Council Ratifies 5G Consultant Contract 5-2 Amid Accusations of Political Bias and Federal Preemption Concerns

I'd like to call this meeting to order. Would you please rise for the pledge of allegiance? America and to the stands one nationice. And if you choose to remain standing, we have Pastor Clayton Wiler from Joy Church Hills to do our invocation. Dear God, gracious and heavenly father, we thank you so much for the day that you have given us. We thank you for blessing us with this town.

I pray for the council and all who are here tonight that they are guided by your wisdom, your discernment, making decisions that ultimately honor you. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you. Town clerk, can we get a roll call, please? Mayor Fidell, present. Vice Mayor Earl, present. Council member Skilicorn, present. Council member Calvianis, here. Council member Watts, here. Council member Larby, here. Council member McMahon, Mayor, you have a quorum. Thank you.

We will now move on to our summary of events. Uh, town manager Rachel Goodwin. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, uh, mayor, council, members of the community. I'd like to share a few brief updates before we begin begin tonight's meeting. I'm pleased to share that the next steps in the Palamino Boulevard reconstruction project is underway. Paving has officially started. Yay. Uh, we appreciate everyone's patience in this important infrastructure work.

Um, and we recognize that there may be continued traffic adjustments in this area as the project continues. Um, on a lighter note, Nessie, the Loch Ness monster's Irish cousin, uh, has reportedly been spotted around town, and you may begin seeing mysterious footprints appearing later this week as we prepare for our St. Patrick's Day f uh, festivities.

With that in mind, Irish Fest takes place next Saturday, March 14th, and will feature great uh, great food, a variety of beers, and festive entertainment. The greening of the fountain will occur at both noon and 400 p.m. that day. If you miss it on the 14th, the fountain will once again be Shamrock Green on at noon on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th. We invite the community to come out and enjoy these fun and unique Fountain Hills traditions.

More details can be found on our website uh on the experience Fountain Hills website. Uh in other news, we had our team takeover. It was a great success uh this past weekend with strong attendance and positive feedback. Thank you to our community services team and our mayor's youth council for creating um such an engaging opportunity for our youth. This Saturday is our dementia caregivers summit. Registration has reached a record-breaking 260 participants and is now at capacity.

The strong response underscores the need for programs like this and the value they provide to individuals, families, and caregivers navigating dementia related challenges. Finally, I'm pleased to share, sorry, mayor, I'm going to steal your thunder. I'm pleased to share that Sprouts has officially been issued its building permit and a significant milestone in this highly anticipated project. We look forward to seeing construction move forward. Thank you.

And we can now proceed with tonight's agenda. Thank you. We'll move on right now with uh awards and recognitions. I'd like to uh recognize uh the outgoing Vice Mayor, Alan. Thank you for your eight months of service to the town. and introduce our new vice mayor, Gail Earl. Gail, we look forward to a busy season. I'm going to leave now and let you finish running the meeting. No, just kidding. But anyway, uh congratulations in your uh role as vice mayor of the town. Thank you.

And are we going to exchange the uh name plates then? Oh, they're already up. Perfect. All right, good. You're way ahead of me. All right, good. So, that's done. All right. Um, so now I'm going to do a recognition uh of Cassie Hansen. Uh, Cassie Hansen. Tonight we pause to remember Cassie Hansen and recognize her extraordinary contributions to the town of Fountain Hills.

When Fountain Hills was incorporated in 1989, the town had no municipal staff, no permanent offices, and no established systems of governance. So in January 1990, Cassie became the first the town's first employee and the first town clerk.

From those earliest days, she helped build the administrative foundation of our local government, organizing our records, preparing council agendas, overseeing elections, and ensuring that the business of the town was conducted with order, transparency, and care. As Fountain Hills grew, Cassy's responsibilities expanded. In addition to serving as the town clerk, she held the role of director of administrative services for more than a decade.

She provided coordination and leadership support for uh major civic milestones including the development of the library, community center, museum, and the relocation of the senior center. Institutions that continue to serve the residents today and strengthen the community as we as we move forward. Her commitment to public service later extended to elected office where she served on the town council. Few individuals have carried such a deep institutional knowledge of our town's beginnings.

She brought perspective, steadiness, and a genuine love for this community to every role that she held here. Cassie Hansen was truly a cornerstone of the Fountain Hills early government. the structure she helped build and the example she set for those that followed remain part of the town's foundation to this day. She will be remembered with a lasting gratitude and respect and the vital role that she played in shaping our community today. So, we honor Cassie Hansen today. Thank you.

[applause] So, next I have a recognition. It's it's called the Mayor's Citizens Award. And and today's recognition is going to be to Peter Vuli. Some may ask why and who is he? Let me let me tell you a little bit about it. It's truly an honor to recognize an individual whose passion, generosity, and vision have made a longl lasting impact on our community. That's Mr. Peter Vonyi.

Peter is a proud proud resident of Fountain Hills and the founder of the Concourse in the Hills, an event that has grown into one of the most celebrated automotive showcases in the Southwest. I always say it's the greatest show on grass. Car show on grass. What began as a passion for cars became something much greater under Peter's leadership.

Concourse in the Hills has brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to our town over the years, highlighting the beauty of Fountain Hills and strengthening our sense of community. More importantly, the event has raised over a million dollars in support for Phoenix Children's Hospital, helping provide critical care and hope to children and families across Arizona.

Peter's dedication to this cause is deeply personal and has and he has transformed that personal journey into a powerful force for good. Through his vision, generosity and timeless effort, he has shown us what a true community leadership looks like. Peter, your commitment to giving back, your ability to unite people around a shared purpose, and your love for this town exemplify the very spirit of civic pride and service to our community.

On behalf of the town council and the residents of Fountain Hills, it's my great privilege to present you with a citizens award. Peter, thank you for all you've done and continue to do for our community. Would you please step forward? [applause] Thank you. I'm running for mayor. [applause and cheering] Um ju just a quick correction that you know you get an award and then you complain about it. Um it's not exactly a complaint but we've actually raised about three and a half million not 1 million.

So uh and and I think two and a half came from you didn't it? Um in all honesty the reason this show is so successful is because the park the park is is so beautiful and and that's what's made the the the show really successful. Um, and uh, we've lived uh, I'm not originally American, you probably can't tell, but um, we we moved to the United States 21 years ago. Um, and we moved into Fountain Hills and we've been here ever since and and we love it. This is this is heaven on earth.

So, um, thank you very much for this award. You're welcome. And, you know, I'll add one other thing, too. If you saw the number of people that were in town for the last show was estimated to be 50,000 people. The restaurants, hotel, everything was packed. So it brings a lot of sales tax revenue to the town which we love because we can work on our roads and other things as well. So again, and lower property taxes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So again, thank you, Peter. We appreciate it.

[applause] Okay, next up is uh our presentations. Rachel, I believe we're going to have a um second quarter update from Director Amanda Jacobs on our economic development progress. Yes. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Manager Goodwin. So we'll be providing an economic development update from October through December. And of course if there's some news maybe the manager already brought up will also we'll also provide that.

So in the staff report um it said in the coming months that was a test to just see if you were paying attention. Um but the building permit was issued today for sprouts. Um you probably saw maybe it looked like construction was beginning. there was fencing and so that was allowed last week under their demolition permit, but now it is official. You're going to start to see activity and the hope is that they'll be able to open um later this year.

So fingers crossed you guys won't have to travel down to Sheay. We'll keep those sales tax dollars here. Continuing on with business attraction, you'll see Acupuncture Water, The Print Shop, Happy Healing Home Care, Calibbri Aesthetics, and Lenia Corporation, if I'm pronouncing that correct, received businesses, business licenses um last quarter.

And then again, coming soon, we've announced the names in black, um but want to give a public update regarding Trilogy at Eagle Mountain, their former view restaurant. Um, so you'll recall the last couple of years, Director Wesley and I had been working with the property owner. They decided to to sell the property. We then were told it was going to be turned into an office and whenever I spoke to the Rotary or other the Kuanas Club, they would boo me and I'm like, I am just the messenger.

We're still wanting a restaurant. Um, so maybe we manifested that um or applying that pressure. Um, but the V restaurant will once again be a restaurant. Our economic development specialist spoke to the owners um and they're hoping to open in May of this year. So again, are you hearing that Mr. CFO? Sales tax coming to town of Fountain Hills. All right. Next, just want to provide an update on our downtown placemaking.

So again, the council has been extremely supportive of this project um with 25,000 in our downtown fund. And so each year we're painting our utility boxes and so wanted to highlight again in the quarter we actually put out a call to artist process that was national. We received a couple people from out of state, but um we awarded four artist from the region and some community members think we have only one artist um in town and we don't.

So you'll see Ann Marie Perry is um new to painting murals. So she did several boxes all the theme of the dark sky and it's to the entrance of the dark sky discovery center, the museum and the library. Eli Ferious was also new. Um it was quite cute. I went out um the first or second day and he was like, "Usually people from the city don't don't come out here." And he's like, "Do you do you see my view?

I have a view of the of the fountain." I'm like, "Yes, yes, I see it." But again, he's not from here. And he's like, like I didn't know about this. Like I want to come here more. I want to recreate and run. So that's sometimes why it's nice to bring people from the outside. the other part of economic development, the attraction part. And so that's at Saworro and Paul Nordon. Then as you're entering into um Plaza Fountain Side, another new artist, Sher Ruckers.

So you can see again the natural environment. There's flowers. Um there's a bumblebee if you look closely, and she added a little quote just buzzing in in the hills. And then Jesse Perry has actually been selected during um all three. And so this is adjacent to Fountain View Coffee. And then a fun story um the streets of New York was under construction and he decided to peek in to see what was going on and somebody stepped out and said, you know, can I can I help you?

And he's like, what's what's going on here? And they're like, it's the streets of New York. So Jesse used to work for a Streets of New York. Um but then as you can see um he's got a good game. He painted three murals and they're planning another mural with inside um the building. So I love that other people are being inspired regarding the art.

And this example um is not here in Fountain Hills, but again is to just draw home the point of that sometimes you want to go outside of of Fountain Hills because this is someone that received recognition from Lego. Have you heard of Legos? Do you have kids, grandkids that play Legos? Um, so he got a shout out. Um, so just wanted to point that out.

And then this year, um, economic development and community services partnered to activate the Centennial Pavilion with our third Thursday concert series. I invite council, anyone in the public that has not attended um, to please join us. Um we have one coming up in March. So this month in April and then I think in May and then we'll be concluding the series. But um in January we actually had almost 250 people. Um last month it was a little chilly. So we had probably 150 to 175.

Our apartment occupancy. You'll see in blue that we're now adding boardwalk apartments at Fountain Hills. And you'll continue to see we have a supply demand problem because we're in the high percentiles of of the 90s. So again, if someone's looking for an apartment, it's hard to come by.

And then our apartment pipeline, again, if you're new um in the audience or new watching from home, two years ago, the council asked that we have this part of the economic development update just to see what is in the pipeline. So I'm just going to highlight what is in red. So, the Red Rock Center, the units originally was 17. It's been lowered to 15 and they're under construction. You'll see Park Place, Fountain Hills Boulevard, and Glen Brook have expired.

So, that means you got to start the process over. You'll see the two under construction again. Boardwalk is complete and so that will be removed um next quarter. And then you saw we already reported in the previous slide. And then advertising. Just wanted to highlight a couple of our ads promoting golf, the tourism, the dark skies. Sometimes our community members are like, "Amanda, why aren't you doing any advertising?" I am, but silly, I'm not trying to to get you to come here.

You're already here. You're local. So, we're pushing this out to um the region. So, we are doing advertising. Here, of course, is our partnerships. Tourism. Our hotel occupancy remains in the 66. This is up a little bit from um the last quarter. You'll see our social media views from October of 2004 and then to last quarter the large um increase. So appreciating just the work that the team is doing.

Our fountain live feed, also known as the Earth Cam, had over 60,000 views and there was over 42,000 new visitors to the Experience Fountain Hills website. Want to give a shout out to our community center um folks, Jennifer Lions. They attracted a two-day conference with the Phoenix Bible students. And then so we've been trying to work very closely that if there's a multi-day conference that people are staying in our hotels and so 18 rooms were booked at Fountain Park Hotel.

That information is proprietary. So some hotels may be willing to share with economic development what that generated but most do not. And so again just to remind the public and the council even I don't get to see that information. And then tourism. So again, manager Goodwin alluded to some of these things about a Nessie. Um, so we're actually working with the inspiration academy to build Nessie. So we may be activating a kid zone on March 14th.

And then I've been holding some of this news hostage. Um, and some of our commission members have been frustrated with me. And I'm like, that's okay. You can be frustrated. But last year, we actually received grant funding from the Arizona Office of Tourism to do some historical videos on our arts and then of the greening of the fountain. And it literally took place the day before our Irish fest and the greening of the fountain. So I said we're going to hold them hostage until this year.

And so those are now uploaded onto the experience found website. So we partnered with Clayson Communications, Debbie Clayson, who is a local resident and business owner. and some of this idea. I have to give some kudos to council member Skiilicorn and council member Larabe of just wanting to bring back some of our traditions to to these events. So with the videos, it highlighted the original Shamrock Society. It talked about Nessie and of course the greening of the fountain.

And so we'll be pushing that out more. And if you are following us on Experience Fountain Hills, we're throwing some throwback um photos which are very fun. And then international dark sky discovery center in international news. Um so last month somebody reached out um and so actually a year and a half to two years ago the Arizona office of tourism was working with a group from Mexico who came here to visit the state of Arizona to see our dark skies.

And so um Pedro had followed up with me and said, "Hey, I'm doing a newsletter." And then the national newspaper in Mexico, Republica, they're wanting to highlight um the International Dark Sky Discovery Center. So they're like, "Do you have assets so we can do a story?" And so here is a snippet. And I've been trying to practice saying central day and I'm just going to I'm just going to stop. So but again, it is highlighting our dark sky and we talk about international.

So it is getting international attention. Tourism continued. Again, our top five, Arizona in the left column, the top five national. These are the cities and the states um that are looking at um Fountain Hills, our viewership. And with that, do you have any questions, comments? I'll make a comment. Well done. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to our consent agenda. Motion to approve consent agenda. I second that. We have a motion in a second.

Can we get a roll call, please? Council member Larby. I. Council member McMahon. Council member Watts. Hi. Council member Skellicorn. Yes. Council member Calibianis. I, Vice Mayor Earl, I, and Mayor Fidell, I, Mayor 70. Thank you. We'll move on to our uh, regular agenda items. Uh, we've got uh, item A, which is consider consideration possible action relating to cooperative purchasing agreement 2026-058. Rachel, thank you, mayor.

As many of you guys know, we worked to replace one of our chillers earlier this year. It's was a big project. um a necessary project. This item tonight is really related to that and the next steps of our efficiency project uh for the cooling of our buildings on this campus. Justin will get into a few more details. Um but this is sort of the next step in our um efforts to be uh proactive in our efficiencies um in our systems throughout the campus. So with that, Justin, I'll turn it to you.

Thank you. Let me start by saying that our new facility supervisor really wanted to present this to you and demonstrate the efficiency and the benefit of this not only for right now but for the future. He's away on a family matter. He'll be here for other meetings later on. We have some of the planning uh brothers and sisters if you would one of them mentioned here tonight in regards to the town hall campus buildings.

As part of the planning for the community center, library, and town hall, they also included two other buildings. One of them just to our east in the shared parking lot with Park Place was identified as a senior center. The other location is currently occupied by um the not quite finished Dark Sky Discovery Center and the Community Garden. That one was a theater.

As part of that early planning, they put in a third chiller that was originally intended just for the larger building, which would have been the theater. As part of that, they did some isolating of the different valves and components.

Fortunate for us, we had a facility supervisor that recently retired and his staff and one of them stepped up and was selected through the process identified that if we made these changes to this system, it would be beneficial and allow for redundancy that is currently not available. Having said that, this isn't a one or two or a 3-w week. We've been on this since prior to asking the mayor and council to approve funding for the chiller.

As part of the due diligence process for this, the retired facility supervisor and the current facility supervisor looked at lots of different options. They looked at lots of different cooperative use agreements and job order contract agreements. We settled on cooperative use agreement. As part of that, they solicited with a clear scope of work from three of the top vendors that were part of that cooperative use agreement. Over the next several months, they worked through those submitts.

The one we bring you tonight not only saves the town and money in regards to the solicitation because of the underlying agreement, but it also benefits the community for the long run. There's a lot of technical information in here. I will be honest with you. With the exception of my name and a couple of other dollar figures, our facility supervisor Mark wrote all this, but I will certainly do my best to answer the questions that I can related to this matter.

As soon as this lights up, I'm able to talk. That's good to know. So Justin, have have we ever had a catastrophic failure where we have not been able to cool the campus? Mr. Mayor, council member, I'm not aware of a catastrophic failure, but we have had some mechanical issues that have created downtime and uncomfortable conditions. Does it take all three chillers to manage temperatures? Not typically. We're usually operating at about one and a half or two.

During the most extreme times in the winter there is or in the summer, excuse me, there is a different con configuration where they bring on the third one but not all of them together. A series of switches if you would. So the control system most likely does that. And I am a proponent of doing lead lag and and runtime making sure that they all have an equal amount of run time. Is all that programming already included in this price? Yes, sir.

That was part of the chiller replacement and there are just some minor adjustments that are necessary after this work if it's approved. Yeah, I saw one or two BIMO controls and those are electronic controls that are driven by the control system to open and close. But we don't have to manually go in and make any changeovers when the time comes to switch from lead to lag or balance run times. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay.

Two things that I had a concern about was one, do the cooling towers have the capacity singularly to handle all three chillers? Yes. The design capacity was for that for the three chillers originally. Yes. Okay. And do we have included which I didn't see were some takeoffs with blind flanges on them? So, if we have to pull up a chiller or we have to pull up a new tower, there's an easy point of connection for both the chill chill water loop system as well as the condenser water.

Are those included or can we get those added so that we have a point of connection? I don't have an answer for that, council member. What I will do is get an answer either by the end of tonight's meeting or send an email tomorrow morning with that from our facility supervisor. Yeah, just just a suggestion because we are doing a lot of modifications with the new drives uh and the new pumps.

So, couple of flanges are not going to be that much more money to make sure that we've got points of connection should we have a catastrophic failure of sorts. Understood. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um yeah, thank you for your presentation and for the uh staff report. Um it was comprehensive, well written. Um you know there's the old saying of failure to plan is planning to fail and I talked about this with Rachel and um you know we already hit 90 degrees in February this year.

So I think we have to be prepared for hot summer. You know these facilities are used for cooling stations. You know we'd hate to shut down services just because we didn't prepare for a catastrophic failure and the redundancies of the system. I hate to spend this kind of money, but to have the redundancy and to to know that in case we had a problem, we have the backup and we took care of it in advance. I think that's good planning and uh I'm going to be a yes on this.

I hope we agree and approve this tonight. Okay, I'm still learning the left button. We usually press the right. Um, I'd like to move to approve CO cooperative purchasing agreement 2026-058 uh with B2B Direct Sales, Inc. Second. We have a motion and a second. However, are there any comment cards? No, Mary. No comment cards. Thank you. Motion and a second. Uh, can we get a roll call, please? Council member Skellicorn. Yes. Council member Larby. I. Council member McMahon. I.

Council member Calibianis. I. Council member Watts. Hi. Vice Mayor Earl. I. And Mayor Fidell. I. Mayor 70. Thank you. Moving on to the next uh item B. consideration, possible action regarding the possible sale of town owned land on the 16500 block of East Ashbrook. Rachel, mayor, this is a continuation of an item we heard earlier this year, I want to say back in January um where direction or actually it was before the um holiday break.

The council suggested that we take parcels individually um that are townowned to review them to see if they are of interest for potential use or sale. Um, the property at 16500 Eastbrook Drive was the first one or excuse me, Ashbrook Drive that was the first to be evaluated. That's back tonight for your consideration and action. John's going to give us an update on that property. Thank you, Mayor and Council.

uh we'll go through this uh review of this property and as uh town manager has uh stated this is a result of some discussion back on December 2nd uh where council uh considered kind of a broadly uh do we want to sell any of the town owned property or not ultimately decided to have us come back kind of one at a time with some of the ones we thought had the best potential and so that's where we are this evening looking for further direction and back in 1989 the town acquired a number of properties from MCO as the town transitioned from to to a town.

So, the one we're looking at this evening is along Ashbrook here just north of uh the downtown area east of Fountain Hills Boulevard.

some of the background and history on this uh the original preliminary platting that occurred through this area actually did propose lots in this area and so it was not uh it's not foreign to think that there could be lots there was part of the original plan the uh area to the north of Ashbrook was platted first and then the area south of Ashbrook uh drive was platted when that plat was done and they were looking at how wide they wanted to actually make the uh uh tract for the flood plane.

They made it wider than they anticipated uh with the preliminary plat and in doing so didn't leave enough lot depth. So that's why those lots were not ultimately platted back in the 70s when this this area was platted. Also in terms of the original planning for this area, uh this entire area was then planned for and has been zoned R2, which is basically a two family zoning district. To the south of the wash is R3.

As far as the area itself, it's as it's developed and looking at the area along Ashbrook, uh 31 lots going east and west of this area. You can see the average lot sizes that we have in the area.

we see that it's mostly uh two family homes but also uh number of single family homes uh just about all entirely singlestory homes but there are some twosttory homes so if we are from uh Fountain Hills Boulevard uh going towards the site you'd be going east on Ashbrook towards the parcel which is down here at the end of the curve and then here is what the parcel looks like today so just covered with just some native uh brush of one kind or another not being particularly maintained.

And then as you go further east on Ashbrook from the site. So again, you can see the primarily single family uh homes, the two two family homes in this area. So Ashbrook itself is a local street. Average traffic counts. We did some traffic counts a couple of weeks ago to to verify what it's like. Approximately 500 vehicles a day on this street. as the way it's platted and developed. It has capacity for about 2,000 vehicles per day.

The speeds of the vehicles were consistent with the posted speed limit. Homes typically average around 10 vehicle trips a day. So adding another u you know five to 10 homes in this area depending upon single family versus two family but not make a significant impact on the the current traffic. So in summary, as we uh acquired this property from MCO, there are no restrictions to the future use of it. No specific plans for the use of this property.

The town has not identified any opportunity for use to use this. It's too small really for any kind of park. We don't have any other facilities that need this particular location. There are some maintenance costs, although they're they're fairly minimal at this point. Uh again, it was originally planned to uh have lots as we look at this area and the sizes compared to the existing lots in the area.

We can certainly get three and probably four lots uh platted on here that be consistent in the width and depth of the surrounding lots. And as you can see from the street views, putting particularly single story homes on this this property would not really block anybody's views uh of any of the surrounding properties. So again, this evening, we're looking for further direction.

Um, do you want staff to continue to pursue uh development of this property, get it ready for sale, or determine not to uh sell it at this time and or direct us to look at other properties?

If you do uh think you'd like for us to take that next step forward in preparing this property, we could either sell it as is one large lot and leave it open for future developer then to to plat it and uh and develop it or we could plat it first so that we're in control then of the number of lots to make sure they are consistent with the surrounding lots. Uh because given the zoning, they could be made smaller than what some of the surround sounding lots are.

And you may also want to think about and direct us to include any restrictions such as single family only duplexes uh single stories or those types of things. So you give us that direction uh as we move forward. So next steps if you do decide for to direct us to take those next steps is that we again staff's preference we think the better choice is to go ahead and plat the lot so we're in control of those sizes. We think would also bring a better return uh on that uh that sale.

Then we would complete the appraisal, publish it four bids, uh receive those bids, and and then we can move forward with sale to the to the most responsive biders that meet the appraisal. That's the report. That's the this particular uh location. Any questions you have? Thank you, mayor. Um, I've I know I had expressed some hesitation the last time that we spoke about this as an overall project, but this particular um lot seems pretty straightforward to me.

And thank you, John, for your work on this. Uh, I personally would lean toward us platting it out ourselves um so that we have that control. I would lean toward three only because it looks like it's council member. Yes, I don't mean to interrupt you. This is for questions right now. Discussion will come afterwards. Oh, I apologize. I was going to make a motion after this, but All right. Okay. Thank you, John. What's the the zoning in the surrounding neighborhood?

Is it will it will it allow for twotory or is it all single story? Does it include duplexes or not? Mayor, council member. So, here's back to the zoning map. So, this entire area uh along Ashbrook is zoned R2, which is a duplex zone. To the south side of the wash is zone R3, which gets into multif family. So, all these lots uh up here are available for duplex development on them. They allow 30 foot tall building. So, they can be twotory. We just don't see a lot of them along this section anyway.

There may be more in other sections, but uh you can have a um a duplex uh a unit for every uh hopefully I remember my numbers correctly every 4,000 square feet of lot area. So this is about close to an acre in size. We'll say it's a 40,000 square foot area just for some round numbers. So at 4,000 uh 4,000 per lot per unit, you could get 10 units if you just had it as a lot uh on here.

Uh but again, as as we're looking at it, subdividing into three or four lots, each lot then could have a duplex on it. And so we'll bring the numbers down just a little bit. But but if there's no duplexes in the area, could we strike the duplex component and say it's all single family? Yes. Uh Mayor C, we could again back to that slide I went over a little bit quickly, but currently of the 31 homes immediately around this area, there are 11 single families and 20 uh duplexes. Thank you.

So, it's a primarily duplex area. Thanks. [snorts] Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Anyway, do you have a rough idea what we would uh sell the property for? Uh, Mayor Vice Mayor, I I really don't I'm not in that area. I'm not sure if Justin from any of the work he's done on selling properties would have an idea, but but I don't I don't believe he does either. Typically, we would get an appraisal before. That's what we'll do first. Right. Is that right? Okay. Right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And this might be a duplication of what was already stated, but I just wanted to for the record, um, if we did replant this, made it conducive to the rest of the homes in the area, um, it seems like it it fit in pretty naturally with what is there already. And are there any sighteline problems with any of the neighbors that you would anticipate? Mayor, uh, council member. So, again, here's the the street view of these lots.

And so, here's what neighbors on the north side of the street are looking at today. Uh, there's no real mountain views or anything here. So, a singlestory home in particular is not going to block anything except views of these apartments across the street, but a two twotory probably won't block much of a view either, right? So, yeah, it doesn't look like you'd anticipate any problems there. Okay. Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards? Yes, mayor. We received one online.

Uh they do not wish to speak. They wanted the council to know they were for this. But we do have one person here, Larry Meyers. Mayor, Council, Larry Myers, 44 year resident. Um, the last time you guys spoke on this, there was a big discussion of assets and asset value. I think the market has told everybody exactly what an asset's worth. Yesterday, it was worth one thing. Today, it's worth something else. So, an asset really isn't an asset until you actually cash it in.

So, I think for the town, as long as you guys maintain control over the zoning and the platting and blend it in for the rest of the neighbors, uh, take the money, spend it wisely, and be done with it because I don't see what the town would use this piece of land for. It's too small and it's not even a park. So, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So, I do like the idea of having more open space in town, but uh it sounds to me that um the consensus up here is that we do want to sell. Uh I think Councilwoman Larby uh had a very good idea uh about platting it ourselves. Do you do you have a question? Because we're still in the question phase. Well, I was going to move on to Oh, we did. We did do speaker cards. That's true. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Um and then also Councilman Watt's um question about um single family homes versus duplexes. Uh so it would be very I I don't think it would be desirable for the people that live in that neighborhood for this to go to R3. I don't think it would be desirable for high density there, especially when this land has been vacant for years and effectively has been open space. So, as a proponent for open space, I would I would not be in favor of that.

So, um I'm happy to to run actually make a motion kind of mirror after uh Councilwoman Larby, but I do want to make the requirement of single family homes instead of duplexes. If that was a motion, I'll second it. I got one last question. How many more pieces of property do we have? That again would be a Mr. Weldy question. Uh there are uh a few others uh three or four kind of in this similar type of situation we believe that we'll be bringing back over the next few months.

Um but as you have a a better number count than that. Yes. So there there'll be a few that we'll be bringing back. I think when it comes back, if you could give us that list of other properties that may come up for for sale, give us some idea. Okay. Thank you. I'll add something really quick. I think we have a lot of slivers of property here and there too, which would not be as conducive to something like this uh like this like these parcels are. Uh go ahead uh councilwoman. Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor. And you know, I would just like to agree with my um other council members thoughts on this. Um you when this first came up before I was against selling off partial of land for the open space argument and for you know we I'd like to develop parks and this and that. But this staff report convinced me that this property I we're on the right track. Um you know to literally read this uh property is no productive use for this town. It's too small for a park. and it's cost to maintain.

So, you know, you guys managed to just hit the perfect property to I think convince everybody including myself who was originally not for this. But definitely definitely for it and I think you guys did just a great job and if we are going to continue doing this, I hope you continue finding these type of lots that we can put out there for sale that are that wouldn't affect the parks, open spaces, and things that um the other council members mentioned. So, thank you.

Can I ask this council a question? Are we all in favor of having the town platted first? I believe I think the head nods. Yeah, that's that's the motion. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Uh town clerk, can we get a roll call, please? Council member McMahon, I. Council member Watts, I. Council member Skelorn, yes. Council member Calibian, hi. Council member Larby, hi. Vice Mayor Earl, I. and Mayor Fidell. I mayor 70. Thank you. Okay.

Now, we'll move on to item C, which is consideration and possible action regarding ratification of the contract for a consultant to assist with drafting updates to the town's ordinance and associated documents for wireless communications. Rachel, thank you, Mayor. Just for a little bit of background on this item, on January 20th, council gave direction with a vote of 52 to proceed with retaining a legal consultant to assist with the redeveloping our small cell wireless ordinance.

Council then provided additional direction regarding the preferred consultant in executive session on February 3rd and directed staff to proceed with this engagement. staff complied with this direction and contact and a contract was executed the week of February 9th.

Because executive session discussions are confidential and no formal action can be taken in that setting, any direction given must later be ratified in open session to ensure transparency and proper documentation in the public record. Ratification does not open reopen the prior discussion. and rather it formally confirms the council's earlier direction and authorizes the agreement in a manner that complies with open meeting law and our procurement requirements.

This step ensures both legal compliance and clarity for the public record. If you have any questions about the ratification, Jen and I are both here to answer any questions you might have. Did could you what are are you saying that maybe I didn't hear you right and hopefully I didn't that this is all predetermined and preconceived to review the council discussed it on a January 20th and a direction was given by the majority to proceed. I know.

And then we met again on February 3rd to review contracts and a vendor was selected and direction was given to authorize the contract which we did. Um did we go through this contract spec specifically because I don't remember going through it line by line or anything like that. It was reviewed by our town attorney just like all other contracts are. I don't I don't know that it was um thoroughly reviewed at that time. Okay. Thanks. Um Mr. just to um I I guess I'm a little confused too.

Was was that contract a part of the executive session? Was it drafted at that point or was it um reviewed after the executive session? It was reviewed after three vendors were presented. Direction was given to engage and execute a contract. So in the package that's the first time we actually the council saw the agreement. No, I've sent it out previously that you guys have been involved. In fact, we've already received work product from the vendor. Right.

And yeah, I know about the So, tonight's ratification includes a copy of it as well. Right. Okay. Seeing no more questions, do we have any comment cards? Clear. Mayor, we received five online that issued said they were against and then we also have four speaker cards for to come up. So, it's going to be Shelby Blacker followed by Crystal Kavanagh followed by Larry Meyers and then Lorie Troller. I have a question. John Wesley. Um, I I think we have to wait until the speakers are done. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, staff. Shelby Blacker, resident of Fountain Hills. I just want to say thank you to Council Member Watts for being accessible to answer questions, to the years of work that he put into understanding what's going on with this project and this contract and I don't think he gets enough credit for the work that he did. So, I just wanted to make that publicly known.

Also, my preference is going to always be to bury the cable if it ever comes to that. Thank you. Please, Crystal, Fountain Hills, I do appreciate the transparency by bringing this before the the community tonight and at the council. [snorts] Um, and there should be no question tonight that this is going to be ratified. Um, this it's been an ongoing process. It's always been a complicated manner matter. We've all heard you and the community say we need expert help on this.

This council directed the town to find the expert help. The town found the expert help and we're here tonight. So great. Let's get this going and get some help with the ordinance and the documents. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mayor, Council, Larry Myers, 44 year resident. Um, I want to uh thank you for the vote to hire the third party uh expert. Um, I'd like to um say please ratify the contract.

I will say that in the past there have been contracts that have not been public events and not been put ratified in public by town former town man um managers and also our former attorney. So let's let that be known. This is a change. Um it's long overdue. Next in April, it's the fourth anniversary of uh citizens and uh uh Councilman Watts working on this particular endeavor. I don't think it's the end.

I think it might be the beginning of the end of taking a totally outdated and insufficient ordinance and making it uh sufficient to protect the residents of the town and the town itself from um possible wrecking of the beauty of the town and the val property values of the residents. I think that it's also um long overdue, really long overdue because we're talking about a utility and all the way to the beginning of the town it says all of our utilities go underground.

I hope you've all read that because it's been there a really long time. And so in that spirit, I'd encourage you to ratify it. And also in this spirit of transparency, I would encourage people that send comment cards in in anonymity for either for or against to summon the courage to come up to this microphone and articulate a thought rather than maybe generating an AI perspective, which anyone can do these days. And so I I like the transparency.

I think we're we're better off um than we were before and I hope you ratify it and thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Lori Troller, resident. Um thanks. This is a big thank you. Um, but now I'm going to try and lighten this up a little bit. Let's set a number. How many days is it going to take us to finish? So, if we go out to 1,500 days to finish this ordinance, it'll put us somewhere in May, which is close to our break.

Let's shoot for the 1500 and try and get it done. Anyway, thanks Um, I'd like to make a motion to ratify this second. I have questions. I said Peggy, what's your question? I would like to ask John Wesley a couple questions, please. and probably the town attorney because I don't recall going into great detail with this particular contract and I don't recall certain really questionable provisions of it that I've never seen in the legal agreement before like this.

So this is just a ratification of the contract. No, it's not. I'm sorry. I don't It isn't. I don't feel like this has been fully discussed and I don't recall it's fully it being fully discussed in this session. This is a ratification of the contract. Um, we're not we we're not going to be uh opening up the contract here right now. I object to that completely because again, this contract has not been thoroughly discussed.

Um uh the procurement wasn't fully disclosed and this this is not um a legal contract in in for what we're hiring this firm for. Okay. Your your objection is noted. We have a town attorney that did review this this contract. Yes. And I proposed questions to her that she didn't particularly answer. So we're ratifying this contract tonight. That's there's a motion and a second for that.

Um I don't think it's a good idea to ratify this contract because it has controversial political um uh requirements in it that the a neutral town government contract cannot enter into. And I spoke with the town attorney about that. We're here just to ratify the contract. We're not going to You can keep saying that all you want, but it doesn't erase the fact. Okay. Thank you. That there are controversial political provisions in it that we should not be agreeing to. Thank you. In fact, we can't.

Councilwoman, thank you. Um yeah, that that aside, um yeah, it is part of the packet, it seems like it would be subject to debate, but um you've made a ruling and I'll honor that ruling. Um, you know, my the statement I prepared was, as we prepare to authorize funds for yet another outside attorney, I urge us to pause and reflect. Um, it was it was stated 1500 days. This has been going on for years. Um, the previous town attorney, uh, the current town attorney, uh, Mr.

Campanelli, uh, the town staff, planning and zoning, this council, uh, and and we're still, it's almost like we're at the very beginning of the process. Um, we've wrestled with this for years, but the reality is is that federal and state laws severely limit what we can do. And also, this is t been taken up by the uh the congress and the president uh and the president's initiative to streamline these telecommunications.

And so, the last time we discussed this, I I thought that we should put this off until we get guidance from the federal government, which we've done before. When the state's about to make a decision on something, we put it off.

uh you know, we we could hire this person, spend $15,000 that could have been spent on roads, and then six months from now, the federal government will preempt what we're do what we're doing right now and and we'll be right back to we hired somebody, wrote an ordinance, and we can't enforce it. Um I I thought, you know, when the Campanelli draft was written, that was going to be the end of it because that's what they said. The Campanelli is an expert. He's going to give us this draft.

We're going to use that that draft, put it to planning and zoning, and we're going to come up with something. That's that's what I thought we decided to do. The Campanelli draft was going to be the model for the town. Suddenly, um the Campanelli draft was the end. It became just the beginning of yet another salvo of specialists and consultants and attorneys. Um I didn't think it was a starting point. I I thought that was an end point.

Um, we're throwing taxpayer dollars at another consultant who can't give us meaningful flexibility. That's foolish. Um, just 10 more seconds. Your your time your time. Oh, just 10 seconds if you will. Go ahead. Thank you, Jerry. Um, let us recognize the limits that we face. Exercise fiscal restraint. Avoid spending additional public funds on a problem that is preempted by a higher law. Thank you. Thank you. Um I I think that there's a lot of problems with this.

I and I we're basically hiring this firm to review and draft updates to our 5G telecommunications, but this contract it goes far beyond that. Um I have a question. It's I think it's premature because of the federal government. Don't we get improvising and I I think the fee structure there's no guarantee of the outcome. It's open. It's not flat. It's point of order. It's I believe we each get might a qu get to ask a question or speak first before the someone gets a second turn.

I went by the I was asking questions and now it sounds like we get to make comments. So that's what I'm doing. That was a point of order. It wasn't a comment. Um and vice mayor I I plugged in whoever was next. Sorry.

So, um, again, there's a provision in here where I feel that the agreement is biased in favor of the firm's controversial client, Children's Health Defense, funded by JFK Antivaxer, and it which opposes wireless infrastructure solely on based on health grounds and urges others to politically push back against wireless takeover.

um that doesn't sound like it's drafting legal um things for uh as part of our our contractual agreement and federal law prevents us from regulating wireless facilities based on health health concerns.

Um it's also entangles our fees with their relationship with the um child health defense fund and these provisions far exceed standard attorney fee agreements and there are not um necessary and they impose conditions effectively that mandate the town get involved again in this controversial politically CHD organization. So, I'm very very concerned about that that that seems to be more important than hoping than drafting our our legal uh a new legal or revising our 5G ordinance.

So, my concern is I'd like to stop the waste and partition partition politics to further personal, political, and 5G agendas that are not in the public's best interest and adverse to our town. I think we need to reject this agreement to protect the town from blatant conflicts of interest. this unit of taxpayer money and Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm I'm mystified. Why are we arguing about something that the town staff I'm not arguing about it. I'm stating my thoughts about it.

that has asked for help acknowledge that they they have do not have the technical or legal expertise. We've gone to two of the preeminent attorneys in the country who understand the ins and outs of 5G. We've gotten information from the National Association of Realtors that unequivocally says you put a small wireless facility in front of a residence and you'll lose 4 to 20% of the value of your house. We're here to protect the town residents, to protect the town as a whole.

We hired the best we could find regardless of their political leanings. We've had lots of conversations with them about their objectivity, that the direction was clear on making sure that is compliant with state and federal regulation. The notice of proposed rulemaking that has been referenced a couple of times prior to tonight is something that is in the offing that has been presented numerous times to no avail.

It has to get through Congress to be codified codified and then when the president has to sign it, it's failed innumerable times. I'm I'm lost. We're here to protect the town residents to the best of our ability. make the most aggressive non-prohibitive 5G ordinance relative to small wireless facilities, not cellular facilities, small wireless. I don't understand the resistance. I don't understand the objection.

I can't imagine why you can't defend the town residents and ratify this and where the argument comes from. Thank you, mayor. He asked me, he basically asked me why I'm not defending the town residents. I am defending the town residents. Well, yes, he did. He did not identify anybody. This is not an argument right now. I'm not arguing. I was just I don't appreciate that comment because I I do defend the town residents and represent them. With that, I'd like to call the question.

The question's been called. Uh, do you have a second for that? Second. So, the question's been called to end discussion. Uh, can we get a roll call vote, please? Council member McMahon. Nay. Council member Watts. Hi. Council member Skilorn. Yes. Council member Calabanakis. Nay. Council member Larby. I. Vice Mayor Earl I. And Mayor Fidell. I. Mayor 52. And I think we have a motion on the motion and a second on the floor. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Council member Calvianis, nay.

Council member Watts, I. Council member Skilcorn, yes. Council member McMahon, nay. Council member Larby, I. Vice Mayor Earl, I. And Mayor Fidell, I'm going to take a second and explain my vote. I've been on this town council four years prior to being elected mayor of this town. We've been dealing with this for four years. The level of disrespect shown this process towards our staff, council members, planning and zoning commission, our town attorney, and the town manager has been inappropriate.

This has been a four-year process to get to this point to get this ordinance done so we can protect our residents. We need to finish this process for our town and our residents. I'm a I'm a yes. That was inappropriate. Mayor 52. Thank you. And now we'll move on to the legislative bulletin if anybody has anything. No, it's that's next. Nobody has anything. Then we'll move on to the call to the public. Town clerk, do we have any speakers? Yes, mayor. We do. We have three three cards.

Shelby Blecker, Matthew Corrian, followed by Steve Bajio. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, Staff. Shelby Blacker, town resident. Um, I have come up here before and spoke about wanting to see the town of Fountain Hills being the shining town on the hill and to take the lead on certain national issues. And some of you may have seen 60 Minutes on Sunday where they were talking about federal judges being targeted for murder and for harassment.

And I don't know what the town can do other than maybe write a letter to the district attorney requesting more tougher laws or write a letter to our congressman asking for tougher laws. But I'd like to see the town do something because our federal judges, whether you agree with them or not, should not be targeted to be killed. Our people in our nation that speak out in public, should not be targeted to be killed. Our president should not be targeted to be killed.

And I'd like to see the town take some type of action towards letting it be known that our town stands for justice and would like to see tougher laws to be enforced against those that threaten our judges, our president, and other members of the public. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, council members, Matthew Corgan, Fountain Hills, just to thank you for moving this 5G issue forward. It's been five years. I'm not going to speak to the specific agenda, but I will speak to the fact of history.

I've seen what happened with the campell letter. I've seen what's happened with former council, former council members. And I just want to thank you again for the progress that's been accomplished tonight. We all know the history of how the Campanelli letter was prohibited from being viewed by planning and zoning. That's unfortunate. Tonight is a great night because we're moving ahead with 5G. We're getting it done. And thank you very much. That's all I have to say. Technical difficulties.

Mayor Don Council Steve Aer, resident of Fountain Hills for eight years. I'm here to discuss issues that affect every resident and business of Fountain Hills. To begin with, our legal procedures and lawsuits against the town of Fountain Hills. As a taxpayer, I feel it behooves the residents of Fountain Hills if perhaps once a month or so the town were to include lawsuits, legal actions against the town of Fountain Hills, who is doing it.

Also, if it's repeat people who have been doing it repeatedly, how much it is costing a town of Fountain Hills, and if legal action to counter sue these individuals can be taken at the Fountain Hills. The reason I do that is this money could go towards helping our streets, funding our parks, helping with the lake liner. Now, I'm not discouraging people from doing legal actions whatsoever, but I feel I've never sued anybody and I love the town of Fountain Hills.

Last thing I would ever do is sue a town of Fountain Hills. I feel if we have a strong reaction against people who perhaps are abusing this or, you know, doing it, it would help every residents and business. The other issue I want to talk about is unfortunately the Colorado River and the water shortage that is affecting every Arizonan. Uh there will be a huge major cut in the water flowing from Arizona from the Colorado River and I feel as Found Hills, we got the name Found.

We should do precautionary action against this. The town of Gilbert is already having a tax increase on water usage as Scott Snow will as the foundation of Found Hills. I feel that perhaps we should look in ways of doing this ahead of time. Perhaps putting a moratorium on pools, new pools, permits. Uh perhaps having a moratorium on apartments and condominiums until this water crisis is taken care of.

Also perhaps having a a tax on new business, new business, new condos and apartments, a water tax. We have to be proactive. And perhaps we can also think about having a symposium here in Fountain Hills where we invite mayors from other towns, Abcora, people in the Colorado River to discuss how we can conserve water and to give it back to the communities so that way we don't end up with terrible water situation. I feel that every individual here could do that. I personally have a low water bill.

I try to recycle water as much as possible. And I feel if we become the stewards because we have Teddy Roosevelt uh out there as the great conservative great conservationist. I feel as Fountain Hills we could be the town that is a great conservationist of Arizona to lead the way in water and water savage. Thank you. Council discussion for the town manager. Anybody have anything they want to bring up? Thank you.

Um, regarding the item brought up with call to the public, I I would like to pursue maybe writing a letter to the um, attorney general, maybe Chris Maize, just to encourage enforcement of laws that we already have on the books regarding political threats or or threats on people's lives. Um, I know that it's not just the federal judges, it's it's a lot over the nation and the states. So, oh, I thought this was direction to the town manager.

So, what I'd like to Is there a consensus that I let you'd like to have a letter drafted? Should we discuss it? Yeah, we can agendaize it if that's what you'd like to do. I'll third it. I think that would be the next agenda item, though. Okay, I'll repeat it later. Thank you. I think I just got my answer by reading the instructions. There was there was a comment about call to the public and how the complexity of submitting a comment card online.

And I just read the clarification that comment cards are available online, but you have to submit them before 12 o'clock the prior day. So, pardon those are for agendaized items, not for call to the public. Okay. So, that I'd like to see it for call to the public as well because there are people that Well, I got heads going every which way except my way.

[laughter] Perhaps we can talk a little more offline about that one about why it's that way and what the rules of procedure currently say because that is how it is in the adopted rules of procedure. I know it is. That's what I wanted to bring it back up. So, I'm willing to talk about it. Okay. You know, that's fine. But there's been a num number of comments about it and the complexity. So, all right, I'm done. Thanks. Now, we'll move on to future agenda items.

Just repeating what I said earlier, if we could discuss on a future agenda, possibly writing a letter regarding enforcement. I think I still need a second and third. Do I? Oh, yeah. If I recall, I believe Councilman Skillorn and our vice mayor second and thirded. Noted. Thank you. If that's it, can I get a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. All in favor? All right. Hi.