City Council · 2022-02-22

All right, let's go ahead and start this meeting.

Welcome.

Thank you. First presentation is on Zoom. And Steve, do you want to introduce us?

I will, yeah.

This is, this is Kevin Lyons. Kevin is in Reno area, I think. Is that right, Kevin?

Based out of Northern Nevada.

Based out of Northern Nevada. So as we've kind of had some initial conversations with some new members of the council, one of the interests has been getting more data, more pulse of the public on more issues. And so we've reached out and connected with this company that I wanted to have present to you. They're called FlashVote. What they specialize in is quick 48-hour turnaround on survey research about issues that we feel are important, whatever those would be, using representative samples of our community. So statistically significant representative samples of our community. So I wanted a chance for you to get to meet Kevin, answer— ask any questions, We're not under any contract with FlashVote at this time, but as it's something that you've expressed interest in, is getting more, more citizen feedback on issues, we wanted to bring you a solution potentially to that in FlashVote. So with that introduction, I'll turn the time over to Kevin to kind of talk about what they do. Ask him any questions, of course. We have about 30 minutes or so for the presentation.

Kevin?

Yep.

Terrific. Yeah, thanks, Stephen. And It was lucky to meet Stephen. I was giving a talk— I teach around the country on the science of public input, how to use it for different stuff— and we chatted afterwards and it seemed like an interesting fit. And we work with other cities in Utah, which is great. So great to meet all of you tonight. Hopefully you can hear me okay.

Yeah, we can hear you.

Anyone, anyone can't hear me? That's a joke. Yeah. Yeah, so we try to be fun to work with too, but I'm going to share my screen here in just a sec. Other— so in a nutshell, we figured out how to get representative input, input that you can generalize to your whole community in 48 hours. And it's, you know, as a personal story there, becoming a public official and getting yelled at at meetings and feeling like the whole world's against me. And then realize, like, wait, I actually have no idea what everyone else thinks, or all the people that talk to me or bug me on stuff. And I'm sure maybe a few of you guys can relate to that challenge. But the first thing I would say, just to make the best use of our time, is do you have any questions out of the gate for me that I can file away and make sure we touch on?

Kenny, I talked to him before. Any thoughts on, like, issues you've had with survey research in the past or things you want to make sure that—

Anything. Yeah, yeah. Concerns, questions, anything that we can make sure we cover. And feel free to bring them up later too.

I mean, some of the concerns I've had with some of the surveys we've done in the past, it seems like we, we try to get the answer we want with all the questions at the end, right? So Utopia survey, we gave this, this question and then said, hey, Nope, 69% don't want it. But then as it went through, you know, if it's free, do you want it?

Yes.

I mean, yeah, bogus survey in my mind.

So it doesn't—

that doesn't benefit me as a councilman and say what's, what's going on in the bubble. It was just— to me it was huge. So yeah, hold them and lead them to that answer. Great.

Anyone else? Something like that or different?

Okay.

I mean, I think that's the most pressing question, right?

I mean, just polls we've seen in the last presidential elections and different times when the polls are like 20 points off, even though it's a representative survey sample. So anyway, uh, how do you do this and get accurate information?

And then there's always—

I mean, I know the guys that used to own Western Blatts, they lived here, had a huge company here, and they did a ton of push polling. where they essentially used it as a tool to push the agenda that they wanted. So, yeah, it all comes down to good data coming in and meaningful.

Terrific. All right, anything else? Third time, third's a charm. Awesome. We will cover that then for sure. And first, we'll start out. A little interactive, keep it kind of fun as we move along. Take a guess. We've actually— we actually went back and looked at our first 300 surveys. How often do you think the public input sentiment that you get, you know, meetings, online surveys, anything like that, phone calls, emails, social media, matches the whole community sentiment? Anyone can throw out a number percentage if you want to take a guess.

50/50.

How about that?

50/50.

Okay.

All right.

So I can't really see who's taken over 50%. Just throw a hand up. We're not grading this or anything. Any hands?

All right.

Who's taken under?

Oh, there's a hand.

Okay, good. Who's taken under 50%?

Do we have a hand? One hand.

Okay, so about a split. So it turns out 5% of the time, It's a match. And, uh, yeah, and actually when we ask elected officials—

Right there.

Sorry?

I said I want to see the data behind that survey.

Yeah, you do.

Um, so it turns out about 50% of the time, 50% and above is what elected officials guess. And it turns out that, um, local government communicators actually guess more in the 0% to, uh, 25% range. And so 5% of the time it's a match, it's the same side and the same amount. So 10% looks like 10%. And then 25% of the time, the 10% looks like 40%, hasn't flipped all the way over. So depending on how you interpreted the question, 5% or 30%, you know, 30% would still be okay. And then 70% of the time it's the opposite. And this is one of those challenges again, when you're sitting there and go, geez, well, I mean, everyone's against us here. Well, is it a representative sample? Of course not. It's self-selected based on the topic. And this is how you end up with these numbers, which are kind of extraordinary if you consider flipping a coin or just doing the opposite of what you actually heard from people.

Question, Kevin.

Yes.

So can you just break that down and define that? As far as the public input sentiment, is that the results?

Yes. Yeah, so what we did is we looked at our first— and this will answer the previous question too— we looked at our first 300 surveys from customers around the country, and we went and looked for data that they already had prior to the survey going out. Maybe it was an online survey, maybe they were counting emails, maybe they, you know, had firm beliefs that they'd stated. What was that objective measurement that we had of what they believed about the public Before, before we did a survey. Then we did a survey and we looked at the differences. So for example, 85% of people in favor of a community center in an online survey, that they'll pay $100, no problem, turned out to be 33%. Or all these emails against, you know, 90% emails against turned out to be less than 50%. So examples like that. Make sense?

It kind of does, but I'm still not clear what you're defining as whole community sentiment. How are you coming up with that?

Yeah, so a representative scientific survey compared with the input that comes in naturally, you know, or—

Random, unbalanced, or some unscientific survey versus one that's got a statistical—

Yeah, exactly. Just the natural input, unscientific input, you know, what whatever you get from meetings, online surveys, all that stuff that's not scientific, not designed to be a representative sample, not to be something that you would generalize basically necessarily, even though we do, 'cause that's the way our brains work. Is that good?

Yep.

All right, so that's, that was, we knew it was off. We didn't know it was that bad, frankly, ourselves when we got started. And it comes down to a couple of challenges. One is if you take the population at Orem, which is just about 100,000, about the size of a big football stadium. Now you're down to registered voters, cuts it less— more than half. Then the ones that actually vote, and then the ones that actually voted for y'all. That's just an average of the 2021 election. Now even from there, of course, how many do you actually hear from regularly? Even if that was a representative sample, That wouldn't be great. It would be actually 100 representatives would be okay. That'd be plus or minus 10%, but typically it's a lot less. And of course, it's all self-selected, self-organized. People share stuff, they organize to come to meetings, to go online, to go on social media, and so on.

Can I say, your voter for the winners is based on your population, which includes people who can't vote.

I'm sorry, the what? The registered voters percentage?

No, your voted-for winners, 98-11, with this percent of the population, isn't it?

Correct.

Yeah, all of these are percentage of the population. That's exactly right.

Yep.

Should be a percentage of the registered voters.

Well, so the, um, the, the legal org chart is the public as a whole, right? So that's why we use this top number here.

Okay.

Yep, because they're all paying in, they're all using the facilities. They're basically those, uh, that's They're, they're the— they're what you represent. So yeah, good question. So basically you've gone from something like this, Michigan, I think they're over 100,000 actually, to something more like this typically. That's challenge one. And then the second challenge, and this was, this was an eye-opener for me when we got into the research, how well does the public know you? So, you know, I like to think that people know know me and maybe know what I— know the kind of things that I try to do or stand for. And take a guess how many Americans can name their governor.

17%.

They can't even name the president.

70?

That's pretty good.

Yeah, 67. What about a US— your congressional rep? Lower or higher, do you think?

Lower.

Yeah, you're all correct. And now what about your state rep? Lower or higher?

Lower.

Yeah. Now what do you think about local officials, right?

I'd say higher than state.

It's interesting. Yeah, it depends, I think. I've been looking for good up-to-date data on that, and it's a tough survey question to ask because of the spread, but It turns out that it's very age dependent, for sure. The older folks tend to know people, they're the ones that actually come to meetings, and the younger ones have breathtaking levels of political ignorance, that's the technical term. There's this two-way disconnect. In fact, that can go wrong in ways, some famous ways. One of the basic problems is that the local governments end up with— you end up with your decisions influenced We did a survey in California and Texas. Neither one of them are as good at local government as Utah, by the way. Take a guess what percentage have been influenced by just a few of these folks.

Dun, dun, dun.

It's almost statistically identical to 100%. Of course, I've been. I can't turn it off when people are there. I was in a meeting, we're getting yelled at about the new cannabis location in Nevada. And, you know, it's— I'd seen the email go around organizing people to come to this meeting and say that everyone hated this, and which is, you know, perfectly valid. About a half hour into getting yelled at, one person stands up in the meeting and just said, hey, you guys remember that 75% of this precinct voted in favor of this. And at that moment, we actually— all the air left the room and we went back from like, we're trying to convince me with their numbers that everyone hated this, which they didn't actually, to something more practical, which is like, okay, so this is— people want this, it's going to happen. How do we do it right? How do we do it? When is the security going to be there? How close to a school can it be? All that real practical stuff that actually everyone's a lot better at too. So that was a big eye-opener for me. And then if you think about the problem, it's a two-way thing because the public actually can get a misconception about what's going on potentially. So I'm gonna throw out a guess. What percent in 1972 in the South, what percent of whites do you think favored segregation? It's only a few years after the big civil rights legislation.

60%.

You guys going kind of the lower end or the higher end?

Middle.

Middle?

A little higher?

So most people guess middle or higher. Yeah, because of course it's there, it's going on, it's the law, right? Of course people favor it. So it turns out that the actual percent of whites— this was from a scientific survey done at the time— was 15%. But what was in the news, right? What's all the stories? Oh my gosh, look at all this activity. Does this sound like social media, by the way? Look at all these people that hate this thing, or look at all these people that are, you know, they're— every time there's a protest or a KKK march or, you know, a cross burning, it's in the news, it's in your face. And so people read the newspaper and they go, gosh, interesting. So what percent of whites believe majority of the whites in the area favored segregation? Higher or lower?

Media.

Yeah, 72%, right? So the public didn't even know what the public thought about this. And that was— this case is particularly tragic because, you know, arguably the segregation went on for years, decades perhaps. Maybe there was never really broad support for it. So that's the big challenge. And ultimately, what's going on behind the scenes? Well, it's, you know, here's your community. And who are you going to hear from on an issue? You could probably guess, right? You don't have to guess. You experience it like me.

Boom.

The edges, right?

Yes.

Like the supporters of something, they'll rally the troops, maybe even come with their own survey questionnaire data or something. And then the haters. And suppose it is the haters. It feels like this, doesn't it? Like it's everyone, 10 people there or 50 people there, or the phone calls and emails you get. But it could still be this because it's such a small number, because you're dealing with that tiny number out of that huge population. But it always feels— you feel the pressure, you feel your head. Even as a stats nerd, I have the part of my brain going, this is statistically insignificant. On the other hand, these are real people that care.

Right.

So that's why with Flashfoot, at the end of the day, basically we bring in the middle so you can figure out what's what. And so you can actually know how to serve your community as a whole, how to serve them the best you can, how to inform decisions as well. Because it's not, it's not really about up, down, yes, no. It's about those details. It's about what's important to you. What are your concerns? What are your problems? What are your priorities as a whole? And That's the stuff they love you for, doing a good job. Ultimately, that's— they may not know you, they may not know much about the system at all. Most people can't name the branches of government, all that, but they know how their community is functioning, and they know they're either getting happier with it or not. What happens is when the noisy few are steering the boat, perfectly well-intentioned officials, follow that, and they end up pissing off the whole community without even knowing, which is terrible. That actually leads to people losing trust and support, and of course, ultimately losing reelections to the extent that that's tracked by how well the community is serving the bulk of the people. What's nice about— by making a scientific panel, which is what we do, we can get large numbers of representative residents To give feedback. And what happens is people show up and actually just say nice things. So we've, we've had conversations with people where I say, hey, do you want more input? And they go, no, because they're thinking of what they have right now. But when you reach into that middle, there's regular nice people who are ready to say nice things and be supportive of stuff that you're doing as well. And you can click on our word clouds, for example, words like love or good and all that. And no one comes to a meeting, unfortunately, gets in their car, waits to talk, and just says, hey guys, just want to let you know you're doing a great job, and I'm going home now. Be nice if they did, right? But doesn't happen often enough. So instead of governing in a vacuum or blindly throwing darts, instead of doing traditional scientific surveys, which are great— I mean, all this really, just anytime you, you have an important issue, data is great if it's representative, generalizable. But it's always been expensive and slow, and so that's why we created FlashVote. Statistically valid input in 48 hours, any topic. We write the questions, draft, quality control, do everything for you. You know what you want to know. You guys are the experts in that. You know your community, and we help you get all the data you need to make it work. Once you have these large samples of regular people answering professionally designed questions, and then doing it frequently throughout the year, Automatically, then you have the reliable results to use. You can deliver more value out of your services, can save money, can reallocate from here to there to create a ton more value and ultimately make residents happier. So in pictures, it's basically 90% faster, 90% cheaper, 100% easier.

Because we still do all the work.

Okay, so I'll pause there. And actually, one more thing, since you guys did ask about it. was the kind of the methodology. And so in addition to being a survey tool and civic engagement tool at the same time, because there's this repeated thing, it's, it's really a unique scientific approach. Used to be unique, now it's not. We were the first to create a survey panel in 2013 compared to like Pew Research and other national firms, although Gallup I think goes back to maybe 2005, they started playing around. A year later, they did. 4 years later, Pew, the national firm, was doing the bulk of their research. More than 50% was running through their panel. The reason is, you can get regular people to participate and respond at high rates, say 50%, 60%, 70%, instead of random calls or random outreach where you might only get 1% response rate nowadays compared to 50%, 60%, 70% 20 years ago even. So we've grown quickly with this in local governments, cities, counties, special districts, and I'm actually at a school district conference right now. And we have customers in 25 states, including Utah. And, you know, it really comes down to, do you have 1 minute a month to help make Orem better? That's really the line. That's the bar. Not going to a meeting, not downloading any app. We're inclusive, so text, email, phone call, multilingual, if that's an option. And I'll take questions, try to keep it short. I can show you some examples too, as well. Other questions now that we've just gone through some stuff?

Yes.

Can I ask a question?

So tell me, I guess I don't understand how you do this. So how do you make sure that your survey is including foreign residents and not people from a different ethnicity?

Yeah, so part of the signup process, I do have some extra slides for questions, I'll jump to some actually. So the, the basic signup process for the panel, we capture some core information if they do it online. We also sign people up by phone, by the way, for that inclusivity. Real name, secure it, basic demographics, and then the key thing is address. So we actually have a geocoded address so we can tell whether they're in the city or not. We can tell what part of the city they're in, service district, electoral district if you had them. You guys are all large, I believe, but you get the idea. Anything that can help you look at sort of equitable services or different opinions around the city. Other questions?

So would you use the city database we have, like utility customers, like you've done in the past? Is that— that's a good question. So, Kevin, good question.

Yeah, yeah, with some customers we have used their data. We have our own though. We do have our own database that is, you know, full, the highest quality political database we have access to. And we can send messages, invitations out ourselves. We can do SMS messages, for example, direct to people, cell phone sample within your community. But we also work with your existing communication folks to push out through existing channels because it's low-hanging fruit. Others?

Yeah, you get a bias between younger people and older people that Older people are not familiar with technology?

Yeah, it's interesting. Which way do you think that bias goes?

I think it would go excluding the older people.

So that's exactly what we thought early on. It's exactly— we were just like, oh, how are we going to get old people? And so we actually started with the phone call first, thinking that might be important. So it turns out you have 2 effects. You have the technology effect, which would favor younger people. Right? I don't know if I'm doing this right for you guys. And then you also have the interest in local governments, skin in the game, you know, schools, kids, own a house, all those things, and it goes the other way. So it turns out that there's a strong— if you invite everyone equally, you get older people more than younger people. So it actually looks like voters, looks like the way people vote. Make sense?

You invite more young people than old people to balance it out? I'm sorry, are you saying that you invite more younger people than older people, the demographic, to balance it out?

Great question. Yeah, step 2. So what we do is we can look at the demographics. If we use— if we do the open push, open invitation, for example, using your channels and so on, we look at the demographics that come in and then we can adjust them. So we can use our SMS, we can use our database to then oversample, over-invite the younger people or the people in this part of the town and so on. Is that what you're asking?

Yes.

Yep.

Yeah, but the other thing is, and this is, this is kind of, kind of cool, the— so the filters, you know, what you really want to know is, are there differences among these groups? And so can you still see my screen here?

Yep.

All right, great.

So like, in addition to the overall number that kind of lumped together, think of it as like that polling number. This isn't political polling, this is actually decision support. So the details, the subgroups are really interesting. You know, for example, have you used a bicycle, you or your family? Well, there's differences. If you lump these all to one number, you know, older folks the lowest, 61 and up, 30 and younger, pretty good, but the highest is 31 to 45. Any guess what that might be?

That's me biking with my kids when I don't want to.

There is, that's exactly right. We see this across a lot of park issues. And so the real question is, this is, this is the data that's, that's interesting. You know, the differences as well. So we have all, it's kind of like each survey is like a dozen surveys in one. by the time you break down all the, you know, all the possibilities, and including things like different geographies that might be interesting. Where in this case, they want to know near the park versus away from the park, you know, is there a difference there? Other questions?

So, for Orem, you know, say 100,000 people.

Yep.

What's your ultimate goal for the demographics to look like when you're all completely filled up?

At what point are you filled up?

Great question. Yeah, so, um, you know, the number— the number that— it's just so weird if you're not already familiar with, but like, um, the number of people you need doesn't really depend on the population. Once you're over, say, 5,000 or 10,000— 400, for example, is still plus or minus 5% in terms of sampling error. And that's, um, you know, that's as good as you can do, basically, no matter how— whether you're 10 billion or 100 billion or 100 million. You still get the same accuracy and percentages with that same number. So 250 to 600 is what we say is a good range because that's plus or minus 6 to plus or minus 4. But what's really ideal, to answer your exact question, is having the samples be in that kind of 200-ish range each so that all— each one of them is really of high value as well. So, you know, a community your size, if we could get to 800 to 1,000 responses in a survey, that's phenomenal. Then you have really good data on all the subgroups.

Just so I understand, so are you building that sample size and sticking with it, or are you trying to get new people every time you ask a question?

Well, yeah, so it's— this is the engagement part of it. So what happens is the communities grow over time. There's, there's some organic growth and spread. Even if we do a big push up front, it'll continue to grow as we do surveys and get more people involved. And they may not even have been in the sample for the first survey, they may take a survey and then sign up. So they're in the sample for the next survey on a totally different topic. So it's not a static thing. And we don't limit it either, by the way, we don't increase price or anything. We, you know, as many people— we have a community with 6,000 people in it, for example, in Northern California. And that's great.

So just to clarify then, so you're, you're going out and you're building this sample, actually, right?

Yep.

That number would be around 800 to 1,000 potentially? Yeah.

Well, so, okay, so the ideal, ideal number, your number would be— let me just— can you guys see this okay here? Maybe if I drill in. So there's the percentage of the panel. We see typically a 50 to 70% response rate. So to get to that 800 number, which would be awesome, you can multiply it by an extra 50% or more. So maybe it would be, let's say 1,500 would be a tremendous number because then you'd be getting that really high number of responses. So Somewhere in the 800 to 1,000 range.

So with that, say it's 1,500 is the number. So you go out, you do your first survey, you've got this 1,500, and then you do your next survey.

On your next survey, are you just using that same 1,500?

Are you constantly using that same group, or— Yep.

Yeah, so it's a core group. So that 1,500, like, so there may be 1,500 on the day of the first survey. And then maybe by the time the second survey, it could be, you know, 1,600, 1,550, 1,700, who knows. But it grows over time organically. People have a good experience, keep coming back. That was really, by the way, that was the biggest trick, 18 months of user testing, how to make surveys fast and easy so people take them. And one of the things they love the most about it, and they love you guys for, frankly, is that you can see the results are simple, but they're also transparent. So participants take a survey and they see the results and they go, oh my gosh, this is amazing. So now we actually know what everyone else thinks, kind of like the segregation in the South challenge, but they'll just randomly thank you for doing that 'cause they're not used to getting to see stuff so fast and easily.

And to build that initial 1,500, that's where you're putting things out on social media or different channels to try and get people to sign up, right?

Definitely, yeah, all kinds of different channels. In fact, anything you can think of. We even had a customer make t-shirts once, but, you know, online, offline, postcards, letters, anything that makes sense. Right now, I'd say the best, the best channel that we've been using is our, is our SMS database for really supplementing. But if you already have good email channels, and I think you brought up the utility earlier, they're Bill inserts, all those things are certainly low, very low-cost, low-hanging fruit to use. So it's an excellent idea to use those.

And do you care if your 1,500 people that you're shooting for initially, do you care how they're balanced throughout the community or if they're heavy in certain areas?

Uh, you know, it's, it's funny. It's, if we were trying to get that one magic number, we might, even though we calculate, uh, renormalized, use the nerd word, number. For these surveys, what we really care about is getting enough of each because you're looking at the the details. It's not that you need you know the male female numbers to be a match. You want to see if there's differences, and so online stuff, for example, women typically participate more than men in pretty much anything online. And so the nice thing is we can see that. in detail with, uh, you know, when you can look at the— you can look at the subsamples on the bar, for example. In this case, 210 female, 172 male, which is typical. So both of those are good data on their own.

Make sense?

Okay, one last question I've got is, as far as the structure of the questions, do the cities have input on approving those and Oh, of course.

Yeah.

So you can start with a, hey, we've got this topic, whatever it is, backyard chickens or fireworks or anything. And we can guide you from there, give you examples that other cities have done, show you a bunch of stuff, give you a menu of ideas. Or you can start with like, hey, here's some ideas we have for questions that we'd like to answer. And then we can take them, we can tune them up, quality control them. Wherever you start from is fine with us. And then in all the cases, they go to you guys for approval. So it's an iterative process where you go, yep, this looks great, perfect, let's launch on Tuesday, we need results on Thursday.

Does anybody else have any more questions? We have to wrap up on this segment. What's the cost compared to— Yeah, Kevin, remind me the fee structure on your service.

So there's a setup which will vary depending on how much you want to use our SMS or have us send postcards or anything to complement whatever you guys decide to do. We coordinate on that. And that— so that could be typically, you know, $2,000 to say $6,000 or $7,000 if we really want to go heavy on something like postcards or a lot of SMS messages. That's one time forever. And then it's your size. Under $80,000 to $100,000, $9,900 a year, and that's up to 6 surveys. Most people do 2 to 5. Think of it as unlimited. If you actually do 7, we'll give you a high five because we just like to see more surveys, build the, build the base of great case studies. You bet.

Just from the council's perspective, when we have—

Any other last questions?

Yeah, when we've done past surveys, just like in the past, we hired a survey company.

They, they have a similar process where they create a survey pool, and there's a cost associated with that.

It's a one-time cost.

It's like $2,000 or $3,000.

Yeah, to create a panel.

And then thereafter, it's about $5,500 a survey. Yeah, those surveys were a little longer, obviously, but So, you know, if you did a similar effort with a local company, you could be into it $25,000 a year.

As compared to this, which obviously the surveys are not as long, but the turnaround time is almost automatic compared to a regular survey, about 21, you know, 21 to 28 days in terms of getting results back. The other thing we found too is, in chatting with Kevin, like, if we, if we did the long survey that takes, you know, 20, 30 minutes, you've probably filled some of those out, right? If it's about dog parks, for example, who's the people that are gonna stay for 30 minutes to fill that out are going to be very passionate about, or not passionate, right?

One way or the other.

So these short, quick surveys allow that middle to participate much versus the middle drops out when the survey gets too long because they really don't care that much either way. So this allows the middle to stay engaged through the end of the survey. So depending on the setup, could be $5,000, $6,000, $10,000 a year. So it'd be $16,000. Yeah, I mean, again, it's limited. We, we just had that open house for the neighborhood meeting for the State Street Master Plan.

Just the mailing alone was $12,000.

It's, I mean, Economically, this is an economical means to garner real-time. The one-time is $7,000, so you'd be $10,000 every year.

Yes, good question. So how do you— because I know in surveys, I mean, I learned that, you know, you ask this question and this question, and then it depends how they answer those 2 with how they answer question 3. How do you do that?

Yeah, so we actually designed, you know, not obviously not just the individual questions, but we We set up the survey in a way that will provide, you know, have the context the way it should be to get the data you need. So sometimes you wanna dive in without context, without, you know, leading or biasing in any way. Other times you need to have some context for them to answer the question, again, in unbiased, non-leading way. That's, those are, we have 23 points of quality control at this point. And a lot of them have to do with that, you know, waiting at the very beginning. For example, you know, hey, do you want this? Do you want this cool thing? Right? Well, of course I do. Oh, do you want to pay more taxes? Well, of course I don't. Right? So combining the pros and the cons, the trade-offs, all that stuff goes into the questions. And then working through the survey in a way where you're not steering or biasing with the survey itself is really important to do, which we do.

One of the, one of the benefits we've liked of using a third-party survey consultant is when you're on the dais and somebody says, we don't, we don't want you to be in a position of this. And well, you wrote the question, of course you're gonna— you know, we want you to be able to separate yourself to say this was a third-party professional independent survey researcher. We influenced the topic and the types of information we wanted, but we don't want you to be in a position where people are saying, well, you wrote the question, therefore, right? So we've been in that situation where, um, where we've done kind of our own surveys, just quick, just trying to get some information, usually not on big heavy topics. But the biggest criticism you'll get is if you, if you wrote your own questions, you're going to be criticized about whether it was really a fair survey.

And then you review to make sure their questions are—

Yeah, I think that was the moment you had stepped out.

You better ask a question.

And yes. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

My daughter just got admission.

Oh, no problem. So do you open your data with the registered voters so we can know if the survey is being done by people that are just interested in the topic or actually active in voting?

Well, so that, that's the magic of the whole system. That's— that was the real trick with this was how do you get people who are not interested in the topic? I've started to explain it. It's like engagement is really about getting input from people interested in the topic. And scientific surveys are about getting input from people who are not interested in the topic. And so what happens is when we build our panel, we get that correlation to voters strongly. As I mentioned, for example, by age and other characteristics that we've looked at. And then once they're in the panel, the key is they take all the surveys at a high rate, doesn't go up or down, doesn't go, you know, 70%, 30%, or anything like that, it stays in a tight range. That is how you make sure that that input you are getting is representative of the community, and with a slight bias towards the voters, for example, if you do not balance it. Does that make sense? The 2-step is really the trick. If the rates went up and down, then we would have exactly the problem you brought up, which is how do you make sure you are not just getting it from the interest of people, as opposed to a sample of voters.

Okay, anything else?

No?

I think that's it for now. Okay, great.

Thanks all for your excellent questions and your time, and happy to follow up with anything else that's helpful. Just let me know.

Okay, thank you.

You bet. Have a good meeting.

Thanks, Kevin. Take care.

Yep.

Okay.

So I guess, Council, we just wanted to share this with you as a resource that could be used in the future if you are looking for, uh, future real-time kind of survey feedback. We're right now in the budget process. We can accommodate something like this into next year's budget. that's the direction we'd like to go. And, you know, from staff perspective— I haven't met this gentleman— but from staff perspective, the pricing seems very reasonable for the outcomes that are delivered.

So we just wanted you to be mindful that this is potentially another tool in your—

another arrow in your quiver, so to speak.

You don't have to use it, but we think it could be an effective tool and could speak to your interest, for example, in getting a broad array of feedback from those within the community in a fairly expeditious way. Yeah, we think there's some topics that are coming up that you're going to hear from some people here, and you're going to want to know what everybody else is saying, right? So that, that's kind of the impetus. Yeah, as Jamie said, for all of us. Okay, can you I'm sure they've got marketing material and referrals and all that. Can you send us whatever they've got? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, thank you. Next on the docket, we've got, uh, Pete Wolfley with City Communications. So aloha to Jeff. Aloha, my brother. Mahalo. Okay, so, um, Okay, so we sent out an email a couple weeks ago and we were talking about just some of the communication efforts that we've been doing. Let's not share. And so we wanted a chance to come before you and just kind of talk about what we've done and some different strategies that we've taken with our different communication methods, and then obviously get your feedback on on how you think things are going. So the first thing we wanna talk about is the website, orm.org. Just in the last 12 months, we've had, you know, close to a million visitors, page views, 273,000 unique visitors. And the top topics or pages were elections, court, utility bills, garbage, parks, library, police, and neighborhood cleanup. So those are kind of the big hits from these last 12 months.

Can I answer?

No, I'm sorry. You gotta, you know, you gotta up your game.

Yeah.

And so this is kind of the way we look— our strategy with the website is to really strive for evergreen content, which basically means things that are always fresh, things that are never out of date. So we try to put all of our resources up there so that people know that they can count on it for good information. We use the website for our deep dives on big issues. So recently, this feasibility study, we thought, you know, there's way too much going on here to put on social media. So let's direct people to the website where they can have all the resources, they can have the FAQs. And so that's worked really well for us in the past. We use analytics to drive content so we can see what people are coming to the site for and what they're searching for, and then that helps us, you know, have a kind of a thumb on the pulse of what do we need to be thinking about, what kind of content are people looking for, and then we can create that content for them. We focused in the last couple years with readability and searchability, so we're always trying to improve the website so that it loads fast, looks good, and shows well on phones because we found about 60% of our users are looking at it on their phones. So we try to do a mobile-first design. on all the pages. Each page— this is just something that's happened in the last year— each page has an owner. So, like, there's people in Development Services who are over the Development Services pages of the website, and there's people in the library who handle their website. And so that's really helped us keep the information up to date, because if I was trying to do it all myself, there's, you know, close to 1,000 pages throughout all the city websites. Just be unruly for one person. So I have all these people in different departments that help me. keep things up to date. And then we also have some pretty cool tools that help, you know, look for broken links. So every Thursday, everybody in each department gets a report on what's going on in their pages, whether it's, you know, being visited, if there's broken links. And so that way we can kind of stay on top of this huge website. The second thing we're talking about is social media. Here's just the stats, our followers on both Facebook and Instagram. Those 2 are our big ones. We also have Twitter, but it's not nearly as active, and we don't have as many followers on there. So we mainly focus on Facebook and Instagram. Just in the last 12 months, we've reached about half a million people on Facebook and about 150,000 on Instagram. And some of the things that people just seem to love the most are these human interest stories. So Gail Halverson, Matt Gay, the redemption stories. Every time that we've posted about— this seems to happen quite a bit here— is somebody will do something when they're a teenager, and then we assume that when they're about ready to be called as a bishop, they sent us money for something they vandalized. And so this has happened 3 or 4 times where our public works director will just get a big wad of cash and say, when I was a teenager, I broke a bathroom stall. I'm sorry, here's $400. I hope it helps. And those, those posts have always been huge. Like, we're only, you know, we're hoping— Exactly. That's right. Yeah, they don't ever account for inflation, right, from their teenage years. But yeah, those, those human interest stories seem to really be like— even some of the, like, the negative things that have been on social media, those human interest stories seem to always be the most popular. So we try to do those when we can. Our social media strategy— on social media, silence is not golden. You have to post every single day to stay relevant. And so we try to post 14 times a week, once in the morning, once in the evening or in the afternoon, just to keep that connection with the residents. Like I said before, we always try to direct our followers to the website if the issue is more complex than what social media can handle. And then every Tuesday morning we meet as a communications team to plan out the week, talk about issues that we're facing, things that we can do to grow the audience and get the information out there.

We've been meeting with—

we met with Jesse today for the first time to hear about, you know, council concerns as far as communications, so we'll start working those into our weekly sessions. Our newsletter, we do 2 mailed and 12 digital each year. As far as the digital goes, we have about 18,000 email addresses on file, and we had a record in February for opens, 50% open rate in February. So I don't know what was in there. Some people liked it. It's usually in like the low 40s, so we— that's a pretty significant boost.

Industry?

Oh yes, yeah. So yeah, it's like in the 20s or below. And so we've always had a good, good open rate. And then we focus in the newsletter on important issues, the messages from the mayor and the council, events, recaps, that sort of thing. Our newsletter strategy is we get a lot of content, people even outside of the city asking us to put stuff in the newsletter, but we try to focus on just the very most important things. We try not to put too much fluff in there. We do that because, you know, email has become like the big fatigue for people. You know, they have just email fatigue, so we try to be very sparing in how we use our email. That way, when you get an email from the City of Orem, it's a significant thing. It's, it's important. And then our new— our intern Christian, he's done some great things to help us condense the newsletter so that it's more readable, because if you make them too long, especially on phones, they get cut off. So certain things you won't even see just because it's too long. So we've been working on that to eliminate that issue. And then some other channels that we use: YouTube and videos. We took the great suggestion from the mayor of getting some new video equipment. So we're really going to up our video game because that's just kind of where people are at now as far as communications. They don't want to read stuff, they don't want to look at stuff, they want to watch a video and explain. We have this Orem texting number, and just in the last 4 months that we've had it, we've had— we've done almost 3,500 conversations. So citizens seem to really be responding well to that. Do you see any patterns in that as far as what they're texting about? Yeah, yeah, a lot of utility stuff. You know, it's like, I thought I paid my bill, or my water's off, or there's a leak. A lot of utility stuff. And then from there, it's just kind of a smattering of different things. It's mostly just transactional types, right? Exactly. Yeah, for the most part, issues aren't really coming through there as far as like, I've got an issue with this decision, but it's more like, I need help, I need, I need something done. We have digital signage throughout all the city properties, so if you ever want to put anything on there, we can do that. We have limited access to the University Place billboard, which we plan to use, you know, from time to time. Right now we've got a thing for the UVU night, City of Arm night, up there right now. And then we have all the media contacts for the major media. You know, we've got Janelle, of course, who we work with often, but we've also got, you know, the KSL people and the CBS people. And, you know, basically we put stuff out there and they decide whether or not they want to take it. Like, we think it's big, they maybe have a different standard. And then, as was kind of mentioned before in this last presentation, we can do special mailers for special issues, but the return on investment is always kind of hard to judge. Like, you know, that State Street one, you know, it was an important issue. But it was $12,000 to send that out to everybody. And, you know, sometimes on those mail pieces, you don't even know if people are looking at them. So that's why we're trying to move more digitally, because with like our email newsletter, we can see who's opened it, how many times they've opened it, what links they've clicked on. So we can really see what people are, are interested in. And so I think there's a place for mail, of course, but just, we just always need to kind of remember that. I think you said we have 18,000+ emails. Yeah, I mean, I don't know why we couldn't use that as our base and see how many in the first survey of so many, how many people clicked on it. Oh yeah, yeah, no, I think we would. And I think that's what he meant, 18,000. That'd be great to send out 18,000. Yeah, you really get a good— instead of having 1,500 people in Orange. Yeah, most cities don't have email lists that big, right? So I think he's used to trying to— you're trying to build these things from scratch. And so I think he— I think he would gladly take what we already got it. I mean, because it's, it's good. We know they're live and they're good. Yeah. Hey, weren't you telling me in order to increase our YouTube followers that people really wanted to see videos of the council doing Fortnite dances? Yeah. Do we have any good dancers on the council? My question is, are the cameras going to be able to see Tom's makeup? Oh yeah. No, we got a good camera now, so it's legit.

Yeah.

And then, just as an example, so several years ago we had this Phantom dumper issue. So I just want to use this as an example of everything that we can do, and we can do it quickly. So we did all of this basically within 3 days. So the mayor, Mayor Brosnan at the time, wanted to make a statement and a video, so we did that. We started a webpage, you know, it's still there, orm.org/phantom, so you can relive this whole saga. We had a special email alert, we're sending this out. We did all kinds of social media stuff. Major outlets from around the country picked up the story, so we were doing interviews with them, both radio and television. They didn't care about the issue, they wanted to know how we got the name. Yeah, people outside of Utah were— yeah, they loved it. And can we mail a t-shirt? Right, yeah, we're not afraid to do some out-of-the-box type stuff. We did t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and even put a bounty on the Phantom Dumper's head, so if you found him, you could get like— was it $3,000 or something? $2,500? Yeah, and then, yeah, have strong regional and national coverage. So as a communications team, we felt like, you know, there was a lot of different ways that we could help with this issue. And in the end, it stopped. You know, we never caught the person, but in the end it stopped, and that's ultimately what we wanted. Maybe we should explain the reason for the effort is we had some organization or some individual who was discharging into our sewer system things that were essentially causing problems at our treatment plant. And we didn't know where it was coming from. We have, we have thousands of inlets into our sewer system. We didn't know where this discharge was coming from. So we labeled this discharger the Phantom Dumper, and that caught the attention of the media. In fact, people were ordering mugs. But the whole idea was to build awareness, and ultimately the issue stopped. We never caught the dumper, but it built enough awareness for whoever was discharging probably, uh, decided to stop. Or it went to American Horror Productions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Nathan said that the shirts were the coolest thing in high school, right? At Orem High? Yeah, some of my high school friends, especially the film buffs, who really like Beltran and Carrick and stuff were really hyped over those shirts. Yeah, so I'd say that was probably the highlight of my career, was that high schoolers wanted to wear my shirt. Yeah, okay, any— yeah, that's right, it's all been downhill from there. But any, any feedback, questions on what we're doing communication-wise? I thought the, uh, the Alpine School District, you know, information is right there front and center, which is good. So anybody knows this, copy it and say, here's your answers to your questions.

Exactly.

And that's the— I think that's the right response right now where that, where that issue's at. And then I also wanted to report back that the transparency portal is now live. Let's see if I can— it's gonna let me pull it up. Can I just mention a couple things? Yeah, we've met. Uh, Renee said that somebody had said it was a half-truth relating to the teachers who's keeping their pay. So we, we take that issue seriously, so we actually put up links to the statute So they can read the whole statute there.

We looked at all the—

Steve and I looked at the 5 responses, decided there was no question and answer to add, but we clarified one of the questions. So we do look at the citizen input on a weekly basis. We update the website on what we think is kind of appropriate. Yeah, so the transparency portal can be accessed from the homepage now just through this slider, as well as in government. It's just right down here at the bottom. So if people are asking about it, you can tell them that it's on the homepage and under government in the menu. And as you can see right there, one of the sliders is the school district study discussion as well. So if people do have questions and concerns, even without accessing social media, they log on, they can see that that's kind of one of the trending issues. Yeah, we can pull up and see how many people that visited that site, how many of them were unique, how long they stayed.

Yeah.

We have that data. We can pull it right now. Can you, as far as that, uh, so you're going into transparency and then that's taking you to that scorecard and the voting records and all that?

Yeah.

So these issues, yeah. Can you also link that back to where you've got city meetings? So I've had several people— Link meetings from this page, from the transparency page? There's somewhere on that page, there's a category of city meetings. This one right here. Where is it? This— it's that last one in the corner. Yeah, so when you're here, it's just right down here. This last one is Agenda and Meetings, and then that takes you back to this.

It's called City Meetings on the previous menu that you had.

Oh, in a previous version of this?

Oh, maybe that's what—

maybe when you're scrolling down, you know, City Government. So there's no City Meetings. Yeah, right there.

So just consistent language.

Yeah, use consistent language.

And then I would just make it so you can go from city meetings to— I mean, do what you're doing with transparency, but in addition, have city meetings link over to that transparency portal where it talks about meetings.

Oh yeah, yeah.

That sort of would be blasphemy. I'm looking at city meetings, all I can see is, you know, I can't see what you're talking about.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I can take care of that, no problem. And then we have one thing.

I don't know if Renee talked to you about it on the YouTube channel. Um, as far as the YouTube channel blocks out the applause.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she did. She came by, and basically the issue is we don't have a mic hanging over the crowd because you'd be picking up their side conversations, like any, like, disorderly conduct. And so that is why it is that way. Like, you can't hear it in the recording because there's just no mic out in the audience picking it up. Yeah, generally these, these systems, the mics are set to try to not get— try to eliminate as much background noise generally. I mean, that's how these AV systems are wired. So, so our preference would be if there's a way to have that, just the crowd noise.

I mean, if there's applause or whatever crowd noise available, just so someone watching it offline can get a feel for what the feel of being in the meeting would be.

Yeah, yeah. Now we are— they will be installing a new camera that's going to be facing the crowd, so you'll be able to see it. Okay, you'll be able to see that. I think we— if we had the audience, you know, you'd also pick up all the side conversations too. Yeah, and we wouldn't be able to kind of turn it on really quick when they start clapping, turn it off, you know what I mean? Like, it would become administratively difficult, if not impossible, to turn off at the wrong times and turn off.

So are you turning it on and off now?

No, there's just no mic.

There's no mic.

How about in the stirrup? Was that being turned on and off when the candidates had their inauguration? We weren't doing the AV. I'd have to talk to their people. It might, but I'm guessing the same. They don't have a mic in the audience. Yeah, because it's a direct feed and so it's only picking up. But I can ask Adam to talk to his people to see if they were doing— You can hear him clapping and then it goes silent. I'm guessing it's his mic setup. But so I'll talk to Adam and check it out.

It did the same thing.

That's not Adam, you know, when, when they had the debate in the library hall, because what you had, you had Dave Young talking, then all of a sudden it looks like he's you know, having a brain freeze because he's looking around. What's happening is he's getting a huge amount of applause. All the applause is turned off and then it's turned on again. So to watch it, you're just seeing these people kind of look around. I'm not the AV expert. I'm going to guess it's a setting on the AV. Like, AV systems are wired to block out background noise. Like, that's just how they are. And it's not a— I assure you there's no conspiracy of us trying to make anybody look dumb on stage. I promise you that. I'm just trying to figure this out because going along with what the mayor is saying, in watching the inauguration, yeah, all of a sudden the applause is cut off as soon as the applause starts. But one of the musicians happened to be my daughter, and she sang, I could hear all her— then the applause continued. Yeah. So, okay, I'll talk to Adam and see what he did. It could be something to— I mean, whatever the applause is, positive, negative. Yeah, the goal with what we're canceling would be to let people on the outside see what's actually going on during the meeting so they get a feel of everything. And if they're, they're getting the applause, yeah, they really can be like, they're actually getting improved cameras and all the rest. That'd be something to check out. Okay, for sure. Yeah, we can do that. I'm sure there's a way to do it. We can even get like— I remember the old TV show where they would have a canned applause. I will— we will look at that for sure. I guess the one thing I'm just requesting is trust that we're not trying to stage it into something here. Yeah, no, we trust that. I don't know, it just doesn't feel like that's honestly what's being expressed because certain ones you— anyways.

Yeah, no, I mean, we're fine.

We just, we just want the meeting to be like whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so it's not, it's not an act. or anything. It's just we're just saying that's the way it should be.

And I think it just confirmed it. That's what everybody looked like when you're just sitting there, and there was— because there was a pause, you know, every single person looked like, what are you waiting for?

Yeah, well, and whether it's intentional or not, it sounds like it's not.

That's what we've got a lot of feedback is, why are you turning off the clock?

Why are you doing that?

You know, so let's just see what we're trying to do with everything. Transparency, right? Yeah.

So anyway, No, that's it.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Pete.

Yeah, I gotta say, Pete was really sharp, and I went in and asked him to do something on the webpage. I wrote something, he's like, oh yeah, let's just fix that right now. He fixed it in like 3 minutes right there.

Okay, I found Pete originally, so congrats to you. Jamie actually hired him before we started, so I wish we could say that. Yep. And yes. So this is just a recap. There was a— I had to leave the retreat at this point, but there was some discussion about the rental licensing. And while a lot of you weren't here when this was implemented, I thought we'd just kind of give an overview of what it is and what it was intended to do. I'm going to focus mostly on the rental licensing, but there was 2 things that happened at the same time. One was the requirement that utilities go into the name of the owner, and then also the rental licensing. They happened at the same time, 2 different parts. I'll kind of give an update on what happened with the utilities, but mostly focus on rental licenses. So recap, this is December 2019, the city council votes to make these 2 changes. Those are the rental property required to have a rental license. And then 2, the utilities for all residential properties are required to stay in the name of the property owner. The desired outcomes: improve neighborhoods by gathering contact information for landlords, property management companies, and owners connected to each rental property, bring those landlords into the conversation about these neighborhoods. I'll show kind of this 3-legged stool, but landlords assist in bearing the cost of this neighborhood improvement program, which is our code enforcement A disproportionate number of calls are rental properties, specifically single-family home rentals and townhome rentals. And then the utility changes— we wanted to reduce the number of accounts that were going to collections each month. We had a— the data was on a single— a rental that's in the name of the renter versus the name of the owner was 10 times more likely to go to collections. If it was in the name of the owner, it was rarely ever, ever going to collections. Reduce the number of work orders being requested. with this utilities in the name of the renter, they were just turning over. And so we were changing out utilities. And these are generally single-family and townhomes. Fourplexes and greater, they were always in the name of the owner because there's one meter. Here's what's happened, just as an update. So the top is the monthly account shutoffs. That's what we used to have. This goes back to July of 2018, and you can— the green is the trend line, so you can see clearly what's happening. We're Rarely shutting people off. What is it? I'm sorry, what is that scale on that top graph? Oh yeah, 200. Uh, there, it's 50/50 point scale, so 50, 100, 150, 200. So we were averaging about 200 or so a month shutoffs, and now we're down to about 40 or so. And again, because the owner generally pays, has the bill paid, and they're not going to get it shut off. on their tenants. And then the second one is the monthly new collection cases. These are the ones going to collections. And so you can see where it was, and then you can see where it's gone. So that's a 10-point scale: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. There was a big spike when we made the change because all the utilities had to go into the name of the owner. We didn't, we didn't take at that point any renter's account and apply it to the owner. Those ones stayed independently. A lot of those went to collections. And then you see it kind of start to taper off. And, uh, we're, you know, we're about 10 a month that we're sending to collections now. It's not much where we were seeing 40, 40 or so. What does the orange represent? That was when the change— oh, sorry, that was when the change was made. Those are the months, June and July of 2020, which is— it was effective July 1st, 2020. So that's when you send them to collections. Is that an outside collection? We have a third-party collection company. Brandon can speak better to that if you have any specific questions. But do you have any idea what percent of those collections would be actually collected that they would send out?

I don't.

I'm just curious how much the net— yeah, is it cost for collection? I'm assuming you get a percentage back. They charge a fee above and beyond what we owe. We get what we're owed and then they have a fee on top of it. 30%. So could that be brought in-house? Or no? Well, that's because we try to collect it. But I mean, if you had a— if we were the— we had collectors on site.

Yeah.

No, we're getting the money we were owed. And I don't know if we'd be able to— if we were doing it ourselves, be able to Collect the collection fee on top of our— yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. So I mean, the whole reason it got sent to collections— so yeah, goes to collections, do we get— yeah, yeah. How much different that is from where they used to be? Yep, yep, for sure. So yeah, we have a little bit of experience in this. Collectors, generally they're now nationally known, so they can put it in the database. The biggest issue with collecting is finding the person that owes the money. So they have 5,000 data points of a person where they can generally find them. So you're going to be a lot more successful sending it out to somebody who's a professional at it, having done this before, than staying in town. I mean, it's a great effort to try to send the letter out. But I bet a lot of those letters returned to sender. Yeah, right. So, well, and now, I mean, when now that they're in the name of the owner, it just has to be paid for the water to go back on. So only the owner has left the property, is this really going to make it to collections and stay? Because it goes to collections, well, the next tenant they want to move in, they've got to pay that bill before they can move in a new tenant. So we feel like we have a much greater chance of getting that money.

Right.

And again, the emphasis on that was, when we look at a utility bill, the biggest argument we had was, well, the tenant's the one using the water, not the owner. But a very small portion of the bill is paying for the water commodity. Most of it pays for the storage tanks, the pipes, the infrastructure to serve the home. So that's where we drew the connection of this is really a benefit to the owner who's trying to rent their home. So this is a 3— when we went through this, we wanted to bring the city, the landlords, and the residents all together on the these neighborhood issues. We generally had the city and the residents, and many times that's the person that owns, and— but in some cases it was an owner renting it, and we wanted them to be a part of the conversation as well. So that was the impetus. So back to now, kind of focus on rental properties, types of rentals. On the left are the ones that were impacted by the rental license: accessory basement apartments, single-family homes, townhome, condo, duplex, fourplex, etc., apartment complexes, and short-term rentals. Those not impacted were single-family dwellings where they were renting a room to a kid. You know, they had a son that's living there and they were charging them $50. That wasn't happening, and with the owners in the home. So, and then the other one is we have an exemption that allows a 65-year-old or older to have someone live with them, not as like a basement apartment, But it's generally to help them age in place. So a lot of times they'll have a caregiver that lives with them. So those were the ones not impacted. The large majority, of course, are impacted by the rental property. Do you know how many rentals that is? You know, I had that number in my— I could pull that number up. I'm trying to remember what the number was. Yeah, I mean, there was a— well, I guess I could give you Back in the day, you're probably about— yeah, probably about 9,000. You'll have probably 8,000, 7,000, 8,000 rentals, unique rental owners. Oh, 8,000 different landlords? Yeah, different landlords, right? So we had a study done on all the different types of rentals, what the impacts were on the city, police calls specifically. And we looked at every type from large complexes, to duplexes, to townhomes, to single families. So we measured all that to kind of get a gauge. And the large majority of our calls are single-family rentals. The reason is that the large complexes generally are background checked and they have property managers on site and they take care of the issues. In a single-family rental, and our police department can speak this better, we become the HOA. They haven't— the neighbor has an issue and they call this, they call 911. They don't, they don't know who to, who to call. So our issues for sure with the police side are are single-family rentals and townhomes versus the large complexes. We don't have generally that many on a per-unit basis 'cause they're kind of taken care of at a lower level. This came out of our— we went through our neighborhood plan process a number of years ago, and the large majority of our neighborhood plans all spoke to this absentee landlord issue. And a couple of them specifically said we ought to consider a rental licensing program. They knew about other cities that did these, with success. But most neighborhoods were saying that absentee landlords are one of the biggest issues they're dealing with, with those types of homes in their, in their communities. So how was the fee calculated? It's a $50 fee. We used our business license study to determine how much the rental license should cost. It's a very similar process. We use the home occupation business as the basis, which is $105 And then we gave a 50% discount, a little more than that. So, uh, $50 is the rental license per landlord. Um, doesn't matter how many units they own, it's just the license that landlord— so we have their information. Um, we did a lot of focus groups and involvement when we were going through this. So the involvement of landlords and property managers, essentially what the feedback was Other than nobody liking the additional fee, as we would have expected, there was no specific concern with the rental licensing program. It was actually supported by the Utah Apartment Association and the focus group of landlords that we worked with, as was the utilities being in their name. Cities kind of tackle that 2 ways. One is you're on the hook if it's not paid, but it doesn't have to be in your name. The issue many had with that was they own rentals in those properties. And they didn't find out till the end that they got— they were getting stuck with a $500 or $700 bill because they weren't in the loop. So they said, if we're going to be responsible, we'd rather have it in our name so we're in the conversation the whole time. So then these are some unique situations that have come up that I know came up in the, um, in the retreat. People that have multiple properties and different LLC for each property, but it's the same person behind the LLC, right? So one person has 5 homes and each one gets put in a different LLC. We did make a change on that one. That now can just be tacked with one fee as long as the ownership is the same. But then there are situations where I own this one with one brother and I own this one with my sister and I own that one, and the ownership is different in each one. And in those cases, we continue to charge a separate fee 'cause there's different ownerships in each of them. The second one, and Councilmember Spencer has brought this up on numerous occasions, as have others. People have a rental property, but they're choosing— they're not charging rent. So there's family, maybe they're choosing not to charge. So someone— Our view has been someone, whether they choose to charge no, little, or market rate for a rental, doesn't change the impact. It's still the same. Administratively impossible to keep track of who has family living in their unit and, and when that changes. So we have continued to charge in that situation, even if they say, well, it's my, it's my son that's living there and his wife, and I'm not charging rent versus I am charging rent. We still consider it a rental property. And then the last one, and I already kind of spoke to this, people that are part of LLCs where they share ownership with different people, we haven't made that exception. We see it as different ownership, and each should share the impacts that they're having. In the community. On the second, yeah, automatically they're charged an increase on the sewer and on the utility bill. I don't think if it's— I mean, if it's a single-family rental, they would say pay the same as a single-family owner occupied, even if it's a rental. Even if it's an accessory dwelling? Yeah, yeah, it's treated like a duplex. Why would we automatically charge them extra? Just because that was the thing I sent you, the person that we're out of town. Yeah, so we, we look at those as a duplex where, um, there's 2, there's 2 units now being served, uh, and so we charge, we have per unit charge. We used to charge per account, and so it used to not be that way. And then we, um, and Chris can speak to this, but we had some where there was 100+ properties on one account. So those 100 properties at like a trailer park We're paying one fee, the same that you pay for your house. And so that's when we went to a per-unit charge rather than a per-account charge. And that was a number of years ago when we were doing our master plan. Chris, am I actually representing them? 2016 or '17.

Yeah.

Yep.

Which one? Well, I just talked about the— oh, the additional— if I have an accessory dwelling unit and it's my home when I'm renting it out, but it's the same sewer, I'm getting hit in another. I just don't think that's right. Yeah, I'm with you.

I don't know why ADUs, you know, that's the big push now, right? They don't— they have a limited impact on the neighborhood.

It's a relief to police.

Yeah.

Should we put that on the work agenda next time? Well, there's— I mean, there is, I guess, kind of the question is, how far do you take that, right? Because if it's a traditional duplex, 2 different families living in it, the same argument would be made.

The reason we like that is because there's an owner on the record.

Oh, okay. So for police, yeah.

So for police.

So are you talking about rental license fee being lowered? Or the— no, they're talking about if it's an ADU, why are they paying a base charge for the ADU and a base charge for the single-family residence?

Okay, okay.

I just remembered the email. It was the person had an accessory dwelling unit that had gone through and got their permit or whatever, and it was empty. Yes, still got the charge.

Okay.

Yes. So yeah, so I think No, I understand, I understand the issue. I think for us the challenge is the reporting on readiness, knowing when it's full again. Yeah, and I understand.

It's hard to understand why at all. Yeah, so it's not like there's 2.

I understand why. But for example, we have a 16-plex, right? It's got one sewer connection. No, that's a different situation. It's not a home.

So what I—

It might be a 3— I don't know, I guess I do.

I mean, we could go on and on, right?

It could be a 3-bedroom unit.

Come back, we have been sharing that philosophy behind— yeah, and maybe come up with some different ideas and maybe how we can circumvent that. Or you have an HOA, for example, that has one water connection services the entire HOA. That's a different situation. We did that, I think we did that up on 69 North.

I think they had one.

So I think it is— yeah, you know, I think there's a— I think there's a way to look at it. Yeah.

kind of set it aside as an ADU different from all the others?

Yes, that's all the other rooms.

I think if you guys come up with ideas, that'd be great.

Yeah, because you guys live it every day. Yeah, you come up with some good ideas. Absolutely. So no, Chris, thank you. So what's Davey talking about? I'm sorry, both of you. So in 2016, when that did change, the philosophy for that change We went instead of on a per— like a per-building basis, one connection, to a per-unit basis for the base fee. The main reason for that was a way to generate more revenue without increasing rates, and that offset additional rate increases that was going to be needed for supporting the financial burden of the master plans. So it was a philosophical shift. It was a cost of buying into the system to be able to have that additional living unit being connected and then sharing that burden that way. Now, that was— the discussion was not held regarding the ADUs, right? It was specifically— and I agree with that 100% because they need to pay. I mean, technically, if we have 10 residential units and 4 of them had accessory dwelling units as part of it, do we—

and there is an added impact on the system for an accessory dwelling unit.

Now, it may be Limited or marginal, but there is a greater impact. So who pays for that? Is it those who own the, the 4 who own, or do we spread the cost of that additional impact across all 10?

So that's really what we were grappling with, was if we don't assess the accessory dwelling unit owner, then essentially we're acknowledging that the entire utility base, all of our customers, are going to share in that responsibility.

And is it fair to have somebody who has a single-family home paying the same charge as somebody who has a single-family home plus has an accessory dwelling unit as part of that? But I think that just really needs to change now since the legislature said everybody can have one. It's not— it's a little different animal. Well, but, but the, the added challenge though is now that we have— and we have, you're absolutely right, they have opened up those the opportunity to have any use, well, now we actually have greater impact on our system. So now we are going to see situations prospectively where existing ratepayers, because the legislature has opened up that window, it's going to cost everybody more for infrastructure expansion and maintenance because either we need to upsize the infrastructure or pushing more through the infrastructure. So it's going to— it's actually going to cost everybody more. And I think too, I mean, as, as everybody gets older and the kids leave, you're down from 6 to 2 accessories to 4. So you're really— And that is, and that is in part the argument that people are saying is, well, you know, it's a, it's an accessory dwelling unit.

And, and there are cases where that's absolutely the case.

But there are also cases where you have— because the legislature no longer limits how many can live there, but for the And I can't remember, Jason, what it is. How many? 3 unrelated? Yeah.

So, you know, you could have technically 2 brothers, uh, 2 brothers and their brothers and somebody else living in that unit, couldn't you?

And what's the total?

3.

So you could have a— 4 family, right? Yeah.

So you could actually have more people living in accessory units.

So maybe we, maybe we look at the potential how you guys came up with that. Yeah, I'm just saying somebody has to pay. It's just how do we appropriately assess a fee? Do we assess it across all ratepayers regardless of whether they have an ADU or not? Or do we selectively look at assessing the ADU owners a little more? Okay, so I think we—

I mean, there are issues like this that we need a better understanding on.

There's also, I mean, when I was out talking to people, there was a lot of concern from these different landlords, especially people that have one place. Then there's a whole issue of impacts and all the rest, and there's a whole issue of parking, which seems to really be the constraint to these separate units, right?

Yep.

And so that all kind of needs to be talked about like that.

So we should do that at some point in the future. I don't think we're gonna solve it today, actually, Yeah, in fact, those are—

Um, SB 34+ is going to be addressing accessory dwelling units on the state level as well, so there will be some state law changes that you'll need to review.

But for example, the issue of impact fees right now is in front of the legislature, and part of what we're hearing will be proposed is cities will not be permitted to charge impact fees on accessory dwelling units. At the same time, though, given what happened last year's legislative session, cities can no longer legislate or require more than one off-street parking stall per accessory dwelling unit. So there's a situation where you're absolutely right, and we have a definite problem with parking, and we have had essentially our, our tail or our wings clipped as it relates to our ability to enforce that.

We did.

And our ordinance was significantly more stringent than what is currently— it wasn't 3 parking and it was 2.

Wasn't it?

Yeah.

No, no, but it was a former one. It was always been 1.

I thought we lost 1.

No, she required to remain in 1. Yeah. It's a 3, basically. Oh yeah, 3.

Okay, so it was 3.

Okay, that's right. Okay, so that's what we got. I did get an answer from our treasurer on the collections, the amount sent to collections. We collect just over 35% of what's sent to collections. Okay, I mean, what I'd be interested in— I mean, I'd like to have this whole conversation another time and go a little bit deeper, but what I'd like to see is the net effect of Because we are complicating people's lives with these different roles and their landlord, the whole thing. And so that was a lot— there was a lot of thinking about that. Yeah. So I just want to dive into the numbers and say, okay, well, this is what we're collecting, this is what it's costing, and there's a break-even situation. Are we really gaining ground? Anyway, but that's for another day, right? And that actually does bring up one— because one other big part of that was prior to that, 85% of landlords already were required to have it in their name. So we were tackling the next 15%. So that was— that's one other key number. But I definitely agree, this is an issue that isn't going away. It will continue to be talked about. We want to make sure you feel confident that, hey, we're fair and we're giving a good solution to the entire community. Thank you. Yep.

Thank you.

Sure.

I love this banner that you guys put on the water tank. What our area of focus, the 2 areas of focus that it's addressing. It lets everybody know, hey, what's going on? Why are they thinking about that property? You know, well done.

We do the same thing with our Hillcrest Park when we start doing work on that property. Okay, so let's, let's break to grab some food. Um, we're gonna have to be quick because we've still got quite a bit on the other side of this page. Go through. So we have a volunteer there. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful for the opportunity to meet this evening. We pray for this food that will nourish and strengthen our bodies. We're grateful for the opportunity to serve and for the opportunity to live in the world. And we say this in thy Son, Jesus Christ. So we don't have much. We just need to go over the agenda on the back side. Yeah, there's some things that we need to talk about. Oh yeah, for the quorum. Yeah, you're right. Is Jeff on?

Is Jeff on?

Um, he said no, he's not on. My guess is he saw an hour window though. But you're right. So, Stephen, I'll tell you what the outcome is when I find out. Yeah, yeah, no, she'll love to hear that for sure.

Um, maybe not until Thursday.

Yeah, wait till Thursday.

She was texting you guys.

Oh no, yeah, that's right, because she's at Utah State.

Yeah.

Um, so I— when I got called to Provo, there wasn't much of an audience. I was really glad because that singles ward had just come out where they get called to Boise and everybody's like, oh, so the Provo call is very similar.

Well, I got called probably Southern California, within 20 miles of where I currently live.

Oh, which one was it? Okay, yeah, Richard Manning, a former finance director.

We're good.

Let's go ahead and start back into our meeting.

We've run out of time, so we're gonna have to go fairly quickly.

We've got consent items, uh, we've got approval of meeting minutes. We've also got a resolution, uh, authorizing the mayor to sign an agreement with Alpine School District to provide for joint cooperative action in regards to having a school resource officer in Warren Schools. And that's just where essentially Alpine's hiring our police, and we're working slowly towards doing that. That's what we've always done, right? Correct. It's just, it's just a reimbursement agreement that we're renewing. Is that every year? Uh, I think it's actually—

yeah, it's for a 1-year period and then it has an evergreen clause that renews every year. But, um, the school district of course is looking at budgetary issues right now.

So, and because we closed— because the school district closed the alternative high school, the amount changes because they were paying us historically for an officer down there and now they no longer have that. That's a good question. And there is an escalator in the contract?

There was an escalator in the contract. There is no longer an escalator in the contract.

Okay, so we have a vote on those consignments?

Yes.

Well, in, in the formal meeting. I'm sorry. So we can get into the formal vote. So we're not doing that here? No, no, sir. Okay, so we're just discussing it. All right, and so if we've discussed it here, we need to discuss it again in there. You just need to take formal action.

Correct.

We got scheduled items on the agenda coming up. We've got these different appointments— the Library Commission, appointments to Beautification, appointments to Planning Commission. Essentially, there was some confusion as far as the process that follows versus what we're talking about doing going forward. And so these have been redacted, I believe.

I'm sorry, Christy, I think what we'll do, if it's okay, is we'll entertain a motion to continue those to the next city council meeting.

So you mean 8.1 or 8.2?

I think 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3. Is that correct, Mayor, or were you going to go forward with the Planning Commission for now?

I think the Planning Commission were great. Okay, just continue. We're just going to continue to the next city council meeting.

Yes.

Okay, Jesse provided feedback as to how we'd like to proceed as a council in the future with these appointments, and we don't have any concerns, so we're just happy to follow the direction. What Heather and I suggested is we send an email to the city council saying, here's the way that it's being done now, here's the way that is suggested does the city council want to do and let them decide in a work session what they want to do so there's no confusion about it. There's no really preference to anybody in the room. It's just whatever the city council wants.

Okay, so we're going to talk about it next, next working session.

Yes, but if we do that at the next work session, will you still be comfortable going forward with these appointments at the first meeting in March, or do you want to just continue it and then we'll decide when the process—

I think The issue with these appointments was that no one had a chance to know who they were or talk to them. And so if we can agree that the council can talk with them and kind of narrow this down, is that okay? And then we wouldn't have to like bump it up.

Yeah, I think that's great.

Okay, okay. So let's— so everybody's on board with that. And the way that we were talking about making it work was there's a staff person over that committee, there's a city council over that committee.

They're supposed to come together and kind of have a conversation about the applicant because we're the liaisons with that, right?

So, so if you can make sure that the different counselors that are here know that they can do that with you people. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right.

So it sounds like that's good.

I mean, the beautification, I'm fine with renewing because I know all these, and so I have no problem with that. I don't need to vet them, but that's okay. We can just continue. Well, that's the process we'll be following. Um, so are there new applications? No, they're already— he's already appointed. So you want a new beautification? We don't have any. It's your fault.

You have to appoint.

If you say they're appointed, then you can go forward. We can go either way. I mean, so if you want to wait till— let's make it all consistent. Okay, let's, let's wait on 8.1. Let's wait on 8.2. Let's do 8.3. And then we'll just make it a solid thing after the next meeting. Okay, then we got the public hearing, uh, which is gonna be all the revisions to the State Street Master Plan. Uh, we've got public hearing on the ordinance of amending the current fiscal year. Brent, what is that exactly? Um, so throughout the year we have various, uh, things that we need to do and budgets Primarily they're grants or donation-related items. Occasionally they're the use of fund reserves and/or various other things that require us to amend the budget. Okay, so do you present that in the meeting?

Yes.

The state auditor— well, we used to do one budget amendment a year at the end of the fiscal year.

The state auditor encouraged us to do these amendments with greater frequency. So we have scheduled 4 throughout the fiscal year. So each quarter, Brandon will come to you with a specific budget amendment so that it is more consistent with what is happening today rather than waiting all the way to the end of the year. Okay, that sounds good. Uh, finally, the, uh, Utah Lake Authority resolution. So Steve, if you want to just bring us up to speed where you're at. I'm not sure if we've got enough votes to get it through, but yeah, um, you know, obviously we kind of sent you out a little, uh, explanation of what the current substitute bill does. And so I didn't really get a lot of feedback, so I don't really know where the council stands with that. I think, you know, your options basically, you could do a resolution Supporting it, resolution opposing it, or just not even doing anything. So, you know, you want to have a discussion about, yeah, we support it for these reasons, or no, we support it with certain modifications we'd like to see, or we just oppose it, you know, whatever direction you want to go. So I don't know how much you've been keeping up with it. Everybody has, I think. It sounded like there were like parts of it that we thought were good. that we've been kind of pushing towards, mostly on the governance side of things. It's on the taxing entity side that we need to solve more questions, um, and that's where the concerns were. So it's really difficult because I like some parts of it, but I don't like other parts of it. Yeah, and there's nothing that says you have to do a resolution, you know. We could continue just to work with this sponsor the bill to try and get the changes made that we would like to see. You know, we don't have to do a resolution to do that. Maybe at this point, maybe that's the best option. It's just not—

I appreciate— I mean, you've told me that you are communicating with, um, Ray Grammer, and, um, you know, I appreciate what you're doing there. I think you're communicating well, kind of feedback from us in the past meetings. That's kind of where I am. I like the lobbying effort that the city is doing right now with you.

You know, it's by no means just us. I mean, there are a lot of people out there, you know, probably we're more engaged than we are. So yeah, which is great. So I see there's a lot of facts. Yeah, I talked to, uh, Kevin Stratton a few months ago. We've been changing, changing, playing politics. He voted against it, um, in the House.

Was it for that reason, because of the sewer?

Uh, he doesn't like a separate tax unit. He doesn't, uh, uh, and he says that this—

and I said, can I quote you, Kevin, because this will be public?

And he said, yeah, sure. He said, you've asked me kind of what the bill was. I said, well, I don't know. Um, I also said the lake just doesn't belong in Utah County. There's a, you know, something for the whole state. And so he has a concern about the taxing entity and that whole structure, and I was opposed to— and there's a lot of other things he was concerned about. So, and I agree with him, by the way. I, I, I'm not interested in doing a resolution. I mean, there may not be a real strong reason to do one. Yeah, I mean, if you want to give us direction on, you know, changes you'd like to see and, you know, things you'd like us to work with Brady on to try and get changed, we're happy to do that. So maybe that's the best approach. Yeah, good. So how would we approach that? Well, you can have a discussion at the meeting, or we can just do it, you know, privately. I mean, you— I think what you've represented to us is the taxing aspect of it, right? Yeah. So I think Our marching orders would be to have a conversation with the bill sponsor or maybe others that may have concerns with the taxing feature, attaching taxing aspect. Okay, so should we just have a discussion about that in there? I don't even think— if you're okay, absolutely. If that's what your main concern is, then I think we understand that and we can approach Brady again and see if there's anything we can do to improve on that provision. I mean, is your Well, is your, is your thought mainly that you just like that to go away entirely, or— Well, I understand that for it to have any kind of impact, it's going to have to have revenue to make it work. It's just, does the revenue side get crazy, or is it something that actually is a manageable situation? And so my biggest concern is just, it has been for the last while, this has just been moving so fast and changing so quickly that I'm not sure exactly what I'm supporting or not supporting. And I mean, what I'd like to see is I'd like to see it get pushed into next year and have some time to actually work through it now that all this has been sifted through and have a bill that everybody agrees on and everybody thinks is great for the community. That's kind of where I'm at. Yeah, but I recommend maybe you just do a motion to continue this issue to the next city council meeting. And if you feel like you need to call a special city council meeting to do a resolution, we will do that also.

The next city council meeting session will be Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

If you have to— if you want to really do a resolution, you could call a special city council meeting. I don't think we've got enough clarity to do a resolution. Yeah, really, we had some solid— Yeah, and quite frankly, you know, like you said, there are parts of the bill that are pretty decent for us right now, and maybe a couple things that we'd like to see tweaked. And maybe the difficulty is we're not exactly sure how they ought to be tweaked. What's the best way to tweak that, particularly with this, you know, this fee, how you structure that, right? Ensure that it's, you know, something that's accountable to the voters. I think that's the biggest thing. That's right. So, so what does the mayor specifically do about that resolution?

Just continue it.

Just, yeah, just pull it. Just say we're pulling it off the agenda.

Yeah, except by motion.

Or do you want to talk about it? I mean, in the poll, or do you want to—

So yeah, that would be odd, right? Because it's already been noticed. So I think we should address it in the open meeting and just say council is not ready to act on this motion, on this resolution tonight. We are continuing it without a date.

Yeah.

Okay, so you present that, will be presented then, and is there a motion that has to happen?

Well, since we're just going to table it, I don't know if there's anything for me to present. I think the mayor can just ask for a motion to table it.

Oh, basically, I'm trying to find out if you're going to be at the table saying that, or then—

Oh, well, I can certainly. Yeah, I mean, but the mayor could also just— when we come to that item, the mayor could just say, well, we decided we're gonna— I'll entertain a motion to table this item. Yeah, actually, actually, no, I got it. Terry, did you find the map? What's up? She's just saying, is that something we could take out of order? This is towards the end of the agenda. Oh, that item is child support. Maybe you just announce your intent. We're originally intending to table this, so here's that item. We're really not just— The only other benefit would be if we just have a short discussion about basically what we're talking about, right?

Yeah, if you want to.

I think, uh, if we just straight up table it, I don't know what message that sends, whereas if we have a short 5-minute discussion about it, okay, okay.

Just so the council knows, the bill passed out of the House 56 to 17.

And to Councilmember Pedersen's point, Representative Strachan was the one voting in opposition. It's currently in, uh, it had its first reading in the Senate today and has been assigned to a committee. So I think the—

I think obviously the bills are moving forward.

Which committee assignment is it in here?

It was assigned to the— I think it's the Natural Resources Committee. Yeah, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment. So if we have a short discussion, just kind of summarize this, then we have a discussion and we say we're running into this for now. Yeah. All right, sounds good. Are there any other issues you want us to bring up with Brady? What did you think of my issue? Uh, your issue is you don't really like the chamber, basically. Yeah, I just don't— if we're not—

if we're doing it for environmental reasons and not for developmental reasons, development reasons, then why are we putting a member of the Chambers of Commerce in? I'm not actually going to take the chamber. It sounds like that wouldn't work. that any chambers of commerce, right, why do they have a seat at the table to lobby?

We did actually ask Representative Grammer that question, and his response was because there is a taxing component in it, we felt like there needed to be— or he felt like there needed to be a voice of business in the, uh, in the discussion and in decision-making associated with the future of the lake. So that's his solution to include a voice from, from the business community in this, in this support. So, you know, if it were me, I would prefer not to have that, but, you know, Brandon can probably speak to this. I think that's pretty important for Brady. I got that impression. He's not gonna— he's not gonna change that.

Okay.

This first came up actually last, uh, legislative session last year, and that's been a big thing for him since day one. A voice in the business community because he wants someone that's actively pushing towards making sure the lake is an economic development, recreational driver. So not, not to develop on the lake, but hopefully it's, it's an amenity that draws business from the recreational. Okay, quick question, where are we at on the Palisades children's I don't know. So we, we did hire a, uh, a public engagement group, and Ryan and his team are working with them now. I don't know where they are. Yeah, so we're getting comments from city employees. I came off meeting with Jason last week and I haven't had an update. Nobody wants to go when we'll start. I think that's the reason when they came here, there was— I think there were clear 2 distinct voices. And I think that's why the decision was to hire an engagement firm to essentially filter through that. We got shelters on 500 East we need to go to. But I think that's where we're at, is we're basically waiting for that data to come back.

Correct.

Those that live on Palisade want them, those that do not That's basically what we found. And is it the chokers?

Is it the speed bumps or the ramps?

All of it.

And in our opinion, you can't have one without the other.

It's a safety issue. So if you're going to take out the chokers, take out the speed bumps. Take everything out. That's our recommendation. Because I mean, we don't have them on Cargo Road. It has speed bumps.

Yeah, I mean, they don't have curbing gap.

But they have the arrows.

You slow down.

Okay, so we need to Just in case.

I can't wait till we install lights in here. I'm gonna go in there and just— I don't know, this is therapeutic. Therapeutic, isn't it?

How so?

I don't know, just— it's comedic. I didn't, other than observations on the outside looking in. So I don't have firsthand knowledge of bringing toys and peers, snooping around, finding out all of those. So I put my comments, um, as far as what I had been told. Really?

At the counter. We'd like to call this meeting to order.

Welcome tonight, and we'd like to start out with an invocation from Adam Robertson.

A little frustration, just a little.

The freedoms to assemble here. We're grateful for this beautiful city that we live in and for these leaders we've elected to help guide our city. We ask thee to bless them this night, that they will follow thy inspiration and that thy spirit will be here in this meeting. And we ask for these things in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Thank you, Adam. Next, we'd like to have the Pledge of Allegiance from Beckham Robertson.

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. Hey, Mayor, I want to appreciate—

I appreciate the Robertson family, Robertson's family, and, and for Beckham to do the pledge. You're a rock star, brother.

So we appreciate your family and all you do and your little brother too. Thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Next, we've got the— an opportunity for the citizens to come up and make personal appearances. I just need to clarify something on this. So the way this is supposed to work is if there's something we're going to discuss on the regular agenda, Which we are, we're going to discuss all the changes in the State Street Master Plan, and we're going to vote on that tonight. And so anything that's— so that, that whole conversation should— you'll be given time to come up when we're talking about that and make public comments. And then as far as the initial comments before this, before we go into that. We're just going to have a, a chance for people who want to talk about something else, other issues. So initially it will be other issues, and I've got a, I've got a list here. It's just, it does get confusing because the State Street Master Plan people who have signed up on this list will need to wait until we have that part of the meeting. So let me just read through this. Time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not identified as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed in before the meeting. And please limit your time, your time, your comments to 3 minutes or less. And as far as that goes, you do not have to talk 3 minutes. But, and if you can do it in less, that's great, because there's quite a few people would like to speak. Now I've got a list here, and I'm just gonna go down it in order of people who want to come up and make public comments. So the first person on this list is Samuel Fisher.

Hello.

I've written out my notes so I don't ramble. I'm Samuel Fisher. I'm a fairly new resident of Orem, so I'm very happy to be here. I've been around Utah for a little bit. I'm surprised by how many people show up to these kinds of meetings. So not sure what to make of that, but I just wanted to comment on— I'm really excited to hear about a feasibility study for the district split with Alpine. Most recently, I just came from the boundaries of Jordan School District, and Alpine had a less than good reputation there, including— I heard about a principal who would actually send his kids to the district that I was in. because he didn't even want his own kids there. So, um, um, I, I think, um, I'm pretty excited to see how the study goes and, and what the outcomes are. I also have some friends in Corner Canyon, and I know they're looking at, uh, doing the same thing and splitting off as well. So I can't think of a better time to go ahead and do this, and I'm hoping that we can find synergies and also be able to bounce ideas off each other as we go through this, or at least be able to see each other's blinds when spots and, and get some lessons learned from similar groups. I do know some people get nervous because they think economies can only be achieved at scale, and I'm pretty fiscally sensitive myself, but I've got some experience in business. In fact, that's my area of study, especially in operations, and it turns out that we've got many examples of economies of scale actually being just easy ways to hide economies of cost. So I'm very optimistic about the district split and about the study. I'm looking forward to it. And once again, I'm really glad— thank you for this time to comment. My best hope is that we can have something that's very responsive and gives us local control and fiscal transparency. And I'm really glad that you could listen to my comments. I'll just render the balance of my time.

Thank you.

Next, next we've got Aaron Davidson.

So it's interesting how things fly on social media. So I talked last— 2 weeks ago about my situation with the Alpine School District, and there was this flurry of information that a lot of people that oppose this split are going to be coming today, so I thought I'd come again and reiterate my point. Because since the last time we met, I did have a hearing to dismiss my charges, and they were— it was not dismissed. So I am going to have to go to trial because we were locked out of the school board meeting as parents who had an opinion that they didn't want to hear. So I appreciate that the that Orem is looking at splitting off from the Alpine School District, and pray that you guys, if you do, that you try and seek very virtuous people to run the district, because I think virtuous people will make a great difference in the lives of your children. Right now I'm encouraging people to homeschool because that's the— right now that's the way to go in Alpine School District because of the the people that are in there running the Alpine School District. So yeah, I do encourage you to— you're not going to do it as of right now, you're just looking to see if it's, it's beneficial. So yeah, I do encourage you to support the study as to the separation from the Alpine School District.

Thank you.

Next on the agenda is Linda Messmer.

Thank you.

Can you hear me okay? Although this did not originate with me, I was asked a question when the news of the feasibility study came out, could we have a petition? So tonight I am standing here to represent 127 people who have signed a petition, and each one of you have a copy of that. It is entitled Exploring a New Orem School Board, and it said we would like to show support for the Orem City Council by Supporting the initiative to explore the creation of a school district for Orem City. This study would allow better insight into how tax dollars are spent and the amount used in the schools in our city.

So I thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

We appreciate the time that you spent away from your family, hours and hours. We do want to thank you for this initiative.

Thank you.

Next we have Sissy Rasmussen.

Hi, I've lived in Orem almost 20 years with my husband and 6 children. My kids go to our public schools, and I'm a volunteer at a substitute teacher at the— our public schools. I'm here again with concerns about the school district study that Orem City is undertaking. And the question I hope you will ask yourselves and then answer for all of us is this: what problem are you trying to solve? After you name that problem or problems, I hope you will then seek out the context and the backstory. The issues you might seek to solve with an Orem School District may not actually be issues or maybe worse if you split from Alpine School District. For example, several years ago, my kids' school, the one we had attended for 12 years, Hillcrest Elementary, was consolidated with Sarah Park to form the new Centennial Elementary where my kids still go. Some people were very upset about this change and saw it as unfair, or as the district destroying Orem schools, and I initially felt that way as as well. Then I started asking a lot of questions and attending a lot of meetings. Actually, I found out that these 2 schools had shrunken to incredibly small numbers, to the point where they couldn't even provide some services that were standard in other Orem schools like Cascade, Orchard, and Foothill. In its last year, Hillcrest was almost half the size it was when my own husband went there in the 1980s. In its last consolidation, actually saved money and increased services while giving us a brand new building. And you really should come see Centennial Elementary. It is a jewel for Orem City. This was the right choice, and the vast majority of the parents in both schools supported it. So in this case, some people would say there's a problem with Orem closing— closing Orem schools, but further study shows the reality that the district strengthened the schools and made the financially responsible choice without costing Orem taxpayers more money. As you think about what problems you're trying to solve, please reach out to our elected school board members, Ada Wilson and Sarah Hacken. I've actually heard that some of you have already done that. Thank you to Debbie, who's not here, and to Renee for reaching out. I hope all of you will talk to our elected school board members and contact them frequently. They're the people that we elected to be the experts and caretakers of Orem schools. This feasibility study is moving forward, and it will show what the district study shows already: creating an Orem School District is possible, but it will result in substantially higher taxes and far fewer services. And I know this because 4 years ago, Orem City Council at that time invited the district to show them what it would look like if Orem City created its own district. And it was very clear: higher property taxes, as much as 25 to 30%, and lower services. So ask your questions now while we're waiting for the study. Get the context now. This will help all of us make the best decisions for our schools.

Thank you.

Next we have Brittany Lindsay.

Yes. I encourage you to contact those school board members. And let them know that it was very wrong of them to lock out parents of Alpine School District for over 7 months straight, who were concerned that their children were being forced masked, forced tested, and forced quarantined, and being locked out of school board meetings like we were garbage. We were even emailing those school board members and we were not hearing back from them. So we would go and stand outside those school board meetings for hours that night, and they would walk past us and look at us and keep going the other way because they didn't care. And now we know why they didn't care, because they were being given funds from the federal government, and that was more important than what was best for our children. And that is never okay. And that is never okay. My name is Brittany Lindsay, and I'm being criminally charged by the Alpine School District for standing up for my children at every single one of those board meetings that I could make it to. And this girl right here came to a lot of them with me. And so did she.

We stood outside lots of schools holding signs saying, unmask our children.

Because that is morally corrupt in my eyes, and if it's not in yours, that's fine, but I wanted a choice for my children, and so I pulled them out and I homeschooled. And I put them in a charter. Now I'm probably going to homeschool again because there are some pretty awful things happening in our district, sadly. I live in Cedar Hills, and I honestly, I think there's good in every person, but I think that money, money Big money and numbers totally corrupt people, and that is incredibly evident when you look at Alpine School District, the biggest, the wealthiest school district in Utah. I run a network called Utah's News Network, and we created a video, and it shows step by step what they did in corruption, in corruption. For almost 2 years to our children, and they are still criminally prosecuting Aaron and I. We have to pay for lawyers and go to trial because we were standing for our children.

How crazy is that? It's crazy, and it's, it's wrong.

And people will look at Utah and tell you that will never happen in Utah, and that's sad because it is. It is. Anyways, I am all for personal— more personal representation. And so if you can become your own school district, and if you can split off, please do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we've got Julie Walker.

Hello, my name is Julie Walker. I have served as the elected Orem Council PTA president for the past 5 years. Orem City has 3 councils in the, in the Orem City. Orem, Mountain View, and Timpanogos. We rep— we have more than 2,000 members in our schools between parents and teachers. I am here today to represent all Orem PTA members. We support Orem City in their commissioning of a feasibility report, just as we would support any city in a school district.

Thank you.

school district this large. Our hope is that either a PTA representative or a parent or PTA member from each of the 3 councils would be included in the committee that will review the information from the study. That is why I'm here to respectfully request that the Orem PTA please be included in the discussions and have our input heard. One of the purposes of PTA is to advocate for fiscal responsibility regarding public tax dollars and public education funding. We would love and appreciate an opportunity to be a part of this conversation. We want to help in any way we can. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we have Jill Barrick.

Hi friends, I'm Jill Barrick and my boys go to Northridge Elementary School. I live at 365 West 1750 North.

I volunteer every day at Northridge.

I don't get paid. could work in commercial real estate, but actually teaching a kid to read is far more fulfilling to me.

And so I want to tell you some things that have gone on at Northridge.

Northridge and many friends on social media and Orem, we've all had mass enrollment changes because they imposed early start times or late start times.

And when we asked Alpine School District about that. The clusters—

they didn't give us an excuse as to why they came up with the clusters.

And the only, the only city in all of Alpine School District that had even start times split between early and late was American Fork. Every other city, they were very skewed, and we ended up with late times. So my kids lost a lot of friends.

that had to move to another school because their parents needed to go to work.

And so that has been a hardship for a lot of people.

Northridge was always known for its specialties, which unfortunately were taken away, and instead they were put in with special needs. And I love handicapped kids.

I worked for 5 years, um, as a volunteer in— when I was in high school. And junior high playing the piano for, for disabled people. And however, 5 classes at Northridge alone is too many.

I, when I'm there, I see kids moaning, screaming, crying in the hallways. Some throw themselves against the walls and the floors.

I don't think that this could be considered a normal nor joyful school experience for any of the other students that go there. There was a 2nd grader hit on 1600 North, almost died. And that's because 300 cars come at the same time for drop-off and pickup. A 2nd grader almost killed. A 5th grader— and I want to be very sensitive about how I say this because my own children are in here and they're 8 and 10— a 5th grader attempted self-harm. to himself in front of other students at the school.

He tried to kill himself.

15 teachers went to Disneyland in January, the very week of the highest COVID peak and the lack of substitutes. It looks really bad. You can— I will send you a letter from the Alpine School District about the first week of school. Elementary students were left all over Alpine School District for 45 minutes before school buses came to pick them up. They were left 45 minutes after school. I can't imagine how I would feel about my child spending 45 minutes. I just want to say any effort that we collectively put together for our children is time and energy well spent, and I applaud you for starting the dialogue. May it continue.

Next we have Greg Brown.

Good evening. I want to congratulate City Council on their hard work on behalf of our community. I feel they're working on significant initiatives that are going to be benefit to Orem.

I am concerned, though, that 3 of the council members are not here tonight.

I find that a little strange since I think you know when your meetings are held, and so they obviously made choices to not be here and represent their community, and I'm concerned about that. I support the initiative to have a current independent review of the Alpine School District. And advised— and the advisability of having a separate school district for Orem.

I've—

I don't have children in school.

I've had— my kids are out of school, but my grandchildren are in school, and I'm concerned with the things that I'm seeing and hearing about what's going on in the schools. I think Alpine is way too big, and I think that it can be a lot more effective and efficient by, by being split off from— that Orem could be split off from Alpine. Again, I think this initiative to do an independent study is going to be very beneficial.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Cheryl Finch. Is Cheryl Finch here?

Okay, we'll move on then.

Oh, he's here. Okay, sorry. Come on up.

I think I'm on the wrong meeting, but I, um, I'm Cheryl Finch. I live on 334 800 East.

This pertains to the police pistol range.

I've maintained that place for years to keep it up, that area, since it used to be one of the prettiest little places in Norham to go take your children for a walk or—

Thank you.

Horseback ride.

When the, when the police department put up that fence farther down the road and took a lot of winter range and deer range from the deer, from the deer and the elk, I called them to find out where they got their permission. No one seemed to know.

I called the Planning Commission.

They said nothing. They said, we don't know. They took a main trail up through there. one of the prettiest trails in the Utah to me. They took the fence and split it all the way down around the uncritical deer and elk range. And I called the guy, the chief of police. He come in there, he just went out and he said, oh, we're gonna— I told him about the deer and elk winter range and he said, Oh, we're going to take it down in the wintertime. They haven't done— they've never taken it down. They just put a big shack up there on the end of the hill, make it look like a dump up there. And now they dug all the way up all this winter range for the deer and the elk. You can't use the trail. And I just think, who— where do these guys get their authority from? Uh, no one seems to know. I talked to Bruntz, Mayor Brents, nothing. I talked to the park commissioner and the guy that does those parks. I says, okay, why don't you make a park up there? Get that— take that stupid fence down they put up there. And, uh, and so we can use the trail. It was a— at the trail is there for— it said that there's a sign there we put— I put up there, no motorized vehicles allowed. Okay, we put up horse ties and everything, and now you can't, you can't walk up there, you can't ride a horse up there, you can't do anything else. These guys could walk around that hill and destroyed the hill. Now it's the sickest thing I ever saw. I mean, that's where we used to take a— Baby come to visit us to look at Swarm City. It's the prettiest place there is to look, see over Swarm City. Now it's just like a dump up there. with that big stupid fence, the extra fence they put around there on that critical deer-elk range.

And no one—

I've called some of these scouts, I don't know who they are. I've told them about months ago, nothing. I can't remember his name, but anyway.

I've got a map here.

I'd just like to have you guys look at it. There's a map for all of you to look at, and when you kind of think it over and See what you think, because it's a nice beautiful place and it should be preserved. And those elk and deer, they've— it's just a sad situation.

Go ahead, go ahead and bring that up so we can— or give it, give it to Okay, thank you. All right, we're going to move on to the consent items, but I just want to clarify before we go into the consent items because we'll need to vote on that. Is, is anyone online about the council?

Not yet.

So Jeff Lampson is online, so he'll be able to vote, right?

There, I'm, I'm here, I'm in attendance.

Okay, perfect. Is Tom McDonald online? Is Debbie Larray online? They're both not available. Okay. All right, the consent items. We've got an approval of the meeting minutes for February 8th, 2022. And we've got a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign an agreement with Alpine School District to provide, to provide for joint and cooperative action in regards to having a school resource officer in our schools. And what that is, is a continuation of a contract we've had for quite a while where Alpine School District hires our policemen. to be in their schools, and it's a contract that we have with them, so we're just continuing that. Can I have a motion on those 2 consent items? So I make a motion on the 2 consent items, Mayor, that we don't need to have them on a schedule.

I make a motion that they don't go to a scheduled item and stay on a motion.

Second that.

Okay, so we'll take a vote.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Jeff?

Aye.

Okay, the motion passes.

Mayor, Mayor, I think you'd need now a motion to approve the consent calendar.

Okay.

I make a motion that we approve the consent calendar.

I second that.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you. The motion passes. All right, moving on to the scheduled items. So here we have appointments to the Library Advisory Commission. And we also have appointments to the Beautification Advisory Commission. And that's 8.1, 8.2, and those 2 items we're going to continue.

Yeah, can I make a motion for that then? Sure, I make a motion that we continue 8.1 and 8.2.

I second that. So next city council, or—

Yep, we'll continue to the next city council.

I don't think we need a date specific.

Okay, second.

And aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay, the motion passes. 8.3, we've got an appointment to the Planning Commission. We've got Tina Okowitz, who's being appointed to the Planning Commission.

So I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Tina Okowitz to the Planning Commission.

I'll second that.

Okay.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The motion passes. Is Tina Okolowitz here? Tina, would you like to come up and just take 3 minutes, introduce yourself?

Thank you. My name is Tina Okolowitz, pronounced like Coca-Cola Witz. I was born and raised here in Orem, Utah, and have chosen to spend my life here. I graduated from BYU with a degree in psychology, and I worked in marketing for a tech company called 3Com. I traveled a lot with work. At the time that I had my second child, we made the decision for me to be able to stay home, and that is when my appreciation for Orem truly deepened. We loved exploring the city parks and checking out loads of books from the library. We spent countless hours at the fitness center, while by then all 4 of my children took swim lessons, and my oldest went on to become a Red Cross certified lifeguard at the fitness center. The programs and services in the city are amazing. My family has benefited tremendously. That's why my husband and I have chosen to stay here and invest in Orem, and I can literally say that our roots are deep. And allow me to give a little background as to why. My husband's family came here from East Germany just before the Berlin Wall went up. They purchased 4 acres of land, um, all of them orchards, and my incredible mother-in-law, who's right there, um, she worked those while my father-in-law was a welder for Geneva Steel. In the late '70s, the city needed land to build Windsor Park, and my family happily obliged, causing 2 acres of our land to be subdivided for the park and the Daniel Drive subdivision to be— to occur. We still have 2 acres of remaining trees and are some of the last people in Orem who use irrigation. This long, slow watering process has allowed our trees' roots to grow very deep, and it keeps them stable when the storms come. My goal as a member of the Planning Commission is to help Orem's families to become as firmly rooted through the careful city planning Orem is at a very critical juncture. With our population nearing 100,000, we are no longer a sleepy orchard town, but full-fledged city facing real growing pains. Now's the time to make sure that we don't just build housing, but we balance that with necessary infrastructure. Luckily, the challenges we face are nothing new. Many other cities have dealt with them in good ways and bad ways, and we can learn from them. Through my work and family, I've traveled both the country and work and, and world extensively. I can lend my firsthand perspective into the solutions I've witnessed. I've also spent the last 20 years managing rental units in Orem and understand these challenges well. I'm honored to be able to serve as part of the Planning Commission and promise to work very hard. I thank you all for extending me this opportunity.

Thank you, Tina.

The next part of the meeting, we're going to have a public hearing. And this is to discuss the State Street Master Plan changes. We're going to be amending Section 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Ormond by changing the zoning properties within the hub districts, the art district zones, the City Center District zones, the Canyon Crossing District zones, and the North Village District zones to C-1, C-2, C-3, R-6, R-6.5, R-8, PD-1, PD-30, PD-37, PD-39, and PD-40 zones. And amending the portions of Section 22-8-8 pertaining to the Zone Development Standards along the State Street corridor. We'd like to have Jason Bench give us a presentation on this.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Tonight, as Mayor just outlined, we are proposing to rezone the districts— there are 5 districts along State Street— back to the zones that, as mentioned in the preamble there, back to the zones that were existing prior to 2018, when the first City Center District was the first to be done in 2018, so we're proposing they go back and be rezoned back to those. You can see there the University Parkway, 800 South, and City Center— or State Center Street, excuse me— areas, and then also 8th North and 1600 North, all of those going back to the zones that were previously approved. As mentioned, there are several items that we're proposing. This is a really tiny print, so I apologize for that, but trying to fit it all on the screen. There are 9 points that I just want to point out. The first one is the— As directed by the council, we're keeping the separated sidewalk portion of the district, or of the State Street corridor, where they do have to have a separated sidewalk, and any new development comes in, they'll have to put the sidewalk back 15 feet, put the 8-foot sidewalk, so that Is item 1 that points out behind the sidewalk there's a 15-foot setback requirement. Before, the State Street District required that the buildings be brought up within 10 feet. That will be eliminated, and they'll be able to either put it at 15 feet or anywhere on the property that fits the requirements of the ordinance. Number 2 is a cleanup item just to basically make sure that the, the 4-asterisk notation applies across all of the zones. So the equal to the height of a residential portion is just a way for us to make sure that everybody understands that that's something that will require— let me see if I can make it a little bit better to read. So this portion that you see here is simply being moved over so people can realize that that applies to the entire line. There have been some confusion over the years. The other one is that we'll basically require that the—

Quick.

That the overall height under number 3 is 48-foot maximum height, not only in the C-3 zone but also in the C-2 zone. There is a limitation within 100 feet in the C-2 zone of a residential zone that it can only be a maximum 35 feet within that 100 feet to a maximum of anywhere in the C-2 zone to 48 feet max height. Number 4 indicates the ability for someone to put chillers or air— some type of unit on the roof. A maximum area of 30% of that roof area can be over and above that 48 feet without maximum height of 10 feet. So that's going to be modified for that. The rest of the items 5 and 6, and then 7 and 8 on the next page, 9, all relate to the state street districts and requiring different elements of them being brought up to the street. That is no longer needed going back to the C-2 and other zones. So we're proposing that those items be eliminated from the ordinance. The Planning Commission— well, let me go over this. Just to show you. My cursor works. So this is the existing requirement, a 15-foot planter strip, 8-foot sidewalk, and then there will be a 15-foot requirement back of the sidewalk. And then in this example, the structure could be brought up to the street at 15 feet. In this example, they could put their parking out front and have the building to where they, you know, whatever they want to put it on the site. This example indicates that 100 Foot requirement. So if this is a residential zone here, any building within that 100 feet would have to be a maximum of 35 feet. And at the same time, there is a built-in requirement that it has to be equal to that height. So if they want to do a 20-foot building or a 10-foot building, it would have to be either 10 or 20 feet with a maximum height of 35 feet within that 100-foot setback. The Planning Commission did review this and did make a recommendation that the council approve the proposals as proposed. Be glad to address any questions.

I have a question, Jason. So your 8-foot sidewalk that we're putting in there, do you feel that that's adequately wide enough for pedestrian and bicycle traffic? Do you think that fulfills a need for bicycling along State Street?

I believe so. I mean, the State Street itself Well, most likely, if you don't ever do any improvements to that, the actual portion of State Street will be the bicycle path, but 8 feet is wide enough typically for pedestrians or bicyclists if they want to use that, but typically they're required to be in the street.

Any other questions? Okay, we'd like to allow the public chance to comment. If they have any questions or if anyone would like to come up and say anything.

Mayor, if you'll just officially open the public hearing to public comment.

Okay, we'll officially open the public comment. If you, if you'd like just to come up.

So if you could just address what you're really shooting for to change in our forum.

From what I understand, you're trying to make it less commercial, more of bedroom community, lower the heights of commercial buildings, just more friendly to common people here.

Is that it? Is that— am I hitting that as what you're trying to accomplish? Because if it is, we're very happy about that. Is that what you're trying to accomplish?

Yeah, Jason, you want to answer that?

So it is going back to commercial, so it's more retail office driven. The districts did allow residential. This would eliminate the residential option along State Street.

And Mayor, could I just ask that when individuals come up to make a public comment, they state their name and their address? And then all questions be directed to the mayor, who will then field those questions as directed.

Okay, so I'll either answer the question or—

Yeah, to address. Yes.

Okay.

Scott Swain, 465 East 850 South, Orem, Utah.

Okay, thank you, Scott. Now, to summarize, to answer your question, yeah, yes, our focus is, is keeping Orem Family City, USA. And doing whatever we can do to, to make it a great family-friendly community. And that is to— on State Street, there, there was a residential component, uh, where there was a plan to put 9,400 apartments on State Street and, and 20,000 to 30,000 people. And we felt that that did not meet what we were trying to accomplish with Families City USA, and also with a ton of input from citizens all through the Through the election, that was the feedback we got. So yes, we're— that's been our focus is to roll that back. And that's where Jason and staff have been really helpful in working with us to make that happen.

Okay, very good.

We're very happy about that. I think— I hope I speak for a lot of Orem.

We don't need Orem to be a big city. We don't want it to be a big city. I mean, we can't keep people out, but we need to keep it friendly to us and our children. And we appreciate you, Mayor Young, for attempting to do that.

We know you can't undo a lot that has happened, but if you can put a stop to it, we would appreciate it.

More parks, more more open areas, more places that we can go out and be with our kids, try to keep our traffic as low-key as possible, we would appreciate all that. So thank you very much for your efforts.

Thank you. Hello, my friends.

I'm Alan Krutskamp. I've been a citizen of Utah County for— since 1987, have lived in Orem since— for the last 28 years, and come from Southern California. So master planning and putting in big communities real fast is very common to me. I have a background in real estate, started off in property management here, did real estate sales, have a lending company, have done lots of real estate throughout the Southwest, and 100% in support of changing the State Street Master Plan. There's no way that we could put 20,000 to 30,000 more citizens On State Street. One of the problems—

one of the problems is the infrastructure.

The streets are already there.

There—

it would almost be impossible to widen them wide enough to even deal with the traffic, let alone the other issues.

So I'm 100% in support of the mayor and the city council changing the ordinance and zoning on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alan, Alan, could you just state your address?

Yes, it is 1435 North 450 East in Orem.

Thank you.

Well, I guess I'm here to be the opposing opinion on everything tonight. My name is Sissy Rasmussen. My address is 930 East 400 And I've already told you I've lived here a long time. And so my concern is, of course I have a family, but what I've seen over the last 20 years is that families that live in Orem are so diverse. There are so many kinds of family. So when I hear family city, I think, who are you talking about? Are you talking about my family with little kids? Because definitely that's one kind of family. But are you also talking about— the empty nesters who maybe want to downsize but don't want to leave Orem because they've always lived here, or the students who live at BYU or who go to BYU and UVU, which basically, you know, really support our whole city? Are you talking about the people who are single, who are young, who work in our restaurants and in our stores? Are those families as well? And if so, where are they going to live? Live? Because something that I heard a couple of years ago when there was a lot of upset about the student housing going in by UVU was, well, we— there are so many students in these neighborhoods, they're taking over. And so what student housing did was it diverted them so that those neighborhoods could open up to other kinds of family needs. So again, I'm asking, like, are we taking care of all the family needs here, all the different kind of families? by just having a focus on single-family housing. Maybe Mr. Bench can answer this. I remember hearing— but all through the mayor, of course— I remember hearing a statistic at one of the neighborhood committee meetings that I went to a couple years ago that said something like only 5% of Orem residents live in apartments. It's not like they're taking over. And so what And the other thing that came out of that same— does my time get to start over if I get interrupted by like the rumble?

No, that's something I'm sorry you'll have to deal with.

So the other thing that came out of this neighborhood committee meeting that I was a part of, where the state street master plan was presented, was there were a lot of differing opinions, but one thing was clear, and that is Mr. Peterson could probably remember this because he's in my neighborhood committee, one thing was clear, and everybody said there's a place for apartments. It's not in our neighborhoods, it's, it's along State Street. So if it's not along State Street now, according to this plan, where are you going to put the apartments that will definitely be needed for the future of Orem, as we have so many diverse needs? So those are some of the questions that maybe you don't want to answer right now, but just some questions that are going through my mind, and I know a lot of residents' minds. That's all. Thank you.

So, Sissy, I think the reason you got a rumble was because you stated that only 5% of Orem was apartments.

No, 5% of residents live in Orem. 5% of residents live in apartments. I understand that there's a difference between the rentals.

Do you understand how— what the percentage of rentals is in Orem?

No, no, no, I'm not talking about rentals.

Well, that's what we're talking about.

So with rentals, I would say we also need to differentiate between who's renting a studio.

How about we just answer the question? What is the percentage of people in Orem that live in rentals?

Well, I understand that it's—

I mean, to make the point.

Oh, sorry. Did you want me to answer that?

I did want you to, but I want you to answer— we're back on 5% of apartments. I The reason you were getting a rumble and we're not understanding what you're talking about is because you're saying there's 5%. And I'm asking you what the number of rentals is in Orem. It's a simple question.

So are you quizzing me? You want me to answer that?

Yes, because you're studying.

Okay, so from the statistics I've read, 40% of Orem residents live in rentals.

Okay, thank you.

That's different From 5% living in apartments.

Okay, 43% live in rentals.

But apparently—

that's just my question.

I didn't know if this was supposed to be a debate between me and you. I just wanted to be, as a resident, to make a statement.

I understand, but when you're stating facts, I just want to clarify. So thank you.

Okay, thanks.

My name is Andrew Wilding. I live on 524 East 400 South. I just want to make a comment, but I've lived most of my life in Utah County. I've been a citizen of Orem for the past 8 years. I appreciate the time given to the citizens as some of their input during the city council meetings. Over the last few years, I've thought about what I can do more to get involved. I, like a lot of people, would just look mainly to vote on president, Senate, House of Representatives elections.

and not really look at the local candidates too close and call that good.

But I couldn't really see how that was impacting my community of Orem, so I wanted to get more involved in local government. I believe that would have more of an impact on my family and my own life. I had the chance to hear a lot of the candidates, hear Mayor Young speak because he was a candidate. One of the things that stood out to me was that he wasn't looking for this position but was looking to run to lead Orem in a different direction. I appreciate the time that all the City Council takes out of their lives to serve our communities. I know there are a lot of better things you could be doing, doing through time. I appreciate how fast things have moved to make sure that the State Street Master Plan was looked at and not just moved through. This is one of the key things I wanted to see adjusted. I don't think it was what many Orem citizens wanted. The direction Orem was going in seemed like it was listening more to developers than it was Orem citizens. I know some of the changes that have recently been done by the City Council will were not how it normally is done, but with the timing, timeline so compressed, it needed to be done and has my support. I don't think we should keep doing things the same way just because that's how it was done in the past, but look for new ways to improve. I want Ormond to remain family-focused but also grow responsibly. I want to voice my support for how things are going and the changes that are being made and the things that are being looked at. I'm also interested in seeing the study on splitting for more Alpine school districts that weren't and maybe, maybe able to better serve its students and families.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is John Barrick. I live at 365 West 1750 North of Norm. I appreciate you addressing the State Street Master Plan. As many of you know, I've been here a lot of times in the last year, and we've canvassed neighborhoods with our children. Because our neighborhood was significantly affected by a large-scale development, 43 units on less than 1 acre, just a few feet from my house. We don't think that that was appropriate, and we, we are grateful for the steps that you're taking. A lot of people think that apartments equals affordable housing, and I'm going to point out that almost every single apartment that was built in Orem in the last several years is not affordable housing. If you go to the Aston or any of these other big developments, the average apartment there is more than most of our mortgages. So it's not affordable housing. In many cases, they were taking out affordable housing in order to put luxury apartments. That's not helping Orem.

We are grateful for all your time.

We're grateful for your time and all of your service to Orem.

We thank you for taking up this public comment. project is important to the citizens of Orem. And we say that, and I'd like to leave that and thank—

with a thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Ashton Jessup. I'm at 95 East 100 North, Orem, Utah, just across the street over here. I do not oppose the changes that are being made besides the ways that they affect me personally.

My—

I'm currently living in a zoned CCD district, which means that I could potentially put townhomes on my property. And I want to clarify, I'm not talking 43 apartments in 1 acre. I'm talking 3 townhomes on 0.4 acres. I'm trying to— in my way of thinking, that's not a high-density housing issue. And it would be creating that actual affordable housing for people in a quality neighborhood. However, what we found in the previous planning session, as well as reaching out to some people, is that there's no sort of exception for this kind of a thing. And so I guess I'm just out of it if not. The thing that's interesting to me as I look at— they mentioned the multifamily dwellings, looking at the rules there. Mine would be going to an R-8. That's not even in the multifamily dwelling one. So it stops at R-7.5. And so I'm just wondering if there's an exception or a way that I could go about potentially maintaining my little piece. I'm not a big guy, I'm just a little guy trying to make the most of it. So.

Can you answer that question, Jason?

Yeah, the answer would be no, based on eliminating what we're proposing tonight. That's something that we could reconsider in the future if the council is interested in coming back with some type of exception for those that were in the, you know, the areas that were adjacent to the core. But as it stands right now, that would be eliminated. They would go back to the residential single-family zone.

Okay, so, so that would be something that we could consider in the future. Something we could bring back once the dust settles on all this and we see where we're at.

Yeah, if the council is interested, we could bring something back.

I think that the council is interested in townhomes and lower density situations like that.

So, yeah, what then is my course of action for actually doing so? There'd be nothing at the moment unless you wanted to make an application to To change the zone or something like that. The staff right now is not in the position or going to move forward quickly on any changes at this point.

Right, so there'd be nothing right now, but something potentially in the future.

Okay.

What, what is your timeline?

My timeline? It's not immediate. It's 5 years out. 5 years out.

Okay. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Stefan Kleinlein. My address is 103 West 2170 South Orem, Utah, and I think you know the zip code, so we'll pass on that.

Thank you for your time and effort on behalf of the citizens of Orem.

It's refreshing to have a government who listens to us, the people, instead of special interest and large developers. I am opposed to the State Street— I'm opposed to the State Street Master Plan, and I strongly support returning to earlier zoning and then taking a citizen-centered approach on how to plan Orem going forward. We don't want developers planning our city.

They have a different agenda than people do—

the people do. It is common knowledge that the housing market has hit astronomical heights in the last 2 years. It is causing a serious problem for our younger generation who'd like to own property. Let it be on record that we, the older generation, want our younger ones to own property. Not only is it a proven method of building equity, it is also a reliable way to learn self-reliance, responsibility, and community involvement. It would appear that building high-density housing is the obvious solution to the problem, but this isn't true. The problem is that asset investment companies are buying up approximately 25% of the property in the US. They are outbidding our younger families, ensuring that they cannot buy property, leaving them to be renters, thus denying them the ability to accomplish the American dream with all its attendant blessings and lessons.

Asset investment companies are offering $50,000 in above on many Utah properties. This is having a detrimental impact on housing costs and communities. Neighborhoods are being managed by corporations.

These corporations in turn funnel big money into our politicians and are able to influence which laws are passed, and rarely do those laws benefit the people.

Last month, a group of 50 townhomes were completed in Lindon. Not one went on the open market for families.

All of them went to investors. The same thing repeated in Vineyard.

Then 49 townhomes went on the market in Lehigh.

Within 24 hours, there were 368 offers on those townhomes, with investors offering significantly more than the asking price. This is unattainable for local families. Building more high-density housing is not the answer.

High-density housing owned by corporations destroys communities.

I am asking the City Council to meet with Mr. Riddle, the new attorney, and to find a way around investor-owned properties in Orem.

How can we ensure that growth—

excuse me, how can we ensure the growth that happens in Orem enriches our younger families and not investors? It is time to eliminate the distraction that this is a battle of conservative versus liberal. The real battle is whether power and equity ends up in the hands of corporations or the average citizen. We want families to be able to buy property at reasonable prices, and we need your help to keep Orem property in the hands of Orem families.

So well written. I want him to write mine up here.

Good evening, uh, my name is Brian Heideman.

I live at 281 West 2000 South in the prestigious city of Orem. Um, I have no skin in the game being here. Um, my family lives here. It's a great place to live. We lived here about 9 years. Um, I have not been involved in Orem politics as much as I should have been, but I appreciate you handling what you do on a daily basis. My wife and I are in approval of putting the zoning in Orem along State Street. The current State Street master plan will destroy, in my opinion, Orem as we know it. We understand Utah has a housing problem. We also have a water problem, infrastructure problem, traffic, parking, and special interest problem. We understand putting zoning back to 2018 standards does not solve these problems, but we can look at plenty of urban examples in the US to see what our future would look like if we don't change course. I live in Orem for the reason that it is not urbanized. If I wanted to live in an urbanized city, I would go to Salt Lake or Seattle or Chicago.

Or even Lehi.

Finally, yes.

Urbanization may solve a few problems right off, but I believe it will destroy the way of life as we know it in the future. Thank you for addressing these issues.

Appreciate your time.

Kathy Ambrose, 315 West.

100 South.

Sorry, I got old. The master plan was developed to address issues of growth that was affecting Orem, especially subdivisions that were being bought out by out-of-state developers, changing the, the tone of neighborhoods to rentals, and renters being upset because they had it— there were slim pickings for quality homes, and out-of-state owners don't care about the quality of the neighborhood or their property. So the, the plan was developed to address several issues that are going to happen and to help Orem grow fairly for those who live here. The main one is displacement from gentrification, meaning Our long-term residents who rent will no longer be able to afford to live here, and they will be outpriced. And I consider these people part of the Orem family. We will see increased homelessness. We will see neighborhoods, like I mentioned earlier, be bought out by investors and scarcity of decent places to live. Several Businesses and investors were excited for the changes and invested in the city and now are being left holding the bag because of the 180 turnaround. Old buildings in along State Street are not seismically sound, and when the big one hits, we will suffer major losses financially too. And the master plan encouraged rebuilding to be up to code. multipurpose and multi-use housing, which have been shown in studies to build social connections and reduce suicide rates and mental illness, especially the developments like Midtown 360 and UP who do social activities so neighbors know each other. And the problem of isolation that is documented in the U.S. Surgeon General's book Together, that is a plague to society across the nation and the world. The traffic on State Street is not Orem residents, it's people commuting through, and the master plan addressed building attractions to help those people want to stop and invest in our tax base to help us reinvent our retail. University Place is a prime example of reinvesting to encourage increased retail. It is nice to have other people paying your city's taxes. There's no longer reason for people to stop here because their own cities now have their own franchises. So we have to be extra— we have to show that we have more to offer than their nearby cities. And the last one is, whenever I feed the missionaries, they tell me how great it is that Orem is growing because they're gathering Israel, and I will share my city with the missionaries.

Hello, my name is Dale Cutler. I live at 84 West 530 South. I am an Orem resident and I own Cutler's Incorporated on 271 North State Street in Orem. I have chosen Orem as the community for my business and for my home. I have raised all 4 of my children here. I've invested my money and time and efforts to keep my business and home in Orem. And last week we celebrated 40 years of being in business, 39 of which have been in Orem.

Our business—

Our businesses have been a service-oriented business to beautify Orem and the surrounding communities. I love Orem. I am sad to say that last year we seriously contemplated moving our business, as well as our home, out of Orem to Lehigh Saratoga Springs area. This was motivated by prior Orem city elected officers' inability to listen and act in passing ordinances that allow business— businesses to prosper on State Street and allow residents to enjoy the quality of life that Orem once had. The prior Orem city elected officers did not have the backbone or the integrity to stand up and vote for the majority of the Orem residents who are against the current State Street master plan. This plan was devised and motivated by a small select group of individuals backed by developers with deep financial backing for personal gain and greed, not the average Orem resident who opposes this plan. The State Street Master Plan was pitched to bamboozle the public with lipstick and perfume to improve State Street, but in reality its benefits go to small number of real estate investors and developers who don't even live in Orem. As a resident of Orem, I'm against uncontrolled high-rise, high-density apartments. I'm against bus rapid transit. I'm against medians and trees in the middle of State Street, and I'm against spending millions of my tax dollars on current proposed State Street master plan. I want to express my gratitude for Mayor Dave Young and for those members of the City Council Who are proactive in protecting State Street businesses. It's refreshing to have newly elected city officials who listen to business owners and residents and then vote according to the majority of the residents, unlike past city officers. I applaud Mayor Young and the City Council for moving forward with responsible growth. Bryant Christensen.

I live at 1201 East 1220 North.

I just—

and pardon my ignorance, but we have property in one of those areas, and I have sent— well, we've had 3 signed letters of intent to put eating establishments there with a drive-through, and they've come to the city. So I was just wondering if that's If this is going to be possible again to have a drive-through along those areas.

Could you answer that, Jason?

So drive-throughs have always been permitted, but you could have the drive-through in the front now. So yeah. So we're back to the— okay, back the way it was.

Okay.

Yes.

My name is Dan LeBaron. I live at 1136 North 75 East. And I just realized why I like Orem. It's, it's a city on a hill. And it has a lot of implications for me. But I have never taken the opportunity to stand here. I appreciate this moment that's been offered. I've been in Orem for 49 years, and I've seen many days, many administrations, so to speak, where we have experienced in varying degrees so much Tenuous transparency and so much political pretense. The pretension that we look around and can find in all the politics throughout the country.

Pretension that's saying one thing, but it's backed up by people's agendas.

money, other reasons for doing the things that are being done under that guise of pretension. And we the people, uh, don't always fully understand. I consider myself to be ignorant in a lot of ways, and a lot of concepts that have been talked about in conservative circles my mind can't hardly get wrapped around because it sounds so ludicrous that such kinds of things would be going on. But as you can see, my hat is off to you, and I appreciate so much this opportunity to see that maybe those days of political pretension can be shortened to a great degree. that we can accomplish things that bring back the values of family that we've honored for so many years, so many years here in this strange, unique community on a hill. And the, the values that we espouse, that we can begin to bring back again will attract other like-minded people. And we're not interested in a lot of, of the outside kinds of political ideologies that come to town. They're going to come here regardless, but we're not really that excited about attracting them. And I just salute you for the work that you're doing to create a scenario here in Aurum that will attract family values, hard work, and the kinds of things that we have honored and protected for so many years. I thank you for your time. My name is Scott Dunaway. I live at 164 West 1525 North. North in Orem. First of all, I want to applaud the mayor and city council for what I believe is a reset of moving forward with the, the master plan. Some have felt like this is eliminating the desire to beautify State Street and to eliminate any kind of development, and I think a careful study of the issues understands that that's not the intention. So I'm grateful for this change, and as a resident who was going to be affected by a large development in the North Village area, I'm very grateful that it's been—

we've returned to a wiser zoning.

The question now, though, is what's going to happen moving forward, and I'd like to request that the city leaders and the professional staff of the city begin to consider some critical questions that need to be answered for what kind of city we want to look like over the next decade.

There are issues pertaining to water that need to be addressed.

Whenever there are more residents, and they're going to be in Orem, we need to consider whether or not we're going to have adequate water. And if that's going to— if there's going to be any additional costs that need to be distributed to the residents. or those who are going to develop property. We need to consider what kind of transportation issues we want to have, particularly along State Street. What kind of public transport— transportation do we want to have there? Do we want to leave it up to the state to determine what we're going to have, or is this something that the City Council and the Planning Commission ought to be reviewing ahead of time and taking initiative on? How are we going to handle the, the problem that we have of the need for more housing. But first, the question needs to be answered: what percentage of the city do we want to have as high-density housing? That has to be decided first. Otherwise, we just go forward without any plan, and we go from 40% high-density or 40% rentals to, to more and more high-density housing. So there are critical questions that I hope that the mayor and city council and the planning commission will give careful consideration moving forward after we have— after this reset. Thank you very much.

Thank you for all your comments. I think we'll close the public part of this. Do any council— of the council have anything they'd like to To say. And so just to clarify, we've got Jeff's online, right?

Yes, Mayor, I'm still here.

Thank you.

And then, and then is, is Tom McDonald on? Or Debbie Larray?

No.

Okay. Jeff, would you, would you like to say something first?

Sure, thank you for the opportunity, and I'm sorry that I'm not there with you this evening, but aloha from beautiful Koʻolini, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. I hear that it's snowing there, and so I'm not really, I'm not really sad that I'm not there, but I am sad that I'm not there tonight.

I remember when I ran for City Council 2 years ago, And I was astonished at the number of people that I talked to in that process who were concerned about high-density housing in Orem.

And I remember many times making a commitment as a member of the City Council that I would listen to the people and act accordingly. I'm grateful for Mr. LeBaron's analogy of us, of a city on a hill.

I love the visuals of that and what that implies.

And also Mr. Dunaway's wise advice of, okay, now what? Paraphrasing his much more eloquent speech.

And all of the other comments that were made.

But I'm grateful to the citizens of Orem for taking the time to let us know their concerns and their values and what they would like to see happen. And, and so thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the opportunity to express myself.

Thank you, Jeff. Terry, you like to go? I've been waiting for this for like 2 years, so I do have a couple things I want to say.

I'll tell you 2 quick stories. One is a family that I was asking their son, how are your folks doing? Because I knew where they lived. And he said, my folks are moving. I said, your folks are moving? They've been in Orem a long time.

He said, well, a high-density apartment group developer just bought their home.

I said, well, why would they sell their home?

Because they were told that all the homes around them, they were buying up. And if they didn't sell their home, they would be an island with a big high-density apartment complex around them.

I said, oh, that makes me sick.

But his folks where he grew up ended up selling and moving out of the city. Another experience, a good friend of mine I went to high school with, he grew up in Orem, built a home next to his parents' home. And So I ran into him the other day in another city and—

well, not another day, the other day, but a while ago.

Ran into him and said, hey, so where do you live now? And he told me another city, St. George.

And I said, St. George? I can't believe you'd ever leave Orem. And he says, Terry, you couldn't pay me enough money to live in Orem. The traffic, the high-density apartments, I'm out of here.

Those, those stories and many like those was the reason I ran for city council 2 years ago.

And John Barrett made a comment which is absolutely true. High density has been taking out affordable housing. Now we all have to smile, whatever affordable housing means today, because nothing's affordable, but But some— not, not in all areas, but a lot of the areas where the high-density apartments have been built have been homes that could have been affordable housing, and instead they're being bought up. And then, and we already know that high-density is not affordable. It's been mentioned about 45% of the city is rentals.

Almost half our city is rentals.

Wow.

And then gentleman asked, what's the number?

You know, great question. So the State Street Master Plan—

that's a little misleading.

It wasn't just State Street. Ask the people on 1600 North and 400 West about the State Street Master Plan.

It was going into their neighborhood. Ask people in other parts of the city.

Ask people on Orem Boulevard.

about the State Street Master Plan and what's happened, you know, to the back of their development, to where they live.

So the State Street Master Plan had a lot of drift into a lot of neighborhoods going up and down State Street.

And so what that made people do is say, do I feel safe in my home? Do I have to worry what's going to go into a block from me? And We should never have to have that. We should be able to buy a home and feel safe where we're at and feel this is a place we want to stay. So just a couple other comments and I'll quit. But, but I'm— I want to jump up on this desk and dance. I don't know if that's part of this approval, but I'm not sure we can do that. But it wouldn't be pretty, but I think about doing it. So comment to developers, developers in city, and the gentleman asked about putting a fast food restaurant with a drive-through.

Developers, welcome, welcome to Orem. Now you know the rules.

Now, instead of the guy who had a fast food restaurant, wanted to expand his restaurant, and was told, if you're going to go more than— I think it was 15%— you're gonna have to put it right up against State Street, and you're gonna have to put a couple stories of apartments above your fast food restaurant.

Are you kidding me?

Anyway, now we have clarity.

Now we're not doing that.

Now State Street is for commercial, for retail, and it's a place that we do want to see it be beautiful.

We do want to see trees and grass.

We do want to see people do like Del Cutler's place. If we took Del Cutler's, what he's built on State Street, and everybody looked like Del Cutler, what a beautiful State Street.

industry would have. So, so now if you want to remodel, if you want to build a new building, you're going to find OREM is going to be user-friendly. We're going to help. We want to support that.

We're not going to require you to put it in apartments above your development.

So now businesses know the rules and they can say, we can come to OREM and we can make commitments to OREM because we know what we can and can't do.

So this is a Great victory, I think, for the homeowners and for the residents.

It's a great victory for the people who live in apartments.

They now know the rules as far as the apartments go. And for those folks that want to bring retail and commercial to Orem, we're open for business.

So come. Thank you.

So as the newest Orem City Council member, I am very excited about the ordinance changes that have been proposed here tonight. Since I took office in January, this has been the number one issue for the council, in my opinion. We have listened to citizen input and have worked hard in cooperation with our Orem City staff, which we appreciate the hard work that they put into making these changes. These ordinance changes will help to beautify and revitalize State Street and to protect our Orem neighborhoods. We're eliminating the unlimited building heights, we're increasing parking requirements and building setbacks, and those are all win-wins for Orem's State Street. We're also Stopping high-density housing, as Terry said, from encroaching on our neighborhoods. I live in the 1600 North area, and that was a long year fight to try— when we were made aware that it was able to go around the corner up to 400 West, that was a real shock to find that out. So we're grateful that those things have been changed. The beautification changes that we have proposed proposed will make State Street a more inviting corridor, and I believe will help current business owners as well as encourage commercial development along State Street also. As I said, when I ran for office, 2 of the 3 critical issues that I based my campaign on were protecting Orem neighborhoods and wisely managing Orem's future growth. I spoke with many Orem citizens I walked neighborhoods and saw many of you there, and I see many of you here tonight that I've spoken with during that time who have shared these concerns with us, and we appreciate that. And these concerns have related to State Street and how it— the high-density housing and the traffic issues. And I just can't tell you, I'm just so excited to cast my vote tonight for these ordinance changes that will address these critical issues in Orem. And I want to give thanks to all of you for your commitment. This is your success. So thank you.

Thank you, Lane, for being the newest council member on the Orem City Council. I ran with her last year and it was a pleasure to campaign with her. If I look back on the 1600 North in the North Village District, I think that was the catalyst that brought us here to this time today. And those citizens, along with the lay, I think, made us really look and see exactly what we wanted Orem State Street to be. And when we put a moratorium on the State Street back in November, it was to pause. And let's look and see exactly what the citizens want. And I think the election, it was a mandate that they don't want high-density housing on State Street. So we are listening. And I ran on keeping the integrity of our neighborhoods and that commercial creep out of our neighborhood. So I'm thankful that we're here at this time to, to pass this ordinance and change State Street Master Plan, and I appreciate all the support.

Thank you.

support and the citizens coming out in droves just to voice their opinion, and, and we are listening. So thank you for your time.

Thank you.

I'm not going to say a lot, but I do appreciate Jeff and, and Renee and Terry and Dave and all their comments, and I agree with all of them completely. And I appreciate you, the citizens, coming out and supporting. This is, as Lynnae says, this is a big— this is a big night. This was a big part of what we ran on, was to return Orem back to its citizens, to make sure that the citizens have a voice in Orem and its future direction. And I believe that we Like I've said, I believe that we were at a tipping point in our future direction. We were at 43% to 45% rentals. And that wasn't the direction that most people that I talked to wanted to continue down. I believe that in general, from the people I talked to, the most common denominator was people wanted to live in Family City, USA. And I think what that means, to answer the question from earlier, is family values. And family values is what we base our community around, and things that take us in that direction. And so I'm, I'm just grateful to be able to vote on this. And we've only been in here 6 weeks, but we're very proud of where we've gone. And to Jason and his entire staff, I really appreciate what you've done to help us get where we're trying to go with this, and I appreciate that.

Okay, Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that the City Council amend Section 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zoning of properties Within the Hub District Zones, the Art District Zones, the City Center District Zones, the Canyon Crossing District Zones, and the North Village District Zones to the C-1, C-2, C-3, R-6, R-6.5, R-8, PD-1, PD-30, PD-37, PD-39, and PD-40 zones, and amending portions of Section 22-8-8 pertaining to zone development standards. along the State Street corridor. I'll second that.

Just can I make one comment real quick, one clarification?

So when you're making the motion to rezone those properties, can— could you just add that as shown in the maps, the zoning maps that were presented to you by Jason earlier? As shown in the maps shown by Jason Bench, as per Steve Rowe.

And I'll second that.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll move on. We've just got a couple more to go. This will be quicker. We've got a public court hearing on amending the current fiscal year '21-'22 budget, and we'd like to hear from Brandon Nelson to present this.

Sorry, sorry, that's about as big as I'm going to be able to get it. So, as Jamie mentioned in the work session, periodically throughout the fiscal year, We bring forth various budget amendments that are needed in order to recognize certain grants that we receive, various donations we receive, and/or various other elements that we are bringing forth that the city would like to accomplish. Some of those things, as, as you kind of peruse through there, Any of those items, and each of the items you can see in the note in the column as a note, the number, and those numbers tie to the notes that were provided as part of these budget amendments, kind of giving a brief synopsis of what they're related to. I, I was going to go through some of the, all the items with the one Are many of those grants and donations we've received. I don't know if there's any specific thing related to those in particular that you have a question about. I was going to focus more on item 2 and 3 in particular.

Do you know what that is, a CLEF grant?

That's for the library. The library receives that grant every each year, and they, they have various supplies that they purchased with those funds.

Do you know where that grant comes from?

It's, it's a federal grant.

So it's a federal grant. Is it something we get every year?

It is.

It is?

Yep.

Okay, thanks.

Most of the— I shouldn't say most. It's probably a 50/50 split between grants that we receive federally versus those that receive state— from the state, various organizations from state, and occasionally we do have private foundations that provide us grants as well. The, the 2 big items that I wanted to discuss in particular on here, and I'm going to go— so these are, these are the revenue side, obviously brief accounting. Obviously we have a revenue and a balanced budget. We also have expenditures, right, which is the more important part to the people who want to actually do something with the money, right? So And this, this section here, we discuss what areas those funds are going to be used in as far as being received. Item number 2, which I don't know if you can see my— right here, the digital radios, that's the police section, and down here is in the fire section. So we've been in progress of replacing our analog— old analog radios and saving money and replacing those year after year. As mentioned in the note, an opportunity has come forward to be able to purchase the remaining pieces of those radios and replace all the remaining analog radios with these new digital radios, which will need to be replaced by the end of 2023. Anyway, so those funds have been identified as far as using surplus funds from fiscal '21 and prior to be able to fund the purchase of those remaining radios and get those taken care of. Any questions about that particular item? Mayor, may I just make a comment?

Yes, sir.

The reason that we've included them in this budget amendment Is we had an opportunity in advance of the new calendar year to put in a purchase order for these and to save because of planned price increases. We were able to purchase them at an amount less than what we would have purchased had we purchased them today. So that's why we proceeded forward with them earlier than expected, so that we could garner the savings based on anticipated price increases in the equipment.

Okay, you were planning on buying them anyway, and this is just—

Yeah, we have to. The state is transitioning to a new system. We were required to buy these new radios. We figured we'd buy them now at rates cheaper than what they will be in the future.

Okay, great. That makes sense.

And if I may, just the, the $21,000 CLEF grant that is referenced, it actually is a grant that is offered Through the state of Utah, and it is specifically for technology-type amenities and programs that are offered through state libraries across the state.

Okay, thank you.

The item listed as number 3 is we— last year we were awarded what's referred to as a COPS grant, and we funded 3 police officers 3 new additional police officers with those funds, with the grant, and they pay approximately 50% of the cost of those officers. We've received an additional COPS grant for this year for an additional 4 police officers. That grant again covers approximately 50% of the personnel for a period of time. Associated with obviously that grant comes the purchase of various equipment related to them that is not part of the grant, that those, those elements are outside of that grant. The grant covers the personnel only. And so the item number 3 there that you can see all through here, those are all of the elements related to Those— the things needed for those additional officers.

Okay, so, uh, Ryan, did you have a comment? You're blinking on my thing. Okay.

And so anyway, that's— any questions about that particular grant?

Okay, go ahead, Brandon. Sorry, I just had a Is that Jamie? No, it was Ryan. So anyway, sorry, carry on.

So anyway, are there any particular questions about that particular grant?

Hey, so I just have one question on the, on the funding for the police officers. That grant goes for 3 years?

I believe it's— is it 4?

3?

I think it's 3. So it's a, it's a 4-year grant, and it actually phases in. So the first year it covers 75% of a police officer's wages, the next year 50%, the next year 25%, and then we're expected to pick up the cost, the full cost of those officers after the 4th year.

Okay.

So the grant through the Department of Justice provides us with the money for the personnel, but all the associated equipment, including uniforms and service equipment, as well as police vehicles, is something that we need to pay for.

Okay, thank you.

And then I just— several of the other items on there related to donations, obviously, you'll— and I just want to point these out for the new members of the council and mayor. The Major Crimes Task Force, you will see that on there quite often. We have various— several grants that we receive each year, and then on top of that, they, they receive drug forfeiture money, evidence money, and various other funds from the FBI, the DEA, etc. And then those funds, as they have needs to use those, from anything from telephone pings, cell phone pings, to equipment, to various other vehicles and other equipment, as they have use of that money, then we come forth with a budget amendment to be able to put that in the budget so that they're able to spend it. So, so those are the items that I have brought before you as far as our budget amendments at this time. Any last questions for me on any of those elements?

Any questions by the council?

Sweet.

Is there anyone from the public that would like to make a comment, or we'll open the public hearing if there is? Okay, we'll close the public hearing. And we'll move to a vote unless there's anything that anyone has a concern about or would like to talk about. I'd like to make a—

see, where are we— resolution that we approve the Is this 8.5?

Oh, okay. Approve the ordinance amending the current fiscal year 2021-2022 budget.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The motion passes. Okay, thank you, Brandon. All right, we're down to the last item. We've got a— we have a resolution on the agenda for the Utah Lake Authority. And we're just going to have a discussion about where we're at on that.

Mayor, members of City Council, maybe I can just talk for a minute about this. We talked as a council a couple weeks ago about possibly doing a resolution regarding HB 232, which is a bill that creates the Utah Lake Authority, gives the Utah Lake Authority authority to manage the lake, basically Utah Lake. We obviously had some concerns about, at that time, about the bill. Since that last meeting with the council, substitute bill HB 232 came out about a week ago. actually had some improvements in it from our standpoint, especially with regard to language saying that the lake was to be managed in accordance with public trust doctrine. Also amending the composition of the board to give a greater representation to representatives in Utah County and, and some other modifications as well.

We—

I believe I believe that this has significantly improved the bill. I don't think it's perfect at this point. I think there are still some concerns, but I think my opinion this time is that we might be better— it might be better for us to address those remaining concerns with the sponsor of the bill directly and work with them to see if we can gain some additional improvements rather than trying to do a resolution at this time. But certainly willing to have a discussion about the course that you'd like to follow.

Okay, thank you, Steve. Does anyone have anything they'd like to say?

So I'm not in—

I like what Steve's saying. I'm not in favor of doing a resolution at this time about how the bill currently stands. And I'm— yeah, we've actually spent a lot of time on this the last few weeks. because Utah Lake is a concern to us here in Orem. And as Steve talked about, we— the way the bill came out in the first place, we were not in favor of it. But we do feel like there's been a lot of progress made on the bill in terms of the representation for the the members of the, of the commission to be primarily from Utah County and having the most input on the lake authority. And so we like the way that that has moved. We wholeheartedly endorse anything that's going to be done in Utah Lake, but we're talking about making it more beautiful, making it a better place for recreation. making it something that's usable and essentially making the lake into a great place. And so we're in favor of, from an environmental standpoint, improving the lake. But we're— we have concerns in our conversations we've had about this lake entity and what the funding looks like and what the taxing power of that entity is. And so until that gets resolved, we're pretty much on hold as far as where we're at right now.

So my recommendation to you, if this is the course you'd like to follow, is just to make a motion to continue this item without date. And if we need to schedule another meeting to hear it and you want to do a resolution at a later time, you can always do that. Okay, I'd like to make a motion we continue this resolution. I'll second that.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The motion passes. Okay, Jamie, do you have some things you'd like to go over?

If I may, Mayor, just in, in line with some of what we've been discussing tonight, we have— there are 8 days remaining in the state legislative— 8 working days remaining in the state legislative session. The session adjourns on March 4th, which is a Friday, so a week from this Friday. There are still a number of bills that we continue to kind of watch and, and see how they are moving. For example, one of them is this Utah Lake Authority bill, which we've just talked about. That bill actually passed the House and is now in the Senate, and it's been assigned to a Senate committee. HB 399, which is a bill that relates to GRAMA, but it specifically relates to public safety and the ability for what is referred to as Garrity rights or Garrity statements to be kept confidential or to be kept within the framework of an investigation and not having to divulge them as part of an ongoing— excuse me, as part of a GRAMA request. That is something, and I can't necessarily speak to this as well as, for example, Heather or Steve, but this is a bill that cities have supported because we believe from an investigative perspective it provides and proffers our law enforcement personnel and our law enforcement departments specific rights to keep certain things confidential that are necessary as part of an investigation specifically tied to, for example, one of our police officers. That bill is actually in committee and has passed through the House and is now in the Senate. HB 151, which is a local government incentives bill— this is a bill that would have initially— the suggestion was that this bill would eliminate all retail incentives for local governments with any retailers in the state of Utah. This bill has been significantly amended. And incentives are now provided or permitted, provided certain criteria are met, associated with housing, mixed-use development, and other types of infrastructure. So it is— it has gone from being an across-the-board no incentives to now incentives provided certain parameters are met. And that bill is also in the Senate. In fact, that that bill passed unanimously through the House. There are 2 areas that we are watching very closely. Even with 8 days left in the session, 8 working days, there are still issues that have yet to be discussed in depth based on bills that we anticipate will be released here in the next couple of days. The first one relates to what we have called, or what we internally have affectionately called, SB 34 Plus. And those are housing affordability measures that were adopted 2 years ago by way of Senate Bill 34. So a group of state legislators and others that are obviously associated with housing affordability have been talking through and negotiating a bill that essentially adds some additional requirements on cities relative to housing affordability. And really what we are hearing is the, the initial SB 34 bill of 2 years ago focused on expectations as to cities and what they were expected to do. Now this update in many respects focuses more on execution. Okay, now that we have these specific expectations, what are you specifically as communities doing to meet those standards that we have set? So that, that bill has yet to be released. We anticipate that it will be released. It has to be released by the beginning of next week. But we anticipate that that is going to be a big topic of conversation. conversation for all local governments across the state here towards the end of the session. Another bill that we are watching very closely, again not released, relates to what we call station area plan requirements. So there is a proposal by legislators to require certain land use expectations in areas in and around transit stations. And transit stations, from what we understand, include everything from a Frontrunner station to a TRAX station to a bus rapid transit station. So if you have a city like, for example, Orem, that has one of these transportation resources in your community— TRAX, Frontrunner, or BRT, then you may be expected to meet certain development requirements in and around stations along those transit stops. Now, we don't necessarily know what is going to be required. In fact, we've even had a conversation as to whether or not a BRT stop qualifies as a— in the same way, for example, as compared to a Frontrunner station stop or a TRAX station stop. But we anticipate that that bill is going to come out here in the next couple of days as well. What bill number is that? It has yet to be numbered. We just know that it's in process now and in negotiation with, uh, obviously a number of legislators, the Utah League of Cities and Towns, the transit authorities, as So, Jamie, I sat in on some of the Zoom pre-meetings for this one.

Yes.

At the time they were wanting it to be a voluntary thing. Is it turning towards more of a required?

Yes.

So the expectation would be that we would have to develop a plan related to a specific station area within a geographic distance from a station.

Who are the main sponsors, groups pushing that bill?

I don't, I don't know if there's a specific bill sponsor that we know, or—

Well, the bill hasn't been published yet, so no. My understanding is the SB 34 and the station area plans may be coming together in the same bill. I believe I want to say it's Waldrip who is working on SB 34+.

Representative Waldrip, I think, is in either, either Cache County or Wasatch County.

I can't remember.

Okay.

But, but obviously housing and housing affordability, as we've talked about tonight, is something that we're all very concerned about.

We wish—

in fact, we were hoping over the weekend, this holiday weekend, that a— that bill would have been released, or at least, you know, both bills would have been released, but they have yet to be released. So we will let you know as soon as we know, and we will forward you a copy of the bill as soon as we receive a copy of the bill as well. Okay, and that's all that I have. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Heather, so we skipped over 9.1, monthly financial summary.

Yes, we did.

And, and that is just included in your packet. So we've just included that as an agenda item, but a copy of it is included in your packet.

Okay, so nothing we need to discuss.

Okay.

All right. I'd like to thank everyone for coming and the council and the citizens and the staff. And I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second that.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Have fun, Jeff, the motion passes.