As promised, we resume our Fountain Hills History Lesson series this week witha very important year, 1983.

Without question, the single biggest news story of 1983 was the defeat of the initial incorporation movement and the events that led up to it.

The first step was made Dec. 16, 1982, when the Civic Association’s “Task Force on Future Government” brought the issue to the forefront. The task force continued to explore the issue in depth through the early part of 1983.

In late January of 1983, the Arizona League of Cities and Towns prepared a bill for special legislation allowing Fountain Hills to incorporate and at the same time dissolve the local districts.

This bill eventually passed both the Senate and the House.

Mesa and Scottsdale both approved of Fountain Hills pursuing the issue.

On April 13, “Citizens for Self-Government” formed with Dr. George Bock as chairman.

On July 8, the “Future Government Committee” filed a petition of 800 signatures with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors calling for an incorporation election here.

An opposition group, the “Committee to Oppose the Incorporation of Fountain Hills” formed in September, eventually changing the name to “Citizens Against Premature Incorporation,” with Larry Lochner as chairman.

A 68% voter turnout yielded a count of 768 against incorporation and 651 in favor.

As the community continued to grow, new faces emerged who were for the incorporation of Fountain Hills.

There would be two more incorporation elections before it became a reality in late 1989.

Negotiations began in 1983 to solve the road paving impasse between the Road Districts and master developer MCO Properties.

Building showed a strong resurgence in 1983 with a record-setting dollar amount of construction permits issued.

A two and a half million-dollar month in October pushed the 1983 total building permit valuation past the previous one-year record set in 1979. Every month was over a million dollars in valuation. The record total for the year was $17,263,475.

The Committee of Architecture also headed into 1984 with a bright future. After coming under constant pressure from local builders, homeowners and real estate people, the committee was restructured in October.

George Ianella was named the committee chairman and Ray Baldwin was hired to serve as a full-time administrative director for the committee.

The plan approval process then moved more quickly, and public meetings were then held only when special circumstances dictated such a meeting.

Committee guidelines were revised and an advisory group that inspected violations of the Declaration of Reservations was re-organized into a new committee.

Both the contractors and the real estate people expressed their satisfaction with the re-organized Committee of Architecture.

We’ll continue with our look at 1983, a very busy news year, in our next Fountain Hills History Lesson.