Since moving to Fountain Hills with her family in 1993, Linda Kavanagh has contributed
countless hours to a variety of organizations in the community. She served the Fountain Hills
Parks and Recreation Department as a coach and worked on both the Fall Festival and the
Eggstravaganza for years. She was named Parks and Rec Volunteer of the Year in 2001. From
1993 to 2000, she volunteered at McDowell Mountain School, Four Peaks School and the high
school as an early childhood reader, trip assistant, sports assistant and served on the calendar
committee. Also active at the Community Center, she was a front desk volunteer from the
opening in 2001 through 2006, served as volunteer coordinator from 2001 through 2007 and
was named the facility’s Volunteer of the Year in 2001. With the Fountain Hills & Lower Verde
Valley Historical Society, she has been a board member and chaired the Fort McDowell Casino
bingo and poker fund-raisers for the L. Alan Cruikshank River of Time Museum for several years.
She has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce for many years. She has been active as a
Chamber of Commerce Ambassador including being the chairperson from 2003 to 2006. She
has also volunteered for a number of Chamber activities as a “Friend of the Chamber” and was
named the Chamber’s Advocate of the Year in 2006. She became a member of the Chamber
Board in 2007. While volunteering with the Public Art Committee, she created a docent guided
tour of the town’s public art collection. She was elected Mayor of Fountain Hills in 2011.
Mayor Linda Kavanagh ended her tenure in the Fountain Hills political spotlight overseeing her
final Town Council session as mayor on Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018.She took office in June 2012, and
was re-elected to the seat two more times. While Kavanagh stresses she is unwilling to take any
credit for positive accomplishments during her time in office, the past six years might be
generally viewed as productive at Town Hall.
Her small business initiatives led to a re-vamping of the town’s sign regulations within the
Zoning Ordinance to allow greater flexibility in the use of A-frame signs, and she worked to
make it easy for restaurants to set up outdoor seating, as well allow for pet-friendly access if the
restaurant owner wished to do so.
Another of her objectives was to see development in the downtown, which is being realized
with the Park Place multi-use complex.
Kavanagh said one of the first calls she received after taking office was from Jeremy Hall, then
president of MCO Properties, and he wanted to get together to discuss the development of the
Adero Canyon property in the foothills of the McDowells in western Fountain Hills.
Hall was looking to the town for changes to original platting to allow for construction of other
than the custom homes, which had been the mainstay for MCO, but market changes had greatly
reduced the demand for custom home lots.
Working with MCO and now Toll Brothers Homes, which has taken over the development, the
town was able to move forward with the development of the Adero Canyon Trailhead, giving
hikers and bikers access to the Fountain Hills McDowell Mountain Preserve. Plans for the
trailhead lay dormant for more than a decade until the public access could be worked out.
That trailhead was just dedicated.
“I don’t take credit for any of this,” she said. “The last two years have been one of the best
councils we have worked with. “Nothing happens without a team to work with. There are things
the mayor can’t do on their own.”
Since stepping down as Mayor, Linda remained very active in civil affairs particularly from a
Republican perspective. That included the unofficial personal FHRC photographer at the
monthly meetings.
