It has occurred to me that our town government’s failure to deal with the 800-pound gorilla in the room (property tax/reliable revenue stream) has led to the creation of a 10-ton can of worms named Park Place.

It seems obvious that the work on the construction has slowed dramatically and occupancy in the fall of 2017 is not likely. What does appear likely is that the resolution of the development fee issue could be tied up in the courts for an extended period.

Did the hunger to attract more families and their tax dollars via increased affordable housing drive the Council to make a poor decision on that project? Had the Council made a serious effort to find and implement a reliable revenue stream the Building Safety Department might have been staffed well enough to make sure that all fees were collected and permits issued before construction was allowed to start. We may well have needed to contract with an outside entity to conduct the in-process inspections required simply due to the size of the project.

The Vision Fountain Hills working group determined that attracting visitors to town and the increased tax revenue they might generate would not be sufficient to solve our revenue problem, yet the Council continues down that path with ideas such as the swimming lagoon in Fountain Park.

Failure to solve the revenue problem will result in more and larger problems the longer we go without dealing with it. Looming on the horizon is a very large revenue shortfall based on optimistic cost projections for items such as police and fire protection. Traffic scoff laws and property crimes are on the increase at the present level of protection we are paying for, but can we afford more? It is time to act!