It’s not about getting people to visit Fountain Hills; it is about getting people to move to Fountain Hills.

Let’s improve upon our assets we already have; our awesome community center, library, River of Time Museum and Fountain Hills Community Garden. This is a prime space for all of us to enjoy and to hold events, but we need to invest in updating and upgrading.

Let’s pull our resources together and build an under-cover state-of-the-art community pool, one that can be utilized by the middle and high school for swim meets. The community center needs a cosmetic makeover, having the kitchen certified commercial, so that we can lease it out or offer it to caterers for events—this is a revenue generator.

A separate teen center offering a safe place to socialize and a digital arcade solves to a degree what we have heard for years, “nothing for the teenagers to do.”

Our library has a host of classes and programs serving toddlers to high school and, with the new EVIT school, they will be expanding to include those interests too. The River of Time tells our original story and by itself is a learning center for all, and the living Fountain Hills Community Garden is a commitment to good health and community.

Having all of these vibrant venues on one community site is priceless and much more cost effective for holding our property values. Our neighboring cities are out of land to expand, we are not. We have plenty of land and we can grow.

Fountain Hills does not need to re-invent itself and become something that we are not. We simply need to modernize and add a few missing pieces for bringing Fountain Hills back to the multi-generational, family-based community that is was and strives to be.