Are Fountain Hills residents ready to take on a property tax? What does the future of Fountain Hills look like if that’s not the case? Where might additional revenues come from otherwise?

Those are some tricky questions that are being kicked around Town Hall and the community as a whole as of late, most recently serving as the backbone of a discussion held during the Feb. 28 special Council session. During that session, members of the Vision Fountain Hills group addressed the Council concerning town needs, wants and means by which to achieve them. They also had on hand the latest version of the Strategic Plan, meant to serve as a guide for progress in the coming years.

According to members of the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission, one of the biggest factors serving as a road block to further progress in Fountain Hills is a lack of funding. As SPAC member Gerard Biscegila put it, “no one wants to pay taxes” but, at this point, options are pretty limited.

The Town has already cut staff to the bone and, while they’re doing a great job of maintaining the quality of life Fountain Hills residents have come to expect, the cracks are starting to show. That’s no fault of the people putting in the work, just the result of spreading too few resources too thin.

Are these problems a community can simply grow out of, or must other measures be taken in order to keep us from reaching a point of no return?

Again, those are a lot of important questions, and we won’t pretend to have the answers at this time. But what we are happy to see is that those questions are being asked and, more importantly, a genuine effort is being put forth to answer them.

In the coming months, The Times will be approaching this topic from multiple angles in an effort to help everyone become better informed and bring in as many voices to the dialogue as possible. We hope this will encourage more of our readers to become a part of the conversation, too. To paraphrase Biscegila once more, this town belongs to all of us, so its upkeep is all of our responsibility.

The road to the future needs to be paved. How Fountain Hills will (quite literally) affords that asphalt needs to be decided.