City Council · 2019-07-16

Well, if we could, I'd like to go ahead and get started. We'd like to. We have several items on our agenda for our 3:30 work session. First one is rooftop solar permitting. And Jason Bench is our presenter. If you're connected, you've got solar power to your computer?

Yes.

Okay.

So as you recall, last time we discussed— 2 times ago we discussed these issues, and one of the issues that the plan was to bring back were the 23 violations, and I sent those out yesterday. I hope you got a chance to look at those. Talk about the cities. So I don't know if you want to go through each of those, but they're relatively significant as far as either violating a setback, violating a public utility easement, or just a really large structure in a setback.

So you have just a couple questions. You have some that are on easement violations, you have some on setback violations, and you have some on permitting violations.

Yes. Okay.

So yeah, there is a combination of different things. Some we've discovered that they built a structure without a permit, which is that one.

Some—

well, most of them were built without permits. Some have built them over a public utility easement, or some have just built them into the setback. Some may be legal if they just would come in and get a permit, but they chose not to, or there was some minor thing that they couldn't fix and they didn't want to take them down. So we haven't pursued them, but we have not issued any new So a couple questions.

These are all ordinance zone violations. Tell me why we have easements that they can't build on top of. Tell me why you have to have a building permit to build a building. And tell me why we have setbacks.

Boys, if I can remember those questions.

So, first one is, why do we have easement restrictions?

Why do we have those?

Why? So, public utility easements are typically set aside for any type of utility, whether that's water, sewer, power, cable, any of those things. Our ordinance requires an 8-foot public utility easement.

It used to require 5.

It used to allow combinations. So, we've changed over time, but right now it's— the current standard is 8. So, any new subdivision is going to have Pretty much in every property line, and they put public utilities in for the basic fact of if a cable company wants to take the cable from this side through your property to the other neighbor on the other side of the street, they can do that without having to negotiate each property owner and getting, you know, a deal between them. We as a city, and cities in general, do that so it's easier for them to do the public improvement or public infrastructure within the subdivision.

So if in fact you build something over the easement, it would make it very hard for Public Works to come in and fix something or access something, or if a water— something broke, it'd be hard to dig down through the building to get to the water line.

Right. Typically, we do have a process right now that allows somebody to vacate that easement if they can show it. Utility companies, all 5 of them, typically will issue a letter to us stating that they're okay vacating, because right now we do a blanket public utilities not easement And there are occasions where they don't get used and utility easements are built out and they don't really foresee a need for that in the future, so they have vacated certain portions of the utility easement.

But that's the exception, not the rule.

That's the exception, but there is a process to do that. So when people do that, it's a recorded plat. They have to come and actually amend the plat through the Planning Commission.

And that hasn't been done with these properties that have that problem?

Right.

And that is—

that was an option given to them. They've chosen not to do that.

So does solar have any sort of utility emphasis? I mean, could you argue that solar is a, like, electrical utility? I mean, or it's just its own entity?

I don't know if they're franchised. It would get that same deference between— if they're a provider that was meeting that public utility. If it's an individual homeowner that's doing that, connecting to their power that already has the—

But they couldn't make a utility argument at all?

Well, individually they could, but not collectively as the city would go in and allow that throughout the town.

So anyway, so the easement is so that our public works and other utilities have access to those utilities under the ground and they're not hindered. And in case of an emergency, they need to have clear access to them.

And it increases the cost if they have to go and physically remove a shed. They have the right to do that, but then they have to take that cost to move it, the time to move it, in order to access it easily. Sure.

And then on a building permit, uh, if you're going to put a building up in Orem, you have to have a building permit to do so.

So anything over 200 square feet requires a building permit. Anything under that still requires you to meet the zoning requirements. Setbacks area-wise. If it's in a side yard, it has to be a certain size. So there's still zoning requirements, and then the building kicks in after 220 feet.

Okay, and the reason for a building permit is what?

Safety. You need to build according to building codes so that we don't have structures falling on somebody if they go and enter the shadow.

So a number of these here do not have building permits.

Correct.

And so we don't know how they were built. They could have been constructed properly. They might have snow load problems, might have electrical, concrete. You don't know without inspecting it.

Correct.

And so, for example, if you're, if you're building a new home and you have a retaining wall that's required, but you don't get a inspection on it and you decide to do it yourself and the city comes in and says, well, you can't occupy the home until the retaining wall is done properly.

Is that correct? Right. Anything over 4 feet requires engineering and requires a permit. Yeah, so retaining wall. So anything under 4 feet, a homeowner can build without a permit. Right.

And that's for the safety of those living there, the safety of those visiting there, It's the general safety of the population within the City of Orem.

You can drive around this city and other cities and you can see retaining walls that were not built properly. They're starting to lean and you can tell that if they would have been done properly, they would have probably structurally been able to hold up.

And then setback violations. So we have a number of these that are on setback violations. You see one right there in the bottom left. Tell me why we have setback ordinances.

Well, there's a couple different reasons. I think one is the health safety of the neighbors, right? You don't want structures necessarily built on the property unless they're built according to a firewall or some other types of structures. We do have in a commercial zone, for example, you can build to the property line. There's also building codes that require it to be built a certain way. There's a 2-hour fire rating. Residential, typically if somebody's going to build a shed that's in violation, they're probably not going to look at the fire codes. So the setbacks were designed to keep those structures away so that if in the event there is a fire, they would be able to respond. The other one is aesthetics. That's a big part as well. You don't want structures from property line to property line unless it's designed that way on purpose.

So it's for safety and aesthetics? Safety of your own personal property so the fire and police can get to the back and they're not hindered. And then also for your neighbors so you're not starting a fire at their house if you have a fire at your house. So what you're saying is there are reasons for the easement, the building permits, the setbacks, for those ordinances and laws within the city.

Right.

For the safety of our residents. Okay, and do you know— I didn't count, but do you know how many of those 23 are related to easement, how many are related to setback, and how many are related to building permits?

Uh, look at them, probably a few of them that are just in the easement. Okay, the rest of them are probably— majority of them are probably—

And then you have some that have building permits and they don't want to come in and get a building permit. And that could be possibly that they know they're probably not going to pass?

Or if they do, it's going to cost them a little bit more to bring it up to current standards.

Okay.

Now, if a home has changed hands several times, um, and they were violating 4 owners ago, does that still carry to the President, one more. This is through, yeah, through the property. And Steve will have to correct me if I'm wrong, but it's basically just you have a violation, you sell it, you don't get rid of the violation. It's still an active violation, it's still contrary to the codes. So the new owner will inherit that violation.

So all of these are in violation of our codes. They're put in place for safety and Protection.

Okay, so Steve did propose a text, and I'll let him explain that.

Mayor, I think at our last meeting you just requested that we kind of show you how the text could be changed to accommodate solar if you chose to do that. So I think I mentioned at the time it could be a very easy change, and as you can see here, it's basically a one-line addition to Section 22-1-4. This is the section that says that you can't get a new building permit if you've got existing violations. And what we would do is something like this. That last line, the new line just says, however, the subsection shall not apply to a building permit to install a solar power system. That's just a very basic way of handling that. As you can see, I've listed some other issues that We'd want to think about in terms of where this exception applies or doesn't apply. For example, would we want that to apply in both residential and commercial zones? Maybe only residential zones. What if it involves a life safety type of violation where it's say it's a fire code violation or there's an electrical code issue or something like that? Should the should that exception apply if the violation was actually created by the current owner. You know, a lot of the situations we've encountered have been where people have bought the property not knowing that there was a violation. So there was maybe some greater sympathy for those types of individuals. So, and there are others too that we'd want to consider along the way. But if you decide you want to go this direction, we can think about all those things and work those out. But I think that the modification would just go In that section, it will look something like that.

Okay, thank you.

Case in point, my neighborhood recently had bunches of our lawn torn up to put in Utopia Fiber, and all of them were within their proper easement. But if someone had built on that area, whether it's a shed or an addition to their home, that utility would still have the right to come tear that up. And they would not have— they do have the responsibility to put my grass back, Some of my neighbors would argue not the same quality it was prior to them tearing it up. But what would be their responsibility should they tear down an outbuilding or a house addition because they had to get to a utility?

My understanding is they're not responsible for that.

And so there, that's, that was my perceived answer. And so my concern is we've just added whether it was the first guy who violated or the second guy who didn't buy the property with enough due diligence. We've added to their problem because they've stuck money on top of the roof. And they can tear down that outbuilding. Granted, it doesn't happen often, and utilities would try to work around it. But we've just added to that problem.

Potentially, that's true.

Just to clarify, you're saying if they put solar panels on the outbuilding—

Whatever structure they're putting it on, that's in violation.

But if the issue is with an outbuilding and they put it on the roof of the main house—

Oh, okay.

I have less problem with that.

So go back to any one of your pictures, because I, by the way, reviewed them all prior to coming. But if that, if the, uh, if that outbuilding on the top, my top left as you look at it, your top left as well, if the solar panels are going on part of the building that's not in violation, I don't have a problem with it. I wouldn't want to approve solar panels going on the part of the building that is in violation.

Yeah.

Have we disallowed that? In other words, if I ask for solar panels to go on the bottom part of that house, and we disallowed it because part of the structure is out of compliance?

Well, that was— if Jason could go back to that language, that was my number 4, another issue to address. Maybe we would want to say that no part of the solar system can be connected to any part of a structure that was not in compliance.

Yeah, thank you for that clarification.

Sorry, I didn't catch it the first time.

And that kind of speaks to what I had suggested a couple months back with I wouldn't want us to allow solar in a way that perpetuates any of these issues. In other words, some of these have been around for years and years. Nothing's really changed. We haven't gone after them. We haven't fined these people. And I'm guessing with the status quo, nothing probably will change unless there's some compelling event that they decide, okay, we're ready to come into compliance. We're going to change the building or, you know, pay whatever It costs to fix that. What I'm, what I'm asking about with this request to change the code is, um, can this actually make it better? In other words, I don't, I don't want to make anything worse, but can we actually make it better if we're documenting some of these issues with the county where if they were to sell the property down the road, for example, they would have to, you know, correct these issues before the property can change hands or something like that? So with something like this, if we allowed, you know, an exception in this case for solar, but documented those existing issues with the county, could that give us an additional tool to, at some point in the future, to have them correct those issues?

I don't think that we could impose a requirement that they correct those before they could sell the property.

But we could make it easier for buyer to beware.

Well, we can record a lien though of non-compliance, which we do now.

And we actually have a commercial site right now that never finished the building permit back in 1995, I think, that is in the process of being sold and the buyer's coming in trying to clean that lien up. So now we're working with that buyer on that on ODM. So how do you do that?

It would be, yeah, not, not a lien, but a notice of non-compliance.

Anything else you've got, Jason?

Okay.

Any thoughts from the council?

Now, those 23 go back to 2015. I believe that's right. You've had 23 in 4 years.

I appreciated the information to see what the major issues were. I thought that was insightful to see. I mean, there's a number of buildings that are right up to the borderline. Obviously, people have made significant investments to improve their homes, but without regard to, I guess, what the rules were. One of the questions I get asked a lot is, Why are some of the setbacks there? What's the intent of a setback? Why does it need to be what it is?

You missed the first 6 questions in there.

That's all right, you can answer it again.

So, well, part of it is that's what the city council adopted, right? That's a typical— setbacks are typical in cities throughout the country, throughout the world probably. Main thing is aesthetics is one and health safety is the other. Typically when a commercial building is built up against each other, there's specific firewalls or specific safety opening requirements. When a typical residential just goes and builds something, he's going to typically not do the fire safety, he's not going to guard the openings. So if there's fire in the future, it could spread rather quickly. So there is a couple of different things, not only aesthetics but also safety.

And as I looked at some of those, I could see where it's about violation, and that I did wonder how big of a deal it is.

Well, we do allow in certain areas like PRDs, allow twin homes to have a common wall, but they're built to have— if something fires in one, there is a couple-hour fire rating so it doesn't spread quickly.

So is there some enhanced codes that could be applied to those buildings that are built in the setbacks that—

or in easements that would make them a I think if you applied it to them, you'd have to apply it citywide, so you'd allow anybody to do that. Which may be a decision the city could make, but that decision would then allow it to be done.

To maybe further elaborate, we could decide to more aggressively go after violations that involve like a fire code violation versus just a rear setback that doesn't involve the fire code, because that is more of a public health issue.

safety concern.

Is that kind of what you were getting at?

Yeah.

Brenda, do you have any questions? Dave, any questions?

No, just, I mean, I said it before, I think with the number of people that Sam talked to, I think it was 5, I don't believe that the code's there for a reason.

I don't think we need to skirt the system just for solar panels plus Plus, if there is, maybe that opens up another Pandora's box on something else.

Hey, you're not letting me— you let solar do it, but not me doing this, this, and this.

I say just go with this.

Debbie, what are your thoughts?

I tend to like the idea of allowing a reasonable exception for solar. I think it's something that is a public good, and I also feel like it But I am worried about the safety violation.

I think, I think that is, that is a concern if the reason was safety.

setbacks to me is not as big a deal. And I do like the idea, like Tom said, that if the solar is not on the thing that's in out of compliance, I'm perfectly fine with that also.

Well, for me, it wouldn't be any different if they wanted to finish their basement. And they pull the building permit and it's on the part of the house that isn't in violation, I'd be okay with that too.

So it isn't just for me, solar panel. It's as long as they're—

as long as the part they're being— the building permit, whether it's for solar or anything else, is not the part that's in violation, I'm okay. We're not causing any more grief of tearing down more improvement. We're not giving a tacit approval for what has been a violation. And to Brian's point behind me, we can then note that there's a violation on part of the building, make it a little easier when a buyer buys a property to do his or her due diligence. So I'm okay with that.

Sam?

I mean, everybody knows where I stand on this, that I clearly believe we should have this exception, but—

Just exception 4, be specific.

Well, the exception that's highlighted red, but I was just going to walk through my stance on each of those questions. So, number one, I think for now I'd like to focus specifically on residential. I do think commercial can and should be held to a higher standard on that. For 2, the, you know, life safety concern, I do think if there is something, you know, like an electrical problem that could cause a fire, anything along those lines where there is some kind of life-threatening concern, then I don't think we should be making that exception, and we should probably be addressing those more aggressively as it is, even, you know, outside of this conversation. As far as number 3, whether it was created by the current owner or the previous one, I understand why we'd be asking that question, but I'm not sure in my mind it makes all that much sense. There's kind of like the sympathetic, well, you know, that was 3 owners ago, and, you know, I shouldn't be held responsible because it wasn't noticed to me, but Where do you draw that line, I guess, would be my concern there.

Is it—

does it matter if it's the previous owner or 3 previous owners, or does it matter if it was a year ago or 10 years ago? In my mind, it should be more about the property and the issue more so than the length of time or the number of previous owners. And as far as number 4, I'd absolutely agree that if permitting the solar is going to perpetuate an existing issue, that would be a problem for me. So, I mean, if we're putting it on a roof, for example, that's out of compliance, I wouldn't be okay with that until they fix that issue. But if it's, you know, they're wanting to put solar panels on their house and they have a shed across the yard that is too close to the setback, in my mind, I don't think we should prevent them from doing something good, not only for themselves but for the community, because they have this other, in my mind, unrelated issue.

Okay.

I just wonder if we're maybe creating a bigger problem by giving all these exceptions. 23 denials in 4 years, that's what, 4 a year? But is it really that big a problem, right?

I don't know that it's a problem.

I—

Sam would have to speak to that. for himself. I think he's looking at it as an opportunity.

I mean, there are times—

Would that increase solar sales, or what are we trying to do? I don't know.

There are times as a council we consider an issue even if it only affects one family or one person. So in my mind, it's not just a matter of we have one angry customer, but we have, in my mind, a systemic— I'm not sure if I want to use the word problem, but opportunity I think we could make things better, remove some government red tape from, you know, controlling what people can do with their property.

So Jason, your feeling, are you for it or against it?

This is a good way for us to try to resolve issues. People really want to do solar, we've had it in the past, they fixed the issue and got their permit. So this is kind of the team, this has only been in play probably for a couple of years. About 8 or 10 years or so. Prior to that, we had a lot of violations.

But what you're saying is for them to get the solar, they have to fix the issue.

Right.

So they're not getting an exemption. This actually is an enforcement-type vehicle that then forces them to fix the problem.

This has helped us to do enforcement, yes.

So my own personal feeling on it is I feel like that the easement Restrictions that we have in our code are there for a reason. I can see that, that if you build a building that is right on the borderline of your neighbor's building and is not set back 10 feet, it could create a problem for fire hazard for your neighbor, could create a problem for our fire and safety police to get to the back of the house. So I think that that's there for a reason.

The building permits, I believe that those are there for a reason.

You know, the example of the retaining wall. You know, I've seen a house where the city came in and said the retaining wall is not done right and you will get no permit to occupy until you fix that and meet the code. And then, you know, setbacks, like I said, that was what I said before, but easements, you know, I believe that if you have something built over an easement, it's going to create a problem. As an example, if you go to Central Utah Water, they have laws in place that you cannot build over their pipeline so they can get access to it quickly. So if, as an example, their pipeline goes through your backyard, you can't put a swimming pool over the top of it because of the problems that it would cause. So personally, I'm against the idea because I believe that We're actually allowing violations to continue, and I don't agree with giving exemptions to our codes that are proven and time-tested for the safety and the well-being of our residents throughout the city. I don't think we should be giving any exemptions here and should in fact enforce the code. And like Jason said, if somebody wants to put up solar, let them meet the building code and offer the entire facility and make sure that's done before Solar is allowed. So I don't think we should be giving exemptions. And as Dave said, once you start down that road, this is very subjective. Sam mentioned that. Who knows where it goes?

I wonder if it—

wouldn't it be easier to go the other way, like the setbacks, what, 10 feet? Let's reduce that to 8. I mean, maybe that would put some of these guys in line. Well, it's a combination of 8 and 12, so minimum. Typically on a residential, it's 8, one side is 12. That's on the side. They need to address these codes that are involved.

Well, I think the codes are good.

I think they're—

Well, I do too, but—

I don't know that we need to go down to a 6 or a 5-foot section.

Well, that's just an example to, you know, work the other way instead of—

I feel like the codes are there for a reason, and they're doing their job, and they are for our safety and well-being, and And one of the things that I see is that our buildings are built well. We have good houses, we have good commercial. If you go down to South America, they don't have building codes like we have. And you can see all the disaster. They don't have the kind of materials that need to go into the concrete. They do cheap concrete and the buildings start to fail.

There's been a lot of talk of our codes are there for a reason and we have these policies for a reason, which is true. But I think maybe there's this mentality that it's almost scriptural or it's divinely inspired or something, that the ordinances that we have in our city are perfect and should not be touched or amended in any way.

And that—

I think that's— it's just kind of counterintuitive when We meet regularly to discuss updating ordinances and cleaning up our ordinances and simplifying our code. I mean, we do that several times a year. So yes, these things are there, but that doesn't mean that we had a full understanding, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago about this issue when some of these ordinances went into place. So as Jason mentioned, this is a relatively recent issue in the last 8 to 10 years. Did this become, you know, even a discussion point. And so now is the time why we're— now we're addressing it now for a reason, because 30 years ago people weren't trying to put solar panels on their house.

But I guess if I could add, Sam, if someone were to come in and try to upgrade their house in Indiana right now and they were found in violation, they wouldn't be allowed to pull out a safe or a lot of anything.

So I agree with you, solar is a new issue.

Doing improvements to a home is not a new issue. It's been there before. So these same people, if they modified their home, they'd be kind of in the same boat. They wanted to finish a basement or install a water heater, which that actually requires building permit to do, or a furnace, or air conditioning unit.

And why did it make sense to make this exception and not Maybe some of those others, this is a community benefit and not just a benefit to the property owner.

So are there— where would you guys like to go? How many would be in favor of pursuing this, um, to the extent that language is written and we vote on it in a city council meeting later? How many are not in favor? The rest of us.

I can go either way.

Well, no, no, you got to—

how many are on the fence?

I'm okay to keep finances, but Jason, you were in favor of this. So from a city perspective, you think this is the—

I'm in favor of keeping it the way it is.

Keeping the way it is, not changing?

I like what Steve has done, so I could go either way, but I think enforcement-wise and helping us to get— bring things into compliance better than the system.

Okay.

All right, let's go ahead and move on to— thank you, Jason—

boards and commissions.

We have Chris Shirkey and Steve Downs here to discuss our boards and commissions.

Mayor Kemp, this is just kind of an initial discussion. We've had— I like to lead with this.

What is it?

Your only strong point?

Yeah, sorry, buddy.

Yeah, which one's your favorite, Steve?

His wife.

That's right.

He's smart.

We've had— we have a lot of board— we have a lot of boards and commissions. We have about 15 that we're looking at right here. We just kind of been looking at this, and you can kind of see from the spreadsheet where we have a lot of variation in maybe how large they are, the term length, and the meeting frequency specifically.

specifically.

This initially came up with the Public Works Commission. We obviously created it with a specific purpose in mind. We put 9 on that commission. As we've added other commissions in the past, it's been challenging to try to keep these filled. And some of them, you know, the most recent we've created has 5 members. That's the Natural Resources Committee. I think it was intentional to do 5 to make it a manageable number. We had specific people that might be interested. We wanted to make sure we could keep it filled. Some of these other ones have been in place for a lot more years than that, and maybe it was a larger, a larger commission at one time. And we're not really coming today with any specific changes that we're saying, hey, we want to make this change to this commission. But what we're asking, I guess, and we would bring back to you is just your, just kind of your blessing to let each commission kind of look at their commission and say, for example, Public Works, does it make sense to still have 9 people on that? It's becoming challenging to fill. It's kind of a unique niche as far as people that maybe can relate to some of the issues that we'll be facing there. I'm not going to speak for Arts Council. It's 13. Maybe that one stays 13. Term length, 4. Community Development Block Grant, we have a 2-year term length.

Please.

You say you're not going to speak to that. Is that because it's easier to get people to want to do something on the arts than it is on the whatever other one you mentioned?

No, I just don't know if Char has any appetite to change anything. Like, I'm— yeah, so I'm not gonna—

You're finding it's okay? You can fill your 13?

Well, we meet every other month, and we can fill the 13 right now. It just kind of depends on the specific background that someone might have. We might have some visual artists, we might have some in the dramatic arts, but Some we just have normal citizens and they, they render good opinions as well, but it is a big load.

At the same time too, if I may, we've had conversations. The bigger the committees, the harder it is to garner a quorum, right? So we'll hold meetings, we'll hold many a meeting and not have a quorum.

But on the flip side of that, with the NRIC, they're currently down to 3 members. We're helping address that tonight, but they're down to 3 members, so So for them to have a quorum, every single person had to be there, all 3 people. So they, for a couple months, we just couldn't take any effective action because they couldn't all be there at the same time.

No, and, you know, with our meeting frequency, we have some that are going monthly, we have some that are going quarterly, some have just addressed as needed. Term length, I know for me, we have CDBG at 2. 2 years comes really fast. I think there's appetite to move that up to a 3-year term. And so I think each commission just has unique things. And we would bring all of any proposed changes to you. But I think what we would like is just your blessing for our commissions to look at theirs and say, does the size make sense still? Does the frequency make sense still? You know, Chris talks about not wanting— we don't want to— hey, the code says we've got to meet monthly. And so we come together monthly. But we're coming together monthly. We don't really have anything of substance to talk about. But we want to just make sure that we're making it worth the time, that we can find people to fill it. And that's, that's, I guess, kind of all we're looking at. Please, Mayor and Debbie, anybody.

So I was just going to say, first of all, I really love the fact that we have, you know, 18 different commissions and that these involve a lot of citizens, involve a lot of our society. I love what they have suggested in the past, you know, ideas, efforts. I see value to every one of those committees, and I'm really thankful that we have them. I personally see no problem at all with each committee if they want to come back and recommend that they look at 8 instead of 11, or if they meet quarterly instead of monthly. I'd certainly welcome the suggestions, you know, as part of the council to look at and we could talk about. I'm just very thankful that they're there.

Yeah.

Is the historical dam?

It's not just— it's not dead. It just hasn't been filled for a while.

That's it.

Yeah.

It's not active. But it's still on the books.

Yeah.

You're not meeting.

Correct.

At least I haven't been there.

Correct.

Yeah, Debbie.

So I have a question. I've had a few people say they've submitted applications to the city, but they've never heard back. What is the process? When we get a committee, do we look and see what, what their 3 choices are and we assign them, or what happens? Yeah, what happens? I've heard a couple people say never heard back. I've, I've put in my application. I'm just trying to figure out what the process is. Can you give me an idea what that looks like?

Yeah, I mean, from what I understand is they'll come in, they go to a dashboard, and what we— what each department does is they look at what their needs are, they go to that dashboard to see who has applied. And so sometimes somebody will apply, but there's no vacancy, and there may not be a vacancy for 2 or 3 years.

So do we get back to them and say, currently we don't have it, it will be 2 years?

No, I think we could do a better job with that.

Yeah, I think the follow-up is really the question is, what are we doing for Okay, so it sounds like we're dropping the ball somewhere.

And yeah, the response would be we don't have any vacancies. We wouldn't fill them.

We would just be responding.

So we would put them in a pool that when we did, we would correct.

And that's what we do.

So there's some situations where, for example, somebody will make application, be interested in the library advisory board. We don't have vacancies there, but we will contact them and say maybe you're interested in participating in the Heritage Advisory Board, or as a member of Summerfest, or—

Is that coming through your office?

Because some people are telling me—

That comes through each of the departments. Each of these committees have essentially a departmental responsibility. On a biweekly basis, as part of our agenda planning meeting, Jackie and Jody identify where vacancies are. And then we as staff on a biweekly basis will say, okay, it looks like we have 2 vacancies in public works. Chris, is there anybody that, you know, you want to recommend? Well, I've looked at the dashboard, there's nobody on the dashboard. We probably need to send out a call for volunteers. In another committee, transportation, somebody's come in, they've applied. Yeah, we're going to look at them, whether or not they want to participate or not, or invite them to participate, and that's how people find their way. There is not typically a great number of people clamoring to be part of these committees. The dashboard includes a number of people who have made applications, but probably a good number of them are interested in hearing areas where we currently don't have a vacancy.

But we are following up with them and letting them know we've received it.

Actually, I think that's where we're falling down is we're not following up. I've had one person that wanted to know where they're at and didn't know. I think you've had one person. I had credibility. So even if they're not accepted, I think we need to go back and say you're not accepted and as Jamie said, we've got 3 other committee possibilities. And if they are accepted, we need to go back and say, you're accepted, here's when the meeting starts. So maybe if we could put that in place, that we have a follow-up line there and we're getting back to them.

That'd be great.

But I don't necessarily think that solves or addresses the issue.

Right.

That's not what I'm talking about.

No.

And I'm just saying—

All I'm talking about is the follow-up.

Yeah.

So a couple questions. First one has to do with term limits. I've always thought that it was strange that we don't have term limits. Term limits, but our volunteer citizen commissions do. At least, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them do. Would we be willing to revisit removing those term limits? If part of our challenge is getting enough people to sign up to volunteer on these commissions, wondering if we could make it a little easier for them to actually continue doing it if they've kind of found their niche, if somebody's really passionate about something. I mean, I'd suggest term limits for ourselves, but I know that was kind of a non-starter with this group, but I'm wondering if we could kind of lift the term limits for our advisory commissions. And the second one was, instead of having it defined in code what the term of length is, would it be possible to have kind of a flex application where if they're only willing to commit to serve for a year or 2 years, let them apply for a year or 2 years, but if they are willing to commit to 4 If they serve for 4 years, then they have a 4-year term. Like, does it, does it have to be a standard set term for each committee that they serve for that length no matter what?

So the Planning Commission, just an example, a few years ago we had a 4-year term and we had to find a new person. We changed it to a 3-year term with an option to renew for 3 years. So now they're on the committee for 6 years typically. That seems to be about the right time. After 6 years, they feel like they've learned enough. Kind of get, I don't want to say burned out, they finally think I want to move on.

I've seen them—

So 6 years? Down to 14. 6 years seems to be a decent—

Then we're going to renew for 14.

I've also seen it in Provo where they didn't have term limits and you had planning commissioners on there for 20-plus years.

That's not healthy.

Yeah, that's not good.

You need new eyeballs.

I guess you could adjust it to 3.

Why can you say that for them but not for us?

I don't know.

That's the part that I'm not—

if you say we need fresh new eyes on these things, It's just very self-serving.

We have a different accountability though.

Anyway, I think that would be something to maybe discuss within the committees as well and bring back to us and we can talk about it.

So does all the other committees have an option for the next—

Yeah. I mean, do they have a recommendation for what they'd like instead?

No, no, no, not an option for the next term.

They can all be reappointed, I believe so.

And frankly, if I can't speak freely, the conversation resulted, given several challenging participants on these committees, and so— How's that different than our city council? Well, it was essentially set up as a strategy to—

You were elected.

It's been represented to me that it was set up as a strategy to To politely invite somebody or politely essentially end the tenure of an individual serving on a committee. So it cuts both ways. You know, as we were reviewing the term limits, Neil actually made an observation that it says you will continue to determine and continue to serve until you have been replaced with somebody else suitable. Yeah, suitable replacement. Well, in our Public Works Advisory Commission, we have 3 that have served 2 full terms and that are doing an extended option on their second term because we haven't replaced them yet. So the code does kind of allow for that to happen currently. It's not something that I don't think we're trying to potentially—

So let me—

I mean, We could be biting off more than we can chew. I'd like to just see what the committees come back with as far as their members go.

Yeah, we'd like to at least address maybe these 3 things, members, term length, and meeting frequency, 'cause those are all, these are the things that kind of came to the forefront.

Yeah, that's fine.

That's fine, that's fair.

And maybe not the amount of terms.

If I may too, I think there's some wisdom in having some consistency across all of these committees, these are typically a challenge to fill. And if we start providing maximum flexibility as to, well, how long do you want to serve? Well, I want to serve 2 years, or I want to serve 4 years.

Sure.

Then from a management perspective, it's next to impossible to really maintain consistency and effectiveness. in each one of these committees. So I think in part that's why we've wanted to have this conversation. It's not to say, look, we want to get more people or fewer people on the committee. It's just, it's a challenge to manage these committees, to find people to staff them. We went, for example, the entire CDBG process this last year with not a full committee.

CARE.

Oh, CARE.

Excuse me.

With CARE, we didn't have a full committee.

But they were still powerful.

I would have filled it.

Yeah, they were still powerful, but at the same time, it works if we only have one, if we have one absence. But what if we have 2, or what if we have other issues?

And then the not having a quorum is that, that happens all the time.

All the time.

So they can't really make the decisions, they just talk about some things. And again, I think to your point, Mary, and you said it well at the beginning, that We appreciate that we— they offer value. We just want to make sure we structure it in a way to give them maximum value. And that is that we've right-sized it. They're meeting the right amount so they're not getting the burnout. We're meeting frequently enough to do the things we need to do, infrequently enough that we're not giving them agendas that don't have any substance to them because we had to have a meeting. We want to make sure we continue to keep that value for our citizens and then ultimately providing Great recommendations to you.

So I mean, Summerfest Committee has done a great job, CARE's done a great job, Planning's done a great job, they've all done great jobs. And to me it's interesting that your Senior Citizens Committee has 9 people and they're— that's a pretty active committee.

Yep, yep.

So anyway, I think the idea is good.

Maybe just to complicate it, it's a really active committee and it's an engaged committee Because in part of its chair, and its chair has met term limits. So we're in a situation here where, okay, if we stay consistent with our current ordinance, then we have to let her go. And I don't think any of you, including myself, think that that's a good idea. Thank you.

Okay, well, come back to us.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

She can have it for life.

Well, it might— yeah, exactly. You might be saying she's fantastic. It could be 12 years, it could be 2 years.

Anyway.

Sorry, can I just make one more comment?

Sure.

As far as like the term limit conversation, I think part of it comes back to like what Chris was saying with that kind of informal extension on there. I would rather have it formalized that that's just allowed, and then if there's somebody that is just not, you know, conducive to the collaborative efforts of that committee, I think we just need to have some backbone to not reappoint them. Like, ultimately we decide as a council who's on those commissions. So, um, I mean, that's just my 2 cents.

Yeah, so you're saying maybe there isn't—

we have—

there isn't term limits, but we just—

we We have the option to renew or not. Yeah.

We don't need to have them back on the same note. No.

And I think we could meet with them, you know, we don't have to make it public and embarrass them or anything like that, but I think we could just have that conversation and maybe find a better way for them to serve if they still want to keep serving.

Oh, can I make a comment?

Yes.

With my husband, if you would have asked him to continue, he would have done it. But 6 years was enough on the parade, right? I'm kidding.

If you ask my husband, he will not say no.

So no.

Yeah, no, no, no.

So what I'm saying is it was good that we—

That's how they got married.

Yeah.

Oh, see?

Strike that from the record.

But what I'm saying, sometimes it's good to have term limits with maybe the option that you could renew if you choose to. I don't know, I'm just saying.

And you don't have a term limit.

I don't have a say, but sometimes it's good to have a, you know, you've served and it's good, and then, you know, go off a term and then come back on. I mean, being from a chamber world and having people on boards, it was very hard for people who had been on there for a long time, and yes, they had contributed all their time, and we had these, you know, big businesses that always had a seat, and it created problems because they felt Like they were more important. So having 6 years or 3-year and a 3-year was a good idea because some people just kept serving for years and years and years and years and years and it became difficult.

And 6 is kind of a—

this is just from my experience having many, many, many, many boards. 6 was kind of a good thing. Now I also agree that maybe there could be an exception, but it should be more of the exception than the rule.

Okay, thank you, David.

Appreciate it.

All right, we'll go on to our Water Abatement Assistance Program. Dave Spencer is the presenter, and I'll turn the time over to him.

Okay, so in my mind, I was trying to find out a way to help the seniors in all areas that are living in poverty. They're living on Social Security. So as Jamie mentioned, we have 60— well, 66,370 adults in Norman. 87,081 are seniors. The research I did, there's probably around 6% to 8% poverty. Depends on what poverty level you're using. But so I did some research on the county, and the county has a property tax abatement program.

for seniors.

And their program is, it's a circuit breaker program, and you have to be 66 years old, you have to own your home, and all your household income can't be over $33,530. So, um, so my thought was, you know, I went and talked to Chris, uh, Stricki about, you know, the water tiers, and also Neil, and came up with, um—

I'm sorry.

Let me pass this around. But West Jordan, in their water utility fee schedule, they have a low-income 3/4 and 1-inch meter charge. And basically from 0 to 7,000 gallons, it's no charge for the seniors. And then also I checked, the City of Philadelphia has the same type thing for seniors. They get a 25% discount on their water and sewer bill. But I think the main topic is it just—

it's—

I'm trying to get us to think, maybe a topic of conversation. I met with Steve Downs also, and he called, you know, Terry McCannock, who is running the Community Access Services. And they have a program, but I think it's a little bit cumbersome and maybe a one-time deal. And my thought was if we could somehow maybe through that program so it's more helpful, maybe if it's utility or the water or the sewer during May, June, July, September, August, September, that they can have some relief on their utility bill. So, um—

And Dave, you're talking about relief from the tier system or the increase, not from the base rate?

Well, it could go either way. I mean, we also need to teach the people, we need to do consultation Right? So if we say it's on the increase and they're maxing out on 4, that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to keep the bill at a standard so they can— they're used to that bill and it doesn't put them over and they can't buy their medication or whatever because the water bill went up. So I just thought there's a couple different avenues we can look at. I think Karen probably has some information information on, you know, right now it's, it's on the back of the sheet, the very last page. It's basically, it's if you're a dorm resident and you have a shut-off notice. So most residents aren't gonna have a shut-off notice, you know, if they're not having a problem. So I think that needs to be taken out. But if they qualify, and then they also have you know, poverty level, it's one person in the house, $18,000 and so forth. But if we could somehow tailor a program, and I think that's being funded by—

Yeah, the service line warranty.

Service line warranty, we get $5,000 a year.

So along with some private— some citizens will opt to pay an extra couple of cents.

And that's another thing also, you know, they also had a citizen voluntary fund that we could have.

We do have that, yep.

What are we doing with it currently, Steve, in that voluntary fund?

It all goes to Community Action to fund this program.

So has anybody used it?

Yes, we've had some people use it. Not as many as we'd like, but we sort of went back and looked at what we were doing on our end, and there were some things that we could change as far as qualifying people. And so we've made some changes, and so we do have— what did we say, about 20,000 in this program right now, and we're starting to see people come and use it. But the things that we've talked about, the changes we've talked about making, Stephen and I and Charmaine Mixon, who is ill and she was not able to be here, she's the one who will actually now administer the program. We talked about not having it require shut-off notice, because when somebody is getting a shut-off notice, we found that That's almost not too late, but it's pretty late in the process as far as helping them work out a payment plan or trying to work with them in teaching and learning about budgeting and how to make this—

solve the problem.

And so it was the first notice, wasn't it, when they get their first late notice? And then we also have the federal income level here. Or you can have a financial hardship, loss of job, a medical emergency, something like that, where you may make more than this 150%, but something has happened to you in the last short period of time where you're financially unable or it's extremely difficult to pay. So what we do is we talk about having help up to $200 a year.

$200 a year.

Having those clients who access this program get— have a financial management class. So we talk about understanding creating a sustainable budget. We talk about water and energy conservation, cutting expenses, importance of savings. So we can work to where this doesn't happen every single year. But our concern was, as we discussed, is that some people, you know, we see this with some Like with the heat program, which is not part of what we administer, Community Action, but it's on their calendars every year, you know, oh, heat opens up, so I'm going to go get utility assistance. That helps them through the winter, but what it does is it doesn't help move them into a situation where they can be more self-reliant.

Well, and I think my thought process was— my thought was seniors on the fixed income, meaning they might make $1,000 a month. So how do they— I mean, they're already conserving enough. How do we help them in some way to make them whole, right? To offset if they can— if the water bill goes up, or maybe it's the $10.50 or whatever the base— what is our base, uh, 0 to 11? What's our base?

For our first tier, we're up to 11,000 gallons.

And then what is And that includes—

that'll be about $10 and—

So West Jordan was $10.50. So if it's— if that's the part, and then, you know, and then if they struggle, then maybe we go to the Community Action Services and they are able to say, okay, I need $20 in May, June, July, August, September to get me through. That's when everything spikes, and then it goes to normal, and we can use that $20,000 you have in there. But I was thinking more seniors, and I know your program encompasses everybody. Maybe we do it just like the West Jordan program too, low income.

Yes, so it's not exclusively seniors. So that's just my thought.

I was trying to get some dialogue to see what your— if anybody had any other ideas. But I think we need to help the seniors or those in poverty.

I like the idea of offering more assistance to kind of help this demographic. My concern is just kind of treating it as kind of an age discrimination kind of thing because, you know, before you were talking about a slippery slope. If we allow this exception, we have to consider these others. Then what about people with, you know, so many kids or that have a disability? Or there are a number of exceptions that I feel like we would be morally obligated to consider in that case if we're going to have that slippery slow mindset. But what I'd like to see, like with the voluntary program, I had actually asked about that a couple years ago, and I think it was just—

Richard here today?

Sorry.

I had asked about that, and I think we were just kind of getting it off the ground. But I've never seen any, I guess, marketing. I didn't even know that we had that available yet. So I guess what can we do to To make that program more well-known and accessible, available.

To make a donation?

What's that?

Are you talking about making a donation, voluntary donation?

Is that what you're referring to?

Well, one of the things that we talked about, so, is when we were meeting over in the other, in the Public Safety Building in one of our work sessions, and we talked about, you know, adding in a couple bucks, like opting into, you know, I'm going to have 2 or 3 bucks on my bill every month That's on the bill.

That's on the statement. You can opt to pay a contribution on a regular basis if you'd like.

So where do I go? Like, I, I just— I've never seen that before.

It's on your statement, so you can run it in.

And I think what Sam's saying is just a promotion. So if somebody's on autopay, even they may never see it.

I don't see it on my bill anywhere, so I feel like I've never gotten an email saying, hey, you want to opt into this? Or something like that. So I'm guessing there are probably others out there in that same situation that just aren't aware. But, but as far as like the actual policy, I'm concerned if we say, you know, part of it is, you know, to be at least this age, because I just— in my mind it comes across as age-discriminated utility rates, which I'm not sure that's the approach that I want to take.

Well, Simi County does that.

Correct.

Karen, you said—

I just want to mention this money, this $20,000 that's sitting there, we don't get any interest off it, or it's just sitting there and it needs— I would like to see ways that we can up the outreach so we can spend this money. I would like to spend this down to zero every year.

If I may, I think one of the reasons we have appreciated this relationship with Karen and her organization is this type of situation is generally a symptom of a bigger problem. It's not just about water bills and water assistance. It's probably about some other core basic needs that individuals need help with. And so the relationship that we have with Community Action addresses the core problem and not just the symptom. And so if we have, for example, this money available within the city and we simply, simply treat it as, well, if you qualify, you bring in your W-2 or whatever, we're going to give you the money, does it really address the issue that's core at hand? And that is helping people out of this problem. We want people Rather than developing a codependency where they just look forward to this every year.

So maybe I could mention something. I think as Dave is looking at this to start with, not hitting all the other areas, but he's looking at the senior citizen with a fixed income. So a senior citizen with a fixed income, maybe they receive $1,000 a month. And our water bill and our sewer bill is on a tier system.

That's not going to affect them.

But what is going to affect them is if our sewer and water base rate goes up. And all of a sudden, you know, they've got to spend X amount more dollars, but their, you know, income hasn't gone up. And so—

I think that's a good point.

I feel like this would actually be beneficial. I'm not handing them a check per se, but doing like Philadelphia does, like our county does, where if they're over 65 years old, they're under $32,000 a year, they either get a discount or a no increase or something that we consider. In looking at how many senior citizens We have in Orem, I think it's about 8%, I could be wrong, 8 to 10% that are in that age range. And as far as those that are— have the poverty level income, I think that's another 8 to 10%. So if you combine those 2, I don't know that the quantity is huge, but I think it's something that would be really needed. It's not necessarily a base problem. The problem is they're on a fixed income period and they're having their utility expenses go up. And if we could help keep it somewhat level for them, I don't think it's going to cost us a lot of money in the city. We'd have to look at it, but I think it'd be a real help. And as I say, the county does the exact same thing. They do a property tax abatement, same figures. Over 65, under $33,000, and you get a discount on your property tax for fixed income type people. Tom?

2 questions.

One's more of a legal question. I don't know what our limits are in being charitable as a city taxing entity.

I mean, clearly we're—

this is supposed to be an enterprise fund that's supposed to be self-sustaining. Do we have the luxury of taking money from Steven and from Mark non-voluntarily. I'm not talking about the voluntary and contributing to others. So that's one question. And then my second question, we already have $20 grand we're not using, so we ought to start utilizing it. So those are two— one was a statement, one's a question. Is there a limit on how much we can tax and spend?

Yeah, so we did some preliminary research on this, and generally The court cases that have considered these types of issues have looked at, first, is there a state statute that specifically allows you to give these types of discounts? And there isn't in Utah, in this case. And then, 2—

There is what?

There is not one in Utah. And then, the second question is, can you identify a reason why this particular subgroup merits having the lower rate. And it— for instance, there have been some cases where, let's say, they gave a discount for low-income seniors and low-income disabled. The courts have said, well, that's great, and we sympathize with that, but why not treat all low-income the same?

Sure.

And then, generally speaking, the rate structure is not the best way to deal with this, in my opinion, because we do have the concerns about— we say this is the rate that everyone should pay. Once we start picking winners and losers, we're always going to be on shaky legal ground. If we can find a way of doing this and helping people outside of our rate structure, either through Karen's group or something else, I think that would be preferable. Mark?

I'd be curious, Karen, On capacity, I mean, is— do you have capacity to deal with more cases if they come to you?

Yes.

My thinking being is there's, there's 2 costs to this. One is the, the revenue side from the water. The other is the administrative side. They're now saying over in the 311 center, you now have to become also income assessment individuals, which I don't think is the city's key role or responsibility. responsibility. I like the idea of an outside organization being able to deliver the whole package, as you mentioned, Jamie. I think it's beneficial for both. One, that we're not good at it, and two, we're helping those that are good at it that can offer a better picture that maybe comes back to what you're saying, is that there's— that it's better served by enabling an organization to do that.

We do have the capacity. The MOU that we have I will say that Warm City does allow for a small administrative fee, and that would cover the process of staff time to process the checks and to document that. But yes, we have the capacity to do that, and we have the desire to do that. Charmaine, like I said, couldn't be here today, very eager to get the word out to seniors and to others in the community about our resources.

Thank you.

Can I make a—

Sure.

Since I work at the Zoo Pantry weekly, the average person that walks in our door comes to our organization 6 times, which just means they come twice a month, so it's a 3-month, and it's exactly what Karen says. A medical thing has come up, a job loss, their car broke down. So there is, there is just a Emergency funding that you probably need to consider. But then there is the, like Dave's saying, is someone who even if you know they don't have a budget, they're just not going to have the capacity to increase their income, right, because they're old or they're disabled or whatever. So I think there's really 2 issues.

2 different issues.

Yeah, so there's an emergency thing and then there's a senior. So I'm happy to help both groups. You know, if you did 200, dollars a year, what are you helping, 100 people? If I do the math right, $20,000 divided by 200 people, I mean, I'm a sh— or is that $1,000? $100? So I guess you— is that going to go like that? It's $20,000, you got 100 people you can find tomorrow?

And I don't know if they'd all show up tomorrow, but we could probably find some. We would have some kind of— especially if we work on our outreach. But in our discussions, I think we talked about maybe it was a maximum of $200. So if they bring in that late notice and it's $100—

Is it up to—

the only reason I'm saying this is because if it's up to $200— Okay, up to—

so wasn't that what we talked about?

Yeah, we'll pay off that bill.

We'll pay off that bill.

And then up to $200. So you pay it off.

But that's not the monthly—

Yeah, we would— yeah, and then the money would go directly to Orange City. That would not be, uh, Here's your cash.

No, yeah, what happens is, is that we work and then we submit and we get the information and then we cut a check to Orem City and send the money back to you. So it has a trail. We never ever give any money directly to clients.

I think my concern is, as a senior under poverty level, so if they know their water's going to get cut shut off, they're probably going to pay their water bill and probably probably not pay their medication bill. So I just think we need to take a look at the one-time thing. I think it has to be— it's $200 that they need for water. It needs to be— we can pay them $20 in May, June. They have to go to classes or go to the Friendship Center and they have meetings or whatever. But I think that's— I don't think we're enabling them because they don't— their income doesn't increase.

Yeah.

On an exponential basis. I just think I'm trying to figure out a way to do it. I think we have, we have an avenue with Karen's group, but—

I think so too. I think, I mean, there's, there's some time that takes with every bill that gets paid, and so breaking $200 into 5 bills is gonna, is gonna take, you know, maybe not 5 times, but it's gonna take significantly.

Maybe she's cutting a check to ORM and ORM pockets, or ORM sits on that in their account and then disperses it. when they need it.

In other words, the full $200 upfront.

Yes. And then at least— but they've qualified. I mean, then they know if they're conserving water and their bill is this much. But I mean, I personally like what Worcester did, but Greg doesn't like that.

Yeah.

I think, you know, as we chatted with Karen, and Karen can speak best to this, and Kenna probably can from her experience too, if somebody is truly struggling with Paying the utility bill, it isn't the only thing they're struggling with. And we want to make sure that we're getting them in front of other resources.

And I think too, I mean, if you, if you have a credit card on file at the city and it's paying it, I mean, they're paying it, but then now they've got to pay the credit card bill down the road. So I think it's creating more of a havoc, I think, down the road because now the bill is stacking up. So I just think we need to be smart and hopefully come up with a solution. That's why I brought it up, and we can all think about it and say, can we Can we really help? Yep.

So would this system break if we, instead of up to $200 a year, it was up to $300 a year, and then maybe we have up to another level, we've kind of graduated where you can get up to $150 a year? In other words, if you're at different income levels kind of thing. I see the need and I want to help address that. I'm just, I'm not comfortable with the age discrimination part of it, and I'd like to expand what I think the program is.

We can put it at whatever you'd like.

It's just $300. There's potential to help fewer people, but it's entirely up to your decision.

Right now we're not even helping enough to use what we have available.

It was $250 and they took it to $200 because they could help more people. So, but if they take the $300, but if it's not being utilized—

But a lot of people don't even know.

Well, and I think—

So I don't know how—

If you can't judge your center and the Friendship Center and educated, you know, if they really needed it, they'd still— maybe the poverty level is, if it's one person, it's $18,735, which is quite low. But some of the research I had, I mean, some of the— they don't even make $10,000, right?

So it's—

so we've got to try to help.

So Sam, on the age discrimination thing, so there's a lot of HUD programs that are available for 62 or 65 and older, and they're not—

But I'm not trying to disparage or discredit any of those others. I'm just saying for our utility rates where it's, you know, I turn on the water, it's the same water that comes out of so-and-so's water faucet. So I'm just not comfortable structuring it into the rates themselves.

That makes sense, but that's— I was just saying that it does happen quite frequently.

But HUD's not subject to fee tossed in.

That's true, that's true.

So there's really 2 areas here though. One area is, are we trying to help somebody at a certain income level with a 25% discount on their utilities? Or are we looking at it and saying, we're going to try to help people where we have an increase in their utilities to come from the city, that they don't have to pay for the increase? You see what I'm saying? And where I've heard complaints is I've heard complaints after we've done some of our utility changes and people have had increases that are then affecting their food and medicine and what they can afford. But if they didn't have to pay the increase, if they stayed where they were, then they would be okay. So I don't know, just a lot to consider.

So it's— I'm not sure if it's too late or if we're just past this conversation, but we had a tool to do this a few years ago with our utility master plan. We could have bonded for some of these projects and those increases would have been much smaller over time, but we chose to pay as you go, and so the increases have been steeper. And I think the seniors in particular might have the argument, well, you know, I might not be able to see all the benefits of this, you know, 30, 40 years from now.

I think that's a fair point.

So I shouldn't be paying as much as, you know, somebody who's in my position where I, you know, plan to be here for decades to come. And so there is a tool available to help address that, but the appetite of the council has not been to use that.

So, and I think other tools can be looked at, and I think it would be helpful to look at them. I mean, I don't know where the answer lies. Necessarily, but I think it would be helpful to look for those that are, in my opinion, 65. I understand age discrimination, but 65 and above that are in a lower income level and a fixed income, is there something you can do?

If I could, I will say, and this is speaking with Kathy Jacobs who administers and she sees all these families come in. There aren't a lot. I mean, there are some seniors for sure. There's very few shutoffs on seniors.

We usually don't get to that point.

There's a lot of low-income minority families that are paying $1,700, $1,800 in rent, right? A lot of seniors have the luxury of having bought their house years ago. Maybe their mortgage is paid off. To look that family in the eye and say, you didn't meet the age, therefore we can't help you, that is a very difficult spot to put our utility clerks in.

Sure.

So if we have a program that meets people in need, not necessarily based on age, it's just based on need. That's a program that seems more equitable to administer.

So you have those that are disabled.

Yep.

You have those that are on fixed incomes.

Which, what I would say is I am too, right? I don't have a way to just go increase my— I mean, we all—

Most people are on fixed incomes.

Most of these families are.

But a Social Security income is going to increase by 2 or 3% on $1,000. Yeah, so that's a lot different than—

But in fairness, if you're 66 and you live alone in your home and you're, you know, your income situation may be better than somebody who's age 29, has 2 dependent children in the home with a spouse.

Single parent.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's the— Pay today's housing rates.

Yeah, I understand that, but what I am saying is that You've got people that are in poverty level.

Correct.

Fixed income, you know, you could look at widows, you could look at disabled, you could look at seniors. But right now, as an example, with the county, they have a thing with the seniors, and I'm just saying we could look at one level and see if it's even affordable for us, if it even works. I'm not opposed to looking at the others, but, you know, I think this is a certain group of people, and I don't think that we here are that group of people for the most part, and that need this help.

So, Karen, on the— look at the 2019 Federal Poverty Guide on your sheet. So, do you know how many have been rejected because they don't qualify? You know, if you're one in the house and you have a monthly income of $1,561—

That I don't know how that information is— I'm going to—

I don't know. Okay, I see.

I just didn't know, you know, if there was— I think the, the application or whatever needs to be less cumbersome and easy. But I mean, you have to show proof. But I think if it's $200, I think You know, if they need help in the water bill or whatever, that's— I'm fixated on the water bill.

We have, and I'll say this too, we've implemented an equal pay program. We want to— if people are struggling with the spikes, we want to help them be able to budget better throughout the year. This isn't the only thing we do. Kathy's in a training right now for her job or she'd be here, but— and Brandon maybe can speak speak to this some too. We have programs where if somebody comes in struggling, we'll offer right up a payment plan. Hey, we can work with you. We can spread this out over a few months. We offer a lot more than just this. We probably don't advertise it like we should. And frankly, I don't know how much we want to advertise some of these things because they really do want to help those that are in need. But this is one of the tools that we use. We do use others. And I think our big— if Kathy was here, I think what she'd say is We want to have a program that helps all that are in need. We don't want to have a program that helps some that are in need. We don't want to have a program that helps— we want to have a program that anybody that really is in need could benefit from. But we also want to help them with the resources that they really need, and we know it's more than a utility bill if they've really gotten to that point. So I appreciate what Dave's brought up because I think it's allowed us to look at this program. We see some things that clearly aren't working.

I think that's a great point.

We've—

I think we can structure this in a much better way, get the money to them much— in a much easier way, but not step away from the idea of let us help you in your life. Let us help you with your whole life, not just your utility bill if you're in that situation.

Well, do you want to add anything?

Mark had a comment.

Yeah, I mean, just from a standpoint of possible go-forward plans, I like a couple of the suggestions that have been expressed. I like changing to the first late notice to make a greater awareness that there are connections. See if we can increase and get to the problem maybe earlier and make sure that that's aware. I don't know that that'd be hard to do. It certainly doesn't involve any funding from that standpoint. I think that would be a good first step. And then my second point has escaped me.

You're in need.

What else was the second point?

You were saying that through that we could find out how much of a need there really is, or how much demand there is.

Really is, yeah.

I'd like to see what the demand is.

And then come back and visit it when we've got a little more data.

A little bit sooner connecting with them with the first late notice, a little more education on equal pay, you know, maybe considering rather than just having the 200 be one time a year, maybe you could spread over a few more months. These are kind of tweaks to the existing program that are really pretty quickly feasible that at least would give us a chance to see if it's addressing significantly more the concerns, essentially the base concerns that you guys are raising.

And then my third point—

Okay.

Was I like the idea too of better publicizing or looking at seeing if we can make changes to the automatic pay that they can increase or that they can make a contribution to that fund. I think it would be a logical move.

Tom pointed it out to me on the electronic bill. I've never even seen that before. It's just like, you know, tiny little note in very small font at the very bottom.

And there's nothing that I can click on to enroll in it.

I guess I'd have to, you know, call in to—

Maybe we could change the color so it stands out.

Make it a bigger box.

Most of us on auto don't pay.

I never open my bill.

But I think in the meantime, we send more people to Karen because she's got money to help.

I've got the money, I've got the people, I've got resources.

And we really like keeping the program through Karen.

And then I think, Clark—

Yeah, and I think also from legal, can those of us over 60 on the council even vote for this?

You know, we might be just a metaphor. There's only 3 of you who get to vote.

So, Steve, I think it would be important to actually look at this with the changes you make and see actually how much money this is going to cost, because there is going to be a cost to it. We've got to make sure it's something that—

Yeah, I think that's Mark's point.

Let's see how the actual—

the actual need— we'll see if it actually starts coming in.

I mean, we're getting questions already.

Let's say, for example, demand increases. exceeds the means that we have currently to do this. Is it possible for us to allocate money, additional money from the enterprise funds to meet the need if necessary? If the desire is not to modify the rate structure, is it possible for us to infuse, for example, some money into I think there might be a way to be able to do that. State law has some provisions for if, for instance, we're as a city donating money to a charitable organization. You go through a cost-benefit analysis, you go through that analysis and determine if that's an appropriate use of city funds. And I think you could do something like that. So if this were to prove If we prove successful, there is a way for us to potentially add additional monies into the account to meet need. So those would be funds that would go to Karen and her organization, and then she would administer it based on the terms that we provide, right?

We would send that money to her.

And it comes back.

It comes back, yeah, it comes back.

So, yeah. You know, the West Jordan option, I don't know if that's legal or not based on what your comments suggest, Greg, but they offer to waive your first tier of usage on a monthly basis if you meet these qualifications that Karen, for example, would ensure that they're meeting. And in this case, it would be— that would be equivalent to $10.80 a month. So that— they target the first tier because that's life-sustaining water, okay? That's the water that you need to drink and to cook with and to bathe and do all of that with. Anything above and beyond that's going to be applied towards irrigating, which then they have to come to terms with on their own.

Sure.

But this seems like a good logical approach But I don't know if it's legal based on what you just said. I do know that there's at least one city that does offer that if they meet the qualifications for that.

But I—

but respectfully too, I don't want our 311 representatives to become essentially caseworkers for financial needs. No, and that's where we would get the verification through Community Services. We would say they would request it Through community services, then that would be an extension of their organization. They would screen that.

So is there a way to check legally which way that goes? I mean, are you pretty sure statewide that Sue West Jordan—

The better way to do it, I think, is through something other than the re-instructions. As we're always saying, for instance, We're not considered a public utility under state law, but if we were a public utility, here's what state law says. Public utilities are forbidden from making or granting any preference or advantage to any person as to rates, charges, services, or any other respect. So again, I mean, not directly on point because we're not considered a public utility under state law. But it kind of shows, I think, the way the state legislature is reasoning on this.

If we were to set up a kind of a separate rate structure or something like that, there's also cost and administrative overhead to actually implementing that. And as opposed to just expanding this, there would be almost no overhead to, you know, just tweaking what we already have in place. So I'd be concerned with adding complexity of having you know, kind of the shotgun approach where we're going to attack this from 8 different angles as opposed to let's just use what has proven to work and just enhance it with, you know, more funding or, you know, reducing some of the administrative requirements to make it easier to access.

So the $20,000 you have, that is money collected over how much time?

4 years.

Basically 4 years. It's from whenever the beginning of the program.

5 years?

4 years.

4 years.

Probably with the service line. How many years is the service line? Is it 4 years with service line?

Yeah.

And then whatever was donated personally. Whatever was before people—

So, and I should say this will be our 4th year. This fall you'll get another $5,000.

So how much have we increased during the last year?

The number of people?

Was it 16,000 a year ago?

It was, well, let's see. We haven't, we didn't receive—

So So service line warranties, we actually checked during this whole process and they haven't been— they hadn't cut the check to Community Action most recently, so they're about to get another large check, which will get them to this $20,000 amount.

Okay.

So they—

So I'm just curious, are we—

It goes up $5,000 a year plus whatever's privately donated, and I don't have that amount. And last year we cut 2 checks, so total of $400,000.

And with the service line, are we Thinking that the $5,000 is going to keep going?

As long as we're with them, that'll be there.

And how many more years do we have with them?

It goes basically indefinitely until we decide to cancel.

Okay.

I think the application needs to be streamlined.

Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that's— and I, and I like that. I think what I've heard from here is let's, let's fine-tune this program and make it work best, make it work easier.

And then maybe we do go to the Friendship Center and educate.

So can you come back to us in 2 or 3 months or whatever time it's going to take?

I think so.

I think, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, a couple questions on like the opt-in donation. So does it let you set it to a percentage of your bill, or is it just like a set, like I choose a dollar amount that goes in there?

I think it's a dollar amount.

I think you have to write in a dollar amount.

We can probably program that to whatever we want.

I mean, some will do like, right, you'll see this at the grocery store. Hey, do you want to just round up to the nearest dollar?

And so some—

I think we could probably structure some different options.

And does it go into this specific fund?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we hold it and then we'll cut a check to Community Action.

Do people get like a statement at the end of the year saying this is how much you— like, is it a nonprofit?

What's that? That would cost us in most cases more than it actually is. Not worth doing. So no, we don't keep track of that privately. What's that? Keep track of that privately.

No, but I like— does it qualify as a tax?

You can try.

And maybe we can keep track of it on the electronic bill.

Right, like we could just say here's your year-to-date that you've done.

Actually, we can do that. Okay.

How fast are we trying to do the application and change?

Make these changes? I think we'll work on— we'll get to work on it right away. Yeah, yeah.

I would imagine come back to us in 3 months, let us know.

But I'd imagine we could have some of these changes that we're talking about within the next couple weeks.

We could probably— it would depend I'm wondering how Mr. Stevens feels about us proceeding with the changes. We have an MOU that has some very detailed information that we would need.

If you would—

we can go ahead and make the changes without having made the changes on the MOU yet. We could do it to start tomorrow. But if you want to wait and have us enact these changes with an MOU in place, then it would just be—

So, great, maybe we look at the MOU tomorrow, see what we need to do. Well, and if, for example, the MOU, does that require the signature of council, the mayor, or is it something the city manager can sign? I'd be almost positive it was the city manager's signature, but we can look at that. We could kind of fast-track it, I think.

And one thing that we wouldn't even have to wait to change the program, but I'd love to see some kind of campaign where we do a video maybe with Community Action Services to kind of a campaign to encourage people to do what I didn't realize that that we already had available. But, um, yeah, I'd like to get the funding part of it going so that as we have opportunities to expand this, then—

As long as I don't have to be the gymnast.

I think we should have a cardboard set up.

We do a lot of the class here.

We've done those type of classes.

And all those other classes. We already know—

We'll see what kind of response the students initially give.

Yeah, we'd love to come.

So I've done classes over there for property tax payment, and the interesting thing was I found there was like 40 people had no idea about it. They took applications, let me in, got signed up.

That's what we find too.

If we get the word out, people are like, oh, we'd be happy to do that.

All right, thanks, Dave. Let's go ahead and have a prayer.

We'll have a prayer on our meal.

Uh, Debbie, would you lead us in prayer?

Sure.

Our Father in Heaven, we're grateful for the opportunity to gather and eat this meal.

We're grateful for those who've picked it up and prepared it for us, have it nourishing and strengthening to our bodies.

We're grateful for the opportunity we have to gather this evening in City Council and that we'll be able to have thy Spirit as we discuss the pertinent business of the community. We ask these favors and blessings in thy holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I think they had like 2 or 3 weeks where they didn't have any chickens. We may say, hey, we've helped you make your money, but we don't have the money to pay for the system.

You know, I mean, that's—

we want to make sure we're balancing the need for us.

So there's chicken and pork in salads.

So you won't have a ton of time, but you can look around a little bit.

Okay, yeah, it's changed a lot since I was there.

I have to do so much franchising right now, it defeats the purpose of it itself.

Someone told me review council.

No, you're down.

Well, I'm going to bring you up today.

I don't think I've ever said Jim will let me buy that.

No, I have, but it's not in our budget.

In our budget. Let's say that.

Where are you going, Dave?

Boulder. Was he there?

Yeah.

Steve Rowland, that's where he's from.

Really?

I went over here. Over here.

Where are you from?

Montana State.

I don't think anybody knows that.

And they're good in all 30 seconds.

Really?

They've gotten a lot better at football?

We need to get that in.

Well, why don't we go ahead and get started on our agenda for this evening.

Um, we only have 2 upcoming events on our list at the moment. Actually, we have 3. So we have on August 3rd, Orem Owls, Orem City Night, at 6:30 PM. We have the Stonewood Neighborhood City Center Park picnic at 7 PM. And August 29th, we have Meet the Candidates at the Sierra—

July.

I'm sorry, July 29th.

Yes.

And I think that's at 6:30, if I remember right? I think it's 6 to 8:30.

6 to 8:30?

Yep.

Who's hosting that?

Um, Cam Martin is the moderator.

Yeah, but I don't know who's hosting it.

Well, Stephanie Nasser is providing the facility. Cam Martin will be doing the, um, kind of the introductions and all that. There's really no Host, I guess. It's just an intro? Yeah, yeah, just that kind of the 4-minute intro and then the open house style visiting after.

So you're gonna have any questions or they'll just do the intro and then do the booths?

Yeah, historically we've just done that. We do a debate after we get through the primary.

Sure.

Okay.

Can I add one more thing to you?

Yes.

On August 6th And I'm getting the time right now. I'll have it for you. It's our National Night Out Against Crime, and it's just over here in the City Center Park. I believe it's at 6, but I'll have it for you here in just a second.

We have city council meeting that night, don't we not?

I think we do.

I hear a yes, I see a no.

Yes, it's the next week, the 6th of August.

Oh, excuse me, next week.

Part of our city council is going to the groundbreaking for the rec center.

Are you worried about city council meeting taking people away from here?

I do, I worry about that, but I think when they leave city council meeting, we'll get them afterwards.

That's why we wanted to plan it that way.

Okay, uh, tonight we have our presentation of the Walter C. Orne Award to the American Legion Post 72, uh, and Bryn Bybee will be the presenter on that.

Yep.

Yeah, just obviously super deserving crew, quietly go about doing well, and then it's also their 10-year celebration year as well for the American Legion.

Okay, then we have pre-roll city minutes.

We have appointments to different boards and commissions. The first one is to the CDBG Advisory Commission for Tanya Harmon.

Second.

So, she's worked on the beautification, or is working on that, and looks forward to working on this. So, anybody know her?

Yeah.

I know her.

She's done a great job. Yeah, she's been doing it.

Okay.

Then we have Heidi Clark and Paul Dunn. Who are going to the Natural Resources Stewardship Committee.

Heidi's a transplant. She loves Orem. Lived here about 10 years.

She's done graduate work in business at MATC. Anybody know her?

She's come out to our council meetings a couple times to speak on certain things, but I think she'd do a great job.

Okay.

Then we have Paul Dunn on Natural Resources.

He's an ecologist, concerned citizen of the city, concerned about cleaning up our air and waterways.

Lived in Orem for—

in '94 and 2006. Received a PhD in biology. Loved the chance to serve.

Anybody know him?

Nope, that's a great resume.

Yeah, he does have a good resume. And then on our Beautification Committee, we have a reappointment of Aaron Aurelian. I don't think anybody needs to introduce him.

He does a good job.

His son does a good job.

Everybody okay with those appointments and reappointments?

And just, just a point of clarification, I think Aaron has served several terms on that commission. Do they have term limits, or— I know he won a Got it. He served on the commission for a couple years, and so, um, I'm assuming that restarts the clock. But so would this be his— do we have term limits on that commission?

I think this is his second term since he's come on.

2 3-year terms, and you have to go off the commission. You could come back on based on an 8th year.

The next one is a resolution designating a new portion of 150 West between 1100 South and 1200 South as both Wildcat Way and 150 West. So Wildcat Way is the— Wildcat is the high school, Westmore High School's—

Elementary school.

Elementary school's mascot. And they— I was actually there to announce that, and their principal was leaving to go and become the principal at Geneva, as I remember. And the kids were pretty enthused about the fact that the city was going to name that Wildcat Way.

Oh, has that already been decided?

No, that was the recommendation. It was not decided.

So who—

they were told that it was not decided.

Who pays for the sign? The city does.

Not the school?

This is a city application. It's a citizen's request.

I mean, typically it's a secondary address, so Yes, I saw what they did at that Park Canyon, whatever it is.

There doesn't need to be a sign, but they want it as part of the community.

Oh, that's actually a really big thing.

2 to 4 signs is all it takes. Yeah, that's the shortest street I saw.

Okay, on our scheduled items, we have a public hearing, uh, on an ordinance to adopt the Geneva Road area The area-wide plan is Appendix J of the Orem General Plan. Uh, Emily, are you behind me?

Emily's over here.

There you are. You were behind me and you moved on me. Okay, you want to mention anything about that?

Um, nothing in particular. I think you guys are familiar with the plan. You had Pete Rose come speak with you guys during a work session a few months ago. So it's an area-wide plan of the Chamber Road corridor. That was the product of the EPA Brownfields grant, just to look at the existing conditions and work with community stakeholders to develop redevelopment scenarios, assessment processes, and cleanup processes.

Okay, then we have a public hearing on an ordinance adopting the Stonewood Lake Ridge Neighborhood Plan and the Orem, Sharon, Hillcrest neighborhood plan in Appendix C of the Orem General Plan. Emily, any comments?

So these 2 plans are part of the neighborhood plan process the city started a few years ago to have a plan created for each of the 9 neighborhoods in Orem. And these plans, like you said, are the Stonewood-Lakeridge neighborhoods and the Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest neighborhoods. It's been a process of over the past 7 or 8 months. Kirby Steinman started the process, and I took over when he left, working with an advisory committee as well as with all community members with open houses to record their concerns with how the neighborhood's developing, reflect or write down their aspirations for how they want the neighborhood to develop in the future, and list goals for which So it's a pretty positive plan for how to approach all development in the future.

So one of the goals I wanted to mention to Jamie here is the purchase of the Hillcrest Elementary School by the city to make it a park.

Yes.

And I don't know whether that's correct or not correct at the moment. I mean, the school district is designing Desirous of holding on to that and allowing us to use the park area as a park.

But I don't know— We actually— the current Hillcrest Park is the only park in the city that we do not own. Sure, we actually have a lease for that property, and it would very much be our desire to purchase that property and potentially additional acreage in and around that school. We sounded like close to the school district. Sure, they obviously, given some of what took place a few years ago, were hesitant to really kind of release any of that square footage, that acreage, uh, to anything but maintaining a school district property.

I just wonder if our goal should be to purchase the park and not to insinuate purchasing the school.

I don't know if you want to look at the wording on that again.

Yeah, I know exactly what goal you're talking about, and that's a really good point. Maybe reword that to, for the first step, purchase the park and then move forward with the entire property, whatever additional property we can acquire.

Yeah, yeah, or even leave the property out and just say we want to buy the park.

This is an ongoing goal, right? So it's just a goal in the general plan, so it doesn't necessarily have to come to pass, but if the city ever has that opportunity, that goal will support that. So it's not something that we're saying, hey, the city's obligated to go buy it.

I just know that's a big sticking point for a lot of people as to what's going to happen with that. I don't want to necessarily, you know, state that we're buying that per se, but certainly a goal to purchase the park.

Emily, can you—

was there a few hundred people that came to the open house?

I mean, what was that?

Weren't there a few hundred people that came to the—

There were, yeah.

So this was, this was a well-attended, and these are very highly involved neighbors, more so than some of the other plans, correct? Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, very hot spot.

Hot spot. So, and I also think too, Emily, that this has been well received by the neighbors and those who have participated.

Yes, sir.

So it has been a collaborative approach and hasn't necessarily been confrontational. Maybe it started as such, but consensus was reached as the process, you know, ran its course. Yes.

The next one is a resolution of site plan approval for Lumber Liquidators addition located generally at 168 East University Parkway in the PD-5 zone. Jason, I think you're the presenter.

For those that may go back in time, Field Herbs outdoor landscape area, that's what they're trying to enclose now. The city council actually changed the ordinance about a year and a half ago to allow a 5-foot setback for that 200 East. So they're now coming in and actually—

So is that a national chain?

Yes.

They're actually moving a location from Linden down to this location.

From where?

Linden.

The one on the freeway.

Yeah, so that's a nice addition.

That's great.

So, and we can talk about this later on, but is there enough room for that? As I was thinking about that, like, if I was loading up a truck with some lumber or something like that, does that skinny little parcel there allow enough space for that type of Yeah, I believe so.

I don't think it's going to be a, like, typically lumberyard where you're going in trying to get big pallets of material. It's going to be a pickup load here, a pickup load there. There may be some contractors that get some. It's not a full-blown—

So, they are liquidators, so they are getting rid of various leftover pieces?

No doubt.

And there is a dock in the back where they do have some room for somebody to pull up. There is?

Okay, because I was just looking at it. It's there in the corner right next to a road that can get kind of busy and backed up sometimes. But, um, where if you're trying to park a truck close and that row is already filled, it's just trying to do that tiny little corner.

In that case, you're probably pulling it back to get the larger loader.

All right, and we have a resolution approving accessories to An accessory structure for the Smith residence located at 1311 South, 1100 East in the PD-18 zone. Adjacent use to 300.

So this is Berkshires, and there's a lot of homes that have these types of— whether it's a cottage or whether it's an accessory structure. So it's not out of the ordinary, and it meets all the requirements. It does require, though, for this type of structure to come to City Council.

Do you know how big the lot is that they're on?

0.65 of an acre.

All right. So that's all.

Yes.

Last meeting and in prior meetings, we'll have a resolution on the on the agenda, and some of our citizens have no clue that that's different than a public hearing, and they come here to talk. And, and we, you know, it was an uncomfortable situation, and that's why you get paid the big bucks to be in the center seat and handle that. But I wondered if at the beginning of the meeting we could ask if anyone's here for these resolutions and let them be part of the personal appearance, because it wasn't right to go then into that. But we had Maybe we could allow 1 or 2 or 3. I just felt bad that there were a bunch of people waving from the audience and we didn't really have a forum to allow them to come forward. I accept better wisdom than me on opening that Pandora's box, but any thoughts on that?

Um, I don't know. Personally, I think, you know, maybe if we had something on the agenda You could have a little blurb stating public hearing is where you can speak, resolution you're not allowed to speak, and if you want to speak, you can speak at the personal appearance.

Yeah.

And we could put that in with the personal appearance paragraph.

So if others feel that way, I, I don't have a problem with that.

These 2 items will probably not have anybody come out.

They may, but I doubt these 2 things are going to be earth-shattering. But last week, last time we Excuse me, I was kind of uncomfortable for those people.

If I may, Tom, it reads item number 8, personal appearances. Time is set aside for public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings. Yeah, but perhaps a reading of this statement in advance of the public personal appearances would satisfy your concern.

Yeah, or possibly putting in an addition to that sentence and just saying, not scheduled as public hearings, but resolutions could be addressed or something like that. So people understand.

Including, for example, scheduled as public hearings on the agenda, including resolutions 10.3 and 10.4.

For whatever.

So even if we were to read that statement aloud and make it clear at that point, are we going to hold them accountable? Well, you didn't sign in, so no, you still can't.

You're already too late. But it would be on the agenda and they can pick up agendas on the side.

So I still feel like we could be more accommodating. I mean, I personally feel like even if it is a resolution, I'm open to— if there are people that came specifically for that item, that might be the first council meeting they've ever showed up to because that is the issue that matters to them, and last, which would be a tragedy if that's their experience that they have.

Let me put it this way. I could say at the personal appearance, if there's somebody here wishing to speak on an item that's a resolution, this This would be the time to do it.

11.

Is that fair?

And then go from there.

Even if they're not signed up?

Yeah. Well, that would be at the start of the personal appearances, so then they'd have to go sign in.

You already have—

we've already given you the sign-up sheet at that point.

Right, but if they wanted to sign up, they could.

Where would they just come to you? Uh, just thinking through logistics. You have the sheet?

I have the sheet.

They can just raise their hand.

Oh, okay, okay. Now, if you want, on a resolution, you can open it up, can't you, Mr. Mayor? Or is that—

Uh, you could, but typically we don't, you know, because we have, like I say, we have public hearings, and resolutions are resolutions.

They're not public hearings.

So typically we don't do that, but I can make mention of something at the public Jamie, do you have anything you want to mention?

Yeah, I just want to make sure that we give Councilmember Seestrand time to kind of review his report. So, sure, can I defer to him first?

Sure.

All right.

Good.

Well, thank you. I get to talk about something I'm really excited about. So first of all, I'm on the PWAC committee. And that has done such a good job over the years since it was initiated.

That's right.

But I think part of that is because we really have some excellent citizens that work on that, that committee. I greatly admire their knowledge and expertise as they go about dealing with those things. The other group that I work on is with the library, with all the things going on there. And their group also is quite well attended, and they do a fabulous job. One of the other assignments I have is the Utah Lake Commission. I'm the co-chair, not the co-chair, the vice chair of the Utah Lake Commission, and that has been fun over the years. I'm supposed to start with 14 years ago. I remember the process of organizing the Utah Lake Commission. It was really one of Jerry Washburn's ideas that we have this wonderful resource in our valley, yet we have so many people that have different interests in the lake. We have private property owners around the outskirts, we have cities, we have county, we have various state agencies, we have the state legislature, we have federal organizations that all have different perspectives and opinions on Utah Lake, and they go back a decade 2007-2008 timeframe was to say, what if we found a way to just get together and start to move the ball forward in a unified direction and find what we can agree on and what we can't agree on, move forward and try to make it a better, a better utilized resource. And I think that original founding group would be proud as far as what's happening today with the Utah Lake Commission as well as with Utah Lake. There's been a lot of progress over the years. It started off with a couple of the key elements they could agree on was removal of the carp as a key element of improving the quality of the lake. And then also improving access to the lake by removal of the phragmites that pretty well surrounded the lake and choked off the beaches. Over these last several years, there's been over 20 million pounds of There's been a pretty systematic approach to removing the Phragmites. It continues to return, but it does look significantly better now than it has before. I think the other thing that has been remarkable is when it started out, it was just a few cities and the county that was participating. We now have all cities in the valley except for about 5 cities that are participating. participating now on the commission. It's been really positive to see even small cities that don't border right on the lake are participating in trying to make Utah Lake a better resource and an improved value-add to the community. We even have people from Salt Lake County getting involved. Draper and Riverton and some of those groups are interested in the outflow of Utah Lake how it affects their cities. So there's been some really positive things that have been into play with, I think, all these different groups coming together and trying to solve some of the issues with Utah Lake. Do you have any questions?

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what happens to those millions of pounds of carp when they pull them out?

Um, yeah, they're turned into fertilizer of some sort. So there is some actual purpose, not just thrown in a Yes, those cities that don't participate get their barges shut down for a while. No, that's not true though.

There's a question about the algae bloom this year.

I'll get to that. Okay, so, uh, so that's kind of where it started was on, on those few things, but also tied to that was there's been some significant work on the, on the, uh, June Sucker Project. We've been able to receive a fair amount of funding from the federal government on trying to restore that species and preserve it. There's been a lot of activity in returning Eagle Lake to a delta structure that gives those fish greater opportunity to survive. Part of the carp removal allows them to have fewer predators, that they will do well. The Junior Sucker Program has done really quite significant in that time frame. They've also added a A fair amount of equipment. There's actually equipment that's designed to mash down marshes and phragmites in a way that kills them faster and they don't return quite as quickly. So there's been some good investment in that. We've also worked with the county on a machine that comes up to one of the pervasive Russian olives and it just kind of crunches it. It's this big umbrella machine that And just chops it down. Instead of getting crews out there with chainsaws, they've got some equipment there that's working well together. Some really good funding from different sources. Besides the carp removal and the phragmites and the June sucker, we've also implemented a way for people that have ideas for improving the lake, including the algae bloom and other challenges, now have a way that our technical committee can review their suggestions, to see if they're feasible and if they meet some element of a scientific basis, and then they can, they can go forward with trying to get some grants and some funding. There's been a fair amount of federal and state grant money that now has been allocated towards some of these projects to help improve the overall quality of the lake going forward. Some of the quality projects that they've been working on have been to increase the trail access More trails. There's been a fairly serious addition of a number of trails around the lake and in different parts of the lake. Certain communities have been very involved in improving their sections of the lake with the removal of old canals that are mosquito traps, improving their boat harbors, making better access for canoes, identifying areas where Docks can be utilized personally and/or as organizations. There's been a lot of clarity in terms of how do we make Utah Lake a more functioning, a higher quality, more accessible resource. They've also had a number of activities to help improve awareness. Their program they do now in June, which is kind of the state park— it's held at the state park, but it's about becoming familiar with Utah Lake. Lake. They'll get 4,000 or 5,000 visitors now that come to visit and participate in that activity. And they're welcome to take home all the carp that they catch as a free bonus, and they can put them on their—

on their table.

One of the interesting things coming up is a private-public partnership arrangement that we've come across with the Waucara Way. As you know, over by the golf course. Many of you have been down there to look at it. There's an old area of access that used to be farmed. It also used to have some trails, and it was kind of where the Indians stayed, called Waquara Way. And that's owned by private property. It's not owned by the city or by the county. And they've been trying to work with the Utah Lake Commission on what are ways that we can make that a more accessible resource. And a while ago, they were restricted from being able to run cattle in the areas. And they found out that cattle do a pretty good job of eating the phragmites when they're young. They don't do very well when the phragmites are older. So there's been an option or an arrangement that in exchange for allowing them to put cattle on the land to help keep the phragmites down, we also would gain access to land for trails and for camping areas in that region. It's been a nice collaborative effort to try to go forward, and of course frequently in those scenarios you run into people that might have some concerns or some issues, but we're in that stage of trying to explore how do we make that area more accessible and usable for public where currently it is not and try to make that a viable solution with the property down there. As it relates to the algae bloom, you'll notice on the news that there are— that seems to be a problem that's becoming more pervasive in a lot of areas unrelated to Utah Lake. Scofield Reservoir, for example, has had a series of algae blooms. Florida has a number of challenges with algae blooms. There's not necessarily There's not necessarily a strong scientific solution to them. And they're in the process of looking at and exploring what could be done to try to minimize that. One of the problems that we ran into is they have changed how they measure an algae bloom. It used to be that there was a green light, yellow light, red light. And they've pretty well done away with the yellow light. So now once it's out of the green zone, and the limit's fairly low, it now becomes a red light. And so the shock and awe is distributed where before it would have been a reasonable level to continue to use the lake. But there's concern that in the way they changed the measurement, it's created greater awareness of problems that may be a little overstated with the algae bloom. But nonetheless, the key is to try to address how can we minimize or reduce that. And part of that is they're looking at, they're working They are looking with our group on water nitrogen levels in the water and sewage treatment plants as one of the possible causes, but I don't know that it's the key aspect. There's also the sediment in the bottom of the lake has been filled with nitrogen and with nutrients over the years that every time the wind blows, it kind of stirs that up a little bit. So they are looking at that as an issue, but I don't know that there's a real clear solution. solution yet on what can address the algae blooms in Utah Lake. But it's fun to be part of a good group. It's fun to be part of trying to find solutions to problems that are tough. It's fun to see a number of different organizations working well together to try to come up with good solutions. So I'm excited where Utah Lake has come from. I'm excited where it's going. And I appreciate the support.

Thank you.

city's support on continuing to offer good leadership in with that organization, good support with the efforts they do.

Talk of the causeway?

That's not on our specific agenda, but in the long-term transportation planning, the causeway is on there. The question is whether it would go towards 800 North or towards Center Street in Provo or both.

Well, there's—

that's a ways off, but that's an issue. You also have the REI proposal, which is to dredge the lake, make it deeper, and make islands in the middle, which then have a significant positive impact on certain aspects of the lake. The deeper water is positive. You can't put more water in Utah Lake than what it's allowed to hold from agreed-upon water levels. But you can make it deeper and reduce the surface area. In August and July, Utah Lake loses about 100,000 gallon feet or acre feet of water just through evaporation. So we lose a lot of our water because it's very large and very shallow. If you can make it deeper and less surface area with these islands, then you not only have additional buildable space, you also have improved water retention. Water quality aspects.

And that's—

there's a group looking at making that a reality over the next little while.

2 to 3 weeks roughly.

What's that?

Next little while being about 2 to 3 weeks. Is that what you're saying?

I wish. No, it's— they— it's been interesting because it starts as an idea and there's always plenty of critics on that. But they've actually received some approval from the state to look at it. The challenge always becomes if they If they create new land in the middle of the lake, who owns it? Is that owned by the state, which currently owns it, or is that— or can that be owned by a public entity that can then develop that land for housing and commercial and whatever aspect? So the state has basically said, we're interested, go forward, and they're doing the studies and checking out the feasibility of being able to do it. It's not something that hasn't been done before. It's been done in Abu Dhabi and over in some Middle Eastern countries that have created whole new cities based on something that wasn't there before. It's quite an intriguing concept.

Well, great.

Thank you.

It was a good report.

Sam, I have a question. When you meet with the QEC, I'd be curious to hear if they have any insights or suggestions related to the water abatement discussion that we had, just because they, a few years ago, they were looking at water rates and structures and things like that. I'd just be curious if they have any ideas that might help us look at that from a different perspective. So if you want to ask them about that.

Are you talking about the Utah Lake Commission?

No, PWAC.

Sorry, did I not say PWAC?

Sorry.

Okay, uh, Jamie, do you have a couple?

Yeah, just a couple of items, members of the City Council. Obviously you heard yesterday of the accident that took place down at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course. Unfortunately, the young lady who was struck in the back of the head has passed away. Approximately 10:30 yesterday morning, A dad, a brother, and a young daughter were out golfing, and this young lady was sitting in the golf cart while dad was teeing up his golf ball at the number 16 fairway or tee box. If you're familiar at all with number 16, the concrete path kind of Kind of adjacent to that tee box serves as both essentially a driveway for the number 15 green and the number 16 tee box. So it actually sits ahead of several of the tee boxes depending on what skill level you are. You know, if you're of greater skill, you actually, actually go behind that cart path. And in this particular situation, the dad went behind and struck the ball off the tee, and the ball found its way through the bags at the back of the cart, striking the young lady in the back of the head. Obviously, immediately, they're a little bit of a stretch from the clubhouse, And I, in talking with the folks down at the golf course, this obviously this distraught dad came into the clubhouse and was actually carrying his daughter in her arms. And our police and fire response was just fantastic. We were ready to assist. Unfortunately, at the, at the scene, They were not able to revive the young lady, and then they took her up to Timpanogos Hospital, and they were able to revive her. And then they, I believe, transported her ultimately to Primary Children's. But she had gone a considerable amount of time without obviously breathing, and obviously the decision was made for— Today she passed. passed away. This, this report has now found its way onto the— into the media outlets. The police department has not released the name of the young lady, but they can confirm that it was a little girl who was hit. And the response from obviously law enforcement and our firefighter EMS teams has been tremendous, along with actually golf professionals in the golf community who are just heartbroken by what's taken place. And the family has designated a family contact. The father of the, of the dad who hit the golf ball is the family representative and will be working with those who want to reach out and assist this family. Obviously great, great grief and challenge. What I can say is they were not residents of Orem, but when something like this happens on a recreation property, we're obviously as a city, we hold in very, very high regard, we identify as part of us. We share in that grief for, for mom and dad and the entire extended family. Well, you know, from a liability perspective, that's a conversation to be had with the golf course operator, which is not the City of Orem. Obviously, the City of Orem has a property interest, but we don't operate the course. And they are working directly with, and will be working directly with, the family in relation to this whole situation. It's not something you see on a regular basis. In fact, I can't think of something like this happening in Utah in many, many years. This is stuff you kind of read about on the other side of the country, unfortunately.

Yes.

Something that impacted our golf course, and our thoughts and prayers go with this family. Of course, this young lady who was killed, her father must be feeling such a tremendous sense of loss and pain associated with what's taken place. So I don't know if you have any particular questions. Obviously, we have Chief Gurney here, Chief Giles. else who is here as well. And Lieutenant College is one who has been interfacing with the media and responding to questions and concerns, and I believe it's hit most, if not all, the media outlets. And, uh, I know Golden Holt, who's the operator of the golf course, has already reached out to the grandfather, uh, Senator It was a very obviously humble and difficult conversation, but the family appreciates the outreach that the golf course has already made to this family, to the family of this young lady.

The golf pro has been one of the recent names speaking briefly, and they've released the names now, and there's a GoFundMe. 6,000 so far.

Yeah. You know that I went down there yesterday around lunchtime to see how the pros were doing. And, you know, these are young guys. These are not— they're not equipped to deal with this kind of stuff. They were visibly shaken by it. They were disturbed by obviously what's taken place and what Golden has represented To me, it's kind of neat to see the golf community come together and rally behind this young family and provide support in relation to what's taking place. And I hadn't heard of the GoFundMe, so that's wonderful.

The information on the GoFundMe is actually— it sounds very positive as you could possibly be from the family.

And all the news I talked to the grandpa just, just before coming over here, and he was in probably better spirits than he was yesterday.

Yeah.

Um, said the family is obviously grieving.

Um, you know, I just— we've been—

we've discussed whether or not we, uh, We just put— we put that link to the GoFundMe along with the news story on our Facebook page. Just, we typically don't, but we do got 56,000 followers, so that might be something that we allow. I just wanted to point out also, just one thing as far as first responders, because this was not the only child death that we had yesterday. Um, day shift had a horrible day yesterday. We had a 4-year-old that was actually— he died of natural causes.

And this was before?

This was before that. So the same people that responded on this situation had previously responded on a child. And I don't know, I don't remember exactly what all the health problems were, but they did do CPR and they did do— they did intubate and all that with this 4-year-old. I saw some of my officers later in the afternoon. I didn't see any of the paramedics, but I could see the trauma in their faces when they came back from the golf course. So it was a tough day for first responders yesterday. It was really tough. You could just feel it and see it in their eyes as they came back in.

Thank you, Chief.

Anything else, Chief?

I do have a couple of things, but one is going to require a few more minutes. So the only other thing I'll just kind of leave with you is we have We have our new HR manager on staff. Her name is Carrie Rugg. She started on Monday, and we'll provide an opportunity for you to meet her face-to-face. But I just wanted you to know that she's on the job getting acclimated to the HR department, the HR division, and we're glad to have her here.

All right, um, I've got some information on the change of government, but it'll That's going to take more time than we've got, so I'll wait on that from the county, um, some updates. I can send them through an email. But why don't we go ahead and close and move over to the council chambers then for council meeting.

Thank you.

Oh, those?

Yes, I do.

You got one of these?

Actually, I think Guy Grenny gave you one. I harass him all day long.

He does.

He enjoys it too.

Yeah, he does. You enjoy it because you don't know what's coming next.

Oh, that's true.

You just enjoy watching me squirm.

What are the odds that all you guys would show up wearing the same outfit?

Yeah, what's the odds?

Thank you guys so much for— and I'm sure we'll have a chance to shake your hand.

Yeah, I get a free ticket.

No, when does this expire? Yesterday.

We would like to welcome everyone out to our city council meeting this evening. I would like to call this meeting to order. We will begin by having a prayer given by Sydney Walker. After which the Pledge of Allegiance will be given by Gavin Walker.

Our dear kind Heavenly Father, we are grateful for this day.

We're grateful that we could meet as a city to discuss the needs, and please bless that we might be considerate to others' opinions and that we might do what's best for our city. And we're grateful for our many blessings and for the freedoms that we have, and we say these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

May the audience please rise.

Repeat the Pledge of Allegiance after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for Thank you, Gavin, and thank you, Sydney.

Mayor, can I just say one word?

Sure.

I think the pledge Gavin just led us in is one of the best we've heard.

Okay, let's give him a round of applause. So that's executive privilege because that That's Councilmember Sumner's grandson, so. We would like to now go over the upcoming events. On July 17th, we have a joint Alpine School District and Orem City Council meeting at noon here at the city chambers. On July 29th, we have Meet the Candidates Night at the Sierra from 6 to 8:30 PM for those that are running for city council. On August 3rd, we have the Orem City Night with the Orem Owls at 6:30 PM. We also have the National Name Out Crime with the police. Am I saying that right, Chief?

National Night Out.

Night Out, I'm sorry. Night Out Against Crime. And that— where is that going to be at?

City Center Park, 6:30 to 8:30.

Okay, great. Okay, awesome. Also that evening, or that day, we have the groundbreaking for the new Orem Recreation Center at 3 PM over at the recreation center. And on August 21st, we have a picnic for the Stonewood neighborhood at the City Center Park. It's my privilege now to announce the award winner for the Walter C. Orm Award, which is the American Legion Post 72. And Bryn Bybee is going to come and make a presentation.

Or, Bryn, are you—

Yes, Mayor and Council.

I'll allow you to read the details of the award, but Perhaps in brief summary, I think I was chosen to present and recommend American Legion Post 72, I guess perhaps because of the interactions I have with this fine group in relation to our Memorial Day program and our Veterans Day programs. However, I've found that the more that I interact with them and observe all the things that they do, that there's there's really a wide myriad of things that they do to serve our city and our county and our community, to the point where you find that they are quietly serving in time and money and, and their hearts on what would have to be a daily basis because of the thousands of dollars and thousands of hours that they put in whether it's putting up crosses in our cemetery, whether it's helping in other events like Summerfest and Freedom Festival, or whether it's supporting scholarship opportunities with Boys State and Girls State. And you find with this wide variety of ways that they serve our community, the amount of people that they then end up affecting has become so broad that I've found that even multiple of my nieces and nephews have been served by American Legion. So, uh, not only is, uh, their, their, uh, service, uh, worthy of, of the Walter C. Orem Award, but it's also especially neat that, uh, they're celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the American Legion on the same year that we're celebrating our centennial year as, as a city. And so I guess with that, uh, uh, background in mind, I submit to you, commend to you, it's my honor to do so, the American Legion Post 72 for the Walter C. Orem Award.

And before we give them a round of applause, I would like to read a plaque that we're going to give them, and then we could do a round of applause. So it says here that the cannons of World War I had been silent for less than a year When Congress chartered the American Legion on September 16th, 1919, the Legion has evolved from a group of war-weary veterans into one of the most influential nonprofit organizations in the United States. The City of Orem is honored to share a centennial year with the American Legion and is pleased to recognize them for their profound impact on American society. Over the years, the Legion has influenced considerable social change in America, won hundreds of benefits for veterans, and produced many important programs for children. The American Legion's century of success is a testament to the character and dedicated volunteerism of its members. Since the closing days of World War II, the American Legion has been honorably and locally represented by Post 72. Stationed right here in Orem, Post 72 is comprised of patriotic individuals whose active military service may have ended, but their service to the community marches on. There are no off-seasons for Post 72, as the Honor Guard administers military rites for deceased veterans about once every 3 days in cemeteries anywhere from Provo to Camp Williams. Last year they performed military rites for 138 departed comrades. Post 72 also has an active youth program. Each year they sponsor Boy States and Girl State to give area youth an in-depth look at how government operates. They also host an oratorical, oratorical contest where young people can win prize money for their education while expanding their knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In addition to all of this, the post offers patriotic programs in schools to teach students about freedom and the sacrifice of those in the armed services. Even with all of their other responsibilities and commitments, Post 72 makes time to serve the city of Orem. Each year, Post 72 faithfully performs the flag exchange ceremony at the city's Memorial Day and Veterans Day programs. In a moving tribute, they also place a cross and flag in the cemetery lawn to represent and honor each veteran buried at the Orem City Cemetery. Several members of Post 72 also sit on the city's Heritage Advisory Commission, and their service in that capacity is exceptional. The city of Orem salutes Post 72 and its members for their dedicated service both in and out of the armed forces. Their commitment to the mission and purpose of the American Legion is unquestioned as they continually serve our local veterans causes and community. We are proud to serve and associate with such a fine group of true American patriots. Let's give them a round of applause. I have the If you could get close enough, if you want to come over to this side and everybody squeeze in so that we can have everybody in the picture.

Oh yeah, good to see you.

Okay.

All right, here we go. 1, 2, 3.

Now, can you turn around and shake every council member's hand and go on the line?

Let's start right there.

Okay, everybody follow through.

Thank you.

We want, want you to shake—

Good job.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Mayor, council members, anyone that has to do anything with running the city of Orem, we express our deepest gratitude for this great honor.

I accept it on behalf of all 80 members of the American Legion Post 72, all 20 members of the American Legion Honor Guard.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. One more round of applause.

Post 72 Honor Guard, attention hut.

Present arms.

Order!

Parties, be seated.

Thank you. We now would like to go on to our personal appearance portion of our meeting. Just like— would like to mention that time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items that are not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda, as an example, in the resolutions. We have 2 that have signed up. If anybody wants to speak to the resolutions, you're welcome to do so now after the 2 that we have signed up. So first we have Ken Astle, and afterwards David Holliday.

Warm City Mayor and City Council, I was coming to address the matter of the wall at Westmore City Park.

They—

we recently heard that it was going to be taken down and replaced with a chain-link fence with slats. And we've— I was talking with all the neighbors, it's like, was wondering why does it need to be taken down to start with. So it was like, we thought it wasn't in that bad of repair. So I've lived there for 30 years myself with the wall as a great barrier. It's a cinder block wall that's about 6.5 feet high. And it served a great purpose.

It gives us stability.

It gives us a sound barrier from the park. There's a lot of action in the park. So we just want to know if we could have the wall repaired, you know, look into the feasibility of repairing it or replacing it with a high-quality wall versus a chain link. So in my yard, I have a chain-link fence that's exactly the same height as the wall. My neighbors— I put some slats in it. The slats have already started to fall out. I don't have any soundproofing. It's noisy. They can see into my yard even through the slats. So it's like, we feel that the chain-link fence with slats is not the right way to go, that we need to have— A wall. Look at other options. So I myself and several other people have repaired the wall as we've— over the years as we've seen grout fall out of the cracks. And my wall, my section of wall, and up theirs is in good repair. So we don't know if other parts of the wall need to be taken down or fixed, but could it be, you know, looked at to be repaired or replaced with a nice wall versus a chain link? Because chain links is is not high quality and doesn't give us any. And also, I know on the east side, we have one of the— a little short piece of the wall is leaning, and so that could be a detriment. And also, we know that drug deals happen right on that piece of wall, so that piece of wall could be taken down and doesn't need to be there. And when the drug people come in to make their little exchanges, that happens in about 10 seconds, that there'd be more exposure to help us curb that. So our plea would be to have you look it over again, because what we'd heard is that the budget had already been approved for a chain-link fence and it was going to go in soon. So we as neighbors would want to petition you to take a second look at it, see if we could repair the wall or replace it with a higher quality than chain-link fence. So Thank you.

Okay, what I'd recommend is you call down to the city office and make an appointment with me, and Jamie and I can talk with you then.

All right, thank you.

Next is David Holliday.

Mayor, city council members, and gentlemen, thank you for your service. My name is David Halliday, and I'd like to address a sentiment that I am seeing not only at the national level but at the local level. You may be familiar with this sentiment if you've ever been in a heated political conversation. The sentiment is best summed up by the phrase, if they don't like it, they can leave. In an effort to get to know Orem's residents, I spend some of my time every week knocking door to door, listening to what local issues are important. On the whole, I am happy to report that most of our residents are friendly and polite, even if we don't agree on the issues. Nevertheless, on a regular basis, I run into residents who, in their efforts to summarize their frustration with an issue, will resort to some form of the line, if they don't like it, they can leave. For example, I might explain that our public safety department is in need of better funding for increased pay and personnel. They are overworked, underpaid, and understaffed. This may require us to raise our property taxes to meet their needs. Now, I understand that taxes are a hot-button issue, and I understand that there is a range of respectable stances on the same issue. I go into these discussions knowing that these conversations might get heated, but I know these issues have to be addressed, hopefully with some form of consensus. That being said, I cannot tolerate the line, if they don't like it, they can leave. For example, If our officers and firemen don't like their pay, they can go to another city. If our teachers are underpaid, they can get a different job. If there aren't affordable places for people to live, they can go live somewhere else. In other words, if you don't like how Orem is run, then run away. Increasingly, I am hearing this type of language from pundits and politicians, and it has permeated into our conversations. Now, over the past 5 months, I've had the opportunity to meet each of the city council members, mayor, and various members of our government. And thankfully, I have not heard them voice this sentiment to me, even if they disagreed with me. I hope they never resort to this brash and lazy response. And that is the point I want to make. We can disagree all day on the issues, but I would encourage everyone to refrain from using the line, if they don't like it, they can leave. I'll give you 3 brief reasons why. One, it is angering. If our emotions get the better of us, rebuttals like this easily degrade into name-calling and personal attacks. Personal attack. 2, it is intellectually lazy. Think of any, any political issue on any side. If you side with the majority, you can use this line to shut anyone down. The line is neither a valid argument, nor does it attempt to address what is right and wrong. Finally, it's counterproductive. The problem will persist whether you silence or shoo away the opposition. Most of your dissenters will not leave simply because you suggested do so. In general, one of two things will happen. They will resign themselves from the discussion, or you will incense them enough to be your enemy. Neither outcome leads to consensus or viable solutions. I have one more paragraph. In conclusion, I would encourage everyone to drop this knee-jerk response. Don't condone your elected representatives using this type of rhetoric. I believe we are capable of disagreeing without being disagreeable. We are Family City USA. If you do your best to understand the other side of the conversation and the conver— other side of the issue and the conversation has run its course, don't use the line, if you don't like it, you can leave. Instead, consider the line, I hear your concerns, but I respectfully disagree. Thank you very much.

Thank you, David. Anyone else wish to speak concerning any resolutions on the agenda? If not, we're going to go ahead and close the personal appearance time and move to our consent items. First one is to approve our meeting minutes of the City Council meeting of June 18th, 2019. The second is appointments to boards and commissions. Appointment to the CDBG Advisory Commission of Tanya Harmon. Appointments to the Natural Resources Stewardship Committee of Heidi Clark and Paul Dunn. And a reappointment to the Beautification Advisory Commission of of Aaron Rillion. Third, we have a resolution designating a portion of 150 West between 1100 South and 1200 South as both Wildcat Way and 150 West. Anyone on the council want to move a consent item to a scheduled item? If not, we'll go ahead and take a vote. I move that we approve these 3 items. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, and we'll start with Councilmember Seestrand.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

These consent items are approved, and we'll move on to our scheduled items. The first one is a public hearing considering an ordinance to adopt the Geneva Road Area Wide Plan as Appendix J of the Orem General Plan. And our presenter is Emily Griffin and Jason Bench.

Thank you, Mayor. Before Emily starts, I just want to say thank you for participating in this area-wide plan. It's been quite the adventure. We've had opportunity to work with the EPA. We've had a private consultant working with us. And we've had opportunity to visit with the citizens on multiple occasions, multiple meetings. And it's been a real privilege, actually, to get out and see how this has evolved. It's a plan that we're going to move forward with and hopefully implement over the next year or so. So this is a start. And Emily will give you the presentation. And after her presentation, we'll be glad to address any questions.

All right.

So for our first item, the Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve and adopt the Geneva Road Area Wide Plan as Appendix J of the Orem General Plan. To give you some background on this plan, in 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency selected the City of Orem as a Brownfield Area-Wide Plan grant recipient. This grant program assists communities in responding to local brownfield challenges, particularly where multiple brownfield sites are in close proximity and are connected by infrastructure, and that therefore limit the economic, environmental, and social prosperity of their surroundings. Because of Geneva Road's rich industrial heritage, many sites in this area are considered brownfields and are prime areas for the EPA's Brownfield Grant. From this grant, OREM received $200,000 to work with community stakeholders to develop this area-wide plan and implementation strategies for brownfields assessment, cleanup, and reuse. The goals for these strategies were to be protective of public health and the environment, economically viable, and reflective of the community's vision for the area. So first off, what is a brownfield? A brownfield is a property that is contaminated by some hazardous substance or pollutant, which therefore complicates the redevelopment and reuse of that property. The revitalization of brownfield sites has the potential to create multiple benefits throughout the community, including cultivation of community involvement and redevelopment of underutilized sites, Creation of jobs, increases in property values, and correspondingly, a greater contribution of property taxes by revitalized properties. These 2 pictures on the slide are 2 examples of brownfields on the Geneva Road corridor currently. This slide shows a map of the entire Geneva corridor area, including the 3 proposed districts for focused redevelopment. These districts are located at Geneva Road and 1600 North, North, and Center Street. Also shown on this map are all of the potential brownfield sites, which are marked in blue, and future road alignments. The Rocky Mountain Power site, which is located in the Gateway District near 1600 North, is a catalyst for the entire project and will be a key player in the redevelopment of this corridor. This next slide shows the 3 districts in more detail. As can be seen, future zoning scenarios show mainly commercial, office, and industrial uses. So to not exclude these important manufacturing uses in this area, these uses are shown in the dark pink and light pink colors. There are some residential potentially planned for the Geneva Road and Center Street intersection. The creation of the plan was led by the city with assistance from two from the planning firms of BRS and WRT, who served as the consultant for this project. Together, the planning team hosted two public open houses. Conducted site visits, sent out a survey that received over 400 responses, and engaged in robust digital engagement to involve residents, businesses, and property owners in the planning process. Input from community stakeholders was key to shaping the final redevelopment concepts contained in this plan. Overall, community members felt that this plan reflects their concerns for the area and provides a means for assessing, cleaning up, and redeveloping this corridor into a vibrant commercial and manufacturing hub. Therefore, we recommend that the City Council approve and adopt the Geneva Road Area Wide Plan as Appendix J of the Orem General Plan.

Any questions from the council? Councilmember Sumner— or Lentz, sorry.

Question on— I think it was page 28 of the study, which was a map of the brownfield inventory. The southwesternmost brownfield areas there, I think by the time it got to the proposed districts, those were no longer on the map. Was it determined that those weren't, in fact, brownfields after we did further investigation, or— I'm just trying to make sense of what happened to those falling off of the inventory.

So this is an investigation of potential. So this map doesn't necessarily indicate whether they're brownfield or not brownfield. It's just an indication based on the reconnaissance and different things. As you are aware, we received another grant from EPA to actually get into Phase 1, Phase 2 of the assessment grants, and that's when we'll actually get into specifics on whether or not it is or is not a brownfield. So we— the map may be incorrect, and we can address that. But this does not indicate that it's a brownfield site. It just simply indicated that— they're potentially a brownfield site.

Got it.

Thank you.

Councilmember Luria has a question.

So I remember at the Planning Commission there were— for a few of the business owners that actually came, and if I remember correctly, if you're a current business owner, you can stay, you're grandfathered, you don't have to do anything. But if at some point you want to sell your property, clean it up, the funds would be there to assist. But it's— we're not going to be changing anyone or forcing anyone. It's at their own discretion if they want to use this grant money to clean up their site. Is that correct?

Correct. We were just— October, we'll start— and Emily can address this further— but we're starting the grant cycle starting in October. Outreach, other things to involve the citizens. This is not a mandated program that we're going to come in and clean up your property. It is a voluntary program that we can actually use the EPA's money to come in and actually do a Phase 1, Phase If properties are— property owners are willing to do that. What it does is it gives them an indication that in the future there is a potential that I may have to clean up something. So it gives them a specific indication, whether Phase 1 or Phase 2, of what exactly needs to be cleaned up. But it is not in no way, shape, or form coming in and doing it for them or mandating it be done.

So will this pool of money be available, say, 10 years from now, or is it— does it have an expiration date?

It's a 3-year grant.

3-year?

We use it within the 3 years, or potentially we can, you know, get an extension or get a new grant, but we have 3 years to use it.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the council? Okay, this is a public hearing. We'll open it up to the public. Anyone who wishes to make a comment concerning this, please come forward and hold your comments to 3 minutes and give us your name. Seeing as how no one's coming forward, we'll close the public comment portion of our public hearing and bring it back to the council. Any other questions or comments from the council? I would accept a motion to approve or disapprove the ordinance.

I move that we approve and adopt the Geneva Road Area Wide Plan as Appendix J of the Orem General Plan.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start with Councilmember McDonald.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the ordinance passes. Thank you. We'll now move on to 10.2, which also is a public hearing for an ordinance to adopt the Stonewood and Lake Ridge Neighborhood Plan and the Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest Neighborhood Plan and Appendix Z of the Orem General Plan. And our presenter is Emily and Jason.

Thank you.

So as you said, for our second item, the Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve and adopt the Stonewood and Lake Ridge Neighborhood Plan and the Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest Neighborhood Plan as part of Appendix C in the Orem General Plan. These neighborhoods are located on the right-hand side of this slide. The Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest are marked in blue, and Stonewood and Lake Ridge are marked in yellow. So first off, what is a neighborhood plan? Why are they important? A neighborhood plan provides details about the neighborhood, such as the demographic makeup, land use designations, transportation routes, public work facilities, and economic development strategies implemented for the neighborhood. These details provide the foundation for the plan and help us to understand the current conditions in the neighborhood. Once these current conditions are established, a neighborhood plan records residents' visions for the neighborhood and potential goals to achieve that vision. It also lists residents' concerns and potential ways to address those concerns. While the Neighborhood Plan is not designed to solve all problems immediately, it allows the local community to influence planning in their neighborhood and guide future development in a way that is cohesive with the neighborhood character. The plan itself contains 7 different sections: a section on the current demographics, a section on land use, a section on transportation, section on economic development, public works, neighborhood preservation, and implementation strategies. Each of these sections highlight both the current and future infrastructure in the neighborhoods and lists goals for achieving aspects of the vision statement that relate to each section. Public participation was key throughout this process, and the creation of these plans was guided by 2 advisory committees, one for the Stonewood and Lake Ridge neighborhood and one for the Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest neighborhood. These advisory committees met 8 times over the past several months to hear from city staff members in each department and formulate a vision statement to reflect their aspirations for the future of the neighborhood and list goals to achieve those aspirations. 2 public open houses were also held that had over 100 people in attendance. Many of the themes for the neighborhood's vision statements included maintaining the single-family residential character of the neighborhood, and ensuring that the neighborhoods stay safe, clean, and family-friendly. Other themes included working to increase pedestrian and bicycle safety and implementing new bike routes, as well as looking into new and innovative public transit options that can help reduce the increased traffic congestion the neighborhoods have been experiencing. Lastly, residents expressed desire in ensuring that new development is constructed in a way that respects residents' desires and is limited to areas on the state and University Parkway corridors. Residents were very concerned with the increased high-density housing within or nearby the neighborhoods on major corridors, the increased traffic congestion related to this high-density housing and new commercial developments, deterioration of the neighborhood's character due to lack of yard maintenance, street congestion, high-speed traffic, and new developments, a lack of parks and open spaces, and unsafe intersections, especially near schools. However, these concerns have been addressed as best possible in the neighborhood plan's respective vision statement and goals, as shown in the implementation sections. As shown right here, this is an example of the implementation section. This section put forward— puts forward goals to work towards addressing these concerns and lists responsible parties and timelines for achieving the goals. These goals, in combination with the vision statement, are the meat of the document and provide measurable ways in which to guide the future of the neighborhood. Overall, residents felt that this plan reflects their aspirations for the neighborhood and provides measurable steps for achieving those aspirations. Therefore, we recommend that the City Council approve and adopt the Stonewood and Lake Ridge Neighborhood Plan and the Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest Neighborhood Plan in Appendix C of the Orem General Plan.

Thank you for that presentation. Are there any questions from the council? I would just like to mention that I commend you for this plan and for the development of it. I appreciate very much the public participation, and I love the fact that the goals are to create safe, clean, and family-friendly neighborhoods. I believe that our city has a great area for families, for neighborhoods to live and to grow and to play and to enjoy life. We're listed as the 17th safest city in the nation. We're listed as one of the best places to raise a family, one of the best places to grow old. And I believe these kinds of neighborhoods are the places that that occurs in. So I appreciate the work to maintain and to encourage and to promote great neighborhoods in our city. Thank you for your work on that. Brent Sumner, do you have a comment? Again, thank you for your work.

This is quite an undertaking doing it for the entire city. You mentioned high density was a concern.

What—

was anything mentioned about legal and not legal accessory apartments?

That addressed it all?

Not so much in the plan itself. It did come up at a few meetings, the fact that there are illegal accessory apartments with cars that park all over the streets and residents that don't take care of the property. But most residents that were part of the neighborhood plan process recognized that accessory apartments were key to bringing more housing units into the city and into the neighborhoods and were okay as long as they followed the requirements in our ordinance.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lentz has a comment.

I think on that note, um, I can't remember which one it was. It did mention the recommendation or support for considering kind of a rental licensing program or something to increase the occupancy requirements to help address that. Not necessarily specifically for accessory apartments, but as part of a broader project, I guess. One question I did have, so this was in the Stone Stonewood and Lake Ridge. I almost mixed those up. So in the transportation goals, this is on page 23 of their plan, the last goal, I wasn't really quite sure how to understand it. So it says, explore the possibility of creating bike routes on quieter streets such as cul-de-sacs to increase the bicyclist safety and connectivity routes. And I'm just trying to understand what does a bike lane in a cul-de-sac look like? Maybe there's more to that that I'm not grasping.

That's a great question. So several residents mentioned that they felt unsafe biking along some of the major roads in Orem just because of the high speeds of traffic and the fact that there are lots of cars on those roads. And so some residents put forward the idea of creating a bike network that connected through cul-de-sacs, as opposed to having all these dead-end roads, to create sidewalks through them to create a quieter, safer bike route as opposed to biking on a major corridor.

So it would essentially cut through people's yards or something like that to get over to the next cul-de-sac?

Is that—

Something like that, exactly.

I'm not saying no, or— I'm just— I'm trying to envision what that would actually look like and how we could implement that.

You can jump some of the fences, so—

There is a ramp.

OK, Councilmember Larey has a comment.

At the Planning Commission, there were a couple people who said, this is a really great plan, but are you just going to put it on a shelf and not use it? And I said to them, no, we're actually going to use these plans and we're going to have Planning and Development Services make sure they always reference these. So I, I want to commend you for doing it. But I also want to say, please don't put this on a shelf. Let's get this out.

Let's always—

and the 7 we've completed, I want these to be livable documents that we're always looking at, always comparing with what the neighborhoods want.

Thank you.

A lot of effort's gone into this. Let's make sure we utilize this so the citizens' concerns and those who took time to really plan this are utilized.

So that's our plan. I mean, this is number 6 and number 7. We have 8 and 9 left. Once we complete those, then we'll have— we've gone through the city. The whole point of this when we started was to get out into the neighborhoods to see what, you know, citizens are doing. And by and far, the thing— the takeaway that I've gotten so far from these neighborhood plans, which is almost 2/3 of the city, Is that it's such a dynamic group of individuals that really want to be a part of the city. And sometimes we start out not really seeing eye to eye, but by the time we get to the— this point of the plan, they've done a 180 and they really understand what the city does, how it operates, and what our limitations are. And so really it has been a benefit, I think, in my perspective. And hopefully we can use these going forward in planning. Continue to plan, and then as we go back through the city to do them again, we can, you know, revisit and reevaluate and move forward on that way. So we definitely plan not to leave them on the shelves but to utilize them in our plans going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you. This is a public hearing, so we'd like to open it up to the public. Anyone wishing to make comments concerning this ordinance, please come forward and give us your name and hold your comments to 3 minutes.

Thank you.

I'm Greg Carlisle. I was part of this Planning Commission, or neighborhood plan. We called it SLOSH. So 8 meetings for 6 or 7 months. There was about 40 of us, and then 30, and probably 20, 30 of us that kept together quite a bit. Started by Kirby, and then Emily, and Kenna, and also with Jason. Thank you. It's been great. It's exciting. I just wanted to know, like you talked about at the Planning Commission, and I mentioned that is— what is it, 20, 30 pages? It's so comprehensive. But it does include hundreds of suggestions from hundreds of people all over. So as I talked to some of you privately, and then I think it's overwhelming. It's kind of overwhelming to us. How can we get where we prioritize some of these things, whether it's traffic, illegal rentals, properties, congestion, just various things? And that— have it broadcasted back or accountability somehow? Because what drives us after Emily works on this and some of my fellow members of this slosh, we've talked about it and says, well, okay, that was great, now what? I think we're all kind of feeling that way. And so is there any type of a mechanism set up where maybe you pick the top 2 or 3? Maybe it was bicycle, you know, high density of course is the big thing. You know, any answers on that? Do you have something that you do, you spend a certain amount of time, you could get back to us?

I would suggest that you reach out to us as a city council and send us an email and reach out to Emily and Jason to see if you could meet with them and talk about priorities.

So, all right, maybe in conclusion to Emily and Jason, can we have a follow-up meeting maybe with some of us? and just say, okay, now we've done this, and then get back to them instead of letting all your great work just poof. Anyway, thank you for this process, and I appreciate it.

Thank you. Any other comments?

Yes.

I attended this meeting too, and I rather enjoyed it. My question is quick. I didn't hear anything about how often these plans would be revisited or revised. I know that neighborhoods change character with the changing people that are in them. So is it a 5, 10, 20? That's my only question is how often will these be reexamined and reprioritized?

Thank you.

Jason, any comments?

So we started this in 2015, hopefully end it in the beginning of 2020. And then we'll— so it's about a 5-year cycle as we end it. We'll start back again at 5 years revisiting each of those. And then also the overall general plan will also revisit about every 5 years. I had a point and I just forgot about it. So—

OK.

Oh, as far as priorities, sorry. So once we finish these plans, Emily will be taking every implementation of all these different plans, prioritizing them, and we'll be working with Sam Kelly, our city engineer, to try to prioritize if there's some CIP stuff we can do, if there's some other ways we prioritize improvements. Then we're going to take those and try to implement them over time. We're hopefully actively you know, a participant in it.

And keep the council involved in that.

Absolutely.

Jamie, did you have a comment?

Mayor, just in, in response to Mr. Carlisle's question and to Mr. Halliday's question as well, relative to how do we keep this fresh, how do we keep it on our radar, so to speak, a lot of that too happens by way of the budget process where we look to prioritize limited resources that we have, and we want to make sure that the resources that we have are targeted towards projects that, one, meet particular goals that you as the City Council have, but also are consistent with the needs and desires and concerns of the citizenry. And these neighborhood plans are a great way for us to take the temperature and to assess what the greatest needs and concerns are in each of these respective neighborhoods. So as, as we move forward and Emily and Jason continue to assimilate all of this data, not just in this one neighborhood but in all the neighborhood plans that we've completed, the idea is to cross-reference these needs and concerns with where we're allocating resources, where we're allocating personnel time and attention, and overall city assets and resources. So to, you know, to speak to Mr. Carlisle, this is, this is not a static process, but one where we will actually pay attention to, to needs and priorities, not just based on, for example, one neighborhood plan, but all the plans we've done since 2015.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak? If not, we'll close the public comment portion of our public hearing. and bring it back to the council. Councilmember Lentz has a comment.

So just on that note, as far as revisiting and reprioritizing these over the next 5 years, how do you see the process changing? In other words, the, the first time you go through it, you're kind of starting from scratch and building it up. Are you going to go to the— is it the same number of meetings? Are you anticipating the same kind of cycle and the same type of presentations from the city staff? the second time around, or will this be more of a lighter touch the second time through now that we have kind of a base of the goals built up?

Having not done that and gotten to that point yet, we're still probably going to discuss it as staff, but I think it may be more of a lighter touch, not going through the same cycle, but inviting those that participated last time to try to reengage them in the process and maybe even encouraging others to be involved. Basically, it's a way for us to get involved with the citizens, To get them involved, to get them up to speed on what the city can and can't do. And it just really helps to involve them. And I think that's kind of our key. And how we do that, I guess, is still yet to be determined. But we definitely want to still be involved in the neighborhood and try to encourage as much involvement as we can as we revisit each of the plans.

Interesting, just trying to balance that out because you have the, the people that were through it the first time and might not want to hear all the same presentations and the same activities, but You might have somebody that moved in 3 or 4 years ago and missed that cycle the last time through. So just so that everybody has kind of that equitable opportunity to participate the same way.

And part of our plan, you know, with the Neighborhoods in Action and how we're trying to now involve more citizens— and this is part of a way for us to engage some of the citizens that actively want to be involved. We can use them to facilitate when a project comes into the neighborhood. We can actively give those information that want to be involved in this program. So it's a tool for us to be able to involve citizens.

Thank you.

So I've noticed that when neighbors are invested in their neighborhood and work together, their neighborhood is lifted and the quality of life is lifted and it becomes a very great place to raise a family. I think it's important for the neighbors to know, as you just mentioned, that we as city staff members, city council members, etc., are interested in these neighborhoods and their continued improvement, their continued success, and that we want to have strong neighborhoods and strong families. So thank you. Would someone care to make a motion on this ordinance? Okay, Councilmember Larey.

I move that we adopt the Stonewood and Lake Ridge Neighborhood Plan and the Orem, Sharon, and Hillcrest Neighborhood Plan in Appendix Z of the Orem General Plan.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay, we'll start with Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the ordinance passes. Thank you very much, Emily and Jason. We'll now move on to 10.3, which is a resolution, uh, for a site plan approval for Lumber Liquidators, uh, addition being located generally at 168 East University Parkway in the PD-5 zone. And Jason Bench is our presenter.

Yes. So the applicant before you tonight is simply wanting to take this property right here, which you can see was an outdoor storage area for a previous business some years ago. They want to actually enclose it and make it part of their center. And so they're here before you tonight. Lumber Liquidators is the applicant here to enclose that and actually go through the process to Is the applicant here? I believe.

Good.

Okay, could you come forward?

So they are— you can see the Lumber Liquidator location. It is matching the existing— so the materials, the look, feel of the center. So the PD-5 zone does require City Council to approve it. The Planning Commission did make a recommendation for approval. They do meet all the requirements and are here before you tonight to receive site plan approval.

Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Sue Czekaczynski. I'm the property owner of this shopping center. Lumber Liquidators is our tenant.

We're—

they're moving in from the Linden location.

Okay, great. Thank you. Anything else, Jason? Okay. Any comments from the council or questions?

Okay, if I may, Mayor, I just noticed this is a former home center location. Were you the owner back then when Ernst—

I think, I think, I think it's been vacant for a few, like several years before we actually—

Okay, so it's in keeping—

I'm just stating that it's keeping in what has been the history of this location.

So I sure think it's great.

Councilmember Lentz.

So, and I, I asked about this a little bit in the, the work session we had prior, but my, my main concern is people that are coming to shop there and, and pick up, you know, building materials, how are they actually going to get it into their vehicle? And it was mentioned that possibly they would pull around to the back and load up there. And I know that that back property line, you know, abuts up against the residential neighborhood with You know, single-family homes back in there. My concern is just if it— if it kind of turns the back of the property, which has traditionally been more just kind of utilitarian, you know, rear entrance kind of thing, if it turns into kind of a loading area or delivery area almost, I'm concerned how that might impact the residential area behind there. So maybe you could speak to that.

Sure.

So on the Is that this side?

Okay, so on the east side of the building, actually, there are existing roll-up doors right there. Yeah, in that area. And one of those doors is going to be the delivery and pickup area. So actually not at the rear of the building, but that is a private, you know, service drive that's on our property. And on the Um, there is a wall on the property line that shields the neighboring properties from that area.

Jason, in that middle rendering there, the, the roll-up doors there, is that actually for Joanne's? Like, is that their loading? Sorry, the middle, the middle one, the, the south elevation.

The back of the building there on the right.

Is that the back of Joanne's?

No, that's—

Joanne's is here, I believe.

Correct. Yeah, actually, really, it's this area here is— yeah, so there's going to be like this area here, which is— I mean, it does have an existing roll-up door that used to Just the ones on the side are going to be used. And then, you know, Joann's and the other tenants here in the back do get deliveries on their own back there.

Okay, but it wouldn't be, you know, customer pickups, you know, coming in and out of there. It would be, you know, less frequent, just bulk deliveries and things like that, you're saying, in the back?

In— yeah, in the back, no, nothing at the back. On the side, customers will pick up.

Thank you.

Can you just tell us a little bit about Lumber Liquidators, what they do?

Sure. I mean, they're kind of like, you know, a Home Depot but for wood. And, you know, people want to— residents want to do remodels of their houses or, you know, anything like that. They have the lumber, the supplies for that.

Okay.

Okay. Any other questions from the council? All right, I would accept a motion to go ahead and, um, pass the resolution.

Someone—

I'll make the motion, Mayor.

Okay.

Um, this is 10.4, to approving the accessory structure.

Nope.

Yep, 10.3, site plan approval for the lumber liquidators addition located at 168 East University Parkway in the PD-5 zone.

And you move that we approve that?

The resolution.

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll start with Council Member Seestrand.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the resolution passes. Thank you for being here. Uh, next one is 10.4, resolution approving accessory structure for the Smith residence located at 1311 South 1100 East in the PD-18 zone, and Jason Bench is our presenter.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. In the PD-18 zone, they do allow for larger accessory structures. The ordinance is written that anything over 1,000 square feet needs to come before the council through the conditional use process. This is 2,625 square feet. The allowable square footage on this lot is just above that, so they meet the requirement there. They meet the setbacks. They have 10 feet and 11 feet on either side. The zone allows up to 5, as close to 5. So it meets the requirements. They're simply doing an accessory structure for a rec— rec location. The interior is basically a recreation room with some balcony in the front to overlook below. Planning Commission did make a recommendation. They're here before you tonight to receive approval for that accessory building. So be glad to address any questions.

Is the applicant here? Could you come forward and give us your name? My name is Kimball Smith. And the recreation area that you're looking at, is that basketball, volleyball?

A basketball court.

Okay.

Great. Looks like you like to play basketball.

I have a little boy. He's actually in Vegas right now playing.

Okay, great, great. Any comments or questions from the council? Okay, um, I would accept— sorry, Councilmember Lurie.

Um, if I remember correctly, none of your neighbors had a problem with this when you had the public meeting. Is that my memory holding me right?

Um, to my knowledge, no one showed up to the meeting afterwards, there was a gentleman who questioned if it fit within or if we were asking for a variance, which we were not.

Okay, so your neighbors are supportive?

Okay, a few of them are already in the neighborhood, yes.

Okay, sounds good.

Okay, um, I will go ahead and make a motion to approve the accessory structure for the Smith residence located at 1311 South 1100 East in the PD-18 zone. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll move forward with a vote. Councilmember Seestrand?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the resolution passes. Good luck on your basketball games. Uh, Jamie, do you have any items?

Yes, Mayor.

Just wanted to give you a little bit of an update as related to our capital projects. If you drove by the City Center today, you saw that we had our contractor pouring footings for our new library project. It actually was a little delayed, and there's kind of a funny story tied to that. The structural engineer was given plans for necessary rebar as part of the project, and somehow the COVID sheet of our project got paperclipped or stapled to a hotel, a set of hotel plans. And so the rebar was delivered last week, and they started working through it and trying to assemble this rebar and quickly realized that it didn't fit, that this was tied to a hotel project and not a library project. So they actually had to reorder and work through a different supplier To get the appropriate rebar. But the work is now underway and is complete, and we had our footings that were poured today, and they are obviously the first step in going vertical as related to our project. The, the other issue relates to the fitness center, and as you well know, this is a very aggressive construction schedule that we have set for ourselves with the fitness center and specifically tied to the closure of the center and the reopening of some of the facilities, specifically the pool, in advance of cutting the ribbon on the entire facility as a whole. That is requiring us to kind of think outside the box as it relates to following traditional construction and bid practices. And the recommendation of the architect and our construction contractor, Big D Construction, is that we move forward with what they call a design assist process, whereby a— prior to the completion of the design of the facility that we are, in fact, building, the contractor, based on kind of a best value basis award the contract for, for example, some of the subs— steel, electrical, some of those plumbing, some of those key subcontractors— that they do it on a best value basis and not exclusively on a price basis. And that the designated and hired contractor be at the table while the design is taking place, and so they have an ownership in this whole effort. It also allows us to move forward in a more expeditious way as related to construction of the facility. This is not something that is unique to the City of Orem. A number of state projects have followed this design assist process As well, in the interest of staying true to the schedule or doing all we can to keep on schedule, we think that this is the right path to follow. This is also an opinion that is shared by the contractor as well as the architect. We also acknowledge, though, that as we move through this design assist process, that we may incur some additional costs. To have the contractor, for example, at the table having these conversations with us in advance of completion of designing the project. So I'll give you an example. If we wait for the project to be— or the phases of the project to be designed before we bid them out, Then we actually will spend quite a bit of time in the bid process, and there is the possibility that on the first phase of the project, we may contract with one electrical contract. The next phase of the contract, we may contract with another electrical contractor, and so on and so forth. And then we find ourselves potentially Potentially in the uncomfortable position where one contractor is pointing fingers against the other contractor and saying, look, I did my work right, but the next guy who's coming in, he or she is going to find fault with the first contractor and so forth. And that can happen with a number of trades that are assigned to the project. So in lieu of going through that formal bid process in each of those phases, we would essentially contract with a subcontractor to complete all phases of electrical, for example, within the city— within the project, all phases of the plumbing, all phases of the structural and mechanical systems. And they then would have an opportunity To sit at the table for all of this process, and there would be no finger-pointing or no— I guess you could say contention tied to if there is a problem, who's responsible for the problem. We believe this accelerates construction. We believe it actually makes the process more efficient because we are only working with one contractor. We believe it builds additional accountability into the process, but we also acknowledge too that there could be an added cost associated with this effort. But we believe in the interest of schedule and getting the project open on time, we believe it's the best path to go. And so I wanted to just kind of make you aware of this decision point that we are at in relation to construction and the recommendation that we have to move forward with this design assist method. I think we have Ryan here and Bren, who have also been participating, and Carl. They were all party to this conversation as well. I don't know, Ryan, if you want to add anything.

Yeah, I think this is a case of receiving a recommendation from our, our CMGC contractor. Bringing Big D on board at the start of the project, the goal was to help them guide us down the path to meeting schedule and meeting budget. This is a recommendation that's come from them. In my opinion, it makes a lot of sense. We do have a lot of very critical milestones to hit on this.

Thank you.

For example, right now our structural engineer that works for our architect, they're doing all they can to get a footing and foundation plan out, and we really don't even have a floor plan finalized.

We're close.

We have a good concept. They're working as hard as they can to get there, but this helps us possibly make up some schedule down the road that right now we're Struggling to hit. And so it helps us focus on that 8-month goal of having those pools reopened. Okay, thank you.

Any other comments? Okay, if there's nothing else before us, we'll go ahead and adjourn. I'll take a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

We are adjourned. Thank you very much.