City Council · 2021-12-08

All right, it's 3 PM and we would like to begin our city work session for the City of Orem today. We'd like to read a notice to begin with. This is Mayor Brunst. Pursuant to Mayor Richard F. Brunst's proclamation dated November 30, 2020, The Orem City Council meeting on December 8th, 2020 will be an all-electronic meeting. There will be no anchor location for the meeting. The city cannot ensure the recommended minimum of 6 feet of social distancing for meeting participants at the usual anchor location in the Orem City Council chambers. Therefore, holding the meeting at the City Council chambers would present a substantial risk to the health and safety of those who may be present at the meeting and may contribute to the spread of COVID-19. There will be no public access to the Orem City Council chambers. Those desiring to view or participate in the meeting must do so electronically. To view the meeting, please go to orem.org/meetings. To make a comment, please submit your comment through orem.org/comments. Or they can be called in. Written comments will be accepted before and during the meeting. All written comments received will be entered into the record and forwarded to each City Council member for review. Written comments will also be read aloud during the live meeting when required by law or when time permits. As technology permits, the City Council may accept oral comments. Once an item has been voted on, that item will be closed to additional comments. We thank you for your cooperation during these challenging times. We would like to begin our work session today with an update on our new fitness center and library hall projects, and our presenter is Ryan Clark. And Ryan, we'll turn the time over to you.

Thank you, Mayor. Are you able to see my screen?

Um, we did. It went away.

It went away, huh?

I see it.

I still have it.

Okay. Is it back?

It's not back on my screen, but—

It is for me, Ryan. I see it. Sometimes you got to check a different—

Okay, I've got it now.

Perfect. Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. I'm joined today for this presentation by Joe Smith and Scott Smith from Method Studio. As a reminder, they are architects on both the library hall and the fitness center. I'm also joined by Jameson Fairbourn and Troy Robertson from Big D Construction, and they are the contractor on the fitness center. I've asked them to join us in case you have any questions today you'd like them to address. I'll get started with the library hall, and I'll go through some photos here quickly. We have a very short amount of time, but I have a lot of photos, so I'll try to go fairly quickly through this. I'll go through some interior shots first of the library hall. This is the south lobby. You can see pretty much the finishes are done right now. In the whole building, we are working on punch list items. And the few remaining items that we need to get a temporary certificate of occupancy, including— we've had to modify some of our exit signs because this building has some interesting exit pathways due to the new interior courtyard. This is the west lobby out along State Street with the new wood finishes in. Baseboards are in, and then you'll see some blue tape on one of the columns in the left corner. Those are indicating some of our punch list areas that need to be addressed. This is a shot of the corridor on the north end of the library hall that connects the new children's wing to the main library auditorium entrance. On your right is the entrance to the offices for staff. This is a shot of the men's restroom. And you can see the finishes in there. We even have soap dispensers and garbage cans installed. We do have a final cleaning to take place on the building, but we're holding off until the very end to get that last cleaning done. This is a shot of the stage from the seating. All of the seats are uncovered now. You can see the stage. The stage is actually black, but it has a protective kind of a heavy paper covering on it right now so that It doesn't get damaged by any of the trades that are left in there. A little bit of a closer shot showing that. We do have some work in here remaining with some of the curtains, as well as paint touch-ups, speakers, and we'll take about a week to do the sound system and get that all balanced out and ready to go. They're also in there balancing the HVAC system right now and making sure that that is functioning the way it should be. Standing on the stage and looking back out at the audience, you can see the new wood wall. I apologize for the resolution. The photos do not turn out very good when you have a lot of dark in that area, and this auditorium has a lot of shadows in the back just based on the way the lighting is. And then here's a little bit of a closer shot where you can see the carpet. The carpet has a very intense pattern that also does not show up well in photos, but looks really nice and is pleasing to the eye. You'll also notice in the center is the control booth that's been finished up, and in this auditorium we have a little bit of carpet, edges on the stairs left to do, and also just basic punch list cleanup. Um, on this project, our budget is looking good so far. We are on track to make, make budget, and right now Everyone's probably wondering when is it going to be done. I wish I could answer that question, but as the nature of construction goes, when you get into your punch list items, one of the biggest challenges is getting your subcontractors back on site to finish up these little things. And so, for example, with our electrical punch list items, that electrician's waiting until he can get out here and do all of that work at once. And so we're waiting on some price adjustments on those exit signs. And then once they get out here and get that work done, we're hoping to get that temporary certificate of occupancy. We also will possibly face some delays on some of the curtain track manufacturing that is coming out of Southern California. As you well know, that area has been shut down right now to nonessential businesses, as well as stay-at-home orders. So that, that's my quick summary of the library hall. Are there any questions on that project that I could address?

So, Ryan, the foldable chairs have all been delivered and they're in-house?

Correct. They're actually stored in the basement right now, over underneath the City Council Chambers.

Okay.

All right. Moving forward to the fitness center. Well, first off, this is the exterior. This was as of Friday. You can see the dark kind of gray is the ACM panel finish. That will extend all the way down to ground level. that you see that insulation with the silver vertical tracks, that's the anchor system for that ACM panel. And then up above, they call it a knotwood finish. It's actually a metal that looks like wood. Very attractive, very pretty. The pictures don't do it justice, but they're well underway with installation of that. This is a shot showing it a little bit closer, and that will be underneath all of the eaves on the front of the building.

Looks great.

This is a shot of the entrance in the courtyard. Um, and all the concrete that you see right at the forefront of the picture over to the first vertical black line is what's heated by the snowmelt system. And so all of that will have rubber hosing run underneath it that will have hot water that goes through it. There are 2 sensors that pick up moisture and temperature and automatically turns the system on when needed. You'll also notice the sliding glass doors on the entrance. Those were retrofitted, or I shouldn't say that, but we swapped out the swinging doors for sliding doors once COVID hit. And so our main entrance will have those automatic sliding doors. This is right when you walk into the building. This is the old basketball court from the old fitness center. So this is our ode to the old fitness center, or monument to it in memory of it. We are leaving it with the stripes on it and the scuff marks and adding the timeline to it like in this photo. This is just a mock-up. But pointing out kind of the major milestones in Orem over The years since the city was settled originally in 1847 when settlers crossed the Provo Bench. We've— we think it's turned out really neat. One thing that you can't see is those panels cantilever out. They will have lighting behind them. And there will be a, I believe, a glass insert. Big D can correct me if I'm wrong, and that glass insert will light up and have letters on it, motivational Not letters, but words. As you're exiting the facility, you'll see those. Turning to the left of that photo is the functional fitness room. The storefront glass is in, and you can see how a lot of the finishes are going in. Sheetrock is getting ready, paint is in, in certain areas, all kinds of electrical work going on in the city— or in the ceiling. This is the adult slide. It showed up last week and Big D's hoping to install it here in about another week. That slide will go in this location where that scissor lift is located. It'll be between the plyometric staircase and the upper floor to the right of the photo behind the scissor lift. So what you see there is the new functional fitness ramp, normal staircase, and plyometric staircase where patrons can run. training circuits up these and then down the slides so that they're taking it easy on their knees. That scaffolding needs to all be removed so they can get that slide in right after. I apologize for the graininess in some of these pictures. Again, it's, it's very dark in the facility in certain areas because the electricians are still working hard. This is the bouldering wall. It's a little hard to see some of the relief in it. What's leaned up against it is the pad that's about 12 inches thick that lays on the floor. And then the handholds remain to be installed, but other than that, the wall is in. It looks phenomenal and quite challenging. Upstairs, we transition to the big aerobics dance studio. You can see the ceiling finishes coming in, the paint's finished, and then once they get the fans finished in the ceiling and other electrical work, they'll start on the wood floor.

Right away.

Down on the main floor, the 2 studios that are next to the basketball gym, the storefront glass is in. And here's a little bit of a better, nicer shot of that in the corridor leading from the locker rooms over to the gym. The racquetball courts are well underway. The flooring installation is ongoing. Here they have started to lay the floor out, get it ready for installation. The glass is in. Here's a shot of 2 of them side by side from the upper level. This is a multi-class or multi-purpose room upstairs that has now taken on a new life and will have many features in here, new types of exercise equipment. All of the walls have reinforcement behind them so that things can be anchored. Ballet barre will go in here as well as I wish I could remember the name, but maybe Carl or Bren can remember. But it's, it's, uh, where people work out with bands. TRX. Thank you. Uh, this is a shot of the spin studio on the right and the conference room on the left. Again, working on the ceilings, getting those ready. And a shot looking down at the lobby from up above. Another shot from the top of the grand staircase looking back through the ceilings and those treatments that are going in. This ceiling they're actually painting right now, and what you see protruding down that's taped off is a big large fan. This building probably has 15 to 20 fans that are quite large and will help circulate air. Just another shot of that work going on with the gym in the background and the track in the forefront. Those big pallets of white things are called Mondo flooring, and that is being installed right now as we speak along all of the track, and that whole area that you see in the photo will eventually be Mondo. Here's a shot of the gym. Nobody has taken a shot yet on the baskets. Because if you did, you'd leave a white mark and we would know it was you, so don't do it. Till we get finished, but they are in there grinding the concrete right now. This gym area is pretty much finished except for flooring. All of the ceiling is done, speakers are in, electric— or lights are in, security cameras, the whole shooting match.

Mayor, if I may, Ryan, could you tell us the size of this gym compared to the other? It just looks different when it's empty.

Yeah, and maybe Carl could help me on this, but it's 2 full basketball courts in size. So I'm not quite sure. Yeah, we have 2 full basketball courts. Before, we had basically 1.5, but the half one was almost unusable. So as far as usable space, we're about 75% more. Thanks, Carl. And this is a shot of all the wood that's been delivered. It's acclimating right now. The heat is on in the building, and so they have to let that wood sit for a little while until it's ready for install. Um, one thing that's interesting, the piles of wood to the top of the screen have little black rubber things. That's what goes down first to give the floor a little bit of spring, and then it'll have another layer of plywood on top of that before the wood floor goes on. Here's a shot up on top looking down the ramp and that scaffolding system.

Ryan?

Yeah.

Before you leave the gym, if I might add that the extra space will also allow us to include pickleball courts and lines for indoor volleyball. So, we'll be able to program those uses into the gym area as well.

Thank you, Brian. And then this is the indoor playground. They just poured the handicap ramp on the left side of the screen. So this room is going to be full of activity and a really fun game of tag could take place on this playground. This is an overhead shot of it. And then a side shot. And keep in mind, the top of this is 14 feet from the ground level. This is under production right now with Soft Play out of— I believe they're in North Carolina, and they are scheduled to be here January 4th to start installation. I know this will— Councilmember Larray will be excited about this. This is a shot of one of the family changing rooms. You can see the size of one of these individual rooms with the finishes going in and a shot of the shower that's in that room as well. And then I just have a couple shots up top of the sun rising. I'm not a photographer, but again, just a reminder of those really beautiful views from up top where the cardio equipment will be located. The gentleman there is working on painting that little bumper curb where all of the electrical and network connections are for those treadmills. And then just a closing shot of the knotwood installation going on.

Ryan, I have a question on the playground. You were Ryan, this is Debbie. You were fundraising, I believe I saw something for the, for the adult gym or children's gym, whatever. Do we know the status? How much have we raised toward that, that playground, whatever you call it, indoor playground?

I would let— I'll let Brandon answer that, but one of the reasons we're fundraising is we had an initial budget for that playground, and when we started to look at the proposals that came in, we found that we were looking at more of a fast food restaurant playground. And so to get the really neat design we have, we had to up that budget, and hence why we've turned to fundraising. So, Bryn, do you have an update by chance?

Yes, so, uh, if we include the match that was done by the, the Family Foundation and add that to all of the small donations that we've that we've done. Our small donations with the match would come up to about $103,000 total in our small donations campaign. So all of the small donations have totaled—

What do we need to finish that? Is that enough to finish it?

So we just received, for example, today another $1,000 donation, and then we just took through a tour another Couple that at least verbally was saying that they were interested in doing a $10,000 donation. So we're going to keep—

in every advertisement we've been doing, even about our past sales, we continue to provide the link and opportunity and reminder about the small donations as well.

So we're gonna, we're gonna keep up with that up until opening.

We do have—

So what's our goal? What's the target? So what's the cost for that?

Ryan, can I revert back to you on the cost for just the playground?

Yeah, if I— sorry, I don't have it off the top of my head. It was, I believe, around $350,000. We had about $200,000 budgeted for the indoor and outdoor playground, and so we also are fundraising on top of that. So if we meet our goal, we have an outdoor playground to install as well for the childcare. But those are just round numbers off the top of my head without diving into them. I could get those for you later if you'd like. Debbie, this is Carl. We, we On top of that, we also— and maybe Brendan included this in— we got about a $50,000 grant. That's what we're doing the outside playground with.

So it's kind of a moving target.

We've got lots of revenue sources. I mean, we believe we can do this without having all of the money donated, but we are actively trying to get donations.

So would you say you're two-thirds, half the way? I mean, listening to what your numbers— it seems to me like you're about 2/3 of the way there.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah, I think we're going to get there. What, what we saw with the Altogether Playground was that as it got closer to the opening of it, the donations ramped up accordingly. And so based off of that kind of track record, we think that You know, once people feel like it's real in terms of when it's going to open, that we're going to continue to see a ramp-up of those small donations as we get closer to that opening date. So yes, we— if anything, based off of, you know, our opening date looking at the beginning of March, arguably we're ahead of schedule.

Thank you.

And I'm over time, but I just want to close with all of the equipment and furniture is on order. It'll start showing up in December and January. Just so the council is aware, the landscaping installation will not take place until the spring, once the frost is out of the ground. But we did get all of the site concrete and asphalt completed before the freezing temperatures hit. And next year we will be reconstructing the south parking lot. as part of our roads project. Our budget on this project is also looking really good, and as Bren mentioned, we're looking at the end of February for completion. And I'd like to just, you know, send my appreciation out for all of our staff, Method Studio, Joel and Scott, and to Big D and Kerr Construction for all their hard work on these projects. They've been phenomenal partners, and I really credit our relationship between our teams for the success we're having. We have a very open dialogue on all of our issues that come up and our successes, and it's been a great relationship. So I just want to show that appreciation to our team. And are there any questions we could answer?

So, Ryan, ribbon cutting for the library hall, what are your thoughts there in relation to COVID-19?

Well, because we, we can't open anyways, um, and we are working on the temporary certificate of occupancy, I think our goal is to let's just wait until we get it looking phenomenal. We do have to polish the concrete one more time and get it cleaned, and then I think it'd be ready to show at that point.

So maybe beginning of February?

I think that would be very— we should be able to meet that, if not in January.

Okay, any questions? All right, if not, thank you, Ryan. Thank you to Big D and to Method Studio and to our staff. We'll now go ahead and move on to a study retention schedule, and Jackie Lambert, our Deputy City Recorder will take us through that. And Jackie, are you on?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Sorry, I was having some mute issues. So, so this is the final piece to the puzzle for our city retention schedule. It is our general administration records section. It's got things like master plans, reports, studies, city publications, etc. This does not include electronic correspondence. That is something we are still working on and considering with the City Attorney's Office and making sure that we're moving in the right direction with that. So, so this is just the last piece of the general retention that we are asking to, to consider, and then we'll be done with these fun little updates every work session.

Okay, sounds good. Any questions or discussion? All right, thank you, Jackie. We'll move on to our discussion on 400 West, 1200 South, the roundabout. In regards to the design of the roundabout, Sam Kelly and Foreggs Engineers, I believe, are our presenters.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. See if I can share my screen here real quick. Just a brief little update on where we're at with our roundabout. Some of you may have remembered when we brought this to council in a work session. See if my—

oh wow, how does that work?

Oh, there it comes.

Sorry.

Okay, here's a brief overview of why we need the improvements, existing and future deficiencies, intersection type that we looked at, and then what we have for a suggested design as well as some of, some of the similar types of roundabouts that you guys can look at. Right now, this is our current level of service we have. If we were to take the current configuration we have and leave it as is and go into 2040— and I can't tell if you guys can see that slide there or not. But anyways, it shows that we would be in a Level of Service F in the PM. And more importantly, to look at that, you would see that we have 88 seconds of delay, which would be pretty substantial. More than likely, this intersection would be failing, and we would have cars backing out into University Parkway, which is what we don't want. In our analysis that we did, We looked at actually just improving the roundabout, making it larger, but keeping it as a single-lane roundabout through in the actual rotary portion of it with one single lane from each one of the legs, and then keeping that as a single lane through the roundabout, but making it larger. And as you can see, when we get out to 2040, it really doesn't do much good for us. We're still at similar types of level of service. Actually, our delay in the PM peak is a little bit worse by a second. So you go from an F- to an F--, maybe would be a way to look at it. So then as we continue to look at other options for this roundabout, we looked at possibly some sort of a hybrid type where we would make the leg that feeds off of Wolverine Way To go southbound onto 4th West, a 2-lane roundabout, and then the rest of it we maintained as a one-leg roundabout— or excuse me, a one-lane. As you can see with what we have in there for levels of service and delay, it buys us a little bit of time. It cuts our delay in half to 40 seconds, but still we're at a failure rate. And too, with roundabouts, They're a little different than a signal. Once you get into D and E, which is acceptable for a signalized intersection, a roundabout really begins to fail because if you have 40 seconds of delay, the queue lengths are quite extensive, and it's not like a signal where you can go ahead and release those with signal timing. So what our preferred option would be for a roundabout would be this type of a hybrid roundabout where a Majority of the rotary is a dual lane with each one of the legs approaching, except for the eastbound 12th South leg. All of those, as they get to the roundabout, they would be a 2-lane approach, which would allow them to either go right or continue on through. With this type of a design, Even though it is a bit confusing at first, it obviously gets us out to our 2040 level of service of an A and a B. Some similar types of roundabouts— whoa, that's not what I wanted— are what we see down in Mesquite. I don't know if you guys have been down to West West Mesquite there by the Oasis as well as the Walmart there, but these are some similar types of roundabouts where it's a Dual lane through most of the rotary section, but you have a variety of single lane and/or double lane approach legs. And we do also have some crash data associated with those, as well as the amount of vehicles that are going through there during the peak. As you can see, there are going to be crashes, and even with this proposal that we have, it's not as if this roundabout is going to is going to be a traffic type of feature that isn't going to have any crashes because more often than not on our corridors, accidents are typically concentrated at intersections. So this roundabout will have accidents, but the reality is that with the roundabout, you don't have red light running type situations. The speeds are typically lower, and as you can see just from this data in this area, we only had one crash with actual injury each year. And understanding too that in this area we do have higher speeds than what we would have at 4th West and 12th South. In this case, I don't know if you can see my mouse, but with this roundabout you do have a freeway off-ramp that is approaching which is a big reason why these approach speeds are near 45. And this is some more data. The one was the north side of the intersection. This is the south side. This is the side where the Oasis is. So yes, we did take this revised design to our Transportation Commission last week, and they provided a positive recommendation. for this type of a design. So the, the main purpose of this was to give you all a brief update on, on what we were going to do for this design. We have purchased the home on the northeast east corner, and then with your blessing, your approval, we, we will go ahead and then have our acquisition agent get in touch with the church as well as the commercial property to the southeast so we can acquire the, the remaining pieces of property we need, and then we can hopefully move forward with a build. It would be pretty presumptuous to think that we could do it this following spring, but if the stars are aligned and we can at least get right of entry or some pretty good confirmation that we'll be able to purchase the right-of-way, we could do it this spring. But likely, knowing in previous dealings I've had with the church, which usually takes a little bit of time, we would likely we at least be building this facility next summer, in the summer of 2022.

Sam, question for you. When you're redoing this, are you able to keep traffic flowing through this area?

We will try to. I mean, and that will be part of our— I mean, when we go to select a contractor, we will have construction drawings, and then we will also leave it up to the contractor to provide traffic control. I think there might be some ways that they could allow, you know, some traffic to maybe go east-west or north-south. And there is probably likely going to be a portion of time where the whole area will be closed. Mind you too, we will have some money from UTA as part of the BRT project. Initially, they just wanted to do some slight improvements to the the north-to-eastbound movement. So they had, I believe, $125,000 there, and then they also had some money set aside to do some improvements to 12 South because that part of the roadway is part of the BRT route, and that asphalt section needs to have another couple inches added to it. So 12 South, during this roundabout project, we will go south and reconstruct it so that we have a 5-inch asphalt section versus the current 3-inch asphalt section. So we understand that traffic's going to be an issue, but we're trying to get in there and get as much of this work done as we can without, you know, preferably interfering with school traffic, you know, in the fall. So the idea would be if we have to get in here and if we have to close it, which we probably will do portions, it'll be during the summer and hopefully incentivize that contractor to get in and get out.

Okay, and then another question. You've got the crisscross section there on the roundabout and also on the exits and entrances. Are those designating that you'll have landscaping there, or what is that?

Likely we will have some sort of a combination of landscape and hardscape. And like I said, we can bring that back to the council if you guys would like to look to see what we're going to put in there around The interior, there would likely be some sort of a concrete apron in there for larger trucks and trucks and trailers that happen to be going through the area, moving trucks, things like that that need the space. They can drive up on that kind of a mountable-type surface. And then in the center, we would continue to have some sort of a landscaped portion there in the middle that's similar to what's happening now. And likely UVU would probably enter into some sort of a maintenance agreement with the city and maintain it similar to the way they are now.

Okay. Sam, I may have missed it, but what was the dollar cost on this project?

What we have right now through MAG is, I think we have about $2.1 million set aside. The design fee with Horrocks is around $200,000. We're now to the point where if this is an acceptable design, like I said, then we will go ahead and start on the process of purchasing the properties on the southwest and southeast. And likely, if the— with the way the economy is now, the construction market is quite strong. And if those costs were to increase, I will have to go to MAG and ask for a request for some additional funding. And And keeping in mind that our match to that is 6.77%, and likely that there is going to be some additional funding with what we've done with 16th North and some of the other projects where we've had some jurisdictional transfers. There is some money available to OREM for some of these other projects. So depending on the cost that, that come in place for the right-of-way, and then the contractor, we could likely need to ask for some more money from MAG.

So Sam, question: do we have any other 2-lane roundabouts in Orem?

The only other roundabout we have that is 2 lanes is going to be further to the west as you enter into UVU. The difference there, if you're looking at it compared to this roundabout, is that We do have, as you exit, if you're heading northbound into that roundabout, it's 2 lanes. And then as you were to— if you were to continue to go north to northwest on Campus Drive, you'll actually— there's 2 lanes there that accept that, and they'll carry that through for quite a ways. But other than that, that's the only roundabout that I can think of that has 2 lanes. So it is something new for the area for sure.

Roundabouts are tricky anyway. When you add another lane, that even adds to the challenge.

Right, right. And that's why— and that was one of our biggest concerns with this roundabout. And that's where Horrocks came back and showed us that they can do these little cat tails in here to kind of help with the with directing. We'll also look at different types of signing and striping to make sure that it's pretty clear. We're also very aware of this design and how it's going to be pretty confusing, and understanding that every fall you're going to have a new group of folks that are going to be coming to this area for the first time. So as this project rolls out, we're going to— the plan is to do a very thorough PI blitz and put some videos on our webpage that actually kind of bring a person through this so they can kind of see how they should navigate it and where they want to go. So yeah, the intent is to make sure that we educate the public the best we can, and then obviously with what we have going on here, try and sign it as much as we can so we don't have folks approaching it and then realizing they're in the wrong lane and then they suddenly shoot across, which is what I have done when I've been down. There's a similar roundabout too down in Bloomington, but then again, it's usually because speeds are slow enough it seems like you're able to navigate that. But yeah, but— And with that too, we have spoken with the city manager of Mesquite and it's been pretty Well received. You know, he, he was pretty nervous about this new type of roundabout, but since it's been in place, I mean, they really enjoyed it and they, and they like how it functions for, for their needs.

Sam, I was just going to mention I've driven those roundabouts in Mesquite and I like them. They work well.

Very good. That's what I like to hear. That's all I have unless you have any further questions.

Any other comments or questions from the council? All right, well, proceed on. I think that's working well.

Thank you.

Now go ahead and thank you, Sam and Horrocks Engineers. We'll now move on to State Street zoning and master planning, and Jason Bench is our presenter.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Let me see if I can share my screen.

And you have 1 hour.

Well, I'm going to try to cram 5 years into 30 minutes if I can.

So, okay.

And then we'll have 30 minutes hopefully to discuss some things. So can everybody see my screen? Should say Imagine Orem on there.

Yes.

Okay. As we looked at— had the opportunity now to present to the council talking about the past 5 years of State Street. I want to kind of go through kind of a history of where we've been and how we've got to this point. And initially, I want to— if I can get my slides to actually work. Did that change to another slide?

Yes.

Okay, so in the initial survey completed, this was back in February of 2015, you can see there are several priorities One of the top 11 possible initiatives that the city was considering based on this study. This kind of gives the top ones that we were looking at. And if you can see the top arrow, preserving and maintaining quality neighborhoods, 90% of the population or citizens wanted to see that. And as we go through this presentation today, I'll show you how we have helped to accomplish that in trying to help preserve quality neighborhoods. As you look down the second arrow, improving and redeveloping State Street, 59% felt that was important. And based on that and other things we had in 2015, we moved to look at implementing a State Street master plan. And the third arrow, you know, increasing investment and upgrade and maintain current parks, trails, and open spaces. Now, as you know, the City Council just purchased Hillcrest School school, and hopefully that will become a nice park and increasing that capability. And then the 4th arrow, just increasing accountability for landlords. And as you know, this past year the City Council adopted the licensing requirements for landlords. So as you can see, based on this 2015, we are moving in the right direction, right, and accomplishing things that the citizens asked us to accomplish. And part of that is the State Street Master Plan and upgrading and looking at ways to improve State Street. This was adopted in 2015. It involved a significant public outreach, probably more outreach than the City of Warham has had in, in years. And being a part of the city for going on 19 years now, this probably was the most public outreach that I've seen a city do personally. Obviously there's other cities that do more. But this was a significant and purposeful public outreach to involve as many citizens as we could. It really acts as a foundation for the districts that we'll talk about as we go through the slide presentation. Part of the master plan was to show the reason why we wanted to look at a master plan and how we wanted to focus some density, because we know we're going to grow, right? The population estimation from 2040 from the for the governor's report was that Orem would have a population of just under 113,000 by the year 2040. So as we looked at— and well, let me go back up. In the 2015 study, it was 77.8% of the increase in population in the state of Utah was coming from natural increase. It wasn't coming from California, it wasn't coming from other states, it was coming from our own children, our own grandchildren. who are having children and wanting to stay in the area. And so, as we looked at the ability to provide opportunities, provide housing, we had to look at an opportunity to— where are we going to put that? And if you look at the population density on the map on the left, the 2015 population, it kind of disperses throughout the city. And as we try to accommodate the population increase by 2040, the State Street Master Plan focused that density on the State Street corridor where we have the infrastructure, we have the ability to maintain traffic, we have the ability to handle that traffic on the major intersections. And as you can look at the neighborhoods to both east and west, it maintains that same density. So we're, we're helping to preserve the single-family neighborhoods that are currently within the city. Part of the vision was to look at walkability, to look at safety, to look at livability. to get to a place where people would want to be on State Street, want to be a part of the community and, and be active. We wanted to activate State Street. This kind of gives you some pictures of, you know, how we can improve aesthetics, how we can improve mobility, how we can improve the economic, you know, redevelopment and development of the corridor. And that's kind of what the vision was for the State Street Master Plan. This kind of gives you an outline of what we did as far as the State Street master plan as far as the public outreach. I'm not going to go through all of them, but you can see, you know, 25,000 email notices we sent out, 4,100 notices mailed to Orem businesses, 80,000 utility notices. That's 3 separate mailings. We have about 26,000 approximately homes in Orem, so that's 3 different mailings. And so we— it was pretty extensive as far as our outreach, as far as reaching out and trying to find ways to include people And activating them to come out and participate, whether that's through an email, whether that's through Facebook, whether that was through actually coming in person to the SARA, which we held most of our meetings in the SARA during this process. And we had a lot of people come to those meetings as well. This gives you an outline of what we did for not only State Street, which is the chart on the left, on the left, and then in the middle was the design standard city center districts. And then the remaining State Street districts, all the different outreaches, all the different opportunities we had to try to encourage and excite people about coming out and giving us their input. And you can see on the chart on the right, the public event attendance.

We can—

we really—

we hired a consultant for the remaining State Street districts that purposely was designed to get people to come out and be engaged in the process. And you can see that we had, you know, upwards of 1,100 people that were actively engaged in the different meetings that we had. And I'll show you as we go through the slideshow the number of people that came out to our different activities. So this is the City Center District. We held that separately. So we first adopted— the council adopted that City Center District in June of 2018. So this is the meeting that was held prior to that. You can see in the council chambers the number of people. that came out and was actively engaged in the process. We held a meeting at the Midtown Village— Midtown 360, I guess, is what it's called now— allowed them to take a tour of that development as well. We held business lunches, we had email subscribers, we had opportunity for them to participate in where density should be located within the district. And we had a lot of online engagement as well, you know, just shy of 3,000 visitors to our site, 1,100 participants. And, you know, we did see a lot of engagement in our online presence. Some of the things that we adopted as part of the State Street Master Plan, once that was adopted, was our State Street design standards, where we had that 15-foot planter strip, a separated sidewalk to help, you know, people be off of the street. And I know many of you have probably attempted, or maybe have walked on State Street. It's not real comfortable. walking right next to a 55-mile-an-hour zone. By having a 15-foot planter strip and the sidewalk separated, that we felt was more amenable for people actually being active in the space and actually wanting to be a part of State Street. In addition to that, part of our amendments was to not allow any PD zones within residential residentially zoned properties. So effective July 1st, 2018, we basically— anything that's zoned residential, we do not allow a PD zone to even be, to even be applied for. So if somebody comes in and applies for a PD zone in a residential zone, we will not accept their application based on the ordinance amendment that the council adopted, which was strategically part of our State Street Master Plan. In addition, we updated the Orem General Plan to allow mixed-use districts as a land use. That was adopted in August of 2018. As you can see, the red arrows indicated that the General Plan was updated to show that those are intended to be mixed-use districts. In addition to that, in June of 2017, we updated our connectivity plan within the Master Plan. The red lines indicate cross-connection or new streets that would be developed in connection with development along State Street. So between Orem Boulevard and State Street, there's a lot more connectivity, which allows you to have smaller blocks, better traffic circulation, and other opportunities, rather than really long blocks that State Street currently has. In addition to that, we had a citywide parking study that was completed by the University of Utah Metropolitan Research Center, and we adopted some of those standards related to the districts in October of 2019 as well. Some of the things that are outlined in the district, which I want to just kind of quickly go over. This is part of the ordinance in all 5 districts, is the fact that when a property develops next to a residentially zoned property— so the yellow to the right of your screen indicates a single-family zone— they have to be equal to the height. So there is a step-back or setback requirement. If it's a multi-story, then it has to be equal to that height. This gives you an example of stepping back to— if it's a 42-foot tall height, then by the time it gets to that 40-foot-tall height limit, then it has to be at least 42 feet behind. In a residential zone, a home can be 35 feet and 25 feet from the property line. This one would have to be, you know, equal to the height. So that standard was built in purposely because we knew there were small sections of the districts that abut a residential zone. And we wanted to make sure that there was substantial separation from residential versus the commercial mixed-use district. In addition to that, we do have a step-back requirement. So if you look on the little white diagram below, there's a 20-foot step-back requirement. So if there's a multi-story project that has housing involved with it, that first level and the second level has to have a 20-foot step-back so that you're not right up on the street like we did the tour of the For those that went to us, or went with us to Sugarhouse, the building that we looked at had that step back, and that's what we've designed it so the building itself is not so overwhelming on the street presence, but you have the one-story presence and the buildings are then stepped back. So not only do you have the step back from the residential, but then you have a step back from the street as well.

Jason, just a quick question on a multi-story high-density building. The height on that— the height limit, is that 42 foot? Is it 6 stories? What is allowed within the hubs of the State Street Master Plan?

Currently in the districts, there is no height limit. It's based on the other factors that would be setbacks, that would be parking, which would be other—

So it could be a 6-story or a 9-story building?

Assuming they can meet all the requirements. But as you look at the economics of those types of buildings, you look at the parking that's associated with it, you look at the setbacks, that's— there are limiting factors that would limit what a developer could build.

So you think 6 stories is probably the limit?

That's probably a reasonable limit. But I, you know, there could be in the city center district, for example, if let's say across the street McDonald's or one of the Burger King, whatever, decided to go out because there's You know, if they can provide parking, whether that's structured parking or whatever, they could go higher than the 6 stories, probably depending on the location. There are certain locations in the city or in the districts that would allow a higher height, but the majority of the districts are adjacent either to or in proximity to residential zones, which would limit the height, and there's parking restrictions and things like that.

Okay.

So these are just some quick things we built into the districts to allow, you know, facade requirements, massing requirements, window requirements, balconies, you know, screening, lighting, all those type of things that weren't typically part of the State Street prior to the districts. We've included those in there as well. Many of you may have been a part of our VR experience we had at the mall. We had opportunity in the mall, allowed us to advertise on their billboard. We had newspaper articles, we had, you know, 13,000+ postcards we mailed out for the districts, and then we had competitions, prizes, and swag that we gave away as well to try to excite people about getting involved in, in the remaining 4 districts. These are some other online engagements that we participated in. Now I want to just kind of go through— we have 9 neighborhood plans, we just completed them, as the council knows. We just adopted 8 and 9 this last year. But 7 of those 9 actually have frontage and are part of the State Street corridor. And I just want to go through each plan quickly just to show that each one were part of the discussion with the State Street master plans. So if you look at the Northridge, Heather Ridge, and Windsor neighborhood plan that was done in April of 2017, you can see the Neighborhood Advisory Council, those that were part of the discussion. Those that were significantly part of the discussion that came out to the different meetings— we had multiple advisory meetings— those that participated on a regular basis were included in this advisory council, which is part of the actual master plan. As you can see, the top 5, and I highlighted them in orange, they kind of just discussed things that were related to the State Street master plan. So the first one, you know, preserve single-family nature of the neighborhoods through similar low-density residential development infill. We're doing that by not allowing PD zones within the neighborhood. But then on number 2, plan for future Northgate Village District to serve as a gateway into the neighborhood, allowing new retail, office, and residential development. I'm not going to read through all of them, but I think they just illustrate that each of these, we're aware of the State Street Master Plan, the State Street districts, and each of them encourage the development of those districts. And I'll go through and just really quickly— Aspen and Tempview, the same type of thing. If you look at the— along State Street, the very bottom bullet, it says allow for diversity of housing options and business types on State Street at the North Village District and the Canyon Crossing District. Tempview is part of the Canyon Crossing District. And then there's Licuadorum. And Sharon Park promote low density, which is what we've discussed as well. But then in the body of the plan itself, it talks about the Canyon Crossing and the City Center District and how they would be and are appropriately mixed use in nature. Geneva Heights, and the other number 2 is kind of a highlight: higher density development outside the neighborhood is acceptable if strategically located along major roads. So they purposely understood that high density is going to have to be somewhere in the city, and it's preferable to be along a major corridor like the State Street plan that we have, and within the districts, and help maintain the options for housing, but then keep them out of single-family residential zones. And that's really the main purpose and focus of our State Street master plan, is to not only have additional housing on State Street, But also maintain the single-family nature of the residential that are not within the districts. Orem Hillcrest, as you can see, they have 3. One, and, you know, create guidelines and support the city's goals for prohibiting zones. And then under— let me see, where was it? I missed it. I guess number one, strategically locate higher-density development on major roads. So, that's State Street and University Parkway.

Jason, a question for you. We mentioned down there that we want to have affordable housing within what we're trying to do. Affordable housing, I think, is not necessarily your average income. I think it's more your medium average income, 80% of the average income, and I question whether or not any developer would build affordable housing on State Street to 80% of average income considering the cost of the land and the buildings. Any thoughts there?

Oh, it's very possible. I know there is a developer in Provo that developed in downtown right across the city center I know this because my daughter lives in one of the affordable units. They did get some benefit from the state as far as, you know, considering having— I don't know how many total number of units they have, maybe 10 within that development. The majority of them are regular-rated apartments, but 10 of them are strictly held for lower-income housing. So there is options. I think the city would need to look at, you know, maybe options to to incentivize and, you know, encourage them to do that. Or maybe we change the ordinance to allow a certain percentage of them to do that. But there are ways I think we can encourage along State Street to have some affordable housing as well.

I think we, we need to do that because I think we use State Street as an area to support the plan that we would have affordable housing for the 80% level. And I think we need to create ways to allow that to happen.

Well, and part of that, Mayor, if I can just— I don't want to take too much time, but as we look at building opportunity for new homes, the idea behind the State Street Master Plan was then having opportunities for citizens that live in accessory apartments or to live in the fourplexes and things to actually move up into, you know, newer and better, and then that would backfill with lower income. What we're finding, though, is because there's such a shortage of housing, Generally in the state, that those rents really aren't coming down, right? They're actually going up.

Yes.

We really need to find opportunities to build more housing units and get ourselves out of— as a state, not— I'm just not talking about the city, but as a state, we're such a shortage that we really need to find ways to do that. Because, because of the housing shortage, the cost of rents and even affordability of homes within the city are astronomical and will continue to be such unless we can find ways to help mitigate them. Anyway, if I can just really quick go on here. So Lakeview and Cherry Hill, they actually come out and said prioritize and support high-density mixed-use apartments and office developments on University Parkway and even support, you know, transit-oriented development along the UVX line. So those are the 7, and what I guess what I want to get— the point I want to make is that each of those 7 neighborhood plans that we spent 5 years developing along with this State Street Master Plan, all of them acknowledge that they understand that there needs to be some type of housing, whether that's, you know, apartments, whether that's condos, that State Street was an appropriate location for that type of housing. And so, you know, I can't really express enough the support that the neighbors had, and all those that were involved in supporting the State Street Master Plan and focusing our high-density housing on that corridor. This is just another outline of what we, you know, unprecedented level of public engagement. I'm just going to quickly go through these. This is the 4 districts that we had after we adopted the State Street or the City Center District. You can see the number of people we have at the library. Our first meeting that we had with the library, we had 400+ people. There were lines and lines of people. Kids came out and, you know, We entertained the children while the parents went to a meeting and talked about State Street and got engaged that way. Not only from the younger kids on the coloring, but we had Minecraft computer competitions. We actually gave prizes to the ones that could develop the city center the best. We had all kinds of interaction. We even provided Kirby Q, if you remember. Kirby, he provided the food. We fed almost just over 400 people that night as they came and participated in our public outreach. We provided Summerfest booth, we gave away some backpacks to those who participated, and really encouraged people to be a part of our Imagine Orem team by signing up and the Orem Forum and, and really trying to engage people. We did have Business owner luncheons. We invited all the businesses within the districts to come in for lunch so we could explain. We had 2 different business meetings, one for the south 2 districts and then one for the north 2 districts, to encourage them to come out. We had pretty good participation of business owners just so they could see what was going on. Those that had the VR, remember that we had— this is on the right side of the screen— kind of a As you put the goggles on, you can see and you can fly through and walk through the design that the VR team proposed. This is a good example on the left of how a district could fit within a residential buffer. You can see that there's some residential on the one side, there's a street separating them, and so it fits within the overall scheme of how that interacts with a residentially zoned neighborhood. And then of course some pictures of opportunities we've had to take council on tours from Hillsboro all the way up to Hillsboro, Oregon, to Sugarhouse, Salt Lake City, Holiday, and up to Ogden as well. So I'm briefly going to go through this as I'm getting short of time. This was out of council discussion that we had a work session in March of 2015 that talked about what was in the State Street districts. I talked about the Northgate Village. The majority of that district was designed for housing. There was some office and commercial retail, but the majority of that was slated to be housing. This, if you can see on the screen, that development is on the corner of 16th and 400 West. And then State Street, you can see there, just kind of goes through the projection of 5, 10, and 25-year Same with Canyon Crossing, which has a mix of residential, office. City Center District, which is more of the mix of— and more heavy on office and retail than it was residential. The Arts District, which was also designed—

sorry—

for a little more residential than it was office or commercial. with some civic. So we have 2 districts, the Northgate Village and the Arts District, that were designed specifically for, or intended to be residential in nature. And of course University Parkway, which has a mix of uses as well. And then these are the purpose statements of each of the districts, pointing out that the Northgate and the Arts District were emphasized for residential. The others were more of a mix. And the hub was more of a center of, you know, commercial activity, which you've got the University Place and other activity going on there. So just a side-by-side comparison of the district. The picture on the left is in the ordinance itself. The picture on the right is the current zoning and the current uses that, Mayor, you asked us to provide. And so I just want to show you, and the lines, the blue lines. So there's very little— there is a little bit. I don't know if you can see my cursor at all. Let me get my pointer out really quick. So there's a little bit of residential that abuts there and a little bit over here, but I want to emphasize the fact that all the districts were only rezoned or part of the State Street zones that were already zoned commercial. So you got the Albertsons, the old Albertsons here, now is the Vasa Fitness. That was on C-2 at the time that was converted to the district. It was continuing, I mean, it was abutting a residential zone at that point. So there's nothing new with the district that wasn't already zoned commercial. Same way with the Canyon Crossing. As you can look, there's a lot of multifamily That abut this portion, city center here, and then you've got street or boulevard and others that separate the district from the residential zones. The blue line again is streets. So the entire— with the exception of this location right there, the rest of it is all surrounded either by density or by a street itself. City center, same way. You've got a lot of multifamily here, a lot of multifamily at this location, multifamily on the south. So there's a— there are a few points that are residential, but you've got the standards that are built in that separate the height restriction from how close you can be to a residentially zoned property. Those are purposely and thoughtfully put into the ordinance itself. This is the Arts District, which is totally surrounded by streets. There would be no development in there that wouldn't be bounded either on a boulevard, State Street, Or 4th West. And then the hub district is very similar. There are some residential, but the majority of those residential units are either multifamily or some other type of commercial development. So just in closing in this part of the presentation, I just want to kind of— if we use State Street as the basis or the base of how we've moved forward, I just want to kind of go through the things we've accomplished over the last 5 years. You know, digital outreach, public involvement, thousands of notices, State Street Connection Plan, OPDs in residential zones, neighborhood plans over the 5-year period, market studies we've done, specific design standards adjacent to residential, business owner luncheons, design standards that we developed for the State Street corridor, mobility study, which is still under— in process. DRC application expiration dates, parking studies, which we've completed, general plan update for mixed use, and the corridor— central corridor transportation study that's still undergoing that includes not only Lehi but all the way down to Provo. But all of that is building a foundation for what these State Street districts are sitting on. It's not that we've come out and said, hey, let's develop State Street districts. It's based on the fact that we've taken this base, this master plan, And we've been strategic, we've been focused, we've been purposeful, purposeful and transparent in how we've got to this point, and really feel that we've accomplished a lot in, in basically providing a foundation for these State Street districts. So with that, I'd be glad to address any questions or have a discussion now as we move forward.

So, Jason, a couple of things I wanted to bring up. that you brought up as well is that we have passed an ordinance that there are no PDs allowed in residential zones. Previous to that time, we also put in a law that you could not change commercial zones to high-density zones along University Parkway, along Center Street, along 8th North, or State Street unless it was involved with the State Street Master Plan. I think we're— I think there are a couple of areas of concern are in the North Village and the Arts Districts where they border residential homes. And while we've held a tremendous amount of informational meetings and information given out, I think there's still— that we noticed when this proposed project came for 1600 North and 4th West, a lot of people that are uninformed that the zone has been changed, which would allow high density up to 6 stories. And for example, in the North Village, it would be right across and next to a lot of residential homes. And for whatever reason, those residents seem to have not been aware that that would be the case. I guess my concern is, I like the, the zones that we have, but I do realize that the North Village zone has a lot of residential housing that could be right next to high density on basically 3 sides. The Arts District has the same, not as, not as much, but has the same. The other districts don't seem to really have that kind of interface as much. But my question is really is, how do we have some interface with the neighbors on the North Village and the Arts District so they understand what has occurred, and if we need to make any changes, we maybe need to talk about that.

So, yeah, I mean, if you look at the Northgate or North Village District, and if I can turn on— I guess I turned off my pointer, sorry. If this is the property we're talking about right here, right, which was the proposed development, they're basically on the corner of 16th North and 400 West, right? So there are major streets that are there. They would have to be set back equal to the height from the residential property. And they would have to be stepped back, like we talked about, from the street. So it's going to be at least 80 to 100 feet from any single-family home in this location. And that's, that's basically how we're going to integrate those types of housing units in the district next to residential. It was purposely done that way because there was a major street. 4th West and 16th are streets that act as a barrier and a separation point between the single-family residential that we have on the east, and any development that's going to happen in this Northgate Village. This property here, the one that he was trying to rezone, this one here is zoned North Village District Res B zone, so it is allowed to go to have some, you know, twin homes, things like that, at a maximum of 35 feet with no stacked units. So this is part of that to act as a buffer between the higher potential higher densities and this residential zone's units, and the fact that the 4th West public street, you know, ran north-south along that as a barrier between single-family homes to the east and the district to the west.

For whatever reason, and I'm not sure why, I think the residents that support— that surround the North Village District do not understand what this zone change is on the State Street Master Plan and are concerned how it affects them.

So, yeah, and granted, the city— the staff was not in favor of the zone change of that home, and we would have, you know, argued that it was not applicable or appropriate to zone that to the district. But the district itself, because that— I mean, that's always been a part of the zone. That has not— that wasn't added later? It wasn't ever something that we—

No, it's always been there and we've notified everybody, but for whatever reason, the neighbors don't seem to acknowledge that there has been a change and are very concerned about it.

Well, and some of the neighbors that I think voiced concerns were actually part of our neighborhood plan process, so that was kind of interesting. But there are— I will acknowledge that there are new homes that have been built There are, you know, new property owners that have moved in since we started this process. It has been an overall, you know, a 5-year process that we've gone through this. The last meetings that we've had were in 2018. So granted, there may be some new residents that have come in, but it's always been a part of the plan. And, you know, if we need to go out and hold another neighborhood meeting, I guess we could do that. But that's— I mean, this has always been the design. It's always been—

Sure.

Built in the safeguards. to have it so that it fits within the district and is a good neighbor to the single-family neighbors to the west, whether that's in the Arts District or whether that's in this district. We try to build in standards that make that work, and maybe it's something that we just need to do a better job in publishing what those standards are, or sitting down with those that have concerns and discussing that.

But well, I kind of feel like it might be beneficial to invite the surrounding neighbors of the North Village district to start, you know, at least 2 to 3 blocks around each border to a meeting and let them know what the State Street Master Plan includes, so they understand ahead of time and don't feel like they're blindsided.

Yeah, and granted, we knew going in that there were, you know, obviously we're waiting for a developer to come in and develop first in any of these districts, right, and we knew that a first developer was going to probably have some issues with, you know, people in general wondering what's going on in these districts because it has been static in what we've been doing, right? We've worked towards getting these districts ready and primed so that they can be redeveloped and fit in with the State Street districts that we've developed, but we still are obviously waiting for one to come in and actually develop to those standards, which we knew coming in, whether it was this district or another one, there would be some Growing pains that we'd have to deal with.

Sure. Mayor, I personally would like to see some interface between the neighbors and at least the North Village District so that they fully understand, because there's a lot of residential homes there.

Mayor, I would suggest that If we have these questions in this area, we probably have them throughout the whole plan. So it may be beneficial to continue that education process as we move forward. Jason, did you say that the governor Gave a number of 213,000 population in Orem by the year 2040?

112,000.

Oh, 112,000. Okay, I didn't hear that correctly, and I was thinking, oh my goodness.

About 1,000 people a year addition.

Easy there, Mr. Lampson.

Yeah, that, that feels a whole lot better. Thank you.

So, Jeff, the thing to remember is the 2 districts that have a lot of residential homes are the Arts and the North Village. The other 3 districts are mostly commercial around the State Street districts. So I think it's really those 2 that we should focus on first, and North Village being the first one.

Absolutely, I agree. I agree with that.

And if I can—

Mayor and Council, this is Steve Downs. One thing I just, I remember from our outreach, one of the things we were strategic about was engaging— was making sure we were engaging the entire community in this discussion. I think one thing we need to remember is that a discussion about housing on State Street doesn't just impact a few homes. This is a citywide discussion. You know, and we've known through our neighborhood planning process, and especially some of our lower-income neighborhoods where almost 50% or greater of the single-family homes have become rentals. And in many ways, that's related to the high demand for rentals and the low supply of them. And so a discussion about rental units on State Street is an— is something that impacts the entire community, as a low supply of residential rentals will impact the single-family neighborhoods in a very big way, as we will be— we'll continue to see more and more of those homes turn into rentals. The other thing I would just represent is that that is where we have significant impact on our police and some of our other city services, is more of the single-family homes turn into rentals. So again, just to repeat, I just don't want it to think that what happens right there in this district or any of our other districts is really a decision that should be made by a handful of homeowners. This has a large citywide impact.

Thank you.

Mayor, could I, could I weigh in for a second?

Sure, go ahead, Debbie.

So I was actually, if you saw my name on the Northridge, Heather Ridge neighborhood plan, I was an integral part of that. And we had some long discussions about preserving the single-family neighborhoods, and it was unanimous in that any multifamily unit would be not located in Northridge or Heather Ridge, but that it would be pushed to State Street, and that it would be done in a design idea that, like, some of the things that we saw when we toured Sugar House, whatever. So we also had lots of neighborhood open houses. Now, I agree, some people moved in, but this is not a shock. I mean, my ward weighed in, my neighborhood, my stake, and this is what they wanted. Now, we may need to refresh their minds, but they didn't want— they did not want buildings in their nice single neighborhoods, in their cul-de-sacs, They wanted them on State Street, where at some point there probably will be mass transit. At some point there will be things that we'll do, and granted, no one loves increased traffic. I get that, but it's better to put it in an area that can service it and and handle the larger crowds than put it in our neighborhoods, which they were very. If you notice, that was the number one thing on their mind: preserve single family neighborhoods. So moving it commercial and housing to State Street was exactly. what that neighborhood wanted. And so I think we need to reeducate it, but this should not come as a surprise to the majority of the people.

And I think part of the problem is this particular development was not on State Street, it was actually on 4th West. And on our master plan, we are including areas for our districts 2 blocks to the east, 2 blocks to the west, 2 to the north, 2 to the south.

You know what, Mayor, that was also included. I remember talking about the Walgreens that was there on the corner where the Kwik-E-Mart, talking about how that would butt up. So it wasn't just State Street only, it was those few blocks to the east. So this should not come as a surprise.

I think it did.

Let's educate these people, show them what we have, but this is what they wanted, this is what they weighed in, and it was unanimous that they wanted this.

But maybe not 4th West.

Mayor, I've got a question.

Sure.

So if I look at the, the actual core in red, I'm fine with that. But then the problem I'm having is the edge creeps, so it's huge. And I said, and that's the problem I think that the neighbors are having, is this edge and the creep. And then all of a sudden now these people want to buy all the green and turn it all into commercial. It's like You know, I think we need to revisit this area and listen to the neighbors that are complaining and say, you know what, we need to keep the core and keep it there. And this edge stuff, we either have to tighten it up or do something with it, because that is the problem right there, is the edge.

I wish—

I was caught off guard saying, yeah, there's going to be apartments there, and I'm like, this edge. So maybe I missed it, but I wasn't— I missed this. I thought the core was, was that red core and all All of a sudden, this is a huge district with this edge that just overlaps everywhere in the neighborhoods, and, and that's my problem. And that's why I want to bring it to the forefront, because we have to do something, because this is wrong. So this is wrong.

So can I address that, Dave?

Go ahead, Jason.

So the edge district that you see there was C-2 before, it was commercial. So there's no— we didn't change any residential single-family homes to the edge. prior to as a C-2 commercial zone, 60 feet maximum height. So there was already height built in, there was already— somebody could build a 60-foot office building on that corner. This simply just allows them to have a mixed-use development. So we're not encroaching or spreading out farther than was already zoned C-2. This is— this was strategically designed to fit within the district, fit within the core C-2 zone. We did not expand out into residential zones one bit.

But so on your, on your, on your presentation, you said, you know, we're building this thing, it's got to be— if it's tiered, it's got to be a 20-foot setback. So the pictures that the, you know, developer showed, you know, you had commercial on the bottom and then it didn't have a 20-foot setback.

It did.

It did.

I mean, if you look at that property, that is dinky. The property is not big at all. So I don't know, I just, I disagree with it, but I think that's, that's my main concern right there is that they, they can build that and then they need to buy the house to get parking. And I mean, I wouldn't want to live over there.

Well, and again, I reaffirm that staff is not in favor of rezoning that property. Anybody has the right to come in and You know, stir the pot, I guess, if they want to, because you deal with lots of rezones on an annual basis, whether that's next-door neighbor wanting to rezone to an R-7-5 or an R-6. I mean, we have rezone applications all the time. That doesn't mean that the council is going to approve them. So even though we are opposed to that and didn't encourage them to do that, I mean, they had the right to do the neighborhood meeting. They did not make an application. They let me know that they're not going to make an application on that residential property. But it doesn't, you know, negate the fact that they can build in the mixed-use area that was already previously zoned commercial.

If I may, this, this pot got kicked because the developer put the cart before the horse and asked for something that was never going to fly. And that just stirred up neighbors that had no need to be stirred up. It's too bad that's allowed, but he should have never been able to do that. But I realized followed policy that allowed him to. I'm not faulting him or you, but it just was unwise.

Oh, I agree, it was unwise. Absolutely. And we encourage them not to do that. But like anybody that has due process, they wanted to go through that process.

Any other comments or questions?

Yes, Mayor, this is Terry. So, so You know, there's a lot of work that's gone into this. I found very interesting campaigning last year. I didn't find anybody on State Street, any businesses that were happy with the master plan. I heard a lot of criticism, criticisms that they're not going to be able to make left turns into their businesses. I heard other people tell me about how they want to expand their business, but they were told if they expand over a certain size, they had to put high-density apartments above their business. And so I don't know where these— I mean, I appreciate there's been a lot of work done. I noticed my wife and my name was on this for our neighborhood. I don't recall having a discussion about 20,000 new apartments being built on State Street. So since this was done in 2015, it's very interesting what's happened in our economy. Now you don't have to go you don't have to leave your home to go to work. Most of us, a lot of meetings are being done on Zoom. There's not the issue for transportation. And you don't have to live in a certain spot. You can live in Nephi and be on your computer. You don't have to live in Orem and take public transportation. So I think this is a great effort. But we need to be careful not to start deciding this is it no matter what, because— the world has changed since 2015. And I'll give one example. This is someone the mayor knows. It's his neighbor. Young man, well, his parents are the mayor's neighbors. But he lives in an apartment, he lived in an apartment in Orem. He's a college graduate. He doesn't need to now go to work anymore as far as, you know, he can do everything from home. So he just, he said, I don't want to live in a high-density apartment. He just bought him a townhome. He has 2 vehicles, by the way. He has a Jeep in the wintertime and a Mustang in the summertime. So I think we don't want to pigeonhole everybody saying everyone's going to be taking mass transit and everyone's going to be living in apartments. Be a little careful. I'm not so sure that's the future. And I don't think that as a city we should try to jam this down people's throats because most of the businesses I've talked to, and one of them is named on one of these sheets, He can't— he has no parking because of the high-density apartment next to his business. And we're losing— we're going to start losing businesses if we start— keep jamming, and residents, as we keep trying to force this plan, 5-year-old plan that might not be currently what's needed.

Mayor, Mayor, this is Ryan Clark. Can I make a comment?

Sure, go ahead.

I wanted to correct one misconception. I think Councilman Pedersen mentioned 20,000 Apartments. I believe that number is not correct. That was a number in our presentation from a week ago, from a presentation by MAG, if I remember correctly. It's 20,000 residents, not apartments, that were projected on State Street in that Central Corridor Study. So I just want to clarify, it's not 20,000 apartments that could be accommodated on State Street. I'd also like to clarify that we are not advocating for housing. We don't want to build multifamily housing. We're just trying to make a location where it can be built. And there's a lot of extrinsic factors out there that are going to control if it even does get built. We're about 2 years into this plan, and as you know, we haven't had a single project come forward. So like Jason talked about, a lot of the things built in as far as parking setbacks, a lot of that is self-regulating, and quite frankly will control whether a developer can even make a project pencil. But I mean, Councilman Pedersen mentioned that we don't want to be attracting these type or providing only for a certain specific use or type of person, but we are— we have single-family homes in Orem for those that don't want to live in an apartment. We have townhomes, we have twin homes, we have apartments. We're looking for a mix of housing and allowing a mix of housing to occur in our city. That is all, all we're trying to do here is, is to be proactive and help control future growth and actually to help control what comes before the council and hopefully make your lives easier, because without some kind of a plan, we will get a lot of unsolicited zone applications that will come before you, and you will hear from the public. And so a lot of this has been to help, you know, create a place for where these developments can take place and help take some of that development pressure off of other areas of the city.

So I appreciate that, Ryan, and I, I'm not trying to be critical of what's taken place. My concern is we need to be loyal to The businesses that are currently on State Street, and also the number one priority that all these different groups listed, which was the homeowner. And so I don't want us to be doing anything that creeps into where a homeowner lives, like what we saw on Fourth West, and they feel intimidated. It's not a matter of education to tell them, oh yeah, we might be building a high density across the street from your home. It's a matter of us as a city being sensitive.

To—

that the homeowner should come first.

I absolutely agree with you. As a former economic development manager for the City of Orem, my purpose was to keep every single business in Orem that we can, and, and I don't want to see any business leave. But no matter what we do in the city, we're always going to deal with NIMBYism, and that's not in my backyard. And so therefore, for the greater good of the city, at times we have to make decisions for the greater good of the city. And I know it's painful and I know it's hard, and I'm not arguing. I'm just, I'm just stating kind of what we and every other city is going to face or continues to face on an ongoing basis.

Thank you.

Any other comments? Mayor?

Yes, a couple of things. What was not talked about much in 2015, '17, '18 was the double bus line going down State Street and how that ties into all this art district because it's going to condense everything. In fact, I think it's going to take your parking off the State Street, which is going to be— it's going to put people out of business, some people out of business. And I don't know how that ties in with this. From what I heard this morning on the radio, they plan on putting that bus line in and in 4 or 5 years. So I— maybe Jamie or Ryan could say something about that. And going back to the districts, I was for these districts, went to all their planning meetings because it was a time period where high-density housing was being put in my neighborhood. And I don't want any neighborhood to go through that again, you know, and the repercussion, the people upset, and it was really a difficult time for a couple of years there with the student housing for UVU. So as far as keeping the residential house or the high-density housing out in neighborhoods, This plan's a good idea. It may need to be tweaked a little bit, but I just don't want to see any high density in the neighborhoods ever again.

Thank you.

Okay.

Mayor, may I make a comment? This is Jamie.

Sure, Jamie.

I appreciate the discussion this evening. I think we talk about anticipated growth in the state. I think we all acknowledge that growth will continue to come here in the state of Utah. As, as Jason mentioned, not necessarily from outside immigration into the state, but rather 75% of the growth in the state is happening in the bedrooms of those that are already in the state. So we can anticipate that the state is going to grow. I think The effort that we have undertaken in recent years is to try and strategically anticipate this growth and to strategically accommodate this growth in the future, rather than being compelled to do things that we in the future may not be necessarily comfortable with. There is a large effort afoot right now within the state as a whole for the limitation or the restriction of city councils and local jurisdictions to restrict land use and zoning. So there are discussions underway that say, because local city councils and because municipalities are not willing to necessarily have these difficult conversations, then we are going to, as a state, take on this challenge and we are going to adopt one-size-fits-all solutions to these problems. And in the course of doing that, they are going to sweep away the ability for you as locally elected officials to make some of these key decisions. And so understanding that we were heading down this path, this is why we undertook this effort to try and strategically determine our future rather than be forced to deal with a future that we really have no voice or no opportunity to decide. Now, I'm not the one that's up at the legislature on a, on a weekly basis. During this— well, I'm up there on a weekly basis during the session, but one of our attorneys, Heather Shriver, is up there on a daily basis or engaged on a daily basis. And I'd like for her just to speak to, if I can— and Heather, if you can, for just a few minutes— What we're talking about here and this, this tension and push and pull that is existing between local control Because my biggest fear as a manager is if we continue to push against— if the state as a whole continues to push against housing that is different than what we have essentially experienced in the past, it's not a matter of whether or not it will, it will be something that we will accommodate in the future. We will be told to accommodate it. in the future in similar ways that similar states who have experienced urbanization have struggled with. You know, Heather, I don't want to put you on the spot, but Mayor, would you just give her just a few minutes to, to kind of speak to that?

Sure.

One thing I was going to say, we are running out of time, and this is a discussion that could go on for weeks and months. But go ahead, Heather, and then we need to move on.

Okay, I'll just be brief, Mayor.

I think the state legislature itself is under constant pressure to make land use consistent from one local jurisdiction to another by developers.

And I mean, the way to do that is to wrestle land use decisions away from local government. And I think 2 of the hallmark issues that developers are looking at right now is essentially increasing the density of homes.

I mean, that makes the developer more money.

So I think that pressure in recent years, you can see it come through in legislation such as creation of the inland port, imposition of daily penalties on local land use authorities when they get decisions wrong, limitations on the use of eminent domain, inspection and reporting requirements that have been placed on cities to ensure that, that they're doing essentially what the legislature and developers want.

And, and finally, affordable housing mandates. There is a real tension up at the legislature, and there is a chipping away of local land use authority. And I think it's always best to try to deal with ORM issues with ORM solutions instead of doing this state-mandated one-size-fits-all. So that's all I have.

Okay, well, this is a discussion I'd like to carry forward and discuss some of the options, and I appreciate everybody's thoughts and concerns. Let's go ahead if we can and go and move on.

Hey, Mayor, can I ask one question quick?

Sure.

I just wish Ryan or Jamie would address those bus lines that are going to devastate a lot of the State Street businesses, and they weren't considered in this 5 districts.

Brent, one, one thing maybe I could tie in— I've been in on those discussions as well. You may remember when UVX came on board, it took us 8 to 9 years to get funding for that. And while this is moving forward at a quick pace, And I feel like is an excellent idea. Funding is another issue, and it may take a period of time to get it.

And Mayor, I would add just maybe comments to Brent's concerns.

You know, if something like this could happen in 4 or 5 years, it is the fastest federal project ever completed in the history of Utah. Because, you know, like we talked about with UVX, that was A project that began in 2007-2008 and saw completion in 2019. But in addition to that, we are now at a phase with that what we call the central corridor process where we are going to— not we, but the state of Utah, UDOT, UTA are going to initiate an environmental process, and that will involve public input in the same way at a federal level, at the same way we engaged our residents in public input at a local level in the development of the State Street Master Plan. So there will be additional opportunities through this federal environmental process to include all the feedback, concerns of property owners, businesses, obviously residential and citizens, all of Orem, for example, will have an opportunity to continue to voice support, frustration, share input in regards to whatever is proposed in the future.

All right, thank you, Jamie. Let's go ahead and move on. I appreciate, Jason, your presentation. Let's move on to the Utility Master Plan and funding update with Chris Shirkey. Neil Winterton and Reed Price.

Okay, thank you, Mayor and City Council. Tonight we have presenting myself and Neil Winterton, our Water Resources Division Manager, Reed Price, our Maintenance Division Manager. Keith Larson is also on our Zoom call here as a principal of Bowen Collins and Associates. And then Laura Lewis is the city's financial advisor who works for Lewis Young, Robertson, and Birmingham.

Chris, who all needs to share their screen?

Just me.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll be coordinating this with Laura. I'll be presenting this in conjunction with everyone listed here, and then Laura will wrap up our meeting tonight with, with some details regarding the financial analyses that she has performed so far. Just to give you a brief overview, our expected delivery date is January 26th, 2020, and that is for the bond parameters resolution. That's our ultimate goal here, which will then lead into a bond. And the recent progress that has taken place to date is our utility modeling. We've completed the utility modeling for water and sewer, and then 90% also for stormwater. Our capital facility plans are substantially completed, although not finished. And then our CIP lists and probable costs have been updated for potential projects to be concluded with the bond. We'll then include and discuss our schedule moving forward, our next steps, as well as goals, and we'll have that discussion along the way. I'd like to invite anybody part of this on the City Council to please chime in with any comments or questions. That you might have.

Oh, Chris, I have a question.

Please.

If in fact we follow and move forward with the bonding idea rather than pay as you go, is there any way you could make up a chart and show us the difference between what that costs our customers, the residents, going one direction versus going the other, and also how we meet the goal that we need to be at? To have the money facilitated for construction.

We will, we will definitely have that present— presentation, not for you tonight, but we will have—

No, that's fine. I'm just saying, in January or February, when you get to that point.

We've already taken a stab at it and looked at that. We don't have anything finalized to present to you tonight, but we are headed on that path and we will share with you What that means, not only to accomplishing these projects which are needed for the city and citizens of Orem, but also what effects that will have on our rates and our— and other aspects of our utilities that need to be considered. So—

Chris, that's great. One thing I wanted to bring up and have everyone remember, American Fork's rates for water are double what Orem's are. And I've spent time speaking with past mayors in American Fork, and part of the problem was nobody was updating their master plans, nobody was investing in the infrastructure, and everybody was using what they had. And then it's gotten to the point that that infrastructure is failing. So where they might have spent a dollar 10 years ago or 15 years ago, Now they're having to spend $6 to get the same work done. And that's why I'm pleased with, with what Jamie and Chris and everybody has done in our staff in working on master plans and staying ahead and planning for the future.

Thank you, Mayor. I think you'll be pleasantly not surprised but pleased with what we're presenting here tonight. Not only do we have a very good plan and engineered We have an extraordinary model and plan in place. We are refining that, we're fine-tuning that. We've incorporated also impact fees, and we will be updating those in conjunction with this master plan. So we're trying to gather as much potential revenue from all the sources in an equitable and fair way, in a responsible way, to provide high-quality level of service to the citizens of Orem for all of these utilities. So, let's go ahead and jump into some of the details of what we've accomplished to date. We've made some significant progress in each of these analyses for each of these utilities. The hydraulic model is now 100% complete for water. The capital facility plan, abbreviated by CFP, is about 95% complete. What goes behind or into that is the engineering analyses and discussions with the engineers at Bohlen Collins. In addition, with our city engineers here on staff and Public Works and in Development Services. The bond project list has been updated. We have an initial proposed list that we're going to share with you tonight for water totaling $33.7 million of eligible multi-generational projects that have been identified. Not, not to, not to surprise anyone here, the water tank is at the top of our list in terms of priorities, that value or that cost has been updated to approximately $13.7 million. So what that equates to is about $1.37 per gallon. When we built our 20 million— or the 20 million gallon tank and shared that with Central Utah Water Conservancy District, that was around $0.95 a gallon. So So, in 19— excuse me, in 2005, it was 95 cents. Now, it's about $1.37 a gallon. So—

So, Chris, a question for you real quick. When we started in on our 10 million gallon water tank, we figured the cost was around $10 million. That was 3 or 4 or 5 years ago. Now, you're saying the cost is about $13 million.

Yeah. Though these values have been adjusted to reflect—

So $10 million in '16 to $13 million in '21, 5 years.

Yes.

Okay.

Chris, are you intending to share your screen?

Oh my goodness, I should do that.

We like looking at Chris.

Oh, I feel—

now I'm really— usually I just— I'm on mute.

But now I didn't even share my screen, so.

Okay.

All right, can everyone see the slide?

Yes.

Very good, thank you, Keith. So, the water tank is $13,700, and as listed throughout here, you can see all of these project costs have been updated to be To reflect the 2022-2023 dollars based on what we're seeing in our industries right now for each of these utilities, a total of $33.7 million of recommended eligible multi-generational bond projects. So basically what we're looking at here is what we foresee could be bonded for. Realizing that perhaps not all of this will be. We're not recommending to you at this time a complete dollar amount, but these are the projects we've identified as the highest priority projects that really should be considered for water. In water reclamation, the hydraulic model is also 100% complete. Capital facility plan is about 90% complete. which does entail all of the engineering analyses and discussions and updates for costs and so on and so forth. We're looking at $13.2 million of potential eligible multigenerational bond projects that are listed here. These were all listed in our past master plan, but they also have been updated to reflect— be reflective of the 2022 construction dollars. And last but not least, we have stormwater. That plan— stormwater has been lagging behind as anticipated as a result of a substantial amount of work and data collection and evaluation of the West Union Canal project in terms of projects that will be associated with the abandonment of the West Union Canal Company. We convey a significant amount of stormwater in that system, and that is one step closer today to being entirely abandoned. So we've had field trips and multiple meetings to discuss plans to get out of that system 100%. This project is— excuse me, the bond project list is complete now, the initial project list. It has a lesser level of detail. as a result of all of the work that we're looking at accomplishing. But that total project list is around $15.9 million. The substantial component is the West Union Canal abandonment project list of $13.2 million, and Taylor Drain projects at about $2.7 million is what we're guesstimating at this time. These numbers will continue to be refined over the next 3 weeks, and they will be completed Before our next presentation that will take place on January 12th with the City Council work session. So as we've been evaluating all of these projects, we've been considering— we have a substantial amount of cash in each of these accounts. How much of that should we be spending towards these projects today? Are there some that we should target for the bond. So projects are going to last 50, 75, even 100 years perhaps, with proper operating and maintenance policies and procedures in place. So Laura has presented to us significantly lower rates than what we've seen in the recent past in terms of bond rates. We're also looking at hedging these construction costs that Mayor, that you quickly pointed out at the beginning with our tank construction costs going up from $10 to $13.3 million, I think is what it was.

$27.

$20. Okay, thank you. And then, so how much is the right amount?

We're—

how do we dial this in? What we have to look at are these utility pro formas. So we've asked Laura Lewis to evaluate and present tonight a pro forma based on a set of scenarios and assumptions. And we have to evaluate— historically we've used revenues that are based on rates, 100% or nearly 100%. And now we're looking at shifting that focus to having a bond revenue stream come forth. With that though, we also have an equal and opposite effect with your expenses when we're evaluating everything From operational costs, maintenance, repair, and replacement of our, of our utilities, and then the associated debt and the debt service levels that will, that will come forth. We need to maintain a net revenue that's available for these utilities so that we can ensure that we provide the high level of service for long-term utility maintenance in each of these 3 utilities. So the next steps we have before you prior to our January 12th meeting is we will, we will be working very closely now with the internal staff here at the city and Bowen Collins and Associates and finalizing these numbers and lists, which are substantially complete. We will also have updated utility pro formas on a utility basis. We'll be working with Laura and her staff, Nate and Fred. And specifically on utility rates, we fully anticipate that rates will be adjusted, and specifically that water will be adjusted downward for the rates to have a net positive effect on the community as we spread this debt and have some relief. We'll then be preparing a bond parameters resolution and making that presentation to you on January 12th. with Lewis, Young, Robinson, and Birmingham. These are the highlights or the milestones that, if you will, for upcoming calendar events. Today is the 8th. On the 18th, we'll have our completed list of projects with our completed— an updated probable cost. The bond parameters presentation will be presented to you on January 12th. And then, as noted earlier, Our key milestone here is January 26th, '21 bond parameters resolution. After that point, we'll need to have a public hearing. That'll take place in February. We've targeted February 23rd for that date. Everything I presented to you right now is very specific to the utilities. Laura will now present on On rates, unless there are any questions or anything to bring up right now, any comments regarding what I presented thus far.

And Chris, I would say I would speak more about the bonds than the rates specifically at this juncture.

Oh, sorry, right.

Go ahead, Laura.

Okay, Laura, can you see that screen okay?

I can, that's great, thank you. Uh, good evening everyone. It's almost evening, right? Um, it's nice to see you all. I like at least Seeing people. If I can't be with you, it's nice to at least see your headshot, so to speak. So thank you. So as Chris has touched on, you know, we'll be working on the rate study and the impact on bond issuance. And then I'll talk about what we're— you know, what in the debt service numbers and coverage I'll show you here in a moment. They're very, very conservative. So next slide.

Hmm.

So just by way of reminder, again, we can't say it once, we can say it 3 times, beat it into your head. Historically, your utility rates were set to account for payment of large capital projects on a pay-as-you-go basis. And as such, that's what's allowed you to, you know, amass quite a bit of money in your various utility funds to help to pay for those. But as we discussed several weeks ago, you can't save enough fast enough, given the current interest earning environment, to keep up with construction inflation. So, it's nice you have these great fund balances, but it does make sense to, you know, look to bond for some of those large, long useful life projects. Interest rates aren't at the historical low, but they're very, very close. I'll show you a chart here in a moment, a graph that, you know, just indicates there's, you know, they're still going down. Who knows what the future will hold, but I don't see in the immediate future, I don't see a lot of upward pressure on rates. As we're looking at the rates and your fund balances, a couple of things that you need to be aware of that we'll be talking about in in further detail when we talk about the rates and, you know, could use some guidance, you know, philosophically from you as a mayor and council. We have to be very careful to maintain reasonable cash balances. Whenever cash balances get large and if you have, you know, citizens who look at your budget, they go like, oh, you should, you know, get rid of all that cash and, you know, lower my rates and And there's some truth to that because you do have some very healthy cash balances, but we can't take them to zero, and hopefully they, certainly you, will understand why we can't take them to zero. You know, you need to be prepared in the case of an emergency. You know, who knows, you know, your system's in great shape, but, you know, things happen. There could be a, you know, mild earthquake and a water line could break or whatever, so you need to have reasonable cash balances. The rating agencies view the gold standard of that cash balance to be 365 days of operating cash on hand. That doesn't mean that we have to have that to get good— a good rating. You have a lot of strong things going for you. They rate another client of mine to the north of you who have about 360 days of operating cash on hand in storm sewer and sewer. They have about 360 days. On water, they only have about 6 months. And their utility bonds are still AA-rated. And I want to make sure that we're in that AA or AA+ kind of category. So we have to watch, you know, what happens as we do the rate study model. We have to watch what happens to those cash balances and make sure we're maintaining them. We also have to make sure that we have, well, I've said here, good to excellent debt service coverage. The bonds that you have outstanding, I think, call for 1.25 as a minimum coverage. I prefer not to be at that minimum. You are currently well above that. And again, as we, you know, change the rate structure and revenues decrease, we just want to make sure that we keep you well above it, not as high as you are now, but— But we keep you well above it. Those things will ensure, you know, the best credit rating and the lowest interest rates. And then one last thing that popped into my head as I was driving a couple days ago, and they're talking about the drought that we're in. I can't remember, you know, there's like bad, really bad, horrific. They have their different categories, and I don't know what word they use to describe where we are, but it's not good. And, you know, given I've done this for a long, long time, I have seen, you know, cities who have gone out in the, you know, far distant past and other droughts, and it was Salt Lake City actually, and they, you know, went around and, you know, got the word out to everyone to conserve, conserve water, we're in a drought, conserve your water, conserve your water, and then what did they have to do? They had to raise rates because their revenues went down because their usage dropped. So we need to, you know, make sure we're at least thoughtful about that element as well, especially because we are, you know, in a drought period. The project summary just matches what Chris went over with you. I, you know, just took a very abbreviated version to slap in my slides, but it's exactly what he showed you. And then in the numbers that I'm going to show you, I very conservatively used— you've got about In your various funds, you've got about $30 million that could be used. But again, we want to make sure we're maintaining enough cash balances. I'm not saying that we can only use $10 million. It's just what I've— it's all that I've included now out of the cash you have available. So I'm using about a third of what you have available that we could put toward this to reduce the bond size. So keep that in mind as you see the numbers I will show you here in a moment. that, you know, that we could increase that use of cash once we, you know, get further along with the rate study and decrease the par amount of the bonds, which will decrease the debt service line and show even better coverage. Interest rates are very low. The current plan— I'll go through a couple of the highlight dates in regard to bond issuance. The current plan, and it's a fairly aggressive plan, puts a lot of pressure on your staff relative to getting, you know, design work done and that kind of thing to make sure that they feel comfortable that they can spend the bond proceeds within, you know, 3 years. That's a federal tax law. You have to spend 90% within 3 years. You have to reasonably expect to spend 90% within 3 years. And then in regard to the utility rate studies, my staff and OREM staff is meeting every other week and actually in a set group meeting and more often in between that to proceed along or to make sure that that's proceeding along. All right, next slide. So, here's the interest rate consideration. Holy cow, you have to have really good eyes to read that. But the takeaway is when we ran numbers for you a while ago, it was on 10-whatever that says 10— my eyes aren't that good— 10/23, and we updated those today. Interest rates, as you see, have gone down even from those really low rates. They've gone down further. What, what this is showing you is what we refer to as the MMD scale. It assumes a general obligation bond that is rated AAA, sort of like an average, if you will, of AAA-rated bond rates It's not technically an average, it's an index, but it just gives you some idea. It's a benchmark that we use. And you can see in the short end, there's not as much distance to fall or to contract. So, they've only gone down a little bit in the short end. In the long end, they have come down quite a bit from those already very low rates. So, as you can see here, again, the discussion we had before of, you know, if construction inflation stayed where it was the last time we talked, It only means if we were in the market today issuing bonds that it even becomes more compelling because these rates are, are so low. All right, next slide.

Wow.

Again, very small. Sorry about that. Maybe I can make it larger on my end so I can at least read it. Or not. Okay, I'll just squint. You'll have to see my face really close up. So sorry about that.

Oh, okay.

So the, the debt service, if you'll go down to that next-to-last line where there are numbers, the debt service that we're projecting on $53 million in bonds, and again, that is picking up all of the projects that Chris listed, less only $10 million of your fund balance. So we could make this even lower. So if you look at that debt service, it's about, you know, $2 million starts out— what is here? Oh, because I've got the added— okay, so once, once we issue these bonds, the, the new debt service is about $2.9 million. It's the 3rd line up above that total debt service. That's what I was struggling with for a moment. So the new debt service would be about $2.9 million to amortize, um, your $53 million in, in debt that I'm estimating at the moment. Again, likely to go down. The interest cost actually is below 2%, just barely, but it is below 2%. So when we add that in to your existing debt, you can see that your coverage is Well, well above. Once, you know, that debt is on in spades, your debt service coverage is still above, roughly above 3.5 times. There's only one year that it's below 3.5. If we can go to the rating agencies and show 2 times, that's phenomenal. Again, our minimum is 1.25, but it's always nice to show them more than that. And again, this is only using $10 of the roughly $30 million that you have, have available. So while the rate study is not complete, there's a lot of heavy lifting that has to go on between, you know, now and, and when that's completed. My colleague Fred Philpott, who many of you know, is leading that charge. While it's not complete, it is very reasonable to assume, given this coverage, that we ought to be able to, you know, lower water rates I'm not sure about the other rates, but I think, again, this, this sort of argues in, in a short summary way that you certainly have enough revenues to pay your debt and then some. I don't know, you know, what that looks like sort of by utility, if you will, but, you know, so some it may just mean that we're not going to do increases or not as high of increases, and others I'm expecting that we'll be able to actually lower those payments. All right, next slide.

Laura, can I, can I mention something as well?

Of course.

Okay, you suggested that you use the $10 million of the $31 million that's available on the books right now in each of these utilities.

Yes.

If we were to increase that amount, then the par amount on the bond would actually drop.

Yes, the par amount drops and the payments drop.

And our debt service increases, our coverage increases then as well?

That is correct.

Okay.

Again, that, that's with revenues as we're projecting sort of how things are today. The expectation is that as we, you know, refine that model, that you'll see those— the revenue line drop, and therefore the coverage will drop. But, you know, that's kind of the goal here, if you will. And let me just say how fortunate you are. It is not uncommon. I would say in every instance but for Orem, it usually— when we're talking about water rate studies related to water rate bonds, it's coming with a water rate increase. So, you know, the fact that you have your rates set in order to, you know, try to do those projects as pay-as-you-go and you have the balances you do has you in a very good position right now. So. All right. So, some key dates if we, you know, charge ahead at our, you know, speedy way that we're thinking in order to get the bonds done as quickly as possible to try to take advantage of these low rates. And one nice thing is that we'll have the flexibility that if the rates aren't where we like them because of some interesting political event, who knows what that might be, right?

Mm-hmm.

If interest rates aren't where we want them and there's sort of a blip in the market, we can always back off and, you know, sit tight and price another time. We're currently contemplating, and key dates for you is, you know, there's a much larger, more detailed calendar, but some of the key dates here for you to be aware of is that we would have a work session on the 12th to discuss the bond transaction and, you know, specificity relative to how much money you're going to be putting toward it and whatnot. And then we would have you prepared to consider the— what we call the super parameters resolution on January 26th. That sets a maximum par amount, maximum rate, sets a pricing committee, you know, made up of county— city officials, excuse me. Then we would have a review. We had understood the review of the utility rates to take place in a work session in February. We've noted on here in bold to make sure everyone gets it, I guess, that the last day to make significant modifications to the construction fund projects and amounts, if we're going to stick to the pricing schedule that's laid out here, would be about, you know, the 3rd week of February. You will have to hold a public hearing on the bonds with them being, you know, all new money bonds. You'll have to hold a public hearing. We will, you know, be there along with you or in this forum with you, at least electronically, to present as needed. We'd get the official statement out in the market, give the underwriter a week to price the bonds and— or to pre-price them. We'd have a pricing and closing, the idea being we would close around, you know, March 22nd. 22nd to 25th. That's when the money would be, you know, in your account and they could start spending it on those construction needs. All right, next. So as we've touched on, you know, utility rate studies won't be completed for a month or two. I would recommend pursuing the bond issuance since interest rates are low, as long as you're, you know, as we're moving ahead with the utility rate study that nothing looks alarming in regard to the objective of trying to lower rates because you're, you know, funding these long-life projects over a period of time when those who will be using them will be paying for them. We'll continue to refine those needs and the, you know, the construction needs and timing. And we'll, you know, work to make sure that, you know, we address those things that I mentioned earlier relative to fund balance and that kind of thing. So are there any— anything from the staff that you wanted me to touch on that I didn't, that you have questions, or any questions from the council?

Laura, this is Chris. In your last presentation, you mentioned the possibility of going with 2 bonds, each one about $30 to $35 million, and that there may be a net present value savings to the city based on your assumptions of approximately $55 million. Is that— I just wanted to confirm that. And then also, this may not be that amount, but it'll be something like that, right?

So what I've included here, when I got the most recent construction list and timing, Chris, I— it's like, oh, it can be done by 2023. I crammed it in this current bond issue. So I would say that will continue to be refined. as we, you know, move ahead over the next month. And whether or not we, you know, want to do one bond issue or two bond issues, in my mind, will be largely driven by, you know, the reality check of can you get the construction done within— or can you reasonably expect to get the construction done in 3 years? That would be what would cause us to, you know, cut it up into more than one bond issue. Based on the interest rates that we are seeing today, compared to what I ran before, assuming that you would give me the head nod, you or Keith are going to say, and construction inflation has stayed where we were thinking it was, you know, a month ago. If construction inflation has stayed up and interest rates have gone down, it would mean that there'd be an even larger savings. I have not quantified that, but it would mean there would be at least $55 million based on the interest rates we're seeing today.

Laura, I have a question. Do you anticipate the change in the U.S. president to affect the bond market, or do you think that's already been factored in?

I, I think that's a very good question, Debbie. I think to a large degree it's been factored in. I think the things that could, you know, still impact that is, you know, like you, I'm reading that January may be our worst month ever for, you know, COVID cases and Hospitals are already at their brink. If we end up in another— so I think a couple of things could impact it. If we end up in another sort of larger-scale shutdown— I mean, California shut down again, and that has certainly negative impacts on the economy. What I'm expecting, because again, interest rates should theoretically go up when you know, the economy starts to overheat, right? I mean, that's— they'll let interest rates raise so that they can have a tool to bring them back down. So I think there's still so much, you know, pressure on the economy, I don't expect that in the near term. What I would think that might happen is, let's say, once the vaccine gets, you know, rolling out in a good way, I think there's going to be some starts and stops with with that. But once it, you know, if we hit the stride of, you know, most everyone who wants to get vaccinated can get vaccinated by June, then I think people who are being very tight with their spending right now because they don't know, right? When consumers are uncertain, they don't spend. So, you know, we're seeing a lot of that kind of contraction when they think, okay, whoo, this is behind us, right? in, in June, or almost behind us, if that's, you know, when, when this vaccine is broadly available, then I think the economy may start to heat up. And that's why, you know, and I'm no— it's not a perfect crystal ball, but I'd rather get into the market sooner rather than later because I do think the closer we are to seeing the end of the pandemic, I think the economy will start to loosen up. I heard on one of my favorite economy shows. It's on NPR. And they had an expert on today. She said, you know, even with that being the case, she doesn't think that things will, you know, for— and she was speaking specifically to like cities and states, but that things wouldn't start to return to normal, what we saw, you know, early January of this year, for 2 to 3 more years.

And I wanted to point out to Debbie that who says there's going to be a presidential change?

I'm gonna go with no comment on that.

All right, is that it for you, Laura?

Yes, sir, unless there are other questions.

There's no other questions. Thank you for your presentation. That was excellent. As always, Chris, anything more from you?

I wish one last parting remark, and that is the ability for us to absorb this and to actually handle this. If we were to do the $63 million in bonds, of course, that would accelerate construction quite dramatically. We have to spend this 80% of this revenue within 3 years. We seek to capitalize as much as we can in the form of the design, as well as the construction and the construction management of these projects. So we would rely on outside resources for a good portion of these projects. I know that that would be a question that— well, that's before us now.

Okay. Any other comments or questions?

Yes.

So Laura talked about, you know, the rates and maybe they're decreasing, but are we going to talk about maybe changing the tiers instead of 4 tiers, maybe to 3? Or I think that's where people have the pain point on the water, at least.

Yeah, that's a great question, Dave. We are evaluating not only the rate itself on a tier basis, but also the volumes.

We're—

we have Fred Philpott over that with Lewis Young, and he will be reevaluating the percentile for those tiers. We anticipate people have, you know, performed some type of conservation over the last 5 years. That's what the data is showing us. So we are evaluating those tiers as well.

And so that you're aware, my understanding is that we're getting a download— may already have, I haven't talked to Fred— but getting a download of all of your, you know, water use data. And Fred does understand that that is one of the key objectives of the rate modifications.

Yeah, and my other concern is, you know, the seniors or those that are on fixed incomes that are under poverty level that, you know, maybe there's something we can do for them in that package or something.

Yeah, so I'm gonna launch into that discussion because I've had it with so many clients because— and, you know, and, and I will say that I agree with you wholeheartedly that that is a very desirable objective. What becomes a challenge, and it may be less of a challenge in Orem than it has been in other cities where we've got into this discussion is how, how do you determine who is eligible? What ends up, you know, what, what other cities have done, because it's, you know, easy— it may not— I don't think it gets to, you know, all the people they want to get to, but they tie it to the, the circuit breaker that I think is done at a county level. I'm kind of making that up, but there is a program that people people can apply to get their property taxes reduced. And again, assuming that that is done at the county level, then, you know, they bring that in. So it's like, okay, we don't have to do the work to decide who's eligible and who's not, whether they're faking their income or whatever, right? We, we let that be the responsibility of the county. They bring their, you know, circuit breaker qualification papers into us, and then they have a you know, a rate reduction program. So that's something that, that we have done, that cities have done, and that they can implement. Who that leaves out, um, in, in your, you know, lower income, um, strata is people who are renting because they don't pay property taxes. It's their landlord that's paying the property taxes. And so, um, you know, so far it's the— it's, you know, what people have done because it's easy, but I just want you to be aware that it's— we haven't yet found the perfect system, and that's something you may want to, you know, noodle over and see if you can come up with some, you know, some way to figure out how to implement that. Because I, again, I think it's a very worthy objective, and we've addressed it with others, but that's how we've typically addressed it.

All right, well, thank you, Laura, and we need to keep moving if we're We're going to get through all this. So we'll move on to the noise mitigation discussion. I am aware that someone has a dog in the background barking. I don't know who that is, but if you could mute your phone, that would be helpful.

It was probably mine, so I'm off now. So you want to— sorry.

So this is a City Council discussion. Councilmember Spencer brought this up in relation to the Wiggy Wash car wash. I have learned a lot since this has been brought up and wanted to mention a couple of items and then wanted to hear what Dave had to say. There are 3 homes that face the Wiggy Wash car wash dryers. There's the Chris Romerell home, which is to the south and east There's the Mrs. Bunnell home. She's a 90-year-old who is deaf and single, directly across from the car wash. And then there's Randy Crowther, who is an assistant Utah County fire marshal, who is to the— I'm sorry, to the east and to the south. Randy Crowther has no problems with the name— the noise. He considers it gray noise and it doesn't bother him. Mrs. Bunnell doesn't bother with the noise, but she doesn't want anything to block her view over the wall that's built. A wall was built that's 2 feet higher than the property of these 3 homes for the car wash, and the Romerells are concerned and would like to see some abatement done. To fix it. I've talked with Acoustiblock, which is a firm out of Tampa, Florida, that specializes in sound absorption panels for car washes, together with a lot of other products. But they have done a lot of car washes dealing with this very problem. I have sent to the council pamphlets that they sent to me today. The cost runs anywhere from $5,000 to $35,000. depending on what it is. You can also put up an acoustic blanket along the cement wall, which runs about $3,000 to $4,000. So those are 2 ways to solve the problem. I have sent the Acoustiblock information to Brent Wignall for him to review and take a look at. I know that Kathy Ambrose has as a neighbor on another street and has weighed in on the project. So, that's what I know so far, and we can solve the problem. We can get it done. I know that Wigginall and Wiggy Wash do not want to pay for anything other than windows, soundproof windows in the houses. So, that would have to be a discussion If Brent wanted to allow those panels or blanket to occur, and then we'd have to have a discussion as to how that would be paid. Dave, you want to mention anything?

Well, I just, I appreciate your work in this, Mayor, and also Jamie and the staff meeting with Brent Wigg and all. And my concern is just that this has been an ongoing issue from day one. And it just seems like we just keep forgetting about it. And I want to make sure that it's brought up and that we come to an agreement or a solution. And let's get it fixed and we move on so that they can have a quality of life. And that's, that's my whole motivation. So.

So I think we have some solutions. I think Brent needs to look over those. Jamie needs to have a discussion with Brent. We need to look at what we want to do or not do with the council and have a discussion But the discussions are in progress for a solution to solve this problem. Any comments or questions? All right, well, let's go ahead and move on to our agenda review. Terry Peterson is going to be giving the prayer and the pledge will be given by his wife. We have some consent items, the minutes of the City Council meeting November 10th, 2020, November 13th, 2020, a meeting of a special City Council meeting. 8.2 is the proposed City Council meeting schedule. Hopefully you've all looked over this. I'm hoping that you all go through the agenda and the packet prior to coming to City Council meetings so that you view these items. Mayor Pro Tempore We have, I think, agreed that Mayor Pro Tempore will be Jeff Lampson for the next 6 months to June 2021. City Manager appointments. Jamie's asked for the council's advice and consent on Board of Adjustment, Karen Jeffries and Leslie Nelson. Leslie is a reappointment. Jamie, any comments on Karen?

Karen's a realtor, has a long history in Orem. She was recommended for service by Kenna Matthews, and our Planning Development Services staff interviewed her and feel comfortable with this recommendation for appointment.

Jamie, that was for Marisa, not for Karen.

Excuse me.

Karen was a former Planning Commission member.

Yeah. Right.

Okay.

And Marisa is for the Planning Commission itself, Marisa Bentley. And you just mentioned that planning staff's met with her.

Yes.

Okay. Then we have appointments to boards and commissions.

The—

excuse me— Care Advisory Commission, Laurel Smith. Do we have anybody who knows her, about her?

Debbie, you want to mention anything? This is Steve Downs.

Ken and I have both had communication with her. Orem resident wants to be involved, and we had an opening there for her.

Okay, and then— I'm sorry, what?

I said I don't know her.

Okay, then the CDBG Advisory Commission, Miguel Escavera. Anyone know her?

Know him?

Yeah, gentlemen, Steve Downs again. Ken has had some discussions. He's, he's of Latino descent and has worked in the nonprofit world for a long time, so seemed like a good add to the CDBG Commission.

Yes, and I appreciate having Miguel in there to help represent the Hispanic population of our city. Next is a resolution consenting to the RDA transfer of $1,292,485 $1.5 million from the 85-03A to the City of Orem for the purchase of Hillcrest Elementary. Jamie, can you tell me which project the 85-03A is?

This is, this is the property that is— that Hillcrest Elementary is found in.

Okay.

So the purpose of this resolution is the City Council needs to provide consent for action that is made in the redevelopment agency. So you actually serve as both the City Council and the RDA later in the evening. So yes, so this fulfills one of the requirements of the process to help facilitate purchase of the Hillcrest property.

Okay, the next is a resolution supporting the preservation of Bridal Veil Falls, putting an easement over it where it cannot be developed. Hopefully everyone's read that. That after the City Council, if we approve it, will be given straight over to Commissioner Ainge this evening. The County Commission is meeting tomorrow morning, and we want our resolution to express our thoughts on that. Scheduled— let me just ask, is everyone comfortable with the consent items at this point?

Yes.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Say what?

Okay, so then our scheduled items. The first one is a fiscal year 2019-20 audit presented by Brandon and Ron.

Mayor, can you hear me?

Great.

Ron has another city council meeting, so we may have to push that to later in the meeting. Okay, but he will, you know, he's going to text me at the time, you know, if Depending on where he's sitting in relation to that other meeting.

Keep me informed.

You bet. Mayor, if I may, how long has this firm been our auditors?

This is their 6th year. So they have one more year.

And do we get bids from the 2 Orem CPA-based firms?

We do every time, yes.

We do, and we've used them in the past as well.

A long time ago.

Okay, the next one is a public hearing amending the current fiscal year 2020-2021 budget. Brandon, anything you want to mention?

Nope, I'm good to go there.

Okay, next is a public hearing on an ordinance amending 22-6-9G, Commercial Daycare Services, Section 22-6-9H, Private School Schools of the Orem City Code and Appendix A by amending Standard Land Use 6813, Private Primary and Secondary Schools, pertaining to commercial daycare services and private schools in a residential zone. Jason, anything you care to mention?

Just that it's a proactive approach to take it out of the— as a conditional use and just add a parking requirement for future projects that come in.

Current ones would be— what do you call it— non-complying, but okay, forgive me the terminology.

Yeah, they'd be grandfathered at the status they have right now.

The next one is public hearing amending Article 22-6-9, accessory apartments, of the Orem City Code to clarify language in the accessory apartment Department ordinance. I read that. Jason, anything you want to mention?

No, I just— it clarifies the language to kind of comply with state law as far as how we are explicitly explaining what we mean.

Yes. Next, we have a resolution approving a conditional use permit for an accessory structure, basketball court, and garage located at 1391 South 11th East in the PD-18 zone. Jason, any comments there?

It's larger than the 1,000 square feet, which does require conditional use, but they do meet all the requirements.

Terry, is this one you chatted about a couple weeks ago? Terry, do you know? You're muted.

No, this is a different one.

Okay, going on. We have a continued item. Which is an ordinance amending 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zoning of approximately 2.16 acres from the OS-5 zone to the C-2 zone at approximately 2000 South Geneva Road. Jason, anything you want to mention? And in relationship to the continuance and to what we're doing tonight?

So they did supply a development agreement which has 5 main components, which I can explain either now or in the meeting. But they do, I think, detail the things that we discussed last meeting.

That's fine.

Let's wait for the meeting.

Okay.

The next one is a resolution ratifying the real estate donation agreement between IHC Health Service, Inc. and the City of Orem. Jamie, do you want to mention that?

Yes, Mayor.

This is just the negotiated agreement that we have reached with Intermountain Healthcare for property that is due west of Orem Community Hospital. It includes provisions in the agreement to— or at least an easement for the trail that runs around the circumference of the property— that we will continue to maintain that trail system. It allows for Intermountain Healthcare to place a marker on the property recognizing the donation, and there is a reversion clause in the agreement that notes that in the event we are not— we do not use this property for recreation or open space, that the property would revert back to Intermountain Healthcare.

So is the monument a monolith, or is it something else?

Actually, there's a specific definition included in the agreement, but it potentially could be, yes.

Okay.

All right. We then go into— we adjourn our meeting and go into a meeting of the Orem Redevelopment Agency. We approve the RDA meeting minutes of June 16, 2020. We then pass or consider a resolution authoring— authorizing the transfer of $1,292,485 from the RDA Project 85-03A to the City of Orem to assist with the purchase of the Hillcrest Elementary property. Anything you care to mention, Jamie?

Just that this is required because The RDA is not purchasing the property, but the City of Orem is purchasing the property. And so that transfer and that recognition of transfer needs to take place in order to facilitate the purchase.

Okay, thank you. Let's go back and give Councilmember McDonald some time to report on his areas of responsibility in the city.

Thank you, Mayor. Like many of you, I am suffering with Zoom overload. With most of these, our youth council has not been meeting at all. And then we have the heritage that has pulled off a wonderful veterans program with great speaker, great singers. The mayor did a great job conducting that. And then we're Zoom meeting in for most of our Orm City Outreach, the Orm Community Hospital group. So you know, it's not the kind of report we were used to making a year ago, but it is what it is. And I think. each one of them are doing a good job given their current circumstances. The ones I feel kind of the worst about is not being able to give our young City Council an opportunity to participate more, but it's what we're dealing with.

Okay, thank you, appreciate your work. Jamie, we'll give some time to you. Anything you wish to discuss?

No, Mayor, I don't have any items. I did provide you with some informational items yesterday. I would just, just note that if you have any questions about any of the information I've provided you, to please, please give me a call or send me a text or a note. And finally, just for and on behalf of our staff here at the City of Orem, we wish you and members of the City Council a very happy holiday season and Merry Christmas.

Thank you. I was going to mention that the seniors this year did not have Thanksgiving dinner at the Senior Citizen Center, and they were not served by staff of the City Council, but we were able to arrange meals through the Golden Corral restaurant, hot meals to be served to any senior from Orem that was over 65 who wanted to come by. We set up for 300 meals, but we got it set up about 3 days before Thanksgiving. So it's not a lot of time to notify everybody, but we did have quite a few come by. They were very appreciative. Golden Corral did a great job on the meals. They provided the meals for $5 each for each senior, which included, you know, dressing, mashed potatoes, lots of turkey, cranberry sauce, rolls, cookies, you name it. It was a great meal and I appreciate Terry Peterson coming by, and I stayed there the whole time handing meals out, but he came by to help, and we had about 100 meals left. And so he took them and divided them out throughout his stake, I believe— you can correct me, Terry— to those homes that could use them and was able to distribute all 100 of them.

So not only the Faith Center, but throughout the city. And we stopped some off to the police department, and they were thrilled to have it, and they were, they were giving it to people that they'd see on the street. So it worked out really well.

Great. And it's my understanding the Senior Citizen Center is going to do this again for Christmas and make sure everyone is notified so that all of the seniors who normally get the Christmas dinner will be able to come by and get it. And many of the seniors are very appreciative. If there's nothing else, let's go ahead and, and break, and then we'll start back up at 6 o'clock.

Thank you.

So we adjourn this meeting. We'll start the City Council meeting at 6.

Um, my thing, Kelsey, went off again.

So I'm gonna sit down for a sec.

Yes, I can.

Not yet.

Getting close though.

I'm supposed to go to lunch today, but nobody—

All right, it's 6 PM and it's time for us to start our City Council meeting. I'd like to read a notice to begin. Pursuant to Mayor Richard F. Brunt's proclamation dated November 30th, 2020, the Orem City Council meeting on December 8th, 2020 will be an all-electronic meeting. There will be no anchor location for the meeting. The city cannot ensure the recommended minimum of 6 feet of social distancing for meeting participants at the usual anchor location in the Orem City Council Chambers. Therefore, holding the meeting at the City Council Chambers would present a substantial risk to the health and and safety of those who may be present at the meeting and may contribute to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. There will be no public access to the Orem City Council chambers. Those desiring to view or participate in the meeting must do so electronically. To view the meeting, please go to orem.org/meetings. To make a comment, please submit your comment through or call it in. Written comments will be accepted before and during the meeting. All written comments received will be entered into the record and forwarded to each City Council member for review. Written comments will also be read aloud during the live meeting when required by law or when time permits. As technology permits, the The City Council may also accept oral comments. Once an item has been voted on, that item will be closed to additional comments. Thank you for your cooperation during these challenging times. We would now like to call this meeting to order, and Terry Peterson will be giving our opening prayer and his wife Sherry Peterson will be giving the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll turn the time over to you.

Our Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the opportunity to meet this evening. We're thankful for the opportunity to live in this wonderful city. We pray that we'll be guided by Thee on what we should do to help make Orem— to continue to make Orem a wonderful place to live. We're thankful for the opportunity to live in this free country. We pray for the leaders both in our city and our state and our country at this time. And we say this in thy Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Sherry, and thank you, Terry. We now will begin with personal appearances. And Steve, do we have anybody on the line or written in yet?

We, we do.

Yes, we do have some comments. We have a— give us just a second, we'll get the phone number. We have somebody from the Natural Resources Advisory. And then, Jason, is it a public hearing on the daycare?

That's where the majority of the other comments—

It is a public hearing. So the public personal appearances should be on items that are not public hearings, right?

I just—

that's what I wanted to make sure it wasn't.

So those ones we will save until a later time. Give us just one minute. We'll bring in somebody for a—

We'll give you 90 seconds for anybody else who wants to call in or write in. And we'll start that right now. Okay, our 90 seconds are up. Steve, do you have anyone who's written in or called in?

Yep, we do have one that's written in and then one that's Working on calling in.

The written one— Just a second, pulling it up.

Okay, this is a comment from The name on this one, Chris Romrell.

It's regarding, it's regarding Wiggy Wash.

Okay.

I appreciate the assistance of both Councilmember Spencer and Mayor Brunst regarding the sound concerns related to Wiggy Wash. As a property owner in the adjacent property, I am very concerned about the sound levels and impact is having on my property use and value. I continue to remain hopeful that we can come to an acceptable solution and that the city will also take steps to adjust city code to ensure we have proper prevention and accountability for enforcement. I would be happy to make public comment and/or continue to meet with interested parties for resolution. And then, Mayor, we have one— this is Darren Hawkins of our Natural Resources.

Hi there.

I'm going to be bringing him in and he'll be sharing. Darren, can you hear us? Darren, can you hear us okay?

Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yep, we can hear you, and we will, uh, I know you can't see our screen, but we'll give you 3 minutes to share your—

Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Go ahead, Darren.

Oh, start now?

Yep.

Okay, I'm hearing on the other line that they're just bringing me in.

Yeah, we can all hear you just fine. You're in the Zoom call right now.

Oh, okay. Hi, this is Darren Hawkins of the Orem Natural Resources Stewardship Committee. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to chat, to address the council, and I've talked to a lot of you recently and I really appreciate your interest in our shared goals to preserve our natural resources and make Orem a better place for all of the citizens. I want to talk about the Bridal Veil Falls issue. We all agree, and by the way, my statement here is on behalf of the entire Natural Resources Stewardship Committee. We've all talked about this and we all very much agree on this. We all agree, including all of you and many people in the community, that Bridal Veil Falls is a national treasure. An outing to Bridal Veil Falls with family and friends is a real highlight for many in Utah County and for lots of people here in Orem. We are concerned about the proposed development, including the tram and the helipad, and we're concerned that that would detract from the area's natural beauty and not enhance our community's enjoyment of this treasured place. This treasure is best experienced naturally, we believe, without tram cars, cable lines, and noise. It is best experienced personally and intimately, where families and friends gather to play and talk at the water's edge. My family and friends, we've certainly done that a lot. I'm sure you've had that experience too. Our nation's majestic public lands have always been open to all. We should keep them that way. We understand a conservation easement would help achieve the goal of preserving the falls as they currently exist. We strongly favor that proposal. Thanks for listening to us.

Thank you, Darren. Appreciate you coming forward and speaking on behalf of you and the Natural Resources Committee.

Thanks for the opportunity.

You bet. Steve, do you have anybody else for personal appearance?

None other for personal appearance, Mayor.

Okay, let's go ahead and move on to our consent item portion of our agenda. If anyone on the council wishes to move an item from the consent agenda over to the scheduled items agenda, please let me know. But we will go through these items now. First one is 8.1, approval of the meeting minutes of City Council meeting November 10th, 2020, and the minutes of the special City Council meeting November 13th, 2020. The next one is 8.2, the proposed City Council meeting schedule for 2021 shown in the packet. Item 8.3 is the appointment of Councilmember Jeff Lampson as the mayor pro tem to serve from January through June 2021, and we thank Terry Peterson for having served previously. City manager's appointments: the first one is on the Board of Adjustments. We have Karen Jeffries and Leslie Nelson, who is a reappointment. On the Planning Commission, we have Marissa Bentley. 8.5 is appointments to boards and commissions by the council. We have the CARE Advisory Commission, an appointee of Laurel Smith, an appointee to the CDBG Advisory Commission of Miguel Escobedo. 8.6 is a resolution consenting to the RDA's transfer of $1,292,485 from the redevelopment project area 8503A to the City of Orem for the purchase of the Hillcrest Elementary School property. The next one, 8.7, is support for the Bridal— preservation of the Bridal Veil Falls. And that is it for our consent items. I move that we accept all the consent items as listed. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, let's go ahead and take a vote if we could. Dave Spencer?

Aye.

Tom McDonald?

Aye.

Terry Peterson?

Aye.

Jeff Lampson?

Aye.

Debbie Larett?

Aye.

Brent Sumner?

Aye.

And the mayor? And I vote aye as well. So our consent scheduled— our consent items all pass. We will now move into our scheduled items. The first one is 9.1. This is a resolution for fiscal year 2019-2020. 2020 audit. And Brandon, is Ron here or do we need to wait?

Ron is not here yet, so we'll probably want to move that to the— I guess the end of the agenda.

Okay, we will do that. Next one is a public hearing on an ordinance amending the current fiscal year 2020-2021 budget. Brandon, you are our presenter and we'll turn it over All right.

I'm going to try sharing my screen here. Can everybody see that? Budget amendments?

Yes.

Great. So as we, you know, have periodically done, we have some additional budget amendments that we need to take care of.

Brandon, will you just Can you just zoom in on that a little bit just to make it bigger on the screen?

How's that?

Thank you.

You bet.

So page 1 are the revenue-associated increases with the budget amendments. Page 2 of the document are the associated expenditure accounts tied to those revenue increases. Page 3 is a description of the notes that you see there in the note column. I'll just briefly touch on each element. All those items denoted with a 1 are various grants and/or donations that the city has received, and we are adding, you know, those— and some of those awards are commitments to. We've been awarded the grant, so now we're able to now spend it. And, and so it's taking— in some of the cases, we've already received the donation, for instance, and now again we have, um, we want to go spend that donation on whatever it may be that the donation was for. So that's what all of those items denoted as a 1 indicate. Probably the, the interesting ones on here are So the second line item here, we have several related to Library Hall. We have the library donations account, as well as that moving the money into our capital projects fund to be able to spend it on that Library Hall project. This is the primarily— well, I think it almost all is related to donations received through the library specifically for the library hall. So this comes close to zeroing out those donations and using all of those funds towards the library hall project.

Let's see.

Item number 2, those denoted with a 2. Related to the Hillcrest property purchase. There, those funds are coming from various places. We have money within an economic development account within the general fund. That is this portion right here, the one that says appropriated surplus Hillcrest property. If you look down in the parks impact fees, In that section, you can see that the additional money needed— we have more, but some of that's already been budgeted. So this is the additional funds that are available within that fund, and we're adding those. And then all the items in the capital projects fund is obviously moving all of that money into the capital projects fund to be able to spend there. As well as the item that you approved earlier of the transfer from the RDA into the Capital Projects Fund to be able to purchase that property within the Capital Projects Fund. Those items denoted with a 3, we receive— if you'll recall, we had a fire engine on the news. That fire engine caught on fire. And we've received an insurance recovery for that fire engine, as well as we had an ambulance that was wrecked and we've received insurance from that. So this is adding those monies into our general fund for eventual use. And that's these items number 3. Item number 4, with a note 4, As we've done periodically, the money that is unspent on the bonds that we have, the bond money that has yet to be spent, is earning interest. So we're recognizing the interest earnings. I believe the period was from September and October. And so we're, we're adding those elements so that we can obviously continue to Use those towards the bond project. Item number 5 are elements related to, you know, we talked about earlier in the work session having funds available for various projects. And item number 5 is using some of those surplus funds to be able to— You do it for one of these projects, and it's using those surplus funds to be able to do that. And I believe it's the Carterville and Springwater lift stations is what those funds are going to be used towards. Those are all of the elements related to the budget amendments being proposed. Are there any questions in relation to any of those items?

All right, no questions. This is a public hearing, so I will open it up for the public to make public comment.

Didn't he have a second and third page, he said?

Yeah, I'm not going to run through it. So that was for the revenue page. You can link each one of the expenditure— this is the expenditure page. It's just the corresponding debit and credit, if you will, related to those revenue increases. You'll note at the bottom these— the total for all of the funds, $6.8 million. You'll note the revenue matching amount. So it's just those places. This is where we anticipate spending those actual increase in revenue dollars. And then, as mentioned, page 3 are those notes that I have been referring to.

Okay, so this is a public hearing and we'll open it up for public comment, um, for 90 seconds starting right now. Okay, our 90 seconds are up. Steve, have we had anyone call in or write in?

None, Mayor.

Okay, so I will go ahead and close the public comment portion of the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Any questions or comments from the council? All right, then I move that the City Council amend the current fiscal year 2020-2021 budget. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, sounds like Brent Sumner second. We'll go ahead and vote. Let's start with Dave Spencer.

Aye.

Tom McDonald.

Aye.

Gary Peterson.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Debbie Laree.

Aye.

Brent Sumner.

Aye.

And I vote aye as well. The ordinance passes. We'll move on to a public hearing, 9.3. This is an ordinance amending Section 22-6-9, commercial daycare services, Section 22-6-9, private schools, of the Orem City Code, and Appendix A by amending Standard Land Use Code 6813, Private Primary and Secondary Schools Pertaining to Commercial Daycare Services and Private Schools in a Residential Zone. And Jason Bench is our presenter.

Thank you, Mayor. Can everybody see my screen?

Yes.

Okay, so this is an amendment, as the Mayor pointed out, to commercial daycare services. It also is an This is a minor amendment to SLU Code 6813, which relates to private primary and secondary schools. The main focus is on the commercial daycare. What we're proposing, based on the last conditional use that we had a few months ago, is to make this a permitted use. But in order to make it a permitted use, there was another element of this that we wanted to make sure that it was included because there was no parking standard the development requirements. It was simply negotiated with a conditional use process. And so in order to make it a permitted use, we wanted to add the parking ratio. The 0.24 was a standard that we use with Smiling Faces, the daycare. Everybody seemed to be comfortable with that as far as the City Council. And so we wanted to use that as the basis, and then in addition to that, add stalls that would be for the full-time Either caregiver or teacher or part-time teacher that goes along with the daycare. So the first part is simply just changing some of the semantics of that, because we do have a separate Section H which talks about private schools. And so we basically are taking anything related to private schools out of this section because it really deals specifically with commercial daycare and making it a permitted use at this point. And taking out things that are related to the conditional use process. And then the bigger issue was adding number 13, which is the parking standards that we're proposing. Like I say, was related to the previous one that we just adopted. These standards will make any existing daycare legal nonconforming. They would be able to keep the status that they have now. Any, any amendments going forward, they would have to meet this current standard, or any new projects that come in, or, you know, daycares that come into a residential zone would have to meet the standard. This only applies to commercial daycares in a residential zone. This does not apply to commercial daycares in a commercial zone. We have quite a few commercial daycares in the commercial zone, which this does not apply to. This is only for those that are in a commercial— excuse me, in a residential zone. adjacent to other uses, including, you know, single-family dwellings. This SLU code relates specifically to private and primary schools. Just adding that it refers back to 226H, and then under the 226H, we're just simply referring to it as private schools. No other significant changes are made under that section. The Planning Commission did review that and recommend it reviewed these changes and recommended approval. I'd be glad to address any questions you may have.

Any questions from the council?

I have some.

Okay, go ahead, Debbie.

So I'm concerned that, you know, daycares are really difficult. Getting good daycare is an ongoing problem for families, and if you remember, I mentioned I was a single family. I was a single mother for years. So I was wondering, this looks like for every 4 students, a 0.24, and I was comfortable with the smiling faces to go even a little higher. I think I remember even up to 100. I'm wondering, Jason, the 0.24, it's a national standard, but I think we have a little larger families, and I'd like to think, what would a 0.21 Almost a 1 per 5, um, give us— would that be a little more flexible? And could you run— have you run the numbers on that and what that would look like?

0.21?

Yeah, 0.21 or 0.2.

Yeah, well, in order to get, uh, I think the question you had when we talked previously was if, uh, Smiling Faces wanted to get to 100, which is what we talked about, they would have to get to a 0.15. Based on the parking. So really, based— it depends on the number of parking stalls that somebody can provide and the number of children that they want to have in the facility. So it really depends on how that would work.

Is there some way to compromise and make that a little lower? The reason I say that is, if you remember correctly, I actually watched their operation and I watched how the parents came, and I actually timed them both in the morning and in the evening and walking in, and I mean, the parking thing was only occupied for 1 to 2 minutes, and then it was gone. So I guess I'd like to be a little more liberal, a little more sensitive to the needs of our daycares and the parents. I understand the concerns with the neighborhood and traffic, but I would just like to be business-friendly and family-friendly. So that's, that's my 2 cents.

Jason, a question. It seemed like When we considered this for the conditional use, a 0.20 gave the occupancy of 100 kids. The 0.15, I guess, is related to not allowing parking on the street and making sure that employees are included in this parking ratio. Is that correct?

Well, yeah, it does exclude the On-street parking doesn't mean they can't park there, but it would not be counted towards meeting the requirement. So in Smiling Faces' case, the 0.15 would be— because they only have 15 parking stalls on site, the 0.15 would be needed to get that 100 children. But that does not include the extra parking that would be required for the, you know, teacher or part-time teachers. That's only for students.

Okay. I would be in favor of that as well. One thing I think that's important to realize is that we are in great need of good childcare facilities. We don't have enough within the city. And this particular group, which seems to be, you know, this ordinance is focused on Smiling Faces. from that conditional use permit. So they've gone in and purchased this, this building land. And I think there's 7,000 square feet per building. And it's quite a risk for this group to go from leasing a small facility to actually buying a large facility. And I know their plan was originally to be able to have 200 students, which according to various people the state has allowed. But I think it's important that these people be allowed to have more than 83 so that in fact they can pay for that building. With 83, it's going to be very hard for them to meet their payments, and the other building will not be used. So anyway, I would like to see the ratio go up as well.

And Mayor, just to clarify, we were not targeting, or are we doing this specifically based on this daycare? It's basically for projects going forward, making it a permitted use. And because of the permitted use, I mean, the council is not going to see anything going forward, right? Any future project. So we wanted to make sure the ratio was sufficient so that it would satisfy this, but this is not intended to target or circumvent anything that Smiling Faces wants to do in the future. They will be affected, yes, but it wasn't written specifically to stop them.

So I understand, but this really only affects, according to you, 3 facilities in the city, and This came about, as you said, to make it a permitted use, changing it from the conditional use that Smiling Faces received.

So—

Right.

They still have their conditional use that's grandfathered in, but the action on staff to look at this is to change that from a conditional to a permitted use for anything in the future.

Right.

And going forward, we try our best not to have any conditional uses. I don't remember the training a few weeks ago when Steve Earle talked about that. We're trying to eliminate a lot of conditional uses.

Yes.

It opens the Pandora's box of everybody wanting to come and, and, you know, visit and, you know, banter back and forth with the council. So this basically sets the standards, and if they can meet the standards, then they are permitted rather than having to go through the hassle of the conditional use process.

So let me ask you a question. If they wanted to come in and set up a different ratio on stalls to child on their conditional use permit, they could apply to the city council for that. But if they were turned down, they would still be allowed their conditional use permit. The conditional use permit would not change. Is that correct?

So this would basically make them legal nonconforming to the 80, 83, or 84 students they have. They would not be subject to the conditional use permit. They would be subject to this ordinance going forward. So there's— they would be applicable or be able to— they would be legal nonconforming, legal what they have, and then they would have to comply going forward.

Yes.

And if they wanted to change, they would have to petition the city and the council to do an amendment to the new code to allow the parking stall-child ratio to change.

Yes, they would do like anyone that wanted to do an ordinance amendment, they would propose that, and based on, you know, their years of experience or years of, you know, studying their parking and the way it works, they could come with that information to the council and try to show the council that, hey, they can meet this certain standard and do an ordinance amendment. That would be the procedure. If this is passed tonight, that would be the direction they would need to go in the future.

And would that ordinance amendment be applicable only to them or to others in the future?

Any, any commercial daycare in the residential zone.

Okay.

All right. Any questions or comments from the council?

I have a question. So what we're talking about tonight, again, just to verify, so this, this has no bearing on those that are already in place and operating, including Smiling Care or Smiling Faces. This is just moving forward, any that would apply moving forward.

That is correct, but it does lock those that have whatever occupancy they have now is what they can have in the future, unless they can meet the new standards.

Yes.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions from the council? Okay, let's go ahead and open it up for public comment. This is a public hearing, and we would ask that anyone who wishes to speak Hold their comments to 3 minutes. We're going to hold— I don't know how many we have, but we're going to hold it to 10 comments, 10 people giving comments at 3 minutes each. And Steve, I'm going to give it 90 seconds for the public comment portion to be received starting now.

Okay, Mayor, while we, while we do that, we do have some written ones that we can use to fill that.

Okay, go ahead and read.

First one is Courtney Newman says, my name is Courtney Newman. My 2 kids go to this daycare. Not once have I ever taken more than 5 minutes to get them in or out of daycare. The restrictions being placed on Smiling Faces are ridiculous and discriminatory. The building is on Main Street and 400. It is not in a gated community or subdivision. They are wonderful people who I trust with my children. Please don't make things harder for them just because you have some odd vendetta against them.

Any others?

Mayor, we do have a call in. I'm going to let her in. Her name is Tara Bishop.

Tara, go ahead.

Tara, can you hear us? Tara, are you there?

Let's see.

I think she just is still— she's muted.

Oh, that may have just—

Tara, can you hear us?

Yes, I can.

There we go.

Okay, Tara, I'm gonna— you're on the meeting, the call with the council right now, and you'll have— go ahead.

3 minutes. All right, thank you. So thank you so much for holding this public hearing and the tireless efforts that My hope is that the council will motion to table the vote tonight and spend the resources necessary to make an informed decision when changing a city ordinance that could have a deep impact across the city. I listened to the discussion of the state street master plan during your working session, and it was very clear that the city is growing very substantially. I believe, as Jamie said, it was 75% of the city's growth population is new residents. Thank you. in Utah is happening, quote, in the bedroom, which means we have lots of young families that will need childcare. A study done in part by UVU states that in 2017, 1 in 2 children are under the age of 6 that have all available parents in the workforce. It was also found that there was over 157,000 children in Utah needing care and only 41,000 slots available in childcare programs. The proposed ordinance would limit any new daycare, which also includes the expansion of current daycares. I know it's in residential zones to a ratio of 0.24, which is near a 4-to-1 ratio. This number was attained from an ITE study done across the country, and as earlier discussion has happened already, the Planning Commission shared that this does not really reflect Utah demographic conditions of families. We are the state with the largest families in the nation with an average of 3.2 children. And so it would make sense to have a ratio that more closely reflects that we will have multiple children in a family attending a daycare. My crude data collection shows that at no point in any— none of the daycares that meets the requirements of the proposed new ordinance in the residential zones, which means that this is going limit any kind of expansion or possible inviting of new daycares in the area. There's major plans for State Street, and there's a lot of transition zones that are of concern, and daycares could easily fill in those transition zones to make that commercial to residential transition much nicer. The Planning Commission has also shared that there have not been any traffic studies that have been done to inform the decision on that 0.24 ratio if it's appropriate for Orem daycares. So I urge the council to table the vote. Let's gather the information and decide what would be more appropriate for our city, and then change the ordinance to allow for a permitted use rather than conditional use permits. And again, I thank you so much for taking the time and letting me speak, and I am more than happy to discuss with any Thank you.

We appreciate that. Any other call-ins or write-ins, Steve?

Yep, Mayor, we do. We have another write-in. This is from— we don't have a The comment says, this comment is concerning the parking rule being proposed for daycares in residential areas. Being a client since before Smiling Faces moved to their new Main Street location from State Street, I felt so much better taking my toddler into this new location. As you know, the traffic on State Street gets very heavy, especially during rush hour. Pickup and drop-off was more difficult for us parents, and we had to merge into congested street, causing panic. And uncertainty because of the many cars parked on that street. Since Smiling Faces has moved to their new location on Main Street and 400 South, pickup and drop-off are, are a breeze. I spend only 2 minutes in the parking lot to pick up and drop off. I drop off my child at 8 AM, where in the very spacious parking lot there are only 2 more cars at the most. As I pick up my child at 4:30, I often find myself alone in the parking lot. To get to this facility, I drive up 400 South, on that same road as Orem Elementary School. This is where I often find the most traffic in the street, which affects the traffic on Main Street. Ever since the Pardos decided to buy this facility, surrounding neighbors have been giving them a rough time to settle. They don't want the daycare there because— but let me explain why they need to expand. First, at only 3 years old, my daughter is starting to read. Being an elementary school teacher myself, I have seen how my, my child has benefited from this learning center more than placing her in a normal city daycare, not only socially but academically. Second, Mrs. Pardo and her staff are certified teachers or working towards their certification. This makes this facility not a daycare facility but a learning center due to its credentials. Third, as I have explained and as KSL witnessed, there is no traffic congesting either Main Street or 400 South because of smiling faces. Lastly, having known the Pardos since I was a little girl, I've always known them as kind, nurturing, and upstanding citizens. They are essential to the Orem community. They have made the news with their amazing work. They have earned city awards. The mayor himself visited the facility back in the fall this year and was impressed with everything the center offers to the kids of our community. Smiling Faces should be able to expand with no difficulty. Thanks for your time.

Okay.

One.

Yeah, one, one more. This is from Renee Caron. C-A-R-O-N. My name is Renee Caron and I am an Orem citizen. Regarding agenda item 9.3 for commercial daycares and residential zones, please consider yourself— consider one or more of the alternative options. A, delay any voter action until proper traffic study has been conducted to determine the impact to the neighborhoods surrounding 410 South Main Street. Grant Smiley Faces an exemption or variance to the proposed ordinance that would allow a maximum capacity of 200 students with the current parking setup. Amend the proposed ordinance so that additional parking can be provided offsite with a reasonable distance, such as across the street, so that business owners can purchase additional land to expand. Amend the proposed ordinance to more accurately reflect local family child rates so that number of parking stalls are suggested Based—

sorry, I got lost for a second.

So the number of parking stalls are suggested based on enrolled households and not enrolled students. 2 or 3 children within the same home, presumably traveling together, should be considered as one unit in the 0.24 scenario. Thank you for your time looking at any combination of these ideas. Options are available to respect the homeowners that have worked hard to keep their neighborhoods safe and beautiful without completely hobbling this small business that provides an essential service to your residents. Please consider some middle ground.

Okay, any other written or call-in comments?

Give us just one second, Mayor, just to confirm. No others have just recently come in.

Okay, Mayor, sorry, just, just pulling it up out of the—

You're fine.

Okay, this is McKenzie Kelch. I am writing this comment in regarding to the Smiling Faces Bilingual Center. I am so fortunate to know the owners of the center and have seen firsthand their hard work. They are some of the most kind and caring people I have known. They do not deserve the hoops they're having to jump through. They provide a safe and loving environment for all of the children. They care so much about the well-being of all of the students. We are so lucky to have them in the city and are so lucky for their example they have shown everyone. Okay, this is another one. This is from Chad Nickel. I am a law enforcement officer. My wife is a registered nurse. Throughout this pandemic where we have seen— been on the front lines, my family has not had the luxury of working from home and staying safe. We need a safe environment for our 2 children. I have found such a safe haven in the Pardos amazing facility. My oldest has been going since she was born, now in 2nd grade. She excels in her class and gets top scores, and she is bilingual in a time where our world is changing and the need for a second language is crucial. All my thanks in this is due to Smiling Faces Daycare and Bilingual Center. I have personally helped Mr. and Mrs. Pardos in their transition to this new building, and I have personally witnessed the city putting up every roadblock imaginable to this poor, incredible family who throughout it all entirely insist on doing it the right way despite the many challenges they face. I have personally witnessed the racism towards them, and believe me, I don't say that lightly. I believe in the good, good people, and I'm still at a loss for words That there is— that there is prejudice in this society, and it comes— and it can come from people who are in appointed positions. I have witnessed Mr. McDonald of Warm City on multiple accounts belittle the Pardos, from sending emails to Mr. Pardo for having a car in the parking lot of his own facility later in the evening— thousands of man-hours has been put into restoring this building, which he has sat empty— to the final straw that would support my claim of Mr. McDonald McDonald's targeting. He walked into the Pardo's business and threatened and intimidated this amazing family. He said to Mr. Pardo, this is an upscale neighborhood and we will be monitoring it closely for any little thing that is out of place and we will not hesitate to shut you down. But not only did he make it a point to intimidate these hardworking Warren citizens, people he has been entrusted by, but he did it on the day of their new building's grand opening, a day of excitement, joy, and relief for thousands of man-hours and thousands and thousands of dollars they put in this facility to make it a safe learning environment, they could. I find it odd that a key antagonist for this proposal, such as Mr. McDonald of Orem City, happens to have a son who lives in this upscale neighborhood very close to this wonderful business. It would seem there's a conflict of interest. He should have had the ethics to withdraw himself from something where he has such a very vested interest. As the city of Orem, they should reconsider this proposal and how it negatively affected the businesses such as the Pardo's I drop off my kids every morning and pick them up every afternoon and have always been in the only car in the parking lot. Occasionally there has been one other car, usually pulling out as I get there, pulling in, or as I leave. I've seen no evidence of any increase in traffic due to the Pardo's business. The Pardos have even spent $10,000 doing traffic studies on the subject that supports this. The city has done no investigation of their own. They have not hired an outside company to do an independent traffic study.

The city needs to do their job.

Thank you. The city needs to do their own due diligence and create unbiased results. With the ongoing pandemic, our government should be promoting small businesses that provide such great services and are at the forefront of rebuilding our economy. We the people trust in you. Do the right thing.

Okay, anything else?

Mayor, that's all.

Hey, I had my hand raised before that last statement, but now I have more to add to it when you can call on me.

Well, we had to wait for— find out if anybody else was going to call in. So I've seen your hand, but you have to wait till—

Yep. But now that it's over, I just wanted to make sure you've seen it.

The public comment portion of the meeting is closed and brought back to the council. So with no other comments, I will close the public comment portion of the public hearing and bring it back to the council. And Tom, you can go ahead and make a comment.

Well, without addressing the most recent statement, Jason— although I will before my time's up— Jason, how hard would it be? I thought the one woman's comment of suggesting it should be per household instead of per student was worthy of consideration, not only for this daycare, but for any daycare. How hard would that be to monitor if we did amend the document that way?

I'm not certain how we would keep track of number of children they have per household. That would, I mean, per child is probably the easiest way to do it. I don't know per household how we would actually manage that one.

Okay, I would be okay with a lower number. I did indeed visit the daycare on their open house. I said nothing like what that gentleman addressed. And in fact, Jason Bench, a realtor who was there, said— Jason Dodge, excuse me— said, hey, Tom was one of the good guys, he voted for you. So I am a little bit taken aback. I'd be happy to talk to the owner at any time, but, but I would be agreeable to a lower I think that's a lower number given the fact that we do have more families that would drop off more than one child. I think that's appropriate. I found everything in that daycare to be extremely well taken care of when I visited there on their grand opening. And so I'm quite frankly taken aback by that last person's comment. Maybe, Stephen, you can give me his contact information. I'd be happy to contact him after the meeting. But in any case, I'd be happy with a lower number, and I'd be happy with a per household, but understand Jason's comments.

Okay, any other— Brent?

Oh yeah, one other thing. I don't have a child who lives in Orem, so I don't know that last reference.

Okay, are you finished?

Tom?

Yeah, that's it.

I just wanted to make sure he got his facts straight.

Okay, Brent, look like you have your hand up.

Yeah, I just, uh, before when we approved the daycare in the, in the neighborhood, my understanding, um, and I voted for it, my understanding is what the applicant would cap it at 83, and that would be the number that he would, uh, the children that he would have there. Uh, you know, I, I've read emails where he wants up to 200. Where are you— where are all these people going to come from? I mean, not the kids, but where are they going to park? I, I'm not sure. Uh, when he agreed on the, the 83, I— that kind of convinced me to grow— uh, vote for it anyway.

Okay, thanks, Brent. Anyone else care to make a comment? Okay, I was gonna say when we did the 83, he did want a higher number. I had made a motion for 100, which did not receive a second or any votes. We voted on and came to agreement on 83. His desire has been from the start to get a permit, and then if he could show that he's doing it properly and get a traffic study to have people look to see if he could increase that number. I'm interested to see the idea that Tom and the other individual brought up of looking at it per household. I would say probably many of the people going there have more than one child in the facility. And I don't know if it'd be that hard because you could Have their last names and you'd have the child and you'd know if they're in the household or not. I am in favor of a different ratio that would allow more children. I'm also intrigued on the idea of could he purchase some land across the street for parking and allow some scenario to have that tie into his daycare facility. Personally, I would like to look at the possibility of a traffic study, as has been suggested, the possibility of looking at household, possibility of looking at lower numbers, and the possibility of looking at land close by. So my personal feeling would be to continue this and allow our city staff to study those 4 ideas. I don't know that there's a rush on this for any reason. He's under a conditional use permit. I'm not aware of the other 2 commercial daycares, Turn Facilities and A to Z Building Blocks, planning on expanding anytime soon. So I would like to look at, at a, you know, continuing this and allowing staff to look at these 4 ideas. So I would like to make a motion to that effect, that we continue this item and, and take a look at it and continue amending Section 22-6-9G, Commercial Daycare Services, Section 22-6-9H, Private Schools, of the Orem City Code, and Appendix A.

Second.

amending Section Standard Land Use Code 6813, Private Primary and Secondary Schools, pertaining to commercial daycare services and private schools in a residential zone, and continuing this on until, I believe, January 12th, if I'm saying that right, on our next City Council meeting. Mayor, is there a second?

Hey, Mayor.

Yes.

I'm not sure that the 12th would be sufficient time to do all that you're asking. Maybe we just continue it and then we'll republish it when we want to bring it forward.

Okay, that would be fine. I think that would be helpful so that we get this right and that we give, you know, a chance to look at this so that We encourage childcare within the city, and I'm particularly sensitive to our police, first responders, our care people that work in the hospitals, that they have childcare. And then we look at ways to make, you know, to see if this is the right way or if we need to make some adjustments and allow staff to look at that. Is there a second to continuing this item?

So moved.

Second.

Okay, thank you, Debbie. Let's go ahead and take a vote. We'll start out with Dave Spencer.

Nay.

Tom McDonald.

Nay, because I'd really like to get this resolved instead of the negative feelings that just keep coming back. Nay.

Terry Peterson.

Nay.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Debbie Laree?

Aye.

Brent Sumner?

Nay.

And the mayor? I vote aye as well. So that motion fails. Would anyone else care to make a motion? All right, if there's I could—

I'll make it, Mayor, if I can find it.

9.3, public hearing on the ordinance of the scheduled items.

Everything's gone to pot here. Just a second.

Could someone pull that up on the screen for Brent? Share screen.

Do you see that, Brent? I'm—

let's see, 9.3. I'd like to make a motion that the City Council approve the current ordinance amending 2269G.

We're not— I'm sorry, Brent, we're not approving the current ordinance. We're amending the ordinance.

So, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

The ordinance is amending these sections.

Amending Section 2269, commercial daycare service, Section 2269, private schools of the Orem City Code and appendix, by amending Standard Land Use Code 6813, private, private primary and secondary schools, pertaining to commercial daycare services and private schools in residential zone.

Okay, is there a second?

I'll second that.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start with Dave Spencer.

Aye.

Tom McDonald. Tom, you there?

On mute.

Sorry, I'm still muted.

Aye.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson?

Aye.

Debbie Luray?

Nay.

Brent Sumner?

Aye.

I, the mayor, vote nay. The motion passes. Okay, thank you, Jason. We'll move on to item number 9.4, which is a public hearing. Amending Article 22-6-9, Accessory Apartments, of the Orem City Code to clarify language in the Accessory Apartment Ordinance. And Jason Bench is the presenter.

Thank you, Mayor. This item tonight is just to clarify some of the components of the Accessory Apartment Overlay Zone. We have had a few ownerships that come in as a corporation or an LLC. And we want to make sure that this ordinance is amended to require at least 50% of that owner be an owner of the corporation or LLC. What we've had is some people giving a minor ownership and wanting to count that as being an owner, and so this clarifies that as a 50% owner or more. Defines what a bedroom is. We've had several people coming in and wanting a 3-bedroom unit but calling one of their unit or one of the bedrooms—

Then—

Or an office, and we want to need to clarify that We're only allowing a maximum of 2 bedrooms for an accessory apartment. And then in interior connections, we, we have always required an internal connection. So a basement has stairs going up to the main floor. They can lock the door or close the door, but there has to have some internal connection. And so this addresses those concerns that we have. So the first one is the 50% that we talked about.

And that's Fairly straightforward.

The next one is the definition of what the bedroom is. So if it's an office, or you label as an office, a library, a den, a sewing room, game room, and it has a window and it has a, you know, it looks like a bedroom over a certain size, then we're going to call it a bedroom. Anything that's designated as a bathroom or utility room that, you know, has your furnace and things, obviously it's going to be a utility room. Or any room that's less than 50 square feet. So if it's a pantry or things like that, we'll obviously allow that as another room. But anything that's big enough and looks like a room, we're going to call it a room based on this definition. And then the internal connection just clarifies that the accessory apartment needs to have a direct connection to the main dwelling because it is an accessory unit. We can't have a separate unit on the other side of the garage or some other location. and still counted as an accessory unit to a main dwelling. So this just clarifies that as well. The Planning Commission did review that and recommends that the council amend the ordinance as proposed. Any questions that I can address?

So, Jason, so if a corporation or an LLC owns 10%, and an owner of that is trying to say he's an owner of the building, then he's trying to get an accessory apartment allowed in there. Is that correct?

Well, what is— what's happening is that we're having renters that come in and the owner is, let's say, out of state or lives somewhere else in Utah and gives them a 1% or 2% ownership in his home or in the corporation so that he can then via have an accessory apartment or live in the accessory apartment. What this is clarifying is that the actual owner, at least 50% owner, has to live in the accessory apartment or the dwelling in order to rent the apartment as an accessory apartment. So, to kind of get around somebody circumventing the ordinance that says I'm an owner and I only have a, you know, small percentage of the ownership.

So, what happens if a corporation owns 75% the individual is not there per se, they're not allowed an accessory apartment?

They would have to rent the whole house. That's correct.

So if somebody lives there, they are not an occupant.

That's correct.

Mayor, can I, can I make a comment to address that?

Sure.

Yeah, the ordinance already addresses the situation where you might have a trust, for example, that owns a house. That's a pretty common situation. And we just want to make sure that however the house is owned, that at least 50% of the equity interest in the house is owned by people who actually live in the house so that people aren't basically establishing a fiction where it's not really owner-occupied because like Jason said, they might only have a 1% or a 2% or other nominal interest in the house. These accessory apartments are intended to be owner-occupied and we want to make sure that they are legitimately owner-occupied, no matter, you know, how the house is set up in terms of its ownership.

So you're not setting up houses as duplexes?

That's correct. Exactly.

All right. Any questions or comments from the council? Okay, well, this is a public hearing, so we'll open it up for public comment. And we'll start 90 seconds right now.

On Fletcher's.

Um, Okay, our 90 seconds are up. Steve, have you received any comments?

No comments, Mayor.

All right, we'll close the public portion, comment portion of our public hearing and bring it back to the council. Any comments from the council? All right, I would like to make a motion that we, by ordinance, amend Article 22-6-9, accessory apartments, of the Orem City Code to clarify language in the accessory apartments ordinance. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Second.

Okay, let's go ahead and start. Dave Spencer.

Aye.

Tom McDonald.

Aye.

Barry Peterson.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Debbie Larray.

Aye.

Brent Sumner.

Aye.

And I, as mayor, vote aye as well. The ordinance passes. We'll move on now to a resolution. This is approving a conditional use permit for an accessory structure Basketball court and garage located at 1391 South 1140 East in the PD-18 zone. And our presenter is Jason Batch.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is down in the Berkshire neighborhood. There's an existing home down there that they want to add some additional— a swimming pool in this location right here, and an indoor basketball half court. Court basketball, and then a garage as well. In the ordinance, it does require conditional use permit for any structure in the PD-18 zone that's over 1,000 square feet. This one's just over 1,200— 1,200 square feet— 1,700 square feet, excuse me. So the front part will be acting as the garage. The back part will be at a lower level, in this level here with the pool and pool house. with a half-court basketball. And so they're requesting a conditional use permit. Here's the elevations. You can see on the left side of your screen the basketball. The right side of the screen is the garage that faces the street. It does— the materials do match the existing home, which is also a requirement. So we do not have any conditions. The Planning Commission recommends that the City Council grant the conditional use. It does meet the setbacks, does meet the height for the location that they're proposing. Any questions?

All right. This is not a public hearing. This is a resolution. And any comments or questions from the council? If not, then by resolution, I make a motion that the City Council approve a conditional use permit for an accessory structure Basketball court and garage located at 1391 South, 1140 East in the PD-18 zone. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, let's start with Brent Sumner.

Aye.

Debbie Laree?

Aye.

Jeff Lampson?

Aye.

Terry Peterson?

Aye.

Tom McDonald?

Like to say aye, subject to allowing Junior Jazz to play there, but I'll just say aye.

Dave Spencer.

Aye.

Okay, the resolution passes. We'll now move to item 9.6, which is a continued item. This is an ordinance amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zoning of approximately 2.16 acres from the OS-5 zone to the C-2 zone at approximately 2000 South Geneva Road. Jason, you are our presenter. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is obviously a redo, like you were saying, a continued item. The corner of 2000 South Geneva Road, they are proposing this rezone. You had the public hearing last meeting. I believe the public hearing was closed. You did continue to allow the developer to go back and proffer a development agreement. They have come forward with a development agreement. I'm just going to go through preliminary just to remind you of what they're proposing. A gas station with a couple of restaurants or fast food on the sides with 8 pumps with 16 fueling stations. And there's a couple of night pictures. What the development agreement came back— Jason, are you sharing your screen? Oh, yes, I thought I was.

No, it's not.

Oh, sorry about that. We'll try it again.

Now you've got us in the mountains.

Now that I've given you the commentary, I'll just show you the photos really quick. So this is what was presented last week, or last time. They haven't proposed any changes to that. This is what was in the development agreement, or is in the development agreement based on our discussion last time, that they comply with the concept plan as, as presented, which you're looking at tonight, that the lights be dimmed after midnight and only allow security lighting. Any other light that's part of— that's not part of the security would have to be dimmed to zero. Hours of operation, what they're proposing— I know we talked, or they talked about 11 PM. They're requesting 5 AM to midnight, but then allow the pumps to have operations. So nobody would be in the commercial facility, it would just strictly be credit card operations of the pumps themselves. So that would be allowed based on this development agreement. Restriction of the fuel pumps, that it would be the 8 pumps, 16 fueling stations, and it would not be allowed any semi-trucks or other larger vehicles to fuel with the diesel, or those types of things would be limited to small trucks and passenger vehicles that use the diesel. And then there is some easements with water, sewer, and stormwater that run on the backside of the property that they're willing to, in this development agreement, agree on an easement. for that. So these are the criteria that they're proposing and have proffered and signed the agreement, and they're here tonight to request the council approve the rezone. Any questions that I can address?

Yeah, Jason, I've got a question. On the fueling after hours, how much light's going to be, you know, at the pumps? Because that, that could bleed over into the neighborhood.

I'm assuming this is kind of rendering what they're proposing. I don't know what the candlelight would be on that. It would be probably enough for not only safety, but maybe enough so people could actually see. But that's probably the applicant would have to address that.

That'd be my concern.

So, Tom, do you have a comment?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I did speak to a member of the Planning Commission. who voted against this proposal, and I told them that we might have some limitations on agreement. They said, oh, if I'd known that, I would have voted for it. So I just think more information is helpful, and I'm grateful for the work the staff and the developer has done.

Okay, any other comments?

Mayor, could I address Councilmember Spencer's question regarding the lighting?

Sure.

So, so the—

Jason, if you go back to that last concept, yeah, that one right there. So basically, the development agreement itself says that the nighttime renderings of the project, including what you're seeing on your screen there, illustrate the nature and type of lighting that may be employed during the hours of 12 AM to 5 AM. Now realize that this rendering is not, you know, exact. It doesn't give you any real hard definition or standard, but it is intended to give you a a general idea of the nature and type of lighting that would be allowed during those nighttime hours. So it's not supposed to be greater than what you're seeing on that concept.

So, uh, Ed Axley is on the call too, in case anybody has questions for the developer.

Well, I was going to mention, I know I've seen some new service stations being built, and they have lighting that is in the canopy and directs light straight down so it does not create light pollution out into the neighborhood. Can the applicant confirm that?

Absolutely, Mayor. I know this is John Jensen. I work with Ed Axley. I'm sure we're just trying to comment as well. One of the things we mentioned in working through the development agreement to both Steve and primarily Steve Earle was that when the credit cards are being used at night after general hours, they also reduce down to like 50%. I mean, it's pretty dramatic. So the idea is exactly as you just presented it, is, is it doesn't create light pollution. They're wonderfully directed LEDs. And I would think it's very similar to what you've witnessed or observed. They are they're comfortable because they don't bleed out and around to the surrounding area.

Thank you. Brad Sumner, do you have a question?

Yes, I read the traffic report in the packet, and 4 or 5 times it said critical for different flows. I guess my question is, When will that light be up and when will that road be worked on to, to widen or additional lanes or whatever they're doing?

That's a good question, Brent. We're trying hard to get that done. As you may realize, Lakeview Parkway is going to be joining in onto Geneva Road and they will be widening that. It comes down to a road bond being passed by the state legislature, and UDOT has given this road a number for expansion and has given it a priority and has put down an amount of money. So I've been working with a bunch of the legislators. I've been working with UDOT to see what they we can do about getting this done so the road doesn't get torn up twice, which is what will happen if the Church over by the temple does their portion, and then UDOT comes in and does another portion. And that we save money by having the Church do half the road and the state do the other half. So it's an ongoing discussion for the legislature coming up next month.

Does that include the light in what you just said?

No, I think the light would be put in regardless, but—

Well, I know, but when— that would be with the approval of the expansion of that road?

That would—

the expansion of that road would come through UDOT being funded by the state legislature through a road bond, and the light, I believe, will be put in regardless. But we don't want to put it in twice.

So, okay, thank you.

And Tom McDonald, did you have a comment? Okay, Jeff.

I had re-lowered it. Sorry to be a delay on that.

Hey, Jeff.

Yeah, so I went by, I went by this property again today for about the 3rd or 4th time. And I noticed something today that I hadn't noticed before or hadn't thought of before. before, but this property actually sits lower than the neighborhood behind it. And that was one of my concerns is the lighting and how that would, you know, even if it was all shining down, it still might be a little bright. But as I was looking at it, it looks like the neighborhood actually sits up higher than the actual, this property. And so It almost felt like that, that light wouldn't be as noticeable because of the elevation. So, my 2 cents.

Okay.

Mayor, this is Ryan Clark. From what I understand, Brady Hale is on the line, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the traffic signal is in design right now and will be built in 2021.

Okay.

I'm not sure what— at what point in the year.

Yeah, I think it goes in regardless of the widening of the road.

So, correct.

All right, any other comments or questions? So this is a continued item. We've already had the public comment portion of the public hearing in the previous meeting, and we just carried over the ordinance so we could find out the details of the development agreement, which we've seen. So if there's no other comment, I would like to make a motion that the City Council of Orem amend Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zoning of approximately 2.16 acres from the OS-5 zone to the C-2 zone at approximately 2000 South Geneva Road. Let's go ahead and start with Councilmember Spencer.

I guess you need a second, don't you?

I'm sorry, yes, a second. I'll do a second.

And I.

And I.

Okay, Tom McDonald.

I'll do a third and I.

Okay, Terry Peterson.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Debbie Laree.

Aye.

Brent Sumner?

Aye.

I, as the mayor, vote aye as well. The ordinance passes. Thank you, Jason.

Welcome.

We'll move on to item number 9.7, which is a resolution ratifying the real estate donation agreement between IHC Health Service, Inc. and the City of Orem. And Jamie Davidson is our presenter.

Mayor, thank you very much. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to be here this evening in cooperation with Intermountain Healthcare. I'm also pleased to recognize this evening Tom Uriona, who is a representative of Intermountain Healthcare, who is on our call today. And we appreciate working with, with Tom in relation to this project. in this property donation. As you know, the city has had a long-standing relationship with Intermountain Healthcare, and specifically Orem Community Hospital, in using property to the west of the hospital for recreation purposes here in the city of Orem. And a number of months ago, Tom approached me and the city and said Intermountain Healthcare would like to donate this property to the City of Orem so that it can remain in perpetual use for park and open space activities. And tonight we are here to have you, by resolution, approve a donation agreement between the City of Orem and Intermountain Healthcare. Specifically, what this agreement does is it recognizes and memorializes Intermountain Healthcare's donation of 9.87 acres to the City of Orem for a specific purpose identified as public recreational park or open space purposes. If the, if the property is used for that specific purpose by the City of Orem, we can continue to enjoy that acreage. Moving forward in perpetuity. However, if we were to choose to do something different with it, the property would actually revert back to Intermountain Healthcare. This the agreement also notes that the city agrees to keep a walking path or a trail that surrounds the property itself for perpetual use by the public, and as well documents a memorial. memorializes the opportunity for Intermountain Healthcare to provide signage recognizing and noting the donation of the property to the City of Orem. And this agreement is one where our intent is to seek your resolution, and by the close— specifically by December 29th— to close on this property. And so the property would transition from ownership of Intermountain Healthcare to the City of Orem by the end of this calendar year. Again, I just want to express appreciation to Intermountain Healthcare. They've been incredible partners over many, many years, and this is just another example of the generosity, generosity, and how wonderful of a community partner they are with the City of Orem. I'd like if I would love, if possible, Mayor, to give Tom just a few minutes for and on behalf of Intermountain Healthcare to add anything that he would like to add to this conversation.

First of all, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Jamie, thank you very much for your kind comments. Yeah, I, I've been with Intermountain 25 years, believe it or not. At the end of this month, I will retire, and this was something that I wanted— although I have very little influence, I want you to know— but this is something I wanted to see happen given the relationship we've had with the city for many, many, many years. And the city has made some, you know, reasonable capital investments to that property. And the bottom line is that the activities that have been going on there for 20-plus years are in harmony with Intermountain's desire to encourage people to live healthy lives, to live well. And to Jamie's point, we think it is a great, it is a great community benefit, and we want to see that continued. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions I can. Otherwise, thank you very much for your time tonight. And I wish you all a happy holiday season.

So, Tom, we just want to tell you our appreciation as well. And I, as the mayor, want to thank you. I have spent time over on those fields watching kids play soccer, and I can tell you that the children in our city will appreciate the great generosity of you and IHC Healthcare. Giving to the city of Orem. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll convey that message to Intermountain's management and its board. I played a very little part in this. It ends up being the board is— the board is the one that makes this decision. So they are the ones that truly value the relationship, but I do too because I've been involved for many years.

Sure.

Well, thank you very much. And several of our council members wanted to say thanks. Jeff Lampson, did you want to say something?

Uh, yeah, I just thank you so much. I think that's a wonderful, a wonderful gesture. And, and I too have had kids that have played soccer there. We've, we've been on those fields many times. And so thank you so much.

Councilor McDonald, did you have your hand up?

Yes, I did. Thank you, Tom. This is the other Tom. In the past, you've run some gardening efforts there. Are you going to continue that and bringing Little Sebastian, or will that be city responsibilities? Maybe someone could answer that, and then I have a follow-on question after that.

Maybe Tom, I can speak to that.

Okay.

The neighborhood garden or the community garden that you are referring to, Councilmember McDonald, is not part of this donation. So it will remain in the hands of Intermountain Healthcare.

Thank you. And then I just want to say to Intermountain Healthcare, thank you, and we will be good stewards of the trust you have given to us. And we appreciate it. And it enables us to increase our park footprint. into the future for our community. Thank you.

Yep, we— that's the way we feel as well.

Thank you.

Councilmember Pedersen would like to speak with you as well, Tom.

Tom, I just want to second what my fellow members of the City Council have said. All of us have been recipients of IHC in various stressful times sometimes, and very sad, and also some great times as we We use your services. We have great hospital facilities in a small community. And thank you so much. And encouraging us all to be healthy and to be outside walking and using this area. So we appreciate you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman. And that's the whole idea. We want to try and stay healthy. So we're glad to be a part of that in the city.

Any other comments from anybody on the council? All right, well, I would like to make a motion that we as a council pass a resolution ratifying the real estate donation agreement between IHC Health Service, Inc. and the City of Orem. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we'll go ahead and go through. Brent Sumner?

Aye.

Okay.

Debbie Laree?

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Terry Peterson.

Aye.

Tom McDonald.

Aye.

Dave Spencer.

Aye.

And I, as the mayor, vote aye as well, and the resolution passes. Thank you so much.

You bet, Mayor.

If I may, I want to thank Jamie and, and Greg for their efforts. They put a lot of time into this, and, and you got some great people working in your city, and we appreciate all their help. And I will, I will pass along your comments to management and the board. They're greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Take care, everyone. Have a good evening.

Happy holidays.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jamie. We'll now go back to item 9.1, and Brandon is Is Ron here?

He is, yes.

Okay, so, uh, yeah, I'll turn it over to him in just a second here. Uh, just give you a heads up, so Ron Stewart, uh, of the auditing firm of Gilbert and Stewart, uh, was, uh, responsible for the audit this year, uh, as in years past. And, uh, I will, uh, turn the time over. And it's always been a pleasure to work with Ron, so I I want him to know I appreciate him and his efforts and his firm's efforts. So without further ado, you know, and keeping in mind with Tom's comment about stewardship, talking about the stewardship of the money of the City of Orem, I'll turn the time over to Ron.

Thank you. Can everybody hear me okay?

Yes.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for being flexible tonight. I apologize for making you move things around on the agenda. But I appreciate that. So we were contracted to do the audit for Orem City for this year, and what I'd like to do tonight is just take a real brief moment and kind of tell you what we do as auditors, some of the procedures that we go through, and how we come to the conclusions that we do. So we really have 3 criteria that we're looking at, or 3 things we want to accomplish. One is to make sure that the financial statements that you have in front of you are materially correct. You can rely on those numbers. Second one is to make sure that the internal controls of the city are effective and are working and they're protecting and safeguarding the assets of the city. And the third is to make sure that we're in compliance with state law based on procedures prescribed by the State Auditor's Office. So what I'd like to do is just take a couple minutes and tell you how we kind of came to those conclusions. So to look at the financial records or the financial statements of the city. We look at the trial balance and the numbers that are presented, and then we perform a number of tests on those to make sure that those are materially correct. The most concrete way of being able to confirm a balance is to send it out to a third party and to confirm that with them. So we send out confirmations. We send out confirmations for cash, accounts receivable, long-term debt, and major revenues of the city and get those confirmations back from those third parties. We also pull a number of invoices. So as we're here and throughout the course of the audit, we look at a significant number of those. At the beginning, we pull a random sample of invoices just to make sure that those things— that they're properly recorded, that there's proper signatures, and it just gives us a good sense of how the city's doing. and what the records are looking like. And it also helps us to look at controls as we go through that to make sure there's proper approvals and it's being coded and posted in the proper period. We'll do that for accounts payable. We pull a significant number of invoices after the end of the year to make sure that they're posted in the right period. We'll look at capital assets and pull invoices for those, pensions, and credit cards. Other things like that, we'll pull to look at those invoices. We also recalculate balances. There's a number of accruals on the financial statements. Those are done by calculations. And so we'll take those numbers and recalculate those to make sure that those make sense and are reasonable. And we'll do that for payroll, depreciation, pension, and other accruals on the financial statements. We also do an analytical review at the beginning of the audit. We'll look this year compared to last year. We'll look through to see if there's any trends, any things that we see that we need to address. That kind of helps us zero in on what we're going to audit during the year, what things we'll look at. As we're testing, we'll make sure that we look at comparisons of prior years to see if what we're testing makes sense and seems reasonable with prior years. And then at the end of the audit, we do that as well to make sure that we've captured everything. And if there's anything that we see at the end that we haven't addressed, addressed. Through those procedures and tests, we come to the conclusion that the financial statements are materially correct. So if you look at the audit package, in our audit report, our opinion says, in our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects the respective financial position of the governmental activities, business-type activities, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information of City of Orem as of June 30th, 2020, and the respective changes in financial position and, where applicable, cash flows, and the restrictive and respective budgetary comparison of the general fund and major special revenue funds thereof for the year then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. That is an unmodified opinion. That's a clean opinion or the best opinion that you can receive. The second thing we do as auditors is is to make sure that the internal controls in the city are working. So we want to see that they're designed properly, that they're implemented, and they're working effectively. We do that through interviews, observations, and walkthroughs. And also, as we are doing testing, we're testing those controls as well.

Well, if—

while we don't necessarily give an opinion on internal controls, if there's something that comes to our attention, we would pass that along to you as the city. City Council. If there was a significant portion of the city didn't have controls or those controls weren't working, we would consider that a material weakness. If there were just areas where the controls were implemented and designed but somebody's not following those to the degree they need to, we would consider that a significant deficiency. Through our testing, walkthroughs, interviews, we didn't find anything that came to the level of either material weakness or a significant and efficiency. So we feel like your controls in the city are effective and they're working. And then the third thing we do is, is to make sure you're in compliance with state law. So the state auditor gives us certain procedures that we're supposed to review on an annual, once every 3-year, once every 5-year basis. And so we go through those. In fact, if you look at our report The back, it says, in our opinion, Orem City complied in all material respects with the compliance required above for the year that ended June 30th, 2020. So we feel like you are in state— in compliance with state law. There was one finding that we had, that your fund balance in the general fund exceeded the applicable levels. So you're required— or you're allowed to have 25% And you add over that. So all that means is that in the future we need to make budget adjustments to move some money from the general fund to the capital projects funds for certain— for future facilities or projects. That's a real quick review of what we do as an auditor and how we come to those conclusions. And I'd be happy to answer any questions anybody has.

So I have a question for Ron. This is Terry Peterson. How's your tennis game?

This time of year, not too good.

That's important. I needed to know that.

Thanks, Ron.

Pickleball paddle is doing all right, though.

Yeah. Well, we hopefully we get more paddleball courts built, pickleball courts being built in the city.

There you go.

There you go.

Okay, so we have no other questions, then I guess we can turn it over to the mayor.

So I will make a motion that by resolution the City Council accept the fiscal year 2019-2020 audit as presented. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay, we'll start with Dave Spencer.

Aye.

Tom McDonald.

Aye.

Terry Peterson.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Debbie Laree.

Aye.

Brent Sumner.

Aye.

And I, as the mayor, vote aye as well. So the resolution passes. Thank you to Brandon. Thank you, Ron Stewart. Good to have you here.

Thank you very much.

And just a shout out to Brandon and the staff.

We throw a lot at them, make them do a lot of things, and they do a great job of presenting the financial statements. You guys are lucky to have them in your city. So thank you very much.

Good. Thank you. All right. We have no further Scheduled items. Jamie, do you have anything you want to bring up?

No, I don't. Thank you very much.

Okay, then I move that the City Council adjourn to a meeting of the Orem Redevelopment Agency. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right, we will now open our Redevelopment Agency of Orem. The first consent item is approval The RDA meeting minutes of June 16th, 2020. Would anyone like to move this to a scheduled item? If not, I make a motion that we approve the consent items. Is there a second?

I'll second it.

Second.

All right.

Let's go ahead and start with Dave Spencer.

Aye.

Tom McDonald.

Aye.

Terry Peterson.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Debbie Laree.

Aye.

Brent Sumner.

Aye.

And I, as the mayor, as well. The consent items pass. Move on to the RDA scheduled items. First one is 14.1. This is a resolution authorizing the transfer of $1,292,485 from the redevelopment project area 85-03-A to the City of Orem to assist with the purchase of the Hillcrest Elementary property. And our presenter is Jamie Davidson.

Thank you, Mayor.

Earlier tonight, by resolution, you essentially took action as a City Council recognizing and acknowledging this transfer from the RDA to the general fund for the purpose of purchasing Hillcrest Elementary School and associated property. The Hillcrest Elementary School is actually found within this redevelopment area, 8503A, and one of the permitted uses of these RDA dollars is to dedicate these monies towards economic development purposes. And the intent tonight is to transfer the existing balance of dollars that is found within 8503A to the general fund to help in the purchase of the Hillcrest Elementary School property and school. So that is the item before you tonight.

Okay, thank you, Jamie. This is a resolution. Are there any comments or questions from the council? Okay, Dave Spencer, do you have one? Nope. Seeing none, I would like to make a motion that by resolution, the Orem City Council authorize the transfer of $1,292,485 From the redevelopment project area 85-03-A to the City of Orem to assist with the purchase of the Hillcrest Elementary property. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay, we'll start with Brent Sumner.

Aye.

Debbie Laree.

Aye.

Jeff Lampson.

Aye.

Terry Peterson.

Aye.

Tom McDonald?

Aye.

Dave Spencer?

Aye.

And as the mayor, I vote aye as well. The resolution passes. I now make a motion that we adjourn from our RDA agency meeting. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay, we are adjourned for the evening. Thank you very much to everyone.

Merry Christmas, everyone.