City Council · 2024-02-27

Um, where are we at?

I was itching to pound the gavel, man.

I know, I knew you would be going.

Um, like to welcome you all here and, uh, what you present.

Thank you.

Well, we're, we're happy to be here with you today. I'm Craig Burton, my wife Linda, uh, we're associate directors of My Hometown Utah, and we'll explain How it's organized, and grateful to have Greg and Lynn Bond here with us. They serve as the city chairs in Provo. And we'll kind of explain how, how we're organized, their function, and what we do. We're hopeful that we can go through this. If you have questions, make it an open dialogue so that we can answer any questions that you have.

Okay, this is supposed to, uh, supposed to advance, but it's not.

Technology is always the bane of all of our existence.

It's like it's frozen.

While he gets that up and going, let me just share a couple of things. The purpose of our My Hometown is to organize city, neighborhood, and multi-faith resources to revitalize deteriorating areas in the cities where we serve. We'll show a little something in a minute, but my hometown works in 3 ways. We have community resource centers. Community resource centers primarily operate out of existing church buildings. We have this partnership, and quite frankly, it's The origin comes from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We, we are called as church service missionaries, and we actually have missionary badges. We don't use those except for Sunday sacrament meeting services. Otherwise, we, we have lanyards that we wear, and we serve in the name of the cities where we're located. So we're volunteers with the city and we become a partner with the city, which, which eliminates a lot of barriers and allows us to do things that if we came and we were wearing the badges, typically that closes a lot of doors.

This opens them wide open for us.

So we have community resource centers. We'll explain what they are. We do neighborhood services, which are service projects. And we'll explain a little bit more about what those are and then help with education, uh, with school districts as they allow. Uh, we're wide open to try and help revitalize where, where we're invited and, and welcome to be here. Did you get it? If you didn't, it's your job. Is that right, Mayor?

That's right.

So that's— that talks about— let me just show a little video from Mayor Foote in, in Provo, which kind of gives a good overview.

Yeah, we are now starting our 4th year with Operation My Hometown. As I think I mentioned, the first year it was just one neighborhood, probably had 200+ homes in it. We've now Yeah, we are now starting our 4th year with Operation My Hometown. As I think I mentioned, the first year it was just one neighborhood, probably had 200+ homes in it.

We'll start that one over again so we can hear him.

Yeah, we are now starting our 4th year with Operation My Hometown. As I think I mentioned, the first year it was just one neighborhood, probably had 200+ homes in it. We've now expanded to 4 or 5 neighborhoods. We just in this year have done over 300 days of service, which are basically defined as a volunteer coming in, putting a day of service into these neighborhoods. So, and that's just in this year. I mean, we literally now are in thousands of hours that have been contributed to these efforts, both on the days of service and in the resource centers. Operation My Hometown has literally affected thousands of homes across thousands of days of service, as we have mentioned, and also across literally years. And that's what's needed in any city or any community to be able to keep your neighborhoods thriving, is to have that ongoing effort and attention and partnership between the city and the residents and itself and any of the other entities that can and desire to contribute to that effort, like the church.

We talked about this. It had its beginning in West Valley City in 2021. We're now in 11 communities, 3 in Ogden, 3 in West Valley, adding 1 more in West Valley this year, 3 in Salt Lake, 2 in Provo, and adding 1 more in Provo. And Greg and Valen oversee all this happening in Provo. Here's, here's a little piece from Mayor Kapuska.

The mic.

Yes.

Can you define what a community is within a city?

What a community, if you were to break it down, because we do this through the church, it's almost like it's a stake. Yeah, a stake boundary. And then, and then we spread out from there.

Okay, so when you say that you have these communities, that's what you're talking about.

Yeah, and the same would be in Provo.

Yes, yeah, we have 2 currently.

One coincides with the Provo South Stake and one with the South Freedom neighborhood or stake.

In Provo, those communities were selected by the Provo City, the mayor.

Yes, yes.

2 of the most needy or diverse neighborhoods.

Okay, thank you.

And in a case of those, there were some the city wanted to, uh, have it start at, and the state president said not now. So it has to be a relationship like this, and we'll talk a little bit more about why that would be.

The My Hometown Provo initiative was launched in February 2022 with the idea that communities build communities. Each community wrestles with the same questions. How do we bring new life to established neighborhoods? How do we encourage neighbors to help neighbors? How do we find and help the most vulnerable residents? And how do we help everyone feel our welcome home spirit here in Provo? Challenging community issues are not solved at City Hall alone. The success of My Hometown Provo proves that it does take a village. It takes a community to build its community. My Hometown Provo built on the success of a pilot program in West Valley City with 3 focus areas: the Community Resource Center, harnessing the power of volunteerism, building relationships through social interaction. It's a simple but powerful formula, and it's working here. The Community Resource Center, as we call it, the CRC, is now a happening place where neighbors safely gather to learn, English as a Second Language is the most popular class offered. Some students have been in the United States for more than 20 years and can now speak English and function easier in our society. The community is responding with 700 people attending the CRC and 200 getting ready to graduate. Neighborhoods are literally being transformed with ongoing days of service 6 times a year. Projects include things like painting, yard cleanup, landscape, community garden cleanup, tree removal, and fence repairs. Neighbors are getting to know neighbors again with social events throughout the year, and some of these events have thousands in attendance. My Hometown Provo is positively changing the trajectory of individuals, families, And communities. Thank you, My Hometown.

That's what's happening in these other communities. We're in Ogden, Salt Lake, West Valley, Provo. This kind of gives an overview of 2023. The My Hometown weekly volunteers, that's 608. The days of service volunteers, 12,400. The days of service hours, Were $65,000. Number of projects that were done throughout were 1,302. We'll talk about how those are done. Teachers and volunteers, 1,125. Those are in the community resource centers teaching ESL, piano, art, sewing, computer, Spanish, major finance skills, computer skills, parenting skills. So we have the community kind of tells us what they need, and then we try to satisfy that. Attending classes, 2,651. And so you have the CRC hours, 33,000. So you've got almost 100,000 volunteer hours that have been done, that were done just last year. All of this with church service missionaries and volunteers. But we don't want to just do this in the name of the church. The church is the springboard for this, and we operate through church buildings because they're vacant a lot of times during the week. But our desire is to open it up and be a part of the community. And that's why we do it as volunteers in the name of the city rather than as church service missionaries.

Anything else you'd add? What are CRC hours?

CRC hours?

It depends. In the Pioneer Park neighborhood where we operate, the CRC is open Monday through Thursday. Piano lessons go each of those days from 3:30 till 7, and then the classes— we have morning classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9:30 to 11, and then English evening classes those evenings from 6:30 till 8.

So those are volunteer classes, correct?

Yeah, they're all no charge. For instance, our big class is ESL. This session we have over 160 students taking ESL, that community in Provo that we operate in, the residents have immigrated from 59 countries. A lot come not being able to speak a word of English.

Piano has been something that's been very popular. These are children that would never have a chance otherwise. We bring in teachers and they teach them. If they, uh, if they practice and they, uh, attend their lessons, We give them a keyboard at the end so that they, they, they're able to practice at home. And then they come, the church has provided pianos or larger keyboards that they can use to teach, trying to make this a good experience for them as well. Same thing goes with sewing. If they come, and you're not doing sewing yet, but the other community—

The other community, probably.

We provide a sewing machine. Teach them how to sew, and if they come and they attend, they keep the machine.

Same thing with the computer course.

BYU and Bonneville Bank donated 178 computers for us for the first 2 years. And if the students attend class and do a project at the end, they get a refurbished laptop to take home.

We'd like to make it sound like this is really rosy. Not everybody comes every week. They're busy. They work 2 and 3 jobs. They'll register and they'll come and then they'll not come and they—

it's up and down.

We don't ask. We don't ask if they're members. We don't ask where they're from. We don't ask if they're legal. All we're there for is to help.

That's our whole objective here. Anything else?

So that's the Community Resource Center. We've already talked about that. neighborhood resources, uh, and you saw that from Mayor Capuci. Uh, it's, it's a big effort. Uh, we, we use partner stakes, and so you have how many partners? 15 partner stakes.

6 of them and 11.

So you might have on a day of service— and when she said it's 6 days of service, that'd be April, May, June, July, August, September— and it's a day of service. And on a day of service, you do how many projects?

Uh, we typically are in the 10 to 15 projects.

Um, we'll have typically between 120 and 150 volunteers from these partner states as well as the neighbors. The neighbors are good to come and support and help, help their neighbors out. And we do 6 of those a year. They're from 8 in the morning till 11.

A big part of that is, uh, on the shoulders of the city. We have a legal agreement because we're doing this in the name of the city. Uh, different cities participate in different ways, and you'd have to say Provo— West Valley City provides all the dumpsters at their expense, and they also provide the liability insurance. We have to make sure that people are trained up and they're safe, that they sign in and that they sign out. And so if something happens to them, they're on your insurance policy. If something happens in the CRC, they're on the church's insurance policy.

Can I make a comment?

Yeah.

Generally, as we start new areas, we've learned that starting with both the CRC and the days of service is too much for an area to start with. So we have decided, made the decision to begin in new areas only with the CRC, Community Resource Center, to begin with. So we can kind of get our foothold, kind of feel our way and see what we're doing. And then we go in the next year and start the days of service.

Craig would disagree because he did it. They did it all.

We did it all.

Nobody told us we could do a little bit.

I had hair before.

These days of service are huge efforts, and that's where the Church Service Missionaries come. We work with the city and find those that have zoning violations, and, and that's kind of the target. And help clear those up. West Valley City started with 390 zoning violations last year. There were that many. Uh, and, uh, the— if we're helping somebody in their home, the people, to the degree that they're able, pay for the materials. We provide the, uh, the labor, the manpower. If it's something that they can't do, then we'll come to the city and say, does the city have resources? We work as a partner. here to, to help lift the, the community and help people. Uh, so that's why there— we gave, uh, Janica—

where are you, Janica?

Right here.

We gave Janica an agreement, sample legal agreement, that we'd have your, your city attorney look at and say, yes, we're willing to enter into that agreement, because we won't do the days of service unless we have a full cooperative agreement with the cities where we serve, and we have those in all the cities where we are.

We, we never like to be behind Provo. If we are timing-wise here, then we, we want to, we want to act fast and do better than this.

So we'll start with 5 CRCs.

Now your turn.

I'll only ask him 5 buildings. This is—

this basically shows how we're organized. This is done under the direction of the Quorum of the Twelve. The area presidency in Utah has approved this, and they approve the areas where we go. Then there's an Area Seventy, and then there's my hometown area directors. That's Mark and Mary Durham, and then we are also area directors, and there's another couple out of Ogden. Then we have my hometown associate directors. Uh, actually, that's, that's, that's us. And city chairs, which are the bombs. We don't have a city chair yet for Orem. If, if you wanted us to come, the first thing we would do is we'd find somebody that would serve as a city chair that would be a liaison for my hometown and with the city that, that we find and feel, and you would agree, would work well with the city. How often do you meet with, uh, with Tara and the city?

Well, we began as directors in the Pioneer Park neighborhood, and we met with the city liaison once a week to start residency for the first year.

After the first year, we backed that off to every other week.

But the, the city has just been awesome to work with, and we couldn't do it without The— our city liaison is so helpful on everything we do.

She—

because she knows, she has the contacts, she knows the people, she knows how to arrange for things with the city. And so that partnership is just crucial.

Her name is Tara Riddle, and if you know her, if you've been in her office, she doesn't have a name placard.

Her placard just says fixer of everything.

She really is.

But that's, that's really That, that relationship is key, and that's why we've said if you wanted us to come, the way we would organize is we would select a city chair, then we would determine the, the, uh, neighborhood where this would start, which would mean we'd have a stake president who would say, uh, yes, we'll make our build— our building available. Where the bombs began, it's a 2-story older building, and it facilitates What's being done. Other, other areas don't have the luxury of that kind of a building. This one is quite unique, and if we can find a building that works where they don't have multiple boards and a lot of activity and we're interfering, uh, that's, that's always the desire. Uh, but that'd be in the process of determining where and when we begin that.

I think the question was raised at our last meeting that, you know, does it have to be in a church building? The answer is no. We haven't had it anyplace yet except in a church building. Uh, I think someone mentioned there was a school that might— an elementary school that might be closing down. That would be great. We've never, you know, charted those waters yet. Um, we're looking for parking, we're looking for classrooms, we're looking for pianos, you know, those kind of things that are available. We haven't you know, done the maintenance of the building yet, because that's all been taken care of through the church. But certainly it would be wonderful to have a neutral territory for a community where nobody feels like they're being imposed on religiously.

Are there any challenges that you've had just with the buildings being open all day? Or I don't know, I could just imagine.

Not really. The only challenges have been local ecclesiastical leaders saying you're using our buildings way too much. Um, and so we have to— then we, then we back off.

I used to be a building scheduler, so, of our stake center.

I know how tricky that is.

Very tricky. But that could be tricky, and it sometimes can be.

But we haven't had that issue one bit in our building because of the 2 stories. We've had 100% support because we were given the upper floor 10 classrooms. With 10 classrooms for the whole week. They said, you can have Monday through Saturday, you can have the upstairs. And so we actually now go looking for these old 2-story buildings because there's no competition for, you know, for the weekday activities.

But where we were in Ranger, it was— they had a basement, and they actually— Governor Wenger built this building. And he was the old state president, and back then he could do about what he wanted, and he built a basement and they didn't need the space. And so we had space that was not interfering at all with what the local units were doing. Other buildings, it's not necessarily the case. So we may have to trim back what we put in the CRC so that we can be good neighbors with—

All entities.

All entities.

How many hours a week are they being used, would you say?

Um, we have—

so we're there Monday through Thursday. We have morning classes Monday, Wednesday—

or excuse me, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday that go from 9:30 to 11:00.

Then piano lessons and tutoring.

We have tutoring twice a week with the elementary school across the street from 3:30 to 4:30, uh, twice a week.

Piano lessons 3:30 to 7:00 Monday through Thursday, and then, uh, classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening, uh, 6:30 to 8.

So you're probably 20 hours a week. Yeah, in the building.

That's a—

that's a unique—

classes—

this Provo Pioneer Park is probably more active than any of our other communities because we don't have that luxury that they have. If we looked at West Granger, West Granger, the state said you can use the building One day a week, then we say, okay, we, we try to work it so that it works with the community, with the city, and with the church.

So I have some friends who are currently serving in Provo. As in fact, she says she's going to teach a garden class.

Um, so they're in the other neighborhood.

Yeah, over it. I'm not sure. She did talk about challenges with having to, um, like take a place for the sewing machines when the building needs to be used for other things.

Yeah, they have a little limit.

So my question would be, so we are really kind of hoping to expand our community gardening program that we have here. Do you see that as something— is that a program we could maybe facilitate if you came to some of our neighborhoods and then they could go to our— these areas that we have for community garden, but we taught the skills to adequately—

Yeah, our first year we actually were involved with the community bus.

And in West Valley, there's 2 community gardens that they do.

So what we did in the beginning is we did focus groups within the neighborhood that we were going to start. And we invited all of the neighbors, anybody who wanted to, to come to a meeting. And we fed them a dinner and we just asked them, what classes would you be interested in? What could— what— how could we help you? And we came up with a whole list and some other frustrations that they had that they wanted to talk about, which we have addressed in, in our days of service as well. And then we started with that list and we said, these are the classes that are most desired. And that's how we came up with our schedule. Our neighborhood and the other neighborhood, even in Provo, and each neighborhood throughout, throughout my hometown, each one does things a little bit differently as far as classes based on what that neighborhood has asked for.

It's really quite unique.

No one neighborhood is the same.

We have found that it's less effective if you try and come into a community and say, this is what we're offering, because then they don't— they're not attended.

That makes sense.

We actually had one, and they asked for home repair help. So we brought in Lowe's, we brought in subcontractors, we brought in other people. We had it all organized up and they all said yes, yes, yes. 2 people came. So we decided we may not do that again. But, but we're— we, we just try to feel, we try to meet needs.

And then it— and it's not because they didn't want to, they're just overloaded a lot of times.

Do you have any idea if we were using this like a school that's closed down, um, how we How it works as far as paying for the, you know, utilities and all that.

It's a great question.

That's something we have to work out.

We have, we have, uh, now as of December, have a 501, a nonprofit, our Hometown Community Foundation. Uh, and that foundation's purpose is to help meet these kinds of needs. The LDS Church gives us a budget to operate our CRCs. Uh, and also gives us a budget even to open up a CRC if we have to. Like, we're going to be opening up the Provo Dixon, and we're going to need some accordion doors. We got to split some rooms. It's an old seminary building that's, that's been vacated. So we're going to have to get some pianos. We got to divide some rooms. We've got a budget to do that with, and the church provides that. Uh, but the city is a, is a big party, a part of that too, primarily in the days of service. And our hometown community foundation would be helping. We wondered about if there was a school, who would pay utilities, how would you divide it off, and those kinds of things. Yeah, the maintenance.

We can solve those problems.

Okay.

If all it is is money, we can solve the problem. It's money and personnel, and we can find the people. The people, you know, there are now 650 missionaries serving in my hometown.

In the 11 communities.

And I think if you were to talk to any of them, they're pretty happy about what they do because they are able to do something that they haven't been able to do otherwise. We look at it as true religion. Take the missionary badge off, and we're just trying to be disciples of Jesus Christ to try and help people.

Because those schools could be pretty effective if we can figure out a way to do it. I know some of our chapels are It seems like they've been stacking them up with wards, like with poor wards and a lot of children, which makes them pretty busy.

But as part of the schools, and we'd love to see how that works.

This might be the perfect community to try that in.

Well, an Orem already has a base because we have 6 partner stakes that are Orem stakes that supply volunteers for us on days of service, which would go into those—

they would go into the Orem community. Probably would let them go.

We would, we would love to.

Yeah, but the problem-wise, we deal with—

we've got a huge demand for people wanting to do service.

So I think the day of service, I think it could be really successful with the attitudes I've seen around here. What we want to do, we get KeyBank and we get a lot of these corporate units want to be able to do it.

That's, that's an area where we're now expanding into. We're learning how to do this more and more. And we're better this year than we were last year.

And we had some stumbles and some trips as we were learning, but we're a whole lot better than we used to be.

You might want to know this started, what, 5 years ago, just before COVID and then everything shut down. But they did it with no guidelines, nothing. Everyone just kind of was trying to figure out on their own what was going on. So we just barely finished.

When we were called, It was my wife and I, and they said, good luck. There was no, no handbook, no instructions. And, you know, it's been really amazing to see it grow.

So we asked for best practices and, you know, who can— what's been your experience? We got 1,000 pages of input from those that have been working in this and have whittled it down to 100 pages.

Like I said, we've had a lot of demand for people wanting to do service. And so that was one of our mandates earlier in the year was just to bring that together. And so when we found what you're doing, you know, it's a great job.

And the thing that's incredible at the end of those days of service, those projects, as people bring their vests back to give us to launder, they thank us for the opportunity to serve. You know, it really is a heartwarming thing to see neighbor coming out to support neighbor.

People that they don't even know who it is they're helping. They just want to help.

When we open up a community, the first thing we do generally is have a big community event.

You did one.

You'll have between 1,000 and 2,000 people. And those are— that's how we find out what the needs are. We say we'll provide ESL or whatever. But it's just a great community event. And that's, that's how you kick it off.

And then you move out from there.

In some ways, we've learned how to do that a lot better. And those community events, the city is very much involved with that.

So, we'll start yesterday.

There's a cost to starting though, right? We have staff on our end.

Say sometimes we have to make up Prod materials or something, explain some of those.

Maybe you can talk about on the city side, if you've got 5 minutes, we can go through that. For the, for the first year now, since we aren't doing days of service the first year, there really aren't any costs to the city up front till maybe the big party.

The big party, except for the big party.

Okay, there you go.

Um, so really the way we divide it, the church provides us a budget that we fund our community center with. And then the city provides a budget. In Provo, they, they give each of the 2 neighborhoods $50,000 a year for these community events, or not—

Well, days of service.

For the days of service. So we ask the people whose homes we're going to to pay what they can pay, and what they can't pay, then the city picks up in, in, in that. We really haven't spent the $50,000 either, either of the 2 years we've been going. But the city provides dumpsters, roll-off dumpsters for the projects. If there's a 60-foot tree in the backyard that's dead, they'll send the arborist crew in to cut it down, and they leave it in chunks in the backyard. And then on the day of service, we haul it all out. So, and the city arranged with Diamond Rental to give us a— we get a $3,500 credit each year in equipment.

from, from them.

So that's really how the city helps. Um, the city for us—

Personnel?

Yes, although they, they don't provide a lot of personnel. It's more that, that load is on us. Uh, but they do also provide some of the funding for our community activities. We have, we have 3. We have one, we start with the local elementary school, um, who's the, uh, the most impoverished elementary school in Provo. It's a 75% minority school. 45% of the kids are English language learners. Um, and so they asked us to come help the first year.

It's a great activity.

Then the city provides the pool, the rec center pool, after closing one summer night. So we go from 8:30 to 10 and have a big swimming party. All we pay for are the lifeguards, $500 for lifeguards, and then we buy refreshments for everyone that comes. And then we have an end of year in September, a big carnival at one of the parks. City erects a stage and we have bands from the community, mariachi bands, local bands performing, neighbors singing. J-Dawgs comes in.

We had 800 hot dogs last year and I think 50 or 100 pizzas, creamies.

Can I just say that we, you know, the city does kick in money But we have private donors as well that we've, we've had a lot of private donors step up and say, we just want to be a part of this. And then as well as the church funding, and then partnerships with Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Community Action.

Community Action.

They all love to be involved because we're doing good things together. And, um, and then I was going to say regarding working with the city, like The city yard crew, what do they call our residents? That we help them and they help us on this. On the National Day of Service, we had hundreds of volunteers come to help us. And what we did is cleaned up the Provo River Trail, and they were thrilled. And we said, what else can we do? Because we're going to have all these volunteers. So we took them into parks and cleaned up the parks. And, you know, so it's a great trade back and forth. They help us.

600 volunteers that day.

And so, you know, we, have a bunch of them devoted to 2 Provo City Parks.

We're, we're careful in those days of service to the degree that we're able and that we can control it. We don't get up on roofs and we don't go in houses. Uh, we, we, we've avoided that. In some cases we've had to, and we work with the city and with the, the people if there's a need. But, uh, organizing these projects is a huge part of what we do so that when the people, the volunteers come, everything's ready for them, and all they have to do is provide manpower. They know how many shovels are needed and wheelbarrows and chainsaws and, and pickup trucks and everything else. It's all in advance prepared for. They come in, do the work, get fulfilled. They benefit, and the people benefit, and the community is lifted.

So that's what we do.

Mayor and Council, if I may say, When you look at some of this stuff, you may, you may kind of recognize that we've already done to some extent bits and pieces of these things.

We do it seasonally.

And, and so we've got some of the pieces of the puzzle. And so really what we're talking about here is enhancing. So providing, taking the resources we have, enhancing, potentially adding more. But really, the real value that I see my hometown bringing is Is bringing us more opportunity, connecting us more to the demand out there that sometimes we hear some about. But sometimes what I've heard here today too is that it's helping people feel, I guess, safe and comfortable and at ease of asking for the help or allowing for the opportunity to come serve, to, to be taken advantage of.

So.

Yeah.

I see, see that being the real benefit here. And so, in terms of budget, we feel like we could, like we've done with similar efforts, use what we've called Take Pride Project funds in our solid waste fund to go towards this. And we already have, like, a trailer with some amount of tools that we use for different service days. We've already, you know, bent Corinna's ear about you know, enhancing and being a part of these events. So, so truly to what Mayor and Councilmembers Gale and Miller said, you know, we— I think we talked about this yesterday, and the timing is rather serendipitous in terms of, in part, what we heard from you at our retreat last month, of, and setting specific goals that perfectly align with this.

What we would ask, if it is something that you want, you give us a contact person that we can work with, because there's a lot of advanced, uh, organization that needs to come, come together. Uh, and we—

you'll, you'll get tired of us, but in the process, we'll, we'll love to be a part of this.

Is there a, is there a scenario where we can go faster than, you know, waiting for a second year to do the days of service?

Is there a scenario where There probably is.

If you're interested, we'd have to, we'd have to really buckle down and work together, uh, because there is on our side a lot of organization.

But once again, because we have the church, the, the church opens this thing up really fast if we ask for it.

Uh, it's a marvelous partner of which we are members and a part of, but It is pretty incredible what happens when we engage the church.

We almost have to get out of the way.

And I don't know whether or not we'd be able to pull it off, but I'd like to at least have a conversation and see what that looks like to go faster and see if it's possible.

Well, maybe it's not at the same level that you're doing, but we could do 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 projects or something, right?

As wonderful as Miss Tara is in Provo, I put our Jenica Jones and Karina, and I will love It was fighting words.

Awesome.

They are good.

If—

and I would just throw out, if any of you would like to come take a tour one evening of our center and see it brimming with people, um, see the smiles on these people's faces as they walk out of there, there, uh, there is a spirit.

I'm sorry.

of, of love and just camaraderie there that is unbelievable.

It is, it is so cool.

Or come help on a day of service.

Yeah, exactly. Bringing the community together.

We'd love to take you through and show you.

Tonight at 6:30, the Deadrock News will be down at the Pioneer Park. And on the 18th, the front page of the Tribune— that's the Sunday front page of the Tribune— Dune has a 3-page article about mindful calendars.

Typically, I'll say it, and this isn't recorded, but—

It is recorded.

Sorry, but it is recorded.

It's not there.

Here it is.

If you just let me know.

B-A-U-M.

Phone is 801-921—

Thank you for coming.

Bye.

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We'd like to welcome everyone here tonight and call this meeting to order. We'll start out with, uh, a Pledge of Allegiance or an invocation, uh, from Scott Kirkland and a Pledge of Allegiance from Rondo Felberg. And Chris— these are friends of Chris Kilpatrick. He asked them to come, and so So if you'd like to say a little bit about them.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, these are 2 of my wonderful neighbors, next-door neighbor and just up the street, and just, uh, great citizens of Orem and have been here and represented what good citizens are and do. So thank you very much for coming tonight, helping. Thank you.

Our dear Father in Heaven, we are so grateful today for the Many, many blessings that we enjoy each and every day. Grateful to live in this great city of Orem, Utah. Grateful for those that lead us. Grateful, Father, for the efforts that they put forth to guide this city to goodness and to joy and happiness for those of us that live in the city. We're grateful for The opportunity to live in this free land that we enjoy so much, and for the opportunity to have freedoms. Father, we pray tonight that thou wilt bless those involved in the meeting, that the discussions will be forthright and be guided by the Spirit, and that together as a body, the council may know good policies and good ideas, and be able to act accordingly. And we bless for that Spirit to— pray for that Spirit to be with us this night, and do so in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Thank you. Next up, moving to item number 6, we've got a presentation on the Hillcrest video tour. Bryce, our library director, is going to present that.

Mayor and council, thank you for the opportunity to be with y'all this evening. I just wanted to take a couple of minutes as Pete prepares a video that was filmed yesterday. Our Hillcrest Park has been open since November. The Hillcrest Center, the old Hillcrest Elementary School, is nearing the completion of its transformation into an incredible resource for our city, for our recreation programs, and for our residents. And Lane Gray, our project manager, and I had the chance to do sort of a walking video tour yesterday that we'd like to share a little bit with y'all.

All right, so what we've got here as far as a quick update, we've got AK Concrete They poured 12 yards of concrete this morning. So you can see that the exterior of the building has been painted with the exception of the west side, of which we can walk over there in a few minutes. So let's go ahead and just kind of walk into the building if you'd like. So this door we're entering now goes right into the classroom.

Well, we're excited that this classroom here will be used for a lot of our preschool We'll have an opportunity to do some of our after-school programs like Snapology, our magic classes. In the evening, we'll have some community programs, community meetings, a resource for the neighborhood so that they'll be able to come and just have a space right here close.

Going out into the hallway here into the gymnasium. This gymnasium is beautiful in my opinion. Well, you've got a full-length basketball court going north-south here. You've got a full-length volleyball court and 3 pickleball courts, so keep it within the lines, I would say. Depends on what sport you're after, it's all right here. As we walk this way, we're headed into the family room area. Got a nice counter spot right in here so individuals can come in, get their snacks at the concession stand, come over here.

So a couple of the TVs will be used for video game systems, and so we're really hoping that this can be a place Again, teens neighborhood, they can come over after school, and so we'll have open hours most afternoons, I think 4 to 9 o'clock, that they can just come and be here. And we just want a place for people in the neighborhood or people that are here for an activity to come and just hang out for a bit without having to have, you know, there's no membership, there's no anything. They can just come and, come and be here.

Where this gentleman here is walking, that's the patio area. You can see that structure where there'll be some lights that will be affixed to that structure hanging across. All kinds of furniture in here. Right in this area right here will be the, the 2 table tennis tables right here. And you can see in the background there, those blue poles, that is the 9-square. And then out here farther to the, to the northeast, you can see where the pickleballs— pickleball courts are located. And as soon as we get some good temperatures, we'll be able to paint those courts. We were excited back in October, I think it was, when we opened up Phase 1 over there at the play area. And to be honest with you, I've been over here to this project nearly every day since this project, or since Phase 1, has opened. And you can see that there's cars lined up in the parking lot there. It's already being well used, even in the winter months. And so you can just imagine as the, as the weather gets better, How much more use there will be. And then you bring in the splash pad and the pickleball, this is going to be a busy little place.

No, I think it's the same thought. I think you've seen the use of the initial playground, and then you add in the 12 pickleball courts, and then each of these other things we've seen, you know, where it's at in sort of relation to our other really big parks in Lakeside or Nielsen's, the Sierra. And I think this is just going to really add something to this of the city and something that we'll be able to program and use in an organized way, but then also just so much space for families, residents to just come on their own and find something to do. I love that it's a 12-month-a-year park. You know, we have a lot of wonderful parks that are great 9 months a year. I think this one really is a 12-month-a-year park. I think that's exciting to think about just from a programming perspective, but also from a resident perspective.

Yeah, well, we're looking to open up the, the gymnasium area and so forth, kind of a little Soft start, if you will, for the building itself March 9th. Turn that over to Bryce and his personnel so that they can start programming some of the basketball, volleyball, what have you in there. We're looking at probably having this thing fully operational by April 1st at least, I would think. It's coming together. Fun project. What?

So, uh, we're, we're just beyond excited about the, uh, the status of the project that we've been able to get this done and get it completed so quickly. Uh, our partners at Budd Mahas, uh, Blue Line Design, WP Architecture have done a great job managing the, the project with us. And of course, this is, uh, one of my favorite examples in my time here with the city of the CARE tax at work. Uh, this is just such a unique project. It provides an incredible resource. It's incredibly fun to think about the new things it's going to add. And I just get really excited. So like Lane mentioned, we'll be in the gyms in 2 and a half weeks, the week of March 9th. We think the rest of the park will be— maybe I'll temper Lane's expectation. You know, hopefully by in April we'll be ready to go. And then we're looking to get on a council work session, I think the second week of May. We'd love to have y'all out there as we celebrate the splash pad turning on for the first time and be out there with some of our residents. So again, grateful for y'all's support and direction in this project. And we're excited to get back out there soon.

Well, thank you, Bryce. And that's, uh, we're very excited about this project to have a world-class park here in Orem. And, uh, you're always there wherever the really good things happen, so we appreciate it.

On, on record, I have the best job in the city, so we'll take it.

Okay, thanks, y'all. Thank you. Yes, that is. Yeah, as far as it's not on the agenda, and they switched my agenda. So but I can put it back on the agenda. And it's not really an agenda.

Well, it was in the work meeting. It was in the work meeting. Yeah.

And anyway, this was a really cool experience that Lynnae had last week. She'd like to share with us.

Yeah, I just wanted to give this to the mayor and city council, the other members who were not at the ribbon cutting for the opening of the OCD and Anxiety Centers, the one down by UVU. If you drive down University Parkway to the west, where it hits Geneva, you will see their sign. And it was amazing to go through. They had stations set up, 6 different stations where they talked about their therapy methods. the different classes that they offer and had some just incredible statistics of ways that they help people with OCD and anxiety up in the 60% and 70% success rate with very low recidivism. Where if anybody has ever been in that world, you know that a lot of times a 30% success rate is to be applauded. But they have these unique and incredible opportunities. And I just wanted to, to present this to the rest of the City Council and the mayor and just, um, just say how grateful we are to have them in our community.

So thank you, Lenee.

Put it back here on the table.

Okay, that'd be great. Yeah, thank you for that, and thank you for all the efforts you do getting around the community to these— all these different types of events. We appreciate that. We'll move on to item number 7, personal appearances. And aligned with our short meeting tonight, we have one person on the agenda for personal appearances. And, uh, as long as you're going to say nice things, we'd like to welcome David Lee to come up. He's not That was a short explanation of the whole thing I'm supposed to read.

Okay, missed the last thing you said.

So, are you here for the public hearing?

I'm here about the proposed shopping center that's going to go in at 519 South Geneva Road.

Okay. Okay, that, that's actually going to be a public hearing. Okay, so what that means is just you don't have to sign up for it. But we'll open it up for public comment, and so that would be the time to come back up, which will be pretty dang soon. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Okay, we've got item number 8, consent items, uh, approval of meeting. The only thing on there is the approval. This is the shortest agenda I've ever seen, which is kind of nice. Approval of meeting minutes for February 13th, 2024. Would someone like to make a motion to approve the consent items?

I'll motion to approve consent items.

Second.

Thank you.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

The consent items are approved. Thank you. We'll move to item number 9, scheduled items. And now we're back to a public hearing. Uh, this— I'll just read this. This is item 9.1. Amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property indicated or located generally at 519 South Geneva Road from the R-20 zone to the C-2 zone, approximately 3.49 acres. And Jason, would you like to present that to us?

Yes, thank you, Mayor, members of the council. So tonight the applicant is before you to request a rezone of portion of the property that you can see outlined in red. It's kind of hard to see the, the dotted dashed lines to the north, but those 2 properties— there's 3 properties there. The 2 parcels to the north are currently zoned C-2. The one outlined in solid red is what they're here tonight to rezone. It's currently R-20, and what they're proposing is to, uh, rezone that to RC-2 so they can then do an overall cohesive shopping center at that location. It's been a nursery for I don't know how many years, but—

40. Yeah, it's been operated as a nursery since 1980, uh, 43 years.

So it's been a commercial project under that zone, but they're here now to So R-20 is residential, 20,000 square feet. Yep. Yep. So they're proposing to change that to C-2 to match the properties that they own currently, like I say, to the north. The proposed center will include a 60,000-square-foot grocery tenant, a 5,000-square-foot bank, and then 4,000 and a 3,900-square-foot fast food. Type of venue. You can see to the south the property is proposed, and with working with our engineering division, having the— I can turn on my pointer. The access is as far south as they can. If you guys are familiar with the location of 4 South with the— over on Geneva Road, that's a very busy intersection. So they wanted to Get that as far south as possible. It does align with the parking lot across the street to the west. So that kind of reduces some of the conflict in the future with access onto Geneva Road. That's part of the concept. Now, of course, this is just a concept. This is not part of the approval tonight, just showing you what they're proposing. Trucks would come around, and you can see the dock area here, which would be shielded by the building. From the residential properties along here. As part of the ordinance in a C-2 zone, there is a 7-foot mainstream wall that's required on that south side. And then parking lot landscaping as well. Elevation's 34 feet, which would be right next to the residences with a 48.5-foot setback from the residence. So it's over the height of that. quite a ways. You can see the different elevations of the proposed outbuildings as well, and of course the existing facility. And here's an aerial view showing the area in green there that's proposed to be rezoned. Planning Commission did review this and did make a recommendation that the council approve the rezone. So be glad to address any questions.

you just go back to the, uh, back further? Yeah, that one. Um, I just want to get the context of that now that we see the aerial photo.

Is one loading dock enough for a grocery store?

Uh, the grocery store that we're proposing here would be a smaller footprint than many of the other ones that you see around town. Um, Think more of a smaller Smith's or a Kent's, not a super Walmart or a super Target.

Or Macy's or Harmon and 8th North.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So I don't know how big those are.

So yeah, yeah, we, we felt based on our research and talking to some of the people in the industry that a, a single loading dock— and there is room there if they needed to expand further in, it wouldn't go in, take any more away from that corner. If they needed more, they would Uh, there you go. Yeah, they could move that further into the interior of the store if they needed to widen that out at all. But we intentionally wanted to keep that block there on the south side of that grocery store for a visual and acoustic block to keep any noise, as much noise as possible, from being transmitted through there across that wall into that residential area to the south.

So do you have a Do you have a contract with an agreement? We do not.

We have not approached any— we don't have any contracts or anything with any grocery stores at this time, or any developers. This is purely a concept plan that we came up with to get the C-2 zoning for the entire property, a concept plan that we felt would fit in and serve the community in that area, both Vineyard and Orem well.

What about these other business pads? Do you have—

No, we do not have contracts or anything committed with any other business for the bank or the fast food restaurants. No.

You could— I mean, you should totally plan for growth because, I mean, if you're right next to Vineyard, they don't have a grocery store, right? You could knock it out of the park, basically.

So Jason, I've got a question on the The in and out, there's only one way in and one way out. So does that pencil with the number of parking stalls, everything?

And yeah, the width and the— actually, they have separate right, left turn out, right? So they— yeah. And John Dorney from our transportation is here. But as we got closer to 4th South, they have 3 access points now. If I can go to the And you got— this is a controlled facility. So there's an access here and 2 of them here. Well, there's another one right there as well. So the one will be across the street here. And that does reduce the conflicts as you get closer to this intersection. So one consolidated larger access to the south is probably more efficient and less congestive than having another one closer to that intersection. So one is sufficient, I guess, to answer your question. Okay, thank you.

So, but I thought you had to have 2.

Not always. It depends on the number of parking stalls and access points. But if this is large enough to access with a different turning radius, and then that one is sufficient. Typically, in projects that are bigger— sorry, we do like to see multiple accesses, but because of the proximity to this intersection, the fact that there's no access to the east, Or to the north, and it's a busy Geneva Road. There is limitation on what UDOT would allow as well, and they are happy to have 2 of them closed and focus on one access.

So do we not want one on 4th South then?

No, that's not— it's too close to the railroad tracks and different things.

Okay, so that's the downside there. Um, and then if you would go back to the, the picture of the building with the heights.

Heights.

So typically When you're backed up against residents' homes, we do a C-3 zone for protection. There's more protections for those as far as setbacks and height restrictions. In this particular case, if we grant the C-2, they could do a 1-to-1 height, couldn't they?

Equal to the height, yes, up to—

So how tall of a building could effectively be there if he can't get a grocery store if this is not the plan?

C-2 is a maximum, I believe, 48. I'd have to double-check. I think it's 48 feet max.

So then you'd have a 48-foot-tall building with the 48-foot setback? Yes. Next to the homes? Yes. And this is just a— this is not for sure, or I mean, what are the— what's the chance that you're going to actually be doing this site plan?

Right now, we are just focused on getting the zoning approval. Once we get this zoning approval, if we're successful this evening with the city council, at that point, we will start getting more serious about approaching developers and tenants and starting to nail this down. Our viewpoint, our long-range vision is we would not go with anything taller. We certainly don't have any desire, or no, we don't see the need to go with anything taller than what we have in this plan right here. With this size of a grocery store.

So I guess let me just repeat back what I think you said. So you're, you're, you are cognizant of the homes?

Yes, very cognizant. Yeah.

I think the 34 feet is reasonable at the 48-foot setback, but anything higher than the 34 feet, I mean, I have some of that in my area. Anything higher than that is really ominous to those residents.

No, we are well aware of that, and we, and we do want to be good neighbors to them. Um, in addition to the 7-foot masonry wall that was previously mentioned, we are going to put a row of trees along that south wall, just inside that masonry wall. So we'll have not just the masonry wall, but greenery, um, trees along that wall as well to provide additional screening above the 7-foot wall. Um, that will provide again additional screening for the residents along that northern edge of that property.

So, Jason, if we approve this, are we, are we set with that height, or can it go up to 48?

Yeah, they'd be set to whatever the C-2 zone requires. So this— they're not— tonight you're not approving this concept plan, nor are they tied to the concept plan. It's simply changing. This is what they're proposing, but they could change it.

Is there any way to protect That from changing.

Yeah, what would the other zone allow height-wise that Lene mentioned?

C-3, I think 35 is the base, but depending on how far you get away from the neighbors, you can go up to— now you're making me think about it, but I think it's 48 feet as well. We have to be 100 feet away from—

so it's the setback that controls that. Well, but it's the setback difference. The setback effect, it's not a big difference, but the setback definitely makes a bigger difference.

Yeah, so I mean, development agreement would be one way to, you know, tie them to a height or something like that. The zone— by rezoning it, you basically allow them to do whatever is within that zone. They could, they could come back and propose, right, with equal to the height and different things like that.

Could we do a development agreement that kind of follows the C-3 protections just along that one border of the 35 height maximum?

And that'd be something Steve would want to address.

Sorry, could you repeat your question?

My question— so Jason said our concern was the, the height, right? C-2 allows, um, up to 48 within 48 feet, and right now this looks acceptable. You've got a 48-foot setback, you've got a 30— was it 34 height? So the, the— my question was, a C-3 zone is typically what we have put in the past next to residents. that's the, that's the protection for homes rather than having a, you know, an ominous building right behind them. So my question is, uh, Jason mentioned possibly a development agreement. Could we do some kind of development agreement where on this one border that protection is of the 35-foot, you know, the C-3 parameters, 35 feet, 100 feet, or 35 feet with even this 48? I'd be fine with that too if the residents seem in favor of that.

Yeah, I think you could do that, but it would have to go back to Planning Commission. So it'd have to— yeah, have to go through that process.

So then how would we do that tonight if we want to do that?

Uh, basically, if you want to, uh, probably first you want to see if the owner developer here is willing to consider that, obviously. Um, and if they are, then Perhaps you would just make a motion asking that we do that development agreement like you've proposed and send it back to the Planning Commission for them to hold the necessary public hearing on that. And, uh, and then it would come back to you after Planning Commission hears.

So, because basically we, we like this plan, we just want to make sure that that doesn't change next to the neighborhood, because protecting the neighborhood would be the major issue.

Right, because right now there's no guarantee that they will do this plan. I mean, that's their intent right now, but if you rezone it to C-2, then they could do anything that's permitted in the C-2 zone.

Right, and I'm fine with commercial being there. I just want the neighborhood protected.

We're willing to agree to that stipulation.

Okay, so could we make a motion to that effect, that we approve it to be a C-2 zone with the understanding it would be X feet?

Can we do that, Steve, or not?

No, no, it would need to— like I said, we need to have a development agreement, and we'd have to send that back to the Planning Commission to consider the rezone with the development agreement, and then, then it would come back to you to make a final decision after that.

So it'd be in another month. Is— are you under time constraint?

Um, from our perspective, the sooner the better.

Uh, but so it'd be a month, right? Because they'd have to hear Planning Commission and then come back.

Yeah. It would be a month, but you would have a— I mean, we're saying we are, we're fine with that. So, if so, you technically could go for— you wouldn't have it official, but okay.

So we're not saying we're fine with it until we hear the public hearing, right?

That's right. We're not fine with it. Jason, could you go back to the height?

Did you go back to the height? Because the front— so it's 41.

So just on the top entry, so it's 34 feet. Entry facade is 41, but the actual height next to residential would be 34.

Any other questions? Okay, let's go ahead and open this up for the public hearing part of this. So the gentleman who was here earlier, if you had something to say, feel free to come up.

Yeah, I actually live, uh, 3 houses down from Geneva on that, uh, Side, that south side of the proposed site, and I was just concerned about the potential noise in the evening, late at night. It looks like that roadway is going to go right along where the houses are. And I presume that's going to be probably large trucks that are going to be bringing things into the store there. And I was just concerned about if that 7-foot wall is high enough. I know when you get a shopping center, you've got all kinds of people that roam around in those places at all kinds of times and hours of the night. And I just want to make sure that me and my neighbors are all safe and secure back there and don't have people trying to jump over the wall and getting into our backyards and that sort of thing. So that was my— one of my major concerns. And so if you can elaborate anymore on what's going on here, I'd appreciate it.

Jason, do you have any thoughts on those concerns?

So they could build up to an 8-foot fence. The council can, through a fence modification, go higher. You know, the council determines that something higher is more appropriate than a 7-foot masonry wall, that is an option the council can do through that process.

Sorry, we can go higher than 7?

You could, through, through a what's called a fence modification process. We could bring that through if the council decides, you know, a 9-foot fence is better and the neighbors are good with that, then that's, that is an option through a process where the council makes that determination. Typical ordinance requires a 7-foot masonry. That's the standard. So, and I believe, and he could— the applicant can justify, but I mean, I'm sure the deliveries, there may be some in the mornings or midnight, but I'm sure they come in the mornings and during the day and not, you know, 2 in the morning, hopefully. But yeah.

Again, our intention— where we looked at ways to minimize the impact, both noise and visual, on the neighborhood around that. Specifically to the south, and that led to the layout that we have here. The fast food restaurants will be open later than either the bank or the grocery store, and so as a result, we put those all the way up as far into north side of the property as we possibly could. The 7-foot fence was, as mentioned, in the code. If we go much higher than that, we run into the risk, at least from our perspective, if I was a homeowner there and I've got a 9 or a 10-foot brick wall in my backyard, Uh, tends to— I don't know, it may cause some visual problems in and of itself if I've got too high of a brick wall in my backyard. Uh, the trees, we think, will also help with that as well. So we did explore some ways to mitigate, uh, some of the visual and auditory, uh, impacts on the neighborhood to the south. Uh, if the council wants us to make the wall higher, we can certainly do that. That's not a problem. Just, we feel like we've done, or we have attempted to take some of those residents' concerns into account with this.

What were the concerns at the neighborhood meeting?

It was the noise and light levels. So light levels late at night from the parking lots and the noise from the parking lot and from the fast food restaurants where the concerns that were brought up at the neighborhood meeting.

Do the lights affect the neighborhood much from the way the angles and everything work, or?

I don't think so. If we go with the newer, the LED lights that are very much focused downward instead of the older styles that go out, I think we can really mitigate the impact that the parking lot lights will have on the surrounding neighborhoods. with the newer technologies that are out there.

Yeah, that's what we've seen on some of our projects, that those types of lights make a big difference.

Yeah.

As far as that is an issue, as far as a 7-foot fence versus a 9-foot fence, or any thoughts on that in terms— I mean, they both have their pros and cons. Tom?

Jason, you know, when Harmons went in, which is near my neighborhood, some neighbors were concerned. But if you tried to shut that down, they would string you up. today. Can you give me some idea of what the height of the fence is around Harmons with the neighbors? And they have more trucks coming in.

Yeah, Harmons I think is 7 feet. They have a 10-foot landscape strip between the fence and the parking lot or the drive aisle. And that was specifically designed at the time when Harmons was built to have that buffer between that, which is similar to what these guys are proposing. So there is a 7-foot wall and a 10-foot buffer with trees and different things, which seems to have— I don't Not familiar with any complaints in the last, you know, many years with Harmons.

And a new neighborhood went in there 2 or 3 years ago to the whichever direction—

excuse me, to the east of it. Yep. And not an issue. Not an issue. Yeah.

And the lighting, et cetera. I haven't heard any of those complaints.

So the lighting itself depends on how it's designed, like the applicant indicated, but we do require them to be either shielded if it's light that can't be directed from the neighbors that needs to be shielded and typically directed down or away from the neighbors. And that's, that's part of current ordinance. So we don't allow direct glare or direct light into a residential zone from a commercial development. So those protections are built in currently.

Jeff, you had a question?

Yeah, Mr. Lee, thank you for coming and sharing your concerns this evening. Um, so the, the 7-foot or 8-foot or 9-foot fence, whatever that ends up being, is there something special about these Fences that helps mitigate noise? Is it— does it have some kind of a sound absorption property, or just the fact that it's there as a barrier?

It's a solid, solid masonry wall, so it has to be solid. So it's not a chain link or, you know, wrought iron. It's a solid— could be a tilt-up, it could be a stand-in-place, but it is a thick solid, and it does have some noise barrier like you see on I-15. Obviously, they're not that tall, but it does allow Sound to bounce off and stay in there properly.

So Jason, what, what, what is there now? Do they have a fence now?

I think it's chain— there's a chain link.

There is. There's a chain link fence that runs along the south side. And it's 6 feet?

Most likely, yeah.

I think it's a 6-foot fence, chain link fence.

So I think a masonry 7-foot fence would definitely be a deterrent unless they climb the trees. But is it Can you— do you have a— can you show the picture?

I guess I don't have a picture of that side.

I don't think we have a—

you can see the fence along 4th, which is 6-foot chain link. So you can't really see. Yeah, you can't really see. No, could be 7, but typically they don't make chain link taller than me.

I, I have a question about it too.

Yeah, no, we haven't posted. Not seen come up. Yeah.

My backyard, uh, goes back up against the, uh, Grocery store, and I was wondering, one, if there's going to be any windows on that side of the grocery store, 2, what the lighting is going to be like on that side of the grocery store, and then the 3rd would be the fence. And I would like to— if we could do better than 7 feet, that would be great. Thank you.

Could you answer those questions?

There's no intention to have any windows. There's no need to have any windows on the south side of the grocery store. Uh, the fence is still under discussion, and any lights that would be along the south side of the grocery store would be security-type lights that again would be shining down along the sidewalk and the, um, the truck access route there, not shining out across the fence and into the neighbors' homes.

So as part of the site plan process, which is not tonight, we wouldn't require a lighting plan that shows the illumination of the light fixtures and how far they illuminate out. So that would be part of our review when it goes to Planning Commission for the site plan. At that point, we would know if there's glare or other light bleeding off into the neighbors and would require them to either fix it so it doesn't do that, or they shield the light so it doesn't have a direct glare.

Have you seen any, any studies or anything on this 7 versus 9— 7, 8, 9-foot fences? And, and then a follow-up to that is just Typically, will that affect the trees at all as far as the height of the fence?

It's going to affect the shade on the, on the neighbors' properties, right? The taller the fence, the more shade it's going to create.

But how about as far as the trees just growing or whatever?

The intent would be when we plant trees in there, they will be mature enough, tall enough to where their leaf structure would be above the level of the fence. So that, no, it shouldn't have any impact on them whatsoever.

I mean, even if we go, even if we go higher, like 9-foot, 9 foot, 9 foot would be pushing it.

We'd have to put in some taller trees, some more mature trees. If we go much higher than that, then we'll have to go back and take a look.

Well, there's, there's a lot of border wall that they vacated that we could move up there.

So, Jason, isn't it a residential neighborhood? Isn't it 6 foot is the standard?

7, but yeah, 6 is the typical.

So maybe if we push this to back to the Planning Commission, we can go and check. And because if the fence is 6 feet and it's been there for how many years, I don't think that would be an issue. So if it's a masonry fence—

but he was saying that it's taller than him, but we can verify it because it couldn't be more than 7.

I might— I don't know, it could be, but my guess is probably not more than 7. But I don't, I don't know.

We talked about the chain-link fences there right now. Yeah. Oh yeah, I've, I've ran the tractor next to it many times. I just never really looked at it that close.

Do we have any other comments, questions from the public?

Hey, um, as you were talking about Harmon's, I live over by Harmon's, and so I'm looking at this map, and my question is I was just asking Mike, if I lived in this neighborhood, which my girlfriend does, and I want to go to that grocery store, how do I then turn left and get back into my neighborhood without going around the railroad track? Just because Geneva traffic is supposed to just get bigger according to everybody's reports. So is there a way to make it so it's safe to turn left out of this parking lot? Because if it's going to be that busy, and Geneva Road's already that busy. That was my goal.

Back to that, the first map that shows the overhead view right there. That one. If I may, the single point access that we have here is wide enough, and we coordinated this with UDOT and the city traffic engineer in our meetings. There are 2 lanes, and it's kind of hard to see in there. I don't know if you can zoom in on that, but there are 2 lanes going in and 2 lanes going out. And they're both set up so that if you're traveling north on Geneva Road, you can do a right-hand turn into it. And if you're traveling south on Geneva Road, you do a left-hand turn in, and same for going out. So if you're coming out of that neighborhood, right-hand turn onto Geneva Road, and then right turn into the parking lot shopping center. And then coming out of the shopping center, you do a left-hand turn onto Geneva Road and an immediate left-hand turn back into the neighborhood. Yes, Geneva Road is busy. We know that. And there was much discussion and negotiation with UDOT on how we would actually configure this access point. The plan we came up with here seemed to be the best compromise of all of the other options that we looked at. The fact that we're pretty much landlocked on 3 sides with forced out the railroad tracks in the neighborhood left us with very few options. But we do have options to get in and out onto Geneva Road and off of Geneva Road turning in both directions. So that's what we came up with.

This one. Yeah, so you'd have to wait for— there's a light here, there's a light further down on 1000. So you'd have to wait for spacings, much like you do on State Street or any other busy road. If you're turning left, you're gonna have to wait for an opening. There is a turn lane in the middle, so you could have a— be able to turn out and wait for the traffic to merge heading southbound. So obviously it's not convenient during, you know, busy hours, but there, there is an option to do that. And not encumbering those that are going northbound.

Do we have any, any other comments from the public?

Yeah, I live up by Lake Ridge Junior High, but I'm on this road all the time. My daughter lives in Vineyard right there. I'm just seeing the 525 South turning south like we're talking about, like she just said, turning left. Seems to me like if you have a grocery store there, you're gonna tenfold the traffic trying to turn left. You already have the people that live there trying to turn left. Do you envision a light? I mean, you could create so much traffic, you'd almost have to do a light there, or it becomes— I mean, we— There's thousands and thousands of people in the Edgewater properties and Vineyard there coming on that. I mean, it's intense on the traffic. Yeah, I'm just wondering about that type of entrance there, the planning of that, what that really does to that area there and how safe it is.

Yeah, as part of this process, we had a traffic impact study performed by Horrocks Engineering, and they came up with the traffic counts for now and then 5, 10, 15, 20 years down into the future. Those were all included in these discussions with UDOT. The idea of a traffic That signal was brought up and kicked around a little bit, and then it was firmly kicked down the road by all concerned. So yeah, that is something to be considered at this point in time, given the traffic impact study and the data that came out of that. The decision was made to not pursue that at this time. It may become relevant or more pressing in the future, but not at this time.

So people are trying to exit your parking lot now and turn south?

Yep.

Are, are there breaks in traffic? Is that how they're doing it? Because of— There are.

Yeah, yeah. Geneva Road, much like State Street or any other road in the area, has busy times and it has not so busy times. And if you're trying to get in and out of there at a busy time, you're going to wait for a while, or you're just going to have to make a right-hand turn and merge with traffic and find your way to turn around somewhere else. There are other times when you can come out of that parking lot and make an immediate left-hand turn, flow south on Geneva Road, and it's really not that big a deal. But it is a garden center, not a shopping center with a grocery store and a bank and a couple fast food places. So that will obviously drive traffic up significantly, and we, we are aware of that, absolutely. And there are going to be times when people will just have to be patient. And that's, that's what we're going with right now.

Do we have any other comments? Okay.

I'm Jonathan Stevens. I live immediately south. Just some various thoughts. First off, thanks, thanks for looking after us. Uh, as those that live right next to it. Uh, just a quick bit of background. The current tenant, that, that lot, uh, they have like heavy machinery driving around all the time. They have a gravel and dirt road that's right there against the back of the property lot. They drive all sorts of stuff, including semi-trucks, up and down. So in some degrees, having a paved, a paved road with a wall is a bit of an improvement. They also do things like have like events at night that's where the music is loud enough to be annoying longer than it should be. So just kind of a thing to keep in mind. I, for one, don't like noise, so I like any kind of development here that's going to help reduce the noise or any kind of other disruption. One thing that was raised earlier, and I guess this might be more of a question or a point to the developer, but it almost seems like it would be better to have one larger store instead of a large store and a bank and a fast food and a fast food restaurant and if there was still a desire for, you know, fast food restaurants, put them inside the larger store. Then, then everybody's noise and everybody's talking will be— it'll be inside there, and you won't have to— we won't have to worry about that going over the fence or anything like that. Um, also kind of nothing new here, concerns about noise, uh, hours of operation, that sort of a thing. So nothing, nothing special there, but definitely concerns there. Uh, trees every 30 feet, probably could even bring them a little closer to make a better privacy fence. Um, one of my neighbors during the Planning Commission meeting, uh, did raise a concern about children crossing, uh, that to be basically busy inlet there, uh, especially as they would cross that to get to the elementary school. So something to keep in mind. Um, and also based on this discussion here, I almost wonder if maybe a C-3 zone instead of a C-2 zone Uh, might be a better appropriate thing for this lot. So, some of my thoughts.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and take it back to the council.

And send it back to the Planning Commission.

Steve, is that what we're looking for?

Yeah, I think with some specific things that we're trying to—

May I ask a question, Jason? So he brought up a good point. If we're looking for this, if the C-3 zone is the zone that protects residents, and we're in the place we're rezoning to a new— to a commercial zone from residential is next to residents, and he wants to put a grocery store there. Smith's is in a C-3 zone, so grocery stores are allowed in a C-3 zone, correct? Would that be it? To me, I almost feel like that might be better protections and more direction in this particular situation, if that's the intent anyway. It would fit.

Yeah, you could continue this and bring it back. We can advertise it as If the applicant is okay with that, but it does get to what he wants to do in this location. Yeah.

And if the grocery store— does it— does the grocery store have to fit in that area if it spills?

No, it would spill over into the C-2, but—

And that's okay?

Yeah.

That would be kind of my thought of— so to ensure protections.

But what would be— but we could get there the same if we go down on this other path too, right?

It would avoid planning, going back to Planning Commission and just coming next meeting to the council.

That's why I wonder what would be the quickest path to get to where we're trying to get.

Going back to the Planning Commission, then coming back would be a little bit longer. But that way you do the development agreement and zone it C-2, or you could do C-3. Sounds like would be an appropriate zone, and we can just do that next.

And would that work for you, sir, if we went to C-3, as far as you know?

I guess I'm unsure of what the difference would be for us if this was a C-3. Would C-3 change anything with what we are planning need to do with this plan?

It would not.

It would not.

You said it would not?

Would not.

But we can't do that tonight because this was advertised as a C-2, is that correct?

That's correct. If we were doing the C-3, would we need the development agreement, or is that— that's just taken care of?

Unless you want to do something different with a fence or things like that.

And then how would that need to be renoted? Just renoticed to our next City Council meeting, or still Planning Commission, City Council?

So, well, no, well, I don't— I guess I'd defer to Steve, but I think we could just We'll bring it back, noticing everybody again through the public process as a C-3 event versus the C-2 zone. Steve, is that— can we go back to Planning Commission for C-3, or can the council rezone at next meeting to C-3?

Because that would save him a couple of weeks.

So one of the issues we're looking at is whether a grocery store is permitted in C-3, and I'm looking at our SLU 5141, which is groceries and food All right, so we have 2 SLU codes and they conflict a little bit. So we're trying to— one of them is saying that a grocery store is not permitted in C-3. And Ryan, what have you got there?

So Smith out of compliance?

Yeah. So, Steve and Ryan, isn't Smith's across the street here?

Yeah. And I don't know if that's a nonconforming, legal nonconforming use, possibly.

But, uh, there is—

it looks like there is another SLU that, that might make it permitted. So we're just, we're just double checking to make sure we're okay here.

And Steve, if we did move it to C-3 with an exception, if we needed it, could we do that?

Which is, in other words, nonconforming uses are allowed as long as they're approved by the city council. That's what you're saying, right?

Those are the words.

Those are the exact words I meant to say.

So, sorry, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but we do have a little bit of a conflict between our SLU codes, but I think we probably would interpret this to mean that they are permitted in C-3, even though there's a little bit of a discrepancy. But yeah, so, so if you wanted to go that direction, C-3, then I think you could do that and the grocery store would be permitted.

I think that's the best way to assure the protections for the neighborhood and get you the— it's just retail development that you want.

So really, the only impact would mean is that in the future we would not be able to— or a developer would not be able to come in and raise that grocery store height up to 48 feet or whatever it was, it would stay.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, we're— yeah, we're fine with that. Okay.

So does that give us everything if we get on the C-3 path? And then as far as the fence, do we want to stay with 7 or 8 or 9, or— I think we're fine on that. So you think the fence is fine? Yeah, because we will have the tree barrier.

And maybe in the next week or 2, you could confirm everything about the C-3 that you quickly scoped out. But I don't know how we defer this, Steve. You could give— could we just say we move to defer this to another meeting and consider a C-3 zone? Or is that what you're suggesting?

Well, it may be that what I'm trying to determine is if we need to start all over, basically, in the process, file a new application, have a neighborhood meeting. Go to Planning Commission, you know, and all that. So, um, I'm thinking that, uh, probably we could just— I think we could, I think we could just go back to Planning Commission on this and, uh, have them consider a C-3 versus a C-2, then give their recommendation and come back to you if that's the direction you want to go. So, so the, uh— So I think if, if you wanted to make a motion to that effect, you just have make a motion to, uh, refer this back to the Planning Commission to consider this as a possible C-3 instead of a C-2.

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

But you want to go to planning? Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think you'll need to go back to the Planning Commission.

So we're back to which is the quickest.

So they're both— they're both the same.

So I would do the C-3.

Okay, so we do the C-3. Yeah, but I don't have a development agreement. But I do think for your sake Of being the person who's trying to figure out what we're doing. We like the— I mean, I like the project. I think it's a really good project. So it's just a matter of working the details. So that's my opinion.

Yeah, so it's just the details of protecting the neighborhood, which it sounds like you're already going to do that, but this actually kind of keeps it within an approved zone.

Just when I hear starting over with another neighborhood meeting, my heart kind of stops a little bit.

You sound like you have a pretty strong heart. So you're going to see— I think the motion then is to refer this back to the Planning Commission, and in the coming weeks we figure out exactly what it is you want us to have, whether it's a C-2 with an agreement or C-3. Is that correct?

So, so I'm not sure I understood your question.

We said I think the motion for tonight is to refer this back to the Planning Commission. Yeah. And then in the meantime, What is your name, sir?

My name is Jonathan Holdaway.

In the meantime, Mr. Holdaway and Jason and you figure out what we're really trying to say to get this project in kind of like it looks.

So, so one of the things I just want to point out, Ryan and I are kind of discussing it over here. I think on your map you see the green area, which is the current R-20, and that's the portion we're talking about rezoning to C-2. But that other property to the north there is already C-2.

Right.

Oh, so the question is, do you want to rezone that to C-3? Are you comfortable leaving that at C-2 while you have the other part at C-3? So that's something I don't think we've really thought about.

But does that cause any problems crossing the stream, especially if we have one building that—

So what it means potentially is that some uses would be permitted in one zone, the C-2, and some wouldn't be permitted. And C-3, so you'd have different permitted uses. Probably, probably if you're going to do a grocery store, it doesn't matter because it's permitted in both.

Okay.

But the fast food needs a C-2, doesn't it? Pardon me? The fast food with the drive-through needs the C-2 zone.

Uh, yeah, I don't know if that's permitted in C-3 or not. We can look that up real quick.

So I wouldn't want to do the whole thing C-3. And a bank?

In C-3. Okay.

Okay, so we're back to either we just approve it or we do it, go back to C-2 with the protections that we talked about.

So I guess my question is kind of to Tom's question. Do we have to specify what we want the Planning Commission to see? Those— we have the 2 options, right? The C-3 or the C-2 with the development agreement. Or can we just— Tom says, can we refer it back to them and then indicate to them what we want after we've spoken with this gentleman, what he wants? Like, it's really what he wants to move forward with.

Yeah, I think you would want to, uh, to have some direction to the Planning Commission that you would like to have this considered as C-3 or C-2 with the development agreement. Essentially, you're kind of changing the proposal a little bit, right?

And your opinion, sir?

I think my preference would be to keep everything the same as much as we possibly could. And if that means we go C-2 across the board with the development agreement, that we limit any building on that southern parcel to a max height of 34 feet, then that would be my preference. I get a little twitchy when we start crossing streams and possibly tying hands of either ourselves or developers. down the road with mixing zones. So that's what we've got right now is we've got 2 parcels at C-2 and 1 at R-20, and that's what brought us here in the first place.

And I'm seeing the resident out there shake his head yes. So I think that's— I think we should just change it all to C-3, make it more proper.

Hey, Jason, I have a question. So if it's a C-2, what is the setback from the fence if they went 48 feet? How— How far would it have to be in?

48 feet.

So just for— so it's the way it is now?

No, it's equal to the height. So they've got it at, uh, they have a stepped height. So right now they got 34 feet. If they wanted to push it as close to the neighbors as they could, from the fence, what, 48 feet? But right now you're looking at 48, 45 feet. Yep.

So that it would stay that way, but they could go 48 feet?

It could.

So I say we go back to C2 with the development agreement and go down that path. So, so somebody want to make a motion? Can I, can I just make a comment on that? Are you going to change it?

I'm sorry, just something for you to consider. Sometimes when people, uh, own or develop or buy property, it's more obvious to them what the Restrictions or limitations they can do on the property when it's there in a zoning classification, as opposed to a development agreement. We've had a recent example where a property owner bought some property that was subject to a development agreement, and they should have seen it, but they didn't. And so they bought the property thinking they could do something that they actually couldn't. Whereas if they had— if that had been the zoning, they probably would have known, and it would have been a little bit less messy process. So. In some ways, I think it's cleaner, and I think as far as giving future owners notice of what they can and can't do with the property, it's probably better to do it by zoning than development agreement, although either option I think is okay.

But there's that. But we don't want to have to change that front piece. Yeah, I say, you know, well, I just say we do it and that person should do that due diligence if they're going to buy that property. No, I think you are, David. Just— what do you want to do, Mr. Motion? Give it to us.

I'd like to make a motion, Mayor.

Thank you.

That the City Council amend Article 22-5-3A And the zoning map of the city of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 515 or 519 South Geneva Road from the R-20 zone to the C-2 zone, approximately 3.49 acres.

Second. So you're not putting any protections in there for the residents in the neighborhood? Aye. Aye.

Aye. Nay. Aye. Aye.

Nay.

Okay, it passes.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry. All right, next up we've got item 9.2. Public hearing, ordinance amending fiscal year '23-'24 budget, and Brandon's going to present that. Yeah.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, as you may or may not be aware, so our new council, um, folks, uh, we come before you periodically as the year goes along with certain budget amendments. Uh, that happened throughout the current year, as obviously we have a budget that is flexible and needs to be changed and adjusted from time to time. There are various reasons why that's done, and some of those we have here tonight. And so just for your reference, we usually come in the October time frame, and then usually around this time, and then we will come back with final one in June. And so those 3 budget amendments kind of help us make those adjustments that we are proposing to you each year as we go throughout the year. Um, the spreadsheet that you kind of see on the screen, and that was in your packet, is broken into 2 sections.

You have the revenues, as we have a budget, we have But revenues must equal expenses. And so there's a revenue side of this, and then there are pages of the where that money, where those additional revenues that we anticipate are going to be spent. And so there's an expenditures section as well. I won't focus necessarily on the expenditure side because obviously we don't spend it unless we're going to receive it. So I just generally focus on where's the money going to be coming from and It touches on a little bit on where that money will be spent, but not so specifically.

So if you're interested in that and you had questions about— you happen to have looked through that and have questions about where it's going to be spent specifically, then feel free to ask, please. We'll start with the item. You can see the note column there. You'll see a number there. That number correlates to the notes that are part of that, the budget amendments. Um, item note number 1, which is the most common reason that we come before you with budget amendments, are grants and donations. And those happen regularly. And so there are a number of, of those in this particular setting. I will focus on just a couple of those, the larger ones, which you'll see right in the middle of kind of there, the grant DOJ COPS Hiring Program, $132,000. Um, so we received a, a new grant from the COPS program, um, to hire, um, I believe it's a mental health advocate, if you will. Not— I don't want to say mental health officer. And, um, so we have adding the funds that we expect to receive to pay for that particular position. And then when we— you'll notice about a little ways down the screen, our Major Crimes Task Force. Each year they receive that That grant's called a HIDA grant, and they receive that regularly each— and it's a calendar year grant. And so that's why you see us coming to you with that particular budget amendment at this time. And you can see it's a pretty hefty grant that our task force uses for their— the things that they are responsible for. Um, let's see, training members.

Yeah, there's one more at the bottom.

Uh, so, and those are the 2 major ones that, um, for this particular budget amendment. Uh, if we go to item number 2, are there any questions about any of those grants before we proceed? Great. So item number 2, uh, we had an opportunity, so we will be coming in June with what we call our A fund transfer from, uh, but our general fund had excess funds from our fiscal '23 year. Those funds are normally transferred in order to, number one, meet state law requirements, but number two, to move those funds into our capital projects fund for various projects that the city has. We had an opportunity to obtain playground equipment Uh, for the Northridge Park, um, and get better pricing if we were able to, uh, get that taken care of right now. So we're in essence planning ahead for that, the transfer of those funds that we know are going to be happening. So we will obviously reduce that transfer when that time comes by this amount, but we are going ahead right now and trying to get the purchase of that playground equipment. that we can get that ball rolling and get it done at a, a lower pricing. Um, any questions about that particular budget amendment? Great. If we scroll down a little, um, item number 3, note 3, um, our, our vehicle maintenance fund. Uh, we have known for, um, some time that, uh, we've needed to replace the column jacks that our fleet maintenance folks use to— I believe there's to lift vehicles. So we've been charging our funds a little bit extra in saving those— the amount within the fleet maintenance fund for the future replacement of those column jacks. And this is now— the time has come and we're appropriating those funds that we've been saving to be able to pay for those column jacks. Um, item number 4 on there, note 4. Um, in— we regularly have, uh, vehicles that need to be replaced for various reasons. This particular time happens to be an accident where the vehicle was totaled, and unfortunately, um, we need a vehicle for our building inspector and we don't have a spare necessarily to provide. So our self-insurance fund, which the purpose of that is To, you know, do certain things that come as unknowns, um, is funding the replacement of that particular vehicle. And, and you'll see that happens to be in 2 particular funds because obviously the building inspectors— if we scroll up here a little bit, you'll see right here in the middle of the screen that note number 4, because that building inspector exists within that particular fund. So it's being transferred from the self-insurance fund. Those funds are being transferred into the development fees fund, which is where that vehicle will actually be purchased from, is, is in that particular fund for that building inspector. Now, they don't— you'll notice the 2 amounts are different because there are some funds available in that development fees fund, and so we didn't necessarily need to budget for the whole thing. And there's a piece related to that in that self-insurance fund where we are also creating a fund that exists at all times to be able to do that. So in essence, we don't have to come to you every time we need a vehicle repair or replaced. So we're hoping to build that fund up so that over, over a period of time as well. So that's kind of a combo type thing. Any questions with either note 3 or 4? Great. Item number 5, which is the big kahuna of this particular budget amendment. When we— back when we purchased the Hillcrest Park property, we used Fund 45, our CIP fund dollars, to purchase a portion of— portion of the money was used to buy that property. That property was impact fee eligible. for our parks impact fee. However, we did not have enough parks impact fee money at that time to be able to pay for that portion. Obviously, we have collected parks impact fees since that time, and under state law, we're able to reimburse ourselves for those funds that were spent in that capital projects fund. And so this is taking those impact fee funds that we have collected and applying them Against that park and reimbursing, if you will, reimbursing the city, freeing those funds to be able to do any whatever other projects that we might stand in need of.

They don't need to necessarily be impact fee projects any longer by making this transfer.

Number 6 and number 7, both relatively small.

Number 6 is UPS rents our parking lot down at the Public Works facility.

This is recognizing that rental.

We don't necessarily want to plan for that every year in our budget, and so when it does actually occur, then we come forward with— to you with that budget amendment. And then item number 7, the Linden Police asked our police department, since we have a victims advocate unit, if we would help service their community with those victim advocates, and we charge them a fee. to be able to do so. So that's the extent of all of the budget amendments at this particular time. Any questions about any of those things I've just discussed? Fantastic. It is a public hearing.

Do you anticipate— what is that victim's advocate fee based on?

I can't speak to it exactly, but I think if I remember what Josh said, Chief Adams said was, you know, they calculated approximate number of people that they would be helping, the appropriate amount of time that that would take, and then assigned a wage to that and gave an approximation of what—

And does that— is there a contract there? Can that fluctuate from year to year based on what we're seeing as far as usage?

That I do not know. Um, and since Chief Adams is not here today, and I doubt Captain Speed Probably does not know.

Somebody come to a microphone and just from here. Can you hear me okay? So we have found that Lyndon frequently will request our assistance through our victims advocates, and this is a way of getting some compensation for that.

And so with that agreement in place, we receive those funds yearly, and in exchange for that our victim advocates are on an on-call basis for any kind of needs that Lynden Police may have, or in terms of domestic violence victims as well, we respond to those. And so it's just kind of a, a way that we can recoup some of the, some of the funds that we use for our, for our employees going out there.

So I guess my, my question would be, do you evaluate that on a yearly basis, or do we have a contract where it's that amount Every year for so long, or—

That's a really good question on the contract. I don't know exactly what we have in place, if it could just be an agreement that we have with Chief Brower. But yearly at this point, I think we started that last year. So this is only the second year of doing that. So we haven't really gotten to a point where we've evaluated yearly. We definitely keep the metrics. And so we have the stats to check to make sure that that is balancing out correctly.

I'll add, Mayor and Council, that's actually a great question, and that's actually something we've been talking as exec staff, uh, that we want to regularly look at our different agreements with other agencies on a very regular basis so that we can make sure that whatever we're charging keeps up with our rising costs, right, with inflation. So, so I, I'm glad that you're conscientious about it because we, we do want to and need to be more and more conscientious.

Well, and we just had that in a work meeting, right, that we have some additional needs there for additional staffing. So let's make sure we have that— those programs and those opportunities available to whoever needs them. But let's also make sure that the city is being compensated for that.

Absolutely. So I've made note, and I'll continue to follow up on that then.

Okay, we'll just open this up for public hearing. We'll close the public hearing and we'll move forward.

There should be— that's a public hearing, so—

Okay, adopt.

I make a motion that we adopt. Is that what I— I make a motion that we adopt the ordinance amending fiscal year 2023-2024 budget.

I second that.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. The motion's approved. Okay, thank you, Brandon. Moving on to item 9.3. We can, uh, yeah, if someone would like to make a motion to table I think that's where we're going with that. I make a motion that we table 9.3, the discussion resolution regarding status of legislative counsel, this time.

Second. Do you want to start?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The motion's tabled. Okay. Um, Bryn, do you have any communication items?

Just a couple of quick things. Wanted to make sure you know that, uh, the application process has been open for Aurum Fest. So if you want to tell your friends and, and associates in, in our local businesses, now's the time to sign up for the parade or to be in booths and, and that sort of thing. So go ahead and get the word out, um, and, and direct them to aurumfest.org for for those applications.

And then last week I sent you an email inviting you to join us as staff, and we'll be— and we're inviting our residents to come engage in what many cities do to celebrate accomplishments and share, you know, the exciting overarching goals we have for the future in a State of the City event. And so that'll be on March 7th, 9 to 11 AM in the Library Hall. And we want you to be a part of that with us. So we'll have kind of the celebratory event with a video and some speeches for the first portion of it, and that'll basically be fun in nature. And then afterwards, we'll have something of a town hall event with a little bit of Q&A from staff where we'll be talking to our staff about the major kind of department-specific specific goals and accomplishments as well. So we'd love to have you. We started doing this to some extent last year. We're making it a bigger deal this year. And so I want to make sure that you're happily, energetically invited to join us and be a part of that. Our communications team will be getting with you, if they haven't already, to give you each time to do a little interview that'll be on video asking you, what are the projects or initiatives or efforts that you're most proud of, and then also what you're most looking forward to into the future. So if you can make yourself available for that as well, then we'd be able to put those into this video segment that we're doing. Any questions or comments about that? Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you, Brent. Would someone like to make a motion to adjourn?

Second. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

We're adjourned. Thank you for coming.