City Council · 2022-12-13

I'd like to welcome everyone here today, uh, to this work session. Our first item on our agenda is a motion to, uh, have a closed meeting. Would someone like to make a motion to that effect?

I'll make that motion, Mayor. Okay, make a motion that the City Council adjourn to a closed meeting, uh, held in Room 107 of the Barclays Center.

And you just try to state the purpose, the whole piece.

Are there any big words here?

Just kidding, Steve. I'll try.

City Council adjourns to a closed meeting for discussion of the character and professional competence of an individual and/or to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation pursuant to the Utah Code Section 52-4-20. 5, L, A, and C. Following the closed-door meeting, the City Council will convene in the City Council conference room for the remainder of the work session items.

Second.

Second.

Okay, we have a vote. Jeff? Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion passes.

We'll move forward to our meeting.

We're back and we'll resume the work meeting. We'll start with item 1.2, discussion dispatch relationship with Provo City.

Very good.

I'll do my best to get you back up on schedule. I know that we're, uh, running behind. Uh, just review of our objectives when we decided that we were going to, uh, merge our dispatch center with Provo, which was the resolution voted on and passed In October. So reduction of operational costs is significantly— and to significantly improve reliability of our dispatch services, accomplishing the goals of the Utah State Legislature for improved communication statewide, improving the 911 response along the large common boundaries we share with Provo, and to provide our emergency communications specialists, our dispatchers, with an improved alerting route. So The service agreement that is, is being prepared right now, the drafts have been circulating with discussion and editing between all the stakeholder parties. Both legal teams, Provo and Orm, have been heavily involved in the drafting of this agreement. City management, police and fire administrations have also been weighing in on different policy procedural values. The final draft should be ready for your City Council adoption the first meeting of January is what we're anticipating. And Provo, meanwhile, is preparing a 6-month expanded operation budget of the dispatch center, and we are working on the initial implementation of the cost-sharing arrangement. Some of the major points of that service agreement is it contemplates a 2- to 3-year term where— in which we will finalize a longer-term interlocal cooperative agreement. So, it kind of— there's basically 2 milestones involved. WARM dispatchers will be employees of Provo City effective December 25th of this year. The date for that, besides the fact that it's Christmas, is that's the first day of Provo pay period. It allows their— it allows our personnel to be fully included in the benefit packages that Provo has offering effective the beginning of the year. It also will be establishing an advisory board composed of the chief administrators from both the fire departments and police departments, and will be the ones making recommendations on budgets, policies, operations, and staffing. So we'll be very much equally cooperative in the management. The agreement addresses the difference between leave and other benefits for Orem policies— excuse me, for our Orem employees that transition over to Provo. We've constructed a package for them to help define and carry on what their vacation and sick leave balances would look like as they become employees of Provo. And it also helps to define our contribution to the cost of the Provo City facilities that we are currently using since October and defines our responsibility for different hardware and other associated costs. Agreement's also defining the method for cost sharing for the operational budget. Basically, it's a 50/50 formula. 50% will be based on the service level population, and then the other 50% based on the actual 911 calls into the dispatch center. So it'll be very balanced on the population end and then on the calls for service end. The agreement also pledges pro support for our efforts to maintain our PSAP license, which I know was an article of discussion early on. There's, there's been no move, and we've discussed before too that the state is the grantor of that license. However, the state at this point actually does not know how to revoke that license. They haven't been able to tell us how they would take it anyway, so we feel pretty comfortable where we stand right now. And it's going to define the process for considering, should in the future any other jurisdiction ask to opt into the service district we're, uh, we're defining as we go right now. Uh, we don't— there's nothing immediately pending along those lines, but we recognize that both Provo and Orem have, uh, borders beyond just Provo and Orem, and there may be at some point in the distant future, or not too distant future, where others may be encouraged to jump on board. Now, and also, uh, pardon me for not walking before. Chief Jim Miguel from Provo Fire Department. So Provo Fire is the directorship under which our dispatch service now works, um, and from our— my discussions with him, uh, with some of our dispatch personnel via face-to-face conversations and emails, uh, things are going great. Hiccups here and there that we anticipated would occur. But nothing major. There's been no failures or, or anything where our ability to provide service to our community has been affected in any negative capacity at all. And as we suggested, as those bugs in relationships become better defined, we fully believe that our position and our ability to render services is going to be greatly enhanced.

Josh, I have a question. I know one of our concerns was the overworking of our staff. Tell me, is their work-life balance better? Are we working just 40, 50 hours and not these 80, 90-hour work weeks?

I think Chief Miguel could talk specifics, but what's been represented to me is that it is improving. So present tense, improving. Have we changed the world, so to speak?

No.

You know, we had a very short-staffed dispatch center in Orem. Provo also struggles with staffing. combining them two has made a positive impact, has cured the overall staffing issue. I think it would be— that would try and represent that. Okay, but it hasn't solved the work in progress. Jim, could I speak to that?

Hi, I'm Jim McGill. I'm the fire chief in Provo, and I— we're very grateful for the support that we've received. The work-life balance, I believe, is improving both for Orem and for Provo dispatchers, soon-to-be Provo dispatchers.

They—

we have been able to, under this current system, we've hired 5 new dispatchers. They've actually started. We have 3 dispatchers that are in backgrounds right now. It takes a little while to ramp up the dispatcher, but we have discovered a way that we are, we are taking their training, taking their training kind of halfway and then utilizing them as call takers, which is freeing up a great deal of time and a great deal of mandatory overtime. So things, as Chief Adam said, things are getting better and they're on a trajectory that we are very pleased with. Um, we, um, we have, uh, I want you to know that they have been, um, I can't imagine anything more difficult than bringing 2 dispatch centers together, but this has been an amazing experience. They have come with a smile on their face. They have, they have been cooperative. We have set up committees to, to make changes and to make life better for them. There's a constant line of communication on how things can get better. There's a constant line of communication between Provo Fire and Orem Fire and Provo Police and Orem Police. So it's— it continues, it continues to get better, and we are certainly excited about what the future holds. What we hoped would happen has happened, and that is that we are able to hire more employees. We have a more robust training system so that we can get them, and this is just because of the numbers bringing Provo and Orem together. So I think that all in all, they would tell you that that in most cases it is improving, but I think everybody sees the horizon. Everybody can now see that things are, are going to get much better, and everybody is engaged in the training. It's, uh, it's been a great experience at this point.

Chief, question.

Yes, 311 in the south part of Orem used to go to Provo. So now I assume that's seamless, or will that be— because it'll be one dispatch for both. Citizen in Orem is calling 311, or is that—

This is 911. 311's different.

I mean, okay, 911. So the 311 doesn't go through dispatch?

It does not.

Okay, never mind.

If the 311 is a problem in Orem, but that's not part of what we're going to talk about.

What is— what has really been— has been great is that there are a lot of 911 calls that come from within half a mile of our borders. And now that is all, there's no more calls coming in from a Provo caller to an Orem dispatch center or vice versa.

Where they're sent and say, you gotta call this place.

Right, so our call transfers have dropped down to almost nothing and we are able to communicate. And Provo and Orem Fire are on the same frequency. We can hear them operating, they can hear us operating. And a great example is your North State Street fire that took place a couple of Saturdays ago where it was a cluster clunky process to get help on the way. Now all they had to do is ask for it and the dispatchers just sent it. It was, you know, it was 45 seconds as opposed to sometimes 4 or 5 minutes. So we are seeing, and we're insisting that we see, the improvements that we anticipated and the objectives that both Orem and Provo have set for this. But I think it's important that I say that I am the director of the communications center. It falls under the fire department, but I want you to know that this communications center is very much ours. Very much ours. And, and there are— there's a, there's a deep desire to make sure that everybody reaps the rewards of this, of this merger. And, and to this day, as Chief Adams said, it's not without its hiccups. We've had to— we've taken 3 steps forward, 1 step back in some instances, but we are on a great trajectory.

Thank you.

Could we at some future point when things are—

when it would maybe make sense, take a field trip? Oh yeah, we would love that.

You take us on a tour and show us, show us how things work.

We would love that. So starting tomorrow, the additional consoles are being installed. We have been running on with 8, with 8 stations or 8 consoles. Orem, it was bringing 4 of them and they were on delay because of supply chain issues. They are arriving tomorrow, Wednesday, and they will be moved up. And so by the weekend, probably by Sunday, they will be up and functioning. We will be operating— we'll have the option to operate out of 12 consoles. So when things really get busy, we have the ability to split channels. We have the ability to do things that we could have never dreamed of before. We would love to have—

Yeah, it's good.

They did a good job constructing and designing this.

Are they in the new— your new building in Provo?

Yes, yes, we are. Um, we're fully integrated in the new building. Everything is up and running.

Just going to add those 4 stations this weekend.

So Chief, what are you doing with the, uh, vacated space right now?

It's just in a mothball status. We're not doing anything with it. Uh, anticipating that, you know, as, as things work forward, like we said, we do have a page folded over. We do have the ability to walk things back if, uh, a year or so down the road we find this was either not as operationally or economically sound. Uh, we do have the ability to fire back. We have the licensure, everything's still there. So yeah, I mean, a few, a few contacts with a few, uh, cell service providers and so forth like that, and some personnel parking in the seats and logging in, and it's something in existence. Yeah, so as far as long-term into the future, we don't have it slated for anything in particular. I mean, we're, we're more excited for the fire department to get out mobility than the dispatch center. I was thinking about turning that into my own office, a whole space, but he won't let me. Mayor, if I may, from what I've observed, we're kind of seeing economies of scale in action. Rather than being in a position of competing for, for candidates to hire, competing for dispatchers themselves competing for the best times or peak hours, or our citizens competing for where their calls get routed to, now it's all being cooperative. Uh, Wayne Parker, Chief Administrative Officer of Provo City. I don't know if he has anything else to kind of add to this overall. Only if you have questions, of course. He can at least commit to opening up the Provo City Hall for us to tour, to see that. So I do have a question.

So may I ask, so how many dispatchers do you have? What are their schedules?

How do you—

how are you running it?

Let the chief kind of respond to the scheduling.

How many dispatchers?

Number of dispatchers and scheduling.

And what are your schedules? Do they do 4 10s or 3 12s?

So right now they actually have a choice. Right now we always worked 4 10s. You worked 3 12s. So what we have done is there are— there is the first layer is 6 AM to 6 PM, 6 PM to 6 AM. of 12-hour shifts, and then we overlay 10 hours according to our call volume. So we can adjust those 10-hour shifts to make sure that we have adequate resources for our peak when we have peak demand. We, we have enough data to know when we have peak demand. Doesn't mean we're not going to be surprised, but we have gone— let me just give you an example— we have gone at night from, from night or from, uh, 0100 to 0500, and it's actually all night, but there are— there were always 3 dispatchers on duty in Provo, a minimum of 3. I think you had a minimum of 3 also, or 2?

3.

3.

And, and so you would think that bringing them together and calling them 6 would be the same, but that is really not the case. We've been able to bring them together And by having dedicated call takers and dedicated channel dispatchers, it has a much greater flow because everybody's got an assignment and they're not trying to— 3 dispatchers trying to take care of police and fire, even whether it's a law enforcement call or a fire call. You know, on a fire call, we have as many police officers—

they like to watch us work. We got there first.

So, so we have 20 police officers, so being able to communicate with all of them is, is critical. And we find that bringing those 6 together seems like 9. It just seems like 9. And, and it's, it's been a much better, much better system for us in the relationship. You know, we had a, we had something we never anticipated, and that is that we We came over here and Orem was kind enough to host us for 14 weeks while we tried to get our dispatcher dispatch center up and running. And that has proven to be, that has proven to be a fantastic experience because when Orem dispatchers came to Provo, they all knew each other. They were all friends. This was nothing new to them to be working in the same center, helping each other. And so, I cannot tell you how pleased I am, and I think they are, at the way they have come together as a team.

And what's your geographical area?

We have— ours is the city limits of Provo, and then what Orem brought— Orem, Lyndon, and Vineyard Fire responsibilities.

You can see why we get along. It's about the police. Our relationship is obligatory.

Yeah, there's competitions.

He can outrun me, but I can beat him up.

I have cousins who are police officers. They're like, we always get there first.

We're the winners. So true. Do we have any other questions?

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Come on, man. Okay, next up we've got item 1.3, a discussion on moderate-income housing strategies, an update with Grant Allen.

Yes.

All right.

Yeah, keep me in the loop.

Okay, Grant, you ready? Yeah, if you'd like to go ahead. Mayor and council, I'm here to present on an update on the monitoring housing strategies. As you may have seen, and we received a letter of noncompliance from the state's Office of Division of Workforce Services. 66 other cities received these same letters of noncompliance with the new House Bill 462. to mark the housing provisions in the State General Plans. We received 4 corrective actions, and I was just gonna go— those were outlined in the letter you received. So I was gonna go through those one by one, kind of talk about the corrections that we're proposing to make. We've also subsequently had follow-ups with USCMA, DWA US and ULCT have had several discussions since those letters were sent out, and we've been part of those as far as what we need to do to modify and modifications we need to make to be compliant. So the first item is to correct state code language. So they're requiring the citations of state code to be verbatim, and so there was some truncated sections when text was being, you know, prepared for the amendment that were left out. So that we're proposing to correct that. The second correction is to adopt the strategy. Throughout the whole process of the prior amendment that we did in October, and to meet the October 1st deadline, we were following guidance from DWS, and subsequently we received a notification that we need to adopt a 5th strategy instead of just 4. And that's because we have the front runner station in the city. And so, so I'll show you in a minute what our proposed 5th strategy is. And then item 3, for 2 of the strategies we've adopted, our implementation plan did not meet the substance of the law with regard to their interpretation. And so we're proposing stronger implementation language with respect to accessory apartments, as well as the affordable senior housing overlay zone. And then the 4th item is we have to adopt subsequent implementation plan for this new 5th strategy that we're proposing. And the 5th item is not a corrective action, it's just a timeline. So we have a 90-day compliance period that is codified in state law for February 16, 2023. So kind of looking ahead, I'll have those dates for you at the end, but looking ahead, January 24th City Council meeting is where that change would need to be adopted.

Do you have a proposal for the 5th?

Yeah, I'm gonna get to that right now. So these are just in review. These are our 5 previous strategies we adopted, as well as a proposed 5th strategy. The first strategy is 6th Street Apartments. Second strategy is Affordable Senior Housing Overlay. Third strategy is the Housing Transit Reinvestment Zone. Fourth strategy is Stationary Plans. And the 5th strategy is impact fees as they apply to the Affordable Senior Housing Overlay Zone only. And so from the state code language, we can pick this as a strategy: reduce, waive, or eliminate impact fees related to moderate-income housing. And so this year, state law required us to eliminate impact fees for internal accessory dwelling units, so we've already completed that. But the state code requires us to do and propose Further action. And it actually encourages us to do a 5-year implementation plan, but if we propose that before then, we may qualify as well. So we're proposing to consider reducing or waiving impact fees for developments in the affordable senior housing overlay zone. We're proposing staff will research the existing developments that have occurred. We have a total of 5. right now over the period of time that this zone overlay has existed. So we don't anticipate this being a huge impact in terms of either reducing or waiving the impact fees. So we're proposing to research how much impact fees were paid for those existing developments and what that impact would be if we were to reduce or waive them moving forward. These are some text updates that we're proposing for the implementation plans from guidance we received from DWS. Per the state law, DWS will be the state oversight in terms of what— if our implementation plans meet the law or not. And so— This is still draft text. We're refining it a little bit more staff right now. So we fully intend to bring back the final language to you potentially in the January 10th work session. We also intend to send this to DWS and find out if it meets the intent of the law and their interpretation so that we, as we move forward with all through the process of the next meetings that we won't have any surprises from the DWS side. So that's the first one, the accessory apartment text updates that they asked us to make. And then we've proposed some additional elements, this affordable senior housing implementation language as well. So next steps, possible work session January 10th, where we bring forward the revised language that's been reviewed by DWS. We'll have a public hearing at Planning Commission January 18th, and then subsequently the next week we would need to come to the January 24th City Council to adopt those amendments, and then we'll report the final report by the February 16th deadline so that we're in compliance. Is there any questions about any of the strategies? Um, we'll be sure to send these out to you after tonight so you have a chance to review them. Keep in mind, they will revise a little bit once Division of Workforce Services gets their hands on it, but basically what they were after with the strategies is they wanted to see some milestones in there, some dates, and some Further explanation of how we're going to work through those strategies. So we've gone through, Grant's gone through and kind of developed that out a little bit. Hopefully, hopefully we'll meet their intent. There's not really anything drastic in here different than you've seen, it's just more specific. So will this impact the senior overlay or whatever on Northeast? No, that's a different, different There's a specific code in the ordinance that talks about single-family up to 4 units. Okay. Any other questions, comments? Let's see what they say. Thanks for jumping on that so quickly.

Yeah, that's kind of a quick turnaround.

Nice to be with 65 other cities. Yeah, I mean, we—

yeah, we—

I jumped on that. We had a call with the US within 2 or 3 days. So the problem is we relied on information from the US. That individual left, so we're not told that. Yeah, they've had 4 different people or 3 different people in that position in the last 8 months, so they're not paying enough, so the interpretation seems to be— so there's nothing else. And yeah, thank you.

Thanks.

After 66 cities out of compliance, something wasn't quite clear.

Yeah, that sounds like the burden was on there. 1 or 2, it's your problem. 66.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, let's just run through the, uh, agenda review and preview of upcoming agenda items. That's it. Uh, our next session will start at 6 PM, so we've got a ways out. I'm just seeing that I was supposed to have prayer and inspirational thought, so I'll find somebody who's inspiring there.

I, I don't have that.

I'm just seeing that now. I'm sorry.

You want me to call my dad?

Yeah, I can bring my dad over.

Thanks.

My dad's—

my dad is yours, right?

My dad's— okay.

Yeah, I'll take care of that.

Sorry.

All right, we've got the item number 7, mayor's report. Item 7.1, annual report from the Arts Council. And one of our personal appearances.

Is that you, Debbie?

That's me.

I'm Arts Council.

Do you want to introduce them or anything since you work with them? I'd love to talk a little bit about, um, something you've done.

He's just going to do an overview here. Oh, I'll just add my name in. Okay, all right, I'd be happy.

Okay, sounds good.

I could do an interpretive dance if you want.

That's okay. Item number 9, 9.1.

Did we do that already?

Did we do that?

You did it in study session.

We did it in the dais. Jeff, do you remember that?

Yeah.

Have you already been voted in, Mayor Pro Tem?

No, no, we talked about it.

We talked about it in the work session.

Okay, yeah, now we're official.

Nothing official.

I'm all for it.

For him doing it? For him? Oh, okay. Yeah, we've got item 9.2. That's gonna be approval of 2023 City Council meeting schedule. And then item 9.3. We've seen that City Council meeting schedule.

Yeah, because we went over to talk about Valentine's Day, making sure we don't have—

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Item 9.3, a resolution for campus drive parking permit district.

How many of those do we have?

I don't know.

Harris Dean is not here to talk about the number of parking districts we have.

Cumulative number?

Yeah, because there's quite a few small ones kind of around the area. Because they come in in sections, right? one starts to have the issue, and then the next.

Was that—

is that this?

Is that the one? Is this one by Orem High that we're talking about?

Yeah, because it's no longer an issue since they've done the remodel. It's the one that Paris Stevens presented on last school session.

Is there any more—

as far as that one goes, is there any more discussion on that?

Could be for sure, could be pulled.

Neil Skalgaard, I think, is going to be here tonight. That's what my conversation with Mike was at that.

So what we—

what Mike, I know, finished with was the plan was to put on consent assuming there was no issues. This is citizens asking to have it taken away. Okay, we're just kind of going with their request.

Okay, so we'll just go through these.

There used to be an area that they would all park, and anyways, before the remodel, it kind of was all taken care of, and now they're running into issues of Now they want people to be able to park on the street in front of, you know, friends or people visiting. Okay.

Yeah.

And 9.4 is approval of meeting minutes. And so those are all caught up.

I know that's been a thing for a while. Yeah, we're caught up to—

yeah, we're in—

we— yeah, there's still a couple more, but we're getting there. Okay.

So these are consent items. There will not be any—

Yeah, unless any of them can be chosen.

Okay, that's good to me.

When I go through that approval of meeting minutes, do you want me to define each one of those meeting minutes?

I think we don't need to with consent unless you want to pull something off. You can keep the, uh, your approval, I guess, efficient. This is the summary for all the time.

And just one motion to approve all of the consent items.

Item—

then we go into scheduled items.

10.1, appointments to boards and commissions.

That's fine. So it's a reappointment. Darren is fabulous. So, okay, I told my folks to come, but so maybe I'll have them stand. Yeah, they're here.

Yeah, if each person that's in charge of that wants to introduce their person, their people, and say something about them. Um, yeah, Planning Commission. Mayor, we've had some great names on there for a year, so I was kind of surprised that these relatively new applicants were given first shot. Did you decide— how do we decide these names? Terry, because he chairs the planning, how do we go about this?

So these are all the same. We all, we all can pull up the applicants and look at the applicants.

Yeah.

And then each of us that have a responsibility submit names.

Submit names. So you as a chair or chair liaison, whatever the name is.

So yes, and I don't— yes, and I mean, there's part of this that Helena, for example, is a retired teacher, which is the only one I think that we have that's now an educator or retired educator.

I mean, there is a method to the madness, as there is with every one of us, I think, on our board.

Is that your question?

Yeah, we've got a partner at Squire on there for a long time, very chipper. I thought he'd be a great addition to it with a finance background.

Yeah.

And he's never come up, so I'm just wondering the process. Yeah, I had 3 different members of the city council give me names.

So yeah, but we have 2 spots.

Okay.

One thing I thought was significant, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but we only have now one woman on the, uh, Planning Commission. So I thought it was important if there was a qualified woman, I'd like to see another woman on the So with Helena, we'll make 2 women on the council.

I just think they bring— are on the commission—

it just brings a different, uh, perspective.

Yeah, I actually had a couple calls today about some concerns about her.

Um, I haven't taken the time to investigate it, but I've had several people call me today saying that they don't think that's a good appointment.

Yeah, I saw the emails.

Well, that was an email, but I also had some calls. So, um, I don't know enough about her to know if it's a good fit or not. I love the idea of putting a woman on.

Well-educated, retired math teacher. And I like to spread qualifications around. Madeline, who is the assistant chair, is an attorney. And Mike Carpenter is in IT.

which I think is good, you know, someone to have in that area.

I think that's the only one we have is in IT. Uh, Haysom ran for city council, I think some of us— I mean, ran for mayor, um, a businessman.

So my question is, I don't—

seems like Mike's okay, but I'm wondering about, um, Helena.

Is that something, um— To me, I interpreted those complaints as personality issues.

I looked at the names complaining, and this is the first thing I've complained about in the city.

But, but I'm just—

I don't know enough about her to say yay or nay, I guess.

I know your conscience.

Look at the applications up there. It's on that.

Yeah, we all get the applications.

I reviewed the gaps.

You saw some that had been there a long time.

Yeah, some of those that have been there a long time, you probably need to refresh to make sure they're still interested.

I know I've had a chat with him.

I know he is.

Okay, that's good to know because I— we always have turnover.

Yeah.

And so if we have that, if we have that, Tom, please reach out to me and remind me. I know, uh, I, you know, I think we talked about his name before.

Yeah.

And Lynnae's given me names and, uh, Dave Spencer's given me names, so That's great. And certainly all of us talking together.

Mayor, if I may, since we're distracted—

I made a distraction. I'd like to tell you I finally did my duty late.

Lon Myers will be giving the opening prayer. And Bryce Merrill will be giving the pledge.

Does Bryce always give the pledge?

He does now. I helped him with the paperwork.

Oh, did you?

Yes, he answered a text the other day. One after Rager. This is for the prayer? The prayer, yes. It's Juan Myers.

He's on MyHeritage.

M-Y-E-R-S.

Thank you.

And Bryce Merrill.

Wrong one, sorry.

We'll do the pledge. Okay. Perfect.

Thanks.

No sense planning ahead of time. Mayor Myers is our assistant fire chief.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Assistant fire chief and rec director. So we got 2 recreation people. You're never gonna be off the phone. Um, we've got appointments toward the commissions. Item 10.3, uh, Historic Preservation Advisory Commission. That's Lon Bowen, Devin Pierce, Amber Larson, Olivia Johnson, and Brittany Laidler.

That's my, my appointment.

Okay, so you— let's just See, as far as Natural Resource was—

That's me.

And then Planning Commission is Terry, right?

Yep.

And then when they send you the Historic Commission. Okay. All right, the next we've got, item 10.4, resolution.

The fiscal year 2021 audit report.

Love that.

That's exciting stuff. That is exciting stuff.

And then we've got item 10.5, public hearings, amending Appendix G of the Warren City General Plan, saying that the Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Master Plan—

and that can have 6 proposed trails and bike lanes.

And then item 10.6, we got a public hearing on the water conservation plan. You'll be about even more than what Brandon will present.

Better than finance?

Yeah, I mean, go on, Brad. And then item 10.7, we tried to put them both on consent.

It's very— we insisted.

Please, out of 10.7, discussion, vote on personal matters. And then we'll have any communication items or city manager information items, and then we'll adjourn. Any questions? So, Mayor, I sent you an email yesterday about an item coming up on the agenda. Anybody have any questions about student housing? Any questions on that?

I just have a question about the development. We're removing the assisted living. Are we putting— because the big sell at the Planning Commission meeting was that it would provide a service for our autism community. So are we then adding that into the development agreement?

So Steve can explain the development agreement. It does say specifically for autistic kids of seniority or equivalent only. So they'll only be able to either fill it with autistic or 55 and older.

And is there— oh, I mean, I'm just wanting to preserve that autism service. So could we put a percentage has to be that, or kind of like we did how it had to be assisted living in the development agreement that they did years before? Is that something we could talk to them about, or how would you handle something like that?

See, I know he was studying out sick or something.

Because at the time, I know the owner said, Sorenson or whatever, said that the reason they had that development agreement in place was because there were very few assisted living facilities in Orem. And so the city facility helped facilitate that through some land issues. But so I kind of— the impression I got from the Planning Commission when I went to that meeting was the same thing. They felt like there are very few autism services available. And I don't know how Okay.

This is new.

They're doing this partnering with Scenic View. Sounds like a great thing, but I just don't know what's the— what are the safeguards there?

Well, there's kind of safeguards both ways. I'd be concerned, and if I was that business and I was limited on, you know, only so much had to be this and so much had to be that.

I mean, they might be using it to buffer their business, right?

In other words, say they've got a limited number of autistic people that are in there, and so they can fill it in with the $55,000.

Going the other way too.

Whereas if they don't have enough, they can adjust it. So I don't know.

So how do you do that?

County Housing Authority that's going to own the property, so it's going to be managed by them. Absolutely. So it'll be those qualified for that.

So you see them as continuing to provide that autism service? That's not just— we don't have to worry about that?

So it's not, so it's not a regular business. It's not a regular business. It's a county office.

Okay, that's what I want to ask.

So the question I think where the citizens are, they're talking to us about this is the concern this becomes a low-income housing where you've got 4 people jammed in there with 4 cars. And, you know, when the county's running it, that's—

that was what I was hearing. It'd be managed by the county and only those that are on their list and qualified to move in that facility.

I mean, it is low income anyway now.

The people that are there are just flat and old. But we have a set parking— This one, it's whatever was done. Okay, but they provided— you know that I sent you their accounts of their existing facilities, plus one proposed. 25% of the autistic kids, but they may or may not have a car, so not 100%. And then what they're finding is in other facilities in other parts of the county About 75% of them are condos, so overall, thanks to them, but they're ultimately— they don't want to complain.

Yeah, there was a neighbor that was very supportive, so yeah, I think overall it's a good thing.

But yeah, anyway, I just want to make sure you guys— because it'll come to town without coming Okay, all right, thank you. Any other comments, questions, issues? Okay, so I guess we're good. I mean, we've got our food over there. I think we're good to adjourn until the next meeting.

Is that clock right or not?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I did my handyman skills.

Test, test.

We'd like to welcome you out here tonight. We'd like to call this meeting to order. We'd like to start with an invocation by Lon Myers, followed by a Pledge of Allegiance by Bryce Merrill.

Our Father in heaven, we come before thee at this time. And we ask Thee that Thy Spirit might be here in this room this night, and with those that attend this meeting over video, that, that we might— We might have the wisdom and the strength and the humility to, to put others' views before our own, that we might have that strength to, to listen and to, and to make the decisions that will best benefit this great community. And we're so grateful for all of the blessings that we enjoy here in this great place, in this great state, and in this great city.

Amen.

We're so thankful for our freedoms and the ability that we have to meet in this forum and conduct this business at our free will. We are indeed grateful for our council, our mayor, and for our great citizens and employees. We ask that thou might bless and watch over them.

Amen.

all of them.

And bless our, our military abroad and our first responders, police and fire at home, that they might respond swiftly and safely to tend to the needs of these great citizens. And these things we ask for humbly in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you, Lon. Now, if Bryce would come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please rise.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Bryce.

Yes, there we go.

So we're going to item 7.1 and an annual report from the Arts Council. Debbie, did you want to say anything?

Well, we have a very robust and active Arts Council here in Orem, and I'm showing— I'll show you some of the projects that they'll be working on. My favorite is wrapping the utility boxes with some great art. Stay tuned, we have picked We have some fabulous things to do. They'll talk about some other things, but we have a great diversity of talents between art, music, theater. These are people who have amazing skills, so we're grateful for all of their service. So I'm excited to see what they're going to present to us tonight.

Mayor and City Council. Orem Arts Council would like to present their report for the year. Current Arts Council members include myself, Nathan Christy Hansen, Labine, David Blackington, Cody Hale, Alex Malone, Barry Merrill, Mike Ramsey, John Reinhardt, Adam Robertson, Michael Smith, and Scott Swain. We said a heartwarming, very heartfelt goodbye to Nancy Peterson, who was a longtime Orem Arts Council member, and we thank her for her service.

I think I saw John Reinhardt here. Do you want to come up and join?

I'm good here.

Anyone else on the Arts Council here want to join? Just John? Okay.

We had 4 major events and activities for 2022. Just before Valentine's Day in February, the week before, a community— we held a community sing-in event, Sweetheart Serenade Sing-In. featuring a barbershop chorus and barbershop quartets from the Valley. We held the— we had individuals and families sing together on our stage in the library hall. Some numbers were singing with the audience, Others, we had quartets and the chorus sing. In fact, we had a couple of people come up on stage, including my daughter right center there, and with me standing behind her. Turnout was more than we expected and was a really fun event. We also had some acts doing— performing on the Summerfest stage, like the Sarahs Acting Up, Grupo Folklórico Tolan, and American Rhythm Utah. We also had the unique opportunity to have the BYU Symphony Alumni Band, 75 musicians on the outdoor stage. It was one of the largest performing groups we have ever had at this venue. One of our Arts Council members, Dave Blackington, retired from BYU as a conductor, was one of the conductors in this multi-decade, multi-generational group of musicians. Then came the summer concert series that start in July and go through August. Um, weird rain situation, and one of our acts had to go into the library hall to perform. I think that was the Tri-Chevys. Um, we've We had 6 local groups in a variety of genres and styles. Very well attended, as in past years. I was lucky enough to host one of these. The Wasatch Showband was one of them. The the Tri-Chevys, Matt Newman's group. He— they always have a good show. And then there's an update on utility box art. We had an unfortunate instance this year. We had a delay in utility box art. John Reinhardt's wife was— had severe back problems, and so he couldn't spend as much time as he wanted to. But we did put out a call for art, local artists, and we've got several designs to be used in upcoming boxes. So we're at the point where agreements with individual artists will be executed. Very soon. We continue to work on the where— which utility boxes are going to be covered, the local agencies, and contract execution. Again, we're going to try to get more art on utility boxes as soon as possible. Thank you.

for your support.

Thank you.

Has anyone got any questions? I have a question. How many utility boxes are you going to put art on?

I thought it was up to 20, correct?

Am I right?

We're hoping to do 20 to 30, just depending on the pricing of the, the vinyl. And then there's a small, very reasonable stipend for the artist's work. We don't own the rights to the work once we contract to use it. It's just an acknowledgment of recognition of their contribution and paying for that to be placed on a box. And then also in the event that it gets featured in any of our social media or any brochures or anything like that.

Cool.

And I can say that we got tons of submissions. I don't know, 50, 60? Do you know how many we got? Probably about that.

I haven't counted them since.

Yeah.

And it was so difficult to pick. from these amazing artists. They were, they were young, they were old, they were everything in between. And so the talent in this area is amazing. So you're going to see some beautiful works.

We were, we were really happy to work with Nate Prescott in the project, and then he moved to Hawaii. So we were all insanely jealous that he did that. But now Pete Wolfley is helping us in the way that Nate was. before. And so we really appreciate that. And that transition was very helpful.

Okay. Any more questions?

Any other questions?

Okay, well, thank you.

One more.

Are you going to repeat the sing-in at Valentine's Day again? Are you going to do that?

Would you like us to?

Yes.

I'll get on that.

Okay, sounds good.

Okay, well, thank you. We appreciate all that you do. Next, item number 8, we have personal appearance— appearances. Time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed in before the beginning of the meeting. Please limit your comments to 3 minutes or less. Looks like we've got a fairly small group. We've got 8 tonight. This—

so do you have what you're going to read?

Is it your Pocahontas thing?

No.

It's a new one? Not even—

it's a realist.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, maybe you can read that next time because we, we can't really— it's every city council meeting.

It's in January. Okay. What is the topic?

I would, you know, I would just suggest you not, not, not delve into what the topic is.

Just decide—

I mean, our normal practice is to limit personal appearances to what people signed up for, right?

That's, that's really all I would just suggest.

You follow that policy.

That's, that's what we always do.

I don't want you to—

I don't think you should.

I don't think you should.

Excuse me, sir.

Sir, please.

I don't think you should make a decision on this based on what the topic is. I think you just adhere to the policy and then go with that.

Okay.

Yeah. No, we appreciate you coming, but we really can't deviate from the policy. Otherwise, every time someone shows up late, we've got to have extra people on it. It's kind of chaos. So we appreciate you coming and we hope you come to the next meeting.

Mayor, this is Brent.

Yes, Brent, our next meeting is January 10th.

January 10th. Okay, so January 10th.

So I'm hoping to be able to present the building-related thing that related to the Christmas things that were, um, up now. It's kind of about, um, the building place.

Right. No, I understand. I'm sorry, but we just can't change the rule for everyone.

Mayor, maybe I could suggest maybe he could present his information to Assistant City Manager Brent Bybee, and then he can make whatever communications might be necessary if he needs to relay it to the council or talk to other people. That way he can still hopefully have his concern addressed.

Yeah, if it's a concern, maybe do that. Talk to Brent and he'll take a look at it and address it. Because that's what we do a lot of times after the public comments is we let people talk with city management and then they work through the issues. So, no, no, we've had like 30. It's just we have rules of when you have to show up. Okay, let's carry on. Let's have our first person is Parley Hellwell.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. I didn't realize a few minutes ago that only had 3 minutes, so I gotta Change what I was going to say about everything, but basically I have a home in Orem that I moved out of because I lost the lots behind me and I couldn't have my garden. And gardening is all I do now that I'm retired. But I was notified that because I moved out of the home, I did have a basement apartment that I had rented, and now I can't rent that. And so I wanted to just give a reason of why maybe you could change the rules a little bit because this is an 8,000— well, 9,000 square foot home. It's built on 2 lots. It's set back off of the street an extra 10 feet. It has 8 off-street parking spaces, and so it has 36 feet on one side of the house, 45 feet on the other side of the house. And I can say it's 9,000 square feet. And now that I don't live there, because I couldn't get my garden space there, and so I actually moved to Payson, where I have 5 acres, but I'm not ready to sell the home right now because of conditions and, and so on. And so I thought maybe because this house is different, I mean, it's much, much different than the $400,000 houses all around it. I was going to explain why I built a $1.7 million home in a neighborhood like that, but don't have time for that. But I think there might be an exception here. I remember when I was in the Senate, we passed a law for one person in the state because of what needed to be done there. But maybe something like, you know, If a house is over 8,000 square feet, is that— if it has plenty of off-street parking, or it could be a number of different things, then the people that live there— I mean, I could— people that live there would rent the basement also. But it's a Hispanic family and They have lots and lots of family members they'd have to come, but they're not willing to pay that much more. Right now I rent out the basement for $2,000 a month, the top floor for $4,500 a month, and they'd pay $1,000 more to bring in more family members to rent that out. But I don't want to lose the good family that I have there. So I'm just here to see if because of this Different situation of how this house is so much different, so much bigger. It has more square footage than 3 houses around it, and to just be able to put one family in there is very difficult. So I'm just requesting to look at what might be different. Okay, so I don't know if I need to come back later or how you do that.

Yeah, we need to possibly go back And is Steve down there, or— yeah, if you would go talk to Steve, Steve could give you some ideas on how to work that through the city, and because it's a whole process you'd have to go through.

All right. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Okay, next we've got John Barrick.

Hello, my name is John Barrick, a Norman resident. I live at 365 West 17th I'd like to— I haven't been to the City Council in a month or so, and I'd like to thank you for bringing up Proposition 2. And I know while it was not successful, and that disappoints many of us, I think most of Orem residents are in favor of a split, but maybe a larger split. But the key important thing in that, the reason I want to thank the entire City Council for voting 7-0 to put that on the ballot, or to at least have a— excuse me, to have a study done, which you later voted on, was that it provided key information that allowed the residents and voters of the Alpine School District to defeat the bond. That saved Orem residents $116 million plus interest, and interest will be going up tomorrow when the Fed raises rates again for the 6th or So consecutive month saved Lyndon over $30 million, I think approximately $34 million, and saved Vineyard $26 million, I believe, plus interest. So you saved all of our local cities substantial amounts of money that could be used, better used by those cities than the Alpine School District, and I wanted to thank you for that. I also wanted to thank the mayor personally for his efforts and to given my support. I read an article in the news recently that wasn't particularly flattering, but I wanted to remind everyone and the mayor that the US Constitution guarantees us that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or the pursuit of— or property without due process of law. And that's the great thing about the United States of America is that We have appeal avenues to make sure that the truth is heard, and there is no rush to judgment. As all of us with adult children understand, sometimes they— their judgments aren't the same as ours, and we can't control them. And I, I'm empathetic to your, to your situation, but I wanted you to know that you have my support and many, many of our friends that wish they could have been here. to support you. But, um, my understanding is this occurred in Alabama and that they had to talk about something in the South called Southern cooking, and it's not always about the food. And so that's an important reason to have due process of law. Um, um, and there should be no rush to judgment. We thank you for your service, and, uh, unfortunately that doesn't provide, um, some of your children with as much privacy as that— as my children would have to get, but we wanted to thank you for your service as our mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we've got Chelsea Hope.

There were a few things that I would have liked to discuss, but I feel compelled that we— I need to bring this up as well. I appreciate the last comment. Some of the things that are going around in the news, you know, we know that there's a lot of fake news going around, and we know that there are a lot of people who are standing up to fight for us and for our rights have been targeted by fake news and by corrupt players in our state, and there is a reason. That our corrupt Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson was involved with our split, was involved with our city. There is a reason that our county clerks were paid money to help campaign. People who are supposed to vote, count our votes, were involved with campaigning against the split. We do have corrupt players in our state, and they have been targeting our mayor for some time now since he stepped into office. And Mayor Young, I want you to know how much we love you, we respect you, we admire you, and we support you. And, you know, we've, we've heard the mud being flinged around. Our understanding was that there are going to be people doing a hit job on our mayor again, trying to bring all this out, trying to twist the facts. And the reality is, is that we the people elected our mayor to this seat, and he is to Stay in his seat until his term is over. We are not going to allow anybody, whether it's the lieutenant governor, whether it's the corrupt organization Stronger Together, whoever they are, you do not get to intimidate or threaten our mayor, and you do not get to ask him to step down. That is a decision that is based off of We the People, and we made our voice heard when we voted. So we expect our mayor to stay in our seat, and to pick a fight with our mayor is to pick a fight with Thank you.

Next is Karen Turner.

Karen Turner from Orem, Utah. Tonight I would like to thank you, Mayor Young, Know that I appreciate all that you've done for our city. I know it's difficult being personally attacked, but attacking the messenger or character assassination is a strategy the opposition skillfully uses to cause division. Let's bring unity by focusing on issues and resolving them, and I know we can all do better. I'm so grateful Mayor Young has accomplished so much in the past year to help build our city as a Family City community, and he has allowed us citizens to voice and vote on issues of concern. Personally, I'm grateful he was able to re-establish State Street because we have rental property there that probably would have been demolished and we would have lost that income. Dave Young has an amazing reputation for high character standards. It's easy to detect when someone is lying or telling the truth about him because of his character. We should all be that trustworthy. And I'm thankful to live in a community that we can have differing opinions and come together to work them out. And I want to thank all of you that serve and all— everyone that serves in this great city. And Merry Christmas to all.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Sean White.

Yes, my name is Sean White from Orem, Utah. I've been a longtime resident of Orem. I used to come to these council meetings probably a long time ago when I was involved in politics, but politics really turned me off. Often coming to these meetings where we would sit and discuss things and people would all be against and then everybody would vote in favor, or vice versa. It seemed like there was never much to get involved with agenda-wise. So when I come now to speak from the heart, I've— since having been involved in politics and seeing all that goes on, I am so grateful for the refreshingness that has come into Orem now. I actually feel like a change, something has actually come in where I feel like the people are having a voice. It seems like there's always been some underlying things going on where people would get together and we would discuss things and it would seem obvious, but we couldn't get things through. There was always some barrier that was like, well, it doesn't work that way. Money goes, it gets separated, it goes over here. People never really have gotten a voice here. I'd like to congratulate you, young— David Youngman, the mayor, one of the few mayors I see in the paper now. It means I think you must be doing something right, because it seems like nothing ever goes on. You never hear about it. Most people don't even know who our mayor or council people are, but It seems to me that you like— if you're Mitt Romney, you'll never see anything negative in the press no matter what you do. And if you're Mike Lee, then everything you do is wrong. So I guess congratulations on that. You're more like Mike Lee than Mitt Romney. Anyway, thank you for making AURBA. It makes it feel like we're making progress. We're becoming Family City USA and a place that I think people would like to live.

Next we got Wes Parrish.

I'm really too old for this. But, uh, I'd like to congratulate the mayor and the entire city council. I've lived in Orem for more than 40 years, and I think you're doing the best job that's ever been done. For many of those years, we had mayors and council members who were just kind of figureheads. They never really did anything. They just kind of did what the city manager told them to do, and they were just there to look good for the public. But you must be doing something right because you keep getting in the newspapers on both sides. And I think you're doing a great job.

great job.

That's really all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I can't quite read this. Is Thomas Cook?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

My name is Thomas Cook. I'm a citizen of Orem. I'd also like to make a few comments reference Dave Young being our mayor. First of all, I'd like to preface it with the fact that this man has no idea who I am, nor does he know me from Adam. All right. The other 2 points that I specifically want to highlight is that before this man came into the position of mayor, before the elections, Orange City was metaphorically bleeding out police officers and firemen. All right. Also, when I returned and retired from the military, came back in 2016 and saw the high-rise, high-density housing and the plethora of places in which it was You could tell that was definitely an issue. And you could definitely tell that part, a large part of Orem's soul was sold to the high-density housing individuals, for lack of better terms. Dave Young, at the time that elections came up, was asked to run. And my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, it was based upon these issues and many more that you saw as a problem with Orem. And since that day, you have taken on those challenges and tried to make the best of them possible. All right, also additionally, um, I was going back and looking at the City of Orem Government Facebook page from, from this time back to, uh, June 2022. Just to give you an idea, there were another plethora and dozens of dozens of programs and events that were being supported by this mayor in this city, and all of them to the benefit of our town and our citizens. He also, and they also had support for 15 new, at least 15 new local businesses coming in, 8 franchises. And he also made a plea on the funding requirement reference, you know, the requirement city must pay for services. They can either do that by raising taxes or shifting the money around so taxes aren't raised. They did that, and you can look at June 17th, 2022. Lastly, before I run out of time, I agree with John. Our Constitution was built upon, uh, was divinely guided. There's a process, a legal process, all right? And as of right now, there's a verbal pitchfork and torch mob out there that are trying to discredit the man prior to the, prior to the legal process taking place. That's wrong. And we as an LDS community ought to be a little sympathetic to that because guess what? Y'all had one leader that also went through a mob illegally, and it was in Carthage.

Okay, I can't read the first name, but Fisher?

I'll be short. My name is Samuel Fisher. I'm actually a very new Orem resident. I've only been here for a short time, so I actually had no idea what I was stepping into when I went to my first council meeting. And oh my gosh, it's like everyone in Orem is an active member and citizen and always coming in. So that was kind of crazy, to say the least. You know me because I've spoken here a lot about education, which is important to me, and still need to talk to that neighbor I mentioned last time. But, you know, they don't know I said this, so I've got time. Plus, it's the season, so I can just bring them cookies or something.

That should work.

Um, so it being the end of the year, I thought it might be nice to just note that coming kind of from the outside, but now being part of the Orem family, There's obviously been a lot of contrary positions in the community and especially on the council, and while I don't understand all of that, I really feel like the council's done their best to work together on that. So thank you for working to handle that so well, especially under what I'm assuming is a little bit of a different tone than most other years, definitely different from any other cities I've lived in. So thank you very much to the council.

Thank you.

And as for the mayor, I just like to comment that I don't know him that well. I've only shook his hand once, and I've never actually had a real conversation with him. But I have been here for a lot of Orem councils, and I've watched some of the clips of councils that I missed. From my observations, there's no mayor I know who had more to lose and nothing that I can see to gain than the current mayor. So thank you very much. And Linda took my line, but Merry Christmas to all.

And tell them good night.

Thank you all. We really appreciate those kind words. We'll move down to the consent items. So we've got 4 items on the consent agenda. We've got a motion to, to appoint Jeff Lamson as the mayor pro tem in the next session coming up January through July 23rd, or July 2023. We've got a motion approval of 2023 City Council meeting schedule. We've got a resolution on the Campus Drive parking permit district. Previously discussed, and we've got the approval of a number of minutes. Would someone like to make a motion on those consent items?

I'll make that motion. I'd like to make a motion that we accept the consent items as they're listed thereon.

Second.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Aye. Yes.

Okay, Terry. The consent items passed. I should have known. Okay, we'll move on to the scheduled items. Now we've got several appointments. Debbie, would you like to introduce this first one?

Is Darren here? Darren Hawkins? So Darren has been a very integral part of the Natural Resource Committee. He's very passionate. This is a reappointment. He brings a great skill set, so I'm happy to reappoint him. And we have a great committee and they have lots of great ideas— water conservation, trails, parks. This is a very vibrant, vibrant and wonderful committee, so happy to reappoint Darren.

You're making a motion?

I'll make a motion to reappoint to the Natural Resources Committee Darren Hawkins.

Second.

I mean, yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

The appointment passes. Next we've got item 16.2, appointment to the Planning Commission— or 10.2, sorry. Terry, would you like to—

yes, about that. So Amber, will you stand up first? Amber Pope's in the back. You probably can't tell, but there is a reason why she is stepping down. She is pregnant and was really, really sick.

Hopefully—

I'm glad she's here tonight. We appreciate her service. And she said when she gets through all this and when little guy or girl gets a little older, maybe she'll come back to us. So we'd love to have her come back, Amber, and thanks for your service. So we have 2 appointments that needed to be made this evening. One is Helena Kleinlein. Helena, will you stand? Helena is a retired teacher, active in our community, and has applied for the Planning Commission. The other name is Mike Carpenter. Mike was not able to be here tonight, but Mike is in the IT business. Both very active and involved in the community, so I make a motion, Mayor, that we appoint Helena Kleinlein and Michael Carpenter to the Planning Commission.

Second that.

No.

No.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

No.

Okay, the appointments pass. We'll move down to the Appointment to the boards and the commissions for the Historic Commission. Renee, would you like to talk about that?

Yeah, this is a new commission and we're very excited about this for our Historic Preservation Advisory Commission. We— I don't know how many of you read about the log cabin that was found on State Street. This group is going to help us figure out what to do with that, with a lot of other things. It's been really exciting. So if I could have these members stand, if you're here. Lon Bowen. Devin Pierce, Amber Larson, Olivia Johnson, and Brittany Laidler. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we appoint those members to our Historic Preservation Advisory Commission.

Second.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Appointments passed. And we appreciate all of you coming and all of your service on these different boards and commissions. Next, we've got some excitement. We would like to have a— it's our fiscal 2021-22 audit report. Brandon Nielsen is going to present that to us.

Brandon.

And John Hatterley.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council. As you are well aware, the state of Utah requires that we have a audit by independent audit firm each year. We have— that audit began prior to September, but basically near the middle end of September, and this is the conclusion of that audit. John Hatterley here with the firm of Larson and Company has— his firm has done the audit this year. As you're well aware, aware, this is the first year we had—

we—

our ordinance requires that we change auditors every 7 years. So this is the first year that we had Larson and Company with us. So at this time, I'll turn the time over to John to go over the audit and things related to that.

All right, thanks, Council, for letting me take a few minutes of your time. I know you're probably busy. First off, I just want to express appreciation to Brandon and his staff. The audit went very well, and I feel sorry for his staff because it sucks— oh, I shouldn't say that. It's terrible changing auditors. Every audit firm is a little bit different, and we ask for different things, and getting used to how Brandon does things and all the questions that my staff asked probably drove him nuts, but it was very smooth. It was a very good process. And I want to compliment Brandon. And just so the public knows, I review financial statements for cities and counties across the nation, and this is one of the best put together financial statements that I've reviewed. So I want you to compliment Brandon when you get a chance and tell him good job. All right, so I won't go too much into the financial data. That's probably better answered by Brandon if you have questions. So I'm going to give you our opinions on the financial statements and on your compliance issues, and then just run through a letter that I'm required to communicate some issues with you as a council at the close of our audit. So our audit opinion, and for those of you who really like to read financial statements, the reports have changed this year. It's not because you changed auditors, but they, they did change nationwide, so they, they are presented a little bit different. So Just don't think that somehow this is new because you had changed auditors. Now the opinion is in the first section of the audit report because that's what everybody feels like is the most important part of the, the report. Our opinion is an unmodified or an unqualified opinion, and in our world, that's a, that's a clean opinion. We get our opinion by following certain guidance, and that's Government Auditing Standards as well, as well as Generally Accepted Auditing Standards. So we follow both of those guidances in all of our audits. A new section this year under your responsibility is if during the preparation of the financial statements or during the year as financial transactions are happening, if there are conditions or events that arise that would prohibit you from continuing as a going concern, then you, you are required to perform an analysis on what that means to the city and how you're going to overcome that. The best example I can give is, is COVID. So we all go back to COVID, right? That's the new timeline. So when COVID hit, that financially affected not only for-profit businesses but also governments. And so at the time, that was a going concern issue for most governments because they didn't know, okay, if everybody loses their job and they can't pay their property taxes, or we can't get sales tax revenue, if everybody's kind of staying in their houses and they're not participating, what's that going to do to our revenue? And can we continue to function as a city and provide those services beyond 12 months? So everybody was required to do an analysis. And it just so happens that in the state of Utah, it really didn't affect us. And I don't know of any governments who actually lost money money during that period, but that would be a good example. As far as our responsibilities, we don't just look at the financial statements. We are required to exercise professional skepticism, and I tell my staff all the time that that's trust but verify. So we, we understand that you're doing a good job, you want to do what's right. Our job is to come in and verify your financial statement balances. We identify and assess risk. All of our audits are done on a risk-based, and we'll talk a little bit about more about risks a little bit later. We look at your internal controls, not to give an opinion on your internal controls, but we have to, A, make sure that they're in place, and B, that they're functioning. Without internal controls, a whole slew of problems could arise, and we look at internal controls not just in the financial statement system, but in the processes of how that information gets there, down to locking drawers and doors. That's an internal control that most people don't, don't think about when they think about internal controls. We also are required, if we during our audit identify conditions or events that would— that we consider issues in accordance or to prevent or prohibit you from continuing as a going concern, then we also have to do our own internal analysis on, on those events and make sure that you can continue to operate. Required supplementary information— just remember that there are sections of the financial statements that do not fall under our opinion, and that is the management's discussion analysis, and then there's a section following the notes called required supplementary information. Anything in there does not fall under our opinion, but it's required to always be with the financial statements to give it— to give them more readability and understandability. So if you don't want to read the entire awesome financial statements that Brandon's put together, my recommendation is to start with the management discussion analysis. It has a lot of comparative data, so you can see where the city's at year over year, and it's kind of a Reader's Digest version of what's contained in the financial statements. So if you don't like getting caught down in the weeds and trying to figure out what all the numbers mean, the Management Discussion and Analysis is a good place to start.

All right.

I'm going to flip to a couple other reports. The next report that we're required to issue just states that we're— we perform our audit in accordance with government auditing standards. And this report, I won't spend a lot of time on it, just outlines that we look at your internal controls to look, and, and specifically we're looking for material weaknesses or significant deficiencies. But since there weren't any to communicate to you, then I'll just move on to the next report. The next report, we also give an opinion on your compliance with federal programs. So this year you were required to have a single audit because of the ARPA money that you received. And our opinion is also an unmodified or an unqualified opinion on your compliance. So this is a different type of opinion than what's on the financial statements. So our first opinion is on the financial statements and, and financial reporting, and this one is on compliance with federal guidelines. The next report that we're required to issue is for the State Auditor, and we are required to look at specific sections of the code that, that the state auditor feels like is a concern to their office. Those are your budgetary compliance, the fraud risk assessment, justice court, enterprise fund transfers, impact fees, public treasurer's bond, and so on. Um, our opinion on your state compliance is an unmodified or an unqualified opinion as well. Um, I, I have to throw the caveat in there because I've been approached before This opinion is very specific to these areas that we tested. This is an opinion on your overall compliance with all of state code. We do try to identify if there's things that you're doing that aren't in line with code, and we actually will— we have created and performed tests during our audit to test a lot of those things that we— that are not part of state compliance that I feel like are relevant to your financial statement audit.

All right.

A couple of findings. There are a couple state compliance findings that we need to talk about. The first one is deficit fund balance. Um, so in the facility management maintenance fund, um, at the end of the year, that fund was in a deficit position, and state code requires that you, um, when you prepare your upcoming budget, that you include a line item in there to decrease that deficit by at least 5% of the next year's revenue of that fund. And if it's less than 5% of the revenue, then you just have to eradicate it altogether. That is an internal service fund that really should be a zero net. It should— all the money that gets transferred in, you know, it should have a zero net income every year and just zero itself out. It happens that some of the expenditures will were a little bit more than were anticipated, which caused the deficit. So I would expect that in the next year the revenue will make up for that and then not have an issue. The second one is cash management. The city's required twice a year to file a report with the Utah Money Management Council, and that really outlines all of the cash and investments that the city has custody of. Specifically just to let the Utah Money Management Council know whether or not you're in compliance with their act to have all of your money in prudent accounts, but also so that they can track where and how much money the city actually has. There was a couple accounts that were omitted from that this year. And that's been corrected, and I don't see that as an issue going forward, but we'll follow up with that next year. The next one is the general fund balance. So the fund balance in the general fund, the maximum you can have is 35%, and that will—

do you remember what the percentage was, Brandon?

Yeah, you're right around 40%. This is actually not a very uncommon finding this year because of all the money that's been thrown at the local governments. They're having a hard time trying to spend all the money that they've been given. So our recommendation is if you are anticipating projects and you're trying to accumulate funds, those funds really should be moved into a capital projects fund or other type of fund where it's more appropriate for them to accumulate and really just watch that That unassigned fund balance as the year gets close to the end. Last year there was also the fund balance requirement, and obviously the status of that finding is that it was an issue again this year. So our recommendation is just to watch that a little bit closer. You will have to report to the State Auditor's Office on what you're going to do to decrease that down below the 35%, so Brandon will get a letter from the State Auditor.

All right, could, could we stop there for a minute, Mayor?

Yeah.

Don't you have a plan for that, Brandon, to move it into capital projects?

Yeah, as you'll call it, this is about the 8th year in a row. Yeah, obviously, as sales taxes continue to exceed our expectations, that creates additional excess fund balance, and every June when we come as part of our June budget amendments, we do a transfer And for those who might be either watching online or here, we have a couple big capital projects, so we, we will use that money wisely and have to assume very little debt. Yes, correct. Most of the fund balance transfer will be going towards the new city center for the most part.

Yeah, and that's actually a finding that I don't mind giving because it means that you've been fiscally responsible with your funds. You haven't squandered. It's a little bit harder to talk to a city council when you're below the 5%, which is the minimum fund balance.

So I—

we've talked to Brandon quite a bit about that, and we know that that's going to get corrected. All right, just a couple of things that I'm required to go over with you. Our responsibility for the financial statement audit, that's all outlined in our engagement letter, and Brandon can provide you a copy of that if you want to read that. Compliance with our ethical requirements and our independence, I'm required to communicate to you that, that, that onus or that burden is on us. So it's not Brandon's job, it's not you as a council. It's not your job to make sure that we remain independent, and it's not just me and my team. I have to make sure that my entire firm is independent of Orem City in order for us to perform the audit. Significant risks that were identified. So I told you we'd talk about significant risk. This is a new thing that we're required to communicate to you as, as, as your auditors. Nothing changed as far as our procedures go, but like I said, all of our audits are risk-based. So when we go into any engagement, then we identify what are typically significant risks, and then we plan additional procedures to address specifically those risks, not just your financial statements. So the significant risks of part of the audit were improper revenue recognition, cash disbursements, and then management's ability to override controls or estimates. So each of those 3 are significant in any type of entity, and that's typically where fraud occurs, and that's why these areas are considered significant risks or high risks in any engagement. Cash disbursements, For example, we perform cash disbursement testing. We look at your policies and procedures. We make sure that things are getting approved, that there's a process on, on how those funds are being spent, that they're being done prudently. So those kind of fall outside of us looking just at the financial statements, and we do that so that we can then reduce that risk and say there's nothing that we need to address with the council as far as that significant risk. Management bias and your ability to override controls. I teach a lot of classes on internal controls and fraud training, and this is kind of an inherent risk of, of internal controls, is that Brandon, in his position, has to have the ability to override the controls within the system. So he should be able to create a journal entry. All of your financial statements or your financial transactions should be done on a transaction basis. So if somebody comes to the city to pay utility bill, there's already been in the system an invoice that was created that recorded the revenue and then recorded a transaction to the accounts receivable. They come in, they pay the bill, you debit cash, you credit the accounts receivable. So everything's transaction-based. And if there's a mistake or an error that's made, then Brandon or somebody on his staff needs to do a journal entry that then corrects that. So that's the good side of the journal entries. The, the negative side is that you can use journal entries to conceal or to hide things in the financial records, committing fraud, which is why it's a significant risk. So we specifically test journal entries. We, we look at all the journal entries that are created and make sure that there's nothing inappropriate there. So at the end of the day, the significant risk— nothing The city really didn't do anything to warrant those in and of yourself— in and of themselves. However, we identify those significant risks. We perform tests to reduce that risk, and there were no issues that we need to talk about. Significant estimates— remember that there's estimates in the financial statements, and over time those estimates can change. And as part of our engagement, We look at the estimates in the financial statements and make sure that they're consistent and reasonable over time. A couple of examples would be if you go out and purchase, let's say, a new fire truck and it's $500,000. If you decide that you're going to expense that in one year, that's a $500,000 hit to your bottom line. But if you say, well, we think it's going to last 100 years, then that's only $5,000 a year that you're allocating over that 100 years. Neither one of those are reasonable. And so we would come in and say, well, okay, GAAP says that you need to depreciate that over 5 to 10 years, and you need to make sure that you're consistent with all of your assets. That way you don't have big swings of financial data or financial results, because it's really hard to plan for the future if you look back over the last 4 or 5 years and you really don't have consistency. accuracy in, in really knowing where you're at financially. One that's really out of your control is the Utah Retirement System. So that's a pretty large estimate in the financial statements. And what I would consult Brandon and you as a council to do is anytime that you're trying to make financial state— financial decisions for the future is to back out any of those numbers. Because they do affect your proprietary funds. They show up as an expense in the proprietary funds. This year, because of the way the markets have gone, the last year you had a net pension liability. This year you have a net pension asset. So it went from a liability on the balance sheet up to the assets. Therefore, you had a decrease in expenditures or an increase in revenue, however you want to look at it, on the profit and loss. So that makes those funds look better. Next year, with the way the markets are going now and the economic outlook, I'm, I'm thinking that you're probably going to have a net pension liability, which is going to increase your expenditures. So it's going to flip-flop again. That's out of your control, but that's an estimate that we have to look at in the financial statements. There weren't any difficulties in performing our audit. There weren't any uncorrected misstatements that we were required to report. There weren't any disagreements with management. Management representation. So we get a letter signed by Brandon and his staff that they've been forthcoming with any information that we've either asked for or that they are aware of that could affect the financial statements. And the reason why we get that letter is when I'm reviewing our audit and reviewing our opinion and the financial statements, that I know that our opinion is correct because you've been forthcoming with any and all information that you've been open and honest with us. If there's a potential liability that you know about that, that you don't talk to us about, then our opinion could potentially be incorrect. Other than that, I don't know if there's any questions from the council.

Do we have any questions? No, it sounds like an excellent audit. Great job, Brandon.

Thank you.

I'm just proud of you all for being still awake.

Yeah, usually we lose the crowd when they say the audit's going to present.

Mayor, I don't think Brandy gets a lot of applause. How about we give him a round of applause? I think that's great.

We like to hear the best of what you've looked at, so that's awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's a resolution, I think.

Yes, we need to have an open—

There's no public hearing, just a— there's a resolution. Resolution.

Yep.

So it says public hearing on the agenda now, Steve.

10-4.

That's 10-5.

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, I'm off.

Excuse me, Mayor.

I move that the City Council by resolution accept the fiscal year '21-'22 audit as presented. Second.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, passes. Thank you. Thank you for all your good work. Okay, this next one is the public hearing. We've got amending Appendix G. This is item 10.5, amending Appendix G of the Orem City General Plan pertaining to Orem Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Master Plan, Map 6, Proposed Trails and Bike Lanes. Matthew Taylor is going to present to us.

Sure, this works. Is that connecting?

Thank you, Mayor and Council, for your time tonight. We covered this in our— in your work session in October. We would have brought up to you last month, but Jason was kind enough to let me go on a go on a trip, so we postponed it to this month so I could be here for the presentation. As a reminder, and for the public's information, the background behind this request is an amendment to our General Plan Appendix G, if I remember right, and that is our Parks, Trails, Recreation, Open Space Master Plan. We're specifically looking at Map 6, which is the proposed bikes and trails plan. The background is that earlier in the year Vineyard City contacted us expressing interest in partnerships to connect some of our multi-use trails into their multi-use trail system. We specifically looked at the time a connection underneath Geneva Road overpass at about 4— just south of— just north of 400 South. In evaluating that, we identified 2 other potential multi-use trail connections that would be beneficial in networking our trail systems together, and I'll cover that. What is a multi-use path? Multi-use paths are typically 8 to 10-foot trails that are intended for pedestrians, cyclists, and other types of active transportation users. Are typically separated from the road by a buffer of landscaping and trees, although not always the case because we are largely a built-out community, and so sometimes you have to take advantage of the situation, and occasionally you'll see these paths where there is no buffer. These definitions for multi-use path come from Our master plan. But again, like I said, these are more generalized guidelines than specific rules. Multi-use paths, as I suggested, are adaptable and they can be modified and changed to the situation and how— in the design and construction planning of these.

Both—

all these paths, we have some conceptual ideas behind them. but no specific design work at this point. So this is what the map looks like that we're proposing to be amended. There's quite a few lines on this map, and it's difficult to read from this far out. So we're going to zoom in to a section that we're interested in. Again, this is about 400 South Geneva Road going up to Just south of Center Street there in the red box, about 100 south. There's 3 areas, as I mentioned. We're calling these the Lake Bottom Canal Connector, Rail Trail Connector, and the Lakeside Park Connector. If I put those boxes on the official map, which like I said is a little harder to read, it'd be in these locations: 1, 2, and 3. There are a lot of area-wide destinations for pedestrians and cyclists between our 2 cities, as I'm sure you're all aware. But particularly the connection between UVU and the future UVU North Campus is probably a very important connection for us to start planning for and working towards achieving. So specifically the Lake Area 1 Lake Bottom Canal Trail Connector. This would go on the— Lake Bond Canal Trail exists, is actually mostly constructed and veneered, at least large sections of it, out to about the UVU North Campus. It's on the east side of the railroad tracks, and it, like I said, goes under the underpass under Geneva Road. At least that's the hope. It's not constructed at this point. We believe we have sufficient right-of-way between our 2 cities to do this. UDOT has given preliminary blessing if we go through the proper permitting process. And so, you know, as we get into design and construction, we'll do the proper surveying to make sure that we don't infringe upon Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way or, or other property ownership. But this would go under the bridge. The natural path— we had a different photo— is that would just go continue south to 400 South Street, but that doesn't really work because it's Union Pacific property. And we have it that there's no chance in very bad places for us to get approval for it to go through there. So we are planning to route it northwards against the frontage road and then tie into the Geneva Road multi-use path that currently exists along that corridor. The second connector— well, this is a picture of that underneath the— in the area we believe we have sufficient right-of-way for. These are just pictures of the survey work that's been done to date. The other rail trail is called the Rail Connector Trail, and that's on the west side of the railroad tracks. There's actually just a short segment between our Lakeside Park and Vineyard City that's missing. And so we'd like to connect those 2. To save on costs in bringing that trail down to 400 South, it makes sense to actually cross the street at some point and, and take advantage of our current multi-use path in the park rather than trying to acquire property on the east side and and make a very expensive project. There are some sightline issues, but we think with Sam Kelly and our engineering department that if we have the proper spacing, we can make that transition approximately where we show on the map here, but it may need to be a little further up. It's important we don't put it by the park because that, that curve in the street would definitely block the view of of pedestrians, cyclists crossing the street there. So we'll be studying that carefully in the design process, but that is one way we're trying to limit the amount of construction we need to do. Just some views of that area and where they point to. This is including your materials for anyone interested in the public. Those are available available online under the agenda materials. The last connection would be to connect our park, Lakeside Sports Park, on 400 South. There's currently a sidewalk, but it's not really adequate as a multi-use trail facility. And so we'd be looking at expanding that in some manner to connect Geneva Road Trail to the park.

There are Some photos.

So are you going over the top there, or I mean, are you going underneath or just on the road?

No, it'd be going on the road. And here's, here's 3 design concepts of how we could treat that section. So the, the one on the left is actually the current right-of-way cross-section. In the middle and on the right are 2 ways that we could maybe compromise by just an expansion of the sidewalk. Again, one of these areas we just don't have the room for a full real trail, but then as we get towards the park, maybe it could expand with that buffer.

Or—

and I've talked with Sam Kelly— even a possibility is moving into the shoulder of the road and extending that buffer of trees and landscaping into the current right-of-way path. These are options that will have to be evaluated in the design process, but these— and again, these mockups are just conceptual. But so that's, that's it. Here, this is a different view of some of the conceptual ways to handle that segment. This is a partial expansion, and maybe if we moved into the shoulder area of the road to utilize that shoulder for buffered landscaping. So with that, we request that the council approve an amendment to the Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Master Plan, Map 6. And, and this is needed not just for visioning and future planning, but as we, we seek to construct a lot of these facilities through grants. There's a lot of different grants available for the federal and state government, and almost always they require these facilities that we're applying grants for to be part of our adopted plans. And so as we pursue grants and funding options, this will be an important piece of obtaining that type of funding.

Do we have any questions from the council?

I do, Mayor.

Oh, go ahead, Tom.

We know what your plans are. Do we have any timing for these?

No specific timing.

Do you have a priority or anything on any of these?

Well, and that's one thing that the master plan doesn't really address in detail is timing. We have quite a number of planned facilities in the city with no real hard schedule. So my look at that is look for low-hanging fruit, and these connections are smaller facilities compared to some of the larger undertakings that the plan has put forward. And so, um, I think with the interest with Vineyard City, uh, in partnering with us and their nature as smaller projects, it would make sense as low as lower-hanging fruit. Of course, I've learned that every project's not as low as you hope, um, that these would be advanced to the front of the list. And that's, that's our internal focus. Unless other priorities get, you know, rise to the surface.

Terry? So, so, and Matt, I've asked you about this before, but hopefully we're working with Utah Lake Commission, soon to be Utah Lake Authority, so that this could be adopted in part of their plan. And you said that Mayor Fulmer and you have worked— that's happening.

Okay.

The, the, it's always better if someone else is paying for it instead of Warren City.

Absolutely.

And then that's the goal. Yeah, because we've got a 530-foot strip, we've got a 600-foot strip. I'm happy to send my vote to approve it. But I'd like to know the cost before. I mean, you talked about grants. Yeah, before this starts, we'll find— we'll know the cost before we just said we approved it. We don't know anything to do about cost.

Yeah, absolutely. These are just right now lines on the And part of the grants that we can go forward or we'll work internal towards with Sam and his design team is to help bound in the costs of these projects. And so that's hard to say with just putting a line on the master plan map what the cost would be. It would more likely— we'd have a more solid figure on cost when we get into the design work.

So then that discussion happens before Before you actually do the project.

Absolutely. Yeah, and a lot of times at least preliminary design works required as we apply for some of these grants and stuff too.

So that's a good question.

So the 1, 2, 3, is that the order of importance that you're placing on those, or what?

No, those were just to designate the box with this list on the side of the screen here. It's just a location on the map.

Do you have a ranking?

I don't.

So, and you're looking to MAG to help?

Yeah, there's different grants. There's one, there's the Utah Outdoor Recreation Grant, which is actually administered by the state. Um, there's an acronym, I forget. There's another trail grant that the state administers that's actually federal funding that we're working with Jenica out of the city manager's office on.

So it's whatever funding comes in first, that's the one you're going to build first.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions, comments? We'll open this up to the public for any comments from the public. We'll close the public comments.

I'd like to make— you want to make a motion?

Go ahead, Jack.

I'd like to make a motion that we amend Appendix G of the Orem City General Plan pertaining to Orem Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Master Plan, Map 6, proposed trails and bike lanes. Second.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Okay, next we got item 10.6, a public hearing and resolution on the water conservation plan. Reed Price is going to present on that.

Mayor and Council, it's a pleasure to be with you tonight. As Reed sets up the presentation, I'll give you some background information on this. Every 5 years, every city in the state of Utah is required by Utah State Code 731032 to prepare and adopt a water Conservation Plan. We have prepared water— our Water Conservation Plan for your review and approval this evening. On our Public Works Advisory Commission, we do have one member here, Mr. Brent Tobler, if you could stand. We have one representative from our Public Works Advisory Commission here tonight. All of our Public Works Advisory Commission members including our liaison with the City Council, Ms. Millett, have had a chance to review and, and provide their endorsement for this plan. As stated, this plan is required to be adopted every 5 years, and it started in about 1997, so this will be our 6th water conservation plan. This will be the 2022 water conservation plan. We have a draft that's been prepared and reviewed and is ready to be submitted to the State Division of Water Resources for review for compliance with the state code. The reviewed plan has been— or the plan has been reviewed, as mentioned, with our Public Works Advisory Commission, internally with staff, and we believe it's a solid and robust plan that we can adopt and then move forward in. and follow. As soon as we get this on the screen, we'll proceed with the presentation. Should we try?

Okay.

You're bored of Chris, I start playing. Oh, wow.

We promise it's really exciting.

Yeah.

Okay, you restarted.

As you may recall, we reviewed this with you in our work. work session about 3 or 4 weeks ago. I'm not confident that we're going to be able to access these at this time. The presentation is virtually the same as what we gave, we gave last time. We can go ahead and proceed with it without the visual. We'll turn it over to you.

Mayor and Council, I'm gonna try a different adapter. When we, when we presented back in October, the plan is divided into 4 different sections. First is basically a description of the utility, how many people we serve, what our water sources are, how much water we get. Then we go into the historic and future water needs that Orem has had and that we expect to have. in the future. And then we talk about any challenges that we are facing and the goals that we have set in order to meet those challenges. And then finally, the ongoing conservation, the current conservation practices that we, that we are undertaking and will continue to undertake. The, the average daily production, or the different sources that we have, come from 3 different areas. First of all, we have springs, natural springs, where we tap into water that comes out of the mountain, and that accounts for about 10% of our flow. We also have deep wells, where we have wells that go deep into the ground. We pump the water out and into our distribution system. And that, that accounts for about 30% of the water that we use. And then we also have water from the Don A. Christianson Water Treatment Plant that is treated by the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. They treat water where we— water that we have rights to in Deer Creek and Jordanelle Reservoirs, as well as natural flows through the Provo River. And that accounts for about 60%. Most of that's used during the summertime. We have approximately 23,500 customers that we deliver water to. That includes about 18,000, almost 19,000 residents, and then the remaining being commercial and industry. Our historic trend over the past 10 years has been has been down, has been dropping. You'll recall graphs that we shared with you during the work session where we had— where it showed that our per capita water consumption was dropping. In fact, the goals that we had set this year, we actually met that a little early. We hope to be able to to continue that. Now, the goals that we— that are outlined in the water conservation plan come from Utah's regional M&I water conservation goals. It's a document that was produced by the Utah State Division of Water Resources, and it suggests that municipalities— or it suggests that our city use the recommendations for the Provo River region, and it suggests that in using 2015 as a baseline, that we try to decrease our per capita water use by 20% by 2030, using 2015 as a baseline, 27% decrease by 2040, and then 32% by 2065.

What that—

the consumption number that we have for 2015 was 261 gallons per capita per day. And with the goal of decreasing that by 20% by 2030, we would expect to be down at 209.1 gallons per capita per day by 2030. You'll recall in the graph that we presented back in October, the numbers for 2021 showed that we were at 205.3, so we were already meeting that goal. However, we were up the year before at 244, so if we can sustain that, we will have technically already met our goal. Doesn't mean we're not going to—

yes?

So I know a lot of us stopped watering our lawn that third time. to just maybe twice a week. Tell me the effects of that. I mean, I'm obviously conserving more water. Did that alone help meet this goal, or?

Yes. So if you compared the 2020 numbers to 2021, we dropped about 15% from 2020 to 2021. If you compared 2020 to 2022, or this year, just looking at the summer, we dropped almost 20%. And I think that that was a direct result of communicating to the public that we are in a drought condition and giving them ideas such as changing their watering schedule for their lawns. Lawns is the biggest use of our— of the water resources that we have. So yes, lawns looked a little drier this year, but it was for a higher purpose.

Yeah, thank you.

And those types of results were realized not just in forum, but in Utah County and across the state, as we look to other water purveyors throughout the state and compare values and numbers, it's very consistently observed that people have done their due diligence in willingly participating in water conservation. There's been very little, probably to none, in terms of mandatory water conservation means or restrictions in the county or even in the state. So hats off to those who voluntarily did so.

I have one more question. Do you expect them to be stricter next year with the problems with the Great Salt Lake, or do you think it'll be similar to this year?

We'll— it's hard to say. We will continue to promote water conservation in the ways that we have in the past couple of years. As the water year comes to a conclusion, which will be in April, we'll know— we'll have a clearer picture of what the water outlook looks like and communicate to the public what the expectations are. But we hope that— we hope that with the drought situation that we've been experiencing, that the community as a whole is aware of the need to use water much more wisely. So there are some— there are 6 goals that are specifically identified in the, in the water conservation plan. The first is what we just discussed, reducing the city's water use to reflect the regional water conservation goals by 2030. The second goal is to maintain an effective conservation-oriented water pricing structure each year. That refers to the tiered rates. Tiered rates are required by the state, and as a consumer uses more water, they're charged more for using that water. The idea being that if they're charged more, they will be more aware of what they're using and just naturally cut back on what they're using and use it wiser. Next is to complete the meter replacement project soon. We are replacing the water meters throughout the city with automatic meter reads so that the— and so that we can easily read the numbers and get those numbers to the community so that they can monitor on a daily basis, if they so desire, what their water use has been. Additionally, it should be able to send them alerts and let them know that there's something— there might be a leak in their home, and they could investigate that to try and To try and fix it. That technology will be a great asset to the community and really help us to conserve water.

Quick question, and you've probably told us this on multiple occasions, Reed, but do we know when that project will be completed with those readers?

Yeah, our goal is to have it functional and operating throughout the community this coming spring. So it's— it is a challenge to replace all of those meters. We've got our crews working on it every day while they still try to maintain our pipes throughout the city and ensure that we— that our— that we'll be able to deliver water. So, but our goal is to light it up this spring for the entire community, if not the entire community, most of it.

Thank you.

The 4th goal is to construct a tertiary treatment process at the water reclamation facility to produce water for irrigation by 2025. That's water reuse. That's taking water from our wastewater treatment plant, treating it to ultra-clean levels, and then using it for irrigation purposes at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course, as well as Lakeside Sports Park, as— and Springwater Park. So we'll be able to take up to 5— we're hoping 5 million gallons a day that can be used for irrigation. So we would— the water that we use for irrigating those places would be saved and left up in the ground or up in our storage facilities at Deer Creek and Jordan L.

So do you have any idea what that does towards our Changing consumption. I mean, just that in and of itself should be significant, shouldn't it?

Yeah, that will be— that will drop it 5 million gallons a day during most of the— most of this during the irrigation season from April through October. So that will be a significant amount of money. We're currently signing contracts with the contractor who we hope to break ground within the next month, and it'll take a couple years for that facility facility to be built, but as soon as it is, it will have a dual benefit, one of providing clean water for irrigation, and the second is to treat for nutrients, particularly phosphorus, which is a concern for Utah Lake. And so, we get a double benefit from that. You'll recall also that with the mayor's help, we were able to get some grant funding through ARPA funds through Utah County, which will help pay for essentially the inflationary costs that we have experienced over the past several years. The 5th goal is to continue education efforts to the public regarding water conservation, make them aware that water conservation is something that we need to keep at the forefront of our minds. We do this through social media posts. We also have an outreach effort to schools. We have booths and other educational materials at Summerfest and other community events. The last goal in the plan is to replace automatic sprinkler controllers on all city-owned properties to newer technology by 2025. We're actually— well, we're moving forward on that particular effort quite aggressively and will easily meet the 2025. We'll have smart controllers that are Our parks crews will be able to adjust with their phones that will be tied into weather systems and will automatically adjust the amount of water that's done based on, based on understanding that so much water has already fallen. It'll be a great addition to, to the city as well. Some of the current and ongoing conservation practices that we We'll continue doing our— first of all, the plan addresses a water shortage management plan, gives some guidelines of what we need, what we as a city will do should there be a water shortage. Water shortage can be defined as what we're experiencing with the drought, but it can also be defined as a major failure in a pipeline that's conveying water throughout the city. We'll need to cut back. How are we going to do that? It identifies some, some basic steps that would be taken to communicate to the public the need to and reasons why we conserve, why we need to cut back, and, and process of doing that. We also have a leak detection program where we have someone that can go and listen for leaks that are coming out of the pipes. There's some neat equipment that can penetrate into the ground and let them know there's likely a leak right here, and we can dig down and repair that. Sometimes they don't manifest themselves as flowing water through the asphalt. They're not big enough, but it's— by repairing those, we can conserve a lot of water. Improving efficiency irrigating the parks and open spaces, adjusting irrigation practices during times of drought, which we've been doing. The automatic system that we're installing will help as well. We've got tiered water rates. The automatic meter reading technology will be in place next year. The water reuse project, landscaping ordinance, which we can consider additional changes to that. I know the City Council adjusted the landscaping ordinance last year to allow for more xeriscaping. It's something that, that perhaps the City Council would want us to look closer at. I know the Natural Resources Committee, as well as the Beautification Commission, have discussed this at length and, and, and have some good ideas regarding the land tweaks to the landscaping ordinance to encourage conservation. And then public education, that, that effort will continue. Now the final steps of this are happening right now. We need to adopt this plan. As Chris mentioned, this is a plan that needs to be updated every 5 years and approved by the City Council. And so this presentation formally does that. The next step is to hold a public hearing immediately after this presentation, and then a vote by the City Council to adopt by resolution the Water Conservation Plan. Once that's adopted, I'll file a copy of the plan with the state. We'll post it to our website, and then we will continue working towards the goals and, and that have been identified in the water conservation plan. So if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Otherwise, we'll turn it back over to the mayor to conduct the public hearing.

Thank you. Do we have any comments, questions? Okay, would like to open this to the public for a public If you'd like to come up just one at a time and—

It's me again, Thomas Cook.

I would just like to ask these gentlemen, so with the 6 goals, you've highlighted that individual residents, if I understand correctly, that if they're using more water, they're going to be charged more, as well as this water meter changes taking place. Is that going to be applicable to businesses, churches, and specifically the UVU? Because when I drive around, or used to drive around on graveyard shift, I saw more watering of sidewalks and parking lots than grass. And to this day, Devon and a number of the other high-density locations do nothing but water sidewalk and streets.

To answer that, everybody that we provide water to is charged the same rate. We follow the rate schedule. There's no special exceptions for any connection. So yes, tiered water rates are charged to residents, businesses, apartment complexes, all of that.

Are the tiered water rates, just out of curiosity, are they the same for residents and business? Are they different?

Yeah, it—

yes, they're the same.

It's the same schedule for no matter what it is.

It's a function of meter size. So larger meter size, they have a larger volume of water and they have higher rates as well. But there was another point I wanted to make regarding this gentleman's question and concern was, for those that are wasting, we do, we do receive information information from the state of Utah where there's a portal where you can report those parks or those park strips or whatever where it appears there could be some water wasting going on. And then, especially if it's owned by the city, then we will go out and address those promptly. Sometimes there's a head that might be broken or a head that needs to be adjusted and so forth. Likewise, there's a the site that's owned and operated by the state of Utah, it does allow you to provide feedback so that we can reach out to those in the community that appear to be perhaps wasting knowingly or not knowingly. Regardless, we can reach out to them. So I can— if you'd like to meet with me, I could talk to you after this meeting and give you that information on where to report that.

Yeah, thank you, Chris. Is that a Is that just a 311 call to report that, or is that—

It's actually, uh, the site's actually owned and managed by the state of Utah.

But I mean, how about just city?

But the city, for certain, yeah. So the 311 call could be made within the city or reported to our help desk, and then they can report that to us, and we would address that in a timely manner.

Okay, so if you see a water problem, just dial 311 and Report it.

Absolutely, yes.

Okay.

I actually take issue with that, um, because we've got cops coming out on video, um, telling people to report their neighbors and family members as well, as if we're in Nazi Germany. And I actually, you know, we have in Denver, Colorado, their thermostats that they put in that are digital. All these smart systems are actually very dangerous because our legislators— we have members at a state level guys who are corrupt. They're in bed with our enemy. And this digital system that they're putting in is actually terrifying. In Denver, Colorado, they shut their thermostats off and lock them on them. They have the ability to do that with these smart meters. And we've got, we've got legislators putting stuff into law right now that we're going to be fighting at the Capitol that would give our governor the ability to interrupt water usage under eminent domain. So they can come and take or damage private property in order to force water off on us. Our water preferences list, they've put our farmers and rural areas down at the bottom of the list and brought commercial agriculture up because they're all financially in bed with commercial agriculture. I mean, some of the things that they say that they'll give us compensation for, as if that makes it better, is crop losses. They're paying farmers and telling them to stop watering their crops. They're slowly making us more dependent on water and food for them. And even these community gardens— I found the contracts for the community gardens. They're going to put a gate around it. And the, the last step to these community gardens is to lock it up and lock us out if we're not obeying the rules when they implement ESG. So I actually have proof that Governor Cox and Brad Wilson, our Speaker of the House, has given the $40 million of our taxpayer dollars that was given to them to the Rockefeller Foundation to put in a trust to manage our Great Salt Lake. And I have proof that they have sold our flats to British Columbia, to the Lithium King property, to Battery Global Metals, to U.S. Magnesium. I mean, this proclamation with Cox where he says we need to start reporting our neighbors for water waste and conserving water, the 100,000-gallon-per-minute application to U.S. Magnesium for evaporating water to mine magnesium and lithium is not going to be affected by that. I have proof that they are evaporating tons of water for lithium mining for batteries out there while they're telling us to conserve water. This is completely unconstitutional. I hope that you guys fight this because these laws and statutes are unconstitutional. The Constitution never gave our government the authority and the power to regulate our water and our God-given resources like this. I would love the opportunity to come and give a presentation with the evidence that I have to the opposing side of this before a decision is made.

I could speak to 2 of the points that were relevant, I think, for this presentation. One is that those that waste water, we certainly want them to not waste water, and we encourage them not to. And so if there's somebody that is wasting, we would love to work with them and help them to resolve any concerns that they have. Secondly, the AMI and the smart metering technology puts the power in the consumer's hands to be able to make adjustments—

Hello?

To make adjustments, and I— to make adjustments to their own water use. So we've tested and pilot tested several options, and Reed and I have both found evidence that we were wasting water as a result of flapper valves in our toilets that were leaking to the tune of about 6,000 gallons a month. That's water waste. We wouldn't have known what was happening if we didn't have that smart meter technology. That's one point of evidence for why it's important to implement this technology today. And they'll be online in the spring of next year.

And we can't— we cannot control— we cannot turn water off. with this technology. It's simply to read what the use is.

So it is—

we can't speak to that.

Okay. But what you're saying is this is purely to measure the water, it's not to control the water?

Correct.

That's correct.

Did you have a comment? Hi, just want to kind of put my, my piece in. I agree with this gentleman back here. I, I go running late at night and I go places late at night. That's my schedule. And I see so much waste with city parks, with big business grass, with schools. They're super green, and it's because they're just flooding these things with water. And I kind of have the feeling that the lawns are the lesser part of of the waste as much as these other places are actually wasting. And I know there's a lot more acreage of lawn, but I just wanted to put my little piece in and say that I think we have— these facilities are really overwatering and wasting a lot of our water. So thank you. Did you ask?

Okay.

I mean, I would say I agree, and that's why we're adopting this plan today is to help reduce that and minimize that. And in any areas where there's a waste or overuse of water, we would discourage that 100%. And our plan suggests these goals that are in place that are being proposed here, where we're actively pursuing these right now. For example, with the automatic sprinkler controllers, that'll help to eliminate much of what was expressed for the water waste concerns here. Our goal was to have those in 2025. We'll have them completed this year or next year in 2023. So we're well on our way to meeting many of these goals to help reduce water consumption. The highest or peak day of use was about 5 years ago, was about 61 million gallons of water in one day in the city of Orem. Today, with, with growth that we've had, And with the drought that has occurred, we've reduced that by 15%. So we're fighting the odds, we're beating the odds by reducing the amount of consumption that's actually occurring. And we believe that we're being wise water users and wise stewards of this water resource.

Well, it sounds— I mean, from what I understand and what we've looked at, these smart meters that control the water flow in the parks specifically I mean, it's essentially the same thing as what you have on your house when you have an automatic sprinkler system. That sprinkler system is tied to the weather, and then it turns on and off depending on the weather instead of just every 2 days or every 3 days or whatever. That's the technology that you're using in all the parks, right?

Which should be used. Yes, sorry. Yeah, that is what we will be using in all the parks starting effectively 2023. And it is like what you have in your residential residential properties. Most of us, or some of us, have smart meter technology. And, but these are commercial-grade technologies that do tap into weather, climatological conditions, and so forth, water moisture in the, in the, in the ground, as well as storm events that could be coming. And they make live and real-time adjustments to help reduce that waste.

From what I've seen, it's huge. I mean, I've got that technology on my house. I've got neighbors that don't have that technology, and I'm using half the water what they're using. So it seems like when you expand it to a park, and the problems that the guy that said he was jogging, right, uh, that should make a huge difference because I've seen the same thing. I've been to parks and walking around, we're dodging sprinklers that are going off. So anyway, I'm excited for that.

And we certainly encourage anyone who does see anything where, where we are wasting or the water needs to be adjusted, let us know. And we will go out there the next day and try to get it resolved, get it resolved as soon as possible.

Do you have a comment?

I just want to know if there's options to opt out of this smart meter program.

There are not. I guess we haven't contemplated that, but our plan right now is, first of all, we need to replace meters that are 40 years old with new meters so you're not being billed for more water than what you're actually using. So that's one of our main purposes of doing this.

Cops just came out and said to report your neighbor if there's water waste. He's going to forcibly shut off the secondary water meters, meaning everybody, all of Your neighbors will have their water shut off as well, so that should encourage you to report your neighbor. It will force it to be done.

It is on video.

I can show you the video.

But, but what you're talking about, you said these controllers do not control the water on and off?

No, we have no remote access for any of that.

And why isn't there an option to opt out?

We don't want this.

Is there an answer why there's not a reason to opt out? Is it just too inefficient to have bits and pieces here, or what's the issue?

Well, we would love to discuss it with them if they would like to. Right now we have probably 80%, 85% of the meters are installed throughout the entire city, right?

So you're only about 15%, about 15% left.

that'll be done by next irrigation season.

Does that eliminate the need for like water meter readers? That technology?

And, you know, I actually had this at my old house, and I could see how much I've used on my phone. There was an app and everything. So it really put the power into your own hand. I know some people, like I remember Margaret Black had a huge water leak when she had hers. So there's no reason to fear it. And It's not a slippery slope.

It's—

you, you control, you know how much water you use. And then if you have a leak or problem, it's— we don't have to be so worried about— I mean, I just, I think it's crazy to worry about we're going to turn off everyone's water. That's not going to happen. Well, you know what, we can, we can differ on this. Honestly, I've used it. It's not a problem. It gave me the tool Well, you know what, we could talk about all kinds of crazy things in the future, but honestly, it was a tool that I got to use to see my usage. So it was a tool. If you don't want to use the tool, you don't, you don't have to install it on your phone.

Okay, you know, honestly, yeah, we, we, we, we have, we, yeah, we've got to speak from lectern or we just can't have from the audience unless we're We're directly up here in halftime. Any other comments?

Well, I would just like to say, yeah, I think we all— I mean, we all realize that there's a problem, and we all— and I've seen that as well, you know, the waste— wasting of water. But most of our, you know, the sprinklers come on mostly at night. I love the 311 system so that if you see a city sprinkler that's on, that's watering the sidewalk or the street, it's a simple phone call to say, hey, this is happening, you guys need to go out and adjust this. And, and I believe that they would be very active in doing that. Um, I mean, it is, it is a wonderful resource. I mean, outside we have this wonderful manna falling from heaven, uh, gratefully. And it is a, it is a gift, and we need to really make sure that we take good care of that. But I think that's the point of this, is to help us to all be more conscientious and to make sure that we're reserving this water in the best, the best way that we can, the best way that we know how. And I think we can all help each other in that, in that process as a community and as you were saying, we've been doing a pretty good job at conserving water, but there's more that we can do. We can conserve more, we can do more. And I, I think if we work together, we can continue on that path.

So just to clarify, so this is 85% built out in the city already. So, so this has already been approved in the past, right? I mean, I mean, we're not approving something new, we're just saying this is our water conservation Yeah, there's, there's all different pieces to this.

Yeah.

The AMI technology was approved by the city council in 2016 with our water master plan, and we're implementing that plan.

It's—

so we're 6 years down that path.

Okay.

The automatic meter read is, is an efficiency thing for us to be able to— so that, so that we don't need employees to go around and read the water consumption on a monthly basis. That's the only reason that we have it. There are no plans, nor do I foresee any plans, to put automatic shutoff technology on.

That would be an entirely different conversation, right? I mean, we would have to approve that.

It's very expensive too. I don't— it's when we have to turn water off due to nonpayment, we send an employee out to do that, and we will continue to do that if that's needed.

Right.

And I guess what I'm just trying to understand is we're, we're voting on this resolution. This is more, more of an overall water conservation resolution because the metering that you're talking about is the horse has left the barn kind of thing. I mean, it's 85% there, right?

We're asking for the city's endorsement of the plan to conserve water. These are— this shows that we have presented it to you. that the, that the ideas that we've shared, the processes that we'll go through, the actions that we will take will move us in a direction that will help to conserve water.

Okay. Okay, well, we'll close the public comment. Do we have any other comments from the council?

I'll make one comment. I just want to say, you know, I, I appreciate concerns from all sides. I appreciate that we bring up issues that we maybe are concerned about or possibilities into the future. I think those are always good conversations to have. And I really appreciate that, you know, we can reach out to our legislators and have those conversations with them. I wouldn't want my water turned off by someone, you know, so let's just You know, I, I, let's just make sure that that doesn't happen in the future. I, I believe these gentlemen here when they say the technology is not in these meters to do that, but I can appreciate that we want to continue to have these conversations so we can have those protections in place and reach out to our leadership to really let them know that that's something, that's that level that we don't accept. You know, we can accept this level of let's make this cheaper for us to read the water meters and to get that technology there and to use that to our benefit. But we never want to be, you know, hindered or bound by technology. It should always be a gift and a help for us.

Anyone else? Would someone like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to, by resolution, the Orem City Council adopt the 2022 Water Conservation Plan mandated by Utah State Code 73-10-32.

Second.

Second.

Second.

Yes.

Go ahead.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, the resolution passes.

Thank you.

Okay, we're almost to the end. We've got item 10.7.

That's for you.

Item 10.7, a discussion and vote on a personnel matter. Jamie Davidson has submitted a letter to the City Council stating that he is resigning his position as City Manager effective January 1st, 2023. Jamie has worked for the city for the past 11 and a half years and has been the City Manager for over 9 and a half years. In appreciation and consideration for his service to the city, we would like to approve a severance package for Jamie to have the city attorney prepare a severance agreement for signature by the mayor.

Do I have a motion? May I make a motion? I move that the city council authorize and approve a severance agreement for Jamie Davidson in accordance with the terms that have been preliminarily agreed to by Mr. Davidson and legal counsel for the city, and direct that the city attorney prepare a severance agreement consistent With such terms and further authorize the mayor to execute such a severance agreement.

Second.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

The resolution passes. Thank you. And now we'd like to— can we have a motion to adjourn?

I motion that we adjourn at this time.

Second.

Aye.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

This meeting's adjourned. Thank you for attending. We appreciate it.