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TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR SESSION OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL FEBRUARY 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 Allen Skillicorn; Councilmember Gayle Earle; Councilmember Brenda J. Kalivianakis; Councilmember Rick Watts; Councilmember Hannah Larrabee; Councilmember Peggy McMahon Staff Present: Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Clerk Bevelyn Bender, Town Attorney Jennifer Wright TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 1 of 62 Post-Production File Town of Fountain Hills Regular Council Meeting Minutes February 03, 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 FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 2 of 62 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'll take a moment of silence. Thank you. Town clerk, can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Present. BENDER: Vice Mayor Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Here. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: 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. And we'll start with our summary of events. Town Manager, Rachel Goodwin. GOODWIN: Thank you. Mayor. We have a number of updates that I'm going to go through. I'm going to try to move through these pretty quick. But this is a very active, busy time of year because it's beautiful here and it's cold and snowy everywhere else in the country. So just a few highlights. Our skateboard classic was held this last weekend, had the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 3 of 62 largest turnout in its four year history with 50 skaters participating. We introduced an eight and under division that filled immediately and was the highlight of the event, alongside truly Olympic caliber competition. I know the Mayor was there this weekend. A number of folks were out to see it. And as a reminder, if this is something that's interesting to you, our skate school with Caleb from Brilliant Victory, here in Town, resumes February 28th and there are a few spots available. If you've ever wanted to take up skateboarding, it's a good time. Also coming this week, the Memorial Disc Golf Championship is coming to town Thursday through Sunday. This is a professional level event with Championship Sunday taking place locally this year. Typically it's held in Scottsdale. However, their course is under construction, so the final day will be held here in Fountain Hills. You may have already noticed a course set up beginning earlier this week around Fountain Park, and we encourage park users to be mindful of flying discs out there. If you've never seen the event, it is really, really awesome to watch, and we've been highlighted on ESPN a number of times. Some in the disc golf world have let me know that our course is known as the Pebble Beach of disc golf. So it's a pretty cool event. Also want to highlight that the Volunteer and Activity Expo is happening tomorrow, February 4th, from three to five at the community center. It's a free event that brings the -- brings together our local clubs, organizations and churches and is a great opportunity for residents to explore new hobbies and meaningful ways to give back. Just a reminder, a part of the expo tomorrow will be an extended hand food bank collection. They'll be collecting items to support before and after school programs, and we'll have barrels located at the entrance. One other notable highlight that's coming down the pike is our cornhole league. It returns February 24th at Four Peaks Park on Tuesday. It's usually super popular and we rarely have room, but we still currently have just a bit of room left in the program. So again, another fun activity to be social and enjoy our great weather. A brief update on two upcoming paving projects. I know that's of interest to our TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 4 of 62 community. Palomino geotechnical and survey work was completed last week. During the week of February 9th, crews will begin pre-lowering manholes and water valve covers, followed by milling and paving operations set to begin the week of February 16th. So mark your calendar. Shea Boulevard. That's another big one. The pavement marking and speed limit reductions within the work zone will begin on Friday. And then clearing and grubbing, and some other prep work is scheduled to begin early next week as well, with the full reconstruction anticipated also to begin the week of February 16th. So just a reminder to use caution through that area. Finally, a reminder about some other upcoming events. The Concourse in the Hills takes place next Friday -- or excuse me, next Saturday, February 14th, followed by the Festival of Fine Arts and Crafts, February 20th through the 22nd. So mark your calendars. Lots of things going on in town. Thank you Mayor. That's my update. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Lots -- lots of stuff going on, Fountain Hills. Okay. Now we'll start with presentations. And I think the first one up is Paul, our finance director. Paul? GOODWIN: Correct. Paul is going to be joining us to give us a update on our second quarter revenues. Again, that will bring us about halfway through the fiscal year and give you all the highlights. Thanks, Paul. SOLDINGER: If my presentation will work. All right. Mayor and Council, tonight I'll be presenting an update on our fiscal year 2026 second quarter revenues. So our total net taxable activity was 167 million. It was a decrease of seven percent from the prior year. It was a bit of a down quarter for us, but some resilience in a couple categories that we'll talk about. A lot of that decrease has to do with our residential rental taxes still going away. When we're comparing to last year, that was still a time period that had those taxes. So that's a lot of that, but still a bit of a down quarter. And we'll talk about each of the categories. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 5 of 62 Total TPT was $4.8 million for the quarter. It was a decrease of four percent from the prior year. Again, a lot of that has to do with the residential rental taxes not being in that number, but it was 6.2 percent above projections. Remember we talk about our conservative projections. So we're still at about seven percent for the fiscal year so far, above our projections. It's still a little bit slower than last year. We did end last year at 15 percent above projections, but we're still able to continue operating as a town, and not take any budgetary restrictions and place those in place in accordance with our policies. Retail sales, this is a resilient category. We did see last quarter, had slightly decreased. This quarter, it went up by 0.5 percent over the prior year at $2.65 million, and it was 1.5 percent above projections. Not the best outcome, but I like that it's showing some resiliency, not seeing sharp declines at this point. We are seeing some contracted spending, although it looks like we have had a pretty good January so far. So hopefully we see an upswing this next quarter. Retail sales, just looking at retail sales without food sales, just a better look at the local shopping trends for retail goods that, as you can see, is almost exactly the same amount at 2.135 million for the quarter. We brought in 2.134 million last year, the same quarter. So it's almost the exact same amount. So again, some resiliency. At least we're not seeing declines at this point. And that's something we're continuing to -- to monitor. Remote sellers. So online sales such as Amazon, Wayfair, things like that. We are still seeing that uptick in online sales. We brought in $541,000 for the quarter in the second quarter, which was 15 percent more than the same quarter last year. So again, while our total retail sales without food is about the same, more of that shopping is trending online compared to the in-store shopping at this point, based on our data that we have. Construction, although our 705,000 for the quarter was five percent below the prior year, it's still in a pretty good place. The last three years, three and a half years or so we've had a higher level of construction sales tax -- of construction activity within the town allow that, buoyed by the increased TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 6 of 62 home building that's been going on in the last few years. And so with that, although it was down five percent from the prior year, it's still well above our projections by about 20 percent for the quarter. So we're still doing pretty well. We're going to be talking about our projections for next year pretty soon here at the budget retreat in a couple weeks, and we'll talk about this category as well. Utilities, we're still seeing a similar trend. Definitely something to monitor where our utilities are slightly going down. I know we've -- I've had questions on this. My guess is that people are being more careful about their utilities, although we have seen some recent rate increases with our electric bills in town. So we're going to see how this plays out throughout the rest of the year. But with that 450,000, we brought in just a little bit less than last year. It was still above our conservative projections by 1.2 percent. Real estate. So you see a huge drop. Again, this has to do with the long term residential rental taxes still being in the second quarter last year. You'll start to see it be a little bit more comparable in the third quarter, when that dropped off last year. But we did -- in this revenue category, we brought in $181,000. 41 percent below the prior year, but this was very much expected. As you can see below, it's still 15 percent above our conservative projections. One thing to note is we are seeing in the data a bit of an uptick in our commercial leasing, which is going to make up most of this category going forward. So we are starting to see some increases in that data. Restaurants and bars. Although this is one of our smaller categories, it's one we focused in on a lot because it had been declining. We had seen some negative trends in this category the past year or so. However, we had a pretty good quarter for restaurants and bars in our town. You'll see that we brought in 341,000, about three percent more than last year. And what was good, it was well above our projections for the quarter, which look at the historical trends at almost ten percent above our projections, compared to eight percent below our projections for the first quarter. So we're seeing kind of an upswing in our restaurants in town, which is definitely good to see. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 7 of 62 Services. This is our leisure-type category, including hotels, golf, tours, and vacation rentals in town. Similar to some of the other categories, we are seeing some decreases from the prior year, but still well above projections. We brought in $537,000 for the quarter, almost four percent below last year, and actually well below fiscal year '24, which had a pretty good year in this category. But this is one of the categories we kind of talked about at the -- I believe it was the last budget retreat where -- it fluctuates a bit more. It has a wider range of outcomes, and it's one of the ones that's a little bit harder to project. So we're a little bit extra conservative. So here you see that we did increase or outperform our projections by almost 25 percent. So still doing quite well compared to our projections. That's it for sales tax. So if you have any questions let me know. State shared revenues in our general fund. The San Tan Valley incorporation that recently happened I believe in September, they did start receiving some state shared revenue starting in December. So a month and a half ago, about two months ago. So our -- our shared sales tax and HURF revenues started to be impacted in December. So you'll see that we collected $880,000 into our general fund for state shared sales taxes. Of that amount -- because San Tan Valley, they actually received the amount in December, but it was for a three month period. So for the whole quarter. The amount that came out of our collections was about $19,000. So about $6,000 a month is the -- about the impact we're probably going to see from the San Tan Valley incorporation. And just as a reminder for state shared revenues, for these revenues, we're in a kind of bucket with all the other municipalities, or a pie if you want to explain it that way. If you're looking at a pie chart, we're just a small sliver of that pie. We used to be 0.4 percent of the pie of the 9,192 municipalities, and we've reduced down to about 0.38 percent of that pie now, with San Tan Valley coming on board. So with our state shared income taxes, that hasn't been impacted yet. The league has told us that that San Tan Valley will start receiving those revenues in July. So part of the revenue projections we'll talk about coming here shortly, that will be impacted by the TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 8 of 62 San Tan Valley incorporation. So we brought in 1.15 million, very close to our projections. And in the streets fund, the two state shared revenues that we talk about a lot, vehicle license tax and HURF revenues. Vehicle license tax actually was not -- is not impacted by that. It's a little bit complicated to explain, but basically the main part of that formula, that sharing formula has to do with the county collections. It goes into a state pool, and then the actual distribution of the money is based on the money coming into the county. And so because San Tan Valley is not in Maricopa County, they're in Pinal county, it doesn't impact our vehicle license taxes. And we brought in 321,000. It was well above projections. There was a kind of a spike month in there in December. And then with our -- our HURF revenues, that is impacted because that formula is a bit different. It's partially a statewide collection calculation, partially a county calculation. So the statewide part of that calculation slightly impacts our revenues. But it was only about, I think, six to $7000 that was taken from our distributions to -- to go to San Tan Valley. So with that, we were just below projections, but it was pretty close to that amount. And so with that, that's my revenue update for the quarter. Any questions from the Council? Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts. WATTS: Easy question Paul. SOLDINGER: Okay. WATTS: The retail versus internet sales. Have you been getting any feedback from any of the retailers on the Avenue, Tama, the ancillary streets as well? And if so what are we doing? It looks like we're doing a lot of marketing for the town. Can we include some of the retailers in that, or are we going to trip that gift clause tax again, or gift clause issue? SOLDINGER: So Mayor, Councilmember, I don't want to pull someone up. I think the best person -- TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 9 of 62 WATTS: Amanda might be able to answer that. SOLDINGER: Yes, that's correct. WATTS: I'm just saying. SOLDINGER: Would you like to respond to that? JACOBS: (Indiscernible). WATTS: Have you had any feedback about the retail sales versus the internet sales, and how there's been a decline in retail sales attributable to internet? So if there has been concerns expressed by some of the businesses in town, are we including them in some of the advertising we're doing for the town as a whole, or can we include them? What can we do to help them, is really what it comes down to? JACOBS: So Mayor, Councilmember Watts, we have not received any feedback. It has not come up during any business retention site visits. So we haven't actively asked, nor have we been contacted of -- of not being asked. So hopefully that answers that part of the -- the question. And I guess I'm not understanding then, about including them in exactly what. GOODWIN: Amanda, if I can jump in. JACOBS: Uh-huh. GOODWIN: I think one good example of what we do to help our downtown is. For instance, I know Amanda partners with the Chamber of Commerce throughout the summer, particularly to encourage shopping local, highlighting our different -- our different types of shopping outlets. So I know you've been doing some downtown- specific marketing, especially on social media. So I would say we certainly have made an investment in trying to highlight all of the ways that people can stay local and shop local over and above online purchases. Is that -- am I missing anything there? Anything you can add to that? JACOBS: No, I don't think so. So we've been targeting mostly summer campaigns. And then about two years ago we did do a holiday campaign of, again, just driving the importance of shopping locally. WATTS: So I think if we continue that emphasis regardless of the seasonality of it, and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 10 of 62 include all of the businesses and emphasize their, it may be one of those things that -- the -- the retailers in town really haven't become aware of it yet, and we may be ahead of understanding the dynamics of it. So whatever we can do to be ahead is what I JACOBS: Right. WATTS: -- ask for. JACOBS: And then I think, too, is we're trying to be more engaged on the economic development front with two mighty full time employees. But as we're having, for instance, the Irish Fest, the America 250, we're doing outreach. Some of it has been very slow of just -- what if you offer a special? What if you have an America 250 float that -- if you're doing some of that, let us know. And then for free as part of economic development, the business retention, the attraction, the tourism front, there is no charge to you. Just let us know and we're happy to push that on the Experience Fountain Hills -- plug, if you're not following us, the downtown Fountain Hills social media, as well as just putting it together as a package. We'll take, for instance -- see, you brought me up. So now I could potentially be long winded. WATTS: I'm stuck, right? JACOBS: But think of to the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Turkey Trot. Last year, what we started in partnership with Community Services, was reaching out to the businesses and saying, who's open on Thanksgiving? We know you want to be with your family, but some of you have decided to be open. Mountain View Kitchen. This year we found out Snowbird, Dutch Bros, et cetera. We then put together a flier based off of that content on the town's dime. And it's included in the Council -- not the Council, but the packet pickup for the runners. WATTS: Thank you. JACOBS: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you Paul. Well done. And Rachel, we have another update. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 11 of 62 GOODWIN: We do. We have our public works director here. He's going to be sharing some -- some historical information and some updates about our road management, our pavement management. And really what that is going to mean as we look for -- look towards next budget year, I do want to highlight that this conversation and this presentation is really specific to the particular topic. It is not related to our other itemized or agendized item in regards to Thistle. So this is a separate topic. So they will be kind of handled separately. Does that sound right, director? WELDY: That is correct. GOODWIN: All right. Take it over. WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers. You may or may not have heard me say this in the past, but the road to successful pavement management is paved with good intentions. I'm on the one back, and it's paved with humility. On September the 25th of last year, I stood right here and presented to the Mayor and Council, a series of exhibits that indicated where we would be working with approval and the budget. As part of that, the map that you're looking at in front of you was presented. It was also noted during that presentation, that the map indicating the northwest and northeast, and the black lines in particular, were not selected by the BOSS system or our software, but rather preprogramed for work that would have been completed back in 2015-16. After approval from the Council to proceed, staff went to these locations to do some verification and some looking, and discovered that all of the areas that you see there in black and listed to the right, in fact, had not received any treatment back in '15-'16 due to budget shortfalls, and our records were not updated. Therefore, we have not returned. We attempted to get this back to the Council as soon as possible while addressing all of the other approved areas and working on some other special assignments. I'm here tonight to let you know, these roads will not receive any type of pavement management this year. Historically -- and this doesn't happen very often -- when we come up on one TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 12 of 62 of these scenarios, we put together all the necessary paperwork to gather an estimate so we can be prepared. We have done that for this project, and our strong recommendation would be to put this on the schedule for the first thing next year, after the budget is approved. Having said that, the amount of money allocated for this, based on our estimates, will not be placed into the BOSS software. So when we're running scenarios, depending on what that budget is, it will be less this amount, which is approximately $3 million for these local roads. That's what I have to say. If there are any questions, I will certainly do my best to answer them, and provide any clarification if necessary. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman Earle. EARLE: Thank you Mayor. When you say next year, you're talking about fiscal year 2027, which would be -- WELDY: Mayor, Councilmember -- EARLE: -- September? WELDY: That is correct. So it would be after July 1st -- EARLE: Okay. WELDY: -- of '27. EARLE: Or --you mean '26 or -- JACOBS: It's 2027 because -- SKILLICORN: Which is after July '26? WELDY: Yes. EARLE: It's very confusing. WELDY: Calendars and fiscals. EARLE: And so for those of us doing regular calendar, it's still in 2026? WELDY: The calendar year, yes. EARLE: Thank you. Calendar year. Thank you. WELDY: Theoretically. EARLE: Thank you. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 13 of 62 MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman McMahon. MCMAHON: Thank you. So how is this going to factor in, in the sense of what the money we have now and projecting three million for that? I'm trying to figure that out. Don't we need to, like, take this into consideration when deciding on any additional streets to do right now or not? Because we don't know. I mean, we do have -- we have put extra money in the streets by a few million dollars. And so I'm wondering -- and I'm not stating it correctly -- how is that going to balance out? I mean, you know, looking forward because this is an additional $3 million that has never been anticipated in any of the discussions. WELDY: Mayor, Councilmember, and as part of my earlier conversation, so these roads will not receive any treatment this fiscal year. MCMAHON: Right. WELDY: So between now and June 30th. Our recommendation for next year is just that. When we come back to the Council with the approved budget and we've run the scenarios, we would have subtracted this amount of money, knowing what that is. If the direction from the Council at that time is to run another scenario and change the scope of work on this exhibit, we can certainly do that. But for right now, we're not certain of what the budget will be for FY '27, so we'll take all of that into consideration and account for it as part of our budgeting process. MCMAHON: So are you saying -- and I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm asking, are you saying these have priority because there were forgotten since 2016? Or are you just saying we're bringing them into the system and it's going to be decided as the streets -- the street repairs get decided? WELDY: They have become a priority, simply based on the fact that they've not received any treatment prior to 2014, '15, '16 -- EARLE: Okay. WELDY: And we made a commitment to this Mayor, and Council, and the residents that they represent, that we were going to address them this year. MCMAHON: Okay. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 14 of 62 WELDY: We are simply attempting to bring that to fulfillment in a timely manner, and the soonest we could accomplish that would be next fiscal year. MCMAHON: Okay. Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts. WATTS: And that $3 million estimate is projected for 20 -- or 2027. It's -- it's not 2026 dollars, it is 2027 dollars? WELDY: Mayor, Councilmember, that is correct. WATTS: And none of them are in such dire need that they have to be done now, that there are other levers that we could pull to accommodate that? WELDY: All of these roads are in very poor condition. Pre-incorporation. They fall into what we would have scheduled for this year, if we had allowed the BOSS to select it, but they weren't included in that -- in the scenario. So they're all in very poor condition and need to be rebuilt. WATTS: So again, without putting words in your mouth, as we progress through the year, depending upon the condition of these streets, and if we find additional funds available, we would make -- make these a priority, or could make them a priority? WELDY: Councilmember, we could certainly visit that, but for right now, all of the funding for this year is allocated, and we have a small cushion to be able to address a few things that may or may not arise. WATTS: Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Vice Mayor. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Director, you did mention these are all pre- incorporation and they need to be completely rebuilt. And you did use the $3 million figure. You're assuming that's an accurate number to rebuild this list here from your -- your expertise> WELDY: Mayor, Councilmember, Vice Mayor, that is correct. SKILLICORN: Okay. So -- and you think that's a -- conservative? You think that that is TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 15 of 62 not enough? WELDY: This is a conservative number with an inflationary factor of about 15 percent included, simply because we are -- we are not certain. SKILLICORN: Okay. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I'm just concerned that it could actually be a little more. You know, none of these are really long, long streets. But you know, the setup, rebuild is significant. You know, this is labor intensive. It's a lot of work. It's a -- you know, it's a serious, you know, thing that -- I'm glad we're aware of it. But it's something that we must address. And you know, obviously, going into the budgeting season, this will be my -- my mind also based on other, you know, projects that we do, because this will have to be a priority. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilperson Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Thank you for -- for your report. And I know it's sometimes not easy to come in with bad news or -- or oversights. And so we appreciate the update and letting the people in those roads know that help's on the way. And I guess my only statement would be to you and the Council, is that I certainly do hope that when this comes back before the Council in FY '27, that we do place a priority on -- on fixing what should have been done, and committing to whatever we need to do out of the roads fund to -- to make good on -- on these streets. So I just hope we remember that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Justin, thanks for your honesty and bringing this forward to us. We really appreciate that. And I think we probably have heard enough that this will -- this will be a priority for FY '27. We have to get it done. We'll move on now to the consent agenda, and we have one item on there. Can I get a motion on that? KALIVIANAKIS: Move to approve the consent agenda. EARLE: I'll second that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll -- roll call, please, Town Clerk? BENDER: Councilmember Watts. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 16 of 62 WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Aye. BENDER: Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, seven-zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. We'll move on to our regular agenda items now, and we'll start with consideration, possible action regarding pavement management options for Thistle Drive and the funding allocations. Rachel? GOODWIN: All right. Back to roads. This time we're going to welcome back Jeff, our street superintendent. He's been here a couple of times speaking about roads and as requested by Council. So back in December, I think there was a request put in to evaluate Thistle, to identify -- and identify costs. So with that, Jeff, I'll let you take it from there. PIERCE: Thank you very much. GOODWIN: Thank you. PIERCE: Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, I stand before you tonight with some further quotes as directed, to see cost alternative ways for Thistle Drive. These are the same kind of quotes that we brought forth for Richwood during that meeting. Thistle TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 17 of 62 currently sits between Palisades and just east of mountainside, toward dead ends. The first cost in the packet would be the chipseal with a cape, that we have done in the past on a number of roads here that was also brought forth in regards to the Richwood, where we do a couple of different treatments to it where we remove and replace asphalt. We do some micro milling. We also do crack sealing and patch patchwork at that. That came in at roughly $907,000. That has a 15 percent buffer allowance in it, to assume for unforeseen instances that come up or areas that we do not know about because they surprise us. The second quote that was secured was for a full reconstruction of Thistle Drive from end to end. Currently that cost projection would be at $1.6 million. That includes just over a quarter million dollars' worth of concrete repair, possibly, and at 1.3 cost estimate for the reconstruction for new asphalt. As for Thistle, it falls in the same category as Ridgewood Drive. The longer it deteriorates, the more it's going to cost. Costing in a higher investment later on. STAFF recommends -- or I recommend in STAFF that we do the full reconstruction cost, as it will last longer than the projected seven to ten years of a chip seal and cape. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to ask -- answer them. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman McMahon. MCMAHON: Thank you. Is this another direct select? Because I don't recall seeing this one on the list. PIERCE: This would be a direct select, yes. MCMAHON: And who's asking for it? PIERCE: It was provided direction from Mayor, and Town Council. MCMAHON: Okay. So I'm having issue with the fact that we're -- even though there are, you know, some funds in the street fund available, given what I just learned from Justin, it might be more prudent to use that money to address at least its half of what is estimated, these streets. In addition, my concern is we know -- we've received a petition for resurfacing of Morningside. So this is setting a precedent of, you know, selecting streets out of order, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 18 of 62 for lack of a better term. And now we have petitions from our residents who want their street done. So I think to be transparent and neutral, I think that we ought to stay with what we've already decided to do, and keep the funds available now that I've learned about all these streets that need funding to do. And maybe if we can start doing some of those streets instead. So I'm not going to -- before this I -- I don't think that, you know, that we should be doing direct select at all. We've paid thousands of dollars for the BOSS system. We've spent a lot of time talking about streets, putting extra money in it -- in the fund, and selecting the streets, and this one was not on that list. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilperson Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I'm -- I also share Councilmember's concerns about direct select versus data driven. Anybody can Google, and I have it on my phone here, 2023 Pavement Management Report. A lot of time, a lot of effort went into this. You know, they took lasers. They examined every street in the town, and went to a software program. This was backed by the Streets Committee. It was backed by Public Works and the engineers. And it was a way to address the worst first, and then the rest when -- when they're when they're on a list. I'm uncomfortable with what we're doing here. Like Councilmember pointed out, you know, we're getting other -- other people, other -- other residential neighborhoods, you know, below the signatures. We've been living here. Our roads have been bad for a decade. They're unacceptable. They're falling apart. And so -- and then they had a bunch of signatures with pictures. You know, I have other letters. And then I have other constituents that are, you know, addressing, you know, when's mine going to get fixed if -- if we're on this -- this way. What is the criteria for me to get on the street if I don't wait my turn in line? And you know, all I can tell them is, well, what other constituents have done is put petitions together and bring it to the Council's attention. Send us emails, or come to the call of the public, and give your reasons why your street should be next. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 19 of 62 There's -- there should be some kind of an analytical reason instead of just, you know, we took a drive down there, we talked to the residents, and it looked bad to me, when we have all this data. For years, the Fountain Hills has followed a clear, responsible, data driven approach to street repairs. Streets are prioritized based on needs, safety, and long term planning, not on whim or politics. That system built trust. It ensured fairness. It showed residents that every dollar was being spent wisely, and every decision was made with their best interests in mind. We have been continuing to follow the recommendations of the experts. We're at risk doing that tonight, and in future Council meetings with this direct select. Because we're abandoning what we've done, which is try to keep it out of the political realm, and try to keep it data driven and let the experts determine the next roads that should -- that should be fixed based on data, based on reports that we paid a lot of money for. Let me put it like this. When you have a 40 to $60 million backlog and streets repair, there's a lot of streets out there, and so why are we singling out these? I would analogize it to-- if you were -- if you were going to take 40 to $60 million and invest it, would you do it on your own, or would you hire a financial advisor to help you invest that kind of money? You know, I wouldn't trust myself to invest that kind of money. I would hire somebody. And actually, I have a financial planner because that makes me feel good. So would I urge my colleagues tonight, is let us remain committed to the data, the assessments, public works department, the transparent process that has guided us well for years. Let us prove to our residents in Fountain Hills that we value responsibility, fairness, and integrity, over convenience. That's how we honor the people who live here, who pay taxes, and entrust us with the stewardship of our community. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman Earle. EARLE: Oh. Thank you. There we go. Thank you. Mayor. I'll keep it brief. I would like to ask Justin to -- can you -- if you don't mind explaining to us, because I had a meeting TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 20 of 62 with you -- or just talk to you about the BOSS system. And it's not just the BOSS system that we use. It is -- then Comeback, if I am saying it correctly, and then staff reviews it and makes the choices. Is that correct? Can you explain that to us? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember. After the budget is approved, we take the monies allocated for pavement management. We subtract a little bit about 15 percent of that total, so we can address broken concrete and things like that. We then have our consultant put that into the software, and run an unconstrained model, meaning all of the different types of pavement management and-or treatments that we would use are run through that model. When that modeling is finishing, they send us a series of exhibits. We go through those exhibits and kind of sort through them. Here's a good example of what we would do. They spit out a small section of Fountain Hills Boulevard a few hundred feet on either side of saguaro, which is a small segment. We decided to measure that distance and take it and put it somewhere else, where they had also done something similar but a little bit longer, that would allow us to complete a super segment, so we have a longer section of the road. We -- when I say we, the staff sorts through that for literally weeks as part of this planning process until we get to where we want, and each time we make changes, we also put a little bit of restraint in regards to the type of treatment. And that information is put back in, recalculated, and sent to us. By the time that we come here to present to you, we've probably spent -- probably three and a half weeks or so, a few hours a week reviewing, and calculating, and checking on stuff. So the initial model that is put out is not what we bring to you, simply because we are using our best management practices, and guidance, and our knowledge of the area, and what's best. EARLE: Thank you, Justin. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Vice Mayor. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Supervisor Pierce. Just to kind of recap a little bit, if it's chip and seal, it looks like it's just over $900,000. Expected life expectancy is TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 21 of 62 seven to ten years. That's correct? PIERCE: Yes. SKILLICORN: And then I see the reconstruction costs about 1.6 million. What is the expected lifetime for that total reconstruction? PIERCE: With the right preservation methods, a road could last up to 30 years. SKILLICORN: Okay. So I just did the rough math, ten years, the most, you know, most generous situation, you know, that comes at amortized cost, about $90,000 a year. If we go for the total reconstruction, that amortized cost drops down to $53,000 a year. It seems like it makes sense to me. Make a motion to approve as drafted for the total reconstruction. LARRABEE: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts. WATTS: Justin, a point of clarification. If I'm not mistaken, this came up last -- I think the last meeting specifically related to Thistle. And your statement was that Thistle was on next year's list, and it was a priority on next year's list. And the second component is, the two systems you use are BOSS and software to analyze the boss data. There are two different systems, aren't they? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember. First, a little bit of clarification. So all of the roads that are recorded by the analysis are in the system. I do not recall having said that Thistle would be in next year, because we have not run that analysis. What we have in the analysis is the PCI, the stress conditions, and the overall condition of the road. So we don't have a two, three, four or five year horizon that we look at. We look at a one and a half to two year horizon. And I'm not sure where on that horizon Thistle falls. So if I said it was in next year, I was mistaken because we do not have that modeling done. WATTS: I could equally be mistaken about hearing what I thought I heard, but the condition of Thistle compared to the roads that were not addressed since 2014 to 2016, how do those two compare? WELDY: They're about equal, as Mr. Pierce just whispered, they're -- they're in very TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 22 of 62 poor condition. And it's not just the few that we showed you on the presentation, or the exhibit tonight, or Thistle. The majority of the community, especially the local roads, are in this very similar or worse condition. WATTS: Okay. And then clarity again, the BOSS system analyzes the roads, your software system, whatever that may be, analyzes the data based upon a number of factors? WELDY: Correct. WATTS: Okay. I think that's it. Thanks. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So I want to make a statement. First of all, this road work is really important to every resident. The roads that we're talking about doing, there's probably about 650 residents that live on these roads. It's not a whim. And it -- and it's not politics. It shouldn't be political, and it shouldn't be party driven. And it isn't. There's no politics when it comes to fixing roads in the town of Fountain Hills. Period. We're -- residents -- yes, we have the data, but the data doesn't say if you come in under budget, don't do any more road work. We're going to do as much road work in this town as possible to get caught up on these roads and get this problem taken care of. So with the extra money that we came in under budget, we're getting a couple of more roads done, and there's no problem with that. There's a lot of road work, there's no question. Am I right, Jeff? No kidding. PIERCE: Yeah. MAYOR FRIEDEL: So we know what our priority is going to be for next year. We've already discussed that with the public works director. This is not political, and there's no cronyism going on with this. There's a lot of residents that requested that these roads be fixed, and that's what we're addressing. And I'm glad that this Council -- we have a motion and a second to get this done. Oh. Do we have any speaker cards on this? BENDER: Mayor, we have one. Catherine Myrick. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 23 of 62 MYRICK: Hi. Good evening. I'm Catherine Myrick, Fountain Hills resident, and I just have a couple quick comments about this item. First of all, it's a great problem to have that our public works director and staff were able to deliver contracts on these roads that came in under budget, and we have money to spend. And I think the Council did a great job of saying we should spend this money on roads, because that makes sense. But my question that I'm confused about is how we chose this street, Thistle, and also Ridgewood, which you guys talked about a couple weeks ago. How did they move to the top of the list? And some people will say, well, have you driven those roads? And yes, I have, and yes, they're bad, but so are a lot of other streets in town. The public works director was just up here saying that his staff spent three and a half weeks putting together the list of roads that we should prioritize, and yet these two were chosen by the Mayor and Council, and you guys are great, but what is your professional experience in public works? That should come from our staff. In the last five years, the town has spent public funds to study all 166 miles of streets, and they've been categorized into the priority list of the ones we need to repair first, to spend our limited tax funds most efficiently. If we want to get the most bang for our buck, that's the list we should be looking at. What I would like to know, and I'm sure many other taxpayers would like the same information, is why were Thistle and Richwood chosen ahead of the ones that had been scientifically prioritized to benefit all citizens of Fountain Hills. Fiscal responsibility is a major job of the Council, and I think everyone is looking for transparency, and this decision doesn't seem to take either of those into account. Thanks. KALIVIANAKIS: Mr. Mayor, I've had my light on for like five minutes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We just finished with a with a public speaker. KALIVIANAKIS: Right. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Did you have something you needed to say? KALIVIANAKIS: Just briefly. Just -- just so people aren't putting words in my mouth. If -- if we do have extra money, found money from other projects that came in under TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 24 of 62 budget, my contention is that instead of us picking the next road, or two, or three, or street, that we just go back to the data driven list. And so I think everybody in the Council is aware of the road situation we have here. We have a 40 to $60 million backlog, and we drive on these roads ourselves. So my contention is I don't think that we should be picking them. I think, like the speaker said, we should let the experts pick them. And if we have extra money, then let's go back to the data driven list. And I talked to David Yanover about this today. And the other benefits to going to the data driven list, is you can actually save money. I think, Justin, I've had this conversation with you. It's a complicated issue. I don't want to go too far in the weeds, but when -- when managing roads, you know, some -- some of the ones that are really falling off the cliff, if you pay a little bit of attention to them, which are probably the ones on the list, you save money in the long term because otherwise they're going to become money pits. But anyway. So yeah, no words in my mouth, I want to I want to take the overages, and I want to apply them to the list. And Justin, if you have some remarks on that, I'd appreciate it. WELDY: I -- I think it's important, Mayor and Councilmembers, that that I bring a couple of things up. Each time we come before you and we get approval for either a segment or a super segment of road, it starts the clock for us to get that work done. Part of that process is we need to notify all of the utility companies that work is going to be taking place, and A, B, or C, and allow them an opportunity to respond. It's not uncommon for the sanitary district or any other provider to say, we are going to be doing this. Before you do that, can you give us a little time? Absolutely. We've given up to a year for cable replacement for electricity. The roads that you have already approved and are selected, excluding the ones I showed you earlier, that shot clock is underway. With -- if there is approval tonight for Thistle, the clock for that starts all over. And the reason I bring this up, is when we have unspent fund balance, we look forward to using TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 25 of 62 that in a leap year if we can, because we've not notified those utility companies of any work that's going to be happening. So it's difficult to just run out and do a section of road. The last thing we want is to spend money based on the Mayor and Council's recommendation, and then have someone have to come in and trench for any one of the utilities that service that area. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. And I'd also like to point out that we don't pay a primary property tax for road work in this town. So when I hear people say we pay taxes, yes, sales tax, we use sales tax, TPT, Herf money, but we don't have a primary property tax to fund our road work. If we did, that would be a whole different story, and maybe we'd be talking about doing 20 or $30 million a year in road work. We just don't have that opportunity right now. Councilman Watts. WATTS: Our street superintendent was pretty emphatic about supporting the reconstruction of that road, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? PIERCE: Yes, sir. WATTS: So I'm going to ask Justin, put you on the spot, again. Are you supporting doing Thistle? Is it -- is it in your list of streets somewhere along the line to do? Does it need it in your estimation? WELDY: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember, Thistle -- again, all of the roads are in the data. And does it need it? Absolutely. And do I support a full depth reconstruction based on his expertise? Absolutely. WATTS: So it's not on a whim. There's a need there. WELDY: Yes, there -- there indeed is a need to provide maintenance and -- or reconstruction to a lot of the roads within the community. This is one of them. WATTS: Thistle being high up on the list? WELDY: I wouldn't categorize it as higher on the list than any other ones that are deteriorated to that level. WATTS: I'm not sure I understand deteriorated to that level. WELDY: Very poor condition. So we have a long list of very poor condition. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 26 of 62 WATTS: But it's in that list? WELDY: It's in that list of very poor conditions. WATTS: Thank you. WELDY: You're welcome. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Town Clerk, we have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: I will be voting nay, but I do support the work being done. It's just a protest vote to say that we should be using the data driven and not the direct select. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, Five-Two. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Okay. Item B is consideration for a possible action regarding a request for cut and fill waiver. Rachel. GOODWIN: Director Wesley is here to talk about two different CUT/FILL waivers we have back to back on our agenda. He's going to be sharing the details of each. With that, I will turn it over to you, John. I need to buy you a few more minutes. Here. Hang TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 27 of 62 on. WESLEY: No. I'm ready. GOODWIN: All right. Now you're good. WESLEY: Mayor and Council. Good to be with you this evening. As mentioned, I have two CUT/FILL waivers that have come forward for your discussion tonight. The first one being at 16320 North Borrego Trail. Still not sure I say that right. So just quickly, one more time. You've seen this several times, but section 5.03 of the subdivision ordinance sets forth the limitations on cut and fill, and allows a maximum of ten foot of either, but does allow the property owner/developer to request a waiver from the town Council if they have areas that exceed that. We have a new house being designed at this address, and does have cut and fill of more than ten feet. I have requested the waiver. So you can see on the map here, the lot in question here and near the end of the street up in Eagle's Nest in the northwest part of town. So overall, the slopes on this property are about 13 percent or so for Fountain Hills. That's not real significant, but there are areas, particularly along the southern side of the property here, where there's a bit of a ravine, where the slopes are much steeper. The house has been placed to the middle of the lot, trying to take care -- take advantage of this relatively flatter portion of the property as much as possible. But they did end up with an area in front of excess fill and an area in back. Actually, two, there's a real tiny one right there, of excess cut. So this is a little bit more of a close up then particularly of this, of the larger excess cut area at the rear of the property. And you can see from the backside here actually, you know, this is the hill. So from -- from the side, nobody really sees that excess cut. The only place it's really going to be seen is from inside the house and their -- around their pool area. So no real impact on that one. So you know, there'd be some options there to reduce the amount of private space that they have behind the pool, to not have so much of a cut. But again, that wouldn't really impact anybody but the owner. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 28 of 62 The front part of the property is the area with a more significant change, with the excess fill that's needed in this corner of the house, almost 14ft at its highest point. And looking from the front to the approximate area where that excess fill takes place. And again, that section is through this portion of -- of the building. And looking at this in context of the neighborhood, you've got a vacant properties, still, to the south and the east, and a track immediately adjacent. The house across from here is located, a bit away from the area that would be able to see that excess fill. So a couple of other shots of that, that corner where that excess fill takes place. You can see the plan to generously provide landscaping in there to help soften the walls, that will be there. Again, this shows how they've worked to try to put the building in, a little bit more the flatter portion of the lot, but it does have the slopes that have made it challenge, and create that area for the excess fill. So staff does support the fill and cut on this property as requested. Any questions you have of me? MAYOR FRIEDEL: Vice Mayor. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Looking at the -- the drawings, looking at the map where it's located, I mean, it's a beautiful area. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful home. I think this will be a fine addition to Fountain Hills, and I'd like to make a motion to approve as drafted. LARRABEE: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Are there any comment cards on this? BENDER: Mayor, we have two. The applicant, Kevin Morgan, and his architect, Ben Shear (ph.). MORGAN: I think John did a great job, but I'll be brief. Real brief. Yeah, we tried to keep away from, as much as possible, the sloping, and so we even added an extra retaining wall to keep it smaller. So that's really what we tried to do overall. And what you'll see is on that side there is a wash and dents in, so there is no way to stay away from it. And then through the center of the property also is a ravine. So there's no way TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 29 of 62 to stay away from those two things. But that's it. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a motion and a second. Can I get a roll call, please? Oh, John, do you have something else you want? No. BENDER: Did the architect -- did the architect want to talk? Oh. SHEAR: (Indiscernible). MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Thank you. Can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Yeah, aye. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: And Mayor Friedell. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, Seven-Zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. WESLEY: So Mayor, if you're ready? MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'm ready. You're on deck. WESLEY: So the next one is at 15050 Diamondback Court, which is just across the ridgeline from the last one that we looked at. So again cut and fill waivers for excess of over ten feet. The applicant here working with their -- their slopes really does desire a main level where they can age in place. And that impacted the design to some degree. But there is, again, some area of excess fill on this one. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 30 of 62 Again, just to put it in perspective, the last one you looked at is this lot right here. So we've gone over this ridgeline to this one here on Diamondback. And so this has an area in the back of the lot that has the -- the excess cut that takes place. They've pushed the property as far forward as they can, to the setback line to avoid as much as that steep slope as they can. And you can see the slopes are relatively flatter here across this front part, but there is a steep drop off to the back towards the ravine in the back portion. You can see that again on -- on this side of the -- of the slopes. Again, relatively flat here, but there's a drainage area through the back that creates that extra steep slope a little bit closer look at where that is. Some of it is under the house and some of it under an outside patio area. And looking at it from the side here facing the neighbor, that would be adjacent, and the back is where you'd see the most of it. But that's directed back towards the McDowell Preserve area. A section through the house showing that to the highest point, about 15ft of excess fill, and also a little bit to the side there. So again, putting it in -- in context of the property, this lot. So the closest house that anybody would have a view of that is this one immediately to the east. That particular house is set down the hill and really backs into the side. They have no outdoor space or only one window that I noticed that would even look out that way up on the second floor. So really not visible to anybody. Again, the ridgeline through here. Everything gets built here is likely to be to the other side of that ridgeline. So no significant impact. So again, they lowered some options here. You know that they maybe could have done -- reduce -- lower the finished floor level a little bit to take away some of that need for that excess fill. That creates problems in the front side, because now they've got to adjust those grades in front and have some tall retaining walls out facing the street. You know, they could maybe step the house down instead of having one floor. But as many people these days are looking for that main floor to have no steps. So as you age in place, you don't have to deal with those. The second floor they do have, is primarily TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 31 of 62 for guests and entertainment areas. It looks like I didn't ever come back and change my last slide here, so forget what that one says. And but staff does recommend approval of the -- this fill waiver. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Vice Mayor. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, again, it looks like a beautiful property, beautiful part time. It is ironic that their, you know, their neighbor just behind them is the other property. So that is quite ironic. And I think the same thing. They're not going to be able to see each other. There's not anyone that's really going to be able to see it. I think it's going to be a wonderful addition to our wonderful town. So I'll make a motion to approve as drafted. EARLE: I second it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts. WATTS: John, is the pool on the -- kind of the east side of that house? Is there a pool there, or no? WESLEY: How do I do that, see which one's the best one to show it? The pool area -- WATTS: It looks like it's down below. WESLEY: It's right in here. WATTS: Right. I just couldn't see that -- the label there. Okay. I just want to make sure it was included because it would be unusual not to, so thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Town clerk. Do we have any comment cards? BENDER: Mayor, we have the applicant and the architect. So it's Shannon Perry (ph.), and the architect is Ben Shear. PERRY: Hi Mayor. Hi Mayor and Councilmembers. I just wanted to see if anyone had any questions or concerns for us in the design of this home, and positioning on the lot. No. Okay. Thank you for your time and consideration, and for the staff's time and thoughtful review of our -- our fill waiver. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please? BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Aye. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 32 of 62 BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Yes. BENDER: And Mayor Fiedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, seven-zero. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. We'll move on to item D, which is regarding resolution 2026-02, Fountain Hills Town Council Rules of Procedure, Amended and Restated February 3rd, 2026. Restoring the call to the public. Rachel. GOODWIN: Mayor, I'm going to lay this one over to our town attorney, who's taken the lead on this item. WRIGHT: Thank you, Mayor and Council. As you recall, on November 18th of 2025, the Council voted to remove the call to the public based off of recommendations I had made in response to some -- a notice of claim. At that meeting, the several of the Councilmembers who had voted in favor of removing the call to the public asked that I review the rules of procedure so that we could restore the call of the public after we have made some adjustments to the rules of decorum, and ensured that the First Amendment rights of our constituents were maintained in whatever the rules of decorum and call the public were vised. On January 20th, 2026, we had a work session where we went over in detail all of the different rules that were changed. And we amended the -- in those rules that were TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 33 of 62 changed, we moved the call the public to the end of the agenda. We also limited the maximum amount of time to 30 minutes. And although we've -- we've now made it so that there's no maximum on the number of potential speakers in that 30 minutes, but each speaker is limited to a maximum of three minutes. So if they have, you know -- can say what their concerns are in less time, then you can have more people go through in that 30 minutes. So it allows potentially more opportunity for people to speak. And we also just to also make sure that everyone in the public knows that there are some new rules requiring that the request to speak be turned in before the Council meeting starts. In part, that's because during the agenda items, we've also made it so that when -- when there's an agenda item up, that we rotate between those that are for and against an agenda item. That way there's kind of a balanced approach to the -- to the speakers. That's something that some of the Councilmembers had seen at other meetings, with great success, and they liked the balanced approach to hearing speakers on both sides of the topic. So it wasn't frontloaded. So anyway -- so we did add in a requirement that the request to speak cards be submitted to the town clerk prior to the start of the meeting, and I just wanted to make sure everyone heard that, because I know that's going to be a adjustment and change for our -- for our constituents. And then many of the changes to the rules of -- the rules of decorum were adopted in part from rules of decorum that are used by the City of Scottsdale. So I was -- we were not making up things on the fly. And -- oh, and then following the work session last week, there was some concerns regarding the way it was worded, regarding the use of professional audio and video equipment. That rule was amended after our discussion so that it says, first of all, anyone using professional equipment, not just the media, needs to notify the town. Really, it's a notification process. It's so that the town can make sure that there's appropriate space. I know we had a professional camera and some professional audio equipment in the past, and this isn't for general cell phone use. This is if there's professional equipment TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 34 of 62 and if there's multiple requests, it's so that we can accommodate all of the media -- any media requests that come in, so. A lot of towns do these kinds of things where you have to provide advance notice. It's not it's not meant to restrict the ability to have these. It's just so that we can make appropriate accommodations because we want to make sure that there's room for both the media and for constituents. So in this set of changes, there were no significant substantive changes to other areas of the rules of procedure. Those might -- there might be some areas that need to be addressed in the future. But the focus for this set of rule changes was to restore call to the public and to clarify procedures for conducting the meeting, including rules of decorum. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Vice Mayor, your light's on. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, reading through this, this all looks workable. And it looks like a nice way to proceed and bring back public comment, especially in the spirit of free speech and the First Amendment. So I would like to make a motion to approve with one, just really minor change. Section 4.2B, number three, it says town manager and town attorney, colon, town manager or town attorney may place an item on the agenda, et cetera, et cetera. I just want to add in Mayor. So town manager, Mayor or town attorney may place an item on the agenda. That's the motion I'd like to make. EARLE: I'll second that. LARRABEE: Can I get a point of clarification? I'm sorry. For the attorney. Thank you, Mayor. Jen, I might be mistaken, but I thought we had removed -- oh, wait, it was member of the public. It was through the town manager adding an agenda. I am confused. Never mind. Scratch all of that. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman McMahon. MCMAHON: I have a couple comments to make on different sections. So can I make -- do you want me to make them all at once, or do you want me to take them one at a TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 35 of 62 time or what? Okay. Because it's going to take a couple of minutes to do so. You changed open call to the public to be professionally recorded. To me, that's weasel wording it. It clearly is still interfering with freedom of the press recording a meeting, in violation of the First Amendment, which states that there shall be no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, ensuring that government can't control the media, enabling it to inform the public and hold power accountable. What's professionally? Is it defined in the rules? If someone brings in a video recorder, is that considered professional? Is a phone considered professional? Because a lot of media people and the public out there use their phones. Is that now considered a professional equipment? So you're requiring something that has no definition. And so to me, I don't think that -- that -- that you can enact that. To me, it's another broader restrictive form of reduced transparency and an attempt to control the narrative on a broader scale. And to me, it raises serious concerns under the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. And I think constitutionally and statutorily, both the public and the press have a right to record public meetings. There is no statement in the statute that says that it's anything to do with professional equipment is required to record that. I think it's a double standard, I still think it singles out the press, and is designed to prevent the public and press from recording open meetings against open meeting Arizona law. So I think that the final sentence concerning notice of recording should be removed. I don't think it's enforceable. So part of my motion, and it would -- my motion would be to remove this, the word professionally and to not have it because it's not defined. So how can you follow it? As far as regular meetings, why are we moving call to the public to the end of the meeting? Moving comment to the end of the meeting has a predictable effect of discouraging participation by forcing members of the public to sit through the entire agenda in order to speak. That undermines meaningful public engagement. As elected officials, we represent the community. The public has a Constitutional right to address TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 36 of 62 its governing body and to hold us accountable, and I hope they do as they have for the last five years that I've served on Council. Policies that deter public comment, conflict with that responsibility, and with the principles of transparency and accountability required by state law. I received many calls and comments objecting to moving call to the public to the end. Many of our residents are offended by Council trying to silence them. This change serves no legitimate governmental purpose. I can't help but think it's done on purpose to reduce public participation on matters before Council. Again, I'm going to make a motion to not move it to the end and to keep it, call to the public before the -- the regular agenda. And I don't understand also why we're having the town clerk spend time going for and against, you know, balanced approach or not. I mean, comment cards or comment cards. We've never had that done before. The end result is the end result. And without repeating my comments at the January 20th meeting, I continue to object to these some of these rules, the changes presented. I think these changes undermine our transparency, our accountability, and meaningful participation, or local government. And for that reason, I will oppose them. And specifically, I disagree with the provision limiting councilmember discussion to two minutes. I think that's a hindrance. I don't think it's positive. We routinely require more than two minutes to explain our reasoning during an agenda, discussion and debate. Meaningful deliberation is essential to transparency and to informing the public about how and why decisions affecting the town are made. This limitation, to me, unnecessarily restricts us from fully stating our position, and undermines our duty to conduct its business openly, and thoughtfully. A rule that curtails this deliberation works against the very purpose for which we are elected. For these reasons, I oppose this limitation, and I urge Council to remove it or revise it. Also you know, you brought up again, it says that Councilmembers have to refrain from making comments that are adverse to the town. Well, again, you're trying to control our speech. We have a right to free speech. We TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 37 of 62 have a right to deliberate. We debate up here. Some of the words we use in debate might be adverse to the town. What's adverse to the town? Have you defined it? I don't see it in the rules. It's undefined and it's inherently subjective. There is no standard for qualified. What is adverse to the town speech. It's ambiguity invites arbitrary enforcement. It's unclear whether adverse is determined by the town attorney, by prevailing, you know, legal opinions, or political disagreement. Such discretion is incompatible with constitutional free speech requirements. Disagreement, debate and dissent are fundamental to our democratic governance. A rule that penalizes speech, based on whether it conflicts with an undefined town Interest is unconstitutionally vague, viewpoint based, and unenforceable. And for these reasons, I object to this provision, and I urge its removal, and move for its removal. Again, we're looking at decorum. Have you looked at some of the words that constitutes decorum? They're also undefined. They're personal attacks, and decorous language, and imputing motives are unconstitutionally vague. These terms are undefined. And again they're subject and grant unbridled discussion -- discretion to those enforcing these rules. The ban on imputing motives is also viewpoint discrimination. Praise of officials intentions is permitted, while criticism of officials motivations is punished. This asymmetry is unconstitutional, even in a limited public forum. Criticizing why public officials act is core political speech. These rules are overbroad, sweeping, and protected speech that may be sharp, critical, or uncomfortable, but is not disruptive. The Council may regulate actual disruption of meetings, but it may not regulate speech based on tone, civility, or perceived intent. And I think that you know that. Prohibition is imputing motives, and others stated in these rules are indefensible. Who's going to determine what they are? WRIGHT: The body. MCMAHON: Well, again, they're unconstitutionally vague. They're viewpoint discrimination, and they're overbroad. The Ninth Circuit, which of -- which we are in, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 38 of 62 ruled against these, specifically. There's a couple cases on -- EARLE: Points of order. MCMAHON: -- it. Yes. They have, and the laws are still in effect. EARLE: Point of order. MCMAHON: And I'll provide you with the statute, with the cases. I think that -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: We have a point of order. EARLE: I just -- I -- I'm sorry to interrupt you, Councilmember McMahon, but you keep looking at the attorney as though she wrote all this herself. This was three of us that got together and then we had the -- MCMAHON: That's right, three of you. EARLE: Then we had a session. A work session where we went all over this together. She's not the one who wrote all this. I just want to make that clear. MCMAHON: I know, but she's the one that's addressing it. So I'm addressing her and I'm really addressing everybody. EARLE: Well I -- I -- I take offense to you looking at her. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank. Thank you. All right. Will you continue with your comments? LARRABEE: I also have a point of order. Sorry. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Go ahead. LARRABEE: Councilmember McMahon needs to be speaking through the chair -- chairman. MCMAHON: Is what? LARRABEE: Mayor, Councilmember McMahon needs to be speaking through the chair, which is the Mayor. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Correct. Go ahead. MCMAHON: Really? MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman McMahon, will you finish your comments? MCMAHON: Thank you. Again, I don't think that this is going to pass Constitutional muster. I really, really don't. And the reason I'm talking to everybody and the town attorney about it, is she drafted some of these as well. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 39 of 62 So it's not a personal attack on her at all. This is a legal document. It's considered legal advice too. And I think that the decorum section is -- I don't think it's enforceable. I think it is overbroad and vague. It -- it's you know what's disruption? Disruption to one person is not disruption to another. You know. I -- I don't think that this is going to hold up. I think it's going to subject us to lawsuits. And I wouldn't be surprised if one gets -- one gets filed. And I will send you the -- the case law that specifically states that these are overbroad, vague, and basically unenforceable. And they haven't been enforced in California. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman Larrabee. LARRABEE: Thank you. Well, I wanted to make a mention of one of our neighbors. The City of Mesa, I was able to visit them for one of their city Council sessions. Just so that everyone's aware how they handle their call to the public is very different, even from this. There's three people that are -- it's announced who's going to speak at the very beginning of the meeting, but it's happens at the very end of the meeting. But there's only three, and I believe they have to register before the meeting has started. That felt overly -- how do I say that? Restrictive, overly restrictive. We then have Scottsdale, which actually is fairly similar in a lot of these different rules. We're not rewriting, we're not recreating the wheel here. These are rules that are already established in many other municipalities. Actually, most other municipalities have different rules such as this. Second of all, the concerns regarding language and decorum, most of -- most of the language there already existed beforehand. It's just moved to the same area now, to make everything clear. Because we have had arguments in the past, and I think we can all remember from maybe about a year ago, maybe two years ago that would say, hey, this is something that's in the rules, but somebody else is looking at a different paragraph to say, no, this is what's in the rules. Both of those people are right. They were in totally different areas of the rules. So indecorus, that was a -- that specific word was already in our rules of procedure. We actually had an entire conversation about it when we had our little meeting of whether TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 40 of 62 or not we should change that word, in case people don't know. I wanted to keep it because I like that it means outside of decorum, which is what the rules are regarding. But I'm -- if we want to change it, that's fine. Personal attacks, also already in the rules. As far as town interests, speaking outside of town interest, this is regarding legal interests. This is saying if we are in a legal kerfuffle, if we are in a legal situation as a Councilmember, we have somewhat of a duty to not say things that go right outside of our legal argument that we're already taking. Even if you disagreed with the majority vote of the Council, you need to respect the majority of the vote of the Council. That's something that they told me my first week as a Councilmember, and the little training that the town attorney does. And last but not least, the two minutes. Frankly, I wanted it to be one. But I know I blab too and I get it. It's very easy to want to say all of the things that come to our mind about an issue. I'm doing that right now. The point being, we should be very respectful of the public's time, especially if we are moving call to the public toward the end of the meeting. And when we limit us to two minutes of saying, hey, everybody should get the chance to speak, two minutes at a time, by the way, it doesn't mean that you can't speak again if you need to respond to something. This is showing you respect as the public that you're not sitting here for four hours waiting for your turn to talk. And then also that we're getting less time than the public. This is showing you respect, not whatever was just implied. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilperson Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. This is kind of being soft sold tonight as just a small departure from business as usual, and nothing to see here. That is not true. This is a radical departure from the way things have been for the history of this town Council, and they're trying to tell you there's no big deal here. There is a big deal here. To say that we're going to follow the Scottsdale model. Has anybody read the paper on the Scottsdale model that is a more dysfunctional Council than this one is? And we're going to use their model to come bring to Fountain Hills. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 41 of 62 Bad idea. This is just an elimination of rights -- of Council rights, and of residents rights. They've eliminated Council reports. They're limiting us to two minute soundbites to talk about million dollar deals. How do you make an argument in two minutes? Tell -- tell that to an attorney. You got two minutes to make your case. Limit call of the public to 30 minutes. Put it at the end of the meeting. Not a good idea. One, it's once again limiting the press. Oh, well, you have to register. You have to show us you're coming. You have to register your equipment. Why is this Council so afraid of the press? It's -- it's -- late comment cards. We had people filing late comment cards tonight. Why can't people file common cards when they come in late? Why do they have to be here at 5:15, when there's going to be an item that's going to be discussed at 8 o'clock? It's not right. If we pass this tonight, this Council majority is quite literally putting the residents of this town last. The majority moved to eliminate the long standing tradition of allowing residents to speak on non agendized items at the beginning of our meetings, a tradition that helped define our small town character for decades. And the previous meeting, Councilmember McMahon, who did a good job on a bill of particulars of what she disagrees with. So I'm not going to go into that, even though I was prepared to. We spoke forcefully about the importance of hearing from our residents, and we were joined by dozens of citizens who took the time to submit thoughtful common cards about their concerns about this, too. In the past, the Council has listened respectfully to the public input and weighed those perspectives before -- before casting votes. That practice built in trust. Unfortunately, that has been abandoned. The claim that these so-called changes to call the public will still somehow restore and expand public access is not true. Moving the call to the public at the end of the meeting does not enhance participation. It restricts it. Most residents can't stay late on a Tuesday night for a brief opportunity to speak. The decision that we're making tonight disproportionately excludes senior citizens, individuals with health challenges, students with schoolwork, parents balancing family responsibilities, business owners who must get up in the morning to open up their TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 42 of 62 shops. Members of this council will remain until the adjournment of the agenda order. So I ask, why should we not extend the same professional courtesy to our residents, that every council since has incorporated? The same courtesy we routinely extend to those receiving awards like the Mayor's Awards, the proclamations that come at the beginning. Why aren't why aren't we treating everybody fairly and letting that go first? Refusing to allow residents to speak early and leave if they choose not to is not about efficiency or order. It reflects a troubling disregard for the public that we were elected to serve. Ending the call of the public and replacing it with a deliberately inconvenient alternative will not restore confidence in this council, nor will it repair Fountain Hills damaged reputation throughout this community. The Council that refuses to listen to its residents forfeits the moral authority to govern them. I implore this Council, abandon this radical agenda, vote it down, and let's go back to just doing the people's business. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I think I'd like to make a statement here. Our main objective here is to conduct our town business. The call to the public is not a right, but a privilege. It's in the State statutes. So we want to conduct our town business first. We are not restricting the right to speak, but we've put an objective limit, if there are ten or more people who request to speak on an item, and you can adjust the time around each person who gets to speak. I'll remind this Council that our own school board, if you're not there when the meeting starts to fill out a call to the public sheet, you don't get to do it any other time. So our own school district does it that way. Also, the two minutes for councilmembers to respond. That's the initial two minutes. That doesn't mean you can't have another two minutes. And I don't think -- I don't think anywhere in this revised policy that it says that the press has to register their -- their equipment. That was a comment that was made. So we've -- we've always had the power to limit the number of speakers. We've always had the ability to clear the room. Creating objective standards on limiting debate and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 43 of 62 spelling out the consequences for disrupting meetings is good, transparent government. We have town business we need to conduct, and we need to get that done first, and foremost. The call to the public had been weaponized in the past for political reasons. And again, I repeat, it's not a right. It's a privilege to have the call to the public. It's in the statutes. And with that, I will ask Councilwoman Earle if she has something to say. EARLE: Thank you. Mayor. Through you, I want to ask the town clerk or just mention, the reason we are having items given to her early on is so that she can organize everything as we've requested her to do, And it -- it makes it difficult for her when people give her stuff later. Is that correct? BENDER: It helps us to be organized -- EARLE: Okay. BENDER: -- so that we can proceed with the business. EARLE: Okay. Thank you. And my second thing. Through you, Mayor, is may I address the attorney? MAYOR FRIEDEL: Sure. EARLE: Okay. And this is -- do you know where that statement is in the rules about the -- the -- what is it? The -- oh, my gosh, Rick, I got your thing. The when the -- the about -- about registering your cameras or whatnot. The -- WRIGHT: Yes. So it's not registering the cameras. It's actually just notify an hour before the meeting -- EARLE: Okay. WRIGHT: -- if you're going to be bringing in professional equipment. Just a notification. It's in section -- is that what you're asking, where it is? EARLE: Yeah, where it is. I'd like to read that. WRIGHT: I just I had it up a second ago, and where did I see it? . EARLE: The press. There's the word. The press. What section is it? MCMAHON: 3.7A. EARLE: Okay. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 44 of 62 MCMAHON: Meetings to be public. It's page eight. WRIGHT: So I'm looking on page 259 of the meeting packet. It's in page eight of the Rules of Procedure. I'm looking at the -- the finished version rather than the -- EARLE: Okay. WRIGHT: So that's where I'm at. Page 259. EARLE: And where is that exactly that the point -- WRIGHT: So it's the under A and it says members of the public wishing to record meetings using professional audio or video equipment must provide written notification to the town manager or designee at least one hour before the meeting before setting up any professional equipment. EARLE: Okay. Thank you very much. WRIGHT: And it's just again, it's just a notification. It's not a registration, and it's not a getting a license. It's just a notification. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I'd also like to point out that we're not restricting the public's access to this Town Council. You can email us, you can call us, you can text us. We get hundreds of emails every week. There are agenda items that the public is allowed to speak on. We're not restricting any comments on any agenda items. We're just redoing this section because we want to get the business done first. Councilwoman McMahon. MCMAHON: Thank you. When you're requiring them to provide written notification ahead of time, in essence, it is registering in advance. So again, I don't -- what if -- what if a reporter comes in the room with some professional equipment and he or she is 15 or 20 minutes late? Are you going to refuse them? You can't. You can't. You can't refuse them. Especially if they're not interfering with anything. They have a right to record meetings. It's in the State statute, you know. And I'm not going to respond to Larrabee because there are too many things that she mentioned that to me, you know, I -- just be too much to go through. But again, for the reasons that I stated, I don't -- I think that these changes are way too restrictive, and I think that they are preventing transparency and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 45 of 62 they are preventing the public from redressing their government, which they have a right to do. And I do think many of these are unconstitutional, and I am concerned that there is going to be a lawsuit. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you, thank you. Councilwoman Larrabee. LARRABEE: Just -- thank you, Mayor. Just regarding the professional equipment again, the member of the media is welcome at the meeting. They're welcome to record on their cell phone. They're welcome to use the video recording that we post on the very public YouTube. You can look at your meeting minutes. The media is welcome at our meetings. What we are asking is that if you're setting up professional equipment, that you let someone know an hour beforehand, this is a very normal thing to ask, I promise you. You can ask other town Councils, other Mayors, state legislature. This is a very normal thing to request, because if someone's lugging in a bunch of equipment, one if we don't know what that is, there's a slight safety concern, right? So for example, we did have a member of the media a couple of meetings ago. Totally fine. He had -- he had asked staff beforehand. We, as the Council didn't quite know yet. So I was a little jumpy, I guess, when they came up to the dais during a break and started hooking things to the microphone, and we're walking right by the councilmembers. There's also a security factor to keep in mind here. And that's just my two cents on that. But as far as the professional equipment goes, the professional equipment does not have Constitutional rights. The member of the media does. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Town Clerk, do we have any public comment cards? BENDER: Yes, Mayor, we do. We did receive seven online cards, and they were all against changes. We have -- no -- eight speaker cards. And we'll start with Renee Marion, Beth Culp, and then Crystal Cavanaugh. YARIAN: Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Renee Yarian (ph.), and I'm a long term Fountain Hills resident. The call to the public is a fundamental component of Town Council's effect in the lives of its citizens. The call to the public TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 46 of 62 gives people a chance to speak directly to those who represent them. It also provides transparency and accountability when officials hear their concerns publicly. It's hard to ignore issues when they're raised on the record in front of neighbors and the press. Allowing public input builds trust and legitimacy even when the Council doesn't agree, or act immediately. Citizens are more likely to accept the outcomes if they feel heard and involved. Hearing from citizens can help with early problem solving and the call to the public flags issues early on, before the lawsuits, protests, and or crises. Finally, it provides civic engagement, making people feel that they're truly involved in local affairs, which strengthens the community and leads to a better long term relationship between Council and the town population. Moving comments to the end of the meeting seems unreasonable, as it will limit the number of citizens who can participate. It penalizes families and working people. It makes little sense to put more obstacles in the way. To allow comments at the time that particular agenda item is being discussed only seems logical. Limiting the comment time to 30 minutes also limits participation for important topics. That seems very, very unfair. It discourages citizen input. Meaningful discussion is vital for our community. It's also unreasonable to require commenters to arrive by 5:15. Again, because it penalizes people who work. It's just another means for you to take away what Hannah referred to as our toy. These new rules expose us to litigation regarding our Constitutional rights. I'm angry about not being able to address non agenda items. It's disingenuous and harmful to our community. I object to these changes and suggest that it would be more helpful to citizens, and better for Fountain Hills overall to revert back to the long standing rules we had before this debacle started. Thank you. CULP: Good evening, Mayor Council. My name is Beth Culp, and I am a resident of Fountain Hills. While I was sitting here, I heard something that really shocked me. Councilmember Earle indicated that these rules were written by a committee. That's fine for a committee to write drafts, but then the implication was that the rules had not TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 47 of 62 been reviewed by your town attorney for their constitutionality. That is inexcusable neglect. I strongly, strongly advise you to, before you enact these provisions, you have this document reviewed by a lawyer who practices Constitutional law and submit some of the more controversial provisions, specifically the right to eject everyone from the council chambers to the attorney General. They will do opinions for you. Because I can guarantee you that if you enact that, there are prior restraints in here. There is a provision and I'll read it to you. It basically says under objection, the Mayor has the right to clear the council chambers and restrict access to the Council, employees, applicants, and presenters. It doesn't even mention the media. That is first year law student knowledge. You cannot ever exclude the media and have that in there. And but that's something a Constitutional law lawyer would pick up. So please, before you take any action on this, have it reviewed by a Constitutional lawyer -- a Constitutional law lawyer, and also submit for Attorney General's opinion request on the right of -- of the Mayor to kick everybody out of the room, because that is a valid lawsuit that's going to be filed. Based on what happened in November, that was unconstitutional. You cannot inject [sic] all of the people from a meeting because of the conduct of one person, and particularly not because there's a spat between the Mayor and another Councilmember. That was wrong. Don't make the same mistake twice. Before concluding, I just want to read back on something from a June 18th, 2024 meeting. The speaker during call to the public said, I'm here this evening to express my extreme frustration with the comments and arrogance of certain councilmen during the Town Council meeting of June 4th. It was inexcusable. It was flippant. And it was -- get that word -- impertinent. Under these rules, the person who said that who's sitting on the dais now would have been ejected or could have been ejected. That's how far this goes. Please reconsider. CAVANAUGH: Good evening. Crystal Cavanaugh, resident of Fountain Hills. I want to say I agree with the two minutes per councilmember. That does allow other TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 48 of 62 Councilmembers to jump in and give their input. And like it was stated, additional minutes can then be added. So it's not just a final number. It does stop a few filibusters, and that will make a shorter meeting for the public to get to the end for their call to public. And I totally agree with bringing back call to public, and I agree with placing it at the end of the regular session, so as not to interfere with the completion of other town business. I can agree to requiring all speaker cards being submitted prior to the start of a meeting, but I think an alternate submission method should be allowed for agenda items. I understand you must be in person for call to public. My concern is that if you cannot submit a request to speak before arriving at the meeting, like if I did it the day before yesterday, it's actually disenfranchising in person participation. And for those who actually want to speak in person, if you're following me, some looks confused. But when I'm online before, I could always fill out a written comment. I never noticed if it was there, that said, I'd like to speak tomorrow at the meeting, for example. I never saw that. And today, actually, when I went on, I couldn't even find the request to comment card, to tell you the truth. So I'm not sure if things are changing or if it wasn't on my mobile. But it definitely needs to be easily found on a mobile, because usually, I might be alerting you guys that I want to request to speak, but I'm not going to make it by the beginning of the meeting, for example. So I might do it earlier in the day. And so I've kind of been off. But it has been a practice to call the speakers in the order that they submitted their cards. And so I'm not sure how it would be handled, for example, if online requests to speak are allowed and then others who want to submit in person. Is there a problem if perhaps somebody loads up the speaker cards, for example, and already has ten or 20 in the queue to talk on a certain item by, you know, by design, for example. So I'm not really sure how that's going to work. There's some things to work out, I think. And also, if you're coming in person, the in-person call to public speaker, would they need to be the one to turn in their own card? Or can you turn in your friends cards and TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 49 of 62 then they show up later? So I've understood the abuses that have led up to this. I just don't want this to turn into something more complicated than it needs to, than simply moving the call to public to the end, holding firm to conduct, and sticking to town related business in three-minute segments. Thanks. BENDER: Mayor. The next three speakers, Benjamin Larrabee, Shelby Blecker, and Gene Szlapka (ph.). LARRABEE: Good evening everyone. Mayor. Councilmembers. I want to rise and express my support for returning call to the public as proposed here tonight. I am a free speech absolutist. We should embrace the right guaranteed by the founders of our republic to petition our government with our grievances. What we do not have a right to do is to physically intimidate members of the public who disagree with you. The night when we first debated this, multiple men from the Democratic Party accosted women to the point where the police had to escort them out to their cars for their own safety. We are better than this. The reason I believe in free speech is because when we stop talking to one another, bad things always follow like we saw that night. This is why we need rules of decorum. Speak to your elected officials. Debate the motions. Talk about the roads. But do not allow partizans to turn town hall into a UFC octagon. So thank you, Gerry, for returning call to the public and enforcing decorum. And then please, let's pass this and then get back to work. BLECKER: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Councilmembers, my name is Shelby Blecker, town resident. It's a bit concerning that our Town Council rules had so many procedural errors, Robert's Rules of Order issues, parliamentary issues that hadn't been addressed by prior administrations. So I'm glad to see how our new Mayor and town Council, along with our town attorney, have worked to clarify and fix these issues. Hopefully, our town Council meetings will now run more smoothly and efficiently. And I do understand that a lot of things can be challenged. Lawsuits will come and go, and anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody, TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 50 of 62 so the challenges will prevail. As for the restoration, for the call to public, let's get to the crux of the matter and talk about the guardrails that we put up. Why do we need guardrails for call to the public? I think the answer to that is now obvious. And if it's not, let me mention a few reasons. One. Personal attacks on the Mayors and the Councilmembers are not productive. Two. Members of the dais should be allowed to grieve publicly over the loss of a relative, a friend, and especially in the extraordinary circumstance of an assassination, i.e. Charlie Kirk. That's not proselytizing. It's grieving. Should we not say a prayer and hope for a positive outcome to the tragic abduction of Nancy Guthrie, a fellow Arizona resident, that maybe someone would like our town to comment on? Should those who wish to mention Renee Good not be allowed to mention God, or how their faith is holding them together? Members of the public should be allowed to do the same without judgment from the peanut gallery in attendance. I feel these three reasons are at the core of why call to the public was taken away a few months ago. People wanted and needed to grieve, and members of the public disagreed loudly, strongly in the case of the November meeting, shamefully. Our town resident, one town resident felt the need to file a frivolous lawsuit against the town to appease her narrow minded sense of justice. Maybe we should also be reminded of the disrespectful and disgraceful actions. Maybe not. No need to be reminded, and no need to rehash or relitigate. We'll just move forward. So now we have guardrails, and I'm strongly in agreement with each and every one of them. Put on the guardrails and let's allow public to once again participate in the town Council meetings. Many of us have something to say, and regardless if you agree with us or not, we should be allowed to be heard with the guardrails, demanding decorum, and restricting the use of insults, accusations, that we have all witnessed in the past. I have had to frame my conversations in two minutes at various meetings, many, many TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 51 of 62 times. It's not too hard to do. I also would like you to think about the other side of the coin, where people can't make it here on time to make comments. End of the meeting is great. BENDER: Mayor, the last two speakers are Katherine Myrick and Larry Myers. No, I didn't forget you, Gene. SZLAPKA: Mayor, Councilmembers, I'm a 30-year resident of Fountain Hills. I'm just -- cannot understand why this Council, most of it fears free speech, the First Amendment. Creating obstructions to free speech, as this proposal clearly does, will enrage a lot more town residents. There is no reason to shut down their voices other than to make sure, perhaps only special interests are heard. As a 30-year resident, I've seen a number of council meeting disruptions by angry residents. I've seen a number of council meeting disruptions by many residents, but I have never seen such a poor handling of them by the presiding officer. Why punish all residents that wish to participate in the democratic process? Or is that the objective? First this Council removed our ability to challenge ethical misbehavior. How convenient. Now this. Something smells here. Let's do the right thing and return the procedures to what has worked for decades. One more thing. You even took the table away from the journalists. You're prejudice against the press. If any changes are needed, perhaps the changes needed to be made in how best to de-escalate instead of denying our rights. I would say that there's been comments about doing the town business. Well, we should be doing the town's business. We talked about part of it tonight, the roads. So let's get and do our town business, and stop with this crazy stuff. Thank you. MYRICK: Hi, Katherine Myrick, Fountain Hills residents, thank you for -- thank you for listening to me again. I spoke to this item when the Council reports and call to the public were removed back in November. And while I appreciate that the Council is working towards bringing back call to the public, the edits that have been made seem to bring back the opportunity for comment, but in a way that makes it very difficult for the public. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 52 of 62 It raises the question of whether you actually want to hear from the public, or you just feel like it's something you have to do. The requirement that comment cards on agenda items and call to the public will have to be submitted before the start of the meeting is not necessary and is certainly not welcoming. So if someone's trying to get from a job to a council meeting to participate, they need to be here before 5:30, before the start of the meeting to put in their card, and then they might have to wait two or three hours before they can actually speak. It means that someone has to devote their entire evening to a three minute comment. I'm also worried about how these changes restrict the speech of the councilmembers themselves. There's been no comments about reinstating councilmember reports. I think those are really important. So the public knows all of the many things you guys are doing to support the town. Also, councilmember comments during discussions being time limited to two minutes. How is our Council supposed to make decisions in a constructive, collaborative way if you're restricting the -- the speech of yourselves? These updated procedures don't bring -- they bring back call to the public, but in a very restrictive way. They make commenting on agenda items more restrictive. They don't reinstate councilmember reports, and they restrict the speech of councilmembers themselves. These are not rules that seem to value public engagement in our town business. And as our Mayor said, we have town business we need to conduct. And I would have thought that listening to your constituents would have been part of that. Thank you. MEYERS: Mayor, Council. Larry Meyers (ph.), 44-year resident, Fountain Hills. My experience with this Council predates the Council, so let's just get one thing clear. 2022 was the watershed moment where actions by certain citizens in this town were disruptive and unseemly. Call the public existed, as it did for all of the previous time, and there was never an instance like we had which precipitated this particular action that you're trying to take. I support bringing the call to the public back, and I don't care where you put it, because I TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 53 of 62 sit here and try and suck in a lot of town business, so I don't care if I have to wait to the end. I do think call the public is really important for town business. It helps to educate you on things you don't know about. I would have appreciated speaking to ARS9-596 scope of local authority with regard to the 5(G) issue tonight, but I can't, because we don't have a call to the public tonight. Why don't we have a call to the public tonight? Because certain citizens disrupted the meeting. We had been using -- there are people on the dais right now who know that this is true. We disagreed in the past, but it never got to the point where a small group of people disrupted the council meeting. There's a mayor sitting in the back of the room that served for a long period of time, and we had lots of disagreements and got to use the call of the public and educate everybody and get things on the record. It went on from the time we were -- call to the public, was the same from the time we became a town. So let's try and remember what precipitated this, while you're trying to -- to put down all the rules and regulations that have sort of been written. They were written in there because people didn't have any respect. You don't find me hooting and hollering in the back of the room. And I disagree a lot with a lot of you on a lot of issues. And I agree on others, but there's a certain decorum. You wrote some rules. Do I like them? Ah, you know what? Call to the public is back. Please put it back in. And I don't care about your rules. I'll live with them, and I'll continue to come up here and speak as I have since 1989. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. I -- I think we had a motion, didn't we? And a second? EARLE: We did. WRIGHT: Mayor, may I ask for clarification on that motion before we -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Sure. WRIGHT: -- before you vote on it. So the request was to amend four point -- it was the -- the motion was to approve the new rules and add in -- in 4.2b, add in the Mayor. And when I look at 4.2B, did you want me to also change 4.2 -- and I need to go to that section. And I apologize for not having it up. The one before that and moved the Mayor TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 54 of 62 to just 4.2 and remove it -- hold on. What number? Page number. Let me go back to that. I just want to know so that when we -- I think we're going to have to amend it and refile it if -- if this is passed as is. So I just want to make sure I get it correct. Okay. So 4.2b2 says mayor and councilmembers. Were you requesting that I move the Mayor to number three, so it's mayor, town manager and town attorney? Was that it? SKILLICORN: The clarification would be that the Mayor has the authority to produce agenda or to produce agenda items. So frankly, two would be moot. WRIGHT: Correct. That's why I'm -- so I would remove mayor from -- to add Mayor to number three. SKILLICORN: Yes. MAYOR FRIEDEL: You're good -- you're good with that then? Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Roll call. Vote, please. BENDER: Councilmember McMahon. MCMAHON: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Larrabee. LARRABEE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Earle. EARLE: Aye. BENDER: Councilmember Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Nay. BENDER: Councilmember Watts. WATTS: Aye. BENDER: Vice Mayor Skillicorn. SKILLICORN: Mr. Mayor. Permission to explain my vote. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Proceed. SKILLICORN: Thank you. So I just want to point out to the public that a yes vote restores the call to the public. It restores the ability for the public to comment on non-agenda TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 55 of 62 items. A no vote is to not allow call to public. A no vote is a vote to not allow the public to comment on non-agenda items. I vote yes to restore the call to public. BENDER: And Mayor Friedel. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Aye. BENDER: Mayor, five-two. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Agenda item E is discussion and possible direction -- directing the town manager to send the governor a letter of support for tax conformity. Rachel, do you want to start on that or should we just turn that to -- GOODWIN: I'm going to -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: -- Vice Mayor? GOODWIN: I was going to say, I think I'm going to turn this one over to the Vice Mayor. It was his requested item for discussion and agendas. MCMAHON: Didn't the governor veto this? GOODWIN: Correct. MCMAHON: So why are we discussing it? GOODWIN: It was requested and supported by three councilmembers. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And I believe the -- the, the league said that at some point this is going to come back in some form. So we have to be prepared for that. MCMAHON: Yeah. But in some form it's going to be -- have to be a different form -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. MCMAHON: -- because the government vetoed it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. MCMAHON: So I don't understand why we're going to, in my opinion, waste time tonight discussing this -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. MCMAHON: -- when we can look at it, when it comes back. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Noted. Thank you. Vice Mayor. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 56 of 62 SKILLICORN: Yeah. This is actually a pretty big issue. 1.1 million Arizonans will see a tax increase if this doesn't get taken care of. And frankly, the Arizona Department of Revenue forms right now in -- are -- are submitted to all the tax preparation services, CPAs, accountants, you know, TurboTax, all that. Assuming that Arizona will conform to the one beautiful bill language. And if something like this does not pass, people will end up doing their taxes more than once and could actually see hefty income tax increases. So this actually really hurts middle class. It hurts -- it hurts people that are tipped workers. It hurts people that have overtime opportunities. It's something that is a big deal. There's quite a few people in Arizona that will suffer if this doesn't get done. And the mechanism that this could be done, I don't think we can dictate which is -- which is fine. The legislature could pass the same bills again. The legislature is also working on another that would basically put Arizona into conformance -- compliance with the Department of Revenue forms. That's probably less than ideal because senior citizens would see a tax increase in that case. But there is a scenario that would allow that. So I think it's really important that -- that our council could lead on this and actually give the governor a hand, and let the governor know that Arizonans want to comply. We want to be able to file our taxes. I mean, I'm getting my taxes ready right now, but frankly, I'm just going to put them in a folder because I can't do anything until I know what the taxes are, which is a tremendous inconvenience, and someone -- I'm tired of procrastinating. I like to do my taxes, and I'd like to get this done. And just kind of give you an idea. This that veto means that there's an additional tax on the elderly. There's an additional tax on tips, there's a tax on overtime. And you know, that's just not inappropriate. I think that this this council can weigh in on this, and you know, shed some light and some good advice to the governor. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman McMahon. MCMAHON: Thank you. Based upon what I've read, a lot of what you said is incorrect. This is rushed legislation. There are no tax cuts for the middle class in this. I know TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 57 of 62 Governor Hobbs is currently working on tax cut legislation with the legislators to cut tax for the middle class. Not -- not favor the wealthy. And it also significantly reduces federal revenue to the states, I understand I'm not for supporting this. I again state that it's been vetoed, and I don't think that this is appropriate to send a letter to the governor about a matter that's already been vetoed. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilwoman Larrabee. LARRABEE: Given that this bill is regarding conformity with recent federal tax changes, I'm in support of us writing a letter to -- if nothing else, to encourage the governor and the legislature to come up with a solution here. We should be conforming with what is the standard federally. Our Arizonans are going to be paying their federal taxes very, very soon. And in doing so we, let's say, solve this later on and then people have to redo them. That is a cost that affects the middle class and the lower class, because you're having to get your taxes done again. That is what we're referring to. So yes, I think that we can argue partisanship, we can argue the party politics behind different tax cuts or the effectiveness of various tax cuts. That's an entirely different conversation. This is just regarding conformity. So I'm all for it. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilperson Kalivianakis. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, this is another exercise in futility, and I don't even know why we're talking about this since it was vetoed by the Mayor -- by the governor. Vice Mayor Skillicorn, and Councilperson Larrabee, and Councilperson Earle ill-advisedly requested the town manager write a letter to the governor in support of a vetoed bill. The bill was put forth for tax conformity with recent federal tax changes, and it was vetoed -- yes -- vetoed by the Governor on January 16th, 2026. My query is, what should the town manager write to the governor? Would you pretty please reconsider your veto? I'm not sure what we would be writing. It's been vetoed. It's going back to the legislature. It's done. Spending valuable Council time on trivial or nonessential issues is bad public policy because it diverts attention, resources and public trust away from work that actually matters. It diverts our town staff to doing TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 58 of 62 meaningless tasks. The Town Council exists to address core responsibilities, public safety, infrastructure, fiscal stewardship, water, roads, long term planning. When meeting time is consumed by symbolic gestures, manufactured controversies, or issues that do not materially improve the residents quality of life, these core issues are neglected or delayed. Inefficient agendas also come at a real cost. Council time and staff time is taxpayer funded time. Every evening we spend debating low impact issues and directing staff to waste valuable time is not spent solving real problems. Responding to residents' concerns or providing thoughtful insight of our town operations. I'm a no on this one. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilperson Earle. EARLE: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you Mayor. I would like to ask Councilman Skillicorn to explain what he would like the letter to be this time. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Vice Mayor. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Councilman. If the Council so directs, what I envision is to ask the governor to -- to basically affirm compliance -- tax compliance. Ask the governor to assess, you know, if the veto is really necessary and -- and going forward to work with the legislature to move Arizona to compliance as soon as possible, for the sake of the People of Fountain Hills and Arizonans. EARLE: May I ask? MAYOR FRIEDEL: Go ahead. EARLE: So is this just a discussion, or are we voting on this? GOODWIN: It's agendized for voting. EARLE: Okay. So I -- I still support it. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Councilman Watts. WATTS: I have a question for the town attorney. Is there any harm in sending a letter that we're asking for reconsideration for her to find a way with legislature to align with federal statutes? WRIGHT: There's -- yes, that would be okay to do that. WATTS: So kind of much like the call to the public, when they don't give up? Same kind TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 59 of 62 of thing. So I'm in support of it. WRIGHT: Okay. WATTS: Thank you. MCMAHON: Are we voting on it or just directing? MAYOR FRIEDEL: This is an agenda item, so we will be voting on it. But I want to see if there's any -- are there any public comment cards? BENDER: No, Mayor. MAYOR FRIEDEL: No. Oh, I'm sorry. It is directing the town manager to send the letter. MCMAHON: If the Council is -- if the majority directs, please do not include my name on the letter. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: I think the way it would go is the majority of the Council, am I correct? GOODWIN: Correct. And what I'm sensing is we do have a majority here tonight. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Item F is consideration possible action related to any item included in the Arizona City and Town's legislative bulletin. KALIVIANAKIS: Point of order. Don't we have to vote? MAYOR FRIEDEL: No. It says direction. KALIVIANAKIS: No vote? MAYOR FRIEDEL: No vote. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Direction. Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Sorry, I was interrupted. So item -- the next item is related to any Arizona cities and towns, legislative bulletins. Does anybody have anything they want to bring up? GOODWIN: Mayor, I do. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Go ahead. GOODWIN: I'd like to actually -- actually, I'd like to ask the clerk to give a quick update on SB2022, I believe, which is affecting our election dates. It will affect numerous folks here on the dais as well as our candidates. So if -- Bev, do you mind giving a quick update on that one? TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 60 of 62 BENDER: No, we anticipated that there was going to be a one week change as they did in 2024, I believe. But it's looking like there are two competing bills right now. One in the House, one in the Senate. And what they were wanting to do is to change it for two weeks, which would mean our new election date would be July 21st. So we still need to wait and see, because the governor does have to sign this -- the bill once it is finalized. MAYOR FRIEDEL: And I believe there was an amendment to that bill, the one bill, by Calladin saying that any forms that are dated August 4th will be acceptable. BENDER: That is correct. The forms that are being circulated now are -- MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. BENDER: -- being used. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Yeah. Okay. BENDER: But there will be also a change to the campaign finance forms for the pre and the post-election reports. So stay tuned. There'll be a few more changes. GOODWIN: For clarification, just for anybody that might be watching from home or taking notes out there, the two items are HB2022 and SB1425. Those are the two competing ones, and arguably the proposed date would be July 21st for elections? BENDER: That is the date we have been told by the County -- GOODWIN: Okay. BENDER: -- is what they're targeting, and that's what they're supporting. Meaning the counties are. GOODWIN: Okay. BENDER: So we'll see what happens. GOODWIN: Thank you. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. Beth. Vice Mayor. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I think the clerk really summed that one up. Really, there's really nothing to add there. There might be a trailer bill with that, though, to actually enact the forms -- the date compliance and the forms, which would be seamless for us. But it's -- it's all more work for you. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 61 of 62 But I think all risk that's -- in general, there's a few things that the legislature likes to do to take away local control. I don't know if there's anything we need to act on, but I think this is -- as session continues, this is something to take a look at. I don't like the idea of punishing the -- the retailers when someone steals a shopping cart, though. I think that's a -- the -- what -- what some municipalities are doing is not a -- not a nice thing to do to their -- to their retailers. So I -- that one I actually differ with the league, so. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Okay. Any council discussion or direction to the town manager? Future agenda items? Can I get a motion for adjournment? KALIVIANAKIS: Motion to adjourn, please. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Second. Anyone? WATTS: Second. MAYOR FRIEDEL: All in favor? ALL: Aye. MAYOR FRIEDEL: Thank you. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS FEBRUARY 03, 2026 REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Page 62 of 62 HAVING NO FURTHER BUSINESS, MAYOR GERRY M. FRIEDEL ADJOURNED THE REGULAR SESSION OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL HELD ON FEBRUARY 3, 2026, AT 7:40 P.M. APPROVED: ____________________________________ GERRY M. FRIEDEL, MAYOR ATTEST: ____________________________________ BEVELYN J. BENDER CERTIFICATION I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING MINUTES ARE A TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF THE MINUTES OF THE REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL, FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA HELD ON FEBRUARY 3, 2026. I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT THE MEETING WAS DULY CALLED AND HELD AND THAT A QUORUM WAS PRESENT. ________________________________ BEVELYN J. BENDER