Beginning this week Fountain Hills residents can offer their community views in a new survey being conducted by Vision Fountain Hills, working with the Fountain Hills Civic and Cultural Association (FHCCA).

On Monday, Aug. 10, Vision Fountain Hills launched a new website (visionfh.org) meant to allow residents to “engage with one another in meaningful and impactful ways on issues that are important to the future of the community.”

Jerry Butler and Tammy Bell are leading the effort to establish the website and create the survey content for Vision Fountain Hills.

“We are working to get the community to engage for the betterment of (Fountain Hills),” Butler said.

The survey will attempt to establish the aspirations of members of the community going forward.

Dating back to 2005 when Mayor Wally Nichols sought to develop the original Strategic Plan for Fountain Hills, residents, employees, volunteers and business owners in Fountain Hills have used the plan structure to voice their opinions and share their ideas to help shape Fountain Hills into the community it is today.

“They’ve worked together utilizing focus groups, workshops and community surveys to collect the input of residents and come up solutions to build our town and fulfill the needs of our community,” Bell said.

With the year 2020, the town has arrived at a new planning plateau and it is time to update the input from residents. Everyone is invited to visit visionfh.org to participate in the new survey being used to collect updated information from residents.

Bell and Butler, both past members of the town’s Strategic Planning Advisory Commission, developed the survey and created the website as a community resource where residents will find information on a variety of popular topics that are important to Fountain Hills and visitors to the site are encouraged to share their perspective on topics that interest them.

“Each of us has different needs, knowledge and perspectives of what would make Fountain Hills a great place to live,” Bell said. “We want you to know that this website is a place for you to share those needs, offer your ideas, ask questions and provide feedback on various topics.”

As information and different perspectives flow into the website, it will be monitored to collect information and create reports that can be shared with all residents online.

The Satisfaction Survey is the first project for the Vision Fountain Hills update.

“This particular project is designed to find out how satisfied (residents) are with priority and daily elements in our town,” Bell said. “You will also find upcoming projects with topics that might interest you, so you’re encouraged to come back often so you can continue to be heard in a variety of ways.”

That first Strategic Planning session had residents expressing a wide variety of thoughts on issues related to the town. The position report to come out of the initial session addressed population with an eye toward demographics and housing; economic development related to commerce and tourism; town finance, land use; town amenities; public safety; the environment including resources and relationships with neighboring communities.

The challenges identified with these objectives included infrastructure planning, fiscal considerations with possible property tax, Trust Land annexation, affordable housing, preservation of open space and public safety.

By 2010 the SPAC was refining its own operations to provide updated information to the Town Council, but town finances made detailed study and implementation difficult.

The town has been able to work with tourism and enhance the “small town feel,” which drew many residents to town, as well as encouraging environmental stewardship.

Actions by the council, sometimes controversial and raising passions, have included annexation of the State Trust Land with an eye toward land use objectives. By this time development on the trust land seems not to be feasible.

Also, the council took action to establish a single hauler system for collection of trash and recycling, vastly reducing the traffic of collection vehicles on town streets.

The development within the McDowell Mountain Preserve is a model of environmental stewardship and helps raise the stature of Fountain Hills in this area.

All off these objectives found seeds within the early planning discussions, according to Butler.

“We encourage everyone who calls Fountain Hills their home or workplace to invest in your town by sharing your voice through this resource,” Butler said. “Engage with VisionFH. The more people of Fountain Hills that get involved the better credibility impact we will be able to make.

“Let’s continue to work together and generate ideas that will make a positive impact and create a vibrant future for Fountain Hills.”