I want to express my thanks to Councilman Gerry Friedel, Councilman Allen Skillicorn and Councilwoman Hannah Toth.

Gerry’s energy is incredible. He is amazingly involved in the community and attends every meeting, event and happening in the town. Allen is one of those rare politicians who has completely stuck to his campaign promises of cutting spending on unnecessary projects and diverting that money to roads. Hannah brings a new focus to the council and the town. She is very active at getting younger people involved in government.

But mostly, what I want to thank them for, is not what they have done but what they haven’t done. They haven’t put a four-lane roundabout at the intersection of Avenue of the Fountains and Saguaro. They haven’t put an unneeded stop light at Palisades and Eagle Ridge, no matter how much pressure they have gotten to do so. They did not lower the speed limit on Palisades, as the previous council wanted to.

They did not allow MCSO to continue to supply the town with three deputies per shift when we were paying for four. They did not allow those deputies to spend all their time on side streets, handing out radar tickets for seven miles an hour over the limit, but instead had them spend more time patrolling the community to reduce crime. They did not go along with the idea that mass homelessness in our town was not a looming problem and passed new laws to deal with that issue. They did not vote to continue useless and costly studies that we didn’t need.

So, thank you Gerry, Allen and Hannah for what you have done and especially for what you haven’t.