Today begins a series of articles in which the four candidates for the three Town Council seats are responding to questions posed by The Times.

The first question deals with funding priorities for the budget.

Street maintenance and public safety services have been defined as core service priorities for the Town of Fountain Hills. Do you believe there is adequate funding to support these objectives?

If not, what are your ideas to improve funding for these priorities?

Do you believe there should be other budget priorities for the town? What are those?

Following are the candidate responses:

Lina Bellenir - There is always adequate money available to fund public safety and street maintenance, if they are your highest priorities, and they are my highest priorities, especially public safety.

I believe that the recently passed scaled back road bond and the increasing HURF road funds coming from the state are a good beginning to restoring our roads that suffered neglect during the fiscal downturn. The economy is improving and with it so will our infrastructure improve.

To those who say that we need to raise taxes to adequately fund public safety, I ask, “Why do you place a low priority on public safety, when everyone ranks it number one? Why are you not funding public safety first?

In reality, these people want to raise your taxes for non-public safety issues and deceptively say that without a tax increase, we will have to cut public safety. It is a scare tactic and a deceptive one to boot.

This is not to say that we cannot fund other projects, but we need to exercise fiscal conservatism and restraint. Parks, recreation, the Community Center, and other needs are being met and can have past cuts restored as the economy improves.

If elected to the Town Council, I will not raise your taxes and will always fully fund police and fire. No deceptions, no taxes, just a promise.

Nick DePorter - Street maintenance and public safety services are two critically important functions provided by the town. These services currently receive necessary funding to support them. However, the future funding of these services will need to evolve as the town does. Our local government has a duty to plan for the future and anticipate needs.

The road bond that passed in the last election was created because the town did not have the funds budgeted for the needed street maintenance. Funds have since been budgeted for ongoing street maintenance and a plan was created to address future needs. I applaud the current town leadership for creating the street maintenance plan as it utilizes the funds that are available in the most impactful way.

We are fortunate to have excellent public safety services here in Fountain Hills. Although public safety services account for almost half of the town’s current budget, the agreements with both Maricopa County Sherriff’s Office and Rural/Metro are priced very well for services the town receives and provide access to the many resources of both of these large providers.

We can increase revenue to help fund these and other priorities through continued and well-resourced economic development efforts and population growth; both of which will help boost our sales tax revenue.

We can be doing more to encourage our residents to live, buy and go local to support our local businesses and increase sales tax revenue. An ongoing pursuit of economic sustainability through the Economic Development Plan should also be a budget priority for the town. I will collaborate with town’s elected officials, community leaders and citizens to explore ways to further strengthen our current revenue source and focus efforts on establishing a plan for the future.

Councilman Henry Leger - Based on revenue projections, there will be adequate funding to support the current level of all core services, including street maintenance and public safety, through 2019. The new pavement management plan that was initiated by Town Council and staff in 2013 insures that street maintenance funding will be in place for the next several years.

Fountain Hills is fiscally healthy with a general fund reserve balance of $5.2 million, a rainy day fund of $1.3 million and a capital fund balance of $10.4 million. However, with infrastructure continuing to age and rising costs to provide core services, the town, like most small communities, is tasked with raising additional revenue to secure its future.

Town government and staff have successfully managed Fountain Hills through the worst recession in years. I believe the town is currently positioned to grow once again. With a rebounding economy, we have the opportunity to grow our business, commercial and residential base, resulting in increased revenue and enhanced amenities for our community.

Key to our town’s success will be the implementation of our new economic development and tourism strategy. In addition, we must focus on responsible residential development, including Adero Canyon, the former state trust land and downtown. This will increase our population base and generate increased revenue, which will help us retain existing businesses and attract new ones. Additionally, retirement of the town’s McDowell Mountain preserve debt will potentially free up additional revenue to address future needs and priorities.

I believe in putting community first, not politics. Focusing on financially achievable goals and managing our expenditures will go a long way towards sustaining our community’s economic future as well as addressing any unforeseen challenges that may arise.

Alan Magazine - The Town Council has determined that public safety and street maintenance are the highest priorities for Fountain Hills.

Approximately 50 percent of the annual budget is for public safety. That amount is adequate to assure the safety of the public. On the other hand, $1 million per year, beginning in 2015 to improve one quadrant of our roads, while sufficient to provide crack and slurry seal, is only a temporary fix. Many of these neighborhood streets need to be replaced. If the town had more money these roads could be rebuilt and at a faster pace.

As for additional priorities, while the council has approved an economic development plan, implementation is woefully under-funded. The town has hired a single person to work half-time on implementing the plan.

As chairman of the town’s Strategic Planning Advisory Commission, I have long been an advocate of increased economic development to lure non-retail small businesses to our town so as to support our tax base, increase the number of children in our schools and have more patrons for our retail stores.

The consequence of allowing the status quo to prevail preordains the town’s stagnation. The result would be property values that don’t keep pace with the rest of the Valley, a continued decline in population (we lost 2000 citizens in the last Census) and an overall lack of vitality.

Having said that, I am bullish on the future of Fountain Hills. If, through economic development and other means, we could grow the population by 6000 citizens to a total of 28,000, it could produce approximately $2 million in sales tax revenue. And while I welcome second home owners, we should examine how we might recover some of the costs for year-round fire and police protection for these citizens.