City Council · 2020-07-14

Okay, can everyone see the slide presentation?

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

So this is something new that we'll be starting this year and plan to do every year moving forward. And this is just a yearly HR annual report just to let the mayor and council kind of see what happenings are going on in human resources. Throughout the year and what our plans are for the upcoming year. Because as you'll see in our presentation today, that something that you already know is that, that our staff is our greatest asset to the city. So I think that in sharing this information with you all today, you will be able to get a greater understanding of some of the great things that, that staff are doing and some of the metrics as far as human resources go. So I've got Jenica Jones at the city's City Management Analyst, and she will go over some statistics and graphs about some specific HR things, and then I will close out the presentation on some future items that we're working on. So with that, Jenica, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, yes, just as I go through this, there's a lot of information on this data, so if you have questions, feel free to ask them throughout the presentation. Otherwise, we can take them at the end as well. So first, we'll just go over some basic employee demographics and information about the budget as far as it relates to personnel. So we, as of July 1st of this year, we have 974 total employees. 433 of these are full-time, and then the rest are a combination of variable seasonal flex, part-time, and the mayor and city council are also included included in this. And just as of note, there are 440 full-time employees budgeted for this fiscal year and fiscal year '21, so we are about fully staffed. And as far as gender goes, when you look at all of our employees, so including full-time, part-time, flex, it's 56% male, 44% female. When we look at only our full-time employees, 77% male and 23% female. And our supervisors who supervise one or more employees would be 74% male, 26% female. And as far as ethnicity goes, it's the same whether we're looking at all employees or just our full-time. It's 93% white and 7% other. And 47% of all of our employees live in Orem, and 25% of our full-time employees live in Orem. So this graph shows how long our employees have been with the City of Orem. It doesn't include any lateral experience if employees have worked for another city. So it ranges from 0 to 35.7 years for our full-time benefited employees. The average years of service of those employees is about 10 years, and the median is 6.9 years. And this is equal to the federal average for local government employees according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So in fiscal year 21, we have about $48 million budgeted for all personnel expenditures. This would be in all departments and funds. Approximately $37.5 million of this is from the general fund, and $10.5 million is from other funds. So this chart on the left is showing as a percentage of the total budget, excluding capital projects, personnel makes up about 47%. With operations making up about 53%. And then if we just look at the general fund on the right-hand side, personnel is about 67.5% of our budget with operations about 32.5%. And this breaks it down by budget— or sorry, by department. So this is again looking at all funds. Obviously the largest sources of our personnel expenditures are police fire, and public works, as they're the largest departments. So those 3 departments together make up about $32 million, or 68% of our personnel expenditures. And then in the general fund specifically, it's a similar picture. About 69% of our personnel expenditures in the general fund are for those same 3 departments: police, fire, and public works. So we're going to just give a brief overview of our benefits, both our fixed benefits, health and dental insurance, and retirement. So this chart shows the total cost to the city in blue over the past 5 years since 2015. So this would be for our high deductible family coverage health insurance plan. So the $13,496 in 2015 is the amount that Orem contributed for each full-time employee. That would be the base health insurance costs as well as the HSA contribution. And since then, it's increased to $17,348 for the current year. And during that time, we've made it a goal to keep employee cost— or employee costs constant. So the employee premium has remained the same at $70 a month for family coverage, or $840 a year. So over this time period, the health insurance costs have increased about 29%, but the city has absorbed all of those costs. And this chart has a lot of information, but what we're looking at is a fixed benefits comparison to our sister cities. So at the top of the slide, you'll notice a list of cities, and this is who we look to annually to compare both our pay and our benefits to. So American Fork, Bountiful, Draper, Layton, Lehi, Murray, Ogden, Pleasant Grove, Provo, Sandy, South Jordan, Spanish Fork, Springville, St. George, West Jordan, and West Valley. And these are de-identified in the chart below. But what we look at is how much does each city contribute to health insurance, dental insurance, HSA, how much does the employee pay for that coverage, and then we break it down to hourly fixed benefits. And to make this as close of a comparison as possible, we're looking only at each city's highest deductible family plan. That's the most common plan that our employees are on, so we're trying to compare. They have different plans for each city. Obviously deductibles, out-of-pocket maxes are going to be different.

Yes.

But we're trying to make as close of a comparison as possible. So the average of all the cities is on the top row, and then Orem is the second row. So when you look at health coverage, we contribute slightly less to health premiums than other cities on average, but that's most likely because we have a higher deductible plan than a lot of these other cities. We do contribute more to dental. Employees don't pay anything for dental here. Our HSA is by far the highest of any of the cities on this list and much higher than average. Employees again pay only $70 a month here for health insurance. And that would be compared to an average of about $100 a month for these other cities. So we break that down to an hourly rate in Orem that adds about $8.57 to an employee's pay per hour.

Hey, Jenica. Yeah, looks like Brett has a question. I also have a question.

Hey, go ahead.

Um, on your, on your table, you didn't, you didn't populate the actual cities. So my question is, which of these is Provo? How close are we to Provo?

Um, off the top of my head, I can't remember which is Provo.

Um, is there another sister city that's about our same size? I'm just trying to see.

Yeah, well, Silverdale of them would be, but just with this chart, we're not able to identify it.

I mean, we de-identified it just Just because we didn't think it was the right thing to do to put their, their names out there publicly. But if you want to know individually, we're happy to share that with you off, off the record.

Thanks.

I know Brent was raising his hand, so I'll go off now.

Brent, did you have a question?

I did.

No.

Are you asking Brent?

I thought Debbie had mentioned that Brent had a question.

Oh, I just saw him raise his hand, so I thought he wanted to ask a question. I'm sorry.

Okay. No worries. We'll move on. So this is just the same info in a chart. Chart just the hourly benefit. So what shows that we're slightly above average for our fixed benefits. Um, as far as variable benefits go, we just wanted to focus on the main retirement costs. So in the current fiscal year '21, the city has chosen to take on the additional 2.27% URS retirement rate increase for public safety. So both our police and fire Tier 2 employees. There are no URS contribution rate increases for Tier 1 employees in the current fiscal year. The city does offer up to a 4% 457 match for all full-time employees. We also participate in a retiree health savings plan for all of our full-time employees, and in the previous fiscal year, this cost about $180,000. We contribute 17.9% of police and fire overtime into a 401 for each employee. And we also provide a URS police and fire line of duty health insurance benefit, which last year cost $20,000. So now we'll go look at some of our turnover statistics. This first chart, the bottom row just shows our turnover rates over the past 10 fiscal years. So in fiscal year '10, it was 5%. This past year, it was about 14.5%. It's— this chart might show it better. It's increased, but we also plotted it against the Utah unemployment rate. As the unemployment rate decreases, we expect turnover to increase just because people are— as the economy's better, they're able to find other jobs. And this is not unique to Orem. And it's a pattern that we expect to see. So this chart shows the turnover by reason, and this is just for our full-time benefited employees. That's for this whole section. So the 2 largest sources of turnover are other employment and retirement. And in recent years, other employment has overtaken retirement as the largest source of turnover. Those are the two largest sources. So we wanted to look at turnover rates for just our key departments, some of the ones that are our biggest departments or maybe losing more employees. So we pulled out both sworn police, sworn fire, development services, public works, and then we combined all other departments into one. And we compared this to the state and local government turnover rate according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. And you'll notice that our rates are better than those. They have been increasing for each of these departments in the recent fiscal years, but they're still below the federal averages. So this is the same information on a chart. The black is all other employees, blue is sworn police, gray is development services, green is public works, and red is are sworn fire. So depending on the year, one may be higher, but each of these departments has followed similar patterns over the past 10 years. Um, the ones where we see kind of a big spike is development services. In fiscal year '19, they were at 30% of their workforce turned— had a separation from the city. And sworn police has gotten higher in recent fiscal years. Sworn fire is typically below the other departments. We wanted to take out our sworn personnel and kind of just dig deeper into the reasons why, why they're leaving. So in fiscal year '19, we had 19 separations from the police department as far as sworn personnel go. 5 of these left due to retirement, 11 left due to other employment, 1 left due to dismissal, 1 left due to personal reasons, and 1 resignation. Um, interestingly, one of the officers who retired has since come back to Orem employment and is still employed by the city. And then in fiscal year '20, we had fewer separations. We had 15— 4 retirements, 8 leaving due to other employment, 1 resignation, and 1 relocation. And 2 of the officers who left due to other employment have since come back to Orem Employment as well.

So question for you, do you know of those who left for other employment, if that's related to compensation? Did you dig down that deep?

I'll have Carrie answer that.

Mayor, I can speak to that. Um, in the last, uh, calendar year— not calendar year, the last fiscal year— I've started to meet with all sworn officers and firefighters who are leaving to find the reasons why they are leaving. And there was only one that I spoke to that was willing to do an exit interview with me that said it was because, because of pay. There's a lot of other reasons why some of these officers have left for advancement opportunities. Some have left because they wanted to continue in the canine field and their, their time in the canine section was over, or they enjoyed working as an SRO officer in the schools and their, their limited position there was changed and they needed to go back to patrol or to other positions. And so those are some varying reasons why they've left as well.

How many were willing to do an exit interview with you and how many were not?

In the, in the police department, I've done 7 exit interviews out of the 11. Some of them just didn't even want to meet as they were leaving.

Okay.

Okay, and then as far as sworn fire goes, in both fiscal year '19 and fiscal year '20, we had 6 separations due to a combination of retirement, other employment, dismissal, and resignation. And now I'll just give a brief overview of our career ladder program and how it's been functioning. So just to give an overview, phase 1 of the career ladder program was implemented in 2018, and this allowed employees, our public safety employees, police and fire, to advance within grade 10. So this is our entry-level police officers and our entry-level firefighter paramedics. So after meeting certain years of service and certain criteria, criteria, they were able to advance to a Police Officer II or a Police Officer Senior, and the same with firefighter paramedic. They could be a Firefighter Paramedic II or Firefighter Paramedic Senior. Last year, we wanted to expand this to include the supervisory positions and just create more opportunities for employees to be able to accelerate throughout the range. So we expanded the career ladder program to include grades 11, 13, and 15. So in grade 11 in the police department, we created a new master police officer position. In grade 11 fire, which is the fire engineer position, we created a senior fire engineer or acting station officer position. Grade 13 police, we created a master sergeant. In fire, we created a senior captain. And grade 15 in police, we created a first lieutenant. And in fire, we created a senior battalion chief. So this has allowed a lot of employees to take advantage of this system as they meet the requirements and years of service and be able to accelerate throughout the range. So we've seen a lot of progress in terms of how our wages compare to other cities and allowing employees to feel like they have opportunities to advance here. And the public—

So I have a question. This is Terry Peterson. Were the police and the fire people involved with these decisions as far as the new titles? And were they aware of it? Were they involved? Did you get their input? I'd be curious about that.

Yes. Well, we worked very closely with the chiefs throughout the process in developing the requirements for them as well as the titles.

So question for Chief Sanderson and maybe This is too early to question, but I know that on some of these grade improvements, that some of it's related to classes and certification that the fire engineers need to take. And sometimes those classes have not been made available. Are you working on that, Chief, and involved with that?

I believe there's one class. I don't have the name of that class right now that has been postponed due to the COVID through UVU, and I haven't dug into that yet, but I'll put it on my list and talk with Jason tomorrow just to figure out if— what that certification or that requirement is to see if there's even an option to replace it with something else.

So Yeah, that would be great.

So in the fire department, there's currently 27 fire employees who are in various stages of the career ladder program, so meaning that they've reached one of these advancements. So we have 1 senior battalion chief, 7 senior captains, 7 senior engineer or acting station officers, 7 senior firefighter paramedics, 5 firefighter paramedic 2s. There are a few employees who are eligible and have not been able to meet the requirements to advance. And what I mean by eligible is that they have enough time in position to be able to advance. That's the main criteria that they have to have certain years of service to advance within the career ladder. But for the most part, most employees that are eligible have done so. And then in our police department, we have 46 police employees who are in various stages of the career ladder program. So we have 2 first lieutenants, 4 master sergeants, 10 master police officers, 13 senior police officers, and 17 police officer 2s. And as far as recruitment goes, this is for all of last fiscal year for all employees. HR processed 2,300 applications during the 2020 fiscal year. We hired 78 full-time employees, 1 part-time benefited, 132 part-time non-benefited, and 84 seasonal. And as far as that 78 number goes The turnover in the turnover last fiscal year was 61 full-time employees, so we did hire more full-time employees than we lost. And then specific to public safety recruitment retention, we have placed extra emphasis on this in recent fiscal years. So, and it's starting to pay off. So in the police department, we're only currently down two positions. So a chief. And then an assistant chief or captain. And in the past year, we've hired at least 9 lateral police officers, either as police officer 1, 2, or senior. In the fire department, we're currently down 2 firefighter paramedics. Over the past while, we've been offering up to a $9,000 sign-on bonus for these difficult-to-fill positions requiring a 4-year commitment. And we've also offered public safety employees a year-for-year service credit toward towards the career ladder to allow these lateral hires to advance more quickly through the range as well, or be hired on at a higher grade. And then as far as retention goes, our main efforts are to increase their communication with HR and make them feel that we are willing to be transparent and keep them on and feel valued. So—

Jenny, can I get a question for you?

Okay.

Um, so how many laterals have we had Come over both for police and fire?

Um, so police, there's been 9. I don't know if there's any lateral fire over the past year.

We have not had any laterals in the fire department come over other than there was one that came over from Sandy City, but I don't think it was within this last fiscal year.

I think it was at the end of the fiscal year prior to that. Okay, thank you.

So one of the things we've been doing is encouraging employees specifically in public safety, but also all of our employees, if they have concerns or are thinking about looking for another offer, to come in and talk with HR, and we can help them understand what they're getting at the city, what they would be getting if they were to take another offer. So this is This screenshot is just an example of what we've been doing specific to the fire department. We also have one for the police department, but they can— an employee can come in and they can say, I expect, or my current salary is $70,000 and I have an offer at X city to make $72,000. And then this will pull what their health insurance costs would be, what their benefits would be, and come out with this total compensation value at the bottom. So it shows that even though their base pay would be $2,000 better at this other city, that once you factor in the benefits, they would actually be $2,400 better in Orem. So this has helped us retain a lot of fire employees specifically, but we think it's just a goal of ours to help employees feel that they can come talk to HR and we can help them understand what they would receive, what they may be giving up. Just so they can make an accurate and informed decision.

This is Tom McDonald. Mayor, may I ask a question on that last slide? Hearing nothing, I'll go on. Do you feel like the employees are willing to come in? I mean, it's one thing for us to be willing to talk to them. Is there an environment where they come in and say, hey, I like it here, but I am going to make $2,000 more at this other? And will they sit down and be frank with you? Have you found that to be true?

This is Carrie. I'll speak to that. I would say yes, they do. We do have an open line of communication both ways. I feel now that employees do feel comfortable coming into Human Resources and having this conversation with us. In particular, in the fire department, I can say that I've had this— I personally have this conversation and pulled up this specific spreadsheet with 3 firefighters in the last fiscal year who all had offers to go to other agencies, and we were able to show them through this graphic that they were better off staying here in Orem City. So we were able to retain those 3 firefighters.

Hey, Carrie, this is Terry. Just going along with Tom's question, what if I'm an employee and I'm not happy about something? What Is there a protection I have if I come in and vent something to you that it's not going to go to my supervisor? Or tell me how that process works.

Absolutely. So most employees who do have something that they need to communicate outside of their chain of command are always welcome to come into the HR office. They usually come in and speak with me personally, and I have these conversations pretty much on a daily basis with with employees that sometimes just need to have someone outside of their department to speak with, speak to. They are always able to tell me something that they don't want to share with their department. Now, if it's something illegal or something that is obviously something that's an issue that we need to look into department-wide, then I will let them know that it cannot be held in confidence. But if it's just something where they just have a question in particular that they don't feel comfortable talking to their chain of command about, they're always welcome to come in to talk to me.

So if I'm mad with my— I'm really ticked off with my supervisor, I'm safe that if I share that with you, it's not going to go to— you're going to—

as long as, like I say, it's not something illegal, or—

I'm comfortable that I can do that and you're not going to share that with them?

Yes, again, as long as it isn't something that I'm not required to share or something that I'm required to keep.

Okay.

I'll turn the time over to Carrie for the remainder.

Thanks, Jenica. I do want to give Jenica credit. She's the one who created that spreadsheet and keeps it updated. On a continual basis so that if any other entities that we compare to do make any changes to their benefits or wages, we can update it seamlessly. So a lot of credit for us being able to retain some of these public safety personnel goes to her for that creation of that. So for the last half of this presentation, I just wanted to give you some more information on what Human Resources is doing to improve community communication and employee development. So in this past year, what we've done to increase communication efficiency and transparency from HR and city management is that we've created the weekly City Ditty. This is through a partnership with our internal communications team. Weekly we meet and discuss things that are important to the city, and we put together a weekly newsletter. In addition to that, we now have an improved intranet, an employee intranet. We've called it Walter, after Walter C. Orem from the City of Orem. And Peter Wolfley is the godfather of Walter. He has been integral in making that a reality, as well as Matt Kemmerer from the library. He's the one who created the Walter logo, the cartoon figure that that you see of Walter. So this has really been a citywide project. With that creation of Walter, the internet, we've been able to do all of our HR forms online. So prior to that, employees were required to come into the HR office to fill out any change forms, like if they changed their address or they needed to change their W-4 forms or anything like that. They were required to come in and do a paper form with HR. But now with Walter, they're able to do that online. That makes them more efficient. They don't have to take time out of their work schedule to come in and meet in HR as well. So that's another great thing. And then also we've increased meetings with employee groups, both in-person and virtual meetings, especially during this COVID-19 time. There's been a lot more employee town hall type meetings and communications out to employees so that they understand where we are as far as the COVID situation goes and, and other items like that. Then as far as management and leadership goes, this calendar year we started new supervisor trainings with collaboration between John Park, who is an outside party, myself, and Jason Adamson, the risk manager. We've created these supervisor trainings that not only discuss leadership principles but also discuss management issues that we're having with the City of Orem and ways that, that we can help support support our supervisors and managers to better create, better create better team environments and such. In addition, we've sent multiple supervisors to leadership boot camps through Learning Point. We also have books available to supervisors and other employees at the library that are just for City of Orem employees that are about leadership. There's a supervisor book club. ICMA has an effective supervisory practices webinar series, and then new to this year is a new supervisor guide that was created to help the City of Orem employees with their management skills. As with other years, we still have the tuition reimbursement, which is up to 75% reimbursement or up to $1,500 per year for employees to help promote the importance of continuing your education. And we've increased our wellness program. Here at the City of Orem, we're really engaged in the fact that we care more about just not the employee and their ability to work here, but their total well-being. And not just their physical health, but their mental health and their financial health as well. So we've increased a bunch of financial wellness seminars and trainings, as well as our employee activities. We had a new Winter Olympics this past fall, and that was really fun. Our Pi Day— Mayor, I'm sorry you didn't win that contest, but that was also really fun. And then our mental health webinars through Blomquist Hill. So looking ahead into fiscal year '21, a main focus for us in Human Resources is employee engagement. So we want to continue to look for ways to improve that employee engagement. As you will recall, a couple of months ago we met and created in our new policy about having a new employee engagement team. We will work with them closely to continue to look for ways to improve transparency with employees and administration. In addition, we just recently this month went out to RFP for a new benefits broker. We are looking to look at some cost savings as far as our insurance costs. Are, as well as improved broker services and our improved benefits enrollment system. We will also complete the compensation and benefits study and make recommendations for internal and external equity here at the city. And finally, we'll retain investment advisors. We've already gone out to RFP for that. Well, that investment advisor group will help us improve our fund lineup for staff, review recordkeeping costs and help with fiduciary responsibilities. So with that, before I open it up to any final questions, I just wanted to mention too, if you have any questions about any specific data as far as it concerns employee workgroups or particular departments and just would like to have any additional information or data throughout the year, just know that you— that here in Human Resources, we're always happy to pull any of that data or information that you need should you— that need arise. So with that, does anyone have any questions?

Yes, I have a question. The charts that were done so well that you put up through this presentation, I did not find them in the packet. I could be wrong, but could you send those to each of the council members?

Absolutely, we can send that out tonight.

Very well done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Council.

Okay, if no further questions, we'll go ahead and move on. Uh, our next discussion is on the city retention schedule, um, and our presenter is Jody Bates. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council.

This is what I'm calling the next installment to our retention schedule.

This was provided to you in your packet.

This is for the Development Services Department, which includes your Planning and Zoning Division, your Building Division, and your Engineering Division.

Um, it—

hopefully you had a chance to look over that.

If you have any questions, I ask that you please get with me.

If not, we're proposing that this be on the consent agenda for approval at the next meeting.

Any comments or questions? Okay, well, thank you, Jodi. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

We'll now go to our agenda review of our meeting this evening. Um, our prayer and our spiritual thought will be given by Brent Sumner, and our pledge will be given by Brent Sumner. We then have our personal appearances. Consent items, approval of meeting minutes, June 30th, 2020, July 7th, 2020, the second being a special city council meeting, the first being a regular city council meeting. Then the next item is a resolution approval of the City of Orem Legal Department retention schedule. And the third one is an ordinance amending Chapter 7.

Second.

Of the Orem City Code pertaining to building, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, fire, and abatement codes. Is everybody comfortable with those items staying on the consent items? Okay, we'll move on to our scheduled items. The first one is an ordinance amending fiscal year 2020-2021 budget. Our presenter is Brandon Nelson. Brandon, anything you want to bring up?

Uh, no, nothing specifically at this time. I mean, I'll be obviously discussing each of the elements, uh, that, you know, they're really the just the 3 items that we'll be discussing in the public hearing.

Okay, um, the next one is a public hearing. This is on an ordinance amending Section 22-24-3F1A. And 22-24-3F2D, which is design standards of the Orange City Code pertaining to accessory buildings in the Canyon Crossing District Zone. And our presenter is Jason Bench. Jason, anything you want to mention?

So this was continued, Mayor, from the 16th City Council meeting in June.

We're back.

We've met with the applicant and are going to propose we make the changes to make their building fit on the site. So 40%, and then 13 feet height, and then the rest of the standards, which we'll discuss in the meeting. But we've made those changes to come forward.

And the applicant will be there?

He should be, but we met with him last week. He's comfortable with the proposals that we are presenting tonight.

Okay, if you could just let me know if he's in attendance tonight. Okay, and I'm trying to remember on that public hearing, did we get the public hearing in public comment or not?

I think we did.

Yes.

No, uh, Jackie's saying they did not.

Oh, okay.

All right. Um, okay, then 9.3, um, is a conditional use permit approval of the commercial Daycare Smiling Faces located at 410 South Main Street in the R-8 zone. Jason Bench is the presenter. Jason, anything you want to bring up?

So we did send out a map today prepared by Brady Hill, our transportation engineer. He's on the line. He may have just a brief comment before we get to the meeting.

So Brady?

Jason, can you hear me?

Yep.

Yes, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, just as Jason mentioned, I figured this out, I believe this morning. And really just looking at— we ended up taking a look at our sight distance at this intersection and kind of want to just be able to kind of go over that with you guys.

Okay.

You want to go over some of it now, or you're talking about going over it tonight?

Nope, definitely would like to go over it now and kind of walk through what's been done. I believe, Jason, are you going to put that on the screen?

And Mayor, if I may, has the applicant reviewed this in concurrence, or how's the applicant feeling about it?

The applicant has reviewed this.

And?

And they are, they are in agreeance of it.

Thank you.

Let me share this really quick.

Um, do we know if the applicant will be in attendance at our jury?

Uh, they will be, yes.

Yes. Yep.

And so will he be there by himself, or will he have his advisor there?

Uh, his attorney will be present.

Okay.

Can you guys see my screen now?

Yes. Okay, so, so just a few things I want to, um, Go over with and be able to maybe help answer any questions that anybody may have regarding this. And so what I looked at here was just a— it's called intersection sight distance here based on AASHTO guidelines here for, you know, that northbound left turn at Main Street. So kind of Based on their standards, we looked at this, you know, the posted speed limit here on 400 South is 25 miles per hour. In the AASHTO Green Book, they use design speeds there. So we used a 30-mile-per-hour design speed with that, and it gives a distance that's, you know, along 4 South there that's parallel to the road of 290 feet. And then you connect that tangent or the hypotenuse there across there, and that kind of gives you your sight distance triangle. And it's recommended anything that falls within there that it be relocated, whether that's landscaping, walls, anything that's a sight obstruction there, just to help in terms of safety. And so looking at this, kind of based on the last City Council and some of their concerns, that it ended up eliminating, it looks like 4 parking stalls there on 400 South to being able to allow 3 parking stalls. So that's kind of like the green triangle that you guys see there on 400 South. What's shown kind of in the yellow there is actually just a design vehicle. It's a single unit 40 vehicle there, and just kind of really looking at if we, you know, how close can we have somebody park you know, to 400 South on Main Street there. I mean, in Utah traffic code, it has to at least be 20 feet away. But in terms of looking at this design vehicle, something bigger than a passenger car, that looked like, you know, at least 40 feet was needed to really have something like that clear and not impede in that northbound left turn. So in terms of looking at that, as well as looked at the 25 feet at the access there into the parking lot on each side of keeping that clear. And that's kind of just based on our clear, clear vision area of Orem City there. So the result of all this is that we've got 7 on-street parking, 4 or 3 on 400 South, and then the 4 on Main Street.

But basically you're taking off, what, 4 spaces, 6 spaces 6 total. 6 total. And that's basically, what, 24 students, if I'm reading that correctly, but we had 2 more than we needed. So—

So this would give us a total of 20 parking stalls.

So you're actually taking off 16 students, if I'm correct, where you'd allow 84 in the facility. Is that correct?

That is correct, Mayor. Yes. Yep. Based on this, that, that would be, um, 84, 84, uh, students.

So you're removing 16% of his population, basically.

I thought, uh, Jackson had 83 in his email.

Yeah, based on the 0.24 per student. But I think there is a discussion that's going to be had by Brady and others in the meeting that discusses the ratio or the range in the parking study and ITE standards that could help better understand what the parking needs to be for the students. So 0.24 was the average, but there is an average— of course you're going to have fluctuation on either side. So that's a discussion we'll have in the regular meeting as well.

So anyway, you're saying we could have 86 students, is that correct?

Oh, basically—

This is Steve Earle. Maybe I could jump in here a second real quick. So, uh, the, the original, uh, number that we had of 100 was based on this, um, ITE, International Traffic Engineer standard, uh, that, that says basically for this type of use, uh, you should have 0.24 parking stalls for every child there. And what we didn't realize at the time is that there's actually— the 0.24 is an average of a range. That goes from 0.09 to 0.51, and 0.24 is again the average, but it's not necessarily the correct number or the fixed number that should be applied in all circumstances. And, you know, there— the applicant has been doing some studies on this, and they've evaluated their own site as well as— or their existing site as well as another preschool daycare-type facility up in a northern Utah city.

And they've—

based on those 2, they've actually said that the numbers in Utah justify a 0.09 standard, which is at the very low end of that scale. So the applicant's attorney actually wants to come in and make a presentation to you on behalf of the applicant, in which he plans to argue that that the city council should be applying basically a 0.09 standard, which if followed would allow up to 200, maybe over 200 students potentially. So we're not advocating that standard or saying that that's right. I think that they would need to produce some data and have some evidence that's corroborated that would justify that number. But I think what we're suggesting is that that 2:4 number that the 100 students or children was initially based on may not be the correct standard, and that it might actually be a little bit lower, or the appropriate number might be a little bit lower. And so just want to give you a heads up. And I don't know if Jason might have— I don't know if you can show it on there now, Jason, that Sure. That chart from the I-18 standards that kind of shows how that range works. There you go. So there you go, where Jason is circling there, that shows you this range of rates. Again, going from 0.09 parking stalls per child up to a high of 0.51. And on the left, you see that the average is 0.24. And the argument is, is that this is a nationwide standard and that in Utah Families generally have more children, and therefore they're more likely to be bringing more than one child per trip. And so that if you're, if you're getting more children in per trip, then that justifies a lower parking demand per student. So again, that's going to be something that is going to be discussed this evening. We just wanted to kind of raise it with you so you kind of have an understanding of what their attorney is talking about when he starts talking about these parking demand per student and as well as this range. If you have any questions about understanding what this means, I'd be happy to kind of talk about it.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions.

Okay, we know this is new and this is new to us too.

And I have one too, Mayor, when you're done, so please.

Okay, so are you saying that instead of being at 86, The City of Orem's trying to take it down to 50 or 60?

No, just, just, it's just the opposite.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what do you, what, what are you saying that the City of Orem would allow?

Well, that's something that needs to be discussed and decided tonight and based on what the proper number is. So for example, if they have 20 stalls because they've lost those on parking On-street parking stalls. Let's say they've got 20 stalls. If you, if you use that average, that 0.24, then you get something like 83. If, if, for example, you were to use something like 0.20, then you would have 100 children occupancy level versus, you know, the 83 that you would have at 0.24.

And if you were at 0.09?

If you—

well, let's use an easier number for the math. Let's say if you were at 0.10, then you would be at 200.

Okay, and they're recommending that it should be at 200?

Well, there's— the state does limit the occupancy based on the square footage and other issues related to the buildings, and the state has said that the limit is 193. Now we think that there may be some room for compromise, and I think the applicant has kind of suggested— I've talked to his attorney somewhat, and he's indicated that they probably would be okay if they ended up getting something like 100.

Yes.

So I think that that might be a range where we could come to a solution that would be satisfactory to them, as well as would be a number at the 0.20 that would probably be justifiable based on You know, the families in Utah typically having more children and more children taken on each trip to the facility.

Okay. So we're eliminating 6 spaces, but with that, you're comfortable that 100 students is workable and they're comfortable with 100 students and we take—

That's the traffic engineer that would need to say that that number works, I think.

If he's comfortable with that 0.20, I'm throwing those out as, you know, Are you talking about our traffic engineer or some other traffic engineer?

Our traffic engineer.

Okay, and so what does our traffic engineer say?

Mayor, I am comfortable with that 100 kids there.

We're comfortable with the 100 with losing the 6 spaces, is that correct?

Correct, and, but I think that there's the caveat that we would still like to see that only 10 kids could be dropped off in a 10-minute time period. Which would—

So that's already in the recommendation from the Planning Commission. And I believe that if you look at his staggered approach to people being dropped off, that it can be met. He's within that 10-minute, 10 people in 10 minutes. So I think that's already been met. Yeah, I think 100 is what he wants. And what some council members want is some of those cars removed. So it seems like we're kind of moving in the same direction. Does that sound correct?

And Mayor, if I could add something else. Steve Earle here again. You know, if the applicant were able to come up with enough data from Utah child care facilities that justified a 0.09, you know, they might potentially be able to support an occupancy level that is significantly higher than 100. So, you know, like I said, we—

if we were to—

if the council were to agree to a 100 occupancy, then I think that that might be a solution that works for them and might work well for the city also.

Okay, Tom, you said you had a comment?

Yeah, hold on, is my mute off?

Sorry.

Yep, my mute's off. Thank you. Okay, I thought— part of the reason I voted present last time is because I didn't think we had so many of these facts, and that's been proven very evident over what's happened in the last 2 weeks, that we didn't have a lot of facts. I guess my first question for Greg is, what constitutes a conditional use? Don't we get to set the conditions?

Go ahead, Greg.

Yes, you do get to set the conditions. However, the expectation that's laid out in state law is that generally speaking, they're going to be approved.

However, the council can, depending on the use and the location of use, impose conditions that mitigate any detrimental effects that the use may have in that location.

Okay, and one of the things I heard, at least from Jason's earlier comment, is that 0.24 was moving towards a compromise, but 100 moves us nowhere.

It's exactly where we were 2 weeks ago. It moves us nowhere. But when we talk about 6 less cars—

Yeah, in fact, it makes it, yeah, potentially worse to get the same number of kids pulled in with less parking spots. So the fact that we didn't move at all is concerning to me. And when we— when I asked my question earlier, had the applicant heard this and how did they feel, I thought we had heard that they heard it and were okay. But the more I hear about this, the less okay they sound like they are.

Yeah, if I could address that, Mayor. I think they're okay with the elimination of the parking stalls on the street. But what they're not okay with and what they don't agree with now is that 0.24 parking standard per child. They're arguing it should actually be much less than 0.24 based on the fact that Utah is different than the rest of the country and also based on an analysis that they say they have done for their existing site as well as another childcare facility in Utah.

So Steve, then if we eliminate 6 cars off the street, Then that leaves us with 20 cars and 100 people. So what is that range of rate then?

Well, that—

so that would be a 0.20 rate.

Okay, I just wanted to know.

So you would note it's a little bit below the 0.24, but it's still much higher than the 0.09 bottom of the range.

Sure.

Which may provide some comfort to us that it's not going all the way down to the bottom of the range, which, you know, they could take that position and, you know, they might at some point if there's no agreement on this.

Well, it would seem like, you know, that they're trying to negotiate. So they start higher, we start lower, and they're trying to get to where they want to be. You know, Brent had brought up, why don't we eliminate the 5 spaces on the south building. And you can certainly do that and make a turnaround, but the reality is you can also come in, park, take your child in, and then come back out, back out and leave. You have egress and ingress that allows 2 cars to pass each other. One thing I like about Smiling Faces is that they take and require all of their students to be taken in by an adult, signed in, and then come back out. As I mentioned, with grade schools, they only require that for 3- and 4-year-olds. Other ones, they don't. So I feel like the safety factor is very strong that way. And the fact that they're doing this in the parking lot, not picking up people from out on the street, but they are in fact doing everything right there in the parking lot, signing them in the building, having a parent with them. And as we may hear, a lot of those who use that particular facility really feel like it's the safest around. So anyway, um, any other comments? You know, I think—

Mayor?

Yes, go ahead, Brent.

Yeah, this is, uh, of course new information to us, and, uh, I, you know, I'm trying to understand all this, but I, I think our attorneys and, and Jason and their attorneys, they should come to some compromise. I mean, to just throw this out right now, it's somewhat confusing. So I, I don't know if they can huddle together or come up with a, a number. I, I'm not sure. I, I just feel like I'm blindsided a little bit here.

Sure. Well, I feel like we're working towards a number, but of course everybody has to agree, and I guess we won't know that until tonight in the meeting. It would have been nice to have done it before.

May I ask a question, Mayor?

All set.

Could we—

could the condition, one of the conditions be that we start out at 83 and then give it some time to see how it actually works, and then based on traffic and if everything works the way that it is anticipated that it will from staff, Then we go to a little bit higher, you know, capping at 100.

So whatever the city staff feels best with.

Certainly that could be done. You know, I think this gentleman is honest in his approach and he runs a good business. Many of us have had to run our own businesses, and I think to make it pencil out, he needs to get to the 100 figure. This is not a Chief building where it's at, and I don't see personally where it would be a problem with the new information we have of being at 100. So I hate to take that away from him personally. He is working very well where he's at on State Street. They are moving cars in and out. They have a staggered approach. They are not having cars pile up. And again, when you look at his schedule, it's not 100 people at 8 AM. You know, it's 6 people at 6:30. It's 8 people at 9 o'clock. You know, and so forth. And so the staggered approach works really well, and moving them in and out of the building is very safe. This is, I think, many times safer than what he's having to deal with on State Street. And again, this is a needed service in our city. I would like to see him succeed. And many of our, you know, our essential people, nurses, teachers, etc., use him for their childcare. And I think this service really is something that's needed.

Anyway, but Mayor, if I may, they're not in danger of losing this service. The service is available on State Street unless it's moving from there, is it?

So I'm not positive on that. I got the impression that, uh, there could be a possible movement from there, but I'm not sure. So he's in a landlord situation. I don't know the answer to that, Tom, really.

Mayor, may I speak also?

Sure, Debbie.

So on Monday, I spent an hour and 15 minutes. I wanted to see for myself if what they said was true as far as dropping off and whatever. And so I, I picked times in the morning to strategically go. I picked from 7:15 to 8, and then I came back in at night at 5:15. I wanted to see their peak hours. Let's say someone worked 8 to 5, and I looked and I watched and I recorded the number of people. And I just wanted to make sure that what they said was true and that, you know, that their safety. So I did observe parents walking their children in. They have to buzz in. It's 2 or 3 minutes per child. I kept track of all these different cars. There was never more than 3 cars there. There were never more than 2 or 3 minutes. I noticed how they egressed, and on State Street, which is much busier, it was, it was no, it really was no, no, adding traffic was nothing. I mean, it was really nothing. So I am—

They did not know you were there, correct?

No, no, they did not know I was there. I did not. And then in the evening, I went in and toured the facility. I wanted to see, I wanted to see how they ran. I wanted to see their cleanliness, the kind of people they were. I talked to a few parents, staff, and like I told you before, I had children in daycare for years and years, and I think they're doing a really good job. They were wiping down for COVID after every person went in. The parents were signing in and out. I saw babies, I saw older, I saw some people with 2 children. And so, um, they really did do their standard. The highest time I had 5 cars from 5:30 to 5:45, one worker. Then I noticed the car in the morning, car in the evening. I noted which color. One worker left, 5 parents, and they have 43 kids right now. So, um, I guess I'm comfortable with the child safety. I spent a lot of time. I wanted to do the due diligence behind this. I wanted to make sure that, you know, you can say one thing, but it's another to deliver. So I just wanted to say that I did spend a lot of time, an hour and 15 And tried to pick the highest times when I thought they would be busiest.

So thank you for doing your due diligence there.

You're welcome.

So, all right, um, well, let's go ahead and move on with the agenda. Um, thank you, Jason.

You bet.

Uh, do we have any more city manager items, Jamie?

Yes, Mayor, I do have several items. I want to give some time initially to Ryan Clark to just provide an update as to where we are with both of our capital projects.

Okay.

Ryan, can I give the time to you for an update?

Absolutely. Everybody hear me okay?

Yes.

All right, so we'll start out with the library hall. This Thursday— well, first off, the masonry work on the building is completed. They're now finishing up the courtyard where they are lining the fireplace and the planter strips or the planter boxes with block. After that, they'll be moving out front to build a screen wall that surrounds the electrical equipment on the building. That will pretty much complete all the structures associated with the library hall. All of the 501 seats, well, at least those that are permanently affixed to the floor, are installed in the auditorium. Ceiling tile throughout the building is completed. The auditorium rigging is completed, and electrical and audio/video installation is well underway. This Thursday, the first of the millwork will show up that lines the back wall of the auditorium as well as the lobby. And then you'll see some wood finish going up on the trellis on the front of the building, the visible trellis in front of the large windows. That'll be coming in the next week or two. Right now we are on target for an end of September building completion. Our public works crews will finish up landscaping out front by the middle of October. They currently have 3 sod installations scheduled. The first one is on August 4th and 5th between 10 AM to 1 PM. We'd like to invite all of you out if you're interested in getting dirty and throwing some grass on the ground. You're more than welcome to join us. That will be installing all the sod on the south end of the front of the City Center. I'd like to send out some props and accolades to our Public Works crews for all the hard work they're putting into that landscaping. Getting the sprinklers in, plants. Today they just put in more plants and trees. And one thing you may not know is underground electrical has been installed to every single tree for Christmas lights. So all that will no longer be spread across the grass on top of the ground. We are looking at a tentative grand opening on October 20th, which is a Tuesday, and I believe that's a council meeting. So keep that in mind. Switching over to the fitness center, tomorrow they will start pouring the curb and gutter in the north parking lot. All of the grading is completed and the string lines are installed. Once that concrete work goes in, they will— Kilgore will be mobilizing to get in there and get the asphalt put in. Within the building itself, the HVAC systems have moved up into the front of the facility on the second floor, and they are currently installing those mechanical systems above all the cardio and weightlifting areas. That should wrap up here in the next week to 2 weeks, and then the HVAC systems will be completed. Tile work is finished in the men's and women's locker rooms. They started the family locker rooms today with pouring in the floors that the tile rests upon. And the steam room is about 3/4 of the way done as of today. There were 2 gentlemen in there wrapping up that work. They have begun installing shower hardware in the men's and women's locker rooms. The toilets are installed, and the millwork sinks and restroom partitions are coming in the next week or 2. The spectator seating— the walls are installed. All structural steel is completed and the roof deck has been installed over the spectator seating. By the end of next week, they will have the roof installed on top of that and the floor will be poured. The bleachers are scheduled to arrive August 10th to the 14th and will be installed by August 26th. The mechanical room for the pools will be done by the end of August. They're waiting for a Electric switchgear that's coming in and is on order to complete the installation of the electrical components for the pumps that run the lap pool. One curveball thrown our way is the large, massive air handler on the west side of the facility by Mountain View High School. I became aware of this just this afternoon. Apparently, that air handler was damaged in transit. It's about a $300,000 to $400,000 piece of equipment. And the manufacturer thought that they could send their technicians out and repair the components that are inside of the, the big rectangular square. Apparently something happened in shipment where a piece of equipment moving it did some damage and they are not going to be able to repair that on site. So they are currently completing manufacturing of a new device and will be shipping that out to us. And they're doing all they can to get it here by the middle of August. There is no cost to us. All of this is being eaten by the manufacturer. And so with that, Big D is doing all they can to get the pools open and turned over to us by the end of August. But those are just a few of the challenges we're working on. With that said and done, the entire building is still on schedule for a February 1st soft opening.

But the, the wet part won't be open on August 1st as anticipated?

That is correct. There was also some issues with mechanical systems being tied in between the pool and the existing pools and the new buildings that they've been working on over the last 2 weeks as well.

All right, great. Appreciate it, Ryan. Jamie, we're fast running out of time, but do you have anything else?

Yeah, I just wanted to let you know that we did— I sent an email out. We did receive our CARES contribution from Utah County. So we now have that in our possession and staff is underway in the procurement of resources tied to our CARES— or excuse me, our COVID-19 response. I shared with you several weeks ago that the city was awarded a COPS grant from the Department of Justice for 3 additional police officers in the police department, and we are in process of recruitment. Right now for new police personnel. In fact, I signed off on the going forward with the purchase of police vehicles as well. In addition to that, there has been some question on the part of some relative to where we are with the police and fire operations study, with Citygate Associates serving as the contractor on that. The thought was perhaps because of the transition both in the fire and the police department that we had put that project on hold. I just want to let you know that we have not put that project on hold, that we continue moving forward with it. In fact, I had a conversation earlier today with the president of the company and he gave me an update as to where we are. We still remain in the data collection phase of that effort and we are fast approaching kind of the next phase of it. I also forwarded to you today the Alpine School District return to school plan that they are proposing and presenting to their Board of Education tonight. That does have a return to school component. However, at the same time, students will not be at school during what has been a traditional schedule for them. They will actually return and go to school at the same time every day but have an early out day, not just one day a week but all days a week, allowing for teachers to coordinate with virtual needs, so on and so forth. I share that with you because that could potentially have some ramifications for the city and our staff and how our staff can appropriately respond to that decision if they have children who are at home or in school. So we anticipate developing a plan to work with our employees to make sure that staffing needs are met. In addition to that, in response to COVID-19, you're probably aware that Governor Herbert has required masks in Schools beginning with the new school year. He has also issued an executive order requiring masks to be worn in all state buildings. So if you, for example, are frequenting a state building, the DMV, the state capitol, a child and family services facility, you are required to wear a mask. One of the suggestions that has been brought forward is that we as a city also consider requiring masks for all city buildings and entry into city buildings. As you know, within this, the city, for staff, we are requesting and strongly recommending that all of our staff wear masks when social distancing cannot be accomplished. At the same time, we are requiring employees, if they are unrelated and they're traveling together in city vehicles, that they also wear a mask to flatten the spread of the virus. But a question for you as a council is what your temperature, so to speak, would be with requiring individuals who conduct business in the city Mayor, I'm happy to go first on this if you allow me.

You can, but we're really short on time.

Well, we've all received a whole bunch of emails. I think to protect our employees, we can require those who come in and do business to wear a mask. I'm not opposed to that.

I totally agree. How's everybody else feel?

I agree. Today was the first day I went to a grocery store and the majority of people had a mask, so I think people are getting better at wearing them.

The only thing I would request is that we as a city have masks on hand to provide for those who don't have them. But is everybody else okay with that? Anybody against it? I take that as a yes then. So, Jamie? Yes, thank you.

And then the last thing I'll just share with you, and Steven can provide some information later on in the meeting, we are making a transition from Microsoft and their suite of services to Google Suite, and this weekend is the last transition for our employees. We have our police and fire departments that are transitioning this weekend, and we also have you as a city council that are transitioning. So that is going to require on your part a little attention, and we are working with our IT staff to give you one-on-one assistance if, if needed to make sure that transition is smooth for each one of you. And I will allow Steven an opportunity at the end of the meeting to provide some additional input. That's all I have.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Uh, Dave Spencer, we do have 2 minutes for you to tell us about your, uh, commission.

Well, so some of the beautification, the recreation, and the streets have all pretty much been on hold, just, uh, they, you know, maintaining From what we had in the past year. So really no changes. So we're just moving forward with the COVID-19.

So, okay.

If nothing else, we'll go ahead and conclude our meeting, and we'll start back up in 8 minutes with our regular City Council meeting.

Thank you.

And we go for whatever makes the most sense.

Yeah, there's just—

I mean, like so many things, there's just free tools that when you're talking about 10 people watching it or whatever, how few, right?

Right.

And like we randomly will get like 2 viewers in like Colombia.

Exactly, exactly.

That's not real. Why are you doing that? I usually be paying them to come over here and watch. Nice, there you go. That could be one, at minimum one of them. There we go. Megan. One of them is Jim Possett. I would put money on that. Or the guy, uh, you've been watching Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix? But I did when it was on TV.

Okay, so they have a remake of it now on Netflix.

Oh, it's legit.

What?

Unsolved Mysteries.

Oh really?

Like new, like reboot. There's like 6 new, they're releasing 6 more soon.

They are?

Yeah, because I used to watch Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911.

Remember that show? That show scared the crap out of me. Because the 2 episodes I remember vividly were like a diaper-wearing toddler sat on an anthill of like fire ants and like had an anaphylactic reaction. It was a thing. And then another one was like a toddler got his shoelaces stuck in, uh, an escalator, and then it just started slowly sucking in more and more of his clothes and like choking him.

Oh, shoot.

And I was like, ahh!

But they didn't even like cut him out. Do you want me to print out the comments? 17 pages of comments for us to read?

Well, I think what I'm going to do is just put them on the screen.

Oh, in fact, are they—

did she email them?

She just did, yeah. Well, we're not reading them.

No, we are, we are.

I'm just going to read them.

I just don't know if it would be easier for us to read them if they were printed out. Oh, I see. What do you think?

I just think then people can—

yeah, so the council can read along.

Oh, that's a creepy Rasputin drawing. Yeah, I got a deal. I know, my mom was so funny because we would really want to stay there. She was like, Rasputin is the weirdest bad guy, it should have been the Bolsheviks. I was like, calm down, Mom. They're bringing in elements of fantasy because it's a kids cartoon.

That's true though, because Rasputin is actually an ally.

He's a wizard, man. Well, and he definitely wasn't like— I don't know, she just was like, this is unrealistic, this is a fairy tale.

Did you hear about how he gave the drink to his fiancée?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You wouldn't die.

You wouldn't die.

You wouldn't die.

She made a deal. She did not need to die.

She had Bartok there.

That's right. Yeah, in the dark of the night. No, seriously, is that ridiculous, guys? Yeah, that's probably insanity. He's still like going on. That's nuts. When like, wasn't he initially kind of brought on because this bizarre son had hemophilia and he was like something? Yeah, he was a— that's exactly— he was just barely finished the book. For those that just joined by phone, could—

I'm going to read your numbers.

You just give me your name so we can put that in.

Uh, 783-9253.

David Beviant.

B-E-V-Z-A-N-T.

Z—

2 Z's, A-N-T. That's a good—

that's a girl's name.

Yep. Chairman, or Her Honor, pardon. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning.

Mayor, I think you're trying to speak, but you're muted.

Sorry.

Brent, are you ready to give the prayer and then the pledge?

Yes.

Okay, go ahead.

Are we ready?

Yes.

Our kind and eternal Heavenly Father, we're indeed grateful for the opportunity we have together as City Council staff and citizens before them, and we're thankful for this great community that we live in. And we ask thee to bless it, and what decisions and discussion comes out tonight will be able to benefit our citizens and, and city. We thank thee for all that thou dost for us, and we say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.

Please stand and face the flag and repeat the pledge after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Debbie, for holding the flag. Um, we will now go to our personal appearance portion of our meeting. Time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city Comments shall focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed in before the meeting— beginning of the meeting, and please limit your comments to 3 minutes. I wish to go back to what we said earlier, which I guess I was on mute, but it says comments will be accepted before and during the meeting. All comments received will be read into the record during the live meeting.

Thank you.

Once an item has been voted on, that item will be closed to additional comments. So we do have about 25 pages of comments for this meeting, and we have said that we will read them into the minutes. So I've talked with Steve. I will read the first 5 pages. I think he or Pete will read the next 5 pages. And then he or Pete will read the next 5 pages after that. And then I'll read again until we get through this. So this is a public comments regarding item 9.3, which is not a public hearing. So this is appropriate for public comments at the beginning on personal appearances. This is regarding a conditional use permit. Provo, Utah, no name. Smiling Faces Bilingual Center is by far the best Childcare center in Utah County. We've been to quite a few, and Smiling Faces is the only center that met our standards for safety and cleanliness. I feel very good about dropping off and picking up my son. They meet me at the door every day. My next child will also attend the center. The only thing I would change is the accessibility. The parking lot is small and shared with a restaurant. And it can be difficult to turn left off of State Street to get into the parking lot, especially at rush hour. It's such a pain, and then it's even harder to get back onto State Street because cars are always speeding. But I will continue to pick up— put up with the hassle because this childcare center is worth it. My son is so happy there, which makes me happy. Smiling Faces Daycare should be allowed to expand. They are good people who do amazing work. Bilingual skills are amazing skills to develop into the world, and we need to support everyone in the community. Smiling Faces Daycare will be a great addition to the community and provide a needed resource for families. Please approve the use of the building. I am answering these 3 questions Regarding Smile Faces Daycare. 1, how's the service in general? Fantastic. We love smiling faces. 2, how's the drop-off and pickup service at the reception area? Also great. 3, how do you feel if we might— if we might have a place with more space for parking? I've only found the parking lot full a few times during a lunchtime pickup or evening pickup. It's never been a problem, but more parking would reduce that congestion at peak pickup and drop-off time. This of course refers to times before school is dismissed for COVID-19. Mesa Hall— the facility is a great resource for this community, excellent quality daycare. The pickup and drop-off process inside the building—

Sorry, Mayor.

Um, let's see, took it off the screen there.

Sorry, just—

Okay, can you come? Okay, there we are. Um, the parking lot is tight. We take extra care to watch for drive-through traffic. It's not ideal though. Often my daughter tries to run ahead of me and I have to hurry to keep up with her in case a car is driving through and doesn't see her. Generally, the through traffic from the parking trailer park has been respectful and cautious. Childcare services are crucially beneficial to me, and I believe crucial to the community, as we would not be able to work without a reliable place to take our children, and Smiling Faces has provided us that. Our children love to socialize and learn there. The employees are great with children and the whole facility takes cleanliness and safety seriously even before COVID-19 and does a great job now. Dropping off and picking up our kids from Smiling Faces is secure and efficient. Um, the parking lot of Smiling Faces is somewhat small and at times access from State Street can be difficult. But I've always found a parking spot when I came to drop off or pick up. My husband and I live in Orem. We are in support of Smiling Faces Daycare. We are both finishing college and starting into our careers. We have a 15-month-old son. Because our work and schedule and school schedules, we need a daycare that we can trust, one that is in proximity to these places. We have investigated various daycares and preschools and are very interested in the great services that Smiling Faces will provide. We want to place our child in a multilingual center. The 2 of us have spent an extensive period of time in Spanish-speaking countries, in Chile and Argentina. Smiling Faces fits this desire perfectly. Through our research, we feel that Smiling Faces would greatly serve our community and assist our family's needs. I am writing in to give my full support to Smiling Faces Daycare and Learning Center on the purchase of the property at 410 South Main Street in Orem. Not only will this new building give them the opportunity to grow their business, but it will also allow them to hire additional employees and allow more spots To open up this fall for children who will need a place to go as parents begin returning to work. As a full-time working mom, I know just how hard it is to find a daycare that has qualified employees as well as a safe building for my child. I would love to see Smiling Faces be able to open up and give the community a safe and secure place for kids to come and play. Learn and grow. Renee Karen, regarding the council's concerns about traffic surrounding the proposed Smiling Faces Daycare facility at 410 South Main Street, at 2 hours 15 minutes into the video of the city council meeting, your own city engineers clearly illustrate the parking lot meets and exceeds the city's own codes for parking lot clearance. The comments from the council member at 2:53 are silently slightly offensive and show that it has been some time, if any, since he has personally dropped off children at daycare. Smiling Faces runs a tight ship and there are no kids getting out in the middle of the street and running across the road. All children enrolled at Smiling Faces are required to be brought inside and signed in by an adult. Thank you. And the reverse upon checkout. It is quite rude for an elected or appointed official to assume he cares more about my child's safety than myself. The same council member— one thing I would like to mention on this, we have mentioned before that in public comments we wish to have the comments relate to the issues and not be an attack on a person and staff or council.

Thank you.

So any of these comments that I feel like are personally attacking anybody on the council, I will not read. So I'm not going to read the next one, nor the next one. I'll go down to the few complaints you may have heard from one or two neighbors. People who actually live here are likely a classic case of not in my backyard. Farm claims to be Family City, USA, but a loud minority will scream and shout about the audacity of parents seeking childcare at their own expense so that we can go to the jobs those same residents insist we do to provide their services. Please also recall that the previous business here was a senior assisted living facility. The applicants are not bringing battering rams into an otherwise pristine cul-de-sac and demanding a steel mill be built. A similar business already operated here caring for vulnerable percentage of the population with loved ones who only wanted the best for them. Smiling Faces provides the best for our vulnerable and precious population, our children. Please do not prevent or limit their ability to do so over some red tape. It says here there was talk about traffic pattern, traffic study. The argument could be made once a week that traffic— can you move the page up, please? Patterns change.

Thank you.

Stop right there. Yes, based on weather, global pandemics, seasons, construction, city development, whether there's a football game or not, that does not prevent businesses from operating. Okay, I wish to pass some comments. Um, okay, let's, let's move on to Tara Bishop since we do have a 3-minute limit. If you can move the page up, thank you. I am writing to comment on Smiling Face Bilingual Care Center in Orem. Their services are absolutely critical for the community of Orem and benefit a larger demographic of child and non-bilingual care centers. My experiences with them has some of the best I have experienced with child care centers in Orem. Dropping off and picking up is incredibly easy. They have been sanitizing all doors and binders after each person since the pandemic began. The workers are wearing face coverings. Parents are, are spread and don't crowd in when pickup occurs. They are flexible with their times, which is fantastic. in case a meeting for me runs a bit late at work. While the parking lot doesn't look ideal, I've had zero problems with getting in, finding a spot, and picking up or dropping off my child. Even in busier times, I have never had a problem with it. People are courteous and drive slow. I can't speak highly enough of the facility. It is the best child care center we have ever found in the area and are so grateful for the bilingual education my children are getting. The employees are loving and wonderful. They are such a huge benefit to our community. Hello, I'm writing as somebody who has formerly owned childcare business. I understand that German and Luz Pardo are looking to expand their childcare center, and I understand this expansion, expansion depends upon them acquiring a parcel of land to do so. Childcare in Utah has always been in high demand, especially now with so much uncertainty as to the upcoming school year. There is going to be a high demand for childcare. There has always been a high demand for childcare in Utah. In fact, a substantial portion of Utah childcare providers are not licensed and therefore not subject to the training and inspection of licensed providers. But often waiting lists in licensed facilities are too long and parents have no other choice but to put their children in an unlicensed private home, often with only one adult, therefore nobody to supervise the methods of that one adult. Therefore, parents are taking a risk by trusting an unlicensed provider. However, the demand for childcare is so high that sometimes it's all a parent can do. Therefore, it seems to me that while— when experienced childcare professionals come to you with a plan to expand, I would hope that you would not dismiss their request outright. I understand that these professionals have completed engineering reports with regard to the property. I also understand the bank is withholding authorization of the loan pending the approval of the Orem City Council. I understand that 2 of the council members are concerned, but their concerns were not specific. I also understand that this daycare presents unique opportunities for the children who attend. The opportunity to learn a second language at such a young age can help a child immensely in their learning journey. Bilingualism is not only a valuable job skill But studies have shown that children who learn a second language early on actually speak as a native speaker. There are also studies to show that children who learn 2 or more languages from an early age have better performance in school and higher IQs. Beyond that, in the Western Hemisphere, Spanish is the dominant language, and those who speak only English are at a substantial disadvantage as Latin American economies are emerging. And like I was saying earlier, the younger child learns a second language. The more pure— the younger a child learns a second language, the more pure and true is their syntax and vocabulary when used to communicate, build trust with native Spanish speakers. In my daycare, I taught my children American Sign Language and Spanish along with English. My clients were very happy that their children had these opportunities. As my daughter entered grade school, I returned to the workforce outside my home. But one thing I made sure to do is to put her in a school that valued a diversity of cultures and languages. The district my daughter attended had students from more than 100 different countries and spoke more than 100 different languages. My daughter now has lifelong friends, people who are from all over the globe. That type of education cannot be taught Mayor, that's surpassed the 3 minutes. Okay, let's move on to Danny Contreras. How does services or child care services in general be a benefit for yourself and the Orem city community? We depend on child care as we have no family here. The daycare has been good to us. How would you describe dropping off and picking up? I love how there are cameras and good security for the welfare of our children, the staff, and ourselves. How would you describe your experience with the parking? Parking lot is small, that is the norm in Utah, but easily accessible to pick up and drop off. I want to express my support for Smiling Faces Bilingual Child Care Center moving to a location on 410 South Main. There is no reason they shouldn't be allowed to establish their center in that location. In fact, I'm a little concerned after hearing the discussion on the issue at the City Council meeting. The comments made show an abundance of ignorance regarding the situation and hint a little bit that there may be ulterior motives. Engineers and planners have approved the plans and give full support to the safety measures needed to keep children and others safe. I'm also disappointed that some voted present. Um, your concerns have been answered satisfactorily, and by the community, this vote should have passed unanimously.

Mayor, Danny Nielsen at the top of this one was not read.

Sorry.

Uh, Danny Nielsen, I'm writing in support of Smiling Faces Bilingual Center. and their request for permitting to purchase property and expand. It is evident from the City Council meeting that several members are either failing to understand the logic and feasibility of such an important expansion, are aware of something they are not disclosing, or both. I will go past that, especially the need for quality daycare service. Going down to Rachel, it has come to my attention that you are bullying Smile Faces Bilingual Child Care. They are providing a great business and deserve the opportunity to grow. They've completed all the legal requirements to the best— I'll just finish this one up— of their ability. They make a difference in our community and in the lives of our children. We need you to move their expansion efforts forward. You are the obstacle to overcome. As a concerned citizen who thinks you probably don't use child care facilities, And so have no idea how great this childcare place is. All right, Pete, do you want to do number 5?

Yeah, this is Steven. Steven, I'll do it next and set the bar for Pete to read as far as speed goes.

Sure.

Tara Bishop, I'm deeply concerned and disappointed that you may have voted nay or present on the conditional use permit for Smiling Faces Bilingual Center at 410 North Main Street. I watched the entire recording of the City Council on June 30th, 2020, and frankly was appalled at the end. It is clear that Herman Pardo has followed everything required and has met all ordinances and conditions, and therefore the council has no administrative right to decline this permit. The condition added by Mayor Brunson for redlining seemed reasonable, though not necessary to any potential meet the visibility issues. Though I would argue, based on evidence— on the evidence I present, that the Northernmost stall of Main Street does not need to be redlined. In other words, that parking stall should remain, and redlining should not reduce the parking stall. I was also concerned that there seemed to be repeated remarks about taking out the 5 parking stalls on the south side of the parking lot after the engineer and Planning Commission represented— representative clearly stated there is no problem with this. There's even a diagram showing a large truck making a 3-point turn without using any of the space. I was curious to know how tight this was, so I drove to the property. Please see my attached videos for the many turnarounds and parking situations. Seemed to me— it seemed this was nefarious move to get the facility to house fewer children. To address the concern about hundreds of kids being dropped off at the same time and the safety concern, it is clear that by this repeated statement that you have no experience dropping off a child off a daycare facility that requires you to physically walk in your child. Smiling Faces is currently in a much worse situation parking-wise and has zero problems. As someone who's dropped off and picked up a child at their location, I have never had trouble getting into a parking spot, and I've never been at the door waiting for my child with more than 2 parents at any time. And my pickup time is 5:30, and I've never been in danger of someone hitting me or my child. This is because of the high safety expectations that Smiling Faces required for their business. I previously emailed the public comment praising Smiling Faces for doing an amazing job with the less than ideal conditions of crossing 3 lanes of heavy state traffic with cars parked on a state— on a street with low visibility. This is not an elementary school where the tuck and roll drop-off method is used and there are 3 times the amount of kids at the same time. 100 is the max, then multiple children presumably of the same car. This is an organized facility with staggered drop-off and pickup schedules and adults who are licensed drivers safely driving through. This was presented as evidence in the traffic study. In addition, Orem City Code 22-6-9 regulating governing particular uses specifies in Section G1 the commercial daycares are located on collector or arterial streets. This makes this seem like your argument can never be satisfied, as arterial streets are going to have considerably more traffic than others. One more paragraph and then we'll move on. Again, Smiling Faces requires the child's guardian to physically walk them in, sign the book, and drop them off. This expansion is to allow siblings to be at the same facility and open it up for infants. Orem is in desperate need of child care. It is the only way businesses will grow and the community will be served.

Thank you.

Smiling Faces is the only daycare I found in Orem to have zero infractions on their license, another testament to their priority on safety. And because of the 3-minute limit, we'll move to— Rock Belknap. Please let me know, as a citizen of Orem, why or what grounds for denying Smiling Faces Bilingual Daycare their expansion of their business. After listening to the concerns of several council members regarding traffic safety and parking around the proposed location Smiling Faces Bilingual Center. My wife and I drove over there to take a look. Our conclusion was that there should be no traffic safety or parking concerns. We turned around in the parking lot without any issues. There's ample room. Smiling Faces is super safe regarding pickup and drop-off their kids. There are never, literally never, kids running around without a parent. There's never more than a handful of kids being dropped off or picked up at any given time. And I do drop off and pick-ups at the current location at least 3 times a week, so I actually know what I'm talking about. Traffic was not impeded or unsafe when my wife and I parked our cars in the worrisome spots. With parked car in the north and the east of the proposed lot, there was even a police officer in a fire truck that drove up to turn east on 400 South. They turned without any issue, without having to pull into any unsafe position in the intersection, and never seemed even slightly frustrated by the situation. It would be wrong not to approve the conditional use permit for Smiling Faces to move into the proposed location, and anyone who votes nay or even present on Tuesday probably deserves shame. I hope and believe you'll do the right thing and approve this conditional use permit. Not only would it seem unlawful to disapprove, but approving it would also be a boon to Orem. Safe, affordable daycare was difficult to find for the last several years until we found Smiling Faces. Smiling Faces is a safe, affordable daycare, and they're loving— they are so loving there. The service they provide makes it possible for my wife and I to pursue our family and career goals with the comfort of knowing that our kids The kids are very well taken care of. Comment out of West Valley, Utah. I implore the councilmen especially who stated someone is going to get killed when parents drop off their children 15 minutes late to visit 439 South State Street on any given weekday. Sit and watch for 1 hour as the parents cross several lanes of traffic, come in and out of the smaller lot, park, walk their children inside, and return to their vehicles in under 5 minutes. Ask the owners for copies of the sign-in sheets. You'll see that almost every single one is consistent in their drop-off and pickup times. We are the nurses, police officers, teachers, and construction workers that have been calling— that have been called heroes nationally for 4 months now, but apparently can't trust— can't be trusted to report to work on time as far as the Orange City Council is concerned. We don't have the luxury of setting our own work hours the way that you do. Comparing our schedules to students being dropped off for school is not accurate. Those parents may or may not be returning from dropping off their kids off instead of reporting to a place where they need to clock in and out. They're also getting a free tax-funded public education. I and the other parents with smiling faces pay our taxes as well as additional hundreds of dollars for monthly care per child. If you're going to compare our kids to anyone, look at the private schools. Please don't imply we're lazy and uneducated. Mrs. Luzz and her staff are the only ones I trust to keep my daughter safe and just as importantly happy while I'm, while I'm out earning my mortgage payments and paying for my own groceries. Thank you for giving them a chance to keep serving all of Orem citizens. I live on 400 South and frequently walk— frequently walk along 400 South and Main Street with my small children. I fully support the Smiling Faces daycare relocation so that— to that site, with full understanding that it may increase traffic or parking in the area. Postponing this decision puts quite a burden on the small local businesses under the guise of exorbitant requirements for vehicles. Why would Orem pay to maintain public on-street parking and then prohibit people from using it? Smiling Faces is a valuable community asset, and the Main Street location will be much safer safer and comfortable than the present State Street. Please approve this conditional use permit. Taylor Huerta. I have been with Smiling Faces Daycare for 5 years. They're amazing, the only center I trust with my child. They are a great benefit to me as well as the city of Orem. I'm pleased. I'm extremely pleased with their services. I love that I have to walk my children to the door and hand sign her in inside the building. It makes me feel safe knowing she is safely in their care, and the same for each child that attends. Same to pick her up. I have to go inside, sign in before picking her up. I walk out to the car. I've never had problems parking. I've never had issues entering or exiting the parking area. Here as an Orem resident, have the two—

have I—

I comment here as an Orem resident who has 2 children who have attended Smiling Faces Daycare for over 2 years. In addition, my family and I permanently reside near the area under consideration near 400 South, just a little further west. I really hope that I'm not too late in having another voice heard on this. Having listened to the meeting that took place on June 30th, it appeared to me that you had city planners, engineers, zoning, and other city officers on the call who had basically signed off on everything, or essentially just waiting for the blessing of the council. I almost wonder what the point of having the council members voice their personal opinions and concerns at all this was when it was already determined that the proper permits, research, safety, and planning have already been completed and signed off. But I will admit, this is the first council meeting I've ever listened to or reviewed the minutes for, so this might be standard. At any rate, I'd like to comment on the concerns that were presented in the meeting. Number one is, as I mentioned, we have 2 children and they're now 4 and 6-year-olds who have been attending Smiling Faces for over 2 years. And I can say for a fact that for over 2 years, every single day, I've personally walked my kids to and from the front office of the school and had to personally sign them off on a detailed log that kept the exact time we arrived and departed, both as the standards policy set by the school. Not only that, we were always greeted by one of their staff within seconds of arriving on the, on the front steps. The image procured during this, during the meeting of 100, of 100 kids running around wildly in and out of the street or parking lot couldn't be further off base. Taking my kids to daycare is exactly like me taking my kids to literally any other establishment, and this is further helped by the policies they've established to make the drop-off, pick-off as seamless and safe as possible. It's never taken longer than 2 to 3 minutes to drop off or pick up my children. I've always had plenty of parking spots to choose from at the current location, despite that being far less— far less options at the proposed new location. We lived off 400 South for the better part of a year and a half.

Thank you.

I drive the 400 South Road and 500— 800 West to State Street multiple times a day to the daycare, light restaurants, mall, grocery errands, etc. I can tell you from the intersection of the Main Street and 400 South, it's not busy at all. I wouldn't mind— I wouldn't matter— it wouldn't matter if you did a traffic study yesterday, 6 months ago, or 6 years ago. It just does not get anywhere near the same amount of traffic that Orem Boulevard or State Street gets. As for the parking space allotment, It should have appeared from the meeting that the concern was resolved.

I hope.

As I said, the daycare already currently shares about 11 other spaces with several other surrounding locations, and I've never had an issue finding a parking space. Having 26 spaces at the new location, or even a few less than that as per any of the adjustments that were suggested, would be more than enough. As for the blind turning onto Main Street, let's be honest, what street in Orem isn't a blind turn? People already park way too close to intersections and stop signs, and I don't think it'd be fair to make that a deal breaker in this situation when literally everything else Everywhere else I go in the city, I experience the same thing. The biggest thing I can really comment on here is that the business means to me and my life. This is the best daycare I've ever run across, hands down. My kids come home each day with a stack of crafts, arts, activities, projects, and all kinds of stories about all the cool things they learned about and did that day. If you look at the pictures of Space Day or Camping Day or Shopping Day or any of the other days, you can really see that they go all out with everything. I'd encourage you to read the reviews and peruse their Facebook post to observe the pictures of the kids really just loving life and getting the most out of a school experience. I don't speak Spanish myself. My kids are learning at the same time as experiencing all this awesome stuff. Let's encourage dedicated small business owners like Herman and Luz in pursuit of their dreams of providing an awesome bilingual program, approving this measure. Thank you. Out of London, Utah. I'm a resident of Orem with no children, therefore no need for daycare. About the daycare facilities in our city. However, within the span of 5 minutes, I was able to understand not only the need for expansion of Smiling Faces Bilingual Childcare Center, but also the thorough, thoughtful, and immense planning that Herman has taken to ensure that this building is the safest and every child in mind. The facility has a specific policy in place that requires all children to be walked into the building with an adult to be signed, signed in and out, meaning that an adult doing the drop-off must park and escort the child inside and outside. There are no safety factors regarding 100 children running out willy-nilly. In addition, parents sign up for a schedule to stagger pickup drop-off times that allow a few—

few—

allow for a few amount of children coming and going at a time. The concerns proposed by the council regarding child safety surround the public street and parking lot were addressed several times and factually dispelled. However, they continue to be a point of discussion.

Why?

The Planning Commission and engineers for the building have reiterated that there's no legal reason to deny this permit and have agreed it is a safe place to put a daycare. I was extremely disappointed by the behavior of some council members. This comment— the comments from the first council meeting regarding this daycare showed a willful ignorance to the information being presented, as all safety and legal measures are being met, and a tone of prejudice by attempting to grasp for any reason to dismantle and discredit the work Herman and the engineers have done to ensure the permit is not approved. Why are we not in support of cleaning up our city by approving for a daycare to reside in a place that has been abandoned and overgrown with weeds? Why are we not in support of a small business run by a person of color in our city? Herman Pardo has clearly gone to great lengths and done what was— no one was willing to do by choosing a building in need of repair and not only beautify the city of Orem but also expand his heart and time into the community throughout our children. There's no greater sacrifice than that, and this should be unanimously approved by the city council on behalf of the families you represent.

Thank you.

Sam Johnson. I'm a— I'm an Orem citizen. I believe moving the daycare daycare from State Street makes perfect sense. There's more parking at the location, and the daycare has done more than enough to prove the new location is better for everyone involved. I feel that a denial of this relocation is a direct message from our city council that its residents and their desires are not a priority. As city engineers, I've already confirmed that the facility meets city codes. The only reason I can see for the request being denied is some prejudice of council members or personal benefit they may have in denying the conditional use permit request. As I'm sure this appearance at the council wants to, wants to avoid, please approve the conditional use request and allow the daycare to continue offering its services to satisfied clients in the new location. Somebody in the United States, how much do you consider our services and our child care services in general benefit to yourself and the Orem city community? Child care services are the utmost necessity nowadays. How much the housing prices are, the inflated cost of living It's very difficult to make ends meet with just one parent in the household working. For me, I have— I don't have a family close by to help watch my kids, so I have— so having a daycare, especially one that is as high quality and professional as Smiling Faces, makes it a little easier for me to leave my kids every day. I believe our program strongly benefits from the daycares, especially the ones in such great educational programs. By building up these young children to have such a head start, it is literally investing in the future of our community. I'm usually the one in the center when I'm picking up my kids. There's never been a time that I can remember my years And years of using Smiling Faces when there are more than 2 different people picking up a child at the same time. As of right now, the hardest part of the current location is picking up and dropping off. Turning left on State Street right after a stoplight is challenging, and that's just the start. Smiling Faces shares a small parking lot with a small restaurant which always has a few cars occupying the only spots available. On top of that, the trailer park that also has a few residents on parking lot. With all that, there's usually at least 4 or 5 spots available whenever I'm there to pick up my kids.

So Steve, have you got Pete or shall I start?

No, no, Pete's coming in. I'm going to go get some oxygen and I'll be back.

Mayor Dave here. Don't we have a 15-minute time limit?

We do, but all of these have been—

They're all the same thing. I mean, why are we doing it over and over?

I don't Well, because this is a big issue and these people—

In the past, in the past, you've let it stop. You've had 10 and 10.

So I, I don't know.

Well, I understand what you're saying, and, and, uh, but what I'm saying is this seems to be a very concerning issue, and these people have spent a lot of time to write in, and we told them that we would go ahead and read any comments that came in. So I feel it important that we keep going.

I reside at 441 South 60 West adjacent to the proposed property. I have serious concerns about the safety of 100 children being dropped off and picked up in the parking lot that is barely large enough for the employees and the proposed facility usage. Parking along Sunmaid Street and 400 South would not be safe for the loading and dropping off of children due to the width of the roads and the volume and speed of the traffic along those roads. I feel that this— if this proposal proposal is passed without a serious safety study and proper alleviation of these safety concerns, this council will be responsible for accidents or deaths that may occur. Jason Dodge. Dear Mayor and City Council members, I have lived in Orem City all my life and love this community. Orem truly does things differently than most other communities and struggles— that struggle with being fair. I am writing to the City Council to strongly ask that they approve Smiling Faces Daycare without tying their hands any more than has already been done. I have spent my professional career in the commercial real estate brokerage and development, and it is Thank you, Your Worship. It is with this background that I sit here in amazement at the level of scrutiny that a simple daycare center is receiving from much of the council. This is a location that could easily be a sober living center or drug rehabilitation center, which are approved in the current zone. It appears as though Orem City is doing all that it can to prohibit this daycare center from occupying this building. I have only one question. Will each intersection in Orem City be revisited with the same level of scrutiny when determining the appropriate line of sight angles in order to make each intersection safe? If so, it is time to purchase a bunch of red paint. After reviewing the traffic study prepared by a traffic professional and viewing the new line of sight triangles prepared by the city— Orem City traffic engineers— most intersections in Orem City have traffic triangles that are much more steep and dangerous than what you are requiring Smiling Faces Daycare to accept. It really appears as though some of the city— Orem City Council members are doing all in their power to find reasons to not approve the site, or at least make it so restrictive that the daycare cannot successfully operate Hoping that they will just go away. Main Street and 400 South are not high-traffic streets. In my professional opinion, it would be difficult to find a better location for this type of business within Orem city boundaries. I respectfully ask that each of you council members vote to allow this business to run in the location without limiting their daycare numbers below 100 children. Brenda Irene. My name is Brenda Irene, and I am a former user of the Smiling Face Daycare at 400 East in Orem near Sharon Elementary School. We live in the neighborhood, and my then 7-year-old daughter attended their daycare before before and after school. I appreciate their service, and I love that they were located so close to our home and our school. I was impressed with their professionalism and organization. Paperwork was always organized, the children encountered predictable routines, the premises were always neat and tidy, etc. They were a real asset to our neighborhood, and we are grateful for their services at this time. I understand that they are currently using facilities located on State Street. Honestly, I have missed having them in the neighborhood. I had referred several friends to them when they were so close. I understand that traffic patterns are always thanks to Consider when a business wants to operate in a residential area. This is a worthy thing to consider, and I'm grateful that our Orange City takes care to keep our residential areas so quiet as possible. When my daughter attended Smiling Faces, I would drop her off around 8 AM, pick her up around 5 PM. I rarely encountered another parent there at 8 AM. My car would be the only one outside, so I don't feel that there was ever a traffic issue in the mornings. At 5 PM, I would often be there to pick up at the same time with one of the other families, but really that was it. So only 2 cars outside around 5 PM.

Thank you.

I really didn't notice the traffic or parking problem. And when they left their 400 East location in favor of their State Street location, I also did not notice a decrease in traffic in the neighborhood. So in my experience at least, the businesses did not affect traffic patterns in our neighborhood to any noticeable extent. Smiling Faces is a good neighbor and would be a valuable resource in any community. My husband and I were residents of Orem 20 years. I am a former member of this Orem City Planning Commission and Orem City Council. I am also a commercial real estate agent, but I am not personally involved in the sale or leasing of the subject property and have no relationship with Smiling Faces Daycare. I do not work at the same company as the real estate agent representing the property and have no personal or financial interest in this property. I am writing as a citizen who is concerned about the city council discussions and actions being taken, taken at the city council's last hearing on this item on June 30th. Before going into the specifics on these topics, however, I want to review the rules of conditional use permits. Utah State Code Section 10-9A-507 states a land use authority shall approve a conditional use if reasonable conditions are proposed or can be imposed to mitigate the reasonably anticipated detrimental effects of the proposed in accordance with applicable standards. The requirement described in subsection 2 is reasonable. Mitigate anticipated detrimental effects of the proposed condition use does not require elimination of the detrimental effects. The Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman for the State of Utah explains that conditions may be imposed to mitigate or lessen the detrimental effects of the proposed use. The conditions must be reasonable, must address the identified effects, and must refer to the applicable standards already identified in the land use ordinance. At both the work session pre-meeting and during the City Council meeting on June 30th, Attorney— City Attorney Steve Earl read the section of the Utah State Code to the council as a point of reference for how the council should consider the application and what their powers and obligations are in the legislative action. The question, it seems, is whether the applicant can reasonably mitigate anticipated detrimental effects. From viewing the video of the City Council Zoom meeting, it appeared that the primary concerns about detrimental effects for safety of the children as they arrive at the daycare and leave the daycare parking inside the existing parking lot and along the street adjacent to the property on the north and east sides. When the Planning Commission forwarded a unanimous recommendation for approval for the conditional use permit, they stipulated the following conditions: that officers, employees, and other persons who arrive at the facility in connection with the commercial daycare facility be legally parked on-site parking lot or that part of the street immediately abutting the site; that signage be provided on the on-site parking lot that clearly indicates pickup and drop-off stalls. That one stall in the parking lot be used as a vehicle backup area. That the facility be limited to a maximum occupancy of 100 children for both buildings combined. That 2 ADA stalls be provided in the parking lot. That all children must be picked up and dropped off in the existing parking lot. That no more than 10 pickup drop-off vehicles shall be allowed within 10 feet— a 10-minute period. That no more than 10 pickup drop-off vehicles shall be allowed within 10-minute periods. Applicant has agreed to comply with these conditions to assure the safety of the children and to mitigate the possible detrimental effects of the drop-off pickup. Applicant demonstrated that they have scheduled times for the parents to drop off children and that all children must be walked into the building by an adult and signed in upon arrival. Okay, that's probably about 3 minutes on that one. Debbie Hong. I grew up in Orem, just down the street from the location that Smiling Faces Daycare is trying to occupy. I have talked to members of the neighborhood and they have no problem with the daycare being there. I've also read comments and watched video from the council meeting. Zoning for that area allows for a daycare. 13 requirements have been met, including a costly parking study. Parking is more than sufficient for the daycare requirements. Children are not left to run through the parking lot, and they are— and there are staged staggered drop-offs. I have used daycare services before and it does not take 15 minutes to drop off or pick up a child. That is a very generous time slot. As I listened to the comments from the council, I felt like the council was trying to find reasons for not allowing the business. I have parked in thousands of parking lots and not had an issue backing out of a parking space that has some amount of space. That seems like a reach. Also, a daycare preschool is very different from an elementary school drop-off. Parents have to walk the children into the building. They don't let them loose. I guarantee that there is plenty of time in a day for 100 cars to go through that area, and I doubt they will be filled to capacity every single day. People also carpool for preschool, which are the busiest. The opinion of some of these council members are very narrow. It is disappointing. As far as having a daycare in the neighborhood, There is nothing more beautiful than the sound of children playing. As far as safety, there is very little deviant behavior, if any, that comes from a daycare. It would not be much different from a senior living center. I feel the presenters proved the safety concerns were taken care of. As far as the play area, fences are easy to build. You do not need a lot of space for kids to play outside, and times are staggered. Again, daycares have indoor play space. Neighbors only too commented, and to be honest, zoning allows this. Meetings were noticed. Sometimes neighbors just don't pay attention. Not a valid Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a complaint.

You have to have a legitimate reason to deny. I'm sure the neighborhood would rather have a daycare than a drug treatment center. There has also been no complaints about this facility. They are well respected in the community. It fills a need within the community. I am disappointed in the comments about this being a Hispanic business. The Planning Commission has already approved the plan with all the traffic concerns. I encourage you to approve this permit. Make Orem a better place by allowing this business to function and add to the community. Don't give Orem a black eye by not supporting small business and people doing their best to improve the community. They are hardworking people and they've bent over backwards trying to meet the requirements. The business would be an asset and a needed business. They have met all the requirements, approved the permit legally. You need to do that. I will reserve my personal opinion, but I am concerned about the reasons that some council members are being difficult on this decision.

It is disappointing.

I'm writing to share how essential Smiling Faces Daycare is to the Orem community and what an asset it will be for Orem should it be a proposed location on 400 South and Main Street be approved. I'm an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University, and my husband works full-time as a marketer. We have lived in Utah County the last 12 years. We have had our children— 2 children enrolled at Smiling Faces for 3 years. We have utilized childcare services from 3 other businesses until we found Smiling Faces and found it superior in every way. The safety precautions they take, the curriculum they practice, and the love they give to the families they serve is unmatched. My children have grown immensely since being enrolled at Smiling Faces, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Smiling Faces is helping my children become citizens that Orem would be proud of. that respect, honor, and care for each other. During a time when people are calling for equality and diversity in business, I am grateful for the opportunity to choose Smiley Faces because my sons are learning it doesn't matter what color of your skin, everyone deserves love and an opportunity. Childcare is hard enough to find without extra difficulties. COVID-19 has added to parents' troubles in finding not just adequate care for the children, but care that they are happy about, care that they know matches the care they give their children in their own homes. We found it particularly difficult to find a childcare facility that offers part-time care, and we previously paid full-time fees for part-time service at another Orem facility that had worse parking situation than the— more than— than more than the adequate parking of the proposed site at 400 South and Main Street. We settled for a less than desirable situation so our family could have our basic child care needs met. No parent would be in that— should be in that situation. Smiling Faces was literally our solution and saving grace, and it is that same answer for so many other families and could be the answer for more if Smiling Faces is allowed to move to the proposed location. If the council denies Smiling Faces the opportunity to grow their businesses, they are denying their community the opportunity to grow, removing the possibility of work for many families. In regard to some of the concerns brought up in the previous council meeting, I would like to share my experience. I drop off and pick up my children from Smiling Faces Monday through Friday. I make numerous left-hand turns, and right-hand turns for that matter, from the moment I leave my home. Many of them have reduced visibility due to parked cars, large fences, greenery, other homes, etc., but they are legal, just as the intersection and driveway at the proposed site is legal. Are you willing to revoke business privileges whether there is a turn with less than ideal visibility? If so, you would be stunting Orem immensely, needing to close nearly every business that finds itself on the corner of the intersection. Regarding the concern of the crowds, the crowds of children and families are all arriving at the same time, causing a backup in traffic. Again, during the 700-plus times I've dropped off or picked up my children during the last 3 years, I have never seen 100 children in 100 cars piled up on State Street, all trying to enter Smiling Faces at once. In the mornings, it is rare if I see another parent dropping off their child. During the afternoon pickup, I see 1, maybe 2 other parents, a total of 3 families Thank you. Smiling Faces runs a tight ship. Their protocols are well thought out and executed because they know what's at stake to keep the children they care for safe. If you could see the way Smiling Faces is handling the current pandemic, guiding children through temperature checks, hand washing, sanitizing, providing face masks for all children and getting them to actually wear them, there would be no doubt in your mind that this is a company that exceeds expectations and requirements and serves the community in every possible way. I am baffled that the council seems more concerned with comments coming from a person currently residing in Wyoming and a person currently residing in American Fork than they are for concerns raised by persons in the community the council actually represents, like my family and Orem business. Are you willing to put the desires of a small number of homes surrounding the property above the actual needs of so many more families? Please consider— please reconsider. Take these facts into account when making your decision tonight and approve the request Smiling Faces has made. Carol Billnett: My husband and I have lived in Orem over 40 years and have raised our children here. We are now assisting raising some grandchildren who have been attending Smiling Faces. Here's our observations. The facilities are spotless and the staff is wonderful with the children. The drop-off pickup policy prevents any children from running around unattended in the parking lot. You have to go in and sign the children in and out every time. They have staggered the time so well that I have never encountered more than 2 other parents picking up or dropping off. The current parking situation is tight, but they have made it work at the staggered times, and I hate trying to get back out on State Street, especially after other cars parked on the side of the road. The proposed location has a slower speed limit and much less traffic. Any question of excess neighborhood traffic is ridiculous. We had a halfway house put in near our neighborhood a few years ago, and the neighbors' displeasure at possible increased traffic had no bearing on them getting the permit. The visibility coming out of the proposed location is fine. I checked it out myself. It is evident that the owners have made every effort to comply with the laws and requirements. Why are they being made to jump through hoops that hint at discrimination? Is it— is it Is it because this is an affluent area or the fact that they are minority-owned? There is a great need in Orem for quality licensed daycare, and this business has a proven track record. We should be helping them expand, not hindering them. The fact that they incorporate bilingual teaching is a plus. We need to be encouraging great minority-owned businesses, not trying to eliminate them. The difficulty you are putting on them makes me wonder if there is some hidden agenda present, or at least, as I stated before, possible discrimination. I certainly hope this is not the case. Orem is better than that.

Thank you.

Natalie and Brian Lard. I would like to respectfully ask you to reconsider your current stand on the issue regarding a new location for Smiling Faces Daycare. My son has been attending Smiling Faces for about 2.5 years. I can say with 100% certainty that they have boosted his knowledge and fostered his intelligence more than I would have thought or expected. He loves going to school every day and is excited to see his teachers and friends. Even after moving 20 minutes south of Orem due to buying a house, we've decided to keep our son, who's 4, at Smiling Faces because of the incredible impact Luz and her employees have had in our lives. Luz and Germán Pardo have always handled business with honesty and integrity, which as working parents is immensely appreciated. They teach the kids everything from basics like the alphabet to important current social climate issues. They're an incredible asset to not only the community of Warren but to the future of Utah, for our kids and are the future of the world. In conclusion, this expansion relocation of Smiling Faces is a much safer choice and provides better opportunities for the students than their current location. There is more parking, more space, and less overall traffic. Remember, They are currently operating successfully on a busier road with fewer parking spots, which they share with a trailer park and a restaurant. If anything, Smiling Faces has proven that they can make the best of any situation and meet a high standard set in less than fantastic conditions. They would not be punished for wanting to give their clients better service. Please reconsider the conditions placed upon them, upon this small, locally owned, and reliable business, while remembering our claim that Orem is the best place to raise a family.

Okay, Tara Bishop has commented earlier.

All right, let's go ahead and pass that. Let's go to Claire Johnson. Shall I start?

All right, go ahead.

I live directly south of the proposed daycare center at 468 South Main Street. I'm grateful for the opportunity here to share some concerns. My largest concern is with the increased traffic that the daycare would bring, both the safety and the inconvenience of this traffic. Although cars parked on the 2 roads are legally allowed, visibility is very poor when there are cars parked in these areas. The intersection just east of 400 South and Main has gotten busier and busier with UVU, Midtown, State Street, Orem Elementary, and Noah Webster, and will just get busier. With 100 kids being dropped off and picked up daily, I can only imagine that cars would end up backed up into and through that Orem Boulevard intersection, as well as down 400 South and Main Street, which are both single-lane roads. I imagine this will be happening at its worst between the hours of 8:00 and 9:30 AM, which is the time I need to be backing out of my own driveway on Main Street to head off to work. After backing out of my driveway, I would then have to wait in the line of daycare drop-off cars going north on Main Street Before I could get out onto 400 South and State Street. Where this is a residential district, having this traffic every single day would greatly diminish the quality of life of those living in close proximity to the daycare on Main Street. Lines of waiting cars in the street with engines running is a safety concern, a health hazard for us and our neighbors, and an unpleasant residential experience.

Thank you.

I understand that there may be a need for daycare in Orem City. However, it's obvious to me that a business of this size is not suited to this property. There are no other businesses near this size along the entire length of Main Street or 400 South. This is a residential area that should be preserved as such. From Orem, Utah, I would like to add my support to the approval of the conditional use permit for Smiling Faces Daycare. I am the parent of 2 young children living in Orem, and finding daycare is so tough. Smiling Faces has proposed great measures to keep kids safe on the property. By the Planning Commission's review, it seems parking and traffic control is adequate. Please support great childcare businesses like Smiling Faces in thriving Orem so that families have adequate choices when finding care. for their kids. Also, Latino business owners provide critical services to all of Orem, not just fellow Latino residents. Thank you. If you can move it up. I know the board is considering a request of the Smiling Faces Child Care Center to move into a new bigger building. I used to work for Workforce Services who does licensing for child care in Utah. Orem always had a shortage of good childcare centers. This center has been in Orem for a while and is highly recommended. Peter, Steve, can you move the page up please? Are you there or have you both left? Okay, good. I feel it would be in the best interest of the council to approve this request. The city needs the increase in capacity that this move would allow. Currently, I don't have a need for childcare, but my children do. They have had a hard time finding good options for childcare in Utah County. This new location will give citizens more options and will allow for more children to be cared for by licensed providers. I live just south of the proposed daycare. I travel on 400 South and Main Street regularly, including commuting to work. pandemic permitting. I'll keep my comments brief, but in sum, I am opposed to the daycare in this location. Here are my concerns. The location in question is not well suited for that amount of traffic. 2 weeks ago when this was discussed, the phrase 10 cars in 10 minutes was thrown around, and considering the fact that each car needs to park and walk their children into the building, along with the size of the parking lot, leads me to believe that it will take much more than 1 minute per car to enter and exit that small parking area. The length of time it will take for a car to pull in, park, unload, pull out, and exit the parking lot will cause backups that extend onto Main Street and 400 South. The left turn lane on Main Street to turn west onto 400 South makes the lanes even narrower, further congesting the intersection. Also, the addition of the employee parking on both streets will make for very narrow lanes and higher chances of accidents. This is a residential neighborhood with multiple driveways surrounding the facility. I can't imagine what it would be like for my family and neighbors to have to wait for extended periods of time to enter or exit their homes. I've spoken personally to both husband and wife of looking to start the daycare, and they are very nice people. I do not have a bad word to say about them or their business.

Thank you.

And I hope they are able to expand as they hope. Orem needs more daycares, especially run by people of every race. That would create a stronger and more diverse community. But I also hope to have the residential experience that we expect by living in this wonderful neighborhood. I do not think having a daycare in this location will provide us with such. Let Smiling Faces Daycare open. They have done and passed every task You made them do. You are discriminating against them for no reason. Orem needs to do better. Peter, Steve, can you go to page 18?

That's actually the last one on this document.

Okay.

So then we go to number 2.

And she combined all of them into one document, I believe.

Can you see just—

yeah.

So I don't think we've heard from— well, maybe she has.

Yeah, the requester was to combine it all into one.

Okay, good.

We do have—

Mayor, there is one additional comment that has come in during all this, which I have.

Okay, do you want to go ahead and read it?

I will. Uh, Darren Vandebosse: Over the course of the Planning Commission meeting and 2 City Council meetings, multiple people have mentioned that Orem needs more daycare daycare and that this business is well managed and valued contributor to the Orem community. I'm not questioning those assertions, but they are not pertinent to the issue. The issue is whether this location can support the business at its requested client capacity without affecting the safety of the neighbors, daycare clients, and pass-through traffic. Nothing I've observed during this 2-week continuation period changes the parking, traffic, or safety concerns previously expressed to the council. These concerns are based on 30 years of experience in my current home at 411 South 60 West directly west of the property. In short, this is an increasingly traveled and congested area with poor visibility that has already been negatively impacted by the Midtown Village development and overall traffic increases. Adding parking and traffic from a business that marginally meets the requirements only escalates the safety hazards in the area. I ask you not to ignore these safety concerns voiced from the experience of multiple longtime neighbors by shoehorning this business into this location. That's it.

Okay, thank you. We'll go ahead now and close the personal appearances portion of our meeting and move on to consent items. We have 3 consent items. If any of you wish to move these consent items to a scheduled item, please let me know. The first one is approval of meeting minutes of the City Council meeting on June 30th, 2020, and meetings of the special City Council meeting July 7th, 2020. Uh, the next part of the resolution— of the consent item is a resolution approval of the City of Orem Legal Department retention schedule. And the third one is an ordinance amending Chapter 7 of the Orem City Code pertaining to building, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, fire, uh, and abatement codes. Would anyone choose to move this to Um, our scheduled items. Seeing that there isn't any, I will go ahead and make a motion that we approve these consent items. And is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start with Tom.

Aye.

Okay, Dave.

Aye.

Brent. Brent Sumner.

Aye.

Okay, Debbie Laree?

Aye.

Okay, Jeff Lampson?

Aye.

Terry Peterson?

Aye.

Mayor Brunstad, I vote aye. So our consent items pass. We'll move on to our scheduled items. First one is a public hearing amending our fiscal year 2020-2021 budget, and Brandon Nelson is our presenter. Brandon, I'm going to turn the time over to you.

All right.

Can everybody see the screen?

Yes.

Great. Okay. So I'm going to basically just go down the list even though that's not in note order. We'll just— we'll start at the top, and since we basically only have 3 elements, 4 elements, we'll each one of those. The first item, that sales taxes, is in relation to the 1% pay increase that has been requested as part of this budget amendment, primarily due to the better than expected sales taxes that have been received thus far based on fiscal year 2020. And so that equates for that 1% increase, cost of living increase if you will, to $275,000. The second item—

are there any questions?

I'll just ask after each one. Are there any Any questions about that specific item or comments that anybody wants to make about that specific item? Okay, hearing none. The second item, of course, the, the big kahuna, the item we've been waiting for, the CARES Act money received from Utah County. We have physically received those dollars, and of Of course, this budget amendment is to add those dollars into our general ledger, if you will, so that we can proceed with spending those funds on the elements that meet the Treasury regulations in relation to COVID, proper COVID expenditures. And so that brings that into play so that we can start spending that money. Any questions on that?

Thank you.

I do.

You bet.

So this, this money includes past expenses we've already incurred correctly as well as future, or is it only past?

Anything beginning from March 1st.

Ongoing?

Ongoing through technically, you know, technically November 2nd. We have to roll everything up by November 2nd with the county, but in a meeting I had the other day with county representatives, they mentioned that the Treasury has relaxed the requirement, realizing that there are going to be a lot of companies who— a lot of things that we want to do, that there are going to be shortages in those things. And so there's some relaxing of the requirement that it has to physically be paid for at the— at that December 31st date, or in our case, the November 2nd date. And so we have it basically encumbered at that point. Then they believe that as long as it's then paid for shortly thereafter— and, and there may be additional Treasury regulations to outline that even further. In the future.

Dave, you may want to mute your computer.

Brandon, do you have any idea how much we've currently assessed in our COVID-19 response? How much money have we already used?

I'm trying to remember. It's like $250,000 so far.

Okay, so not too much. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, you bet. All right.

Okay, keep going.

Okay, the 3rd item, the CARES tax grant money. This really has to do with the, quite honestly, the variance between when we are allocating money that's really fiscal year 2020 money, but we're allocating it and awarding it in fiscal year 2021. And of course, because of COVID we budget less dollars here in fiscal 2021 as far as what we expect to receive in fiscal year 2021. But because it is, again, kind of an accounting abnormality, if you will, in order to actually award the grants here in this fiscal year We need to increase the amount so that we can physically award all of those grants based on the fiscal year 2020 expected receipts. And any questions with that? Then the last item, which is really the task— the Major Crimes Task Force When we are preparing the budget, we don't know exactly how much grant money they're going to get from JAG as well as from CCJJ and JAG, as well as what their final participation funds are going to be, the amount they charge each city. So every year we, we put in— usually it's a pretty conservative estimate of what we think those dollars are going to be. And then when we enter the new fiscal year, we, we know early on in July what those amounts are, and this reflects the changes that need to be made to get those budgets to where they need to be for those grants and participation funds. Any questions with that particular line item? Okay, that being said, I— it's all I have for today with the All right, thank you.

Appreciate it. So this is a public hearing. First of all, before I go to that, are there any questions or comments from the council? Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and open this up for public comment. We will allow public comment for 1 minute. And then bring it back to the council, and the 1 minute will start now.

Steve says time is up.

Okay, we'll go ahead. Uh, Steve, have you received any public comments?

There have been no comments at this time.

We'll go ahead and close the public comment portion of our public hearing and bring it back to the council. Any questions or comments from the council? Seeing none, I'd like to make a motion that the Orem City Council amend the fiscal year 2020-2021 budget as listed. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start by voting. Tom?

Aye.

Uh, Dave?

Aye.

Brent?

Aye.

Debbie?

Aye.

Jeff?

Aye.

Terry?

Aye.

Mayor, I vote aye as well. So our ordinance passes. We'll move on to 9.2, which is also a public hearing. Thank you, Brandon Nelson, for that— presenting that. Uh, this is also a public hearing. It's an ordinance amending Section 22-24-3F1A And 22-24-3F2D, which is design standards of the Orem City Code pertaining to accessory buildings in the Canyon Crossing District Zone. Our presenter is Jason Bench, and Jason, is the applicant online? Not that you know of?

I got him. Sorry, I had to unmute myself. I don't know that he is, per se.

Okay.

All right, uh, go ahead and if you can present the change in the ordinance.

So as you recall, we proposed this amendment a couple councils ago. The concern with some of the council members is that we weren't allowing this applicant to build the shed that he wanted to build. He's proposing an 1,800-square-foot shed. 13 feet maximum height. I think it's 12 foot 7 inches is what this shed is. And so we've opted to change the ordinance, the proposed ordinance, to include up to 40%, 13 feet height. And then we took out subsection 8, which required them to meet the district building requirements. So we're proposing that this be changed for the building height, and then the setbacks would be the same standards. So we'd be glad to address any questions you may have.

So Jason, one question I have is, uh, you have this limited to one story in height, 13 feet. Do we know how high the building is? Because he's already purchased the building.

Yeah, 12 feet 7 inches. Okay.

All right.

Yeah, we met with him last week, made sure that this would fit within the building parameters that he he had, and he was satisfied that this meets that intent.

Okay, any comments or questions from the council? Okay, seeing none, this is a public hearing. I will go ahead and open it up for public comment, and we will have a 1-minute period, and we will go ahead and start right now. Okay, let's go ahead and close the 1-minute period. Uh, Steve, repeat, have you received any, uh, public comment? No comment, Steve, at this time. Are you there?

Are you muted?

Okay.

All right, seeing that there is no comment, we'll go ahead and bring it back and close the public comment portion of the public hearing and go ahead and bring it back to the council. Any comments from the council? Okay, I would like to make a motion then that the city council amend Section 22-24-3F1A and 22-24-3F2D design standards of the Orem City Code pertaining to accessory buildings in the Canyon Crossing District zone. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, let's go ahead and vote. Tom, we'll start with you.

Aye.

Dave?

Aye.

Brent?

Aye.

Debbie?

Aye.

Jeff?

Aye.

Terry?

Aye.

Mayor, I vote aye as well. So our ordinance passes and we'll move on to 9.3.

Hey, Mayor.

Mayor, I've got a question.

I want to thank Jason Bench and Ryan Clark for their hard work in getting this done.

I appreciate their help.

Thank you.

Okay. Let's go ahead and move on to 9.3, which is a resolution on a conditional use permit, approval of the commercial daycare Smiling Faces. Located at 410 South Main Street in the R-8 zone, and Jason Bench is our presenter.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. As we talked a little bit in the pre-meeting, we had some discussion with the engineer and our transportation engineer Brady Hale, who's on this call as well. I want to turn some time over to Brady. We talked preliminary about this proposal. I want to give him some time to kind of adjust it in this or discuss it in the public meeting. But basically, there's 3 stalls that we're proposing on 400 South, and then 4 stalls— you can see 2 on the north and 2 on the south— so a total of 7 stalls on the street. And I'll let Brady now present his findings on this page.

Thanks, Jason. So what's kind of looking in front of you on this graphic just showing, looking— yes.

If I could ask one question first. Is the applicant there online?

I believe so, yes.

And does he have his people that he might want to use, either an attorney or an engineer or whatever, online as well? Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Brady.

Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, so just kind of want to kind of describe what's been done here in terms of looking at some site distance at the intersection of 400 South and Main Street based on AASHTO standards. So we did look at this, and that triangle that you're Been identified as the appropriate sight triangle for this intersection based on design speed of 30 miles per hour, which equates to a length of 290 feet there. So in terms of sight triangles, their purpose is to, you know, be able to What's identified in there should be clear of obstructions that might block a driver's view of potential conflicting vehicles. And so in terms of looking at this, at this location, it was identified that, that, you know, as Jason kind of pointed out, that, you know, originally there was 7 stalls shown on 400 South based on the existing striping, and that— Based on this, this site triangle that 4 of those vehicles would be within that sight triangle, therefore reducing that parking to 3 stalls. And then we're showing there in the, in the kind of yellow shaded area, that's looked at a design vehicle of a single-unit 40 there making a left turn onto Main Street and what could still fit in terms of parking in that space and not impede in the left turn if a vehicle was sitting there waiting to turn left to go northbound left onto 400 South. And so that's been looked at and looks with 2 stalls there. And we also applied the clear vision area at the driveway of 25 feet on each side there. to keep clear in terms of allowing parking on Main Street. Is there any questions that I can help answer regarding this graphic?

I have a quick question. Will it be redlined with red paint for the areas where you can't, you know, park, or so it'll be very visible? I'm assuming that would be the 25 feet and the egress and then around the corner, that will all be redlined.

Yes.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Any, any other questions?

Okay. The ratio as well, the parking ratio.

Do we have that graphic as well, Jason? Yeah. So we, you know, also kind of discussed this a little bit in the pre-meeting here as well, and just kind of wanted to kind of, you know, be able to inform the council and mayor of kind of, you know, how determining park generation, you know, kind of transpires. And so this graphic kind of just shows based on a daycare using You know, number of students, you know, kind of gives you rates that are average. You also have a range of rates there as well that could be used in determining the required number of parking stalls. So, you know, initially in the traffic study, the 0.24 of the average rate was used, which equated, you know, on 100 kids equated to the requirement of 24 parking stalls. But some things that, you know, to be taken into consideration is there's also a range of rates and that, you know, that this is a national type of information that's provided and based on other states. And for states such as Utah, you could, you know, argue that, you know, more kids per family members and therefore that using a lower rate than the 0.24 could be acceptable if appropriate data that is shown, you know, in local other daycares supporting that.

So just a comment on that. The Planning Commission stated that the facilities would have a maximum occupancy of 100 children for both buildings. So if you went to a 0.20, Rather than a 0.24 on the spaces that you have, then in fact you could have 100 children with some of these spaces being eliminated.

Is that correct?

That is correct, Mayor, yes.

Okay.

Terry, did you have a comment you wanted to make earlier?

Do I? No.

Okay, thank you. All right, keep going, Brady.

I think that's all I have unless anybody else has any, any questions regarding Regarding this.

Okay, can you— I have a question. Remind me how many spaces off of 4th South and Main Street you've eliminated. Was it 6 or how many total?

It was 6, Debbie. Yes, 6.

How many on each? How many on Main? How many on 4th?

Do you remember?

So it looks like I believe there was 4 off of Main and then there's 2— or excuse me, 4 off 400 South and 2 off of Main.

Okay, thank you. I wanted to get that right.

Thank you. Yep.

And so we have 13 parking stalls between the 2 buildings. And then you have 3 on 4 South and 4 on Main Street. So that's 7 plus 3, that's 20 stalls, if I'm saying that correctly.

Yep.

And, um, so that gets us our 100, uh, children population.

If you use the 0.20, yes.

That's 0.20.

Jason, if you use the 0.24, it's 83?

83, yes.

Okay.

Okay, any other questions or comments?

I don't believe so, Mayor.

Okay. So does the applicant wish to say anything at this point? I have some comments I'd like to make, but—

The applicant does have a presentation if the mayor is willing to allow him to present some things.

That's fine. Go ahead.

Is the applicant on?

Yeah.

Mayor, members of the City Council, this is AJ Pepper here. Are you able to hear me okay?

Yes, go ahead.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor. I prepared just kind of a simple PowerPoint here to run through. And again, appreciate the council's time in looking at this and considering this important issue. By way of background, I'm an attorney with Snell and Wilmer. We do a lot of land use in town here. My background by training is as an urban planner, and so this is kind of the area and the types of issues that I deal with on a daily basis. There we go, Jason. If we can go to that second slide. So a couple of things that I want to just briefly start off with, and I think that the public comments have been helpful in this regard, but I want to fine-point point on it, is this question of what are the standards for a conditional use permit? One of the most important aspects of all this to be considered is the fact that the standards for consideration of a conditional use permit must be those in the applicable ordinance. And that if there are conditions that can be imposed to allow compliance with those standards, then the conditional use permit must be approved. And most importantly, I think, is again, these detrimental effects, these issues that are out there potentially with the conditional use don't need to be eliminated entirely. So, and further into the municipal land use code, the conditions that are imposed must relate to, reasonably relate to the particular detriment identified. And most, and then lastly, as coming from the state code, is that this is an administrative land use decision. I want to spend just a minute on that administrative land use decision aspect. Jason, if we go to the next slide. So as Mr. Earl can probably explain, there are not that many cases out there on conditional use permits. Most of these cases don't get litigated because they're simple and because most cities and applicants work together, get it resolved, or it gets resolved beforehand, you know, through the property rights ombudsperson. But in any event, we do have some, some guidance and some standards from the Utah League of Cities and Towns, who I'm sure you're all familiar with. And they start off by pointing out the CUPs, again, are not legislative. They're administrative in nature. And that as a result, a lot of times cities get confused because they think they have more discretion than they actually do. Again, they view these as legislative acts which are making policy. That's not the purpose of a CUP, and that's not what's at hand. Again, if there are identifiable standards— if there are no identifiable identifiable standards, then there can be no basis. If there are identifiable standards from the code, either the applicant meets those standards or they don't meet those standards. This isn't a political decision. This isn't, this isn't some sort of popularity contest. This is simply an analysis of the standards in the code and in the ordinance. And to the extent that the applicant can meet those standards, It should be approved. And so again, this is, this is not one of a weighing of policy considerations. This is simply an administrative act that all amount to a box-checking exercise. So let's talk— next slide, Jason, please. Let's talk just a little bit about kind of what the role of the public is here. The public involvement for an administrative land use decision like this is very minimal. Public clamor is not to be considered. And really the only thing we are looking for from the public in these instances is factual information that bears on whether the applicant meets the applicable standards in the code. Thankfully, I think we have had a lot of really great comments. I appreciate the mayor and members of the council taking the time to go through those because there were a number of comments that were very much on point with the standards. Of important note, though, again, is that emotional feelings about a particular application are not appropriate. This is not a matter of consideration of a doomsday scenario and what we feel is the worst-case scenario of what could potentially happen with this application. That is not appropriate for a public comment, nor is it appropriate for consideration of a CUP in total. Next slide, please. So again, as I mentioned, the city has a fairly detailed standards in their code for commercial daycares. There are 13 standards in Section 2269, and of those 13, 12 apply to commercial daycares. I've gone ahead and taken some liberties here and basically summarized those conditions for ease of review, but what I've essentially been able to show here is that every single one of the 12 standards and conditions on which the City Council may base its decision of approval has been satisfied. There are no, there are no standards set forth in the code which the applicant has not satisfied. And as a result of that, again, going back to this, to this recommendation and how this works, there are standards, and if the applicant satisfies those standards, then the, then the CUP must be approved. Now what's interesting, and we can go to the next slide, Jason. What's interesting in this instance is although there are these standards specifically related to commercial daycares, what's happened in this instance with the city is that there's new review standards that have been added. Now, again, going back to what I said earlier about how there's not a lot of good cases out there because these most of the time don't get litigated, there are instead property rights on BUDS opinions, advisory opinions. And I'm sure Mr. Earl can kind of explain the significance of those. To make a long story short, they're not necessarily binding. They are helpful. They can be persuasive. But ultimately, they do, you know, when similar issues are considered and ultimately if it does get to a court, it does allow for a situation in which an aggrieved party can receive its attorney's fees. So again, they are worth considering. They are worth looking at. So one of the advisory opinions that I wanted to kind of just briefly touch on is this Opinion 25, and this was with the City of Cottonwood Heights. And what comes out of the opinion is this, is this standard that any standards that are used to evaluate a CUP must be set forth in the ordinance and not established at the time of the application. Again, the standards that are imposed when reviewing a conditional use permit can't be arbitrarily chosen at the time of the application. Right? And so what's interesting about the process that's been followed here is there have been new standards that have been imposed specific to this applicant, specific to this application, again, contrary to law. Again, the clear vision requirements, which effectively eliminates 6 out of the 13 parking spaces, there's no mention of that in the code. I've gone through Chapter 16 in depth. I've gone through other— through the other sections related to that. There's no reference to Clear Vision. But again, these requirements have been chosen and established for this application. Similarly, we've got this— these Institute of Transportation Engineers. That I think was the table that Brady was talking through with the 0.24 versus 0.09. I'll refer to them here and after as ITE standards. There's no reference to ITE compliance in the Orem City Code.

anywhere.

But I want to spend a little more time talking about those, those ITE standards. If we can go to the next slide. There's 2 fundamentally fatal flaws with looking at the ITE standards. First, as Brady briefly touched on, there are— these ITE standards, and specifically that 0.24, are national averages that are not reflective of Utah families and certainly not reflective of families in Utah County and in Orem. What I mean by that is this: the ITE standard of 0.24 is tied to, in effect, the number of kids in a family and correspondingly the number of kids in a car that come to get dropped off at the daycare. So in places like New York, New Hampshire, Boston that don't have that many kids, it's reasonable that that number would be, you know, closer to the higher end of that range. Interestingly, as I'm sure many of you know, Utah has not one of the highest, it has the highest number of kids per family in the entire US. Let that just sink in for a moment. When we compare it to the national averages, we're talking nearly double, and in some, as compared to some states, nearly triple what the national, or excuse me, what the average of those states are in terms of the number of kids per family. And so again, when we think about that, what does that mean for the ITE standards and how should we take that information and look at the range? Again, the range, I've highlighted it there for everyone, is 0.09 to 0.51 vehicles per student. Now in the case of Utah, again, if there are the most number of kids per family in the entire U.S., we would expect expect Utah to be further down that range of 0.09. And as has been discussed with Mr. Hale and our transportation engineer, we have some anecdotal data, I'll call it, of other daycares operating in the state that show and demonstrate this to be true. That again, Utah daycares and specifically Utah families operate much closer to that low end of that range. Again, meaning that the number of parking spaces needed for a certain headcount is obviously much different than the national average. Next slide, please. The second fatal flaw and one that's more important, I think, here is how these ITE standards should be viewed as it relates to the CMP application. Again, I reference another Property Rights on Budspurston opinion related actually with the City of Provo there to the south. And so basically what What Provo City was doing, and interestingly enough, this related to a similar kind of daycare, home healthcare, it was a home daycare business. And there were specifically questions raised as it related to parking standards. And what Provo City had attempted to do was to use these other standards, the AASHTO standards, and had basically enforced those as required When this got to the property rights ombudsperson, they were absolutely and unequivocally clear. The city may not require compliance with unreferenced third-party design standards. It would be improper for the city to use the parking and pickup drop-off plans as a means to effectively prohibit establishment of an otherwise allowed use. Mayor and members of the council, that's what's happening here. We're using ITE standards that are unreferenced third-party design standards to otherwise prohibit a use that would be allowed here. Again, and that, that makes it for a fundamentally flawed situation. Now I'm here to tell you, I think that the ITE standards can be useful. I think we can, we can consider them, but we should absolutely in no way look at them as binding, for one. And 2, if we are going to use them, We need to be true to the facts. We need to be true to the situation that is Utah and is Utah County, which is we are not the national average. We have more kids in our families. And as a result of that, that national average and the number of parking stalls that are dictated by that cannot control here. I want to spend another minute here now talking as well about another suggestion that was made related to the parking situation. As all of you think about what are your favorite parking lots, I know that, I know that's a strange question. Most people don't have a favorite parking lot. But mine is Costco. And the reason that I love the Costco parking lot is they're huge, right? You have tons of space next to your car, you have tons of space behind your car, you have lots of families walking around. Now it may be difficult to see from, from this particular image, but what I'm showing to you here is a comparison of Our parking lot and the amount of area behind the cars in our parking lot versus the Costco there in Orem. Behind the cars in the, in the Orem Costco, you have 24 feet, right? Again, my favorite parking lot. It's just so big. It's nice. It's easy to get my big minivan in and out of there. Now, as it turns out, the amount of space behind those parking stalls, the 8 parking stalls on our property, is 33 feet. Again, the space between the cars, 9 more feet than you have at Costco. Again, Costco is a great parking lot. Ours is better. Let's spend a minute too talking about what might be appropriate conditions in this case. So as we think about what the conditions are that are relevant, we have to focus on the state requirements, which are that the conditions have to reasonably relate. There is a good case out there talking about how property owners' rights work. It is the Patterson case. And as it was referenced in one of the ombudsman opinions related to a conditional use permit, it talks about, and the ombudsperson counsels cities to exercise any discretion afforded to them by the law in favor of the property owner's desired use. And so what does that mean? That means for us, if we are going to have and impose a condition, we ought to use the— we ought to impose a condition that is as least restrictive as possible. And the reason for that is because of what the Utah Supreme Court has said about property rights in the Patterson case, which is zoning, land use, CUP approvals, all of those types of restrictions on land use are in derogation of a property owner's unfettered right to use its property as it sees fit. Right? Utah has very strong property rights. If you own a property, you can do with what you want with it, subject to these standards that should be— and these applicable codes that should be construed in favor of the use. And so what does that mean for the Smiling Faces Childcare and Preschool? The detrimental effect that we're talking about and we're trying to mitigate here is parking and traffic and ultimately safety as a result of that. Again, as I've mentioned, the ITE standards, that's— they can be helpful. They're insightful if they're adjusted for Utah and for Utah's unique demographic situation of having lots of kids per family. But again, they shouldn't be binding. Ultimately, the maximum headcount that's allowed is reserved to the state, right? We have a licensing board. We all pay our state taxes. So that this board can be authorized and empowered to inspect daycares and to review them and establish maximum headcounts. And so what does that mean for us? How do we impose— how does the City of Orem impose conditions that reasonably relate to the particular use and to the detriment that we are trying to mitigate while also being construed and acting in a way that favors the property owner's use of its property? As our parking consultant for this project, David and I can attest, we've worked on daycare parking before. And what most cities do when they have these as conditional uses is they establish a pickup and drop-off plan and set certain limitations, right? So you have a set number of parking space— or excuse me, a set number of families who are allowed to drop off within a certain time period. And that occurs. In this instance, we have talked about ranges of 10 families, 10 cars for every 10-minute interval. We have worked closely with Mr. Hale on this and we have looked at, we have modeled then how these pickup and drop-off intervals, how those would look and what that would mean for the overall impacts on the surrounding intersections. And as many of you know, intersections and the traffic flow are rated, you know, on a just like a school grade scale, A to F. And what we've been able to establish is that with a proposal of 5 families dropping off, a maximum of 5 families over a 5-minute interval, over a 5-minute interval, will have a next to negligible impact on the overall traffic flows of the adjacent intersections. Literally, we're talking, I think, and again, David or our consultant David or Mr. Hale might be— will be able to speak to this, but I believe it was something of a difference of 5 seconds extra that they're going to spend as a result of this. So that's the first proposal. The second is requirements for parents to sign in and sign out their kids. This is something that the daycare Smiling Faces is already doing. They have— they make their parents come in. These doomsday scenarios of, are the kids going to run out the door and they're going to just absolutely rush the parking lot like you'd have at the stadium down in Provo when BYU won a game back when they used to win games. That's just not happening here. That's not how this daycare is operated. Similarly, I referenced in some of the public comments, you know, about the number of kids and pulling through the parking lot. It's clear that the opposition to this doesn't understand how the pickup and drop-off cycle works. They're looking at this just like any other elementary school, a tuck-and-roll system. That's just not the case. And so what is it— what do these 2 conditions look like from an implementation standpoint? We want to make this You know, easy for the, for the City Council to implement. So if we could look at the next slide. What you're seeing here is a chart that is something that we've developed for these other daycare properties. And what it effectively does is it takes the number of parking stalls that are in the lot and reserved for use, and it shows how those lots would be used on these 5-minute intervals. You can see here, based on the current number of students and with the future expansion of only allowing up to 5 families On 5-minute intervals, you're left over with 8 parking stalls that are open at all times, more than half. Okay, next, let's look a little bit about kind of this— what this implementation— and this is, this is a slight variation on what was reviewed previously with the, with the sight lines. What we've essentially done here is we've identified, okay, these, these parking spaces would be those for the employee. These would be the drop-off and pickup spots. And what you can see from this again is this idea, you're going to have 5 spots on every 5 minutes, you're gonna have another 5 spots 5 minutes later. And at all times, you're always, always, always going to have 3 spots open.

Okay.

And again, that's, that's the correct way to control and to mitigate the detrimental effect, i.e., the traffic and parking situation. It's not a matter of trying to impose other conditions that have no basis in the code. It's a matter of custom tailoring conditions and requirements that are based on the code but are in favor of the property owner's use of the property. And so if you look at our last slide here, these are the proposed conditions. Now, these are not that dissimilar from what the city has proposed, right? We've gone ahead and taken the liberty of adding those— the 6th and 7th conditions, which again reflect that all children must be brought inside upon arrival and must be picked up inside the building upon departure. Again, this is something that Smiling Faces already does, but it alleviates the concern and these doomsday naysayers out there about kids rushing into the parking lot. Additionally, we have this structured parking of no more than 5 pickup and drop-off vehicles within this 5-minute period. And as previously discussed, this has a negligible impact on the traffic flow of the adjacent intersection. It's custom tailored for this particular project. And overall, it's consistent with the code and with the guidance that we have from our property rights ombudsperson and the various advisory opinions out there. And so we'd ask the members of the City Council to approve these conditions and allow this use to go forward. Thank you, members of the City Council.

Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Jason, any comments or questions? So I'd like to make a couple of comments. First of all, we received a— Jeff Lampson received a letter, as well as myself, from Simon Bolivar, who is the administrator for the Child Care Licensing Program of the state.

Just for the record, his name is Simone.

Simone. Thank you, Tom. So he is the administrator for the Child Care Licensing Program, Utah Department of Health, State of Utah. He makes a bunch of comments. I just wanted to read a couple. He states, as we have investigated both the current and the possible new location, we came up to the conclusion that children and their families will be better served at the new facility. In the new facility, children will have better space. They will be farther away from a major street and its fast traffic, and they will be able to enjoy a larger outdoor area to provide children with healthy and developmentally appropriate activities. He states, we will not license this facility if we have any health or safety concerns, and so far we do not have any such concerns. Additionally, high-quality child care is truly needed throughout the state today more than ever. So they're behind this and feel like it's beneficial.

Can you finish reading that, the last part?

Sure, yeah, I can finish reading it. So he has 2 more paragraphs. Additionally, high-quality child care is truly needed in the state today more than ever. It will be contradictory to the business oriented desire of the city if we negate a willing and compliant provider the opportunity to serve and contribute to our Orem community. Please know that my only intention is for this child care provider to receive a fair hearing on this request and to answer any questions I may be able to assist you with. So I feel like that that's in there. I am personally comfortable with the conditions that our Planning Commission have put in, the 7. I understand some of the changes that are being proposed here, which probably you may not fully see what's going on there, but I believe that what's happening with that actually allows for 200 children within the facility rather than 100. And our item number 4 states that we have a 100 children maximum for both buildings. I feel like that this application meets city code. I believe that the Planning Commission voted 7 to 0 unanimously to approve it, and I don't see any legitimate reason to deny the conditional use permit as it's listed on our resolution with the 7 items from the Planning Commission. So that's my thoughts. I don't know if anybody else from the council—

Yes, I have a comment, Mayor. Mayor, I have a comment if I may.

Go ahead.

First of all, I think it was Mr. Pepper who made this presentation, and I thought he did a wonderful job. I would like I'd like our counsel to opine on this. So it sounds like we're just potted plants here, that we have no vote, no say. If that's the case, why are we even meeting here tonight? According to Mr. Pepper, we have to say yes. I'd love our counsel to opine on that.

Well, I think more importantly, we also need to have our legal counsel chime in, but—

That's what I said. I'd like our counsel to opine on this, our legal counsel. Council, Mayor.

That's fine. I'm sorry, legal counsel or city council?

The council, our legal counsel, S-E-L, not C-I-L.

Okay.

Mayor, this is Steve Earle here. I would be happy to respond to the legal aspects of Mr. Pepper's presentation. You know, the one, the major area where I probably would Disagree with what Mr. Pepper said. If I understood him correctly, he was suggesting that the 12 factors that we have under 226-9 subsection G for private schools and commercial daycare services— if I understood him right, I think he was suggesting that if those factors are met, that the City Council has no choice but to approve the application. I think maybe that's where Mr. McDonald's comment is coming from. I don't think that's correct. I don't think that's the correct legal standard. The 22-6-9G states that an application for a conditional use permit for a commercial daycare must meet at a minimum those requirements. So those are only— those 12 factors are only minimum requirements that an application applicant has to meet. They are not— if you meet them, then you're automatically entitled to approval of it. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that our city ordinance in Section 22-4-4 explicitly outlines a number of other factors that the City Council ought to consider in evaluating a conditional use permit application. Those factors include, for example, in subsection E, present and future requirements for transportation, traffic, water, sewer, and other utilities. And most importantly, and quite broadly, subsection L, the impact of the proposed use on the health, safety, and welfare of the city, the area, and persons owning or leasing property in the area. And again, the focus on the impact of the use on the health, safety, and the welfare of the city, I think, is the most important area that we need to focus on here. Under that category, I think easily would fit concerns about traffic safety, concerns about clear vision areas, concerns about inadequate parking, and so forth. So I think that it's completely legitimate for the council to be— to address and to consider the impacts on traffic safety, impacts on parking, as the council has done up to this point. So I think that this city ordinance gives the council the right and authority to consider those particular questions.

Yes.

Steve, I have a question. So if in fact we're looking at this traffic proposal from our traffic engineer and we were to put that in as part of our resolution, how would you verbalize that?

Yeah, in fact, I was going to suggest that if the council makes a motion to approve this, that we add an additional condition basically stating that the on-street parking for the facility would be limited as shown on our traffic engineer's diagram that's been presented to you, which basically shows only the 3 stalls at the western edge of the property on 400 South and the 4 total of on-street parking stalls on Main Street as shown in his diagram.

Are you saying that we add like an item 8 that on-street Parking.

Yes, with an additional condition would be limited to the traffic engineers' outline. Well, the diagram that was—

diagram.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

And I think so.

Okay.

Do you want me to continue?

Yes.

Okay. So I think it was also suggested that we're not allowed to to rely on AASHTO standards. And again, I would disagree with that. In particular, with regard to the clear vision questions, both as with respect to the intersection of Main Street and 400 South, as well as the intersection of the parking lot and Main Street, our city code actually does give explicit authority to the city engineer to apply and even modify, including expanding a clear vision zone require— clear vision area requirement in accordance with AASHTO standards. So I actually think that authority is specifically given to the city. That's, that's actually found in Section 22-14-19, subsection C4. of the Orem City Code. So I don't think there's any question, but the city is entirely entitled to rely and actually, quite frankly, should rely on those standards in determining what is a safe clear vision area and where parking should be restricted where it infringes on those clear vision areas. And then with regard to With regard to the parking requirement, I think again it was suggested that we have no right or ability to rely on these ITE or International Traffic Engineer standards that have been talked about. And again, I think that is incorrect. I think that one of the general welfare— the concerns about health, safety, and welfare has to do or includes concern over inadequate Parking on the facility, and so you know we have to rely on some kind of a standard. We don't we don't want to be trying to pick out a number out of thin air about what the appropriate number of parking stalls is here, and I think it's entirely appropriate to rely on ITE standards with regard to this, with regard to how many parking stalls are required or should be required for each. Child in the facility. Now, certainly I agree that the 0.24 number, 0.24 parking stalls per child, is an average. And as we have discussed, that those ITE standards do consist of a range going from 0.09 stalls per child at the low end of the range And going up to 0.51 at the high end of the range. Probably Brady, our city traffic engineer, is better situated to discuss whether 0.24 is the appropriate standard or whether it's appropriate to go down to 0.20, as the mayor, I think, suggests, which would give them still 100 child occupancy limit, or whether it should be something different. Yeah, I think that's a good question.

different.

But I think I have addressed the legal issues. If I missed something or there are still any other outstanding questions, I would be happy to address those.

So I have some comments, but any comments from the council?

I have a comment, Mayor.

Go ahead, Dave.

When I listened to all the comments, I mean, earlier the city sent out all the responses, so we all read them. That is why I don't know why we had to read them again. But I'm all, I'm all giving citizens an opportunity to speak, and we read all the comments. But my question is, we're not saying that Smiley Faces is a bad daycare. They're a great daycare, and at the facility they're at right now, the max kids they can have at one time is 43 kids. So to say, you know, there's no parking problems and they can stagger them every 5 minutes, You look at the new building, they want to double, even 60% higher, more traffic, more kids. So my concern is safety. It's always been safety. So I don't see the 5-minute intervals dropping off 100 kids, and if somebody's late by 2 seconds or 5 minutes, that's going to jack up the whole backup, everything. So my concern there is You know, in a perfect world it might work, but we're not in a perfect world. Guarantee it's not a perfect world. Mr. Pepper mentioned condition standard of safety. That's my main concern. The line of sight, which we're taking care of, but I'm not for the 2.0 or 0.2. I'm for the 0.24, so it's 83 kids because we're doubling what he has now from his daycare. So we're not saying that Smiley Faces is a bad place. It's a great daycare and everybody needs daycare. We're just saying this facility in this neighborhood, I think we need to limit it down to 0.24, which is 83 kids.

And that's still to me a little bit too much, but I think that's my, my 2 cents.

Thanks, Dave.

Any other comments from the council?

Yeah, Mayor, this is Terry. I have a couple comments I'd like to make.

Go ahead, Terry.

So I was smiling at Mr. Pepper's presentation when he said being emotional is not appropriate. And then he touched on BYU games, the love of our children, that we have our families, that we all like Costco. and comparing our number of children to the families they have in New York or something. Anyway, so the whole thing to me, I agree with what Dave's saying. It sounds like Smiling Faces does a great job and has some very loyal people, and I have no problem with that. Good for them, and thank you for being an asset to our community. But my issue is exactly what Greg Thank you. Mr. Stevens was talking about safety, health, and welfare. I just do not see where that can be a safe place to have 100 or more cars pulling in and out through the day. Well, 100 kids being dropped off, no matter how many cars are there, but they have to be dropped off and picked up again. I'm very uncomfortable with it. One of the responses from one of the citizens was that if there's an accident or a death, that they will hold us personally responsible as a city council. I take that very seriously as a father and a grandfather, and I do not support— I support daycare, but I do not support it at that location.

Okay, Debbie, go ahead.

So on Monday I went and looked at the daycare. I looked at their egress, ingress. I looked at how they checked students in and out. So I think they do a good job. I was impressed. They didn't know I was there. I picked really high traffic times to go to look, to observe. I do think that they probably can do the 5 per 5-minute, generally speaking. Obviously there will be exceptions here and there. I don't believe it'll back up. I saw no more than 3 cars ever, and usually it was 1, maybe 2. The average drop-off was 2 minutes. I timed everything with my phone, and the traffic is gonna be a lot less off of State. So I am supportive. I could certainly— 0.24 or 0.2, I can negotiate that, compromise that. I don't know how that pencils for our— the owner of this. Is 83 penciled? There's 100. I guess for me, I need— I would need to know what Would make it still viable.

So—

Hey, Mayor, I've got a question for Debbie.

Yeah.

Debbie, I called Simone from the state of Utah.

Yeah.

And max, the max number of kids they can have at one time in that house is 43 kids. So if they're saying it's 20 or whatever, so that might be 7, you know, half of that, 43 kids, right?

Right.

You're saying it can handle the every 2 minutes. In reality, if you add 60%, that's 100 kids. I don't think they can do it in 2 minutes or 5 minutes. I don't think that's being realistic. I really don't. Just because you watched it at 43 kids with a max, so you were— you weren't getting the total all the time. So I don't— I think that's—

I realize that I needed a wider sample size, but I just wanted to get a feel. There were several people that had more than one child, and so it might be interesting to find out how many families that represents. I was just trying to get a feel. I was trying to get some actual data because I didn't know. So that's why I went and I watched, and I picked very— I picked times that I thought people would be highest traffic. I picked, you know, 7:15 to 8 o'clock, and I picked 5:15 to 5:45, thinking most people work an 8 to 5 schedule. So that's why I went when I did. Certainly happy to go look more.

60% increase, 60% increase to 100 people.

So that's true.

I guess I'd be interested asking the owner how many families would 100 represent, because if it's— I don't think it's 100 different families.

He had it on the list. I think we— I don't know if Jason can pull it up from last time, but he had I think he had a drop-off to do.

So he was talking about that to expand. He's doing that so that there are additional family members in the same car that could attend.

Yeah, how many— I guess I'd like to know how many families are they anticipating? That would probably be a good idea.

That's not—

So could our applicant let us know that?

Of the families I saw, I saw 2. They had 2 kids in the morning and 2 kids in the afternoon, but they were not the same people.

So out of 43 kids for the day, the max, 2 had 2 in their car?

I mean, I wasn't there during their full period, right? They have a 6:00 AM to 9:30. I hit the 7:15 to 8:00 in the morning and I hit the 5:15 to 5:45. Obviously, I didn't hit the one— let's see, 12 to 12:15, the noon. I didn't hit that particular, and I'd be happy to go back and look at that. Let's see, it looks like 10 o'clock, noon, the noon hours when they have the most.

And looks like—

It's interesting. It's interesting to look at the time. So they start at 6 AM and basically go up mostly to 11 AM. And you look at the amount of car stalls being used, even with a 40% increase—

60.

I don't see that as being a huge item. And so if you're taking what you've got here and adding to it, it's still— I mean, these are 15-minute groupings. So, you know, one, you've got 6 cars, one you've got 9 or 10, a bunch you have 2.

Double that.

But you're more than double that.

Mayor, AJ Pepper here, if I may. I believe, I believe Erman is on the line here. If he is, maybe he could comment on, you know, just roughly the number.

Debbie, do you want to ask the question to Erman which you'd asked?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

Debbie has a question for you.

So, Armand, I will— if you go to 100 people, how many families does that represent? Because we're trying to determine, is it realistic, the 5 families per 5 drop-offs in a 5-minute period? Is that realistic? When I went and saw your organization, I saw 2 families that had 2 children, but I was only there an hour and 15. I wasn't there the full time all day long.

How many?

Yeah, well, I—

yes, I provide, uh, to— I think our engineering, you know, to submit to the Orange City, uh, this studio to the traffic and the parking lot, the studio information. We have 8 families. In this 8 families, they bring 19 kids. Only 8 families, they bring 19 kids. How many kids? And to answer Mr. Spencer's question, when the Child Care License Department, they say 43 kids, it's at the same time. We can have 75 kids not coming at the same time. And that's why we work on a schedule. But my feeling besides this comment is, No matter what studio we provide, no matter what statistics, no matter what we do, we won't change his opinion. And I respect his opinion. But is it respectful for us that he take the position that he don't believe whatever we say? We are in the same way that we have in the previous meeting.

So—

Yeah, Herman, we just need to have you answer questions.

Yeah, Herman, obviously members of the council, mayor, you can sense the You know, some concern and a little bit of frustration on this, especially given that, again, our traffic engineer has worked closely with your traffic engineer, and much of this analysis that we're going through is technical in nature, right?

So my question— I understand all that. My question is, of the additional students that are going to be going there, are these mostly from existing Are these your current customer families right now where you're adding one more per car, or are these all new families with all new cars?

No, Mayor, most of the students that we have right now, they're going to be over there. So when we made this number, 43 kids, we're talking basically on families. We're not talking exactly counting heads and say, okay, how many kids we have at this time, how many families. When Mrs. David-Laudet was there, she can see families bringing 2 or 3 kids at the same time because they are from the same family. So once again, a license is 43, they allow 43 kids. They going— we going according with the The child care license department. We have the capacity in this building up to 200 kids. So the city is telling us, no, you cannot have 200, you can have 100 kids. But my point over here is we have 73 kids right now. You can have copies of the roster right now, the enrolled kids and their facilities. I think the engineering, or engineering, he has the copies. And there's 43 at the same time.

Mr. Colon, you have to talk.

Yeah, yeah, David, just give me one second. We moving, or we are proposing, we are working in a 2,700 square foot facility attending 73 kids in 2,700 square foot.

Right.

So we're going to move the same kids to 14,000 square foot. So the minimum we expecting is go from 73 to 100, because it's a place and no space to do that. And we prove, or we submit all the information necessary to show how we've been handling the traffic. I don't know what else we can do to to prove that we've been handling this for many years.

Right.

For over 3 years in the actual location.

Councilmember has a question. Brent, do you want to answer your— ask your question?

Yes, I— Mr. Pepper, I appreciate your explanation, but now I feel like I'm at 2 football games. I got an email today that said said the applicants and the city agreed on the parking, which was illustrated here, and they agreed on 83 kids. That came this afternoon. But I understand our legal staff and Mr. Pepper met yesterday and discussed the compromises or whatever. Even Mr. Pepper just said the numbers are complicated, and I find I find it surprising that all this is brought on us at the at the last minute. I'm not I'm not sure how we're supposed to digest all this being blindsided. So that the only thing I can do is rely on our legal team and our staff, which are excellent. But to me, I think it's unfair to me being a Councilmember to get all this information at the stroke of the vote.

Brant, one comment I wanted to make. We did discuss with Jason Bench the idea that we would have 0.20, and that would allow for a 100% occupants, and we came through on that. I know Dave's saying 83, Terry's saying 83, Jason brought up 0.2.

Mayor, did you get that email this afternoon? 83 kids they agreed on?

I did not. I was out of the office for 2 hours before City Council meetings. I did not see that.

Would Brian or Jason address that?

Yeah, the email that I sent Indicated, and based on that email, was under the impression that 0.24 was the standard. And based on the parking, 20, 83 would be the requirement. So the discussion after that was if we had a compromise of 0.2, then that could get them to 100.

So the email I did send you—

That's the same information they have, the 100. And it's in your draft. If you look in your draft on the agenda, That's the number that we have over there. My question over here, and my concern is, are you going to have somebody from the city going and checking out my roster every day or once a while and see how many kids I have? We have inspections every other month from the Child Care License Department. They verify this number, they verify how many kids we have, they verify the records. So the city is going to send somebody, assign somebody doing this and don't believe on the Child Care Department license? That is my concern. We have 2 supervisors now.

Herman, let me quickly interrupt you there. AJ here. Councilman Sumner, you are making a good question and I don't know where the agreement somehow came around 83. That was never agreed to and discussed. Again, the The discussion has been around these ITE technical standards. And again, the question has been raised and that we've answered is if the national average is 0.24 and Utah has the largest families in the nation, then along that range, it stands to reason that we would be on the lowest end of that range, right? The 0.09.

Well, AJ, I think that's a point of negotiation, but—

I agree. I agree completely. One that we have.

Time to Terry Peterson for a question.

Yeah, please.

Yeah, Mayor, if I'm reading this chart right, this is the current chart that we're looking at with the 43. Wouldn't those numbers be doubled if it's 100? So for example, 7:30 to 7:45 AM, there would be 18 stalls being used. Again, at 9:00 to 9:15, there would be 20 stalls.

One comment there. What Herman said earlier is that some of the increase comes from additional family members. So straight saying that everything is doubled, I don't think is correct. I think—

That's my only question about that. What do those additional family members do now? Do they have to stay home? I mean, if there's only 2 kids in the car now because they— now they'll be able to have 3, I mean, maybe. But there's going to be an increase. So if it's 9 and it's not double, maybe it's instead of 18, maybe it's only 14 or 15. And from noon to 12:15, instead of 20, it might be 15. Whoa, that's scary.

Mayor, members of the council, it sounds like we're talking a lot about comparing what is the current What is the current situation versus what will it be after this increase? If we are going to think about it in those terms, then we have to be fair to the situation, which is this.

At the current—

Okay, I will just let you finish.

Along State Street, there are 13 parking spaces that are shared by a mobile home park and by a restaurant. Okay? And what that effectively means is that most times there is maybe 3 or 4 spaces that are available for pickups and drop-offs. What we're talking about here is 13 spaces, right? Almost a 400% increase in the number of available parking spaces as compared to the current situation, which we've identified currently works. There aren't these issues that— these doomsday issues that we're identifying. And so again, what we're talking about here is almost a 400% increase in the number of available parking stalls specifically for pickups and drop-offs.

Thank you.

And again, as Councilman Sumner so astutely pointed out here, we're only talking about a 60% increase in the number of students that are there currently versus what will be there. So again, comparison.

So AJ, one thing I'd like to say is, as an example, if you look at 10 stalls from 9:00 to 9:15, and we had put a limit of 1 stall per 1 minute, So you've actually got a minute and a half per stall. But the same thing is between 8:45 and 9, you have one stall being used, and 9:15 to 9:30, one stall being used. Would it not be reasonable, since he staggers his customers, that he could stagger them accordingly instead of 12 right there? I mean, you've got 12, but The thing about it is 2 of those time periods only have one.

Yeah.

So if you increase one additional and then move some from the 10 down, you've got plenty of room there. You don't have to double the same place at the same time. Plus, you're going to have some additional family members. These families have new kids born, and so some of those kids are going to come from the—

Yeah.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, may I say something? As one of the public comments pointed out, these are not people that are dropping off their kids that are able to simply come in and go as they please, right? These are people who are stuck to and tied to a schedule based on their work schedule and based on the availability at the daycare. And as Irmán has explained in previous meetings, and as he and I have talked about This is effectively a contract between these individual parents and the daycare. They're assigned a particular pickup and drop-off.

If you could hold on a second, Brent Sumner has a question.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't close it. I'm sorry. No, I don't.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right.

Mayor, can I say something about the safety element?

Sure.

So we've looked at the safety and we've reduced the number of stalls, and we've contemplated what, what would work as far as number of, number of kids being dropped off together, uh, or number of people in the parking lot together. And that's where I, I met with and talked with Brady Hill at the city, and we talked through that, and that would represent about 60 vehicles on the street. So we've reduced the parking, we've left Half of our parking stalls empty in our— on our site for, you know, because we're only using half at a time. We're only using 5 in a 5-minute period. And then there— and then there's 5 or 8 open stalls in the lot for more people to come or to come off schedule. And looking at that 60 extra vehicles over the hour, over the busiest hour of the day, the PM peak. With the traffic on the road, that increased the delay on the road by only 3.6 seconds. It was really a minimal change to the actual traffic in the area, and we have accommodated safety by eliminating 7 stalls on street parking for this, for this location. We are mitigating the safety element. Per the city's request.

So the Planning Commission put in there no more than 10 pickup drop-off vehicles within a 10-minute period. I believe that is achievable with what I'm seeing. Yeah, put in there 100 children for both buildings with changing the parking to 2.0 occupants per space. installed, we hit that 100 maximum. Personally, I believe that the way it's set up from the Planning Commission makes sense to me. Go ahead, Debbie.

Mayor Burns, can I take—

Hold on, Herman, if you could hold on for a second. Debbie Larray's got a question.

Okay.

Going off of the information Mr. Armand, um, when I did the math, the 43 people represent, um, 24 individuals that come from families and the 19 that come from 8, so a total of 32 families. So my question is, just give us the best ballpark. Are you going to have— of those 32 families, will you go up to 50 people, 45 people? I mean, I'm trying to get a feel for Your best guess? Because right now I'm showing 32 families for 43. Or is it just going to be a percentage? Is that your best guess? I'm just asking. I'm trying to get a feel. 50 families, 60 families, 45 families? Do you have a best guess?

That's, that's the number that we've been working with AJ, and I think he's working with the Planning Commission. We're not talking about about kids, we're talking about families. And actually, I want to mention that we started already, um, um, considered to offer, um, transportation. So we have a meeting with few of the families. They, they have several members, you know, 3 or 4, and they completely agree they, they will be happy. We're going to bring 10 or 12 kids and one vehicle offering transportation. So my point over here is we are already working on this. Even if we don't know if we're going to get that building or not, we are already working for the past 3 months with the parents, you know, trying to prepare a plan how we're going to handle the increment, like Mr. Spencer said, of 50 or 60%. We're not expecting, oh, we're going to let the people run in the parking lot and we don't know what's What's going on, running like a chicken with no head. We, we are preparing a plan to handle this. That is the way we've been working now, and that is more parking. And I hope that you stay focused on how many kids or how many more vehicles we're going to have right now. Where are the restrictions we have? We don't have even 7 stops for ours, not even 7. Because we share 13 stalls with a little restaurant and a dealer, and the trailers, the parking lot is on the behind. So even that, you'll hear from the comments from our parents, we, we have a spot anytime that we came to drop or pick up the kids. How come? Because we handle and we schedule and we— He showed the schematic showing how we split it out with the parents. I don't know another way how to explain this. And besides that, we're going to offer the transportation. So some families, they happy because they have to go to work early. So we go and drop the kids at the elementary school, and we have kids that coming after school. That's why we don't have— That's why we don't have all the kids coming early in the morning. That's why we have the ability to split it out during the day, because some kids attending school in the morning, or some kids they just going after school to the daycare or the center.

Yeah.

Did I answer the question?

Herman, this is AJ here. You know, I think Councilmember Laura had a great point, and we're trying to kind of get at here, I think, is is, you know, of the proportion of families that are enrolled in the daycare, you know, is it 20%, is it 50%, is it 70% that have, you know, 2 or more kids?

Right now it's around 20%.

Is that a correct way to kind of state the question?

Yes, because I think it gives us a better sense of what it's going to look like. And I'm trying to— I mean, if I just take a proportion, And I'd say there are 32 families now, and I just take the portion that I'm looking in the 70s, right? But if, if he can tell me of those 32 families, I'm going to add another kid with this one and this one, this one, then it's not 70. Yeah, get a feel, that's all.

Yeah.

It doesn't have to be exact, but it, you know, is it going to go to 2 to 3 from the same family? Is it going to be all new people? Is it going to be And I don't know, because I don't— I didn't see bigger kids at his facility. And like I said, I was only there an hour 15. I saw a 6-month-old, and I probably saw a 10-year-old. But maybe they have an older sibling, or maybe— I don't know. I'm trying to get a feel for the number of cars, numbers of trips, to see. And then obviously, we can try to schedule. I'm just trying to get information so I have a good idea what we're looking at.

That's all.

Yeah, I have, I had the number over here. I was looking at my roster and it's around 23% of the families, they have multiple kids. Some families they have 2, some families they have 3, and we have a family they have 4. So from 8 families, I think, and Dave, he has that list, we came with the number of 19 kids between the 8 families. So we're talking about 22-23% are rostered, and that's— it's only one trip per family, you know.

Right, and we understand that. I'm just trying to get a realistic number knowing it's not going to be 100 cars. Is it going to be 70, 60, 50 cars? How many?

How many?

But if that's— I guess I'll just go with 70 with the idea that might be high.

That might be the highest. Yeah, and sorry, and, and if we, we, um, go to the point, the, the offer, and, and start running the transportation, that's going in our benefit because we have the 10 kids coming, uh, under one vehicle, you know, and with 2, uh, caregivers and one person who is the driver, and, and we reduce the traffic into the building, and plus all the different ages, we can split it out more easy than receiving kids in different hours. That is the plan that we had to handle this increment in kids.

It sounds like your traffic engineer had 60 cars. Was that based on the number of families? Where did the 60 come from? Who was the gentleman that said the 60?

Sorry, I just— I was on mute again. So that 60 came from 5 cars in 5 minutes. So you go 5 cars times 12 and that gives you 60. So we looked at that rate. Makes sense.

OK, thank you.

Not an actual—

not actual, but an approximation.

OK, thank you.

Yeah, Councilmember Sumner has a question.

Yeah, I just, uh, let's see, am I off mute?

Go ahead.

Yeah, Mayor, I just got a text. If this conditional use is approved, how is it enforced? And I'd like— in fact, they said in the text they'd like comments from staff. I guess Jamie could comment on this and our neighborhood preservation unit, which enforces and watches ordinance obeyed. How does it— how do you police this, Chief Hurst?

You want me to answer that question?

No, Mayor, this is Steve.

I can answer that question. OK, so, so it would be— I would anticipate this would be enforced just like every other zoning situation that we have. we have, and that's typically on a complaint basis. So what that would mean is that if there are— if we notice that there are problems with the use, that maybe the traffic is getting backed up, getting clogged up, that, you know, people are having difficulty getting in and out of the parking lot, there's not enough parking spaces in the parking lot, then we at that point would say, okay, it looks like there's a problem there, we need to do some investigation. And this maybe answers Herman's question from earlier. We're not going to be actively, you know, inspecting his books, you know, every month or anything like that. Typically, it's only going to be if we see that there's a problem going on that we would then investigate whether these conditions are actually being complied with.

Yeah, that is my point. This is a conditional permit. So I'm not going to put an investment, you know, because we, we're going to buy that building and put at risk this investment, uh, no getting, um, advice, you know, or doing something that might go against the, the business. Because this might be in a commercial area when another area, I don't have to care. Many businesses here, and we can see— I, one of the consuls I've seen in the last meeting, He mentions that some parents, or many parents, they don't follow the rules. And, and, and so sometimes that happens, sometimes that happens. But I think that depends on the administration, depends on, on the ethic that you deal with the parents and the way of the communication that we have with the parents. I mean, I don't—

Could I just mention that if you are going to do a new business in Orem and a new location, we expect you to follow the rules and to be self-policing. So we do not expect that you'll see how far you could get out of the rules. We would expect you to follow the rules, and I believe that you're doing that where you're at, but that would be important. Jeff Lampson has a question that I'd like to give him time for. Jeff, if you want to sign in.

If I could get on the queue as well, Mayor, after Jeff.

Thanks.

Raise your hand, Tom.

I don't know how to do that.

I haven't seen the hand here, so—

Click on the bottom, you'll find participants.

I saw, I looked, obviously. It's not my first rodeo.

I don't see it. Go ahead, Jeff.

Okay, thank you.

So first of all, I want to congratulate Mr.

Pardo for his successful business and for providing a wonderful service to the community.

community.

And I just wanted to ask if he will take teenagers. But my question is to Orem City staff. Are we in concurrence and in agreement with what Mr. Besant stated about the amount of time per vehicle? And in general, are Are the Orem City engineers and staff in harmony with what is being represented on the other side?

Are we, are we kind of in unison of what we can expect to see?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You're not going to regret, you know, if you guys make a decision in favor of or let them build the business building in that place. I feel the concern from some of the neighbors. I mean, kids, they screaming, they yelling, and they play, they cry. So maybe they don't want somebody of that kind of stuff in their backyard. I feel sorry for that. And I want to mention this. My wife came a few days ago and We, 2 or 3 weeks ago, we went around the neighborhood like making a little survey, asking people's opinion. And we found, after the meeting 2 weeks ago, my wife, she went back by herself. And one of the neighbors came and said, hey, I hope that you, you're lucky to find a place in another neighborhood. And she said, why? She said, I don't want people parking at my, at my driveway. I know kids screaming in my backyard. So my wife say, well, the building was open for sale for about 2 years and nobody placed an offer. And you might buy and make a swimming pool over there and nobody can come and bother you. So is this in the benefit of the city or the neighborhood? What is the major— priority over here. Have a building that's been empty for that many years and somebody might be expecting the bank decides to get the building for sale at a very low price or something that's happening like that. Because we're going in the same direction. We have a discussion with the planning department this and the past couple of days working on this and the traffic and then the flow and how we're going to handle it. But I still feeling the, no matter what, what came out of the studios or the opinions we bring from the parents, it's difficult to change. the opinion of some people. We have opening only Monday to Friday. We're not working Saturdays and Sundays. So neighbors, they don't have to be concerned. The people or somebody playing outside on the playground Saturdays or Sundays. We work from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Nobody is going to be there after evening or during the night. trips or nothing like that. I hope that all these things have been shared.

Mayor, if I could, this is Brady Hale. I would just like to maybe be able to jump in here and answer Jeff's question.

Yes.

I think, Jeff, in terms of what is being proposed here, I think some of this information has been new to us today as well.

Your Honor, I do have a question.

In terms of Mr. Bezant and referring to, you know, the traffic operations and all that kind of stuff due to potentially the, you know, 60 individuals per hour, if you're assuming, you know, 5 people coming every 5 minutes, I myself have not got a chance to verify that, and that's because that has been done today. With that, it is, you know, trips are going to be added to the roadway network. It is going to deteriorate that intersection in terms of 400 South and Main Street. But it is my understanding from Mr. Besant that that's going to be within, still within an acceptable level of service there. In regards to pickup and drop-off, I think what the applicant is being presented with, you know, 5 individuals for 5 minutes, it's similar to what was agreed upon in Planning Commission with 10 individuals every 10 minutes. And, and, you know, what's being shown in essence is that there's still available parking for overlap if somebody does come late or go early there. And so I think it's kind of 2 things here. Still having available parking so we're not overcapacity in the parking lot, and then still, you know, with that number, not deteriorating the roadway network in terms of traffic operations excessively. And I think that without verifying everything that's kind of been done today, it is my understanding that what's being proposed will be able to do that in terms of provide appropriate parking, you know, based on a very structured and organized pickup and drop off. And then limiting so many people per hour. With that 5 per minute or 10 every 10 minutes, it's 60 an hour, which is not showing failing conditions. So yeah, we are in harmony.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

But in reality, when you look at, say, the 10:30 slot to the 1:00 slot, that's 20 vehicles going in there over 140 minutes. So that's 7 minutes per vehicle. I think we're okay. I think if you just judge one slot and say that's true of all the slots, that's not fair. You really have to average that out. Any other questions or comments?

Yes, I have one.

Okay, who's that?

Tom.

Okay, go ahead, Tom.

Of these parking stalls, several are going to be used by staff, employees, workers. Are they going to park in some of these 20 stalls?

Yeah, Tom, this is AJ here. We've talked with Brady about this extensively, and if you go back to— I think it looks like Jason's going back there to the presentation.

about that.

The maximum demand for the number of employees is going to be 6 or— it was 6 or 7, I think. But in any event, all of those are serviced by those off-street parking spaces. As we've discussed, one of the conditions would be that all of the pickup and drop-offs of students occur in the off-street parking lot. And so again, of those 13 stalls, all of those would be dedicated for use by the students Which is comforting, but if the 10 becomes 20, as Mr.

Peterson suggested earlier, we have a problem. So again, my real question is, I don't know what we're asking for. Are you asking for 83, an approval with 83, which feels like it could go that way? Are you asking for approval for 100? Are you asking for approval for more than that? I'd like to know what's being requested.

it tonight?

Yeah, so as our discussions have shown at this point, you know, based on the ITE standards, which again are the technical standards governing this, it's clear that Utah and our situation in particular does not line up with the 0.24 standard, which gives rise to the 84 parking stalls. The thinking at this point, again, based on what we have in the way of evidence from data about Utah and specifically data about other similarly situated daycare centers is that the ratio is something less than 0.24. In talking with the staff and in talking with the engineers, we've discussed the possibility of a 0.2. Again, it's a bit of a compromise at this point in time. Which gets us to that 100 number. Again, we see that as a very, very fair compromise, especially in light of how many parking spaces have been taken out at this point.

Again, to cut to the chase, you're not asking for any more. You are asking for 100. Obviously the market will bear as to how many you actually get, but that's more than we were told at 11:00 AM this morning. But you're asking for 100 as a max, is that correct?

For tonight's approval, that's correct.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Is this going to be something we get into and then we got more down the road?

No, no, no. There's always an opportunity to reevaluate a conditional use, correct?

If we have— Upwards and downwards.

What's that?

Upwards and downwards.

Correct.

And so without reserving— or excuse me, without extinguishing that ability, that right, That's what we're talking about tonight.

Okay.

And I'm sorry, Mayor, I don't mean to cut you off. One thing that I want to just quickly circle back to about this, and if 10 becomes 20 and so on, how that all works. You know, one of the things that Armand alluded to, and I think he's exactly right, is this idea that a condition— this conditional use permit makes the property valuable, right? That's what makes this property work for this particular use. And so it's not in his interest to try to step beyond what the approved conditions are and try to exceed that out of the risk that he would lose the conditional use permit altogether. Because that, again, if you exceed it, it can be revoked and the code provides for that. So again, there are, there are aligned incentives on the part of the city and on the part of the applicant. to have that use be conforming to the conditions imposed.

So Dave Spencer has a question. Dave?

Yeah, the question is for our legal counsel on— I think maybe AJ Pepper mentioned it, but so if this thing is approved and the parking is just out of whack, we Are we allowed to say, come back and say, you know, this is a conditional permit, we can lower it down?

Or what's the process?

Sorry there, I was taking some time to unmute here. Yeah, basically there's a— the city code basically says that the procedure for amending or potentially revoking a conditional use permit is the same as the original application procedure. So there, there would be potentially that opportunity if it was really, you know, creating a problem to, to take a look at that again.

And we just bring that up, or what?

Yeah, I mean, that would typically be something initiated by the City Council, presumably based on, you know, an investigation that found that there were problems and, and so on.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments? Okay, well, I would like to go ahead and make a motion. I would like to move that the Orem City Council approve the conditional use permit of the Daycare Smiling Faces located at 410 South Main Street in the R-8 zone with the 7 conditions approved by our Planning Commission with— and with the addition of 2 additional conditions. One, that the parking on street would be allocated per the traffic diagram by our city traffic engineer. And then 2, that the IT standard of 0.20 individuals per parking stall be accepted for a maximum of 100 people per use of the 2 buildings combined. Is there a second?

Second.

Mayor, if I could jump in real quick.

Sure.

I think there just needs to be a clarification as to the occupancy question. And I think What we wanna say with the 100 limit is that it's 100 kids per day, not necessarily 100 at a time.

Sure.

Because the traffic, all the traffic calculations are based on, and the number of trips and so on are based on there being that many trips based on a total—

Total per day of 100.

Yeah, right.

Yes, okay. We'll adjust that accordingly. Okay, let's go ahead and start then. We'll start with Tom.

Nay.

Okay, Dave.

Nay.

Brent. Brent, are you on mute?

He's on mute.

Yeah, I just feel like I've got so much information at the last minute. I would like to possibly look at it later, but for now, nay.

Okay, Debbie?

Aye.

Okay, Jeff?

Aye.

Okay, Terry?

Nay.

Okay, Mayor?

Aye.

So the resolution does not pass. Does anyone care to make a separate resolution? Do you wish to continue? Do you wish to not make another resolution? Okay.

My question is, if it was maxed at 83, would that change anyone's vote?

Make your motion and find out, Debbie.

OK, I motion that we amend the resolution instead of 100 to 83 as per the 0.24 parking as determined on the average from— I don't remember the organization.

So Debbie, to clarify, your motion would be the same as the mayor's, but you're just modifying the parking standard of 0.24 and with the total occupancy of 83, correct?

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll start again. Tom?

Aye.

Okay, Dave?

Nay.

Brent?

I want— that's the information I received this afternoon, or this— yeah, this afternoon, and I met with Brady down at the site, and he was very cordial and very professional going over the situation. Uh, 83 is the number. Aye.

Okay. Uh, Debbie?

Aye.

Okay.

Jeff?

Aye.

Terry?

Nay.

Okay. Mayor?

Aye.

The resolution passes with the additional 2 items listed and the total amount of children for both buildings So thank you for that. Um, we will move on. Jamie, do you have any items that you want to bring up?

I brought mine up previously in the work meeting.

Thank you, Mayor.

So we wore you out.

Okay.

Uh, Jamie, can I speak to the Gmail?

Yes.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I apologize.

You're okay, you're okay.

Mayor, council, just wanted to make you aware, Jamie did mention that this weekend we'll be migrating your email, your city email, to Google Mail as opposed to Gmail, as opposed to your current Outlook. We recognize that some of those things will be different. It may be a little different in how you navigate through your email and such. You may have— you may run into different things as you try to get it onto your phone. We have a dedicated staff member, Matt Peterson, from our IT help desk, who will be contacting each one of you individually prior to the migration to make sure anything that you need to do prior to is taken care of. And he'll also reach out to you as soon as the migration's done to make sure that you're able to access all of your information. So I won't pretend that it won't come without some, uh, you know, learning and, and maybe a couple little minor, uh, challenges, but we'll have a dedicated employee that'll reach out to each of you and make sure you're taken care of. So look for that call from Matt Peterson. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me as well.

Okay, thank you, Steve, and thank you, Pete, and all the staff that have been involved today. I would like to make a motion to adjourn. Is there a second?

So moved.

Second.

All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Okay, we're adjourned. Thank you.