil, Phil Rodakis and the entire Phil's Filling Station family for nearly 30 years of serving our community. It's my honor to recognize Phil's Filling Station as this month's Mayor's Business Spotlight. Phil, come on down. Thank you. Well, you want me to say a couple of words, you said it all for me. So you didn't leave anything out.

I just want to thank everybody for supporting me over these years, and hopefully you'll continue supporting us for the rest. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. The next recognition is our Mayor's Veteran of the Month, and it's my distinct honor to honor Specialist Stephen Musil, U.S. Army, retired. Stephen was transferred to Vietnam in August of 1971 and assigned to the 196th Infantry F Troop, 17th Cavalry. He was in combat from August 1971 until January 1972.

He was transferred to the Open Mess as their controller and served there until his return to the States in 1972. The Open Mess was responsible for the operations of all the various clubs for enlisted men, non-commissioned officers and officers in the Da Nang area of Vietnam. Upon his return to the States, he was a clerk in training, he was a clerk in the training brigade at Fort Knox facility until discharge in March of 1973.

Stephen moved to Fountain Hills in 2014 and has been an active member of the Fountain Hills community since then. Stephen was the VFW Post 7507's quartermaster for seven years, earning both the All-State and All-American designation. The Mayor and Council are honored to present Stephen with this Veteran of the Month recognition. Stephen, come on over. Thank you. I don't know if I really deserve this award, but I'm going to accept it anyway.

I was the first lottery guy when they were doing away with the draft, and when I left the service in 73, it was a volunteer army, and they had done away with the draft. So that was my contribution to it. Okay, next we have a proclamation that's going to be read by our vice mayor for the cities and towns week. Vice mayor. Thank you, mayor.

Whereas the citizens of Fountain Hills depend on the town to provide essential services that ensure safety, quality of life, of life and community well-being, and whereas Arizona cities and towns deliver vital programs such as public safety, utilities, parks, sanitation, and recreation that enrich daily life, and whereas through participation and cooperation, citizens, community leaders, local businesses, and municipal staff can work together to ensure that services provided by the Town of Fountain Hills can remain exceptional elements of the quality of life of our community.

Now, therefore, the town of Fountain Hills joins with Arizona League of Cities and Towns and fellow municipal municipalities across Arizona in proclaiming October 18th to 24 of 2026 as Arizona Cities and Towns Week. And I'd like to present this to our town manager. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have October as Italian American Heritage Month.

Whereas the Town of Fountain Hills honors and celebrates the rich heritage, traditions, and contributions of Italian Americans whose dedication, talent, and cultural legacy have enriched our nation and our local community, And whereas Italian American Heritage Month provides an opportunity to reflect upon and commemorate the achievements of generations past and present who have preserved and promoted Italian cultural social and economic heritage Now therefore, the mayor and the council hereby proclaim October is Italian American Heritage Month and encourage all residents to join in celebrating the significant contributions of our Italian Americans to our community.

And I believe we have some people in the audience to come on up and accept this and maybe say a couple words. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Town Council and Town Staff for making this possible. And thank you to all the members of my Found Hills Italian interest group for coming here. I started this group five years ago in honor of my parents who came here from Italy.

And when I was born, they instilled in me, one, I'm an American, two, I'm an Italian, and three, to remember and honor all those that made this possible. After my father died, I lost almost everything, and it was my best friends and the members of Fountain Hills Italian Just Group that were there for me because that's what Italian American culture does. We help each other, we help our community, and most importantly, we remember our traditions and culture and we pass that on.

So I dedicate this to all of them, to my parents, to Italian Americans here in town, and all across the United States, to Italians in Italy, and most importantly to all you members and residents of Found Hills that you live each day as us Italian Americans do to help each other out, support each other, support your community, and most importantly live each day as it was its last, because that's what life's all about is helping each other. Thank you very much and grazie a tutti.

And tonight the fountain will be lit in the Italian colors, so in honor of your day. And next we have the future vice mayor reading the Veterans Day proclamation. Rick? Is that when I grow up or what? Veterans Day.

Whereas the town of Fountain Hills proudly honors the men and women who have served in the United States Armed Forces, and whereas our community is grateful for the sacrifices of our veterans and protecting the freedoms we cherish, and whereas the Veterans Day reminds us to uphold the values of liberty, justice, and unity for future generations, now therefore the mayor and council of Fountain Hills hereby proclaim November 11, 2026 as Veterans Day.

and encourage all citizens to join in honoring our veterans with respect and gratitude. I think we've got representation in the audience for the acceptance of the proclamation. If you would, come on up. I would like to thank the mayor and the council for this award and proclamation, and we will post it on our wall of honor. And also, we'd like to encourage everybody in the community to come out next month and support us at the Arts Festival. Thank you.

And the next proclamation we have will be read by Councilwoman Hannah Larrabee, Red Ribbon Week.

Thank you Mayor Whereas alcohol and drug abuse continue to challenge our nation and prevention requires a united effort and whereas the East Valley young Marines inspire youth to live healthy drug lives through leadership and service and whereas Red Ribbon Week gives us all the opportunity to show our commitment to a drug lifestyle now therefore the Mayor and Town Council of Fountain Hills proudly proclaim October 23rd through the 31st 2026 as Red Ribbon Week Red Ribbon Week Sorry And encourage everyone to participate in drug prevention activities this week and all throughout the year.

And I believe we have the East Valley Young Marines here to accept the proclamation. On button would be good. I just want to say thank you to everyone who came out and also don't do drugs, Support your veterans and serve in your communities. And if you want to support the young marines in going to honor Pearl Harbor this December, you can go to the website evym.org. Thank you. Thank you. Now we'll have a couple of additional announcements from our town manager. Mayor, thank you.

You asked what time Spooky Blast was. I wanted to make sure we got this on the record, that Spooky Blast was from 5 to 8 at Four Peaks Park on Friday. I also had an inquiry. I wanted to clarify too that if we have rains or if you want to take precautions, we do have sandbags free and available to the public at Fire Station 1, which is the fire station there along Palisades. Um, they are, um, self-access, but they are behind the building.

Um, we have all the materials there, so if you want to take those precautions, those are available to everyone in our community also. Mayor, thanks for those additional items. You're welcome. We'll move on now to our consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. I have a motion a second. Can I get a roll call, please? Council member Skillicorn. Yes. Council member McMahon. Councilmember Kalavianakis. Councilmember Watts. Councilmember Larrabee. Vice Mayor Earl. Mayor Fredell.

Motion passes. Thank you. Now we'll move on to our regular agenda. I'm going to open a public hearing with consideration of possible action relating to an ordinance 26-12 repealing the zoning ordinance. City council meeting, Chapter 17, wireless telecommunications. Rachel? RACHEL CASTILLO, Mayor, thank you. This is sort of a follow-up to some of the action that was taken at our meeting two weeks ago. This is continuing to amend our ordinances so that they are all in alignment.

Most of the action that was taken last week, I believe, is in Chapter 16. This is Chapter 17. We're working to, again, create that alignment.

We've worked with a consultant to help revise these and create a meet-all legal Requirements for these ordinances with that I will turn it over to John and he can walk us through any other details Mayor council members good to be with you again this evening as a town manager said this is a companion to Discussion we had at your last meeting where we talked about the small well small cell wireless ordinance Covering the the smaller towers and antennas and this particular ordinance now deals with the rest of the wireless telecommunication communication provisions in our ordinances, specifically what we have in the zoning ordinance.

And so again, just a little quick background. Towns, or the council directed PNZ and the staff to work on this a little bit over a year ago, and we began the process with the commission in March of 2025 and made some progress there, but recognized it would be beneficial to have a professional group help us with the process, Some that were really well versed in all the legal matters. So the McCullough law firm was hired to assist in the final review and drafting of these ordinances.

For the Chapter 7 changes we held a work session with the P Commission back in July to review them and get some initial input from them And then they held a public hearing on September 14th to review that and receive comments from the public At that time, they were able to take action and recommend approval with a few modifications that we'll highlight as we go through this. So again, the goals that we have here, we want to have a good robust complete wireless network system in town.

It's beneficial to our citizens. At the same time, we want to have one that is fully compliant with the laws, but also respects the local character needs of the community and protects properties and property values in neighborhoods, and then has a clear process to go through and is transparent for the public to follow. So those are some of the goals we had in drafting the ordinance and preparing the modifications that you have this evening.

So I'll take just a few minutes here and step through the major provisions of the ordinance, and our consultant, again, is available online to help answer any questions you may have later. So going through the different sections of the ordinance, section one has a purpose, intent, and applicability of the ordinance. So this is pretty basic to most ordinances and here does set forth the basic requirements and goals that we have.

Striving to balance the needs of industry with the needs of the town and the backbones of it were the same, but they added some additional statements in there on the purpose of what we're trying to accomplish with the ordinance. It makes it clearer and more definitive. Next section 1702 provides definitions.

Again, these are important for anybody administering the code to understand what is meant by different terms in there or related things that might not be directly in the ordinance but impact the development of a wireless network. 80 new definitions were added compared to what we have in our existing ordinance.

As a result of the P&Z Commission review and their recommendation, we added a new definition for mobile or temporary towers and also clarified the definition that we have for the pre-existing towers. Section 1703 gives the basic requirements for development of a wireless facility. It covers a lot of general items listed here with aesthetics and light and noise and so forth. It's also a key place in the ordinance where it sets the distance requirements.

Our current ordinance has a minimum standard of 300 feet that a tower has to be from residential zone districts. This revised ordinance increases that to 500 feet from any residential zone or use. The section also provides information on the equipment and buildings that often go with towers as well as co-location.

P and Z, when they discuss this, they added one additional item here in terms of the setbacks and put in a setback from daycare facilities and schools, the same 500 feet as from residential. Section 1704 deals with the different types of applications we can get, and basically there are two types.

We have administrative applications, and those are ones that are maintenance and upkeep and replacement of antennas on existing towers, as long as it's really not changing anything about the size and nature of the tower. Everything else for new towers or expansions of existing towers that go beyond those would come to council.

So one change from the current ordinance is that the current ordinance will allow administrative view of new towers if they are in a non-residential area at least 300 feet from residential. Again, this proposed ordinance would require all new towers to come before public review. And then the PNZ again made one little change here in terms of further definition of the submittal requirements for temporary towers.

Section 1705 gets into the actual submittal requirements and the review procedures that take place with wireless communication facilities. And so again, this one includes some basic requirements that we need to see at each application and some things were added, such as the fire safety and decommissioning the detailed electrical plans. and the FCC compliance that we didn't have currently.

Also, in that section, it has additional items that are required under the new code, just so we can clearly evaluate the antennas, the towers, the impact in the surrounding that they will be in. The section also provides for the shot clocks requirement. So again, through FCC rules, there are certain time frames in which we have to review and act on cell towers and antennas. And so it's very clear on what those are in the ordinance that we have to meet.

If those aren't met, then the towers can be considered approved. The section also gets into the processing and review of applications. It tells what specifically needs to be in the application. You can see here some of the items that were added over what we have today in our ordinance just to, again, ensure how it's going to work with the addition of the surrounding properties.

So requiring property input impact evaluation, looking at the compatibility with neighborhoods, the fall zones, and other adverse impacts that might be created. And then this section also includes providing some information with regard to the factual determinations that would need to be made in approving a tower that is compliant with the TCA, for example, environmental review, historic impacts and tribal sites. The next section of the ordinance covers operation and maintenance of the facility.

So once it's there, we want to make sure it continues to be maintained in a way that's compliant with both the local rules as well as state and federal rules. And so this sets forth those requirements as well as requiring some bonding to help cover any maintenance expenses that might come up, the regular testing, the identification and In this section, P&Z added a couple of items.

One was to set the amount on the bond to be 125% of an engineer's estimate, as well as putting in a notice for corrective action and cure period if there is a violation. Section 1707 addresses non-conforming uses. And so this is four towers that might be out there that don't conform to the new codes. There's no change to this particular section. 1708 is a new section that deals with retention of consultants.

As we have worked to make this ordinance more comprehensive and ensure it's compliant with the different federal laws and court rulings and so forth, it's become a little bit more complicated than the staff has the ability to fully understand and implement. So the ordinance now provides for the town to hire a consultant and also provides for the applicants to put forth a deposit agreement where they pay for the cost of the consultant. And so that is the new ordinance.

Planning and zoning commission recommends approval. If you have questions, I can try to answer again. I believe Vanessa and or Scott are available on the phone to provide the real background and detail. Before I call on the first question, I want to remind the council you hit the left button to get in queue for questions and discussion. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple questions or really clarifications, if you don't mind.

I'm concerned once again that this ordinance is premature because I know the federal communications is coming down with Build America eliminating barriers to wireless deployments. And that is anticipated to come out, I think, November 3rd of this year. So I know it's going to change a lot and affect these. So my concern is this might, this is premature because eventually we're going to have to change this depending, you know, based on those rules.

Also, I have a couple of questions about some of the provisions that you're changing. The ordinance requires a 500 foot setback from residents and zoning districts. What's a zoning district? It's not, I didn't find it in the definitions. So what is intended by that? Mayor, Councilmember, it's 500 feet from any residential zone or use, and so the zoning districts are clearly outlined in the zoning ordinance.

So all the residential ones, single and multi-family, apply or an actual residential use that occurs on a property. Okay, so it's residential? Yes. Okay, thank you. Also, I asked you this question before. They're underground equipment vaults. There's a requirement in 1703C that requires that they be underground. So I have concerns about, because to me, from what I've read and look at, it increases the risk to utility workers, maintenance personnel, firefighters, and other first responders.

You know, it's from what it says that says that the risks involve confined spaces, extreme toxic smoke, projectile manholes, heat buildup, electrocution, hazards, flooding, and potential battery related thermal runway. It also has to be in compliance with OSHA. So I am concerned about that if this is true, that there is an increase in a higher risk with these boxes being underground.

Mayor Councilmember I asked the fire chief to see if he might have some comments on that We see if he can come and provide those but it hadn come up previously as being a concern and a number of communities do already require vaults of this type for a variety of purposes that are similar to this So he not concerned with it or does he want to speak to it or no Or do you want to wait That's unfortunate.

When you go through the approval process for these, it's SUP, so there's notice, public hearing, etc. That's correct. Okay. And also, some of the wording, and this is just one word out of many, in 1705 H-J, it introduces subjective approval criteria. For example, H asks whether the installation shall inflict a significant adverse impact on neighboring property. To me, inflict is a negative connotation and kind of judgmental.

So I'm wondering if concepts such as aesthetic impact and compatibility may be better wording, maybe more soft wording for that than just automatically saying it's going to inflict, just to me, inflict is like you're inflicting harm or whatever the case may be. But again, I'm not in support of this right now because I know the FCC is going to come down with new rulings and rules on this. And it's even though there might be language in there that says this This is going to change accordingly.

It doesn't manifest the changes that are coming up and you're still going to have to come back and review it one more time again. Thank you. I have a question, Mayor. Under our rules of decorum section 6.4b, council members once recognized show limit remarks to no more than two minutes. Are we going to continue to follow that? We will follow that and we'll make sure that questions are asked during the question session and discussion is under discussion session.

But two minutes each time and then everybody gets a turn? Okay, thank you. Two minutes each time. Thank you, John. This question, the de facto SUP when it comes back to council will be returned with a recommendation either to support or deny or approve of or deny. And will that also be supported with an engineer's recommendation at that point?

So we're not completely relying on the council's technical expertise and to understand the ins and outs of the ordinance itself, but also the engineer's recommendation will come back for their consideration. Mayor, Councilmember, yes, the consultants that we hire with their engineers and experts in the area will provide much of the commentary and direction for council to make their decision on whether to prove deny or approve with conditions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Yeah, I'll keep my questions very brief tonight. They're not directed at you, John, but the attorneys on the phone. I'm just curious. This has been a product that's been done for many years, under the scrutiny of three lawyers, the Campanelli law firm and now the McCulloch law firm.

It seems like that the Trump administration is currently pursuing multiple initiatives, and this is hot off the presses today, and regulations aimed at removing telecommunications deployment barriers and cutting regulatory tape. The status as of today is that the push to remove telecom barriers is currently at its peak legislative and administrative phase.

While the executive branch, Donald Trump, has already used the FCC and the NTIA to unilaterally bypass many legacy rules regarding telecommunications, the permanent codification framework is sitting and actively being pursued right now in House and Senate committees and subcommittees. So my question to you is that do you anticipate that this national regulation is going to impact the work product that you've prepared for us today? Point of order. Is that an appropriate question to Mr.

Wesley here? I believe you directed the question to the consultants. Okay, thank you. Would you like for me to answer that question? Scott McCullough, very well. Yes, the FCC did do a proposed rulemaking, including on wireless barriers. That was over a year ago. The comment cycle on that closed quite some time ago I was just checking the FCC agendas It is not on the October 29th agenda So it would not be taken up then. We do not yet have the agenda for the November 19th meeting.

We do recognize that the commission may act in that proceeding. I will point out that virtually every local governmental entity and organization that submitted comments in that proceeding came out very strongly against it. The council of mayors, councils of governments, the counties were all unified in opposition and that is likely one of the reasons why the commission has not yet acted. We do not yet know what the commission is going to do.

There are some aspects to that proposal that could be implemented immediately, primarily when it comes to what we call eligible facilities requests. They had specific rules for those that it could, in theory, adopt. The second part of that order was really, however, just a series of questions. And in order to do the sorts of things that were just described a little while ago, which would so, at least potentially, take away from local jurisdictions authority, we do not yet have rules.

And so the commission, as a matter of administrative law, is going to have to do a supplemental notice for proposed rulemaking, receive comments, and then take the matter up again sometime in the future. So, yes, it is possible it will act. The things it can do in the short term are very limited and would not much, if at all, affect the ordinance here. Any changes by the commission that are more broad could in theory affect this ordinance, but that's not going to happen for quite some time.

It's my understanding that right now there's bipartisan support in the Congress to push for these barriers to be removed. I know that when we drafted this ordinance, one of the founding things that we said was we wanted to be the model code throughout the country to set the toughest limits for telecommunications companies. I think that's still what we drafted here and what you helped draft. Last week when I questioned you, you mentioned that some of this is legally defensible.

Sometimes you said the case law suggests those seem to me words that indicate litigation, that what we're proposing here has a good chance of surviving litigation. Shouldn't we be writing drafts to avoid litigation and maybe caution, maybe be more conservative in our approach to this so it doesn't get litigated in Fountain Hills, isn't the one that's going to pay the legal bills for municipalities, possibly all over the country? I hear two separate questions there.

One dealt with what's before Congress. It was a bill before For Congress and specifically the House, H.R. 2289. It was pulled down after significant opposition from all of the Democrats and enough Republicans to make it clear that that bill was not going to pass out of the House. The Senate has yet to actually propose, certainly vote out of committee, any such bill.

So there may be some sentiment in Congress for taking away local jurisdiction authority, but there's not a viable vehicle for it, as far as we can tell. Now, in terms of litigation, when you are drafting an ordinance of this sort, you do have to make some judgment calls. And we had perceived that the organization's marching orders to us was to draft an ordinance that, as much as was possible, preserved your authority.

That said we are going to have all and exercise all of the authority that we have left under federal and state law. The way that we built this ordinance, it preserves that. But it's very important to remember that you will be applying this ordinance in specific cases. And in each case, you will have the facts of that case before you. Within that part of the ordinance, there is lots of flexibility for you to make the determinations that you think best for your community.

If you think that a particular facility proposal is a good idea and belongs there or perhaps should be approved but with some changes You have the flexibility to do that In terms of litigation, and I'm going to try not to get too complicated here, you really have two acts in the federal statute that are in play. Section 253 and Section 332 C7. Any challenge to the ordinance that you promulgate today would have to go under Section 253.

And the courts that have looked at those treat those as facial challenges to the ordinance. In order to win, you have to show that the ordinance will always operate in an illegal fashion. If your lawyers can show that there is ever an instance where it would work in legal fashion, then the facial challenge fails.

Where any litigation might arise, my prediction, and I've done this all over the country on virtually every side of this in terms of interest, my experience is that the real meaningful challenges in litigation arise after a permit decision.

And so again, I will tell you that when you have a permit before you, you will have specific facts, and you have an extraordinary amount of discretion under this ordinance to make the findings that you think best and to achieve the outcome that you think should obtain for your community. And under those circumstances, I'm fairly comfortable that we can defend your ordinance. And I appreciate that. But defending it means letting a court and a judge decide.

And so that's something I'm trying to avoid. I guess my last question, and this is something that we did talk about two weeks ago, is we were writing this ordinance under threat by AT&T. They sent a legal letter that said that if they feel like we are outside the bounds of the norm, that we will be sued. Do you think if a telecom giant like AT&T were to pursue this litigation, that this would stand up on its own? Again, this is a two-part answer.

If you write an ordinance that presupposes that you will lose any actual permit decision, And you back off from exercising or at least reserving the authority that you have under federal law. You have essentially delegated to the wireless companies the decision on where this stuff goes and what it looks like. The way we wrote it, we keep that power with you. Now, can I say that the wireless company that may be dissatisfied with the permit decision will never file a challenge to it? No, I cannot.

In fact, I make my living in such things. They do happen. But while I'm wearing my hat as a council to the town, I will tell you that I am fairly confident that in a permit case, if you follow the ordinance, if you follow the evidence, if you make reasonable, well-articulated decisions, I think you will be able to defend it. Now, does that mean you will pay costs? The cost of your lawyers? Yes, it does. You won't pay the wireless company's fees. You will bear your own.

But the alternative is just giving the store away, allowing somebody else to make the decision. When we were retained, we were told, you want to be the ones to make these decisions. Sometimes that means you have to go through litigation. Okay, okay. Now on the AT&T letter, they did not threaten, because I have that letter, they did not threaten anything about an ordinance. The letter that they wrote had to do with a moratorium.

And when we were engaged, we said in no uncertain terms, you should not do a moratorium. So the issue that AT&T raised in its letter, it never came to pass because we agreed with them. You should not have done a moratorium. Okay, and thank you for that. And I'll just conclude with saying that, you know, I understand that this council did hire you to perform certain legal work, and it seems like you did exactly what they told you to do. So my question on this isn't questioning your work product.

I think you did exactly what the town asked for. So I appreciate that. I appreciate all the effort that you put into this because I agree when that's what you said. You'll do what we asked for and you did it. So thank you for your thoughtful answers. Happy to do it. We're privileged to work with the with the I want to say that a little bit differently that nothing precludes the applicant for submitting an application in totality.

Nothing precludes the town administrative staff from looking at it, analyzing it and sending it up to town council for final review in conjunction with an engaged expert. You still have the opportunity to say, the juice isn't worth the squeeze in the situation. We don't, we're right on the razor's edge of being able to support or deny something. So right up until that 11th hour, total control is still in our hands. Is that a good summary, John, of where we're at today?

Mayor Councilmember Watts, I believe that is a good way to summarize it. Do we have any comment cards, Town Clerk? Yes, Mayor. The town received six online comment cards with a position of against, and we have one request to speak. It is Lori Troller. And you had asked for an additional 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Good evening, Mayor, Council, Lori Triller, resident. I've got nine items. First is on page five. I want to clarify that there is no protection for otard devices.

I just want to make sure that is intentional. Page six, we define adequate coverage using the verbiage significant gap. I'd consider specifically defining that as a quarter mile. On page seven, we talk about the balloon test. It's defined at four hours. Then again on page 43 as eight hours and a weekend. I'd like to update both of those to eight hours for seven days. Also on page 43 about the balloon test is it's only done for structures over 100 feet. I'd like to upgrade that to 20 feet.

On page 9, I'd like to remove the definition for board adjustment. It's not used anywhere else in the ordinance. Page 11, there's a numbering issue, a bulleting issue. We go, it's the last item for co-location. We have a sub bullet number two, but never bullet one. Page 25, we're discussing the general rules for placement, and we don't mention the historic land. I'd like that included there. It is elsewhere in the ordinance, but not on page 25.

Also, on page 25, it's one of those first things, I think Rick was talking about this, it mentions town council. When decisions come back to town council, I just want to make sure that, I don't know if we need verbiage that says it's appropriate that town council also uses consult to tell com lawyers. I don't know if we want to include that. It's about page 32. There's discussion on the minimum antenna height at eight and a half feet. I think that's a cut and paste verbiage from broadband stuff.

I think we can strike that whole paragraph. Page 31 we talk about noise and then we do a call out to code in 11-1-7. I don't think that's the right code reference where we're talking about 70 decibels. So and then in the last meeting for chapter 19 there was an oversight on Rick's part. My concerns were I would like to thank the council. Through this five-year process, I would like to thank Rick Watts for four years of dedication and diligence on the topic. You are truly appreciated.

I also want to thank this mayor, Jerry, Hannah, Alan, Gail, Rachel for your support and taking the time to understand some of the technical aspects so you have the confidence to give this town the technology venue that protects our property values and our safety. Vanessa and Scott, I thank you for bringing your expansive experience to the aspects from the national, the circuit of appeals, state and local perspective, and assisting John with putting this together.

And John for getting through the thick and thin of this five trip weathering the uncomfortable politics and for championing the learning curve on this one and I think you can safely retire if you wanted to accomplish writing the toughest ordinance going I can forget Peg Thanks for pointing out to me what wasn obvious to people Thank you. Okay, before we continue discussion, I'm going to close the public hearing. and the council can begin discussion two minutes each. Thank you.

We just listened to a resident talk and direct the town council to make many, many changes in an ordinance, and I'm not sure that that is appropriate. I think it's up to the council to make those changes. I don't, if there's that many changes and there's, for us to consider even, and we haven't addressed the dangerousness of the underwear vaults, I don't think that this should pass right now.

I think that we need more time to take a look at it before moving forward with it and with all the changes. Thank you. Thank you. I listened to the comments by the speaker, but first I want to say thank you to John. I mean, it really is John's diligence, the tenacity to stay engaged, the pushback on not only comments, but on both attorneys, on Scott and Vanessa. The push and pull was something to watch. So we tried to get the most we could.

We got pushed back from the attorneys on a couple of issues. And to John's credit, he stayed the course. So thank you, John, for that. The list of things that were just discussed or mentioned are something that I think going forward we ought to consider as amendments. I want to get this ordinance passed. I want to get it in place. And then I want to talk about making amendments as we get on the road. They are important.

But if there's such a word as consequentiality of the ordinance as it stands today, 80 pages and having little more than half a dozen items that are minor in nature. Sorry, Laura. But I want to get this done without stalling any longer. So final thoughts. Thanks, John. Thank you. My question is to our attorney.

Is it within code or legal that we can make changes tonight and say that this person, Laurie Troller, who's spent a lot of time on this, I know really has researched this, that we can say we want to make those changes and pass that tonight in this ordinance? But I would say that we would have to review some of them closely. Some of the changes that she has requested can be done rather quickly, but some of the other ones she referenced may need a deep dive.

One thing I do want to point out is that with respect to the OTARs, I know it's an unhappy situation, but those are preempted by federal law, and so therefore those have to be accepted, and there is nothing that Calum can do about that. And then I also wanted to speak—oh, go ahead. Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, I mean, if you want to make a change, you could offer a change from the dais. There were quite a few suggested. But I mean you certainly can make changes from the dais.

It's sort of a cumbersome process, but that is within your purview if that's what you would like to do. Or you could wait and sort of maybe try to get all of them later in a follow-up. Do I have any time left on my two minutes? Well, it doesn't count when they're talking. So then my question is to the council, or can I, am I, let's see, getting this passed now and then doing the deep dive into what those items were she's talking to, then we could do an amendment in the near future.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I agree that Ms. Troller has done a great deal of work on this for many years. And even at this late hour, she needs extra time to point out all the flaws in this document. She is literally making my case that I made last week and I will continue to make this week.

This document is rife with misannotations misspellings misnomers it looks bad it very sloppy I would rather pass a good clean bill than a bad bill that going to need all this massaging in the future That one of the things I talked about to the town manager for years is passing ordinances that are subject to dual interpretations and are sloppily done And this is exactly what we're doing tonight.

In addition to all the errors, you know, application fee provision, fears inconsistent with Arizona law. Document gives the town too much discretion that more than Arizona law provides. I've got detailed analysis on all of this, but these are really concerns I have. The 10-year renewal language deserves very close scrutiny. It seems to be out of compliance. The relocation provisions, again, needs to be complied with Arizona law.

The letter of credit requirement is enormous and needs justification. This document appears to create a second regulatory approval system, a dual track for telecommunications company. Mr. Lissot, this seems to have a different regulatory system than the usual process. Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, I think it's a regulatory document. I think it outlines a process for going through it. Obviously, the consultants have explained, and you said it, that they did what the town asked them to do.

I mean, it's, I think it follows sort of a standard regulatory framework. Okay, and those are the comments I had, and all I'd like to do is say that I would like to put a motion to table this, so we can further look at it and discuss Ms. Troller's problems, the problems that the vice mayor has determined, which would be a long laundry list of amendments that I don't think we could adequately prepare tonight.

Why don't we take a month, why don't we look at the document, why don't we clean it up, have a discussion, maybe a work session, and go from there. Do I get a second? We have a motion and a second to table. Can we get a roll call vote please? Councilmember Kalavianakis. Aye. Councilmember Watts. Nay. Councilmember Skilicorn. No. Councilmember McMahon. Aye. Councilmember Larrabee. Nay. Vice Mayor Earle. Nay. Mayor Fridell. Nay. Motion fails 5-2. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to move to approve as written. Second. Thank you. I appreciate it. I object. And I object to any consideration of public, you know, drafting our ordinances or regulatory documents like that, et cetera. I've not seen that happen before. We're not taking those changes tonight as written. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. You're welcome. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I'm going to support this this evening as drafted.

I would recommend that we do like a trailer ordinance to just, and these are clerical that we're talking about. So I don't think it's going to be that big a deal, but I would recommend a future agenda item to just go over those clerical parts that are, and I noticed that councilman Watts was furiously writing them down. So I don't see that being an issue. So I will support this. Jerry, what about looking at the vaults?

I mean, I think that that's something that underwent vaults that really has to be addressed based on my research that I did. And I noticed the chief isn't weighing in on that, but I think it's serious consideration.

I think the vaults were addressed by many municipalities have them around the country, They know how to deal with it So I don see that as a significant risk They the professionals They dealt with it time and time again We not the only one requiring VALS They actually in use all over the place Am I correct John Yeah I thought so Okay My only comment is it kind of a point of order If we going to direct staff to do a shadow amendment then I think that should be brought up in future business I don think it could be brought up at this time I don't think he was looking for a vote on that.

I don't think she's wrong. Yeah. All right, so we... I think my only comment is about the vaults.

And having been involved with OSHA and all the OSHA requirements, and how thick the book of rules are with OSHA, and how the enforcement actions go, and having had first-hand knowledge, OSHA is real strict and protects the heck out of workers with shoring, with confined space, With all of the things that were mentioned, and they are legitimate concerns, but they are very stringently enforced by OSHA, and if you breach those laws, the fines are horrendous.

So I would defer to OSHA in making sure that we follow their guidelines, and I think that's addressed in the ordinance as well. We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please? Councilmember Skillicorn. Yes. Councilmember Larrabee. Aye. Council member McMahon. Council member Calvianakis. Council member Watts. Vice mayor Earl. Mayor Fidel. Motion passes 5-2. Thank you.

Moving on to regular agenda item B, consideration possible action regarding ordinance 26-16, amending subdivision ordinance. Rachel. Mayor, once again, this is yet another companion piece to our conversation. to align our subdivision ordinance. John will walk us through those changes as well. Mayor, Council members, this is fairly simple and straightforward.

As the Planning and Zoning Commission looked at the wireless telecommunication ordinance and the provisions there, looking to the future with some of the undeveloped land in town, they felt it would be important in the future as we go through a planning process for developers to consider that up front where cell towers may go and to show that then on the preliminary plats. So staff and the future buyers in the area would have some idea upfront.

So this is a very simple amendment to the subdivision ordinance to add a provision that would require for any subdivision of land of 50 acres or greater that they indicated preliminary plat where cell towers may go. It doesn't obligate them to put those towers in. It just gets that early idea and understanding of what may happen. Thank you very much. I have a couple questions. John, if you don't mind.

I'm trying to understand what the purpose of this is and what the town is trying to solve in requiring this. That the permit and the developer designate a place for future telecommunications. I mean, I have concerns with that, that it's expensive for the developer. The topography might not It might not be the best site, etc. So I don't understand why you're saying 50 acres is requiring this, but yet 49 and 49 and a half are. Is there a reason why it's 50 acres?

And what is the reason for requesting this? Mayor, Councilmember, again, the reason to request it is rather than have the location of towers be determined sometime in the future after homes are already built and people establish their homes without the thought that a cell tower may come in, by identifying those locations up front, then the future developers and the future property owners can come into that knowing there's the possibility of where those cell towers may go.

So it keeps the public more informed up front. 50 acres, there's maybe not a lot of magic to that, but it does start to get enough of a development size that having a cell tower within it becomes a possibility. Probably not need to go any smaller, but if you want to make that a little bit larger, that would certainly be appropriate. Thank you, but I still don't understand why it's necessary that we do this.

It's like waving a red flag, so to speak, given how Over the history of our discussions with sale towers and 5G, they're not wanted. I don't understand why it's up to the developer. I must be missing something because I don't understand why it's up to the developer to put it in their plan and their permit process. That may not even ever occur on that property. Given the changes that's going to come up over the future in technology, it may never be needed.

Also, if the developer Proper decides not to develop that property. Does it transfer, does it run with the land? Does the next developer have to redo the same thing? I mean, I don't think there's clarity, some clarification in this that I think is necessary because if he doesn't want that or want to allow a cell tower, then how did he get out of this requirement? Mayor Kals, member, a couple of things there. Thank you.

The area plats expire after year if they're not followed up with the final plat. So they're that early look, they're the idea of how the property may develop and give us that direction going forward. But if they don't move forward, then it all dies. Also is the initial subdivider looking at the land and how they think it's going to be developed and where they're laying out the lots and the streets and so forth and identifying where a tower may go. It's not obligating a tower to be there.

It just, again, informs The staff and the council, the public around there upfront where that may go so they can make plans accordingly if it should come in. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Director Wesley. Um, you know, this seems like it's smart. It's proactive. It's forward looking. So if you want to do me a favor, thank planning and zoning for suggesting this is it's a good idea. And on that note, I make a motion to approve is drafted. Second. A quick question.

I think in the spirit of disclosure, this was intended much like real estate disclosures. Multi pages, roofing issues, structural foundation issues, accidents. So all we're doing is saying it needs to be disclosed to potential buyers, pure and simple. Secondly, it's a space that's going to be allocated for the future if the data supports the necessity. So if there isn't a necessity and we've got qualifiers there that says the tower needs to have empirical data, then it won't go in, period.

But we've disclosed it and we don't have any pushback from homeowners. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank you for the planning for the future. I think this is a smart move. Thanks. And I'll add, I always think it's nice to give notice. So we have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please? I'm sorry, any speaker cards on this one? Yes, Mayor. Oops.

The town received six online comment cards with the position of against, and we have one requested to speak, and she has declined. So no. We can move forward with the roll call vote. Thank you. Councilmember McMahon? Aye. Councilmember Watts? Aye. Councilmember Skillicorn? Yes. Councilmember Calvianakis? No. Councilmember Larrabee. Aye. Vice Mayor Earl. Aye. Mayor Fridell. Aye. One quick question. Councilmember McMahon, may I have your motion, your vote again? Was it nay? Thank you.

Motion passes five to two. Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item 9C regarding a proposed ordinance related to Sharia law presented at the request of Councilman Skillicorn. Rachel? Mayor, I'm going to defer to Councilman Skillicorn to take the lead on the discussion and will we here to answer any questions or take any direction? Thank you, Mr. Mayor, town manager. Yeah, so I made the suggestion and made the motion to consider this.

And, you know, just want to give some kind of underground and also expectations. So the town of Fountain Hills has very limited authority on big issues. You know, effectively, we are non charter. We're just a town. According to the Arizona statutes and constitution, you know, we don't have great, great authority. We actually limited authority. So, you know, we can control things like roads and sidewalks and our right-of-way. And, you know, and that's really it.

But we can make a statement on that we agree with current Arizona law. We can make a statement that we agree with the Senate Bill 1018 that was vetoed by Governor Hobbs. And we also can really set the tone for the, you know, the values and protecting freedom.

And that really what I wanted to do with this So my suggestion and I did send over basically a proclamation or resolution over to the town attorney effectively that we just honor Arizona state law about honoring United States and state law and not foreign law There just a couple provisions of that We just basically codify those state laws And then also there just a note saying that we support SB 1018 which was vetoed by Katie That was a legislation that passed both the House and Senate that would add Sharia law in the same context as foreign law for the state.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, since there's no staff report on this and since the town manager already said that it was legitimate to question the person that put this on the agenda, which would be you, Councilmember Skillicorn, you said that this is going to protect our values and our freedom. Could you elaborate on that? I don't feel the need to explain myself in this situation.

So you make an allegation that it's going to hurt our values and not protect our freedom, and you've got no comment whatsoever to make? Your lack of a comment tells us everything we need to know. My second question, can you identify a single case in Fountain Hills where Mr. Mayor, Councilperson, I can't think of any, but again, we do things forward-looking.

And just like the last ordinance, we decided to do something forward-looking, even though there are no 50-acre plats in front of us today, we decided to adopt that. So it's no different. So what evidence do you have that this is a current or a foreseeable problem that a municipality should be dealing with? Mr Mayor, Councilperson, when I look at the acts of violence and terrorism in France over the weekend, I have every example I need.

Do you understand that Sharia literally means the path to the watering place and is the fundamental religious law, moral code, and The spiritual path of Islam. Do you understand what Sharia is? And do you understand that the founding of this government in America was based on religious freedom? And are you suggesting today that we pick and choose religions to codify and to exclude? Is that what you want us to do here tonight? Mr. Mayor, council person, that is not my intention at all.

I recognize freedom. I recognize religious freedom. I also recognize their ability to express that we support Arizona law. That doesn't make any sense to me. Why should the town council act on this without a staff report, identifying a problem, analyzing the existing law, and explaining what this ordinance would accomplish? Mr. Mayor, council person, is it appropriate to have a staff report for something to suffer discussion? We don't need staff to tell us what we can discuss, do we?

Is that what you're suggesting? I'm expecting, we have no guidance on this other than we're here to protect our values and our freedom, which doesn't make any sense to me. Would you apply the same standard? Brenda, you're out of time. I'm sorry, but we got to... This is a question and answer period, Jerry. I get a minute to ask and he gets unlimited time to answer. Two minutes to each speaker. I mean... That's during the next phase after the call. Point of order.

This phase, you've already admitted that this phase we can ask points. Once the port of order has made, the mayor needs a rule on the port of order, either to deny it or to acknowledge it. Okay, rules of decorum 6.4b4. Well, can we have the town attorney weigh in on this? A council member once recognized shall limit remarks to no more than two minutes. It does not say at what point, it's whenever we're speaking. That is after the call of the public. No, it is not.

Can we have the attorney weigh in on this? There is a point of order for the mayor to rule on. Mayor Councilmember it the Chair decision whether to accept the point of order I think it is subject to challenge and a vote of the full body but it his initial judgment whether to agree with the point of order or not Brenda, we need to move on. We have a lot of comment cards, I'm sure, on this on this subject as well and we have other council members that want to weigh in as well.

So we'll go back to you. Okay, I think I made my point. Juries, this is the Q&A, right? And we get an opportunity to make a comment afterward, correct? Thank you very much. Also, I wanted to ask if you were going to allow Martin Quazeta to have some time to speak or not? To have Martin, who is Mr. Quazeta, who is the attorney for care, etc. He's in the audience, and I would hope he would have some time to speak. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

And, Mayor, just to be clear, because it's typically not allowed to directly address a council member I am permitted to. Got it. Thank you. So through the chair. Councilman Skillicorn, my understanding for this proposal was that it, the language is simply that foreign or religious law does not supersede. The law of the land, is that accurate? Mr. Mayor, Councilwoman, that is really it. It restates and codifies Arizona law.

I did add the paragraph or sentence about that we would support 1018, not unlike our legislative reports in the past. Thank you. And does the language of your proposal specifically name a religion? Mayor, may I interject? This item is agendized for discussing whether the town should consider an ordinance. There's no real ordinance on the table now. Understood. I think the discussion is should the town consider such an ordinance, not really as to what the specific ordinance is. Thank you.

Just to be concise, can I finish and just make a final... Is that fine? And you accuse that of other people, so... What the mayor decided? Thank you, town attorney, and I will save the rest of my questions for the next meeting. Town clerk, do we have any comment cards? I have a motion to make at this time pursuant to town code section 5.2. Point of order. This is a discussion only. There's no motion.

Pursuant to section 5.2 of the Fountain Hills Code, I have the right, my right, to make a motion to give the speakers representing the Muslim community 10 minutes to address. That would be Martin Quisada, the attorney for care, and Azada Azbousif, the executive director, and I would ask for a second. Second.

So all we're voting on here is whether we're going to give these gentle people a chance to speak for 10 minutes on behalf of care to make their argument and ask us what we're doing here tonight. Can I get a roll call vote? Can I ask a question on clarification? Go ahead. Ten minutes total or ten minutes for each individual? I'm not speaking on their individual. I'd be speaking for them as representatives of care to allocate ten minutes.

We've already given extra time on the telecommunications ordinance to speakers. I think this would just be a kind gesture to let them address this with this council. Council. Mr. Mayor, would it be okay to typically make a motion like this? It would go right to roll call, but I think it's fair to discuss this particular 10 minutes. I think I would like to hear a little more of why or why not. We would not want to do that. Is that fair? Well, I think we have a motion in a second.

Can we have a ruling on that? Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, I think this should be treated as a privileged motion where it's voted on without debate. Thank you. I do have a point of clarification. I apologize. Mayor? Thank you. Have the speakers already turned in a card to speak on this agenda item? We did receive one from Martin What was the can you please refresh my memory who was the other speakers Aza A I sorry I didn hit my speaker on Aza A She's the executive director of CARE.

And I think my motion would supersede a comment card. I understand. I was just asking. I do not see that. I see other members of CARE requesting to speak. I'm not seeing unless it's S. I see as can you pronounce her last name? I see as Sumaya Bay. No, this was A-B-U-S-E-I-F. Would my motion supersede the comment cards? No. So we would give the whole time to Martin if this I'm willing to go along with that. No, no. Mayor, I do not see that person as part of the list of cards to speak.

Okay, so here- Can I have a point of clarification too? Is this, I know we normally limit to 30 minutes, and are we then not going to let anybody else speak? Right, we're going to give Martin the time to speak. But does any, within, then we would still have more time, another 20 minutes for other people to speak if they want to? Because it's a total of 30 minutes if we give him 10 minutes? They fill out forms. As long as they filled out forms.

So he would be, yeah, he would be representing care, I believe. Is that what you want, Brenda? Yes, Mr. Mayor. He would just give him 10 minutes initial shot, and then we can just go with the rest of the speaker cards as the 30 minutes will allow. Okay. So we need to vote on that anyway. We have a motion and a second to allow Martin 10 minutes and then the remaining 20 minutes will be split up between the cards that you have because we allow 30 minutes total. So is that fair? Very fair.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right. So we have a motion and a second on that. Can we get a roll call? Sure. Councilmember McMahon. Aye. Councilmember Kalabianakis. Aye. Councilmember Larrabee. I don't support silencing everybody else, so no. Council member Watts? No. Council member Skillicorn? No. Vice mayor Earl? Aye. I do want to hear it. Mayor Fidell? Aye. Motion passes. Four to three. All right, so we'll start with Martin. Sure, that sounds good.

And just for the record though, the town did receive eight online comic cards with a position of against. We also received one written card tonight with a position of against. We received over 100 emails. Martin, you have 10 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I appreciate the opportunity to have that extra time as well. I'm going to speak on behalf of my executive director, Ms. Abusef, so it will be just myself.

I'm not going to take up the full 10 minutes so we can hear from some of the other speakers this evening. Again, Mr. Mayor and members of the council, for the record, my name is Martin Quesada, and I am the attorney and the civil rights director for the Council on American Islamic Relations, Arizona's chapter. And we are, as CARE Arizona, we are the state affiliate of the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the nation.

We did send you a letter back on September 21st after the last council meeting, not the last one, but the one before that, where this agenda item was requested. I hope you all had a chance to review that letter, take a look at that. We do stand behind everything that was in that letter and we want to emphasize those points again tonight. Our main request for you this evening is that you do not move forward in drafting this ordinance. We do not think that this is necessary.

We do not think it's appropriate. And we think that there are some legal implications if this were to move forward as well. Before I move on to kind of my formal comments, I did want to touch on just a few of the issues that were raised earlier during this conversation. In regards to Senate Bill 1018, if that were to be included in a future resolution, Senate bill 1018 was passed by the House and the Senate earlier this year. It was vetoed by the governor in June of this year.

Senate bill 1018 no longer exists. It is not a living proposal at this point anymore. So if you were to put that into any type of resolution at this point board, you're basically saying that you're supporting an issue that no longer exists. That issue would have to be proposed again next year in it by a new legislature. The Senate Bill 1018 after it was vetoed, it is officially dead as a legislative proposal.

In regards to, I believe one of your members mentioned that there was no single incident that could be recalled about Sharia law being an issue here in this town. And that is 100% true.

Each of the proposals like this one that is being debated here tonight, the one that was proposed in Florida, the one that was proposed in Oklahoma, each of the sponsors of each of those proposals also said that they had heard no record whatsoever of any type of instance where Sharia law or Sharia in general in any way, shape or form was impacting legal decisions, was interfering with the Constitution, was interfering with the laws of this land. because that problem does not exist.

So I would like to get into my formal comments now. And as I mentioned before on September 15th, a member of this council asked for a quote-unquote Florida-style ban on Sharia law. That was not a request on a ban on any particular crime. It was not a request about a ban on any particular criminal incident. That was a request of a ban on a The religion's guidance for how its members live. And it's important to understand what Sharia is if you are going to propose this.

Sharia is how the Muslim community prays. Sharia is how they fast during Ramadan, much like Christians observe Lent. And it is how Sharia is how they give to the poor, much like church tiding in the religions I assume many of you practice as well. It is the same kind of thing as canon law for Catholics or the halaha for Jewish families. And I haven't heard anybody or anyone propose an ordinance to try to ban those issues. The town of Fountain Hills does not have a Sharia problem.

Oklahoma adopted a similar ban in the early 2000s. A district court struck that down. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that striking down of that law as well. There is legal precedent that this is not allowed. And Arizona law already bans the enforcement of foreign or religious law that violates the constitutional rights. So again, if you're going to put forward a proposal that is trying to codify state law, you actually cannot codify state law.

State law is already codified, otherwise it wouldn't be state law. So you would just simply be making a statement that you believe in a law that already exists. That law already does exist. When the governor vetoed Senate Bill 1018 in June, she warned that it would cost taxpayers millions in a lawsuit if the state were to lose. This town would surely lose too if we did have to take it to court. And this town would pay for it and its taxpayers would pay for it.

But there's an additional cost that I want you to be aware of, and I hope that you will be aware of, that does not show up in any legal bill. And that's, I want you to think about a Muslim mother who hears her elected officials debate her faith as a threat. She starts to wonder whether the deputy that shows up at her door will see her as a victim or see her as a suspect. If that's the case, she's not going to report the man who harassed her at a grocery store.

She's not going to report the break-in in her home or her neighbor's home. And she's not going to come forward as a witness if she does see another crime. Your deputy's police behavior, they do not police belief. And they've spent years earning trust in your community. A proposal like this would put all of that trust at risk. And because rhetoric does not stay rhetoric, rhetoric translates into action. Sooner or later it will show up at someone's door.

And this type of rhetoric has already shown up at people's doors throughout this past calendar year as these issues have been debated at the state level.

And I could give you plenty of examples of how this rhetoric has turned into dangerous and violent action at the front doors and the doors of houses of worship of Muslim families in this community So how we all handle disagreement about religious issues or political issues in general that matters And we are also aware that this conversation isn't just happening here. It happens on social media. You may see posts online about Sharia.

And we want you to know that the town should think about how it wants to be seen in regards to these matters, and how it wants to be perceived about these matters. Care Arizona as an organization, and this is in conclusion, Mr. Mayor and members of the council, we would much rather build something and fight against it. But we will defend our community, both in this chamber and in court if we have to. So in conclusion, I want to ask one more time, there's no need to bring this issue forward.

There's no need to put this in writing in a resolution. It's only repeating what is already state law, and if this does move forward, it only brings harm to this community, and we want to see the town of Fountain Hills thrive rather than deal with these issues. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, members of the council. I don't know if it's appropriate, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Is it appropriate? No. Thank you. Please no disruptions. Thank you. Next speaker please. Matthew Corrigan.

Marion Council, Matthew Corrigan, Felton Hills, Arizona. It was August 26th of this year, in the year, 2026, in an interview with Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck is a radio TV host and political commentator. The interview was with Donald J. Trump and in that interview he said, This is the president now. He would absolutely prohibit Sharia law in the United States. I'm in favor of the US Constitution. We have one form of law, one form of justice, and one right for all people.

all citizens of the United States live under those constitutional rights. This is a different issue. Sharia law is its own separate institution. We only have one form of justice, one form of law. So I support the US Constitution. I do not support Sharia law. And as to CARE, I recognize that they are an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2017 Holy Land Foundation. That is a fact. So, all the issues aside, it's important that we stand on the US Constitution only.

And in that constitution, we know that we have the right of freedom of faith. That's religion. And I can read it to you, but you all should know it, I hope. And it doesn't involve anything, words about Sharia law. So, matter of fact, it indicates that we should not establish, you know, we do not in this country establish or prohibit religion.

That's an important point and we know about freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to petition the government which is what we're all doing here tonight in a manner. This is a very bad idea allowing Sharia law in any component to come into Fountain Hills. The constitution is what we live by. The rule of law is what we live by. Those are my thoughts. Thank you very much. Please no disruptions. Let's be respectful. We need proper decorum in this room. Next speaker please. Linda Somo.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Linda Somo. I am a resident. And I want to thank Mr Corrigan because he just made the points for me We do live under a constitution that guarantees us freedom of religion freedom of the press freedom of speech We also have the first article of the Constitution which says Congress will create no laws, no laws, regarding the establishment of a religion nor restricting the free practice thereof. Let's call this what it is.

This ordinance has nothing to do with the law, as you've already heard. The law of the land is the constitution and Arizona codes. So this does nothing to reinforce those because they are already the law of the land. All this does is to tell the those who practice their religion by following certain laws of their religion It has nothing to do with the law of the land that they're not welcome in this community. That's what this is trying to do. It has nothing to do with the laws.

I'm not surprised that Mr. Skillicorn or even Miss Larrabee want to pass this. I am surprised that Mr. Watts, these two will not be here after December. Mr. Watts will. So when the lawsuit is filed because this council passed something that tells a particular religion that we don't want you here in Fountain Hills and the taxpayers end up having to pay for that lawsuit, they'll be gone. The rest of you will be here experiencing the consequences of what you decide tonight. Let's kill this tonight.

You don't even need to consider this in the future. Vote no. Thank you. I will not ask again. Please be respectful. Next speaker, please. Tan Jaquani. Before the speaker speaks, since Rick Watts was named in there, I'm going to give him a chance to respond. You have a minute, Rick. One minute? Yeah. Okay. In response to what Ms. Omo said, you don't know how I'm going to vote. My no was specific to not listening to the attorney. The attorney brought up some interesting points.

I think you can address this without an ordinance. I think you can address it by how we've done numerous times in the past by saying, by way of a resolution, making sure that our government, our state government, knows our position. So a resolution without naming Sharia. I'm not a supporter of Sharia, but I am an absolute supporter of religious freedoms. I'm an absolute, whether it's Catholic canon, whether it's the Jewish, I can never pronounce the name, so my apologies for that.

But we all have things that we live by, and I respect those things. I don't, I would not for a moment support using the name Sharia in any type of a resolution, but I would support saying that we are going to honor the federal, state, the Bill of Rights, all 27 of the amendments, and we're going to honor those moving forward and that would be the position that I would ask the council to move forward. So I just want to make sure that you don't think I'm going to vote for this.

I hope you don't, but you don't know yet, so don't assume before you hear my vote. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor and the members of the council, so my name is Tan Chakwani. I'm a Muslim resident of neighboring Scottsdale. I'm a...can you hear me? I'm sorry, I'm short. Okay, so I'm a Muslim resident of neighboring Scottsdale. I am not wearing a scarf. I am a Muslim. For 20 years, I've been an active supporter of this community.

I and my group of friends from Scottsdale, we come here to hike your beautiful trails.

I regularly eat at your restaurants and I contribute to local economy My connection to this town is also deeply spiritual I have attended multiple Pray Well Together interfaith thanksgiving gatherings and what I observed in that scenario in that space is that I see a fountain here rooted in mutual respect warmth and shared faith We have multiple faiths So I'm very confused and disturbed by the proposed ordinance.

Like many people have question, is there any real incident, real crime that happened to trigger this band? And what did you intend for this band to do? Julie, I want to know what did you intend for the band to do? What would it do for your community here, for all of us surrounding you? We love you all, and I see you all working diligently to make your town great with all the ordinances you tried to pass to make everything safer, zoning and that. When this came up, it is so intense.

Everyone is nervous. I see the couple sitting on the side of me, very nervous, afraid that she would be asked to put on the scarf. That's not true. I've never been forced by my husband to wear a scarf. That's just what you may hear from the news, but it's not really not that. So I don't want to take more of the time. I just want to say that I want to invite all of you to visit our mosque. It's just 10 minutes away from here on Via Linda and 122nd Street.

Visit us sometime and share kebabs and curries with us and get to know each other better. It's my true invitation to all of you. I just want to say that I'm sitting here looking at the iconic fountain that you have in front of them, behind the mayor. I see it as a beautiful symbol of peace and prosperity for Fountain Hills and all of us. So thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker. Rosina Khan. Hi, good evening. Can you hear me? Hi, good evening, Mayor and council members.

My name is Rosina Khan, and I'm a Muslim and an American. I've lived in Mesa and Scottsdale for almost 20 years, and this is the first time I've ever stood at the podium at a council meeting. Tonight I felt compelled to come because I'm troubled and quite frankly saddened. I intend to be direct and to the point. I may not live in Fountain Hills, but I'm your neighbor. What's decided in this room is felt by Muslim families across Arizona and across America.

The agenda reads a proposed ordinance related to Sharia law. I still can't tell you what purpose it serves. There is no Sharia court in Fountain Hills, none in Arizona, and as a Muslim, I have never gone to one and I answer to no one but the laws of the land. I don't need to tell you this. This is the Constitution. You guys already know this. So quite frankly, the best I can assume is that this serves a political agenda or is designed to stir up fear.

An ordinance against something that doesn't exist is like building a flood wall in the desert. It protects no one and serves no purpose. What it does is point fingers at your Muslim neighbors. So what's Sharia in my life? Well, it's why I give charity. It's why I fast. It's why I keep my word. It's my conscience. Catholics have canon law. Jewish families live by halaga. Nobody's proposing to ban those laws and nobody should. One of my many roles is serving on the HOA board in Scottsdale.

Really proud of that. And it's taught me what it means to make rules for neighbors and that I can't target one family in our community because their faith or values are different from mine. Neither can you. Right now hate against Muslims is on the rise and it lands on real people. We've been here before. Irish Catholics were told they couldn't be Americans because they answered to the Pope. Jewish families were questioned about their loyalty and patriotism.

Latter-day Saints were also at one time called a threat and the governor of Missouri ordered them be driven from the state. These are just some examples. Every one of those fears was wrong. Every one of those communities helped to build this country. and every apology came too late. So fear is not leadership. This ordinance serves no problem, and it creates a real one. It tells Muslim families they aren't welcome. So I'm asking you for something better.

Instead of writing this ordinance about Sharia, get to know us. Come and meet your Muslim neighbors, visit our mosque, ask us questions, because connection is how fear ends, and I believe this town is better than this so please vote no. Thank you. Next speaker. Kim Bartman. Kim Bartman, Fountain Hills. I asked you to reconsider whether our town truly needs to vote to ban Sharia. Before considering a vote for this Sharia ban, we should ask what problem are we trying to solve?

Has something happened in our town that makes this necessary? What would this vote accomplish that our existing laws do not already cover? Great leadership means bringing people together, treating everyone fairly, and making decisions based on facts rather than fear. Although we may have different beliefs, we all want safe neighborhoods, happy families, and a community where everyone feels welcome. Our laws should apply equally to everyone, regardless of religion.

Sharia is a set of Islamic, religious, and moral teachings that many Muslims follow in their personal lives, emphasizing kindness, honesty, charity, and caring for others. Many Muslims in Western countries, it guides personal and religious practices rather than replacing the laws of their country. Our constitution and Arizona laws protect everyone's rights and religious rules cannot replace American law.

Singling out one religion can create fear, mistrust, division, while making innocent people feel unwelcome. Everyone deserves equal rights and protection, regardless of their faith. If our existing laws already protect us, we should have a clear, compelling reason, spending our town's time and resources on another vote. Our council should focus on real problems and solutions that benefit all residents, not measures that divide our community.

I urge you to choose understanding over judgment and unity over division. We can uphold our laws while treating every person with dignity and respect. Please do not support a measure that targets one religion without a clear and compelling reason. Stand for fairness, religious freedom, and all the people you are elected to represent.

And by the way, the folks here that are here tonight, Some of the outreach that they do and the stuff they do for even extended hands food bank for our 9-11 food drive and I would cry too because you guys are this this couple here is so rude and saying really hateful bigoted things. Next speaker. Shelby Bleicher. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Town Council, Shelby Blecker, resident of Fountain Hill, speaking on my own behalf.

We heard tonight about Sharia law and the way, but let's talk about the Quran. And the Quran is the primary foundation and source of Sharia, providing the core divine principles, ethical guidance, and direct legal commandments upon which Islamic law is built.

Now, there are a lot of contradictions in the Quran, but how do you reconcile the part of Quran 9.5 that says, And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polyethilists wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and sit and wait for them at every place in ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give sakkah, then let them on their way. Indeed, Allah is forgiving and merciful. Killing people if they don't repent and establish prayer, etc., it's coercion.

Now, I did some reading about Sharia law by the Foreign Policy Association, an article written by Cassandra Clifford. The practice of Sharia law has frequently left women and girls with legal shortcomings that have forced them to live in fear, especially in instances of rape. Rape is often treated as instances of adultery. Traditionally, criminal sanctions for sexual relations outside of wedlock are death by stoning. If the accused is married and a hundred lashes if they are unmarried.

Sharia law, it is often required that the crime be validated by witnesses in the case of rape. It is to be witnessed by four Muslim males or there is fear of risk that the victim may be charged with adultery Now these are not my words This is what I read like I said in the Foreign Policy Association The girl was charged and stoned to death and it was just I mean it awful Are we going to not protect our children? There are parts of Sharia law that scare me to death.

There are no parts of Jewish law that scare me at all. I don't have any knowledge of any Jewish laws that tell you you can go out and kill somebody if they won't convert. Now, all this being said, I am usually the guy that stands up here and says, Fountain Hills needs to be the town, the shiny town up on the hill that leads. Not in this case. I'm really asking that the council defer to state law first and wait for state law to rule on this before we take a position.

We should not be providing a reason to the state saying, yeah, we want to support this ban on Sharia law, so please go ahead and pass it. No, I think this is too inflammatory. There are way too many problems. I think we should wait and let the legislatures in the state capitol rule on this, and then we can say whether or not we want to follow it and support it. Thank you very much for my time. We have time for one more speaker. Reverend David Fecton.

Good evening, Reverend David Felton from the Fountains United Methodist. And whoo boy, I would love to talk to my previous speaker about the things he hasn't read in the Bible. Once upon a time, Mullah Nasruddin was sitting near the gates of Baghdad when a stranger approached him. Excuse me, the man said, business requires me to move to Baghdad. What is this city really like? Nasruddin asked, what was the place like where you came from? Oh, it was wonderful. Neighbors were kind to one another.

People looked out for children. They shared what they had. They were generous and welcoming. I hated to leave. Nasruddin smiled. Well then, you will love Baghdad. Welcome. Later, another stranger approached Nasruddin with the same question. And again he asked, what was the place like where you came from? Terrible! People were selfish and dishonest. Nobody trusted anybody. Everybody was suspicious of everybody else. I couldn't get away fast enough. Nasruddin nodded, then you will hate Baghdad.

Best you move on to another city. Nasruddin understood something about communities. We tend to bring the place we came from with us. As an Arizona native, I dare say I'm one of the few in the room, I usually am in Fountain Hills. I've watched people come to this state my entire life, and most have brought their gifts, cultures, traditions, families, and hopes, and Arizona is the richer for it. But some arrive carrying old baggages, fears, grievances, and prejudices.

And then they try to unpack them here and tell the rest of us what we ought to be afraid of too. No, thank you. Fountain Hills motto is, All that is Arizona. I sometimes wonder if our town council knows what all really means. I would hope all includes our Muslim neighbors, because they are already a part of Arizona. They are our doctors and teachers, business owners and students, co-workers and friends. They are our neighbors. So perhaps the question before us tonight isn't really about Sharia.

Perhaps the better question is, what baggage are you bringing through the gates? Welcome or suspicion? Neighborliness or fear? The generous, diverse Arizona that we are still trying to become? Or somebody else's old prejudices packed up and brought here as baggage? I know which Fountain Hills that I want, and if someone comes here determined to make our Muslim neighbors objects of suspicion, perhaps Mullah Nasruddin has the best advice. There are other cities you might feel comfortable in.

But here in Fountain Hills, if we really mean all that is Arizona, then let's have the courage to mean all Thank you We move on to council discussion This is two minutes each period Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I realize there won't be any vote. We're just giving direction to staff. So I just want to be crystal clear what I would like to direct staff to do.

What I would love is if the town attorney could draft a resolution that represents our intent here, but also does not overstep any authority, does not run us into any legal challenges, and spend some time and really ponder what the best course of action is for this resolution. Not only protect the town, but also protect the intent that we're looking for. And I think it just to honor Arizona law, and I did still include the SB 1018 in that. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to echo the same direction.

I agree, and I'm going to try my best to keep under the two minutes. If I get cut off, I'll talk about it next time we talk about this. The question was posed several times of why this might bear repeating, right? What is the real world example? I'm not going to go into Europe. Most of you have heard it before, but I will go into what's going on in America.

In Dearborn, Michigan, where there are now famously five calls to prayer per day publicly broadcasted, The first amendment cited for this practice is not so evenly distributed. Four pastors were recently arrested for having voluntary conversations with festival goers. The Islamic Tribunal, based in Dallas, Texas, has operated since 2014. There's a current investigation into whether they have impersonated court official documents or otherwise misled people that they are an official court.

They are on record having publicly advertised themselves as an authority over, quote, all aspects of Muslim life and asserted that their decisions carry the approval of the Texas judicial system, allegedly, describing all rulings as final. While all religious organizations reserve the right to handle doctrinal matters internally, moral matters, no religion has the ability to take the place of a judicial court. Similar tribunals already exist in other states as well for a brief and complete list.

We have the Islamic Dispute Resolution Services of California, the Sharia Council of Southern California, Islamic Council of America servicing mainly Midwestern America, Internal Council of Michigan and the Dearborn Detroit areas, the North American Islamic Trust which additionally holds titles of hundreds of mosques around the United States, and the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America which we'll touch on in a moment if I have time. There is advocacy for Sharia law in the United States.

CARE, for example, their founder, Ahmad, he disputes this and claims it was paraphrased, but I question what the paraphrasing was of. No one seems to be able to provide the original quote. The quote that the journalists defended was, Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only The Assembly of Muslim Juris of America, which boasts a core network of 500 to 600 imams. Time. Time. Time.

I'll ask you to leave if you interrupt again. Thank you, Mary. I feel for everyone in this room because there seems to be a lot of fear. And I'm not clear on are we talking about religion or are we talking about true government law. I don't take kindly to being feeling like I need to take the knee because someone's threatening we're going to be sued, a lawsuit, or that we're bringing harm to our community. I don't know exactly what the attorney meant by that.

But I also see that Sharia law, my understanding of what I'm hearing here, if we're talking about religion, we have no business regulating that. We don't regulate canon law. We don't regulate Jewish law. And we have freedom of religion in our country. It was founded on that.

So, if we're talking about, which we should be talking about here, just law, we don't, my support is leaving this with the state The Arizona law ARS 123103 already prohibits enforcing any foreign law that conflicts with our constitutional rights and it applies here without any action from us So therefore I give no direction to staff on this item. Thank you very much.

Thank you everybody for coming tonight and just know that your voices The issues have been heard and your concerns deserve to be acknowledged and thoughtfully considered by everybody in the room. And for many of us, this agenda item may be difficult to discuss and it has been for me, particularly given the negative associations and discriminatory connotations that surround the subject of Surreal Law.

However, I believe that we can also approach this discussion as an opportunity to learn and develop a better understanding of a subject that may be unfamiliar to all of us. And I know that researching this that I've learned a great deal about Shri Allah and the process has left me humbled, I have to say. It has reminded me of the importance of looking beyond assumptions, seeking knowledge, and making an effort to understand perspectives and traditions that may differ from our own.

And firstly, the Constitution belongs to all of us, including Muslim friends and neighbors, who have the same fundamental right to religious freedom as you, me, and everyone else. You know, as has been shared before, Sharia law is not a statutory law in the sense that one might think.

It's a way of life through a broad religious and ethical tradition that Muslims interpret and practice It may guide personal beliefs, it may guide prayer, it may guide fasting, dietary practices, charity, family life, business ethics, and moral ethics. It's a path. It's a way of life. It's similar has been stated to the canons of Catholicism and Halakha for Jewish Americans.

Both traditions preserve sacred teachings, interpret religious obligations, prayer, moral conduct, and transmit beliefs across generations for practices in everyday life. And further, the government may not single out Sharia or Muslims for special legal restrictions while treating comparable conduct or religious practices differently for others.

Existing Arizona law already provides circumstances in which foreign law conflicts with constitutional rights state or federal, our constitution prevails. No one should be treated as an alleged extremist group and or threat merely for being Muslim. The Globe article 923 referencing Skillicorn's extremist Muslim comments. And no elected official's personal brief should take precedent over personal fundamental constitutional rights.

Freedom of religion, freedom of speech are not privileges reserved for one faith or political viewpoint. They are reserved for all of us. I think this is a shame that we're even talking about it and it shouldn't go any further. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Two minutes. I heard one of the council members talk about fear. I think that was well said. Selling fear is the honorable tradition of politicians. They do it all the time.

They say, is this town better than this? I heard that tonight. We're going to answer that question tonight, is this town better than this? I recognize a troubling principle when I see it. The tendency to turn a minority into a target to make people feel that somehow they don't quite belong in this community. The English only ordinance comes to mind and the last election cycle brought up some foul nastiness. We have Muslim residents that live in Fountain Hills. These people are our neighbors.

They deserve the same respect, security, and sense of belonging that anybody that lives here or visits here does. The government should solve problems, not manufacture suspicion. I only ask that we extend this other freedoms and dignity and fair treatment to everybody, including our Muslim friends. Because the test of a community isn't how it treats people that look like us, think like us, or believe what we believe. It's how it treats those that don't. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I think this is a great opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. And as corny as that sounds, I think we have the opportunity to craft a statement, a resolution without identifying a religion, without identifying any house bills that didn't pass, without identifying vetoes, and welcome everybody. Welcome everybody into town and say you are more than welcome. We want you here.

And we're going to continue to support the law of the land by way of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the state constitution. We're going to do everything in our power to honor and uphold that. So making lemonade out of lemon, to me, seems to be the practical solution here. I didn't want to listen to the attorney because I pretty much had my mind made up. I heard what he had to say somewhat in alignment. I don't like the overtones of the threats. That's personal.

So, but on the other hand, I'm Catholic. Every religion knows and has a history in one way, shape, or form of doing things that were not appropriate. The religious wars over centuries, the biblical references that have had in the Old Testament, somewhat in the New Testament, all of the things that have occurred.

But we are in today, and today we should make lemonade out of lemons by welcoming people, saying you are welcome to come here until proven otherwise, and then we'll let the laws of the land take care of that situation at that time. But right now, I'd support a simple letter that says, come on down. We want you here. We welcome you. We want you to be our neighbors. And that's my position. Thank you.

Now, I just was going to say that, you know, listening to Rick, as a council and as a town, we already support. You know, it's obvious that we do. And it's who and what we are, and it's town policy. It does not need to be codified, in my opinion. Thank you. And I'll add that Sharia is a religious and moral code or path of guidance, while Muslim is a person who practices the religion of Islam. I will give no direction tonight. Are we supposed to say whether we will or not?

I will give no direction tonight. I would give no direction tonight. To the contrary, I'd give a direction to write a favorable letter saying, come on down, welcome, that we're here in support of you by way of the laws that exist today. I'll just confirm no direction. Thank you. Okay, thank you. This item was scheduled for discussion only and there's no action to be contemplated. So we have provided the direction by way of no direction.

And we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is our discussion. 9d regarding the ordinance amending the town of Fountain Hills code chapter 16 streets and sidewalk by adding article 16.4 automated license plate readers. Rachel. Mayor, if you recall, this item was tabled at our last meeting requesting more discussion. So it has been brought back for discussion tonight. The proposed ordinance that was part of that item is still attached.

So again, we're here to answer questions and take any direction from council. As a reminder, the item was originally presented and requested by council member Scalicorn, so he may want to take the lead to resume the conversation. Alternately, I believe it was Rick or councilman Watts who requested a motion to table. So I'll turn it over to whoever would like to take the lead on that conversation. Yeah, it's, I guess it's just for discussion at this point.

I'm going to kind of hold my comments and see what the discussion is. Thank you, Mayor. So my discussion is I would like to have the ordinance voted on for action at the next meeting with the, as written except for let see the removal of the recital that states other towns But everything else the same The whole paragraph? The whole paragraph, yeah, that whole, that's, No, no, that's just my discussion direction, whatever. That's what I'm asking. Usually we do that after the fall in public.

No, this, we're talking about this because it's an agenda item. This is not a discussion. I would just like to say that I agree with councilmember, councilmember Earl. I'm having a lot of trouble talking today. I'm sorry. I agree with those comments and I would like to see this for action in the next meeting. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor Earl, can you point out the paragraph? I'm actually trying to look it up right now. And I also realized that we made a motion in a second.

And I want to say that you made the motion and you already added this amendment and there was a second on it. So, you know, that's probably... Procedurally, that is the one that is the motion that was tabled. So, but just refresh my memory of which paragraph that is. Okay. It's, um, yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, it was, whereas. Oh, I got it. Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Mayor, Councilwoman. Okay. I see it now. It wasn't other towns. It was specifically mentioned. It says, whereas. Yes.

That, that one. Yes. That is actually quite helpful. As I said, we stand on our own. We don't need to talk about other towns. Thank you. And I stand for any other questions or what not. Thank you very much. I'm not for moving this forward at all because I don't see the need right now or a substantial need for it. And they are very, very expensive systems to put in and maintain. And we don't have the budget for it now, and I don't anticipate having the budget for it in the future.

I think those funds could be better spent on streets, etc. I really do. Plus, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department would have to deal with it a lot. They have had absolutely no input on this at all. And I think that this is out of the scope of the round. If for some reason this moves forward, I think at a minimum we ought to hear a presentation for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Some of the research I've done, most of the towns that have this have their own private police departments.

It doesn't deal too much with the sheriff's department. I'm not for moving this forward. I don't think we need it right now for a lot of reasons. Privacy, etc. And my direction would be to not do anything with it. Thank you. While I agree we don't have the budget for it, we're the ones that would be responsible for paying for it, so I think it really is our decision and within our scope. I don't see any reason we can't pass it. It's basically a non-event.

However, if we ever needed to re-approach it, we could certainly do that at that point in time. So I'll move on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And you kind of just made my point. Just like we've been talking about all day, we're writing ordinances in anticipation of something that hasn't happened. that if it does happen, we'll happen to have an ordinance on the book. Once again, we're creating a solution. We're not addressing a problem. Fountain Hills doesn't have flock cameras.

We have no plans to install flock cameras. And to my knowledge, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office hasn't approached us about setting them up in this town. Um, so I'm struggling to understand why we would reject staff in the Sheriff's Office. And on that note, I did write the town manager, and I asked I asked that if we are going to have this conversation, it is imperative that we have the input of Maricopa County Sheriff's Office to see what they think about this issue. It's imperative.

And also I'd like a staff report so the staff can digest the pros and cons of this. So, and again, we're served up an ordinance with no staff report written by a council member with no discussion other than it might be a good idea.

Um, there might be a legitimate policy discussion to have, um, if, Something happens in the future I agree with that Right now it feels like we just debating a hypothetical issue This is like something you do in high school or college where you have a debate team and you argue one way or the other way and then see who wins or moot court in law school It just arguing for the sake of arguing Our staff time is valuable Maricopa County time is valuable Our town attorney time is very valuable I would prefer that we spend time addressing actual issues from our town The pros of flat cameras, crime solving, real time alerts, cross jurisdiction coordination, vehicle identification, people with Alzheimer's or dementia that are driving around the families are like, we have to get this person back.

There's a lot of reasons to have it. There's a lot of cons, mass surveillance, tracking, privacy, constitutional concerns, police misuse, stalking, high costs, security and vandalism of the equipment. Again, you can make two good We have to do is why assign staff. Point of order. Mayor Kaupec. If we cut off some, we should cut off all. Well, it's only 14 seconds, but I'll be quiet, Hannah, because you told me to. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

There was something brought up about law enforcement, specifically the Maricopa Sheriff, and I am completely supportive of Law enforcement, our sheriff, the police departments. But I will also stipulate that it's pretty safe to say that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department would not support this. And I'm okay with that because I think the concerns of protecting privacy will overweigh their lack of support for this. And frankly, I have not had a conversation with Sheriff Sheridan about this.

But I'm happy to. I'm happy to text him and ask him. And I certainly expect him to say that he would not But that doesn't change my opinion and that doesn't change the fact that I'm here to protect the privacy of people. And I hope that this council also wants to protect the privacy of people. And it's not just law enforcement. I don't like the idea of private companies encroaching on our right away. I don't like private companies controlling the data and compiling lists.

And we don't know how long that information is going to be complied. We also don't know what they do with that data and who they're going to be. They sell it to. And I really want to respect the privacy of people. And I'm sure that many people don't want the idea of Big Brother watching them either. And that's why this was drafted. And, you know, again, we have had, you know, a couple days, opportunities to discuss this. And so, Mr.

Mayor, procedurally, I'd like to ask the town attorney, I know this was tabled. The motion was made, it was seconded, it was an action item. What is the next step here? It seems odd that a tabled item comes back as a non-agendized action item. Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, I think what happened is the third person said they wanted it brought back for discussion.

I think in response to some council comments, but I think there have been three people tonight who have said that they want it brought forward as an action item. So I think under the rules of procedure, I think it's brought forward as an action item at a subsequent council meeting. Okay. And Mr. Mayor, just as a, you know, one thought, I know this was something that I brought up twice, and I think that the seconds and thirds weren't consistent across.

So there was more than just three that offered a second for the new agenda item. That's all. I think I'd like to know more information, and I think that's the reason that we didn't have the information, we still don't have it. MCSO, whether they give us the pros and cons, how we can put bumpers around what can and can't be, the ingress, the egress into the town, what can we control, who owns the, I mean, there's a plethora of questions that have not been answered yet. So I would like more input.

I'd like to hear from MCSO and I'd like to know the financial aspects of it, how we're going to be able to do it without that information. So I can't support the ordinance as it stands today, but I certainly don't want the infringement on my right to privacy. I don't want it in one part of the country. Automatic license plate readers were integrated into ring cameras. I don't want ring cameras looking at people up and down my street and then being able to access that information.

So we got to find a way to put bumpers around some of this How do we do that Is there an aspect that could be beneficial to the town Maybe What the impact If it per license plate reader between the solar aspect the installation the groundwork that has to be done all of those things that a lot of money that I know we don have money for at this point So I like more information and then I think we should move forward based on that information Then we got something tangible Thank you, Rick.

I appreciate your comments. And I did speak briefly with Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, and they don't know enough about it. I don't think no insult intended. They didn't say they were against it. That's an assumption that I don't think has been said, at least not in my conversations. So, I, if this moves forward and it sounds like it's going to, I would like a lot more information on it too because I know federal law is affected by these as well. Thank you. Okay, sorry, I turned it off.

Okay. So just for transparency, I looked into this stuff and my own understanding was a table, the item was tabled after my motion at the last meeting. And a tabled item can still be alive till the end of the following meeting, which is tonight. But something along their lines happened so that that can't happen. We'd have to be voting on it tonight. But I kind of got tired of fighting it. So that's why.

I don't know if that can still happen or else I will accept that we have it at the next meeting. Mayor, Councilmember, it's not agendized for action tonight, so I wouldn't advise taking action on it. Thank you, Mr. Moran. I'll be brief.

There are two things said that I'd like to question, and one of them was if a private prop company comes in and puts these things on and violates all of our privacy, Could a private company come onto Fountain Hills right-of-ways and property and install these cameras? Not without our authorization. Right, so if they can't do it anyway, so why are we talking about it? That's my first point. They can't come onto our property and install the readers like was insinuated.

And the second thing is with the town attorney, To put an item on the future agenda, it takes three, but I think tonight it would take four. Four, and you said it would take three to go forward. I think this would be a consensus vote, and I think we would need four to get a consensus to go forward. Am I correct? Mayor, council member, the rules of procedure, I think, always provide the avenue for three members of the council to bring something forward.

I would say it's similar to, I mean, most Most municipalities have a provision like that. Most courts have a provision where you something less than a majority is what's taken to take up an issue that U.S. Supreme Court's four. I think the Arizona Supreme Court's three. So it's less than a majority. Your rules of procedure always allow three members to bring an item forward and you have a future agenda item. So I think once three have spoken it goes on the agenda.

And maybe I can maybe get the town manager to weigh in on this, but I've been on this council for four years and at this point consensus means four. At the end of the night you can put it on a future agenda for three and either I'm really confused or I'm right. This is part of what where all of this confusion is lying with this agenda item in general just so we know just to be clear that there's been motions and then subsequent motions and then Tabling. Tabling and different things.

So I believe I want to second what councilmember vice mayor Earl said, which is transparency. I want to make sure we get this right and everybody comes back with expecting, and I know what needs to come back and our staff knows what needs to come back. So to answer your question, yes, consensus would mean four.

However, I'm going to caveat that because we do, at the same time, he's also correct in that we have a future agenda item and my assumption would be there would be a motion at the future agenda to say I'd like to see this come back with these edits and it would be supported by two others. So it's sort of sticks one way half a dozen the other. We're still getting to the end result whether it happens on this item or it happens on item 12. Yeah, and I just want us to find out the correct procedure.

So and going forward, I would hate to establish the precedent, but something gets agendized, comes for discussion, and then free people can get the ordinance written. That should take four. If we do not have consensus on that at this item, then yes, it would come back at item 12. Thank you. I'd like to follow up with that, if I may, Mayor, is that we also have a number of folks who would like to hear from MCSO. I count three this evening.

We can work with MCSO to be part of that and be back on our November 17th agenda as part of this item, assuming this item comes back. Is that what we would like to see? I can certainly work with them. I don't believe it will be Lieutenant Vance that will be doing that presentation unless you'd like me to volunteer you. There's probably someone else within the district or within the sheriff's office that probably has more authority or more familiarity with license plate reading cameras.

So I can certainly reach out to organize that. Is there any other direction from this item? And I believe there may be some public comment. There may be some speaker cards. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I don't know if a little liberty is necessary, but I know that Councilman Watts had some questions. I still stipulate that I believe that who was represented for MCSO would not oppose this. That doesn't change my opinion on it.

And I don't even know if that's worth time because they're probably going to say that they don't support it. They'll rattle off a bunch of reasons which may be quite legitimate, but I don't think that overweighs privacy concerns. And I don't know if that's worth their time or our time to hear, but you know, that's neither here nor there. But I know Councilman Watts, you know, he mentioned a couple things. So, I mean, so the ring cameras do not apply. That's on private property.

We don't have any control of that. We have control over the right of way and town owned property. And that would be it. And this is an ordinance that would not allow them to be in here in the future. So they they should ask for our permission to put them in, right? But this would actually have the policy come from the board. Not, you know, because this could be done by, you know, calling up and just being allowed to by someone on staff. This is very different.

This would be the policy of the board. The board would set the policy. And I do not recall off time ahead what your other questions were. So if you don't mind sharing, I'm more than happy to discuss. My concerns were the financial aspect, the data acquisition, what we're going to do with it, who it's available to, what it can integrate to, the positives and the negatives.

And you may be right about MCSO not having an opinion, but that doesn't mean they can't help us craft bumpers around what we've already proposed in the ordinance. Maybe it is, just like I said, on the ingress, egress to the town at various points.

Maybe that has some benefits, but I think it's worthy of staff looking into it a little further, understanding the financial aspects, and yeah, they've got to get a permit if they wanted to put something on private property, but that doesn't preclude them from soliciting individuals and saying, can I access your ring camera? So there's things like that that I think are worthy of discussion to figure out whether or not we can, what we should do.

I'm not an advocate for automated license plate readers. I like the, the, I like my privacy. So having said that, I want to do it right to make sure we don't do something, that we do something that's beneficial to the town and not injurious to us. And Mr. Weyer, Councilman Watts, you know, first mentioned was financial.

So this would be an ordinance that prevents the automatic license plate rider companies, the private corporations that come in, they would not allow them to utilize right away in town property. So for us there would be no financial impact. We wouldn't be paying them anything, they wouldn't be paying us anything, there would be no financial impact. We do not have the power- The ordinance that we're not supposed to be talking about?

It's agendized for discussion and I appreciate you not interrupting me please. If you're confused councilwoman you can read the ordinance. You can read the ordinance. So the town doesn't have the power to regulate what people can do with their property, with their ring cameras. So we do not have the authority to tell homeowners they cannot use their ring cameras or sell the data or whatever. We can only police ourselves.

So really there no financial ramifications here to the town because we are prohibiting them and we do not have the power to prohibit the people from having their own on their own property Does that help answer that? To some degree, I still think that we ought to get a little more information and understand the overall impact, what we should do, what we shouldn't do, and I really haven't gotten the opinion from the town attorney what the ordinance is today in his estimation. Is it enforceable?

Should we do it? I think there's more questions than answers right now. I appreciate what you said. I just want more. I want to be proactive, but I want to be proactive in a constructive way. Okay, and Mr. Mayor, Councilman, this was actually more done with the previous, you know, Jen Wright, Attorney Wright. And there's actually this is the fourth revision to it to kind of find the balance of what would be something that fit Fountain Hills but not be, you know, too overly aggressive.

That's kind of where this balance was struck. I'm more than willing to share, you know, the discussions and notes with both Attorney Vesota and yourself. That's not a problem. I'd love to see that. I think that's what we should do so we can move it forward, getting more input from the staff, getting your information, and then get it back on the agenda and do it again. No problem. So there is a question of how to agendize this in the future.

And I do want to ask, so this was tabled and I would think you take a table item and you would put it back on the agenda as as it was. So it was agendized as action. It had a first and a second. I don't know who agendized it as discussion only. I can share a little bit of background there. So when the motion was made to table for further discussion, because that's exactly what was the motion that was made, they asked to the town attorney was, can we do that?

I was always, I agree, the impression I had was that we needed to bring it back as it was originally presented. However, under guidance, we were told, if that was the motion that was made, then to bring back for discussion, The discussion was appropriate. For clarity's sake, it's very helpful to make sure that we know what we're taking away from the discussion up here.

In the future, I'll be certain to make sure that everybody understands that that's how things will be coming back based on the motions that are made. As we talked about, sometimes the language is a little more formal. Sometimes when you say discussion, discussion means something. Sometimes taking action or consideration means something different than what you might think. So we want to make sure that we have the correct language so we can certainly clarify that moving forward.

Town manager, I wonder if it would be, it appears this is going to come back, if it would be allowed to have a meeting for the council members that are interested in hearing MCSO's perspective, have a meeting before the next council meeting so they have that information, they're armed with it by the time they come to the next meeting. Is that something we can do? I can certainly reach out to MCSO to find out if that's available.

I will say if we do have a quorum, we'll need to do it as a public meeting or as a work session or something in that nature. I think you'll probably have three people there is my guess. It won't be a quorum. You could do it individually too, much like we do review of building permits and that kind of thing. Sure, we can certainly do that. I just want to be respectful of their time as well. Right. Let me do a little legwork on that.

I think you'll have three people that are interested in more information. I'd like to be one of those people. Okay, but in that vein, what I wanted to, not to throw a monkey wrench in it, because there's so much detail, there's a lot of information about this. I was wondering if we could give the staff the liberty of saying whether or not a work session might be more in order than just a meeting, so to speak, because they're going to delve into this.

And I want, um, I think that if they think that a work session would be better, um, and more appropriate for us to have that discussion, then I'd like to be open to that as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, this, this discussion, how it's kind of evolved feels to me like a delay tactic and justice delayed is justice denied.

And there a couple individuals that have an agenda here politically to disrupt and delay and try to throw a wrench into the works And it happens over and over again And I just concerned that they trying to delay this past the November 17th meeting Oh, the words of the politician.

Trying to get information from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and their staff on something that's going to be agendized in terms of an ordinance is a delay tactic just because we don't blindly sign up to the ordinance that you wrote? That's ridiculous, And I don't appreciate the fact that you say just because I want to make an informed vote, then I'm somehow delaying this and it's a political stunt. The people that make political stunts in this town is you, Alan Silicone. Point of order.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, I think you have direction on this. Thank you. We'll move on to the...any comment cards on this, please? Yes, Mayor, we do. We have to. First up is Larry Myers followed by Shelby Blecker. Council Mayor, Larry Myers, resident.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for even mentioning that it should have been I'm sorry that it should have been passed on to the next meeting because my intention was that you would discuss and act on it, and I asked you to pass it as written. I was in favor of passing it as written. Quite frankly, I don't care what MCSO says. Long before any of this technology was available, they were enforcing the law. And they can just go back to enforcing the law.

I don't want my data collected and stored by any private company and possibly sold unless they want to make a deal with me and give me a cut. I definitely don't want the government storing my data because who knows what they do with it. And so I don't really care what What MCSO says, and neither should you. You should be protecting me and the rest of these citizens who voted for y'all.

We're not here to hear what MCSO has to say about this hotbed of crime in Fountain Hills and whether we need to track people's license plates coming in and out of this town. We're not here for that. We're here to discuss private citizens' data being stored by private companies, or government agencies, and I want none of either of it, and I thought the ordinance was written well enough to be point blank, say that that's what it is.

Now, we can probably push this off for another five years like we did the 5G, with all of this nonsense that's going on here. And I didn't, I gave Councilwoman McMahon her due because she did have questions. Why didn't you get the questions answered before we came to this meeting? Or why didn't you have MCSO present their point of view here at this meeting and then vote on it?

I am totally offended that this was agendized as discussion only and now we have to go to another meeting or go to a work session and then get to another meeting and God knows when it will take place. But I wish you would just put the ordinance in effect and this nonsense about not having ordinances because we don't have a problem. You write ordinances to keep yourself from having problems. That's why we have the wireless ordinance. That's why we have all the other ordinances in town.

We don't write them when we have a problem. We write them to keep from having a problem. So that theory about all of the ordinances that get put forth is total nonsense. And I'm just tired of hearing it. I'm tired of hearing it. Ordinances are to protect the residents of this town and to enforce the town's plan. Not to address things that have happened or are happening.

So I wish you would just get on with it, pass it as as uh um um Skiller Korn wrote it with our previous attorney and get on with it. Thank you.

Mr Mayor Councilmember Shelly Blecker resident of Fountain Hills Privacy rights crime solving Public property private property As many of you know the area that I lived in in LA Melrose Village had 27 flock cameras there funded strictly solely by the residents that lived in that neighborhood Beverly Grove, about a half a mile from me, had 40 homes broken into in three months. They begged the council member to use some of her discretionary funds to help fund flock cameras for them.

Now, flock cameras are a special item. My relationships with people in the LAPD, senior lead officers, that have told us that Armed robberies on Melrose solved that same day by being able to find the perpetrator. Carjackings with a baby in the back seat solved the same day. Various other home invasions in the Melrose area solved within a couple of days with the use of flawed cameras. Mark this day in history, I'm going to be agreeing with Councilmember McMahon twice in one day.

Now, I had a conversation with Sean Dow, who's a real estate agent, and he told me that he has access to my driving habits because he's an insurance agent. So I asked this question to an AI agent, Gemini, is my insurance agent granted access to the Flock system to review my driving habits and record? And here's the answer I got. No, your insurance agent does not have access to the Flock safety camera system to monitor your driving habits or your record.

Flock safety operates a closed network of automated license plate readers, ALPRs, strictly for law enforcement, public safety agencies, select neighborhood HOAs, and commercial properties. The company explicitly states that it does not sell or share its data with third parties, including insurance companies, private investigators, or repossession companies.

So, what Sean Dow had shared with me were third parties that were operating their own ALPRs that were collecting data and selling them to insurance agencies and whoever the highest bidder was. $2,500 a camera. Town's not going to have that. There's no reason to even vote on this.

But if this town started to suffer from armed robberies on the avenue and residents were in mass robbed, their homes were robbed because they were snowbirds out of town on whenever, I guarantee you people are going to be sitting there screaming, how can we catch these people? What can we do to catch these Why did we write an ordinance to ban flock cameras that would have helped us catch these people? Thank you. Any others? No, Mayor.

So I also, I also just to be clear, I also support this coming back on the 17th. To be clear, I don't. I don't know if we're taking an informal vote, but I don't support it. Okay, thank you. We'll move on then to the call to the public. Do we have any speakers? Yes, Mayor, we do. First up is Kim Bartman followed by Reverend David Felton. Kim Bartman, Fountain Hills. I like what Rick Watts, Councilman Watts said about taking lemons and make lemonade.

And there's an opportunity that we could arrange to have the Islamic Speakers The Islamic Speakers Bureau of Arizona do a work session with you to learn more about Islam and dispel the myths. We have contact information for Azra Hussain, who's the head of the Islamic Speakers Bureau. They're also, just to let you know about, just real quickly about what they offer and their kind of just their mission real quick.

The Islamic Speakers Bureau of Arizona is a non-profit, apolitical, educational organization founded in 1999. It's called ISBA. ISBA is an outreach institution that provides education about Islam and other faiths, builds cultural awareness, and promotes interfaith dialogue and collaboration. And then their mission is to Using the tools of education, civic engagement, constructive dialogue, ISBA will foster communities of respect and mutual understanding.

ISBA reinforces and promotes the American ideals of inclusion and religious freedom that are all embodied in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. And you can either contact Pastor David Felton at the Fountains United Methodist Church, or myself, Kim Bartman, and I would be happy to help arrange that. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Reverend David Felton, the Fountains United Methodist, continuing the promotion of the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Arizona.

I want to point out that this Thursday night, in relevance to our discussion tonight, that ISBA is offering an online Zoom session presented by one of their imams, Imam Sariah Ismail, on how Muslims understand religious law.

It might be something you might want to dial into It at 6 30 p this Thursday night You can access it by going to the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Arizona and signing up for this free Zoom session for one hour And I would be happy to receive a phone call from any of you afterwards to discuss any questions you might have further about the relationship between Islam and Christianity To that end I like to invite you personally all to be present on November 22nd which is a Sunday afternoon at 2 p at the Fountains right here in the We have our 17th annual interfaith Thanksgiving service celebrating Thanksgiving with representatives from all the different faith groups here in Fountain Hills, including Islam, Judaism, LDS, Baha'i, Sikh, Jain.

We have everybody coming out. And we would really love for you to come there and meet some of your neighbors who are other faiths than what most of the town council practices. And I can guarantee to council member Rick Watts that if you pledge right now to be there on November 22nd, that I will guarantee you an ice-cold glass of lemonade. I will see you there. 2 p.m. There are Catholics there. Plenty of Catholics.

I still have 56 seconds to wait 15300 North Fountain Hills Boulevard And our website is weputlovefirst.org. You can find out all about it. I'll look forward to seeing you. Thanks. Thank you. No, Mayor, no more other cards. Any other speakers? No? Okay. Thank you. We'll move on now with council discussion and direction to the town manager. Does anybody have anything? And how about future agenda items? Does anybody have anything? Thank you, Mayor.

So I know we did have four people, but I want to just cover my basis here to make sure that everything is It's legal and nobody questions it. So I'm asking on the next, or I'll say a future agenda, I'm hoping it's next time, that I'm requesting the staff and the town attorney to review the draft ordinance number 2617 from tonight's agenda packet and bring it back at our next meeting for consideration and action with the recital referencing other Arizona jurisdictions deleted.

Do I have the support of two additional council members Second Third Thank you Thank you Mr Mayor I would like to make a motion and hopefully have two additional council members for a discussion item on policy about zoning for multiple use in hotels in the downtown district I'd like to hear more, so I second. Fortunate I cannot, if not agenda, I cannot discuss or answer questions. I move to adjourn. Thank you. Future agenda items.

I know that there's a, I feel as though, and this is no insult to anybody, where are we doing the town business? It just, you know, there's, I think, a lot of projects in the works. I don't think, I don't feel like we've seen a lot of things in the last month or so. So I would like to see the work that the staff's doing and bring those critical items up so that we can take a look at it and get those projects moved forward. Thank you.