Preserve Vistoso Announces New Board Members and 2021 Officers
Preserve Vistoso Board welcomes new Board members:
- Terry Hart, CenterPointe
- Nancy Olson, Fairfield
- Jennifer Seaman, Somerset Canyon
- Steven Wallace, M.D., J.D, Stonegate.
Preserve Vistoso Officers for 2021 are:
- Gayle Mateer, President
- Craig MacKay , Vice President
- Michael Bilodeau, Secretary
- Rick London, Treasurer
To find out more about our board volunteers, go to PreserveVistoso.org.
Town Council February Meetings
The next scheduled Town Council meetings are on February 3 and February 17. You can find agendas for the meetings about a week prior to the Town Council meeting. https://www.orovalleyaz.gov/Government/Departments/Town-Clerk/Meetings-and-Agendas
Town Council meetings usually begin with the Town Manager’s report that may include some mention of the ongoing efforts of the Town to negotiate the sale of the Vistoso Property. The report from the Town Manager at the last Town Council meeting indicated that there are conversations with Romspen representatives, but no information was available beyond that. Preserve Vistoso understands the sensitive nature of the Town’s negotiations with Romspen, but we expect that progress will be made to meet the April deadline set by Mayor Winfield.
The Town Council agenda has a “Call to the Audience” following the Town Manager’s report. Community members may speak for three minutes as part of the Town Council’s Zoom meeting. You have the opportunity to provide your personal comments and opinions to the Town Council. You may want to express your opinion about how important this purchase is to the community and would like to know what progress the Town is making.
We can thank the Mayor and Town Council members and the Town Manager for attempting to negotiate for the acquisition of the property. You can report that Preserve Vistoso members are committed to financially support the Town to purchase of the property. Preserve Vistoso members pledged $1.5 million when The Conservation Fund attempted to buy the property and we remain committed to raising funds for the purchase of the property.
Our community also is committed to support maintenance of the nature preserve financially if the Town successfully purchases the property. If the Vistoso property is used as a natural desert preserve, maintenance costs should be relatively low. The property is especially suited for conversion into a nature preserve. It is natural desert environment with six miles of paved trails. The main areas that would need to be maintained are the path, the restrooms and the access areas. One of the large, local landscape companies estimates that the cost to maintain these features could be around $54,000 per year. More information is available in the January 4 Pulse, which goes into detail about maintenance costs.
If you’d like to speak and want to hear what other community members have said in Town Council meetings, you can listen to the January 20 comments about 21 minutes into the meeting, HERE.
If you join Preserve Vistoso, you’ll be kept up to date on this conservation project. Go to PreserveVistoso.org and click on the ‘Join’ button.