A couple of weeks ago there was a fairly thoughtful letter by a resident, Roger Bendet. It promoted school spending as opposed to the current follies of the town. Having lived here since 1981, raised two boys, a Texas A&M graduate (with a great job) and a sophomore at the U of A, I’ve coached multiple sports in town and have always had high hopes of Fountain Hills being more than a retirement community.

Remember, Fountain Hills has always been known as a retirement community. I was a young man when I moved here and my friends laughed at me for living in an old folk’s town. Now I’m an old folk and still listening to the dream of a family friendly Fountain Hills. Truth is the town has never made the right moves to make this happen and still doesn’t.

Just go to recent history to document these woes. The half-empty Target Center stands as a monument to the wrong path. Decent idea, wrong location. That land was the last of Fountain Hills land zoned I3. The town rezoned the land for commercial selling, the idea that the sales tax revenues were going to pay for everything because we could all buy our socks in town. Why is that important?

I3 could have been a software or biotech campus had our town economic development office been better at the job. Good-paying jobs to afford our high real estate prices, producing children for our schools. What a concept. If you were around for that debate you’ll remember the math used to sell it. How's that working out?

Town revenue problems abound. Watch the math on the lagoon; eerily similar.

Three-hundred words will never document the ongoing saga. Maybe we’ll continue next week. Nice start though, Roger.