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TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR SESSION OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL MARCH 3, 2026 A Regular Session 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 J. Kalivianakis; Councilmember Rick Watts; Councilmember Hannah Larrabee; Councilmember Peggy McMahon, Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Clerk Bevelyn Bender; Town Attorney Jennifer Wright TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 1 of 36 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Town of Fountain Hills Council Regular Meeting March 3, 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 MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 2 of 36 MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'd like to call this meeting to order. Would you please rise for 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And if you choose to remain standing, we have Pastor Clayton Wilfer from Joy Church in Fountain Hills to do our invocation. WILFER: 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. ALL: Amen. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Town Clerk, can we get roll call, please? BENDER: Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Present. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Present. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Present. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Here. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Here. BENDER: Mayor, you have a quorum. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. We will now move on to our summary of events. Town TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 3 of 36 manager, Rachael Goodwin. GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor, Council, members of the community. I'd like to share a few brief updates before we begin tonight's meeting. I'm pleased to share that the next steps in the Palomino Boulevard reconstruction project is underway. Paving has officially started. Yay. We appreciate everyone's patience in this important infrastructure work, and we recognize that there may be continued traffic adjustments in this area as the project continues. On a lighter note, Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster's Irish cousin, 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 festivities. With that in mind, Irish Fest takes place next Saturday, March 14th, and will feature great food, a variety of beers, and festive entertainment. The greening of the fountain will occur at both noon and 4 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, on the Experience Fountain Hills website. In other news, we had our team takeover. It was a great success this past weekend with strong attendance and positive feedback. Thank you to our Community Services team and our Mayor's Youth Council for creating such an engaging opportunity for our youth. This Saturday is our Dementia Caregiver 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, 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. We'll move on right now with awards and recognitions. I'd like to recognize the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 4 of 36 outgoing Vice Mayor Allen. Thank you for your eight months of service to the town, and introduce our new Vice Mayor, Gayle Earle. Gayle, 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, congratulations in your role as vice mayor of the town. Thank you. And are we going to exchange the nameplates, 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. So now, I'm going to do a recognition of Cassie Hansen. 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, Cassie'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 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 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 5 of 36 honor Cassie Hansen today. Thank you. So next, I have a recognition, it's called the Mayor's Citizens Award. And today's recognition is going to be to Peter Volny. Some may ask why and who is he? 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 long-lasting impact on our community. That's Mr. Peter Volny. Peter is a 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 $1 million 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 tireless 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 Citizen's Award. Peter, thank you for all you've done and continue to do for our community. Would you please step forward? VOLNY: Thank you. I'm running for mayor. Just a quick correction. You know, you get an award, and then you complain about it. It's not exactly a complaint, but we've actually raised about 3.5 million, not one million, so -- and I think 2.5 came from you, didn't it? In all honesty, the reason this show is so successful is because the park, the park is so beautiful, and that's what's made the show really successful. And we've lived -- I'm not originally American. You probably can't tell, but we moved to the United States 21 years ago. And we moved into Fountain Hills, and we've been here ever since, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 6 of 36 and we love it. This is heaven on earth. So thank you very much for this award. MAYOR FRIEDEL: 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, it 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 -- VOLNY: And lower property taxes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So again, thank you, Peter. We appreciate it. VOLNY: Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Next up is our presentations, Rachael. GOODWIN: I believe we're going to have a second quarter update from director Amanda Jacobs on our economic development progress. JACOBS: 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 provide that. So in the staff report, it said in the coming months, that was a test to just see if you were paying attention, but the building permit was issued today for Sprouts. 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 later this year, so fingers crossed. You guys won't have to travel down to Shea. 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, Kolibri Aesthetics and Lenea Corporation if I'm pronouncing that correct, received businesses business licenses last quarter. And then again, coming soon, we've announced the names in black, but want to give a public update regarding Trilogy at Eagle Mountain. The former Vu Restaurant. So you'll recall the last couple of years, Director Wesley and I had been working with the property owner. They decided to sell the property. We then were told it was going to be turned into an office. And TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 7 of 36 whenever I spoke to the rotary or other the Kiwanis Club, they would boo me. And I'm like, I am just the messenger. We're still wanting a restaurant. So maybe we manifested that or applying that pressure, but the Vu Restaurant will once again be a restaurant. Our economic development specialist spoke to the owners, 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 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 artists process that was national. We received a couple people from out of state, but we awarded four artists from the region, and some community members think we have only one artist in town, and we don't. So you'll see AnnMarie Perry is 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 Farias was also new. It was quite cute. I went out the first or second day, and he was like, usually people from the city 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, 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 Saguaro and Paul Nordin. Then as you're entering into Plaza Fountainside, another new artist, Cheri Reckers, so you can see again, the natural environment, there's flowers, there's a bumblebee, if you look closely, and she added a little quote just buzzing in the Hills. And then Jesse Perry has actually been selected during all three. And so this is adjacent to Fountain View Coffee. And then a fun story. 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 going on here? They're like, it's the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 8 of 36 streets of New York. So Jesse used to work for the streets of New York. But then as you can see, he's got a good game. He painted three murals, and they're planning another mural with inside the building, so I love that other people are being inspired regarding the art. And this example is not here in Fountain Hills, but again, is to just draw home the point of that sometimes you want to go outside 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? So he got a shout out. So just wanted to point that out. And then this year, 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 to please join us. 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 in January, we actually had almost 250 people. 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 the 90's. 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 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 Redrock 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 & Glenbrook 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 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, 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 get you to come here. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 9 of 36 You're already here. You're a local. So we're pushing this out to 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 the last quarter. You'll see our social media views from October of 2004 and then until last quarter, the large increase. So appreciating just the work that the team is doing. Our fountain life feed, also known as the EarthCam, had over 60,000 views and there was over 42,000 new visitors to the Experience Fountain Hills website. I want to give a shout out to our community center folks, Jennifer Lyons. 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. So we're actually working with The Inspiration Academy to build Nessie. So we may be activating a kids zone on March 14th. And then I've been holding some of this news hostage. 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 Fountain Hills website. So we partnered with Clason Communications, Debbie Clason, who is a local resident and business owner, and some of this idea, I have to give some kudos to Councilmember Skillicorn and Councilmember Larrabee of just wanting to bring back some of our traditions 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 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 10 of 36 are following us on Experience Fountain Hills, we're doing some throwback photos, which are very fun. And then International Dark Sky Discovery Center in international news. So last month, somebody reached out. And so actually, a year and a half to 2 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 Pedro had followed up with me and said, hey, I'm doing a newsletter. And then the national newspaper in Mexico, Repubblica, they're wanting to highlight 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 Centro de -- 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 that are looking at Fountain Hills, our viewership. And with that, do you have any questions, comments? MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'll make a comment. Well done. Thank you -- JACOBS: Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: -- for all your hard work. JACOBS: Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. We'll move on to our consent agenda. KALIVIANAKIS: Motion to approve consent agenda. EARLE: I second that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 11 of 36 BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, 7-0. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. We'll move on to our regular agenda items. We've got item A, which is consideration possible action relating to cooperative Purchasing agreement (2026-058). Rachael. GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor. As many of you guys know, we worked to replace one of our chillers earlier this year. It was a big project, a necessary project. This item tonight is really related to that and the next steps in our efficiency project for the cooling of our buildings on this campus. Justin will get into a few more details, but this is sort of the next step in our efforts to be proactive in our efficiencies in our systems throughout the campus. So with that, Justin, I'll turn it to you. WELDY: 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 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 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 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 12 of 36 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 three 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 submittals. 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 facilities supervisor, Marc, wrote all this, but I will certainly do my best to answer the questions that I can related to this matter. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Council. WATTS: Oh, so since it lights up on me, that's good to know. So Justin, have we ever had a catastrophic failure where we have not been able to cool the campus? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, I'm not aware of a catastrophic failure, but we have had some mechanical issues that have created downtime and uncomfortable conditions. WATTS: Does it take all three chillers to manage temperatures? WELDY: 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 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 13 of 36 a different configuration where they bring on the third one, but not all of them together. A series of switches, if you would. WATTS: So the control system most likely does that, and I am a proponent of doing lead lag and run time. Making sure that they all have an equal amount of run time. Is all that programming already included in this price? WELDY: 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. WATTS: Yeah. I saw one or two Belimo 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 runtimes; is that correct? WELDY: That is correct. WATTS: Okay. Two things that I had a concern about was one, do the cooling towers have the capacity singularly to handle all three chillers? WELDY: Yes, the design capacity was for that. WATTS: For the three chillers, originally? WELDY: Yes. WATTS: Okay. And do we have included which I didn't see were some take offs 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 chilled 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? WELDY: I don't have an answer for that, Councilmember. 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. WATTS: Yeah. Just a suggestion because we're doing a lot of modifications with the new drives 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. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 14 of 36 WELDY: Understood. WATTS: Thank you. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Thank you for your presentation and for the staff report. It was comprehensive, well written. You know, there's the old saying a failure to plan is planning to fail. And I talked about this with Rachael, and you know, we already hit 90 degrees in February this year, so I think we have to be prepared for hot summer, you know, for 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 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 I'm going to be a yes on this. I hope we agree and approve this tonight. LARRABEE: I'm sorry. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Council. LARRABEE: Okay. I'm still learning the left button. We usually press the right. I'd like to move to approve cooperative purchasing agreement (2026-058) with B2B Direct Sales, Inc. WATTS: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So we have a motion and a second, however, are there any comment cards? BENDER: No, Mayor. No comment cards. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 15 of 36 BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, 7-0. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Your lights on. Moving on to the next, item B, consideration possible action regarding the possible sale of town-owned land on the 16500 block of East Ashbrook. Rachael. GOODWIN: Mayor, this is a continuation of an item we heard earlier this year. I want to say back in January where direction or actually was before the holiday break. The council suggested that we take parcels individually that are town owned to review them to see if they are of interest for potential use or sale. The property at 16500 East Brook Drive was the first one -- 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. WESLEY: Thank you. Mayor, Council, I'll go through this review of this property and as Town Manager has stated, this is a result of some discussion back in December 2nd, where council considered kind of broadly, 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. Back in 1989, the town acquired a number of properties from MCO as the town transitioned from -- to a town. So the one we're looking at this evening is along Ashbrook. Here, just north of the downtown area, east of Fountain Hills Boulevard. Some of the background and history on this, the original preliminary platting that occurred through this area, actually did propose lots in this TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 16 of 36 area. And so it was not it's not foreign to think that there could be lots there. It was part of the original plan. The area to the north of Ashbrook was platted first, and then the area south of Ashbrook Drive was platted. When that plat was done, and they were looking at how wide they wanted to actually make the tract for the floodplain, they made it wider than they anticipated 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 70's when this area was platted. Also, in terms of the original planning for this area, this entire area was then planned for and has been zoned R-2, which is basically a two-family zoning district, to the south of the wash is R-3. As far as the area itself as it's developed and looking at the area along Ashbrook, 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 two-family homes, but also a number of single-family homes, just about all entirely single-story homes, but there are some two-story homes. So if we're from Fountain Hills Boulevard 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 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 homes, the 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 verify what it's like. Approximately 500 vehicles a day on this street as this -- 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 ten vehicle trips a day. So adding another five to ten homes in this area, depending upon single-family versus two-family, would not make a significant impact on the current traffic. So in summary, as we acquired this property for MCO, there are no restrictions to the future use of it, no specific plans for the use of this property. The town has not TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 17 of 36 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, so they're fairly minimal at this point. Again, it was originally planned to have lots as we look at this area, and the size is compared to the existing lots in the area. We can certainly get three and probably four lots platted on here, that would 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 property would not really block anybody's views of any of the surrounding properties. So again, this evening, we're looking for further direction. Do you want staff to continue to pursue development of this property? I get it ready for sale or determine not to sell it at this time, and/or direct us to look at other properties. If you do 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 plat it 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, because given the zoning, they could be made smaller than what some of the surrounding lots are. And you may also want to think about and direct us to include any restrictions, such as single family only duplexes, single stories, or those types of things. You give us that direction 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 control of those sizes. We think would also bring a better return on that that sale. Then we would complete the appraisal, publish it for bids, receive those bids, and then we can move forward with the sale to the most responsive bidders that meet the appraisal. That's the report, and that's the -- this particular location. Any questions you have? LARRABEE: Thank you, Mayor. I know I had expressed some hesitation the last time that we spoke about this as an overall project, but this particular lot seems pretty straightforward to me. And thank you, John, for your work on this. I personally would lean toward us platting it out ourselves so that we have that control. I would lean toward three only because it looks like it's -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 18 of 36 MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilmember. LARRABEE: Yes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I don't mean to interrupt you. This is for questions right now. Discussion will come afterwards. LARRABEE: Oh, I apologize. I was going to make a motion after this, but. MAYOR FRIEDEL: All right. LARRABEE: Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Councilmember Watts. WATTS: John, what's the zoning in the surrounding neighborhood? Is it -- will it allow for two-story or is it all single-story? Does it include duplexes or not? WESLEY: Mayor, Councilmember, so here's back to the zoning map. So this entire area along Ashbrook is zoned R-2, which is a duplex zone to the south side of the wash is zoned R-3, which gets into multifamily. So all these lots up here are available for duplex development on them. They allow 30-foot-tall buildings so they can be two-story. We just don't see a lot of them along this section. Anyway, there may be more in other sections, but you can have a duplex unit for every -- hopefully, I'll 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 per lot per unit, you could get ten units if you just had it as a lot on here. But again, as we're looking at it subdivided into three or four lots, each lot then could have a duplex on it, and so that will bring the numbers down just a little bit. WATTS: But if there are no duplexes in the area -- WESLEY: Oh. WATTS: -- could we strike the duplex component and say it's all single-family? WESLEY: Yes, Mayor, Councilmember, we could. Again, back to that slide, I went over a little bit quickly, but currently, the 31 homes immediately around this area, there are 11 single families and 20 duplexes. WATTS: Thank you. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 19 of 36 WESLEY: So it's a primarily duplex area. WATTS: Thanks. EARLE: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Anyway, do you have a rough idea of what we would sell the property for? WESLEY: Mayor, Vice Mayor, I really don't. I'm not in that area. I'm not sure if Justin from any of the work he's done with selling properties have an idea, but I don't. I don't believe he does either. EARLE: Typically, we would get an appraisal before -- WESLEY: Right. That's what we'll do first, right. EARLE: -- is that right? WESLEY: Right. EARLE: Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yes. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And this might be a duplication of what was already stated, but I just wanted to, for the record, if we did replat, this made it conducive to the rest of the homes in the area, it seems like it'd fit in pretty naturally with what is there already. And are there any sightline problems with any of the neighbors that you would anticipate? WESLEY: Mayor, Councilmember, so again, here's the street view of these lots. And so here's what neighbors on the north side of the street are looking at today. There's no real mountain views or anything here, so a single-story home in particular is not going to block anything except views of these apartments across the street, and a two-story probably won't block much of a view either. KALIVIANAKIS: Right. So yeah, it doesn't look like you'd anticipate any problems there. Okay. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Do we have any speaker cards? BENDER: Yes, Mayor. We received one online. They do not wish to speak. They wanted the council to know they were for this, but we do have one person here, Larry Myers. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 20 of 36 MYERS: Mayor, Council, Larry Myers, 44-year resident. 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, 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilmember. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I do like the idea of having more open space in town, but it sounds to me that the consensus up here is that we do want to sell. I think Councilwoman Larrabee had a very good idea about platting it ourselves. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Do you -- do you have a question because we're still in the question phase. SKILLICORN: Well, I was going to move on to. -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: We did do speaker cards. That's true. Go ahead. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And then also, Councilman Watts' question about single-family homes versus duplexes. So it would be very -- I don't think it'd be desirable for the people to live in that neighborhood for this to go to R-3. 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 not be in favor of that. So I'm happy to run -- and actually make a motion kind of mirror after Councilwoman Larrabee. But I do want to make the requirement of single-family homes instead of duplexes. LARRABEE: If that was a motion, I'll second it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: I got one last question. How many more pieces of property do we have? WESLEY: That, again, would be Mr. Weldy question. There are a few others, three or four, kind of in this similar type of situation, we believe that we'll be bringing back over TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 21 of 36 the next few months, but as -- do you have a better number count than that of. Yes. So again, there'll be a few that we'll be bringing you back. WATTS: I think when it comes back, if you could give us that list of other properties that may come up for sale -- WESLEY: Sure. WATTS: -- give us some idea. WESLEY: Okay. WATTS: Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: 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 -- like these parcels are. Go ahead. Councilwoman. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would just like to agree with my other councilmembers' thoughts on this. When this first came up, before I was against selling off parcels 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, we're on the right track to literally read this property is no productive use for this town. It's too small for a park, and it costs to maintain. So you guys manage to just hit the perfect property to, I think, convince everybody, including myself, who was originally not for this, but 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 wouldn't affect the parks, open spaces, and things that the other councilmembers mentioned. So thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: 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. SKILLICORN: That's the motion. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. That's the motion. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Town Clerk, can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 22 of 36 MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, 7-0. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Okay. Now, we'll move on to item C, which is consideration and possible action regarding ratification of the contract for consultant to assist with drafting updates to the town's ordinance and associated documents for wireless communications. Rachael. GOODWIN: Thank you, Mayor. Just for a little bit of background on this item. On January 20th, council gave direction with a vote of 5-2 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 and 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. Rather, it formally confirms the council's earlier direction and authorizes the agreement in a manner that complies TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 23 of 36 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. MCMAHON: Could you -- are you saying that -- I didn't hear you right. And hopefully, I didn't, that this is all predetermined and preconceived. GOODWIN: To review, the council discussed it on January 20th, and a direction was given by the majority to proceed. MCMAHON: I know. GOODWIN: And then we met again on February 3rd -- MCMAHON: Um-hum. GOODWIN: -- to review contracts, and a vendor was selected, and direction was given to authorize the contract, which we did. MCMAHON: Did we go through this contract specifically, because I don't remember going through it line by line or anything like that. GOODWIN: It was reviewed by our town attorney, just like all other contracts are. MCMAHON: I don't know that it was thoroughly reviewed at that time. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just to -- I guess, I'm a little confused too. Was that contract a part of the executive session? Was it drafted at that point, or was it reviewed after the executive session? GOODWIN: It was reviewed after. Three vendors were presented. Direction was given to engage and execute a contract. KALIVIANAKIS: So in the package, that's the first time we actually -- the council saw the agreement? GOODWIN: No, I've sent it out previously, that you guys have been involved. In fact, we've already received work product from the vendor. KALIVIANAKIS: Right. I know about them. GOODWIN: So tonight's ratification includes a copy of it as well. KALIVIANAKIS: Right. Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Seeing no more questions, do we have any comment cards, Town TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 24 of 36 Clerk? BENDER: Mayor, we received five online that issued -- said they were against. And then we also have for speaker cards for to come up. So it's going to be Shelby Blecker, followed by Crystal Cavanaugh, followed by Larry Myers, and then Laurie Troller. MCMAHON: I have a question of John Wesley. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I think we have to wait until the speakers are done. MCMAHON: Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: You bet. BLECKER: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, councilmembers, staff. Shelby Blecker, a resident of Fountain Hills. I just want to say thank you to Councilmember Watts for being accessible to answer questions to the years of work that he put in, to 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Next speaker, please. CAVANAUGH: Crystal Cavanaugh, resident, Fountain Hills. I do appreciate the transparency by bringing this before the community tonight and at the council. And there should be no question tonight that this is going to be ratified. 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Next speaker, please. MYERS: Mayor, Council, Larry Myers, 44-year resident. I want to thank you for the vote to hire the third-party expert. I'd like to 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 managers and also our former attorney, so let's let that be known. This is a change. It's long overdue. Next in April, it's the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 25 of 36 fourth anniversary of citizens and 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 sufficient to protect the residents of the town and the town itself from possible wrecking of the beauty of the town and the property values of the residents. I think that it's also 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 the spirit of transparency, I would encourage people to 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 like the transparency. I think we're better off than we were before, and I hope you ratify it. And thanks a lot. Appreciate it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Next speaker, please. TROLLER: Good evening. Laurie Troller, resident. Thanks. This is a big thank you, 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 1,500 and try and get it done. Anyway, thanks. EARLE: I'd like to make a motion to ratify this. LARRABEE: Second. MCMAHON: I have questions, I said. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Peggy, what's your question? MCMAHON: 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 -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: So. MCMAHON: -- that I've never seen in a legal agreement before like this. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 26 of 36 MAYOR FRIEDEL: So this is just a ratification of the contract. MCMAHON: No, it's not. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'm sorry. MCMAHON: I don't -- it isn't. I don't feel like this has been fully discussed, and I don't recall its fully -- that being fully discussed in this session. MAYOR FRIEDEL: This is a ratification of the contract. We're not going to be opening up the contract here right now. MCMAHON: I object to that completely because, again, this contract has not been thoroughly discussed. The procurement wasn't fully disclosed, and this is not a legal contract in -- for what we're hiring this firm for. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Your objection is noted. We have a town attorney that did review this contract. MCMAHON: Yes. And I pose questions to her that she didn't particularly answer. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So we're ratifying this contract tonight. That's -- there's a motion and a second for that. MCMAHON: I don't think it's a good idea to ratify this contract because it has controversial political requirements in it that the neutral town government contract cannot enter into, and I spoke with the town attorney about that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We're here just to ratify the contract. We're not going to -- MCMAHON: You can keep saying that all you want, but it doesn't erase the fact -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Thank you. MCMAHON: -- that there are controversial political provisions in it that we should not be agreeing to. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. MCMAHON: In fact, we can. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you. Yeah, that aside. Yeah, it is part of the packet. It seems like it would be subject to debate, but you've made a ruling in -- honor of that ruling. You know, the statement I prepared was as we prepare to authorize funds for yet another TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 27 of 36 outside attorney. I urge us to pause and reflect. It was stated 1,500 days. This has been going on for years. The previous town attorney, the current town attorney, Mr. Campanelli, the town staff, Planning and Zoning, this council, and we're still -- it's almost like we're at the very beginning of the process. We've wrestled with this for years, but the reality is, is that federal and state law severely limit what we can do. And also, this has been taken up by the Congress and the president, and the president's initiative to streamline these telecommunications. And so the last time we discussed this, 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. 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 doing right now, and we'll be right back to -- we hired somebody, wrote an ordinance, and we can't enforce it. 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 draft, put it to Planning and Zoning, and we're going to come up with something. That's what I thought we decided to do. The Campanelli draft was going to be the model for the town. Suddenly, the Campanelli draft was in the end, it became just the beginning of yet another salvo of specialists and consultants, and attorneys. I didn't think it was a starting point. I thought that was an end point. We were throwing taxpayer dollars at another consultant who can't give us meaningful flexibility. That's foolish. Just ten more seconds. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Your time is up. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you. Just 10 seconds, if you will. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Go ahead. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Gerry. 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 28 of 36 MCMAHON: Thank you. I think that there's a lot of problems with this, and we're basically hiring this firm to review and draft updates to our 5G telecommunications, but this contract, it goes far beyond that. EARLE: I have a question. MCMAHON: I think it's premature -- EARLE: Can I ask a question? MCMAHON: -- because of the federal government rules -- EARLE: Don't we each get a turn first? MCMAHON: -- being revising. And I think the fee structure; there's no guarantee of the outcome. It's open. It's not flat. EARLE: Point of order. MCMAHON: It's -- EARLE: I believe we each get to ask a question or speak first before someone gets a second turn. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I went by the -- MCMAHON: I was asking questions, and now, it sounds like we get to make comments, so that's what I'm doing. MAYOR FRIEDEL: That was a point of order. It wasn't a comment. And Vice Mayor, I plugged in whoever was next. Sorry. MCMAHON: So 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 anti-vaxxer, which opposes wireless infrastructure solely based on health grounds and urges others to politically push back against wireless takeover. That doesn't sound like it's drafting legal things as part of our contractual agreement, and federal law prevents us from regulating wireless facilities based on health concerns. It's also entangles our fees with their relationship with the Child Health Defense Fund, and these provisions far exceed standard attorney fee agreements, and they are not 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 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 29 of 36 that seems to be more important than hoping than drafting our legal -- a new legal or revising our 5G ordinance. So my concern is I'd like to stop the waste and partisan 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 -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Time. MCMAHON: -- misuse of taxpayer manual, and for legal exposure under Texas laws that we are not I'm interested in being (indiscernible). MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman. WATTS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm mystified. Why are we arguing about something that the town staff -- MCMAHON: I'm not arguing about it. I'm stating my thoughts about it. WATTS: That has asked for help, acknowledged that 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 percent 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, and then the president has to sign it. It's failed innumerable times. 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. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 30 of 36 MCMAHON: He asked me. He basically asked me why I'm not defending the town residents. I am defending the town residents. MAYOR FRIEDEL: He did not identify -- MCMAHON: Well, yes, he did. MAYOR FRIEDEL: He did not identify anybody. This is not an argument right now. MCMAHON: I'm not arguing. I was just -- I don't appreciate that comment because I do defend the town residents and represent them. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman. LARRABEE: With that, I'd like to call the question. MAYOR FRIEDEL: The question's been called. Do you have a second for that? LARRABEE: Do I have a second? WATTS: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So the question has been called to end discussion. Can we get a roll call vote, please? BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, 5-2. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 31 of 36 MAYOR FRIEDEL: And I think we have a motion on the motion and a second on the floor. Can we get a roll call vote, please? BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: 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, councilmembers, 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 yes. MCMAHON: That wasn't inappropriate. BENDER: Mayor, 5-2. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. And now, we'll move on to the legislative bulletin if anybody has anything. Oh. No, that's next. Nobody has anything, then we'll move on to the call to the public. Town Clerk, do we have any speakers? BENDER: Yes, Mayor. We do. We have three cards. Shelby Blecker, Mathew Corrigan, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 32 of 36 followed by Steve Baggio. BLECKER: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers, Staff. Shelby Blecker, town resident. 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 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. CORRIGAN: Mr. Mayor, Councilmembers, Mathew Corrigan, 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 Campanelli letter. I've seen what's happened with former counsel, 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. BAGGIO: Technical difficulties. Mayor, town council, Steve Baggio, 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 would include lawsuits, legal actions against the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 33 of 36 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 the Town of Fountain Hills, and if legal action to countersue these individuals can be taken in 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. The last thing I would ever do is sue the Town of Fountain Hills. I feel if we have a strong reaction against people who perhaps are abusing this or 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. There will be a huge major cut in the water flowing from Arizona from the Colorado River. And I feel as Fountain Hills, we got the name Fountain Hills and the lake, we should do precautionary action against this. The town of Gilbert is already having a tax increase on water usage, as Scottsdale will in May. As the foundation of Fountain 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 perhaps having a moratorium on apartments and condominiums until this water crisis is taken care of. Also, perhaps having a tax on new business, new -- not business -- new condos and apartments, 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, EPCOR, people in the Colorado River to discuss how we can conserve water and to give it back to the community, 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 out there as the great conservative, that 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. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Council, discussion for the town manager. Anybody have anything TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 34 of 36 they want to bring up? LARRABEE: Thank you. Regarding the item brought up with call to the public, I would like to pursue maybe writing a letter to the Attorney General, maybe Kris Mayes, just to encourage enforcement of laws that we already have on the books regarding political threats or threats on people's lives. I know that it's not just the federal judges. It's a lot over the nation and the State, so. SKILLICORN: (Indiscernible). LARRABEE: Oh. I thought this was direction to the town manager. SKILLICORN: No, it's not (indiscernible). We can't talk about the (indiscernible). Well, we can make a motion. I would second. GOODWIN: So what I'd like to is there a consensus that you'd like to have a letter drafted? SKILLICORN: Can we discuss it at a meeting? GOODWIN: Yeah, we can agendize it, if that's what you'd like to do. SKILLICORN: Only a third can do that. EARLE: I'll third it. LARRABEE: I think that would be the next agenda item, though. GOODWIN: Yeah. That's going to be the next. LARRABEE: Okay. GOODWIN: That's going to be the next. LARRABEE: I'll repeat it later. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts. WATTS: Thank you. I think I just got my answer by reading the instructions. 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. GOODWIN: Those are for agendized items, not for call to the public. WATTS: Okay. So that I'd like to see it for call to the public as well, because there are TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 35 of 36 people that -- well, I got heads going every which way except my way. GOODWIN: 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. WATTS: I know it is. That's why -- GOODWIN: Um-hum. WATTS: -- I wanted to bring it back up, so I'm willing to talk about it. GOODWIN: Okay. WATTS: You know, that's fine. But there's been a number of comments about it and the complexity, so. All right. I'm done. Thanks. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Now, we'll move on to future agenda items. Go ahead. LARRABEE: 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? SKILLICORN: I think that's still a yes. LARRABEE: Okay. GOODWIN: If I recall, I believe Councilman Skillicorn and our Vice Mayor second and thirded. Noted. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: If that's it, can I get a motion to adjourn? WATTS: So moved. EARLE: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: All in favor? ALL: Aye. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MARCH 3, 2026 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Page 36 of 36 HAVING NO FURTHER BUSINESS, MAYOR GERRY M. FRIEDEL ADJOURNED THE REGULAR SESSION OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL HELD ON MARCH 3, 2026, AT 6:46 P.M. APPROVED: ____________________________________ GERRY FRIEDEL, MAYOR ATTEST: ____________________________________ BEVELYN BENDER, TOWN CLERK CERTIFICATION I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING MINUTES ARE A TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF THE MINUTES OF THE REGULAR TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS COUNCIL MEETING OF THE TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA HELD ON MARCH 3, 2026. I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT THE MEETING WAS DULY CALLED AND HELD AND THAT A QUORUM WAS PRESENT. ________________________________ BEVELYN BENDER, TOWN CLERK