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TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 5, 2026 A Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 5:30 p.m. Members Present: Mayor Gerry M. Friedel; Vice Mayor Gayle Earle; Councilmember Brenda Kalivianakis; Councilmember Rick Watts; Councilmember Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Councilmember Hannah Larrabee attended by telephone conference call Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Jennifer J. Wright; Town Clerk Bevelyn J. Bender TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 1 of 33 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Regular Council Meeting Minutes May 05, 2026 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC * * * * * Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * * * * TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 2 of 33 EARLE: Okay. Now we will again, for those -- if anybody came in late, our -- the Mayor -- you might notice I look a little different. He's over at the community center to welcome guests to our town. So I'd like to start -- oh. Let's see. Call to order first. I did that. Okay. We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance. ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. EARLE: We now have the invocation. It's provided by Regan Mitchell. And please -- stand, if you so please. MITCHELL: First, I'd like to thank the Council for inviting me, and I appreciate the opportunity it is to do this today. If you are able and if you would like, would you bow your heads and pray with me? God, I pray for two things today, Lord. We come on behalf this Council in this town. We ask for unity and charity. Would we be unified in that we are here to represent the town. We are here to represent the interests of the town. And I pray that each member of the Council today would have grace, would have wisdom, and would have clarity. And then I pray for charity, Lord, that we in this room, would have charity for one another. While we may have disagreements, while we may disagree on things and policies, would we have charity with one another as people? And would we come together? Would we be civil, and would we be kind? I pray these two things Lord, charity and unity. It's in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you both. Thank you, everyone. EARLE: Thank you. Now, I'd like to call on the Town Clerk. Can I please have a roll call? BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 3 of 33 SKILLICORN: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Here. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Present. BENDER: Vice Mayor, you have a quorum. EARLE: Thank you. Now, I would like to call on the Town Manager. GOODWIN: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a few updates for everyone this evening, so bear with me. First, I want to share a brief recognition of our finance team. The town recently received its 30th consecutive Certificate of Achievement of Excellence in Financial Reporting from the GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association, for Fiscal Year 2025. This is the highest form of recognition in government accounting and financial reporting, and receiving it for 30 consecutive years reflects a long standing commitment to transparency, accountability, and sound financial stewardship. So congratulations to our finance staff and everyone involved in that effort. Paul, I know you're out there. Thanks to you and the team for get -- for making that happen and continuing 30 years of success. I also want to recognize that this week is both Public Service Recognition Week and Professional Municipal Clerks Week, both celebrated May 3rd through 9th. This is an opportunity to recognize the dedicated public servants at every level of government, including our own town employees who work each day to serve this community. I want to sincerely thank our staff for the work that they do, often behind the scenes, to help TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 4 of 33 Fountain Hills keep moving forward. Lastly, I want to remind everyone that our Summer kickoff event is coming up next Saturday, May 16th, right before school lets out. The program is from 5:30 to 9:00 at Four Peaks Park. It's the second year of this very popular program. It's something that we have found to be very, very successful. There'll be waterslides, food, a foam cannon. Ryan is super excited about the foam cannon. If you haven't seen him on our social media promoting that, you should. It's pretty entertaining. And then, of course, new this year we have a main stage featuring local youth performances, including a high school garage band, dance performances, and the Fountain Hills Youth Theater. Wrapping up the evening is going to be a showing of Zootopia 2 on the 60-foot screen over at reminder. It's at 4 Peaks Park, and a special thank you to Fountain Hills High School staff for helping coordinate the local performances. Vice mayor, that's my update. EARLE: Thank you. GOODWIN: Thank you. EARLE: With that, we'll move on to the proclamations, and I'm going to read the first one, which is a proclamation to rededicate 250th Day, which is May 17th, 2026, whereas, the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, inviting reflection on our founding principles and heritage. And whereas, faith, gratitude, and unity have long been foundational to our nation, and whereas Rededicate 250 is a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving scheduled on May 17th, 2026 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It aims to mark the United States' 250th anniversary by rededicating the country as one nation under God, featuring religious services, speeches, and performances to celebrate American history. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I. I'm not Gerry, but I'm reading it for Gerry Friedel, Mayor of the town of Fountain Hills, Arizona, do hereby proclaim May 17th, 2026, as Rededicate 250 day, and encourage all citizens to observe this day with reflection, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 5 of 33 gratitude, and unity. And with that, next, I would like to invite Councilman Skillicorn to please read the next one. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I'd like to read a proclamation about Thursday's National Day of Prayer. So whereas Americans have long sought God's guidance and blessings through prayer, and whereas our nation's founding documents reflect a reliance on divine providence, and whereas, the National Day of Prayer, established by Congress in 1952, designates the first Thursday of May for a National Day of Prayer, and whereas the 2026 theme is Glorify God among the nations seeking him in all generations, from First Chronicles 1624. Now therefore -- therefore be it resolved, that the town of Fountain Hills and Mayor Gerry Friedel do hereby proclaim May 7th, 2026, as the National Day of Prayer. EARLE: We have the Panzos -- did I say that right -- to accept this? [PAUSE] SKILLICORN: And this is Pastor Rick Panzo from Calvary Chapel. And also, is it president of the Ministerial Association. All right, Rick. PANZO: Hi. Thank you. We at the Fountain Hills Christian Ministerial Association, we actually had a meeting today, and all of the churches were together. We enjoy serving the community together, where our mission is just to serve the community the best we can, providing whatever we can as churches together, and individually reaching out to the community. So we're really happy about getting together and doing something in the National Day of Prayer. That -- we're going to have prayer out at the fountain on Thursday at 8 a.m. They do a prayer walk a little while after that up the Overlook Trail, and they pray at that time. And then also at the flagpole right out here. We meet at noon, and we have a time of prayer where we have the people come out, the churches come out. And so it's just a great time to remember that there's hope outside of the trouble that's going on in the world. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 6 of 33 So thank you all. I invite you all to join in with us in those events. God bless you. SKILLICORN: Thank you pastor. Is there a website that they can see the dates or the times? PANZO: Yeah, there is a website, the FountainHillsCMA.org. Or you can go to the Facebook page for Fountain Hills Christian Ministerial Association on Facebook. So thank you. SKILLICORN: Thank you, sir. EARLE: They're pointing at me. Okay. Next, we have Councilwoman McMahon presenting the next proclamation. MCMAHON: Good evening. This is the 57th annual Professional Municipal Clerks Week. And whereas the office of the Professional Municipal Clerk is a time honored and vital part of local governments that exist throughout the world. The office of the Professional Municipal Clerk is the oldest among public servants, whereas the Office of Professional Municipal Clerk provides professional link between the citizens, local governing bodies, and agencies of government at other levels. Whereas professional municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality, and impartiality, and rendering equal service to all. Whereas the professional municipal clerk serves as the information center on functions of local government and community, whereas, professional municipal clerks continually strive to improve the administration of the affairs of the office of the Professional Municipal Clerk through participation in education programs, seminars, workshops and the annual meetings of their state, provincial, provincial -- county and international professional organizations. And whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishments of the office of the Municipal Clerk, and now they're -- now for there be resolved, that mayor Gerry Friedel, Mayor of Fountain -- Town of Fountain Hills, excuse me, along with the town Council, do recognize the week of May 3rd through 9th as professional municipal clerk week, and further extend appreciation to Bev, our -- and our town Clerk's office, for the vital services she performs and exemplary dedication to our community. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 7 of 33 Thank you. [PAUSE] EARLE: It's on. It looks like I was supposed to give this proclamation to -- okay. So you told me there was nobody here. It's okay. Okay. So we have this if we want to take a picture, and then if somebody wants to say something. But we do need to correct it, so we'll get you the correct ones. [PAUSE] [CROSS TALK] UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Everybody's going to be welcome on at 4:00. It'll be outside and actually the patio of the chamber on Sunday the 17th. So all those present will hopefully you'll all be present on the 17th too. Thank you very much. EARLE: Okay. Next, we have -- I will call on the Town Manager to present the next item. GOODWIN: Yes. Thank you. A number of meetings ago, Councilman Watts asked about our efforts -- the town's efforts to make sure that we are following safety procedures, ensuring the safety of our staff, and making sure that we are addressing any concerns as it comes to staff safety. Today we have an update from our Deputy Town Manager and Administrative Services Director, Dave Trimble. He's put together a number of slides to kind of walk through what the town does, how we do it, and why it's such a priority for us. So with that, I will turn it over to you, Mr. Trimble. TRIMBLE: Okay. Thank you. And Vice Mayor, and Council. Yes. As Rachel was saying at the January 20th Council meeting, Councilmember Watts had asked about workplace safety, and particularly in the town's non-fire department functions. So that's what we'll focus on today. We also mentioned the OSHA's top ten list, and that just is a -- something that shows the safety issues that OSHA cites, most often, on a yearly basis. So as a follow-up to that, we put together today's presentation to look at the town's TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 8 of 33 injury record, you know, OSHA safety areas most relevant to town staff, and the safety measures and training already in place. And I am happy to report that the record shows only a small number of isolated injuries, and really no pattern of repeats tied to any one particular OSHA category. And a little bit deeper on that. So we were able to look at the last 12 years' worth of data. And what we found is that the town had 11 days away cases, 11 injuries over that, over that time frame. So obviously 11 over the course of 12 years is pretty low. Those mainly, again, were fairly minor and did not show any repeated pattern of any one particular OSHA area. And then also our workers' compensation rates, as expected, have followed that good injury trend as well. So it did not suggest any -- any problems in that area. As we looked at the most relevant topics or areas of concern that OSHA has on their top ten list, you see a lot of those on this slide. The one that was not on their list is heat exposure. And we definitely have our fair share of that with our field staff. But that did not make OSHA's list. One thing that did make their list, that's not on ours here, is forklift safety, because I don't think we have any forklifts. So we'll get into more things on the next page, here. We talk about some of the risks that we do encounter. The main thing here, too, is just to note that the town's risk profile is significantly lower than some of the other cities and towns out there, just because of the fact that we contract out a lot of the big, larger scale work utilities. We don't have the water, sewer. Obviously, we contract out trash and police services. We have a large landscaping contract. And you know, most of the road construction is out there too, handled by contractors, so that transfers that risk to them. Having said that, though, we do have our fair share of field activities, and those are what we kind of wanted to focus on. I won't read all those. You can see them up there. But you know, some of the highlights are, we deal with electricity, we operate tractors, front loaders, chainsaws, just on a little bit lower scale than some of the other places out there. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 9 of 33 So some of our safety measures that we do have in place is -- those are listed, kind of on a high level on this slide. I think one of the most important ones, in fact, is our supervision and hiring. So we really look for -- when we -- when we hire employees, we're looking for a safety mindset. And hopefully our supervisors are laying the foundation for that, and bringing that good judgment to their day-to-day decisions, and then our staff follows that. And other things on here. Obviously, the town provides personal protective equipment. Whatever employees and supervisors want, we usually -- we always, that I know of, have gotten for them. And we require things like steel toe boots. So we have a steel toe work boot reimbursement program, and we also have our bloodborne pathogen program. We have a biohazard cleanup service that, hopefully, we don't use very often, but we have. And when we have used it, it's been very appreciated. Other things, we have hands on training that's happened in the past. So we've brought out vendors from our chainsaw supplier, our pressure washer people, and trained employees on that. Our herbicide applicators have to receive at least six hours of formal training each year. We require heat safety plans, and those include things like allowing more water breaks. We modify our schedules in the summertime to start earlier. As you can see, providing more -- more water, electrolytes, shade, things that kind of go without -- without saying in our climate. So we definitely do that. Additionally, outside review. So AMRRP is our insurer, and they provide a yearly site visit. So they send out a loss prevention coordinator. They do a site visit. They come up with a list of any deficiencies or things to note. And staff always takes care of those as we -- as we are made aware of them. And also, we're subject to state-type visits too. So in 2015, some of us will remember the long list that Arizona Department of Safety came up with. Pretty comprehensive list. No -- no major fines or anything like that, but it was a long list, and we remedied those. A lot of those were things that were permanent fixes. So there were one time TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 10 of 33 fixes, and obviously those things remain in place to this day. Next slide is a little bit more about our training. We have online libraries. A couple different ones, save personnel slash vector solutions, and we have safety source as well. Those are through our AMRRP our insurer, at no additional cost as well. Really large comprehensive libraries, over 150 training courses in there. 50 hours plus of -- of safety training is available there. And then importantly, it tracks the progress and the courses that the employees have taken. So we always have that documentation if we need to go back to that. And over the past five years, our employees have taken over 1,200 classes online and then over 500 hours has been taken by our employees in the last five years. Also, you see up there injury tracking and OSHA records. So we are subject to keeping our records. So whenever there's an employee injury, we have to fill out the -- what they call an OSHA 301, right at the time of the injury. And then yearly we have two other reports that we do. One is kind of a detailed report of every injury. That's the -- I think that's the 300. And then the 300(a) is a report that is compiled. And it's just an overall summary of those injuries. It says how many. And that is published, for anyone who wants to see that. So finally here, on my last slide. I think the bottom line here is we have a pretty good track record. Only a small number of isolated injuries over the past years. No repeated pattern out there. And then finally, we have a comprehensive group of safety measures that are in place that we just kind of talked about. So that concludes my presentation, and if there are any questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them. And I have my public works director and community services director, if I get stuck stumped, so. WATTS: David, do we have a safety officer on staff? TRIMBLE: I think I would be the closest one to that. We just met a couple weeks ago. Brought all the departments together. But it's not necessarily a boots on the ground position. But that we rely on our supervisors for that type of role. WATTS: Because I think when I asked to investigate some of this, the 300 reports have TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 11 of 33 timelines on them when you have to file those, depending upon the type of incident and so on. But I was more concerned -- or equally as concerned about the safety equipment. The fire department is anything but bashful about asking for the most up to date safety equipment, and I would like to make sure that town staff had that same opportunity. Whether it's fall protection, the lockout, tag out. Communications look like they're good as long as people are taking advantage of them. Respirator equipment, eye and face protection, all of those things become important. I hate to see them expire. I've just watched an article the other day about somebody that was in a trench, and I know we've got some trenches going on, and EPCOR does the shoring, but sometimes it's easy to dig a four foot trench and hop in and just fix the issue, whatever that issue may be, without shoring. And I think we should strongly encourage people to make sure they take advantage of the safety protocols and the safety equipment that we provide, so that they've only got one life. Let's not compromise it. So -- and I think that's the responsibility of the safety manager to drive home. So thank you for the report, though. TRIMBLE: Thank you. All right. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Next, Rachel? GOODWIN: All right. Next up, we have Director Weldy. He's going to be giving a presentation on where we are at with our wash maintenance efforts. As a reminder, our wash maintenance is --is not a -- is not a simple or quick process. It took a number of years to get us where we are. We continue to make progress, and Director Weldy will share where we are at, as of today. WELDY: Thank you for the introduction. Mr. Mayor. Councilmembers. The primary reason that that we picked this night is because we are at the end of our maintenance for this year, not only for the fiscal year, but as we approach the summer season. This is the time of year when we have a lot of reptiles and other creatures that TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 12 of 33 start stirring. And if you've ever walked in a wash, or been in a wash, you may or may not have discovered them. Imagine, if you would, that you were an individual running a chainsaw, or dragging branches. It becomes increasingly difficult to hear those creatures, and it's an inherent danger that's increased substantially for possible bites and wounds. The town manager led off with this -- excuse me. We are probably about at least two decades behind and wash maintenance. There's been a considerable amount of discussion with the Mayor and Council on how best to tackle this. The Mayor and Council has approved funding at several different levels. Currently, the funding level has allowed staff and contractors to proceed. We're making great progress. I will note, that after tonight's meeting, for those listening or watching from home, or reading, that they will be upset that their wash was not serviced. As earlier stated, when we brought the contract for wash maintenance back to the Mayor and Council for ratification and an amendment, we noted that we would be focusing on Ashbrook wash. For the town's portion, that starts at Hampstead, that's adjacent to the high school and runs east all the way to the reservation. During this year and a small part of last year, crews managed to make it all the way to Saguaro Boulevard in Ashbrook, wash. I encourage you, if you have an opportunity while the weather is nice -- that's this afternoon, apparently -- to take a look down there. There is a substantial difference in before and after photos, and we have a few of those we're going to look at here tonight. But I think it's important to note -- and the Mayor, along with some other Councilmembers have gone out and looked. We still are encountering unprecedented amounts of trespass in the form of illegal dumping, which amounts to tons and tons of appliances, backyard grills, those types of things. But we're also encountering fire pits, stone and or concrete type outdoor cooking, or fire apparatus. And all of this is in the town's property. Bricks. Block. I could keep going on in regards to the amount of construction debris. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 13 of 33 And the reason I'm bringing all of this up is clearing all of that, or addressing all of that takes a considerable amount of time and money. Having said that, the next portion where we'll return in the fall east of Saguaro Boulevard, is going to be one of the most challenging locations. If any of you would like to come out with me and take a look at the reason why, it's literally tons of material that has been dumped over people's back fences. Some of it is actually created additional land, where one or more residents have encroached onto that, and planted gardens, trees, shrubs, those kind of things. Having said that, here is our wash map. This not only shows our washes, but it also shows the dams that the town owns, and is responsible for. As noted earlier, we have a little bit more than 200 acres of wash. It's roughly 20 years behind in maintenance, and the maintenance, and I've gone over this detail in the past is not to clear cut and or remove everything. The primary focus is removing ladder fuels, and also removing invasive species. Here are some before and after pictures of the Ashbrook wash area. Will have some updated pictures for the next one. This is also another section of Ashbrook, wash. Please let me know if I'm moving too quickly to the photos. This is the one off location on Saguaro at Emerald wash. As part of observations from a resident, it was noted that there were was trash in this area. Typically, when we get communication from the Town Manager to address these types of things, we're thinking about a small amount of trash, maybe two or three trash bags, a small trash can. In fact, in this location, it was truckloads. We took the opportunity at that time to remove all of what we would consider ladder fuels or combustibles, and also clean the area up, and hopefully discourage that type of activity. This is another angle to that same location in Emerald wash. This is a close up of that area. And I always put this as our last slide. As a reminder, and there are certainly representation from the fire department here, this is the defensible space. If you are a property owner, this detail describes what you should do in regards to protecting your TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 14 of 33 home to the best of your ability. And you'll note that the defensible space there is from the occupied dwelling, not the fence or the outbuilding or other part of the home that is not occupied. And we'd like to share that message. There are considerable amount of people that believe that the defensible space, based on a comment from their insurance company, or something they read, is considerably more. But this is the -- the -- I'm not sure what standard this is. I got it from the fire marshal some time back, and I don't believe he's in the room to comment on the background on that, but I'm certain that the chief would, if necessary. With that, that is our update. As a reminder, wash maintenance is ended, will be back when it cools down and will be working in Ashbrook wash. I'd be happy to answer any questions, if there are any. MCMAHON: Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I'm a little bit surprised that we're so far behind. It's not your fault or anybody else's. It's 20 years of trash. Given the situation, are there any suggestions or things that we can do or the town can do, as far as having a program or something like that, that will alert people to this, and ask people to not dump, et. cetera. I don't know. It's a big -- there's so many houses that run along here. I think it would be difficult to send notices or anything like a campaign for cleanup, up, et cetera, because you don't want people going out there and cleaning up. But is there any way we can help out? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember. So the Mayor and Council already helped by encouraging people to speak. If you see something, say something. Also visiting these sites, and we have a considerable amount of outreach information on the towns website. And please note, for the areas where there is a trash pass, we contact the property owner and make them aware of that, and ask them to remove the items that can be reasonably removed without placing them in harm's way. You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Justin, just a quick question on funding. How are you set for funding TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 15 of 33 for additional wash maintenance? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, we currently have funding to take us through the end of this fiscal year. It not only covers the Wash maintenance that fund, but it also covers some of the environmental services in regards to household hazardous waste, those types of things. We currently have an unspent fund balance and we're managing that. But we'll be very, very close to using the entire allotted amount by the end of the fiscal year. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. EARLE: Thank you. I just had a resident request. What is -- what would be the likelihood of placing trail cameras in the washes? And is there a fine for dumping? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, we actually -- and we don't like to discuss this in great detail, but we already have several locations where we have cameras. We had some areas that were very prone to unauthorized dumping of materials, typically by home builders, pool builders, that they would sneak in and dump stuff in the wash. We have had the support of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and have been able to address that and really reduce that to the best of our ability. In regards to the -- over the back fence, there are simply too many locations, so we really focus on the primary entry points into named washes. GOODWIN: I think to sort of piggyback on what you shared, Justin, sort of in line with what you shared, Councilmember, as well as you. I think the process here is that it's been twenty years, and so it's -- it's a hard habit to break when it's sort of been passively allowed. So part of our uphill battle is this is making folks aware that that's not okay. And this is why and this is -- and helping educate those behaviors and correct those behaviors. So working through Mike Pelton and our, you know, our press releases and our community newsletters and things like that. We will continue to try to better educate so that folks understand the impact that that has and how to better dispose of those things. So we'll continue down that path too. MCMAHON: Thank you. Is there any way in the process -- you're saying that there's a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 16 of 33 lot of construction, company dumping, et cetera? Is there any way in the process through the town with construction workers and permits, et cetera, that they're notified that they can't dump these things in the washes, et cetera? Is that something, if it's not already done, that can be included in that process, or is it already included? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, I can't speak in regards to building safety, but for those that secure an encroachment permit, they typically inquire and say we have X amount of cubic yards or tons of material. Do you have a location from them? In the past, we've certainly accepted thousands of tons. MCMAHON: Uh-huh. WELDY: A good example of that is by permit only the Ashbrook wash between Fountain Hills Boulevard and Hampstead. We have been working on that for the slope stabilization. MCMAHON: Uh-huh. WELDY: That's a good example of authorized use of select materials in regards to building safety. I would not be able to answer that. Mr. Wesley is not able to be with us tonight, but if the Mayor and Council would like a follow up, we can certainly have a conversation, he and I, and then get back to the Mayor and Council in the near future. MCMAHON: Rachel, what do you think of that? following up with John, Director Wesley? GOODWIN: Sure. I think that's a great idea. Because, again, you know, Justin's really focused on the maintenance side of this, where we're going into is sort of that construction and you know, the violations there of our different ordinances and things. So I think what we can do is we can work with John to get an update out as to where our challenges have been, what we've been able to do to address it, and if there's other more aggressive measures that we can potentially consider. MCMAHON: Thank you. GOODWIN: Sure. Absolutely. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Justin, correct me if I'm wrong. When you and I were out, we saw a lot of construction debris from homeowners. It wasn't necessarily construction TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 17 of 33 companies. It was from homeowners that were dumping stuff into the wash and over the fence? WELDY: That is correct. You're welcome. WATTS: And Justin, Sycamore wash has always been kind of a thorn because of dumping for staging for future use. But I would note that a lot of the washes have signage that says pursuant to Arizona Revised Statute and gives the number that it's illegal to dump. Have we enforced any of those, or is it an issue of catching the culprit, so to speak? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember in fact, we have. So when -- when they have been caught, there is a process there. One of them is, we notify the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office because it's a trespassing, illegal dumping. As it goes through that process, the town is simply referred to as the victim after that. So we don't get involved in the prosecution and to what extent they have them clean it up or pay a fine, it kind of varies. More often than not, they're more than willing to come in and remove their debris and apologize and pay the necessary fees for the trespass that are adopted as part of our fee schedule. WATTS: Thanks. WELDY: You're welcome. KALIVIANAKIS: I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda. EARLE: Second. Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a motion and a second for the consent agenda. Town Clerk, can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember Larabee. Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 18 of 33 BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, six-zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Moving on to our regular agenda, we've got consideration and possible action regarding the purchase of a fire truck. Rachel. GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor. Chief Ott is going to walk us through this, but essentially he has. If I can correct me if I'm wrong, but you have one brush truck on order, and it's -- we're already coming up on replacing brush truck number two. Is that accurate? OTT: That is correct. GOODWIN: All right. Why don't you walk us through that? OTT: All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council and our -- welcome Town Attorney. And first off, I want to say that as my involvement in things over the years -- I've never been able to do anything without a good town clerk, and I'm just happy that we can celebrate Town Clerk's Week. So with that being said, our overall vehicle replacement plan had been to replace a brush truck in FY '26 and one in FY '27. Both of the trucks meet the requirements for the vehicle replacement policy. They're over ten years old. I think we've done a good job on the ones 2012 ones of 2013. We've stretched the lifespan of those trucks out as far as we can, trying to be good -- good stewards of -- of our funding. So with that in mind, we came to you in -- in 2025, before the summer break looking at -- at trying to acquire a brush truck for FY '26. We did a -- not to exceed $390,000 for that. We were able to secure a truck for $313,000. So it was well below what we'd TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 19 of 33 asked for in June of 2025. Due to some construction delays on that truck, which is not uncommon when you're doing specialty vehicles, they're not able to deliver that truck in FY 2026. So in working with finance, we kind of switched some things around. We were able to get another truck that meets our needs a little bit less than the $313,000 that will be available to us at the end of May, which we will be able to take possession of in FY '25 -- or excuse me -- FY '26. And then we moved the truck that we came to last summer to ask you for to FY '27. Both of those vehicles were funded in the vehicle replacement fund, and they're sufficient to US dollars to cover both of those trucks. So what we're asking for tonight is the approval to go ahead and get the FY '27 truck, and FY '26, and move forward with that. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to field those. EARLE: I turned it off. Sorry. I would just like to make a motion to approve. MCMAHON: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Let me see if there's any comment cards first. BENDER: Mayor received for comment cards, none of which wanted to speak, and they were for this item. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Can I get a roll call? Vote, please. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 20 of 33 BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, seven-zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. OTT: Thank you very much. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Moving on to regular agenda item B, consideration possible action related to the FY '26 pavement management projects. Rachel. GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor. We have Director Weldy back up with us again. Shifting gears a little bit. As we know, road maintenance is a -- is a priority for this community. This year's maintenance is well underway. If you've driven pretty much anywhere in town, you can see evidence of that. However, we do have one proposed change for this year's pavement management that Justin is going to walk us through this evening. WELDY: Thank you for the introduction and the opportunity. The pavement management plan is driven by data. That data was collected some years ago. Each year, as part of the budget planning process, the town staff works with the vendor based on the proposed budget to create an unrestrained scenario. So every different type of treatment, and every different classification of road we have is put into the software, and it provides information. From that the town staff, and there are four or five of us that work on it, we sort through all of those and we look at sections and if it picks just a small section of a particular road, we look at other ones that have been selected to determine if we can take smaller segments and create a super segment, or complete an entire section, or an entire length of road. We come back to the Mayor and Council with that information that we've put together. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 21 of 33 And in this particular case, we did come back. One of those that was selected was a small portion of King Street. After the Mayor and Council approved it and we were underway, further observation of that area determined that that just wasn't the best use for the limited funding we have. We spent the next several weeks and months looking at our options, and the way we do that is we take a look at the data and determine what the best use of the funding is. And we primarily focus -- because we've already addressed the major portion of it -- on the backlog. And there are several hammerheads and or cul-de-sacs, or very short street segments that fall under that. Having that information, we then go back to the data. And our starting point is the pavement condition index, that is the PCI. We pulled that data, and it generated a lot of information. We then had to sift through and physically observe each of those locations, and then get it down to the ones that we believe is in the best interest, and best management practices. So we are here tonight to share those locations with you and ask that the Council consider reallocating the funding that was previously approved for a short section of King Street for those short street segments and cul-de-sacs. With that, we will get started with the list. This is Regency Place, which is off of King Street. It's also important to note that a lot of these short street segments and cul-de- sacs will either tie into, based on the PCI data, an existing road that has already been paved, or one that is in the five or ten year horizon, based on the backlog and the condition of the adjacent roadway. This is Nightingale, just off of Malta. This is Westminster Place. This is adjacent to Ashbrook, wash. This is Cameron, which is Kind of in the area of the Little Falcons campus. Royal Court once again, this is off of King Street. This is Sage Drive, and it gets a little bit confusing there because of the dead end road. But this is just a section that we selected based on the condition and the funding. When we discuss pavement condition indexes -- so the data, it also -- the vehicle that drives over this is a very sophisticated and up to date technologically advanced piece of TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 22 of 33 equipment. It doesn't just look at the pavement condition index, but it goes over the entire spectrum. It looks at all of the cracking, whether it be block cracking, longitudinal, or alligator, which is sometimes how we refer to it, and they also have received from us the approximate date that the road was constructed, pre-incorporation versus post incorporation. That gives us a general idea of what the subbase is like. And then town staff takes a look at these segments to determine whether or not it's viable. Based on our observations and the funding allotted, these are the locations that we have selected. With that, I'll be happy to answer the questions that I can to the best of my ability. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Director. If approved, what's the timeline for addressing these cul-de-sacs? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember by June 30th. SKILLICORN: Mr. Mayor, Director. Completed by June 30th or starting June 30th? WELDY: Substantial completion, Councilmember. SKILLICORN: Thank you so much. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Next time they turn that off. Anyway, Director Weldy, when I saw this on the agenda and obviously the thought that went into redirecting road funds to what was obviously not the top of the list, but to redirect those funds based on your 19 years of experience, and obviously using the -- the data that you had, I just want to tell you, I think this is some of the best work you've done to redirect those funds to things that needed to be done more, and those neighborhoods and those cul-de-sacs. I'm sure they'll appreciate your recognizing that their roads need to be done. So I just wanted to tell you, I when I read that I said this -- this is when things are working the best. When we have people like you looking, looking out for the roads and the People that live in those roads and redirecting assets that you could have just spent, that you took the extra time and you said, no, they could be best spent here. So hats off. I appreciate it. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 23 of 33 WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember. Thank you for the kind words. As a reminder, I am the spokesperson. So while yes, I am involved, there's actually a small staff that has spent an incredible amount of time on this, and I will share those kind words with them tomorrow during our meeting. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you for the correction, I appreciate that. WATTS: Thank you for the presentation. While I'm disappointed that King Street isn't being done, I think ultimately it's going to have to be done, similar to what was -- what occurred on Palomino. But I also note that I haven't seen so much pothole repair equipment on King Street except over the last two or three weeks. Maybe four weeks. Lots of potholes. It is coming apart, I think. But I think it's a good opportunity to address those cul-de-sacs. I'm very much supportive of it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'll just make one comment. I'll say that the data is important, but getting out and seeing these roads physically, the data sometimes doesn't tell the whole story. So I appreciate the effort and the direct select of getting these brought up to speed. Vice Mayor. EARLE: I didn't know we were doing comments now, so I'll make my comment before I vote yes. I do want to also thank you for your due diligence. And just -- I know there was a time when people were upset about direct select, but this is why direct select works when the actual get human eyes on there and see what's best, not always following just what the BOS system says. Thank you. MCMAHON: Can I make a motion or are we going to comment cards first? MAYOR FRIEDEL: I want to see if there's any comment cards, please. BENDER: Mayor, we received six cards. Five are for it and one is against. They did not want to speak. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Thank you. Councilwoman. MCMAHON: Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to approve the reallocation of TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 24 of 33 previously -- previously authorized fiscal year '26 pavement management funding in the amount of 46,300 from King Street Boulevard project to reconstruction of the selected cul-de-sacs and street segments, as identified by staff and stated in your report. Thank you. EARLE: Second, that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a motion and a second, can we get a roll call vote, please? BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember. Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, seven-zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Thank you, Justin. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Moving on to item C. Rachel? GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor. This is a -- a big item in terms of moving forward with the FY '27 budget. Tonight is the resolution setting forth the tentative budget and establishing the maximum budget. So TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 25 of 33 remembering that tonight, we present and you guys pass what will be the maximum expenditure for the FY '27 budget. Paul is here to walk us through. I know there have been a few changes from our last budget conversation. I think you're going to highlight those. And then he's here to answer any additional questions you might have. Paul, I'll turn it over to you. PAUL: All right. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Thank you for another opportunity tonight. We've talked about a lot -- we've had many conversations about the fiscal year 2027 budget, many of them required by statute. This is one of those steps. And as Rachel mentioned, the tentative budget under statute sets the maximum amount that the town can budget for next year. There were a couple of changes that I'll get into, but overall, this is a briefer presentation. Kevin asked me for five slides, but I brought forth, I think, 10 or 11, but I'd be happy to discuss any questions you have during the presentation. So just two updates. Everything's the same from the proposed budget work session that we had until today, other than these two changes that we made. The first one was actually something we noticed that was accidentally removed from the budget. It's been the budget for years. We receive a grant from the Office of Tourism -- the State Office of Tourism for tourism type programs, and it's been the budget -- for some reason, in the hustle and bustle of putting the budget together, we removed it by mistake and final reviews of the budget. We found that error, and we added back in. So that's all that's being changed. $80,000 of additional expenditures to be able to spend the grants in the tourism Fund managed by the Economic Development Director and her division. And the second one we have been we've gone through an energy audit process that will be bringing forth, possibly to Council here before the end of the fiscal year. There's a possible project that we've been discussing. And so just to give the Council additional ability to be able to approve another project for next year, we had another million dollars of budget in the Capital Projects Fund as a contingency. So that means the town TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 26 of 33 staff could not use that budget unless the Council approved a project to go along with that contingency. So we add million dollars there and the Capital Projects fund, which brought our contingency in that fund up to $1.7 million from $700,000. So those are the two changes. They went up, as you can see. Real quick, just to focus on revenues. Before we get into the expenditure side, all the revenues are the same from the proposed budget that we already discussed and went over at another work session, to the tentative budget. We're projecting $38.5 million of revenues for next fiscal year, $26.8 million in the general fund, and so on and so forth, going down the line of funds. The one thing that I want to kind of highlight here, that I haven't told the Council at this point, or reported to the Council, is we've had an extremely strong first four months of this calendar year. January through April have probably been the best four months that we've had as a town since I've been here. So next Council meeting we'll be discussing that more at length. So just to give you an idea, we've had all these conversations about the budget being conservative. What other cities and towns are doing. I know you've probably seen the news that some cities are facing budget deficits going into next year. We're not in that situation at all. We're in a safe, sound, situation from a revenue perspective, and we're actually having a really good run right now. So we'll see how we go into next fiscal year, but no changes from the proposed budget to the tentative budget. 38.5 million proposed of -- of projected revenues. Expenditures, you'll see on your screen. The proposed budget we brought forth was 49.2 million, and this budget, the tentative budget is $50.3 million, and kind of highlighted the two changes I mentioned already, the capital projects, funds going up to $11 million, and the economic development funds, including the tourism fund, went up by that $80,000. The general fund contingency is the same. So our wiggle room for unforeseen, unexpected budgetary needs next fiscal year is a little bit over $1 million in the general TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 27 of 33 fund. This is just a reiteration. We're required to follow the Constitution when it comes to the expenditure limitation. It's set by the State every year. That's the maximum we can spend as a town. Except for revenues that don't count towards the expansion limitation when we spend them. So we're just kind of showing you -- we went through this process, we have enough exclusions and carry forward, which just means exclusions from prior years that we've saved up, such as HERF revenues. And we have enough to make sure we're at least $1 below the expense limitation of $38.2 million. The general funds, we like to show this every tentative of budget. It's just a reminder we have a conservative budgeting practice. We balance our ongoing revenues with our ongoing expenditures in the general fund. And because we're conservative in our projections, we generate typically more revenues than we project. Anywhere from three to $4 million more in revenues per year the past three years, and with our expenditures, our -- our financial systems and our policies restrict expenditures to that, that top amount. And so we typically come in two to $3 million below. So that's where we get those general fund excess reserves at year end. Because this is just kind of showing you how our budget plays out and how it results in those savings. And just to piggyback on that, we've talked a lot about, well, we have excess reserve savings. Could we be doing other things? There are opportunities to maybe look at that in future years. But it's also because we have funding gaps. We don't have -- we don't set aside enough money systematically for our facilities reserve. We -- this Council has found opportunities to put more money in the streets, fund things like that. We've been able to do that because of what's on your screen here today. The only other thing to note that looks a little skewed in the expenditure chart. Fiscal year '23, we used about $4 million of federal funds for public safety. Didn't come out of general fund, so that 15.7 million would have been closer to 20 million for fiscal year '23. So again, general fund, nothing changed from the proposed budget to the tentative budget $26.8 million, an increase of 2.9%, broken out by department. Not much to say TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 28 of 33 there unless you have questions. And all other funds in the budget. So I kind of listed all the major funds we talk about, like the streets fund, capital projects fund, facilities reserve, and all those funds. We also kind of aggregate or combine all the other ten funds in the budget. They're all kind of minor. We don't talk -- well, one of them is the vehicle replacement fund that Chief Ott just kind of mentioned, but across all those funds, $23.5 million in those budgets. One notable thing that we've already talked about is we -- staff proposed an increase to the Streets Fund budget to give the Council more ability to do more road paving projects next year, $6 million. It's not as comparable because we did a lot this year with Palomino adding that as a capital project. But it's an increase over previous years. So giving you more ability and it's still somewhat sustainable where we feel like we'll have enough fund balance to work with in future years. Capital projects fund up to $11 million with that $1 million of contingency, as well as the 80,000 I already mentioned. But in total, our budget is going down by 14 percent from fiscal year '26 to fiscal year '27. A lot of that has to do with the grant that we applied for last year, that the Council approved to work with the dark Sky Discovery Center. The grant wasn't successful, so we didn't receive that funding. We didn't spend that money, and we took it out of the budget for fiscal year '27. Proposed transfers. This is the first time we talk about transfers. We budget these, and it's very similar to last year. With the Council approval, we're able to do this, will be able to make these transfers throughout the year. The first one, the simple explanation for that is in the tourism fund that Amanda's team manages. We do receive -- or project to receive about $150,000 of grants to spend on tourism type projects and programs. But we also fund some of the tourism programs from economic development monies. So we basically do this each year since I've been here, to just transfer some of the ED monies over to tourism to allow for that spending. Now the tourism fund. The second one, this is actually a new one. We have started to grow a large fund balance for the Court enhancement fund. It's a there's a statute that allows courts to TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 29 of 33 charge a certain fee to help supplement the costs of programs in the courts. And we've we have about $370,000 in that fund at this point and kind of been growing and -- and so just finding a way to use some of that money, we're budgeting to transfer up to $35,000 from that fund to the general fund to cover some payroll costs for the -- for the Court. The third one, $1.4 million from the Facilities Reserve Fund to Capital Projects Fund. This is just for capital projects that are earmarked to be paid out of the facilities reserve fund. Number one, the lake liner design, one million is the budget. You know, we'll see where it comes out. But every time we pay a vendor for that design, we'll transfer money to reimburse out of that $6.7 million that's been saved up for the lake liner for next year. Also, we have one more project, the air handler project, that's earmarked coming out of the facilities reserve fund, out of the nonlake liner savings. And lastly, $1.9 million of development impact fee transfers. So basically any time we pay a vendor for a development impact fee project that we have sufficient fund balance to -- to pay for, we'll make a transfer from the development impact fee funds into the Capital Projects Fund to cover those costs. And so those are all very much planned and included in the budget schedules that are within the resolution. So with that, the tentative budget is the final chance to make any changes to the budget before you consider adoption on June 2nd. So any Council direction would be welcomed at this point. WATTS: Paul, one question. On the slide that you had the Streets Fund, where you had included one million dollars. But it said in the footnote, up to six million. Is the amount in the Streets Fund inclusive of the one million, or is it inclusive of the six million, and what's -- can you explain the footnote? PAUL: Yes, absolutely. Mayor. Councilmember. So the $8.3 million is inclusive of the six million. So what I was trying to convey there -- it's hard with such a small amount of space to put a footnote. All I'm trying to say there is we added one million dollars to the budget compared to fiscal, even fiscal year '26, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 30 of 33 because we budgeted five million dollars directly out of the streets fund, other than Palomino for road paving projects. We added one million dollars to that. So we're up to six million specifically for road paving, and the six million is within the 8.3 million. And remember, we had a pretty long conversation at, I believe, the February work session where we talked about there's a lot of other budgeted costs, how the streets fund, including the payroll for the staff, landscaping, road striping, things like that all kind of also come out of that fund as well. WATTS: So all in the eight million dollars includes the one plus the six, and the balance is what was existing before? PAUL: Yes. One is within the six. The six is within the 8.3. WATTS: Gotcha. Thanks, Paul. PAUL: Uh-huh. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Do we have any comment cards? BENDER: No, Mayor. SKILLICORN: Motion to approve. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Second? MCMAHON: I'll second it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call? Vote, please. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 31 of 33 BENDER: Vice Mayor, Earle? EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, seven-zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Good presentation. PAUL: Thank you. Next up? MAYOR FRIEDEL: Next up is the consideration and action on Arizona Cities and Towns weekly legislative bulletin. Does anybody have anything they want to discuss? No? GOODWIN: There was a -- there was a call this week for the first time in a while. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. GOODWIN: But really, there wasn't a lot of action. It was just sort of letting everybody know to hold steady. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. And that the budget probably isn't going to pass. GOODWIN: Exactly. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So all right. Then we'll move on to the call of the public. Town Clerk, do we have any speakers? BENDER: Mayor, we have one card and I may say her last name incorrectly. Linda Sommo. SOMMO: Thank you. Mayor. Councilmembers. My name is Linda Sommo and I have been a proud Fountain Hills resident for almost nine years now. I asked to speak tonight because I'm concerned that Fountain Hills residents can't trust the veracity of some of the Council, particularly Councilmember Skillicorn, and unfortunately, Mayor Friedel. Mayor Friedel was sued and had to settle a claim by a constituent when he was caught lying about what the constituent said and did. Mayor Friedel was deceptive in claiming that he had saved the count -- he town of Fountain Hills money with the MCSO contract. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 32 of 33 It would actually had nothing to do with the conversation that Mayor Friedel had with Sheriff Sheridan, because it had already been decided by the Maricopa Board of Supervisors. He also claimed that when they -- when you set money aside for the replacement of the liner on the lake, that it was under his leadership that this had started, when actually it had started quite a while before. And I believe he was part of that when he was a Councilmember at the time, and already five million dollars had been set aside. It's things like that that make me, as a citizen, embarrassed, because I can't trust the information that comes from the Council. Councilman Skillicorn recently voluntarily withdrew his nomination for constable when he was at -- well, when his petitions were questioned by citizens, and showed that they were not -- that was proven the accountability and the truthfulness was not there. So instead of being told that he didn't qualify, he voluntarily withdrew. But then he released a news ad or a newspaper information that everything was caused by his opponent, his Republican opponent, the incumbent Dan Diaz. Whereas that really was not the case. It's things like that that make me doubt what comes from this Council. I would really like to be proud of the town where I live, and I hope that that will change in the future. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you for your comments, and I will address those since you mentioned me by name. First of all, you were not in the meeting with Gerry Sheridan. There were three people in that meeting, myself, the sheriff, and the town manager. All we reported -- the town did a press release. All we reported was that as a result of what he told us in the meeting, the town received a 6.01 percent reduction in the sheriff's contract cost. That's all we did. I didn't lie about it. We didn't care what other towns got. That's not our business. Our business is the town of Fountain Hills, first of all. So maybe those facts got distorted. You should really have the facts before you accuse. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MAY 05, 2026, TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 33 of 33 Secondly, the lake liner was 100 percent under my direction. The first thing I did as a Councilmember, I went to the town manager at the time, which was Grady Miller, and I suggested we start a sinking fund to save money for a huge lake liner replacement, because how could we, as a Council, go to the residents of this town and say, we've done nothing to save any money for a lake liner that might cost, at the time, 14 million dollars? So he said, Gerry, that's a great idea. That was under Ginny Dickey's administration. We started saving money under my direction, or question, to the town manager at the time, so I hope that clears that up for you. I didn't lie about the MCSO contract. We reported what we were told, and that was simple, and that was it. Thank you. SOMMO: Thank you. And may I say something or not allowed? MAYOR FRIEDEL: No, we can't have a back and forth. Thank you. SOMMO: Okay. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Thank you. Let's see. We'll move on then to Council direction to the town manager. GOODWIN: Mayor. The only direction I picked up tonight was a follow-up from Director Wesley in regards to the construction, and the dumping of fines, et cetera. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. I'll let you take care of that. Thank you. GOODWIN: Yep. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And do we have any future agenda items? Councilman? SKILLICORN: I was waiting for the next motion. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Move to adjourn. WATTS: Motion to adjourn. SKILLICORN: Second. EARLE: Second, third, fourth. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. All in favor? All: Aye. Having no further business, Mayor Gerry M. Friedel adjourned the Regular Session of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on May 5, 2026, at 6:43 p.m. APPROVED: TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS _______________________ Gerry M. Friedel, Mayor ATTEST: __________________________ Bevelyn J. Bender, Town Clerk CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills on the 5th day of May 2026. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. _____________________________ Bevelyn J. Bender, Town Clerk