City Council · 2021-07-13

Because they control the— yeah, I can pull the transcript.

That's so hard.

Saints, but congratulations.

Well, it's 3 o'clock. We'd like to welcome— we'd like to welcome everyone here. If we can get the conference over there to disband.

Yes.

Dave and Tom, we're going to start the meeting. So we'd like to welcome everyone here. We'd like to begin by just having a presentation on our Utah Valley Drug Prevention Coalition by Brittany Juarez.

She is not here, but if you want to go ahead for now, I can get started.

Okay, and tell me who you are.

Is she planning on coming?

Yeah, she's coming.

I think it was just a little tricky.

Mayor, maybe we can just take a minute and introduce our new Sure. Neighborhood Preservation employees while we wait for—

Sure.

As you know, we made a transition here on July 1st from essentially responsibilities of the Neighborhood Preservation Unit being within the Police Department to now being within our Neighborhood and Community Services Division. And I— that did involve some changes. Personnel-wise, we actually hired some new code enforcement neighborhood preservation officers and returned several of the NPU officers into the police department. And I wanted to introduce you to our new employees as well as obviously give our— she's here— Kenna, our community neighborhood services manager, just a minute. to talk about kind of the transition as well as to recognize Officer Brady Andreassen, who continues to be part of the MPU effort and serves by assignment of Chief Adams to this unit. I also want to introduce Gary and Rory, who are our new employees, and maybe, Kenny, you can allow them just a minute to introduce themselves.

Sure.

But these 2 gentlemen are the face and the boots on the ground of our new MPU effort. So with that, I'll turn the time over to Cannon.

Thanks, Jamie.

Mayor and Council, it's good to be with you today. I'm excited to share that we have now become the Neighborhood Improvement Team, so we'll be no longer known as the Neighborhood Preservation Unit, and we will be under Community Services. We've been doing this for about a week and it seems to be going very well. But I'm excited to have Lori and Gary with us. and excited to keep Brady with us as well. So I'll turn the time over to them and they can introduce themselves really quickly. And as you see, we have the tall one and the smart one.

That's what they were saying.

So, for the strong and the brave, right?

I'm Rory Taylor. I'm really excited to be here. My expertise over the last decade-plus has mostly been in construction, so Really excited about a change in career path. I'm really excited for the opportunity to hopefully have a really good outcome with the cases that we're involved with and really help to preserve Orem and have a positive effect with the community. Excited to get out there and do some good stuff with the citizens.

Yeah, my name is Gary Ledoux. I actually live down in Mapleton. I've been in the fitness industry for I think about a decade. Excited to be here. We've, we've been out and about the last week or so, and it's been pretty eye-opening just to get in the community and just kind of see some of the issues that we're facing. And just really excited to, to get out there and make a difference. Gary and Rory, so you can say Rory.

Brady, you want to introduce yourself?

Sure, I'm Brady Andreassen. I've worked with the Norman Police Department for about 6 years now, a little over 6 years now actually. So no more to do, worked with a number of you, so look forward to making this transition nice and smooth and then continuing to help out however they need.

Recording in progress.

Well, so we are happy to work with each and every one of you. Please do not Please get in touch with our office if you have concerns in the neighborhoods that you'd like us to address. I appreciate Lieutenant Paraskevas, Steven, Jamie, Chief Adams for all this transition and helping us with this. I think it would be really good to mix community services together with the police department, with code enforcement, so we can kind of take a full approach to code enforcement in the future.

Thank you.

Appreciate you all being here, and thank you for the opportunity to share my new team.

Thank you, Kenneth.

And Rory, they're located in the, uh, city recorder suite here in the city center. So if you need to get a hold of Gary or Rory, you're welcome to obviously access them along with Kenneth in that office.

They're not police officers.

They're not.

They're civilian, non-sworn.

If that guy showed up at my door, I'd do whatever he told me.

They will be, they will be kind of Obviously they have vehicles and we're working on obviously setting up the department and so they'll have city identification.

Yeah, we'll be excited. Yeah, so we'll be excited for what you do.

So it's, um, well, have them, if they want, if they want to make a complaint, they will still call 311 through the 311.

So 311 doesn't work tonight?

Yeah, so just call 229-7000.

And then just ask for it.

And then they—

and what they'll do is they will make a case, and then we are getting some new software, it's called CommCate. That case will go into CommCate and then it will be signed out to the code enforcement and they'll follow up from there.

So ask for neighborhood improvement.

You can just report your issue.

You can just report it through 311 or through that number or through the email. If you want to reach us, you can call my number, it's 801-229-7023. Or the main code enforcement number is— now let's see if we can get this right— 801-724-3521. Is that right? Okay, so you can reach us there as well.

So, any other questions?

All right, thank you everyone.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It's exciting. So, Brittany, glad to have you here.

Yeah, I'm so sorry I ran in on this cocktail. It was great. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm pretty clear this is Lindy, right? We're here.

Why don't we put you right over here where those 2 seats are?

Oh, well, you can stand too.

You know, you're welcome to stand just where we can see you.

Yeah, perfect. Um, thank you for this opportunity.

I actually live just around the corner.

Um, I love Orem. I love Murdoch Cow Trail. It's really fun with my job to also have the opportunity to come and talk this year. So we're both the Drug Prevention Coalition, and we also work for Utah County Health Department. Brittany, Wendy. And we're here to talk a little bit more about the Drug Prevention Coalition, see if there are any opportunities for coordinating, collaborating in the future. Has anyone heard of the Drug Prevention Coalition by chance? It's a community-wide coalition. So we have some information packets we're happy to give out.

And I'm afraid I don't know who's a council member, but—

You want our hands raised?

This is current.

Council members and the mayor.

Yeah, yeah, so you can see in there we have this— it printed weird for me, but a little fact sheet about the Drug Prevention Coalition. It has our vision. It's mostly about trying to create a substance misuse-free Utah County. It's focusing on youth substance misuse, and it's considering tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, vaping, prescription drugs, those kind of issues. We know There's some really interesting rates, really scary rates for some of this use, especially among youth, and so we want to be concerned about that. So on that fact sheet on the back, it has some of the statistics for you to consider as well. We're just going to talk very briefly about some of these issues. This data is from SHARP data. It's the most recent data we have, so we'll talk about that and then go from there. So vaping Vaping is the big one, right? Everyone knows about vaping, how those rates are increasing in our communities, even in Utah County, which is, which is interesting to me. But this is from Utah County Sheriff data for 2019. So 1 in 5 12th graders have tried vaping. It's pretty, pretty common to try. 1 in 10 12th graders vape regularly. So if they try it, they're more likely to do it regularly, which is just not great. And then if kids are using e-cigarettes, they're 7 times more likely to use cigarettes later. later on. So it's a— it's, um, this is the one I work with, the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. This is the one that we focus on a lot in our communities. With alcohol, 1 in 10 children in 6th to 12th grade have tried alcohol, and of students who drank, a third of them had their parents' permission, which I find terrifying. So those are some of those youth rates. Wendy will talk about the others.

Yeah, and I actually work with the opioid prevention Department. In Utah County Health Department, and in that role I'm also part of the Drug Prevention Coalition. And so, and as you know, opioids is a problem. We have Stop the Epidemic. You've probably seen some of the promotional materials, the buses, the billboards. And so we want to try to help people before it becomes a problem. And on the Drug Prevention Coalition, we all kind of work together to try to see what we can do in the communities. And, um, and just the latest data that we have, which some of it isn't this last year, um, but 10 Utah adults die each week from a drug overdose. 8 of those are opioids, and half of those are prescription opioids, meaning your hydrocodone and those types of things, oxycodone. Um, and so, and in Utah County, We have, just in the last 5 years, we've had 109 deaths from opioids. So, um, we just want to do what we can to try to help people. So when people— ideally, we prevent people from misusing those medications and drugs, but also when they are using, we want to help them stop using. And so, um, that's one of the, one of the things that we do. And in your—

I'm sorry.

Folder, we— I just wanted to show you a couple of things. Um, one is this, um, safe drug disposal. I know Orem has one at the police department, which is fabulous. Um, but we like to let people know they can just get rid of their medications without any questions asked. Also, people that are struggling with addiction or their kids are struggling with addiction, they can always call 211 or use the app. And I've noticed lately, I don't know the process, but in Orem, I've just noticed the social media has been fabulous. And there has been a lot about preventative— well, what we call protective factors, family connectedness, social, pro-social involvement. And I'm not sure who's running all of that, but they're doing a great job, and I really like the messages that Orem's putting out.

Thank you.

So that's very helpful. Also, just if anyone's interested, any of your organizations that you belong to or the city, we do a free opioid overdose prevention class. And we give naloxone kits at the end of the class. And that's something that you can use to prevent an overdose when someone is experiencing that. And so we just want to let you know that we have these services in the coalition. And at the Health Department. We want to partner with you. Um, we want to invite anybody who would like to join the coalition or even come occasionally. We have a meeting once a month with lunch. And yeah, and if you have a specific need in your community, we'd like to partner with you to help address it if it has to do with substance use and misuse. And then, um, also we just want to let you know that we're at—

we're out there on social media as well if you'd like to joining that.

And, and if you do need specific information, data for your— for even small communities and schools, then you can talk to us and we can get access to that data as far as drug use goes. So any questions you have about drug use?

Yeah, you've been at this for a while. Perhaps the two of you, Wendy and Brittany, has legalization throughout the country Throughout the United States, have cannabis raised the acceptance or this belief that it's no big deal? I think you talked about that. It's— the kids see it as a low-risk issue. Has that raised with the legalization? Do you have any trends on that?

I don't have any data on it.

Do you?

We can find that data. I went to a conference a couple years ago where they talked about some of the really sad situations they're seeing in Portland, Oregon, like those kind of states States where they legalized it, where kids were coming to school high because their parents or their neighbors were smoking in it and they could smell it. And, um, but I— we could look into more specific data trends for you.

Then one question is both for you and perhaps for our police officers. If 35% had their parents' permission, I'm guessing that's against the law for a parent to disperse alcohol to a child under 21, probably. What's the legal drinking age?

Is it 21 or 18?

21.

Okay, thank you.

21 for alcohol and tobacco. Way to go, Utah! You know, people who supported that.

I will say when I was growing up that my parents gave me alcohol every weekend when I was 12, 10, offered me cigarettes whenever I wanted them, which I didn't want. But anyway, different world.

Yeah, the thought is maybe it's in a controlled environment. Michelle's here. She's actually the Drug Prevention Coalition chair— coordinator. So she could also look into those trends of marijuana legalization, whether that has increased any trend rate with cannabis use.

Yeah, and we're gonna get our new data for youth, maybe already mentioned this, but in just a couple months, so we'll definitely send that your way once we get it.

The other thing we can do with the coalition is, as the city of Orem does have other activities or successes Yes. And we're happy to share that on our, on our blog and social media just to highlight the city for what you're doing, for your efforts. And, you know, we definitely would like to, to partner with activities that help our families connect because that's one of the protective factors, help kids connect with each other because that's also a protective factor, and Just education as well.

So you have statistics for each city individually as to how they're progressing up or down?

As far as opioids?

Yes.

For any of it?

Alcohol, yeah. Well, like with the SHARP data, is that—

They—

Yeah.

Especially—

we work mostly with youth, like we mentioned, so we do have all that for youth. We just need to get permission from the individual schools if we're going to go to that small of a level. Um, but usually schools are very willing to share, so we can try and get that for you.

Could you get that for me?

Yeah, for sure.

I'd appreciate it.

Yeah, that's great.

All right, any other questions?

Yeah, can you let us— send us an email on when your meetings are? You said you had monthly meetings.

With lunch, yes.

With lunch, I think.

Yeah, we would love to have—

I don't have time for the meeting, but could I just pick up lunch?

We would love to have a representative from every city Let us know when those are. And what is the best email to send that out?

Who do you coordinate this with?

Jodi.

If you send it to Jodi, she'll get it.

Okay.

She's great, by the way. Thank you, Jodi.

Any other questions?

I went through the handouts. I think I'm missing a couple.

Oh dear.

Let's see.

I'll just give you my full list.

I have the overdose, and then I didn't have the fact sheet.

Well, thank you for coming.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

And there are books on the back of this too.

Oh no, that one is the only one. There we go, the lunch radio.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, we're going to go ahead and move on to our next presentation. This will be an update on the Hillcrest Park progress, and Wren Bybee and Lisa Benson will be presenting.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. We actually have the Landmark Design team joining us via Zoom room. Okay, we have Lisa Benson, Mark Vlasic, and Hugh Holt. And they're the ones with our Landmark Design that have done a lot of— or—

We also have Method Studio working with us as well, right?

And Method Studio, they're, they're not joining us today, but they did all of the work on, on the, the layout and the new restroom associated or connected with the— what would remain with the schoolhouse building. In terms of, of what we're going to kind of go through here, we'll show you kind of the The combined final concept design here that takes into account, you know, all of your feedback, the public's feedback, the surveys, the staff looking at utility placement, well placement, fine-tuning the parking, the storm drain. So that's all incorporated here, and Lisa will kind of walk us through that. Also show some other more specific kind of visual examples of what's proposed here. Over the last month, we've also been kind of looking more heavily at how to potentially phase construction of the park. And then finally, we'll go through kind of the details of the budget estimates. You'll notice quickly, we're incorporating kind of the main things that were You know, emphasizing open space, incorporating a splash pad, adding new restrooms, having dynamic playgrounds, and being ultimately more competitive with, with what our citizens are seeing elsewhere around the county in the newer parks. Big emphasis on walking paths and connectivity for pedestrian access. So as I've— you've heard me kind of repeat often, I really do think that we're proposing something and we'll kind of walk through something that will make everyone happier. And yeah, I'm really excited about what Landmark has helped us put together. So with that introduction, Lisa, can you, can you hear me and hear us?

Yeah, I can hear you.

Okay.

So Lisa, I'll turn the time over to you to kind of walk through this, this latest, I guess, concept plan.

Okay, sounds good. So this plan focuses on retaining the most recently constructed portion of the school. So it retains the gym, kitchen, and some of those attached auxiliary spaces. Some classroom space, and then there's a new restroom that is kind of added where Brent is pointing there, kind of on the north side of the building. And as far as specific configurations for that, that's something that will come out in the detailed design process. But right now, the idea is to add a restroom there in close proximity to the pickleball courts and the splash pad, so that we have that, that use on that side of the park. And then we can also tie in the pump stations and whatever is needed for the, for the splash pad into the building there as well. So it'll serve multiple purposes, having that adjacency. And then on the west side of the building, the well and pump house has been kind of shifted away from the building, just so it's accessible from the parking area, kind of where Bryn is pointing there. So you can see So, so we'll have that function there, and the detention basin is adjacent to that for flushing out that building as needed. To the north of that, we have a parking lot in the back area to serve both the building and the pickleball court area, that whole side of the park. There's a connection to the west over to the adjacent stores, so People can flow through to both of those areas if they want. There's a little turnaround with a dumpster enclosure at the back end of that, so that trucks that need to come in and service some of those utilities on the west side have somewhere to turn around, or other people can just turn around if the parking lot is full, if they didn't want to go through there. Just north of the parking lot there is the demonstration garden. And as you can see, the pickleball courts, they have been reduced to 12 right now. And as we get into— as this goes into detailed design, that number might need to be reduced just because of the close proximity to that wall that's along University Parkway. Once we have detailed survey and grading data, then we can look at that and see if it's feasible to keep all of those courts or if we'll need to reduce that number. So, So right now the number of pickleball courts stands at 12, so that's down from the previous concepts. On the north side of the building, there is a little cluster of activity there, so raised planters with that covered pavilion with those table tennis tables, so that activity in there, and there's some flexible seating in there, game tables, just a little nice little activity area adjacent to the building. So, Brent pointed out the splash pad kind of in the center of the park, so it has open lawn to both sides. And as you can see, that's one of the biggest features of this revised design is that open, open lawn areas, that flexible play space that was desired by many in the community. So that, that has been added. And as you can see, there's a nice flow of pathways around the open lawn area and the, you know, kind of that smaller lawn area and even around to the west side, so people can choose all sorts of lengths of loops that they want to connect to. That sort of thing. So there are 2 connections to University Parkway on the north side, one just by the pickleball courts at the north end, kind of in the center of the site, and then there's another connection on the east side there. And those would have ramps, both ramp and stair systems coming down from each of those to make sure that route is accessible. You can see at the south end of the open lawn area, we have a pavilion, a large pavilion there, restroom just south of that. To the east, we have playgrounds, and so this would be preschool and school-age play equipment. And then to the left of that, to the west, is the kind of natural play area, more like obstacle course, like ninja course type.

equipment.

And then just east of that pavilion, we have a little gathering area that could be like a natural gas fire pit, or it could be some sort of interactive art installation, you know, some of these details can come out during the design process, but that's kind of the general idea, a little, little activity node there. Around the perimeter pathway, we have exercise stations at different points, And we also have on the interior of that circle, we have some small pavilions with picnic tables. So there's a lot of different uses that can happen around the edges of that space. Down in the southeast corner, we have the 2 permanent 9-square installations. And then kind of southwest of the restroom, we have the little hill that could be hammocks or slacklines or You know, that, that sort of use. So I think right now, we're at around 154 parking stalls. So we have plenty of parking on site. And I think that about sums up the changes from the last—

Could I ask a question, please? I don't see tennis in there anywhere. And I don't see basketball. I know that some of the residents like to do both.

The building—

yeah, we have basketball, doesn't it?

The building could be multi-sport.

The gym is outdoor basketball.

I guess the trade-off is open space for active space. So we took part of the feedback we got from you and from the residents was we'd like to see more open spaces. And so we focused our outdoor activity space on the pickleball use, the splash pad use, the playground use, and of course, the pavilions.

And this is penciled for a dozen racquetball courts with the pickleball courts with the explanation that we may lose one or two right there by you.

Correct.

Could be 10.

Correct.

Anyway, the idea with the school gym was that that would be a multi-sport use that could be pickleball or basketball.

I think as we went down this road, we had—

we really had to look for what were the themes, because there were—

there was definitely people that asked for some very specific things.

But the theme generally of the message was open space, we want more open space and pickleball. And so we had to stick to those overarching themes.

I just think you're gonna have some people want basketball.

And we know that, and that's what we're saying too.

We know there's some people that do.

We felt like there were significantly more people that wanted this.

But again, I, I think we could maintain basketball hoops inside the gym.

You could actually put some outside basketball in one of the parking lots.

Yeah, I wondered about that, like you do in a neighborhood, put up one of those rings and If there's no cars, they can shoot baskets.

If there are, they can hit cars.

It's actually set up like that right now, but I think that's something that needs to be looked at. And you're going to send us a copy of this, right?

Yep.

Okay.

Anything else about general overarching concept design here?

I like the overall design, thank you.

So the playground area, you've got a playground area for the large kids and for the small kids?

Yes.

There are actually some visuals here on the next one too.

Here on the right would be more for the younger ages, and then on the left or the west would be kind of more parkour, Ninja Warrior.

It requires more active interaction with the So you really have one pavilion in the middle by the green area for the mothers to gather. One thing I've noticed is when I go to other parks, they will have some shaded areas next to, for example, the splash pad and some shaded areas next to the small kids park. That's where the mothers congregate to watch their small children. So you may want to consider that as well, to have a couple of shaded areas, not a big pavilion, but a shaded area where you can have a couple of park benches or whatever, where the mothers can congregate to watch their children, because that's really important.

So Lisa can, can add to this, but we did put— add shade for the splash pad area. And then there's actually Quite a lot of trees similar to what we have at Nielsen's Grove, with the idea that those would provide a lot of extra shade.

There's a small pavilion right next to the splash pad, just north of it, with the shade there with some seating. Yeah, there's also 36 benches on there as well, spread out throughout.

So I just know, I just know that mothers want to be close to their kids. in those 2 areas. Yeah, small children and the splash pad. And they need a shaded area to be in.

Yep. So Brandon, is there— will you ask Lisa the thinking about a splash pad in the middle versus closer to the road? Is there a good or bad?

Lisa can hear you too.

What you're trying to— oh, okay.

Lisa, can you speak to the positioning of the splash pad and why closer to the building there versus closer to the road?

Just the adjacency, being able to have it surrounded by lawn areas. so that people, you know, the kids can be playing in the water feature and then they can go to lawn, you know, adjacent in a lot of directions and then having it close to that corner of the building so that we can plumb in with that new restroom. And then just having it as a central feature in the park as well.

Yeah, and you're going to want to have a restroom close to the splash pad.

We find a lot of people laying out in the sun on the grass around the splash pad.

Yeah.

Okay.

One other comment. It'd be nice if this could be done yesterday. Is that possible?

Or—

Let's, let's, let's get to that. First, Lisa, do you want to speak to some of these visual examples of the features that you just described there in the design?

Yeah, so these are just some sample images, obviously pickleball courts, fitness stations, hammock park, a lot of that we've talked about. The splash pad, you can see here, has the nice kind of running flow of water with some features that are spraying onto the kids. So it's a very, very wet interactive feature we're kind of envisioning. But we don't have a huge budget for it, so we do need to be modest in the design. But I think we can still get some really good play value out of it. for that amount. And then just some ideas of the demonstration garden and table tennis, that sort of thing. So a good variety of features on site, in addition to all of the open space.

So the table tennis tables, are they steel? Are they concrete? Concrete?

These ones are in concrete. Obviously, when we went and toured the green, those were in steel. Yeah, the thought is concrete.

And the nets are concrete or just nets?

Just steel.

Steel.

So they're permanent.

So the nets are permanent steel nets?

Correct.

On concrete tape.

Okay. So if you think about the parks that we were using, or you were suggesting we use as a template, Harvey Park and Cedar Hills, Vineyard Grove Park down in, obviously, Vineyard. Neptune Park in Saratoga Springs. All of these kind of activities and events in many respects mirror what you see in those facilities. Which are, from the survey work we did, what our residents are saying, oh yeah, you gotta have stuff like they have at Harvey Park in Cedar Hills. That's exactly what we have here.

I know it's a small picture here, but that natural play feature here, that's where— that's what you've seen at a lot of these parks that have a lot of ropes to them, and then they have kind of a wood look here to make it more natural. Again, the idea is movement, using your strength, using— building your agility and interacting with the play feature.

I thought Terry was, uh, gonna donate the train.

I'm trying to find somebody to write us a check for $1 million.

You could wrap that around it.

We have the pathways to put the train on.

So, okay.

Okay, so let's talk about how to do this yesterday. Lisa, you want to talk about the phasing and the thought process there?

Yeah, so we looked at different ways to break up this project. Assuming that worst-case scenario, the city might have to break it into 3 phases just to make it affordable with funding. I know that the hope is to be able to do it in one fell swoop if possible, and that's the most cost-efficient way to do it, and you have a lot better continuity with your contractors and implementation if that's possible. But looking, if we do need to split it up, phase 1 would be demoing the portions of the building that are not going to stay and making whatever retrofits and repairs need to be made to that facility. And it would also be installing the well house, the splash pad, and the new restroom would come as part of that building retrofit. So you would have the splash pad in place with the restroom. The building would be updated and made totally functional in this option, and you would have a little chunk of parking there. Kind of to the south, and then some parallel parking to the west side, and also a small open lawn area in the front there, as you can see. Phase 2— and, and phases 2 and 3 could go in any order. We just looked at it in this scenario, assuming that you did the pickleball portion, kind of finish up that west side. And as we talked about with staff, if you did it in this order, then you could still have the existing playground and pavilion functional during this time. You know, and some of that parking that's out in front and some of the open lawn areas. So that way, then you would, in this scenario, you would roll Phase 3 in as the last phase and add in those playgrounds and all those facilities on the east side of the park. And the next slide shows, kind of summarizes the conceptual costs, and obviously you won't be able to read this at that scale, but the cost to do the whole park in one fell swoop is $11.1 million. And if you break that out by phase, then with our estimation, it adds approximately 7 to 8% cost to that. So it bumps it up to about $11.8, just because you have to, you know, pay for the contractor to mobilize each time. And there are some of those fixed fees that come, you know, no matter what, what the phasing is.

How much is the splash pad?

$650,000.

Okay.

And the building costs, are we adding building space or changing building? Are we doing HVAC?

Are we—

Yeah, we would just be adding the restroom portion.

Okay, adding the restroom and demoing the, um, you know, demoing what's— what needs to go. There is some retrofit that needs to happen. just to make everything functional. And then, you know, obviously repairing the facades that get exposed during, during that demo portion.

And how much are we spending on playground equipment? I'm sorry, I just can't— yeah, very good. We're up there.

It's so fine.

Yeah, so I think while she's—

playground surfacing is $50,000. The pre-K playground is— let's see, the shade cells. Let me slide this up here. So we have $100,000 for shade cells. Playground equipment for the older children is $500,000. Shade cells for the older children's playground is $100,000. The natural play area is $250,000.

So some of the design, for example, associated with the building is building restrooms that are accessible both for the interior and exterior use. And so that obviously adds some cost initially, but it serves dual purposes and is a benefit. The other thing that we heard from you was Let's not try and rehab, let's try and build new. And so what you will see there are new pavilions, new play structures, new restrooms.

And, uh, so new trees and new grass?

Yes.

Okay, new sprinkler system?

All the irrigation will have to be redone, yes.

Pathway, parking?

Yeah, for all intents and purposes, with very limited exceptions, this is a scrape of the entire 10 acres and a do-over.

So it looks like all of the playground components total, it's $1.4 million between the natural playground and the other 2, the younger and older playground.

Okay. And so we're taking out the old Pavilion and the old restroom.

Yes.

And the new pavilion that goes in will have barbecue area, benches, tables.

Obviously, we're not at that— we're not at that phase of the project yet. But we would envision that obviously it'd be representative of the other pavilions that are going throughout.

Does that get used quite a bit there now?

So Jamie, do you have a Like a 1, 2, 3 path of if we can do this, $11 million, or?

Yeah, I mean, I think the conversation is a lot—

You're very creative in coming up with solutions, so I'd like to hear what you're thinking.

I think the path forward got a little easier, or a lot easier with the ARPA discussion we had several weeks ago. Understanding that this is a qualified project For American Rescue Plan funds, I believe we could move forward and design and build the project, whether it's a design-build or design-bid-build. We could get that process underway, for example, now. And by the time we get to construction and moving forward with the project itself, I think we could use monies from our first tranche of ARPA dollars, and then use a second tranche of ARPA money that is due to us May of 2022, and pay for the entire project in kind of one fell swoop. So we wouldn't necessarily need to phase it.

Okay.

But obviously, the conversation was a little different. A couple of weeks ago, we were talking more about, okay, how do we phase this thing? But now the discussion is, I think we can essentially work with a budget that would allow us to cover the nut, the whole nut, with ARPA dollars.

You can start this year and continue straight through and have the second tranche come right in as you're building out.

So if everything lined up, then, you know, from start to finish, we'd be done in 2 years.

But what's the—

No, I mean, I think this is probably at least a, what, a 12-month construction period?

I'll let Hugh and Mark chime in on that.

I mean, it could run across multiple construction seasons, but I would— Okay, that's good. My worry is we would, we would need to get it out to bid probably by the turn of the year. And get folks ready and turning dirt by, you know, the first of spring to get it done.

You know, one nice thing that has happened is that all of the construction costs have gone way up. Lumber went up 40%, steel went up 30%, copper went up 20%, but they have all come back down. Lumber's back down 40%. Steel's back down 18%. Copper's back down 12%. So I think it's a good time to do it.

Yeah, unfortunately though, Mayor, to that point, what we are kind of lacking though is labor. It's still a hyper, hyper competitive construction market. I, I've made a— I might have misspoke. I, I don't know if it is going to take 1 or 2 construction seasons. I probably—

a landmark Mark and Hugh, can you speak to that?

Yeah, I'll start and then Hugh can join in. I think that just depends on, you know, we've got a good jump on the concept design, obviously, and just to move forward. But I think it is likely to go over— the bulk of it can be achieved in one season, but I think there will be some finishing touches that typically are of a park of this size and scale and complexity. Plus, we have the building component to it, which can add to it the renovation of the school building and that sort of thing. I would think in terms of probably 1 to 1.5 seasons. And I think the other thing that you would want to think about is the timing of if it were a design bid project that we would want to think about When is the best time to bid it to get the best bids and the best costs on it. So there's a lot of tactics in that as well. So I think we can help you with that as we move forward, but it's at least one season, probably a little bit more. Hugh, do you have any thoughts on that?

I think you'll need at least 2 summer seasons.

I have a couple of questions on the project itself. On the lawn area, is there any thoughts that need to be considered, considering our drought situation, or ways to work with that problem other than turn the water off?

Well, we can use drought-tolerant species to begin with. And one thing that this design does do is focus the lawn areas only in those major portions— that big area, the big area on the east side, the area in front of the school, that hammock hill, and then the detention basin area. Those are the only areas that are lawn. The rest of those areas are, you know, some sort of planting beds. They could be bark mulch, crushed stone, other sort of plant materials that could be more water-wise. So that's starting with, you know, just trying to use turf in the appropriate areas.

Are there some of that in the demonstration garden portion too?

Are there some new smart meters that would help us water the lawn area, keep it green but use less water?

We already use that 85% of the time.

Right, I'm aware of that. I'm just saying, are there additional new things out there that would help us?

There always are, and I think that the fact that there's an understanding from the beginning that this is a new, as was mentioned, a totally new system, it would be in your favor to really go with the state-of-the-art sort of irrigation system to make sure that you're not watering inappropriately for all, you know, you're gonna want to zone it for the areas that are more active, play where you're really getting a lot of damage on the turf versus other areas. And like Lisa mentioned, to use the turf species that can also withstand heavy use. So that's sometimes the challenge with that is water-wise species tend to be a little bit less tolerant to a lot of use. So we're gonna have to really carefully think about that and select the species that are going to and the solutions that are going to work best for this particular park. I know that one, one sort of thought here is that some cities are starting to think about that parks are the place, if you're going to have lawn, where you should have more lawn, because they're really encouraging homeowners to convert their homes to having less lawn and more water-wise, so that these become really important green gems for the city where people come together and congregate in a lawn area. So that— I'm not saying that's the way that Orem is going, but it is one of the other alternatives, is that your parks really serve that active play function much more than having, you know, big lawn areas at every individual home. So that becomes sort of a comprehensive water-conserving program for each city to consider as they move forward.

Could there be a blend of artificial turf and real grass or something?

Well, I know, one, artificial turf is expensive, and two, it runs really hot.

Really hot.

So it's not, it's not necessarily ideal for a park environment when you have children.

So I reached out to the school district when there was a question about their watering, and people seeing watering, for example, at The high school football field, and that's turf, but they, they water it to cool it down.

So you don't save a bunch of water.

Well, it's not a complete savings.

Yeah, we get a lot of questions on watering artificial turf.

And I know the church, LDS Church, has gone to the 2 days a week and their grasses are brown, but they have these smart, these smart features and they're not allowed to use them because they're going to the But the challenge too is there—

we don't actively program church turf.

Right, right.

We actively program a lot of our fields, and so it can probably bear a lot more if it's just sitting idle and not being used except for limited times during the week. With something like this, if you have a hot sunny day, you have the splash pad on, That area number 2 is going to get a lot of use from sunup to sundown.

But again, just to reemphasize, yes, we'll absolutely want to look at, you know, top-of-the-line technology. And there's plenty of spaces around the edges and in between paths and along the parking where we can, we can showcase more drought-tolerant Uh, questions?

So I like the way it looks. My biggest concern is shade areas for the people who use it. The other concern, and I don't know if there's any way to address this concern, but basically we're going to have 2 entrances to the park on the north side off of University Parkway, one by a bus station, and the question comes We're already getting homeless people camping out there now. Are we going to attract more homeless people with this? And how do we deal with that if we do?

I mean, that's maybe more of a question for Chief Adams. However, we did get a lot of feedback about trying, I mean, to not only have the walking paths, but to have that pedestrian and bike access onto the park. And then, of course, just like at Palisades, because we've got the splash pad, because we'd have an indoor facility, classroom facility, I mean, this will require more on-site oversight by staff. But anything else you'd add, Chief?

No.

You know, our parks close, we have a curfew on them. And push people out of the parks at night. This would just be a larger park than the park that's there right now that we already do that at.

And I guess I would, I would suggest too, like with Sharon Park, when we activated that space, we had more of our residents there. They became the eyes and ears of the park and to some degree helped police the facility. So I do think obviously Obviously, that north pedestrian access or, you know, cycle access to the north is important. And you would have quite a few eyes and ears on that acreage.

So you'd have your pickleball courts active, and you'd have the lights on. So that would be beneficial. I think the other thing is to make sure we have the lights available in areas so we don't have dark areas in the trees where somebody can congregate and do something that nobody can see.

Lisa, anything else you'd add in terms of lighting? That's, that's in the budget.

I think we just have to, you know, try and be sensitive to those areas that are close by homes but have, have it lit to the point where it needs be lit for safety purposes, but not overlight it. That sort of thing.

We only have a couple homes near this park, don't we? Just down in that little southeast corner there, right?

Yeah.

The rest are highways.

Correct.

At least one of those homes is a business. Okay, so this is—

that was my memory.

This is business up here.

Correct.

Those are all businesses on the east side. From the 9th square up.

So one last question. Does this lend itself at all to the people that live in the rest home to the east, to the west? Or do you see any of them coming over to use it?

Definitely.

I mean, they wanted the walking paths, and then they wanted these fitness stations along the walking paths. And then they typically want seating areas in the small pavilions around the walking paths.

And can they come into it from the west, or do they have to go all the way to the south to enter the park?

Well, they just come straight over.

Yeah, they could just come straight over.

Can you go to that map? Where, where would they come in from?

Could you—

okay, right there. There's not going to be a fence that keeps—

Just a, just a park strip with trees, but yeah, they can go.

Okay, maybe we could design an ADA And you recall, we do have some cell towers at number 26. And so those, those have to remain. So we could, we could build pedestrian access up at that location.

Because I can see where they would really love to use this.

Absolutely.

And they are residents of that area.

That is, I mean, they were a key reason why we maximized even more the walking paths.

Anything else?

Any other questions, comments? I mean, certainly, you know, we wanted to bring this back to you in order to get kind of a consensus head nod so that at this point, we can, you know, line out the next milestones to begin to implement now what we've conceptualized.

I think we're good. So I think it looks great.

I think it's good.

I like what it looks like.

So now our next plan is to take this approved kind of concept, and then start coring down and developing essentially specifics so that we can get this going and finished tomorrow, per council. Yesterday, or yesterday.

Excuse me.

Yes.

If you're going to go over budget on the time already.

Sorry.

Okay, so we'll be 2 days over, Terry.

I got that down.

Okay.

Today.

Well, thank you and join with me in thanking Mark and Lisa and Hugh as well.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, let's go ahead and move on to our next discussion, which is parking enforcement. And looks like Mike, there's seating there. Is it clear?

On us?

So maybe if council, if I may just give a brief introduction to Mike and Chief Adams and the conversation we're having today. Obviously, we're constantly mindful of neighborhoods and what we can do to mitigate Some of the challenges that we hear about with relative frequency in neighborhoods. We introduced you to Rory and Gary today, who are going to be helping in a very specific way with neighborhoods. But we have another challenge within the city related to parking. And it's not just— it's a much broader issue. And Mike can kind of speak to some of the broader challenges that we have with parking in the city. And several weeks ago, this conversation came up as to, okay, if we are going to specifically do more within neighborhoods, we've got to in part also tackle this parking, these parking concerns that we have. And so what Lieutenant Paraskeva and Chief Adams are here to talk with you about is what we see as a potential solution in helping us address parking concerns in the city. Okay.

All right.

I appreciate your time. So, you know, Chief Adams and I, we sat down and we, you know, we heard your concern with Jamie, and we sat down when you talked about your biggest concern was Safe and livable neighborhoods. And that's why we went with the transition of the civilian code enforcement team. We saw some deficiencies in our way it was structured with NPU. That's why we've created this civilian code enforcement team. And this is kind of that second phase to where we want to improve our neighborhoods. And so the idea is to start, just as the city will be taking over Right. So, where Ken and Matt will be over the code enforcement, the police department, we're going to handle the streets, right, the parking issues. And so we are going to be starting a parking enforcement team with civilian employees. And some of the goals that we're hoping to accomplish is, one, to address that focus of safe and livable neighborhoods. We're going to address our department needs due to that transition that we talked about. With the growth that we're having with student and high-density housing, we hope the program will help with that, and this will benefit you. It'll hopefully decrease resident complaints about parking violations in neighborhoods due to a proactive approach.

You know, one of the things that I hear more than anything else is, yes, you have the laws, yes, you're proactive, yes, you realize there's a problem, problem, but we're not seeing anybody taking care of the problem, handing out the tickets, giving out the citations, where people who are violating the law are actually being penalized for it. And that's what I see a great need for. I think that's where you're headed.

And hopefully that's what we're, we're going to try to identify that issue, Mayor. Another, another program goal that's going to benefit is we're going to free up some patrol officers to handle the priority calls. Just like with code enforcement, we're going to modernize with integrated user-friendly software, so we're getting rid of paper citations in the long term. And then obviously we're going to generate a little bit of revenue to fund the program as well. Obviously revenue is not going to be our focus, but it will generate revenue as There's cost associated with it. Kind of what their day-to-day responsibilities is going to look like on part of this team is they're going to take that proactive approach to issue parking violations and then looking for parking problems. They're also going to talk about, you know, they'll be taking— following up on abandoned vehicles. So we get a lot of calls where, you know, this vehicle just showed up in my neighborhood. We'll go in, we'll check, make sure it's not stolen, we'll mark it for tow. This unit will handle those types of calls and remove those vehicles from the roadway because those can be a burden to neighborhoods.

So a quick question.

Yes.

When you start this proactive approach, would you be starting at saying, all right, we're going to hit Southwest Orem, when we get that cleaned up, then we'll move, you know, to Central Orem? Or would you be saying, all right, we're going to start in Southwest Orem and Northwest Orem and hit various areas at the same time?

Well, I mean, I think it would be— a lot would be 2 phases. I think one, as citizens call in and report complaints, we'll be responding to those parking issues.

Sure.

But then the second phase is, yeah, we would do hotspot, you know, policing as we're But maybe not all in one spot. No, so there'll be 2. We'll split it up, spread it out just like we do as far as, you know, police officers. You know, you have— they have certain areas, certain districts that they're going to, you know, follow up on. But as the complaints come in, you know, they'll be responding to those because we want to make sure we're taking care of the citizens. Does that answer your question?

Yes.

Okay. All right.

And then obviously our records department, they'll be managing the back end of the software and payments. So that's kind of what the day-to-day would look like. If we kind of look at last fiscal year, there was over 900 abandoned vehicle cases. There was 322 cases where a citizen called in and reported a parking problem. So that's separate from an abandoned vehicle to where someone's blocking my driveway or they're parked, you know, straight into a cul-de-sac. We also had issues that we talked to Jamie and his exec staff. We have tow companies that will come and just drop abandoned vehicles in the city of Orem, and now we're left with dealing with the problem of a vehicle that hasn't been registered in 20 years. We have no way of contacting an owner. This is going to help to where now we don't have to take an officer away from, you know, priority calls. We have specific people handling these things.

types of calls.

Towing companies doing that?

And we know who they are?

No, we've—

we—

Is this like the mystery dumper?

Yeah, yeah, the Phantom Dumper.

It's the Phantom Dumper of towing. So yeah, so this will help solve those problems.

Um, Dave can take all these cars and fix them up.

They're all on his block already.

Yeah, yeah, that's where all these parking lots are.

There you go.

And then just, we as a police department, our volunteers, last year we issued 920 parking citations. So that just kind of gives you an idea. So this is what we really, as a council and mayor, we want you to understand that as we take this proactive approach, these are the type of violations that is in our city code that we are going to be proactively enforcing. Fire lane, blocking driveway. There are a few that are on private property that we can enforce. You know, the fire hydrant, the red line— red curb, excuse me. And then obviously handicapped, disabled, ADA parking. So we will be going on private property per state code where they're allowed to do that. Large truck in residential zones. Left side of the curb, no parking, no neighborhood parking.

How big of a deal is that, left side of the curb?

I got 2 complaints on it today. Yeah, that somebody emailed me. Uh, that with these, one thing to, to point out, if I might, is to gauge your appetite, if you will, of, okay, what are— how, how aggressive are we going to be with these things? citywide. Yes, we have our neighborhoods where it's a raging problem. This will contain— we feel like that's not going to exhaust this resource just there, but that citywide there's parking violations.

Yeah.

We get called all throughout the city. So, as they patrol, you know, the districts and stuff that we have with the parking, as they go to our retail areas and are checking, you know, fire curb— fire lanes, excuse me, handicap, stuff like that. But then as they expand even into the neighborhoods, and when they see these types of violations occurring, that they are issuing citations for those as well.

Just all sins are not equal. You know, parking disabled or double parking seems to be a greater infraction than Then pulling across the street.

Yeah, I agree. And that's, and again, that's, that's where we're saying. One of the things I would add, though, is upon approval of this, with your approval, we're going to begin immediately to create a public awareness campaign. We've got a rough draft of it already. We'll put out little video snippets of, okay, this is a fire lane. This is what it means to be 30 feet of a stop sign. This is what it is. This is 20 feet from crosswalk. So that we'll pump out— there are already laws that are existing, we're not making anything new. But we want to basically prime the community in a way with a refresher course on, okay, these are against— because how many people know if left to curve is— I mean, yeah, they're—

I know because I got a ticket.

There you go.

Actually, my son got a ticket.

He came home from school for 15 minutes, had a ticket before he left because we had a neighbor who was a little bit Proactive enforcement. But I think anecdotally, this is part of the challenge that Chief Adams is talking about.

Yeah, of course it is.

We'll get calls quite frequently, hey, we have a speeding problem in our neighborhood. Well, the good news is we're going to catch the speeders. The bad news is they're going to be your sons, your daughters, your neighbors. It's not just going to be the strangers that are driving through your neighborhood.

But I think the complaints that I hear the most is that we are not enforcing the law.

And that, that's, that's, that's the way it is conveyed to me as well. And, and, you know, we, we work in a rolling triage. We have 911, we have emergency things that are top priority.

Sure.

We have other calls for service that are a lesser priority. We have proactivity that's a priority. So yeah, when we talk about, okay, proactive parking enforcement by our patrol officers, that is very low on their prioritization list. But yeah, so one of our fortunes historically has been having volunteers that do go out and do— because yeah, that 960 or whatever the number was, I'd be shocked if 60 of them were officers that wrote a citation. Yeah, it's— and it is, it's just there's not, you know, and generally, Again, with the community, with the community, when we have discretionary time, would they rather have us out in neighborhoods looking for parking violations or the speeders or the what have you? We can't do both at the— necessarily at the same time type of a thing. So, you know, what— how we've kind of prioritized our things is, yeah, active traffic stuff does get our attention more than parking, which is— I wouldn't say passive, but it's not as—

Shoplifting is not Bryan Larson. No.

But it would be nice to see these things enforced, and I think it would let people know that you're out there. I wouldn't want to have it taken away from the other more important areas, but—

That's what this is for, is so that we do give it a level of importance.

Right.

And I think the mindset is to change behavior. It's to not necessarily write citations, it's to change behavior.

Jeff, do you have a comment?

So I appreciate the fact that you're going to give us fair warning. And I think that in and of itself, the refresher course of, hey, it's illegal to park this way or to do this or that, may help curtail some of the, some of the issues. So I have a question too. The large truck in residential zones, is that like a large construction truck that Somebody's just parking in my—

Yeah, like an 18-wheeler parked in—

Semi.

Semi-truck parked in residential.

School bus.

I get called about 3 times a year from a guy that is concerned about that.

But for example, on your campaign, could you put that list out in the utility bill and let people know that those are violations?

I'm sure we could. We could do it in there. He said we'll be doing snippets that we'll put out on social media stuff.

I mean, I would love to see a YouTube channel and a utility bill for people to go, oh, you know, I never— you know, I haven't thought about that for a long time. I park by the red curb all the time, but, you know, maybe I shouldn't be doing that.

So, so, go ahead.

Well, vehicle for sale on the street, that concerns me. So, I mean, does that mean somebody's parking, just leaving it on the street?

Yeah, sure. People used to do it on 6th Street I mean, they just parked everything up in front of my house.

No, if it's in front of your house, it's in front of your house. It's like a parking spot. Somebody told me they're parking somewhere to get a prime exposure area, if you will.

But, but not to, not to rain on this, this whole discussion. But I think also part of the education is the reminder that a public street is a public street. Just because your public— the space in front of your home is in front of your home, that doesn't mean it's your street, your space. It's a public street. So we enforce the law on public streets. So even if it's your son or daughter that's parking— The wrong way. Left side to curb, that's a public street, a public violation. It's It's something that could be— you could receive a citation. And I think sometimes people—

It's true.

Sometimes people get the impression, well, they'll call and say, well, somebody's parking in front of my house. I don't want them parking in front of my house. Well, your property line doesn't extend into the street. It extends actually back to the sidewalk generally. So that's part of the education process too.

Yeah, thank you.

And then, as the city police department, we're the stewards of that street, right? It's our responsibility to then enforce those violations. So, Councilman McDonald, I think it goes to your point where you said double parking, some are, you know, I don't know how you worded it, but as far as, you know, they're more serious than others, right? The greater good, right? Or which one are we going to struck? As we take this proactive approach, We want you to understand that, you know, these complaints might come in. Hey, my son was, you know, cited for, you know, parking on a sidewalk or whatever the violation may be. But the way I look at it is, would you rather have that one or the complaints the mayor's had where nothing's getting done?

Nope.

Right?

Because you have the— this way we're acting as the stewards and we are taking care of our responsibilities as a city to enforce and as a police department to enforce those laws.

Mike?

Yes.

Just a compliment. In my neighborhood, there was a neighbor that has 2 cars parked right by the stop sign, and I noticed the police had written on his windshield, which is cool, first time, so saying this will be towed by— I think it's tomorrow, you know, if their cars aren't moved. And so, of course, he just moved 3 houses away anyways.

No, it's in front of your house.

But I'm just wondering, can some of this be done by— I'm still calling them the NPUs, but so that the police don't have to— could the NPUs find some of this stuff and then report it to the police so that you guys don't have to spend a lot of your time?

So what this will be is where— and so maybe I'll kind of skip ahead a little bit, but What we're actually going to do is hire 2 civilian parking enforcement officers.

Okay.

So part of that, and maybe I didn't make that clear, but this is kind of what we're thinking of doing. Just how we started the code enforcement civilian officers, the police department is— we're going to hire 2 flex employees that are going to go out and this is going to be their job specific. So that's why we'll be taking that proactive approach because Now we have those day-to-day responsibilities are going to be specific job requirements for those individuals. So that 920 number of citations could go up to 3,000, 5,000 based on the violations in the city. We don't know.

No.

We can project because I guarantee you could drive every street in the city of Orem and find at least 1 to 2 parking violations on every street.

Right.

And so that's why we're going to do the PR campaign. We're going to push that out, educate our citizens, make sure we get, you know, everybody on the same page before we start doing the enforcement and go that, go that route. Mike, maybe are you going to go into the software?

Is that later?

The only reason I bring it up is because we're using the same software that we're using for our neighborhood improvement So, Commcade, which will be able to read license plates. So we'll know if we've issued that vehicle multiple warnings, and it won't be just handwritten notes anymore. I mean, there may be some of that, but we'll be tracking this in a system so we know that, hey, we've given them 3 or 4 warnings or whatever.

They're not complying. And it will have an escalated penalty scale.

So yeah, so the cost of the program is kind of, for your information, our first-year startup cost is going to be about $65,000. That is with wages, software, you know, fuel for some fleet changes that we'll need to make.

Now you're hiring 2 or 1?

2.

2, they'll be flex employees.

This is per one?

This is, this is, this is for part-time people.

2 part-time, okay. Yep.

So that's for both. And then we get a— our software price will drop after year 1. So it'll be right around $57,000 after that. But if we look at our revenue right now, just for your information, parking violations, we're the cheapest in all of Utah County for our parking citations. They're $25 if they're paid within 14 days. If it is a handicap, ADA violation, those are $75 if they're paid within 14 days. And then there is a scale, so 14 to 28 days, it doubles, and then it goes up another scale after that. So if you look at kind of our— what our revenue has been, and again, the idea of this program is to change behavior. All right, we're not doing this to gain revenue, but there is a revenue portion of it. But simply by current violations and then the enforced— the proactive approach, we're going to easily fund the program and then generate a little bit of additional revenue for the general fund as well. But I think, Mike, it's fair to say we'd love to see the day where we disband it because there's no issues anymore. I mean, the behaviors change. I know it's not going to get to that point, but we don't want it to keep staying this high. We'd love for it to come down and violations to start going away and behavior to start changing.

That's what we want too.

But, you know, new students come in, they need to be re-educated, different things. You know, we have, you know, with our campuses, BYU close proximity, UVU campus, you know, that's rolling every couple years with new students. So we're still going to continue to see them forced into the neighborhoods, parking permit violations, things like that. So I think there will always be a need. I mean, I think that's definitely, uh, a, uh, strong thinking. I'm just saying, we're not, we're not saying, I hope this is a number we can continue to climb. Yeah, we're not—

that's not what we want to do.

Ultimately, as, as, as talking with Chief Adams, if we can just fund the program, Could you send us a copy of your presentation?

Yeah, you bet.

So we're looking at about 60 days for the software, and then we need 30 days to hire and train the employees. But we're hoping to have this up and operational by September 1st. So we'll start doing our PR campaign here in the next month, start pushing those things out and get things going. So these are kind of the city code if you're interested in it. It's in Article 19.6. Basically, this is the administrative civil infractions and just kind of how the process works as far as if they're contesting it, hearing officers, just how— kind of how all the process works. What other questions do you guys have?

I have one more.

Yes.

On your list, I didn't see the— I know there's a— you can only have a car parked out in front how long?

72 hours. 72 hours in one spot.

So I didn't see it on the list, but is that—

will that be something?

That's one of them is, yep.

So any—

if you look up our traffic section code in the city code, it'll give you all the list of what violations we enforce. But then it also will reference the state code that we can also use as well.

One question, so what vehicles would these people drive?

So right now, year 1, we're looking at just reallocating a couple of our outgoing vehicles and repurposing them. And then as the program builds and we have the money from the program, we'll look at Because I just noticed that you're using a different vehicle in your picture. Yeah, just a fun, fun little Google image I found.

We've even had a brief conversation of in the future, do we purchase hybrid vehicles, for example, or electric vehicles to do this with.

I mean, I could see you in a smaller electric vehicle. It would make sense.

Yeah, so we've, we've, we've got a state, you know, we did the state, got some state bids and prices, but Ultimately, we feel let's, let's roll out. Sure, just start, just to start the program, get going.

We thought we'd start by putting Lieutenant Pariskeema in a Smart car.

You mean, that's not a bad idea. Ryan suggested we got Bird scooters all over the place.

Hey, there you go.

Just put them on a little Segway.

So you mean one of those auto-driving cars?

No, the little Smart cars.

So just as a consensus, or if anybody has like What are your thoughts as far as this proactive approach with neighbors? I mean, are we— as a council, mayor, are you good with that proactive approach as far as these complaints?

I'm good with it.

I support it and think you ought to move ahead. I don't know about the rest of council.

I think it's great. I mean, it's a win-win. It's self-cleaning. It's cleaning up the streets. addressing a problem that we hear about fairly regularly. So I think it's a great, great plan. And I think that again, the education will just be a good reminder for all of us. Debbie has her hand raised.

Debbie, are you up there?

Yeah.

My question is, Are we looking for someone who's a retired public safety officer, or do we—

is there nothing, or is there just a—

is there a skill set we're looking for, I guess, is my question.

I mean, we'll put out the job description and we'll get with Carrie with HR and what we're looking for. I'm sure that the job description will— may entice some former Former officers or maybe some that are currently in the police academy. But until we get to that point in the hiring process and really kind of finalize the job description, you know, we'll have to just get to that point.

Okay, thank you.

I do like that our first ticket's $25, so I I think it's— people don't get the educational portion where we're sending it out. It's not too big of a sting that you got the message. It's $25, and hopefully you learn, you know, instead of paying $100. Yeah, sorry.

Your next one's $250, and from there it's $2,500.

Yeah, they're going to be driving some nice cars.

I think the max it goes up to So, okay, I suggest you move ahead.

All right.

Any other issues or concerns?

Okay.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. All right, we'll turn some time now over to our Chief of Police, Josh Adams, for an annual review of our gang, litter, and Free area.

Let's go quick.

Uh, so the Utah Criminal Code, uh, 769-902, define— uh, is the state statute that defines gaze loitering, uh, which, I mean, in a nutshell, is, uh, people remaining one place circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that their purpose is to be involved in criminal behavior, to establish control over one or more identifiable areas, intimidate people living in those areas, or to conceal illegal activity. That code allows municipalities to create designated loitering areas, and as part of that, in 2009, our city council adopted adopted a resolution to identify all city parks and schools as gang loitering areas, and then we review it on an annual— excuse me— basis. So, historically for Warren, in the '90s and early 2000s, we did experience an uptick in gang activity, which we, through the Major Crimes Task Yes. And more than anything else, dissemination of intelligence and acting on that intelligence. We've demonstrated that Orem is not a particularly attractive location to live, work, and play as gang members.

Our—

the layout of our city also is not very functional for gang activity. We don't have the types of neighborhoods our Our demographics and so forth don't really support that takeover, that control aspect of any given area. Our parks have been well planned, maintained, and attended. You know, we attribute the fact that a lot of people go to our parks too that make them unattractive for people to do things like that. It's very common for us to have a little bit of an upswing in graffiti, especially during the summertime. It's not all gang-related. Most of the time it's going to be little Yeah. If you— little underlings, little posses, if you will, of, you know, juvenile kids and stuff. Like, hey, it would be cool to be in a gang or something like that. Let's go tag a few things, catch up to them, and that's pretty much the end of it. Their parents deal with them from there, juvenile court, and then they tend to go away. So, a couple of other things I would point out too. In some of the observations we're making. We do— we have interactions from time to time with a lot of retired, if you will, call them gang members from out of state, Los Angeles, so forth, who basically got out of that life and moved to Utah, not to be a gang member, not to be in a gang anymore or anything, but they decided, hey, Utah is a great place to live and work and raise a family and so forth, and they're here amongst us working. and contributed to our society. And some of them are— well, most of the ones that I've interacted with are actually pretty decent people. As our community's grown statistically and so forth with population increases and diversity, interestingly, we've actually seen a reduction in the amount of gang activity. So it actually poses a— okay, well, there's a A certain group, minority group or anything like that, that comes into town and okay, now there's an uptick in gang activity. We haven't seen that. There's no statistics or anything to back anything like that up.

Chief, I was just going to say, I remember 6 years ago we had some gangs move into town and there was an uptick in gang activity. And it seemed like we worked really hard to work on those neighborhoods to improve them, to be proactive, and since that time it seems like it's been pretty low on gang activity.

Yeah, we identify them, we talk to them about things. They find that we don't have a relaxed approach to them as a community, and, you know, most people that are involved in criminal activity, they're interested in doing it in the easiest place, most efficient place. Orms simply isn't a very efficient place for that type of activity. I attribute that to a lot of, a lot of circumstances around just community standards we have and our neighborhoods and so forth. So from the last report that you had last June, there have been no significant gang situations since that time. None of the No significant crime that we've had, violent crime and so forth, in our community in the past year has been tied to any specific gang interactions, relations, or affiliations.

So, any questions from the panel?

That's a huge problem for a lot of communities in the United States, and it's a real help that we are not having that problem. the issue to a large extent.

And our discussion a couple ago about improving that park in that neighborhood and putting pickleball courts and sharing the park, that all helps. I mean, sometimes we are acting as police officers when we improve a park and do some other things to reduce crime.

I agree.

So, Chief, I have a question for you. I sometimes walk down by JCW and Provo, and there's that underground, that there's, you know, you go underneath the road and then walk along the river. Anyway, there's a lot of— this is, this is pro— but a lot of graffiti recently that's gang kind of graffiti. So is that— is there more of a problem down in that area? Or is it just like you say, some kid with a spray paint that's not really a gang?

I think it's both.

We actually—

our Detectives that handle that kind of stuff, they work closely with, interact almost on a daily basis with Provo. So, I mean, a lot of crime doesn't honor borders the same way we do in municipal government.

Yeah.

And so we are in good communication with them and so forth to track as those things cross back and forth from one side to the other and so forth. So have they brought to our attention that they're experiencing anything significant in Provo? The answer is no. So I mean, I would hesitate to say that they're experiencing anything other than maybe just bored kids finding something to do.

Because it's very, you know, it's very professionally done painting. I mean, it's made me nervous to walk there because they keep painting over it and then it's fresh. So I go, wow, something's happening here.

Okay. Josh, I mean, you can speak to When we do have reports of tagging and graffiti, our police department is good about, you know, obviously creating a case, documenting, taking pictures of it, because I've come to learn that there is a difference between graffiti and gang tagging. And some of it is just foolishness with a spray can, and some of it is sending a message. And they're good about kind of differentiating, differentiating between the two. Between the two and following up on the stuff that I think is gang-related versus—

We keep it in a database and so forth. So we track, you know, and that's one of the ways we would use to kind of triangulate if there was a surge in gangs in any one place. Well, hey, here's the bound— here's the areas that they've been tagging more and more and more in and so forth so that we can counteract that, spread that intelligence. So yeah, we do. We, we, uh, we, uh, take graffiti pretty seriously. We, we've had— I should have looked at the number— we've had a few, uh, more than normal the last several weeks, which flows along with kind of the same seasonal norms that we have as far as summer.

Because that's the last few weeks of what I've seen a lot.

That makes sense.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. We'll now go to a discussion on employee compensation, and Carrie Rugg, our HR manager, will lead that discussion.

I'm not going to cry during this discussion though, so yeah.

I don't know, maybe.

Mayor and Council, this is just a return report. We had a conversation several weeks ago about the city's implementation of the comp and benefits, some changes to our comp and benefits program as a result of this study. We wanted to obviously get the study in front of you for just for your information. Specifics. Some specifics of the study are actually included in your packet this evening. So you have that. And part of the budget opening or the public—

Amendment.

Budget amendment. Thank you, Brandon. Is to incorporate what Carrie is going to share with you today. So we can memorialize in an official way changes that are taking place to our comp and benefits program here in the city.

Okay, so just as Pereskeva was talking about one of your areas of focus, what we're talking about today is also one of your areas of focus, and that's the skilled and talented workforce. So as you're all aware, we did go out with a third party, with a company Benefits study, and we're now ready to show you the survey results and our recommendations for the compensation structure for this new fiscal year. So I just wanted to give a shout out to the team that's helped me go through all of this. We've got Scott Swift, who's our compensation officer, Jenica Jones, who is our senior management analyst, and Amy Peterson, who is our benefits officer. And then in addition, as we've gone through this entire process that began in early 2020 and then was stalled because of COVID We've had an employee steering team as well, and there was a representative from each department on that steering team. They helped us choose the vendor, which was NFP, to do the compensation structure. They also helped steer us into choosing the entities that we wanted to compare against. So just by way of historical knowledge, the external compensation and benefits review that we do with a third party happens about every 5 years. It should have been completed in 2020, but because of COVID we put a pause on that and then completed it here in 2021. But as you know, compensation changes with the market often. So every year internally the HR division looks at every position to make sure that we're competitive both internally and externally in the market. So it's a very dynamic structure, it does make changes to certain positions every year. So how the process worked was we first started with the employee steering team, we hired NFP to do the compensation and benefits survey. We revised and looked at every single job description in the city to make sure that the job descriptions were accurate. Then NFP sent out those job descriptions and the survey to all of our entities that— I'll show you the entities that we sent to you here in a minute, but they sent them out there. They looked at the job descriptions, found the most comparable matches in their entity, and shared their Compensation data with us for those positions. Then NFP compiled all the data and returned it to us, and internally we looked at what we needed to make changes to certain positions and our new grading structure that we'll show you in a minute. And then we also addressed compression, and compression is looking at ranges. When we make changes to the ranges, we don't want everybody to be at the bottom of the range. We want to make sure that if you've been in your position for 10 years that you're properly placed in your new range for your years of experience too, and we'll show that in just a minute. We wanted to be competitive and meet the market, and our goal is to implement these new structures July 25th. That's the very next pay period. So the participating entities that we looked at, we looked at size, we We looked at geographical location. We looked at entities that we've historically lost our employees to. And then ERI, which was the private sector, it's the Economic Research Institute that NFP had the ability to look at the private sector for a lot of these positions.

So, Carrie, do these same participating entities request the same information of us?

Yes, that's a great question. So yes, that's— yes. That is, when they go out to do their third-party review, we get, we get requested to do those surveys. So it's a favor that we do to other entities in expectation that they will do it for us as well. And then if we participate in their studies, we also get the survey results. So all these entities got the survey results.

So you get their results as well?

Yeah.

So it's nice when we don't all do it in the same year, that way we can And Carrie, maybe you can speak to the clearinghouse, the Wasatch Comp clearinghouse as well.

Absolutely.

So every year when we're not doing this outside survey, we have a survey— or not a survey, a clearinghouse called TechNet that the supermajority of all the cities in the state participate in. So we voluntarily go in every time we make a big change like we did this year.

Yeah.

For each position, and then we can pull out all the data from that clearinghouse as well. So every year we can look at every position internally as well. So one thing that I thought was really interesting in this survey is that maybe 5 years ago most of the entities really wanted to expand exceed the market. They didn't want to just meet the market. But out of all the entities that I showed you, Lehi City is the only entity that wants to exceed the market. Everybody else either wants to meet the market or lag. Utah County wants to lag the market. 10 of the entities want to meet the market. Salt Lake County in the, in the past always wanted to meet the market, but they may— they changed their Compensation structure for this new fiscal year, and now they want to lag the market like Utah County. And then 4 of the entities decided not to share with us what their compensation strategy is. This is just the city policy. You'll remember in 2020 we came to you with this policy change to show that we want to be competitive in the market, so we are doing what's best practice with the majority of our sister cities, and that's to compete in the market. And then also you'll recall that that part of that policy shows that it is city councils and the executive leadership's pledge to make total compensation a top priority annually in the adoption of the city budget. And I think that you've identified that that's important to you as well when the skilled and talented Workforce is one of your top 5 priorities. So on the benefits side, we'll talk about first and then we'll talk about compensation. We met the market for most of our benefits. Short-term disability, take-home vehicles for public safety, on-call pay, paid holidays. Most of our, most of our benefits we met the market at. We did exceed the market in a few of those things. One thing that I was really proud of seeing is that we exceeded the market for our lateral bonuses. So we do hiring incentives, especially for public safety and hard-to-fill positions in development services. We've had a lot of success with hiring lateral employees because of that hiring bonus, so I'm glad to see that we're still ahead of the market on that. We were below the market on a few We did a few things. One of those was our dynamic retirement design. We have been aware that this was an issue, and we recently, in the last couple of weeks, hired an investment consultant to look at our retirement design and help us make sure that we are giving the best fund lineup to our employees moving forward. So that's in the works right now.

I might have missed it, but I didn't see it in meet, exceed, or below.

So that actually isn't measured. This is just benefits. But we— what I'd really like to do in one of these future sessions is discuss turnover in particular.

Do you have a feeling if we're above, below, or about where the other cities in this study were?

As far as turnover goes for this last fiscal year?

Yes.

I don't know, but I do plan on, with Jenica and Scott, getting a report ready for I would say my gut feeling is on the public safety side, after we implemented the hybrid STEP program, that our turnover is significantly lower than a lot of the other entities. But as far as all employees across the board, we can get that for you.

Thank you.

So those are the benefits that we're below market on. Our high deductible was higher than other entities, but we also contribute a lot into an HSA account, so I felt like that really evened that out really well. So I wasn't too concerned about any of the things that were below this line. So the good news was we didn't make any changes to our benefit offerings with this. We felt that we were really competitive, and I think that we all agree that we've got a great benefit offering for all of our employees. employees. So that allowed us to focus more on the compensation side. And I know this is really small, but this is just, just an example of what the survey results looked like when they came back to us.

So, Carrie, question. So do you track at all how many applicants there are per position? So in other words, are the applicants going up, which would suggest that people would want to work here? Are the applicants going down from previous years, that maybe we're not as attractive as we used to be?

We actually do have the data, but I wouldn't want to compare to whether or not we're as attractive. We actually have to look at how strong the job market is and how low the unemployment rate is as well to see that. But Scott has been creating a report that does show how many applicants per field positions, and, and we're well aware Like, there's some very difficult-to-fill positions. For example, in Development Services, we opened up a senior building inspector position maybe 3 weeks ago with a $6,000 sign-on bonus, and we didn't have anybody qualified apply. Not a single person.

So that's because they're all tied up somewhere else.

It's so true. It's a hot market for building inspectors right now. So you'll see that with engineering as well as we go through this. There's Some changes to— because of the external market, to some of their positions. So again, we looked at internal and external equity, and how we look at it internally is we look at all the positions that are in a grade and make sure that they have similar responsibilities or supervisor responsibilities or responsibilities with meetings or So we make sure that everybody in the same grade, all the positions in the same grade are pretty equal. And then the compression that I was talking about earlier, how we looked at that was once we created the new grade and range system, let's say for example you've been in your position for 10 years and your grade and range moved up maybe $10,000, we looked at the new bottom of the range at 10 years and 3%. Which is the market or the merit increase, to see where they should be placed at within that range, so that we made sure that a 1-year employee wasn't making the same amount of money as someone who'd been in the position for 10 years. Previously, our grades and ranges were anywhere between 9% and almost 19% distance between the bottom of one range to the bottom of the next. And one of the recommendations that N&P made is that we had made that more consistent. So you'll see in our new grades and ranges that there's more consistency there. So these were the major changes that we're recommending that we make. We wanted more consistency between the bottom of one range to the next.

Next slide.

It will now be an 8.5% gap between one bottom of the range to the next bottom. And by doing that, we were able to add 2 additional grades to our new system, which allowed us to have less positions within each grade. Made it easier for internal. In the past, we haven't really every year looked at flex and seasonal positions. They're really low in the market when we did the survey, so we will be looking at making changes to So another question.

So we've had a lateral program with our first responders. Do we look at lateral programs, for example, with the building inspector or other situations?

I think that's, that's fantastic, and I'll show you here in a minute what we're doing for Public Works to help with the retention and recruitment. But that's also something that I've been working with Paul Ashton and Ryan in the last week or so to look at what we can do to incentivize lateral employees to come over. So I think that's a fantastic idea. NNP also asked that we roll differentials into pay. So in the past, if you had your PE license and it wasn't required for your position, we would give you differential pay, maybe $100 a month to have that PE certification. Now that will be rolled into their salary, which is a big benefit to employees because then it would compound over time. So employees are really excited about that. The only exception is the Spanish-speaking differential. Right now, employees that use Spanish skills during their day-to-day work with citizens and customers, they were receiving a differential, and now we will be We're going to be giving them a one-time bonus at the end of the year for using their Spanish-speaking skills. One of the biggest changes that NFP requested that we do is a restructuring of our positions in the city. Right now we have full-time benefited employees, we have part-time benefited employees, we have flex employees who are part-time non-benefited, and then we have seasonal employees. And the market is now showing that it's not good practice to have part-time benefited employees. That means employees that are working about 20 hours a week but get full benefits with the city. We have 13 of those employees in the city right now. So we are making the suggestion that we move away from part-time benefited employees. We've met with those 13. They've been given a few options. And what are those options? to either take a severance, apply for a full-time position, or they can stay part-time benefited until June 30th of '22. So we're giving them an entire year to sunset their position, but at that point they either need to retire or go to a flex non-benefited position.

Another question, hiring a retirement investment consultant, can you explain that?

Sure.

So right now we don't have an investment consultant. So we have 2 record keepers right now. We've got MassMutual, which is now Empower, and we have ICMA RC, and I can't remember their name.

Mission Square.

Mission Square, thanks Scott. So they both changed their names this year. So we have those 2 as our record keepers. Right now our record keepers—

And they have consultants within them.

And they are right now who are record keepers who should be the the firms that just are responsible for holding the money, the bank, if you will, right? But right now, they— we are using their fund lineups for our retirement plans.

Right.

By hiring this retirement investment consultant group, they'll be able to look at our fund lineups and make suggestions to the retirement committee to make sure that we're doing our fiduciary responsibility for our participants so that we can try and build their retirement funds to the best that we can.

Is that as a whole or individually?

As a whole.

As a whole, for the entire plan.

Mayor, one of the things that's frustrating to me, for example, is, you know, we have a responsibility obviously to provide benefits to our employees, but I also think that we should do what we can to educate our employees and provide them opportunities to grow their personal investments so that when they do retire, they have the means to continue to live. In recent years, we've had a pretty healthy market with some pretty significant returns.

Yeah.

You might be surprised at how many of our employees, though, have left a supermajority of their money in fixed assets.

Absolutely.

So while, for example, there are people that are earning 10, 15, even 20% returns on their money, we have a good percentage of our employees that are comfortable making 3.5% when they could have been earning more. And we ask that question, well, what's the incentive? The incentive for some of these companies is to keep them in those fixed asset-type accounts. type investments because then they use their money to obviously grow their organization, not our employees' investments. And so part of the conversation we've been having is, well, we need education programs for employees. We also need a fund lineup that is maybe a little more understandable for some of our employees and not necessarily throwing them out with— a list of 50 offerings, but providing them with avenues where they can invest and they feel comfortable investing, and they can move some of this money out of these fixed asset, fixed investment type accounts.

So a question, Jamie, and I, I'm not clear on this, and hopefully you can bring some clarity, but it seems like the state requires That we have a return of 7% on a retirement program, but I'm not sure how that— where that comes in.

So the state actuarially tries to fund their defined benefit, their pension program, based on a certain level For state employees, not for— For all systems or all funds within the Utah State Retirement System. So they target about a 7-plus percent return on investments.

And if we don't meet the 7, or if the market or whatever—

So if the investments—

We as the city have to make it up.

No, we don't. Well, yes, we do. From the perspective of then our contribution rates go up and we actually have to pay more for our employee pension programs. So for example, if historic— and it's kind of a rolling, I think it's a rolling 5. So if we have the Utah State Retirement System experiences, let's say, 10% annual returns, then you expect—

3.5%.

That the cost of our pension benefits are going to decline, and the rates for those pension benefits are going to decline. But if we have 5 or 6% returns on an annual basis, then that actually increases our retirement contribution rates, and that increases our employee costs, or employer costs to the retirement system.

But our legal requirement is to hit 7% minimum?

No, it's not. That's just, that's just how they've— this Utah State Retirement System has kind of calibrated their pension system to anticipate a 7%.

But we're not under obligation.

No, but their failure to generate 7% results in higher contribution rates on our part.

But we have no control over what they invest in.

Well, we don't, and that's part of the frustration of— so I serve on a retirement— a state retirement board, and that's part of my frustration with them is, look, you guys have to be proactively managing our money so that we can ensure those kind of investments. Back in the Great Recession, the Utah Retirement System lost $5 billion. Well, that $5 billion then translated into to adjustments in contribution rates. So there's—

For us?

For us as municipalities, the state of Utah, school districts, special service districts. You know, our police officer fund, for example, is— we fund that now at 39-point-something percent. I can't remember what the point. But for every police— for every dollar that we pay a police officer in wages, We pay 39 cents in retirement contribution. The fire department, it's about 25%, and for general employees, it's 18%. So we have an interest in making sure that they run this program efficiently, because if they fail to do that, then it costs us more money, and it can get obviously very expensive.

So the problem with the state is this attitude about this balanced portfolio, which kills you because they're taking— I don't remember what the numbers are now, but a third of it is sitting at 1%. So you can't— the mayor's question is, you've got to be generating a lot more than 7% to come up with a 7% number.

So they want to smooth the risk.

Yeah, no risk but 7% return.

And the other point of frustration for me is They always like to have 90-plus percent coverage, meaning that if everybody within a system were to retire on one day, they would have 90% of the means to pay out everybody and to meet that obligation. Well, how realistic is that? Well, if you calibrate your retirement contribution rates to meet that 90% threshold, then your rates are going to be a lot higher. Could we go with an 85% threshold and reduce— again, in recent years, it's about trying to develop competitive salaries. When you sit across the table from a 23-year-old employee and you say, well, we can't offer you a lot of money, but trust me, in 20 or 30 years, you're going to have a bang-up retirement. That's not compelling. That's not going to put bread on the table, gas in the car. I think that's a good point. doesn't think, you've got to do something different. So what we don't— what I'd like to do, what I think Carrie wants to do, is let's try and figure out how to put as much money in employees' pockets today versus retirement. Let's do the due diligence and make sure we have good retirement programs, and that's why I think she's talking about a good retirement investment consultant, but at the same time— All of these benefits eat into the money we can use to put into wages, which I think is where our employees want their, their, you know, their dollars to go.

So just a question about that, Jamie. In the market, there's— and that's what a lot of folks do, is, you know, they're going to get paid a percent of what they do and what money they manage from the city. So I don't know if the city needs to pay for that. I mean, we can sit back and pick and choose who comes and presents to the city instead of us having to write a check for somebody.

Well, in terms of retirement, yeah.

So are we talking about how to manage their pension?

So no, thank you for asking that question. Yes, so the investment consultant is not part of the pension plan. This is their voluntary— voluntary To the 401 and the 457 accounts. So it's separate from the pension piece that they were talking about. This is actually for their voluntary contributions.

But even for that, there's all sorts of different brokerage firms and money managers that we don't need to pay them to come. They're just trying to do business with us.

So part of what Carrie is— and I appreciate what she's talking about, what she wants to do is we're going to have these conversations with these providers and say, well, why are these administrative costs so high, and why are these, these surcharges so high on each of the funds, and why is it that you're pushing your funds over publicly available funds? Are you doing that because you generate more revenue out of it, or again, trying to maximize the benefit?

But a retirement investment consultant is an independent— Yeah, just trying to—

independent from our record keeper right now for example, with ICMA RC, a lot of our funds are Vantage Trust funds, and that's actually an ICMA product. So they're getting the benefit from being our record keeper and also getting some money from pushing their products.

Right.

Where we can use this independent consultant to help us negotiate these record keeper fees to lower those and also lower the cost to have So it should be a wash to the city. It should be a benefit to the employees.

I thought this was bringing in a provider saying, wait a minute, they're already getting compensated.

Okay.

Gotcha.

We're just trying to keep our providers honest.

What I'm trying—

what the goal is, in my perspective, is to improve the returns on these investments so that when employees do reach retirement age, they've also saved up enough money. So that they don't feel the pressure to have to keep working. We want them to be able to retire at a time that's appropriate for them and they have enough money to save up. So that's the whole point.

And maybe one thing that's good to mention is that is why your fire and police are at different levels than your regular employees.

Yeah, they retire younger.

Right.

Well, and the amount of danger they face.

And I think at the same time too, as this organization is Social Security exempt, we have a number of our employees that when they retire from the City of Orem, they will retire with a pension. They will not have access to Social Security. And so these added 457 and 401 benefits are really important to them because they will serve as the Social Security replacement. And if we haven't done our due diligence in making sure that they're getting the education they need, they're getting opportunities for good investments, that we're doing them at reduced fees, then we're doing them a disservice.

And it's actually a liability to us to not do that. This is best practice for us moving in this direction. Okay, we'll also be Requesting that we implement a hybrid STEP program for frontline public works positions. It's been highly successful, as you know, for public safety, so now we would like to, to roll this into frontline public works positions.

What does the word frontline mean?

So, Chris, can you tell us? We've got public works operators, we've got fleet mechanics, and we have public work technicians that will be in the program. And in a minute, Scott's got a packet that we'll pass out to you so that you can see specifically what positions those are. But it won't be everyone all the way up to administration, it'll just be those 3 positions.

So they're the lowest grade positions. In the past, they were 7s and 8s. And so they comprise about 50 of our 114 employees in Public Works. So, for example, in the past couple of years, we've been bleeding out from water distribution, for example. We've had extremely high turnover.

We've had—

we've hired probably 25 new people in that.

There's a constant churn there. This is going to help with that, kind of stop that bleeding, and to let people know that we want them here and they're going to be able to advance and grow.

Thank you.

Uh, up to maybe 10— in 10 years they can, they can reach the top in their range or in that position itself, and that there's a future here for them if they so choose and they apply.

And they'll learn and grow.

And so there are many additional requirements similar to what police and fire have implemented in their STEP programs to help ensure that they, they know they have, they have a future here. If that's their choice, and that we will get them through and pay them competitively at the early part of their career.

We also added fire inspectors and EMTs to the hybrid step program. That's already been approved in the previous budget. I just wanted to mention that that's another change that we've done as well. So Scott, do you mind passing out that packet now? As he's passing that out, The packet will show you the stuff that I have up on the screen. Um, the, the police hybrid step program, according to the external survey, all of our officers— and I'm sure this is no surprise to you— are right in the market or not above, if not above. So we've had a lot of success with this. This was implemented in October, but there won't be any changes to the steps for this current fiscal year.

Thank you.

Right now, we've hired a lot of lateral officers since we started this program. I wrote down how many we've hired. This might be interesting to you. We've hired 12 new officers since we started this Hybrid Step Program. 9 of those 12 were lateral officers, so I think that's pretty amazing.

It is.

We have, we have one more starting on Monday, so starting on Monday we'll have 10 lateral From other departments? From other departments.

We're still giving them a bonus to come on?

Yes, but it's not the $9,000 that we did at the beginning.

How much is it now?

The chief can do up to $3,000.

They—

he can do more than that with Jamie's approval, but right now—

So you just look at it individually and see what—

I don't even think you offered them these last 2.

These last 2 were not.

That's great.

That shows you that the Yeah, it shows the strength. Yeah, so once everyone who's in background, if they pass, we'll only have one vacancy, which I think is— it says a lot about other cities right now are really struggling to get their officers, but this program is really working, and we're right in the market where we should be. So we don't have any concerns with that.

Battery, put it in place.

On the fire hybrid program, Exactly the same story as on the police side. They're right in the market. The only adjustment that we had to make was to our fire inspectors. Those actually went up 12%. They were really, really low in the market, so that— there was an adjustment made to the fire inspectors.

And they didn't get a raise with the last—

That's correct. They were not put into this hybrid system until now.

So, um, however, they did receive the And what determines if they're an entry step 1, 2, 3?

That's a great question. So if you come in as a firefighter, a paramedic, and you have your paramedic license but you don't have any experience at all, you would come in as a Paramedic 1 entry. Then on your anniversary date, so the date that your hired, you would automatically move to the next step. Then once you go through those steps to step 3 on your 3rd year, that's where you do the career ladder piece. So we've got requirements to improve your skills. It could be— Chief, I can't remember some of the examples.

There are just a bunch of different certifications.

I mean, it just serves the point that we value years of experience, but it's what you do within the year of experience And they understand it.

And before there was some concern that, hey, I want to do that training but it wasn't available. Those trainings are now more available to them. Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, we've restructured it so that it falls more in line with the path of the position.

Thank you.

And we've heard no complaints since we implemented this. It was a revolving door in my office before we did with complaints with pay, and ever since we've implemented this, we've had no complaints.

So we can give you more work.

We'll talk later. So this is the Public Works Hybrid Step Program that we're requesting to do for our technicians, operators, and mechanics.

And are these Chris's employees?

Yes.

Okay.

Yep.

And it's the exact same concept as, as the Public Safety Step Programs. They can go through the steps on their anniversary But after they hit that third year, they've got to improve their skills. They've got to meet those certification requirements to move into the entry for that next position. This this we've rolled out the idea to these these frontline employees. They're really thrilled about the idea about being able to move through their range. If they do the certifications right on time on their third year, they can go from the bottom of the range to the top.

And the nice thing is they know where they're headed and what they can do, and it's available to them.

And to me, it's a great recruitment tool to just post this online because you can see where you're— what you're going to be making in 6 years.

Sure.

And I think that's a great tool for recruitment.

And what's the budgetary increased cost?

So that's part of the budget discussion. Amendment this afternoon, right? Or do we already have— oh no, we've funded these changes for this current budget. So roughly, for the public safety step positions, we're looking at about $445,000 to fund that this year, the increases. For Fund 10, so that's the general employee fund, $330,198. And then other funds is $121,628. So 35% of our employees is in the public safety, 65% is in all other.

And is that within this 3% pay increase or is this—

No, we budgeted.

We've already done it.

Yeah, we've already budgeted, but it's in the budget at roughly the 3% or is this over and above the 3%?

What we do is we calculate, we'll look at every employee and anticipate if he or she is eligible for the steps right now. Our standard steps are 3%.

Yep.

So are they going to be, are they going to have years of service to qualify for just a single step or what I call a super bump?

Yeah.

And so if they qualify for the Super bump, then we budget for the super bump. Whether or not they get it is contingent on their performance.

So usually we do— not usually, but we try to budget for a 1% market increase every year, and this year we did not do that. So a large portion of that money is going towards placing these people within the new market grades and ranges. So a lot of that money came from that.

If I may, we approved the money before we knew the details. Correct.

So right now what we're asking in the meeting later is just the approval of this new structure.

Because when you approve the budget, Exhibit C, we functionally approve that, we just didn't know the programs. Correct.

Jamie, you're comfortable with this?

Yeah, I mean, I guess I— and again, as the manager, I want to just kind of qualify that all of this is always budget permitting. And we can't— what we do today, we can't bind future councils.

Right.

So while we're looking at, for example, a stepped program, and the suggestion is you can go from the bottom of your range to the top of your range in 9 years, the plan is to do just that. But if an airplane flies into a building and we have some sort of worldwide When you have a worldwide crisis and the economy tanks, that's where sometimes people say, well, you promised that this would happen. And that's when I want to qualify and say, well, remember back on July 13th, we had this conversation about, hey, budget permitting, if everything else is equal, this is the path that we're on.

And there is a disclaimer at the bottom of each one of those sheets that does say its budget permitted. So if we weren't able to do merit increases or step, everyone would just be frozen into place just like we did during the recession.

With the bad suits.

Yeah. Okay, for all the other employees that are not part of the hybrid step programs, we did create a new grading and range system. They still are a 50% width, but we now started grade 10 and then go up. There's 2 additional grades here, and you can look through those to see where people end up. Now we're down to questions.

Anything?

Anybody concerned? Questions?

So if you're at the max, you still forget your 3%?

For people that are in the merit system, if you have reached the top of your range and let's say you've been a high-performing employee and your director wants to give you a 3% but you've reached the top of your range, then it would be in a one-time bonus for that 3%.

So it's not an annual because you're at the max?

No, you would just get a 3% in a one-time bonus.

If— okay, if your director—

However, I do want to mention And we talked about this in our meetings before, before we implemented the Public Safety and the Public Works step program. It's a hard floor, hard ceiling. So if you bring in a brand new employee with no experience, the hard floor means they have to come in at that step 1, or the entry step of the brand new position. But we're also pushing them through the range significantly faster than our merit employees. So once they get to the top of the range, the top Hard top out, and the only way they get an increase is if we do a market increase for the steps.

So this is—

the understanding is this is going to continue to be a living, breathing process. So every year, Carrie and her team, Scott, they're going to look at where we are in relation. You know, we were having a conversation earlier in the week, and I was feeling very good about what we were doing, and Then Carrie came to me and said, well, I'm hearing this, or I'm hearing that. This city's potentially going to do more than we're doing, and this city's going to do more than the other city's doing. So it's all— it's just kind of a— just a game that we're all kind of chasing each other. And I walked out of the room, or my mind thinking, boy, I thought we were doing great. And then 10 seconds later, I'm thinking, okay, We gotta keep looking at this and keep watching it and recognize that we're gonna have to make adjustments in the future.

There will always be a living, breathing—

Yes, it's always dynamic. It's not static.

Mayor, and I just want to point out that the forum led these changes.

I can only speak for public safety, but the organizations now on the fire side that are increasing their wages, that are creating master paramedic positions They're all just chasing us. They're calling Carrie and saying, right?

And so the things that we have done this last year is all these other states.

We're driving those states, so it's awesome.

Well, I think Carrie's worked hard. I think we've worked hard, and I think we have a good system.

So Jamie, if I'm looking at dispatcher, dispatcher at $59,000, you know, the max. Yeah, that's just salary. That's not counting benefits.

No, that's just salary. So that's way short.

benefits are on top of that.

And for example, and it's differentiated, I believe, by exempt and non-exempt. So there are certain positions that are eligible for overtime. There are other positions that are not eligible for overtime. So a lot of management-type positions are salary positions. They're not eligible for overtime. They're not eligible for on-call pay. They're They're not eligible for some of these other benefits, whereas non-exempt under FLSA are eligible for overtime. Those are the employees that are on call. Those are the employees that are eligible for certain things different that are not specifically noted on this schedule.

So I'll just share a cool example. Carrie came and talked to several of my civilian employees, and one of the compression issues that they had They ended up getting about a 14 to 16% raise, and this employee was brought to tears. I mean, he's ecstatic about the changes and the willingness of the council and the city. So it is making changes, um, with our employees, and we're seeing that. And I think we're, we're in a lot stronger position today than we were.

Mayor, if I can just assert, one of the first things that Jamie had me do I guess 6, 7 years ago was to, at that time, you know, try and improve upon our compensation program. And so now, having observed Carrie and her team go through this, I can, I can completely assert that they added to the level of involvement, the level of detail, the comprehensiveness of the approach. They really did a great job.

Much higher professional approach.

Yes, much Much, much higher professional voice than I have.

Good.

For sure.

So one comment to bring up is that in 8 years, when we were elected, 2 weeks after we came in, the city had not had a raise in 5 years for the employees. And one thing I wanted to get done was a 2% raise. That was the first thing I requested, and we got that done. And I think it's important that our employees Or compensate your property.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. And, and we do feel very appreciative of everything that you've done for all employees. We're excited about this program. Like I said, it's a great snapshot in time. I feel very confident with the recommendations that we're making, but again, we've got to continue to look at that to try and compete in the market. But, but for now, on speaking on behalf of the employees, we appreciate everything that you guys do for us to make sure that our employees feel happy and appreciated here in the city.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Can I add one thing?

We're from Public Works.

I just wanted to say that our department is extremely appreciative of this and what is happening. In the last 2 weeks, we've met with 6 different groups that Carrie and Scott They've done an outstanding job. We appreciate Brad and Jamie in this process. Like Carrie said, over the last 8 years, there wasn't hope in 2012 or '13 for many people around in this room and in the U.S. And there has been hope that's been instilled and morale has increased over the last 8 years.

We have 8 employees in Public Works today.

They're at their top.

That's great.

top of their range, ready to retire. That was unheard of.

Unheard of.

And now we, we are seeing that it's possible. We can do this. We can make it.

We have a plan.

We have a hope.

We have a future. So thank you on behalf of Public Works. Great.

Thank you, Gary. Debbie, are you still with us? Debbie, up there in the Okay.

She's muted. Yeah, no, I, I'm here.

I'm just grabbing a bite to eat.

Well, I was going to ask if you could give us a prayer on the food.

Okay, happy to do it.

Okay.

Uh, dear Heavenly Father, bless this food to our nourishment and strength. Thank you for the opportunity to gather and to do the business of the city. Appreciative of this great land that we live in and the city that we enjoy working for and And we're grateful for each other and the camaraderie that we feel, and we thankful for our bounteous blessings. In Christ's name, amen.

She's already on the other side.

Yeah.

I know you're better than that.

Yeah.

Although it's scary. Um, you do.

And so we would actually take the major and we would take the savings and we laid it all out on pushing stats. So half the time I tried to brand new savings just like a big target, and then half the time I tried to beautify it. But it was funny because you'd come to a conference and they're waiting for us and I pull up ahead of you.

JB, has anyone heard from Clint in the past 2 days?

No.

Oh, goodness. I mean, he's, he's watching this.

Hello, Debbie, how are you?

We're in rainy Texas.

Yeah, well, it's kind of— this isn't a good thing for the neighbors.

When Bryce Hartman couldn't tell his wife about that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah, true.

But he is telling his brothers.

Which is pretty good about that.

Okay, listen, I wasn't gonna look last night.

See how it says—

I knew—

I didn't know what Bryce was doing.

You can go back and make sure he's not.

I've determined my wife's gonna want that if I die.

Okay.

You don't want to know. I've been over there quite a few times.

I hadn't seen anything new.

I mean, every time.

One time, I drove my I guess if you guys need money, I'll have to sit at the bottom of the other row.

I did get a ticket.

I guess it made me magical.

So the mayor called and said he's doing something. He wanted me to go to the agenda, but oh, we're not.

We only have 3 appointments to do.

Debbie?

Yeah. Okay, so Debbie's on.

Okay.

So the mayor can't— he's in a meeting with Pete. So he wanted me to go over the agenda for everybody. And then Jeff's got a few minutes to talk about his assignment. So we have Murray Lowe giving the inspirational Any further thought? Steve Downs has given the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yep, got it.

Um, any other reports referred to council? Okay, so we have personal appearances, we have consent items, and then our scheduled items are, uh, public hearing resolution, city receives public comment on the community block development agreement. Project use of funds, CARES Act funding. 9.2, public hearing, ordinance amending Article 22-2-1, accessory apartments, and portion of Section 22-6-9 of the Farm City Code pertaining to accessory apartments.

So this is, uh, and Jason can speak to this, but the state legislature amended the law associated with accessory dwelling units this last legislative session. We've talked about that. And what 9.2 does is it brings our ordinance in line with state law.

Okay, so, okay, so even though there might be— there could be public discussion on this, we pretty well have to follow the state law, do we not?

Correct.

Okay, we might want to say that as an intro.

Except we did get some, didn't we get some concessions with parking and stuff, or does that fall apart?

Sorry, yes.

State law allows cities to require one. Okay.

Yeah, and just a reminder, I mean, I was just looking at the original version of this bill, and all of the concessions that are in the bill as it exists now. That was a bloody, bloody, bloody battle up at the state legislature this year.

So, so I know, respectively, we're going to hear from people who are frustrated that they have, for example, tenants who are going to be parking on the street. Our ordinance required at least 2 off-street parking stalls for an accessory unit. State law now only allows us to require one off-street. And there are some other adjustments that they've made. Our ordinance had a square footage limitation as to how big the unit could be.

Maximum number of bedrooms.

Maximum number of bedrooms. So that's all gone. So your hands are kind of tied based on what action took place this last legislative session.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, may I? Steve, can I— I'm just picking on you for a minute. Excuse me, Heather. Steve and I talked, had a concerned citizen, you know, meet the candidates when they have an opportunity to voice things. Said, look, I understand you want to license people who have an apartment and, you know, own a home and they rent, they're tin buck twos, so they don't pay their utility can contact them. But what about people who have a legal accessory apartment? You know, they're living in the home, you already know who the landlord is, why do we pay them this— why do we charge the same fee? And so my request to Steve is, is to kind of revisit how much we're charging and should we charge— I mean, because people who have a legal accessory property have already gone through a bunch of steps to get that, and we know who they are. So that's the thought process.

Thank you.

Jamie or Steve, if you want to talk about that now, great.

If you're not, I just want to give you enough time so we can maybe have that discussion.

Wasn't that also about the garbage recycling cans too?

How many of them they needed, that kind of thing? Maybe so.

We have worked through that. Yeah, and they only need one.

That was one of their concerns. We're making them have 2 or one.

Well, we had some that just started showing up once they became a legal accessory. And, Brent, you can speak to the garbage can issue. But I think, I think one thing to consider is, and I guess the counter that I would offer is, you have somebody now using their personal property for commercial use. So the nature of what they're doing, they're running essentially a business.

A rental business.

Out of their home.

Yep. So the justification, you know, where— I guess the hard question is, where do you draw the line? And what you're suggesting is, well, I think we should draw the line here. My concern is, okay, then the next person who comes—

Oh yeah, it's a fine line. But they're saying, hey, I'm drastically different than the guy who owns a 12-plex.

Correct.

Or the guy or gal who owns a big apartment complex, and you still charge them the same $50.

And that's true until he or she moves. And then how do we know that they moved in?

And we—

and I thought about this a lot of the time because the person that owns a 12-plex, the utilities are in the owner's name there as well.

Duplex, it was already in the owner's name. 4-plex.

So the old single-family homes were the only ones that didn't have utilities in.

So under the argument of you already know who I am, you already have the utilities, that would mean we won't license anybody but a single-family home. But I think we all recognize there is an impact that happens Somewhere before that.

Yeah.

And whether we charge them a more token amount, I don't know. So let's bring it up at a future meeting. I'm sorry to hijack this.

No, that's fine.

Good discussion.

Anything else on that?

Then the next one looks like Jason's also— 9.3, amending Appendix DD of the Norm City Code. by adding the concept plan and elevation in the mission section of the zoning map. That's all.

This is performed by the Wyrm Tech Park, which is 1200 North Chamber Road. That's under construction.

Okay.

This is the property just directly north.

They want to rezone that same zone that they're in, the tech park, so they can do the same type of—

Because—

so you've got Cook's.

So it's in between Cook's and the— Anybody have any questions on that? And then we have Brandon. Yes, from that meeting, the public meeting, right?

Got to check whether it was—

and the budget is 12 days old and you're ready to change it again, Brandon?

Yep.

Luckily there's no dollar amount associated with it, per se.

All the dollars are already there.

It's just because it's personnel and part of the compensation and benefits, um, that's part of our budget, and it requires your approval and everything we just saw from Carrie.

So I'll just—

I'll be regurgitating her last 4 slides. I'll be regurgitating those 4 slides.

Okay. And then, Jamie, do you have anything on communication items?

Yeah, just a couple of things, if I may, for Tim. The first one is you probably saw a large backhoe outside the city center. You may be wondering— we're obviously doing some Some improvements here in the city center. I just wanted to give you an update. They are actually replacing sections of the sidewalk. So we had some bad sidewalk sections. They're just going to go in, pull them out, repour, and that's just for the next couple of days. So our intent is not to block off access to the building. It's just obviously good weather, good time for a construction project. We are underway with our bathrooms. They They're on schedule, we believe, right, Ryan? Yeah, suppliers continue to be a challenge.

Yesterday the truck was supposed to show up with all the plumbing fixtures, and the plumber sat around for 5 hours and were promised it'd be here and it never came.

Came today though, so we got toilets going in. So the toilets are going in down there. You can see the ADA accessible bathrooms are getting framed out. The custodial closet relocation is happening as well. The break room is waiting for a couple of countertop cuts, and so we should be done with the project hopefully by the end of the summer. 30 days, I'd say. Yeah, so I know it's an inconvenience. I know some people are frustrated, for example, that they can't gain access to the council chambers By way of the breezeway. It's just a matter of— it's a construction zone right now. It's not deliberate. It's not something that was strategically planned. It's just the nature of what we're doing. Heather, a couple of days ago, sent to each one of you a video presentation about the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act. As well as Utah Ethics Act. Each of you are required annually to go through training related to both of those items. It doesn't necessarily specify that you have to go through in-person training, and so we would just ask at your convenience that you go through that and that you notify Jody that you have completed that training so that we can keep a record of it. Um, So that's just for, for record-keeping purposes.

And a lot easier than tying up this meeting. We can all do it at our own time and pace. And whoever went in first must get some kind of prize.

So who was first?

Tom was.

Really?

I get a fruit basket valued at under $50?

That was pretty quick.

Anyway, thank you very much. And obviously you've got it recorded, so with minor changes, You can replay it next year. And thank you.

And I think Tom actually texted Jody outside of the public meeting. So yeah, yeah, very good. Additional gold stars. And then finally, just want to make a reminder. You have— we have scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday, the 27th of July, to discuss the North— or for you to discuss the North Village District. Just wanted to confirm the time. I think we're at 6 PM.

So we're not having a lot—

we will not have a work session.

We just come here.

This will be the only item on the agenda. But I just want to make you remind you, we're doing it on Zoom.

I'll be Zooming in. There's no meal.

And we need to get a letter with the color print on it. It was nice. Oh, yes.

Yeah.

But some of the neighbors didn't get it yet.

So we get it before they do, maybe?

I don't know.

Well, we, we provide it to you as courtesy. And then there is—

We noticed everyone was in the district.

Okay.

Not all the neighbors.

And some who are actively involved may or may not be in the district within the 1,000 feet or wherever they need to be, right?

So we didn't notice anyone outside of the district.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Just the district. And that's all I have. Okay.

Thank you, Jimmy. Then we'll turn the time over to Jeff Lampson to give us a report on his stewardship.

Thank you, Mayor Potem. So my commissions that I serve on, Traffic Advisory Commission, Utopia, Utah Lake Commission, the Care Commission, and then help a little bit with the Neighborhood Improvement Commission. This is okay. So Utopia is continuing to roll out to Pleasant Grove. Recently joined Utopia as well as Idaho Falls in Idaho, and things are uncertain as of yesterday. Uncertain, right? The Traffic Advisory Commission—we haven't. that for a few months, but I know they're doing great things and things are moving right along. So nothing really to report there. The Utah Lake Commission, they were excited to receive from the Utah legislature $9.8 million to help with their work there at Utah Lake. They've been doing some fun things to try and get the public more involved in doing things at the lake. They've been doing some scavenger hunts and some photo contests and some things like that just to kind of get people down to Utah Lake and, and to realize that there are lots of fun things that you can do there. The Care Commission, things are going swimmingly.

Yep.

So we pretty much wrapped up other than sending money.

Yeah.

So, and then the neighborhood improvement, uh, just a reminder that tomorrow evening at Sharon Park, uh, from 5:30 to 7, there's a picnic with the police. And, uh, and I believe we're all invited to that. And, uh, it's a good opportunity to go and And meet some, some of the citizens and enjoy an evening in a beautiful park. There's another one on the 28th at Geneva Park and then one on August 11th at Westmore Park.

One thing that's exciting about Sheridan Park is we'll be there tomorrow night. The CDBG, we allocated $189,000 to that park contingent on receiving a grant from the Land and Water Conservation We did.

We were notified today that we do receive that grant.

So we'll be able to share with the neighborhood tomorrow that that playground is indeed going to get replaced.

Awesome.

Yep. Yep. Is the restroom replacement part of that too?

Is this event on our calendars?

Should be.

Yeah. I know.

I know. Kenna has been good about sending out an email.

Well, if it came between blaming Kenna and me, I blame me, not Kenna. I see it's on my calendar.

August 10th, then, is— we don't have a City Council meeting.

We do not, no. Because of the scheduled primary, yeah, we are going to cancel that.

No, they don't know.

Yeah.

Classic.

I— so thank you, Jeff, for the report.

Also, the Public Safety Advisory Commission. And where are we at on I made a note to follow up with Chief Sanderson and Chief Adams. We, we don't have a complete roster of people yet, but we will.

Are we lacking?

I'm still trying to get a commitment from the sergeant.

Because I've got another person I talked to that might be willing to do anything.

So part of the reason that we're kind of holding back as well is I've challenged both Josh and Mark to try and build some diversity into the commission to look at not just—

This is already recorded.

Well, let's get a strata of individuals if we can, old and young, different gender, hopefully different race, given the— some of the issues that law enforcement fire service have been grappling with the last couple years. I think it makes sense to have a good diverse group of people. Can I say one other thing?

Just one other thing, not anymore.

Okay.

So you guys are all out there. Is there a humor?

Yeah.

A couple years ago, um, we talked a little bit about doing a celebration of diversity, you know, having an event where we had different cultures and groups from the city sharing talents, singing, dancing, costumes, you know, the whole thing, but having a celebration of diversity. And then COVID came along and kind of shut that down. And when we were doing the care interviews, there was a group from China, a group from Africa, a group from Brazil that all expressed interest in participating in that. And basically anybody that we've talked with, whether they're Hispanic or Native American or, you know, whatever culture it might be, they all wanted to participate. And so I just wanted to kind of see if that's something that we— I've talked with Chief Adams, and we just wanted to see if this is something that we still would like to jump behind and have a time of celebrating diversity and an opportunity to bring everyone together and appreciate each other and appreciate the Well, I think it's a good idea.

So is Steve going to head that up?

I don't think so.

Summerfest is about all— Why don't— if you wouldn't mind, we have our executive staff meeting tomorrow morning. Can we start kind of framing out a— That would be great. I've got several people that, um, that would like to be involved on the committee as well that are— would be open to that, to serving.

Just as a note, um, based on Councilmember Williamson's kind of noting this need in our community, the Arts Council has included more diversity in the summer concert series this year. We have a Native American performer coming, and we also have Ballet Folklórico closing out the Monday night series with an amazing traditional Mexican dance celebration, and they have a vocalist as well. So we're hoping that those concerts are, are well received. We have been looking at different opportunities to bring diversity into our normal operations, both in the library and in the Arts Council programming. And we had a traditional Mexican dance group in the summer festival. It was fun. People liked it a lot, so I think there's good call for opening the door to having more people enjoy the celebrations on a regular basis.

If I might add, we also have been doing some preliminary work on building a better framework for citizens, neighborhoods, different cultural groups to be able to more easily hold permitted events in the city and essentially help facilitate them more efficiently, make sure we're communicating with all the right areas, making sure that they have the right, the right kind of resources too. So I think we have been working on some foundational things that will help us facilitate this.

Okay.

Thank you, Jeff. So I think we'll adjourn from our work session and start—

Is he here for the meeting?

He's gonna—

I'm gonna start the meeting and he'll be in shortly. So we'll adjourn and we'll start up at 6 o'clock.

But didn't really understand the issues and said, what do you think about this really? Wouldn't tell me his position on anything, right?

He's listening.

That's exactly the point I brought up.

When someone was asking me my take on it, I'm like, I really don't know.

Right?

He's a listener.

That's good.

That's a good piece.

Yeah.

Oh sure.

I mean, it's a big deal, right?

This looks like a rough one.

Do you have up in Heather Ridge?

No, we're in the Ringfinger.

They have the sign that they block City Council meeting, but it's because this is the door with the bicycle locks on it. You have to go through the library. Every other door is locked. Except for this one. No, just the one into the library is open.

But it says only staff and employees have the code.

We're going through it anyway, but there's no other way in.

Oh my goodness.

We'll let someone know. How you doing?

Terry, how you doing?

Good. Doing good?

This is, uh, this is news coming.

Yeah, no, I don't think it's permanent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's usually you do that in the wintertime.

It's hot now.

You okay?

Yeah, I, I can do some hot things.

I don't have any pain now.

There's a reason I moved from Canada here, because I don't like the heat.

Isn't that cool?

You know what?

So you're gonna, you're gonna go nicely colored because 17-year-old daughter is starting to get gray hairs.

Whenever this grows out, there's a few grays in there. Because when she's out on a date, you're going, why am I worried so much about things?

So we need to take our seats and start city council, please.

Oh, M&M's.

I thought, I thought it was my seat. I think it's from John Barrick.

From who?

John Barrick.

Oh, okay.

Hey, boss, get this thing rolling.

Okay, well, so we're—

I want to be out of here at 6:25. Ernesto, is Debbie on?

Debbie's on.

Yes, I'm here.

Oops.

Okay, I'd like to call this meeting to order. The mayor is temporarily detained, so he'll be back shortly. Okay, so we're going to have an invocation by Murray Lowe and then an invocation or inspirational thought by Steve Downs. Pledge of Allegiance, sorry.

Our kind and gracious Father, we are so grateful for thy bounteous blessings. We are so grateful for this country, for the freedoms and liberties we enjoy, and for our state, and for our city, and for the neighborhoods we live in. We thank thee for health, and we thank thee that the pandemic has decreased and pray that it will continue. Father, we pray for a blessing to be upon our leaders. Please watch over, strengthen, and guide and direct them and bless them with wisdom and inspiration. And we pray that thou wouldst bless this country and all those who live in it, that we will love each other and work together in love and harmony. pray for that to be evident this, this evening. In the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, amen.

The audience, please rise and repeat, repeat the Pledge of Allegiance after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Murray and Steve. Looks like the, the mayor is coming in at the moment, so I will delay a few minutes and have him take over the meeting. Everybody's watching.

Do we have any personal appearances?

Oh, Steve, do we have any personal appearances?

Uh, there's none on the list.

Okay.

There is one.

Okay.

So we have time now for personal appearances, and, uh, We have one person that would like to speak. John Barrick, if you'd like to come forward. Please hold your comments to 3 minutes and give us your name.

Hi, I'm John Barrick. I live at 365 West 1750 North in Orem. I would like to thank David Spencer, Terry Peterson, Tom McDonald, and Jeff Lampson for listening to the residents of the North Village District area and their leadership in recommending reasonable height restrictions to close the existing unlimited height loophole in our zoning and increasing the parking requirements. We're grateful that this has been messaged for the July 21st Planning Commission meeting and the July 27th special City Council, which we are grateful for you holding, and we thank you for that. I'd like to talk for a minute about the proposed development, the Lofts at 1600, and which is also in the North Village District, as you know. And the city staff keeps repeatedly telling residents that an application is entitled to approval under LUDMA, and it is under Utah state law, but they forget the most important part. It says an applicant is entitled to approval, and the most important part, unless the land use authority on the record formally finds that a compelling countervailing public interest would be jeopardized by approving this application. We hope, as residents, that the city sees what we see. In a dozen Utah land use cases, all but one, Wallingford versus Moab City, 2020, the developer has had to sue the city or municipality in order to get a development approved because the cities typically protect their residents from unscrupulous developers. Why isn't the Orem City staff siding with Orem residents? Why has this developer been shown favoritism? Why is the city staff discussing a development agreement in a May 11th email exchange? In that email, the city staff said the developer would be giving up his ability to develop a second phase without new access on State Street, but I'm not sure what the city would give up in return. I'm not sure why the city would ever give up anything in return to a developer. Why is the city staff using terms like quid pro quo consideration and what we would give? Shame on you, the city staff. Why is Rocky Mountain Power telling the Orem city staff in a May 3rd email, I was reviewing the projects from the DRC website and I found there could be a problem with the lofts at 1600 with the building being too close to existing power lines. But when residents in several emails asked about it, the city staff ignored or said nothing. Why are they covering up that Rocky Mountain Power has issues with this development? Why did the conflict zones from the November traffic study showed with— showed to Orem residents in November, why did they disappear in the most recent traffic study? As residents, we have a lot of unanswered questions, and we're looking forward to discussing those at a future date. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We'll now go ahead and close the personal appearance portion of our meeting and move on to our consent items. We have one consent item, approving the meeting minutes of the City Council meeting of June 29th, 2021. Is anyone on the council interested in putting this onto a scheduled item? If not, then I make a motion that we Approve the consent items. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start with Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the consent item— thank you, Debbie. Consent item agenda passes, and we'll move on to our scheduled items. First one is a public hearing resolution. The city will receive public comment on the Community Development Block Grant projected use of funds for the CARES Act CDBG-CV funding and consider approval of a resolution for a substantial amendment to the 2019-2020 Annual Action Plan. And Ken Ransom is the commission chairperson and Steve Downs, our deputy city manager. And I will let— turn the time over to you two.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Before you begin with the one quick proposal for you to consider from our commission, and I want to thank Stephen for helping me today, and we excuse Kenna who's not able to be here. So here's a summary of the allocations to date from the council for the COVID CDBG funding.

And the amount at the bottom of this slide shows still to be allocated is $59,681.68. And I think you're familiar with this slide. You've seen it a few times. And with this slide—

and so our proposal, my recommendation for you today is the Orem Senior Friendship Center Yeah, it's an emergency need for plumbing and sewer repairs in order to continue their programs. They need to make some plumbing repairs for their bathrooms and their dishwasher, so we recommend that this be funded to help them with those repairs so they can continue their important programs that they offer.

And so that's our total recommendation for you today, is the Warm Senior Friendship Center for $20,000. And this is the balance still to allocate, and we'll, we'll have future recommendations for you on this amount.

Okay, any comments or questions from the council? All right, this is a public hearing, so we will open it up for public comment. Anyone wishing to make comment about this item, please keep your comments to 3 minutes and list your name when you come forward. Seeing as how no one's coming forward, we'll close the public comment portion of the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Anyone wishing to make a comment or question, go ahead.

I just want to thank Ken for his regular appearance. We're going to dedicate a chair at the front of the room to you because you come every 2 weeks. But thank you for your service. I mean, many committees serve, but we've seen your face awful lot.

I just want to thank you for your extra service. Thank you.

I appreciate that.

All right. I would like to make a motion that the City Council adopt the recommendations of the CDBG Advisory Commission and approve a resolution for a substantial amendment to the 2019-2020 Annual Action Plan. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

We'll go ahead and start with Councilmember Lamson first.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the resolution— thank you, Debbie. You got to move quick. The resolution passes. We'll move on to our next item, which is a public hearing on an ordinance amending Article 22-2-1, Accessory Apartments, and portions of 22-6-9-1 of the Orem City Code pertaining to accessory apartments. And Jason Bench, our Planning Division Manager, will be our presenter.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Tonight, as we've discussed briefly in the pre-meeting, this is an amendment that was brought to you based on House Bill 82 that was approved by the state legislature this year that amended and required cities to allow accessory apartments with certain— in certain areas and with certain— you can allow certain restrictions, and then there's things that you could not allow. And so tonight I'm just going to go through some of the changes. Our ordinance had some of those restrictions that we need to eliminate, and we'll just go through one of— as we go through the different issues. The first one are just a couple of minor changes that we saw as we went through and reread the ordinance. The major issue was we reordered the parking. The state law does allow us to require 1 parking stall for an accessory apartment. The ordinance also requires or allows us to require 2 parking stalls for the main dwelling. So an accessory apartment will have— a home with an accessory apartment will have a total of 3 off-street parking stalls that we can require. So that's the one change, and that one is really more just rewording of the language to make it a little more Clear. It does require that one parking stall to be behind the front setback, so it has to be either in a side yard or behind the— which is currently a requirement. We had in our ordinance the minimum size so they could have a maximum of 1,200 square feet. That restriction has been taken out. An accessory apartment can be half of the home if that's what the owner chooses to do. We had a restriction of 2 bedrooms, and that also was taken out. So that number 5 has been totally taken out of the ordinance as per the state law. And then the location within the— the state does allow us to regulate, so they can't have an annex to their home and connect it with a breezeway. It has to be part of the existing home, or if they legally add on to their home, that could be as long as it meets the requirements of setbacks and things. So number 7 just outlines the fact that it has to be part of the main dwelling. It can't be an accessory apartment in the back and you put a breezeway or something like that to connect. And then number 9 indicates that we still can require an accessory apartment to be subject to the dwelling license requirements. So just some minor changes, but it is substantial as far as the size and the number of bedrooms that we can require. Brings it up to date with the new state law. Be glad to address any questions.

So I remember a while back for accessory apartments they wanted to have different HVAC systems between them. They wanted to have walls that had fire protection between them. They're not requiring any of this.

As part of that bill, that's a separate section that the building department is— so this ordinance that we have is strictly the zoning requirements, but that you are correct, those changes have been made as well, and the building department is following those new state requirements.

And this is, as you just mentioned, this is a state requirement for every city and county in the state, correct? Okay, any comments or questions by the council? Okay. This is a public hearing, so we'll go ahead and open it up to the public. Anyone wishing to make a comment, please come forward, list your name, and hold your comments to 3 minutes. Seeing as how no one is coming forward, 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? Okay, then I would like to go ahead and make a motion that the Orem City Council amend Article 22-2-1, Accessory Apartments, and portions of Section 22-6-9 of the Orem City Code pertaining to accessory apartments. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay. Let's go ahead and start with Councilmember Pedersen.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to call on Debbie first so she gets in there quicker.

I've got a question for, for Heather. Um, on with the legislature, so this next year, you, you feel or you see that things are going to keep getting worse With their overreach from the state into the city?

I think that's the trend you've seen from the state legislature over the last 2 to 3 years, and I don't see any change in composition of the legislature that would make me think differently at this time.

Okay, thank you.

So that ordinance passed. We'll move on to item 9.3, which also is a public hearing on an ordinance amending Appendix DD of the Orem City Code by adding the concept plan and elevations, and amending Section 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zone of approximately 14.7 acres from the Highway Service Zone to the PD-36 Zone at approximately 1430 North Geneva Road. Jason Bench is our presenter. Jason, is the applicant here?

I don't know if he is. He was at Planning Commission, but I don't see him here tonight.

Okay, and who is the applicant, you know?

His name is Richard Call.

Okay, all right, go ahead, Jason.

Thank you. Uh, the property, uh, in question, as you can see with the laser pointer hopefully, is a 14.7-acre piece, the Cook's Greenhouse is here. They're leasing this portion as well, and that's where they grow their trees and station those. This property right here was recently sold to Mr. Call. UDOT had that as part of the staging of I-15, the core project. They've since sold it, I believe— well, as part of access.

Sorry, they didn't—

they were using it as staging. There is an access here that accesses directly out to Geneva Road. So that's where— and I'll show you on the site plan coming forward, but that's where they're getting their access there. The current zone is Highway Services. As the applicant came in to request an office warehouse similar to what's on the south side, the parking in the HS zone is— there's only one standard, 1 per 250, which required, you know, over 1,000 parking stalls, which isn't reasonable for an office warehouse. So they came in and wanted to rezone it to the PD-36, which Which is, uh, was created for similar type of uses with a little more lenient parking, similar to the M-1, M-2 zones. And so that's what they're here tonight is to, to get that requested to be rezoned to the PD-36 zone. You can see from the aerial that there is an access here. We did— the city does require this road to be stubbed up through their property. As you can see on the concept plan, this public street will come in and cul-de-sac. We have talked to the Cooks who own this property here, and they, they can gain access to that public street on their property. And then this, as part of his development, he will be building this as a public street, so this property will also have direct access to a public street. Elevations are similar to what you see out there under construction right now, typically a nice office, and the majority of the property will be used as warehousing for HVAC, those types of businesses that you see currently into the south. Currently it is vacant. This is taken from the on-ramp of I-15 looking west. And so the Planning Commission did review it, and this is for the rezone and adding the— into the appendix of the existing PD zone is the concept plan and elevations for this particular property. Planning Commission did make a recommendation. The site plan itself will go back to the Planning permission if the council chooses to rezone the property. So I'll be glad to address any questions.

So on access to that, you have a brand new road that goes up from Geneva Road there into the Orem Technology Campus, and then you have access from that campus straight over into the said property. That road's a very nice road, brand new, wide road. Are we looking at the owner of this property putting in this public access road directly from the west with the little turnaround cul-de-sac as a second access then?

Yes.

Okay.

That will be required.

And, and he will be paying for that, right?

Yes, and it may be in connection with the Cooks. I mean, it just depends on how— I mean, he's talked to all the different parties, but yeah, he would be responsible to bring that in.

Would he then dedicate that over to the It would be a dedicated street, yes. And what about the street from the other flex warehouses headed north? Will that be a dedicated street that will be turned over to the city as well?

It will, yes.

So the elevations are— elevations appear to be very nice. Are we requiring anything of them with regards to that?

So we're wanting these to be added to the appendix so that when they do actually come in, if he decides to flip the property, these would be the elevations, or something very similar to these would be required.

So by passing this rezone, this is what we will expect them to meet, that or better?

Correct.

Okay.

And that's the purpose for us tying it to the, to the actual zone itself, that we then can enforce that to be the requirement.

So the flex warehouses that are going up right now in the PD-36 6 zone are very nicely done. They're renting out. There's good demand for them. That's a real nice addition to the industrial side of our city, and I think adds to the beauty of the area and improves the area tremendously. So if these concepts follow through with the other, then I think this will be a great addition to the city. Councilor McDonald, do you have a comment?

Yes, Jason, could you go back one slide? So to be clear, the parking lot's going to connect to that kind of cul-de-sac road, if you will, to the west, and a road will go through it to the east. And, and basically they're assuming parking lot will attend— they'll be able to go from the south to the north— no, from the west to the east along there, is that correct?

So, um, that, that would be private.

Right, that'd be private, but they'd be able to connect it.

They would be able to be—

Regress.

Connect, right. And the south—

Mayor addressed it, but I didn't catch it.

Sorry, so the south side would be more of the big trucks, the more of the, the docks, things like that. But somebody could go from the cul-de-sac east to that other road. The purpose though from those 2 connections is that somebody could use a public street to access. But yeah, if you're, if you're accessing building number 2, for example, you could drive through that property line.

Kit, I don't know if you have the ability to zoom out and show me how close Cook's property is.

Let me—

Nope, this doesn't show that. Oh, there we go.

Yeah, so Cook's is all right.

It actually borders that. Cook bought the rest of that property.

Yeah, so Cook's comes down. We actually have had talked to one of the sons, one of Virl's sons, and they've come in and actually may actually come in and request similar on this portion of their property right here. So, so they're very well aware of this and are in talks with both developers.

Thank you.

And actually, the neighbor to the south is the City of Orem. We own that—

The detention basin is owned by the city. Yep.

Can you go back to the drawing that showed the individual buildings? So the flex building that borders the freeway To the east. Um, anything different about that building, or—

It's just going to be a lot smaller just because of the— it'll be probably just some minor, you know, smaller businesses.

Will it be the same height?

Uh, same, I would assume same height, but just going to be extremely small, 8,000 square feet versus the larger buildings.

Sure. Okay, any other comments from the council? Okay, well, this is a public hearing, so we will open it up for public comment. Anyone wishing to make public comment, please come forward, give us your name, and hold your comments to 3 minutes. Seeing as how no one's coming forward, we'll close the public comment portion of the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Um, anyone wishing to make a motion? Anyone wishing to make any comments? I move to approve.

I'd be happy to make a motion, Mayor.

Okay.

Uh, I move that the, uh, that by ordinance Appendix DD of the Orem City Code, by adding the concept plans and elevations that Jason points out and amending Section 22-5-3A and the zoning map of City of Orem by changing the zone of approximately 14.7 acres from the Highway Service Zone to the PD-36 Zone at approximately And you mentioned, or should have mentioned, the city council will be amending appendix.

I thought I did.

You didn't.

Okay.

As long as we've got that clear. All right, anyone wishing to make a second?

Second.

Second. Okay, Council Member Lampson.

Jeff?

Okay. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Okay.

Aye.

Thank you, Debbie. So the ordinance passes. Uh, we'll move on to 9.4, which is a public hearing on an ordinance amending fiscal year— thank you, Jason— fiscal year 2021-2022 budget, and our presenter is Brandon Nelson.

All right, Mayor and City Council members, uh, so as part of our earlier work session where we, you know, went in depth and had discussions related to the compensation study that the city has recently completed, that requires a budget amendment to incorporate those changes related to that study into our existing budget. because the compensation and benefits are part of our budget. In the documents that you received and that I am showing here outline the various changes that are being proposed as part of this budget amendment. Pages here 1 through— 2 through 5 relate to positions that are not Yes. Part of the Public Safety or Public Works proposed hybrid STEP programs, and the various elements that are related to that are a new grade numbering system as far as the numbers associated with each grade, and as well as adding 2 additional grades in the, the total number of grades available. And then the minimums and maximums related to each position that have been changed or proposed to be changed as part of the budget amendment and part of the study. A new Public Works hybrid STEP program is proposed similar to both fire and police public safety hybrid programs, and you can see the 3 types of positions that are proposed to be part of that hybrid step program within Public Works and the associated steps and related to each position. Within the Police Department, the various elements of the hybrid step program are shown here. There were no— there are no changes to any of those as they, you know, were approved back in October. But as part of the entire program, we thought we'd go ahead and include them in there so that they were all together as part of that program. The fire hybrid program had a couple of changes from the October approval related to the EMTs and fire inspectors. Those changes related to the program and the within the study are included within this document here. And so those are the changes that are being brought forward to you. There are no— there's no dollar amount associated with it as far as an increase in the— or decrease in the budget amendment. Those were accounted for as part of the original budget, and so those dollars are already there. This is just bringing forward the changes within in the structure that we are proposing to be made. That's all I have.

Well, we appreciate what you've brought up, and this is a very important program, and it's important that— I think that our employees know where they're going, what they can inspect— expect, and that they can reach the goals that they hope to reach. So, uh, any comments from anybody on the council? This is— I'd just like to mention this is a work in progress that's been going on for several years, and this is a tremendous program that helps the city maintain a fully functional fire, police, and public works force. So we appreciate, appreciate Carrie's Great work on getting this done. This is a public hearing, so I will open it up to the public. Anyone wishing to make a comment, please do so. Hold your comments to 3 minutes and give us your name. Seeing as how no one's coming forward, we'll close the public comment portion of our public hearing, bring it back to the council. Anyone wishing to make a comment on the council? Okay, well then I would like to make a motion that the Orem City Council amend the fiscal year 2021-2022 budget for changes proposed to the compensation programs of the city due to the completed compensation study. We'd like to go ahead and take a vote, and Debbie, we will put you first. I'm sorry, second. Do we have somebody who's going to give me a second?

Second.

Okay.

All right, Debbie, do it again.

Aye.

Okay, Jeff.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Okay, the ordinance passes. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Brandon. Thank you, Carrie. Jamie, do you have any comments you wish to make?

No, Mayor.

I shared my comments in the work session.

Thank you.

Okay, I would accept a motion to adjourn our meeting.

So moved.

Is there a second? Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.