“What’s this?” my wife, Diane, asked just as I was digging into my blend of cereals I have every morning.

She wanted to know what this $36 bill was that we got in the mail last week.

“That’s our new environmental fee the Town is beginning to charge us,” I replied.

“Are you saying the Town is somehow charging us for the environment we live in? I know we have great views, but I didn’t know we’d ever have to pay a fee to look at them,” she said.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I replied. It goes for things like cleaning up the illegal dumping, keeping the washes free of debris and storm damage cleanup.”

“And why is the billing coming from Florida? I almost threw it out because it looked like junk mail,” she said.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s been in the paper. I just don’t remember that detail. I’ll ask Bob (Burns) when I get in,” I told her.

I finished my cereal, gulped down my cranberry juice and vitamins. I got in the shower and thought, “I’ll bet a lot of other people have those same questions. That would be a good column topic.”

So here goes:

Actually, the Town has been discussing a possible fee since 2007. New construction was on the decline, and that had been a major source of revenue for the town through building permit fees and sales tax. The town began searching for new revenue sources.

Since then, nearly 20 additional Town Council meetings have been held where the fee was discussed. The Council narrowly approved adopting the fee in November 2014. The Times has had numerous stories on the fee since it was first mentioned.

Studies were done and it was decided the charge would be three dollars per month per parcel regardless of zoning, unit size or the type of dwelling. That works out to $36 per year per parcel.

The billing firm is indeed from Florida because it was the only company to bid on the job. The billing was set to be mailed in 2016.

They began arriving in the mail of Fountain Hills residents last week.

Then came the many phone calls to Town Hall with questions similar to Diane’s, to me.

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The deadline for making a reservation to attend the Jerry and Jackie Miles Tribute Dinner on Feb. 20 is this Friday, Jan. 22.

You may have been confused when the front page story had a Jan. 22 date and my column had Jan. 15 as the deadline.

What happened, was the committee planning the event decided on Monday evening to extend the deadline from the original Jan. 8 date to Jan.22.

I changed the story I had written earlier in the day with the Jan. 15 date (the originally planned extension), but I forgot to change the date listed in my column which I had written on Friday.

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Congratulations to the winners in the tribal election at Fort McDowell. As you probably saw on the front page, active Fort McDowell resident, Bernardine Burnett, who served for many years as vice president under Dr. Clinton Pattea, was elected president.

Pam Mott will remain as treasurer and Gerald Doka retained his council seat.