A lot of valuable information came out of the recent Town Council retreat, with council and staff tackling everything from town finances to development projects and beyond. The meeting gave Town staff and council members an opportunity to look back, project forward and hammer out a few details along the way. For our readers who are interested in the more granular details of what’s going on behind the scenes of the community, our reporting begins on page 1A of this week’s paper.

Among those stories you will find a rundown concerning street maintenance, a topic that impacts anyone who drives, bikes or walks the roads of Fountain Hills.

While $2.5 million is set aside annually to address regular street maintenance, it has become clear over the years that the needs are greater than the means. As noted in this week’s 1A article, the result of a recent study from a pavement consultant is that Fountain Hills needs to be spending about $3 million more each year if it wishes to maintain streets at a desired level.

One of the more recent attempts to provide that funding was a primary property tax, which residents voted down in 2018. With that type of regular funding voted off the table, a solution to Fountain Hills’ street maintenance problem remains elusive.

At the recent retreat, the idea was floated of creating a citizen committee to help work through the problem and come up with possible funding options. As our letters pages proved leading up to the 2018 vote, a lot of our readers have a lot of thoughts about how best to address the situation. Our hope is that were a committee to form, some of those individuals would be willing to volunteer their time and knowledge to help solve the street maintenance riddle that remains without a solution.