On Tuesday, Dec. 5, 1989, the voters of Fountain Hills approved an election that resulted in our community becoming the state’s 86th municipality.
It took three tries for the new community to incorporate. The vote was 2,100 Yes and 1,662 No with a 61.8 percent turnout. It passed in all four voting precincts.
The first election was held in 1983. That effort was chaired by John Masson, a retired business executive, and supported by the Fountain Hills Community Association, which later merged with the Fountain Hills Civic Association.
The vote was 651 Yes and 768 No. The second effort was chaired by Phoenix banking executive Gary Strom, who lived in Fountain Hills.
Again, the incorporation effort ended in defeat, 1534, Yes and 1599 No. But the margin of the loss was such that the committee immediately announced it would stay to-gether under the leadership of new chairman John Cutillo. He had been active in the two previous campaigns and firmly believed incorporation was the right way to go.
In that third election there were three viewpoints presented –incorporation, status quo and annexation by Scottsdale.
The victory party for the successful third election was held at the Catholic Church of the Ascension. Cutillo greeted those in attendance by saying, “I want to welcome you to the new Town of Fountain Hills.”
The crowd cheered.
Valley Newspapers, where we printed the paper then and still do, agreed to hold off putting us on the press until 8 a.m. Wednesday in order to have the papers back to the Scottsdale Post Office by 10 a.m. for delivery on Thursday.
Now understand, this was in the days before we had any carriers; home delivery on Wednesdays went into effect the following June with our own staff of delivery people.
I stayed at the office Tuesday night and did not attend the victory party. Reporter Michael Scharnow covered the party. I waited at the office for the results and wrote the story that appeared in the paper. We had already sent the other pages to the printer
We weren’t computerized in those days. One of our typesetters came in early Wednesday morning to set the type and do the paste-up. I then drove the page paste-up to Valley Newspapers, which was located near 19th Avenue and Peoria at that time. We met that 8 a.m. deadline.
Getting back to the election, Maricopa County Supervisor Jim Bruner appointed the first council. He interviewed some 60 residents who applied for the seven positions on the interim town council.
After reviewing the candidates, he made his decisions. The first four were active members of the pro-incorporation committee, Citizens for Self-Government.
They included Joe Bill, John Cutillo, Charlie Fox and Mike Minarsich.
Bill moved to the community from Minnesota. At that time he was working for the Mayo Clinic as an assistant administrator. He was graduated with a bachelor of science degree in physics and mathematics (magna cum laude) from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Cutillo, as I mentioned earlier, served as chairman of the Citizens for Self-Government. He moved to the community from Massachusetts. He formerly owned Sun Valley Waste and was chairman of the board of Compaction Services Inc. of Arizona.
Fox was active with a variety of Fountain Hills organizations. He moved to the community from Pennsylvania and at that time was as a budget administrator for McDonnell-Douglas Helicopter (now Boeing) in Mesa.
Minarsich moved his business and his family to Fountain Hills from Phoenix. The Arizona native was very active with the Chamber of Commerce and was president of New Dimensions Distributors Inc.
Harry Barber was a “Committee of One” in favor of the “status quo.” The retired advertising executive was an outspoken opponent of incorporation in the two years before the election. He moved to Fountain Hills from California,
Dick Haugen moved to the community from Minnesota. He was not a member of any group during the months leading up to the election, but he favored the annexation of Fountain Hills by Scottsdale.
He worked in the hotel industry.
Marti Lemieux was the first woman to serve on the council. She also moved here from Minnesota.
Active as a Chamber volunteer, she worked as a casualty insurance claims adjuster.
Although she had no political experience she proved to be a valuable member of the first council because of her hard work and dedication to the position.
These seven people were sworn in on Jan. 5, 1990, as the interim town council. They ended up making a good team to meet the challenges of establishing a new town.
